Abdullah Sameer

أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ Does He who created not know, while He is the Subtle, the Acquainted? (67:14)

Linguistic Miracle of the Quran (Video)

Abdullah Sameer

Contrary to popular belief not all the Arabs believed the Qur’an was of a the highest literary standard. The Qur’an itself attests to those who said it was the ramblings of a madman or a poet full of myths and fairytales. Al-Razi, one of the great scholars of the Islamic Golden Age said the Qur’an was inferior to many works of contemporary poets and writers. Here are more quotes:

  • Al-Jaʿd ibn Dirham, tutor to the Umayyad Caliph Marwan, said “The Qur’an’s eloquence is not a miracle and people can do the like of it and better.”[ref]Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafiì, “The Miraculous Nature of the Qurʾān and the Prophetic Rhetoric.” Page 160.[/ref]
  • The Mu’tazilite scholar Abu Musa said “People are able to produce the like of the Qurʾān as regards eloquence, and composition and rhetorical beauty.”[ref]Al-Baghdadi, “The Difference Between the Groups” Page 164–165; and
    al-Shahrastani, “The Book of Sects and Creeds”, 1/68–69.[/ref]
  • The 11th century Sunni scholar Abu al-Qushairy said: “We do not claim that everything in the Qurʾān is in the highest rank of eloquence.”[ref]Al-Baghdadi, “The Difference Between the Groups” Page 164–165; and al-Shahrastani, “The Book of Sects and Creeds”, 1/68–69.[/ref]
  • Ibn al-Rawandi (former Mu’tazilite scholar) (d. 910 ad) said “Indeed the Qurʾān is not the speech of a wise god. In it are contradictions and mistakes and passages that are in the realms of the absurd.”[ref]Quoted from Dr. Abd al-Rahman Badawi, from “History of Disbelief in Islam” page 216.[/ref]

Writing in the mid-700s, John of Damascus mocked the Qur’an as a bizarre mishmash of heretical Christian teachings that Muhammad had cobbled together. Even Voltaire, who lauded Islam warmly when it suited his satirical ends (like belittling the Catholic Church or Jews), dismissed the Qur’an as full of contradictions, absurdities and patent scientific falsehoods.7 Though he counted Muhammad as the most sincere of men (indeed one of the ‘great men’ who changed the course of history), Thomas Carlyle described the Qur’an as impenetrably befuddling, ‘insupportable stupidity, in short.’

Even Voltaire, who lauded Islam warmly when it suited his satirical ends (like belittling the Catholic Church or Jews), dismissed the Qur’an as full of contradictions, absurdities and patent scientific falsehoods.7 Though he counted Muhammad as the most sincere of men (indeed one of the ‘great men’ who changed the course of history), Thomas Carlyle described the Qur’an as impenetrably befuddling, ‘insupportable stupidity, in short.’[ref]Misquoting Muhammad, Jonathan Brown[/ref]

The Quran has some parts which are eloquent and beautiful.  And it has some parts that sound strange and akward.  Yet the Quran’s biggest miracle claim is the language.  How can someone the proof of divinity is in the language, when language is such a subjective issue.

al-Razi wrote,

“You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: ‘Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.’ Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: ‘Produce something like it’?”
― Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi

It is not at all true that the Arabs were amazed by the language of the Quran and thought it was from God.

A chapter (surah) like it

I am working on a longer response to this, but here is the argument:

وَإِن كُنتُمْ فِي رَيْبٍ مِّمَّا نَزَّلْنَا عَلَىٰ عَبْدِنَا فَأْتُوا بِسُورَةٍ مِّن مِّثْلِهِ وَادْعُوا شُهَدَاءَكُم مِّن دُونِ اللَّ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ

And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah , if you should be truthful. (2:23)

قُل لَّئِنِ اجْتَمَعَتِ الْإِنسُ وَالْجِنُّ عَلَىٰ أَن يَأْتُوا بِمِثْلِ هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنِ لَا يَأْتُونَ بِمِثْلِهِ وَلَوْ كَانَ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ ظَهِيرًا

Say, “If mankind and the jinn gathered in order to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it, even if they were to each other assistants.” (17:88)

And here is one Surah like it.

❀❀❀ ِسُورَةُ فقۤ ❀❀❀

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

فقۤ {١
إنَّا خَلَقْنَا الدَّجَاجَ خَلْقًا {٢
وَسَلَقْنَا الْبَيْضَ سَلْقًا {٣
وَأَطْلَقْنَا مَعَ الرَّعْدِ بَرْقًا {٤
وَجَعَلْنَا الجَوَّ طَلْقًا {٥
فَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِآياتِنَا شَنَقْنَاهُ شَنْقًا {٦
ثُمَّ خَنَقْنَاهُ خَنْقًا {٧
وَمَنْ يَطْرُقْ بَابَ فَاسِقَةٍ طَرْقًا {٨
وَيَفْعَلْ فِي بَيْتِهَا فِسْقًا {٩
حَرَقْنَاهُ فِي النَّارِ حَرْقًا {١٠
إنَّ عَذَابَنَا هُوَ الْأَبْقَى {١١
وَإنَّ عَدُوَّنَا هُوَالْأَشْقَى {١٢
فَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِبَرِيقِ الدِّينَارِ {١٣
وَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِنَهِيقِ الْحِمَارِ {١٤
إنَّي أنَا اللهُ الخَالِقُ الْقَهَّارُ {١٥
فَأَطِيعُونِي وَلَا تَكُونُوا مِنَ الْكُفَّارِ {١٦
وَاتَّقُوا يَوْمًا لَا يَنْفَعُ فِيهِ دِرْهَمٌ وَلَا دُولَارٌ {١٧
يَوْمَ يُقْذَفُ بِالْكُفِّارِ فِي النَّارِ {١٨
فَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ صَبْرًا وَمَا لَهُمْ مِنْ فِرارٍ {١٩
أَمَّا الَذِينَ اتَّقَوْا رَبَّهُمْ فَإنهم هُمُ الأَخْيَارُ {٢٠
لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ {٢١
وَصَنَادِيقُ وِيسْكِي وَرَاقِصَاتٌ بِلَا خِمَارَ {٢٢

❀❀❀❀ Surat Fa Qaaf ❀❀❀❀

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent the Merciful,

1. Faa’ Qaaf
2. Verily, We created the chicken a (wonderful) creation,
3. And We boiled the eggs, a boiling,
4. And We sent with thunder, lightning
5. And We made the air fresh
6. As for he who denies our signs, We shall hang him a hanging,
7. And choke him, a choking
8. As for he who knocks on the door of a harlot, a knocking
9. Then commits in her house; philandering
10. We shall burn him in the fire, a burning
11. Indeed our punishment it is the abiding
12. Indeed our enemy he is the most wretched.
13. For I swear by the glitter of the Dinar
14. And I swear by the braying of the Ass
15. Indeed I am Allah the Creator, the Conqueror
16. So obey me and do not be of the unbelievers
17. And fear a day when no Dirham will benefit nor will a Dollar
18. The day the unbelievers will be cast into the fire
19. And they shall not be able to bear it nor escape
20. As for those who feared their Lord, they are the best
21. They shall have gardens under which run rivers
22. And crates of whiskey and dancing girls with no veil

Author Hassan

Here is another:

Surah Atheism

By science and reason we depend. To be revived is Atheism the sublime! (1)

A book we’ve written and bestowed as Arabian and have recited it lyrically. To show the ones who’ve strayed from the path that which has been to revealed to them was a book man-made, ironically. (2)

And the oppressors whom have mislead the People and interpreted in their Book craftily (3)

And they (oppressors, aka sheikhs imams) said: They should offer to us, those liars who’ve rejected our miraculous verses, a book written identically! (4)

For when they (challengers) said that [we replied]: For there is no difficulty for us to state statements equally (5).

Have the believers in the Quran assumed that we shall never come up with a contender, more than deservedly? (6)

Surely we are more than capable of coming with something counter to what came to them, yet superior intellectually. (7)

Do they not see that they fight about the Quran with contradictions and fusses extensively? (8)

Did your [beloved] friend/companion not claim that “verily, the sun has taken via the Earth an orbit, periodically? (9)

And: “Verily, your Lord descends in the last third of the night, and the last third of the night has oscillated on this Earth endlessly.” (10)

And when you [Muslims] were confronted with knowledge from the scientists/scholars; demonstrating the [Quran’s] error regarding the night and day, and how: “The Earth has taken around the Sun a course, orbiting routinely” (11)

For instead, you rejected them [scientists]; and thus a faction amongst you [exmooses] believed in them, and each departed with what they hold and preached with it nightly and daily. (12)

And you [Muslims] wove in ‘The Book’ [Quran] weaves to produce by it financial gain and veneration for it, immutably (13).

And regarding the ones who lied [Muslims: emulating Quranic hate style], for they became stubborn and boastful, and they said: “How can we say that [science is true] and we have revealed to us from The Prophet his sacred methods, frequently and repeatedly?” (14)

Look at how they have disputed amongst their affairs when ‘they are the pious’; and adopted divergent paths, their ideals left cleft asunder. Surely, they are a People that do not wish to contemplate critically. (15)

And they erected between themselves and the ones who do not support them (Kuffar) a barrier, veiled separately (16).

And they [Muslim scholars] said: “Do not get persuaded by them [seculars]; for they spread nothing except deceit; spun maliciously!” (17).

Did you not blame the [pre-islamic] ancients when they said: “Do not entertain the Quran”? Have you today come to lay such claim, identically? (18)

For surely you have falsified and rejected science and the [secular] scholars when they offered their opinions, antithetically (19).

For when Science & Reason eventually prevailed; the truth became apparent and you said: “For these are truths that have existed in the Book [Quran], preserved & written previously! (20)

For then they will definitely say: “What came with you is distinctly wrong from what came to us. Say: “Yes! Indeed, and your prevention of the masses to hear anything of it [science, reason, facts] proves that, evidently!”/s (21).

Translated from this youtube video by Havtho[ref]Reddit: Surah Al-Atheism[/ref]

 

Also see:

Embryology in the Quran (and Sunnah)

Abdullah Sameer

One of the “miracles” claimed to be in the Quran is the miracle of embryology. It’s often stated that the Quran describes embryology in a way that was not possible to be known in the 7th century. When I started reading more into this claim, I was really disappointed to find out that just like every other claim made about scientific miracles in the Quran, this one was also not true.  Instead what we see is the Quran is describing the birth process in a way that was commonly understood at the time.

(more…)

Darwin’s beliefs

Abdullah Sameer

Do you know Darwin started by studying religion? He was studying at Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1827 for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the qualification required before taking a specialised divinity course and becoming an Anglican parson? He studied William Paley’s Evidences of Christianity, becoming so delighted with Paley’s logic that he learnt it well.

“Darwin’s discovery caused him great, personal grief and serves as an exemplar of a scientist following the evidence wherever its leads and whatever the consequences.”
– God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger, Christopher Hitchens

In one 1860 letter to Gray, Darwin expressed his doubts about the teleological argument which claimed nature as evidence of god, though he was still inclined to vaguely believe in an impersonal God as first cause:[60]

With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.– I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I [should] wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can. – Darwin, Wikipedia 

The universe in relationship to Genesis

Abdullah Sameer

The cosmological universe bears no resemblance to what is described in Genesis. Indeed, the biblical myth is more akin to what one might expect from a perfect creator. But that is not what we see. Earth is not the flat, immovable circle at the center of a firmament or a vault of fixed stars, circled by the sun, moon, and planets pictured in Genesis. Rather, Earth is one planet among ten or so (depending on how you count) revolving around an atypical star, our sun. On the distance scale of human experience, the solar system is immense.

– God the failed hypothesis

Text of Genesis:

1 In the beginning, when God created the universe,[a] 2 the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God[b] was moving over the water. 3 Then God commanded, “Let there be light”—and light appeared. 4 God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, 5 and he named the light “Day” and the darkness “Night.” Evening passed and morning came—that was the first day.

6-7 Then God commanded, “Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places”—and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. 8 He named the dome “Sky.” Evening passed and morning came—that was the second day.

9 Then God commanded, “Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear”—and it was done. 10 He named the land “Earth,” and the water which had come together he named “Sea.” And God was pleased with what he saw. 11 Then he commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit”—and it was done. 12 So the earth produced all kinds of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. 13 Evening passed and morning came—that was the third day.

14 Then God commanded, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night and to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals[c] begin;15 they will shine in the sky to give light to the earth”—and it was done. 16 So God made the two larger lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule over the night; he also made the stars. 17 He placed the lights in the sky to shine on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God was pleased with what he saw. 19 Evening passed and morning came—that was the fourth day.

20 Then God commanded, “Let the water be filled with many kinds of living beings, and let the air be filled with birds.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters, all kinds of creatures that live in the water, and all kinds of birds. And God was pleased with what he saw. 22 He blessed them all and told the creatures that live in the water to reproduce and to fill the sea, and he told the birds to increase in number. 23 Evening passed and morning came—that was the fifth day.

24 Then God commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of animal life: domestic and wild, large and small”—and it was done. 25 So God made them all, and he was pleased with what he saw.

26 Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild,[d] large and small.” 27 So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female,28 blessed them, and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals. 29 I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; 30 but for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food”—and it was done. 31 God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came—that was the sixth day.

 

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) said:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) took hold of my hand and said, “Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created the earth on Saturday, the mountains on Sunday, the trees on Monday, the things entailing labour on Tuesday, light on Wednesday, He spread out animals of all kinds on Thursday, and created Adam in the afternoon on Friday, and it was the last hour of Friday between the afternoon and the night.”

[Muslim]

 

Genesis Creation Myth Video

Genesis Text

Evidence for Revelations

Abdullah Sameer

Shouldn’t we be able to verify the stories in the Bible and Quran historically?

If the statements it [the Bible (or Quran)] contains concerning matters of history and science can be proven by extrabiblical records, by ancient documents recovered through archaeological digs, or by the established facts of modern science to be contrary to the truth, then there is grave doubt as to its trustworthiness in matters of religion. In other words, if the Biblical [or Quranic] record can be proved fallible in areas of fact that can be verified, then it is hardly to be trusted in areas where it cannot be tested. —Archer L. Gleason

Our observations, in this case our reading of biblical and Qur’anic statements about the natural world, look exactly as you would expect them to look if there was no new knowledge being revealed—just what was the human understanding of the day. That is, they look as if there is no God who speaks to humanity through scriptures or other revelations.
If a person undergoes a religious experience that truly places her in communication with some reality from beyond the material world, then we may reasonably expect that person to have gained some deep, new knowledge about the world that can be checked against the empirical facts.

It could have been different. The scriptures might have contained revelations that, while incomprehensible to people at the time of the revelation, may have still been recorded as mysterious, esoteric knowledge. That knowledge then might have become less esoteric as science and the other knowledge arts, such as history, developed higher levels of sophistication.

Quotes from Victor Stenger, God the failed hypothesis.