Allan Ruhl Has Much to Learn – On Alexander the Great, and Christian and Islamic History

“…Truth stands out clear from Error…”

–  The Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:256

            My new favorite Christian apologist, Allan Ruhl, has published an article on using the satirical title “How a Muslim Helped Christianity But Not Islam”, supposedly thinking that it damages Islam’s credibility.  Ruhl placed a picture of Alexander the Great, the Greek king who conquered much of the known world almost 1000 years before the coming of Islam, in the article, and in case anyone cannot figure it out, Alexander is supposed to be the “Muslim” in the title.  Ruhl is referring to an old and debunked polemic against Islam, that the Quranic character of Dhul Qarnayn was none other than Alexader the Great.  Besides this, he also makes some other claims, which we will now dissect and debunk.  Ruhl must be getting frustrated at being proven wrong so many times!  The padawan has much to learn. 

Ruhl’s Claims

            As is usual, Ruhl’s short article is high on bluster and low on facts.  It is a one-sided diatribe, extolling Christian history while deprecating Islamic history.  Here are Ruhl’s main points that need to be addressed:

1. The Muslims “…conquered the Persian Empire and while they took land from the Byzantines, they didn’t conquer them.”
2. “Islam says that Alexander the Great was a devout Muslim.” “He is a devout Muslim according to Surah 18.”
3. “The early Jews that believed in Christ lived in a tradition where they knew they had to record the actions of Christ and did.”
4. “Islam on the other hand inherited Arab and Persian culture which were far more oral than literate.”
5. “The first hadith collection is the Muwatta of Imam Malik which was written in 179 AH. This Hadith collection is not even considered canonical.”
6. “The first canonical Hadith comes from Imam Bukhari about a quarter of a millennium [sic] after the Hijra. The other five canonical hadiths are even later than that.”
7. “All of the early mosques face Petra instead of Mecca and Muslims don’t have the literature to tell us why.”

When one read Ruhl’s diatribes, one notices a distinct lack of references.  Ruhl just wants to be taken at his word, and doesn’t think that providing references to his claims is very important.  So much for the “written culture” he gushes over.  Surely he realizes that any ignoramus can write unsubstantiated claims, but proving them is a different matter.  Perhaps that is why Matthew claimed the dead came to life and frolicked in Jerusalem!  Just write the story and people will just believe it because it is written!  In any case, let us now test Ruhl’s claims.

1. The Muslims “…conquered the Persian Empire and while they took land from the Byzantines, they didn’t conquer them.”

            It is true that during the mid-7^th century, Muslim armies destroyed the Sassanid Empire (Persia), while taking significant land from the Byzantine Empire, but not fully conquering it.  It is also true that when the Muslims entered formally Byzantine territories like Egypt, they were often welcomed as liberators, due to the heavy persecution by the Byzantines.  For example, the Coptic Church, which was brutally persecuted by the Byzantine Empire, largely supported the transition to Islamic rule, though it sometimes complained of heavy taxation by later rulers.  However, the first Muslim governor of Egypt, Amr Ibn Al-As (who converted to Islam during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him) was hailed as a just ruler by Coptic sources.  Historian Hugh Kennedy states:

“…more striking is the verdict of John of Nikiu.  John was no admirer of Muslim government and was fierce in his denunciation of what he saw as oppression and abuse, but he says of Amr: ‘He exacted the taxes which had been determined upon but he took none of the property of the churches, and he committed no act of spoliation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days.’”[1]

In other cases, both Christians and Jews aided the Muslim armies.  As Professor Caner K. Dagli explains:

“[i]n their wake Muslim armies left large portions of the lands they conquered pre-dominantly non-Muslim for decades or even centuries, as we see in the cases of Syria and Persia, since the expansion of Islamic rule did not require the expansion of the Muslim population.  Indeed, on occasion Christians fought alongside Muslims during the early conquests, and Jews fought alongside Muslims in Andalusia.”[2]

            Of course, the Byzantine Empire did eventually collapse after 1453 CE, when Constantinople was conquered.   

2. “Islam says that Alexander the Great was a devout Muslim.” “He is a devout Muslim according to Surah 18.”

            So again, we see an unsubstantiated claim and no evidence.  And yet Ruhl was criticizing Dr. Christine Ford for her allegations of assault against Brett Kavanaugh?[3]  Of course, anyone who reads Surah 18 (Al-Kahf) will find that Alexander the Great is never actually mentioned by name.  Ruhl is referring to the title “Dhul Qarnayn”, given to a mysterious king and warrior mentioned in Surah Al-Kahf.  The title means “The Two-Horned One”, which some Muslims believed applied to Alexander the Great because he often wore a helmet with two horns (this was one of many explanations for the title).  While it is true that many classical Muslim scholars identified Dhul Qarnayn as Alexander the Great, it is also true that many did not.  Moreover, the Quran never identifies who Dhul Qarnayn was anyway, so attempts to identify him are bound to be speculative.  Indeed, many classical scholars distanced themselves from the opinion that Alexander was Dhul Qarnayn.  These scholars included Al-Sharastani (d. 1153), Al-Razi (d. 1209), Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), and Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350).[4] 

            It is actually more likely that Dhul Qarnayn was an Arab king.  The scholar al-Tabbakh (d. 1951) noted that the prefix “Dhu” was used by the Arabs to refer to Arab kings (for example, Dhu Nuwas).  In fact, there is a hadith related by al-Maghribi (d. 1286) which stated that Dhul Qarnayn was from Himyar (Yemen).[5]  But regardless of the true identity of Dhul Qarnayn, the bottom-line is that there is no evidence that he was directly associated with Alexander the Great in the Quran.  The only associations made were by external sources.      

3. “The early Jews that believed in Christ lived in a tradition where they knew they had to record the actions of Christ and did.”

            This is another unsubstantiated claim, and one which actually contradicts reality.  It is an established fact that the early traditions regarding Jesus (peace be upon him) and his life and teachings were originally spread by word of mouth.  This is demonstrated by the New Testament itself!  In the Gospel of Luke, we read:

“[o]ne day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news…”[6]

So when Jesus (peace be upon him) was “proclaiming the good news”, were people writing it down word for word?  What did Jesus (peace be upon him) say?  It would be interesting to see what Ruhl can muster in response.  Perhaps he can provide a transcript of what Jesus (peace be upon him) said at this particular time? 

            The other point to note is that oral traditions clearly left their mark on the later written traditions in Christianity.  This is why there are multiple versions of different stories.  For example, the resurrection stories vary, as do the other stories about Jesus (peace be upon him).  This also explains why there are two different genealogies for Ruhl’s savior (and Christian apologetic attempts for the contradiction have been fruitless).[7] 

            Finally, oral traditions were also dominant in Greek culture.  As Roderick Beaton explains, one form of oral tradition was the “oral song”, known in Greek as “dimotiká tragoúdia”.[8]  Examples of the “oral song” in ancient Greek culture are the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” by Homer.[9]  Another form of oral tradition was the “folktale” or “paramýthi”.[10]  So, it is incorrect to say that Greek culture was largely reliant on the written word, rather than oral tradition.  Oral traditions were in fact very popular and widespread, and this culture also passed on to early Christianity.    

4. “Islam on the other hand inherited Arab and Persian culture which were far more oral than literate.”

            This is partially true, as the Arabs were prolific in oral story-telling, but not much in terms of written accounts.  However, it is inaccurate to claim that Persian culture was “far more oral than literate”.  On the contrary, the Persians kept extensive written records.  The library at the Persian city of Ctesiphon was renowned, until it was destroyed during the Islamic conquest.     

5. “The first hadith collection is the Muwatta of Imam Malik which was written in 179 AH. This Hadith collection is not even considered canonical.”

            Ruhl is again showing his ignorance and poor research.  The Muwatta of Imam Malik was not supposed to be a book containing various hadith, like Sahih Bukhari was.  Rather, Imam Malik wrote the Muwatta as:

“…a compendium of accepted principles, precepts and precedents which has become established as the ʿamal [practice] of Madinah.”[11]

            Also, while it is true that the Muwatta is not considered among the “canonical” compilations, the reason for that is simple:

“…almost all the important traditions contained in it are included in the Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhari and Muslim.”[12]

            Finally, the interesting thing about the Muwatta is that it is far more authentic than the Christian New Testament could ever be.  The reason is that we actually have an extant fragment of the Muwatta dated to the time of Imam Malik, whereas the earliest manuscript of the New Testament is a tiny fragment of the Gospel of John, known as P52, dated from the early to mid-2^nd century (though Christians try to give it the earliest possible date, which is 125 CE).[13] 

            Even worse for Ruhl, the documentary evidence for the Quran is even more impressive.  We have several extant manuscripts of the Quran from the 1^st-century of the Islamic calendar!  One recent discovery, known the “Birmingham Manuscript” has been reliably dated to the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself or a few years after his death![14]  That’s pretty impressive for a culture that was largely reliant on oral traditions, right?  And yet, the documentary evidence for the New Testament is laughably poor.  How many extant 1^st-century CE manuscripts are there for the New Testament?  The answer is ZERO.  So much for inheriting the Hellenistic literate culture!

6. “The first canonical Hadith comes from Imam Bukhari about a quarter of a millennium [sic] after the Hijra. The other five canonical hadiths are even later than that.”

            Ruhl is further exposing his ignorance here.  Imam Bukhari’s famous work is not “the first canonical Hadith” (whatever that means), but rather the first canonical compilation of hadith.  Also, as stated above, many of the hadiths mentioned in Malik’s Muwatta are also found in Sahih Bukhari.  

            Moreover, there were earlier collections of hadith.  One example is “The Sahifa of Hammam bin Munabbih”, which is:

“…believed to have been written around the mid-first AH/seventh century.”[15]

More importantly, when this collection is compared to the more well-known works like the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, we find that:

“… the texts in Hammam and those recorded in Ibn Hanbal, Bukhari and Muslim with the same isnad show almost complete identity, except for a few omissions and interpolations which do not affect the sense of the reports. On the other hand, the same ahadith as told by other transmitters in the three collections studied show a rich variety of wording, again without changing the meaning of the reports.”[16]

7. “All of the early mosques face Petra instead of Mecca and Muslims don’t have the literature to tell us why.”

            We can see a pattern emerging in Ruhl’s diatribe.  He makes sensational claims, but neglects to provide appropriate references, as if these claims are established facts that everyone knows, when in reality, they are inaccurate claims that he has cherry-picked from pseudo-scholars.  The claim that “all of the early mosques face Petra [in Jordan]…” is another such claim, sensational but lacking in facts.  The irony is that Ruhl seems to have forgotten an article he published earlier this year where he admitted that the Petra theory is lacking in evidence.[17]  To his credit, Ruhl criticized what he saw as a distinct lack of evidence, particularly regarding the catastrophic “earthquake” that necessitated the transfer of the Muslim holy place from Petra to Mecca.  But Ruhl forgot one other thing that truly exposes this shoddy piece of revisionist history.  The main proponent of this theory, an amateur “historian” named Dan Gibson, has essentially argued that there was a grand conspiracy by the Abbasid dynasty to change the center of Muslim worship to Mecca from Petra, and this happened after the phantom earthquake.  Well isn’t that convenient?  When evidence is lacking, just claim that it was a “conspiracy”!           

            So do the “early mosques face Petra”?  To answer this question, first we need to point out that the direction of prayer, known as the qibla, is supposed to be towards the Kaaba in Mecca, not Mecca itself or any other object or place.  Gibson, in his ignorance, claimed that the qibla supposedly faces the “black stone”![18]  Naturally running with this ignorance, he claimed that the black stone must have been eventually moved from Petra to Mecca after the earthquake in the former.  But this is simply not true.  Muslims do not pray towards the black stone, but rather the Kaaba itself.  Second, as David King points out, early Muslims simply lacked the tools to accurately point mosques toward Mecca or Petra, which explains why many do not actually point to Mecca (but also not towards Petra).[19]  King also points out that to use satellite images, which Gibson does, to determine the orientation of early mosques towards Mecca, Petra or Jerusalem is erroneous since:

“…these three directions are modern values, unattainable to anyone before modern times…”[20]

And as for these early mosques, King is blunt: they had nothing to do with Petra!  As an example, consider the Great Mosque in Sanaa, Yemen.  Using satellite images, we see the mosque points toward Petra, but as King notes:

“…its major axis is parallel to that of the Kaaba in Makka (and it even has a miniature Kaaba inside).”[21]

Or consider the Umayyad Mosque in Amman, Jordan.  King notes that it faces due south (from Amman) rather than towards Petra, which is southwest of Amman.  The bottom-line is that Gibson’s revisionist theory is all tripe.      

Conclusion

            In this analysis of Ruhl’s ridiculous and error-prone article, we have seen how the Christian apologist makes unsubstantiated claims, without providing any evidence or references, and passes them off as unrivaled truth.  This is a shame, especially since the motto of his blog is “Truth Without Compromise”.  Perhaps he should update it to say “Truth As Allan Ruhl Sees It”.  In any case, he still has much to learn.

            And Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) knows best.

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[1] Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In (Da Capo Press, 2007), p. 165.

[2] Caner K. Dagli, “Conquest and Conversion, War and Peace in the Quran,” in The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (New York: HarperOne, 2015), p. 1810.

[3] https://quranandbibleblog.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/what-allan-ruhl-can-learn-from-muslims-christine-ford/

[4] Maniraj Sukdaven and Shoayb Ahmed, “Is Dhul Qarnayn, Alexander the Great? Reflecting on Muhammad Rāghib al–Ṭabbākh’s Contribution on a Translated Manuscript Discovered in Timbuktu on Dhul Qarnayn” Verbum et Ecclesia [Online] 38, no. 1 (May 2017): 4, https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1696/3167.

[5] Ibid.

However, this hadith is “weak”. 

[6] Luke 20:1.

[7] See the article “The Genealogy of Jesus: Examining the Gospel Accounts of the Bloodline of the Messiah”: https://quranandbibleblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/the-genealogy-of-jesus-in-the-bible/

[8] Roderick Beaton, “The Oral Traditions of Modern Greece: A Survey” Oral Tradition 1, no. 1 (1986): 110, http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/1i/5_beaton.pdf

[9] Casey Dué, “Ancient Greek Oral Genres” Oral Tradition 18, no. 1 (2003): 63, http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/18i/10d_due.pdf

[10] Beaton, op. cit., 111.

[11] https://www.islamic-awareness.org/hadith/muwatta.html

[12] Ibid.

[13] For a picture of the Muwatta fragment, see here: https://www.islamic-awareness.org/hadith/muwatta.html

For a picture of P52, see here: https://www.challies.com/articles/the-history-of-christianity-in-25-objects-rylands-library-papyrus-p52/

[14] Syed Mostafa Azmayesh, New Researches on the Quran: Why and How Two Versions of Islam Entered the World (United Kigndom: Mehraby Publishing House, 2015), p. 7.

[15] https://www.islamic-awareness.org/hadith/hadith.html

[16] Ibid.

[17] http://allanruhl.com/an-analysis-of-the-mecca-petra-theory/

[18] David King demolishes the revisionist nonsense of Dan Gibson in a critique of his book.  See here: http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/from-petra-back-to-makka

[19] http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/from-petra-back-to-makka

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.