The alleged problem found by anti Islamic missionaries is one of the most hilarious pieces ever written by them. Obviously my personal favourite is another silly claim of theirs but this one ranks up there.

What the Islamophobes have done is that they have used the vastness of the Arabic language against the Qur’an. This topic can take pages and pages and there are complete books on the vastness of the Arabic language but surprisingly the Arabic speaking Islamophobes do not know even an iota about Arabic. For example, there are over a dozen words in Arabic for lion and several dozen words for camel. The anti Islamic missionaries quote the various meanings of al-Samad and conclude that since there are so many different views, this is a problematic area. Let us read a saying of the Prophet ﷺ on this matter.

Narrated Abu Huraira: ”I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, ”I have been sent with Jawami al-Kalim (i.e., the shortest expression carrying the widest meanings), and I was made victorious with awe (caste into the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the earth were brought to me and were put in my hand.” Muhammad said, Jawami’-al-Kalim means that Allah expresses in one or two statements or thereabouts the numerous matters that used to be written in the books revealed before (the coming of) the Prophet.  (Sahih Bukhari, Interpretation of Dreams, Volume 9, Book 87, Number 141)”

This saying of the Prophet ﷺ is sufficient to refute all the allegations thrown against the second verse of the 112^th chapter. Let us take a look at the 112^th chapter of the Qur’an.

Say, “He is Allah, [who is] One,

Allah, the Eternal Refuge (al-Samad).

He neither begets nor is born,

Nor is there to Him any equivalent.”

The Islamophobes find the problem with al-Samad. However, the problem they find is their own problem and lack of knowledge and understanding.

They have, however, made some outrageous claims regarding al-Samad as well. There are two claims regarding this; firstly that an idol of ‘Ad was allegedly called samud which resembles the attribute of God (Samad) and therefore the source of the word Samad and secondly that in Ugaritic, ‘smd’ appears as a stick or club that is wielded by Ba’l.

The first of the two allegations is one of the most bizarre comments one can ever find. Who or what is Thamud is basically very clear. The anti Islamic missionary states that it is from Islamic sources we know that Thamud was an idol of ‘Ad. Such ignorant people must enroll themselves in primary school and start over again. Secondly, the anti Islamic missionaries very conveniently spelled the word as per their liking. The first letter in ‘samud’ (as they have put it) is not ص but rather ث. Even non-Arabic speaking people can clearly see the difference in the letters. Their pronunciation is also very different from each other; ص is more like a heavy “S” and ث is more close to “Th”. Thamud and Samad use different letters and are pronounced very differently and a wing of these two is simply absurd. This allegation simply relies on third hand knowledge of translating, transliterating and then choosing what suits the purpose.

The second allegation that in Ugaritic, ‘smd’ appears as a stick or club that is wielded by Ba’l is also far fetched  wild and imaginary. Even if we accept that ‘smd’ really appears as a stick held by Ba’l, it does not conclude to what the missionaries want it to conclude. Here is our argument similar to this one which is as outrageous as this claim. Sam sounds very similar to “shame” and therefore people by the name of Sam are shameful. A person making this claim would be ridiculed by all to say the least.

The Qur’an is explicitly against pagan beliefs and uses strict language against them. To say that Islamic sources are pagan is even more insult to the rules of reading in context.

Surprisingly or not, the Islamophobes have found paganism in the Hajj (pilgrimage), fasting and prayers. For Islam to be of pagan origin, the Biblical Prophets have to be pagan too.

Why do the missionaries attempt to find any sort of paganism in Islam? Why are they of the view that to convince Muslims towards Christianity they have to ridicule Islam instead of showing good side of Christianity? Is there an insecurity somewhere? They have made another attempt as stated below:

Even the Islamic expression Allahu Akbar (“Allah is greater”), which Muslims take to mean that Allah is greater than everything (Allahu Akbar min kullishay) or anything imaginable, smacks of pagan influence. In its historical setting, Allahu Akbar to a Meccan pagan meant that Allah is greater than the rest of the gods worshiped by the idolatrous Arabs. The pagans viewed Allah as the chief god amongst a pantheon of other deities who were subservient to him.

The Arabic word for god is ‘Ilah’ and the Arabic word for “The God” is “Allah” which is used by the Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews. God was called by this name even in Hebrew as well as Greek (Matthew 27:46). This is as simple as that.

Indeed Allah knows best.