Closed minds prescribing "quran as the final word"

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Aug 6, 2011 at 23:03

Dear Dr Pipes:

The assertion by amateur Islamic propagandists that Bible and Torah are books written by human authors and were corrupted at when originally written and have corrupted even more since then is self-serving. While I do not mind if a person wants to believe that Quran is the last and only authentic word of God, I abhor the righteousness and circular logic that comes with it. To any logical mind the assertion that Quran is the final word of God very quickly falls flat. The following points are written and cited millions of times but it will not harm to write them again for Amin Riaz's benefit:

1) Even if we grant that the entire Quran was recited to the people of Arabia by Muhammad, the claim about its divine origin is entirely based on Muhammad's testimony. And, Muhammad was a human.

2) It is well known that Quran was also compiled after Muhammad's death by those who lived around Muhammad before he died. So the claim that Bible was written by human authors but quran was not does not stand to reason.

3) I grant that Quran may be preserved in its (almost) original form because people have agreed not to change it. But it is said that even though the written text does not change the language (Arabic) changes with time. Arabic of today is different from the Arabic in Muhammad's time. Where does it leave the meaning of a written text if the language changes. The case in point is Jihad. Is Jihad an internal struggle or a call to destroy others? How does a ten year old listen and interpret this word is more important than whatever Allah meant when he used this world.

4) Most muslims do not know Arabic. If they understand quoran at all it is through a translation or another human's interpretation. So claims about "Allah's original word", even if true, is practically meaningless.

5) In the light of the above points the claim that Quran is the only and final word of God has limitations. And any one who believes this claim blindly basically closes his mind to honest inquiry. That may be problematic.

Finally, an individual is free to believe whatever they want to believe (at least for most modern non-Islamic people :-), but being righteous about it and calling others names (kafir, sinner etc) is a true problem.

What do others think?

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