WHY THE QUR’AN IS NOT A MIRACLE?
List of contents:
I.
Synopsis
II.
Linguistic problems
A.
The style of the Qur’an
B. Imperfect
grammar
C. Foreign words
D. Spelling errors
E. Conclusion
III.
Variant versions and readings
IV. Archeological discoveries
V.
Scientific problems
VI.
Stages of prenatal development
VII.
Historical problems
VIII.
Internal contradictions
IX.
The doctrine of abrogation
X. The doctrine of satanic inspiration
XI. Invalid evidence of alleged divine inspiration
XII. Conclusion
Some claim that the Qur’an is miraculous because of both its eloquence
and its content. As discussed herein, the alleged eloquence of the Qur’an
is questionable, and is not a miracle for several important reasons. In
fact, the alleged eloquence of the Qur’an is not consistent with
the claim of its divine origin. The purpose of divine revelation is not
to teach the rules and principles of the classical Arabic language; but
to teach and guide the people into the right path that they may grow spiritually
in God’s service, and live together in peace, love and joy. Divine
revelation is intended for the average person to read, hear and comprehend,
not for a few experts in the language. A teaching is not useful if the
average person cannot understand it, because it will not help him in his
life.
Upon close scientific examination of the Qur’an, we discover that
it suffers from linguistic problems, variant versions and readings,
scientific problems, historical problems, internal contradictions
and many discrepancies, and its problematic doctrines of abrogation
and satanic inspiration. This means that the Qur’anic claim of its
perfection in al-Kahf 18: 1 is not true.
The following is a brief objective analysis of these problems, that leads
us to the inescapable firm conclusion that the miraculous aspect is absent
from the Qur’an.
The Arabic language is a descendent of the Aramaic language. The Arabic
language used in the Qur’an originated in the region west of the
Euphrates river in the fourth-fifth century AD. It was originally centered
around al-Hira, about three miles from al-Kufa in southern Iraq, among
the Christian tribes of al-Munathara that expanded its rule to the region
of al-Anbar on the Euphrates west of Baghdad. Its origins then are the
Christians of al-Hira and al-Anbar. Subsequently, the Arabic language
dominated all the territory west of the Euphrates. That is probably why
it is called Arabic (Arabi) from the word “western” (Gharbi).
It influenced the Levant, and spread to Mecca and al-Higaz through trade
and Christian evangelism.
It is important to distinguish between miracles of the almighty living
God and accomplishments of natural human talents. The achievements of
human talents and special abilities are not miracles. Some persons may
be gifted physically—they have strong large bodies. Others may
have strong photographic memories. Some are gifted in the area of languages.
They have the natural ability to learn many languages, including unwritten
dialects, quickly and retain them. Some are gifted in speech.
They talk very well and make captivating speeches. Others may be gifted
writers and poets. They author excellent prose and poetry. It is important
to stress the fact that language fluency, authoring and speech abilities
are human talents. They are not miracles of the living God.
Therefore, it is inappropriate to call any book a miracle because of
its eloquent language. Great works of gifted authors and poets could
not be called miracles. For instance, we cannot call the Eliad and the
Odyssey, the great works of the Greek poet Homer of the eighth century
B.C., miracles. Neither can we call the plays of William Shakespeare,
the great English writer of the sixteenth century A.D., miracles. By
the same token, we could not consider the Qur’an a miracle, even
if it were a great literary work, which it is not. The following
analysis shows why the Qur’an is not a great literary work.
The style of the Qur’an is a blend of rhetorical rhymed prose and
a lyrical structure particularly adaptable for oral recitation, which
was a common and a favorite mode of composition in Arabia at Muhammad’s
time. The rhymed prose which dominates the Quranic style adheres to no
meter, and was utilized extensively by the soothsayers of pagan Arabia.
The Qur’an is in the dialect and style of the tribe of Quraysh of
the sixth and seventh centuries Arabia, and therefore, does not reflect
an independent heavenly source (Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 228).
The rhyme is regularly maintained in the Qur’an. This often causes
distortion and ambiguity in the Qur’anic text by the derangement
of the order of words, by distorting nouns, and by changing verbal forms
(e.g. using the imperfect instead of the perfect tense). In order to save
the rhyme mount Sinai is called mount Sinin in Surah al-Tin 95: 2 instead
of mount Sina’ as in Surah al-Mu’minun 23: 20. Similarly,
Elijah is called Ilyasin in Surah al-Saffat 37: 130 instead of Ilyas as
in Surah al-An’am 6: 85 and Surah al-Saffat 37: 123. In certain
instances, the substance is modified to suit the requirements of the rhyme.
In Surah al-Haqqah 69: 17, the unusual number of eight is used for the
angels bearing the throne of God, because the Arabic word for “eight”
fits the rhyme of the passage perfectly. This is despite the fact that
the number “eight” has no theological significance. Surah
al-Rahman 55: 46ff speaks of two heavenly gardens, each has two fountains
and two kinds if fruits, etc. The number “two” is used simply
because the Arabic dual termination “an” corresponds to the
syllable that controls the rhyme of the whole Surah.
Although Arabia’s pre-Islamic history ended with the country still
on the fringes of civilization, the sixth century AD saw the birth
of Arabic literature, which was associated with the short-lived kingdom
of Kinda (from about 480 to about 550 AD). Poetic talent flourished
in the sixth and seventh centuries AD. The most famous poems were
known as the seven golden odes. In fact, it was the custom of poets
and orators of that time to hang up their compositions on the Kaaba
in Mecca for every one to read and recite. That is why they were known
as the hangings (al-Muallaqat). A famous poem of the poet Imru’
al-Qais (d. 540) was published in that way. Several lines of that
poem are found in the Qur’an (al-Qamar 54: 1, 29, 31; ad-Duha
93: 1, 2; al-Anbiya 21: 96; al-Saffat 37: 61). In addition, words,
thoughts and style of known poets and orators contemporary with Muhammad
are found in the Qur’an. A few examples of those are Qus ibn
Sa’idah al-Ayadi (d. 600), Qamaia ibn Abi al-Salat (d. 624),
al-Haseen ibn Hamam (d. 611) [al-A’raf 7: 8, 9], Waraqa ibn
Nofal (d. 592), and Antara al-Abasi (d. 610). Not only some of the
works of contemporary poets and orators are found in the Qur’an,
but also men like Nadir ibn Haritha (Canon Sell, Studies, p. 208),
Hamzah ibn Ahed, and Musailama (McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia,
V:152) produced works like, and qualitatively better than, the Qur’anic
text in eloquence. In addition, according to the Qur’an, the
jinn (al-Hijr 15: 27 tells about creating the jinn from fire) contributed
almost a whole chapter (Surah) into the Qur’an. It is Surah
72, and it is called by their name: Surah al-Jinn. Most of the verses
in this Surah are words of the jinn, but the style is that of the
Qur’an. Furthermore, Satan contributed into Surah al-Najm his
satanic verses (al-Najm 53: 19-23), which were subsequently deleted.
Therefore, it is concluded that the challenge of the Qur’an
to produce something like it: “Say: ‘Surely if men and
Jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur-an they
could not produce its like, even if they backed up each other with
help and support’” (al-Isra’ 17: 88; al-Baqarah
2: 23; Yunus 10: 38) was successfully and convincingly met both in
the jahilia before Muhammad and during the time of Muhammad by Arab
poets and orators, as well as by the jinn and Satan. In fact, Ali
Dashti, the famous Iranian-Arab Muslim scholar, stated the following
in his book, “Twenty Three Years: A study of the Prophetic
Career of Muhammad,” Allen and Unwin, London, 1985:
"Among the Muslim scholars of the early period, before bigotry
and hyperbole prevailed, were some such as Ebrahim an-Nazzam who
openly acknowledged that the arrangement and syntax of the Qur'an
are not miraculous and that works of equal or greater value could
be produced by other God-fearing persons" (p. 48).
"It is widely held that the blind Syrian poet Abu'l-`Ala al-Ma'arri
(979-1058) wrote his Ketab al-fosul wa' l-ghayat, of which a part survives,
in imitation of the Qur'an" (p. 48).
"The Qur'an contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully
intelligible without the aid of commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar
Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives
and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number;
illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have
no referent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote
from the subjects. These and other such aberrations in the language have
given scope to critics who deny the Qur'an's eloquence. The problem also
occupied the minds of devout Moslems. It forced the commentators to search
for explanations and was probably one of the causes of disagreement over
readings" (p. 48, 49).
Upon careful reading of the Qur’an, one realizes that Many of
the longer Surahs are made up of passages from Muhammad's mission
both at Mecca and at Medina. Within these composite long Surahs, the
subject of the text varies from legal restriction to prophetic narratives,
from ethical teaching to praises to God, etc., coupled with numerous
catch-phrases. More often than not the different subjects of the longer
Surahs have no logical connection with each other at all. Therefore,
the Qur'an is quite a disjointed book. It is a collection of fragmentary
texts and passages compiled into an unharmonious whole without respect
to sequence, subject or theme.
Although the Qur’an states that it is in clear perfect Arabic
tongue (al-Nahl 16: 103; al-Shu’ara’ 26: 195; al-Zumar
39: 28; al-Shura 42: 7; al-Zukhruf 43: 3), it could not be considered
perfectly eloquent because of its imperfect Arabic grammar, its usage
of foreign words, and its spelling errors. It contains many grammatical
errors. The following are a few examples of these errors: al-Ma’idah
5: 69 (the Arabic word Alsabeoun should be Alsabieen);
al-Baqarah 2: 177 (the Arabic word alsabireen should be alsabiroon);
al-Imran 3: 59 (the Arabic word fayakoon should be fakaana);
al-Baqarah 2: 17, 80, 124; al-A’raf 7: 56 (the Arabic word qaribun
should be qaribtun); al-A’raf 7: 160 (the Arabic word
asbatan should be sebtan); Ta Ha 20: 63 (the Arabic
phrase Hazani Lasaherani should be Hazaini Lasahirieni);
al-Hajj 22: 19 (the Arabic phrase ikhtasamu fi rabbihim should
be ikhtasama fi rabbihima); al-Tawbah 9: 62, 69 (the Arabic
word kalladhi should be kalladhina); al-Munafiqun
63: 10 (the Arabic word Akon should be Akoon); al-Nisa’
4: 162 (the Arabic word Almuqimeen should be Almuqimoon);
and al-Hujurat 49: 9 (the Arabic word eqtatalu should be
eqtatala). Ali Dashti and Mahmud al-Zamakhshari (1075-1144),
famous Muslim scholars, noted more than one hundred Quranic aberrations
from the normal grammatical rules and structure of the Arabic language
(Ali Dashti, Twenty Three Years: A study of the Prophetic Career
of Muhammad, Allen and Unwin, London, 1985, p. 50).
According to Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505), the great Muslim philologist
and commentator, and Arthur Jeffery in his book of The Foreign Vocabulary
of The Qur’an (Lahore, Pakistan: al-Biruni, 1977), the Qur’an
contains 107 and 275 foreign words respectively taken from the Persian,
Assyrian, Syriac, Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, and Ethiopian languages.
The following are a few examples of these words:
Persian: Ara’ik and Istabraq (al-Kahf 18: 31) meaning couches
and brocades respectively, Abariq (al-Waqi’ah 56: 18) meaning
ewers, Ghassaqan (al-Naba’ 78: 25) meaning pus, Sijjil (al-Fil
105: 4) meaning baked clay;
Aramaic: Harut and Marut (al-Baqarah 2: 102), Sakina (al-Baqarah 2:
248) meaning God’s presence;
Hebrew: Ma’un (al-Ma’un 107: 7) meaning charity, Ahbar
(al-Tawbah 9: 31) meaning Rabbis;
Ethiopian: Mishkat (al-Nur 24: 35) meaning niche;
Syraic: Surah (al-Tawbah 9: 124) meaning chapter, Taghut (al-Baqarah
2: 257; al-Nahl 16: 36) meaning idols, Zakat (al-Baqarah 2: 110) meaning
alms, Fir’awn (al-Muzzammil 73: 15) meaning Pharaoh;
Coptic: Tabut (al-Baqarah 2: 248) meaning ark.
Muhammad did not know the exact meaning of some of these foreign
words, which were not arabized by his time. Therefore, he misused
them. For instance, the Aramaic word “furqan” means “redemption.”
Muhammad used it for “revelation” and “criterion”
(e.g. al-Furqan 25: 1). The Aramaic word “Milla” means
“word.” It was used for “religion” in the
Qur’an (al-Baqarah 2: 120, 130, 135; etc). The word “Illiyun”
(al-Mutaffifin 83: 18, 19) is from the Hebrew word “Elyon”
which means “the most high.” Muhammad used it for “a
heavenly book” (al-Mutaffifin 83: 20).
The earliest Islamic exegetes, especially those associated with ‘Abd
Allah ibn ‘Abbas, a cousin of Muhammad, had a special interest
in discovering the origin and meaning of the foreign words. The true
living God, the originator of all human languages, is certainly capable
of perfect Arabic devoid of foreign words, especially in light of
the fact that the Qur’an claims that it is his eternal speech
in pure Arabic! Therefore, the divine origin of the Qur’an is
questionable?
The text of the Qur’an has many spelling errors, many of which are
traceable back to its most ancient extant manuscripts of the end of the
eighth century AD. This indicates that these serious mistakes had existed
in the original texts. One wonders about the extent of other mistakes
in the original that are not so obvious, and therefore, have gone undetected!
This means that the Qur’an is not divinely protected from corruption
as it claims. There are various printings of the Qur’an in circulation
today (Indian, Pakistani, Swahili, Iranian, Egyptian, Turkish, etc). They
are inconsistent in manipulating the spelling errors. Some printings delete
an extra letter, while others silence it with a vowel mark., still others
add a missing letter. The following are a few examples of these spelling
mistakes in the Qur’an.
1. One of these very serious spelling errors changes
the meaning drastically form “yes” to “no.”
This is because, in many cases, the Arabic word “la” for
negation is followed by an extra letter “alif.” The word
“la” means “no,” while the Arabic letter “l”
attached to a word means “certainly,” which is the opposite
of “no.” A few examples of this serious mistake are found
in these verses: al-Naml 27: 21; al-‘Imran 3: 158; al-Saffat
37: 68; al-Tawbah 9: 47; al-‘Imran 3: 167; al-Hashr 59: 13.
Removing the extra alif after the word “la” corrects the
reading.
2. The 1924 Egyptian text of the Qur’an contains over 9,000 small
alifs marked above the letters it follows. This small alif is a modern
invention used to correct thousands of mistakes in the earliest extant
manuscripts of the Qur’an where the alifs are completely missing
(al-Fatihah 1: 1-4, 6; al-Baqarah 2: 110, 126; Ta Ha 20: 63; etc). This
indicates that the original text of the Qur’an contained all these
mistakes. In fact, the opening statement of the Qur’an (In the
name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful) contains three errors
of missing alifs: two are pronounced (Allah, alrahmaan) and one is silent
(bism). The Arabic word for God (Allah) is spelled wrongly without the
alif 2700 times. In the oldest manuscripts of the Qur’an, the
Arabic word for man “al-ensaan” is written wrongly without
the alif. This is corrected in some modern printings of the Qur’an
by either adding the missing alif or a short “alif.” In
some instances, the omitted alif changes the meaning significantly.
For instance, in Muhammad 47: 4, the word “qutilu” without
alif means “were killed,” whereas the word “qaatalu”
with alif means “fought.” Excess alifs are silenced by the
vowl mark of sukun to correct the spelling (al-Tawbah 9: 47; Hud 11:
68; al-Furqan 25: 38; al-Ankabut 29: 38; al-Najm 53: 51; al-A’raf
7: 103; Yunis 10: 75, 83; Hud 11: 97; al-Mu’minun 23: 46; al-Qasas
28: 32; al-Zukhruf 43: 46; etc).
3. The Arabic “shadda” is a later addition that indicates
doubling the sound of the consonant. There are disagreements on its
use. In fact, the 1924 Egyptian edition contains over 3380 shaddas more
than those in the 1909 Turkish edition of the Qur’an (al-Baqarah
2: 78; etc). In some instances the addition of a shadda changes the
meaning of the verse. For instance, two opposing doctrines are derived
from al-Baqarah 2: 222 depending on the presence or absence of the shadda.
If the word “yathurna” without shadda is used, the verse
indicates that sexual intercourse with a menstruating woman is permitted
at the expiry of her period, but before she has cleansed herself. However,
if the same word with the shadda “yattahirna” is used, the
verse will indicate that intercourse is permitted only after the menstruating
woman has cleansed herself? Again, with shadda, the word “wakaffalaha”
in al-‘Imran 3: 37 indicates that Zakariya looked after Mary.
Without shadda, the word “wakafalaha” indicates that God
appointed Zakariya to look after her. In fact, the shadda in the word
“Allaah” is a mistake because it adds a third letter “l”
to the word making it “Alllaah.”
4. Excess letters are silenced or simply ignored. For instance, the
excess waw is silenced by hamza in al-Ma’idah 5: 29; the excess
“l” in al-An’am 6: 32 is ignored; so is the excess
“dal” in al-Ma’idah 5: 89; etc. In addition, there
are many examples of missing letters: missing “ya” from
al-A’raf 7: 196; Quraysh 106: 2; etc; missing waw from al-Zukhruf
43: 13; al-Isra’ 17: 7; al-Ma’arij 70: 13; etc; missing
nun from al-Anbiya’ 21: 88; Yusuf 12: 11; and missing sin from
al-Baqarah 2: 245; al-A’raf 7: 69; etc.
5. The Arabic letter “y” is pronounced as the long vowel
“a” if its two dots are omitted. This is treated differently
in various modern printings of the Qur’an, as there are disagreements
on how it should be handled. Examples on this problem are: al-‘Imran
3: 28; al-Baqarah 2: 98; al-Dhariyat 51: 47; Fussilat 41: 20; al-Kahf
18: 70.
6. The Arabic letter “t” should be corrected and written
with the Arabic letter “h” with two dots over it in these
verses: al-‘Imran 3: 61;al-A’raf 7: 56; al-Nur 24: 7; etc.
As we discussed above, Arabic eloquence was common in Muhammad’s
time among both the literate and illiterate alike. There is a strong
evidence that Muhammad was literate. He was a successful merchant that
knew how to read numbers which were written in letters. He also wrote
several letters to kings and heads of states inviting them to Islam.
The Qur’an says he was literate in Surah al-‘Alaq 96: 1-5;
al-Nahl 16: 98; al-Isra’ 17: 14, 45, 106; and al-Furqan 25: 5.
The Arabic word “ummy” in Surah al-Imran 3: 20; al-Jum’ah
62: 2; and al-A’raf 7: 157-158 does not mean illiterate. It means
those who were neither Jews nor Christians. However, even if Muhammad
were illiterate, the alleged eloquence of the Qur’an, which is
imperfect Arabic and an inferior literary production as we explained
above, is not extraordinary in its historical context.
In addition, the above proves definitively that the Islamic claim about
the linguistic perfection of the Qur’an is false and has no foundation
in truth. Therefore, linguistically the Qur’an is not miraculous.
In fact, the presence of grammatical errors, spelling errors, and foreign
words in the Qur’an are strong arguments against its divine origin.
The true almighty omniscient God of this universe could certainly produce
a book containing both perfect grammar and eloquence at the same time,
without having to sacrifice one for the other.
The following webpages provide additional information on the subject
matter:
1.
The Qur'an: Grammatical Errors
2.
Is the Qur'an Written in Pure Arabic?
There has never been a definitive text of the Qur’an because of
the problem of variant versions and variant readings. Muhammad did not
know about his impending death. Therefore, he did not compile a complete
manuscript of the Qur’an before his sudden death. An unanswered
question that imposes itself is this: if the Qur’an were inspired,
why did not the angel Gabriel or another angel order Muhammad to collect
it before his death?
After Muhammad’s unexpected death in 632 AD, many of his followers
attempted to gather the Qur’an and write it in a codex. As a result,
different codices of several scholars emerged, such as those of ibn Mas’ud,
‘Ubay ibn Ka’b, ‘Ali, Abu Bakr, Abu Musa al-Ash’ari,
Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, and others. Eventually, Qur’anic codices appeared
in the metropolitan centers of Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Kufa, and Basra.
There were wide divergences between those codices. Significant parts of
the Qur’an were obtained form its reciters and memorizers, not from
manuscripts. The accuracy of those codices is questionable because many
reciters and memorizers of the Qur’an had already been killed in
the battles of the war of the apostasies (ridda), which raged for seven
months in Arabia in 633 AD right after the death of Muhammad. In fact,
portions of the Qur'an were irretrievably lost in the Battle of Yamama
when many of the companions of Muhammad who had memorised the text had
perished:
“Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down
were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were
not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down,
nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an,
nor were they found with even one (person) after them” (Ibn Abi
Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.23).
In addition, oral transmission, that those codices largely depended upon,
does not have a high degree of accuracy.
According to “Legal Opinions” (part 1, p. 102) of Sheikh
Kishk:
“The four most important commentators were ibn ‘Abbas, ibn
Mas’ud, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, and ‘Ubay ibn Ka’b
al-Ansari”
However, according to al-Bukhari, vol. 4, p. 466, the caliph ‘Uthman
ibn ‘Affan (644-656 AD) commanded Zayd ibn Thabit together with
Abdullah ibn Zubair, Sa’id ibn al-‘As and Abdul-Rahman
ibn al-Harith to collect and edit the Qur’an without consulting
with those knowledgeable commentators and other significant companions
of Muhammad who were excluded from the committee. The literary proficiency
of most of those men, whom ‘Uthman assigned to the task, was
doubtful because they were more tribal chieftains than men of literature.
Probably, a few of them were literate. According to Islamic tradition,
‘Uthman’s text of the Qur’an was largely based on
the text of the Qur’an in the possession of Hafsah (one of the
wives of Muhammad and the daughter of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab).
Other important Qur’anic codices were ignored. These important
codices differed radically from Hafsah’s text, often agreeing
with the text of ibn Mas’ud instead. Many of these differences
are documented in Arthur Jeffery’s book of “Material
for the History of the Text of the Qur’an.” Some
of these variations involve whole clauses, and omition of whole sentences.
These substantial differences have nothing to do with the seven different
readings (sab’at ahruf) of the Qur’an in which Islamic
tradition maintains the Qur’an was revealed. The differences
among these seven readings had been purely dialectical relating to
the different dialects of Arab tribes as the seven different readings
were said to be. In fact, the seven different readings were never
defined. Ibn Mas’ud was excluded from the committee despite
the fact that Muhammad himself had considered him the best authority
on the Qur’an:
“Learn the recitation of the Qur’an from four: Abdullah ibn
Mas’ud, Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhaifa, Mu’adh ibn
Jabal, and Ubai ibn Ka’b” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 5, pp. 96-97).
It is significant that Muhammad did not mention Zaid ibn Thabit in this
list.
As a result, the two full chapters (Surahs) of al-Hafd and al-Khal’,
which were in the Qur’anic versions of ‘Ubay ibn Ka’b,
ibn ‘Abbas (a cousin of Muhammad) and Abu Musa, were eliminated.
In addition, Surah al-Fatihah (1), Surah al-Falaq (113) and Surah al-Nas
(114) were added (al-Suyuti, al-Itqan fi ‘Ulum al-Qur’an,
part 1, pp. 221-2). Those Surahs were not in ibn Mas’ud codex. More
than 200 verses were dropped from Surah al-Ahzab (al-Suyuti, al-Itqan,
part 3, p.72). Al-Suyuti records the two deleted chapters (Surahs) of
al-Hafd and al-Khal’ in their entirety in his “al-Itqan,”
part 1, p. 185.
Twenty years after Muhammad’s death, the caliph ‘Uthman
codified the revised Medinan codex and ordered the destruction of
all other codices in order to standardize the consonantal text of
the Qur’an. However, many different consonantal texts survived
well into the tenth century AD as many Muslims rejected ‘Uthman’s
text in favor of their own texts of the Qur’an. In fact, Abdullah
ibn ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said: “Let no one of you say
that he has acquired the entire Qur’an for how does he know
that it is all? Much of the Qur’an has been lost, thus let him
say, ‘I have acquired of it what is available’”
(al-Suyuti, al-Itqan, part 3, p.72). ‘Uthman’s order of
the destruction of all Qur’anic codices resulted in the eventual
destruction of very important primary sources of the Qur’an
including the the copy of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Muhammad’s cousin
and son in law), the copy of Ubai ibn Ka’b, and the copy of
Abdullah Ibn Mas’ud. The copy of Hafsah was destroyed after
her death by Marawan ibn al-Hakam, the governor of Medina. If those
early Qur’anic codices were substantially consistent with the
codex of ‘Uthman, there would have been no compelling reason
to destroy them. Their destruction confirms that they differed significantly
from the Qur’an of ‘Uthman. It is important to stress
the fact that the Qur’an ‘Uthman standardized was what
was selected by his committee of four fallible men according to their
own human judgment, and not according to revelation from God. The
brutal assassination of the caliph ‘Uthman was partially motivated
by accusation of tampering with the Qur’an. The Shiite Muslims
claim that ‘Uthman left out 25% of the Qur’an for political
reasons. Arthur Jeffery and other western scholars have shown definitively
that ‘Uthman’s text did not contain all of the Qur’an.
Neither was the wording it contained fully accurate.
Following the example of ‘Uthman, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (661-714
AD), the ‘Umayyad governor of Iraq at Kufa, produced another official
edition of the Qur’an wherein he omitted many passages for political
reasons in the reign of the ‘Umayyad caliph Abdul Malik ibn Marawan.
He then ordered the destruction of all the preceding copies of the Qur’an,
and distributed six copies of the revised text to Egypt, Syria, Medina,
Mecca, Kufa, and Basra.
The problem was aggravated by a serious deficiency in the written
text of the Qur’an. The Qur’an was written in the Kufi
script without diacritical points and without vowel marks. The result
of this deficiency is that a trilateral word could be read in 69 different
ways. This caused disputes among Islamic scholars on the meaning of
a large number of words. To illustrate this serious problem: by changing
the diacritical points, the Arabic letter “b” could change
to “t,” “th,” “n,” or “y.”
Similarly, unpointed, these Arabic letters are indistinguishable from
one another: f and q; j, h, and kh; d and th; r and z; s and sh; s
and dh; etc. This means that nine consonantal symbols in the Arabic
alphabet represented twenty-two of the entire twenty-eight letters
of the Arabic language. The Arabic words “rich” and “stupid”
are indistinguishable from each other without the diacritical points.
By changing the vowel marks in al-Tawbah 9: 3, it will read as follows:
“God is under no obligation to the idolaters and his apostle”
instead of “God and his apostle are under no obligation to the
idolaters.” The differences in readings have led to differences
in Islamic law (al-Suyuti, al-Itqan, part 1, pp. 226-229). For instance,
some Islamic scholars demand that a worshipper wash himself again
(ablution) before he prays if he has shaken hands with a woman. Others
require him to do so only after sexual intercourse. This disagreement
resulted from the uncertainty about a vowel in a word in al-Nisa’
4: 43, whether it is a long vowel or not. Many years after Muhammad’s
death, men like Abu al-Aswad al-Du’ali, Nasr ibn ‘Asim
and al-Khalil ibn Ahmad applied the diacritical points and vowel marks
to the Qur’anic text. The obvious major problem with that is
this: by what authority those men did that, because they were not
inspired from God?
The New Testament (Injil) does not have this problem because it was
written in the common Greek language which had been highly developed
and complete at least two centuries before the time of Christ. The
Greek language does not have diacritical points or vowel marks.
Thirty-five versions of the Qur’an are known to have existed and
to have been accepted in early Islam. Eventually, under the influence
of the Islamic scholar ibn Mujahid (d. 935 AD) at Baghdad, one system
of consonants was canonized, and a limit was placed on the variations
of vowels. This resulted in seven systems of readings providing fourteen
versions of the Qur’an, as each of the seven was traced through
two different transmitters as follows:
1. Nafi’ of Medina (d. 785 AD) according to Warsh and Qalun
2. Ibn Kathir of Mecca (d. 737 AD) according to al-Bazzi and Qunbul
3. Ibn ‘Amir of Damascus (d. 736 AD) according to Hisham and Ibn
Dhakwan
4. Abu ‘Amr of Basra (d. 770 AD) according to al-Duri and al-Susi
5. ‘Asim of Kufa (d. 744 AD) according to Hafz and Abu Bakr
6. Hamza of Kufa (d. 772) according to Khalaf and Khallad
7. Al-Qisa’i of Kufa (d. 804 AD) according to al-Duri and Abu’l
Harith
(Cyril Glassé, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 324).
It is important to emphasize that these versions of the Qur’an
are not merely different modes of recitation, because they contain
real and substantial differences in the text, which affect its meaning.
It is also important to keep in mind that these versions were arbitrarily
selected from many different versions of the Qur’an by ibn Mujahid
at his own personal discretion and judgment. Other Islamic scholars
accepted ten systems of readings for the Qur’an, and still others
accepted fourteen systems of readings. At the end, three versions
prevailed for unknown reasons: those of Warsh (d. 812) from Nafi’
of Medina, Hafz (d. 805) from ‘Asim of Kufa, and al-Duri (d.
860) from Abu ‘Amr of Basra. Presently, two versions of the
Qur’an seem to be in use: that of ‘Asim of Kufa through
Hafz (adopted in the Egyptian edition of the Qur’an in 1924),
and that of Nafi’ of Medina through Warsh (used in other parts
of north Africa: Algeria, Morocco, parts of Tunisia, West Africa and
Sudan).
Both Western, and Muslim Sunni and Shiite scholars admit to the presence
of variant and conflicting versions of the Qur’an. In his book
of “Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an,”
Arthur Jeffery provides 350 pages of details on variant readings of
the text of the Qur’an in the various codices in existence at
the time of ‘Uthman before he standardized the revised Medinan
codex. One of the most famous works of the Shiite leaders on the distortion
of the Qur’an is: "The Abridgment on the Distortion
of the Book of the Lord of Lords" by Imam Al-Nuri. The writer
states in the preface, "This is a kind book and a creditable
treatise, which proves the distortion of the Qur’an and brings
to light the shameful deeds of the injurious and the unjust."
He then concludes that: "When these general and particular accounts
are considered closely, we learn, from their literal or suggested
meaning, that the Qur’an now existing between the hands of the
Muslims in the East and the West as it is bound by two jackets, and
according to its collection and arrangement, was not so during the
life of the messenger." He provided the sayings of more than
twelve fundamentalist scholars who admitted the distortion of the
Qur’an, such as Al-Kalleeni and Al-Majlisi, in their book "The
Mirror of Minds," Muhammad Ibn Hasan Al-Sairafi in his book
"Distortion and Substitution," and Ahmad Ibn Muhammad
in his book "The Distortoin." All the historical
evidences confirm the conclusion that, despite the claims of the Qur’an
to the contrary in al-Hijr 15: 9, al-An’am 6: 34; and al-Buruj
85: 21-22; the Qur’an has not been preserved absolutely intact
to the last dot and letter. It is not a photographic copy of the original.
To those that believe in the divine origin of the Qur’an, the
question is: which version of the Qur’an, and why?
The problem of authenticity of the text is even graver for the Hadith
which transmits the Sunnah (the deeds and sayings of Muhammad). The
Sunnah is very essential because it interprets the Qur’an, elaborates
on it, and acts as a secondary source of authority that supplements
it by addressing issues not addressed in the Qur’an. This second
source of Islam is considered a preserved revelation (thikr): “Whatever
the apostle gives you, accept it; and whatever he forbids you, abstain
from it. Have fear of God; God is stern in retribution” (al-Hashr
59: 7b). However, confusion reigns. In fact, the Shiite Muslims adhere
to their own collection of ahadith, and regard many of the Sunni ahadith
as forged and corrupted. The second caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
forbade collecting the Sunnah. The first collections were allowed
under caliph ‘Umar II (‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz)
90 years after Muhammad’s death. It contained merely 138 ahadith.
Canonical collections were made in the tenth century AD from several
hundred thousands ahadith. The Sunnah and the basic principles for
evaluating it were established by the personal judgment of scholars
(ijtihad), not by revelation from God. Nothing about it is certain.
There are major disagreements and conflicts among major Islamic schools
of interpretation and the great scholars of Islam on the authenticity
of many ahadith. And opinions of scholars change over time. A great
disagreement exists on the number of abrogated ahadith—somewhere
between 27 and 99? There are conflicts between the Qur’an and
the Sunnah. This means that Islam has no definitive knowledge of what
it claims to be the perfect and final revelation of all times.
The following webpages provide additional information on the subject
matter:
1.
Truth Unchanged, Texts Unchanging?
2. A perfect Qur’an?
3. The
Codification of the Qur’an’s Text.
4. Materials
for the history of the Text of the Qur’an.
5. The
Collection of the Qur’an--from the hadiths.
6.
The true Furqan.
7. The
Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an.
The earliest extant Qur’anic quotations were discovered on
coins that date back to 685 A.D., and in the earliest inscriptions
in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem—the farthest mosque built
in 691 A.D. by Abdul-Malik ibn Marawan (Crone-Cook, 1977, p. 18).
However, these quotations are different from the text of the Qur’an
of today. According to Van Berchem and Grohmann, who studied extensively
the Dome of the Rock's earliest inscriptions, these inscriptions contain
“variant verbal forms, extensive deviances, as well as omissions
form the text which we have today” (Cook, Muhammad, 1983, p.
74; Crone-Cook 1977, pp. 167-168; see Van Berchem, part two, vol.
ii, 1927, pp. 215-217 and Grohmann’s Arabic Papyri form Khirbet
el-Mird, no. 72 to delineate where these variances are).
The earliest reference from outside traditional Islamic sources to
a book called the Qur’an occurs in the mid-eighth century A.D.
between an Arab and a monk of Bet Hale (Nau 1915, pp. 6f). However,
this reference does not define the contents of the book. We do not
have any Qur’anic manuscripts from the period prior to the first
quarter of the eighth century (A. Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic
Culture, 1984, p. 4). In fact, most of the Qur’anic manuscript
fragments are dated more than 100 years after Muhammad’s death.
Evidence of the ‘Uthmanic recension of the Qur’an does
not exist (Gilchrist, Jam’ al-Qur’an, 1989, pp. 140-154;
Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, The Qur’an, 1976, pp. 11-17).
The earliest extant Qur’anic manuscripts are:
1. The Samarqand Manuscript (Tashkent’s State Library,
Uzbekhistan). It includes only parts of surahs al-Baqarah 2 through
al-Zukhruf 43 with much missing text. It contains verses which differ
from the Qur’anic text of today (Brother Mark, A Perfect Qur’an,
p. 67).
2. Topkapi Manuscript (Topkapi Museum, Istanbul, Turkey). Scholars
are not allowed to photocopy and analyze this manuscript.
Both of these manuscripts are written in the Kufi script which appeared
in late eighth century A.D. and was not in use in Mecca and Medina
in the seventh century (Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, The Qur’an,
1976, pp. 12-13, 17). Both of these manuscripts date back to the late
eighth century or early ninth century—more than 150 years after
the ‘Uthmanic recension was supposedly compiled (Gilchrist,
Jam’ al-Qur’an, 1989, pp. 144-147).
In addition to the above manuscripts, the following records are found:
1. A Qur’anic manuscript written in the Ma’il script,
which was used around the Hijaz (the British Museum in London, U.K.).
It is dated by Dr. Martin Lings (a practicing Muslim) toward the end
of the eighth century A.D.
2. The Sana’a fragments (Yemen). These fragments
are dated towards the end of the seventh through the eighth centuries
A.D. The Sana’a single page fragments do not contain a complete
collection of the Qur’an. The Qur’an it contains differs
from the Qur’anic text of today. Upon close examination, it
becomes evident that its Qur’anic text was altered. New script
had been written over earlier washed-off versions (Toby Lester, What
Is the Koran, The Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1999).
The archeological evidence does not indicate the existence of a canonical
Qur’an similar to the Qur’an of today in the seventh century
A.D. In addition, archeologists have not found any fragments of any
hadith that are datable within a century of Muhammad’s death.
The following webpage provides additional information on the subject
matter:
1. Is The Qur'an
Preserved and Unchanged Revelation from Allah?
The following are a few examples of scientific problems in the Qur’an:
1. Mountains as earth stabilizers. The Qur’an
states that mountains anchor the earth so that it does not shake:
“And we have set on the earth firm mountains (rawasiya), lest
it should shake with them” (al-Anbiya 21: 31a); “Have
we not made the earth an expanse, and the mountains tent pins”
(al-Naba’ 78: 6-7; Luqman 31: 10-11; al-Nahl 16: 15; al-Naml
27: 61; al-Fatir 35: 41 Qaf 50: 7; al-Ghashiyah 88: 17, 19). This
claim is false because earthquakes are always associated with the
formation of mountains. Modern science tells us that mountains are
formed either by collisions of the plates of the Earth’s crust,
or by volcanic eruptions. Both events cause earthquakes. In fact,
the earth is not stationary and is not motionless as the Qur’an
claims. Nothing anchors the Earth as it spins around itself and revolves
freely around the sun in space. This is described accurately in the
Holy Bible more than 2000 years before this scientific knowledge became
known: “He (God) hangs the earth on nothing” (Job
26: 7b).
2. The sunset. The Qur’an claims that the sun
sets in a spring of murky waters: “Till he (Dhu al-Qarnain) reached
the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water”
(al-Kahf 18: 86a). Muhammad believed in the literal meaning of that
verse (al-Zamakhshari, Kashshaf, vol. 2, p. 743, 3rd edition, 1987).
This claim is a major scientific error. Modern science tells us that
the sun is much larger and hotter than the earth. If the earth approaches
the sun, it will vaporize from the intense heat of the sun. This fallacy
is similar to legends of Muhammad’s time.
3. The sequence of creation. The Qur’an provides
contradictory accounts for the sequence of creation. According to al-Sajdah
41: 9-12 and al-Baqarah 2: 29, the earth was created first and heaven
last. However, the order of creation is reversed in al-Nazi’at
79: 27-30. Modern science tells us that space, galaxies, and stars (the
heavens) had been formed first. After that, planets were formed in the
vicinity of some stars. In fact, the sun and the solar system were formed
some ten billion years after the primordial Big Bang that had formed
the heavens. The Holy Bible provides the correct sequence of creation
of heaven and earth: “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1: 1), and of plant and
animal life on earth (Genesis 1: 11-13, 20-27).
4. Creation in pairs. The Qur’an states: “And
We have created pairs of every thing, that you may
contemplate” (al-Dhariyat 51: 49; al-Zukhruf 43: 12). This means
that all things are in twos: male and female, day and night, etc.
Modern science tells us this is not true:
a. Certain type of lizards (Chemidophoras) multiply asexually. They do
not have male and female pairs.
b. Single cell bacteria and yeast organisms multiply asexually by division.
Again, they do not have male and female pairs.
c. European Elodea plants are of one kind and have no pairs. They multiply
by vegetative amplification.
The following webpages provide additional information on the subject
matter:
1.
The Seven Earths.
2.
Qur'an and Science.
The Qur’anic statements on prenatal development have several major
scientific problems:
1. It states that the fetus develops from the man’s semen only
without mentioning anywhere that the woman’s ovum is necessary for
conception: “We created man from a product of wet earth; then We
placed him a drop (of semen) in a firmly established lodging; then We
made the drop into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made
a lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with
flesh; then We developed out of it another creation” (al-Mu’minun
23: 12-14); “Was he not an emitted drop of semen” (al-Qiyamah
75: 37-39; al-Mu’min 40: 67; al-Hajj 22: 5).
2. In these same verses, it states that man is made from a “clot
of blood” (congealed blood__’alaqa).
3. These verses present the stages of prenatal development
as follows: a drop of semen (nutfa), blood clot (‘alaqa), mudagha
(lump of flesh), bones (‘adaam), and flesh on top of the bones.
Several scientific errors are obvious:
(i) The woman’s ovum, which is not mentioned, is required for
conception.
(ii) There is no stage of blood clot in the development of the human
embryo.
(iii) The development of the bones occurs several weeks after
the development of the flesh and muscles has progressed. The muscles
and cartilage form first and make the fetus capable of some muscular
movement before the beginning of the formation of bones. There is
no bone formation stage where the limbs of the fetus are bare bones
around which muscles will subsequently form.
These Qur’anic statements reflect the common knowledge of antiquity
in Arabia and elsewhere, which predated the time of Muhammad. In fact,
these erroneous ideas originated from a Greek doctor named Galen who
lived in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) about 450 years before the
time of Muhammad. This common primitive knowledge of antiquity is
not true as science tells us today. It is erroneous.
4. The Qur’an provides that the length of a normal
gestation is six months (Luqman 31: 14; al-Baqarah 2: 233;
al-Ahqaf 46: 15). Luqman 31: 14 and al-Baqarah 2: 233 provide a nursing
period of 24 months. Al-Ahqaf 46: 15 provides a total of 30 months
for both gestation and nursing combined. This leaves only six months
for the period of gestation. We know that this is not true. Normal
gestation lasts nine months. An infant born prematurely after a gestation
period of six months could not survive in seventh century Arabia as
it requires special advanced incubators and medical knowledge to care
for him and sustain his life after his premature birth.
The following webpages provide additional information on the subject
matter:
1. Embryology in the Qur'an.
2. Embryology:
The Qur’an and the Bible (1).
3. Embryology:
The Qur’an and the Bible (2).
4. Embryology:
The Qur’an and the Bible (3).
5. Qur'anic Embryology.
The holy Bible provides accurate history which is confirmed by
modern
archeological discoveries. However, the history narrated by the
Qur’an has many problems and inaccuracies. We present herein
a few examples of historical problems in the Qur’an.
1. Solomon and the queen of Saba (Sheba). The story
of Solomon and the queen of Saba is presented in Surah of al-Naml
27: 15-44 as true history based on the style of narration and the
Qur’anic accounts both before and after it. It is filled with
talking birds, talking ants, a wise hoopoe that serves as courier,
jinn and black magic (al-Anbiya’ 21: 82), all of which is fiction
and fantasy, not true history. This story is very similar to the story
of Solomon in ancient heretical Jewish sources (The Second Targum
of Esther). It reminds us of the fables we find in the stories of
the “Arabian Nights” where men may be turned into apes
(al-Baqarah 2: 65; al-A’raf 7: 166). The Holy Bible tells us
about Solomon, animals, and birds as follows: “Also
he (Solomon) spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to
the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals,
of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations,
from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came
to hear the wisdom of Solomon” (1 Kings 4: 33-34).
According to the Holy Bible (1 Kings 10: 1-13; 2 Chronicles 9: 1-12),
the queen of Sheba visited Solomon in Jerusalem. She heard his wisdom,
and he answered all her questions without difficulty. As a result,
she believed in his true living God and glorified him: “Blessed
be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne
of Israel” (1 Kings 10: 9a).
2. The tower of Babel and Haman. The Qur’an
states: “Pharaoh said: ‘O Nobles, you have no other god
that I know of except myself. O Haman, make me bricks of baked clay,
and build for me a tower that I may climb to the God of Moses, for
I think he is a liar’” (al-Qasas 28: 38; al-Mu’min
40: 36-37). This tower does not exist in the land of Egypt as there
are no ruins of a tower of this kind anywhere in Egypt today. It is
a documented archeological fact that the pharaohs of ancient Egypt
never built any towers. Instead, they built pyramids and huge temples.
The building materials they used were massive stones hewn from rock
quarries, and sun-dried bricks. Baked bricks of clay were not used
in ancient Egypt at the time of Moses. According to the Holy Bible
(Gen 11: 1-9), the tower that was built of baked bricks to reach the
heavens was the tower of Babel in Chaldea (southern Iraq), not in
Egypt. It was built after the flood of Noah many centuries before
the time of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and Moses. Therefore, the
Qur’anic tower is an anachronism in the wrong country.
Another problem with Surah al-Qasas 28: 38; as well as al-‘Ankabut
29: 39 and al-Mu’min 40: 23-25, 36 is its claim that Haman was
a minister of the pharaoh that reigned at the time of Moses. Historically,
the name of Haman is a later name that was not used at the time of
Moses. In fact, this name is not an Egyptian name, but uniquely Babylonian.
Historical records and biblical testimony (Esther 3: 1) attest that
Haman was the minister of the Persian king Ahasuerus (called Xerxes
I by the Greeks) who reigned in 486-465 BC—about a thousand
years after the time of Moses.
3. The golden calf. According to Surah
Ta Ha 20: 85-87, 95, a Samaritan proposed and built the golden calf
for the Israelites in the wilderness. They worshipped it as their god.
The problem is that the Samaritans did not exist at the time of Moses.
The Samaritans came into existence after the fall of the Northern Kingdom
of Israel in Palestine to the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC, about seven
centuries after the time of Moses.
4. The punishment of crucifixion. The Qur’an
states that the pharaoh that reigned at the time of Moses said: “I
will cut off your hands and feet on alternate sides and then crucify
you all” (al-A’raf 7: 124; al-Shu’ara’ 26:
49). This contradicts the historical fact that the punishment of crucifixion
was not used by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. In fact, Encyclopedia
Britannica reports that “crucifixion did not exist any earlier
than about 500 B.C.”—that is about 900 years after the
time of Moses.
5. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC). Alexander the
Great was the king of Macedonia (336-323 BC). He was a skilled military
leader who established a great Greek empire in a short period of time.
He died at the young age of 32. The Qur’an calls him Dhu al-Qarnain
(the two-horned one, Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229), because
that name was given to him by both Jews and Christians prior to Muhammad’s
time, as he was the king of both the West and the East. In fact, ancient
coins have been discovered portraying him with two horns. The Qur’an
presents him as a righteous servant of God, to whom God spoke directly
(al-Kahf 18: 83-98). History tells us he was not. In fact, he did
not believe in God and did not worship him. He was a polytheist. He
was a licentious, belligerent idolatrous man. He committed the worst
apostasy by claiming to be god and by seeking to be revered as a god.
In Egypt, he claimed to be the son of Amun, the pagan god of ancient
Egypt at that time, and was worshipped as a god. Amun used to be represented
by a ram with two prominent horns.
Again, contrary to the claims of the Qur’an, Alexander the Great
did not travel West (al-Kahf 18: 86). He traveled East to West India
and South to Egypt.
The third problem is that the Qur'an mentions that Alexander the Great
built a huge impregnable rampart of iron and brass between two mountains,
that will last to the end of time (al-Kahf 18: 94-96). However, this
structure is no where to be found. It does not exist and did not exist
anywhere on the face of the earth. The absence of this colossal structure
brings to question the validity of the Qur'an?
The tale of Alexander the Great in the Qur’an is very similar
to a fictional legend composed poetically by the Syrian Mar Jacob
of Serugh before 521 AD based on an ancient legend on Alexander the
Great.
6. Disfigurement of names. Many historical names
are arbitrarily altered in the Qur’an, quite often, for unknown
reasons. This tends to cause confusion and uncertainty. The following
are a few examples of disfigurement of names:
From Goliath (1 Samuel 17: 4) to Djalut (al-Baqarah 2: 250,
251)
From Korah (Numbers 16: 19) to Qarun (al-Qasas 28: 76)
From Saul (1 Samuel 9: 17) to Talut (al-Baqarah 2: 249)
Form Enoch (Genesis 5: 22, 24) to Idris (Maryam 19: 56)
In fact, it is difficult to trace some names to their historical
origin:
Hud of al-A’raf 7: 65 is thought to be Eber of Genesis
11: 15
Saleh of Hud 11: 61 is thought to be Peleg of Genesis 11: 16
Shu’aib of al-Shu’ara’ 26: 177 is thought to be
Hobab of Numbers 10: 29
Dhul-Kifl of al-Anbiya’ 21: 85 is unknown?
Other alterations of names may be explained by the ancient Judeo-Christian tradition.
Terah, Abraham’s father (Gen. 11: 26), is called Azar in al-An’am
6: 74 (he was known as Athar). John and Jesus are called Yahya and
‘Isa respectively in al-An’am 6: 85; etc (so were they
known in the popular language to Christian children of Jewish decent).
7. A native prophet for every nation. The Qur’an
claims in Surah Yunus 10: 47 and al-Nahl 16: 36, 89 that God sent a
prophet to every nation. History tells us this did not take place. God
did not send any prophets in Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Australia.
The Holy Bible tells us that the living God sent prophets only from
the children of Israel. All of them were sent to the Israelites except
the prophet Jonah (Yunis) who was sent to the city of Nineveh in northern
Iraq. However, Surah al-Rum 30: 47 contradicts that by stating that
messengers were sent to their own people. Apparently, Muhammad made
these claims in order to strengthen his weak claim to prophethood, because
he was not an Israelite.
8. The night journey. The Qur’an states: “Glory
be to him who made his servant (Muhammad) go by night from the sacred
mosque (of Mecca) to the farthest mosque whose surroundings we have
blessed” (al-Isra’ 17: 1a). No one witnessed that night
journey that Muhammad claimed to have gone through. Neither did Muhammad
show any tangible evidence to prove that it actually took place. Therefore,
this claim remains unsubstantiated. In addition, the farthest mosque
(masjid al-Aqsa) of Jerusalem did not exist at the time of Muhammad.
It was built in 691 AD by Abdul-Malik ibn Marawan about sixty years
after Muhammad’s death. How could he have prayed in it then?
He could not have prayed in the Jewish temple of Jerusalem either
because it had been destroyed by the Roman armies in 70 AD, five centuries
before Muhammad’s time. The story of Muhammad’s night
journey bears a striking resemblance to a Persian Zoroastrian myth
about a legendary man called Arta ascending to the heavens. This myth
was written in the days of Ardashir about four hundred years before
Muhammad in an ancient Persian book entitled “Arta-i Viraf Namak.”
Similar stories are recorded in Indian Sanskrit poems about Arjuna,
and in books of heretical Christian sects, such as “The Testament
of Abraham” (written around 200 B.C. in Egypt and subsequently
translated to Greek and Arabic) claiming that Abraham ascended to
the heavens.
9. The qiblah (the direction of prayer). The Qur’an
has mandated that the direction of prayer (the qiblah) should be towards
Mecca (al-Baqarah 2: 144, 149-150), and has forbidden the Jerusalem
qiblah (al-Baqarah 2: 142-143). This is despite the fact that Mecca
was still idolatrous at that time. According to the Islamic tradition,
Muhammad gave surah al-Baqarah around 623 A.D. and the change of the
qiblah was supposed to have taken place thereafter around 624 A.D.
However, irrefutable archeological evidence shows that the qiblahs
of the early mosques did not face Mecca. Instead, they faced Jerusalem.
The qiblahs of two Umayyad mosques built at the beginning of the eighth
century in Iraq, one by governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yousif in Wasit, and
the other near Baghdad were oriented too far north of Mecca (Creswell
1969, p. 137ff & 1989, p. 40; Fehervari 1961, p. 89; Crone-Cook
1977, pp. 23, 173). The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, and the
Baghdad mosque by 30 degrees. The qiblah of the first mosque in Kufa,
Iraq built around 670 A.D. faced west instead of pointing south to
Mecca (al-Baladhuri, Futuh, ed. by de Goeje 1866, p. 276; Crone 1980,
p. 12; Crone-Cook 1977, pp. 23, 173). The original floor plan of the
mosque of ‘Amr ibn al-‘As at Fustat (outside present Cairo,
Egypt) indicates that its qiblah pointed north and had to be changed
later by governor Qurra ibn Sharik (Creswell 1969, pp. 37, 150). According
to new research by Patricia Carlier, mosques at the Umayyad caliphs’
summer palaces had qiblahs pointing towards Jerusalem. In addition,
a letter written in Syriac in 705 A.D. by the Christian traveler Jacob
of Edessa (kept in the British Museum) mentions that “it is
not to the south that Jews and Mahgraye (Greek name of Arabs) here
in the region of Syria pray, but towards Jerusalem.” “According
to Crone, Cook, Carlier, and Hawting, the combination of the archeological
evidence from Iraq along with the literary evidence from Syria and
Egypt points unambiguously to a sanctuary (and thus direction of prayer)
in Jerusalem, not Mecca” (Craig Winn, Prophet of Doom, [VA:
Cricketsong books, 2004]).
Some Islamists claim that early Muslims were incapable of defining
the direction to Mecca. That claim is not true for several reasons.
The qiblah of all seventh century mosques pointed to Jerusalem, which
means they were able to find the direction to Jerusalem accurately.
In addition, Arabs knew very well how to survive in, and navigate
through, the desert, which had no roads, for trade. Furthermore, the
early mosques of Iraq and Egypt were built by the local civilized
peoples of the ancient Persian and Egyptian civilizations, that knew
very well how to find the correct direction. It is unlikely that they
consistently erred by so many degrees.
The only reasonable explanation to the contradiction between the Qur’anic
injunction for the direction of the qiblah to Mecca, and the actual
direction of the qiblahs of the early mosques to Jerusalem is that
the Qur’an was in its fluid formative stages and was not yet
finalized until after the year 705 A.D.—more than 70 years after
the death of Muhammad.
10. The lineage of Mary. The Qur’an confuses
Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Mary the daughter of Imran, the sister
of Aaron and Moses (al-‘Imran 3: 35-36; al-Tahrim 66: 12; Maryam
19: 27-28; Ta Ha 20: 9, 29-30). The holy Bible states clearly that:
“The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed the daughter
of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and to Amram she bore Aaron
and Moses and their sister Miriam” (Numbers 26: 59).
Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived about 1400 years after the time of
Moses and his sister Mary. Some may claim that the Qur’anic
expressions “sister of Aaron” and “daughter of Imran”
refer to Mary’s lineage. Even that claim is erroneous because
Mary was a descendent of David from the tribe of Judah, not from the
tribe of Levi where Moses belonged. In addition, there is not a single
reference in the entire Bible and ancient Jewish literature to support
the usage of the phrases of “brother of” or “sister
of” to refer to ancestry. The words used to indicate ancestry
are: “son of” or “daughter of.”
11. The crucifixion of Christ. In al-Nisa’
4: 157-158 the Qur’an denies the crucifixion of Christ despite
the fact that it is an essential foundational doctrine of
the Christian faith, that dates back to the first century AD.
The crucifixion of Christ is needed for
the atonement and forgiveness of sins. The crucifixion of Christ
is the fulfillment of many prophecies in the Old Testament (the Torah)
which predated Christ by centuries. Christ himself prophesied about
his crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. There is no Christianity
without the doctrine of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
The crucifixion of Christ is a historical fact confirmed by both the
New Testament (Injil), and non-Christian
historians as well. In fact, the doctrine of atonement is taught
throughout the entire Holy Bible. The Qur’anic claim that God
substituted another man resembling Jesus on the cross makes the all-holy
God a deceiver. The true living God does not deceive humankind. In
addition, if God had taken Jesus to heaven before crucifixion in order
to save him form it, then there was no reason to have someone else
crucified in his place! The Qur’an itself mentions elsewhere
in Surah al-‘Imran 3: 55 and Maryam 19: 33 Christ’s death
and resurrection. In fact, many Muslim scholars agree that Christ
had died, but differ on the length of his death: al-Baydawy (7 hours),
ibn Abbas (3 hours), Wahab (3 hours), and ibn Ishaq (7 hours). However,
in order to reconcile these verses with Surah al-Nisa’ 4: 157-158
that claims that Jesus was not crucified, some Islamic commentators
would like to change the chronological order of events by claiming
that Jesus will come back again and die. This concept fails with al-Ma’idah
5: 117b: “And after you (God) caused me (Jesus) to die,
you have been their overseer, and you are the witness of
all things.” This verse uses the past tense for the death of
Jesus. Therefore, according to this verse, Jesus’ death is a
past, not a future, event.
The claim of al-Nisa’ 4: 157-158 is strikingly similar to that
of the Ebionites, a heretical Christian sect that existed in Mecca
at the time of Muhammad. In fact, the cousin of Khadija (Muhammad’s
first wife), Waraqa ibn Nofal, was the Ebionite Christian bishop of
Mecca. All Christendom believes that Jesus was crucified, died, buried,
and rose from the dead in the third day. He will come again in glory
and power at the end of this age to judge the living and the dead.
The annual miracle of the holy
fire, which occurs on Orthodox Easter Saturday, is reminiscent
of the resurrection of Christ.
Another problem of al-Nisa’ 4: 157 is that it claims that the
unbelieving Jews said: “We killed the Christ (the Messiah) Jesus,
the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah.” Those Jews, who demanded
his crucifixion, could not have said that, because they never believed
that Jesus was the Christ—the Messianic deliverer that was prophesied
in the Torah (the Old Testament). They demanded his crucifixion because
they thought he was a false Messiah: “And they began
to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this fellow perverting the
nation, and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself
is Christ, a King’” (Luke 23: 2).
12. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Traditional
main stream Christianity has always believed in the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity: one God in three distinct inseparable
Persons—the Father, His Word (the Son), and His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Bible and historical Christianity have always taught
that the Holy Trinity is ONE indivisible God, and never taught that
Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a goddess. Yet, Muhammad stated in
the Qur’an (al-Ma’idah 5: 73-75, 116; al-Nisa’ 4:
171; al-Tawbah 9: 31) that Christians worship three gods: God, Mary,
and Jesus. Although this was the teaching of an insignificant heretical
Christian sect (the Mariamists) that disappeared at the end of the seventh century
AD, Muhammad did not distinguish in the Qur’an between mainstream
Christianity and the heretics whom the Church condemned.
Muhammad denied and condemned another basic Christian doctrine that
the
Christ is the incarnate Word (Son) of God (al-Tawbah 9: 30). Apparently,
Muhammad misunderstood this doctrine thinking that it meant that God
fathered a child by having sex with a woman (al-An’am 6: 101;
al-Jinn 72: 3). Only Hinduism and ancient Greek mythology believe
that pagan gods and humans could procreate sexually. Traditional Christianity
has always believed that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived
in her by the power of the Holy Spirit of the living God: “And
the angel answered and said to her (Mary), ‘The Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you;
therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the
Son of God’” (Luke 1: 35). Jesus’ unique
sonship to God the Father is a spiritual sonship, not a sexual sonship.
God the Father does not have a human male body, and sexual procreation
did not occur.
The above facts confirm that Muhammad never understood true Christian
theology?
The following webpages provide additional information:
1. Talking Ants in the Qur'an?
2. The Amazing Fables of Islam.
The Qur’an denies the existence of any contradictions and discrepancies
within its text: “Will they not ponder on the Qur’an?
If it had not come from God, they could surely find in it many contradictions”
(al-Nisa’ 4: 82). However, it has quite a number of them. This
is a strong argument against its divine origin based on its own statement
in that verse. The following are a few examples of these discrepancies:
1.
The Qur’an claims that: “This is a glorious Qur’an
on a preserved tablet” (al-Buruj 85: 21-22); and that: “There
is no changing the word of God” (al-‘An’am 6: 34,
115; Yunis 10: 64; al-Kahf 18: 27). This claim, that the Qur’an
is the unchanging word of God written on a preserved tablet in eternity,
clearly contradicts the
doctrine of abrogation (changing the Qur’an) that the Qur’an
introduces: “If we abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten,
we will replace it with a better one or one similar. Did you not know
that God has power over all things?” (al-Baqarah 2: 106; al-Nahl
16: 101; al-Ra’d 13: 39). This claim also contradicts the historical
facts of the transmission of the Qur’an, which resulted in many
changes in its text as discussed above.
2. The doctrine
of satanic inspiration in the Qur’an (al-Hajj 22: 52) contradicts
the challenge of the Qur’an to produce something like it: “Say:
‘Surely if men and Jinn were to gather together to produce the
like of this Qur-an they could not produce its like, even if they
backed up each other with help and support’” (al-Isra’
17: 88; al-Baqarah 2: 23; Yunus 10: 38). Satan met that challenge
successfully by providing his satanic verses in Surah al-Najm 53:
19-23, which Muhammad recited without distinction. These verses were
subsequently deleted.
3. According to Yunis 10: 3, Saba’ 34: 23, al-Najm 53: 26, etc,
God may permit intercessors. However, al-Zumar 39: 44, al-Sajdah 32:
4, al-Baqarah 2: 123, 254, etc, contradict that by stating that intercessors
are not permitted.
4. Al-Baqarah 2: 62 and al-Ma’idah 5: 69 provide that Muslims,
Jews, Christians and others may be eternally saved. However, al-‘Imran
3: 85 contradicts that by stating that: “He that chooses a religion
other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him, and he will be
among the losers in eternity.”
5. According to al-Nisa’ 4: 48, 116, the sin of idolatry (shirk)
is unforgivable. However, al-Nisa’ 4: 153 and al-Furqan 25:
68-71 state the opposite, that this sin is forgivable?
6. Wine
is forbidden in al-Baqarah 2: 219 and al-Ma’idah 5: 90, but
permitted in al-Nahl 16: 67 and Muhammad 47: 15 and al-Mutaffifin
83: 25, 26.
7. The Qur’an talks about those destined to paradise. It states
in al-Waqi’ah 56: 11-14: “Such are they that shall be
brought near (to their Lord) in the gardens of delight: a whole multitude
from the men of old, but only a few from the latter generations.”
This is contradicted in al-Waqi’ah 56: 34-40 by stating: “We
created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those
on the right hand: a multitude form the men of old, and a
multitude form the latter generations.” Are many destined
to paradise from the latter generation, or only a few?
8. The Qur’an stresses that it was revealed in the Arabic language
(al-Nahl 16: 103; al-Shu’ara’ 26: 195; al-Zumar 39: 28;
al-Shura 42: 7 and al-Zukhruf 43: 3). However, according to the Islamic
scholar al-Suyuti (al-Itqan, part 2, pp. 108-119), the Qur’an
contains at least 107 foreign words taken from the Persian, Assyrian,
Syriac, Hebrew, Greek, Egyptian, and Ethiopian languages. This contradicts
the subject Qur’anic statements.
9. Muhammad declared in the Qur’an that he could not do miracles:
“For they say: ‘How is it no miracles were sent down to
him from his Lord?’ Say: ‘The miracles are with God. I
am only a warner, plain and simple’” (al-‘Ankabut
29: 50); “’And we shall not believe in your having ascended
till you bring down a book for us which we could read.’ Say:
‘Glory to my Lord. I am only man and a messenger’”
(al-Isra’ 17: 93b). However, people challenged him and pressed
him repeatedly for a miracle: “Some say : ‘It (the Qur’an)
is but a medley of dreams.’ Others: ‘He has invented it
himself.’ And yet others: ‘He is a poet. Let him show
us a miracle as did the former apostles.’” (al-Anbiya’
21: 5); “They say: ‘We will not believe in you until you
make a spring gush from the earth before our very eyes, or cause rivers
to flow in a grove of palms and vines; until you cause the sky to
fall upon us in pieces, as you have threatened to do, or bring down
God and the angels in our midst.’” (al-Isra’ 17:
90-92). Under pressure, Muhammad reversed his position, and claimed
that the Qur’an is his miracle: “Say: ‘Surely If
the men and Jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this
Qur‘an they could not produce the like thereof, even if they
backed up each other with help and support’” (al-Isra’
17: 88; al-Baqarah 2: 23; Yunus 10: 38). This contradicts the other
statements in the Qur’an to the effect that he could not do
miracles. Our study in this article shows why the Qur’an is
not a miracle.
10. The Qur’an provides contradictory accounts for the duration
of the creation of heaven and earth. The Qur’an mentions seven
times that God created earth and heaven in six days (al-A’raf
7: 54; Yunis 10: 3; Hud 11: 7; al-Furqan 25: 59; al-Sajdah 32: 4;
Qaf 50: 38; al-Hadid 57: 4). However, it contradicts that by mentioning
in Fussilat 41: 9-12 that they were created in eight days!
11. Al-‘Imran 3: 42, 45 inform the reader that a group of angels
announced to Mary the conception of Jesus. However, according to Maryam
19: 17-21, the spirit of God in the form of one man came to Mary to
announce the conception of Jesus. The two accounts are contradictory!
Mary’s remarks, “How can this be, having never been with
a man?” in both accounts (Al-‘Imran 3: 47; Maryam 19:
20) indicate that Mary received only one visitation, where she believed
God’s word without needing to ask the question again.
12. The Qur’an states in Yunis 10: 89-92 that the pharaoh who
pursued Moses and the Israelites survived the battle, and was delivered
and saved from drowning after he believed. However, al-Isra’
17: 102-103, al-Qasas 28: 40 and al-Zukhruf 43: 55 contradict that
by stating that pharaoh drowned.
13. Al-Anbiya’ 21: 76 and al-Saffat 37: 77 tell us that Noah
and all his family survived the flood. Hud 11: 42-43 contradicts that
by saying that one of Noah’s sons drowned in the flood! In addition,
why were those that believed Noah’s message drowned (Hud 11:
40)?
14. The position of the
Qur'an on the divinity of Christ is contradictory and confused.
The Qur'an contains verses that strongly support the divinity of Christ
and others that deny it.
The following webpage provides additional information on the subject
matter:
Contradictions in the Qur'an.
The Qur’an institutes the doctrine of abrogation of formal
revelations (al-Baqarah 2: 106; al-Nahl 16: 101; al-Ra’d 13:
39). The serious problems and confusion caused by this doctrine are
discussed in that page.
As a result of this doctrine, the credibility of the alleged revelations
is compromised, and its divine origin is doubted.
X.
THE DOCTRINE OF SATANIC INSPIRATION
The doctrine of satanic inspiration in the Qur’an and the problems
it causes are discussed in that
page.
XI. INVALID EVIDENCE OF ALLEGED DIVINE INSPIRATION
Muhammad alleged divine inspiration both in his call to prophecy, and
in receiving the Qur’an. According the Islamic tradition, Muhammad
claimed to have encountered a spirit in the cave of Hira. He was forty
years old, and was alone in the cave. The spirit squeezed him so tightly
till he thought he was going to suffocate to death, and then gave him
the first Qur’an. This was not the angel Gabriel as he thought mistakenly,
and the whole experience was not a godly experience. The angels of the
true living God do not torment His prophets. They calm them, help them,
and relieve their fears.
In fact, the true living God never called any Jewish prophet or Christian
apostle in that frightening way. God does not terrorize His servants
and prophets. For instance, the Lord called Moses to prophethood in
this manner: “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the
back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the
Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst
of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire,
but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn
aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So
when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from
the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said,
“Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this
place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand
is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your
father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…
Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring
My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt”” (Exodus
3: 1-6, 10).
Other examples are God’s calls to the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel
in godly visions. “In the year that King Uzziah died,
I (Isaiah) saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and
the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each
one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered
his feet, and with two he flew. Also, I heard the voice of the Lord,
saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then
I said, “Here am I! Send me”” (Isaiah 6: 1-2, 8).
“Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month,
on the fifth day of the month, as I (Ezekiel) was among the captives
by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions
of God” (Ezekiel 1: 1).
Christ called His apostles by simply asking them to follow Him, not
by terrorizing them: “And Jesus, walking by the Sea of
Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother,
casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to
them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They
immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He
saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother,
in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called
them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed
Him” (Matthew 4: 18-22).
In receiving the Qur’an, the Islamic tradition tells us that
Muhammad used to go into convulsions similar to epileptic seizures,
break out in cold sweat, and his mouth used to foam. This indicates
that Muhammad was either afflicted with epilepsy or another neurological
illness, or he was demon possessed. In fact, Jesus exorcized demons
that had tormented the possessed person in this very same way: “Suddenly
a man from the multitude cried out, saying, “Teacher, I implore
You, look on my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes
him, and he suddenly cries out; it convulses him so that he foams at
the mouth; and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him.
So I implored Your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”
Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation,
how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”
And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him.
Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him
back to his father. And they were all amazed at the majesty of God”
(Luke 9: 38-43). There are striking similarities between the
symptoms that boy suffered from and what used to happen to Muhammad
when he claimed divine inspiration. Instead, was it a satanic inspiration
all along?
Both seizures leading to trances the way Muhammad experienced, and
his horrifying experience in the cave of Hira are neither miracles of
the living God nor signs of divine inspiration. God is all-holy, loving
and faithful. Neither He nor His angels betray, torment or do violence
to His prophets that serve Him. In fact, the Holy Bible teaches us that
whenever the angel Gabriel appeared to deliver a message to someone,
he always gave that person assurances of peace and safety: “But
the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias…
And the angel answered and said to him: I am Gabriel, who stands in
the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these
glad tidings” (Luke 1: 13a, 19); “Now in the sixth month
the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David. The virgin’s name was Mary. Then the angel said to her:
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God”
(Luke 1: 26-27, 30).
The definite confirmation of the fact that Muhammad never received
divine inspiration is that many of his works and teachings were wicked
in grave conflict with the holiness and divine love of the true living
God. Christ warned us saying: “Beware of false prophets,
who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous
wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from
thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears
good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7: 15-17).
Muhammad was a womanizer who practiced polygamy. He had 16 wives, in
addition to concubines, slaves, war captives, and devout Muslim women
who gave themselves to him (al-Ahzab 33: 50). He committed incest by
marrying his daughter-in-law Zaynab bint Jahsh after his adopted son
Zaid divorced her (al-Ahzab 33: 37). He sexually abused a child girl
under the pretext of marriage by marrying Aisha bint Abu-Bakr when she
was six years old, and then consummating the marriage when she was a
nine-year-old child. He was responsible for the first Islamic massacre
in the bloody history of Islam—the massacre of the tribe of Banu
Qurayza, the last Jewish tribe in Medina, in 627 AD. All the men of
the tribe (700-800 men) were beheaded in cold blood. Muhammad urged
his Muslim followers to kill his opponents for him and praised them
for doing it afterwards. This led to the assassination of Asma’
bint Marawan while she was nursing her baby home, 120-year-old Abu Afak,
Kaab ibn al-Ashraf, Abu Raffe Salaam, etc.
Muhammad taught that women are inferior to men (al-Nisa’ 4:
34). A woman inherits only half of her brother’s inheritance.
The testimony of a woman in court is equivalent to the testimony of
half a man (al-Baqarah 2: 282). He taught wife beating (al-Nisa’
4: 34); breast feeding adults; temporary marriage; polygamy (al-Nisa’
4: 3); and pedophilia. Muhammad also taught the gruesome punishments
of stoning, limb amputation, and flogging for adultery and theft;
the killing and enslaving of non-Muslim children; the killing and
subjugation of non-Muslims (al-Tawbah 9: 5, 29; Muhammad 47: 4; etc.)
in order to spread Islam by offensive war (Jihad); lying if a threat
is perceived to a Muslim or to Islam to further the cause of Islam;
fictitious carnal lustful Islamic paradise of sexual promiscuity and
gluttony (al-Tur 52: 17-24); etc. In addition, Muhammad taught the
killing of the apostates (Muslims who renounce Islam) in violation
of the International Declaration of Human Rights which stipulates
that each individual has the full right to change his faith or to
relinquish it; etc.
The list of the immoralities and atrocities Muhammad committed and
taught grows long. The true almighty God is so holy that “He
charges His angels with error” (Job 4: 18b). He hates
wickedness and condemns it: “For You are not a God who
takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You” (Psalm
5: 4). He has much higher moral standards and requirements
than Muhammad’s works and teachings. He judges immoralities very
severely. He does not call for prophecy men who commit grave sins and
never repent like Muhammad. His prophets were exemplary men who strove
after perfection and living holy blameless lives. Ascribing immoral
teachings and false attributes to the true living God is blaspheming
Him.
The logical conclusion from the above discussion is that neither the
call of Muhammad, nor his alleged inspiration of the Qur’an, nor
his evil works and teachings originated from the true living almighty
God.
You need to evaluate the above significant evidence; do your own research;
think about it; and arrive at your own conclusion. You need to ask the
Holy Spirit of the living God to guide you in your thinking and evaluation,
and point you in the right direction.
In his book of “Twenty Three Years: A study of the Prophetic
Career of Mohammad,” Allen and Unwin, London, 1985, Ali Dashti,
the famous Iranian-Arab Muslim scholar, concluded that:
“In the field of moral teachings, however, the Qur'an cannot be
considered miraculous. Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had
already conceived in earlier centuries in many places. Confucius, Buddha,
Zoroaster, Socrates, Moses, and Jesus had said similar things” (p.
54).
“Neither the Qur'an's eloquence nor its moral and legal precepts
are miraculous” (p. 57).
We feel that the above facts and overwhelming evidences strongly
point to the firm conclusion that the Qur’an could not be considered
a miracle based on its alleged eloquence, and its content. It has
linguistic problems, including grammatical mistakes, spelling errors,
and foreign words. It has conflicting texts. The authentic text could
never be established. It has glaring scientific errors, historical
errors, and internal contradictions. It proclaims the questionable
doctrines of satanic inspiration and abrogation of divine revelation,
which means that Islam has no definitive knowledge of what it claims
to be the perfect and final revelation of all times. Furthermore,
the signs associated with Muhammad’s alleged call and inspiration
are definitely ungodly.
In fact, much of the
content of the Qur’an could be traced to Jewish and Christian
apocryphal works, heretical sects’ beliefs, Zoroastrian works,
and per-Islamic practices in pagan Arabia. These detrimental problems
are very powerful arguments against the divine origin of the Qur’an,
and against the Muslim contention that it is the word of God, which
was dictated word for word to Muhammad without any human influence,
and subsequently preserved verbatim. The principal argument for the
prophethood of Muhammad, and the truth of Islam is the miraculous
nature of the Qur’an. It follows that, since the Qur’an
is not miraculous, Muhammad’s claim of prophethood, and the
truth of Islam are both extremely doubtful.
For additional details, please visit the following pages:
1. The
Qur'an and the Bible in the light of history and science.
2. Muhammad's False Prophecies.
3. The Prophethood of Muhammad.
4.
The Sources of the Qur'an
5. The
Bible and the Qur’an: A Historical Comparison
May the light of truth shine in your mind and set you free.
Top
Home
Printer-Friendly
Contact us
Arabic
Donate
The Holy Bible
New Beginning Where
do you go from here? The
Christian Faith
Cancer
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by theLords
Video Responses