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Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and Khalid Zaheer vs. Ali Sina

 Part XIX

<< Page 1 

March 19, 2007

Dear Mr Ali Sina

Please let me know in your next message the reason why I should not consider it to be a moral victory for myself in the fact that despite declaring that you will give a week’s time to your readers to absorb my message before they read your response to it, you have reversed your policy. What is so dangerous in my innocuous, brief messages that compels you to attach your rebuttals immediately?

If you would have concentrated on my example of the new moon, you would have appreciated what I was trying to say in my theory of subjective-cum-objective realities. You know that we Muslims are eager to spot the new moon for confirming the advent of Ramadan and Eid. The moon is not clearly visible. However, with some concentration, which demands willingness to see it, one can get a clear view of it. When one catches a glimpse of it, it becomes increasingly visible. To the one who is not willing to see, there is no moon on the horizon. Imagine the lack of willingness of the person who has joined the moon-sighting group with pre-decided agenda that the moon hasn’t appeared! Likewise is the case of faith in the claim that Qur’an is the word of God. If you are willing to see it, you can get, to begin with, an initial glimpse of it. If you are committed to not seeing it, nobody can help you in getting its glimpse. Willingness to believe doesn’t demand that you be a gullible idiot. It demands that you be an honest, open-minded person, who is willing to call good as good and bad as bad. When you raise certain objections against the message of Islam, I can see your point. When you stubbornly reject all clear indications that lead one to see that it is a message from God as nonsense, I start losing confidence in my assumption that you are an open-minded person. The lack of willingness can owe itself to a number of causes. In your cause case it is the open, declared hatred for the message of Islam. Of course, you present various reasons for it. Some of them do merit attention. However, the trouble is that when responses are offered to you, your rebuttals are, as if, already prepared. Your commitment to rejecting Islam is so unequivocal that you have become a biased enemy of it. I pray that you become a more open-minded and rational individual. I have a nice feeling that in praying for you, I am following the footsteps of my prophet, who always prayed for his enemies until such time that he received a confirmation from God that they didn’t deserve his prayers any more.

In the recent messages, I have been mentioning that the biggest miracle of the prophet of Islam was that he declared from the very first day that his enemies are going to be annihilated, like it happened in the case all the earlier messengers. This fact is so clearly documented in the Qur’an, the fully preserved book of God, that every sane person can see it. You objected by asking as to why God had to ask humans to kill fellow humans on His behalf. I would say that your question is partly relevant. You should have said that a very strange, out-of-this-world thing did happen but you were not comfortable with the manner it occurred. This would have indeed been a rational stance. However, your exaggerated anger at the way it happened on the basis of your information which is incomplete and only partly reliable, has blinded you from seeing the truth of the claim. Thus, like in the case of somebody uninterested in seeing the new moon, you are uninterested in seeing the truth in Islam.

To question and doubt is a good thing. Believe me, I do a lot of it while reading the Qur’an. My reference to Bertrand Russell’s writings was also meant to bring home the same point. I never mentioned that I was giving my arguments to prove him wrong. You spent unnecessary words to dismiss something I never claimed. However, to question and doubt for the sake of knowing the truth is one thing and to do it for its own sake is quite another. I use the tool of questioning and doubting to enhance my faith. Thanks God, it hasn’t failed as yet.

Your response to my claim that the prophet of Islam was the prophet promised in the Book of Deuteronomy was also disappointing. Your seemingly strong answer was based on one policy you consistently follow: Criticize whatever can be picked for criticism and ignore what can’t be answered. My questions to some of the points you have raised are these: Does the reality that Ishmael was the son of Abraham and therefore the brother of Isaac change because there are certain derogatory remarks mentioned in the Bible against him? Is it not a strange coincidence that the prophecy mentions that God would put “My words in his mouth” and it is only the Qur’an that claims, with undeniable evidence, to be the very word of God, completely preserved?

Call it a mantra or whatever, is it not perplexing that the prophecy is stating that the prophet to come would present God’s word in His name and the Qur’an does just that before each chapter. There were many similarities mentioned between Moses and Muhammad in my message and you picked for criticism only the one I had mentioned to distinguish them from Jesus Christ, Allah’s mercy be on all. That’s a style quite peculiar to you. What about the other similarities? The prophecy states that the prophet to come would be like Moses and the Qur’an says: “Indeed We have sent you as an evidence against your nation quite the same way as We sent a messenger to Pharaoh.” (Qur’an; 73: 15)

Let’s clear these points first, and then proceed to other issues. God willing, I stand committed to answering all your questions, whether relevant to pre-destination or anything else.


Khalid Zaheer

(Words: 1023)

 

Here is the above letter responded paragraph by paragraph. 

 
March 19, 2007

Dear Mr Ali Sina

Please let me know in your next message the reason why I should not consider it to be a moral victory for myself in the fact that despite declaring that you will give a week’s time to your readers to absorb my message before they read your response to it, you have reversed your policy. What is so dangerous in my innocuous, brief messages that compels you to attach your rebuttals immediately?

You may certainly claim moral victory. Winning and losing are the farthest things in my mind. All I want is to make the truth known. 

When Saddam was defeated in the first Gulf War, he went on TV and claimed moral victory. In fact he even celebrated it with fireworks and jubilees. Throughout the history we see people who are defeated in battles claim moral victory. Obviously this has some psychological effect on them and makes there defeat more bearable.  If you consider this a battle where one has to lose and one has to win, then you have my permission to claim moral victory. As I stated in my first message, I see this as an opportunity to expose the truth. The victory is the victory of truth over falsehood and when that happens we are all victorious. 

Assuming you can impress people for a week until my response is published. For one week you feel good. Then what about after I post my response? 

Our debate will be read for many years to come. What about those who would be reading this debate in future? Should we ask them to read your replies and stop for a week and then read mine? 

Furthermore, I assure you, people are not naïve. You can rest assured that readers will not be swayed by my illogical arguments if they are not rebutted by you and vice versa. Please give some credit to our readers. We are writing for intelligent people, many of whom are much smarter than yours truly and I am sure you are not claiming to be the smartest person in the world either. 

 

 If you would have concentrated on my example of the new moon, you would have appreciated what I was trying to say in my theory of subjective-cum-objective realities. You know that we Muslims are eager to spot the new moon for confirming the advent of Ramadan and Eid. The moon is not clearly visible. However, with some concentration, which demands willingness to see it, one can get a clear view of it. When one catches a glimpse of it, it becomes increasingly visible. To the one who is not willing to see, there is no moon on the horizon. Imagine the lack of willingness of the person who has joined the moon-sighting group with pre-decided agenda that the moon hasn’t appeared! Likewise is the case of faith in the claim that Qur’an is the word of God. If you are willing to see it, you can get, to begin with, an initial glimpse of it. If you are committed to not seeing it, nobody can help you in getting its glimpse. Willingness to believe doesn’t demand that you be a gullible idiot. It demands that you be an honest, open-minded person, who is willing to call good as good and bad as bad. When you raise certain objections against the message of Islam, I can see your point. When you stubbornly reject all clear indications that lead one to see that it is a message from God as nonsense, I start losing confidence in my assumption that you are an open-minded person. The lack of willingness can owe itself to a number of causes. In your cause case it is the open, declared hatred for the message of Islam. Of course, you present various reasons for it. Some of them do merit attention. However, the trouble is that when responses are offered to you, your rebuttals are, as if, already prepared. Your commitment to rejecting Islam is so unequivocal that you have become a biased enemy of it. I pray that you become a more open-minded and rational individual. I have a nice feeling that in praying for you, I am following the footsteps of my prophet, who always prayed for his enemies until such time that he received a confirmation from God that they didn’t deserve his prayers any more.

 

Your example of sighting the moon is clear. The point is, is it me who is denying the obvious or is it you? Have you given any clear proof that Islam is from God? The answer is no. I have been asking this since the beginning while you preferred to beat around the bushes and avoided the question. The only proofs you gave so far are 1) the claim that Muhammad was mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:18 and 2) he said he will be victorious and he was. I discussed these and I showed that the first is wishful thinking. Anyone can take some vague verses from a old book and claim they refer to him. In fact to show the absurdity of such claims I am thinking of collecting all the verses of the Bible that I can claim point t me. So far I have found several verses that I can use and they are far more convincing than Deut. 18:18. As a matter of fact that verse applies to me as much as it applies to Muhammad. Here and here  the Baha’is prove with clarity (not in your vague style), that Bab was foretold by the Prophet Daniel and the exact date of his coming was given. Here they show that Jesus prophesied Baha'u'llah by name in Mark 8:38,  Matthew 16:27 and Luke 9: 26.  Here they show that the prophecies of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Seventh Day Adventists were fulfilled by Baha’u’llah.  In this page  they show, with far more clarity than you do, that Bab and Baha’u’llah were prophesized in Islamic scriptures.  They even have found secret messages encrypted in the passageways and chambers of the Great Pyramid of Gizah that they claim are prophecies for the coming of Baha’u’llah. They have found passages in Hindu scriptures, Buddhist scriptures and Native American traditions that they say point to Baha’u’llah. With Google you can find more. These are far more convincing claims than the one you make about Muhammad. Despite all that Baha'u'llah could not see that Muhammad was not a prophet but a liar. Should we believe in these prophecies or in our own logic? 

You deny all the evidence that Muhammad was a criminal and cling to a vague sentence in the Bible, the very book that you say is corrupted and should not be relied upon, to prove Muhammad was foretold. This is wishful thinking. You are the one that is unable to see the moon in the sky not me. In fact you deny even the sun in the sky. The evidences I have given about Muhammad being a liar are clearer than the sun.    

In the sentence that I highlighted, you wrote “Willingness to believe doesn’t demand that you be a gullible idiot. It demands that you be an honest, open-minded person, who is willing to call good as good and bad as bad”  

Well willingness to believe always require you to abandon skepticism and this means agree to be gullible. However, I could not agree more on the second sentence. Was Muhammad a good man? Is raiding innocent people, massacring unarmed civilians, stealing all their belongings, taking women and children as slaves and raping women thus captured, a good thing? How would you feel if a lunatic claimed to be a prophet and did the same to you with complete clear conscience, while his followers asserting that he is justified to commit all those atrocities because he is a messenger of God and that you deserve to be punished in this heinous way because you do not believe in his “clear” warnings? Would you call that still "good"?   

When I asked you to respond for the evil deeds of Muhammad all you could say was that he was a messenger of God and therefore authorized to do what he did. You argued that I must first solve that problem for myself and once I am convinced of the prophethood of Muhammad, I must shut up and blindly accept whatever he did. According to your reasoning, God and his messenger are above the law and scrutiny and they can act as criminals and it is not up to us humans to question what they do. You think this is open mindedness and the sign of pure heart. .  

I even agreed to go along with this warped thinking and asked you to give us the proof of your claim that Muhammad was a prophet of God. You gave none!   

You say the Qur’an gives clear reasons why some people were eligible to be killed. When asked to give us those reasons, all you could say was that one must have pure heart to see them. I am sorry; pure heart has nothing to do with truth. You need rational thinking to find the truth. You need pure heart for not oppressing people who are different from you, for feeling the pain of those whom you abuse because they think differently. You can't have a pure heart if you say those who do not believe in what I believe do not deserve to live in this world.. When you think like a Muslim you think it is okay to kill those who do not see what you uncritically have accepted as truth. This is not pure heart. What you say should be done to unbelievers stems from a very impure heart and I am talking about Muhammad here. The problem of Muslims is uncritical thinking. 

You don’t have to have pure heart to see the sun and the moon in the sky. You don’t have to have pure heart to understand that it is not the earth that goes around the sun but the other way round. You don’t need pure heart to understand the concept of the Big Bang, or evolution. You don’t need pure heart to know that pi is needed to calculate the area of a circle.  To understand the truth you don’t need pure heart. This is a fallacy. All you need is a brain and the ability to use it. God has endowed all of us with brain.  The problem is that some people are so caught in absurd thinking that refuse to use theirs. Heart has nothing to do with truth. You need to be apathetic and cold to find the truth. If you practiced what you preach, i.e. “call good as good and bad as bad” you would not remain a Muslim a single minute. If what Muhammad did to his victims was done by someone else, would you still call it good? What Muhammad did was not good but evil. The only reason you accept them is because these evil deeds were perpetrated by him and you are unable to accept the fact that this man was evil. Your love for this monster acts as a veil for you. You know stealing, raping, cowardly massacring civilians, butchering prisoners of war and enslaving free people are bad. But when these evil deeds were perpetrated by Muhammad, suddenly you think they are good. If this is not brainwashing, what is?  

 

In the recent messages, I have been mentioning that the biggest miracle of the prophet of Islam was that he declared from the very first day that his enemies are going to be annihilated, like it happened in the case all the earlier messengers. This fact is so clearly documented in the Qur’an, the fully preserved book of God, that every sane person can see it. You objected by asking as to why God had to ask humans to kill fellow humans on His behalf. I would say that your question is partly relevant. You should have said that a very strange, out-of-this-world thing did happen but you were not comfortable with the manner it occurred. This would have indeed been a rational stance. However, your exaggerated anger at the way it happened on the basis of your information which is incomplete and only partly reliable, has blinded you from seeing the truth of the claim. Thus, like in the case of somebody uninterested in seeing the new moon, you are uninterested in seeing the truth in Islam.

Whenever two people want to engage in a war, both brag that they will be victorious. Eventually one side will be victorious. This does not prove that the victor could foresee the future. In the case of Muhammad, he was the only one declaring war on others. Actually he never declared them. He even signed peace treaties, only to break them when he willed.  The non-Muslims had no intentions of waging war with him. He took them by surprise and raided them when they were least expecting. These were shamelessly coward attacks on civilians. These were terrorists acts. And you boast that because Muhammad won through his terrorist forays, he proved to be a messenger of God and the greatest miracle was thus accomplished? I don’t know even how to answer to this much absurdity. I leave that to the readers to make their minds. This point is clear to all the non-Muslims. Now it is the turn of the Muslims to see the light and do the right thing. Is this your “out of this world” miracle? Muhammad said he will be victorious and then he raided unwary people and butchered unarmed civilians and won. Does this proves that he was a prophet of God and anyone who cannot see this "out of this world miracle" is blind and can’t see the moon in the sky and should be killed? Okay! Let us leave it at that my not blind friend, with open mind and pure heart and let us move on. You gave us the biggest miracle that you think justifies all the crimes of Muhammad. Let us move on.         

 

To question and doubt is a good thing. Believe me, I do a lot of it while reading the Qur’an. My reference to Bertrand Russell’s writings was also meant to bring home the same point. I never mentioned that I was giving my arguments to prove him wrong. You spent unnecessary words to dismiss something I never claimed. However, to question and doubt for the sake of knowing the truth is one thing and to do it for its own sake is quite another. I use the tool of questioning and doubting to enhance my faith. Thanks God, it hasn’t failed as yet.

Questioning and doubting to enhance one's faith is not the way to find the truth. You are only seeking validation in what you already believe. When your intention is to enhance your faith and not find the facts that may destroy it, you overlook all the evidences that may jeopardize your faith and only pick those things that confirm it. The reason you can’t find the truth is because your method is wrong. I knew that all along. It's good that you confessed to that too.  

The right way to find the truth is the one taught to us by Descartes. He doubted everything, including the world around him and assumed that there is a demon making this world appear to him the way he sees it and that everything is just a figment of his imagination. Then he concluded, I must exist in order to be able to imagine this world, therefore if I think I am. cogito, ergo sum.  

To find the truth, you must empty your mind from all  preconceptions. Assume that you don’t know Muhammad and then come to learn that he took women captured in his raids and raped them, that he slept with a child, that he looted and committed genocide. Will you accept such a man as the best human and an example to follow? If you are a decent person I doubt that you would. That should be enough proof to reject Islam. However, there are other proofsr. Then you want to know the evidences that he presented for his claim. You see the only evidence his followers give is the fact that he said he will become victorious with terror and he did. Is this proof?  In logics this is called argumentum ad baculum and it is listed among logical fallacies. See this for yourself. Thinking that might is right is a very primitive thinking and it is one of the most elemental logical fallacies. Lo and behold, this fallacy is your biggest argument in support of Islam. You even call it the greatest miracle?

 

 Your response to my claim that the prophet of Islam was the prophet promised in the Book of Deuteronomy was also disappointing. Your seemingly strong answer was based on one policy you consistently follow: Criticize whatever can be picked for criticism and ignore what can’t be answered. My questions to some of the points you have raised are these: Does the reality that Ishmael was the son of Abraham and therefore the brother of Isaac change because there are certain derogatory remarks mentioned in the Bible against him? Is it not a strange coincidence that the prophecy mentions that God would put “My words in his mouth” and it is only the Qur’an that claims, with undeniable evidence, to be the very word of God, completely preserved?

Call it a mantra or whatever, is it not perplexing that the prophecy is stating that the prophet to come would present God’s word in His name and the Qur’an does just that before each chapter. There were many similarities mentioned between Moses and Muhammad in my message and you picked for criticism only the one I had mentioned to distinguish them from Jesus Christ, Allah’s mercy be on all. That’s a style quite peculiar to you. What about the other similarities? The prophecy states that the prophet to come would be like Moses and the Qur’an says: “Indeed We have sent you as an evidence against your nation quite the same way as We sent a messenger to Pharaoh.” (Qur’an; 73: 15)

The claim that Muhammad is foretold in Deuteronomy is absurd. Of course I can’t accept such a baseless claim. As I stated, the claims of the Baha'is that the Baha'i faith has been foretold in previous scriptures, particularly by Daniel, is far more convincing that yours. My point is that anyone can pick something from any book and interpret it the way he wants to. Fortunately, Muslims have not been able to find anything remotely as strong as those that the Baha'is claim to point to their prophet. Read them for yourself and be the judge. They come with the exact date of the declaration of Bab and many other details such as the name of Baha'u'llah stated many times. If you can't buy that, then you have far less reasons to buy the that Deuteronomy is about Muhammad. 

Does the fact that the Bible speaks derogatory of Ishmael reduce his rank as the legitimate heir of Abraham? Yes it does. According to the Qur'an, 11:42-43 Noah’s son was perished because of his rebelliousness. The fact that he was the son of Noah did not give him any privileges.  So, according to the Qur'anic logic, being a son of a prophet does not give one any advantages. Therefore, if the Bible calls Ishmael a jackass of a man and God ignores him completely while talking to Abraham and refers to Isaac as his ONLY son, it is clear that Ishmael is out of the picture. He will have many children who will be hostile, fighting with everyone and causing seditions and war, but there is no mention that a prophet will rise from among them.  If God wanted to anoint one of Ishmael's descendants as a prophet, he would not have demeaned him to this extent that would call him an ass of a man. It is clear that God of the Bible has no respect for Ishmael and his descendants. 

The clear message of Deuteronomy is that we should look down at the Arabs and belittle them. Now this I say if you really believe in the Bible and want to use it as evidence. As far as I am concerned the Bible is a book of fables and rational people should not pay any heed to what it says. Arabs are no less than any other people. The problem is that most of them are infected by the virus of Islam. Once they are cured, they can be as good as anyone else. This is true also about Persians, Pakistanis, Turks and anyone else.  No nation is superior or inferior to other nations. It is how we think and behave that makes some excel over others. We can change our thinking and actions through proper education. 

In order to claim that the prophecy “I will put My words in his mouth” is about Muhammad, you must first prove that Muhammad was from God. This you have not done yet. Once you do that, then we can determine whether these words refer to Muhammad or to any other proven prophet that came after Moses. This is like someone in the story of Cinderella, claiming that the shoe that has been found is hers when she has no legs to begin with. The first requisite is to show that she has legs and feet, then we can see if the shoe fits or not.  

The following is what one of our readers wrote about your claim that: Each chapter of the Qur’an begins with this verse: “In the name of God, the most Merciful, the One Whose mercy is lasting. and that this is the fulfillment of "He shall speak those words in God’s name."

As everybody knows the basmala is an addition to the text and is a simple formulaic expression of Christian derivation. The Moslem exegetists themselves cannot agree on whether it is part of the revelation or a pious addition.

The phrase "b' ismi 'llah" is actually a hebraism and corresponds to the biblical "be shem YHWH", which means "by (the power) of YHWH's name", where YHWH is actually the deity's name while Allah is not. The calc phrase in Arabic therefore doesn't mean anything, unless an Arabic-speaking Jew reads it and understands that the word Allah is used in the same way as "adonai" in the Bible in order to observe the tabu related to the utterance of the divine name. As for the rest of the formula, both the adjectives rahman and rahîm are Aramaic borrowings. Aramaic was the language of the Middle-Eastern Jews and Christians before they were almost completely arabised. Aramaic was not the language of the Arabs from Hijaz. I hope this rings a bell as to where and when the Qu'ran was compiled.

I'd like to know from either Mr Ghamidi or Mr Zahiri if they are really sure the adjective rahîm means "the One Whose mercy is lasting" or if either of them was just expressing a personal opinion about the islamic deity.

You say that the prophecy states that the prophet to come would be like Moses and the Qur’an says: “Indeed We have sent you as an evidence against your nation quite the same way as We sent a messenger to Pharaoh.” (Qur’an; 73: 15)

Do you call this evidence? This is circular reasoning. This is the "claim", not the "proof." You can’t even distinguish between a proof and a claim. You rehash  Muhammad's claim that he was a messenger like Moses, We ask for proof, and you say because he said so.  

My erudite friend: May I humbly suggest that you go through this list of logical fallacies and read them? This will help you a lot in every discussion and debates and will also allow you do see the errors of your opponents, as much as it will help you to avoid them yourself. It will definitely make you a better debater.

 

Let’s clear these points first, and then proceed to other issues. God willing, I stand committed to answering all your questions, whether relevant to pre-destination or anything else.


Khalid Zaheer

(Words: 1023)


I think the points are clear. You have made your views known and so have I. Let us now move on and if you have no further evidence and “out of this world” miracles to prove that Islam is from God, please answer my question about predestination. If you have more “out of this world” proofs, please present them first. After all you said once the claim of Muhammad is proven to be true, one must not question anything else and accept whatever he said and did blindly. I find this reasoning absurd. In my view, all we need to prove that a claimant to infallibility is a liar is one error. However, in order to show that I am willing to go the extra mile and compromise, I agreed to withdraw all my charges should you show us your "out of this world" and "undeniable" proof. So far, you gave us circular reasoning, ad baculum, wishful thinking and even ad hominem accusing me of not having pure heart and therefore not being able to see the moon in the sky. I saw no proof yet, just logical fallacies.    

 

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