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Raymond Ibrahim: Koran’s Contents—Not Carbon Dating—Cast More Doubt on Islam

Sep 4, 2015 2:01 pm By Raymond Ibrahim

Oldest Quran 74

The media is abuzz with news that a portion of the Koran, which Muslims believe was first recited by their prophet, Muhammad, may actually predate Muhammad himself.  Many seem to think that such news will have a large impact on the Muslim world and make Muslims rethink the veracity of their faith.

Thus Tom Holland, a British historian, asserts, “It destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Koran emerged.  And that, in turn, has implications for the historicity of Mohammed and his followers.”

A Koranic manuscript consultant at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Dr. Keith Small, is more emphatic and “told the Times that if the dating is confirmed, as he believed would happen, it could raise serious problems for Islam,” since “This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition.  The history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised.”

Nonsense.  This recent discovery, far from threatening “the edifice of Islamic tradition” or “rais[ing] problems for Islam” is currently being used all around the Muslim world in support of Islam, for a number of reasons.

First, the carbon dating is not radically incongruous with Islamic dating.  It indicates that the text was written sometime between 568 and 645.  Muslim tradition holds that Muhammad lived between lived 570 and 632, and that the Koran was collated and finalized around 650.

In other words, if the text was written anytime from 610-645—a full 35 years that fall within the range of the carbon testing—it poses no problems for Islam, for Muslims believe that Muhammad began receiving “revelations” or the ayat that became the verses of the Koran when he was forty.  All it would mean is that, instead of believing that the Koran was collated in 650, portions of it were written down a few years earlier.

Hardly a thing to rock the faith of most Muslims.

In fact, there is very little that Western scholars and scientists can do or say about Islam that would have much influence on the Islamic mindset.  The fact is, over centuries, lots of things have emerged that should put the veracity of the Koran and Islam to the test—whether the plausible suggestion that Muhammad never existed, certainly not the Muhammad of Islamic tradition, or whether the fact that the Koran, which says of itself that it is written in “pure Arabic” (see 12:2, 13: 37), has several Syro-Aramaic words in it.  Or perhaps that the Koran says, very literally, that the sun sets in a pool of dark mud (18:86).

Science doesn’t hold much weight with the modern Islamic mindset—not when it contradicts the Koran.  The earth is round?  So say the lying infidels, responded the late Saudi grand mufti, Bin Baz: if the Koran says the earth is flat (88:20), the earth is flat!

Interestingly, even in the West, if people come to believe that the Koran predates Muhammad, it won’t matter much: we will still be told to respect Islam since Muslims believe it.  Whether one rejects the prophethood of Muhammad—the definition of a non-Muslim—or whether one rejects traditional Islamic chronology it’s the same conclusion: Islam is a false religion… Keep reading

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Filed Under: Qur'an Tagged With: Birmingham Qur'an


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Comments

  1. Theodoric says

    Sep 4, 2015 at 3:05 pm

    Recently reported theolinguistic evidence indicates quite conclusively that the so-called “Prophet” Muhammad was actually a DINOSAUR. Doesn’t it seem quite possible that there will be a massive exodus of Muhammadans from Islam when this fact becomes common knowledge?

    Scholars Are Asking: Was The “Prophet” Muhammad Actually A DINOSAUR?

    An obscure yet eminent theolinguist has recently determined that the Quranic word Kafir, mistakenly translated as “Infidel” or “Disbeliever” for many centuries until today, was in fact originally used by the “Prophet” Muhammad simply to mean a NON-DINOSAUR.

    But after Muhammad died, human beings eventually gained control of Muhammad’s religion, and deviously changed the meaning of the word Kafir, thereby turning Islam completely away from its original purpose as conceived and revealed by the “Prophet” Muhammad — who simply desired to slay or subjugate the pesky Non-Dinosaurs.

    Muhammasaurus Rasulex:

    * Last of the Prophets among the Dinosaurs

    * Last of the Dinosaurs among the Prophets

    https://drawthevileprophet.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/scholars-are-asking-was-the-prophet-muhammad-actually-a-dinosaur/

    • MKG says

      Sep 4, 2015 at 4:12 pm

      So those headless dead things we are finding in the desert are not kafirsaurus’ but some other creature. Probably some other warm blooded mammal.
      My paleontologist friend will have to rethink his thesis.

      Thanks for the laugh.

  2. Angemon says

    Sep 4, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    Interestingly, even in the West, if people come to believe that the Koran predates Muhammad, it won’t matter much: we will still be told to respect Islam since Muslims believe it.

    That is the sad state of affairs nowadays.

  3. nacazo says

    Sep 4, 2015 at 7:01 pm

    According to answerig-islam.org there are variations between the birmingham quran text and the current text. 27 alifs missing, etc.

    who corrupted the quran???

    • Western Canadian says

      Sep 4, 2015 at 10:54 pm

      The only way that something as vile and filthy as the unholy koran could become ‘corrupt’, would be if it was somehow turned into something admirable and honrourable……. THAT would be a corrupt koran.
      Good luck with that.

  4. Westman says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 12:34 am

    Why would Muslims give up the Religion that makes them the best of people and describes the Infidels as the most vile of creatures? An examination of their countries shows no such evidence of a supreme ability, the best managed countries buying most of their infrastructure with oil money.

    Let’s look at an American example, the Mormon church. The early founders practiced polygamy, which was later discontinued. Has that common public knowledge stopped the growth of that church or caused its members to leave? In percentage terms its growing faster than Islam.

    The secret of a powerful religion is giving members a sense of significance, regardless of how strange the doctrine may appear.

    Raymond Ibrahim is absolutely correct. Islam can only be brought into question by the morality of its doctrine and members. The Mormons changed their doctrine to comply with an enlightened world, Islam has not and its doctrine sanctions supremacy and the worst abuses of humanity.

    Islam is vulnerable and we see only too clearly that its only defense is disowning Muslim groups who commit objectionable mayhem against “infidels” and then lying about the orthodox Islamic doctrine of forced conversion, extortion, and murder of Infidels that was used as justification.

  5. Vienna says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 12:47 am

    Cognitive dissonance. islam will continue to exist because muslims will not let the facts get in the way of a bad belief.

  6. Truth Seeker says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 1:16 am

    Muslims Claim, their Religion existed from Adam. So they will Argue, anything from the time onwards has Islamic Touch!

  7. Buraq says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 1:27 am

    The proof that Islam is only for clowns is that the angel Gabriel was said by Mohammed to have 600 wings. Now, how can a winged creature fly through the almost limitless vastness of space to deliver so-called revelations?

    Space is a vacuum! For winged creatures, there’s no lift or propulsion possible in a vacuum.

    People in the 7th Century could be forgiven for not knowing that, but not today in the 21st Century. Scientific progress has uncovered Mohammed’s lie!

  8. Baucent says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:57 am

    “Science doesn’t hold much weight with the modern Islamic mindset—not when it contradicts the Koran.”

    I think this is the key point. Western scholars can get excited about the implications of this being a “earlier source document” but it will make not one iota of difference to the faithful.
    Even if they turned the document over and found “Made in China”

  9. William007 says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 6:45 am

    isn’t it mind blowing that Western media gangs, Sky, bbc, cnn didn’t hesitate tell us the initial finding of this evil deceiving book and how wonderful it is. But so far they’ve fall silent to tell us the recent discoverings about “their wonderful book” predates their beloved Mohammad. Bonkers!!!

  10. Matthieu Baudin says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 8:01 am

    “…Science doesn’t hold much weight with the modern Islamic mindset—not when it contradicts the Koran…”

    Thanks Raymond; the Islamic faith is certain to be a hard nut to crack.

  11. Aton says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 8:10 am

    >>The Koran, which says of itself that it is written in “pure Arabic”.

    But Arabic was derived from Aramaic.
    And Allah was derived from Alah or Aluah, the god of the Jews.
    And much of the Koran was derived from the Torah.

    So the Muslims are merely latter-day Jews.

    Aton

    • Baucent says

      Sep 5, 2015 at 8:52 am

      Not quite right. Half brothers of the Jews, through Ishmail.

    • Kepha says

      Sep 5, 2015 at 6:18 pm

      Baloney, Aton. I know a little of Judaism, a little of Islam, and a lot of Christianity. I would NEVER say that Islam is a rediscovery of Judaism (except, perhaps, in its anti-Trinitarianism). People who say that the Qur’an is a lot like the Old Testament know neither body of work.

      The Qur’an tells Muslims that they are the best of men; the Bible (Old and New Testament alike) say that believers are sinners saved by grace. If both hate homosexuality, so does Buddhism, in which the beginning of the monk’s conquest of sexual lust is refraining to lust after his fellow monks (all male, BTW). Come to think of it, anti-Christian Western scientists down to the 1970’s generally regarded homosexuality as an illness.

      Also, I find peculiar echoes of New Testament apocalypticism in Islam, even though the apocalypticism is turned on the Christians. The business of Christ returning to slay the Antichrist comes right out of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians–although those have nothing about killing pigs and Christians. But the similarities do not go that far.

      A lot of Islam isn’t biblical at all. In the Old Testament, the punishment for theft is restitution plus some (five oxen for an ox; four sheep for a sheep–Ex. 22); in Islam, it is the amputation of a hand.

  12. mortimer says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 10:44 am

    When the orthography of early Koranic texts are dated, I expect them ALL to be dated after 690…i.e. after Caliph Abd al Malik did the collected the Koran (his words). The pointing on the Birmingham mss suggest they are not early.

  13. abad says

    Sep 5, 2015 at 8:46 pm

    Still no news of a translation eh.

    Somehow I am not very surprised.

  14. BC says

    Sep 6, 2015 at 2:31 am

    I do not like Islam but I do not like religion anyway. Most of the things said about the validity of Islam can also be applied to Christianity. The so called gospels were written over 100 years after Jesus Christ ‘died’
    and it has been shown that most of the things described virgin birth and crucifiction in particular, were parts of earlier mythologies in various parts of the ancient world. The writers of the Christian mythology
    had no reservations about adopting these myths for their own purpose. The main reason we have Christianity/Judaism and Islam is because Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire and in the case of Islam it was imposed on the peoples of the Mid East, N. Africa other countries in Asia during the expansion and conquests by the Arabs

  15. Mark says

    Sep 6, 2015 at 5:21 am

    The quran is full of errors, contradictions, false science and the most rediculous obviously false statements..BUT none of that do the muslims care about either.

    The quran itself proves the quran is false… they dont actually care.

    Lets face it islam justifies all sin and the most depraved of character… a lure to weak, corrupt and evil people.

    Lets not forget also that extreme cowardice plays a major part of muslims remaining in islam.

  16. bullfrogger says

    Sep 6, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    Not sure how much effect any change involving the Koran can have when half of all muslims can’t read and every drop of Islam they know is told to them . And they will be told that this is just another evil plot by the west . Havn’t we learned that the truth means nothing to them? Jesus himself could appear in downtown Bagdad , turn water into wine , and he would be dismissed as a western hoax . And they will have our liberals ,press ,and politicos cheering them on while accusing the people who discovered this of being islamaphobes with an evil agenda . Yes , Muslims must change , but the main effort must be to weaken non muslim support and find a way to hold these dangerous enablers accountable . I have more respect for the terrorists than the western criminals who clear the road for them .

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