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Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? A response refuting and correctinga critic of Islam named Syed Kamran Mirza, by Yahya SnowHaving previously wrote about the falsehood that was the Robert Morey’s ‘moon-godclaim’ I came to the realisation that others have incorporated Morey’s claims intotheir critique of Islam. This is alarming due to the much critiqued, malignedunscholarly propaganda piece produced by Morey. One such individual who has usedMorey’s work (believing it to be reliable) is Syed Kamran Mirza who in summary ofhis article (Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?) claims Islam to be“reformed paganism” and even states that his claim “has been truthfully andlogically proven with all available circumstantial evidences/rational”. (1)Mirza’s article is poorly structured and lacks a fluent flow and appends areference section to his work which does reveal his use of material by Christianmissionaries (Moshay, Morey and Gilchrist) as well as Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not aMuslim. Mirza’s use of agenda-driven Christian missionary work is one thing but anall together more worrying aspect is his use of Morey’s work due to Morey’stendency to fabricate evidence and make claims without any proof at all. Theappendix section will contain links to articles which show the lack of truth inMorey’s ‘moon-god’ claim (appendix 1). I recently purchased a copy of Morey’sIslamic Invasion; through my initial skim-reading of the book I noticed hefalsified a hadith (see appendix 2 which highlights a couple of examples ofMorey’s tendency to make things up).Syed Kamran Mirza’s work, Was Allah the Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan, outlinesnumerous claims, points and events which he draws upon in order to come to theconclusion that Islam is “reformed paganism”. His belief that Islam is “reformedpaganism” is not what concerns me in this article; it is the fact that Mirza useshalf-baked facts, falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims to arrive at his beliefabout Islam. I shall go through his points and highlight the inaccuracies or addto the points as Mirza makes points without fully elaborating upon them (I imaginethis is due to his lack of study concerning Islam).Mirza starts his article with his general claims and then goes on to list a numberof points in the form of answers to questions he posed. These points shall not beaddressed as of yet as Mirza conflates his significant points later on in thearticle under different headings in order to construct his arguments and/oraccumulate (as well as expand on) his points. I shall discus his points underrelevant headings; I feel all his relevant points have been discussed in thecourse of this paper.Who is (actually) Allah?In this section Mirza claims that “the Quran never defines the word Allah as towho actually Allah was or what was the relation of Allah with pagans”. This is anerroneous and strange claim as the Quran through its most celebrated verse (namedAyat-ul-Kursi, 2:255) teaches us who is Allah and gives a further understandingof Allah; “Allah. There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting,Eternal…” (2). So this is a significant oversight by Mirza especially consideringthe fact he claims to be an ex-Muslim, the question is, how did Mirza not knowabout the most celebrated verse of the Quran which is memorised by millions ofMuslims and recited before going to sleep? This question becomes even morepoignant due to his claim of being an ex-Muslim. Mirza also claims that the Quranfails to mention “the relation of Allah with pagans”. Again, this is an inaccurateclaim as the Quran teaches us that Allah is the Creator of all things, thus he isthe Creator of the Pagans; “He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower ofForms (or Colours)…” (3) Through these two parts of the Quran (2:255 and 59:24) werealise that Allah is (the only) God and He is the Creator. I hope this issufficient for Mirza and I am glad that I had the opportunity to correct hismisleading information. This howler(s) of Mirza’s highlights his lack of soundknowledge pertaining to Islam and thus renders him unreliable and unfit to bewriting about Islam yet alone to be considered an authority.However, Mirza moves on and suggests a cover-up and a “hypocrisy” on the part ofthe Islamic clergy with regards to them not telling Muslims that the name Allah
 
pre-existed prior to Islam. He even plucks out an arbitrary figure of 99% as hestates his belief concerning Muslims: “I believe 99% percent of Muslims do believethat Allah’s name was invented or started right from the time when Gabrieldisclosed the truth (?) to Prophet Muhammad in the cave of Hira” (1) He seems toactually believe he has discovered a secret truth which he is exposing (which hebelieves the Muslim clergy are concealing): “I can bet on this fact that nomullahs ever told us the real truth, neither they believe this clean truth thatAllah was in fact a pre-existing deity in pagan Arabia. What a hypocrisy?” (1)
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Mirza, despite all his theatrics, is correct that the word Allah pre-existed priorto Muhammed (pbuh). He is incorrect to suggest the Muslim clergy are covering thisup and concealing this information. It is common knowledge amongst learned Muslimsthat the word Allah pre- existed before Muhammed (pbuh) and the revelation of theQuran. Unlearned Muslims may not know this but this knowledge is widely accessiblein Islamic books; proving that Scholars of Islam are not trying to conceal thisinformation as this information is in clear view in their writings and availableto all, ergo disproving Mirza’s theatrical suggestion of a cover-up. I understandtalk is cheap so I will refer the reader to the most celebrated biography of theProphet (Arraheeq-ul-Makhtoum by Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri) which isconsidered as a ‘masterpiece’ and was awarded first prize by the Muslim WorldLeague in a worldwide competition for the best biography of the Prophet Muhammedin 1979.As already mentioned Mirza was correct when asserting the name Allah was in useprior to the revelation of the Quran. He builds much of his ideas on this fact andeven uses this fact as a basis to build his claims on. However, he builds hisclams on faulty foundations due to his lack of knowledge concerning the history ofArabs of Mecca. Robert Morey made the same mistake in omitting the full story;Morey also pointed to the name Allah being in existence before the revelation ofthe Quran and built his claims on this fact without offering the relevant factswhich explain how this came to pass. I shall draw upon a passage from an articlewhich I wrote concerning Morey’s work and those who parrot him (4):It is disappointing that we have people who lack sound historical and theologicalscholarship who write propaganda pieces in the form of booklets or internetarticles about this issue. It just further illustrates truth in the adage; alittle knowledge is dangerous.Yes, we (those who have studied Islam) know that the name Allah was in use beforethe time of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). If we read Ar-Raheeq ul-Makhtum we realisethat the early Arabs did believe in Allah as the Only God. This is dated all theway back to the time of Prophet Ishmael who resided in Makkah (Mecca) and learnedArabic as well as settling there(5). He preached the message of pure monotheism;“Most of the Arabs had complied with the call of Ishmael and professed thereligion of his father Abraham. They worshipped Allah, professed His Oneness andfollowed His religion...” (6). This shows that Allah was known as the Only God,just like the Muslims believe Him to be. Indeed Abraham and Ishmael are consideredto be Muslims, i.e. those who had submitted to the Will of the Only God, Allah.The issue of paganism came into the equation as the Arabs forgot this puremonotheism which was taught by Ishmael and his followers. The idolatry wasoriginated from the actions of a man named Amr bin Luhai, he was known as adevoted and righteous man, well respected by his peers. However, after a trip awayfrom Mecca he saw idol-worship in Syria. Upon his return to the Meccans heintroduced idol worship to the Meccans by bringing an idol named Hubal back fromSyria and this resulted in the spread of a great many idols across Mecca. Indeedthere were 360 different idols, belonging to the pagans of Mecca, around theKa’bah when Prophet Muhammed took charge of Mecca. These idols were subsequentlybroken, removed and burned under the authority of Prophet Muhammed (7).Despite the Meccan pagans’ acceptance of idols they still proclaimed belief inAllah in the sense that they saw Allah as the High God but used the idols as
 
‘lesser deities’ whom they believed “could intercede before Allah for thefulfilment of their wishes” (8).Quite simply they had a pantheon of ‘gods’ butbelieved that Allah was the High God of their pantheon (10) Effectively over theyears they changed their belief in Allah, from the belief that Allah was the OnlyGod (the Abrahamic teachings) to the belief that Allah was the High God of theirmany deities (pagan/polytheistic teachings). Another source that attests to thefact that the pre-Islamic Arabs used the name Allah and held a ‘belief’ in Him isthe genealogy of Prophet Muhammed, his father’s name was actually Abdullah(meaning servant of Allah)(9). Interestingly enough, some of these pagan Arabsbelieved that Allah was the same God that the Jews and Christians worshipped (10).I am aware that many readers may not be aware of the significance and the linkbetween Abraham and Islam. Muslims believe Abraham to be a major previous prophetand Abraham is believed to be the ‘father of monotheism’ and Islam is consideredto be an Abrahamic faith in that it follows the same beliefs as Abraham. Abrahamis considered to be amongst those who submitted to the Will of Allah, i.e. Abrahamis a Muslim. Ishmael, also a Muslim, is the son of Abraham and he followed andpreached the teachings of Abraham.The point of the history lesson is to dispel confusion being aroused via ignoranceof history. This also squashes the ignorance that the anti-Islamics play on whenthey try to claim that Allah was a ‘moon god’ due to His name being around duringpre-Islamic timesI hope this is sufficient to further educate Mirza and to act as a catalyst for are-evaluation of his study and ideas pertaining to Islam. Having corrected Mirzaon this issue we realise he is putting forward a theory that is backed by noevidence and worse still; it goes against the knowledge we have.Mirza, in his last paragraph of this section, states; “History tells us twotheories of Allah’s existence in and around the Kaba Sharif” (1). Mirza’s firsttheory which he puts forward has no facts to support it and it even contradictsthe information that I have come across. Mirza’s theory:“Pagans used to call the largest Statue amongst the 360 deities as ALLAHwhom
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 they used to consider the chief/supreme deity (god)” (1)Despite this being a small and even irrelevant issue I still feel it is importantto address it as this theory of Mirza’s has no support as far as I am aware.Perhaps Mirza would like to supply us with some further information in order toallay concerns that he is simply making stuff up; what evidence does he have tosupport this claim? It is commonly believed that Hubal (the first idol brought byAmr bin Luhai, mentioned above) was the largest idol, however this is a claim Ihave yet to verify; therefore I will not support this claim. Karen Armstrong doessuggest that the Kabah (at the time of the pagans) was officially dedicated toHubal (11); therefore Mirza seems to be bringing forward a theory that contradictsthe norm.The second theory he puts forward is the one of Allah being considered as a HighGod, this theory has been backed by Ar-Raheequl-Maktoum, Karen Armstrong and W. M.Watt (12), therefore this view is sound; so Mirza was correct in mentioning this.In his next section he puts forward “factors” which he believes “suggest Allah wasa moon-god”. Let us view his “factors”.Mirza presents three “factors” (A-C). His first “factor” is him mentioning Allahswears by the creation in the Quran, such as the sun, moon and night. He goes ontoto state:“Normally, we swear by the name of something much superior to us, such as we swearby God or by the name of our father (who is considered senior or superior to us).But we never swear by the name of something inferior to us. Here in the Quranswearing fashions of Allah (God) by moon or stars hinting us that Allah consideredthese things superior to himself. And this makes us to think (otherwise) as to whoactually acted as Allah in Quran?”Mirza forgets (or does not know) that Allah has already taught us that the
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