From : ispaccount@yahoo.com
Sent : Sunday, June 27, 2004 1:36 PM
To : arabtimesnewspaper@hotmail.com
Subject : Reply To Gamal Farah

Dear Dr. Farah,

I read your article and I find it really interesting. You are accusing Islam of being pagan and and muslims of being idol worshippers and you are forgetting or ignoring to that Christianity was compromised after Issa(Alaihi assalam). Christianity was compromised by Paul who was the Jesus nemisis and went to Damascus to prosecute early chritians in Syria and on his was he saw Jesus in a dream and then he became apostle and he continued in seeing dreams and he made pork allowed for christians (Although Jesus himeself did not eat pork, or am I wrong?). Also Jesus said heimself he was sent to the jews (Israelites) he never said he was sent to all humanity but again your beloved Paul said Non, No, No Jesus was sent to all humanity and becasue of that he was not on good terms with Peter and other apostles. Aother small compromise, is not it? OK now to paganism in Christainity: Please go to any catholic church and see how many idols are there? better yet drive by any church and look how many pictures of naked saints and of Jesus are on the windows. ON let us make it easy for you o verify: Please look at the cross you have around your neck, what do you see? AN idol, is not it? My dear friend you are just ignoring the obvious and calling things by different names just to make it look and sound better.

Ok now let us go to Chrismas, Halloween? Are those christian?Did Jesus celebrate them or even Paul the great compromiser "pragmatic" say anything about them? I do not think so. You might say oh, well Halloween is only celberated in USA, true but it comes after the night of all saints or some other christian celebration. The same goes for Christmas, which was celebrated long time befor even christ himself. It was introduced into christianity much much later to make it more appealing to the celtic pagans of europe at that time.Am I wrong? I heard this from christian here also and I read it in books. Those chritians were from different denomenations: Presbetarians, baptists,Catholics, etc.

Let us now talk about Sundays, Was Sunday the day of worship for early christians? nop it was not. make a lucky guess at what it was? You are right!! tt was Saturday but again for this "pragmatic" religion, they said ok we are going to make it SUnday now. why? because this is the day pagans were celebrating the Sun in and hence the name (Sun-day).

Now for the "Son of God" thing and by the way you said that Mariam(Peace be upon her), shoould not be aclled mother of God, Well if you are living in the USA, you would know that catholics swear by that "Oh mother of God" and if you drive in big cities you would see churches named like " MOther of God church".

I also asked a friend of mine from Romania(Orthothox) and he said they beleive that but let us get back to the "Son of God" thing; You know that this was officially proposed and voted on by the council of Nicaea, so the whole Jesus devinty thing was a result of a vote and it was very close vote to that matter!! this was done ro unify the roman empire at that time and to strengthen the roman catholic church (After this vote) christians can only redeem themselves through one channel "The roman catholic church" this continued until great christian split (protestants and catholics). In other words the church at that time put in the last bullet in the true christianity that Jesus came with. It is now a new whole religon.

now for a little story my dear friend and please let us know if it does ring a bell: There was a pre-christian God called Mithras. He was also called "Son of God" and "The light of the world". He was born on December 15, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in 3 days. By the way December 25 is also the birthday od Osiris, Adonis and Dionysus.

Does this remind of somebody else? This was one thousand year before Christanity.

Let us go to the story of Kabah and the black stone: I have never been told or even thought that we are worshipping the Kabah or the black stone. Omar ibn alkhattab(radia ALlah anh) said "You are only a stone, you don't benefit or do any harm but i saw the prophet(peace be upon him) kiss you, otherwise I won't" and that is what every muslim thinks of them. The hajj and people going around the kaabah is just to remind us of the story of Ibraham and his family(peace be upon them all). we worship God and we ask only God and we only pray to God, unlike you you pray to Jesus. and if this is pagan, what do u think about jews? the pray towards jJerusalem and they pray against the "Mabka wall".

What about you do not you consider it a great opportunity to pray in the holy churches in Jeruslem". Do not you kneel in front of a big cross in your room and pray and ask for it is help. We do not. We only say "ya Allah" wherever and whenever we pray. WE honor and glorify God as we should and we honor all prophets including Issa (Peace be upon him).

One more thing, how in the world you are saying you worship only one God and then you say but "He is one in three and three in one". Man if you can explain the Trinity thing, you would be the first one whoever did that since it was introduced. BY the way Sikhs beleive almost the same thing. tHey say we beleive in one God but they also beleive in two other gods who were born from the naval of that GOd. So they think they beleive in One God who is also 1 in 3 and 3 in 1.

Now look around you and study history, Christians killed and have been killing much more that any other faith, one example is the spanish in south America and europian settelers in North America. Millions and millions of people were killed in the name of Jesus while it was all about land and gold. Nowadays look around you. over 10 years, seige was on Iraq and millions of kids died and when Madlin Olbright was asked if was worth it she said yes it was. THey killed more iraqis than Saddam did. Let us go to what is going on. Christians are killing muslims with their "smart" weapons and they are lieing about it. Bush and Chenney pray on Sudnay and they do not find it immoral to kill hundreds of thousand of people the next day they are "the soldiers of the Lord",your loving Lord Jesus. Do not blame what a punch of thugs are doing (kidnapping and beheadding and all those atrocities) on Islam. This is not Islam. I am more disgusted of those acts than you are and I learned and I learn every day from Islam to respect all humans and to be nice to my neighbors and be good citizen in this great country. as for ALgeria, you know that the french intellegnce with thier fracophone freinds did all the masacres i that muslim counrty. One Serb mercenery confessed to that crime and said that all these masacres wre done by the french and the algerian army to blame it on muslims who won the election their.

One last thing I ask you, please be honest with yourself and ask yourself true questions and seek honest questions and remove all bias in you against Islam when you do so.

regards,

Dr.Iyas Ansari,
United Stated of America