Although the weaknesses of both the Christian religion and the Islamic religion can be observed by a reader who looks at the Scriptures objectively, the discussion is largely rhetorical: both religions will collapse during the coming Years of Tribulation.
[Note: There are various spellings for the prophet "Muhammad." I have elected to use "Muhammad."]

     God endowed all his children with the attribute of free will. Therefore, each person is at liberty to follow the religion of his choice [even if the choice is "no religion"]. As free will was bestowed by God himself, it behooves each person to respect the right of his fellow man to formulate his own religion.
     However, when the adherents of the Islamic religion proclaim that all persons are obligated to follow their religion, then the non-adherents of that religion are advised to examine their religion in detail.

     What is the origin and nature of the Islamic religion, a religion that Islamists appear quite willing to foist upon nonbelievers?

Description of the Qur'an by Muslims.
     "The Qur'an is the complete and original compilation of the Final Revelation from God to mankind through the last Prophet, Muhammad . . . The Qur'an has essentially three qualities that make it universal:
[1] It is a masterpiece of immense literary value.
[2] Though its message is a continuation of that contained in the earlier Revelations made to Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus, yet this message has a sense of fulfillment and originality that attracts toward it Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
[3] It has a wealth of information - both worldly wisdom and intellectual conceptions - which provides the code of life for mankind."
[My emphasis] [From the back cover of The Qur'an, published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., Elmhurst, New York, 24th US Edition 2008. www.koranusa.org]

     Say the Muslims: "This Qur'an is not such as can be produced by other than Allah. On the contrary it is a confirmation of (revelations) that went before it, and a fuller explanation of the Book - wherein there is no doubt - from the Lord of the worlds." [Surah 10:37]
     It is a central tenet of Islam that the Qur'an is perfect, so criticism of the Qur'an is considered criticism of Islam.

COMMENTS.
     If Muhammad claimed that the Qur'an was the final revelation from God to man, then the Islamic religion was a "dead religion" from its inception. Any religion which precludes the possibility of further revelation from God is a dead religion, irrespective of the fact that it may limp along for a period of time, even hundreds of years, before it succumbs totally.

     The Arabic word "Islam" means the submission or surrender of one's will to the only true god worthy of worship, "Allah," and anyone who does so is termed a "Muslim." Islam was not a new religion brought by the Prophet Muhammad, but only the true religion of Allah re-expressed in its final form.
     The name Islam was chosen by Allah Himself and is clearly mentioned in His final revelation to Muhammad. The Qur'an is the final book of divine revelation. [Qur'an 2:31 ff.] [My emphasis]

COMMENTS.
     The Qur'an is not the final revelation from God. There will never be a final revelation from God. Revelation is an ongoing process. The Urantia Book is the first epochal revelation from God in 2000 years. But it is not the final major revelation from God. There will be many more epochal revelations in the long history of our planet. Additionally, God reveals to every mortal as much additional revelation as the mortal can comprehend at any given moment. [Urantia Book 92:4]

     Say the Muslims: Muhammad the Prophet was called by God to translate verses from the Angel Gabriel to form the Qur'an, the most important book in Islam.
     The Prophet Muhammad supposedly received from Gabriel the tenets of the Islamic religion during the years 610-632. Muhammad recited perfectly to his companions what Gabriel had revealed to him.

COMMENTS.
     GABRIEL is not an angel: he is the chief executive of our local universe of Nebadon. As chief executive, it is not his responsibility to provide ongoing revelation to mortals from God. His duties are strictly administrative. [Urantia Book 33:4]
     If Muhammad did not receive his information from Gabriel, from whom did he receive it? Paul, in the formulation of his version of the Christian religion, received much of his inspiration from Caligastia, our traitorous Planetary Prince who joined Lucifer in his rebellion against Jesus and God. It may be that Muhammad was also guided in some of his thinking and actions by Caligastia, whose overriding objective during the past 200,000 years has been the destruction of as many souls as possible. [Urantia Book 53:1:4]
[See my Paper No. 18: Holy Spirit: "Holy or Unholy?"]

     According to Muslims, Islam is the religion which was given to Adam, the first prophet of Allah, and it was the religion of all the prophets sent by Allah to mankind. The Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet in the long line of prophets which started with Adam and included Enoch, Noah, Heber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Aaron, Moses, Ezra, Zechariah, Jesus, and John the Baptist. [B;G]
     Islamic tradition teaches that prophets were sent by God to every nation. In Islam, only Muhammad was sent to convey God's message for the whole of mankind, whereas other prophets were sent to convey a message to a specific group of people or nation.
     Prophets of Islam are male human beings who are regarded by Muslims to be prophets chosen by God. All prophets are Muslims, they were just different in the Sharia that they taught to their nation, but they all preached the same message: there is only one God; do not commit idol-worship; follow the word of God; do not commit sin, etc. All prophets came to preach Islam and to warn of the coming of the final prophet and messenger of God: the prophet Muhammad. [B]

According to the Qur'an:
     "It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong)." [Surah 3:3] [B]

COMMENTS.
     Present-day Muslims are probably unaware that the Old Testament in the Bible is largely a fictitious document. During the Babylonian captivity the Jewish religious leaders completely rewrote their known history in which numerous historical events were fictionalized. Therefore, the Old Testament is a highly unreliable document. [Urantia Book Paper 97: Sections 8,9,10]

     According to Muslims, Adam is the first prophet of Islam and the first human being. He was created by God but brought to life forty days after being kept as a dry body. He is an important figure in Judaism and Christianity and is best known for the story of Adam and Eve. [B]

COMMENTS.
     Adam was not the first man, nor was he the first prophet. Mortals first appeared 993,419 years ago from the year A.D. 1934. [Urantia Book 62:5:1] Adam and Eve arrived 37,848 years ago from the year A.D. 1934. [Urantia Book 74:0]
     Onagar, master mind and the first great spiritual leader, was born 983,323 years ago (from A.D. 1934), and he lived to be sixty-nine years of age. From his headquarters at a settlement called Oban, he sent out teachers to the remote settlements to spread his new doctrines of one Deity and his concept of the hereafter. [Urantia Book 63:6:5-9]

No Separation of Church and State.
     In Islam there is no separation of church and state. Islam controls all public and private matters. Government, law, and religion are one.

COMMENTS.
     According to The Urantia Book, there should be a distinct separation between church and state. The state has no right to dictate to a person which religion he will believe. God, the father of all, never forces a person to believe in a specific religion. Whether a person believes in any religion is entirely a matter of choice. God desires that belief in him and his teachings should be based strictly on the free will of the individual. God never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. [Urantia Book 1:2]

From The Urantia Book:
     "If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the end that there may be prevented, among other evils, union of church and state. [UB 70:12:6]
     If citizens are to be free, there must be freedom of social, political, and religious activities. [UB 71:8:4]
     Representative government is the divine ideal of self-government among nonperfect beings." [UB 45:7:3]

     God would never dictate to a people their form of government. He may suggest an ideal form of government, but it is the people who must bring the ideal form of government to fruition.

Sharia Law.
     Islamic law is known as Sharia Law. Sharia Law is all-encompassing. It regulates personal hygiene, diet, sexual conduct, prayers, fasting, charity, elements of child rearing, and many other religious matters.
     Sharia Law, being all-encompassing, regulates every facet of a Muslim's life. God has no desire for such servile service by his children. Such onerous rules virtually destroy the free will of an individual. God himself decreed that all his children, from the highest to the lowest, should be endowed with free will. Any religion which purports to regulate a person's every action from sunup to sundown is an exceedingly oppressive form of religion. Thus, "free will" in the Islamic religion is mostly a myth.

From The Urantia Book:
     Ancient man was held a helpless victim of the ritual of the mores; the primitive savage was hedged about by an endless ceremonial. Everything he did from the time of awakening in the morning to the moment he fell asleep in his cave at night had to be done just so—in accordance with the folkways of the tribe. He was a slave to the tyranny of usage; his life contained nothing free, spontaneous, or original. There was no natural progress toward a higher mental, moral, or social existence. [UB 68:4:4]
     Early man was mightily gripped by custom; the savage was a veritable slave to usage; but there have arisen ever and anon those variations from type who have dared to inaugurate new ways of thinking and improved methods of living. [UB 68:4:5]

     It is highly risky for a Muslim to "inaugurate new ways of thinking." In fact, Muslim religious leaders have been perfectly willing to barge in where even angels fear to tread.

From The Urantia Book:
     "There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness. Only true and genuine liberty is compatible with the reign of love and the ministry of mercy.
     How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects." [UB 54:1:8,9]

     During the 1980s the Saudi royal family entered into a Faustian agreement with the Wahhabi establishment: The Saudi royal family agreed to "push" the Wahhabi version of Islam if the Wahhabi establishment would protect the powers and privileges of the Saudi royal family. [Faust was a magician and alchemist in German legend who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power and knowledge.]
     The ultimate objective of the Wahhabi version of Islam is the establishment of a worldwide, murderously intolerant theocratic dictatorship. To date, the Saudi royal family appears quite willing to uphold their end of the bargain. And remember that the Saudi royal family is spending billions of dollars worldwide to establish mosques in which the Wahhabi version of the Islamic religion will be dispensed. (See my paper [F] "Islam as Construed by Saudi Arabia.")

     Under the Wahhabi version of Islam, school children in Saudi Arabia are taught to hate Jews, Christians, and other nonbelievers beginning in the earliest grades.
     The practice of hating non-tribal members has a long and honorable history:
     "Just as soon as the primitive hunter can spare any time from the search for food, he turns this leisure to augmenting his security. More and more attention is devoted to the technique of war. Homes are fortified, and the clans are solidified by mutual fear and by the inculcation of hate for foreign groups." [Urantia Book 50:5:5]

Crime and Punishment in Islam.
     Crimes which receive particular attention in Islam are adultery, alcohol-drinking, apostasy from Islam, defamation, murder, theft, rape, and drug trafficking. The punishment for some crimes is set forth in the Qur'an. Some crimes are mentioned in the Qur'an for which no specific punishment is provided.

COMMENTS.
     Some punishments for crimes, supposedly God-given, are exceedingly harsh. For example, the penalty for rape can be as harsh as beheading. In Saudi Arabia, the sexual abuse of a young boy is defined as rape. [The act was not consensual.] The perpetrator can be beheaded. Several men charged with the rape of young boys have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia in recent years.
     The penalty for theft can be unduly harsh and inhumane: "As to the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power." [Surah 5:38]
     God does not specify a punishment for a specific crime. The method of punishment must be determined by the people.
     The Qur'an repeatedly stresses numerous types of punishment: Hell, fire, blazing fire, humiliating punishment, grievous punishment, severe punishment, shameful punishment, heavy punishment.
     There is no such place as Hell. The concepts of an everlasting hell, everlasting fire, etc., are primitive beliefs developed by the savage and faithfully handed down generation after generation, even to the present day. Numerous erroneous concepts originating during the days of primitive man were incorporated into the Islamic religion. The inclusion of erroneous primitive beliefs in the Islamic religion tells us that the information could never have come from celestial personalities loyal to Jesus and God.
     For a more detailed discussion of crimes and their punishment under Islamic Law see [A] and [B] below.

War against Allah and his Messenger.
     Under Muslim beliefs, the world is composed of two armies: the army who is fighting for Allah, and the army who is fighting against Allah. Supposedly, it is the believers in the Islamic religion who are fighting for Allah. It is the religious duty of the army who is fighting for Allah to either exterminate or convert those persons who are fighting in the army against Allah.
     "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter; . . ." [Surah 5:33]

COMMENTS.
     The Qur'an's teachings on matters of war and peace have become topics of heated discussion in recent years. Critics allege that some verses of the Qur'an in their historical and literary context sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after.
     In response to this criticism, Muslims argue that such verses of the Qur'an are taken out of context, and claim that when the verses are read in context they clearly state that the Qur'an prohibits aggression, and allows fighting only in self-defense. [B]
     Is the prolonged and bitter struggle of the Palestinians and the Taliban against their fellow man an example of "fighting in self-defense?"

Tolerance of Other Religions.
     "Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things." [Surah 2:256]
     The preceding passage seemingly indicates that a person can believe in the religion of his choice. But note the following passages:
     "Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks [that is, behead them] and smite all their finger-tips off them.'" [Surah 8:12]
     "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;" [Surah 4:89]
     "And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith." [Surah 2:191]
     Numerous additional passages express the same intolerance toward nonbelievers. Examples: [Surah 3:28], [Surah 4:101], [Surah 4:144], [Surah 9:123], [Surah 9:29], [Surah 47:4]

COMMENTS.
     Does the Qur'an support the claim that Islam is a tolerant religion?
     Based on the preceding Surahs it appears that the answer is No. Muslims who have converted to Christianity explain that publicly, Muslims will cite passages which clearly indicate that Islam is a tolerant religion. But privately they will quote passages which refute the concept of tolerance. Apparently, Muslims can choose to follow those passages in the Qur'an which appeal to their level of spiritual development.
     Many Muslims bitterly resent statements by "infidels" that criticize their religion, or which appear to put the Islamic religion in an unfavorable light. In fact, criticism of the Islamic religion, either express or implied, can call forth violent or unreasonable responses [i.e., unreasonable from a Westerner's point of view]. Recall Ayatollah Khomeini's response to Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses: He issued a fatwa calling for the author's death. Rushdie's novel was supposedly controversial and allegedly blasphemous. Note that Ayatollah Khomeini, who lived in Iran, issued a fatwa against Rushdie who lived in another country!

     Following one of Jesus' sermons in a synagogue, such a tumult was threatened that Jesus stood up and said: "Let us be patient; the truth never suffers from honest examination." [Urantia Book 153:2:11]
     When have Muslims ever demonstrated a willingness to examine their religion in an open, honest manner? Are Muslim religious leaders so insecure regarding the truth of their teachings that they are willing to suppress all criticism by Muslims of their religion, by force if necessary? Should a Muslim stand in fear of his life if he reads the Qur'an objectively and suggests ways to correct some of its most reprehensible teachings?
     Too many progressive Islamists who would reform the Islamic religion are held securely within the cruel grasp of cultural bondage:
     ". . . no state can attain ideal levels of functioning until every form of intolerance is mastered; it is everlastingly inimical to human progress. And intolerance is best combated by the co-ordination of science, commerce, play, and religion." [Urantia Book 71:3:2]

Wives.
     From the Qur'an: "Your wives are as a tilth [property, land] unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will; but do some good act for your souls beforehand; and fear Allah. And know that ye are to meet Him (in the Hereafter), and give (these) good tidings to those who believe." [Surah 2:223]

COMMENTS.
     Muslims may give lip service to the notion that Muslim women are equal to men. But Surah 2:223 clearly states that a wife is a possession to be treated as the husband sees fit. As the world has observed, members of the Taliban exercise this right very brutally. [And remember that the Taliban practices the Wahhabi religion, the fundamentalist, oppressive, godless, dictatorial form of Islam.] In a Muslim country in which there is no body of law that protects a woman from abuse and discrimination, we might conjecture that a man exercises his right of ownership of his wife in accordance with his level of spiritual development. Huge numbers of Muslim men appear perfectly willing to view their wives as property and to treat them accordingly. In Muslim countries, men are firmly in control of all facets of government and religion. Women are defined as property; therefore, women are told, they should conduct themselves accordingly.

From The Urantia Book:
     Early woman was not to man a friend, sweetheart, lover, and partner but rather a piece of property, a servant or slave and, later on, an economic partner, plaything, and childbearer. [UB 84:4:3]
     Primitive man never hesitated to enslave his fellows. Woman was the first slave, a family slave. Pastoral man enslaved woman as his inferior sex partner. This sort of sex slavery grew directly out of man’s decreased dependence upon woman. [UB 69:8:1]
     When man was a hunter, he was fairly kind to woman, but after the domestication of animals, coupled with the Caligastia confusion, many tribes shamefully treated their women. They treated them altogether too much as they treated their animals. Man’s brutal treatment of woman constitutes one of the darkest chapters of human history. [UB 69:7:5]
     In earliest times women were the property of the community, and the mother dominated the family. The early chiefs owned all the land and were proprietors of all the women; marriage required the consent of the tribal ruler. With the passing of communism, women were held individually, and the father gradually assumed domestic control. [UB 69:9:7]
     At one time in our long evolution, a husband could kill his wife without punishment provided he had fully paid for her. [UB 70:10:11]
     A great advance in evolution was made when a man was denied the right to kill his wife at will. [UB 84:4:10]
     Even so, woman has always been treated as property, right up to and in the twentieth century after Christ. She has not yet gained world-wide freedom from seclusion under man’s control. Even among advanced peoples, man’s attempt to protect woman has always been a tacit assertion of superiority." [UB 84:4:10]

     Man is slow to relinquish his control over woman. Even in Western countries, women were slow to gain the legal right to own, control, and dispose of property. In the United States, male religious leaders in some Christian sects still vigorously resist women's efforts to participate in roles of religious leadership.
     "Celestial administrators do not regard a planet as having emerged from barbarism so long as one sex seeks to tyrannize over the other." [Urantia Book 49:4:4]

Multiple Wives.
     "If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice. [Surah 4:3]
     Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all)." [Surah 4:34] [My emphasis]
     Surah 4 deals at some length with wives, orphans, dowries, inheritance of children, etc.

COMMENTS.
From The Urantia Book:
     "Monogamy always has been, now is, and forever will be the idealistic goal of human sex evolution. This ideal of true pair marriage entails self-denial, and therefore does it so often fail just because one or both of the contracting parties are deficient in that acme of all human virtues, rugged self-control. [UB 83:6:6]
     Monogamy is the yardstick which measures the advance of social civilization as distinguished from purely biologic evolution. Monogamy is not necessarily biologic or natural, but it is indispensable to the immediate maintenance and further development of social civilization. It contributes to a delicacy of sentiment, a refinement of moral character, and a spiritual growth which are utterly impossible in polygamy. A woman never can become an ideal mother when she is all the while compelled to engage in rivalry for her husband’s affections. [UB 83:6:7]
     The Old Testament deals with women as a form of property; the Koran teaches their inferiority." [UB 82:4:3]

     If a marriage of "one husband, one wife" is indispensable to the further progress of a civilization, how can Muslim countries which permit a man to have several wives expect to steadily achieve higher levels of social development? What chance is there in a polygamous marriage that a husband and his wives can hope to steadily achieve a rising level of spiritual development? It appears that in a polygamous marriage there is little or no expectation that any state approaching an ideal marriage can be achieved.
     ". . . civilization is directly dependent on the effective functioning of the family; . . ." [Urantia Book 79:8:9]
     In a Muslim country in which a wife is defined as property, can a Muslim husband be expected to treat his wives as equals? Can he be expected to respect, much less love, his wives, wives who are totally under his control? In such farcical marriages, should wives be more accurately defined as slaves?

Homosexuality.
     Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam; acts of sodomy are explicitly punishable by death in accordance with the Hadith: "Whomever you find doing the deed of the People of Lot, then kill both the doer and whomever he is doing it to." The four Caliphs upheld this ruling, as did all of the Prophet's companions.
     In Saudi Arabia, the penalty for homosexuality is death. However, jail time, fines, or whipping may be used in lieu of the death penalty. [B]
     As homosexuality is forbidden in Saudi Arabia, the spectacle of gay men and women agitating for equal rights in marriage is not permitted. And in any event, a marriage between two men or two women can never be as effective as a marriage between a man and a woman:
     "A man and a woman, co-operating, even aside from family and offspring, are vastly superior in most ways to either two men or two women. [Urantia Book 84:1:9]
     Pair marriage [a man and a woman] favors and fosters that intimate understanding and effective co-operation which is best for parental happiness, child welfare, and social efficiency." [Urantia Book 83:6:8]

Praying Five Times Per Day: Has it Helped?
From The Urantia Book:
     Prayer should be "a mighty promoter of social evolution, moral progress, and spiritual attainment." [UB 91:1:2]
     Prayer should always be a "socializing, moralizing, and spiritualizing practice." [UB 91:3:3]

COMMENTS.
     Praying five times a day is an involved, tedious, time consuming ritual for Muslims. There are specific instructions for the performance of the five prayers. Stringent guidelines must be followed.
     I quote from the web site http://www.everything.com/five-daily-prayers-muslim: "Prayer is the central act of worship for all Muslims, and it is their direct contact with the Creator. Prayer is a time to thank God for His blessings and ask Him for forgiveness, guidance and protection. A Muslim prays directly to God Alone, without any mediator.
     Islamic prayer is both a physical and spiritual exercise, composed of a series of postures, gestures, and recitations. Each step in the prayer expresses praise, adoration, and submission to God. All five of the formal daily prayers follow the same basic pattern."
     Unfortunately, it appears that in the case of Muslims, praying five times per day has accomplished little or nothing. Their religion is just as barbaric today as it was almost 1400 years ago. Huge numbers of Muslims have a very low level of spiritual development. In fact, some of them appear to be barely above the animal level when it comes to spiritual development.
     There are numerous web sites which explain and illustrate the five Muslim prayers. For example, see: www.answers.com/topic/salah or www.alislam.org/salaat/index.html.

Slavery in the Islamic World.
     [The internet contains an extensive amount of information pertaining to the institution of slavery in Muslim countries.]
     The savage was quite willing to enslave his fellows. Hundreds of thousands of years later, supposedly civilized man is still busily engaged in the enslavement of his fellows: The buying and selling of men, women, and children in the Islamic world is a thriving business.
     Although many Muslim countries publicly claim that slavery has been outlawed in their country, there are many ways of circumventing the law.

     The Qur'an accepts the institution of slavery. It includes multiple references to slaves, slave women, slave concubinage, and the freeing of slaves. The words "slave" or "slavery" appear numerous times in the Qur'an. However, many times the word 'abd' (slave) is replaced by some euphemism such as "that which your right hand owns."
     A master may make his female slave his concubine and, if she is a Muslim, he can marry her.
     In Saudi Arabia, in 2003, a high-level Saudi jurist, Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan, issued a fatwa [legal opinion] claiming “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam.” He attacked Muslim scholars who said otherwise, claiming, “They are ignorant, not scholars . . . They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.” At the time of the fatwa, Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan was a member of the Senior Council of Clerics as well as other religious bodies.

     Said Bernard Lewis in his book Race and Slavery in the Middle East; An Historical Enquiry [1990, Oxford University Press]:
     "From a Muslim point of view, to forbid what God permits is almost as great an offense as to permit what God forbids - and slavery was authorized and regulated by the holy law. More specifically, it formed part of the law of personal status, the central core of social usage, which remained intact and effective even when other sections of the holy law, dealing with civil, criminal, and similar matters, were tactically or even openly modified and replaced by modern codes. It was from conservative religious quarters and notably from the holy cities of Mecca and Medina that the strongest resistance to the proposed reform came. The emergence of the holy men and the holy places as the last ditch defenders of slavery against reform is only an apparent paradox. They were upholding an institution sanctified by scripture, law, and tradition and one which in their eyes was necessary to the maintenance of the social structure of Muslim life."

     According to multiple sources, religious calls have been made to capture and enslave Jewish women. As American journalist John J. Miller said, "It is hard to imagine a serious person calling for America to enslave its enemies. Yet a prominent Saudi cleric, Shaikh Saad Al-Buraik, recently urged Palestinians to do exactly that with Jews: 'Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women?'"

     Some Muslims resent laws prohibiting slavery in their country because they say such laws are contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an: laws prohibiting slavery permit the expropriation from Muslims of goods that were acquired legally. Muslims who support the institution of slavery contend that the state does not have the right to seize a Muslim's house, his wife, or his slave.

Slavery in the contemporary Muslim world.
     While slavery is illegal in Saudi Arabia despite Shaykh al-Fawzan's fatwa, the proclamation carries weight among many Salafi Muslims. According to reformist jurist and author Khaled Abou El Fadl, it "is particularly disturbing and dangerous because it effectively legitimates the trafficking in and sexual exploitation of so-called domestic workers in the Gulf region and especially Saudi Arabia." Organized criminal gangs smuggle children into Saudi Arabia where they are enslaved, sometimes mutilated, and forced to work as beggars. When caught, the children are deported as illegal aliens.

According to the U.S. State Department:
     Saudi Arabia is a destination for men and women from South and East Asia and East Africa trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation, and for children from Yemen, Afghanistan, and Africa for forced begging.
     The Government of Saudi Arabia does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.
[Wikipedia Encyclopedia, "African Slave Trade;" "Arab Slave Trade;" "Islam and Slavery;" "Slavery;" "Slavery in Modern Africa"]

     It is possible that modern day Muslims still privately agree with Ibn Khaldun [1332 - 1406], preeminent Islamic medieval historian and social thinker, who wrote in the 1300s:
     " . . . the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals . . ."
     Ibn Khaldun also cast a critical eye on the Arabs themselves:
     "They are the most savage human beings that exist. Compared with sedentary people, they are on a level with wild, untamable animals and dumb beasts of prey . . . Arabs dominate only on the plains, because they are, by their savage nature, people of pillage and corruption. They pillage everything that they can take without fighting or taking risks, then flee to their refuge in the wilderness, and do not stand and do battle unless in self-defense."
[Wikipedia Encyclopedia; "Arab Slave Trade"]

     The practice of slavery among Muslims is seldom openly discussed - as if slavery was exclusively a Western phenomenon. This deliberate silence enables Islamic propagandists in America to represent Muslims as liberators of the people of African origin, contrary to historical fact.
[Arabs and Slave Trade by Shirley Madany. http://www.answering-islam.org/ReachOut/slavetrade.html]

COMMENTS.
     When Muslim countries gather at international forums, slavery is not discussed: they spend their time writing resolutions bashing Israel and the West. They appear to feel no remorse for the past, and no responsibility for the present. ["The Unknown Slavery: In the Muslim world, that is and it's not over;" John J. Miller, National Review, May 20, 2002]

From The Urantia Book:
     Although the practice of slavery began with savage man, traffic in slavery "was and is a racial disgrace, for at one and the same time it hinders the development of family life and" can "pollute the biologic fitness" of its practitioners. [UB 69:5:10]
     Slavery insidiously attacks "society internally as the gravest of all destructive social maladies." [UB 69:8:8]
     "Woman’s estate is little short of hopeless under the peculiar degradation which attaches to her in Muhammadanism, . . ." [UB 84:5:6]

     Critics of the Qur'an say it is nothing more than the combination of the Bible and Jewish and Christian folklore with Muhammad appended. Critics reject the idea that the Qur'an is miraculously perfect and impossible to imitate. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "The dependence of Muhammad upon his Jewish teachers or upon what he heard of the Jewish Haggadah and Jewish practices is now generally conceded." [B]
     This is strongly refuted by Muslim scholars who maintain that the Qur'an is the divine word of Allah without any insertions from Christian and Jewish sources, and the similarities exist only due to the common divine source. [B]
     Muslims further believe that those Christian or Jewish Scriptures which differ from those in the Qur'an were corrupted or altered over a period of time by the Jews and Christians and have been replaced by Allah's final and perfect revelation, which is the Qur'an. [B]
     According to some critics, the morality of the Qur’an (like the life story of Muhammad) appears to be a moral regression by the standards of the moral traditions of Judaism and Christianity it says that it builds upon. Catholic encyclopedia, for example, states that "the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament" and "that in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve, is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is none." [B]

     In any event, a perusal of the Qur'an reveals that an enormous amount of information in the Bible found its way into the Qur'an, often in distorted form.

Islam: No Social, Moral, and Spiritual Progress in Almost 1400 Years.
From The Urantia Book:
     "Every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy symbolism, and its devotees would do well to prevent the crystallization of such a ritual into cramping, deforming, and stifling stereotyped ceremonials which can only handicap and retard all social, moral, and spiritual progress. No cult [religion] can survive if it retards moral growth and fails to foster spiritual progress." [UB 87:7:10]
     "In olden times the fetish word of authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to the higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round." [UB 88:2:7]
     "Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, in theory, be both final and infallible. The cult [religion] resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult [religion] itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it." [UB 92:3:4]

     The article "Criticism of Islam" in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia presents a detailed discussion pertaining to the criticism of Islam and the Qur'an beginning with the earliest days of the Islamic religion.

     Although there is much valid current criticism of Muhammad and the religion he founded, his religion was an improvement over what his followers were accustomed to practicing.
From The Urantia Book:
     "Muhammad founded a religion which was superior to many of the creeds of his time. His was a protest against the social demands of the faiths of foreigners and against the incoherence of the religious life of his own people." [UB 92:5:11]
     The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors’ living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals. [UB 92:7.3]
But note:
     "The word God, the idea of God as contrasted with the ideal of God, can become a part of any religion, no matter how puerile or false that religion may chance to be. And this idea of God can become anything which those who entertain it may choose to make it. The lower religions shape their ideas of God to meet the natural state of the human heart; the higher religions demand that the human heart shall be changed to meet the demands of the ideals of true religion. [Urantia Book 160:5:6]
     Regarding the status of any religion in the evolutionary scale, it may best be judged by its moral judgments and its ethical standards. The higher the type of any religion, the more it encourages and is encouraged by a constantly improving social morality and ethical culture. We cannot judge religion by the status of its accompanying civilization; we had better estimate the real nature of a civilization by the purity and nobility of its religion. Many of the world’s most notable religious teachers have been virtually unlettered. The wisdom of the world is not necessary to an exercise of saving faith in eternal realities." [Urantia Book 102:8:2]

COMMENTS.
     It is obvious that Muslims have not yet learned that "True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother. Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical promises of future mystical rewards." [Urantia Book 99:5:2]
     I'm willing to concede that the Islamic religion contains some valid teachings. However, in viewing the Islamic religion as a whole, I see very little to commend it.

Modern criticism of Islam comes in many varieties and from various corners.

Winston Churchill. He stated that Islam instills "a fatalistic apathy" and "a degraded sensualism that deprives this life of its grace and refinement." He said that "the fact that in Muhammadan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men." He further believed that "the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world," and that only superior scientific capabilities in Europe prevented the Muslim world from destroying the civilization of modern Europe as Rome had been destroyed.

     Several well-known evangelical leaders from the United States have weighed in against Islam. They include Pat Robertson, who expresses the view that "Islam wants to take over the world and is not a religion of peace", and that radical Muslims are "satanic," and that Osama Bin Laden was a "true follower of Muhammad." The late Jerry Falwell, an American conservative Baptist minister, characterized the prophet Muhammad as being a terrorist. Franklin Graham described Islam as an "evil and wicked religion" and suggested that those who believe Islam to be "wonderful" should "go and live under the Taliban somewhere."

     There are also outspoken former Muslims who believe that Islam is the primary cause for what they see as the mistreatment of minority groups in Muslim countries and communities. Almost all of them now live in the West, many under assumed names because of a legitimate danger to themselves, and many have had death threats made against them by Islamic groups.
     Ayaan Hirsi Ali has focused on the plight of Muslim women, saying that "they aspire to live by their faith as best they can, but their faith robs them of their rights."
     Arab-American psychologist Dr. Wafa Sultan has pointed out that the prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and his Messenger." Sultan has called on Islamic teachers to review their writings and teachings and remove every call to fight people who do not believe as Muslims. Dr. Sultan is now in hiding, fearing for her life and the safety of her family after appearing on the al-Jazeera TV show.

     The spectacle of events in Iran following the June 12 2009 presidential election should tell the observant non-Muslim all he needs to know about the Islamic religion. The "stars" of the fiasco were the candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi and the incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supposedly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "won by a landslide." The Islamic clerics demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that their religion will tolerate no dissent: Witness the killing of protesters as ordered by the high ranking clerics of the Islamic religion.

Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God?
     Muslims claim that Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God. But is this true?
     Victor Mordecai claims that Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not worship the same God. I quote from his book:
     "According to world-renowned scholar and theologian Dr. Robert Morey, Muhammad decided to build his new religion, Islam, on the foundations of Arabian paganism in order for it to be more palatable to the pagans who were his target audience."
[Comment: The Christians and Jews had rejected Muhammad's new religion.]
     "According to Arabian paganism there were 360 pagan gods, one for each day of the lunar year. The greatest of these gods was Allah, originally known as al-Ilahi, the Moon God. This pagan Allah, the greatest in the pagan pantheon, was the war god, just as Zeus was the war god for the ancient Greeks and Romans."

     "In order to build his new religion, Islam, on a monotheistic basis, Muhammad abolished the other 359 lesser gods, leaving Allah as the only god. But Allah still remains a war god, and bears no resemblance to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is the God of love, . . . Allah, the moon god, the war god, is a god of the bow, the arrow, the spear and the sword. Islam is a war religion, a warrior religion and merciless religion in which beheading, crucifixion and severing of arms and limbs is common practice even today and a religion in which no 'Protestant reformation' can ever be countenanced which would allow modernization as happened in the Jewish and Christian religions. That is why the 7th century is so glorified in Islam and 1S the direction in which the pan-global Islamic conquest is headed. It is locked into and fossilized in a mindset totally contrary" to present day beliefs. "It opposes the progress and development of the renaissance and enlightenment following the dark medieval ages of Europe and dreams of the distant past."

     Mordecai makes a good case to suggest that after the illiterate desert nomad warriors conquered Babylonia, they kidnapped a leading rabbi from the seat of Talmudic learning and sequestered him until he wrote the "holy" book of the Muslims. At the beginning of several surahs the rabbi inserted the letters ALM. The Hebrew translation of the letters is Alef, Lamed, Mem. According to Jewish tradition, the rabbi included these abbreviations to mean Ani Lo Ma'amin which translated means: "I don't believe," a device kidnapped people used to warn that the statements made are not true.
     If true, this might explain why the Qur'an contains so much information from the Jewish Scriptures. [See Surahs 2, 3, 29 through 32]
Victor Mordecai, Is Fanatic Islam A Global Threat? pages 37-39, 254-255. [December 1997, Fifth Printing].

From The Urantia Book:
     "Islam is the religio-cultural connective of North Africa, the Levant, and southeastern Asia. It was Jewish theology in connection with the later Christian teachings that made Islam monotheistic." [UB 92:6:8]

Islam: a godless religion?
     As the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God of love, while the god of Islam is the arrow, the sword, and perpetual warfare, there can never be a true meeting of the minds between their pagan god of war and the divine God of love.
     Muhammad wanted to found a religion with belief in a single God. Unfortunately, as we saw above, he chose the pagan god, Al-Ilahi, the moon god. Al-Ilahi [which became Allah] was the war god. Therefore, the Muslims do not worship the One True God: they worship a pagan god. Their religious beliefs irrefutably reveal that their god is a pagan god, a false god, and not the One True God.
     "In conceiving of Deity, [1] man first includes all gods, [2] then subordinates all foreign gods to his tribal deity, and finally [3] excludes all but the one God of final and supreme value." [Urantia Book, 96:0:1]
     The Muslims progressed through steps [1] and [2], but they never accomplished step [3]: Muslims maintain that they have one God of final and supreme value. However:
     "The projections of the human intellect may indeed originate false gods—gods in man’s image—but the true God-consciousness does not have such an origin. The God-consciousness is resident in the indwelling spirit. Many of the religious systems of man come from the formulations of the human intellect, but the God-consciousness is not necessarily a part of these grotesque systems of religious slavery." [Urantia Book 196:3:20]
     I conjecture as follows: Suppose that a Jewish rabbi did indeed write the "holy" book of the Muslims. Then apparently he simply created a pagan god for the Arabs which reflected their beliefs and practices. He did take the precaution of imputing to the pagan god some attributes of the One True God: Most Gracious, Most Merciful, Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds, the Eternal, Exalted in Might, Lord of Retribution . . .
     It follows then, that what the Muslims worship is a pagan god created in their own image.

From The Urantia Book.
     "Observing minds and discriminating souls know religion when they find it in the lives of their fellows. Religion requires no definition; we all know its social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual fruits." [UB 102:2:1]
     "There was only one factor of a tribal, racial, or national nature about the primitive and unorganized beliefs of the desert, and that was the peculiar and general respect which almost all Arabian tribes were willing to pay to a certain black stone fetish in a certain temple at Mecca. This point of common contact and reverence subsequently led to the establishment of the Islamic religion. What Yahweh, the volcano spirit, was to the Jewish Semites, the Kaaba stone became to their Arabic cousins." [UB 95:7:5]
     "The strength of Islam has been its clear-cut and well-defined presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity; its weakness, the association of military force with its promulgation, together with its degradation of woman. But it has steadfastly held to its presentation of the One Universal Deity of all, 'who knows the invisible and the visible. He is the merciful and the compassionate.' 'Truly God is plenteous in goodness to all men.' 'And when I am sick, it is he who heals me.' 'For whenever as many as three speak together, God is present as a fourth,' for is he not 'the first and the last, also the seen and the hidden'?" [UB 95:7:6]

     As we see, the Islamic religion contains much good information. Unfortunately, it has not succeeded in spiritualizing either the rulers or the citizens in Islamic countries. "Any religious belief which is effective in spiritualizing the believer is certain to have powerful repercussions in the social life of such a religionist. Religious experience unfailingly yields the 'fruits of the spirit' in the daily life of the spirit-led mortal." [Urantia Book 99:5:6]
     "A lasting social system without a morality predicated on spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the solar system without gravity." [Urantia Book 195:5:9]
     Muslims protest: "But our religion has endured for almost 1400 years." Yes, so it has. But how? An objective study of the Islamic religion reveals that its fruits are those of a pagan god with its emphasis on hate, intolerance, reprehensible discrimination against women and nonbelievers, cruelty, slavery, polygamy, spiritual blindness, cultural and intellectual bondage, fanaticism, no free speech, . . .
     How does a person worship God the Father? By striving each day to become more like him.
     For 1400 years, Muslims have obviously succeeded in effectively and diligently worshiping their pagan god of perpetual war.

     Muslims have replaced ethics and true religion with paganism and power. Muslim religious leaders should be aware that they are creating millions of human soulless hate-machines. The time is near when these soulless well-trained human hate-machines will become uncontrollable and will turn on their soulless leaders, subjecting them to a horrendous death.

     Muslims are suffering the consequences of a double deprivation: A godless religion and power-mad, godless religious dictators.

Goal of Muslims: World Dominance.
     Make no mistake about it: The goal of Islamic countries is to conquer the world for Islam. They are perfectly willing to use any method that works. Gain an inch here, an inch there. Bring a lawsuit here, a lawsuit there. Be prepared to fold if the cards are against you. Fall back, regroup, continue.
     Saudi Arabia is quite willing to contribute billions of dollars to bring about world domination by Wahhabi Islam. Saudi Arabia is contributing billions of dollars for the purpose of making fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam the world religion.
     Muslims are clever, cunning, treacherous, amoral, devious, totally devoted to their goal of world domination. Do not be deceived by their expensive clothes and smooth tongues.
     In my opinion, America should not change a single one of its laws to accommodate their barbaric religion.
     We should emphasize to all Muslims in America that if they disapprove of our laws regarding freedom of speech and religion, and our system of government, they are urged to leave our country permanently. In fact, we will be more than pleased to expedite their departure.

     After studying the Islamic religion, I conclude that the Qur'an came from mortals, not from God.
     I cannot believe that Muhammad received the information in the Qur'an from Gabriel.
     In my opinion, by no stretch of the imagination can the Qur'an be described as a "masterpiece of immense literary value."
     If a Jew, a Christian, or even a Muslim reads the Qur'an objectively, I do not bellieve "this message has a sense of fulfillment and originality that attracts toward it Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike."
     The Islamic religion is a very oppressive religion. Any person who attempts to follow all the teachings of the Islamic religion will find himself effectively shackled from dawn to dark.
     Repeatedly, the teachings of the Qur'an contradict the teachings of God the Father of Paradise, the True God.
     One of the most damning of all criticisms is that in the twenty-first century, the Muslims still worship a pagan god, a cruel, vindictive, inhumane god of perpetual war.

     Muslims are commanded by their pagan god of war to convert every person on earth to the Islamic religion by any means necessary. By contrast, Christians are commanded to preach the good news gospel to all the world, but always by the method of persuasion.
     I do not find that the Qur'an provides a "wealth of information - both worldly wisdom and intellectual conceptions - which provides the code of life for mankind." The New Testament of the Bible, although highly imperfect, is a vast improvement over the Qur'an. However, neither the teachings of the Qur'an nor the Bible can compare with the morally and intellectually superior teachings of The Urantia Book.
     One looks in vain for the lofty language of the Hebrew prophets as they slowly but surely led the Hebrews from the worship of many gods to the worship of the One True God.