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Archive for March, 2012

Qadianis change meaning of “akhirat” in Ch. 2, v. 4 to prove prophets can come

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri.


Qadianis have changed meaning of Holy Quran verse.

To prove my point that Holy Quran translations published by Qadiani Jamaat in order to establish “prophet-hood” of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad after Holy Prophet Muhammad SAWS have not hesitated in concocting absolutely NEW meanings of Holy Quran verse. Below are few prominent translations of Holy Quran. At the end I have quoted Qadiani Jamaat published translations.
Holy Quran Chapter 2 Verse 4:

Allama Noor ud Din:
4. And who (also) believe in that (Message) which has been revealed to you and in that which had been revealed before you, and who have firm faith in the Hereafter.

Maulana Muhammad ali:
2:4 And who believe in that which has been revealed to thee and that which was revealed before thee, and of the Hereafter they are sure.

Abdullah Yousaf Ali:
4. And who believe in the Revelation sent to thee, and sent before thy time, and (in their hearts) have the assurance of the Hereafter.

Muhammad Asad:
And who believe in that which has been bestowed from on high upon thee, [O Prophet,] as well as in that which was bestowed before thy time: for it is they who in their innermost are certain of the life to come!

M.M. Pickthal:
And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter.

Shakir:
And who believe in that which has been revealed to you and that which was revealed before you and they are sure of the hereafter.

T.B.Irving:
Who believe in what has been sent down to you as well as what was sent down before you, While they are convinced about the Hereafter;

Abdul Majid Daryabadi:
And who believe in that which hath been sent down unto thee and that which hath been sent down before thee and of the Hereafter they are convinced.

Ahmed Ali:
And those who believe with what was descended to you, and what was descended from before you, and with the end (other life) they are sure/certain .

Muhammad Sarwar:
Who have faith in what has been revealed to you and others before you and have strong faith in the life hereafter.

HOLY QURAN TRANSLATIONS PUBLISHED BY QADIANI JAMAAT
Verse 4 = Verse 5 of Qadiani Jamaat publication.
Maulawi Sher Ali:
5. And who believe in that which has been revealed to thee, and that which was revealed before thee, and they have firm faith in what is yet to come.
[Please note I am confident this was NOT the original translation by Maulawi Sher Ali sahib. If some Qadiani challenges me, then I will give my reason].
Maulawi Sher Ali’s 5 VOLUME COMMENTARY FALSELY credited to Qadiani Khalifa 2 Mirza Mahmud Ahmad:

5. And who believe in that which has been revealed to thee, and that which was revealed before thee, and they have firm faith in what is yet to come.
Sir Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan:
And who believe in that which has been revealed to thee, and in that which was revealed before thee, and have firm faith in that which has been foretold and is yet to come.

[Qadianis are so proud of Sir Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan, but their Khilafas have NOT permitted Zafarullah Khan’s translation to be officially recognized at organization level. This is the why it is NOT available on www.alislam.org and I found it on www.islamforwest.org If Qadianis wonder why? Here is the answer: Zafarullah Khan knew Qadiani Khalifas very well. He knew they will take credit of his work. So he instead of handing over his work to Qadiani Jamaat made his own trust to publish his work. Zafarullah Khan knew how Qadiani Khalifas published 5 Volume English COMMENTARY of Sher Ali sahib as QK2 work. It was result of efforts of Sher Ali sahib’s son in-law Abdul Manan Omar sahib(son of Allam Noor ud Din) who got at least the translation part published before he was forced out of Rabwah. Thus at least QK2 had to accept it. ( I doubt if qadianis on this forum know that English translation is same in Sher Ali and QK2). Same thing happened with Malik Ghulam Fareed’s short commentary. Same was the case of Urdu ‘Tafseer-e-Saghir’ which was work of Maulvi Ismail Halalpuri. Similarly, Urdu ‘Tafseer-e-Kabir’ was also work of SEVEN member committee in Rabwah. One of whose member was my father’s friend Syed Ali Muhammad Ijmari sahib]

Can prophets come after Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw)?

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

This topic has been started at the request of Mr Shabeeb Haneef. See this comment for his request.

I hope that contributors will make clear their views on what is a prophet in this context, what authority does he posseess, and what does the appearance of a prophet require us to do?

Our standpoint can be read at this link.

Issue 49

Sunday, March 25th, 2012

Issue 49 [@50:05]: Serge Trifkovic – The Crusades 1095 – 1270 AD. The crusades are not understood in Muslim world today very differently than they are understood by the western academia and in the discourse of the western elite class. Both talk of Crusades as aggressive war of conquest by Western Europe against the peaceful innocent Muslims. One may ask however what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place. Well happened that Muhammad and his successors waged a series of wars of conquest and one such onslaught in the fourth decade of the seventh century, the holy land, Palestine, Israel was conquered by Muslims and so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed, the Western Christians acted only as re-conquerors of land that has been once theirs, they also acted quite rightly one must say the protectors of their holy places [map – Route of the First Crusade 1096-1099 AD]. Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest. Because they are obligated to spread Islam. The land which had once been Muslim, particularly must be re-conquered and Jihad is the rightful name of that war of re-conquest. So they could never accept the Crusader states in Antioch and Jerusalem, because they were Dar-ul-Harb reinstated in Dar-ul-Islam. And this is the contemporary aspect of Palestinian-Israeli conflict of which many Westerners are not fully aware. Exactly the same psychology that prompted Saladin and others to fight the Crusaders is now motivating Hamas. In both cases it is not only the matter of nationalistic desire to expel the European and Jewish settlers, it is also the Quranic obligation of all good Muslims that the land once ruled by Muslims will be reverted to their rule.

Rebuttal 49: Any student of history will declare the above statements by Trifkovic as pack of formulations and distortions. It needs a breakdown as follows:


Issue 49a: Serge Trifkovic – The Crusades 1095 – 1270 AD. The crusades are not understood in Muslim world today very differently than they are understood by the western academia and in the discourse of the western elite class. Both talk of Crusades as aggressive war of conquest by Western Europe against the peaceful innocent Muslims…

Rebuttal 49a: Trifkovic is taking this documentary a notch further in its concoctions of – what history should have been, rather than what it is. In the issues before, others were inventing history, now this gentleman is bent upon redefining morality for the whole world. Go no farther than the highest Christian-European office that was the root cause of crusades to begin with, the Pope. This is what Pope Paul II had to say about the crusades:

Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders…The Pope did not identify guilty individuals or name the crusades, the Inquisition or the Holocaust, but the references were clear…Pope Urban II, anxious to assert Rome’s authority in the east, sent a military expedition in 1095 to reconquer the holy land. The crusaders ravaged the countries they passed through and massacred the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian population of Jerusalem after capturing it in 1099. After 200 years of conflict Muslim armies drove them out for good, but the crusaders’ symbol of the red cross remains provocative. [Pope says sorry for sins of church – Sweeping apology for attacks on Jews, women and minorities defies theologians’ warnings – Rory Carroll in Rome, The Guardian, Monday 13 March 2000 06.37 EST]

The Pope’s “Day of Pardon” mass was designed, in the Vatican’s words, to ask forgiveness for the past and present sins of the Church. Pope John Paul wants Catholics to reexamine their consciences in the new millennium. His homily did not single out specific periods or groups in history but a plea to forgive the use of violence in the service of truth was a subtle reference to the brutal excesses of the Crusades and the Inquisition…

RABBI MARVIN HIER, Simon Wiesenthal Center, comments: I think it was an extraordinary event, something that none of his predecessors have ever done before — in the heart of St. Peter’s Basilica to stand up and say that we take responsibility for the sins committed by Christians. It’s true that it refers mainly to events that occurred during the Crusades, for example, during the Inquisition, when people were forced against their will to adopt another religion…

REV. THOMAS REESE, editor of America magazine, a national Catholic weekly, comments: Well, there was a lot of reluctance within the Vatican to talk about past sins at all. But this pope has a real sense of history, a sense… I mean, he’s the one who apologized for how the Church treated Galileo. He’s done it about how the Church treated the Jews. He’s mentioned the Muslims…

[Panel Discussion: A Papal Apology, Online News Hour, PBS, March 13, 2000]

Clearly, the office which sanctioned and perpetrated Crusades to begin with is apologizing for the wrongs it committed, but in this case, Trifkovic obviously is more loyal than the king. History did not turn out the way he wanted and possibly hopes to rectify it by ‘back to the future’ in another crusade.


Issue 49b: Serge Trifkovic – …One may ask however what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place…

Rebuttal 49b: The answer to this is in the history that itself asks as to what were blond haired and blued eyed Franks doing in the Middle East in the first place by establishing Crusader States [see map]?

As to “what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place,” Muhammad Ali in his book Early Caliphate p. 67 writes:

A necessity of war

There is yet another consideration that can rightly be in justification of justification of subjugating Persia and Syria. When one nation makes an unprovoked attack on another, it at once becomes the latter’s duty not merely to repulse the attack, but also to carry the fight to the finish till one of the combatants should surrender. The Persians, as already shown, struck the first blow. They violated the independence of Arabia by encroaching upon its soil. They made common cause with the rebels and sent troops for the destruction of the power of Islam. Likewise, towards the north, the Romans stirred up Christian tribes against Islam. Consequently, when hostilities formally started and troops met on the battlefield, no canons of warfare bound the Arabs to restrict their operations only to their own territory and content themselves with merely expelling the enemy. Had they been guilty of this blunder, the enemy would certainly have reappeared soon after in greater force. It would have been sheer stupidity to have stopped at that. In all civilized warfare, when once the dye is cast, it is open to either party to continue the fight to a finish. Either one of the contending parties must surrender or it must thoroughly be crushed. Such are the rules of the game and if the Muslims played that game to an issue where lay the harm? In prosecuting war till Persia and Syria were completely broken down, Muslims had behind them all the sanction of civilized warfare, ancient as well as modern.

If one turns the pages of history, it is starkly clear that it were the European Christians which made the land and city of Prophets anything but “holy.” They raped, massacred, pillaged and burnt city upon city till the holiest of cities, Jerusalem was put to sword after Siege of Jerusalem (1099) in the First Crusade. Their victims:

Muslims – Many Muslims sought shelter in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the Temple Mount area generally. According to the Gesta Francorum, speaking only of the Temple Mount area, “…[our men] were killing and slaying even to the Temple of Solomon, where the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles…” According to Raymond of Aguilers, also writing solely of the Temple Mount area, ” in the Temple and porch of Solomon men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.” However, this imagery should not be taken literally; it was taken directly from biblical passage Apocalypse 14:20. Writing about the Temple Mount area alone Fulcher of Chartres, who was not an eyewitness to the Jerusalem siege because he had stayed with Baldwin in Edessa at the time, says: “In this temple 10,000 were killed. Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared”. [Massacre, Wikipedia]

Jews – The chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi states the Jewish defenders sought refuge in their synagogue, but the “Franks burned it over their heads”, killing everyone inside. One account alleges that the Crusaders circled the flaming building while singing “Christ, We Adore Thee!, Thee are our light, our direction, our love”. [Massacre, Wikipedia]

Compare the above Christian desecration of the Jerusalem, its institutions, its people, its soul and its spirit, with the preservation of the same after Muslim siege of Jerusalem in 637 and 1187:

Umar – In early April 637, Umar arrived in Palestine and went first to Jabiya, where he was received by Abu Ubaidah, Khalid and Yazid, who had traveled with an escort to receive him. Amr was left as commander of the besieging Muslim army.

Upon Umar’s arrival in Jerusalem, a pact known as The Umariyya Covenant was drawn up. It surrendered the city and gave guarantees of civil and religious liberty to Christians in exchange for jizya. It was signed by caliph Umar on behalf of the Muslims, and witnessed by Khalid, Amr, Abdur Rahman bin Awf and Muawiyah. In late April 637, Jerusalem was officially surrendered to the caliph. For the first time, after almost 500 years of oppressive Roman rule, Jews were once again allowed to live and worship inside Jerusalem.

It has been recorded in the annals of Muslim chronicles, that at the time of the Zuhr prayers, Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar declined, fearing that accepting the invitation might endanger the church’s status as a Christian temple, and that Muslims might break the treaty and turn the temple into a mosque. After staying for ten days in Jerusalem, the caliph returned to Medina. [Surrender, Wikipedia]

Saladin – (On October 2, 1187) Balian handed over the keys to the Tower of David, the citadel, on October 2. It was announced that every inhabitant had about a month to pay their ransom, if they could (the length of time was perhaps 30 to 50 days, depending on the source). Saladin was generous and freed some of those who were forced into slavery; his brother Saphadin did the same, and both Balian and Heraclius freed many others with their own money. They offered themselves as hostages for the remaining citizens (at least several thousand) whose ransoms had not been paid, but Saladin refused.

Saladin allowed for an orderly march away from Jerusalem. The ransomed inhabitants marched away in three columns; the Templars and Hospitallers led the first two, with Balian and the Patriarch leading the third. Balian was permitted to join his wife and family in Tripoli. Heraclius was allowed to evacuate a number of church treasures and reliquaries, which scandalised the Muslim chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani – although he had already contributed to the ransoms.

Saladin permitted Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and allowed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to remain in Christian hands. [Surrender, Wikipedia]


Issue 49c: Serge Trifkovic – …Well happened that Muhammad and his successors waged a series of wars of conquest and one such onslaught in the fourth decade of the seventh century, the holy land, Palestine, Israel was conquered by Muslims and so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed, the Western Christians acted only as re-conquerors of land that has been once theirs, they also acted quite rightly one must say the protectors of their holy places [map – Route of the First Crusade 1096-1099 AD]…

Rebuttal 49c: Serge Trifkovic’s view of the world is to blame the victim. He never accepted the self-defense of Muhammad and or the one’s who came after him. In his logic of morality, even if a Muslim fights in a defensive war, there should be NO overcoming of the aggressor. He blames Seljuk Turks for interfering with Christian pilgrims as the basis of crusades. He takes the same line by which the U.S. congress was duped for first Iraq war when a Kuwaiti woman, unknown to the world that she was the daughter of Kuwaiti ambassador, falsely and tearfully testified for witnessing Iraqi soldiers taking the babies out the incubators in the hospitals and let the children die [see video]. This resulted in setting the tone for U.S. invasion of Iraq. Whereas, fact of the matter is that crusades were started as a diversion by the Roman Church that emanated from Investiture Controversy coupled with defeat of Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert after which most of the central and eastern Turkey was lost to Seljuk Turks:

I) A sure sign of Byzantine desperation was the appeal of Alexios I to his enemy, the Pope [Gegory VII], for aid. But Gregory was occupied with the Investiture Controversy and could not call on the German emperor, so a crusade never took shape. For Gregory’s more moderate successor, Pope Urban II, a crusade would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and perhaps bring the East under his control. The disaffected Germans and the Normans were not to be counted on, but the heart and backbone of a crusade could be found in Urban’s own homeland among the northern French. [Wikipedia]

II) The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine emperor Alexios I’s appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire was defeated, which led to the loss of all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) save the coastlands. Although attempts at reconciliation after the East–West Schism between the Catholic Church in western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Church had failed, Alexius I hoped for a positive response from Urban II.

Pope Urban II defined and launched the crusades at the Council of Clermont in 1095. He was a reformer worried about the evils which had hindered the spiritual success of the church and its clergy and the need for a revival of religiosity. He was moved by the urgent appeal for help from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. Urban’s solution was announced on the last day of the council when the pope suddenly proclaimed the Crusade against the infidel Muslims. He called for Christian princes across Europe to launch a holy war in the Holy Land. He contrasted the sanctity of Jerusalem and the holy places with the plunder and desecration by the infidel Turks. He caused outrage by vividly describing attacks upon the Christian pilgrims. He also noted the military threat to the fellow Christians of Byzantium. He charged Christians to take up the holy cause, promising to all those who went remission of sins and to all who died in the expedition immediate entry into heaven.

Then Urban raised secular motives, talking of the feudal love of tournaments and warfare. He urged the barons to give up their fratricidal and unrighteous wars in the West for the holy war in the East. He also suggested material rewards, regarding feudal fiefdoms, land ownership, wealth, power, and prestige, all at the expense of the Arabs and Turks. He said they could be defeated very easily by the Christian forces. When he finished, his listeners shouted “Deus volt” (God wills it). This became the battle cry of the crusaders. Urban put the bishop of Le Puy in charge of encouraging prelates and priests to join the cause. Word spread rapidly that war against unbelief would be fused with the practice of pilgrimage to holy sites, and the pilgrims’ reward would be great on earth, as in heaven. Immediately thousands pledged themselves to go on the first crusade. Pope Urban’s speech ranks as one of the most influential speeches ever made: it launched the holy wars which occupied the minds and forces of western Europe for two hundred years.[Wikipedia]

Long after the Battle of Manzikert (August 26, 1071), Byzantines still were in possession of Constantinople and wide coastal areas of Turkey when in year 1095, at the Council of Clermont Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade [see time line]. Implying that all the pilgrim routes, both land and sea, from Europe to Jerusalem were under Byzantine control till at least the third crusade in 1192 [see map on right side of the page with its comment, and the map showing boundaries of Seljuks]. With this simple fact of history and geography it defies logic as to how can Trifkovic make the claim that – “so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed.” Seljuks could not have had interfered with Christian pilgrims route, that Trifkovic wished and believes in that they did so. Even if it is assumed, no matter how false, that Seljuks interfered with Christian pilgrims, it was not possible for them to do so till the Third Crusade (1187–1192).

How can then Trifkovic account for the first and second crusades? If the crusades were to restore safety to European Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, then after the victory of Saladin at Hattin (July 4, 1187), why the (Christian) Byzantines who had common border with (Muslim) Seljuks, fearful of the crusaders themselves, made an alliance with Saladin? Why Richard returned from the gates of Jerusalem without attacking it in the Third Crusade that he was leading? Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin. The treaty allowed trade for merchants and unarmed Christian pilgrims to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Jerusalem), while it remained under Muslim control – this is merely reiteration of the fact that Christians were always safe in Jerusalem under Muslim control from before. Richard left Middle East with only Acre and Jaffa in Christian hands and none of the territory under Seljuks was secured, the same Seljuks that Trifkovic alleges were interfering with Christian pilgrims. How absurd.

At least historically and geographically, the causes for crusades are none but Christians themselves, their personal failures at home and on the battlefields and their power struggles in the papacy. Crusades were only a diversion from these intrigues of European Christendom.

With the above facts, the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter, the Pope Urban II and Trifkovic are eerily similar, they all start a war by feeding a false moral pretense. Even more familiar in recent times is this tactic of insinuation where information is not used to understand a scenario but the information fragments are manipulated to develop a plot, as a case in point, see this video of how facts were manipulated for the second Iraq war. Next time, Trifkovic try some other tactic.


Issue 49d: Serge Trikovic – …Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest…

Rebuttal 49d: At least Trifkovic admits that Muslims faced defensive wars. Lets repeat Trifkovic’s logic. He states, “Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest.” Mr. Trikfovic, what do you expect in a defensive war? If Muslims in a defensive bastion are attacked, should they keep themselves locked in their defensive trenches for ever? Okay, may be they repulsed one attack, then what? Should they hope against hopes that next attack will not materialize and that it will not be massive than the previous one? If attacks keep coming, then according to Trifkovic’s moral sense, Muslims should never attack back but keep a defensive posture till the end when they finally capitulate.

But, the human intelligence works the other way. Quite logically, once the aggression is repulsed, there is counter attack till the enemy is overcome. The winners against aggressors obviously are given the title of ‘conqueror’ that Trifkovic uses disparagingly for Muslims. When the enemy is defeated, then it is quite natural that the subdued peoples will be influenced by the behavior of the conquerors. This difference in behavior is starkly visible in the conquest of Crusaders and that of Saladin, though both are called ‘conquerors’. The former’s conquests are known in history for rape, pillage and mayhem whereas, the Saladin’s victory of Jerusalem is known for preservation of safety and dignity of the occupants. A question for Trifkovic – what do you expect the reaction of the locals to the conquerors, if given a choice, will they accept Christianity or Islam, Crusaders as a rulers or Saladin?


Issue 49e: Serge Trifkovic – …Because they [-Muslims] are obligated to spread Islam…

Rebuttal 49e: Yes, Muslims are obligated to spread Islam but not like Crusades and Inquisition, with sword in one hand and Bible in other. Yet, Islam is different from Christianity, and Bush’s Doctrine.

Before we comment any further, lets pause to read the view of the leader of the “free world” about his democratization of the world – “The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom.” Essentially, the most powerful man in the world who apparently was democratically elected by the most advanced material society ever in the history of mankind, put his foot where his mouth was. He attacked Iraq to make it democratic, in the cause of advancement of freedom – “Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.” It took countless lives and injuries on both sides with trillions in debt, and still Iraq is no more better than where it was under a tyrant before. Some would argue that it is even worse. The twice elected leader of a democracy tried not only to preach but shove democracy down the throat of others and made a laughing stock of himself and the nation he represented. Finally, he exited Iraq sheepishly after eating a humble pie. What this living example tells us that one cannot impose one’s view on others by force. Where did Bush’s Doctrine fail and how could it had been successful? The answer is in the principles of Jihad of Quran and not of the jaded interpretation of Jihad by this documentary, the producers of which on the one hand denounce “terrorism,” but fully support the pre-emptive wars as long they are on others, be they Iraqis or Palestinians. It is a well known adage – it takes a thief to catch a thief. Now, this wisdom has been upgraded by the events of recent past decade – it takes a terrorist to catch a terrorist.

The fundamental principle of Jihad is to argue and make a case with a moral force without any double standards of violence directed towards others. If arms have to be picked up, then they have to be in self defense only:

25:52. So do not obey the disbelievers, and strive against them a mighty striving with it [i.e. with Quran].

[Footnote – Muhammad Ali, ed. Zahid Aziz] This verse affords a clear proof of the significance of the word jihad, as used in the Quran. Every exertion to spread the Truth is, according to this verse, a jihad; in fact, it is called the jihad kabir (“mighty striving”) or the great jihad. Fighting in defence of religion received the name of jihad, because under the circumstances it became necessary for the Truth to live and prosper; if fighting had not been permitted, Truth would surely have been uprooted. The commentators all accept this significance of the word here. It should be noted that the greatest jihad which a Muslim can carry on is one by means of the Quran, to which the personal pronoun it at the end of the verse unquestionably refers, because such jihad must be carried on by every Muslim under all circumstances. [Muhammad Ali, ed. Zahid Aziz]


Issue 49f: Serge Trifkovic – …The land which had once been Muslim, particularly must be re-conquered and Jihad is the rightful name of that war of re-conquest. So they could never accept the Crusader states in Antioch and Jerusalem, because they were Dar-ul-Harb reinstated in Dar-ul-Islam…

Rebuttal 49f: Trifkovic, by his own word, just now eliminated the Zionist claim of right of Jews to return to Palestine, when he denies that right to the Muslim natives in history to expel the foreign Crusaders from their Crusader States along the eastern Mediterranean. Thank you. He thought that he will win in history, but he unknowingly lost in the present as well.

By denying this right to natives of Palestine in past and present, Trifkovic only exposes himself as a xenophobe that he is already known to be. He obviously tramples the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). He rubbishes its article 13 which states that “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” He also rejects article 15 i.e. “(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

He denies others the right to reclaim their native homeland, yet were not his own activities of ‘re-conquest’ of Bosnia by genocidal Serbs the same? Obviously, Trifkovic himself was determined to be a proscribed senior official to the Serbs by Canadian government and was the basis for his deportation from Vancouver airport on his arrival on 24 February 2011. Mr. Trifkovic suffers from the ailment of “double standards” one set of morality for himself and his cronies and another set of values for the victims of his scorn.

Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam were addressed in Issue 44 before.


Issue 49g: Trifkovic – …And this is the contemporary aspect of Palestinian-Israeli conflict of which many Westerners are not fully aware. Exactly the same psychology that prompted Saladin and others to fight the Crusaders is now motivating Hamas. In both cases it is not only the matter of nationalistic desire to expel the European and Jewish settlers…

Rebuttal 49g: This documentary has proven itself to be blind to history. It goes even further, it proves that it is blind even to the present. It cannot see Palestinian Refugee Camps for the past 60+ years in Jordan 10, Lebanon 12, Syria 13, West Bank 19, Gaza 10 etc.

Neither can this documentary see the millions of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan 1,983,733; Lebanon 425,640; Syria 472,109; West Bank 778,993; Gaza Strip 1,106,195 etc.

Quran has contempt for such moral blindness:

22:46. Why do they not travel in the land [– in this case the Refugee camps] so that they should have hearts that help them to understand and ears which can help them hear? As a matter of fact (when going astray) it is not the (physical) eyes that are blind but blind are the hearts which lie in the bosoms. [Nooruddin]

“European and Jewish settlers” are his own words. He admits by his own mouth that there are settlers and occupiers in Palestine. It is a morally depraved argument that the displaced have no rights but a settler has full rights of citizenship and a passport in Palestine. Wow!


Issue 49h: Trifkovic …it is also the Quranic obligation of all good Muslims that the land once ruled by Muslims will be reverted to their rule.

Rebuttal 49h: The learned expert, Trifkovic is as usual bellicose on rhetoric and short on facts. We will leave it to him to support his argument from Quran, for which there is none. But, whether Quran or no-Quran, the answer to Trifkovic is – Why Not! when the Muslims (and Christians) are the natives to that land to begin with, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq or Palestine.

References:

The Early Caliphate – Muhammad Ali.
Investiture Controversy – Wikipedia
Battle of Manzikert – Wikipedia
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum – Wikipedia
Crusades – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (637) – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (1099) – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (1187) – Wikipedia
Bush Doctrine – Wikipedia
Palestinian Refugee Camps – Wikipedia
Palestinian Refugee – Wikipedia
Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Wikipedia
The Holy Quran – Nooruddin
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz

Are Qadiani Jamaat Friends in violation of teachings of their “Musleh-Mauood”?

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

Submitted by Rashid Jahangiri.


Qadiani Jamaat people believe their Qadiani Khalifa 2 Mirza Mahmud Ahmad was the “Musleh-Mauood”.

For Qadianis practice in teachings of their QK 2 is matter of their belief. This is the reason they cite when they decide not to offer Namaz-e-Janazah (funeral prayer) of Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat members. Please remember LAM members do not consider any reciter of Kalima-Shahada as Kafir (non-Muslim) regardless of how aberrant their beliefs and practices of Islam are. This is the reason LAM members do not consider Qadianis as Kafir. My point is that in practice of their beliefs Qadianis don’t give a hoot to blood relations, close family ties and the hurt that they cause by showing disrespect to the deceased and his survivors.

QK 2 in his famous book ‘Anwar-e-Khilafat’ from page 124 to 127 has written following statements:

“I say there shall be thousands of prophets”

“I say even now there can be a prophet”

“Even if someone placed a sword on my neck and ask me to say there cannot be any nabi after Rasul Allah, I will say you’re a liar, and nabi can come after and they will come.”

Now given the teachings of QK 2 that “thousands of prophets” can come after Holy Prophet Muhammad Rasool Allah (SAWS), it is incumbent upon Qadianis that should accept at least the following new prophet in Germany, especially when he endorses Qadianis belief that HMGA was “prophet” and invites Qadiani-Ahmadis to pledge to him:

The New Claimant of Prophethood Zahid Ali Khan:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp9xl5_a-new-claimant-of-prophethood-zahid-khan-denouncing-ahmadiyya-cult_lifestyle

Kanal von khanverlag

http://www.youtube.com/user/khanverlag

Khan’s Rede und die Gegenveranstaltung der Muslime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPufZz1nHzA&feature=related

Here I ask question to Qadiani Jamaat friends:

Don’t you think you people are in violation of QK 2 teachings by delaying in accepting Zahid Ali Khan as NEW prophet??

Thanks in advance for answering.

Issue 48

Monday, March 19th, 2012

Issue 48 [@48:00]: Beit Ye’or – There have been in fact two big waves of Jihad, the Ahab wave which started in the seventh century and in the course of one century [on the map – Alexandria conquered 641 AD] only Islam had Islamized huge [on the map – Sicily conquered 666 AD] territory [on the map – Carthage conquered 698 AD], mainly Christian territory [on the map – Southern Spain conquered 711 AD], from Portugal till Armenia [on the map – Narbonne Conquered 720 AD, Battle of Poitiers – Muslim Advance Halted 732 AD], but also Islamized Persia [on the map – Jerusalem conquered 637 AD, Damascus conquered 635 AD] which was not Christian, was mainly Zoroastrian [on the map – Battle of Basra 684 AD] except for Iraq which was mainly Christian [on the map – Ctesiphon conquered 636 AD] in the north and the Jewish and Christian in the south [on the map – Kabul conquered 670 AD].

The second wave of Islamization started in the eleventh century with the Turkish tribes [map – Battle of Manzikert 1071 AD, Armenia conquered 1064 AD] as those region so of Eastern Europe [map – Nicaea conquered 1331 AD] Greece, Anatolia [map – Constantinople conquered 1453 AD] which is now Turkey [map – Bulgaria conquered 1393 AD] was the seat of Christian Byzantine empire [map – Greece conquered 1460 AD], and Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania [map – Battle of Kosovo 1389 AD] were integrated into Dar-il-Islam [map – Belgrade conquered 1521 AD], which is the land of Islam [map – Siege of Vienna, Muslim Advance Halted 1638 AD]. So all the countries around the Mediterranean [map – Christian civilization shown in red in Europe and Mediterranean; Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Central Asia and Persia in Purple], which once had been Christian became the Islamic Empire [map – Muslim empire shown in Green stretching from Spain/Portugal, Northern Africa, Eastern Africa along Red Sea including Somalia, Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Balkans, Southern Russia, Central Asia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of India]. This Turkish wave lasted from the eleventh century till the seventeenth century where the Turkish army was stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

Rebuttal 48: The documentary cleverly gives a “fly through” of a map and enumerates the modern day countries under the then Islamic rule and maliciously guises all the Muslim expansion under the word Jihad, if nothing else, to create fear and hate in their audience of “Muslims are coming.” Jihad is not aggressive war (see – Muhammad Ali (Issue 27), Pickthall (Issue 27) , Zahid Aziz (Issue 33), Nooruddin (Issue 36) and G.W. Leitner (Issue 37)). The documentary includes every scrap of land to add to the Muslim conquest, but one country it singularly does not mention and that is Indonesia. It is the country with largest Muslim population and it never saw a Muslim invader on its shores. Then how did Islam spread to it? Islam spread to Indonesia and beyond by the Jihad of Arab merchants and personal example of the Arab sea traders. Islamization of Indonesia proves what Jihad means, which is none but striving in the cause of truth and righteousness in daily secular and spiritual endeavors, both within the personal and community life. The movie tries to detract the present for the past where the producers think they can have a free hand. Facts of history if taken literally are exactly the opposite. The number of countries in the current issue diminish when compared to the later Christian colonization. Listed below are the countries and regions (– consisting of many present day countries) under European Christian subjugation:

British colonies: Aden, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Ascension Island, Australia, Bahamas, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British East Africa, British Guiana, British Honduras, British Somaliland, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Egypt, Ellice Island, Falkland Islands, Fiji Island, Gambia, Gold Coast, India, Ireland, Malaya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Oman, Papua, Sarawak, Sierra Leone, South Rhodesia, St. Helena, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Union of South Africa

Dutch colonies: Dutch East Indies, Dutch Guiana

French colonies: Algeria, French Guiana, French Equatorial Africa, French Indochina, French Somaliland, French West Africa, Guadeloupe, La Réunion, Madagascar, Martinique, Morocco, New Caledonia, Tunisia

German Empire colonies: Cameroon, Caroline Islands, Eritrea, German New Guinea, German East Africa, German South West Africa, Gilbert Islands, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Togo

Portuguese colonies: Angola, Goa, Mozambique, Port Guinea

Before one counts the above colonies, it is important to take into consideration that some of the names have many countries embedded in them e.g. Dutch West Indies = Aruba, Bonaire, Klein Bonaire, Curaçao, Klein Curaçao, Bovenwindse Eilanden Virgin Islands, Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius. India = India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.

Trivia – Which is the ONLY country in Africa that was not colonized by Europe? Answer: Liberia. It is shameful for Christian Europe either way – either they failed to colonize all of Africa or their colonization was so complete that only one country escaped its misery. Exception of Liberia prevented an entry in Guiness Book of World Records. It was the one that got away.

Only eleven countries besides Liberia in the world escaped European colonization – Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, North and South Korea. This list also includes Japan, but it was a colonizer itself of countries that includes the Koreas and Thailand.

Lets not forget the fundamental fact of history, that is, the Islamic “Empire” naturally expanded into adjoining areas to their borders which were a source of ongoing skirmishes. Like Europeans, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia was theirs to take, but Muslims did not for the mere fact that they were not occupiers. Compare that with the European Christian Empires which expanded to far flung areas of the globe that were no threat to their homelands, nor shared a common border. The sole driver for Christian expansion was the “In the name of the Father” coupled with their moral deprivations based upon a guaranteed salvation in the “blood of the Christ.” Yes, it was ultimately the same blood that they extracted from humanity in every corner of the world at the altar of their deity, the Father. With a God like that, who needs the Devil. Every conceivable exploitation and plunder of land and human resources was a fair game. 12 million slaves left the African continent between the 15th and 19th century and 10 to 20% died on board the ships i.e. 1.2 – 2.4 millions tossed overboard into the Atlantic en-route to Christian homelands or their colonies [Wikipedia: Atlantic Slave Trade – Human Toll]. African continent is still reverberating to this day from the shock of slavery and colonization.

This fundamental moral deprivation of Christian West persists to this day – “At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation might have been one of the reasons for the opposition. As of 2009, efforts are underway to create a UN Slavery Memorial as a permanent remembrance of the victims of the Atlantic slave trade.”[Wikipedia: Atlantic Slave Trade – Apologies]

In contrast to the slavery, even today the whole of Christian Europe and America carries the guilt of Holocaust in Second World War. They carried this guilt even while in United States the Blacks could not use the same urinals as Whites and they were made to sit at the back of the bus into 1960s. What to talk of schools, even drinking water fountains and restaurants which were “White Only.” Germany and Switzerland have been made to make amends as outlined in Encyclopedia Britannica:

The defeat of Nazi Germany left a bitter legacy for the German leadership and people. Germans had committed crimes in the name of the German people. German culture and the German leadership—political, intellectual, social, and religious—had participated or been complicit in the Nazi crimes or been ineffective in opposing them. In an effort to rehabilitate the good name of the German people, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) firmly established a democracy that protected the human rights of all its citizens and made financial reparations to the Jewish people in an agreement passed by parliament in 1953. West German democratic leaders made special efforts to achieve friendly relations with Israel. In the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the communist leaders attempted to absolve their population of responsibility for the crimes, portraying themselves as the victims of the Nazis, and Nazism as a manifestation of capitalism. The first gesture of the postcommunist parliament of East Germany, however, was an apology to the Jewish people. At one of its first meetings in the newly renovated Reichstag building in 1999, the German parliament voted to erect a Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The first state visitor to Berlin after its reestablishment as capital of a united Germany was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the history of the Holocaust continued to be unsettling. The Swiss government and its bankers had to confront their role as bankers to the Nazis and in recycling gold and valuables taken from the victims. Under the leadership of German prime minister Gerhard Schröder, German corporations and the German government established a fund to compensate Jews and non-Jews who worked in German slave labour and forced labour programs during the war. Insurance companies were negotiating over claims from descendants of policyholders killed during the war—claims that the companies denied immediately after the war by imposing prohibitive conditions, such as the presentation of a death certificate specifying the time and place of death of the insured. In several eastern European countries, negotiations addressed Jewish property that the Nazis had confiscated during the war but that could not be returned under the region’s communist governments. Artworks stolen during the war and later sold on the basis of dubious records were the subject of legal struggles to secure their return to the original owners or to their heirs. The German government continued to pay reparations—first awarded in 1953—to individual Jews and the Jewish people to acknowledge responsibility for the crimes committed in the name of the German people.

If postwar Germany can apologize and rectify for its history of Holocaust, even thought modern Germany has no role in what Hitler did, then why cannot the White Christians apologize to the non-Whites for the atrocities inflicted on the latter? Is it the matter of skin color? Is this Christianity? Answer is yes to both these questions. If the European Jews can be compensated, then why not the descendent of African Black Slaves, who probably now are their own Christian brethren. Lip service of “40 Acres and a Mule” or the sermon from the pulpit does not suffice:

Pope John Paul II today apologized to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. The Pope’s remarks came in an address to Cameroon intellectuals on their tasks in society and on the importance of integrating the Christian message with African culture. John Paul said the task of Christians involved ”healing and compassion” because ”the man who is in need, on the side of the road, is their brother, their neighbor.” He continued, ”In the course of history, men belonging to Christian nations did not always do this, and we ask pardon from our African brothers who suffered so much because of the trade in blacks.” [New York Times, August 14, 1985, Wednesday]

In the same breath and on the same moral plane, is it not the same White Christianity that aids and abets apartheid in Palestine? Why? Can the makers of this documentary answer this blatant moral dichotomy of both Christianity and Judaism? If this is not the very definition of bigotry as proven by this documentary, then what would be?

Below is a brief list showing the scale of Global Plunder by the Christian Empires of modern ‘enlightened’ times from which the documentary makers draw their moral roots as well. Each line in the list has the link to the map of the empire, era, % of world land mass, % of world population under their occupation. Note the areas under control of these empires are non-overlapping in time and region (with minor exceptions), implying their concurrent and global occupations and plunder:

Empire

Year

% world
land mass

%world
population

British Empire

year 1922,

22.63%,

20.00%

Spanish Empire

year 1790,

20.00%,

12.30%

French Empire

year 1938,

08.73%,

05.10%

Portuguese Empire

year 1815,

06.98%,

——%

German Empire

year 1914,

02.35%,

03.70%

Russian Empire

year 1895,

22.80%,

09.80%

Dutch Empire

year 1940,

02.48%,

03.50%

Danish Empire

year 1800,

02.01%,

——%

Belgian Empire

year 1914,

01.68%,

——%

Italian Empire

year 1940,

02.55%,

02.30%

Europe took the world and its people as heavenly manna that they could gobble any way they chose without any qualms of morality that this documentary instead wants to malign Islam with. White Christianity singularly stands for the practical example of ‘might is right’. For example, in October 1935, Italy with tacit approval of Great Britain and France invaded Ethiopia with mustard gas and occupied and expanded it into Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia). It is the same Italy on whose soil is the Holy See where the Pope dwells, whose sermons are more ceremonious than sincere. It is the same institution that factually ‘Wholly could not See’ the emergence of Colonization, Slavery, Nazism, Fascism and Communism right under its own nose and nor the Holocaust in its backyard. How could it ‘See’ when it has its own skeletons of Inquisition and Crusades in its closet. It can ‘See’ with 20/20 vision any hat passed around globally for donations but what it cannot ‘See’ is the immorality that it itself swims in the human history. A classical case of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ while selling salvation.

Not to be left behind in the above free for all, i.e. a plunder free from morality and consciousness:

Japanese Empire year 1942, 04.97%, 05.90%

United States came to the Empire game a little late, but it is catching up fast and has the whole world under its military grip by its five regional commands enforcing neocolonialism. Ask the people of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine (via its proxy) etc. Each one of them has a story to tell from their living memories and not from the pages of history. While mentioning Afghanistan and Iraq, include NATO and Australia as well to the list of neo-colonists. As to who is the next victim of this power intoxicated Christianity, minus its hollow teachings of “love,” only time will tell. Every square mile of the earth has been scorched or exploited in one form or the another at the hands of hegemonic Christianity. A point came in recent history that they did not even spare each other and the world suffered World Wars I & II. What stops WW-III at their hands? Neither the Bible, neither their Popes who were silent through all this. The four letter word “love” is now only found in the empty homilies from the pulpit with empty pews, or its cousin “lust” in the minds of marriage-less soap operas of the Main Street or its relative, the omnipresent “greed” in the Wall Street. Christianity hood winked the world for too long by selling “love” to enlist parishioners, who in turn did not take long to change into “Perishers” of the humanity, once they realized that guaranteed salvation is only a verbal belief in a five letter word, the myth of “Three.” Thus, Christianity not only erased from the human mind the fundamentals of morality and in doing so it also unfettered it for global exploitation. It even got its math wrong of 3=1 and 1=3. No wonder Galileo had to recant his mathematical challenge to heliocentric Vatican, the Holy UnSee. The cross carrying Christian Jihadists of a White God in recent Christian history are brought to light by the following summation:

Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularization, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them.” British historian Brian Stanley regrets that this symbiotic relationship between “the Bible and the flag” in Western expansion has now become “one of the unquestionable orthodoxies of general historical knowledge.” Although emotionally appealing to many, the imperial approach was not completely intellectually satisfying. As James Axtell noted, the post-1960s interpretation was “little more than the familiar Eurocentric plot turned on its normative head”: missionary heroes became the villains, indigenous victims became the new heroes, and Christianity and indigenous religions were still viewed as mutually incompatible. Native preachers were rarely taken seriously by either group of scholars because they were not orthodox enough for one and not “authentic” enough for the other. Both the missionary-as-saint and missionary-as-imperialist framework therefore left little interpretive space for the hundreds of native preachers who actively participated in British evangelical efforts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [Excerpt: Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766–1816, by Edward E. Andrews, Journal of Church and State Volume 51, Issue 4, Pp. 663-691, January 1, 2009. Author is probably a doctoral candidate listed on this link]

Compare the above figures with Muslim ‘Empires’ which overlapped in regions under their control and at different times. Essentially the same area under the last Muslim rule of Ottomans shrunk from that of the first i.e. Ummayads:

Umayyad Caliphate

year 750,

08.73%,

29.50%
Ottoman Caliphate

year 1683,

03.49%,

07.10%

There is a fundamental difference between Muslim Empires and the Christian Empires. The former was only a rule and their descendents are still living today among the ruled, whereas the latter was colonialism that sucked the resources of the occupied back to Europe. If by any chance, the European Christian rulers decided to live among the ruled for an extended stay, they made sure to carve out apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa. But, ultimately it is from the ashes of Prophet Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) at the hands of Christianity that phoenix rises and gives birth to Mandelas and Tutus of our times. Moral clock is ticking in Palestine as well, though taking a little longer, but for how long?

References:

Colonialism – Wikipedia

Atlantic Slave Trade – Wikipedia

List of Largest Empires – Wikipedia

Christians under attack – Al Jazeera report

Monday, March 19th, 2012

Submitted by Ikram.


Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran (Vatican) – President, Council For Inter-religious Dialogue

The above link was posted by Rashid in a different thread.

The Cardinal sidestepped certain questions pertaining to Vatican view about whether Islam in an intolerant religion, potential attack on Iran by United States, message to Israeli authorities and how they deal with Christian communities, the concerns of Muslim about invasions into their countries etc.

The interview brought out certain pertinent points, though not in the interview but nevertheless relevant to the topic and are addressed below:

Failure of West to recognize that even though they might have separated Church and State from their own perspective, but the world has not. Any attack on Muslim country is perceived as an attack on Islam by Christianity. Then as a reaction, the Christians become target of reprisal attacks in communities which is obvious from Al Jazeera report:

According to the Vatican, more than half of Iraq’s Christians have left the country since the US-led invasion in 2003. On New Year’s, a bomb went off in a church in Egypt, killing at least 20 people. And in Nigeria a bomb destroyed a church on Christmas 2011, leaving 35 people dead.

Next time, when any Muslim country is attacked by a Western power, they must take the above facts into equation as for the Muslims the current wars might be a continuation of the crusades. If nothing else, the Vatican must disassociate itself from any Western Power that initiates war or imposes sanctions on others, excommunicate it when it breaks the Christian message of “love, peace and forgiveness” and Vatican itself must make unequivocal declaration that crusades have ended, rather than the sporadic vague apologies:

Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders…The Pope did not identify guilty individuals or name the crusades, the Inquisition or the Holocaust, but the references were clear…Pope Urban II, anxious to assert Rome’s authority in the east, sent a military expedition in 1095 to reconquer the holy land. The crusaders ravaged the countries they passed through and massacred the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian population of Jerusalem after capturing it in 1099. After 200 years of conflict Muslim armies drove them out for good, but the crusaders’ symbol of the red cross remains provocative. [Pope says sorry for sins of church – Sweeping apology for attacks on Jews, women and minorities defies theologians’ warnings – Rory Carroll in Rome, The Guardian, Monday 13 March 2000 06.37 EST]

Vatican has to end its dichotomy and wishy-washy stance on Palestine. Read, the following text of Al Jazeera with regards to Vatican view about state of Christians in Middle East:

“For me the great temptation for the Christians in the Middle East is to emigrate. I think if Christians would leave the Middle East, it would be a tragedy, because first of all they are leaving the earth where they were born because Christians have always been in the Middle East. And all the holy places would become museums and that would be a catastrophe… You cannot deny that they are the target of a kind of opposition. I have been in the Middle East for many years and what I felt was that Christians feel they are second-class citizens in countries where Muslims are the majority.”

Now for a brief moment, replace the word Christian with Palestinian (i.e. both Muslims and Christians) and replace Muslim with Jews, then on the same moral principles, Vatican must address the Israeli government:

“For me the great temptation for the Palestinians in the Middle East is to emigrate. I think if Palestinians would leave the Middle East, it would be a tragedy, because first of all they are leaving the earth where they were born because Palestinians have always been in the Middle East. And all the holy places would become museums and that would be a catastrophe… You cannot deny that they are the target of a kind of opposition. I have been in the Middle East for many years and what I felt was that Palestinians feel they are second-class citizens in countries where Jews are the majority.”

Vatican is making efforts for inter-faith harmony. Pope John Paul II did reach out to other religions including Muslims when he stated:

3. The Holy Spirit is not only present in other religions through authentic expressions of prayer. “The Spirit’s presence and activity”, as I wrote in the Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, “affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions” (n. 28).

Normally, “it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their own conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their Saviour (cf. Ad gentes, nn. 3, 9, 11)” (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue – Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Instruction Dialogue and Proclamation, 19 May 1991, n. 29; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 1 July 1991, p. III).

Similarly, the current Pope Benedict XVI stated:

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Whoever seeks peace and the good of the community with a pure conscience, and keeps alive the desire for the transcendent, will be saved even if he lacks biblical faith, says Benedict XVI.

These statement by Vatican are not too far from Quran:

2:62. Surely, those who (profess to) believe (in Islam), and those who follow the Jewish faith, the Christians and the Sabians, whosoever (of these truly) believes in Allâh and the Last Day and acts righteously shall have their reward with their Lord, and shall have nothing to fear, nor shall they grieve.

Al Jazeera quoted Pope Benedict, based upon Vatican transcripts that Pope either supports or re-quotes other experts for the verse “2:256 – There is no compulsion in religion” and that this verse (erroneously) belongs to Makkan period when Muhammad was powerless. Essentially, Vatican supports the abrogation dogma.

This is fundamentally where Vatican must be taking the opposite stand. The moment it does so, the Muslims themselves come into spot light. Imagine a debate where Robert Spencer is emphasizing that the verse 2:256 was never abrogated and that he cannot understand as to why an ignorant Mullah is targeting minorities in his country. What a spectacle would it be! A deer caught in the headlights. With this simple change of perspective, there will be beginnings of peace in Muslim lands, as it will pull the rug from beneath the Mullahs. Amen!

Since the dogma of abrogation is a favorite topic with Islam haters and Islam distorterers (from within Islam), it is part of discussion in Project Rebuttal – Issues 5, 9c and 21. The verse 2:256 has been addressed from different angles in Issues 4, 23, 25, 37a, 40a, 40b and 44b.

Q.E.D. How disastrous it becomes when man tampers with Word of Quran, in this instance the concept of abrogation of Quranic verses of peace and tolerance, thus creating a man made religion. Out of such tampering then naturally polytheistic tendencies take hold. The deities of hate, intolerance and vengeance gain footing into ones mind and belief systems. With passage of time man starts sacrificing everything to such false internal gods. Kalima Shahada – “There is no God, but Allah…” is the next victim as such internal gods now have to be bowed to, no matter what the cost to self or humanity. By then the priestly class has become the foremost advocates of such deities. Soon soulless homilies and rituals become more important than the soul of the religion. That’s when Islam of Moses changes to Judaism, of Jesus – Christianity, of Zoroaster – Zoroastrianism, of Rama/Krishna – Hinduism. Now its the turn of Islam of Muhammad. Is it not anything but Islam? Such is a natural decay of a religion which is essentially the job assignment of the Devil:

4:119. `And certainly, I will lead them astray and assuredly I will arouse vain desires in them, and I will incite them (to polytheistic practices)…

Allah can only stand behind and guarantee His own Laws and their outcome, not of that of man. No wonder every sin can be potentially forgiven in Quran but the sin of polytheism:

4:116. Allâh does not forgive (without repentance on the part of the sinner) that a partner be associated with Him though He forgives everything short of that to whomsoever He will. And he who associates a partner with Allâh has strayed, indeed, a far off straying.

Some might argue or complain against the unforgiving nature of Allah in the above verse, but that’s how His Laws stand. We see all the chaos in the world as a consequence of this very Law of His being broken with polytheism at the heart of it. It is a natural cause and effect. In physical world, one of His Law is that of Gravity. Next time, if one jumps off from a second storey of a building, that person will be lucky to walk off with just a sprained ankle. Similarly, the moral and spiritual laws have their own injuries when violated. Unlike human laws which have mostly negative consequences if broken, His Laws have rewards when followed:

2: 261. The attribute of those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allâh is like the attribute of a grain (of corn) which sprouts seven ears, each ear bearing a hundred grains. And Allâh multiplies further for whomsoever He pleases, for Allâh is Bountiful, All-Knowing.


verses quoted above are from the translation of Holy Quran – Nooruddin.

Dreams and spirituality

Saturday, March 17th, 2012

Pakistani Islamic scholar Nilofar Ahmed sahiba has written an article under above title, in Dawn.

She wrote:

“The Prophet said that after him nothing would be left of prophecy, except for a true dream. He also said that dreams are one in 46 parts of prophethood (Bukhari)”

Javed Ahmad Ghamdi sahib is also of the opinion that after Holy Prophet Muhammad SAWS, people and saints can only receive prophecies in form of true dream.

Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad sahib made claims of receiving divine communications in forms beside dreams.

Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalytics have never attracted me towards their theories, may be because I had read HMGA book ‘Islmaee Usool Kee Philosphy’.

I will appreciate if anyone who has read HMGA writings on the subject of Dreams and Spirituality, can give us gist of what he wrote. I will forward that reply to Nilofar Ahmed sahiba. Thanks.

Dawn article:
http://www.dawn.com/2012/03/16/dreams-and-spirituality.html

Issue 47

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

Issue 47 [@47:08]: Slide Projected – Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol 4, Bk 53, Hadith 386 – “Umar sent the Muslims to the great countries to fight the pagans. … When we reached the land of the enemy, the representatives of Khosrau [voice Persia] came out with forty-thousand warriors, and an interpreter got up saying, “Let one of you talk to me!” Al-Mughira replied … ‘Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered to fight you till you worship Allah alone or give Jizya (tribute) and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: Whoever amongst us is killed (martyred), shall go to luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remains alive, shall become your master.’”

Rebuttal 47: As usual, the editorial staff of the documentary come up with punch lines and out of context excerpts to impute aggressive wars on early Islamic history, rather than the actuality of unavoidable state of war that was thrust upon early Muslims by the super powers of the time, namely the Byzantine and Persian Empires. It necessitates to read some background as to what led to the war of Arabia with Persia during reigns of Caliphs Abu-Bakr and Umar.

Firstly, after the death of Prophet, when Abu-Bakr was the Caliph in Medina, the tribe of Banu-Bakr (no relation to Abu-Bakr) in Bahrain revolted against the Medina government. In their revolt, they were aided and abetted by Persia, then under the rule of Yazdegerd-III. Subsequently, Persian army landed in Bahrain. Both the said tribe and Persians were defeated by a detachment from Medina. [The Early Caliphate by Muhammad Ali, p. 29]

Secondly, the revolt of pseudo-prophetess woman Sajah, who belonged to an insignificant tribe at border between north-eastern Arabia and Persia, actually raised an army by Persian help and set forth to attack Medina. She only turned back after reaching Yamamah in central Arabia. [Sajah, The impostress of Bani Taghlib]

Thirdly, the Persian frontier was a constant source of incursion and instigation by Persians. Umar, the second caliph is on the record for his famous words, refusing the permission sought by his generals for incursion deeper into Persia after defeating them at Hulwan – “I wish that between the Suwad [area between the Euphrates and the Tigris] and the Persian hills there were walls which would prevent them from getting to us, and prevent us from getting to them. The fertile Suwad is sufficient for us; and I prefer the safety of the Muslims to the spoils of war.” [as quoted in Wikipedia: Al Farooq, Umar By Muhammad Husayn Haykal. chapter no:5 page no:130]

Muhammad Ali in his book “The Early Caliphate, p 38-9” refutes the allegation against Caliphs Abu-Bakr and Umar from many angles. In one of the places he summarizes:

Trouble in Arabia was fomented by Persia and Rome

History has not preserved details of the origin of’ these wars, but there are on record events which throw light on the question. When Bahrain rose in revolt against the central authority of Islam. Persia openly sent reinforcements to help the insurgents. A Christian woman, Sajah, at the head of Christian tribes, marched from her home on the frontier of Persia against Madinah, the capital of Islam, and traversed the country right up to the central part. Towards the north, in the territory under the influence of the Christian empire of Rome. Tulaihah raised his standard of revolt. These are some clear indications that the insurrection in the several parts of the peninsula was inspired and fanned by both Persia and Rome. These parts were either immediately on the borders adjoining these two powers or under their direct influence, Again. Persia exercised a very wide influence over the Province of’ Yaman, another area affected by the general revolt. It is thus likely that over and above the open assistance which Persia and the Roman Empire rendered to the insurgents, the insurrection itself was due to their secret machinations. The Roman Empire, like some modern states, was particularly a past-master in the art of wire-pulling front behind the scenes. It seems. therefore, that these two neighbours did all they could to foment trouble in the various provinces of Arabia that were any way in contact with hem. To safeguard against a repetition of the mischief, the Muslim Government was constrained to resort to military operations on the frontiers. And when it did this, the Persian and Roman empires committed open acts of hostility under the impression that they would thus inspire awe in the hearts of the Arabs. But Islam had brought about a change over Arabia. and the two empires had to answer for the aggression.

It is from such stray events met with in the pages of history that we can trace the causes of these wars. Early historians were not particular about going into the why and wherefore of things. They were just chroniclers of events, beyond which they worried little to go. To ascertain the underlying causes, we must piece together those various events and draw our own conclusions. This is exactly how we are able to tell the causes of the various wars during the Prophet’s lifetime, the only advantage in the latter case being that these events have been recorded and handed down to us in greater detail. The period of the early Caliphate, considered comparatively far less important, is not characterised by the same profusion of narration, and most important episodes have often received but a brief reference, a fact admitted by recent historians. Nevertheless, the guiding rule as to the root causes of things is the same, viz., reading between the apparently scattered events and discovering the common thread running through all. The accuracy or otherwise of the conclusion in must obviously depend on that of the events selected as data for investigation. And with this rule in view, we can safely vouch for the accuracy of the conclusions drawn above as regards the causes of the Persian and Syrian campaigns of the Muslims. The events that we have drawn upon are all events of unimpeachable historic authenticity.

Before we address the maliciously excerpted punch lines in the current issue, lets review the background context of what the documentary is hiding from the audience but brought to light in “The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 140-1:

According to al-Sari—Shu’ayb—Sayf—Mubammad, Talhah and Amr—a1-Shatbi…and Sayf) [footnote: The text reads as if al-Shabi, as well as a certain Sufyan (whom Dc Goeje identified in the index as al-Thawrij, had both been pupils of al-Hasan. But that solution results in a chronological anomaly. This is clearly a case of an isnad ending in two different strains, one with al-Sha’bi and one with al-Hasan al-Basri as oldest authority.] —Sufyan (b. Husayn b. al-Hasan al-Wasiti)—al-Hasan (al-Basri): ‘Umar said to the delegation (from al-Basrah), “Have the Muslims perhaps done harm to the people living under their protection? Or have they perhaps done things to them that caused them to commence hostilities against you?” “No,” they answered, “we only know that we acted in good faith and with decency.” ‘Umar asked, “Then how did their revolt come about?” But after questioning them, he did not receive any answer from anyone that took away his doubt or through which he gained insight into the situation they described. Only what al-Ahnaf (told him helped ‘Umar to form a clear picture, for he) said:

“Commander of the Faithful, I shall enlighten you. You forbade us to spread out farther into Persian territory, and you ordered us to stay within the borders of the region that we have under our control. However, the king of the Persians is still alive among them, and they will therefore not cease to contend with us for control of the region, as long as their king is among them. Two kings can never govern simultaneously and agree; the one will inevitably oust the other. I have come to realize that we made one conquest after another solely because of their continuous revolts. It is their king who incites them, and this will always be his line of action until you give us permission to venture out into their land so that we separate him from his subjects and expel him from his kingdom by divesting him of his might and authority [footnote: For the way in which religious and secular authority were combined in Sasanian kingship, see Morony, Iraq, 28-31. ]. Only then will the hope of the Persians be crushed and will they capitulate.”

“By God, you have given me a believable picture, and you have explained the situation to me as it is in reality,” ‘Umar said. Then he looked into what they were in need of and sent them forth. Next a letter came to ‘Umar informing him of the assembling of the Persians at Nihawand and of how the people of Mihrijàn Qadhaq and those of the districts of al-Ahwaz gravitated toward the point of view and the erstwhile ambitions of al-Hurmuzan. That was what prompted Umar to give the Muslims permission to venture out into Persian territory.

In the above passage it is quite obvious that Persians were constantly stirring revolts along their border with Arabia and the persistent reluctance of Caliph Umar to attack Persia despite the recommendations of his commanders. The only course left for Muslims to avoid an inevitable war was if Persia assured peace by paying taxes or if they accepted the faith, else the war was the only choice left. Without these conditions there was no guarantee that Persians will stop their years of constant instigation and revolts. Finally, the events crossed a threshold that a full scale war broke out with Persia in which none but Persians are to be blamed.

It becomes pertinent to know al-Hurmuzan. He was the Persian general who finally faced Muslims in the battle of Tustar. While under his command, the city was besieged by the Muslim army and there were eighty sorties by Persians to break the siege. After the numerous skirmishes, the Muslims were able to penetrate the city via its water outlet, threw open the city gates and al-Hurmuzan sought refuge in the citadel. Below is what happened thereafter – “The conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 135-6:

Those who had entered the city through the water outlet encircled him in the citadel and when they spotted him and advanced upon him, he said to them, “What do you want? Perhaps you realize that you and I cannot escape one another [footnote:Literally, the text reads “perhaps you see the straits I and you are in.”]. But I still have a quiver with one hundred arrows and, by God, you will not lay a hand on me as long as I have still one arrow left. No arrow of mine will fail to find its target. What benefit is there in taking me prisoner, when I kill or wound one hundred of you first?” “What is it you want then?” they asked. He replied,”I would like to place my hand in yours [footnote:That is, “I want to surrender.”], leaving the decision with ‘Umar to do with me as he wants.” “We agree,” they answered, whereupon he threw down his bow and surrendered to them. Next they bound him securely…During the night, may people of Muslims forces were killed. Among those whom al-Hurmazan killed personally were Majzah’ah b. Thawr and al-Bara b. Malik.

Once al-Hurmuzan is brought before Caliph Umar as prisoner in Medina, the following transpires – “The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 139-40:

“You only succeeded in defeating us in the days before Islam because you were united, whereas we were divided. But,” ‘Umar continued, “what is your excuse or what arguments can you adduce in your defense for going to war against us time after time?”

“I fear that you will kill me before I have told you,” al-Hurmuzãn answered. “No, do not be afraid,” ‘Umar assured him. Then, when al-Hurmuzan had asked for something to drink, he was brought water in a primitive cup. “Even if I were to die of thirst, I could not possibly drink from a cup like this,” he cried. So he was brought some water in a vessel he approved of. But then his hand began to tremble and he said, “I am afraid that I will be killed while I am drinking.” “No harm will come to you,” Umar said, “until you have drunk it.” Hereupon al-Hurmuzan spilled the water by turning the vessel upside down. “Give him some more,” ‘Umar ordered, “so that he will not be bothered by thirst when the time of his execution has come” [footnote: Literally, this sentence reads “Give him some more and do not heap death and thirst upon him together.”].

Then al-Hurmuzãn spoke, “I do not need water; what I want is to ask that you grant me immunity.” “I shall certainly kill you,” shouted ‘Umar, but al-Hurmuzãn cut him short and said, “But you have already granted me immunity.” “You lie,” roared ‘Umar, but Anas (b. Mãlik) intervened and said, “He is right, Commander of the Faithful, you have indeed granted him safety.” “Woe unto you, Anas,” said ‘Umar to him, “should I grant immunity to the killer of Majza’ah and al-Bara’? By God, think of a subterfuge or I shall surely chastise you!”

But Anas maintained, “You did tell him that no harm would come to him before he had told you what you asked him and you also told him that no harm would come to him until he had drunk the water.” Then all those who were standing around ‘Umar joined in, telling him the same thing. ‘Umar approached al-Hurmuzàn and said, “You have made a fool of me and, by God, I shall not be hoodwinked by anyone who is not a Muslim.” [footnote: Contrary to the general rule, we find here a verb VII with the passive meaning “to be cheated,” followed by what seems to be the agent introduced by the preposition Ii. This phenomenon is attested also in W. Fischer, Grammatik des klassischen arabisch, Wiesbaden, 1972, 98, 138] So al-Hurmuzán embraced Islam and ‘Umar assigned him a stipend of two thousand (dirhams) and permitted him to settle in Medina.

With this environment of war in mind where Persian empire was a constant source of revolts and attacks on Arabia, now read the following full text that was excerpted out of context in the current issue. In it Caliph Umar is advised by the same al-Hurmuzan, the Persian general for the war strategy. Reader must keep in mind that even though subsequently Persia was conquered, there were no forced conversions therein. The only control from Medina was appointment of its governor and treasurer, else every office of Persia was held by a local.

Sahih-Bukhari – Volume 4, Book 53, Number 386:

Narrated Jubair bin Haiya:

‘Umar sent the Muslims to the great countries to fight the pagans. When Al-Hurmuzan embraced Islam, ‘Umar said to him. “I would like to consult you regarding these countries which I intend to invade.” Al-Hurmuzan said, “Yes, the example of these countries and their inhabitants who are the enemies of the Muslims, is like a bird with a head, two wings and two legs; If one of its wings got broken, it would get up over its two legs, with one wing and the head; and if the other wing got broken, it would get up with two legs and a head, but if its head got destroyed, then the two legs, two wings and the head would become useless. The head stands for Khosrau, and one wing stands for Caesar and the other wing stands for Faris. So, order the Muslims to go towards Khosrau.” So, ‘Umar sent us (to Khosrau) appointing An-Numan bin Muqrin as our commander. When we reached the land of the enemy, the representative of Khosrau came out with forty-thousand warriors, and an interpreter got up saying, “Let one of you talk to me!” Al-Mughira replied, “Ask whatever you wish.” The other asked, “Who are you?” Al-Mughira replied, “We are some people from the Arabs; we led a hard, miserable, disastrous life: we used to suck the hides and the date stones from hunger; we used to wear clothes made up of fur of camels and hair of goats, and to worship trees and stones. While we were in this state, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earths, Elevated is His Remembrance and Majestic is His Highness, sent to us from among ourselves a Prophet whose father and mother are known to us. Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah Alone or give Jizya (i.e. tribute); and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says:– “Whoever amongst us is killed (i.e. martyred), shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remain alive, shall become your master.” (Al-Mughira, then blamed An-Numan for delaying the attack and) An-Nu’ man said to Al-Mughira, “If you had participated in a similar battle, in the company of Allah’s Apostle he would not have blamed you for waiting, nor would he have disgraced you. But I accompanied Allah’s Apostle in many battles and it was his custom that if he did not fight early by daytime, he would wait till the wind had started blowing and the time for the prayer was due (i.e. after midday).”

References:

The Early Caliphate – Muhammad Ali.

The History of al-Tabari – Vol. VIII, The Conquest of Iraq,southwestern Persia and Egypt – Translated by Gauthier H. A. Juynboll.

Sahih-Bukhari – Volume 4, Book 53 – Translator – M. Muhsin Khan.

Issue 46

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Issue 46 [46:21]: Beit Ye’or, Author, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam – “Now the infidel population are seeing this war as genocidal war since as it is described in the Muslim historians of Jihad as well as extremely numerous Christian sources. This war…was conducted…in great ferocity, whole cities were given up to massacres…entire populations were deported in slavery or massacred.”

Rebuttal 46: Beit Ye’or has no sense of truthfulness when she selectively reads, rather invents history and that too when she dwell in mere adjectives rather than facts. She mentions Jihad, genocidal war, cities given up to massacres, entire populations being deported into slavery or massacred, without quoting facts. She got her lines crossed when she mistook “others” in history for Christianity of and from Europe.

Once again, the favorite word of the documentary, “Jihad” is misused in an effort to misinform its audience by juxtaposing it with war. The meaning, spirit and purpose of Jihad was fully dealt with from different angles in Issues before – Muhammad Ali (Issue 27), Pickthall (Issue 27) , Zahid Aziz (Issue 33), Nooruddin (Issue 36) and G.W. Leitner (Issue 37).

One does not have to a be historian like Ye’or to notice lack of any “White Slaves” in present day Muslim world. But it does not take long to find “Black Slave” descendants and their ghettos in any setting in Europe and Americas, which are essentially the Christian lands. These daily experiences are enough for any intelligent person to draw conclusion as to who made slaves as part of their religious and national policies. To draw this kind of sensible conclusion from history, one does not need the history inventors of this documentary, all it needs is to walk down any street in the “Christian lands” and notice for oneself. It is obvious that she is inventing stories.

As far as massacres or cities being destroyed, then below is a sampler of facts of mayhem by Christians on Christians in the name of Christianity, in the lands of present day Old Civilized World, a.k.a. Europe alone. These figures do not include Crusades, Inquisition, Colonization and victimization of non-Christians:

– Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987, 30]

– Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973, 223]

– Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987, 235]

– 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987,30]

– 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops “pacified and civilized” Ireland, where only Gaelic “wild Irish”, “unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing.” One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that “the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies… and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie”, which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused “greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde”. Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992, 99, 225]

Next, the much coveted word “genocide” used by Ye’or. She tacitly tries to gain mileage from its usage. To begin with, has she ever wondered who started all this genocide phenomenon in living history? It is none but, the spirituality source of her own and her fellow experts, namely the Old Testament. This Scripture not only directs but mandates genocide. No wonder that genocide is very much a European phenomenon, at least for the time period she is referring to. Below are a sample of the “Divinely” sanctioned methods of how to commit a genocide:

Deut 20:16. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

Deut 20:17. But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

1 Sam 15:3. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Sam 27:8. And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.

1 Sam 27:9. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish.

1 Sam 27:11. And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines.

Joshua 6:3. So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night.

Joshua 6:4. And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye all ready:

Joshua 6:5. And I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them,

Joshua 6:6. (For they will come out after us) till we have drawn them from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: therefore we will flee before them.

Joshua 6:7. Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

Joshua 6:8. And it shall be, when ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD shall ye do. See, I have commanded you.

Joshua 6:19. And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on fire.

Joshua 6:20. And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

Joshua 6:21. And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.

Joshua 6:22. And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.

Joshua 6:23. And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.

Joshua 6:24. And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.

Joshua 6:25. And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.

Joshua 6:26. For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

Joshua 6:27. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.

Joshua 6:28. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

If the believer of the Torah does not carry out the ordained genocide to the fullest i.e. killing all the people but sparing some cattle as booty, his God can be quite punishing, as is the case of Saul, the king of Israel, whose kingdom was taken away for his failing and given instead to David by God:

1 Sam 15:7. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.

1 Sam 15:8. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

1 Sam 15:9. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

1 Sam 15:10. Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,

1 Sam 15:11. It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.

1 Sam 15:12. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.

1 Sam 15:13. And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.

1 Sam 15:14. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?

1 Sam 15:15. And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

1 Sam 15:16. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.

1 Sam 15:17. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

1 Sam 15:18. And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.

1 Sam 15:19. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

1 Sam 15:20. And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

1 Sam 15:21. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.

1 Sam 15:22. And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

1 Sam 15:23. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

Reader, please compare the ordained brutality of Old Testament above with the sensibility of Quran:

5:32. …We prescribed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a person, unless it is for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them commit excesses in the land.

It is quite obvious that whenever Christians commit genocide, they carried out the Divine commandment and are thus true adherents of their faith. If they do not then they risk being infidel, ironically a word used by Beit Ye’or in the current issue for the same very people whom she is kissing up to. Whereas, if a Muslim kills an innocent, then he goes against the Divine purpose as outlined in Quran, thus risking his own infidelity. Ye’or, go figure out who is an infidel and who is genocidal, whether in history, present or in the Scriptures. One wonders, how can a Christian remain a Christian, and a Jew remain a Jew, after they have read their own Scripture? As is obvious in verses above from the Old Testament, this Scripture, no matter how much holy, has no room in human sense of morality. No wonder, these old religions need crutches of mythologies to prop up their facade and keep the face of a religion while duping the world under the garb of either being the “Chosen” or “Salvaged.” Isn’t it ironic that to save humanity, they first had to get their own God killed by the followers of their common Scripture?

Before the Bible thumpers offer salvation, it behooves them first to salvage the morality of what they are thumping. With this kind of immorality of a Scripture and its adherents, Beit Ye’or the Author, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam,” before long, she might be retitling her book “The Decline of Eastern and Western Christianity Under Quran.” Who knows?

References:
Christian Atrocities – Not a Christian
King James Version – BibleGateway.com
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz

Religion and Rationality – a debate

Saturday, March 3rd, 2012

Submitted by Ikram.


Hamza Tzortzis and Pervez Hoodbhoy on Religion & Rationality- A Discussion @ LUMS.

The above youtube link was earlier posted by Rashid in a different thread.

It was an interesting debate to a certain extent where both participants came from different ends of the spectrum, Tzortiz (T) from the assumption that there is God whereas Hoodbhoy (P) from the given that there is Science. The logic of T encompassed pre-Big Bang but without any proofs. Whereas, P was limited by time and space of the physical world only after the Big Bang and he was not in the room to deny the non-physical i.e. moral/spiritual space that T dwell upon. T tried to move in his argument spectrum towards P but could not encapsulate P for the mere fact that P was there for only cold logic of his science which was a flat rebuttal in itself.

Please note that both T & P are not from different and opposite ends of spectrum, rather from different corners of the room and not necessarily with antagonist points of view. What the debate lacked was a knowledgeable moderator, who should had initially set the tone of what this debate was about and then structured the debate with shorter but multiple opportunities for both to make the point rather than one time long speeches and then one time rebuttals. In between transitions, the moderator then could had shaped the arguments of one participant for the other. Due to lack of this structure, it is not that which of the debaters won, but it is the audience who lost an opportunity to learn rather than just hear. And both participants spoke past each other. T seems to be a skilled orator with common colloquial punch lines, whereas, P was more concrete in his space, but that is who they are. T probably with theological influence & Western literature background and P from Trieste physics. At least to me the arguments of P were clear to be thought about. Whereas, T was more philosophical and vague, though he had clever interjections and quotes which somewhat had a wow factor, but little sustainable substance.

The debate brought out certain points, paraphrased below by each that are briefly touched upon and are identified by their name letters. Comments with indented paragraphs are added by me.

T – Concept of God transcends time and space.

Comment:

57:3. He is (from) the very First (there was nothing before Him), and (He will exist to) the Last (there will be nothing after Him), and when nothing remains He will remain (He being an eternal Being). He is the Supreme Being (subordinate to no one). And (whereas He comprehends everything) He is Incomprehensible. He has full knowledge of everything.

T – Universe out of nothing.

Comment:

The natural question arises as to how it all came to be over past, present and future:

2:117. (God is) the Wonderful Originator without depending upon any matter or pattern of the heavens and the earth; and when He issues a decree He does but say to it, `Be’ and it comes to be.

The time frame in the verse above and it comes to be is bound by the nature of that particular creation:

36:82. Verily, His command, when He intends (to evolve) a thing, is (only) that He says to it, `Be’ and it comes into being (at the proper time).

On a celestial scale, the law of conservation of matter has given way to the law of conservation of energy and e=mc^2. Nowadays it is not surprising for matter to emerge from non-matter.

On the spiritual plane:

…to create something out of nothing is also His work. Just as you see it in a scene in a dream He creates a whole world without any matter, and shows nonexistent things to be existent. Thus such are all the wonders of His power… [Mirza Ghulam Ahmad – The Light – U.K. Edition, May 2008 Special Century Edition, page 19]

Whereas, in evolutionary transformation of matter:

6:95. Verily, it is Allâh Who splits the (seed) grains and (fruit) stones. He bring [sic] forth the living out of the lifeless and He brings forth the lifeless out of the living. Such is Allâh, wherefore then are you turned back.

In summary:

“Everything in the world appears to have been enchained by the Law. It follows it implicitly Is it then other than Allah’s religion that they seek (to follow), and to Him submits whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him shall they be returned? (3:82). Nature discloses regularity, precision, punctuality, knowledge, power, command, intellect, preordination, prearrangement, precaution, and several other features that are the possessions of the mind exclusively. In their presence the universe cannot be taken as the outcome of accident; It needs an intelligent Design to precede the process of its creation. The word design is sometimes used to bore minds with skeptical tendencies, but it now carries wider connotation. It brings within it so many facts and figures recently discovered by Science that disbelief in God would amount to ignorance.” [Introduction to Study of The Holy Quran, by Khwaja Kamaluudin, p. 21. Note: “intelligent Design” referred to here has no relation to contemporary evolution debate]

T- Self Creation of ?God

Comment:

59:22. He is Allâh, He is the One beside whom there is no other, cannot be and will never be One worthy of worship but He. (He is) the Knower of the unseen and the seen. He is the Most Gracious, the Ever Merciful.

59:23. He is Allâh, beside whom there is no other, cannot be and will never be One worthy of worship but He, (He is) the Supreme Sovereign, the Holy One, the Most Perfect, Bestower of peaceful Security, the Guardian, the All-Mighty, the Compensator of losses, the Possessor of all greatness. Holy is Allâh, far beyond and above the things they associate with Him.

59:24. He is Allâh, the Creator of (the matter and the spirit), the Maker, the Bestower of forms (and fashioner of everything suiting to its requirement). All fair attributes belong to Him. All that lies in the heavens and the earth declares His glory; He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.

85:13. It is He Who originates and continues reproducing.

85:14. And He is the Protector, the Most Loving;

85:15. Lord of the Throne (of Power), the Lord of all Glory,

85:16. Absolute Performer of what He intends (to carry out). [Here “He intends” can be extrapolated to include according to His Laws]

112:1. Say,`(The fact is) He is Allâh, the One and Alone in His Being’.

112:2. `Allâh is that Supreme Being Who is the Independent and Besought of all and Unique in all His attributes’.

112:3. `He begets none and is begotten by no one’.

112:4. `And there is none His equal’.

114:2. `The Sovereign, the Controller of all affairs of mankind,

114:3. `The God of mankind,

P – Clarifies the topic of the debate – “Religion as a rational enterprise, is it or is it not?”

Defines Rationality as – Interlinks (of ideas) that link cause to effect based upon set of universal rules e.g. deaths in epidemics results from scientific reasons e.g. germs, hygiene, genetics, malnutrition etc. Religious rationalism emanates from “somebody displeased” i.e. God, for earthquakes, tsunamis etc. to happen. Then why on earth the poor and believing people were hurt first in 2005 Kashmir earthquake?

Comment:

More often than not our own lack of knowledge forces us to blame preordination or destiny for an affliction or disaster. The black plagues were widely believed to be a curse by God instead of what they were: infections whose cure was then unknown. However, it was probably easier for people to blame the cause on God rather than accept responsibility for human ignorance. In modern times, under-developed societies suffer disproportionately from natural disasters or epidemics. The question then becomes why does God’s wrath descend mostly on the under developed world? Is God disciplining the poor disproportionately or is this disproportionate human destruction a function of human ignorance?

64:11 (Nothing happens haphazardly in the Universe.) No calamity befalls but according to the laws of God. Whoever (understands this and) believes in God guides himself deep down in his heart. God is the Knower of all things (and events). [Nations that understand the laws in nature are better equipped to take preventive measures against natural disasters. Izn = Leave = Permission = Laws] – Shabbir Ahmed.

P – If religion was a rational exercise then there must be universal consensus on its principles similar to consensus in scientific rules, whereas it is not. For example Muslims and Jews believe in one god, Christians in three, Hindus in 5700+.

Comment:

What P missed was that all of the above i.e. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus etc. have one common thing. They all believe in God for the mere fact:

“The greatest height intellect can elevate us to, is that there ought to be a God. But whether He is actually there, is a question that surpasses the region of our stereotyped intellect. No amount of argumentation can bring home to the blind that light is there. What he can perceive is only this much, that there ought to be something called light, as there are so many reports to show its existence. But the law of nature, where there is a demand there is a supply, compels us to believe that there must be some solution or other of the problem. So far as man’s capacity for the acquisition of knowledge is concerned, he has two instruments, sense organs and intellect. But both of these are ineffective to take us beyond the quagmire of doubt and suspicion so far as the existence of God is concerned. The craving for first-hand sure knowledge is there. Law of nature requires the possibility of means to satisfy the craving. Sense perception and intellect, the two sources of knowledge, are not potent enough to help us out of the difficulty. Therefore, there must be some other channel of ascertaining truth, to accept which we must not be reluctant.” [God Speaks to Man (Revelation) by M. Muhammad Yaqub B.A., Islamic Review and Muslim India, Vol. VIII, No. 6-7, June-July 1920, p. 273]

P – People belong to a religion because they are born into one. Only 0.1% change their birth religion.

Comment:

Quran agrees to a certain extent of what P says:

5:104. …They say, `Sufficient for us is that (tradition) whereon we have found our forefathers.’ What! (would they follow them blindly) even though their forefathers had no knowledge whatsoever and had no guidance?

But, then there is an example of a non-physics i.e. moral force which made the change in history. The same virtuous force persists with the same principles prevailing for the present and the future:

110:1. The help of Allâh and the victory (over the Makkans) has indeed come (in fulfillment of the prophecies),

110:2. And you see people thronging in to the fold of the Faith of Allâh.

P – Quran is not a book of science. You cannot do any experiment to reject a theological doctrine.

Comment:

Yes, Quran is not a book of science but in step with science for all its secular arguments. It does not contravene science of whatever we know of it. While discussing the validity of science in Qur’ân, the main purpose of Qur’ân is much more and is summarized as follows:

“The aim of the Qur’ân is to spiritualize our souls. It makes numerous statements based on historical facts, but it is not a book of history. It draws attention to different stages of the creation of the universe (7:54; 14:33; 21:28-33; 71:15-18), the origin of life from water (21:30; 24:45), and concerning humans (71:14; 32:7; 39:7; 40:67), but it is not a treatise on the evolution of life. It makes several references to the laws governing the wonderful system that revives the dry earth through rain (7:57) and maintains the supply of sweet and salt water in rivers and oceans (25:54; 35:12), but it is not a manual of Meteorology, Hydraulics, or Ecology. It says: ‘We create a human being from an extract of clay; then We reduce him to a drop of sperm (and place him) in a safe depository; then We form the sperm into a clot; then We develop the clot into a lump of flesh; then We fashion bones out of this lump of flesh, then We clothe the bones with flesh, and thereafter We evolve him into another being’ (23:12-14); yet it is not a work on Obstetrics. Several of its verses contain references to the achievements in the material sciences and activities in the field of trade, space research, and weaponries. He has let the two bodies of water flow freely; they will (one day) join together. (At present) a barrier stands between them. They cannot encroach one upon the other. Pearls and corals come out of both (these seas). And to Him belong the ships raised aloft in the sea like mountain peaks (55:19-24 – a hint on the construction of the Suez and Panama Canals and the huge ships crossing them). It adds: O body of JINN (- fiery natured) and (ordinary) the people! If you have the power and capacity to go beyond the confines of the heavens and the earth, then do go. But you will not be able to go unless you have the necessary and unusual power. Flames of fire, smoke and molten copper will be let loose upon you and you will not be able to defend yourselves (55:33), and yet the Qur’ân is not a book about material sciences, rockets, missiles, or sputniks. It says that when Pharaoh Meneptah was drowning and as death overtook him, he was told: ‘So, on this day We will preserve you in your body (only) that you may be a sign (to learn a lesson from) for the coming generations’ (10:92). The Bible makes no mention of this, nor does any book of history, but still, the Qur’ân is not concerned with Egyptology or Archaeology. Its purpose is not to teach History, Nature, Philosophy, nor to teach any other Science or Art but, as previously stated, to spiritualize our souls. It states, discusses or cites a thing only to the extent relevant to its aim and object, leaving out details as it returns to its central theme and its invitation. When the Qur’ân is studied in this light, there is no doubt that the whole Scripture is a closely reasoned argument and there is continuity of subject throughout the Book.” [The Holy Quran – Introduction, Nooruddin, pg 48-a – 49-a]

P – Builds his case upon the absurdities of theological constructs e.g. he quotes that some claim that angels travel at speed of light, hence nothing can be faster than the angles and by implication nothing can be faster than light. Then he quotes recent CERN results where neutrinos were found traveling faster than light with a Q.E.D. of neutrinos being outside of God’s control.

Comment:

P is right on the money when he ridicules the proponents of psedo-Islamic science, the Mullah mentality (-the blind fellowship) in an otherwise outwardly secular professional.

6: 116. Should you obey the majority of those on earth, they would lead you astray from Allâh’s way. They follow nothing but mere surmise and they do nothing but make conjectures.

P – You do no service either to science or religion when you combine the two.

Comment:

Here I disagree. One does not exclude the other as long it is not a Mullah’s scientific view. The concept of God does not threaten science. George Johnson summarizes this in his review of Owen Gingerich’s God’s Universe:

“… there are two ways to think about science. You can be a theist, believing that behind that veil of randomness lurks an active, loving, manipulative God, or you can be a materialist, for whom everything is matter and energy interacting within space and time. Whichever metaphysical club you belong to, the science comes out the same.” [Scientists on Religion: Theist and materialists ponder the place of humanity in the universe, by George Johnson, Scientific American, Volume 295 Number 4, October 2006.]

P – Self critique – Muslims have not produced any science worth mentioning in last 1000 years. Not even one example can be quoted from any field.

Comment:

P is once again right on the money. The reason is simple because the Muslims misread the following verses in theological sense only and forgot that it is all about science. Qur’ân encourages and nurtures science. It asserts the vast extent of scientific knowledge:

18:109. Say, `If every ocean became ink for (recording) the words and creation of my Lord, surely, the oceans would be spent up before the words and creation of my Lord came to an end, even if we brought to add (therewith) as many more (oceans).

31:27. And if all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea with seven more seas added to it (were ink), the words of Allah would not be exhausted. Surely Allah is Mighty, Wise.

Surely the above verses cannot refer to polemics or theology. They clearly signify that God intends man to discover the Laws of science that are also created by Him.

P – Quran tells you how to behave, what your moral values should be, social and ritual structuring.

Comment:

P points out the core purpose of Quran in a generic sense, even though he limits it, but that’s okay. P is generally short sighted in that his frame or arguments are confined to physical world only, but “man cannot live by bread alone”. Like any other human P must have his own value system which must be unique but congruent to universal values of love, hate, yearn, seek, accept, reject, wish, rejoice, repent, regret etc, the all natural human emotions and expectations. Either he can live the current life as an experiment to fully learn the trick of the trade of life and society then hope for a re-incarnation to live an optimized life second time around or live like us mortals this life once and try to make most of it in non-physical aspects. Some may call it even “opium of the masses.” But it is opium for the addict and not for the patient who needs it from the trauma suffered, or a vaccine to prevent an illness, or a nutrition to bring to fruition what life has to offer, or a purpose to otherwise purposeless life and death cycle. That we find in Quran because:

2:2. This is the only perfect Book, wanting in naught, containing nothing doubtful, harmful or destructive, there is no false charge in it…

2:185. The (lunar) month of Ramadzân is that in which the Qur’ân (started to be) revealed as a guidance for the whole of mankind with its clear evidences (providing comprehensive) guidance and the Discrimination (between right and wrong)…

3:4. … And He has revealed (the Qur’ân as) the Criterion of judgment (between truth and falsehood)…

10:57. O mankind! there has come to you an exhortation (to do away with your weaknesses) from your Lord and a cure for whatever (disease) is in your hearts, and (a Book full of) excellent guidance and a mercy, (and full of blessings) to the believers (in the ultimate form of the Qur’ân).

14:1. …(This is) a great Book which We have revealed to you that you may bring mankind, by the leave of their Lord, out of different kinds of darkness into light, to the path of the All-Mighty, the Praiseworthy,

14:2. (To the path of) Allâh, to Whom belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth…

17:105. We revealed it (– the Qur’ân) to suit all the requirement of truth and wisdom and it has come down (to you) with truth and wisdom…

43:2. This perfect Book that makes (the truth) perspicuously clear bears witness (to the above truth).

P – Quran is not about science.

Comment:

Yes, Quran is not a book of science in a classical sense, yet it does not abhor it either. There is a core common premise of a Muslim and a Scientist, that is both:

2:3. Those who believe in the existence of hidden reality, that which is beyond the reach of human perception and ordinary cognizance…

P – There is no point in digging out science from the Quran.

Comment:

That is too broad a brush stroke by P. Of course, one will never be able to find details of M-Theory in Quran, but Quran encourages the core aspect of mind that makes a “good” scientist:

12:108. Say, `This is my path. I call to Allâh. I am on sure knowledge verifiable by reason and (so are) those who follow me. (I believe that) Holy is Allâh. I am not of the polytheists.’

Qur’ân, thus, sets the standards for knowledge, verifiable by reason, which is commonly referred to as “science.” This verse by itself excludes a Mullah from both the science and the logic of Quran.

 


 
Some pertient points in Rebuttal session are as follows:

T – Quran does not go against reality of science. Quran uses science as a supporting argument.

T – People belong to faith and values because of prevailing consensus.

T – How and Why are two different things e.g. How pregnancy happens? Answer: union of sperm and egg. Why my wife became pregnant? Answer: Because I loved her.

T – An atheist can only verify facts but is far removed from the causality of life and universe.

P – With a Sir Syed-ian view, P rejects the relationship of physical world and the prayer e.g. If whole of Saudi Arabia prays for rain, will it become a tropical rain forest? Quran is correct and science is correct. You have to read Quran in a way that the possibility of miracles becomes allegorical.

P – Admonishes the opponent about his superficial understanding of scientific constructs and prevents him from using his understanding in theological arguments.
 


 
Q&A session – some of the highlights are below:

T – Allah from nothing?

P – Science will not tell you somethings. It will not tell you why you exist, what is the purpose of your life, what your morals ought to be. Science only deals with the physical universe after the big bang and not with the issue of a “Creator” who was there before it.

Audience: How can an atheist be sincerely an atheist when he does not even entertain that domain of thought of a Creator?

P’s reply – Science is separate from atheism, agnosticism and religion. These domains only deal with what brought all this about? If the Holy Book had science in it then in the last 1000 years we should had gained in knowledge of a testable experiment, some machine that must had been build, in the form of some device.

Comment:

Since P is a professor of physics in a leading university and was under tutelage of great Abdus Salam in Triest, he must ask his students to re-read the first verses of Muhammad’s revelations in a different light:

96:1. Read in the name of your Lord Who creates

96:2. creates man from a clot (of blood)

96:3. read and your Lord is most Generous,

96:4. Who taught by the pen,

96:5. taught man what he did not know.

96:6. No! Man is surely inordinate,

96:7. because he looks upon himself as self-sufficient.

96:8. Surely to your Lord is the return. [Muhammad Ali]

A keen reader will immediately notice the path to human progress when one is to Read in the name of your Lord Who creates the basis of all material and non-material opportunities in life; and the Divine guarantee of success if one is to read and your Lord is most Generous; and the knowledge that He taught man what he did not know which leads to progress; but the natural impediment to this progress is the human side of man i.e. Man is surely inordinate, he looks upon himself as self-sufficient and thus robs himself of the progress that the Almighty has in store for him. Embedded in these first commandments is the message that lays down the very foundation of what we call individual scholarship and, collectively, as the universities in modern day a.k.a. Harvards, Stanfords, Oxfords, Triestes…

 


 
The Bottom Line to this kind of debate was summarized by Khwaja Kamaluddin in earlier part of last century:

“True Science and true Theology are one and the same. One reveals the Laws of God working in the various manifestations of the Universe, on the physical plane; the other discloses the same Laws at work in the Moral and Spiritual sphere. All these laws emanate from the same First Intelligent Cause, and cannot, therefore, admit of any mutual discrepancy.”

“A person with an atheistic turn of mind cannot but admit the essential reasonableness of the Qur-ánic Theology. The ‘God’ of the Qur-án is the ‘God’ of Nature. If the working of Nature disclose a reign of law, which demands implicit obedience to it from all the component parts of the Universe, and if different forms of the law exhibit different characters and features of that Great Mind, Who is admittedly working behind the scene, it is not difficult to arrive at some of the conceivable attributes of the First Intelligent Cause; and a true theology must reveal them.” [Islam and Zoroastrianism by Khwaja Kamal ud din, p. 91, 93, pub: 1925]


 
Note: Unless otherwise indicated, all the above verses from Quran are taken from the Translation of the Holy Quran by Nooruddin.