Wednesday Muslim Debate…

So fellow diarist An Atheist and I talked with a muslim guy on my campus today. It was interesting. The guy was a white american who converted to Islam when he was older (I’d guess he was about 20, and he said he converted 5 years ago). AA and I tried to find the muslim tent where a group of muslims try to find converts to their religion… but there was a graduate fair today on the walk.

We happened upon this muslim (who I had recognized from my previous encounters) trying to find the tent as well. The tent was put away for the day, so AA and I sat down with the lone muslim at a lunch table.

I had purchased a Koran last night, and read a good bit of it; marking things that I found to be troubling or in some way worthy of mention.  I also had a "A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam" book which supposedly told me of verses with good science in it. 

The muslim guy turned out to be a physics undergraduate student… apparently studying astrophysics (just like me!). So it was almost tragic to see him try to explain how when Mohammed wrote;

"We spread the heaven like a canopy and provided it with strong support… It was He who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon: each moves swiftly in an orbit of its own." Surah 21:32-34

He didn’t like the translation of the book that I had (and just quoted); so he turned to his own translation, which basically said that the heaven was a roof and that it was sturdy in its protection or something.  This apparently is meant to talk of the ozone layer which protects us.

The lines about the moon and the sun both having orbits that are fixed… were way ahead of their time, because it fortold of the moon’s orbit around the earth; and the sun’s orbit around the center of the galaxy.

His answers to the various science-averse lines like:

Surah 36:37-40 "The sun hastens to its resting-place: its course is laid for it by the Mighty One, the All-Knowing…The sun is not allowed to overtake the moon, nor does the night outpace the day. Each in its own orbit swims."

Surah 41:12-13 "In two days He formed the sky into seven heavens, and to each heaven He assigned its task. We decked the lowest heaven with brilliant stars and guardian comets…"

Surah 67:3-5 "He created seven heavens, one above the other. You will not see a flaw in the Merciful’s creation. Turn up your eyes: can you detect a single crack? … We have adorned the lowest heaven with lamps, missiles to pelt the devils with."

Followed essentially the same logic… it is either allegorical, or a mis-translation, or an amazing prediction that proves the Koran is divine.

When I asked if there were some way of going back in time, and asking Mohammed; "Do you actually believe that there are 7 heavens, stacked, one on top of another, over a flat earth…. the lowest heaven of which houses the stars which are small lamps of light?" And Mohammed agreed; would he give up being a muslim?

He said that he would. Which was interesting.

When I asked if the Koran ever mentions anything against slavery; he said no, but that it sets up some benefits for slaves…and he said that having slaves was not necessarily wrong, just because we don’t practice it today.

An interesting bullet to bite, if you ask me.

There were numerous times when the fact that we had to rely on a translation was hindering true understanding — which naturally led into the question; why, if God had an all-important message for humanity, would he reveal his message through something as silly as a book? Especially one that most people could not ever read?

Part of the blessing of Islam is working to understand and read the Koran, apparently.

I hope AA posts his thoughts on the encounter…  I had hoped to talk with a bunch of the muslims that line the booth, it gives them more opportunities to come up with an answer that they like. But today’s encounter worked well enough in my opinion (although it was a hell of a lunch break – hope you didn’t get in trouble AA).

Let me know your thoughts!  If you have questions that you’d like to have a muslim answer, let me know and I’ll ask next week.