It is important that we take a close look at the Quran, the inviolable, immutable charter of Islam, since it enjoys such a sanctified standing. Muslims believe that the Quran is written by Allah himself. Allah handed down the book, piece by piece and chapter by chapter, to the Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel, in turn, whispered these words to Muhammad himself over the course of some 23 years.
Muhammad could neither read nor write. Therefore, he had to find people who could write down what he called his revelations from Allah. There were several of these katibs (scribes) who wrote down the surahs (chapters) which eventually made up the Quran.
There are several problems with the Quran. A few will be listed here.
- The Quran was not compiled in book form during the life of Muhammad. It remained for the third Caliph, Uthman, to gather the several portions of the Quran that were circulating, organize the contents into one book, and have the rest burned. How could a book taken as the perfect, word-for-word message from Allah, be edited and selectively organized by a fallible man? Which surahs did Uthman not like? Which ones did he modify? Which ones did he discard, and which ones are his own additions? These are terribly troubling questions that Muslims either fail to address or rationalize away.
- Muhammad frequently received his revelations when no one was around to write them down and, per force, had to recall them later and dictate them to someone who could write them down. Did Muhammad have a photographic memory? Did Allah endow him with that faculty so that he could have perfect recall? We don’t know the answer to this question. What we do know, however, from the text of the present Quran points to another direction.
- Muhammad, while he was dictating his revelations, would frequently allow his scribe to change words and sentences. The account of one of his long-term scribes, Abdullah Ben Saad, is instructive here. The scribe found it very strange that Muhammad allowed him to make and suggest changes, since Muhammad claimed he was dictating the exact words of Allah and saying them as they were revealed to him. The scribe started to wonder how it was possible that he could make these changes if indeed Muhammad’s claim was true that they were dictates of Allah. This scribe lost his faith and escaped to Mecca. Later, when Muhammad headed the 10,000-man army and subdued Mecca, had that scribe killed for having committed the sin of apostasy.
- The Quran is confusing, full of contradictions and outright errors of fact. It is difficult to fathom that a belief system with such grandiose claims can be based on a document such as the Quran. Islam’s proponents rationalize these problems with the Quran by claiming that religion is a business of the heart: it is inherently mysterious and not subject to ordinary logic. I find this reasoning unacceptable. The best instrument we have so as to distinguish the truth from falsehood is the mind and its faculty of reason. Accepting things that are contrary to reason is a betrayal of our humanity.
- Allah is so angry in the Quran. It seems to me that Allah is angry at himself. Much of the smallish book, the Quran, that he authored over 23 years is devoted to expressions of displeasure, anger, threats and violence. Didn’t Allah create people, animals and everything else? Didn’t he instill in us and in everything else his own design? Then why all these venomous expressions in the Quran? Why not devote the book to saying that which would make us better, if that is possible, since Muslims claim that his work is perfect?
There are hundreds of assertions by Allah in the Quran that throw me for a loop. I have mentioned a few of them. Here is another one. He says in the Quran: en ankar-ul-aswaat le sote-ul-hamir — the most despicable of all voices are the voices of donkeys (31:19).
Now, that’s really telling us. Why give the donkey a voice and then condemn it in his own holy book as the most despicable? I thought he was the creator of everyone and everything, and that, again, he is ahsan-ul-khaleghin –the most perfect creator (Quran 98:7).
Okay fine, those are his ways. But why tell us that? In what way does my knowing that the donkeys’ voices are the most despicable make me a good Muslim?
Am I being rude by asking Allah why he would devote precious space of this book to all the cursing, name-calling, and hatred?
I don’t get this book of Allah. Is it that I am one of those non-Muslims that he calls brainless? If I am brainless, then is it not his fault, since he made me that way?
I guess you must be a fully unquestioning Muslim to understand all of this. I know I will never make the grade.
Well, maybe it won’t be such a bad deal if I don’t get to go to the Muslims’ heaven. If their heaven is anything like their societies on earth, then hell can’t be much worse.