Attack on Qur'an

**Michael** · 10-17-2007

The lady I am debating about Christianity has now turned around and posted an attack on the Qur'an. I don't know enough to refute all her points. Can anyone help me?

Read the quotes of quran below. Are you sure you're being taught the correct instructions? Afterall, it should be read in Arabic, their language. Westerns are given a seperate translation because they will never be true muslims, but certainly a great defense in the world. You know, like when someone uses someone else as a shield to protect himself. You will never be considered a true muslim, just like the jews never consider converts to be true jews. You will always be tainted as outside of their ancestory. Christianity does not hold that belief. A person doesn't have to be born into the ancient line to be accepted as a true Christian. It is universal. You can have any nationality and it will feel acceptable, but this religion and others like buddhism and hinduism is limited to the nationality.

How is it that mohamed comes up with "quotes" that Jesus Christ said on earth and in heaven when the official documents of His words are the Holy Bible, which you argue against but still call Christ a prophet?

And why is it that there were no witnesses to mohamed receiving the book? And that he got all this while he was sleeping?? That also means that he wasn't a witness to the receipt.

I'll tell you why. Because he made it up. He had no witnesses because he did it in secret and then proclaimed himself to be a prophet. Would you believe that so easily if John Smith who created Mormonism came to you and said that he is a phrophet by some secret confrontation with God?

Isn't it people who have no sense of direction that cling to such silliness and develop a cult? The prophets, which muslims believe in and connect themselves through by plagerism, have a long history. A history which muslims acknowledge yet have no proof to a direct link. The only thing that they claim is that mohamed received a book with all these instructions. Whose instructions are they really? God's or mohamed? I tell you one thing, I realize that I was wrong to shut you off when you were always bringing up islam. I should have answered your questions then. It's never too late to come back to Christ, unless you die of course.

Here's what I found on explaining islam. much confusion by mohmed. I guess his laws depended on what mood he was in...BTW. Don't be fooled. His goal was to militarize. Just look at the devastations of Greece and Armenia. And in the end of his life, he gave orders to destroy all those who would not convert. Did Jesus Christ ever teach such atrocities?

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According to Islamic teaching, the Quran came down as a series of revelations from Allah through the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, who then dictated it to his followers. Muhammad's companions memorized fragments of the Quran and wrote them down on whatever was at hand, which were later compiled into book form under the rule of the third Caliph, Uthman, some years after Muhammad's death.
The Quran is about as long as the Christian New Testament. It comprises 114 suras (not to be confused with the Sira, which refers to the life of the Prophet) of varying lengths, which may be considered chapters. According to Islamic doctrine, it was around 610 AD in a cave near the city of Mecca (now in southwest Saudi Arabia) that Muhammad received the first revelation from Allah by way of the Archangel Gabriel. The revelation merely commanded Muhammad to "recite" or "read" (Sura 96); the words he was instructed to utter were not his own but Allah's. Over the next twelve or so years in Mecca, other revelations came to Muhammad that constituted a message to the inhabitants of the city to forsake their pagan ways and turn in worship to the one Allah.
While in Mecca, though he condemned paganism (for the most part), Muhammad showed great respect for the monotheism of the Christian and Jewish inhabitants. Indeed, the Allah of the Quran claimed to be the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians, who now revealed himself to the Arab people through his chosen messenger, Muhammad. It is the Quranic revelations that came later in Muhammad's career, after he and the first Muslims left Mecca for the city of Medina, that transformed Islam from a relatively benign form of monotheism into an expansionary, military-political ideology that persists to this day.
Orthodox Islam does not accept that a rendering of the Quran into another language is a "translation" in the way that, say, the King James Bible is a translation of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. A point often made by Islamic apologists to defang criticism is that only Arabic readers may understand the Quran. But Arabic is a language like any other and fully capable of translation. Indeed, most Muslims are not Arabic readers. In the below analysis, we use a translation of the Quran by two Muslim scholars, which may be found here. All parenthetical explanations in the text are those of the translators save for my interjections in braces, { }.
Those Westerners who manage to pick up a translation of the Quran are often left bewildered as to its meaning thanks to ignorance of a critically important principle of Quranic interpretation known as "abrogation." The principle of abrogation -- al-naskh wa al-mansukh (the abrogating and the abrogated) -- directs that verses revealed later in Muhammad's career "abrogate" -- i.e., cancel and replace -- earlier ones whose instructions they may contradict. Thus, passages revealed later in Muhammad's career, in Medina, overrule passages revealed earlier, in Mecca. The Quran itself lays out the principle of abrogation:

2:106. Whatever a Verse (revelation) do We {Allah} abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?

It seems that 2:106 was revealed in response to skepticism directed at Muhammad that Allah's revelations were not entirely consistent over time. Muhammad's rebuttal was that "Allah is able to do all things" -- even change his mind. To confuse matters further, though the Quran was revealed to Muhammad sequentially over some twenty years' time, it was not compiled in chronological order. When the Quran was finally collated into book form under Caliph Uthman, the suras were ordered from longest to shortest with no connection whatever to the order in which they were revealed or to their thematic content. In order to find out what the Quran says on a given topic, it is necessary to examine the other Islamic sources that give clues as to when in Muhammad's lifetime the revelations occurred. Upon such examination, one discovers that the Meccan suras, revealed at a time when the Muslims were vulnerable, are generally benign; the later Medinan suras, revealed after Muhammad had made himself the head of an army, are bellicose.

Let us take, for example, 50:45 and Sura 109, both revealed in Mecca:

50:45. We know of best what they say; and you (O Muhammad) are not a tyrant over them (to force them to Belief). But warn by the Qur'an, him who fears My Threat. 109:1. Say (O Muhammad to these Mushrikun and Kafirun): "O Al-Kafirun (disbelievers in Allah, in His Oneness, in His Angels, in His Books, in His Messengers, in the Day of Resurrection, and in Al-Qadar {divine foreordainment and sustaining of all things}, etc.)!
109:2. "I worship not that which you worship,
109:3. "Nor will you worship that which I worship.
109:4. "And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping.
109:5. "Nor will you worship that which I worship.
109:6. "To you be your religion, and to me my religion (Islamic Monotheism)."

Then there is this passage revealed just after the Muslims reached Medina and were still vulnerable:

2:256. There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path. Whoever disbelieves in Taghut {idolatry} and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower.

In contrast, take 9:5, commonly referred to as the "Verse of the Sword", revealed toward the end of Muhammad's life:

9:5. Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat {the Islamic ritual prayers}), and give Zakat {alms}, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Having been revealed later in Muhammad?s life than 50:45, 109, and 2:256, the Verse of the Sword abrogates their peaceful injunctions in accordance with 2:106. Sura 8, revealed shortly before Sura 9, reveals a similar theme:

8:39. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do. 8:67. It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war (and free them with ransom) until he had made a great slaughter (among his enemies) in the land. You desire the good of this world (i.e. the money of ransom for freeing the captives), but Allah desires (for you) the Hereafter. And Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise.
9:29. Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
9:33. It is He {Allah} Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) hate (it).

The Quran's commandments to Muslims to wage war in the name of Allah against non-Muslims are unmistakable. They are, furthermore, absolutely authoritative as they were revealed late in the Prophet's career and so cancel and replace earlier instructions to act peaceably. Without knowledge of the principle of abrogation, Westerners will continue to misread the Quran and misdiagnose Islam as a "religion of peace."

**khairullah** · 10-23-2007

Asalamu alikum brother Michael,

Please give me the site link where you debate this Christian lady.

I am waiting for you.

Thank you

**snakelegs** · 10-23-2007

as i asked you before on another thread - you are a new revert, why do you spend your time refuting instead of learning about your new religion??

**khairullah** · 10-23-2007

as i asked you before on another thread - you are a new revert, why do you spend your time refuting instead of learning about your new religion??

Is Michael a revert?

**MadeenJibreel** · 10-23-2007

Akhi Michael, just find one of the Tasfeers, go to the Ayah she mentions, find the commentary and you'll shut her up.

**Malaikah** · 10-23-2007

LOL, she hasn't got a clue what she is talking about, her post is riddled with factual inaccuracies!

Afterall, it should be read in Arabic, their language.

Yes, because how can anything imagine that they can translate the word of God and not lose so much beauty and meaning?!

Westerns are given a seperate translation because they will never be true muslims, but certainly a great defense in the world. You know, like when someone uses someone else as a shield to protect himself. You will never be considered a true muslim, just like the jews never consider converts to be true jews. You will always be tainted as outside of their ancestory.

Either she is lying or she is extremely ignorant. A western Muslim is just as Muslim as any Arab Muslim. As if being a Western means you can't learn Arabic!

Christianity does not hold that belief. A person doesn't have to be born into the ancient line to be accepted as a true Christian. It is universal. You can have any nationality and it will feel acceptable, but this religion and others like buddhism and hinduism is limited to the nationality.

I'm sure Christianity doesn't teach people to lie about other religions either.

Micheal, you are just as much a Muslim as any other Muslim!

How is it that mohamed comes up with "quotes" that Jesus Christ said on earth and in heaven when the official documents of His words are the Holy Bible, which you argue against but still call Christ a prophet?

There is nothing official about the Bible. Jesus never sanctioned it. As Muslims we don't believe that the Bible is an accurate record, therefore we can't say that Jesus said so and so just because the Bible said he did.

Also, isn't it obvious that Muslim believe that Muhammad pbuh was taught about Jesus by God??

And why is it that there were no witnesses to mohamed receiving the book? And that he got all this while he was sleeping?? That also means that he wasn't a witness to the receipt.

This person should stop before she embarrasses her self even more... of course people witnessed him getting revelation! And he did not only get it in his sleep, there are so many cases when he was wide awake when revelation came!

I'll tell you why. Because he made it up. He had no witnesses because he did it in secret and then proclaimed himself to be a prophet. Would you believe that so easily if John Smith who created Mormonism came to you and said that he is a phrophet by some secret confrontation with God?

If, by her logic, Muhammad pbuh had no witnesses, then how did Jesus have any witnesses? He must have had none either! And where were Moses witnesses? Wasn't he alone when God gave him the 10 commandments?

Isn't it people who have no sense of direction that cling to such silliness and develop a cult?

Actually, it is people who talk without knowledge that have no sense. Like the post she just made.

The prophets, which muslims believe in and connect themselves through by plagerism, have a long history. A history which muslims acknowledge yet have no proof to a direct link.

Oh, and Christians have sooo much proof don't they? By the way, a person could easily argue that Christians plagiarised from Judaism. :blind:

The only thing that they claim is that mohamed received a book with all these instructions. Whose instructions are they really? God's or mohamed?

The exact same thing can be said about Christianity, but at least our book is from God and, if you don't believe it is, then at least we know it is word for word what was taught by Muhammad, whereas the Christians have a book that Jesus never even looked at!

I tell you one thing, I realize that I was wrong to shut you off when you were always bringing up islam. I should have answered your questions then. It's never too late to come back to Christ, unless you die of course.

Praise to Allah that he protected Michael from your misinformed allegations.

Here's what I found on explaining islam. much confusion by mohmed. I guess his laws depended on what mood he was in...BTW. Don't be fooled.

LOL. Just goes to show how ignorant she is about the how genius and essential the concept of abrogation is! Islam could never have been revealed in one go- the people would have been totally overwhelmed! That is why we have abrogation- the people were allowed to continue doing certain acts because it would be too hard to forbid everything in one go. Through this extremely wise, not 'confused' move, Islam was able to be established amongst the Muslim properly, without them being overwhelmed, or giving up.

His goal was to militarize. Just look at the devastations of Greece and Armenia. And in the end of his life, he gave orders to destroy all those who would not convert. Did Jesus Christ ever teach such atrocities?

This is a history point which I know little about. But I can guarantee you that Muhammad pbuh had nothing to do with Greece or Armenia, since he was dead at the time.

Also I doubt that her claim about destroying all those who would not convert is true either, but I have little knowledge on that point.

Michael, my sincere advice to you is to stay away from these people until you are stronger is faith and able to refute them yourself.

**aamirsaab** · 10-23-2007

Look, take it from a guy who spent 2 to 3 weeks at FF - the most anti-islamic forum I've been on; don't bother wasting your time refuting anti-islamics. Even if you did, they would bring another argument (just as twisted and illogical as their last one) and you will take all the flack.

It happened to me and it will happen to any other muslim who tries to converse with them.

It would be better to leave the conversation - there is no embarrassment in leaving a ''discussion'' when your opponent is ignorant and bias. I learnt that lesson the hard way. As you are a recent convert/revert, I strongly advise you to learn from Islamic sources first. If in your heart you wish to defend Islam against the critics, then may Allah praise you and reward you in abundance. But, you should first gain your knowledge from studying Islam - not from ex or non-muslims.

**Woodrow** · 10-23-2007

Michael us newbies to Islam become extremely active in wanting to help spread what we found. We become very much like the ex smokers who become very active in anti-smoking campaigns.

This is all very good. The only problem is sometimes because of our enthusiasim we neglect the fact, we still have a lot to learn. when we accept Islam it is because we have seen sufficient proof for our selves. We neglect to see that others who are anti-Islam are coming up with so many questions that we will never live long to answer them all.

We try to begin our new life with all of the power of a locomotive and jump in trying to pull a 500 car train and fail to see we only have sufficient fuel to drive a motor-bike to the closest mosque.

Our enthusiasm is wonderful, but before we run out of fuel it is best we go to the fuel depot and make arrangement for unlimited fuel and than we go to the garage and have our engine upgrade to pull our load for the long haul.

In other words, we need to slow down and use our enthusiasm as a prod to encourage us to learn more, so that when we are ready to go out and take on the world, we are not going to run out of fuel when we are half way up our first hill.

**YusufNoor** · 10-23-2007

It seems that 2:106 was revealed in response to skepticism directed at Muhammad that Allah's revelations were not entirely consistent over time. Muhammad's rebuttal was that "Allah is able to do all things" -- even change his mind. To confuse matters further, though the Quran was revealed to Muhammad sequentially over some twenty years' time, it was not compiled in chronological order. When the Quran was finally collated into book form under Caliph Uthman, the suras were ordered from longest to shortest with no connection whatever to the order in which they were revealed or to their thematic content. In order to find out what the Quran says on a given topic, it is necessary to examine the other Islamic sources that give clues as to when in Muhammad's lifetime the revelations occurred. Upon such examination, one discovers that the Meccan suras, revealed at a time when the Muslims were vulnerable, are generally benign; the later Medinan suras, revealed after Muhammad had made himself the head of an army, are bellicose.

sounds like you need a course in Seerah, life of the Prophet(saws). to start with, the difference between Medina and Mekka surahs is quite simple. in Mekka, before Hijra, the vast majority of the Ayats revealed dealt with explaining Islamic Monotheism and the rewards for "Worshiping no god but Allah(swt)". therefore, the afterlife in Jannah or the hellfire are topics covered and those ayats were revealed that bolster the faith of the believers.

once Hjra is made, you now have the beginning of an Islamic Nation. so now verses are revealed that deal with how to govern that society. and of course, now that the Quraysh wanted to wipe out the Muslims and a de facto state of war exists, you have ayats revealed dealing with issues such as war, plunder and captives.

rather than being a hodge podge of revelations, whatever was needed by the Faithful was revealed.

i strongly recommend that you get some books on Seerah, after all, Aisha(ra) when asked to describe the Prophet of Allah(saws), said the he was as the "Living Qur'an". you will begin to understand how the flow of revelation came and it will be simple to refute those who hate Islam. the Asbab un Nazool, Reasons of Revelation, is crucial and key to understanding the beauty of the Qur'an and Islam.

**tomtomsmom** · 10-23-2007

Brother, I think you need to try and help yourself before you can help anyone else. I know that you are excited to spread the word of what you have found, but first you must become more knowledgeable in what you believe. It might suit you better to find someone who is interested in learning about Islam and research and debate together rather than someone who is trying to tell you it is wrong.

**Caller الداعي** · 10-23-2007

i agree before u debate with someone u need to know more abt the subject otherwise it creates doubts which can become harmful to ur beliefs.....
and remember most of the accusations ppl say regarding the quran or even islam itself are based on quotes out of the true context .
......ppl would accuse islam and the holy prophet peace e upon him since the dawn of islam...

and a final word.... from the quran:
[So be patient in the face of what they say and glorify your Lord with praise before the rising of the sun and before it sets.] (Qaf 50: 39)
[Do not be grieved by what they say. All might belongs to Allah. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.] (Yunus 10:65)
[We know that your breast is constricted by what they say.] (Al-Hijr 15:97)

**snakelegs** · 10-23-2007

Originally Posted by khairullah

Is Michael a revert?

yes - only about 4 weeks ago!
http://www.islamicboard.com/new-musl...d-islam-2.html

**Fishman** · 10-23-2007

The verses which talk about war with the non-believers are not saying that Muslims should go out into the streets and hunt down Jews and Hindus any more than Churchill's 'Fight them on the beaches' speech means we should go down to Blackpool Sands and beat up Germans!. People seem to forget that an army of non-believers was trying to attack Medinah and destroy Islam, that's why Muhammad (peace be upon him) told his followers to fight them!

People always forget about the context and think about the here and now. Churchhill's speeches stirring people to fight the Germans would be brutal and racist in today's context, but in the context of WWII they made perfect sense.

**snakelegs** · 10-23-2007

Originally Posted by Fishman

The verses which talk about war with the non-believers are not saying that Muslims should go out into the streets and hunt down Jews and Hindus any more than Churchill's 'Fight them on the beaches' speech means we should go down to Blackpool Sands and beat up Germans!. People seem to forget that an army of non-believers was trying to attack Medinah and destroy Islam, that's why Muhammad (peace be upon him) told his followers to fight them!

People always forget about the context and think about the here and now. Churchhill's speeches stirring people to fight the Germans would be brutal and racist in today's context, but in the context of WWII they made perfect sense.

well said.

**Kittygyal** · 10-23-2007