Incomplete Quran and location of Kaaba

The · Last edited by The on Wed 14 Apr, 2010 4:05 am; edited 1 time in total

In a "if you can't beat 'em, then confuse 'em" example, this disbeliever takes resort to "Quran alone" to suggest that Jerusalem rather than Mecca is the location of the Kaaba.

Note that I have removed quoted verses from the Quran and the Bible to shorten the length of the article, and have instead provided verse numbers (and translators, where provided in the source article). I have removed all comments in point 14 for the same reason. I have also removed any links.

Abraham, Mecca and the Qibla

Revisiting the Incompleteness and Incoherence of the Quran

As we had already shown, the Quran claims to be a scripture which is fully detailed:

S. 6:114 Pickthall

S. 10:37 R. Khalifa

In light of the claims of the Quran, we challenge Muslims to answer the following questions by consulting the Quran ALONE. We advise that our readers first read the list of Quranic citations that go along with this present list of questions:

1. Can you show from the Quran alone where Ishmael settled?

2. Can you produce one single verse from the Quran stating that he settled in Mecca?

3. Since Jerusalem means "city of Peace", doesn’t this prove that when Abraham supposedly asked God to make the place of his settlement "a city of Peace" he was referring to Jerusalem and not Mecca?

4. Wouldn’t this prove that Ishmael actually settled in Jerusalem?

5. Wouldn’t this then prove that Abraham and Ishmael built the house in Jerusalem?

6. The Quran says that this house was built in Becca. The Old Testament says Becca or Baca was en route to the Temple in Jerusalem:

Psalm 84:4-7, 10

This particular Baca is in northern Israel as the text itself suggests. Furthermore, the term Baca in Hebrew can mean either "weeping" or "balsam trees." Hence, the valley of Baca can be translated as the valley of balsam trees. We find reference to such a place located within the Valley of Rephaim, an area approximately 3-4 miles south and west of Jerusalem

2 Samuel 5:22-23

Noting that the valley of Baca is actually less than 5 miles away from Jerusalem, it makes sense that the Psalmist could speak of pilgrims making their way through Baca to appear before God in Zion. The reader is invited to look up the distance between Jerusalem and Mecca and use common sense to determine how likely it is that the Psalmist recommend the Israelite pilgrims to make a detour to Mecca as they made their annual pilgrimage to Mount Zion.

This being the case, wouldn’t this provide undeniable proof that the first house of worship is not the Kabah, but the Temple in Jerusalem?

7. Can you even find a single verse where Becca is said to be an alternate name for Mecca?

8. There is even more evidence that the house which Abraham and Ishmael built is none other than the one in Jerusalem. The Quran tells believers to take the station of Abraham as a place of prayer. It is interesting to note that the Temple in Jerusalem was actually built in the same area where Abraham offered up Isaac!

Genesis 22:1-4, 7-8, 13-14

2 Chronicles 3:1

With this said, can you provide a single passage stating that the station of Abraham is in Mecca and not in Jerusalem?

9. Yet this introduces additional problems. Solomon, not Abraham, built the Temple in Jerusalem, as the preceding passage shows. Since the first Temple wasn’t built until the time of Solomon, how can Abraham and Ishmael have built it?

10. Again, if it is claimed that the first house of worship is the Kabah in Mecca, can you please produce a single Quranic verse explicitly stating this?

11. What direction is the Qiblah?

12. If you say it is Mecca, can you show this from the Quran itself?

13. What is the location of the sacred mosque (Ali’s Inviolable Place of Worship), i.e. masjid al-haram?

14. If you claim that it is Mecca, can you produce a single verse stating that the sacred mosque is located there?

Amusingly, this bibliolator has used the Bible to give a context to the Quran, as if the Bible has some sort of authority when it comes to history. Indeed, their likeness is that of a dog trying to chase its own tail, and they endlessly run in circles.

The

Even though this is the usual disbeliever's baloney, let us have a look at it for the benefit of our non-Muslim readers. Since our Christian seeker has turned to "Quran alone" to pose riddles, we will return the favor and oblige him to stick to Quran alone.

Reply to 1 and 2: Ishmael was settled in Becca. We will determine Becca in due time.

Cross-questions: Can you find a verse in the Quran that tells us that Becca and Jerusalem are one and the same place? Can you find a verse in the Quran which even mentions Jerusalem or Yerushalim?

Reply to 3: Jerusalem does not mean city of peace, rather it was christened after an Ugaritic god, and means the foundation of Shalim. Abraham asks God to make the place where he settled Ishmael 'baladan amin' and not 'yerushalim' or 'yerushalayim'.

When you are ignorant about Yerushalim itself, why do you bother to speak for Becca? Read the Quran's testimony about the disbelieving Jews and Christians who argue in matters of which they had no knowledge.

Lo! ye are those who argue about that whereof ye have some knowledge: Why then argue ye concerning that whereof ye have no knowledge? Allah knoweth. Ye know not.

Quite evidently, Becca was a scarcely populated place, and there is nothing to suggest that back then it had been densely populated with idolaters. On the other hand, we know for a fact that Jerusalem has been the hotbed for idolatry going back thousands of years, so much so that the city itself stands in veneration of an idol.

Cross-questions: Can you find from the Quran the name of the place whence Abraham came to Becca? And the place he went to after settling Ishmael at Becca? Can you prove using the Quran alone that Becca, like Jerusalem, was a thriving place of idolatry?

(To be continued)

**AhmedBahgat**

The

A very apt verse, buddy. However, the guy is a Christian writer and he openly admits it, and as such it is understandable that he is making a plea to his Bible.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I am a little busy with another issue. I will return to this one as soon as I can, and we will see that (ironically) our good Christian has asked such wonderful questions that once answered, any Muslim or non-Muslim will with ease pick up Mecca over Jerusalem as the location of the Kaaba.

Take care.

**AhmedBahgat**

The

Reply to 4 and 5: As shown in the previous reply, our good crusader has no clue about either Becca or Yerushalim, and these two questions being an extension of the ignorance displayed in the previous question are dismissed as invalid and inapplicable.

Cross-questions: Now that you have not been able to locate 'Yerushalim' in the Quran, can you locate a verse in the Quran which tells us that Ishmael was settled at Yerushalim? Can you at least find a verse in the Quran which states that either of Abraham and Ishmael as much as set a foot in Yerushalim?

Reply to 6: Never has the Bible been accepted as a credible book except by credulous Jews and Christians, but, in the last few decades, in the face of overwhelming archaeological evidence against it, many leading Jewish and Christian archaeologists themselves have dismissed it as an inaccurate and unreliable source of history. Since the "challenge" is based on Quran alone and not Biblical myths, this desperate plea to the Bible merits rejection. But I enjoy playing with an Isaacite (Ishmaelite trait (-: ), so we will indulge our deluded child of Adam. I previously educated our evangelizer about the roots and origin of Yerushalim; I will now enlighten him some more about his Bible.

Our clueless crusader has no idea about the word he is chasing. The Hebrew 'baka' can most certainly denote weeping, and just as assuredly it does have an Arabic cognate. However, the Arabic word for weeping comes not from the root 'b-k-k' (from which comes the Becca that is the object of our attention), but from 'b-k-y'. Thus, the Biblical valley of baka is related not to Bakka, but to 'bakaa,' which means "to wail or weep". Mixing up two distinct words which bear no connection to each other is not going to help any Jew or Christian in proving Yerushalim as the location of the Kaaba.

Let's now talk about the valley of "balsam trees". From heraldmag.org:

The trees called in 2 Sam 5:23,24 (Revised Version, margin) "balsam-trees" were certainly not those which yielded this substance, for there are none in the Shepehlah but there are both mulberry trees and terebinths in the district between Rephaim and Gezer. When used as a perfume the name basam seems to have been adopted, but as a medicinal remedy it is called tsori.

A mulberry tree certainly does not yield balsam, and we see from the above source that there are no balsam yielding trees in the Shephelah, where our eager evangelizer locates the 'valley of balsam trees'. Why then does he fib that there is "such a place located within the Valley of Rephaim"? I am certain that this an example of pure, unadulterated ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt at deceit, but ignorance doesn't count as virtue. It's time our zealous evangelist pick up a more reliable Bible translation than the one that doesn't know balsam trees from baka. Talk about barking up the wrong tree.

Whether it is the valley of weeping (which interpretation appears to be the preferred choice among Jews and Christians) or the valley of whatever trees, the Hebrew 'baka' is related to the Arabic 'bakaa' and not Bakka, and our Christian buddy has been chasing the wrong word. As such, his entire "compare, identify and fib" exercise has taken a tumble. Let me now return the favor of identification.

Noting that the valley of Baca is actually less than 5 miles away from Jerusalem

Our missionary started by observing that "The Quran says that this house was built in Becca". Now, by his own admission, Yerushalim and the Biblical valley of baka are two separate locations with roughly five miles between them. Our good Christian will possibly concede that two places with five miles between them cannot be the one and the same place (unless this is some sort of Holy Duality), and will readily admit that the baka valley and Yerushalim are two separate locations. If he identifies Becca as the baka valley, then he has admitted that Becca and Yerushalim are two separate locations, and has ruled out Becca's identification as Yerushalim. We are not even halfway through and we have already proved, using his own conjectures, that Becca cannot be identified as Yerushalim.

Cross-questions: We have seen that the Hebrew 'baka' and the Arabic 'Bakka' come from different roots. If you still have an insane wish to identify the word 'baka' with Bakka, do you concede that your scribes made a witting or unwitting error in transcription? Further, if you identify the valley of baka with Becca, and accept that the House of God is in Becca, then you admit that not Yerushalim but the valley of baka is the place where you should find the Temple. Why then do you revere Yerushalim rather than the baka valley? Given that Yerushalim has been immersed in idolatry for thousands of years, doesn't it make Biblical sense to forsake Yerushalim and instead try your luck with the baka valley?

Bonus cross-questioning: Let us suppose that the Biblical text correctly reads "balsam trees". This creates more problems for Jews and Christians. We have seen that balsam yielding trees are not found in the Shephelah, and one deduction will be that the Jews and Christians are looking for the baka valley (and thus the Temple) in the wrong place (doubly wrong in the case of the Temple). The other possibility is that whoever wrote the Bible didn't know shit from Shinola, and penned the Bible all the same. Which of these two options do you prefer?

(To be continued)

The

Reply to 7, 8 and 9: We previously saw, based on the writer's own conjectures, that Becca cannot be identified with Urushalim. Now our clever Christian has finally realized that while the structure of the Kaaba was raised by Abraham and Ishmael, the object of Jewish and Christian attention was, according to the shaky Bible, constructed during the reign of Solomon, and therefore in no way can the Kaaba be identified with the temple which he so very reveres. As such, our clever Christian was all along chasing his own tail, and as assessed, cluelessly running in circles.

It is dumb on the part of any Christian to keep offering Biblical myths as an apology. I can sympathize with the repeated and desperate attempts on his part to push the case for the Bible, but damning assertions by leading Jewish archaeologists do not allow me to offer anything more than sympathy:

The biblical stories should thus be regarded as a national mythology with no more historical basis than the Homeric saga of Odysseus's travels or Virgil's saga of Aeneas's founding of Rome.

Whether or not we discover anything in favor of Homer and Virgil, Yahweh's Bible is beyond hope. Let us see some proof for the Isaac-bound-on-Moriah fable; till then our evangelist has my sincere sympathies.

What, then, about the temple ruins at Urushalim? While archaeology has dissociated Urushalim from Solomon's Temple, it is an accepted fact that the ruins at Urushalim belong to the temple constructed by Herod, the very same one who, in a display of dogged loyalty to Augustus, dedicated another temple to goddess Roma. Educating goes on. Our evangelist might take a murderer's temple as his sacred place, Muslims are satisfied with the House of God.

It will perhaps thrill our evangelist to learn that the Quran does not contain the finicky and self-destructing myths of the Bible, and that "Holy Urushalim" is not a Quranic concept but an import from Judaica.

Cross-questions: Can you point out the verse where Becca is called Urushalim? Can you provide a single verse from the Quran that tells us that the station of Abraham is in Urushalim? Can you point out the verse in the Quran which tells us about Abraham and Isaac going up the Mount Moriah? Can you at least find the sacrifice of Isaac in the Quran? Now that it's clear that Muslims revere the House of God, and you revere the temple built by Herod, could you explain your infatuation with everything idolatrous? Given that Herod also dedicated a temple to the goddess Roma, does it not make clear the foundations of his temple, which you have adopted? What explains your penchant for murderers and idolators? Does it not make clear the idolatrousness of a people clinging to their own devilry? Can you, on the other hand, provide a single verse from the Quran which tells us that Solomon built the Kaaba at Urushalim? Or that Herod or some other murderer built the Kaaba there? How about a verse that tells us that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba at Urushalim?

Bonus cross-questioning: Can you prove, even on the testimony of the Bible itself, that the place where the Isaac-bounded-for-sacrifice fable is supposed to have occurred is in Urushalim? Can you provide at least one explicit Biblical verse towards this end? And when you fail to do so, can you prove beyond doubt, using as many verses as you want, that Urushalim is the location of this myth?

(To be continued)