Are diapers now womens garments? Answering Osama Abdallah's challenge

A few days ago, in his entry posted on 9/12/2006, Osama Abdallah issued the following challenge:

The formulation of this challenge is as devious as asking Osama Abdallah, "Have you now stopped beating your wife?" It doesn't matter whether he answers yes or no, he still looks like a wife-beater, and the more he tries to deny it, the more suspicious he looks.

The deviousness is in the construction. Questions always look more honest and fair than direct accusations. But here the question about "having stopped or not" is merely a camouflage for the direct accusation that is contained in it, i.e., "you have beaten your wife". Without giving evidence for this charge, the accusation is presented as if it is an established fact.

Similarly, Abdallahs absurd challenge is a devious insinuation because it simply assumes that "Mary made Jesus wear her garment", and only asks whether this would violate the Law. Before this challenge can make any sense, Abdallah needs to prove that Jesus ever wore one of Marys garments, as he so brazenly assumes. The burden of proof for this claim is on Abdallah. We do not have to answer every absurd challenge.

Nevertheless, since most readers would have no clue what this is about, we want to inform them about the background of Abdallahs absurdity.

Ever since our debate (*) where I, Sam, documented from Muslim sources, specifically from the so-called sound collections of Al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim, that Muhammad wore womens clothing (*), Abdallah has been trying to do everything he can to refute this point. Somehow Osama Abdallah thinks that his current challenge is one of the ways he can undermine my argument.

The problem with Abdallahs approach here is that he is doing nothing more than committing the fallacy of tu quoque as well as using a false analogy. After all, even if we were to assume that Abdallah is correct that Jesus wore his mothers garment this would still do nothing to vindicate or justify Muhammad having adorned himself with his young wifes clothes:

If Abdallahs claim were true, this would only imply that both Jesus and Muhammad violated Gods express command which prohibits men from wearing the clothing of women:

But that is not at all what we are talking about here. Although Abdallah has given no hint what he is referring to, what he has most likely in mind is the swaddling cloths of newborn Jesus.

It is common for mothers to wrap their babies in their garments in order to protect them from getting cold, so it wouldnt surprise us that Mary decided to wrap Jesus with her clothing. But Muhammad wasnt a baby when he asserted that the so-called divine inspiration came to him while in the garment of Aisha, his child bride, and not of the other wives. We, therefore, have to ask what was a grown man of over fifty doing wearing a young prepubescent girls clothes?

It is a simple fact that the New Testament nowhere states that Mary dressed her Divine Son in her garment. Abdallah has deliberately distorted what the Holy Bible teaches at this point since the inspired Scriptures say that Mary wrapped the newborn in swaddling cloths, which was the custom at that time:

First, it does not say that those were clothes, but cloths. This invalidates the challenge all by itself. Second, nowhere does it say these cloths were Marys anymore than they belonged to Joseph. Most probably she either got them as a gift from her relatives, or Mary and/or Joseph bought them on the market. These swaddling cloths were specifically for babies, and they were certainly not distinctively female in any sense.

Furthermore, even if Jesus had been wrapped in a garment of Mary, for which there is absolutely no evidence, it would still not violate the law in Deuteronomy 22:5 because this command forbids a man to wear womens clothing. A baby boy is not a man. This law refers to adults who know what they do, and deliberately cross-dress. This answers Abdallahs silly challenge even though there was no need to do so.

Actually, his interpretation of Luke 2:4-7 results in the following syllogism.

When Jesus was a newborn baby:

  Premise 1 :   Mary made Jesus wear her garment   (according to Osama Abdallah)
  Premise 2 :   Jesus wore the diapers of his time (according to Luke 2:4-7)
  Conclusion:   Mary wore diapers as her garment.

Abdallah's claim is actually a grave insult to one of the most honorable women of faith.

O. Abdallah apparently loves to embarrass himself by making challenges which only serve to expose his shoddy research skills together with evil intent. Let us provide the lexical meaning of the Greek word in question, taken from an online dictionary that Abdallah regularly uses himself, i.e. whenever he thinks it suits his purposes:

And we add a few commentaries for good measure:

Just in case Abdallah still doesnt get this we will show how this very word is used in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint (LXX):

The word is used metaphorically of the earth being clothed with a mist.

Ezekiel describes Judah as a newborn baby girl who hasnt been washed and clothed, but abandoned to die.

This shows that there is nothing in the word itself which limits its application to womens clothing. In light of this we now issue a challenge of our own, which simply demands from him to bring the evidence before making such false accusations:

The foregoing should expose Abdallahs desperate attempt at justifying his prophets wearing the clothes of women. He is doing nothing more than comparing apples and oranges.

This is quite unlike what the Islamic narrations report since they describe what Muhammad was wearing as the clothing which women put on:

Here is the definition of mirt according to Al-Mujam Al-Waseet ("The Intercessory Dictionary"), second edition, 1972, part 2, p. 864:

In due time, and if the Lord Jesus permits, we will be producing a full length article documenting that Muhammad did indeed dress in womens garments and will also seek to interact with the common Muslim objections to the contrary.

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