In this episode Trent replies to Muslim apologist Shayk Uthman’s arguments against Christianity as well as his case for Islam.
Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. In today’s rebuttal, I’m going to look at clips from several videos featuring a Muslim apologist named Sheik Uthman. He’s actually the Imam of Masjid ar-Ribat in San Diego. If he does reply to this video, I want him to know that I don’t do rebuttals to rebuttals. I’m not going to make another video reply to him. But, I’d be happy to engage him in a live in-person debate on the question, is Islam a true or a false religion? We could set up a debate like that very easily because Uthman is in San Diego and Catholic Answers is in San Diego. So, I’d be happy to do that.
Trent Horn:
Instead, I want to look at some of the different videos he has on his YouTube channel. Some of them are just Uthman talking to the camera about the evidences for Islam. Others, though, at least a lot of the more recent videos, are of him engaging in dialogue with non-Muslims at Balboa park in San Diego. I have a lot of respect for people who are willing to do that. I used to do that when I lived in San Diego. I would engage in dialogue with the atheist table or the Protestant table. I made a video for Catholic Answers, where I talked to people there about the Catholic faith. So, I’ve done that before. And, I respect people who are willing to engage in peaceful dialogue with those who disagree with them.
Trent Horn:
Today, I want to look at some of those videos. I never got the chance to engage the Muslim apologists there. It’ll be fun to do that today in this video. We’ll look at a few of those different dialogues and some of the other videos on Uthman’s channel. You’ll get a taste of how Muslim apologetics objects to Christianity, their arguments against the Christian faith, as well as how they present the positive evidence for Islam and the difference between the two. Let’s take a look at some of these conversations and I’ll offer my thoughts.
Sheikh Uthman:
If Jesus died for everybody’s sins, and all I got to do is believe in Jesus, then I can do anything I want. He died for my sins. So, woohoo. I’m going to go rob and kill or whatever, and say, “Well, you can’t put me in jail for it. Jesus died for my sins.” That’s not taking responsibility. It’s throwing it off on somebody else. No, I will be judged, even as a Muslim. I’m not guaranteed heaven. This is a false idea that, “Oh, you just believe in Jesus. You’re going to heaven. Well, Hitler believed in Jesus. Is he going to heaven?
Trent Horn:
When you critique a religion, you need to make sure your critique applies, at least, to a large part of it. Only a very tiny minority of Christians think that a saved person can commit any sin and they’ll still go to heaven. Catholics and Christians traditionally have held that unrepentant grave sins can cause you to lose your salvation. Even many Christians who think that you can’t lose your salvation, they would say a Christian like Uthman describes, who habitually commits grave sins, never repents, they would say that person was never saved in the first place. His argument is only against a tiny minority of Christian denominations. Not Christianity itself.
Sheikh Uthman:
I asked one priest this question. Pastor, Christian. I’ll ask you. I know you’re way too intelligent, but I’m just going to explain it. You have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. He said, “Yes, that is the key to salvation. Salvation is free. Not works, free.” Okay. There’s a rapist, a murderer. He finds a little girl. This girl is not a Christian. She doesn’t believe in Jesus. Little girl. And, he rapes her and he beats her to death. But, he believes in Jesus. Now, according to this pastor, this is what he told me. He said that rapist will go to heaven because he’s not held accountable for works. He believed in Jesus. That’s all he needed. And, that girl not believing in Jesus that got raped and killed, will go to hell. I can’t believe that.
Trent Horn:
Once again, Christians believe you can lose your salvation. If you commit grave unrepentant sin. Many Christians, including Catholics, believe it’s possible for non-Christians to go to heaven. God will just judge those people based on the revelation that they’ve received. It’s possible they could go to heaven. And, some Muslims also hold this view. But, other Muslims are very pessimistic about Christians being able to go to heaven. Here is one Muslim apologist answer to the question of whether Mother Teresa will be in heaven.
Speaker 4:
This asks the question, what about the righteous non-Muslim like Mother Teresa. Will she go to heaven or hell? According to Jesus Christ [inaudible 00:04:41] the Bible. If any human being does Shirk, whether it be Mother Teresa or anyone else, they should not enter Jannah.
Trent Horn:
His answer is that if you commit idolatry or, in Islam, Shirk, then you’ll go to hell. He seems to say Mother Teresa was an idolator because she was a faithful Catholic who worshipped the Trinity. So, since Islam allows for some non-Muslims to be saved, and also says that some non-Muslims will be damned, this doesn’t give Islam an advantage over other Christian denominations that teach similar things about heaven and hell.
Sheikh Uthman:
I’m going to make a manual and I’m going to send it so that you can know how to use it. We believe the Quran is that manual for us. It is the words of our creator, not the words of Muhammad, peace be upon him, or anybody else. The words of God Almighty himself. It tells us how to live.
Trent Horn:
This is an important point to remember because some Muslims treat the Bible like the Quran. They think that God divinely dictated the Bible’s words to human authors who just wrote them down. Now, this would only apply, though, to some of the Bible’s words. Because, Muslims do believe the Bible is divine revelation, except for the parts that they say have been corrupted over time through mistranslation or miscopied manuscripts. Those would be the parts of the Bible that say Jesus is God, Jesus rose from the dead, or really anything that contradicts the Quran.
Trent Horn:
They’ll say that’s a corrupted part of the Bible, not divine revelation. But, they do consider the other parts divine revelation. They say the corrupted parts, though, “Look, there’s these contradictions in the Bible. You can’t trust the Bible. So, you need the Quran in order to understand the Bible.” But, Muslims usually say the Bible has contradictions because they don’t allow the Bible to speak with human words, human conventions, or ways of speaking. They look at the Bible in this very rigid way and treat it like the Quran and create contradictions in it that don’t really exist. So, that’s definitely something to watch out for.
Sheikh Uthman:
He’s the same God that sent all the prophets. If you look at the different villages, you look at the message of Moses or Abraham and Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon all of them. We love them all. You’ll never see a Muslim disrespect Jesus. You’ll never see us making cartoons or making fun of Moses. We love them. And, we believe they brought the same message. What was the message? Worship one God.
Trent Horn:
The problem with this claim is that the Bible says Jesus represents the fullness of God’s revelation. There will be no more prophets giving public revelation after Christ. There might be seers. There might be people who have private revelation, like what happened at Fatima, but there will be no more public revelation or a prophet like Moses. In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses says, “The Lord, your God, will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren. Him, you shall heed.” This prophet would be the Jewish Messiah from your brethren. In Acts chapter three, St. Peter quotes this verse. He applies it to Jesus and says, “What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that as Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.”
Trent Horn:
The opening verse of the letter to the Hebrews also says, “In many and various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by a son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.” Jesus also distinguishes himself from just another prophet. He’s not another prophet. He’s not just a prophet. In the parable of the wicked tenants, he describes wicked tenant farmers, the leaders of Israel, who kill hired servants. They represent the prophets. Before the wicked tenants kill the son of the owner of the vineyard, who is Jesus. He’s not just another a prophet. This means that the time of public prophets is at an end because God sent something greater than a prophet. He sent his only begotten son, the only person who fully possesses the divine nature like the father. There will be no more public prophets after Jesus Christ.
Sheikh Uthman:
We believe in what’s called the Injil, the message that was sent to the prophet Jesus. But, the Bible today, it’s been changed. It’s been corrupted. Verses were taken out. Chapters were added. Look at King James. King James was a very immoral man. I don’t want to get into details, but you can look up his history. Why did he give you a version of the Bible? What happened before King James? Why does a Catholic Bible have different number of books than the Protestant Bible?
Sheikh Uthman:
This Bible that I have here is a Protestant Bible. But, the Catholic Bible I have, has Tobit, has Judith, has Wisdom of Solomon, has Sirach, has Baruch, because everybody took different books and different versions and changed out. I have here the Jehovah Witness translation. That one has different verses than this verse. But, the Quran is only one Quran. Even if we have disagreements amongst Muslims and sex, we all go back to one Quran. 114 chapters, 30 sections. Begin…
Trent Horn:
Just because Christians disagree about what constitutes divine revelation, that doesn’t mean there is no divine revelation. I mean, basically, all Christians accept the 27 books of the New Testament. And, even though some people try to mistranslate them, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, we have enough ancient manuscripts and writings of the church fathers to know what these texts originally said with 99.9% accuracy.
Trent Horn:
Now, after this part, Uthman claims the Bible is inferior to the Quran because we don’t have the original, older, New Testaments. Of course, we don’t have the original Quran either. But, he says it’s been perfectly preserved through memorization and oral tradition. Here’s the problem. Scholars have noted that changes in pronunciation of Arabic over time, they’ve given rise to different readings of the Quran. So, it’s not uniform. There’s not just one Quran. There are different readings of it that have emerged over time. Here is what Muslim apologist Shabir Ally says, and notice how he does not take the view that Uthman does, that there is only just one Quran. There are variations in the Quran, as well.
Shabir Ally:
Many Muslims just simply have the simplistic idea that there has only been one version of the Quran throughout history. And, that’s the version that we’re holding now. When we read our history, we see in fact that there were variations, multiple readings that were a sanction, multiple readings that are sanctioned in our tradition. And, they do not know how to come to grips with that. And then, the companions of the prophet, peace be upon him, themselves may have allowed some latitude when they taught the Quran to others because people couldn’t pronounce the words exactly. They allowed them to pronounce a variety so long as the main meaning was captured and the message was not distorted.
Trent Horn:
So if these variations don’t disprove the Quran, then the minor variance that you find in the biblical manuscripts don’t disprove Christianity. Because, the same Christian message has been preserved for 2000 years.
Sheikh Uthman:
We do not believe Jesus is God. We believe Jesus is a prophet of [inaudible 00:12:08]. Even if you look in the Bible, you see many people called sons. In the old Testament, for example, in Exodus four verse 22, then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my first born.” You also find David in the Psalms of David, chapter one, or chapter two verse seven. “I will declare the decree the Lord has said to me. You are my son. Today, I have begotten.” Those are not physical sons. Those are terms of endearment. In that sense, we do not believe God has any sons.
Trent Horn:
In the ancient world, the term son of God. It could mean someone God favors, like in second Samuel 7:14, where Solomon, King Solomon, is called the son of God. It’s also a term that can refer to angels like in the opening chapter of the book of Job. But, the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus is the Father’s only begotten son. And, is the only being who shares in the divine nature. Hebrews 1:3 says, “Jesus reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.” This is also made clear in John 5:18, where John tells us, “This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him. Because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his father, making himself equal with God.”
Trent Horn:
The Catechism puts it this way. Many religions invoke God as father. The deity is often considered the father of gods and of men. In Israel, God is called father in as much as he creator of the world. Even more, God is father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, his firstborn. Jesus revealed that God is father in an unheard of sense. He is father not only in being creator. He is eternally father in relation to his only son, who is eternally son, only in relation to his father.
Trent Horn:
Of course, Muslim apologists might say the parts of the Bible that describe Jesus as God, as the Son of God and that he is God, they were corruptions that were added later. But, they have the burden of proof in showing this is the case. In his analysis of all the non-biblical references to Jesus, scholar Robert Van Voorst concludes of the Quran, “Scholarship has almost unanimously agreed that these references to Jesus in the Quran are so late and tendicious as to contain virtually nothing of value for understanding the historical Jesus.” So, the only reason to believe the Quran’s testimony about Jesus that was written 600 years after his death, later than the New Testament, far later than the time of the apostles, would be if you thought the Quran were divinely inspired. We’ll examine that evidence soon.
Sheikh Uthman:
If you look at the Bible, Jesus, he worshiped. He called out to a god. He said, “My God.” So, who’s [crosstalk 00:15:23].
Speaker 6:
… he died.
Sheikh Uthman:
I mean, according to Christians…
Trent Horn:
Notice Uthman corrects himself and says, “According to Christians, Jesus died.” This will come up later when we talk about a major historical error in the Quran.
Sheikh Uthman:
1534, it says, “And, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, “Elohai, Elohai, lama sabachthani.”” Which translates, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus is God, who is he calling out to? You see in the Bible, Jesus was made lower than angels. Well, how can God be lower than angels? We believe in Jesus as a prophet, but not as God and not as the Son of God.
Trent Horn:
The error here is thinking God must be one person. If God, the Son, became a man, what religion would he belong to? Would he be an atheist? No, he would worship the Father. And, in doing so, he would recognize the Father as God. But, without denying he is God. In Hebrews chapter two, where it says that Jesus was made lower than the angels, this is talking about how, in becoming man, Jesus put aside his divine glory. He literally comes down to earth and so is lower than the angels. But, this doesn’t take away from his divinity.
Trent Horn:
Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus is more glorious than the angels when it says this, “For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my son. Today, I have begotten thee.” Or, again, “I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.”” And, again, when he brings the first born into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” Angels don’t worship other angels, or something lower than the angels. They only worship God. In other words, Jesus is the God all the angels worship.
Trent Horn:
As for when Jesus says my God, my God, on the cross, remember acknowledging the father is his God, doesn’t mean that Jesus is not God as well. Also, notice that in John 20:17, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.” Jesus makes a distinction between my father and your father and my God and your God. He doesn’t just say our God or our father. This implies that God is a father to Mary Magdalene and the apostles in a different way than he is a father to Jesus. Specifically, they and us have God as an adoptive father, as Romans 8:15 says. Whereas as John 1:18 says, “Jesus is the only begotten Son of God who shares in the divine nature.”
Sheikh Uthman:
We believe the Bible has been changed. Because, the original gospels that you go back to in manuscripts are in Koine Greek. The first manuscript, Codex Sinaiticus, is from the fourth century. This is my Bible. I have my notes. This is the oldest manuscript that you have. They are from 330 to 360. That means you have almost 400 years after the time of Jesus, about. And, these are the size of a credit card.
Trent Horn:
The New Testament was written in Koine Greek. And, it’s true, the very first fragments we have are about the size of a credit card. They come from the Gospel of John and they were written just a few decades after John composed his gospel. Those fragments date to about the year 125. And, the oldest complete copy of the New Testament comes from Codex Sinaiticus. That was written at around the year 360.
Trent Horn:
But, between these dates, we have many manuscripts that contain entire copies of gospels and epistles. We can also corroborate this wording with the writings of the church fathers. I note all of this in my other video, How the Bible Beats Every Other Ancient Book, that we have better manuscript evidence for the New Testament than we have for any other ancient book in history. So, the New Testament is quite trustworthy.
Sheikh Uthman:
If you look at the first complete gospels, they are around 70… depending on which ones you’re looking at, 70 to 40 years before even the earliest scriptures. They are in Koine Greek. As you seem like you’re a well-read person, what was the language of Jesus? Aramaic. Not even Hebrew. Aramaic. We don’t have of those early scriptures. Why do we see so many differences between the different Bible verses? Because, a lot of them are shown to not be in even those early scriptures. John 3:16, if you look at many of the new study Bibles, they will say this is a fabrication. The Gospel of Barnabas, most biblical scholars today don’t accept it, even though many earlier Bibles had it.
Trent Horn:
When Uthman says the Gospel of Barnabas, I think he means the epistle of Barnabas, which some Christians did consider scripture in the second century. The Gospel of Barnabas is a medieval Islamic forgery. It wasn’t known in the early church. Now, when it comes to John 3:16, scholars do not doubt this was originally in John’s gospel. There is some dispute over whether the word “his” in the part that says, “Gave his only son,” was originally present because that word is absent from some manuscripts. But, either way, the meaning is the same. It’s not true that John 3:16 was not originally in John’s gospel, since every copy we have of John’s gospel contains that verse.
Sheikh Uthman:
Unlike the Bible, where the earliest scriptures cannot be dated to the lifetime of the Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, so we believe this Quran is the final revelation and it confirms what is right and does away with what has been corrupted in the Bible. Those types of verses that people take to attribute Jesus to being God, we do not find to be correct. That’s why you will not see, even in the current Bible, you will never see where Jesus comes out and says, “I am God.” Rather he would say, “I am. And, I was before Abraham.” [crosstalk 00:21:29] But, those things are ambiguous verses. We cannot attribute them authentically even to Jesus.
Trent Horn:
Even if the Quran were better preserved than the Bible, that wouldn’t prove that we should trust the Quran over the Bible. The original copy of Richard Dawkins book, the God Delusion, has been better preserved than either the Quran or the Bible. But, that doesn’t mean we should take its message over either the Bible or the Quran. So, watch out when some Muslims try to attack the Bible and assume the Quran must be the other alternative that a person should accept.
Trent Horn:
Also, Muslim apologists, they tend to pick and choose their sources because many of these arguments about not being able to know what the Bible originally says or the issues that we have with manuscripts, they come from non-Christian scholars like Bart Ehrman. But, scholars like Ehrman also disagree with Muslim apologists because they can see that at least parts of the Bible, like John’s gospel, do not teach Jesus was merely a prophet.
Trent Horn:
When Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” in John 8:58, he’s uttering the divine name and the people try to stone him as a result. In ancient Judaism, saying, “I am,” is on par with saying, “I am God.” It’s not an ambiguous passage. Bart Ehrman notes that, quote, “The Gospel of John, in which Jesus does make such divine claims, does indeed portray him as God.”
Sheikh Uthman:
Let me give you an example why we don’t take anything in the Bible to be the words of God. Look at the genealogy of Jesus in the Bible. Matthew has… Matthew 1:16, “And, Jacob begotten Joseph, the husband of Mary. To whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” So, Jacob begotten who?
Speaker 6:
Joseph.
Sheikh Uthman:
Joseph. Who’s Joseph’s father?
Speaker 6:
Jacob.
Sheikh Uthman:
Jacob, very clearly. And, this is the husband of Mary. So, it’s not talking about Mary. It’s talking about Joseph, and he is the son of Jacob. In the same Bible, if we go to Luke 3:23 to 38, we have, “Now, Jesus himself began his ministry at about 30 years of age, being as supposed the son of Joseph.” Here, Jesus, I suppose the son of Joseph, the son Heli. What happened to Jacob? You see the difference?
Trent Horn:
At worst, all this would prove is that some parts of the Bible are in error. It wouldn’t prove the entire Bible is not the word of God. However, there are plausible ways to reconcile this alleged contradiction. The church father and early historian, Eusebius, said Joseph was the product of a levirate marriage. This would mean that Joseph was the biological son of one man who later died, which would be Jacob. And then, he became the legal son of another man, Heli, his adopter. A man who remarried his mother. Tradition calls her [Esther 00:24:39]. Eusebius also notes that Matthew uses the term begot in his genealogy. But, Luke describes people being of a father, which would allow for people in his genealogy to be either physical or legal descendants. Now, Uthman has heard Christians offer this explanation and here is his response to one of them.
Speaker 7:
He says Heli and Jacob were brothers by the same mother. Heli dying childless. Jacob raised up sed to him, having Joseph according to nature, belonged to himself, but by law to Heli. Thus, Joseph was the son of both.
Sheikh Uthman:
Joseph was [inaudible 00:25:13]. All of these are just made up things. Look at the text. It is very clear. Both of them are referring to a male, which is Joseph, with two different names of fathers. And, if you look at, again, I’m going to put the vertical reading. Keep going up to generations. They’re all different. It’s not just like somebody made a mistake here. All the way up to David. From David onward, it’s the same.
Trent Horn:
I think that’s a weak reply. I mean, Uthman can say it’s all made up, but he hasn’t offered any evidence to show that that’s the case. Also, since people usually have more than one child, genealogical trees, they don’t proceed in straight lines. I have on screen here how my friend and colleague, Jimmy Akin, this is the genealogy he’s created that reconciles the differences between Matthew and Luke. You’ll see that the genealogical lines in the family tree, they diverge and then come back together at David. So, there’s no contradiction between Matthew and Luke’s genealogies, as a result.
Sheikh Uthman:
Because, this is a contradiction. These are two different authors making up two different genealogies, coming up with different names. I have done a side by side reading. Looking at the genealogy side by side. David is there. From David onwards, you will see they’re totally different. It’s not the same. Not just that.
Speaker 6:
There’s some missing here.
Sheikh Uthman:
Exactly. You’re very smart..
Trent Horn:
Remember, Muslims sometimes impose a divine dictation view on the Bible. And, Christians don’t affirm that. In first Corinthians chapter one, St. Paul wrote, “I am thankful that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that. I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.” Now, Paul didn’t write down whatever God told him to write down, because God would’ve known who Paul baptized. Instead, Paul used his own ideas and his own words to write to the Christians in Corinth. The second Vatican council taught that, quote, “In composing the sacred books, God chose men. And, while employed by him, they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with him acting in them and through them, they as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things, which he wanted.”
Trent Horn:
That means the gospel authors, they used human conventions when writing. We have to allow the biblical text to have this flexibility. For example, in the case of the genealogies, they were never exactly recorded among the Jewish people. So, they do vary from one another. Plus, the Hebrew word for son or ben, it’s really flexible. It can mean grandson or even great grandson. This is why Jesus can be called the son of David, even though David lived a really long time before Jesus.
Trent Horn:
The reason Matthew describes 28 generations between David and Jesus, different than Luke, is because Matthew divided his entire genealogy into three parts. Each of them contains 14 generations. Matthew tells us all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. And, from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And, from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations. Well, why does Matthew do this?
Trent Horn:
Well, the three Hebrew letters that make up David’s name, they also have a numerical value. That value adds up to 14. Matthew is probably creating a mnemonic device, a way to help his readers remember that Jesus is descended from David. Uthman’s objection about the genealogies, it only works if you have a very narrow fundamentalist view of scripture, instead of recognizing that ancient historians and Jewish writers, they allowed for varying details in their accounts and historical records. So, there’s no contradiction. There’s no error here.
Trent Horn:
Another acceptable response to a Muslim apologist, or really to anyone arguing from Bible contradictions, is to say this. “Yeah, that’s strange. I don’t know how to resolve this because maybe there’s other information that could help us, but we no longer possess it. But,, even if I can’t explain this difficulty in the Bible, I do know Jesus walked out of his own tomb. So I’m going to trust him over a text claiming to speak for him, written 600 years later, like the Quran.”
Sheikh Uthman:
We can’t depend our salvation on something with mistakes. That’s why we have the Quran. This is not the words of the prophet Muhammad. It is not the words of companions. It’s not the words of men. This is the words of the creator. That’s why you will never find such a contradiction. We’ve been putting this challenge out for more than 20 years. We tell people, find us a single contradiction. We don’t find it. People try all kinds of little ways. Never, because this is the word of the creator.
Speaker 6:
Perfection.
Trent Horn:
For the sake of the argument, I’m willing to concede the Quran on has no internal contradictions. But, so what? A human being can write something that isn’t contradictory. You need more evidence to show that what is written is not only coherent, it’s divinely inspired. Now, when it comes to the Bible, I believe the Bible is inspired because there’s good historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead and established a church. And, that church authoritatively teaches that these texts are the inspired word of God. In fact, one reason I doubt the Quran is inspired is because one popular interpretation of it contains a massive mistake. In fact, it denies that Jesus was crucified.
Trent Horn:
The Quran says in Surah four 157, “And, for their saying, indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of a law. And, they did not kill him nor did they crucify him. But, another was made to resemble him to them. And, indeed those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except to the following of assumption. And, they did not kill him for certain.” This should make us seriously doubt the reliability of the Quran, because almost everyone, including non-Christians, agree that Jesus was crucified to death.
Trent Horn:
Skeptical Bible scholar, John Dominic Crossan, denies that Jesus rose from the dead. But, even he says, “That he was crucified, is as sure as anything historical can ever be.” In response to this evidence, many Muslims believe that God only made it appear that Jesus was crucified and put someone who looked like Jesus on the cross in Jesus’ place. In the seventh century, Muhammad’s cousin, Ibn Abbas said that this person was actually a Roman soldier named Tatianus or Natianus. But, since, as we’ve seen, the Quran was written too late to be a reliable historical source, we have no reason to trust any claims based on that. And, as we’ll see, there’s no evidence that it’s divinely inspired. There’s no reason that we should have its testimony override the far better historical testimony the New Testament provides.
Trent Horn:
But, let’s go back to the evidence for the Quran being divinely inspired. I believe the Bible is inspired because there is very good historical evidence for the central miracle of the New Testament. Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. I don’t know how worship of a crucified rabbi could have ever begun in Second Temple Judaism, unless Jesus vindicated his claims to divine authority by rising from the dead and showing his disciples that he was not a failure, and in doing so, converting skeptics like St. Paul. However, we don’t have a similar miracle to show Islam is true. Many Muslim apologists try to have it both ways. They’ll say Muhammad performed miracles. But, also that they don’t prove their religion through Muhammad’s miracles. Here’s one example from a Muslim apologist.
Speaker 8:
Why prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not do miracles like the previous prophets? To say that prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not do miracles is totally wrong. There are various miracles that the prophet did. For example, the prophet, he split the moon. But, we Muslims don’t boast of these miracles. The reason we Muslims do not boast of these miracles, because at the time when the Quran was revealed, it was not the age of miracles. Previously, with the age of miracles at the time [inaudible 00:34:01] and there are many miracles which are mentioned in the Quran.
Trent Horn:
This apologist says miracles were restricted to earlier periods in salvation history. They’re not abundant during the time of Muhammad. The Quran even seems to admit Muhammad did not perform miracles. Surah 13:7 in the Quran says, “Those who disbelieved say, “Why is a sign not been sent down to him from his Lord?” To which God tells, “Muhammad, you are only a warner. And, for every people is a guide.”” Instead, the miracle of Islam that’s supposed to provide proof of its truth is usually considered to be the Quran itself, because no one ever has or ever can create anything like it. Surah 2:23 says that, quote, “If you are in doubt about what we have sent down upon our servant Muhammad, then produce a surah, the like thereof, and call upon your witnesses other than a law, if you should be truthful.”
Trent Horn:
In other words, if you don’t trust the Quran, try to write something better. If you can’t, this shows that God inspired the Quran. But, despite Muslim claims to the contrary, the Quran is similar to other medieval Arabic works. And, in some respects, it’s even deficient in comparison with them. According to the late Iranian author, Ali Dashti, he says the Quran contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries. It’ll logically and ungrammatically apply pronouns, which sometimes have no referent. And, predicates, which in rhyme passages are often remote from the subjects.
Trent Horn:
These and other such aberrations in the language have given scope to critics who deny the Quran’s eloquence. Even if the Quran didn’t have these problems and it was unsurpassed in beauty and eloquence, so what? It doesn’t follow just because something’s really beautiful and you can’t imitate it, that God must have inspired it. The works of Shakespeare or Dostoevsky, they’re really unique. You can’t really replicate them. But, that doesn’t mean God dictated those works to those authors. Being unique doesn’t prove that you’re divine.
Trent Horn:
Uthman also offers another set of arguments for the Quran in the form of scientific knowledge that Muhammad and other people in the seventh century allegedly could not have known. He claims these details in the text prove it is divinely inspired.
Sheikh Uthman:
Now, past that, how do we know this is the true message. There are many miracles of the Quran, linguistic miracles, historic prophecies that came true. But, I’ll show you just a couple of scientific stuff. [crosstalk 00:36:38] When we get to the Quran, this is Surach Al-Furqan. The 25th chapter in the Quran, 53rd verse. “And, it is he who has released two parts of flowing water. One of them drinkable and sweet, and the other that is salty and bitter. And, he who has set a barrier between them. A boundary forbidden to be crossed.”
Sheikh Uthman:
Sweet water and salt water, they come together, but they don’t mix. When you go out to see a river. But, the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he was in Mecca. Mecca, the closest body of water is the Red Sea. There is no ocean close to Mecca. He would have to either go to Indian ocean or [inaudible 00:37:18]. He never went, historically. So, he could not have witnessed this. How would he have this information?
Trent Horn:
Well, maybe a trader or someone else told Muhammad about how fresh water drains into the ocean and remains fresh upstream. I’m not seeing how only God could have provided Muhammad this information.
Sheikh Uthman:
I’ll give you another one. Surah [inaudible 00:37:39] Anbya, this is the chapter 21, verse 33 in the Quran. “And, it is he who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon, all of the heavenly bodies go along each in it’s rounded path, in a orbit.” The fact that the earth, the moon, the sun all have orbits, no way the Prophet Muhammad more the 1,400 years ago, peace and blessing be upon him, in a desert, not in a place like Greece, not in a center of knowledge or philosophy. This is not Galileo. There’s no telescopes. How would he know the sun has an orbit? Even until very recently, scientists were arguing, the sun doesn’t have an orbit. And now, we say, yes, the sun has an orbit. No way the prophet could have known it, peace of blessing be upon him.
Trent Horn:
This verse in the Quran says, “It is he who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon, each floating in an orbit.” How do we know Muhammad didn’t just mean that both the moon and the sun move in predictable ways in the sky. That’s what other verses in the Quran seem to indicate. Surah 31:29 says, “Have you not seen how God merges the night into the day, and merges the day into the night. That he subjected the sun and the moon each running for a stated term.” Surah 36:37 through 40 says, “Another sign for them is the night. We strip the day out of it. And, they are in darkness. And, the sun runs towards its destination. Such as the design of the Almighty, the all knowing. And, the moon, we have disposed it in phases until it returns like the old twig. The sun is not to overtake the moon, nor is the night to out pace the day. Each floats in an orbit.”
Trent Horn:
I’m not saying that this is a scientific error that disproves the Quran. Only that the author just seems to be describing how the celestial bodies appear to him. You could find similar language in the Bible. So, neither of these things would disprove their divine inspiration. But, for the Quran, this is not good evidence that it’s a scientific miracle, that the Quran had scientific knowledge that was unknown in Muhammad’s time that only God could have given him.
Trent Horn:
It seems that Muhammad had the typical amount of knowledge that a person in seventh century Arabia would’ve had. So, there are no scientific miracles in the Quran. We’ve also seen that there’s no evidence the Quran’s literary quality was impossible for a human being to achieve. Now, earlier I said Muslims tend to not mention Muhammad performing miracles as the basis for why they believe in Islam. But, Sheik Uthman thinks this is warranted in the case of one miracle. The alleged case of Muhammad splitting the moon.
Sheikh Uthman:
Don’t worry about different religions and things. Worry about what’s the truth. I’ll give you an example. The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him, I’ll give you my name and you can look up. I have a video that gives all the evidences. He split the moon. This is something that historically we can prove. Eyewitness accounts from the enemies of the prophet, from the companions of prophet, from others, that during his time, the people asked for a sign. He said, “What would you want?” They said, “Can you split the moon?” He split the moon, brought it back together. We still see traces of that on the moon today. We have evidence of people from other countries, other areas, that saw this. These miracles show you that this is a true messenger.
Trent Horn:
This refers to Surah 54, which says, “The hour has drawn near and the moon has split. Yet, whenever they see a miracle, they turn away and say, continuous magic. They lie and follow their opinions, but everything has its time.” Now, notice this doesn’t say Muhammad split the moon. And, it doesn’t say anything about who saw this alleged miracle. Saying Muhammad did it in the presence of witnesses was a later Islamic tradition.
Trent Horn:
Uthman has a whole video on the splitting of the moon. So, I want to take a look at the evidence that he provides there. The first bit he offers is from the Quran which, as we’ve seen, doesn’t say Muhammad did this. It doesn’t say anything about the witnesses that were involved. It’s not helpful. He does say there are details that come from a later tradition. But, before we get to that evidence, Uthman tells us that the evidence for the splitting of the moon is on par with evidence for other things that no longer exist and which we don’t have eyewitness accounts. Things like the Lighthouse of Alexandria and other wonders of the ancient world.
Sheikh Uthman:
None of that stands today. We have no firsthand eyewitness accounts. But, from oral traditions about having seen these places, we believe they existed. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. Something insane. Look at the pictures that you have. And, these are all artists renditions because we don’t have any actual pictures. We didn’t have cell phones or Canon cameras to go out and take pictures of them. But, based on oral traditions, we do believe that these extraordinary structures existed. The famous Monotheum, the Colossus of Rhodes, all of these extraordinary historic accounts have no eyewitness.
Trent Horn:
Actually, for many of these icons, we do have eyewitness accounts. For the Lighthouse of Alexandria, we have firsthand accounts from medieval Muslim travel diaries, like those of Ibn Jubayr and Abu [Hagar Yusuf 00:43:04], and these travel diaries include measurements of the lighthouse. According to Judith McKenzie in the book, the Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, quote, “The Arab descriptions of the lighthouse are remarkably consistent. Although, it was repaired several times, especially after earthquake damage, the height they give varies only 15% from 103 to 118 meters, on a base that’s 30 by 30 meters square.”
Trent Horn:
When it comes to the Colossus of Rhodes, we have multiple sources like the Greek geographer, Strabo, other ancient Greek poets, Pliny the Elder. Then they all describe the tower in a similar way after an earthquake knocked it over. And, to bring this back to the Christian faith, we have firsthand accounts of Jesus appearing to someone after his death, or St. Paul. And, Paul shares a creed in first Corinthians 15 that describes other people who saw Jesus alive after his death. And, Paul knew these people who can corroborate these details. But, do we have anything similar for this alleged miracle of Muhammad.
Sheikh Uthman:
A skeptic would ask, “Okay, well, who saw this? Obviously, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. But, then you could say, “Well, he’s the one that’s performing this. Who else saw it?” Well, we have in his historic documentation, in a book called Sahih al-Bukhari, we have the narration from Ibn [Masurut 00:44:33] . Ibn Masurut is one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. And, in the narration that is on your screen now, he reports this to have occurred as well.
Sheikh Uthman:
Now, you could say, “Okay, well, who’s Ibn Masurut?” Ibn Masurut, we know exact details about this eyewitness. What was his name? His name was Abdullah. What was his father’s name? His father’s name was [Misrud 00:44:59]. What was his mother known as? [inaudible 00:45:02] Did he have siblings? Yes. For example, he had a brother named [inaudible 00:45:06]. Okay. Was he married? Yes. His wife was named Zainab.
Trent Horn:
Uthman continues on giving family histories of all these alleged witnesses. But, the problem he glosses over is the source of these claims. He told us they come from Sahih al-Bukhari, which is a collection of Hadiths or oral traditions about Muhammad. This collection was compiled by Muhammad al-Bukhari around the year 846, over 200 years after Muhammad died. That would be like saying the evidence we have Jesus rose from the dead, the only evidence we have, comes from Saint Cyprian of Carthage in the year 250, where Cyprian claims that Paul, Peter and the apostles saw Jesus rise from the dead. And then, he provides a bunch of facts about Peter, like he had a mother-in-law or something like that. I’m skeptical of this testimony, just as I’m skeptical of similar reports in Catholicism of alleged miracles of the saints whose testimony comes hundreds of years later.
Trent Horn:
This isn’t the case of me judging one religion with a different standard than my own. But, we also need to ask, what kind of miracle are we talking about with the splitting of the moon? That’s because some Islamic scholars say this passage in the Quran, it only refers to what will happen at the day of judgment, or it’s metaphorical. So, it’s not something we’d expect other people to record, for example. Or, was it just God causing a group of people to see something that looked like the moon being split in two. I’m more open to that kind of a miracle claim, because God has done that before. The description of Joshua commanding the son to stand still in the old Testament might be an optical miracle that only the people in that battle saw. Or, it could be a metaphor, as I note in my book, Hard Sayings.
Trent Horn:
Another more contemporary example would be the miracle of the sun at Fatima that took place on October 13th, 1917. I think it’s reasonable to believe God caused a group of people to see what looked like the sun dancing in the sky at Fatima, even though the sun never changed its actual position in our solar system. But, I’m open to a miracle like Fatima, because we have contemporary newspaper accounts saying people claimed a miracle happened. We have nothing like that for the splitting of the moon.
Trent Horn:
Even skeptical authors like Benjamin Radford say of Fatima, “No one suggests that those who reported seeing the miracle of the sun or any other miracles of Fatima or elsewhere are lying or hoaxing.” But, even if these testimonies about the splitting of the moon were reliably preserved and were sincere, which I still doubt, but even if it were true, it’s one thing to make amazing claims about someone like Muhammad, who by the time he died in 632 was a victorious military leader who had unified the entire Arabian peninsula under Islam. There’s not much to keep someone from making grand claims about a military hero like that.
Trent Horn:
By this logic, Uthman would have to accept the testimony of Joseph Smith’s friends and family who claim to have seen Joseph Smith handle golden plates given to him by an angel. But, the apostles made claims we wouldn’t expect after what appeared to them to be the death of their failed Messiah. They said that Jesus rose after he died a humiliating death and they risked persecution and death themselves to preach about the resurrection. Even former enemies of Christianity, like St. Paul, did the same. This counts in favor of the testimony for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Because, we wouldn’t expect this kind of testimony in the face of what most Jewish people would’ve considered Jesus’ ultimate failure, unless Jesus really did rise from the dead.
Trent Horn:
That’s very different from the followers of Muhammad, if they actually did make these claims about the splitting of the moon, which I think are still doubtful. Very different from them affirming this at a time when Muhammad was triumphant and successful in spreading Islam throughout Arabia. So, not only do we not have good evidence for the splitting of the moon, but we also have evidence against it. Uthman is saying the splitting of the moon was a physical event that happened to the moon itself, not just an appearance of this happening to a few witnesses. If Jesus rose from the dead and only appeared to Paul and Jesus’ disciples, then we’d expect the kind of testimony we have today in the new Testament. We wouldn’t expect ancient Roman and Greek historians to say Jesus rose from the dead, because, the reason, Jesus never appeared to them. We’d only expect those historians to say Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Trent Horn:
But, if Muhammad really did split the moon in two in the seventh century, we’d expect corroborating, physical evidence and corroborating non-Muslim evidence from other cultures at the time. For example, Uthman shows some NASA photographs of ridges on the moon and talks about how the moon could have actually split in the past. Though he doesn’t say this proves Muhammad split the moon in two. If it did split in half, we’d expect some evidence of this on the surface of the moon, unless God miraculously repaired the damage.
Trent Horn:
Though, in 2010, NASA scientists, Brad Bailey, responded to Muslim questions about these photographs saying this, quote, “My recommendation is to not believe everything you read on the internet. Peer reviewed papers are the only scientifically valid sources of information out there. No current scientific evidence reports that the moon was split into two or more parts, and then reassembled at any point in the past.” We’d also expect, though, other cultures to have recorded the splitting of the moon in either a written or an oral form, at least something, if this event did happen. Here’s how Uthman addresses that issue.
Sheikh Uthman:
As a skeptic, somebody who’s agnostic, somebody who’s going to question, they may say, okay, you have reports out of Mecca and Arabia and these caravans and Medina, but what about other parts of the world? If some great event like this happened, like the moon splits, then surely people in other parts of the world would’ve seen it. Well, first thing it is unrealistic to expect that people would’ve seen it in the daytime. Because, we can’t see the moon in the daytime.
Trent Horn:
Uthman is correct that the miracle took place during the daylight hours in the Americas. Now, you can see the moon in daylight during the first and last quarter phases of its orbit around the earth. But, let’s assume that the people in the Americas didn’t see the splitting of the moon. If the miracle happened at around 9:00 PM Mecca time, then it would still be the early evening or between six and 9:00 PM. In Europe, Israel, and North Africa. It would be the late evening, like midnight, in India. And, it would be the middle of the night, like three in the morning in China and Japan. Even in the late hours, there would’ve been people awake, like guards and forts or settlements, to have witnessed this. We’d expect it to wind up in folk tales or be written down in early medieval historians like Venerable Bede in England, who wrote in the year 731. Or, a court historian in the Tang Dynasty of China.
Trent Horn:
St John Damascene died in the year 749 and is one of the first fathers of the church to directly engage Islam and its claims. He never describes anybody, even Muslims themselves, appealing to the miracle of the splitting of the moon as evidence for Islam. Instead, he writes, “When we ask again, how is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him, Muhammad. First, do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what scriptures there are that testify about you.” They are ashamed and remain silent. So, Uthman does claim though, to have some non-Muslim evidence for the splitting of the moon in the form of an Indian prince who claims to have seen it and converted to Islam as a result. He emailed several museums and offices in India to confirm the existence of a manuscript describing this story. And, here’s what he says.
Sheikh Uthman:
I called them and I emailed them and I requested information about this manuscript. The response I got is from the Asian Africa reference services, India office. That’s a subdivision of that service. From the India office papers, Oriental language publications, and Oriental language manuscripts. They said, we are pleased to confirm that we do indeed hold in our collection, a composite manuscript, and their reference number is IO Islamic 2807, on portfolios, 81 through 104, Verso.
Sheikh Uthman:
There is an account of an Indian king having witnessed the splitting of the moon and converting to Islam. The manuscript is entitled [foreign language 00:54:29] and is listed in our published catalogs with the following. A fabulous account of the first settlement of Mohammedans in Malabar, under King [inaudible 00:54:46], a contemporary of Muhammad, peace be upon him, who has converted to Islam by the miracle of the division of the moon. So, there is such a manuscript and his observation of the splitting of the moon and later embracing Islam. Then this is well documented in many manuscripts that are housed in the National Digital Library of India.
Trent Horn:
All right, let me break this down. Kerala is on the western tip of India. It was a major trading center, especially for cinnamon, for thousands of years. Arab traders were there before Muhammad, and Islam arrived in Kerala early. It might have been as early as the seventh century. The claim that an Indian king converted after witnessing the splitting of the moon comes from later legends about the Cheraman Perumals. This is not a name. Because, some people will say that a king named Cheraman Perumal converted to Islam. It’s a title. Chera is a dynasty, Perumal means great one or king. The Cheraman Perumal in question who convert to Islam is allegedly the seventh century ruler Rama Varma, also called Ravi Varma. The modern claim that this happens seems to come from a book called Muhammad Rasullah that was written by the 20th century Islamic scholar, Muhammad Hamidullah.
Trent Horn:
He says this tale can be found in an old manuscript in the India office library. It has a reference number, Arabic 2807. So, he sounds a bit like Uthman. He says there is a very old tradition in Malabar, southwest coast of India, that Chakrawati Farmas, one of their kings had observed the splitting of the moon, the celebrated miracle of the holy prophet at Mecca. And, learning on inquiry that there was a prediction of the coming of a messenger of God from Arabia, he appointed his son as regent and set out to meet him. He embraced Islam at the hand of the prophet. So, it’s a fairly common legend, but Uthman doesn’t tell us how old the manuscript is that he’s describing that references this event. The earliest sources for this alleged event come from Muslim sources written hundreds of years after the fact.
Trent Horn:
So, this is what we would call a founding legend for a group, trying to establish its legitimacy. You see something similar in the Kingdom of Osroene. This was actually the very first Christian kingdom in the third century. There is a legend that King Agbar the fifth of Osroene wrote letters to Jesus asking to be healed of leprosy. But, modern scholars have dated the letter to the third century. It was probably written by Agbar the eighth to solidify support for the kingdom, formally accepting Christianity as the state religion.
Trent Horn:
So, popular legends in Kerala will say that the oldest mosque in India was constructed by Malik bin Dinar in 629 after the Indian king converted. But, this conflicts with medieval Muslim accounts that say there were no mosques in Kerala during this time. And, the fact that Malik bin Dinar was born several decades after Muhammad’s death. In [inaudible 00:57:51] article, historical aspects of the legend of Cheraman Perumal, of Kodungallur in Kerala, he notes that, quote, “This fascinating tale of a Kerala king meeting the Prophet Muhammad was first recorded in the year 1510 by the Portuguese writer, Duarte Barbosa.
Trent Horn:
But, Barbosa says that Muslim traders converted the Indian king in the 10th century, not a splitting of the moon in the seventh century. The Indian historian, A. Sreedhara Menon, writes in his book, A Survey of Kerala History, that Islam may have arrived in Kerala by the seventh century. But, he quotes Muslim travelers, like Sulaiman in the year 851, who say that they didn’t know of anybody who embraced Islam in the area at that time. Here is his verdict. “On careful consideration of all aspects of the question, it would be seen that the Cheraman legend was only the figment of the imagination of some early the writers. It is exceedingly doubtful if any Cheraman emperor became a convert to Islam. The Cheraman legend is thus, beyond doubt, an anachronism.”
Trent Horn:
So, to draw this all together, I think we can see that Muslim arguments against Christianity don’t succeed. They usually attack the periphery of Christianity by going after things like Bible contradictions, instead of the strength of the evidence for the central miracle of Christianity, which would be Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. In contrast, we see there is no similar miracle to vouch for the truth of Islam on par with the resurrection. There are no scientific facts in the Quran that could have only gotten there through divine inspiration.
Trent Horn:
The Quran itself is not of a literary quality that only God could have caused someone to write. Muhammad didn’t perform miracles of the same evidential quality as the resurrection. The one miracle that’s offered, the splitting of the moon, we see that there’s not really good evidence for it. So, apologetics in favor of the truth of Islam, I think they’re very deficient in that regard. And, in fact, some Muslim apologists, like Shabir Ally, they have noted that Muslims need to catch up with Christians when it comes to providing sophisticated defenses of the truth of their faith, such as that God exists, in answering atheism. Here’s what he says.
Shabir Ally:
But, nowadays the discussions between theists and atheists have gone to greater depths. And, I see that Muslims have not risen to the occasion of debating with the atheists at that level of depth. And, I see that our Christian friends have actually done a wonderful job of that.
Trent Horn:
So, thank you guys so much for watching. I hope this is helpful for you all. And, just a reminder, I’d be happy to debate Sheik Uthman on this in person about whether Islam is a true or false religion. We’d be happy to set that up. But, I hope this gave you an understanding of Muslim apologetics and I hope to do future videos on Islam and other non-Christian religions in the future. If you guys want to help us to create more videos like that, definitely check out our website at trenthornpodcast.com. Thank you guys so much, and I hope you have a very blessed day.
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