Interfaith Dialogue Revisited - Hamza Tzortzis and the William Lane Craig influence

Back in February I mentioned that an article Hamza Tzortzis wrote seemed to rely heavily on the work of Christian apologist William Lane Craig. It was a reasonably unpopular article until PZ Myers featured it, earning me 1,800 hits in one day. If you're counting that's about 1,750 more than average.

Hamza initially denied that there were similarities between William Lane Craig's work and his own:

But I'm glad to report that within two days of the increased interest Hamza has updated his article, giving proper credit to Christian apologists Paul Copan, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Frank J. Tipler, John D. Barrow, Keith Ward and Roy Abraham Varghese as well as atheist philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong as influencing his thinking on the matter. No Muslim authors were cited, though the Qur'an was quoted in several areas.

I'm happy to acknowledge this correction and see it as a positive step. I think highlighting that we can all comfortably learn from the fruit of other worldviews - even with disagreement on some areas - is something to be lauded. And, as many have observed, William Lane Craig has been comfortable and open in citing how Islamic scholarship has influenced his theology, particularly in respect of the Kalam cosmological argument.


I don't particularly want to drag this out. I've got miracle toting pastors to investigate, a couple of guest posts down the line, and a stash of shirts that won't iron themselves. In the grand scheme of things this isn't a big deal. I would like to clarify two final areas:

Well, I could have. @DugSciof on Twitter mentioned that he brought the similarities to Hamza's attention some months ago but didn't get a response. Other Muslims have been critical of his reliance on Craig's work as far back as 2005. Last year I mentioned incorrect statistics in one of his articles and brought the information to Hamza's attention - here's a snippet of what I wrote:

"He also claims that studies show 66% of rapists claimed they were incited by pornography. Again, the study is not listed, but the author of his sole source gives an entirely different answer - 33%, citing Einsiedel, 1986, p. 62, reference here."

This misleading figure hasn't been corrected and, disappointingly, is still used in debates. And as I said on Twitter, this wasn't a typo. It can't have escaped Hamza's notice, while using the work of others, that he was using the work of others. I don't see how me calling his attention to the matter could have netted him any new information.

Secondly, he referred to his article as being "still a draft in progress". I'm unsure precisely when the article first appeared on his site, but the first appearance on Facebook was Sunday, 30th May, 2010, over two years ago. Using archive.org we can see a snapshot of the article from July 8th, 2011. Snapshots from 2010 are unavailable, but you'll note from the blogger  directory structure that it was published in 2010 -  I just can't tell the day or month. There are some minor differences in the current version, fixing typos, choosing different words and correcting the errors I noted, but it's substantially unchanged.

I feel two years is too long to seriously accept that there was a plan to add citations but that time did not allow the addition of a seven line paragraph to give appropriate credit to the original authors. Hamza is head of research of iERA. He's had debates worldwide, made numerous television appearances and contributed to many publications. He's worth talking to if you get the chance. This is not an error made by someone with such experience and in such a position, and this is why I'm afraid to say I can't take his excuse seriously.

What do you think? Have I been fair? Are there other possible interpretations?