When considering the sacredness of the Qur’an we must analyze it like any other piece of literature to authenticate its claims of origin.
The Qur’an is given such a high status within Islam that it has bordered on being an object of idolatry among many of the practitioners of the faith.
In addition to this Islam has made claims to its inspiration that go beyond the textual evidence of the script.
When studying Mormonism I saw some similarities to that of the traditions of Islam. Mormons believe in a heavenly inscription that was transcribed on golden tablets and through the directive of an angelic being these heavenly tablets were located and secured for transliteration.
Also Joseph Smith was committed to supposedly finding the one true faith and this led further to him having many supposed encounters and revelations of divine truth, likewise.
Yet in spite of these divine revelations the “Book of Mormon” like the Qur’an is less than a perfect document.
The Muslim may claim that the Qur’an is the most perfect and beautiful of all sources of literature which according to Islam authenticates its divine inspiration as a means of internal evidence.
Yet this was also the position of Joseph Smith concerning the Book of Mormon in which he stated that it is the most perfect of all books ever written.
However, both of these texts come up short in their claims to divine origin by lacking the polish of perfection that they both claim to have obtained. Claiming and being are two different things and a person must prove or at least give reasonable or plausible evidence that supports its platform for truth.
To begin the Qur’an derives its source from a single founder who is of a questionable character.
Muhammad from the onset of these revelations doubted his own sanity as he didn’t know whether he was a mad man or a poet. He questioned himself as being possessed by demons and this was because of the occultic manifestations related to him receiving these revelations such as the strange behavior of foaming at the mouth or roaring like a camel. Another question related to the prophet is why would Allah choose an illiterate to communicate a literate truth that wasn’t even compiled during his lifetime.
Anyway I discuss more of this in another blog that I posted at
jesusandjews.com/wordpress/2009/04/26/is-muhammad-a-false-prophet/
Also one of the concerns related to the Qur’an is the originality of the text considering that the Qur’an borrows its literature from secondary sources. These sources are the bible and various heretical teachings such as the Judeo Christian apocryphal literature which were outside the community of faith because they never measured up to divine inspiration. These apocryphal writings were relegated to the cultish fringes of both Jewish and Christian culture and were never taken seriously.
Alongside of this literature there was also the influence of the oral traditions of the Persian Zoroastrians that was included within the Quranic writings.
So how does Allah borrow his heavenly message from the fallacy of earthly messengers and human tradition?
What perfection or miracle can one achieve from the human invention of imagination which was rejected by the communities that originated the literature as being less than perfect?
If Islam is the supreme religion then why didn’t it originate its own source material rather than borrowing the leftovers of other religious movements that surrounded the culture of Islam at this time in history? How original is that?
Another question that comes up is the collating of this supposed sacred text which was dependent upon rudimentary and fragmentary pieces of perishable materials such as bone, wood, leather, leaves, and rocks.
The Qur’an was also assembled by obtaining testimony through the fallible intellect of memory and speech which would demand exactness and preciseness like some type of a total recall in order to ensure its infallibility.
Is this anyway to record or treat what was to be a monumental piece of literature in being described as the “mother of all books” or is it in reality no different than any other piece of ancient literature.
The Qur’an has never been proven to have been assembled either during the life of Muhammad or shortly after his death but rather the evidence shows that the Qur’an was compiled and evolved over a period of 150 to 200 years following the expiration of the prophet and it was finally canonized in the 8th or 9th century.
Scholars conclude that the sayings of the Qur’an were gathered not by one man but by a group of men over a period of a couple hundred years.
The oldest copy of the Qur’an was written in the Ma’il script dating it to about 790 A.D. which is about 150 years after the death of Muhammad.
Even the oldest manuscript fragments that are in existence are still a 100 years separated from the time of Muhammad.
In addition to this Uthman’s copies are no longer in existence either and though Islamic scholars claim otherwise the reality is that the Kufic script which is contained in these controversial texts was not in use during the time of Uthman and did not show up until 150 years later after Uthman’s demise.
Also supposedly the Arabic language is the heavenly tongue of Allah and if the Qur’an originated with Allah then why does the Quran borrow its communication through the use of foreign words or languages such as Acadian, Assyrian, Persian, Syriac, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Ethiopic.
If the Qur’an is so authentic then why is there not a Textus Originalis or original text still available especially since we have documents that predate the advent of Islam that have survived completely intact? Surely Allah in his sovereignty could preserve his own sacred text.
Concerning the history of the Qur’an it was supposedly collated under Zaid ibn Thabit who was a personal secretary to Muhammad. Zaid under the directive of Abu Bakr was to take and make a document from the sayings of Muhammad.
Consequently, during the reign of Uthman, the third Caliph, a deliberate attempt was made to standardize the Qur’an and impose a single text upon the whole Muslim community which led to the making of other copies to Zaid’s codice while in turn destroying all other competitive documents.
Who is to say that this text was standard since one man was to be the final authority versus the community of believers some of which were personal companions to Muhammad?
Now we have copies upon copies alongside of this previously existing text. How do we know that what we have really represents the true Qur’an and would Muhammad even have recognized all of its content?
Also since much of the manuscript evidence was destroyed we do not have an accurate way of reconstructing a purer text.
The differences between all four of these co-existing codices of Zaid, Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, Abu Musa, and Ubayy, contain deviations and deletions between them and yet the originators of the text were credible individuals in relation to Muhammad.
Abdullah Mas’ud was appointed by Muhammad as a teacher of Quranic recitation and Ubayy was a secretary to the prophet.
My question is whose manuscript was right or more authoritative among the personal disciples of the prophet?
Who was Uthman to be the final authority of correctness since there was other authoritative texts of which were recognized by other communities?
Also when Zaid compiled the text he forgot to include some of the sayings as related to “stoning”.
Now after all of this struggle to unify the text it was later reviewed and revised by al-Hajjaj who was the governor of Kufa.
He initially amended 11 of the texts and finally his changes were later reduced to seven.
Following upon this action the Hafsah text, which was the original document from which the final text was taken, was later destroyed by Mirwan, the governor of Medina.
Also another phenomenon in the Qur’an is one of abrogation’s which is a way of dealing with internal contradictions which are explained as an improvement upon the text.
I am wondering how you can correct something that is already perfect since this revelation only covered a period of 20 years and didn’t need any improvement yet to facilitate the evolution of cultural standards?
The number of abrogations is said to be between 5 to 500. Others say it stands closer to 225. What this shows us is that the science of abrogation is an inexact science indeed, as no-one really knows how many of the verses are to be abrogated.
In addition to the internal contradictions there are also scientific as well as grammatical errors as well.
In joining to all of these discrepancies is the growing number of Hadiths which suddenly appeared in the 9th century which is 250 years after the fact.
Of the original 600,000 hadith sayings that were in circulation at this time only a little over 7,000 of them survived leaving 99% of these traditions as being classified as erroneous.
Yet if 99% are inaccurate then how can we trust this 1% that Al Bukhari approved of?
The Muslim tradition also evolved through oral transmission of the storytellers or Kussas whose works were finally compiled no earlier than the 8th century. These stories were taken from common folklore and embellished thus bringing a greater distortion to Islam.
Also if you have ever been involved in the game of telephone or passing on a story to a large group of people one at a time you often end up with a whole different story once the final person has had the story passed on to them.
Now spread this out over a couple of hundred years and what do you think is the end result to this practice?
For the Qur’an to be regarded as Allah’s blueprint or the greatest wonders of wonders without literary equivalent is sounding more like an exaggeration that is unfounded on many fronts.
The Qur’an leaves more questions than it does answers.
Is the Qur’an a superb piece of literature par excellence or does it fall short of its claim to fame?
Does it possess a beauty in the text unequaled to any other piece of literature? This is an opinion left to the ear of the beholder as there are plentiful pieces of classical literature, of which the Qur’an borrows from, that surpass this literary genre based on the opinions of others.
For a book that is supposed to be second to none it has often been described as incoherent and badly edited at points and also it is not able to stand up to the criticism and scrutiny of others who are able to take more of an objective view to its authenticity.
For others within the movement it is to be obediently embraced with an unquestioned bias of mindless submission which keeps the worshipper from thinking critically about its content.
To question the text would be to question Allah and his prophet which is beyond the scope of Muslim thought which would see this as an act of betrayal and defiance resulting in dire consequences with eternal repercussions.
You may say it’s a miracle for the Qur’an to survive after all of these transitionary phases of Islam and yet I say based upon the evidence it would take a miracle for me to believe that this message is a divine revelation.
In conclusion I really don’t have any other comments regarding the Qur’an. The only thing I have left to say is that I hope I have not overstated my case by my direct wording and therefore have shown disrespect towards my Muslim friends.
This is difficult to do because when a religion is so engrafted within a personal faith than anything that is offered as a challenge to the mindset of religious thought then it is often viewed as a threat or a form of hostility.
I ask that you please forgive me if all I have done was to only rouse your anger rather than your suspicions towards the text that you hold as being sacred.
Again my intent is not to offend but to defend truth and to walk its path wherever it may ultimately lead us.
Lastly for more information on this subject you can refer to the articles as written by Jay Smith of which I related to when posting this blog
Well,I gotta say that actually I beleaved that hell exist .