Part Two: The Structure of Quran and Contradictions in the Quran:
The Islamic scholar Ali Dashti comments on the defects of the Quran. He says, “Unfortunately the Quran was badly edited and its contents are very obtusely arranged. All students of Quran wonder why the editors did not use the natural and logical method of ordering by date of revelation as in ‘Alib’ Abi Talebi’s lost copy of the text.” It is very strange that a Muslim scholar says this.
The standard Islamic reference work, Concise Islamic Encyclopedia of Islam, refers to the “disjointed and irregular character” of the text of the Quran. There are no original manuscripts of the Quran. Due to Muhammad’s unexpected and sudden death, there was made no preparation of his writing to be taken down. Instead, this was taken up by his followers. We do not know who his followers were, and if they were educated followers; we hardly know the names of his followers, though some are known. They only could write down what they could remember of what he said or prophesied.
Again, the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam says that “The Quran was collected from the charred surfaces on which it had been inscribed, from pieces of papyrus, flat stones, palm leaves, the shoulder blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather, wooden boards, and the hearts of men.” The Muslim scholar Mandudi admits that the Quran was originally recorded “on leaves of date palm, the bark of trees, bones,” etc. This strange combination of materials on which the Quran was written is verified by all general reference works and encyclopedias and by the standard reference works of Islamic scholars. When there was nothing around which could be written on, the attempt was made to memorize Muhammad’s revelation as closely as possible. [The Bible was not written like the Quran].
According to Mandudi the task that confronted the followers of the so-called prophet after his death was to gather together the scattered sermons of Muhammad, some of which were written on perishable materials, and others which were not written down were committed only to memory [The Bible was not written like this; the disciples of Jesus wrote the Gospels. Matthew’s Gospel was written by Matthew. Dr. Luke wrote the Gospel and Acts as he was an eyewitness to the events of the book of Acts. Apostle Paul wrote his epistles, etc.].
This introduced problems or created difficulties as some of the tree bark crumbled or got broken by the heat of the Middle Eastern hot sun and some stones were lost. Ali Dashit notes that animals at times ate the palm leaves or material on which the Suras had been recorded. And some of those who were the only ones who remembered certain Suras died in the battle before they had the chance to commit to writing what they heard. Much confusion remained as the memory of one person did not match the memory of another.
- Looking at the order of the Suras [Quran].
- There are 114 Suras, or revelations given by Muhammad, and they are not arranged in the chronological order in which Muhammad received them. There are no dates or years mentioned. There are many contradictions and mistakes in the Quran. Instead, they are laid out from the longest Sura to the shortest without regard to any other kind of order.
Muslims claim that the Quran is always written in 1st person, i.e., that Allah himself is always speaking to man. Such a claim does not fit the text of the Quran. There are many sections in which it is clear that it is not Allah but Muhammad who is speaking. In the Bible, by contrast, we see that God is speaking to His prophets, and God spoke as Christ was being baptized and also on the mount of transfiguration.
The Bible is written from chronological order—starting with creation, the fall of man into sin, the great flood, the Tower of Babel, the calling of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, accounts in Exodus, etc., and right to the NT—to Revelation. The Bible gives us the complete picture; the Bible is complete and perfect with no contradiction. But when one has a look at the Quran, because of its disjointed and disordered condition, we are left with the feeling of incompleteness. We are left hanging after each Sura because there is no longer any connection from one Sura to another Sura.
An example of this disjointed and disordered issue of Quran
One Sura will deal with some pedestrian matter such as Allah wanting Muhammad’s wives to stop arguing and bickering in his presence while the next Sura attacks the idols of the Arabians. Contrast the 66 books of the Bible written over a period of more than one thousand years by at least 40 different authors with the Quran which only came through one man, Muhammad. The Quran has lots of biblical materials. Since Islam claims that the Quran was ‘handed down from heaven and that Muhammad can not be viewed as its human author,’ it is interesting to point out the Arabic of the Quran is the dialect and the words of someone who was a member of the Quraysh tribe living in the city of Mecca. If the Quran were written in some heavenly perfect Arabic, why then does it clearly reveal that it was spoken by someone who was a member of the Quraysh residing in Mecca? The Quran in its dialect, vocabulary, and content reflects the style of its author Muhammad and not Allah. Thus it needs to be asked, did Allah speak an Arabic dialect? If he did, where is the proof? One sees Muhammad’s fingerprint over all the Suras. The Quran is not written in perfect Arabic. It contains many grammatical errors as one sees in the following Suras: [Sura 2v17,192/3v59/4v16,5v16, 7v160 13v28, 20v66, 63v10].
Ali Dashti says the following, which is very important for Muslims to know:
“The Quran contains sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid of commentaries, as well as foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words and words used with other than normal meaning, adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concord of gender and number, illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subject.” To sum up, more than 100 Quranic aberrations from the normal structure of Arabic have been noticed. There are over 100 words found in the Quran that are not even in the Arabic language: there are Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Ethiopian and Persian words and phrases in the Quran. The question is asked how Muhammad who was illiterate could write? Did he know all these languages, or did he simply copy from other sources including the Bible, twisting its words, abusing and misusing them for his own convenience?
Some of the original verses of the Quran were lost. For example, one Sura originally had 200 verses in the days of Ajesh but by the time Utham standardized the text of the Quran, it had only 73 verses, a total of 127 verses had been lost. As John Burton’s book, The Collection of the Quran, states concerning Muslim claims that the Quran is perfect, that the Muslim account of the history of Quran texts is a mass of confusion, contradiction, and inconsistencies.
One interesting way that some of the original verses of the Quran were lost is that a follower of Muhammad named Abdullah Sarah would make suggestions to Muhammad about rephrasing, adding, or subtracting from Suras. Muhammad took his advice as Sarah suggested.
Again Ali Dashti explains what happened:
“Abdullah renounced Islam on the ground that the revelations from God [Allah] could not be changed at the prompting of a Scribe such as he. After his apostasy, he went to Mecca and joined the Qurayshite. It is no wonder that when Muhammad conquered Mecca one of the first people killed was Abdullah, for he knew too much and opened his mouth too often.” Not only have parts of the Quran been lost but entire verses and chapters have been added to it after the prophet had died.
Example:
Ubai had several Suras in his manuscript of the Quran which Uthman omitted from his standardized text. Thus, where the Quran was in circulation before Uthman’s text which contained additional revelations from Muhammad that Uthman did not find or approve of, he failed to place them in his text. So the following can be said about the Quran, that there was never a single manuscript of the Quran. When the prophet died there existed no singular codex of the codex text—writes Casper Farah in his book on Islam. The older copies of the Quran differed much from Caliph Uthman’s later copy. He ordered the older ones to be destroyed, some of which had many more Suras than others.
Some of the older materials have survived and have been received by scholars. Arthur Jeffery, a Western scholar, has shown beyond all reasonable doubt that Uthman’s text did not contain all the Quran, neither was what it did contain correct in all its wording.
As to the Muslim claim that the Quran cannot be translated, it is amazing to us that English Muslim Mohammad Pickthal could state in the very introduction to his translation,
“The Koran can not be translated” [page 7]. He translated the Quran into the English language. The claim that the Quran cannot be translated is clearly refuted by the existence of many such translations. The Quran was written by man and Muhammad continued to add to the Quran as he saw fit. Since the Quran claims to be free from all error as a proof of its inspiration [Sura 85v 21-22], the presence of just one error in the Quran is enough to cast serious doubt on that claim. Muhammad came 600 years after the Lord Jesus Christ. The Quran thus comes after the completion of the N.T. The Quran itself claims that it is the continuation of the Bible and it will not contradict [Sura 2v136].
What it means in logic is that wherever the Bible and the Quran have a conflict or contradiction the Quran is to give way, NOT the Bible. This is particularly true when the text of the Quran contradicts the text of the Bible. The Muslim position is that the ‘same’ God [Allah] revealed the Bible and the Quran. Thus the Quran will never contradict the Bible, otherwise Allah would be contradicting himself. It is obvious that if Allah contradicted himself, he is not perfect and if he is not prefect, then he cannot be God [Allah].
THE MANY ERRORS IN THE QURAN
There are errors regarding the days of creation. When one adds up all the days mentioned in Sura 41v9+10-12 the Quran says that it took God eight days to create the world [4 days+2+2] but the Bible says God created the whole world and everything in six days [Gen1,2]. Also in Sura 7v51 and 10v3 the Quran agrees with the biblical account of only 6 days. If 8 days is correct then the Quran in Sura’s 7 and 10 are wrong; if 6 days is correct, then the Quran in Sura 41 is wrong. This is clearly a mistake.
The Quran says that one of the sons of Noah refused to go in the ark and was drowned in the flood [Sura 11v32-48], but according to the Bible all 3 sons of Noah went into the ark with him and were saved from the flood [Gen 7:1-3,7]. And Sura 11v44 claims that the ark rested on the top of Mount Judi while the Bible says Mount Ararat.
MISTAKES ABOUT ABRAHAM:
The Quran says that Abraham’s father’s name was Azar, but the Bible says his name was Terah [Sura 6v24/Gen 11:26]. Abraham did not live and worship in the valley of Mecca [Sura 14v37-40] but in Hebron [Gen 13:18]. Sura 37v100-112 says that it was Ishmael who was sacrificed but the Bible says it was Isaac Abraham went to sacrifice [Gen 22:2].
Abraham did not build Kabha as the Quran says in Sura 125v25-127. And he was not thrown into the fire by Nimrod as the Quran says in [Sura 21v68-69 9v69]. This error is very serious because Nimrod lived many centuries before Abraham. How then did Nimrod manage to throw Abraham into the Fire when Nimrod had been dead for centuries?
ERRORS CONCERNING MOSES:
It was not Pharaoh’s wife who adopted Moses as the Quran claims in Sura 28v8-9. It was Pharaohs’ daughter [Exo 2:5]. Noah’s fold did NOT take place in Moses’s day [Sura 7v136 compare 7v59. The Quran says Haman lived in Egypt during the time of Moses building the Tower of Babel [Sura 27v4-6, 28-38, 29v39, 4v23-24, 36v37. But Haman lived actually in Persia [Book of Esther].
ERRORS CONCERNING MARY:
Her father’s name was not Imran as Quran claims in Sura 66v12, She did not give birth to Jesus under the palm tree [Sura 19v22] but in a stable [Luke 2:1-30]. Muhammad clearly made up fraudulent speeches and miracles for her [Sura 19v 23-26].
The only way a Muslim can find peace, salvation, and joy is in Jesus Christ [John 14:6].
Islam is the fear of religion by forceful submission to Muhammad. It manipulates, oppresses and plays with minds of people, using threats and coerced conversion by way of brutal force. Muslims can have hope when they submit to the Lord Jesus Christ that they will be in a heaven where they will dwell eternally and not in a paradise where, as the Quran says, Muslims will enjoy sex with virgins, etc. This religion is false and will not advance because Muslims are killing Muslims these days.