Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? A response refuting and correcting a critic of Islam named Syed Kamran Mirza, by Yahya Snow
Having previously wrote about the falsehood that was the Robert Morey’s ‘moon-god claim’ I came to the realisation that others have incorporated Morey’s claims into their critique of Islam. This is alarming due to the much critiqued, maligned unscholarly propaganda piece produced by Morey. One such individual who has used Morey’s work (believing it to be reliable) is Syed Kamran Mirza who in summary of his article (Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?) claims Islam to be “reformed paganism” and even states that his claim “has been truthfully and logically proven with all available circumstantial evidences/rational”. (1)
Mirza’s article is poorly structured and lacks a fluent flow and appends a reference section to his work which does reveal his use of material by Christian missionaries (Moshay, Morey and Gilchrist) as well as Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim. Mirza’s use of agenda-driven Christian missionary work is one thing but an all together more worrying aspect is his use of Morey’s work due to Morey’s tendency to fabricate evidence and make claims without any proof at all. The appendix section will contain links to articles which show the lack of truth in Morey’s ‘moon-god’ claim (appendix 1). I recently purchased a copy of Morey’s Islamic Invasion; through my initial skim-reading of the book I noticed he falsified a hadith (see appendix 2 which highlights a couple of examples of Morey’s tendency to make things up).
Syed Kamran Mirza’s work, Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan, outlines numerous claims, points and events which he draws upon in order to come to the conclusion that Islam is “reformed paganism”. His belief that Islam is “reformed paganism” is not what concerns me in this article; it is the fact that Mirza uses half-baked facts, falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims to arrive at his belief about Islam. I shall go through his points and highlight the inaccuracies or add to the points as Mirza makes points without fully elaborating upon them (I imagine this is due to his lack of study concerning Islam).
Mirza starts his article with his general claims and then goes on to list a number of points in the form of answers to questions he posed. These points shall not be addressed as of yet as Mirza conflates his significant points later on in the article under different headings in order to construct his arguments and/or accumulate (as well as expand on) his points. I shall discus his points under relevant headings; I feel all his relevant points have been discussed in the course of this paper.
Who is (actually) Allah?
In this section Mirza claims that “the Quran never defines the word Allah as to who actually Allah was or what was the relation of Allah with pagans”. This is an erroneous and strange claim as the Quran through its most celebrated verse (named Ayat-ul-Kursi, 2:255) teaches us who is Allah and gives a further understanding of Allah; “Allah. There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal…” (2). So this is a significant oversight by Mirza especially considering the fact he claims to be an ex-Muslim, the question is, how did Mirza not know about the most celebrated verse of the Quran which is memorised by millions of Muslims and recited before going to sleep? This question becomes even more poignant due to his claim of being an ex-Muslim. Mirza also claims that the Quran fails to mention “the relation of Allah with pagans”. Again, this is an inaccurate claim as the Quran teaches us that Allah is the Creator of all things, thus he is the Creator of the Pagans; “He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Forms (or Colours)…” (3)
Through these two parts of the Quran (2:255 and 59:24) we realise that Allah is (the only) God and He is the Creator. I hope this is sufficient for Mirza and I am glad that I had the opportunity to correct his misleading information. This howler(s) of Mirza’s highlights his lack of sound knowledge pertaining to Islam and thus renders him unreliable and unfit to be writing about Islam yet alone to be considered an authority.
However, Mirza moves on and suggests a cover-up and a “hypocrisy” on the part of the Islamic clergy with regards to them not telling Muslims that the name Allah pre-existed prior to Islam. He even plucks out an arbitrary figure of 99% as he states his belief concerning Muslims: “I believe 99% percent of Muslims do believe that Allah’s name was invented or started right from the time when Gabriel disclosed the truth (?) to Prophet Muhammad in the cave of Hira” (1) He seems to actually believe he has discovered a secret truth which he is exposing (which he believes the Muslim clergy are concealing): “I can bet on this fact that no mullahs ever told us the real truth, neither they believe this clean truth that �Allah� was in fact a pre-existing deity in pagan Arabia. What a hypocrisy?” (1)
Mirza, despite all his theatrics, is correct that the word Allah pre-existed prior to Muhammed (pbuh). He is incorrect to suggest the Muslim clergy are covering this up and concealing this information. It is common knowledge amongst learned Muslims that the word Allah pre- existed before Muhammed (pbuh) and the revelation of the Quran. Unlearned Muslims may not know this but this knowledge is widely accessible in Islamic books; proving that Scholars of Islam are not trying to conceal this information as this information is in clear view in their writings and available to all, ergo disproving Mirza’s theatrical suggestion of a cover-up. I understand talk is cheap so I will refer the reader to the most celebrated biography of the Prophet (Arraheeq-ul-Makhtoum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri) which is considered as a ‘masterpiece’ and was awarded first prize by the Muslim World League in a worldwide competition for the best biography of the Prophet Muhammed in 1979.
As already mentioned Mirza was correct when asserting the name Allah was in use prior to the revelation of the Quran. He builds much of his ideas on this fact and even uses this fact as a basis to build his claims on. However, he builds his clams on faulty foundations due to his lack of knowledge concerning the history of Arabs of Mecca. Robert Morey made the same mistake in omitting the full story; Morey also pointed to the name Allah being in existence before the revelation of the Quran and built his claims on this fact without offering the relevant facts which explain how this came to pass. I shall draw upon a passage from an article which I wrote concerning Morey’s work and those who parrot him (4):
It is disappointing that we have people who lack sound historical and theological scholarship who write propaganda pieces in the form of booklets or internet articles about this issue. It just further illustrates truth in the adage; a little knowledge is dangerous.Yes, we (those who have studied Islam) know that the name Allah was in use before the time of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). If we read Ar-Raheeq ul-Makhtum we realise that the early Arabs did believe in Allah as the Only God. This is dated all the way back to the time of Prophet Ishmael who resided in Makkah (Mecca) and learned Arabic as well as settling there(5). He preached the message of pure monotheism; “Most of the Arabs had complied with the call of Ishmael and professed the religion of his father Abraham. They worshipped Allah, professed His Oneness and followed His religion...” (6).
This shows that Allah was known as the Only God, just like the Muslims believe Him to be. Indeed Abraham and Ishmael are considered to be Muslims, i.e. those who had submitted to the Will of the Only God, Allah. The issue of paganism came into the equation as the Arabs forgot this pure monotheism which was taught by Ishmael and his followers. The idolatry was originated from the actions of a man named Amr bin Luhai, he was known as a devoted and righteous man, well respected by his peers. However, after a trip away from Mecca he saw idol-worship in Syria. Upon his return to the Meccans he introduced idol worship to the Meccans by bringing an idol named Hubal back from Syria and this resulted in the spread of a great many idols across Mecca. Indeed there were 360 different idols, belonging to the pagans of Mecca, around the Ka’bah when Prophet Muhammed took charge of Mecca. These idols were subsequently broken, removed and burned under the authority of Prophet Muhammed (7).
Despite the Meccan pagans’ acceptance of idols they still proclaimed belief in Allah in the sense that they saw Allah as the High God but used the idols as ‘lesser deities’ whom they believed “could intercede before Allah for the fulfilment of their wishes” (8).Quite simply they had a pantheon of ‘gods’ but believed that Allah was the High God of their pantheon (10) Effectively over the years they changed their belief in Allah, from the belief that Allah was the Only God (the Abrahamic teachings) to the belief that Allah was the High God of their many deities (pagan/polytheistic teachings). Another source that attests to the fact that the pre-Islamic Arabs used the name Allah and held a ‘belief’ in Him is the genealogy of Prophet Muhammed, his father’s name was actually Abdullah (meaning servant of Allah)(9). Interestingly enough, some of these pagan Arabs believed that Allah was the same God that the Jews and Christians worshipped (10).
I am aware that many readers may not be aware of the significance and the link between Abraham and Islam. Muslims believe Abraham to be a major previous prophet and Abraham is believed to be the ‘father of monotheism’ and Islam is considered to be an Abrahamic faith in that it follows the same beliefs as Abraham. Abraham is considered to be amongst those who submitted to the Will of Allah, i.e. Abraham is a Muslim. Ishmael, also a Muslim, is the son of Abraham and he followed and preached the teachings of Abraham.The point of the history lesson is to dispel confusion being aroused via ignorance of history. This also squashes the ignorance that the anti-Islamics play on when they try to claim that Allah was a ‘moon god’ due to His name being around during pre-Islamic times.
I hope this is sufficient to further educate Mirza and to act as a catalyst for a re-evaluation of his study and ideas pertaining to Islam. Having corrected Mirza on this issue we realise he is putting forward a theory that is backed by no evidence and worse still; it goes against the knowledge we have.
Mirza, in his last paragraph of this section, states; “History tells us two theories of Allah’s existence in and around the Kaba Sharif” (1). Mirza’s first theory which he puts forward has no facts to support it and it even contradicts the information that I have come across. Mirza’s theory:
“Pagans used to call the largest Statue amongst the 360 deities as ALLAH�whom they used to consider the chief/supreme deity (god)” (1)
Despite this being a small and even irrelevant issue I still feel it is important to address it as this theory of Mirza’s has no support as far as I am aware. Perhaps Mirza would like to supply us with some further information in order to allay concerns that he is simply making stuff up; what evidence does he have to support this claim? It is commonly believed that Hubal (the first idol brought by Amr bin Luhai, mentioned above) was the largest idol, however this is a claim I have yet to verify; therefore I will not support this claim. Karen Armstrong does suggest that the Kabah (at the time of the pagans) was officially dedicated to Hubal (11); therefore Mirza seems to be bringing forward a theory that contradicts the norm.
The second theory he puts forward is the one of Allah being considered as a High God, this theory has been backed by Ar-Raheequl-Maktoum, Karen Armstrong and W. M. Watt (12), therefore this view is sound; so Mirza was correct in mentioning this.
In his next section he puts forward “factors” which he believes “suggest Allah was a moon-god”. Let us view his “factors”.
Mirza presents three “factors” (A-C). His first “factor” is him mentioning Allah swears by the creation in the Quran, such as the sun, moon and night. He goes onto to state:
“Normally, we swear by the name of something much superior to us, such as we swear by God or by the name of our father (who is considered senior or superior to us). But we never swear by the name of something inferior to us. Here in the Quran swearing fashions of Allah (God) by moon or stars hinting us that Allah considered these things superior to himself. And this makes us to think (otherwise) as to who actually acted as Allah in Quran?”
Mirza forgets (or does not know) that Allah has already taught us that the creation (sun, moon, pen, night etc) is created by Allah (see Quran 59:24, (3)), thus proving that Allah is greater than the creation. All Mirza does here is takes the statements of swearing out of context and interpolates his own poor understanding. An understanding that no authority on Islam supports. In fact Tafsir ibn Kathir (concerning surah 53) teaches us:
Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Ash-Sha`bi and others stated that the Creator swears by whatever He wills among His creation, but the created only vow by the Creator
So Allah can swear by what ever He Wills, He is the Creator. Mirza goes further and suggests that Allah swearing by the moon was due to the pagan moon-worship. Mirza further shows his ignorance and lack of clarity of thought. If he actually read the Quran he would know that Allah swears by other such things (i.e. the pen, the time, the Book, the fig, the olive). Does Mirza also think that Allah swears by the pen, the fig, and the olive because pagans were worshipping these? This is absurd logic! Mirza shows inconsistency and inadequate knowledge in this section (once again). The fact of the matter is, Allah swears by whatever He Wills, everything is inferior to Him and everything belongs to Him.
Mirza’s second “factor” in this section is thus:
“The pagan Arabs evidently looked upon the sun as a goddess and the moon as a God” (1)
If Mirza actually studied the Quran he would realise that Allah teaches mankind not to worship the sun or the moon:
41:37- Among His Signs are the Night and the Day, and the Sun and the Moon. Adore not the sun and the moon, but adore Allah, Who created them, if it is Him ye wish to serve. (13)
(Please note the word for “adore not” is la tasjudoo and a more literal meaning is ‘do not worship’ (the sun and the moon))
So Mirza’s second “factor” is squashed by the Quran. How in the world can Mirza claim that Allah is a ‘moon-god’ when Allah is teaching mankind through the Quran NOT to worship the moon? Mirza must have been unaware of this.
His third “factor” is the “influence of the moon in Islam”. He suggests the moon “is considered holiest astronomical object” due to the lunar calendar being used in Islam, the moon of Islamic countries’ flags and the moon on mosques. To correct Mirza; no astral object is considered to be holy yet alone the moon, Mirza. Also if Mirza read the Quran he would realise the Quran teaches us that the moon is subservient to humans, we realise through the Quran (16:12) that Humans are superior (better) than the moon.
He has made subject to you the Night and the Day; the sun and the moon; and the stars are in subjection by His Command: verily in this are Signs for men who are wise (16:12) (14)
Mirza should refrain from jumping to hasty conclusions and needs to stop making absurd claims which have no evidence to support them and which go against all the evidence available. Mirza cites the Muslim’s use of the lunar calendar to point at the significance of the moon, if Mirza had studied further he would have realized that many Eastern societies use(d) the moon for marking time, it is not only the Muslims, the Chinese, the Jews and Hindu communities have also used the moon for this purpose too. His idea about the moon being on mosques and on flags is correct but these things are not seen as Islamic (4):
Let it be said that the ‘moon’ symbol on some mosques and flags has nothing to do with Islam. There is no teaching within Islam that teaches the over-reverence of the moon or instructing Muslims to adopt it as a representative symbol. Early Muslims did not use the crescent (moon) for flags nor Mosques and did not have any symbol to represent them. This symbolism was introduced during the Ottoman Empire much later on and was adopted from a city they conquered; “It wasn’t until the Ottoman Empire that the crescent moon and star became affiliated with the Muslim world. When the Turks conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, they adopted the city’s existing flag and symbol” (15).
It should also be added that this symbolism is not seen as Islamic and many Muslims do not agree with the use of a symbol for Islam as highlighted by a quote from A popular Muslim Scholar, Yusuf Estes; “The symbol of Islam IS NOT the crescent moon and the star, but it was used by the last Islamic Dynasty, the Ottoman’s. The Ottoman Empire deemed it appropriate to use the star and crescent as their symbols, but not the symbols of Islam. I repeat the star and the crescent moon are not a part of the religion of Islam. Because Islam is so strict on the concept of no other gods with Allah; and no images of any kind; it is a mistake to consider that Islam authorized the general use of such things. Additionally, Islam forbids the images (statues) of any kinds of humans, animals or any of Allah’s creations, so how about using a symbol for Islam?” (15).
I believe Mirza wanted to add another point to this section but due to poor editing he put his point (list of names of the moon-god) in another section which made it look incongruent and became a prominent reason why I rendered the article quite disorganised. In fairness, I will move on to discuss his statement in this section too.
In the first paragraph of the article Mirza makes the claim that Allah is the moon god yet supplies no evidence. However, strangely enough Mirza later states “The variable names (Sin, Hubul, llumquh, Al-ilah) of moon god were used by various tribes of pagan Arabs. Pagan god SIN was the name of Moon-god” (1). In his list of the names for the moon-gods he does not put the name “Allah” forward. He seems to have contradicted himself here. I have offered three links to articles which show that Allah is not a moon-god; please view these in appendix 1.
However, in order to be thorough with Mirza’s claim (which is drawn from Morey’s fallacious work) I believe that Mirza is confused with the inclusion of the name ‘al-ilah’. He mentioned that this (al-ilah) was one of the names of the moon god, I am not sure if this was the case as Mirza supplies no evidence for his claim but I will still help to clarify any confusion concerning this issue. ‘Ilah’ simply means ‘a god’, this was the word Arab pagans would use to describe their idols individually. So I would imagine when they made their idol the definite article (in a sentence) they would prefix the word ‘al’ and thus come to al-ilah (perhaps this is where the confusion arose from) This should not be confused with the word ‘Allah’. It is quite apparent, even to those who are unaware of Arabic, that ‘Allah’ is not the same as ‘al-ilah’, they are different words.
However the Arab pagans knew that Allah was separate from their idols (as shown earlier in the article) so even they did not call their idols by the name Allah, therefore they would not have called any moon-gods by the name Allah.However, just to add further depth and pour further refutation upon the claims let us ponder upon the names of the moon gods of the past. According to Professor Coon the names of this ‘moon god’ were: The state god of the Minaeans was Wadd, that of the Katabanians 'Amm, that of the Hadramis Sin, and of the Sabaeans Il Mukah. All were the moon. (Coon, p. 399).The names of the moon-god were Wadd, 'Amm, Sin, and Il Mukah. Allah was never the Moon-god, despite Morey's desperate pleading. (16)
As many Christians (Catholic) respect their Pope let us quote Pope Paul (the 6th), he declared in Ecclesian Saum, “We do well to admire these people [of the Muslim religion] for all that is good and true in their worship of God” (17). This Pope did not claim moon-worship but intimated Muslims worship God (Allah).
I would still like to add that Mirza got this ‘moon-god claim’ from Robert Morey who is a proven fabricator of evidence. He is not to be trusted and his claims have been refuted many times over yet over-zealous evangelical Christians and critics (such as Mirza) continue to use this claim despite the wide acknowledgement of the falsehood of Robert Morey’s work. Even Christians have denounced the claim as being false as further research leads us to a Christian (Rick Brown) denouncing the ‘moon god’ claim as a false claim:“and Allah was certainly not the moon god's name” (R. Brown, "Who Is "Allah"?", International Journal Of Frontier Missions, 2006, Volume 23, No. 2, p. 79. (sourced from reference 18)
So, again the message to Mirza, Morey and all the others who are mindlessly spreading this corruption is: If you make a claim in a scholarly field then you must bring evidence to back your claim up and not conjecture and your own faulty and biased interpretations that differ to all the authoritative interpretations and sources. The first rule of making a claim is:‘Bring your evidence if you are truthful’The missionary is making the claim, therefore the burden of proof is on him, just to remind him; your own interpretation, speculation and conjecture does not constitute as evidence and nor can it be substituted for evidence.
Due to the false nature of the, moon-god’ claim we come to realise that anybody propagating the ‘moon god’ claim cannot be trusted. Either that individual is ignorant or deliberately deceptive. Either way both categories cannot be trusted as the ignorant individual has no knowledge, therefore it would be unwise to receive religious instruction from an ignorant individual. Secondly, the individual who propagates the ‘moon-god’ despite knowing it to be a false claim cannot be trusted as he/she is a liar. So I ask anybody who finds a website/individual propagating the ‘moon-god’ claim to distrust and question that individual/website. Sadly, all too many Christian evangelical sites/materials preach the ‘moon-god’ claim; Mirza was influenced by such missionary propaganda.
Their claims may trick the occasional Muslim but most Muslims will question it and ask those who know and upon learning the truth about their claim the one who was tricked by the claim originally will realise he/she had been lied to by Christians about the ‘moon-god and will turn away from the falsehood and come back to the Truth of Islam (insha’allah). May Allah guide us all. Ameen
Did the Prophet compromise with the Pagans in order to establish Islam?
Mirza suggests Muhammad compromised in order to accommodate Islam amongst pagan Arabs. Mirza’s two major arguments in this section are the numerous (99) Names of Allah and pilgrimage rites (Hajj/Umrah) being performed by pagan Arabs before the revelation of the Quran (i.e. before the introduction of Islam).
Mirza makes the outlandish suggestion that the 99 Names of Allah were names of the major pagan gods. He has no proof for his suggestion but suggests it half-heartedly. Mirza shows his ignorance of the Names of Allah and I begin to doubt his claims of being an ex-Muslim. Surely if he had knowledge of Islam as a Muslim he would know that the Names of Allah are in fact His Attributes such as (Ar-Raheem- The Merciful, al-Khaliq- The Creator, al-Wadood- The Loving etc.) Mirza should have known that the major pagan-god names included Hubal (the name of the pagan’s most famous idol), Manat, Uzza etc and none of these are the Names of Allah. The Names of Allah are His attributes and these Names were not the names of any pagan-idols. In fact Mirza knew the names of the major idols (he mentions the “best deities known” in Mecca as “lat, uzza and manat”) yet he still tried to pull off this ludicrous suggestion. His knowing of the names of the best known deities/idols of the pagans left him in doubt of his own suggestion as he uses the word “perhaps” in parenthesis which indicates Mirza was in doubt too as he says:
the Prophet was able to convince (by force of course) the pagans to destroy all idols, and on return (he) agreed (perhaps) to keep the ‘Names’ of the goddess of most famous Pagan tribes as the alternative names of Allah hence Islam has 99 NAMES of Allah.(1)
Mirza, illogically, adds his own ignorant theory to the names of Allah without even knowing the Names of Allah and the meanings of these Names. He suggests that they are the names of the major pagan idols yet the major pagan idols/gods were named Hubal, Manat, Uzza, Lat etc. and none of these names (hubal, manat, uzza etc) are the Names of Allah. I have come across no other critic of Islam who has suggested such nonsense so Mirza has broke new ground here. Mirza only debases his work and discredits his reliability with this bankrupt suggestion. This is indicative of Mirza’s work, he illustrates a fact (i.e. Allah has 99 Names) and defaces the fact with ignorant speculation (i.e. his suggestion that the names were from the pagan gods). This illogical and deceptive methodology may be sufficient for an Islamophobe who is searching the internet for anything negative about Islam to espouse but for the people who are evidence based Mirza’s work is far from sufficient.
His other claim in this section just highlights Mirza’s ignorance of the history of Mecca. Mirza, essentially, makes the same mistake as he did concerning the pre-existence (i.e. before the introduction of Islam) of the word Allah. As we know the word Allah was in use in Arabia (Mecca) at the time of Ishmael and Abraham (as shown above in the section ‘Who is Actually Allah’).
Mirza claims that the pre-Islamic pagans performed many rituals which the Muslims perform. He argues that Muhammed compromised with the pagans (so the pagans would become Muslims) by adopting these ‘pagan’ practices into Islam in order to encourage the pagans to convert to Islam. Mirza uses the same erroneous methodology and displays the same incomplete knowledge about Islam as he has done throughout his article. Nothing has changed. However it is important to correct Mirza so he can (God Willing) rectify his mistakes.
Yes, Muslims (knowledgeable ones) know that the pagan Arabs used to hold the Kabah in high regard and used to observe a pilgrimage to the Kabah. (19). Again Mirza with holds/or is unaware of the crucial information. Therefore it is apt for us to educate Mirza with a history lesson concerning the Kabah and the pilgrimage by revealing this crucial information.
As we already know (mentioned above) Ishmael had preached to the Arabs in the locality of the Kabah and “most of the Arabs had complied with the call of Ishmael and professed the religion of his father Abraham. They worshipped Allah, professed His Oneness and followed His religion...” (6). But if we go back before this we realise that both Ishmael and his father Abraham (peace be on them) had built the Kabah; “father and son built Al-Kabah and raised its pillars” (20) and Abraham was the one who introduced the pilgrimage (not the pagans); “and Abraham in compliance with Allah’s Commandment, called unto people to perform pilgrimage to it” (20). So we realise that Abraham introduced the pilgrimage to the Kabah and it was built by Ishmael and Abraham, this information was not put forward by Mirza, either ignorantly or deceptively. I tend to believe that Mirza simply did not know this information rather than him deceptively hiding crucial information.
With all this said there may still be some confusion concerning the pagans and the pilgrimage and their devotion to the Kabah. Was Mirza correct in mentioning this? Yes, Mirza is correct, the pagans before Muhammed and even at the time of Muhammed, held the Kabah in high esteem and performed pilgrimages to it.
However, this was after many years of following the pure religion of Abraham, they forgot part of the teachings of Abraham and began to introduce new practices which eventually resulted in transforming their religion into idol-worship (paganism/polytheism) and superstition. These pre-Islamic pagan people still held onto some of the practices of Abraham despite becoming pagans, polytheists and holders of superstitions; “people of pre-Islamic period, whilst believing in superstition, still retained some of the Abrahamic traditions such as devotion to Al-Kabah, circumambulation, observance of pilgrimage, the stay at Arafat and offering sacrifices. All of these were observed despite some innovations that adulterated their sacredness” (21). Thus the original significance and purity of the Kabah and the pilgrimage had been lost, however Muhammed purified the Kabah and re-instated the pure teachings of Abraham and re-introduced the Commandment of Allah which was the pilgrimage. Muhammed did not compromise with the pagabs, no secret deal was struck contrary to Mirza’s fanciful claims. In fact Muhammed was so opposed to the pagan idolatry he broke their idols (all 360 of them) once he assumed control of Mecca. “He broke them down and had them removed and burned up” (7). This is far from Mirza’s claims of ‘compromise’!
To further highlight the incorrect nature of Mirza’s claims we can see that the pagans (Quraish) did attempt to negotiate and tempt Muhammed into compromising with them and their idol-worship but Muhammed rejected their offer and continued to preach the worship of the Only God (Allah):
“At-Tabari and others report that Ibn Abbas said that the Quraish said, ‘Worship our gods for one year, and we will worship your god for one year” so Allah revealed the Verse number 39:64,
“Say: Is it other than Allah that you order me to worship O you fools?”[English translation of 39:64] (22)
So Mirza’s claims are shattered due to his insufficient knowledge of the subject, it just goes to show how wise the old adage is; ‘a little knowledge is dangerous’ as Mirza produces a misleading, erroneous, fanciful and unscholarly article which has now been adopted by Islamophobes as propaganda against Islam. Is this the type of disgraceful legacy Mirza whished to leave?
Conclusion
Mirza finally moves onto the conclusion section and boldly and illogically concludes (based on partial knowledge and conjecture) : “In summary, it has been truthfully and logically proven with all possible available circumstantial evidences/rational that, Islam was not a new religion but it is a reformed paganism”.
Mirza came to his conclusion through faulty information, incomplete historical knowledge, conjecture/speculation and illogical methodology. Quite frankly all the facts and all the scholars of Islam (both Muslim and non-Muslim) would disagree with Mirza. In all honesty I believe Mirza’s claims unravelled and fell apart as soon as the historicity of the name Allah was shown to be linked to Abraham (and not to a pagan concept) as Mirza was unaware of this and built all his argument on his false belief that Allah was originated from the pagan moon-worship/idol-worship.
Mirza employed an unscholarly ploy of delivering partial knowledge and combining it with his own unproven speculation. This led to his work being more of a shoddy conspiracy theory rather than a reliable, scholarly authoritative article.
Mirza did not prove anything other than his own lack of knowledge regarding Islam and his illogical methodology. I would ask Mirza to look up the definition of the word “prove” as Mirza did not bring forth any evidence, in order to prove something you need to produce evidence, Mirza failed to produce evidence. So my message to Mirza is thus; if you make a claim in a scholarly field then you must bring evidence to back your claim up and not conjecture and your own faulty interpretations that differ to all the authoritative interpretations and sources. As he has no leg to stand on I would ask Mirza to correct himself and remove the misinformation which is his article.
Appendix 1
Links to articles disproving the ‘moon-god claim’:
An overview article by Yahya Snow:
http://thefactsaboutislam.blogspot.com/2009/07/allah-is-not-moon-god.html
The most comprehensive work refuting the ‘moon god’ claim is a real scholarly effort is:Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look At The Archaeological Evidence by M S M Saifullah, Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi & ‘Abdullah David:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongod.htmlReply To Dr. Robert Morey's Moon-God Myth & Other Deceptive Attacks On Islam by Imam Shabir Ally:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongods.html
Appendix 2
In his book (The Islamic Invasion pg193 ) Morey falsifies a number of hadith by claiming that Muhammad “reached up with his sword and cut the moon in half”,there is no such hadith which supports this claim yet Morey claims a number of hadith support his view! Clearly he was making things up or very very misinformed.
However it gets worse for Morey as he is shown to be ‘fabricating evidence’ (i.e. making things up, again!) Saifullah et al write:Equally ridiculous is another of Morey's claims that several smaller statues were also found "which were identified by their inscriptions as the "daughters" of the Moon-god." No such statues or inscriptions accompanying them were found in Hazor. Unfortunately for Morey he has been caught red-handed fabricating evidence. Put simply, he is making up stories here. (see
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/Allah/moongod.html)
References
1. Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza
2. A. Yusuf Ali Translation of the Quran, 2:255
3. Ibid 59:24
4.
Allah is Not a Moon god by Yahya Snow
5. Ar-Raheequl-Makhtum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, Darussalam, 2002 pg 26-28
6. Ibid pg 45
7. Ibid pg 45-46
8. Ibid 46
9. Ibid 63
10. Islam a Short History by Karen Armstrong, Phoenix Press, 2001, pg 3
11. Ibid pg10
12. What Is Islam by W.Montgomery Watt, Longman Group, Second Edition, 1979, pg 47
13. A. Yusuf Ali translation of the Quran 41:37
14. Ibid 16:12
15. http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544398
16. Reply to Dr. Robert Morey's Moon-God Myth & Other Deceptive Attacks on Islam by Imam Shabir Ally
17. Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, by Jack G. Shaheen, Center or Muslim-Christian Understanding: History and International Affairs, 1997 pg78
18. Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look at the Archaeological Evidence by M S M Saifullah, Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi & ‘Abdullah David (link is included in appendix 1)
19. Ar-Raheeq ul-Makhtum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, Darussalam, 2002 pg 50
20. Ibid pg28
21. Ibid pg50
22. Ibid pg139
