The Weirdness of the Islamic Revelation: Once Upon a Time in Arabia...

By Ibn Katakpingi

“The merest accident of microgeography meant that the first man to hear the voice of God, and who
received God's view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways
of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid
and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent and need to be led”. [Terry Pratchett in his novel
Small Gods]
Sheep play important roles in the religious rites of the religions calling themselves monotheisms.
These cults extol the virtues of sheep, refer to adherents as flock and enjoin them to be humble and
simple as sheep. It is claimed by the Bible that at the resurrection humans will be separated into
goats and sheep. Goats will be condemned to eternal death and the humble, gentle sheep will go to
heaven and enjoy all the privileges that heavenly tenancy will bestow. But to say that sheep are
simple is a gross understatement of the nature of sheep. You see, sheep are stupid. Everybody agrees
that they are. Indeed, in the Ghanaian languages that I speak, the description of an individual as
sheepish is the most effective way to undermine their intelligence; one cannot be more stupid even
if they tried. (Sheep may not be that stupid from a survival point of view.) Thus, it is a matter of
great interest to me and Pratchett at least (the novelist who gave us the interesting opening
paragraph above) that sheep are considered model animals by our religious friends. So why sheep? I
will attempt to show in this article that reported miracles in the holy texts that serve as pillars
propping up the pseudo-profundities they contain are so tawdry, so unscientific and so wacky that
you'd have to be a sheep to believe them. I shall limit myself to miracles reported by the Qur'an and
the Hadith of the Islamic faith as Kwaku Ba has published excellent refutations to the alleged
profundities of the Bible. I think also that time is ripe for the miracles reported in the Islamic holy
texts to be exposed as the feeble-minded inventions that they are because many Muslims, including
those that sometimes leave comments on Gweb, are under the illusion that the Qur'an is in perfect
agreement with science and reason. By this article I wish to show that the Muslim sky god, like all
other gods, not only is the figment of the imagination but the interventions that he is said to make in
the natural order make sense only to sheep. Claims of flying horses, armies of stone-pelting birds,
cataclysmic destruction of our moon, talking foetuses and a global deluge found in the Qur'an and
the Hadith will be discussed from a “goat” perspective.
Before I launch into the supposed miracles, I'd like to make a few points about what might be
considered a real miracle, by no means supernatural but wondrous nonetheless. Our knowledge has
advanced so much that phenomena that once baffled humanity and whose explanations could only
be made in the context of a supernatural superintendent have become basic school stuff. Every
progress made in science produces some erosion of religious authority. It came as no surprise then
that religion, which wielded enormous influence in the past (and which unfortunately still controls
pretty much everything in Islamic theocracies) did all it could to thwart the progress of science and
reason. A clever device now employed by some religions notably Islam is the cabalistic
reinterpretation of religious texts to “agree” with modern scientific thinking. How did things come
to be this way?
All religious texts possess something called obscurantism, i.e. nothing is ever said in great detail
and in plain language. The texts are arranged in such a manner that they can be interpreted in many
ways and details can be added as we go along the journey of discovery and knowledge. Little
commitment to facts is made and falsehoods are shrouded in the veil of the “supernatural”; God can
do anything he likes. But I disagree. Either God is committed to non-interference by tuning
everything to the scientific mode or He interferes blatantly and with complete disregard for the
natural order, i.e. nothing should follow natural laws as we know them. Why? Because an
omnipresent God lacks the omnipotence to change his future mind. How? Because if he did he
would not be omnipresent. However, what is even more interesting is that when the gods decide to
interfere in the natural order, nothing extraordinary is ever said or done. For example, many
religious people claim that their gods talk to them, reveal the future to them and even direct them
how to get by their daily difficulties. Now imagine that as the pastor of a small congregation you
have a direct line to the creator of the universe and the most important question that comes to your
mind anytime you dial this oracle is which member of my congregation will get an American visa
this year, my Lord? Really? It doesn't even occur to you to ask some important, I mean really
important, questions? How about asking for a brief description of events in black holes and other
possible universes? How about a solution to the mind-brain problem: the emergence of the
intangible mind from the activities of the tangible brain? How about a definitive proof of the
Goldbach's conjecture, the idea that any even integer greater than two can be expressed as the sum
of two prime numbers, which is one of the oldest unsolved mathematical problems? Oh, but if it is
about inconsequential marital problems or vague predictions our pastors and soothsayers are really
great at doing well. Do you see how petty the wishes granted by the gods are, that nothing has been
done by the gods that man could not have done unaided?
But if today scientists provide definitive explanations about the status of sister universes you'll get
religious people on TV tonight telling the whole world how a sentence in the Qur'an was the first to
inform the world that our universe is actually part of a multiverse. I admit that even I will be
impressed if our religious friends can provide us detailed explanations (either as revelations from
the great Architect himself or unambiguous interpretation of the holy texts) of the problems that
currently stump our greatest scientists. Instead what do we get? Such stuff as only bronze-age minds
can conceive! The (in)famous Islamic apologist Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) who attempts to put a
spin on scientific facts so they agree with the Islamic revelation is considered by people of reason as
the most misinformed and ridiculous person alive, and he is justly derided as an ignoramus. This is
to be expected. Any new knowledge that is dropped on humanity by the Architect is expected to be
mind-boggling. Any interventions that the gods make are expected to be truly dramatic. So it makes
sense when claims of the supernatural are dismissed by reasonable people in cases where natural
laws can do the explanation. In those cases where the miracles reported are senseless, or expected to
produce global effects but instead local effects are reported, people of reason can also dismiss them.
The final grounds on which people of reason can dismiss claims of the miraculous is when the
purported miracles are contradictory to the attributes of the supernatural entities who are claim to
produce them. Think about these three refutations as I attempt to expose some miracles reported in
the Qur'an and the Hadith as inventions of ignoramuses impressing the yokels.
Qur'an chapter 17 verse 1 (and the Hadith and commentaries that it has generated) recount the story
of Mohammed's night flight from al-Haram mosque in Mecca to al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on
the back of a winged horse called Burak. Bukhari reported that when Mohammed's listeners
doubted this story (which tells us there were goats even in those dark times) he described the al-
Aqsa mosque in great detail to them (aided by the miraculous appearance of the mosque in front of
him, apparently unseen by everyone else), and also told them of his adventure with some travellers
whose camels were apparently spooked by the spectacle of a flying horse. The prophet was also
reported to have toured heaven and glimpsed the wonders therein. Although this story is for the
sheep, we can apply some commonsense to it and see whether it can hold. Certainly, the Qur'an is
not the first book to talk about flying horses. In Greek mythology, the demi-god Perseus flew on the
back of his winged horse, Pegasus on his adventures that included the slaying of Medusa and the
rescue of the beautiful Princess Andromeda. Today everybody, sheep and goats alike, believe
Pegasus never existed. Why should the winged horse Burak be different? Of course, we know
horses don't fly. As a biologist, I feel affronted by the suggestion that a bulky, non-streamlined,
quadruped mammal such as a horse can sprout wings and take to the air! Now don't give me that
nonsense that Allah can do anything, for that is no explanation. If Allah could make a horse fly, then
is it not economical for Allah to arrange Mohammed's transportation without a horse at all? I guess
it makes more sense to think of a flying carpet than a flying horse. But because a story about flying
carpets would've seemed too banal to his listeners, who probably are used to tales of flying carpets
in their bedtime stories, Mohammed chose a winged horse. The same argument goes for the popular
rendering of angels as winged creatures zooming in and out of the clouds! You don't have to be a
goat to realise that the medium that wings work against to produce lift in birds, insects and flying
and gliding mammals (air) is absent when you leave the earth's atmosphere. That is one reason why
jet aeroplanes and helicopters are bad candidates for spacecraft. Since the religious agree that you'd
have to leave the earth in order to get to heaven, angelic wings can be said to be as useless as
helicopters in the near-vacuum of space. The whole idea is absurd.
The story is told in Surat al-Fil (Chapter 105) of an important victory granted the city of Mecca
when the ruler of Yemen (then a province of the Ethiopian Kingdom) attacked the city with the
intention to destroy the Ka'bah (and the pilgrimage business that it brought). On that occasion, the
story goes, the city was attacked by an army that came with 13 elephants. So mighty was this army
that it destroyed all that laid in its path until encountering the holy city the merciful Allah decided to
intervene. A flock of stone-pelting birds were said to have attacked the invading army and destroyed
them. Or not.
This lovely story designed to show the might of Allah is a fabrication. Like other tall stories told in
the holy books, this story has no record in reliable history. To be sure, there are chronicles of the
many battles fought to win the hearts and minds of men, and of course their money, in that troubled
patch of desert that is the origin of the world's monotheisms but none of them chronicles the
magical appearance of a flock of birds bearing magical stones that decimated the marauding army.
But perhaps the more important reason that stories of this nature ought to be considered with
suspicion is that they are contradictory to the nature of the deity. Muslims affirm their belief in
Allah's merciful love (He has been called al-Rahim, the merciful). Yet He watched as thousands of
people were destroyed by a murderous army and only took action to prevent the destruction of a
shrine, the Ka'bah. Mercy my foot! The Ka'bah itself may have been a meteorite, which astounded
the simple countryfolk and given them an object of worship: the gods themselves gave humans a
great black stone, they probably told themselves! It was Mohammed's idea to borrow this idolatrous
object into the Islamic faith. Today, millions of Muslims travel on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina
and perform wacky rituals of stoning the devil and connecting with Allah. Unless our Muslim
friends tell us that worshipping stones (maybe meteorites) constitutes a scientific exercise, then they
should keep quiet about the scientific credentials of the Qur'an and accept that it is just another
weird book, wacky to the core!
Miracles were said to have been performed by the prophet to demonstrate his connection with the
supernatural. On one occasion mentioned in Qur'an Chapter 54 and related in the Hadith of Bukhari,
the prophet was said to have caused the moon to split in two halves before a crowd of sceptical
witnesses and then reformed. It was even suggested that the moon came crashing onto the earth!
This “miracle” was said to have had a strong impression on those who witnessed it. And who were
these witnesses? A couple of people who were with the prophet at the time. So our moon more than
300,000 km away was split in two by Mohammed's abracadabra and only a handful of people with
the prophet witnessed it? Hmm... The delicate balance between the moon and the earth, gravitation
wise, has implications for natural processes such as the rise and fall of tides, etc. If any damage had
been done to the moon, eyewitnesses will not be needed to testify to this wonder: the damage that
would be done to earth and it's inhabitants would be great indeed to form a lasting impression. And
certainly if the moon came smashing into the earth tell-tale signs would have survived to this day.
Needless to say, no such events occurred. No record of this appears in any historical books. Neither
the Chinese nor the Europeans recorded anything of the sort. The story does not even appear in the
legends and mythical tales of Africans and indigenous Americans. Nothing at all. Many other wacky
stories have been related concerning the prophet such as the implausible and totally nonsensical
story of the angel Jibril splitting open the chest of the child Mohammed, removing his heart and
washing it clean of satanic influences using water in a basin (Muslim and Ahmed both reported
this). Wacky, you're probably saying. The heart was wrongly considered the seat of emotions and
the thinking faculty in ancient times but do you not think that an emissary from Allah, the creator of
man (admittedly from a clot of blood!) would know that? Perhaps, the good angel should have
washed Mohammed's brains instead and then things may have been different! But even if the heart
were the organ that could be influenced by Satan, what good would it do to wash it? Are corrupting
influences capable of being remove through washing? It has also been related of the occasion when
water flowed from Mohammed's fingers. Hmm... Am I taking the claims of Islam seriously? No, of
course not! They are fabrications designed for the weak-minded and unfortunately drilled into
innocent children through threats and physical abuse. I remember quite distinctly the horror I had to
endure as a little boy, from the possibility of my “mallam” finding out that I was defaulting in my
daily prayers. I feared the lashing that I would receive if he found out but I was even more terrified
of the quite vivid descriptions the mallam would give me of the torture I would endure in the grave
when my mum and dad are not present to protect me, how I would be roused in my grave and given
a sound beating by huge, hideous, club-wielding creatures before being transported to hell for the
main course; the torture in the grave being a mere appetizer. To say that children undergoing Islamic
training are abused physically and psychologically is an understatement. But I was fortunate to have
had a father who didn't care much about everything and a mother who loved me greatly to notice
what I was becoming: a doubter, a dissenter and then a full-blown atheist! For once, thank Allah for
my parents!
I will give just one more example of the anti-scientific stories contained in the Qur'an: the story of
Jesus. Like the Bible from which it was copied, Surat Maryam of the Qur'an describes the events of
Jesus's birth in very similar terms: Zakariyya's barren wife conceiving and bearing Yahya (John) in
old age, the angel Jibril (Gabriel) appearing to Maryam and announcing the glad tidings of her
conception of a son and her surprise at becoming pregnant without knowing a man (“the notorious
precondition necessary for that happy state”, as Christopher Hitchens puts it). As if these events are
not weird enough, the foetus Jesus in the womb of Maryam was said to have cried out instructions
to its mother as the pain of labour “drove her under a palm tree”. Read Surat Maryam verses 24-26
for what the foetus said for they have no relevance for what I am trying to demonstrate here (there
may be some confusion about who was talking to Maryam but errors are not allowed in the final,
inerrant word of God!). Infant Jesus was also said to have declared his status to some family
members of Maryam in verses 30-36 as a humble slave and prophet of Allah. I should pause here
and spell it out in black and white that foetuses and neonates don't talk. In fact, as the medium in the
womb is fluid which fills the immature lungs of foetuses, it is impossible for them to talk even if
they could! If my Muslim friends say it's a miracle then they shouldn't come to us with the claim
that Islam is compatible with science. It is stuff of this nature that convinces me that Islam is less
likely to be true than Christianity. Both religions, of course, can't stand up to objective scientific and
historical analyses but Islam is more wacky and infantile in its fabrications, causing it to be more
likely to be rejected first by Occam's procedure. However, because some people are lazy and do not
bother to find out stuff for themselves Islamists presenting an ingratiating and watered-down
version of the Qur'an succeed in convincing these otherwise lucid people.
There are many other stories in the Qur'an and the Hadith that should rouse the “lie centres” in the
brains of all of us. There is the ridiculous claim of invisible beings called djinnis or jinns who can
clandestinely influence happenings in the physical world and who are themselves made of Muslims
and unbelievers; good and wicked djinnis. Then there is the story of Noah copied from the Bible: a
global deluge that wiped wicked humans from the earth (followed later by additional torment in
hell). The story in Surat Nuh is not as elaborate as the biblical story in Genesis but the import is
clear. Good Noah and his family were saved and the rest of life was destroyed. I do not think it wise
to torture my readers further. I think the point has been made: the events related in the Islamic holy
books have little or no scientific and historical bases. If the invisible hand of Allah is to be seen in
these miracles (and thus robbing our Muslim friends of any real explanations) then they should not
come to us on Gweb and tell us that the Qur'an is a perfect scientific book. Let them recognise it as
the mumbo jumbo that it is. Then let them cut out the frightening parts of the holy books (you
know, those parts about killing, intolerance and child abuse) and let the whole religion mutate into
harmless humanism. Then we can have a proper discussion about whether Islam is useful at all.
I end this article with a quotation from Surat Mohammed or al-Qital verse 4, to remind all freedomloving
people why Islam should be discredited and put in its right place among the fairytales of
ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Whereas the free world can allow Muslims to do with their lives
as they please, they in their varied ways are seeking means of killing or maiming us and robbing us
of the little comforts of life especially our freedoms.
“ So when you meet those who disbelieve, smite their necks till when you have killed and
wounded many of them take them as captives either for ransom or release them out of generosity,
until the war lays down its burden. Thus you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out
Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam and are saved from the punishment in hellfire
or at least come under your protection, but if it had been Allah's will He Himself could
punish them without you. But he lets you fight in order to test some of you with others. But those
who are killed in the way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost”. Surat Mohammed (Qur'an
Chapter 47 verse 4).
Email: katakpingi@ymail.com