There has been a popular demand for a ban on Peace TV and Dr Zakir Naik. Popular Talk show hosts, politicians, activists, religious scholars and social media has commented that the activities of Dr Naik should be banned. While the government may fail to implement such a ban due to legal hassles, we must remember that it is Dr Naik himself who is the strongest advocate for a ban on his own activities.
Answering a question on why other religions should not be allowed to be preached in Saudi Arabia, Dr Naik says:
" Suppose you are a principal of a school and you have to select a Mathematics teacher. It is obvious that you will interview the candidates. If one teacher says that 2 + 2 = 3, the other says 2 + 2 = 4 and the third says 2 + 2 = 5 whom will you select? Since you know mathematics is logical, you will never select or allow a person to teach mathematics who doesn’t even know the basics of arithmetic that 2 + 2 = 4."
Dr Naik gives the analogy of a Math teacher who says something as absurd a 2+2= 5 to justify why other religions should not be allowed in Saudi Arabia.
However, In this video Dr Naik is seen saying that Homo Sapiens is an extinct species, which is as absurd as teaching 2+2=5.
Since Dr Naik believes that people should not be allowed to propagate ideas which are demonstrably false and it can be easily demonstrated that the things which Dr Naik preaches are as absurd as teaching 2+2=5, Dr Naik himself is the strongest advocate of a ban on his activities and is honor bound to stop preaching even if the Government of India fails to ban him.
By now the lack of academic quality and research in the contents of IRF is quite evident and I went into the article ‘Concept of God in Islam’ under the Islam section of comparative religion expecting one more article of no academic merit and here too Dr Naik did not disappoint. It can be said that this by far is the article ranks lowest in quality.
He spends more words trying to ridicule Hinduism than trying to present the Islamic Concept of God and defending them. The article begins by stating that Islam has the most concise definition of god and quoting a verse
"Say: He is Allah,
The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
[Al-Qur’an 112:1-4]
He makes no attempt to justify the Islamic definition of God or to explain how it is the most concise definition and merely states that “The word ‘Assamad’ is difficult to translate. It means ‘absolute existence’, which can be attributed only to Allah (swt), all other existence being temporal or conditional (What about Existence itself? Existence, the Phenomena, is Absolute. It is Eternal). It also means that Allah (swt) is not dependent on any person or thing, but all persons and things are dependent on Him.”. He does not provide any further explanation.
He moves on to Surah Ikhlas which he calls the touchstone of theology and states
“Surah Ikhlas (Chapter 112) of the Glorious Qur’an, is the touchstone of theology. ‘Theo’ in Greek means God and ‘logy’ means study. Thus Theology means study of God and to Muslims this four line definition of Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to this ‘acid test’. Since the attributes of Allah given in this chapter are unique, false gods and pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using these verses.”
Again he makes no attempt to explain why this should be accepted as the touchstone of theology. God is like this Because Quran says so, and since Quran is from God, it must be true. (Circular Logic)
He then moves on to try the ‘acid test’ on Bhagwan Rajneesh (Osho) to see if he passes the criteria. He must have been high on drugs to pull up antics like these and putting them up on his official website Does he believe his readers to be foolish enough to fall for this? Osho is not a god in Hindu scriptures; he is merely a new age spirituality guru. Subjecting Osho to his ‘Acid test’ because he used the title ‘Bhagwan’ is similar to subjecting Akbar to the ‘acid test’ of divinity as muslims say ‘Allahu akbar’ which means Allah is Akbar.
It is clear that this is more an attempt to tarnish Hinduism than to explain Islam. God-men in Hinduism are not much different from charlatans like Dr Naik himself who make a living by duping the gullible masses except that worshiping Dr Naik is forbidden by Islam. That hasn’t stopped conmen like him from building a multi-million dollar industry in the name of faith through lies and deception anyhow. Evidently Hinduism is no more vulnerable to fraudsters than Islam.
Dr Naik then says:
“Many are tempted to make anthropomorphic comparisons of God. Take for instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the famous body builder and Hollywood actor, who won the title of ‘Mr. Universe’, the strongest man in the world. Let us suppose that someone says that Almighty God is a thousand times stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The moment you can compare any entity to God, whether the comparison is to Schwarzenegger or to King Kong, whether it is a thousand times or a million times stronger, it fails the Qur’anic criterion, "There is none like unto Him".” This is a absurd claim. God of Islam is claimed to be Merciful. Is Mercy exclusive property of Islamic god Allah? Volume 8, Book 73, Number 29:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
I heard Allah's Apostle saying, Allah divided Mercy into one-hundred parts and He kept its ninety-nine parts with Him and sent down its one part on the earth, and because of that, its one single part, His creations are Merciful to each other, so that even the mare lifts up its hoofs away from its baby animal, lest it should trample on it."
Allah is 100 times more merciful than the combined Mercy of all Creations. Whaa...?
At this point i would like to ask him about his opinion on the muslims who says that love of allah is seventy times the love of one’s mother. Does that count as anthropomorphism as per Dr Naik? Is there any Islamic reference which says that love of Allah is seventy times the love of one’s mother? If yes does Allah fail the Quranic criterion too?
As usual the rest of the articles is filled with rhetoric where he goes on to present verses from quran and a brief explanation without bothering to defend them. I do not feel that these are in need of any further analysis.
Note: This article was written in May 2013 and focuses primarily on an article written by Hamza Tzortzis. A lot has changed since then and Hamza Tzortzis has withdrawn his arguments. Concluding that the scientific miracles in the Qur’ān narrative is incoherent. However, the claims of Quran containing scientific knowledge which can only be explained by its divine origin is an often repeated one and thus, this article has not lost its relevance. I hope Mr. Tzortzis' article on the matter would encourage a discussion on the matter, and help Dr Naik and his fans to change their minds.
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In this article we will examine the claims that the Quran contains an accurate description of the stages of development of a human embryo. We are analyzing a paper by Hamza Andreas Tzortizis and the claims of the article on embryology in the website quranandscience.com
For the sake of brevity we are moving on straight to the analysis of the verses referring to embryology of quran.
1)"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest." (Quran 23:13) (quranand science.com, Hamza Andreas Tzortzis )
The article in Quran and science says that the word ‘nutfah’ can be interpreted as a sperm but a zygote will be a more meaningful interpretation (without taking the trouble to explain the reason why).
Hamza Tzortzis’s article mentions that ‘nutfah’ can either mean a minute quantity of semen or a singular entity out of a large group or it could mean mingled sexual fluids of a male or a female.
However, when we consider the following verse: Had he not been a sperm (nutfah) from a semen (maniyyin) emitted? 40 It is easily seen that the meaning sperm cannot be correct as the sperm only contains a half of genetic blueprint of a person. The other half is in the ovum therefore ‘He’ had never been a sperm. The sperm will not give the same person if it fertilizes another ovum. So the translation of ‘nutfah’ as sperm will mean that the Quran is wrong. So, mingled fluid is the only translation which will not lead the Quran to contradict modern science. Now, if we translate ‘nutfah’ as mixed sexual fluids of male and female, the fact that embryo develops from mixed sexual fluids of males and females was already known to early Greek physicians like Hippocrates,Aristotle and Galen. Aristotle's understanding of reproduction involved two concepts: form and matter. He compared the male element, semen, to an artisan shaping the raw material provided by the female into a product.
2)"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure." (Quran 23:14)(quranandscience.com)
Then We made that drop of fluid into a clinging form (ᶜalaqah) ( Hamza Tzortis )
The description of the embryo as a leech like structure at 23-24 days is highly inaccurate. By the 3rd week (15-17days) the notochordal process starts indicating that the embryo will develop into a chordate and not an annelid like a leech which lacks a notochord.
At no stage of its development an embryo ingests blood like a leech, there is an exchange of nutrition and oxygen between the foetus and the mother’s blood through the process of diffusion. It should also be noted that at this stage of development the embryo obtains its nutrition from the yolk sac and not through sucking maternal blood, as suggested in the articles. Maternal blood does not cross the placental barrier under normal circumstances. The yolk sac is deliberately removed from the picture giving the embryo a misleading leech like appearance. The yolk sack remains attached to the embryo till the 6th – 10th week which is well past the ‘mudghah’ stage at 4 weeks
The description of the embryo as a clot is also mentioned by Galen.The superficial resemblance of an embryo at this stage to a leech or worm is visible to the naked eye. Both Quranandscience.com and Hamza Tzortzis wrongly asserts that the embryo at this stage is not visible to the naked eye. At this stage the embryo is about 3-5 mm in size which is about as large as a pinworm and is easily visible without the aid of an optical instrument. At no stage after fertilization an embryo is smaller than 0.1 mm which is the smallest size visible to the naked eye.
Both Hamza Tzortzis and quranandscience.com say that lenses and optical microscopes were not available at the time of the revelation of the quran. And there was no means to properly observe the foetus at this stage. They are wrong again; the earliest evidence of a magnifying device was from 424 BC. Aristophenes used a glass globe filled with water as a lens. Seneca wrote that it could be used to read letters no matter how dim or small. It is not inconceivable that such devices were in use long before the birth of Mohammad and widely used to observe tiny objects.
3)"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump." (Quran 23:14) (quranandscience.com)/
and then We made that form into a lump of flesh (mudghah)(Hamza Tzortzis)
This is really curious. The Quran mentions chewed fleshy lump and the best thing they can find to demonstrate that the embryo fits the description is chewing gum (which can be molded by hand to resemble anything). Are they trying to imply that the prophet was in the habit of chewing sugar-free gum in 6th century AD. Why chewing gum of all substances. This clearly exposes the cheap tricks these guys are up to.In any case by this time (26 day) the embryo is already about half a centimeter in size and easily visible to the unaided eye. And its fleshiness can easily be felt through touch.
4)"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh." (Quran 23:14)
"Then We developed out of it another creature." (Quran 23:14)
This is highly inaccurate as it implies that there is a stage in development of the fetus where the bones are not clothed in flesh. At all stages the bones remain clothed in flesh.
An examination of the relevant verses shows that the claims of modern embryology in the Quran are highly exaggerated and by no means superior to the embryological knowledge which was already in existence at the time. In the article Hamza Tzortzis he continues to ask questions like is the prophet a liar and did the prophet plagiarize the Greeks. These are nothing but an appeal to emotion. Even though an accusation of plagiarism cannot be made on the prophet it is very likely that he was exposed to the knowledge. Now, the question is would God be so insincere as to ‘miraculously’ reveal knowledge which is by no means superior to the knowledge that was already available at the time ?
Hamza Tzortzis goes on to address the problem that the quran states that the sperms come from between the ribs and the backbone by saying that the most of the semen is from the seminal vesicles located between the backbone and the ribs. This is unacceptable because the fluid from seminal vesicle cannot fertilize an egg. The substance that ‘creates’ life comes from the testes. Any intellectual dialogue is meaningless when one party is willing to stoop to such levels of intellectual dishonesty.
In Addition to the above verses several verses are mentioned in the article in quranandscience.com. These verses are analysed below.
5)"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness." (Quran 36:6) (quranandscience.com )
The article goes on to assert that it is unknown when humans realized that the embryo underwent development in the womb (uterus) and the earliest known illustration of a foetus in uterus was by Leonardo da Vinci. Which is simply untrue, Galen (2nd century) was aware of the fact that the embryo developed in the womb. Mahabharata talks of Abhimanyu learning martial skills in the womb of his mother. So it is clear that the knowledge that the fetus developed in the womb is much older than the article claims it to be.
The article continues on to assert that it was not known that the embryo developed in stages; which again is untrue. The earliest records documenting abortion are in the Codes of Hammurabi 1760 BCE, while the first record of an induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Abortions were practiced by the ancient Chinese and the Greeks and it can be said with certainty that they came into contact with foetuses in various stage of its development. Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher is known to have stated “Not at once is the animal a man or a horse, for the end is last attained; and the specific form is the end of each development."
The article mentions the three veils of the darkness to be (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall; and (3) the amniochorionic membrane and explains “Although there are other interpretations of this statement, the one presented here seems the most logical from an embryological point of view.” I wonder why the layers of the skin epidermis, dermis and hypodermis have been left out from the ‘layers of darkness’ increasing the number of layers of darkness to six. It is evident that this is a pathetic attempt to tailor religious teachings to fit modern science.
6)"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding." (Quran 32:9)
There is no reason to conclude that this verse gives the order in which the senses develop and not simply stating that allah has given the above mentioned senses to humans.
7)"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed." (Quran 22:5)
This is not surprising as the foetus is already visible to the naked eye by this stage and the physicians of the time obviously observed partially formed human and non human embryos.
8)"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term." (Quran 22:5)
This too was well known that not all pregnancies complete its full term and many are terminated and it is not surprising the decision of termination of a pregnancy was attributed to God, like everything else including flight of a bird for example. Why is being asserted again and again that only a “Divine Source” could be the source of this, when people back to the age of Galen and Aristotle already knew this?
After examining the verses we can conclude that the claims of knowledge of embryology in the Quran are highly exaggerated. The Quran does not contain any knowledge which is by any means superior than the knowledge already existing at the time of its revelation. P.S: This excellent Blog thoroughly debunks Hamza Tzortzis' "Lexical Analysis" of the verses on embryology in the Quran. I would request the readers of my blog to read it if they have the time or to watch this short video.
The rise in Islamic evangelical organizations has resulted in mushrooming of Islamic International Schools all over the country. Most prominent among these is IIS run by the IRF. These schools cater to the education of Muslim children whose parents want their children to be educated in an Islamic setting. These schools boast of being either under the process of affiliation to IGCSE or having an IGSCE affiliation. These Schools lure parents through promises of imparting education of formal subjects in accordance along with the Islamic perspective and reference. No wonder Muslim parents seeking the best education for their children fall for the promise of a globally recognised syllabus, without considering the long term consequences of such schools.
What I find surprising is the silence that the boards of education and the government of India have adopted on the issue. Perhaps, they too are not farsighted enough to see the impact of segregated Islamic education on secularism. These schools will create a breed of ‘educated’ Muslims with no appreciation of other religions and secularism. (their allegiance would be to Cairo’s declaration of Human Rights) This in turn will pave the way for more fundamentalist breed of Muslim hardliners within a few generations. Combined with an active conversion program run by IRF the consequences of this can be devastating to secularism and religious tolerance if this trend continues unchecked.
It is really surprising to see that a man who has been banned in many countries for hate mongering and has been criticized for his views on evolution can openly run a school which boasts of being under the process of being affiliated to IGCSE, Cambridge University. It is unfortunate that Sanal Edmaruku, a rationalist and promoter of scientific awareness has been charged with blasphemy and faces a possibility of three years of arrest for exposing a miracle while fraudsters and hatemongers like Dr Naik continues to be listed among most influential Muslims in the world, top spiritual gurus and most influential Muslims in India.
Clearly these schools will mislead its students into Islamic fundamentalism while dealing a blow to scientific education, creating a breed of Muslim with skewed perspective on secularism and science dressed in smart business suits, who will continue Dr Naik’s mission to mislead the gullible. This is in fact what the school state as its mission. In it’s ‘about us’ section the official IIS website states Dr Naik to be nurturing a dream of uplifting the ‘Generation Next’... to be multiple times more talented than him. That is an ominous statement and this certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of the society.
Finally Dr. Zakir Naik and IRF is getting some attention from the mainstream media and the Government of India. His speeches, funding and foreign links are being investigated. These actions were long overdue. It gives me great satisfaction to finally see some action. This blog was started with the primary objective of rebutting the arguments raised by Dr Zakir Naik. Some of the articles on my drafts folder were written in 2013. However, due to personal problems I haven't been able to publish them in time.
While it gives me pleasure to see that something is finally being done to address I am highly skeptical that the actions will actually yield much result. The key to address the problem is to understand its nature. We need to understand Dr. Naik and what is it that makes him dangerous.
The question which must be in everyone's mind is "Is Dr Naik a hate preacher?". The answer to the question unfortunately is NO. He is not a hate preacher. While some of his sermons do border on hate speech, on the surface they seem far less vitriolic than the ones made by his Hindu counterparts. So, any severe action will only make him a martyr in the eyes of his followers. What makes him dangerous is that the vitriol in his speech is highly diluted. Which makes it hard to detect for his followers and as a result they are exposed to large amount of it over the course of a long period.
The speeches made by Dr. Naik cannot be classified as highly inflammatory. While it is possible to stumble upon something objectionable once in a while but he can easily escape the charges by mumbling an apology (as he did with his comments on Lord Ganesha) or by pointing out that far more offensive speech are being made by others and playing the victim. Which will only give the impression that he is being persecuted by the Hindu right wing for preaching the truth.
The strategy of Dr Naik is not to incite his followers to blow themselves up at a crowded place. It is to mislead his followers to believe that Islam is well supported by scientific facts and rational arguments and to create an unquestionable belief in the truth of Islam (or his version of it.). When such followers encounter someone from another faith or no faith. He is bound to attempt to bring the person into the folds of Islam. This would either end in a new convert or lead to counter arguments from the other person. Being unaccustomed to reasoning and debates (because all of Zakir Naiks video shows him shutting people of other faiths up with his 'arguments') The follower would only conclude that Non-Muslims deny the truth of the Quran despite overwhelming evidence. This could only be because Non-Muslims are mislead by Shaitan and in turn are misleading young Muslims. He will learn to despise Non-Muslim and his path would now be laid clear before him: He must fight for the cause of Allah!
The only way to successfully address the problem is through proper debate. Non-Muslims need to be armed with proper arguments against Dr Naik. His speeches and articles need to be countered rationally and calmly. It must be made clear that Dr Naik is misleading his fans into believing that there is irrefutable evidence that the Quran is a message from God. It would not be enough to put bans on him.
I would attempt to publish the articles that I have written and attempt to expose Dr Naik for the fraud that he is and to arm the Non-Muslims to counter the claims made by his followers. The articles do lack finishing touches but i hope they will contribute in the fight to stop Zakir Naik.
