OMERS PERSONAL
DEBATES
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH THE MOST GRACIOUS THE MOST MERCIFUL
"Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom
and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most
gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who
receive guidance. "
Quran surat Anahl 125
JUSTINS FIRST
REPLAY
Hi, Omer.
Thank you very much for your message and for accepting my
offer. I hope, too, that ours is going to be a peaceful debate. I never offend
anyone while debating and I am a supporter of civil and mutually enlightening
exchanges of ideas.
I thought that an e-mail debate would be perfect, because
all the conversations that are had in chatrooms are short-lived and all the
words that are spoken are wasted and easily forgotten.
I'm not bothered by the fact you are a Moslem and I am aware
that you'll be defending your opinions and expressing your point of view
according to your faith. Obviously, I'm going to be countering your dogmatic
claims most of the times. I tend to be skeptical about just anything. I also
try to avoid defending dogmas.
In a way, I'm sorry you have decided to avoid the topic of
Christ's divinity. I think you're missing a big opportunity of knowing what
Christianity is: in fact, I think that Islām and the Qur'ān mostly misrepresent
Christianity, Judaism and polytheism in general. You'd be surprised to know how
much diversified Christianity is on the topic of Christ's "divine
nature". As a Moslem, you probably don't even have a clue about the
problem with Jesus' nature (or, rather, natures). Also, you probably blithely
ignore what the word "person" means when used about the Trinity in a
theological context. Most Moslems think that since 1+1+1=3, they have explained
the inconsistency of Chrtistian theology. Unfortunately, the problem is not
arithmetic and the Christians are not so stupid. Well, it's your choice and, in
my opinion, your loss.
As for the crucifiction, the Qur'ān itself is unclear, since
the verse in your Holy Script may read: "they did not crucify him, but
something like that" or "they did not crucify him, but someone like
him" according to how you interpret the word "shubbiha" in Qr
4:157. Freely distributed Qur'āns from Saudi Arabia contain the wrong translation,
which is actually an overly free interpretation. Here are two links you might
like to click on and see for yourself:
http://www.mostmerciful.com/substitution.htm
http://www.geocities.com/abusamad/substi.html .
My opinion is that all Moslems should take the pain to read
the Qur'ān for themselves and realize how many unclear passages are contained
in it. I wonder if any Malays, Pakistanis or Turks bother about that. I wonder
how many new converts to Islam have ever gone through the notes of a scientific
translation. I think too few, because rigorous translations are published only
in the West, probably. I have a German translation by Rudi Paret in which there
are pages with constellations of question marks, because a clear translation of
some words or sentences cannot be given and the translator was so honest as to
admit to that. I hope I've made it clear to you what I mean by the difference
between translation and interpretation.
There would be a lot to say about the Islamic dogma of the
creation of Jesus, too, which is also contradicted by the Qur'ān where it
speaks of a virginal birth (also see Qr 3:40 about Yahya and Qr 3:47 about
'Isa). Unfortunately, most Moslems do not understand Arabic and go with the
ancient polemical anti-Christian flow. Many Moslems pride on the faultlessness
of the Qur'ān, but I assume very few of them have ever really read that book
because it's not necessary to be a theologian in order to see where the
contradictions obscurities and mistakes are.
Now, our topic is about whether "God's Word" is
the Bible or the Qur'ān. The Christians say that the Bible contains God's Word
because it is divinely inspired Scripture. I think the same thing is stated by
the Jews on the Tanakh (the Jewish Canon). The Gospels are actually only
biographies of Jesus Christ and I very much doubt that anyone would say they
represent "God's Word" to the letter. For Christians it is Jesus who
IS the Word and the same concept is found in the Qur'ān (Qr 4:171).
The Qur'ān, instead, is believed to be "God's
Word" by the Moslems. I frankly find such claim preposterous. First, I
don't think God only speaks Arabic. Unless Allah only knows Arabic or was
bestowing a special favour on Muhammad and his fellows who weren't familiar
with any other language. But if there's a heavenly Qur'ān, which is the real
Word of God, and it is not in Arabic then what the Moslems have is not the real
Word of God, but some kind of rendition of it, a translation or interpretation
is a human language which poorly renders justice to the original divine Book.
I believe if Allah had wanted to send a clear message to
mankind he would have used a better language, like Greek, Aramaic, Latin,
Persian or Sanscrit, all languages that had some literary background and some
kind of linguistic normalization (well defined grammar rules). None of the
above languages would have proved so obscure as the Qur'ān is and all of them
used to have some international prestige. Arabic was not very well developed
and lacked fundamental vocabulary: "dīn" is a persian word;
"furqan" and "qur'an" are Aramaic borrowings (the former of
which means "redemption" and not "criterion"). The Qur'ān
isn't even written even in Classical Arabic, because Classical Arabic was
standardized at a much later date than Muhammad's death. Koranic Arabic isn't
even identifiable with a particular dialect, as far as I know. In fact the
tradition goes that the book was hastily put together in
Obviously, there is one point that should be made clear
beforehand: we're speaking of God's Word, but actually there should be some
evidence of God's existence before debating about his Word. And similarly, why
should God express himself by means of words and send books to mankind, as the
Qur'ān reads? It's true that the Jews, the Christians, the Mandaeans also have
prophets and so have the Zoroastrians. But what is prophethood?
I can identify three main basic points that should be
discussed before we touch on the problem of whether God's Word is the Bible or
the Qur'ān:
a) The existence of God.
b) The way God chooses to communicate with mankind.
c) Prophethood.
This is a long reply as you can see. You can take all the
time you need to go through it.
Take care.
Sincerely,
Ennius/Justin.