M S M Saifullah accuses me in his page http://www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/~msms/lie.html of the following (and I include the whole page as downloaded from his site):


I don't know how Mr. Saifullah dares to lie so blatantly. He put this page up on the web on October 14th, 1997. He says "Jochen will not answer this because ... " But in fact, I have answered this directly to Jeremiah within the same week. Here the relevant part of my posting to the newsgroup:

Subject:      Re: My Questions to Muslims [11]
From:         Jochen Katz <jkatz@math.gatech.edu>
Date:         1997/06/14
Message-Id:   <5nvr9o$f8$1@shell3.ba.best.com>
Newsgroups:   soc.religion.islam

In article <5nfvi1$rml@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>,
alimhaq@nospam.hrweb.org (Jeremiah McAuliffe) writes:

...

} There was also a question in my post Jochen, can't you answer it? Who
} do you say Muhammad was? Tell us. I've asked you this question a
} number of times. You've never answered it.

Isn't that crystal clear from all my postings? Apart from being a
charismatic leader, a political genius, he was somebody who thought
to be on a mission and mistook it for being the prophet from God.
He probably thought he truly was speaking God's word, but most all
false prophets are convinced they are true prophets.

Very few false prophets who themselves knew to be false have ever
gathered many followers. As such, he was deceived himself.

Isn't that what you believe about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (founder of
the Ahmadiyya), about Baha'ullah (founder of the Bahai faith),
about Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormons) and Rev. Moon
(founder of Unification Church)?  Do you think they are not
convinced that they are right and had a mission from God?

And the growth rates of the Mormons are larger than those of
Islam as far as I know (growthrate fetishists beware).

Is that good enough an answer?

Just last week I had a long discussin with a Bahai. It was very
instructive to observe how they with similar reasons/means take
the liberty to reinterpret everything in Bible AND Qur'an to suit
it to their purposes.

...

In regard to all the other ad hominem attacks against me or some other people (for which I am not responsible), I see no reason to grace this with a response. Mr. Saifullah is trapped in his paranoia and the anger in his heart is darkening his ability to stay civil.


Mr. Saifullah reacts quickly, 2 days after my announcement on the newsgroup that I have created a response page, he had to update his attack a bit, trying to cover up the false accusation by making more accusations. He added to his file:


Yes, I do recommend Tisdall's book and am sad that it has been out of print for so long. It has a lot of very thoroughly researched source material. And hopefully, when some more people have time to volunteer, we might be able to put this book online. I will send a photocopy of it to any who will do the scanning and/or proofreading of this book to transform it into an online version.

I have the impression that Mr. Saifullah cannot distinguish between the factual and the interpretative or the language used. This book has an enormous wealth of factual information which makes it very valuable. That is why I recommend it. That doesn't mean I have to agree with every expression I find in the book or each detail in the conclusion of it. No book is without flaws. If I could recommend only flawless books, then I could recommend none. And I will stick with the recommendation. Being published about 1900 it is a very valuable book to this day.

Last comment: I am wondering why Mr. Saifullah is so aghast about these comments. I am reading similar things all the time from Muslims about Christians and a lot worse. That was pretty harmless in comparison to what one can find on Muslim web pages.

The Qur'an calls others liars, hypocrites and the like. Why would anyone find it even strange that some might think the same about some Muslims or even Muhammad? It isn't usually my own approach, since it doesn't further discussion, but rather shuts down a relationship in hostility. But this kind of language is not new to Muslims, and Mr. Saifullah himself uses the very same language when he speaks of me. He called me many times a liar, a deceiver, and other words. His indignation on this account is rather hollow.

And a last comment (October 18, 1997): Mr. Saifullah has quickly responded to this page, but he does not link to it. He seemingly doesn't want his Muslim readers to see the other side of the issue. Why? Any serious discussion where both are interested in the truth will make access to both sides of an issue so that the readers can judge for themselves.


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