Refutations to Accusations

Refutations for Common Accusations against Islam

Unfortunately, many people nowadays speak about Islam without having really studied it. I have studied if for close to 20 years (including studying Hadith, the Seerah, Usul Al Fiqh, etc.) I am sure the people who originally wrote these posts on Facebook probably have no idea of what those things are and they are basic to any understanding of Islam and it only points to their ignorance. I will now address these point by point…

1) Accusation #1: Muslim allegiance is to Allah and Mecca (which he turns to in prayer 5 times a day), not America:

These are many of the same allegations that Protestants made against Catholics in the 1960’s. The vast majority of Americans are religious, meaning they have allegiance to their God as well as having allegiance to the country. It is no different for Muslims. Scripturally, Christians have an allegiance to Jesus and the Bible; does that exclude them from being a good American? Catholics have an allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church (Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, etc.); does that exclude them from being a good American? Why the double standard?So geographically, Catholics were in the past accused of being loyal to Rome. Jews pray towards Jerusalem three times a day. You cannot apply one standard to one religious group and not another. Who cares what direction someone faces while praying, that does not preclude them from being a good American!

2) Accusation #2: Allah is not the same as the God of the Bible, but rather the moon god of Arabia:

In the Old Testament, one of the names for God is Elohim. Allah has never been the moon god; Allah is purely Elohim in the Arabic language. Elohim is pluralized in Hebrew and Allah is in the singular form. Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Jews historically always referred to God as Allah as Al’lah really consists of 2 words (Al means The and Lah means God).

3) Accusation #3: No other religion is accepted by Allah except Islam:

This same argument can be made against Christianity as Jesus said in John 14:6, “"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is rather exclusionary and excludes Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. from salvation as well. The Qur'an states in 2:62, "Verily, those who believe and those who are Jews and Chrisitians, and Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does righteous good deeds shall have thier reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." In fact, a true Islamic State is mandated to protect Jews and Chrisitians and their houses of Worship, as referenced in the Qur'an 22:40.

4) Accusation #4: Muslims are not allowed to be friends with Jews and Christians:

Actually, if you knew Arabic, you would know the Qur’an does not say that! The word in Arabic is Auliya which means protectors, not friends! This verse is talking about taking disbelievers as protectors instead of God being your protector. That same principle is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that we should seek God to be our protector, not disbelievers.

5) Accusation #5: Muslims cannot be patriotic to America as they must submit to the Mullah's commands and the Mullahs teach them to destroy Israel and America, the Great satan.

A Muslim does not “submit to the Mullahs”. Islam means submission to God. Muslims are not allowed to submit to anyone besides God. Just as Christians don’t fully submit to a human, they submit to God as well. And please don’t generalize…. Not all Mullah’s or Mufti’s teach the destruction of Israel and America. That is a very small minority of the world’s 1.7 BILLION Muslims. Most of the people who preach that are either Salafi Jihadists or the Iranian Ayatollahs which most Muslims don’t fall into either of those camps.

6) Accusation #6: Muslim men are instructed in the Qur'an to marry 4 women and Muslim women have no rights and they should be beat when disobedient:

A Muslim is never INSTRUCTED to marry 4 women. What the Qur’an says if you actually read it is they are ALLOWED to IF they are able to do justice to all the women meaning that no favoritism or treating one wife better than another is allowed. This is a totally permitted Biblically if you have ever read the Old Testament? Abraham and Jacob and David and Solomon amongst many others all had multiple wives. Regarding the treatment of women, maybe you should read Corinthians as that is much harsher towards women than the Qur’an is. When Muhammad was born in the 7th century, women in Arabia AND Europe had NO rights. They were looked at as property of first their father and then their husband. Muhammad gave them many rights that most Western women did not get until the 20th Century. They were first of all taught that they were equal human beings with rights and they were not property. They were allowed to own businesses and property and money. They had a right in inheritance, etc. If you look at the life of Khadijah, Muhammad’s wife, she was a very successfully business owner, whom Muhammad very much loved and respected and he never treated her as property and never once beat her. Western women did not have barely any rights until the 20th century!!

7) Accusation #7: Muslims cannot accept the American constitution since it is based on biblical priniciples:

Muhammad taught that there had been 124,000 prophets that had been sent to humanity since Adam. A Muslim must believe in all of them in order to be a Muslim, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc. In fact, a Muslim must believe that Jesus is going to come back a 2nd time and kill the Anti-Christ, and that he was born of the Virgin Mary in order to be a Muslim. If he rejects that, he is no longer a Muslim. The Qur’an also teaches that Jesus came with the Evangel (Injil in Arabic) and Muslims are mandated to believe in that.

8) Accusation #8: Islam does not allow for freedom of Religion and Expression and Democracy. All Muslim countries are either dictatorships or Monarchies.

Historically, the majority of Muslims countries in fact did allow freedom of religion, way before the Europeans and the Catholic Church did. Christians and Jews lived very nicely in Muslim Spain until the Catholic Monarchy started the Inquisition and forced many to convert or be exiled from their homeland in 1492. Regarding the Muslim governments, that is all a result of World War I and colonialism and that the French and the British divvied up the Middle East amongst themselves after the war. What we see now is all a result of that. I don’t have enough space here to give you a thorough history lesson of the Middle East in the 20th Century. And actually in Sunni Islam, leaders are democratically elected by using a Shura (translation: Consultation). The current Muslim countries are not run by Islam and that is why we have Kings and Dictators.

9) Accusation #9: Allah is not a loving God and he is never called Love in the Qur'an:

This is what happens when people speak and they have no clue what they are talking about. One of the 99 names of Allah is Al Wadud, “The Loving”.

10) Accusation #10: We should be very suspicious of ALL Muslims in this country as they cannot be loyal to Islam and America at the same time:

So you are going to be suspicious of all the Muslim Doctors, Soldiers, Cops, Lawyers, Engineers, etc. that are helping to make this country a better place? The Salafi Jihadists who are the real terrorists are in fact an extremely small portion of the world’s 1.7 BILLION Muslims. That would be like characterizing all Christians based on the actions of the KKK and the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, many of whom were Church-going Bible-believing Lutherans! If you want to see real hate speech, go read the writing of Martin Luther and what he had to say about the Jews. Follow Jesus as he said in Matthew 7:5, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”