Rebuttal to Sam Shamoun's Article, "Allah and Nudity: Addressing a Typical Muslim Polemic"

by

 

Bassam Zawadi

 

 

Shamoun's article can be located here.

 

One should first read Shamoun's article before reading it.

 

Shamoun begins by saying... 

 

Muslims like to bring up passages from the Holy Bible which they feel are indecent and highly offensive, in order to prove that these parts cannot be the Words of God. 

 

I don't know who these Muslims are that Shamoun is referring to; however, I don't believe that these arguments serve as evidence against the inspiration of the Bible, even if they are proven to be true.

I view these arguments to be emotional and subjective. The only reason why I would take this line of argumentation is to serve as a retaliatory attack against Christians who want to criticize Islam for supposedly finding things that they deem to be immoral in it and expose their double standards.

 

My methodology would be first to refute the argument against Islam and then retaliate by pointing towards the Bible to expose the double standards of the Christians.

 

Shamoun then goes on and successfully, I might add, to address the argument from Isaiah 20:1-4.

 

However, I wouldn't appeal to this verse to argue against the 'morality' of the Biblical God on this topic.

 

Instead, I would appeal to Isaiah 3 (also see here) and Zechariah 14, which show that women will be made naked due to their getting raped.

 

I would also appeal to 2 Samuel 12:11-12, which shows that God can threaten to have a Prophet's wife to have sex in daylight with other men.

 

Again, as I stated before, I only use these arguments for retaliatory purposes. I cannot question God for ordering these things to occur if that is His divine will.

 

However, other Muslims may disagree with me and insist that it is not in God's nature to order such immorality. They have every right to do so. They have their opinion, and I have mine. I might change my mind, but for now, this is my position.

 

Now, Shamoun goes on to give examples from Islamic sources that show that some Prophets, in some instances, appeared naked in public.

 

Shamoun has to realize that those Muslims whom he is trying to refute have no objections to God allowing others to be naked per se. On the Day of Judgement, all of us will see each other naked. There is no problem there.

 

What some Muslims objected to are the reasons why God had others naked in the Bible in comparison to what we find in Islamic sources.

 

As I have shown above, some of the reasons why God has people become naked are not very pleasant.

 

However, Shamoun didn't show anything immoral in his cited Islamic sources.

 

Shamoun brings up the incident of Moses (peace be upon him). However, this only shows that Allah used this approach to vindicate Moses (peace be upon him) from the slander of the Israelites. What is wrong with that? How does that compare to the Bible?

 

Shamoun also brings up an incident in which the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) fell unconscious and was seen naked by others. Again, so what? 

 

Shamoun states:

1. A prophet of God can be honorable and honored before God and the people even if he appears naked in public. Then the Muslim attack on the Bible on such grounds is baseless and hypocritical.

2. Mentioning an incident of nakedness of a prophet disqualifies a faith from being God's true religion. Then Islam is exposed as false.

As Reformed Protestant scholar and apologist Dr. James White told Shabir Ally in their debate that took place at Biola University on May 7, 2006:

"Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument." (Is the New Testament We Possess Today Inspired?; source)

We couldn't have said it any better.

Again, I don't believe this line of argumentation against the Bible is objective evidence against its inspiration. However, Shamoun must note that there is a big difference between the Bible stating that Prophet Noah lied down as a naked drunkard (Genesis 9:21-22) and between Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) appearing naked to vindicate himself from the slanders against him or the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) falling unconscious and thus his nakedness was exposed.

Also, Shamoun is the last one to speak about being consistent since he loves to attack Islam constantly on issues such as Allah supposedly issuing violent commands. At the same time, his Bible is full of it.

 

 

 

 

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