Islam: A Critical Review.
By Steve Omega

 
I've read the Koran three times now. The first time was as a youth searching for a divine nugget. It struck me as disappointingly uninspiring. The second time was in 1998 to look for prophecy and found only a repetitive message akin to brainwashing. The third time, I admit to being leery of it, and found it to have been written with help that is far from divine.

       
The translation I used of the Koran seems virulent but probably not the most so, as many are available. It is just chance that I currently have access to one translated in 1930 by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, and printed by the government of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the late nizam of Hyderabad-Deccan. I've cross referenced some of the verses in other Korans and found them sometimes slightly differing in meaning and verse numbers. So the verses I refer to can sometimes be off numerically in other translations so any passage I refer to could be the verse above or below it, if not immediately obvious.

       
There are claims that the Koran is similar to Sanskrit and Tamil texts as evidenced by the Koran not conforming to Arabic grammar. Over 100 aberrations were noted by Mahmud-oz-zamakshari and he stated the Koran was not miraculous. There are parts imitative of a pre-Islamic Syrian poet and Ali Dashti in his book 23 Years: A study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed (published 1985) draws attention to these probable sources. Mohammed also seems to have borrowed from Al-Ukdal-Fareed, the 25 chapters called Jaw-hara (the Pearl) from which to pillage verses for his surahs. This was written by Ibn Abd Rabbihil Andalusi who was born in 246AD and died in 327AD.

       
So if the Koran is based on cribbed together writings and dubious other religious texts, this really casts doubt on the divine source. Some people (yes, anti-Muslims) have suggested that Mohammed had epileptic fits, and his own mother had declared him possessed by a devil. Regardless of these claims, it seems highly suspect to find castigation of an enemy uncle and a confirmation that an adopted son should divorce his wife so that Mo can marry her in its suras. This seems way too convenient to just happen to fit in with Mos mindset, for surely if God really wanted such a thing, he could have just willed it?

       
Consider something like sura 33:36 which states, ‘….when allah and his messenger have decided an affair…’ and goes on to say you shouldn't question it. Well how convenient for him that god has Mo’ for a partner to help decide things!



There are other reasons to suspect that the claimed divine revelation is actually from a satanic source, if not simply from Mos fevered brow, but I'll get more into that later.

       
The Muslim world has generated suicide bombers and terrorists galore. The Koran stokes these fires of hatred. There are numerous promises of paradise for the slain and booty for the alive. A typical one is sura 4:74, Whoso fighteth in the way of allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward.

       
Suicide has its roots as a tradition starting with Mohammed' attempts. This may be another indication of his epileptic type fits, as no true messenger of God has ever wanted to kill himself. However in the Bakhari hadith, Book 9, volume 87, verse 111, we read this:  "But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while and the Prophet became so sad as we have heard that he intended several times to throw himself from the tops of high mountains and every time he went up the top of a mountain in order to throw himself down, Gabriel would appear before him and say, "O Muhammad! You are indeed Allah's Apostle in truth" whereupon his heart would become quiet and he would calm down and would return home."

       
Hmmm, would God really give you a message and then you commit suicide? This whole entwining of Islam with death is part and parcel of its message. The assassins developed as a group of killers from Islamic culture that believed their reward lay in paradise, of which they'd had a drugged foretaste. This killing for a reward message is continued today and is encouraged by Muslim clerics, but stop and ask yourself whether God really wants his creation to be used this way.
      
A lack of regard for human life and barbarity is usually indicative of Godless people.

       
Sura 5:33 threatens death, crucifixion or hands and feet cut off for those that strive against allah. Christians and non-Muslims beware! Anyone that isn't a follower of Islam is classed as causing corruption to the earth and is therefore to be killed. The two suras just mentioned are only two of many, many such threats and intimidations. Read sura 9:5 that says to slay the unbelievers wherever you find them, etc.

[5.33] The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,

[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

       
Islamaniacs trumpet that Islam is the fastest growing religion and must therefore be right, but surely it has all the hallmarks of a cult that offers certainty not understanding. Fascism and communism were ideologies that encompassed a billion people but today are discounted as having any worth. The majority are often wrong and that is why inspired leaders exist that have a better dream, and also the Bible tells that the road to destruction is broad and wide (Matthew 7:13).


       
The Muslim apologists claim that Islam is a religion of peace and that the terrorists aren't real Muslims. This reminds me of when the Soviet Union had its communist grip on Eastern Europe. When one pointed out that it was a crap system with food shortages, queues for everything and nothing working properly, the red propagandists would claim that the real communists weren't in charge. Today we have a similar situation with Islamic propagandists saying the terrorists aren't representative, despite all the bombers and hijackers claiming action for allah.

       
Unfortunately, the whole tenor of the Koran is one that dwells on slaughter and the doom of unbelievers. The Hadiths are even worse and talk of violence against Jews especially. One says that even the trees and bushes will shout out that there are Jews hiding behind them, and they should then be killed.


       
Now the koranicists tell me that I am taking passages about annihilating towns after warning them, out of context. The threats and promised destruction of surah 17:16 towards a town is supposedly a general warning from allah. But if I don't see it that way, then why should an uneducated Muslim? He could well think the verses saying we will destroy them and slaughter them where we find them are general exhortations for the cause. Certainly the well educated terrorists seem to interpret it that way.

[17.16] And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.

 
 
And if such passages are so ambiguous, then why would God choose to express himself in such an imprecise language. Did God really send Jesus to tell us plainly to love our enemy and turn the other cheek, yet then send Mohammed to tell us to revel in their destruction?
       
Now the Muslims say that they only fight those that started it first, those who cause trouble are apparently fair game for slaughter. The Koran says persecution is worse than slaughter (2:191). Quite a different message from turning the other cheek. However, some Muslims seem persecuted by the mere presence of non-Muslims. This was the reasoning behind attacks on the USS Cole, that they didnt like Americans in their waters or based on the soil of Saudi Arabia, whether invited or not. Yet these people that feel so persecuted will tell you of how merciful and big hearted Mohammed was to Jews, and claim Christians cried when Muslims removed their presence from them in Syria or someplace.

[2.191] And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.

 
       
Muslims will tell you that there is no compulsion in their religion. Yet why insist on making the Haj, a pilgrimage to Mecca? They'll tell you that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerant of people like Jews and Christians. Yet these people are required to pay the jizrah, a special tax on non-Muslims that has no fixed amount but used to be a gold dinar in one district. Imagine having to hand over a piece of gold just because you arent a Muslim. It sounds like a severe arm twisting not a lack of compulsion.

Just exactly how benevolent this is can surely be seen for the added burden it was. Who would want to pay a form of protection money to an unfriendly gang? Just how popular this tax would have been, can be gauged from the American reaction to a tax on tea imposed by their British protectors.
       
Can you imagine if the West made religious minorities pay a special tax, what a cry about equal rights there would be? Or suppose Philadelphia or Rome was made off limits to non-Christians?

We have reciprocal agreements with countries, but we should also consider the golden rule to apply to philosophy and religion. We don't tolerate political fascism so neither should we accept religious fascism.

I don't think the Koran has anything nice or admirable to say about anyone not one of them. The Muslims make a big deal of being tolerant but when they conquered a place, they enslaved the men, built a mosque on the local people's most revered sites (e.g. they tried to build one in the Acropolis in Greece but got expelled first), and taxed the remaining wretched survivors something like 50% of everything for their supposed protection. The hadith in volume 3, book 39, number 524 talks of giving the Jews a valley to farm and of taking half of everything from them.

Volume 3, Book 39, Number 524: Narrated Ibn 'Umar: Allah's Apostle gave the land of Khaibar to the Jew's on the condition that they work on it and cultivate it, and be given half of its yield.

If , as the Koran constantly claims, allah is so merciful, then how come its always going on about hellfire and making snide remarks about just about everyone who isn't part of the Muslim cult? If Islam is so tolerant of other religions and peaceful, where are the Jewish communities that used to exist throughout Arabia? What about the grand old tradition of issuing fatwas? We dont see Christian bishops and clerics calling for people to be murdered. Muslims dont seem to acknowledge that mullahs issuing death sentences on people that offend them is inconsistent with claims of Islam being peaceful.

The existence of death dealing militant Muslim terror groups in every area of the world shows me that there is something not really peaceful about them or their message. By their fruits, we should know them. And let's face it, until the recent pressure from America, the Muslim countries of the world haven't really made efforts to extirpate these nests of vipers.

I challenge any apologist to tell me a true nation of Islam, a devout pursuer of peace that could not or would not in some future eventuality fracture into hateful angry people.

The cry of the Muslim at prayer starts off by saying there is no God but allah. Some linguists have said that allah can be a general word for everything. On this model, millions of unwitting Muslims could be saying, There is no God, just everything. Now who could benefit the most from such a deception? Possibly the great deceiver himself who is apparently able to deceive the very elect. So much of the Bibles teaching are perverted in the Koran, that you can imagine the great deceiver laughing like Usama bin laden in that video at the misbelief of others. The greatest prophet of the Old Testament, Zechariah in sura 3:38 has him praying for bounty. Even Jesus and the disciples are portrayed as asking for non spiritual gifts. Satan must laugh his head off at how many people buy into this revised history. The real message of Gods prophets and Jesus that you will suffer for believing in his name is never mentioned in the Koran. Only reward for the followers of allah,
either the wine in heaven or spoils and bounty on earth. I ask that you consider carefully which prophet offers redemption, offers a spiritual truth and which prophet offers fulfillment of earthly desires.

For arguments sake, let's assume that allah is a name. Yet allah is not a name we see in the Bible. Mecca isnt mentioned in the Bible either. Yet it says in the Bible in many places, that those who call in the Lords name will be saved. So you would expect that getting Gods name right is crucial. Essential for the salvation of your soul, and to fulfill requirements that are asked of you.

God's name is given by those that don't really understand what the name is as anything from Adonai or Elohim which mean Lord. But in fact, in Psalms 83:18 it explicitly says, whose name alone is JEHOVAH.

Psa 83:18  That they may know that thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth.

        
JAH is also given as God's name in Psalms 68:4. Nowhere does it say the name that the Muslim world prefers to use, and there's even a controversy from the Sufis that says allah is a concept for everything, so that what the Muslims could actually be saying is that there is no God. This is all indicative of some great deceiver that would have people say many things that are contrary to what is actually said in the Bible, and a blasphemy against the true God.

       
It is very important to get God's name correct. If your name is Susan or Rasheed and someone is calling you Fred, would you even answer? Not only might you not respond, but you could be insulted by being addressed by another name. Especially when you have already spelled out how you ought to be called. Would you even turn around if someone shouted out a name that you didn't especially like or wish to be called?

       
The Koran has contradictions and inaccuracies about Ishmael, about the earth being created in eight or two days (41:9), stuff about yellow cows instead of the red heifer.



Within its own Koranic pages, it has differences about the number of gardens in paradise (one, 39:73  57:21 or many 4:13,18:31 22:23 35:33 78:32).

       
It says that none but allah protects (2:107 29:22) yet also says the angels do it (82:10 41:31).


It says Aaron was guilty of the golden calf in 7:151 but that he wasn't in 20:85-90.


It says that the verses can't be changed in 2:106, 16:101 22:52, but then implies that they can in 6:34 6:154.



Then there's the whole satanic verses controversy about Mohammed having decided some verses had been from Satan so he changed them. A reference to Satan putting his spin on verses can be found at 22:52 amongst other places. Verses 53:19-20 are the controversial so called satanic verses that many scholars admit have been changed.


When I've talked with some Muslim scholars, they told me that unlike the Bible, the Koran had no ambiguities or contradictions, but clearly it does and its very lazy of them not to have investigated their own claims. These inconsistencies could well be the work of the great deceiver that wants us to believe a contrary and different set of truths to the ones given by God.

       
Now there are contradictions and ambiguities in the Bible, though I would say this to be expected when there are many authors or eyewitnesses. The Koran is supposedly all from one source so cannot claim this reasoning for its contradictions.

       
Indeed, I'd say that biblical discrepancies are an indication of veracity rather than indicative of conspiracy to get all their stories absolutely perfect. Islamaniacs take this as proof of some major problem, but I take it as proof of honesty because if the Bible was simple propaganda, then the accounts would have been made to match. This is ironically the Bible's strength and not a weakness.

       
The Koran says in 4:82 that had it been from other than allah, they would surely have found therein much discrepancy. Well, there are discrepancies with regard to whether angels talk or whether the verses can be changed and all kinds of nit picking details, some of which Ive noted above. So again, Id say that it is hoist by its own petard. At least the Bible can claim multiple authors as a reason for some variance.


Some propagandists such as those that attempt to rebuff the many criticisms on the answering-islam.org website, have pages and pages of why black is white. I ask you that if I wrote that the sky is red and you produced reasons that the sky is actually blue, and then I wrote thousands of words arguing my case, would it still not be a discrepancy? Yet this is what fractious Islamic do. When you point out a contradiction or someplace where it says one thing and another place another thing, they then write the equivalent of a book trying to explain away how you must be mistaken. Their frequent excuse when they are stuck for an adequate explanation is to blame it on you not understanding Arabic. Yet there are numerous Christian Arabs that can refute this apologetic guff. And if the translations are so wildly inaccurate and contradictory, then that speaks volumes about the inadequacy of their so-called scholarship.

       
Despite the differing accounts or personal claims of Paul in the New Testament, I don't find the message of Jesus undimmed. His parables have a spiritual truth that transcends the detail of who was where. The incidentals of place were possibly written down third hand, so can reasonably be expected to vary, just like when children play that remembering game where one whispers something to another to pass on. Also, rather like the theologians debating how many angels can fit on a pinhead, such issues seem irrelevant to the real meaning of Christ's message.

       
Regardless of the Bible or the Moslem book having some seeming contradictions, the inner spiritual truth should shine through. It's a bit like being hungry for the truth and nit-picking the minor details. Let's say you were hungry for a pizza, but instead of being happy with the contents, you niggled about the packaging. Noticing that one side of the box wasn't symmetrical with another side. Never mind the packing, the truth should be able to be got at and fully sensed.

       
The body of Jesus is not what is to be exalted or worshipped but the spiritual message that he brought. Although he did say that no one comes to the father except through him. When we understand his teaching, we should not be overly concerned about how the truth of it was delivered. It is natural to be interested in the life of Jesus, but whether a parable was delivered in the morning or evening or up a mountain or at a table is incidental to the meat of the message. Similarly we shouldn't be concentrating on whether the body has a blemish or whether one finger is exactly the same as another if we are taking in the meaning of what is being delivered to us.

       
I've debated Jesus with Muslims and they have a couple of points they bring up regularly. They say Christ was inconsistent with his message of peace by saying he himself claimed to bring a fire on earth or a sword and to set fathers against children and brother against brother. Now, I don't see this as inconsistent because he wasn't advocating his followers go out and start trouble, but he was telling what would be the natural consequences of his message. Another thing mentioned as showing Christ to be a warmonger is when he tells his disciples to sell their clothes for swords before he is captured. As he then says that two swords would be enough, it is clear that he wants them to have some defense rather than be completely without. This could be interpreted as showing that he didn't want them all to be taken and arrested along with him, and to be free to go forth and spread the gospel. He certainly didn't tell them all to be armed and attack the temple guards coming to arrest him. When Peter strikes off an ear, he tells him to stop it, as you'd expect for a man that has preached to turn the other cheek.

When Jesus tells his flock that he has come to bring a sword (Matthew 10:34), the antichrists say that this is clearly not peaceful. However, he wasn't exhorting his followers to take up arms, but instead telling them that a sword would come against them. His message would and did provoke trouble.


Another accusation is one of racism as when he ignores a Canaanite woman asking him to do a miracle for her daughter. He uses the analogy of a dog eating the children's food, and this seems to imply that Jesus is racist. However, as Mark 7 says, he was trying to get peace and quiet for one thing, and in Matthew 15:22, he ignored her because she called him son of David. Matthew 22:41 showed that he didnt think being called son of David was appropriate, so much so that they durst not ask him any other questions again. The analogy of dogs at a masters table is well answered by the woman and so he does as she asked. Since one of his disciples (Simon the zealot) was a Canaanite, it seems unlikely that he was discriminating on racial grounds, especially when his teachings are for all people. When he met the Samaritan woman (John 4:7) at the well, and correctly told her about her five husbands, she brought other Samaritans to listen to his teachings and this also shows he
didn't have a narrow group of people to preach unto.


About the only inconsistency I can find with Christ's teaching is when he calls people fools, and in another passage tells people those that call others fools, that they are in danger of the judgment. This is a case of Do as I say, not as I do, which is familiar in most parent child relationships, but not mutually exclusive.

Muslims complain that when Jesus says that he and the father are one, or that all power is given to him; yet then says God works through him or the power to decide who sits on his right hand is not his to give, it is contradictory. Well I agree that it is a difficult concept to grasp but not impossible. A weak analogy might be that of Siamese twins linked by the spirit but one being stronger than the other. Or consider someone that is born powerful, but is clearly unable to choose their own parents, or change that which has already been destined. Surely it is commendable of Jesus to acknowledge his limitations rather than boast of being able to do whatever is asked or to promise places in paradise at his side for everyone that asks? Yet this is what Mohammed tells his followers. Who is really being more truthful; the man that doesn't point out any possible problems or the one that says he cant guarantee it?

The concept of the trinity, the father, the son and the holy ghost seems very problematic for Muslims. St. Patrick used a three leafed shamrock to demonstrate how three could be one. But regardless of whether this trinity is an interpretation imposed by the church or not, it is irrelevant to the spiritual message. It's like the theologians that debate how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. It's not an answer that is necessary to understand the spiritual truth, the bread and water of life. How God works is said to be a mystery and that his ways aren't our ways, so claiming that understanding how God works is not a prerequisite to understanding his message. Furthermore, the flat out denial by Islam that God could have a son seems to contradict and go against the usual claim that God can do anything.

Also, the Muslims pervert the real meaning of the trinity. There is one God in three forms, the father, the son and the holy ghost. The moslemaniacs put wrong words into the mouths of Christians and claim they are somehow worshipping three gods. This perversion and deception is rarely answered properly even by Christians, but like I said, the knowledge of how God is, is something not crucial for understanding God's message. All three aspects of God are in the Bible many times over and occasionally all at once such as Acts 7:56-57.


The trinity concept which obsess the Muslims are just a diversion to shake Christian faith. They realized that indeed most Christians are unable to adequately describe God as indeed so are most people especially the Muslims when you push their own conceptions back to their premises. Allah is described as being as close to their jugular vein but also in several heavens and quite distant. You may be familiar with Rumis story about the blind men feeling the elephant where one describes it as a thin tail and another describes a hard pointy tusk, and yet another says it is rough and big. Though Rumi is claimed as an Islamic poet, this example actually buttresses the argument for different aspects of God. Any object can be experienced as having different qualities or an upside, a downside, a left or right or a north side and a south side. And how many more aspects can we say God could have? The trinity questions of Muslims are only a hollow construct. It is as if I said  the
supposed 99 names of allah are akin to worshipping 99 gods. It is an empty construct because you could then construct a new trinity such as Jesus the man, the son of God and God and demand an explanation for that. If the Muslims really sought understanding, perhaps they could explain why none of the pearls of wisdom in the form of parables given by Jesus were included into the Koran.

Jesus was an aspect of God that became crucified though he wasn't dead in heaven. I can use a couple of analogies to help clarify the aspects of God to closed minded people that say God has no aspects. Think of ourselves as having a strong right arm and a left arm. They are both aspects of the same self. Or when Jesus said that no man comes to the father except through him (John 14:6), another bodily analogy may help. Think of God as strong teeth and Jesus as a mouth. You can't get to one except through the mouth. Or think of God as a castle. To get to the strong inner keep, you have to pass through a gate. You can't just walk through the walls, yet the keep, the walls and the gate are all aspects of the same castle.


Now think of God's message as someone yelling that a fire is coming towards us. Now suppose that person yells that message from a helicopter. We don't have to understand how the helicopter works to understand the message do we?

We have to make the attempt to understand God but as his ways are not our ways, we are not commanded to understand the whole mystery of God. The arrogance of Muslims that insist God may have to operate to some rules they have decided for him is incredible. Can God not do anything or does he have to consult some Muslim to operate? I personally have no problem with Jesus as the word of God and the Holy Ghost as the spirit of understanding as aspects of God. Muslims prefer the simplistic version that makes it easy to think one understands god.

God is more complicated than that simple version and he wants us to make an effort to understand him. Not to understand him exactly...but to make the effort and it says so lots of places. Look under wisdom or understanding in a concordance.

To me, this difficulty is part of why Christianity is more sincere and a superior message to the pat answers of Islam. It is also the stumbling block that will separate the wheat from the chaff. This is why the parables of Jesus are a superior spiritual teaching. They allow everyone to mature spiritually into understanding.

Most all other cults or religions simplistically just say this is bad, forbidden and this is okay, bang your head on the floor whatever.

The parables by being little stories also avoid translation difficulties because it doesn't matter about getting a few words wrong. The gist of the story is retained, and subsumes any errors of translation. Now the Koran has no little stories like this teaching, not even the ones that Jesus taught. When it mentions Jesus, it doesn't say anything about what he taught, just perversions of what he did like asking for himself to be made a god or making a bird from clay.

And when it comes to preaching God's message and letting the truth set you free, this is something that is not found in the Koran. Instead it harps on about slavery. The spiritual truth shining through to the inner heart and a deep understanding of God, seems inconsistent with the Muslim approach. It says the message is one that has to be unquestioningly submitted to, yet in the Bible there are numerous questions asked of God by his chosen prophets and the like. Even Jesus had questions, and in the old testament there are people setting tests for God to fulfill (e.g. the test about dew on a bush but not on the ground then the other way round or the fire on the altar test against the heathen).

Jdg 6:36-38  And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast spoken. And it was so; for he rose up early on the morrow, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.

1Ki 18:36-38  And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening oblation, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, O Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Jehovah, hear me, that this people may know that thou, Jehovah, art God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt-offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

All these points should not be swept under the carpet. I am all in favour of open discussion rather than handed down dogma. Personally I think God expects us to disagree on the finer points and anything that moves along our understanding of him, is I believe blessed. The Sabbath is set aside especially as a day for enquiry.

For those that find different aspects of God contradictory, they are themselves saying a contradiction. They say God is all powerful and can do anything. So if he wants a son, he can do anything. The deniers just want to denigrate God and say he can only operate according to their rules. Where it says in Isaiah that his ways are not our ways, is something they choose to ignore and insist that God operates to their understanding.

The Koran portrays Jesus not doing miracles for others. It has him making a bird from clay. Yet even the Muslims that accept this perverse version of a miracle don't think he could have given life back to himself. They prefer to believe he didn't die on the cross and went to Kashmir or someplace. They also cite the blood and water that came from his speared side as evidence. They claim that fluid cannot come from a dead man, but go to any autopsy room with its draining pans and you will realise that all blood doesn't clot immediately. They use Gnostic sources and heretics to give accounts that Jesus didn't die on the cross. Iraneaus for instance thought Jesus lived to be a hundred because he couldn't imagine the wisdom of a spiritual master coming from a man so young as Jesus. Ah, but if Jesus was the embodiment of the word of God, how old was that then?

Personally, I believe Jesus took his body with him since he didn't want to leave it anyplace for reverence. Hands of saints and all those kind of relics show what could have happened to the body of Jesus, or imagine if the Muslims had access to it. Quite possibly he took it with him as we would a coat when we planned on going out again.

Yet another point that Islamics think shows some failure on the part of Jesus is the sign of Jonah, referred to in Matthew 12:39 and Luke 11:29. In it, the son of man rebukes that evil generation that looks for a sign and says that no sign will be given for three days. Now this was applied to the crucifixion where no sign was given. There was no riding to the rescue from God's cavalry at the last minute so the Muslims say that unlike Jonah, Jesus wasn't saved. Jonah had been in the belly of the whale but was ultimately rescued so the Muslims mock Jesus as not being rescued. However, Christians understand that after three days, Jesus was resurrected and raised to heaven and thereby given a sign from God in that sense. Perversely, the Muslims choose to misunderstand how Jesus gave a sign after three days as promised. Just as they choose to pretend God, the word and the Holy Ghost are three gods instead of just one.


Another area of Muslim rationale that makes debate fractious more than productive is that they defend by accusation. So it is that if I point out all the mosques full of hate or the killing clubs like Hamas, Al- Qaeda, Abu-Sayef, Islamic Jihad, Jammu, etc., etc., as a hateful fruit of Islam, they respond not by answering the accusation but by something like fastening on the Crusades. They reach back a thousand years to dredge up something entirely unrelated as if to justify their own homicidal mania.

If someone said to me how come all your brothers are killers of women and children and revel in it, would I answer by telling the questioner that he might have a great, great (say fifty times) grandfather who killed someone? Yet this is what the Muslims do to deflect criticism from Islamic crimes.

Another accusation myth they are fond of using is that the nazis were Christians and just look at their example. Whilst Hitler was raised as a nominal catholic, this is another crass argument.

(EDITORS NOTE: SEE THE GRAND MUFTI OF JERUSALEM,ISLAMONAZIFASCISM AND ECCLESIASTES 1:9 for a complete view of the ties between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler.

Papers used at the Nuremberg trials show that Christians and regular churchgoers were not allowed to join the nazi party. Though Muslims such as those from Bosnia were acceptable. Hitler replaced Christian festivals and holidays with Aryan pan-Germanic festivals that featured Nordic gods. And SS troops frequently shot the priests of conquered territory first.

More revisionist history comes from Islamic propagandists about the nature of Islamic rule as peaceful. It simply isn't true yet as we are far away from these times, many Western so-called scholars accept the Muslim version of events. I mean what actually started the crusades in the first place? It was the accounts of atrocities and depredations from the Muslims and pleas for help from the besieged Christians and killings of pilgrims that made the heads of Europe mad enough to intervene. There are examples of the rapaciousness and brutality of the Moslems in every pilgrim's account from these times but the revisionists have succeeded in drowning out these colourful and individual accounts of the terror.

Another Moslem counterclaim is that there is racism in Christianity but none amongst Muslims. Yeah right. I personally witnessed a violent and unprovoked attack by a Muslim on a poor Hindu woman who had been calmly eating her lunch in Sri Lanka. I constantly met virulently hostile Moslem men agitated about some minor and exaggerated perceived slight to themselves. Usually it was the mere presence of an unbeliever.

Typical of Muslim racism are the recorded massacres of history:

On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was apparently incited by Muslim preachers that had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: SEE THE CHRISTIAN SLAUGHTERS OF DAMASCUS FOR AN ACCOUNTING OF THE 1860 SLAUGHTERS

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678, Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344). (List from us-israel.org website)

Racism has been part of Islam since its inception. If it was remotely not racist, there would be Jews alive in Yathrib (Medina today). I mean even the supposed genocidal pogroms against American Indians and Australian aborigines were admitted and stopped well short of total annihilation. Yet the Jews of Arabia were completely wiped out. I've debated this with Islamic revisionists and they claim they were killed because they demanded to be beheaded by their own laws. They were asking for it, is their apologetic rubbish propaganda. I mean that's like the Nazis claiming they wanted to get warm in the ovens. Like Goebbels said, the bigger the lie, the more easier it is for others to believe it.

The Islamic revisionists like Islamaniacs everywhere have practiced genocide. Their fetish for beheading bound captives is truly evil. The only beheading in the Bible I found was the one about John the Baptist, yet I have heard islamaniacs claim that the Jews demanded it as per their own law. Not true in the slightest, but they were beheaded because that fount of evil, who was proclaimed by his own mother as being possessed by a jinn, wanted it.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: SEE THE SACRED MUSLIM PRACTICE OF BEHEADING)

This fetish of Mo is evident from the real facts of history.

627 C.E. The Jewish tribe of Qurayza was raided by Muhammad. Some 700 men were beheaded. Edward Gibbon, in his classic history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire described the aftermath of the assault:

"Seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial and the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless victims. Their sheep and camels were inherited by the Musulmans: three hundred cuirasses, five hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful portion of the spoil."

Gibbon was a respected historian and not some Zionist. But even the Arabs own historians make no pretensions about their military conquests. There was no benevolence or spreading enlightenment as a motivation. It was all about rape and plunder. The History of Al-Tabari, written in the 10th century clearly outlines (pg 166, 175) the slaughter and pillaging and rapacious motivations of these forces.

Even in recent history, the Arab tribes under the direction of Lawrence of Arabia weren't motivated to attack the Turks for anything other than simple plunder and gold.

There are also accounts of the Arab genocide of the Jews that use historical accounts that are all over the Internet on Jewish and Israeli websites like hebrewhistory.org. Now of course these are biased towards the Jewish version of events, but since Jewish histories aren't usually shy about stating their victories when they used deception or some subterfuge, the lack of such tactics mentioned relating to Mo suggests that he was motivated by greed and hatred and had indeed attacked them for no or minor provocation.

        The Koran dwells constantly upon the doom of unbelievers and positively gloats on their demise. I find this not divine, but if anything, an attribute of the Devil that likes to dwell on the fires of hell. Its verses are repetitive and derivative, as if some great deceiver has tried to fashion a teaching that mimics the work of the Bible. The fact that EVERYTHING is different in the Koran from the Bible (God's name, what the prophets said and did, accounts of Jesus) shows that they can't both be true. The Bible has history, archaeology, testimony and the dead sea scrolls on its side amongst a wealth of evidence. The Koran is a perversion of every truth the Bible has. Ask who could possibly want everyone to believe the opposite of truth. Ask who would gloat, as Osama did on the video tape at those who didn't know the whole picture. Ask why mohammed would tell his soldiers a wrong thing (so as not to discourage them), and why modern negotiators sometimes flat out lie for deceptive advantage? Note how mohammed boasts of preparing and presenting hell (18:101, 103). Ask why it says nothing of God's love in the Koran yet it does mention allah as a beguiler (4:142) and the best of all plotters (8:30). Just ask who would want to deceive even the very elect?


The Koran claims that nothing so beautiful can be created. In 10:38, you find the usual braggadocio saying the Koran couldn't be invented. Indeed, the whole tone of the book is one of braggarty triumph calling itself glorious and saying that nobody could write something comparable. This is nonsense. It is the philosophical equivalent to saying My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. No-one can show me a woman as beautiful as this!.


A real test, as in science is when you can also show what is needed to disprove something. Simply by saying you can't paint a painting as good as this, is entirely subjective. And when I have pointed out the similarity of pre-Islamic verses to those in the Koran, the islamicists say it is a forgery, a work of the devil to weaken their faith. So what they are really saying is, show me something like it, and I'll deny it. This lack of scientific rationality or testing as we understand it, is endemic in the Muslim world and this is why progress and advanced technology have come entirely from the West.

If it wasn't for Western development, cars, tarmac, satellites and oil drilling, the Muslims would still be beating their heavily laden beasts and finding it difficult to even develop a better camel saddle.

Furthermore this test about the beauty of the Koran is capped by believers claiming that no one has yet been able to do so. Both non-Muslims and Muslims don't even try because it would be a blasphemy, but putting together a string of lines about people being warned, then shackled and then slaughtered and adding how merciful allah can be doesn't seem difficult in the slightest.

Romans 11:18 warns, Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

The truth that nothing can be like it is clearly disproved by the Muslims own acknowledgment of the so-called Satanic verses. Tradition has it that the verses around 53:19 were changed. They acknowledge three goddesses (originally the three daughters of allah) and originally Mo had recognised them as such to cement an alliance with the Quarashi tribe in Mecca. The Meccans derived great revenues from people coming to worship these three female deities and would not accept that these daughters were no longer on a par with allah. So Mo compromised to gain their allegiance. As these suras were an oral tradition, its not clear when Mo ordered them to be changed, but probably it was when he had consolidated his power to the extent he could dictate anything he wanted. He explained the change to his followers as the original verses as having come from Satan. Now, assumedly he couldn't tell the difference for some time which kind of shows how easy his verses were ableto be duplicated. If the prophet himself is so easily fooled into what was and wasn't a divine verse, then it makes a mockery of such divine claims. Of course the more prosaic explanation is that Mo was a cunning liar that chose whatever was expedient to him to say had been revealed.

Another apologist response to criticism of the Koran is to say that you can only understand it properly and appreciate its beauty in Arabic.

Well if this is the case, how come God didn't choose to reveal his message in a more common language or at least one less accessible to ambiguity. Does this mean, this religion is one only for the Arabs? There's no doubt that Mo was a chauvinist and encouraged the pagan traditions of haj, etc. to continue under his redirection. The apologists suggest that we all ought to learn Arabic to better appreciate its beauty.

Of course the irony is that Arabic is a phlegmatic language that makes anything sound harsh and sickly to other ears.

Unlike the inspirational verses of Isaiah or the advanced rationality of Jesus parables, the Koran only offers rote learning. To invest so much time in memorising such lines makes it unlikely for you then to question them. The little children taught to memorise the Koran instead of multiplication tables at the madrassahs (religious schools) have no spiritual maturity that would allow them to form alternative questions. At least the little children learning the parables of Jesus are advancing their understanding of how metaphors and analogies can be used to illustrate deeper spiritual truths.

God has urged us to seek understanding above all else. In Psalms 14:2-3, this is equated with doing good. Hosea 6:6 says Jehovah desires the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings, and Zephaniah, chapter 1:4-6 says he will cut off..those that have not sought the Lord, nor enquired for him.


Consider too, Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing: therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs is full of such messages. And consider how Solomon pleased God by choosing wisdom over other gifts.


I am convinced that one of the reasons that we are urged to keep the Sabbath is so that we have a time to reflect upon God and indeed reflect upon our own morals and enquire into the mysteries that are posed for us. The Sabbath gives us no excuse for not having done so.

We need Sabbath time to consider God, morals and our own goals and destiny. Thinking and reading was never a bad thing. We have free will to consider and choose our path, our life. We can never expect proof of God. There is evidence that we can consider and there may well be the inner heart that can experience or sense God, but proof is ever elusive. Otherwise we would all be agreed and not have to make any effort at all. I'm convinced that this effort to understand is considered a high form of good. Romans 3:10-12 spells this out.


Whilst God has provided guidance via the commandments and teaching through the parables, it is important for each of us to understand and recognise what is good and what is evil on a case by case basis. Simply saying something is bad or something is good rarely works as a blanket application, and simplistic orders are something a robot can do. Mind you, it is the nature of cults to produce these robotic types. They memorise texts without understanding, they regulate every aspect of life, insist on frequent brainwashing techniques of ceremony and prayer and don't accept reasoning or criticism. This is why Islam is a cult and not a true religion. It offers certainty about God's nature rather than the path of understanding a complex nature offered by most religions. But then once you have seen a picture of allah, then this god is indeed simple to comprehend.

http://wwnet.fi/users/veijone/satan.htm

Like a traveler that roams the world, I have quested in foreign philosophies. Always trying to glean wisdom and insights abroad, I dismissed the Bible scriptures as too uptight. Because I found no jokes in it, no sense of humor, I suspected a lack of divinity also. But like the return of the prodigal I haven't found anything better elsewhere. Like the returned traveler, I now see the beauties and benefits of my own hometown.

The stories of Christian converts from mahommedianism show just how false is their claim of there being no compulsion in their religion. Egyptians hounded from their village or non-believing wives forced to convert are just tips of an iceberg. Yes there are hell and damnation evangelicals in Christianity but they don't threaten death for not accepting their message. About the least compulsive group I've ever seen are the Anglicans. The genteel invitation to tea with the vicar is about as far removed as possible from religious policing. The Anglicans don't even seem to insist on anything really, and are merely glad to see you show up at all.

In my maturity, the wondrously broad canvas of human nature that you find in the Bible now strikes me as marvelously insightful. Unlike the hectoring and badgering of the Koran, the Bible has all the pearls of wisdom that can help you mature spiritually. For those not yet able to transcend their daily grind and who prefer entertainment to a quest for truth, then the Bible can offer as grand a cast of dramatic lives and events as you could find in a Hollywood film. It tells stories for the reader to glean insights from, and encourages one to learn to read between the lines. All manner of human nature is in there, even incest, even a excrement sandwich (Ezekiel 4:12), but all this indicates the grand scope of the Bible. The parables especially are for people that have had experience of life and so are able to extrapolate the real meaning of these stories.


This life experience is what enables Western minds to see the hypocrisy in Muslim life. When usury or interest on loans is disallowed by the Koran, the Muslim lenders simply charge a facilitation fee. Same thing. There is hypocrisy in the outcry over Palestinian deaths and the stony silence on Jewish deaths. There is hypocrisy in regimes that berate democracies yet have all manner of human rights abuses in their own dictatorships.

When slavery is cited as a blot on human affairs in the new world, they conveniently forget to mention the slave routes and markets established by Muslim traders particularly in Africa. Europeans didn't just jump off a ship and run off into the jungle rounding people up. They bought them. Even Mohammed kept, bought and sold slaves. If a Muslim kills another Muslim, then he suggests freeing a believing slave as a punishment. The fact that he suggests freeing a believing slave, shows the lie to the apologists that converted slaves were set free just for conversion.

Nowhere in the Koran is there a suggestion that we are free to think for ourselves. On the contrary, it claims we are only slaves not able to question. It offers certainty and prescriptions for living for those too lazy or poor in spirit to really enquire. This is the absolute certainty that has allowed Islam to spread amongst people that want only answers instead of understanding. Like the American Taliban who had to ask whether he should pray soft or loudly. It offers the answers to those that can't be bothered enquiring of God themselves.

Prophets of old (e.g. Habakkuk) weren't afraid to ask God some insightful questions, and even Jesus seemed to need reassurance that he was doing the right thing. It isn't a sin to approach God and ask for an explanation. In fact, he seems to prefer it.

However the Koran does not anywhere encourage this personal approach. It constantly exhorts the Muslim to be a slave, a repetitive theme that has no echo in the Bible. We have a God given free will to choose for ourselves. In the Bible there are no references to us being God's slaves. Just look in any concordance. It actually says the opposite. In Jeremiah 2:14, it poses the question Is Israel a homeborn slave? meaning of course we aren't slaves. We are allowed and probably expected to waver, to choose wrongly and hopefully repent.


Slavery in the Koran is a theme that is very different to the biblical message, and another indication that the Koran and the Bible are about different Gods. Sura 9:111 even says that allah has bought the believers, just like you'd buy any commodity. Very different indeed.


Jesus suggests that some people will work in his name but will be rebuked. Nowhere does Mohammed offer this rationality, only the naive certainty of being rewarded in a garden full of virgins, wearing gold and silks and drinking wine from silver goblets. This is just pandering to base lusts. The Moslem paradise is all about material and sexual benefits for the men.

If wine drinking is so bad on earth, how come it is promised in paradise? Also, the women must have some other garden of paradise away from their men and their houris. Since sura 4:34 asserts that Men are in charge of women.. and if ye fear rebellion.to scourge them, then the women are probably happy to be apart from the scourgers.


Nowhere is there an explication of the spirituality of heaven. Half the Koran is taken up with the doom of the unbelievers and their tortures and the well-watered paradise of chaste maidens, silk robes and crystal goblets. This is a naive childlike picture and the spiritual truths that you find in the parables or the inspired writings of Isaiah simply aren't in the book of Moslems. Despite claiming subtlety, its so straightforward that there are only pedantic points of general acceptance, unlike the sudden deeper meanings of revelation that can come from familiar biblical passages.

This is another area that makes the Christian message superior and all the more so for being harder to understand. You have to expend some effort to make sense of it and this effort is what God really wants.

The slavery that allah wants is just religious fascism that negates the free will of mankind and denigrates those that won't submit. The Koran is full of threats and menaces with an undercurrent of hostility that is a long way from Jesus radical message of loving your neighbour and even your enemy. The Koran claims slaughter is better than persecution (2:191) and also advises not to take captives until slaughter has been done (8:67). Not surprisingly, Islam has been spread at the point of a scimitar and through military conquest rather than the spirit of God, which even managed to overcome the Roman Empire.


Almost every surah has its menaces and bullying tone, but typical would be 56:60 promising to mete out death among you or 17:16 about annihilating towns that wont convert. It boasts of destroying many townships (22:45), is overly gleeful at others destruction (25:36) and implies that Muslims can outstrip anyone in doing evil deeds (29:4).

[56.60] We have ordained death among you and We are not to be overcome,

[17.16] And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.

[22.45] So how many a town did We destroy while it was unjust, so it was fallen down upon its roofs, and (how many a) deserted well and palace raised high.

[25.36] Then We said: Go you both to the people who rejected Our communications; so We destroyed them with utter destruction.

[29.4] Or do they who work evil think that they will escape Us? Evil is it that they judge!

Surah 69, around verse 46 clearly states that they would seize and kill anyone they suspected of lying which is hardly a model of religious tolerance and the Muslims also take pride in having with them heavy fetters (73:12) and food which choketh (73:13). Sounds like Satans army on the march to me.


        Surah 2 has menacing undercurrents and constant hostility against the Jews and the Christians. Hitler would have been proud. Not surprising then that some Moslem battalions fought for Hitler in WWII.


It seems odd that the Koran claims Jesus made a bird out of clay (5:110) and gave it life yet no mention of this is in the Bible. It also claims his disciples demanded a table of food (5:112) and that Jesus asked for Himself and His mother to be as gods (5:116). Most Christians would consider this blasphemy and lies, but in the interests of peace and tolerance, they never raise the issue. Basically the Koran gives a false and different version of everything. Could this be the stumbling block that deceives even the very elect? About the only entity that I can think of that would like to lead us astray is Satan himself.


        Here are some more references that illustrate the true nature of this tawdry work.

        Take not Jews and Christians for friends (5:51)