The attempt to be a thoughtful Muslim must be exhausting. There are so many mental landmines to avoid and crumbling foundations to shore up when trying to build a consistent and coherent Muslim worldview.
This is seen clearly though not by any means exclusively in the schizophrenic mindset that on the one hand boasts of the supremacy of Islam over all other powers or beliefs and on the other hand rushes to claim victim status whenever Islam proves to be weak or at fault in some moral evil committed by its followers in the name of Allah.
This supremacist attitude is woven throughout the Qur’an and Muslim writings. Allah assures his followers that they are at the top of the heap of humanity (“You are the best of all peoples evolved for mankind” — Qur’an 3:110). He informs them that Islam is the perfect faith (“Today I have perfected your religion for you” — Qur’an 5:3). Muhammad tells his denizens that the age of jahiliyyah (i.e., ignorance of Allah and his ways) is now over, and that unbelief is no longer going to be tolerated. Anything not in accord with Islam is to be eradicated (something the Taliban, ISIS and Salafi Muslims have taken to heart in destroying religious sculptures, shrines and museums of religious and cultural artifacts from bygone eras). Unbelievers (the kuffar) are to be won over to Islam or forced to kneel in submission to Islamic rule and pay the onerous yearly head tax known as jizya, or to face the sword of the Islamic state until they lose their heads (literally). Allah assures his jihadis that they will surely be victorious since he will send his angels to fight alongside them and they will overcome huge odds:
O Prophet! Urge the believers to fight. If there are twenty steadfast persons amongst you, they will overcome two hundred, and if there be a hundred steadfast persons they will overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are people who do not understand. (Qur’an 8:65)
Muhammad instructs his followers that they have the right to live off the wealth of the kuffar that they overcome in battle. The spoils of war are theirs to divide up and enjoy. Those captured in war are to become the property of the victors, or to be sold on the slave market. Girls and women of child-bearing age (whether already married or not) can be taken as sex-slaves by the Muslim soldiers. All of this is possible because Muslims are the best of all peoples, and the rest of humanity exists for their pleasure and profit. Muslims are the masters, the kuffar are their slaves (whether they know that fact yet or not).
Yet this supremacist mentality runs violently aground on the reefs of reality.
If Muslims are the best of all peoples, then why do Muslim-majority countries consistently rank at the bottom of the scales when compared with countries run by the kuffar? Why do their citizens suffer significantly poorer quality of life, life expectancy, education, access to clean water and sufficient food, freedom of thought and expression, liberty and social mobility? Why is there such a dearth of scientific research and technological innovation among its learning centers? Why are so many Muslim citizens fleeing their home countries to resettle in the West?
Some apologists will reply that though they may lag behind the kuffar in such categories, they are the best in terms of religious and moral strength. After all, they have Shari’ah (the literal laws of Allah, they believe) and many of their countries enshrine some form of this as their national law, unlike the kuffar, who seem to revel in debauchery, murder and mayhem. Islam, after all, is the religion of peace, and those living under it enjoy the blessings of Allah.
But when one peels back the facade, the claim of moral superiority is lost in a sea of turpitude. The treatment of minorities, whether religious or racial, shows no love of neighbor. Muslims who step out of line are blackballed or, in cases of forbidden love, are targeted for executions in “honor killings.” Graft and corruption are par for the course among those in government or military leadership, and religious patriarchs can be found with large stashes of pornography. Pakistan, the one nation founded in 1949 to show the world what a truly Muslim society would look like, has consistently topped the list of annual downloads of pornography, and not just run-of-the-mill porn but child sex, bestiality and homosexuality. The claims of peace and blessing under the banner of Islam are belied by incessant bombings and slaughters engendered by internecine sectarian and cultural hatreds between Sunnis and Shiites, and among Persians, Kurds, Turks and Arabs. This doesn’t even take into account the bloodshed inaugurated by Muslims against unbelievers in their midst and across the borders of their countries.
Cosmopolitan Muslims have known these facts very well for a long time, and now through the wonders of the Internet, even provincial Muslims are fast becoming aware of the gargantuan gap between the triumphal claims of Islam’s proponents and the reality on the ground of its falsehoods and failures. Such cognitive dissonance is rightly shaking the faith of many in the Islamic world.
Trained to believe that Muhammad is the “perfect man” (al-insan al-kamil), and that Allah calls all human beings to emulate Islam’s prophet in every detail of life, those who learn more of Muhammad often find his reported behavior reprehensible. Should they marry a nine-year-old girl still playing with her dolls? Should they marry more than one wife, and use corporal punishment on them when they get out of line? Should they own slaves, buying and selling them and gifting them to friends? Should they practice and condone violence against those who refuse to submit to Islam? Is it okay to order the assassination of those impugning their reputation as Muslims? Should they employ sorcery to ward off evil spirits? Can they engage in treachery against the kuffar (after all, Muhammad said, “War is deceit”), and even break treaties/agreements when they no longer serve the advantage of Muslims? Do they have to treat Jews as their inveterate enemies, believing that they are the worst of all creatures and worthy of extermination? As the average Muslim learns more about Islam’s founder, it’s not surprising for there to arise a crisis of conscience.
Likewise, the foundations of faith are shaken as Muslims increasingly investigate the faith claims surrounding their “revealed book”, the Qur’an. The standard claim is that this book was sent down from heaven in piecemeal fashion as the angel Jibril (Gabriel) under the commission of Allah relayed portions of material from the “preserved tablets” in heaven. The process of receiving and gathering these revelations was superintended by Allah so that nothing was lost and no errors crept into the final product. As such, Muslims believe the Qur’an in their hands today to be a perfect copy of what Allah originally delivered to Muhammad. As modern scholarship has finally turned its attention to the early manuscripts of the Qur’an and to historical questions surrounding its appearance and description in early Muslim writings, it has become clear from the earliest manuscripts that there are significant variations in text between one manuscript and another, and that the earliest copies date to more than one hundred years after Muslim histories describe the first gathering the Qur’an as a book. Arab linguists studying the text of the Qur’an have noted hundreds of grammatical and syntactical errors as well as at least 118 foreign (i.e., non-Arabic words) in the Qur’an. This is all problematic for a book that claims to be written in pure Arabic sent down from an eternal master copy in heaven. Likewise, the Qur’an claims to be clear (mubeen), that is, easily understandable. Yet in recent years a prominent German Qur’anic linguist, Gerd Puin, has acknowledged that “every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense.” Much of the reason for this is that the meaning of many classical Arabic words used in the Qur’an have been lost to history. Even a cursory study of the formulation of the Qur’an historically demonstrates that there were many competing versions before the text became standardized. Even today, there are dozens of variations of the Qur’an in use among Muslims, but most Muslims don’t know this.
In terms of content, many of the stories found in the Qur’an have their origin in prior writings popular among Persians, Jews and Christians. The bulk of them come from apocryphal sources, even though they reference biblical characters. Jews and Christians recognized them as fables without historical weight, intended to teach moral lessons or answer ancillary questions. But in the Qur’an these stories have been copied and are presented has historical fact. Such borrowing from unreliable sources raises serious questions as to the divine source of the Qur’an. Was Allah not aware of the difference between his own prior revelation (the Bible) and the apocryphal writings concocted by well-meaning humans?
When Muslims begin to confront such anomalies in their prophet and sacred scripture, as well as their lesser stature among the nations of the earth, their world is upended. Their “perfect religion” crumbles before the truth. The foundation upon which they base their supremacy, Allah’s gift of the perfect man and the perfect revelation, disintegrates under scrutiny, and their world teeters on the brink of collapse.
How do Muslims respond to these realities?
Some, of course, refuse to let any of these hard realities register in their minds. They continue to live under the lie that nothing is wrong, that Islam is perfect and that it is moving from success to success as Allah confirms its superiority over all rivals.
Others, wanting to remain Muslim and yet recognize that all is not well in the world of Islam, adopt one of two postures. The first group looks inwardly and argues that the present-day foundering of Islam reveals Allah’s displeasure with the lukewarm obedience of his Muslim subjects as a whole and has withdrawn his blessing until things change. It is therefore up to Muslims to become serious once again about total allegiance to Shari’ah and to the conquest of unbelievers. This is the approach of the Muslim Brotherhood and all its daughter organizations across the world, as well as of al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and most other “radical Muslim” terrorist groups. They are considered extremists by the non-Muslim world, but their conviction is that what they represent is true Islam, and Allah will bless their efforts to bring the Muslim majority back to the teachings and actions of the Arabian prophet. Their rallying cry might be summarized as: “The umma [worldwide community of Muslims] is not Muslim enough.”
The second group looks outwardly and blames what it sees as a plenitude of enemies whose all-consuming goal is the destruction of Islam. Even when one enemy recedes, there is a host of others lined up, clamoring to take its place in oppressing the vulnerable Muslim flock around the world. This group has created the “Islamophobia industry,” claiming victimhood status so as to gain societal and legal protection under which cover Islam can continue to strengthen its standing and advance its supremacist goals. Oddly enough, rarely do such Muslims confront the obvious incongruity between the omnipotent sovereignty of Allah and the setbacks of his people — otherwise, they would move into the first camp (accepting blame for not being Muslim enough to warrant Allah’s successful protection) or they would leave Islam altogether. It is this group in which conspiracy theories flourish. Why are bad things happening to the Muslim world? Because the Americans are spreading the coronavirus in Muslim-majority countries. Because the CIA engineered the 9/11 attack and blamed Muslims to paint Islam as evil in the eyes of the world. Because the Europeans are bigots and don’t want to share their wealth with others. Because Hollywood has profited for years by painting Muslims as terrorists to sell action thrillers. Because non-Muslims are inherently racists against the “race” of Islam. Even Marvel comics has been accused of seeking to undermine the pristine religion of Islam for creating Ms. Marvel, a teenage Muslim superhero whose alter-ego is Kamala Khan, a sixteen-year old female living with her Pakistani family in New Jersey as she fights evil in her spare time.
But far and away the greatest and most terrible enemy of Islam most prodigious in its evil and villainy, is of course “the Jews.” Muslim religious leaders regularly point to them as the source of all the world’s problems. As an example, in a sermon preached this year on January 15th from the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque (Sunni Islam’s 4th most holy site), the Syrian Islamic “scholar” Tawfiq Ramadan al-Bouti declared:
If you study the Jews, you will find that they are behind two things: The first of these things is inciting strife and wars. The second thing is spreading moral depravity, debauchery and licentiousness.
These dastardly, powerful foes control the world’s banks as well as the publishing and entertainment industries. All their decisions and actions are intentionally taken so as to weaken or destroy the harmony and standing of Islam in the world. Once they are exterminated, the argument goes, the world will rise up in peace and prosperity. Almost every conspiracy theory that gains traction among Muslims ultimately involves the Jews, or the Zionists, who represent Israel, an ever-present thorn in the side, reminding the Muslim armies of their numerous and humiliating defeats at the hands of this small, but resilient and powerful nation comprised almost wholly of their mortal enemies.
But increasing numbers of cognizant Muslims are tired of farcical conspiracy theories. They find the call to unquestioned obedience to the example of Muhammad repulsive in so many respects. They see the evil of repression unleashed by Muslim governments against fellow Muslims, not to mention the kuffar. The cannot escape the reality of nearly 40,000 deadly terrorist attacks carried out by self-professed Muslims around the world in the twenty years since the tipping point of 9/11, when the ugliness of Islamic jihad could no longer be hidden.
Read the rest here.
Peter Buckley says
The panic amongst the clerics has been known for some time now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk4d8i-yGiw&t=54s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7pChq-3Qjs&t=351s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TxPmACbhHQ&t=234s
A few days ago, I was delighted to receive more confirmation- from the popular preacher, Mufti Menk, who confirms that muslims, above all others, are leaving their faith:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njxl4nN1i6E
There are hundreds of millions of “muslim” teenagers currently alive, who are going through the motions of having to believe this crap. There are even some clowns on JW who still believe that we are about to be “outbred”….by non-existent people. Lol.
Imagine what it will be like within two generations.
As I always say, these are wondrous times…
gravenimage says
Peter, Muslims do in fact generally outbreed Infidels–this has been well documented.
Then, the implication that all Musims are leaving Islam is not bourne out–in fact, much of the Muslim world is further Islamizing, and Islam is encroaching on the civilized world, in large part due to unfettered immigration.
Then, Muslims are indeed waging violent Jihad terror against us in many parts of the world–characterizing those concerned about this as “clowns” is actually quite appalling.
Peter Buckley says
“Peter, Muslims do in fact generally outbreed Infidels–this has been well documented.”
I’ve just proved how a huge percentage of “muslims” aren’t muslims at all, and you’re still going on about being outbred by them, when a huge percentage of “them” are no longer muslims..
Aren’t you the clown who once insisted that Iran was “95% percent muslim”? (Presumably because those geniuses at Pew told you so-and therefore it must be true), only to discover it is now not even a muslim country, as I have been telling you for years?
https://iranintl.com/en/iran/iranians-have-lost-their-faith-according-survey
You then go on to mention one of the very things that is actually causing mass apostasy – “Islamization” and violent jihad. In other words,all this violence is having the opposite effect of the one one intended by the jihadists.
As usual, you have completely missed the whole point of the article.
How many years have you been coming on here- and still learned nothing?
What a clown you are…..
gravenimage says
Actually, Peter Buckley has not proven that most Muslims are not actually Muslim–he has just asserted this.
And I have pointed out that all too many Muslims are indeed *just that*–and are waging violent Jihad against us and trying to impose Shari’ah here. Is Peter Buckley saying that this is not happening?
In that case, this site can just shut down–since it is apparently just “clowns” who are concerned about Jihad and Shari’ah…
And yes–99.38% of Iranians do indeed identify as Muslim. This is per the Iranian census. It is not just Pew that dares note that most Iranians consider themselves Muslim.
This is a fact. This may or may not mean that everyone there who identifies as Muslim is as pious as the Mullahs–but neither is it meaningless. To imply that this somehow means that Iran is not Muslim nation is iffy at best.
And Iran is a still a threat to Israel and the rest of the civilized world. If it were a completely non-Muslim nation, this would not be the case.
I am glad if a lot of Muslims in Iran have lost their Islamic faith–but recall that drinking alcohol does *not* necessarily correlate with rejecting the tenets of Islam, nor of embracing freedom and democracy.
Then, the claim that Muslims are leaving Islam en mass due to Islam itself is questionable–were it true that all Muslims reject Islam then Jihad would not exist, and no Muslims would be intent on imposing Shari’ah on us. But the fact is that over half of Muslims in the US openly admit that they want just that.
And if all Muslims rejected Islamization, then none of them would be intent on imposing it–but this is actually increasingly common in much of Dar-al-Islam, and even among Muslims in much of the west.
And the claim that Mateen Elass in this article is sneering at the idea that Islam is a threat makes no sense. He makes the point–which I very much agree with–that it is difficult for thoughtful Muslims to defend Islam. But nowhere is he implying that this means that all Muslims are abandoning Islam or that Islam is no longer a threat.
Then, does Peter Buckley consider Robert Spencer a “clown” as well for considering Islam and Jihad to be a threat? Surely that must follow.
I have been respectful to Peter Buckley in my replies–sadly, he does not seem capable of well-mannered discourse here.
mortimer says
A brilliant exposé of Muslim COGNITIVE DISSONNANCE today by Mateen Elass. I am very impressed by his knowledge of religion and the philosophical concepts he describes.
Muslims are defeated by modernity and don’t know what to do about it. They are like the defeated, believing Nazis in 1945-1948 as they witnessed scenes of Auschwitz horrors and the confessions of their former leaders at Nuremberg and then the hangings of war criminal officers and death camp commandants. Muslims are bewildered that Islam (though ‘perfect’) has nothing but failure to offer Muslims today. Their only solution is to leave Muslim-majority countries to achieve a modern, successful life-style. Probably, most Muslims want to get out of Berzerkistan.
mike says
get out but until they start to speak up and I mean really speak up to the world that we will not be allowed to be highjacked by the hate Islam represents
until that happens Islamophobia continue to grow and not for the reasons they think
I see it the world hats Muslims so the killings and murders will continue until the attitudes improve
When will Islam get it
and here Khan want to world to stop saying bad things about them yet Islam has not fixed it self
again the killing will continue until the attitudes improve
gravenimage says
Mortimer–with all respect–if the only reason Muslims were leaving Dar-al-Islam for the west was to achieve a modern, successful life-style then it would nto be the case that som many of them are mutilating and “Honor Killing” famiy members and waging Jihad terror against the Infides in the lands that have taken them in.
The fact is that many Muslims coming to the west are doing so in order to spread Islam.
Peter Buckley says
“….som many of them are mutilating and “Honor Killing” famiy members and waging Jihad terror against the Infides in the lands that have taken them in…..The fact is that many Muslims coming to the west are doing so in order to spread Islam.”
No kidding. That’s amazing insight you’ve got. Yet for some reason you fail to see that’s precisely why the ummah is shrinking. That’s the whole point of the article, which you, as usual, have missed.
As you seem intellectually incapable of grasping what we are saying, I was having an online discussion with a muslim the other day. After being thoroughly defeated and humiliated in the debate, his parting shot was “so why don’t you ban Islam in Western countries? My answer was: “Why should we want to ban Islam when it is crumbling in front of our very eyes?”
He never came back to me after that. I wonder why…..
You never see “the bigger picture” do you? All you do is come on and say: “Isn’t Islam a pile of crap”. Guess what? WE ALL KNOW THAT. Why do you waste your time preaching to the converted, and try to see THE BIGGER PICTURE instead?
In the meantime, it would seem you remain the same clown you have always been….
gravenimage says
Peter Buckley’s claim that the fact that so many Muslims are brutally devout ergo means that the Ummah is shrinking makes little sense.
Some Muslims are disgusted by Islam–but most Muslims–by definition, really–actually embrace their faith and its tenets.
And–again–nowhere does this article imply that all Muslims are leaving Islam, nor have I ever seen Mateen Elass make such an assertion.
Peter Buckely’s claim that he and Mateen Elass are jointly sneering at concern over Jihad and Shari’ah is actually pretty odd.
And no–the idea that Anti-Jihadists never have anything to say but “Isn’t Islam a pile of crap”–a supposed direct quote from me that I can’t recall ever having used–is just calumny.
In fact, this poster seems to have nothing to offer those rightly concerned about the threat of Islam but sneering and insults.
Michael Copeland says
Pakistan, a failed state dependant on international handouts, is also known for large scale illiteracy, and failure to uphold minority rights. Its monumental corruption is almost certainly influenced by Islam’s “Permissible Lying”. It was set up as a pure, “paki”, state. The world looks on at the result.
Infidel says
Mateen, do you really think that Muslims actually think about islam? They just accept it gleefully, since it declares them the best of people w/o doing squat, and gives them the privilege of being completely smug about it! Which is why they attract sociopaths, as well as make sociopaths of those born into it, or at least make that a major choice for those people. How many people do you think would resist that temptation?
gravenimage says
To often true, Infidel.
Peter Buckley says
What you will find, as the years roll by, is that it is the educated muslims who are leaving Islam.
Muhammad himself predicted this:
Narrated Thawban:
The Prophet: The people will soon summon one more to attack you as people when eating invite others to share their dish. Someone asked: Will that be because of our small numbers at that time? He replied: No, you will be numerous at that time: but you will be scum and rubbish like that carried down by a torrent, and Allah will take fear of you from the breasts of your enemy and last enervation into your hearts.
https://sunnah.com/abudawud/39/7
This is precisely what this cleric admits at the end of this speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk4d8i-yGiw&t=55s
It is their religious leaders who keep them in ignorance of what is in their books. The irony is that the more closely muslims read Quran and hadith, the more they will leave the cult. So it is the least educated and poorest, who are at the mercy of their imams, who will remain in it.
But obviously, over time, that is unsustainable. As ink spreads on blotting paper, so the reverse process will now kick in. We are at the beginning of the collapse of Islam. The violence will continue for now, but will recede as the decades go by, as the ummah shrinks. When Islam was conquering lands using Muhammad’s blueprint for offensive jihad, the violence was systematic and “successful”- and unknown to the rest of the world.
The difference now, is that it is back-firing because muslims have been lied to by their imams.
Muhammad predicted that Islam would go back to where it started. The violence now is that of a mortally-wounded animal in its early death throes. If you are young enough, you will see, in your lifetime, muslim-majority countries become muslim-minority. It has already happened in Iran. No doubt about that.
In the meantime, we have to accept that the violence will continue (“that’s Islam”). But most of this violence will be muslim-on-muslim, and ultimately self-defeating.
Infidel says
Except that in any significant population sample size, how many people would choose to be educated, as opposed to just relax and enjoy their status once they’re told by some entity that they are inherently superior just for being members of that club?
Peter Buckley says
The obvious answer to your question is “a lot”.
Nobody is suggesting that muslims aren’t going to stop committing atrocities in the name of Allah overnight. Nobody is suggesting this is going away “quickly”. All I am saying that IN THE LONG TERM Islam is doomed. This first (Internet) generation of ex-muslims has never happened in 1400 years The scholars have lost control of the ummah, partly due to the latter’s access to education. Islam is out of control, which looks “bad” in the short term, due to increasing violence.
You can take the short-term “glass half-empty” view, which seems to be the majority view here on JW, or you can take my own “glass half-full” long term view.
“The trend (of apostasy)has been described as a ‘ticking bomb’ with a new generation of educated Muslims starting to question the fundamentals of their faith”
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/why-are-young-muslims-leaving-islam/cid/1704203
Infidel says
Peter, that source you cited is a left wing paper that’s trying to paint a picture of muslims to be really benign, so that there’s nothing to fear in a demographic shift towards them. They used to previously support the communists before the latter was electorally reduced to a one-state (out of 27) party in India. I’d take anything they say w/ a pillar of salt, not merely a pinch
gravenimage says
Peter Buckley wrote:
What you will find, as the years roll by, is that it is the educated muslims who are leaving Islam.
……………….
Alas, this is not always the case:
“New study: wealthy, better educated Muslims more likely to wage jihad”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/03/new-study-wealthy-better-educated-muslims-more-likely-to-wage-jihad
In fact, it is usually Muslim apologists who claim that Jihad is always the result of ignorance.
I actually am a naturally optimistic person–that does not mean that I am going to pretend that Jihad has not mushroomed in the west over the past twenty years. Sadly, this is the sort of denial we are seeing from all too many.
As for Hasan Suroor, the author of the article in Telegraph India article, he is a frequent Muslim apologist.
He has lauded the “Muslim spring” in India.
Then–conversely–he has noted that the very sort of “moderate” or non-practicing Muslims are not really fixing things:
“Liberal Muslims are not catalysts of change, they’re part of the problem, says author Hasan Suroor”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/liberal-muslims-are-not-catalysts-of-change-theyre-part-of-the-problem-says-author-hasan-suroor/articleshow/71779430.cms
Suroor also agrees in this article that Islam is in fact growing–something Peter Buckley sneers at here.
Peter Clemerson says
This is good precis of the current state and problems of Islam but it repeats a view of one aspect of Islam that is highly questionable. I reproduce the relevant section below.
“As modern scholarship has finally turned its attention to the early manuscripts of the Qur’an and to historical questions surrounding its appearance and description in early Muslim writings, it has become clear from the earliest manuscripts that there are significant variations in text between one manuscript and another, and that the earliest copies date to more than one hundred years after Muslim histories describe the first gathering the Qur’an as a book.”
The phrase “the first gathering [of] the Qur’an as a book.” is somewhat ambiguous as it is unclear what is meant by a book. In the 7th century, as printing in the conventional sense had not been invented, what was a book – could an unbound collection of sheets of parchment or velum be regarded as a book? Assuming that the answer is yes, as its bound or unbound condition is irrelevant to its contents, the statement above is highly contentious and may well be wrong. The evidence that a collection of Qur’anic manuscripts existed very early after Mohammed’s death in CE 623 is very strong.
On the web site https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/soth.html there appears an article describing the history of many Qur’anic fragments (‘fragment’ is a technical term and means a part – fragments need not be fragmentary in the ordinary sense) that have been found in the Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ in Yemen. The web site states that it was last updated just over a year ago. I reproduce a paragraph from this article below.
“Subsequently in 2010 Sadeghi and Bergmann had published their article analysing the four auction folios, specifically the Sotheby’s 1993 / Stanford 2007 folio, where details were given of a radiocarbon study corroborating the early date already assigned to the manuscript. Analysis was done at the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory at the University of Arizona.[41] According to Sadeghi and Bergmann, the results indicated that the parchment had a 68% (1σ) probability of belonging to the period between 614 CE to 656 CE. It had a 95% (2σ) probability of belonging to the period between 578 CE and 669 CE. The carbon dating was applicable to the scriptio inferior text.[42] The date which the scriptio superior text was written could be the first or second half of the 7th century or even the early 8th century (more generally the 1st century hijra). Sadeghi then pointed out, “For historical reasons, however, what is of greater interest is the probability that the parchment is older than a certain date. … The probability that the parchment is older than AD 646 is 75.1 %, or a three-to-one likelihood. It is highly probable therefore, that the Ṣanʿāʾ I manuscript was produced no more than 15 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.”[43] He concluded that the scriptio inferior text belonged to the period of the companions of Prophet Muhammad, whilst the scriptio superior text belonged to the ʿUthmānic tradition, and using stemmatics, the ʿUthmānic tradition was shown to give the most accurate reproduction of the Prophetic prototype.”
A reference is given at the end of this paragraph to an article by the two academics quoted. I reproduce the citation below.
B. Sadeghi & U. Bergmann, “The Codex Of A Companion Of The Prophet And The Qurʾān Of The Prophet”, Arabica, 2010, Volume 57, Number 4, pp. 344-347.
The journal Arabica is accessible via JSTOR although some form of library or academic permissions or membership is necessary.
Islam’s critics such as Mateen Elass, and I am one too, need to make their criticisms as consistent with all the facts, as best known, as possible. Perpetuating the view that the Qur’an was generated over a hundred years after M’s death is contrary to the known facts as assessed by Sadaghi and Bergmann. A search on their article using Google Scholar produced no articles which challenged the carbon dating studies that they describe. Although the Ṣanʿāʾ fragments do not reproduce the entire Qur’an as we have it today in its various versions, collectively they cover about 70%. It is obvious to me that the words of someone were being written down within a few decades of the generally accepted date of Mohammed’s death, probably within 20 years. Assertions that the Qur’an is an invention of people writing many decades, perhaps more than 10, after M’s death should not appear on JW unless they can be substantiated.
One final point. The first edition of Robert’s Did Mohammed exist? was published in 2012 suggesting that he was researching and writing it in 2010/11, so it is not surprising that there is no mention of the Ṣanʿāʾ fragments. However, a new edition is promised for later this year. The evidence that the words of someone, at the moment universally accepted as Islam’s prophet, were being written down within a decade or two of this someone’ death has to be dealt with convincingly, if the hypotheses that Mohammed may not have existed and that the Qur’an has a late date of generation are to survive. I look forward to reading what Robert has to say.
gravenimage says
The Exhausted Defender of Islam
…………….
I can’t really spare too much sympathy for those having trouble defending irrationality and evil.
James Lincoln says
gravenimage,
Of course, that would also include many members of the current Leftist Democrat party.
That is…
If they even took the time to defend their policies and actions…
Andrew Blackadder says
Watching free living Westerners, many of them female, fall over themselves to defend a religion like islam, that openly states they wish to destroy them, and yet I never heard a word from these same people speak up in defense of the Catholic Priests that were known to abuse wee boys, not that they should defend these scumbags in any way, but I notice they defend men of islam when they do such awful things to women and wee boys but fail to defend the Preist when they do the same thing.
This makes no sense to me whatsoever, evil is evil so why protect one form and not the other form.
Am I missing something here?.
OLD GUY says
The big difference between Catholic priest abuse of wee boys is that christians see this as illegal and sinful. Islam on the other hand promotes and approves of child sexual exploitation through its sharia marriage laws followed by muslims. Young girls in Islam are sold into marriages with DIRTY old men, how bad is that.
gravenimage says
+1