What's New On "Answering Islam" ?

The following pages have been added newly or substantially revised during the year 2004 at the following dates:

December 30, 2004
A number of additions were made to the paper on the Quranic understanding of the Trinity, the Tafsîr of the Verse 5:73. The article, Who Was the Crucified One?, was revised and extended. Additions to the section of Email Dialogs: Trinity, the basic flaw in your religion and Is the belief of ‘Jesus dying in our place’ consistent with Justice? Plenty of new material was added to the Chinese section.

December 23, 2004
The articles, Islam and Stoning: A Case Study Into the Textual Corruption Of the Quran and Talking Beasts and Insects: Revisiting the Amazing Fables Of Islam, reveal some telling inconsistencies in Muslim polemics against the Bible. The newest entries in our section of Email Dialogs are: True Religion, What about the Christian scholars who are doubting the Deity of Jesus?, and Prophecies in the Qur'an?

December 17, 2004
Tahir from Palestine shares the story of his journey from Islam to Christianity. Several new quotations and references were added to the article Variant Readings of the Quran. The second installment in our newest section, Email Dialogs, responds to these three topics: Does one have to learn Arabic before thinking about the Qur'an?, Seven Questions about Christianity, Making a whole site to disprove Islam?

December 11, 2004
Today we are starting a new section: Answering Islam Email Dialogs. It provides samples of our answers to emails we are receiving. The first three entries are: a response to an article about Polygamy, a Question from an atheist, and the charge: You are spreading hatred. Roland Clarke's article on The Meaning of Christmas has been revised and extended. Finally, a short contribution to the question, Who is 'Uzair?

December 6, 2004
The third installment in Farooq Ibrahim's story: Is Isa merely a Messenger or God Incarnate? "Where Will I Go After I Die?" - Gunjoa tells about the quest of his life both in French and English. Responding to a Muslim polemic, Sam Shamoun presents Six Points Establishing that the Quran Does Confirm the Holy Bible. The Dutch section was updated with some new articles and much of the older material was revised.

November 30, 2004
Murdering Islam's Critics: The Female Slaves and Theo Van Gogh by Silas. A number of quotations have been added to Sam Shamoun's paper regarding The Quranic Witness to Biblical Authority, and his article Jesus' Divine Claims and Islam: An Examination of Biblical Christology In Light of the Quranic View of Allah's Attributes has been completely reworked. The Arabic and Chinese sections were also updated with new material.

November 21, 2004
The murder of Theo Van Gogh and Islam by Samuel Green. Sam Shamoun examines the early beginnings of the conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in Muhammad and the Meccans: Who Antagonized Whom? and presents an exegesis of passages on the Sonship of Jesus which are sometimes misunderstood: The Sonship of Christ: Eternal or Temporal? Examining Some Key Texts Regarding Jesus’ Relationship to the Father. Muslims often claim that Jesus was only sent to the Jews. The scope of Jesus' mission is reviewed in Jesus' Ministry - Limited, Universal or Both? The Chinese section was updated as well.

November 13, 2004
The Spirit of Islam: New York, Madrid, Beslan written by Silas, and Sam Shamoun presents The New Testament on the Worship given to Jesus: Its Significance and Implications for the Deity of Christ. A short paper on the question regarding Which Day Was Christ Crucified?

November 7, 2004
Farooq Ibrahim presents his thoughts on The Challenge to find Discrepancy in the Quran. Osama Abdallah had a serious problem with our latest rebuttal to him. Therefore, I had to add an update to the examination of The lies and misrepresentations of Osama Abdallah, and also wrote a detailed response to his emotional outburst in reaction to my article: Lying about Lying: The Wrath of a Toothless Tiger. As a final tribute to Abdallah, the article Spreading Hoaxes in the Name of Islam was updated with an additional section: The Sad Story Continues .... Our feedback page, Responding to Answering Islam, was rewritten, and after six months we provide a substantial online update to the Answering Islam CD-ROM. New articles were also added to the Indonesian/Malay and Chinese sections.

October 25, 2004
The lies and misrepresentations of Osama Abdallah is a first installment of what may become a regular series of comments on the publications of a popular bible-bashing website. It deals with Abdallah's latest article published yesterday. The second addition, answering last week's polemic, is about the hilarious conclusions drawn by the same person when faced with the problem of deciphering the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. In the article, Muhammad's False Prophecies, the discussion regarding the date of the Roman victory is further supported with a detail found in al-Tabari. Ever so often some Muslims make the strange claim that Hitler was a Christian. In a new Index to Islam entry on Hitler, we provide links to various articles that examine this claim.

October 18, 2004
Israel's Response to the Offer of the Covenant: ‘We Obey’ or ‘We Disobey’? is the latest addition to the section on Contradictions in the Qur'an. Some more quotations were included in an article on the biblical foundation of the Trinity. More evidence regarding a variant reading in Surah 33:6, about Muhammad's fatherhood to the believers, was added to the discussions in two papers (*, *).

October 9, 2004
The Invalidity of a Critic's Denial of Christian Atonement Theology is the second part in our rebuttal to a Bismikaallahuma polemic against the crucifixion of Jesus. Sam Shamoun examines the Biblical and Islamic view of blood atonement: Where is the Blood?, and issues a challenge to Osama Abdallah in The Quran and Lesbianism. A small update on Nadir Ahmed's favorite topic: And he runs and runs and runs ... A number of quotations from Muslim commentaries were added to the article The Quran on the Authority and Integrity of the Biblical Text, Part 2. Elwood Morris Wherry's Comprehensive Commentary of the Qur'an, Volume III, was added to the Classical Library. The Arabic and Chinese sections were also updated with new material.

October 3, 2004
Farooq Ibrahim reports about his struggle with The Problem of Abrogation in the Quran. Surah 9:30 makes an historically problematic statement about Ezra. Dr. Ernest Hahn presents some comments on Mahmoud Ayoub's essay, 'Uzayr in the Qur'an and Muslim Tradition. After adding the final two chapters, John Gilchrist's book, Sharing the Gospel with Muslims, is now completed. Also, Sir W. Muir's work on the history of Islam, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, is finally complete.

September 26, 2004
Today's update will deal with a couple of rather vulgar and vile Muslim accusations against the Bible. Osama Abdallah's Obsession with Pedophilia (Fantasizing Pedophilia into the Holy Bible) and Jesus as Yahweh God: Another Rebuttal to a Muslim's Denials. Two articles in response to another Muslim polemicist: Did Jesus Really Obey Satan? and On Nadir Ahmed's ‘Review’ of the Abdallah-Shamoun Debate. Additionally, Silas questions another academician in Mark LeVine and a Truce with Islam. The articles The Chaotic Structure and Textual Corruption of the Quran Revisited and Tafsir of the Verse 5:73 were updated, and the Chinese section contains new material as well.

September 11, 2004
The Terror Log provides data on Islamic terrorism. For years, our site has been subject to hacker attacks. We are finally starting a section documenting and discussing this issue: Some thoughts on the recent ‘hack’ of Answering Islam. The Chinese and Dutch sections were updated with new articles.

September 7, 2004
A Defense of the Revelation of the Messiah's Deity in the Old Testament responds to Osama Abdallah's challenge regarding Jeremiah 23:5-6. Jesus is Yahweh examines the New Testament use of Old Testament passages to demonstrate the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another rebuttal to some Bismikaallahuma polemics: Judaism and Human Sacrifice as a Means of Atonement. The paper Muhammad and Idolatry has been reworked, and a number of quotations from Ibn Kathir were added to Muhammad's Idolatry Revisited. The first three chapters of Samuel Zwemer's classic The Moslem Christ are now available. Substantial additions are found also in the Chinese section.

September 3, 2004
Two more chapters, The Son of God: The Messiah, Spirit and Word and Al-Masihu Isa: God’s Anointed Messiah were added to the online edition of John Gilchrist's book, Sharing the Gospel with Muslims. Roland Clarke's meditation on the meaning of Abraham's sacrifice has been greatly extended. Anthony Wales presents More Similarities between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul. Some surprising observations await the reader in the article One Adam or Two?

August 28, 2004
This is Nadir Ahmed Day. We are starting a new section on this rather obnoxious Muslim polemicist. In Hunter or Hunted? we expose the lies around his "debate challenges" to Answering Islam, and a two-part series by Sam Shamoun deals with Nadir Ahmed's claims regarding Science in the Qur'an (*, *). Furthermore, two earlier rebuttals on the topics of Muhammad's Bewitchment and the Breastfeeding of Adults were updated with additional quotations.

August 16, 2004
The PalTalk debate of Sam Shamoun vs. Osama Abdallah on the topic "Is Muhammad a True Prophet?" was recorded. We added a link to this debate in the section of Rebuttals to Osama Abdallah. Some new testimonies and a new article are now available in the Indonesian/Malay section.

August 13, 2004
The chapter Jesus: Unique in the Qur’an and the Bible and the bibliography were added to the online edition of John Gilchrist's book, Sharing the Gospel with Muslims. Sam Shamoun presents a two part article on the Canon of the New Testament ([Part I], [Part II]) in rebuttal to Johnny Bravo's attack on the Bible, and examines the book of Acts regarding its teaching on the Deity of Jesus: This Is Our God, the Servant King, rebutting two articles by Shabir Ally misinterpreting the evidence. More additions are found also in the Chinese and Dutch sections.

August 6, 2004
Who Fashioned the Golden Calf? answers to an alleged Bible contradiction. What the Qur'an Really Says About Violence is a review of an article under the same title published on Beliefnet. We added an entry on ‘suicide bombers’ to the Index to Islam. The section of Sam Shamoun's Papers has been reorganized. Several quotations of Muslim traditions were added to the "Islam and Homosexuality" section in the rebuttal to a silly Muslim polemic charging the Apostle Paul with homosexual desires. The Chinese section was extended with new material.

July 29, 2004
Was Muhammad an idolater before becoming the prophet of Islam? The discussion about this question continues with a response in two parts to an earlier Muslim reaction; Part 1: Muhammad's Idolatry Revisited, Part 2: Muhammad's Idolatry and Arabic Grammar (a detailed discussion of one particular hadith on the issue). We added a statement regarding Abu Bakr's possession and its implications for Muhammad's prophethood to the first article in the series on Muhammad's bewitchment, and present a final rebuttal to even more Muslim red herring responses on this topic.

July 16, 2004
100 Similarities between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul. Duncan B. Macdonald's lecture on Intercourse through the Jinn; Spirits, Demons, and Ghosts in Islam was added to the Classical Library. Some further quotations from Islamic sources regarding the seven modes/readings (ahruf) of the Qur'an were added to the article The Chaotic Structure and Textual Corruption of the Quran Revisited, and additional quotations were included also into the article on the Sabaan Mina Al-Mathani - The Seven Which Are Often Repeated.

July 9, 2004
The Jinn and the Challenge of the Qur'an discusses one substantial flaw in the main "proof for the divine origin of the Qur'an". Another such "proof" propagated by Muslims are astonishing scientific statements allegedly found in the Qur'an and the sayings of Muhammad. The articles The Quran and the Shape of the Earth and The Amazing Fables of Islam certainly put a weighty question mark after such claims.

July 4, 2004
The Bible and the Qur'an both use the term "son" in a number of different meanings. The Son of God in the Bible and the Qur'an provides solid information for this foundational topic of discussion between Christians and Muslims. Sam Shamoun continues his rebuttal to Johnny Bravo's Christian Scholars refuting the status of the NT as an inspired scripture with an appendix: Addressing Some Arguments in Support of the Apocrypha. We started a new language section, adding the first articles in Finnish. The Chinese and Dutch sections contain a good number of new articles as well.

June 26, 2004
Anthony Wales responds to the Muslim pamphlet Is Jesus Really God? To the Qur'an Contradiction Six or eight days of creation? we added a postscript with an additional observation regarding a grammatical error in Surah 41:11.

June 19, 2004
Sam Shamoun presents a three part response to Johnny Bravo on the topic of demon possession: Examining A Muslim's Defense of Muhammad's Bewitchment (Part [1], [2], [3]). A postscript was added to an article on Muhammad's False Prophecies, and the section Hoaxes & Rumors was extended with What about the Eagle Verse ... (or: Is the Invasion of American troops in Iraq predicted in the Qur'an?). A Christian reader of Answering Islam submitted an observation we found worth adding as an article: Since the Qur'an claims to be complete ....

June 8, 2004
The Muslim website Bismikaallahuma attempted to give a solution to some contradictions in the Qur'an. The following are our evaluations of their harmonizations: The Qur'an and the Event of Worship to the Golden Calf and Muhammad and the Unbelievers Revisited: Do They In Fact Worship the Same Deity or Not? Additions and revisions are found in the Chinese subsite.

May 26, 2004
The article on the Gospel of Barnabas by Samuel Green was extended with a considerable amount of new material. Various new articles are found in the Chinese and Dutch sections.

May 19, 2004
There are many Muslim hoaxes circulated in print publications as well as on the internet. The article Spreading Hoaxes in the Name of Islam examines three hoaxes propagated in order to support the common claim that ‘modern science confirms the truth of Islam’. In the list of key word indices of Hadith collections, we now offer also an Index to the Risala of Imam Shafi'i. The next set of update files for the Answering Islam CD-ROM is finally available.

May 13, 2004
As the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, and a beheading and mutilations of American civilians by Muslims shock the world, there are Some Questions on Torture that need to be raised. A new article, The Seven Which Are Often Repeated, was added to the section on The Incompleteness and Incoherence of the Qur'an.

May 9, 2004
On Mother's Day we present some long overdue rebuttals to the widely distributed Muslim propaganda Women In Islam Versus Women In The Judaeo-Christian Tradition: The Myth And The Reality by Sherif Abdel Azeem: Of Myths And Women is a comprehensive rebuttal, and a Catholic apologist contributed another answer to the first sections of the same Muslim pamphlet, "Eve's Fault" and "Eve's Legacy". These two were placed together with some older articles into a new rebuttal section of Responses to Sherif Abdel Azeem. This site now provides an Index to the Muwatta of Imam Malik, and a list of The Koran's 150+ Jihad Verses was included in the section Themes of the Qur'an. New articles were added to the Indonesian/Malay section.

May 5, 2004
We started a new section, The Incompleteness and Incoherence of the Qur'an, by linking some earlier articles and adding a detailed introduction to the topic. The article Textual Variations of the Koran by D. S. Margoliouth is now available in our Classical Library. Some additions were made to the Chinese section.

May 1, 2004
Who are those "without knowledge"? seeks to understand one aspect of Surah 16:25. The article The Islamic teaching on the Sinlessness of Jesus responds to a polemic by O. Abdallah. We added a link to the article Profiles in Quackery II: The Case of Osama Abdallah to the bottom of our article on Muhammad and the 90 feet tall Adam and made available the text of the Epistle of Barnabas that is sometimes confused with the fake Gospel of Barnabas. More articles were added to the Chinese section.

April 19, 2004
The quotations and conclusions found in Islam's Doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement and the Ransoming of Sinners could be quite a surprise, or even downright shocking, to different people for different reasons. The article Who Suffers the Consequence of Sins according to the Qur'an? was expanded with new material, and we offer a rebuttal to a Muslim response to this article in Islam and the Punishment of the Innocent. The article Why Muslims can never be assured that the Qur'an is the Word of God is a rebuttal to a pamphlet by Shabir Ally. About a week ago we also corrected an error on one of our pages discovered through an inquiry by a Muslim reader. Additions were also made to the Arabic and Chinese sections.

April 9, 2004
A small Good Friday update: Roland Clarke presents some thoughts on Sacrifice. A number of new articles in the Dutch section.

April 1, 2004
On April Fool's Day [*] we discuss a number of foolish things that Muslims are supposed to believe in the article on The Stoning of the She-Monkey. Furthermore, we wonder whom Muslim polemicists and even Islamic scholars are trying to fool by their misrepresentations and mistranslations of Muslim traditions (Was Adam 60 cubits tall?) and manuals of Islamic Law (On Female Circumcision).

March 28, 2004
During the last five weeks, the Muslim website Bismikaallahuma published two more articles attacking various details in the birth narratives of Jesus. The pages John 8 and the Birth of Jesus and Jesus' Association with Nazareth answer to these polemics. Additions were also made to the Arabic and Chinese sections.

March 17, 2004
Solomon: Image of the True Son of David and Isaiah: Behold the Servant He has Chosen are the final two chapters in the first part of Sharing the Gospel with Muslims by John Gilchrist. Roland Clarke ponders some of the developments in our world in his tract Nearing the End? Sam Shamoun has updated and extended his article The New Testament Documents and the Historicity of the Resurrection.

March 12, 2004
Reda'a: Opinions of Muslim Scholars On the Issue of Breast-Feeding is a follow-up on the earlier rebuttal on the issue of Islam and the Nursing of Adults providing further quotations from Islamic sources. Another claim of "science proves Islam" is rebutted in Muhammad and the 90 feet tall Adam. New articles were added also to the Arabic, Chinese and Dutch sections.

March 1, 2004
Sam Shamoun responds to Osama Abdallah: Revisiting the case for the honorific position of women in Holy Bible in contrast to their degradation in Islam ([Part 1], [Part 2]). Surah 5:48 is one verse that some Muslim polemicists use to justify their claims regarding a corruption of the Bible, and the Qur'an allegedly correcting the Bible. The article The Classical Muslim Commentators and their Exegesis of Surah 5:48 — Muhaimin and Its Relation to the Integrity of the Holy Bible takes a detailed look at the crucial word in this verse. New articles are also available in the Indonesian/Malay section.

February 25, 2004
Two more chapters of John Gilchrist's Sharing the Gospel with Muslims are now available: Moses: Law and Grace in Sharp Contrast and David: Prophecies of Death and Resurrection. The article Hamza Abdul Malik and the Ishmael Connection is a response to various claims by Malik in his debate on the topic of "Muhammad in the Bible".

February 20, 2004
Abrogated Verses Of the Quran: Evidence from Islamic Sources provides a handy list of those verses as found in the Hadith Collections and other source material of Sunni Muslims. Detailed documentation, including Arabic quotations from the Muslim commentaries, were added to the article Books or People? - The textual variants of Surah 28:48. To the same section on the "Versions of the Qur'an" we also added an article discussing a number attempts by Muslim translators to cover up the Sins of Muhammad (S. 47:19), and a Bibliography of the different Versions of the Qur'an as used on this website. Over the last several weeks we have added a number of important quotes to our initial series of rebuttals to Johnny Bravo as well as to our counter-responses to his attempted rebuttals to us. The Chinese section is updated as well.

February 10, 2004
Three more chapters of John Gilchrist's Sharing the Gospel with Muslims, showing how the life and work of Jesus was foreshadowed in Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph. Sam Shamoun presents a thorough discussion of John 10:34-36, a passage often used by Muslim polemicists as evidence against the Christian understanding of Jesus' true nature: "I Say: Ye Are Gods" — An Examination of Jesus' Use of Psalm 82:6 in Defense of his Deity. Several new articles were added to the Dutch section.

February 5, 2004
The Challenge of the Quran: Its Implications for the Muslim Corruption Charges, and as side effect of this article we found a variant reading in Surah 28:48. Chapter 3 of John Gilchrist's Sharing the Gospel with Muslims: Noah: The First Herald of Righteousness. New articles are found also in the Chinese section.

January 28, 2004
The article, The Status of Paul in early Islam, (published on January 15) was updated / corrected with a note regarding Ibn Hisham's statement about the Apostle Paul, and Who Suffers the Consequence of Sins according to the Qur'an? was added to the section on Contradictions in the Qur'an. For the next two weeks Answering Islam will be the Featured Ministry at TheologyWeb with the article, Do Muslims and Christians speak the same language?, running the front page, and the invitation to discuss this topic. Additionally, TheologyWeb offers a discussion forum on Islam that was created for Christian/Muslim interaction.

January 22, 2004
The second chapter of Samuel Zwemer's The Moslem Christ, and three more chapters of Sir W. Muir's work on the history of Islam, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall.

January 12-16, 2004
This is "Bismikaallahuma Week", i.e. every day we will add one or two articles in response to this particular Islamic website.

  1. A two part response to the Muslim charge against the Apostle Paul to have used apocryphal material.
  2. Continuing the discussion of Muhammad's suicide attempts as they impact the evaluation of his claim to be a prophet of God:
  3. A two part response to MENJ's claim that the Apostle Paul was dependent on the Talmud:
  4. Continuing two discussions: Moreover, since Bismikaallahuma added another alleged Bible contradiction (this time regarding Theudas in Acts 5:36) to their list of attacks on the New Testament today, let us take the occasion to recommend the Christian Thinktank where Glenn Miller answered this problem in Good Question ... on two historical issues in Acts: Theudas and the Sanhedrin.
  5. Finally for this week, a two part response to a rather vicious Muslim attack:

January 9, 2004
The second chapter, Eve: Satan’s Three Great Temptations, of John Gilchrist's book, Sharing the Gospel with Muslims, is now available. New articles are found in the Dutch and the Chinese section.


Articles newly added in 2003.

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