Response to Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

A few days ago, Anthony Rogers, upset at the revelation of some odd bits of Christian history during my debate with him, has released a video claiming that Allah ta ‘ala had loins. Unfortunately for him, his poor scholarship and intellectual dishonesty became extant. As it turns out, after he realised that the, ‘holy prepuce’ argument was a valid piece of history, he decided to look for some way to demonstrate that Allah ta ‘ala also had ‘genitals’ or ‘loins’. Unfortunately for him, he gathered his quotes from this website. Recall:

  • Anthony cannot speak or read Arabic.
  • His video uses the exact same quotes with the same translation from the website.
  • The author of that website, translated the Arabic himself.
  • Therefore it became easy to find Anthony’s sources, as the translation is unique.
  • The translation on the brother’s article was based on an error concerning manuscripts which he obtained.
  • Anthony, by using the same translation and same error, therefore showed that he copied from the Brother’s website.

The brother upon seeing Anthony’s video, made contact with me and I decided to let him refute Anthony Rogers. The video contains quotes from various Arabic lexicons and Etymological codices, demonstrating that the word Anthony appeals to cannot and has never meant, ‘genitals’.

We’ve quoted all the relevant Arabic texts and included them in the video, thereby completely refuting his claims and calling him to apologize for his plagiarism of the website’s contents. Here is the video:

According to the various Arabic lexicons and dictionaries the phrase ‘haqwa’, when used, means ‘to seek protection of someone or from something’. Since that is the case, Anthony has no real intellectual basis for his argument, but an incorrect translation that the Brother himself (the author of the article Anthony uses), clarified his mistake and therefore has soundly demonstrated the lowly character and lengths to which Anthony Rogers would stoop for attention.

We ask Anthony to come forward, whether in a new video or a response in an article and explain for us, his research skills and Arabic reading/ speaking skills, both of which he knows he cannot qualify.

PS: Anthony, if you’re going to copy something off of the internet, try to validate it before you make your ‘research’ public.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate with Anthony Rogers Available on Youtube

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The debate has been uploaded on Youtube, “The Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine, Person in the Godhead”, between myself and Anthony Rogers:

Do enjoy insha Allaah, any questions pertaining to the debate, let me know in the video comments or via our Facebook Page or use the ‘Contact Us‘ page on the website.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Responses to Common Arguments Christians Use to Claim Jesus’ Divinity

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

In this post we’ll be examining some of the reasons that Christians assert that we should worship Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Missionaries and Evangelists usually promote these arguments to the layman in the Muslim community and while there is a bulk of resources out there (for example, see our numerous links) that do try to respond to these arguments, I’ve found them sometimes a bit too in-depth and scholarly for the layman, especially since they are in a more detailed form of English. I’ll be attempting to simplify and to demonstrate some quick counter-arguments in this series of articles. This is not intended to be highly detailed, scholarly argumentation, this is meant to aid the layman in responding quickly, correctly, and decisively to missionary claims. I’ll be updating this frequently, so keep an eye out for new additions.

1.

Argument(s): Jesus is God because He is sinless OR  Jesus is God because He is the only one to fulfill the laws of the Old Testament (mitzvot).

Counter Argument: If being sinless is a criteria for being God, then both Zechariah and Elizabeth are considered to be Gods, Luke 1:5-6 reads, “In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” Also, if following all the laws of the Old Testament is a criteria for being a God, then, since this passage states clearly that they fulfilled all the laws of the Old Testament, they too must be Gods.

2.

Argument: Jesus is eternal, He existed from the beginning and has no end.

Counter Argument: Paul claims that Melchezidek, a High Priest is also like Christ in this aspect, does that then mean you have to worship Melcehzidek as well? Hebrews 7:3 reads, “ Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.”

3.

Argument: Jesus is God because only God can raise the dead. (Luke 7:13-15, Matthew 9;25, John 11:43-44, Matthew 27:52-53).

Counter Argument: If being able to raise the dead makes one a God, then Paul, Peter, Elisha and and Elijah are all Gods, we read:

1 Kings 17:17-24.
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!” The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!” Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”

2 Kings 4:3-5.
“Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.”

This miracle of raising the dead might be interpreted as being greater than Jesus’ raising of the dead, as Elisha who was dead, was able to raise the dead, Jesus only raised the dead while alive:

2 Kings 13:21.
“Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.”

Peter in Acts 9:36-42.
In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widowsstood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.

Paul in Acts 20:9-12.
“Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.”

4.

Argument: Jesus is God because He is called God by God (Hebrews 1:8).

Counter Argument:

(a) God also calls men Gods in Psalms 82:6, are we supposed to worship them too?

“I said, ‘You are “Gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’

[Note: Christian translations try to hide this by using ‘gods’, the word used in Hebrew is Elohim, and is more properly translated as ‘God’ as it is the same word used for God in Genesis 1:1, pointing out this inconsistency might aid your argument.]

In Psalms 110:1, we have the same scenario again, the Lord is calling another person, ‘Lord’, which reads, “The Lord says to my Lord”.

[Note: Christian translations try to hide this by using ‘lord’, however see the citation at the end of the page which says, ‘or Lords’.]

(b) For a more detailed article, see this post here.

5.

Argument: Jesus was worshipped (Matthew 8:2, Matthew 15:25, Matthew 28:17).

Counter Argument: Jesus was not worshipped, but bowed to in these verses. The word used is ‘proskuneo’ which means ‘to bow in reverence to’. See Strong’s Lexicon here. Abraham bowed to an entire nation, brothers bowed to kings, mother’s prayed for people to bow to her son in the Old Testament, but for some strange reason, Christians do not consider this bowing to be worship, even though it is the same act:

Genesis 23:7
Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites.

Genesis 23:12
Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land

Genesis 27:29
May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

Genesis 42:6-7
Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them.“Where do you come from?” he asked.

6.

Argument: Jesus is God because the Qur’an says he is the only sinless person.

Counter Argument: The verse commonly quoted is Qur’an Surah 19, Ayah 19, which reads, “He replied: “I am only a messenger from your Lord (sent) to bestow a good son on you.” The problem is, Christians assert that the word used means sinless, “زَكِيًّا”. However, the word used is “Zakiyyan”, which according to Lane’s Arabic Lexicon means “pure“. The same word is also used to describe John the Baptist in Qu’ran Surah 19, Ayah 13, which reads, “(We said:) “O John, hold fast to the Book;” and We gave him wisdom right from boyhood, And compassion from Us, and goodness. So he was devout,…”. Since the same word is used to describe John the Baptist, would Christians worship him too?

7.

Argument: Jesus is God because the Qur’an says Allah is the First, the Last, the Truth and the Bible says Jesus is the same.

Counter Argument: That argument takes the form:

Joe is a man.
Jack is a man.
Therefore Joe is Jack.

Seems nonsensical? Let’s apply the Christian argument then:

Jesus is the Truth.
Allah is the Truth.
Therefore Jesus is Allah.

The argument takes the same form as the example above. We can even apply this reasoning to Hinduism:

Jesus is a God.
Lakshmi is a God.
Therefore Jesus is Lakshmi.

Use the above examples in how many ways you want and point out the absurd reasoning of our Christian brethren.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Anthony Rogers vs Ijaz Ahmad: Debate

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The debate can be either streamed (audio) or downloaded from this link. The YouTube video is still being uploaded, it’s 10.5 gb, so that’s going to take a while. I’ll upload the Youtube video sooner or later, it’s really just a more accessible form of  the debate, as opposed to using 4shared, which you can’t share via most social networking platforms. There was no video feed, i.e. of the debaters as this debate was done via Paltalk, an audio chat program. Anthony’s version (?) of the upload should be done soon.

 

 

How Did this Debate Originate?

Before any accusations are thrown, or assertions made, as is usual in these highly emotive events, I did have a post, located here, highlighting the origination of this event, emails included. This debate was initially proposed by Mr. Rogers and I accepted.

Why was this Topic Relevant to Islam?

While more of a Judaic based theological conundrum with Christianity, Islam does lay claim to being the only proper monotheistic Abrahamic faith. Islam’s relevance therefore was paramount in being able to demonstrate the polytheism and continued creation worship as proposed and propagated by Christianity.

What are Your Thoughts on the Debate?

I (Br. Ijaz), personally enjoyed the discussion, it was exciting, especially as the audience numbers began to grow. It gave me a chance to demonstrate creation worship in Christianity and it allowed me to demonstrate the lowly and fallacious argumentation of Mr. Rogers, which I will expound upon lower down. Anthony did accede to the understanding that we needed more than one event to discuss this topic and I’ll hold him to his word, I’ll email him soon and confirm the follow up for part two.

Opening Statement (Anthony):

Anthony’s opening statement was rooted on pedantic word play. I received complaints not only from Muslims but from Christians who were a bit disappointed that he spent well over 10 minutes of his 20 minute opening speech playing with semantics. When it came to actually quoting scripture to demonstrate his point, there was a clear disconnect between what he initially presented and what he later laid claim to. His opening argument can be summarized as such:

10 minutes – 15 minutes:

  • Define Mal’ak.
  • Define what an Angel is.
  • Quote some scholars on the meaning of the word Mal’ak.
  • Mal’ak YHWH actually means YHWH.

5 minutes:

  • Mal’ak YHWH is God because in Genesis 16 he’s called God.

Nothing really special, as I indicated previously, his argument didn’t flow (i.e., it was non-sequitur), it’s almost as if he copy pasted and then read, his part one of his article series,”The Malak Yahweh Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament” and then from that, he realised he needed to fill in 5 minutes of his elapsed 15, so somewhere in their he threw in 7 verses from Genesis 16, hoping that it would aid his argument. Rather, he just played with semantics for 15 minutes and then tried to argue the deity of an angel in 5 minutes. Duly unimpressive and somewhat embarrassing, especially for a man almost twice my age and with official schooling in this field.

Take note however that he bases his entire argument on the following thesis (verbatim quotes from his opening statement):

  • I want to state clearly that from the onset the thesis I will be defending in this debate and which my opponent will necessarily have to direct his remarks to, if he wants to avoid attacking a strawman or position I do not hold, the thesis I will be defending is simply this:
  • The Angel of Yahweh is a distinct, divine in the Godhead according to the Old Testament.
  • Notice that my thesis entails both the deity of the angel as well as his distinct personhood from another and or other persons in the Godhead.
  • This means it will not be sufficient or at all relevant for my opponent to argue that the angel is distinct from Yahweh as if this somehow negates my position. In fact any good argument my opponent puts forward to prove that the angel is distinct from another person called Yahweh will receive a quick and robust ‘Amen’ from me.
  • This also means that my opponent will necessarily either have to show that the angel is also not identified as God as I will argue or provide some way for accounting how the angel may be identified that is consistent with Unitarianism, the belief that God is only one person and the Old Testament.

Opening Statement (Ijaz):

From the get go, I point out Anthony’s lazy scholarship, i.e. repeating his copy pasted argument from his published work. I started with indicating that it was common for Christianity to progressively worship creation, based on Jeremiah 16:20, I demonstrated that:

  • They worship both man (Jesus) and woman (Mary – Catholics and Collyridians), as their history indicates (http://carm.org/roman-catholicism-mary-idolatry), something which he denied.
  • That they then began to worship animals through symbolism, i.e. Jesus is both a lamb and a mother hen, the Holy Spirit is a dove.
  • That they continued until they began to consider themselves like Gods, some literally applying the titles, ‘son of God’, ‘daughter of God’ and ‘child of God’ to themselves, while believing that God, who is the Holy Spirit is inside them, see 1 Corinthians 3:16.
  • Yet, they didn’t stop there, they forwarded that until they even worshipped the foreskin of Christ, dubbed, ‘the Holy Prepuce‘, something which Anthony got verbally upset for, and accused me of insulting his beliefs. Anthony, I do have to ask, you do realise that Jesus was a man, no? In your worship, you take a man as your God and you’re upset with me because I point out that the man you worship, had genitals? I’m a bit perplexed here, in what part of worshipping a ‘man’, did you not expect that he had genitals?
  • The conclusion from this therefore, is that there was no surprise that Anthony wanted to worship an angel. It’s simply a progression of turning God’s creation into God.

I then laid out of what form, that I expected Anthony’s argumentation to take:

  1. The Angel of the Lord claimed to be God.
  2. The Angel of the Lord did acts that God would do.
  3. The Angel of the Lord was worshipped.
  4. The conclusion therefore being, that the Angel of the Lord is God.

Looking back on Anthony’s opening statement, I had him spot on, you’d notice he appealed to premise one and during his rebuttal period, he introduced points two and three. All three however, I addressed in my opening statement.

More to come soon…….

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate Reminder

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Today’s the debate between Anthony and I, we’ll be debating, “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

Date:
27th May, 2012.

Time:
6 PM (PST).
8 PM (CST).
9 PM (-04:00 UTC / EST).

Location:
Answering Christianity Paltalk room.

Anthony has been trying to appeal to emotion for quite sometime, continuously implying that he believes that since the debate is being held in a Muslim room on Paltalk, that he could be muted from speaking during the debate. The problem is, for anyone who has ever attended any of my debates, my opponent has never been dotted, sometimes even when their allotted time for speaking was up. Therefore, if Anthony has such concerns and if he believes they are real, he is free to create another room, if he wills and we can do our debate their instead. However, this is simple an appeal to Argumentum Baculum, and nothing more than a ploy to evoke emotive support for his weak premises and eventual poor argumentation.

For those of you who have read Anthony’s work, and then heard him speak on his one time appearance on ABN TV, it should remind you of these statements of Paul:

By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away…..For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” – 2 Corinthians 10:1,10.

It’s quite hilarious to see however, that when I awoke this afternoon, I found that he’d made a post, offering some advice for me. Appealing to Dr. Laurence Brown’s argument based on the Christian belief that God wrestled Jacob. Anthony, among many other flaws, failed to see the sarcasm and satire  due to perhaps his lack of foresight, that Dr. Laurence was alluding to. Really, he was asking, “Can God get His but whooped by His own creation? Is that sensible?”. Unfortunately, Anthony’s disposition was to immediately come to the defense of man-worship and state:

No doubt it is intolerable for Muslims to hear that God would do something that sounds so Christ-like, but there it is. And in the Torah to boot. What was Moses thinking?

The problem is, the term used for “Lord” in the Christian Old Testament, alludes to the fantasy that God lost a wrestling match with a man. Something in contradiction with other places of the Old Testament:

  • It is impossible to see God (Exodus 33:20)
  • God is not a man (Numbers 23:19)
  • God is not physical (Deut.4:12,15).
  • Idolatry is always defined as the worship of any god that was not made known to the Judaic ancestors when God revealed Himself (Deut.4:35) to them at Mt.Sinai,  (ie.Deut.13:3,7,14,etc.) The Jewish people never heard from their ancestors that they were to understand that God has a body or that they were to conceive of Him as physical in any way.

Unfortunately, Anthony’s argument falls flat when it comes to the Judaic-Hebraic Old Testament, which states that Jacob wrestled with an Angel of the Lord and not God himself.

The debate promises to be fun, can’t wait, only a few hours to go.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Refutation: The Honourable Way Out of “Honour Killings”

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Introduction

It is almost absurd to believe that of all peoples, that Christendom has decided to become outspoken and condemn honour killings, when they are almost single handedly responsible for promoting this culture of honour killings, beliefs enshrined in their own scripture. Note, this is not a defense of honour killings as this sort of act is haram in Islam, as this is seen as murder, but this is a treatise on the issue as raised by the Answering Islam team. The Qur’an says on murder:

“Whoever kills a believer deliberately, his reward is Jahannam: he shall remain FOREVER therein, and Allah will be furious with him and will curse him, and will prepare for him a wretched torment”. – Qur’an Surah 4: Ayah 93.

The article on Answering Islam, demonstrates that this was an act common some 1075 years before Christ, credited to the Assyrian civilization, yet fails to recall, that this was an act that YHWH prescribed:

“‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.” – Bible, Leviticus 21:9.

Oddly enough, this very act is defined as an honour killing according to the the definition as provided by Oskar’s article:

Honour killings regularly make media headlines. Clan or family members are brutally murdered by one or more relatives because they feel that their victims have brought shame upon them by what is perceived as unacceptable sexual behaviour, marriage partners or dress codes. In order to restore lost honour, blood has to flow.

Actually, to be a bit more explicit, the act in Leviticus, fulfils every criteria that the Answering Islam team has highlighted in their definition to label an act as an honour killing. Hold this example from Leviticus in mind, as Oskar of the Answering Islam team, completely ignores what his own scripture says in this regard and tries to pin some loosely based conjectural concept on honour killings and then tie it to Islam.

Conditions That Still Allow Honour Killings to Happen Today

Oskar then references, several ayat from the Qur’an, namely: 18:66-84, 24:2, 4:34-35, 3:110, some ahadith, such as in Sahih Bukhari, #2.413, #8.805, #814, and #819. The problem is however, that none of these ayat or hadith references permit or allow honour killings. They do however, do state that there are punishments for adultery and fornication:

“The fornicating woman and the fornicating man, flog each one of them with one hundred stripes. No pity for them should prevail upon you in the matter of Allah’s religion, if you really believe in Allah and the Last Day; and a group of believers must witness their punishment.” – Qur’an Surah 24, Ayah 2.

None of these ayat, or ahadith permit civilian justice, meaning then, that anyone can take it upon himself to carry out the injunctions as listed in them. In fact, I’d request that the Answering Islam team, demonstrate for me, one ayah or hadith from that which they have referenced in the aforementioned article where they are supposed to take the law into their own hands. The truth is, such an injunction does not exist and their evidences for trying to atleast imply so, are shoddy at best. Oskar and the Answering Islam team seem to have forgotten that Muslims have Shari’ah courts, where these laws are supposed to be applied. On one end you seem Christians condemning Shari’ah courts but on the other, in an article on the use of Islamic law, they seem to have intentionally forgotten the processes through which Islamic law is practised.

To begin with, the Shari’ah in Islam, when it comes to the Hudud (penal code) are relegated to a Mufti (legal jurist), or a Shura (judging council) or Qadhi (Islamic Judge) wherein a fatwa (legal opinion) is delivered. This is done after consultation, evidence discussion, witness reports etc. Mufti Ebrahim Desai [db], expounds upon the legal tradition/ methodology in Islam in the following excerpt:

1.       According to Shariah, Fatwa is defined as:

“Fatwa is to communicate the Law of Allah with regards to matters of Deen substantiated by validations stipulated in the Shariah to those who enquire with regards to matters of revelation in a general way and in manner that is not enforcing or compelling (Al Misbah Fi Rasmil Mufti Wamanahihil Ifta Vol.1 Page 16)”

The words “matters of Deen” has been used in the definition and not “Laws of Shariah” as sometimes a Mufti is questioned with regards to issues that do not pertain to Amal (actions) like Salah, Wudhu etc. for example issues of Tafseer, Aqeedah, Hadith, general advice etc.

Stipulated validations refers to those Masaa’il which are proven from the recognized sources of Shariah.

“In a general way” means that the Fatwa could be applied or practiced upon by more than one individual. If others are faced with the same situation of the questioner, the fatwa issued could be practiced by them as well. This draws a distinction between Iftaa and Qadhaa. A Fatwa is more general and could be practised upon by many individuals. However, a Qadhaa (decree) issued by a Qadhi (Judge) can only be practised upon by the specific person regarding whom judgement has been issued. In short, a Fatwa is more general while a Qadhaa is specific for an individual.

Another fundamental difference between Iftaa and Qadhaa is that a Fatwa is not enforceable. That is a Mufti cannot compel the Mustafti (questioner) to practice upon his Fatwa. However, a Qaadhi (Judge appointed by the Muslim Government) has the power of Infaaz (ability to enforce practice of his Decree). If a citizen does not practice upon the decree of a Qaadhi, he could be charged on violation of a Court Judgement.

2.       In former times a Mufti was regarded to be a Mujtahid (one who deduces ruling directly from the sources of Shariah). Nowadays the term Mufti has become common to those who specialize in the field of Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh). In reality, a Mufti nowadays only makes reference to the books of our illustrious Fuqahaa (jurists) and issues rulings in their books.

This therefore, soundly refutes the claim that Muslims are to execute the commands of the Hudud by themselves without taking their issues before Islamic judges to receive punishment from an Islamic court. Muslims are never commanded to take the law into their own hands, especially when it comes to punishments were persons have to be killed.

The Biblical Origins Behind Honour Killings

Recall the verse from Leviticus:

“‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.” – Bible, Leviticus 21:9.

The Old Testament, under the command of the Christian God, YHWH, commands more rulings of death, to be issued by every Tom, Dick and Harry (instead of appealing to a court for cases to be tried):

“And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.” – Bible Exodus 21:17.

“For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.” – Bible, Leviticus 20:9.

These are some of many verses, which clearly fit the exact definition as provided by the Answering Islam team. It is quite hilarious to note that they completely ignored the inspired teachings of YHWH’s violent laws, which were enforced by Him throughout the centuries. Here are a few more:

“Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.” – Bible, Exodus 21:15.

This one, encourages YHWH’s servants to commit genocide of an entire town if they shame them by serving other Gods:

“that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known),  then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely,both its people and its livestock. You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, and none of the condemned things are to be found in your hands. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors— because you obey the Lord your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.” – Bible, Deuteronomy 13:13-19.

One of the most popular reasons for honour killings, are due to sexual gratification or due to sexual shame. Well, the Christian Old Testament, certainly isn’t a stranger to this belief:

“But if this charge is true (that she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house.  Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.” – Bible, Deuteronomy  22:20-21.

The Honourable Way Out of Honour Killings

Oskar spends a considerable amount of time telling us to go to Jesus to prevent honour killings, yet that doesn’t seem to work (see link), not even for the very people who are said to be the direct descendants of Christ and his disciples. In fact, the only logical way of dealing with honour killings is to remove this culture of self justice from among a civilian populace. Authority to punish persons should not be given to all members of society, as they may not be able to exercise just rulings in light of tribal relations, relationship statuses, and even confirmation bias. Therefore it is best to have a form of a tribunal or court where cases of family disputes can be tried before relevant authorities who are trained and well educated in such fields. This prevents any unlawful killings by family members, wherein this regulates the norms and values of the society in relation to punishing a close relative for some shameful action.

In following from further reading from Oskar’s article, I’m quite a bit puzzled as to how these verses from the Bible, as presented by Oskar will help solve the problem of persons killing each other due to crimes of passion or honour:

John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

The time has come, Jesus said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:15)

Does Oskar intend to tell the man who just killed his daughter because she married a Muslim man, that a lamb is going to make him sinless? I fail to see the logic in Oskar’s argument. To me, it seems as if Answering Islam isn’t being honest with us, they are using a societal deviance to gain website views, as opposed to actually dealing with a growing problem. A problem, which, as I have demonstrated, was introduced to the world, by the laws of their vengeful and violent God.

Conclusion

Oskar’s article has been soundly refuted. His evidences were weak and his argumentation was poor. He failed at any point to establish a connection between Islam, Islamic law and the unIslamic act of honour killings. To the contrary, I’ve explicitly defined what Islamic law is, who is supposed to rule by it and how it is supposed to be practise. I have also demonstrated that Oskar’s own book, in itself is a source of literature which encourages such violent acts, which we as Muslims do wholly condemn.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

Debate: Br. Ijaz Ahmad vs Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

On the 26th of April, 2012, I received an e-mail from one, Anthony Rogers, proposing a debate between ourselves. This is the e-mail I received:

“Hello,

This is Anthony Rogers. I am writing in response to your request to receive an official e-mail concerning my challenge to you to debate the following proposition: “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

The aforementioned challenge was originally issued by me in light of your claim that Christianity is an innovation upon Old Testament religion in regard to the Trinity.

Accordingly, I will be arguing that the Old Testament does in fact teach that the Angel of the Lord is a distinct divine Person. By calling Him a “Divine Person” I mean that He is nothing less than Yahweh. By saying He is a “Distinct, Divine Person inthe Godhead,” I mean that He is also distinguished from another person (or persons) who is/are also identified as Yahweh.

Since this was in response to your charge of innovation, you will accordingly take the negative position in this debate.

As far as date and time go, sometime in the evening on May the 27th (a Sunday) is good for me. I live in Nevada (USA), so let me know where you are so we can coordinate the time. ”

The topic which was proposed by Anthony and agreed upon by myself and of which will be debated is,  “The Old Testament Teaches that the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct, Divine Person in the Godhead.”

Date:
27th May, 2012.

Time:
6 PM (PST).
9 PM (-04:00 UTC).

Location:
Answering Christianity Paltalk room.

(On information on how to use Paltalk or to access the room, I will provide a brief instructional guide soon, insha Allaah, the debate however will be recorded and posted by both Anthony and myself).

Format:

Opening Statements
Affirmative: 20 minutes
Negative: 20 minutes

Cross-Examination:
Negative: 3 questions (1 minute question, 2 minute response)
Affirmative: 3 questions (1 minute question, 2 minute response)

Rebuttals:
Affirmative: 10 minutes
Negative: 10 minutes

Cross-Examination (2):
Negative: 2 questions (same time constraints as above)
Affirmative: 2 questions (ditto)

Rebuttals (2):
Affirmative: 5 minutes
Negative: 5 minutes

Closing Statements:
Negative: 10 minutes
Affirmative: 10 minutes

 
wa Allaahu Alam.
[and Allaah knows best.]

Debate: Br. Ijaz Ahmad vs Anthony Rogers

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Does, “The Old Testament Teaches That the Angel of the Lord is a Distinct Divine Person in the Godhead“? Anthony Rogers and Br. Ijaz Ahmad faced off on the 27th of May, 2012. A thrilling encounter with an exciting back and forth discourse that provoked the crowd to swell throughout the night.

Click Here for the Audio Stream of the Debate or to Download >>

Christians in Nigeria Distance Themselves from Violent Pastor

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Isang Udo-Akagha, is a Pastor from within Nigeria who has been continuously shunned by the Christian community for his hate tirades and violent rhetoric against Muslims. Sometime ago, several Muslim brothers, answered some of his claims here. Even though to this date, he’s still challenging for Muslims to debate him, yet when challenged, he runs and hides:

Can anyone remind the Pastor that he should really stop being deceitful. Why does he continue to challenge Muslims to debates, if he’s only going to run away from debating them? Quite the joker he is, indeed. In his latest rant, he found himself at odds with many members of the Nigerian Christian community who accept that Islam has nothing to do with the actions of Boko Haram, a group which the government of Nigeria also indicates as nothing to do with Muslims or Islam.

I thank the Christians who defended Muslims against the violent rhetoric of the Christian war-lord, Isang. This is the conversation that he himself, posted to Facebook:

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]

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