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Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina

Round IV

 

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Quote:

Muhammad's ignorance is obvious from what he wrote in the Quran. He thought that Jews were transformed into apes and swine. Is that logical? Who is more ridiculous? Bukhari who thought monkeys practice Sharia or Muhammad who thought Jews were transformed into monkeys? 2:65 5:60 7:166



Holy cow! Is this your level of reading a literary test that contains metaphors? Your hatred against Muhammad and islam has reduced your literary skills to elementary level. When your friends tells you "Ali don't have a cow" do you chastise them "When did I want to have a cow? Are you hallucinating?" When someone labels another person "pig!" does he really mean that the other was transformed to a pig or acted like a pig. The verses you refer are metaphors that use the Arabic language and culture. It likens the acts of a particular group of Jews to the behavior of monkeys and pigs. Please check Arab language for the implication of such metaphors.

 

The verses that you say are metaphor are as follow

2.65
And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them: "
Be ye apes, despised and rejected."
So We made it an example to their own time and to their posterity, and a lesson to those who fear Allah

5.60
Say: "Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some
He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!"

7.166
When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: "
Be ye apes, despised and rejected."  

 

These texts do not give any impression of being metaphors. The words used are “Be ye apes” and “He transformed [them] into apes and swine”. If Allah really wanted to say you are worthless creatures like apes and swine then he used a wrong syntax. He should have said “ye are like unto apes and swine”.

So there are two possibilities. a) you are wrong  b) Allah's Arabic is very poor.  

Could this be possibly a mistake in translation? Absolutely not! The word used in verse 5.60 is Ja’ala which means transformed.

وَجَعَلَ مِنْهُمُ الْقِرَدَةَ وَالْخَنَازِيرَ

None of the Muslims understood these verses as metaphor including the greatest Muslim of all times Mevlala Jalaladdin Rumi who echoed the same absurdity in his Mathnavi stating clearly that Jews were transformed into apes. Now Rumi was a Sufi and he was the one who taught Quran should not be read literally but rather it has a baten inner and a zaher apparent meaning. He understood Arabic perfectly and yet did not thing these verses are metaphors. 

Rumi is not the only person who thinks the verse is literal. Ibn Ishaq (Sirat Rasulullah) says 

... 'And stand in awe of Me,' i.e. lest I bring down on you what I brought down on your fathers before you - the vengeance that you know of, BESTIAL TRANSFORMATION and the like ... (Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad [Oxford University Press, Karachi, thenth impression 1995], p. 250; bold capital emphasis ours)

Also Bukhari makes the same "mistake" and writes: 

"The Prophet said, "A group of Israelites were lost. Nobody knows what they did. But I do not see them except that they were cursed and changed into rats, for if you put the milk of a she-camel in front of a rat, it will not drink it, but if the milk of a sheep is put in front of it, it will drink it." I told this to Ka'b who asked me, "Did you hear it from the Prophet?" I said, "Yes." Ka'b asked me the same question several times.; I said to Ka'b. "Do I read the Torah? (i.e. I tell you this from the Prophet.)" 4.54.524

The translator has footnotes at this point in which he says:

[1] It was illegal for the Israelites to eat the meat or drink the milk of camels while they were allowed to eat the meat and drink the milk of sheep. The Prophet inferred from the rats' habit that some Israelites had been transformed into rats.

[2] Later on the Prophet ... was informed THROUGH INSPIRATION about the fate of those Israelites: They were transformed into pigs and monkeys.

Also Muslim makes the same mistake and says: 

"Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A group of Bani Isra'il was lost. I do not know what happened to it, but I think (that it underwent a process of metamorphosis) and assumed the shape of rats. ...." (Sahih Muslim, Book 042, Number 7135)

Also Ibn Kathir's commits the same mistake and says since the jews went fishing during the Sabath "Allah cursed them for it and transformed them into real despised apes ....They were doomed TO STAY AS APES FOR THREE DAYS without food, drink or reproduction, TILL THEY DIED" (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Part 1, Surah Al-Fatiah Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 1 to 141, abridged by Sheikh Muhammad Nasib Ar-Rafa'i [Al-Firdous Ltd., London, second edition 1998], pp. 146-147; bold and capital emphasis ours)

Don't you think the reason all these great luminaries of Islam are mistaken is because the Quran is either not clear or is wrong? 

Do not get excited for seeing these narrations. We both know they are wrong. The question is why so many people misunderstood the Quran that is supposed to be clear and without any doubts? The question is about the Quran not about the hadith. 

 

Quote:

I haven’t seen this hadith. It could be false but it is not illogical. Goats are known to eat papers and books. The only reason you are so shocked is that you think those writings were revelations from God and if so they could not have been destroyed. Since your premise is wrong your conclusion is wrong too,


I do not have such ideas about revelation. You are making up ideas in my name. I do not blame you for this since you have encountered so many Sunni Muslims or Shiite Muslims you may be excused to confuse a "muslim muslim" with them.

You are accepting one of the biggest lies about Muhammad. Muhammad was literate. He wrote the Quran with his own hands. The Arabic word UMMY does not mean illiterate, it means gentile. For my logical and scriptural reasons for literacy of Muhammad please visit my website at: http://www.yuksel.org/e/books/rtq.htm 

 

 

How do you know Muhammad wrote the Quran with his own hands? Are you speculating or have you read it somewhere? How do you know that your sources are not corrupted? Why you allow yourself to pick and choose what you like and reject what you don’t? I never read such story. How do we know that this story is more accurate than the sources that you disparage? Mind you, I actually think Muhammad knew how to read and write and he simply lied to impress others. I often receive many protest emails from Muslims who at the and say, "by the way I am only 10 years old". They think with these silly misrepresentations I will be impressed thinking they are prodigies. Our discussion does not interest children even older than that. The question I have is how you allow yourself to pick and choose narrations about Muhammad that you like and discard those that you don't? 

You claim that ummi does not mean illiterate but it means gentile.  The verse 2:78 is an alleged speech of Allah with the Jews. It says:  

"And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book, but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture."

وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لاَ يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ

If ummi means gentile, in this verse Jews are called ummayoon (plural of ummi). Does this mean that Allah thought Jews are gentiles? 

I think 2:78 makes the meaning of this word clear. Ummi is one who "know not the book" in other words one who can't read. 

I went to the link you provided to your article and there I found the following:  

“The very first revelation from the Angel Gabriel was, Muslims believe, "Read!" And the first five verses of that revelation encourage reading and writing (96:1-5). The second revelation was "The pen and writing" (68:1). These facts compel some questions that orthodox scholarship would rather avoid. Does God command an illiterate man to "read"? If so, could Muhammad read after Gabriel's instruction to do so? The story told in Hadith books about the first revelation asserting that Muhammad could read only after three trials ending by an angelic "squeeze" contradicts the other stories claiming that Muhammad died as an illiterate!” 

 How do you know that the first five verses supposedly "revealed" was surah 96:1-5 and that sura 68:1 was the second? Where does the Quran say this? Aren’t you getting this information from the very hadiths you have berate? And didn't you say that we either accept all the hadiths or none of them, but we can't simply pick and choose?

For a more detailed explanation of the word ummi please see this article 

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