Hamza Tzortzis

Hamza Tzortzis (1980–) is a British Islamic apologist who is a convert to Islam. He is of Greek heritage and is known for his proselytizing of Islam (dawah).

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Life before Islam

Before Islam, Tzortzis was a university student studying psychology. However, he was caught cheating and was subsequently kicked out of university.[1] Then, when he was at his lowest point in his life with no future or job prospects, he found Allah and discovered his true calling in life, which is to spread Islam and give dawahFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.

Dawah career

Tzortzis started reading William Lane Craig and then copied his arguments.[2][3] He wrote a review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion but it was later found out that the whole thing was copied from Craig's review.[4] He would also incorporate "scientific" miracles in his dawah as a way to prove the divinity of the Qur'an, claiming that it was impossible for the Muhammad to know how a baby was formed and how mountains were formed the way its described in the Qur'an without divine revelation. Tzortzis started his career by debating people who knew nothing about Islam and using that to make a name for himself. His debating strategy is to intentionally find people who aren't knowledgeable on Islam, Gish Gallop, and when they don't respond to all of his arguments, claim victory. This backfired in 2011 in the atheist convention in Ireland when Hamza ambushed PZ Myers and debated him on the scientific miracles of the Qur'an.[5] He talked about embryology in the Qur'an claiming that it was a miracle, but when Myers was unimpressed and told him he was an embryologist, he decided to change the subject and talk about how the Qur'an's description of mountains is a miracle instead. Later on when he was on The Magic Sandwich Show, AronRa wanted to talk to Hamza about the so called miraculous description of mountains in the Qur'an, being a geology major.[6] Once Tzortzis realized that AronRa knew what he was talking about when it came to geology, he decided to change the subject and talk about embryology instead. His strategy is to talk about mountains with the embryologist and then talk about embryology with the geology major. Even though these claims can be fact checked, Tzortzis knows his audience doesn't care and will be impressed and not bother to see if what he is saying is correct.

Post-dawah career

Tzortzis later admitted that there were no scientific miracles in the Qur'an and admitted that he was wrong for years and that his nonsense actually did more harm than good to Islam and led to more people leaving Islam when they found out they had been lied to. [7] Tzortzis of course blamed the apostates, claiming that they had psychological problems, because of course the ones realizing that they have been scammed have the psychological problem, not the one who continues to espouse the same refuted arguments despite being told that he was wrong multiple times. He stopped doing debates after that. He said that he doesn't like doing debates and claimed that they don't need to prove the existence of God. Rather the burden was on the atheists to demonstrate why they should deny God's existence.

Arguments

Tzortzis makes his argument for god by plagiarizing William Lane Craig. He has also come up with an argument for Islam.

Linguistic miracle

Tzortzis claims that the Qur'an is a linguistic miracle that descopes the Arabic language. No one is really sure what this means.[8] Tzortzis also says the Qur'an is a miracle because it is neither poetry nor prose. Although it's not clear why that makes the Qur'an a miracle.

Ashley Madison

In 2015 when the online dating service Ashley MadisonFile:Wikipedia's W.svg was hacked, Tzortzis' name appeared on the list of account holders. Tzortzis was quick to do damage control and claimed on Facebook that this was fraud and someone hacked him in order to defame him. He then claimed that he wasn't doing anything haram on the website, including the Islamically permissible acts on the website such as finding a second wife. In other words, he was already preparing an excuse just in case he couldn't hide the fact that he was registered on Ashley Madison. Later, however, the coordinates were shown that the account was made in Australia, on the same day Tzortzis happened to be in Australia. Coincidence? Considering all of this happened before the hack, his explanation falls short as the hacker must have orchestrated the entire hack all in an elaborate plan to make him look bad.[9] Luckily for Tzortzis, his Islamic State has never come to fruition because if it did, he would have his hand cut off for stealing from William Lane Craig and be stoned to death for adultery.

gollark: We should also give it access to neurotoxin dispensers.
gollark: I guess they'd be ideal actually! Especially if available as an output for GPT-485.
gollark: Aren't those not used because of danger to humans?
gollark: Why? It would cost more.
gollark: But then its electronics will short and fail.

References
  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lYschsArLo
  2. https://asharisassemble.com/2014/04/18/10-problems-with-dawahmen/
  3. http://geoffsshorts.blogspot.com/2012/02/interfaith-dialogue-hamza-tzortzis-and.html
  4. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/06/20/an-unsurprising-case-of-plagiarism/
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rNtEdptaY
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMxKeTQw0Y
  7. http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/does-the-quran-contain-scientific-miracles-a-new-approach/
  8. https://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=f5da0d1aa22d846e6c6d1d162aae2c54&topic=23439.msg680083#msg680083
  9. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/08/23/islamic-lecturer-hamza-tzortzis-explains-why-his-data-was-found-in-the-ashley-madison-hack/
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