Anyone else in a “top ten” kind of mood?
When we ask our Muslim friends why they believe in Islam, we hear some fascinating claims
about Muhammad and the Quran.
A careful examination of the facts, however, shows that these claims are based on myths
that have been propagated by deceptive Islamic preachers and apologists.
Here are the top ten myths Muslims believe about Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran.
Myth #10: The Quran contains miraculous scientific insights.
Given the prestige of science in the modern world, it’s no surprise that Muslim apologists
like Ahmed Deedat and Zakir Naik, who will say virtually anything to convince people
that Islam is true, would tell their listeners that science supports the Quran.
In reality, the Quran is a scientific catastrophe.
The Quran claims that the sun sets in a muddy pool,
that semen is formed between the backbone and the ribs,
that the earth is flat, that there are seven earths,
that the sun orbits the earth, that human embryos are blood-clots,
that the sky would fall on the earth if Allah didn't hold it up,
and that stars are missiles that Allah uses to shoot demons who try to sneak into heaven.
Students, be sure to share these dazzling insights in your science classes.
Your professors will be astonished.
Myth #9: The Quran is a literary miracle.
The Quran repeatedly claims to possess a supernatural eloquence that can’t be imitated by human beings.
Muslim preachers and apologists take the Quran’s claims for granted and insist that God alone
could write something as beautiful and perfect as the Quran.
In reality, the Quran is a poorly-written, garbled, disorganized, incoherent mess.
As the Iranian scholar Ali Dashti wrote in his book “Twenty-Three Years”:
“The Quran contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without
the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and
words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance
of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns
which sometimes have no referent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are
often remote from the subjects.
These and other such aberrations in the language have given scope to critics who deny the Quran’s eloquence.”
The only “miracle” here is that anyone views the Quran as a literary miracle.
Myth #8: Muhammad was sinless.
Muslims are taught that Muhammad was the greatest man who ever lived.
Tragically, their desire to shower their prophet with praise has led to an unprecedented amount
of exaggeration, compelling many Muslims to assert that Muhammad was completely sinless.
In reality, Muhammad sinned like it was a sport.
Even if we ignore the things he did that we would regard as evil—
having sex with a nine-year-old girl, breaking his oath to his wives, torturing a man for
money, and so on—even if we ignore all of this,
Islam’s most trusted sources admit that Muhammad was a sinner.
In the Quran, Allah orders Muhammad to “ask forgiveness for your sin” and tells him
that he would “forgive you your sins of the past and the future.”
In Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad declares: “By Allah!
I seek Allah’s forgiveness and turn to him in repentance for more than seventy times a day.”
Muhammad needed to repent more than seventy times a day?
That’s like every twenty minutes, even without sleep.
If Muhammad slept eight or nine hours a day, but still had to repent seventy times a day,
he would need to repent every twelve to fifteen minutes.
What was he doing?
And more importantly, to whom was he doing it?
Myth #7: Islam is anti-slavery.
Muslim preachers typically modify and adapt the message of Islam so that it conforms to
the beliefs and values of their listeners.
Hence, recognizing the racial tensions in the United States in the 1960s, and seeking
to win more black converts, these preachers assured their listeners that Islam is anti-slavery.
In reality, Muhammad bought, owned, sold, and traded black African slaves.
We read about “a black slave of Allah’s Messenger” in Sahih al-Bukhari.
We read about Muhammad’s “black slave called Anjasha” in Sahih al-Bukhari.
We read about Muhammad’s “black slave who was called Mid’am” in Sunan an-Nasai.
We read about Muhammad using black slaves as a form of currency in Sunan an-Nasai.
Muhammad gave a man two black slaves for one Arab slave.
The Muslim sources describe this as “Selling Animals for Animals of Different Amounts or Quality.”
In “Provisions of the Afterlife,” Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya lists twenty-eight of Muhammad’s
male slaves and twelve of his female slaves.
It’s pretty astonishing that a man who was so vehemently opposed to slavery in the minds
of Muslims had at least forty slaves.
And let’s not forget that Muhammad, a man the Quran calls a “beautiful pattern of
conduct,” would have sex with his slave-girls.
Oddly enough, Muslim preachers never mention any of this in their dawah—unless of course
they’re preaching to men who want to have sex-slaves someday.
Then the preachers are suddenly eager to tell the truth.
Myth #6: The Quran contains no contradictions.
Just as Muslim preachers insist that Muhammad was perfect, they also insist that the Quran
is perfect—completely free from contradiction.
In reality, the Quran contradicts itself on almost every topic it addresses.
For example, what did Allah create first, the heavens or the earth?
According to Surah 2, verse 29, the earth was created first, then the heavens.
According to Surah 79, verses 27 to 30, the heavens were created first, then the earth.
How long did it take Allah to create the universe?
According to Surah 7, verse 54, it took six days.
According to Surah 41, verses 9 to 12, it took eight days.
What is man created from?
Surah 96, verse 2 says that man was created from a clot of blood.
Surah 21, verse 30 says that man was created from water.
Surah 16, verse 4 says that man was created from a small seed.
Surah 15, verse 26 says that man was created from clay and mud.
Surah 3, verse 59 says that man was created from dust.
Surah 11, verse 61 says man was created from earth.
And yet Surah 19, verse 67 says that man was created from absolutely nothing.
Since the Quran is supposedly Allah’s eternal speech, you’d think that eternity would
be enough time for Allah to get his story straight.
Myth #5: Islam is a religion of peace.
After every terrorist attack carried out in the name of Allah, Muslim spokesmen are paraded
across all of the major news networks and given endless platforms to assure viewers
that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.
In reality, Muhammad taught his followers to promote peace and tolerance only when it’s
convenient, i.e. when the Muslim community is surrounded by a more powerful enemy.
So, when the Muslim community was small, Muhammad promoted peace and tolerance, and the revelations
he received promoted peace and tolerance.
But as soon as Islam became the most powerful force in Arabia, the message suddenly changed
to “Fight those who do not believe in Allah.”
In Sahih Muslim, Muhammad proclaims, “I have been commanded to fight against people
till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,
and they establish prayer, and pay Zakat.”
Christians and Jews were given three options: Convert to Islam, pay the jizyah (that’s
tribute money to acknowledge your inferior status), or be executed.
Polytheists weren’t so fortunate.
They only had two options: Convert or die.
Anyone who left Islam would also be executed, as Muhammad declared Sunan an-Nasai 4067:
“Whoever changes his religion, kill him.”
Islam orders its adherents to violently subjugate the entire world.
If you call that a religion of peace, I can only conclude that the world you live in is
Opposite World.
Myth #4: Islam is pure monotheism.
One of Islam’s biggest selling points is that it’s the religion of strict monotheism,
completely undefiled by pagan influences.
In reality, Islam is saturated with pagan teachings and practices.
You can only become a Muslim by reciting the Shahada, in which you profess your allegiance
not only to Allah, but also to a man—Muhammad.
While the word “Islam” means submission, the Quran claims that a person can only submit
to Allah by submitting fully to Muhammad.
Muslims even speak directly to Muhammad during their daily prayers, saying, “Peace be upon
you, O prophet.”
The Quran goes so far as to claim that Allah sends his prayers upon Muhammad—
whatever that means.
Muslims bow down to a cubical shrine called the Kaaba when they worship, even though the
Kaaba was a center of pagan worship in pre-Islamic Arabia.
Muslims who are physically and financially able are required to visit the Kaaba at least
once in life.
As part of their pilgrimage, they walk around the Kaaba seven times, which was a pre-Islamic
pagan practice meant to honor the seven planetary deities that the pagans believed orbited the earth.
Muslims also strive to kiss the black stone, a pagan rock, which, according to Muhammad,
is actually a conscious entity that will intercede on behalf of Muslims at the judgment.
Allah isn’t the only eternal being in Islam.
Allah’s speech, which we know as the Quran, is also eternal.
Much like the black stone, the Quran is a conscious agent, and it will one day appear
in the form of a pale man, who will intercede on behalf of Muslims at the judgment.
In addition to the eternal Quran, Allah’s Spirit is eternal, and the Spirit is another
conscious agent who appears in the form of a man.
So we’ve got the eternal Allah, his conscious Word that he eternally speaks, and his conscious
Spirit that he eternally breathes out.
If I didn’t know better, which I don’t, I’d say that this is a bad copy of the doctrine
of the Trinity.
But Islam rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, which means that Islam simply has three eternal,
conscious entities, and is therefore polytheistic.
When we combine this with Islam’s blatant man-worship and pagan stone kissing, we can
see that no prophet in history has been more successful at spreading paganism than Muhammad.
Myth #3: Islam promotes women’s rights.
As we’ve already seen, Muslim preachers modify and adapt the message of Islam so that
it conforms to the beliefs and values of their listeners.
Thus, when they preach in Western nations that promote equal rights for men and women,
they insist that Islam, too, promotes equal rights for men and women, and even that Muhammad
was a feminist.
In reality, no ideology in history has had a more devastating impact on women than Islam.
According to Islam, women are, by nature, stupid and immoral.
Husbands can beat their rebellious wives into submission.
Men can rape their female captives and slave girls.
Men can hire prostitutes.
Men can marry prepubescent girls.
The majority of the inhabitants of hell, according to Muhammad, are women.
Since ideas have consequences, it should come as no surprise that studies have repeatedly
revealed a correlation between the spread of Islam and discrimination against women.
For example, the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, which ranks
countries based on the magnitude of the economic gap, the education gap, the health gap, and
the political gap between men and women, shows that nine of the ten worst countries in the
world for women are Muslim majority countries.
Similarly, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2019 Social Institutions
and Gender Index, which ranks countries based on the levels of discrimination against women,
found that ten of the twelve worst countries in the world for women are Muslim majority countries.
Of course, there is one place where the spread of Islam has improved the status of women:
Fantasy Land.
Myth #2: Islam is spreading rapidly due to conversions.
When all other arguments for Islam fail, your Muslim friend is bound to proclaim:
“But Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion!
Why would so many people be converting to Islam if it weren’t true?”
The Argument from Rapid Growth makes two major blunders.
First, it assumes that an ideology must be true if lots of people adopt it, and this
is patently absurd.
Second, it assumes that the rapid growth of Islam is due to conversions.
In reality, the rapid growth of Islam is primarily the result of high Muslim birthrates.
Even the Pew Research Report that Muslims cite to show that Islam is the world’s fastest-growing
religion lists the primary reason for its growth:
“Muslims have more children than members of other religious groups.”
Why do Muslims have more children than members of other religious groups?
Well, as we saw in our response to Myth #3, Muhammad had an extraordinarily low view of women.
Due to Muhammad’s influence, in many parts of the Muslim world, there aren’t many career
options for women, and educating girls is frowned upon.
So girls are married off at a young age (not because it’s their choice, but because that’s
just the way it is), and their husbands start getting them pregnant.
By the time a woman in America or Great Britain is having her first child, many Muslim women
of the same age are having their fifth or sixth child.
Hence, if Muslim preachers were to state the Argument from Rapid Growth accurately, it
would go something like this: Islam is spreading rapidly, because it turns
lots of girls into baby-making machines who have nothing to do in life but spread Islam
with their wombs.
Therefore, Islam must be true.
Perhaps we shouldn’t call this the “Argument from Rapid Growth.”
Instead, we should call it the “Argument from Rapid Breeding.”
Myth #1: The Quran has been perfectly preserved.
Virtually any Muslim you ever talk to will tell you that the Quran has been perfectly
preserved, down to the letter, from the time it was revealed to Muhammad.
Many Muslims will attribute this perfect preservation to the miraculous protection of Allah, who
put his stamp approval on the Quran by guarding it from corruption.
In reality, the Quran was changed numerous times, even during the lifetimes of Muhammad’s companions.
According to Muhammad’s companion Abu Musa, entire chapters of the Quran were lost, because
Muslims didn’t recite them enough.
Muhammad’s companion Ubayy ibn Kab said that more than two hundred verses are missing
from Surah 33.
Some verses of the Quran even disappeared because of a farm animal.
Sunan ibn Majah 1944:
It was narrated that Aishah said: “The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding
an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow.
When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep
came in and ate it.”
As a rule, if your god can’t protect your book from a sheep, you probably shouldn’t
be boasting about miraculous preservation.
But the problems didn’t end there.
Muhammad’s top reciters couldn’t even agree on which chapters were supposed
to be in the Quran.
The caliph Uthman had to burn countless Quran manuscripts in order to cover up all the differences.
And even today, Muslims in different parts of the world use different Qurans—not different
translations, different Arabic versions of the Quran.
If there’s a miracle here, it’s that the Quran has all the features of a book that’s
been changed repeatedly, and yet it’s never been changed.
So, those are the top ten myths Muslims believe about Islam.
These myths have been propagated for a long time by deceptive preachers and apologists.
Unfortunately for them, with the rise of the Internet, there has never been a better time
to shatter these myths, and shatter them we shall.
Generations before ours got to witness some spectacular changes.
Our generation gets to witness the collapse of Islam.
In the comments, let me know three things.
One, do you agree with my list (and especially with my pick for Myth #1)?
Two, can you think of any myths that should have been on this list but weren’t included?
And three, what other top ten lists would you like to see this year?
Again, I’m in a top ten kind of mood.