As stated in the title the topic of tonight's socratic club forum was "Can Islam and Christianity Coexist in a pluralistic society?" Speakers this evening were Dr. Martin Alphonse arguing for Christianity and Dr. Shariar Ahmed arguing for Islam. First will be a brief summary of Dr. Alphonse's opening statements followed by a brief summary of Dr. Ahmed's opening statements. The final part of this analysis will be a summary of my own personal thoughts on each speaker.
Summer of Dr. Alphonse
In Dr. Alphonse's opening statements he gives several reasons for the coexistence of Christianity and Islam. Dr. Alphonse states Christians and Muslims are, in a sense, blood brothers and sisters as they are both descendent from Abraham. He also makes the statement that non-Arab muslims and Christians are descendent from the same theology they merely arrive at different conclusions. Christians and Muslims can coexist because they believe the same books to be revealed by the same God and they believe in the same prophets (i. e. Moses, David etc.). Dr. Alphonse argues a textual commonality between Jews, Christians and Muslims but says that Christians and Jews have deviated from that thus limiting the textual commonality. The issue of love is yet another area Muslims and Christians have in common as both are permitted to lvoe our neighbors as ourselves. Dr. Alphonse says also that Muslims and Christians all have a coomon goal and that with both religions there is a definite beginning and a definite end to the world. The issue of peace is another area Dr. Alphonse uses as his argument for the coexistence of Islam and Christianity.
Dr. Alphonse does state there is much still separating Islam and Christianity even given these similarities. He then goes into a brief explanation of just a few of these barriers. He says the main barrier between Islam and Christianity is the idea the trinity. Muslims see the trinity as being three separate gods rather than one God as the Christians do. Dr. Alphonse argues different names of God would have to refer to different gods. He also argues another barrier between Islam and Christianity is the the claim of a unique revelation. He also accuses Christinaity of major antisemitism against Arabs.
Review of Dr. Ahmed's opening arguments.
Dr. Ahmed begins by breaking the number one rule in public speaking, never apologize for your mistakes. Thus within the first 30 seconds of his presentation he makes it blatantly clear to his audience that he is not prepared to give his presentation and in his own terms "wings it." The only relevant comment Dr. Ahmed makes about Islam and Christianity is his statement that the practices are different. The rest of his presentation he spent establishing commonality with Judaism which was not the question; however, it is to his credit that this part of his presentation was informative albeit not on topic. Dr. Ahmed begins by discussing the origin of the word Islam saying it came from the Arabic word for submission. He also points out that in the Muslim religion to talk about the divine birth is sacrilege. As he walked through the audience he went on to discuss what it would look like to never forget God. After this discussion Dr. Ahmed deals with the issue of Abraham stating that Abraham did not have a wife and a concubine rather that he had two wives. He also makes a bold statement by saying that Hagar, not Sarah, was the ideal wife.
My own personal analyisis and comments:
I haver little in Dr. Alphonse's presentation to criticize his manner was courteous, brief and to the poitn. He dealt with the issue head on and gave a most informative presentation. I completely agree with his statement at the end of his opnening presentation "there is much still separating Christianity from Islam;" however, the point I think he is trying to make is, would it not be better to focus on that which bridges the gap between us rather than focusing on that which widens the gap?
My attack then would lie solely with Dr. Ahmed. First and foremost Dr. Ahmed never actually answered the question of the evening. In fact, he never answered any question. He took 5-10 minutes attempting to answer the question and by the time he was finished the audience completely forgot the question. His speaking manner was extremely accusatory and in fact ridculing to both the Socratic Club and the audience. At one point he made a statement about the list of things expected of him as a speaker saying "I was given a list of dos and donts and decided to just wing it." Saying such he as much as admitted he found the guidlins given him by the Socratic Club to be pointless. Many times in his presentation Dr. Ahmed made statements attesting to the fact that he was unprepared. Therefore, he could not even give the Socratic Club and the audience of the forum the respect of coming with a knowledge of the subject. Given all this it would by my critique that Dr. Ahmed was extremely unprepared, unprofessional, and disrespectful both for the Socratic Club and for the audience of the forum. Any man who hogs the microphone and stiffles any other discussion except that which he leads can be deamed such.
Q&A Session critique's
Many excellent questions were asked and indeed many more could have been asked had Dr. Ahmed simply answered the question in a timely manner and indeed answered the question in the first place. The most interesting of these questions was the question about dhimitudee. It is interesting to not that Dr. Ahmed at first refused to answer except that he then proceeded to spend the next five minutes establishing how Christianity is tolerated by Muslims in this country and in fact all over the world. At one point he gave the example of a Christian, muslim born, well respected woman. What he failed to point however is that this particular woman cannot go back to her home land because she will be killed. He also failed to mention the thousands of Christians that have died by the hand of Islam in Sudan. Does dhimitudee exist? Indeed it doues Dr. Ahmed. In fact I would say to Dr. Ahmed the prime reason Christian is tolerated by Muslims in this country is because we have religious freedom and any attack made on any one person solely on the basis of their religion is deemed a hate crime. It is in fact, a crime.
I next come to the issue of Dr. Ahmed's discussion of the origin of the word Islam. It may very well have come from the Arabic word for submission; however, what Dr. Ahmed neglects to inform his audience is that the muslim idea of submission is not submission at all it is in fact slavery. Muslims live in constant fear of not following the ways of Allah and thus it is no longer submission, but it is in fact slavery.
Dr. Ahmed also makes the bold claim the Muslim religion is not a proselytizing religion. This is absolute nonsense. The only way Dr. Ahmed can make such a claim is if he completely ignores the thousands of years Muslims have threatened to cut off the heads of those who will not convert. How is this not a proselytizing religion?
In closing then I would ask Dr. Ahmed that the next time he gives one of these presentations to be a bit more prepared and do his homework.
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