Thursday, April 22, 2010

Revolution Muslim Issues Media Release "Clarifying" Their Veiled Threat against South Park Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone

I'm sure everyone's now familiar with the infamous "South Park vs. Revolution Muslim" controversy. Let's review the details before addressing Revolution Muslim's "clarification" of their post.

Prior to the Danish Cartoon Controversy, a 2001 episode of South Park ("Super Best Friends") featured images of Muhammad:



Three Years Later, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was brutally shot, stabbed, and practically beheaded for his role in producing the short film "Submission."



In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons, several of which contained images of Muhammad.


More than 100 people worldwide were killed over these cartoons, and one of the cartoonists barely escaped with his life when an axe-wielding Muslim invaded his house.

The following year, South Park again attempted to feature images of Muhammad, but the images were censored by Comedy Central.

This brings us to the past few weeks, when Trey Parker and Matt Stone yet again put together an episode featuring Muhammad, this time in a bear costume.


Enter Revolution Muslim, a Muslim Jihadist group (headquartered not far from my apartment), which produced a video suggesting that Trey Parker and Matt Stone should be killed for insulting Muhammad (the video and website have since been removed).

The media quickly picked up the story, with Anderson Cooper giving an uncharacteristically non-dhimmified presentation of the facts:



Bill O'Reilly, however, gladly brought the media back to dhimmi status, claiming that freedom of speech isn't really that important:



But O'Reilly wasn't the only one to submit to terrorist threats. Comedy Central bowed even further, censoring even the mention of Muhammad's name from future shows.

Now "South Park" can't even say the words "Prophet Muhammad."

After last week's episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night's continuation of the show's storyline.

For those who missed the drama, the show's 200th episode last week mocked the one "celebrity" that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show's production office. The site has since been shut down.

Last night, "South Park" continued the controversial Muhammad storyline, but with a key difference: every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" was bleeped out, making the episode practically incomprehensible, especially to anybody who missed the previous week.

The character of Muhammad was once again also hidden from view, covered by a large block labeled "censored."

A Comedy Central spokesperson confirmed it was the network's decision to bleep the words. Source.

So the network's decision was to submit to threats and intimidation, which will have two effects. First, Muslims worldwide will once again find out that they can prevent criticism of Islam by simply threatening to slaughter people. In other words, Comedy Central is encouraging other Muslims to respond with violence. Second, Revolution Muslim, a group that recruits Jihadists in the United States, just gained a great deal of respect from young Muslims looking to join a Jihadist group. Revolution Muslim has now single-handedly stopped a campaign of criticism against Muhammad, and has caused networks to self-censor even more than they were already doing. I can guarantee that Revolution Muslim's membership will increase as a result of their success (a success granted to them by Comedy Central).

Of course, no one should be surprised that Muslims are threatening violence in response to criticism of Muhammad. Such violence goes back to the time of Muhammad. Consider the following passages:

Sunan Abu Dawud 4348—Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas: A blind man had a slave-mother who used to abuse the Prophet and disparage him. He forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet and abuse him. So he took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet was informed about it. He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up. He sat before the Prophet and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her. Thereupon the Prophet said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4349—Narrated Ali ibn Abu Talib: A Jewess used to abuse the Prophet and disparage him. A man strangled her till she died. The Apostle of Allah declared that no recompense was payable for her blood.

Ibn Ishaq, p. 675—Abu Afak was one of the B. Amr b. Auf of the B. Ubayda clan. He showed his disaffection when the apostle killed al-Harith b. Suwayd b. Samit and said:

“Long have I lived but never have I seen
An assembly or collection of people
More faithful to their undertaking
And their allies when called upon
Than the sons of Qayla when they assembled,
Men who overthrew mountains and never submitted,
A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
“Permitted”, “Forbidden”, of all sorts of things.
Had you believed in glory or kingship
You would have followed Tubba.”

The apostle said, “Who will deal with this rascal for me?” Whereupon Salim b. Umayr, brother of B. Amr b. Auf, one of the “weepers”, went forth and killed him.

Ibn Ishaq, pp. 675-676—“When Abu Afak had been killed she displayed disaffection. Abdullah b. al-Harith b. Al-Fudayl from his father said that she was married to a man of B. Khatma called Yazid b. Zayd. Blaming Islam and its followers she said:

“I despise B. Malik and al-Nabit
and Auf and B. al-Khazraj.
You obey a stranger who is none of yours,
One not of Murad or Madhhij.
Do you expect good from him after the killing of your chiefs
Like a hungry man waiting for a cook's broth?
Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise
And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?” . . .

When the apostle heard what she had said he said, “Who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter?” Umayr b. Adiy al-Khatmi who was with him heard him, and that very night he went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done and he [Muhammad] said, “You have helped God and His apostle, O Umayr!” When he asked if he would have to bear any evil consequences the apostle said, "Two goats won't butt their heads about her”, so Umayr went back to his people.

These and other examples show that both Muhammad and other Muslims had a habit of brutally murdering people who criticized Muhammad or Islam. The violent response of groups like Revolution Muslim is therefore to be expected. Whatever else we want to say about Revolution Muslim, at least they take the Muslim sources seriously.

I ended up on Revolution Muslim's mailing list when I challenged them to defend their prophet in public debate (a challenge they backed down from immediately). So here is their story about what they really meant when they (1) said that Matt and Trey would probably end up dead for insulting Muhammad, (2) played a sermon calling for the deaths of those who insult Muhammad, and (3) gave the addresses of Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Assalamualikum:

Unfortunately, the website is down after the host refused to continue working with us. We just want to say that the media is really exaggerating and turning a statement of prediction and warning into one of threat. In order to try to clarify we issued a release that follows and will work on hosting issues. For the time being, you may find us on revolutionmuslimdaily.blogspot.com as we will use that for now. Expect limited coverage until we can get some rest from the large amount of publicity. We hold to our views and believe that other Muslims and conscious people everywhere should be helping to spread them. Please read the article that follows.

Clarifying the South Park Response and Calling on Others to Join in the Defense of the Prophet Muhammad – RevolutionMuslim.com

In the name of Allah the Beneficent the Merciful, all praise is due to Allah the Lord of all that exists, and may blessings and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah Muhammad, and I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except for Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger,

As for what follows,

In light of the volume of attention being given to our response to the recent South Park episode we feel compelled to issue a statement clarifying the issue to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We would like to point out that we are not against a rational dialogue with either group and would like to take this opportunity to ask all to read and respond with an objective mind. We live in an age of media concision, and a consequential reality which tends to afford very little opportunity for in depth discussion.

Our intention with this explanation is only, Allah willing, to create the possibility that a deeper and more productive dialogue may be initiated. We seek to create an opportunity for correction of wrongs and the alteration of behavior that many may suggest is insignificant, but nevertheless is a behavior which we hold to be not only sacrilegious, but which we feel typifies a cancer which bites at the root of global injustice. The cancer we are referring to is that of American imperialism and its coincident culture of pagan hedonistic barbarism, a culture which drives to dehumanize the intrinsic morality of the rest of the world. As it stands today the vast majority of the world has witnessed the cloud of American debauchery, and those whom it has not hovered over have at the very least been affected by its dust.

This past week South Park aired an episode which insulted three of our beloved prophets: Musa (Moses), 'Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad, peace be upon them all. Not only did they do this, but within the episode the makers of South Park made it very clear that they knew how the Muslims would feel and potentially respond to their show. In an effort to cover their actual intention to incite, the creators of South Park carefully contrived a plotline that they believed could only stump those Muslim extremists that may arise to defend the honor of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). They wished to degrade and mock a man who is held in highest regard by Muslims and many Non-Muslims alike, and indeed many have categorized Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the most influential human being that ever walked on Earth.

By placing the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in a bear suit, the creators of South Park sought to insult the sacred, and show their blatant and general disregard for religion. By insulting our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) without the outright depicting of his image, the creators of South Park thought that they had found some loophole in the Muslim faith for them to mock.

If you were to ask any American how many people had been killed in the Iraq war, then he would give you some number around 4,000. The reality is that many estimates put the complete death toll of this war at figures above 1,000,000. America is a country which murdered 500,000 Iraqi children in the decade before September 11th, 2001 under the Iraq sanctions. This is a fact which the American Secretary of State at the time Madeleine Albright admitted to. The attacks on September 11th did not even equal a week of the murder inflicted on the Muslim people by the American imperialist agenda, yet the United States unanimously viewed these attacks as a justification to kill additional hundreds of thousands of Muslims. America props up brutal dictators on our soil simply because they are friendly and they control the oil. America’s military supports the Israeli regime which stole the land it controls from Muslims. The closest thing it has done to helping the Palestinian people is to periodically give fewer munitions to Israel for them to kill Palestinians with. How can anyone possibly champion the values of such a people? In the last century only the Soviet regime and the Maoist regime murdered more innocent people than America. Not even the tyrant of the twentieth century, Adolf Hitler, beats out America on this list. However, for some reason the makers of South Park in their self-righteous obscenity feel compelled to impose upon Muslims the values of this regime. Furthermore, they felt compelled to do it through the mocking of the man whom we hold in the highest esteem, whose honor we would die for, the Messenger of Allah Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah (peace be upon him).

Furthermore this is a regime which openly says it is in a “battle of the hearts and minds” to change Islam in its policy papers, but then its leaders stand on the pulpit and deny this. For one to understand this literal war on Islam, then I refer you to the document, “Civil Democratic Islam” by the RAND Institute. There are many more documents of this nature even emanating from organizations such as the Air Force. If America was openly engaged in a campaign to change Christianity or Judaism, do you not think there would be outrage and sensitivity from these communities? It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but anyone with half an hour of free time can easily find these comments in any number of policy documents. Furthermore they can find evidence of America supporting certain scholars of Islam and hiding others with American taxpayer dollars. It is only natural for a group which is under an ideological assault from the United States to be hostile toward anything coming from an American citizen which is mocking this group.

While the makers of South Park are probably unaware of these issues, and they are merely pawns in a dangerous game, they are playing right into the hands of those who wish to change our religion. The destruction of the Islamic identity is not something which Muslims can tolerate, and this is something being directly funded by the American regime. It is no secret that America’s military uses American goods to spread its culture and propaganda in order to create docile societies. Just look at Somalia where the World Food Program refused to buy domestic food in favor of American food. How do you think Obama would feel if the flag of Al-Qa’ida was stamped on his coffee mug and there was nothing he could do about it? The issue of the honor of our Prophet (peace be upon him) is an issue of honor for this entire nation. Perhaps honor is a dead value in the West, but it will never die in the hearts of this Ummah (nation).

Free speech is a vital tool in the staving of oppression, but this function has its limits. It is hard to understand how one can feel self-righteous while defending somebody as an "equal opportunity offender." Such an illogical state of mind could only emanate from a selfish culture in which the suffering of the many is justified by the enjoyment of the few. And it may be an American "value" that all speech should be free including that which is obscene and aimed at emotionally oppressing a specific group of people, but this is not a value that the Muslims share with America as a whole. In fact, one of the major reasons there is such little opposition to American domination today is the reality that the principle of free speech, as envisioned by the founding fathers of the United States and by wise men and women throughout the ages, is a universal principle that may protect citizens from political, economic, or religious persecution. Today it is understood much differently; today “free speech” is interpreted as the right to promote pornography, homosexuality, slander, and libel against even that which is considered sacred. Indeed, it is in the shifting away from this conceptualization that America first deviated from its position as republic and assumed the role of global empire.

Is there a purpose, other than evil, in insulting something someone holds sacred? While insulting Jesus, Moses, or any other prophet would remove someone from Islam, we Muslims are also forbidden to insult the deities that other religions hold in high esteem. Allah says in the Qur'an:

وَلاَ تَسُبُّواْ الَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ فَيَسُبُّواْ
اللّهَ عَدْوًا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ

Revile not those unto whom they pray beside Allah lest they wrongfully revile Allah through ignorance

Therefore, as Muslims we do not define speech which has no place in a moral society as "free speech." Furthermore, we will never tolerate the mocking or insulting of any one of the prophets, peace be upon them, from any source even if it was the Caliph (leader) of the entire Muslim world. It is truly sad that we did not speak out when they first insulted 'Isa (Jesus), Musa (Moses), or even the first time they mocked the final prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them all. However, simply because they have done something in the past and there was no outcry does not justify our silence in the present.

As for the Islamic ruling on the situation, then this is clear. There is no difference of opinion from those with any degree of a reputation that the punishment is death. Ibn Taymiyyah a great scholar of Islam says, "Whoever curses the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) -a Muslim or a non Muslim- then he must be killed...and this is the opinion of the general body of Islamic scholars.”

Likewise Ibn Mundhir, another classical scholar, said, "It is the consensus (ijma’) of our scholars that the one who curses the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) should be executed!"

This is also the opinion of Imams Malik, al-Laith, Ahmed, Ishaq, Shafi'i, and Numan Abu Haneefah.

This shows that taking this stance is virtually obligatory, but it does not mean that our taking this stance is in some way an absolute call toward the requirement that the creators of South Park must be killed, nor a deliberate attempt at incitement, it is only to declare the truth regardless of consequence and to offer an awareness in the mind of Westerners when they consider doing the same thing.

Many are proclaiming that the South Park episode’s insult was minimal and some might inquire about a situation where the insult is not that great. The renowned scholar Imam Malik said, "If someone says that the button of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is dirty, then he should be executed!"

And then Qadi I'yad says, "And we don't know any different opinion, this is a consensus and we don't know any different opinion!"

Before continuing it must be made clear that anyone who knows anything about Usool ul-Fiqh (the fundamentals of jurisprudence) knows that ijma' (consensus) is a hujjah (proof) as the Prophet, salaa Allahu 'alayhi wa salam, said, "My Ummah cannot have consensus on something that is wrong." This means that the above opinions are the accepted opinions and these statements are proof that this is the case. While the details of this conversation may have lost our non-Muslim audience in evidences from the religion we implore you to read on and advise you that the system of law in Islam, known as shariah, is the most amazing thing the mind could ever encounter.

In the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) two key events stand out that provide evidence for the permissibility and indeed preference for retaliation against those that insult him. In the first, a blind Muslim man who had a Jewish wife (and some say servant) assassinated his wife when she continuously cursed and mocked Muhammad (peace be upon him). In the other, a Jewish poet by the name of Ka’b bin al-Ashraf was killed for his poetry insulting the Prophet
even though he was living under peaceful covenant with the Muslims and was within his own territory. If anyone is in need of details and sources for these occurrences feel free to contact us and we will forward them to serious inquirers. At this point, it must be known that this is the position in Islam, that there is consensus in it and that for those that argue the harm coming as a consequence exceeds thebenefit, then they should know that this is at best an argument that entails a difference of opinion although the evidence suggests that adopting the platform that we ourselves have taken is best.

The law, known as shariah, in Islam is sacred and it is for no man to change, alter, or disregard when reacting to events like the recent degrading of the Prophet Muhammad (saws) on South Park. Indeed there is an Islamic ruling on nearly every affair and Muslims must seek their response in the religion and not in the personal desire and false manipulation of subjective introspection via philosophy or, as in most cases, emotional attachment to socialized norms.

Allah says in the Quran, “And do not clothe the truth with the falsehood, nor hide the truth while you know (2:42).”

It is not for us to convey what we desire but to convey the religion in its entirety no matter the consequence.

Allah also says in the Quran, “Surely you can have no true faith until you refer to the Prophet Muhammad in all your affairs. (4:65).”

Thus the postings that have caused so much controversy on revolutionmuslim.com with regard to this matter were actually not the publication of the opinion of some Muslims but a referral and deferment to Islamic Law, thus fulfilling our divine obligation to command the good and forbid the evil by teaching and preaching the religion of Islam no matter how strange that way of life may seem to some. This is a divine order, obligatory for at least some Muslims in any community to fulfill. Allah says,

وَلْتَكُن مِّنكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ
بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَأُوْلَـئِكَ هُمُ
الْمُفْلِحُونَ

Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity. (3:104)

Ibn Kathir, in his renown exogenesis of the Holy Quran says that this is not restricted to people with official authority, or in this case is not restricted to those that are seeking appeasements with the American Empire who are in actuality from amongst its staunchest allies, those who despite this claim to be Muslim and have been granted positions of leadership here in this country. Ibn Kathir states, “The objective of this Ayah is that there should be a segment of this Muslim Ummah fulfilling this task, even though it is also an obligation on every member of this Ummah, each according to his ability. Muslim recorded that Abu Hurayrah said that the Messenger of Allah said,

مَنْ رَأَى مِنْكُمْ مُنْكَرًا فَلْيُغَيِّرْهُ بِيَدِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ
يَسْتَطِعْ فَبِلِسَانِهِ، فَإِنْ لَمْ يَسْتَطِع فَبِقَلْبِهِ، وَذلِكَ
أَضْعَفُ الْإِيمَان

“Whoever among you witnesses an evil, let him change it with his hand. If he is unable, then let him change it with his tongue. If he is unable, then let him change it with his heart, and this is the weakest faith.”

Speaking out against ending this kind of insult toward the Prophet Muhammad is completely in line with the tenets of the religion. Indeed we find it to be a tragedy that there has been virtually no reaction from the so-called leaders of the Muslim community whom CNN and other organizations tout as representing “mainstream Islam.” We are saddened by the fact that this story is about what we have said rather than the impact it has on the Muslims as a whole.

Thus our position remains that it is likely the creators of South Park will indeed end up like Theo Van Gogh. This is a reality. The story is already getting international attention and the journalism oversees is not as objective as it is here. In fact, we can tell you with certainty that at least one Dutch newspaper has completely made up quotations to make their story more sensational. We are not trying to directly incite violence, but we are trying to explain the gravity of the situation and prevent this from occurring ever again. As stated in the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) above, if one cannot alter the situation with their hand then they must speak out against it and try to change it that way.

We would also like Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone to understand the tastelessness of their portrayal, apologize and reflect on the words that follow. An apology or at least recognition of bad taste might not remedy the situation, but it would go a long way toward turning this situation from a gaping wound into an ugly scar. Any Muslim that condones this type of behavior or minimizes it does not fulfill the obligation of hating it with his or her heart and thus, as is stated emphatically in the hadith, may fall outside the necessary status of holding onto even the weakest of faith. Many conquered peopled become completely oblivious to the function of their oppressor in enslaving their minds so we seek no harm against them, but do hope that they may be inspired to adopt a proactive stance and work alongside us in the struggle to liberate Islam and Muslims from foreign control.

Individual Muslims may react in quite the same manner as those non-Muslims, claiming that we are making Islam look backwards and ancient, overreacting and bringing about more harm than good. These same individuals decry every act of so-called terrorism while remaining completely silent in the face of U.S. terror; every time a leader of those courageously defending occupied Muslim lands from occupation is killed or captured they applaud. They constantly sit silent as tanks and troopers are deployed and have little to say as the empire expands. In fact, they hurry to the American Empire to let them know they are with them, at least in some of the matter. Today, as Obama perpetuates a War on Islam, they perpetuate the tale that the United States is at war with a fringe group of extremists. Allah explains this phenomenon in the Quran by saying,

فَتَرَى الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِم مَّرَضٌ يُسَارِعُونَ فِيهِمْ
يَقُولُونَ نَخْشَى أَن تُصِيبَنَا دَآئِرَةٌ فَعَسَى اللّهُ أَن
يَأْتِيَ

بِالْفَتْحِ أَوْ أَمْرٍ مِّنْ عِندِهِ فَيُصْبِحُواْ عَلَى مَا
أَسَرُّواْ فِي أَنْفُسِهِمْ نَادِمِينَ

Those in whose hearts is a disease - you see how eagerly they run about amongst them, saying: "We do fear that a change of fortune may bring us disaster." Ah! perhaps Allah will give you victory, or a decision according to His will. Then will they repent of the thoughts which they secretly harbored in their hearts

Today Muslims the world over run and say that Muslims like us do not represent Islam, as if in some way speaking out against imperialism is in fact causing it. In order to survive, empires must conscript support, and they usually impose loyal indigenous elite over the lands they conquer. Oftentimes these loyal elite find ways of influencing the home front as well. Empire is primarily concerned with preserving political, economic, and military dominance and therefore tends to portray itself as tolerant and pluralistic of the cultures and customs of they come to conquer. However, a closer objective analysis always reveals that this tolerance is a guise of strategy and is only apparent where the conquered are willing to retain personal customs and control in exchange for the sacrifice of indigenous sovereignty over wealth, natural resource, and political decision. Thus while empires rape and extract the material wealth of the people they dominate, they grant the seeming retention of indigenous language, custom, religion and the like.

In reality, this focus on power and control leads to the actual loss of spiritual, psychological, and emotional health and, as an oligarchy is imposed, the educated class is granted modest concessions and then political and economic rights of the general people are violated for the long term. This requires that what a conquered people consider sacred must be portrayed as backwards. While this process tends to occur subconsciously it leads to a sense of power and privilege on the home shores of the imperialist, and that serves as a justification for the atrocities committed and thereby minimized on the frontier. The term “sand-nigger” or “camel jockey” did not start with American soldiers on the ground in Iraq, but was a phrase coined during Britain’s imperialist adventure in the Middle East. The ‘other’s’ culture and custom must always be degraded in order to retain a justification for physical domination. Media always plays a role in perpetuating these ideas.

The process of imperialism thereafter splits a conquered people up into two camps: the good and the bad. The good are those who accept domination and vie for safety by adopting the position that the Empire is not an imperialist entity at all, but rather a liberator – the bad are those that refuse to sacrifice autonomy and continue to fight on…Americans should be all too familiar with the process; the very foundation of their nation is built upon the genocide of the indigenous Native Americans. So too then in its occurrence, ‘good’ Indians collaborated with American settlers against the ‘bad’ Indians; they demonized them for fighting and not accepting defeat and were subsequently displayed by the imperialist power as proof for the benign nature of America’s early expansion. The genocide of Indians would have been impossible without their collaboration. We face similar situations as Muslims today.

This phenomenon is true of Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Dutch, and British empires as well. Indeed all imperialist powers employ the same means of control. The creators of South Park so too emulate this process in their work and in their own right contribute greatly to the passive acceptance of a sick status quo. The contemporary American Empire is dependent on a hedonistic, consumerist mindset that effectively numbs the general world populace and keeps them ignorant and oblivious to the imperialist reality.

We saw this clearly when the attacks on September 11th, 2001 occurred. Americans were told that this was due to Muslims hating their freedom and democracy, and they were never told that the perpetrators of the attack cited the death of millions of Muslims at the hands of U.S. foreign policy. With the help of media, Americans are kept oblivious to the heinous crimes of the empire overseas and especially in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past eight years by a complacent news media and garbage consumerist television shows like South Park which serve as the new opiate of the masses. All one has to do to see the impact Matt Stone and Trey Parker have had in spreading Islamophobia already is to go on any rightwing extremist website like the Jawa Report and count the number of times the words “Derka Derka Muhammad Jihad” are written. Furthermore, when one logs on to these sites they will see the inconceivable volume of people who call for the eradication of all Muslims around the world.

While we are often labeled a hate site, we do not call people to this type of filth. In the past some members did do that and we wish to distance ourselves from that at this point. The genocide of the Jews was a terrible event that should never be allowed to repeat itself. However, their genocide is not a justification to replicate the Warsaw Ghetto in the city of Gaza. Similarly it is a justification for neither imposing an apartheid rule on a people nor even forcing them to change their preferred system of government.

One of the only ways we could ever end American Imperialism would be to take away the ideological justification it finds through its mainstream media outlets. It should be apparent that we perceive this incident not in isolation, but as part of a broader narrative that is part and parcel of a much more complex and deeply seeded crisis.

Thomas Friedman, a proponent of this empire, explains the contemporary order is sustained by, “the presence of American power and America’s willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalization… The hidden hand of the market will never work without the fist,” but it is also true that the hidden hand of the market would never work without a mind-numbing American media that can help to pacify those that would otherwise stand opposed to the economic domination and the military domination it is dependent upon. The stance that we have taken is a derivative of this much deeper war, and our intention is not only to fulfill the command of forbidding evil in Islam but to engage both Muslims and non-Muslims alike in a much deeper discussion. Certainly, the mainstream media will never allow that to happen, but there are massive alternative opportunities in this era known as the Age of Information. It should be understood that we will not lie down and accept America’s imperialist conquest of Muslim lands. We will speak against any and all activities that lead to the perpetuation of this empire. The South Park episode does that by portraying the most important individual for Muslims, presently the predominant one’s being conquered, as backwards and irrational. This gives cause and justification to the narrative the empire is not conquering at all and instead is attempting to liberate and this reality must be addressed and confronted head on. Finally, Allah says in the Quran,

انْفِرُواْ خِفَافًا وَثِقَالاً وَجَاهِدُواْ بِأَمْوَالِكُمْ
وَأَنفُسِكُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللّهِ ذَلِكُمْ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ
تَعْلَمُونَ

Go forth, whether light or heavy, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if you but knew.

In the end, we seek justice and preservation of Islamic religious beliefs and culture. We will not stand passive and silent in these tumultuous times. We implore conscious people everywhere to do the same and we are open to the advice, suggestions, and general conversation with all those that would like to engage in detailed discussion, we plan on hosting some open dialogue opportunities as soon as our website is back up and running. We call humanity to the solution that is the religion of Islam and to recognize the beauty of this fabulous religion given by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to the entire world.

We hope that the creators of South Park may read this and respond, that before sending hate mail and condemning us that we may partake in dialogue, and that the Western media’s degradation of the most blessed of men ceases. Otherwise we warn all that many reactions will not involve speech, and that defending those that insult, belittle, or degrade the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a requirement of the religion. As Osama bin Laden said with regard to the cartoons of Denmark, “If there is no check in the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions.”

--
Revolution Muslim

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We hereby declare and make absolute public declaration that revolutionmuslim.com operates under the first amendment right to freedom of religion and expression and that in no, way, shape or form do we call for war against the U.S. government or adhere to the enemies of the United States elsewhere. We do however hold the belief, as stated honestly and openly in our mission statement, that the Muslim world should be permitted to unite under the banner of Islam. To suggest that this in some way implies that the reestablishment of the caliphate would require the dismantlement of the United States government is fallacy. We seek, rather, to witness the imperialist ambitions of the United States government and especially the private tyrannies (corporations, financial institutions, military-industrial complex) that control it subside in their quest for empire and "full spectrum dominance" and we call for the relinquishment of autonomy and respect for sovereignty across the Muslim world to the people and not in the hands of the dictators, and authoritarian regimes this structure keeps in power by continuing to engage in foreign policy we feel is the root cause of all the terrorism in the world. This statement is a disclaimer and any and all information published on this website is in accordance with all local, state, and federal law and all donations and funds distributed both domestically and to the island of Jamaica go solely to further the objectives of the organization and are operated in accordance with laws for nonprofit religious, educational and charitable organizations in the United States.

So observe the results. (A) People draw picture of Muhammad in a bear costume. (B) Muslims issue a veiled threat of violence. (C) American networks back down immediately and agree never to criticize Muhammad again. (D) Muslims hide behind the first amendment and face no repercussions for their threat.

Who won this battle over free speech? Revolution Muslim did. Who made it possible? Comedy Central.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Pakistani Christians Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Defiling Qur'ans

Can any Muslim point out a pure Christian government that imprisons Muslims for handling the Bible incorrectly.

In Islamic countries (such as Pakistan) Muslims imply such harshness toward Christians:

Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi are convicted on the basis of the blasphemy law. In January, they were released on bail; now they are in two separate prison facilities. Extremist fringe put pressure, and perhaps corrupted police to find the right evidence to justify the conviction.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – A court in Kasur district, Punjab, convicted a Christian couple, Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi, to 25 years in prison. According to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), judge Ajmal Hussein convicted the couple for touching the Qur‘an without washing their hands.

Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi were released on bail last January, but were re-arrested after the judge ruled against them. The husband was locked up in Kasur’s district prison; the wife was sent to the women’s prison in Multan. Both have started serving 25 years behind bars.

CLAAS, an association that fights for the rights of the poor and marginalised, said that the couple was accused of “contaminating” the Qur‘an when they touched it “without washing their hands”.

The incident, which dates back to December 2008, unleashed the fury of Muslim extremists who put pressure on police. Unconfirmed reports suggest that extremists paid off police agents to discover “new evidence” to justify the sentence.

At the end of the police investigation, husband and wife were charged with blasphemy.

The blasphemy law is the harshest tool for religious repression available in Pakistan. It was adopted in 1986 by then dictator Zia ul-Haq to protect Islam and its prophet, Muhammad, from attacks and insults.

In fact, it is actually comprised of sections 295-B and 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which respectively punish with life in prison anyone who defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur‘an, and imposes the death penalty on anyone who defiles the name of the Prophet Muhammad.

In the last two months, there were two more convictions against Christians in Pakistan.

On 11 January, a court in Faisalabad sentenced Imran Masih, a 26-year-old Christian man, to life imprisonment for insulting and desecrating the Koran. He was accused of deliberately burning Qur‘anic verses and an Arabic book in order “foment interfaith hatred and hurt the feelings of Muslims.”

On 25 February, a court in Karachi sentenced Qamar David, also a Christian, to life imprisonment for hurting the religious feelings of Muslims when he sent blasphemous SMS.

CLAAS announced that it was filing an appeal with the High Court in Lahore to have the 25-year sentence against Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi overturned.

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Punjab:-Christian-couple-touches-Qur%E2%80%98an-with-dirty-hands,-gets-25-years-in-prison-17778.html

Does anyone have a clue to the extent of torture and pain these two will have to undergo at the moment and will suffer for the next 25 years? One of my Pakistani friends who sat in a Pakistani jail for a few months due to his faith and being accused of uttering his opinion was beaten continually, burned with hot iron, held in ice cold water for hours, finally the maulvies opened this belly.

If a Muslim was held in jail by a Western goverment for defiling the Bible try to imagine the media reaction and the all the Muslims rioting against Western suppression and islamophobia.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Yemeni Child Brides, Aisha, and Qur'an 65:4

I'd like to welcome our friend Yahya Snow to the "Answering Muslims School of Qur'anic Instruction."



Western Muslims are typically quite embarrassed by the fact that Muhammad had sex with a nine-year-old girl, and Muslim apologists are doing everything in their power to rewrite history in order to rescue their prophet from criticism. But are they willing to rewrite the Qur'an as well?

According to Surah 2:228, if a Muslim man wants to divorce his wife, he should wait until she has gone through three monthly cycles (i.e. three periods). But the question later arose: What are men who want a divorce supposed to do when their wives, for whatever reason, do not have monthly cycles? The Qur'an answers this question in Surah 65:4, where it gives divorce rules for (1) women who do not have monthly cycles because they are too old, (2) girls who do not have monthly cycles because they are too young, and (3) women and girls who do not have monthly cycles because they are pregnant. The verse declares that, if Muslim men want to divorce girls who haven't yet reached puberty, they must wait three months (after having sex with them).

Here are some translations of Surah 65:4.

Qur'an 65:4 (Shakir)--And (as for) those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, if you have a doubt, their prescribed time shall be three months, and of those too who have not had their courses; and (as for) the pregnant women, their prescribed time is that they lay down their burden; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah He will make easy for him his affair.

Qur'an 65:4 (Arberry)--As for your women who have despaired of further menstruating, if you are in doubt, their period shall be three months; and those who have not menstruated as yet. And those who are with child, their term is when they bring forth their burden. Whoso fears God, God will appoint for him, of His command, easiness.

Qur'an 65:4 (Yusuf Ali)--Such of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the prescribed period, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no courses (it is the same): for those who carry (life within their wombs), their period is until they deliver their burdens: and for those who fear Allah, He will make their path easy.

Qur'an 65:4 (Hilali-Khan)--And those of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the 'Iddah (prescribed period), if you have doubts (about their periods), is three months, and for those who have no courses [(i.e. they are still immature) their 'Iddah (prescribed period) is three months likewise, except in case of death] . And for those who are pregnant (whether they are divorced or their husbands are dead), their 'Iddah (prescribed period) is until they deliver (their burdens), and whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him, He will make his matter easy for him.

Qur'an 65:4 (Sher Ali)--And if you are in doubt as to the prescribed period for such of your women as have despaired of monthly courses, then know that the prescribed period for them is three months, and also for such as do not have their monthly courses yet. And as for those who are with child, their period shall be until they are delivered of their burden. And whoso fears ALLAH, HE will provide facilities for him in his affair.

Qur'an 65:4 (Rodwell)--As to such of your wives as have no hope of the recurrence of their times, if ye have doubts in regard to them, then reckon three months, and let the same be the term of those who have not yet had them. And as to those who are with child, their period shall be until they are delivered of their burden. God will make His command easy to him who feareth Him.

Here are three classic Muslim commentaries on 65:4.

Tafsir Ibn Kathir (on Qur’an 65:4)—Allah the Exalted clarifies the waiting period of the woman in menopause. And that is the one whose menstruation has stopped due to her older age. Her `Iddah is three months instead of the three monthly cycles for those who menstruate, which is based upon the Ayah in (Surat) Al-Baqarah. [see 2:228] The same for the young, who have not reached the years of menstruation. Their `Iddah is three months like those in menopause.

Tafsir al-Jalalayn (on Qur’an 65:4)—And [as for] those of your women who (read allà'ï or allà'i in both instances) no longer expect to menstruate, if you have any doubts, about their waiting period, their prescribed [waiting] period shall be three months, and [also for] those who have not yet menstruated, because of their young age, their period shall [also] be three months.

Tafsir Ibn Abbas (on Qur’an 65:4)—(And for such of your women as despair of menstruation) because of old age, (if ye doubt) about their waiting period, (their period (of waiting) shall be three months) upon which another man asked: "O Messenger of Allah! What about the waiting period of those who do not have menstruation because they are too young?" (along with those who have it not) because of young age, their waiting period is three months.

For Muslims who want to say that this verse could refer to divorcing prepubescent girls whose husbands haven't had sex with them, the Qur'an refutes this claim. Surah 33:49 says that there is no waiting period if a man has not had sex with his bride.

Qur'an 33:49--O ye who believe! When ye marry believing women, and then divorce them before ye have touched them, no period of 'Iddat have ye to count in respect of them: so give them a present. And set them free in a handsome manner.

Hence, the Qur'an says that there is no waiting period if a man hasn't had sex with his bride, and the Qur'an prescribes a waiting period for men who want to divorce their prepubescent child-brides. This presupposes that the men have had sex with them, which means that the Qur'an allows sex with prepubescent girls. This shouldn't be surprising, since Muhammad himself had sex with a girl who hadn't reached puberty.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Jesus or Muhammad This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

It's that time again. We'll be doing five episodes of "Jesus or Muhammad" this weekend (with special guest Walid Shoebat on Saturday and Sunday!). If you don't get ABN via satellite, you can watch online at ABN's website. Here's the schedule.

FRIDAY
10:45 P.M. (Eastern Standard Time)

SATURDAY
2:30 P.M.
9:45 P.M.

SUNDAY
2:30 P.M.
9:45 P.M.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Another Yemeni Child-Bride Hospitalized with Sex-Related Injuries

Apparently, the Muslims in Yemen trust the Qur'an and Hadith more than they trust Yahya Snow and other Westernized reinterpreters of Islam. (Note that, according to religious authorities in Yemen, people like Yahya are apostates.)

An 11-year-old Yemeni girl who was was married to a man in country's Hajja province was hospitalized today with genital injuries, said a human rights group in Sanaa.

It was the second incident involving a child bride in the last week. A 13-year-old girl died after being sexually assaulted by her adult husband. Both girls were married in the country's rural Hajja province.

The 11-year-old girl was married last year only under the condition that the adult husband would wait until she reached puberty to consummate the marriage. He did not wait, nor do many of the men who marry young brides, says Amal Basha, director of the Arabic Sisters Forum.

An estimated 50 percent of women in Yemen are married before age 18, some as young as 8. Less than a week ago the Sana'a-based human rights group reported the death of a 13-year-old bride in the same rural area. The Associated Press reported the girl was allegedly raped, and that her 23-year-old husband is now in police custody.

"She looked like she was butchered," said the girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed. The AP also cited police a report saying the husband forced himself on his young bride, feeling under pressure to prove his manhood.

An average of eight women die each day in Yemen due to child marriage, many of them in childbirth, according to the Arabic Sisters Forum. The group runs a hotline for victims of domestic violence and has been lobbying in support of a minimum marriage age now under consideration by the Yemeni parliament.

Pushing against the proposed law is the strong hand of Islamic conservatives in Yemen. Clerics have declared women like Amal Basha apostates from Islam for opposing child marriage, which they see as divinely ordained. The government, she says, is intimidated by the religious and tribal customs.

"They say this is Islamic…and they declared jihad against... the UN treaty on women's rights," she said.

"They say my campaign is a Western agenda, that it will lead to sex out of wedlock and prostitution," Basha said.


International groups like UNICEF and Oxfam have also lobbied for the rights of child brides, but tread carefully around what has become a explosive political issue.

"It's a deeply embedded social habit," said Naseem Rehman, a UNICEF spokesman told ABC News last year from in Sana'a. "For every one child marriage we can stop there are five more." Source.

There's no way around it. We're doing another show on child-brides this weekend. (The sad part is that Muslims like Yahya will be more upset with us doing a show on child-brides than they are when little girls are hospitalized or killed.)

The Angel of the LORD vs. Yahya Snow - Part Four

“We must realise Shamoun’s views on the angel of the Lord would have been deemed heretical during the time of Jesus and indeed before the time of Jesus.” – Rabbi Yahya Snow
Given his trenchant ignorance regarding the Old Testament, I am sure others who are familiar with Yahya were just as surprised as I was to find out that he styles himself something of an authority on what Jewish people believed before and during the time of Christ. In this post I would like to return the favor and surprise Yahya by letting him know he is nothing of the sort. Since few people are likely to be taken in by Yahya’s rabbinic pretensions, I will be brief and will simply provide some relevant quotes from Jewish sources on Genesis 16, a passage I commented on in the first post.

The Septuagint (a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek before the coming of Jesus): “And the angel of the Lord said to her, Agar, Sara’s maid, whence comest thou, and wither goest thou? and she said, I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sara. And the angel of the Lord said to her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the Lord said to her, I will surely multiply thy seed, and it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the Lord said to her, Behold thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ismael, for the Lord hath hearkened to thy humiliation. He shall be a wild man, his hands against all, and the hands of all against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord God who spoke to her, Thou art God who seest me; for she said, For I have openly seen him that appeared to me. Therefore she called the well, The well of him whom I have openly seen; behold it is between Cades and Barad. And Agar bore a son to Abram; and Abram called the name of his son which Agar bore to him, Ismael. And Abram was eighty-six years old, when Agar bore Ismael to Abram.”

[n.b. How could the Jewish translators of the LXX produce such a translation when it clearly communicates an idea that is supposed to be the heretical innovation of a 21st Century Christian named Sam Shamoun?]

Targum of Onkelos: "And the Angel of the Lord found her at the fountain of water in the wilderness, at the fountain in the way of Hagra. And he said, Hagar handmaid of Sara, whence comest thou, and whither art thou going? And she said, From before Sara my mistress do I escape. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Return to thy mistress and be subject under her hand. And the Angel of the Lord said to her: Multiplying I will multiply thy sons, and they shall not be numbered for multitude. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, thou hast conceived, and shalt give birth to a son, and thou shalt call his name Yishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy prayer. And he will be untameable by man, and he will be needy to every one, and also all men will be needy to him, and before the face of all his brethren will he dwell. And she prayed in the Name of the Lord who had spoken with her; and she said: Thou art Eloha, seeing all: for she said, I also have begun to see after that He hath been revealed to me. Therefore she called the name of the well, The well at which appeared the Angel of the Covenant: behold, it is between Rekam and Hagra. And Hagar bare to Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bare Yishmael. And Abram was son of eighty and six years when Hagar bare Yishmael unto Abram."

Targum Pseudo-Johnathan: "And Abram said to Sara, Behold, thy handmaid is under thy authority: do to her what is right in thine eyes. And Sara afflicted her, and she escaped from before her. And the Angel of the Lord found her at the fountain of waters in the desert; at the fountain of waters which is in the way to Chagra. And He said, Hagar, handmaid of Sara, whence comest thou, and whither does thou go? And she said, From before Sara my mistress I have escaped. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Return to thy mistress, and be subject under her hand. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Multiplying I will multiply thy sons, and they shall not be numbered for multitude. And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, thou art with child, and thou wilt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because thy affliction is revealed before the Lord. And he shall be like the wild ass among men: his hands shall take vengeance of his adversaries, and the hands of his adversaries be put forth to do him evil; and in the presence of all his brethren shall he be commingled, and shall dwell. And she gave thanks before the Lord whose Word spake to her, and thus said, Thou art He who livest and art eternal; who seest, but art not seen! · for she said, For, behold, here is revealed the glory of the Shekina of the Lord after a vision. Wherefore she called the well, The Well at which the Living and Eternal One was revealed; and, behold, it is situate between Rekam and Chalutsa. And Hagar bare Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was the son of eighty-six years when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram."

Jerusalem Targum: "And Hagar gave thanks, and prayed in the Name of the Word of the Lord, who had been manifested to her, saying, Blessed be Thou, Eloha, the Living One of all Ages, who hast looked upon my affliction. For she said, Behold, Thou art manifested also unto me, even as Thou wast manifested to Sara my mistress."

[n.b. According to the above Targums, the Angel of the Lord is called “Lord”, “God”, “the Word of the Lord”, “the Shekinah of the Lord”, and “the Angel of the Covenant”; and the Angel is also distinguished from another person called God, for it is said that He “revealed” and “manifested” the Living and Eternal one, and also that Hagar prayed to God in “the name of the Lord who spoke to her” and in “the Name of the Word of the Lord”.]

In light of this, I think Yahya should stick to making pronouncements about Islam and stop pontificating on matters that are clearly beyond his competence.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"Leaving Islam" Ad Campaign Kicks off in Miami

Many Muslims don't know how free they are in the United States. A network is forming to help them leave Islam. Buses around Miami have started carrying the ad.



Legal Jihad Exposed: Woman Suing Judge over Hijab-Ban Worried about Nude Pics


I really don't care if Muslim women send nude pictures to their boyfriends. But this is a little different. Raneen Albaghdady is suing a judge for making her take off her Hijab in court, as this supposedly interfered with her Islamic modesty. Now she's panicking because some cellphones stolen from her contain nude pictures, and she's worried that these pictures will end up on the internet.

Here's an idea. If you're really concerned about modesty, and you believe that a judge is violating your rights, then take it to court. But if modesty isn't really an issue for you and people are passing around your nude photos, no faking.

HEIGHTS — A Muslim woman who is suing a Wayne County judge for making her remove a religious scarf during a court proceeding says that several cell phones containing nude photos of her were stolen during a burglary at her house.

Raneen Albaghdady, 33, called police March 27 after she found her house in the 25000 block of Andover ransacked. Among the items taken were six cell phones that she told police had nude photos on them.

She said she suspected an ex-boyfriend was responsible for the break-in, and that she was worried he may post the photos on the Internet, because he previously had posted other pictures of her online, police said.

The incident could come into play as her lawsuit against 3rd Circuit Court Family Division Judge William Callahan moves forward.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in August, the suit alleges that Callahan denied Albaghdady’s religious freedom when he made her remove her hijab during a June name change hearing in his Detroit courtroom.

A hijab is an Islamic headdress worn by Muslim women that covers various parts of the head, neck, and face, according to the complaint.

At a press conference announcing the lawsuit held by the Council of American Islamic Relations Michigan chapter, a Muslim civil rights organization and co-plaintiff on the suit, a spokeswoman for the group described the significance of the hijab.

“It’s out of sheer modesty of appearance and dress and covering your beauty,” she said. “When one is accustomed to wearing the hijab, to a certain way of dress, to a certain way of acting, to have to then uncover, you almost feel revealed or definitely very vulnerable, but understandably so, humiliated and embarrassed.” Read More.

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Angel of the LORD vs. Yahya Snow - Part Three

When I held out the illusory hope that Yahya would have the courage of his convictions to debate this subject, I anticipated him making several strategic mistakes, not the least of which is errantly assuming that certain canned objections made against the New Testament witness to the Trinity would have any relevance to the Old Testament. Although he decided not to follow through with the debate, his attempted rebuttal of Sam's teaching on the appearances of God in the Old Testament as the Angel of the LORD show that he would not have disappointed me in this regard.

When Muslims argue against the New Testament witness to the deity of Christ, they often point out that Jesus nowhwere claimed to be God. Although this claim is false and flawed for many reasons, the fact is it is easily demonstrated to be false when it comes to the Angel of the LORD in the Old Testament. In fact, it is largely because Muslims like Yahya are ignorant of what the Old Testament says that they can say with a straight face that Jesus never claimed to be God.

More than once in his post Yahya registers this objection along the following lines, "If God were the Angel, God would be guilty of secretly showing up, for he never claimed to be the Angel" (my paraphrase). Now it is far from clear, to grossly understate the matter, why God is not aloud to stop by without giving advanced notice, as if he is some kind of uninvited house guest or felonious intruder; or why, once He does draw near, He needs to make sure He first checks in with the local authorities so they know He is in town. But as I said, it really isn't necessary to explain to Yahya why that is - though one would have assumed that Yahya knew that God can appear when, where, and how He pleases, and that He doesn't even need to leave His calling card - for there are occasions when the Angel openly and directly identifies Himself as the LORD.

For example, in Genesis 28 it is written:

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying...I am with you and will watch over you whereever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his had and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel [House of God], though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, the LORD will be my God and this stone I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth." (Genesis 28)
Clearly in the passage above the person speaking declares Himself to be LORD and God. The significance of this appears by comparing it to Genesis 31, verses 10-13, where Jacob recounts a dream he later had in Paddan Aram:

"In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob.' I answered, 'Here I am.' And he said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.'"
No doubt it is because the Angel of the LORD declared Himself to be a divine theophany, that Jacob blessed Joseph in the name of the Angel:


"Then he blessed Joseph and said,

'May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,

the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

the Angel who has delivered me from all harm — may he bless these boys.

May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly upon the earth.'" (Genesis 48:15-16)

Another passage from the Old Testament of which Yahya is apparently ignorant, is the account of God's appearance to Moses in the burning bush - Exodus 3. Most people who read the account quickly grasp that it is God who is talking to Moses and never even notice that there is more to the story than that.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up." When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation."
As much as Yahya may not like it, the Angel, without beating around the bush, declares Himself to be Yahweh and not an ordinary angel.

Another closely related claim made by Yahya is that no prophet ever declared the Angel of the LORD to be God. All of the instances we've already seen prove the opposite, since they are recorded in the prophetic writings. So far we have seen in the writings of Moses that the Angel was recognized as God by Hagar, a testimony of such a nature as would not likely be included if Moses did not agree and was not seeking to convey that very point, and we've also seen it in the cases just mentioned, where the Angel is recorded as identifying Himself as such to both Jacob and later to Moses. These testimonies ought to be sufficient to disabuse Yahya of yet another false assumption, but occasion will arise to point out other examples in future posts, Lord willing.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Angel of the LORD vs. Yahya Snow - Part Two

As we've already seen (here), the Old Testament does not comport with Yahya's unitarian assumption that God is a uni-personal being. Because of this, Yahya imposes his assumption on to the text, affirming every way in which the Angel is distinguished from God, and arbitrarily ruling out all the ways he is identified as God.

Another basic mistake made by Yahya is to assume that the word "angel" refers to a being's nature rather than its function, such that he thinks the deity of the Angel is ruled out by definition. Contrary to popular ignorance, the English word "angel" is not a translation of any Biblical word, such that one may claim it always and only refers to a certain order of beings. The word "angel" is actually a transliteration into English of the Greek word angelos, a word used in the Greek New Testament, and also in the Septuagint (LXX), i.e. a Greek translation of the the Hebrew Old Testament. The word in the original Hebrew is Malakh.

According to both Hebrew and Greek, the word simply means "messenger" and can refer to any being, heavenly or earthly, divine or human, God, angel or man, such that the mere use of the word tells us nothing about the nature of the being who bears it. There is absolutely no debate about this among Hebrew lexicologists, as any consultation of standard reference works, such as Gesenius, or Brown-Driver-Briggs, or Koehler, Baumgartner and Stamm, will bear out. The same goes for the New Testament, q.v. Thayer, BDAG, etc.

To provide just one example of the word “angel” being used for a being other than one of the heavenly hosts, the following is written of the human forerunner of the Messiah in the Old Testament book of Malachi:

“Behold, I send my messenger (Heb. Ma’lak; angel) and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple;...” (Malachi 3:1)

This passage is applied to John the Baptist by the Lord Jesus in the New Testament:

"….Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in Kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger (Gr. angelos; angel) ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’” (Matthew 11:7-11)

John the Baptist is obviously not a member of a class of heavenly beings called "angels", but he does function as a messenger. Accordingly, calling someone an angel does not tell us anything about the nature of the being or agent to whom it refers; it is merely a functional term.

Moreover, not only does this passage call John an "angel", i.e. messenger, but it uses the same word, Malakh, for the coming Messiah:

"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years. "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.
Of course Yahya may think it relevant to reply that the very idea of God being a messenger of someone is not possible as this would imply that there is someone he is sent by and whose message He brings. But this would simply be a repeat of what has already been exposed. Because God is not a uni-personal being, one person of the Godhead can be sent by and bring a message from another person of the Godhead. In addition, the very passage just quoted tells us that the "Messenger [i.e. Angel] of the Covenant" is the Lord: "...then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come." And lest it be objected that the word Lord may refer to others besides Yahweh, we are told that this Messenger or Lord will come to "his temple", i.e. the Temple of Yahweh.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Dead Yemeni Child Bride Tied Up, Raped, Says Mom

SHUEBA, Yemen (AP) -- A 13-year-old Yemeni child bride who bled to death shortly after marriage was tied down and forced to have sex by her husband, according to interviews with the child's mother, police and medical reports.

The girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed, 50, told the Associated Press that before her daughter lost consciousness, she said that her husband had tied her up and forced himself on her. ''She looked like she was butchered,'' she said about her daughter's injuries.

Elham Assi, 13, bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days after she was married to a 23-year-old man. She died on April 2 in the deeply poor Yemeni village of Shueba, some 200 kilometers northwest of the capital. Her husband, Abed al-Hikmi, is in police custody.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen where a quarter of all females marry before the age of 15, according to a 2009 report by the country's Ministry of Social Affairs. Traditional families prefer young brides because they are seen as more obedient and are expected to have more children.

Legislation to ban child brides has been stalled by opposition from religious leaders. There has been no government comment over the case.

The girl -- one of eight siblings -- was pushed into marriage after an agreement between her brother and her future-husband to marry each other's sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices -- a common arrangement in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.

According to police notes from the interrogation of the husband, he was upset because he could not consummate their relationship and felt under pressure to prove his manhood.

Assi's mother said she also tried to persuade her daughter to have sex with her husband so as not to shame the family.

Al-Hikmi took his young bride to a nearby medical clinic, asking a doctor there to administer her tranquilizers so she would not resist his advances. The clinic said it refused.

Al-Hikmi then obtained performance enhancing pills, according to the police interrogation, and that night completed the act while she screamed.

The next day, he returned to the same medical clinic carrying Assi because she could not walk.

''I told him not to go near her for at least ten days,'' said Dr. Fathiya Haidar. She said Assi's vaginal canal was ripped.

A forensic report obtained by the AP showed that Assi's injuries were much more extensive, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.

Her mother said she visited Assi later that day, where she found her daughter fading in and out of consciousness.

''She whispered in my ear that he had tied her up and had sex with her violently,'' she said. ''I said to her husband, what have you done, you criminal?''

She said al-Hikmi told her that the young bride was just possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead.

''She asked me to stay beside her,'' her mother said.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and has drawn the attention of international rights groups seeking to pressure the government to outlaw child marriages.

''Early marriage places girls at increased risk of dropping out of school, being exposed to violence, abuse and exploitation, and even losing their lives from pregnancy, childbirth and other complications,'' said UNICEF's regional director Sigrid Kaag, in a statement Wednesday condemning the death.

A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed and sent back to parliament's constitutional committee for review after some lawmakers called it un-Islamic.
The committee is expected to make a final decision on the legislation this month.

The issue of Yemen's child brides received widespread attention three years ago when an 8-year-old girl boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce.

In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said. Source.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Angel of the LORD vs. Yahya Snow - Part One

Yahya Snow has ventured to “refute” Sam Shamoun’s case that a particular “angel”, i.e. the Angel of the Lord (Heb. Mal’ak Yahweh), is divine, one of the persons of the Godhead. Over the course of several posts I will respond to Yahya’s article for Sam.

To begin with, it should be remembered that unitarianism as opposed to Trinitarianism is the view that God is a uni-personal rather than a tri-personal being. Islamic Tawheed is one (and the worst) of many versions of the former; Christianity uniquely proclaims the latter.

This is important to keep in mind for the following reason: whereas on unitarian assumptions one wouldn’t expect to find in the Bible distinctions drawn between multiple divine persons, this is just what would be expected on Trinitarian assumptions.

The first verse of John’s Gospel is a good illustration of the point. According to John’s Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
If the author of this passage was a unitarian, it would not be surprising for him to say “the Word was with God”, which he in fact does. But it also wouldn’t be surprising on Trinitarian assumptions, for Trinitarians also believe the Word was with God. However, that is not all the passage says; it also tells us “the Word was God”. This additional statement changes everything for the unitarian, but the Trinitarian is left unaffected by it: it is exactly what would be expected if the author of this passage was Trinitarian. And just as it would be incredibly inept for a unitarian to reply, “But the passage could not teach that the Word was God, because he could not be God and be with God at the same time”, since this is just what Trinitarians believe and is precisely what the passage says, so it would also be incredibly inept for a unitarian to approach similar phenomena in the Old Testament in the same way, as we will in fact find in the case of Yahya’s would-be rebuttal.

When we turn to the Old Testament passages that speak of the Angel of the Lord, we find that they upset and over-topple unitarian expectations in exactly the same way. They do so by identifying the Angel as God while at the same time distinguishing Him from another person who is identified as God. Consider as an example the first occasion in the Bible where this phrase is used – Genesis 16, which recounts what happened after Hagar fled from Sarai.

Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. He said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" And she said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai." Then the angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority." Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count." The angel of the LORD said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has given heed to your affliction." He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers." Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees"; for she said, "Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?"
Since Yahya believes Muhammad was a descendant of Hagar through her son Ishmael, he should pay particular attention to what this passage says (and not just the later verses in the passage that say Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man).

In the first place, the phrase “the angel of the LORD”, as well as the fact that the Angel speaks of the LORD in the third person in verse eleven (“…the LORD has given heed to your affliction”), seems clearly to distinguish the Angel from “the LORD”.

Secondly, at the same time, this same passage also identifies the Angel as LORD. Not only does the Angel issue imperatives to Hagar and conduct the whole conversation with an air of authority that exudes divinity, but the Angel promises that He will do the same thing for her that God promised to do for Abraham through Sarah, saying, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.”

Finally, while all of this may be lost on those who think Muhammad was a descendant of Hagar, it wasn’t lost on Hagar herself, for “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God who sees’; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?”

Passing over the mention of the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 21:8-20, where similar observations could be made, what is said in Genesis 22 about the Angel of the Lord is particularly instructive. After Abraham goes to the place where God commanded him to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice, we read:

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."
As in Genesis 16, this passage at once distinguishes the Angel from God and identifies Him as God.

That He is distinct from God is evident once again by his very title, i.e. the Angel of the LORD, as well as by the fact that he speaks in verse twelve of God in the third person (“Now I know that you fear God”).

That He is also God is evident not only from the fact that He speaks as God (“…you have not withheld from Me your only son…” [vs. 12]; “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky [vs. 17]; and “…because you have obeyed Me” [vs. 18]), but because of what it pointedly says in verses 15-16: “The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear BY MYSELF, declares the LORD,…”

In terms of the unitarian/Trinitarian debate, only Trinitarianism is consistent both with the fact that the Angel is distinguished from God and the fact that He speaks as God and is identified as God in the above (and many other) passages.

Yahya’s failure to understand all this is openly exposed in his response to virtually every one of the passages from Sam he tries to deal with. He somehow thinks the mere fact that the Angel is distinct from another person called God proves that He cannot also be God.

For example, Yahya says Zechariah 1:12-13 “shows the angel of the Lord communicating with God; the angel asks God a question and God answers the angel. Clearly this passage shows the angel not to be God as they are clearly shown to be distinct entities.”

He does the same thing with Numbers 22:31, saying:

“Shamoun fails to look further down in the chapter; after this event, the author identifies this angel as “the angel of the Lord” and not as “God” or “the Lord” (22:32 and 35) thus showing the author (said to be Moses) did not believe this angel to be God…”
We get more of the same on Zechariah 3:1-2:

"If you read further on in the chapter, the angel actually speaks and the author said to be Zechariah) identifies the angel as “the angel”. Surely if the angel was the Lord it would have been addressed as “the Lord” rather than “the angel”. So we notice the author draws a distinction between “the angel” and “the Lord”, thus to two cannot be the same!.... Essentially, Zechariah does not claim the angel to be God but draws a distinction showing the two are not the same."
And Zechariah 3:4:

"Shamoun misses another verse in this chapter which proves that this angel is simply an agent of God and not God himself, verse 6 shows the angel QUOTING the Lord and delivering the Lord’s message by saying “this is what the Lord Almighty says:…"
On Exodus 23:20, Yahya says:

“Thus we realise God sends the angel, therefore the angel cannot possibly be God! Shamoun misses this as this clearly shows this angel is not God!”….

“Clearly, in this passage, God sends the angel and speaks of the angel as a separate being (a creation of God). This angel is sent BY God, thus cannot possibly be God. Pure logic! Shamoun misses the verse and misses the logic due to his desperation to convince us of his personal beliefs.”

The fact that God speaks of this angel as a distinct entity should be enough to realise that this angel is not God.
All of this completely misses the point at issue, for in each of the passages where the Angel is distinguished from God He is also identified as God, showing that the prophetic authors were not unitarians. In effect, what Yahya is doing is reading his unitarian assumptions into the text rather than taking everything the texts say into account to see if they are consistent with everything unitarianism predicts we should find. Since Yahya assumes that God is uni-personal, any passage that distinguishes God from the Angel automatically rules out the divinity of the Angel as a matter of “pure logic”, as Yahya said in one of the quotes above. But it only follows logically if Yahya’s starting assumption, i.e. God is uni-personal, is true. Only if that assumption is true does the conclusion that the angel is not God follow from the observation that the Angel is distinguished from God. But Yahya’s starting assumption is the very point at issue, and this means that all of Yahya’s arguments on this score commit the fallacy of begging the question and reasoning in a circle, something we have seen from him before (here).

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Debunking the Qur'an and Modern Science: The Expansion of the Earth

In my rebuttal of numerous speculative assertions of modern miracles discovered in the Qur’an we are going to refute a fairly common interpretation (of typical conjecture) of Sura 79: 30.

Osama Abdallah and other Islamic speculators have asserted that Sura 79: 30 predicts a modern theory of the global expansion of the earth.

The passage reads:

'And after that He spread the earth (Wal'arda ba'da dhalika da-ha-ha)'

Another translation reads:

'And the earth moreover hath he expanded'

The interpretation of Osama Abdallah and others is found here:

http://www.answering-christianity.com/egg-shaped_earth.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNfvO_FcGC8

The idea is as some scientists postulate that the globe itself expanded to almost the double of its size which caused the separation of the present continents.

Notice that the article of Answering-Christianity and its egg-shape claim is of the speculative type and involves incredible conjecture and has been effectively debunked by the Answering-Islam team:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Science/earth_egg.html

My focus here is mainly on the claim of Osama’s page that the Qur’an is miracolous in its claim that the earth has expanded.

Firstly, however, the claim that the reference is to the actual expansion of the earth is not entirely verified, in fact early respectable Islamic commentaries, such as Tafsir al-jalalayn would not agree with the proposition of Osama’s website. This is what we read in the Tafsir al-Jalalayn:

‘...and after that He spread out the earth: He made it flat, for it had been created before the heaven, but without having been spread out;’

http://altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=79&tAyahNo=30&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0

Hence according to Jalalayn the passage describes the spreading of the earth, a description also found in the Bible and which Muslims are quick to describe as the earth’s flatness; hence in all fairness Muslim apologists by attacking the Bible have concluded that the Qur’an itself describes the earth to be flat. But lets leave this matter for now.

Our brother Sam Shamoun and written an excellent detailed article on the matter of Sura 79: 30 and its description:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/whale_nun.htm

But lets assume for a moment that Osama’s website is correct in its interpretation, would this provide evidence that the Qur’an is miracolous?

Not really!

The idea that the earth expanded was well known long before the arise of Islam. Eusebius of Caesarea recorded some centuries prior to Islam that Democritus the Greek philospher believed that the earth changed its place in the stellar system due to its growth, density and increase of weight (Tr. E.H. Gifford, Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel), Chapter LVIII----Of the Earth’s motion, book 15: 1903: 849)

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_15_book15.htm

Read more:

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/2010/04/refuting-quranic-science-expansion-of.html

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Yahya, Dream On

It's official; Yahya Snow has declined my debate challenge. Apparently he is too busy proving Islam in his dreams (pun intended) than to engage the topic of whether the Old Testament teaches the Trinity or Islamic Tawheed.

When I originally challenged Yahya to debate the Trinity in the Old Testament I considered it a win-win proposition: if he accepted my challenge, I knew he had less chance of vindicating his thesis than a snowball has in Hades; and if he declined my challenge, it would confirm my claim that his antics are tell-tale signs that he does not have confidence that Islam can prevail in the arena of open public debate unless certain underhanded tactics are employed.

In playing apologist the way he does he has chosen to make the history of Islam his own history: just like Islam did not spread as far and wide as it has through spiritual and rational means, so likewise Yahya does not believe in his personal ability (or responsibility) to prove Islam in such a way. Yahya is a living illustration of the fact that Islam is a religion of the flesh and not of God's Spirit:

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Muslims like Yahya are worldlings; when not literally spreading Islam by the sword they resort to hacking and hewing debates and engaging in heavy-handed, freedom-squelching tactics like censorship to keep others from exposing them.

Of course not all Muslims are exactly like Yahya, and there are some who would readily take up the challenge to debate an issue like this, just like Farhan Qureshi did against Sam Shamoun; but then those of us who saw the whole debate between Farhan and Sam, no thanks to Yahya, know how that would turn out.

[Even though we didn't get to debate the issue as I would have preferred, I did write an opening statement in anticipation of the possibility that Yahya would follow through with the debate. Since the Snow(man) has officially given me the cold shoulder, I reworked my opening statement into an article, which can be found here: The Trinity in the Old Testament: A Brief Summary of the Evidence.]

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Response to the Muslim 'Hello' on Early Qur'anic Plagiarism of Pre-Islamic Sources

I have received numerous comments and rebuttals from a Muslim who calls himself 'hello' on my blog dealing with the Qur'an and Science:

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/

'Hello' has written a lot of insulting comments and challenged me to respond to his points (which unfortunately as the reader will notice are both weak and insignificant).

I have written a lengthy rebuttal to several of his comments on my assessment of the Qur'an and plagiarism of pre-Islamic sources:

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/2010/01/did-quranic-authors-borrow-information.html

I don't bother posting the entire response here as it is lengthy, but I will leave you with a few lines and the link:

My Rebuttal

This article is lengthy response to a 'Hello', a Muslim who has posted numerous rebuttals against me on this blog.

Unfortunately Hello resorts to insults of Christians and calls my articles poor and unscholarly, he also satisfies himself to heap up claim upon claim while he continually depends upon Islamic websites.

He even has the courage to contradict himself to suggest that I do not dare to respond back and if I do I will simply cite websites. As the reader will see, I dare to respond and my response is not depended upon websites.

Furthermore, Hello encourages me to utilize secular sources in my study of the Bible, which to his information, I have already done for years, however Hello laughs and despises the secular sources I have utilized upon the study of the Qur'an---yeah what type of a twisted mindset are we dealing with here.

(Hello has also challenged me to respond to a number of questions related to Bible integrity. I will respond to those elsewhere, I guess on the Apologetics blog, since this blog primarily focuses on the science in the Qur'an)

I would not say that Hello has written anything of significance, or at least anything that challenges the accuracy of my articles, hence my replies hardly require very detailed information.

Ok lets begin

Hello said...

Ok, can you name the Greek philosopher Muhammad(saw) interacted with? Can you produce a chapter like the Quran?

Hogan replies:

I never stated that a Greek Philosopher guided Muhammad in Qur’anic material, I quoted Bukhari one of your earliest and most reliable sources, in which a Christian who converted to Islam and helped Muhammad write the Qur’an later turned back to Christianity and stated that he and Muhammad fabricated the Qur’an together.

(read the entire response here:)

http://debunkingquranicscience.blogspot.com/2010/03/response-to-muslim-hello-concerning.html

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Muslim Logic Exemplified by Yahya Snow

Muslims believe that Muhammad was the best person to ever live; many of us demur, and would cite as proof, among many other things, the fact that Muhammad hit his wife, Aisha.

In response to the claim that Muhammad hit Aisha, Muslim Yahya Snow, in a display of impeccable "logic", offers the following argument:

Indeed Muhammad taught that the best of you are those who do not hit their wives and Muhammad was the best of them, thus we realise Muhammad indirectly told us he never hit his wives.
But this would only be indirect evidence that Muhammad never hit Aisha if we already know in advance that Muhammad "was the best of them". But this is just what many of us are trying to get at when we look at the evidence that Muhammad hit Aisha. In other words, Yahya is assuming in advance what has to be proven, which is just to say he is reasoning in a circle.

One of the ironies of this is that one of the Islamic sources that support the claim that Muhammad physically assaulted Aisha, Sahih Muslim (Book 004, #2127), indirectly tells us that Aisha herself did not assume the question begging premise that is critical for Yahya's circle to get all the way around.

Muhammad b. Qais said (to the people): Should I not narrate to you (a hadith of the Holy Prophet) on my authority and on the authority of my mother? We thought that he meant the mother who had given him birth. He (Muhammad b. Qais) then reported that it was 'A'isha who had narrated this: Should I not narrate to you about myself and about the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him)? We said: Yes. She said: When it was my turn for Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) to spend the night with me, he turned his side, put on his mantle and took off his shoes and placed them near his feet, and spread the corner of his shawl on his bed and then lay down till he thought that I had gone to sleep. He took hold of his mantle slowly and put on the shoes slowly, and opened the door and went out and then closed it lightly. I covered my head, put on my veil and tightened my waist wrapper, and then went out following his steps till he reached Baqi'. He stood there and he stood for a long time. He then lifted his hands three times, and then returned and I also returned. He hastened his steps and I also hastened my steps. He ran and I too ran. He came (to the house) and I also came(to the house). I, however, preceded him and I entered (the house), and as I lay down in the bed, he (the Holy Prophet)entered the (house), and said: Why is it, O 'A'isha, that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me. I said: Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be ransom for you, and then I told him (the whole story). He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you? She said: Whatsoever the people conceal, Allah will know it. He said: Gabriel came to me when you saw me. He called me and he concealed it from you. I responded to his call, but I too concealed it from you (for he did not come to you), as you were not fully dressed. I thought that you had gone to sleep, and I did not like to awaken you, fearing that you may be frightened. He (Gabriel) said: Your Lord has commanded you to go to the inhabitants of Baqi' (to those lying in the graves)and beg pardon for them. I said: Messenger of Allah, how should I pray for them (How should I beg forgiveness for them)? He said: Say, Peace be upon the inhabitants of his city (graveyard) from among the Believers and the Muslims, and may Allah have ercy on those who have gone ahead of us, and those who come later on, and we shall, God willing, join you.
Muhammad's question to Aisha indirectly supports the idea that she did not assume, in advance of the incident in question, that Muhammad was the best of people, since the very idea that someone is "the best of you people" would surely entail that such a person would not deal unjustly with others. Muhammad's question to Aisha implies that she doubted that Muhammad would not deal unjustly with her, which in turn means she did not have unshakeable confidence in the idea that Muhammad was "the best of you people". (Of course one may argue that Aisha did not assume what Muhammad's question implies, but then in that case Muhammad assumed something bad about Aisha that wasn't true, which refutes the premise in another way).

Of course Aisha may well have suppressed or quelled her doubts about Muhammad's impeccable character after being struck by him (and according to the above Hadith she was struck by him), but this only reminds us that getting hit in the chest by a man can be as persuasive to some women as reasoning in a circle can be to some Muslims.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Sam and David on "Jesus or Muhammad" this Weekend!

It's that time again. Sam and I will be on three episodes of "Jesus or Muhammad" this weekend. If you don't get the satellite channel, you can watch online here (click on the "Watch Live" button). Be sure to tune in!

Saturday, March 20th
11:00 P.M. (Eastern Standard Time)

Sunday, March 21st
8:00 P.M.
11:00 P.M.