Jesus and a Fulfilled Prophecy in the Quran

And (remember) when 'Īsā (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), said: "O Children of Israel! I am the Messenger of Allâh unto you confirming the Taurât [(Torah) which came] before me, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmed. But when he (Ahmed i.e. Muhammad SAW) came to them with clear proofs, they said: "This is plain magic." [Dr Mohsin translation Surah 61:6, from Quran explorer]

Jesus p gave people the good news that there will be a Prophet to come after him. Jesus p said this Prophet's name would be 'Ahmad'. Did Jesus p make a failed prophecy? No.

Prophet Muhammad p is Ahmad. 'Ahmad' is one of Prophet Muhammad's names.

Narrated Jubair bin Mut`im: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "I have five names: I am Muhammad and Ahmad; I am Al-Mahi through whom Allah will eliminate infidelity; I am Al-Hashir who will be the first to be resurrected, the people being resurrected there after; and I am also Al-`Aqib (i.e. There will be no prophet after me). [Sahih Al Bukhari]


Is Ahmad Muhammad? [Surah 61:6 of Quran]

End Times: Will Jesus Kill Muslims? NO but he will end Christianity!

Muslims give the most charity and have least sex outside of marriage!

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk

Sikhs, Don't be Swayed by the Anti-Halal Meat Sikh Preachers (Response to Basics of Sikhi)

I don't know if this stance against Halal meat is emanating from Muslim-Sikh tensions from years back in India/Pakistan but let's put some scrutiny on this. A preacher who runs the Basics of Sikhi movement has been caught presenting anti-Muslim propaganda to prop up this idea that Sikhs cannot eat Halal meat and should not even go to establishments which sell it (I guess he has something against Tescos, Sainsburys and Waitrose as all of them sell Halal and/or Kosher meat.

It's interesting this Sikh preacher does not mention anything about Kosher meat, which is slaughtered in a similar way to Halal meat. Why is it only Halal meat?

Also why is he not talking about not going to places which sell alcohol (never mind consume alcohol) as alcohol is something which leads to untold misery, where's the consistency? This again leads me to think this is something motivated by Muslim-Sikh tensions of the past rather than something sanctioned by a sincere person.

One thing I found puzzling was this man's appeal to 'compassion' and his insistence that Halal meat is 'behreham' yet he was part of a gang which along with its allies killed 1000s of people in painful and shameful ways. Not to mention the bombings of innocent families. That's what is behreham.

This preacher needs to get his head straight.

What's more, is it even established that a Guru prohibited Halal meat or was it the Rehit which was composed in 1931?

The video runs through his arguments and corrects him using a number of sources including a recording of rabbi Pinchas Taylor.



If this video does not play please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pPtTs63oJg

What is Halal or Kosher Meat?

Halal and Kosher meat is ritually-slaughtered meat according to Islamic and Judaic religious principles, respectively. There are many similarities between Halal and Kosher Meat. For meat to be lawful for Muslim or Jewish consumption:

* The animal must be healthy and not diseased
* The animal must be free from injury or defect
* A prayer is said before the slaughter
* It must be performed by a competent individual with a surgically sharp knife and not by machine
* The slaughter involves a single quick incision to the neck, cleanly cutting the jugular vein
* The blood must be fully drained from the carcass of the animal
* There are requirements for cleanliness, sanitation, and purity

Many adherents to this practice contend that the advantage of this method is that it ensures rapid, complete draining of the blood which keeps the meat fresh and free from impurities. They also consider this method to be the least painful and humane method of slaughter for the animal, causing unconsciousness within a couple of seconds

What is Islam’s viewpoint on animal welfare?

Under Islamic guidelines, as with Judaic, any undue pain for the animal must be avoided. It is forbidden to treat an animal cruelly during its lifetime or during the slaughter. If the animal is killed by a blow, strangling, electric shock or drowning in water, its meat is not considered permissible.
Islamic practices dictate that the animal is not allowed to be put down in view of other animals neither is the knife to be openly shown to the animal to be slaughtered. This would cause the animals distress and is not best practice.

Although the slaughter of animals is allowed for food consumption, it is strictly forbidden for sport or enjoyment. The Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) often chastised people for the mistreatment of animal and spoke to them about the need for mercy and kindness. [iERA]

For further information on Halal meat see Why do Muslims eat Halal meat?

And here is a foum post which may be of interest to Sikhs by user called Brooklynwala:

Like many Sikhs, I grew up eating meat.� It was something I never really questioned until I was in college and started learning more about the treatment of animals on factory farms and the environmental impact of the meat industry.

I never understood what halal truly meant, but the message I got from my parents and others in the community went something like this:� Halal is the way Muslims slaughter animals, and it involves killing the animal slowly and painfully.� And lots of gushing blood.� We Sikhs don�t believe in torturing animals, so we don�t eat halal meat.� Sound like a familiar story line?

This, of course, contributed to my perception of Muslims as barbaric people who were dirty, had multiple wives and questionable morals, and killed my ancestors during partition.� In the context of the messages I received from family and community growing up, the story about halal fit right in � yet another way Muslims are backwards. As is abundantly clear in my writing on this blog, this is in stark contrast to how I see Islam and the Muslim community at this point in my life.�

But I grew up with these messages and stereotypes just like most of my Sikh peers did. Really, what�s all the fuss about halal?� Why aren�t Sikhs supposed to eat halal meat? Section Six of the Sikh Rehat Maryada (Code of Conduct) states: The undermentioned four�transgressions (tabooed practices) must be avoided: 1. Dishonouring the hair; 2. Eating the meat of an animal slaughtered the Muslim way; 3. Cohabiting with a person other than one’s spouse; 4. Using tobacco. The most common argument I usually hear to explain the halal ban is simply that the Rehat Maryada says so.� No disrespect to the Rehat Maryada or the (attempted) consensus-based process through which it was created in the first half of the 20th Century, but this is not a sufficient reason in and of itself.� If the lives our Gurus have taught me anything, it is to think critically, question everything I�m told, and to always keep the love of Waheguru in my heart.�

So an argument based solely on citation of the Rehat Maryada (which our Gurus were not involved in writing) is not convincing to me. Another common argument I hear is the aforementioned animal welfare argument:� that slaughtering the Muslim way is unnecessarily painful for the animal�it�s a slow death and a form of torture.� With jathka meat, on the other hand, the animal is killed swiftly, experiencing minimal pain. Scientific research reveals a more complicated reality, however.� A 1978 German study found that halal slaughtering actually caused less pain to calves and sheep than slaughtering after the animals were stunned by a captive bolt (the industry standard).� A more recent New Zealand study, on the other hand, found that stunning reduces the pain of the slaughter.� However, according to a study cited by the Guardian last year, �90% of animals killed for halal food in 2004 were stunned first.

As in mainstream food production, the animal’s throat is then cut.� So this supposedly sinister method, it seems, is not that different after all.� Research studies aside, the intention of halal (and for Jews, kosher) slaughtering is to minimize pain and suffering to the animal.� The Guardian states: The definition of halal is anything that is legal or lawful for Muslims. In terms of meat, this can apply to what kind of animal is used (not pigs, for instance) and the way they are killed: an animal must be healthy, the butcher must make a recitation dedicating it to God, and the jugular vein, carotid artery and windpipe are cut with a single swipe from a sharp knife. As with kosher meat, the idea is that the animal dies immediately and the blood drains away. [my emphasis] And in fact, if the animal is not killed immediately with a single swipe, it is not considered halal.

Thus, not eating halal because of our concern for animal welfare simply doesn�t make sense.� If this was our primary concern in our food choices as a community, then I would argue we should talk about a Sikh prohibition of all factory-farmed meats, eggs, and dairy products.� Animals on factory farms (or the official term, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs) live in grotesquely unnatural, overcrowded conditions, never seeing the sun or grazing in the grass.� Pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics, these animals are treated simply as units of production rather than living beings.� There is nothing respectful or humane about the treatment of animals on factory farms, so why are we so concerned about halal and not worried about the cows that become our Big Mac or produce the milk in our cha?

A final explanation of the Sikh ban on halal meat I have often heard is we should not partake in the ritual or sacrificial killing of an animal.� Of course, we Sikhs are not proponents of ritual for the sake of ritual: jaalo aisee reeth jith mai piaaraa veesarai || Burn away those rituals which lead you to forget the Beloved Lord. naanak saaee bhalee pareeth jith saahib saethee path rehai ||2|| O Nanak, sublime is that love, which preserves my honor with my Lord Master. | (Guru Granth Sahib, p. 590) But talk to a devout Muslim or Jew about halal or kosher, and you�ll likely find that they think of their respective religion�s practice of killing an animal as a necessary means to show respect to the animal and to God, since the animal is a creation of God.� Is saying a prayer and remembering God while ending the life of a living being for the purposes of eating a blind ritual?� Even if we don�t see it as a necessary step for our own religious practice as Sikhs, I would argue that it is not fundamentally contrary to the Sikh way of life.
But growing up I never thought about where my spicy deep-fried chicken strips were coming from.� Or the living (and dying) conditions of the cow that made up the thinly sliced pieces of meat in my Arby�s roast beef sandwich.� As long is it wasn�t halal, it was all good Yes, I am raising questions and concerns about a guidelines set forth in the Rehat Maryada, and perhaps some readers will take issue with that.� But over sixty years after our code of conduct was officially approved by the Panth, don�t we owe it to ourselves as a community to continually look inward and ask questions about where we are and where we are going? From my own observations about the Sikh prohibition of halal meat, it does little to protect the well-being and humane treatment of animals and even less to get us closer to Waheguru.� Instead, the prohibition of halal meat spreads misinformation and perpetuates stereotypical and demeaning attitudes about Islam and the Muslim community.�

While I have heard some say the prohibition is not about halal specifically, but about any sacrificial meat, the Rehat Maryada explicitly singles out �an animal slaughtered the Muslim way.�� Rarely do I hear any talk of kosher meat being taboo for Sikhs. At the heart of Sikhi is Ik Onkar � One Divine Light that shines in all human beings.� Waheguru connects us all.� Guru Gobind Singh was always clear that the Khalsa�s war was never against Muslim people or Islam, but it was against tyranny, which at the time was epitomized by Aurangzeb’s empire.� Sadly, many in the contemporary Sikh community � maybe even a majority � have taken home a different message which they have taught to their kids, and their kids taught to their kids, and so on.

For those who argue Guru Nanak banned Halal meat this could be of interest to them:

There is no mention of the prohibition of Halal for Sikhs, either in Guru Granth Sahib or in the Bani of Guru Gobind Singh according to my knowledge. However, the taboo of Halal for the Khalsa is found in the Rehit Namas, which were written by others long after the death of Guru Gobind Singh. These Rehit Namas have been used in drawing up the current Rehit Maryada (code of conduct) for the Sikhs. Sardar Piara Singh Padam has compiled fifteen Rehit Namas in a book form with his critique as a foreword. Every Sikh should read this book to understand the motives of the authors of the Rehit Namas. Some of the contents of the Rehit Namas are spurious, inconsistent with Gurbani, and unflattering to the Khalsa. Those who interpret Guru Nanak's hymn (abhakhya ka kutha bakra khanha, eating the meat of a male goat slaughtered in a Halal manner) as condemnation of eating Halal, should read his commentary on the behavior of Khatries of his time in Asa Di Var, on page 471 of Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Nanak did not condemn the partaking of Halal meat, rather he condemned the hypocrisy of the Khatries. The Khatries had abdicated their religious duties of defending their country and the weak, and taking a resolute stand against tyranny and injustice. Furthermore, the subjugated Khatries had adopted the language, manners and dress of their Muslim conquerors whom they called malech (polluted ones). Some of them sought employment with the Muslim conquers, and some of them held high ranks, and were responsible for the persecution of the Hindu masses. However, these Khatries were very strict and rigid in the practice of caste system and other meaningless rituals. It was in this context when Guru Nanak ridiculed Khatries by pointing out that while they were meticulously observing the ritual purity of their food and kitchen by not allowing people of lower castes near their kitchens, they were eating the flesh of animals slaughtered in a Halal fashion by Muslims whom they considered malech. I have the following questions for those who interpret the above described hymn as condemnation of partaking Halal. If Guru Nanak had proscribed Halal, then why the Tenth Nanak had to declare Halal as a taboo for the Khalsa? Were not the Sikhs following Guru Nanak's teachings? How come there is no statement on the taboo of Halal by either of the other Eight Nanaks? If Guru Gobind Singh had appointed Guru Granth Sahib as the eternal Guru of the Sikhs, then why Sikhs have to look for their Rehat Maryada (code of conduct ) in other places like Rehit Namas? Should not Guru Granth Sahib be a guide for a Sikh in every walk of life?  [The Taboo of Halal for Sikhs]

Sikh Men Disrupting Wedding Ceremonies in Gurdwaras Aren't 'Radicals'!

Why Do Sikhs Commit Terrorism, Douglas Murray?

Sikhism: Sex Outside of Marriage and Homosexuality - Perplexed!

Sikhs Who Over Emphasise Muslim Abuse of Sikh Girls

Muslims give the most charity and have least sex outside of marriage!

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk

Review: Ijaz Ahmad & Dr Tony Costa debate: “Was Jesus the Son of God or Only the Prophet of God?”

Originally posted on BloggingTheology

Ijaz Ahmad debated Dr Tony Costa on the topic of “Was Jesus the Son of God or Only the Prophet of God?” (Trinity Channel, 9th October 2015 ) see video here 


London based Islamic commentator Muhammad Asad has reviewed this debate. In his excellent analysis he summarises the main points of the debaters and then presents his analysis of some of the topics. Muhammad informs me that he intends to “be selective and present the main issues and topics which are of interest to me.”


Main Points / Arguments


Dr Costa made the following points in his opening statement:


· Jesus is both God’s prophet and the Son of God


· We need to go to earliest sources to know about the historical Jesus – the New Testament documents which were composed in the 1st century. All New Testament scholars go to the New Testament writings to know about the historical Jesus


· These earliest documents are unanimous in teaching that Jesus was the Son of God. According to Dr Costa, Ijaz has to produce a 1st century document which states that Jesus was only God’s prophet and no more


· The language of “sonship” is also found in the Jewish Bible. Dr Costa gave examples of how the term “son” is applied in the Jewish Bible (used for angels, for Israel as a nation, the Messianic king etc)


· According to Dr Costa, in Islam while God is the Master and humanity is slave, the Bible goes beyond this and presents God like a father to His people


· When Jesus spoke of himself as God’s son, it was in terms of a unique relationship – as a unique Son of God. Hence the charge of “blasphemy” levelled upon Jesus in the New Testament


· Historians do not go to the Quran to learn anything about the historical Jesus because the Quran came to the scene 600 years after Jesus. Hence the Quran is “historically worthless.”


· Sayings attributed to Jesus within the Quran come from apocryphal sources


· Jesus never denied that he was God’s son. Gospel of John is cited at this stage as evidence for this claim and the Gospel of Mark is also referred to – Jesus being questioned about whether or not he was son of the most High


· Dr Costa referred to Prof. Tarif Khalidi, author of “The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature” who supposedly asserts that the Jesus found in Islam is a “fabrication” and not the historical Jesus “found in the gospels.”


These are basically the points which Dr Costa proceeded to repeat in the rest of the debate. I will offer my reply to some of these points very shortly.


Ijaz Ahmad’s approach, in sharp contrast, was radically different. Ahmad took the philosophical approach to deny that Jesus was the son of God. According to Ahmad, it does not matter to him what the New Testament says. Ahmad explained that when Christians say “Son of God,” they actually mean “God.” Therefore, the title of the debate should be,“Is Jesus God or just a Prophet of God?” Simply, he will set out to show why Jesus could not be the Son of God (as in “God”) philosophically, ontologically and rationally.


I breakdown Ahmad’s main points as follows:


· In typical Christian-Muslim debates, Christians argue: the New Testament asserts that Jesus is the Son of God, “prophecies” are cited from the Jewish Bible, a few quotations are presented from secular historians, it is asserted that the Quran denies Jesus being God’s son, that the Quran misunderstood the Trinity and that according to the Quran God needs a consort. Muslims respond that the Jewish Bible is cited out of context by Christians, the New Testament is not a reliable historical source, “son of God” is a diverse term and not unique to Jesus and that the Christians are misinterpreting the Quran. Ahmad says he will reject this script in this debate.


· “Son of God,” as used by Christians, means God


· Christians in general are tremendously confused and uncertain about the doctrine of the “Son of God” and even more when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity. Ahmad quotes the polemicist Dr James R. White and R.C. Sproul in this regard, who acknowledge that Christians misunderstand the doctrine of the Trinity


· In Islam Jesus is God’s Nabi. Thus, Jesus is God’s Prophet and the Islamic position is rational and most probable


· In Islam a prophet does not inherently have future knowledge; this is given to him by God. The problem begins if Jesus is “Son of God,” as in God, Jesus would then be expected to have all knowledge (past, present, future). He would not be given this knowledge. Being God, he would already have it. Yet a prophet by nature cannot be God because they do not possess the knowledge of the unseen (unless God grants them this knowledge)


· The teaching of Islam is: there is nothing comparable to or like God. Ahmad asserted that this is the “best example of perfect-being theology.”


· The “Son of God,” in contrast, is not a perfect-being theology. If Jesus is said to be the Son of God, we then have ontological, philosophical and soteriological problems to deal with – Ahmad cites Michael Rea who asserts that God existing as a Trinity consisting of three persons with one nature could not be derived from a perfect-being theology


· Ahmad asked how God could suffer? To say that only the human nature suffered, argued Ahmad, caused one to fall prey to the heresy of Nestorianism – because the two natures of Jesus are eternally united. Therefore, it cannot be said that only one nature experienced something whereas the other nature did not. It is either Nestorianism or polytheism, argued Ahmad


· Arguing further, Ahmad explained that when Christians assert that God loves them or God speaks, they mean the collective persons of the Godhead. So when it is said that God died or God suffered – and given the claim that God is of one substance and undivided – then how can it be said that only one suffered?


· Ahmad mentioned that faced with this difficulty, there have been some Christians who believed that the Father also suffered alongside Jesus. This is the heresy of Patripassianiasm


· If Christians are to be theologically consistent, then they should worship Satan and not Jesus or God because Satan grants death (author of death), God is the author of life


· Jesus was not a maximally perfect being. He was ignorant of the hour. Therefore, ontologically, Jesus cannot be God as he does not fulfil the criteria of being a maximally perfect being. According to Ahmad, proto-Orthodox Christianity falls into the heresy of subordinationism


· Jesus was strengthened by angels, he was once overcome by death, he was ignorant of the hour and can, therefore, in no way be perfect. The Son of God lacks the attributes of God


Of course, much like Dr Costa, Ahmad too proceeded to repeat his above points throughout the remainder of the debate.


Thoughts on the Rebuttals


It seems that Dr Costa was not expecting such a presentation from Ahmad. Thus, there was really no significant engagement with Ahmad’s arguments. Instead, Dr Costa stated that Ahmad was making irrelevant arguments and avoiding the topic of the debate. This I consider to be a highly disingenuous claim because when discussing whether Jesus is God’s son – particularly when we know that people like Dr Costa take this to mean “more than a man” – then we are inevitably discussing the Trinity. Ahmad was rationally, philosophically and ontologically arguing why Jesus couldn’t be the Son of God, God, the second person of the Trinity, and was no more than a Prophet.


Even more unbelievable was Dr Costa’s following assertion: that by rejecting the authority of the Bible, Ahmad had declared himself to be a “kafir” because as per the Quran, a dreadful torment awaits you if you deny God’s revelation! But this understanding of Dr Costa is not an incontrovertible fact. According to Muslims, this is an example of Dr Costa’s esigesis of a passage of the Quran. Muslims dismiss his interpretation and understand the passage in a very different way (that God is referring to the original revealed books to the Prophets and not the Pauline epistles, the pseudonymous epistles of the New Testament and anonymous ancient biographical type documents such as the gospels). Ahmad, later corrected Dr Costa and explained that the Quran was referring to the Injil revealed by God and not to ancient biographical type of documents such as the gospels.


This entire cockamamie argument regarding the “Quran endorses the Bible” has received a detailed refutation here: Does Islam Endorse The Bible?


Dr Costa asserted that while Ahmad rejects the New Testament documents and does not care about them, historians do care about what they have to say. I think Dr Costa may have misunderstood Ahmad. Ahmad stated clearly that he was taking a different approach, a philosophical approach, in order to argue why Jesus could not be “Son of God” – as in God, the second person of the Trinity. Hence, for him the assertions of the New Testament are irrelevant because they do not explain away the irrational nature of the Trinity as expounded by Ahmad. Of course, that does not follow that he believes that the New Testament documents should be tossed in the bin by historians who want to investigate historical issues.


Perhaps the most startling assertion by Dr Costa was as follows:


“…those who were eyewitnesses who compiled these documents, we’re interested in knowing what they say.” Time slice: 48.56 – 49.03


Who are these eyewitnesses who “compiled” the New Testament documents? None. There really are none. The New Testament documents were not even authored by any “eyewitnesses” that we know of, let alone “compiled” by them.


We have no documents from any eyewitness from Jesus’ historical ministry.


Dr Costa also made the following analogy: Ahmad’s arguments are no different from the arguments made by Bahaullah, who claimed that Muhammad (saw) was not the last Prophet of God! But this is surely a false analogy. In a discussion pertaining to the person of Jesus, one is absolutely justified in arguing why Jesus couldn’t be the Son of God / God / second person of the Trinity – be it historically or philosophically. This is relevant. How is this even remotely akin to Dr Costa’s Bahaullah analogy? As Ahmad correctly explained, he was considering the topic through the prism of the philosophy of religion and attempting to ascertain if the Christian stance was rational. The Bahaullah analogy is nothing of this sort.


At one point in his first rebuttal, Dr Costa did attempt to engage with with some of Ahmad’s arguments: Jesus was not literally but only metaphorically the “son of God,” that Ahmad misunderstood Nestorianism because it taught that there were two persons in Christ and that Patripassianiasm was also rejected as a heresy by the Church. Ahmad, however, did not deny that these were heresies. As for God dying on the cross, Dr Costa said that in the incarnation it was only the humanity of Christ which died. The little problem here is that Ahmad already explained why these answers were deficient – how the divine and the human nature cannot be separated – and how Christians such as Dr Costa are guilty of committing these heresies in their defences of the Trinitarian understanding of God.


Much like his opening statement, from time to time Dr Costa continued to have various goes at the Quran and the next section will be my take on his polemics.


Addressing Dr Costa’s outdated and irrational Polemics


1. Scholars do not approach the Quran to learn about the historical Jesus – this is a strange comment. Indeed the Quran arrives at the scene some 600 years after Jesus. If we a priori dismiss the possibility of miracles and revelation, and deny a priori the possibility of Muhammad (saw) having received revelation from God, then naturally we would not use the Quran to know anything about the historical Jesus. We would go to the earliest sources. In a similar manner, historians deem to be “historically worthless” the words attributed to Jesus pertaining to the prophets of the old. They would go to the earlier pre-New Testament documents to learn about the prophets who were active much before the time of Jesus and would not be approaching the words of Jesus to learn, say, about the historical David, historical Moses, the historical Abraham etc. This does not cause any “problems” for Muslims. We believe that the Quran is the revelation of God. Therefore, it does not matter if this revelation occurred 600 years after the earthly ministry of Jesus. The source is God and God knows what happened.


2. Historical Jesus Research – Jesus as God and “Son” – From time to time Dr Costa mentioned the “historical Jesus.” He talked about the title “son of God,” cited some New Testament passages and commented how “liberal” scholars deem them to be authentic.


People like Dr Costa are terrific salesmen who are selling a highly deficient product, namely, their evangelical Jesus. I say this because the historical Jesus studies, as a whole, has completely destroyed the evangelical conception of Jesus. For example, consider the divinity of Jesus (emphasis added):


“One of the cardinal principles of historical Jesus research is that the belief in Jesus’s divinity is a post-resurrection phenomenon. During his life, his acts of power were understood as signs that God (or Satan) was working through him– not that he was God.

The gospel of John presents Jesus teaching that he’s divine, but most scholars treat this as a later interpretation rather than a historical fact because it’s so much more highly developed here than in the earlier gospels and gospel sources …” 1


Apologists such as Dr Costa speak as if the historical Jesus research is on their side whereas the truth is the complete opposite.


Consider now the term “son of God.” I cite here the conclusions of two mainstream New Testament scholars (all emphasis added).


Christopher Tuckett (after discussing this title in details, concludes):


“The term ‘son of God’ was thus a very wide-ranging one at the time of the New Testament. But if one thing is clear it is that, at least within a Jewish context, the term was used not infrequently and with no overtones of divinity being ascribed to the person referred to in this way.” 2


John Meier:


“In any event, one must beware of reading into the title [son of God] the meaning it acquired in later Trinitarian controversies.” 3


It is this *new* meaning in the post Jesus environment which the Quran rightly denies.


The above are mainstream historical Jesus views.


3. Why the Historical Jesus Research? Don’t all New Testament Scholars go to the “reliable” 1st Century New Testament writings? – if the New Testament writings are reliable historically, then why is there a need to do historical Jesus research? Why can’t we just read off the New Testament and take its claims at face value?


The answer is simple. Besides the most conservative of Christians, Historical Jesus scholars do not deem the New Testament to be a historically reliable source on the life of Jesus. They have devised criteria to figure out what Jesus probably did or did not say/do as related in the New Testament.


Virtually all scholars acknowledge the fact that there are both reliable and unreliable pieces of information within the canonical gospels.


Generally, scholars agree that stories about Jesus and his words were changed in different ways as these were passed along orally. The changes also occurred when written gospel documents began to appear and even thereafter. The difference of opinion is over the question of “how much/many” changes occurred. But all agree that changes did occur. How can we be sure that stories about Jesus and his words were altered in different ways? Simple: by comparing the same stories in the canonical gospels. When we do this we encounter some major and many minor differences between them.


1. Jesus preached and taught and left an impact upon many. 2. His followers (and some who didn’t join him) remembered him and talked about his words and teachings, passing them on to others. 3. Here stories and words began changing in different ways; 4. gospel authors tapped into some/many of these traditions – which were already undergoing alterations – and further adapted them to suit their own particular needs. Some stories were changed minutely, some were significantly changed and some stories were even invented and some words were also invented and subsequently attributed to Jesus.


Of course, ultimately we do not know precisely and exactly how (and why) the changes occurred. All we can be reasonably certain about is that changes did nonetheless occur. All the above type of things must have occurred.


As a result, scholars have devised a number of criteria to evaluate the grade of authenticity of material within the canonical gospels in an attempt to determine the probable authenticity/inauthenticity of the stories and sayings within them. When scholars read words attributed to Jesus within the gospels, they do not just take them to be Jesus’ verbal wording. As Tuckett explains:


“Nevertheless the nature of the Gospel tradition means that we cannot simply take everything recorded in all the Gospels as unquestionably genuine reports about what Jesus said or did in a pre-Easter situation.”4


Given the nature of the material within the canonical gospels, we need to use some type of criteria to make sense of the material and know what is or is not probably historical.


The criteria are themselves not foolproof and the use of some continues to be hotly debated whereas others are widely accepted. Generally, it is believed that multiple criteria need to be applied before we can come to a reasoned conclusion. We cannot just rely upon one criterion.


Furthermore, at the end of the day, we really cannot be certain. We can only speak in terms of probability and not certainty.


All of these points are conveniently ignored by apologists such as Dr Costa and they often speak about the Historical Jesus research as if it is on their side.


4. Where is the 1st century document which denies that Jesus was God’s son and presents the Islamic Jesus? – easy, there is no such document in existence. Dr Costa is correct, the earliest writings, and the only surviving writings from the 1st century, happen to be the New Testament documents.


But here is the problem: the New Testament documents are not deemed to be reliable by mainstream historical Jesus scholars in what they have to say about Jesus. Therefore, as explained in #3 above, scholars treat these documents critically, having devised criteria to ascertain as best as possible the authentic and inauthentic details within these writings. These reconstructions of the historical Jesus are not to be found in any ancient Christian document, whether from the 1st or later centuries.


Once these documents are treated critically, we frequently get a picture of Jesus which is most removed from the evangelical view of Jesus and closer to the Muslim view of Jesus, even if not 100% identical. Typically, while there are disagreements over matters of detail, the below components are frequently observed in historical Jesus reconstructions:


· Jesus in his historical ministry did not claim to be god, divine, the second person of the trinity or “more than a man”


· Jesus was looked upon as God’s Prophet and he presented himself as God’s messiah – though what type of messiah continues to be debated by scholars


· Jesus restricted his preaching to the Jewish people / he confined his activity to Israel (quoting Ed Sanders)


· Jesus did not bring about a new religion


· Jesus is unlikely to have preached that he would die and be raised back to life


· Jesus was an observant Jew and did not overwrite the law; at most, he intensified some aspects of the law


· Jesus was a miracle worker / was accused of being a sorcerer


· Jesus preached repentance and the kingdom of God


· Jesus had disciples


There are many diverse reconstructions of the historical Jesus. But, frequently, the historical Jesus reconstructions are more similar to the general Muslim outline of Jesus than they are to the evangelical Jesus. In fact, the latter is very thoroughly and routinely dismissed again and again by historical Jesus scholars.


Consider James D. Tabor as an example. He is a very controversial scholar and Muslims would immediately reject a number of things he has to say about the historical Jesus. But Tabor’s reconstruction of the historical Jesus is still, broadly speaking, more similar to the Islamic view as is readily acknowledged by him:


“Muslims do not worship Jesus, who is known as Isa in Arabic, nor do they consider him divine, but they do believe that he was a prophet or messenger of God and he is called the Messiah in the Quran. However, by affirming Jesus as Messiah they are attesting to his messianic message, not his mission as a heavenly Christ. There are some rather striking connections between the research I have presented in The Jesus Dynasty and the traditional beliefs of Islam.The Muslim emphasis on Jesus as messianic prophet and teacher is quite parallel to what we find in the Q source, in the book of James, and in the Didache. To be the Messiah is to proclaim a message, but it is the same message as that proclaimed by Abraham, Moses, and all the Prophets. Islam insists that neither Jesus nor Mohammed brought a new religion. Both sought to call people back to what might be called “Abrahamic faith.” This is precisely what we find emphasized in the book of James. Like Islam, the book of James, and the teaching of Jesus in Q, emphasize doing the will of God as a demonstration of one’s faith. Also, the dietary laws of Islam, as quoted in the Quran, echo the teachings of James in Acts 15 almost word for word: “Abstain from swine’s flesh, blood, things offered to idols, and carrion” (Quran 2:172)


… there is little about the view of Jesus presented in this book that conflicts with Islam’s basic perception.” 5


And this is the case we often encounter when examining other scholarly reconstructions of the historical Jesus.


5. The Quran is reliant upon Apocryphal Sources – This is a much outdated argument which is seldom made by modern Quranic scholars – except for the polemically inclined such as Dr Costa. In the last century, many non-Muslim scholars – who just so happened to be mostly Christians – envisaged the Prophet (saw) to have encyclopaedic knowledge, with a treasure trove of Jewish and Christian writings at his (saw) disposal – both canonical and apocryphal – from which he (saw) was actively “copying” different stories, giving them twists in accordance with his (saw) taste. Subsequent studies have disproved this hypothesis.


There are similarities as well as many differences between Quranic stories and parallels found in the canonical and non-canonical Jewish and Christian writings. There are no actual quotations and citations in the Quran from any Jewish-Christian writing. The closest similarity in wording is to be found in three tiny sentences:


A. “We have written in the Psalms after the reminder that ‘My righteous servants will inherit the earth.” – al-Anbiya 105 – compare with Psalms 37.29: “The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.”


B. “And God spoke directly with Moses.” – an-Nisa 164 – compare with Exodus 20:1:”And God spoke all these things to Moses, saying…”


C. “Indeed, those who have denied our revelations and rejected them arrogantly – the gates of heaven shall not be opened for them and they shall not enter paradise until the camel passes through the eye of the needle.” – al-Araf 40 – compare with Matthew 19:24: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”


How is it that if Muhammad (saw) had so many documents at his disposal, that only in three small areas he (saw) decided to retain some similarity with the wording of his (saw) sources and didn’t bother to quote anything else? In the words of Prof. Griffith, there is a “…virtual non-existence of the text of the Bible in any of the Quran’s biblical reminiscences.” 6


On the contrary, scholars now tend to argue that the Quran was the very first Arabic document – the first book in Arabic. Stories about Jesus and stories about Biblical prophets were floating around orally during the time of Muhammad (saw) in his (saw) immediate environment. People knew about these stories orally. The Author of the Quran knew these stories and used them by “rectifying” them – correcting them and retelling them so as to say, “this is what really happened / this is how it actually happened.”


In his recent book, Prof. Sidney H. Griffith writes:


“For the past century or more, many Western scholars have studied the Bible in the Quran, looking for its sources and the presumed influences on its text in both canonical and non-canonical, Jewish and Christian scriptures and apocryphal writings. Most often they declared the Quranic readings to be garbled, confused, mistaken, or even corrupted when compared with the presumed originals. Most recent scholars, however, some more sensitive than their academic ancestors to the oral character, as opposed to a ‘written-text’ interface between Bible and Quran, have taken the point that the evident intertextuality that obtains in many places in the three sets of scriptures … reflects an oral intermingling of traditions, motifs, and histories in the days of the Quran’s origins.” 7


And:


“The Bible is both in the Quran and not in the Quran. That is to say, it has virtually no textual presence, but the selected presence of an ‘interpreted Bible’ in Islamic scripture is undeniable. And the selection process involved in the inclusion of biblical reminiscences in the Quran, according to the hypothesis advanced here, is one determined by the Quran’s own distinctive prophetology … And what is more, the Quran is corrective of, even polemical toward the earlier the earlier readings of the ‘Scripture People’ …” 8


From a purely secular perspective, where we a priori dismiss the possibility of revelation and miracle, when faced with similarities and differences between two or more sources, we can only reach these type of explanations:


· text A copied from text B;


· text A and B are reliant upon the same source – oral or written;


· stories were circulating orally and used by multiple groups, ending up in different written sources


If two sources contain the same stories, whether with some differences or not, then there has to be an underlying explanation for this. Either a textual dependency between documents – with scholars debating the direction of this textual dependency – or both documents being reliant upon the same source, both documents reliant upon oral traditions or a mixture of the two etc.


So in our case, the Quran mentions Jesus, Moses and David. The stories within the Quran about these and other prophets are similar to stories found in Jewish and Christian writings – with differences as well. How do we explain this? Secular historians who are a priori dismissing the possibility of revelation can only offer a variety of natural explanations, some more convincing than others.


This doesn’t cause any problems for Muslims. We believe that certain events did occur. These were recorded – in varying levels of accuracy – in written sources and circulated orally. God then gave a revelation to Muhammad (saw) and related the actual stories, what really happened, confirming the truth and negating the false elements in the stories of all the Prophets, from Adam to Jesus. Hence the similarities and differences between the Quran and parallel stories in Jewish and Christian writings.


The view proposed by most scholars such as Prof. Griffith, therefore, does not in any manner “negate” the Muslim belief or cause any “problems” for Muslims.


6. Prof Khalidi states that the “Muslim Jesus” is meta historical, he is not even a historical person, the Quranic Jesus is an argument, it has nothing in common with the Jesus of the gospels, in fact, he says that the Muslim Jesus is a “Muslim creation,” he is an artificial creation, he is “meta historical” – he is not even a historical person– Firstly, so what if this is Prof. Khalidi’s view? Dr Costa is more than happy to dismiss mainstream Historical Jesus studies and mainstream New Testament studies for the sake of his historically dubious evangelical Jesus, then why should Ahmad be concerned about the view of Tarif Khalidi? Surely, there are many more Christians who have objectionable things to say about Dr Costa’s view of the Bible than Muslims who say objectionable things about Ahmad’s view of the Quran.


Secondly, Dr Costa seems to have misunderstood Tarif Khalidi. Prof. Khalidi’s book is about the stories of Jesus in later post-Quranic writings from the second / eighth century to the twelfth / eighteenth century. Prof. Khalidi states:


“In referring to this body of literature, I shall henceforth use the phrase “Muslim gospel.” 9


It is this “Muslim gospel” which is labelled by Prof. Khalidi as “meta historical”:


“…the Muslim gospel assembled here has the advantage of a certain impact and novelty. Here is a Jesus who is on the one hand is shorn of Christology, but who on the other is endowed with attributes which render him meta-historical and even, so to speak, meta religious.” 10


Prof. Khalidi is not referring to the Quran. He is referring to the “Muslim gospel” i.e. post-Quranic writings from the second / eighth century to the twelfth / eighteenth century.


Prof. Khalidi writes:


“… the Jesus of the Muslim gospel takes on an identity quite different from the one found in the Quran, the Quranic Jesus remains an important basis of his later manifestation.” 11


So the “Muslim gospel” and the Quran and two different writings – the former being the label given to a wide range of post-Quranic stories about Jesus.


Moving to the Quranic presentation of Jesus, Prof. Khalidi says:


“The Quranic Jesus is in fact an argument addressed to his more wayward followers, intended to convince the sincere and frighten the unrepentant. As such, he has little in common with the Jesus of the Gospels, canonical or apocryphal.Rather, the Quranic image bears its own special and corrective message, pruning, rectifying, and rearranging an earlier revelation regarded as notorious for its divisive and contentious sects. The Quranic Jesus issues, no doubt, from the “orthodox” and canonical as well as the “unorthodox” and apocryphal Christian tradition. Thereafter, however, he assumed a life and function of his own, as often happens when one religious tradition emanates from another.” 12


Indeed, the Quranic Jesus is unique, with points of similarities and differences from all writings – canonical and non-canonical. It emanates from canonical / non-canonical tradition as the Author interacts with these traditions, arguing and presenting what He deems to be the correct view of Jesus.


As explained in #5 above, this sort of explanation is perfectly valid from a purely secular perspective. It causes no “problems” if one believes in the Quran as the Word of God, who confirmed accurate details about Jesus – preserved in a variety of written and oral sources – and who dismissed and denied the inaccurate and inappropriate elements of the Jesus story. This explains the differences and similarities between the Quranic retellings and parallels in other documents.


7. Quran gets the Trinity wrong and asserts that Mary was part of the Trinity? – not so according to modern non-polemical scholarship. The Qu’ran nowhere spells out the Trinity in 5:116. It does not mention the Trinity’s contents. In other words, the Quran does not state, “The Trinity consists of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; they are not three gods but one God.”


Rather than referring to the Trinity, or to a “deviant” formulation of it, the Quran presents an eschathological interrogation of Jesus in which his divinity and that of his mother is denied. Now we know that Christians do worship Jesus as god. We also know that not only in the past did some groups elevate the status of Mary, but that the largest group of Christians, the Catholics direct worship towards her as “mother of God.” From the Quranic perspective, this IS akin to the worship of two of God’s creatures besides Him.


Therefore, the Quran is only stating how these acts are viewed/seen/looked upon by its Author – God.


David Thomas explains that this passage is:


“…a denial that Jesus and Mary are equal with God, and a warning (q.v.) against making excessive claims about them. Thus, it can be understood as an instance of the warning against the divinization of Jesus that is given elsewhere in the Qur’ān and a warning against the virtual divinization of Mary…” 13


The verse is to be understood as:


“… a warning against excessive devotion to Jesus and extravagant veneration of Mary, a reminder linked to the central theme of the Qur’ān that there is only one God and he alone is to be worshipped …” 14


This is also confirmed by Sidney Griffith, who writes:


“Surely the standard Christian proclamation that Jesus is God, the son of God, and Mary his mother, is the mother of God, would have been sufficient to elicit the Qur’an’s adverse judgment.” 15


It is equally plausible that the Quran intentionally simplifies the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus to expose its weakness when analysed from the strict monotheistic perspective of the Quran.


This is how non polemicist western academics are reading the Qur’an. Very different from the misreadings of the polemical authors such as Dr Costa and friends.


8. The Gospel of John and Historical Jesus scholars – Dr Costa likes to mention Historical Jesus scholarship now and then. But he does not inform people that the Gospel of John is deemed to be a highly unreliable source to know about the historical Jesus by mainstream New Testament scholars. Even scholars who attempt to make some use of the fourth gospel acknowledge that it is a highly interpretive account of Jesus. There are many conservative scholars who have made such acknowledgements and a sample of conservative scholarship can be viewed here:


http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/shamounion_straw_men_and_obfuscations__a_critical_commentary_on_sam_shamoun_s__the_purpose_and_cause_of_jesus__death


For now, I just present the view of one of the most prominent Historical Jesus scholar:


“It is impossible to think that Jesus spent his short ministry teaching in two such completely different ways, conveying such different contents, and there were simply two traditions, each going back to Jesus, one transmitting 50 per cent of what he said and another one the other 50 per cent, with almost no overlaps. Consequently, for the last 150 or so years scholars have had to choose. They have almost unanimously, and I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels and that John represents an advanced theological development, in which meditations on the person and work of Christ are presented in the first person, as if Jesus said them. “16


Again note: mainstream scholarship has to be dismissed again and again by Dr Costa and friends.


+++++++


1. Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, 2007, John Wiley & Sons, Indianapolis: Indiana, p. 178.


2. Christopher Tuckett, Christology And The New Testament: Jesus And His Earliest Followers, 2001, Edinburgh University Press, p. 24.


3. John P. Meier, “Reflections on Jesus-of-History Research Today,” in James H. Charlesworth (Editor), Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus in Early Judaism, 1996, The American Interfaith Institute, New York: The Crossroad Herder Publishing Company, p. 100.


4. Christopher M. Tuckett, Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers, op. cit., p. 203.


5. James D Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: Stunning New Evidence about the Hidden History of Jesus, 2006, HarperElement, pp. 287 – 288.


6. Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” In The Language of Islam, 2013, Princeton University Press, p. 91.


7. ibid p. 56.


8. ibid p. 95.


9. Tariff Khalidi (Editor & Translator) & Edward W. Said (General Editor), The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature, 2003 Edition, Harvard University Press, p. 3.


10. ibid p. 45.


11. ibid p. 6.


12. ibid pp. 16-17.


13. EQ, Vol. 5, p. 370.


14. ibid.


15. Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam, 2007, Princeton University Press, p. 29.


16. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure Of Jesus, 1993, Penguin Books, pp. 70-71.

Rabbi Tovia Singer on Islam and Christianity

Rabbi Tovia Singer clearly states Muslims are not idol-worshipers and Muslims are monotheists. The Rabbi denounces the Christian missionary lie of the moon-god. He also states Trinitarian Christianity is idol-worship.



Rabbi Tovia Singer is a fellow talk show host. He has a radio talk show in Israel. He is the founder and director of Outreach Judaism which is an international organization dedicated to countering the effects of fundamentalist Christian groups and cults who specifically target Jews for conversion.

Prophecies of the Messiah - Reza Aslan

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk

Muslims Becoming Christians in Lebanon? Missionary Bus-Start Scandal Bites Again?

I saw this comment on Facebook by a brother I am linked to. Be wary of Chistian missionaries coming into Muslim countries. Be very wary. I really would not put this stunt beyond them.

This seems like one of their old tricks where they take kids out on outings via a bus and then pretend to break down. And wait for the kids to pray to Jesus p and then restart the bus in an attempt the trick the kids into thinking Jesus p answered their prayers. I really would not be surprised if they are using it in Arab countries now too.

Just an example deceitful nature of many missionaries around . This news was given to us by many muslims both men and women who saw this with their own eyes . In Lebanon christian charities who provide help for Muslim Syrian orphans will take them for small trips in a bus . While driving the driver will stop the van and tell everyone that the bus has "broken" down unfortunately. And add some passion and good theater play on to off that to make the kids a bit scared. Then someone part of the missionary team will ask all the children to make dua to Allah that the driver who is trying to start the bus will be able to do so . So they will get all the kids to raise their hands and collectively say YA ALLAH PLEASE START THE BUS !! then the drive attempts to start the bus and it fails . And they will repeat this a couple of times before the kids start getting agitated . Then the same missionaries will say to the children : let's try asking jesus instead kids !! So same thing they will get the kids to raise their hands and collectively say : OH JESUS PLEASE MAKE THE BUS START ! and lo and behold the bus miraculously starts ! . Obviously the kids are to young and innocent to see the cunning and evil plot which has just taken place but this is just one example of the types of tactics missionaries will use in order to convert muslims . Needless to say it's clear to everyone .

Christians, please do not fund Christian missionaries.

Is Mario Joseph, ex Muslim Imam, Telling the Truth?

Gariba International Ministries Scandal

Muslim Thoughts on Ergun Caner's Alleged Racist Comments 'N Bomb'

Prophecies of the Messiah - Reza Aslan

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk

A Comment on the Hadith of 42 Days

The following explanation is from Shaikh GF Haddad's Hadiths on the Formation of Human Life.

 THE ORGANOGENESIS HADITH

Imam Muslim narrated from Hudhayfa ibn Asad that the Prophet Muhammad said - upon him and his House blessings and peace:

After the sperm-and-ovum drop (nut.fa) has been [in the uterus] forty-two days, Allah sends it an angel that gives it form and fashions its hearing, sight, skin, flesh, and skeleton.

The time frame given cited above is in conformity with embryological observation. The embryo reaches the sixth week without showing the semblance of human form but by the seventh week of its life - about three centimeters in size and beginning to move - that semblance becomes visible in the formation of the essential organs including the sensory organs and grown bone tissue. The arms and legs have lengthened. The foot and hand areas are distinguishable and they have digits. The first recordable brain wave activity occurs.

This organogenesis peaks precisely at 42 days.


A response to 33 so called errors in the Quran

A refutation of 45 alleged historical/scientific errors in the Quran

Does the Quran say the Sun orbits the Earth?

AntiMuslim Sun Set Arguments Refuted by That Muslim Guy

Explanatory Comments on the Hadith of the Fly in Water

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk 

 

Blog: Jonathan McLatchie, yes it is Islamophobic to say what you said...

It's late but as promised to Jonathan - here's my response to Jonathan McLatchie and his bout of Islamophobia.

What do they call a bloke who presents British Jews as a fifth column, pretending to be peaceful, waiting to swell in numbers so they can bomb, fight and ultimately persecute us? Anti-Semitic, right?

What do they call a bloke who presents Black Britons as a fifth column, pretending to be peaceful, waiting to swell in numbers so they can bomb, fight and ultimately persecute us? A racist, right?

What do you call a bloke who does likewise to the LGBT community in Britain? A homophobe?

What do they call a bloke who presents British Muslims as a fifth column, pretending to be peaceful, waiting to swell in numbers so they can bomb, fight and ultimately persecute? Islamophobic, right?

If you follow that level of consistency then Jonathan McLatchie of Newcastle University made Islamophobic comments.

Jonathan presents in St. Timothy’s Parish Church, Middlesbrough (UK) presents his theory about British Muslims and indeed all Muslim communities in the EU which labels Muslims as sneaky fifth columns who will sooner or later become progressively more violent (including becoming terrorists) and then ultimately ‘persecute’ and ‘subjugate’ NonMuslims. In this video I used a clip of Cambridge University’s expert on Islam to correct Jonathan’s misinformation about terrorism in Jihad. As for his theory, it’s hateful lunacy that he borrowed from an American right-wing extremist known for attacking Muslims with a history of psychological problems and a violent past. Not exactly the type of person one would go to in order to acquire balanced and accurate information.

Click here to watch the video of Jonathan McLatchie's Islamophobic comments in which he represents Muslims in Britian (and the rest of the West) as a dangerous fifth column waiting to become terrorists and persecutors of Christians. Try telling me he did not get that hateful propaganda from an American Christian extremist with a history of hatred, violence and psychological problems.

Now, I'm confident all fair-minded folk will recognise that those comments are Anti-Muslim and Islamophobic in nature. Comments which have no place in our country (UK) and indeed anywhere in the world. Comments which only serve the purpose of inciting fear, distrust and even hatred of Muslims. I'm confident Jonathan, in quieter moments of reflection, will recognise this too.

Rather than simply lampooning Jonathan McLatchie for anti-Muslim comments we must try to ensure a positive comes out of this sorry episode. I think we should all encourage Jonathan to make a public retraction, apology and offer a sincere gesture of a desire to understand and befriend Muslims. So after apologising and retracting his comments perhaps Jonathan could arrange a visit to a local mosque/Muslim community centre. That would be a great way to build understanding, bridges and community cohesion. I'd highly encourage this - I am willing to help set it up.

Jonathan would also be advised to send communication to the church in which he made those inflammatory anti-Muslim comments to help militate against dangerous misperceptions of Muslims building in the Middlesbrough area - we certainly don't want the Christian extremist group, Britian First, marching there and taking advantage of such misperceptions. Jonathan would also do well to remove his video from the internet as I hope he does not want such inflammatory comments being heard by others.

Jonathan is foreign to the North of England. I'd imagine he does not know some towns/cities in the North are like  tinder-boxes and it really does not take much provocation, incitement to hatred or demonization to get things literally kicked off. The Christian extremist group, Britain First, look to take advantage of such propaganda being injected into these communities.

Jonathan and the 'sharia controlled zones' in Europe hoax

He's renounced this anti-Muslim hoax. Well done to him. I hope he gets communication over to the church in Middlesbrough so folk are edified in this regard. We don't want the audience members spreading that propaganda while believing it to be true because they heard it in a church from a Christian speaker.

Jonathan in his response did not touch on his anti-Muslim misrepresentation of Musims as a fifth column waiting to become terrorists and persecutors of Christians. He instead chose to talk about somebody's comment labelling him a racist. Talk about tackling the crumb instead of the biscuit. I guess that speaks volumes in telling you he has no defence nor justification for his comments. Just patiently waiting for his retraction...

I think that's sufficient in addressing the Jonathan McLatchie Islamophobia episode. I don't want to invest much more time on this.  I'll leave you with some passionate comments which were directed at him closer to the event - a lot of relevant and valid points.


Firstly, as a British Muslim I don't take kindly to hate speech against our community. Yes, you did present hate speech and you did present lies about us (knowingly or unknowingly). You did it in the north of England, where I was born and raised. I don't take kindly to anybody presenting us as a fifth column who pretend to be peaceful at first, then resort to terrorism and ultimately move on to 'persecute' Christians. That's the type of claptrap you were presenting in the north of England. You're from Scotland, so you're an outsider coming to our areas and injecting hatred and fear-mongering. Whether you did it knowingly or unknowingly, that's what you did. Accept responsibility for your words. You did stuff of a similar nature with your American Islamophobic buddy in the radio clip.

...you specifically blocked me after firing loads of right wing links at me on your page which you claimed propped up your view of 'Sharia governed no-go-zones'. Links which turned out to be of no support to your claim whatsoever. You must have known that. I don't appreaciate games like that.


I'm glad you're looking into the right wing hoax. Not entirely sure why you did not look into it before presenting it in the church. Not sure why you maintained it to be true when pressed on it. You dug yourself in. Time to dig out.

You may not want people to think it, in fact you may not think it yourself but you are an Islamophobe. We've all heard the racist or the bigot say 'I have Black/Jewish/Muslim/Eastern European friends but...' so I don't care if you have Muslim friends. It's all immaterial. What matters here is whether you are making comments of an Islamophobic and inflammatory nature. You are. Nobody is stupid here. You know it deep down IMO. Like I say, nobody is stupid here. Just because your buddies in America say that nonsense and hate-monger against us does not make it true and does not mean you can transfer it to my country. Again, you're from Scotland, what are you doing hate preaching against people in England with your Islamophobic comments? Look up Cable St and its history in Tower Hamlets. The outsiders came into that area to promote hatred against the Jews but on mass the people stood up against it.

Are you going to make a public comment to the congregation of that church about the hoax you presented? Are you going to retract your terrorism claims and those other comments that make us out to be an untrustworthy fifth column waiting to pounce and butcher Christians?

Surely you know those comments can lead to attacks of a physical and/or verbal nature against Muslims. Just remember you Scots were victimized at one stage. Why take part in the victimization of us?



Hypocritical Jonathan McLatchie on Hygiene in the Bible and Ahadith

Prophecies of the Messiah - Reza Aslan

Muslims give the most charity and have least sex outside of marriage!

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk

Child's Resemblance to Father/Mother Hadith Talking about Genes?

Yes this Hadith seems to be concerning genetics. The Arabic terms literally mean 'water/liquid/fluid of the father' and 'water/liquid/fluid of the mother'. The immediate audience was not familiar with the concept of genes. In 7th century Arabia, an over-arching term like that is understandable in that it carries the meaning of genes in everyday understandable language.

وَأَمَّا الْوَلَدُ، فَإِذَا سَبَقَ مَاءُ الرَّجُلِ مَاءَ الْمَرْأَةِ نَزَعَ الْوَلَدَ، وَإِذَا سَبَقَ مَاءُ الْمَرْأَةِ مَاءَ الرَّجُلِ نَزَعَتِ الْوَلَدَ


Above is the part of the Hadith we are focussing on, translated; as for the child, if the fluid of the man SABAQA (beats) the fluid of the woman then the child resembles the man. And if the woman's fluid SABAQA (beats) the man's fluid then the child resembles the mother.

If a child is to have a phenotype of one of his/her parents then it means the genes of that parent SABAQA (beat) the other parent as in a competition. Both parents have genes which compete against one another. Remarkably, the word SABAQA does have the connotation of winning a competition.

Gene versions can be dominant, recessive and co-dominant. We must also remember that for most observable physical characteristics there's more than one set of genes at play (multiple genes) - this is an area in which geneticists have little understanding (such as nose shape).  So for a child to share a trait from the father or mother it's literally a case of whose genes beat the other.

One thing that is of interest for the seekers of truth, the Prophet (p) made a statement which is in conformity with our modern day understanding of genetics, namely if a child is to share a particular phenotype with the mother it means the mother's genes 'beat' the father's genes in that instance (the same applies vice versa). Looking at the overall picture, if the child resembles one parent more than the other it means that parent's genes won or beat the other parents genes.

When the news of the arrival of the Prophet at Medina reached `Abdullah bin Salam, he went to him to ask him about certain things, He said, "I am going to ask you about three things which only a Prophet can answer: What is the first sign of The Hour? What is the first food which the people of Paradise will eat? Why does a child attract the similarity to his father or to his mother?" The Prophet replied, "Gabriel has just now informed me of that." Ibn Salam said, "He (i.e. Gabriel) is the enemy of the Jews amongst the angels. The Prophet said, "As for the first sign of The Hour, it will be a fire that will collect the people from the East to the West. As for the first meal which the people of Paradise will eat, it will be the caudate (extra) lobe of the fish-liver. As for the child, if the man's discharge proceeds the woman's discharge, the child attracts the similarity to the man, and if the woman's discharge proceeds the man's, then the child attracts the similarity to the woman." On this, `Abdullah bin Salam said, "I testify that None has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and that you are the Apostle of Allah." and added, "O Allah's Apostle! Jews invent such lies as make one astonished, so please ask them about me before they know about my conversion to I slam . " The Jews came, and the Prophet said, "What kind of man is `Abdullah bin Salam among you?" They replied, "The best of us and the son of the best of us and the most superior among us, and the son of the most superior among us. "The Prophet said, "What would you think if `Abdullah bin Salam should embrace Islam?" They said, "May Allah protect him from that." The Prophet repeated his question and they gave the same answer. Then `Abdullah came out to them and said, "I testify that None has the right to be worshipped except Allah and that Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah!" On this, the Jews said, "He is the most wicked among us and the son of the most wicked among us." So they degraded him. On this, he (i.e. `Abdullah bin Salam) said, "It is this that I was afraid of, O Allah's Apostle.


A response to 33 so called errors in the Quran

A refutation of 45 alleged historical/scientific errors in the Quran

Does the Quran say the Sun orbits the Earth?

AntiMuslim Sun Set Arguments Refuted by That Muslim Guy

Numerical miracle in Quran

British Muslims Protested to Defend Jesus p

Sharia Law against terrorism

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam

Conversions to Islam

Learn about Islam

Email: yahyasnow@yahoo.co.uk