Actually, I do have full confidence that my resource is truthful. There was no dubious lengthy isnad (chain of transmitters) before the news reached me. Since O. Abdallah identified Silas as one of the relevant witnesses, let me present the testimony of Silas, who was also the person who informed me in the early months of the year 2000 that Qais Ali had left Islam. As an active participant in those forums Abdallah, without doubt, also knows of the Arab (Lebanese) Christian with the AOL screen name "Jesseb1" who was regularly debating in the Muslim chatrooms. Silas (AOL screen name "Silas778") and Jesseb1 often worked together as a team in these debates.

I have said that Qais left Islam. For several years around the year 2000, I participated actively in Muslim and Christian chatrooms. I believe there were two different Muslim oriented chat rooms, "Muslim Chat", and "Islamic Chat", on AOL. Qais used several screenames. The two I remember are Ahmaddeedat2, and MartyrforGod. I was there as Silas778. At times Qais and I debated topics in Christianity and Islam vigorously. In 1999 Qais and I had been in an email debate and I began to quote from Tabari's History and Ibn Ishaq's biography, to prove the evil actions of Muhammad. Then abruptly he stopped. He did not send any more emails and he did not show up in the chat rooms. About 8 months later or so, he showed up in the chat rooms. I was told by Jesseb1 that now he was not a committed Muslim and he voiced some criticisms about Islam. Many Muslims were shocked to see a former Muslim criticizing Islam! Then I heard the same comment from other people. A few days later we encountered each other. I was apprehensive. He greeted me with, "hello old friend". He told me he left Islam, and we talked cordially. I encouraged him to become Christian. He said if he were going to believe in god he would become a Muslim again (because he couldn't believe in our Jesus). He seemed to come and go for a month or two, but after that I don't remember running into him again. I believe his action of criticizing Islam was natural for somebody who was fully convinced of the truth of Islam (or of any world view) and invested much time and effort to defend and propagate it, but then comes to realize he was terribly wrong. There is a feeling of having been betrayed and having wasted much of his life for something that is so bad. It was very natural for him to criticize Islam as vigorously as he originally defended it. I wish him the best in life and I do hope that he finds comfort, peace, and truth, in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. silas

Since we are apparently now discussing credibility of witness and testimony ... it seems to come down to the issue whether people want to believe Abdallah or Silas. In his original accusation, Abdallah claimed Qais Ali IS his FRIEND, but now he does not know how to contact him. In fact, how much of a friend is he if their friendship reaches only as far as having once talked on the phone? More importantly, when did they talk on the phone and what did they talk about? Obviously, if that conversation was in 1999 or earlier, while Qais Ali was still an active Muslim debator, that doesn't count. Did Abdallah speak with him after March 2000, and did he talk with him about the issue of him leaving Islam and attacking Islam in the Muslim chatrooms? Abdallah's original comments were vage and utterly insufficient and thus do not even constitute admissable testimony in this question. Moreover, since Abdallah demands actual quotes documenting Qais Ali's statements in the chatrooms before he would accept the word of those who were present, then obviously his word is to be believed only if he presents the audio file of his phone conversation.

Even though it is possible, it is the nature of phone calls that they are usually not taped, and it is the nature of chatroom conversations that they are usually not saved. They are live, spontaneous, and "for the moment" which is different from a carefully reasoned article that is published for the purpose of being read for a long time.

Furthermore, Abdallah seems not to be familiar with the exact meaning of the word "lying". It is a lie if I claim something to be true although knowing that it is false. Making an incorrect statement but with the full conviction that this is true, is not a lie. It is an error, delusion, mistake, or whatever other term you may want to give it, but not a lie. I do understand, however, that a webpage title "Exposed Lies of Answering Islam" has a much higher polemical value than if Abdallah had only called it an error.

At the time of its publication I was convinced that the comment on Qais Ali was the truth, and therefore it was not a lie, whether it was objectively true or not. However, all credible testimony I currently have still says that my initial statement was and is true.

Lastly, there were dozens of Muslim websites that had published aggressively anti-Christian material but which have gone defunct in recent years. I have no clue what happened to these authors and webmasters. Since I do not know anything about them, I am not going to make any statement about them. I am not into speculation. Qais Ali was good chatroom debator, but he was a minor player in terms of web publishing. For example, I would love to know what happened to Gary Miller (one of the main Muslim debators in the 1970ies and 80ies) who has not been heard about for many years now, even though his materials are still displayed on many websites. Another person with whom I had a good bit of personal email contact and even some public debates is Misha'al Al-Kadhi. At some time, he suddenly disappeared and could not be contacted anymore. His book is still promoted by many Muslims, but the author has not been heard or seen in any public forum for a long time. I never got the idea to start claiming they left Islam. I do not know what happened to them, so I have no reason to write anything. Qais Ali is the only debator/webmaster about whom I ever made such a claim. Why? Because I had credible testimony about it.

Well, pictures may clarify this issue better than words. Have a careful look at this captured image of my mailbox on the day that Abdallah published his response:

[My software is German, so here the translation: Von = From; An = To; Betreff = Subject; Erhalten = Received (at date & time)]

This message clearly displays Osama Abdallah's writing style, both in the subject title as well as in the body of the message.

What is your conclusion?

Proof of Spamming by Captured Images?

No question about it, flooding anyone's mailbox is definitely bad manners.

Let it be clear and publically known to everyone: I, Jochen Katz, absolutely disagree with such methods.

However, if Abdallah spammed my address with his triumphalistic message,
then who is he to complain that ‘queball23’ spammed his mailbox?

Or, maybe, ....

... maybe something is wrong with all of this?

Well, ... I forged the above displayed messages. Mr. Abdallah didn't actually send me any of the above displayed emails, or even any message at all. I sent all of these from his address (more correctly, I was faking his address) to my Answering Islam feedback address, and then I downloaded them again into my computer. Next, I took a screen shot of my email inbox. All that was very easy. The whole excercise didn't take me more than ten minutes. Abdallah makes a big deal of it that he is supposedly a computer professional. So this should be even easier for him than for me who only uses computers in order to produce content for the website and to do correspondence with those who respond to it, but I would certainly not want to pretend that I am a computer expert.

Just as Abdallah on his site, I did not show the headers of the emails because they would have betrayed that the messages were forged. I only presented a screen shot displaying the "official" part of the header that can easily be manipulated. [But I showed at least the body of the message which Abdallah did not do.]

Conclusion: What then, Mr. Abdallah, is the value of your so-called ‘IRREFUTABLE PROOF’?

Just as I wrote before: "... a whole lot of accusations, but lacking solid proof."

Frankly, your site if full of bad manners, insults and offensive language. I am not going to discuss those because it would be a waste of my time to invest any major effort into such childish things. I have personally ignored your site all those years, because I have found nothing that really challenged my thinking. I only decided to respond to your "exposed lies of Answering Islam" page because a number of people emailed me regarding it and asked for answers to your accusations. I don't like writing the same answers many times, so I have finally written this page as a public response.

I am interested in actual arguments of content. But if you have not really anything of substance to say, it would be obvious why you would make such a big deal of these kinds of issues. Your claim that Quennel Gale supposedly sent you some one hundred emails (not last week, but back in October 2000, nearly three years ago!) is apparently so crucially important for you, that you now talk about it in at least three different webpages (cf. *, *, *). In reality, it is irrelevant. Answering Islam is regularly spammed by Muslims. Additionally, we have gigabytes of log files documenting hacker attacks on our site. We not only get emails full of insults, but ever so often we are also honored to receive death threats. I could produce dozens and dozens of webpages documenting these, and could go on complaining without end about such issues! But would there be any gain from it? Will anyone have come closer to the truth of the message that we are presenting? Not one bit. Even if you can show that one or two or one hundred Christians (or Muslims) behaved badly, it has no consequence whatsoever for the question of truth of the Christian (or Muslim) faith. Thus, my recommendation to you: Start concentrating on what actually counts and forget the kindergarten behavior.

I have no responsibility for the private behavior of anyone but myself. I take some (editorial) responsibility for what is published on the site Answering-Islam.org (obviously, the main responsibility remains with the authors of the individual articles), but I am not the personal guardian of every Christian, whether he is associated with Answering Islam closely, loosly, or not at all.

Finally, Quennel Gale is well able to respond himself to your accusations against him and does not need my help in this. In fact, he has done so already years ago, shortly after Osama first raised those accusations in September 2000. See Quennel Gale's link to ‘Exposing "Answering Christianity's" lies’ on his page False Muslim Allegations Refuted.

In an email signature I recently found a statement that O. Abdallah may want to ponder:

Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people

None of these verses say what Abdallah is imagining. Nowhere is stated that people who sympathize with Islam, but neither testified to their faith by proclaiming the Shahada, nor ever pray in the Islamic way, nor fast during Ramadan, are nevertheless to be considered Muslims.

Verse 3:64 is only a call to Christians and Jews to come to some sort of agreement with the Muslims, particularly to accept that Muslims are actually worshipping none but God. Jews and Christians who know their scriptures will NOT agree to that. In this passage the author of the Qur'an commands the Muslims to go to the Christians with this request: Even if you do not accept Islam in all its aspects and become Muslims, at least accept that WE worship Allah (the one Creator God). Nowhere does this passage state that those Christians who may actually agree to this request are then to be considered Muslims as well. The part that Abdallah put in bold is a description of the Muslims, not of the Christians. And it does NOT say that this is ALL that is required to be a Muslim. It is a request made to the people of the book that they may concede at least to the stated acknowledgment. It is not a definition of who is a Muslim.

Anyway: What about Bucaille and the "worship of Allah"? Despite all his positive remarks about the Qur'an and the person of Muhammad, nowhere in this article referred to by Abdallah does Bucaille state that HE worships or prays to Allah. Thus, even Abdallah's own minimalist definition of a Muslim is not satisfied by Bucaille.

All the other verses are even less relevant. They only make the repetitive claim that the Qur'an contains signs for those who reflect. But it never says that those who reflect are therefore automatically Muslims. It is rather sad to see that I do have to explain even the Qur'an to Abdallah.

Abdallah is free to invent his own definition of a Muslim, but he cannot legitimately accuse us of lying if we fail to follow his idiosyncratic definition. According to the common definition of what constitutes conversion to Islam, there is no evidence that Bucaille ever became a Muslim.

Ironically, exactly two weeks earlier (08/01/2003) Abdallah published another article in which he wrote:

As to the five pillars of Islam, they are: (1) "Al-Shahadatyn", which means the "Two Bearing of Witnesses". In order for a person to embrace Islam, he would have to say: "I bear witness that there is no GOD but Allah, and Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger". ... (bold and underline emphasis mine)

It is rather obvious, Abdallah doesn't know what he really believes, and in each new argument he claims what seems to be the most expedient at the time, contradicting himself as he stumbles along.

1. Everyone except Mr. Abdallah can see that this paragraph contains accusations that Mr. Gale is supposedly claiming something, but that Abdallah does not give exact quotations from or references to the pages where these alleged claims are made. That is what I call a fairy tale. There is nothing that I or anyone could examine to determine whether Abdallah's accusations are true or not. Therefore, the accusations are unproven and do not warrant any reply. Apart from that: "Who cares?" The whole claim is silly anyway and not worth wasting time on.

2. I am not responsible for Mr. Gale. This has already been explained in the discussion of the alleged spamming.