Yesterday in one of my Philosophy classes, we discussed Plato’s The Apology, the trial and defense of Socrates… One of my favorite books!. To demonstrate the feelings of Athenians against Socrates, I asked the class a provocative question. I asked them about their position against flag burning.
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing–if they continue faith, love and holiness with propriety.” (1 Timothy 2:11-15).
Though we defend their freedom of expression fully, we morally condemn the ignorant and perhaps malicious act of the cartoonists, the film makers and their supporters who insult prophet Muhammad, one of the greatest moral leaders in human history. We are announcing awards for cartoon/portrait of Muhammad or short film that would depict him accurately as a human being and a messenger of peace and progress. We will publish the winning portrait at www.19.org and in the next edition of “The Quran: A Reformist Translation.” We may also publish many other submissions of high quality.
So, if these gentlemen have the right to depict Muhammad to be an evil guy and his supporters being as evil or duped, then I should also have the right to expose their so-called scholarly work, which is merely based on hearsay books and distortion and contortion of the Quranic verses by the followers of those hearsay stories. For instance, brother Spencer generously uses the hearsay stories fabricated centuries after Muhammad’s life to assassinate Muhammad’s character, while he knows well that according to the same sources which he trusts, Muhammad reportedly split the Moon causing half of it to fall in Ali’s backyard, or Muhammad reportedly made trees walk, Muhammad ascended to the seventh heaven with his body, and many other stories. Scholarly integrity requires consistency and honesty in using sources in evaluating a historic personality. But, your gentlemen pick and choose from those books as they wish. They take advantage of the crazy noises created by Jingoists, Crusaders and Jihadists, and hideously try to justify a bloody imperial Crusade with its resurrected Spanish Inquisition mentality against Muslims. I consider the work of these gentlemen a dishonest or ignorant attack against one of the most progressive and peaceful leaders in human history.
So, I believed, without solid evidence other than my reverence to my Prophet, that the stories of the marriage of seven-year-old Ayesha to 50-year-old Prophet are only myths. However, my long pursuit in search of the truth on this matter proved my intuition correct. My Prophet was a gentleman. And he did not marry an innocent seven or nine year old girl. The age of Ayesha has been erroneously reported in the hadith literature. Furthermore, I think that the narratives reporting this event are highly unreliable. Some of the hadith (traditions of the Prophet) regarding Ayesha’s age at the time of her wedding with prophet are problematic. I present the following evidences against the acceptance of the fictitious story by Hisham ibn ‘Urwah and to clear the name of my Prophet as an irresponsible old man preying on an innocent little girl.
These enemies of Islam who have been promoting wars, torture and genocide against Muslims around the world for more than a decade, are all in love with hadith. When I debated with them, they all insisted on hadiths, which were fabricated centuries after Muhammed. Over and over, they repeated the need for hadith to understand the Quran. They hoped to lure me to the piles of trash and mud of Hadithistan so that they could drown me there together with the Muhammed of their imagination created by those lies. They all accused me of not following hadith, ironically employing exactly the same silly and false arguments used by Sunnis and Shiis. They even used the distorted translations of the Quran to force-feed me hadith, which were developed by those who traded the liberating and progressive message of the Quran with the enslaving and backward teachings of hadiths and sunna.
In summary, according to the teaching of the Quran, the name of the last prophet could not have been Muhammad; it was MUHAMMID, similar to the linguistic form of Muallim (teacher) or Musawir (designer). It is not the prophet who deserves the praise, but it is Allah (the god), our Lord, the One, the Initiator, the Designer, the Compassionate, the Living, the Eternal, the Almighty, and the Omniscient God. Praise is to the Lord of the Universe.
