Author Archives: Ijaz Ahmad

Explanation: Qur’aans that contain less or more Surahs

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Many Christian polemicists argue that certain companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) had varying amount of Surahs in their copies of the Qur’aan. Some had 112, others had 111, etc. Br. Waqar has refuted those claims in detail here. While I won’t go into explicit detail, I will provide the Muslim with the tools to respond to such claims in a simple and concise manner.

The Argument:

Sahabi X only had Y number of Surahs in his copy of the Qur’aan, therefore he didn’t believe in the Surahs not included in his copy.

Responses:

  • The question must be asked to the Christian, where does the Sahabi (companion) say that he doesn’t believe in the excluded Surahs? The truth is, nowhere is that said. Therefore, the onus (responsibility) is on the Christian to provide evidence for such a claim.
  • Codex is a collection, Canon is an established list, so the canonical codex of the Qur’aan is a Qur’aan consisting of all the Surahs from al-Fatihah to an-Nas, all 114 of them. Many of us have booklets at home that contain the last 10 Surahs, or Surah ar-Rahman with Surah al-Baqarah. Do we consider the excluded Surahs from these booklets to not be Qur’aanic? Of course not! Therefore, not every codex is a canon of the Qur’aan. A codex with 2 Surahs does not mean that Uncle Khan or Aunty Summayah believes the Qur’aan only has 2 Surahs or 10 Surahs.
  • So we must ask the Christian, since every codex is not indicative of a canon, why do you apply this belief to the Qur’aan?
  • We can also turn their own reasoning back onto them. Since Paul wrote 10 of his 13 epistles, then the New Testament according to Paul is only his epistles and not the four Gospels, where does he say he believes in the 4 Gospels? Since the Christian says every collection (codex) is a canon, then Paul’s canon of the New Testament, excludes the Gospels. If the Christian says this is wrong reasoning, shake their hands and congratulate them on using such reasoning in the first place.
  • We can further this by saying, since none of the 4 Gospels refer to Paul’s letters and we have no evidence that any of the Gospel authors knew of Paul’s letters, then the canon of the New Testament for the Gospel authors is their Gospel and their Gospel only. So the New Testament to the anonymous author of the Gospel of John, was just the Gospel of John, to the anonymous author of Matthew, the only canonical New Testament book was his own book.

Closing the Argument

We can make things worse for the Christian – yes, worse, much worse. If we go to the earliest codices of the Bible, namely Codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Ehpraemi Rescriptus, they all contain extra books, and some even have missing books. Therefore we must ask the Christian, does he take those codices to be canons, and if not, why does he apply such a reasoning to the Qur’aan?

Conclusion

One of the more popular proponents who propagate such an argument is that of Pastor Samuel Green. He’s fond of repeating it, but is unable to see the backward, and illogical reasoning he employs in formulating such an uneducated argument. If you see anyone quoting Pastor Green’s article, send them this link, or use the arguments within – for just like the Pastor, when faced with these responses they will either go silent, try as best as they can to ignore you or simply keep repeating it without attempting to understand what they are saying. If the Christian chooses to be honest, then he would drop this argument and apologize for using it in the first place.

and Allaah knows best.

Elder of 7th Day Adventist Church, Principal on 14 Sexual Assault Charges

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For what is the second time in the space of one year, my home country, the beautiful twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is facing a scourge of sexual deviancy by the Seventh Day Adventist Church’s most senior members. On the 23rd of July 2013, Pastor Marlon Holder of the 7th Day Adventist Church in Tobago was brought to court, facing charges of 6 accounts of sexual assault. More information is provided on the Pastor (now former Pastor) of the Church’s charges via the Trinidad newspaper – the Trinidad Express.

The crisis has worsened when on February 10th (2014), school Principal and Senior Elder of the 7th Day Adventist Church – David Smith was charged with 14 accounts of sexual assault. The Trinidad Express reports:

Fifty-two-year-old father of five, David Smith, has been placed on $400,000 bail with surety clerk of the peace approval. The former principal of a primary school in Tobago appeared in the Scarborough Magistrates’ Court yesterday on 14 sexual offence charges.

Smith was not called upon to plead as the charges were indictable.  The 14 sex charges were a combination of indecent assault and serious indecency, which occurred between 2012 and 2013.  The incidents allegedly occurred on the school compound.

Available for online viewing is the nightly news’ segment on the Christian Elder’s court case. More information including that of the Elder’s picture can be viewed in the Trinidad Express article. I ask that the international community pray to help save the children of Trinidad and Tobago from these evil preachers who use their positions within the Christian/ Religious community to commit indecent and morally despicable acts against innocent children.

and God knows best.

Pastor Samuel Green: Human will overpowers God’s will

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I’m not sure how many Christians would be willing to agree with Pastor Samuel Green’s view that humans can perform actions which God has not willed into existence or permitted. In essence, the Pastor is teaching that human will, overpowers God’s will. Do Christians agree with the Pastor’s message that humans are greater than the Christian God?

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If the creation of God, can overcome the will of their Creator, then as humans – we are more powerful than the weak Christian God. This is not a polemical claim, this is based on the doctrinal statements of Pastor Green.

and Allaah knows best.

Do Christians believe in the message of the Jewish Books as Samuel Green thinks?

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Discussion between myself and Pastor Samuel Green:

Pastor Green Caught Lying

Pastor Green Caught Lying

Pastor Green as seen here is unable to demonstrate evidences for a claim he repeats ad nauseum. The Pastor in his attempts to discredit Islam, claims adherence to the messages of the Jewish Prophets, however, the case which has been made by me is, if he is indeed adhering to their message – where is the evidence for this?

As can clearly be seen, Jewish Orthodox beliefs as rooted in the Torah, Psalms and Prophets do not preach what the heretical and apostate Jewish sect of proto-orthodox Christianity teaches. Therefore, the Torah, Prophets and Psalms are not only in disagreement with Pastor Green’s message, they inadvertently disprove the Christian faith’s claims of beliefs rooted in the Jewish scriptures.

and Allaah knows best.

Christians Naturally Distrust and Disbelieve in the New Testament

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There’s a problem with the New Testament, and every conservative Christian scholar, including the likes of Daniel B. Wallace, James White to the Liberals such as Dr. Crossan have implicitly conceded to their distrust of the New Testament text. Let’s first list a few facts to establish the foundation for our case:

  • The Council of Nicea was held in 325 CE.
  • The oldest editions of the New Testament in their most complete forms date between 350 – 450 CE (Codices Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Ephraemi Rescriptus).
  • The Councils of Carthage in 393 and 397 CE affirmed the Christian canon of the New Testament.

The Argument

If Christians are satisfied that the ‘true’ and ‘original’ text of the New Testament was in circulation at the time of the Council of Nicea, and accept that the New Testament books were used before, during and after the Council to affirm the Athansian Creed of the Hypostatic Union, versus that of the Arian Creed, and also accept that in 367 CE Athansius affirmed these texts, and also agree that in 393 and 397 CE the Patristics (Early Church Fathers) agreed that the New Testament in circulation was the ‘true’ and ‘original’ scripture, then why do Christians seek manuscripts before the Councils of Nicea and Carthage to ‘validate the text of the New Testament’?

What am I saying? I’m saying –

We have New Testament codices from the 4th century. In the 4th century, three important Ecumenical councils utilized the New Testament canon and since it was used during the Council of Nicea, then Christians should be statisfied with the New Testament codices of the 4th century. Since they are not satisfied and constantly seeking to rediscover the ‘original’ (authograph) manuscripts from the time of the presbyters and apostles, then they are acknowledging their distrust in the New Testament which existed at the time of the 4th century – the same New Testament we essentially have today. That being the same New Testament canon and codex that Christians today call scripture.

The Problem

If the Christians accept the canon of the New Testament during the 4th century and believe as they do today in the New Testament we currently have – largely based on 4th century codices, then they should not seek a New Testament before the 4th century, as that would by and large mean that the Church Fathers affirmed the wrong canon, they affirmed false books, invented books, incorrectly attributed books to the apostles as being scripture, moreso their use of it during their debates against each other would mean that the evidences used to establish proto-Orthodox Christian doctrine are false, therefore meaning the beliefs and scripture of contemporary Christians is false.

Apologetic Use of this Argument

We now no longer need to invest our time in approaching Christians to discuss their New Testament. The very fact that they are zealously attempting to rediscover the original text, when they already have the texts ratified, verified and authenticated by the Church Fathers, the same text the Church Fathers used to defend current orthodox Christian beliefs – demonstrates that Christians have based their beliefs on foundations they themselves do not trust. Therefore, in terms of polemics and apologetics, the Christians who claim to understand Textual Criticism and adamantly preach about any New Testament manuscript before the 4th century has demonstrated to the Muslim that he is unsatisfied with the New Testament and the beliefs based on it.

This would mean, in simple terms – there is no reason to argue or debate about the New Testament text, when we can simply agree with the Christians in their search for an earlier than 4th century text. We should simple shake their hands and say, “thank you for giving us reasons to doubt your scripture and your beliefs about God”.

Conclusion

If the Church fathers used the wrong New Testament text, and based their beliefs (which they quoted heavily) on the New Testament of the 4th century, then undoubtedly the religion of Christianity has collapsed due to their own search for any New Testament document/ manuscript before the 4th century CE.

Does the Qur’aan affirm the Bible?

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Question:

Does the Qur’aan affirm the Torah and the New Testament?

Answer:

There is a fundamental difference between what Muslims consider the Bible to be, and what the Christians and Jews consider the Bible to be. To understand these differences, please note the following verses:

وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَى الْكِتَابَ وَقَفَّيْنَا مِن بَعْدِهِ بِالرُّسُلِ ۖ وَآتَيْنَا عِيسَى ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ الْبَيِّنَاتِ وَأَيَّدْنَاهُ بِرُوحِ الْقُدُسِ

And We did certainly give Moses the Torah and followed up after him with messengers. And We gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear proofs and supported him with the Pure Spirit. (2:87)

وَقَفَّيْنَا عَلَىٰ آثَارِهِم بِعِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ ۖ وَآتَيْنَاهُ الْإِنجِيلَ فِيهِ هُدًى وَنُورٌ وَمُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ وَهُدًى وَمَوْعِظَةً لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ

And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous. (5:46)

In the Islamic belief, the Prophets Moses and Jesus (may God’s peace be upon them), both were given scripture – to Moses the Torah and to Jesus the Injeel.

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Dr. Shabir Ally responds to James White’s Complaint of his event with Dr. Crossan (Of the Jesus Seminar)

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James White asked:

 But, I will say this—it will be a kindly discussion.  Having engaged in nine debates total with these gentlemen, I know at the very least it will be pursued in a kindly fashion.  But I remain confused as to its real reason.

Dr. Shabir Ally has responded by saying:

WHY A DIALOGUE WITH DR. CROSSAN?

Some of you have wondered how we may respond to those traditional Christians who think that Dr. Crossan does not represent them, and that therefore we should not be engaging in dialogue with Dr. Crossan. In answer to that, we should say that Christianity is quite diverse, and no one person can speak for all of Christianity. Any Christian scholar with whom we have a dialogue will probably have both supporters and detractors. Indeed, this has been my experience over the years.

The various denominations are well known. If, for example, we have a dialogue with the Catholics, the Protestants may say that they were not represented. The obvious solution to this problem is for us to have dialogues with both Catholics and Protestants and with all the other denominations, as much as time will permit.

More to the point here, there is a concern that since Dr. Crossan is liberal in his criticism of the Bible, and he does not represent traditional Christian beliefs, he is not suitable for dialogue. But here again we should realise that Christians span a wide spectrum from ultra-liberal to ultra-conservative. Again, the solution is for us to have dialogues one after another with persons representing various shades of the full spectrum.

Because the conservatives are louder in their complaints when we engage with someone who does not represent them, we may get the impression that the conservatives are the only ones who deserve to represent Christianity. But we should realise that even among conservatives some do not represent others. Some are not conservative enough for the others. I have at times been convinced that I am debating with a conservative Christian only to be surprised later at the complaint from other conservatives that the person I debated with is not a true Christian, or something of that nature.

It so happens that we are not the ones who invited Dr. Crossan to come to Toronto. He was going to be here anyway. We just tagged on the dialogue to make maximum use of his presence here. He was invited by a church that falls under the umbrella of United Church which is one of the largest Christian denominations in Canada. Many Christians will be paying to attend his lectures in that church. There he will be delivering a series of five lectures on various aspects of his research into the historical Jesus. Even if some of those Christians disagree with him, some others, at least the Christians who invited him to speak in their church, obviously feel that his findings should be shared. So, he does represent some Christians.

In fact, I feel that Dr. Crossan represents many Christians today. Some of us Muslims tend to assume that Christians generally hold on to traditional views about Jesus. But you may be surprised to find that one important leader and scholar after another confesses that they no longer believe in some significant aspects of the tradition. For example, many no longer believe that Jesus died for their sins. They think it would be odd of God to demand and receive a human sacrifice. Many no longer believe that Jesus is the Son of God in a literal sense. They actually believe that he is a man and a prophet.

This tendency to reject things in the Gospels has shifted to the far left. Many no longer believe that Jesus performed the kinds of miracles described in the Bible and the Quran. Many no longer believe in the virginal conception of Jesus. This extreme may be surprising to many Muslims. But, as I have pointed out in several of my debates, once one starts looking closely at the Gospels, as one must, one sees enough problems to make one hesitate to accept the major claims about Jesus.

If we did not have the Quran, we too would have been skeptical of the claims made about Jesus in the Gospels. Hence our responsibility is to share the message of the Quran with our Christian friends. And we need to share this with all Christians, not just the ones who refuse to look at the problems in the Gospels. It is our hope that some of those who reject traditional faith in Jesus because of the problems in the Gospels may embrace Quranic faith in Jesus. And those who refuse to see the problems in the Gospels’ depiction of Jesus may see a clearer light on Jesus shining from the Quran. So, let the dialogue continue and proliferate.

Most interestingly, a comment left under Dr. Shabir’s post highlights just how much of a problem Dr. Crossan can be for the Christian faithful:

Dr. Crossan is an actual monotheist — He believes Jesus was a prophet and nothing more … He criticizes the traditional beliefs about the Bible and about Jesus. In fact it was Dr. Crossan and his companion Dr. Borg that set my mind free from these blasphemous beliefs which ultimately lead to my reversion to Islam. Mainstream Christians will say he doesn’t represent them — and that’s 100% correct. Because he uses his critical thinking abilities and has authentic faith not blind faith. He studies and dismantles the Bible and Christian doctrine and looks at it for what it really is not what he believes it to be. He is a scholar and let me tell you from first hand experience… Christians do not like scholars, they prefer a preacher who can tell them what to believe instead of a scholar that will tell them to think for themselves. May Allah guide us all.

It is with great interest that myself and the larger Christian-Muslim dialogue community looks forward to the Dr. Shabir Ally and Dr. Crossan event.

and God knows best.

Can any Christian be certain of Christianity’s Doctrine of Salvation?

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For most, the answer would be yes. They’ve confessed and professed their faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. They faithfully read the scriptures (Old and New Testaments) and attend Church gatherings regularly to engage in prayer and worship. However, I intend to raise an honest question to the Christian – how certain can you be of your salvation?

It is my belief that the Christian should be concerned, worried about his salvation. Why is this? I say this due to having read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. For countless peoples who faithfully obeyed and put into practise what YHWH instructed them to do in the Hebrew Bible, he reneged on this doctrine of salvation by faith and works. He then allegedly instituted a new doctrine of salvation, while revealing such things as life in heaven, the punishment of hell, his multi-personhood (the Trinity) and finally the promise of the death of His Son.

Christians seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that if YHWH could hide such important doctrines such as his very Triune nature, the existence of an afterlife and an entirely new doctrine of salvation, that this strongly indicates that there is no certainty he’d hold on to this current doctrine of salvation. The Christian faithful need to realise, that if God can change his mind on salvation once, what is there to demonstrate he won’t do so twice? It then must be accepted, that in the future, God can very well change his doctrine of salvation again.

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Many will respond by saying that God has sent His son, he’s given us through the faithful predecessors his plans for us in the New Testament – all that we need to know, is with us here already. However, the Jews before Christ also claimed the same. They had one God, one scripture and they found the new Christian belief to be a heresy – the New Testament clearly indicates their opposition to this new faith. When Christians emerged unto the scene, they found themselves debating fiercely with their Jewish counterparts, indicating that such and such Messianic Prophecy was hinted by such and such verse (two of the more popular examples are Isaiah 9 and Isaiah 53). Many Christians will then use the Book of Hebrews (of the New Testament) to illustrate to the Jew how the Old Testament sayings and beliefs should have been interpreted.

There is nothing to show that the God of the Christians and Jews won’t do this a third time. Just as the Jews before them, Christians too already have certainty in their eschatology and soteriology, their faith and the future is certain to them, the promise of God is what they hold to. Yet these same Christians today consider the Jews who rejected Christ to be sons of the devil and evil (John 8:44-48), enemies of the Christ (Luke 19:27), there is nothing to stop me from concluding that should the Christian God change his mind again – today’s Christians (just as the Jews before them) may very well be considered sons of the devil for rejecting God’s new plan of salvation. I mean, if Christians can look down on Jews and be perplexed as to how they can reject the new covenant, who should complain when another new covenant comes and today’s Christians reject it as a heresy (just as the Jews before them did with the Christian beliefs).

The very existence of Christianity as a ‘new’ covenant, surely has to bother Christians as to what ‘other’ covenants God may have in store for the future. For if his mind can change once, who is to say it won’t change again?

What is CL Edwards doing?

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CL Edwards is one odd Christian polemicist. He debated me in January of 2013 and thereafter seemed to fall into obscurity. His website lacked updates and he didn’t debate anyone else for a significant period of time. In fact, he was allegedly attending a seminary during this time. Eventually he popped back on to the radar again when he debated MDI’s Br. Shadid Lewis, a debate which left many wondering why would any organization give CL Edwards a stage – clearly whatever seminary training he was receiving was absent and not demonstrated during his debate.

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Shortly thereafter, I offered up a few challenges, Bob Siegel and Pastor Samuel Green took up those challenges but CL Edwards, possibly embarrassed after his debate with Br. Shadid, never even cared to respond. Eventually he changed his website’s theme, added an article every once in a while, nothing new, nothing scholarly, just copy pasted arguments from AI’s website, sometimes he’d post a video or two. Recently WordPress notified me that CallingChristians had received 1 or 2 views from CL’s website, I checked it out and I began to laugh.

It seems as if CL decided he was brave enough to ‘respond’ to a few articles of mines. As it turns out, he just copy pasted a few Facebook notes of some kid in India who tried to respond to my articles. This left me bewildered, a grown man who is attending a seminary and who didn’t even care to respond to my debate challenge  – whereas the likes of Pastor Green did, decided to copy paste a nobody’s Facebook notes to respond to me on his website. I’m not sure what’s going on, but CL, if you are reading this, maybe it’s time you step up and actually do your own work for a change? Actually try to face me? Or not, it doesn’t matter, you’re fading into obscurity again and no one really cares about your website, your articles or your ‘seminary training’.

If anyone wants to see just how much fun I had with this guy back in the day, do check out this list of rebuttals. Poor chap, I did consider removing the link to these rebuttals, as they essentially were responding to a nobody, but they were just so much fun to write, I felt it difficult to remove them.

Funny guy.

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