Timeless... unchangeable... perfect?
Mmm... maybe not.
The Quran makes a lot of claims about itself. It says that it is the perfect and incorruptible revelation of God to man, and that it is so important that it has existed eternally on tablets in heaven.
Critics claim that it is a badly-arranged collection of quotations from one man, passed off as the word of God to a gullible audience in a primitive society. When accused of being a madman, for example, Muhammad would go into his tent and then emerge with a pearl 'from Allah' like, “You (Muhammad) are not a madman” (68:2). The people would then take this as proof that he was not.
Some Muslims say that the Quran would not be believed by so many today if it were not true. But belief does not make truth – particularly when it has to be shamelessly enforced with discrimination, maiming and death.
In fact, most Muslims have never read the Quran, a book they (nonetheless) are willing to kill and die over. Their conviction is based on what they hear from other Muslims, particularly as they are growing up.
An objective reader would almost certainly conclude that the Quran is less a product of divine origin than Muhammad’s imagination and the circumstances in which he found himself.
Here are ten quick examples:
#10
| Verse 27:91 reads “For me, I have been commanded to serve the Lord of this city.” If these are the words of Allah, then it would mean that someone is ‘commanding’ him to serve another god. The verse only makes sense if Muhammad is speaking from his own perspective.
(This would also explain why “Allah” takes an oath to Allah in no fewer than seven other verses).
|
#9
| According to the sahih (authentic) hadith, Muhammad believed that the sun set each day in a spring of water. As the creator, God would know the truth.
So... whose version made it into the Quran? Muhammad's, of course! (see verse 18:86) He was the one who wrote the Quran - not God.
|
#8
| So much of the Quran is devoted to redundant claims and threats about Muhammad’s status as a prophet, yet there is not a single original moral value. Nowhere does it tell men not to rape women or refrain from sex with children. In fact, it gives men permission to rape their slaves and implies that sex with children is permissible (verse 65:4).
Wouldn’t a perfect book teach perfect morality?
|
#7
| Despite being a relatively small book, the Quran contains unnecessary repitition. Moses is mentioned 136 times. Some passages of misquoted Bible stories are nearly word-for-word identical (eg. Suras 20 & 26).
Why would God waste space saying essentially the same thing about something obscure when he could have offered clear moral principles about peace, tolerance (or a law against sex with children)?
|
#6
| The Quran confuses Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Aaron (and Moses) in Sura 19.
Despite tortured apologetics, the simplest and most obvious explanation is that Muhammad was mistaken. This would also explain why the Quran that he narrated erroneously states that Christians worship the Virgin Mary as a god (5:75, 5:116) when they never have.
|
#5
| The Quran tells Muslim men that they may have sex with women captured as slaves. Even worse: the passage is repeated in four different places. By contrast, there is not a single verse that tells Muslims that they are to pray five times a day.
|
#4
| The Quran says that it is “clear”, but then says elsewhere (3:7) that only Allah understands the meaning of some verses (which begs the question of why they are there). It says that it explains "all things" (16:89), but then tells Muslims to follow the example of Muhammad (33:21) - without saying what that is.
In practical terms, it is impossible to understand the Quran without references to external sources such as the Hadith and Sira (usually laid out in voluminous footnotes). Yet these sources are often contradictory and almost never agreed on.
Even in the Quran, devout Muslim scholars infer dramatically different meanings from the same verses. For example, most interpretations of 38:33 say that Solomon slashed at his own horses, severing their legs and necks. However, some contemporary translators, including one of the most respected (Yusuf Ali) say that Solomon really just passed his hand over their bodies in a loving way.
More alarming (and unfortunately more typical) are verses like 5:33, which mandates crucifying those who "wage war on Allah"... without really explaining what this means.
|
#3
| Unlike the Old Testament prophets, Muhammad narrated petty defenses of his claim as a prophet (and even his own sanity) that are remarkably redundant.
For example, no fewer than 8 passages (83:13, 27:68, 46:17, 16:24, 6:25, 26:137, 25:5 and 23:83) say that "Allah's messenger" is accused of repeating “tales of the ancients,” but that anyone who doesn’t believe him will burn in Hell. Why wouldn’t Allah just say it once and then use the remaining space for something more edifying?
Isn’t this more of what one would expect from an overly-defensive poseur than from an eternal revelation of God to man?
|
#2
| The Quran says that written copies of the Bible (Torah and Gospel) existed at the time of Muhammad (29:46, 3:3, 3:78) and a great many verses "confirm" that those copies are true (even if the Jews and Christians were later accused of misinterpreting them "with their tongues"). Parts of the Quran obviously rely on the Bible for completeness and many verses insist that the Word of God cannot be changed or corrupted.
Here's the problem:
There are hundreds of New Testament manuscripts that pre-date the time of Muhammad, all discovered at different times and different places by different people. There are hundreds more of the Torah. All agree almost perfectly with the modern version of the Bible, which contradicts the Quran.
At the same time, not a single copy or fragment of either the Torah or Gospel from any era has ever been found which deviates in a way that agrees with the Quran.
How is that the "true" Bible - the one that supposedly confirms the Quran - never survived in any form, while so many "corrupted" copies did?
Isn't it more likely that Muhammad simply made it up as he went along and later accused Christians and Jews as a cover story for his own mistakes?
|
#1
| As mentioned, despite being a small book, the Quran is supposed to be the timeless, unchangeable word of God. Why would God use precious and valuable space on the personal life of one man - the same one who happens to be narrating the "revelation"?
Consider verse 33:53:
O you who believe! Enter not the Prophet's houses, except when leave is given to you for a meal, (and then) not (so early as) to wait for its preparation. But when you are invited, enter, and when you have taken your meal, disperse, without sitting for a talk. Verily, such (behaviour) annoys the Prophet, and he is shy of (asking) you (to go), but Allah is not shy of (telling you) the truth.
That has to be immortalized on a tablet in heaven?
Substantial portions of the Quran (particularly suras 33 and 66) are equally self-serving and address the sex, money or respect from his wives to which Muhammad is entitled. Moreover, several such passages are repetitive.
Couldn’t Allah have thought of a more important message for mankind than telling us (several times over) that Muhammad may sleep with an unlimited number of women?
|
|
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire