Nurs­ing of Adults and Per­vert­ed Mis­sion­ary Mentality

In accor­dance with clas­si­cal mis­sion­ary habits, the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary Sam Shamoun — who is noto­ri­ous for his per­vert­ed and filthy mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions — has tak­en the event of Sahla bint Suhail nurs­ing an adult boy, Sal­im the ally of Abu Huza­ifah, as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to assault Islam by call­ing it ​“shame­ful and dis­gust­ing to say the least”.

In this paper, insha’Al­lah, we are going to refute this per­vert­ed mis­sion­ary whose mind is filled with noth­ing but filth, wa Allah-ul-Mus­ta’aan.

What is the Sig­nif­i­cance of Nursing ? 

Accord­ing to numer­ous Prophet­ic tra­di­tions, fos­ter rela­tions are treat­ed like blood rela­tions in mar­i­tal affairs. These rela­tions can ren­der one Muhram (i.e., unmar­riage­able), so he can attend at his fos­ter rel­a­tives and see them as he does with his blood relatives.

Nar­rat­ed ​‘Aisha : Aflah asked the per­mis­sion to vis­it me but I did not allow him. He said, ​“Do you veil your­self before me although I am your uncle?” ​‘Aisha said, ​“How is that?” Aflah replied, ​“You were suck­led by my broth­er’s wife with my broth­er’s milk.” I asked Allah’s Apos­tle about it, and he said, ​“Aflah is right, so per­mit him to vis­it you.“Sahih-ul-Bukhari, Vol­ume 3, Book 48, Num­ber 812

Nar­rat­ed Ibn ​‘Abbas : The Prophet said about Hamza­’s daugh­ter, ​“I am not legal­ly per­mit­ted to mar­ry her, as fos­ter rela­tions are treat­ed like blood rela­tions (in mar­i­tal affairs). She is the daugh­ter of my fos­ter broth­er.“ibid., Num­ber 813

Nar­rat­ed ​‘Amra bint ​‘Abdur-Rah­man : That ​‘Aisha the wife of the Prophet told her uncle that once, while the Prophet was in her house, she heard a man ask­ing Haf­sa’s per­mis­sion to enter her house. ​‘Aisha said, ​“I said, ​‘O Allah’s Apos­tle ! I think the man is Haf­sa’s fos­ter uncle.’ ” ​‘Aisha added, ​“O Allah’s Apos­tle ! There is a man ask­ing per­mis­sion to enter your house.” Allah’s Apos­tle replied, ​“I think the man is Haf­sa’s fos­ter uncle.” ​‘Aisha said, ​“If so-and-so were liv­ing (i.e. her fos­ter uncle) would he be allowed to vis­it me?” Allah’s Apos­tle said, ​“Yes, he would, as the fos­ter rela­tions are treat­ed like blood rela­tions (in mar­i­tal affairs).ibid., Num­ber 814

Nar­rat­ed Aisha : Once the Prophet came to me while a man was in my house. He said, ​“O ​‘Aisha ! Who is this (man)?” I replied, ​“My fos­ter broth­ers,” He said, ​“O ​‘Aisha ! Be sure about your fos­ter broth­ers, as fos­ter­ship is only valid if it takes place in the suck­ling peri­od (before two years of age).ibid., Num­ber 815

So the pur­pose of the Prophet’s^(P) per­mis­sion to Sahla bint Suhail was to make Sal­im her fos­ter son in order that he could attend at her the same way he used to when he was under age of puberty.

Will The Real Per­vert Please Stand Up ? 

Shamoun’s filthy inter­pre­ta­tion of the Prophet­ic per­mis­sion reminds us of a famous Egypt­ian joke about an idiot who once want­ed to drink hot milk, so he burnt his cow. 

Shamoun typ­i­cal­ly thinks like this idiot. If you want­ed to drink some cow milk, will you go below the cow and suck­le it ? Would you put the cow on a fire to heat its milk and then suck­le her ? 

If you are Sam Shamoun, the answer must be a YES ! Only a filthy idiot dis­eased with con­gen­i­tal hypothy­roidism would think like that ! How­ev­er, this is the only way of think­ing famil­iar to Shamoun’s per­vert­ed mind.

Direct con­tact is not nec­es­sary for nurs­ing. In oth­er words, the milk is col­lect­ed in a cup or pot and the fos­ter son drinks it with­out get­ting into close con­tact with the fos­ter moth­er. This was what actu­al­ly hap­pened in the case of Sahla bint Suhail and Sal­im, as report­ed by Muhamad Ibn Sa’ad and Ibn Hajar Al-‘Asqalani in their respec­tive biogra­phies of Sahla bint Suhail :

Muham­mad Ibn ​‘Umar told us : Muham­mad Ibn ​‘Abdul­lah, Az-Zuhri’s nephew, told us on the author­i­ty of his father that he said : an amount of one milk drink was col­lect­ed in a pot or glass, so Sal­im used to drink it every day, for five days. After this, he used to enter while her head is uncov­ered. This was per­mis­sion from Mes­sen­ger of Allah to Sahla bint Suhail.Ibn Sa’ad, Kitab At-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, Vol. 10, p. 257. Also see Ibn Hajar, Al-Isabah, Vol. 7, p. 717

We believe that this is a fatal refu­ta­tion to Shamoun’s per­vert­ed men­tal­i­ty. The charge that he had want­ed to direct at our Holy Prophet^(P) has back­fired upon him. It is crys­tal-clear that this mis­sion­ary did not derive his filthy inter­pre­ta­tion from any Islam­ic source, rather, it came from his equal­ly filthy mind.

In order for his argu­ment to car­ry at least a lit­tle weight, the mis­sion­ary needs to demon­strate to the read­ers that oth­ers besides him had also mis­un­der­stood the tra­di­tion in ques­tion, in exact­ly the same way as he did (note that quot­ing his fel­low mis­sion­ar­ies proves noth­ing oth­er than that they are as per­vert­ed as he is). How­ev­er, we 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. 

There­fore his lack of com­pre­hen­sion and the per­vert­ed nature of his fee­ble mind does not prove any­thing against Islam. That is to say that if Sam Shamoun can­not under­stand and com­pre­hend an issue, then that proves noth­ing against Islam oth­er than to demon­strate his own lack of intel­li­gence, more so when he is the only indi­vid­ual who seems to have had a ​“prob­lem” with the pas­sage and got ​“con­fused” with its intend­ed meaning.

Why Was the Nurs­ing of Adults Permitted ? 

Accord­ing to the fol­low­ing reports in Sahih Mus­lim, nurs­ing of the young boy, Sal­im, was per­mis­sion from the Mes­sen­ger of Allah^(P) to Sahla bint Suhail.

‘Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) report­ed that Sahla bint Suhail came to Allah’s Apos­tle (may peace be upon him) and said : Mes­sen­ger of Allah, I see on the face of Abu Hud­haifa (signs of dis­gust) on enter­ing of Sal­im (who is an ally) into (our house), where­upon Allah’s Apos­tle (may peace be upon him) said : Suck­le him. She said : How can I suck­le him as he is a grown-up man ? Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) smiled and said : I already know that he is a young man. ​‘Amr has made this addi­tion in his nar­ra­tion that he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Bat­tle of Badr and in the nar­ra­tion of Ibn ​‘Umar (the words are): Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) laughed.Sahih Mus­lim, Vol­ume 5, Book 8, Num­ber 3424

On quot­ing this par­tic­u­lar hadith, Shamoun has made empha­sis on Sahla’s won­der­ment ​“How can I suck­le him as he is a grown-up man?”, imply­ing that she found it dis­gust­ing to nurse an adult boy accord­ing to the mis­sion­ary’s filthy inter­pre­ta­tion, and on the Prophet’s^(P) laugh imply­ing that it was a ​“mis­chie­vous” one. 

In response to this ugly ges­ture, we note that Sahla knew, as any Mus­lim, that nurs­ing is effec­tive only in the first two years, this is the rea­son why she expressed her won­der. When the Prophet^(P) con­firmed his com­mand, she real­ized the excep­tion­al nature of this permission. 

It is well known that a new­born baby suck­les direct­ly from the breast because he/​she is unable to drink from a cup in con­trast to old­er chil­dren and adults. That is why it is only nat­ur­al and log­i­cal to think of a cup or a sim­i­lar object when one men­tions a grown-up per­son, not direct suck­ling from the breast, espe­cial­ly when the Ara­bic word reda’ — which is ren­dered to nurs­ing or suck­ling — does not indi­cate any direct con­tact. There is no room for mis­un­der­stand­ing or mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion here. 

We too would like to express our won­der regard­ing the dirty mis­sion­ary inter­pre­ta­tion and ask Shamoun to explain how the dis­may and uneasi­ness of Abu Huza­ifah, Sahla’s hus­band, on the mere idea of Sal­im get­ting a lit­tle close to his wife like a son, ​“dis­ap­peared” as the below hadith shows, if direct suck­ling from his wife’s breast had occurred ? How could this act have made Abu Huza­ifah any ​“hap­pi­er” or recep­tive towards Salim ?

We repeat again that Abu Huza­ifah’s dis­may was at the mere notion of Sal­im approach­ing his wife — as a son approach­es his moth­er. Can we then imag­ine that such a jeal­ous man would accept or allow a prac­tice that, accord­ing to the per­vert mis­sion­ary, would require his wife to lit­er­al­ly breast-feed anoth­er man, and that his dis­may and uneasi­ness would just ​“van­ish”? You must bring the most irra­tional expla­na­tion to answer this ques­tion with a ​“yes”.

We do con­grat­u­late Sam Shamoun for his extra­or­di­nary men­tal ​“integri­ty”!

‘Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) report­ed that Sal­im, the freed slave of Abu Had­haifa, lived with him and his fam­i­ly in their house. She (i. e. the daugh­ter of Suhail came to Allah’s Apos­tle (may peace be upon him) and said : Sal­im has attained (puber­ty) as men attain, and he under­stands what they under­stand, and he enters our house freely, I, how­ev­er, per­ceive that some­thing (ran­kles) in the heart of Abu Hud­haifa, where­upon Allah’s Apos­tle (may peace be upon him) said to her : Suck­le him and you would become unlaw­ful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hud­haifa feels in his heart will dis­ap­pear. She returned and said : So I suck­led him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hud­haifa dis­ap­peared.ibid., Num­ber 3425

Umm Sala­ma said to ​‘Aisha (Allah be pleased with her): A young boy who is at the thresh­old of puber­ty comes to you. I, how­ev­er, do not like that he should come to me, where­upon ​‘Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) said : Don’t you see in Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) a mod­el for you ? She also said : The wife of Abu Hud­haifa said : Mes­sen­ger of Allah, Sal­im comes to me and now he is a (grown-up) per­son, and there is some­thing that (ran­kles) in the mind of Abu Hud­haifa about him, where­upon Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) said : Suck­le him (so that he may become your fos­ter-child), and thus he may be able to come to you (freely).ibid., Num­ber 3427

Zainab daugh­ter of Abu Sala­ma report­ed : I heard Umm Sala­ma, the wife of Allah’s Apos­tle (may peace be upon him), say­ing to ​‘Aisha : By Allah, I do not like to be seen by a young boy who has passed the peri­od of fos­ter­age, where­upon she (‘Aisha) said : Why is it so ? Sahla daugh­ter of Suhail came to Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) and said : Allah’s Mes­sen­ger, I swear by Allah that I see in the face of Abu Hud­haifa (the signs of dis­gust) on account of enter­ing of Sal­im (in the house), where­upon Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (may peace be upon him) said : Suck­le him. She (Sahla bint Suhail) said : He has a beard. But he (again) said : Suck­le him, and it would remove what is there (expres­sion of dis­gust) on the face of Abu Hud­haifa. She said : (I did that) and, by Allah, I did not see (any sign of dis­gust) on the face of Abu Hud­haifa.ibid., Num­ber 3428

The read­er of this report can eas­i­ly rec­og­nize that Sal­im used to enter Sahla’s home when he was her adopt­ed son, but when Islam for­bade the adop­tion, a tran­si­tion­al phase was nec­es­sary because Sal­im was like a real son to Sahla and it was dif­fi­cult for her to push him away as a stranger. This is the rea­son for this kind per­mis­sion of the Prophet^(P). One is indeed shocked to see how this kind ges­ture of the Mes­sen­ger^(P) is giv­en the most dis­gust­ing inter­pre­ta­tion by a per­vert Chris­t­ian missionary !

Was this per­mis­sion for Sahla alone ? We say : ​“Yes!” because the gen­er­al Islam­ic view on the mat­ter is that there is no effec­tive nurs­ing after the first two years of age.

Our proof is the report on the author­i­ty of ​‘Aisha her­self that Allah’s Apos­tle^(P) said :

Fos­ter­age is only valid if it takes place in the suck­ling peri­od (before two years of age).Sahih-ul-Bukhari, Op. Cit., Num­ber 815

Imam Ibn Kathir in his com­men­tary on Qur’an 2:233 notes that :

It is report­ed in both Sahihs that ​‘Aisha thought that if a woman gives her milk to an old­er per­son (mean­ing beyond the age of two years) then this will estab­lish fos­ter­age. This is also the opin­ion of ​‘Ata’ Ibn Abu Rabah and Al-Laith Ibn Sa‘d. Hence, ​‘Aisha thought that it is per­mis­si­ble to suck­le the man whom the woman needs to be allowed in her house. She used as evi­dence the Hadith of Sal­im, the freed slave of Abu Huza­ifah, where the Prophet ordered Abu Huza­ifah’s wife to give some of her milk to Sal­im, although he was a man, and ever since then, he used to enter her house freely. How­ev­er, the rest of the Prophet’s wives did not agree with this opin­ion and thought that this was only a spe­cial case. This is also the opin­ion of the Major­i­ty of the schol­ars (al-jumhur). The evi­dence of the Major­i­ty of schol­ars who are the Four Imams, the Sev­en Jurists, emi­nent Com­pan­ions and the rest of the Prophet’s wives except ​‘Aisha, is what is report­ed in both Sahihs on author­i­ty of ​‘Aisha that Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (peace be upon him) said, ​“Be sure about your fos­ter broth­ers, as fos­ter­age is only valid if it takes place in the suck­ling peri­od (before two years of age).“Ibn Kathir, Tafsir-ul-Qur’an Al-‘Azim, Vol­ume 1, page 358. Pub­lished by Mak­ta­bat-ul-Iman, Man­soura, Egypt

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the juris­tic aspects of Sahla’s hadith, there is a very valu­able Ara­bic work by Dr. Muham­mad Al-Hif­nawi, Ar-Redaa’ wa Bunouk-ul-Laban”(i.e., Nurs­ing and Milk Banks) for those who are interested.

Is the Nurs­ing of Adults Per­mit­ted Now ?

The obvi­ous answer to this ques­tion is ​“No!”, for nurs­ing which leads to fos­ter­age is effec­tive only in the first two years of age as the Prophet^(P) said :

Fos­ter­age is only valid if it takes place in the suck­ling peri­od (before two years of age).Sahih-ul-Bukhari, op. cit.

This is the con­clu­sion of the fol­low­ing authorities :

‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattab
​‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib
Ibn ​‘Abbas
Ibn Mas’ud
Jabir
Abu Huraira
Ibn ​‘Umar
Umm Salam,
Sa’id Ibn-ul-Musayyab
​‘Ata
Az-Zuhri
Qatada
Ash-Shu’abi
Sufyan Ath-Thawri
Al-Awzai’
Malik
Ash-Shafi’e
Ahmad Ibn Hanbal
Ishaq
Abu Thawr, and many others.

Imam Abu Han­i­fah is report­ed to have allowed an addi­tion­al six months after the two years, but his chief dis­ci­ples Abu Yusuf and Muham­mad Ash-Shay­bani dis­agreed with this view and joined the above author­i­ties. All schol­ars of Abu Han­i­fah’s mad­hab (i.e., school of thought) fol­low the view of Abu Yusuf and Muham­mad Ash-Shaybani. 

Yes, ​‘Aisha did hold the view that nurs­ing of adults is per­mis­si­ble, but her opin­ion can­not stand before the agree­ment of oth­er wives of the Prophet^(P), emi­nent Com­pan­ions, Sev­en Jurists of Mad­i­nah (from the gen­er­a­tion of tabi’un) and the Four Imams. And only Allah knows best.

Al-Qur­tubi in his com­men­tary on Qur’an 2:233 notes the following :

Imam Malik (may Allah be Mer­ci­ful to him), his fol­low­ers and a group of schol­ars has gath­ered from this verse that nurs­ing which is treat­ed like blood rela­tion is what takes place in the (first) two years ; because after two years, nurs­ing is over and there is no con­sid­er­able nurs­ing after two years. This is his state­ment in his Muwat­ta in the report of Muham­mad Ibn Abdul-Hakam on his author­i­ty. This is the opin­ion of ​‘Umar and Ibn ​‘Abbas and it was report­ed on the author­i­ty of Ibn Mas’ud. It was also stat­ed by Az-Zuhri, Qata­da, Ash-Shu’abi, Sufyan Ath-Thawri, Al-Awza­’i, Ash-Shafi’i, Ahmad, Ishaq, Abu Yusuf, Muham­mad and Abu Thawr. Ibn Abdul-Hakam report­ed on his author­i­ty : ​“two years with addi­tion­al few days”. Abdul-Malik, ​“like a month”. Ibn-ul-Qasim relat­ed on the author­i­ty of Malik that he said, ​“Nurs­ing is (con­sid­er­able with­in) two years and two months lat­er”. Al-Walid Ibn Mus­lim relat­ed on his author­i­ty that he said, ​‘Nurs­ing one, two or three months after the two years is still con­sid­ered with­in the two years, what­ev­er comes after this is non­sense’. It is report­ed on the author­i­ty of (Abu Han­i­fah) An-Nu’­man that he said, ​“What is after the two years up to six months is (con­sid­ered) nurs­ing”. But the authen­tic (opin­ion) is the first one due to His say­ing ​“The moth­ers shall give suck to their off­spring for two whole years”. This indi­cates that there is no sig­nif­i­cance of what­ev­er the new­born suck­les after the age of two years. Sufyan relat­ed on the author­i­ty of ​‘Amr Ibn Dinar on the author­i­ty of Ibn Abbas that he said, Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (peace be upon him) said, ​“There is no nurs­ing but with­in the (first) two years”. Ad-Dar­qat­ni said, it is relat­ed on the author­i­ty of Ibn ​‘Uyai­inah but by Al-Haytham ibn Gamil and he is a trust­wor­thy memorizer.

I say : This report in addi­tion to the verse and its mean­ing dis­al­lows nurs­ing of the adult and (indi­cates) that it has no sig­nif­i­cance. It was report­ed on the author­i­ty of ​‘Aisha that she endorsed it and it was the opin­ion of Al-Laith Ibn Sa’d among schol­ars. It was report­ed about Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari that he used to val­i­date it and report­ed that he retract­ed this opin­ion.Al-Qur­tubi, Al-Jami’ le Ahkam-el-Qur’an, Vol. 2, (Dar-ul-Hadith, Cairo, Egypt), pp. 139 – 140

Ibn Kathir in his com­men­tary on Qur’an 2:233 notes that :

The opin­ion that nurs­ing does not estab­lish fos­ter­age after the age of two years is report­ed on the author­i­ty of ​‘Ali, Ibn ​‘Abbas, Ibn Mas’ud, Gaber, Abu Huraira, Ibn ​‘Umar, Umm Salma, Sa’id Ibn-ul-Musayy­ib, ​‘Attaa and the Major­i­ty of Schol­ars (Al-Jumhour). This is the Mazhab (School of Though) of Ash-Shaf’i, Ahmad, Ishaq, Ath-Thawri, Abu Yusuf, Muham­mad and Malik in one report on his author­i­ty. It is report­ed on his author­i­ty that it is two years and two months, and in anoth­er report, two years and three months. Abu Han­i­fah said : ​“Two years and six months”. Zafar Ibn-ul-Huza­yl said, ​“As long as he suck­les, it is up to three years ? this is report­ed on the author­i­ty of Al-Awza­’i. Malik said, ​“If the baby weans before the age of two years, then a woman suck­les him after wean­ing, it does not estab­lish fos­ter­age because it becomes like food”, this is report­ed on the author­i­ty of Al-Awza­’i. It is report­ed on the author­i­ty of ​‘Umar and ​‘Ali that they said, ​“No nurs­ing after wean­ing”. It is prob­a­ble they meant either the two years as the Major­i­ty state whether he weans or not, or the act itself as Malik said, and Allah knows best.

It is report­ed in both Sahihs that ​‘Aisha thought that if a woman gives her milk to an old­er per­son (mean­ing beyond the age of two years) then this will estab­lish fos­ter­age. This is also the opin­ion of ​‘Ata’ Ibn Abu Rabah and Al-Laith Ibn Sa‘d. Hence, ​‘Aisha thought that it is per­mis­si­ble to suck­le the man whom the woman needs to be allowed in her house. She used as evi­dence the Hadith of Sal­im, the freed slave of Abu Huza­ifah, where the Prophet ordered Abu Huza­ifah’s wife to give some of her milk to Sal­im, although he was a man, and ever since then, he used to enter her house freely. How­ev­er, the rest of the Prophet’s wives did not agree with this opin­ion and thought that this was only a spe­cial case. This is also the opin­ion of the Major­i­ty of the schol­ars (Al-Jumhour). The evi­dence of the Major­i­ty of schol­ars who are the Four Imams, the Sev­en Jurists, emi­nent Com­pan­ions and the rest of the Prophet’s wives except for Aisha is what is report­ed in both Sahihs on author­i­ty of ​‘Aisha that Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (peace be upon him) said, ​“Be sure about your fos­ter broth­ers, as fos­ter­age is only valid if it takes place in the suck­ling peri­od (before two years of age).” Ibn Kathir, Tafsir-ul-Qur’an Al-‘Azim, Vol. 1, (Mak­ta­bat-ul-Iman, Man­soura, Egypt), p. 358

Did Paul Had Homo­sex­u­al Urges ?

Sam Shamoun con­clud­ed his dis­gust­ing paper with the following :

What­ev­er inter­pre­ta­tion Aisha, Umar and Ibn Masud may have giv­en to Muham­mad’s instruc­tion lat­er on (cor­rect­ly or incor­rect­ly), the fact that Muham­mad would com­mand a woman to nurse a young man is shame­ful and dis­gust­ing, to say the least.

Since we have refut­ed in detail the dis­tor­tion con­coct­ed by Sam Shamoun, let us now turn the tables upon him and apply his own per­vert­ed thoughts upon Chris­t­ian reli­gious per­son­al­i­ties in order to see its outcome. 

In the book of Acts we are informed that Paul had Tim­o­thy circumcised :

1 : And he came also to Derbe and to Lystra : and behold, a cer­tain dis­ci­ple was there, named Tim­o­thy, the son of a Jew­ess that believed ; but his father was a Greek.
2 : The same was well report­ed of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.
3 : He would Paul have to go forth with him ; and he took and cir­cum­cised him because of the Jews that were in those parts : for they all knew that his father was a Greek.Acts 16:3, Amer­i­can Stan­dard Version

Paul cir­cum­cised Tim­o­thy because he was fac­ing stiff oppo­si­tion from the Jews. Thus, in order to avoid get­ting into more trou­ble, Paul had Tim­o­thy cir­cum­cised, even though Tim­o­th­y’s father hap­pened to be a Greek Gentile. 

But why was the cir­cum­ci­sion debate impor­tant for the Jews whom Paul want­ed to pacify ?

To some Gen­tile read­ers, this cir­cum­ci­sion debate might seem periph­er­al. Some men are cir­cum­cised, oth­ers not — so what ? In order to see the rev­o­lu­tion that Paul was effect­ing with­in Jew­ish cir­cles (or satel­lites), we turn to the old rab­binic texts. The rab­bis con­sid­ered cir­cum­ci­sion so impor­tant that they declared 6 that were it not for the blood of the covenant — that is to say, the blood which flowed from Abra­ham’s penis when, at God’s insis­tence, he cir­cum­cised him­self — heav­en and earth would not exist. The teach­ing of Judaism was that a child must still shed the blood of a covenant…even if he is born with­out a fore­skin, and even if for some med­ical or oth­er rea­son he is cir­cum­cised before the mys­ti­cal eighth day. Even the angels are circumcised…

Con­verts to Judaism in the Roman peri­od had to under­go circumcision…Strangely enough, in Pales­tine rules were more lib­er­al than in the Dias­po­ra, and there were Pros­e­lytes of the Gate, as they were known, who were allowed to ​‘become Jews’ with­out cir­cum­ci­sion. But such was not the gen­er­al rule. It was wide­ly believed that the admis­sion of uncir­cum­cised men into Jew­ish reli­gious wor­ship ​‘imped­ed the arrival of the Mes­si­ah’. While ​‘semi-con­verts’ were allowed, those who observed the Sab­bath and the dietary laws, they were to be regard­ed as hea­thens if after a twelve-month peri­od they had not under­gone cir­cum­ci­sion. These strin­gent rules did not deter con­verts…A. N. Wil­son, Paul The Mind Of The Apos­tle, (Pim­li­co, 1998), p. 128

So now we need to ask, how was cir­cum­ci­sion prac­tised then ? What was the method used in those days to cir­cum­cise someone ? 

A. N. Wil­son fur­ther explains that :

By Roman times, cir­cum­ci­sion was done with a met­al knife, and, if we believe that Paul did insist on Tim­o­thy under­go­ing cir­cum­ci­sion, it is per­haps worth remind­ing our­selves of the three essen­tial parts of the rit­u­al, with­out which it is not com­plete. The first part is milah, the cut­ting away of the out­er part of the fore­skin. The is done with one sweep of the knife. The sec­ond part, peri­ah, is the tear­ing of the inner lin­ing of the fore­skin which still adheres to the gland, so as to lay it whol­ly bare. This was (and is) done by the oper­a­tor — the mohel, the pro­fes­sion­al cir­cum­cis­er — with his thumb-nail and index fin­ger. The third and essen­tial part of the rit­u­al is mesisah, the suck­ing of blood from the wound. Since the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, it has been per­mis­si­ble to fin­ish this part of the rit­u­al with a swab, but in all pre­ced­ing cen­turies and cer­tain­ly in the time of Paul it was nec­es­sary for the mohel to clean the wound by tak­ing the penis into his mouth. In the case of a young adult male such as Tim­o­thy the bleed­ing would have been copi­ous. We can eas­i­ly imag­ine why Paul’s Gen­tile con­verts were unwill­ing to under­go the rit­u­al ; and, giv­en the more lib­er­al atti­tudes towards the Torah which had already begun to emerge among the Hel­lenists of Syr­i­an Anti­och, it is not sur­pris­ing that the cus­tom of cir­cum­ci­sion should have start­ed to wane. It took the extrem­ism of Paul to think that the knife of cir­cum­ci­sion would actu­al­ly ​‘cut you…off from Christ’.ibid., p. 131

In oth­er words, Paul had to take the penis of Tim­o­thy in his mouth in order to cir­cum­cise him ! 

Note also how strong­ly Paul oppos­es cir­cum­ci­sion else­where in the New Testament :

²Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive cir­cum­ci­sion, Christ will prof­it you nothing.
³Yea, I tes­ti­fy again to every man that receiveth cir­cum­ci­sion, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
⁴Ye are sev­ered from Christ, ye would be jus­ti­fied by the law ; ye are fall­en away from grace.
⁵For us through the Spir­it by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.
⁶For in Christ Jesus nei­ther cir­cum­ci­sion availeth any­thing nor uncir­cum­ci­sion ; but faith work­ing through love.Gal 5:2 – 6, Amer­i­can Stan­dard Version

How­ev­er, when it came to sav­ing him­self from some trou­ble, Paul imme­di­ate­ly had Tim­o­thy cir­cum­cised so that the Jews would not both­er him any fur­ther. Since we are aware of Paul’s intense oppo­si­tion to cir­cum­ci­sion no mat­ter what the rea­sons are, sure­ly his cir­cum­ci­sion of Tim­o­thy indi­cates the hid­den homo­sex­u­al desires that he wished to ful­fil at least once in his life­time ? He prob­a­bly had a deep desire to take a penis into his mouth, so when an oppor­tu­ni­ty comes along, he decid­ed to avail it. Hence he now has a good excuse to take a penis into his mouth and no one could object to that.

One can­not claim that some­one oth­er than Paul had cir­cum­cised Tim­o­thy because it is clear­ly stat­ed that it was Paul who had cir­cum­cised him. There was no press­ing need for Paul to cir­cum­cise Tim­o­thy if indeed he was staunch­ly opposed to the prac­tice, as relat­ed in the account in Gala­tians. But that he did go ahead and con­duct­ed the cir­cum­ci­sion gives us a rea­son to pause, as it sug­gests that he had homo­sex­u­al urges.

Now it is our turn to say :

What­ev­er inter­pre­ta­tion Chris­tians may have giv­en to Paul’s action lat­er on (whether cor­rect­ly or incor­rect­ly), the fact that Paul would put the penis of an adult man in his mouth is shame­ful and dis­gust­ing, to say the least.

Please note that if such a tra­di­tion was locat­ed with­in any Islam­ic lit­er­a­ture or in the Qur’an, and if it is required to take the pri­vate organ with one’s mouth, the above is pre­cise­ly the type of argu­ment Sam Shamoun would have vig­or­ous­ly launched in his papers, in order to demonise Mus­lims and their reli­gion. Hence the above para­graph is, in real­i­ty, the out­come if one hap­pens to think like a per­vert as Sam Shamoun obvi­ous­ly is.

Con­clu­sions

What leads Sam Shamoun to be such a per­vert and think like a mind­less idiot ? Is it because he is so ​“bright” and ​“intel­li­gent” that he hap­pens to be the only per­son on this plan­et who ​“under­stood” the tra­di­tion relat­ing to Sahl bint Suhail cor­rect­ly where­as every­one else on this plan­et had failed to com­pre­hend it ? This is sure­ly an unlike­ly, nay, an impos­si­ble, presumption. 

The rea­son why Sam Shamoun thinks the way that he does — which leads him to dis­tort, mis­read and mis­in­ter­pret sim­ple straight­for­ward pas­sages — is not because he is ​“bright” but because he is a hate-filled big­ot who lacks ele­men­tary intel­li­gence. When the two com­bine and form a unit, that is hate + mediocre intel­li­gence, the result is ​“Shamounion inter­pre­ta­tions” — which are essen­tial­ly stu­pid mis­read­ings of the texts.

And only God knows best ! 

Adden­dum : Our Chal­lenge to Sam Shamoun 

The mis­sion­ary is now required to offer an uncon­di­tion­al apol­o­gy for con­coct­ing and spread­ing a vicious lie in order to abuse the Prophet^(P) and the reli­gion of Islam. He is required to remove the fac­tu­al­ly-erro­neous and log­i­cal­ly non­sen­si­cal paper from his web­site. If, how­ev­er, he starts whin­ing over some­thing absolute­ly irrel­e­vant and besides the point, then that would be tak­en as an indi­ca­tion of his denial of real­i­ty and his severe, men­tal imbalance. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, his noto­ri­ous strat­e­gy of send­ing a num­ber of high­ly abu­sive e‑mails to Mus­lims will not accom­plish any­thing in try­ing to cov­er his gross mis­use and mis­read­ing of a non-con­tro­ver­sial, straight­for­ward pas­sage. Some­one who lacks such ele­men­tary intel­li­gence, so much so that it dri­ves him mad to the point of twist­ing and mis­us­ing straight­for­ward pas­sages, have absolute­ly no right to author papers con­cern­ing any aspect of Islam (or any top­ic for that mat­ter), unless and until he makes an attempt to increase the lev­el of his dwin­dling men­tal cognizance.

We now wait for his apol­o­gy for spread­ing such a vicious and bla­tant lie about Islam.