In an Oxford online course about Philosophy of Religion, I ran into the following debate on the nature of Koran, where my opponents: Dan and David claimed it to be authored by Mohammad and I claimed it the words of God. Enjoy.
Abdul, what is this "authentic source of God's revelation" which you speak of? By what process of reasoning did you arrive at the conclusion that it is authentic?
May be as a Muslim I would say Koran as words of God, a Christian friend may say Bible, etc. And what reasoning made me say so? Looking in the biography of Muhammad makes me believe that he could not have made it by himself and claimed that it was from God because he was too truthful in in his speech to make this big lie. Also, another reasoning is looking into the text of Koran and coming to the judgment that it is coherent and it was impossible for Muhammad to author it, and must be from God.
Abdul, the argument that you give, that Mohammed could not have written the Koran on his own, so it must be God's work, is one I have heard often from Muslims. It puzzles me. Have you read Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Plato, Kant? Have you listened to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven? Have you understood the work of Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. These men create work that ordinary mortals could not even begin to understand how to create. So why should you not say the same thing about them that you say about Mohammed?
I mean I would be happy were you to say that God created all these great works (including the Koran), or that he created none of them (including the Koran) but I cannot see why you should pick out the Koran as something that a man could not have written and yet accept that these other works are the product of man.
Finally, I do not think that you can say that Mohammed was being humble in claiming that what he wrote and spoke was the word of God. Quite the opposite. What better way to gain power and obedience than to convince people that what you say is what God says?
Dan,
The text of Koran is very clear that the author is God and not Muhammad. You will find verses threatening Muhammad with severe punishment if he claimed to originate this Koran…
43 It is [Koran] a revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.
44 And if he [Muhammad] had invented false sayings concerning Us [God],
45 We assuredly had taken him by the right hand
46 And then severed his life-artery,
47 And not one of you could have held Us off from him.
Also, within Koran many verses places an open challenge to the mankind to bring something similar to just one chapter of Koran, and it seems too big a challenge for Mohammad to make
88 Say: Verily, though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another.
23 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a chapter of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.
These type of bold statements does not fit an illiterate human being like Mohammad, and the fact that no one could counter this challenge for all these 15 centuries might be a good proof that it is from God.
Another way I reason that Koran is originated from God, is thinking otherwise. If suppose Mohammad invented this Koran and claimed falsely that it is from God, and this almighty all-knowing God let him do that and made his a successful preacher and let his army open land after land and let him expand east and west and let his followers multiply in number day after other! A powerful God will not support a forger for that many hundred of years!
Also, another reasoning could be that when looking at the content of Koran you will find all kind of information about the unseen world: what happens after death, and that there will be resurrection, and that there will be Paradise and Hell, etc. it is impossible for Mohammad to originate such information by himself. Even if those mortal beings which you mentioned like Maxwell, Shakespeare, Mozart, etc, if these people talked about topic like that, no one will believe them, and they will be a subject of mockery if after saying such content they place an open challenge to all mankind to bring a chapter similar to their writings..
I am not sure if this course is an appropriate place to elaborate more on such a topic, I only made this brief because of your inquiry, and I think I was rational and was using reason in my discussion which both Islam and Philosophy encourage to use.
Hi,
Abdul, thanks for your post. It isn’t something that is explicitly part of the course, but it is something that I am interested in, for I am interested in trying to understand why Muslims think that the Koran was written by God rather than Mohammed, and there is no reason why we should not discuss it in addition to discussing the course material. Here is my response to the reasons you gave for thinking the Koran written by God rather than Mohammed.
1) You give a selection of quotes from the Koran. However, if someone set out to write a book and claim it was written by God, obviously he would write in the book something like ‘This book was written by God’. Hence all those quotes you write are neither here nor there because those are exactly the sort of thing that Mohammed would put in the Koran if he was writing it himself.
2) As for Mohammed being illiterate: he was obviously a very great thinker, politician and army leader, ending up his life very powerful. Thus he must have been very intelligent. To claim that someone so intelligent could not learn to read and write is just implausible.
3) As for the ‘information’ about the unseen world, heaven and hell etc, this might be pure invention – you have no way of knowing whether it is true. Many people have over the years invented stories about heaven and hell – Dante and Milton are the most celebrated but there are many others.
4) Finally, you say the success of Islam suggests that the Koran is God’s word. However even if there is a God, we know that He often does not intervene in the world to prevent terrible things happening – children being abducted, tortured, abused, killed and so on (we will discuss the problem of evil in the ninth week). Thus that he does not intervene in the world to prevent someone who wrote a certain book being successful is again not good evidence that the contents of that book are true and God approves of them. Besides the argument would work better other way round – someone could say that Christian countries taken together are far more powerful than the Islamic countries taken together, so that is evidence that the Christian world is blessed by God in preference to the Islamic world.
I’d be interested to know what you think.
Best wishes,
Dan
Hi Dan
Thank you for showing your interest in diving inside my mind and searching for any kind of reasoning that I am applying in not believing that Mohammad is the author of Koran.
From your message it seemed to me that you think Muhammad was a great thinker, politician, an army leader and so intelligent, yet he was a great liar.
Now a Muslim layman knows a lot about the biography of Prophet Muhammad which carries knowledge without doubt that he was not a liar. He was truthful in his saying and that his enemies themselves used to trust him, and was given the title of “the most truthful and trustworthy”. Now, there could be two possibilities: 1. That he was trustful before he claimed prophet hood, 2. Whatever hundreds of evidences where history speaks about the noble character of Mohammad are all false. I think what made you claim that he is a great thinker and an army leader and a politician and an intelligent, all these attributes you are giving him is based on whatever history carried to us, much the similar way that history informs us that there were a city state once in Athens, and that there were someone called Jesus or Moses or Abraham. The strange part which I myself get puzzled to think about is that, if we trusted history in giving these attributes to Mohammad, whom then are we trusting in violating the history and giving another attribute to him that he was a great liar? I myself think that the bottom-line here is that those who deny the existence of a God must find a way to explain the claim of Mohammad that a book originated by God was revealed to him. I think this denial of the existence of God made them contradict themselves by claiming Mohammad was lying and at the same time saying he was noble, a great thinker, etc.
Now, there would be another minor population of mankind who does not attribute any good quality to Mohammad, and they are more consistent in their decision. If historical fact does not satisfy them then nothing would satisfy them.
Here I am not bringing the issue of personal experience and peace of mind that the one who believes in Koran being the words of God gets when reciting and pondering or practicing these words, because these are personal religious experience which might not feed as a rational argument (or it might feed).
Simply it seems too odd that a great liar would produce such a magnificent piece of work and would cause such a giant revolution in mankind history, and would find so many followers for 15 centuries, if it really happened then that would be a unique case in history, and that would ignite the motive in other eloquent and intelligent liars to start writing books and claim that they are Gods words, and start building new movements like Mohammad’s, why that does not happen? Is it yet another evidence that Koran is not Mohammad’s brain child? To me it is.
Since the topic interests you Dan I will volunteer to satisfy your quest till the end, if I have that talent..
Abdul..
Hi Abdul,
Thanks very much for your reply.
I think you make a very good point. Liars are usually too self-conscious or full of inner conflict to produce great works.
Given this, I'd be interested to know what you think of the following idea. Often in centuries gone by great artists, poets, musicians etc would attribute their works to the guiding hand of God. The point being that it would seem like the wonderful ideas and words and so on just came to them, as if from God. Thus, for instance, Mozart would attribute his works to coming from God. Now if someone thinks in this way, then he might express this thought within the work himself. Thus Mohammad might have had a sense of his ideas a inspiration coming from outside himself, and thought of it as coming from God, and this would have been expressed and contained in what he wrote. However, this would not be any different to the situation of Mozart, or many other great artists, writers, thinkers, philosophers and so on. They all might be similarly inspired; or, if you like, similarly guided by God.
So I can see a certain consistent case for thinking no one is guided by God, and likewise can see a certain consistent case for thinking that many people are guided by God. But why think no one since Mohammad has been. Why think that he and his work is qualitively different to other work, and immune from criticism, revision, progress?
Best wishes
Dan
Hello Dan;
I do not deny that God can inspire great artists and scholars to produce their works. They produce their own work by the inspiration and help of God. However, Muslims think that this is not the case with Koran. Koran was not just some inspirations from God which helped Mohammad to produce his own work. Koran was totally revealed to Mohammad. Hence inspiration and revelation do differ. I think Mohammad is wiser than to wage wars based on mere inspirations and not clear commandment from God. Mohammad claimed to be a messenger and prophet of God similar to Moses, Abraham, Noah and the rest. He claimed that he has been revealed a book from God called Koran and went on to preach the message of Koran, he found so many followers and this message spread to the globe. This scenario never repeated since Mohammad, and this is the special case of Mohammad which differs from Mozart, scholars, thinkers, politicians and other artists.
Abdul
Why though do you think Mohammad and the Koran are so qualitively different to other great works? I mean the work of a scientist such as Newton is more common and more accepted around the globe than islam. And more influential, when you look how science has so changed the life of so many people. There are probably as many CD's of Mozart sold each year as there are copies of the Koran.
And there are many clever men who choose to wage wars and become powerful leaders, like Mohammad did.
Best wishes,
Dan
I hope you do not mind if I ask you another question? Of course not, although the topic might not be directly related to our course, yet I think these are valid questions. However, whatever answers I might present as a Muslim might not be the correct answer as will be presented by an Islamic scholar.
Why though do you think Mohammad and the Koran are so qualitively different to other great works? Well there could be a number of reasons: 1. It could be that I read Koran and it's explanations more than any other works and had I payed similar attention to other works -say Shakespeare's- I might have thoughts about Shakespeare the same way. 2. It could be because in a typical Muslim family much attention is given to Koran, and we are not supposed to touch the book before performing ablution and all such kind of repeated practice since childhood might have kept a psychological and emotional effect that is difficult to imagine otherwise. 3. It could be the reason that the topics of Koran is holistic to encompass all faculties of human life and not specialized in particular field like Newton's or Mozart's. 4. It could be the historical evidence that Muslims when they applied Koran that they created a civilization (both scientific and ethical) that lasted for more than 8 centuries and that when they left Koran aside that they lost their civilization. This history might have influenced me to think about the pragmatic value of Koran. 5. It could be the fact that the author of Koran had set an open challenge to Mankind to bring such a book (or part of it), and after 15 centuries no one answered the challenge yet, this might have influenced my view on Koran. 6. It could be the personal experience of an inner feeling when pondering on the meaning of the verses of Koran, which I do not find when reading other's works. Someone else might have an inner feeling listening to Mozart, but that could be because the music, in case of Koran it is mainly the meaning of the text plus the recitation in sweet voice. 7. It could be because the coherence and consistency of the text albeit covering such a huge material. 8. It could be the powerful style and subject of Koran with all sorts of reward and punishment information. The notion of paradise and hell. 9. It could be the hundreds of logical arguments, analogies, reasoning and empirical discussions that Koran addresses to a healthy mind that makes me consider it a quality text..
Finally, since we are running discussion on cosmological argument this week, I would like to place the following verses from Chapter 52..
33 Or say they: He (Mohammad) hath invented it (Koran) ? Nay, but they will not believe!
34 Then let them produce speech the like thereof, if they are truthful.
35Or were they created out of naught ? Or are they the creators ?
36 Or did they create the heavens and the earth ? Nay, but they are sure of nothing!
Abdul
David Sorry for taking so long to reply to you - but I see Dan has been asking some interesting questions in my absence. As for your response to the original question about the process of reasoning that led you to conclude the Koran is the word of God (and not Mohammed), I'd like to have a closer look at your claims.
Firstly, your main reason seems to be that the Koran is such a great work that it could not have been produced by a mere man such as Mohammed. However, in order to rationally make this claim you need: 1) A thorough knowledge of the great literary works of man. Without this knowledge you have nothing to compare the Koran to, and you wouldn't know just what level of literary greatness humans are able to acheive. 2) Knowledge of previous God-created literary works. Without this knowledge it is impossible for you to claim that the Koran has the appearance of being God-created
So you simply do not have the necessary data to make a rational judgement that the Koran is divinely authored. So, by default, one must conclude that it was written by a human being.
What is more, as you say above, since early childhood it has been emphasised to you that the Koran is a holy book - to the extent that you have to wash your hands before even touching it. I am sure you will agree that fetishising an object in this way from such an early age is not conducive to allowing an adult so brought up to think rationally about that object. Indeed, the effect must be quite similar to brainwashing.
I have some other points about your claims for the Koran. The first regards the idea that nobody has ever been able to produce a book, or even a sura, of similar quality. In fact, many people have risen to this challenge and written sura which, by most accounts, are in fact very good imitations. Have a look here:
As for the "coherence and consistency" of the Koran, it does not appear to be any more coherent or consistent than we could expect from a man-made book. A simple Google of "contradictions in the Koran" will throw up several thousand pages of results. True, some of those pages are by fanatical Christians who wish to make similar claims for their holy book, but the points they make are still relevant.
Finally, the phenomenon of men claiming to have a special revelation, writing it down in a book, and gathering many followers as a result, is quite a common one (contrary to your claim that it was "never repeated" since Mohammed). L Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith Jr are two fairly recent examples. The devotion they and their books inspire in their followers does not appear to be substantively different from the devotion of mainstream Christians or Muslims for their respective prophets and books.
The remarkable thing is that each of these groups are aware of each other's existence, and yet each group is convinced of its own uniqueness - even though to an impartial observer they are all, on a psychological level, exactly the same.
Hi David, happy to read your response..certainly you brought good points..
it was interesting to read your second condition to make rational judgment on Koran..
2) Knowledge of previous God-created literary works. Without this knowledge it is impossible for you to claim that the Koran has the appearance of being God-created
I think whatever previous God-created work is referenced, then the same question would apply to this previous God work, and a regression starts... I mean I do not take it for granted that these two conditions are the only conditions (or are true conditions) to rationally attribute Koran as God's words. I think I can safely reverse the claim and say that even you do not have necessary data to conclude that Koran is not words of God, since you do not have necessary data to conclude that God does not exist.
Muslims revere Koran based on their belief that it's the words of God, and hence with this assumption, I think it is not irrational to wash hands before touching it...By the way, Muslims do not however wash hands before touching Hadith (saying of Mohammad) book.
A quick browse through Koran would show that Koran respects rational talk and asks man to be so, and sites so many rational arguments and encourages to think and ponder... so talking about brainwash, indeed Koran does brainwash to the human mind to make it clean to accept truth
Probably counter argument by an internet site or number of hits of a search engine might not stand as an academic refutation. (By the way, that site is blocked to access from Saudi Arabia...they do this measure for such sites and for porn sites as well)
in fact anyone reporting inconsistency in Koran will not make it inconsistent if not supported by rational proof which is not refutable by scholars and specialists in the field. I guess if all in a sudden Koran was successfully proved to be false, then it would have been a breaking news and the news would have spread to horizons faster than 911 incidence, instead of being hidden within websites or un-academic works.
As for comparing a the second greatest religion in terms of population with followers of Hubbard and Smith might not be proper approach.
Finally, I must be humble in claiming that I found a suitable environment to believe in God and his words (Koran) and whatever little ration I have I found no ground to think otherwise, and the more mature (rationally) I become the more I am convinced it is words of God (maybe somehow if I get access to suralikeit.com I totally change my mind )
Anyway, I would rather die as a healthy rational man believing in God, than die in a horrible crazy status like Nietzsche by pretending to be Superman after declaring "God is dead"....
Abdul..
Hi Abdul
I think I can safely reverse the claim and say that even you do not have necessary data to conclude that Koran is not words of God, since you do not have necessary data to conclude that God does not exist.
Not really. God's existence is not the question here. My point was that in the absence of the necessary data the only rational conclusion is that the Koran is - like every other book in recorded history - written by humans.
You are correct that the number of Google hits for a "contradictions in the Koran" search does not in itself constitute an academic refutation. The quality of those results is variable. However it serves as a starting point for anyone wanting to explore genuine critical work regarding the Koran - so it's up to you whether or not you want to take it further (although it might be difficult, given the censorship of the internet by the Saudi Arabian authorities).
I guess if all in a sudden Koran was successfully proved to be false, then it would have been a breaking news and the news would have spread to horizons faster than 911 incidence, instead of being hidden within websites or un-academic works.
If you really believe this, Abdul, then you seriously underestimate the persistence of religious belief even when the believer is presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I'm sure you have no problem accepting that many parts of the Bible are self-contradictory or indeed just plain false - but that doesn't stop Bible-believers from denying that fact. Exactly the same principle applies to other holy books and their followers.
As for comparing a the second greatest religion in terms of population with followers of Hubbard and Smith might not be proper approach.
The size of any particular religious population is entirely irrelevant. Hubbard and Smith both have their followers, and what they have in common with the second largest and largest religious populations in the world is the fact that they are human.
By the way, as you can't access suralikeit.com from your computer, here is the latest example. What do you think?
Hi "William" David;
I do not think there is lack of either data or logical evidence that Koran is from God. and I also think the majority of scholars out there both Islamic and non-Islamic does not disagree on that. Even those who try to bring sura similar to it, or try to find contradictions in it, they does so based on the fact that it is from God. so, to be focused there are three separate issue, and in this thread we are only considering issue no. 1 and discussing it from logical point of view, issues 2 and 3 just came in as side-talk discussion, but was not the topic of my previous discussion with Dan.
1. There exists a Koran and is authored by Mohammad and not God.
2. There exists a Koran authored by God but has lot’s of inconsistencies and contradictions.
3. There exists a Koran authored by God and it is easy to author similar book or surah like Koran.
I agree with you David that any religion probably will ask it’s adherents to stick to this religion only and the rest are false and this religion presents all sorts of historical and logical evidences to support their claim that they are right and others are wrong, and I think Islam is no exception. In this case, the adherents must be careful and open minded in two aspects (1) not to adhere to this religion without getting convinced through his own reason and other scholars reason that this religion is reason based (2) not to impose on others to adhere to this religion without convincing through reason.
I think these are important etiquettes which when respected will resolve so many disputes in the world. Since reason and reasoning is a relative term which varies from one person to another, so we have no reference reason that would resolve any reasoning problem. In our case, I apply my reasoning to prove that Koran is true and is words of God. You David does the same, you also apply your reasoning and claim that Koran is words of Mohammad and is false. Who is right in his claim? Is the lack of data at the disposal of Abdul or David makes one win over other? The data might be there which David or Abdul is not aware of. Can a website come as a final judge and declare that Abdul or David is winner?
So, myself being sincere believer of Koran as words of God, especially you saw I have used reason as well to have this believe, then I have the right -based on this believe- to claim that I am right, and whoever does not have this view is wrong. Exactly similar to your position when you chose -based on your reasoning- that Koran is words of Mohammad, and anyone chooses otherwise is wrong.
I have the passion to know about philosophy and ideology of various religions, and probably this is why I am in this course, and I have learnt a lot. Being in somehow closed society like Saudi Arabia, it is difficult to get exposed to the other views. I found involving in debates about one’s own beliefs is very helpful. As a result of debates you either discover that your beliefs were wrong, and find an alternative better ideology, or you find that your ideology is surviving instead of severe attacks, and in this case your beliefs in this ideology gets even stronger.
I tended in this post to stay at Macro level, and probably would find it difficult to accommodate micro-level debate where you bring in an example from Suralikeit.com and I start refuting it and loose our energy here where others are discussing more interesting issues in religious experience and morality. However we could start a thread in common room and chat whenever time permits.
Have a nice Day.
Abdul
Hi Abdul
I think you might have identified the crux of the problem when you said:
Since reason and reasoning is a relative term which varies from one person to another, so we have no reference reason that would resolve any reasoning problem.
It makes me wonder if we have a language or translation problem. To me, reasoning is not a relative term. It is true that there are things on which reasonable people can disagree - where, for example, there is insufficient evidence to arrive at a definite conclusion.
But there are also matters upon which reasonable people must agree. When sufficient evidence is available and the arguments presented, there is often only one reasonable conclusion. If the conclusions differ, it is because one person's reasoning is flawed.
Hi David
I am planning to take "Theory of Knowledge" course which will be offered in Sep, where probably I can understand a bit more on how to acquire knowledge and be certain about it.
I believe that there are physical things which can be known through the normal senses like vision, touch, smell, etc. There are meta-physical things which might be difficult to prove or disprove. And there could be super-meta-physical things (I am coining this term, and have found it no where else, so I claim the right to possess this term if it goes ultimately to philosophy lexicon ) which the reason totally gives up any hope to know about.
I could read from your post that there could be two different reasons when reasonable people differ: 1) insufficient evidence at disposal 2) a flawed reasoning instead of the presence of sufficient evidences.
I agree on this list and would want to add a third, is that a person out of fanatical adherence to an ideology, this person although is convinced logically that an issue is true, yet rejects because that does not fit his/her ideology which he has grown up with.
So, it might be the case that Abdul got convinced from whatever evidence David brought that Koran is not the words of God, but yet does not want to buy this idea -and confess to the public- because it would mean to demolish a faith which he has grown up with since early childhood, and would prove that he is inconsistent in his believe. And to cover this weakness Abdul would try to hide his weakness through some feeble "logical" arguments.
Similarly, David also might get convinced from Abdul's evidence that Koran is the words of God, but still rejects this idea, because that would require that he believes in the existence of a God, a position he would not take openly in this forum where he is currently holding the leading position of the atheist's camp. And to hide his weakness David would resort to some feeble "logical" arguments.
Above scenarios were just made up cases which might not be true in our case, but I think many disputes and differences and battle and wars (between atheists and theists, and between different religions, and within one religion) are source of this kind of fanatical adherence...
Abdul..
Abdul, I agree with you.
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Indeed, We have sent down for you (O mankind) a Book, (the Qur'ân) in which there is your reminder (and Honor). Will you not then understand? [Quran al-Anbiay (21):10]
I myself think that the bottom-line here is that those who deny the existence of a God must find a way to explain the claim of Mohammad that a book originated by God was revealed to him. I think this denial of the existence of God made them contradict themselves by claiming Mohammad was lying and at the same time saying he was noble, a great thinker, etc. 
) which the reason totally gives up any hope to know about. 
