The Fogg is Lifted

Due to Uthman's systematic destruction of the early Quranic manuscripts, very little evidence remains of what the great pre-Uthmanic Quran teachers taught. Much of what we know has been saved through quotations and traditions faithfully recorded by early Muslim authors such as Ibn Abi Daud (none other than the son of Abu Daud, compiler of one of the collections of sahih sittah). As fortunate as we are to have these records of early variants, very little can replace the power and poignancy of manuscript evidence.

As fate would have it, however, a palimpsest was discovered which contained a few notable similarities to the supposed Ibn Masud manuscripts. (A palimpsest is a manuscript which has been washed out and written over; the original text can still be examined, however, via UV light imaging methods). Within this manuscript are no less than seven types of variances from the standard texts of today:

1 - Different sequences of words
2 - Omissions
3 - Different words
4 - Orthographical variants
5 - Scribal errors/corrections
6 - Explanatory additions
7 - Different contexts which are a result of omitted words.

Below is an image of Fogg's Palimpsest. Notice that the scripto secunda, or the overlying text of the palimpsest, was made to match the standard text; the scripto prima, or the older text, had different wording.



Why do Muslims continue to deny the existence of Quranic variants from early Islamic history? Well, it's because they must if the Quran's claim in 15:9 is to be defended. But just how long can Muslims continue to deny the existence of variants while staring at variants? Only time will tell.

More Lost Surahs of the Perfectly Preserved Qur'an

We've seen that early Qur'anic codices contained a different number of chapters from the Qur'an we have today, and that there were numerous other differences among these early Qur'ans, including spelling differences, different words, different phrases, etc. We've seen that, according to both Aisha (the Mother of the Faithful) and Ubayy ibn Ka'b (Muhammad's greatest reciter), approximately two-thirds of Surah 33 went missing. Aisha even notes that the Verse of Suckling was eaten by a goat. Ibn Umar declares that Muslims shouldn't claim that they know the Qur'an, since much of it has been lost. And yet Muslims maintain, in spite of the evidence, that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved.

But there are other problems. In Sahih Muslim we read about entire Surahs being forgotten. One of these Surahs was about as long as Surah 9, which contains more than a hundred verses. And yet Muslims remembered practically nothing from it.

Sahih Muslim 2286: Abu Harb b. Abu al-Aswad reported on the authority of his father that Abu Musa al-Ash'ari sent for the reciters of Basra. They came to him and they were three hundred in number. They recited the Qur'an and he said: You are the best among the inhabitants of Basra, for you are the reciters among them. So continue to recite it. (But bear in mind) that your reciting for a long time may not harden your hearts as were hardened the hearts of those before you. We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara'at. I have, however, forgotten it with the exception of this which I remember out of it: "If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley, and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust." And we used to recite a surah which resembled one of the surahs of Musabbihat, and I have forgotten it, but remember (this much) out of it: "O people who believe, why do you say that which you do not practise" (lxi. 2) and "that is recorded in your necks as a witness (against you) and you would be asked about it on the Day of Resurrection" (xvii. 13).

This Hadith raises some important questions. Why were entire chapters of a perfect book abrogated? Since Allah promises that he will only abrogate a verse if he gives something better in its place (2:106), what did he offer in place of these perfect Surahs? Further, Muslims typically claim that abrogation only refers to changes in practice, yet we can see that there were verses in these Surahs that had nothing to do with practice. Why were these passages abrogated?

The compilation of the Qur'an was clearly a very human process involving trial and error, educated guesses, faulty memories, fallible opinions, disagreements, mistakes, ignorance, and bad decisions. And we can't forget, of course, the pile of manuscripts reduced to ashes by Uthman in his desperate attempt to destroy all evidence that the Qur'an hadn't been perfectly preserved. The early Muslim community left modern Muslims with a huge mess to clean up if they want to cling to the false belief that the Qur'an was perfectly preserved. Perhaps dedicated Muslims should follow the example of Uthman and burn all of their ahadith, commentaries, and other writings which prove, conclusively, that Allah failed to protect his revelation (as he promised he would do in Surah 15:9).

Quranically Confused: Muhammad's Chosen Teachers Against Zaid's Text

When I was still a Muslim, I had no doubt about one thing: the Qur'an was incontrovertibly perfectly preserved. I told any who asked me that there were plenty of huffaz who had memorized the Qur'an as Muhammad had revealed it. When it came time to collect the Qur'an in one codex, the verses were all well-known in the memories of the Muslims. Zaid bin Thabit just had to verify them and record them in his codex. Even the order of the surahs was known by command of the Prophet! This was a clean process, no room for error, and indisputably accurate.

Or so I thought. Having outgrown much of my chidlish naivete, I later realized that one thing must be true: if the accounts regarding the compilation of the Qur'an are much later than the compilation itself, then there is plenty of room for embellishment and sterilization of the accounts. Conversely, if an early account reports some snare in the compilation of the Qur'an or some disagreement, then this is very likely to be a true account, for three reasons: It fits the historical method's principle of early testimony, it fits the historical method's principle of embarassing admission (for what Muslim would want to invent a story which makes the transmission of the Qur'an appear sloppy?), and it would be the only logical explanation of such an account. Thus, when I read early Muslim accounts of the Quran's compilation and find that they disagreed with perfect preservation, my interest was piqued:

Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down … nor were they found with even one (person) after them.
-Ibn Abi Daud Kitab al-Masahif

After investigating the issue further, I was shocked by the preponderance of early evidence against Zaid's text. In fact, it would be accurate to believe that Muhammad himself would not consider Zaid's text to be 100% accurate! According to Sahih Bukhari, Muhammad's chosen teachers were four:

Narrated Masruq: 'Abdullah bin 'Amr mentioned 'Abdullah bin Masud and said, "I shall ever love that man, for I heard the Prophet saying, 'Take (learn) the Qur'an from four: 'Abdullah bin Masud, Salim, Mu'adh and Ubai bin Ka'b.' "
- Sahih Al-Bukhari, Book 61

First among Muhammad's chosen teachers of the Qur'an was ibn Masud. Yet Ibn Masud is well known to have disagreed with Zaid's text of the Qur'an. The disagreements were not limited to qirrat or minor word variations, but even the number of surahs was not something they agreed on! Ibn Masud, Muhammad's preferred teacher of the Qur'an, did not include al-Faatihah, al-Falaq, or al-Naas in his text! Ibn Masud's text contained only 111 surahs. About Zaid's text (the modern Qur'an), Ibn Masud is reported to have said the following:

The people have been guilty of deceit in the reading of the Quran. I like it better to read according to the recitation of him (Muhammad) whom I love more than that of Zaid Ibn Thabit. By Him besides Whom there is no god! I learnt more than seventy surahs from the lips of the Apostle of Allah while Zaid was still a youth, having two locks and playing with the youth.
- Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, vol. 2, p.444

To settle this dispute between Zaid and ibn Masud, why not turn to someone else who Muhammad chose as an excellent teacher of the Qur'an? One of the other four Muhammad hand-picked was Ubay bin Ka'b. But when we turn to Ubay, we find out that he disagreed with both Zaid and ibn Masud, and he included 116 chapters in his Qur'an! However, we do find agreement between his text and ibn Masud's text against Zaid's text (such as the ordering of the surahs) and between his text and ibn Abbas's text (such as verses that Zaid did not include). Beyond this, we find in Ubay's Qur'an verses that Umar considered part of the Qur'an (the Verses of Rajm, or Stoning) which Zaid left out, much to Umar's chagrin.

So what of the modern text of the Qur'an? Without having to make any conclusion myself, I can simply recount the data and say the following:

- Muhammad's chosen teachers disagreed with it
- They disagreed with the number of chapters
- They disagreed with the order of the chapters
- They disagreed with the content of the verses
- Even Umar agreed with Muhammad's teachers against Zaid's Qur'an

The evidence is strong, and the conclusions are overwhelming. It seems that those who gloss over these facts or deny them will remain Quranically confused.

Islam's Amazingly Unfalsifiable Claims--Part One: The Preservation of the Qur'an

Suppose my friend Bassam presents the following hypothesis: "There are undetectable aliens living on Pluto." Suppose I travel to Pluto in search of these aliens. I set up all kinds of instruments to see if there is any evidence of aliens. I return empty-handed. "Bassam," I say. "You said there were aliens on Pluto. I checked. But there aren't any." "Well," Bassam replies, "I said they're undetectable, didn't I?"

Here I would have a difficult time understanding Bassam's meaning. He's making a positive claim, namely, that there are aliens on Pluto. But at the same time, by saying that these aliens are undetectable, he's ruling out our ability to test his claim. His claim is unfalsifiable, meaning there's no way, even in theory, that we can prove his theory false via experiment or observation. How useful are such hypotheses?

Consider now the following claim made by Bassam and other Muslims: "The Qur'an has been perfectly preserved." At first, it seems like such a claim is falsifiable. That is, it seems that we can test the claim by doing some historical research. So we do a little research and we learn that Abdullah ibn Masud and Ubayy ibn Ka'b, two of Muhammad's top reciters of the Qur'an, had a different number of Surahs in their versions of the Qur'an. One would think that this falsifies the Muslim claim. "Not so," says Bassam. "Abdullah and Ubayy were simply wrong. The Qur'an we have today is, by definition, the correct one. Hence, everyone who has a different number of chapters must be wrong." So, given such a claim, even if we were to find out that every single one of Muhammad's companions except Zaid ibn Thabit had a different number of Surahs, this wouldn't count as any evidence against the perfect preservation of the Qur'an, since, by definition, only the Qur'an we have today is the correct one.

So we do a little more investigation. We find that there were all kinds of textual variants among early Qur'anic texts. That is, if we were to turn to Surah 2 in the Qur'an of Ubayy ibn Ka'b, this Surah would differ from that in the Qur'an of Ibn Masud, which would differ from that in the Qur'an of Zaid ibn Thabit, etc. These Qur'ans have spelling differences, different words, different phrases, etc. Surely this will count as evidence against the perfect preservation of the Qur'an, won't it? "No, it won't," replies the Muslim. "You see, there were seven [or ten, or twenty] different readings of the Qur'an, and all of them were correct." Here we find that there can be all sorts of differences among copies of the Qur'an, and yet this doesn't at all affect the hypothesis that the Qur'an we have today is a perfect copy of the tablet in heaven.

We dig deeper in search of the truth, and we find Muslim sources reporting that massive sections of the Qur'an have been lost. We find Aisha and Ubayy ibn Ka'b reporting that more than a hundred verses of Surah 33 are missing. Surely this will count as proof that the Qur'an hasn't been perfectly preserved. "Not so," says the Muslim. "Whatever verses are missing from the Qur'an have been abrogated (despite the fact that the Qur'an contains other verses that have been abrogated). You see, Allah changed his mind quite a bit, and he often gave us verses, only to take those verses back." Thus, we find that no matter how much evidence there is that numerous verses are missing from the Qur'an, this will never count as any evidence whatsoever against perfect preservation.

Here non-Muslims are quite confused. Were the missing verses of Surah 33 part of the tablet in heaven? If so, then the Qur'an Muslims have today is very different from the Qur'an in heaven. If not, then why were they revealed as part of the Qur'an? While we're at it, does the perfect Qur'an in heaven contain all seven readings (this would be quite an odd book). If so, then the Qur'an Muslims have today is quite different from the Qur'an in heaven, since Uthman destroyed most (but not all) of the different readings. If not, weren't the variants corruptions of the original, which contained no variants?

In the end, no matter what the evidence says, Muslims will continue to claim that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved, for they have insulated themselves from the evidence (and this is extremely common in Islam). But non-Muslims are left asking ourselves, "What is the difference between, on the one hand, a perfectly preserved book whose early copies contain different numbers of chapters, different verses, different spellings, different words, different phrases, a different order of chapters, and which, at different times, contained completely different passages (for some were abrogated), and, on the other hand, a book that hasn't been perfectly preserved at all?" As far as evidence is concerned, there is no difference between the Qur'an and a book that hasn't been perfectly preserved, which is why the Muslim claim makes so little sense to anyone who isn't a Muslim.

Aisha and Ubayy ibn Ka'b on the 100+ Verses Missing from Surah 33

Muslims claim that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved. They can only make this claim, however, by employing their standard apologetic strategy--namely, rejecting their own sources and calling the early Muslim scholars "liars." As I argued here, such an approach will ultimately lead to skepticism about Muhammad. But if this is how Muslims want to argue, so be it.

Indeed, I'd like to see my Muslim friends reject even more commentary from early Muslims, who were in a better position to know what really happened. Let's consider two passages in which Ubayy ibn Ka'b (one of Muhammad's most trusted reciters of the Qur'an) and Aisha (the "Mother of the Faithful") declare that approximately two-thirds of Surah 33 is missing. Both passages are taken from Abu Ubaid's Kitab Fada'il-al-Qur'an.

Ibn Abi Maryam related to us from Ibn Luhai'a from Abu'l-Aswad from Urwa b. az-Zubair from A'isha who said, "Surat al-Ahzab (xxxiii) used to be recited in the time of the Prophet with two hundred verses, but when Uthman wrote out the codices he was unable to procure more of it than there is in it today."

Isma'il b. Ibrahim and Isma'i b. Ja'far related to us from al-Mubarak b. Fadala from Asim b. Abi'n-Nujud from Zirr b. Hubaish who said--Ubai b. Ka'b said to me, "O Zirr, how many verses did you count (or how many verses did you read) in Surat al-Ahzab?" "Seventy-two or seventy-three," I answered. Said he, "Yet it used to be equal to Surat al-Baqara (ii), and we used to read in it the verse of Stoning."

I brought up Aisha's claim in a debate with Bassam, and Bassam, if I recall correctly, confidently proclaimed that the passage had been "fabricated." I hereby ask my friend Bassam to provide evidence that the Muslims in the chains I've presented were inventing false claims about the Qur'an. I would also like Bassam to say that Abu Ubaid (who was called "the ocean of knowledge" by his fellow Muslims) was ignorant and sloppy in his investigation of these passages.

(Note: If you ever wondered what happened to the "Verse of Stoning," which was supposed to be part of the Qur'an but instead came up missing, Ubayy ibn Ka'b says above that it fell out with the other 100+ missing verses of Surah 33).

Nakdimon vs. Yahya19 on Paltalk Today

Today at 7:00 P.M. (Eastern Standard Time) Nakdimon will be debating Yahya. To listen in, click here and log in.

Muhammad, Mary, and Miriam: A Qur'anic Confusion

The Arabic word for "Mary" (the mother of Jesus) is the same as the word for "Miriam" (the sister of Moses and Aaron). If the Qur'an is not the word of God, this confusion might cause problems for Muhammad. Interestingly enough, the Qur'an confuses Mary with Miriam.

Qur'an 19:27-28--"At length she brought the (babe) to her people, carrying him (in her arms). They said: 'O Mary! Truly an amazing thing hast thou brought! O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste!"

Notice that the Qur'an refers to Mary (the mother of Jesus) as the "sister of Aaron" (i.e. Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron). Even Christians during the time of Muhammad recognized this error, and Muhammad had a chance to respond.

Sahih Muslim 5326--"Mughira b. Shuba reported: When I came to Najran, they (the Christians of Najran) asked me: You read 'O sister of Harun ["Aaron"]' (i.e. Hadrat Maryam) in the Qur'an, whereas Moses was born much before Jesus. When I came back to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) I asked him about that, whereupon he said: The (people of the old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons who had gone before them."

So Muhammad's response is that people in the time of Mary would refer to a pious young woman as the "sister of X," where X might be a prophet from 1400 years earlier. The problem is that we have no record of such a practice in first century Israel, and we don't even find it used elsewhere in the Qur'an. The obvious conclusion, then, is that Muhammad simply made a mistake, and that he tried to correct it by making something up.

Two more points are worthy of note in al-Muslim's hadith. First, the Christians of Najran knew nothing of the practice of referring to pious young women as the sister of some prophet, even though they would have been familiar with traditions about Mary. Second, the Muslim who talked to them obviously didn't know that this was a figure of speech, since he was stumped by the refutation and had to go back to Muhammad for an answer. Thus, Christians knew nothing of the practice Muhammad referred to, and Muslims who had been reciting the Qur'an in Muhammad's presence were never told that "sister of Aaron" was a metaphor. Indeed, they only learned this when Muhammad had been accused of erring.

But things get even worse. The father of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam was a man named Amram (Arabic: "Imran"):

1 Chronicles 6:1-3--"The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath and Merari. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses and Miriam."

Hence, if Muhammad really believed that Mary the mother of Jesus was the same person as Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron, it wouldn't surprise us to find Muhammad referring to Mary as "the daughter of Imran." Not surprisingly, this is exactly what we find in the Qur'an and the Hadith:

Qur'an 3:35-36--"Behold! When the wife of Imran said: 'O my Lord! I do dedicate unto Thee what is in my womb for Thy special service: So accept this of me: for Thou hearest and knowest all things.' When she was delivered, she said: 'O my Lord! Behold! I am delivered of a female child!'--And Allah knew best what she brought forth--'And no wise is the male like the female. I have named her Mary, and I commend her and her offspring to Thy protection from the Evil One, the Rejected.'"

Sahih al-Bukhari 3769--"Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ashari: Allah's Messenger said, 'Many amongst men attained perfection but amongst women none attained the perfection except Maryam (Mary), the daughter of Imran, and Asiya, the wife of Fir'aun (Pharaoh)."

Note that Mary's mother is called "the wife of Imran." The Qur'an certainly takes the application of this metaphor to an extreme, for now we must assume that there was a first century practice in which a pious woman would be called the "wife" of the father of a prophet!

Thus, if we are to believe Muhammad's explanation for what appears to be a rather obvious error in the Qur'an, we must believe that there was a first century practice in which people would refer to a pious young woman as "the sister of X" (where X was a prophet who died centuries earlier), and as the daughter of the wife of Y (where Y was the father of prophet X), and as "the daughter of Y" (where, again, Y was the father of prophet X). When we combine this with the fact that, by an amazing coincidence, there was indeed a woman named Miriam who was both the sister of Aaron and the daughter of Amram, and whose mother was the wife of Amram, we have to wonder why the author of the Qur'an would pass on such a confusing collection of metaphors, with absolutely no evidence that these metaphors were ever used in the first century, and with the only reasonable conclusion being that Muhammad didn't know that Mary and Miriam were two different people, who lived more than a thousand years apart.

Mumbai Massacre Photos

Angels Among Us?

This doesn't have much to do with Islam, but it's interesting.

"Disabled Teen Recovered after Glowing Image Appeared on Monitor."

Surah 86:5-7 and the Formation of Sperm

Muslims often claim that the Qur'an is a scientific masterpiece. Yet to anyone who isn't already a Muslim, it's difficult to understand how Muslims can make such a claim. The Qur'an is filled with statements which, if taken at face value, are completely false. Let's consider one such passage. Indeed, let's play a game that I'd like to call: "Out-Answer Ali."

"Now let man but think from what he is created! He is created from a drop emitted--proceedings from between the backbone and the ribs." (Surah 86:5-7)

In his famous commentary on the Qur'an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali tries to explain this obvious error on Muhammad's part. Here's Ali's footnote:

"A man's seed is the quintessence of his body. It is therefore said metaphorically to proceed from his loins, i.e., from his back between the hipbones and his ribs. His backbone is the source and symbol of his strength and personality. In his spinal cord and in the brain is the directive energy of the central nervous system, and this directs all action, organic and psychic. The spinal cord is continuous with the Medulla Oblongata in the brain."

Notice that Ali doesn't even come close to explaining Muhammad's error. "The spinal cord is continuous with the Medulla Oblongata . . ." What in the world does this have to do with Muhammad's claim that sperm come from the area between the spinal cord and the ribs?

So who's going to out-answer Ali? Can my Muslim friends show that sperm really do come from between the backbone and ribs? (Note: I don't really care that the Qur'an contains scientific errors. The point here is that Muslims can't base their belief in the divine inspiration of the Qur'an on it's supposed scientific accuracy. If Muslims want a defense of the Qur'an, they'll have to look somewhere other than science.)

For more on the Qur'an and science, see Answering Islam's page here.

David and Nabeel on Iron Sharpens Iron Today and Tomorrow

Nabeel and I will be in the studio with Chris Arnzen today and tomorrow on "Iron Sharpens Iron" (3:00 P.M., Eastern Standard Time). You can listen to the broadcasts live by going here and clicking on one of the live-streaming links. If you live in New York or Connecticut you can tune your radio to 1440AM. We'll post the MP3s as soon as we get them.

*****UPDATE***** To listen to the broadcasts, click here (for the first broadcast, concerning Nabeel's conversion) and here (for the second broadcast, concerning the Mumbai Massacre and violence in Islam).

Denial ad Absurdum: When Muslims Undermine Their Own Religion

There is a growing trend among Muslim debaters that demands our attention. Muslims are denying virtually all their early sources (apart from the Qur'an).

As earnest investigators of Islam, we ask our Muslim friends: "What should we turn to in order to investigate Islam?" We are told "Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih al-Muslim are the most trustworthy traditions of the prophet." But as soon as we turn to these collections for information about Muhammad, the Muslims deny their usefulness!

For example, when quoting Sahih al-Bukhari regarding the punishment for apostasy, even scholars and sheikhs have been known to deny the authenticity of the traditions (e.g. Jamal Badawi). When quoting Sahih al-Muslim regarding the punishment of Christians and Jews for the sins of Muslims (#6666), an immediate declaration of "daeef" or "weak hadith" is issued from a Shia Muslim. When quoting al-Muslim concerning the hadith in which Muhammad hits Aisha on her chest, causing her pain, Sunnis have said this tradition cannot be true. But these are the most trustworthy collections of ahadith!

Then what must we do as honest investigators of Islam? We must turn to the earliest biographies of Muhammad - indeed, this is what any historian would do to begin with! But when quoting Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi, and Ibn Saad, the Muslims insist that we not use these sources, stating that they are even less trustworthy than the above collections of ahadith!

This is not a rare occurrence - in fact, denial of sources is one of the most common responses Muslims provide to challenges against Islam's foundations.

But there are at least two over-arching problems that result from this position. The first is that investigators are left with no sources that they know Muslims will consider trustworthy except for the Qur'an itself. But "Qur'an Only" Islam looks nothing like the actual religion. When Muslims state that we must turn to commentaries and ahadith to understand the context of the Qur'an, their simultaneous insistence that other parts of those compilations are untrustworthy makes investigating Islam into a game of "guess what I'm thinking."

The second problem is more insidious: when Muslims deny the trustworthiness of virtually all the early Muslims (stating that they were unable to filter out blatant lies like the Satanic verses, the verse of stoning, etc.) they are denying the trustworthiness of those who recounted the Qur'an. But one must ask, how do early Muslims go from being regularly untrustworthy when recounting ahadith and sirah to being 100% trustworthy when recounting the Qur'an?

In conclusion, Muslims' denials of early Islamic sources have far reaching consequences. By these standards, investigators cannot trust any source enough to be able to gather accurate knowledge of Islam except the Qur'an, they cannot use anything in aiding their interpretation of the Qur'an, and in fact they have no reason at all to trust the Qur'an itself.

Nakdimon Responds to Bassam Zawadi's Response to James White's Response to Bassam Zawadi

Nabeel and I just finished listening to Nakdimon's (hilarious) response to Bassam. The audio is more than an hour long, but well worth listening to.



For James's original video, click here.

Let the People Speak!

In March, there will be a New York debate series with Nabeel Qureshi, Sami Zaatari, Abdullah al-Andalusi, Yahya Hayder Seymour, and me. We were trying to come up with some final topics, so Sami and I decided to let the people cast their votes.

What topics would you be most interested in seeing us debate? (If we debate them, we'll post them here, so that everyone can watch.)

An Analogy for My Muslim Friends (who Reject History and Attack Their Own Sources)

In the "comments" section of a recent post, Yahya objected to my claim that Muslim apologists are going to increase skepticism about Muhammad by attacking their own sources so frequently. Yahya called this a "pathetic argument." Let me give you an analogy in order to explain why I think this is a perfectly good argument.

Let's say that we're all members of the U.S. Secret Service, and that our job is to protect Governor X from being assassinated. Governor X is speaking at a rally, and so we decide to check people for weapons as they enter the auditorium. A man enters; we search him; we run him through a metal detector; and we let him through. A second man enters; we search him; we run him through a metal detector; and we let him through. And so on, and so on, until the the auditorium is filled with people.

Governor X gets up to speak, and suddenly an audience member pulls out a gun. We tackle him and drag him out. Here several questions should immediately arise in our minds: "How could this person have a gun when we searched everyone? Were our searches flawed? Does our metal detector work properly? Is it possible that other people in the room have weapons?" Let us further suppose that another person stands up with a gun, and another, and another. The more people who turn out to have weapons, the less we can trust that Governor X is safe.

Now let's apply this to history. The Secret Service agents represent Muslim scholars and historians, and the would-be assassins represent false stories about Muhammad. Muslim scholars and historians were supposedly the ones who were protecting and preserving the truth about Muhammad from generation to generation. Ibn Ishaq wrote our earliest extant biography about Muhammad. We open his biography, and we find that it's filled with false stories. Did Ibn Ishaq perform his Secret Service duties well? According to Muslims, no. He put the truth about Muhammad in danger.

Another early biographer is Wakidi. According to Muslims, Wakidi's text is filled with lies. So did Wakidi do a good job of preserving the truth? No.

In my debate on the Satanic Verses, I showed that a number of Islam's earliest scholars declared that Muhammad delivered verses from Satan. According to Muslims, these early scholars were either liars or they were fools, but they weren't reliable. So even the early Muslim historians and scholars weren't doing a good job of weeding out false stories.

In a recent post, I quoted more than one passage from Sahih Muslim, showing that, according to Muhammad, Allah will punish Jews and Christians in hell for the sins of Muslims. According to Yahya, these passages were fabricated. Yahya isn't the only one to challenge Sahih Sittah. When non-Muslims quote passages on killing apostates, even scholars such as Jamal Badawi will say that these passages in al-Bukhari were fabricated. In a recent debate with Jay Smith, Shabir Ally said, in effect, that any Muslim texts that teach violence have been fabricated. But what does this mean? It means that even Islam's most trusted hadith scholars allowed false stories to creep into their works. Thus, even al-Bukhari and al-Muslim couldn't distinguish truth from falsehood, using the most sophisticated methodologies available to them.

The result is that even the greatest of Muslim scholars are inaccurate. Both in a debate with Sami Zaatari and a debate with Adnan Rashid, I quoted the greatest Muslim commentator of all time: Ibn Kathir. Both Sami and Adnan rejected Ibn Kathir's claims. But Ibn Kathir's claims were based on his research of early Muslim sources. Hence, according to Sami and Adnan, even Ibn Kathir couldn't figure out what was true and what was false.

So what do we have today? According to Muslims, we have a large auditorium filled with thousands and thousands of false stories about Muhammad. This proves (1) that the early Muslim community was passing on false information about Muhammad, (2) that the early Muslim scholars were also passing on false information about Muhammad, and (3) that later Muslim scholars couldn't distinguish true reports from false reports.

The effects are already before us. Muslim apologists feel justified in rejecting practically anything I quote to them from their sources. But will it end here? No. Once we conclude that there isn't a single reliable historical source on the life of Muhammad, and once we conclude that Muslims have been lying from the beginning, it isn't a tremendous leap for us to say: "If that's the situation with your sources, how can I trust anything you say about Muhammad?" We can see, then, why a Muslim scholar recently declared that Muhammad probably never existed. I repeat: If Muslims continue attacking their own historical sources, they will increase skepticism about Muhammad.

James White Responds to Joshua Evans on the Deity of Christ

I was going to wait until James finished this series before I posted it, but it seems the series is going to take a long time. James discusses the arguments of Joshua Evans, a former "Youth Minister" who converted to Islam based on careful (ha!) research.

What I find interesting is that, as I listen to Joshua's presentation, I'm aware of the fact that the vast majority of Muslims will be highly impressed with his claims. And yet practically everything that comes out of his mouth is false. This is what I've come to expect from the "Deen Show."

PART ONE


PART TWO


PART THREE

The Status of Slave Girls in Islam

Could Arabic speaking Muslims please comment on the following post by Raymond Ibrahim at Jihad Watch? Is Ibrahim right or wrong?

Many are now aware that the Koran—that is, Allah’s word—permits, not just polygamy, but forced concubinage (sex with captive women), according to Koran 4:3: “Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice, then only one, or what your right hands possess [captive women taken in war].” There is, however, an interesting, and very telling, linguistic aspect to this verse that is often overlooked—or intentionally obscured. The Arabic states: “Ankahu [marry]…ma [what] malakat [possess] aymankum [your right hands].”

Oddly enough, the Arabic relative pronoun used to indicate these captive women is "ma": ma malakat aymankum, literally, “what your right hands possess” (see Shakir’s acclaimed English translation which most literally translates this). In Arabic, when one refers to a rational being (i.e., a human), the word used is min, which means “who(ever)”; ma, on the other hand, refers only to things or animals—trees, rocks, dogs and cats—very much similar to the English “it.” Thus, in proper Arabic the phrase might have been min malakat aymankum: “who(ever) your rights hands possess.”

For long I assumed this was but a stylistic matter. However, the highly revered Islamic scholar al-Qurtubi (d.1273) also makes this observation in vol. 5, p.12 of his authoritative 20-volume Tafsir Al Koran (Exegesis of the Koran). He points out that members of the human race should be referred to with min (who), whereas only “inanimate objects” or “brute beasts” should be referred to with ma (what).

Does this suggest that the Koran’s Arabic—touted as the most perfect Arabic—is flawed? Of course, no Muslim would allow for that. Nor need they, as this phenomenon (portraying concubines as non-human) accords well with a number of hadiths that place females and animals in the same category. Musnad Ibn Hanbal (vol. 2, p. 2992), for example, records Muhammad saying “Women, dogs, and donkeys annul a man’s prayer.” Indeed, in Qurtubi’s same Tafsir (vol.15, p.172), after examining such hadiths, he writes, "A Woman may be likened to a sheep—even a cow or a camel—for all are ridden.”

James White Responds to Bassam Zawadi on the Death of Jesus

Bassam Zawadi believes that Jesus didn't die by crucifixion. Instead, according to Bassam, Allah tricked people into believing that Jesus died on the cross. We must be clear, however, that all of the historical evidence supports the Christian view, not the Muslim view.

Muslims, of course, want the Christian view to be false, and they typically object to the Christian position by claiming that it would be unjust for God to place one person's sins on another person (despite the fact that this is exactly what Allah does in Sahih Muslim 6666). The problem with this objection is that Jesus was a voluntary sacrifice for sins. Bassam challenges this and asks where Jesus' words show that He was a willing sacrifice. Clearly, there are numerous passages which teach this, e.g. John 10:17-18: "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."

James White gives a deeper response to Bassam:



If you're interested in the verse from Sahih Muslim supporting substitutionary atonement, here it is:

Sahih Muslim 6666—Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: No Muslim would die but Allah would admit in his stead a Jew or a Christian in Hell-Fire.

And here's another:

Sahih Muslim 6668—Allah’s Messenger [said]: There would come people amongst the Muslims on the Day of Resurrection with as heavy sins as a mountain, and Allah would forgive them and He would place in their stead the Jews and the Christians.

James White Responds to Adnan Rashid's Comments about the New Testament

In my debate with Adnan Rashid on the Satanic Verses, Adnan made some comments about the New Testament. For the most part, I didn't respond, since his comments had nothing to do with whether Muhammad delivered the Satanic Verses (i.e. the topic of our debate). In the following video, James White respondes to Adnan's claims about the New Testament.