"Maka kecelakaan yang besarlah bagi orang-orang yang menulis Al-Kitab dengan tangan mereka sendiri, lalu dikatakannya: "Ini daripada Allah", (dengan maksud) untuk memperoleh keuntungan yang sedikit dengan perbuatan itu. Maka kecelakaan besarlah bagi mereka, kerana apa yang ditulis oleh tangan mereka sendiri, dan kecelakaan besarlah bagi mereka, kerana apa yang mereka kerjakan." Al-Qur'an, Al-Baqarah (2):79

"Dan setelah datang kepada mereka seorang Rasul dari sisi Allah yang membenarkan kitab yang ada pada mereka, sebahagian daripada orang-orang yang diberi kitab (Taurat) melemparkan kitab Allah ke belakangnya, seolah-olah mereka tidak mengetahui (bahawa itu adalah kitab Allah)." Al-Qur'an, Al-Baqarah (2):101

Saya telah menyusun bab ini di dalam jujukan soalan dan jawapan yang mungkin ditanya oleh sesiapa yang mencari kebenaran mengenai Tuhan. Kita mulakan.

"... Ya, Bible ditulis oleh manusia, walaupun segolongan yang bersemangat menafikannya tanpa berpandukan kepada ilmu. Buku-buku tersebut adalah dari fikiran manusia, ditulis dalam bahasa manusia, ditulis oleh tangan manusia dan mempunyai gaya yang bercirikan manusia..."
"It is Human, Yet Divine", W. Graham Scroggie, m.s. 17

"... Tidak begitu dengan Perjanjian Baru... Terdapat peringkasan dan penyuntingan; terdapat penghasilan semula dan persaksian terpilih. Gospel-gospel lahir daripada pemikiran gereja yang berada di belakang pengarang-pengarangnya. Mereka menceritakan pengalaman dan sejarah..."
"The Call of the Minaret", Kenneth Cragg, m.s. 277

sebagai contoh, di dalam Bible kita dapati kata-kata "pengarang" Lukas:
"Tetapi sekarang, Tuan Teofilus yang terhormat, saya sendiri telah menyelidiki peristiwa itu daripada permulaannya, maka saya rasa ada baiknya saya menulis satu laporan untuk tuan."
Lukas 1:3

Maka siapakah pengarang buku-buku Bible? Jelas sekali Gereja tentunya mengenali mereka dengan baik memandangkan mereka dipercayai telah menerima ilham suci dari Tuhan sendiri. Tidak begitu? Sebenarnya tidak. Sebagai contoh, perhatikan bahawa setiap Gospel bermula dengan, "Menurut ..." seperti "Gospel Menurut Saint Matius", "Gospel Menurut Saint Markus", "Gospel Menurut Saint Yohanes". Kesimpulan yang boleh dibuat orang awam adalah mereka ini adalah pengarang Gospel yang disandarkan kepada mereka. Bagaimanapun, ini bukanlah halnya. Mengapa? Sebab tidak satu pun daripada empat ribu salinan manuskrip yang wujud mengandungi tandatangan pengarangnya. Andaian dibuat bahawa orang tertentu adalah pengarangnya. Namun penemuan baru telah menyanggah kepercayaan ini. Malahan bukti dalaman juga menunjukkan bahawa, Matius contohnya, tidak menulis Gospel yang disandarkan kepadanya:

"Jesus meninggalkan tempat itu. Ketika dia sedang berjalan, dia (Jesus) nampak seorang pemungut cukai bernama Matius sedang duduk di tempat memungut cukai. Jesus berkata padanya, "Ikutlah aku". Dia (Matius) berdiri lalu mengikut Jesus." Matius 9:9

Bukti begini boleh ditemui di banyak tempat di dalam Perjanjian Baru. Memang diakui bahawa kadang- kala seorang pengarang menulis sebagai orang ketiga, tetapi berdasarkan bukti-bukti lain yang akan kita lihat di dalam buku ini, terlalu banyak bukti yang menentang hipotesis ini.

Pemerhatian ini tidak terhad kepada Perjanjian Baru sahaja. Terdapat bukti yang serupa bahawa sekurang-kurangnya bahagian terakhir Ulangan tidak ditulis oleh pengarang yang dipercayai menulisnya, iaitu nabi Musa (a.s.). Ini dapat dilihat di dalam Ulangan 34:5-10 yang berbunyi:

"Lalu MATILAH Musa... Dan dikuburkanNyalah DIA (Musa)... Musa berumur seratus dua puluh tahun KETIKA DIA MATI... tidak ada lagi nabi seperti Musa SEJAK ITU di Israel."
Adakah Musa menulis obituarinya sendiri? Begitu juga Joshua bercerita mengenai kematiannya dengan terperinci dalam Joshua 24:29-31.

"Dan sesudah peristiwa-peristiwa ini, maka MATILAH Joshua bin Nun, hamba Tuhan itu... Lalu MEREKA MENGUBURKANNYA... Orang Israel beribadah kepada Tuhan sepanjang zaman Joshua dan sepanjang zaman para tua-tua yang hidup lebih lama daripada Joshua, dan yang mengenal segenab perbuatan yang dilakukan Tuhan bagi orang Israel."

Bukti sebeginilah yang telah mendorong sarjana-sarjana Biblikal untuk mengakui bahawa kebanyakan buku-buku Bible tidak ditulis oleh pengarang yang dipercayai telah menulisnya. Contohnya, pengarang-pengarang "Revised Standard Version of the Bible" dengan jujur mengaku bahawa pengarang Raja-raja "Tidak Diketahui". Tetapi, jika pengarangnya tidak diketahui, mengapakah ia disandarkan kepada Tuhan? Bagaimanakah buku ini dikatakan telah "diwahyukan"? Selanjutnya, kita dapati bahawa buku Yesaya disandarkan sebagai "Kebanyakannya ditulis oleh Yesaya. Sebahagiannya mungkin telah ditulis oleh orang lain". Pengkhutbah: "Pengarang diragui, tetapi biasanya disandarkan kepada Sulaiman". Ruth: "Pengarang tidak diketahui dengan pasti, mungkin Samuel", dan sebagainya.

Mari kita lihat dengan lebih terperinci satu daripada buku Perjanjian Baru, iaitu "Ibrani":
"Pengarang Buku Ibrani tidak diketahui. Martin Luther mencadangkan bahawa Apollos adalah pengarangnya... Tertulian berkata bahawa Ibrani adalah surat yang ditulis oleh Barnabas... Adolf Harnack dan J. Rendel Harris mengagak bahawa ia ditulis oleh Priscilla (atau Prisca). William Ramsey mencadangkan yang ia ditulis oleh Philip. Bagaimanapun, kepercayaan yang telah lama diterima adalah Hawari Paul telah menulis Ibrani... Eusebius percaya bahawa Paul telah menulisnya, tetapi Origen tidak pasti bahawa Paul adalah pengarangnya."

Daripada pengenalan "King James Bible", versi baru dan edisi keenam yang dikemas kini, "The Hebrew/Greek Key Study", Red Letter Edition
Dan salah satu daripada buku Perjanjian Lama:

"Secara tradisinya, [Daud] diiktiraf telah menulis 73 daripada Mazmur; bagaimanapun, kebanyakan sarjana mempersoalkan dakwaan ini."
"Encarta Encyclopedia", di bawah tajuk "David"
Beginikah takrifan "diwahyukan oleh Tuhan"?

Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (January 1, 1921 – May 27, 1986), is a renowned Palestinian-American philosopher who is widely recognized by his peers as an authority on Islam and comparative religion. He spent several years at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, taught at several universities in North America, including McGill University in Montreal. He was Professor of Religion at Temple University, where he founded and chaired the Islamic Studies program.
Dr. al-Faruqi and his wife, Lois Lamya al-Faruqi, were stabbed to death in their home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania on May 27, 1986, as the result of either a bungled burglary or a politically motivated attack.

Dr. al-Faruqi was born in Jaffa, Palestine. His father, 'Abd al-Huda al-Faruqi, was an Islamic judge (qadi) and a religious man well-versed in Islamic scholarship. Dr. Faruqi received his religious education at home from his father and in the local mosque. He began to attend the French Dominican College Des Frères (St. Joseph) in 1936.
His first appointment was as a Registrar of Cooperative Societies (1942) under the British Mandate government in Jerusalem, which appointed him in 1945 the district governor of Galilee. When Israel became an independent Jewish state in 1948, Dr. al-Faruqi at first emigrated to Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied at the American University of Beirut, then enrolled the next year at Indiana University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, obtaining his M.A. in philosophy in 1949. He was then accepted for entry into Harvard University's department of philosophy and was awarded his second M.A. in philosophy there in March 1951, with a thesis entitled Justifying the Good: Metaphysics and Epistemology of Value. However, he decided to return to Indiana University; he submitted his thesis to the department of philosophy and received his Ph.D in September 1952. By then he had a deep-rooted background in classical philosophy and the developing thought of the western tradition. In the beginning of 1953, he and his wife were in Syria. He then moved to Egypt, where he studied at Al-Azhar University (1954-1958) and viewed as similar to acquiring another Ph.D.

Dr. al-Faruqi was an extremely active academician. During his years as a visiting professor of Islamic studies and scholar-in-residence at McGill University, a professor of Islamic studies at Karachi's Central Institute of Islamic Research as well as a visiting professor at various universities in Northern America, he found the time to write over 100 articles for various scholarly journals and magazines in addition to twenty-five books, of the most notable being Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas. Despite all of this academic activity, he managed to establish the Islamic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and chaired it for ten years. He served as the vice-president of the Inter-Religious Peace Colloqium, The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference and as the president of the American Islamic College in Chicago.
His early emphasis was on Arabism as the vehicle of Islam and Muslim identity. He would draw on these sources intellectually, religiously, and aesthetically throughout the rest of his life. He was also one of those who proposed the idea of Islamization of knowledge and founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) together with Sheikh Taha Jabir al-Alwani, Dr. Abdul Hamid Sulayman, former Rector of the International Islamic University, Malaysia (IIUM) and Anwar Ibrahim, in 1980.

On May 27, 1986, a knife-wielding man broke into the Faruqi home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, and viciously attacked Dr. Faruqi, his wife Lois Lamya, and their daughter, Anmar al-Zein. Dr. Faruqi and his wife died from their wounds. Their daughter survived the attack but required 200 stitches to close her wounds. Prominent religious figures and politicians paid tribute to the Faruqis at a memorial service held in Washington in late September. The event was organized by the al-Faruqi Memorial Committee, which is made up of the Council of Presidents of Arab-American Organizations, the Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
At about the same time, ADC published an eight-page "Special Report" on the murders, including a detailed account of the crime, its victims, and the current status of the investigation. Although nothing was missing from the house, some investigators working on the case believe the murders resulted from a bungled burglary attempt. However, the police lieutenant in charge of the investigation described the incident as an assassination, saying that "someone took it upon themselves" to kill Faruqi. In view of the rise of violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents in those recent years, the report suggests that the murders could very well have been politically motivated.

Dear Dr. Sohail Ahmed.

I had a chance to look at your mail to Ali Sina in which you have stated that Mr. Sina is 'afraid' of meeting Dr Naik. You have also stated that Ali Sina quotes the Quran out of context. If that is the case, can you please enlighten us as to what the 'correct' context is? Moreover you had stated that Dr ZN doesn't even quote scriptures belonging to other religions out of context and you referred to his lectures on 'SIMILARITIES BETWEEN HINDUISM AND ISLAM' and his verse from Bhagwad Gita on 'Jihad'.

I heard this lecture too. Let us analyze what Dr Zakir Naik had to say about Bhagwad Gita and Jihad.

He says that Shri Krishna implores Arjuna to fight against his cousins in the battle of Kurukshetra. Krishna also tells Arjuna that if he dies in the battle, he will go heaven and if he wins, he will enjoy the power on earth and this is exactly what Allah told to the Muslims during their battle against mushriks. Dr Naik also added that in the battle of Kurukshetra, Krishna asks Arjuna to fight a 'battle of Truth' the same way as Allah revealed to the Muslims through Muhammad to fight the 'battle of truth'. Then Dr Zakir Naik finally says "If today I say that Krishna asked Arjuna to kill his cousins, then I will be quoting the Gita out of context, right?" Wow what an analysis.

If you read the Mahabharat, you will see that the Pandavas and Kauravas were cousins. The Kauravas invited the Pandavas for a game of dice which the Kauravas won through deceit with the help of their uncle Shakuni. The Pandavas were humiliated and their wife, Draupadi, was disrobed in front of everybody. After the humiliation, the King Dritrashtra (father of Kauravas) gave back everything that the Pandavas lost fearing the curse of Draupadi. Now, again the Pandavas were invited for a game of dice for the second time which the Kauravas once again won through deceit. Now, the Pandavas were asked leave their kingdom and go to the forest for 14 years. Now, as per the agreement, the Pandavas, after 14 years, came back to their cousins claiming their kingdom. The Pandavas even sent Krishna as a messenger of peace. Kauravas ridiculed Krishna and told him that EVEN A NEEDLE POINT OF LAND will not be given when Krishna, on behalf of Pandavas, asked for just 5 villages and not even the whole kingdom. So THAT was when the war began when all doors of peace were totally shut. Whether this is historically true or not is not the point here. I have just presented the case as it is.

Now, if we see the battle against mushriks, there is no historical evidence (even in the Quran or the Hadiths) to prove that the kaafirs were the ones who broke the treaty between them and the Muslims. It was the Muslims who started the war. SO THEY WERE THE FIRST OFFENDERS. After entering in to Mecca, the Muslims gave 4 months time for all the non-Muslims to convert or else face the consequences (which meant paying an unreasonable tax called Jiziya or face death). It was during this war that Allah revealed verses that say 'Kill them where ever you find them'. But there were certain commonly agreed upon ethics for the war of Kurukshetra.

The two Supreme Commanders met and framed "rules of ethical conduct" for the war. The rules included:

1. Fighting must begin no earlier than sunrise and end exactly at sunset.

2. Multiple warriors may not attack a single warrior.

3. Two warriors may "duel," or engage in prolonged personal combat, only if they carry the same weapons and they are on the same mount (no mount, a horse, an elephant, or a chariot).

4. No warrior may kill or injure a warrior who has surrendered.

5. One who surrenders becomes a prisoner of war and a slave.

6. No warrior may kill or injure an unarmed warrior.

7. No warrior may kill or injure an unconscious warrior.

8. No warrior may kill or injure a person or animal not taking part in the war.

9. No warrior may kill or injure a warrior whose back is turned away.

10. No warrior may strike an animal not considered a direct threat.

11. The rules specific to each weapon must be followed. For example, it is prohibited to strike below the waist in mace warfare.

12. Warriors may not engage in any "unfair" warfare whatsoever.

* Note : This is a personal letter to refuse Dr Naik opinions or comments on Bhagavad Gita. He is the one of Ahmad Deedat's student in Comparative Religion field.

Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C. Although historians (and your textbook) tend to emphasize Hammurabi and his code of law, the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates area, among the first civilizations, focus rather on Gilgamesh and the legends accruing around him to explain, as it were, themselves. Many stories and myths were written about Gilgamesh, some of which were written down about 2000 B.C. in the Sumerian language on clay tablets which still survive; the Sumerian language, as far as we know, bears no relation to any other human language we know about. These Sumerian Gilgamesh stories were integrated into a longer poem, versions of which survive not only in Akkadian (the Semitic language, related to Hebrew, spoken by the Babylonians) but also on tablets written in Hurrian and Hittite (an Indo-European language, a family of languages which includes Greek and English, spoken in Asia Minor). All the above languages were written in the script known as cuneiform, which means "wedge-shaped." The fullest surviving version, from which the summary here is taken, is derived from twelve stone tablets, in the Akkadian language, found in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 669-633 B.C., at Nineveh. The library was destroyed by the Persians in 612 B.C., and all the tablets are damaged. The tablets actually name an author, which is extremely rare in the ancient world, for this particular version of the story: Shin-eqi-unninni. You are being introduced here to the oldest known human author we can name by name!

This summary is derived from several sources: translations, commentaries, and academic scholarship on the Shin-eqi-unninni tablets. Verses are derived from several English and French translations in consultation with the English and German language commentaries and with the Babylonian text. For the entire text, you should turn to The Epic of Gilgamesh , trans. by Maureen Gallery Kovacs (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), or Gilgamesh , translated by John Maier and John Gardner (New York: Vintage, 1981)

As you read this short summary, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Themes. The first things you want to sort out are the ideas which seem to animate the work. One of the problems with literature, art, mythology, etc., is that you can never be quite sure that you've correctly identified the central ideas or philosophy of the work, but you should take a stab at it anyway. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as one and only one idea in a work of literature, and that in most art and literature, like life, there is no one correct answer concerning any single issue. To identify an idea, question, or theme that the work seems to treat, look for specific places where that idea seems to be a concern; mark these passages and combine and contrast them when you begin to try to resolve what the work seems to be about. The questions I provide in these reading notes are meant to organize the families of questions you can bring to these texts.

2. Structure. Try to define for yourself the overall structure of the story. This narrative has two distinct parts; what are these parts and how are they separated? How do events in the second part of the narrative repeat or develop ideas in the first part of the narrative? Do these events contrast with or develop themes and values articulated in the first part of the narrative?

3. The Nature of the Heroic. When you read the myth, notice how Gilgamesh is presented as superhuman, so powerful that the gods create a counterpart to moderate his desires and actions. Do you get the sense that Gilgamesh and Enkidu should have spared the demon of the cedar forest? Despite all of Gilgamesh's power, he is unable to prevent Enkidu's death, and the narrative changes direction. How can one describe Gilgamesh as a hero in the last half of the work? What has he achieved at the end of the poem? Why is this important?

4. The Gods. The gods in Gilgamesh are a bit problematic. How do the gods behave? What is their relation to humans? How much freedom do humans have, or are they merely subject to the will of these gods?

5. The Flood. The story of the Flood is a familiar one, as we shall see in Genesis and Popol Vuh (Plato also gives an account of the Flood and the city of Atlantis in the dialogue, Critias ; the Nez Perce of the Palouse also have a flood story in which the only humans that survived did so by climbing the mountain, Yamustus, that is, Steptoe Butte). The earliest surviving reference to the Flood goes back to 1900 B.C. Why is it brought in here? Why do the gods bring on the Flood? Is any reason given? (Later compare the reasons for the floods in Genesis and Popol Vuh.) What does it tell us about the nature of history and the relation of the gods to humanity?