Questions on Islam and the nature of God
Disclaimer: I believe the God of the Bible fits reality but have read
about Islam and the biography of Mohammed and find some of the material
I read seems implausible.

1. I have read that the old pagan Arabian moon god is named Allah. Somehow this
name is used supposedly to mean just "God" by the Mohammedans. Yet we see that
on every mosque there are images of the crescent moon.
  Are they worshipping a (possibly amped-up) pagan god? If not, why the crescent
moon?
  The contrast with God's name as in the Bible is stark: in the Bible, God
replies, when asked for a name, "I am that I am", and the closest to a "name"
that God has comes from taking letters in "I am" from Hebrew and inserting
vowels.
  Somehow this seems more appropriate to a God of the universe than a name that
refers to some dead little satellite which is utterly hostile to life (as we
know the moon to be).

Note: I am informed by a better linguist that "Allah" derives from the Semitic
root for God (Al, El) with a feminine singular ending. Thus it appears that
it refers to a goddess, not a god. The question about why the moon image
is used remains.

2. It is reported that Mohammed claimed that some parts of the Koran were
validly dictated by Allah, but then Allah abrogated them and supplied later
contradicting verses. 
  Does this not imply that Allah exists within time?
  Yet we know now that time is a coordinate of the universe, similar to the
spacelike coordinates, and has at least a beginning, possibly an end, and
in any case needs to be viewed as part of the creation.
  How can God be contained within His creation?

  (Is it not a simpler and more plausible hypothesis that Mohammed simply
found some of his material wrong and changed it? There have been divine
injunctions about the crime of putting human words into God's mouth by prophets,
in some places in the Bible, which would not exist if this simply never happens.)

3. It was written (I think by Mohammed among others) that a prophet is shown
to be genuine by his performing miracles. Jesus gave sight to the blind,
hearing to the deaf, brought at least 2 people back to life when they were
dead, and was himself resurrected and seen by hundreds of people. His disciples
spent the entire remainder of their lives travelling far (Thomas got to India
for example) and telling folks what they saw. That can be taken as a picture
of what a genuinely miraculous person looks like. The acts of the apostles
are pretty well documented and make no sense as a conspiracy.
  So what if anything did Mohammed ever do that could be called a miracle?
Dictating a book or preaching well are acts that normal humans have done
many times. (This is especially true when the book reflects ideas which have
been circulating in the neighborhood.) Dreaming dreams is not miraculous, unless
they give some information which turns out to be prescient or something like
that. So how is it that anyone considers Mohammed to pass the minimum
qualifications to be a prophet?

Later note: I have heard from a few folks better educated than I in theology that
Mohammed did indeed have no miracles. Somehow he is supposed to have been
credited with miracles performed by Jesus the Christ, though how this was supposed
to work was not clear to my informers.

4. How is it that anyone claims that Hebrew or Christian scriptures predicted
Mohammed? We have good versions of these which agree with whatever archaeological
discoveries are made. These predictions are not to be found.  Where do these
claims come from? (Are followers of Islam allowed to read the originals so they
might see what is really going on? If not why not?)

Later note: Apparently the claim that scripture predicted Mohammed is not
one that is made by many senior Muslim clerics. Books I read claim that it
does exist in the Koran.

5. When we judge someone's bona fides, we often ask whether the person making
some claim benefits personally from the claim. In their preaching, Jesus did
not have personal gain. Buddha did not have personal gain. How about Joseph
Smith? L Ron Hubbard? How about Mohammed? 

6. When a religious figure does things which are generally considered criminal,
we need to ask what the reason for this is. Consider again that neither Jesus
nor the Buddha were criminal in their behaviour, certainly during their ministries.
Yet we see Mohammed, doing multiple murders, robbing goods apparently as a way
to use the loot to gain followers, and incidentally picking up a harem from
women aged 7 and up. Do these sound like a religious leader or a mob boss?
Why is this behaviour supposedly consistent with Mohammed being a "perfect
man"? Do believers think that sort of behavior is perfection in anyone else?

The above are enough questions for now. Far as I can see they need answers.
People who want to assert that anyone should believe in Islamic doctrine
(if the above is Islamic doctrine...the biographies or copy of the Koran I
have might have misled me somehow) should be able to show that the Islamic
account of God and of its prophet is more convincing than the alternatives
that exist. If the answer to such things is not "the question is wrong,
here is why: ..." but rather to offer violence, that is itself a demonstration
that the caveats here are true and that Islamic doctrine is not an appropriate
way to approach the Divine.
 I could be wrong here, and if the deal is that Mohammed gets thought of
the way, say, that Joshua does (killing entire populations of cities etc.) then
the attributes of Mohammed may be of little importance. There may be good
explanations of what I see as issues. But I have not heard them and think
the questions bear replies.