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Hi guys,
I recently had a chat with a guy called Nadir Ahmed, who runs an apologist website and claims
that Islamic texts, specifically the Koran, is evidenced as being correct by something
he calls “Modern Science”. When I asked him what exactly this term “Modern Science”
meant, he admitted he had made it up to signify the scientific discoveries of the last century
or so. Whatever.
Since he did not present any evidence during that chat, I will try this way to get some
answers from this very peculiar Muslim, who accuses others of thinking and doing things
they have not even thought of themselves. Maybe he’s the world’s first real psychic
and I would have done what he accused me of, given sufficient time. Or he’s just an obnoxious
***, so deluded and caught up in his imaginary world that others no longer see any benefit
from any type of exchange or interaction with him. He loves patting himself on the back
– as no one else is, and every 2 minutes repeats that he has demonstrated something
as being correct when he has not even answered a basic question. Yet he insists that he is
only there to help explain the texts of Islam, when he does not understand them properly
himself, as he does not speak classic Arabic and only started learning Standard Arabic
3 years ago.
This Nadir Ahmed believes in at least one god he calls god, then a god-like being called
satan and a whole selection of invisible creatures, ranging from jinns to flying creatures of
all shapes and sizes. That is his world.
My world, however, consists of rational and logical thinking, of reality as described
by science and driven by a humanitarian personality.
I don’t understand his world yet he claims he knows enough about my world to be able
to establish that elements of my world - based in reality - actually confirm claims made
in his holy book based in his imaginary world. Because the measurements and observations
made through science in the natural world are supposed to confirm something in his book,
this somehow then proves to him that the book is of super-natural origins.
Let’s take a closer look at his pages of “Evidence” for statements which are substantiated
by scientific findings and thus point to an obvious super-natural origin of the Koran.
I first need to apologise for a hasty conclusion, as the introductory sentence: “The following
documents just some of the evidence” seemed to lack a word, but reading it several times
does make it a viable sentence. The other example I brought up, the “Archaeological
digs which confirms facts” is really an error.
While we are here, let’s stay with Archaeology and the evidence in the real world. Let’s
look at all the digs, which provide evidence and thus confirm sentences in the Koran.
Digs with s indicates a lot of evidence. Clicking on Archaeology brings me to a 1 single link,
which leaves me somewhat disappointed Finding the lost city of Iram? My hopes are
elevated again. But no, the dig is not in Iram, the City of
a Thousand Pillars, but in the ancient ruins of Ebla in today’s Syria, and then only
a tablet is said to mention Iram, a city of Iram, not THE city of Iram with all its pillars,
not Aad either. The source for all this? A popular magazine in its December 1978 edition
mentioned this: National Geographic! Has anything changed in the last 33 odd years? No. I found
Islamic sites exclusively copy/paste the same stuff over and over as though any of this
article in National Geographic in any way agreed with or resembled the sentence in the
Koran.
89 Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with ‘Aad –[With] Iram – who had lofty
pillars
Why does Nadir Ahmed consider this article in National Geographic to confirm the validity
of a sentence in the Koran? Nobody knows. The city or men of Iram remain lost, just
as Haman remains a name mentioned in the book, never to be found.
Then a quick look at something Nadir terms “scientific evidence”: the cure for the
Bubonic plague, which, according to Nadir, is simple: kill all rats and dogs, keep the
cats.
However, if we take a deeper look at this, we find that this is not even evidence that
“the Quran could not have been written by man”, but that hadiths, man-made texts,
are declared miraculous as well.
And turn out to be just as wrong.
We see that Nadir, the owner of this site, has found a line in the Hadiths, where Muhammad
declares that “rat the scorpion, the kite, the crow and the rabid dog” are the cause
for mischief. What that mischief is, we don’t learn.
Nadir knows. He knows it is the Bubonic Plague.
He also knows that out of the 5 mentioned animals the cause is primarily the rat.
How does he know that?
Nobody knows.
But now let’s see exactly how much this “agrees with modern science in a big way”
It does not. A modern day evaluation shows that many more animals can be considered for
the cause of the Bubonic Plague, such as, surprise, surprise, the cat.
Ooops.
He further cites the scientific and irrefutable authority on the Plague, History for Kids,
which says: “Today we do know what causes bubonic plague: it's a bacterium. Fleas carry
it in the blood they suck;” So even a kid’s page has more knowledge than Nadir and he
should have listened to their evaluation instead of embarrassing himself with ancient superstition.
Nadir recommends that, following a sentence based on nothing but this superstition, all
rats and dogs in all countries be killed in all times to counteract the historical outbreak
of a bacteria in the 14th century.
But why does he exempt scorpions, kites and crows? They are also declared “evil”.
How does he know the main culprit was the rat and exempts the lice, fleas, chipmunks,
mice, prairie dogs, cats and squirrels?
And how is this evidence for the accuracy of the Koran when this is a man-made episode
in a hadith? Why does the Hadith not mention the correct
flow of events: Prevention of plague is done by eliminating areas where animals, especially
rodents, congregate and by avoiding the fleas the rodents carry? This bacterium can be transmitted
to humans, usually by a vector such as fleas. Plague usually starts with a flea bite where
Y. pestis is transmitted from the flea bite site to lymph nodes that swell (buboes). This
type of plague is termed bubonic plague.
So what we learn is that in real life this bacterium has been the cause of plagues in
different countries, the worst one having occurred in Europe in the 14th century. Would
the killing of all rats at the time have provided an effective weapon against the outbreak?
Yes, very likely. Is this what the sentence in the Hadith states:
"Five kinds of animals are mischief-doers (fawasiq) and can be killed even in the Sanctuary:
They are the rat, the scorpion, the kite, the crow and the rabid dog."
No. This is sheer projection.
The page for kids further states that : “DNA evidence shows that the plague came first
from China, but the first recorded instance of people getting bubonic plague was in Constantinople
about 570 AD”, which explains the fear of this during the time and region.
Next, let’s look at some different scientific evidence, a medical “Miracle Claim”.
The Koran states in 2:233 that “Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole
years“
UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, states: “It is well recognized that the
period from birth to two years of age is the “critical window” for the promotion of
good growth, health, and behavioral and cognitive development. Therefore, optimal infant and
young child feeding is crucial during this period. Optimal infant and young child feeding
means that mothers are empowered to initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth, breastfeed
exclusively for the first six months and continue to breastfeed for two years or more, together
with nutritionally adequate, safe, age appropriate, responsive complementary feeding starting
at six months.”
The WHO recommends:” The World Health Organization recommends continued breastfeeding up to 2
years of age or beyond.”
Are these based on scientific papers, studies or experiments? No, they are recommendations
taking a simple principle: nature has taken 200,000 years to come up with the contents
of mother’s milk and contains most nutrients a baby requires. Is something that was known,
common-place and performed for thousands of years a miracle? I don’t think so.
Do either of these sources of Nadir say that a baby should be breastfed for exactly 2 years
- as the Koran does? No. He’s just making that up because he would like it to be true.
One of the sources Nadir uses, a page of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
does not say anything about the duration of breastfeeding, but refers to the American
Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends a breastfeeding duration of over 12 months and
the WHO, the World Health Organisation, which issues a recommendation, which stipulates
a duration of up to 2 years of age or beyond.
If I try and retrace what happened here is that someone most probably entered “breastfeeding
2 years” into Google and then looked for anything vaguely sounding like science. If
a page is found which sounds scientific, put it down as evidence, without actually understanding
its contents and without looking at the papers themselves. If I narrow it down and look only
under scholar, I find no articles stating that any scientist has issued a recommendation
based on scientific principles that babies must, should or ought to be breastfed for
2 years.
Since we have modified our environment and humans are continuously evolving, the standard
breastfeeding period is more like 6 months today, which anyone looking just a little
bit deeper into this will easily find. But not our Nadir.
There are multiple articles recommending the standard and acceptable time of 6 months,
which is then augmented by solid food and the breastfeeding is up to the preferences
of mother and child. So we see that the scientific approach is
to keep the flexibility required and not preach one single time period dogmatically.
In addition, using one of the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” as source
does not necessarily mean this is a scientific institution. It does not even pretend to be
and when it comes to making a recommendation for a breastfeeding period, refers to the
WHO, the World Health Organisation, and the American Academy of Paediatrics. When it comes
to real medical issues, they have the “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)”, which
contains more scholarly materials.
But not the Breastfeeding question. So we see that the claim that the Koran with its
dogmatic decree of women having to breastfeed their babies for 2 full years is not substantiated
by any branch or field of science.
And a last question of how the Koran treats this topic comes up when you consider other
sentences, such as 46:15: “and the bearing (the burden) of him and the weaning of him
was thirty months” Is it 24 or 30 months? Who knows and, as is usual in the Koran, take
your pick as there are several options.
Nadir Ahmed claims that a single – what he calls miracle – would not be impressive.
The only significance - according to him - develops when he finds this agreement of individual
sentences with “science” happening again and again and again, and this apparently becomes
impressive. But sorry: 0+0+0+0 is still equal to 0. So yes, I could go on and destroy all
his other little strawmen he calls evidence on his site, but it’s simply not worth it.
I think what irritates me most about his attitude is that if confronted with a straight question
he goes off on a tangent and evades any straight answers. Instead he lances ad hominems like
it’s going out of fashion, puts up strawmen wherever he pleases and dodges the real questions
and issues.
Well, if dogma and polemics are what it takes to satisfy you, fine. But I prefer facts and
the truth. It looks as though Nadir needs to examine the truth for quite some time – if
he really wants to find it, which I highly doubt.
Thanks for your time