Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Questioning Islamic Teachings about the Qur'an
Michael H. Edens
Islam claims special status for their holy book, the Qur'an,1 as divine revelation. For Muslims the book has unquestioned spiritual authority. They make three claims for the book. First, the Qur'an's spiritual authority is drawn from the fact that the Qur'an is solely God-speech completely devoid of human elements. Second, the Qur'an continues and completes the message of the heavenly books before it. Third, the Qur'an is the complete and final revelation.
In light of these claims several Islamic assumptions raise questions. It is beyond the scope of this present project to examine the most serious of these assumptions—the Qur'anic vision of who Allah is and his relationship with and within his creation. Instead, an examination of the internal consistency of Islamic understandings of the Qur'an as special revelation and supreme spiritual authority for humanity is the more modest objective here. This essay will discuss three Islamic claims to supreme authority for the Qur'an and questions arising from these statements.
Claim #1: "The Qur'an's spiritual authority is drawn from the fact that the Qur'an is solely God-speech completely devoid of human elements."
In this first section, we'll examine the following questions:
Muslim apologists seek to eliminate any debate concerning the spiritual authority of their scriptures by claiming that it is solely God-speech, devoid of any human content. In their view, stating that the Qur'an is solely God-speech (ykallimhu Allah) removes the content from all questioning. For the vast majority of Muslims throughout the complex Islamic world, the Qur'an is the final and complete revelation to humanity from God. Daniel Brown, in A New Introduction to Islam, identifies three ways of approaching Islamic scriptures. First, the Qur'an can be studied for the meaning of the message. One also can examine the text as a historical artifact. The final way to approach the Qur'an is as a sacred object, which is an indivisible unit.2 While all three methods of Qur'anic study can be understood from the Western perspective, most Muslims approach the Qur'an as a unified indivisible sacred object.3
The Muslim understanding of the Qur'an as God-speech is drawn from the Qur'an's teaching about itself and the nature of special revelation. The defining text for this concept is the surah (chapter) named Consultation (surah 42) and ayah (verse) 51:4 "It is not fitting for a man that Allah should speak to him except by inspiration, or from behind a veil, or by the sending of a Messenger to reveal, with Allah's permission, what Allah wills: for He is Most High, Most Wise."All three modes by which Allah addresses a person convey the complete control of Allah on his message without human modification or amendment. Islamic commentators exert great effort to identify Muhammad as Moses' predicted successor in leading humanity on earth.5 However, this paper only seeks to observe issues arising from Muslim claims for the Qur'an as God-speech devoid of human content. No attempt will be made to compare the modes of special revelation provided to Moses and Muhammad.
1. If portions of the Qur'an have a textual history, does this negate these claims for the Qur'an being solely God-speech?
The Qur'an is the final source for Arabic grammar. It is composed of the purest Arabic language, Islam supposes. Arabic is Allah-language with which he produced a heavenly book. The humanly transcribed Arabic Qur'an is an exact copy of Allah's book. However, many foreign words appear within the text of the Qur'an. This discovery is not new. Alfons Mingana had deduced much of this information in his 1927 work, Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur'an. When Mingana looked at all the foreign words in the book, he discovered five language groups. Ethiopic and Persian words each accounted for 5 percent of the words. Hebrew and Greco-Roman words each comprised 10 percent of the foreign words in the book. However, nearly 70 percent of the words were rooted in Syriac—including Aramaic and Christian Palestinian. The evidence Mingana provided was then divided into six categories: (a) proper names, (b) religious terms, (c) expressions of ordinary language, (d) orthography, (e) sentence constructions, and (f) foreign historical references.6 The reality displayed by Mingana's tabulations is difficult to explain in a book purposed by Allah to communicate orally with non-literate Arabic speakers. However, modern scholars such as Christoph Luxenberg, John Wansbrough, Jane Dammen McAuliffe, and Andrew Rippin are exploring textual history with recently discovered early copies of the text. 7 These studies point to "hints of a 'concealed' history of the [Qur'anic] text before and during the revelations delivered to Muhammad."8 For many non-Muslim scholars, the Qur'an is understood to have a textual history and group authorship.9
2. If passages express interaction with contemporary humanity, how does this impact the contention that the Qur'an is solely God-speech?
The examples of contemporary conversation in the Qur'an are numerous. For the purposes of this paper, discussion will be limited to three instances. First, the Qur'an contains numerous reports of conflicts with detractors of Muhammad's claim to be the spokesperson for Allah. One example will suffice in Consultation (42:24). The text reads, "What! Do they say, 'He has forged a falsehood against Allah'? But if Allah willed, he could seal up thy heart, and Allah blots out vanity, and proves the truth by his words for he knows well the secrets of all hearts."10 This passage is representative of large blocks of Qur'anic content that defend the prophetic calling of Muhammad in the face of powerful opposition. This defense is at variance with the Muslim argument for the book. The essence of their argument is that the Qur'an is solely the dispassionate decree of Allah for humanity in general, written and secured with Allah before time.
In the Islamic argument, the content of the Qur'an is solely and exactly a copy of that book revealed piecemeal to Muhammad. The dialogue with doubters in seventh-century Arabia seems out of touch with that argument, especially when the common understanding of Muslims is that this same revelation is the content of all previous prophets. One assumes that Allah would not have troubled earlier prophets with such revelations, although this is the major subject in many of the 114 surahs of the book. If one compares this content with the opposition Moses, Paul, and Jesus faced, similarities and differences emerge. However, that misses the point. The Bible does not set the context of special revelation solely in the heavens; Muslims make that claim for their holy book. In the Bible, God is speaking into specific human contexts. The coherence and comprehension of these interchanges is enhanced by understanding both those contexts as well as the nature of God. This is not the case with the Qur'an. As a result, this claim for preexisting divine revelation appears to make such "dialogue with doubters" passages at least a minor problem for the Islamic position of the book's spiritual authority.
In at least two instances, the text could demonstrate that cultic practice was changed after failed attempts to gain pagan or Jewish converts to the Islamic community by compromise. It should be noted that, in both cases, Muslims assert that no human causality or dynamic shapes the revelation. The text of the Qur'an is, for them, an exact copy of an eternal book that is with Allah. But is this claim credible?
One of these instances is the factual basis for the novel by Salmon Rushdie, The Satanic Verses. The issue is found in two Qur'anic readings. In the surah The Star (53:1–25), Muhammad receives the revelation of three female beings with Allah—Lat, Ajja, and Manat. These names were previously associated with three idols worshipped by pre-Islamic Meccans in the Kaaba.11 In The Cow (2:158), the Kaaba is said to contain two symbols of Allah—Safa and Marat—and those who worship these images have not sinned. Islamic tradition maintains that the prophet was deceived by a lying spirit in this matter, and a divine messenger corrected Muhammad later; however, the Qur'an does contain these references. The former surah is understood to have been modified by abrogation12 to the present form, while the latter is left in the text in its original form but understood to have been set aside. Even though The Star (53) was revealed much earlier in Mecca than The Cow (2), the common fact of these two epochs in the life of Muhammad is that during both he was seeking to win Meccans to his cause and avoid bloody conflicts. If that is not the solution, how can this abrogated content be reconciled with the claim for the Qur'an being solely God-speech?
A possible second instance of human intent behind the text is found in the redirection of daily prayer. In The Cow (2:142–50), the word qibla refers to the direction to turn in prayer and the geographical location on which prayer is centered. In this passage Muslims turned away from Jerusalem and toward Mecca. This change in worship practice occurred only after the Muslims who migrated to the city of Yathrib (later named Medina) had reached a position of parity with the original ruling tribes of that town, which were Jewish. The revelation is immediately followed by several Muslim sieges of individual Jewish tribes and finally the execution of approximately 700 Jewish men after several Muslim warriors died during the Battle of the Trench.13 Until that time, Islamic prayers were directed toward Jerusalem, and it appears there was hope of massive Jewish conversion. As conflict replaced hope, worship or ritual prayer turned away from the temple mount in Jerusalem toward the Kaaba in Mecca. The Qur'an explains the original direction of prayer as a test for the Muslim believers who are rewarded with a direction of worship more to their liking. Muslim apologists contend that historical events simply provided the setting for the revelation of the Qur'an but do not affect the content of the ayah (verse or sign) or of the special revelation.14
3. If a portion of the Qur'an focuses on Muhammad's household and his interactions with the Jewish tribes of Medina, does this narrowing of interest argue against the eternal and divine origin of the Qur'an?
In the Qur'an one finds a group of texts referring to conflicts within Muhammad's household and their effect on the Islamic republic. In one of the late Medinan surahs, Confederates (33), several passages are devoted to rules for the prophet's marital life. In ayat 37–39, Muhammad is given permission to marry the ex-wife of his adopted son, Zaid, in contrast with previous regulation. This established a practice that persists in the Muslim world today. In ayat 50–54, the prophet is exempted from the normal limits in marriage partners. This passage also established protocols for Muslim men visiting his home. The Qur'an takes pains to establish that the prophet's widows are to remain unmarried after his death. In ayah 59, special rules for modesty are established for those married to Muhammad. Muhammad married thirteen women and left nine widows when he died.15 These ayat appear to express the desires and contribution of Muhammad rather than Allah. What end would Allah seek to achieve by incorporating such speech in an eternal and universal book?
4. If the Qur'an is in conflict with other historical records, does that negate the claims of eternal authorship?
In Mary (19:16–29), one of the Qur'anic accounts of the conception and birth of Jesus the Christ is presented. Allah reports the people addressing Mary in ayah 28 as sister of Aaron, Moses' brother. The Arabic name of both Aaron's sister and the mother of Jesus is Miriam. However, it is a conflation of history to make a single person both sister of Aaron and mother of Jesus Christ. Can this be God-speech?
The second example is found in Women (4:157). The text reads, "that they [the Jews] said (in boast), 'We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah': but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not." The Qur'an is virtually alone in disputing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. However, conflict with the idea of a sacrificial loving God and humanity in dire need of redemption is inherent in Islam. In the face of Christian and Jewish claims to the crucifixion, the Qur'an denies it as a historical fact.
5. Since at times the Qur'an clearly records someone other than Allah speaking, how is the text God-speech?
The final category is that of passages in the Qur'an that are not God-speech because someone other than Allah is apparently speaking. Richard Bell, following the work of the fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar Al Shyuti, identifies five passages in the Qur'an in which God-speech is precluded.16 The ending words of Cattle (6:104) are Muhammad's for Allah is clearly guarding over the faithful, but the ayah ends with, "I am not (here) to watch over your doings." Muhammad is not the watchman over the faithful, but Allah is. This is not God-speech.
In Mary (19:64) the Arabic is translated, "We do not descend without permission of your Lord. Everything between our hands and behind our back and anything between is His. He does not forget." Some English translators, including Ali, add in parentheses at the beginning, "The angels say."17 This is not in the text. Gabriel is speaking to Mary, and the text is reporting his—not Allah's—speech. A similar pattern is found in The Scattering Wind (51:50–51): "Therefore escape to Allah: I was sent from Him to be a clear and plain warning to you. Do not associate anything with Allah in worship. I was sent from Him to be a clear and plain warning to you."
Finally the first surah, The Opening, records the pattern prayer of the faithful. It is clearly not God-speech. It is the prayer of believers to Allah.
These questions arising from the claims for the Qur'an based on the idea that it consists solely of God-speech are simply questions. They do not destroy the spiritual authority of the Qur'an to Muslims. However, such discussion may result in other, more meaningful spiritual dialogues.
Claim #2: "The Qur'an Possesses Spiritual Authority Because It Continues and Completes the Message of the Bible"
Islam teaches that the Bible of today is to some extent corrupted, yet in some way the Bible is understood to attest to the validity of the Qur'an. Muslims seek to show doctrinal continuity between the Bible and the Qur'an in at least five areas: belief in the unity of God, the nature and foundational purpose of humanity as creature, anticipation of the Qur'an and Muhammad found in the biblical text, belief in angels, and certainty of the Day of Judgment.
Muslims revere the Torah (five books of the Law) of Moses, the Zabor (Psalms) of David, and the Injil (Gospel) of Jesus since the Qur'an teaches they were each sent down by Allah to his messenger. However, this respect does not carry over to the present books bearing the same name. Yet the claim for spiritual authority for the Qur'an is partially based on the continuity of the message—as Muslims understand it—between the Bible and their holy book. Muslims also believe the Qur'an corrects the Bible. Do these claims prove to be coherent?
Muslims seek to show doctrinal continuity between the two holy books. For Muslims the missing correspondence between the Bible and the Qur'an is proof that the Bible has been altered. However, continuity with previous messages is an Islamic test for the spiritual authority of their holy book. If the core beliefs of Islam are absent from or contradicted by the Bible, the claim for Qur'anic spiritual authority is questionable.
1. Are the marks of Islam's concept of Allah coherent with concepts of God in the Old and New Testaments?
Muslims contend that Allah of the Qur'an is the God of the Bible. Many Qur'anic passages present a dialogue between Muhammad and Jews and Christians. The dialogue in The Cow says: "Will ye dispute with us about Allah, seeing that He is our Lord and your Lord: that we are responsible for our doings and ye for yours: and that we are sincere (in our faith) in Him?" (2:139). Many Christian authors have demonstrated aspects of God's self-revelation contained in the Bible that are unknown or denied in Islam. However the issue here is that Islam claims spiritual authority for the Qur'an partly by stating that the original message of the Bible was Islam. Although the Bible, in the teachings of many Muslims, has been corrupted, a vigilant self-revealing God would be expected to retain some relics of the Islamic core in the Bible. However, Allah's willingness to forgive sin in the future based on capriciousness, without justifying the sinner, and his unqualified oneness, tawhid, are two marks of Islamic theology that are at the core of the Qur'anic vision of Allah, yet distinct from the Bible.
Contrary to the Islamic expectation, the Bible never vindicates the Islamic teaching that God absolves humans of sin. In fact, the Bible teaches that God refuses to overlook sin. To illustrate, God refuses Moses' request for absolution from sin in the wilderness (Num 14:13–23). Also, the entire Jewish sacrificial system represents the immense importance God places on reconciling, not tacitly overlooking, sinners. Islam strips the redemptive meaning from animal sacrifice, which it borrows from Judaism. Lastly, in the Qur'an, Jesus (Isa), son of Mary, although titled the Christ, does not need to die for humanity's sin and is not crucified. Clearly the Qur'anic Allah and the biblical God have no common agreement with regard to the means by which God forgives sin. This central aspect of Allah's nature is contradicted by the biblical record. Allah who simply forgives whom he chooses is not foreshadowed in the Bible.
Because of the biblical emphasis on the oneness of God, one expects to find continuity with the concept of the oneness of Allah in the Qur'an. However, the one God of the Old Testament reveals Himself, rather than just revealing His speech, His will, and His decrees. The oneness of Allah is different: "No vision can grasp Him, but he grasps all visions. He is beyond comprehension, but comprehends all things" (Qur'an, 6:103). The common point between Allah and the God of the Old Testament is that they are other than (or outside their) creation; however, the biblical God is related in such a way to creation that He can reveal Himself to creatures. The Shema—"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" (Deut 6:4 NASB)—is set in the context of living righteously as a redeemed people. He is not just a distant judge but a loving shepherd to His people. He gives assurance of His covenant-keeping love while maintaining righteousness. He is able to be present within His creation in His love and holiness. The Qur'anic god, Allah, cannot be known by his creature. The 99 noble names of Allah are descriptions of his actions within creation but not his character. He himself is not revealed.
In the gospel, the unity of God (Father, Son, and Spirit) is one of essence but is qualified by the interrelations of the three persons and is not the unqualified singular unit of Allah. God's purpose for humanity is expressed in rebirth, relationship, reconciliation, renewal, and restoration, not merely in human reeducation. In both Old and New Testaments the biblical promise to believers is that they will be present with God after this life—not near God, as in Islam, but with Him. The contrast between the biblical concept of the oneness of God and the Islamic concept of tawhid (oneness) is stark. This central vision of the unknowable Allah found in the Qur'an is not foreshadowed in the Bible. If the text of the Bible bears any resemblance to the original heavenly books Islam says it represents, one would think some remnant of the Islamic doctrine of the oneness of Allah would be preserved by Allah who is great and powerful.
2. Does the Muslim view of human nature and purpose have commonality with the Bible?
In both the Bible and the Qur'an, humanity's first duty is to worship God. In both books God gives Adam and Eve tasks in the garden; however, in the Qur'an, a central task is the establishment of Islamic community. This is a task in and after the garden. Adam and his family must submit to Allah and establish an interrelated worshipping community. This is God's intended purpose and role for humanity, a purpose not derailed by Adam's sin.
The ideal behavior in Islamic community is buttressed and constrained by the principle of honor and shame. Honor/shame differs from innocence/guilt as a basis for a communal value system. Individual behaviors produce honor or shame not primarily for the person but the tribe, clan, or ethnic network—the community. Muslims expect their behavior and that of other Muslims near them to bring honor to their community and to the entire family of Islam. Peer pressure and external reinforcement enhance the Islamic behaviors known as the five pillars of Islam. In the Bible, shame—as well as guilt—for sinful behavior and attitudes is most notably personal, although communal shame and guilt are present.
In the Qur'an there is no substantial difference in the human task, human potential, or the human relationship with God after Adam's disobedience in the garden. The Islamic communities in the created garden and today have the same purpose and potential. However, in the Bible, Adam and Eve began their existence in innocence and on a potential path to perfection through God's provision. They chose to disobey, thereby becoming rebels in need of redemption and a savior. This is one of the stark contrasts between Islamic and Christian understandings of humanity. The two worldviews resulting from this foundational disagreement radically diverge.
Although both the Bible and Qur'an see the original creation as good, the Bible does not agree that humanity is basically good after Adam's sin. Though created good by God, the Bible presents humanity as deeply affected by sin and in need of redemption, while in Islam the need is a guiding book and a worshipping community. Islam's limited view of sin and ignorance of both temporal and eternal consequences of sin for Adam and his descendants prevent Muslims from understanding humanity's precarious position before a holy God who offers redemption through the life and cross of Jesus Christ.
3. The Qur'anic claim to spiritual authority partially rests on biblical passages said to anticipate Muhammad. Are these claims believable?
Islamic writers point to two passages as evidence that Moses and Jesus spoke of Muhammad to their generations. Before dealing with each of these passages, it is important to understand the one thing they hold in common. Both Moses and Jesus spoke to their anxious community as they were departing. For either or both of them to be speaking of Muhammad destroys the comforting impact of the message. The people needing encouragement died hundreds of years before the birth of Muhammad.
God promises Moses and Israel in Deut 18:15–22 a prophet like Moses to lead them. Muslims say this is prophesying Muhammad. They go to great lengths to show that Muhammad is more like Moses than Jesus. However, when comparing the men, Muslim apologists are misunderstanding the text. The text promises a Jewish ("from among your brothers") prophet. The two Jewish prophets that Christians identify with this passage are Joshua—whom Moses identifies as the first to fulfill this role (Deut 31:23)—and Jesus. Muslims ignore this problem when placing Muhammad alongside Moses. Moses was speaking of Jewish prophets, not Arab prophets. Deuteronomy does not speak of Muhammad.
In the middle of ayah 6 of Al Saff (surah 61), Jesus proclaims in the Qur'an, "[I am] giving glad tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmed." Muslim teachers have pointed to John 14 as evidence that this indeed happened. The teaching uses various Greek spelling errors to make "helper" or "advocate" (paraklētos) found in John 14 into "praised one" (periklutos), which is the meaning of Ahmed. However, the context of the word stipulates that the one coming will "be with you forever" (John 14:16). By contrast, Muhammad lived long after the death of those who received these comforting words, and he died in the seventh century. He came too late to comfort those who were frightened at the thought of Jesus' departure, and Muhammad has died rather than abiding forever. Contrary to Islamic expectation, Jesus was not prophesying about Muhammad but about the Holy Spirit who has been comforting and abiding with believers from Pentecost (roughly 50 days after this prophesy) until Christ comes again. Muhammad is not mentioned, foreshadowed, or prophesied as prophet or comforter/advocate in the Bible.
4. How much continuity is found between Qur'anic views of angels, office of prophet (nabi), and last things when compared with the Bible?
The concept of spirits and angels differs between the Bible and the Qur'an. Spirits play a larger role in the Qur'an than the Bible. In Islam, angels are the primary means for divine interaction with humanity. The Qur'an says of itself that it was delivered to Muhammad by a heavenly messenger. In most passages the messenger is called a spirit: sometimes a holy spirit, at other times an honest spirit. In one or two instances the messenger is identified as the angel Gabriel. Muslim teachers understand all this to be speaking of the same being and he is the angel Gabriel. Only on one occasion in the Qur'anic record does the angel take on a human form—when sent to the Virgin Mary. On none of the many public occasions when Muhammad received part of the Qur'an did any other person see or hear the messenger. However, except for the inability of Muslims to accept that the Qur'anic reference to a holy spirit might be the Spirit of the living God rather than an angel, the views of Islam and the Bible are not strikingly different with regard to angels and the spirit world. The same may be said for the role of prophecy although again there is some difference in emphasis. However, a marked difference remains between the Qur'anic and biblical concepts about the end of time.
Although the nature of god in Islam is beyond the scope of this paper, the concept of Allah is foundational to any Islamic understanding of the final state of human affairs. In contrast with the biblical God, Allah is not concerned by human sin. Sin does not affect him. Most Islamic theologians see Allah's transcendence as virtually precluding his involvement in creation much less being affected in some way by human sin.18 In the Qur'an, the story of Adam and Eve and their error is told. Sin is reported factually but devoid of terms that could be described as painful to either Adam or Allah. By contrast, emotion courses through the biblical account of Adam and Eve's sin in Eden. The story is dramatic and painful. In the Bible, God is obviously displeased and disappointed by all of humanity except Jesus of Nazareth. Adam is filled with fear and seeks to displace responsibility to someone else for his error.
Death and resurrection are an unstated part of the original creation in Islam. There is no change in this because of Adam or Eve's sin and fall. In the Bible, death was not a stated part of creation but entered creation though human disobedience. Death is a sign of the brokenness of sin in the Bible. The Qur'an, in contrast, presents Adam's descendants as basically good in the sight of Allah. Sin is a concern, but such transgression has not dramatically flawed human nature. Humanity is left in ignorance after the encounter in paradise. However, the Bible presents the human problem as entrenched disobedience and rebellion against God. The Bible, unlike the Qur'an, observes the ravages of sin expressed in marred and broken relationships that play out in human history until God brings all things to His end.
The conflict between biblical and Qur'anic views of the seriousness of human sin, important as it is, points to differences in each book's portrayal of God's nature and His attitude toward the direction the world is going. The Qur'an reveals Allah as willing to blot out sin unimpeded by holiness and justice. He will absolve believers of their sins based on their repentance.
Allah's judgment in the Qur'an in absolving Adam of his sin appears to be based on three tenets. Allah has no problem absolving sin for anyone he chooses.19 This is his prerogative as sovereign that he exercises without comment. His action is not dependent on either some canon of judgment or human behavior. One of the 99 adjectives for Allah in the Qur'an is Al-Ghaffar: "One who has manifested what is beautiful and veiled what is ugly in the life of this world and who does not inflict his penalty on him in the life hereafter. He is the one who forgives sins, veils the shortcomings, wipes out the sins by accepting one's repentance."20 The second Islamic teaching is that sin is not "against" Allah. Neither Adam's sin nor any human action can "take anything away from Allah." This view is part of the Islamic grand transcendence of Allah that impedes his interaction with creation.
Lastly, the decree of absolution carries with it intertwined teachings of human need for infallible divine instruction21 and pity for humans who fall prey to Satan's deceptions. In surah 61:5–6 the Qur'an illustrates Satan's deceptions in how both Moses and Jesus were rejected when they presented Allah's message (Islam) to the people of Israel in their day.22 Thus, the state of humanity after rejecting Islam is rebellion for which the Qur'an has no solution.
Muslims believe that through an elaborate process of judging thoughts, intents, words, and actions each person's piety will be determined. However, Allah simply forgives whom he chooses to forgive; so it is not as if the compilation of good works will earn paradise. Allah is gracious and forgiving. It is impossible to incorporate this view into the biblical account of God's judgment of humanity.
Claim #3: "The Qur'an Is the Complete and Final Revelation from God"
From al hadith (the sayings of Muhammad remembered and recorded to guide Muslims) Islam claims that the Arabic Qur'an of today is Muhammad's codex, gathered under the protection of Allah.23 They teach it was Allah's responsibility to collect it, protect it, and make the meaning clear.24 The text of the Qur'an is understood to be complete and final. The following questions are skeletal and intended to raise other questions for the Muslim.
1. Since Muslims disagree about what passages are abrogated, how can we know that the Qur'an is complete or even the final revelation?
Muslims understand that an indefinite number of ayat in the written Arabic Qur'an have been superseded.25 Much Islamic study of abrogating has been done; however, Muslim scholars differ on many aspects of the teaching. There is no consensus. Muslim scholars disagree greatly as to which ayat have been abrogated. Some Muslims believe that abrogation and deletion of unneeded texts was completed in the lifetime of Muhammad. Most point to several passages that they believe were superseded by other ayat, yet the original ayat remain in the text. This is bewildering to studious nontechnical Muslims and all non-Muslims.
According to the Hadith, Uthman was questioned regarding "[t]hose of you who die and leave wives" in Cow (2:240). While he was compiling the Qur'an, Ibn Az-Zubair reported his response, "'This Verse was abrogated by another verse.' [he was questioned further] 'So why should you write it? (Or leave it in the Qur'an)?' Uthman said. 'O son of my brother! I will not shift anything of it from its place.'"26
Simply put, the Qur'an denies and embraces abrogation. According to surah 6:115, "The words of the Lord are perfect in truth and justice; no person can change His words. He both hears and knows." The message of the Qur'an in 6:34; 10:64; and 18:27 agrees with these words. Abrogation is not possible with the speech of Allah.
However, the same book says of itself: "None of Our revelations do we abrogate or cause to be forgotten but we substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?" (2:106). A similar passage says, "And when We exchange a verse in place of another verse—and Allah knows very well what He is sending down—they say, 'Thou art a mere forger!'; Nay, but the most of them have no knowledge" (16:101).
In light of this, the obvious question arises, "Can the text of the Qur'an be known?"
2. Can entire heavenly books be seen as abrogated?
Some Muslims teach that the holy books before the Qur'an are abrogated. Others, realizing that the Qur'an states that these books inform it and that the role of the Qur'an is to affirm the earlier books, avoid this issue. The question needs to be asked, "If you believe that the Bible was abrogated by the Qur'an, why would Allah do that? If he could not keep the Bible uncorrupted, how is the Qur'an kept from corruption?"
3. Was the Qur'an complete at the death of Muhammad?
All except one of the 114 surahs of the Qur'an—namely, surah 9—begins with "in the name of Allah the merciful and beneficent." It is commonly believed among Muslims that when Gabriel confirmed Muhammad's recitation of a surah and it was complete, the angel would amend the surah with this affirmation. Surah 9 was either the last or next to last revelation given Muhammad. Some Muslim teachers deal with this anomaly by saying that the epitaph is missing because surah 9 is actually not a surah but the continuation of the preceding surah although titled and numbered as a surah. Is this a coherent argument?
4. If the Qur'an was compiled under the first three leaders of the community after the death of Muhammad, did Abu Bakr, Umar, or Uthman as the Caliphate (khalifah) change the text during compilation?
Muslims cannot frame this question without calling into question the integrity of the book as special speech of Allah. The Muslim is left with a book that claims to be the revealed text of a heavenly book. However, it was not compiled into a corpus until after the death of the person receiving the revelation. At the time of Uthman's work, several other compilations were destroyed. If the correct text was preserved by Allah through this process, why did he allow this to happen?
Conclusion
All spiritual authority in Islam is based on or derived from the Qur'an. Questions such as those posed in this paper undermine that authority in the view of non-Muslims. However, in Islamic worldviews, issues on which these questions are based are unapproachable because of statements purported to be made by Muhammad—their prophet and exemplar of pious life—and because of peer pressure from the Islamic community. As a result of this interlocking authority structure, the questions raised may only provide an opening for a witness to another spiritual authority, the Bible—and the person of Jesus Christ, who is presented in its pages. Apologists should pray to God in Christ that He would guide Muslims to himself. This is what Muslims ask for, unknowingly, daily in ritual prayer. Five times daily they repeat the words of the Fatiha (surah 1): "Open the straight path before us, the one of your grace not the one of your wrath. Keep us from going astray." As the Qur'anic path is exposed as questionable, the Holy Spirit will empower the witness to Jesus, the Only Way to the Father.
1 In Arabic, the definite article "the" is part of the name of the book—al Qur'an.
2 Daniel Brown, A New Introduction to Islam (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), 53–54.
3 To better understand this position, see Toby Lester's section "Copyediting God" found in the introduction to his article "What Is the Koran?" Atlantic Monthly (January 1999), reprinted in What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary, ed. Ibn Warraq (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), 110–15 (107–25).
4 In this essay references to the text of the Qur'an are cited with the name of the surah followed by the parenthetical reference (surah or chapter number: ayah or verse number), i.e., Consultation (42:51). The English text employed in this essay is Abdullah Yusef Ali's translation, The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an, 11th ed. (Beltsville, MD: Amana, 2006). This and other renderings of the Qur'an, including the Arabic text, may be accessed at http://al-quran.info.
5 John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), 33–38.
6 Alfons Mingana, "Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur'an," The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 11 (1927): 77–98.
7 Christoph Luxenberg, The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran (Berlin: Verlan Hans Schiler, 2007); John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004); Jane Dammen McAuliffe, "Interpretations and Intellectual Traditions," and Andrew Rippin, "Western Scholarship and the Qur'an," in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Andrew Rippin, Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'an (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988).
8 Claude Gilliot, "The Creation of a Fixed Text," in Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an, 53.
9 Ibid.
10 The claim that Muhammad was falsifying his visions was common during his early ministry in Mecca. This surah is thought to have been revealed during that part of his work. On the Islamic understanding of the sequence in which the chapters of the Qur'an was revealed, see: http://www.icbh.org/topics/QuranOrder.htm. The extreme right hand column contains numbers of ayat revealed later than the majority of the surah.
11 The Kaaba is a stone cubical at the center of the pilgrimage to both pre-Islamic and Islamic Mecca. The house is supposed to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael.
12 Abrogation, the superseding of one revelation to another, as a problem for understanding spiritual authority within Islam will be dealt with in a later section. However, abrogation implies that Qur'anic content evolved during the life of the Muhammad.
13 Ali Dashti, 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, trans. F. R. C. Bagley (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 1994), 87–91.
14 Ayah refers to both a sign from Allah and a division in any surah of the Qur'an.
15 Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 792–94.
16 Richard Bell, A Commentary on the Qur'an, vol. 1 (Manchester: Victoria University of Manchester, 1995), 201–3.
17 Likewise, Marmaduke Pickthall and others.
18 Yasin Al Jibouri, Allah: The Concept of God in Islam (Qum: Ansariyan Publications, 1997), 5–16. This book provides an example of the inability to conceptualize the person of Allah, not to mention his divine attributes.
19 Speaking of Moses, Allah says in surah 7:155–56, "And Moses chose seventy of his people for Our place of meeting: when they were seized with violent quaking, he prayed: 'O my Lord! If it had been Thy Will thou couldst have destroyed, long before, both them and me: wouldst Thou destroy us for the deeds of the foolish ones among us? This is no more than thy trial: by it Thou causest whom Thou wilt stray, and Thou leadest whom Thou wilt into the right path. Thou are our Protector: so forgive us and give us thy mercy; for Thou art the Best of those who forgive.'. . . He [Allah] said: 'I afflict My Punishment on whom I will; but My Mercy extendeth to all things. That (Mercy) I shall ordain for those who do right, and pay zakah [almsgiving], and those who believe in Our Signs.'"
20 Al Jibouri, Allah: The Concept of God in Islam, 28.
21 The Qur'an's claim to provide unfailing guidance is observed in 43:2–4, "By the Book that makes things clear—We have made it a Qur'an in Arabic, that ye may be able to understand. And verily, it is in the Mother of the Book, with Us, high (in dignity), full of wisdom."
22 "And remember, Moses said to his people: 'O my people! Why do ye vex and insult me, though ye know that I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you?' then when they went wrong, Allah let their hearts go wrong. For Allah guides not those who are rebellious transgressors. And remember Jesus, the son of Mary, said: 'O Children of Israel! I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you, confirming the Taurat (which came) before me, and giving glad tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad.' But when he came to them with Clear signs they said, 'This is Evident sorcery!'"
23 "Narrated Abu-Huraira: Gabriel used to repeat the recitation of the Qur'an with the Prophet once a year, but he repeated it twice with him in the year he died. (Book #61, Hadith #520). Accessed from: http://www.searchtruth.com/ book_display.php?book=61&translator=1&start=0&number=520#520.
24 The Hadith says, "Narrated Said bin Jubair: Ibn 'Abbas in the explanation of the Statement of Allah. 'Move not your tongue concerning (the Quran) to make haste therewith.' " (75.16). Said [bin Jubair] continues [the narration]: "Allah's Apostle used to bear the revelation with great trouble and used to move his lips (quickly) with the Inspiration." Ibn 'Abbas moved his lips saying, "I am moving my lips in front of you as Allah's Apostle used to move his." Said moved his lips saying: "I am moving my lips, as I saw Ibn 'Abbas moving his." Ibn 'Abbas added, "So Allah revealed 'Move not your tongue concerning (the Qur'an) to make haste therewith. It is for us to collect it and to give you (O Muhammad) the ability to recite it (the Qur'an)' " (75.16–17) which means that Allah will make him (the Prophet) remember the portion of the Qur'an which was revealed at that time by heart and recite it. The Statement of Allah: And 'When we have recited it to you (O Muhammad through Gabriel) then you follow its (Qur'an) recital' (75.18) means 'listen to it and be silent.' Then it is for Us (Allah) to make It clear to you' (75.19) means 'Then it is (for Allah) to make you recite it (and its meaning will be clear by itself through your tongue). Afterwards, Allah's Apostle used to listen to Gabriel whenever he came and after his departure he used to recite it as Gabriel had recited it" (Book 1, Hadith 4; Book 61, Hadith 564). Accessed from: http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=1&translator=1&start=0&number=4#4 and http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=61&translator=1&start=0&number=564#564.
25 Narrated Ibn Abbas: Umar said, "Our best Qur'an reciter is Ubai and our best judge is 'Ali; and in spite of this, we leave some of the statements of Ubai because Ubai says, 'I do not leave anything that I have heard from Allah's Apostle while Allah: "Whatever verse (Revelations) do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten but We bring a better one or similar to it"'" (2.106) (Book 60; Hadith 8). Accessed from: http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=60&translator=1&start=0&number=8#8.
26 Ibid., Book 60, Hadith 53.