Description

The Quran is allegedly the last scripture given by Allah, preceded by the Torah and the Gospel (Quran 3:3). My argument against Islam will have three parts. First, I will demonstrate that the Quran and the Gospel radically oppose each other’s teachings. Second, I will demonstrate that the Quran claims continuity with its contemporary Gospel and that early Islamic scholarship and Sahih Hadith support this interpretation, contrary to the modern Muslim pop apologetic view that the Bible is textually corrupt beyond recognition. Third, I will demonstrate that, even if one were to persist in erroneously claiming textual corruption, the lack of this confirmation from the Torah and Gospel leaves the Quran with no meaningful evidence for its own authenticity.

Note: sometimes, the site I use for Quran citations glitches and does not show the cited text. If this happens, please click the site’s “reading” button and then click back to “translation.” It will fix the error.

The Al-Kindi Dilemma

The argument which follows is called the Al-Kindi dilemma, named after the 11th century Christian apologist who presented it. The basic syllogism is as follows:

(1) The Quran contradicts the Gospel of the seventh century.

(2) The Quran claims the Gospel of the seventh century agrees with it (Quran 3:3).

(C) The Quran is false.

The Contradiction

Proving the first premise is a very simple task. The Quran claims Jesus was neither killed nor crucified, but rather that it was an illusion (Quran 4:157). But in the Gospel, Jesus explicitly says ten times that He will be killed or crucified and rise from the dead, even harshly rebuking those who protested this teaching (Mark 8:31-33, 9:30-32, 10:32-34, Matt. 16:21-28, 17:21-23, 20:17-19, Luke 9:21-22, 18:31-34, John 2:19-22, 10:17-18). Each of the four Gospel accounts present the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the climax of the story. They are the essential to the Gospel’s message. It is absolutely certain that the Gospel of the seventh century is functionally identical to the translations I’ve cited – we have complete Gospel manuscripts from the fourth century, namely the Codices Siniaticus and Vaticanus.

With that settled, we can move on to the next premise: that the Quran claims continuity with this Gospel. The issue here is rather obvious. To escape this argument, modern Muslims often argue that the Quran does not claim continuity with its contemporary Gospel; they instead propose that a long-lost Gospel (for which no evidence exists), is what agrees with it. Unfortunately for them, there are dozens of quotes from the Quran which only make sense when interpreted the former way. There are so many verses about this, I’ve organized them into general categories instead of outright quoting most of them. I invite you to read every hyperlink if you want the verbatim:

The Quran

(1) Quran 3:78 is crystal clear that the contemporary Bible was not corrupt. It says: “There are some among [the Jews and Christians] who distort the Book with their tongues to make you think this distortion is from the Book – but it is not what the Book says. They say, ‘It is from Allah’ – but it is not from Allah. And so they attribute lies to Allah knowingly.” This passage explicitly says distortions (corruptions) are not from the contemporary Bible. It says the Jews and Christians lied knowingly, meaning they willfully altered the known Biblical truth. The Quran claims to make all things clear in (Quran 16:89). If this is not clear, what is?

(2) In the following seven verses, the Quran claims to confirm the Torah and the Gospel: Quran 2:97, 3:3, 4:136, 6:92, 6:114, 20:133, 35:31. None of the verses say, “the Quran confirms parts of these texts, but many parts are also corrupt.” In Quran 2:85, 2:140, 3:69, 5:15, 5:66, and 5:68, Allah disparages the Jews and Christians for only selectively obeying scripture. But if the scripture is corrupt, they should only be obeying it selectively.

(3) These six verses instruct the Jews and Christians (sometimes called “people of the book”) to verify the Quran using their scripture, or reprimand them for refusing to do so: Quran 2:91 2:101, 2:40-41, 7:157, 10:94, 21:7. These four verses instruct the Jews and Christians to verify the Quran using scripture they “already have” or “is in their hands”: Quran 5:43, 5:47, 2:89, 3:81. But this command is incoherent if the Bible was corrupt beyond recognition. There’s no guidance as to which parts validate the Quran, nor even a warning that some do not.

(4) Quran 5:48 says Allah made the Jews, Christians, and Muslims into three different communities with different codes and ways of life for the purpose of “testing [them] with what He has given each of [them]” and commands them to “compete with one another in doing good.” But Allah’s intent and command make no sense if the contemporary Bible was corrupt. If a good-faith reading of the plain words of the Gospel would lead one to conclude Jesus died and rose from the dead, then why does Allah seem to claim responsibility for giving them the Gospel? Why does He sanction each community when the Quran obligates Christians to reject the central belief of their community? If the only way to validate Biblical texts is to use the Quran, wouldn’t this mean Allah failed His goal to establish three distinct, competing communities?

(5)  There is one passage in the Quran which explicitly mentions textual corruption, as opposed to oral misrepresentation. Quran 2:75-2:79 speaks of a group who “knowingly corrupt [the word] after understanding it… with their own hands” for “fleeting gain.” Islam’s own great exegetes – Al-Jalalayn, Ibn Abbas, Al-Wahidi – taught that this passage was about contemporary Jewish scholars who knowingly altered real prophecies describing Mohammad and published the fabrications for money. The use of the word knowingly necessitates the existence of real scripture at the time. Further, the Quran contrasts this group with people of the book who do not alter revelation for fleeting gain (3:199), implying that the conniving Jews as well as many pious Jews and Christians had real revelation in their possession, again contradicting any notion of ubiquitous corruption.

Early Scholarship

The concept of widespread Biblical corruption does not exist in the Quran. In fact, it seems to suggest the opposite: Surahs 6:115, and 18:27 claim the word of Allah is unalterable. 3:78 explicitly says the Bible is not textually corrupt. The verses which do allude to corruption refer to oral misinformation or, at worst, local fabrications. But this is not just the plain phrasing of the Quran – this is the teaching of early Muslim scholarship.

Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas, Mohammad’s cousin and one of his companions explicitly wrote: “They corrupt the word‘ means ‘they alter or change its meaning,’ for no one is able to change even a single word from any Book of Allah. The meaning is that they interpret the word wrongly.” Dozens of early Muslim scholars spoke likewise. Early Muslim scholars regularly used the Bible as an authority. Caliphal epistles addressed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III and to Constantine VI contain quotations from Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Habakkuk, and Isaiah interpreted as predictions of the Prophet Mohammad. Ibn Qutayba (notably, Signs of Prophecy), Al-Qasim al-Rassi (notably, Refutation of Christians), Al-Yaʿqūbī (notably, Tarikh) and many others likewise cited large tracts of the New Testament, and even drew from multiple popular Biblical translations as authoritative sources for apologetics, history, literature, jurisprudence, and tradition.

This view was the functional consensus until Ibn Hazm wrote Al-Fasl (~1010), which argued for widespread textual corruption. The theory did not gain widespread acceptance until the 13th century.

Sahih Hadith

What, finally, of the Sahih Hadith? In Sahih Muslim 8a, Mohammad says that belief in Allah’s books (plural) is an article of faith. In Sunan Ibn Majah 2558 and Sunan Abi Dawud 3626, Mohammad uses the Torah of his time. He then reminds the listeners it came from Allah. In Sunan Abi Dawud 4310, Abd Allah – a Jewish convert to Islam because he supposedly found Mohammad prefigured in the Torah – uses knowledge from those scriptures to corroborate a claim from Mohammad. When a man laughs at the Gospel in Sunan Abi Dawud 4736, Mohammad rebukes him because it is “the word of Allah.” In Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2875 Mohammad states that the Torah, Gospel, and Quran are all parts of one whole. In Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2653, Mohammad bemoans that the Bible is with the Jews and Christians, but they ignore it.

The silence in these verses is deafening. For example, in the first Hadith, Mohammad teaches belief in the divine books alongside belief in Allah Himself, and doesn’t mention anything about corruption. Wouldn’t this caveat have been extremely important? The sole reference in the entire corpus of Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim to mention textual corruption is Sahih al-Bukhari 7363. However, it uses the same language as Quran 2:75-2:79, describing people who “changed their scripture with their own hands” for “a little gain.” To be consistent with the Quran and previous examples, we must assume this refers to contemporaries making up new scriptures to sell them, not widespread textual corruption. 

Neither the Quran, nor early scholars nor the Hadiths teach widespread Biblical corruption. In fact, an unbiased reading of all three leads to the opposite conclusion. But of course, the opposite conclusion would mean Islam is false.

Total Lack of Evidence

Suppose you were to find the above unconvincing. Suppose that you nonetheless chose to believe that the Gospel is corrupt and only select parts constitute true revelation. This would mean that validating the Quran using the Bible would be circular reasoning – we know the Quran is true because parts of the Bible confirm it; we know which parts of the Bible are true because they match the Quran. This leads to a new question: given the Bible can’t confirm it, what justifies the belief the Quran is divine? Modern Muslims argue that the Quran has multiple alternate marks of divine origin. Let’s explore a few of these.

Miraculous Beauty

First, the miraculous beauty of the poetry. First, obviously, this is subjective. One might consider Paradise Lost to be of divine origin by this standard. Second, the Quran itself recounts people constantly receiving it with lukewarmness, calling it “old news” (Quran 6:25, 8:31, 9:61, 16:24, 16:103, 17:94, 23:83, 25:4, 27:68, 46:17, 68:15, 83:13). Again, Paradise Lost seems to have been received more warmly than the Quran. Some will claim that Islam spread because of the beauty of the Quran, thus proving the claim empirically, but this ignores the previously cited words of the Quran stating that people weren’t all that excited about it, as well as the “coincidence” that wherever Islam went, it came carrying a sword.

Miraculous Knowledge

Second, the miraculous knowledge of Allah’s transcendent nature, as expressed by the divine names. The Quran lays out 99 unique names For Allah; examples include Ar-Rahman (The Most Compassionate), Ar-Rahim (The Most Merciful), Al-Malik (The King), Al-Quddus (The Pure One), and Al-Khaliq (The Creator). But again, this isn’t proof of anything. The Zoroastrians likewise had a list of 101 names, including Khwafar (Compassionate), Avakhshiaea (Merciful Giver), Harvesp-khoda (Lord of all), Tum-afik (The Purest), and Mino-satihgar (The Creator). Does this prove Zoroastrianism is divine? What empirically differentiates this list from the Quran’s?

Third, prophetic miracles. Let’s look at a few examples. “Their skins will bear witness against them as to what they have been doing” (41:21). This is allegedly fulfilled by fingerprint technology. “Corruption has spread on land and sea because of what men’s hands have wrought” (30:42). This is allegedly fulfilled by pollution. “And when the wild beasts are gathered together.” (81:6). This is allegedly fulfilled by zoos. These are not strawmen; these are real, commonly-used examples of the Quran’s prophetic miracles. I don’t feel the need to argue these at length. If the Quran were really prophetic, one should be able to use it to identify events before they happen. Ambiguous application to vaguely comparable events after the fact proves nothing.

Fourth, scientific miracles. Let’s look at a few examples. “Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them? We made every living thing from water, will they not believe?” (Quran, 21:30). The first sentence is allegedly proven by the Big Bang theory, and the second by the fact that organisms are, in fact, largely composed of water. These claims have the same issue as the previous example. If the Quran holds divine scientific knowledge, one should be able to use it to make scientific discoveries or inventions. Every supposed scientific miracle is just an ambiguous verse applied to discoveries made millennia later.

Perfect Rectitude

Fifth, the miracle of no errors and no contradictions. There are many apparent examples of Quranic errors – the claim that Jews taught Ezra was the son of God (9:30), the claim that semen comes from the backbone (86:6-7), or mountains as anchors which prevent the earth from shaking (16:15). But again, even if this were true, a lack of error doesn’t inherently prove divine origin. Is Euclid’s triangle sum theorem divine?

Sixth, perfect textual preservation. The Quran underwent two rounds of compilation under Abu Bakr and Uthman. Uthman’s Quraysh text is the Quran in circulation today; he had all competing versions burned. The Sanaa Manuscript, one of the earliest Quranic manuscripts, displays variations like synonyms, omissions, additions, and different word arrangements from the Uthmanic Quran. One could argue that the manuscript isn’t substantially different from today’s text, but that argument concedes that the Quran was not in fact, “perfectly, miraculously preserved,” but only substantially preserved! There are also multiple Sahih Hadith which attest to missing verses. For example, Bukhari 6830, Muslim 1691a, and Mishkat 3557 testify that there was once a Quranic verse teaching that married adulterers should be stoned which is now lost. This doesn’t bode well when your apologetics depend on perfect preservation. And again, even if perfect preservation were true, its unclear how this necessitates divine origin.

Perfect Moral Teaching

Seventh, perfect understanding of the harmony of human social and personal needs, and timeless moral teachings. Let’s examine these claims through the teaching and example of Mohammad: Mohammad teaches that Heaven is a place of endless sex with virgins (44:51-54, 38:52, 52:17-20, 55:56, 56:22, 56:35, 78:33), permits sex with children so long as they have reached first menstruation (65:4), slaves (33:50, 23:5-6, 70:29-30, 8:69), slaves with living husbands (4:24), and allows polygamy with up to four wives (4:3). Mohammad, who is the supposed exemplar of perfect moral conduct for all times (33:21), marries his adopted son’s wife and justifies it on the basis that adopted children aren’t real children (33:37), marries many more than the four-wife limit, and keeps many sex slaves (33:50).

What’s especially funny about this seventh point is that it’s actually another contradiction with the Gospel. Jesus prohibits even looking at a woman with lust (Matt 5:28); Mohammad teaches that Heaven is an endless lust party. Beyond this, these teachings mean that consistent Muslims are required not only to believe there’s nothing objectively wrong with sex slavery, but that it’s actually fitting behavior for humanity’s moral representative. The Muslim defense of the prophet’s behavior is almost always to claim “presentism.” That is, admitting his behavior is not acceptable by today’s standards, but was moral for the time and place. But this contradicts the very claim at hand, that the Quran is miraculously morally timeless!

Summary

The Bible contradicts the Gospel’s central message that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead. However, the Quran contains no less than 25 verses explicitly claiming continuity with the Bible. Only one Surah mentions textual distortion, and it speaks of 7th century Jews “knowingly” creating false Gospel – so even this exception is a definitive statement that the true scripture existed at the time. The early Islamic scholarly consensus was that the only Biblical corruption in the Quran is interpretive, not textual. At least seven Sahih Hadiths support this idea, and no Sahih Hadiths dissent. Only one makes even an abstract reference to scriptural corruption, and it uses it in the same context as the Quran – contemporary, and limited. 

The Quran has absolutely no meaningful evidence of its divinity. Everything used to support it is circular, nonsensical, totally subjective, or some combination thereof. The most profoundly absurd is the claim to moral timelessness. Mohammad is a moral monster who used his power to violently conquer nations, rape wives and children, and encouraged his followers to do the same.. and that’s without even getting to into his deeds recounted in the Hadith.

The only miraculous thing about the Quran is that anyone believes it.