Coulter Wars Continued: A Muslim-Christian Dialogue

Chron Watch ^ | 02 February 2005 | Steve Kellmeyer

[Lando Lincoln]

          Dear Sir: I read your article about Islam. It contains a lot of things that are not true? I have a question for you: is it ingorance or malice that prompted you to write these things? If ignorance, I believe you should write another article, apologizing for making these canards. If malice, I ask God Almighty to strike you with a malignant cancer within 3-6 months. If you don’t apologize within five days, I will pray daily and nightly for this punishment to befall you.--Khalid Amayreh, Jerusalem

This lovely e-mail was the response I received to an article entitled Coulter Wars, an article that points out some of the problems in Muslim theology. Now, to be fair, I have also written an article that praised aspects of Muslim theology. After all, their emphasis on prayer, fasting and almsgiving is quite laudable, and their respect for the Blessed Virgin Mary is immense. Still, Muslim theological law, called sharia, is simply an abomination, and it was both the history of Islam and the implementation of sharia that merited Khalid’s attempt at Islamic voodoo.

Now some of Khalid’s odd habits of conversation may be due to the simple fact that he claims to be a well-respected Muslim journalist. The combination of “well-respected journalist” and “Muslim” should certainly have been a warning for what was to come.

When I asked precisely what “canards” he had found, he gave the following list:

Khalid’s First Objection: “Children to be whipped to death for breaking Ramadan fast. This false, brazenly false. Children, as well as ill people, elderly people, traveling people, nursing women, and women having their menstrual periods, don’t have to fast. (surat Bakara). Also people working really difficult jobs don’t have to fast if this undermines their health. Besides, fasting is a private affair between man and God...”

My Response: Unfortunately for Khalid, some imams seem to disagree with him, as this story documented:

“A 14 year old boy died on Thursday, November 11th [2004], after having received 85 lashes; according to the ruling of the Mullah judge of the public circuit court in the town of Sanandadj he was guilty of breaking his fast during the month of Ramadan.”

Khalid’s Second Objection: Women to be beaten to death by their husband for the smallest infraction. This is brazenly false. In Islam, the death penalty is prescribed only in three cases, murder, adultery (for men or women) and apostasy.

My Response: Not according to this story.

Khalid’s Third Objection: Marriage by the age of six is alright: This is not true...No body in our part of the world is allowed to marry below the age of 17 for women and 18 for men. I challenge you to cite a single marriage of (six years or even ten) sanctioned by a Sharia court...all over the Muslim world. You wouldn’t find such a thing.

My Response: See the link above and this. In Gaza fully one-third of girls were married below the statutory “legal” minimum age of 17. Iran just recently RAISED the age of consent to 13 in 2002. It was 9 (and probably still is in outlying provinces) according to this story and this one.

Khalid’s Fourth Objection: The examples you refer to are not examples of true sharia.

My Response: Unfortunately, sharia is only loosely based on the Quran or the Hadiths (the sayings of Mohammed). It is primarily drawn from the opinions of Islamic scholars. Although Khalid knew that, he insisted that I provide Quranic verses to back up what I said. I pointed out that even his Islamic scholars couldn’t do that, since sharia is not strictly based on just the Quran. He didn’t respond. As one might imagine, what constitutes sharia varies wildly depending on exactly where you are and what court you stand in front of. The differences between imams – Shia, Sunni, Wahabbi, etc. – is essentially as different as the differences between Anglicans, Baptists, Unitarians and the like, with no one to say what is true Islam anymore than there is someone to say what is true Protestantism or evangelicalism. What you get from Islam depends on which imam you happen to stand in front of today. I asked him how he, as a journalist with no formal theological training in Islam, could prov e he had any authority to tell me what was and was not Islam. Again, he didn’t respond.

Khalid’s Fifth Objection: Sex with a child of nine is fine: Where are you reading these things? Are you alluding to the Prophet’s marriage with Aisha? There are different narratives about how old she was when she married. Some say nine, some say 10, but many say 15 years old. So, I would say she was probably 15 or sixteen when she married the Prophet, not nine. In Arabia a fifteen years old...or even 13 is quite a woman...Same thing in Africa!

My Response: Khalid, your own sources agree with me and you just said so.

Khalid’s Sixth Objection: Adoption is illegal, it is not the adoption itself that is illegal, it is naming the adopted after the adopter’s name...In other words, the adopted child ought to retain his identity, if it does, then everything is Ok.

My Response: Khalid, you are not telling the truth. Go here and here.

Khalid’s Seventh Objection: Prostitution to service soldiers is illegal. How could you say that, Islam is very very strict about prohibiting these things...unrepentant prostitutes are given the death penalty. Prostitution is strictly, absolutely and completely prohibited. It is one of the most disgraceful vice in Islam.

My Response: Not according to this woman. 

When shown the links, he responded, “You are wrong about temporary marriages, this exists in Shia Islam, not in Sunni Islam. In Sunni Islam, marriage is a permanent bond between a man and a woman…” So temporary marriages – prostitution – exists and he admits it. He just doesn’t happen to be a Shiite so he doesn’t like it.

Khalid’s Eighth Objection: polygamy is allowed provided there is justice in treating the wives.

My Response: So there is no “canard” here.

Khalid’s Ninth Objection: A man can invoke divorce by simply repeating the word “divorce” three times. This is no longer valid, it has to be done before a Sharia court. Because the divorce invoked by an angry man, a drunkard, and one who is not in real control of his mental ability is invalid. Also, the divorce doesn’t occur in case of teasing, joking, jest, etc.

My Response: But a man CAN divorce his wife by simply repeating the word “divorce” three times. He does it in front of a sharia court, he’s divorced - you just agreed that what I said was correct, Khalid. And just because SOME sharia courts require the man to appear doesn’t mean ALL of them do, does it?

Khalid’s Tenth Objection: A woman’s testimony in court is not equal to a man’s ...This would depend on the nature of the case. In financial matters, yes, you are right. But in other situations, like maternal matters, sexual matters, her testimony equals that of a man...Some times, her testimony is given priority over a man’s testimony.

My Response: Her testimony is not equal to a man’s in sexual matters. To prove rape, her word is not good enough. Four Muslim men of “impeccable” character have to have witnessed the penetration (that’s what makes them impeccable – they can watch a girl get raped and do nothing). So, you aren’t telling the whole truth and what parts you do tell just show that I told the truth. Nothing to recant here - you said so yourself.

Khalid’s Eleventh Objection: She can be stoned to death for being raped? How could you say that? This is a colossal canard? the opposite is true...She should be protected and defended. She is the victim, and her rapist should be punished severely.

My Response: Sorry, but here’s the documentation and here is more.

Khalid’s Twelfth Objection: She can be raped in order to punish her relative for their infractions. Again this is another canard...How could say these things? This is nonsense.

My Response: Documentation here and here. Back in October, when this hit the front pages, it was pointed out that the only reason the men were prosecuted for rape was due to Western interference in the trial. It is, apparently, quite common for Pakistani villages to order retaliatory rapes of women whose relatives commit infractions within the village. Again, tell me that this is not permitted? How can you do this? Islam has no central authority who determines what is true Islam and what is not - just a bunch of competing imams.

Khalid’s Thirteenth Objection: Islam discourages slavery..and urges Muslims to liquidate it...It was rampant in the 6th-century Arabia...and Islam followed a step-by-step approach to eradicate it...There are no slaves today in the Muslim world as far as I know. (slavery is rife in the Bible).

My Response: Khalid, slave armies were still being used by Muslims in 1863. Check here and here.

Khalid’s Fourteenth Objection: Female circumcision is an old African custom..., it has nothing to do with Islam...

My Response: The World Health Organization estimates that 130 million women and girls, most of them in 28 African countries, have been subjected to genital mutilation. Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan account for 75 percent of the cases. Circumcision is practiced on young girls to a lesser extent in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and India, which have sizable Muslim populations. The practice is believed to have started 4,000 years ago before the advent of organized religion. It is performed primarily, but not solely, by Muslims because of what many say is a misconception that it is required by Islam.

It may not have anything to do with Islam, but the fact is, most of the people doing it today are Islamic and THEY think it DOES have something to do with Islam.

Khalid’s Fifteenth Objection: The first dozen caliphs were assassinated, not true.

My Response: This is the only point upon which you have me. The first four caliphs were assassinated. Abu Bakr died of poisoning, Umar was assassinated by a dagger-wielding assailant, Uthman was assassinated by a mob, Ali was assassinated in a mosque in Kufa. Mu’awiya died a natural death only because he barely survived a battle intended to kill him. His son, Yazid, avoided assassination primarily because he got to the knife first. He assassinated his rival, Hasain, and all his followers, including his infant son.

Khalid’s Fifteenth Objection: We Muslims are rational thinkers...we don’t follow blindly our imams..We have the Quran..the eternal word of God, the Last Testament to mankind...Read it ...maybe you will see the light..like the millions of American and European Christians who have reverted to Islam...

My Response: Khalid, you know perfectly well that there are at least a dozen different versions of Islam, all of which say they follow “the eternal word of God.. the Quran”. The fact is, none of you can agree on what it means. There is no caliph, my friend, and one interpretation is just as good as another. If Muslim theology encouraged rational thinking, Muslims would have invented science. You didn’t, even though you had at least a five hundred year head start on the West. You still can’t do science - you have to buy it from the Christians. In Christianity, science developed under the rationality of Catholic Faith. Christianity also has a supreme head: the Pope. True, not everyone listens to him, but he is there and has always been there. The office of Caliph doesn’t even exist anymore and will never be reconstituted. You don’t have a supreme voice, nor even the pretense of one.

Khalid: Does your negative attitude towards Islam mean that we have to increase the number of our nuclear weapons to defend ourselves?

My Response: Khalid, you can barely build one nuclear weapon, much less dozens. You’re Islamic, remember? You can’t do science very well. You can’t even figure out how to buy them from the former USSR on the black market. You aren’t very good at threatening people, are you?

Khalid: Is this how evanglical Christians think? war, holocaust, killing...crusades...killing people because you love them!!!

My Response: No, that’s how Islam thinks. Christians think we have to defend ourselves, i.e., keep anyone from imposing sharia on us or on anyone else. Sharia is evil, my friend, pure evil. And as for the Crusades, give it a rest. Islam conquered one-half of Christianity between 632 and 750. We didn’t call crusade. Islam cut off pilgrimage access to the Holy Lands. We started the stations of the Cross devotion in response. Only when Islam destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was Crusade called, and that was only after 400 years of Islamic military provocation. Even then, we didn’t attempt to wipe out Mecca or Medina. We stopped when we got Jerusalem and the holy sites back.

Khalid: Muslims protected the Churches, they never destroyed any church as you claim. You are relying on questionable sources. That is why no respectable newspapepr would publish your article.

My Response: The fact that Muslims destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is common knowledge available in any encyclopedia. See this article, for instance:

In 1009, however, the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakin ordered the destruction of all churches in Jerusalem, including the Holy Sepulchre. Christians were forbidden to visit the Church’s ruins. It took almost forty years for the Byzantine Emperor to negotiate a peace treaty with al-Hakin’s successor that granted him permission to rebuild the Holy Sepulchre

Khalid: I have decided to translate your article into Arabic and will post it tomorrow in all the mosques in our area. I will also try to get it published in our Arabic language newspapers. Our peole have the right to know what Christians are plotting against them. I hope you don’t mind.

My Response: Whatever makes you happy, Khalid.

So, this how a self-described prominent Muslim journalist argues. First, he prays that you will get cancer and die. Then he brings forward objections that he knows are false. When you show him that you know he is a liar, he threatens to nuke your country and bring a fatwah, a death sentence, against you personally by posting your refutations in every mosque and newspaper he can reach.

And this is a moderate Muslim. Just think what the immoderate Muslims would do…

About the Writer: Steve Kellmeyer is a nationally recognized author and lecturer who integrates today's headlines with the Catholic Faith. His work is available through http://www.bridegroompress.com. He can be contacted at skellmeyer@bridegroompress.com.

[USF]

I have visted Saudi Arabia and in my opinion they are still practicing slavery.

I absolutely agree and have written about this before here.

Saudi Arabia... proud Islamic religious freakdom and custodian of Islams holiest sites, where they import slaves "maids" from places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines and take away their passports, their rights and their dignity.... where their "employers" are able to beat them, molest them, and rape them with impunity, and where the "mistress" of the house is unable/unwilling to act as she is a meare "woman", and her only course of action after seeing her husband screw the "maid" is to take out her frustrations on the innocent slave and give her beatings to go with her husbands rape.

Saudi, a proud nation where if your maid tries to run away because of your treatment, you can simply accuse her of "theft" and she conveniently ends up at "chop chop square" after Friday prayers.

Though they claim the officially abolished it in 1962, it still goes on, and some of their imams are protesting the ban and crying out that "slavery is part of islam."

The (dissident) Saudi Information Agency reports that a prominent Saudi religious authority recently called for slavery to be re-legalized in the kingdom. Ali Al-Ahmed reports on the views of Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, the author of a religious textbook (At-Tawhid, "Monotheism") widely used to teach Saudi high school students as well as their counterparts abroad studying in Saudi schools (including those in the West).

"Slavery is a part of Islam," he announced in a recent lecture. "Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam." He argued against the idea that slavery had ever been abolished, insulting those who espouse this view as "ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel."

Al-Fawzan is no maverick. He is:

A member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia's highest religious body; A member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research; Imam of the Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh; and Professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning.

You can read the article in full here, including the touching part at the end where this fine representative of Islam threatened a critic of his with beheading.

Of course, historically, slavery is part of Islam, going all the way back to the pedophile Muhammed himself who set a fine example for his followers to emulate by capturing civilians in the wars he waged and keeping them as slaves.

[ml/nj]

ping

[Antoninus]

Arguing with a muslim is like arguing with a communist. They'll contradict themselves to your face and then act like you're stupid for not understanding what they said. Observe:

Khalid says: "In Islam, the death penalty is prescribed only in three cases, murder, adultery (for men or women) and apostasy."

Then later on, Khalid says: "How could you say that, Islam is very very strict about prohibiting these things...unrepentant prostitutes are given the death penalty."

So much for "only three cases."

And I don't even want to get into the "death penalty for apostasy" thing. That in and of itself marks Islam as a satanic cult if you ask me.

[jscd3]

The RCC was not a big fan of science that diverted from Aristotles model, much as todays secularists are hostile to anything that infers design in nature, thought they repeatedly use terms like 'engineered', 'designed', etc to describe what complexity they do find has evolved in nature.

Also, note that it was the RCC that finally did accept Galileo and in fact promoted his work after finally accepting that Aristotle was wrong

This is not very accurate history. The Catholic Church (it's universities anyway) invented the scientific method. The church had no real beef at all with science that strayed from Aristotle. After all, it was Galileo that insisted that orbits were round (since that was a perfect form, as defined by Aristotle). Galileo attacked Kepler unmercifully for postulating that orbits were elipses, a proposition that found immediate audiance in Catholic universities. Galileo had a long running fued with Jesuit astronomers who determined that comets traveled on eliptical orbits - Galileo rejected the existance of comets as physical objects (he argued that they were some sort of trick of light) rather than accept orbits that were not round.

The real argument between Galileo and the Church was rooted in a largely personel dispute between Galileo and the Pope which happened to occur at the time of the Reformation. It had little to do with science.

[ariamne]

This is so disgusting. It just amazes me that practices such as legal rape and slavery by barbaric cultures are tolerated by the civilized world.
It is truly sad.

[Antoninus]

Khalid: I have decided to translate your article into Arabic and will post it tomorrow in all the mosques in our area. I will also try to get it published in our Arabic language newspapers. Our peole have the right to know what Christians are plotting against them. I hope you don’t mind.

My Response: Whatever makes you happy, Khalid. So, this how a self-described prominent Muslim journalist argues. First, he prays that you will get cancer and die. Then he brings forward objections that he knows are false. When you show him that you know he is a liar, he threatens to nuke your country and bring a fatwah, a death sentence, against you personally by posting your refutations in every mosque and newspaper he can reach. And this is a moderate Muslim. Just think what the immoderate Muslims would do…

Brave guy. There need to be about 100,000 other journalists out there challenging Islam like this fellow. Too bad most of our journalists today are abject cowards.

[rdcorso]

I've read many versus of the Koran and I encourage everybody I know to do the same.The people who call it a religion of peace are either lying or they never read it.It's impossible to come to that conclusion when most of the book contains threats of death and violence.It singles out Christians and Jews for death and refers to them as less than human on many occasions.I'm willing to take their threats of violence seriously and I hope many others do the same.If Islam doesn't go through some type of transformation that makes it less violent and hateful toward non Muslims it will remain at war forever or until it's destroyed.

[Woodworker]

Matthew 8:14 (NIV): When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's motherinlaw lying in bed with a fever.

1 Corinthians 9:5 (NIV):Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas

Peter was married.

Tertullian and Origen write that he suffered crucifixion. Origen says: "Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer". Probably at Nero's Gardens on the Vatican, according to Tacitus, the site of the Neronian persecution.

There is a non-canonical (i.e., untrustworthy, like the NYT) "Acts of Peter" that describes an incident where Roman women withdrew from their husbands after hearing Peter preach. Likely Servant of the 9, having trouble in bright lights, misinterpreted that apocryphal book.

[Antoninus]

Keep in mind that the Roman Church was not a big fan of science early on, either. Remember Galileo?

What about him? He and the Church had more of a personality conflict than a scientific one. As for the Roman Catholic Church not being a big fan of science, give it a rest...

[Former Dodger]

**In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Coulter Wars Continued: A Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Chemist_Geek wrote:

"What's the matter, can't handle the truth?
Although, I admit, it's Deuteronomy 13:6-10, not Leviticus.

"If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife that is in thy bosom, or thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul, would persuade thee secretly, saying: Let us go, and serve strange gods, which thou knowest not, nor thy fathers,

"Of all the nations round about, that are near or afar off, from one end of the earth to the other,

"Consent not to him, hear him not, neither let thy eye spare him to pity and conceal him,

"But thou shalt presently put him to death. Let thy hand be first upon him, and afterwards the hands of all the people.

"With stones shall he be stoned to death: because he would have withdrawn thee from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage:"

---

Once again you bring out the Ancient Texts with rules and laws that no Christian or Jew has adhered to in thousands of years.

And you do it strictly to give credence and moral equivalency to the Islamic laws that are still being enforced TODAY, right HERE in the good old 21st Century!

IT DOES NOT WORK.

Yes, it's in the Bible, YES it was once done, BUT NO, it is NOT DONE TODAY, except in Islamist nations governed by Sharia Law.

Why do you insist on making these ridiculous comparisons? You have been taken to task for it MANY time before, and yet you continue, all it does is enrage because of its disingenuous nature.

Extremely troll-like behavior.

[JFK_Lib]

Yes, you are right; I was giving the simplified version as I understood it.

But there was a certain defense of Aristotle as though he were some kind of pagan prophet among some of the early scholastics, at least as I recall from this end of so many years ago reading it.

Thansk for the correction.

[Dark Skies]

Extremely troll-like behavior.

You better be careful FD, he might hunt you down like a chicken and...

Well, you know what they do when they declare you "halal."

[JFK_Lib]

He states it because if one cared to misrepresent Christianity or Judaism with long ignored texts like some do Islam one could have similar results.

And dont forget that does not change the moral quality of the persons who did do those things way back then.

If Samuel were alive today would he still slaughter Agag and the royal family, including women and children, of the Amalekites or not?

Does that make Samuel evil?

Gods truth does not change and to attack someone for what the prophets themselves did is to set oneself against God, no?

[Stashiu]

Rest, what kind of rest? I said it once.

Get a grip people!

[jscd3]

But there was a certain defense of Aristotle

You are thinking of the defense of Arisotle's approach to reason and logic raised by Thomas Aquinas, who believed that, despite the fact that he was a pagan, much of what Aristotle taught was consistent with Natural Law and therefore of value to Christians in understanding the world and human nature

[ariamne]

Excellent attempt, FD. I said essentially the same thing in post # 53 to CG. He did not deign to respond.

I suspect an attempt to draw us out into a flame war. Let's not fall into a baited trap.

[appalachian_dweller]

Hi FD,
Thanks for the ping. Folks like Chemist_Geek and mrsmith are a complete waste of time. They see the truth but won't acknowledge it or accept it.

When confronted with FACTS, they scream bigotry and run away. They are a waste of time and bandwidth.

[A. Pole]

Heck, in Leviticus, it's commanded that persons who leave the Jewish or (by extension) Christian faith be stoned.

What "extension"?! Have you read the New Testament? Where is the stonning recommended there?

[A. Pole]

The Arabic empire, like the Roman empire, adopted science and mathematics far beyond their own home-grown intellectual abilities from the classical Greeks.

To be precise the Muslims took it from the conquered Byzantine Christians (Greeks, Arabs and others). As Christian population declined first economicaly and then numerically, the Muslim civilization did too.

[Former Dodger]

Your basic mistake in logic stems from comparing the morals and ethics of thousands of years ago with the morals and ethics of the 21st Century.

Samuel's "slaughter" might be more figurative than literal today, such as a hostile takeover, or exile. There have been cases of entire families killed - the Romanovs (Tsar) in Russia, by the Soviets - but we do not slaughter defeated enemies anymore.

Slaughtering entire Royal/Ruling families was accepted then because it was "normal procedure" then, it reduced the need to keep watching one's back, at least from that direction.

The point of the matter is that Judaism grew out of the bloodthirsty stage;

Christianity did for a while , but has had relapses at times, generally against fellow Christians (Protestant v. Catholic, Orthodox v. Roman, etc).

Islam has always had the Draconian punishments in the Islamic lands ruled by Sharia law: floggings, stonings, beheadings and amputations, and the like. That is the difference.

"Gods truth does not change and to attack someone for what the prophets themselves did is to set oneself against God, no?

No, it is not, because there is no moral equivalency between the two.

The Biblical occurrences were thousands of years ago, and are NO more. The Islamist occurrences of punishment under Sharia law are TODAY, and that, the cruel and unusual punishments as described above, is NOT acceptable in civilized society.