How Dr.Morey Quotes From Caesar Farah

Let's look at another passage from page 13 of Morey's book where he quotes, this time from Caesar Farah:

Islamic scholar Caesar Farah concluded

There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allâh passed on to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews. (Farah p. 28).

Please compare this quote with the entire paragraph where Morey said he quoted it from. Here it is reproduced from Caesar Farah's book:

Allâh, the paramount deity of pagan Arabia, was the target of worship in varying degrees of intensity from the southernmost tip of Arabia to the Mediterranean. To the Babylonians he was "Il" (god); to the Canaanites, and later the Israelites, he was "El'; the South Arabians worshipped him as "Ilah," and the Bedouins as "al-Ilah" (the deity). With Muhammad he becomes Allâh, God of the Worlds, of all believers, the one and only who admits no associates or consorts in the worship of Him. Judaic and Christian concepts of God abetted the transformation of Allâh from a pagan deity to the God of all monotheists. There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that "Allah" passed to the Muslims from Christians and Jews. (Farah p. 28).

The first problem with Morey's quote is that he so separated the last sentence from the rest of the paragraph, that he made it say something different from what it used to say in the context of that paragraph. Such out-of-context quotations is a common ploy of Morey.

A second problem is that Morey referred to Caesar Farah as an "Islamic Scholar". Morey tries to bolster the authority of his quoted authorities by giving them adjectives as above. If by "Islamic" readers think that Caesar Farah is a Muslim, Morey has no motive to correct such a misunderstanding. And if challenged, he could say he meant "Scholar of Islam". Then he should say what he means.

A third problem is that Morey left out the important discussion from Farah's book. That passage was saying that the God who was called Ilah in South Arabia was called El by the Israelites. This fact would have ruined Morey's entire Moon-god-in-Islam theory, so Morey conveniently concealed it.

Why should Morey let his readers know that according to two of the Gospels Jesus was on the cross calling out to El who, if Morey is right, is the Moon-god of Islam?


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Morey Contradicts Himself

Let us consider a passage from pages 11-12 of Morey's book:

Muhammad was raised in the religion of the Moon-god Allâh. But he went one step further than his fellow pagan Arabs. While they believed that Allâh, i.e. the Moon-god, was the greatest of all the gods and the supreme deity in a pantheon of deities, Muhammad decided that Allâh was not only the greatest god but the only god.

In effect he said, "Look, you already believe that the Moon-god Allâh is the greatest of all gods. All I want you to do is to accept that the idea that he is the only god (sic). I am not taking away the Allâh you already worship. I am only taking away his wife and his daughters and all the gods"

This is seen from the fact that the first point of the Muslim creed is not, "Allâh is great" but, "Allâh is the greatest," i.e., he is the greatest among the gods. Why would Muhammad say that Allâh in the "greatest" except in a polytheistic context? The Arabic word is used to contrast the greater from the lesser (Morey pp. 11-12).

The first problem with this passage is that Morey contradicts himself. In the first two paragraphs he claimed that he pagan Arabs believed Allâh to be the greatest of all the gods, and all Muhammad (pbuh) preached to them was that they should take Allâh not merely as the greatest god but as the only god. Then Morey forgot what he just finished writing and wrote in the very next paragraph that Muhammad was preaching that Allâh is the greatest. And, according to Morey, greatest means he is not the only god.

A second problem is that Morey seems to have not the slightest idea of what Islam is. According to him the first point of the Muslim creed is not, "Allâh is great" but Allâh is the greatest (Morey p. 12). Where did he learn that this is the first point of the Muslim creed? If Morey is to be believed, millions of Muslims have been teaching their children the wrong shahadah (testimony of faith).

But, much to Morey's shame, the first point of the Muslim creed is not that "Allâh is the greatest," but that "there is no god except Allâh."

A third problem is that Morey thinks "Allâh is the greatest" means that "he is the greatest among the gods" and that this could only be said in a polytheistic context. He does not realise that the phrase he is referring to is, in Arabic, Allahu Akbar which means "Allâh is greater." This phrase is a shorter from of Allahu Akbar min kullisay' which means "Allâh is greater than everything." You do not need a polytheistic context to say this. This can be said to anyone in any situation. It means that Allâh is greater than everything whether things we perceive or things we do not.

A fourth problem has to do not with Morey's ignorance of the Arabic language, but with his lack of care to use proper reasoning. According to him, if the first point of the Muslim creed was "Allâh is great" this would not imply a polytheistic context. Does he think that polytheists are excluded from saying about any one of their gods, "she is great"?

A fifth problem is that Morey keeps repeating the phrase Moon-god every time he mentions Allâh as if by sheer repetition he hopes to convince his readers that Allâh is the Moon-god. What he ought to do is present evidence instead.


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Irrelevant Archeological Evidence

First Dr. Morey makes a claim, then he discusses pages and pages of irrelevant evidence. This gives the impression that he is proving his claim whereas in fact he is not. My case in point is the following claim of Morey and the subsequent evidence he offers to support that claim:

As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allâh was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun good dess and the stars were his daughters. (Morey pp.1-2).

To prove this claim, he spent the next five pages, five illustrations, four diagrams, and one map. But what, according to him does all of this prove? Only that the Moon-god was worshipped in the ancient world outside of Arabia. This information is most irrelevant. He should get to the point of proving that Moon-worship existed in Arabia. Whether or not it existed elsewhere makes no difference to the point he is trying to prove. His proving, for example, that the Canaanites worshipped the Moon-god does not prove that the pagan Arabs did.

But Morey has his own reasons for this roundabout way of doing things. After spending almost half the book arguing a point and supporting it with documented evidence by way of maps, illustrations, diagrams, and quoted authorities, he leaves his readers with the impression that he proves his points very well and therefore he should be believed.

He needs this credibility because when he turns to what he needs to prove he has no evidence, and he will offer none. He will make unsupported claims after he has already bewildered his readers with impressive irrelevant material.

In a book of fifteen pages, it is only on page seven that Morey turns to a discussion of what the situation was in Arabia. But even then, he discusses Southern Arabia which was far away from the Mecca where Muhammad preached.

So, for another three pages he discusses evidence that the Moon-god was worshipped in South Arabia. He does not make any effort to alert his readers that he was unable to gather any evidence for the Moon-god in North Arabia. Rather, he concludes on page 10:

Evidence gathered from both North and South Arabia demonstrate that Moon-god worship was clearly active even in Muhammad's day and was still the dominant cult. (Morey p.10).

But where is the evidence concerning North Arabia? The only evidence he furnished for Arabia had to do with South Arabia only. On page 7 he cited the findings of Arnaud, Halevy and Glaser who

went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean and Qatabanian inscriptions. (Morey, p.7).

On the same page he cited the findings of G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S.Coon "in Arabia." He did not say at this point that he meant South Arabia, but on page 9 and on map #3 he did make it clear that these findings were in

Southern Arabia (Morey p.9)

How can he then make such a barefaced claim when careful readers will discover the opposite on the very pages he writes? Why does he imply that he will supply evidence for moon-worship in both North and South Arabia when the only evidence he has is for the South alone? Morey obviously considers Islam so evil that he is willing to use evil in battling Islam. But if Islam is from the Devil you do not need the Devil's ways to defeat it. Just simply explaining it should be sufficient to expose it. Morey needs to remember good Christian principles while he attacks Islam.

Read Part 3