Opening the Qur'an: Introducing Islam's Holy Book

Fourteen. Challenges to the Qur’an

fourteen Challenges to the Qur’an But the misbelievers say:“Naught is this but a lie which he [Muhammad] has forged, and others have helped him at it.” In truth it is they who have put forward an iniquity and a falsehood. And they say:“Tales of the ancients which he has caused to be written, and they are dictated before him morning and evening.” Surah 25:4 –5 In the beginning there was ridicule and rejection.Meccans scoffed at Muhammad ’s claims to have received revelations through an angel, dismissed his calls for them to forsake their ancestral gods,and opposed the Message that threatened to change their lives and livelihoods.Some medieval Christians theorized that the Qur’an was written by a devil named Mahound and branded the religion grossly immoral. Until the mid-nineteenth century Western scholars generally approached the Qur’an as defenders of their own faith positions in Judaism and Christianity. They mounted polemical theological arguments against the Qur’an rather than engage in textual and historical analysis. But it was only a matter of time before some would approach the Qur’an grammatically,historically,and critically.1 Polemical defenders of Christianity, usually conservative Protestants, have already been discussed. More recently the challenges have expanded to 425 textual and historical skeptics,advocates of free expression,and social analysts . This chapter presents two contemporary types of challengers that I term rejecters and disparagers. REJECTERS In essence, the rejecters deny the historicity of what may be called the traditional Muslim account of Islam’s origins. They reject what Muslims hold concerning pre-Islamic Arabia, the Qur’an, Muhammad, Hijra, the first four caliphates, and the authenticity of the Hadith collections; the existence of Muhammad’s Meccan and Medinan families and Companions and Helpers; the Battle of Badr, Uhud, and the Trench; the centrality of Mecca; and the paradigmatic role of the Medinan umma. In place of the traditional account, the rejecters propose radically different scenarios that they claim are based on hitherto ignored and misinterpreted archaeological evidence (or the lack thereof ), datings, variant and reinterpreted Quranic texts, non-Muslim references, arguments from silence, and, in one instance, admitted speculation. They argue that there are no clear, surviving passages from the Qur’an prior to the 690s,that archaeological remains of pre-Islamic Arabia do not confirm the Muslim version of active trade routes or the social conditions of what Muslims term the Jahiliyyah, or that a Meccan merchant named Muhammad ever existed, or that a series of Muslim victories united the Arabs during or immediately after the traditional dating of Muhammad’s life.Instead,they maintain that contemporary and near-contemporary evidence cuts the ground from under the historical basis for Islam.The key rejectionist arguments may be summarized as follows:2 1. Polytheistic Arabs from Arabia began to assert themselves in southern Palestine in the late 630s and through the 640s, slowly taking control of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt by 643. 2. During the period 643–680,under Damascus-based Mu‘awiyah, coins were struck that reflect an indeterminate monotheism that could fit Jews, Christians, and other monotheists. 426 T H E E V E R - O P E N Q U R ’ A N Challenges to the Qur’an 427 3. The first coins mentioning Muhammad appear in 691. Quranic (with variants to traditional text) ayas first appear inscribed inside the Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock,and these aim to refute Christian claims. The religion the inscriptions support appears to be a melding of Judaism with Christianity plus Muhammad but lacks Islamic specificity. 4. By 720–50 biographies of the “traditional” Muhammad appear. The first official mention of the “Book of Allah” appears in 752, and by 780 there are inscriptions indicating beliefs and practices that may be defined as Muslim. 5. Therefore,“Muhammad is not a historical figure,and his biography is the product of the . . . 2nd century A.H.” He “entered the official religion only ca. 71/690. . . . The Qur’an is a late compilation ; it was not canonized until the end of the 2nd century A.H. or perhaps early in the 3rd”; and 6. Islam grew out of the need for Arab rulers to stabilize their new state. Later storytellers developed the traditions about Muhammad the merchant from Mecca,using the name of a desert prophet named Mahmet who was linked to a Jewish...