Post by iris89 on Jun 27, 2007 15:48:38 GMT -5
The Muslim Hide Behind For Everything
INTRODUCTION:
Islam is not able to stand up to reality; they take refuge from reality by saying, “show it to me in the Quran.” This in no way covers reality of the real world as we all know.
Consider some examples,
Some Muslims run a major homosexual site, GayEgypt, on the Internet, but they will not owe up to it, they say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
Members of Islam at the direction of Sheik Usama bin Ladin attack and destroy world trade center and murder over 3,000 individuals, this is violence, but they say “show it to me in the Quran.”
Members of Islam are presented with actual cases of Islamic justice in Iran, but instead of owing up to it, say “show it to me in the Quran.”
Reality,
“You are just fooling yourself, it is not what either the Bible or the Bible knockoff the Qur'an actually say, but how religious leaders be they priest and/or imams or muftis or what ever teach the people is the interpretation of what is written either in the Bible or the bible knockoff the Qur'an that matters and governs actions. It matters not what the Bible and/or the Bible knockoff really say. People go by what they are taught by their religious leaders. Take the genocide committed by the Roman Catholic Church at the direction of their supreme religious leader, the pope, what mattered was not that the Bible clearly said at Exodus 20:13, "Thou shalt not kill." (Authorized King James Bible; AV), but what their religious leaders told them. Therefore, it is the religion at fault, irregardless of what their particular holy book, be it the Bible or the Bible knockoff the Qur'an may say. Neither in so called Christianity or in Islam are most individuals actions really governed in any way by what their particular holy book really says, but they are governed by the interpretation of their religious leaders. Thus, knowing this reality, one would be either just plain stupid and/or dumb to even bother looking at a particular religion's holy book and expect the members would conform to it. Take the Rig Vede and find me for example a Hindu actually conforming to it instead of the interpretation given to it by his religious leaders, like looking for a needle in the haystack per K.S. Lal, India's greatest historian.[source – Iris the Preacher, unpublished document]”
Their false claim, Allah = Almighty God (YHWH), when given authoritive data to the contrary,
“Some who speak Arabic do not even know that god in Arabic is Ilah. Allah is as history shows,
<<<"It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.
The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born" [source - Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38]>>>.
<<<"Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:
"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" (Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85)>>>.
<<<"The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. [source - "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190]>>>.
<<<"Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity." [source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark]>>>. This historical reference book goes on to state,
'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '"
<<<"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979]>>>.
<<<"For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:
"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [source - Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643]>>>.
<<<"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma]>>>.
<<<"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb]>>>.
<<<"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971][>>>.
<<<"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983]>>>.
<<<"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings]>>>.
<<<"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [source - The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102]>>>.
<<<"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" [source - The Call of the Minaret, Dr. Kenneth Cragg, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31]>>>.”
Say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
They deny true source of the Quran,
“Muslims believe that Muhammad (pbuh) received the Quran from an angel, but reality is very different. It is a distorted copy of the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, the Bible, although most of Islam denies this reality. Details can be found in a recent book review as follows:
<<<" A book review of Christoph Luxenberg, a world renown linguistic scholar, clearly reveals that the Quran is nothing but a distorted knockoff of the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, creator of all there is, the Bible.
This book review is contained in, "HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES," book review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache. Berlin, Germany: Das Arabische Buch, First Edition, 2000. Pp. ix + 306, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2003.
[http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html ]
THE evidence:
Let's look at the evidence contained in the book review of Christoph Luxenberg's latest book in German, "Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache." He clearly shows that the Quran draws on personal names of Biblical origins, that the name "Quran' even indicates its origin, that it was NEVER intended to replace the written source - the Bible, that it was distorted from the writings of Muhammad early on, as follows:
<<<"The rest of the section draws on personal names of Biblical origin in the Qur'an to demonstrate that the so-called Arabic matres lectionis, 'alif, waw, and ya, must also be polyvalent. Luxenberg points out that Islamic tradition admits a reading of the mater for long /a/ in certain instances as /e/ because this pronunciation was a peculiarity of the Arabic of Mecca. Luxenberg shows that the term harf, "sign" must also carry a meaning synonymous to qira'at, "(way of) reading" and that this is not only supplying the vowels in an unvocalized text, but also supplying the diacritical points that distinguish consonants. It is only gradually that these diacritical points became fixed so that consonants came to have just one reading. This process of determining the value of each letter of the Qur'an unfolded over some three hundred years. This is known from the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an which do not have the diacritical points distinguishing readings of a single consonant. By the time these became commonly used, Arabian commentators were no longer aware that many words were either straight Aramaic or were calques peculiar to Meccan Arabic. From this resulted the difficulties that the Qur'an posed to even the earliest Arabian commentators...
The section concludes by demonstrating that the technical meaning of "lectionary" is preserved in the word qur'an. Most striking is the conclusion that the term umm kitab, an aramaism, must be a written source and that the Qur'an was never intended to replace this written source. One might complain that the details of the argument for the reading of suras 12:1-2 and 3:7 are squeezed into footnotes, but nevertheless the argument is clear. Luxenberg proves that the term qur'an itself is the key to unlocking the passages that have given commentators in and outside of the tradition frustration. If quryan means "lectionary," and if the text itself claims to be a clarification of an earlier text, then that earlier text must be written in another language. The only candidate is the Old and New Testament in Syriac, the Penutsta. Hence the influence of Aramaic on the Arabic of Muhammad has an identifiable, textual origin. At the very end of the work, Luxenberg makes a compelling argument that sura 108 is a close allusion to the Penutsta of 1 Peter 5:8-9. Indeed this sura, which is only three lines long, is one of the most difficult passages for the Arabian as well as the Western commentators. Luxenberg shows why: it is composed of transcriptions into Arabic writing of the Syriac New Testament text, i.e., there is almost no "Arabic" in the sura. These are "revealed" texts, and insofar as the Qur'an contains quotations or paraphrases of them, the Qur'an is also "revealed." ...
Many dialects of Arabic existed at the time of Muhammad. In the ten places where the Qur'an claims to have been written in Arabic, Luxenberg shows first that these passages have grammatical forms which are difficult for the commentators and have varying interpretations among the translators. He notes that in sura 41:44, the Arabic fassala means "to divide," but the context here requires "make distinct" or better "interpret." Nowhere else does the Arabic word have this meaning, and the Syriac-Arabic lexica do not give the one as a translation for the other; tarjama (a direct borrowing from Syriac) is the usual Arabic word for "interpret." However, the Syriac praš / parreš can mean both "divide" as well as "interpret" (like Hebrew hibdil; also this is an example of a "semantic calque" mentioned above). Tabari too understands fassala to be a synonym for bayyana (sura 44:3), which also has the meaning "interpret." Sura 41:44 also clearly attests to a source for the Qur'an that is written in a foreign language. Luxenberg, following Tabari, notes a corruption in the text of this verse that clearly shows that part of the Qur'an has a non-Arabic source. His argument here is somewhat weak if not for the further evidence deduced from eleven other locations in the Qur'an where Luxenberg consistently applies these and similar arguments to difficulties all of which center on the terms related to the revelation and language of the Qur'an. These arguments leave little doubt, that Luxenberg has uncovered a key misunderstanding of these terms throughout the Qur'an....
In section twelve Luxenberg demonstrates that not only the origin and language of the Qur'an are different from what the commentators who wrote two hundred years after its inception claim it to be, but that several key passages contain words or idioms that were borrowed from Syriac into Arabic. From his analysis of sura 19:24 (in the so-called "Marian Sura"): "Then he called to her from beneath her: 'Grieve not; thy Lord hath placed beneath thee a streamlet,'" he concludes that it should be read "He called to her immediately after her laying-down (to give birth 'Grieve not; thy Lord has made your laying-down legitimate.'" Luxenberg's lengthy discussion of the complexities of this passage resolve grammatical difficulties in the Arabic in a way that fits the context: Jesus gives Mary the courage to face her relatives even with a child born out of wedlock. The section then presents lengthy arguments dealing with various lexical, morphological, syntactic and versification problems in sura 11:116-117...
In that same section, one also finds a study of how Syriac roots were misread and altered by later commentators. In one case, the word jaw (sura 16:79) misread "air, atmosphere" is from Syriac gaw, which means both "insides, inner part" and can also be used as a preposition meaning "inside." In sura 16:79 Luxenberg demonstrates that the prepositional use makes more sense than the solution posed by the commentators. Classical Arabic grammar, which was created three hundred years after the Qur'an, does not recall the prepositional meaning of the word. However, dialects of Arabic preserve the original Syriac prepositional use. So where sura 16:79 reads fi jaw as-sama' "in(side) heaven" referring to birds held aloft and kept from falling down by God, the dialects agree: fi jawwat al-bet "inside the house" is perfectly good Arabic. The misreading of Qur'anic Arabic jaw as "air" has become part of the technical vocabulary of modern standard Arabic: "air mail," "air force," "airline," and "weather report" all use jaw. The imaginary meaning of the grammarians lives on. ...
Section sixteen follows this investigation as it points to a similar misreading of paradise's grapes as youths, Arabic wildun. Sura 76:19 "Round amongst them go boys of perpetual youth, whom when one see, he thinks them pearls unstrung" (sura 16.1, citing Bell's translation). Wildun is a genuinely Arabic word, but it is used in a sense which is borrowed from Syriac yalda. Youths like pearls is somewhat suspicious, especially given that "pearls" are a metaphor for the grapes of paradise from the previous section. Luxenberg uncovered that Syriac has the expression yalda dagpetta, "child of the vine," appearing in the Penutsta: Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, and Luke 22:18, in which Christ foreshadows his death and resurrection: "I will not drink of this child of the vine (yalda dagpetta) until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of my Father." Here it is the juice of the grape that is the "child." Entries in the Arabic-Syriac lexica for each of yalda and gpetta give in addition to "child" and "vine" "fruit" and "wine," respectively. Luxenberg gives further evidence from suras 37:45, 43:71, and 76:15 that Ephraem the Syrian's depiction of the grapes of paradise is behind the original Qur'anic text.
A central question that this investigation raises is the motivation of cUthman in preparing his redaction of the Qur'an. Luxenberg presents the two hadith traditions recounting how cUthman came to possess the first manuscript. If Luxenberg's analysis is even in broad outline correct, the content of the Qur'an was substantially different at the time of Muhammad and cUthman's redaction played a part in the misreading of key passages. Were these misreadings intentional or not? The misreadings in general alter the Qur'an from a book that is more or less harmonious with the New Testament and Syriac Christian liturgy and literature to one that is distinct, of independent origin. " [source - book review is contained in, "HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES," book review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache. Berlin, Germany: Das Arabische Buch, First Edition, 2000. Pp. ix + 306, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2003.]>>>.
THE Reality:
Muhammad (pbuh) had Christians in his family from whom he learned about the Bible from and scribes to read it to him as he was illiterate. After learning much about the Bible, he started dictating to his scribes what he wanted written down, and as all know a process like this can only product a distorted product as compared to the original, the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is, the Bible.
Now most in Islam will not agree with this reality, the truth, per John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Authorized King James Bible; AV), but the facts sustain it. Let's look at his connection to Christianity through his relatives as reported in an Islamic source.
Many Muslims have argued that Muhammad only met Jews or Christians only on very few occasions, by far too short to be sufficient to gain any real knowledge of the earlier scriptures. In particular, they were not translated into Arabic at this time. The content of the Qur'an therefore does not come from human sources but can only be through direct revelation from God.
I agree that the scriptures probably did not exist in Arabic at that time, at least not completely or widely known, but with the other statements I am not in agreement. And even the non-existence of scriptures in Arabic is irrelevant as we will see in the following.
The Muslim sources tell us about a certain Waraqa bin Nawfal and in what way Muhammad was related to him.
<<<"Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 1, Number 3: Narrated 'Aisha:
(the mother of the faithful believers) The commencement of the Divine Inspiration to Allah's Apostle was in the form of good dreams which came true like bright day light, and then the love of seclusion was bestowed upon him. He used to go in seclusion in the cave of Hira where he used to worship (Allah alone) continuously for many days before his desire to see his family. He used to take with him the journey food for the stay and then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take his food like-wise again till suddenly the Truth descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him and asked him to read. The Prophet replied, "I do not know how to read.
The Prophet added, "The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read and I replied, 'I do not know how to read.' Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied, 'I do not know how to read (or what shall I read)?' Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me and said, 'Read in the name of your Lord, who has created (all that exists) has created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous." (96.1, 96.2, 96.3) Then Allah's Apostle returned with the Inspiration and with his heart beating severely. Then he went to Khadija bint Khuwailid and said, "Cover me! Cover me!" They covered him till his fear was over and after that he told her everything that had happened and said, "I fear that something may happen to me." Khadija replied, "Never! By Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You keep good relations with your Kith and kin, help the poor and the destitute, serve your guests generously and assist the deserving calamity-afflicted ones."
Khadija then accompanied him to her cousin Waraqa bin Nawfal bin Asad bin 'Abdul 'Uzza, who, during the PreIslamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to Waraqa, "Listen to the story of your nephew, O my cousin!" Waraqa asked, "O my nephew! What have you seen?" Allah's Apostle described whatever he had seen. Waraqa said, "This is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel Gabriel) whom Allah had sent to Moses. I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." Allah's Apostle asked, "Will they drive me out?" Waraqa replied in the affirmative and said, "Anyone (man) who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly." But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while. ...
Some essential statements above:
1. "his desire to see his family."
2. "You keep good relations with your Kith and kin"
This shows that Muhammad was a "family man", and given that the middle eastern culture is well known for its family orientedness (something I very much appreciate in Muslims) and that in this setting Muhammad was seemingly even a very good example (otherwise this would not have been mentioned as special virtue) we can deduce that he probably spend much time with his relatives keeping a good relationship, and that means regular visiting.
Furthermore, nobody will deny that Muhammad was already religious before he had this first encounter in the cave on Mt. Hira. After all, he went there to meditate and pray. As the hadith says, it was a habit of his: "He USED to go in seclusion in the cave of Hira where he used to worship (Allah alone) continuously for many days..."
The big question now is:
What will such a religious man talk about when he visits his relatives? Would it be too much to guess that religion will be a major part of these conversations?
And what do we see happening here when Muhammad is disturbed and frightened by a "religious experience"? After calming down a bit at home with his wife, who is the person they visit first?
Waraqa bin Nawfal. Seemingly, he is seen by Khadija and Muhammad as an authority in spiritual matters. And he is the cousin of his wife. And he is a Christian familiar with the scriptures since, after all, he is making copies of the scriptures, whether for personal study or for a fellowship/church of Christians.
So, these are the facts:">>>.
So Islam's argument that he, Muhammad (pbuh) had little contact with either Jews or Christians is an outright lie as is the other claims made for the Quran. Most of the other claims are quite similar to those of Joseph Smith for the Book of Mormon; to wit, the book was received from an angel.[source – Abrahamic Religion by Iris the Preacher and can be read in its entirety at, religioustruths.proboards59.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=abrahamicreligions&thread=1177426618&page=1]”
But instead of facing up to reality, they say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
Conclusion:
Islam hides behind the Quran and will not even face up to how it came into existence – what do you call this? HYPOCRITS!
But the reality is they are responsible for 95% of the violence in the world per a newspaper that has been keeping count,
“The Weekend Australian (newspaper) had this to say on the matter,
<<"Did you know that 90-95% of the conflicts in the world today are Muslims fighting non-muslims or each other?
Islam is intolerant of other religions, so much so that Christians in Nigeria, Sudan and middle eastern countries are killed for practicing their religion. Muslims are also responsible for burning down their churches. Sydney has recently seen an attack on four churches for similar reasons. (December 16, 2005) How can we tolerate such intolerance?">>.”
INTRODUCTION:
Islam is not able to stand up to reality; they take refuge from reality by saying, “show it to me in the Quran.” This in no way covers reality of the real world as we all know.
Consider some examples,
Some Muslims run a major homosexual site, GayEgypt, on the Internet, but they will not owe up to it, they say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
Members of Islam at the direction of Sheik Usama bin Ladin attack and destroy world trade center and murder over 3,000 individuals, this is violence, but they say “show it to me in the Quran.”
Members of Islam are presented with actual cases of Islamic justice in Iran, but instead of owing up to it, say “show it to me in the Quran.”
Reality,
“You are just fooling yourself, it is not what either the Bible or the Bible knockoff the Qur'an actually say, but how religious leaders be they priest and/or imams or muftis or what ever teach the people is the interpretation of what is written either in the Bible or the bible knockoff the Qur'an that matters and governs actions. It matters not what the Bible and/or the Bible knockoff really say. People go by what they are taught by their religious leaders. Take the genocide committed by the Roman Catholic Church at the direction of their supreme religious leader, the pope, what mattered was not that the Bible clearly said at Exodus 20:13, "Thou shalt not kill." (Authorized King James Bible; AV), but what their religious leaders told them. Therefore, it is the religion at fault, irregardless of what their particular holy book, be it the Bible or the Bible knockoff the Qur'an may say. Neither in so called Christianity or in Islam are most individuals actions really governed in any way by what their particular holy book really says, but they are governed by the interpretation of their religious leaders. Thus, knowing this reality, one would be either just plain stupid and/or dumb to even bother looking at a particular religion's holy book and expect the members would conform to it. Take the Rig Vede and find me for example a Hindu actually conforming to it instead of the interpretation given to it by his religious leaders, like looking for a needle in the haystack per K.S. Lal, India's greatest historian.[source – Iris the Preacher, unpublished document]”
Their false claim, Allah = Almighty God (YHWH), when given authoritive data to the contrary,
“Some who speak Arabic do not even know that god in Arabic is Ilah. Allah is as history shows,
<<<"It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.
The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born" [source - Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38]>>>.
<<<"Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:
"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" (Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85)>>>.
<<<"The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. [source - "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190]>>>.
<<<"Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity." [source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark]>>>. This historical reference book goes on to state,
'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '"
<<<"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979]>>>.
<<<"For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:
"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [source - Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643]>>>.
<<<"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma]>>>.
<<<"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb]>>>.
<<<"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" [source - Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971][>>>.
<<<"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983]>>>.
<<<"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings]>>>.
<<<"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [source - The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102]>>>.
<<<"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" [source - The Call of the Minaret, Dr. Kenneth Cragg, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31]>>>.”
Say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
They deny true source of the Quran,
“Muslims believe that Muhammad (pbuh) received the Quran from an angel, but reality is very different. It is a distorted copy of the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, the Bible, although most of Islam denies this reality. Details can be found in a recent book review as follows:
<<<" A book review of Christoph Luxenberg, a world renown linguistic scholar, clearly reveals that the Quran is nothing but a distorted knockoff of the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, creator of all there is, the Bible.
This book review is contained in, "HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES," book review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache. Berlin, Germany: Das Arabische Buch, First Edition, 2000. Pp. ix + 306, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2003.
[http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html ]
THE evidence:
Let's look at the evidence contained in the book review of Christoph Luxenberg's latest book in German, "Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache." He clearly shows that the Quran draws on personal names of Biblical origins, that the name "Quran' even indicates its origin, that it was NEVER intended to replace the written source - the Bible, that it was distorted from the writings of Muhammad early on, as follows:
<<<"The rest of the section draws on personal names of Biblical origin in the Qur'an to demonstrate that the so-called Arabic matres lectionis, 'alif, waw, and ya, must also be polyvalent. Luxenberg points out that Islamic tradition admits a reading of the mater for long /a/ in certain instances as /e/ because this pronunciation was a peculiarity of the Arabic of Mecca. Luxenberg shows that the term harf, "sign" must also carry a meaning synonymous to qira'at, "(way of) reading" and that this is not only supplying the vowels in an unvocalized text, but also supplying the diacritical points that distinguish consonants. It is only gradually that these diacritical points became fixed so that consonants came to have just one reading. This process of determining the value of each letter of the Qur'an unfolded over some three hundred years. This is known from the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an which do not have the diacritical points distinguishing readings of a single consonant. By the time these became commonly used, Arabian commentators were no longer aware that many words were either straight Aramaic or were calques peculiar to Meccan Arabic. From this resulted the difficulties that the Qur'an posed to even the earliest Arabian commentators...
The section concludes by demonstrating that the technical meaning of "lectionary" is preserved in the word qur'an. Most striking is the conclusion that the term umm kitab, an aramaism, must be a written source and that the Qur'an was never intended to replace this written source. One might complain that the details of the argument for the reading of suras 12:1-2 and 3:7 are squeezed into footnotes, but nevertheless the argument is clear. Luxenberg proves that the term qur'an itself is the key to unlocking the passages that have given commentators in and outside of the tradition frustration. If quryan means "lectionary," and if the text itself claims to be a clarification of an earlier text, then that earlier text must be written in another language. The only candidate is the Old and New Testament in Syriac, the Penutsta. Hence the influence of Aramaic on the Arabic of Muhammad has an identifiable, textual origin. At the very end of the work, Luxenberg makes a compelling argument that sura 108 is a close allusion to the Penutsta of 1 Peter 5:8-9. Indeed this sura, which is only three lines long, is one of the most difficult passages for the Arabian as well as the Western commentators. Luxenberg shows why: it is composed of transcriptions into Arabic writing of the Syriac New Testament text, i.e., there is almost no "Arabic" in the sura. These are "revealed" texts, and insofar as the Qur'an contains quotations or paraphrases of them, the Qur'an is also "revealed." ...
Many dialects of Arabic existed at the time of Muhammad. In the ten places where the Qur'an claims to have been written in Arabic, Luxenberg shows first that these passages have grammatical forms which are difficult for the commentators and have varying interpretations among the translators. He notes that in sura 41:44, the Arabic fassala means "to divide," but the context here requires "make distinct" or better "interpret." Nowhere else does the Arabic word have this meaning, and the Syriac-Arabic lexica do not give the one as a translation for the other; tarjama (a direct borrowing from Syriac) is the usual Arabic word for "interpret." However, the Syriac praš / parreš can mean both "divide" as well as "interpret" (like Hebrew hibdil; also this is an example of a "semantic calque" mentioned above). Tabari too understands fassala to be a synonym for bayyana (sura 44:3), which also has the meaning "interpret." Sura 41:44 also clearly attests to a source for the Qur'an that is written in a foreign language. Luxenberg, following Tabari, notes a corruption in the text of this verse that clearly shows that part of the Qur'an has a non-Arabic source. His argument here is somewhat weak if not for the further evidence deduced from eleven other locations in the Qur'an where Luxenberg consistently applies these and similar arguments to difficulties all of which center on the terms related to the revelation and language of the Qur'an. These arguments leave little doubt, that Luxenberg has uncovered a key misunderstanding of these terms throughout the Qur'an....
In section twelve Luxenberg demonstrates that not only the origin and language of the Qur'an are different from what the commentators who wrote two hundred years after its inception claim it to be, but that several key passages contain words or idioms that were borrowed from Syriac into Arabic. From his analysis of sura 19:24 (in the so-called "Marian Sura"): "Then he called to her from beneath her: 'Grieve not; thy Lord hath placed beneath thee a streamlet,'" he concludes that it should be read "He called to her immediately after her laying-down (to give birth 'Grieve not; thy Lord has made your laying-down legitimate.'" Luxenberg's lengthy discussion of the complexities of this passage resolve grammatical difficulties in the Arabic in a way that fits the context: Jesus gives Mary the courage to face her relatives even with a child born out of wedlock. The section then presents lengthy arguments dealing with various lexical, morphological, syntactic and versification problems in sura 11:116-117...
In that same section, one also finds a study of how Syriac roots were misread and altered by later commentators. In one case, the word jaw (sura 16:79) misread "air, atmosphere" is from Syriac gaw, which means both "insides, inner part" and can also be used as a preposition meaning "inside." In sura 16:79 Luxenberg demonstrates that the prepositional use makes more sense than the solution posed by the commentators. Classical Arabic grammar, which was created three hundred years after the Qur'an, does not recall the prepositional meaning of the word. However, dialects of Arabic preserve the original Syriac prepositional use. So where sura 16:79 reads fi jaw as-sama' "in(side) heaven" referring to birds held aloft and kept from falling down by God, the dialects agree: fi jawwat al-bet "inside the house" is perfectly good Arabic. The misreading of Qur'anic Arabic jaw as "air" has become part of the technical vocabulary of modern standard Arabic: "air mail," "air force," "airline," and "weather report" all use jaw. The imaginary meaning of the grammarians lives on. ...
Section sixteen follows this investigation as it points to a similar misreading of paradise's grapes as youths, Arabic wildun. Sura 76:19 "Round amongst them go boys of perpetual youth, whom when one see, he thinks them pearls unstrung" (sura 16.1, citing Bell's translation). Wildun is a genuinely Arabic word, but it is used in a sense which is borrowed from Syriac yalda. Youths like pearls is somewhat suspicious, especially given that "pearls" are a metaphor for the grapes of paradise from the previous section. Luxenberg uncovered that Syriac has the expression yalda dagpetta, "child of the vine," appearing in the Penutsta: Matthew 26:29, Mark 14:25, and Luke 22:18, in which Christ foreshadows his death and resurrection: "I will not drink of this child of the vine (yalda dagpetta) until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of my Father." Here it is the juice of the grape that is the "child." Entries in the Arabic-Syriac lexica for each of yalda and gpetta give in addition to "child" and "vine" "fruit" and "wine," respectively. Luxenberg gives further evidence from suras 37:45, 43:71, and 76:15 that Ephraem the Syrian's depiction of the grapes of paradise is behind the original Qur'anic text.
A central question that this investigation raises is the motivation of cUthman in preparing his redaction of the Qur'an. Luxenberg presents the two hadith traditions recounting how cUthman came to possess the first manuscript. If Luxenberg's analysis is even in broad outline correct, the content of the Qur'an was substantially different at the time of Muhammad and cUthman's redaction played a part in the misreading of key passages. Were these misreadings intentional or not? The misreadings in general alter the Qur'an from a book that is more or less harmonious with the New Testament and Syriac Christian liturgy and literature to one that is distinct, of independent origin. " [source - book review is contained in, "HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES," book review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur'ansprache. Berlin, Germany: Das Arabische Buch, First Edition, 2000. Pp. ix + 306, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2003.]>>>.
THE Reality:
Muhammad (pbuh) had Christians in his family from whom he learned about the Bible from and scribes to read it to him as he was illiterate. After learning much about the Bible, he started dictating to his scribes what he wanted written down, and as all know a process like this can only product a distorted product as compared to the original, the inspired word of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is, the Bible.
Now most in Islam will not agree with this reality, the truth, per John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Authorized King James Bible; AV), but the facts sustain it. Let's look at his connection to Christianity through his relatives as reported in an Islamic source.
Many Muslims have argued that Muhammad only met Jews or Christians only on very few occasions, by far too short to be sufficient to gain any real knowledge of the earlier scriptures. In particular, they were not translated into Arabic at this time. The content of the Qur'an therefore does not come from human sources but can only be through direct revelation from God.
I agree that the scriptures probably did not exist in Arabic at that time, at least not completely or widely known, but with the other statements I am not in agreement. And even the non-existence of scriptures in Arabic is irrelevant as we will see in the following.
The Muslim sources tell us about a certain Waraqa bin Nawfal and in what way Muhammad was related to him.
<<<"Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 1, Number 3: Narrated 'Aisha:
(the mother of the faithful believers) The commencement of the Divine Inspiration to Allah's Apostle was in the form of good dreams which came true like bright day light, and then the love of seclusion was bestowed upon him. He used to go in seclusion in the cave of Hira where he used to worship (Allah alone) continuously for many days before his desire to see his family. He used to take with him the journey food for the stay and then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take his food like-wise again till suddenly the Truth descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira. The angel came to him and asked him to read. The Prophet replied, "I do not know how to read.
The Prophet added, "The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read and I replied, 'I do not know how to read.' Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied, 'I do not know how to read (or what shall I read)?' Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me and said, 'Read in the name of your Lord, who has created (all that exists) has created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous." (96.1, 96.2, 96.3) Then Allah's Apostle returned with the Inspiration and with his heart beating severely. Then he went to Khadija bint Khuwailid and said, "Cover me! Cover me!" They covered him till his fear was over and after that he told her everything that had happened and said, "I fear that something may happen to me." Khadija replied, "Never! By Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You keep good relations with your Kith and kin, help the poor and the destitute, serve your guests generously and assist the deserving calamity-afflicted ones."
Khadija then accompanied him to her cousin Waraqa bin Nawfal bin Asad bin 'Abdul 'Uzza, who, during the PreIslamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to Waraqa, "Listen to the story of your nephew, O my cousin!" Waraqa asked, "O my nephew! What have you seen?" Allah's Apostle described whatever he had seen. Waraqa said, "This is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel Gabriel) whom Allah had sent to Moses. I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out." Allah's Apostle asked, "Will they drive me out?" Waraqa replied in the affirmative and said, "Anyone (man) who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly." But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while. ...
Some essential statements above:
1. "his desire to see his family."
2. "You keep good relations with your Kith and kin"
This shows that Muhammad was a "family man", and given that the middle eastern culture is well known for its family orientedness (something I very much appreciate in Muslims) and that in this setting Muhammad was seemingly even a very good example (otherwise this would not have been mentioned as special virtue) we can deduce that he probably spend much time with his relatives keeping a good relationship, and that means regular visiting.
Furthermore, nobody will deny that Muhammad was already religious before he had this first encounter in the cave on Mt. Hira. After all, he went there to meditate and pray. As the hadith says, it was a habit of his: "He USED to go in seclusion in the cave of Hira where he used to worship (Allah alone) continuously for many days..."
The big question now is:
What will such a religious man talk about when he visits his relatives? Would it be too much to guess that religion will be a major part of these conversations?
And what do we see happening here when Muhammad is disturbed and frightened by a "religious experience"? After calming down a bit at home with his wife, who is the person they visit first?
Waraqa bin Nawfal. Seemingly, he is seen by Khadija and Muhammad as an authority in spiritual matters. And he is the cousin of his wife. And he is a Christian familiar with the scriptures since, after all, he is making copies of the scriptures, whether for personal study or for a fellowship/church of Christians.
So, these are the facts:">>>.
So Islam's argument that he, Muhammad (pbuh) had little contact with either Jews or Christians is an outright lie as is the other claims made for the Quran. Most of the other claims are quite similar to those of Joseph Smith for the Book of Mormon; to wit, the book was received from an angel.[source – Abrahamic Religion by Iris the Preacher and can be read in its entirety at, religioustruths.proboards59.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=abrahamicreligions&thread=1177426618&page=1]”
But instead of facing up to reality, they say, “show it to me in the Quran.”
Conclusion:
Islam hides behind the Quran and will not even face up to how it came into existence – what do you call this? HYPOCRITS!
But the reality is they are responsible for 95% of the violence in the world per a newspaper that has been keeping count,
“The Weekend Australian (newspaper) had this to say on the matter,
<<"Did you know that 90-95% of the conflicts in the world today are Muslims fighting non-muslims or each other?
Islam is intolerant of other religions, so much so that Christians in Nigeria, Sudan and middle eastern countries are killed for practicing their religion. Muslims are also responsible for burning down their churches. Sydney has recently seen an attack on four churches for similar reasons. (December 16, 2005) How can we tolerate such intolerance?">>.”