“…taking the words of the Quran as loose allegories and recommendations, or scripture applicable only to limited time spans, Muhammad had already anticipated such apostasy…”

I have always wondered where an uneducated Adolf Hitler got his talent for manipulating the masses and fooling educated diplomats. In view of all that has been written recently about the violence invoked by the Quran and the above observations about an illiterate desert sand flea’s political abilities, the Angel of Allah (if he existed at all) could only have been the Angel of Light: Lucifer himself, not Gabriel; for if you are the Devil, what better way to draw people away from God than to invent a religion that does just that? (Note: God is not Allah.)

My advice to Schwartz and others: Save yourself (if you can) before it’s too late.

There is one further matter which you have omitted; one that in my view goes to the heart of the difference between Islam and Western civilization. That is the role of the Ten Commandments.

As you will know, the Koran does actually mention the goings-on at Mount Sinai, or what it refers to as “the towering height of Mount Sinai”, but it depicts a different set of events.

The Jewish and Christian version is found at Exodus, Chapters 19 and 20, and Deuteronomy Chapter 5.

It starts with God offering this: “If ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant” – and “all the people” replied saying, “all that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” [Exodus 19:8]

The Koran refers to this as “a Covenant from the children of Israel.” [Koran 5:13, and see 2:63 and 5:73]

But what happened next, according to the Koran, is what creates a “great divide” between the teachings of Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, and Islam on the other.

The Koran says this: “God did aforetime take a Covenant from the Children of Israel, And We appointed twelve Captains among them. And God said: ‘I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practice regular charity, believe in my apostles, honor and assist them, and loan to God a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to the gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resist faith, he hath truly wandered from the path of rectitude.” [5:13]

So, in place of the Ten Commandments, the Koran puts the Five Pillars of Islam, or at least the first of these, because fasting during Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca would come later. The Five Pillars, we should remember, are: affirming that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah (the Shahādah); ritual prayer five times a day (Salāh); giving alms on a determined scale (Zakāh); fasting during Ramadān (Sawn); and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime (Hajj).

According to the Koran therefore, God did not hand down the Ten Commandments under “the towering height of Mount Sinai”, but the first part of the Five Pillars of Islam. It substitutes rituals for Principles.

Now before I’m brought to task by Muslims, let me acknowledge that they do consider the Koran to incorporate the Ten Commandments, just not in the form the Jews and Christians understand them – as having been handed down by God to Moses at Mount Sinai.

These are some of the verses of the Koran Muslims identify as incorporating the Ten Commandments: Commandment 1 – 47:10-19 and 28:52; Commandment 2 – 42:11, 6:103, and 14:35; Commandment 3 – 2:224; Commandment 4 – 16:124 (claiming that this Commandment regarding the Sabbath was only applicable to the Jews), and 11:114, 17:78-79, 20:130, and 30:17-19; Commandment 5 – 17:23; Commandment 6 – 5:32-35 and 17:33; Commandment 7 – 17:32; Commandment 8 – 5:41-42; Commandment 9 – 24:7, 2:283, and 4:135; Commandment 10 – 20:131.

Because of this, many argue that the issue is a moot point. How can it matter, I am often told, when or where God handed down the Ten Commandments? According to Muslims, the Koran is the actual word of God in any event, so it matters not whether God handed down the Ten Commandments all at once at a specific place, and at a specific time, or whether He revealed them to the Prophet Mohammed in the course of His revelations.

That argument has tended to neutralize the issue. But it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the Ten Commandments, and their place at the heart of Judaism and Christianity, and thus Western civilization.

The point about the Ten Commandments is that they are the Principles upon which other laws are derived. According to the Scriptures, the Ten Commandments are the only words God spoke: “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the mist of the fire and cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: AND HE ADDED NO MORE. And He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me” [Deuteronomy 5:22].

Philo explained it this way: “that of His laws God Himself, without having need of anyone else, thought fit to promulgate some by Himself alone [the Ten Commandments], and some He promulgated through the agency of His prophet Moses, whom He selected, by reason of his pre-eminent excellence among men, as the most suitable man to be the interpreter of His will. Now those which He delivered in His own Person by Himself alone, are both laws in general, and also the heads of particular laws; and those which He promulgated by the agency of His prophet are all referred to as those others.” [Decalogue Para V]

So the specific laws promulgated by Moses were not themselves ‘set in stone’. They reflected the times. Therefore, things like the punishments for breach of specific laws were much harsher than we would consider appropriate today. Further, many of the specific laws had to accommodate the circumstances when Moses formulated them in accordance with the Ten Commandments.

The beauty of the Ten Commandments is thus that they would remain constant (set in stone) while the laws derived from them could ‘evolve’ with changing circumstances.

That is why we find Christ saying this: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, commiteth adultery.” [Mathew 19:8 & 9]

Christ was not suggesting that the seventh Commandment be changed, but only a specific law which Moses had promulgated pursuant to that Commandment. Christ specifically said this about the Law, the Ten Commandments: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” [Mathew 5:17-18]

This distinction between the Principles of Law (the Ten Commandments) and the laws derived from them has enabled Western civilization to evolve.

By contrast, since the Koran incorporates the ancient Mosaic type laws not as deriving from certain Principles (the Ten Commandments) but being the word of Allah himself, they are immutable under Islam.

That is why, in my opinion, the Western world would recoil, for example, at the thought of stoning an adulteress to death (the law derived from the Seventh Commandment has evolved), while Muslims still regard that punishment as having been ordained by Allah Himself, and tinkering with it to accord with the times would be sacrilege.

So the Koran has in effect locked Islam into a medieval system of law which cannot be challenged, because to challenge it would be to challenge the word of Allah Himself, and that would constitute an unforgivable sin itself attracting a medieval punishment.

I hope I read the situation correctly.

Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com