Contrary to the confidence of establishment scholars that Islam was born and grew “in the full light of history” (to borrow Ernest Renan’s unfortunate and inaccurate phrase about the life of Muhammad), there is a great deal of the obscure and questionable about the origins of this most controversial of religions. In a series of groundbreaking books, Ibn Warraq has performed an extraordinary service by bringing together the earlier historical investigations of pioneering scholars on the strange and bloody beginnings of the Religion of Peace and pairing them with recent research – illuminating the continuity and advance of scholarship on the original Qur’an, the historical Muhammad, and related issues. The most important of these collections may be the latest: Christmas in the Koran.
Christmas in the Koran offers, often for the first time in English, the further research of the pioneering scholar Christoph Luxenberg and others on the Syriac substratum underlying the Arabic text of the Qur’an, and how that substratum can illuminate not only obscure passages of the Qur’anic text, but the murky origins of Islam itself. And not only obscure passages: this method also sheds new and often surprising light on sections of the Qur’an that appear to be perfectly clear in Arabic, but which, when viewed through the Syriac prism, reveal themselves as having a partially or completely different meaning from the accepted one.
Most of the collected essays are by contemporary scholars, but some are quite old (albeit hitherto not so easy to find), such as Adolf von Harnack’s “Islam.” It was wise of Ibn Warraq to include this older material, as it sheds light upon the scholarly antecedents of the work of the Qur’an revisionists today.
Most extraordinary of the many remarkable hypotheses put forward in this collection are the many indications that the Qur’an was originally a Christian text, probably a lectionary, in which reference was made to Christmas, the Eucharist, and other elements of the Christian tradition – references which in the Arabic Qur’an are gnomic and unclear, or overlaid with Islamic interpretations that obliterate their Christian character.
In one essay, Luxenberg even explains that the “mysterious letters” that begin many chapters of the Qur’an, about which Islamic tradition says that “only Allah knows what they mean,” are references to Psalms and other Christian texts for liturgical use. In another, Philippe Gignoux explains that origins of the shahada are not to be found in Islamic tradition of all, least of all in a prophet who was given them as a compendium of his message to the world, but in Nestorian Christianity.
In Ibn Warraq’s own introduction to Luxenberg’s work, he responds brilliantly to many of the negative and dismissive reviews from establishment scholars on Luxenberg’s earlier scholarship. The inescapable overall impression one gets of these mainstream scholars is that they are (recalling Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) seriously threatened by challenges to their guiding paradigms, and determined to preserve those paradigms even to the point of irrationality. They are therefore generally unwilling to engage honestly with the theorists who present these challenges, and give their work short shrift.
But Christmas in the Koran demonstrates that these challenges are not so easily dismissible, and that the entire edifice of contemporary scholarship on the Qur’an and Muhammad, constructed on an uncritical acceptance of Islamic sacred history, is in imminent danger of collapsing altogether. These essays provide reinforcement to the case that the text of the Qur’an did not come from Muhammad, but was compiled from existing, mostly Christian sources that were drastically edited and reinterpreted in order to provide a scripture and a theology for what the new religion of Islam. That new religion, it is clear from Christmas in the Koran, did not spring forth as the utterances of a new prophet, but was developed by a number of people over a period of decades, drawing from earlier traditions.
The essays are often quite technical, and some may be forbidding to the non-specialist; as a whole, however, they are accessible (and, indeed, fascinating). Christmas in the Koran represents a significant advance in the study of how Islam came to be, and where it came from. In an age when even the stated motives and goals of jihad terrorists are off-limits for discussion in the mainstream public discourse, this book is not only an important contribution to the study of the Qur’an; it is also a work of courage – one for which free people owe Ibn Warraq a debt of gratitude.
Buraq says
Brilliant article! More please.
This is how Islam will be dismantled; Islam’s central planks will be prised up from the floor, nails and all, and violent jihadists and their fellow travellers will have nothing to stand on.
Without justification for the so-called religious duty of murdering anyone they happen to think doesn’t fit their exacting standards, these clowns will be seen for what they actually are, murderers, plain and simple.
TH says
See more in “Did Mahommad exist?”. There Robert also refers to the contention of St. John Damascene, died in 750,himself born in Damascus and his father was the Minister of Finance of the Caliph) who holds the contention that Islam was in fact a Christian heresy. More exactly it is derived from heretical versions of Christianity which were pushed out of the Byzantine Empire particularly after the condemnation of Nestorius in Ephesus in 431. The Nestorian Christian took their faith even as far as China and still exist. The problem is how to understand the unity of Jesus Christ, his humanity and divinity so that he is not two personas, what is called the “homo assumptus” theory, that the Word of God united himself to the man Jesus. The orthodox understanding of Christ was clearly set out by the Council of Chalcedon, a place near Constantinople in 451. It is understood that he is one divine person with a divine and a human nature. Before that there was another heresy promoted by Arius, beginning in 318 and he denied the divinity of Jesus, and this was rejected at the Council of Nicea in 325. Some of his followers could well have been found on the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire, what was then called Arabia, Eastern Syria and what is now Jordan. The Jehovah´s Witnesses seem to follow this teaching not believing int he divinity of Jesus Christ.
mortimer says
It seems that Caliph Abd al Malik and his psychopathic lieutenant Al Hajjaj collected, edited and even wrote the Koran to their own tastes.
The hadiths were written on demand to meet the political requirements of the subsequent caliphs.
Everyone at the time must have no the Islamic texts were concocted shamelessly. There are many claims from early Islam that certain authors are ‘liars’, usually because of the Sunni/Shi’a split. Who is to say they weren’t all lying?
There is however, PHYSICAL evidence that Islam was evolving and that is the orientation of the mosques which DO NOT POINT TO MECCA UNTIL THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY! This shows the doctrine was developed from 150 to 200 years after the death of Mohammed. There isn’t any archeology to prove a religious group existed in the early Islam
empire! They were ‘Hagarenes’ or ‘Tayyaye’ (whatever that is) or ‘Momin’ (believers…in what?). ‘Muhajiroon’ may just mean they were ‘migrants’ from Arabia to Syria.
Phillipe says
the islamists are going to pitch a fit when the book Christmas In the Koran, becomes well circulated
Shane says
I hope that you are right. Islam is a Christian heresy and should be eliminated. Let Muslims become Christians and stop all the jihads around the world.
Yahya khalid says
Assalamu alaikum wahramatullahi wabarkatuh,
I will pray that Allah guides you all, for the disbelievers are the people of the hell fire. Maybe instead of using the time you wasted reading this article and commenting you should’ve instead picked up the Quran and read a few Surahs and see that a book written almost 1500 years ago explained scientific facts, historical events before they occurred, and contains the manual to life. The miracles in Islam have no contradictions, no confusion and despite every effort of people like the author of this article, Islam will remain unaltered until the day of judgement. Not a soul or even millions of souls will be able to change a single thing about it.
May Allah guide you all, inshallah at least one person who reads this takes the advice and reads the Quran rather than reading an article about what someone else thinks of it.
Peace be upon you all and may the blessings and mercy of Allah be upon you.
David says
“Islam’s central planks will be prised up from the floor, nails and all, and violent jihadists and their fellow travellers will have nothing to stand on.”
Once the planks are pulled up from the floor, all the bodies lying dead below will be revealed—countless millions to billions.
Yahya khalid says
Assalamu alaikum wahramatullahi wabarkatuh,
I will pray that Allah guides you all, for the disbelievers are the people of the hell fire. Maybe instead of using the time you wasted reading this article and commenting you should’ve instead picked up the Quran and read a few Surahs and see that a book written almost 1500 years ago explained scientific facts, historical events before they occurred, and contains the manual to life. The miracles in Islam have no contradictions, no confusion and despite every effort of people like the author of this article, Islam will remain unaltered until the day of judgement. Not a soul or even millions of souls will be able to change a single thing about it.
May Allah guide you all, inshallah at least one person who reads this takes the advice and reads the Quran rather than reading an article about what someone else thinks of it.
Peace be upon you all and may the blessings and mercy of Allah be upon you.
AnneM says
Thank-you for this excellent article! God Bless!
Don McKellar says
It is not a surprise to learn that the Koran was at least partially developed from pre-existing Christian texts that were bastardized. What is remarkable is that so much hard evidence still exists over all these years what with so much effort to scrub history of the facts about Islam. Including the modern “academic” lies and distortions about it without any basis or grounding whatsoever.
Although I am inclined to give Constanine the benifit of a doubt that he was sincere in his adoption of Chrisitianity and the subsequent creation of the Bible by his scholars, there is no doubt that he used the new “universal religion” as a tool to keep his empire intact and enforce his authority, as he didn’t have the wealth and military might of his forebearers.
With the creators of Islam, we can give no such credit. They fabricated a “prophet”, bastardized existing Christian texts, stole many of their ideas and darkly twisted them from Judaism. They tailored it to appeal to angry young confused men and wealthy corrupt evil old men. And used it all to create a mind control cult that’s all about hate and xenophilia, defended by lies and deceit. In their way they stole the idea of a singular religion to unify and control their empire from Constanine. Their religion really does reflect its origins and purpose.
dumbledoresarmy says
Quote – “his [Constantine’s] adoption of Chrisitianity and the subsequent creation of the Bible by his scholars..”.
“Creation of the Bible”???? Good god.
Do you not know that the hard facts of the textual evidence, the actual pre-Constantinian manuscripts and papyri – and *translations* into other languages – make it pretty damn obvious that neither the Old Testament/ TaNaKh nor the Christian scriptures (whose authors were mostly *thinking* in Hebrew and Aramaic even if writing in Greek) were invented out of whole cloth during Constantine’s reign. The very attempt to claim such a thing is madly ahistorical.
What do you do with second-century papyri containing Gospel texts identical with those read today??
The reality – historical reality – is that the Hebrew canon – substantially as we know it – was established and in use prior to Constantine, and that the entire Christian canon as you will find it in any Christian Bible today, had long been written, organised, established, and was in constant public and private liturgical and personal use, among orthodox mainstream Christians, for at least **two centuries** before Constantine was even *born*.
Yes, the Christians arrange the books of the TaNaKh in a different *order* than they appear in the Hebrew/ Jewish canon; but the *content* of the books is exactly the same. the main controversy over the TaNaKh, among Christians (we may leave aside the fact of continuous Jewish use of the Hebrew TaNaKh) came when Jerome, wanting to revise the Latin OT and make it as accurate as possible, **went to the Hebrew text**, i.e. went back to the historic original, which predated the Greek Septuagint. (And the main controversy was about the status of those books associated with the TaNaKh which today comprise the Deuterocanon in a Catholic bible; *not* about the core canon – e.g. Genesis, Exodus – which were always recognised). Given the congruence of the Isaiah scroll, which is waaay before Constantine, with the text of Isaiah in both the Hebrew and Christian versions as transmitted (separately from each other), it is safe to assume that Jewish transmission of the Hebrew canon can be trusted and that Constantine had nothing to do with it.
See Gerald Bray, “Creeds, Councils and Christ”, chapter 2, “the canon of Scripture and Christian doctrine” and learn some real history.
Bray states (p 44) – “John Robinson argues, in “Redating the New Testament”, that **the entire corpus was in existence by AD 70**.”
And he points out – “all branches of the Christian church accept the same 27 books”.
He argues that “It is possible to say with certainty that the New Testament canon was recognized and in use by the end of the second century. Moreover, although its earlier history is obscure, the evidence which does exist points to canonical acceptance of the Gospels and Paul’s Epistles long before this date”.
have you ever looked at a scholarly edition of the original Greek NT?
At the beginning you will encounter pages and pages listing all the various papyri – and then the manuscripts – within which the text, or portions thereof, or early translations thereof (such as the 3rd-century Coptic version) have been found. And their dates.
There are papyri that date from the third century; and these can be shown, by comparison with one another, to all be copies of earlier exemplars. And what they contain is the text as we know it, the canon as we know it.
If you seriously think and are trying to claim that “Constantine’s scholars” engaged in a massive effort of historical fiction, concocting out of whole cloth all 27 books of the New Testament canon, then…all I can say is that those who are what Kepha calls Christianity’s cultivated despisers, are capable of believing *anything*.
Kepha says
Good God, Sister. Capitalize God’s name if you must use it! (sly wink).
But let me add a little more grist to your mill correcting certain misconceptions stated by other posters.
Indeed, this business about the Council of Nicaea or something subsequent to it giving us the New Testament (as you point out, nobody with a lick of biblical and historical sobriety can claim that the Old Testament post-dated the early 4th century) is such a hoary, silly old chestnut that it is surprising that it has hung around so long. It’s a concoction brewed out of an unholy mix of Papal and Tuebingen Hegelian mythologies. (WE made the Word of God! EVERYBODY knows you need lots of time for that thesis-antithesis-synthesis magic to work!). Throw in late 19th century Bismarckian Kulturkampfers on one side, and Marxists on the other, and then throw in a little Islamic arrogance and the deference thereto afforded by the any-stick-will-do-to-beat-the-Christian-dog crowd…
The fact is that Ignatius refers to several of the books of the New Testament in his letters (early 2d century), while Polycarp (a little later) writes a letter that is a pastiche of Scriptural quotations–especially from the New Testament that we know. Since we mention Adolf von Harnack (by NO means an **UGH!–fundamentalist!**), it was he, among others, who pointed out the use of the New Testament by the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus to challenge Tuebingen assertions (after Ferdinand Christian Baur) that the Gospels were 2d century creations or later.
As for the purported “suppression” of the Gnostic Gospels, would one of their champions kindly tell me why Tatian (aka Addai) failed to make use of them in his mid-2d century harmony of the 4 canonical Gospels called the Diatessaron? This is especially telling since Tertullian tells us that Tatian, a pupil of Justin Martyr, went Gnostic after Justin died.
We have as well Ethiopia, that repository of all kinds of barely pre-Christian apocalyptic, still unable to accept anything in the New Testament besides the books we know; and the Church of the East, beyond the persecutions of Constantinian Byzantium, having the same NT we know, except for Revelation, Jude, II Peter, and II and III John. But even before these, we have Irenaeus in the West, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria in the east both defending a fourfold Gospel against Gnostic claims (and, coincidentally, the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in our own time shows that Irenaeus’ account of the heretics was fundamentally honest, contra many 19th century critics who dismissed Irenaeus as biased, Elaine Pagels, and others).
I would strongly urge persons interested in the question to read C.E. Hill’s _Who Chose the Gospels?_ (2009, Oxford U Press). Further, even though I have strong disagreements with J.A.T. Robinson’s theology, his 1976 book _Redating the New Testament_ is a very interesting and compelling study.
As for Constantine, I will leave it to God to sort out where his soul and the souls of his notoriously pro-Arian and pro-Homoiousian family ended up. Constantine’s own theological wafflings, BTW, should warn us against the temptation to view the Nicene bishops as no more than his catspaws.
On the one hand, the cultured despisers tell me that those early church fathers were all a bunch of sly old foxes who’ve bamboozled the rest of us for the past 1700 years; but on the other hand, they tell us that they were such a bunch of credulous doofuses that they couldn’t tell that the Fourth Gospel “obviously” wasn’t by John son of Zebedee and that Paul “couldn’t have” written half the stuff that bears his name and they were actually so stupid as to believe in GOD! [sarc] The “critics” are telling me now that the Gospels and Acts were written to get the sneaky early proto-ROman “bishops” into the good graces of the post-Neronian Romans; but then fail to explain why Roman officialdom doesn’t come off so well in those works, while the terms Presbyteros and Episkopos are synonymous in Acts and Philippians (if not elsewhere). You simply cannot tell me that the Pontius Pilate of the Gospels is anything other than extremely cynical at best, and the knowing judicial murderer of the innocent at worst; or that the procurators Felix and Porcius Festus are not portrayed as downright corrupt.
The biblical critics need a bit of criticism themselves.
Pere LaChaise says
I think he just used the wrong verb, that he meant something like ‘collated’. No serious person thinks the New Testament was ‘made up’ in the 3rd c.
Kepha says
While I’m at it, excellent points about the transmission of the Hebrew Bible. I have yet to see any Ahmad Deedat wannabe explain how the non-cooperating Jews and Christians come up with the same texts of the Old Testament books. Perhaps a generous dose of scrupulousness in copying them?
I’m also impressed at how the biblical books have remained unaffected even if they embarrass the traditions of those who transmitted them. The Rabbis sure missed an opportunity to change Abram’s serving both meat and milk to his guests. The Roman Catholics and Orthodox have never produced a text of the New Testament that has more than one bishop in the city of Philippi (and this plurality of bishops gets Paul’s fraternal greetings). Perhaps there’s a generous amount of scrupulosity involved?
GIM says
Christians did not change the order of the books of the Old Testament. They inherited that order, which is to be found in the LXX (the Septuagint), the old translations of the Hebrew text into Greek. It is unlikely that the order represented by the TaNaKh is original, and there is a coherence to the order in the LXX which argues for it being prior to that of the TaNaKh.
I don’t intend to settle the question of the original order of the book, but rather to point out that both orders go back to the Jews for whom the books were holy. The first Christians were Jews who had come to accept Jesus – also a Jew – as the Messiah. They did not rearrange the Scriptures they used, but simply took them as they received them.
Jay Boo says
Good, even more evidence against the hoax from the caravan book thief Muhammad.
————
Exodus from Medina
Desert spirits spoke in twisted verse, a dance of words to recite, to recite.
Medina’s false prophet this rehearsed in a cave near Mecca veiled by night.
But the angel Gabriel saw his descent, and said “Pawn of Satan turn, repent, repent.”
But, sharia’s verse planted its infected creed fertilized by this false prophet’s made-up dream.
A vain attempt to partner with God almighty was dredged up from the lowest pit of his vanity.
Bloodied hands are now washed before prayers that incite
as hate speech is masked as devotion to recite, to recite.
Along Medina’s “fastest growing” path straight to hell
“Nine Eleven” admirers grovel beneath Satan’s will.
Jihadists then bow not to God but to Islam’s unholy weapon,
as false humility makes its pilgrimage to Satan’s deception.
True infidels, they use God’s name as a deadly curse.
Blasphemy crawls from sharia’s stockpile of vile, veiled verse.
This cult intimidates then hides behind the “cloak of religion”
aided by willful ignorance of liars with shameless intentions.
Opportunistic traitors are eager to defend this intolerant disease.
They pose together in staged, self-congratulatory vanity feasts.
These parasites who piously pander, creep, scavenge and scheme
are helped by a P. C. news media that plays truth “hide and seek.”
As stealth jihad taqiyya infects from Wahhabi deserts across the sea,
well-funded politicians face east to praise Medina’s Saudi P. R. deceit.
Deyjee says
Thank you for the enlightenment
Jay Boo says
The Koran
What sings a call of duty to prayer? It hides in this wretched devil’s lair
Seduced by lyrics from a prophetic liar, its song of Satan’s unholy desire
“The Bad News”
History still clearly proves that their “prophet” adulterated not only “the book” but also the wives stolen from Medina’s murdered Jews.
sammy says
Although it is good to hear of someone dissecting Islam to get at the truth of its origins, I am afraid I find this authors method somewhat flawed in his application of trying to establish this fundamental truth.
It is more than apparent the origins of the Islamic faith are pagan, the god of the Quran is the god of Mohammed, a pagan Arabian who just used all that was familiar to him within his 7th century pagan Arabian culture, to encompass it within a faith of his own invention.
The Islamic Allah was/is the “greatest” pagan idol of the Kaaba Hubal, the moon god of Arabia,which Mohammed elevated to be the only god, the same God of the Bible, thereby giving his invention more authenticity as a true religion, as well as validating his status as a prophet in line with all Bible prophets.
Anyone trying to ascertain the origins of the Islamic faith, must first refer to Islamic sources, which when done so, clearly indicates how Mohammed reacted when faced with this “spirit “he encountered which led to his understanding of being a “prophet”.
From reading this, to jump to the claim that the “Qur’an was originally a Christian text “gives a clear indication that what is claimed is on shaky ground to say the very least.
Marken says
Sammy, have you at least read Spencer’s ‘Did Muhammad Exist?’
Michael Rover says
“Anyone trying to ascertain the origins of the Islamic faith, must first refer to Islamic sources, which when done so, clearly indicates how Mohammed reacted when faced with this “spirit “he encountered which led to his understanding of being a “prophet”.”
Falser words never spoken, my friend. Mr. Spencer’s own book details the problem with Islamic sources. Unfortunately it is a recurring feature of anti-Islamic polemics to comb through Islamic tradition for negative points about its formation. While Islamic tradition is full of such negative details, the problem is they are almost certainly all false, formulated centuries later by Muslims who had no idea what actually happened. One could no more reasonably rely upon them than one could reasonably rely on a 4th century AD Christian text to accurately relate details about Jesus and his movement; you would require contemporary primary sources for that.
Put more simply: The Islamic tradition can no more be invoked to cast negative aspersions on Islam’s formation than it can be invoked to praise and validate Islam’s formation. The traditional sources are historically incompetent and unreliable, period, insofar as they address the days of the prophet and the earliest layers of the Qur’an. They are also *linguistically* and *orthographically* incompetent, which of course is Luxenberg’s point.
somehistory says
History…so much to learn from it. Very interesting information from Mr. Warraq on the subject of the origin of this insane, barbaric cult that seeks to rule the world. satan has many wiles he uses constantly to mislead humans to their eternal detriment.
And such an intriguing title for the book.
voegelinian says
“indications that the Qur’an was originally a Christian text, probably a lectionary, in which reference was made to Christmas, the Eucharist, and other elements of the Christian tradition – references which in the Arabic Qur’an are gnomic and unclear, or overlaid with Islamic interpretations that obliterate their Christian character. ”
If verified, we would have in the Koran itself a scriptural equivalent of the architectural supremacism Muslims traditionally enact whenever they take over a church (or synagogue or Hindu temple, etc.) and convert it into a mosque. Just as the West should take back its synagogues and churches pirated by Muslims (the gold standard for this kind of architectural rape being the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople), what a delicious irony it would be to restore and reclaim the Christian lectionary at the heart of the Koran! — after, of course, the malignant masses of cancerous tumors surrounding it, pulsating and throbbing and dripping with diseased green pus and blood over the centuries, have been excized and tossed unceremoniously into the bio-hazard bin.
Edison says
Thank you Robert Spencer for this article.
Christmas in the Koran is a book I will definitely look into.
Guy Macher says
Please keep Islam’s filth far from Christianity.
Kepha says
Guy, I’m not cocnvinced of the a-historicity of Muhammad (my respect for Robert Spencer notwithstanding), while I’m also just a bit skeptical of Luxenberg’s thesis. I’ve always thought that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
But it doesn’t take much to keep Islamic filth away from Christianity. Islam distances itself very well by itself.
Pere LaChaise says
But that’s what they say about Christians, and justify murder by it – as in the case of Asya Bibi in Pakistan now. We can’t be squeamish if we want to unmask the pernicious lie that is Islam. The ‘Saracen-minded Mansour’ (St. John Damascene) correctly identified the blight as a heresy with (at least some) Christian origins. It does no harm to the katholic-orthodox tradition to show how lies and distortions were falsely derived from truth. Isn’t it Irenaeus who wrote of the mosaic of the king whose tesserae are rearranged to form the figure of a fox? It’s not the fault of the mosaic’s original intent, but the disfiguring hand of the falsifier.
zebo says
It absolutely does not matter how much prove exist.
Muslims will ignore it.
Islam,like a totalitarian systems(armys,communism,fascism), is about the the total destruction integrity and replacing it by blind loyalty.
Even if you would have 100% original videos from mohammed & allah
saying to the people”we have fooled you.we are fake&evil ” 95% of muslims wouldn’t acceppt it as they were immunized from truth,independent and critical thinking or just too afraid.
Proof:
There are three simple question to proof that mohammed cannot be the prophet of a good god:
1)Would god sent a pedophile to spread his word?
2)Would god make a massmurderer his prophet
3)would god make an enslaver his prophet?
All three Answers are 100% no if you believe in a good god!
But that’s not all.The ugly truth is even worser.
Before Mohammed became a muslim he was a good guy.
He neither killed people,he was not a bigamist,he was not enslaving people and he was not raping a children= islam made him that evil.
+mohammed did the a very blasphemic thing:
He gave god his name.
Ibn Allah was the middle- name of his father and his uncle and him.
And the worst thing he had done:
He has killed a womans children,her father and her husband
forced her to marry him and raped her-all done in the same day.
And there is prove that quran is from the devil:
In islam alcohol is made by the devil,forbidden
but when you enter paradise rivers of wine are waiting for you.
Devils alcohol in paradise?(i guess it is halal wine or some other ridicoulous muslim excuse)
And satanic verses ?demanding to worship the three daughters of the moon god?
There is so much wrong with islam & quran.One doesn’t know how people can ignore such obvious evidence.
ISMAIL OCHIENG says
Zebo,suufering from programmed prejudice is not an excuse for ignorance.Look at your bible and tell us at what age Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ was married to Joseph the Carpenter.she was 12 years and he was 90 yrs!are you calling God a pedophile? Now to answer your other questions.Let’s read the Bible shan’t we?
DEUTERONOMY 20:10-18
King James Version (KJV)
10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
13 AND WHEN THE LORD THY GOD HATH DELIVERED IT INTO THINE HANDS, THOU SHALT SMITE EVERY MALE THEREOF WITH THE EDGE OF THE SWORD:
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
17 BUT THOU SHALT UTTERLY DESTROY THEM; NAMELY, THE HITTITES, AND THE AMORITES, THE CANAANITES, AND THE PERIZZITES, THE HIVITES, AND THE JEBUSITES; AS THE LORD THY GOD HATH COMMANDED THEE:
18 THAT THEY TEACH YOU NOT TO DO AFTER ALL THEIR ABOMINATIONS, WHICH THEY HAVE DONE UNTO THEIR GODS; SO SHOULD YE SIN AGAINST THE LORD YOUR GOD.
Deuteronomy 21:10-21
King James Version (KJV)
10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
11 AND SEEST AMONG THE CAPTIVES A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, AND HAST A DESIRE UNTO HER, THAT THOU WOULDEST HAVE HER TO THY WIFE;
Stefan says
Your quotes are perfect proof that some of the content of the quran has been copied and adapted from early christian texts – as indicated in the above article. Both are evil books!
Carlos Danger says
Christianity has frequently been viewed as a heretical deviation from Judaism.
Was Judaism itself “borrowed” from Ur or someplace else?
Was Joseph Smith visited by an Angel?
Was Mohammed?
How about L. Ron Hubbard?
the theory described in the article above will be of interest to historians and theologians, but is unlikely to be useful in the war that Western Civilization is currently “fighting” with the Hajis.
eduardo odraude says
Ibn Warraq is an important figure in this whole fight. He wrote the famous Why I Am Not A Muslim and Why the West Is Best: a Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy.
Knowledge and research are a key part of the war. Every moral means must be employed (including the lesser of two evils if only bad courses are available to us).
Recall that sometimes huge results cascade from tiny starting points. The last tiny straw can break a camel’s back, and a butterfly’s wings may sometimes set off a cascade of events that turn into a hurricane. One never knows what cascade some new idea might start in even a few people who turn out to be key actors.
You’re right of course that it’s not likely that many Muslims are going to drop Islam because of historical research showing Islam is bogus. But who knows at what key points or people new historical research might weaken Islam? But even if Muslims won’t be much affected, maybe potential converts to Islam would hesitate a bit more if there were a larger scholarly critical literature about Islam, just as there is such a literature about other religions.
The biggest priority perhaps is for ordinary people — not our leaders — to do something, join an activist group like Act for America, or start a new activist group. From a strategic point of view, I think something like the approach in this video is best:
http://www.politicalislam.com/voices-for-the-voiceless/
gravenimage says
I respectfully disagree, Carlos.
Unlike any other religion, Islam has been virtually exempt from serious outside study—in fact, under Shari’ah outside studies of Islam are not allowed, and this is enforced though oppression and murderous violence.
Apart from specific conclusions, the mere objective questioning of Islam is a *very* important step in undermining its vicious power.
abad says
Erdogan already made a statement about Muslims being the first to discover America, now “Christmas in the Quran” but I suspect the one claim that will bring them down is “Muslims sent the first man to the moon.” Yeah.
dumbledoresarmy says
As far as I am concerned, when I read the Quran, I see a deliberate and thoroughgoing antibiblical “foe-fic”.
Islam is “foe-fic” on the Bible.
The changes that are made – notably the claim that “Ibrahim” offered Ishmael not Isaac, and the claim that “Isa” (not Jesus) was not crucified but, rather, escaped while someone else took the rap instead – are calculated to strike at the very heart of what Jews and Christians are on about. That sort of thing is not accidental; it’s not the result of mere misreading, mistranslation, or “innocent” garbling of something. It’s **deliberate**.
And I find it very interesting – and, indeed, telling, but not at all surprising, if you think about it for a moment – that it is so difficult, when it comes down to it, to track the precise origins of Islam: Islam, the Religion of the Lie.
dumbledoresarmy says
I don’t think it is not coincidental that the veil and the mask are *the* symbols par excellence of Islam.
And as far as the oldest contemporary surviving non-Muslim witnesses go: I think it not implausible to suppose that once the Islam cult got going, its non-Muslim targets were just as confused about it, just as much caught on the back foot and unable to recognise what they were actually dealing with, as most of its non-Muslim targets are today.
dumbledoresarmy says
Oops.
Edit.
First line of comment above should read:
“I don’t think it is coincidental…”.
eduardo odraude says
Dumbledoresarmy,
Agree the veil is pretty symbolic of Islam. But not sure about the mask. We certainly do see a lot of masked jihadists on Jihad Watch, of course, and in that sense it is symbolic of Islam, which is based so much on deception.
You make an enlightening point about how fitting it is that the origins of Islam are so hard to trace. Unless I’m mistaken, there is no historical record mentioning Muhammad for like a century after he is supposed to have lived. Yet during that century, Arab armies conquered all of North Africa, much of the Middle East, central Asia, and the edges of India. If Muhammad existed, how is it that there is no record of him from that heyday of the conquests? Such records as there are, furthermore, seem to mingle the symbol of the cross into “Islam.” I’m thinking of coins for example. If Muhammad existed, would there not have been some historical trace of him during the “golden” century of the Islamic conquests? Or was Islam some mixture of facts and baloney concocted a century after the “prophet,” to give a religious basis to the Arab tribes and a justification for conquest and expansion?
I tend to think Islam has a kind of genius for evil, and therefore I think some evil genius — Muhammad, or perhaps whoever created the fictional character of Muhammad a century later — actually lived and is the reason the Arabs burst out of Arabia when they did and created a huge empire.
But those who have more recently read Spencer’s book on this subject might be able to explain it more accurately than I can.
gravenimage says
Interesting—for much of Occidental history, Islam was considered a Christian heresy. Perhaps, just was they recognized the existential threat of Mohammedanism, our forefathers were wiser than we are.
shabeer_hassan says
WHY ISLAM BORROWED FROM CHRISTIANITY:
1)Women/children killing prohibited:
Bukhari 4.52.256
[killing girl prohibit]
Malik :: Book 21 : Hadith 21.3.10
Do not kill women or children or an aged, weak person,Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees.Do not destroy an inhabited place. Do not slaughter sheep or camels except for food. Do not burn bees and do not scatter them. Do not steal from the booty,
Malik :: Book 21 : Hadith 21.3.8
Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that a son of Kab ibn Malik (Malik believed that ibn Shihab said it was Abd ar-Rahman ibn Kab) said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade those who fought ibn Abi Huqayq (a treacherous jew from Madina) to kill women and children. He said that one of the men fighting had said, ‘The wife of ibn Abi Huqayq began screaming and I repeatedly raised my sword against her. Then I would remember the prohibition of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, so I would stop. Had it not been for that, we would have been rid of her.’ ”
Muslim :: Book 19 : Hadith 4456
……….And the of Allah (may peace be upon him) did not kill the children of the enemy, so thou shouldst not kill the children……………
CHRISTIANITY:
Hosea 13:16
Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
1 Samuel 15:3,8
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ” … He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.(NIV)
Deuteronomy 3:3-6
All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns. We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women and children of every city. (NASB)
Deuteronomy 2:32-34
Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, unto battle at Jahaz. And Jehovah our God delivered him up before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones; we left none remaining.
NOT ISLAM BUT HITLER ,MUSSOLINI,STALIN BORROWED FROM IT
Pere LaChaise says
Excuse me, those are OT citations, the Jewish scripture, compiled long before Christ taught that the whole of Scripture is ‘love God and thy neighbor as thyself’.
sammy says
shabeer hassan:
Which god did Mohammed worship before Islam?
gravenimage says
Does it surprise anyone that the semi-literate shabeer hassan is unable to grasp the concept of the old and new testaments?
Besides, the only reason the foul “Prophet” counseled at times against butchering women was that it was far more lucrative for Muslims to use them as sex slaves.
ISMAIL OCHIENG says
Masha Allah!BarakAllah akhy
shabeer_hassan says
2)RAPE/PEDOPHILE
Bukhari :: Book 9 :: Volume 86 :: Hadith 101
Narrated ‘Aisha:
Allah’s Apostle said, “It is essential to have the consent of a virgin (for the marriage). I said, “A virgin feels shy.” The Prophet; said, “Her silence means her consent.” Some people said, “If a man falls in love with an orphan slave girl or a virgin and she refuses (him) and then he makes a trick by bringing two false witnesses to testify that he has married her, and then she attains the age of puberty and agrees to marry him and the judge accepts the false witness and the husband knows that the witnesses were false ones, he may consummate his marriage.”
Dawud :: Book 11 : Hadith 2091
Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas:
A virgin came to the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and mentioned that her father had married her against her will, so the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) allowed her to exercise her choice.
Dawud :: Book 29 : Hadith 3952
Narrated AbuHurayrah:
The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: The child of adultery is worst of the three.
CHRISTIANITY
(Judges 21:10-24 NLT)
So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin.” Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
(Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. “Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded. “These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD’s people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
gravenimage says
The loathsome shabeer hassan wrote:
2)RAPE/PEDOPHILE
Bukhari :: Book 9 :: Volume 86 :: Hadith 101
Narrated ‘Aisha:
Allah’s Apostle said, “It is essential to have the consent of a virgin (for the marriage). I said, “A virgin feels shy.” The Prophet; said, “Her silence means her consent.”
…………………………………..
shabeer hassan confirms again that it is considered “consent” if a child is too terrified to resist a forced marriage in Islam. And she is right to be afraid—one of the most common occasions for “Honor Killing” is when a girl dares to resist a forced marriage.
More:
Some people said, “If a man falls in love with an orphan slave girl or a virgin and she refuses (him) and then he makes a trick by bringing two false witnesses to testify that he has married her, and then she attains the age of puberty and agrees to marry him and the judge accepts the false witness and the husband knows that the witnesses were false ones, he may consummate his marriage.”
…………………………………..
Astonishingly, this is not the first time shabeer hassan has posted this—proof that it is acceptable for Muslim to lie and trick a girl into marrying him—as well as proof that pre-pubescent “marriages” are perfectly acceptable under Islam..
Is he too witless to understand how damning this is? Or does he just suppose that decent Infidels, like brainwashed Muslims, are simply impressed with the barbarism of Islam?
More:
The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: The child of adultery is worst of the three.
…………………………………..
Inexplicably, shabeer hassan posts this constantly—even though it is the Islamic condemnation of innocent children born of adulterous unions. Why would we consider this moral?
shabeer_hassan says
3)SLAVERY
Released war captive by the order of their family:
Bukhari :: Book 3 :: Volume 46 :: Hadith 716
Bukhari :: Book 3 :: Volume 47 :: Hadith 778
Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 53 :: Hadith 360
Bukhari :: Book 5 :: Volume 59 :: Hadith 608
Bukhari :: Book 9 :: Volume 89 :: Hadith 288
Bukhari :: Book 3 :: Volume 38 :: Hadith 503
Muslim :: Book 5 : Hadith 2308
Dawud :: Book 14 : Hadith 2681
Freeing slave
5 :89 Allâh will not punish you for what is uninentional in your oaths, but He will punish you for your deliberate oaths; for its expiation (a deliberate oath) feed ten Masâkin (poor persons), on a scale of the average of that with which you feed your own families; or clothe them; or manumit a slave.
9:60. As-Sadaqât (here it means Zakât) are only for the Fuqarâ’ (poor), and Al-Masâkin (the poor) and those employed to collect (the funds); and for to attract the hearts of those who have been inclined (towards Islâm); and to free the captives; and for those in debt; and for Allâh’s Cause (i.e. for Mujâhidûn – those fighting in the holy wars), and for the wayfarer (a traveller who is cut off from everything); a duty imposed by Allâh. And Allâh is All-Knower, All-Wise.
CHRISTIANITY SAYS
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)
*****When a man sells his daughter as a slave******, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
MY QUESTION IS /SPENCER GANGS R U REDYE TO SELL U’R DAUGHTER TO PUBLIC PPL….
Kepha says
In defense of our latest interlocutor, I do not know when Moses and the prophets were declared outside the pale for Christians. Certainly not by the New Testament writers who appealed often to the Old Testament. Probably all of us own a copy of the Bible with both the Old and New Testaments.
Sure, slavery’s been around as long as there have been people. If you look closely at the Old Testament, a kind of temporary slavery (unless the slave grew attached to his owner and consented to have his ear pierced) was an “out” for those who got too hopelessly into debt. It’s a far cry from the New World plantation slavery which governs our mental image of the institution, and against which a horde of Christians rightly protested vehemently and sought to abolish from almost as soon as the institution arose.
And we have slavery in the New Testament: Philemon 8-16, ending with an admonition that Philemon receive back Onesimus, no longer as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved.
gravenimage says
Yet more from shabeer hassan:
3)SLAVERY
Freeing slave
5 :89 Allâh will not punish you for what is uninentional in your oaths, but He will punish you for your deliberate oaths; for its expiation (a deliberate oath) feed ten Masâkin (poor persons), on a scale of the average of that with which you feed your own families; or clothe them; or manumit a slave.
……………………………..
As you can see, freeing a slave is seen as a *punishment* in Islam.
More:
MY QUESTION IS /SPENCER GANGS R U REDYE TO SELL U’R DAUGHTER TO PUBLIC PPL….
……………………………..
Only Muslims sell their daughters—they sell them for dowries, and will sell children nine or younger for this purpose.
And what shabeer hassan will not explain is why it is that it was Christian nations that abolished slavery in the 19th century.
The Muslim world only ended slavery to the extent that they did *because of Western pressure*. Saudi Arabia did not outlaw—on paper, at least—until 1962.
Mauritania never really outlawed slavery. An estimated *20% of the population* there is living in slavery.
Infamously, Muslim Sudan enslaved their Christian and animist population for decades until south Sudan broke away. Those non-Muslims remaining in Sudan are still at risk.
Boko Haram kidnapped over two hundred Christian school girls to use as sex slaves.
And, notoriously, one of the very first things the Islamic State did was to *reinstate* slavery and sex slavery, and to do so on Islamic grounds. Thousands of Christian and Yazidi girls and women have been enslaved, and Muslims there have set up slave markets to buy and trade their victims.
Here are just a couple of horrifying stories:
“Islamic State slave price list shows Yazidi, Christian girls aged 1-9 being sold for $172”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/11/islamic-state-slave-price-list-shows-yazidi-christian-girls-aged-1-9-being-sold-for-172
“Jihadis are swapping notes about sex slaves on Twitter”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/08/jihadis-are-swapping-notes-about-sex-slaves-on-twitter
This is all happening in the Muslim world—yet there is not a single nation in the West where slavery is legal. Where any kind of human trafficking exists, it is illegal and rigorously prosecuted.
Not so in Dar-al-Islam.
The idea that Islam opposes slavery while Christianity and Judaism embrace it is simply laughable—this is the exact opposite of what is going on in the world.
The fact is that slavery is a core part of Islam:
“One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar — the infidels — and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah, or Islamic law.”
According to Islamic law, Muslim men can take “captives of the right hand” (Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 33:50). The Qur’an says: “O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war” (33:50)
The odd thing is that shabeer hassan *himself* often quotes these Qur’anic Suras.
As is so often the case, he just further proves the intrinsic savagery of his own vile creed.
profitsbeard says
The Koran is already debunked via the statements in the Hadiths by Mohammad’s child bride Aiyesha who noted that several suras were lost forever because the followers who had memorized them died in battle before the verses could ever be written down and by the Yemeni Koran fragments- which combine to demonstrate that the myth of the “perfect” Koran is a lie.
And if that is a lie, then the entire sanctification of the “Recitation” crumbles as a fraud.
And Islam with it.
Any more arcane and excrutiating analysis of this malignant work may be interesting for scholarly hedgehogs, but the survival of Civilization demands that we get rid of this Death Cult fast before its jihadi spearpoint gains any chemical, nuclear. and bacteriological tools of the Apocalypse.
In all of these academic analyses I feel like I am watching people confronting a self-styled Gordian Knot (the Koran) desperately trying to untie its impossible snarl when what is needed is a sword (ironically, since Islam is built upon The Sword) to slice through this false puzzle and free us of a world-historical terrorist nightmare.
Until then, deciding ‘how many angles can dance on Mohammad’s pinhead’ (so to speak) seems a gratuitous diffusion of energies needed to crush this infamy.
This is a fight for human survival, not a contest of exigetical ingenuity.
Strike the Koran down with a death blow!
Then dissect the corpse at your leisure.
DRDIAS says
“Islam is an overly deprave Ideology that was fabricated by a group of completely barbaric semi illiterate mass murdering pillaging lying misogynistic whore mongering syphilitic profane warlords and pedophiles to subjugate then enslave those who they deem easily conquerable or infrahuman to sadistically feed their demented sexual orientations!”
Irony Man says
It would be great if Robert and his academic colleagues could produce a book entitled “The Original Qur’an” that’s actually a translation from the original Aramaic put into its correct order with any required footnotes and exposition – maybe a bit like a bible commentary but concentrating on the translation. It wouldn’t need to dwell on the later Arabic translation as these are easily available anyway, but it could possibly comment on how the Syriac/Aramaic version fits in with the early Christian world views – though not essential.
The Aramaic translation would be the important bit – It would not only be a superb jump-off point to study the shadowy origins of Islam but would also bring this extremely important paradigm to the mainstream (not to mention it would also be extremely controversial!). So instead of people talking about some evil guy called Mohammed, they would possibly be talking about the motivations of Abd al-Malik or a later caliph etc. Well it should certainly provoke a lot of discussion and new ideas at any rate.
So Robert, if you have a spare 5 minutes, a translation of the Aramaic Qur’an would be brilliant! 🙂
Sooz22 says
Great idea, but 5 minutes? Please give RS a break!
gravenimage says
Irony Man, I’m not sure there’s any reason to believe that the Qur’an was originally written in Aramaic as was the New Testament of the Bible—that would have been a bit odd, in fact, since there were few Aramaic speakers in 7th-century Arabia.
For the rest, though, Robert Spencer *has* done a brilliant series of commentary on the Qur’an, which I would highly recommend your reading.
It is his “Blogging the Qur’an”, and you can find it here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/quran-commentary
Irony Man says
Hi gravenimage – seemed to have posted this in the wrong place so I’ll repost it here:
I’ve been skulking on Jihadwatch for the last ten years so I’m familiar with Robert’s blogging on the qur’an series – but thanks anyway for taking the time to point it out.
I know that there is some controversy over whether the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic or Greek but I’ve always come down on the side of it being written in Greek Koine but even there it’s agreed that there are Aramaic influences in the syntax.
Assuming that the Qur’an was originally a Christian liturgical text of some sort then it could easily pre date the 7th century but even so, Aramaic didn’t start to be replaced by Arabic until the late 7th century, and was the lingua franca of the ‘middle east'(or west Asia) for a long time. But the argument works because there were, eventually, so few Aramaic speakers. As the original text had no ‘punctuation’ it was believed that it was written in Arabic and those who could remember said that it wasn’t hence why the Qur’an itself tries to address this issue. Once the Arabic diacritics were added whole new and sometimes impenetrable meanings were added to the text and a new religion began to hatch.
There are already quite a few books out covering this idea of Islam e.g.
The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History (from a German translation – so hardgoing but worth it!)
What the Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-Two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin: The New Picture of Islam (a very easy read)
A lot of Ibn Warraq’s books including the above one Robert talks about which does seem to address various ‘dismissive reviews’.
Christoph Luxenberg’s Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran and of course Mr. Spencer’s own ‘Did Mohammed Exist’ – a superb book.
Apologies if I’m teaching Grandma to suck eggs.
The idea being that before Islam a lectionary was created from various Christian/Hebrew texts, which did inform a new version/sect of Christianity that was ideologically opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity (see the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock or Mohammed meaning ‘the Praised One’, as a reference to Jesus, etc). At some later point the text was read in Arabic instead of Aramaic and Mohammed became a person in his own right instead of a reference to Jesus. There were later some Arabic additions to the Qur’an (it’s chapter order and various insertions to make more sense of impenetrable verses etc) and the hadith /sira were created in order to justify the actions of the various leaders over time.
So aside from our desire to protect our civilisation from this warmongering ‘religion’ – I find all of this real history fascinating. I would love to see an Aramaic translation of the Qur’an.
Kepha says
Gravenimage, there is Aramaic here and there in the New Testament, and perhaps an Aramaic original underlies the Greek version of Matthew we have today–Papias, one of the first post-Apostolic fathers, mentions that Matthew originally wrote in “Hebrew”.. However, the original language of the rest of the New Testament is assuredly Greek, the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean world (including many Jews in ‘Eretz Yisroel and most Jews in the Mediterranean diaspora). I know that George Lamsa and a few others have tried to posit Aramaic originals for at least some of the Gospels, but few are convinced. In any case, Greek originals for Mark, Luke-Acts, the letters of Paul, Hebrews, and the letters of Peter and Jude are all but certain; Greek originals of the Johannine corpus are only a little less certain. A number of scholars, I understand, say that it isn’t too hard to reconstruct Aramaic or Hebrew versions for a number of Gospel discourses. But this would simply reflect that the Apostles, forced early on into communicating in Greek (even if it was a second language), faithfully transmitted what they were taught.
Remember, a lot of the original audiences for many of the New Testament books were outside ‘Eretz Yisroel, even if they were Jewish. Jews in the Mediterranean diaspora were linguistically so Hellenized that they needed a Greek version of the Tanakh (Septuagint) as early as 200 B.C. As for ‘Eretz Yisroel itself, several of Jesus’ first (Jewish) disciples bear Greek names, as did the sage Antigonos of Socho mentioned in Pirqe Avot in the Mishnah. Archaeology had also uncovered a number of inscriptions which, while clearly of Jewish origin, are written in Greek. This should not be surprising, for there was apparently much traffic between Jews in the Mediterranean diaspora and those who remained in the homeland.
As for the Aramaic in the New Testament, there are a few examples of phrases used by Jesus given in the Gospels, but translated into Greek for readers. Paul, when he gets excited about the second coming of the Messiah, uses the phrase Maranatha (Come, Lord); and there is a woman in Acts whose name is given as both Tabitha (Aramaic) and Dorcas (Greel), meaning “gazelle”. Apparently, she lived on the border between two linguistic cultures (common enough then, even as now), and how she is called reflects this. The fact that the Apostle Peter is called either Cephas or Peter (the first being an adaptation of the Aramiaic “Kepha” and the latter an Anglicization of the Greek “Petros”) suggests that this disciple was also a child of a culture where both Greek and Aramaic were commonly used. BTW, such minor details are among the reasons why I believe that the Gospels and Acts w.ere composed a lot earlier and closer to the source than the general scholarly consensus holds
However, in the Old Testament, large sections of Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic.
As for the Qur’an, the form of Aramaic that would underlie it (assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Luxenberg thesis is correct) would be Syriac, the language used by the Christians of the Fertile Crescent even well into the Islamic era. It is clearly a development from the language in which Daniel, Ezra, and lots of Syrian princes and merchants wrote in Old Testament times, but not exactly the same. A little like our English and that of many centuries ago.
Still, I would also like to see someone who’s a better Semiticist than myself (I am a mere beginner) do a lot more with the possibility of a Syriac source or sources for the Qur’an.
Uncle Vladdi says
Re: “These essays provide reinforcement to the case that the text of the Qur’an did not come from Muhammad, but was compiled from existing, mostly Christian sources that were drastically edited and reinterpreted in order to provide a scripture and a theology for what the new religion of Islam. ”
IN OTHER WORDS, ISLAM REALLY WAS ALWAYS A – LITERALLY – ANTI-CHRIST SCHEME!
Irony Man says
Hi gravenimage,
I’ve been skulking on Jihadwatch for the last ten years so I’m familiar with Robert’s blogging on the qur’an series – but thanks anyway for taking the time to point it out.
I know that there is some controversy over whether the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic or Greek but I’ve always come down on the side of it being written in Greek Koine but even there it’s agreed that there are Aramaic influences in the syntax.
Assuming that the Qur’an was originally a Christian liturgical text of some sort then it could easily pre date the 7th century but even so, Aramaic didn’t start to be replaced by Arabic until the late 7th century, and was the lingua franca of the ‘middle east'(or west Asia) for a long time. But the argument works because there were, eventually, so few Aramaic speakers. As the original text had no ‘punctuation’ it was believed that it was written in Arabic and those who could remember said that it wasn’t hence why the Qur’an itself tries to address this issue. Once the Arabic diacritics were added whole new and sometimes impenetrable meanings were added to the text and a new religion began to hatch.
There are already quite a few books out covering this idea of Islam e.g.
The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History (from a German translation – so hardgoing but worth it!)
What the Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-Two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin: The New Picture of Islam (a very easy read)
A lot of Ibn Warraq’s books including the above one Robert talks about which does seem to address various ‘dismissive reviews’.
Christoph Luxenberg’s Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran and of course Mr. Spencer’s own ‘Did Mohammed Exist’ – a superb book.
Apologies if I’m teaching Grandma to suck eggs.
The idea being that before Islam a lectionary was created from various Christian/Hebrew texts, which did inform a new version/sect of Christianity that was ideologically opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity (see the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock or Mohammed meaning ‘the Praised One’, as a reference to Jesus, etc). At some later point the text was read in Arabic instead of Aramaic and Mohammed became a person in his own right instead of a reference to Jesus. There were later some Arabic additions to the Qur’an (it’s chapter order and various insertions to make more sense of impenetrable verses etc) and the hadith /sira were created in order to justify the actions of the various leaders over time.
So aside from our desire to protect our civilisation from this warmongering ‘religion’ – I find all of this real history fascinating. I would love to see an Aramaic translation of the Qur’an.
Kepha says
So, some form of Ebionitism or, more likely, Arianism, persisted in Arabia after either disappearing or going underground in the East Roman and Sassanian Empires?
The thing that intrigues me even more is Muhammad’s insistence that Jesus was not crucified, but that someone else or a phantom was put in his place. This smacks, perhaps, of a ghost of Gnosticism/Doceticsm rather than Arianism. The Gnostics held that the Christ was a strictly spiritual/divine being who either appeared to be a man named Jesus or latched onto such a person, abandoning him at his crucifixion. Yet Gnosticism seems to have been a spent force by the late 3d century. It is an ironical thing that whereas today, the prologue of John is quoted by those who wish to teach or defend the deity of Christ, Irenaeus, in the 2d century, quotes it to stress the real humanity of Jesus Christ (The Word became flesh and dwelt among us) against Gnostic sects that would deny the reality of Jesus Christ’s flesh-and-blood existence.
So, I ask, was pre-Islamic Arabia a refugium for the Christian heresies driven from Roman territory; or do we see in an actual historic Muhammad an imaginative but unsystematic inventor of his own “Jesus” based loosely on the figure he may have known from some tangential contact with Christians and their communities? I admit that based on the little I know, I tend to accept the latter picture.
Irony Man says
The fact that the translation of the Qur’an in Aramaic leads not to nonsense as one would expect, but to a very solid description of Christian ideas, is pretty damning. In fact, doing the reverse, and reading the Qur’an in Arabic, does lead to such a large percentage of it being nonsense (or of ‘impenetrable meaning’).
Alan S says
Going to read this. With my limited knowledge, reading of the Koran and other Islamic texts, and books like Roberts, I see more of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in the Koran, and the worst aspects of the historical Hebrew Bible taken into the Koran. Look forward to reading this book.
Yahya khalid says
Assalamu alaikum wahramatullahi wabarkatuh,
I will pray that Allah guides you all, for the disbelievers are the people of the hell fire. Maybe instead of using the time you wasted reading this article and commenting you should’ve instead picked up the Quran and read a few Surahs and see that a book written almost 1500 years ago explained scientific facts, historical events before they occurred, and contains the manual to life. The miracles in Islam have no contradictions, no confusion and despite every effort of people like the author of this article, Islam will remain unaltered until the day of judgement. Not a soul or even millions of souls will be able to change a single thing about it.
May Allah guide you all, inshallah at least one person who reads this takes the advice and reads the Quran rather than reading an article about what someone else thinks of it.
Peace be upon you all and may the blessings and mercy of Allah be upon you.
Irony Man says
Unfortunately, Yahya, the time you claim that people have wasted reading this article is as nothing to the many muslims who have wasted their lives believing the nonsense you’ve spouted in your posts. Everything you’ve said has been shown to be utterly false many times over. There are many brave muslims who have come to terms with this and left the religion, even though it is a death sentence to do so; that is why you and the majority of your co-religionists fear the consequences of accepting the truth. The Qur’an was almost certainly originally written in Aramaic, not Arabic, and there are many versions of it. It also contains many contradictions, it did not and does not explain scientific facts – in fact, it fails miserably at doing so. Islam itself may have remained largely unaltered but it has certainly only been around in its present form since the 8/9th centuries.
May reason and courage guide you to face the truth about Islam rather than blindly accepting the self-perpetuating indoctrination of your peers.
Stevo says
It may be a bit late to comment, but, there is a tradition among some Muslims, that when Mohammed was a boy, he encountered a christian monk.
If you check out Bahira on Wikipedia, you will find the story of how Bahira gave Mohammed “uncorrupted” versions of the scriptures, these are believed to be the origins of the Qur’an.
Marken says
The particular haddith you are referring to was thought to be later CREATED to add validity to Mo’s prophethood. But the political reason for this assumed fabrication may have been to answer a contradiction. That contradiction being that Muslims were told to check the former scriptures if they had any doubt to Mo’s message. Centuries later when they became literate it was obvious the Quran did not match the earlier scriptures, thus the Islamic conclusion that all the earlier scriptures had been corrupted.
So this is when the ‘monk’ story was created. Wherein Mo had received a special scripture way before he started his mission of convincing people he was a prophet. So think of the Islamic ‘logic’. allah let his earlier scriptures all be corrupted, but he got it right this time! Well isn’t it nonsense? There was no special uncorrupted scripture given to a youthful Mo! Would you agree?