The Awesome Qur'an Verse that Christians NEVER dare to talk about
On 14 April 2006 Osama Abdallah, editor of the Muslim polemics website Answering Christianity, published a short article by Sami Zaatari making this amazing claim:
The purpose of this article is to simply quote a great verse from the Noble Quran, a verse that you will NEVER hear Christian missionaries bringing up, here is the great verse:
061.006
YUSUFALI: And remember, Jesus, the son of Mary, said: "O Children of Israel! I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you, confirming the Law (which came) before me, and giving Glad Tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad." But when he came to them with Clear Signs, they said, "this is evident sorcery!"Basically this verse records Jesus telling his people about the prophet Muhammad, that the prophet Muhammad would come after him. You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why? Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit. (Source)
As the reader will shortly see, this verse is more a problem for Muslims than it is for Christians. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before addressing this verse, I want to deal with Zaatari's claim that Christians are so frightened of its powerful message that they don't dare to even mention it. Is that really so?
My response to the above statements will consist of three short parts, with some supplemental material placed into an excursus and an appendix.
1. Zaatari's Statistics of Fear
The first claim of Zaatari's article is this:
The purpose of this article is to simply quote a great verse from the Noble Quran, a verse that you will NEVER hear Christian missionaries bringing up, ...
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why? Because they are cowards, ...
Nothing is easier to refute than this assertion. Let me begin by simply pointing to the article The Unintelligibility and Incompleteness of the Quran which was published on Answering Islam on 8 August 2005. It bears the subtitle "The Journey By Night, Muhammad, Ahmad and Zaid". The second section of this three part article begins with the statement, "Another problem we face when dealing with the Quran has to do with the names Muhammad and Ahmad", and then continues with nearly two pages of discussion of a number of problems associated with this very verse that Christians allegedly never dare to mention.
Never say NEVER, Zaatari, particularly when you didn't make the slightest effort to "research" the truth of your bold claim.
I put "research" into quotation marks because that is really too big a word for the simple task of putting "61:6" into the box on our search page and pressing the button, "Start ‘Google Search’". Doing this search on our three mirror sites would have given you more than 50 different pages containing that reference.
Moreover, on 22 January 2006, i.e. less than three months before releasing Zaatari's claim on 14 April 2006, Osama Abdallah published his so-called Rebuttal to Sam Shamoun's "Was Muhammad the Last Messenger?" article in which he quotes Sam Shamoun as quoting and discussing S. 61:6! Here is Sam Shamoun's passage as quoted by Osama Abdallah:
The author of the Quran could have avoided all this confusion, thereby preventing individuals from using these references to support their claim, by simply inserting the name of Muhammad or by saying that Muhammad was the last messenger. In other words, the author could have written Sura 3:81 to say that a messenger is coming whose name is such and such, explicitly mentioning that messenger by name, much like the words he put into the mouth of Jesus:
And call to mind when Jesus, son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel, surely, I am ALLAH's Messenger unto you, fulfilling that which is before me of the prophecies of the Torah, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger who will come after me, his name being Ahmad. And when he came to them with clear proofs, they said, this is manifest sorcery.’ Sura 61:6
(Note: Even this passage’s meaning is debated since it is not certain whether this is giving the proper name of someone to come, or is simply giving a specific description of that person. For more on these points please read this article. (Source)
Your own website is proof that Sam Shamoun is quoting and discussing this verse in at least two articles. Talk about total embarrassment for both, the author Sami Zaatari and the editor Osama Abdallah.
With this, Zaatari's claim is fully refuted. But let's not get Zaatari off the hook so quickly. Now that we got started, let's examine the last two statements of Zaatari's article a bit closer, one by one.
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why?
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
Two articles by Sam Shamoun were already mentioned, but are those the only articles by him, or is he the only Christian courageous enough to mention or discuss this verse? Far from it! On our website alone, Surah 61:6 is mentioned in a host of articles written by many different authors:
These are only some of the articles found on one Christian website. I neither searched other Christian websites, nor have I opened yet any of the Christian books on Islam that are in my library. As substantial as our website already is, it comprises only a small part of what Christians have been writing about Islam.
Let's review Zaatari's statement again:
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why?
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
Despite this devastating verdict by one of Islam's greatest experts on the history and psychology of Christian missionaries, it seems that there are, after all, quite a few courageous and honest Christian missionaries around.
And, not to forget, these above listed pages are taken only from the English section of our website, but Surah 61:6 is also quoted in our other language sections, e.g.
Just in case all of this does not count for Zaatari until there are not at least a hundred such articles, let's continue counting up even more pages that refer to this verse: books and articles by Rev. Tisdall (71, 72, 73), Sir William Muir (74, 75), Karl Gottlieb Pfander (76), E. M. Wherry (77), several entries in Thomas Patrick Hughes' Dictionary of Islam (78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, etc.), and many more pages referring to that verse in one way or other (84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, etc.).
Let's repeat it:
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why?
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
Taking it as a given that Zaatari is always correct, what have we just proven? None of all these people are Christian missionaries!
Enough of that Zaatarian silliness. At the very least, I hope that Zaatari will now study diligently what all those courageous Christians have written about this fearsome verse. In any case, whether Zaatari will care to do so or not, I will give my personal view on it.
2. The Real Problem with S. 61:6
Frankly, I don't know of any Christian who sees a reason to hide that verse or to cover it up. I was certainly never warned of that verse by anyone. In fact, why would Christians be afraid to discuss a verse that should be a major embarrassment to thinking Muslims?
After presenting undeniable proof that there are more than a hundred articles on our website that reference or quote Surah 61:6, some of them even discussing it in detail, everyone must admit that Zaatari's claim was utterly wrong. It was a statement void of any relationship to reality.
I cannot imagine that Zaatari is not duly embarrassed and ashamed for making such an obviously false claim, i.e. for making this claim without first verifying its correctness, or rather, in this case, falsifying the claim that he wanted to make, and then abandoning the project after seeing that his idea was wrong.
And for the very same reason that Zaatari should be embarrassed for making such an obviously wrong claim, thinking Muslims should be embarrassed about Surah 61:6.
Let's look at the verse:
And remember, Jesus, the son of Mary, said: "O Children of Israel! I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you, confirming the Law (which came) before me, and giving Glad Tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad." But when he came to them with Clear Signs, they said, "this is evident sorcery!" S. 61:6 Yusuf Ali
The problem with the verse is that Jesus never made this prediction. Muhammad made it up. Maybe I can help Zaatari and other Muslim readers to see that there really is a problem by illustrating it with a simple fictitious scenario. Muhammad was not the last one to start a religion claiming that he was announced beforehand by earlier prophets. For example, this is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baha'i faith:
He claimed to fulfill the Bábí prophecy of "He whom God shall make manifest", but in a broader sense he also claimed to be the Messenger of God prophesied in all great religious traditions. He said that this day “is the king of days,” for which “the soul of every Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted,” and that “In this most mighty Revelation, all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their final consummation.” (Source, accessed on 20 April 2006; bold emphasis mine)
Imagine that in one of Bahá'u'lláh's writings we were to find the statement:
And remember, Muhammad, the son of Amina, said: "O Arabs! I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you, confirming the Revelations (which came) before me, and giving Glad Tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Bahá'u'lláh." But when he came to them with Clear Signs, they said, "this is evident sorcery!"
Would Muslims be impressed? Would they consider this to be evidence that Bahá'u'lláh is truly a messenger from God and thus convert and join the Baha'i faith? Hardly! Why not?
Given that such an alleged saying by Muhammad is recorded neither in the Qur'an nor in the sahih hadith, the authoritative sources of the religion of Islam, Muslims would conclude that Bahá'u'lláh invented this statement and put it into Muhammad's mouth in order to deceive and mislead people into believing that he is a messenger from God.
Instead of being a reason for believing in Bahá'u'lláh and his message, such a false claim would be a strong reason against believing him. It would not matter at all, if that statement were to be found in the authoritative religious sources of the Baha'is. The fact that it is not recorded in the Islamic sources would be sufficient reason for Muslims (and most other people), to reject such a claim as fabricated.
Baha'i apologists (defenders of the faith) could then counter this embarrassing problem by claiming that the Muslims have corrupted their scriptures by deliberately removing any reference to Bahá'u'lláh, ... but who would consider such a desperate response to be credible? Most everyone would immediately see that it was created merely for the purpose of defending a false claim by their religious founder.
Based on the authoritative Islamic sources, Muslims would easily be able to list half a dozen other reasons why this statement could not even be a lost but authentic statement of Muhammad. The fact that Muhammad explicitly taught to be the final prophet would only be one of them. There would be many others. But I think I have said enough, the reader is getting the point by now.
The problem of Surah 61:6 from a Christian viewpoint is the same as the one outlined above. There is no support for it in authentic Christian writings. Not only does Jesus not mention any "Ahmad", the Messiah (Jesus) is the center and climax of God's history of revelation and salvation. To postulate a later messenger to supersede Jesus stands in utter contradiction to the entire message of the Bible, Old and New Testaments. Looking at the historical evidence, Surah 61:6 is merely one of several alleged sayings of Jesus that the author of the Qur'an fabricated in order to give support to the claim that Muhammad is a messenger from God. No more and no less.
Just as Zaatari's credibility as a religous researcher and writer severely suffered because he very arrogantly made this utterly false claim, so Muhammad's credibility as a supposed messenger from God is heavily damaged by making the false claim about Jesus that is found in Surah 61:6.
It does not even matter much whether Zaatari and Muhammad made their wrong claims deliberately (i.e. knowing them to be wrong, but thinking they are nevertheless useful polemics), or ignorantly (i.e. thinking them to be correct, but being false in reality). The mere fact that they made these false claims without caring to verify them discredits both Zaatari and Muhammad.
That Zaatari made a false claim is probably not going to bother most Muslims, but, as stated above, thinking Muslims should be worried that the Qur'an contains this fabricated claim about an alleged statement of Jesus. To repeat, the Qur'an contains a false claim, a fake quotation, a forged prophecy. That damages the credibility of the Qur'an. That means that the Qur'an is not from God.
Excursus: Some "Personal Issues"
With the above, all is said that needs to be said in regard to clarifying the facts. However, since Zaatari is hardly ever satisfied by talking about facts alone, but loves to get "personal", I am going to take the occasion and pick on some of those issues as well. A quick review of recent history may be helpful here.
Although he has been quite industrious over the last eight months, Sami Zaatari burst on the scene of "interreligious dialogue" only in September 2005 (with a first set of "rebuttals" published on 09/22/2005). In our opinion, he has a strong emphasis on quantity over quality — to put it mildly! His article on Surah 61:6 provided certainly no reason to change that opinion.
Since he has released at least 140 articles in seven months, nobody is going to question his ability to produce quantity.
Given our limited manpower, and the great number of Muslim polemicists on the internet, we have to choose carefully what we can reply to. What arguments seem to be the strongest, or most important, or most influential? We have ignored most of Zaatari's writings because, in our opinion, they amount to very little. Responding to his writings one by one — merely to match his quantity — would result in wasting an unacceptable amount of precious time. It would be an irresponsible use of our small resources.
Not surprisingly, he has taken that silence as evidence for our inability, making statements like:
As most of you already know, I have been currently refuting missionary Sam Shamoun of the Answering Islam team. I currently have 41 rebuttals out to him, him on the other hand has zero responses to me. ... It has been over 2 months now since my rebuttals to him have appeared, .... Well it seems Sam Shamoun cannot respond, the missionary has been finally shut down by my rebuttals and he very well knows it, this is exactly why he is not responding, because he very well knows that I will crush his responses to me just like I did his articles. It is safe to say the missionary has been defeated, ... I will keep waiting to see if Shamoun ever has the guts to respond to me, ... I think all the readers can safely say Shamoun is a coward, ... (Sami Zaatari, The missionary has gone silent, 26 November 2005; underline emphasis mine)
We trust that occasional responses to some of his articles (here) will give careful readers sufficient insight into the value of his arguments, thus approaching all of them with a healthy dose of scepticism.
We are still talking about the first line of:
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why?
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
If, for argument's sake, we assume that Zaatari was subjectively honest and merely wanted to say that he personally never saw any Christian speak or write about S. 61:6, then this is further evidence that he is very new, inexperienced, and ignorant about these matters. That verse is constantly brought up by Muslims because most of them simply believe it and never question the quranic claim that Muhammad was foretold by Jesus, and they think this therefore has to convince Christians to believe in him. But because it is such a common topic, just about every Christian who is regularly involved in discussions with Muslims (which automatically awards him or her the title "missionary") has addressed it many times in his life and numerous Christian authors on Islamic issues have written about it, as we have already seen in the first section.
On what basis does Zaatari consider it justified to extrapolate from his personal ignorance to all Christians or Christian missionaries? How many of them has he really met in these few months, or even in his life, to make such sweeping accusations? In any case, a wise man said: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18)
3. The Punch Line
What really was the main purpose of Zaatari's article? I think that purpose is found in his bottom line. Let's therefore look once again at the conclusion of Zaatari's article, with an added bold emphasis:
You will never see any Christian missionary quote this verse, why?
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
This is an insult to all Christians, particularly all Christian missionaries, against whom this Muslim missionary has declared war. It is extremely offensive, and clearly intended to offend. However, it backfires — badly. Such insults only disqualify the person who makes them.
Though Zaatari claimed that the "purpose of this article is to simply quote a great verse from the Noble Quran", the message of his article is clearly not a verse, neither this verse or any verse. He did not "simply quote it", but added derogatory comments against Christians before it and after it, statements which have no direct relationship to that verse, statements that have no bearing on the value or meaning of this verse, but have the sole aim to insult Christians. He did not simply want to share a verse with a supposedly amazing message, he mainly used that verse as a welcome pretext for insulting those people whom he hates so much.
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is God, and God's personal presence in all true believers. Therefore, calling the Holy Spirit the devil is not a personal insult limited to some specific Christians with whom Zaatari is annoyed, but an utterly blasphemous statement insulting all and every Christian. It is a deliberate provocation that has the purpose of shocking Christians and making them angry.
Note that Zaatari does not argue that these Christians are cowards, liars and demon-possessed because they are not quoting that verse. That would have been "giving a reason for his conclusion", even though a rather ridiculous one. [One only needs to slightly rephrase it to see how silly such an argument would be: Is Zaatari a coward, a liar and demon-possessed because there are still thousands of Bible verses he has so far not quoted in his articles? Actually, there are plenty of Qur'an verses that Zaatari has not quoted yet either. Which conclusion should we draw based on that fact?] No, his implication is phrased the other way around.
The insult that Christians are cowards and liars and being possessed by the devil is used as if it is a fact that needs no evidence. Logically speaking, it is not his conclusion, it is his starting point.
This is not an isolated personal insult against one particular Christian, it is a deliberate insult and offense to all Christians, trying to stab the center of our faith and religious feelings.
In his review of a recent debate between Sam Shamoun and Sami Zaatari, the latter writes:
VICTORY FOR ISLAM! another defeat for the satanic cult of Christianity as proven by Shamoun with his insulting and satanic behavior at the end of the debate due to his inspiration by the satanic spirit which he wrongly calls the holy spirit. AMEEN! (Source, bold emphasis mine)
As this debate was rather emotionally charged, the personal insult against his opponent is not much of a surprise, but the boldened part is an unsubstantiated attack and deliberate insult against all Christians and Christianity in general. In any case, his page on S. 61:6 is not part of a debate or a reply to another article. It is initiating a new topic.
Interestingly, on 17 March 2006, just a couple of weeks earlier, the same author gave these rules:
Muslims should not insult Christianity, even though it is a cult and is very evil, the Quran even tells us not to insult other people's Gods so they do not insult Allah! So therefore we cannot insult other faiths.
And:
Now Christians may complain that this is double-standards on my part, and say that I insult Christianity and bash the Bible. Well not really, every time I say something that may seem insulting I provide proof for it, like when I called the Bible a porn book; I proved it by quoting several stories from the Bible which simply talk about sex, sex, and more sex! Christians cannot do that, they argue from silence with very insulting arguments yet show no proof to back it up. (Source, bold emphasis mine)
Contrary to these guidelines, his article contains some of the worst insults and blasphemy imaginable, yet without any attempt of providing evidence. Zaatari is judged by his own words.
Although Zaatari's articles also contain plenty of other insults against individuals (see the appendix), I selected these above two insults for the discussion in this section, because they are aimed at all Christians summarily.
As Christians we can wear Zaatari's false accusation with great honor. The enemies of Jesus also said he had demons.
22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons."
23 So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house.
28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." 30 He said this because they were saying, "He has an evil spirit." (Mark 3:22-30)
Did Zaatari already go too far? He certainly is walking a dangerous line. I hope he will take this as a warning before it is too late. God will not be mocked.
Yet, in the end, this is not about Zaatari. He merely follows his role model. Muhammad used to ridicule and insult those who disagreed with him and opposed his message (cf. this article), and many of those who dared to mock him eventually paid with their lives (cf. this section). Moreover, Muhammad forever enshrined the justification for further insults in his revelation:
Verily, those who disbelieve (in the religion of Islam, the Qur'an and Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)) from among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) and Al-Mushrikun will abide in the Fire of Hell. They are the worst of creatures. Sura 98:6
The worst of anything God ever created, worse than the unclean swine or dogs, worse than poisonous snakes, or, in modern terminology, worse than the AIDS virus or all kinds of parasites, e.g. the trichina worm, that eats you up from the inside, so to speak, with all kinds of nasty side effects. Worse than anything despicable that you can imagine. Even worse than Satan himself and his demonic forces. Unbelievers — and note that the People of the Book (i.e. Jews and Christians) are mentioned first here — are worse than that. (For more on this issue, cf. Unbelievers).
Given this Quranic background, who would really be surprised to see Zaatari summarily insult all Christians?
Is Zaatari's charge that Christians are "possessed by the devil" and his claim that the Holy Spirit that the Christians believe in is actually the devil merely his own idea? Or could it be inspired, at least in part, by this passage which accuses those who had before received (a portion of) the book (Jews and Christians) to believe in and — by implication — use sorcery:
Have you not seen those who were given a portion of the Scripture? They believe in Jibt and Taghut and say to the disbelievers that they are better guided as regards the way than the believers (Muslims). They are those whom Allah has cursed, and he whom Allah curses, you will not find for him (any) helper, S. 4:51-52 Al-Hilali and Khan
What is Jibt and Taghut? The Muslim commentators are not all in full agreement, but Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation and footnote gives an indication of what may be in view:
Hast thou not turned Thy vision to those who were given a portion of the Book? They believe in Sorcery and Evil, and say to the Unbelievers that they are better guided in the (right) way than the believers! They are (men) whom God hath cursed: And those whom God Hath cursed, thou wilt find, have no one to help. S. 4:51-52 A. Yusuf Ali
573. The word that I have translated Sorcery is jibt, which may mean divination, sorcery, magic, or any false object of belief or worship, such as an idol. The word I have translated Evil (here and in ii. 256) is Tagut, which means the evil one, the one who exceeds all bounds, Satan: or it may refer to some idol worshipped by the Pagan Arabs, with whom the Jews of Madinah were intriguing against the Holy Prophet. The Jews had taken much to sorcery, magic, divination, and such superstitions. (bold emphasis mine)
Again, there is not too much of a surprise to find Zaatari throw this particular highly offensive insult at Christians:
Because they are cowards, and liars, and are possessed by the devil which they believe to be the holy spirit.
In summary:
Regarding the 61:6 claims — i.e. the claims made by Zaatari about S. 61:6,
and the claim found in 61:6 itself:
Just as Muhammad, Zaatari is completely convinced of himself.
But just as Zaatari, Muhammad was completely wrong.
Regarding the insults:
Just as Muhammad, Zaatari thinks it is perfectly alright
to denigrate and insult those who dare to disagree with him.
But just as Zaatari, Muhammad only disqualified and exposed himself by doing so.
Appendix: A small selection of further personal insults found in Zaatari's articles
Responding to Silas:
The son of God describes the relationship of the persons of the triune God? I suggest you go learn a bit before you want to spread your lies around, maybe you could fool your own Christian readers, but not us Muslims. The term son of God has nothing to do with being God, the term son of God existed long before Jesus, in fact the NT also calls people the children of God, so you are very wrong. Since it seems you have no idea what the son of God means, I will help you out: ... (Source, underline emphasis mine)
... I would once again like to thank Silas for exposing himself, for proving that he is a cheap liar, and a typical missionary. (Source, underline emphasis mine)
Note again his generalization to the "typical" missionary, i.e. declaring all missionaries to be liars.
Responding to James Arlandson:
... James is really a joke I must say, such shady scholarship work is un-exsubale to say the least. ... The fact is there is nuthing sisnister in the fact that you will get rewarded for fighting in Gods cause. ... As for terror attacks, James should study the facts instead of blaming Muslims with so called facts that are laughable. James has proven himself to be a man who invloves himself in shady scholarship work, and that is bad enough. (Source, underline emphasis mine)
This passage is doubly hard to accept? Really? Does the passage say kill women and children? James has just prove himself to be a very sick man, he claims that a verse that does NOT say kill women and kids is more disturbing than a verse that says kill women and kids!!! What a sick man you are James, I wouldnt want to have any kids around such a disturbing man as yourself. ... So basically all James is doing is justifying the killing of women and children, this is what you call a very lost Christian extremist. ... The rest of what James said is simply barking if you ask me, no offense. His barkings are responded to ... So why don’t you bark some more you sad liar. ... and after all this ranting from you ... More and more ranting, it is obvious James cannot defend his filthy book which says to go and kill women and kids. ... I have bad news for James, Jesus never died for you, Paul the liar lied to you and 1 billion other Christians who still believe this fairy tale. ... Actually, me posting your filthy article and responding to it is an insult to myself and the reader, and I also apologize to the readers for posting such rubbish from a lying missionary but I feel I must respond because sometimes these silly missionaries actually think they can get away with their lying. How can you expect us to take you seriously James? You have been caught lying a few times in this article of yours, so what should we do you? You have also mis-represented you own book! How pathetic are you man? ... The only deformer of religion is Paul, he deformed the teachings of Jesus and invented his own religion called Christianity. Islam corrected this rubbish made by Paul. (Source, underline emphasis mine)
... let me give you some advice you silly missionary. ... Also the reason I call this silly man a silly missionary is simply because he is one! ... The man is also a silly missionary because he lied, he said he would be objective, however so he was not objective at all always ranting about believing things just because the Bible said so! So when you want to lie next time, dont make it so obvious, or just be honest and dont come under a smoke screen. Anyway, I dont have much confidence in him doing so, he is a missionary, and what can you say? A missionary is a missionary. ... You my freind are not a sound scholar. You are a silly lying confused Christian missionary who does not know what he's saying, ... (Source, underline emphasis mine)
Any Christian speaking about Christianity and Islam, particularly when speaking about Islam critically, is called a "missionary" by Muslims, a term that is being used as one of the worst slurs in their vocabulary, not in the objective meaning it has in ordinary dictionaries. However, as indicated on his home page, James M. Arlandson (PhD) teaches introductory philosophy and world religions and humanities and ethics at an accredited college in southern California. That doesn't mean that his articles cannot be debated or objected to, but Zaatari's personal insults are highly inappropriate.
The above quotations are taken from Zaatari's first three responses to James Arlandson. The other four are not any different, but those should suffice.
Responding to Sam Shamoun:
Shamoun has shown his ignorance and has shown how unintelligent he is. (Source, underline emphasis mine)
The verse has no evil in it, infact you are a liar and a true deciever in abusing the text. No where in the verse does Allah command the men to do evil and then destroy it. ... So Sam is the liar, the deceiver, he has exposed himself yet again. ... This shows how ignorant Shamoun truly is, and how inconsistent he is and how he lies and deceives. ... That is the end of argument one, as you saw Shamoun's arguments were made of nothing, he tried to make something seem bad when it wasn't. You all also saw how inconsistent Sam is, and what a liar he is, as the arguments he uses against Islam are in fact also against Christianity ... (Source, underline emphasis mine)
There are actually a large number of insults against Sam Shamoun in Zaatari's articles. I purposely took only the above quoted statements because they are found in Zaatari's very first batch of articles that he published in response to articles by Sam Shamoun.
That Christians and Muslims have different opinions about some passages in the Bible and in the Qur'an is to be expected. And it is fine for each side to present the strongest arguments possible to support their claims. Do everything to refute the arguments of the opponent. However, a difference of opinion is not a sufficient basis for calling another person a liar and deceiver. Such personal insults are simply inappropriate.
I have been told that Zaatari is often on Paltalk harrassing and insulting Christians. I can understand that things can spiral out of control in emotionally charged situations, one offense giving the next, small insults being answered by greater insults, people being provoked and seeking to provoke, being angry and seeking to make angry. Zaatari has insulted plenty of Christians, and some of the Christians have insulted him. There is no point in trying to sort out "who started what" and "who is more to blame". None of that finds my approval, but I refuse to publically comment on anything that I have not been a part of, and cannot evaluate since only small parts of the evidence are available.
However, note that none of the above quoted insults against various Christian authors were made in such emotional situations of a live encounter. They were not spontaneous, not made in the heat of a battle, so to speak. They are all found in published articles, written by Zaatari at home, without pressure, edited and published by Osama Abdallah, i.e. they passed through at least two hands before they went public. That is a difference. They are not words spoken spontaneously, when angry, and maybe regretted an hour later. No, they were and are deliberate, planned, and were approved with a calm mind. That gives them a totally different weight than insults that are spontaneous expressions of anger about just received provocations and insults.
Had Zaatari been generally polite and respectful, and insults been found only in his articles responding to Sam Shamoun, one could explain it with their history of mutual provocations. But this is clearly not so. Zaatari makes derogatory and insulting statements against nearly everyone whom he responds to, even against people with whom he never had any personal encounter.
As a final example, I will quote from one of many attacks on Ali Sina. Ali Sina is not a Christian but an ex-Muslim and now atheist/agnostic. In this article, Zaatari attacks Sina's announcement of an upcoming book. Zaatari denounces a book as rubbish even though it has not yet been published and Zaatari has therefore not been able to read it yet.
Yet again Ali Sina has shown himself to be a complete joke and fool. In fact this may be the best one of all. On his site Ali Sina now begins to advertise about his new upcoming book which I am sure will be rubbish and not even worth reading. ... So yet again Ali Sina makes a joke of himself, in fact it is even more hilarious to read the comments by those other men on Ali Sina’s book. They like to call him with such complimentary names and try to make Ali Zina seem all smart, which makes them even more brain-dead than Ali Zina is! Because how anyone can support such a man like Ali Zina who does have mental problems ... All they can do is make up lies, then get a group of liar to simply agree with the lies. (Source, underline emphasis mine)
Although this man's name is Ali Sina, Zaatari regularly calls him Ali Zina. That is not a typo or a joke, but an intentional and gross insult. Zina is an Arabic word that means adultery or fornication, i.e. sexual intercourse outside of marriage.
All of this speaks for itself.
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