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Myths About Islam
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John Henry
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Oct 15, 2006 08:55 PDT
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10 Myths About Islam
- Myth #2
4th Edition
By Timothy W. Dunkin
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Myth #2
The Qur'an is Allah's Perfect and Complete Word
Islam teaches, as one would expect, that the Qur'an is perfect,
the complete revelation of Allah to mankind. The Qur'an is held to be
flawless, completely unassailable in what it says, both in fact and
doctrine. Because of this perceived completeness, Islam is thus viewed to
be the penultimate in religion, the culmination of religious advancement
throughout man's history. With the completion of the Qur'an, Muslims
believe, the need for revelation ended and Allah's message to man
finalised.
"The guidance he has shown unto mankind is complete and
flawless, and is enshrined in the Holy Qur'an....Secondly, God has
completed His revealed guidance through Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon
him) and Islam is the complete religion for mankind. God has said that,
'Today I have perfected your Faith - religion - for you, and have
completed my bounty upon you,' and a thorough study of Islam as a way of
life proves the truth of these Quranic words."
1
Concurrently, Muslims believe that the Bible and the Torah are also
revelations to man from Allah, but that these revelations were corrupted,
changed by Jews and Christians away from their original readings. They
believe that the Bible and Torah contain God's Word, but are mixed with
the words and thoughts of men.
False Claims of Biblical Corruption
However, Islam has always taken a somewhat double-minded position on the
Bible. While teaching that the Bible is flawed, incomplete, and
untrustworthy, Islam at the same time teaches that the Bible is to be
followed by Muslims as a means of finding the truth. "And if thou
art in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto thee, then question
those who read the Scripture before thee. Verily, the Truth from thy Lord
hath come unto thee." (Pickthal translation, Surah 10:94) Thus, we
see supposed divine revelation from Allah directing Mohammed and his
followers to seek truth as a final authority from the Bible, from
Christians who "read the Scripture before thee", as a means of
clearing up misunderstandings and doubts about Quranic 'revelation'. It
is from this that the strange duality arises whereby Muslims must teach
that the Bible is corrupted by man, yet at the same time accept what it
teaches (more or less) as being from God.
Further, a question which then arises is this: If Allah is directing
Mohammed (and therefore Muslims in general) to seek guidance from the
Bible, then did Mohammed REALLY consider the Bible to be corrupted in and
of itself? As will be seen below, the proof texts from the Qur'an which
Muslims use to maintain the teaching of Biblical corruption are somewhat
less than conclusive on this point. But the crux remains for Muslims.
When do they suppose the Bible to have been corrupted? Was it BEFORE
Allah told Mohammed to seek out guidance in the Bible and from
Christians, in which case Allah told Mohammed to seek spiritual wisdom
from corrupt sources? Or was it AFTER Allah told Mohammed to seek
Biblical guidance from Christians, a fact which is refuted by the
evidence from Biblical manuscripts in several languages which read the
same in manuscripts dated from both before and after the rise of Islam
(i.e. indicating that the texts are fundamentally the same throughout
this time period)?
The corruption lies not with the Bible, but rather with the Qur'an, the
creation of Arabs in need of a religious text to substantiate their
developing monotheistic religion. Large parts of the Qur'an are direct
transfers from the Bible. Many more parts of the Qur'an contain stories
about personalities from the Bible, but often the stories are incorrect.
The Qur'an states that Mary was Aaron's sister, that the great Flood of
Noah occurred during the time of Moses, and that Joseph was bought as a
slave by an Egyptian named Aziz (instead of Potiphar), to name a few. The
evidence seems to point to an early acquaintance with the Christian
scriptures during the early years of the Arab Empire, and also to the
misunderstanding of much of what they heard and saw in them. The Arabs
merely cobbled together their various impressions of what they had heard,
and made them a part of the Qur'an.
Further, it ought to be noted that passages in the Qur'an which Islam
points to as "proof" of the corruption of earlier texts really
do not indicate that Mohammed taught the corruption of the texts
themselves. Two primary Quranic passages used by Muslims to claim
Biblical corruption are these:
"And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book,
but (see therein their own) desires, and they do nothing but conjecture.
Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:
"This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!-
Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make
thereby." (Surah 2:78-79)
"Can ye (O ye men of Faith) entertain the hope that they will
believe in you?- Seeing that a party of them heard the Word of Allah, and
perverted it knowingly after they understood it." (Surah
2:75)
Neither of these passages indicate textual corruption. The first
passage refers to people (illiterates, who wouldn't be able to read the
Bible anywise) who act upon their own accord to create their own
scriptures, and then try to pass them off as sacred writings. Of course,
how illiterates create their own scripture is not explained. This aside,
it does not refer to the corruption of the words of God, but rather to
the development of competitors to the words of God, false teachings and
new books. The second passage refers to people who heard preaching, and
knowingly perverted what they had heard to something else. As Parrinder
has noted, these ayat refer to misinterpreting scripture, and passing off
something which is not scripture as if it were so, but say nothing about
the text of the previous scriptures being corrupted 2.
God's Preservation of the Bible
While the falsity of Muslim claims for the revelation of the Qur'an and
its subsequent lack of change have been previously exposed, the Muslim
charges concerning the corruption of the Bible ought to be addressed
briefly. Islam has yet to produce any textual evidence to demonstrate the
corruption of the Biblical texts as a whole. Often, Muslims will try to
point to differences in readings between individual manuscripts, and use
this to support their assertion. However, the science of textual
criticism, as applied to the task of systematically examining the
manuscript evidence, provides Christian scholars the ability to
distinguish between true and spurious readings in individual manuscripts.
The body of evidence, from Greek manuscripts, the manuscripts of other
ancient versions (Old Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Latin Vulgate, etc.), and
the quotations of early Christian writers allows us to determine the
content of the original autographic texts with as yet unassailed
certainty. It should be noted that, as was dealt with earlier, Islam
cannot truthfully make the same claim, and in fact is logistically unable
to even make the attempt because of the artificial standardisation of the
Arabic Qur’an text by Uthman, and the subsequent destruction of most all
contrary Quranic manuscript evidence. Thus, the Muslim assertion rests
entirely on blind faith in what amounts to a tradition handed down
through Islam for roughly 1500 years. Facts show, however, that the texts
used to produce the King James Bible are the preserved, uncorrupted words
of God.
The Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew (except for certain
portions of Daniel and Ezra which are in Aramaic). Therefore, we must
look at the history of the Hebrew texts to examine for corruption. Romans
3:1-2 tells us, "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is
there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly because that unto them
were committed the oracles of God." This passage clearly illustrates
to us that it was the Jews who had been given the responsibility and
privilege of passing on and protecting God's Word. This they did, too,
through their Masoretic school. The Hebrew Masoretes followed a very
prescribed, very rigourous means of transcribing copies of the Hebrew
scriptures 3. Among other things, they had to have an
authentic copy of the texts before them when copying. They could not copy
anything from memory, but had to have an authentic copy in front of them,
sounding out each word before copying it. The copyist had to have the
word on his lips, not just in his mind. Rules governed everything
involved with the copying, even the colour of the ink used, the number of
lines per column of text, the preparation of the parchment skins used,
etc. Strict rules were followed which governed the style of letter
formation, space between letters, the handling of the pen used to copy.
Care was taken not just to transfer words, but to standardise them so
rigourously that the copy was as nearly a perfect replica of the original
as was humanly possible. The quality of copying from this method would
compare favourably with what we would see from a copying machine today.
Further, if one mistake was found on a sheet of parchment, the sheet was
destroyed and the work started over. If three mistakes were found on any
one page, the ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT was thrown out and copying began fresh.
Thus, if a Masorete who was copying the entire text of the Hebrew Bible
started in Genesis and got all the way to the end of II Chronicles (the
last book in the original Hebrew ordering of the books) and made three
mistakes on a page, the ENTIRE document was thrown out, along with months
of work, and started anew.
This sort of effort was perpetuated by the Masoretes and protected God's
Word in Hebrew from any sort of corruption. Islam cannot even begin to
make the same sort of claim for the Arabic texts of the Qur'an, which
evidence shows had already been corrupted by the time of Uthman. The
result of the Masoretes' work was what was used to translated the Old
Testament in the King James. The King James translators used the Ben
Chayyim Masoretic text, produced by Rabbi Abraham ben Chayyim iben
Adonijah, and published by Daniel Bomberg in 1524 4.
Thus, the King James Old Testament comes from a text that can be
considered completely trustworthy and a preserved replica of the
originals.
Likewise, the Greek New Testament underlying the King James remained
uncorrupted. There are currently in the possession of scholars 5,255
copies, either partial or full, of the Greek New Testament, in various
forms such as uncials, lectionaries, papyrus fragments, and cursive
texts. Of these, 5,210 most generally agree with the Traditional Text
(also called the “Syrian” or “Byzantine”), the text type underlying the
Received Text (Textus Receptus) which is the Greek text from which the
King James New Testament was translated 5. Hence,
99.14% of all existing Greek New Testament texts are in fundamental
agreement with one another and with the Textus Receptus which Beza edited
in 1598. What this means is that the vast bulk of Greek manuscripts for
the New Testament were transmitted accurately down throughout the entire
Church Age, right up to the time when Beza collated his complete Greek
text. Further evidence for the accuracy of their translation is the fact
that around 60% of New Testament quotations from early church fathers who
died before 400 AD were in the form of distinctive Traditional
readings6. As Kenyon pointed out in his survey of
Miller and Burgon‘s analysis, this preference for the Traditional Text
increases to around 64% if the writers from the first three centuries are
considered, and this further rises to 76% when a list of thirty highly
important passages are considered from this group of patristics, chosen
for their frequency of quotation and theological importance
7.
The tiny remaining number of false Greek texts (that other 0.86%, or 45
manuscripts) all bear evidence of their being little used by the church
of God. The two primary manuscripts of this class, Codex Aleph (aka
“Sinaiticus”) and Codex B (aka “Vaticanus“), both have earmarks of
Gnostic corruption. Further, not only do they differ from the vast body
of manuscript and patristic evidence against them, they also are so
eclectic that they contradict each other in reading nearly as much as
they agree. Pickering notes,
"The variation between two 'Byzantine' MSS will be found to
differ both in number and severity from that between two 'Western' MSS or
two 'Alexandrian' MSS -- the number and nature of the disagreements
between two 'Byzantine' MSS throughout the Gospels will seem trivial
compared to the number (over 3,000) and nature (many serious) of the
disagreements between Aleph and B, the chief 'Alexandrian' MSS, in the
same space."8
Nevertheless, they are touted by modern day textual critics as being
the most trustworthy manuscripts. This is because of their greater age,
both date from the middle to latter part of the 4th century, exceeding
the age of the oldest extant Traditional manuscript by at least three
centuries. However, one fact that needs to borne in mind is this: When a
text written on vellum is used constantly, it wears out and needs to be
recopied. Conversely, when a text is never used, it remains in a more
pristine condition. Further, there is much evidence to suggest that the
worn out vellum manuscripts reached the point where they could not be
used, they were “put to rest” through honourable destruction. This
general point was first suggested over a century ago by Burgon, but was
independently articulated by Lake, et al. nearly 50 years
later9. These two points combined would explain the
lack of very ancient Traditional manuscripts, and concurrently provide a
reasonable explanation for the continued existence of Sinaiticus and
Vaticanus. Given that the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus texts are the oldest,
the obvious point is then that they were never used, and thus never had
to be recopied. This doubly supports the notion that the Traditional
texts have been preserved uncorrupted in that it tells us the early
church and men of God through the ages recognised THEM, and not the small
minority of heretical texts, as being the authentic readings. It also
tells us that no significant mistakes were made throughout the course of
transcribing and re-transcribing the Traditional texts over the
centuries, for them to all agree with each other by the thousands of
manuscripts, spread across the old Roman world. A point that bears making
is that it is the small number (45) of heretical texts from which the
'modern' versions of the Bible like the NIV, NASB, RV, Berkeley, Living
Bible, etc. are translated. The textual support for these modern versions
is very small, and certainly does not outweigh the vast textual support
which the King James enjoys. These modern versions carry through many of
the heresies that their parent manuscripts contained, such as denying or
downplaying important doctrines like the efficacy of Christ's blood, His
virgin birth, His resurrection, etc. Christians interested in having and
studying the true Word of God would do well do dump their “modern”
versions in the garbage can and get hold of a solid King James Version.
God has again preserved His Word, by retaining for us a text in Greek,
the Textus Receptus, which has been copied and carried through for
centuries without error. Combined with the protection He afforded to the
Hebrew Masoretic texts, we see that God has preserved and protected His
Word through the ages. This is not surprising though, as God has promised
to us to preserve His Word. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
but the word of our God shall stand forever." (Isaiah 40:8). Truly
He has done this with His Word, the Bible, and truly the same cannot be
said for the Qur'an!
Pre-Islamic Source Materials Used in the Qur'an
Now let us turn to an examination of the "perfect and heavenly"
Qur'an. Islam's claim that the revelation of the Qur'an was handed down
from Allah to Mohammed in complete and final form does not seem to be
possible, given the large amount of "borrowing" which is
evident in the Qur'an. Many of the stories and teachings of the Qur'an
originally were taught in a variety of pre-Islamic writings and among
various pre-Islamic groups. To begin, there seems to have been a large
amount of pre-Islamic Arabian mythology and legend that found its way
into the Qur'an. This is not surprising as the Qur'an was, of course,
developed by Arabs living in an evolving pre-Islamic Arabian society.
This understanding has been sustained by many scholars who have studied
Islam. For instance, one scholar writes, "Arabic legends about the
fabulous jinns fill its pages" 10. Indeed, much
of what he included in the Qur'an from these sources was extremely
fanciful:
- The story of the she-camel which leapt out of a rock and became a
prophet was known in Arabia long before Muhammad (Surat 7:73-77,85;
91:14; 54:29).
- The story of an entire village of people who were turned into apes
because they broke the sabbath by fishing was a popular legend in
Muhammad's day (Surat 2:65; 7:163-166).
- The gushing 12 springs story found in Sura 2:60ff comes from
pre-Islamic Arabian legends.
- In what is called the "Rip Van Winkle" story, seven men and
their animals slept for 309 years in a cave and then woke up perfectly
fine (Surah 18:9-26)! This was also a popular story in Arabia at and
before Mohammed's time. This legend was also found in Greek and Christian
folks fables from that time and before.
- The fable of the pieces of four dead, cut-up birds getting up and
flying was well known in Muhammad's time (Surah 2:260).
Additionally, there appear to be several Jewish sources which Mohammed
used when developing the Quranic revelation.
11,12,13,14 For instance, the source of Surah 3:35-37
is the apocryphal Jewish work, The Protevangelion of James the Lesser.
Other examples of Jewish contribution to the Qur'an have been identified
by scholars:
- The Second Targum of Esther supplied the non-biblical details of the
Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon (Surah 27:17-44).
- The Testament of Abraham provided the teachings of the Qu'ran found in
Surah 42:17 and Surah 101:6-9, which relate that on the judgment day, a
scale of balance will be used to weigh good and bad deeds, and to make
the determination of whether people will be sent to heaven or hell. This
Jewish work is also apparently quoted in Surah 87:19.
- The story of the murderous brother and the raven (Surah 5:30-31) is
found in several Jewish writings, these being the Pirke of Rabbi Eleazer,
the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem, all of
which pre-date the Qur'an.
- The tale of Abraham being delivered from Nimrod's fire (Surat 21:51-71;
29:16, 17; 37:97,98) originated in the Midrash Rabbah.
- The Talmud provided to the Qur'an the story of Moses' resurrection
(Surah 2:55-57)
- The story of the golden calf which was made by Israel in the
wilderness, in which the image actually leaps out of the fire and moos,
comes from the Pirke of Rabbi Eleazer.
- Lastly, the seven heavens and hells described at various points in the
Qur'an can similar be found in the Zohar and the Hagigah.
Heretical Christian sources also provided a source of inspiration to
Mohammed. The fingerprints of Gnostic and heretical sects can be seen at
several points in the teachings of Mohammed. For example, the Quranic
definition of the Trinity, consisting of God, Jesus, and Mary, was a
doctrine held by a small Arabian pseudo-Christian group known as the
Collyridians, with whom the Arabs apparently had some contact. That
heretical Christian groups exerted a strong influence on the developing
Arab theology and beliefs has been demonstrated repeatedly by scholars of
Islam 15,16. Two examples of fanciful stories which
were taught by heretical groups and which found their way into the Qur'an
are the story of Jesus' speaking from the cradle as an infant (Surat
3:49, 100:110) and the story of Jesus moulding a bird from clay and then
breathing life into it (Surah 5:110). These were stories passed down from
various Gnostic sources.
Trappings of Paganism Introduced into Quranic Teaching
Related to the above, we must also note that Mohammed introduced many
pagan rituals and activities into his new religion, the large share of
these finding root in the pagan pre-Islamic days of Arabia. The Sabeans,
an Arabian group whose religion was centred about the worship of astral
bodies, saw much of their worship style mimicked by Islam.
"Muhammad incorporated parts of the religion of the Sabeans into
Islam." 17
This included such well-known Muslim worship activities as
worshipping at sacred stones (the Kaabah, for Islam), praying five times
a day towards a sacred geographical location (Mecca, for Islam), and
fasting for part of a day for an entire month (Ramadan, for Islam).
Less certain, but also suspected, is that the Muslim activity of throwing
stones at Satan finds its origins in a pre-Islamic pagan ritual in which
stones were thrown to symbolically drive away jinn and other evil
spirits. Muslim tradition itself indicates to us that Mohammed had much
to do with the jinn, as he was a shaman who could control the spirits
which resided in rocks, trees, and bodies of water. 18
Mohammed himself was even said to have been at various times bewitched
and under satanic inspiration 19. These evidences
provide additional support to the contention that much of Islam is
repackaged pre-Islamic Arabian paganism.
Mistakes, Inconsistencies, and Imperfections in the Qur'an
Any book making the claim to be God's Word ought therefore to be free
from demonstrable error. The Bible has withstood every test of literary,
logical, historical, archaeological, and scientific truth and accuracy
brought against it by sceptics and unbelievers. Can the same be said for
the Qur'an?
The answer as can be shown is NO. Muslims claim the Qur'an is preserved
and inspired, and point to Surah 85:21-22 as proof, "Nay, this is a
Glorious Qur n, (Inscribed) in a Tablet Preserved!" The Qur'an is
claimed, as an impregnable dogma, to be written in perfect Arabic, said
to be "Allah's language", as a basis of its absence of error.
This claim is made in Surah 13:37,
"Thus have We revealed it to be a judgment of authority in
Arabic. Wert thou to follow their (vain) desires after the knowledge
which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither protector nor
defender against Allah."
This claim is further refined,
"We know indeed that they say, "It is a man that teaches
him." The tongue of him they wickedly point to is notably foreign,
while this is Arabic, pure and clear." (Surah 16:103)
Surah 12:2 and Surah 41:41,44 are also often used to support this
dogma, with the notion being that if Allah does something, it must be
perfect, so his revelation of the Qur'an in Arabic means that the text in
Arabic must be perfect. However, study of the Quranic Arabic shows this
to not be true. Critical Muslim scholar Ali Dashti makes this comment
concerning the Quranic text,
"The Qor'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 number and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied
pronouns which sometimes have no referent; and predicates which in rhymed
passages are often remote from the subjects 20.....To
sum up, more than one hundred Qor'anic aberrations from the normal rules
and structure of Arabic have been noted
21."
The Qur'an has many grammatical errors in the Arabic, a partial
listing being errors in Surat 2:177, 3:59, 4:162, 5:69, 7:160, and 63:10.
A detailed exposition of the errors in the Arabic has been provided by
Dr. Anis Shorrosh, a Palestinian Christian and native Arabic speaker
22. These errors demonstrate the fallibility of the
Arabic text of the Qur'an. In a further exposition on the subject,
Rafiqul-Haqq and Newton have provided detailed demonstrations of how the
Qur'an uses grammatically unsound Arabic at several points (Surat 2:177,
3:59, 4:162, 5:69, 7:56, 7:160, 21:3, 22:19, 41:11, 49:9, 63:10, and
91:5) and provide the correct readings according to standard rules of
classical Arabic grammar23.
Additionally, the Quranic Arabic cannot be considered "pure"
because of the inclusion of many foreign words into the text. These words
include "Pharaoh" (Egyptian, repeated 84 times), "Haroot,
Maroot, sirat, hoor, tilmeeth, jinn, and firdaus" (Persian/Farsi
words), "heber, sakinah, maoon, turat, and jehannim" (Hebrew
words), "taboot, taghouth, zakat, and malakout" (Syriac words),
and "injil", (Arabisation of 'eua[n]ggelion', Greek word for
'good news', referring to the Gospels) 24. In his
foundational study of Syriac influences on the Qur’an, Mingana noted
several points where the Qur’an had either directly borrowed words from
Syriac (a Christian liturgical tongue used throughout Syria, Mesopotamia,
and Northern Arabia at the time), or else adopted foreign meanings for
native words which were derived from their cognate usage in
Syriac25. Many of these words which entered into the
Qur’an were drawn directly from Christian usage, including terms such as
“resurrection” and “Messiah”. Despite the age of Dr. Mingana’s research,
it still remains foundational to understanding on this point, as his
evidences and conclusions have been little assailed by the intervening
decades of Quranic research.
If Arabic is the language of Allah, and therefore perfect, than why the
need for the inclusion of words from other languages, when there are
perfectly viable Arabic alternatives for each word listed above which
could have been used?
The Qur'an contains several outright scientific errors:
- In Surah 23:14, the embryo is said to be formed from a joining of the
sperm with a clot of blood. This incorrect view entirely ignores the
equally important presence of the female ova (egg), and the process of
fertilisation which occurs between the egg and the sperm. Further, in
Surah 86:6, the Qur‘an informs us that semen originates in a region of
the body between the kidneys and the spine, which is obviously wrong, but
which yet reflects a widespread belief of the time which originated with
the Greek physician Hippocrates in the 5th century BC, and continued
after him for many centuries.
- In Surah 18:86, the Qur'an says that a traveler sees the sun sets in a
spring of murky water, and in 18:90 this same traveler finds the specific
point at which the sun rises. We know, of course, that the sun does not
set into a murky spring of water, and further that the earth is not flat,
which is presupposed by the finding of specific places where it rises and
sets.
- In Surah 51:49, the Qur'an claims that Allah made everything in pairs.
However, we know that there are several species of plants, animals, and
monerons which reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis, and which
have only one gender, or really no gender at all.
- Surat 21:31 and 31:10 both seem to claim that mountains exist to
prevent earthquakes, something which both science and simple observation
demonstrate to be false.
-In Surah 25:61, the Qur’an intimates that the moon gives its own light.
In this verse, the word muneer is used to describe the light of the moon.
The phrase used here in the Arabic is “feeha sirajan waqamaran muneeran”.
It appears as the bold portion of the verse, “Blessed is He Who made
constellations in the skies, and placed therein a Lamp and a Moon giving
light“. In this verse, the sun is referred to as the “siraj”, a word
meaning “a bright lamp or light”. However, “muneer” is an adjective which
describes the light produced by an object. Four times in the Qur’an, the
word “muneer” is used to describe the light of illumination or
enlightenment provided by the Qur’an itself (in a figurative sense, of
course), in Surat 3:184; 22:8, 31:20, and 35:35. Would Muslims suggest
that the Qur’an reflects the enlightenment from another, or rather that
it is the source of enlightenment? Further, in Surah 33:46, the
enlightenment which Mohammed was said to bring is described as “wasirajan
muneeran”, thus demonstrating that “muneer” is an adjective describing
“siraj”. Thus, the “muneer” of the moon, from the way these words are
used elsewhere in the Qur’an, can be said to originate from the moon
itself, an obvious scientific error.
However, this has not stopped Muslim apologists from trying to “prove”
miraculously prognostic scientific knowledge in the Qur’an. Most all of
these claims are so tendentious and strained in their exegesis that the
average reader could easily see through the arguments. Some of the more
modern claims, in fact, rely on blatant misunderstanding of science, or
misinterpretation of science to make it appear to correlate with the
Qur’an. A couple of these are presented for the reader’s examination
below:
- Certain Muslim apologists will claim that Surah 79:30 (based upon what
has been shown to be a mistranslation of the word dahaha) states that the
earth is egg-shaped. The claim is that this statement shows that the
Qur’an gives advanced knowledge of the slightly non-spherical shape of
the earth. However, the earth is an oblate spheroid (having an equatorial
radius greater than the polar radius, i.e. a “squashed” sphere). A bird’s
egg, the type which can at least be inferred from other Quranic usage of
the term “egg”, is a prolate spheroid (having an equatorial radius less
than the polar radius, i.e. an “elongated” sphere). Thus, the earth’s
shape actually departs from the shape of a true sphere in the opposite
direction from what is claimed by some Muslim apologists.
- In Surah 57:25, many Muslim apologists will claim that the reference to
Allah “sending down iron” is a miraculous foreknowledge of modern
scientific understanding concerning the appearance of iron in the solar
system. Since the latest cosmological theories state that iron entered
the solar system from outside, as the sun is not hot enough to produce
iron in situ, the “sending down” of iron reflects this. Of course, such
an interpretation, which presupposes the truth of the evolutionary bases
which underlie the scientific theory, flatly contradicts the
instantaneous creation taught by the Qur’an (Surah 2:117) where Allah
says, “Be! And it is.” Even disregarding this, the argument is flawed if
we assume the cosmological theories to be true. These theories state that
the solar system formed from the gravitationally-induced aggregation of
pre-existing elements (from the Big Bang, previous supernovae, take your
pick) which over time formed the planets, moons, the sun, etc. Now, if
iron were present in the solar system at the time of its theoretical
formation, then it would have been incorporated into the earth at that
time. Yet, the phraseology “we sent down” (using the Arabic term nazal,
meaning “to bring down, to cast down”) presupposes that the earth was
already in existence at the time of the sending down of iron (else there
would be nothing to send it down to, as the plain understanding of the
Arabic clearly says). Hence, the apologists’ argument as an attempt to
ingratiate Islam to modern science does not stand firm in the face of
reasoned investigation.
On a further note, I have actually seen some Muslim apologists go beyond
this and claim that it is miraculous that the Surah containing this verse
(entitled Al-Hadid, “The Iron”) is numbered (in the order of how the
surat are arranged) the same as the atomic weight of iron. However, since
Al-Hadid is the 57th surah in the current arrangement, and the atomic
weight of iron is 55.847 daltons (which we can charitably round to 56),
the argument seems to be mooted. Even in the face of this, some
apologists will yet argue that, if one does not count Al-Fatiha (the
opening surah of the Qur’an, Surah 1), then Al-Hadid is number 56 and
thus falls into line with the atomic weight of iron. I find this
interesting because at no other time would any sort of modern orthodox
Muslim suggest ignoring or removing any surah of the Qur’an!
Interestingly, this claim that Allah (or other deity) sent down iron to
mankind did not originate in the Qur'an. Instead, this belief that iron
was sent down from heaven has a long history among many ancient peoples
all around the Mediterranean and the Near East. This belief, as pointed
out by Bauval26, likely originated from the meteoritic
origin of the iron which probably formed the first major sources of iron
for ancient man. Among the ancient Egyptians, iron was known by the word
"Bja", a word which also had the meaning "material of
which heaven was made", indicating a belief on the part of the
Egyptians of a divine origin for iron27. McCall tells
us that the Phrygians of the 7th century BC worshipped a cone-shaped iron
meteorite28, and Bauval also gives several examples of
stones which "fell to earth" that were venerated by ancient
peoples, including the black meteorite enshrined in the Muslim Ka'abah.
Hence, this story in the Qur'an has clear pre-Islamic pagan origins.
The Qur'an holds within its pages some historical inaccuracies, as well:
- In Surah 28:38, Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) orders Haman to begin
making baked bricks in a kiln out of clay, this during the time of Moses.
Historical evidence demonstrates that the Egyptians at this time built
their buildings out of two materials: cut stone and sun-dried bricks. The
Egyptians would not have baked their bricks (a practice not introduced to
Egypt until the Roman era), but made them and dried them in the heat of
the sun 29.
- In Surah 20:87 and 20:95, the Jews are said to have made the golden
calf idol at the behest of the Samaritans, a group of people who did not
exist until around the time of the Post-Exilic period, nearly eight
centuries after the Exodus.
The Qur'an in several points also makes mistakes regarding the beliefs of
non-Muslims groups with whom Mohammed had contact. One example which was
discussed above is the erroneous Quranic teaching on the Trinity, or more
properly, what Christian beliefs about the Trinity supposedly are. The
Qur'an says that Christians join two gods with Allah, and that the
Trinity is composed of God, Jesus, and Mary. This composition is not the
historic Trinity which was accepted by the vast bulk of Christendom.
Instead, this "Trinity" which Mohammed railed against in the
Qur'an was a heretical construction of the Collyridians, who were steeped
in Mariolatry. The historical trinitarian understanding of the Trinity
(as was later defined in the Athanasian Creed) was quite broadly
established throughout Christendom at least two centuries before
Mohammed, and evidence for the trinitarian belief exists from the very
start of the churches. However, Allah somehow missed the teaching of the
vast bulk of the early churches, which was that the Trinity is God being
ONE in essence while THREE in persons, and instead revealed to Mohammed
that Christians believed the Trinity to be God, Jesus, and Mary. In other
words, Allah apparently made a mistake, and did not understand what was
the true teaching of Christianity, and what was the false teaching of
heretics.
Further, we note that in Surah 9:30, the Qur'an attributes to the Jews
the belief that Ezra (Uzair) was the son of God. This is not a belief
which has been expounded by Jewish theologians and teachers, however, and
is thus another error which Allah purportedly makes concerning the
beliefs of a non-Muslim group.
Also, we must note the Quranic fascination with referring to Jesus as
"Isa". Muslims maintain, based upon the authority of the
Qur'an, that Isa is the true name for Jesus in the Arabic language.
However, this is not the case. Instead, "Yasu" is the Arabic
form of Jesus, (itself a Hellenisation of the Hebrew "Yeshua").
The Arabic form of Jesus is clearly shown to us to have been
"Yasu" among Arabians who lived even before Mohammed's time:
"Mr. G. Lankaster Harding, Chief Curator of Antiquities
Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, kindly sent me copies of a little more than
five hundred Thamudic inscriptions....It is the inscription [Harding No.
476] that interests us here....Below the circle there are four letters: a
y, a sh, a c, and again a y. These letters are so
placed that they can be read from right to left or from left to right
y-sh- c, probably pronounced Yash
c, and this name is the same as Y sh
ac, the Hebrew form of the name of Christ. It is
known that Y sh ac, is the later pronunciation of Y h
sh ac or Joshua; it was used after the Exile in order
to avoid the immediate sequence of two dark vowels (o and u). Of course,
it is well known that the Christians whose language is Arabic commonly
use the form Yas c."
30
Further, in page 18 of this article, Littman says that the form
"Yasuc" represents "the ancient Arabic
name of Jesus", and "Inscription Harding No. 476 is the oldest
native document of Christianity of Northern Arabia known so far."
31
What this means to us is that this form,
"Yasuc", is the name by which Jesus was
known in the most ancient inscriptions in the Arabic language, of which
Thamudic is an archaic form. This construction appears amazingly similar
to the Hebrew "Yeshua" or "Yehoshua", and the Aramiac
"Yeshua" (seen in Ezra 5:1, a passage written in Aramaic, which
appears in the English Bible as Jeshua, and is the same name with the
same meaning "Jehovah saves"). Hence, initially, the Arabs
appear to have referred to Jesus with the name Yasu, not Isa as Muslims
and the Qur'an claim.32
Where did the name "Isa" come from then? Isa is the Arabic form
of the name "Esau". That this is true is even admitted by
Muslim apologists:
"The Holy Quran refers to Jesus as "Eesa", and this
name is used more times than any other title, because this was his
"Christian" name. Actually, his proper name was
"Eesa" (Arabic), or "Esau". (Hebrew); classical
"Yeheshua", which the Christian nations of the West Latinised
as Jesus. Neither the "J" nor the second "s" in the
name Jesus is to be found in the original tongue - they are not found in
the Semitic language....The word is very simply - "E S A U" - a
very common Jewish name, used more than sixty times in the very first
booklet alone of the Bible, in the part called "Genesis". There
was at least one "Jesus" sitting on the "bench" at
the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin. Josephus the Jewish historian
mentions some twenty five Jesus' in his "Book of Antiquities".
The New Testament speaks of "Bar-Jesus"- a magician and a
sorcerer, a false prophet (Act 13:6); and also "Jesus-Justus" -
a Christian missionary, a contemporary of Paul (Colossians 4:11). These
are distinct from Jesus the son of Mary. Transforming "Esau" to
(J)esu(s) - Jesus - makes it unique. This unique (?) name has gone out of
currency among the Jews and the Christians from the 2nd century after
Christ. Among the Jews, because it came to be the proper name of their
God(?) - their God incarnate. The Muslim will not hesitate to name his
son - "Eesa" - because it is an honoured name, the name of a
righteous servant of the Lord." 33
While Deedat makes some mistakes in his analysis above (such as
claiming that Esau is a "common Jewish name", the sixty times
which the name is used in the Old Testament all refer to one individual,
the brother of Jacob), the essential point of his writing is evident --
Isa is the name for Esau. The rest of his analysis is inaccurate, as he
is trying to show that the name "Esau" was the name which Jesus
came from in the New Testament. Both the Greek "Jesus" and the
Hebrew/Aramaic "Yeshua" mean "Jehovah saves", while
Esau means "hairy". However, his admission to the truth of Isa
equaling Esau speaks volumes.
What was the source of Isa being applied to Jesus in the Qur'an? Nobody
knows for sure, though the most plausible explanation to date is that
certain Jews with whom the Arabs had contact, in an effort to insult the
Lord Jesus, told them that the Son of God worshipped by Christians was
"Isa", thereby applying the name of Jacob's hated brother Esau
to the hated Christian Saviour. This claim, however, rests on much
hearsay, and thus should be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps the Arabs
at the time of the infiltrations into Syro-Palestine simply misunderstood
the hearing or reading of the name, and began to refer to Jesus as
"Isa" out of simple mistaken understanding. What should be
clear to us, though, is that the Quranic use of "Isa" rests
upon a name for Christ which was NOT His name, even in the Arabic. Is it
really likely that an omnipotent, omniscient deity such as Allah is
claimed to be would make such a simple error as to misname one of his
prophets?
The Qur'an also contains many internal self-contradictions and logically
problematic statements:
- The heavens and the earth were created by Allah in six days, according
to Surat 7:54, 10:3, 11:7, and 25:59; but it took eight days, according
to Surah 41:9-12.
- In Surah 22:47, Allah's day equals 1000 human years, but in Surah 70:4,
a day to Allah is reckoned as 50,000 human years.
- Evil that befalls human beings is alternatively viewed to be from Allah
(Surah 4:78), from ourselves (Surah 4:79), and from Satan (Surah 38:41),
with two of these contradictions occurring side by side!
- The punishment for adultery is flogging with 100 stripes for both sexes
in Surah 24:2, versus lifelong house arrest for the woman and no
punishment upon repentance for the man in Surah 4:15-16.
- Satan is viewed as misleading and misguiding people in Surah 4:119-120,
but Allah is said to perform this in Surah 16:93.
- Surah 2:256 claims that there must be no compulsion in religion, yet
Surah 8:38-39 commands Muslims to fight until all religion but Islam is
done away with. Similarly, Surah 45:14 tells Muslims to forgive
unbelievers, while Surah 9:29 commands them to fight unbelievers.
In addition to this short list, there are literally dozens of other
contradictions which point to the Qur'an as being a flawed book. See a
more complete listing
here.
In conclusion, we see that the Qur'an cannot legitimately claim divine
inspiration and/or preservation. It has many errors, inconsistencies, and
a history of corruptions. The Qur'an is an imperfect book, and cannot be
claimed as the work of a perfect and complete God. The same charges
cannot be made against the Bible, however, which has withstood every
attack upon it made by unbelievers.
End Notes
(1) - S. Abul Ala Maudadi, Towards Understanding Islam, pp. 81-82
(2) - G. Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’an, p. 147
(3) - Dr. D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible, pp. 24-25
(4) - Dr. D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible, p. 27
(5) - Dr. D.A. Waite, Defending the King James Bible, p. 56
(6) - J. Burgon, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and
Established, pp. ix-x
(7) - F.G.Kenyon, Handbook of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,
pp. 321-322
(8) - W.N. Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text, p. 54
(9) - K. Lake, R.P. Blake, and S. New, "The Caesarian Text of the
Gospel of Mark," Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 21 (1928), p.
349
(10) - C.G. Pfander, The Mizan-ul-Haqq: Balance of Truth, p. 283
(11) - The Concise Dictionary of Islam, ed. Cyril Glass , p. 229
(12) - J. Jomier, The Bible and the Quran, pp. 59ff
(13) - Canon Sell, Studies in Islam, pp. 163ff
(14) - A. Guillaume, Islam, p. 13
(15) - R. Bell, The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment, pp.
110ff, 139ff
(16) - Canon Sell, Studies in Islam, pp. 216ff
(17) - Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. M. Eliade, pp. 303ff
(18) - Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 1, no. 470; vol. 5, no. 199
(19) - Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 4, nos. 400, 490
(20) - Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed,
p.48
(21) - Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed,
p.50
(22) - A. Shorrosh, Islam Revealed: A Christian Arab's View of Islam, pp.
199-200
(23) - M. Rafiqul-Haqq and P. Newton, The Qur’an: Grammatical Errors,
http://debate.domini.org/newton/grammar.html
(24) - A. Shorrosh, Islam Revealed: A Christian Arab's View of Islam,
p. 199
(25) - A. Mingana, "Syraic Influence on the Style of the
Koran", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol. 11 (1927), p.
84-5, 87 - A detailing of these can be found in my essay specifically
addressing this issue at
http://www.studytoanswer.net/islam/purearabic.html
(26) - R. Bauval, "Investigation on the origins of the Benben
Stone: Was It An Iron Meteorite?", Discussions in Egyptology, Vol.
14 (1989)
(27) - see G.A. Wainwright, "Iron in Egypt", Journal of
Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 18 (1931), p. 11
(28) - G.J.H. McCall, Meteorites and Their Origins, p. 17
(29) - G. Maspero, H. Grevel, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology, p. 3
(30) - E. Littman, "Jesus in a Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscription,"
Muslim World, 1950, vol. xi, p. 16.
(31) - E. Littman, "Jesus in a Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscription,"
Muslim World, 1950, vol. xi, p. 18.
(32) - please note - the c used in the above is a
graphical representation of the “ayin“, a soft gutteral semi-consonant
found in most Semitic languages, very difficult for Westerners to imitate
as there is no real analogue in most Indo-European languages. It can be
approximated by elongating an “ahh“ sound in the back of the throat.
(33) - A. Deedat, Christ in Islam,
Ch. 2
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