SHABIR ALLY, NADIR AHMED,

AND THE FUTURE OF MUSLIM DEBATE

(With Comments on the Ahmed-Wood Debate)

By David Wood

In recent months, news channels have flooded the world with information about the arrests of numerous terror suspects, who had allegedly planned to blow up a number of British planes. When we combine this with the friction between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the never-ending war in Iraq, rumors of a sinister terrorist plot by Iran, journalists kidnapped in the name of God, and memories of 9-11, it’s easy to understand why Islam is such a hot topic. Articles, books, and even movies abound, as people seek to understand why the “religion of peace” is in the background of so much of the world’s violence. While Westerners, for the most part, have been willing to give Islam the benefit of the doubt (e.g. “It’s not Islam’s fault, it’s just a few bad people”), skepticism regarding Islam is on the rise. 

Since Islamic terror will undoubtedly persist for many years to come, we can expect interest in Islam to continue growing. But this raises an important question: Can Islam hold on to its title as “the world’s fastest growing religion” if the world suddenly puts Islam under the microscope? The obvious answer is that so long as Muslims have extraordinarily high birthrates, Islam will be in little danger of losing adherents. But even this doesn’t seem to be enough. Many Muslims are converting to Christianity (click here to view some testimonies of former Muslims), and some are even becoming atheists. How, then, will Islam survive if the world finally does a little research and learns the truth about the teachings (and especially the deeds) of Muhammad?

Propaganda, it seems, is the only answer. Muslims must spread enough misinformation to keep everyone confused long enough for Muslim birthrates to ensure Islamic dominance throughout the world. This propaganda is taking place on many levels (e.g. the internet, political action, television and radio interviews, etc.). But since Muslims must now address growing concerns about violence and the character of Muhammad, a large part of their defense will have to take place in public debate, where they will need to convince people that there’s really nothing to worry about, and that Muhammad was, after all, a wonderful person. This need for skilled Muslim debaters presents us with a further question, and the topic of my article: Who will be the next great defender of Islam?

Many Christians and Muslims are convinced that Shabir Ally is currently the greatest Muslim debater. While I agree that Shabir was the greatest Muslim debater of recent times, and even of today, I am persuaded that Shabir’s methodology is quickly becoming outdated, as I will explain in the sections that follow. If my reasoning is correct, then Muslims who wish to see their beliefs defended in the public square must soon set their hopes on another champion. Given current trends in Islamic apologetics, I suggest that all Muslims should turn to Nadir Ahmed of examinethetruth.com.

The Ideal 20^th-Century Muslim Debater

Muslim apologists in the West enjoyed a significant advantage in the final decades of the 20^th century. Many people in the United States and Europe, despite a Christian majority, are extremely skeptical of anything associated with Christianity. This negative disposition, for a time, afforded Muslims the opportunity to ride the wave of anti-Christian skepticism. The Western distaste for Christianity was so strong in past years that non-Christian positions enjoyed a long period of favor. Buddhism, Islam, and other religions, for the most part, have been regarded with the utmost tolerance and respect, while Christianity has been viewed with contempt.

Given this prevalent attitude (unfavorable toward Christianity but favorable toward everything else), the best strategy for Muslim apologists in the 20^th century was to keep the spotlight directed against Christianity, thereby avoiding criticisms of Muhammad and Islam altogether.  This presented audiences with the illusion that there are considerable objections to Christianity, but few problems with Islam. 

This, of course, is only one aspect of the most appropriate Muslim debate strategy of the past few decades. If I were to enumerate the characteristics of the ideal 20^th-century Muslim debater, my list would look something like this:

A 20^th-century Muslim debater should:

(1) Be very kind and pleasant, to dispel the myth that Muslims are violent.

(2) Seem so confident that even weak arguments appear strong.

(3) Stay on the offensive against Christianity, to avoid problems related to the character of Muhammad.

(4) Be utterly inconsistent in methodology without making it obvious. That is, the Muslim debater should apply one standard to Christianity and an entirely different standard to Islam, but he must do it without raising suspicion.

Recently, the greatest embodiment of these characteristics, and therefore the ideal Muslim debater, has been Shabir Ally. Shabir is a very pleasant person, typically more pleasant than his opponents. This automatically wins the favor of audience members who tend to side with the nicest debater. Shabir is also likely to score points with people who are swayed by the confidence of the speaker. Hence, as to his demeanor, Shabir is practically perfect for debates.

Further, Shabir has done an extraordinary job keeping Christians on the defensive. His debates focus almost exclusively on Christian topics, such as the resurrection of Jesus and the inspiration of the New Testament, leaving the audience with the impression that all of the difficulties are on the side of Christianity. 

Finally, Shabir has managed to debate numerous opponents using a completely inconsistent methodology. For instance, when he critiques the Christian case for the resurrection of Jesus, he suddenly becomes highly skeptical of miracles. But why should a Muslim, who believes that God performs miracles, be so utterly skeptical of supernatural events? Similarly, when he debates the accuracy of the New Testament, any difficulty with the transmission of the Gospels somehow qualifies as proof that the Bible is unreliable. Yet if Shabir were consistent, he would turn to Islam with the same level of skepticism, and he would be forced to reject the “miracle of the Qur’an,” along with all other Muslim evidences. 

Amazingly, throughout his career, Shabir’s methodology has raised few concerns. Only recently, in his debate with James White, has Shabir’s inconsistency been fully addressed. White challenged Shabir to provide a consistent method whereby Muslims may reject the New Testament (i.e. an argument against the New Testament that wouldn’t also refute the Qur’an), yet Shabir failed to provide such a method. It seems, then, that the Achilles Heel of Muslim apologetics has been found, and that a new age of Muslim debate must soon emerge. (The Ally/White debate is available for download here.) 

The Ideal 21^st-Century Muslim Debater

Islam, then, is in a difficult situation. The methods that served it so well for decades will soon be obsolete. With the rise in terrorism, the slow but steady increase in knowledge about Muhammad’s character flaws, and the growing awareness of the inconsistent methodology of Muslim apologists, Islam’s defenders are in desperate need of a new strategy. Muslims can no longer remain on the offensive. Rather, they must now defend themselves against objections to Islam’s status as a “religion of peace,” and against topics such as Muhammad’s polygamy, his sexual relationship with a nine-year-old girl, his slave-trading, his robberies, his assassinations, and his spiritual problems (e.g. his belief that he was demon-possessed, his susceptibility to magic spells, etc.). Since the dynamics of the debate have changed, a new type of Muslim debater is required. A list of the essential qualities of 21^st-century debate might look like this:

A 21^st-century Muslim debater should:

(1) Try to gain an unfair advantage. Anything will help, especially when Islam is at such a disadvantage when it comes to evidence.[1]

(2) Keep criticisms of Muhammad to a minimum. (Since Muslims won’t be able to avoid these criticisms forever, they must instead be prepared to reduce the impact of Muhammad’s moral failures by deflecting the issue.)

(3) Exaggerate the evidence as much as possible.

(4) Seek to persuade the audience through emotion and rhetoric rather than through reason and logic.

(5) Continue to be inconsistent in methodology, but with the added quality of ignoring the inconsistency when opponents point it out.

I don’t mean any of this in an offensive manner. It’s a simple fact that Islam is in a difficult spot, and that drastic measures are necessary if Islam is to hold its place as one of the world’s great faiths. But if my list of essential qualities is correct, then Shabir Ally is no longer the ideal Muslim debater. Muslims must therefore look to a debater who exhibits the characteristics necessary to excel in the modern arena. As I shall show, Muslims should turn to Nadir Ahmed, and debaters similar to Nadir, to protect the future of Islam. I only realized this after debating Nadir recently (August 5^th, 2006); a quick review of the debate will reveal why I maintain that Nadir may soon be Islam’s most important defender.

Comments on the Ahmed/Wood Debate

The topic of my debate with Nadir was “God: Trinity or Tawheed?” Nadir chose the topic, and he handled everything brilliantly from first to last, showing why I consider him the next great defender of Islam. To illustrate, consider the many ways Nadir exhibited the five characteristics of a Muslim debater. 

On June 11^th, Nadir sent me an email saying that he would like to exchange our arguments prior to the debate. I objected at first, but in the end Nadir prevailed. Thus, he sent me the four objections he would be raising against Christianity, and I sent him the four objections I would be raising against Islam (all of them related to the reliability of Muhammad, which partially account for my reluctance to accept Muhammad’s religious teachings). Nadir also promised that he wouldn’t bring up other issues.

However, for whatever reason, during the debate Nadir only used one of the four arguments he had sent me. In place of the arguments he had agreed to use, he instead launched an attack on the lack of scientific and archaeological evidence for the New Testament. This change of arguments, of course, gave Nadir a tremendous advantage: whereas he was familiar with all of my criticisms prior to the debate, I was left in the dark as to the arguments he would actually use. Moreover, since Nadir sent me several never-to-be-used criticisms ahead of time, my preparation for the debate centered on those four issues; hence, much of my preparation turned out to be useless, as Nadir focused on other areas.

Nadir, then, was able to enter the debate with an advantage. This shows that he meets the first characteristic of the ideal 21^st-century Muslim debater. Yet, as we shall see, he also meets all the others. For instance, I told Nadir prior to the debate that (1) my reason for rejecting the doctrine of Tawheed is that I reject Muhammad as a prophet, and that (2) I reject Muhammad as a prophet because some of his actions were despicable and because he was apparently spiritually unstable (that is, if a person claims to be sent from God, and he is clearly immoral and shows signs of spiritual instability, it’s difficult to accept his teachings as divine and authoritative). Nadir protested that references to the reliability of Muhammad were off topic, since we were debating the Trinity. Yet Nadir eventually allowed me to share a few reasons for my rejection of Muhammad. This represents a crucial development in Muslim/Christian debate, for Muslims rarely allow any criticism of Muhammad. Nevertheless, Nadir did an excellent job limiting my objections prior to the debate, and of deflecting them during the exchange (this fulfills the second characteristic). Many of his answers were factually false,[2] but this hardly mattered since I didn’t have enough time to point out all of the mistakes.

The third characteristic of the ideal Muslim debater is that he must be able to exaggerate the evidence. To put it simply, if a position lacks evidence, its defenders must exaggerate the evidence to make it seem believable. This characteristic can be clearly seen in Nadir’s argument about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. In his opening statement, Nadir said that Islam, by outlawing alcohol, has saved “billions” of babies from this tragic birth defect. Later, during the crossfire, he said that the Qur’an has saved “billions upon billions” of babies. By the time Nadir gave his conclusion, the number had increased to “billions upon billions upon billions.” So we see the “evidence” for Islam steadily growing throughout the debate. But there’s an even greater instance of exaggeration here. Has the Qur’an really saved “billions upon billions upon billions” of babies? I’d love to see some evidence for Nadir’s figures! 

Nadir’s argument about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome also provides us with a perfect illustration of Characteristic Four—persuading through emotion and rhetoric rather than through logic and evidence. I responded to Nadir’s argument by pointing out (1) that other cultures have outlawed alcohol, which means that, if his argument is correct, these other cultures must also be from God, and (2) that just because Muhammad outlawed alcohol doesn’t mean that he was doing it because God wanted to save children. Perhaps Muhammad just didn’t like alcohol, because of the bad effects it produced in his followers. Yet these responses did absolutely nothing to phase Nadir, because his argument was so charged with emotion. He simply kept repeating that the Qur’an has saved “billions” of children, and his claims had the desired effect. Muslims in the audience sat quietly with deep awe as they thought about all the little children who had been saved by the Qur’an. But Nadir never really addressed the problems with his argument. Instead, he relied almost exclusively on emotion.

Nadir also relied on rhetoric throughout the debate. He claimed that the arguments he provided were “conclusive proof” that the Qur’an is from God. In his rebuttal, he confidently declared that the debate was over, since I hadn’t offered decisive proof of the scientific and archaeological evidence for the New Testament. He then asserted, with no evidence whatsoever, that the resurrection is “not germane,” since God’s “trademark” is scientific and archaeological proof. Yet Nadir spoke with such confidence that I’m sure he convinced some of his listeners that he had indeed offered conclusive proof, that the debate really was over, and that perhaps the resurrection doesn’t matter after all.

As to the fifth characteristic of the ideal Muslim debater—being inconsistent while ignoring objections about consistency—Nadir was flawless. I even called him to account for his inconsistency during the crossfire. I pointed out that whatever arguments he can find from the Qur’an somehow provide “conclusive proof” for Islam, but that similar arguments from the Bible seem to have no value at all for him. This means that Nadir is applying two different standards of evidence. Anything in the Qur’an, no matter how insignificant, is good evidence, while any argument from the Bible, no matter how good it is, is insignificant. But Nadir ignored my charge of inconsistency and merely repeated his claim that the Qur’an has saved “billions” of children from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Many debaters would find these tactics appalling, but the bottom line is that this strategy works. In any given audience, there will be people who are easily swayed by things like emotion, exaggeration, rhetoric, etc. If Muslims focus on such people, then Muslims will win debates in the eyes of a portion of the audience. Lest my readers doubt the effectiveness of the Muslim strategy, consider briefly what happened in my debate with Nadir. In my opening statement, I argued that Jesus is the most reliable messenger of God, since He is the one who rose from the dead. I then showed, historically, that Jesus claimed to be divine. After that, I offered six arguments for the accuracy of the New Testament. Finally, having established the reliability of my sources, I proceeded to make a case for the Trinity. Nadir made only one objection to the resurrection (Osiris), and I easily refuted this objection. He also made only one objection to my case for the deity of Christ, which was even more easily refuted. Other than that, Nadir never addressed my arguments, not even my argument for the Trinity! Instead, he stated that, while he could easily refute my case, he didn’t want to overburden me. He then proceeded to offer four arguments for the reliability of the Qur’an, all of which were horribly flawed. In my first rebuttal, I offered some objections to the reliability of Muhammad, and most of Nadir’s replies were factually false. Additionally, in the course of the debate, Nadir said that there’s nothing wrong with a man having sex with a nine-year-old girl (provided they are married); he admitted that Muhammad declared that apostates should be killed; he said that stars may, after all, be missiles that God uses to shoot demons; and he referred to the Jewish homeland as “the terrorist nation of Israel.” Yet Nadir continued telling the audience about the “billions” of children who have been saved, and he asserted, with complete confidence, that he had won the debate. Not surprisingly, probably all of the Muslims in the audience agreed with him. Like it or not, the Muslim strategy is effective.

Is There Hope for Muslims?

Many Christians are discouraged by Christian/Muslim debates. No matter how strong the Christian arguments are, Muslims can quite easily win a portion of the audience by pounding their fists on the table and saying that the Qur’an has saved lots of children. Muslim debaters can also declare, over and over again, that they’ve won the debate, and some people will be swayed by this. While this is indeed discouraging, there is still hope for Muslims. I only realized this magnificent fact after reviewing my debate with Nadir.

As I said earlier, Nadir didn’t use most of the arguments he said he would use. Instead, he kept challenging me, on the spot, to produce scientific, archaeological, and prophetic evidence for the New Testament (since resurrections, according to Nadir, don’t count as evidence). In response, I mentioned Jesus’ claim that, at His second coming, some people would be working in the field, some people would be grinding grain, and some people would be in bed (see Matthew 24:40-41; Luke 17:34-35). This sounds as if Jesus knew that, at any given moment, different people around the world are experiencing different times of day, and therefore that Jesus somehow knew that the earth is round. I also pointed out that Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem. However, I was careful to note that I don’t even use these arguments as evidence for Christianity.[3] Rather, I was giving examples similar to the ones used by Nadir.

Nadir’s responses to my examples were enlightening. He claimed that Jesus’ statements about His return provide no evidence for Christianity, since Jesus could have been referring to people sleeping during the day. Nadir also rejected Jesus’ prophecy about the fall of Jerusalem, because Jesus’ followers could have made up this prophecy after Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. Once Nadir had offered these responses, I accused him of being inconsistent, though he ignored my charge. Later, after considering what he said, I was unexpectedly filled with a breath of hope.  Let me explain why.

Nadir’s reasoning was partially correct when he responded to my examples. If I’m claiming that something supernatural has occurred, I must first rule out plausible natural explanations. In other words, if there is a perfectly reasonable natural explanation for some fact, there’s no need to appeal to divine intervention to explain it. Thus, while Jesus’ claims about His second coming seem to indicate that He knew that there are different times of day for different people, He could have been talking about people taking a nap during the day (although, since I’m not speaking off the top of my head now, I can note that Jesus specifically says “night” when He refers to the people in bed). And while the evidence shows that Jesus’ prophecy about the fall of Jerusalem predates the actual fall, I didn’t offer any proof of this, so Nadir was entirely within his epistemic rights to say that the disciples may have added the prophecy after the fall had occurred.

The key here is to notice that Nadir was rejecting miracle claims because, in each case, there was a reasonable naturalistic explanation. This shows that Nadir has the ability to reason properly about religious evidence, and this is an encouraging fact. The problem is that Nadir turns off this ability when he investigates Islam. Think about it for a moment. What was the method Nadir used to examine the Christian claims? He employed a rule, which we might state like this: “Whenever there is a suitable naturalistic explanation for a fact, the fact can’t be used as evidence for a miracle.” But what would happen if Nadir applied this method to his arguments for Islam? Perhaps we should examine them.

First, Nadir argued that, since the Qur’an mentions a city named Iram, and Muhammad couldn’t have known about this city, Muslims have archaeological proof that the Qur’an is from God. Now let’s apply the method Nadir used against my examples. Is there a reasonable naturalistic explanation as to how Muhammad knew about this city? Yes. Perhaps he heard about it from other people, or from records that are now lost. This is a perfectly reasonable explanation for Muhammad’s knowledge of the city of Iram, and therefore this argument shouldn’t be used as evidence for Islam (according to Nadir’s own method). Yet Nadir used it anyway, and claimed that it is conclusive proof for Islam. (In case anyone thinks that Nadir’s argument is good, I must note that we know, from Muslim sources, that other people were talking about Iram at the time of Muhammad. According to the Sirat Rasul Allah, the Jews prior to Muhammad were saying, “We shall follow him and kill you by his aid as Ad and Iram perished.”[4] So, contrary to Nadir’s claims in the debate, the city of Iram was known to the people of Arabia. How can it be a miracle that Muhammad mentioned a city that other people knew about as well?)

Next, Nadir quoted the Qur’an, where God said to Muhammad that the Jews fight from behind walls (59:14). Nadir went on to argue that the Jews, in modern times, have built a wall between themselves and the Muslims, and that this is a clear fulfillment of prophecy. But let’s not forget Nadir’s method of investigation. Is there another reasonable explanation for this statement in the Qur’an? Yes. The Jews during the time of Muhammad were fighting from behind walls (and we know, historically, that this happened). And, in context, this sounds like what the verse means. In other words, the verse sounds like a comment on how the Jews were fighting, not a prophecy of a futuristic wall. So does Nadir’s argument succeed? Not even by his own method!

Third, Nadir quoted surah 21:33, which says that the sun and moon have orbits. He also said that the verse requires no interpretation, since it’s so obviously true. The problem is that it requires a great deal of interpretation. In fact, without adding some interpretation, this verse is a scientific error. It’s the earth that orbits the sun, not the other way around. As I pointed out in the debate, the only way we could say that the sun has an orbit is if we say that, since the Milky Way is spinning, the sun will eventually travel all the way around the galaxy, and this is a kind of “orbit.” But I also said that Muslims would have to show that this is what the Qur’an meant. For if we take the verse at face value, it sounds like the sun and moon are orbiting the earth, and  in the case of the sun, this is false. So does this count as “conclusive proof” of the reliability of the Qur’an? Again, not according to Nadir’s method.

Finally, we have Nadir’s argument about the “billions upon billions upon billions” of children saved from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome due to the Qur’an. Though this argument certainly had the biggest impact on Muslims in the audience, it was also one of the weakest arguments of the debate. Nadir reasoned as follows:

(1) The Qur’an came either from God or from Satan (there are no other possibilities).

(2) The Qur’an saved billions of children from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

(3) Since Satan doesn’t want to save children, the Qur’an could only have come from God.

Now let’s look more closely at these claims. Is it true that a book can only come from either God or Satan? Absolutely not, and I told Nadir during the debate that I reject this claim. Practically every writing in history came from the hands of men and women (I’m thinking of the Ten Commandments as an exception). So the first part of Nadir’s argument is false. But what about the claim that the Qur’an saved billions of children? Is this true? Of course it isn’t. There have only been a few billion Muslims throughout history, so unless Nadir is willing to argue that all of them would have suffered from FAS, there’s no basis for his claim. So it seems that the second part of his argument is false as well.

But we may go further. Let’s take the method Nadir used against the New Testament and apply it to his argument here. Is there a reasonable natural explanation as to why Muhammad outlawed alcohol? Yes. Perhaps he didn’t like it for various reasons (and we have evidence from Muslim sources to support this). So can we honestly say that Islam must have come from God because it outlawed alcohol? As I said earlier, if Nadir wants to say this, he would also have to say that every other leader who outlawed alcohol must have been from God, since all of them would have saved “billions upon billions upon billions” of children. Moreover, if Nadir really believes in his argument, he shouldn’t object to the following argument:

(1) The New Testament came either from God or from Satan.

(2) The New Testament tells Christians to love their neighbors.

(3) Since Satan doesn’t want people to love their neighbors, the New Testament could only have come from God.

Of course, if I were to present Nadir with this argument, his reasoning ability would suddenly turn back on, and he would immediately see that the argument is awful. It’s strange that he can’t see the same errors in his case for Islam. All of this makes me think that, if there is a miracle in Islam, it is Islam’s “miraculous” ability to cause its adherents to turn off their God-given reasoning abilities whenever they examine their own religion.

But how does this show that there is hope for Muslims? Quite simply, Nadir’s investigation of Christianity shows that Muslims really do have the ability to analyze arguments logically. If Christians can encourage Muslims to investigate Islam carefully, using the abilities God has given them, Muslims will find that the arguments used to defend it are absurd. They’ll find that in every case, when something is claimed to be supernatural, a far more obvious explanation is available. Then, if they turn to investigate Christianity with an open mind, they’ll find a far more compelling case for a supernatural event—an event Nadir barely attempted to refute in our debate. Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Two thousand years later, no one has found a natural explanation that explains the facts about Jesus. Thus, if Nadir uses his method consistently, he will find that there is supernatural proof for Christianity; and if he’s really concerned about going where the evidence points, we may one day welcome Nadir into the Kingdom of God. Until then, I say this to all Muslims:  Turn to Nadir to help defend your faith. There are few who exhibit all of the characteristics necessary to defend Islam. The future of Muslim debate, then, lies in the hands of Nadir Ahmed.   

The Ahmed-Wood Debate

You may listen to the Ahmed-Wood debate by clicking on these links:

• David’s Opening Statement

• Nadir’s Opening Statement

• David’s First Rebuttal

• Nadir’s First Rebuttal

• David’s Second Rebuttal

• Nadir’s Second Rebuttal

• Crossfire

• David’s Closing Statement

• Nadir’s Closing Statement

• Q & A

SUPPLEMENT

During our exchange, Nadir challenged me to debate him on the resurrection, and I gladly accepted. After the debate, I emailed Nadir and suggested that, since we’ll be getting together for a debate on the resurrection, we should go ahead and debate his evidence for the Qur’an as well. Ironically, several months ago, our original plan was to debate the scientific evidence for the Qur’an. But Nadir wanted to debate the Trinity, and I agreed to his topic of choice. Then, during the debate, Nadir said practically nothing about the Trinity, and instead talked about the scientific evidence for the Qur’an! This didn’t work out very well, since I never bothered studying the scientific claims for the Qur’an, and since Nadir wasn’t prepared to talk about the Trinity. Some additional debates, then, would be nice. However, Nadir is currently under fire from Muslims for saying that Islam permits sex with animals, so I’m not sure there will be any further debates. Nadir is also under fire from Muslims for taking statements out of context and using them to suggest that certain Christian apologists are homosexuals. It’s good to see that even Muslims are taking a stand against Nadir’s tactics. Perhaps the same qualities that make a person the ideal Muslim debater also produce self-destructive behavior. (For Muslim criticisms of Nadir, see “Sex with Animals: Is Nadir Ahmed really a mentally stable person?” For a skeptic's thoughts on Nadir, see "The Phenomenon that is Nadir Ahmed." For Christian replies to Nadir, click here.)