Like a Jigsaw puzzle, it's all coming together - finally

One of the viewers, Ekondig G says, “On the subject of the phrase "Muhammad rasul allah" as marking the beginning of Islam with abd alMalik, I agree that there's a progression. But that phrase is not necessarily Islamic in its origin. It appears to have existed before Islam. It also appears on a coin of Ibn Zubayr, abd al-Malik's rival, who died in 691”. Ibn Zubayr was the governor of Petra, under Abd al-Malik, who in 687 rebelled against al-Malik, destroyed the Ka’aba in Petra, and fled to the south with the ‘Black Stone’, and then is killed in 691 AD. But, back in 686, he mints a coin, a silver Dirham which on the obverse margin (front side) has written ‘Bism allah – Muhammad Rasul Allah’ (praise be unto Allah, Muhammad is the prophet of Allah). This, then is the first occurrence of the name of Muhammad in a dated Muslim text. It is minted 6 years before Abd al-Malik mints a similar coin, this time a gold solidus, from Damascus, with the Shahada also written on it, along the margin of the reverse side of the coin, minted in 692 AD. Ekondig G continues, “Although most of ibn Zubayr's coins only have a "bismillah" (plus a text in Pahlavi), I saw a coin from him which also had "muhammad rasul allah" in a [French made] video. It's in French but you only need to see the pictures. In the light of is this [new information], I suggest that this phrase is just one more thing that was borrowed from existing sources in the construction of the new religion”. Ekondig G is correct. The phrases ‘Bismillah’ was used much earlier, in 661 AD by Mu’awiyya, borrowed from the earlier Nabatean phrase for ‘praise be to God’, as is possibly this later phrase ‘muhammad rasul allah’. Islam is a religion which borrowed constantly. One can see this clearly in the Qur’an, where many stories of Biblical characters are not taken from the Bible, but from much later 2nd – 5th century Jewish apocryphal literature; including the story of Abraham (Surah 21:51-71) which is borrowed from the 2nd century ‘Midrash of Rabah’, or the story of Cain and Abel (Surah 5:31-32) taken from the 2nd century ‘Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah’ and the 5th century ‘Mishnah Sanhedrin’, or the story of Solomon and the queen of Shebah (Surah 27:17-44), taken from the ‘2nd Targum of Esther’. The term ‘Bismillah’ (praise be to Allah) was borrowed from the Nabateans, from whom they got their name for god (Allah). Ekondig G then continues, saying “At around 14th minutes, to the mention of what Mu'awiya writes, you can add Mu'awiya's inscription that was found in N. Israel. Note that his inscription begins with a very clear cross. How can a Muslim begin an inscription with the sign of the cross?” The inscription Ekondig G is referring to is from a Roman-era baths at the site of Hammat Gader in northern Israel. The inscription is the only known epigraphic attestation of the Umayyad Caliph Mu'awiya I in the region of Syria, and is dated to 663 AD. The inscription, which begins with the symbol of a cross translates in English as: “In the days of Abd Allah (‘Servant of God’) Mu'awiya, the commander of the faithful…” How can a Muslim Caliph have a Christian cross written on his inscription, unless of course he wasn’t a Muslim? But we’re talking about 663 AD, and still no references to anything which we can definitely say is Islamic! So, it looks like Mu’awiyya used Christian symbols for those in the West, and Zoroastrian symbols for those in the East. To conclude, I would like to quote another viewer, Paladin, who said, “Like a jigsaw puzzle all the pieces come together and the picture becomes clear. The pieces of the Islamic picture are being brought together and what we see is not what Islam wants us to see”. It’s not just the coins which give us a different picture of Islam from those of the later traditions. When you look at the manuscripts, when you look at the archaeological evidence with the changed Qiblas, when you look at the geographical evidence in Dan Gibson’s book ‘Qur’anic Geography’ (i.e. that all of the 65 geographical locations in the Qur’an make no sense in Mecca, but make perfect sense in Petra), and when you look at the documentary evidence, coupled with the late created Qur’anic manuscripts, none of which are complete, nor agree with one another…with all this evidence, we are no longer dependent on an argument of silence. In fact, ironically, it is the later Islamic Traditions which are now speaking from an argument from silence. They must now provide us with the evidence to support their narrative. Over to them. © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020 (26,820)