https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvB8alwJdYc
Trinity or Tawheed? A very important question. Recently David Wood and Mohammed Hijab debated this topic. In my last post, I briefly dealt with one of the key arguments of Mohammed Hijab. In this post, I will discuss the entire debate.
As I pointed out, Hijab is quite the speaker. Unfortunately he used this talent for very obnoxious behavior. I found this to be unfortunate since he does seem like a knowledgeable person. He admitted to this obnoxious behavior several times in the debate and said it was a response to David Wood’s YouTube videos. While David Wood has made questionable YouTube videos, he has always acted like a gentleman in debates so Hijab really doesn’t have any ground to stand on here. At one point the Muslim moderator had to tell him to stay on topic. At the very end of the debate, the Muslim moderator had to calm the crowd down since Hijab had got them all anxious. He tried to calm the audience then said: “You guys claim to be Muslims. This is not how Muslims act.”
Now, regarding the content of the debate, I believe that David Wood had a clear victory. The evidence he presented against Tawheed was so incredibly damaging. Mohammed Hijab misrepresented many of the arguments made by Wood including the argument about Allah praying and Muslims venerating the spit of Muhammad. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt but a large part of me thinks that this was done on purpose because Hijab can’t deal with the esoteric points of Tawheed that Wood brought up.
Mohammed Hijab made several mistakes in Hebrew. Anthony Rogers made a video on Hijab’s Hebrew mistakes but you don’t need to be a Hebrew expert to know that he made mistakes. The best example is saying that Elijah means “God with us”. That’s an extremely amateurish mistake to make regarding the Hebrew language.
In the last question in the question and answer period, David Wood called out Muslims on double standards with regards to how Abu Bakr mocked the polytheist beliefs. The questions didn’t have rebuttals which was annoying. I would have liked to hear Hijab respond to that one and also would have liked to hear responses by Wood and Hijab on some of the other questions. The questions that Wood and Hijab gave to each other didn’t have responses either. This allows for less interaction among the debaters. Basically, the format was lacking, though it was far better than the recent debate between Samuel Green and Adnan Rashid.
Both sides are claiming victory of this debate. Mohammed Hijab’s antics seemed to evaluated instead of his lack of answers and misrepresentations. This is the first debate that I’ve seen where all of the problems of Tawheed were laid bare for all to see. I would like to see another debate where the topic is Tawheed alone. Muslim apologists need to address David Wood’s objections to their core doctrine. Most Muslims think Tawheed is a slum dunk. It’s not a slam dunk. In fact, it’s one of Islam’s greatest weaknesses.
One last point. In this debate Mohammed Hijab said that the Gospel of John is late and unreliable. Oh well, to each his own. However, if Mohammed Hijab ever debates on Muhammad in the Bible, he’ll have to skip over the Paraclete sayings since John is unreliable. Will he? I wouldn’t hold your breath. Other apologists have said John is unreliable though it suddenly becomes super reliable when a potential prophecy of Muhammad enters the equation. Except of course when it says that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. Then it becomes unreliable again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq-D-bdxgNA
“In this debate Mohammed Hijab said that the Gospel of John is late and unreliable.”- and there goes the credibility of the Quran. Which came in the 7th century. The rabiddest atheist scholars put the Gospel of St. John around 150-160 A.D. Another example of dawah gone bad. Mr. Hijab should be sentenced to wear hijab for the rest of his life.
Hi Orangehunter,
In this debate Hijab brought up Deuteronomy 18 and Isaiah 42 as talking about Muhammad. If he believes that is Muhammad, we can reasonably be assured that he thinks the Paraclete is Muhammad.
Again, the Gospel of John is super reliable when they need it to be but if you try to prove Christology or soteriology with it, then it’s all of a sudden late and unreliable. I actually think that John was written much earlier since he knows the layout of Jerusalem very well such as John 5:2 and the pool of Bethesda. Obviously John had been in the holy land before 70 AD. How do the liberals get around this? Multiple authors and redactors to the rescue! If you have multiple authors and redactors it’s almost impossible to falsify a theory.
Thanks for commenting and God bless,
Allan
OrangeHunter the lateness is between Jesus ministry and the writing of John’s Gospel, by bringing Quran is like comparing Apples and Oranges. Quran is not late. Hijab and Brassiere are for Ladies, don’t you think it is more appropriate for David Wood to wear hijab since cross dressing is one of his hobbies? I saw him with a brassiere on U-Tube. Honestly, David Wood method doesn’t work, he is getting older and wiser he should change his method. Peace to all Christians.
“OrangeHunter the lateness is between Jesus ministry and the writing of John’s Gospel, by bringing Quran is like comparing Apples and Oranges. Quran is not late.”
When was the Koran written down in a book?
More specifically, when was the Koran that you use today written down in a book in its Arabic form?
1.“…the lateness is between Jesus ministry and the writing of John’s Gospel, by bringing Quran is like comparing Apples and Oranges.“- how so? Christ’s ministry was in 27-30 A.D. (approximately), St.John’s Gospel was completed in 80-90 A.D. (approximately). The Quran was compiled in the first half of the 7th century. This is quite late. Yeah, you could insist that the Quran is eternal and uncreated, but you cannot require people who don’t share your religious beliefs (like myself) to simply step down and accept it.
2.”…don’t you think it is more appropriate for David Wood to wear hijab since cross dressing is one of his hobbies? I saw him with a brassiere on U-Tube.”- I saw him too, but he did it as a mockery of the “authentic” hadiths, in which Muhammad mentions that he had to wear some of his wives’ çlothes in order to receive his revelations (for example al-Bukhari, Hadith Number 2442 and Number 2393). Sure, David went a bit too far here, but narrations like these raise some serious questions about Muhammad’s grasp of his supposed prophethood.
May God help us all.
Mohammed’s reply might at least give us an idea as to what he is thinking.
you should look up Jay Smith’s material on the Qur’an based on the research by the Turks, Dan Brubaker and other Islamic researchers. The Qur’an (Cairo Hafs version) which was cononised only mid 20th century is not the only authoritative version of the Qur’an (the Warsh version is another popular version) and cannot be confirmed to be the Uthmanic Qur’an of 652. In fact none of the 6 oldest Quranic Manuscripts – the Topkapi in Turkey, the Samarkand, the Husseini in Cairo, the Petropolitan, the Sana’a and the one in the British Library not any of the 9 Uthmanic Qur’ans nor copies of them, they are all different and almost all incomplete and none are identical. What is even more damaging is that all have alterations of some sort in a vain and clumsy effort to standardise them. So that the Qur’an has the manuscript history that is not worth the paper it is written on…
Here’s the succinct video presentations on those topics:
The 6 earliest Quranic manuscripts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STNnuUSS4hE
Problems with the traditional Islamic account of history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oJ_ukzi9es&t=3792s
Variants even between modern Arabic Qurans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t8FGWic8UI
The kicker, Muslims have been praying towards the WRONG city for 1200 years! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS9ji15WK6o
I would be really interested in a reply from Mohammed. It would be a shame if he was one of those Muslims who make an assertion…..then disappear when asked to account for it.
“Honestly, David Wood method doesn’t work, he is getting older and wiser he should change his method.”
Just like to point out that the more times Muslims praise James White’s methods and dismiss David Wood’s methods, the more you know that the latter is more effective.
As they say, “The flak gets heavy when you’re over the target” and “If XXXX are attacking you, you’re doing it right” (paraphrase of Ann Coulter on liberals IIRC).
Did we watch the same debate? Sorry when the Christian speaker wins i give him the credit. But when the muslim speaker wins we must give him his credit to. And in this debate it was clearly that David Wood was atomized. If im a guy who has no idea about each religion And would watch this debate i would follow Hijab and not Wood.
This is because Hijab did what he intended to do – improve his standing as a Dawagandist among the common Muslim, and keep them unthinkingly within the fold of Islam. He came across as confident and unassailable, full of bluster and bluff. From the audience perspective, he completely carried the day.
However at the same time, he also sabotaged his Islamic Dawa from another aspect – his many personal attacks, inaccuracies and logical fallacies together with the audience reaction (mindlessly and almost rabidly cheering even at nonsensical points) showed Western viewers what ‘real’ Islam is like – definitely NOT the kind of scholarly, calm intellectualism that Shabir Ally portrays.
He did make one major slip up – he admitted ON AIR that Allah prays. Acts17Apologetics and especially DCCI Ministries (at speaker’s corner) showed no quarter, using this single point to grill him in person and make Muslim listeners actually think about the issue.
Hi,
I Like your articles. I do not think you addressed how Muhammad Hijab exposed himself and his arguments on this debate.
As Christian Prince put it “this debate was priceless” and he has posted some great videos exposing the claims of Hijab. He has even challenged him to a debate which Hijab seems to avoid and doesn’t dare to face him on a debate.
I do like David Wood and what he does but I do not think he did as good as he should have done. He let Hijab dismiss some of arguments with one sentance nonesense and David seem to let it go. David should have expanded on the points and stuck to it.
David was too nice to Hijab…I say do not be nice to the devil.
Anyways, I think this debate was harmful to Islam. By saying that Allah prays for Muhammad was enough and David should have kept bringing that up.
I dont likw formated debates where one lies for 20 minutes and you do not have a chance to question his argument there and then. I like one to one where you can interupt and question the argument.
This way if someone makes false claim yoy can expose it on the spot.
God Bless
Hi Luis,
I didn’t do a full review of the debate. Mohammed Hijab really exposed himself. The only thing that he got right was getting the crowd all riled up and therefore making Muslims think he won.
David Wood didn’t have his best debate but he did well. The format didn’t allow for much interaction for there was no responses to the questions or the audience questions. This was unfortunate but I liked the format better than the Rashid vs Green debate.
“Anyways, I think this debate was harmful to Islam. By saying that Allah prays for Muhammad was enough and David should have kept bringing that up.”
You’re correct. They can’t answer this. Hijab couldn’t answer since he kept dodging. We should keep bringing this up because all of the arguments that Wood brought up are so devastating to Islam.
Thanks for commenting and feel free to comment anytime.
God bless,
Allan
Here are the articles that Wood used in his debates:
https://answeringislam.net/authors/shamoun/allah_worships.html
https://answeringislam.net/authors/shamoun/rebuttals/ibnanwar/allah_prays.html
https://answeringislam.net/authors/shamoun/conscious_quran.html
Hijab is so typical of Muslim polemicists who cannot and will not move away from the cheap theatrics of Deedat and Naik. The application of false equivalents when turning polemical in trying to discredit the Gospel of John as being written too late after the death and resurrection of Christ is dangerous in light of the findings of Dan Brubaker and the polemics of Jay Smith where the Qur’an itself was not even completely put to text until some 20 years after the death of Muhammad none of which has survived, or that the biography of Muhammad (the Sirat Rasul’ullah) only compiled by Ibn Hisham wasonly written down some 200 years after Muhammad died while his sayings were compiled by al’Bukhari some 200 – 300 years after his death at the earliest. The Tawrikh or history of the early Muslims were only written 300 years after the fact, and the earliest exegesis of Islam some 400 years after Muhammad.
In contrast, the Gospels which are equivalent to the Sira and Hadith were written some 30 to 60 years after the death ands resurrection of Christ. The Acts (equivalent to the Tawrikh) some 40-50 years after , and the exegesis of Christian doctrine represented by the epistles of Paul, the writer of Hebrews, Jude, Peter, James and John written some 12 years after the death of Christ.
As for the challenge of the post-apostolic lineage for Islam and Muhammad (the question posed by a member of the audience to Hijab), it could have been better posed to refute the credibility of authenticity of Muhammad as a prophet and his “manifold fulfilled prophecies as claimed by Hijab” as follows: “the coming of Jesus Christ and His fulfilment of God’s Plan of salvation and the final phase of His will from His virgin Birth, His death on the Cross and His Resurrection and Ascension as the Son of Man fulfilled more than 120 specific prophecies spoken of by all prophets of God from Moses to Malachi over 1500 years and 40 writings of the Old Testament. So what has Muhammad and Islam fulfilled other than claimed obscure verses taken out of context?”
the only thing Hijab has excelled and won at is in vilifying and insulting, and verbally abusing Wood.
David Wood won the debate to me. The reason why Muslims in the audiece believed Wood did not win the debate is because Hijab’s mockery had an emotional impact on the audience. Second, Mohammmed Hijab did not understand the question of David Wood when he asked in his opening statement ‘Who is Allah praying to?’.
Hijab understood that David Wood was claiming that Allah prays to Mohammad. But certainly that’s not what David Wood meant. Not even his source in his opening statement said that ‘Allah prays to Mohammed’. So, David Wood was aware of that fact and thus he is asking ‘who is Allah praying to’ as a way of conclusion.
The question of David Wood comes as a result of a logical deduction. If Allah prays for Mohammad as David Wood’ source material said, then does that mean Allah is not praying? Of course not. And if he is praying for Mohammad as Hijab allegedelly correct it, then (1) either he is praying to someone else (some other God who will listen to his prayers or (2) he is praying to himself. Muslims will reject the first option since they believe ‘there is no one besides Allah’. So, if Allah is praying and there is no other God besides Allah, it follows necesarily that he is praying to himself. However, is going Allah to pray to himself in behalf of his prophet? And if he does it, then he is showing he is not God for it is better for God to intercede for his prophet through miracle working than through praying to himself in which case he would be showing a crucial inability to help his prophet. Thus, it does not matter whether Allah is praying for Mohammad. Even if he prays for Mohammad, someone has to be listening to his praying which is theologically objectionable if not impossible.
So, Mohammed Hijab’s egregious error was to correct this by saying that Allah prays for Mohammad. He himself admitted Allah prays. This happens when the opponent is not paying attention to the other debater as a consequence he is worried about trying to mock him the best he can in order to built in the Muslims’ minds an apparent impression that he is winning the debate.
Now, in the case of David Wood, I think Mohammad Hijab’s mockery had a negative impact and distracted him a little and put him nervous. That’s why sometimes he did not respond the best he can and lost some weaknesses in Mohammed Hijab’s rebuttals.
Hi Milton, let me give you some further insights into the debate from David’s own Youtube videos discussing the matter.
David was very annoyed by Hijab’s personal attacks – they had agreed with the moderators beforehand that there wouldn’t be any of this sort of nonsense. Since David had many past experiences where the Muslim hosts blatantly went back on their word, he assumed that the moderators similarly were in on a deception – so he seriously contemplated just calling them all out on it, and quitting the debate there and then. This made him less focused on the remainder of the debate as he simply lost interest. (As it turns out, the moderators were also taken aback and did not expect Hijab to renege on his word or rile up the crowd such.)
IMHO Hijab intentionally occluded David’s question about Allah praying, both during and after the debate in follow up videos – it is a sticky issue, one easier to avoid than try and address in front of his Muslim audience.
Related to that, Hijab probably came with different intentions from ‘winning the debate’ in the formal sense. Rather, he aimed to keep his Muslim audience within Islam (hence, quickly diverting attention from problematic topics like Allah’s praying or body parts) and boost his standing and renown as a new Deedat. In that regard, he was successful.
But what David accomplished was to open the eyes of Westerners to what ‘real Islam debating’ looks like – not the cultured, controlled logic of Shabir Ally but the mindless mob of takbir-ing Hijab fans.
Just imagine what St Paul had to put up with. At least in his case one would expect (or hope) that the Apostle was dealing with men who had a tradition of reason that tempered their passion. What does the Muslim have to temper his?
David Wood has the potential to be one of the very finest Christian Apologists. If only he can overcome the big blank space that exists in his psyche (not of his doing). He needs to ditch the silly stuff that he has been doing lately and get more cerebral. He has the tools for that.
By ‘silly stuff’ do you mean his videos mocking Islamic teachings, including Islamicize Me?
IMHO David has a special knack for biting sarcasm, it penetrates mental shields and strikes deep in the emotions. Donald Trump has proven that the masses value emotion more than logic – after all, we’re all human!
I haven’t heard of Muslims who left Islam (and even converted to Christianity afterward) from the intellectual, gentlemanly debating of James White.
I have heard of Muslims who testify that David Wood’s pointing out Islamic silliness and Muhammad’s immorality led them to their decision.
Scott,
I am referring specifically to “Islamicize Me”. I hope he doesn’t repeat this in stuff of a similar vein.
The biting sarcasm videos are fine (quite often they are superb), they are another form of intelligent comment. However there were several things in the “Islamicize Me” series that went too far, or rather was beneath someone of his distinguished intellect.
I guess we just disagree on the scale or severity of the sarcasm.
There are plenty of ‘smart’ and ‘nice’ apologists and polemicists. Meanwhile, David Wood has a gift for annoying Muslims, sticking in their minds as a nagging presence that won’t go away – and that is a niche that needs to be filled.
Many people (not just Muslims) aren’t ministered to or affected by the cerebral – their keys lie in the heart, emotions and feelings. They need to be hit in the face with just how stupid, disgusting and evil their religion is.
Muslim apologists don’t try and refute Islamicize Me, they just try to ignore it – because it can’t be refuted, and thus drawing any attention to it makes Muslims who watch it doubt the sensibility and holiness of Islam’s teachings.
To paraphrase an old saying: You know you’re over the target when Muslim apologists keep asking you to be more like that nice, well-behaved, unthreatening example James White.
“I guess we just disagree on the scale or severity of the sarcasm.”
No I am not on about the sarcasm. His brand of sarcasm appears to be quite effective. There is other stuff in those videos that I think was very unwise indeed, but pardon me if I refrain from highlighting it in this comments section.
Ahahaha I can guess what you might be alluding to!
Perhaps I come from a more ‘street’ background, but I found the various gimmick jokes for what to do with the milk to be quite inventive, amusing and over-the-top ridiculous exaggeration.
No that isn’t it either.
Ask Allan to send me your email address and I will tell you.
It’s scottthongblog at yahoo dot com
Not the first time I’ve posted it here in nonstandard email format to avoid bots picking it up.
Hi,
Who is Allah praying to?
Let me try to explained on my word..
Allah is the Almighty….Allah exist by himself…Allah the one owned this whole universe…Allah choose his prophet and messenger, from Adam,Ibrahim,Musa, Isa and the last messenger Muhammad saw., Allah not pray to other god cause Allah is God…the one and only god..
Regarding word “pray”, it’s means ‘doa’..thats make every single things when we pray(salah) is our “doa” to Allah..
Allah “sholawat” to Muhammad….in English translation, sholawat means pray…but the best translation of sholawat is praise or bless….
thats why nowadays many christians have a wrong opinion about this matter.. Allah “sholawat”to Muhammad saw means Allah “praise” or give his blessing to his lovely prophet Muhammad…We as a muslim all know,believe and already FEEL the blessing when we sholawat (praise..not pray) ..we feel really calm and tranquility when sholawat… I by myself when feel really tired doing something, I always sholawat…and suddenly Allah give me strength to do the work until finished.
I already watch their debate…and one thing all of you have to know is….why the audience getting the crowd all riled up? let me tell you something..all the question that David Wood brought up, we as a muslim already know he answer. For us, thats our tawheed..Everybody already and have to know the answer of every question…
I’m sorry with my answer but thats the truth…Islam is always talking about realistic,simple and logic…for you try just try to open heart,open mind…think carefully..
Thats all from me….Peace to Christians…
Thank you Insan. Your explanation makes sense. I trust that it is a reliable one.
Really most welcome, dear Christopher Quinn…we are all brothers & sisters…
hahaha. why are you christains so worried about the debate. please, put down every selfish hatred and go straight to the truth.
Hello Safana,
Thanks for the comment. Do you have any specific objections?
The author of this write is a terrible liar, and this write up definitely shows the side you belongs to, but u need to stop fooling people here, i urge anyone that read this write up alone to try and watch the debate video to understand my accusation on the author as a liar. Regards