Once again Nadir Ahmed has attempted to defend his poor performance in his recent
debate with Sam Shamoun. Nadir has written an article titled
“Dirty Tricks: The Unfair Terms of the Debate I Was Forced to Accept.” When I read the article, the first thing I noticed was that Nadir didn’t list these “unfair” debate terms. This led me to suspect that the terms of the debate weren’t unfair at all, and that Nadir was simply trying to account for his loss by accusing Christians of unfair rules.
But I wanted to make sure. So I obtained a list of the “unfair” rules of the debate, which have been available all along
here. Here’s the list:
Brief Debate Schedule
1- Nadir: 25-minute Opening Speech
2- Sam: 25-minute Opening Speech
3- Nadir: 10-minute Preceding Speech
4- Sam: 10-minute Preceding Speech
5- Nadir: 10-minute Preceding Speech
6- Sam: 10-minute Preceding Speech
7- Nadir: 5-minute Concluding Speech
8- Sam: 5-minute Concluding Speech
Nadir and Sam: 20 minutes Q&A Session
Regulations
1. Absolutely NO personal attacks. Either side must only criticize the other’s point of view, not the personal character or style of the other. Such tactics are not only in poor taste, they are also logical fallacies (Ad Hominem).
2. Each side MUST abide by the debate schedule and rules as delineated above. This debate needs to maintain order. There will be a moderator present to keep the time limits and debate rules. You will be notified 5 minutes and/or 1 minute before the end of each speech. You will NOT have any extra time.
3. The topic of the debate is, “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?” No one is allowed to diverge from this topic. Each side is responsible to answer the question and why he believes his answer. You may offer counter arguments to your opposition and answer their criticisms, but you may NOT argue against other issues within either camp’s worldview. For example, we do not want to talk about whether or not Jesus is God.
4. Both sides need to be 1 hour earlier to the auditorium before the debate. If filming is going to take place, then those filming must also be 1 hour early.
5. There will be a moderator present at the debate. The moderator’s main task is to keep each side following the regulations and time constraints. If either party delineates from the rules or schedule listed above, the moderator will stop him and warn him in front of the audience. The time it takes to get the violating party to be warned will count against his total speech time. If the party persists in violating the regulations, he may be disqualified from the debate.
Is there anything unfair here? No personal attacks, stick to the schedule, stick to the topic, arrive early, listen to the moderator. These are rules that would be obvious to any debater.
Careful consideration reveals that Nadir has given us a double-dose of Taqiyya. First, he agreed to these rules, and yet he violated them during the debate. He attacked Sam personally and repeatedly went off-topic. Why would he agree to these rules, knowing that he would violate them when on-stage? Taqiyya! Welcome to Islam.
Second, Nadir has tried to deceive his readers into believing that he was “forced” to accept “unfair” debate rules. Consider a quotation from his article, with a brief comment from me. Notice that he calls the rules a “crime”!
Let’s pause for a second – you might be wondering, “What fool would agree to such terms!!!”. [Wood’s response: What terms, Nadir? You haven’t even listed the terms, because you know that they’re completely fair!] Well… I would say that I am that fool. Because it was obvious that their actions were a clear sign of desperation and fear and I will not allow them to get away with their crime.
This is an obvious attempt to justify his inability to overcome Sam’s arguments. But three facts remain. First, Nadir lost the debate (miserably). Second, he tried to deceive Christians by agreeing to the rules and then violating them. Third, he is trying to deceive both Christians and Muslims by accusing the debate organizers of “unfair” play. This is simply awful. We can see why Nadir has no credibility in the debate world.