Jon sat down to waves of powerful applause from the Christian side, along with cries of “Hear! Hear!” Shannon breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the first volleys had been exchanged with minimal bloodshed. Mercifully, it was also time for the first morning break. Black Turkish coffee only exacerbated the limitations of the human bladder.
Inevitably, the break lasted longer than the appointed twenty minutes, but by 11 a.m., all had returned to their seats. It was now time for Jon to air what Christians found amiss in Islam, an area in which he knew he would have to thread his way very carefully across a field strewn with traps and mines. It wasn’t fair, of course. In the free West, anyone could say outrageous things about Christianity and not only be tolerated, but even be applauded for it, while in the Middle East-as Jon had learned from personal experience-one wrong phrase regarding Islam could set off riots, destruction, and even death. Still, the truth must come out, Jon decided, as he began.
“Some of the problems that Christians see in Islam have already been cited in my response to those that Islam finds in Christianity, so they need not be repeated here. Basically, we must question the revelations that Muhammad claims to have received from the angel Gabriel.” As he’d anticipated, this statement met with murmuring from the eastern contingent. “But in this we are only following the Prophet himself, who also questioned his early revelations until firmed up in his beliefs by his wife Khadijah.
“We also find difficulties in the life of Muhammad that we do not find in the life of Jesus. One of them involves wives, that is, those after the death of Khadijah, to whom Muhammad was always faithful. Jesus had no wives, but the Prophet had twelve. My distinguished opponent will point out that the patriarchs in the Old Testament also practiced polygamy, but the real point here is one of consistency. While the Prophet limited the number of wives a man might have to four, he himself chose twelve. Someone has well said, ‘No true prophet must ever exempt himself from his own mandates.’”
Again, murmuring-this time a bit louder than before.
“As for claims that the Holy Qur’an is God’s final and greatest revelation, Christians find that problematical because the book contains inconsistencies that seem incompatible with the perfection of God. In Sura 7:54, for example, we are told that the world was created in six days. Fine. Yet in Sura 41:9-12, we are told that it took God two days. Again, in Sura 2:256 we have the noble statement: ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ Excellent! Yet Sura 9:29 advises, ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah.’ And of course, when one of the most documented facts of history-the crucifixion and death of Jesus-is denied, then one must naturally question the source of such denial.”
At this point, the murmuring took on a distinctly angry tone.
“Your great Shahada -‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet’-is excellent in terms of leading people to one God, but it has also led to the belief that Muhammad is God’s only prophet or at least his greatest prophet. But please contrast Jesus and Muhammad. Christians believe that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead. Muhammad did neither. His immediate successor, Abu Bakr, said at the Prophet’s funeral in Mecca: ‘If you are worshipers of Muhammad, know that he is dead. If you are worshipers of God, know that God is alive and does not die.’
“Finally, Christians find the sharia law set forth in the Qur’an to be demeaning to women-placing them helplessly under male control with only half the rights of men. Punishments mandated in sharia also seem excessively brutaclass="underline" cutting off a hand for stealing, stoning a woman to death for adultery, ‘honor killings’ to which I referred earlier, and, worst of all, the penalty for conversion from Islam is death.”
“AND YOU ALSO DESERVE TO DIE!” a voice shouted in plain English from nearby, Die… die… die echoing and reverberating across the marble walls of Hagia Sophia.
Now a young Muslim stood up in a row very near the dais. He clenched a fist held high and shouted, “You are a satanic infidel whom Allah will surely strike down, Weber, and then condemn you to hell where you belong! Your days are numbered, Web-”
The voice was instantly silenced when Turkish police rushed in, grabbed the man, and gagged him, then hustled him out of the basilica. But a great commotion had arisen as a result, which ended with the banging of two gavels.
“You may continue, Professor Weber,” Patriarch Bartholomew said.
“No, I’ve finished my response, honored moderators.” Jon sat down and looked to Shannon, but her lovely face was warped with concern. Osman and Richard on either side of her, however, were smiling and flashing Jon thumbs-up signals.
Abbas al-Rashid stood with an enormous frown and opened, “As for the terrible interruption just now, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard Islam at its worst! And yet this was not Islam at all, which is a religion of submission to Allah and respect for humanity, but a misguided fanatic who thought he was a Muslim. I apologize to you, Professor Weber!”
A humble bow accompanied his words, but Jon shook his head, held up his hands, and said, “It is nothing!”
Abbas’s features relaxed into a warm smile as he took up the defense of Islam against points that Jon had raised. “My worthy opponent questions the revelations given to the Prophet-may his name be blessed-because Muhammad himself questioned them at first. But of course he did, which is exactly what one would expect of a very rational person not given to delusions. The very questioning proves his rationality, and I am grateful for it. Clearly, Allah provided his wife Khadijah to reassure the Prophet-may his name be blessed-perhaps much as he sent Aaron along with Moses to confront the pharaoh of Egypt.
“Now, regarding wives, the Hebrew Bible-which Christians call the Old Testament-does indeed provide us precedents. With David having ten wives and Solomon supposedly a thousand, one need not quarrel over just twelve for the final prophet in their line.”
Jon squirmed as the audience laughed, regretting that he had ever raised the wives issue against his earlier intentions. Never mind that Abbas had deftly dodged his main argument-the issue of Muhammad’s inconsistency-he had evoked laughter, which would endear the audience and win points while making Jon look foolish. Abbas was shrewd, no doubt about it!
He continued. “My worthy colleague questions the Holy Qur’an because of ‘inconsistencies’ he claims to find in its pages. Well, so be it. There are contradictions also in the Bible, as in every literary work, whether written by man or God. But this is no problem whatever, since Islam alone provides the solution.”
Abbas reached for a copy of the Qur’an lying on the table, picked it up, and said, “I read from Sura-that is, chapter 2, verse 106: ‘Whatever communications we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, we bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?’ Clearly, then, the later statements of Allah in the Qur’an replace the earlier statements in every point of perceived disagreement.”
Applause broke out in the eastern half of the sanctuary, which was promptly silenced by the moderators.
“However, there is no disagreement in the Holy Qur’an that Jesus escaped death on the cross. No, not at all. Again I read, this time from Sura 4:57: ‘They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge… for of a surety they killed him not.’ Do you see, Professor Weber, the historical references that you cite thought Jesus had been crucified-‘so it was made to appear to them.’ Allah would never have permitted his faithful servant Isa to endure this. God would not allow any of his prophets to be killed.
“And now to Jesus and Muhammad-two great prophets. You seemed to deny that Muhammad could perform miracles. But our hadith-our traditions-tell us that once when the Prophet was asked, ‘Why don’t you do miracles as did Jesus?’ he responded by holding his thumb and index finger around the full moon, then passing his other index finger through the middle of the orb, and half the moon fell east of Mecca, and the other half fell to the west. No, I don’t believe that this physically happened, but the miracle is that bystanders saw exactly that-which is a miracle. And what of the Prophet’s miraculous midnight ride from Mecca to Jerusalem and up to heaven and back?”