Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
Interpreting the Koran
Before reading actual passages from the Koran, it is worth taking a moment to consider the typical build-up that Muslims give when introducing it. For example, The Koran for Dummies begins with the following tribute: [1]
- The Jews and Christians asked Muhammad to bring some miracles as proof of the divine inspiration he claimed to receive from God. After all, if Muhammad was a prophet, then he should be able to perform miraculous magic, like Prophet Moses, or instantly cure the sick, like Jesus. The Koran responds to this challenge by exhibiting the highest form of literary Arabic ever to appear in the history of the language.
The majestic words of the Koran changed the face of the Arabic language, outclassing all the famous poetry that was at its height before the Koranic revelation. To this day, the Koran serves as the standard by which all other Arabic is judged.
- The book’s language proves especially remarkable since it was transmitted through Prophet Muhammad, who was illiterate and was not known for his recital of poetry…
In short, the primary miracle and proof that defines Muhammad’s prophethood is the Koran itself.
After an accolade like this, one would expect clarity from the Koran, as well as a transformative experience. Unfortunately, such expectations are deeply disappointed. Although the Koran repeatedly claims that it is clear, [2] anyone attempting to read it in any language will quickly find it jumbled, inconsistent, and confusing. It is so jumbled and confusing that The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran introduces its first lengthy Koranic quote with the following disclaimer: [3]
Experiencing the Koran has been compared to navigating a wild river.
- It swirls and twists and turns, then doubles back from where it came…and then, just when one thinks one knows where the river is going, it curves yet again in a new direction entirely.
That metaphor may well be an oversimplification
- of the text of the Koran…although one must always remember that Muslims believe that any explanation of the text is an oversimplification…
a great deal of the text remains, from verse to verse, entirely unpredictable and more than a little intimidating
- [for] the first-time reader.
After reading a few surahs, it quickly becomes apparent why the Koran’s interpretation is such an important issue, and why it has been interpreted in so many different ways. For example, in a section describing Jews and Christians, the Koran states the following:
[3.113]
- YUSUF ALI: Not all of them are alike:
Of the People of the Book are a portion that stand (for the right):
- They rehearse the Signs of Allah all night long, and they prostrate themselves in adoration.
[3.114] They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten (in emulation) in (all) good works: They are in the ranks of the righteous.
[3.115] Of the good that they do, nothing will be rejected of them; for Allah knoweth well those that do right.
These verses imply that there were a substantial number of Jews and Christians who lived according to the will of Allah, independently of Muhammad and the Koran. And yet, the Koran has many long and scathing rebukes against all Jews and Christians. For example:
[2.145] YUSUF ALI:
- Even if thou
[4]
- wert to bring to the people of the Book all the Signs (together), they would not follow Thy Qibla
[5]
- …If thou after the knowledge hath reached thee, wert to follow their (vain) desires, – then wert thou indeed (clearly) in the wrong.
[2.146] PICKTHAL:
- Those unto whom We gave the Scripture recognize (this revelation
[6]
- ) as they recognize their sons. But lo! A party of them
[7]
- knowingly conceals the truth.
- …
[2.159] YUSUF ALI:
- Those who conceal the clear (Signs) We have sent down, and the Guidance, after We have made it clear for the people in the Book, – on them shall be Allah’s curse…
[2.160]
- Except those who repent and make amends and openly declare (the Truth)
[8]
- …
[2.174] YUSUF ALI:
- Those who conceal Allah’s revelations in the Book, and purchase for them a miserable profit, – they swallow into themselves naught but Fire…Grievous will be their penalty.
This implies that anyone who ignores “Allah’s revelations in the Book,” namely the Koran, will be rejected by Allah. But this is exactly what Jews and Christians do, unless they convert to Islam and leave their respective faiths.
The only way to reconcile these two sets of verses is to say that it is possible for Jews and Christians to live righteously if they have never heard of the Koran, but the minute they reject Islam, they become cursed by Allah and deserve the utmost contempt. This is exactly how Muslims interpret these verses, as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran explains:
- Islam specifically acknowledges that pious…Christians who do as Allah commands will gain entrance to Paradise (2:62). All those who persist in worshipping associate gods [that is, the Christian Trinity] after hearing the message of the One God, however, will go to hell.
[9]
- …
- The Koran…explains quite clearly…that many will ignore this call,
will continue to worship their own low desires
- , and will in this way become the authors of their own doom.
[10]
- …
- Their skins, once burned off, will be replaced:
- We will make the rejectors of Our revelations suffer in the hell fire.
As soon as the fire destroys their skins, We will give them new skins so that they may suffer more of the torment. [Allah] is Majestic and All-wise
- . (4:56)
[11]
These descriptors for Allah might be more accurate if “sadistic” was substituted for “Majestic and All-wise.” An interesting facet of Islamic theology is that Satan does not control Hell; Allah does.
After these curses, slanders, and horrifying images, this “Idiot’s” book kindly reassures Christians that they can expect “No intimidation, no harassment, no psychological manipulations, [and] no subliminal influence” [12] from Muslims.
While Muslims contend they have explained the Koran’s contradictions about “the people of the Book,” reality does not confirm their explanation. It is hard to imagine that Mother Theresa or Billy Graham could be accused of worshipping “their own low desires,” but the Koran teaches Muslims that anyone who rejects Islam is in rebellion to Allah, and is therefore eternally doomed to horrible torment.
The Koran’s approach to “the people of the Book” makes no sense in other ways as well. For example, its guidance on how to live differs significantly from that of the Jewish Tanakh [13] (essentially, the Old Testament) and the Christian New Testament. Its stories of Biblical characters are also quite different. If the Koran is true, then everyone who lived by the Tanakh and New Testament before the Koran’s revelation had to be, by necessity, misled. Therefore, except for the prophets who were inspired directly by God, it would have been impossible for any Jew or Christian to live righteously.
The Islamic answer to this point is two-fold:
1. The Koran is always correct; therefore, any differences between it and the Tanakh or New Testament come from corruptions to those earlier works.
2.>The Koran, as well as the Torah and Gospel, always existed in a single grand “Mother of the Book”[14]created by Allah, which was revealed in sections by the prophets. Therefore Islam (submission to Allah) always existed. Hence it has always been possible for people to be true Muslims.
To Muslims, these explanations are airtight. From a more objective perspective, however, the idea of a single religion always existing in its present state, even if the content of its foundational texts changed over time, is highly doubtful. Furthermore, this notion falls apart as soon as one actually reads the Torah and Gospel and learns how they were written. With the exception of Genesis, they were obviously biographical accounts of human events. Therefore, it is impossible for those books to have existed before their dates of human authorship. No one could possibly have lived according to their guidance before their authors wrote them, even if the authors were divinely inspired, because they record the actions of men.
The Koran’s depiction of these books is very different, as The Koran for Dummies reveals: [15]The Koran views the Bible and Torah in the following way:
Moses received divine revelation in the form of the Torah. Jesus received divine revelation in the form of the Gospel. [16]Both of these Books were corrupted by human changes, and are therefore no longer reliable as the words of God. Each Book does contain within it the original Truth, but not all of it.
The Koran sets the record straight by including the portions of Torah and Gospel that are valid and still relevant, while correcting mistakes and excluding that which is no longer relevant.
The fact of the matter is that neither the Torah nor the Gospel is written in a form of a “divine revelation.” Instead, they are biographies or histories.
The Koran contends that the Torah and Gospel were “corrupted” to serve the selfish interests of Jewish and Christian priests, but such a goal would not require these books to be completely rewritten in a different style. Moreover, while there are many ancient copies of the Torah and Gospel, none of them indicate that were ever any changes of the magnitude implied by the Koran. Thus, while the Koran’s explanation of the Torah and Gospel may seem plausible to people who have not read them, it is absurd to anyone who has.
Even worse, by calling itself a replacement for the Christian and Hebrew Bibles, instead of a supplement to them, the Koran causes Muslims to lose a vast amount of essential information.
For example, the Koran gives almost no historical context to the Biblical characters it refers to. If a student wanted to know whether Jonah lived before Elijah, or even whether Elijah lived before Elisha, the Tanakh is the only reference with answers.
Also, the Koran’s omissions regarding Jesus are glaringly evident, especially to Christians, for whom the Koranic Jesus is a nearly unrecognizable cipher with no message beyond Muhammad’s own. In fact, the primary messages of Jesus’ ministry, on empathy and the redemptive power of sacrificial love, are completely lost. In effect, the Koran pays lip service to Jesus while completely ignoring the lessons he taught.
Another way the Koranic Jesus becomes nearly unrecognizable is in the Koran’s adamant declaration that Jesus is not the son of God, but just another prophet. As it says in Surah 19, entitled Mary (Maryam):
[19.35] YUSUF ALI: It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter,He only says to it, “Be”, and it is. This is how the Koran says Mary became pregnant. What is strange about this claim is that the Koranic description of Jesus’ conception is not fundamentally different from the Biblical account because, in both cases, Mary becomes pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Christians talk about Jesus being the son of God in a metaphorical sense rather than through the physical act of intercourse, but Muslims choose to hear this phrase in a carnal sense and then accuse Christians of blaspheming God by believing that He physically impregnated a woman. As The Koran for Dummies [17] says:
This passage [18] rejects the Christian doctrine of God having a begotten son. The Koran argues that God is above and beyond the need for having a son.
God doesn’t have parents, nor does he produce children.
But if one uses the metaphor of a child having a mother and father, then, according to the Koran’s own account, if Mary was Jesus’ mother, then who other than God was Jesus’ father? In fact, when Muslims are not busy castigating Christians for calling Jesus the son of God, they themselves say the same thing. Several hadiths record that Muhammad himself said so: [19]
Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55, Number 651:…I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “I am the nearest of all the people to the son of Mary [Jesus], and all the prophets are paternal brothers, and there has been no prophet between me and him (i.e. Jesus).”
In other words, Muslims are quite comfortable with the metaphor as long as Muhammad can also call himself a son of God.
Moses holds up better in the Koran than Jesus, but even he is transformed into Muhammad’s own mouthpiece. For example, The Koran for Dummies says: [20]
The prophethood of Moses in the Koran begins with Moses receiving revelation from God as he stands in the valley of Tuwa, or the Hallowed Valley. Here,Moses learns of his prophecy and receives three teachings:
1.To believe in no deity except God alone
2.To establish prayers as a means of remembering the Divine
3.To believe in the Last Hour when every soul will be rewarded according to its deeds.
These teachings are much more recognizable as the message of Muhammad, not the Biblical Moses, particularly with regard to the Last Hour, a concept never mentioned in the Torah. [21]
Islam’s explanations also make problems for the Koran itself. Muslims claim that it is an eternal book, yet the Koran was clearly written in sections designed to deal with events as they unfolded. It even reverses its own guidance at times, most notably with regard to alcohol, usury, and, according to Sunnis, temporary marriage. [22] And yet, Muslim orthodoxy claims that the Koran was written since the dawn of time, as a part of the “Mother of the Book.” The only way Muslims can reconcile this inconsistency is to claim that everything that happens in this world is pre-ordained by an all-knowing Allah. If Allah knows what will happen throughout history, then he can write a complete book at the beginning of time and reveal it in sections as history unfolds, strategically changing policy as needed. This explains the strong Islamic belief in predestination, complete with a last day that is already scripted out in detail.
Of course, accepting this notion of predestination creates other problems. For example, if everything is pre-ordained, then how can anyone be held responsible for their actions? That is, how can Jews and Christians be blamed for rejecting Islam if doing so was pre-ordained by Allah Himself? The modern Islamic answer is that predestination is not really predestination, but actually “God’s foreknowledge.” [23] Therefore, Allah can still change future events based on what people do in the moment. To see a fuller discussion of this convoluted explanation, see The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, Chapter 8, in the section entitled All Things Great and Small.
Ultimately, though, the explanation about “God’s foreknowledge” does not ring true. The Hadith states Islam’s actual position quite clearly, through numerous examples such as:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 430: [24]…Allah’s Apostle…said…“…a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days, and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things. He is ordered to write down his (i.e. the new creature’s) deeds, his livelihood, his (date of) death, and whether he will be blessed or wretched (in religion). Then the soul is breathed into him.”
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 4, Number 143: [25] The Prophet said, “If anyone of you on having sexual relations with his wife said (and he must say it before starting) ‘In the name of Allah. O Allah! Protect us from Satan and also protect what you bestow upon us (i.e. the coming offspring) from Satan,’ and if it is destined that they should have a child then, Satan will never be able to harm that offspring. ”
Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 40, Number 4686: [26]…the Apostle…[said]: Allah created Adam, then passed His right hand over his back, and brought forth from it his offspring, saying: ‘I have these for Paradise and these will do the deeds of those who go to Paradise.’ He then passed His hand over his back and brought forth from it his offspring, saying: ‘I have created these for Hell, and they will do the deeds of those who go to Hell.’”
A man asked: ‘What is the good of doing anything, Apostle of Allah?’ The Apostle…said: ‘When Allah creates a servant for Paradise, He employs him in doing the deeds of those who will go to Paradise…for which He will bring him into Paradise. But when He creates a servant for Hell, He employs him in doing the deeds of those who will go to Hell…for which He will bring him into Hell.’
Sahih Bukhar, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 621: [27]…Allah’s Apostle said, “Adam and Moses argued with each other. Moses said to Adam. ‘You are Adam whose mistake expelled you from Paradise.’ Adam said to him, ‘You are Moses whom Allah selected as His Messenger and as the one to whom He spoke directly; yet you blame me for a thing which had already been written in my fate before my creation?’ ” Allah’s Apostle said twice, “So, Adam overpowered Moses.”
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 466: [28]…The Prophet was asked about the offspring of pagans [who die in infancy]…; so he said, “Allah knows what sort of deeds they would have done.”
According to these hadiths, Muhammad claimed that Allah dictates everything that a person will do in his or her life before the person is even born. And even an infant is held accountable for these deeds – it makes no difference if the child dies before carrying them out.
It is also worth noting that Muhammad’s logic in the last hadith is nonsensical: If Allah has perfect foreknowledge, then Allah should be able to anticipate whether a fetus will live to birth and, if born, what it will do before dying on a predetermined date as either a child or an adult.
Regardless of the logical flaws in these hadiths, modern Muslims have clearly invented the fiction of “God’s foreknowledge” to keep their version of God from appearing cruel and sadistic for intentionally creating people who are doomed even before birth. Strangely, Muslims are willing to ignore the hadiths themselves to do so.
Even the fiction of “God’s foreknowledge” does not avoid the conclusion that Allah predestined every action of every person. If Allah created the world, and had perfect foreknowledge from the dawn of time, then he controlled everyone’s actions from the dawn of time. That is, if he wanted people to do different things, then he could have set things up from the beginning to produce the desired results. This takes us back to the original ethical question, which the hadiths themselves express through the voice of Adam: how can people be justly punished for performing their roles in a plan that Allah created? Why is Allah not held accountable if the unjust actions of individuals fulfill Allah’s plan?
This is the point at which Muslims completely disconnect from logic and go back to “The Koran is always right” and “Allah can do whatever He wants, and if this is what He has done, then, by definition, it must be righteous.”
Another way the Koran reveals its inconsistency is in its guidance on Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians[29]. For example, consider the following passages:
[2.62] YUSUF ALI: Those who believe (in the Qur’an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians, [30] – any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
[2.256] YUSUF ALI: Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks…
[3.187] PICKTHAL: And (remember) when Allah laid a charge on those who had received the Scripture [Jews and Christians] (He said): Ye are to expound it to mankind and not to hide it. But they flung it behind their backs and bought thereby a little gain. Verily evil is that which they have gained thereby.
[9.29] PICKTHAL: Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth [i.e., Islam], until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.
[9.30] PICKTHAL: And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!
How can these messages form a consistent set of instructions? On one hand, Muslims are told that there is no compulsion in religion, and that believing Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians have nothing to fear on the Last Day. On the other hand, Muslims are told to fight those who defy what Muhammad (as the messenger of Allah) commands, and allows them to relent only after those Infidels pay a special tribute to the Muslims after “being brought low.” This section then goes on to say that all Jews and Christians are perverse, with Allah himself fighting against them.
Obviously, one cannot believe the first set of verses without doubting the second, and vice-versa.
These kinds of inconsistencies are so frequent in the Koran they motivated Islamic authorities, as well as the Koran itself, to establish an interesting rule for interpretation: Whenever verses conflict with each other or with the Old or New Testament, the most recent verses always nullify the older ones. As the Koran says: [31]
[13.38] YUSUF ALI: We did send messengers before thee, and appointed for them wives and children: and it was never the part of a messenger to bring a sign except as Allah permitted (or commanded). For each period is a Book (revealed).
[13.39] Allah doth blot out or confirm what He pleaseth: with Him is the Mother of the Book.
This point is repeated later even more clearly:
[16.101] YUSUF ALI: When We substitute one revelation for another, – and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages), – they say, “Thou art but a forger”: but most of them understand not.
The Koran claims that it may overwrite itself in other verses as well, such as 2.106, 16.101, and 22.52.
As for the contradictory Koranic policies toward non-Muslims, the following hadith demonstrates the ultimate verdict: convert or else. [32]
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 59, Number 658:… The Prophet sent some cavalry towards Najd and they brought a man from the tribe of Banu Hanifa who was called Thumama bin Uthal. They fastened him to one of the pillars of the Mosque. The Prophet went to him and said, “What have you got, O Thumama?” He replied, “I have got a good thought, O Muhammad!…if you should set me free, you would do a favor to one who is grateful, and if you want property, then ask me whatever wealth you want.” He was left till the next day when the Prophet said to him, “What have you got, Thumama?” He said, “What I told you, i.e. if you set me free, you would do a favor to one who is grateful.” The Prophet left him till the day after, when he said, “What have you got, O Thumama?” He said, “I have got what I told you.” On that the Prophet said, “Release Thumama.” So he (i.e. Thumama) went to a garden of date-palm trees near to the Mosque, took a bath and then entered the Mosque and said, “I testify that None has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and also testify that Muhammad is His Apostle!”
More generally, the Koran tells readers to use chronology to determine which of its commands are actually in force. Unfortunately, the Koran is not organized chronologically, nor does it indicate chronology. Thus, it is often difficult to determine which commands cancel which. As Pickthal states in the Introduction to his translation:
The arrangement [of the Koran] is not easy to understand. Revelations of various dates and on different subjects are to be found together in one surah; verses of Madinah revelation [which came after Muhammad established his government in Medina] are found in Meccan surahs [composed prior to Muhammad’s exodus to Medina]; some of the Madinah surahs, though of late revelation, are placed first and the very early Meccan surahs at the end.
Interpreting the Koran (Continued)
The chronology of the Koran’s conflicting verses is such a complex issue that it has spawned a field of study called the Science of Abrogation, where Islamic scholars determine which verses supersede, or abrogate, others. This field is extremely important because, according to many if not most Islamic scholars, abrogated verses have no force, even though they remain in the Koran. According to these scholars, the peaceful verses quoted earlier, which come from the time when Muslims were a threatened minority living in Mecca, were abrogated by the more hostile verses, which came from the time when Muhammad ruled Medina and expanded his power across much of the Arabian peninsula.
Instead of using chronology, the Koran sorts its surahs in order of importance, [1] from most to least, according to the opinions of its compilers. If one investigates how the Koran was compiled, things get even murkier: It was assembled, years after Muhammad’s death, from the scraps of paper, leaves, bone, etc. on which individual revelations were written. Many of the chapters, particularly the longer ones, are clearly hodgepodges where the compilers did the best they could, given the difficulty of their task. As one reads portions of the Koran, one can almost visualize the passages being cut and pasted together in a best-guess manner. [2]
It should now be apparent that one of the greatest challenges to understanding the Koran is the Koran itself. According to Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography at Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany):
- …
the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible.
- This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible —
if it can’t even be understood in Arabic — then it’s not translatable. [3]
How do Muslims respond to this claim? They answer with a masterful spin job that turns incomprehensibility into proof of superhuman brilliance and depth. As The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran explains[4]:
- One important hadith relates that the Koran has, besides its (translatable) surface meanings, deeper intrinsic meanings…
meanings that are not apparent to every reader, but only to a select few.
- Thus, the ultimate meaning of the Koran is not to be found in any translation, but in the Arabic text itself, a text that defies simple word-for-word rendering.
It appears that the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes has not reached the Islamic world; otherwise they would recognize in these words the logic of those clever tailors, who convinced the Emperor that his “clothes” were so refined that only the most brilliant minds could see them.
The “deeper intrinsic meanings” claimed by Islam’s apologists also raise other questions: If there is anyone who can understand these meanings, why would they be unable to describe them to others in terms that others can understand? Conversely, if no one can explain those meanings, then how can anyone claim to understand them? And if no one understands them, then how can anyone claim to know that these meanings even exist?
On the other hand, one would think that the Koran’s words would have made sense to the people who originally compiled them. Thus the Koran’s incomprehensibility may actually prove the point made earlier: The language of the Koran is only imperfectly understood, after being out of popular use for 1400 years, and the portions of the text that appear incomprehensible depend on aspects of the ancient language that are now lost. Where the meanings of the language have been lost, the meanings of the Koran have also been lost.
This problem runs even deeper because a recent discovery of early Korans shows that its content evolved over time. While this discovery comes as no surprise to Biblical paleographers, it creates a crisis in Islam because it directly contradicts the fundamental Muslim belief that the Koran is the “literal and unaltered” word of Allah. As Toby Lester relates in his 1999 article, What is the Koran?: [5]
- In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, in Yemen, laborers working in a loft between the structure’s inner and outer roofs stumbled across…an unappealing mash of old…documents…[T]he laborers gathered up the manuscripts…and set them aside…where they would probably have been forgotten…were it not for Qadhi Isma’il al-Akwa’, then the president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority, who realized the potential importance of the find.
- Al-Akwa’ sought international assistance in examining and preserving the fragments, and in 1979 managed to interest a visiting German scholar, who…persuaded the German government to organize and fund a restoration project. Soon after the project began, it became clear that the hoard was a fabulous example of what is sometimes referred to as a “paper grave”…the resting place for…fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran…
Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam’s first two centuries — they were fragments…of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What’s more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text [that] are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran…is…the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God.
- …
- The first person to spend a significant amount of time examining the Yemeni fragments, in 1981, was Gerd-R. Puin …
Puin…recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments, and his preliminary inspection also revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Enticing, too, were the sheets of the scripture written in the rare and early Hijazi Arabic script: pieces of the earliest Korans known to exist, they were also palimpsests — versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off versions. What the Yemeni Korans seemed to suggest…was an evolving text rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D.
- …
…Puin and Von Bothmer have published only a few tantalizingly brief articles…on what they have discovered…They have been reluctant to publish…because they felt that the Yemeni authorities, if they realized the possible implications of the discovery, might refuse them further access.
- Von Bothmer, however, in 1997 finished taking more than 35,000 microfilm pictures of the fragments, and has recently brought the pictures back to Germany. This means that soon Von Bothmer, Puin, and other scholars will finally have a chance to scrutinize the texts and to publish their findings freely…
“So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God’s unaltered word,” [Puin] says. “They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too.
- The Sana’a fragments will help us to do this.”
- Puin is not alone in his enthusiasm. “The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt,” says Andrew Rippin, a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary…
“Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant…These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic text is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed.” [6]
Beyond this recent discovery that the Koran had an “evolving” text, Islam itself records a long history of tamperings and omissions. To glimpse one of these controversies, do an internet search for “Surah al-Walayah,” a disputed surah attributed to the Shiites. Hadiths also record, repeatedly, an apparent omission from the Koran, which Caliph Umar himself declared:
Sahih Bukhari
- , Volume 8, Book 82, Number 816:…
‘Umar said, “I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, ‘We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,’ and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed.
- Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession.”
Sufyan [a remembrancer] added, “I have memorized this narration in this way.”
- ‘Umar added, “Surely Allah’s Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.”
Sahih Bukhari
- , Volume 8, Book 82, Number 817: …
‘Umar sat on the pulpit, …and…, he said, “…Allah sent Muhammad with the Truth and revealed the Holy Book to him, and among what Allah revealed, was the Verse of the Rajam (the stoning of married person…who commits illegal sexual intercourse), and we did recite this Verse and understood and memorized it.
- Allah’s Apostle did carry out the punishment of stoning and so did we after him.
I am afraid that after a long time has passed, somebody will say, ‘By Allah, we do not find the Verse of the Rajam in Allah’s Book,’ and thus they will go astray by leaving an obligation which Allah has revealed…And then we used to recite among the Verses in Allah’s Book: ‘O people! Do not claim to be the offspring of other than your fathers, as it is disbelief (unthankfulness) on your part that you claim to be the offspring of other than your real father.’
- …
Sahih Bukhari
- , Volume 9, Book 92, Number 424:…
‘Umar (in a Friday Khutba-sermon) said, “No doubt, Allah sent Muhammad with the Truth and revealed to him the Book (Quran), and among what was revealed, was the Verse of Ar-Rajm (stoning adulterers to death).’”
Note that Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, book 82, Number 817 actually refers to two omissions, where the second one is a command for offspring to be truthful about their fathers’ identities.
Perhaps the greatest source of Koranic tamperings and omissions was Muhammad himself, who is known to have recited sections of the “perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God,” and then go back and revise those sections on several occasions.
The most famous of Muhammad’s revisions is what has become known as the “Satanic verses,” whose story is told by two of Islam’s earliest writers: al-Tabari, a great Muslim historian, and Ibn Ishaq (704-768), who wrote an authoritative biography of Muhammad entitled Sirat Rasul Muhammad. The story of the Satanic verses is summarized in Islam for Dummies: [7]
- Muhammad met opposition in part because, in attacking polytheism, he was implicitly attacking the religious beliefs of his contemporary’s ancestors.
One of al-Tabari’s accounts says that Muhammad was wishing for a revelation, which would make his situation with his fellow citizens of Mecca less contentious. At this point he recited Sura 53:19-20, “Have you considered al-Lat and al-‘Uzza and Manat the third, the other.”
- Al-Lat simply means “the Goddess.” Al-‘Uzza means “the mighty one” – equated with Venus (the morning star), and very popular among the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. Manat means fate or destiny, which is a key concept of pre-Islamic Arabic religion. These goddesses are referred to as the daughters of Allah, which may originally simply mean “feminine divine beings.” They had shrines in the area of Mecca in pre-Islamic times. According to al-Tabari’s version – which I remind you is disputed
– Muhammad added, “these are exalted females (or literally, great birds) whose intercession is to be desired,” which seemed to allow a subordinate role for the three goddesses.
- And why not, after all? Islam accepted the existence of various beings between people and God, such as angels and jinn, so why not also accept these beings as a conciliatory measure to the inhabitants of Mecca who were delighted by Muhammad’s words. However, this would have been to return to polytheism.
Subsequently, Gabriel informed Muhammad that he’d been led astray by Satan. Muhammad deleted the statement about the intercessory role of the goddess and substituted newly revealed verses
- including verse 53:23 that says that the three goddesses are mere names and don’t truly exist. The deleted verses are known as the Satanic verses.
Besides demonstrating the evolving nature of the Koran, this anecdote raises a far deeper issue: Where did the Koran’s inspiration actually come from? Allah, Satan, Gabriel, or Muhammad?
A Muslim would claim that any other verses that were not from Allah would have been edited out on the command of Gabriel, acting on behalf of Allah. To a skeptic, however, such an explanation is less than satisfactory because the Satanic Verses were not the only ones retracted from the Koran, as revealed in the following hadiths:
elled what He wished from that order and decreed that the male should be given the equivalent of the portion of two females, and for the parents one-sixth for each of them, and for one’s wife one-eighth (if the deceased has children) and one-fourth (if he has no children), for one’s husband one-half (if the deceased has no children) and one-fourth (if she has children).”
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 57:…Gabriel informed the Prophet that they (i.e. the martyrs) met their Lord, and He was pleased with them and made them pleased. We used to recite [this message from the martyrs], “Inform our people that we have met our Lord, He is pleased with us and He has made us pleased.” Later on this Quranic Verse was cancelled…
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 69:…There was revealed, about those who were killed at Bir-Mauna, a Quranic Verse we used to recite, but it was cancelled later on…“Inform our people that we have met our Lord. He is pleased with us and He has made us pleased.”
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 59, Number 421:…Allah revealed a Quranic Verse to His Prophet regarding those who had been killed, i.e. the Muslims killed at Bir Ma’una, and we recited the Verse till later it was cancelled. (The Verse was:) ‘Inform our people that we have met our Lord, and He is pleased with us, and we are pleased with Him.”
The last three of these hadiths are particularly interesting because they preserve a specific Koranic verse that was quietly removed from the Koran without any explanation. Presumably, this verse was erased for two reasons:
1.
- It was clearly not in the voice of Allah.
2.
- It violated the Muslim belief that dead souls stay with their bodies in the ground until the Last Day.
However, if this verse violated the fundamental tenets of Islam, and it was given to Muhammad by Gabriel (all messages from Allah were allegedly transferred by Gabriel) then, one must ask: Who is “Gabriel?”
One can understand why many Muslims would rather dispute the authenticity of the “Satanic verses” and these other hadiths than deal with their ramifications.
Web searches on “Surah al-Walayah,” the Satanic Verses, and the above hadiths reveal impressive volleys of accusations and counter-accusations between Muslim sects, particularly Sunnis and Shiites. A thorough read of these references will reveal that, in an effort to keep from discrediting the Koran, Sunni and Shiite leaders have decided to circle the wagons. Officially, they declare that the Koran is the perfect and eternal word of Allah, despite the words of their own Hadith and claims about Surah al-Walayah. They do this because they fear that these debates could call the Koran’s perfection into question and lead Muslims to doubt their faith.
As for the Hadith, there are such deep problems that not even Muslims are scandalized when someone accuses them of being corrupted. In fact, hadiths contradict the Koran so frequently that it is necessary for The Complete Guide to the Koran to explain that: [8]
- In the case of a conflict between the Koran and the Sunna [the life of Muhammad, as recorded in the Hadith], the resolution…is simple and instantaneous: The revealed word of God [the Koran] is what determines the matter.
Regarding hadiths that are neither confirmed nor contradicted by the Koran, Muslims appear to uphold or discredit them depending on what is useful at the moment. If a hadith supports a particular argument that a Muslim is trying to make, the hadith is authoritative. If a hadith is clearly incorrect or makes Islam or Muhammad look evil, it is dismissed as unauthoritative.
Muslims who are more scholarly will attempt to gauge a hadith’s credibility by the witnesses who told it, but this study still does not provide decisive verdicts. Unlike the canonical and apocryphal books of the Bible, there is no way to look at a particular hadith and say with certainty whether it is considered true. Moreover, if Muslims could agree that certain hadiths were not true, one would think that those hadiths could be removed, or at least marked as untrue, because they tend to discredit the entire Hadith.
Because of these doubtful hadiths, Shiites go so far as to reject the authority of the entire Sunni Hadith, as explained on the Shiite website, www.answering-ansar.org, in its article entitled Creed of the Shi’a: explained:
The Shi’a rejection of the Sahah Sittah [9]
…
There is NO requirement in Islam to believe in Sahih Bukhari, Muslim etc…let us look at some of these hadith
- , and then we leave it to those with open minds to conclude whether these are true words…or folk tales…:
- …
- The Prophet(s) said, “The (people of) Bani Israel used to take baths naked (all together) looking at each other. The prophet Moses…used to take bath, alone. They said, ‘By Allah! Nothing prevents Moses from taking a bath with us except that he has a scrotal hernia.’ So,
once Moses went out to take a bath and put his clothes over a stone and then that stone ran away with the clothes. Moses followed the stone saying, ‘My clothes, O stone! My clothes, O stone!’
- Till the people of Bani Israel saw him and said ‘By Allah, Moses has got no defect in his body.’ Moses took his clothes and began to beat the stone.” Abu- Hurayra added, “By Allah! There are still six or seven marks present on the stone from the beating.”
–“Sahih Bukhari” Volume. (1) Book (5): Bathing, Chapter (21): Taking bath in seclusion & completely naked
Do our readers believe this type of rubbish?
- The dash of the stone with the clothes of Moses and the sprint of Moses (nude) after it is such a fabricated story that no rational mind is ready to accept it. This hadith can…best be described as a fable…
This scoffing at Sahih Bukhari reflects more than the corrupted nature of the Hadith; it reveals that the Sunnis and Shiites honor completely different sets of Hadith. While the Sunnis honor Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abu-Dawud, Sunan Tirmidhi, Sunan Nasa’i, Sunan Ibn-i-Majah, and Malik’s Muwatta (several others exist but they have less authority), which are collectively referred to as the Sahah Sittah, the Shiites honor Al-Kafi, Al-Tahzeeb, Al-IsTibSar, and mun la YahDuruhu Al-faqeeh (as well as others of lesser authority). And, just as the Shiites ridicule the Sunni Hadith, Sunnis also ridicule that of the Shiites. To see a full point-by-point Sunni attack on the Shiite Hadith, visit http://islamicweb.com/beliefs/cults/shia_vs_sunni.htm#2.
For the sake of simplicity, this book will focus on the Sunni, rather than Shiite, Hadith. The Sunni Hadith was selected for three reasons:
The Sunni Hadith is given more authority by Sunnis than the Shiite Hadith is given by Shiites. The authority of Shiite Hadith is weakened (even among Shiites) by both late dates of authorship and the fact that Shiism is divided into sects that recognize somewhat different sets of Hadith.
The Shiite Hadith is diluted with hadiths about the twelve Imams. [10] The twelve Imams are the blood-line successors to Muhammad whom Shiites believe to be Islam’s rightful leaders. These hadiths record actions up to the disappearance of the twelfth Imam in 874 AD, hundreds of years after Muhammad’s death.
Outside of Iran and Iraq, the typical Muslim one will encounter is Sunni. This fact, together with the two preceding, makes the Sunni Hadith the one most likely to surface in discussions of Islam.
Shari’ah is derived by Islamic scholars from the Koran and the Hadith. But if scholars cannot agree on the Koranic verses and hadiths to use, then it is impossible for them to agree on what Shari’ah should be. Given the controversies over the authenticity of various hadiths, and the abrogation of Koranic verses, one can appreciate the familiar Muslim lament: If you ask a hundred Muslims “What is Shari’ah?” you will get a hundred and ten different answers.
Unfortunately, the nature of Shari’ah is serious business in the Islamic world, because Muslims believe that an incorrect Shari’ah is more than bad law; it perverts Allah’s intentions and can lead believers to Hell. To see this most clearly, consider the Shiite institution of “Temporary Marriage,” which will be discussed further in the section entitled The Treatment of Women. For Shiites, temporary marriages are perfectly legitimate and endorsed by God himself. For Sunnis, temporary marriage is adultery, a Hudd crime punishable by severe whippings or death.
Given the difficulty of interpreting the Koran, scholars have decided to give lay people a simpler objective: Instead of learning the Koran, Muslims should memorize it, in the original Arabic, even if they do not understand the language.
Again, Muslims are not doing anything unprecedented in Christendom. In fact, in former times, the Catholic Church encouraged people to memorize Latin versions of Biblical passages even if they did not know Latin.
For both Muslims and Christians, the effect of this kind of memorization is the same: it ritualizes and mystifies holy words. In effect, scriptural verses become magical chants.
Fortunately for Christians, the Bible can be translated without losing its power. For the Koran, however, things are different. Attempts to translate the Koran reveal that it is a triumph of form over content, as unintentionally noted in The Koran for Dummies: [11]
The Koran’s oral tradition gives the Book its aura. The recited word of the Koran is much more powerful than its printed form, especially if the text has been translated from Arabic into another language.
The Koran, however, is more than an auditory triumph of form over content. Muslims have also developed Arabic calligraphy into a high art form, to make sure that it is also a visual triumph of form over content. For example, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran presents the following example of Koranic calligraphy to demonstrate its beauty: [12]
When translated to English, this beautiful work of art says:
[8.60] YUSUF ALI:
- Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power.
Apparently, the beauty of Arabic calligraphy does a magnificent job of concealing the Koran’s unbeautiful meanings.
As described in The Encyclopedia of the Orient, the relationship of a typical devout Muslim to the Koran can be summarized as follows: [13]
The reciting of the Koran is an art known by most Muslims. The most frequently used technique normally involves sitting on the ground with the book in the lap or placed on a specially made low table.
- This sitting position resembles the lotus position used in eastern religions, but is not at all strict on the upright position of the spine – most Muslims bend over the Koran they read.
The reading technique uses a rhythm… The performance of this rhythm is done with both torso, swaying a little in an oval shape, and voice and reading speed…the reading of the Koran is a meditative moment for all Muslims, and a ritual
- that can be performed anywhere.
The Koran’s actual guidance in everyday life for Muslims must not be overestimated…in general Muslims think of the Koran as far too complex to be a guide in daily matters if it should be interpreted by a Muslim layman.
When a Muslim has problems understanding the true meaning of the Koran, he/she will resort to books written by men learned in Islamic sciences or ask the learned in the local society. There are situations where Muslims look up the Koran for guidance, but this will be in cases where they know what to look for, and where to look.
The result of this state of affairs is that lay Muslims remain ignorant, despite memorizing the entire Koran, and Islamic clerics hold an incredible amount of power over the lives of lay people.
Islamic scholars interpret and transform the Koran’s guidance into very detailed and complex legal codes that are not articulated explicitly anywhere in the Koran or the Hadith. This is another reason why Shari’ah, supposedly Allah’s law, varies from one Muslim country to another. These variations reveal how Islamic scholars claim an authority that is supposedly reserved for Allah and his Apostle.
Because Shari’ah defines Islam’s rules for all aspects of life, clerics have powers that far exceed spiritual matters and extend into law, politics, and war. This explains a phenomenon very disconcerting to Westerners, who find familiar religious metaphors horribly warped by Islam. In the Muslim world, there are Islamic “men of the cloth” who store powerful weapons inside their “churches” and give “sermons” that incite their “congregations” to kill those of other faiths.
But are these aberrations really as foreign as they seem? In truth, they would sound quite familiar to Europeans living a few centuries ago, when Church and State were not separated by the principals of Free Democracy. [14] England itself went through many deadly religious purges, most famously during the reign of “Bloody Mary.”
The problem that Islam presents is not so much its bloody past, but the fact that its scriptures, the source of that bloody past, are considered perfect and unchangeable. Even worse, they exhort believers to submit the entire world to Islam. As stated in The Koran for Dummies: [15]
- According to the Koran,
God [Allah] chose the Koranic revelation as the final message that completes the teachings of all previous revelations,
both in theology and law. As the final message, the Koran provides guidance not only for a specific community or time, but for all of humanity.
Moreover, this submission encompasses every aspect of life in an unchanging and timeless way, as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran points out:
Muslims view their tradition not simply as a “religion,” in the Western sense of the word, but as a way of life that encompasses all actions in social, political, family, and economic realms – or, for that matter, any other realms of activity. [16]
- …It is important to bear in mind that changes in human language are irrelevant to the question of the teachings of the Koran.
These divine teachings, Muslims believe, do not change over time, because the word of God [Allah] is permanent and definitive. [17]
Now that we can appreciate the significance of Islamic Holy Scripture, as well as the challenge of interpreting it, we are ready for an in-depth look at the Koran and the Hadith, and the traditional ways Muslims have interpreted them.
REFERENCES:
[1] Some commentators claim that the Koran’s surah’s are sorted by length, from longest to shortest, rather than importance. While this is generally true, there are exceptions. For example, the very first surah is only seven verses long.
[2] A scholarly work that discusses this issue is The Meaning of the Qur’an, Revised Edition, by Syed Abu-Ala’ Maududi, Kazi Publications Inc, June, 1999. For each surah, Maududi provides an introduction which discusses, among other things, how the text was assembled. For example, for the Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow), he writes:
- The greater part of Al-Baqarah was revealed during the first two years of the Holy Prophet’s life at Al-Madinah. The smaller part which was revealed at a later period has been included in this Surah because its contents are closely related to those dealt with in this Surah. For instance, the verses prohibiting interest were revealed during the last period of the Holy prophet’s life but have been inserted in this Surah. For the same reason, the last verses (284-286) of this Surah which were revealed at Makkah before the migration of the Holy Prophet to Al-Madinah have also been included in it.
The way these surahs were assembled clearly indicates an editing process, conducted either by Muhammad or the Caliphs who came after him. The manual construction and refinement of texts is confirmed by both eye-witness accounts of Muhammad’s recitations and the historical account of the Koran’s assembly. The Islamic claim that surahs such as these were written by Allah long before Muhammad’s revelation of them, in a “Mother of the Book,” utterly defies logic.
[3] What is the Koran? by Toby Lester, Atlantic Monthly Magazine, January 1999.
[4] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 1, section entitled A Message Like No Other, page 10.
[5] What is the Koran? by Toby Lester, Atlantic Monthly Magazine, January 1999.
[6] What is the Koran? by Toby Lester, Atlantic Monthly Magazine, January 1999.
[7] Islam for Dummies, by Prof. Malcolm Clark, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003, Chapter 3, page 39.
[8] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 4, section entitled What’s the Difference Between the Koran and the Sunna, page 40.
[9] The Sahah Sittah is an aggregate term for the compilations of hadiths that Sunni Muslims consider authoritative.
[10] This statement is only true for the Hadith of Twelver Shiites (the predominant Shiite sect). Variations in accepted Hadith exist between the different Shiite sects.
[11] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, section entitled Cheat Sheet.
[12] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 21, section entitled Arabic Calligraphy, page 221. This Illustration is cited in that book as coming from “Traditional Arabic Collections,” by Judith Burros.
[13] Encyclopedia of the Orient, by Tore Kjeilen, LexicOrient, 1996-2004.
[14] Also known as Liberal Democracy and Western Democracy.
[15] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 1, section entitled Completion of past revelations, page 12.
[16] The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran, by Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar and Brandon Toropov, Alpha Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Chapter 3, section entitled Understanding a Way of Life, page 26.
[17] ibid, Chapter 16, section entitled Simple Laziness, page 162.
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