Hello everybody, and welcomes is the Apostate profit? How is everyone doing?
I am here today with Jay Dyer, a very very special guest. H
Jay, do you like my intro music? I do. I'm having to
turn you off because I had you already going in the background, so yeah,
I'm getting a double dose of you and the music. And so it
was like a remix. But yeah, nice, amazing, that's amazing.
That must sound even better. Uh. This is basically like the Islamic humming
that they always play, pathetically remixed and made much better. It would be
much better if it always sounded like this, but they just don't get it.
Huh. So Jay hweida, I'm good. Yeah. You know,
we had a good chat the other day on my channel, and you brought
up a lot of good issues and kind of probably stuff that was old hat
to you. But it's good to go to that stuff because you know,
maybe a lot of my audience might not know a lot of that kind of
old hat classic stuff that you know. So yeah, you brought a lot
of interesting insights. One thing I'd like to say from the outset was a
lot of people got mad or fussed. A lot of Muslims and even a
few Christians that you and I would have these conversations. And it's odd to
me because, first thing, you know, whether you're a Muslim or Atheist
or Christian or whatever, we should all be aware of fallacies and what they
are. And the genetic fallacy is one of the more well known fallacies.
Because it doesn't matter what source an argument comes from, the argument either stands
or falls on its own. So it doesn't matter who says the argument.
If Judas says an argument has nothing to do with his betrayal, whether that
argument is true or false, right likewise, and you would think people would
know this likewise. The only case that I can think of in which we
would consider own bodies character and an argument is if the argument was about that
person's character, or if they committed a crime or something like that. In
that case, it would be appropriate to investigate their character. But the basis
of their arguments, the validity the arguments themselves, none of them have any
None of that has anything to do with the person's character and their beliefs.
And it's odd to me that people don't understand that. But as I'm beginning
to realize with I think This is like my fifth or sixth Islamic debate.
Fallacies seem to be something that a lot of Muslims are not aware of.
Yeah, precisely, I agree with everything that's anything pretty much. And you
will see this every single time when you have a debate with Muslims, most
Muslims, most apologists, you will encounter the same complaints all the time.
If you are if you genuinely want you to discuss this topic, then you
shouldn't talk to this person, shouldn't talk to that person, should talk to
this other guy. Only talk to us, Only discuss with us. People
who criticize Islam are unreliable, and if you talk to them, that means
that you are automatically marked as somebody who has no genuine interest in debating,
and you must be shunned at all costs. And that's understandable considering that criticizing
Islam is not allowed, and especially me as an as an ex Muslim,
I'm not even supposed to exist in Danna Kikichu's world. Like he told me
when we when we were talking, he basically told me that he thinks I
should be executed for my leaving Islam. So it is really it is Islam
is unique, and Muslims are unique in that way where they very often just
have to invoke that fallacy without understanding the problem that it that it that it
presents. As said, when we talk about the whole issue with the name
of God Yahweh and Islam versus versus Abrahamic biblical religion, he chooses to now
completely ignore the points even when you bring it up simply because because you reference
me, or because you make a reference to what he said to me.
And when he talked to me about it, he clearly had no clue and
later he denied what he actually said. He basically blasphemed and then later denied
what he actually said. It was surprising because it's I mean, everybody can
see the clip, and you know he clearly says it's a pagan name,
and then when asked about that, he says, I never said that.
So you know, it's like this is multiple times now where I'm really questioning,
you know, does he is he? Really? Is he disingenuous?
Right, because I mean, if you have a person on record saying it,
it's really difficult to then rewrite the history and say, now I never
said that, but you did say that, so at least you would.
You could either own up to it and say, well, I said that,
but here's what I meant, or here's a clarification, but the outright
just so I never said that. I'm noticing a pattern of And this is
not to say that Christians are always honest. People in any position can be
dishonest. You can be an atheist be dishonest. You'd be a Christian be
dishonest. You could be a Muslim and be dishonest. But there seems to
be, as you noted, a kind of a tendency to shun the rational
discourse, shun the logical argumentation. And again I'm not an expert on Islam.
I'm still in the process of learning. To me, it looks like
there's a tendency to when you have this going back to the original pure Islam,
which is what my understanding of Daniel's school, that it what it represents,
there's a tendency again to have to shun logic, to have to shun
argumentation, because that's seen as a later development. Lam is a later development,
and that might lead to problems, right because there might be because there
might be questions that are not permitted to ask. I remember in the when
I was preparing for the Azra Rashid debate, we found some of those old
Sunni texts which, even though they were engaged in Kalam, one of the
texts dealt with the names of Alla and the attributes. And there was a
point where the question is raised, well, how do we reconcile the fact
of God of Allah's pure unity with the fact that we're naming many names and
what about the distinction between the names? And at a certain point it says
it is not permitted to ask this question. So it's just sort of like
you can debate and discuss to a certain point, then it's not permitted.
And as you were saying, the idea that there's this unity about Islamic theology
is not true. At one point the debate, you know, Daniel's trying
to say Christians disagree, there's debates, there's there's that. Wait a minute,
I mean, you guys don't agree. You guys have all kinds of
So in other words, if disagreements made a position true or false, no
position would be true or false. I mean, yeah, they would need
because none of them would be true. Because now if some sort of majority
opinion or if the fact that we have, you know, thirty percent of
the Islamic schools agree about this position, sixty percent agree with this position.
I mean, none of that has anything to do with whether it's true false.
It's another fallacy to appeal to majority, appeal to consensus. You can
certainly bring me in experts, but expert testimony itself doesn't necessarily prove a thing.
And so I just over and over and over to hear these appeals that
were very similar to you know, fallacies that I've seen in other debates that
when I would bring them up, you could tell that he didn't even know
what what I was referencing. What do you mean? Yeah, Yeah,
there was this very awkward moment that that I saw, actually multiple awkward moments
about the very same thing during the debate that you had with Daniel Kikitchu,
which was where you brought up the idea that the Quran tells Jews and Christians
that they should read their their own book, and it says that their book
is is confirmed. But if you go to that book, then you have
the problem of somebody like Daniel kikitch You're saying, okay, but those books
are invalid because they have contradictions and they were corrupted, and so you are
caught in this whole in this whole dilemma. Okay, are those books now
confirmed and authentic or are they not? And he then comes in and and
and presents this position, which is the best he can do, because it
is just it's it's a whole problem that Muslims can't get out of. He
then tells you that when the Jews and Christians go to those books, they
will see contradictions in those books with monotheism as presented in Islam, which is
why they will understand that those books are wrong. Okay, but that means
that they have to evaluate that whole situation from a clam's perspective, which doesn't
make sense. Yeah, if what's in question is the continuity of the Qoran
with previous revelation, then I asked a very simple question to Daniel, which
was, what is the epistemic principle that you have that tells you when the
Old Testament is true and when it's false? And he says the Koran.
But the thing is that that's what's in question, So you can't just appeal
to the thing in question when we're asking about prior revelation. Now you could
say, but Jay, what he did in the day he said, but
Jay, you you appealed to the Old Testament too, in terms of your
position, Yeah, but I don't argue that the Old Testament has a lot
of contradictions. So if I thought the Old Testament had contradictions and Christianity was
the new revelation that replaced it, I would be in the same boat as
Daniel's position. You see, yeah, because you could say, well,
you know, the New Testament appeals to the Old Testament, right, but
it ever makes the appeal that the Old Testament is true and valid, but
it also has contradictions. That's Daniel's position. Daniels position, the Old Testament
is true and valid because the Kuran says, So, however, there's all
these passages that don't teach the pure mono theism of Islam. And I still
have that drawing here that I had drawn up the white paneous whiteboard here.
So these are just examples of Theophanes where we find real distinctions in God in
the Old Testament. And there's more. This is just one list that I
could fit on one board. And Daniel says, yeah, those those are
problem texts that are all contradictions. Now wait a Minute's that's why I asked
the question, Well, then, what's the epistemic principle that tells you when
you go through the Old Testament? Oh, this is a true verse false,
verse true, verse false, verse, this chapter true, this chapter
false, this chunk true, this chunk false. And the principle was whatever
is consistent with the Quran. But the question was, how do we know
that the Quran is assistant with prior revelation given the fact that the Koran says,
you can validate this with the books given to the Jews and the Christians.
You see, this is, like you said, it's an irresolvable dilemma.
And that's why I had to sort of draw this out for him on
the small board, what is your episode of principle similarity to the Old Testament?
And then eventually ended up saying, well, you just you just look
and see with your eyes what's consistent with with what's not consistent? You see,
so you just look with your eyes. So can I now appeal to
the same thing of just looking with my eyes? It's it's also extremely funny
because the Koran clearly and explicitly says about the Jews and Christians. It says,
why do they come to you when when they have you know, what
was revealed to them, basically saying that they should just go back and read
their books. But but that doesn't make any sense. If you once again
present this whole whole problem, it again goes into this circular nonsense that he
cannot get out of. What are they supposed to do? They are supposed
to the Jews and Christians are supposed to go and read their own scriptures.
They don't supposed to come to muhumed Okay, if they are supposed to read
their own scriptures, and they will be educated by their own scriptures on their
own beliefs and on how their beliefs are, on what they are supposed to
believe according to their own scriptures, which if they do that will eventually contradict
with what Islam tells them. But then Danna Kikichu and other Muslims come out
and say, well, no, no, no, no, you can't
take those things in there that contradict with real belief because you know those are
at values. You take the rest. Okay, what is the rest?
Well, whatever, agrees with my beliefs. Yeah, and imagine that you
couldn't see that that was a circle. Now, if the firms circular logic,
then I would have I mean he would That would have been more honest
and he could have like maybe gone in another direction. But of course he
didn't want to do that because typically when Muslims do accept varying degrees of philosophy,
whichever school they're in, it's usually kind of a very broad stroke.
For example, I have Azra Rashid's book. When we did our debate,
I got his book, and his approach to epistemology was just a very basic
empiricism. So, you know, if you want to have that school and
that approach, that's what that's that's fine. But anybody that does that,
it's going to have to deal with the outworkings of adopting that position. So
if you have a very basic empiricist view, you're going to have a hard
time justifying or give an account for questions like what about a circular argument that
you're presenting about the relationship with the cryant prior revelation, You can't affirm just
from a strictly philosophical perspective. You're not going to be able to affirm circular
argumentation if you're an empiricist, unless you just want to say that my position
is just self evident. But if he wants to go that route, then
I can just say, okay, well my position is self evident if everybody
can just appeal to their own internal self evidence, which I don't believe we
should do in a debate. But if you do that, it kind of
makes debate no longer possible because the opponent, you see, can appeal to
the same thing I walk and just appeal to all of my principles are just
quote self evident. Right, So so that's not usually the best. That's
not usually how debates go unless you're debating something like, you know, some
obscure topic like transcendental arguments or circule argumentation itself. Is it possible? Is
it not possible? Most debates are not going in that way. And that's
why, you know, sort of three says there is no God but He
the living, the self subsisting. He sent down the book that is truth
upon the confirming what it was before he sent the Torah, and the in
jail the Gospel, and it is the guidance to mankind nothing about but it
is half corrupted, you see, Oh, it is seventy percent corrupted.
And that's the thing, is that when you actually look at as and I
haven't. Let's just take the first ten stories, for example. I went
through the first ten and I got a giant list of all of the references
in the first ten two sections of the Torah and the prophets, right,
And here's the thing, And this is what I was trying to get it.
I don't think Daniel got this point, but I was trying to get
it across, which is that you've got giant portions that are referred to referenced
giant stories, the Exodus story, the conquests of David, different stories in
the Book of Genesis, for example, the creation narrative is largely affirmed.
So if we're going to admit that these giant portions of the Torah are correct,
then we've now we've got a problem of giant portions not correct. Right,
So it doesn't really matter what percent did you want to say. Let's
say you think seventy percent of it's true and sent thirty percent false, or
maybe you think thirty percent of the Old Testament and the prophets is true,
and seventy percent falls either way. You're stuck in the same kind of bind
because number one, the Quran actually says, as you noted, that it's
not consistent, right, excuse me, that the Old Testament is not full
of errors. That's a later argument that they made. That is when it
does, I think, like you said, when it does mention that they
perverted the message, it says they perverted the message with their mouth. It
doesn't say the text is perverted. So there's not an intertextual argument that I'm
aware of that argues that the Torah and the Gospel are full of errors.
This is a later argument. This is why they go to talk about going
to non believers. Well, they ran to you know, bart Erman and
people for me for so long until bart Erman said that now there is historical
evidence for Christ and crucifixion, and then I think they wanted to get rid
of using bart Erman because again, so it's like this double stad is what
I'm trying to say. There's a double standard of you know, I can't
talk to you because you don't have the same religion as me, And it's
like, but it has not hanthing to do with the arguments, but the
arguments are true or false regardless of the person. But to go back to
your point, like you know, I'm just trying to stress that. Look,
if you're gonna say that a giant portion of the prior revelation is false,
which is what his position amounts to, then you're gonna have to give
an account for why does the Quran then assume many of these stories oftentimes in
passing, so it'll just reference an event or a person, right, And
how else would we know the context and the meaning of the background of that
person without going to the prior revelation which predates them, predates the Koran,
predates the Koran and Islam. But we have some very very explicit Quran versus,
like Chapter five, verse forty seven, which say, and let the
people off the Gospel, Christians judge by what Allah has revealed therein, and
whoever does not judge by what Allah is revealed, then those are the defiantly
disobedient. So according to that verse itself, who are what are Christians supposed
to judge by by the Gospel? By what was revealed to them by in
the Kuran's understanding and it Slam's understanding the Gospel is basically a revelation that was
revealed to Jesus, like the Quran was revealed to Mohamed. It has a
very it has a big misunderstanding of what the Gospel actually is, and it
tells the Christians explicitly there that they should simply stand by and judge by what
the Gospel says. And there is no single reference throughout the Quran which explicitly
tells you that those books are no longer valued, that those books have been
corrupted, that they have been corrupted into oblivion. Such a mindset only only
emerged over the centuries much later, I think, as late as like the
eleventh or eleventh century or twelfth century it was. It became entrenched into Islamic
thinking that those that those books, the Torah and the Injia as they refer
to them, meaning the Gospel and the Torah, were overall corrupted. But
that is just that is just as it seems, an explanation that they came
up with because they could not explain the abundance of of contradictions between the Bible
and the Quran, and contradictions on such a level that you cannot possibly believe
that both of those sources as they are today came from the same God.
You cannot hold on to full them at the same time. It is simply
impossible. And I would say, it's like this whole game of those books
are corrupt. They're not in their original form. They are only consistent wherever
they are consistent with my beliefs. That would be like if if you went
out there, like if Christians I went out there, or if or if
I, or if anybody went out there and said, you know, Muhammad
was actually a righteous guy. He was led and he was leading people to
the belief in one God. But his followers corrupted his sayings and corrupted the
actual Quran, which was full of truth. And when Wilton's then asked,
well how can you how can you improve this, you simply say, well,
everything that Mohammad said, everything in the Quran that agrees with our Abrahamic
beliefs is correct, and everything else that disagrees is obviously corrupted. And there
is your proof. Now let go off your Islamic beliefs and come to the
truth. Put put them in the same position. Yeah exactly. I mean
you two points there that come to mind. I want to read that sort
of five. I'm glad you mentioned it because it's really strong. It says,
how is it that they come to THEE for judgment when they have the
Torah? Wherein is God judgment? Even after that they turn their backs and
they're not believers. Truly, we sent down the Torah. They're in as
guidance, wherein as guidance and light by what the prophets who submitted unto God,
judge those who are Jews, as did the sages and the rabbis in
accordance with such with God's books, as they were bidden to preserve it,
and to which they were witnesses. So fear not mankind, fear me.
My science are for sell, not my science for a paltry price. Where
whosoever judges not by what God has sent down. So like as you said,
he goes on to say in the Footsteps, we sent Jesus confirming the
Torah, and we gave him that gospel confirming the Torah. So the assumption
of these texts is that there's continuity not just with the Old Testament the crime,
but between the Torah and what Jesus said. Right, But when we
go to what Jesus said, of course there's a lot of problem texts,
such as the entire Gospel of John, which is why usually Islamic apologetics just
says, that's when we throw out So now we're throwing out entire books because
as you pointed out, well, wait a minute, the Koran speaks as
if they thought the Gospel or the Jail was this book that Jesus got,
like the like Muhammad got the Koran. It's not. It's a recorded it's
the disciples recording this oral message and then passing on various texts which give,
in my view, a coherent narrative. So it's just amazing that this it's
not a very complex argument. I mean, it might be complex if you're
not used to the Old Testament, or if you don't know actually what's in
the Torah and the prophets and the Bible. But if you actually go and
look and see, it's pretty clear. Now. The other thing that Daniel
reference was the text in Jeremiah, and he didn't even get that. This
was actually called out by one of the super chat questions. I think if
I recall, but he said, oh, well, you see, Jeremiah
says that the scry have perverted the text. It doesn't say the scribes perverted
the Torah. It says that the scribes perverted their text, meaning they're what
I would say. When Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, he says, you've added
things to the commands of God. And it doesn't mean that the Torah was
essentially altered, because Jesus says in the same gospel that the scriptures cannot be
broken. He presupposes and cites the Torah at length throughout the Gospels. So
the text in Jeremiah is not, first of all, referring to the tour
itself being corrupted. It is talking about the rabbinical traditions. However, even
if Daniel did want to say that the text in Jeremiah is referring to the
Torah being corrupted, Daniel doesn't have a principle by which to know for sure
that that text of Jeremiah isn't corrupted, because the entire Old Testament and prophets,
in his view, are potentially corrupted. That's why asked in the principle
of epistemic certitude, like what is the principle by which you judge when the
Old Testament is true when it's false? It's whenever it agrees with the Kuran.
Ok, well, how do you know that the text in Jeremiah that
you're citing about corruption isn't also corrupted because it agrees with the Kuran. So
again it all comes back to this circle. But as you pointed out,
it's not even a good circle because the book itself that he's is his ultimate
principle, already affirms that there's not error and contradiction in the prior revelations.
Yeah, even if we talk about so when we talk about Jeremiah as a
source, there is another problem which we talked about last week when we were
in your channel, which is that Jeremiah is an easy prophet as a prophetic
source, is not even recognized in Islam. So you could it's not mentioned
in the Quran. This might be a big surprise to too many people,
but Jeremiah is not mentioned in the Koran. Huge huge prophet in Abrahamic religion.
Samuel is not mentioned in the Koran. Huge prophet. Isaiah is amazingly
huge prophet not mentioned in the Quran. Islam as no clue about Isaiah.
Daniel, which is very ironic, is also Daniel Kichu's name is not mentioned
in the Quran. These prophets are not recognized as prophets anywhere in the Quran.
Any most knowledge about these these prophets comes from Jews and Christians. They
have to go to Jews and Christians literally to get information about about these people.
So when it comes to Daniel Kiki you referencing something in Jeremiah, that
would mean he is making reference to a book that is a prophetic book according
to the Jews and Christians, whom he cannot trust because they allegedly corrupted everything.
So he is appealing to a potentially corrupted source, which, according to
him, argues that things were at some point corrupted. There's just no way
to go, hope for to make up solid argument against for the corruption of
Two Daysman Christianity. Well, the other funny thing too is that and by
the way, I know that you know, in our last talk on my
channel, we had talked about the fact that many of these prophets that are
major figures in the Old Testament, major prophets that they I didn't even realize
that. It's that they're not even mentioned by name in the sense of absolutely
no mention. I thought maybe there's passing references, you know, to the
holy prophet of so and so. But but you're saying, Jeremiah is not
even mentioned at all. It's not mentioned at allow. Jeremiah has no mention
in the Koran. That's wild because you know, if we were looking for
a religion that was in continuity of prior prophets, I mean from the vantage
point of Jews and Christians. I mean, Isaiah, as we said,
is called the Fifth Gospel. I mean, it's just huge, even if
you don't believe Jews is a messiah, like I mean, Isaiah is sixty
six chapters. It's huge, you know, Ezekiel huge, right, Jeremiah
huge, I mean vast books of the Old Testament. And by the way,
just a little funny side note, the name Daniel means God is my
judge. And the l there is would be probably what Daniel was looking for
when he was looking for the name that was pagan l Elohim. That doesn't
mean the name is pagan. Right. This is a word concept fallacy because
it's just like the word divinity. The word divinity or deity might refer to
God, it might refer to many gods. It might refer to angels,
demons, or a human being viewed as a divine figure. It's it's a
generic term. And so amongst the Canaanites, the term L could be a
reference to any kind of deity or a class of deities. Right, So
a lot of people make this mistake because they think will anything with the name
L in it, Danielle must be so ironically his own name with the a
pagan name. I mean, the Bible also uses or eloch as when when
it refers to other gods, when it refers to other false gods, when
it refers to them them making a god of of objects of of Yeah.
Different, It's a word that's a generic term, like yeah, like the
word deity or divinity. Yeah, yeah, so it would be it's it's
it's just very ignorance from Jannalist perspective and to other people's perspective to argue that
that would be the product the actual name and then to deny the existence of
Yahweh as as name of God. And this is one of my favorite things
by now to to go to one of one of my favorite arguments against Islam,
the whole absence and ignorance of the name Yahweh in Islam. And we
talked about this in length on your I don't know if we're talking about it.
Yeah, it's an amazing argument that you found there with that, and
especially going into the prophets whose names are also derivatives of that, and I
think that, I mean, I can't see how this argument could be overcome.
I mean it's really it's really probably one of the strongest that I've heard.
So again, the fact that you, being atheists, have that argument
has nothing to do. I mean, the argument stands on it own on
its own right. So it's like, I mean, it's a strong argument
no matter who says it. And I think that any position it doesn't want
to deal with arguments and has to kind of fall over into these kinds of
like, oh well he needs to just be gotten rid of or you know,
shut up, shut him up. I mean, that's just showing kind
of weakness in the position from my vanished point. Yeah, and even when
I brought that that whole argument about the name Yahwe on how Islam is completely
ignorant of the name Yahwe, I specifically brought to that topic to him and
challenged him on that because I knew very well that he that is understanding of
scripture theology and things like that is very very poor. He was actively it
looks like it clearly looks like he was actively researching while I was talking and
then trying to give me these off way answers to my challenge. And what
he did come up with is well, Yahweh, it did not Yahweh was
not in in Genesis, which was false. Yahweh is just you know,
it's it's a name that the Hebrews probably adopted this pagan name from the from
from from these polytheistic people, and then gave that name to their own God.
And later prophets actually fought against this and wanted to, you know,
rid the religion of this corruption, but then you know, it just kept
being used in this corrupt form. It just doesn't weird because that's that's yeah.
That's usually the when people who and that's a very low tier argument,
like you said, based on ignorance, they usually are referring to Eloheim.
Usually they say the name Eloheim is the one that is borrowed from Canaanite religion
and therefore Christianity and Judaism or false because there's this paganization just on the basis
of a word concept fallacy of the name Elaheim. But I think he got
mixed up or he just slipped, oh, well, Yahwah's the same thing.
It's like that it's a pagan it's but it's not. There's no equivalent
that I'm aware of it being a pagan name. So what he did as
a result is he completely wasted the one opportunity of actually dealing with that argument
and still presents it as if he was actually he actually successfully argued his point
when he was challenged with that. But when you look at the footage,
you can clearly see that he gives completely nonsensical answers and it's it's just out
there, and he still doesn't engage with it anymore because after I called him
out that that his response doesn't make sense. That his response that Yahweh is
a pagan name basically invalidates Islam as well, because Islam itself, the crime
itself, uses theophoric names which clearly reference way including the biggest I would say
is Elijah, which truly means eli Yah. Oh my God, is Yahweh.
And he didn't even get that where he was like, Okay, well
why is that Yahweh? That doesn't sound like Yawa? Okay, yeah,
it doesn't have to exactly sound like yah wherever. Yeah, it's Eli Yahoo
Eli. Yeah. That the Yah is already enough that that that is what
is commonly used throughout the Bible and throughout throughout Hebrew to reference reference Yahweh,
and that should already be enough for him. Plus, we have two instances
of the Quran explicitly naming, explicitly saying that John and Jesus, two figures
that were Allah announced their names beforehand, before they were born, and it
is Allah himself who gave them those names. And both of those names referenced
yahweh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it is just it is just
well, I don't know if you saw the when I posted you the clip
that you argued. His reply was, I never said that. And it's
like the clip has you think what do I mean, never said it?
And that city wouldn't response to that, right, I mean that was the
response. I never said that. Yeah, Freebird said Yahweh. Don't mentioned
the New Testament. It is, yeah, go ahead if you want to
respond to that, so I would, I would say, off the top
of my head, it is already. First of it is it's a completely
irrelevant point because Christians don't have the problem which Muslims have of not having the
previous scriptures. The Old Testament, it is known as the Old Testiment,
is part of the Bible, so Christians read the very book which mentions Yahweh
over six thousand times, although due to Hebrew tradition it was it is shane
into Odonai in Hebrew and in English for example, into a Lord in capital
letters, but that is basically Yahweh plus plus the New Testament says Hallelujah,
for example, which is a direct, direct inclusion, a direct reference to
Yahweh. There's a lot of different ways that you can demonstrate this. One
of those, as I pointed out, is if you look at Exodus three,
when you have the burning bush manifestation or what we call it a theophany,
it's known as the a or asha air, it's God saying I am
that I am, and so God is the I am. This is also
equivalent two or a reference to Yahweh as well, because if you go over
to Exodus twenty three, God says the angel who will go before the messenger.
And I remember a messenger doesn't always mean a created angel. It can
be a divine messenger, or it can be a created messenger like Gabriel or
whoever. But if you look at Exodus twenty three, the same messenger or
the one that the voice that speaks in the bush is identified as the same
messenger, who will I'll read it. Hold, I will send my messenger
before your face to keep you in the way and in the land that I
prepared. Listen to him and obey the voice. Do not provoke him,
for he will not pardon your sins. Only God can pardon sins by the
way, not angels. My name Yahweh is in him, is in the
eye, is in the being speaking from the bush. It's this identified as
the same being of Exodus three. And so when you read the Gospel of
John, Jesus says, for many, in many instances, I am,
he says, I am, when before Abraham was I am? And particularly
if you want to focus on John one and then John five through nine,
in those chapters, Jesus identifies himself as the one that spoke to Moses.
So the one speaking in the bush, the one speaking and being the messenger
to go before them to either pardon them or not pardon them. In x
it was twenty three, Jesus identifying himself as that to the Pharisees, and
that's what motivates the Pharisees in John five through nine two want to stone him
because they recognize Jesus saying, Abraham believed in me. Abraham saw my day.
Abraham believed in me. I saw my day and was glad. He
says Moses, right, no one sees the Father at any time, but
he says that somebody was there speaking to Moses. He's implying that it was
himself. He says, Moses wrote about me. This isn't what enrages the
Pharisees, because Jesus is identifying himself as the Angel of the Lord and as
the face that spoke to Moses, and this makes them want to stone him.
So those passages, I think are very clear if you're familiar with the
typology, and also if you go through a lot of these passages that I
mentioned that are called they often these these are manifestations of distinctions in the Old
Testament that refer both to the Father, to the Angel of Yahweh or the
Angel of the Lord, and to the Spirit. And they're very This is
just a partial list. There's many, many more it got smudged over here,
But if you go back to the Daniel debate, you can see all
of those that I've referenced, and so what you get is a comprehensive,
in my view of presentation of differentiation in Yahwah throughout the Old Testament, that
the New Testament is consistent with even if you didn't believe in Christianity. I
think that modern Jews, for example that I mentioned in the debate, the
Summer Text, the Siegel text, the Shaeffer, they're all Jewish scholars.
They're admitting that there is quite a bit of differentiation and distinction in the persona
of Yahwa and the Old Testaments. So it's not a strict Unitarianism. So
I'm just pointing out that whether you're a Christian who approaches the New Testament and
the name of Yahweh and how it's differentiated in the Old the New Testament,
how it's applied to Christ, or whether you're a Jew who looking at for
example, Daniel seven in the text where we see this one like a son
of Man, these Jewish scholars are admitting that early Christianity is consistent with a
quote conservative Judaism of that time. In other words, it's not a completely
wholesale, made up religion. In fact, they're admitting that without believing it.
They're admitting that the Jews, the early Christians, who were all Jews,
were attempting to interpret and be consistent with the revelation in the tour and
the prophets that was not a strict unitarianism. And in fact, I think
Summer's argues that the really strict unitarianism of Judaism doesn't really come about until my
moneties. So that's also interestingly kind of parallel with the rise of Islam and
its strict version of unitarianism. What it's very interesting is dealing with all of
these these issues that are presented when we deal with Islam and compared to Abrahamic
religion. You pointed out that that there is a that there seems to be
this uh, this attitude, this behavior among traditionalist Muslims, which Dana the
Kikichu seems to be a representative of, of not of not really engaging with
the argument. And there is an older tradition of simply not asking questions,
and that goes back to such a such a fundamental level. Indeed, I
quickly want to point that out. That is not just something we say.
There is a There is a term in Arabic bila cave, which literally means
without how, or which means without asking how. How, Yeah, without
asking how? And that is a that is a concept, a principle which
became popularized by very early Muslim scholar and which traditionalist Muslims, literalists, legalists
stood by for quite a long time when they dealt with, for example,
how how allies described in the Quran? And there are references to allie having
body parts, but then also references to put to a lot being just you
know, everywhere at all time, and this and that and and and Muslims
had problems figuring out how exactly they're supposed to make sense of these different interpretations,
and the the early scholars came up with this, with this explanation or
with this coping method, which was do not ask how, just read it,
accept it, do not ask questions. And this is an actual concept.
I said, It's called bila cave. And quite a few Muslim schools
have stood by it. Traditionalist schools today are still very much respecting that rule.
Some of the go to the hunt ball. Yeah, it's it's I
think what a prominent opinion is that is that Ahmadamin Hahanmala actually came up with
that whole experent, but it was his idea that this is what needs to
be done in order to preserve proper belief and to avoid corrupting theology. So
just take whatever the text says, do not question it, do not try
to make sense of it, do not compare the apparent contradictions. It's none
of your business. Just just accepted it. That's it. That's also consistent
with the Quran saying, with the Quran saying for the true believers when when
they hear a last versus, they say, I hear and I obey.
That's it. And another another instruction by Muhammad where he says that the devil
comes to you and asks you questions about alae and who created this and who
created that. Whenever that happens, seek refuge with Allah and sees thinking about
these things. So these are actual Islamic instructions. Does that in that view?
Does that also apply to the hadith or just the Qoran. Hadith are
more complicated, much more complicated. But I guess with the hadith what they
do is they respect the tradition of figuring out what is and is not authentic
in the hadiths and then accepting whichever hadith is most supported, most stable if
there are if there are differing reports only specific instances. But yeah, so
there is, for example, the hadith which says which I love, which
says that a lot comes down every night at a specific time to the world,
Yeah, to the lowest heaven, the heaven if the earth, and
stays there to listen to all the prayers, and then he goes back again.
And what do you actually think about that? Very deeply, that doesn't
make any sense because when exactly, how exactly what that work, considering that
it is always night somewhere and they are just well and also, I mean,
this is kind of that point about the shins and the above the throne.
These are spatial locations, and you know, if we're supposed to believe
in tahed that's not possible. And so we're sort of forced into a position
then of making analogies saying, oh, this just represents various attributes and powers,
right, But then when we do that, we're now moving into the
domain of philosophical explanations and analogical predication. And if we're gonna do analogical predication.
Then we have to square that with the text that says that there's absolutely
nothing in creation that's like a law. So you can't have both of those
things, right, you can't have analogical predication. And for those that don't
know, predication by analogy means predication on the basis of like and similarity.
Right. So God is a judge in the way that a virtuous human being
is a righteous judge. Right, so he judges between cases. God judges
right, a father loves his son, God loves us in an analogous way.
It's an analogy between the love of Father and a son and God's love
for us. Just this is just throughout history of theology in the Middle Ages.
Analogical predication is just predicating on the basis of similarity and likeness. But
you see the Koran's already said there's no likeness at all between Allah and anything
created. But then we have all these names which are predicates, right,
Allah the merciful, all the righteous judge. And then we have these attribute
or these qualities that are predicated like shin, like spatial location. So they
have to be explained. Then at the same time as same, but there
is no such thing as analogical predication. Oh but there is analogical predication,
and then they just sort of talk around what that means. Right, Yeah,
and this I've had. I brought this up to pretty much every Muslim
I've debated, except for Daniel. Didn't bring up to Daniel, but all
the other ones I've brought it up, and it's just like, well,
it's it's not saying that all is like creatures. It's saying that all is
like this or that power. And it's like, okay, well is the
power that you're talking about concept in your head? Okay, but that's a
creature, right, The concept that you're having your head of Allah's hand and
Allah's you know, movement, those are created things in your view, and
you're saying that they are descriptors or the what is as Rashid said, they
signify the divine? Well, to signify the divine is to say that this
is a created sign symbol. That's symbology. That's analogical predication. So how
if there's no if all is not like any creature, is their analogical predication?
You see, it's this is sura. It's forty forty two eleven.
It's not long. I'll read it. It says the originator of the heavens
and earth, he has appointed for you mates among yourselves, and has appointed
mates amongst the cattle. He multiplies you thereby, and not as like unto
him, unto him, achieve me. Yet he is the hearer and the
seer. So those are analogies to hear it, to see our analogous to
human activities. Right, So we're saying that all I hear is in al
I sees, but not as a man sees, not as a man hears.
But not only that, here's the problem. Unto him belongs the keys
of heaven on earth he comprehends, and strange provision for him ever he will.
He has prescribed that there's oh, excuse me out, let me go
back a little bit. It was verse eleven. He multiplies you thereby,
but there's nothing like unto him. Yeah, that was a text I was
looking. I mean, keep reading. But and then you're notice in the
notes, if you have the study study Current, they talk about this discussion
of nothing being like unto him. And I think there's another one too,
which talks in this way. Every which one it is. But the point
being is that if there's nothing like unto him. This is I think called
tan z t A and z i h the doctrine of absolute dissimilarity between aline
creatures. If there's absolute dissimilarity, then we can't be using these predicates like
hearing seeing movement. Yeah, the issue is if you just if you already
begin to analyze the things that the Quran says and point out the obvious problem
here, you slowly approach a topic that has been plaguing the Muslim world in
terms of theology for forever, from the very very beginning, and as that
is still around, and over which branches of Muslims, schools of Islam have
been denouncing each other and calling each other disbelievers and even sentencing each other to
death and persecuting each other. And you're saying, specifically over this question,
and like the hand and the placement over the throne, this is one of
the questions. So one of the questions that caused such a huge mass and
still does is that the body parts, the attributes, the specific descriptions of
Allah, and how you can reconcile them with the fact that there is nothing
like Allah and how much, how far you can think about them. And
this is actually a very funny thing. I grew up in a very religious
household, and stuff like this was hammered into my head all the time from
all sides. And I always had trouble understanding that that there is nothing a
law and I cannot even imagine it. I'm not supposed to. I cannot
think about it. I cannot imagine it. But then I'm also given these
conflicting descriptions of what a law does, at what time and how he will
appear, and I'm like, okay, that I just it doesn't make sense.
I can't reconcile it. And I might have had this issue as simply
somebody who witnesses these these descriptions of our law and who doesn't study further.
But this has been an issue from from the very beginnings of Islamic history.
And there have been the traditionalists who has said stuck to the whole idea that
you should not question, because if you question, then you will cause problems.
And there have been the others who are basically the evidence of specifically that
the mainstream Muslims were of the idea that a law is up there and we
have certain things that are described about him, but we are not supposed to
really think about that. Those things may be metaphorical or literally, we do
not know. We don't think about that. And then there are those the
mysticists who go further and to say Allah is probably up there wherever that is,
but that's it. We're not going to go into anything else. Everything
about him can only be metaphorical, and we leave it at that. And
then there are others who go to the extreme. And actually my parents were
kind of part of that, and they were like in such an extreme form
of mysticism where they deal with all of this mess simply by saying Allah is
not in any direction. It is wrong to say allies up there, although
that that was the Islamic tradition. Always He's everywhere, all at once,
very close to you, within you, even to certain any certain understanding,
And there is no way that you can possibly imagine or even describe him.
The only way he can be described as in the Quran, and we only
understand that entirely metaphorically. So it's just a huge mess. And all of
these perspectives are are not just perspectives that sit at a table and think Okay,
you make sense. Yeah, you make sense. Okay, I disagree
with you. No, they actually fought each other and killed each other over
these these problems, over these disagreements, and that is just one of those
issues. It's the location of a lot the body parts and what a line
is like. It's the whether the Quran is an eternal part of a law
or not, whether it came into existence through his speech exactly as it is
or not. All of these things were issues of major contention that Muslims truly
sentenced each other to death and still kind of yeah, this is odd because
you know, in Christianity, for example, in the fourth century, there's
a really intense debate that's kind of analogous to the debate that occurs in the
Middle Ages between Jews and Christians and Muslims over naming God. And this is
the fourth century controversy that the Kappadocians, this is Basil and the two Gregory's,
we're very important to orthodox theology. They had a debate with a guy
named Eunomius, and a big part of that debate was over how and in
what ways we can name and predicate of God. And the only reason I
bring that up is because it's interesting that, in other words, if Islam
is the correct next revelation, so to speak, after Judaism or whatever they
think Judaism, Christians is or are, then it's almost like there's no cognizance
of a prior, intense, nuanced discussion of this very question of predicating of
God. So it's like, if you were the new revelation, it seems
like you would at least have an understanding of the previous Jewish Christian discussions and
debates over naming God. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Like,
in other words, Basil and the Cabindocians have this debate with Eunomius, who's
the earlier unities like a Unitarians in the sense of Islam or Judaism in the
Middle Ages, and the debate is over whether the names that we say of
God are univocal, equivocal, or analogous. A univocal term is one in
which there's an exact same meaning between the two the two reference, right.
So for example, if we said God's love is identical to the sense in
which man's love, you know, father son love, that would be univocal
predication and Eunomius, who was the radical Unitarian in the days of Basil and
the Gregories. He believed in univocal predication. Equivocal predication would be what Islam
has, which is that there's no similarity between when I say God has justice
towards us, there's no similarity between that justice and you know, human law
courts and they're created justice. Analogical predication, which is again what the Kappa
doceans and Christian theology wholesale adopts. I would argue from the earliest days.
I think you could find it in the Old and New Testament itself. It
continues clearly into this controversy and the councils, which Daniel, for whatever reason,
wasn't familiar with what councils are and what they are about what they mean.
He thinks that they're just new revelations, kind of like new new voices
the Holy Spirit or something like that. That's not what councils are. But
the point is just that this is already a really well known, intense debate
for centuries in Christianity. When Islam arises the points that you're making about the
rise of not questioning or naming or explaining the hands of God or Allah or
the allow seas. And here here's don't ask what that is. It's just
ironic because this debate has already happened. If you're the continuation of the prior
revelation, why is there no cognizance of that whole discussion? And not only
that, it's like, maybe I'm not wordying this, well, do you
understand what I'm saying? Yeah, I think it's it's similar to the point
we're making about the Quran seems to not even understand what Christianity, whether you
think it's true or not, it doesn't understand what the trinity was. Right,
there's like a trinity in the Quran which includes Mary. Right, it's
like they thought that that the trinity included Mary. It doesn't, never did.
But likewise, it's like there was no conception of what the previous discussions
of predication predicating of God were, and so it's almost like bypassing that and
saying, well, Allah's nothing like creation, and that's how it's So it's
it's all, uh, you know, equivocal predication. But it's like,
but throughout your book there's analogical predication, So how could it be equivocal work.
Yeah. Yeah. The reference to the Trinity and the Karana understanding what
it is actually very fascinating one that I made a video on very early on
when I started making these critical videos. It has the Koran is different understandings.
There are different interpretations of what Christians actually believe in. But in one
of those instances, Jay is not making this up that Karan actually does say
so. It describes a supposed fantasy conversation in the future after everything dies and
is resurrected between Allah and Jesus where Allah asks, Jesus, did you say
to the people take me and my mother as deities beside? Allah and Jesus
will say no, I did not. I would never say that. Where
so it looks like the Qoran is they're arguing against this clearly, clearly a
great belief among Christians that that a law is consists of three, which is
a law Jesus and Mother Mary, and it's just it's it's it's very surprising
that when you find that out, that the Quran seems to not understand what
Christians are to believe and then deals with a completely irrelevant belief that no Christian
actually represents. And if you bring if you bring this problem up today,
they will try to explain that a way by saying, well, okay,
there there are there were probably some Christian sects in that time who did have
such a belief and this is specifically addressing them, or or they will say
this is a reference to well, to Christians venerating her way too much and
turning her into a god. But that's clearly not the case there. Well,
first of all, we would need to know what's the evidence that there
was a historic group that did deify and put Mary as a member of the
Trinity. I mean, I suppose that's possible, but I've never heard of
this. But secondly, even if that was the case, why would you
be addressing some tiny fringe group that had no continuity? Is basically irrelevant,
right, I mean, wouldn't you want to address the actual positions? That's
what That's what I'm trying to say, right, Yeah, And it's the
same point with analogical predication, like when you want to at least address or
explain, oh, you know, the Christians when they had their debates with
the Eunomians, and you know what I mean, and the and they made
their great mistake on analogical predication as Basil and the Gregory's did who who are
the you know, the great profits of the early cre like, there's no
knowledge of any of this. That's actually, I mean, that's a very
big problem. It's I have to be very honest. It is when I
started getting out of Islam, and during that whole process, I was trying
to further understand and Christianity and Judaism. So I started reading reading the Bible,
and I noticed that it was completely foreig to me. And the same
thing is so this is a problem that Muslims in general deal with. To
them, the Bible, Abrahamic belief is entirely for it because all they know
about it is stuff that comes from the Quran and from Muslim tradition. Other
than that, and that stuff, what comes from the Quran is incredibly limited
and very accurrent, because there is no continuation, because the Quran is simply
its own product, which emerged in the seventh century. It makes references to
the Bible, to Judaism and Christianity and to their beliefs, but it is
completely absent from the vast knowledge that comes with the Bible. So the Quran
Islam claims to be the final message, claims to contin knew what was before,
but then completely distrigards and gets rid of all of the knowledge that is
in the Bible, which is abundant in comparison to the Quran, and then
moves on with that, And then, as you said, has no understanding
of all of the problems that are already addressed in Christianity and Judaism, has
no understanding of so many things mentioned in the Bible, has no connection to
Jewish and Christian history, in theology that was already centuries old in terms of
Christianity, that is a huge problement. I would say it to better formulate
what I was trying to say the way you put it more concisely. There,
if the Quran and Islam were the correct, final or new revelation,
I would expect there to be an addressing of the specifics of where the previous
system or systems got these things wrong. It is what we see is actually
no familiarity or consistent knowledge of very precise, very well known doctrines theologians and
people. I can think of one issue, which is Christology and Jesus.
Early Christian history has a very prominent history of discussing it coming to a proper
understanding of the nature of Jesus, the crucifixion and the resurrection. I mean
that is a that's a core issue. It is the core, It is
the fundament, It is the fundamental the fundamentals of Christianity is Jesus comes,
preachers, does many things, and then very important, he is crucified,
and then he is resurrected, and that resurrection is supposed to play great role
in terms of what Christians believe in. Islam is supposed to come and and
correct the Christians because they were wrong about Jesus about how they explained his crucifixion
and resurrection. But it doesn't do anything about it at all. It doesn't
even address the resurrection. It just all it says about the death of Jesus
is and they did not crucify him, nor did they kill him, but
it was made to it was made to appear that way to them, and
that's it. Why wouldn't why wouldn't the Quran address this whole giant elephant in
the room. If the Christians are indeed wrong, if they corrupted their own
beliefs, if Christianity is a giant misunderstanding, as the Kuran claims, why
would it not deal with christology? Why would it not deal with what exactly
happened after Jesus died? With the resurrection, it doesn't do any of these
things, and therefore leaves a huge discussion completely unanswered. It's just as Daney
Kikichu does says, well, just look at it, and whatever agrees with
Islam is true, and whatever it doesn't just falls. That's it. Well,
and I mean it was like all of what you just said is bypassed
by you. Just look and see with your eyes. Okay, Well can
I not? I could appeal to the same thing. Well, when I
look and see with my eyes, it can it confirms my view rights.
I mean that was really just a non answer. But yeah, I mean
there's this is a great point about the resurrection. I mean, you know,
even if you didn't believe in Christianity, you would at least want to
understand, well, what is their view? Why do they think that,
you know, this is so important? What does the resurrection have to do
with the fall of man? What about what about all these prophecies, for
example, in the Psalms of David that we see as predictions and prophecies of
from Mathiah, his descent to Hades and his resurrection. Now maybe you don't
believe that, but it would be better. It would make sense to understand,
you know, like here is what they believe, and you know this
is why it is false, you know, but we don't get that.
That's what's amazing is that there's not even an understanding of what the position is.
And I would I feel like if this was the divine revelation, they
would at least, you know, God would understand what the errors were,
you see, and they would be corrected. But it doesn't even explain what
the erroneous position is. Ifact to misunderstands the erroneous position. Yeah, there's
actually a very interesting corn versus I could quickly want to go to and I
might put it on the screen here because I wanted to bring that up.
It's actually the very relevant to the very point. Let me share this one
here, So Garage at the three verse fifty five, I'm appealing to all
the different translations here, but I'll just take the first one. So like
international, what it says mentioned when Alas said, oh Jesus, indeed,
I will take you and raise you to myself. And purify you from those
who disbelieve, and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until
the day of resurrection. Then to me is your return, and I will
judge between you concerning that in which you used to differ. Very very interesting
point, very interesting verse here. So a lot told Jesus that he will
raise him and purify him from those who denied him, while making those who
followed him and believed him superior until the day of judgment. Interesting about how
exactly does that work? So who were those people who followed Jesus, Who
were the people who who acknowledged him, who believed him? And which group
exactly has been has been made superior since then? And which group will be
made superior from then till the day of judgment. I'm actually baffled by this.
What what what is their explanation of this? I don't understand the explanation
I can tell you will be well, this is actually a reference to the
Muslims. It doesn't make much sense. But where do they think the raising
is? Well, that he was just you know, he was raised to
heaven as a as a prophet, and he will stay there and he will
come back one day, and when he comes back, he will then announce
that all the Christians and all the people who had these corrupt beliefs went astray,
and that the Muslims are actually the true believers. And then he will
come and fight for the Muslims and abolished the cross, and break the cross
and and do things like that and basically becoming Muslim Jesus. That is their
explanation. But if you read it on the surface, it just looks like
it it pretty much proves of the Christians. It also it reminds me of
I forget exactly where it is, but Sam Moon had referenced a there's actually
just sections of the Gospel of John that are kind of cribbed, you know
what I'm talking about, Like there's like several verses that are basically just copied
and pasted into the Koran. Oh yeah, yeah, which is because they
typically want to say the Gospel John is fraudulently. It's like, wait,
wait a minute, aren't some of the passages actually just copied and pasted into
the Koran? Well, those are the ones that are not corrupted. Oh
okay. You can also find Muslims occasionally give some references from the Gospel of
John in order to prove that Mohammad was mentioned in the gospels, or that
that Jesus prayed like a Muslim, or things like that, which is a
very selective, just honest approach. They will say, they will take that.
They will take the part, for example, where Jesus throws himself on
the ground and pray and praise, and they will say, look, he
prayed exactly like Muslims pray. But that's not he didn't do a ritual prayer
there. That's not the only prayer he dat according to the Gospel. So
that's a very very interesting Well, I'd like that text in Deuteronomy that they
use about I'll raise a prophet amongst your brethren, and you know, you
know, Christianity obviously has always seen that as a prophecy of the Messiah.
You find many church fathers prior to the rise of Islam citing that as a
text about the Messiah. Conceivably, Jews might also cite it as a potential
messianic text. But for the for Muslims, that's a prediction of Muhammad.
And I didn't really get to go into this, but when it was mentioned
in the debate, the argument was, well, this is about Mohammed,
and I said, well, but it says amongst your brethren, so I'm
pretty sure Mohammed wasn't a Jew. And they said, oh, but they
can all be brethren, because everybody is a brethren all the way back to
Abraham. And I'm like, well, but wait a minute. Genesis has
cast out the slave woman, and so they're they're not actually brethren, but
in the Jewish sense, they're not bred brethren. And that's the sense that
we would be getting from Deuteronomi eighteen, not the chronic sense. It would
be the Jewish sense of brethren. What's funny is I one last point.
The other thing that's funny about that, which is that so wait a minute.
If everybody is a brethren, then Edomites are brethren. But no Jew
would call an edomiteer brothren. They're the enemies of the Jews, but they
have a common They have just as much a lineage that's common as what would
be Hagarides. It might be amazing to you the forms of a responses that
you can get from MS in order to cope with that problem, which is
when they bring it up. I even got the response, which was a
ridiculous one when I think about it again and again, which is that it
says your brethren, and that clearly means that it's in reference to h to
the ishmaeliance to the to the others, because that's why it says brethren instead
of just saying from from you or your own tribe. But no Jew is
going to listen to an ishmael light. That's the weird part. It's like
the rest of the rest of Deuteronomy assumes that only a Jew is only going
to listen to a Jew. Yeah, yeah, And that's the that's the
whole problem. But then there comes forth some guy in seventh century Arabia who
is who doesn't like his own culture, at his own religious beliefs, and
looks up to the Christians and Jews and things. He's going to just start
a message and claim that the same God is speaking to him. And what's
very interesting is I actually put a thing together. I took out all of
the references in the Quran to Christians and Jews and put them in chronological order
as far as we know. And you can see very much that in the
beginning, it is just this very naive approach to the Christians and Jews of
like, oh, yeah, you know, they're nice, they're good,
they have true beliefs, and you know, we are just like them,
same source, same guys. And then it increasingly becomes gets into disagreements with
them, and eventually at some point it comes to, Okay, they have
their beliefs, you have your belief and finally it comes to they will accept
your beliefs or else. So it is just a if every naive, ignorant
approach from Muhammad to Jewish and Christian beliefs. And and here we are dealing
with a religious group that actually claims to be in possession of the true religion,
yet one it is completely disconnected and completely ignorance. And I actually want
to ask you a question about that. So, when you read the Koran,
when you begin studying the Quran, as somebody who extensively studied the Bible,
what is your what was your impression of the Quran? Did it appear
similar in I don't know what was what was your impression in comparison to your
own? My initial impression is not really any different than where I'm at now.
It's just kind of like I've read more text from scholars that I think
really back up the impression than I have, which is, you know,
especially like the Gabriel Side Reynolds book where he goes through about thirteen or fifteen
I forget how any case studies, where he basically just compares the references in
the Quran to the biblical context from which they come, and then contrast and
compares the narratives whether they make sense, whether whether where they contradict, and
then the various Islamic explanations. So it's a really good book from a person
who I don't think he's a Christian or a Muslim, He's just an academic.
But the text shows the ways that there have been attempts to explain,
and it also shows what was really helpful to me all of the different extra
canonical sources that Islam also draws from. So I think you made a great
point when you and I were talking about this the other day. You know,
when you start getting into the Hadis is where it becomes a lot clearer
that there's a lot of other influences here. So it's not like you're just
dealing with the Qoran. You're also dealing with about a bunch of oral tradition,
which is kind of collected and then has to be scholarly kind of fed
it out as to how authoritative they are. But those also apparently rely on
a lot of myths and narratives and stories, as the Koran does. And
so when I first started reading the Koran, my first impression was it's it's
it sounds like the Bible, but it's like I was detecting kind of like
stories and references that they didn't understand that are cobbled together. And then your
point about the Hadis, I think further backs that up. But now I
see, Okay, well, it's not just the infancy narrative of Christ that
you referenced as an extra canonical text. It's also Cave of Treasures, Life
of Adam and Eve, proto Evangelium of James, It's all of the Sleepers
of Ephesus. It's all these other stories and traditions, some of which are
also by the way, tell Muodik. Which is odd because you know that
that weird reference that Reynolds points out about how the Sabbath was a punishment,
It's like that that's absolutely totally foreign to everything that's in prior revelation. It's
not a punishment. It goes back to Genesis, right, expanded it very
quickly for it. Yeah, so you can quickly expand it if you want
to, or I can. I can. No, I'll let you expand
on it, because it was just just a cap on my to summarize my
point there about the more that I would get into this, the more I'm
realizing when I wait a minute, this is like cribbed from earlier stuff,
cobbled together, and what's cobbled together is not actually coherent. But then it's
the job of the Islamic scholars to try to make this thing work. That's
what I get from it. Yeah. Yeah, So the point about the
Sabbath in the Quran is people who have looked into that or deeply can pretty
much I guess explain that better. But I made a note a while ago
here on that. But the Quran basically, when it references to Sabbath,
doesn't recognize it as something that that is a fundamental or essential part of of
of biblical or Jewish belief. What it basically says is that the Sabbath was
just prescribed to the Jews as as a punishment for their for their actions,
for their transgressions and it was. It was basically a burden placed on them
by Allah, which is why I only they keep it. So that is
that is, and that's that's a very ridiculously ignorant. Yeah, I mean
it's very central to you know, the entirety of the Torah goes back to
Genesis as part of the creation narrative. So it's it's almost like to think
that the Sabbath would be a punishment would be to again completely misunderstand something very
fundamental to Genesis, which is the Seven Days and the Sabbath. And in
the Side Reynolds book, it's pages one oh nine, ten and eleven,
and you've got multiple Islamic scholars and people have tried to explain this, and
it's just all the different explanations are kind of they're just they're amusing because when
you see the scholarly explanations, they're even they're not understanding what the meaning was
for the Jews and the Christians. So I could understand if okay, so
fine, you think it's wrong, but at least understand how central this was
to the Creation narrative and to the entire of the Old Testament. To think
that as many of these scholars have said that it was a punishment from God.
It just shows an incoherence of not even understanding the narrative, just like
with other things that we talked about, like the Ark of the Covenant.
They thought that because it had the Seraphim on top of it as a box,
that it was a box that flew. Yeah. So here's the reference
we're talking about. In the Quran, in chapter sixteen, verse one hundred
and twenty four, it says, basically, the Sabbath was only appointed for
those who differed over it, and indeed your Lord will judge between them on
the day of his direction concerning that over which they used to differ. And
it's further than then recognized that the Jews were basically transgressors over and over again,
and the Sabbath was only given to them because of there, because of
their of their troubles, and there their transgression. Yeah, and it's even
you. You have this four forty seven. You have been given the book.
Believe in what they have brought, what we have brought down, which
confirms which is already with you. Before we trans form the figures, turning
them inside out, we curse you as we curse the people of the Sabbath.
Yeah, and it's I don't know, it is just sometimes I feel
like it is very hard to put into words the amounts of of ignorance that
the Quran brings to the Chamber when it talks spots Abrahamic biblical beliefs, and
to then claim that this is the same God, the same source, it's
just it's just absurd. Yeah. And again, I mean, there's a
lot of different ways to approach this discussion, this debate. I mean,
one another example would be if you if you thought, for example, that
the Revelation to Jews and Christians was false. One thing that's prevalent throughout the
Old and the New test is analogical predication. So if you're gonna say that
was all wrong and we can't do analogical predication, which conceivably you could have
with many Islamic schools and the denial and the teaching of Tanzi, then you
would need to again explain or at least understand that this group four thousands of
years, for centuries prior to Islam with Christianity, you know, for sixth
centuries, that they got this big thing wrong. And again there's not even
a reference to So let me put it this way, there's very sophisticated philosophical
debates. Okay, here's a great book that's just on this very topic I
recommend. And this is not from This is from just an academic at It's
published by Oxford. I forget where he teaches, but it's it's a well
known book called The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics,
and it basically traces the development of just the idea of hypostasis, right,
which is very important to the Trinity, all the way from the Kappadoceans to
John Damascus and the seven hundred seven centuries, which is contemporary. He's the
first Christian to write about Islam, by the way. So basically we're going
to trace this really sophisticated development of what hypostasis is in the Trinity and what
it is in Christology. And it's very nuanced, very precise. There's a
lot of philosophical terminology, a lot of references to Aristotle, all this kind
of stuff. And then by the time that we get the revelations to Muhammad,
it's like it's like that never, none of this ever happened, you
see. And again I'm stressing this argument because if we're going to look at
continuity again, we would want to know precisely where the previous tradition was wrong.
And I'm not trying to bank everything on philosophy, but it's sort of
like, you know, Christianity had already adopted and baptized and was okay philosophy
by this point. Even if you think it's wrong, this is this is
not really debatable. It's pretty easy too. It's pretty well known, right.
I mean John Damascus, for example, he wrote an entire book on
the risk. Tillian Philosophy is another book on dialectical philosophy. I mean his
systematic theology in the seventh centuries, utilizing a lot of philosophy, as we
said, from Cappadocians and people prior to him, Maximistic Confessor, full of
a lot of philosophy in this text. It's like, if you're going to
deal with and reject the position. And I'm not even saying that it's true,
because it's a lot of philosophy. I'm just saying that we would need
to see understanding of what's being talked about. And it's not even that it's
not understood. It's like there's no knowledge of it at all. It's like
you're having It's like you had this whole, long, lengthy discussion on a
major pressing issue. That's you're trying to understand. Everybody has had this discussion
forever. He who went on and on and on. Yeah, and you
have already established a system finalyzing. This is how different theories came to proper
conclusions dealt with it. And then some God comes along and entirely ignores everything
that has been said and just starts a discussion from the very beginning and says,
I had a dream and everything he says it don't basically basically, let
me ask you this question, what you think of this? So the more
I hear what we're talking about in regard to the rise of Islam, originally,
it's very parallel in many ways to Mormonism, and so Mormonism basically says,
all of the prior revelation has some truth in it, but it was
also corrupted. Ours is the new final revelation, and you just didn't have
the full consistency of understanding that God is actually three things. It's also ironic
too that in Mormonism God has a the Father has a body, much like
what we see in the Koran with the body of a law, but you
know they're they're a pro which just now there's actually polytheism. I would argue
Mormonism result ultimately polytheistic. But yeah, I mean, could we conceivably just
counter the whole system with with Mormonism, because if the argument is, well,
the Qoran is preserved, well, maybe the books of Mormon are better
preserved. You see. Plus, aside from the preservation, you don't even
need the preservation there. You could simply appeal to the fact that some guy
comes along in the middle of a land where people are trying to figure out
which religious believes to hold onto. This guy comes along and claims to receive
revelations, and there are people around him who affirmed that he is indeed revelations.
They affirm that he is of great character. They affirmed that he is
a fantastically pious guy who is entirely selfless, and a law seems to be
God seems to be completely in agreement and basically in his service and gives him
these these revelations, and he establishes the truth and declares that people corrupted his
message. I mean, he's ultimately doing exactly what Muhammad did. I've heard
a lot of people refer to him as the American Muhammad or there there there
are people who say, I spoke to a former Mormon here on this channel,
a woman who is a former an ex Mormon. I think her her
channel is called ex Molex. But she came on here just to to also
pleasantly argue that she did hear about Islam and tom Mormonism is compared to Islam
before when she when she was a Mormon, and also afterward, and she
was also pointing out that the way the revelation is seen and the way the
way Joseph Smith, Yeah, is my mind going all over the place.
The way he is. He is trusted by Mormons in terms of his revelations,
even if they seem completely absurd and out of place. It is quite
similar to the way Muhammad is trusted in Islam when he makes when he brings
outrageously weird revelations, or when he brings revelations that are just about him and
his desires. It's quite similar to Mormonism. To the point that you bring
up it could be very it could be reasonable to to go with that objection.
And I have seen people actually argue against Muslims and say, why not
just accept Mormonism. It does the very same thing. But then you get
a very hypocritical answer from them, and the answer is just revolves around,
well, we know that that's not true, because you know, he was
just all about his own desires and then he just made up revelations. Well,
you could say the same thing about Muhammad. Well we already know,
we already have the truth. Muhammad already brought the truth. Who don't need
anything else? Well, that's an I could see them just in terms of
epistemology making that work. Is that they'd have to say in a strict way
that the Qoran was the final revelation, but I meant also additional revelations,
So well, what do you what they do with that? Is they will
say the Koran is is the absolute final revelation, that is the truth.
After that, no revelation can can come, no profit can come. The
hadiths are different from that, because the hadiths are basically just saying so of
Muhammad that or actions that people around him noted, they are not considered revelation.
Everything that comes after him is absolutely unacceptable, absolutely false. And that's
the answer that they will give you when you when you tell them. Okay,
Joseph Smith, he made a lot of a lot of claims. He
said, these religions in the past work corrupted, and he's he brings the
truth. He So wait a minute, though, let's expand that argument and
say, well, but Allah apparently allowed divine revelation to be corrupted amongst the
Jews and the Christians. Right, yes, so he allowed them to be
deceived, apparently, and for the revelation to be corrupted. Hence, why
we need the Quran? Why are we why should we think that it's not
all also corrupted if Allah can allow the revelation to be corrupted, Because because
because the Quran is unique in that Allah had a plan off those previous scriptures
being corrupted, and the Koran is unique in that this is the only book
which Allah promised nobody will ever be able to corrupt and he will protect it
for well. But but my point is that the promises are in the older
books too, right, So we'll wait a minute, But you can't trust
those books because those books were corrupted. I know. But that's what I'm
saying is that the same promise of non corruption was in the Torah, it's
in the Christian texts, and Allah allowed us to be deceived, then how
are we not in the same epistemic dilemma if we believe the Koran, that
Allah might be allowing us to be deceived? Now you see what I'm saying.
Yeah, but Alla wouldn't do that because and we already know that.
We already know that those script scriptures are corrupt because when you when you read
them, you will see that they are obviously uh not in alignment with pure
mortortheistic as like beliefs. But that's derived from the book that's in question.
So yeah, well if you just if you if you go and look at
those books, if you just look at the Koran and open your eyes,
you will see that because you you just look. Okay, yeah, I
mean that's the thing. Somebody wrote a paper. I have to dig it
up. I've got it safe somewhere. It was a couple of years ago.
But they were arguing that Islam does argue that Allah is a good deceiver,
right, and so if Allah is a good deceiver, then how are
we able to trust at all any of our reading of the Koran? Right,
we might potentially being be being deceived, right, And so now all
the propositions are potentially deceptive. And so we're not in any better position with
the Quran than we are if we are a Muslim, and we're looking at
the Jewish and Christian tax which also promise that they're inspired and not that they
don't have errors. You see. So in other words, let's say I'm
taught. Let's say I'm a fourth century Jew or Christian. The books that
I have tell me that they're not corrupted, and they're inspired and they're authoritative.
But from the Islamic perspective, those books are corrupted, and I'm basically
deceived, right, and so I need the Koran to fix that. But
Alas already a good deceiver, and so why would I not think that the
New Revelation also is potentially deceptive. You can't just say, well because it
says it's not because the old books said they were not. But God was
also deceptive back then, you see. Does that make sense? Yeah?
Yeah, And there is a very funny, a very nice thing that you
can add to that which I love about Jesus and his crucifixion, some flavor
you can add to specifically that which is so ala as a deceiver. He
he says that he is the best of deceivers. Think about the what the
Quran says about Jesus. Jesus was he was sent down with a message,
with a scripture. He was They tried to they denied him, and they
tried to crucify him. They tried to kill him, but they did not
manage to kill him, not managed to crucify him. It was only made
to appear in that way. Okay, Well, what happened as a result
of that, as a result was specifically that a major religion came into existence,
that is, according to Islam, a complete corruption of the truth.
And why did it come into existence? Because the people believed that Jesus on
that day was crucified and they saw him, I guess rise, which is
a deception. It was made to appear to them. So and that appearance,
that deception, that illusion, whatever you want to call it, brought
forth the largest religion in the world, which happens to be a completely corrupt
religion. Is this a last plan? Did a lot did a lot of
establish a plan for Jesus where his death was basically a deception which brought forth
the largest false religion in the world. So did a lot create this false
religion on purpose? By by creating this deception? They would say, yeah,
right, I mean if you're a you're a hard determinist, right yeah,
And why would you blame the Christians? Then? See exactly why would
you blame the Christians them? Because it looks like Allah made it, a
lot created the deception and they fell for it. So it's not there is
it their fault? If Allow is the best of deceivers? Yeah, it's
just maybe this plays into the pathology of that religion right to where well,
if Allah is the best of deceivers, is it possible that Muslims then welcome
being deceptive? Maybe? I mean, I'm at what do you think is
do you think that I want to think deeply like that, you know people,
do you think the takea objection? Is that overused or is that?
I think I think Okay, That's why I'm thinking about this right now.
But here's the issue. There is a lot of there's a lot of overuse
of that whole Takia accusation of saying whenever Muslims say something that doesn't seem to
be true or that doesn't seem to be consistent some people might say they're just
they're just doing taqia. I would say that that is largely overused. Muslims
do not learn actively to lie and to deceive and to you know, hide
the truth and all of that. And they don't learn about this concept,
this idea called takia, and that they're supposed to practice this. The problem
is the problem with that is and there is a lot of nuance to this,
although takia is usually a wrong overused accusation. Although Muslims don't actively learn
to lie explicitly, Muslims do have a habit quite often of concealing uncomfortable truths
or conceal certain things which they also lie to themselves about, and simply go
to whatever makes it easier to convince the other side that Islam is true.
And and you learn this whole concept, which is which is that religion is
supposed to be made easy. So when you try to preach Islam to somebody,
make it easy. Forget about the complexities. You can cover things that
don't need to be mentioned, you can ignore questions that are more Yeah,
just focus on one whatever makes it easier for the other person to accept Islam.
That's it. So while the accusations of the Kei are largely wrong and
overused. There is an element of doing whatever it takes just to make the
other person accept that Islam is true, and that might include there is a
there is an issue here that might include occasionally using deliberate deception when you deal
with people that you consider enemies of Islam, like myself, where they say
it they are basically at war with me and with enemies of Islam, and
in war, deception is allowed, as Muhammad said, it is, it
is, it is to be used, so that is part of that as
well. So there's not like any hadith that says, you know, you
may deceive your opponent explicitly. No, there is nothing that says you may
or you should lie to them. All there is is that there is there
is implied, There are words from Muhammed that deception is part of war,
and there are just instructions on making it making it easier for people to understand
Aslam. So that's that's pretty much it. Interestingly, that's good that that
thing that's overused, Like you said, yeah, I want to point at
this thing here to simply revisit the whole issue of ignorance of pre Islamic beliefs.
So here is a whole narrative that is adopted from from later Christian ideas
where Jesus speaks as a as a baby when he is born and tells people
that he is Jesus. But what's very important here that narrative is in grudge.
At the nineteen verse thirty, it says Jesus said, indeed, I
am the servant of Allah. He has given me the scripture and made me
a prophet. So I hear you already chuckling about this about what it says
here. But yeah, so that the understanding here is that Allah gave Jesus
a scripture and made him a prophet. And what's very interesting is that Jesus
says this as a baby already he is what Jesus is saying this as a
baby here, So he's speaking as a baby and he's seeing I am a
servant of Allah. Allah gave me a scripture and made me a prophet.
I have a note to saying that this is from that Syriac infancy narrative.
Right, yeah, yeah, and what what what when when that's brought up,
I've not hurting anybody addressed, Like, is that ever addressed, like
aren't these from prior non canonical or cutemographical texts? Like is that ever addressed?
The answers you get usually are that that people did have certain truths and
falsehoods that survived throughout the centuries, and some of these stories that came they
don't have a prominent mining that these are older. Yeah, yeah, you
know they yeah they So they will just explain that away is some truth and
false through the centuries. Same thing with with For example, there is an
issue with chapter verse chapter five, first thirty three, I believe, which
is the prominent. First off, whoever kills one person has killed all men
call all humanity. Okay, that's chapter five, verse thirty two. It
says there we decrete upon the children of Israel that whoever kills a soul,
unless for his soul or for corruption in the land, it is as if
he had slain all mankind, and whoever saves one, it is as if
he had saved all mankind entirely. And Muslims will often cite only part of
this and will just say, whoever kills somebody has killed all mankind. Whoever
saves someone has saved all mankind. The problem with this is, as it
points out, we decrete upon the children of Israel. This is something that
was apparently taken from Jews. And the problem with this is this stuff here,
whoever kills a soul unless for his soul, it's as if he had
killed all mankind. And then the same with saving is something that directly comes
from the town would Now I've heard rabbinical sources said, yeah, it is
directly in the Talmud. The Talmud deals with this issue. It explains something
from the Torah and then says what you can understand so that the rabbi says
what you can from understand from that is that if one killing one Jew is
like killing all of mankind and saving bad Jews like saving all of So that
that is an idea that is that is that was presented by the rabbis in
the Talmud. It is not something that was revealed or that was found in
the Torah or anything like that. It is directly a talmudic, rabbinic explanation
of the Talmud. But here it is in the Quran, directly presented as
from God, as if it were from a law reviews. Yeah, I
didn't know about that one either. So and Reynolds mentioned a couple of those,
but I don't remember off top of my head which one he said was
Talmudic in terms of the source. So that would be that would be one
of them. That's interesting. Yeah, it was also important note here is
that this is, according to the Quran, only a law for the Jews.
So, and here's the next verse, just to make it very nice.
Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against the Lite is messenger
and strive up on earth to cause corruption is none but that they should be
killed or crucified, or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite
sides, or that they should be exiled from the land. That is for
them a disgrace in this world, and for them here in the hereafter is
a great punishment. This is a horrible So is this why you see some
of the radical islonic groups doing this to people at times, including a lie
crucifixion. Yeah, and including there were reports in Somalia, for example,
in the recent civil wars where they were referencing this verse and actually cutting off
the hands and feet from opposite sides of rebels. Pretty messed up. Yeah,
there's a lot. Now, Is that that one is that uh from
a prior source or is that unique to the Koran? That part about cutting
off stuff that is not that that is that is from the Koran, But
that is just the first after the one that has taken from the Jews,
from the Talament. So what happened, what probably happened there. The theory
is what probably happened there why the Quran suddenly has a talmudic teaching there is
if it was real revealed from a law, is that Mohammad was in Medina,
Medina had a lot of Jews, learned Jews, Jews interact with him
and tell him things. And one of the prominent ideas and teachings they have
is specifically that Mohammad hears it and probably thinks oh Allah revealed this to them.
So it's then included as a revelation from a law. But and that's
just a big oopsie, you know. Yeah, it looks like a lot
of the narratives are maybe things that were heard, yeah and misunderstood. Yeah,
like the Trinity Mary stuff that sounds like something that was hurt. Oh
they think this you know there was recorded. Yeah. Also I mentioned in
Grudge Up with nine, verse thirty, there is this you say Ezra is
the son off al Lah and Christians say the Messias of a la know you
believe that of God and worships Ezra. But it's probably something that he heard.
I mean, maybe somebody joked I don't know, somebody was joking about
that around hi when he took it seriously and included maybe somebody was trolling him
and like told him, yeah, we think Ezra right, and he wrote
that down like it was an ancient trolling. Yeah, yeah, what what's
have you heard of? The of the idea that Alexander the Greatest? Also
in the Qoran, that's a very important thing to look into that there is
a character named though Karnaine and the same chapter that also mentions to the people
the Sleepers seventh Sleepers, and it talks about a figure named to a car
Nain who is a servant of a lie and who was given all kinds of
power by Allah and went to the very far ends of the world. And
the issue with that character is nobody knows who that character is. The issue
with that character is early Islamic scholars were very clear that though car name is
Alexander the Great, but over time, when people learned who else and the
Great actually is. They began to to deny that, and many Muslims today
will still deny that because the Quran basically depicts Alexander the Great there as a
servant of Allah. Yeah yeah, yeah, wow. And what happens there
going into the hadith is people come, apparently Jews are coming and asking him
about this, and he then goes away and comes back many days later with
these revelations. But the revelations get it all wrong the Islam. Yeah,
maybe maybe he heard, you know, the texts in Daniel or Maccabee's which
referenced that time period of Alexander. Yeah, and maybe he thought that that
meant that Alexander was a servant of God, which is odd because that's not
at all what Maccabee says. Like it, Maccabee's doesn't really comment a lot
on Alexander. It focuses on Antiochus of the Fan. He's right, who's
the one that defiles the temple. I'm just trying to think, like why
he would have Maybe there's an information off so historically seen. Apparently the early
Jews had a developed an understanding off of Alexander the Greage where they for a
while referred to him as somebody who was given given power by God or was
favored by God, because they had an understanding that people who become very powerful
and we have correct earth, they yeah, they are given divine providence.
That they so they began referring to him as somebody who was gifted by God.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean that he's heard God like that. That's
the issue. Nomad probably misunderstood that so exactly. I mean, it says
the same thing about Nebuchadneezer that like, when Daniel's talking about Nebuchadnezer, he
says that divine providence raised up Nebuchadneezer. Doesn't mean that Nebukadneezer was a servant
of God. In fact, he was a blasphemer and he in the Book
of Daniel, he's punished because he's a blasphemer. Yeah. So yeah,
that's fascinating. Was going. I was gonna look and see how because I
know mccabee's mentions. I can't remember if it mentions him explicitly or if it
just kind of mentions them in passing in the first chapter of Maccabees. But
and he's talking about that period. Yeah, I don't. I don't think
he mentions him by name. Thanks a serious said, can you look at
the arrows of the Trinity and the ground we did that, Thank you so
much. No, it does, excuse me. So the first the very
beginning of McCabe's doesn't mention Alexander as king of Greeks. He went to the
ends of the earth, he spoiled, He spoiled the earth like army spoils.
He fell sick and died, doesn't reference anything about it just states it
kind of like a history of Alexander. And then it moves into talking about
Antiochus being a horrible blasphemer because he was one of the four generals that took
over after Alexander passed away. Alexander ran for twelve years and then he died.
His servants took over and ruled in his place. One of those was
Antiochus. So it doesn't there's never a positive mention in maccabe's, just as
just as accuracy. I will quickly put this here on the screen, just
because it's so funny. So here's the chronic narrative. One third Carnain.
It says in eighteen eighty three and they ask you about the car name,
and Bill Carnain literally means the two horned one and the two horned one,
yeah, two horned one. Oh, that that might actually be a reference
to Daniel. Well, the thing is so, if you look at this,
if you look at the narrative here, it is very much, very
much copies ancient myths, the legends about Alexander. It basically copies the Alexander
romance legends. And Alexander the Great was known as the one who wears a
helmet with two horns. And there were coins that were that existed in Arabia
as well at the time where Alexander degreeded to pick there somebody with two horns.
But it says here I will recite to you about him a report.
Indeed, we established him upon the earth, and we gave him from everything
away. So he followed away until when he reached the setting of the sun,
he found it setting in a body of dark water. And he found
near at a people, and we said, all the wilkarnein either you punished
him or else adopted them a way of goodness. Here is a very interesting
detail. He found the sun setting in a pool of dark water. He
said, as for one who wrongs, we will punish him. Then he
will be returned to his lord, and he will be punished with a terrible
punishment. But as for one who believes and does righteousness, he will have
a reward. Then he followed another way. When he came to the rising
of the sun, he found it rising on a people from whom we had
not made it against any shield. And then he builds for them a wall
to protect them. But this is basically goes back to all pleasures about Alexander
the Grade, who allegedly traveled to the very very east, very west,
and who built a giant wall to protect these people from these invaders. And
yeah, but you'll find this interesting because if you look at Daniel eight,
like Versus five to fourteen, a lot of people think that it's whether you
think it's a prophecy or whether it was written later. It's talking about Alexander,
and it's calling him the horn the horned one, the goat. It
calls him the male goat. I think here and yeah, in verse five,
So what I'm saying what's funny about that is that the description is that
he's an evil pagan ruler in Daniel, but he's called the horned goat and
the horned one. Yeah, and he's liking to a goat, which in
scripture goats are typically referred to as the wicked sheeps and goats. So I'm
just pointing out that it's the chronic narrative. If if he heard this story
from Jews, or if he'd heard Daniel and thought maybe that was about Alexander,
maybe maybe maybe that could be how it deb But what's funny is that
in Daniel he's a wicked person, and that's where the issue is. He
just hears bits of knowledge, probably from from the Jews, from others,
and then he thinks, oh, I have a revelation from a law.
A law says so and so and so and But you're saying that he in
this passage about this figure here, that it's actually calling him a righteous person,
right, Yeah, So it's it's it's literally, according to the verse,
it's a law communicating with him and making him a judge over people,
whether they are righteous or or not. And you're saying that. Initially the
Muslim scholars have said it's it's Alexander, but now they don't, or there's
debate. Some still say that it's Alexander, but most most of them nowadays
deny it, but it's yeah, it's in early Islamic history, the intertutions.
What's very clear that this is a reference to Alexander the Great. Yes,
there's another example of just something being misunderstood. Yeah, yeah, So
what would now do they say that it's just some unknown ruler or something.
Yeah, most likely they usually say that it's it's that that we don't know
who it is. But that's also very funny because there's just some guy mentioned
here, a little car name. You have no idea who it is,
that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Plus he also builds a wall here that
is supposed to prevent Gagan Magogue also a narrative taken from the Bible and previous
beliefs. Well, that's interesting because that's Ezekiel. But there's no ravene or
explanation to what Ezigel's talking about. But here here it's like he builds a
wall into Gagan Magogue arties. These these beings, these corruptors, he's corruption,
and they are behind that wall, and they are to this day still
trying to get through that wall. And one day they will make a hole
into the wall and they will invade the whole world and space. Now I'm
getting this has blown my mind. What is this? Sounds like the plot
of what was the Avengers were the making up. They're making a hole in
the sky and the remember they come through the portal? Is that what we're
talking about? Something like that I've I've never watched you have in years?
Is actually, but what does this mean? This hole in the wall and
they're trying to get through to this day, which I think there's a I
don't want to explain it myself. I would like to let Muhammad explain it
to you. I was just gonna hot about that. Well, it's it's
also here in the Qoran. It's it is, but it is more any
more detail described in the hoodie. So here it is. It mentions they
said, although we're kind of indeed, Gog and Magog are corruptors in the
land, So may we assign for you and expenditure that you may make a
barrier between them and us? And he does that. He builds a huge
wall, and it says so they were unable to pass over it, No
were they are able to penetrate it. And then it further says, but
one day will be blown. It will assemble them in an assembly. Yeah,
one day they will get over. I guess, like, is this
a literal wall or is it like some spiritual reality where they cat I'm going
to now invoke Muhammad here and here is Muhammad. According to the Hadis,
it says the prophet got up from his sleep with a flushed red face and
said, none has the right to be worshiped, but allah, woe to
the Arabs from the great evil that is nearly approaching them. Today a gap
has been made in the wall of Gog and Magog like this, and he
makes a number. It was asked, shall we be destroyed though they are
righteous people among us? The prophet said, yes, if evil is increased.
So it is actually a wall, and they're trying to dig through that
wall. But it's it gets even better, it gets even better. This
is bizarre. It is. It is very bizarre, very very bizarre.
It says the afflictions of the end of the world. So does that mean
that this wall in the holes that they're trying to dig has been going on
from that? Yeah? Yeah, it gets very very ridiculous. So this
is a description about the ends times. It says he mentioned the Jaw,
I said, I will descend him kill and then people will return to their
own lands and will be confronted with dog and macgogu people who will swoop down
from every mound. They will not pass by any water, but they will
drink it by anything, but they will spoil it. They will the people
will besiege Allah, and I will pray to Allah to kill them. The
earth will be filled with their stinge and the people who will besiege Allah,
and I will pray to a lot and the sky will send down rain.
Then the mountains will turn to dust and the earth and this and that.
Okay, there's one description, but there's there's even more. It gets very
bizarre. It gets very very bizarre. So it describes go back to the
things here. Uh Goagan Magogagan Magogue. Are they are these strong headies?
Ah yeah yeah. Bugari is always strong, very reliable. Some of them
are from different sources, but they also marked as sah He authentic. Gog
and Magogue dig every day until when they can almost see the rays of the
sun. The one in charge of them says, go back and we will
dig it tomorrow. Then Allah puts it back stronger than it was before this
will continue until when their time has come, Allow wants to send them against
the people. They will dig until they can almost see the race of the
sun. Then the one who is in charge of them will say, go
back, and who will dig it tomorrow? If allow wills. So they
will say, if Allow wills, then they will come back to it and
it will be as they left it. So they will dig and will come
out to the people, and they will drink all the water. People will
fortify themselves. They will shoot their arrows towards the sky, and they will
come back with blood on them, and they will say, we have defeated
the people of the earth and dominated the people of heaven. Then Allow will
send a worm in the names of their necks and will kill them thereby,
and so on and then and then there will be a beast of the earth
that will be let's lose. This is all stuff. So this is another
layer of what I would say from the Christian biblical perspective of kind of cobbling
together things in Ezekiel that are kind of mysterious, and but I mean,
there's nothing, you know what. There is a there's a text in Ezekiel
where Ezekiel is he is talking about the Jews who were engaged in pagan worship
and that they had dug out under the wall of the temple a secret place
where they were worshiping like pagan gods. So that's famously the same book where
we get Gog and Magod from the latter chapters of Ezekiel. I'm just speculating.
I'm thinking that they might have heard stories from Ezekiel about digging through the
wall. And then Mohammad is creatively kind of cobbling this together and saying,
this is an end Times narrative of a wall that the Jews and other people
try to dig through. You see what I'm saying, interesting perspective, speculating
in the ends, we cannot know what exactly happened there. But as the
point of challenge, there is a lot of are lots of references in the
Quran where it continues saying and they say that these are just stories of the
old They say, he hears whatever he believes, whatever he says. So
these are Quran verses about Muhammad, and these grand verses basically tell us that
the people around him kept accusing him of taking stories from others. From people
around him, from believing, up believing whatever people say, from making things
up, from of being crazy and so on. So it's we can speculate,
But it looks like he just got a lot of myths and some true
stories, some falsehood some complete misunderstandings and mixed them all together and presented them
as revelations. Well, we have a lot of I mean that that end
times kind of stuff there. I mean, I've spent many years researching and
reading and looking at evangelical approaches to end time stuff, and I see a
lot of parallels there with that, where they'll kind of cobble together a bunch
of very ambiguous, you know, Old Testament passages, especially Ezekiel's latter chapters
about Gog and Magog, and it gets kind of cobbled together in this jumbled
narrative that always talking about Russia, and it's talking about the end of the
world in China, And I mean, I don't know what the end of
the world is going to be like, but I don't think that, you
know, the evangelicals kind of have the they don't know what they're talking about
what I'm trying to say, And I sensed the same kind of extremities and
cobbling together with Muhammad in those passages that we see, for example, evangelicals
doing with passages from ezekiel Eschatology is a very very interesting, very enticing thing
right to people. It's talking about the end times, talking about the tribulations,
all the stuff that will happen as something that people are always fascinated by.
It's also a very easy topic. I can imagine that in the seventh
century in Arabia it would play well with an audience. Yeah, where people
do not study much, do not know much, don't know anything. It
is very easy to get everyone's attention by talking about the end times and all
the fantastic stuff that will happen then. And it's quite believable that Muhammad got
his fair portion of that of all of that and then turn to that into
a revelation which he then presents to his own audience because it works so well,
and there we have it. It would be interesting to see a similar
type of breakdown of the conceptions of anti christ jall and all that kind of
stuff that you that you were referencing the way that you were talking about,
how you know, to Christianity, the resurrection has a really significant role anti
Christ is not as significant, but it does play a key role in some
of the apocalyptic texts of the Bible. I'm curious. I'd be interested to
see in what way it's misunderstood or sort of cobbled together in Islam, because
I didn't I didn't know about those Hudi passages there, which were fascinating.
H It's funny. The jaw literally means deceiver or something along along those lines.
So the actual, the actual long form name is massa Ja, which
is the false Messiah, the deceiving Messiah. Uh. It's directly adopted from
Christianity but then presented in a complet in a different way and then Islam.
The narrative is basically that the Jaw, the false Messiah, will come at
the end and he will basically claim to be God. Very interesting stuff.
He will claim to be God, and he will raise people from the dead.
He will kill somebody and raise him from the from the dead, and
he will be sound you sound like I mean, that sounds like Paul and
second Thessalonians, and it sounds like chapters of Revelation. Yeah, and he
will he will claim to be Allah and people will follow him because he will
be so so so amazing. But the true believers, they will immediately recognize
him and they will not follow him. And then at the same time,
Jesus will come down from the sky as a Muslim and so this this is
crib from the apocalypse. Yeah, and he will. He will basically fight,
fight them, fight to the John and and then pray together with the
Muslims. And according to the Hudi, he will come and break the cross
and kill the pig and break the Christian cross. Yeah, break the Christian
who's the pig? The pig is just killed, it says, killed this
swine. That's what killed the pig. Again, he just he just kills
the pigs and for no reason. And wait, wait, literal pigs or
like the people are called pigs. No, it's it's literal pigs. So
he comes and surely you're joking. He will come in. He'll be like,
don't eat this. I don't know why exactly. He's gonna be clean.
I guess so. But it's so what Momma says is he will come
with you. He will break the cross and kill the pig. I will
prove to you that I'm not joking about it. I just I guess I
just keep one of giving the benefit of doubt and think, well, surely
they mean like the swine symbolic of evil people. But you're saying, actually,
just kill pigs. Well, I guess at the end of the world,
those pigs do have to get dealt with. I mean, like,
yes, somebody has to do something about this. Okay, there you go.
Wow. Yeah, So a lot of messages at the r will not
be established until the son of Mary, the sense amongst you, as a
just jeweler, he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish
the texts. Do they have like explanations of oh, this symbol lies the
unbelievers or something, or I haven't looked in length into this, but I
know that it's that. It's like the explanation is just that it's it's it's
actually pigs, and the cross is actual cross, and people people literally break
it to confirm that the cross belief is false. Yeah. Yeah, so
these are the priorities of Jesus when he comes back. Well, I guess
if look, if Jesus does descend and break the cross and destroy that kill
all the pigs, I guess I'll have to be a Muslim at that that
happens, right, especially if you see him kill the pig. I can't
believe that was actually correct. So wow, that's messed up. That's crazy,
all right. I mean really instructive, instructive and insightful talk. I
always enjoyed talking to you. It's really funny too. By the way,
thank you for all that that insight there. You always learned from you.
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I I really I off the
debate that you had. It was like your opening was an education for Daneland,
and he came and just messed it all up with this very primitive approach
to the scripture. So mad respect for that as well. And I'll always
be happy to have you here, Jay, absolutely, Yeah, thank you.
I'm glad to be glad to be back on and anytime you want to
chat again, I'm down absolutely. Thanks everyone for joining. Have a fantastic
day. I'll see you soon and stay away from Aslan, all right.
Thanks man,