Introduction

In Islam, there are some foods which a Muslim is allowed to eat and other foods which a Muslim is prohibited from eating. Meat is only Halal (“permissible”) for a Muslim if certain rules are followed. The most important of these when it comes to meat being Halal is that the animal is slaughtered in a set prescribed manner, which includes pronouncing the name of God while cutting the neck of the animal. Recently however a significant number of Muslims are having doubts about eating meat which is from an animal which was stunned before being slaughtered. Doubts have arisen over whether stunning means the meat is not Halal for a Muslim to eat.

There are organisations which help a Muslim know what meat is Halal and what meat is not, by ensuring that the Butchers, amongst others, are complying with the Islamic rules. Hence when a Muslim wishes to buy some food, he or she can search the packaging for a certified “Halal” logo with the name of the organisation that has checked, and thus be assured that the meat is Halal because he or she trusts that company. The criteria or checklist that a Butchers must pass before being certified to produce Halal meat is mostly agreed upon by various organisations, however there may be differences between different organisations. Hence although one organisation might declare that a certain Butchers produces Halal meat, the same Butchers might not pass the criteria of another organisation.

Doubts have arisen over whether stunning the animal before slaughtering means the meat is no longer Halal. So naturally this is a point of difference between some organisations. The most prominent organisation in Britain which only certifies Butchers, who do not stun the animal pre-slaughter, are HMC (“Halal Monitoring Committee”). Incidentally, the doubt over stunning seems to have mainly been caused by HMC.

Stunning will now be examined to determine its permissibility.

Is stunning permissible?

The most important thing to establish first is the opinions of the Ulema (scholars) on the issue of stunning.

Mainstream Sunnis

The famous Al-Azhar University in Egypt has declared that according to the four Sunni madhabs (schools of jurisprudence) of Sunni Islam, stunning before slaughter is halal. They established this ruling by asking scholars of each of the four Sunni madhabs (schools of jurisprudence) to investigate.

The famous Muslim World League (who let it be noted are one of the main organisations who calculate prayer times for Muslims) who in a joint meeting with the WHO (World Health Organisation) said: “Pre-slaughter stunning by electric shock, if proven to lessen the animal’s suffering, is lawful, provided that it is carried out with the weakest electric current that directly renders the animal unconscious, and that it neither leads to the animal’s death nor renders its meat harmful to the consumer.”

The Council for Legal Verdicts at Dar al-Mustafa for Islamic Studies in Yemen have ruled that the meat of animal which is stunned before slaughter is Halal as long as the animal is alive at the time of slaughter. (source: http://www.organic-halal-meat.com/article/fatwa-stunning-yemen.php)

Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, has said:

“As for stunning the animal, it does not make the animal dead, for it is intended only to knock the animal unconscious so that it does not feel pain and it is brought under control. This itself does not render the animal impure and unlawful unless it is dead before slaughter. My own experience with the slaughterhouses is that they do not make use of animals that are already dead before slaughter. Inspectors, who are appointed by the government (in countries such as Canada), do make sure that this is not the case.”

There are many more Sunni Ulema who have ruled that the meat of an animal which was stunned before slaughter is permissible.

See http://www.organic-halal-meat.com/article/fatwa-stunning.php for some more and for the sources of the above.

Wahabbis

Wahabbis/Salafies permit stunning. The proof for this is that IslamQA.com (the biggest online site for fatwas ((rulings)) by Wahabbis) has said that it is permissible. Their fatwa describes the manner so well that it is worth reproducing in full:

If the matter is as described, that the butcher slaughters the an’aam animal (camel, cow, sheep or goat) as soon as it falls to the ground after receiving an electric shock, if that is done when it is still alive, then it is permissible to eat it. But if he slaughters it after it has died then it is not permissible to eat it. This comes under the ruling on animals killed by a violent blow, which Allaah has forbidden unless they are properly slaughtered before they die. The slaughter does not count unless it is proven that the animal showed signs of life such as moving a leg or if blood flowed (at the time of slaughter) and so on, which indicates that it was still alive until the slaughtering was over. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Forbidden to you (for food) are: Al-Maitah (the dead animals — cattle — beast not slaughtered), blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which Allaah’s Name has not been mentioned while slaughtering (that which has been slaughtered as a sacrifice for others than Allaah, or has been slaughtered for idols) and that which has been killed by strangling, or by a violent blow, or by a headlong fall, or by the goring of horns — and that which has been (partly) eaten by a wild animal — unless you are able to slaughter it (before its death)” [al-Maa'idah 5:3]

An’aam animals that have been exposed to a fatal blow are permissible so long as they are slaughtered properly before they die, otherwise it is not permissible to eat them. (source: http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/14308)

Shia

Ayatollah Sistani, arguably the most prominent living Shi’i scholar, has ruled that stunning is permissible.

Question: “If Chicken is stunned with an electric charge before they are slaughtered, are they still halal? Is this accepted as halal slaughter?”

Answer from Najaf.org: “As long as the chicken is alive when it get slaughtered according to the islamic laws so it moves after slaughtering even its eye, then it is halal.”

Another scholar, ayatollah Milani, has also ruled that stunning is permissible.

Question: “If Chicken is stunned with an electric charge before they are slaughtered, are they still halal? Is this accepted as halal slaughter?”

Answer: “The electric charge must not lead to the death of chicken before slaughtering.”

Conclusion

The Ulema (scholars) from the prominent sects and groups have ruled that the meat of an animal that was stunned is Halal. They point out that if stunning kills the animal then the meat is not Halal. This is logical since, as was noted in the introduction, one of the essential conditions for meat to be Halal is that the animal is slaughtered in the Islamic prescribed method; hence if the animal is killed by stunning, and not the Islamic method, then the meat is obviously not Halal. Therefore the Ulema have ruled that the meat of an animal that was stunned is Halal, as long as it is killed by the prescribed method and not by the stunning. Even if the stunning will cause the animal to die, then the meat is still halal as long as the animal is still alive at the time of slaughter; (see the fatwa of IslamQA for proof).

The HMC attempt to dispute this but provide no fatawa (rulings) by scholars except a couple of links to unknown scholars whose reasoning is flawed, based on faulty assumptions about stunning, and contradicts well-known scholars and groups listed above who have based their answer on the Quran and Sunnah. Furthermore, weight is added to the rulings of the Ulema, because different Ulema from different sects and groups have a consensus on this issue.

What is stunning? Does it kill?

After some Muslims learn that the Ulema have ruled that stunning is permissible, they insist on their position that the meat is not Halal. They do this by arguing that stunning kills the animal. By arguing this, they display their ignorance of what stunning actually is. Stunning comes from the word ‘stun’, meaning to shock, daze, immobilise something, or to deprive something of its strength. It is not meant to cause death. Stunning is simply making the animal immobile or unconscious before the animal is slaughtered for the purpose of reducing or removing the pain the animal feels at the time of slaughter. Hence to claim generally that animals die from stunning is false and displays ignorance of what stunning is. A significant number of governments of various countries require or recommend stunning for the sake of lessening the pain of the animal feels when it is later slaughter.

HMC attempt to dispute this by implying that many animals die from stunning “on many occasions”, but they give no reliable evidence. They also claim this is verified by “research”, but they neither quote the actual reference nor reference it. The articles they link to on their site are devoid of actual fact, and contain many assumptions and false implications.

Even if stunning does result in the occasional death of an animal, organisations do (or should) remove the dead animals and separate them from the animals which were stunned and were still alive at the time of slaughtering. For example, HFA (“Halal Food Authority), another very prominent organisation in Britain, state that: “one has to be reminded that HFA has always maintained “no stunning to kill”…Halal Food Authority allows controlled electric stun-with-minuscule amperage, with official Veterinary Surgeon validating that the animal or the birds do not die prior to slaughtering.” (http://www.halalfoodauthority.co.uk/FAQs.html)

HMC also link to, or say in, articles that say stunning is unhealthy, that organisations don’t remove animals which were killed by the stunning, and describe “horror” stories of stunning being very inhumane. Such words are false, and have been proven false by people who have visited certified slaughterhouses to see for themselves. Some of these accounts are available on the internet and can be found using a search engine, such as google. Furthermore if stunning was actually was as unhealthy and as painful as they have implied or said or linked to, then the governments of various countries, including Muslim countries like Malaysia, would not have recommended or required it.

Conclusion

Stunning is used to lessen the pain the animal feels when it is later slaughtered. Stunning is not killing and, if performed with a correct method, should not lead to death. The Ulema say that as long as the animal is not killed by the stunning, then the meat of a stunned animal is Halal. Even if the stunning is fatal to the animal, then as long as the animal is actually killed by the Islamic method, then the meat remains permissible; (the Quran itself says this). If any animal does die from the stunning, then it should be removed. A Muslim should make sure that the organisation which certified the meat has this policy. There will still be some who insist that stunning is Halal despite all the evidence to the contrary. Ironically these same people will often be people of little knowledge.

HMC are greatly profiting by claiming that the meat of stunned animals is not Halal, since they are one of the few organisations that only certify non-stunned animals, and are causing a lot of Muslims to doubt whether it is Halal, and thus they only eat from HMC-certified places.

In conclusion, to put it simply, meat from stunned animals is Halal. HMC and some Muslims should stop saying it isn’t.

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

In the last year or two in France, the third bill on this issue was proposed: the banning of the face-veil worn by Muslim women. Let us actually examine this bill and the motives behind it. After-all, when a government acts, it should help and benefit its people, within the limits of human rights and morality, and not for its own interests, motives, or agendas.

"(EPA) A young Muslim girl has a 'Fraternity' headband as she protests against a looming French ban" (source 1)

The bill originally wanted the burqa/burkha (an attire commonly worn in Afghanistan) or the Niqaab (meaning ‘face-veil’) to be banned in France. The reasons given for this have been security, giving women a choice by ending their supposed oppression by the Niqaab, inhibiting extremism, and in the interests of secularism. Some of these reasons are valid and they would show that the French Government is indeed behaving correctly, if true. However, when one examines these reasons, they fall apart, and reveal something else entirely.

1) “Ban the Niqaab for security”

The idea here is that identification of faces is necessary for the safety of a people to be ensured. This is a valid idea, but limited to certain areas. For example, a country has a right to demand that Muslimahs (Muslimah = Muslim woman) who wear the Niqaab, show their faces in passport photos. The supposed problem is that this conflicts with the fact that a Muslimah is wearing the Niqaab for religious reasons; but in actual fact, the Niqaab is only worn so that males (who have reached puberty) cannot see the face of a Muslimah. The solution here is simple: only females in the security teams of, say, airports have the right to see the passport photo of a Muslim with her face uncovered, and demand the Muslimah unveil her face in an enclosed area (i.e. not visible to the public or others). So here, a supposed problem has actually been simply resolved.

When it comes to minor issues of security, such as walking in the street or using public transport or going to hospitals, then it would be illogical to ban the Niqaab on the basis of security:

The first idea here is that it is necessary to see one’s face so that one identify the person. However this idea is not valid. A person with the intention to harm others in a public place can easily change his or her appearance. For example, growing a beard and moustache, dying your hair, getting a haircut (or shaving it all off) and changing your hairstyle, and many other methods, are all very effective means of changing your appearance to such an extent that you are no longer recognised. In-fact, the mentioned methods are so simply that anyone could do that. So clearly it is unimportant whether one’s face is shown or not when it comes to safety in common public places, for if someone really wanted to cause harm to the people present, then one could easily change their appearance. In-fact, it is not even necessary to hide one’s identity, by changing the appearance or covering the face, for a person could go ahead and cause harm to the people present, regardless of whatever may happen to him or her. Indeed, will a suicide bomber even care if his face is exposed, since he will also be killed?

The second idea is that when a Muslimah wears a Niqaab and loose-fitting outer garments, she can conceal weapons, and this represents a risk to public safety. On the contrary, anyone, be they Muslim or not, man or woman, could conceal weapons, even if they were wearing tight-clothing. We only need to think back to the recent incident of a man attempting to create a bomb on a British aeroplane by mixing concealed chemicals (an attempted attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253) to realise how simple it is to conceal a weapon.
Sikhs are required by their religion to carry around small knives. If the ban on Niqaab was truly on the basis of security, then a ban would also be set on carrying knives (in most circumstances). For while there is a small potential that a Muslimah has weapons on her person, there is a high probability that a practising Sikh will be carrying a weapon. The fact that no discussion has been held on this issue and no ban on Sikhs carrying knives has been suggested shows that the motive behind the ban on the Niqaab is not really about safety.

2) “Ban the Niqaab so Muslim women have a choice and aren’t forced into wearing it”

This supposed reason is very ironic. However, the first issue to consider is the claim that “Muslim women are forced into wearing the Niqaab”. This myth is often propagated, and often, if never, has evidence to back it up. It would only be necessary to help women being forced to wear the Niqaab if they were actually being forced to wear it. This is only logical.

A report by the French Interior Ministry showed that out of an estimated 5 million Muslims in France, only 1900 Muslim women actually wear the Niqaab (face-veil). This is 0.038%; less than even 1% of the population of Muslims. This, therefore, leads one to ask “Why then is there a widespread, national ban on something that is so small?” After-all, a government does not tackle issues which, relatively-speaking, affect hardly anyone. This is in-fact “tantamount to using a sledgehammer to swat a fly” (Qatar Living article).

Also, the fact that only about 0.038% of the Muslim population is actually wearing Niqaab, shows that the Muslim males are not forcing Muslim women to wear Niqaab; for if they were, then the percentage of those who wear Niqaab would be very high or at least significant, whereas the opposite is the case. Clearly then there is no oppression of Muslim women in France.
However even if a person was to insist that all of these 1900 Muslimahs wearing Niqaab were being forced to do so, then this claim needs to be proven. For it is nothing but a claim. For while there may be indeed some women who are being forced by Muslim men to wear Niqaab, we also need to remember that some Muslim women choose to wear the Niqaab. They want to wear it; (the question of whether the face-veil itself is an oppressive thing will be discussed later).  Why is those who continue to repeat the unproven myth, that all or most women who wear a face-veil are forced to do so, are so unwilling to accept the possibility that a Muslim woman can choose to wear it out of her own free will and desire?
At the very least, this exposes these supposed “supporters” of women’s rights as either being ignorant or being fundamentalists intent on spreading their beliefs, regardless of the truth.

Even if we assume that every single woman out of the 1900 is being forced to wear the Niqaab, then this is still problematic. For apart from the fact that 1900 is a very small number and less than 1% of the Muslim population in France, the French Government should be investigating ways into helping these (supposedly) oppressed women. For example, it should be sending the police to take a woman wearing Niqaab to a safe place to ask if she is being forced to wear it, and offer help. Not punishing the woman for being oppressed: For “Muslim women who wear the full Islamic veil in France will face a possible 750-euro (1,000-dollar) fine” (Qatar Living article). It is impossible to guarantee that it is the husbands/fathers of the Muslimahs who will pay the fine; and indeed it is the Muslim women who will have to pay the fine officially, not the males. If the French Government truly wanted to end the unproven oppression of these 1900 women, then it should be fining the male relatives/guardians of those who wear the Niqaab; by the logic of helping the oppressed, this is simply punishing the oppressed for being oppressed. It is also interesting to note that one of the punishments for wearing Niqaab is being refused to be treated at hospitals. So much for the pretence of helping the Muslimahs! Another of the punishments for the wearing of Niqaab is to for child support payments to be cut off. Does this really sound like the French Government cares about the Muslim woman, trying to practise her faith?

There is also another problem with fining, amongst the other deterrents and punishments, the Muslimahs who wear Niqaab: how is this supposed to guarantee that they will no longer be (supposedly) forced to wear it? The male oppressor could simply stop the woman from going out so that she still wears it. He could stop her from going to a hospital so that she still wears the Niqaab, risking her health, and perhaps even risking her life.

However let us assume not every single Muslim woman wearing Niqaab is being forced to do so, which is hardly a stretch. What has actually happened, contrary to the supposed reason of ending oppression of the women, is that the choice of these women has been taken away. For instead of being able to choose to wear the Niqaab, now she cannot because she will be fined and denied services, such as hospitals and transport. Forcing women to stop wearing the Niqaab, when they have chosen to do so, is nothing short of double standards. The French Government has banned women from wearing Niqaab in “public services”, which includes schools, hospitals, and public transport. This is taking away their choice to wear the Niqaab. Don’t forget that the headscarf is also partially banned, including in schools. If the French Government actually cared about the rights of the Muslim women, they wouldn’t be banning the headscarf, let alone the face-veil. It is a requirement in Islam that Muslim women wear the headscarf and there are plenty of Muslim women who wish to do so. The French Government is effectively banning both the headscarf and Niqaab in the name of giving women choice. In other words, the French Government is taking away the choice of Muslim women in the name of giving them choice. This is hypocrisy, pure and simple. It exposes the supposed reason of helping the Muslim women as being nothing except a feeble pretence.

It is ironic how many of those who support the ban often insist that Muslim women are being oppressed, and yet have never bothered to actually ask a Muslim woman about this. What happened to letting women speak for themselves? Go talk to a practising Muslim woman and ask her if she is being oppressed. Perhaps a small minority will say they are, and some will say they are only practising part of their religion, including the headscarf or Niqaab, out of cultural reasons, but many will tell you that they are not and that the scarf or veil in-fact frees them. In-fact, it is not even necessary to ask a Muslim woman directly. One can check on the internet for discussions and comments about the headscarf and Niqaab by Muslim women themselves; (although one should beware of fake “Muslims” on the internet claiming to be oppressed, but who are intent on spreading the myth with lies in order to attack Islam). Here are a few links to some Muslimahs talking about the face-veil or headscarf or Muslimahs trying to show the myth that they are oppressed is a lie: SaudiWoman’s weblog,  Facebook group ‘Hijab is my choice‘,  a blog post by a Muslimah entitled ‘Hijab doesn’t stop me from anything‘ , a story about wearing the Niqaab, a petition against the ban on Niqaab signed by Muslimahs in Canada, a blog by a non-Muslim woman who sometimes wears the Niqaab – Non-Muslim Niqaabi, a youtube video by a Muslimah who wears Niqaab explaining why she loves the Niqaab, an article by a convert on why she loves the veil, and many more.

3) “Ban the Niqaab because it itself is oppressive”

The funny thing is that many people who claim this can’t actually specifically explain how a Muslim woman who chooses to wear the Niqaab is somehow being oppressed by a piece of cloth. In Islam, the Niqaab is recommended to be worn as even greater act of modesty. By wearing it, it is practically impossible for a man to “rate” or judge a woman by her body. Indeed, it is interesting to see that the majority who helping or supporting the ban, who supposedly care enough about the Muslim women to not want them to be oppressed by wearing a face-veil, are actually men. It is impossible to rationalise how choosing to be very modest is somehow oppressive. How on earth is a female not wanting men to judge her by looks being oppressed? How is this somehow an insult to gender equality?
Indeed, it is hypocritical to say this when in France women are allowed to walk around in miniskirts and very low-cut tops, nearly naked. Is gender equality being helped here? Is the female being judged for her qualities, personality, and the ideas she carries or is she simply being rated, out of ten, perhaps like a piece of meat? If the French Government actually cared about the equality of women, as well as Muslim women specifically, they would not take the right to modesty that women have to modesty. They would instead ban adverts on French television where products are advertised with females wearing little or behaving suggestively, which is simply promoting men judging women for their looks rather than for herself.

4) “Ban the Niqaab because it promotes extremism”

There is no logical connection between a woman choosing to wear a Niqaab and extremism rising. It is simply that Muslim extremists tend to be from the few countries which order all women to wear Niqaab; there is no other connection. How will a Muslim woman wearing Niqaab out of great piety and out of wanting to be modest, somehow promote extremism?

By effectively banning the Niqaab in France, French Muslims and other Muslims will increasingly have feelings of dislike towards the French Government and France in general, and some of them will move to do the opposite of this ban. I.e. some will defend it, and a few will even start to wear it. The irony is that this ban will anger the extremists and increase their hatred of the West in general, and France specifically, and so increase the risk of an extremist attack in France. So much for public safety or preventing extremism! It will also increase Islamophobia.

5) “Ban the Niqaab in the interests of secularism”

This is part of the only real reason for the ban of the Niqaab. Another part of the reason is Islamophobia. France, after having been oppressed by the Church for a few centuries, is now paranoid of religion. It is disturbing for it to see increasing numbers of French people, whether they are of French origin or immigrant descent, become religious. The headscarf and Niqaab are seen as symbols of religion (even though the former is an obligation), and so there are attempts to ‘squash’ them. And so the French Government has taken away women’s choice to wear them in the name of protecting women’s rights. The ban is nothing more than a thinly disguised attack on Muslims practising their religion and Islam itself.

(source 2)

What has happened to freedom of religion in this supposedly free country? The irony is that secularism a particular ideology, just like religion, and could perhaps be even called a religion too, under the definition of “a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects” (dictionary). The French government should explain what it gives it the right to force secularism on every French person, be they Muslim or not, and promote secularist thinking, and should stop trying to ‘squash’ any possible uprising religiosity in the name of giving freedom. It is ironic that the French Government attacks Muslims and Islam for supposedly forcing Muslim women to wear the Niqaab, yet it has effectively banned it, in an attempt to force Muslim to stop wearing it. The French Government could not completely ban the Niqaab, because of warnings it would be unconstitutional. What about the freedom to practice one’s religion?

“What about the Muslims who support the ban?”

Those who support the ban have no right to bear the title of “Muslim”, which comes with the principles of loyalty and brotherhood/sisterhood. Just because the Niqaab is not obligatory in Islam, does not make it “okay” and acceptable to ban it. If one were to suggest banning visiting the mosque on days other than Friday or banning any other Muslim practice which isn’t obligatory, these same people would complain. Why do they then allow, or even support, an attack on the Niqaab? The Niqaab is Sunnah and mustahab; for the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima az-Zahra, and the Prophet’s wives all wore the Niqaab. These are the role models for the Muslimahs. Would these same people try to stop these respected figures from wearing Niqaab? If they answer no, then why are they not protesting or even supporting such a ban?

In Canada, a Muslim group is asking the government to ban the Niqaab, and in Al-Azhar university, a sheikh is trying to ban the Niqaab. Their justification for attacking their own people and their own religion? Apparently the Niqaab is oppressive and it’s unnecessary, therefore it should be banned. The first has already been refuted and is very ironic considering the great female role-models of Islam, such as Fatima az-Zahra or the wives of the Prophet, wore Niqaab. It is also ironic because these are the same people who complain when Governments want to move one step after banning the Niqaab and want to ban the headscarf; they complain that people are just calling it oppression without letting women speak for themselves, and they insist it is not oppression. The other excuse given by the Canadian Muslim group and the sheikh in Al-Azhar university is that the Niqaab is not necessary, therefore it should be banned. Such an argument is not only illogical, but absurd. By that logic, everything Sunnah and mustahab in Islam should be banned because they are not obligatory. These people are causing splits and divisions in the Ummah; they are causing harm and preventing Muslim women from practising Islam. If these people are true Muslims, they must stop, for the sake of unity and so that they stop oppressing the Muslim women.

“What can I do?”

After examining the supposed reasons for the ban, we find that the ban is not about protecting Muslim women or safety, but simply an act on Islam and religion in general. This is both unfair and contradictory to the supposed freedom we are supposed to have in this “modern” and “free” country. Everyone must oppose the ban, because it is hypocritical, an attack on a woman’s right to modesty, and an attack on freedom of religion. This ban is worsening Muslim-nonMuslim relations and is increasing extremism. The French public are at a higher risk by terrorists.

The most important thing to do for the average person is to spread awareness of this issue. This bill is said to be supported by a large majority of the French people. If this is true, then this means a lot of the French are being duped by the false reasons given to attack Islam; they must be informed of the truth. Engage in debates and discussions with them and show them the truth about this ban and the consequences of this ban. If the people remain ignorant, the French Government will be able to continue along this hypocritical and dangerous path. People from countries other than France must be made aware of the problems with such a ban as well, in order to prevent such a thing happening in other non-Muslim countries. Raise awareness by protesting (peacefully), signing petitions, and organising events where speakers can talk about this issue.
With the help of Allah, we can end this oppression on those French women who want to practice Islam.

Source 1 = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7003246.ece

Source 2 = http://www.flickr.com/photos/23515821@N02/2244343793/

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

Recently, in Britain, the leader of the British National Party came on to the British television programme Question Time. Politicians and other prominent figures come onto Question Time to give their responses to questions, and also respond to comments from the audience. The appearance of Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, has sparked controversy, because the BNP is a widely believed to be a racist party. Griffin was able to come onto Question Time because of the BNP’s increasing popularity which has won them 2 seats in the recent European elections

Among the questions/statements proposed was regarding Islam, and the opportunity will be taken to refute what was said about Islam. Although Islam was defended by one of the politicians (Sayeeda Warsi), there were no refutations to the specific attacks made by Griffin. This will now be done.

The question was asked “why is Islam a wicked and vicious faith?”. David Dimbleby, Question Time’s presenter/chairman, explained that this was a quote from Nick Griffin speaking on Islam. When Griffin was asked why he had made this statement, Griffin explained: “Because it treats women as second class citizens; because it says that a woman, victim of rape, should be stoned to death for adultery; and because it orders its followers to be harsh with those of the unbelievers who live near to them; and it ordains as religious duty the murder of Jews as well as other non-Muslims. That’s in the Quran, there’s no point shaking your head. There are good points about Islam, for instance it opposes usury, it wouldn’t have let the banks run riot in the way that the Labour Party and the Tory Party have done, there are good points, but it doesn’t fit in with the fundamental values of British speech: free speech, democracy, and equal rights for women.” *some applause from some of the audience*

“So what’s your policy on Islam?” Dimbleby asked. Griffin first attacked the other political parties and the interference in the Middle East, then answered “…We should ensure that if Muslims are staying in this country, they do so on the understanding that our country must remain fundamentally a British and Christian country”.

Why is it necessary to respond?

The BNP’s increasing popularity, despite its racism, is worrying. It means that its views will be spread further. It was also disturbing to hear some applause from some of the audience after Griffin attacked Islam, showing Islamophobia is still alive and well.

Response:

Griffin defended his statement of calling Islam a “wicked and vicious faith” by giving a list of reasons. Therefore if the reasons are refuted, then Griffin will have no reason to call Islam a “wicked and vicious faith” and must drop the accusation.

1) “Because it treats women as second class citizens”. Griffin here is making the accusation that Islam favours men over women and treats it unfairly. This is far from the truth. Islam gave women rights over 1400 years ago. Before Islam, women in Arabia were treated like property (similar to the situation in England only a hundred years ago) and were inherited along with other materials when one Arabian mad died and passed on his belongings to his inheritor. Because they couldn’t contribute to military battles, they were treated very low. Fathers’ faces would blacken on hearing the news of the wife having given birth to a daughter, and the baby daughters would be buried.

Islam changed all this. It attacks anyone who is ashamed of having a daughter and the practice of burying her alive; the Quran describes it, saying:

And when the good news of [the birth of] the female is announced to them, his face darkens, and he is filled with suppressed anger.
He hides himself from the people because of the [alleged] evil of the good news which he has recieved, [and pondering] shall he keep her in disgrace or bury her in the earth? Verily, evil is their judgement. (Quran 16:58-59)

And when the female [infant], that was buried alive is questioned. “For what crime was buried alive?” (Quran 81:8-9)

Sadly some girls are still buried alive in parts of China and India.

In Britain, only a hundred years ago, and in pre-Islamic Arabic, women could be forced into marriage, treated cruelly, and could be martially raped. The Quran spoke out against this:

“O You who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will, and you should not treat them with harshness, that you may take away part of the dowry you [the husbands] have given them [the wives], unless they commit open illegal sexual intercourse. And live with them honourably. If you dislike them, it may be that you dislike a thing and Allah brings through it a great deal of good.” (Quran 4:19)

Before Islam, women themselves were inherited; Islam came and gave women the right to inherit, the right to an education, the right to own property, and the right to a divorce. Britain passed a law which allowed women to divorce their husbands on the grounds of cruelty or desertion, in 1857. In 1870, Britain allowed women to keep the money they had earned. Islam gave all these rights and more 1400 years ago, whereas Britain gave women their rights around a hundred years ago. The point is not to claim superiority, but simply to point out in the time of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, the world had not given women rights and would not begin doing so until the 19th century.This shows you how important it was to the Prophet that women were given their rights. Indeed the Prophet spoke highly of anyone who treated women well.

On the topic of raising daughters, the Prophet said:

“Whoever takes care of two girls until they reach adulthood, he and I will come together on the Day of Resurrection like this” interlacing his fingers (meaning fathers of girl children will be with the Prophet in paradise).” (sunni hadith in the collection of Muslim)
In another hadith, he said: “They (girl children) will be a shield for him from the Fire.” (sunni hadith in the collections of Ahmad and Ibn Maajah)

One of the famous sayings of the Prophet on mothers is:

Paradise [i.e. Heaven] lies under the feet of the Mother. (sunni and shia hadith found in many books of hadith)

Many different exultations of the mother have been drawn from this well-known hadith. For example, Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America, states: “The meaning of the Hadith is that you should serve your mother and take good care of her. Obey her as long as she does not tell you to do something haram. It does not make any difference whether the mother is Muslim or non-Muslim. It is the duty of the children to be respectful to their parents, especially mothers.” (source)

The Quran orders everyone to be respectful to their parents, especially the mothers:

And We enjoined the human being (kindness) regarding his parents. His mother bore him with hardship upon hardship, and his weaning takes two lunar years. You shall give thanks to Me, and to your parents. To Me is the final destiny. (Quran 31:14)

A Shia Muslim tafseer (explanation of the Quran) explains why the mother was given special mention:

“…the Qur’an points to the course of mother’s pregnancy in order to awaken the moral conscience of man and that he should not forsake the events of the past. He must always remember that his mother bore him and fed him with her own milk. She dispensed with her sleep and food for the sake of his tranquillity in a manner that no one was ready to bear such troubles…”

It can be clearly seen that Islam does not degrade the female.

2) ” Because it says that a woman, victim of rape, should be stoned to death for adultery”. Griffin’s claim is ludicrous to say the least. There is no basis for this in Islam whatsoever, and it is upto Griffin to prove it. After Griffin made a number of attacks against Islam, he finished by saying “that’s in the Quran, there’s no point shaking your head”. I call on Mr Griffin to point out the non-existent verse where the Quran has a punishment for the woman that is raped. It suffices to quote a single hadith to disprove Mr Griffin:

“There was a girl who was raped (at the time of the Prophet), she was freed from punishment for perzinahan (sexual intercourse outside of marriage), while the perpetrator was subjected to punishment” (sunni hadith from Tirmidhi)

It is well-known in Islamic law that when a person is forced to do something Islam forbids, they are not to be punished, because of the element of compulsion.

3) “and because it orders its followers to be harsh with those of the unbelievers who live near to them”. This cannot be true when one actually examines Muslim-nonMuslim relations. In the Constitution of Medina, the Prophet gave rights to both Jews and Christians, as well as to the Muslims; I urge Mr Griffin to read up on this.

In a well-known shia Muslim hadith, Ali ibn Abu Talib (a great companion of the Prophet and the fourth rightly-guided Caliph) says that a person is either your brother in faith or your brother in humanity. This reflects how a Muslim should interact with others.

The Quran speaks of protecting persecuted non-Muslims:

Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to assist them; Those who have been expelled from their homes without a just cause except that they say: Our Lord is Allah. And had there not been Allah’s repelling some people by others [i.e. fighting against the oppressors], certainly there would have been pulled down monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques in which Allah’s name is much remembered; and surely Allah will help him who helps His cause; most surely Allah is Strong, Mighty. (Quran 22:39-40)

It is very interesting to see that Muslims are given the permission to fight (the fact that permission is needed to fight is enough of a proof to show that fighting is the exception in Islam, not the norm) against those who oppress people. Indeed, it is clear that the verse is talking about oppressed non-Muslims too, because of the general command in the first phrase. This extends even to protecting the rights of Jews and Christians (amongst others) to worship and practice their religions. This is far different to what Griffin has claimed.

To further explain the tolerance and kindness that is necessary between Muslims and non-Muslims would require several pages. These two links give detailed discussions and insights in the compassion and tolerance a Muslim should show towards a non-Muslim: Culture of Tolerance in Islam and Quranic foundations of Muslim/Non-Muslim relations.

4) “and it ordains as religious duty the murder of Jews as well as other non-Muslims. That’s in the Quran, there’s no point shaking your head.”

I ask Mr Griffin to please show me where the Quran ordains this as “religious duty”. It has been mentioned briefly above that fighting in Islam is an exception and not a norm. The verse Griffin is probably referring to is:

So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Quran 9:5)

This verse does seem to be very harsh, but a fundamental principle in understanding the Quran is context. Anyone can cherry-pick verses with any religious book, including the Bible. Even before consulting the context, one can see that the verse is only directed to idol-worshippers, and so Griffin’s statement that “it ordains as religious duty the murder of Jews” is obviously false. A proper detailed context would take too long to narrate, but it suffices to narrate a few facts:

The Prophet, despite his companions being killed and tortured and despite himself suffering greatly, did not fight against the idol-worshippers until his 15th year of Prophethood. His Prophethood was only 23 years long. For the first 15 years, he had not engaged in any battles. Since he, as a Prophet of Islam, avoided fighting so much, it cannot be claimed that fighting is a religious duty. This also shows that peace is the norm in Islam.

The Quran states the Prophet’s greatest victory is the Treaty of Hudaybiyah. Not a battle. The Prophet won some very great victories, for example when his army was much smaller than the army of the idol-worshippers. Surely if fighting was so highly prized in Islam, the Quran would describe one of these battles as the Prophet’s greatest victory, not a peace treaty.

Let us now quote verse 5 with its surrounding verses and then relate the context:

9:1 (This is a declaration of) immunity by Allah and His Apostle towards those of the idolaters with whom you made an agreement.
9:2 So go about in the land for four months and know that you cannot weaken Allah and that Allah will bring disgrace to the unbelievers.
9:3 And an announcement from Allah and His Apostle to the people on the day of the greater pilgrimage that Allah and His Apostle are free from liability to the idolaters; therefore if you repent, it will be better for you, and if you turn back, then know that you will not weaken Allah; and announce painful punishment to those who disbelieve.
9:4 Except those of the idolaters with whom you made an agreement, then they have not failed you in anything and have not backed up any one against you, so fulfill their agreement to the end of their term; surely Allah loves those who are careful (of their duty).
9:5 So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
9:6 And if one of the idolaters seek protection from you, grant him protection till he hears the word of Allah, then make him attain his place of safety; this is because they are a people who do not know.

The Treaty of Hudaybiyah, which the Prophet brought about, stated that there would be peace between the Muslims and the idol-worshippers and that they would not fight each other for ten years. The treaty was soon broken by the idol-worshippers. After being persecuted and attacked so many times, Allah ordered that there would be no more peace treaties with the idol-worshippers, for they had continually killed Muslims and made them suffer. Chapter 9 of the Quran was revealed. It gave the idol-worshippers four months (verse 2 “so go about in the land for four months” and verse 5 “when the sacred months have passed”) to ask the Muslims forgiveness for breaking the treaty. If they didn’t, then the Muslims had permission to go fight the idol-worshippers (verse 3 “free from liability”). This is what any nation would do. If two nations make a peace treaty, and one nation breaks it, then the other nation will consider the treaty broken and fight again. However God gave the idol-worshippers a respite until the sacred months passed. In this time, the idol-worshippers could seek forgiveness for breaking the treaty. This is surely an act of tolerance.

It should also be noted that the Muslims could only fight those idol-worshippers who had broken the treaty. The treaty with those who hadn’t violated the peace, remained unbroken and so the Muslims would not fight them (verse 4). Safety was also given to those who broke the treaty but were apologetic (verse 6).

Therefore, it can be seen that it is not “religious duty” to fight, as Griffin claims. Indeed, the verse Griffin was probably referring to (9:5), when examined in context, is actually quite tolerant and logical: a treaty was made between the Muslims and idol-worshippers; it was broken; the Muslims were free from liability and now would fight against the idol-worshippers unless the latter repented in the four months of respite; they would not fight against those amongst the idol-worshippers who had not broken the treaty; those who had broken the treaty but sought safety were given it.

Now that all of Griffin’s reasons have been briefly refuted, he no longer can call Islam “wicked” or “vicious”. Indeed, Islam is peaceful, tolerant, and compassionate.

Is Islam incompatible with British values?

Griffin said “…but it doesn’t fit in with the fundamental values of British speech: free speech, democracy, and equal rights for women…”

Islam gives free speech too. What it doesn’t give is the freedom to be offensive. There is a difference between speaking freely, and speaking with the intent to offend. Even in British law, this applies. While freedom of speech exists, it is a crime to speak or write libel against others. In some European countries, it is even a crime to question the holocaust; all other historical incidents can be examined, except this one. (No, the holocaust isn’t being denied, a point is simply being made:) freedom of speech comes with responsibilities. One has the right to speak freely, but not abusively.

As for democracy, where does Islam forbid democracy? I ask Mr Griffin to study Iran which combines theocracy and democracy. At best, it could be argued that Islam prefers other systems to democracy; but this would only be relevant for an Islamic state. So it’s irrelevant what Islam’s position is on democracy, because Britain is not Muslim-majority.

Rights for women? Islam has indeed given rights to women as explained above. Islam says no person is superior to another except by piety.

If Islam was incompatible with British values, why do British people convert to Islam? Why do the children, who were born and bred in Britain, of those who immigrated to Britain live so well in Britain?

Griffin said “we should ensure that if Muslims are staying in this country, they do so on the understanding that our country must remain fundamentally a British and Christian country.”

Muslims aren’t a race. They are people who choose to follow and practice Islam. There are British converts to Islam. As for those Muslims who were born and bred in Britain but have Asian or Black or other origins, aren’t they British too? Their origins might be elsewhere, but they are raised in the country, are educated in the country, and are working in the country. This is simply a case of Griffin’s party, the BNP, wanting Britain for the white British, which is racism. Islam condemns racism.

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

Without the crucifixion and resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.” (I Corinthians 15:14-15, ‘King James Version’ translation)

The problem one has, is with the whole point of the crucifixion (assuming, for the sake of argument, that it actually happened). What was it all for? What good did it do?

The Death

How does crucifixion kill you? According to the Bible, it seems you can just hang there indefinitely until you feel like “giving up the ghost” (i.e. dying). In actual fact you die of asphyxiation by drowning. Hanging by your arms makes it more and more difficult to expand your chest until you can no longer draw air into your lungs; You very slowly drown as the chest and abdominal muscles tire and fluid collects in the lungs. One of the reasons that the Romans would break the legs of the crucified was to speed up their death – they could not take any weight on their legs and the whole body was hanging by the arms.

( It should also be noted that the Romans probably tied the wrists to the cross, and nailed the hands on to make sure the victim could not pull his hands free. If nails were used with no rope, the weight of the body would simply rip the nails through the hands. It has been mentioned that the nails were usually placed between the Radius and Ulna bones in the forearm, as they could support the weight. Presumably it was both the combination of the ropes and nails that held the victim in place. Interesting that you never see Christian stigmatics showing rope marks on the wrist and nail marks on the fore-arms, and most images of Christ show him supported only by nails through the hand… ).

The four gospels all give different accounts of (among many other things) Jesus’ final words. Yet he would have hardly been able to suck in a lungful of air, let alone make any sort of grand last words.

The Sacrifice

Christians often tell you things such as  “The Lord sent his only son to die for me! How much more personal can you get?” and “he died for our sins” and so on. It seems that some people almost celebrate the awful death of Jesus. Was it really some great selfless sacrifice, for the benefit of a world of sinners?

So the story goes, Jesus died and this somehow absolved all of humanity’s sins, past, present and future. He then spent three days dead (some say he went to the underworld or Hell), came back to his physical body and then floated up to Heaven.

1. How was this a selfless sacrifice? He was marched up the hill by a bunch of heavily armed centurions. Was he really saying things like “No, it’s okay, I want to do this. It’s part of The Plan, you see.”? (It has to be said that many human sacrifices do willingly go to their deaths, sure in the belief that they are doing it for the good of their people, and that their deity actually exists. They don’t usually magically manipulate events to ensure that it happens, however…)
2. Maybe it somehow was a selfless sacrifice. In this case, why was it necessary for Jesus to be killed by the state? Why not just say to his disciples “Well guys, it’s time to say Goodbye.” and throw himself under the nearest chariot? Death is death. Did the manner in which Christ died actually make any difference?
3. It has never been adequately explained how this death freed us all from sin. If the death freed us from the consequences of sin (hell, or eternal oblivion), it is still unclear as to why it had to happen in this particular way. Why didn’t God just sort it all out during Creation?
4. If Jesus is God, then how do we know he really suffered? Is it possible to inflict physical pain on an immortal, omnipotent entity? (see ‘Suffering’ below) Maybe he was just faking it for the crowd…
5. If Jesus is God, then how was it a sacrifice? He only had to spend a few days “dead”, then it was back home to Heaven (and he knew all this beforehand, being omniscient). A few days in the underworld can hardly have been a big deal for an eternal, omnipotent deity, can it? (And of course, being omnipresent as well, he would already have been there all the time anyway).
6. What was he doing during those three days? (Some people say he was preaching to the lost souls in Hell). Why three days anyway? Coming back to life after a couple of weeks would have impressed the locals much more.
7. If Jesus willingly went to the cross, was it then a suicide? Isn’t suicide a Big Bad Sin? There seems to be a very fine line between sacrificing yourself and committing suicide… (Of course, in Jesus’ case, he sacrificed himself to himself without actually dying, just to confuse matters further).
8. Why didn’t he stay dead? Not much of a sacrifice if you spring back to life a few days later, is it (especially if that was your intention right from the start)?
9. If Jesus had it all planned from the start (if you believe Christians when they tell you the Old Testament is full of prophecies about Jesus and his death), then it certainly was not a sacrifice. He must have used his God-Magic to manipulate events and ensure that the crucifixion occurred. This would include making Judas betray him.
10. Why is Judas so reviled? If he acted with Jesus’ blessing, or even under divine coercion from Jesus, why is he portrayed as a bad person? Either way, he helped the crucifixion take place, so surely Christians should admire him. Without Judas they might not have been Saved, or Jesus might have lived a lot longer and they’d have a much less impressive ornament to hang round their necks as a symbol of his death. A runaway horse maybe, or a slippery banana-skin or perhaps a poorly cooked chicken leg.
11. Why didn’t Jesus let the disciples in on the big secret beforehand?
12. If Judas had not given Jesus a kiss on the cheek, would nobody have known who he was? Had he been preaching, healing and overturning tables with a mask on, so that the only way in which the “great multitude” who came for him could recognise him was through Judas’ kiss? Perhaps Jesus had a twin brother, and only Judas could easily tell them apart? Perhaps the other disciples were all wearing “Jesus Masks” to throw the crowd off the scent? Judas’ part in all this would seem to be quite redundant if Jesus were at all recognisable to his enemies…

We are told that Jesus died for our sins, and his death on the cross saved us all from Hell (or eternal death). So why do we still get all the sermons about sin, heaven and hell? If we are all going to Heaven anyway, why do priests keep pestering us? If our afterlife still depends on living a good christian life then what difference did Jesus’ death make? How did it change anything?

If Jesus has already “paid the price” for our sins, then surely we can now sin as much as we like. If not, why not? Or, if he only paid for Original Sin, that still doesn’t explain why God needed a blood sacrifice to sort out something that could easily have been avoided in the first place. (Remember though, that the first murder in the Bible occurred as a result of God preferring a sacrifice of flesh to a sacrifice of vegetables, for some obscure reason).

If our getting into Heaven depends solely on accepting Christ as our personal Saviour, what about all those people who died without even hearing about him (for whatever reason)? If they get into heaven anyway, then Christ’s death is irrelevant. In which case, why shouldn’t the same apply to everyone? If God had never sent Christ to Earth, everyone would get into Heaven and there would be a few less violent wars in the history books…

The idea of God sacrificing himself to himself, in order to prevent himself sending us all to Hell for committing sins because of the way he made us, and which he knew we were going to do is difficult to accept…

The Suffering

A big thing is made about how much Christ suffered on the cross. While certainly quite nasty, there are much worse ways to die (and the followers of Christ have been quite inventive in thinking up new ones over the last couple of thousand years). If Christ’s suffering was somehow supposed to be for our benefit, wouldn’t we benefit more if his suffering had been greater (e.g. he might have been hung, drawn and quartered; or keelhauled; or water-boarded first)? Or, if he had suffered less (maybe quickly stabbed) would it have made any difference? All the other people who were crucified (and there were certainly plenty – the Romans were very big on crucifixions) would have suffered to a similar degree, if not more. How was Christ’s suffering any different to theirs?

Crucifixion is obviously a particularly horrific way to die. However, being God, Jesus would have known not only the pain involved in crucifixion, but also the pain involved in every other possible manner of dying. God would be perfectly aware of tortures, diseases and injuries that make crucifixion seem like a picnic on a warm summer day. When people go on about how terrible His death was, how much he suffered, and that it allowed Him to experience human suffering, I think “But if he was God, a few hours on the cross would have been utterly insignificant to Him and He would already know exactly what all possible forms of human suffering are like.”

Some people argue that Christ suffered more than just physical pain – he suffered spiritual pain because he was taking all of our sins on himself. Unfortunately, this spiritual suffering didn’t seem to make enough of an impression on the writers of the Gospels for them to note it down… This also begs the question – If He suffered “spiritual pain”, why was it necessary for Him to also suffer physical pain? Couldn’t He have atoned and suffered without being nailed to a stick first? At what point did the spiritual pain begin and end, and why?

Presumably this atonement includes the sins of people in the past and future, as well as at the time of the crucifixion. In that case, why did God have to come to earth at all and be sacrificed (to himself)? Why not just sort it all out right at the time of Creation? What happened to those who died before Christ did? Were they just sort of floating around in limbo, waiting for the time of the Atonement?

So Christ suffered horribly and died (temporarily) for His beliefs? So what?
How many people suffer far, far worse deaths every single year for no good reason whatsoever? (Ironically, sometimes at the hands of Christ’s “followers”). People who are brutally murdered because of the colour of their skin, or their beliefs, or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Original Sin

If it simply freed us from (or paid the price for) Original Sin (Adam and Eve bringing sin into the world which was then somehow inherited), does that mean that all those people who died before Jesus didn’t have a chance? Or did his death retro-actively Save them as well? In which case, why did he have to die at all? Why not just remove Original Sin right at the start?

In conclusion, the crucifixion which is the keystone of Christianity appears irrational and hence is wobbly.

(http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/crucify.html with slight modifications)

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic Lunar calendar and the holiest of the four holy months. It begins with the sighting of the new moon after which all physically mature and healthy Muslims are obliged to abstain from all food, drink, gum chewing, any kind of tobacco use, and any kind of sexual contact between dawn and sunset. However, that is merely the physical component of the fast; the spiritual aspects of the fast include refraining from gossiping, lying, slandering and all traits of bad character. All obscene and irreligious sights and sounds are to be avoided. Purity of thought and action is paramount. Ordained in the Quran, the fast is an exacting act of deeply personal worship in which Muslims seek a raised level of God-consciousness. The act of fasting redirects the hearts away from worldly activities, towards The Divine.

The month of Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, prayer, doing good deeds and spending time with family and friends. The fasting is intended to help teach Muslims self-discipline, self-restraint and generosity. It also reminds them of the suffering of the poor, who may rarely get to eat well. It is common to have one meal (known as the Suhoor), just before sunrise and another (known as the Iftar), directly after sunset. This meal will commonly consist of dates, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Because Ramadan is a time to spend with friends and family, the fast will often be broken by different Muslim families coming together to share in an evening meal.

Ramadan derives from the Arabic root: ramida or ar-ramad, meaning scorching heat or dryness. Since Muslims are commanded to fast during the month of Ramadan, it is believed that the month’s name may refer to the heat of thirst and hunger, or because fasting burns away one’s past sins. Muslims believe that God began revealing the Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan (in the year 610 C.E.). The Qur’an commands: “O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint…Ramadan is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur’an, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting…” (Chapter 2, verses 183 and 185). Fasting during Ramadan did not become an obligation for Muslims until 624 C.E., at which point it became the third of the Five Pillars of Islam. The others are faith (Shahadah); prayer (Salah); charitable giving (Zakah); and the pilgrimage to Makkah (Hajj).

Another aspect of Ramadan is that it is believed that one of the last few odd-numbered nights of the month is the Laylat al-Qadr, the “Night of Power” or “Night of Destiny”. It is the holiest night of the holiest month; it is believed to be the night on which God first began revealing the Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). This is a time for especially fervent and devoted prayer, and the rewards and blessings associated with such are manifold. Muslims are told in the Qur’an that praying throughout this one night is better than a thousand months of prayer. No one knows exactly which night it is; it is one of God’s mysteries. (Read more about Laylat al-Qadr here). Additionally, Muslims are urged to read the entire Qur’an during the month of Ramadan, and its 114 chapters have been divided into 30 equal parts for this purpose.

When the first crescent of the new moon has been officially sighted by a reliable source, the month of Ramadan is declared over, and the month of Shawwal begins. The end of Ramadan is marked by a three-day period known as Eid ul-Fitr, the “Festival of Fast-breaking”. It is a joyous time beginning with a special prayer, and accompanied by celebration, socializing, festive meals and sometimes very modest gift-giving, especially to children.

When Ramadan ends, Muslims give charity in a locally prescribed amount, calculated to feed one poor person in that region for one day. This is known as fitra, and is meant as another reminder of the suffering endured by many. Many Muslims also take this occasion to pay the annual alms which are due to the poor and needy, known as Zakah (2.5% of assets).

At the beginning of Ramadan, it is appropriate to wish Muslims “Ramadan Mubarak” which means “Blessed Ramadan.” At its conclusion, you may say “Eid Mubarak”.

(source: http://shiaonline.wordpress.com/ramadan-the-blessed-month/)

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

Ramadan mubarak! Happy Ramadan! The month of fasting has begun. More than 37 countries have begun fasting today. If you are a non-Muslim who does not know what Ramadan is, read the basics here. There is a full explanation and guide to Ramadan here.

An atheist meets up with Abu Hanifa

Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanifa madhab (school of jurisprudence), was asked by the ruler to meet with the Muslims and an atheist so Abu Hanifa could debate with the atheist. They set a time for them to all gather and meet up. It was sunset at the time and one hour had passed, but Abu Hanifah still hadn’t arrived. Another hour had passed, but still there was no sign of him. The Muslims started to become tense and worried about his late arrival. They did not want the atheist to think that they were too scared to debate him, yet they did not want to take up the challenge themselves as Abu Hanifah was a better than debater than themselves. Another hour passed, and suddenly the atheist started laughing and said, “Your best debater is too scared! He knows he’s wrong, he is too frightened to come and debate with me. I guarantee he will not turn up today.”

Many hours passed until Abu Hanifa finally came. Everyone questioned him about his being late and what happened. So he started explaining how there was river that he had to cross….and he was waiting for a boat to come and bring him on the other side of the river. While he was waiting, the branches and leaves of the tree fell and slowly formed themselves into a boat. And he jumped in that boat crossed the river.

The atheist laughed bust out laughing and remarked, “Oh Abu Hanifah, I heard that you were the best debater from amongst the Muslims, I heard that you were the wisest, the most knowledgeable from amongst your people. From seeing you today, I can say that you show none of these qualities. You speak of a boat appearing from nowhere, without someone having built it. Nails positioning themselves without someone having banged them, sealant being poured without someone having poured it, and the boat taking you to your destination without a navigator against the tide. You are taking childish, you are talking ridiculous, I swear I do not believe a word of it!”

Abu Hanifah turned to the atheist and replied, “You don’t believe a word of it?”

The atheist remarked defiantly, “Yes I don’t believe a word of it!”

Abu Hanifah replied, “If you cannot believe that a boat came into being without a boat maker, than this is only a boat so how can you believe that the whole world, the universe, the stars, the oceans, and the planets came into being without a creator?

(Sources: http://www.chillyoislamyo.com/imam-abu-hanifa-vs-atheist/ and http://www.haqislam.org/stories/abu-hanifah-and-the-atheist.htm)

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

Sa’eed ibn Jubayr (meaning Sa’eed son of Jubayr) was a great man, born about 33 years after the prophet Muhammed’s death, peace and blessings be upon him.  Both sunni and shia scholars highly regard him as one of the best of the tabi’un (successors to the companions of the prophet).

Sulaiman Mulla is an excellent Muslim speaker and gave a lecture, during which he narrates the moving story of Sa’eed ibn Jubayr’s defiance in the face of a tyrant. I urge you to listen to this lecture by Sulaiman Mulla and hear the story of Sa’eed ibn Jubayr and his martyrdom.

Lecture: The Spiritual Chatroom <<<— Click to listen

Notes

(note 1: The first fifty seconds is in Arabic).

(note 2: Sa’eed ibn Jubayr’s story is not narrated at the start of the lecture, but after about ten minutes. Be patient for it and listen to the whole lecture).

Helpful Terminology

Sulaiman Mulla uses Arabic phrases frequently throughout the lecture, and so you will find it helpful to know these Arabic phrases:

the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa salam,… = The prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,…

Ibraheem = Abraham

Sayyidina Moosa = our master Moses

Bani Israeel = the tribe of Israel

Dajaal = the antichrist

Melaheeka = angels

Seera/Soorah = Chapter (of the Quran)

My nabee = my prophet (Muhammed)

Sahaba = companions

Ibaadah = worship (of Allah)

Dua = prayers of supplication

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

A liar, madman, or prophet? This article examines Muhammed’s claim to prophethood.

Muhammed claimed to be a prophet. He brought the Quran, a scripture which claims to be from God. The existence of the Quran cannot be denied. Therefore, if we do not accept the book’s claim of being a revelation, then we must come up with an explanation as to its origin.

People who reject the Quran’s claim to originate from God throughout the ages have come up with explanations and theories as to the origin of the Quran. No matter what the details of the particular theory might be, they all reduce to basically two hypotheses:

1) “Muhammed was a liar“. He got his information from the outside and presented it to people as a revelation from God. The proponents of this hypothesis claim that the Quran was composed by Muhammed who “borrowed” information from other sources.

2) The second hypothesis suggests that “Muhammed was deceived or deluded” in that he believed that he was a prophet when in fact he was not. To the people who offer this hypothesis, the Quran is the product of the “deluded” mind of Muhammed; it is Muhammed’s hallucinations.

These are the two alternatives to the Quran’s claims of originating from God. It may sound surprising but the book that is being attacked, the Quran, is also well aware of these two hypothesis that people have been presenting throughout the ages in trying to reject it:

Hypothesis 1 suggests that Muhammed was a liar. The Quran states:

“And they wondered that a warner should come to them, from among them. The disbelievers said: “A magician, a liar.” (Quran 38:4)”

Hypothesis 2 suggests that Muhammed was deluded. The Quran states:

“And those who disbelieve would almost smite you with their eyes when they hear the Reminder (Quran), and they say: “Most surely he (Muhammed) is mad.” (Quran 68:51)”.

Most people who present these hypotheses are forced to take them together in conjunction. Logically speaking however, both these hypothesis are mutually exclusive and cannot be taken together. In other words, they can stand on their own, if facts support them, but taken together they collapse.

Gary Miller explains what this means clearly in one of his lectures, entitled “the Amazing Quran”:

For example, if one is deluded and really thinks that he is a prophet, then he does not sit up late at night planning, “How will I fool the people tomorrow so that they think I am a prophet?” He truly believes that he is a prophet, and he trusts that the answer will be given to him by revelation. As a matter of fact, a great deal of the Quran came in answer to questions. Someone would ask Muhammed (peace be upon him) a question, and the revelation would come with the answer to it. Certainly, if one is crazy and believes that an angel put words in his ear, then when someone asks him a question, he thinks that the angel will give him the answer. Because he is crazy, he really thinks that. He does not tell someone to wait a short while and then run to his friends and ask them, “Does anyone know the answer?” This type of behavior is characteristic of one who does not believe that he is a prophet. What the non-Muslims refuse to accept is that you cannot have it both ways. One can be deluded, or he can be a liar. He can be either one or neither, but he certainly cannot be both! The emphasis is on the fact that they are unquestionably mutually exclusive personal traits.

The following scenario is a good example of the kind of circle that non-Muslims go around in constantly. If you ask one of them, “What is the origin of the Qur’an?” He tells you that it originated from the mind of a man who was crazy. Then you ask him, “If it came from his head, then where did he get the information contained in it? Certainly the Quran mentions many things with which the Arabs were not familiar.” So in order to explain the fact which you bring him, he changes his position and says, “Well, maybe he was not crazy. Maybe some foreigner brought him the information. So he lied and told people that he was a prophet.” At this point then you have to ask him, “If Muhammed was a liar, then where did he get his confidence? Why did he behave as though he really thought he was a prophet?” Finally backed into a corner, like a cat he quickly lashes out with the first response that comes to his mind. Forgetting that he has already exhausted that possibility, he claims, “Well, maybe he wasn’t a liar. He was probably crazy and really thought that he was a prophet.” And thus he begins the futile circle again.

Hypothesis 1 and its implications:

If the Quran is the product of a man’s mind who is a “liar”, then we have the problem of evidence against hypothesis 1′s implications:

1) We have to explain the confidence portrayed by Muhammed and the various statements in the Quran. One must ask, “if Muhammed was a liar, then where did he get his confidence? Why did he behave as though he really thought he was a prophet?” A confidence that shows that Muhammed, who is presenting the Quran, is convinced that he indeed has the truth.

The prophet behaved in a way that clearly indicated his belief in his own prophethood:

Miller quotes two examples:

For example, the Prophet (peace be upon him) had an uncle by the name of Abu Lahab. This man hated Islam to such an extent that he used to follow the Prophet around in order to discredit him. If Abu Lahab saw the Prophet speaking to a stranger, he would wait until they parted and then would go to the stranger and ask him, “What did he tell you? Did he say, ‘Black.’? Well, it’s white. Did he say, ‘Morning.’? Well, it’s night.” He faithfully said the exact opposite of whatever he heard Muhammed (peace be upon him) and the Muslims say. However, about ten years before Abu Lahab died, a little chapter in the Qur’an was revealed to him. It distinctly stated that he would go to the Fire (i.e., Hell). In other words, it affirmed that he would never become a Muslim and would therefore be condemned forever. For ten years all Abu Lahab had to do was say, “I heard that it has been revealed to Muhammed that I will never change – that I will never become a Muslim and will enter the Hellfire. Well I want to become a Muslim now. How do you like that? What do you think of your divine revelation now?” But he never did that. And yet, that is exactly the kind of behavior one would have expected from him since he always sought to contradict Islam. In essence, Muhammed (peace be upon him) said, “You hate me and you want to finish me? Here, say these words, and I am finished. Come on, say them!” But Abu Lahab never said them. Ten years! And in all that time he never accepted Islam or even became sympathetic to the Islamic cause. How could Muhammed possibly have known for sure that Abu Lahab would fulfill the Qur’anic revelation if he (i.e., Muhammed) was not truly the messenger of Allah? How could he possibly have been so confident as to give someone 10 years to discredit his claim of Prophethood? The only answer is that he was Allah’s messenger; for in order to put forth suck a risky challenge, one has to be entirely convinced that he has a divine revelation.

Another example of the confidence which Muhammed (peace be upon him) had in his own Prophethood and consequently in the divine protection of himself and his message is when he left Makkah and hid in a cave with Abu Bakr during their emigration to Madeenah. The two clearly saw people coming to kill them, and Abu Bakr was afraid. Certainly, if Muhammed (peace be upon him) was a liar, a forger and one who was trying to fool the people into believing that he was a prophet, one would have expected him to say in such a circumstance to his friend, “Hey, Abu Bakr, see if you can find a back way out of this cave.” Or “Squat down in that corner over there and keep quiet.” Yet, in fact, what he said to Abu Bakr clearly illustrated his confidence. He told him, “Relax! Allah is with us, and Allah will save us!”

The Quran also shows a great confidence by the claims it makes:

a) The Quran says in 4:82: “Do they not consider the Qur’an (with care)? Had it been from other than God, they would surely have found in it much discrepancy“. Now only a person who is convinced about what he has can make such a claim. Do you know of any religious book that makes a claim that it doesn’t contain any errors and that if it had a human origin it would contain many?

Miller says:

This is a clear challenge to the non-Muslim. Basically, it invites him to find a mistake. As a matter of fact, the seriousness and difficulty of the challenge aside, the actual presentation of such a challenge in the first place is not even in human nature and is inconsistent with man’s personality. One doesn’t take an exam in school after finishing the exam, write a note to the instructor at the end saying, “This exam is perfect. There are no mistakes in it. Find one if you can!”. One just doesn’t do that. The teacher would not sleep until he found a mistake! And yet this is the way the Qur’an approaches people. Another interesting attitude that exists in the Qur’an repeatedly deals with its advice to the reader. The Qur’an informs that reader about different facts and then gives the advice: “If you want to know more about this or that, or if you doubt what is said, then you should ask those who have knowledge.” This too is a surprising attitude. It is not usual to have a book that comes from someone without training in geography, botany, biology, etc., who discusses these subjects and then advises the reader to ask men of knowledge if he doubts anything.

In other words, the problem with hypothesis 1 is that if a man is a liar, he should behave in a manner of one who knows he is lying, but Muhammed did not behave in such a manner. He fully believed that he was a prophet.

2) Another problem with Hypothesis 1 is that if the Quran is a lie, the product of a man’s lying mind, how do you account for the information in it? The Quran claims that it contains information that was “new” to the people it was being read to. The Meccans hated Muhammed, so if this statement in the Quran was not true and the information was not “new” they would have loved to point out the source. Yet they never answered this challenge to produce similar “knowledge”, as the Quran had done. Here are two examples:

a) The Quran mentions the wall of “Zulqarnain” (“the two-horned one”). It gives a description of this wall and how it was built to protect a people from outside invaders (Quran 18:96-98). The Arabs had never heard of it, or what it looked like, neither had the Arab Jews or the Arab Christians. Now, after the death of the prophet, some were curious about this wall mentioned in the Quran. Umar the Khalif/Caliph (ruler of the Muslims) sent out travelers to verify the existence of this wall. It is in Durbent in the former Soviet Union. It is referred to as Alexander’s wall however modern historians dispute on whether Alexander had anything to do with it.

Compare what the Quran said over fourteen centuries back, before any Arab had set foot on Derbent to what the Columbia Encyclopaedia says:

“Derbent was founded (A.D 438) by the Persians as a strategic fortress at the Iron Gates. There are remains of the Caucasian Wall (also called Alexander’s Wall), built by the Persians in the 6th century. as a bulwark against northern invaders. (6th Edition, 2000).”

If Muhammed was a liar, who told him about this wall thousands of miles to the east, about which no one in his area knew anything?

b) The Quran mentions a city by the name of Iram where a prosperous people the Aad lived. It was a city of “tall pillars”:

“Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with Ad, (the people of) Iram, possessors of lofty buildings? (Quran 89:6-7)”

Until very recently no historic or non-historic record existed about Iram. However in 1973, the ancient city of Ebla was excavated in Syria. While going through the tablet library of Ebla archaeologists came across a list of cities that Ebla traded with and on that list was a city named Iram. When reporting it in the National Geographic of December 1978, the only reference to Iram they could cite other than the tablets was the Quran, chapter 89.

In 1992 using SIR-C imaging [Synthetic Aperture Radar] using the Space Shuttle, GPR [Ground Penetrating Radar] and GMT [Geophysical Diffraction Tomography], scientists discovered Iram [also called Ubar] in southern Oman, buried under 12 meters of sand. The city contained evidence of “tall pillars” exactly as mentioned in the Quran chapter 89. The Quran described this fact, over fourteen centuries back at a time when no one in the world could have had access to this city. Now, if Muhammed was a liar how did he know these things?

3) Another problem with Hypothesis 1 is that Muhammed was known for his honesty. In-fact, before Islam, he was well-known to his own people to be trustworthy and reliable, an honest man, a person of integrity, who did not lie. It was due to this reason they nicknamed him “Al-Ameen”, or “the Trustworthy”. (This paragraph has been copied with adapations from link)

A good Muslim apologist website, Bismikaallahum, explains about his honesty in an article:

” The behavior and mannerisms of a person tells someone whether he is a truthful person or a habitual liar. This can be known from his habitual life and daily manners especially with long companionship and experiencing interaction with the individual in question. If someone is truthful all the time, this is clearly recognized. And if he sometimes tells lies, this is also quickly recognized. This is something we frequently experience in our daily life; if anyone lived amongst a certain society for a long time, the members of this society can easily tell whether this one is truthful or not. People who are close to a certain person for a long time are able to tell whether this person habitually lies or not, especially in major issues.

Those who were close to prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) had a solid belief that he is a truthful person that had never lied in his entire life. Even those who disbelieved in his Prophethood did not deny this fact. This is evident in the following report in Sahih Muslim:

It is reported on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas that when this verse was revealed (from God to Muhammed): “And warn thy nearest kindred” the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) set off till he climbed Safa’ (a hill/mountain) and called loudly: “Be on your guard!” They said: “Who is it calling aloud?” They said: “Muhammed”. They gathered round him, and he said: “O sons of so and so, O sons of so and so, O sons of ‘Abd Manaf, O sons of ‘Abd al-Muttalib”, and they gathered around him. He (Muhammed) said: “If I were to inform you that there were horsemen emerging out of the foot of this mountain, would you believe me?” (Because Muhammed was standing on Safa’, only he could see over Safa’) They said: “We have not experienced any lie from you“. He said: Well, I am a warner to you before a severe torment. He (the narrator) said that Abu Lahab then said: “Destruction to you! Is it for this you have gathered us?” He (the Holy Prophet) then stood up, and this verse was revealed: “Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and he indeed perished”. (this verse is part of the chapter discussed earlier in point 1).

Our witness (that Muhammed was someone known for his truthfulness) in this report is the statement by the Prophet’s own kin: “We have not experienced any lie from you”, this means that his truthfulness was something very apparent and well known to them. Also, it does demonstrate that his truthfulness was agreed upon amongst them, for no one objected to this statement despite the fact that it was said in the open where all people were present. In fact, they refused his call and disbelieved in his prophethood, but they did not belie his truthfulness, preferring instead to abuse him.

In their response to his call, they actually preferred abusing him to belying him!

One should put in consideration that Muhammed (peace be upon him) was born, grew up, lived and married, before he claimed prophethood, in the midst of his people, so they should be the best judge on his manners especially truthfulness. Despite the fact that many of them did not follow him — and rather, opposed him — they have all agreed that they never heard a single lie from him.

Another proof of this fact is given in the long report of Abu Sufyan, a man who before eventually converting to Islam was one of its fiercest enemies, and Heraclius when the latter asked the former: “Have you ever accused him (Muhammed) of telling lies before his claim (to be a prophet)?” Abu Sufyan answered: “No”. This event took place before Abu Sufyan embraced Islam. The comment of Heraclius regarding Abu Sufyan’s reply is interesting, he further said: “I further asked whether he was ever accused of telling lies before he said what he said, and your reply was in the negative. So I wonder how a person who never told a lie about others could ever tell a lie about Allah?”

This brings us to a discussion on Argument of Priority.

Argument of Priority is one form of logical arguments formulated by Muslim scholars. An example of this type of argument is that if Sam is able to carry five kilograms of any material, then it is assumed that prior to that he is able to carry only one kilogram of the same material. Yes, it is not mentioned in the first statement that Sam can carry one kilogram — it is only stated that he could carry five — but this logical argument leads us to conclude that as long as he could carry five kilograms, then he is able to carry one kilogram as well.

…In fact, this logical argument is derived from the Quran; the Quran employs it to answer those who deny the belief in Resurrection and the Hereafter, it answers them that it is God who was able to create man from nothing is thus also able to revive man again in the Last Day, for if God is able to create man from nothing, it is of course logical to accept that prior to that He would be able to revive him again from death.5

More of such examples are available in the Qur’an, but we will not be referring to those examples in this article.

Back to our discussion on the truthfulness of Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him), we find that Heraclius employed the Argument of Priority as proof of Muhammed’s prophethood; he said: “how could a person who never told a lie about others ever tell a lie about God?”

This is a true argument indeed; for if someone refrains from telling lies to others in worldly matters, it is of course acceptable to admit that prior to that he would not to tell lies against God. If telling lies was never one of his attributes — in fact, to the contrary, people had never heard of any lie coming from him — and he abstains from lying to people, then his abstaining from telling lies against God is prior. ”

This is a grave problem with Hypothesis 1.

4) One last problem, that will be mentioned, with Hypothesis 1 is that if Muhammed lied, then why did he lie? What was his motive for lying?

The website IslamGuide writes in an article (sources of the Hadiths mentioned below are not included):

” Before his mission as a prophet, Muhammed had no financial worries. As a successful and reputed merchant, Muhammed drew a satisfactory and comfortable income. After his mission as a prophet and because of it, he became worse off materially. To clarify this more, let us browse the following reports on his life:

Aisha, Muhammed’s wife, said, “O my nephew, we would sight three new moons in two months without lighting a fire (to cook a meal) in the Prophet’s houses.” Her nephew asked, “O Aunt, what sustained you?” She said, “The two black things, dates and water, but the Prophet had some Ansar neighbors who had milk-giving she-camels and they used to send the Prophet some of its milk.”

Sahl Ibn Sa’ad, one of Muhammed’s companions, said, “The Prophet of God did not see bread made from fine flour from the time God sent him (as a prophet) until he died.”

Aisha, Muhammed’s wife, said, “The mattress of the Prophet, on which he slept, was made of leather stuffed with the fiber of the date-palm tree.”

Amr Ibn Al-Hareth, one of Muhammed’s companions, said that when the Prophet died, he left neither money nor anything else except his white riding mule, his arms, and a piece of land which he left to charity.

Muhammed (peace be upon him) lived this hard life till he died although the Muslim treasury was at his disposal, the greater part of the Arabian Peninsula was Muslim before he died, and the Muslims were victorious after eighteen years of his mission.

Is it possible that Muhammed might have claimed prophethood in order to attain status, greatness, and power? The desire to enjoy status and power is usually associated with good food, fancy clothing, monumental palaces, colorful guards, and indisputable authority. Do any of these indicators apply to Muhammed? A few glimpses of his life that may help answer this question follow.

Despite his responsibilities as a prophet, a teacher, a statesman, and a judge, Muhammed (peace be upon him) used to milk his goat, mend his clothes, repair his shoes, help with the household work, and visit poor people when they got sick. He also helped his companions in digging a trench by moving sand with them. His life was an amazing model of simplicity and humbleness.

Muhammed’s followers loved him, respected him, and trusted him to an amazing extent. Yet he continued to emphasize that deification should be directed to God and not to him personally. Anas, one of Muhammed’s companions, said that there was no person whom they loved more than the Prophet Muhammed, yet when he came to them, they did not stand up for him because he hated their standing up for him,10 as other people do with their great people.

Long before there was any prospect of success for Islam and at the outset of a long and painful era of torture, suffering, and persecution of Muhammed and his followers, he received an interesting offer. An envoy of the pagan leaders, Otba (also spelt Utba), came to him saying to Muhammed:

“…If you want money, we will collect enough money for you so that you will be the richest one of us. If you want leadership, we will take you as our leader and never decide on any matter without your approval. If you want a kingdom, we will crown you king over us…”

Only one concession was required from Muhammed in return for that, to give up calling people to Islam and worshipping God alone without any partner. Wouldn’t this offer be tempting to one pursuing worldly benefit? Was Muhammed hesitant when the offer was made? Did he turn it down as a bargaining strategy leaving the door open for a better offer?

The following was Muhammed’s answer: “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful”, and he recited to Otba the verses of the Quran 41:1-38.

Otba returned to the pagans saying, “I have heard words the like of which I have never heard. This (the Quran) is neither poetry, nor sorcery, nor soothsaying. Do not interfere with this man or his vocation but leave him alone. The words which I have heard will spread far and wide.”

On another occasion and in response to his uncle’s plea to stop calling people to Islam, Muhammed’s answer was as decisive and sincere: “I swear by the name of God, O Uncle!, that if they place the sun in my right-hand and the moon in my left-hand in return for giving up this matter (calling people to Islam and preaching there is no other god except God), I will never desist until either God makes it triumph or I perish defending it.”

Muhammed and his few followers did not only suffer from persecution for thirteen years but the pagans (or non-believers) even tried to kill Muhammed several times. On one occasion they attempted to kill him by dropping a large boulder, which could barely be lifted, on his head. Another time they tried to kill him by poisoning his food. ”

Muhammed was offered all the earthly things he could want, power, glory, riches, and so on. He was persecuted for teaching that only God should be worshipped, and not idols or pagan gods. He had few possessions and was so poor that he was often hungry. He was driven out of his home and several attempts were made on his life.

It would have been far far easier for Muhammed to stop preaching. In-fact, he was offered anything he wanted in exchange. Yet he continued to preach. It is clear then that not only did Muhammed sincerely believe in his own prophethood, but that he was committed without limit to preaching Islam.

Hypothesis 2 and its implications:

Point 1) Hypothesis 2 suggests that the Quran is the product of a man’s deluded mind. If the Quran is a product of a man’s hallucinations then what comes out as a result are things that are in his mind.

If one assumes that the Qur’an is the product of a man’s mind, then one would expect it to reflect some of what was going on in the mind of the man who “composed” it. In fact, certain encyclopaedias and various books claim that the Qur’an was the product of hallucinations that Muhammed underwent. If these claims are true – if the Qur’an indeed originated from some psychological problems in Muhammed’s mind – then evidence of this would be apparent in the Qur’an. Is there such evidence? In order to determine whether or not there is, one must first identify what things would have been going on in his mind at that time and then search for these thoughts and reflections in the Qur’an.

It is common knowledge that Muhammed had a very difficult life. He was an orphan to start with, then his grandfather who looked after him died when he was six years old. All of his sons and daughters died in his lifetime except one daughter. In the same year, his uncle who had been his protector under the old tribal way of life, as well as his life companion, his wife Khatijah of twenty-four years, died. Muhammed loved both of them deeply. He took no other wife while Khatijah was alive, even though polygamy was the norm. Although these examples are only a few of the subjects that could have been on Muhammed’s mind, they are sufficient in intensity to prove the point: The Qur’an does not mention any of these things – not the death of Muhammed’s children, not the death of his beloved companion and wife, not his fear of the initial revelations, which he so beautifully shared with his wife – nothing; yet, these topics must have hurt him, bothered him, and caused him pain and grief during periods of his psychological reflections;  these subjects, as well as others, should be prevalent or at least mentioned throughout the Quran. Yet there is no mention of them at all in the Quran.

2) If Muhammed was  insane and deluded, one must explain why there is information contained in the Quran that no man living anywhere in the 7th century could have know.

Here are some scientific examples, which should make the point clear:

1. The Origin of Life

The Quran mentions that all life originated from water (Quran 21:30) and that man himself is “created” of water and so are all the animals on earth (Quran 25:54, and 24:45). Now these statements to an Arab would have sounded atrocious in that day and age. Even today such statements in the Quran might cause you to wonder if scientific facts about them are unknown. The fact that all life originated in water is well established by the scientific community today. They establish that life began in water. The fact that human beings and animals are created of water is also well established since the cytoplasm in any animal cell is over 80% water.

2. The Female Bee

The Quran mentions the bee, which leaves its home in search for food, in the verses that discusses honey (Quran 16:68,69). It uses the female verb in describing the bee, in Arabic “faslukee”. This, to the Arab, suggests that the bee, which leaves its home in search for food, is female.

Does anyone except an expert know how to differentiate between a male and a female bee? Even today, let alone in Muhammed’s time, 1400 plus years back, we need a specialist to differentiate between a male and a female bee. The Quran is accurate when it mentions that the female bee leaves its home in search for food; the males never leave their homes for food, it is the females who have to feed them.

3. Embyro Sex Determination

The Quran says that the “ejaculated drop” determines the sex of a human baby (Quran 53:45). It is common knowledge that semen is the fluid that is ejaculated by males during sexual acts. Females do not possess such “ejaculated semen.”

The sex of the baby, whether it be male or female, will indeed be determined by the ‘ejaculated drop’, i.e. the father’s sperm, as mentioned by the Quran. It has been scientifically established only recently that the female ovum contains only the X-chromosome. If the ejaculated drop, the father’s sperm bears the Y chromosome, the offspring will be male, and otherwise the offspring will be female. No one living at the time of Muhammed or even Darwin for that matter had any knowledge of such genetics foretold centuries earlier in the Quran.

4. The Gaseous Origin of the Universe

The Quran mentions that the universe originated, at a stage, from a “gaseous material” (Quran 41:11). It uses the Arabic word “Dukhan” which stands for smoke. A perfect analogy for gas and particles in suspension and the gases being hot.

Scientists have only very recently confirmed that the universe did indeed originate from a gaseous mass composed of hydrogen and helium, a big mass of hot gasses, a mass over 300,000 times that of the earth. That mass then fragmented to form galaxies. Muhammed, who had no schooling of any kind and was illiterate could not have possibly known this.

5. The Big Bang

The Quran gives an accurate visual description of the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe. In the 21st chapter, verse 30 (21:30), the Quran states:

“Do not the rejecters see that the heavens and earth were a unit joined together then we split them apart (21:30).”

This is exactly how the ‘rejecter’ scientists envision the creation of the universe, from one singularity, which then exploded, termed the ‘big bang’. Thus the Quran told us about the “common origin” of everything in the universe much before scientists described it in the 20th century. How do we explain this information in the Quran if it is not what it claims to be, the words of an all-knowing ?

Professor Alfred Kroner, chairman of the Department of Geology at the Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenburg University, Mainz, Germany stated about this verse in the Quran:

“Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics 1400 years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own mind for instance that the earth and the heavens had the same origin, or many others of the questions that we have discussed here.(Rehaili 1995)”

6. The Expanding Universe

The Quran talks about a universe that is continually “expanding” (Quran 51:47).

The concept of an expanding universe is very popular with scientists today, however no one knew of it until recently. Do you know that the universe is expanding? Can you feel or see it expanding? No, the verification of this requires specialized knowledge and instruments, which no one at the time of Muhammed had access to. The Quran states:

“And the sky we built it with might and We cause the ‘expansion’ of it (Quran 51:47).”

7. Human Embryology

You can read about human embryology in the Quran, here: http://www.islam-guide.com/frm-ch1-1-a.htm

8. The Cerebrum and Lying

You can read about “the cerebrum and lying” in the Quran, here: http://www.islam-guide.com/ch1-1-d.htm It is a brilliant article.

If we deny the Quran’s claim of being God’s revelation, we have to account for the above information, and how it made its way into the Quran, always without error, and always accurate. We must remember that this information was either only partially available in a primitive form or not available at all, at the time of the revelation of the Quran.

Point 2) If Hypothesis 2 is true and Muhammed was self-deluded, one must wonder why the Quran gives so much detailed information on the previous prophets (especially prophets mentioned in the Bible).

The prophet lived initially in Mecca and then later migrated in Medina, which had three tribes of Jews. Mecca had no Jewish or Christian presence. There are many facts supporting this, but it can be simply shown by quoting one piece of evidence. Islamic Awareness, one of the best Muslim websites, explains this evidence:

“Ibn Ishaq (an early Muslim historian) narrated in al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah (the life of the prophet) about four people from the tribe of Quraysh (in Mecca) who were among the generation that preceded the prophet Muhammad (peace be upoon him) and who had abandoned their people’s faith (paganism) and went in search for monotheism. They “scattered into different countries seeking the Haneefite (monotheistic) religion, the religion of Abraham”. Ibn Ishaq said that Waraqah bin Nawfal had converted to Christianity as a result of his search.

…The migration of these four men out of Mecca shows that the city was completely a pagan society for if there was any significant Christian or Jewish presence in Mecca, it wouldn’t be necessary for these men to travel in search for it.”

Why is important? The Quran was revealed gradually over a period of more than twenty years. Muhammed received most of the chapters and verses talking about the previous prophets while living in Mecca. In other words, in a place absent of Jewish and Christian sources, where did Muhammed get the stories of the previous prophets? Islamic Awareness illustrates this clearly:

(note: “surat” means chapter)

Adam	| 7: 11~25 Mecca | 15: 26~44 Mecca | 17: 61~ 65 Mecca | 18: 50 Mecca | |20: 115~126 Mecca | 38: 67~88 Mecca
Enoch	|19:56~57 Mecca |
Nuh Noah	| Surat Noah (the complete chapter) Mecca | 7: 59~64 Mecca | 10: 71~73 Mecca | 11: 25~49 Mecca | 21:76~77 Mecca | 23: 23~30 Mecca | 26: 105~122 Mecca | 29: 14~15 Mecca | 37: 76~82 Mecca | 54: 9~17 Mecca | 4:163~165 Madina | 6: 83~87 Mecca | 9:70 Madina | 14: 9 Mecca | 17:3 -17:7 Mecca | 38:12~14 Mecca | 40:5~6 Mecca | 42:12 Mecca | 50:12~14 Mecca | 51:46 Mecca | 53:52 Mecca | 57:26 Madina | 66:10 Madina |
Hud	|11:50~60 Mecca | 7:6~27 Mecca | 23:31~41 Mecca | 26:123~140 Mecca | 41:15~16 Mecca.| 46:21~25 Mecca | 51:41~42 Mecca | 53:50~55 Mecca | 54:18~22 Mecca | 69:6~8 Mecca | 89:6~14 Mecca |
Saleh	| 7:73~79 Mecca | 11:61~68 Mecca | 15:80~84 Mecca | 17:59 Mecca | 26:141~159 Mecca | 27:45~53 Mecca | 41:17~18 Mecca | 54:23~32 Mecca | 91:15 Mecca |
Ibrahim Abraham	|14: 35~40 Mecca | 6:74~83 Mecca | 21:51~70 Mecca | 26:69~83 Mecca | 29:16~27 Mecca | 19:41~48 Mecca | 37:83~98 Mecca | 2:124~141 – 2:258 Madina | 22:26~27 Madina | 16:120~123 Mecca | 53:37 Mecca |
Ismail Ishmael	| 14:37 Mecca | 2:127~129 Madina | 37:99~113 Mecca |
Ishaq Isaac	|37:112~113 Mecca | 11:69~73 Mecca | 15:51~56 Mecca | 51:24~30 Mecca | 19:49 Mecca |
Lut	| 7:80~84 Mecca | 11:69~83 Mecca | 15:51~77 Mecca | 26:160~175 Mecca | 27:54~58 Mecca | 29:28~35 Mecca | 37:133~138 Mecca | 51:31~37 Mecca | 54:33~40 Mecca |
Shuaib	| 7:85~93 Mecca | 11:84~95 Mecca | 15:78~79 Mecca | 26:176~191 Mecca |
Yusuf Joseph	Surat Yusuf (The complete chapter) Mecca
Ayoub Job	| 6:84 Mecca | 4:163 Madina | [21:83~84] Mecca | 38:41~44 Mecca |
Yunus Jonah	| Surat Yonus [10:98] Mecca | 21:87~88 Mecca | 37:139~148 Mecca | |68:48~50 Mecca |
Moses	| 19:51~53 Mecca | 28:1~44 – 28:76~83 Mecca | 20:9~100 Mecca | 27:7~14 Mecca | 17:101~104 Mecca | 7:103~155 – 7:159~174 Mecca | 43:46~56 Mecca | 33:69 Mecca | 26:10~68 Mecca | 79:15~25 Mecca | 41:45 Mecca | | 10:75~93 Mecca | 40:23~54 Mecca | 2:49~103 Madina | 18:60~82 Mecca |
Jesus	|3:33~62 Madina | 5:72~77 – 5:110~120 Madina | 19:16~40 Mecca | | 21:90~91 Mecca | 4:156~159 Madina | 61:14 Madina | 57:27 Madina |

Arranged according to Qisas al-Anbya – Stories of the Prophets – by Ibn Kathir

There can be no satisfactory answer as to how Muhammed knew such great information about the previous prophets, when there were no sources for him to learn from. The Quran tells us that Muhammed received his information from God:

Your Companion is neither astray nor being misled. Nor does he say (anything) of (his own) Desire. It is no less than inspiration sent down to him. He was taught by one mighty in Power (i.e. God). [Quran 53:2-5]

What is even more astounding is that Muhammed was illiterate – he could not read or write. Many Arabs were illiterate. So he could not have read any sources for knowledge about the previous prophets.

In addition to all this, these stories in the Quran about the prophets don’t contain the errors often found when reading the stories about these same prophets in the Bible. For example, in the Bible Joseph has a prophecy in the form of a dream in which he sees his family, including his mother, bowing to him. This prophecy however did not come true, because although his family bowed to him, the Bible says that his mother had died previously in childbirth. The Quran does not make this mistake and so the prophecy is fulfilled in the Quran. You can read about this in greater detail here: http://www.pathofislam.net/2008/quran-and-bible/prophet-joseph%E2%80%99s-dream/

Point 3) If Hypothesis 2 is true, that Muhammed is self-deluded, then this implies he was crazy, insane man. Islamguide, a Muslim website, writes:

“Someone who has dealt with mentally ill knows people can be identified by their symptoms. Muhammad displayed no symptom of insanity at any time in his life. No friend, wife, or family member suspected or abandoned him due to insanity. As for the effects of revelations on the Prophet, such as perspiration and the likes, it was due to the intensity of the Message which he had to bear and not due to any epileptic fit or instance of insanity.

Quite to the contrary, Muhammad preached for a long time and brought a Law unknown in its completeness and sophistication to ancient Arabs. If the prophet was insane, it would have been obvious to those around him at one point in a period of twenty three years. When in history did an insane man preach his message to worship One God for ten years, three of which he and his followers spent in exile, and eventually became the ruler of his lands? Which insane man has ever won the hearts and minds of people who met him and earned the respect of his adversaries?

… The Meccans (pagans living in Mecca) of old rejected his call out of tribal partisanship, and they were not truthful in their accusations of his insanity. They threw accusations of insanity at him, for they considered his religion a sacrilege against the tradition of their forefathers. ”

How could Muhammed have achieved so many great things if he was insane?

The website Beautiful Islam quotes historians and thinkers commenting on Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him). Here are a few:

Lamartine, a renowned historian speaking on the essentials of human greatness wonders:

“Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images, the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is MUHAMMAD. As regards all the standards by which Human Greatness may be measured, we may well ask, IS THERE ANY MAN GREATER THAN HE?” (Lamartine, HISTOIRE DE LA TURQUIE, Paris, 1854, Vol. II, pp 276-277)

Thomas Calyle in his book Heroes And Hero Worship was simply amazed as to:

“how one man single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades”

Michael H. Hart in his published book on ratings of men who contributed towards the benefit and upliftment of mankind writes:

“My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels.” (M.H. Hart, THE 100: A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, New York, 1978, p. 33)

REFERENCES

This article was originally based on http://members.aol.com/masadi/sci.htm but has been greatly modified. The following sources were used in the original article:

1. Miller, Gary. The Amazing Quran. (Video Recording, transcribed, Sept 1990, Asadi, Muhammed. Lahore, Pakistan).
2. Asadi, Muhammed A. 1992. Koran: A Scientific Analysis. Lahore. Pakistan.
3. Asadi, Muhammed A. 1995. The Message of Qur’an and Islam. Lahore, Pakistan: Ferozsons’ Ltd.
4. Asadi, Muhammed A. 2000. The Unifying Theory of Everything: Koran & Nature’s Testimony.Writer’s Club Press. New York.
5. Koran/Quran. Translated from the Arabic.
6. Maurice. What is the Origin of Man? 1987. Seghers, Paris.
7. Bucaille, Maurice. The Bible, the Qur’an and Science. 1985. Seghers. Paris.
8. Rehaili. Abdullah. M. This is the Truth. 1995. Riyadh. Saudi Arabia.

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

You might be interested in learning Arabic and indeed there would be great reward in being able to read and understand the Qur’an, God’s Words. Here are some useful links for you to check out which inshallah (God-willing) will help you learn Arabic:

Madinah Arabic – Click on one of the courses on the menu bar for example “Arabic Reading Course” – the site is nicely laid out,  visual, and the courses proceed in steps.

Marhaba – Click on one of the lessons to start learning your Arabic phrases

Arabic online – An excellent site for understanding and learning Arabic Grammar

Advice Regarding The Proper Manner Of Learning The Arabic Language

Let’s Learn Arabic - Easy-to-understand lessons teaching you Arabic

Kalamullah – An excellent website containing downloable well-known and brilliant ‘Madinah Books’ textbooks

80 Percent Words – A nicely-laid out site that tests your reading ability and vocabularly with its excercises/units.

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.

The name of Muhammad (peace be upon him) in Arabic

Many of you know that even though Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, came about 570 years after Jesus, but there is no picture, portrait or statue found of Prophet. This is because he strongly encouraged the faithful follower not to fall into the same mistake as Christians fell into by making statues and images, ultimately worshipping Jesus Christ instead of One God (violating the Commandments of God). Many non-muslims find it fascinating and strange.

Here is a description of how the Prophet Muhammad looks (peace be upon him). His appearance is historically well recorded. Here is some of his description:

Muhammad (peace be upon him) was of a height a little above the average. He was of sturdy build with long muscular limbs and tapering fingers. The hair of his head was long and thick with some waves in them. His forehead was large and prominent, his eyelashes were long and thick, his nose was sloping, his mouth was somewhat large and his teeth were well set. His cheeks were spare and he had a pleasant smile. His eyes were large and black with a touch of brown. His beard was thick and at the time of his death, he had seventeen gray hairs in it. He had a thin line of fine hair over his neck and chest. He was fair of complexion and altogether was so handsome that Abu Bakr composed this couplet on him:

“as there is no darkness in the moonlit night so is (Muhammad) Mustafa, the well-wisher, bright.”

His gait was firm and he walked so fast that others found it difficult to keep pace with him. His face was genial but at times, when he was deep in thought, there there were long periods of silence, yet he always kept himself busy with something. He did not speak unnecessarily and what he said was always to the point and without any padding. At times he would make his meaning clear by slowly repeating what he had said. His laugh was mostly a smile. He kept his feelings under firm control – when annoyed, he would turn aside or keep silent, when pleased he would lower his eyes (Shamail Tirmizi).

He was always the first to greet another and would not withdraw his hand from a handshake till the other man withdrew his. If one wanted to say something in his ears, he would not turn away till one had finished (Abu Dawud, Tirmizi). Those who have seen him, in describing him they always described him as someone in appearance whom they never saw before, and never saw even after his death.

He was especially fond of children and used to get into the spirit of childish games in their company. He would have fun with the children who had come back from Abyssinia and tried to speak in Abyssinian with them. It was his practice to give lifts on his camel to children when he returned from journeys (Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 2 pg.886). He would pick up children in his arms, play with them, and kiss them.

©2012 Path of Islam. All Rights Reserved.