Author Archives: Ijaz Ahmad

If Islam is the truth, why are Muslim countries so backward and in turmoil?

Posted on by 11 comments

This question presumes that there are Muslim nations in existence today. The truth is that our terminologies must be clear and consistent. There is no Muslim nation today, as a Muslim nation is one which operates according to the Shari’ah of God (the body of law which governs Muslims), Saudi Arabia does not fall under this classifications due to two easy to recall reasons, ribaa (interest) based monetary system and its rule by Kingship. There are however, Muslim majority countries.

Therefore there is a great distinction between being Islamic nations and Muslim majority nations. Given that we now have this understanding, the question begs itself, why are so many Muslim nations today lacking strong economies, full of war and lacking basic human rights.

The simple answer would be a historical one. If we were to take a cursory look of the list of the nations today that are currently Muslim majority but involved in conflict, poverty or some other social ill, we’ll soon realise that within the last century – they were all either colonized or involved in some lang drawn out conflict or the other and none of them have ever been under true Islamic rule. Afghanistan for example, has never had the opportunity to develop itself, for any nation to develop itself economically, infrastructurally and sociologically it requires long periods of political, economic and civil stability.

cc-2014-saudiarabia-construction

Saudi Arabia’s Infrastructural Development

So if we look at any Muslim majority country and weigh them against political, economic and civil stability, a significant majority of them would fail this cursory examination. The only few exemptions would be Saudi Arabia, and they fulfill all three criteria. If we look at UAE, they also fulfill the same criteria. However nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia cannot. Therefore, there is no relation between Islam and these nation’s misgivings, rather the problem is clearly rooted in historical ills associated with the lack of political, economic and civil stability. Most of these nations were also colonialised, their resources shipped back to the metroples of their day, their infrastructure underdeveloped and masses of their societies left impoverished and without any great foundations from which to develop their nations (look at my home region – the Caribbean as an ample example of this).

In conclusion, it isn’t a great mystery, lack of political, economic and civil stability will cause any nation to crumble, these are the pillars for which any nation needs in order for development and advancement to initiate. The great Western superpowers fulfill these three given criteria, and are successful because of it. Centuries of independence and development, versus budding nations with less than 75 years of independence, is an unfair comparison and a biased one at that.

and God knows best.

David Wood Fires Blanks

Posted on by 5 comments

A recipe for disaster indeed! Moments after David Wood ran away after being called out on his spamming of a conversation between Pastor Samuel Green and I, he’s blocked me on Facebook. As you can see in the image provided, David began to spam a conversation because of a single comment I made in response to one of Samuel’s claims.

After much bravado, name calling, threats (to put me on his blog, been there; done that!), empty rhetoric and straw men, David decided to call a hasty retreat and shy away from facing me again – so he’s blocked me on Facebook! Isn’t this funny? David Wood enters into a conversation of which he’s not part of, spams it with 10’s of comments, insults me, tries to insult my God, tries to bait me into arguing with him, and he’s the one who ends up blocking me. That’s much like a robber who tries to hold you up with a gun, realises he’s firing blanks (an empty threat), and runs away!

That’s pretty much what happened. He showed up unannounced, attempted to get a reaction out of me by spamming and saying as much crude and crass things he could’ve conceived, and when he realised I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, the poor kid gave up. I almost feel sorry for him. All in all, David Wood has once again demonstrated that Christian polemicists are immature, infantile and irresponsible in their behaviour. In their haste to attack and disparage Islam, they are wholly unable to have a civilized conversation and must resort to brute force tactics, strong armed manoeuvres  and rabid ranting to face contemporary Muslim speakers.

David Wood the Voyeur Wearing Women's Lingerie - Self Admitted Cross Dresser

David Wood the Voyeur Wearing Women’s Lingerie – Self Admitted Cross Dresser

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again, David and his team are not intellectuals, they are not familiar with educational discourse. They are thugs, who are using Islamophobia to gain donation monies for their own personal uses, while riding the Right-Wing Christian train for fame. Good riddance!

 

David Wood Cowers from Calling Christians

Posted on by 2 comments

After facing heat for inventing false evidences, David Wood, seeing his partner in crime about to be embarrassed, rushed to Samuel’s aid. I posted one comment, questioning Samuel’s calling of a du’a, as a Surah (both him and I knowing full well this is an Orientalist claim and not a Muslim claim, we tend to know the difference between a du’a for blessing the recitation of the Qur’aan and a Surah). As you can see in the image below, David entered into a rabid frenzy, copy pasting every hadeeth he could find from Samuel’s ill written article:

cc-2014-davidwood-spamming

As you can see, for every one comment I make, he makes atleast five in return, finally towards the end he confesses he spammed me because of my questions towards Samuel Green. Interestingly, I asked David why he was misquoting ahadeeth and using incorrect translations. He decided to attack a straw man and claim I told him that he misquoted the da’eef (weak) hadeeth about the goat story from Ibn Majah.

I invited David to quote for me where I indicated that the goat story was the hadeeth I was referring to. After several loud mouthed claims, and a few snide remarks, he tucked his tail between his legs and forsook his crusade, realising that I never made that claim. Such is the ‘intellectual David Wood’, I asked one question, he got angry and spammed a conversation that had nothing to do with him. Realising he’d not be able to overwhelm me, or drag me into an insult match, he decided to invent a lie, and when called upon to qualify his claim, he ran off into the sunset – probably to try on more of his wife’s make up and underwear:

David Wood the Voyeur Wearing Women's Lingerie - Self Admitted Cross Dresser

David Wood the Voyeur Wearing Women’s Lingerie – Self Admitted Cross Dresser

Sorry David, I enjoyed watching you panic and flee.

and God knows best.

Samuel Green – Does Islam Allow Muslims to Worship Prophets?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Samuel Green has been caught lying once more, here’s a brilliant video by Br. Yahya Snow:

Samuel claims to be a speaker and reader of Arabic, yet any individual who speaks or reads Arabic, will know that the Duroof Shareef is not a prayer to Muhammad salallaahu alayhi wa salam:

ALLAHUMMA SALLI ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA SALLAITA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID. ALLAHUMMA BAARIK ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA BAARAKTA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID.

“O Allah, let Your Blessings come upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious. Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious”.

Clearly, the prayer begins by addressing God and asking God to do something. It’s very funny that Pastor Samuel who claims to understand the Arabic language to the extent he can spot errors in classical Arabic, that he cannot understand what Allahumma means.

Exposed? Surely so!

and God knows best.

Response: The Triune God – The Greatest Conceivable Being that Exists

Posted on by 2 comments

There have been many philosophical arguments developed to explain and rationalize the theology of the Holy Trinity. One such philosophical argument, revolves around the concept of the inter-personal relationship between the members of the Godhead. For a quick recap, the Trinity is defined as One God, quantified by Three Persons, who are co-equal, co-existing with each other in the Godhead (the Godhead in itself is undefined and beyond human reasoning but it is that which unites the three persons). In explaining the nature of the relationship between the persons in the Triune Godhead, Sam Shamoun referenced famed Christian Apologist, Dr. William Lane Craig in his article, “The Triune God – The Greatest Conceivable Being that Exists“. The argument is presented as such:

As the greatest conceivable being, God must be perfect. Now a perfect being must be a loving being. For love is a moral perfection; it is better for a person to be loving rather than unloving. God therefore must be a perfectly loving being. Now it is of the very nature of love to give oneself away. Love reaches out to another person rather than centering wholly in oneself. So if God is perfectly loving by His very nature, He must be giving Himself in love to another. But who is that other? It cannot be any created person, since creation is a result of God’s free will, not a result of His nature. It belongs to God’s very essence to love, but it does not belong to His essence to create. So we can imagine a possible world in which God is perfectly loving and yet no created persons exist. So created persons cannot sufficiently explain whom God loves. Moreover, contemporary. cosmology makes it plausible that created persons have not always existed. But God is eternally loving. So again created persons alone are insufficient to account for God’s being perfectly loving. It therefore follows that the other to whom God’s love is necessarily directed must be internal to God Himself.

Read more

Brave 10 year old Stands Up against Christian Missionary

Posted on by Leave a comment

Br. Haroon Qureishi of iERA, recounts the event:

I was at hyde park speakers corner today and there was an offensive Christian missionary who was attacking Muhammad PBUH.

A little boy aged 10 took my chair and started challenging the man while the large crowd gathered around and started chairing on the little boy (Even non Muslims were cheering him on)!

Some time later his dad came and was shocked and impressed at what his son was doing!

MASHALLAH!

May Allah give us all confident children who will stand up for the deen inshallah.

cc-2014-hpd-littleboy

Amazing stuff from the British brothers.

and Allaah knows best.

What does Allah’s “Salaah” mean?

Posted on by 7 comments

This query was brought to my attention by Anthony Rogers (see more information about him here and here), who quoted a comment by Sam Shamoun, the comment is:

You know full well what the actual position is but still, like your prophet did before you, you can’t help but deliberately misrepresent it. The position which you once claimed to have believed is that Jesus is God in essence and distinct from God the Father. Therefore, Jesus is praying to God the FATHER, not himself.

Let’s respond to this really quickly. Sam is saying that Jesus is not praying to himself, but Jesus the God is praying to the Father the God. So God is praying to God. So God who is praying to God, is not praying to God (himself) but to another God. How does one God pray to another God? How is this even Monotheistic? In order to deceive himself and distract Christians, he attempted to misrepresent Islamic beliefs:

However, speaking of a bizarre religion, you don’t get anymore bizarre than your [insult snipped] praying to himself!

They are those on whom are the prayers (salawatun) from their Lord and mercy (rahmatun), and it is they who are the guided-ones. S. 2:157

He it is who prays (yusallee) for you and His angels too, to bring you forth out of the darkness into the light, for He is merciful to the believers. S. 33:43 Palmer

Verily, God and His angels pray (yusalloona) for the prophet. O ye who believe! pray for him (salloo) and salute him with a salutation! S. 33:56 Palmer

The hadith reports also mention Allah praying for people:
1387. Abu Umama reported that the Messenger of Allah said, “Allah AND His angels AND the people of the heavens AND the earth, EVEN the ants in their rocks AND the fish, PRAY for blessings on those who teach people good.” [at-Tirmidhi] (Aisha Bewley, Riyad as-Salihin (The Meadows of the Righteous), Book of Knowledge, 241. Chapter: the excellence of knowledge; bold, capital and italic emphasis ours)

And here is an article where I discuss this issue more in-depth and refute the lame attempt by your fellow Muhammadan-turned apostate-turned Muhammadan-turned apostate again-turned Muhammadan one more time Ibn Unaware: [link snipped]

So perhaps you can be so kind and answer my questions. To whom does your deity pray when he joins the angels in praying for Muhammad and so-called believers? Since the angels are obviously praying to Allah does this mean that Allah is also praying to himself?

Bizarre indeed!

I didn’t think I needed to mention this, but words have context. Context is defined as, “The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning.”[1] As a toddler, when one is taught how to read, we learn that words, based on their context, affects their meaning. For our purposes, this phenomena is referred to as relational nouns, one study on its uses mentions:

Relational nouns have some commonalities with verbs  and prepositions, in that their meanings are centered around  extrinsic relations with other concepts. Relational nouns are  also similar to verbs in that they are semantically  unsaturated (i.e., they take arguments). A relational noun  takes an argument (often not obligatory) and assigns a  thematic role.[2]

Now, it’s quite obvious I don’t expect someone of the likes of Sam Shamoun to make sense of these things. For a person to not know that words have variant meanings dependent on context, it’s therefore understandable that he’d be intellectually stunted and as a consequence, misrepresent what the Qur’aan or Ahadeeth say. One example of relational nouns is the word ‘Seerah‘, outside of Islamic delimitations it means ‘story, history‘, but when Islamically used, it refers to the Prophet’s (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) biography. Surely even someone with the level of ineptitude of Shamoun can grasp this. To cater for his level of understanding, we can even use English examples:
  1. The space of the car was huge.
  2. The car went into space.
In the above example, there are two similar nouns, ‘car‘ and ‘space‘, but they have two completely different meanings. Whereas the meaning of ‘car‘ is the same, the other noun, ‘space‘, although its the same word, due to its context, it has two completely different meanings. The meaning of the noun space, is therefore, relational. Its meaning is relative. This is an easy example. Given what we’ve just learned, it is therefore simple to understand that the word ‘Salaah’ has a relational meaning, dependent upon the noun it is used upon. While it does mean prayer in the conventional sense when referring to any creation of God, most usually mankind and Jinn, when it is used in relation to God, it has a totally variant meaning. We’ll use one of Sam’s quoted verses, 33:43 to illustrate this relational meaning:

(He is such that He and His angels send blessings to you), It means that when you have become used to dhikrullah in abundance and have become regular in recounting the perfections of Allah morning and evening, Allah would honor you and respect you by bestowing His Blessings and by the angels supplicating for you.

The word ‘Salah’ has been used in this verse for Allah Ta’ala as well as for the angels but the applicable meaning are different. For Allah it means His bestowing blessings and for angels who have no volition on their own, it means their supplication to Allah to bestow His blessings.

Sayydina Ibn ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) has stated that Salah from Allah is a blessing, from angels it is prayer for forgiveness and from humans it is supplication. The word Salah carries all the three meanings.

(Their greeting, the Day they will meet Him, will be, “Salam” – 33:44). This is the explanation of the Salah that is sent to believers from Allah.[3]

This therefore clarifies the misconception that God ‘prays’ like humans. The source of this misconception is due to Sam Shamoun’s lack of grammatical study, he is uneducated in terms of the English language and the Arabic language, thus technical constructs based on language study escapes his realm of education. Although common to us, for those of us who took language courses at the High School and University Level, Sam did not have these opportunities, so we should not be surprised at his ignorance.
He’s also committed a classical exegetical fallacy and a logical fallacy. The exegetical fallacy would be the, “Reading Between the Lines Fallacy”, Professor William D. Barrick explains:

This fallacy falls into the category of logical fallacies that Carson discusses in Exegetical  Fallacies. The unwarranted associative fallacy “occurs when a word or phrase triggers off an associated idea, concept, or experience that bears no close relation to the text at hand, yet is used to interpret the text.[4]

Recall that Sam is a Trinitarian Christian, in his mind, there is no difference between relational nouns in terms of God and man, since his God is a man. Whereas for us who believe in monotheism, God is not a man and therefore the terms that apply to God will have distinct meanings from those that apply to mankind. The other fallacy is the Tu Quoque fallacy, essentially the kindergarten argument of ‘you too’. Since he believes God is a man who prays to God, he’s trying to force his belief upon the Islamic faith, however in doing so, he abandons all sense of reasoning, education and dignity.

We pray that Shamoun realises his lack of education and seeks to attend classes so as not to humiliate himself once more.

and Allaah knows best.

[1] – “Context“, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
[2] – “Context Sensitivity of Relational Nouns“, Asmuth, J. & Gentner, D. (2005).
[3] – “Qur’aan 33:43“, Tafsir Maari’ful Qur’aan, Mufti Muhammad Shafi, page 182.
[4] – “Exegetical Fallacies“, Prof. William D. Barrick.

Why didn’t Allah send the Qur’aan in a Universal language?

Posted on by One comment

Muslims are often asked this question. If the Qur’aan is from God, why didn’t He send it in a language we can all understand. My response to that question would be, what language would you have wanted him to send it in? Everyone thinks one language or the other is easier to understand. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a universally spoken language. All language is learned and developed. Languages differ, they have variant language devices (metaphors, similes, rhetoric, emphases, etc ) and semantics (meaning), as well as syntax (sentence structure) constructs. There exists no such universal language, so even if God did send the Qur’aan to us in a universal language – we wouldn’t be able to make sense of it since we don’t know what one would look like and one currently doesn’t exist. What’s worse is that we’d all have to learn this new language. Considering that the point of this question is that you shouldn’t have to learn a new language, a universal language that you still have to learn, defeats its very purpose.

wa Allaahu ‘alam.

Christian Commenter Discovers Quotation Marks

Posted on by Leave a comment

This is no joke, while having a little back and forth on the authorship of Colossians, a zealous Christian commenter accused me of ‘plagiarizing’ the work of James Dunn. Why would he accuse me of such a thing? Well, he may be unfamiliar with what these are:

 

cc-2014-misc-quote

 

I put words between quotation marks, you know, to indicate they were, errr – quotes? Sadly, this individual, who ironically calls himself Paul, decided to start 2014 with a bang. Apparently by using quotation marks, I was attributing the words between the quotation marks to myself and not actually quoting someone, which is what the purpose of quotation marks are – to use the words of others. The individual got upset when I chose not to approve his 500 word rant/ comment on his ignorance of what a quotation mark is or what a quote was, so he threatened to use screenshots of what he wrote. By all means, go ahead, let the world know that Paul, does not know what quotation marks are, it’d be splendid.

 

« Older Entries Recent Entries »