Islam is not from Paganism
snow.fo...@hotmail.co.uk
correcting a critic of Islam named Syed Kamran Mirza, by Yahya Snow
Having previously wrote about the falsehood that was the Robert
Morey’s ‘moon-god claim’ I came to the realisation that others have
incorporated Morey’s claims into their critique of Islam. This is
alarming due to the much critiqued, maligned unscholarly propaganda
piece produced by Morey. One such individual who has used Morey’s work
(believing it to be reliable) is Syed Kamran Mirza who in summary of
his article (Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?) claims
Islam to be “reformed paganism” and even states that his claim “has
been truthfully and logically proven with all available circumstantial
evidences/rational”. (1)
Mirza’s article is poorly structured and lacks a fluent flow and
appends a reference section to his work which does reveal his use of
material by Christian missionaries (Moshay, Morey and Gilchrist) as
well as Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim. Mirza’s use of agenda-
driven Christian missionary work is one thing but an all together more
worrying aspect is his use of Morey’s work due to Morey’s tendency to
fabricate evidence and make claims without any proof at all. The
appendix section will contain links to articles which show the lack of
truth in Morey’s ‘moon-god’ claim (appendix 1). I recently purchased a
copy of Morey’s Islamic Invasion; through my initial skim-reading of
the book I noticed he falsified a hadith (see appendix 2 which
highlights a couple of examples of Morey’s tendency to make things
up).
Syed Kamran Mirza’s work, Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab
Pagan, outlines numerous claims, points and events which he draws upon
in order to come to the conclusion that Islam is “reformed paganism”.
His belief that Islam is “reformed paganism” is not what concerns me
in this article; it is the fact that Mirza uses half-baked facts,
falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims to arrive at his belief about
Islam. I shall go through his points and highlight the inaccuracies or
add to the points as Mirza makes points without fully elaborating upon
them (I imagine this is due to his lack of study concerning Islam).
Mirza starts his article with his general claims and then goes on to
list a number of points in the form of answers to questions he posed.
These points shall not be addressed as of yet as Mirza conflates his
significant points later on in the article under different headings in
order to construct his arguments and/or accumulate (as well as expand
on) his points. I shall discus his points under relevant headings; I
feel all his relevant points have been discussed in the course of this
paper.
Who is (actually) Allah?
In this section Mirza claims that “the Quran never defines the word
Allah as to who actually Allah was or what was the relation of Allah
with pagans”. This is an erroneous and strange claim as the Quran
through its most celebrated verse (named Ayat-ul-Kursi, 2:255) teaches
us who is Allah and gives a further understanding of Allah; “Allah.
There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting,
Eternal…” (2). So this is a significant oversight by Mirza especially
considering the fact he claims to be an ex-Muslim, the question is,
how did Mirza not know about the most celebrated verse of the Quran
which is memorised by millions of Muslims and recited before going to
sleep? This question becomes even more poignant due to his claim of
being an ex-Muslim. Mirza also claims that the Quran fails to mention
“the relation of Allah with pagans”. Again, this is an inaccurate
claim as the Quran teaches us that Allah is the Creator of all things,
thus he is the Creator of the Pagans; “He is Allah, the Creator, the
Evolver, the Bestower of Forms (or Colours)…” (3) Through these two
parts of the Quran (2:255 and 59:24) we realise that Allah is (the
only) God and He is the Creator. I hope this is sufficient for Mirza
and I am glad that I had the opportunity to correct his misleading
information. This howler(s) of Mirza’s highlights his lack of sound
knowledge pertaining to Islam and thus renders him unreliable and
unfit to be writing about Islam yet alone to be considered an
authority.
However, Mirza moves on and suggests a cover-up and a “hypocrisy” on
the part of the Islamic clergy with regards to them not telling
Muslims that the name Allah pre-existed prior to Islam. He even plucks
out an arbitrary figure of 99% as he states his belief concerning
Muslims: “I believe 99% percent of Muslims do believe that Allah’s
name was invented or started right from the time when Gabriel
disclosed the truth (?) to Prophet Muhammad in the cave of Hira” (1)
He seems to actually believe he has discovered a secret truth which he
is exposing (which he believes the Muslim clergy are concealing): “I
can bet on this fact that no mullahs ever told us the real truth,
neither they believe this clean truth that �Allah� was in fact a pre-
existing deity in pagan Arabia. What a hypocrisy?” (1)
Mirza, despite all his theatrics, is correct that the word Allah pre-
existed prior to Muhammed (pbuh). He is incorrect to suggest the
Muslim clergy are covering this up and concealing this information. It
is common knowledge amongst learned Muslims that the word Allah pre-
existed before Muhammed (pbuh) and the revelation of the Quran.
Unlearned Muslims may not know this but this knowledge is widely
accessible in Islamic books; proving that Scholars of Islam are not
trying to conceal this information as this information is in clear
view in their writings and available to all, ergo disproving Mirza’s
theatrical suggestion of a cover-up. I understand talk is cheap so I
will refer the reader to the most celebrated biography of the Prophet
(Arraheeq-ul-Makhtoum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri) which is
considered as a ‘masterpiece’ and was awarded first prize by the
Muslim World League in a worldwide competition for the best biography
of the Prophet Muhammed in 1979.
As already mentioned Mirza was correct when asserting the name Allah
was in use prior to the revelation of the Quran. He builds much of his
ideas on this fact and even uses this fact as a basis to build his
claims on. However, he builds his clams on faulty foundations due to
his lack of knowledge concerning the history of Arabs of Mecca. Robert
Morey made the same mistake in omitting the full story; Morey also
pointed to the name Allah being in existence before the revelation of
the Quran and built his claims on this fact without offering the
relevant facts which explain how this came to pass. I shall draw upon
a passage from an article which I wrote concerning Morey’s work and
those who parrot him (4):
It is disappointing that we have people who lack sound historical and
theological scholarship who write propaganda pieces in the form of
booklets or internet articles about this issue. It just further
illustrates truth in the adage; a little knowledge is dangerous.
Yes, we (those who have studied Islam) know that the name Allah was in
use before the time of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). If we read Ar-Raheeq
ul-Makhtum we realise that the early Arabs did believe in Allah as the
Only God. This is dated all the way back to the time of Prophet
Ishmael who resided in Makkah (Mecca) and learned Arabic as well as
settling there(5). He preached the message of pure monotheism; “Most
of the Arabs had complied with the call of Ishmael and professed the
religion of his father Abraham. They worshipped Allah, professed His
Oneness and followed His religion...” (6). This shows that Allah was
known as the Only God, just like the Muslims believe Him to be. Indeed
Abraham and Ishmael are considered to be Muslims, i.e. those who had
submitted to the Will of the Only God, Allah. The issue of paganism
came into the equation as the Arabs forgot this pure monotheism which
was taught by Ishmael and his followers. The idolatry was originated
from the actions of a man named Amr bin Luhai, he was known as a
devoted and righteous man, well respected by his peers. However, after
a trip away from Mecca he saw idol-worship in Syria. Upon his return
to the Meccans he introduced idol worship to the Meccans by bringing
an idol named Hubal back from Syria and this resulted in the spread of
a great many idols across Mecca. Indeed there were 360 different
idols, belonging to the pagans of Mecca, around the Ka’bah when
Prophet Muhammed took charge of Mecca. These idols were subsequently
broken, removed and burned under the authority of Prophet Muhammed
(7).
Despite the Meccan pagans’ acceptance of idols they still proclaimed
belief in Allah in the sense that they saw Allah as the High God but
used the idols as ‘lesser deities’ whom they believed “could intercede
before Allah for the fulfilment of their wishes” (8).Quite simply they
had a pantheon of ‘gods’ but believed that Allah was the High God of
their pantheon (10) Effectively over the years they changed their
belief in Allah, from the belief that Allah was the Only God (the
Abrahamic teachings) to the belief that Allah was the High God of
their many deities (pagan/polytheistic teachings). Another source that
attests to the fact that the pre-Islamic Arabs used the name Allah and
held a ‘belief’ in Him is the genealogy of Prophet Muhammed, his
father’s name was actually Abdullah (meaning servant of Allah)(9).
Interestingly enough, some of these pagan Arabs believed that Allah
was the same God that the Jews and Christians worshipped (10).
I am aware that many readers may not be aware of the significance and
the link between Abraham and Islam. Muslims believe Abraham to be a
major previous prophet and Abraham is believed to be the ‘father of
monotheism’ and Islam is considered to be an Abrahamic faith in that
it follows the same beliefs as Abraham. Abraham is considered to be
amongst those who submitted to the Will of Allah, i.e. Abraham is a
Muslim. Ishmael, also a Muslim, is the son of Abraham and he followed
and preached the teachings of Abraham.
The point of the history lesson is to dispel confusion being aroused
via ignorance of history. This also squashes the ignorance that the
anti-Islamics play on when they try to claim that Allah was a ‘moon
god’ due to His name being around during pre-Islamic times
I hope this is sufficient to further educate Mirza and to act as a
catalyst for a re-evaluation of his study and ideas pertaining to
Islam. Having corrected Mirza on this issue we realise he is putting
forward a theory that is backed by no evidence and worse still; it
goes against the knowledge we have.
Mirza, in his last paragraph of this section, states; “History tells
us two theories of Allah’s existence in and around the Kaba
Sharif” (1). Mirza’s first theory which he puts forward has no facts
to support it and it even contradicts the information that I have come
across. Mirza’s theory:
“Pagans used to call the largest Statue amongst the 360 deities as
ALLAH�whom they used to consider the chief/supreme deity (god)” (1)
Despite this being a small and even irrelevant issue I still feel it
is important to address it as this theory of Mirza’s has no support as
far as I am aware. Perhaps Mirza would like to supply us with some
further information in order to allay concerns that he is simply
making stuff up; what evidence does he have to support this claim? It
is commonly believed that Hubal (the first idol brought by Amr bin
Luhai, mentioned above) was the largest idol, however this is a claim
I have yet to verify; therefore I will not support this claim. Karen
Armstrong does suggest that the Kabah (at the time of the pagans) was
officially dedicated to Hubal (11); therefore Mirza seems to be
bringing forward a theory that contradicts the norm.
The second theory he puts forward is the one of Allah being
considered as a High God, this theory has been backed by Ar-Raheequl-
Maktoum, Karen Armstrong and W. M. Watt (12), therefore this view is
sound; so Mirza was correct in mentioning this.
In his next section he puts forward “factors” which he believes
“suggest Allah was a moon-god”. Let us view his “factors”.
Mirza presents three “factors” (A-C). His first “factor” is him
mentioning Allah swears by the creation in the Quran, such as the sun,
moon and night. He goes onto to state:
“Normally, we swear by the name of something much superior to us, such
as we swear by God or by the name of our father (who is considered
senior or superior to us). But we never swear by the name of something
inferior to us. Here in the Quran swearing fashions of Allah (God) by
moon or stars hinting us that Allah considered these things superior
to himself. And this makes us to think (otherwise) as to who actually
acted as Allah in Quran?”
Mirza forgets (or does not know) that Allah has already taught us that
the creation (sun, moon, pen, night etc) is created by Allah (see
Quran 59:24, (3)), thus proving that Allah is greater than the
creation. All Mirza does here is takes the statements of swearing out
of context and interpolates his own poor understanding. An
understanding that no authority on Islam supports. In fact Tafsir ibn
Kathir (concerning surah 53) teaches us:
Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Ash-Sha`bi and others stated that the
Creator swears by whatever He wills among His creation, but the
created only vow by the Creator
So Allah can swear by what ever He Wills, He is the Creator. Mirza
goes further and suggests that Allah swearing by the moon was due to
the pagan moon-worship. Mirza further shows his ignorance and lack of
clarity of thought. If he actually read the Quran he would know that
Allah swears by other such things (i.e. the pen, the time, the Book,
the fig, the olive). Does Mirza also think that Allah swears by the
pen, the fig, and the olive because pagans were worshipping these?
This is absurd logic! Mirza shows inconsistency and inadequate
knowledge in this section (once again). The fact of the matter is,
Allah swears by whatever He Wills, everything is inferior to Him and
everything belongs to Him.
Mirza’s second “factor” in this section is thus:
“The pagan Arabs evidently looked upon the sun as a goddess and the
moon as a God” (1)
If Mirza actually studied the Quran he would realise that Allah
teaches mankind not to worship the sun or the moon:
41:37- Among His Signs are the Night and the Day, and the Sun and the
Moon. Adore not the sun and the moon, but adore Allah, Who created
them, if it is Him ye wish to serve. (13)
(Please note the word for “adore not” is la tasjudoo and a more
literal meaning is ‘do not worship’ (the sun and the moon))
So Mirza’s second “factor” is squashed by the Quran. How in the world
can Mirza claim that Allah is a ‘moon-god’ when Allah is teaching
mankind through the Quran NOT to worship the moon? Mirza must have
been unaware of this.
His third “factor” is the “influence of the moon in Islam”. He
suggests the moon “is considered holiest astronomical object” due to
the lunar calendar being used in Islam, the moon of Islamic countries’
flags and the moon on mosques. To correct Mirza; no astral object is
considered to be holy yet alone the moon, Mirza. Also if Mirza read
the Quran he would realise the Quran teaches us that the moon is
subservient to humans, we realise through the Quran (16:12) that
Humans are superior (better) than the moon.
He has made subject to you the Night and the Day; the sun and the
moon; and the stars are in subjection by His Command: verily in this
are Signs for men who are wise (16:12) (14)
Mirza should refrain from jumping to hasty conclusions and needs to
stop making absurd claims which have no evidence to support them and
which go against all the evidence available. Mirza cites the Muslim’s
use of the lunar calendar to point at the significance of the moon, if
Mirza had studied further he would have realized that many Eastern
societies use(d) the moon for marking time, it is not only the
Muslims, the Chinese, the Jews and Hindu communities have also used
the moon for this purpose too. His idea about the moon being on
mosques and on flags is correct but these things are not seen as
Islamic (4):
Let it be said that the ‘moon’ symbol on some mosques and flags has
nothing to do with Islam. There is no teaching within Islam that
teaches the over-reverence of the moon or instructing Muslims to adopt
it as a representative symbol. Early Muslims did not use the crescent
(moon) for flags nor Mosques and did not have any symbol to represent
them. This symbolism was introduced during the Ottoman Empire much
later on and was adopted from a city they conquered; “It wasn’t until
the Ottoman Empire that the crescent moon and star became affiliated
with the Muslim world. When the Turks conquered Constantinople
(Istanbul) in 1453, they adopted the city’s existing flag and
symbol” (15).
It should also be added that this symbolism is not seen as Islamic and
many Muslims do not agree with the use of a symbol for Islam as
highlighted by a quote from A popular Muslim Scholar, Yusuf Estes;
“The symbol of Islam IS NOT the crescent moon and the star, but it was
used by the last Islamic Dynasty, the Ottoman’s. The Ottoman Empire
deemed it appropriate to use the star and crescent as their symbols,
but not the symbols of Islam. I repeat the star and the crescent moon
are not a part of the religion of Islam. Because Islam is so strict on
the concept of no other gods with Allah; and no images of any kind; it
is a mistake to consider that Islam authorized the general use of such
things. Additionally, Islam forbids the images (statues) of any kinds
of humans, animals or any of Allah’s creations, so how about using a
symbol for Islam?” (15).
I believe Mirza wanted to add another point to this section but due to
poor editing he put his point (list of names of the moon-god) in
another section which made it look incongruent and became a prominent
reason why I rendered the article quite disorganised. In fairness, I
will move on to discuss his statement in this section too.
In the first paragraph of the article Mirza makes the claim that Allah
is the moon god yet supplies no evidence. However, strangely enough
Mirza later states “The variable names (Sin, Hubul, llumquh, Al-ilah)
of moon god were used by various tribes of pagan Arabs. Pagan god SIN
was the name of Moon-god” (1). In his list of the names for the moon-
gods he does not put the name “Allah” forward. He seems to have
contradicted himself here. I have offered three links to articles
which show that Allah is not a moon-god; please view these in appendix
1. However, in order to be thorough with Mirza’s claim (which is drawn
from Morey’s fallacious work) I believe that Mirza is confused with
the inclusion of the name ‘al-ilah’. He mentioned that this (al-ilah)
was one of the names of the moon god, I am not sure if this was the
case as Mirza supplies no evidence for his claim but I will still help
to clarify any confusion concerning this issue. ‘Ilah’ simply means ‘a
god’, this was the word Arab pagans would use to describe their idols
individually. So I would imagine when they made their idol the
definite article (in a sentence) they would prefix the word ‘al’ and
thus come to al-ilah (perhaps this is where the confusion arose from)
This should not be confused with the word ‘Allah’. It is quite
apparent, even to those who are unaware of Arabic, that ‘Allah’ is not
the same as ‘al-ilah’, they are different words. However the Arab
pagans knew that Allah was separate from their idols (as shown earlier
in the article) so even they did not call their idols by the name
Allah, therefore they would not have called any moon-gods by the name
Allah.
However, just to add further depth and pour further refutation upon
the claims let us ponder upon the names of the moon gods of the past.
According to Professor Coon the names of this ‘moon god’ were: The
state god of the Minaeans was Wadd, that of the Katabanians 'Amm, that
of the Hadramis Sin, and of the Sabaeans Il Mukah. All were the moon.
(Coon, p. 399).
The names of the moon-god were Wadd, 'Amm, Sin, and Il Mukah. Allah
was never the Moon-god, despite Morey's desperate pleading. (16)
As many Christians (Catholic) respect their Pope let us quote Pope
Paul (the 6th), he declared in Ecclesian Saum, “We do well to admire
these people [of the Muslim religion] for all that is good and true in
their worship of God” (17). This Pope did not claim moon-worship but
intimated Muslims worship God (Allah).
I would still like to add that Mirza got this ‘moon-god claim’ from
Robert Morey who is a proven fabricator of evidence. He is not to be
trusted and his claims have been refuted many times over yet over-
zealous evangelical Christians and critics (such as Mirza) continue to
use this claim despite the wide acknowledgement of the falsehood of
Robert Morey’s work. Even Christians have denounced the claim as being
false as further research leads us to a Christian (Rick Brown)
denouncing the ‘moon god’ claim as a false claim:
“and Allah was certainly not the moon god's name” (R. Brown, "Who Is
"Allah"?", International Journal Of Frontier Missions, 2006, Volume
23, No. 2, p. 79. (sourced from reference 18)
So, again the message to Mirza, Morey and all the others who are
mindlessly spreading this corruption is:
If you make a claim in a scholarly field then you must bring evidence
to back your claim up and not conjecture and your own faulty and
biased interpretations that differ to all the authoritative
interpretations and sources. The first rule of making a claim is:
‘Bring your evidence if you are truthful’
The missionary is making the claim, therefore the burden of proof is
on him, just to remind him; your own interpretation, speculation and
conjecture does not constitute as evidence and nor can it be
substituted for evidence.
Due to the false nature of the, moon-god’ claim we come to realise
that anybody propagating the ‘moon god’ claim cannot be trusted.
Either that individual is ignorant or deliberately deceptive. Either
way both categories cannot be trusted as the ignorant individual has
no knowledge, therefore it would be unwise to receive religious
instruction from an ignorant individual. Secondly, the individual who
propagates the ‘moon-god’ despite knowing it to be a false claim
cannot be trusted as he/she is a liar. So I ask anybody who finds a
website/individual propagating the ‘moon-god’ claim to distrust and
question that individual/website. Sadly, all too many Christian
evangelical sites/materials preach the ‘moon-god’ claim; Mirza was
influenced by such missionary propaganda. Their claims may trick the
occasional Muslim but most Muslims will question it and ask those who
know and upon learning the truth about their claim the one who was
tricked by the claim originally will realise he/she had been lied to
by Christians about the ‘moon-god and will turn away from the
falsehood and come back to the Truth of Islam (insha’allah). May Allah
guide us all. Ameen
Did the Prophet compromise with the Pagans in order to establish
Islam?
Mirza suggests Muhammad compromised in order to accommodate Islam
amongst pagan Arabs. Mirza’s two major arguments in this section are
the numerous (99) Names of Allah and pilgrimage rites (Hajj/Umrah)
being performed by pagan Arabs before the revelation of the Quran
(i.e. before the introduction of Islam).
Mirza makes the outlandish suggestion that the 99 Names of Allah were
names of the major pagan gods. He has no proof for his suggestion but
suggests it half-heartedly. Mirza shows his ignorance of the Names of
Allah and I begin to doubt his claims of being an ex-Muslim. Surely if
he had knowledge of Islam as a Muslim he would know that the Names of
Allah are in fact His Attributes such as (Ar-Raheem- The Merciful, al-
Khaliq- The Creator, al-Wadood- The Loving etc.) Mirza should have
known that the major pagan-god names included Hubal (the name of the
pagan’s most famous idol), Manat, Uzza etc and none of these are the
Names of Allah. The Names of Allah are His attributes and these Names
were not the names of any pagan-idols. In fact Mirza knew the names of
the major idols (he mentions the “best deities known” in Mecca as
“lat, uzza and manat”) yet he still tried to pull off this ludicrous
suggestion. His knowing of the names of the best known deities/idols
of the pagans left him in doubt of his own suggestion as he uses the
word “perhaps” in parenthesis which indicates Mirza was in doubt too
as he says:
the Prophet was able to convince (by force of course) the pagans to
destroy all idols, and on return (he) agreed (perhaps) to keep the
‘Names’ of the goddess of most famous Pagan tribes as the alternative
names of Allah hence Islam has 99 NAMES of Allah.(1)
Mirza, illogically, adds his own ignorant theory to the names of Allah
without even knowing the Names of Allah and the meanings of these
Names. He suggests that they are the names of the major pagan idols
yet the major pagan idols/gods were named Hubal, Manat, Uzza, Lat etc.
and none of these names (hubal, manat, uzza etc) are the Names of
Allah. I have come across no other critic of Islam who has suggested
such nonsense so Mirza has broke new ground here. Mirza only debases
his work and discredits his reliability with this bankrupt suggestion.
This is indicative of Mirza’s work, he illustrates a fact (i.e. Allah
has 99 Names) and defaces the fact with ignorant speculation (i.e. his
suggestion that the names were from the pagan gods). This illogical
and deceptive methodology may be sufficient for an Islamophobe who is
searching the internet for anything negative about Islam to espouse
but for the people who are evidence based Mirza’s work is far from
sufficient.
His other claim in this section just highlights Mirza’s ignorance of
the history of Mecca. Mirza, essentially, makes the same mistake as he
did concerning the pre-existence (i.e. before the introduction of
Islam) of the word Allah. As we know the word Allah was in use in
Arabia (Mecca) at the time of Ishmael and Abraham (as shown above in
the section ‘Who is Actually Allah’).
Mirza claims that the pre-Islamic pagans performed many rituals which
the Muslims perform. He argues that Muhammed compromised with the
pagans (so the pagans would become Muslims) by adopting these ‘pagan’
practices into Islam in order to encourage the pagans to convert to
Islam. Mirza uses the same erroneous methodology and displays the same
incomplete knowledge about Islam as he has done throughout his
article. Nothing has changed. However it is important to correct Mirza
so he can (God Willing) rectify his mistakes.
Yes, Muslims (knowledgeable ones) know that the pagan Arabs used to
hold the Kabah in high regard and used to observe a pilgrimage to the
Kabah. (19). Again Mirza with holds/or is unaware of the crucial
information. Therefore it is apt for us to educate Mirza with a
history lesson concerning the Kabah and the pilgrimage by revealing
this crucial information.
As we already know (mentioned above) Ishmael had preached to the Arabs
in the locality of the Kabah and “most of the Arabs had complied with
the call of Ishmael and professed the religion of his father Abraham.
They worshipped Allah, professed His Oneness and followed His
religion...” (6). But if we go back before this we realise that both
Ishmael and his father Abraham (peace be on them) had built the Kabah;
“father and son built Al-Kabah and raised its pillars” (20) and
Abraham was the one who introduced the pilgrimage (not the pagans);
“and Abraham in compliance with Allah’s Commandment, called unto
people to perform pilgrimage to it” (20). So we realise that Abraham
introduced the pilgrimage to the Kabah and it was built by Ishmael and
Abraham, this information was not put forward by Mirza, either
ignorantly or deceptively. I tend to believe that Mirza simply did not
know this information rather than him deceptively hiding crucial
information.
With all this said there may still be some confusion concerning the
pagans and the pilgrimage and their devotion to the Kabah. Was Mirza
correct in mentioning this? Yes, Mirza is correct, the pagans before
Muhammed and even at the time of Muhammed, held the Kabah in high
esteem and performed pilgrimages to it. However, this was after many
years of following the pure religion of Abraham, they forgot part of
the teachings of Abraham and began to introduce new practices which
eventually resulted in transforming their religion into idol-worship
(paganism/polytheism) and superstition. These pre-Islamic pagan people
still held onto some of the practices of Abraham despite becoming
pagans, polytheists and holders of superstitions; “people of pre-
Islamic period, whilst believing in superstition, still retained some
of the Abrahamic traditions such as devotion to Al-Kabah,
circumambulation, observance of pilgrimage, the stay at Arafat and
offering sacrifices. All of these were observed despite some
innovations that adulterated their sacredness” (21). Thus the
original significance and purity of the Kabah and the pilgrimage had
been lost, however Muhammed purified the Kabah and re-instated the
pure teachings of Abraham and re-introduced the Commandment of Allah
which was the pilgrimage. Muhammed did not compromise with the pagabs,
no secret deal was struck contrary to Mirza’s fanciful claims. In fact
Muhammed was so opposed to the pagan idolatry he broke their idols
(all 360 of them) once he assumed control of Mecca. “He broke them
down and had them removed and burned up” (7). This is far from Mirza’s
claims of ‘compromise’!
To further highlight the incorrect nature of Mirza’s claims we can see
that the pagans (Quraish) did attempt to negotiate and tempt Muhammed
into compromising with them and their idol-worship but Muhammed
rejected their offer and continued to preach the worship of the Only
God (Allah):
“At-Tabari and others report that Ibn Abbas said that the Quraish
said, ‘Worship our gods for one year, and we will worship your god for
one year” so Allah revealed the Verse number 39:64,
“Say: Is it other than Allah that you order me to worship O you
fools?”[English translation of 39:64] (22)
So Mirza’s claims are shattered due to his insufficient knowledge of
the subject, it just goes to show how wise the old adage is; ‘a little
knowledge is dangerous’ as Mirza produces a misleading, erroneous,
fanciful and unscholarly article which has now been adopted by
Islamophobes as propaganda against Islam. Is this the type of
disgraceful legacy Mirza whished to leave?
Conclusion
Mirza finally moves onto the conclusion section and boldly and
illogically concludes (based on partial knowledge and conjecture) :
“In summary, it has been truthfully and logically proven with all
possible available circumstantial evidences/rational that, Islam was
not a new religion but it is a reformed paganism”.
Mirza came to his conclusion through faulty information, incomplete
historical knowledge, conjecture/speculation and illogical
methodology. Quite frankly all the facts and all the scholars of Islam
(both Muslim and non-Muslim) would disagree with Mirza. In all honesty
I believe Mirza’s claims unravelled and fell apart as soon as the
historicity of the name Allah was shown to be linked to Abraham (and
not to a pagan concept) as Mirza was unaware of this and built all his
argument on his false belief that Allah was originated from the pagan
moon-worship/idol-worship.
Mirza employed an unscholarly ploy of delivering partial knowledge and
combining it with his own unproven speculation. This led to his work
being more of a shoddy conspiracy theory rather than a reliable,
scholarly authoritative article.
Mirza did not prove anything other than his own lack of knowledge
regarding Islam and his illogical methodology. I would ask Mirza to
look up the definition of the word “prove” as Mirza did not bring
forth any evidence, in order to prove something you need to produce
evidence, Mirza failed to produce evidence. So my message to Mirza is
thus; if you make a claim in a scholarly field then you must bring
evidence to back your claim up and not conjecture and your own faulty
interpretations that differ to all the authoritative interpretations
and sources. As he has no leg to stand on I would ask Mirza to correct
himself and remove the misinformation which is his article.
Appendix 1
Links to articles disproving the ‘moon-god claim’:
An overview article by Yahya Snow:
http://thefactsaboutislam.blogspot.com/2009/07/allah-is-not-moon-god.html
The most comprehensive work refuting the ‘moon god’ claim is a real
scholarly effort is:
Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look At The
Archaeological Evidence by M S M Saifullah, Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi
& ‘Abdullah David:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongod.html
Reply To Dr. Robert Morey's Moon-God Myth & Other Deceptive Attacks On
Islam by Imam Shabir Ally:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongods.html
Appendix 2
1. In his book (The Islamic Invasion pg193 ) Morey falsifies a number
of hadith by claiming that Muhammad “reached up with his sword and
cut the moon in half”,there is no such hadith which supports this
claim yet Morey claims a number of hadith support his view! Clearly he
was making things up or very very misinformed.
2. However it gets worse for Morey as he is shown to be ‘fabricating
evidence’ (i.e. making things up, again!) Saifullah et al write:
Equally ridiculous is another of Morey's claims that several smaller
statues were also found "which were identified by their inscriptions
as the "daughters" of the Moon-god." No such statues or inscriptions
accompanying them were found in Hazor. Unfortunately for Morey he has
been caught red-handed fabricating evidence. Put simply, he is making
up stories here. (see http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongod.html)
References
1. Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza
2. A. Yusuf Ali Translation of the Quran, 2:255
3. Ibid 59:24
4. Allah is Not a Moon god by Yahya Snow
5. Ar-Raheequl-Makhtum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, Darussalam,
2002 pg 26-28
6. Ibid pg 45
7. Ibid pg 45-46
8. Ibid 46
9. Ibid 63
10. Islam a Short History by Karen Armstrong, Phoenix Press, 2001, pg
3
11. Ibid pg10
12. What Is Islam by W.Montgomery Watt, Longman Group, Second Edition,
1979, pg 47
13. A. Yusuf Ali translation of the Quran 41:37
14. Ibid 16:12
15. http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544398
16. Reply to Dr. Robert Morey's Moon-God Myth & Other Deceptive
Attacks on Islam by Imam Shabir Ally
17. Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, by Jack
G. Shaheen, Center or Muslim-Christian Understanding: History and
International Affairs, 1997 pg78
18. Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look at the
Archaeological Evidence by M S M Saifullah, Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi
& ‘Abdullah David (link is included in appendix 1)
19. Ar-Raheeq ul-Makhtum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, Darussalam,
2002 pg 50
20. Ibid pg28
21. Ibid pg50
22. Ibid pg139
