While working on my project, The Commentary of the Quran, I stumbled upon one of the greatest Muslim lies of our time. My contemplation on it led me to conclude: It does not matter how educated or enlightened a Muslim may be, he or she becomes blind when his or her religious beliefs and doctrines become the subject of a discussion.

To make my point clear, citation of an example should suffice.

Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, a Muslim scholar, and the Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University of India, has written a number of books on Islam. In one of his books tilled, Muhammad and the Quran, he justifiably ridiculed, in the following words, the Jews and the Christians for their belief in miracles:

And yet, while other prophets, whose miracles can at best be matters of belief and at worst flights of fancy on the part of their believers, are glorified and revered, Muhammad is denounced. This despite the fact that neither science nor philosophy gives much credence to miracles. Even in classical antiquity, many thinkers have expressed serious doubts about them. For instance, Cicero declared that �there are no such things as miracles they were invented �for the piety of the ignorant folk. Celsus said that miracles, whether attributed to Christ or Moses, were insufficiently attested and most improbable. Even in the Middle Ages, many questioned their veracity. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the doctrine of miracles was publicly denounced. David Hume shred it to pieces in his work Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. There was no scientific evidence to establish their authenticity. Even some of the Christian priests, such as Rudolf Buttman, discarded them and preached that Christianity was more a moral than a supernatural force (p. 25).

Now read what the same Muslim scholar has said about the so-called miracle, while discussing in the same book the outcome of the battle of Badr.

The fact that he {i.e. Muhammad} won the battle was, indeed, a miracle. That is why he attributed it entirely to God (p.32).

Readers are invited to learn about another Muslim lie of a gigantic proportion. It relates to the water of the Zamzam well in Mecca , and which I have included in the commentary of the following verses of the Quran:

16:10: It is He Who sends down rain from the sky: from it ye drink, and out of it (grows) the vegetation on which ye feed your cattle.

16:11: With it He produces for you corn, olives, date-palms, grapes, and every kind of fruit: Verily, in this is a Sign for those who give thought.

These two verses, read in conjunction with verse 2:61, make clear the kind of produces the people of the Arabian Peninsula were familiar with, and also from where they got their drinking water in the time of Muhammad. It was on account of this reason that the Quran speaks only about the pot-herbs, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions, corn, olives, date-palms, graves and �every kind of fruit,� without being specific about them.

Since the Arabs were not used to eating rice and bread, the Quran has not said anything about rice or wheat. Since they did not know how a mango looked like, the Quran is silent about it. Since they had never seen, in their lives, vegetables like spinach and cauliflower etc. which are grown mostly in milder climates, Allah skipped their names from His All-encompassing Book.

The fact that the Arabs drank rain water, which they found in waterholes of the desert, it should not be inappropriate for us to discuss here briefly the story of the Mecca�s Zamzam well, the origin of which Muslims trace to a mysterious act of Allah. They claim:

Historically, Ibrahim - a prophet in Judaism, Christianity and Islam - has links to both places. Maqam Ibrahim, in fact, was named after him. Centuries ago, he was ordered to leave his wife Hagar and child, Ismail, in a dry valley without vegetation or water in the place where the Kaaba was later built. As the infant Ismail cried out in thirst, his mother ran repeatedly back and forth between two small hills called Al-Safa and Al-Marwa in the hope of finding water. As her baby cried, his feet rubbed the sand where miraculously, a spring bubbled out at his feet. Thus Zamzam water was found and the Well of Zamzam was created.

The name 'Zamzam' comes from the Arabic verb 'zam' meaning 'gathering' or 'enclosing' - which is what Hagar did as the water bubbled up from the earth at her son's feet; she cupped and gathered the sand around the water to preserve it. Because of the story, the Well of Zamzam is also known as The Well of Ismail. The well is also known as 'Marwiah' meaning quenched or quenching; 'Shabaah' meaning fullness and 'Barakah' meaning blessing as well as other names mostly unfamiliar and no longer used. The well has existed for four thousand years with 26 centuries between Prophet Ismail's time and the time of Abdul Muttaleb, the grandfather of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Furthermore, the Well of Zamzam and its water have long been revered by the people of Makkah, specifically by the Quraish, one of Makkhah's noble and prominent clans. A later Islamic ruler, Abu Jaffar Al-Mansour, built a protective fence around the well and paved the area around it with white marble. The dome that sheltered the well was studded with rubies. During the reign of King Faisal ibn Abul Aziz, laboratory tests were conducted on Zamzam water samples. After analysis, it was found that the difference between Zamzam water and other water (city water) was in the quantity of calcium and magnesium salts. The content of the elements were slightly higher in Zamzam water. More significantly, the water contains fluorides that have an effective germicidal action. Zamzam water's appeal has always been universal. The water has never been chemically treated or chlorinated. In most wells, bacteria and fungi grow which makes the water unpalatable because of bad taste and bad odor. In Zamzam water, however, there was no sign of bacteria or fungi.

The well, which has never run dry has always maintained a very distinctive taste. Its uniqueness has been universally recognized as pilgrims from all over the world visit the Kaaba every year. In 1373 H a pump was installed in the Zamzam well and the surrounding pipes were extended as well. Zamzam was made available and accessible for all visitors with water cooled by Zamzam ice-cubes all over the Holy Mosque of Makkah as well as the Holy Mosque in Madinah. The well is 4 meters in width and 35 meters deep located under the eastern part of the Kaaba and south of Maqam Ibrahim.

To this day pilgrims and visitors return to their families and friends carrying this mysterious liquid which springs from the Well of Zamzam: the spring that continues to flow, revered and unique along with Maqam Ibrahim, engraved upon human history and memory.[1]

The assertions of the writer is not tenable because of the following reasons:

• At the time Hagar had taken the infant Ishmael to where the Ka'aba stands today, she must have been in a lactating state. According to the writer, she put down her child on the ground, when he started crying, and began running repeatedly back and forth between two small hills called Al-Safa and Al-Marwa in the hope of finding water.

The question is: Why Hagar had started running in search of water, when she could have easily quenched her infant�s thirst with her milk?

• It appears from the writer's claim that the Zamzam's water was percolating through the top layer of the extremely hot sand on which Hagar had left her infant to roast under the desert's scorching sun. Had the water been flowing any deeper from the surface, the infant could never have made it ooze out to the top of the sand, no matter how hard and for how long he had rubbed his legs over the mouth of the well.

If what we have stated above was true, in that event, the question that comes naturally to our mind is this: If the infant could precipitate the flow of water by merely rubbing his tiny legs on the surface of the sand, what had blocked it from overflowing, despite being forced to come out of the well by the pressure that the continuously accumulating water must have been building up at the well's bottom?

• The writer claimed: The {Zamzam's} water has never been chemically treated or chlorinated. In most wells, bacteria and fungi grow which makes the water unpalatable because of bad taste and bad odor. In Zamzam water, however, there was no sign of bacteria or fungi.

We do not have to rebut the above claim, for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has already done it with a research report, authored by the Zamzam Studies and Research Center, (ZSRC), which it set up in order to optimize supply and distribution of Zam Zam, while making sure that sustainable supply limits are not exceeded in order to prevent wastage or possible depletion of the water well.

The report, inter alia, stated: ZSRC also seeks to estimate sustainable well yield and recommend measures to ensure that sustainable supply limits are not exceeded. The research aims to present solutions to these complex problems through an integrated approach to water catchments management and conservation.

Through these actions, the quality and quantity of supply from the Zam Zam well can be sustained to meet the spiritual needs of the world's one billion Muslims, said the abstract. In order to manage demand, water from Zam Zam well is pumped, treated and stored in underground storage tanks on a continuous basis at the moment. Before distribution among consumers and transportation to Madinah, Zam Zam water is also treated by a series of sand filters, micro filters and ultraviolet disinfection.[2]

The writer�s attempt to prop up Islam with his falsehood notwithstanding, there is another question that all sensible persons should ask Muslims to answer: If the well of Zamzam had come into being at the command of Allah, then why the Saudi authority should worry about its depletion?

Is not the water of the 'mysterious' Zamzam supposed to last for ever, without help from mankind?

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[1] Arab News, January 29, 2004.

[2] Arab News, January 17, 2005