Some years ago, I came across a 21 page paper written by a Muslim gentleman who goes by the name “Abu Yusuf Al-Kashmiri”, giving a refutation to and showing forth specific errors of the controversial and highly celebrated, sensational Dawah preacher of the last three decades, Ahmed Deedat.
The paper detailed and give examples of some common errors the Dawah preacher made to which some Muslims Apologist are still fond of exhibiting today. He also shows what could be best described as the dishonesty of the man as well which might not be obvious to those who aren’t observant.
I do like to quote a line from this paper, as one of the issue brought to the fore connects directly deal with one of the topics I have discussed in a video, the ranking of Muhammad by Michael H. Hart, you can view the video here.
Here is the quote;
“Deedat’s ignorance about Islam and how to give the dawah of Islam led him and his organization to publish a booklet entitled: “From; The 100: – A ranking of the Most Influential persons in History” by Micheal H. Hart, a Christian academic. The booklet is a reproduction of an entire chapter of Hart’s book in which he rates the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhe was sallam, as the most influential person in history. To Deedat, this is a way of telling the world that even the non-Muslims acknowledge our beloved Prophet. However, the man’s ignorance of his own religion led the world to seeing the following calamities in Hart’s chapter on the Prophet (emphasis mine):
“There were, however, in Mecca a small number of Jews and Christians; IT WAS FROM THEM NO DOUBT THAT MUHAMMAD FIRST LEARNED OF A SINGLE, OMNIPOTENT GOD WHO RULED THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE” (Pp. 23)
“In Mecca, he had a few followers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence THAT MADE HIM A VIRTUAL DICTATOR” (p. 3)
“Muhammad, however, WAS RESPONSIBLE for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles.” (p.5)
“MOREOVER, HE IS THE AUTHOR OF THE MOSLEM HOLY SCRIPTURES, THE KORAN, A COLLECTION OF CERTAIN OF MUHAMMAD’S INSIGHTS THAT HE BELIEVED HAD BEEN DIRECTLY REVEALED TO HIM BY ALLAH….
THE KORAN, THEREFORE, CLOSELY REPRESENTS MUHAMMAD’S IDEAS AND TEACHINGS AND TO A CONSIDERABLE EXTENT HIS EXACT WORDS” (p. 6)
Subhanallah! Yes, Micheal Hart does say that the Prophet is the most influential person in history, but clearly the man is a dirty kaafir who doubts the source of the Prophet’s revelation and abuses him by calling him a dictator. He is simply following the trend of his salaf (predecessors) from the orientalists who would praise the Prophet whilst simultaneously casting aspersions upon the source of Revelation that was given to him. This however, is to be expected from such people. The real issue at hand is again, Mr. Ahmed Deedat. On the inside cover of the booklet we see Deedat holding a copy of Hart’s book and on page 1 he makes a brief mention of what the book is about. On the inside cover and the first page, he mentions that this chapter has been reproduced ‘by special arrangement’ with the publishers of the book. In his booklet, ‘Muhammed the Greatest’, Deedat calls Hart’s work ‘this novel book’ and says about Hart: “…we cannot help admire the man’s research and honesty.” (page 4).
This clearly indicates that he has read this chapter of this book, yet he still printed hundreds of thousands of copies of this calamity!!! Was he blind when he didn’t see these blatant rebuttals against the best of creation?!!! Knowingly or unknowingly, Ahmed Deedat and his IPCI have assisted in the attack against Islam and its beloved Prophet. To date, I don’t know of the IPCI or Ahmed Deedat making an open apology or retraction against”
The Muslim gentleman who wrote this piece also talks about Ahmed Deedat’s inability to recite the Arabic properly, yet encourages Muslims to learn some portion of the Bible by heart and Arabic for the purpose of witnessing to the Muslims as well.
He writes;
It is therefore not surprising when Deedat then even encourages the reading of the whole book and even offers to give it out free to the Muslims!:
“You owe it to yourself to read it just once in your lifetime. After that, you will really appreciate the Holy Qur’an! If you do not own a Bible, and if you are a Muslim, you will get a free copy from the address at the bottom of this page”. (Is The Bible God’s Word? P.41)
So high is this on his agenda for dawah, that he even exhorts Muslims who can read Arabic to learn passages of the Bible in Arabic to give dawah! (Muhummed, the Natural Successor to Christ p.15). In this same booklet, Ahmed Deedat mentions how he spoke to an Egyptian Christian woman at the airport in Cairo in his ‘broken Arabic’. But when he quoted the Bible to her it was in ‘meticulous Arabic’!!! (ibid page 14). This shows us how little importance he gives to learning the language of the religion he is propagating. This is even more visible when he recites the Quran in his videos; it is clearly obvious that he can’t recite properly. This emphasis on memorizing passages from the scriptures of the People of the Book is clearly not from the manhaj of the dawah. Such is the man’s ignorance and stubbornness, that when he is asked by people as to why he doesn’t speak
Arabic, he turns the attention away from his own shortcomings and instead starts attacking the Arabs instead. An example of this is in an interview which he had with the Nid’a ul Islam magazine (a takfiree/kharijee publication from Australia (May-June 1996)) when he was on a tour of Australia. Upon mentioning that he was confronted by an Arabic professor from the Emirates about his inability to speak Arabic, Deedat proceeded to launch a vicious attack on the Arabs accusing them of doing no dawah at all to the Arab Christians”…
Now, instead making out quote after quote from this book, I will leave the readers of this blog to peruse the write up themselves and see what they make out of it. My hope is that, Muslim apologist today will not repeat the same errors of Ahmed Deedat.
You can download the paper here.
