As we come close to the end of CAIR minor leaguer Omer Subhani’s eleven-part attempt to “expose” me, we find our hero scraping the bottom of the barrel, tossing kitchen sinks, trying anything he can to prove me wrong — except, of course, doing what he hasn’t yet managed to do in nine attempts: actually showing what I say about Islamic supremacism, the jihad ideology, etc. is false.
And I am answering here to show the all-too-common mudslinging method of argumentation that Islamic spokesmen in the West use, and the hollowness of their arguments. Here are Parts I, II, III, IV, V VI, VII, VIII, and IX.
His Part X is called, with an admirable flair for numeration that he hasn’t displayed before, “Exposing Robert Spencer Part X.”
Blissfully unaware, or hoping you haven’t noticed, that the arguments he has made have veered from the absurd (Muhammad was made victorious through “terror,” not “terrorism”!) to the fictional (Spencer doesn’t have books that were photographed on my shelf a year earlier), Subhani begins this one with a bit of chest-beating that is, once again, all too common. The Muslim Debater’s Handbook must contain a passage that says something like, When Victorious, Claim Victory. When Defeated, Claim Victory. When Utterly Shredded and Humiliated, Claim Victory. Just as they will never, ever admit that any Muslim at any time or any place did anything that could ever be deserving of any kind of criticism whatsoever, so they will never, ever admit that they could possibly have been bested. So Subhani keeps on offering up his ad hominems, knowing that the hopelessly blinkered and the ideological die-hards will back up his claim to victory no matter what.
I recently added my refutations of Robert Spencer to the side of my blog for quick and easy reference for those interested in the continual blunders of a demonstrated anti-Muslim moron. When Spencer replied to my article on Juvenile Hadith Interpretations he demonstrated that he clearly could not counter a single point I raised against him. But more importantly for this thread he made more errors of scholarship in his rebuttal, errors that actually had me laughing out loud. Among them were:
1. He stated that when the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, said he was given the most concise words he was referring to the Qur’an. As I showed in my reply to Spencer, the Prophet Muhammad was speaking about his own speech contained in ahadith and not about the Qur’an, which are considered God’s words.
In this Subhani refers to this passage from his Part VIII, which I passed over when I replied, since it is so utterly insignificant. But since he has brought it up again, let us let Subhani grasp at his straws. Here is the bit from his Part VIII:
…Spencer makes two mistakes there as well. The first isn’t on the topic we are discussing, but I will mention it anyway. When the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, said he was give the most concise words he was speaking about his own speech – the hadiths that were collected. He was not speaking about the Qur’an, as Spencer mistakenly says in his book. The evidence is in many books, but the most famous is the book entitled Al-Shifa by Qadi Iyaq al-Yahsubi, the great Maliki faqhi and muhaddith. Iyad says about the Prophet “He learned the dialects of the Arabs, and would speak to each of their communities in their own dialect and converse with them in their own idiom. He answered their arguments in their own style of rhetoric so that, more than once, a large number of his Companions had to ask him to explain what he had said. Whoever studies his hadiths and biography will know and verify that” (Ash-Shifa of Qadi Iyad translated by Aisha Bewley, 39). One can read this section of the book under the title of “His eloquence and sound Arabic” in Chapter 2, Section 5 of Bewley’s translation.
This all sounds impressive, but there are just a few problems.
1. Muhammad said, “I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings,” or, as Subhani explains it above, “the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, said he was given the most concise words.” According to the traditional Islamic understanding, Muhammad was not given the Hadith, he was given the Qur’an. He was not sent with the Hadith, he was sent with the Qur’an. Subhani says the Qur’an is not Muhammad’s words but God’s words, but one is not “given” one’s own words. One might be “given” God’s words. Thus even as Subhani explains the statement itself, he shows that my interpretation is more likely than his.
2. When Subhani quotes Qadi Iyaq al-Yahsubi to support his claim, he gives us no indication that Qadi Iyaq al-Yahsubi is actually referring to this statement of Muhammad.
3. What possible difference does this make to the larger question of whether Islam teaches violence against and the subjugation of unbelievers? None. It’s just a diversion, a red herring.
2. Spencer said the Muslims attacked the “workers of Khaybar” at the Battle of Khaybar. That’s either a blatant lie by Spencer or another mistake he made. His own citation proves him otherwise. For him to come to such a conclusion is a total disregard for the very source he uses where it said clearly that the workers turn and fled away.
One of the best ways to tell when guys like this are lying is when they start saying that their opponent is lying. Here again is the passage from Ibn Ishaq, a pious Muslim who in the 8th century wrote the first biography of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq is quoting one of the Muslims who was at Khaybar with Muhammad:
“When the apostle raided a people he waited until the morning. If he heard a call to prayer he held back; if he did not hear it he attacked. We came to Khaybar by night, and the apostle passed the night there; and when morning came he did not hear the call to prayer, so he rode and we rode with him”¦.We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets. When they saw the apostle and the army they cried, “˜Muhammad with his force,” and turned tail and fled. The apostle said, “˜Allah Akbar! Khaybar is destroyed. When we arrive in a people’s square it is a bad morning for those who have been warned.–
Let’s break that down:
Subhani: “Spencer said the Muslims attacked the ‘workers of Khaybar’ at the Battle of Khaybar. That’s either a blatant lie by Spencer or another mistake he made.”
Jihad warrior who was actually at Khaybar: “We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets.”
Who’s lying, Subhani?
Let’s be even clearer: they didn’t just “meet” the workers of Khaybar. They attacked Khaybar. The Muslim advance was inexorable. “The apostle,” according to Ibn Ishaq, “seized the property piece by piece and conquered the forts one by one as he came to them.” Ibn Sa”˜d reports that the battle was fierce: the “polytheists”¦killed a large number of [Muhammad’s] Companions and he also put to death a very large number of them”¦.He killed ninety-three men of the Jews”¦” Muhammad and his men offered the fajr prayer, the Islamic dawn prayer, before it was light, and then entered Khaybar itself. The Muslims immediately set out to locate the inhabitants” wealth. Kinana bin al-Rabi, a Jewish leader of Khaybar who was supposed to have been entrusted with the treasure of the Banu Nadir, was brought before Muhammad. Kinana denied knowing where this treasure was, but Muhammad pressed him: “Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?” Kinana said yes.
Some of the treasure was found. To find the rest, Muhammad gave orders concerning Kinana: “Torture him until you extract what he has.” One of the Muslims built a fire on Kinana’s chest, but Kinana would not give up his secret. When he was at the point of death, Muhammad bin Maslama, killer of the poet Ka”b bin Al-Ashraf, beheaded him.
Muhammad agreed to let the people of Khaybar go into exile, allowing them, as he had the Banu Nadir, to keep as much of their property as they could carry. However, he commanded them to leave behind all their gold and silver. He had intended to expel all of them, but some, who were farmers, begged him to allow them to let them stay if they gave him half their yield annually. Muhammad agreed: “I will allow you to continue here, so long as we would desire.” He warned them: “If we wish to expel you we will expel you.” They no longer had any rights that did not depend upon the good will and sufferance of Muhammad and the Muslims. And indeed, when the Muslims discovered some treasure that some of the Khaybar Jews had hidden, he ordered the women of the tribe enslaved and seized the perpetrators” land. A hadith notes that “the Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives.”
Then come more minutiae. Subhani takes issue with this statement from one of my Qur’an blogs on Sura 18: “Some consider Khidr to be immortal (Ibn Taymiyya thinks so).”
Ibn Taymiyya never considered Khidr to be immortal – free from death. That would be akin to saying Khidr and God would live for eternity – that’s complete blasphemy. I found a more thorough rebuttal of Spencer’s erroneous comment at a site called seekingilm.com. You can see the relevant text by ibn Taymiyya stating clearly that he believed Khidr was alive, but not immortal as Spencer stated.
Subhani’s problem here comes from his equating being immortal — free from death — with being eternal — always existing. One might never die but have a beginning, and so would not be equal with God. Ibn Taymiyya, as Subhani admits, says that Khidr was still alive. Since the Qur’an depicts Khidr as talking with Moses, who lived in the thirteenth century BC, and Ibn Taymiyya died in 1328, for Khidr to have been alive in Ibn Taymiyya’s day would have made him, oh, about 2600 years old. That would already place Khidr in the realm of supernatural beings.
Subhani’s source for disputing this quotes an Islamic authority saying that Khidr will remain alive “until the Day of Judgement because of having drunk of the water of life.” The writer then goes on to assert that this means that Khidr “shall taste death at the time of the day of judgement.”
But this, of course, makes no sense at all, since at the Day of Judgment, in the Islamic view, all the dead will rise to be judged, and will then be in Paradise or in hell. So now we are supposed to believe that while everyone else who has ever lived will be rising from his or her grave, Khidr alone will be dying. Got it! (One could conceivably argue this on the basis of Qur’an 3:185, “Every soul shall have a taste of death.” But at very least, especially if he has tasted the “water of life,” the case of Khidr is ambiguous.)
Then we move on to honor killing, where I have aroused Subhani’s ire by suggesting that the culture of honor killing might have been inspired in part by the curious incident in Sura 18 in which Khidr kills a young man because he knows he will become evil and grieve his parents:
Moving on to the first point raised about Spencer’s Qur’an blog, namely the remarks about killing children. I don’t even know what to say about where Spencer’s mind goes or how he thinks because I find him to be more and more idiotic everyday and with every article he writes and with every comment he makes.
The first thing I’ll point out is that the hadith Spencer mentions is taken from the USC hadith compendium. It’s found in Sahih Muslim and there are FOUR variations of the hadith of which Spencer chose only this version:
Book 019, Number 4457:
This tradition has been narrated by the game authority (Yazid b. Hurmus) through a different chain of transmitters with the following difference in the elucidation of one of the points raised by Najda in his letter to Ibn Abas: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside.
The other three versions mention that Yazid bin Hurmus related that “Najda b. ‘Amir al-Haruri wrote to Ibn Abbas asking him about the slave and the woman as to whether they would get a share from the booty (it they participated in Jihad) ; about the killing of (enemy) children (in war) ; about the orphan as to when his orphanhood comes to an end; about kinsmen (of the Holy Prophet) as to who they are.” The three other versions of this hadith all mention explicitly that Ibn Abbas was asked about the killing enemy children, not Muslim children. I think that needs to be clarified since Spencer, for whatever reasons, used the only version of the four that leaves out the fact that this question was about enemy children.
I chose the hadith that I referred to because in it, Muhammad says that one should not kill children “unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer).” The part about growing up to be a believer or an unbeliever is not in the other versions, and it is what I wanted to highlight: the idea that one could kill a child based on this criterion is in Islamic tradition as per this hadith, and referring to other ahadith doesn’t change that fact.
There are two points that need to be clarified in regards to what Spencer said. The first I just highlighted above, that the issue was about the children of the enemies of the Muslims, specifically the polytheist enemies, as mentioned in one of the versions of the hadith. The second point is what did Ibn Abbas mean when he said “thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed.” I do not have any hadith exegesis to support my interpretation
Ah.
…but I believe what he was saying was that unless you know the unseen (ghaib) like Khadir/Khidr knew the unseen (because God had given him such knowledge, while other mortals did not have that knowledge including Moses who was his companion on that journey) then you cannot kill the enemy child even if you suspected that the child was going to become an unbeliever when they grew up. This correlates nicely with basic principles of Islamic fiqh, namely that a judge can only judge what he or she sees as plain evidence and cannot make a judgment on subjective evidence.
And so on, to the peroration:
Can Spencer provide one example of a Muslim killing their relative based on such an absurd interpretation of this hadith, that a Muslim can kill a child based on one’s subjective notion that such a child may become an unbeliever? I would like just one example because I’ve never heard of such a thing in relation to honor killings. They are called honor killings for a reason because someone’s or some group’s honor had been tarnished.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace and prayers be upon him, told his Companions not to kill their daughters. There are no reports that state any Companion killed their child because they knew that they would grow up to become an unbeliever and that they had the knowledge to make such a judgment, such as the knowledge that Khidr had.
Spencer out does himself again by making ridiculous statements about things he apparently has very little knowledge of. It just goes to show you what happens when someone like Spencer roams into territory that he is obviously unfamiliar with. It demonstrates clearly that his scholarship is “utter twaddle.”
Subhani is sidestepping the real issue. Aqsa Parvez was strangled in Canada by her father for refusing to wear hijab. Amina and Sarah Said were shot dead in Texas by their father for dating non-Muslims. Might either of these fathers have had the idea that their deaths were better than their growing up to be unbelievers?
But of course, it is easier to abuse me than to tackle that issue.