The following pages have been added newly or substantially revised during the year 2003 at the following dates:
December 28, 2003
Notes from a "Life of Muhammad" Seminar
that can be used as the basis to conduct similar seminars elsewhere. Finally, the
next set of update files for the Answering Islam CD
are now available.
December 12, 2003
Are there 360 joints in the human body? is
a detailed discussion of one of Osama Abdallah's ‘Islamic miracle’ claims and
should provide some entertainment as it comes close to be the worst Muslim arguments we
have ever seen. In the article, The Quran,
Bible Preservation and the Crucifixion, Sam Shamoun evaluates another Muslim argument
against the authenticity and preservation of the Bible. The Chinese
and the Indonesian/Malay sections were updated with new material.
November 30, 2003
Two additions on the "Muslim Jesus": Introduction and first chapter of Samuel Zwemer's
classic exposition The Moslem Christ,
and an update of the article I am ALL the Prophets
discussing the Muhammadan revisionist version of Jesus. Two articles on the relations
between Muslim and non-Muslims: Turkish
‘Tolerance’ of Jews - A Sobering Historical Assessment was added
to the section Being a non-Muslim under Islamic rule,
and Mark Durie's article "Yes Amrozi, we do remember Khaibar"
to the section on Islam & Terrorism.
Two additions are also found in the Dutch section.
November 24, 2003
The Message is a small booklet introducing
the teaching of Jesus to Muslim readers. Many Christians have the desire to share
their faith with a Muslim friend, neighbor or co-worker but do not know how to
go about it. John Gilchrist's new book Sharing
the Gospel with Muslims is designed to give you practical help in this area. Finally,
new material was added also in the Chinese section.
November 13, 2003
Many Muslim websites present claims of miraculous scientific knowledge in the Qur'an,
and articles about the Oily Red Rose Nebula
are among the favorites. One of the more elaborate pieces on the topic was published
in the "Science" section of the "Near Eastern and Semitic Studies Institute
of America". This article by Shibli Zaman, going even further than most of
the others in its claims, is evaluated in two response articles:
Is the Lifecycle of the Universe Foretold
in the Qur'an? by Dr. Alastair M. Paterson expounds mainly on the relevant scientific
questions, while the article Does
the Qur'an Speak About a "Lifecycle of the Universe"? discusses a number of exegetical
issues of Surah 55:37, i.e. the correct interpretation of this verse. Sam Shamoun contributes:
Tahrif and the Torah: The views of the early Muslim Writers
and Polemicists on the authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures.
November 6, 2003
Demonstrating how Paul’s writings nullify
Osama's desperate attempts of finding Bible Contradictions is Sam Shamoun's
rebuttal to yet more attacks by O. Abdallah on the teachings of Paul, and in the
article Muhammad and the Unbelievers:
Worshipping the Same or a Different God? he rebuts Muslim response to one of
our articles in the section on Contradictions
in the Qur'an.
October 29, 2003
An essay by Richard Bell gives one possible answer to the puzzling question:
Who were the Hanifs? In the article
Ishmaelites and the Worship of God
Sam Shamoun investigates which god was worshipped by pre-islamic Arabs, and in
Adam and Eve: The First of the Polytheists
and Associators? he provides background information for the understanding of
Surah 7:189-192. Some scans from a Muslim translation of the Qur'an into modern Greek
were added to the article Zaman
and the Abuse of Etymology showing that the word proskuneo is used in
the Qur'an in the same way as in the New Testament passage which Zaman had made
a target of ridicule. Three more chapters are now available of Sir William Muir's
history of Islam, The Caliphate: Its Rise,
Decline, and Fall.
October 21, 2003
Samuel Green invites us to think about The Perfect Man.
The second volume of E. M. Wherry's Comprehensive Commentary
on the Qur'an was added to the Classical Library. Silas
revisits the question Was Muhammad a Terrorist? Two more
flawed quotes were added to the file on Bogus
Quotations Concerning Allah Being a Pre-Islamic Moon God. New articles are available in
the Chinese and the Indonesian/Malay
sections.
September 29, 2003
On the website "Near Eastern and Semitic Studies Institute of America" Shibli Zaman publishes
anti-Christian polemics under the guise of scholarly linguistics. Today's new articles may be titled,
‘Pulling the plug on (Loch) NESSIA’: Languages are
NOT stagnant, Mr. Zaman! and Zaman on Etymology
[Revisited] (The Bluster Buster, or perhaps even ‘The Death of a Virtual Linguist’?
Warning: 1.5 MB) both focus on some of Zaman's linguistic blunders. The other two deal mainly with
theological rebuttals to some of his other claims: Isaiah 42:
Prophecy of Jesus or Muhammad? looks in detail at one attempt of finding Muhammad in the Bible,
while the article Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools ... is a rebuttal to Zaman's polemic in response to an article published on Answering Islam
a couple of months ago. Finally, there is new material in the Chinese
section.
September 11, 2003
The article The Same God or Not the Same God?
was added to the section of Qur'an Contradictions.
Investigating the question "Is the God of the Bible the same as the God of the Qur'an?"
is also the reason for the series on The Name of God in the Bible and the Quran:
Part One: Names and Titles,
Part Two: The Name of Allah,
Part Three: Allah the Oak?,
One Last Note.
Silas answers a Muslim response to his article regarding "Muhammad's
Suicide Attempts". Sam Shamoun's Christian Answers to Muslim
Charges was thoroughly revised and extended with new material. Added links to the articles
The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem
and The Modern Destruction
of the Temple Mount as relevant examples to the Index entry on the Islamic understanding
of the permissibility of LYING.
September 4, 2003
Sam Shamoun rebuts the false charge of Paul,
Peter and John contradicting each other on salvation and examines another Muslim
polemicist's claims regarding Paul's Statement
on the Inspiration of Scripture. To our Classical Library
we added Sir William Muir's work The Corân:
Its Composition and Teaching; And the Testimony It Bears to the Holy Scriptures as well as
a second installment of Arthur Jeffery's The Foreign
Vocabulary of the Qur'an. One new article in the Dutch
and a large number of additions to the Chinese section.
August 27, 2003
Sam Shamoun provides a Correction to MENJ'S
Misinterpretation of John 10:36. Several readers inquired with us:
Did Hollywood Star Will Smith Convert to Islam?
Furthermore, a couple of updates are available in the Arabic
section. The next zipfiles to bring your Answering Islam CD
up to date are now available for download.
August 21, 2003
A Christian Perspective of the Fatrah of Muhammad,
discussing the question whether Muhammad was influenced by the demonic world,
and the article Responses to many of
Osama Abdallah's Mantras are new additions, while the rebuttal to
Exposed Lies of Answering Islam
was updated with answers to Abdallah's reaction. New articles are also
available in the Chinese and
Dutch sections.
August 14, 2003
Sam Shamoun answers O. Abdallah's polemic regarding
The Rights of Women in the Bible and Quran,
explains why Jesus is from the Seed of David,
and the biblical background of Jesus rising
on the THIRD day (in response to another one of O. Abdallah's polemics).
Furthermore, we provide an answer to O. Abdallah's screeching accusations in
Exposed Lies of Answering Islam.
August 7, 2003
A thorough list of Variant Readings
of the Quran, a first installment of Arthur Jeffery's classical work
The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an,
and a surprising conclusion that The Quran
Affirms: Paul Passed On The True Gospel of Christ. Three articles with thoughts
and questions on Shibli Zaman's site "Near Eastern and Semitic Studies Institute of
America" (NESSIA): Who and What is NESSIA really?,
Zaman's Inconsistencies, and an
evaluation of his Refutation of "Answering
Islam". Various updates to the Chinese section.
July 27, 2003
Sam Shamoun presents comprehensive evidence that The Quran Confirms the Bible
Has Never Been Corrupted (Part 1,
Part 2). Part 1 also contains
a link to an audio file documenting a recent PalTalk debate between Sam
Shamoun and Nadir Ahmed about this topic; the debate was conducted on the basis of
this material. Further, Sam Shamoun answers to Osama Abdallah's polemic
How can Jesus be GOD Almighty
when he asked for GOD's Forgiveness? Recently there appeared yet
another E-Mail Fraud
associated with Osama Abdallah's site. The first volume of E. M. Wherry's
Comprehensive Commentary on the Qur'an
is now complete. A couple of updates are available in the Arabic
section.
July 18, 2003
Several responses to the polemical writings of the Muslim author Shibli Zaman
(now calling himself the "Near Eastern and Semitic Studies Institute of America"):
Shibli Zaman's Abuse of Etymology,
various questions are raised regarding his political agitation in the article
Stung from the Same Hole Twice, and a
thorough rebuttal is given to his claims in Talking
Ants in the Qur'an? Furthermore, some of Muhammad's advice on hygiene is
presented in the short article Fly Wing Medicine?
Finally, several new articles were added to the Indonesian/Malay
section.
July 10, 2003
Starting today and for the next three weeks, Answering Islam will be the Featured
Ministry at TheologyWeb with the article
Tolerance and the Qur’an
running the front page and the opportunity to discuss this topic. Additionally, TheologyWeb
offers a general discussion
forum for comparative religion issues that is also available for Christian/Muslim interaction.
The article Jeremiah 8:8 and the Corruption of the Torah
was added to the Bible Commentary section, and
Abraham, Mecca and the Qibla has been
updated with some additional information. Substantial additions were made to the
Arabic and Chinese sections.
June 25, 2003
Sam Shamoun raises questions about Abraham,
Mecca and the Qibla and discusses some Islamic traditions regarding
Mary the Mother of Jesus: A Houri in Paradise?
Furthermore, there are one new article and the final chapters of two books
in the Arabic section and several articles
in the Chinese subsite.
June 17, 2003
We added Part II of Sam Shamoun's response
on the issue of the Old Testament Canon
as well as a rebuttal to Meherally's latest attack
on the Apostle Paul. Three more chapters of Sir William Muir's history of Islam,
The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.
Various new articles are also available in the Arabic,
Dutch and Chinese
sections.
June 10, 2003
Sam Shamoun responds to Johnny Bravo on the issue of the Old
Testament Canon. Further rebuttals to Meherally's refusal to believe that
the Qur'an states nowhere that the Torah
was given to Moses. Plenty of new material was added to the Arabic
and Chinese subsites.
June 1, 2003
Several further chapters of Sir William Muir's history of Islam,
The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall,
Arthur Jeffery's The Qur'an as Scripture,
Part II, and Louis Ginzberg classical work, The
Legends of the Jews, are now available in our resource library. A list of most
likely Bogus Quotations Concerning
Allah Being a Pre-Islamic Moon God should prove helpful in that discussion.
New material was also added to the Chinese subsite.
May 22, 2003
Road Map To Peace In Jerusalem is new, while the
article Converging Destinies: Jerusalem, Peace
and the Messiah has been fully revised and expanded with new material. The next
zipfile to bring your Answering Islam CD up to date
is now available for download. Lastly, some Muslims seem
to become really desparate, or what would be your conclusion looking at this
fraudulent email campaign against Answering Islam?
May 13, 2003
Cruelty and Destruction During the Siege of Bagdad.
Arthur Jeffery reviews a number of travel reports
by various non-Muslim visitors to Mecca. New material has been added in the the
Arabic and Indonesian /
Malay sections.
May 5, 2003
The article Of Fire and Oceans answers a Muslim
claim regarding Muhammad's miraculous insights into the nature of submarine volcanoes.
Was Muhammad a Prophet From His Infancy? by Arthur
Jeffery. Steve Waldman, Islam, and the Fog of Ignorance
by Silas. Various articles were added to the Chinese
and Dutch subsites.
April 25, 2003
Sam Shamoun takes a closer look at Islam and
the Sins of the Prophets, discusses a faux pas by Shibli Zaman in
Muslim Polemics and the Dishonest Use of Scripture,
and responds to A. Meherally regarding The Issue
of EHYEH in Exodus 3:14. Last but not least, we present Arthur Jeffery's
The Qur'an as Scripture, Part I,
and a Tribute to Arthur Jeffery,
who was one of the foremost western scholars of Islam.
April 19, 2003
Dear Abdallah... is a series of
letters touching on many topics of Muslim-Christian dialogue. Sam Shamoun answers
to the charge that the Gospels contain fiction and discusses the issue of fables
and myths in the Qur'an in the article A Fancy
for Fiction and Fables. The article I
am all the Prophets has been reworked and a section of
Observations on a Quranic story
about David was added to it. In our important resource section,
Index to Islam, hundreds of formerly
defunct Qur'an reference links have been corrected by switching to a new online
Qur'an database: www.quranbrowser.com.
April 13, 2003
Yet another rebuttal to MENJ's second response
regarding the Qur'an contradiction: Six or eight days
of creation? Then a two-part rebuttal to Muslim claims of Geographical Errors
Within The New Testament: [Part 1],
[Part 2]. Finally, an article about a scientific (geographical)
error found in the Qur'an: The Seven Earths.
April 8, 2003
The person and life of Muhammad is often presented by Muslims as the ideal standard and role model
for all mankind. W.H.T. Gairdner's article Mohammed
without Camouflage: Ecce Homo ... Arabicus is as important today as it was in the time
of its original publication more than 80 years ago. Sam Shamoun examines some details in
The Birth Narratives of Jesus in the Qur'an.
A number of new articles were added to the Chinese subsite.
April 3, 2003
A new Qur'an contradiction is discussed in detail in the article
To Intercede or Not To Intercede? -
That is the Question! A short discussion on the use of the word Torah (Taurat)
is presented in Meherally and the Taurat Revisited.
Since our simple straight-forward explanation given was not good enough for MENJ, here is Part 2 of
Did Jesus, Mary and Joseph go to Egypt or to Nazareth?
Today's final addition deals with the most weird topic we have ever published about:
Islam and The Nursing of Adults.
March 24, 2003
Message to Christians: If War Should Happen, What Should Be Done?
The next zipfile to bring your Answering Islam CD
up to date is now available for download.
March 20, 2003
The article Fully Detailed Or Incomplete?
is the first addition to the section Contradictions
in the Qur'an. In the second one, we give a rebuttal
to a Muslim response to the earlier article Six or eight
days of creation? Sam Shamoun answers to the alleged Bible contradiction
Did Jesus, Mary and Joseph go to Egypt or to Nazareth?
Sir William Muir's history of Islam, The Caliphate:
Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, is now complete up to the death of Harun ar-Rashid,
one of the most famous 'Abbasid Caliphs. The Chinese subsite
was updated with plenty of new material.
March 14, 2003
Combating porkophobia: [Part 2] and
[Part 3] are concluding Sam Shamoun's
"Examination of Shabir Ally's Fascination
with Pigs". Our entry page to the Shabir
Ally Rebuttal Section had to be completely redone, because of Shabir Ally's
constantly shifting links.
Further chapters were added to three books on the Arabic
subsite.
March 7, 2003
Meherally and the Bible - Revisited is
Sam Shamoun's rebuttal to Meherally's most recent attempts to mislead his audience
about the Bible and about the Qur'an.
Connected with it is the observation of an oddity in the Quran and what some translators
do with it: Was the Torah given to Moses?
Combating porkophobia: An Examination of
Shabir Ally's Fascination with Pigs [Part 1].
Substantial additions to the Arabic subsite.
March 1 and 2, 2003
Who is the mysterious figure called The Angel
of the Lord in the Hebrew Scriptures?
Entries on Hunayn ibn Ishaq
and Ibn Abbas were added to the
Index to Islam. New articles
are found also in the Dutch
and Indonesian / Malaysian subsites.
The instructions on updating your Answering Islam CD
have been revised, and the CD is now also available in
sub-Saharan Africa.
February 24, 2003
The investigative article The Qur'an Attacks ...
Christianity? was added to the section on Qur'an
Contradictions, and in the section Who is Jesus?
the discussion Jesus: The Only Begotten Son
of God. Substantial additions were also made to the Arabic subsite.
February 21, 2003
Sam Shamoun responds to Hamza Abdul Malik's polemic in
Was Christ Crucified?
All entries starting with the letter ‘H’ were added to
Hughes' Dictionary of Islam.
February 13, 2003
The in-depth study Tolerance and the Qur'an
was added to the section Themes in the Qur'an, and
a small observation on Allah: Cherisher of Mankind?
to the section of Versions of the Qur'an. The Church
& Islam: What is the role of your local congregation?
Plenty of additions were made to the Chinese subsite.
The first zipfiles to update your Answering Islam CD
are now available for download.
February 6, 2003
A critique of Gary Leupp's "Challenging Ignorance
on Islam: A Ten-Point Primer for Americans" by Silas, a rebuttal to Saifullah's
attempt to disconnect The Arda Wiraz Namag
and Muhammad's Night Journey, and the text of the Zoroastrian
Arda Wiraz Namag itself. Added a link on the
issue of buying converts to Islam to
the Testimonies section, and a link to a review of Luxenberg's important book on
"The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran" to the section of Book
Reviews. The first part of a major work on Systematic Theology was added to the
Arabic subsite.
January 30, 2003
Is Islam a threat to the West? is
a review of a recent panel discussion at Cambridge University under the same title,
and the first entry in a new Reviews & Reports
section. Does the Old Testament Condone Rape?
answers a regular Muslim polemic against the Bible, and
Who killed Goliath? responds to an alleged
Bible contradiction. Furthermore, we added a new rebuttal to Misha'al Al-Kadhi's claim
that Muhammad is the Paraclete like Jesus.
Substantial additions were also made to the Arabic
and the Dutch subsites.
January 25, 2003
The very helpful Discussion with a Marabout
is a condensed version of an actual dialogue presenting several essential doctrines of
the Christian faith in an easy-to-grasp form. Silas responds to Juan Cole's
The Koran and Fighting Unbelievers. The
Malay and Indonesian subsite was updated
with several new articles. Finally, Sam Shamoun presents additional source material in
‘Ishmael Is Not the Father Of Muhammad’ Revisited.
January 17, 2003
New are sections 1.2.3.13 and
6.11 in the rebuttal series to Al-Kadhi's
Muslim polemical book What did Jesus Really Say?
There is a long addition to
our rebuttal of a Muslim's reaction regarding the Qur'an contradiction in the story of Moses and
the Magicians of the Pharaoh. The rebuttal Do
Muslims Truly Obey God's Everlasting Command, Or is Meherally Simply Trying to Pull A Fast One?
is a discussion on circumcision. Some reasons for the undecided:
Why order the Answering Islam CD when I can just download the site?
January 11, 2003
In the section on Muhammad's Inconsistencies
the article Muhammad and the Making of Wills
was added. A first entry on Contradictions in the
‘Gospel of Barnabas’. The article The Gospel
of Barnabas: Why Muslims Shouldn't Use It examines the common assumptions Muslims make
about this book.
January 6, 2003
Part 3C and
Part 5A of Sam Shamoun's rebuttal series to Johnny Bravo
and a new rebuttal to Al-Kadhi (section 1.2.3.16).
Silas presents observations on Muhammad and the Animals.
A short entry on Human Rights and Islam was added
to the Index to Islam. Furthermore, we added a follow-up
on the Qur'an contradiction concerning Moses
and Pharaoh's Magicians in response to a Muslim ‘rebuttal’.
The Chinese subsite was updated with
a number of entries in a new Question & Answers section and some other changes.
January 2, 2003
Sir William Muir's history of Islam, The Caliphate:
Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, is now complete up to the end of the Ummayad Dynasty. The
Dutch subsite was updated with several new articles. The article
Pharaoh's Magicians: Muslims or Rejectors of Faith?
was added to the section on Contradictions in the Qur'an.
Answering Islam Home Page