For defenders of Muhammad our first
request is that you present historical, archaeological and geographical EVIDENCE, that suggests that Mecca ever existed before immigrants from Yemen settled the area in around the 4th century AD, and built their Kaaba in the early 5th century AD, as the actual historical record suggests.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?board=56.0While there is abundant such evidence in regard to other ancient Arabian towns,
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1121.0 and
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1465.0 nobody has yet presented us with such information regarding Mecca, even though 7th - 10th century Islamic "tradition" attempts to suggest that Mecca was the epicenter of Muhammad's religion for thousands of years prior to the 4th century AD. Indeed, all the way back to Adam! In the absence of historical and archaeological
evidence, the tradition that masquerades as ancient history in the religion of Islam, is proved to be nothing more than 7th and 8th century created fiction.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1912.0In stark contrast, the historical record contained in scripture and
confirmed by the archaeological record gives us quite a clear picture as to where Abraham journeyed and lived. There are over a million artifacts - just on display - regarding Jerusalem and the Holy Land of the prophets and patriarchs. Indeed Jews, Christians
and Muslims visit the area where Abraham finally settled, and eventually died and was entombed, in Hebron just outside of Jerusalem. A sketch of his journey is detailed at the following link, as also detailed graphically on the map.
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/abraham.html
The historical record of Arabia indicates that the overland route along the Red Sea was not established until around 6th century BC - almost a thousand years after Abraham walked the earth.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?board=56.0This demographic problem presented so much difficulty that Islamic tradition creator Ibn Ishak simply declared that Abraham and Ishmael rode back and forth between Mecca and Hebron on a baraq, or flying donkey-mule, as Muhammad claimed he had ridden on.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1713.0Prior to the 6th century BC spices from Yemen, bound toward the fertile crescent at the top of the Red Sea, had to be transported by ship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade
Wells had to be developed and towns established along this harsh barren Arabian desert land route before overland travel could be supported.
Here is an Islamic site reporting 7th century AD Islamic "tradition": "
Abraham took Hagar and her son, Ishmael to a place near the Kabah; he left them under a tree at the site of Zamzam. No one lived in Makkah back then, yet Abraham made them sit there, leaving them with some dates, and a small water-skin. Thereafter he set out towards home."
http://www.thekeytoislam.com/en/what-do-you-know-about/station-of-abraham-and-zamzam-well.shtml#zamzam_wellSo the obvious first group of fundamental
questions regarding this Islamic "tradition" are...
1. How did Abraham, Hagar, and her son Ishmael, wander 1200 kilometers across harsh, unknown, uncharted, untraveled desert, from Jerusalem to Mecca, nearly a thousand years before the first caravan ever made the trip, and how did they do it on a single skin of water?
2. How did Abraham wander the 1200 kilometers back home, without even that single water skin that he supposedly left with Hagar and Ishmael in Mecca, as Islamic tradition suggests?
3. How and when did Abraham wander the 1200 kilometers back down Mecca to help Ishmael build the Kaaba?
4. What were Abraham's
wife Sarah and their son Isaac doing in Hebron, while Abraham wandered the 1200 kilometers to Mecca with Sarah's slave Hagar then wandered back the 1200 kilometers to Hebron, and then later wandered back down to rebuild the kaaba and wandered back up again?
5. How did Hagar wander the 1000 kilometers up to Egypt and 1000 kilometers back when she fetched Ishmael's wife?
6. How did Ishmael travel 1200 miles from Mecca to Hebron, in time to join Isaac for their father Abraham's burial?
Please give specific answers to the specific questions. It is important to note that scripture offers perfectly reasonable explanations to these questions, that are supported
by archaeological evidence, as well as the very tangible physical geography involved. No need whatsoever to suggest miracles nor invoke flying animals.
In this light it should be painfully obvious that Islamic "tradition" penned in the 7th and 8th centuries AD by SW Arabian desert dwellers, that masquerades as thousands of years of history yet was penned without reference to any actual historical record that preceded the 4th century AD, can hardly be considered to be a historical record. Particularly when it presents a vacuum in regard to - from an Islamic viewpoint - the unanswerable questions above.
Of course tearing down YHWH and His prophets and witnesses could never provide a defense of Islam, but rather could only further weaken Muhammad's religion since it lays claim to being based on the God of the Bible and even His record. So just as we Christians defend what we believe
based on it's own merits, Muslims wishing to defend Mohammed's religion are expected to
defend Islam based on it's own merits.Preposterous and vacuous suggestion that just because there is no historical or archaeological EVIDENCE,
of a place that is supposed to have been the geographical epicenter of Mohammed's religion since Adam doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't exist, is what is known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "argument from ignorance".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorancehttp://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1912.0However even argumentum ad ignorantiam cannot fly in this case because the scriptural record, supported by the archaeological evidence
that does exist, won't allow it. In other words, since we have a more than reasonable record of where Abraham WAS, then we can also understand where he WASN'T - nor could have been. Particularly when that place is across
1200 kilometers of harsh barren unexplored untraveled uncharted Arabian desert from where we know that Abraham WAS in THE Holy Land of the prophets and patriarchs. Let alone the suggestion of his having visited a town that wasn't even settled until a couple thousand years after Abraham walked the earth.
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/abraham.html______________________________
The next group of fundamental questions involve Islamic rituals. Besides the
sole testimony of Mohammed claiming to speak for his "Allah", what leads you to believe that the traditions of Hajj and Umrah, are other than adopted and then adapted and thinly repackaged Quraish pagan worship of the moon, sun, stars, planets and the Arabian jinn religion?
Particularly since they are performed 1200 kilometers away from the Holy Land of the prophets and patriarchs, in what had become the center of Arabian pagan worship.
What do you know about the history of these rituals?
http://www.historyofmecca.com/resources.htmhttp://www.petewaldo.com/hajj_umrah.htmNarrated 'Asim: I asked Anas bin Malik: "Did you use to dislike to perform Tawaf between Safa and Marwa?" He said, "Yes, as it was of the ceremonies of the days of the Pre-lslamic period of ignorance, till Allah revealed: 'Verily! (The two mountains) As-Safa and Al-Marwa are among the symbols of Allah. It is therefore no sin for him who performs the pilgrimage to the Ka'ba, or performs 'Umra, to perform Tawaf between them.'" (2.158) (Sahih al-Bukhari 2 Book 26 710)
What,
besides the sole testimony of Mohammed brings any legitimacy to these traditions that are
practiced 1200 kilometers from THE Holy Land where YHWH had His people build His temple about 1500 years before Mecca was settled and the Kaaba was built?
Sahih Muslim Book 007, Number 3078:
'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Messenger may peace be upon him) said to me: Had your people not been unbelievers in the recent past (had they not quite recently accepted Islam), I would have demolished the Ka'ba and would have rebuilt it on the foundation (laid) by Ibrahim; for when the Quraish had built the Ka'ba, they reduced its (area), and I would also have built (a door) in the rear.Particularly since Mohammed and his followers had joined the pagans shoulder to shoulder in performing these rituals right up until the year before Mohammed's last Hajj.
Sahih Bukhari Volume 2, Book 26, Number 689:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
In the year prior to the last Hajj of the Prophet when Allahs Apostle made Abu Bakr the leader of the pilgrims, the latter (Abu Bakr) sent me in the company of a group of people to make a public announcement: 'No pagan is allowed to perform Hajj after this year, and no naked person is allowed to perform Tawaf of the Kaba.'The pagans were finally kicked out of their own rituals.
7. Please explain how these repackaged pagan rituals are other than completely independent from, and contrary to, the way that the God of the Bible revealed Himself through all of the prophets and witnesses of His 1600 year record.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1226.0http://www.petewaldo.com/hajj_umrah.htm8. Please explain why you prostrate yourself 5 times a day, to the very same black stone idol that Quraish pagans venerated, before Mohammed.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2039.0http://www.petewaldo.com/mecca.htmHave you ever investigated the origins of these rituals?
http://www.historyofmecca.com/resources.htmIt's important to understand that without sound answers to the problems presented above Mohammed's religion must emerge as exactly that - Mohammed's stand-alone 7th century religion.
This makes perfect sense since the Quran is as opposite of the Gospel as Mohammed was opposite to the sinless Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace. Your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. The choice is yours. Either all of the prophets and witnesses of the 1600 year record of YHWH to mankind that His people have followed through two covenants for 3500 years or .......... Mohammed.
All nonconstructive posts that fail to address these questions first, will be subject to being moved to spam storage, until such time as the member provides answers to the above questions.
Certainly the questions don't end there. Like more gems such as
9. What on earth was Adam doing in the southwest Arabian desert building a Kaaba, and
on the basis of what information do you believe he was ever in this place, where Mecca was eventually built?
10. How did a bunch of 7th century AD semi-literate southwest Arabian desert dwelling cutthroats and thieves in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, know what went on 6,000 years earlier?
Didn't you ever even wonder about that enough to investigate their story (at the link provided)?
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=1130.0The answer, of course, is they absolutely could not have known any more about what Adam did 6,000 years previously, than they could have what Abraham did 2,000 years earlier. And it's utterly preposterous to suggest that he did it 1200 kilometers across harsh uncharted untraveled desert, 800 years before the first caravan ever did.
This is how we can know that Muslims follow Mohammed.
Period. That is what makes Islam a cult rather than a religion.
