For Nuray and what is really Islam part deux!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Dec 10, 2006 at 07:30

My dear Nuray ,Abul Qasim's book the Qur'an is nothing but poor literature. It is badly edited. It is full of mistakes in grammar (eg: ina hadhan lasahiran) , spelling of Arabic words (the very basic Quranic word Qul where is the letter waw?), and poor syntax (eg: ina hadhan lasahiran again!) . And the end result is a strange amalgam of ideas resulting in the poor Islamic theology that is based on _polemics_ and if you take polemics out of Islam you will be left with nothing! Did you ever ask yourself why is Muslims like you so pre-occupied with let us say the Trinity? But again you are a victim of poor theology.

Now here are the sources of the Qur'an:

1. The first 5 books of the Bible and to read great scholarly work about "what did muhammad borrow from Judaism" (see Geiger) and it was a lot.

2. He also borrowed a lot from the various Christian sects in the Middle East in the late antique period be it Nestorians (the nature of the Christ), Jacobites, Melkites, (and Muhammad confused Trinity of Allah, Jesus and Mary), Copts (the story of the nativity), and from the Gnostics as in the case of the Gospel of Thomas (extant in Coptic) and the story of Jesus breathing life in clay birds). But Muhammad was a poor theologian so in the case of the story of Jesus in the Qur'an one can very much read that Jesus is indeed God, or he was a prophet as one can also read in the Gospel of Thomas that he was a good Rabbi! But the end result is a funny amalgam that reflects poorly on Muhammad's poor theology.

3. He also borrowed from the secular literature of the Syrians and the Greeks the likes of: "The seven sleepers of Ephesus" and called it: "the story of Ahl al-kahf" and "The Romance of Alexander" and called the story of Dhul Qarnain. So much for palgiarism and calling secular literature the word of Allah!

4. He also borrowed a lot from Arabian paganism: Allah is nothing but Hubal the pre-Islamic deity (see Crone and Wellhausen). The whole Haj thin is nothing but paganism including kissing the black stone of the ka3bba. So much for the doctrine of Tawheed. So much for the fraudulent concept of al-jahiliya.

5. Zoroasterianism (sp?) provided our dear Abul Qasim with a lot of ideas about heaven even the story of al-Isra' wa al-Mi3raj is straight our of the Avista.

6. The Qur'an claims to be Kitab Mubeen which is very far from the trurh. No one can understand the composite and confusing nature of the Qur'an without tafseer and so much for the Qur'an being a kitab mubeen!

7. The Qur'an claims to be a book written in 3Arabi Faseeh which is also very far from the turth as it is full of foreign words (eg: Tur and Rum from Syriac, Sirat from Latin, Hawariyuun from Ethiopic, Injil from Greek, Zakat from Hebrew) and very strange words (eg: Ilaf, ababeel, sijeel, kalala). And so much for the 3Arabi faseeh thing!

So how do we explain the origin of the Qur'an?

1. May be as Muslims tells us that there were lots of Christisn and Jews in the Hijaz at the time of Muhammad and this is how he got to compose the Qur'an. But the extant sources from 7th century Arabia are silent in regard to the existence of such communities (the Syriac and the Rabbinical sources are silent about such communities in the Hijaz). We must dismiss such nonsesne.

2. May be Muhammad did learn from his travel to Syria as a "tajir" , but as far as we know he spoke no Syriac or Hebrew or Armenian for this matter and even his encounter with Bohira in the Sira is non-historical and bogus.

3. So what we are left with is that Islam in actual fact originated in the civilized Mesopotamia and Iran and not from the Hijaz and it was the end result of the polemics that pre-occupied such groups in the late antique period. But in this case the Qur'an is detached from Muhammad and Islam from al-Hijaz and is left where it belongs and that is to the great civilizations of the Middle East and not the HIjaz.

So much for the religion of Abul Qasim.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".