Saturday, April 17, 2021

Quran- Word of God or Muhammad ?

 

Mukto-mona (Collection)

This article is mainly focused to show that when we read some of the verses in Quran, we clearly understand that those were Muhammad's own word, not Allah's.

According to the Muslims the Quran contains the words of God. Quran is to be read as if God Himself had spoken these words stated in it. It is important to emphasize this point because if Quran is the word of God then it should not contain any errors and it should hold true for all times. However, such is not the case.

He we will see how some of the content of the verses in the Quran clearly shows that these words were obviously spoken by Muhammad and Not God.

Let's start with the opening Sura of Quran.

The Opening Sura Fatihah:
(Quran 1:1-7)

In the name of the Merciful and Compassionate God.
Praise belongs to God,
The Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the
compassionate, the ruler of the day of
the day of judgment! Thee we serve and Thee
we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path,
the path of those Thou art gracious to;
not to those Thou art wroth with, nor of
those who err.

Someone need not be a rocket-scientist to comprehend that these words are clearly addressed to God, in the form of a prayer. They are Muhammad's words of praise to God ("Guide us in the right path,..." ~ 001.006), asking for God's help and guidance. Some Muslim compilers conveniently add the imperative "say" in the English translation of the Quran at the beginning of the sura to remove this difficulty. This imperative form of the word "say" occurs at least 350 times in the Quran, and its obvious that this word has, in fact, been inserted by later compilers of the Quran to remove countless similarly embarrassing difficulties. Thus, we have direct evidence that the Quran starts out with the words of Muhammad.

Let us see some other examples in Quran:

(Quran 113:1)
I take refuge with the Lord of the Dawn.

One can clearly see, its Muhammad and NOT GOD HIMSELF who is seeking refuge in God.


(Quran 6:104)

Now have come to you, from your Lord, proofs
(To open your eyes): If any will see, it will
be for (the good of) his own soul; If any will
be blind, it will be to his own (harm):I am not
(here) To watch over your doings.

In this verse the speaker of the line "I am not to watch over your doings"is clearly Muhammad. In fact Dawood in his translation adds a footnote that the "I" refers to Muhammad here. And in previous verse (Quran 6:103) it is stated - 'No mortal eyes can see Him, though He sees all eyes. He is benignant all knowing'. R. Bell said in his "A commentary on the Quran (Manchester, England: Victoria university of Manchester, 1991) vol. 1. p. 201 '-  The end of the verse shows that Phrophet is speaking his own words'.

(Quran 27:91)
For me, I have been commanded to serve the
Lord of this city, Him Who has sanctified it
and to whom (Belong) all things; and I am
commanded to be of those who bow in Islam to
Allah's Will

Again, the speaker here is clearly Muhammad who is trying to justify puning the Meccanswho were not willing to follow Muhammad's Islamic version of God. Dawood and Pickthall both interpolate "say" at the beginning of the sentence which is lacking in the original Arabic version of the sura.

(Quran 81:15)
So verily I call to witness the planets - that recede...

Again, here it is Muhammad and NOT God who is swearing by the turning planets.

 

(Quran 84:16-19)
I swear by the afterglow of sunset, and by the night, and by the moon when she is at the full.

Once again it is Muhammad and NOT God. He is unable to disguise his pagan heritage. (Omnipotent Allah should not swear, right?) Muhammad  swears again in the name of the Sun and Moon, both of which were considered as holy deities by pre-Islamic Arabs. (Dear Readers, have you noticed that YUSUFALI cleverly escaped the word "swear" while making the translation, but PICKTHAL and SHAKIR used it).

(Quran 6:114)
Should I seek other judge than God, when
it is He who has sent down to you, the
distinguishing book (Quran)?

Any sane person can comprehend that those words are not spoken by God but Mohammed himself. Yusuf Ali in his translation adds at the beginning of the sentence "say", which is not there in the original Arabic and he does so without comment or footnote. 

Do we need to give any other further evidence that Quran actually contains the words of Muhammad, not Allah ! Interested readers, may also check sura 19:9, 19:64, 37:164-166, 51:50, 53:2, 70:40-41, 86:17 to understand that those can be uttered by anybody but Allah. 

Reading above passages, researchers R. Bell and W. M. Watt who were more sympathetic towards Islam admitted :

'The assumption that God is himself the speaker in every passage, however leads to difficulties. Frequently God is referred to  third person. It is no doubt allowable for a speaker to refer to himself in third person occasionally, but the extent to which we find the Prophet apparently being addressed and told about God as a third person is unusual. It is in fact been made a matter ridicule that in the  Quran God is made to swear by himself.'

Also Suyuti, one of the great muslim philologist and commentator on Quran was able to point to the five passages whose attribution to the God was disputable. Indeed he admitted that some of the words in some verses were obviously spoken by Muhammad himself and some by Gabriel. Ali Dashti, in his famous book, '23 years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad' also points to several passages from Quran where the speaker cannot have been God.

 

References:

Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim, Prometheus Books, 2003

R. Bell, and W. M. Watt, Introduction to the Quran, Edinburgh, 1977

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