T H E   E N D - T I M E S   T I M E S              June 10th, 1999
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Dear friends,

  Welcome to this issue of The End-Times Times.  I hope it will be
of interest to you.

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Regards,

David M. Williams

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C O M M O N   L O G I C A L   F A L L A C I E S   M A D E
B Y   M U S L I M S

By Dr. Robert Morey 

Christians must be prepared to answer the typical objections made
against the Gospel. Most of the objections are based on simple
logical fallacies. The following is a list of some of the most
common fallacies used by Muslims.

Note: The average Muslim does not know that his arguments are
logically erroneous. He is sincere in his beliefs. Thus you must be
patient and kind in sharing with him why his arguments are invalid.

1. The Fallacy of False Assumptions: In logic as well as in law,
"historical precedent" means that the burden of proof rests on those
who set forth new theories and not on those whose ideas have already
been verified. The old tests the new. The already established
authority judges any new claims to authority.

Since Islam came along many centuries after Christianity, Islam has
the burden of proof and not Christianity. The Bible tests and judges
the Qur'an. When the Bible and the Qur'an contradict each other, the
Bible must logically be given first place as the older authority.
The Qur'an is in error until it proves itself.

Some Muslims violate the principle of historical precedent by
asserting that Islam does not have the burden of proof and that the
Qur'an judges the Bible. 

2. Arguing in a circle: If you have already assumed in your premise
what you are going to state in your conclusion, then you have ended
where you began and proven nothing.

If you end where you began, you got nowhere.

Examples:
  #1 Proving Allah by the Qur'an and then proving the Qur'an by Allah.
  #2 Proving Muhammad by the Qur'an and then proving the Qur'an by Muhammad.
  #3 Proving Islam by the Qur'an and then proving the Qur'an by Islam.

3. False Analogy: Comparing two things as if they are parallel when
they are not really the same at all.

Examples:
  #1 Many Muslims erroneously assume that Muslims and Christians share
     the same concepts of God, revelation, inspiration, textual
     preservation, the Bible, prophethood, biblical history, conversion,
     etc...
  #2 Because a false analogy is drawn between Islam and Christianity,
     some Muslims think that any argument which refutes the Qur'an will
     likewise refute the Bible; any argument which refutes Muhammad will
     also refute Jesus Christ, etc...
  #3 For example, many Muslims claim that Muhammad and all prophets
     were sinless. They even deny that Abraham was an idol worshipper.
     Thus when a Christian points out all the wicked things that Muhammad
     did (mass murder, child abuse, lying, etc.), the Muslims will say,
     "If you are right, then you must also reject your biblical prophets
     for doing wicked things as well."
     What he is really saying is, "If you reject my prophet, then you must
     reject your prophets as well. If Muhammad was a false prophet, then
     your prophets are false as well."
     The root problem is that the Muslim concept of prophethood is not
     the same as the Christian concept of prophethood. We teach that
     prophets sin like anyone else. Thus while Islam is refuted by the
     sins of Muhammad, Christianity is not jeopardized at all. The Muslim
     is guilty of setting up a "false analogy."
     Whenever a Muslim responds to a Christian attack on the Qur'an,
     Muhammad, or Allah by flipping the argument around and applying it
     to the Bible, Jesus or the Trinity as if Islam and Christianity
     either stand or fall together, he is guilty of the fallacy of false
     analogy. Islam can be false and Christianity be true at the same time.

4. The Fallacy of Irrelevance: When you introduce issues which have no
logical bearing on the subject under discussion, you are using irrelevant
arguments.

Examples:
  #1 Some Muslims argue, "The Qur'an is the Word of God because the text
     of the Qur'an has been preserved perfectly." This argument is
     erroneous for two reasons: 
     a. Factually, the text of the Qur'an has not been preserved perfectly.
        The text has additions, deletions, conflicting manuscripts, and
        variant readings like any other ancient writing.
     b. Logically, it is irrelevant whether the text of the Qur'an has
        been preserved because preservation does not logically imply
        inspiration. A book can be perfectly copied without implying its
        inspiration. 
  #2 When Muslims attack the character and motives of anyone who
     criticizes Islam, they are using irrelevant arguments. The character
     of someone is no indication of whether he is telling you the truth.
     Good people can lie and evil people can tell the truth. Thus
     whenever a Muslim uses slurs such as "mean," "dishonest," "racist,"
     "liar," "deceptive," etc., he is not only committing a logical fallacy
     but also revealing that he cannot intellectually defend his beliefs.
  #3 When confronted with the pagan origins of the Qur'an, some Muslims
     defend the Qur'an by answering,
         "But Christians celebrate Christmas and it was originally a
          pagan holiday! Thus both Muslims and Christians get
          their rites from the pagans."
     This argument is erroneous for several reasons. 
     a. It is a false analogy to parallel the pagan origins of the rites
        commanded in the Qur'an with the present day holidays nowhere
        commanded in the Bible. What some modern day Christians do on
        Dec. 25th has no logical bearing on what the Qur'an commands
        Muslims to do (eg. the Pilgrimage, the Fast, etc.).
     b. It is irrelevant that some Christians choose to celebrate the
        birth of Christ. Since the Bible nowhere commands it, it is a
        matter of personal freedom. But Muslims are commanded in the
        Qur'an to believe and practice things many things which came from
        the paganism of that day.
     c. The Muslim by using this argument is actually admitting that the
        Qur'an was not "sent down" but fabricated from pagan sources.
        This means he has become an unbeliever (Surah 25:4-6). 
  #4 Some Muslims argue that the Qur'an is the Word of God because it
     contains some historically or scientifically accurate statements.
     This argument is irrelevant. Just because a book is correct on some
     historical or scientific point does not mean it is inspired. You
     cannot take the attributes of a part and apply it to the whole.
     A book can be a mixture of true and false statements. Thus it is a
     logical fallacy to argue that the entire Qur'an is true if it makes
     one true statement.
     When a Muslim argues that history or science "proves" the Qur'an,
     this actually means that he is acknowledging that history and
     science can likewise refute the Qur'an. If the Qur'an contains just
     one historical error or one scientific error, then the Qur'an is not
     the Word of God. Verification and falsification go hand in hand.
  #5 The present meaning of a word is irrelevant to what it meant in
     ancient times. The word "Allah" is a good example. When confronted
     by the historical evidence that the word was used by pagan Arabs
     in pre-Islamic times to refer to a high god who was married to the
     sun-goddess and had three daughters, some Muslims will quote
     dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. to prove (sic) that "Allah means
     God." They are thus using modern definitions to define what the word
     meant over a thousand years ago! What "Allah" means now has no
     bearing on what it meant before Muhammad. 

5. The Fallacy of Equivocation: If we assume that everyone has the same
definition of such words as God, Jesus, revelation, inspiration, prophet,
miracle, etc., we are committing a very simple logical fallacy.

  #1 When a Muslim says, "Christians and Muslims worship the same God," he
     is committing the fallacy of equivocation. While Christians worship
     the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Muslims worship a
     Unitarian deity. Obviously, they are worshipping different Gods.
  #2 When a Muslim says, "We believe in Jesus too," he is committing the
     fallacy of equivocation. The "Jesus" of the Qur'an is not the Jesus
     of the Bible. Islam preaches "another Jesus" (II Cor. 11:4). The Jesus
     of the Bible is God the Son who died on the cross for our sins. But
     the "Jesus" of the Qur'an is not God the Son and he did not die on
     the cross for our sins. Thus it is erroneous for Muslims to tell
     Christians that they believe in Jesus too.
  #3 When a Muslim assumes that Christians have the same concept of
     revelation as Muslims, he is guilty of the fallacy of equivocation.
     According to Islam, the Qur'an was written in heaven by Allah and has
     no earthly sources. When we prove that it comes from earthly sources,
     this threatens the inspiration of the Qur'an.
     On the other hand, the Bible does not claim that it dropped out of
     heaven one day. It openly quotes from earthly sources. It uses
     pre-existing sources without any difficulty whatsoever. Thus while
     the Qur'an is threatened by historical sources, the Bible is actually
     confirmed by them.
  #4 When a Muslims tells you that the word "Allah" has only one meaning:
     "the one, true, universal God," he is assuming a fallacy. The word
     "allah" has many different meanings. 
     a. It can be used as a generic term like the English word "God." Thus
        it can be applied to any god or goddess regardless if if a true or
        false god is in view. (ex. The "Allahs" of Hinduism.)
     b. The Nation of Islam uses it to refer to Wallace Dodd Ford, Elijah
        Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan as "Allah" and teaches that all black
        people are "Allahs."
     c. It has been used by some Christians in Arabic speaking countries as
        a generic name for the Holy Trinity.
     d. It was used in pre-Islamic times by pagan Arabs to refer to the
        moon-god who was the father of al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat.
     e. It is used by Muslims to refer to their god. 
     Islam and Christianity do not worship the same God. The Christian
     worships the Holy Trinity while the Muslim worships a unitarian deity. 

6. The Fallacy of Force: The Qur'an commands Muslims to wage war against
non-Muslims and apostates (Surah 5:33; 9:5, 29).

Some Muslims use a false analogy to answer this argument. They respond by
saying, "Well, what about the Crusades? You Christians use violence just
like Muslims."

It is logically erroneous to set up a parallel between Muslims killing
people in obedience to the Qur'an and Christians killing people in
disobedience to the Bible. While the Qur'an commands Jihad, the New
Testament forbids it.

7. The Fallacy Of Confusing Questions of Fact with Questions of
Relevance: Whether something is factually true is totally different from
the issue of whether you feel it is relevant. The two issues must be kept
separate.

Examples:
  #1 When a Christian argues that some of the beliefs and rituals of the
     Qur'an came from pre-Islamic Arab paganism, the Muslim will deny it
     at first. But as more and more evidence is given, the Muslim will
     often do a flip-flop and begin arguing, "So what! Didn't you
     Christians get Christmas from the pagans?" The Muslim has now
     committed three fallacies: 
     a. The "So what!" argument is dealing with the issue of relevance,
        not fact. You must stop the Muslim at that point and ask him,
        "Since you are now dealing with the issue of whether the pagan
        origins of the Qur'an are relevant, does this mean that you are
        now agreeing to the fact of the pagan origins of Islam?"
     b. The Muslim has also committed the fallacy of equivocation. The
        Bible is not threatened by historical sources. It freely refers
        to them and even quotes them (Acts 17: 28). But the Qur'an denies
        that it has any earthly historical sources (Surah 25:4-6).
     c. He also committed the fallacy of false analogy. The Bible and
        the Qur'an are two totally different books. The inspiration of
        the Bible does not depend upon the fate of the Qur'an because
        what Muslims claim for the Qur'an is not what Christians claim for
        the Bible. 

8. Phonic Fallacies: The phonetic sound of a word should not be used to
twist its meaning. For example,

  #1 Some Muslims try to prove that the word "Allah" is in the Greek
     New Testament because of the Greek word alla. But while the word is
     pronounced "alla," it only means "but" in Greek. It has nothing to do
     with the Arabic "Allah."
  #2 Some Muslims have claimed that the word "Allah" is in the Bible
     because the Biblical word "Allelujah." They then mispronounce the
     word as "Allah-lujah!" But "Allelujah" is not a compound Arabic word
     with "Allah" being the first part of the word. It is a Hebrew word
     with the name of God being "JAH" (or Yahweh) and the verb "alle"
     meaning "praise to." It means "praise to Yahweh." The Arabic word
     "Allah" is not in the word.
  #3 The same error is found in the Muslim argument that the word
     "Baca" (Psa. 84:6) really means "Mecca." The valley of Baca is in
     northern Israel.
  #4 Some Muslims have tried to go from "Amen" to "Ahmed" to "Muhammed!"
     Such nonsense is beyond belief.

9. "Red Herring" Arguments: When a Muslim is asked to defend the Qur'an,
if he turns around and attacks the reliability of the Bible, the Trinity,
the deity of Christ, the Crusades, etc., he is introducing irrelevant
issues that have no logical bearing on the truthfulness of Islam. He is
trying to divert attention from Islam to other issues.

Furthermore, he is assuming that if he can refute the Bible, then the
Qur'an wins by default. If he can refute the Trinity, then Allah wins by
default. But this is logically erroneous. You cannot prove your position
by refuting someone else's position. The Bible and the Qur'an could both
be wrong. Muslims must prove their own book.

10. Straw Man Arguments: When you put a false argument into the mouth of
your opponent and then proceed to knock it down, you have only created a
"straw man" argument. Muslims sometimes either misunderstand or
deliberately misquote the arguments Christians give them.

Example:
  Some Muslims have built a "straw man" argument that claims that we teach,
      "The Qur'an teaches that Allah is the Moon-god and that Muslims
       knowingly believe in and worship the Moon-god and his daughters."
  They then knock down this "straw man" argument and claim victory. Of
  course, we never said such nonsense. What we have said is that while the
  Qur'an claims that Allah is God and Muslims think they are worshipping
  the one true God, in reality they are worshipping a false god preached by
  a false prophet according to a false book. 

Conclusion

The average Muslim has been deceived by Muslim apologists who use such
logical fallacies without regard to reason, fact or honesty. But there
are many Muslims who want to be rational in their religion and thus have
an open mind to rational discourse. Once they see that their arguments
are based on logical fallacies, they will be open to the wonderful news
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins on the cross.

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T H E   E N D - T I M E S   T I M E S              June 10th, 1999

davidmwilliams@geocities.com