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Sunday, 30 May 2004

I am generally not someone who reads things like newspapers and magazines, nor am I curious about listening to or watching the news. Above all, I can’t stand the way some television broadcasts report a brawl in some neighborhood of Adana by showing it three times in a row. Beyond that, the ones they call serious—the news items that convey America’s anxious concern over how it will bring democracy to Iraq—I switch off the moment they begin. More precisely, because I detest the truths that lie beneath such news, because it angers me, and in order not to ruin my morale, I do not much enjoy listening to the news or reading the newspaper either in Germany or in Turkey. I have reached this age, and perhaps there has never once been a thing that gave me joy from the news we receive; on the contrary, it has always been the opposite. Even so, I am not advocating burying one’s head in the sand like an ostrich and stopping one’s ears to everything.

One day I had gone to Turkey to be with my mother. My mother always had a few kinds of newspapers she bought daily. While I was there, whenever I got bored I would glance at the headlines now and then. In one report, it spoke of the biggest jackpot that had come out. I’ve forgotten which game of chance it was, or since it didn’t concern me I didn’t keep it in mind. That biggest jackpot had come out to someone from Bursa and its surroundings. The journalists were anxiously waiting to see who it was. No one came forward. A day later, another report: “The owner of the grand prize has still not come forward.” On the third day, yet another report: “The person who alone won that grand prize has still not come forward.” And underneath, the writing continued like this: “According to estimates, this person is some ignorant lout who reads no newspaper, watches no television, listens to no radio.” The moment I read these lines, I said: “Mooom! Look, they’re writing about me in the newspaper.” Someone who reads no newspaper, watches no television, listens to no radio—well, that’s me. So it turns out I’m some ignorant lout!

My mother, for her part, never liked these traits of mine. In fact, while my mother disliked many of my traits on my own account, she liked some of them on her own account. For example, the hardships I endure to fulfill a promise no matter the cost, or the sacrifices I make so that someone might benefit, my selfless traits—these are good; but for many people like my mother, whom I do these things for is more important. If I displayed these traits for someone my mother didn’t like or value, then I would become my mother’s most foolish, thickheaded, stupid, crazy son. But if one of the people my mother wants and is fond of—herself included—had climbed onto my back, then I would suddenly become “ah, my dear, self-sacrificing, angel of a son.” By this I don’t mean that my mother demeans people by sorting them into classes, but I mean that, whoever it may be—a watchman, a garbage collector, a director, a superior—a kindness to be done must be done for someone she is fond of, and this too, according to my mother, is right.

This holds true not only for my mother but presumably for all of humanity. What matters is what you do for whose party, and accordingly you are worthy or worthless. If someone from the opposing party does and displays these very same worthy things, these superior traits, these virtuous behaviors, this trustworthiness, these successes, this loyalty, then that person is the vilest of humans, a good-for-nothing, dangerous, someone who must be destroyed… and so on. Whatever good a person who is not of one’s own party does, no, they can never please. From all this I draw the following rule. So then, it is not the deeds done but who does what to whom that is very important. Whether the worthy traits a person possesses are worthy or worthless is decided only by looking at whom they were done to. If they do this uprightness, this honesty, this courtesy, this generosity for people those others don’t want, then those traits become very bad; whereas, on the contrary, if they do every bad behavior in the places and against the persons those people hate, it suddenly becomes very good indeed.

If, for the sake of the party I belong to, for a religion, an organization, a state, a homeland, an army, an outfit, a nation, my wife, my husband, my child, and so on, I lie in a way that serves their interest, if I commit fraud, if I steal, if I kill a man, if I torture, if I creep into so-and-so’s wife’s bed—or, if I am a woman, her husband’s—if I sell myself, if I do all sorts of disgusting things too numerous to list here; and above all if these things are not heard of, if they remain hidden in such a way as to bring no stain upon that organization, party, religion, nation, homeland, outfit, wife, husband… and so on—then that person, with all these traits, suddenly becomes a national hero, a champion, a great man, valuable, an indispensable brave one, the best militant, the most loyal brother in faith, the best head of household, the best family woman, the best father, the best mother, and so on. I wonder—have I made a mistake with these explanations? Again, you decide. If your experiences, your weighing of what you have seen, your impartiality, your sense of justice are sufficient, then you will have no difficulty understanding what I have said here.

Even neighborhood children display these feelings that humanity possesses back in their play years. If some snot-nosed kid has quarreled with his friend and isn’t speaking to him, then the others must now do the same. That is, everyone who is friends with him must also not love the person he doesn’t love. Or, on the contrary, whoever the ones he does love are, they absolutely must love them. Here there is no question of the traits one possesses, of justice, of the distinction between right and crooked. Nor are children yet as experienced as politicians in tailoring this business to what the public wants to hear. But in time they too are on the road to becoming masters at it. They talk that way, they think that way, they live that way. Even though we are all more or less like this, we need to change and abandon these traits at a young age. Unfortunately people choose exactly the opposite path in this matter. Instead of ridding themselves of these traits, they always develop these traits and, if possible, become experts in the field and go even further. Moreover, we live in such a time now that rulers saying, for the sake of their ugly interests, “We killed hundreds of thousands of people” does not disturb that country’s citizens, its nations, its states. And even if it does disturb them, there is nothing they can do. And their being disturbed is not because they are more humane, more merciful, more just and so on, but because they themselves could not obtain that same benefit. Besides, making filth is not every hero’s trade. It’s a matter of power. Whoever is strong, the manner of accounting is also different. While the weak one is hanged for stealing a splinter, the strong one empties the vaults and no one can even say to him, “What are you doing?” The weak one must prove the truth he says and they split hairs over it. The strong one lies and his word is law. No one even dares to say to him, “Is what you say true or false?” Even though everyone knows he is lying, he is not obliged to prove anything. Proof is expected from the weak one—not because there is justice. The sermons on justice are given to that person because he is weak. The strong person is already just. Even every injustice he commits is an example of justice. Some fools take the filth those strong ones do as an example and do it themselves. They bring unexpected calamities down upon their own heads. They snuff out their lives. He doesn’t understand this, he is astonished. Yet he did far less than the filth that strong one did, and he took him as his example. “Astonishing! What are these things happening to me?” he says, unable to understand at all.

These simple explanations show us clearly that justice is trampled underfoot, that truth is dashed to the ground, that the highest values are being destroyed. (Daniel 7:7-28; Revelation 13:1-2; Thessalonians 2:1-12) The class I marvel at most is the artists. Artists are in fact people whose duty is to probe the wounds of societies, of people. These people go to the wounds of societies. The aim is not to inflame people but to encourage the treatment and repair of those wounds and to enlighten the public. And such people, who emerge now and then, they strive to destroy in prisons and dungeons through torture. Yet those people have still not given up doing this, and have even endured death. As I said, I am an ignorant person, but I have an eye keen enough to see the giants around me. I can’t make out the small ones anyway. The ones I see as giants are writing children’s fairy-tale books. They have these books translated into I-don’t-know-how-many languages and earn astronomical sums of money. It’s no joke—these really are fairy-tale books. Films, computer games, figurines are made of the heroes in these books. And the ones who make them are no fools. This way they earn money. There are buyers, so they earn. Everyone seems content with their situation. Artists have become mere lovers of pleasure and entertainment. They go from one party to another and show off. Clearly there is no problem or anything. When there was communism, because of rivalry there was a cold war on the subject of who was more humane. Because the communists granted no freedom to those who did not conform to their thinking, the artists were terrified of them. As if the situation is any different under capitalism? Apparently this problem doesn’t trouble the artists. To them, the thing that was dangerous no longer exists in communism. Again, clearly, all of humanity’s problems have been solved and it has no troubles left. Well, in that case the best thing is for us to write and buy fairy-tale books. Besides, no harm comes from reading fairy tales. The harm has always come from these truths! Danger, pain, prison, threat, death have always issued from the championing of this truth. I am not disparaging or belittling those who write those books. Every child loves fairy tales and we all grew up with such things. I have neither the knowledge to enter into a debate about the dosage of this, nor is it related to my subject. But the demand these books enjoy shows the pulse of those societies, those nations. The artist must absolutely be given freedom—that is why they were made afraid of the communists. Well then, is it because that same fear exists now that no one can raise their voice? Or is it truly because they are comfortable? Isn’t the greatest danger precisely in this comfort, in the fear of losing it, and in indifference?

Moreover, there are certain hatreds instilled in every society. In America, because it knows this hatred, it goes after the Arab countries. No matter how much evil is done to a Muslim country, those so-called Christians grow fat with satisfaction inside. They look on without batting an eye. In that Iraq war, countries like Germany and France that opposed America said “no” not because they were thinking of humanity or anything, but because they were sick of paying tribute. This hatred has been engraved on the hearts of those so-called Christians since their childhood. As if being an artist will somehow root out this hatred? And who are these people we call artists? Or rather, whom do we ordinary, simple folk regard and hear of as artists? Those who bare their backsides, flash their thighs and legs, and put on breast shows. These are the greatest artists, and the successful ones too. All the younger generations of the whole society are chasing after these people, and they are all fed on the dream of becoming a “Super Star.” As for the others, we neither hear nor see them. I wonder—why?

With these writings of mine, I have no fancy for giving advice like the blind reciters of the Quran. Let everyone bare whatever they bare and do whatever they do. As it is written in Revelation, the last book of the Bible:

“He that doeth unrighteousness, let him do unrighteousness still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous (upright), let him do righteousness still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be,” says Jesus Christ in Revelation 22:11-12.

Since, thank goodness, we are not the one who will repay everyone according to their works, we cannot therefore aim to change anyone by force either. I have written that God did not give such authority to us humans. (Acts of the Apostles 17:31) We can only warn people, teach them, help them understand, and offer encouragement—that is all.

Ever since I began this subject, the thing I have wanted to explain has been about how traits like uprightness, honesty, self-sacrifice, valor, humaneness, virtue depend on whom one displays them toward. If you display good traits toward someone from the opposing party, from a party that is your enemy, then for all these good traits you display you must be willing even to die. Because of these good traits a person displays toward someone from the other side, those around him will hate him and do him all the evil they can. Yet that person is displaying traits that could be called superior toward everyone. But the things that are good according to those others may be displayed not to everyone, but only to the circles, organizations, nations, races, religions and so on that they designate. As I said, whenever you display and do hatred, fraud, lying, massacre, torture, and every kind of evil toward that enemy party on the other side—that is precisely when it means you are the best, the most superior hero. In short, what matters here is not the quality of the traits displayed, but toward whom you display these qualities. Our world’s watchword and the moral education it gives are, unfortunately, along these lines. The real name of this is characterlessness. A characterless and dishonorable person thinks this way and behaves this way. The educations we receive force us, slyly or openly, to become like this. Everyone imposes this force—from religions, states, parties, schools, to our family; to our mother and father, to the woman/man in our bed. In short, if we say the whole world does this, I don’t think we would be wrong.

Faulty behaviors done out of fear or done unknowingly also sometimes force us to become like this. For example, if we consider the Apostle Peter, who denied Jesus three times—even looking him in the face—on the night Jesus was to be killed, saying, “I do not know him.” The very person by whose side he had once been for so many years, with whom he had lived, and of whom—because of his traits, and by means of the spirit—he himself had said, “You are the Son of God,” he later, in a difficult situation and out of fear, said he “did not know him.” He even denied him with curses and oaths. (Matthew 26:69-75; Luke 22:54-65) In the Bible it says: “And he went out and wept bitterly.” What he did was not a behavior of character and honor. But we call this: “He made a mistake, he sinned.” Because there was no such thing in even the tiniest corner of Peter’s mind to do such a thing. He neither planned nor wanted to do such a thing. (Luke 22:31-34; Mark 14:27-31) Just as we humans do not know ourselves, most of the time we think we do know ourselves and fall into error. Peter too fell into such an error. Jesus forgave him. God forgives too. These are not the things I mean. There are many things that push a person into characterlessness. We all do them and have done them from time to time. With these we thought we were protecting something, we feared for our own sake, we thought of our own interest, and so on. All right, perhaps all of that is understandable, but the thing I want to explain is that, when the people toward whom we display these traits are different, good becomes bad, or bad becomes good. That is, when you do a crooked thing, depending on the person you do it to, it is called “right”; and when you do a right thing, depending on the person you do it to, it is called “crooked.” Against people who thus distort justice and uprightness, God says, “woe to them”:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20-21

Whereas an upright person, without regard to anyone, is first upright for the sake of his own dignity, honor, and pride. If that person is upright, then no matter how vile those before him may be, it does not affect his personality. He does not say, “If they treat me this way, if they are evil, then I too will behave like them and do the same evil to them.” A person who possesses superior traits preserves those traits everywhere, toward everyone. Who can know when and to whom a fraudulent, turncoat person will behave rightly or play crooked? Can such people be trusted? Even if they behave especially well toward us, how can we be sure that one day they won’t do the same filth to us? Someone ready to do filthy, crooked things does it whenever he pleases, according to his whim and heart. We as a society teach treating people “according to the man.” My father used to say this a lot: “according to the man, son,” he always said. At first glance it is a way of behaving that seems very just. In reality, however, it slyly pushes a person into characterlessness, into being a nonentity. This thinking plainly wants to say: “Behave according to the person before you; whatever he is, respond accordingly.” Will you say, “What’s wrong with that?” If we are always of this thinking and this justice, how can we ourselves expect mercy from others? And if God undertook to treat us this way, who could be saved? If He repaid us according to our works and applied only His justice, would even a single human remain on the earth? (Psalms 53:2-3) That is why Solomon writes as follows:

“Say not thou, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.” (Proverbs 24:29, and parallel verses Proverbs 20:22; Matthew 5:39; Romans 12:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9)

So then, whoever stands before us—whether a person, a society, a nation, or a state—saying about them, “I will repay according to their works,” comes about mercilessly, and most of the time by selling ourselves.

Again I must make a clarification. This situation must not be confused with the self-defense that appears in the Quran and the Holy Scriptures, or with the authority to punish found in the constitutional laws of the state. I have not read in any of these books a law or rule that forbids a person from defending himself. This is called legitimate self-defense. That is, when someone attacks us in the street or in our home with fists and blows, with sword and shackle, we do not tie our hands and arms and say to that crazed person, “Do whatever you want to me.” (Exodus 21:24-25; Luke 22:36 and 49-51; Al-Maida, Sura 5:45; Al-Hajj, Sura 22:39) But if necessary, this too is done. In fact, defense should reflect a wise manner of behaving. If someone is robbing a bank with a weapon, it is foolishness to charge at him shouting “aha!” That person’s aim is only to take the money and go. Out of fear, he could kill everyone who confronts him. That is why to behave wisely is to submit there. Then, whatever is to be done, those whose duty it is will do it, or not. The part that concerns us is a person’s wise self-protection, self-defense.

For example, in Israel, cursing God meant the death penalty. That person had to be punished as a result of a decision rendered by judges. Private individuals could not do this. This could only happen by the decision of judges. A private individual could at most file a case against that person before the law, or lodge a complaint. After that, whatever the law does or does not do, whether it pleases him or not, is no longer his concern and cannot be his concern. Because this exceeds that person’s limits. In short, not everyone can act as a judge. Just a few verses out of many examples on this subject: Exodus 19:12-13; Leviticus 24:16; parallel verse Al-Baqara, Sura 2:178; Matthew 5:40-41.

Did not Jesus Christ say, “Love your enemies”? Did he not say, “To him who strikes you on your cheek, turn the other also”? With these words Jesus Christ did not encourage people toward characterlessness. Jesus was killed precisely because he never submitted. If he too had submitted and looked on in silence at their filthy deeds, they would not have killed him either. Indeed, it was Jesus who made a whip of cords with his own hand to drive the merchants out of the Temple and defended the house of God. (John 2:15) Furthermore, in the destruction of the wicked that we know as the end of this world, Jesus will take up his duty as King and will destroy and kill them all. (Revelation 2:25-27; Acts of the Apostles 17:31; Daniel 2:44)

When he said, “Turn the other cheek to him who strikes your cheek, and love your enemies,” what did Jesus mean? By these he is clearly encouraging a person to choose peace instead of a fight arising from a moment’s anger, provocation, or incitement. “Love your enemies” is likewise a command to cast off from ourselves the senseless hatreds—given to us and carried down through the generations—that one nation harbors against another; that the peoples of countries, religions, races harbor against one another. As for the matter of self-defense: in the many violent incidents that appear throughout the whole Bible, it never once occurs that Jesus’ followers killed others for the purpose of defending themselves. They stoned those who wished to follow Jesus, threw them into prisons, cut off their heads; yes, but they did these evils with the help and support of the power of the state. Even with the state behind them, what they did was not a just manner of behaving. Sometimes it also happened that the state did not support these situations. (Luke 23:13-25; Acts of the Apostles 12:1-3; 18:12-17; 19:23-41) In some cases God rescued them by performing miracles. In the Bible it is not written that these people defended themselves personally with brute force. They were in the position of God’s servants, and from time to time troubles came upon them for this reason. This does not mean their hands and arms were tied. In fact, we say that sometimes, by fleeing from a senseless defense, they behaved wisely.

The situations I am speaking of are: what do we do when we are attacked over simple, petty crimes? What do we do to the one who wants to steal our money, the one who wants to take our car from our hands, the thief who breaks into our home, and so on? Our aim must absolutely not be to kill these people. Whatever the cost, the aim must be only to defend, not to kill, not to destroy. Hitting that person once on the head with all our strength using a stick that comes to hand could very likely kill that person. Or, with a weapon, instead of aiming at that person’s heart, head, or belly, we could wound his leg, his hands. With this our aim is to defend ourselves against that person. Besides this, there are many other defense tools too. For example, the kind of spray women can carry in their bags that is sprayed into the eyes. By causing terrible pain in the person’s eyes, it renders them harmless for a certain time. All of these are done for the purpose of defense. If an extreme example must absolutely be given, then, as we see in films, in the lawless life of those old Texas cowboys, when a bandit or an attack of Native Americans surrounded a house with certain death coming, people defending themselves is, in my view, not a crime. Just as it cannot be called wrong for the Native Americans to defend themselves against the white men attacking to massacre them. On things like this, everyone must decide with their own conscience. There have also been people who, showing a wise manner of behaving in accordance with what Jesus said, opened their doors to those people and gave them food and drink. And that bandit, that Native American, ashamed at this situation, went away without doing anything. So let us not live believing in films. Besides, dying should not frighten us all that much. Sometimes there have been people, and apostles too, who longed to be delivered from this world and desired to die in the hope of resurrection on God’s appointed day. (Philippians 1:20-23; Hebrews 11:35; Ecclesiastes 4:1-3) That is why our aim should be as the apostle Paul said in his letter to the Thessalonians:

But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you like a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us stay alert and awake.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.

But since we belong to the day, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation, let us stay alert.

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 1 Thessalonians 5:4-10

Our faith and our heart’s attitude should be like this. Our breastplate is love, our helmet, which protects the head—that is, our mind—should be the hope of salvation we have received from the Lord. With the hope that is in our mind and that we bind to our heart, and at the same time with the love we practice, we can help our own salvation. Even if we die, we will die as ones who are saved. Some people see death as a defeat, a loss. Yet before Jesus was led away to death, according to his words:

“…In the world you have tribulation; but be of good courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), he was not defeated by dying. On the contrary, he died by not submitting to evil, but he overcame it. The death we must be careful of and fear is not death in the literal sense, in a visible way; let us fear dying in God’s eyes. (Luke 12:4-5) Those upright people who die are still alive in God’s sight. We can be sure too that when the time comes God will resurrect them all. (Matthew 22:32, Matthew 19:16-19, John 5:28-29)

Those who live in Germany know that, for the purpose of protecting frogs, in certain months, at certain hours, roads are closed to traffic, and outside those hours a speed limit is imposed. A condition is set not to go faster than 30 km per hour. So that those frogs do not come out from every part of the forest, their surroundings are enclosed with special channels and barriers. Certain paths and channels are made for them, so that they pass only through there and are not crushed crossing the road. Again, with their lives in mind, these traffic laws and prohibitions I mentioned above have been established. These are things much to be commended in protecting nature. Protecting nature in fact means protecting oneself, protecting humanity. Such things are done, or made to be done by the state, through the pressure of those who work for animal rights. And this is exactly what my mind cannot grasp. Those who consider the rights of these frogs—do they not consider the rights of humans? In Iraq, for oil, hundreds of thousands of people die, millions suffer, are tortured, crippled, plundered, raped, burned, and so on—where are those who defend the rights of these frogs? Or are they charged only with defending the rights of animals? Animals defend the rights of animals—this I understand, because in nature the only creature that hates its own kind and kills its own is, in this respect uncompeted, only the human. So then, are they charged with defending their own kind, and is that why they don’t attend to human rights?! Besides, the people there are Muslims! To their minds, perhaps this is what they deserve, what has come upon them. I am not debating whether they deserve it or not. Surely God permits many things and stays silent while people’s punishments are administered by one another’s hands. Woe to those who, through injustice, fraud, and massacre, take on the role of judge in this matter. Do they think they will not be judged themselves? Just as others were judged for what they did, they too will be judged for what they did. Just as God permits certain things to come upon others, He will permit some other kind of ruin—not the same, but different—to come upon them as well. Let us keep on defending the rights of frogs, but what shall we do about humanity? Shall we open our arms to and offer aid to the terrorists who kill thousands, tens of thousands of people, and then, saying we are fighting terror, do to others inhuman deeds thousands of times worse than what they did?! Setting off bombs, slaughtering, spilling innocent blood is the terrorists’ business; but when states do the same thing, does it become a war for democracy? As I said, it is not important what you do; it is important to whom you do it. However disgusting and evil the things you do may be, if you do them to the opposing party, for our benefit, you even get a medal.

Whereas the God who says, “You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall love your neighbor as yourself”—did He say to display this manner of behaving toward Hans, toward Conny, but not to display it toward Ahmet? Did He say, always tell the truth to someone of your own religion, but lie to someone of another religion? Did He mean, you cannot steal the goods of those living in your own house, but you can steal the goods of the people outside? Did He say, if you are a man, lie down with every woman and it is not adultery, but if you are a woman, every relationship of yours is adultery? Or, on the contrary, did God not tell His servants that they must be far more careful to display the superior, virtuous traits always and everywhere, toward whoever it may be? Theft is theft, whosever goods it is to steal. If relations outside marriage are called adultery (this form of marriage may change according to each country’s law), then whether a man or a woman does it, is it not the same crime? Whatever purpose I tell a lie for, to whomever I tell it, a lie is a lie. There is no pink one, no white one, no black one of it. Since the Holy Scriptures say that the father of the lie—that is, the one who first gave birth to it, who invented it—is Satan, then everyone who lies means that he supports the works of Satan. (John 8:38-46) Is there any distinction here? All these upright traits we have listed, which humanity is obliged to do—does God not require everyone to do them toward everyone? Is there perhaps some God who says, American, German, English, French citizens are valuable, but you may slaughter the people of the remaining countries and do whatever you want to them? Whoever created that most valuable and superior so-called American, English, French, German citizen’s person—did not the same God create the person of the most worthless country, the human who seems most worthless and lowly? Is the Lord of all the earth and all the heavens not one? Will that Lord not call us to account for whom we look down on and against whom we puff ourselves up? Do we think the Creator of the world and the universe is so unjust and indifferent? If His permitting certain things—or, according to us, everything—emboldens us to do evil, do not forget that we will give account for all of this, you will give account. (Ecclesiastes 8:11-12)

Woe to those who find the courage to do evil, who say, “No one is watching me, I’ll do what I want, nothing will happen,” who deceive themselves saying, “No one can call me to account.” In the history of the world, many dictators of such belief have come and gone. We have read of their ends too. Even though hundreds, thousands of years have passed over them, we still remember some of them with a curse. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon gives all of humanity this message:

This is the end of the matter: everything has been heard; fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

We have spoken of everyone from the defenders of animal rights to the politicians. I write about these subjects because, being of recent date, you all know them. Otherwise, when one looks at history, the ugly deeds, injustices, savageries, godlessness done by the countries that ruled the world have likewise been done—and are being done—by countries that did not rule the world. That is why God says He has a case against all nations, all peoples, without excepting any of them. Because all of them, whether little or much, have committed and are committing terrible crimes before God.

… “For the LORD hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the LORD.” Jeremiah 25:31

While a war is going on, no matter how much a person doesn’t listen to the news, no matter how much he stops his ears to the world, we still hear and see the ugly deeds the people fighting there do. For the first time, Germany said “no” to war—or rather, to America. That the one saying it was the German people, I don’t believe at all. If another party had been in charge, and it had said “yes,” then this time it would have been the German people, the media, singing its praises. As I said, the rulers had presumably grown sick of paying tribute. When, with the unification of East and West, they were no longer in a position to pay tribute, the Germans became opposed to the war! While all these events were unfolding, again a person hears whether he wants to or not. For example, the opposition party’s Frau Merkel was shrieking at the top of her lungs, “Let’s go to war.” In those days, all across the world, boycotts and demonstrations were being held in the streets—by people who perhaps included defenders of frog rights, by the greens, by the reds—saying “no to war”; yet this Christian opposition party was saying, “no, but let us too go to war”! What draws my attention is less what that party said than under what name it said it. The party in power at the time was the Social Democratic party, and also the Greens. These men have no relationship, near or far, with religion or with God. I never heard these men, while gathering votes, doing anything in their speeches by exploiting religion or God, by using these names. I neither vote nor even know the names of these parties. Just as I don’t even know the meanings of most of those names, I was forced to learn some of them because they caught my interest! As I keep saying, I am some ignorant lout! I have never taken an interest in any of them. But I point out the contradictions, the openly committed fraud, and the hypocrisy because they are related to my subject. Yes, we said the party that opposed this war was the Social Democrats. The parties that wanted war made, that were straining for it, were the CDU, the CSU. In both of their names there are words related to Christianity! Just think—these are the Christian party, that is, the followers of Jesus! The biggest rival party and the party the Germans love most!

When Turks put on a headscarf, it becomes an incident. In Turkey, Germans wander around on beaches with breasts and backsides bared, and nothing happens. In Germany, a German who teaches wearing a headscarf according to her faith is dismissed from duty. But a Catholic nun covered from head to toe is regarded as normal in those schools. In Turkey I have never heard of a party like a “Muslim Democratic Party” or an “Islamic Democratic Union.” If they were given authority, they would make you long for these Christian democrats—that’s another matter. As a state, thank goodness, there is an understanding of secularism left over from Atatürk—or rather, laws. How much is it applied? However much any law is applied, that much is it applied. In Europe such problems seem not to exist. Yet the problems of this sort among them are so much more sly and inhuman—if only a person wants to see. That vote-gathering party knows very well that it gets many of its votes thanks to the Christian label it possesses. While talking with an elderly German, he had said, “Up to now I always gave my vote to them because they were the Christian party, but hearing that they are in favor of war astonished me greatly.” This person gave the vote he cast only to their Christian label. And for a whole lifetime, too. It is certain that those like him are in the majority. The party that most divides and hates foreigners, races, colors, religions, artists is again this Christian party. And when gathering votes, in elections, openly, according to the pulse of those people, they say the words that stroke the public’s feelings of hatred in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of God, of whom they say “we are Christians.” The other party, which never speaks of God or religion at all, does not make these distinctions. At least, it does not do so in word.

The one who says, “Love your enemies, bless those who hate you, all you people are all brothers,” is also Jesus Christ. (Matthew 5:43-44 and 23:8, Luke 6:35 and 46) The most inhuman, merciless, pitiless, intolerant ones, taking sides and trampling underfoot justice, uprightness, and everything virtuous, are these very people. Let the other party do as much crookedness and mindlessness as it does. Even if it is a party that comes to power saying “we will look after the poor” and then sets about foisting the biggest swindle on the poor, whatever it does, it always does it in its own name, for the sake of the ideals it has adopted. Without ever, but ever, mixing God, religion, Jesus Christ into it, it does this in its own name. Whatever it is, it does not hide its true face by concealing itself behind a name. Perhaps it feels no need to, because it does not doubt itself.

These situations exist not only in party affairs but also among individuals, one by one. Imagine a neighborhood. Don’t be surprised if the most cruel, inhumane, self-interested, stingy, hypocritical, fraudulent person—one who thinks himself something and doesn’t even deign to look at many people’s faces—generally turns out to be the one called religious. On the other hand, don’t be surprised either if you see that the warm, humane, humble, hot-headed person who sometimes gets angry, then regrets it and apologizes, who is helpful and puts people at ease, who is generous, is someone with no relationship to religion at all. This rule holds not only for Turkey; and I write these things thinking not only of Germany or Turkey but, more or less, of all the people of the world. Like when a Witness said to me, “Do you know that I love you?” and I said, “I fear people who know the Holy Scriptures; they become dangerous.” Indeed, the fact that Jews from time to time meet with rejection all over the world stems from such self-satisfied behaviors. Because, from the knowledge they took from the Torah, they saw themselves as the most superior, chosen nation, and so they always showed change in inverse proportion. Because they learned to distinguish good from evil, unfortunately—like every human, who is generally in the majority—since they generally chose the evil and became professionals at doing it, they gathered rejection in the world. As I was saying in earlier subjects, that we should cultivate ourselves to become people expert in knowledge about God—well, for these reasons, sometimes I say it’s a good thing it doesn’t turn out that way. Because, on the contrary, when we look at these truths, the danger of raising people expert in evil is far greater. Otherwise a person is still evil, but does it without fully knowing what he does, in the moment, according to his feelings. When someone who has learned the difference between good and evil and become an expert in it does the evil thing, it becomes far more conscious, planned, and professional. Perhaps you have now understood why I regard these people as dangerous. There are very few who truly show a positive change through this knowledge, from whom emerges a wholly different person, one suited to God’s purpose. Should we, then, hide God’s word because the situation and the truths are so? Surely not. If this knowledge helps to bring out a person’s love and appreciation for good things, or his hatred and baseness, what can be bad about that? If this knowledge, in a person who is already evil, makes his evil even more evident and brings him to a definite judgment, is this not indeed an ease to God’s judging? Something that would ripen over a very long time develops in a far shorter time with this knowledge. Either he will be thrown into the garbage as a rotten fruit, or he will find honor in valuable vessels as a good, ripe fruit. The more we know, the faster it develops us. Whether we develop in rottenness or in fresh ripeness is again something in our own hands. In this case, knowledge is merely a material. What we do with it is up to us. One person makes a bomb to destroy; another makes medicine so that they don’t perish but are saved. Both of these people, by profession, are chemists. Acquiring the knowledge of religion and God and applying it is not much different from this example.

Perhaps every person knows, has lived, has gained experience of the things I have written. Perhaps they express it not as I do but in some other way. Or perhaps they have not thought about such things, do not rack their brains over them. Or they don’t cross the path of such religious people. If that one doesn’t greet them, then the other doesn’t greet them either, all the more, and so on. We humans see many things around us, live with them, and learn much too. I wanted to bring together in this book not all of these but one of them. I want to make heard only a mote’s worth of the human and God, of the human’s relationship with God. And the thing I have striven to explain by tying together on this subject is the things I read on the internet pages in the subject’s heading. This internet page is only an example. Just as I told about the Witnesses as one example among thousands of religions, these too are one of the many Christian religion-Mafia companies. It is the education all Christians receive against Islam and their hypocrisy. I will not make all the pages there my subject here. Otherwise I would have to write hundreds more books of exactly this size, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I write these things so that you may have a general perspective, to encourage you to investigate, and to warn you not to be taken in by the hypocrisy of such frauds. Do not, whatever you do, put these into a category under a Muslim–Christian distinction. Be just and upright; try to understand impartially, and then judge for yourself, personally. Otherwise, I am not here acting as the defender of the Islamic world either. But I will try to show the hypocrisy of the people under the Christian label.

When I entered this address, http://islamacevap.net/, on the internet, the picture they had made for the very front page caught my interest. Women in black veils with machine guns in their hands, a mosque in the middle, and beside it another picture of a machine gun. And right in the middle, over that mosque picture, a verse from the Bible. This verse, which says Romans, is exactly as follows:

If possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with all men. Romans 12:18

This picture is on every page. A while after my book was published on the internet, they removed these pictures—as well as the link on their page to what I will write below in question-and-answer form—entirely! Not because they understood their mistakes, but because they made fools of themselves and strove to make out people like me to be liars, they removed those pictures and pages from there. These are pages specially prepared against Muslims. America—and consequently the world—began a policy of spreading them as war-loving terrorists. The religionists with the Christian label, seizing this as an opportunity, wrote against their so-called love of war and their so-called fascination with terror a verse from the Bible about peace, and want to say, “See, God is the God of peace, but the Muslims are not of God; and their Quran, which they hold sacred, issues from Satan.” I call these religions “Religion Mafia Companies.” And by chance, when they read somewhere that the ignorant, mindless, godless behaviors that Islam has committed are being discussed, that page published in the newspaper is taken and immediately added to these islamacevap.net pages of theirs. They also love to live off the backs of others. Again, don’t be surprised to see them use many of the subjects I have written in this book—together with their verses—in their writings to draw people to themselves. As I keep saying, they love to live off the backs of others. I will publish exactly as it is the writing of this lady journalist, which they gladly grabbed and put on their own pages, so that I can better convey what I mean. The event took place in Munich, Germany. In fact the writer told it by giving one example out of thousands like it. There it is written exactly as follows:

A wedding hall in Munich

Mine G. Kırıkkanat

26/11/2003 (2077 people read this)

The date, the night of Friday, 21 November 2003. The place, a wedding hall in the city of Munich, Germany. Inside there are about a thousand people. But no wedding is taking place. A congregation in skullcaps, robes, and beards is sitting cross-legged on the floor, listening to a man with a white turban and a black beard on the rostrum. Women in black chadors are also listening to the man, but their covering themselves in black chadors was apparently not enough; they have been shut away in a section of the hall far from the preacher and the congregation. Look what the robed and bearded man is telling: “One night one of his companions drinks his blessed urine, which he had placed in a vessel under his bed at night. The next day Muhammad asks, ‘What did you do with my urine?’ The companion says, ‘I was very thirsty, I thought it was water and drank it.’ Muhammad laughs. ‘Now the fire of hell will not touch you either,’ he says. Muhammad’s excrement also smelled sweet, sweet. I don’t know about you, but if I found it, would I not drink it, would I not drink it?”

The name of the scatophile preacher fond of drinking urine and eating excrement is Ahmet Ünlü, known by the nickname the Robed Hoca, and the listeners are all, unfortunately, Turks, dear readers. This report, with the signature of Celal Özcan and the hair-raising photographs of Orhan Gedik, appeared in the 23 November European edition of the Hürriyet newspaper under the headline ‘A Taliban Scene in Munich.’ At the end of the scatology rite, the Robed Hoca had the congregation that came to listen to him drink ‘recited’ waters that had been filled into plastic canisters from the hall’s toilets and then blown and spat upon. The photograph of those filthy water canisters is also in the newspaper. The robed monstrosity named Ahmet Ünlü—I don’t know if you remember—is the person who made the comment about the 19 August earthquake, ‘The Lord struck the nests of usury and adultery’! Let’s say he himself really is a scatology patient, a madman. Well then, what are we to say about the thousand people who listen to him and drink the filthy waters he recited over? Are they mad too? All of them? If the answer to this question is ‘yes’ and they are all mad, what is the name of the illness that caused them to go collectively insane? There must be a name for the syndrome that makes bipeds born ‘like’ humans hunger for blessed piss and poop and abstain from eating filthy pork… I wonder whether the Afghan Taliban preached about the flavor of the Prophet Muhammad’s urine and excrement, saying, ah, if only we had some to eat? After crushing the heads of the women they raped, and the boys and girls, with stones and killing them, whose which filth did they eat, calling it a good deed, so as not to burn in hellfire for the sin they entered into? But the fundamentalist scatophile mob in the report is our own Taliban. What’s more, they are not even Kaplan followers; they are counted as the harmless ones. And in Germany, from our own regions, there are tens of thousands of such people holding Turkish Republic passports… And in Turkey? I wonder how many hundred thousand, or millions? How strange it is that Germany tolerates these freaks—who represent not even the backwardness known from the Middle Ages of Christianity, but an anachronism explainable by no religion—in the name of ‘democracy.’ And it even opens its arms to those among them who have committed crimes, to the Kaplan followers whose extradition is requested by Turkey; it does not touch them, and indeed does not extradite them. I wonder why? How strange it is that Turkey imports almost all of its chemical materials from Germany. For instance, if someone got curious and investigated one by one where those well-known chemical products—harmless enough that anyone can buy them anywhere, but which explode when four pickup trucks are filled with them—came from, I’m saying… Just as they were imported from Germany, perhaps the name of a single company, a single colossal company, might come out, who knows? But of course, such an investigation will surely not be done by those who cannot even yet name the terror that uses those materials. Because if they named the terror, they would have to name the fundamentalist syndrome. If they named the syndrome, it would become clear why Germany harbors some of them. Perhaps.

What this lady tells is this time not about a Christian but about one of the Muslim Mafia companies. Granted, the writer writes “things not even seen in the Middle Ages of Christianity,” but I do not agree. They too did what disgusting things, and still do them. The festival known as the Easter holiday, celebrated with the rabbit and egg show, is in fact a commemoration of the time Jesus was killed. Christians have distorted this day and turned it into pagan customs far removed from that meaning. As for the fanatic perverts among those who know the so-called meaning of that day, they crucify themselves, piercing their bodies with finger-thick nails, drinking their own blood, striving—so to speak—to taste the sufferings Jesus endured! The bloodiest form of this business happens in the Thailand region. In Germany too we hear from time to time of people who have themselves nailed to a cross like this. You should see that festival—those who torture themselves covered in blood, or those who drink blood, or those who nail themselves with nails, or those who have themselves whipped, and who knows what else. The time is not the Middle Ages, it is the 21st century. Look, this whipping business is not at all foreign to Christianity. In the old days, when monks and nuns began school, they would be given, along with a Bible, also a whip. So that when they sinned they could whip and punish themselves! According to them, that’s how the work of purifying oneself from sins is done!

In my opinion, those in Munich are utterly negligible next to these. At least those eat one another’s urine and filth willingly and drink it willingly; these, on the other hand, first force-feed and force those they deem necessary to drink, and then burn them alive. And by this they thought they had cleansed their souls! Ms. Mine is a well-meaning writer, perhaps someone who has sympathy for Christianity. Or she does not yet know how ugly they too can be. And I too, if I had lived in Turkey, would within myself feel no sympathy at all for our Muslims, and would feel far more feelings of admiration for those European, American Christians. It is because the time we live in now is their golden age. In the time when the Ottoman state was fighting the crusader marauders, I surely believe that then too the Muslims were people to be admired, or sympathized with. Not merely because they were powerful; but also because of the prosperity that power brings, of rich standards, of the just and superior moral level applied at that time.

When, with my present knowledge and experience, I evaluate the practices in the religions without taking sides, I see them all as cultures of germs—different in color but the same in essence, full of terrible viruses that can infect humanity, carrying dangerous disease. And I know well what I am saying on this subject.

In my life, as a child, I went to the mosque once or twice for worship. Besides that, there were a few mosques I looked at for the purpose of sightseeing. The more I saw and heard of those who represented those places, the less I felt inclined to go inside and worship God there. For roughly at least 15 years, in practice, I was together with a religion that is Christian and, supposedly, has the cleanest past among them. Again, forty years of my life passed among people who say “I am a Christian.” Not like ordinary foreign workers; I spent a great part of my time investigating these religions and striving to understand what they say. As the apostle Paul said, thank goodness I did not submit to any of them for even an hour. (Galatians 2:5)

Generally, people either oppose or take sides. I neither took sides nor disparaged. But in general, like many, I had no sympathy for the people called religious. Yet most of those who take sides know neither the thing they support nor the thing they oppose. They were taught that way, and so they take sides and so they oppose. And the thing taught is in a single sentence: “They are bad and wrong, we are good and right.” This short piece of knowledge they have learned is engraved on their minds and branded on their hearts. They are so loyal in showing devotion to the words they learned in this single sentence that you would be astonished. Though they know nothing else, they die and kill for the sake of it. Their conscience is not even troubled. In fact they have done every kind of filth in their lives, but because on this path they killed that person, they also think they have thereby paid off, at one stroke, their whole debt to God. And so with this ease they go and lie in prison for years. Perhaps, if that person he killed comes to his mind, whether he will pick up in that place where he lies—for the sake of which he lies there—the book he says he believes in and begin to read it, that too is unknown. And not even in his own language, in Arabic! If he is clever—which, with very little probability, is possible—whether he will take beside him the one written in his own language, again is unknown. He begins to learn this knowledge, too, while in prison, after it has already gotten into that person’s blood. Again, as I said, that too is a “perhaps.” And from it, he draws out not a correct knowledge of God, but the meaning of being a bomb-throwing Mafia religionist.

Someone who says “I am a Christian” does the same things to a Muslim. They are cleverer than these. They wouldn’t lift a finger to go to prison for nothing. But if he is a soldier in war, then, since no one will call him to account, he sees himself as sanctified for every person he kills, tortures, rapes and robs. There is no need for him even to say these feelings openly. I want to express the ease they feel because of what they do. In war, everyone has behaved cruelly toward everyone—this is a fact. No one has looked at anyone’s religion. Even though they shared the same religion, the same book, they were not affected by these. The ease he feels when he kills someone of the same religion is only the ease of having reduced the enemy by one more. But the feeling he feels when killing someone of a different religion—especially when a Christian kills a Muslim—is even greater than the easy conscience felt by a person returning from performing his worship. They don’t see one another as human beings, do they? Their spiritual leaders, their religious scholars have instilled this conscience in them since childhood, have educated them so—how could he see otherwise!

By publishing this lady journalist’s writing, the islamacevap.net page wants to say, “See what a state Islam is in, see for yourselves.” I deem that woman journalist so worthy and so admirable in the work of making known and announcing what state Islam is in. But when these dishonorable Christian Mafia Companies—who are far from justice, who only cause God’s name to be blasphemed—do this, feel sympathy?! That journalist writes this piece; she is sincere, she feels that way, and like everyone she lives with a heap of mistakes too. She never says, “I am the most right; get in behind me and I will take you to heaven.” How could one be angry at such a person? Perhaps even though she has no relationship with God and religion at all, just as she brings no stain upon God’s name, with the truths she writes, on the contrary—knowingly or unknowingly—she has, in a way, made known God’s point of view too, and served Him. Because God too is disgusted by those deeds. But how can this journalist be compared with that Christian religion Mafia which, coming in between and seizing this piece as an opportunity, published it on its pages for the sake of its own ugly and disgusting aims! If, on that picture they made on their pages, beside the armed Muslim women and the mosque, there were also a picture of a priest holding a cross while blessing soldiers in the First and Second World Wars, then at least I would say, “these too are cunning foxes.” Because the Witnesses are the cleverest among them. In their magazines there are such pictures, and they take no one’s side but their own. Because these people separated from those churches wanting to work solely for their own account. Of course they will expose their filth too. If I say that I learned most of all how disgusting these religions are from the Witnesses too, I would surely not be lying. Remember what I said somewhere: “If you want to know a person well, listen about him also from his enemy”—well, this principle is indeed often just.

A church pastor who read my pages on the internet sent me a book he had written about the Witnesses. What the man wrote about the Witnesses was in most places correct and fine. Setting his own religion aside, he was disparaging the Witnesses purely. The Witnesses do the same thing about these people. I mean, even if neither group is right, the things they wrote about each other were correct. Because if he wrote lies and errors, that book, that series of writings, would have no meaning and no buyer left. That is why they take great care to write correct truths about each other. Alongside this, there is also the crew of marauders who don’t know what they’re saying, who—while intending purely to disparage—end up, on the contrary, praising the very people they disparage; but I do not mean them. What I want to say is justice, uprightness, sincerity, impartiality, and so on. Even if these two sides who are enemies to each other write correct truths about each other, with this—that is, by blindly supporting their own side—they abandon justice, sincerity, an impartial uprightness. In a way, they too are selling themselves.

That www.islamacevap.net, with the things it writes, only satisfies itself, that is all. Whom can it convince? And if it does convince someone, it only makes that person, like itself, twofold a son of hell. (Matthew 23:15) Why do they strive so hard to take people for fools? He himself was born into that religion, or later joined that organization, and in time saw how much filth goes on inside, but he has no way out. Because he himself is the same. He begins to hide all of this, saying, “we are the most right,” and to disparage others. It is impossible for them to draw an upright man; they can only draw those who possess a spirit and a sense of justice like their own. And this too is even good in terms of easing God’s judgment. He shows the Muslim holding a weapon in his hand, and, so to speak, proves their wrong by writing a verse from the Bible. O hypocrite! That Muslim already doesn’t know the Bible, or hasn’t even wanted to know it—but you? You yourself know where that verse is written, and you believe in that book too, you say, “This is what God is,” and after that you wage the greatest world wars! You burn alive those who read the Holy Scriptures in their own language, and in your church, in the name of God, you declare two men husband and wife! You go to steal the oil of those veiled people who were forced to take up weapons, and you slaughter, rape, rob, bomb, and leave them hungry and thirsty! And then, shamelessly, you presume to answer Islam!!!

The Jesus whom you say you believe in, whom you equate with the Almighty God, whom you fabricated as a second, third God—what did he say to you? If I write down only a few of them, those who read will understand what you are.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees (the religious people of that time), hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one (a proselyte) partner in faith, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Matthew 23:15

“Judge not others, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge others, ye shall be judged in the same way. And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam (the timber) that is in thine own eye?

How wilt thou say to thy brother, “Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye,” while a beam (a timber) is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite! First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see more clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. Matthew 7:1-5

A good man out of the good treasure within him bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure within him bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that men shall give account for every idle word they speak, in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Matthew 12:36

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

Thus you yourselves bear witness that you are the descendants of those who killed the prophets!

Fill ye up then, the work your fathers began!

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes. Some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. So that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Matthew 23:27-36

It was not I who gave these answers to them; these answers were given to them and to those like them by Jesus Christ himself, whom they hypocritically say they believe in. There are so many verses to be spoken about these people, written exactly for their traits. Otherwise I would have to write the whole Bible—which is precisely the reason I encourage you. Whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or a member of whatever Mafia religion company; even if you were born so, please investigate these books impartially, justly, sincerely, and with your whole heart, free from fear of your surroundings and society. And after that, be just and resolute in doing what is right. This is the will and command of God, the Creator of us all. In Acts of the Apostles 17:26-27 it is written as follows.

(God) determined beforehand the appointed times of the peoples and the boundaries of the regions where they would settle. He did this so that they would seek him and, even by groping (by investigating), might find him. In fact, God is not far from any one of us.

I found this islamacevap.net page on the internet by chance. Even the criticisms of the Quran that I read for the first time were very absurd, mere word-jugglery. On those pages I saw that answers could also be given beneath these writings. In fact, I had heard the nonsense of this kind that I read from every Christian, and had debated it a great deal especially in my dealings with the Witnesses. The criticisms of them all were more or less the same. So it didn’t much interest me. But still, I took a look to see what kind of answers the readers had written. The answers were a disgrace. In my opinion the answers were written by ignorant, pitiful types who don’t know what to say or how to defend. But since these people decide which answer will be published, it is normal that those answers too are so. About one piece of nonsense they wrote, I too wrote an answer. But it didn’t appear, and I didn’t expect it to appear. Then I didn’t bother, I gave up.

I also knew that Bernd’s biggest problem, besides his many shortcomings, was not believing in the Quran. As if there were a wall between him and me, a boundary that must not be crossed, he never touched on this subject at all. In fact there were many walls between us, so let’s say perhaps this was one of them. I opened the subject and said, “Instead of burying this feeling that disturbs you, why don’t you go after it and resolve this problem?” He should do this not for me but for himself. Whether he believed or not, if there was a truth out there, our counting it a lie, running from it, being opposed to it, sticking our head in the sand—these could not change or destroy that truth. If the Quran is God’s will or not, why did he still not investigate this impartially? I said all this to Bernd, and the reason I wrote this page is most of all for those like Bernd. And I tried to encourage and hearten those who are opposed to the logic on those pages but cannot answer. I pursued the aim of showing that the Quran is not such a cheap and simple book, and of exposing the hypocrisy of those who disparage it. I had already answered some of the most important subjects against the Witnesses’ series of writings. A person cannot keep in mind every piece of nonsense discussed over the years. At the very least, these pages made it easy for me to know what to write against and what to write. I will simply choose a subject by chance and try to answer their criticisms. I will also write the criticisms about the Quran that I sent them and that they did not publish, and my answer. So then, they publish the things that suit them and toss out what does not suit them. A manner of behaving quite befitting Mafia companies. Would a sincere servant of God do such a thing? Again, the judgment is yours.

At the top of their link titled “Scientific and Historical Errors in the Quran,” it was written exactly as follows. I say “was written” because these links too are constantly changed. When I looked recently, the pages had been entirely changed (January 2011). Their aim, however, is always the same: the Quran is bad and wrong, get out of there and follow us like donkeys—that logic. That is, let the flow pour toward them. As I said, moreover, after my book was published on the internet, they removed that link too, entirely! I had cut and copied what I read at that time (the year 2004). In the criticisms there, it was written exactly as follows:

How Many Days Did Creation Take? The first problem that catches the eye in the Quran concerns how many days it took for God to create the world. If you add up the days explained in the verses in Sura 41:9,10,12, the Quran says God created the world in eight days. Contradictions in the Quran

How Many Days Did Creation Take? The first problem that catches the eye in the Quran concerns how many days it took for God to create the world. If you add up the days explained in the verses in Sura 41:9,10,12, the Quran says God created the world in eight days (4 days + 2 days + 2 days = 8 days). But according to the Holy Bible it took only six days (Genesis 1:31). Thus the Quran begins its contradiction with the Holy Bible in the very first section of the Holy Bible. A Muslim friend of mine objected to this and stated that the Hebrew text of the Holy Bible had undoubtedly been altered at this point, and that in the original it was not six days but eight days.

I showed that there is no evidence at all in the Hebrew documents, in the holy writings, indicating that any alteration had been made. Furthermore, in other sections of the Holy Bible as well, it is stated that the world was created in six days (for example, Exodus 20:11).

Then, I stated that in Suras 7:51 and 10:3 the Quran agrees with the Holy Bible that the creation mentioned in the Holy Bible lasted six days. If six days is wrong, then Suras 7 and 10 of the Quran are wrong. But if eight days is wrong, then Sura 41 is wrong.

My friend replied to me as follows: “Then the Quran does not say eight days.” I added up the days mentioned in Sura 41 as 4+2+2=8. Then this person added them up and got the result 4+2+2=6, and said this: “Because the number 4 can be divided by the number 2, and therefore the number 4 there is actually 2.”! When I showed him that the Arabic says 4, not 2, this did not even surprise him. He kept on defending that 4=2. Otherwise he would have been forced to admit that the Quran is wrong.

My hurried, brief answer, which they somehow never published on those pages!!!

I felt compelled to give some answer to this creation of the earth and to that friend’s logic. Granted, the answers I give somehow never appear on your pages!!! Wouldn’t my friend too say, “These people only sort out and publish the things that suit them”?! Let us come to your logic. The Quran does not say the earth was created in eight days. In those verses it is not narrated in order as in Genesis. For example, saying in the Quran who created the earth in two days (41:9) refers to the first two days at the very beginning, as in Genesis. (Genesis 1:1-8) Saying who created foods in four equal days speaks of the creation of the trees and living things. That is, the last four creation days of Genesis. (Genesis 1:9-31) Then it goes back again and enters into the detail of the creation of the heaven, which is within all of this, and states that it was in two days. These two days here are not separate from the other days. It is written by narrating the earth created within a total of 6 equal time-spans, and, entering into its detail, again taking up the creation of the heavens in two days at the very beginning. It is not written with a logic like 2+4+2 separate from those 6 creation days. As you yourselves know, in the Quran it is clearly written that the earth was created in 6 days. Does a verse’s entering again into the detail of the creation of the heaven break the rule of order or something? Taking every number one sees, placing them one under the other and adding them up like a child just learning addition in primary school, is one thing; trying to understand them is another thing. If we set out with this logic, then: in the 1st chapter of Genesis it speaks of the creation of the human, and then in the 2nd chapter it enters into the detail of Adam being alone and of the creation of Eve. Wouldn’t someone who set out with your logic say, “Wasn’t a woman mentioned in the first chapter? Now where did this other woman in the second chapter come from?!” And he counts, one woman, two women. And after that, he says, “calculating 1+1=2, the Holy Scriptures are absurd!” If he finds it absurd because in the second chapter of the Holy Scriptures it again enters into the detail of the woman’s creation, is this a wise manner of behaving and of criticizing?! And if we were to take up the whole Holy Scriptures with this eye, would it not be terrible mindlessness? In fact your criticisms about the Quran refute not the Quran, but the Holy Scriptures you think you are defending. In one place an event is narrated, and later one enters into its details. This is a mode of narration, a style. Should everyone write according to your style? Is that when everything will be counted correct?

Taking sides blinds a person. If we want to be the judge of these matters, impartiality is expected of a judge, and most of all justice. I see neither of these two in you. I’d say, stay clever! It’s more believable and benefits humanity. And don’t flee from knowledge. Islam is in its present condition because it fled from it. Christianity is no different from the Muslims of whom you say, “their knowledge about God is ignorant.” Unfortunately, no one looks at the matter of knowledge of God as necessary and vital; instead they cling to the skirts of others and go behind them. This will provide salvation to no one. In the end, everyone must give account on their own behalf. (Ezekiel 14:13-20)

Note: At the top of your pages there are veiled women with rifles in their hands. It is certain that these pictures were placed there for the purpose of showing them as war-loving and demeaning them. If they were forced to take up weapons, the Quran they believe in sees permission for this. But in which book of those Christian countries—which entered their land with bombardment to steal their oil—does Jesus write to do such a thing? In your opinion, which is the greater hypocrisy? I hope that at least these things I have written will be published!!!

While writing this book I did not see it published. In fact on that page there are only four people’s answers about this subject. Clearly they did not set up a page all that open to every opinion. Those “reply” links are nothing but eyewash. On that page I chose by chance there are many subjects. It is full of criticisms written about the Quran ignorantly, with lies and errors, from hearsay, and with word-jugglery. I will keep my answers as short as possible; I will first write their piece and beneath it my answer. To those who do not attain a sufficiently clear understanding, my recommendation is: let them write me a letter through the “site index” or the “send a letter” link on the http://mesias.de page and ask their questions briefly and to the point. If God permits and I am alive, and if it is also possible, I will try to answer. There may also be things I don’t know; don’t be disappointed—investigate the answer yourselves too, and if you find it, write it to me as well, I’d be glad. It is not possible for us to know everything, and to understand it right away, too. It can also be investigated together.

The subject I mentioned above was the first subject on that page. The subsequent subjects and my answers are exactly as follows:

Noah, the Flood, and Noah’s Sons

According to the Holy Bible, all three of Noah’s sons boarded the ark and were saved from the flood (Genesis 7:1, 7, 13). Yet in Sura 11:32-48 the Quran says that one of Noah’s sons refused to board the ark and drowned in the flood!

While the Holy Bible says the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4), the Quran, in Sura 11:44, claims that the Ark was on the summit of Mount Judi. These contradictions could not be clearer.

Answer:

The Holy Scriptures speak of Noah’s 950-year life only in the subject related to the flood, and very little about the subjects after the flood. In the book called Genesis, or Creation, this subject is only three pages. From chapter 6 to chapter 9. I had given the answer related to this subject in the Witnesses’ criticisms of the Quran too. Never mind, let’s repeat it.

According to Noah that child is his own son, but could he not be from someone else? Noah’s wife is surely not the first and last woman to have a relationship with someone else and say, “This child is yours.” The Holy Scriptures, on the other hand, do not speak at all—but at all—of Noah’s wife, of her personality, of her character. Even though no verse anywhere writes this openly, the Quran, briefly, without entering into detail, says “that woman was not a good one.” Sura 11:46 and 66:10.

To someone who asks a question like, “Then why did God not kill her too?”: God did not kill so many people who deserved to be killed, so this was neither a matter of Noah’s wife nor of his son who saw his father’s nakedness and mocked. (Genesis 9:20-28) Do we have the right to question God’s mercy and to judge God? And that too even though we know there are many things we cannot understand. Furthermore, paradise did not come with the flood in Noah’s time either; evil still held sway. That flood only showed God’s judgment upon the wicked. He had it recorded so that it would be an admonition for the later generation of humanity.

The second subject is: Mount Ararat, or Mount Judi?

In the Holy Scriptures there is no such thing as “Mount Ararat” written at all. Rather, it is written exactly as follows: And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. Genesis 8:4

Here no particular, definite mountain’s name is meant. Ararat is the name of a country, of a region. (2 Kings 19:37) Moses is the one who wrote these writings, too. Around 1500 B.C. And Moses writes the event using the names of the countries of his own time. Because in Noah’s time there was not even a country called Ararat. In keeping with the description of that time, he writes that the ark rested on one of the mountains of the country of Ararat. There is a great difference between saying “mountains” and saying “mountain.” One means many mountains, while the other means a single mountain. But we can only say by interpretation which one it definitely rested on. Because in the next verse, in Genesis 8:5 of the Holy Scriptures, it speaks of the waters decreasing and the tops of the mountains becoming visible. Those who interpret based on this verse say, “Noah’s ark must absolutely have rested on Mount Ararat, the highest mountain.” Because before that, they say, it was impossible for the tops of the mountains to become visible. But it doesn’t even say it rested on the highest mountain that first became visible. Furthermore, according to whose point of view are these mountains becoming visible? Noah’s, or God’s? If the ark, as the Quran writes, rested on Mount Judi in Şırnak, then Noah could not even have seen Mount Ararat from there. There is a distance of about 250 km between them. And as I pointed out, the verse in Genesis 8:4 does not say “on the mountain”; it says “on the mountains of Ararat.” It speaks not of a single mountain but of many mountains. According to these verses it is unknown for certain which mountain it was. What is certain is that it was some mountain among the mountains of the country of Ararat.

If saying the tops of the mountains began to become visible means that Ararat is the highest mountain on earth, that too would be absurd. Because there is Everest and many other high mountains, and their tops became visible much earlier. Though it isn’t related to our subject, the thing we most don’t know is: were these mountains even this high at that time? Because it is also a fact that with the flood that came, the geological form of the earth changed terribly. And this change is stated not only by me but also by geologists who have no relationship with God. Whether it happened suddenly right after the flood, or over time, again we cannot know for certain.

On the other hand, who knows for certain that the borders of the country called Ararat did not extend from Mount Ararat all the way to Şırnak? There are so many things that are not known for certain. Even when a country like Israel—which plays the leading role in the Holy Scriptures—was captured by the Babylonians is doubtful. The date of the fall of a world-ruling country like Babylon, that too is doubtful. The birthdate of Jesus Christ is like this too. We possess so much doubtful knowledge like this. But if the Quran, recorded by God’s spirit about 2100 years after the book of Genesis that Moses wrote, says Mount Judi, then this is correct. And with this it gives no information contrary to the Holy Scriptures; on the contrary, it gives information that sheds light on the Holy Scriptures. Neither the Holy Scriptures nor the Quran is wrong. We don’t understand, we don’t want to understand; our calling something wrong—out of taking sides, out of ignorance and our lack of understanding—does not mean that thing is necessarily wrong. What is wrong is the perverse teachings and interpretations that we have fixated on and fabricated, that have become dogma (in Christianity, the unchanging fundamental doctrines).

Errors Concerning Abraham

The Quran makes many errors concerning Abraham:

Criticism: 1. The Quran says that the name of Abraham’s father was Azar (Sura 6:74), but in the Holy Bible the name of Abraham’s father is Terah (Genesis 11:26).

Answer: 1. These names and places are sometimes written differently in the Holy Scriptures too. This is not an error or a lie. It may be the language of that country and another name by which that person was remembered. When Turks write history they write “Germans” (Almanlar); Germany writes its own history as “Deutschland, Germany.” Are not the same nation and country meant? But the names are different. In the future, if someone who finds these documents says, “which one wrote it wrong,” what is to be said? It is very rare to see even the name of Jesus Christ written exactly the same, letter for letter, in every language. Turks say “İsa,” Germans say “Jesus.” Now what error or fraud is that?!

Criticism: 2. Abraham did not live and worship in the valley of Mecca (Sura 14:37), but according to the Holy Bible he lived in Hebron (Genesis 13:16).

Answer: 2. Abraham passed through very many places, made migrations of thousands of kilometers, and was present in those places too. It is certain that he also worshiped wherever he went. If the Quran drew attention to one of his many acts of worship in the valley of Mecca, why should it be wrong? By which airline did Abraham, who lived in Hebron, fly there from the city of Ur, that this is called “impossible”?!

Criticism: 3. As the Quran says (Sura 37:100-112), the son Abraham brought to offer as a sacrifice was not Ishmael but Isaac (Genesis 22:1-18).

Answer: 3. In Sura 37:100-112 and throughout the whole Quran, no name at all—but at all—is given for the son said to have been brought to be sacrificed. This is the wrong teachings and interpretations of the Muslims, not of the Quran. If we set about evaluating the Holy Scriptures based on the thousands of absurd teachings of the Christians, I have said many times, “we would have to throw that book in the garbage.” What is wrong is not those books, but the Mafia religion companies that strain to represent them. Just like you, by saying “it is written” about something that is not written, they too are frauds and liars.

Criticism: 4. As the Quran claims, Abraham had not just two but eight sons (Genesis 25:1-2).

Answer: 4. Again the same fraud. Where does the Quran make such a claim? Mixing up the Quran with the absurd teachings, to cover up the truths the Quran contains—the aim is only this. In any case these frauds gave no proving verse either.

Criticism: 5. Abraham had not two but three wives, as the Quran says (Genesis 16:1-15; 25:1-2).

Answer: 5. Yet another unproven claim. First let us clarify this too. Abraham had two wives and one concubine (a female slave), Hagar—that is all. Even if concubines were also a person’s wife, they were not treated exactly like the wives. (Genesis 20:17) When God spoke with Abraham, He always addressed Hagar as “your concubine,” not “your wife.” If someone says “he has three wives,” and someone else says “he has two wives and one concubine,” what does it matter? How does it speak of Solomon’s wives? By separating them as his concubines and his wives, is it not? (Genesis 21:12-13; 1 Kings 11:3) Again, no verse from the Quran related to this subject has been given!

Criticism: 6. Although in Sura 2:125-127 the Quran says that Abraham built the Kaaba, Abraham did not build the Kaaba (Genesis 25:1-7; Hebrews 11:9).

Answer: 6. I wonder who built it? There too what is meant is the raising of the foundations of a house, and this too is the place at the Kaaba—a place enclosed by four walls covered in black. A house they built together with Ishmael, that is all. Why should this information be a lie? And what is proved by the verses he gave from Genesis? I could not understand. After Abraham sent his son Ishmael away, did he thereby reject him, according to you? Yet when we read the Holy Scriptures, a very different meaning emerges. After Abraham died, Ishmael too came and, together with his brother Isaac, they buried him. From where did Ishmael hear, that he came from so far away? So then, they had a relationship and possessed the means of communicating. Furthermore, since they waited in those hot places to bury Abraham’s body until Ishmael came, Isaac gave great importance to his companionship. Or it is certain that, near the death of his father Abraham, they had Ishmael too summoned beside them. Even if there are no clear details on this subject, in Genesis 25:7-10, as the Christians imply, Isaac did not have a knife-and-blood relationship with Ishmael.

Criticism: 7. As the Quran claims in Sura 21:68,69 and Sura 9:69, Abraham was not thrown into fire by Nimrod. Nimrod lived centuries before Abraham anyway (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:26).

Answer: 7. You know how to add up the numbers 2+4+2, but can you not calculate when Noah died, and then when his son Shem died? According to the records in the Holy Scriptures, Noah’s son Shem dies when Abraham is 150 years old. Moreover, Nimrod was their descendant. Why should he not have seen Nimrod? (Genesis 11:10-32; 25:7) This matter of calculation is apparently quite a big problem for you! Apparently your minds don’t reach beyond 2+4+2!

This, the last error, is the most serious one, because this is an error very frequently encountered in the Quran.

Linear Time In the seventh century, the Arabs (that is, Muhammad too is among them) did not think within the concept of linear time, which means historical sequence. In the West, people perceive history as the concept of a straight line with a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the East (especially in the Far East), people think of history in never-ending circles.

It is clearly seen that in Muhammad’s time the Arabs in the Middle East did not even have a definite concept of time. Arab stories and epics accept places, people, and events as though they all lived at the same time. For this reason, throughout the whole Quran, people like Nimrod and Abraham, Haman and Moses, Mary and Aaron are shown as though they lived at the same time and worked together. It is for this very reason that the Quran narrates the flood and Moses, the Tower of Babel and Pharaoh… and so on, as though they all happened at the same time. This is an interesting situation regarding the accuracy of the Quran, because the Quran contradicts the historical sequence of the Holy Bible and the historical sequence of normal time.

Answer:

Well, well, well! Look at what a very serious error!

These people mentioned in the Quran, together with their traits, the similar events they experienced, either their mindlessness, their faithlessness; or, on the contrary, their exemplary behaviors, their faith and their trust in God, are spoken of as though they are together—compared. But not mixed up with one another. Again, since no verse is given, I cannot give a full answer. In your opinion, does the Quran again get a bad grade for this manner of narration? Apparently the Quran, by your grading, failed language class! Many people who understand grasp something from these and take a lesson. If you do not take it and do not understand, that is the corruption of your spirit, stemming from your ignorant and biased injustice—it is the cause of the hatred that has settled inside you, that the religions and societies you belong to have carved into your hearts.

Errors Concerning Joseph The Quran says that the name of the man who bought Jacob’s son Joseph was Aziz (Sura 12:21), even though in the Holy Bible his real name is Potiphar (Gen 37:36).

Characters in the Holy Bible The Quran falls into the same error when it says Jalut for Goliath, Karun for Korah, Talut for Saul, Idris for Enoch, Dhu’l-Khifl for Ezekiel, Yahya for John the Baptist, Yunus for Jonah.

Because Muhammad did not have the Holy Bible (there was no Arabic translation of the Holy Bible at that time), he was constantly saying the names, places, dates wrong. When pagan, Jewish, and Christian merchants sat around a fire telling one another their favorite stories, they told the names, times, and events in a jumbled and confused way.

Answer:

The same refrain, the same claims. The Babylonians changed Daniel’s name and set it as Belteshazzar. They changed the names of his three friends in the same way. So if in Babylonian history Daniel’s name appears as Belteshazzar, is that name wrong? I don’t want to drag it out; let them read the Holy Scriptures—there are many places, numbers, names that seem not to match up like this. Let them look at the translations of the Holy Scriptures into different languages; the names there too changed while being translated. This is naturally so for the one who does not understand, who does not strive to understand. When, as a matter of the difference in pronunciation between Europe and Turkey, İsa is called Jesus; Mesih called Christus; Eyüp called Hiob; Musa called Moses; Allah called Gott, it is not wrong—so why are these wrong? Furthermore, as they say, John was not the baptizer—Yahya was doing the baptizing. But according to Europeans this name appears as John. (Turkish Holy Scriptures, Matthew 3:1) And if this situation is so confusing, how did you understand who is meant by which name? So then, it is understood.

Does the brain of a person who eats goose meat become like a goose too? Or is the situation with you like this too? Are you such a very cheap organization among the religion Mafia companies that you possess such a simple comparison-level of knowledge?

The Encyclopedia Britannica says this: The deviations of the stories from the Holy Bible are marked, and in many cases it is likely that they have been mixed with what is told in the epic narratives of the Jews and the Christians. Much has been written about where Muhammad got this information. There is no evidence at all about whether he could read and write. His reliance on oral conversations explains why he put forward mistaken concepts. For example; Haman, who was the minister of Ahasuerus, being confused as the minister of Pharaoh (Sura 40:38), and Miriam, who was the sister of Moses, being confused with Mary, the mother of Jesus.6

Muhammad’s misunderstanding of the stories and teachings in the Holy Bible leads only to knowledge born of rumor. On this matter of the wrong names, the great Arabic expert Canon Edward Sell says this:

Muhammad certainly did not take these stories from the Old Testament. The confusion of the names is quite remarkable.7

Answer:

The Britannica encyclopedia also writes that humans came not from Adam but from the ape. Read whichever side suits your business and say that side is correct.

I do not read any such thing in the verse Sura 40:38 either. The writings in parentheses, or the writings printed in bold, that appear in some places of the Quran in your hands, are not written in the Quran; they are interpretation. If such a thing is written about Haman, am I therefore going to deny the Quran? Can the similarity in the name or rank of someone who lived at that time not be the same? In one place of the Holy Scriptures it speaks of the Judah king Uzziah, while in another place it speaks of the same person as Azariah. Compare 2 Kings 15:1-2 with 2 Chronicles 26:1. Are we going to stumble over the Quran or the Holy Scriptures because of this?

There are a whole heap of books written under the title “Is the Holy Bible God’s Word?” with the aim of refuting the Holy Scriptures. What you do about the Quran, they have done about the Holy Scriptures. Go and read them and see the similarities with your brothers.

Let us come to Muhammad’s literacy. That he could not read and write appears clearly in the Quran. (Al-Ankabut, Sura 29:48; Al-A’raf, Sura 7:157-158) Who writes a book in his own name and then says he cannot read and write?! Just as such an absurdity cannot be, people known as frauds do not lower themselves; on the contrary, they raise themselves. If Muhammad is a fraud, why would he show such humility? On the contrary, shouldn’t he have magnified himself? In the Holy Scriptures, we are accustomed to seeing such truths only from the servants of God. (2 Peter 1:20-21)

And how nicely it is stated that Muhammad did not take these stories from the Old Testament. Yet, going by what you always tell, I had thought he made a one-to-one copy! So it turns out he did not.

Errors Concerning Moses In the Quran there are many errors concerning Moses:

Criticism: 1. As the Quran claims in Sura 28:8,9, the person who adopted Moses was not Pharaoh’s wife. The one who adopted Moses is Pharaoh’s daughter. (Exodus 2:5)

Answer: 1.Where does Pharaoh’s daughter live? In the same palace, or beside her mother and father, is it not? And the infant Moses is an Israelite, one of every Israelite male child whom Pharaoh wanted killed. In that daughter adopting such a child, could her mother not have soothed and persuaded Pharaoh’s heart? Do such things not happen in our time too? When a girl does something that shouldn’t be done, does the person in the role of the mother of that household not make an effort, with hints and words, to make the girl’s father say yes to this situation? How does it later pass into the writing? By the name of the persons in that house who authorized it, or by the name of the household’s child? But even if such a thing happened, by what right does the Quran emphasize this truth without getting permission from you!

Criticism: 2. Noah’s flood did not occur in Moses’ time. (Compare Sura 7:136 with 7:59.) This error is not the kind of error that can be so easily cast into a corner.

Answer: 2. As for this criticism, what terrible mindlessness. The ones they say to compare—on one hand verses about Noah from the Quran are given, and on the other hand verses about Pharaoh and his army drowning while trying to cross the parted sea in Moses’ time are given. Then they say, compare! What are we to compare—I could not understand!

In Noah’s time there was a worldwide flood and the wicked died by drowning in water. For example, comparing Genesis 7:17-22 with Exodus 14:21-31, does one say Noah’s flood did not occur in Moses’ time? Such an absurdity is not even written in the Quran anyway. As a result of Pharaoh’s attempt to cross the sea that God parted for the Israelites, God closed the waters and they too died by drowning. Merely because of this similarity of these people drowning in water, is the Quran talking nonsense and mixing up the flood with Moses? Yes, in both Noah’s time and Moses’ time God made the wicked die by drowning in water. And by this neither Noah’s flood nor the parting of the Red Sea in Moses’ time has been mixed up with the other.

Isn’t the aim to do jugglery? And these are very bad jugglers too. Only a rotten egg is to be thrown at such tricks. This error is supposedly not one to be cast into a corner!!! In the verse they gave to compare, it is written in the Quran not in 7:59 but in 7:64.

Criticism: 3. The Quran says that Haman lived in Egypt in Moses’ time and worked for Pharaoh in the business of building the wall of Babylon. (Suras 27:4-6; 28:38; 29:39; 40:23, 24, 36, 37). But in fact Haman lived in the Persian Empire and worked in the service of King Ahasuerus. For detail, see the book of Esther. 8 This error, which contradicts the Holy Bible and other written history, is a very serious error.

Answer: 3. What do these people do when they see such similar names in the Holy Scriptures? What does the similarity of a name have to do with the similarity of event and place? Among the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel, even two kings who once lived at the same time had the same name. Names like Jehoram, Ahaziah, Jeroboam were the names of both Judah and Israel kings. In the Holy Scriptures there are so many such name similarities. These were sometimes living at the same time and also possessed the same names. (2 Kings 3:1 and 8:16) Do we not read this in history too—Murad the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th…, or Louis the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th…?

This too was a very serious error! Isn’t it the one they themselves make?

Criticism: 4. Although the Quran says in Sura 7:124 that crucifixion existed in Pharaoh’s time, crucifixion did not exist in Pharaoh’s time.

Answer: 4. That verse given does not speak of a cross. Pharaoh speaks of those people: “that their hands and feet will be cut off crosswise and that he will then hang them.” Does such a manner of giving punishment necessarily mean the cross to you? Besides, it cannot even be proved that Jesus Christ died on a cross, as the Christians believe! Who can prove that the thing on which they hung him, nailed him, was a “T”-shaped cross? There are also those who claim it was a straight tree-trunk, which, in my opinion, is more logical.

On this subject too you shot again, and without aim at that. And from where do you know how the death penalties in Pharaoh’s time were carried out? Or rather, is there anything you don’t know?!

Errors Concerning Mary In the Quran there are many errors concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus:

Criticism: 1. The name of Mary’s father is not Imran (Sura 66:12).

Answer: 1. Another one of the same subjects. In my opinion there’s no need to answer.

Criticism: 2. Mary gave birth to Jesus not under a palm tree but in a stable (Sura 19:22, versus Luke 2:1-20).

Answer: 2. Those verses do not speak of Mary giving birth, but of her suffering the pains of labor under a palm tree. Excuse me, is there a bit of illiteracy in you? Whenever the pains of labor come, does a woman instantly give birth on the spot?!

Criticism: 3. Muhammad confused Mary with the sister of Moses and Aaron. This is a very serious error because it shows that Muhammad had no knowledge of the different periods in which the important people in the Holy Bible lived.

Answer: 3. This event mentioned in verse Sura 19:28 of the Quran writes the manner in which the people who expressed their astonishment at the child Mary bore addressed Mary. They too address her, saying: “O sister of Aaron.” Because Aaron, Moses’ elder brother, was Israel’s first high priest. This is a duty that passed into the history of these Israelites, precious in their eyes. If they addressed her this way to exalt Mary, to praise her, why must we understand these in the literal sense? Well then, why were they saying to Jesus, “O Son of David”? Yet the Gospels write that he had no bodily father. Furthermore, there was about a thousand years’ difference between the time David lived and Jesus. But Mary and her husband Joseph came from this lineage. And David was a prophet valued by that society. Those who wanted to value Jesus addressed him this way. Because they addressed Mary this way, why should Muhammad be confusing Aaron’s time? Not only the Jews—all societies make such analogies, and it is normal. (Ruth 4:11-12)

Criticism: 4. In Sura 19:23-26, Muhammad made deceptive speeches and miracles for Mary.

Answer: 4. And if Muhammad did not make a one-to-one copy, then why is it absurd that within this book there should also be some subjects that do not appear in the Holy Scriptures? At the end of the book of John, when it says, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did; if they were written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written,” was it lying? Come, let’s say he was speaking with exaggeration—but with this, what does John want to convey? So then, he is stating that not everything about Jesus was written. According to you, if it doesn’t appear in the Holy Scriptures, all right then, it’s a lie. Yet the things your Christian teachers tell and teach do not appear in the Holy Scriptures at all—how is it that for centuries you cling to them so tightly and believe in them as God’s word?!

Criticism: 5. Zechariah’s not being able to speak did not last three days, as the Quran claims; it lasted until his son was born (Sura 19:10, versus Luke 1:20).

Answer: 5. What is meant there must have been written in the sense that three days remained until the end of Zechariah’s term of priestly service. The priests would take up duty in the temple in rotation, once a year for a certain period. (1 Chronicles 24:1-19; 25:8-31) Might the Quran not have meant this? Surely he could not speak until John was born, but while his not being able to speak with people in his home is not that important, Zechariah’s not being able to speak while serving in the temple, in return for his faithlessness, was a punishment worthy of note. (Luke 1:8-23) The angel Gabriel must have stated the event from this angle. The Quran is not written exactly as it appears in the Holy Scriptures, that is, in a one-to-one copy form. If it narrates events from another point of view—just as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did in the Gospels—but in a correct way, why should this not be so in the Quran?

Fictional Conversations Muhammad used the conversations of people in the Holy Bible and used the words “Muslim” and “Islam,” which did not exist in the language of these people at that time. This is as absurd as Muhammad saying, “I love Kentucky Fried Chicken very much.”

Frankly, such a word did not exist in Muhammad’s time! Likewise, the words Muhammad said came out of the mouths of the characters he took from the Holy Bible did not exist in Holy Bible times.

Some words and expressions found in the Quran in the speeches of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Moses, Mary, Jesus, and others—words they did not say—show the falseness of these conversations (Some Suras: 2:60, 126-128, 132-133, 260; 3:49-52, 67; 6:74-82; 7:59-63, 120-126; 10:71, 72; 18:60-70; 19:16-33).

Answer:

The words meant are “Muslim” and “Islam.” Muslim is an Arabic word, and its meaning is a believing man or a man of faith. And the word-meaning of Islam is to turn toward God, toward the Lord. If, with these words, the faith of Abraham, Moses, and other prophets and their devotion to God were expressed, why should it be absurd? This was the language Muhammad spoke. Or should he have said these in another language—necessarily in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek?! If they said in their own language, in Hebrew, in Aramaic, “we will die as believing persons” or “we will live as persons devoted to God,” how is he to say this word for word in that language? He said those words in Arabic, in his own language. Besides, at that time the words Muslim and Islam had not become a widespread religion label as they are now. If Muslim is a word emphasizing believing, Muhammad did not start this for the first time on earth, did he? But he was the first in that society of his own time—this is true, but this does not mean the time since humanity has existed. Whoever reads the Quran will understand that it is so.

Do you know how the word Christian came into being? (Acts of the Apostles 11:26) Is this word said the same way in every language? The word is not the same, but its meaning is the same in every language. Is this forgery?

The Water Test The test of how the soldiers drank water from a stream took place not in Saul’s time, in David’s defeat of Goliath, but many years before this event, in the time of Gideon. Compare Sura 2:249-250 with Judges 7:1-8.

Answer:

Why should Saul, who knew past history, not have put his soldiers through the same test as he saw fit? If these are discussed in the Quran, why should it be a cause for you to stumble? Look at the reason! Besides, the subject is actually very different. In the book of Judges, in Gideon’s time, the distinguishing feature of these soldiers who drank water was that they knelt on their knees and took the water into their hands and drank it. No matter how many times they drank. And God says this to Gideon and asks him to make a distinction. But the event in the Quran narrates a different time. Saul (Talut) says to his soldiers: “Whoever does not drink from this river but only takes a handful is on my side.” This manner of behaving by Saul fits the Holy Scriptures very well too. Because Saul knew this event that happened long ago, and apparently he may have resorted to such a path as he saw fit, to seek a miracle or a sign. This is not the first time Saul put his soldiers under difficult conditions with absurd words and oaths as he saw fit. On one occasion too, it was again this Saul who forbade his soldiers to eat food and declared a fast until they achieved victory over their enemies. (1 Samuel 14:24 and 28-33)

Ordinary Historical Errors In the Quran there are clear historical errors.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says this: In Muhammad’s account concerning Alexander, the description of Alexander, introduced as “Dhu’l-Qarnayn” (Sura 18:82), is taken from the work titled The Romance of Alexander. A Syriac translation of this work was extant among the Nestorian Christians of the 7th century (in Arabia).11

In light of this clear historical error, some modern Muslims argue that the Quran does not speak of Alexander. But regarding this subject, based on the interpretations of the historically conservative Muslims, even Yusuf Ali reaches the following conclusion: I have no doubt that Dhu’l-Qarnayn is Alexander the Great, the Alexander whose name appears in history. This Alexander mentioned in the Quran is not a fairy-tale hero but Alexander the Great, whose name appears in history.”12

The Concise Dictionary of Islam also proves that the person mentioned on this subject is Alexander the Great.13

Criticism: 1. As an example, in Sura 105 Muhammad claims that Abrahah’s elephant army was defeated by birds throwing burning stones upon them. According to the historical record, after syphilis broke out in Abrahah’s army, they halted their army’s attack on Mecca and withdrew.10

Answer: 1. There is no clear evidence about who those meant in that sura are. This is so, at least for me. But if such a truth is emphasized with those verses written in the Quran, then I believe in it too, like the other truths in the Holy Scriptures that I cannot understand or that cannot be proved with historical knowledge. If we set about resorting to historical facts—Moses parting the seas, Israel being freed from slavery, God’s miracles—in which date of Egypt is it written, or does it write it? Babylon king Nebuchadnezzar’s illness mentioned in the book of Daniel—in which date of Babylon is it written? Let us put it this way: which country wrote its history impartially? Are the history writings of Turkey and Greece the same? This situation holds for all the countries of the world. Whatever they do, they all do it from a certain angle according to themselves, and write it so. None of them is impartial and true like God’s word.

Which Babylonian historian writes—indeed, even hears—that the Babylon king who ruled the world at that time was ill, ate grass like oxen, and that his hair grew long like eagle feathers? For them this situation is a terribly shameful thing, and so they hide it. All religions, states, armies, and other such organizations of this kind have united in the form of organizations. And in an organization, secrecy is given terrible importance. In events where secrecy is not achieved, they resort to lying.

Because these worldly historical accounts are not in harmony with the Quran and the Holy Scriptures, which one shall we toss out? The historical knowledge written by humans, or the history in the Holy Scriptures that God had recorded? Is it the human who is untrustworthy, or God? Thousands of proofs showing that God’s word is far more trustworthy than all of them have been seen and lived. Can this be said for the human? Or is your problem God having burning stones thrown from the heavens by means of birds? Read the Holy Scriptures and compare it with God’s miracles in the wars Joshua waged. (The book of Joshua)

Criticism: 2. The claim that the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham is not true. The Kaaba was built by pagans to worship a black stone that fell from the sky. Abraham never lived in Mecca.

Answer: 2. Our knowledge about Adam’s 930-year life is very little. (Genesis 5:5) The Holy Scriptures do not make a subject of where he lived and his whole 930-year life. Where did you see whether or not he did the things written in the Quran? If you filmed Adam with a camera in those times, come, show it to us too! It’s surely interesting. A claim is thrown out there, but it has neither substance nor lining. And no verse at all has been given on this subject.

The subject about Abraham is again the same. After Abraham sent Ishmael away, he lives at least 70 more years. (Genesis 17:1 and 17:17 and 17:24-26 and 18:10 and 21:5-8 and 25:7) From where do you again know that Abraham did not visit his son? If it is the Holy Scriptures you are defending, there is no such verse there at all. Well then, on what do you base such claims when you make them? Was Abraham a person of such a character that he wouldn’t do this? O mindless, stone-hearted men! You believe all these things this way because, with your crooked hearts, you have made those people resemble yourselves.

According to what appears in the Holy Scriptures, since Ishmael came to bury Abraham at his death, this 70-year separation between them neither spoiled nor destroyed their relationship. Neither did God want, nor did Abraham do, such a rejection. (Genesis 21:8-20) Because you read God’s words only by comparing them with yourselves, you cannot even think that something else might be possible. Because when your own religious organizations say about a person, “send him away, he will no longer have a share with us,” you won’t even greet that person. When he is about to die and asks for water, and even the best among you, while giving him that water to drink, passes through his mind, “I wonder, am I sinning now?” You even mark the one who does it, among yourselves. What a terrible generation of vipers you are, if only you knew. You know it, and if only the mindless ones among you, and those who look at you from the outside, knew too, how good it would be.

Criticism: 3. In Sura 20:87, 95, it says that the Jews made the golden calf in the desert at the suggestion of the “Samaritans.” This was such an error that, at the time the golden calf was made, there was not even a people called Samaritans on the page of history. The Samaritans did not exist until the Israelites were taken into exile first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians. Yusuf Ali, in his famous English translation of the Quran, avoided translating this word-error, but the Arabic in the Quran is clear.

Answer: 3. This person mentioned in the Quran as Samiri is someone who strove to incite the Israelites to rise up against Moses and consequently against God. In the Holy Scriptures the most famous of these men appear by the names Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. (Numbers 16:1-5 and 20-35, and Deuteronomy 11:6-7) But there is no name of a particular person in the Holy Scriptures about the one who had the golden calf made, who led this affair. (Exodus 32:1-29; Deuteronomy 9:15-21) These people had become bad examples for the people of Israel with their faithless and godless behaviors. Many years later, when Israel (not the kingdom of Judah) was exiled to other lands by the Assyrian king, he also sends into their lands mixed peoples that he had driven from other countries. The reason the kings of that time did this exile, or exchange, is that it is easier for a native people to gain strength and rise up in a region it knows; so that they don’t become a trouble to the king’s head, it is done so they don’t cause the king problems. That is why he exiles a large part of them, who could be dangerous, to foreign countries and lands. And they leave behind the despised, powerless people so that they work the soil. (Jeremiah 40:7)

This name Samaria appears in the Holy Scriptures in 1 Kings 16:24. The Israel king Omri, having bought it from someone named Shemer who was the owner of the hill, sets the name of the city he built as Samaria after Shemer’s name.

The reason the Israelites did not love those peoples living in Samaria is also that they saw them as pagans living on their own lands, not coming from the lineage of Jacob, and far from God’s promises. We read that this situation continued many years, until the coming of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus found a nearly 700-year hatred absurd and meaningless, he tells parables, with many fine examples, emphasizing that the Samaritans could even be better than the Israelites. (John 4:6-9; Luke 9:52-56; Luke 10:25-37; Acts of the Apostles 8:25) In fact, the Israelites’ relations with all the people of other nations are not like their relations with one another.

In the Quran, Sura 20:87-95 speaks of someone named Samiri. This man is one of those who, while Moses was on the mountain, made a calf like many Israelites and led the way for the purpose of worshiping. There is no information in the Holy Scriptures at all that contradicts the verses in this sura. If there was someone by such a name and he did these things, and the Holy Scriptures passed over it without taking up this name, why should the Quran be wrong? Furthermore, that verse does not speak of a people called Samaritans; only a single person’s name, Samiri, appears. In my opinion it is you who are confusing the matter. But for islamacevap.net and the Christian world, these additional pieces of information in the Quran are always absurdity. They pursue the logic, regarding the Quran, “by what right can more information than in our book appear there”!!!

Criticism: 4. One of the greatest errors in the Quran also concerns Alexander the Great, called Dhu’l-Qarnayn. The Quran claims that Alexander the Great was a Muslim who worshiped God and that he lived until he grew old (Sura 18:89-98). The historical evidence about Alexander shows that Alexander was not a Muslim and did not live until he grew old.

Answer: 4. I do not know who this Dhu’l-Qarnayn mentioned in the Quran is. I got curious but did not investigate. It is a historical piece of knowledge. The Gog and Magog peoples mentioned also appear in some places of the Holy Scriptures. About Yajuj the Old Testament (Torah) says Gog, but the same people are meant. (Ezekiel 38:1-3 and 17; Revelation 20:8) But when we read the prophecies written under these names, we see that it also speaks of events that will occur in different time-spans under the same name. For example, in the last days this Gog is spoken of, and it is certain that in the literal sense there will be no such people by this name. But generally, in the Holy Scriptures and the Quran, the nations Yajuj and Majuj, or Gog and Magog, symbolize the peoples who will oppose God. Because they once lived and did the same things, what they leave behind is only their ugly traits—and there are many such analogies in the Holy Scriptures. For example, like the city of Tyre being likened to Satan. (Ezekiel 28:11-19)

Were these nations mentioned in the Quran the ones in the literal sense, or were they some of the similar nations in that example? As I said, I do not know. But again, whoever that Dhu’l-Qarnayn is, even if it is Alexander the Great, they served God’s will in a certain place, like Babylon, like Egypt, like the Assyrians. The prophet Jeremiah made prophecies about many such nations. God had recorded that they would be destroyed and their evil deeds. From chapter 46 to chapter 51, Jeremiah speaks of these nations. In Ezekiel too there are such prophecies. Since it is written in many places, I don’t give a verse. Chapters 28, 36, 37, 38 of Ezekiel could each be an example. From time to time God had the punishments of nations administered by one another’s hands. He permitted them to be destroyed. The fall of those empires that seemed impossible, and of Israel, is for this reason. Let me not drag it out, because other subjects are getting mixed into my answer.

Here, even if that verse means Alexander the Great, who knows what Alexander believed and did not believe after living through so many things? There is information only in the form of speculation. Besides, which time of his does the Quran speak of? For example, while it appears about Solomon in the Holy Scriptures that the deeds he did toward his old age were not good and right, the Quran, without entering into these subjects, speaks only of Solomon’s good deeds. (1 Kings 11:1-13) This is not a lie, nor is it wrong. But according to the Holy Scriptures it may be incomplete information, not entered into detail down to the last point. Besides, when God wanted the Quran to be revealed to Muhammad, He surely did not think of copying a Holy Scriptures exactly. This absurd claim comes from the Muslims. And thanks to you too, they unwittingly harbor hatred both for the Holy Scriptures and for the Quran of which they are ignorant. You, who are so zealous in the works of Satan, by cloaking yourselves in a guise of supposedly serving God under the Christian label, people only grew distant from the true God! This must be a great success for you and Satan. Furthermore, Sura 18:82 speaks of Moses, but from 83 onward it speaks of Dhu’l-Qarnayn.

Scientific Problems In the Quran there are scientific errors. For example; the Quran claims that Alexander the Great watched the setting of the sun and found that the sun set into muddy waters (Sura 18:85-86).

Answer:

Surely the curiosity to investigate the end of the world did not belong only to that person. According to the knowledge of those people, even their understanding of the sun’s motion can never be compared with our present knowledge. In the sun’s setting, the places where it is located or goes could also be a place where there are great oil sources, or literally muddy swamps. (Genesis 14:10) It is written that the existence of such tar-pits goes back even before Abraham’s time. (Genesis 6:14; 11:3) Thoughts and expressions such as the sun sometimes entering into the sea and setting, hiding behind the mountains, coming out of the waters, are not few among people, and such expressions are still used. According to you, if the letter ‘a’ appears in the Quran it’s absurd, if the letter ‘b’ appears it’s a lie! It seems to you impossible, unthinkable, that these letters that are in the alphabet entered into the Quran!

Contradictions Within Itself

The Quran contradicts itself in many ways. Since the Quran claims in Sura 39:23,28 that there is no contradiction in it, the existence of even a single contradiction would suffice to prove that the Quran is not the Word of God.

Criticism: 1. The Quran contradicts itself on the matter of whether a day in God’s sight is a thousand years or fifty thousand years. (Compare Sura 32:5 with Sura 70:4.)

Answer: 1. “What is a thousand years in our sight is like a day in God’s sight”—the verses that say this exist both in the Quran and in the Holy Scriptures. (Sura 22:47; 32:5, in the Holy Scriptures known as the Psalter, Psalms 90:4; in the Bible, 2 Peter 3:8) Those verses are an analogy. It is certain that God possesses a concept of time very different from our understanding. No one can say that God’s understanding of time is set according to the sun or the moon! With these analogies, God who exists within eternity is described. While 200-300 years seem a long time to us, for God 6 thousand years’ time is actually like our six days. With these, in learning to be patient, in trusting and obeying God when He permits things that are impossible and absurd to us, it means confidence-filled knowledge and understanding.

Let us come to those verses that supposedly do not match one another. I will write them exactly; you decide too.

…A day in the sight of your Lord is as a thousand years of what you count. Sura 22:47

…Then every matter is to you a thousand years, and to Him a day. Sura 32:5

The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day, which is a journey of fifty thousand years. Sura 70:4

I don’t think there’s anything incomprehensible in the first two verses. It wants to convey the difference between the understanding of time in God’s sight and the understanding of time in the human’s sight. But in that last verse characterized as not matching, no such thing is being done at all. There it wrote the distance of a stretch of space as 50 thousand years. This is a measure used for space in our time. Like “I-don’t-know-how-many light-years away.” Or should it have been written as kilometers? At that time there was no kilometer either, no doubt! I see neither a similarity nor an inconsistency in this matter or in the Quran, other than at islamacevap.net! What is inconsistent and absurd is their own understanding.

Criticism: 2. In Sura 2:58 and 7:161, the same quotation is given with contradictory wordings. This problem is an example of many problems like it. The existence of contradictory wordings is quite serious, because Muslims claim that the Quran is perfect even in its quotations. Believers in Christ make no such claims for the Holy Bible, but the manner of speaking found in the Holy Bible is in the form of a summary of the things said. For this reason, it is quite a natural thing for the Gospel sections that record Jesus’ speeches to summarize the same sermon with different wordings from one another. Because these “summaries” inspired by God are found in sections that already give different points of view from one another.

Answer: 2. I read these verses they gave in place, thinking whether the Quran in their hands and the Quran in our hands skip a verse each, and I still could not find a contradiction. Again, let me best write them exactly as they are, and you solve the contradictions in these people’s heads.

Remember when We said to you, “Enter this city and eat abundantly of whatever you wish, wherever you wish, and enter the gate of the city prostrating in worship, and repent, that We may forgive your sins. We will increase the reward of those who do good.” Sura 2:58

And remember when it was said to them, “Settle in this city, eat of it whatever you wish; say ‘Forgive our sins!’, and enter the gate bowing, that We may forgive your sins. And We will increase the reward of those who do good.” Sura 7:161

Where the contradiction is, it is impossible to understand. In one it says enter this city, in the other settle in this city. Is this what they call a contradiction?! If, as I said, they don’t believe in the Quran because of this, how do these hypocritical vipers say they can believe in the Holy Scriptures in their hands? In the Holy Scriptures there are hundreds of expressions and modes of narration that seem not to match one another. These are a very easy cause of stumbling for those who don’t want to believe. In fact, what is wrong and what is right is not important for any of these people. If religion means sucking human blood and toil, then these too openly want to say, “leave there, come here, so that from now on we suck your blood.” All their effort is precisely for this reason.

Criticism: 3. Muhammad first told his followers to turn toward Jerusalem during prayer. Later, he said that since God is everywhere, they could turn anywhere. After that, he again changed his mind and told them to turn toward Mecca and pray (compare Sura 2:115 with Sura 2:144). Many scholars believe that in these mind-changes of Muhammad, there was a role of his trying to please the Jews or the pagans.14

Answer: 3. Sura 2:115 emphasizes that God is everywhere—is this not true? And Sura 2:144 says that while worshiping, Muhammad turned his direction toward the east, toward the Temple that Solomon had built, but that with this verse he must remove that rule and turn his direction toward the place where the present Kaaba is (the Masjid al-Haram).

What similarity or contradiction is there between the first verse saying that God is everywhere and turning toward a certain direction for the sake of order while worshiping? In the Holy Scriptures, by Solomon saying in his prayer, “If they pray toward this house, toward this place, hear them,” did he think or emphasize that God is only there? Did Solomon not know that God is everywhere? By turning toward that direction, he only indicates that God recognized that house, that place, as the temple. And this too was only if they remained faithful—their prayers would be heard; it was not some automatic immunity or anything. All these are written exactly in Solomon’s prayer and in the answer God gave him. Since after Jesus Christ, Judaism and Israel fell from God’s covenant, His agreement, if God gave Muhammad a command that one should no longer turn toward that place, it is very correct and logical. With these, God emphasizes that He has plainly cast them off. (The entirety of chapter 8 of 1 Kings. The most important verses of that chapter related to our subject are written in 1 Kings 8:27, 35, 41-42, 44-45, 46-48. Also look at Daniel 6:10; John 4:19-26.)

Alongside this, instead of the effort and importance the Muslims give only to turning toward that place, if they had given value to what God commanded—not lying, being clean, humility, knowledge, love and mercy—it would be far more valuable and meaningful.

Criticism: 4. At first Muhammad was commanded to say that if there was an attack, his followers could defend themselves (Sura 22:39). Later, he ordered them to go to war on his own behalf (Sura 2:216-218). This was done for the purpose of gaining wealth by robbing caravans. But as Muhammad’s army grew, so did the desires for plunder (Sura 5:33). Thus, in order to obtain more wealth, he ordered fighting to persecute other religions (Sura 9:5, 29). Here it seems that God’s will changed according to Muhammad’s successes in killing and plunder. 15

Answer: 4. Let them first read chapter 31 of the book of Numbers and the book of Joshua in the Holy Scriptures. (Joshua 6:24; 7:1 and 23-26) Do the wars that appear in the Holy Scriptures become just, while the wars Muhammad waged that appear in the Quran become plunder?! I don’t think there’s any need for me to answer this absurdity. You’ll say, “Wasn’t the other stuff islamacevap.net wrote absurd too?” It was absurdity from top to bottom, but I do these things not because I believe in their sincerity, nor do I pursue the aim of directly answering them with my writings. My aim is to ensure that those who encounter such seemingly absurd questions do not stay cold toward the Quran out of ignorance, to encourage them to investigate the Quran and the Holy Scriptures. At the beginning of my book, because of a simple question we asked our religion class teacher in the fifth grade of primary school, we almost got a beating. Such was the religious knowledge we were given. It is not surprising that people also emerge who make a living calling themselves Christians and, with such absurdities, set about plundering faith in the Quran. If the believer is like that, imagine what the unbeliever is like. There’s no need to imagine—just look around you.

By looking at a verse or two before and after the verses they claim, you too read and, comparing with the Holy Scriptures, decide for yourselves. What do they claim, and what does it write in its place! Don’t let your eyes be daunted by the verses they give one after another. Their aim is not at all to encourage you to investigate; with those verses they only aim to influence lazy people, people who believe or doubt everything they hear.

Criticism: 5. Who was the first believer? Abraham or Moses (compare Sura 6:14 with 7:143)? There cannot be two “firsts.”

Answer: 5. If in Abraham’s time the first believer is Abraham, then in Moses’ time the first is Moses. According to you, must this business have a sequence patent! That is, should Moses in his own time have said, “I am the 1 million 789 thousand 657th of those who have believed since the world was founded”?!!! What a splendid understanding and logic you have! These people, as I wrote in the earlier subject about the first of those who became Muslims, were, in that time of their own lives, the first believers of that society in carrying out God’s will. What is wrong with these expressions?

Criticism: 6. The division of Judaism and Christianity into different sects and groups is put forward in the Quran as proof that these are not from God (Suras 30:30-32; 42:13,14). Islam itself has divided into groups that conflict among themselves, and therefore, by the logic the Quran uses on this subject, Islam too cannot be true.

Answer: 6. For the first time they’ve written something correct. On this subject, are not the words of God that appear in the Quran very apt and correct? On this subject I agree with them exactly. Yes, to say that the Islamic world, the Christian world, Judaism, and all the religions of the world are far from God and gone astray, one need not be a prophet, a priest, or anything. People have organized religions like banks, parties, companies. The aim is to climb onto backs and suck blood.

As if the Holy Scriptures approve of such divisions? Only let us not forget, by this logic Christianity and islamacevap.net too cannot be true. For the first time they made a very correct criticism—bravo.

Convenient Revelations The Quran contains verses used for Muhammad’s personal gain and personal pleasure.

Criticism: 1. When Muhammad wanted the wife of the son he had adopted, he suddenly received a revelation from God saying that it was possible for him to take another man’s wife (Sura 33:36-38).

Answer: 1. Muhammad, like every human, was someone with weaknesses and frailties. The Muslims, under the influence of the Christians, show Muhammad as though he had the same traits, so that he would be a rival to Jesus, who was created flawless like Adam. All prophets except Jesus were flawed and sinful. Jesus had to be someone sinless like Adam, so that in Adam’s place, in return for his sin, he could offer himself as a sacrifice. This ransom was Jesus’ perfect body. (Sura 3:55-59; Romans 5:12-19) Such a ransom was obligatory for the sake of God’s grace to us humanity, out of His justice.

Muhammad feeling sympathy for a beautiful woman—or one beautiful to him—or desiring her, is a weakness that can befall any man. Muhammad felt this frailty for the wife of one he had raised as an adopted son. And according to the explanations in the Quran, he never revealed this (let’s say, like many humans), but his stepson noticed this situation and separated from that woman.

In the Holy Scriptures God emphasizes that it is wrong to take one’s own son’s wife, even if that son has died. (Leviticus 20:10-21) But there is nothing forbidden about marrying the divorced woman of someone one took beside oneself as an adopted child, raised, and who is actually a stranger to oneself by blood. Furthermore, this does not appear anywhere in the Holy Scriptures.

Setting aside Muhammad giving in to his weak feelings toward that woman, that this happened in a way even the son he raised as an adopted child would notice—I too cannot say this is right. In fact, verses like this are truths that prove the Quran is far more convincing and trustworthy. What fraud, or statesman, or even an ordinary human, has such weaknesses of his own recorded and openly announced to people? This openness and uprightness exist only in the Holy Scriptures and the Quran. If the Muhammad they call a swindler is someone so sincere and humble, which pope of the Christian world, or governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or leading figures of the Islamic world, has displayed such a trait? You go behind them like a god, but those you follow never possess the traits, the uprightness, and the sincerity of the Muhammad whom you yourselves call a “fraud” in your own words. I write this so you may think.

Again, if we consider the prophet David as an example, on a similar subject David commits far more, indeed a terrible, mindlessness than Muhammad. While walking on the roof of his house, he sees a woman bathing, has her brought beside him, and lies with her, and the woman becomes pregnant by him. David also sends the woman’s very valiant husband to the frontmost positions in the war so that he would die, and the man dies. Then he takes that woman as a wife for himself. Indeed, David’s son Solomon, who became king, was born of that woman. Of course God does not leave all these deeds unpunished. David pays the price of the mindlessness he committed in a heavy way. (2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12; 2 Samuel chapters 15 to 19)

Alongside this, the criminal thing Muhammad did is only to reveal his feelings, that is all. He neither has anyone killed—though he had the means for this—nor resorts to any other intrigue. On the contrary, he even says to his son: “Do not separate from that woman, keep your wife for yourself.” Perhaps it will be said this is hypocritical, but Muhammad still does and says a good thing, doesn’t he? If he is giving a great struggle to overcome his own imperfect feelings, why should this be a hypocrisy in the negative sense? And from this angle, which of us is single-faced?! This is a criticism the Christians use a lot about Muhammad. Yet the Quran speaks not only of this weakness of Muhammad but also of his other sins. (Sura 18:110; 9:117; 47:19; 66:3-4; 40:55; 48:2) These are the verses that make the so-called Muslims go crazy when they hear them. To me, however, as I said, they make the Quran even more believable and trustworthy.

From the Jehovah’s Witnesses among whom I was for years, I neither saw nor heard—but at all—such openness, honesty, and sincerity. In their publications there is not even a single sentence writing of the sins of their governing bodies. Only out of obligation, and that too only in word, they say, “we too are imperfect, that is, flawed,” that is all. In practice, however, they are self-satisfied, arrogant, possessing the pride God hates, merciless pitilessness, and excessive feelings of self-interest. And it is not solely the Jehovah’s Witnesses among the religions who do this so.

Some, they say, break away from the Quran because of these verses. Let them first investigate those new/old religions they’ve attached to, their leaders, those places. If they are impartial and sincere in this investigation, I fear that from the knowledge they gain, they will vomit with disgust! Or, like everyone, unable to stomach it for their pride, they will hide it. Instead of distancing themselves from that filth, they will also serve pages like islamacevap.net and waste their energy for nothing.

Criticism: 2. When he wanted more women, or wanted to stop his wives’ arguments, he received urgent revelations for this (Sura 33:28-34).

Answer: 2. The verses he gave are so absurd. Even if he receives urgent revelations to stop arguments, what harm could there be in this? So then those revelations brought peace, and this too is bad in your eyes, is that it? Furthermore, as we clearly understand from these verses too, Muhammad kept none of his wives by force. Those women who make out sharing their husband with many wives to be like torture, somehow can never leave that man! Only until their interests run out! And to his wives who desired this world of Satan and belittled spiritual values, it is revealed that Muhammad should say these words. I will write exactly the verses they gave as proof.

O Prophet! Say to your wives: “If you desire this worldly life and its adornment, then come, I will give you a provision and release you in a fine manner. But if you desire God and His Messenger and the abode of the Hereafter, then truly God has prepared a great reward for those among you who do good.

O wives of the Prophet! Whoever among you commits an open indecency, her punishment will be doubled. This is easy for God. And whoever among you obeys God and His Messenger and does good works, We will give her reward twice over. And We have prepared for her an honorable provision.

O women of the Prophet, you are not like any other women; if you are mindful, do not be soft in speech, so that the one in whose heart is a sickness may not be moved by desire; speak in a measured word.

Stay in your houses. Do not adorn yourselves and parade about showing off as in the old, ignorant manner of walking. Rise to worship (perform the prayer). Give the alms. Obey God and His Messenger. O people of the household! God wishes to remove filth from you and to purify you thoroughly. Remember God’s verses and the wisdom that are recited in your houses. God sees everything and knows every report. Sura 33:28-34

What is wrong or bad about the expressions in this verse? I too say the same things to my wife from time to time. What, in your opinion, would have been better for Muhammad to say? Should he have said, wear such tight trousers that I-don’t-know-what-part of you shows, or wear a slit mini-skirt, so that men desire you inside? While sunbathing, should he have said, lie down definitely with your breasts bared? It may be—women love within themselves to display themselves. And the cause of this is men. The more a woman bares herself, the more the men of our time try to behave sympathetically toward them. Purely for their sexual pleasure. What man wants his wife to lie down with other men? But almost every man, even if he saw every woman except his own wife stark naked, this practically doesn’t disturb him. Even the men of our present time, called the most modern Europeans, say to their wife, “display yourself, but still don’t lie down with anyone.” Furthermore, Muhammad was not someone who did the trafficking of women or anything. God commissioned him as a prophet. What is wrong with his telling his wives to behave in a manner befitting that duty? And that too without forcing anyone: it becomes a crime that he says, “the woman who doesn’t want to can go.” What if instead he had behaved like the mafia bosses who say, “You can’t go anywhere, if you cheat on me I’ll kill you”—what would have happened then? I believe that whatever he did, it would have been a crime in your eyes. And let us not forget that all these virtuous, freedom-favoring words, in fact, Muhammad said not on his own but in line with the revelations he received from God.

Criticism: 3. When people disturbed Muhammad in his home, he received convenient, quick revelations about when people should visit him and when they should not visit him (Sura 33:53-58; 29:62-63; 49:1-5).

Answer: 3. This is a more interesting accusation. What—because Muhammad was a prophet, should he have been at people’s service 24 hours of the day? Should this man, in that heat, not have had a time he needed to set aside for himself, to relax? Can your pope, your cardinals, your bishops, your priests be visited at every turn and asked questions? Without making an appointment—which they don’t give to everyone anyway—who can talk with them? No, but for Muhammad, to relax, to withdraw into his home, his tent, by himself and rest, is forbidden! Blockheads! Don’t you even know what manners are? Then read the Quran, perhaps you’ll learn!

Epic Materials Muhammad used many epic and imaginary materials as the source of the Quran.16 As Professor Jomier, one of France’s greatest Middle East experts, states: Muslims accept these stories as though they were God’s word, without learning their historical origins. In fact, within the Quran there are epic, poetic forms known to be taken from other sources, and various religious themes.17

Answer:

Neither is any proof given nor is any verse shown!

Arab Sources The Quran narrates imaginary Arab stories as though they were real.

Criticism: 1. The Arab epics about imaginary jinn fill pages.18

Answer: 1. Unproven claims; what it means and where in the Quran it wants to point to is unclear.

Criticism: 2. The story of the she-camel leaping from the rock was known long before Muhammad. (Sura 7:73-77,85; 91:14; 54:29).

Answer: 2. What is the problem in something being known beforehand too, and in God making known the correct version of it—not mouth to mouth but by way of revelation—and ensuring that this too is recorded? If something cannot be recorded just because it is known, if it is wrong for the prophet too to write that subject, then one must not read most of the books Moses wrote. For example, starting from Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Job and many other people and events were known beforehand by the Israelites too. Must one then call Moses a “fraud”? In the Bible, the apostles wrote their letters drawing attention to many events known beforehand. There’s no need for me to give a verse as proof. Open the Bible, and at the very bottom parts, besides a heap of quotations taken as they are from the Old Testament, those subjects too are treated by being repeated. According to you these are fraud! So be it!

Criticism: 3. The story of a whole village’s people being turned into apes because they did not observe the Sabbath by catching fish is an epic that was told in Muhammad’s time (Sura 2:65; 7:163-166).

Answer: 3. So then these events have now become an epic. About Noah’s flood there are epics, fairy-tale books written by many nations. These people are neither Muslim nor Christian. Its being so, and that truth entering into their fairy-tale books, does it belie Noah’s flood? I will never be able to understand the wrongness of something being known beforehand and its being mentioned again somewhere else.

Criticism: 4. The story of the 12 gushing springs found in Sura 2:60 comes from the epics of the pre-Islamic period.

Answer: 4. The same refrain.

Criticism: 5. The story called the “Rip Van Winkle” story, of 7 men and their animals waking up after sleeping in a cave for 309 years (Sura 18:9-26)! You can encounter this epic in Greek and Western fairy tales as well, as in the old Arab belief.

Answer: 5. These “seven sleepers” is a story Europe knows too. They even gave that name, that is, the name seven sleepers (dormouse), to an animal resembling something between a mouse and a squirrel. And they know this information even though it appears nowhere in the Holy Scriptures. The Quran narrates this truth without specifying a number. So then it turns out it was real. People, however, listen to it as a fairy tale. Those persons who fled and slept long years (309 years) were also very probably Christians. Because they were pursued for their beliefs, they fled and took refuge in a cave. Do you feel shame because the Quran writes events to be boasted of in God’s name? Feel shame for yourselves, for your deeds, for the attitude of your hearts—that is fitting. To you, everything written in the Quran is fantasy.

Criticism: 6. The story of four slaughtered birds coming to life and flying was also a story well known in Muhammad’s time (Sura 2:260).

Answer: 6. Again the same refrain.

It is quite clear that in Muhammad’s statements in Sura 21:96; 29:31,46; 37:59; 54:1; and 93:1, he used pre-Islamic literature such as Imru’l-Qays’s “Sab’a Mu’allaqat” (the Seven Suspended Odes).

Answer:

Please, you too open and read from the Quran, in place, those verses called pre-Islamic literature that they claim Muhammad copied. Do these people want to say that the Quran absolutely cannot use those names because some names appeared earlier too?! If there were people, peoples once living called Gog and Magog, is it going to be forbidden to use these names? A heap of claims full of absurdities like this.

Jewish Sources Many stories in the Quran come from the Jewish commentary books the Talmud and the Midrash, and from writings based on many traditions. This was put forward in 1833 by Abraham Geiger and documented in 1954 by Abraham Katsh, a Jewish professor from New York University.19

Answer to the Jewish Sources:

A Jewish professor put it forward, and so-and-so Jewish person also documented it—well, all right then, these are the clearest and most definite proofs that the Quran cannot be from God!!! Is there need for any other proof?! And he did this in a place like New York, wow! The Quran makes no other claim anyway. It appears as “confirming those before it and affirming the Quran.” Sura 21:24; 35:31; 2:87; 5:48; 6:156. These Christians and Jews are like cat and dog with each other, but when the Quran, the Muslims, enter into the matter, have they suddenly become friends!

Criticism: 1. The source of Sura 3:35-37 is a book of imaginary stories titled The Protevangelion of James the Lesser.

Answer: 1. With these verses it speaks of how Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born, and of Zechariah, the father of John. On this subject the Quran is written entering into other details not written in the Bible. Did the Jewish professors oppose these truths? The Jews opposed Jesus too. Aren’t they again the ones who call Jesus Christ and the Bible fraud? And these truths—I wonder who took them from whom? If to them it is imaginary, that is their problem. To me it is very logical and in harmony with the truths of the Holy Scriptures.

Criticism: 2. The source of Sura 87:19 is the work titled The Testament of Abraham.

Answer: 2. There only this sentence appears: “It is also in the scriptures of Abraham and Moses.” For only this sentence the Quran becomes a fraudulent book! Such sentences have been written in who-knows-how-many religion books, or novels, here and there. As I keep saying, whatever the Quran writes is a crime according to these people. They give verses and, supposedly, make a very meaningful proof. It is a very simple and stale method, prepared for mindless readers, for followers of illustrated newspapers, for those who instantly believe what they see and hear.

Criticism: 3. The source of Sura 27:17-44 is the Second Targum on Esther.

Answer: 3. So what! What does it have to do with anything, or what kind of proof is this?

Criticism: 4. The interesting story of a man whom God “left dead for a hundred years and then resurrected,” without any bad effect on his food, his drink, or his donkey, is a Jewish folk tale (Sura 2:259).

Answer: 4. To me it is real; if to some it is a fairy tale, this does not make the Quran unbelievable—it is a matter of being able to have faith. In order to believe, must it be an event that occurred before our eyes in those dates? To believe everything we read, must we necessarily see it? Well then, what does ‘faith’ mean? Read Hebrews 11:1.

Criticism: 5. Moses being resurrected and other materials come from the Talmud (Sura 2:55, 56, 67).

Answer: 5. There it does not speak of Moses dying or being resurrected or anything. Rather, it speaks of a group of unbelievers who wanted to see God plainly being struck by lightning, and then being resurrected in case they might take a lesson. Is the subject mentioned again impossible for God? The others written throughout the Torah, in the Old Testament, happened, may have happened; but this—no, cannot it be? Again, I would say, “Read the Holy Scriptures.”

Criticism: 6. The story in Sura 5:30, 31 can be seen in the works of Pirke Rabbi Eleazer, in the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah, and in the Jerusalem Targum.

Answer: 6. Well done! See there.

Criticism: 7. The story of Abraham being saved from Nimrod’s fire comes from Midrash Rabbah (see Suras 21:51-71; 29:16,17; 37:97,98). Furthermore, it must be stated again that Nimrod and Abraham did not live at the same time (see page 125). In the Quran, Muhammad constantly mixes up people who did not live at the same time as though they lived at the same time.

Answer: 7. Again, repeating, I say: read the Holy Scriptures and learn how to do the calculation.

Criticism: 8. The details of Queen Sheba (Saba)’s visit in Sura 27:20-44, which are not based on the Holy Bible, come from the Second Targum on Esther.

Answer: 8. Bravo! So then it isn’t written only in the Quran. If what you mean is confusion, with the proofs you give it is only I who see you in confusion.

Criticism: 9. The source of Sura 2:102 is undoubtedly the Midrash Yalkut. (Section 44). Criticism: 10. God lifting Mount Sinai in Sura 7:171 comes from the story in the Jewish book Abodah Zarah, of Him threatening to hurl this mountain upon them if they denied the law. Criticism: 11. The story of making the golden calf in the desert, which in its complete form leaped from fire and made a cow-sound, comes from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer. (Sura 7:148; 20:88). Criticism: 12. The 7 heavens and hell figures narrated in the Quran come from the Zohar and the Hagigah.

Answer: 9.10.11.12. The same subjects and the same absurd claims. So what if it is written in those men’s book? Moses writes about someone like Job—what relationship did Moses have with Job; he doesn’t become a fraud, but when Muhammad says the revelations he received, he becomes a fraud? As for the answer to the 10th, it is not as they say. When God made Israel walk in the desert, He lifted the mountain to make shade for them. This truth appears not only in the Quran but in the Holy Scriptures, in the Psalms too. (Psalms 114:4; Al-A’raf, Sura 7:171)

Criticism: 13. Based on the book The Testament of Abraham, Muhammad teaches that by a measure or scale, it will be decided that people will go to heaven or hell according to whether their good or bad deeds weigh heavier. In the Holy Bible there is no such concept of a scale.

Taken from the book titled “Why We Could Not Become Muslims,” found in our library section.

Answer: 13. If we set about debating things in the literal sense against analogy, we must not take the Holy Scriptures into our hands at all. Jesus Christ told his parables using many analogies. God likened Himself to a father-son relationship, sometimes to a governor, sometimes to a master. (Malachi 1:6; John 16:25) Is there no word “scale” at all within these analogies? If there were, this time you’d say, “he copied, it was already written I-don’t-know-where.” All humans are sinful and all committed crime. Even though Jesus Christ died for the sins of all humanity, no word appears in the Bible either that everyone will be saved. So then there will be those who are saved and those who are not saved, according to a measure. The Holy Scriptures too give a message along this line. (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28) Jesus gave a very fine example to humanity about the hypocritical, faithless Jews of that time, like you, who don’t believe in him:

“To what shall I liken the people of this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their friends, ‘We piped for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

When John came, he fasted and abstained from drink, and they say he ‘has a demon.’

When the Son of Man came, he both ate and drank. This time they say, ‘Look at that gluttonous man and drunkard! He became a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is proved right by the works it produces.” Matthew 11:17-19

Jesus said these words to the perverse and hardened-hearted people who did not believe in the prophets God sent, who had difficulty believing. Between that generation and the present generation there will be no difference, will there. This is the human—either he does not believe and goes to death for the sake of it, or he believes, and makes the one he believes in a god, an idol, God. Isn’t there a normal of this, brother?! The Jews did not believe in Jesus, they killed him. Those who believed in him made him a third God!!! They could not believe in Muhammad, they declared war. Among the Muslims after his death, the war that began over who will sit in which seat still has not ended. And with an absurd, meaningless, and pagan reverence they show Muhammad, as though worshiping, they wage a supposed pissing contest with the Christians. There’s no need to describe the Jews at all. None of these three religions I have listed have listened to those they exalt, nor done what they said to do, nor taken them as examples. Again, I am forced to ask: “Isn’t there a normal of this business, brother?”

And did you read the writing at the very bottom too? They took these writings from the book titled “Why We Could Not Become Muslims” in the library section! Whoever could not become Muslims for whatever reasons—if they could not for these reasons, what, in your opinion, have they become? Have they remained or become Christians? There are so many frauds who say, “I am a Christian, I am a Muslim, I believe in God and keep His commandments.” To remain as one of them is not important; every place is full of them. You show me believing, upright, sincere, honest people. It is certain that they do not, like you, wait at every street corner with their labels in hand!

In conclusion:

The Christians, with the thoughts and logic on this page I chose by chance, do the same instillation to the whole world for the purpose of opposing Islam. Don’t, whatever you do, think that I am angry at them on these pages. I get irritated at their absurdities, and most of all I am vexed by their hypocrisy, their lies, their fraud. Otherwise, such illogical logics on pages like these have been a great help to me in believing by investigating the Quran and the Holy Scriptures. Because some mindless fanatics do not possess the knowledge and uprightness to answer such people, they set about killing such people. They, however, are even more blockheaded. Does he think he is covering his own ignorance this way! If such people did not exist, perhaps it would never even have crossed my mind what investigation is. As I said, for me, believing in God had come about with my reading only the first 30 pages of the Holy Scriptures. Thanks to such people I grew in knowledge and developed in faith. Otherwise my knowledge too, I believe, would not even surpass that of those spitting hocas. To such critiques, such criticisms, I say “carry on.” The value of something is better understood only when there are such people. If there were never any bitterness, there would be no concept of sweetness either. If God permitted such contrasts to exist, He surely has a wise purpose too. In fact, Satan and such people serve as a sieve. Again, unknowingly, with their evil deeds they end up doing good. Because thanks to their evil, I clung to what is good. If they had not existed, would I not have clung? Jesus Christ voices a fine truth:

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will resurrect him on the last day. John 6:44

Let us possess the attitude and behaviors that please God, so that He may draw us too. This too is not fatalism, but something that is in our own hands.

There were many more things I wanted to write in this book. The book gradually grows thicker. And in this age, who reads such a thick book? As Turkey, we are unfortunately among the countries that read the fewest books. That is why I try to keep this book as short as possible. According to many people, too, I don’t succeed. Surely they have their justified points as well. To write in a way that suits everyone’s taste is truly very hard.

There are also writers, and their books, who do the same critiques made above against the Quran against the Holy Scriptures. Their logics and manner of criticizing against the Holy Scriptures, this time, resemble exactly these who try to refute the Quran. And if I published their writings too, into the matter there also enter those who don’t believe in God at all, the atheists. There are so many subjects to tell about them too. As I said, it is not possible to treat all of these in one book. Most importantly, so many verse-by-verse explanations could have been made to understand both the Holy Scriptures and the Quran. Transferring all this information to the book would, at least for me, be a very laborious and great task. As I said, if God permits, and if you have questions by mail after entering the http://mesias.de page, I will try to answer. I had also been thinking of doing this by publishing the questions and answers of those who permit, again on those pages, but I realized that too is impossible. My correspondence with just a single person has exceeded 60 pages. I saw that setting about publishing all of it would be a mountain of a task. Rather than a mountain of a task, I also couldn’t make sense of it. Because with my writings here, I want to encourage people to investigate—each on their own behalf—so that they may possess as good and true a faith and thinking as possible. Debating and talking widen people’s points of view, but I do not claim to present this all by myself on these pages.

In fact, everything is in your own hands, in your own will, personally. That is why, leaving aside even a little your fondness for comfort, investigate, cultivate yourselves, learn, and teach—personally for you and for your loved ones, for your eternal life. Most important of all, see to establishing a good relationship with the One who created you and the entire universe. And this too begins first with praying, despite all our evils, our mistakes, our wrongs. Praying is not lying down and getting up on the floor five times a day. Nor is it visiting the church every Sunday. And it is not at all going door to door to preach and being present at three five-hour meetings a week. True worship means doing God’s will 24 hours, that is, all day; living according to it, thinking and speaking in accordance with it. Even if, as a Muslim, you lay down and got up on the floor not five times but five hundred times a day, and even if, as a Christian, you spent not just Sunday to Sunday but your whole day lighting candles in that church, and even if, as a Jehovah’s Witness, you went door to door and preached 720 hours a month (this means 24 hours every day), you still could not say you did the things acceptable to God. These are not what God seeks. God wants love, mercy, goodness. He says, “Love Him and love one another.” All the Holy Scriptures rest on these two commandments. In Matthew 22:35-40 it is written as follows:

One of them, an expert in the Law, asked Jesus this, to test him: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus gave him this answer: “‘Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second, which is like it, is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40

If we live in accordance with these words, God will surely draw us to Himself too.

Praying, hiding nothing from Him, open your whole heart to God in a humble manner. Along with these, take care to do also as in the words that appear below:

Be careful! Let no one take you captive through a philosophy that rests on human tradition and the elementary principles of the world, and not on Christ, with empty and deceptive words. Colossians 2:8

In this verse it does not say the Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor the Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox churches, nor Muslim religions and sects, nor hocas, priests, rabbis (Jewish clergy)… and so on; it says “no one.” So then, heed this counsel of God and do not be a captive. Because God’s will is:

He wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men. 1 Timothy 2:4-5

Not according to your own truths that you have heard from hearsay up to now, that society or your own heart fabricated; learn, understand, and believe all these in the way God wants, and think that way and strive to live that way. Only then can you hope that God will be with you.