To Moshe again

Submitted by Nabil Ahmad (United States), Sep 7, 2006 at 17:25

To Moshe: You're embarrassingly wrong about Muhammad.

There is no doubt that he was well aware of the Bible and of its teachings from his Jewish neighbors.

Yes, he was aware of the Bible, but he couldn't read it! How could he have forged the Bible if he couldn't read what he was forging?? And why would he go through all the trouble of rewriting something that had already been written? Before he fled to Medina with only 70 other refugees, he preached in Mecca for 13 years and had to endure the threats, the insults and the ostracism that he had been subject to. At one point, the Meccans even offered to make him a leader in the city and anything else that he wanted, if he would only stop preaching against their idolatry, and he still refused to stop preaching.

Nevertheless, from the way he "reedited" the Bible to fit his needs (I know, I know…the Angel Gabriel did it for him), it is obvious that he relied heavily on the illiteracy of his Arab audience.

Muhammad was illiterate. Many of his earliest followers were not. Some of them were Jews and Christians, and at least two were rabbis in Medina. His wife Khadija's cousin, Waraqa bin Nawfal, was a learned Christian and the 2nd convert to Islam after Khadija. Both of them were convinced even before Muhammad was that he was a prophet...he didn't have to convince them that he was. And when he found out, he didn't even want to go forward with it...it has been said that he even thought of committing suicide because he didn't want to carry the burden that he knew he would be made to bear. So tell me...where does all of this leave with what his "needs" are that you claim he had?? If his work had indeed been the work of forgery, he would not have been successful to begin with. How many religions do you know to be the result of a forgery? Islam not only became a world religion, it became a major civilizing force that even captured the hearts of those who conquered Muslim lands hundreds of years later. So if you think that you can convince me that, even after all of this, Islam is the product of a "forgery", you're really full of it.

Nabil, even if perhaps you cannot agree with me on this, at least I hope that you won't accuse me of contradicting myself. The truth sometimes is that simple and logical.

Truth be told, you make no sense at all, Moshe. Your arguments don't pass the smell test with me. You're relying on unproven allegations and outright fabrications that are contradictory and illogical in themselves.

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