Hitchens: Prophet an "epileptic plagiarist"

The West needs to take the threat of fundamentalist, militant Islam more seriously, controversial British commentator Christopher Hitchens told a predominately older audience at the Geology Corner auditorium last night. In an hour-and-a-half program, the liberal-socialist contrarian with a wry British wit and a sharp English tongue offered up barbs against Osama bin Laden, Muslims, liberals and Jacques Chirac.

"You don't have to be paranoid, racist or a bigot to take alarm," he said. "There is a civil war within Islam. We are not in a war on terror. We cannot be at war with an expression."

Hitchens, an editor for Vanity Fair, described himself as an atheist and issued a sharp rebuke of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

"Of course, he's not a prophet," he said. "He's an epileptic plagiarist."

He said the Quran - Islam's holiest book - was full of "evil fairly tales" that were "unimaginably recycled."

"It's a boring plagiarism of the worst parts of Christianity and Judaism," he added.

Source

Comments

[j0nz]

Hitchens bang on the money as usual.

[naveen]

Well he is quite right. The truth about Islam is coming out and the reason for the terrorist attacks that we have seen from New York to UK is jihad. From Nigeria to the Philippines Islam is waging jihad. Jihad is the default position of Islam. The politicians tried their best to hide the truth but the Moslems provoked by the Danes squandered the alibi.The future of Moslems in the West is questionable and their expulsion may be sudden and violent. Moslems are in the West because white people allowed them to be - but if those same people decide they made a mistake and want them to go, they will go.

[Yusuf Smith]

As-Salaamu 'alaikum

Osama, why do you let these two donkeys dump on your blog?

Hitchens has merely repeated a very old accusation against the Prophet (sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) obviously concocted by people unaware of what epilepsy does to people. I knew two people with this condition at school and they used to collapse to the floor or make uncontrollable movements. They did not speak, either during or immediately after the seizures. The notion that something like the Noble Qur'an could occur to someone during an epileptic seizure is just fanciful and ignorant.

[Sohaib]

What Naveen calls the truth coming to light is in fact, as Yusuf said, the mere regurgitation of ancient orientalist slander and missionary propaganda. With regards to the origins of the Qur'an and the supposition of borrowing, please see this site:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/

[naveen]

The Koran is so disorganised and incoherent that it was most likely written by a psychotic individual. The religion itself is aggressive and militant.

[johno]

Replace the word 'koran' in sohaib's comment with any other religious text you can think of and the statement will still have some truth to it.

The problem here, is that people who compare the three abrahamic faiths judge islam unfairly due to their own inherited social programming.

To knock the koran is to similarly knock the Old Testament and the Tora. They all have the same roots and a shared if skewed history. They are all similarly dangerous, they are all similarly capable of passing on hate and misunderstanding, they are all similarly capable of helping people deal with the world in a positive and constructive way. No one of the three is better or worse than the other.
It's what people do with these texts that is the problem and has always been the problem.

People like Hitchen often use these issues to create controversy and therefore get in the press, increasing their own profile and therefore increasing the fees they can charge for writing articles and doing lectures.

Ignoring the kranks and extremists is better than bashing their heads in with bricks but not as effective at halting their spread of misinformation and hate.

[Sohaib]

Er, I think you mean Naveen's comment, especially since I spell Qur'an properly.

To be honest, the type of people who probably annoy me the most are those who pronounce on subjects they know nothing about.

[thabet]

The Koran is so disorganised and incoherent that it was most likely written by a psychotic individual.

Just for future references:

Is the Qur'an A Shapeless Book?