ISLAM

The Religion that Gives You a Choice

(Don't miss this companion article: The Green Horse!)

By Ken Raggio

Let's study some hard cold facts about Islam, the Koran and Mohammed.

Islam is not a water-tight religion. In fact, it is very flexible. There are so many things you can believe and still be a Muslim.

Let's start with few elementary examples from the Koran.

1. Creation - you can take your choice...

    You can believe that Allah made HEAVEN first, and then the EARTH later.

"Are ye the harder to create, or is the heaven that He built? He raised the height thereof and ordered it; And He made dark the night thereof, and He brought forth the morn thereof. And after that He spread the earth.... "
                                                                        Surah 79:27-30

    OR, You can believe Allah made the EARTH first, SEVEN HEAVENS later.

"Say (O Muhammad, unto the idolaters): Disbelieve ye verily in Him Who created the earth in two Days ... Then turned He to the heaven ... Then He ordained them seven heavens in two Days ...." Surah 41:9-12

2. Adam - you can take your choice...

    You can believe that Allah made Adam out of water...

"And He it is Who hath created man from water..." Surah 25:54

    Or you can believe that Allah made Adam out of a clot of blood...

"In the name of thy Lord Who createth ... man from a clot." Surah 96:1-2

    Or out of black mud...

"We created man... of black mud altered" Surah 15:26

    Or out of potter's clay...

"He created man of clay like the potter's." Surah 55:14

    Or out of dust...

"Allah created you from dust..." Surah 35:11

    Or out of NOTHING!...

"But does not man call to mind that WE created him before out of nothing." Surah 19:67

3. You have a choice of how long Allah's day is...

    A day with Allah is 1000 years

"A Day with Allah is as a thousand years of what ye reckon." Surah 22:47

    A day with Allah is 50,000 years

"Unto Him in a Day whereof the span is fifty thousand years." Surah 70:4 

4. The first believer on record - take your choice...

    Abraham was the first believer.

    Moses was the first believer.

    Mohammed was the first believer.

5. Moses made believers out of Pharaoh's wizards? Yes or No? Either way!

    Yes, Pharaoh's wizards definitely believed Moses.

"And the wizards fell down prostrate, Crying: We believe in the Lord of the Worlds, The Lord of Moses and Aaron." Surah 7:120-122

    No. Pharaoh's wizards did NOT believe Moses.

"But none trusted Moses, save some scions of his people, (and they were) in fear of Pharaoh and their chiefs, that he would persecute them." Surah 10:83

6. Did Pharaoh drown in the Red Sea? Yes or No? BOTH!

    Yes, absolutely! Pharaoh drowned!

"I deem thee lost, O Pharaoh. And he wished to scare them from the land, but We drowned him and those with him, all together." Surah 17:102-3

    No! God definitely saved Pharaoh alive!

"Pharaoh ... when the (fate of) drowning overtook him, he exclaimed: I believe that there is no God save Him in Whom the Children of Israel believe ... But this day We save thee in thy body that thou mayst be a portent for those after thee." Surah 10:90-92

7. You can believe the Bible is God's word or you don't have to...

    The Bible was given by God to Moses, and sent Jesus Christ full of His spirit.

And most certainly We gave Musa (Moses) the Book and We sent apostles after him one after another; and We gave Isa (Jesus), the son of Marium (Mary), clear arguments and strengthened him with the holy spirit." Surah 2:87

    No, the religion of the Jews and Christians is not the right course.

And they say: Be Jews or Christians, you will be on the right course. Say: Nay! (we follow) the religion of Ibrahim." Surah 2:135

8. Was Jesus virgin born? Yes. No.

    Yes! Allah spoke. Mary became pregnant. She conceived by the word of Allah.

"She said: My Lord! when shall there be a son (born) to I me, and man has not touched me? He said: Even so, Allah creates what He pleases; when He has decreed a matter, He only says to it, Be, and it is." Surah 3:47

    If you say Allah has begotten a son or a daughter, you are a liar.

"Now surely it is of their own lie that they say: Allah has begotten; and most surely they are liars." Surah 37:151-2

9. You can believe the Koran is unchangeable, unless it needs to be changed.

    This book can never be changed because it is the word of Allah.

"And recite that which hath been revealed unto thee of the Scripture of thy Lord. There is none who can change His words." Surah 18:27

    Well, if I think of something better, I will replace it. (And he did - MANY times.)

So, we can see how flexible the Koran is.

In fact, if you happened to be one of the many writers who claimed to have known exactly what Mohammed said, you could tell just about any version you want to, and nobody could contradict you.

If they did, somebody might have to kill them!

Now that we can see the level of integrity of the Koran, let's take a look at the integrity of the prophet.

I begin with a timeline for Mohammed.

    570 CE - Born near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 20 (?) ¹
        Mohammed's father was Abdullah, of the Hashim family
                (Namesake of the modern Hashemite kingdom - Jordan and Iraq)
        Mecca was a pagan religious center because of the idol-temple, Kaaba.
        Kaaba was a pagan shrine of hundreds of idols, and the "black stone" meteorite.
        The region was embroiled in vicious tribal wars.
        Mohammed's tribe was guardian of the pagan Kaaba.
        He was orphaned by age 6, raised by an uncle, Abu-Talib (namesake of Taliban)
        Raised as a shepherd and attended caravans.

REMEMBER: 

Mohammed was illiterate.

Since he could not read or write, NO documents exist from his lifetime. EVERYTHING in the Qur'an (Koran), or the subsequent biographies of Mohammed, or other Muslim writings and commentaries are derived ENTIRELY from oral tradition and hearsay, and are extremely inconsistent, heavily contradictory of each other and alas, historically unreliable.

Ancient copies of the Qur'an (Koran) found in the Great Mosque of Sana'a Yemen in 1972 were some of the oldest known copies ², but they were so different from the Koran now in existence that the "divine authenticity" of today's Koran has been called into serious question by scholars.

Dr. Gerd R Puin, a renowned Islamist at Saarland University in Germany, was given the charge of analyzing those manuscripts and determined they were the oldest known copies of the Koran in existence. The contrast between the old and new led him to conclude that the modern version of the Koran is NOT the one believed to have been revealed to the prophet.³

Hajjaj bin Yusuf, governor of Iraq from 694-714 AD, boasted that he "was proud of inserting more than 1,000 alifs [first letter of the Arabic alphabet] in the Koranic text".⁴ That is only one example of the "abrogations" (revisions, updating) that has happened over the last 1,400 years. Without those diacritical markings, very many of the words were subject to multiple meanings, and therefore contributed to uncertain and ultimately unverifiable translations - a disastrous fact to have to assimilate into a manuscript claimed to be divinely inspired.

Die-hard Muslims rabidly oppose any such claims, and scream "blasphemy" and violent threatenings. Such was the case for Salman Rushdie, British author of "Satanic Verses." He spent ten years in exile because of death-threats against him for daring to challenge the integrity of the Koran.

This fact cannot be denied: The earliest extant documents about Mohammed were written 135 years after his death, by men who never met him, never knew him.  The sum of the biographies contain many serious contradictions.

Earliest known biographies -

        768 - Ibn Ishaq     135 years after his death
        822 - Wakidi         189 years after his death
        828 - Ibn Hisham   195 years after
        845 - Ibn S'ad        213 years after
        892 - Tirmidhi        260 years after
        929 - Tabari          296 years after

Writings based on oral traditions (hadiths) are undeniably inconsistent with each other, and as such, not truly reliable.

 855 CE  "Musnad" - a collection of traditions of Ahmad ibn Hanbal
 870 CE   Collections of Bokhari
1114 CE  Lives of the Companions of Mohammed written by Zamakhshari
1292 CE - Commentary on the Koran by Baidawi
              "Isbah," Dictionary of Persons who knew Mohammed, Ibn Hajar

Mohammed's biography runs something like this:

    596 CE - Age 25
        Wife #1 - Khadeejah, a wealthy widow, 40 (15 years his senior)
            Six children born, only one daughter survived - Fatima
        Merchant to Syria and Palestine -
            Experienced Jewish/Catholic cultures of that period

    612 CE - Age 40
        Polygamist - Married to 23 women, documented by Muslim scholar Ali Dashti
        Had relations with many women slaves, concubines, and spoils of war.
        Seemingly sex-crazed.
        Pedophile - at least one wife was 6 years old, his favorite.
        Had epileptic seizures.
        Claimed visit by angel Gabriel with 600 wings.
        Became "Prophet of Allah, Apostle of Arabia"
            About 40 converts, including first wife, daughter Fatima,
            slave Zayd, and father-in-law, Abu Bakr, who succeeded him at death.
        His preaching was rejected at Mecca.

    623 CE - Age 53
        Fled persecution to Medina, "year of the flight" - Hejira
        Called a prophet of God at Medina
        Conducted tribal warfare,
            brutally conquered many Arabs, Jews, and Christians
        Beginning of Mohammedan era
        Called "Master of Arabia"
        United the Arab tribes into one nation, religion and emblem.

    632 CE - Age 62
        Made triumphant trip to Mecca with 40,000 followers
        Purged Kaaba of idols
        Heavily revised the Biblical story of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael to fit Kaaba.
        Declared Kaaba/Mecca the House of God, replacing Jerusalem.
        Ordered annual Hajj - pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims.
        Ordered qiblah - five daily prayers toward Kaaba/Mecca
       
    633 CE - Age 63 - Died of high fever

Let's take a look at Kaaba:

Kaaba is the shrine in Mecca where million of Muslims go each year for the HAJJ - the march around the shrine.

(Photo of HAJJ around KAABA - the black cube in the center).

Muslim claims about the Kaaba⁵

2. They say Kaaba was ordained by Allah. 

        (Although nobody ever knew it for 4,000 years. Mohammed thought of it first.)

3. They say Kaaba was patterned after Allah's House in Heaven - Baitul Ma'amoor.    

        (Many Bible writers had glimpses into Heaven. This is NOT what they saw.)

4. They say the "Prophet" Adam was the first to build this house, and Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the shrine on the original foundation.

        (Moses' tabernacle in the wilderness was the first in the Bible.)

5. They say Allah ordained Abraham to build a shrine when He allegedly ordered him to take Hagar and Ishmael.

        (Abraham did not TAKE her. He SENT her away.}

6. God sent Abraham to Mecca (Makka)

        (Hagar and Ishmael did not live in Mecca. They dwelt in the wilderness of Paran.)

Note: Paran is the same wilderness Moses and the children of Israel wandered in, near Mount Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula. Some Islamists have attempted to redefine Paran to force an ancient association with Mecca, but this cannot be. Paran is hundreds of miles Northwest of Mecca.

7. Ishmael and his descendants have always been the custodians of that shrine.

        (Not true, for the same reason given above. They did not live there.)

8. Abde Manaf (Mohammed's grandfather) and Hashim (Mohammed's father) promoted annual pilgrimages to Kaaba in Mecca, and provided hospitality for the pilgrims.

        (The Kaaba was known far and wide for pagan idolatry in those days.)

9. Kaaba at that time was the worship center of over 300 pagan idols, in keeping with hundreds of years of tradition.

        (Adam and Abraham NEVER had anything to do with the Kaaba in Mecca.)

10. Muslims believe Kaaba was 4,000 years old when Mohammed conquered it.

        (Yeah, right. It's been rebuilt dozens of times in the past 1300 years.)

11. Mohammed Ibn Abdullah ("the prophet") returned to Mecca from almost nine years of conducting brutal tribal wars around the region, killing Arabs, Christians and Jews.

12. Mohammed entered Mecca in January 630 and captured the Kaaba, removed the idols and declared it the House of Allah.

        (Did the people REVERENCE him or were they TERRIFIED by him??)

13. Muslims claim that Hagar and Ishmael are buried within the walls of the Kaaba.

CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE:

These are JUST A VERY FEW of the major conflicts
between the Koran and the Bible.

The Koran	The Bible	Comment
Not written by Mohammed, but finally compiled post-mortem by those who claimed to have heard Mohammed speak, late 7th, early 8th centuries AD.	Moses wrote around 1440 BC.  The remaining Old Testament books were  completed by 300 BC. Most of the OT Bible stood  the test of 1500 years before Mohammed arrived.	The Koran is ultimate revisionism, refuting and redefining great Biblical truths that were already established for 700-2000 years.
And He taught Adam all the names, then presented them to the angels; then He said: Tell me the names of those if you are right. They said: Glory be to Thee! we have no knowledge but that which Thou hast taught us; surely Thou art the Knowing, the Wise. He said: O Adam! inform them of their names. Then when he had informed them of their names, He said: Did I not say to you that I surely know what is ghaib (unknown) in the heavens and the earth and (that) I know what you manifest and what you hide?  And when We said to the angels: Make obeisance to Adam they did obeisance. Surah 2:31-34	And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. Genesis 2:19-20	The Koran contradicts the Bible, which says Adam named the animals. Koran says God named the animals, told the names to Adam, then made him recite the list before the angels. Then the angels bowed down to Adam.
But the Shaitan (Satan) made them both fall from it, and caused them to depart from that (state) in which they were Surah 2:36	And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Genesis 3:6	The Koran teaches that Satan made Adam and Eve fall, but the Bible clearly shows that it was an independent choice of Eve, then Adam.
And it moved on with them amid waves like mountains; and Nuh (Noah) called out to his son, and he was aloof: O my son! embark with us and be not with the unbelievers. He said: I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that shall protect me from the water. Nuh said: There is no protector today from Allah's punishment but He Who has mercy; and a wave intervened between them, so he was of the drowned. Surah 11:42-43	And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Genesis 7:7	The Koran says that one of Noah's sons refused to go on the ark, choosing to go to a mountain - and was drowned.
...then we made a casting of them, and thus did the Samiri (Samaritan) suggest. So he brought forth for them a calf, a (mere) body, which had a mooing sound, so they said: This is your god and the god of Musa (Moses), but he forgot. Surah 20:87-88	And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria. 1 Kings 16:24	The Koran says that a Samaritan created the Golden Calf for Israel in the wilderness. It mooed.   There were no Samaritans until many hundreds of years later.
And when Musa prayed for drink for his people, We said: Strike the rock with your staff. So there gushed from it twelve springs; each tribe knew its drinking place. Surah 2:60	Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:6	The Koran declared that when Moses struck the rock, twelve springs were created. This is adding facts to an event that happened 2,000 years before Mohammed's time. At Elim, the children of Israel did find 12 springs of water. It appears that the Koran has combined two completely separate stories.
They said: Call on your Lord for our sake to make it plain to us what her color is. Musa said: He says, Surely she is a yellow cow; her color is intensely yellow, giving delight to the beholders. Surah 2:69	This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke. Numbers 19:2	The Koran says that God ordered Moses to sacrifice a yellow cow for Israel's sins, but the Bible says it was a red heifer. (Surah 2:73 adds, "strike a dead body with a part of the sacrificed cow, thus Allah brings the dead to life.") This was never reported in the Bible.
Pharaoh said: "O Haman! Build me a lofty palace, that I may attain the ways and means- The ways and means of (reaching) the heavens, and that I may mount up to the god of Moses: But as far as I am concerned, I think (Moses) is a liar!" Surah 40:36	Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews. Esther 8:7	The Koran attempts to move Haman from King Ahasuerus of Shushan to Pharaoh of Egypt; placing Haman over 1000 years before his time. Instead of Haman building a gallows for Mordechai, the Koran says he was building a tower for Pharaoh (similar to Babel) even as Pharaoh declared Moses a liar.
Do you not know that Allah's is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and that besides Allah you have no guardian or helper? Surah 2.107	But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Hebrews 1:8	The Koran totally denies the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and completely excludes the role of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world, giving all power to Allah.
(Receive) the baptism of Allah, and who is better than Allah in baptising? and Him do we serve. Surrah 2.138	One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Ephesians 4:5 John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: Luke 3:16	The Koran would totally ignore and replace New Testament baptism. The Bible says there is only one correct baptism. It is a baptism of water and of spirit. "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 2:38
They do blaspheme who say God is Christ, the Son of Mary. Surah 5:75 He (Jesus) was nothing  but a servant on whom We bestowed favor. Suran 42:59	And he (Jesus) said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 8:23,24	Islam is completely antichrist. Its denial of the deity of Jesus Christ is a foundational belief. Its hostility toward Christianity cannot be overstated. It is murderous, and has a stated purpose of annihilating all Christians.

Miscellaneous oddities:

One Islamic hadith (oral tradition) reported by Abu Ishaq-Ash-Shaibani says that Mohammed revealed that Gabriel has 600 wings. The prophet Daniel, Zechariah the priest, and the virgin Mary saw Gabriel and never reported this very unusual attribute.

Another preposterous report from Mohammed is this:

When Mohammed was transported to heaven, he said: "I saw there an angel, the most gigantic of all created beings. It had 70,000 heads, each had 70,000 faces, each face had 70,000 mouths, each mouth had 70,000 tongues, and each tongue spoke 70,000 languages; all were employed in singing God's praises." (Source: Brewers Dictionary)

If true, this angel would have about 5 billion faces and 343 trillion mouths, 24 quintillion tongues, and 1.6 hexillion languages!  

My question: How did Mohammed (an illiterate man) manage to count these things quickly and accurately?

Observation:

The entire religion of Mohammed appears to be one that was created with the most evil of intentions to discredit, replace and eliminate both Judaism and Christianity. While attempting to build it entirely on a foundation of the Old and New Testaments, and its principal characters, it effectively discredits the entire Bible, making complete mockery of it - consequently entirely discrediting itself.

The Koran does not comment on the Apostle Paul and many other great New Testament characters. The Koran's perspectives on Christianity reflect Mohammed's bad impressions with Catholicism, but not true Biblical Christianity. It could easily be shown that Catholicism did actually foster polytheistic teachings, to which he objected. The true church, however, believes that God is one Spirit incarnate in the body of Jesus Christ.

(Don't miss this companion article: The Green Horse!)

Sources:

1. Most unnotated dates in this article are resourced from the Catholic Encyclopedia - www.newadvent.org
2. "What is the Koran?", Toby Lester, The Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1999
3. "Querying the Koran," Abul Taher, Guardian Unlimited, Aug. 8, 2000
4. ibid
5. www.al-islam.org

Quotes are from the "Holy Qur'an" University of Virginia Library, electronic edition.

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