Exposing the misinformation of Muslim critics
Continues from Part I
WHO IS TO BLAME?
Who is to blame for Aisha telling women to suckle men? Who is the real source which led Sahla to perform the embarrassing act of breast-feeding a young man? The following verses show us just who is at fault:
Forbidden to you are your mothers and your daughters and your sisters and your paternal aunts and your maternal aunts and brothers' daughters and sisters' daughters and your mothers that have suckled you and your foster-sisters and mothers of your wives and your step-daughters who are in your guardianship, (born) of your wives to whom you have gone in, but if you have not gone in to them, there is no blame on you (in marrying them), and the wives of your sons who are of your own loins and that you should have two sisters together, except what has already passed; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. S. 4:23 Shakir
The blame falls squarely on Allah for claiming that suckling produces familial ties. Dr. William Campbell writes:
In the past many cultures believed that what the mother saw or did could also effect the child. 100 years ago in the United States culture, people believed that if a woman saw a rabbit while she was pregnant her child might be born with a split upper lip just like a rabbit or hare. This split upper lip was called a hare-lip because of this mistaken idea, and the word still remains in usage today - even in medical books.
The Qur'an seems to have one of these same ancient ideas. In the Sura of the Women (Al-Nisa')
"your (foster) mothers who breast-fed you, your (foster) sisters from breast-feeding...the wives of your sons from your loins..." (as opposed to wives of adopted sons which were made legal by Sura 33:37)
It is perfectly clear according to what Dr. Bucaille would call "sure" modern scientific knowledge that inheritance is controlled by the genes we receive from our biological mother and father. There is no other way. No hereditary characteristics are passed through the milk of a wet-nurse. There is no relationship of any kind between a boy who was breast-fed by a wet-nurse and the biological daughter of the wet-nurse, so there is no scientific reason to prohibit these marriages.
We might say that it was just a matter of honor to the wet-nurse, but this does not seem to be the case. Rather it seems based on the belief that breast-feeding makes you a relative. Bukhari, comments on verse
That is, no marriage with milk sisters, but the same freedom to visit them unveiled as that allowed to blood-brothers. God is free to command that which He wishes, but it certainly does not mirror modern genetic understanding. (William Campbell, The Qur'an and the Bible in the Light of History & Science [Middle East Resources, Second Edition 2002; ISBN 1-881085-03-01], pp. 194-195; http://answering-islam.org/Campbell/s4c2b.html)
The first part of Malik's hadith that was already cited provides an additional reason why Sahla did what she did. Here is the relevant section:
Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that he was asked about the suckling of an older person. He said, ''Urwa ibn az-Zubayr informed me that Abu Hudhayfa ibn Utba ibn Rabia, one of the companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who was present at Badr, adopted Salim (who is called Salim, the mawla of Abu Hudhayfa) AS THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ADOPTED ZAYD IBN HARITHA. He thought of him as his son, and Abu Hudhayfa married him to his brother's sister,
According to the Muslim sources Surah 33:5 was sent down in regards to Muhammad's adopted son Zaid ibn Harith:
- nor has He made your adopted sons your real sons-
This was revealed concerning Zayd bin Harithah, may Allah be pleased with him, the freed servant of the Prophet. The Prophet had adopted him before prophethood, and he was known as Zayd bin Muhammad. Allah wanted to put an end to this naming and attribution ...
This is a command which abrogates the state of affairs that existed at the beginning of Islam, when it was permitted to call adopted sons after the man who adopted them. Then Allah commanded that they should be given back the names of their real fathers, and states that this was more fair and just. Al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated that ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar said: "Zayd bin Muhammad, may Allah be pleased with him, the freed servant of the Messenger of Allah was always called Zayd bin Muhammad, until (the words of the) Qur’an were revealed ...
-Call them (adopted sons) by (the names of) their fathers, that is more just with Allah.-"
This was also narrated by Muslim, At-Tirmidhi and An-Nasa’i. They used to deal with them as sons in every respect, including being alone with them as Mahrams and so on. Hence, Sahlah bint Suhaly, the wife of Abu Hudhayfah, may Allah be pleased with them both, said: "O Messenger of Allah! We used to call Salim our son, but Allah has revealed what He has revealed. He used to enter upon me, but I feel that Abu Hudhayfah does not like that." The Prophet said ...
- (BREASTFEED HIM and he will become your Mahram.)-
Hence when this ruling was abrogated, Allah made it permissible for a man to marry the ex-wife of his adopted son, and the Messenger of Allah married Zaynab bint Jash, the divorced wife of Zayd bin Harithah, may Allah be pleased with him, Allah said ...
-So that (in the future) there may be no difficulty to the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons when the latter have no desire to keep them- (33:37)
And Allah says in Ayat At-Tahrim ...
-The wives of your sons from your own loins- (4:23).
The wife of an adopted son is not included because he was not born from the man's loins. A "foster" son through breastfeeding is the same as a son born from one's own loins, from the point of view of the Shari‘ah, because the Prophet said in the Two Sahihs ...
((Suckling makes unlawful as lineage does.)) ...
-Call them by their fathers.- This is concerning Zayd bin Harithah, may Allah be pleased with him. He was killed in 8 AH at the battle of Mu’tah. In Sahih Muslim it is reported that Anas bin Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, said: "The Messenger of Allah said ...
((O my son.))" It was also reported by Abu Dawud and At-Tirmidhi ...
-But if you know not their father's (sic) then they are your brothers in the religion and Mawalikum (your freed servants).-
Here Allah commands that adopted sons should be given back their fathers' names, if they are known; if they are not known, then they should be called brothers in faith or freed servants, to compensate for not knowing what their real lineage is. (Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged) Volume 7 (Surat An-Nur to Surat Al-Ahzab, Verse 50), abridged by a group of scholars under the supervision of Shaykh Safiur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri [Darussalam Publishers & Distributors, Riyadh, Houston, New York, London, Lahore; First Edition: August 2000], pp. 634-637)
From the preceding we can deduce the real reason adoption of sons was forbidden. Muhammad needed to be spared from the ridicule of lusting after his adopted son's wife, a lust which caused a rift between husband and wife, resulting in a divorce. After which Muhammad then married the divorcee!
Muhammad Ibn Yahya Ibn Hayyan narrated, "The Messenger of God came to Zaid Ibn Haritha's house seeking him. Perhaps the Messenger of God missed him at that time, that is why he said, 'Where is Zaid?' He went to his house seeking him and, when he did not find him, Zainab Bint Jahsh stood up to [meet] him in a house dress,(2) but the Messenger of God turned away from her. She said, 'He is not here, Messenger of God, so please come in; my father and mother are your ransom.' The Messenger of God refused to come in. Zainab had hurried to dress herself when she heard that the Messenger of God was at her door, so she leapt in a hurry, and the Messenger of God liked her when she did that. He went away muttering something that was hardly understandable but for this sentence: 'Praise be to God who disposes the hearts.' When Zaid came back home, she told him that the Messenger of God came. Zaid asked, 'You asked him to come in, didn't you?' She replied, 'I bade him to, but he refused.' He said, 'Have you heard [him say] anything?' She answered, 'When he had turned away, I heard him say something that I could hardly understand. I heard him say, "Praise be to God who disposes the hearts." ' Zaid went out to the Messenger of God and said, 'O Messenger of God, I learned that you came to my house. Did you come in? O Messenger of God, my father and mother are your ransom. PERHAPS YOU LIKED ZAINAB. I CAN LEAVE HER.' The Messenger of God said, 'Hold on to your wife.' Zaid said, 'O Messenger of God, I WILL LEAVE HER.' The Messenger of God said, 'Keep your wife.' So when Zaid left her, she finished her legal period after she had isolated herself from Zaid. While the Messenger of God was sitting and talking with `A´isha, he was taken in a trance, and when it lifted, he smiled and said, 'Who will go to Zainab to tell her that God wedded her to me from heaven?' The Messenger of God recited, 'Thus you told someone whom God had favoured and whom you yourself have favoured: "Hold on to your wife." ' `A´isha said, 'I heard much about her beauty and, moreover, about how God wedded her from heaven, and I said, "For sure she will boast over this with us." ' Salama, the slave of the Messenger of God, hurried to tell her about that. She gave her some silver jewellery that she was wearing." (Hamdun Dagher, The Position of Women in Islam, Light of Life, 1995, pp. 169-170; online source)
Note 2 reads:
We read the following in a tradition by al-Tabari: "The Messenger of God went out one day seeking him. On Zaid's door was a curtain, which the wind moved to show her unveiled in her chamber. The heart of the Prophet was stricken by admiration for her" (Annals of al-Tabari, 2:453). (ibid., p. 181)
Here, in fact, is an English translation of al-Tabari's Arabic commentary on surah 33:37:
When the exalted Allah said, "Thou didst say to one who had received the grace of Allah and thy favor: ‘Retain thou (in wedlock) thy wife, and fear Allah.’ But thou didst hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest: thou didst fear the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah" this was said by Allah as chastisement to His prophet. For when He said, "one who had received the grace of Allah and thy favor" this was in reference to Zaid son of Haritha who had been set free by the apostle of Allah – prayers and peace be upon him.
When the Exalted Allah said, "Retain thou (in wedlock) thy wife, and fear Allah" this was concerning Zainab the daughter of Jash whom the prophet –pbuh– had seen in her robes and was enamored by her. Thus when Allah saw what was stirring in His prophet’s soul, he placed hatred in the heart of Zaid towards Zainab that he may depart from her. When Zaid mentioned his intention to separate from Zainab to the prophet, the prophet told him, "Retain thou thy wife" even THOUGH THE PROPHET DESIRED THAT THEY SEPARATE SO THAT HE COULD MARRY HER...
When Allah said, "Thou didst hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest," means that the prophet hid in his heart his desire for Zaid to depart from Zainab so that he may marry her, and Allah will reveal what you are concealing in your heart concerning this.
The Almighty said, "Thou didst fear the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah," because Allah was telling the prophet who feared people might say, "He ordered a man to divorce his wife so that he himself may marry her after she is divorced," and Allah aught to be feared more than people.
Narrated by Yunis, narrated by Ibn Wahab, narrated by Ibn Zaid who said, "The prophet –pbuh– had married Zaid son of Haritha to his cousin Zainab daughter of Jahsh. One day the prophet –pbuh– went seeking Zaid in his house, whose door had a curtain made of hair. The wind blew the curtain and the prophet saw Zainab in her room unclothed and he admired her in his heart. When Zainab realized that the prophet desired her SHE BEGAN TO HATE ZAID.
Zaid then came to the prophet –pbuh– and said, "O apostle of Allah, I wish to separate from my mate." The prophet responded, "Why? Has anything evil come from her?" Zaid responded, "No, by Allah! I haven’t seen anything evil from her only good."
The prophet said, "Hold unto your wife and fear Allah." That is what Allah said in the Qur’an, "Thou didst say to one who had received the grace of Allah and thy favor: 'Retain thou (in wedlock) thy wife, and fear Allah.' But thou didst hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest." For the prophet was concealing the fact that he would marry Zainab when Zaid had divorced her. (Source; translated by Dimitrius)
We also provide the comments of another renowned Muslim commentator, al-Qurtubi on surah 33:37, translated directly from the Arabic:
Muqatil narrated that the prophet married Zainab daughter of Jahsh to Zaid and she stayed with him for a while. Then one day the prophet –pbuh– came seeking Zaid but he saw Zainab standing; she was white skinned with a beautiful figure and one of the most perfect women in Quraish. So HE DESIRED HER and said, "Wondrous is Allah who changes the heart." When Zaynab heard the prophet’s exaltation of her, she relayed it to Zaid who then understood (what he had to do). Zaid said to the prophet, "O prophet of Allah, allow me to divorce her, for she has become arrogant; seeing herself superior to me and she insults me with her tongue."
The prophet replied, "Hold onto your wife and fear Allah."
It was said that Allah had sent a wind which lifted the curtain to reveal Zainab in her room. When the prophet saw her HE DESIRED HER and it delighted Zainab to be desired by the prophet – pbuh. When Zaid returned home, she informed him of what had happened and Zaid was thus determined to divorce her. (Source; translated by Dimitrius)
Here, also, are Al-Zamakhshari's comments on surah 33:37:
Keep thy wife to thyself: that is, Zainab bint Jahsh. After having given her to Zaid ibn Haritha as a wife, the Messenger of God once caught sight of her, and she made an impression of him. At this sight he said: ‘Praise be to God who changes the heart!’ Previously his soul had turned away from her so that he had not desired her (as a wife). If he had desired her at that time, he would have asked her for her hand in marriage. Now Zainab heard of this praise and mentioned it to (her husband) Zaid, who understood and to whom God gave antipathy against her and aversion to intimacy with her. So Zaid said to the Messenger of God: ‘I might divorce my wife’; to which the latter replied: ‘What is it? Has something filled you with mistrust against her?’ Zaid answered: ‘By God, no! I have observed only good in her; yet her noble rank places her too high above me and causes me to feel hurt.’ Thereupon the Messenger of God said: ‘Keep thy wife to thyself and fear God.’ But Zaid (nevertheless) separated from her, and as soon as the waiting period (during which the wife may enter into no new marriage) had elapsed, the Messenger of God had said (to Zaid): ‘I have no one whom I trust more than you; therefore, seek the hand of Zainab for me!’
Zaid reported: I went forth and there I suddenly found her just as she was leavening some dough. As soon as I saw her she made such an impression on me, since I knew that the Messenger of God had been speaking of her ...
One may ask what the Prophet kept secret within himself. To this I answer: the fact that he was devoted to her in his heart. Others say: the wish that Zaid might separate from her. Still others say: his knowledge that Zaid would separate from her and that he would marry her, for God had already given this knowledge to him ...
(Further) one may ask what the Prophet should have said when Zaid informed him that he wanted to separate from Zainab, since it would have been objectionable if he had said: ‘Do it, for I want to marry her!’ To this I reply: It may perhaps be God's will that in this case he keep silent or say to Zaid: ‘You know your situation best.’ In this manner he would not have contradicted his secret which he (later) indicated had been revealed ... (Helmut Gätje, The Qur'an and its Exegesis [Routledge and Keagan Paul, London UK 1976], pp. 83-85)
We provide one more and final commentary on Muhammad's marriage to Zaynab, this time from modern Muslim author Martin Lings:
Such demands as these upon the Prophet's time were not to be avoided; but there was a growing need that he should be protected in other ways, and the protection that now came was not unconnected with the following altogether unexpected event which served to emphasize his uniquely privileged position. It happened one day that he wanted to speak to Zayd about something and went to his house. Zaynab opened the door, and as she stood in the doorway telling him that Zayd was out but inviting him none the less to enter, a look passed between the two cousins which made each one conscious of a deep and lasting bond of love between them. In a moment the Prophet knew that Zaynab loved him and that he loved her and that she knew he loved her. But what could this mean? Surprised at the strength of his feeling, and as he turned to go she heard him say: "Glory to God the Infinite! Glory be to Him who disposeth men's hearts!" When Zayd returned she told him of the Prophet's visit and of the glorification she had heard him utter. Zayd immediately went to him and said: "I have been told thou camest unto my house. Why didst not enter, thou who art more to me than my father and my mother? Was it that Zaynab hath found favour with thee? If it be so, I will leave her." "Keep thy wife and fear God," said the Prophet with some insistence. He had said on another occasion: "Of all things licit the most hateful unto God is divorce." And when Zayd came again the next day with the same proposal, again the Prophet insisted that he should keep his wife. But the marriage between Zayd and Zaynab had not been a happy one and Zayd found it no longer tolerable, so by mutual agreement with Zaynab he divorced her. This did not, however, make Zaynab eligible as a wife for the Prophet for although the Qur’an had only specified that men were forbidden to marry the wives of sons spring from their loins, it was a strong social principle not to make a distinction between sons by birth and sons by adoption. Nor was the Prophet himself eligible, for he had already four wives, the most that the Islamic law allows. (Lings, Muhammad: His Life based on the earliest Sources [Inner Traditions International, Ltd., Rochester, Vermont 1983], pp. 212-213)
That this is why Surah 33:5 was "sent down" can be easily seen from Surah 33:37 which states that Allah permitted Muhammad to marry his adopted son's divorcee as an example for others to follow suit. Allah was supposedly showing through Muhammad's example that there was no sin for men to marry their former adopted son's divorced wives. Note what Ibn Kathir says:
-so that there may be no difficulty to the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons when the latter have no desire to keep them.-
means, ‘We permitted you to marry her, and We did that so that there would no longer be any difficulty for the believers with regard to their marrying the ex-wives of their adopted sons.’ Before prophethood, the Messenger of Allah had adopted Zayd bin Harithah, may Allah be pleased with him, and he was known as Zayd, the son of Muhammad. Allah put a stop to this when He said ...
-nor has He made your adopted sons your real sons- until ...
-Call them after their fathers, that is more just with Allah- (33:4-5).
Then this was confirmed and made even clearer by the marriage of the Messenger of Allah to Zaynab bint Jash, may Allah be pleased with her, when Zayd bin Harithah divorced her. (op. cit., p. 698)
But there is one major problem. SURAH 33:5 PROHIBITS MUSLIM MEN FROM ADOPTING SONS! SO HOW COULD MUHAMMD BE AN EXAMPLE FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW WHEN ALLAH FORBADE THE MUSLIMS FROM HAVING ADOPTED CHILDREN ALTOGETHER?
It is quite obvious that the prohibition of having adopted sons was directed at saving Muhammad from being mocked for doing something that even the pagan Arabs knew was shameful and wicked:
Muhammad's marriage to Zainab, who was the wife of his adopted son, led to many accusations against Muhammad. The dissimulators said, "Muhammad prohibits the wives of the son while he himself marries the wife of his son Zaid." `Abdullah Ibn `Umar narrated: "We have always called him [namely Zaid] Zaid Ibn Muhammad." So this charge that the dissimulators, among others, levelled against Muhammad necessitated the revelation of yet another verse: "Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but [he is] God's Messenger and the Seal of the Prophets. God is Aware of everything!" (Sura al-Ahzab 33:40). `Abdullah Ibn `Umar said, "We only called him Zaid Ibn Muhammad till the verse 'Muhammad is not the father of any of your men' was revealed." (Hamdun Dagher, p. 171)
Ibn Kathir agrees with Ibn Umar's statement:
-Muhammad is not the father of any of your men,-
After this it was not permitted to say Zayd bin Muhammad, i.e., he was not his father even though he had adopted him ... (op. cit., p. 701)
Now the authors may claim that Surah 33:37 was revealed before the Qur’anic prohibition of adopting sons. But if this is the case then it proves our contention that Allah only forbade the adoption of sons in order to spare Muhammad from the humiliation he experienced. If the authors claim that the prohibition of adopting children was given before Surah 33:37 then they are left with the problem of explaining why their god revealed a command that had no practical value seeing that there were no longer any adopted children? In other words how could Surah 33:37 set the precedent for Muslims to marry the divorced spouses of their adopted sons?
Returning to the issue at hand, it was Allah's command forbidding adoption which led to Abu Hudaifah's discomfort over Salim coming near his wife. Because of Allah's command Sahla was forced to give her husband's former adopted son her breast milk in order to ease her husband's discomfort. (Note that according to the translators of Ibn Kathir Sahlah was commanded to BREAST-FEED Salim, not simply give him milk in a cup!)
Hence, Allah, Muhammad's god, is to be blamed for causing all these problems. Allah is also at fault for Aisha telling women to breast-feed grown men since he was the one who supposedly sent down the command regarding foster-relations in
This command of Allah was also the reason why jealous wives suckled their husbands' slave girls in order to make it unlawful for their spouses to have sex with them:
Yahya related to me from Malik that Abdullah ibn Dinar said, "A man came to Abdullah ibn Umar when I was with him at the place where judgments were given and asked him about the suckling of an older person. Abdullah ibn Umar replied, ‘A man came to Umar ibn al-Khattab and said, 'I have a slave-girl and I used to have intercourse with her. My wife went to her AND SUCKLED HER. When I went to the girl, my wife told me to watch out, because she had suckled her!' Umar told him TO BEAT HIS WIFE and to go to his slave-girl because kinship by suckling was only by the suckling of the young.’" (Malik's Muwatta, Book 30, Number 30.2.13)
Allah is to be blamed for this perverted practice which led to confusion, chaos and shame. The saddest thing about all this is that the authors are actually trying to justify this perversion instead of seeing it for what it truly is.
Notes
[1] According to Muslim sources Muhammad married Umm Salamah shortly after her husband's death from wounds suffered during the Battle of Uhud. Umm Salamah had four children from her first husband:
Then the Messenger of God married Umm Salamah, and her name is Hind bt. Abi Umayyah b. Al-Mughirah b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar b. Makhzum. Previously, she was married to Abu Salamah b. ‘Abd al-Asad b. Hilal b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar b. Makhzum, who was present at Badr with the Messenger of God. He was an intrepid warrior of his clan and died of wounds suffered on the day of Uhud. He was the Messenger of God's cousin [son of the Prophet's paternal aunt] and foster brother, whose mother was Barrah bt. ‘Abd al-Muttalib. She bore with him ‘Umar, Salamah, Zaynab, and Durrah. When Abu Salamah died, the Messenger of God said nine takbirahs [during the prayer over him]. When he was asked whether he was distracted or had forgotten [the proper number], he replied, "I was neither distracted nor had I forgotten. Even if I said a thousand takbirahs [during the prayer] over Abu Salamah, he was worthy of it," and he prayed for the surviving members of his family. The Messenger of God married [Umm Salamah] in the year 3/624, before the battle of al-Ahzab. Salamah, son of Abu Salamah, married the daughter of Hamzah b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib. (The History of Al-Tabari, Volume IX, The Last Years of the Prophet, translated and annotated by Ismail K. Poonawala [State University of New York Press, Albany, 1990], p. 132)
And:
Umm Salamah: She married Muhammad (salalahu walayhe wasalam) in the year 4 a.h. She was previously married to Abdullah ibn Abdu'l Asad and they had four children together, Zaynab, Salamah, Umar and Durra. She married Muhammad after becoming a widow and was still nursing Zaynab. She bore no children with Muhammad (salalahu walayhe wasalam). (http://www.positive-action.net/al-yusra/infertility_among_the_mothers_of.htm)
Now the only way the authors can deny my claim is to assert that Aisha gave Umm Salamah this advice while the latter was still weaning her youngest child. The problem with this assertion is that this suggests that Muhammad was still alive when Aisha was telling others to suckle young men that they wanted to enter their homes. The authors would therefore be implying that Muhammad permitted this practice since he said nothing about it, or worse, Aisha was willfully disobeying Muhammad while the latter was still alive and living with her!
The only logical explanation is that Aisha's advice was given after Muhammad died. In other words, this occurred when Umm Salamah had no weaning children and no more breast milk to put in a cup, demonstrating that Aisha was actually advising women to allow men to suckle their breasts!
The authors may wish to argue that, as in the case of Aisha, Umm Salamah could have asked a near relative of hers to do the breast-feeding for her. The burden of proof would be upon the authors to show that this is how Umm Salamah would have understood Aisha's advice in light of the fact that the latter used the example of Sahla's breast-feeding Salim to justify her position. Especially when Umm Salamah is said to have narrated the following tradition (quoted earlier):
Narrated Umm Salamah: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said, "The only suckling which makes marriage unlawful IS THAT WHICH IS TAKEN FROM THE BREAST and enters the bowels, and is taken before the time of weaning." Tirmidhi transmitted it. (Tirmidhi, Hadith Number 944 taken from the ALIM CD-Rom)
Appendix
THE PLAGIARISM AND THE LIES OF THE MUSLIM AUTHORS
Hesham Azmy and Usman Sheikh made it a big point that "this missionary did not derive his filthy interpretation from any Islamic source" and that they "are 100% certain that he is about the only person on this planet who has ever misunderstood the meaning of such a simple, straightforward tradition" (see their full statement above). We have already shown that they are wrong in this since there are plenty of Muslims from the Shia and the Sunni branch of Islam who have understood these traditions in exactly the same way, some rejecting the traditions as not possibly authentic, some accepting them as genuine but "difficult", and at least one well-known Muslim scholar even teaching about the nursing of adults as an acceptable practice for today (Sheikh Al-Albani).
In addition to being factually wrong, there are also two serious ethical problems with this Muslim article, the first is plagiarism and the second deliberate lying. Although there are plenty of articles on various Muslim websites which consist of claims and quotations only, without any documentation as to the sources, our present authors do not belong to this kind of writers. For their section on the nursing of adults we find 14 footnotes with references carefully documenting their quotations from the Muslim sources, i.e. the traditions (ahadith) and the commentaries (tafsir). However, they failed to mention that the substance of their article is nearly entirely taken from an Arabic webpage and is merely a translation of the work of another author. Presenting the work of somebody else as if it was one's own original research is called PLAGIARISM and is a serious violation of the ethical standards in academia.
It is obvious why they would not want to admit that they are translating another person's work and only added to it some personalized insults to Sam Shamoun since this original article was written before Sam Shamoun's article was published and does not make any reference to him. This in itself is conclusive proof that there are others who have understood these traditions the same way as Sam Shamoun, since otherwise there would not have been any need to write this Arabic refutation in the first place. Thus their claim to be certain that nobody else ever understood these traditions in this way was not a statement made out of ignorance, i.e. not knowing of anyone with this understanding, but it was a conscious and deliberate lie in order to deceive the readers of their article. The following table will list the parallel passages to show the extent of their plagiarism (you will find the list on the original artivle, please see the Source).
Source: http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Menj/nursing_of_adults.htm
IHS
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