In this article I want to switch rolls and play the part of a Muslim. I want to look at those things a Muslim would have to defend in support of his faith. I want to show the absurdity of those things a Muslim must stand upon in support of his faith. I am going to start with a verse from the Qur’an:

Surah 18:83-86 – They ask thee concerning Zul-qarnain. ….and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends. …when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People:

Zul-qarnain is the Arabic for Alexander the Great. Muhammad taught that Allah helped Alexander do what he did. The “we” refers to the angel Gabriel and Allah. Imagine the pride a Muslim would have believing that his god had empowered Alexander in his conquest of the world. What it says next really destroys any pride they and have. It says that Alexander came to the setting of the sun and found it setting in a spring or pool of murky water.

A Muslim has to defend this absurdity because he believes that the Qur’an is Allah’s inspired, inerrant word, and it is superior to the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians. If this is so, the Muslim must defend what science tells us is not so. It proves that the earth is not flat, it is a sphere. Just to remind you, the Bible had already told us this long before science discovered the truth. It often takes science a long time to catch up with the Bible.

During the time of Muhammad, the earth was thought to be flat, and it is no surprise that he made this mistake. We need to remember that Muhammad was a conman, and he just made up a lot of this kind of thing. This story would not be hard to believe for those who believe the earth is flat.

[It is] he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: (Isaiah 40:22)

Here is another place the Bible was ahead of science:

For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)

It wasn’t until relatively recently we discovered that there are fresh water springs in the oceans, but the Bible teaches that there are:

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? (Job 38:16)

As Christians, we have empirical science backing up what the Bible teaches, and when science disagrees with the Bible, it simply means that science has some catching up to do. Islam, on the other hand, has science refuting the teachings of its scriptures.

Christians, aren’t you glad that you were not born a Muslims, and that the Gospel came to your address? We have that privilege because we live in a country where the Gospel is freely preached. Those born in Islamic countries don’t have that privilege because missionaries are not allowed, and Christians are forbidden to share the Gospel with others.

One of the reason scholarship and study of the Qur’an are not encouraged in Muslim lands is because of the absurdities found in their scriptures. People who can read and write ask questions. They challenge absurdities. Those who are ignorant are easier to subjugate and keep in submission, and subjugation is what Islam is all about. That is what the name, “Islam,” means. Muslim means the surrendered one. Islam wants it adherents to be dutiful, submissive Muslims. They don’t want them asking questions that will rock the boat. Muslims are just to do as they are told.

If I were a Muslim I would have to defend Surah 19:27-28, which says the mother of Jesus is Maryum the sister of Aaron and Moses. Can you imagine the age of Jesus’ mother when he was born? How does a Muslim defend this absurdity? Muslims have to defend how Muhammad, the perfect man according to the Qur’an, made this glaring mistake.

If I were a Muslim I would have to defend Surah 7:157 which has Moses praying to God and referencing a verse in the Gospels which was written one thousand years after Moses lived. So far I have not heard a defense for this error

According to the Qur’an, there were four different ways that Adam was created. Adam was created from the dust of the ground according to Surah 3:59, but in Surahs 19:67 and 52:35, Adam is created from nothing, and in Surah 96:2, Adam was created from congealed blood. In in Surah 16:4, he is made from a drop of sperm. The Qur’an also teaches that Adam descended from Heave on a moon rock and landed in Mecca. This is why they call the Kaaba the womb of the world. This moom rock is attached to the Kaaba, and when Muslims go to Mecca they try to touch and kiss it, believing that it has efficacious saving power.

If I were a Muslim I would have to defend the Qur’an when it says all of Noah’s sons were saved from the flood in Surahs 21:76 and 37:77, but in Surah 11:42-43, one son drowns in the flood. You can’t have it both ways. Either they were all saved, or one of them drowned.

Islam teaches that Muhammad was the perfect man. However, if I were a Muslim, I would have t defend murders carried out at the command of Muhammad, or by him personally. There are at least 43 such incidents recorded in the Islamic scriptures. Some of them are multiple deaths, not just individuals. Some of them were because the person or persons simply said something Muhammad didn’t like. Others were because there was money or other forms of wealth to gain.

I don’t have time to look at all of the 43 murders, but you can look at them all here. I do, however want to mention a few of them:

‘Asma’ bint Marwan	January 624.	Kill ‘Asma’ bint Marwan for opposing Muhammad with poetry and for provoking others to attack him.	Asma’ bint Marwan assassinated.	Ibn Hisham & Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah[6] Ibn Sa’d, Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir, Volume 2.
Abu ‘Afak	February 624.	Kill the Jewish poet Abu Afak for opposing Muhammad through poetry, and according to ibn Sa’d, instigating the people against Muhammad.	Abu Afak assassinated.	Ibn Hisham & Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah Ibn Sa’d, Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir, Volume 2
Al Nadr ibn al-Harith	After Battle of Badr March 624.	According to Mubarakpuri, Al Nadir was captured during the Battle of Badr. A Qur’an verse was revealed about Nadr bin Harith for mocking the Qur’an as “tales of the ancients”. He was one of two prisoners who were executed and not allowed to be ransomed by their clans because he mocked and harassed Muhammad and wrote poems and stories criticizing him]. According to Waqidi, he also tortured companions of Muhammad.	Nadr bin Harith beheaded by Ali.	Qur’an Ibn Hisham & Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah.
Uqba bin Abu Muayt	After Battle of Badr March 624.	Uqba bin Abu Muayt was captured in the Battle of Badr and was killed instead of being ransomed, because he threw dead animal entrails on Muhammad, and wrapped his garmet around Muhammad’s neck while he was praying.	Uqba bin Abu Muayt beheaded by Asim ibn Thabbit or Ali.	Sahih Bukhari 1:9:499, Sahih Bukhari 6:60:339 Ibn Hisham & Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah Tabari, Volume 9, The last years of the Prophet
Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf	September 624.	According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad ordered his followers to kill Ka’b because he “had gone to Mecca after Badr and “inveighed” against Muhammad and composed verses in which he bewailed the victims of Quraysh who had been killed at Badr. Shortly afterwards he returned to Medina and composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about the Muslim women”. Ibn Kathir adds that he incited the people to fight Muhammad.	Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf assassinated.	Sahih Bukhari 5:59:369, Sahih Muslim 19:4436 Ibn Hisham & Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah. Ibn Kathir’s Sira al-Nabawiyya.

We see that insulting the Prophet is met with death. This is why you see the violent reaction of Muslims toward those who say anything negative about Muhammad. Case at point, remember the Danish cartoon issue?

Let’s look at one of the mass murders ordered or condoned by Muhammad:

Banu Qurayza tribe

February–March 627.

Attack Banu Qurayza because according to Muslim tradition he had been ordered to do so by the angel Gabriel. One of Muhammad’s companions decided that “the men should be killed, the property divided, and the women and children taken as captives”. Muhammad approved of the ruling, calling it similar to God’s judgment,after which all male members of the tribe who had reached puberty were beheaded.

Muslims: 2 killed Non-Muslims: 600-900 beheaded (Tabari, Ibn Hisham) All Males and 1 woman beheaded (Hadith) Qur’an 33:26,Qur’an 33:09 & 33:10 Sunan Abu Dawud 38:4390 Sahih Bukhari 4:52:68, Sahih Bukhari 4:57:66 and more Tabari, Volume 8, Victory of Islam.

This is known as the Battle of the Ditch, and is one of the two battles where Muhammad was not the aggressor. All of Arabia was fed up with this tyranny, and raised an army to destroy him. Muhammad dug a ditch as a defense, His flank was still left unprotected so he made a peace treaty with the Banu Qurayza tribe (Jews) to protect this vulnerability.

Muhammad won the battle. After the battle, the angel Gabriel told Muhammad that he must deal with the treachery of this Jewish tribe. He fought them for a week, and then made a peace treaty with them allowing them to live, but they must leave Arabia. The men come out first, and he captured them and beheaded between 600 and 900 them. He reminded his followers that war is deceit and they are obligated to lie to the unbelievers if it advances the cause of Islam.

The women and children were taken as slaves. This is where Muhammad took one of the Jewish widows as a wife. The irony of the situation is that this widow ended up poisoning Muhammad, which resulted in his death. The great Muhammad was killed by a woman, and a Jewish woman at that.

There are many other cases where tribes are wiped out by Muhammad. They were often the result of them having insulted Muhammad.

Muslims claim that Muhammad only fought in self-defense. The truth is, there are 62 military campaigns recorded in the Qur’an. In all but 2 of them Muhammad was the aggressor.

If I were a Muslim, I would have to defend my great prophet for being a mass murderer.

It is true that in the Bible God commanded the wiping out of whole people groups. The difference is that Muhammad did it simply because he was offended by them, but in the Bible it was because of the wickedness of these groups.

If I were a Muslim I would have to say that Muhammad’s killing people just because they didn’t agree with him, or because they were Jews, is acceptable to me. Aren’t you glad you are not a Muslim?

I now want to take a closer look at the Qur’an. Remember that Muhammad is the perfect man, and the Qur’an is the inspired word of Allah, and has not been corrupted. It is supposed to be superior to the Christian Scriptures. For this reason they believe that the religion of Islam is superior to Christianity.

If I were a Muslim I would have to defend Muhammad’s plagiarism. Many people say that the Qur’an comes directly from the Devil. I can assure you that if the Devil had written the Qur’an, it would be better written. The Qur’an is a terrible work to try and pass off as having come from an all knowing god.

Muhammad was a conman, and he knew that most people of his time couldn’t read or write. He also knew that they couldn’t go to the local Bible book store and check out his quotes from the Bible. If the “revelations” he was getting were truly from the angel Gabriel, they would be accurate, and they would agree with the revelations of the Bible.

Muhammad heard stories and assumed they were from the Bible because they contained Bible characters. He heard children’s stories, called Targums, and assumed they were accurate portrayals of what the Bible said. Many of them were written about 400 years before Muhammad and about 200 years after Jesus Christ. He heard these stories when he went on his trading trips to Syria, which at the time was a Christian nation.

In Surah 27:17-44 we have an interesting story about Solomon’s Bird Air Force. It came from the Second Targum of Ester. Apparently Solomon had trained an Air Force of birds to pick up big rocks and drop them on his enemies. As the story unfolds, the commanding bird was missing during an inspection. The next day Solomon found hem, and asked where he was during the inspection. The bird said he was meeting with the Queen of Sheba, and ne was sharing with her all of Solomon’s great exploits. Solomon told the bird to go back and invite her to come visit him. The Queen accepted the invitation.

In the Bible we have the story of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon, so this sounds a little biblical, but it is just a children’s story. When the Queen came to the throne room, there is a mirror on the floor which she thought is a pool of water. When she lifted her skirt to walk across it, it revealed her very harry legs.

Although this was written 400 years before Muhammad, he passed it off as revelation from the angel Gabriel. It was clearly something he plagiarized from the Targum of Esther.

In another plagiarism from the Targum of Joziah (written 400 years before Muhammad), Muhammad gave the story of Cain trying to hide the body of Abel. It is found in Surah 5:31-34. In the story, Cain didn’t know what to do, and he saw a raven scratching at the earth and burying a rock in it. This gave him the idea to hide Abel’s body by burying it.

Another of Muhammad’s “revelations” is found in Surah 21:51-71. It comes from Midrash Genesis Rabbah which was written 500 years before Muhammad. It tells of Abraham destroying smaller idols with a larger idol. In the story, the city was upset because all of their idols had been destroyed except the one large idol. Abraham suggested that it must have been the large idol that destroyed the others. Everyone thought that was ridiculous because it was just an idol, and how can an idol do something like that? Abraham responded that these idols could do nothing, yet they were praying to them. According to the story, this is what got Abraham kicked out of Ur, and hat he found refuge in Palestine.

Let me share how the Qur’an came to be written in its present form. There was some resistance to writing it down because Muhammad had only said to recite it, and memorize it. The first Qur’an wasn’t written until some twenty years after the death of Muhammad. When they first wrote it down, there were seven oral versions circulating in the Muslim world.

Under the third Caliph there was a big battle, and in this battle, 40 of the reciters of the Qur’an were killed. Uthman, who was the caliph at that time, feared that the Qur’an would be lost if all of those who had memorized it were killed. He ordered that it be written down, and four copies were made.

Here is what Bukhari, the most reliable recorder of the hadiths, had to say about this:

“Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, ‘Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and ‘AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. ‘Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.”… ‘Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Said bin Thabit added, “A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur’an and I used to hear Allah’s Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.” Sahih Bukhari6:61:510

Here we have an admission that they were just guessing as to what the Qur’an really said. There was no divine guidance, and it all came from human wisdom. We must ask; how do we know the got the right version?

After it was written, all of the older versions were burned so there would be one standard text. This raises a question, Is it OK to burn a Qur’an? They did! After it was completed, they found that they had left out a well known verse, which was later placed back into the text.

If I was a Muslim, I would have to defend this nonsense. In the past Muslims have not had to do any critical thinking concerning the Qur’an because, in the Islamic world, the study of the Qur’an by ordinary people is not encouraged. Now that it has come to the West, where we are used to studying the Bible in depth, it is being studied, and all of these ridiculous things are being exposed.

Every Qur’an, even those they claim are original to Uthman, have vowels, and vowels did not come into the Arabic language until about 150 years later. All of the Islamic scriptures, including the Qur’an and the Sunna, date to more than 100 years after the death of Muhammad. If I were a Muslim, I would have to defend this.

I am glad I have the Word of God, the Bible, and the more we examine it, the more we find it to be true. It has withstood the test of time, and at each challenge, it is found to be what it claims to be, the inerrant, Infallible Word of God.

Let’s take a look at things in the practices of Islam that Muslims must defend. The practice of a religion, that is the things their religion teaches them to do, either directly, or through implication, is just as important to the study of that religion as their doctrine and their scriptures.

We have seen that Muhammad was a murderer and a tyrant. We looked at 43 incidents where he ordered people killed, often for just saying something that offended him. He used his “god” as a puppet to get people to do what he wanted done.

Islam teaches that if you want to be a good Muslim, you must follow the example of the perfect man, Muhammad. What Muhammad did, the faithful Muslims is to do. If he had sex with children, and it is no secret in Islam that he did, then the faithful Muslim is to do the same. If he killed the unbeliever, then as a good Muslim, you are to do the same.

If I were a Muslim, I would have to defend this kind of conduct. I would have to defend the killing of 120 million Africans, 60 million Christians, 10 million Buddhist, and 100’s of thousands of Jews. Not only this, I would have to defend the countless number of Muslims that have been killed by Muslims for differences in what they believe or practice. They have killed almost as many Muslims as they have kill unbelievers.

I know that some will say that historically, Christians are not squeaky clean on this issue either. There have been a lot of people killed in the name of Christ. As a Christian I have to address this issue. The simple answer is, those who did this were not following biblical teaching when they did so. Muslims, on the other hand, are following the teachings of Islam and Muhammad. The Qur’an and the hadiths teach them to do what they are doing.

If I were a Muslim I would have to defend the teaching in Sharia Law on apostasy. Anyone who leaves Islam is to be killed. Here is what The Reliance of the Traveller has to say on this:

ROT o8.0 APOSTASY FROM ISLAM (RIDDA)

Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst….

ROT o8.1 When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.

ROT o8.2 In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.

ROT o8.3 If he is a freeman, no one besides the caliph or his representative may kill him. If someone else kills him, the killer is disciplined

ROT o8.4 There is no indemnity for killing an apostate

One of the top clerics of our day said that if it were not for the laws against apostasy, Islam would not exist today. When he said this, he was bemoaning the fact that, when someone leaves Islam, the penalty was not being carried out today. He was preaching on the importance of the apostasy laws for Islam’s survival. People don’t stay with Islam because they believe in their hearts that it is true, they stay because, if they leave, they are to be killed. If I were a Muslim, I would have to defend this.

Many Muslim come to the West to get away from Islam. They don’t practice it, but they also don’t leave it because of the fact that they can be killed if they do.

If I were a Muslim, I would also have to defend the teaching of Islam on slavery. Let’s look at what The Reliance of the Traveller has to say on the subject:

ROT o9.13 When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.

ROT o9.14 When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy. If the prisoner becomes a Muslim then he may not be killed, and one of the other three alternatives is chosen.

We need to remember that it was the Muslims who captured the Blacks in the interior of Africa and sold them as slaves to the West, including America.

Muslims have to defend all of these practices when they defend Islam. I am glad that I don’t have to defend the things a Muslim does because many of them are indefensible. I am happy to defend the Scriptures of Christianity because they have stood in the face of 2,000 years of challenges, and have always been proven true. It is true that some things in the Bible sound like contradictions on the surface, but anyone who has an open mind will see that they are not when all the facts are know. The Qur’an, on the other hand, is full of contradictions that cannot be defended.

I think you can understand why Muslims are not really encouraged to search their scriptures. It explains why the vast majority of Muslims are kept in ignorance, and can neither read nor write. It explains why we are constantly told that the Qur’an can only be properly understood in Arabic. This last one is to keep those in educated countries, like the US, Canada, and Europe, from studying the Qur’an.