Mehdi Hasan is one of the most arrogant Islamic apologists seen today, but don’t expect to see anything actually linked to Islam (by Mehdi’s own criteria) appear in Mehdi Hasan’s defence of his religion. Not once does he present any Islamic scripture. While you might think such a travesty of a defence is easy meat for a rebuttal, the video has 5.3 million views on YouTube and has ample praise in the comments, so is more than worth our time.

The context to Mehdi’s speech is as a pseudo-rebuttal itself, to Anne-Marie Waters and Daniel Johnston’s previous speeches as part of the three-versus-three debate. The negative side was extremely poor, too, never presenting relevant Islamic scriptural evidence to make the case that Islam was not peaceful. The debate ended with a vote from the house that Islam is a peaceful religion.

Mehdi Hasan first proclaims to be a representative and ambassador of Islam, and then proceeds to obliterate most of his own argument by claiming that terror attacks such as the Bali bombings, 7/7 and the murder Theo van Gogh, are linked to Islam solely because of the Islamic identity of the attacks, and that this identity is irrelevant without actual evidence linking the attacks to Islam.

I would agree. Those attacks do not prove anything in themselves. Hasan’s opponents’ arguments were very poor. It’s a shame the opposition didn’t involve a skilled debater or speaker who could have addressed the Islamic sources and shown that all of those events resulted from Allah’s direct commands.

Mehdi’s problem in slapping away anecdotal evidence is that his entire presentation relies on anecdotal evidence. His entire speech is almost completely devoid of substance. Hasan shoots the opposition down for the claim that Islam was born in Saudi Arabia, which is simply picky, as Mecca and Medina are located in modern-day Saudi Arabia.

Then he goes on to make a facile comment about Muhammad al-Khwarizmi’s mathematical accomplishments being the reason that Daniel Johnston could use his computer via algorithms. I may have to remind you at this point that this speech was supposed to be devoted to showing that Islam is a peaceful religion.

But since Hasan speaks of maths, it is worth noting that Allah may need to seek help from Muhammad al-Khwarizmi. In Surah 4:11-12, he divides inheritance fractions in a way so that they amount to more than one.

We read Allah reveal through Muhammad: ‘Allah commands you, concerning your children, to the male the like portion of two females; so if there were more than two females, so they will have two thirds of that which their father left. And, if she was one [daughter], she will have the half, and to his parents to every one of them a sixth part of what he left if there was to him a [surviving] son.

So, if he had no son and his parents are his heirs, so his mother will have the third; so if there was to him brothers, so to his mother the sixth after any will was made for it or any debts. [As] to your fathers or your children, you know not which of them is the closest to you in usefulness. [This] is the ordinance of Allah. Surely Allah was knowing, wise. And you will have half of what your wives leave if there was no son to them; so if there was a son to them, then a fourth of what they leave will be yours after any will was made for it or any debts.

And your wives will have a fourth part of what you leave if there was no son to you; but if there was a son, then they will have an eighth part of what you leave after any will you made for it or any debts. And if a man or a woman bequeaths, was lacking [heirs], and he has a brother or sister, so to each of them the sixth; so if there were more than this, so they will be sharers in a third after any will was made for it or any debts without loss to anyone. [This] is a command from Allah. And Allah is knowing, forbearing.’

Let’s say a man leaves £12,000. His three daughters would get £8,000. The parents would get one sixth each, so £2,000 each. The wife, who left three daughters, would get £3,000, which amounts to £15,000, more than is possible. While al-Khwarizmi was a fantastic mathematician and thinker, it doesn’t seem he learned those skills from the Qur’an.

Mehdi Hasan then goes on to suggest that Islam’s Golden Age of science helped bring about the renaissance, but as can be seen in this video, most of the so-called Golden Age is nothing more than a period of subjugation and war. The Qur’an is actually a litany of silliness in the scientific realm, and while the Bible and God’s mystery launched the real Golden Age of science, the Qur’an held back Muslims in this area.

We find in the Qur’an that semen is formed between the backbone and the ribs in Surah 86:6-7, the earth is flat in Surah 88:20 (hence the command to always face the mosque, despite impossibility of this on a globe, in Surah 2:149), the Sun and Moon are in orbit and pass each other in Surah 21:33 as well as Surah 91:1-2, and milk is created between blood and faeces in Surah 16:66, among hundreds of other scientific errors. Again, similar to the maths, the Qur’an is not a bastion of scientific information, and anyway Hasan’s discussion of science proves absolutely nothing about Islam being peaceful.

Hasan’s deception continues when he says that anti-Semitism in the Middle East was imported from Judeo-Christian culture in the West and that this culture was also to blame for the Holocaust, which Islam would have prevented. Once again, Mehdi could not hope to prove that Islam is a peaceful religion by asserting the Judeo-Christian culture is the source of evil acts, but for some reason he persists in discussing irrelevant points.

Despite calling the ascribing of the actions of followers to their religion without clear evidence of a connection a ‘gutter game’, Hasan proceeds to discuss the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, colonialism and more as reflecting upon Christianity. But until Mehdi can show that the wrongdoing that was committed was called for and justified in Christian scripture, his argument is again irrelevant, and is the same argument he decries when it comes from his opponents. He then invalidates all these comparisons by saying ‘he’s not going to play that game’. Does this mean Mehdi will move on to actually proving Islam is a peaceful religion? No.

Hasan says that Islam, Christianity and every mainstream religion is based on love, compassion and faith, but cannot cite relevant Islamic scripture for this claim. There is no Islamic scripture that preaches love or compassion for unbelievers. While Allah is referred to as merciful and compassionate, this does not match his commands. We see Allah hates those who do not believe and even intentionally hardens the hearts of some so that they do not believe.

Mehdi acknowledges the Qur’an has verses about warfare, but this is a straw man. The accusation is that Allah’s perfect, direct, unchangeable, eternal, perfectly preserved word, the Qur’an, commands believers to engage in war with unbelievers and kill many people for varying different reasons in varying different ways. You can see an entire documentary film, ‘Art Of Imposture’, devoted to showing this on my website, Islam Refuted.

On the basis of a baffling claim by Professor Robert Pape that the majority of suicide bombings, which usually involve the bomber praising Allah, are not by Muslims, and those that are by Muslims are responses to the military intervention in their homeland, Hasan says that his opponents for this debate have one thing in common with terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden: they agree that Islam is a warlike religion, in contrast to mainstream Muslims. This is the genetic fallacy. It is irrelevant how many Muslims think Islam is peaceful.

Whether they agree, don’t agree, change their mind or do not care, Islam will remain either peaceful or non-peaceful based on its teachings. All his anecdotal polls are useless and irrelevant to the question at hand.

In his next segment, Mehdi discusses fatwas denouncing terrorism from Islamic scholars, among them Sheikh Afifi al-Akiti of Oxford University. Hasan says ‘you don’t go out and kill people willy-nilly in the high street… based on verses of the Qur’an that you cherry pick without any context, any understanding, any interpretation or any commentary’.

I’d like to look through Surah 9 with Hasan and discuss with him its relevance according to the greatest Qur’an commentator of all time, Ibn Kathir. According to Ibn Kathir, ‘All people of the world shall be called to Islam. If any one of them refuses to do so or refuses to pay the Jizya, they should be fought till they are killed’. Al-Tabari, a similarly highly regarded commentator, says in 9:69 that ‘Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us’.