MUSLIM APOLOGETICS REFUTED

In the book, What Everyone Should Know about Islam and Muslims, by Suzanne Haneef we are presented with a dubious apologetic for Islam, specifically the Koran.

She gives a list of thirteen laws which she feels are evidence for the Koran being true and really from God.

The first law is that the deliverer of God’s message should be proven to be completely truthful in all his dealings and be virtually sinless.

This is dishonest in the case of Muhammad who gave the world the Koran for he gave this book which had such a morality that it wouldn't have taken much of an effort to keep it for it was as low as Hell’s gates. It permitted polygamy and murder under the guise of holy war and bigotry. Its rules about lying being wrong and forbidden by God conflict with other rules such as not harming other good Muslims. The Koran does not tell us what to do leaving it impossible to be sure if anybody is a sinner. When people lie to save lives some religionists will think them sinners and others will not.

Muhammad was a sinner if sinners exist. The doctrine of sin presupposes that you must sacrifice yourself for the best interests of others and Muhammad did not do the best for much of his life. Did he raise a fortune for the poor?

Muhammad claimed that the Bible had been corrupted by heretics because it did not agree with him. He had no evidence that the Bible had been rewritten to destroy its teaching. That is what slanderers do, accuse without evidence.

Also, the sinister prophet Moses and others are held to be prophets of God but not as important as Muhammad but still prophets all the same. The scriptures which are lost through being corrupted and which originally came from them are stated to be infallible in the Koran. But these figures were sinners. Why would the apostates who polluted the Bible say they were sinners if they were not for the apostates wanted their false revelation to be taken as a revelation from God and the revelation is more persuasive when it comes from sinless or near sinless people? What use is it for the Koran to call them prophets when sinlessness is so important and when we don’t know if they were really sinless? Muhammad was telling us to see the prophets as he said they should be seen which makes him the only real prophet in all of this though he said he had their backing in doctrinal matters. The dishonesty is shocking. There are too many things we don’t know for sure about Muhammad and there are so many records lost so we cannot say he is sinless.

The second law is that the scripture should be exactly as God wants it to be, with not a word left out or anything inserted.

There is no evidence that the Koran is the same as it was when it was first received. It probably was not the same for it was compiled and edited after his death. The errors in it and the fact that many portions are repetitions suggest that the editing was not well done. This proves that it enjoyed no such protection from error. Some Sunni Muslims at the start believed that Ali had the manuscript of the Koran as it was from God and that that it was lost forever and that the Koran that has existed then and to this day has not been preserved totally accurately. That should teach them not to kill anybody because the Koran says they should kill. It should warn them to keep their religion within reason. She has a nerve using the argument that preservation of the scriptures will always happen if the scriptures are true when she says the New Testament and the Old Testament were originally inspired but have been drastically changed by heretics. There is no evidence that such interference took place either.

Law four is that there should be no contradiction in the book. The book says that God is fair and then that he hates those who are unable to believe. What you genuinely think is what you genuinely think and can never be morally bad though it can harm. The harm isn’t intended to be evil.

The book contradicts reason on several points

Law five is that it should not say anything that it in conflict with true science.

The sixth law is that the book should claim to be reasonable and not command stupidity or superstition.

But it can be proved that the book does command these vices.

The seventh law is that the book needs to have great spiritual insight into morality to be truly from God.

The Koran commands that God comes first for it wants adulterers stoned to death and religious wars. But you are surer that you exist than that others do and more sure that others exist than that God exists therefore making God the main thing in your life and the reason why you help others is criminal. Jailing an adulterer is better than killing them. This proves that the Koran is evil for commanding the killing and that its spiritual insight is worse than superficial.

The Humanist’s The Gospel according to Atheism contains teachings that the Koran never even thought of so she is assuming she knows it all here. The Koran would be more into inspiration and self-help if it were really the word of God.

Law eight says that a book is not inspired by the Lord if it says he does something that it bad or makes a God of a creature.

The ninth law is that it has to say that God alone must be worshipped.

Neither law is observed by the Koran for its God is obnoxious and unworthy of even a nice thought.

And the law is silly in itself. If you can prove God which you cannot do then it would be natural to expect the book to command the worship of only one God. But if the book gives no proof and the Koran doesn’t then the law is meaningless for there could be billions of gods.

The tenth law is that the true scripture will stress fraternity among people and equality and will not ask its devotees to walk over others.

When the Koran gives no convincing reasons for believing in Allah and then orders us to treat him as THE being in our life how could it really be concerned about human brotherhood? It wants each person degraded before God by blind faith.

Law eleven says that the true scripture will not accuse God’s prophets of being sinners.

Any book could manage that rule. The Bible accuses the prophets of being sinners and why would interpolators put that in? We will see soon that the Koran does accuse though it does not see it as accusing.

Law twelve says that the writing of the true scripture should be a masterpiece inferring that God would show off. Muslims think the Koran is a masterpiece so it is God's word. A masterpiece is not needed! Masterpieces are not appreciated by most people anyway. The book need only be intelligible and clear and readable. But if it did need to be a masterpiece, it would be no reason for believing in the Koran for Muhammad who could not write depended on other people to record his revelations. The Koran can be as beautiful as it needs to be but when it repeats stuff the way it does then what is the point in God being eloquent to show which book is his when he forgets that it is important not to waste ink and time? That shows that the beauty is human in origin. It is not a professional masterpiece. Muhammad could not have done such a great job for he was dull in many things so he must have been a fraud when others had to improve the text for the sake of the alleged eloquence.

The author says that the speech of Muhammad is not like the language of the Koran (page 28). But would the records and traditions of the sayings of Muhammad be word for word exactly what Muhammad said? Of course not when they were edited and rewritten. And certainly not after a hundred years when his life story was put together.

The Koran refutes this law itself when it has the jinn and the Devil in it. They could inspire a masterpiece or restructure a man’s brain so that his subconscious mind could come to the fore and do it for it is smarter than the conscious mind.
 
Law thirteen states that if the book contains knowledge that could only have come from a creator God who knows all things it must be proof though not an essential one.

One would expect it to be the most important proof.

She says that the Koran teaches that all things came from water and that was miraculous knowledge. The Koran must mean that all creatures were made from water in the same way that clay was turned into Adam in Genesis. But science cannot prove that water was miraculously transmuted. She thinks it means all things evolved from water creatures which is what science says. But notice that the Koran does not say by water alone. There could be other elements involved so it fails to impress. She is reading back modern knowledge into the Koran.

She even says that when the Koran describes the baby developing in the womb that it is miraculous knowledge. That is nonsense for every mother knows that babies grow inside the womb. The Koran says that a drop of sperm becomes a clot which becomes a lump and the lump is made into bone (all of it!) which is then wrapped in flesh. She says this drop is semen (page 29). The egg is not mentioned so there is no miracle in any of this! And the ancients knew that babies grow in the womb and could have derived it the way the Koran did without miraculous knowledge. But it is plain that the Koran is only guessing.

The real test of a true prophet according to Deuteronomy 18 is that the prophet must not necessarily be sinless but that he must be extremely honest and truthful for God would not speak through anybody that would tell or tells something even only the once that is supposed to be from God and which is not from God at all. This implies that we will be able to know if the prophet was this kind of man. But we do not know this of Moses or Muhammad for we are missing the first-hand witness of those who knew them best and intimately. Deuteronomy 18 also implies that a false prophet can make loads of predictions that come true but even one error shows that he is not speaking for God at all so miracles prove nothing according to this chapter. But at the same time, it is better to do miracles for it shows you should get attention but not necessarily faith. A real prophet will always do miracles. Muhammad did none. He made no predictions of the future that are convincing evidence that he was able to see the future by the power of God. The only prediction he made is a vague prophecy in Sura 30:1-4 about Rome that had to be fulfilled eventually for it was an educated guess – a prophet making predictions like that is no better than a fortune-teller and definitely a fake. When a prophet has to be accurate in everything he says that is supposed to be inspired by God it follows that it is only right that the prophet make predictions and not be accepted until the prophecies have all come true (this automatically excludes Isaiah and Ezekiel who made prophecies that have not been all fulfilled yet from the Bible canon). For if a man making one false prophecy in the name of God is enough to take away any right to authority from him then a man who makes none and claims to be God’s mouthpiece is worse. The Jews and Christians did not insert Deuteronomy 18 as a forgery into God's word for it makes good sense and would only have made it harder for their false prophets, who allegedly rewrote the Bible, to succeed.

It is surprising that Islam can be so popular when it sees miracles as everything that happens everyday and not just as spectacular events (page 50, The Case Against God). The Muslims regard any attempt to put God on trial and see if his goodness can be reconciled with the existence of evil and suffering as shocking and impious for that is not Islam which means submission to God (page 51, ibid). Their stance denies that we should look at human suffering before we think about deciding to believe in God. If we are inadvertently condoning human suffering by believing in God and praising him then we have a right to know. We are evil if we deny we have such a right.

CONCLUSION
 
The evidence for the Muslim faith being God's word is poor and there are faiths with better evidence that contradict it. The mere fact that this faith expects so much obedience of people and orders many evil and bigoted things to be done in the name of God and can't convince us that it is God's true revelation clearly tells us that it is NOT.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED

An Introduction to Asian Religions, E G Parrinder, SPCK, London, 1957
Answering Islam, The Crescent in Light of the Cross, Norman L Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2002
Concise Guide to Today’s Religions, Josh Mc Dowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks, 1988
God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1996
Islam, Christianity’s Greatest Challenge, Misc. International Publications, Lubbock, Texas, undated
Muhammad: A Western Attempt to Understand Islam, Karen Armstrong, Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1991
Muhammad in the Bible, Prof ‘Abdu ‘L-Ahad Dawud, Bina, Singapore, 1978
Religion of Peace? Why Christianity is and Islam Isn't, Robert Spencer, Regnery Publishing Inc, Washington, 2007 - a curious book in that it simply doesn't mention how Christian Scriptures incited believers, eg Calvinists, to attack and destroy other believers who were thought to be heretics and doesn't mention the infallible decrees of the Roman Catholic Church commanding the violent destruction of heretics but wants to give the impression that unlike the Koran, the Christian Scriptures and the Christian religion do not make calls for religious violence
Studies on Islam, Jack Budd, Red Sea Mission Team, Northants, 1994
The Case Against God, Gerald Priestland, Collins, Fount Paperbacks, London, 1984
The Collection of the Qur’an, John Burton, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977
The Curate’s Diary, October 2001, No 199, Arklow, Co Wicklow
The Light Shineth in Darkness, Udo Schaefer, George Ronald, Oxford, 1979
The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James, Fount, Glasgow, 1960
The Wordsworth Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions, Wordsworth Editions Ltd, London, 1995
The World’s Religions, Lion, Herts, 1982
Understanding Islam, Frithjof Schuon, Mandala Books, Unwin Books, London, 1981
What Everyone Should Know About Islam and Muslims, Suzanne Haneef, Kazi Publications, Illinois, 1982
Who is This Allah? GJO Moshaym, Dorchester House Publications, Bucks, 1994
Why I am not a Muslim, Ibn Warraq, Prometheus Books, New York, 1995
Why I Became a Christian, Sultan Muhammed Paul, Gospel Literature Service, Bombay, 1981
 
THE WEB – these sites have been consulted in my research
 
The site I want attention drawn to is Answering Islam Home Page. It’s strength is that it proves that the Quran is just a human book with errors and that the current Quran is not the one that Muhammad would have said is the word of God while it gives Muslim theologians and scholars a hearing. The Koran is not the word of God made text.
http://answering-islam.org/index.html

The Missing Chapters of the Quran
http://answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap4.html
 
The Early Surviving Quran Manuscripts
www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap7.html

What is the Koran?
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm
 
Christians Refute Islam
http://www.muhammadanism.org/default.htm
 
Abrogations, Allegations, and Alterations in Islam by Chad VanDixhoorn
www.rim.org/muslim/clear.htm
 
Contradictions in the Quran
http://answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra
This site replies to Islamic rebuttals to its assertion that the Quran is just a human document
 
The Muslim Threat by Bible Theology Ministries Swansea UK,
www.christiandoctrine.net/doctrine/outlines/outline_00046_the_muslim_threat_web.htm
 
Errors in the Quran
http://www.souldevice.org/quran2.htm
 
Islam’s Prophet, The Test for a Prophet
http://www.souldevice.org/islamprophet.htm
 
Truth Unchanged, Texts Unchanging? The Text of the Bible and the Text of the Quran
http://www.um-islam.nm.ru/chad.htm