How The Qur'an Came To Be

by Robert A. Morey
© 1996 Research and Education Foundation

Modern scholars using sound principles of literary analysis have determined that the Qur'an did not come from Muhammad. He did not recite it and actually never saw a copy of it. It was not put together in its present written form until nearly one hundred and fifty years after Muhammad's death.

This has come as quite a shock to Muslims. According to the legends, myths, and stories found in the Hadith, the Qur'an was written in heaven by Allah on a large stone tablet. The angel Gabriel brought it down and Muhammad recited it verbally but did not write any of it down. It was Muhammad's companions who wrote down what he recited. After his death, it was gathered together and compiled by the Calif Uthman.

The insurmountable problem that Muslims face is that they do not have any documentary evidence from the 7th and 8th century to back up any of their claims. For example, if Uthman compiled the Qur'an as the Hadith claims (Bukhari I:63; IV:709: VI:507, 510), where is the manuscript evidence for this? Why have no Qur'ans survived from that period? Why do we have to wait over a hundred years before we find even a scrap of the Qur'an?

The Muslims are also guilty of circular reasoning when they document the Qur'an by the Hadith and then document the Hadith by the Qur'an! But there is no documentary evidence to back up the Hadith or the Qur'an! They are both fraudulent as to authorship and dates.

Some Muslims have claimed that 7th century copies of the original Qur'an have been found in museums at Topkapi, Turkey and Tashkent, Russia. But when they were examined by manuscript scholars, they turned out to be 9th or 10th century manuscripts.

The Qur'an was invented in order to give spiritual unity to the vast empire created by Arab conquests. By borrowing liberally from the legends, myths and religious traditions of pagans, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Persians, they created one religion to rule over all its citizens. Thus the Qur'an was the product of multiple authors from different times and places. These authors contributed stories and legends from their own cultural and religious background. The sources of these stories have been well documented by many scholars.

The burden of proof is now clearly on the Muslims. They must supply scholars with the documentary evidence to support their theories on the origins of the Qur'an and the Hadith. Until they do so, we cannot believe in the inspiration of either one.

How different is the situation with the New Testament. The manuscript evidence for it begins twenty years after the death of Christ. There are literally thousands of Greek, Latin, Syriac and Coptic texts which document the reliability of the New Testament.

The same holds true for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. We have more than enough literary documentation for the life of Jesus from first century Jewish, pagan, and Christian manuscripts. This is in sharp contrast to the life of Muhammad. We find no references to him as a prophet until 150 years after his death. No one has ever found even the smallest fragment of the Qur'an from the 7th century. Thus much of what is said about the life of Muhammad must now be dismissed as fiction.

The truth will triumph in the end. The Qur'an and the Hadith were political tools used to subjugate non-Arab cultures by forcing them to accept a religion with elevated Arabian language, political laws, moral standards, dress codes, penal punishments and other cultural elements to the status of divine law. This is why, to become a Muslim, you must take an Arab name, dress like an Arab, speak Arabic, eat only what Arabs eat, treat your wife as Arabs treat their wives, etc.

The religion of Islam was thus born out of Arab cultural imperialism and is rooted in a racist attitude that all things Arab are good while all things non-Arab are evil. Until this is understood, the true nature of Islam cannot be grasped.

This is why Western dress, food, movies, hairstyles, etc., are zealously denounced by the Mullahs and Imams as Satanic. Such things as blue jeans are not really condemned because they are immoral but because they are not Arab.

The truthfulness of this observation is easily demonstrated by Islam's demand that one bow in prayer in the direction of Arabia (Mecca) and make a pilgrimage to Arabia (Mecca). The religion of Islam is Arabian paganism and culture raised to divine law and imposed upon conquered nations.

Nations such as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, etc. who had the misfortune of having Islam forced upon them by the sword, need to break free from Arab imperialism in order to regain their own identity and culture. Until they throw off the shackles of Islam, they cannot become free societies where human rights are honored.

How can this be done? The oppressed masses must return to their Christian heritage which was stolen from them by wave after wave of Arab armies. Why would anyone entering the 21st century want to continue to believe in a foreign religion that was forced upon his ancestors many centuries ago by violence, slavery, oppression and unjust taxes? It is time to break free from the darkness and ignorance of Islam and enter into the freedom and light of Christianity.

Is The Qur'an the Word of God?

by Robert A. Morey
© 1996 Research and Education Foundation

When you pick up a copy of the Qur'an, several questions should immediately come to your mind:

These questions are good and necessary. But how can we find answers to them? There are two different approaches to answering these questions

1. The Muslim approach depends upon secondary sources which were put together generations after Muhammad died. The Sira and the Hadith supply the Muslim with the official answers to these questions. Thus while the Qur'an does not answer the questions above, the Hadith does. Note: Muslims are guilty of circular reasoning at this point: They prove the Qur'an by the Hadith and then prove the Hadith by the Qur'an!

2. The secular approach focuses on the issue of primary sources. It questions the veracity of the Traditions as well as the veracity of the Qur'an. It does not want material written in the ninth or tenth century telling them what was written in the seventh century. They want actual material from the seventh and eight century. The failure of the Muslims to come up with anything has great implications.

Part I: The Muslim Approach

The Hadith is sometimes called the second inspiration with the Qur'an being the first inspiration. The Hadith claims to be the record of Muhammad's exposition and application of the Qur'an, biographical material on Muhammad, and the history of the writing, collection, and composition of the text of the Qur'an. (Bukhari vol. VI, no. 564). The authority and authenticity of the Qur'an depends entirely upon the integrity and teachings of the Hadith. In other words, the Qur'an is valid only if the Hadith is true. If it is false, then the Qur'an is automatically false.

A. The Integrity of Muhammad

The integrity of Muhammad is all important. He was either whom he claimed to be, a liar or a nut case (mentally insane or demon possessed). This is why the Traditions went to such great lengths to create a model of Muhammad that depicts him as a "super man" as well as a prophet. What do we find in the Hadith?

1. Muhammad's credentials for prophethood are unacceptable. The two prominent Hadithic "proofs" of his prophethood came from pagan ideas of what a shaman would look like and the manner in which he would be inspired.

A. The Hadith explains that when the Qur'an refers to the seal of prophethood being upon Muhammad (Surah 33:40), the seal was a large hairy mole on his back. This is found in both Bukhari (vol. 1, no. 189; vol. IV, no. 741) and Muslim (vol. IV, no. 5790,5793). This mole was the physical proof that Muhammad was a prophet according to Tabari and other later Muslim authorities. They even claimed that the mole was a fulfillment of such Scriptures as Isa. 9:6. We cannot accept this proof. While such ideas can be found in pagan traditions from many primitive cultures, it is not a part of the religion of Abraham, the prophets, the apostles or Jesus.

 

B. Both the Bukhari and Muslim Hadiths describe what happened to Muhammad when inspiration came upon him. He heard ringing in his ears, fell to the ground, turned red, sweated profusely, made moaning sounds, spit ran from his mouth, etc. While ancient pagans placed a great deal of importance on such things, they were never a part of the biblical prophets.

2. He failed a direct test of his claim to prophethood. He was asked to explain why a child will look like one parent as opposed to looking like the other. He claimed that Gabriel came and gave the inspired answer. See Bukhari vol. IV: no. 546. So, we are dealing with revelation and not just his personal opinion. He said that the child will look like which parent reaches his or her sexual climax first. The study of genetics and DNA forever disproves this idea.

3. He believed in magic, the evil eye, amulets, omens, spells, etc. He was superstitious about many things and made up weird rules about bathroom duties (Bukhari vol. 1, no. 144; vol. IV, nos. 110, 111; vol. VII, nos. 636, 648, 649, 650; Muslim vol. I, no. 458; vol. III, 3 nos. 5424, 5427). He was afraid whenever a strong wind blew (Bukhari vol. II, no. 144) and of eclipses (Bukhari vol. II, no. 167).

While this is bad enough, the Hadith tells us that Muhammad was at times under magical spells, i.e., bewitched, and told lies and did things while under those spells. (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 400, 490; VII, no. 660; Muslim vol. III, no. 5428) Once it is admitted that he told lies and did things while under satanic influence, then the entire Qur'an could be satanic in origin.

Later Muslim authorities even went so far as to say that he was at one time inspired by Satan to put some verses into the Qur'an. They were later removed because they were Satanic verses. (Surah 53:19,20)

4. The Hadith tells us that "Allah made the prophet wealthy through conquests." (Bukhari III: no. 495), Was he in it for the money? Some Muslims are ignorant of this Hadith and claim that Muhammad was poor like Jesus.

5. He did not keep the rules he imposed upon others. He had more wives than four (Bukhari vol. I, no. 268) and did not write a will (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 3,4).

6. He commanded that anyone who fell away from Islam should be murdered. (Bukhari vol IV, no. 260; vol. V, no. 630) Volume IX is filled with death threats against apostasy (pgs. 10,11, 26, 34, 45, 50, 57, 341, 342). These Hadiths contradict other Hadiths which say that no one ever leaves Islam (Bukhari vol. I, nos. 6, 48).

The punishment of apostates reveals that he did not believe in the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press. The fact that he commanded that no churches or synagogues be allowed in Arabia is a telling argument that he was not a man of peace.

7. The Hadith reveals that Muhammad had to ask forgiveness for sin more than seventy times a day. (Bukhari vol. I, nos. 711; 78; vol. V, no. 724) Since Muslims believe that prophets must be sinless, this means that Muhammad was not a prophet.

8. He was guilty of false prophecies.
    1 - The 100 yr. Prophecy. (Bukhari vol. I, no. 539)
    2. The end of the world predictions. (Bukhari vol. IV, no.401)

9. He kissed and caressed the idol of black stone set into the wall of the Kabah. (Muslim vol. II, no. 2912, 2916) We cannot imagine Abraham or Jesus kissing a pagan idol and then commanding their followers to do so.

10. While Muslims claim that Muhammad was illiterate in order to make the Qur'an a miracle, the Hadith records that he could in fact read and write. (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 393)

II. The Teachings of Muhammad

Just as the Hadith gives us good reasons to question the integrity of Muhammad, his teachings recorded in the Hadith give us even more reason to doubt he was a prophet. The following is a brief list of some of the strange and absurd teachings of Muhammad.

1. Adam was 60 cubits tall! (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 543) Then how tall was Eve? If they were that tall, how did we get here? Is it medically possible for him to be that tall?

2. Muhammad was a dog hater. He thought that angels could not enter a house if a dog was there and that black dogs were devils. Thus he ordered dogs to be killed and forbid the selling of dogs. (Bukhari vol- IV, nos. 539, 540; Muslim vol. I, nos. 551, 552; vol. II, nos. 3803, 3829)

3. Satan lives in the nose over night. He can be flushed out if you snort water up and then out the nose. (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 516; Muslim vol. I, no. 462) How big is Satan? Is he in everyone's nose? Is he omnipresent?

4. Muhammad forbade the game of chess! (Muslim vol. IV, no. 5612) This makes no sense to me.

5. People turn into rats, pigs and monkeys. (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 524, 627; Muslim vol. IV, no. 7135). Abraham's father was turned into an animal (Bukhari vol. IV, no.569)

6. Muslims have one intestine while non-Muslims have seven! (Muslim vol. 111, no. 5113-5115)

7. If you lift up your eyes towards heaven while praying, your eyes will be snatched out! (Muslim vol. III, nos. 862-863)

8. One wing of a fly has poison but the other wing has the antidote to it. (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 537)

9. We should drink camel urine as a medicine. (Bukhari vol. I, no. 234)

10. Fevers are from the fire of hell and can be cooled by water. (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 483, 486)

III. The Text of the Qur'an

Who wrote out the Qur'an? On what materials? Who put the Qur'an together? Where did he find the materials to do this? Why did he do this? Were others putting together their own Qur'ans? Did these Qur'ans contradict each other? How did one text gain dominance over all the others? What happened to the other Qur'ans? Only the Hadith gives us answers to these questions.

1. From Bukhari vol. VI, no. 509 we learn the following things:

a. Muhammad did not collect the fragments of the Qur'an and make them into a manuscript.
   b. Some of the Companions of Muhammad were killed in battle and whatever surahs they had memorized died with them.
    c. Abu Bakr asked Zaid to collect the fragments of the Qur'an and arrange them into a manuscript.
    d. Zaid hesitated because the task was harder than sifting through an entire mountain.
    e. The task was difficult because of:

1. the fragile nature of the fragments: palm leaves, stones, bones, etc.

2. the faulty memories of men (vol. VI, no. 527)

3. the false claims of men (vol. VI, no 523)

4. conflicting versions of the Qur'an (vol VI, no. 510, 514, 523)

5. contradictory orders of the surahs (vol VI, no. 515, 518)

6. God caused verses to be abrogated or forgotten. (vol. IV, nos. 57, 62, 69, 299, 393; VI, nos. 510, 511, 527,

7. Muhammad himself forgot and missed various parts of the Qur'an (vol. VI, no. 558, 562)

2. Even after the manuscript was put together, they found that they had missed some verses (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 62, no. 510).

3. They tried to burn all the other Qur'anic fragments and manuscripts. (VI, no. 510)

4. Uthman is usually credited for making the present text. (vol. I, no. 63; vol. IV, no. 709; vol. VI, nos. 507, 510)

It is clear that the text of the Qur'an was not perfect and that conflicts arose which made it necessary to make one uniform text. That Uthman tried to burn all the other Qur'ans is clear. Yet, there are thousands of variant readings and there remains controversies about verses such as the one about stoning which were omitted by mistake.

IV. The Contradictions and Variant Readings in the Hadith

One problem all Muslims face is that there are contradictions in the Hadith, conflicting readings and abrogations of Hadiths (Bukhari vol. I, nos. 42, 47, 74, 78, 80, 81, 86, 102, 107, 112, 159 vs 160, 161, 179, 180; vol. III, nos., 159, 161; Muslim vol. I, nos. 682, 685 ,689, 699; vol. II, nos. 2547, 2548). The footnote on Bukhari vol. III, no. 159 says, "Hadith no. 159 contradicts the Hadith of Al-Hassan." Evidently Allah was not capable of preserving a perfect text of the Hadith. On what grounds then can we assume that the Qur'an was kept perfect?

V. The Inspiration of the Qur'an

The mistakes in the Qur'an are well known. I list over one hundred such problems in Islamic Invasion. The following is a few of the more glaring problems that the average person has no problem seeing. All we need is ONE factual error to disprove the Qur'an. We are not talking about conflicts with theories but with brute facts.

1. Theological errors: The Qur'an is mistaken about what Christians and Jews believe. (Surah 5:73, 75; 9:30).

2. Historical mistakes: the Samaritans (Surah 20:85, 97), Alexander the Great, etc.

3. Grammatical errors: Arabic scholars point out errors in Surahs 2:177, 192; 3:59; 4:162; 5:69; 7:160; 13:28; 20:66; 63:10, etc.

4. Linguistical errors: Even though the Qur'an claims to be in pure Arabic (12:2; 13:37; 16:105; 4l:44; 42:7), it has foreign words.

5. Scientific errors: sun in muddy pond (Surah 18:86), mountains never shake (Surah 16:15; 21:31; 31: 10; 78:6,7; 88:19)

6. Moral errors: Muhammad justifying the taking of his daughter-in-law (Surah 33:36,38)

7. Mathematical errors: Did creation take six days (Surahs 7:51; 10:3) or eight days (Surah 41:9, 10, 12)?

8. Chronological errors: Puts Muslim vocabulary into mouth of Patriarch, prophets, etc. (Surah 2:129133; 7:124,126, etc.). The words did not exist in Hebrew or Arabic at that time.

9. Biblical errors: The convolution of names, places, events and times. Couldn't even get the name of Jesus right. He was the Son of God who died for our sins on the cross according to the Bible. The Qur'an contradicts this.

10. Political errors; Commands Jihad -- against apostates and non-Muslims (Surah 4:91; 5:33; 9:5)

Conclusion

The Hadith and the Qur'an stand or fall together. The facts are clear that they are not from God and are false works.

Part II The Secular Approach

Modern scholars such as Crook, Crone, Wansbrough, Rippin, etc. are giving us a totally different model of the origins of Islam and the Qur'an. Once you put aside the Qur'an and the Hadith, you begin to see that Islam created the Qur'an instead of the Qur'an creating Islam. Islam created a mythological Muhammad who is nothing like the historical Muhammad, if that was his true name. The Qur'an had multiple authors from various locations who combined different legends and materials to make the stories found in it. It took 150-200 years for the Qur'an to appear. Muhammad never saw the present Qur'an and would disown it if shown it. He is not the source of it. This explains the contradictions and mistakes in it.

1. No references to Muhammad as a prophet have been found in contemporary literature, rock inscriptions or coins.

2. No manuscripts of the Qur'an exist before 150-200 years after Muhammad. This allows opportunity for myths and legends to arise.

3. The claim that Uthman compiled the Qur'an has no evidence to support it.

4. The claim that two "original" Uthman Qur'ans can be seen at Topkapi, Turkey and in Tashkent, Russia is false. The manuscripts are in the Kufic script which did not exist in the 7th Century. They are clearly from the 9th Century and are in "landscape" format which was not used in the 7th century.

5. The present text of Qur'an came from multiple authors using erroneous legends, myths, and stories. It has many additions, deletions, variant readings, and no primary source materials to support it. It is thus a corrupt text and cannot be trusted to tell us what Muhammad really taught or did.

6. The text and stories of the Hadith are as corrupt as the Qur'an. Where is the evidence to support its claims?

Scientific Errors In The Qur'an

by Robert A. Morey
© 1996 Research and Education Foundation

If the Qur'an is the infallible Word of God, then it stands to reason that it would not contain factual errors of science. By "factual errors" we mean errors that can be physically examined. We are not talking about contradictions between scientific theories and the Qur'an. We are talking about hard evidence that can be checked out.

But first, there is a question we must answer: "is it legitimate to judge the Qur'an?" Many Muslims believe in the Qur'an as a blind leap of faith. They really do not care if it is filled with mistakes and contradictions. As far as they are concerned, they were born Muslim and they will die Muslim. The more closed minded they are, the more fanatical they become in their religion. When ignorance unites with arrogance, fanaticism is born.

We pity those whose religion is only the product of an accident of birth and culture. They blindly follow whatever religion they were born into. How sad it is to have an unexamined faith; a faith that cannot stand up to reason and science; a faith that merely shouts slogans, stamps its feet and beats its breast in a mindless mob. They do not believe in Islam because it is true. To them Islam is true because they believe it.

Thankfully, there are millions of Muslims today who have received a university education and understand that an unexamined faith is a worthless faith. They are open minded to scientific facts and evidence. They want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Setting of the Sun

One of the questions which puzzled the ancient Arabs was, "Where did the sun go when night time came?" The Qur'an gave them Allah's answer.

We agree with Muslim scholars that Zul-qarnain refers to Alexander the Great (see Yusuf Ali's appendix on this subject in his translation of the Qur'an). According to this surah, Alexander the Great traveled west until he found out what happened to the sun. It went down into and under the murky waters of a pond. When it was completely covered by the water, darkness fell upon the earth.

To the early Muslims, this surah gave the divine answer as to why darkness fell when the sun set in the West. They assumed that the sun, like the moon, was the size perceived by the human eye, about the size of a basketball. Darkness came when with a mighty hissing roar it went down under the dark waters of a pond. They boldly and proudly proclaimed that this marvelous answer proved that the Qur'an was indeed the Word of God.

Today, modern Muslims are quite embarrassed by this passage and try to ignore it or to quickly dismiss it as poetry. But the passage is not part of a poem. Thus it cannot be dismissed as figurative language or poetic license. In the context, it is part of a historical narrative which relates several historical incidences in the life of Alexander the Great.

The mistake was based on the erroneous assumption that the earth was flat. The authors of the Qur'an did not know that the earth was a sphere which revolved around the sun.

The reader must ask himself if he is prepared to believe and to defend the Qur'an in this passage. Either the sun sets in a pond or it doesn't. It is either one way or the other. There can be no middle ground, no compromise, no evading the issue. If you agree with us that the sun is shining on the other side of the earth and thus it does not go down into murky water, then you must also agree with us that the Qur'an contains scientific errors.

"So what?" you ask. "Who cares!" you cry. Only those who are brave enough to seek the truth will care. Those who are intellectually lazy or dishonest will close their eyes and pretend to see nothing.

It only takes one error to disprove the Qur'an. That's right. Just one little error and the whole book goes down in defeat! You have just discovered one irrefutable error in the Qur'an. What are you going to do about it?

There is only one place you can turn for the truth about God. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Accept Him as your Savior and Lord. To find out more truth on Islam, contact us: