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Position Paper :Is the Quran Divine and Unaltered?

Dr.James Smith
Hyde Park Chrstian Fellowship
Smith Vs Dr. Bedawi
1995
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"Is the Qur'an the Word of God?" - Part 1

Islam claims that the Qur'an is not only God's Word, but that it is the final
revelation given to humanity. It comes from the "Mother of all books"
according to sura 43:2-4. Muslims maintain that the Qur'an is an exact
word-for-word copy of God's final revelation which is found on the
original tablets that have always existed in heaven. They point to sura
85:21-22 which says, "Nay this is a glorious Qur'an, (inscribed) in a tablet
preserved." Islamic scholars contend that this passage refers to the tablets
which were never created. They believe that the Qur'an is an identical copy
of the eternal heavenly book, even so far as the punctuation, titles and
divisions of chapters are concerned.

According to Muslim tradition, these revelations' began to be sent down

(Tanzil or Nazil) (sura 17:85), to the lowest of the seven heavens in the
month of Ramadan, during the night of power or destiny (lailat al Qadr)
(Pfander, 1910:262). From there they were revealed to Muhammad in
instalments, as need arose, via the angel Gabriel (sura 25:32).
Consequently, every letter and every word is free from any human
influence, which gives the Qur'an an aura of authority, even holiness, and
with such, its integrity.

It is only now, as secular scholars of Islam (known as "Orientalists") re-

examine the Islamic sources, that evidence is being uncovered which puts
into question much of what we have been led to believe concerning
Muhammad and his revelation,' the Qur'an.

The findings of these scholars indicate that the Qur'an was not revealed to
just one man, but was a compilation of later redactions (or editions)
formulated by a group of men, over the course of a few hundred years
(Rippin 1985:155; and 1990:3,25, 60). In other words, the Qur'an which
we read today is not that which was in existence in the mid-seventh
century, but was more than likely a product of the eighth and ninth
centuries (Wansbrough 1977:160-163). It was at this time, the Orientalists
say, particularly in the ninth century, that Islam took on its classical
identity and became that which is recognizable today. Consequently, the
formative stage of Islam, they contend, was not within the lifetime of
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Muhammad but evolved over a period of 200-300 years (Humphreys

1991:71, 83-89).

Source material for this period, however, is sparse. Essentially the only
sources which had been available to the historians were Muslim sources.
What is more, outside the Qur'an,' the sources are all late. Prior to 750
A.D. we have no verifiable Muslim documents which can give us a
window into this formative period of Islam (Wansbrough 1978:58-59).
Nothing exists with which to corroborate Muslim Tradition' material (that
is, Islamic history based on their traditions). Later documents simply draw
upon earlier documents, which no longer exist today (if indeed they
existed at all) (Crone 1987:225-226; Humphreys 1991:73). This classical
period (around 800 A.D.) describes the earlier period, but from its own
viewpoint, much like an adult, writing about their childhood will tend to
remember those areas which were pleasant. Thus, the account is coloured,
and biased, and as such cannot be accepted as authentic by historical
scholars (refer to Crone's studies on the problems of the traditions,'
especially those which were dependent on local storytellers, in Meccan
Trade....1987, pp.203-230 and Slaves on Horses, 1980, pp. 3-17).

Consequently, the demarcation line between what the historian will accept
and that which Muslim Traditions maintain is growing further apart for the
following reasons: Islam, according to orthodox Muslim scholars, gives
complete credence to divine intervention for its revelation. Muslim
Tradition asserts that Allah sent down his revelation to Muhammad via the
angel Gabriel (Jibril) over a period of twenty-two years (610-632 A.D.), in
which time many of the laws and traditions which delineate that which we
define as Islam were formulated and worked out.

Yet it is this scenario which secular historians are balking at today, as it

presupposes that in the early seventh century, Islam, a religion of immense
sophistication, of intricate laws and traditions was formulated in a
backward' nomadic culture and became fully functional in only twenty two
years.

The Hijaz (central Arabia) before that time was hardly known in the
civilized world. Even the later traditions refer to this period as Jahiliyya
(or period of ignorance, implying its backwardness). Arabia before
Muhammad did not have an urbanized culture, nor could it boast a
sophisticated infrastructure needed to create, let alone maintain the
scenario painted by the later traditions for the early period of Islam
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(Rippin 1990:3-4). So, how did it come together so neatly and so quickly?
There is no historical precedence for such a scenario. One would expect
such a degree of sophistication over a period of one or two centuries,
provided there were other sources, such as neighbouring cultures from
which traditions and laws could be borrowed, but certainly not within an
unsophisticated desert environment, and certainly not within a period of a
mere 22 years.

Secular historians cannot simply accept the position posited by the later
traditions that this all came about by divine revelation, as they maintain
that all of history must be substantiated with historical evidence. They are
forced to stand back and ask how we know what we know, where the
information originates, and whether it stands up to an "unbiased" or
neutral historical analysis.

Historians had, therefore, been pushed into a dilemma. Due to their secular
presuppositions they could not base their research on the existence of God,
yet they could not throw out the Muslim Traditions (which naturally
presuppose His existence), because they were the best and at times only
documents available.

That is, until recently.

The new crop of historical experts on Islam (such as Dr. John Wansbrough,
Michael Cook [both from SOAS], Patricia Crone formerly from Oxford,
now lecturing at Cambridge, Yehuda Nevo from the University of
Jerusalem, Andrew Rippin from Canada, and others), while admitting that
there is a mystery concerning the question of divine intervention, are now
looking more closely at other sources concerning the Qur'an to ascertain
clues to its origins. It is these sources which are now beginning to reveal
evidence for alternative explanations to the beginnings of a religion which
today encompasses 1/5th of the world's population, and is growing faster
then any other major religion.

It is their work, therefore, that I would like to use, to understand better a

possible origin for the Qur'an. It is their material, and others, which, I feel,
Muslim apologists will need to face seriously in the years ahead, as much
of this new data puts into serious doubt many of the claims forwarded by
traditional Muslim scholars concerning their holy book, the Qur'an, and
their prophet, Muhammad. Let us, then begin our analysis by taking a look
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at the sources for much of what we know concerning Islam, its prophet
and its book.

B: The Problems with the Islamic

Traditions
In order to make a critique of the Qur'an it is important not to listen to
what the exegetes are saying today, but to go back to the beginning, to the
earliest sources of the Qur'an which we have at our disposal, to pick up
clues as to its authenticity. One would assume that this should be quite
easy to do, as it is a relatively new piece of literature, having appeared on
the scene, according to Muslims, a mere "1,400 years ago."

B1: The Sources

The question of sources has always been a contentious area for the secular
scholar of Islam, as any study of the Qur'an must begin with the problem
of primary versus secondary sources. Primary sources are those materials
which are the closest, or have direct access to the event. Secondary sources
concern any material which tends to be more recent and, consequently, is
dependent on the primary sources. In Islam, the primary sources which we
possess are 150-300 years after the events which they describe, and
therefore are quite distant from those events (Nevo 1994:108; Wansbrough
1978:119; Crone 1987:204). For that reason they are, for all practical
purposes, secondary sources, as they rely on other material, much of which
no longer exists. The first and largest of these sources is that of "Muslim or
Islamic Traditions." Because of the importance of the Muslim Traditions it
is crucial that we deal with them first.

Muslim Traditions are comprised of writings which were compiled by

Muslims in the late eighth to early tenth centuries concerning what the
prophet Muhammad said and did back in the seventh century, and
commentaries on the Qur'an. They are by far the most extensive body of
material which we have today on the early period of Islam. They are also
written in greater detail then anything else in our possession, in that they
include dates as well as explanations for what happened. They are a
complement to the Qur'an.
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The Qur'an by itself is difficult to follow, as it leaves the reader confused

while it jumps from story to story, with little background narration or
explanation. It is at this point that the traditions are important as they fill in
details which otherwise would be lost. In some instances the traditions
prevail over the Qur'an; as for example, when the Qur'an refers to three
daily prayers (suras 11:114; 17:78-79; 30:17-18 and possibly 24:58), while
the five daily prayers stipulated by the later traditions have been adopted
by Muslims ever since (Glasse 1991:381).

A number of genres exist within these traditions. Their authors were not
writers themselves, but were compilers and editors who drew together
information "passed to them," and produced it. There are many compilers,
but the four who are considered by many Muslims to be the most
authoritative in each genre all lived and assembled their material between
750-923 A.D. (or 120-290 years after the death of Muhammad). It may be
helpful to list their works, along with their dates:

1. The Sira are accounts concerning the traditional life of the prophet
(including his battles). The most comprehensive Sira was written by
Ibn Ishaq (died 765 A.D.), though none of his manuscripts exist
today. Consequently, we are dependent on the Sira of Ibn Hisham
(died 833 A.D.), which was supposedly taken from that of Ibn Ishaq,
though, by his own admission (according to the research of Patricia
Crone) he omitted those areas which might have caused offense
(such as anything which he felt was repugnant, poems not attested
elsewhere, as well as matters which he could not accept as
trustworthy) (Crone 1980:6).
2. The Hadith are thousands of short reports or narratives (akhbar) on
the sayings and deeds of the prophet which were collected by
Muslims in the ninth and tenth centuries. Of the six most famous
collections of Hadith, those of al-Bukhari (died 870 A.D.) are
considered by many Muslims as the most authoritative.
3. The Ta'rikh are histories or chronologies of the prophet's life, the
most famous written by al-Tabari (died 923 A.D.) early in the tenth
century.
4. The Tafsir, are commentaries and exegesis on the Qur'an, its
grammar and its context; the best known also written by al-Tabari
(died 923 A.D.).

B2: Late Dates

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Obviously, the first question which we must ask is why these traditions
were written so late, 150-300 years after the fact? We simply do not have
any "account from the Islamic' community during the [initial] 150 years or
so, between the first Arab conquests [of the early seventh century] and the
appearance, with the sira-maghazi narratives, of the earliest Islamic
literature" [towards the late eighth century] (Wansbrough 1978:119). We
should expect to find, in those intervening 150 years, at least remnants of
evidence for the development of the old Arab religion towards Islam (i.e.
Muslim traditions); yet we find nothing (Nevo 1994:108; Crone 1980:5-8).

There are Muslims who disagree, maintaining that there is evidence of

earlier traditions, principly the Muwatta by Malik ibn Anas (born in 712
A.D. and died in 795 A.D.). Norman Calder in his book Studies in Early
Muslim Jurisprudence disagrees with such an early date and questions
whether works can be attributed to the authors listed. He argues that most
of the texts we have from these supposedly early authors are "school
texts," transmitted and developed over several generations, and achieving
the form in which we know them considerably later than the putative
"authors" to whom they are usually ascribed. Following the current
assumption that "Shafi'i's law" (which demanded that all hadith be traced
to Muhammad) did not come into effect until after 820 A.D., he concluded
that because the Mudawwana does not speak of Muhammad's prophetic
authority whereas the Muwatta does, the Muwatta must be the later
document. Consequently, Calder positions the Muwatta not prior to 795
A.D., but sometime after the Mudawwana which was written in 854 A.D.
In fact Calder places the Muwatta not even in eighth century Arabia but in
eleventh century Cordoba, Spain (Calder 1993). If he is correct then we
are indeed left with little evidence of any traditions from the early period
of Islam.

Humphreys crystallizes this problem when he points out that, "Muslims,

we would suppose, must surely have taken great care to record their
spectacular achievements, while the highly literate and urbanized societies
which they had subjugated could hardly avoid coming to grips with what
had happened to them." (Humphreys 1991:69) Yet, according to
Humphreys all we find from this early period are sources which are,
"either fragmentary or represent very specific or even eccentric
perspectives," completely annulling any posibility of reconstructing
Islam's first century adequately (Humphreys 1991:69).
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The question, therefore, must be asked as to where the eighth and ninth
century compilers actually obtained their material from?

The answer is that we just don't know. "Our evidence for documentation
prior to 750 A.D. consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations in
later compilations." (Humphreys 1991:80) Consequently, we have no
reliable proof that the traditions speak truly of the life of Muhammad, or
even of the Qur'an (Schacht 1949:143-154). We are asked to believe that
these documents, written hundreds of years later are accurate, though we
are not presented with any evidence for their veracity, outside of Isnads,
which are nothing more than lists purporting to give the names of those
from whom these oral traditions were passed down. Yet even the Isnads
lack any supportive documentation with which to corroborate their
authenticity (Humphreys 1991:81-83)! However, more of that later in the
paper.
B2a: Writing

Muslims maintain that the late dates of the primary sources can be
attributed to the fact that writing was simply not used in such an isolated
area at that time. This assumption is completely unfounded, as writing on
paper began long before the seventh century. Writing paper was invented
in the fourth century, and used extensively thoughout the civilized world
thereafter. The Umayyad dynasty was headquartered in the former
Byzantine area of Syria and not Arabia. Thus it was a sophisticated society
which used secretaries in the Caliphal courts, proving that manuscript
writing was well developed there.

Furthermore, we are told that Arabia (better known as the Hijaz) in the
seventh century and earlier, was an area of trade, with caravans plying
routes north-south, and possibly east-and west. While the evidence shows
that the trade was primarily local (as we will discuss later), caravans were
in use. How did the caravaneers keep their records? They certainly didn't
memorize the figures.

And finally, we must ask how we came by the Qur'an if there was no-one
capable of putting-pen-to-paper before that time? Muslims claim the
existence of a number of codices of the Qur'an shortly after the death of
Muhammad, such as those of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, Abu Musa, and Ubayy
b. Ka'b (Pearson 1986:406). What were these codices if they were not
written documents? The Uthmanic text itself had to have been written,
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otherwise it would not be a text! Writing was available, but for some
reason, no record was kept of those supposed earlier documents prior to
750 A.D.
B2b: Age

Other Muslim scholars maintain that the absence of early documentation

can be blamed on old age. They believe that the material upon which the
primary sources were written either disintegrated over time, leaving us
with few examples today, or wore out from heavy handling and so were
destroyed.

This argument is rather dubious. In the British Library we have ample

examples of documents written by individuals in communities which were
not too distant from Arabia, yet they predate these manuscripts by
hundreds of years. On display are New Testament manuscripts such as the
Codex Syniaticus and the Codex Alexandrinus, both of which were written
in the fourth century, three to four hundred years before the period in
question! Why have they not disintegrated with age?

Where this argument is especially weak, however, is when we apply it to

the Qur'an itself. The "Uthmanic text" of the Qur'an (the final canon
supposedly compiled by Zaid ibn Thabit, under the direction of the third
caliph Uthman) is considered by all Muslims to be the most important
piece of literature ever written. As we noted earlier, according to Sura
43:2-4, it is the "mother of books." Its importance lies in the fact that it is
considered to be an exact replica of the "eternal tablets" which exist in
heaven (Sura 85:22). Muslim tradition informs us that all other competing
codices and manuscripts were destroyed after 646-650 A.D. Even
"Hafsah's copy," from which the final recension was taken was burned. If
this Uthmanic text was so important, why then was it not written on paper,
or other material which would have lasted till today? And certainly, if the
earliest manuscripts wore out with usage, why were they not replaced with
others written on skin, like so many other older documents which are still
in existence today?

We have absolutely no evidence for the original Qur'anic text (Schimmel

1984:4). Nor do we have any of the alleged four copies which were made
of this recension and sent to Mecca, Medina, Basra and Damascus (see
Gilchrist's arguments in his book Jam' al-Qur'an, 1989, pp. 140-154, as
well as Ling's & Safadi's The Qur'an 1976, pp. 11-17). Even if these copies
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had somehow disintegrated with age, there would surely be some

fragments of the documents which we could refer to. By the end of the
seventh century Islam had expanded right across North Africa and up into
Spain, and east as far as India. The Qur'an (according to tradition) was the
centrepiece of their faith. Certainly within that enormous sphere of
influence there should be some Qur'anic documents or manuscripts which
still exist till this day. Yet, there is nothing from that period at all.

While Christianity can claim more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts
of the New Testament, 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,300 other early
versions, adding up to over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts still in
existence (McDowell 1990:43-55), most of which were written between
25-400 years after the death of Christ (or between the 1st and 5th
centuries) (McDowell 1972:39-49), Islam can not provide a single
manuscript until well into the eighth century (Lings & Safadi 1976:17;
Schimmel 1984:4-6). If the Christians could retain so many thousands of
ancient manuscripts, all of which were written long before the seventh
century, at a time when paper had not yet been intoduced, forcing the
dependency on papyrus which disintegtrated, then one wonders why the
Muslims are not able to forward a single manuscript from this much later
period, when it was supposedly revealed? This indeed presents a problem
for the argument that the earliest Qur'ans all simply disintegrated with age,
or were destroyed because they were worn.
B2c: Scripts

In response, Muslims contend that they do have a number of these

"Uthmanic recensions," these original copies from the seventh century still
in their possession. I have heard Muslims claim that there are original
copies in Mecca, in Cairo and in almost every ancient Islamic settlement. I
have often asked them to furnish me with the data which would
substantiate their antiquity; a task which, to date, nobody has been able to
do.

There are two documents, however, which do hold some credibility, and to
which many Muslims refer. These are the Samarkand Manuscript, which is
located in the Soviet State Library, at Tashkent, Uzbekistan (in the
southern part of the former Soviet Union), and the Topkapi Manuscript,
which can be found in the Topkapi Museum, in Istanbul, Turkey.
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These two documents are indeed old, and there has been ample enough
etymological and paleographical analysis done on them by scriptologists,
as well as experts in Arabic calligraphy to warrant their discussion here.

Samarkand Manuscript - taken from Gilchrist's Jam' al-Qur'an 1989, pp.

148-150:

The Samarkand Manuscript is not at all a complete document. In fact, out

of the 114 suras found in today's Qur'ans, only parts of suras 2 to 43 are
included. Of these suras much of the text is missing. The actual inscription
of the text in the Samarkand codex presents a real problem, as it is very
irregular. Some pages are neatly and uniformly copied out while others are
quite untidy and imbalanced (Gilchrist 1989:139 and 154). On some pages
the text is fairly expansive, while on other pages it is severely cramped and
condensed. At times the Arabic letter KAF has been excluded from the
text, while at others it not only is extended but is the dominant letter in the
text. Because so many pages of the manuscript differ so extensively from
one another, the assumption today is that we have a composite text,
compiled from portions of different manuscripts (Gilchrist 1989:150).

Also within the text one can find artistic illuminations between the suras,
usually made up of coloured bands of rows of squares, as well as 151 red,
green, blue and orange medallions. These illuminations have compelled
the scriptologists to give the codex a ninth century origin, as it is grossly
unlikely that such embellishments would have accompanied a seventh
century Uthmanic manuscript sent out to the various provinces (Lings &
Safadi 1976:17-20; Gilchrist 1989:151).

Topkapi Manuscript:

The Topkapi Manuscript in Istanbul, Turkey is also written on parchment,

and devoid of vocalization (see Gilchrist, 1989, pp.151-153). Like the
Samarkand MSS it is supplemented with ornamental medallions indicating
a later age (Lings & Safadi 1976:17-20).

Muslims claim that this too must be one of the original copies, if not the
original one compiled by Zaid ibn Thabit. Yet one only needs to compare it
with the Samarkand codex to realize that they most certainly cannot both
be Uthmanic originals. For instance, the Istanbul's Topkapi codex has 18
lines to the page whereas the Samarkand codex in Tashkent has only half
that many, between 8 and 12 lines to the page; the Istanbul codex is
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inscribed throughout in a very formal manner, the words and lines quite
uniformly written out, while the text of the Samarkand codex is often
haphazard and considerably distorted. One cannot believe that both these
manuscripts were copied out by the same scribes.

Script Analysis:

Experts in manuscript analysis use three tests for ascertaining their age. To
begin with, they test the age of the paper on which the manuscript is
written, using such chemical processes as carbon-14 dating. This is
adequate for recent documents such as the Qur'an, as precise dating of
between +/-20 years is possible. There has been a reticence to use it,
however, because the amount of material that has to be destroyed in the
process (1 to 3 grams) would require the loss of too much of the
manuscript. A more refined form of carbon-14 dating, known as AMS
(Accelerator Mass Spectometry) is now used, requiring only 0.5 to 1.0 mg.
of material for testing (Vanderkam 1994: 17). Yet, to date neither of these
manuscripts have been tested by this more advanced method.

Experts also study the ink of the manuscript and analyse its makeup,
discerning where it originated, or if it had been erased and copied over.
But the age for these documents would be difficult to pinpoint because of
the lateness of the document. These problems are compounded by the
inaccessibility of these manuscripts for detailed research, due to a fear by
those who guard them.

Thus the specialists must go to the script itself, analyse whether the
manuscript is recent or old. This study is better known as paleography.
Styles of letter formation change over time. These changes tend to be
uniform as manuscripts were usually written by professional scribes. Thus
the penmanship tended to follow easy to delineate conventions, with only
gradual modifications (Vanderkam 1994:16). By examining the
handwriting in texts whose dates are already known and noting their
development over time, a paleographer can compare them with other
undated texts and thereby ascertain the time period to which they belong.

It is when we apply the paleographical test to both the Samarkand and

Topkapi manuscripts that we arrive at some interesting conclusions
concerning their dates. It is this evidence which is proving to be the most
serious argument against the possibility that either of these two
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manuscripts could be those copied out, or 'Uthman', or that they were even
in existence in the seventh century.

The Kufic Script:

What most Muslims do not realize is that these two manuscripts are
written in the Kufic Script, a script which according to modern Qur'anic
experts, such as Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, did not appear until
late into the eighth century (790s and later), and was not in use at all in
Mecca and Medina in the seventh century (Lings & Safadi 1976:12-13,17;
Gilchrist 1989:145-146; 152-153).

The reasons for this are quite simple. Consider: The Kufic script, properly
known as al-Khatt al-Kufi, derives its name from the city of Kufa in Iraq
(Lings & Safadi 1976:17). It would be rather odd for this to be the official
script of an Arabic Qur'an as it is a script which takes its name from a city
that had only been conquered by the Arabs a mere 10-14 years earlier.

It is important to note that the city of Kufa, which is in present day Iraq,
was a city which would have been Sassanid or Persian before that time
(637-8 A.D.). Thus, while Arabic would have been known there, it would
not have been the predominant language, let alone the predominant script,
until much later.

We know in fact, that the Kufic script reached its perfection during the late
eighth century (up to one hundred and fifty years after Muhammad's
death) and thereafter it became widely used throughout the Muslim world
(Lings & Safadi 1976:12,17; Gilchrist 1989:145-146). This makes sense,
since after 750 A.D. the Abbasids controlled Islam, and due to their
Persian background were headquartered in the Kufa and Baghdad areas.
They would thus have wanted their script to dominate. Having been
themselves dominated by the Umayyads (who were based in Damascus)
for around 100 years, it would now be quite understandable that an Arabic
script which originated in their area of influence, such as the Kufic script,
would evolve into that which we find in these two documents mentioned
here.

The Landscape Format:

Another factor which points to the late dates for these two manuscripts are
the format in which they are written. One will observe that due to the
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elongated style of the Kufic script, they both use sheets which are wider
than they are tall. This is known as the 'landscape format', a format
borrowed from Syriac and Iraqi Christian documents of the eighth and
ninth centuries. The earlier Arabic manuscripts were all written in the
'upright format' (thanks to Dr. Hugh Goodacre of the Oriental and India
Office Collections, who pointed this fact out to me for the South Bank
debate).

Therefore, it stands to reason that both the Topkapi and Samarkand

Manuscripts, because they are written in the Kufic script, and because they
use the landscape format, could not have been written earlier than 150
years after the Uthmanic Recension was supposedly compiled; at the
earliest the late 700s or early 800s (Gilchrist 1989:144-147).

Ma'il and Mashq Scripts:

So what script would have been used in the Hijaz (Arabia) at that time?
We do know that there were two earlier Arabic scripts which most modern
Muslims are not familiar with. These are the al-Ma'il Script, developed in
the Hijaz, particularly in Mecca and Medina, and the Mashq Script, also
developed in Medina (Lings & Safadi 1976:11; Gilchrist 1989:144-145).
The al-Ma'il Script came into use in the seventh century and is easily
identified, as it was written at a slight angle (see the example on page 16
of Gilchrist's Jam' al-Qur'an, 1989). In fact the word al-Ma'il means
"slanting." This script survived for about two centuries before falling into
disuse.

The Mashq Script also began in the seventh century, but continued to be
used for many centuries. It is more horizontal in form and can be
distinguished by its somewhat cursive and leisurely style (Gilchrist
1989:144).

If the Qur'an had been compiled at this time in the seventh century, then
one would expect it to have been written in either the Ma'il or Mashq
script.

Interestingly, we do have a Qur'an written in the Ma'il script, and

considered to be the earliest Qur'an in our possession today. Yet it is not
found in either Istanbul or Tashkent, but, ironically, resides in the British
Library in London (Lings & Safadi 1976:17,20; Gilchrist 1989:16,144). It
has been dated towards the end of the eighth century, by Martin Lings, the
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former curator for the manuscripts of the British Library, who is himself, a
practising Muslim.

Therefore, with the help of script analysis, we are quite certain that there is
no known manuscript of the Qur'an which we possess today which can be
dated from the seventh century (Gilchrist 1989:147-148,153).

Furthermore, virtually all the earliest Qur'anic manuscript fragments which

we do possess cannot be dated earlier than 100 years after the time of
Muhammad. In her book Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, Annemarie
Schimmel underlines this point when she states that apart from the recently
discovered [Korans] in Sanaa, "the earliest datable fragments go back to
the first quarter of the eighth century." (Schimmels 1984:4)

Interestingly, these Qur'ans from Sanaa still remain a mystery, as the

Yemen government has not permitted the Germans who discovered them
to publish their findings. Could this be a possible cover-up due to what
these earliest' Qur'ans might reveal? There have been suggestions that the
script in these early eighth century Qur'ans does not correspond to that
which we have today. We still wait to know the whole truth.

From the evidence we do have, however, it would seem improbable that

portions of the Qur'an supposedly copied out at Uthman's direction have
survived. What we are left with is the intervening 150 years for which we
cannot account. However, before continuing with the Qur'an, let us return
to the Muslim traditions and continue our discussion on whether these
earliest sources of the Qur'an can provide an adequate assessment of the
Qur'an's authority. The body of traditions which are most widely used are
the Hadith.

B3: Credibility
There is much discussion not only amongst the secular historians, but
within Islam as well, even today, as to the credibility of the hadith
compilations.

As we noted earlier, the bulk of our historical texts on early Islam were
compiled between 850-950 A.D. (Humphreys 1991:71). All later material
used these compilations as their standard, while earlier material simply
cannot be corroborated with any degree of authenticity (Humphreys
1991:71-72). It could be that the earlier traditions were no longer relevant,
16

and so were left to disintegrate, or were destroyed. We don't know. What

we do know is that these compilers most likely took their material from
collections compiled within the decades around 800 A.D., and not from
any documents which were written in the seventh century, and certainly
not from the person of Muhammad or his companions (Humphreys
1991:73, 83; Schacht 1949:143-145; Goldziher 1889-90:72).

We also know that many of their compilations were paraphrases of earlier

Akhbars (anecdotes and phrases) which they considered to be acceptable,
though what their criterion was is still a mystery (Humphreys 1991:83). It
now seems obvious that the early ninth century "schools of law"
authenticated their own agenda by asserting that their doctrines came
initially from the companions of the prophet and then from the prophet
himself (Schacht 1949:153-154).

Schacht maintains that the origin for this undertaking was the scholar al-
Shafi'i (died in 820 A.D.). It was he who stipulated that all traditions of
law must be traced back to Muhammad in order to retain their credibility.
As a result the great mass of legal traditions perpetrated by the classical
schools of law invoking the authority of the prophet originated during the
time of Shafi'i and later, and consequently express later Iraqian doctrines,
and not those from early Arabia (Schacht 1949:145). It is this agenda
imposed by each school of law concerning the choice of the traditions in
the ninth and tenth centuries which many now believe invalidates the
authenticity for the hadith.

Wansbrough agrees with Humphreys and Schacht when he maintains that

literary records, although presenting themselves as contemporary with the
events they describe, actually belonged to a period well after such events,
which suggests that they had been written according to later points of view
in order to fit the purposes and agendas of that later time (Rippin
1985:155-156). Take the example of the Shi'ites. Their agenda is indeed
quite transparent, as they maintain that of the 2,000 valid hadith the
majority (1,750) were derived from Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, to
whom all Shi'ites look for inspiration. To a casual observer this looks
rather suspect. If the premise for authenticity for the Shi'ites was purely
political, then why should we not deduce the same premise was likewise at
work with the other compilers of the traditions?

The question we must ask is whether or not there is an underlying "grain

of historical truth" which is left for us to use? Schacht and Wansbrough are
17

both sceptical on this point (Schacht 1949:147-149; Wansbrough

1978:119).

Patricia Crone takes the argument one step further by contending that
credibility for the traditions has been lost due to the bias of each individual
compiler. She states,

The works of the first compilers such as Abu Mikhnaf, Sayf b.'Umar,
'Awana, Ibn Ishaq and Ibn al-Kalbi are accordingly mere piles of
disparate traditions reflecting no one personality, school, time or place: as
the Medinese Ibn Ishaq transmits traditions in favour of Iraq, so the Iraqi
Sayf has traditions against it. And all the compilations are characterized
by the inclusion of material in support of conflicting legal and doctrinal
persuasions. (Crone 1980:10)
In other words, local schools of law simply formed different traditions,
relying on local conventions and the opinions of local scholars (Rippin
1990:76-77). In time scholars became aware of this diversity and saw the
need to unify Muslim law. The solution was found by appealing to
Prophetic tradition, which would have authority over a scholar's ra'y
(opinion). Hence the traditions attributed to the Prophet began to multiply
from around 820 A.D. onwards (Schacht 1949:145; Rippin 1990:78).

Take the example of the Sira, which gives us the best material on the
prophet's life. It seems to take some of its information from the Qur'an.
Although Isnads are used to determine authenticity (which we now know
to be suspect, as we shall see later), its authority is dependent on the
authority of the Qur'an, whose credibility is now in doubt as well (also to
be discussed in a later section). According to G. Levi Della Vida, in his
article on the Sira, the formation of the Sira down to the period of its
reduction to its "canonical" form seems to have taken place along the
following lines:

The continually increasing veneration for the person of Muhammad

provoked the growth around his figure of a legend of hagiographical
(idolizing) character in which alongside of more-or-less corrupt historical
memories there gathered episodes modelled on Jewish or Christian
religious tradition (perhaps also Iranian, although to a much lesser
degree). (Levi Della Vida 1934:441)

He goes on to explain that his material became , organized and

systematized in the schools of the Medina muhaddithun, through a
18

'midrash,' subtle and full of combinations, made up of passages from the

Qur'an in which exegesis had delighted to discover allusions to very
definite events in the life of the Prophet. It was in this way that the history
of the Medina period was formed. (Levi Della Vida 1934:441)

We are therefore left with documents which hold little credibility (Crone
1987:213-215). Even earlier material helps us little. The Maghazi, which
are stories of the prophet's battles and campaigns, are the earliest Muslim
documents which we possess. They should have given us the best snapshot
of that time, yet they tell us little concerning the prophet's life or teachings.
In fact, oddly enough nowhere in these documents is there a veneration of
Muhammad as a prophet!

B4: Contradictions
A further problem with the traditions are the contradictions, confusions
and inconsistencies as well as anomalies which are evident throughout. For
instance Crone asks, "What do we do with Baladhuri's statement that the
Qibla (direction for prayer) in the first Kufan mosque was to the west...that
there are so many Fatimas, and that 'Ali is sometimes Muhammad's
brother? It is a tradition in which information means nothing and leads
nowhere." (Crone 1980:12)

Certain authors wrote reports which contradict other reports which they
had themselves written (Humphreys 1991:73; Crone 1987:217-218). Al-
Tabari, for instance, often gives different, and sometimes conflicting
accounts of the same incidents (Kennedy 1986:362). The question of how
far al-Tabari edited his material therefore remains an open one. Did he
select the akhbar (short narratives) which he used in order to develop and
illustrate major themes about the history of the Islamic state? We don't
know.

Ibn Ishaq informs us that Muhammad stepped into a political vacuum upon
entering Yathrib (Medina), but then later tells us that he snatched away
authority from a well-established ruler there (Ibn Hisham ed.1860: 285,
385, 411). Ibn Ishaq also relates that the Jews in Medina were supportive
of their Arab neighbours, and yet were molested by them (Ibn Hisham
ed.1860:286, 372, 373, 378). Which of these contradictory accounts are we
to believe? As Crone points out, "the stories are told with complete
disregard for what the situation in Medina may or may not have been like
in historical fact." (Crone 1987:218)
19

Another difficulty are the seeming contradictory accounts given by

different compilers (Rippin 1990:10-11). Many are variations on a
common theme. Take for example the 15 different accounts of
Muhammad's encounter with a representative of a non-Islamic religion
who recognizes him as a future prophet (Crone 1987:219-220). Some
traditions place this encounter during his infancy (Ibn Hisham
ed.1860:107), others when he was nine or twelve years old (Ibn Sa'd
1960:120), while others say he was twenty-five at the time (Ibn Hisham
ed.1860:119). Some traditions maintain that he was seen by Ethiopian
Christians (Ibn Hisham ed.1860:107), or by Jews ( Abd al-Razzaq 1972:
318), while others maintain it was a seer or a Kahin at either Mecca, or
Ukaz or Dhu'l-Majaz (Ibn Sa'd 1960:166; Abd al-Razzaq 1972:317; Abu
Nu'aym 1950:95, 116f). Crone concludes that what we have here is
nothing more than "fifteen equally fictitious versions of an event that
never took place." (Crone 1987:220)

Consequently it is difficult to ascertain which reports are authentic, and

which are to be discarded. This is a problem which confounds Muslims
and orientalists even today.

B5: Similarities
On the other hand, many of the traditions reflect the same material as the
others, implying the recycling of the same body of data down through the
centuries without any reference to where it originated.

Take for example al-Tabari's history of the life of the prophet which is
much the same as Ibn Hisham's Sira, and much the same as his
"Commentary on the Qur'an," which is much the same as Bukhari's Hadith
collection. Because of their similarities at such a late date, they seem to
point to a singular source early in the ninth century, from which all the
others took their material (Crone 1980:11). Does this suggest a "canon" of
material authorized by the Ulama? Possibly, but we can never be sure.

These materials, consequently, create immense problems for the historian

who may only consider them authentic if there is observable data which
can be objectively assessed to be derived from outside the secondary
sources themselves, such as the primary sources from which these
traditions were obtained. Yet we have few if any to refer to. The question,
therefore, must be asked, Did the primary sources ever exist, and if so
20

would we be able to recognize them, using the secondary material at our

disposal?'

B6: Proliferation
A further problem with these traditions is that of proliferation (Rippin
1990:34). As we have mentioned, these works begin to appear not earlier
than the eighth century (200-300 years after the event to which they refer).
Then suddenly they proliferate by the hundreds of thousands. Why? How
can we explain this proliferation?

Take the instance of the death of 'Abdallah, the father of Muhammad. The
compilers of the mid to late eighth century (Ibn Ishaq and Ma'mar) were
agreed that Abdallah had died early enough to leave Muhammad an
orphan; but as to the specific details of his death, God knew best' (Cook
1983:63).

Further on into the ninth century more seems to be known. Waqidi, who
wrote fifty years later tells us not only when Abdallah died, but how he
died, where he died, what his age was, and the exact place of his burial.
According to Michael Cook, "this evolution in the course of half a century
from uncertainty to a profusion of precise detail suggests that a fair
amount of what Waqidi knew was not knowledge." (Cook 1983:63-65)
This is rather typical of Waqidi. He was always willing to give precise
dates, locations, names where Ibn Ishaq had none (Crone 1987:224). "It is
no wonder," Crone retorts,

that scholars are so fond of Waqidi: where else does one find such
wonderfully precise information about everything one wishes to know? But
given that this information was all unknown earlier to Ibn Ishaq, its value
is doubtful in the extreme. And if spurious information accumulated at this
rate in the two generations between Ibn Ishaq and Waqidi, it is hard to
avoid the conslusion that even more must have accumulated in the three
generations between the Prophet and Ibn Ishaq." (Crone 1987:224)
Consequently, without any real supervision, or the desire to present any
documentation the compilers became more than what their office
permitted.

Muslim scholars who are aware of this proliferation excuse it by

contending that the Muslim religion was beginning to stabilize at this time.
Thus, it was natural that the literary works would also begin to appear
21

more numerous. Earlier written material, they say, was no longer relevant
for the new Islam, and consequently was either discarded or lost
(Humphreys 1991:72).

While there is some credence to this theory, one would assume that even a
few of these documents would have remained, tucked away in some
library, or within someone's collection. Yet there is nothing, and this is
suspicious.

Of more importance, however, is whether the "Uthmanic Qur'anic text"

(the final recension, supposedly compiled by Zaid ibn Thabit in 646-650
A.D., and the source for our contemporary Qur'an) would be included in
this scenario? Certainly it would have been considered to be of relevance,
for, as we have previously mentioned, according to tradition all of the
other copies and codices were burned by the Caliph Uthman soon after,
leaving this one text, from which four copies were made. Where are these
copies today? The earliest manuscript segments of the Qur'an which we
possess are not dated earlier then 690-750 A.D.! (Schimmel 1984:4) Are
those who hold this position willing to admit that these four copies were
also discarded because they were no longer relevant for the new Islam?

Furthermore, the sheer number of Hadiths which suddenly appear in the

ninth century creates a good deal of scepticism. It has been claimed that by
the mid-ninth century there were over 600,000 hadith, or early stories
about the prophet. In fact, tradition has it that they were so numerous that
the ruling Caliph asked Al Bukhari, the well-known scholar, to collect the
true sayings of the prophet out of the 600,000. Obviously, even then there
was doubt concerning the veracity for many of these Hadith.

Bukhari never spelled out the criteria which guided his choice, except for
vague pronouncements of "unreliability" or "unsuitability" (Humphreys
1991:73). In the end, he retained only 7,397 of the hadith, or roughly a
mere 1.2%! However, allowing for repetition, the net total was 2,762,
gathered, it is said, from the 600,000 (A.K.C. 1993:12). What this means is
that of the 600,000 hadith 592,603 of them were false, and had to be
scrapped. Thus nearly 99% of these hadith were considered spurious. This
beggars belief!

Ironically it is just this sort of scenario which creates doubt about the
authenticity of any of the hadith. Where did these 600,000 sayings come
from in the first place if so many were considered to be spurious? Were
22

any of them written down? Do we have any evidence of their existence

before this time? None at all!

The fact that they suddenly materialized at this period (in the ninth
century, or 250 years after the event to which they refer), and just as
suddenly were rejected, seems to suggest that they were created or adopted
at this time, and not at an earlier date. This echoes the statement made
earlier by Schacht concerning the need by compilers of the ninth century
to authenticate borrowed laws and traditions by finding a link with the
Prophet. In their haste they borrowed much too liberally, which in turn,
forced the Ulama to step in and canonize those hadith which they
considered supported their agenda.

That still leaves us with the problem of how they decided which hadith
were authentic and which were not.

B7: Isnad
To answer this problem, Muslim scholars maintain that the primary means
for choosing between the authentic and the spurious hadith was a process
of oral transmission called in Arabic Isnad. This, Muslims contend, was
the science which was used by Bukhari, Tabari and other ninth and tenth
century compilers to authenticate their compilations. In order to know who
was the original author of the numerous hadith at their disposal, the
compilers provided a list of names which supposedly traced back the
authorship through time to the prophet himself. Because of its importance
for our discussion, this science of Isnad needs to be explained in greater
detail:

In order to give credibility to a hadith, or a narrative, a list of names was

attached to each document supposedly designating through whom the
hadith had been passed down. It was a chain of names of transmitters,
stating, I received this from ____ who obtained it from ____ who got it
from a companion of the prophet.' (Rippin 1990:37-39)

While we in the West find oral transmission suspect, it was well developed
within the Arab world, and the vehicle for passing down much of their
history. The problem with oral transmission is that by its very nature, it can
be open to corruption as it has no written formula or documentation to
corroborate it. Thus, it can easily be manipulated according to the agenda
of the orator (much like a child's game of "Chinese Whispers").
23

For the early Muslim, however, an Isnad was considered essential, as it

gave the signature of those from whom the document came. Our concern is
how we can know whether the names were authentic? Did the person to
whom the Isnad is credited really say what he is credited as saying?

A compiler, in order to gain credibility for his writings, would list

historically well-known individuals in his Isnad, similar to the custom we
use today of requesting noteworthy individuals to write forwards in our
books. The larger the list within the chain the greater its credibility. But
unlike those who write forwards today, the ninth century compilers had no
documentation to prove that their sources were authentic. Those
individuals whose names they borrowed were long dead, and could not
vouch for what they had allegedly said.

Curiously, "isnads had a tendency to grow backwards.' In certain early

texts a statement will be found attributed to a caliph of the Umayyad
dynasty, for example, or will even be unattributed, as in the case of certain
legal maxims; elsewhere, the same statements will be found in the form of
hadith reports with fully documented isnads going back to Muhammad or
one of his companions." (Rippin 1990:38)

It therefore seems likely that isnads were used to give authority to certain
hadith which "clearly are concerned with matters of interest to the
community in generations after Muhammad but which have been framed
as predictions made by him." (Rippin 1990:38) These isnads and the
hadith which they supposedly authenticate merely testify to what the
exegetes chose to believe rather than to what can be deemed as historical
facts, which in turn weakens that which they sought to communicate
(Crone 1987:214).

It is rather obvious, therefore, that the isnads rather then corroborating and
substantiating the material which we find in the Muslim traditions, present
instead an even greater problem. We are left with the realisation that
without any continuous transmission between the seventh and eighth
centuries, the traditions can only be considered a snapshot of the later
ninth and tenth centuries and nothing more (Crone 1987:226).

What is more, the science of Isnad, which set about to authenticate those
very Isnads only began in the tenth century, long after the Isnads in
question had already been compiled (Humphreys 1991:81), and so have
little relevance for our discussion. Consequently, because it is such an
24

inexact science, the rule of thumb' for most historians today is: the larger
the list, which includes the best known historical names, the more suspect
its authenticity.' We will never know, therefore, whether the names listed in
the Isnads ever gave or received the information with which they are
credited.

B8: Storytelling
Possibly the greatest argument against the use of Muslim Tradition as a
source is the problem of transmission. To better understand the argument
we need to delve into the hundred or so years prior to Ibn Ishaq (765A.D.),
and after the death of Muhammad in (632 A.D.), since, "the Muslim
'rabbis' to whom we owe [Muhammad's] biography were not the original
memory banks of the Prophet's tradition." (Crone 1980:5)

According to Patricia Crone, a Danish researcher in this field of source

criticism, we know little about the original material, as the traditions have
been reshaped by a progression of storytellers over a period of a century
and a half (Crone 1980:3). These storytellers were called Kussas. It is
believed that they compiled their stories using the model of the Biblical
legends which were quite popular in and around the Byzantine world at
that time, as well as stories of Iranian origin. From their stories there grew
up a literature which belonged to the historical novel rather than to history
(Levi Della Vida 1934:441).

Within these stories were examples of material which were transmitted by

oral tradition for generations before they were written down. They were of
two kinds: Mutawatir (material handed down successively) and Mashhur
(material which was well-known or widely known) (Welch 1991:361).

Patricia Crone, in her book: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam,
maintains that most of what the later compilers received came from these
story-tellers (Kussas) who were traditionally the real repositories of
history:

...it was the storytellers who created the [Muslim] tradition. The sound
historical tradition to which they are supposed to have added their fables
simply did not exist. It is because the storytellers played such a crucial
role in the formation of the tradition that there is so little historicity to it.
As storyteller followed upon storyteller, the recollection of the past was
reduced to a common stock of stories, themes, and motifs that could be
25

combined and recombined in a profusion of apparently factual accounts.

Each combination and recombination would generate new details, and as
spurious information accumulated, genuine information would be lost. In
the absence of an alternative tradition, early scholars were forced to rely
on the tales of storytellers, as did Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi, and other historians.
It is because they relied on the same repertoire of tales that they all said
such similar things. (Crone 1987:225)
ecause the earliest written accounts of Muhammad's life were not written
until the late Umayyid period (around 750 A.D.), "the religious tradition of
Islam," Crone believes, "is thus a monument to the destruction rather than
the preservation of the past," (Crone 1980:7) and "it is [this] tradition
where information means nothing and leads nowhere." (Crone 1980:12)
Therefore, it stands to reason that Muslim Tradition is simply not
trustworthy as it has had too much development during the course of its
transmission from one generation to the next. In fact, we might as well
repeat what we have already stated: the traditions are relevant only when
they speak on the period in which they were written, and nothing more.

There are so many difficulties in the traditions: the late dates for the
earliest manuscripts, the loss of credibility due to a later agenda, and the
contradictions which are evident when one reads them, as well as the
proliferation due to aggressive redaction by the storytellers, and the
inexact science of Isnad used for corroboration. Is it any wonder that
historians, while obliged to refer to the material presented by Muslim
Tradition (because of its size and scope), prefer to find alternative
explanations to the traditionally accepted ideas and theories, while looking
elsewhere for further source material? Having referred earlier to the
Qur'an, it makes sense, therefore, to return to it, as there are many Muslim
scholars who claim that it is the Qur'an itself which affords us the best
source for its own authority, and not the traditions.

Back to contents | Next page

"Is the Qur'an the Word of God?" - Part 2

C: An Internal Critique of the Qur'an

26

While Muslims hold a high view for all Scriptures, including the Old and
New Testaments, they demand a unique and supreme position for the
Qur'an, claiming its ascendancy over all other scriptures, because,
according to them, initially, it was never written down by men and so was
never tainted with men's thoughts or styles. For reasons such as this it is
often referred to as the "Mother of Books" (taken from sura 43:3-4).

C1: The Qur'an's Makeup

Muslims claim that the superiority of the Qur'an over all other revelations
is due to its sophisticated structure and eloquent literary style. They quote
from suras 10:37-38, 2:23, or 17:88, which say:
"Will they say Muhammad hath forged it?' Answer: Bring there- fore a
chapter like unto it, and call whom ye may to your assistance, besides
Allah, if ye speak truth.' This boast is echoed in the Hadith (Mishkat III,
pg.664), which says: The Qur'an is the greatest wonder among the
wonders of the world... This book is second to none in the world according
to the unanimous decision of the learned men in points of diction, style,
rhetoric, thoughts and soundness of laws and regulations to shape the
destinies of mankind."
C1a: Inimitability

Muslims conclude that since there is no literary equivalent in existence,

this proves that the Qur'an is a miracle sent down from God, and not
simply written by any one man. It is this inimitability (uniqueness), termed
i'jaz in Arabic, which Muslims believe proves its divine authorship and
thus its status as a miracle, and confirms Muhammad's role as well as the
veracity of Islam (Rippin 1990:26).

Yet, the Qur'an itself presents doubts as to its early formulation, and
certainly creates suspicion concerning its inimitability. In fact we know
that it wasn't until the end of the tenth century that the idea of inimitability
took its fullest expression, mainly in response to the Christian polemical
writings of that time (Rippin 1990:26).

There are certain Muslims who wonder whether the question of

inimitability is at all appropriate for the Qur'an. C.G. Pfander, the scholar
on Islam, pointed out in 1835 that, "It is by no means the universal opinion
of unprejudiced Arabic scholars that the literary style of the Qur'an is
superior to that of all other books in the Arabic language. Some doubt
27

whether in eloquence and poetry it surpasses the Mu'allaqat by Imraul

Quais, or the Maqamat of Hariri, though in Muslim lands few people are
courageous enough to express such an opinion." (Pfander 1835:264)

Pfander elaborates by comparing the Qur'an with the Bible. He states,

"When we read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, many scholars
hold that the eloquence of Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and many of the Psalms,
for instance, is greater than that of any part of the Qur'an. Hardly anyone
but a Muslim would deny this, and probably no Muslim who knew both
Arabic and Hebrew well would be able to deny it." (Pfander 1835:266)
C1b: Structural weaknesses

A comparison with the Bible brings other problems to light. When anyone
familiar with the Bible begins to read the Qur'an it is immediately apparent
that the Qur'an is an entirely different kind of literature, whatever its poetic
merits.

Whereas the Bible contains much historical narrative, the Qur'an contains
very little. Whereas the Bible goes out of its way to explain unfamiliar
terminology or territory, the Qur'an remains silent. In fact, the very
structure of the Bible, consisting of a library of 66 books, written over a
period of 1,500 years reveals that it is ordered according to chronology,
subject and theme.

The Qur'an, on the other hand, reads more like a jumbled and confused
collection of statements and ideas, many of which bear little relationship to
preceding chapters and verses. Many scholars admit that the Qur'an is so
haphazard in its make-up that it requires the utmost sense of duty for
anyone to plough through it!

The German secular scholar Salomon Reinach in his rather harsh analysis
states that:

"From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation,
repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared
reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that
this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable
commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time in absorbing
it." (Reinach 1932:176)
In a similar vein, McClintock and Strong's encyclopedia maintains that:
28

"The matter of the [Koran] is exceedingly incoherent and sen- tentious,

the book evidently being without any logical order of thought either as a
whole or in its parts. This agrees with the desultory and incidental manner
in which it is said to have been delivered. (McClintock and Strong
1981:151)
C1c: Literary defects

Even the former Muslim scholar Dashti laments the literary defects of the
Qur'an, saying, "Unfortunately the Qur'an was badly edited and its
contents are very obtusely arranged." He concludes that, "All students of
the Qur'an wonder why the editors did not use the natural and logical
method of ordering by date of revelation, as in Ali ibn Taleb's lost copy of
the text." (Dashti 1985:28)

Upon reading the suras of the Qur'an one soon realizes that it is not
chronological. According to tradition the longest chapters which are at the
beginning are those which were delivered later, and the shortest chapters
found at the end are considered to be the oldest. Yet these same traditions
tell us that there are certain suras which contain both early and late
revelations. Thus it is difficult to know whether any statement in the
Qur'an is early or late.

Another problem is that of repetition. The Qur'an, we are told, was

intended to be memorized by those who were illiterate and uneducated. It
therefore engages in the principle of endless repetition of the same
material (Morey 1992:113). This all leads to a good bit of confusion for
the novice reader, and seems to point to a style reminiscent of the
storytellers mentioned earlier.

The Qur'an has other literary difficulties. "The subject matter within
individual chapters jumps from one topic to the next, with duplications and
apparent inconsistencies in grammar, law and theology also abound"
(Rippin 1990:23). The language is semi-poetical, while its grammar, due to
omission, is so elliptical as to be often obscure and ambiguous. There is
grammatical discord (such as the use of plural verbs with singular
subjects), and variations in the treatment of the gender nouns (for
examples, see suras 2:177; 3:59; 4:162; 5:69; 7:160; and 63:10) (Rippin
1990:28). Many times the sentences leave verbs out, and it assumes the
reader is well informed. It has few explanations and consequently it is
difficult to read.
29

These aren't the only structural problems. Patricia Crone points out that,
"within blocks of verses trivial dislocations are surprisingly frequent. God
may appear in the first and third persons in one and the same sentence.
There may be omissions, which if not made good by interpretation, render
the sense unintelligible." (Cook 1983:68)

In response to these accusations, the theologian-grammarian al-Rummani

(d.996 A.D.) argued that the ellipses and grammatical irregularities were
really positive rhetorical devices rather than evidence of rushed or sloppy
writing (Rippin 1990:27). This sort of argument is almost impossible to
evaluate, however, due to the lack of any contemporaneous secular
literature with which to compare. It leaves the "argument a dogmatic
one...but one which operates (like many other religious arguments) within
the presupposition of Islam alone." (Rippin 1990:27)

None the less there have been attempts by non-Muslims to rebut the above
contention by exposing the true reason for these irregularities. Al-Kindi, a
Christian polemicist employed in the Caliphal court, had discussions with
Muslims as early as 830 A.D. (thus soon after what I believe was the
Qur'an's canonization). He seemed to understand the agenda of the
Muslims at that time. Anticipating the claim by Muslims that the Qur'an
itself was proof for its divine inspiration he responded by saying:

"The result of all of this [process by which the Qur'an came into being] is
patent to you who have read the scriptures and see how, in your book,
histories are all jumbled together and intermingled; an evidence that
many different hands have been at work therein, and caused
discrepancies, adding or cutting out whatever they liked or disliked. Are
such, now, the conditions of a revelation sent down from heaven?" (Muir
1882:18-19,28)
Interestingly, Al-Kindi's pronouncement as early as the ninth century
agrees with the conclusion of Wansbrough over eleven hundred years later;
both maintaining that the Qu'ran is the result of a haphazard compilation
by later redactors a century or more after the event (Wansbrough 1977:51).
C1d: Universality

Another difficulty with the Qur'an is its scope. Some verses state that it is a
book only for the Arabs (Suras 14:4; 42:7; 43:3 and 46:12), while other
verses imply it is a revelation for all people and all time (Suras 34:28;
33:40). Did this universal application come later on, appended after the
30

expansion of Islam into foreign lands, and among foreign peoples? If so, it
then puts added doubt upon its reliability as an early source.
C1e: Interpolation

In the Qur'an there are also clear cases of interpolation. An example which
Michael Cook points to can be found in the fifty-third sura, where "the
basic text consists of uniformly short verses in an inspired style, but in two
places it is interrupted by a prosaic [unimaginative] and prolix [verbose,
boring] amplification which is stylistically quite out of place." (Cook
1983:69) Did these come from the same source, and do they even belong
in this sura?

Another significant feature is the frequency with which we find alternative

versions of the same passage in different parts of the Qur'an. The same
story can be found repeated with small variations in different suras. When
placed side by side these various versions often show the same sort of
variation that one would find between parallel versions of oral traditions
(Cook 1983:69). Again we are faced with another example of a book not
written by a single author, but a book compiled later by a number of
individuals.

This problem becomes clearer when we look at some of the supposed

"Biblical" data which we find in the Qur'an.

C2: Talmudic Sources in the Qur'an

Possibly the greatest puzzlement for Christians who pick up the Qur'an
and read it are the numerous seeming Biblical stories which bear little
similarity to the Biblical accounts. The Qur'anic stories include many
distortions, amendments, and some bizarre additions to the familiar stories
we have known and learned. So, where did these stories come from, if not
from the previous scriptures?

Fortunately, we do have much Jewish apocryphal literature (much of it

from the Talmud), dating from the second century A.D. with which we can
compare many of these stories. It is when we do so, that we find
remarkable similarities between these fables or folk tales, and the stories
which are recounted in the Qur'an (note:Talmudic material taken from
Feinburg 1993:1162-1163).
31

The Talmudic writings were compiled in the second century A.D., from
oral laws (Mishnah) and traditions of those laws (Gemara). These laws and
traditions were created to adapt the law of Moses (the Torah) to the
changing times. They also included interpretations and discussions of the
laws (the Halakhah and Haggadah etc.). Many Jews do not consider the
Talmudic writings authoritative, but they read them nonetheless with
interest for the light they cast on the times in which they were written.

So how did these non-authoritative Jewish Talmudic writings come to be

included in the Qur'an? Between the seventh and ninth centuries many
Jewish communities could be found in the Arabian Peninsula (known as
the Hijaz). They were part of the diaspora who had fled Palestine after the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A large number of these Jews were
guided by these Talmudic writings which had been passed down orally
from father to son for generations. Each generation embellished the
accounts, or at times incorporated local folklore, so that it was difficult to
know what the original stories contained. There were even those amongst
the Jews who believed that these Talmudic writings had been added to the
"preserved tablets" (i.e. the Ten Commandments, and the Torah which
were kept in the Ark of the Covenant), and were believed to be replicas of
the heavenly book (Feinburg 1993:1163).

Some scholars believe that when later Islamic compilers came onto the
scene, in the eighth to ninth centuries, they merely added this body of
literature to the nascent Qur'anic material. It is therefore, not surprising
that a number of these traditions from Judaism were inadvertently
accepted by later redactors, and incorporated into the holy writings' of
Islam.

There are quite a few stories which have their root in second century
Jewish apocryphal literature. I will look at only three here, and then
mention others at the end of this section:
C2a: The story of Cain and Abel

The story (found in sura 5:30-32) begins much as it does in the Biblical
account with Cain killing his brother Abel (though they are not named in
the Qur'anic account). Yet in aya 31, after Cain slays Abel, the story
changes and no longer follows the Biblical account. Where could this
Qur'anic account have come from? Is this an historical record which was
unknown to the Biblical writers?
32

Indeed it was, as the source for this account was drafted long after the Old
Testament had been canonized, and after the New Testament was written.
In fact there are three sources from which this account could have been
taken: the Targum of Jonathan-ben-Uzziah, The Targum of Jerusalem, and
a book called The Pirke-Rabbi Eleazar (Shorrosh 1988:144). All these
three documents are Jewish writings from the Talmud, which were oral
traditions from between 150-200 A.D. These stories comment on the Laws
of the Bible, yet are known to contain nothing more than Hebrew myths
and fables.

As we read this particular story from the Qur'an (on the left) we find a
striking parallel to the three Talmudic sources (on the right):

Qur'an- sura 5:31

"Then Allah sent a raven, who scratched the ground, to show him how to
hide the shame of his brother. 'Woe is me!' said he; 'Was I not even able to
be as this raven, and to hide the shame of my brother?' Then he became
full of regrets."
Targum of Jonathan-ben-Uzziah
"Adam and Eve, sitting by the corpse, wept not knowing what to do, for
they had as yet no knowledge of burial. A raven came up, took the dead
body of its fellow, and having scratched at the earth, buried it thus before
their eyes. Adam said, 'Let us follow the example of the raven,' so taking
up Abel's body, buried it at once."
Apart from the contrast between who buried who, the two stories are
otherwise uncannily similar. We can only conclude that it was from here
that Muhammad, or a later compiler obtained his story. Thus we find that a
Jewish fable, a myth, is repeated as historical fact in the Qur'an.

Yet that is not all, for when we continue in our reading of sura 5, in the
following aya 32 (on the left), we find a further proof of plagiarism from
apocryphal Jewish literature; this time the Jewish Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
(on the right).

Qur'an- sura 5:32

"On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone
slew a person-unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the
land-it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life,
it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people..."
33

Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5

"We find it said in the case of Cain who murdered his brother, the voice of
thy brother's blood crieth out' [this latter is a quote from the Bible,
Genesis 4:10], and he says, it does not sayeth he hath blood in the
singular, but bloods in the plural.' Thou was created single in order to
show that to him who kills a single individual, it should be reckoned that
he has slain the whole race. But to him who has preserved the life of a
single individual, it is counted that he has preserved the whole race.
There is no connection between the previous verse (aya 31) and that which
we find in aya 32 (above). What does the murder of Abel by Cain have to
do with the slaying or saving of the whole people? Nothing. Ironically, this
aya 32, in fact, supports the basis of the Old Testament hope for the
finished work of Jesus, who was to take away the sins of the world (see
John 1:29). Yet, it doesn't flow from the verse which preceded it. So why is
it here?

If we were to turn to the Jewish Talmud again, this time to the Mishnah
Sanhendrin, chapter 4, verse 5, we will find where the author obtained his
material, and why he included it here.

In this account we read a Rabbi's comments, where he interprets the word

'blood' to mean, "his own blood and the blood of his seed." Remember, this
is nothing but the comment of a Rabbi. It is his own interpretation, and a
highly speculative one at that.

Therefore, it is rather interesting that he then goes on to comment on the

plural word for blood.' Yet this Rabbi's comments are repeated almost
word-for-word in the Qur'an, in aya 32 of sura 5! How is it that a Rabbi's
comments on the Biblical text, the muses of a mere human become the
Qur'anic holy writ, and attributed to God?

The only conclusion is that the later compilers learned this admonition
from this Rabbi's writings, because there is no connection between the
narrative concerning the killing of Cain in the Qur'an (aya 31), and the
subsequent verse about the whole race (aya 32).

It is only when we read the Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 that we find the
connection between these two stories: a Rabbi's exposition of a biblical
verse and a core word. The reason why this connection is lacking in the
Qur'an is now quite easy to understand. The author of sura 5 simply did
not know the context in which the Rabbi was talking, and therefore was
34

not aware that these were merely comments on the Biblical text and not
from the Bible itself. He simply added them to the Qur'an, repeating what
he had heard without understanding the implication.
C2b: The story of Abraham

In sura 21:51-71, we find the story of Abraham. In the Qur'anic account

Abraham confronts his people and his father because of the many idols
which they worship. After an argument between Abraham and the people,
they depart and Abraham breaks the smaller idols, leaving the larger ones
intact. When the people see this they call Abraham and ask if he is
responsible, to which he replies that it must have been the larger idols
which did the destruction. He challenges them to ask the larger idols to
find out, to which they reply, "Thou knowest full well that these (idols) do
not speak!" (aya 65). He gives a taunting retort, and they then throw him
into a fire. But in aya 69 Allah commands the fire to be cool, making it
safe for Abraham, and he miraculously walks out unscathed.

There are no parallels to this story in our Bible. There is a parallel,

however, in a second century book of Jewish folktales called The Midrash
Rabbah. In this account Abraham breaks all the idols except the biggest
one. His father and the others challenged him on this, and with a humor
removed from the Qur'anic account, Abraham replies that he had given the
biggest idol an ox for all the idols to eat, but because the smaller idols
went ahead and ate, showing no respect, the bigger idol smashed the
smaller ones. The enraged father did not believe Abraham's account, and
so took him to a man named Nimrod, who simply threw him into a fire.
But God made it cool for him and he walked out unscathed.

The similarity between these two stories is unmistakable. A second century

Jewish fable, a folklore, and myth is repeated in the "holy Qur'an." It is
quite evident that the compiler of this account heard snatches of the
Biblical narratives from visiting Jews and assuming they came from the
same source unwittingly wrote Jewish folklore into the Qur'an.

Some Muslims claim that this myth, and not the Biblical account, is in
reality the true Word of God. They maintain that the Jews simply
expunged it so as not to correspond with the later Qur'anic account.
Without attempting to explain how the Jews would have known to
expunge this particular story, since the Qur'an was not to appear until
centuries later, we nontheless must ask where this folklore comes from?
35

The Bible itself gives us the answer. In Genesis 15:7, the Lord tells
Abraham that it was He who brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans.
Ur is a place, also mentioned in Genesis 11:31. We have evidence that a
Jewish scribe named Jonathan Ben Uziel mistook the Hebrew word "Ur"
for the Hebrew word which means "fire." Thus in his commentary of this
verse he writes, "I am the Lord who brought you out of the fire of the
Chaldeans."

Consequently, because of this misunderstanding, and because of a

misreading of the Biblical verse a fable became popular around this era,
which stated that God had brought Abraham out of the fire.

With this information in hand, we can, therefore, discern where the Jewish
fable originated: from a misunderstanding of one word in a Biblical verse
by one errant scribe. Yet, somehow this errant understanding found its way
into the Qur'an.

It is obvious from these examples that the compiler of the Qur'an simply
repeated what he had heard, and not being able to distinguish between that
which he heard and that which was Biblical truth, he simply introduced
them side-by-side in the Qur'an.
C2c: The Story of Solomon and Sheba

In sura 27:17-44 we read the story concerning Solomon, a Hoopoo bird

and the Queen of Sheba. After reading the Qur'anic account of Solomon in
sura 27 (on the left), it would be helpful to compare it with the account (on
the right) taken from a Jewish folklore, the II Targum of Esther, which was
written in the second Century A.D., nearly five hundred years before the
creation of the Qur'an (Tisdall 1904:80-88; Shorrosh 1988:146-150):

Qur'an- sura 27:17-44

(aya 17) "And before Solomon were marshalled his hosts-of Jinns and
men, and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks.
(aya 20) And he took a muster of the Birds;and he said: 'Why is it I see not
the Hoopoe? Or is he among the absentees?
(aya 21) I will certainly punish him with a severe penalty, or execute him,
unless he bring me a clear reason (for absence).
(aya 22) But the Hoopoe tarried not far: he (came up and) said: 'I have
compassed (territory) which thou hast not compassed, and I have come to
36

thee from Saba with tidings true.

(aya 23) I found (there) a woman ruling over them and provided with
every requisite; and she has a magnificent throne...
(aya 27) (Solomon) said: 'Soon shall we see whether thou hast told the
truth or lied!
(aya 28) Go thou, with this letter of mine, and deliver it to them: then
draw back from them, and (wait to) see what answer they return."
(aya 29) (The queen) said: "Ye chiefs! Here is delivered to me-a letter
worthy of respect.
(aya 30) It is from Solomon, and is (as follows In the name of Allah, most
Gracious, Most Merciful: Be ye not arrogant against me, but come to me
in submission (to the true Religion).'"
(aya 32) She said: "Ye chiefs! Advise me in (this) my affair: no affair have
I decided except in your presence."
(aya 33) They said: "We are endued with strength, and given to vehement
war: but the command is with thee; so consider what thou wilt command."
(aya 35) She said..."But I am going to send him a present, and (wait) to
see with what (answer) return (my) ambassadors."
(aya 42) So when she arrived, (aya 44) she was asked to enter the lofty
Palace: but when she saw it, she thought it was a lake of water, and she
(tucked up her skirts), uncovering her legs. He said: "This is but a palace
paved smooth with slabs of glass."
II Targum of Esther
"Solomon... gave orders... I will send King and armies against thee...(of)
Genii [jinn] beasts of the land the birds of the air.

Just then the Red-cock (a bird), enjoying itself, could not be found; King
Solomon said that they should seize it and bring it by force, and indeed he
sought to kill it.

But just then, the cock appeared in the presence of the King and said, "I
had seen the whole world (and) know the city and kingdom (of Sheba)
which is not subject to thee, My Lord King. They are ruled by a woman
called the Queen of Sheba. Then I found the fortified city in the Eastlands
(Sheba) and around it are stones of gold and silver in the streets." By
chance the Queen of Sheba was out in the morning worshipping the sea,
the scribes prepared a letter, which was placed under the bird's wing and
away it flew and (it) reached the Fort of Sheba. Seeing the letter under its
wing (Sheba) opened it and read it.
37

"King Solomon sends to you his Salaams. Now if it please thee to come
and ask after my welfare, I will set thee high above all. But if it please thee
not, I will send kings and armies against thee."

The Queen of Sheba heard it, she tore her garments, and sending for her
Nobles asked their advice. They knew not Solomon, but advised her to
send vessels by the sea, full of beautiful ornaments and gems...also to send
a letter to him.

When at last she came, Solomon sent a messenger...to meet her...Solomon,

hearing she had come, arose and sat down in the palace of glass. When
the Queen of Sheba saw it, she thought the glass floor was water, and so in
crossing over lifted up her garments. When Solomon seeing the hair about
her legs, (He) cried out to her..."

It is rather obvious, once you have read the two accounts above, where the
compiler of the story of Solomon and Sheba in the Qur'an obtained his
data. In content and style the Qur'anic story is almost identical with the
account taken from the Jewish Targum, written in the second Century
A.D., nearly five hundred years before the creation of the Qur'an. The two
stories are uncannily similar; the jinns, the birds, and in particular the
messenger bird, which Solomon initially could not find, but then used as a
liason between himself and the Queen of Sheba, along with the letter and
the glass floor, are unique to these two accounts. One will not find these
parallels in the Biblical passages at all. Once again we must ask how a
Jewish folklore from the second century A.D. found its way into the
Qur'an?

There are other instances where we find both apocryphal Jewish and
Christian literatures within the Qur'anic text. The account of Mt. Sinai
being lifted up and held over the heads of the Jews as a threat for rejecting
the law (sura 7:171) comes from the second century Jewish apocryphal
book, The Abodah Sarah. The odd accounts of the early childhood of Jesus
in the Qur'an can be traced to a number of Christian apocryphal writings:
the Palm tree which provides for the anguish of Mary after Jesus's birth
(sura 19:22-26) comes from The Lost Books of the Bible; while the
account of the infant Jesus creating birds from clay (sura 3:49) comes from
Thomas' Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ. The story of the baby Jesus
talking (sura 19:29-33) can be traced to Arabic apocryphal fable from
Egypt named The first Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.
38

In sura 17:1 we have the report of Muhammad's journey by night from the
sacred mosque to the farthest mosque.' From later traditions we know this
aya is referring to Muhammad ascending up to the seventh heaven, after a
miraculous night journey (the Mi'raj) from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a
"horse" called Buraq. More detail is furnished us in the Mishkat al
Masabih. We can trace the story back to a fictitious book called The
Testament of Abraham, written around 200 B.C., in Egypt, and then
translated into Greek and Arabic. Another analogous account is that of The
Secrets of Enoch ( chapter 1:4-10 and 2:1), which predates the Qur'an by
four centuries. Yet a further similar account is largely modelled on the
story contained in the old Persian book entitled Arta-i Viraf Namak, telling
how a pious young Zoroastrian ascended to the skies, and, on his return,
related what he had seen, or professed to have seen (Pfander 1835:295-
296).

The Qur'anic description of Hell resembles the descriptions of hell in the

Homilies of Ephraim, a Nestorian preacher of the sixth century (Glubb
1971:36)

The author of the Qur'an in suras 42:17 and 101:6-9 possibly utilized The
Testament of Abraham to teach that a scale or balance will be used on the
day of judgment to weigh good and bad deeds in order to determine
whether one goes to heaven or to hell.

The description of Paradise in suras 55:56-58 and 56:22-24,35-37, which

speak of the righteous being rewarded with wide-eyed houris who have
eyes like pearls has interesting parallels in the Zoroastrian religion of
Persia, where the name for the maidens is not houris, but Paaris.

It is important to remember that the Talmudic accounts were not

considered by the orthodox Jews of that period as authentic for one very
good reason: they were not in existence at the council of Jamnia in 80 A.D.
when the Old Testament was canonized. Neither were the Christian
apocryphal material considered canonical, as they were not attested as
authoritative both prior to and after the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Thus
these accounts have always been understood as heretical by both the
Jewish and Christian orthodox believers and the literate. It is for this
reason that we find it deeply suspicious that the apocryphal accounts
should have made their way into a book claiming to be the final revelation
from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
39

C3: Scientific Peculiarities in the Qur'an

We now come to the final area of difficulty which we observe when we
read the Qur'an; that is the scientific peculiarities. From the vantage point
of modern science we can now observe what look like gross scientific
flaws within the Qur'anic text. Some of these are mere contradictions with
the earlier Biblical accounts, such as: (a) the story of Moses' adoption by
Pharoah's wife in the Qur'an (sura 28:9), whereas the Bible states it was
Pharoah's daughter (Exodus 2:10); or (b) the claim that the name of Yahya
is unique to the first century John the Baptist in sura 19:7, whereas this
name is mentioned much earlier in 2 Kings 25:23; or (c) the inclusion in
the definition of the Christian trinity the person of Mary in sura 5:116,
which contradicts not only the Biblical account but the belief held by
almost the entire Christian population for the last 2,000 years.

Interestingly, an insignificant and heretical sect called the Cholloridians

held this view, and lived in the Middle East at the time of the Qur'an's
compilation. Could this be the source for such a gross error? Certainly an
all-knowing God would have known such a basic tenet of the Christan
faith.

There are internal contradictions as well, such as the confusion of Mary,

recorded as the sister of Aaron and the daughter of Imran (Biblical Amran)
as well as the mother of Jesus, though the two Mary's lived 1,570 years
apart (suras 18:28; 66:12; and 20:25-30).

Another difficult yet well known passage is that concerning Haman. In the
Qur'an Haman is referred to as a servant of Pharaoh, who built a high
tower to ascend up to the God of Moses (sura 28:38; 29:38; 40:25,38). Yet
the Babel tower occurs 750 years earlier (Genesis 11), and the name
Haman is correctly found in the story of Esther in Babylon, 1,100 years
after Pharaoh. Yusuf Ali believes that the reference here is simply to
another Haman, yet the name Haman is not Egyptian, but uniquely
Babylonian (Pfander 1835:283-284).

While these examples do not necessarily bring into question any scientific
findings, they point out an ignorance of the earlier scriptures. This speaks
of a certain isolationism, which one would expect if the stories had been
transmitted orally in an environment distant from that in which they
originated.
40

A more serious difficulty is evidenced by those suras which contradict

observable secular historical and scientific data. There are quite a number
to be found in the Qur'an, but for sake of brevity I will refer to just a few.

According to the Qur'an (sura 20:85-87, 95-97) it is a Samaritan who

molded the calf at mount Horeb, though the term Samaritan was not
coined until several hundred years later, in 722 B.C. (Pfander 1835:284).
The name Issa is erroneously applied to Jesus, when the correct Arabic
name for Jesus should be Yesuwa. Of particular interest are the rather odd
statements in suras 16:15; 21:31 31:10; 78:6-7; 88:19 claiming that
mountains are used as tent pegs to keep the earth from shaking. We now
know from the study of geology that mountains are the result either of
volcanic activity or of two tectonic plates colliding against the other
(Campbell 1989:170-173). Ironically, both these reasons prove that the
existence of mountains is evidence of instability in the earth's crust and not
vice-versa.

In sura 7:124 Pharaoh admonishes his sorcerers by threatening them with

death on a cross. In sura 12:41, the baker in the story of Joseph is told he
would be crucified. However, there were no crosses in those days (not to
be confused with the Egyptian ankh which was an object for fertility and
life, and not an instrument of death). Crucifixion was first practised by the
Phoenicians and the Carthaginians and then borrowed extensively by the
Romans close to the time of Christ, 1700 years after Pharaoh!

There are other observable scientific inconsistencies, such as the

contention in Sura 41:9-11 that the heavens were created from smoke (the
Arabic word used is Dukhan), versus the Biblical portrayal of creation
coming about by water (Genesis 1:1-2). Neuman and Eckelmann, two
eminent physicists maintain that smoke, which is made up of organic
particles could not have existed in a primordial state, whereas water (the
Hebrew word used is mayim) most likely was present as new research on
evolving nebulas show us the need for the presence of hydrogen and
oxygen (or H2O) in a primordial state (Neuman/Eckelmann 1977:71-72
and Campbell 1989:22-25). Ironically it is the Bible and not the Qur'an
which is closer to modern scientific findings.

Meteors, and even stars, according to the Qu'ran are said to be missiles
fired at eavesdropping satans and jinn who seek to listen to the reading of
the Qur'an in heaven, and then pass on what they hear to men (suras 15:16-
18; 37:6-10; 55:33-35; 67:5; 72:6-9 & 86:2-3). How are we to understand
41

these suras? Are we to believe that Allah throws meteors (material matter)
made up of carbon dioxide or iron-nickel, at non-material devils who steal
a hearing at the heavenly council? And how are we to explain the fact that
many of earth's meteors come in showers which subsequently travel in
parallel paths? Are we to understand that these parallel paths imply that the
devils are all lined up in rows at the same moment (Campbell 1989:175-
177)?

Another favourite of modern-day Muslims concerns the stages in the

formation of the fetus (see suras 2:259; 22:5; 23:12-14; 40:67; 75:37-39;
and 96:1-2). According to these suras the fetus passes through four stages,
starting with the sperm which becomes the Alaqa. Though no-one seems to
know what this word exactly means, many have tried, contending that it is
anything from something which clings, to a clot, or an adhesion, an
embryonic lump, and even chewed flesh etc... The Alaqa then becomes
bones that are finally covered by the flesh (Rahman 1979:13).

There are a number of difficulties with these suras, however. First of all
there is no clotting stage during the formation of a fetus (Campbell
1989:185). Furthermore, the sperm does not become an "adhesion" or
fertilized ovum without an unfertilized ovum. One needs the other.
Secondly, "the thing which clings" does not stop clinging to become
"chewed meat," but remains clinging for 8.5 months! And finally the
skeleton is not formed before the flesh (or muscles), as the muscles and the
cartilage precursors of the bones start forming simultaneously (Campbell
1989:188). In fact, according to Dr. T.W. Sadler Phd., the author of
Langman's Medical Embryology, from a personal letter to Dr. Campbell in
1987, it has been proved that the muscles form several weeks before there
are calcified bones, rather than arriving later as the Qur'an implies
(Campbell 1989:188).

It is ironic to hear the above accounts cited as proof by modern day

apologists of the Qur'ans inviobility, when in fact, once the truth be known
it is the very science which they hope to harness for their cause which
proves to be their undoing.

C4: A Possible Solution ("Salvation History")

Islam tells us that the revelations for the Qur'an were received by
Muhammad and compiled into a final written form by Zaid ibn Thabit,
between 646-650 A.D., under the auspices of the third caliph, Uthman
42

(Glasse 1991:230). Historians take two positions in response to this

assertion by Muslim Tradition.

The first group, supported best by the historian John Burton, agree
somewhat with Muslim Tradition, contending that the Qur'an was collated
during or soon after Muhammad's lifetime. Burton, in his defense uses
legal texts to date the Qur'an around the prophet's life. There are few in the
west, however, who agree with Burton. Many find his theory quite
illogical as there is so little written text on which to base any firm
conclusions (Rippin 1985:154).

The second position flies in the face of Muslim Tradition, and is best
supported by John Wansbrough, from SOAS (University of London). He
uses an historical analysis similar to that of biblical criticism to arrive at
his conclusions (Wansbrough 1977:9). Wansbrough maintains that the
Qur'an, as we know it with all its literal and structural problems, could not
have come into existence until 800 A.D. (Wansbrough 1977:160-163). The
Qur'an, he suggests, is not a text which was handed to the world via one
individual, but involved the work of various writers from about the ninth
century (Wansbrough 1977:51).

Wansbrough expands on this claim by maintaining that the entire corpus of

early Islamic documentation must be viewed as "Salvation History," a
history which "is not an historical account of saving events open to the
study of the historian, since salvation history did not happen, as it is a
literary form which has its own historical context." (Thompson 1974:328)
In other words it was written with an agenda in mind. Thus, literary
records of salvation history, although they present themselves as being
contemporary with the events they describe, as we have mentioned earlier,
actually belong to a period well after such events, which suggests that they
have been written according to a later interpretation in order to fit the ethos
of that later time. The actual "history" in the sense of "what really
happened" has, therefore, become subsumed within later interpretation and
is virtually, if not completely, inextricable from it (Crone 1987:213-215;
Rippin 1985:156).

The question of whether there is an underlying "grain of historical truth" is

of some concern here. Even if we admit that there exists a "kernel" of
historical truth, it becomes almost impossible to identify it.
43

Wansbrough contends that the Qur'an, the Tafsir, and Sira are all
components of Islamic salvation history, which he suggests were written to
point to God's role in directing the worldly affairs of humanity, especially
during the time of Muhammad's life (Rippin 1985:154).

He argues that we do not know, and probably will never know what really
happened. All we can know is what later people believed happened, as has
been recorded in salvation history. The point of Islamic salvation history,
he suggests, was to formulate a specifically Arab religious identity. This
was accomplished by adopting and adapting ideas and stories from a well-
established pool of Judeo-Christian religious themes, the inception of
which could then be placed in seventh-century Arabia. Wansbrough refers
to evidences within the Qur'an which point to their extrapolation from a
Judeo-Christian context: for example, the prophetic line ending in the Seal
of the prophets, the sequence of scriptures, the notion of the destroyed
communities, and the common narrative motifs (Rippin 1985:157).

If Wansbrough's analysis is correct, it becomes increasingly difficult to

maintain the Qur'an as an accurate source for Islam, or as a source for
Muslim Tradition, especially in light of the fact that it could possibly post-
date the traditions themselves. While the dating of the Qur'an is a
substantial deterrent for its authenticity, it is by no means the only one.

In response, there are many Muslim scholars who contend that the
continual presence of a number of men who had memorized the Qur'an in
its entirety maintained its credibility. These men were called Hafiz. They
were the repositories of the Qur'an to whom later compilers could refer if
any questions arose (Glasse 1991:143,230).

Today we have quite a number of Hafiz living within the Middle East and
Asia (there is even one studying at SOAS). We know whether they have
memorized the Qur'an correctly, as we can refer to the written text in our
hands and ascertain if what they relate follows it. What did earlier
compilers refer to in order to ascertain the correctness of the Hafiz of their
day? Where are their documents?

Essentially we come back to the same problem that we discussed in the

previous section. The early Hafiz' must have had documents from which to
memorize, as the credibility for any Hafiz is derived from the resemblance
of his recitation to the document he claims to know; not the other way
around. Did these documents ever exist? If they simply memorized that
44

which they heard from other individuals as a sort of oral tradition then
their recitations become even more suspect since oral tradition,
particularly religious oral tradition, is by its very nature prone to
exaggeration, embellishment and consequently, corruption.

What then should we do with the internal problems which we find in the
Qu'ran? How are we to explain the structural and literary problems, as well
as the spurious accounts and scientific peculiarities which have found their
way into its pages? These difficulties do seem to point away from a divine
authorship and point towards a more plausible scenario, that the Qur'an is
nothing more than a collection of disparate sources borrowed from
surrounding pieces of literature, folk tales, or oral traditions 'making the
rounds' at that time, and accidently grafted in by unsuspecting later
compilers.

Because of the doubtful dating of the Qur'an, the fact that there is no
substantial documentation prior to 750 A.D., and the disparate sources
from which it derives, as well as its specific Arab application, it behooves
us not to use it as a source in ascertaining its own authenticity. Essentially
we are left with very little early Islamic material from which we may
delineate any authority for the Qur'an, or for the origins of Islam.

Where then must we go to find the true origins of Islam if both the
traditions and the Qur'an are suspect?

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"Is the Qur'an the Word of God?" - Part 3

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D: An External Critique of the Qur'an

Fortunately we are not totally dependent on the late Muslim sources or the
Qur'an itself for our data on the origins of the Qur'an, and Islam. There
were other people in existence at that time, who lived close by and have
left us material which we can use. Non-Muslim evidence is found in a
45

body of material in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and

Coptic literatures from the time of the conquests (seventh century)
onwards (Crone 1980:15). We also have a large body of Arabic
inscriptions, which pre-date the Muslim traditions (Nevo 1994:109). Yet,
these materials all seem to contradict much of what the traditions and the
Qur'an say. And it is this material which has proved most helpful in
assessing whether the Qur'an is the true and final Word of God. It is this
material which Muslims will need to pay attention to in the future, and
against which they will need to come up with a ready defense. Let us then
look at what it has to say.

D1: Hijra
A papyrus dated 643 A.D. has been discovered which speaks of the year
twenty two,' suggesting that something happened in 622 A.D. among the
Arabs which coincides with the year of the hijra (Cook 1983:74). What it
was that happened we are not sure as the papyrus does not tell us. Could
this be the date that Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina, and
nothing more, or is it the date when the Arab conquest commenced? While
Islamic tradition attributes this Hijra from Mecca to Medina, they can
provide no early source (in other words a seventh century source) which
will attest to the historicity of this exodus (Crone-Cook 1977:160). The
earliest manuscript we have is an inner Arabian biography of the prophet
attested in a papyrus of the late Umayyad period, which places it around
750 A.D., over 100 years later (Grohmann 1963:71).

The Arabic material in our possession (coins, papyri, inscriptions) all omit
to name the era (the tombstone which dates the year twenty nine of the
hijra,' cited by many Muslims, is known only from a late literary source).
Greek and Syriac materials refer to the era as that of the Arabs, but it is
two Nestorian ecclesiastical documents from 676 A.D. and 680 A.D.
which give us the starting point as the emigration of the Ishmaelites from
not within Arabia, but from Arabia to the promised land, possibly outside
of Arabia (Crone-Cook 1977:9,160-161).

And what is this promised land? An Islamic tradition compiled by Abu

Dawud gives us a clue. It says, "there will be hijra' after hijra,' but the best
of men are to follow the hijra' of Abraham." (Abu Dawud 1348:388) While
some Muslims maintain this must be understood theologically to imply
Abraham's movement from idolatry to monotheism, I think it best to retain
the Biblical and Jewish understanding of Abraham's exodus which was
46

from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan, via Haran (Genesis 11:31-
12:5). Thus it would seem more likely that the promised land to which the
Arabs are emigrating is none other than the Syro-Palestinian coastline:
from Sidon to Gaza and inland to the Dead Sea cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah (Kitchen 1993:164). Patricia Crone, in her new article entitled
'The First Century Concept of Higra', finds interesting support for a Hijra
outside Arabia. In her article on the Hijra, she lists 57 attestations which
come from within and without the Muslim tradition, which point to a
Hijra, or exodus, not from Mecca to Medina, but from Arabia to the north,
or to surrounding garrison cities (Crone 1994:355-363). This is indeed
interesting, as much of what we will learn from here on will parallel and
thus possibly corroborate these findings as well.

This information on the Hijra gives us the first potential evidence which
suggests that much of the data found in the Qur'an and the Islamic
traditions simply does not correspond with existing external sources, and
that perhaps there is another agenda at work here. Let us therefore move
on to find what that agenda is.

D2: Qibla
According to the Qur'an, the direction of prayer (the Qibla), was canonized
(or finalized) towards Mecca for all Muslims soon after the Hijra. The date
624 A.D. is an educated guess for this occurence (see Sura 2:144, 149-
150).

Yet, the earliest evidence from outside Muslim tradition regarding the
direction in which Muslims prayed, and by implication the location of
their sanctuary, points to an area much further north than Mecca, in fact
somewhere in north-west Arabia (Crone-Cook 1977:23). Consider the
archaeological evidence which has been and is continuing to be uncovered
from the first mosques built in the seventh century:

According to archaeological research carried out by Creswell and

Fehervari on ancient mosques in the Middle East, two floor-plans from
two Umayyad mosques in Iraq, one built by the governor Hajjaj in Wasit
(noted by Creswell as, "the oldest mosque in Islam of which remains have
come down to us" - Creswell 1989:41), and the other attributed to roughly
the same period near Baghdad, have Qiblas (the direction which these
mosques are facing) which do not face Mecca, but are oriented too far
north (Creswell 1969:137ff & 1989:40; Fehervari 1961:89; Crone-Cook
47

1977:23,173). The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, and the Baghdad

mosque is off by 30 degrees (Creswell 1969:137ff; Fehervari 1961:89).

This agrees with Baladhuri's testimony (called the Futuh) that the Qibla of
the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, supposedly constructed in 670 A.D.
(Creswell 1989:41), also lay to the west, when it should have pointed
almost directly south (al-Baladhuri's Futuh, ed. by de Goeje 1866:276;
Crone 1980:12; Crone-Cook 1977:23,173).

The original ground-plan of the mosque of Amr b. al As, located in Fustat,

the garrison town outside Cairo, Egypt shows that the Qibla again pointed
too far north and had to be corrected later under the governorship of Qurra
b. Sharik (Creswell 1969:37,150). Interestingly this agrees with the later
Islamic tradition compiled by Ahmad b. al-Maqrizi that Amr prayed facing
slightly south of east, and not towards the south (al-Maqrizi 1326:6;
Crone-Cook 1977:24,173).

If you take a map you will find where it is that these mosques were
pointing. All four of the above instances position the Qibla not towards
Mecca, but much further north, in fact closer to the vicinity of Jerusalem.
If, as some Muslims now say, one should not take these findings too
seriously as many mosques even today have misdirected Qiblas, then one
must wonder why, if the Muslims back then were so incapable of
ascertaining directions, they should all happen to be pointing to a singular
location; to somewhere in northern Arabia, or possibly Jerusalem?

We find further corroboration for this direction of prayer by the Christian

writer and traveller Jacob of Edessa, who, writing as late as 705 A.D. was
a contemporary eye-witness in Egypt. He maintained that the Mahgraye' in
Egypt prayed facing east which was towards the Ka'ba (Crone-Cook
1977:24). His letter (which can be found in the British Museum) is indeed
revealing. Writing in Syriac, he refers to the Mahgraye,' saying, "So from
all this it is clear that it is not to the south that the Jews and the Mahgraye
here in the regions of Syria pray, but towards Jerusalem or the Ka'ba, the
patriarchal places of their races." (Wright 1870:604)

Note: The mention of a Ka'ba does not necessarily infer Mecca (as so
many Muslims have been quick to point out), since there were other
Ka'bas in existence during that time, usually in market-towns (Crone-Cook
1977:25,175). Creswell, in the notes of his book on 'Early Muslim
48

Architecture' (page 17) refers to Finster's article, 'Kunst des Orients',

stating that Finster

"... draws attention to other cube-shaped buildings in Arabia, mentioned

in early Arabic literature, and suggests that the Ka'ba could therefore
have been part of an Arabian building tradition." (Creswell 1969:17;
Finster 1973:88-98)
It was profitable to build a Ka'ba in these market towns so that the people
coming to market could also do their pilgrimage or penitence to the idols
contained within. The Ka'ba Jacob of Edessa was referring to was situated
at "the patriarchal places of the races," which he also maintains was not in
the south. Both the Jews and the Arabs (Mahgraye) maintained a common
descent from Abraham who was known to have lived and died in Palestine,
as has been corroborated by recent archaeological discoveries (see the
discussion on the Ebla, Mari and Nuzi tablets, as well as extra Biblical
tenth century references to Abraham in McDowell 1991:98-104). This
commom descent from Abraham is also corroborated by an Armenian
chronicler as early as 660 A.D. (Sebeos 1904:94-96; Crone-Cook 1977:8;
Cook 1983:75).

Therefore, according to Jacob of Edessa, as late as 705 A.D. the direction

of prayer towards Mecca had not yet been canonized. Dr. Crone, in her
1994 article 'The First Century Concept of Higra', adds another finding
which could imply a Jerusalem direction for the early Qibla. New research
carried out by Patricia Carlier on the Umayyad Caliphal summer palaces
notes that the mosques at these palaces had Qiblas pointing towards
Jerusalem as well. (Carlier 1989:118f,134)

According to Dr. Hawting, who teaches on the sources of Islam at the

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, no mosques
have been found from this period (the seventh century) which face towards
Mecca (noted from his class lectures in 1995). Hawting cautions, however,
that not all of the Qiblas face towards Jerusalem. Some Jordanian mosques
face north, while there are certain North African mosques which face
south, implying that there was some confusion as to where the sanctuary
was placed. Yet, the Qur'an implies that the direction of the Qibla was
fixed towards Mecca close to 624 A.D., and has remained in that direction
until the present!
49

Thus, according to Crone, Cook, Carlier and Hawting, the combination of

the archaeological evidence from Iraq along with the literary evidence
from Syria and Egypt points unambiguously to a sanctuary [and thus
direction of prayer] not in the south, but somewhere in north-west Arabia
(or even further north) at least till the end of the seventh century (Crone-
Cook 1977:24).

What is happening here? Why are the Qiblas of these early mosques not
facing towards Mecca? Why the discrepancy between the Qur'an and that
which archaeology as well as documents reveal as late as 705 A.D.?

Some Muslims argue that perhaps the early Muslims did not know the
direction of Mecca. Yet these were desert traders, caravaneers! Their
livelihood was dependant on travelling the desert, which has few
landmarks, and, because of the sandstorms, no roads. They, above all,
knew how to follow the stars. Their lives depended on it. Certainly they
knew the difference between the north and the south.

Furthermore, the mosques in Iraq and Egypt were built in civilised urban
areas, amongst a sophisticated people who were well adept at finding
directions. It is highly unlikely that they would have miscalculated their
Qiblas by so many degrees. How else did they perform the obligatory Hajj,
which we are told was also canonized at this time? And why are so many
of the mosques facing in the direction of northern Arabia, or possibly
Jerusalem?

The answer may lie elsewhere. I would contend that there are possibly two
reasons for this discrepancy:

1. that there was still a good relationship between the Muslims (called
Haggarenes, Saracens or Mahgrayes) and the Jews, and,
consequently, there was no need to change the Qibla (which even the
Qur'an admits was originally towards Jerusalem: sura 2); and
2. that Mecca was not yet well-known.

Consider:

D3: The Jews

The Qur'an implies that Muhammad severed his relationship with the Jews
in 624 A.D. (or soon after the Hijra in 622 A.D.), and thus moved the
50

Qibla at that time (Sura 2:144, 149-150). The early non-Muslim sources,
however, depict a good relationship between the Muslims and Jews at the
time of the first conquests (late 620s A.D.), and even later.

Doctrina Iacobi

Take for example the earliest testimony of Muhammad and of his

"movement" available to us outside Islamic tradition; a Greek anti-Jewish
tract called the Doctrina Iacobi which was written in Palestine between
634 and 640 A.D. (Brock 1982:9; Crone-Cook 1977:3). The Doctrina
warns of the Jews who mix with the Saracens,' and the danger to life and
limb of falling into the hands of these Jews and Saracens" (Bonwetsch
1910:88; Cook 1983:75). In fact, this relationship seems to carry right on
into the conquest as an early Armenian source mentions that the governor
of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the conquest was a Jew (Patkanean
1879:111; Sebeos 1904:103).

What is significant here is the possibility that Jews and Arabs (Saracens)
seem to be allied together during the time of the conquest of Palestine and
even for a short time after (Crone-Cook 1977:6).

In the Doctrina the Judeo-Arab intimacy is again evidenced by indications

of a marked hostility towards Christianity on the part of the co-invaders.
According to Bonwetsch, it mentions a converted Jew who protests that he
will not deny Christ as the son of God even if the Jews and Saracens catch
him and cut him to pieces (Bonwetsch 1910:88). It is apparent that the
author believed that the Arabs and Jews were in alliance together well into
the conquests.

The authenticity of this account is confirmed by the great compiler of the

Sira of Muhammad, Muhammad ibn Ishaq, in the document known as the
Constitution of Medina.' In this document the Jews appear as forming one
community (umma) with the believers despite the retention of their own
religion and are distributed nameless among a number of Arab tribes
(Gottingen 1859:342; Guillaume 1955:233; Crone-Cook 1977:7). Since,
according to both Crone and Cook, this document is plausibly one of the
most archaic elements of the Islamic tradition, its agreement with the
earliest external accounts of the origins of Islam is highly significant
(Crone-Cook 1977:7).
51

If these witnesses are correct than one must ask how it is that the Jews and
Saracens (Arabs) are allies as late as 640 A.D., when, according to the
Qur'an, Muhammad severed his ties with the Jews as early as 624 A.D.,
more than 15 years earlier?

Armenian Chronicler of 660 A.D.

To answer that we need to refer to the earliest connected account of the

career of the prophet, that given in an Armenian chronicle from around
660 A.D., which is ascribed by some to Bishop Sebeos (Sebeos 1904:94-
96; Crone-Cook 1977:6). The chronicler describes how Muhammad
established a community which comprised both Ishmaelites (i.e. Arabs)
and Jews, and that their common platform was their common descent from
Abraham; the Arabs via Ishmael, and the Jews via Isaac (Sebeos 1904:94-
96; Crone-Cook 1977:8; Cook 1983:75). The chronicler believed
Muhammad had endowed both communities with a birthright to the Holy
Land, while simultaneously providing them with a monotheist genealogy
(Crone-Cook 1977:8). This is not without precedent as the idea of an
Ishmaelite birthright to the Holy Land was earlier discussed and rejected in
the Genesis Rabbah (61:7), in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Book of
Jubilees (Crone-Cook 1977:159).

Thus Muhammad's vision was not merely Arabia, but was oriented
towards Palestine, along with the Jews (Crone-Cook 1977:8), a feature,
according to work done by J.B. Chabot independently attested in Jacobite
historical traditions (Chabot 1910:405).

Interestingly, according to research done by Crone and Cook, the

Palestinian orientation survives even in later Islamic traditions, with
Palestine disguised as Syria (Crone-Cook 1977:158). We need only refer
to the writings of Abu Dawud Sulayman b. al-Ash'ath al-Sijistani, and
Ahmad b. Muhammad ibn Hanbal to find that the prophet recommended
Syria as the land chosen by God for the elect of his servants (Abu
Dawud... 1348:388; Ahmad b. Muhammad ibn Hanbal 1313:33f; Munajjid
1951:47-74). These inferences would also fit in well with the assertion
mentioned earlier by Crone of an Arab Hijra, or exodus, from Arabia to the
north, and not simply between cities in Arabia.

The break between the Jews and Arabs, according to the Armenian
chronicler of 660 A.D., came soon after the conquest of Jerusalem of 640
A.D. (Sebeos 1904:98).
52

Again we find a number of non-Muslim sources contradicting the Qur'an,

maintaining that there was a good relationship between the Arabs and Jews
for at least a further 15 years beyond that which the Qur'an asserts.

If Palestine was the focus for the Arabs, then the city of Mecca needs to be
questioned.

D4: Mecca
Muslims maintain that "Mecca is the centre of Islam, and the centre of
history." According to the Qur'an, "The first sanctuary appointed for
mankind was that at Bakkah (or Mecca), a blessed place, a guidance for
the peoples." (Sura 3:96) In Sura 6:92 and 42:5 we find that Mecca is the
"mother of all settlements."

According to Muslim tradition, Adam placed the black stone in the

original Ka'ba there, while according to the Qur'an (Sura 2:125-127) it was
Abraham and Ishmael who rebuilt the Ka'ba many years later. Thus, by
implication, Mecca is considered by Muslims to be the first and most
important city in the world!

Apart from the obvious difficulty in finding any documentary or

archaeological evidence that Abraham ever went to or lived in Mecca, the
overriding problem rests in finding any reference to the city before the
creation of Islam. From research carried out by both Crone and Cook, the
supposed first and only pre-Islamic reference to Mecca is an inference to a
city called "Makoraba" by the Greco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy in the
mid-2nd century A.D., though we are not even sure whether this allusion
by Ptolemy referred to Mecca, as he only mentioned the name in passing.
Furthermore, according to Dr. Crone, the three Arabic root letters for
Mecca (MKK) do not at all correspond with the three Arabic root letters
for Makoraba (KRB) (as the letters 'ma-', which preceed 'koraba', signify
'the place of'). Thus, there is absolutely no other report of Mecca or its
Ka'ba there in any authenticated ancient document; that is until the late
seventh century (Cook-74; Crone-Cook 1977:22). In fact, they maintain,
"the earliest references are those found in one Syriac version of the
Apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius" (Crone-Cook 1977:22,171).

However, although the Apocalypse itself dates from the late seventh
century, the references to Mecca are only found in later copies, and are not
present in the European or later Syrian traditions, and make no appearance
53

in the Vatican Codex,' which is considered by etymologists to be the

earliest text (refer to the discussion on this problem between Nau and
Kmosko in note "7," p. 171, in Crone & Cook's Hagarism:1977).

The next reference to Mecca, according to Crone and Cook, occurs in the
Continuatio Byzantia Arabica, which is a source dating from early in the
reign of the caliph Hisham, who ruled between 724-743 A.D. (Crone-Cook
1977:22,171).

Therefore, the earliest corroborative evidence we have for the existence of

Mecca is fully 100 years after the date when Islamic tradition and the
Qur'an place it. Why? Certainly, if it was so important a city, someone,
somewhere would have mentioned it; yet we find nothing outside of the
small inference by Ptolemy 500 years earlier, and these initial statements
in the latter seventh to early eighth century.

And that is not all, for Muslims maintain that Mecca was not only an
ancient and great city, but it was also the center of the trading routes for
Arabia in the seventh century and before (Cook 1983:74; Crone 1987:3-6).

Yet, according to extensive research by Bulliet on the history of trade in

the ancient Middle-East, these claims by Muslims are quite wrong, as
Mecca simply was not on the major trading routes. The reason for this, he
contends, is that, "Mecca is tucked away at the edge of the peninsula. Only
by the most tortured map reading can it be described as a natural
crossroads between a north-south route and an east-west one." (Bulliet
1975:105)

This is corroborated by further research carried out by Groom and Muller,

who contend that Mecca simply could not have been on the trading route,
as it would have entailed a detour from the natural route. In fact, they
maintain the trade route must have bypassed Mecca by some one-hundred
miles (Groom 1981:193; Muller 1978:723).

Patricia Crone, in her work on Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam adds a
practical reason which is too often overlooked by earlier historians. She
points out that, "Mecca was a barren place, and barren places do not make
natural halts, and least of all when they are found at a short distance from
famously green environments. Why should caravans have made a steep
descent to the barren valley of Mecca when they could have stopped at
Ta'if. Mecca did, of course, have both a well and a sanctuary, but so did
54

Ta'if, which had food supplies, too" (Crone 1987:6-7; Crone-Cook

1977:22).

Furthermore, Patricia Crone asks, "what commodity was available in

Arabia that could be transported such a distance, through such an
inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a profit large enough to
support the growth of a city in a peripheral site bereft of natural
resources?" (Crone 1987:7) It was not incense, spices or other exotic
goods, as many notoriously unreliable early writers had intimated (see
Crone's discussion on the problem of historical accuracy, particularly
between Lammens, Watts and Kister, in Meccan Trade, 1987:3).

In her study on the Meccan Trade, Dr. Crone points out that of the fifteen
spices attributed to Mecca: six went out of fashion before the sixth
century; two were imported by sea; two were exclusively from East Africa;
two were inferior and thus never traded; one was of a problematic identity;
and two cannot be identified at all (Crone 1987:51-83). Consequently, not
one of the fifteen spices can be attributed to Mecca. So what was the trade
for which Mecca was famous? Some Muslims maintain it was banking or
perhaps camel herding; yet in such a barren environment?

According to the latest and much more reliable research by Kister and
Sprenger, the Arabs engaged in a trade of a considerably humbler kind,
that of leather and clothing; hardly items which could have founded a
commercial empire of international dimensions (Kister 1965:116;
Sprenger 1869:94).

The real problem with Mecca, however, is that there simply was no
international trade taking place in Arabia, let alone in Mecca, in the
century immediately prior to Muhammad's birth. It seems that much of our
data in this area has been spurious from the outset, due to sloppy research
of the original sources, carried out by Lammens, "an unreliable scholar,"
and repeated by the great orientalists such as Watts, Shaban, Rodinson,
Hitti, Lewis and Shahid (Crone 1987:3,6). Lammens, using first century
sources (such as Periplus - 50 A.D. - and Pliny - 79 A.D.) should have used
the later sixth century Greek, Byzantine and Egyptian historians who were
closer to the events (such as Cosmas, Procopius and Theodoretus - Crone
1987:3,19-22,44). Because they were not only merchants, travellers and
geographers, but historians, they knew the area and the period and
therefore would have given a more accurate picture.
55

Had he referred to these later historians he would have found that the
Greek trade between India and the Mediterranean was entirely maritime
after the first century A.D. (Crone 1987:29). One need only look at a map
to understand why. It made no sense to ship goods across such distances
by land when a waterway was available close by. Patricia Crone points out
that in Diocletian's Rome it was cheaper to ship wheat 1,250 miles by sea
than to transport it fifty miles by land (Crone 1987:7). The distance from
Najran, Yemen in the south, to Gaza in the north was roughly 1,250 miles.
Why would the traders ship their goods from India by sea, and unload it
Aden, where it would be put on the backs of much slower and more
expensive camels to trudge across the inhospitable Arabian desert to Gaza,
when they could simply have left in on the ships and followed the Red Sea
route up the west coast of Arabia?

There were other problems as well. Had Lammens researched his sources
correctly, he would have also found that the Greco-Roman trade collapsed
by the third century A.D., so that by Muhammad's time there simply was
no overland route, and no Roman market to which the trade was destined
(Crone 1987:29). He would have similarly found that what trade remained,
was controlled by the Ethiopians and not the Arabs, and that Adulis on the
Ethiopian coast of the Red Sea and not Mecca was the trading centre of
that region (Crone 1987:11, 41-42).

Of even more significance, had Lammens taken the time to study the early
Greek sources, he would have discovered that the Greeks to whom the
trade went had never even heard of a place called Mecca (Crone
1987:11,41-42). If, according to the Muslim traditions and recent
orientalists, Mecca was so important, certainly those to whom the trade
was going would have noted its existence. Yet, we find nothing. Crone in
her work points out that the Greek trading documents refer to the towns of
Ta'if (which is close to present-day Mecca), and to Yathrib (later Medina),
as well as Kaybar in the north, but no mention is made of Mecca (Crone
1987:11). Even the Persian Sassanids, who had incursions into Arabia
between 309 and 570 A.D. mentioned the towns of Yathrib (Medina) and
Tihama, but not Mecca (Crone 1987:46-50). That indeed is troubling.

Had the later orientalists bothered to check out Lammens' sources, they too
would have realized that since the overland route was not used after the
first century A.D., it certainly was not in use in the fifth or sixth centuries
(Crone 1987:42), and much of what has been written concerning Mecca
would have been corrected long before now.
56

Finally, the problem of locating Mecca in the early secular sources is not
unique, for there is even some confusion within Islamic tradition as to
where exactly Mecca was initially situated (see the discussion on the
evolution of the Meccan site in Crone & Cook's Hagarism 1977:23,173).
According to research carried out by J.van Ess, in both the first and second
civil wars, there are accounts of people proceeding from Medina to Iraq
via Mecca (van Ess 1971:16; see also Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi
1369:343). Yet Mecca is south-west of Medina, and Iraq is north-east.
Thus the sanctuary for Islam, according to these traditions was at one time
north of Medina, which is the opposite direction from where Mecca is
today!

We are left in a quandary. If Mecca was not the great commercial center
the Muslim traditions would have us believe, if it was not known by the
people who lived and wrote from that period, and, if it could not even
qualify as a city during the time of Muhammad, it certainly could not have
been the center of the Muslim world at that time. What city, therefore,
was? The answer is not that difficult to guess, as has been intimated
already. It seems that Jerusalem and not Mecca was the center and
sanctuary of the Haggarenes, or Maghrebites (early names given to the
Arabs) until around 700 A.D..

The earlier discussions concerning the Hijra, the Qibla, and the Jews
pointed out that it was towards the north, possibly Palestine that the Hijra
was directed, that it was somewhere in the north-west of Arabia that the
Hagarenes turned to pray, and that it was alongside the Jews that the
conquests were carried out (Crone-Cook 1977:9,160-161,23-24,6-9). Add
to that another fact which may help us bring this all together:

D5: Dome of the Rock

In the center of Jerusalem sits an imposing structure (even today) called
the Dome of the Rock, built by Abd al-Malik in 691 A.D.. One will note,
however, that the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque, as it has no Qibla (no
direction for prayer). It is built as an octagon with eight pillars (Nevo
1994:113), suggesting it was used for circumambulation (to walk around).
Thus, it seems to have been built as a sanctuary (Glasse 1991:102). Today
it is considered to be the third most holy site in Islam, after Mecca and
Medina. Muslims contend that it was built to commemorate the night
when Muhammad went up to heaven to speak with Moses and Allah
57

concerning the number of prayers required of the believers (known as the

Mi'raj in Arabic) (Glasse 1991:102).

Yet, according to the research carried out on the inscriptions by Van

Berchem and Nevo, the earliest dated inscriptions in the edifice of the
building say nothing of the Mi'raj, but relate merely polemical quotations
which are Qur'anic, though they are aimed primarily at Christians.

Many Muslims are quick to point out that both suras 17:1 and 2:143-145,
which speak of the 'inviolable place' and the 'change of the Qibla', can be
found on the inscriptions on the drum of the dome and the doorway facing
south. They would do well to read the history of those inscriptions. What
they will find is that neither of these inscriptions are original, nor are they
old. The entire dome was rebuilt by al Zaher Li-L'zaz in 1022 A.D. due to
an earthquake in 1016 A.D. (Duncan 1972:46). The drum was rebuilt in
1318 A.D. (Creswell 1969:30), but the inscriptions (both the lower sura 36
and the upper sura 17) were not added until 1876 A.D. by Abdul Hamid II
(Duncan 1972:66). The present doors (where sura 2:144 is found) were not
erected until 1545 A.D. (Creswell 1969:26). The southern portical where
sura 2:143-145 is written was not built until 1817 A.D. by the Sultan
Mahmud (Duncan 1972:64). Thus, once we read the history of the dome,
we find that neither of these two 'incriminating' suras belong to the original
dome when it was constructed by 'abd al-Malik in 691 A.D.

The earliest inscriptions which we can attest to speak of the messianic

status of Jesus, the acceptance of the prophets, Muhammad's receipt of
revelation, and the use of the terms "islam" and "muslim" (Van Berchem
1927:nos.215,217; Nevo 1994:113). It must be noted, however, that even
their early dates are in doubt due to a different design attributed to the
supporting pillars from an account by the Persian Nasir i Khusran in 1047
A.D. (see Duncan 1972: 44-46).

If the sanctuary was built to commemorate such an important event in the

history of the prophet's life (the Mi'raj), why do none of the earliest
inscriptions refer to it? Nowhere in the earliest inscriptions is there any
mention of his night journey to heaven, on the back of the winged horse
Buraq, nor is there any mention of the dialogue Muhammad had between
first Moses and Allah, nor the required five prayers, which was the
purpose of the event!
58

How can this be explained? A possible explanation could be that the story
of the Mi'raj simply did not exist at this time, but was redacted later on
during the Abbasid period (after 750 A.D.). This is not hard to understand
when one realizes that the idea of five prayers also seems to have been
redacted later as well. The only references to prayer in the Qur'an occur in
suras 11:114; 17:78-79; 20:130; and 30:17-18 (though there is doubt
whether they all speak of prayer [salat], or whether they speak of praise
[sabaha]). What we find in these references are three required prayers.
They say nothing of five prayers (albeit many Muslim commentators have
tried desperately to add, by means of a tortured reading, the two missing
prayers either in the morning or in the evening).

This story of the Mi'raj supposedly took place while Muhammad was
living in Medina (most likely around 624 A.D.). Yet we are obliged to refer
to the Hadith, compiled 200-250 years later to find not only that five daily
prayers are stipulated, but what they are called. If the Qur'an is the word of
God, why does it not know how many prayers a Muslim is required to
pray? And furthermore, why, if the Dome of the Rock were built to
commemorate that momentous event, does it say nothing about it until
over 1000 years later? It seems obvious that this building was originally
built for other purposes than that of commemorating the Mi'raj. The fact
that such an imposing structure was built so early suggests that this was
the sanctuary and the center of Islam up until at least the late seventh
century, and not Mecca (Van Bercham 1927:217)!

From what we read earlier of Muhammad's intention to fulfill his and the
Hagarene's birthright, by taking back the land of Abraham, or Palestine, it
makes sense that Abd al-Malik would build this structure as the center-
piece of that fulfillment. Is it no wonder then, that when Abd al-Malik built
the dome in which he proclaimed the prophetic mission of Muhammad, he
placed it over the temple rock itself (Van Berchem 1927:217).

According to Islamic tradition, the caliph Suleyman, who reigned as late as

715-717 A.D., went to Mecca to ask about the Hajj. He was not satisfied
with the response he received there, and so chose to follow 'abd al-Malik
(i.e. traveling to the Dome of the Rock) (note: not to be confused with the
Imam, Malik b. Anas who, because he was born in 712 A.D., would only
have been three years old at the time). This fact alone, according to Dr.
Hawting at SOAS, points out that there was still some confusion as to
where the sanctuary was to be located as late as the early eighth century. It
seems that Mecca was only now taking on the role as the religious centre
59

of Islam. One can therefore understand why, according to tradition, Walid

I, who reigned as Caliph between 705 and 715 A.D., wrote to all the
regions ordering the demolition and enlargement of the mosques (refer to
'Kitab al-'uyun wa'l-hada'iq,' edited by M. de Goeje and P. de Jong
1869:4). Could it be that at this time the Qiblas were then aligned towards
Mecca? If so, it points to yet another contradiction with the Qur'an which
established Mecca as the sanctuary, and thus direction for prayer, during
the lifetime of Muhammad from 80 to 90 years earlier (see sura 2:144-
150).

And that is not all, for we have other archaeological and manuscript
evidence which point up differences with that which we read in the Qur'an:

D6: Muhammad
The writings by the Armenian chronicler from around 660 A.D. (referred
to earlier) give us the earliest narrative account of Muhammad's career to
survive in any language, attesting that Muhammad was a merchant who
spoke much about Abraham, thus providing us with early historical
evidence for the existence of Muhammad (Cook 1983:73). Yet this
chronicler says nothing of Muhammad's universal prophethood, intimating
he was only a local prophet.

Even the earliest Islamic documents, according to Dr. John Wansbrough,

say nothing of his universal prophethood. The Maghazi, which
Wansbrough points out are stories of the prophet's battles and campaigns,
are the earliest Islamic documents which we possess (Wansbrough
1978:119). They should give us the best snapshot of that time, yet they tell
us little concerning Muhammad's life or teachings. In fact, nowhere in
these documents is there a veneration of Muhammad as a prophet! If,
according to the Qur'an, Muhammad is known primarily as the "seal of all
prophets" (Sura 33:40), then why would these documents be silent on this
very important point?

Nevo's Rock inscriptions

In order to know who Muhammad was, and what he did, we must,

therefore, go back to the time when he lived, and look at the evidence
which existed then, and still exists, to see what it can tell us about this very
important figure. Wansbrough, who has done so much research on the
early traditions and the Qur'an believes that, because the Islamic sources
60

are all very late, from 150 years for the Sira-Maghazi documents, as well
as the earliest Qur'an, it behooves us not to consider them authoritative
(Wansbrough 1977:160-163; Rippin 1985:154-155). It is when we look at
the non-Muslim sources that we find some rather interesting observances
as to who this man Muhammad was.

The best non-Muslim sources on seventh century Arabia which we have

are those provided by the Arabic rock inscriptions scattered all over the
Syro-Jordanian deserts and the Peninsula, and especially the Negev desert
(Nevo 1994:109). The man who has done the greatest research on these
rock inscriptions is Yehuda Nevo, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
It is to his research, which is titled Towards a Prehistory of Islam,
published in 1994, that I will refer.

Nevo has found in the Arab religious texts, dating from the first century
and a half of Arab rule, a monotheistic creed. However, he contends that
this creed "is demonstrably not Islam, but [a creed] from which Islam
could have developed." (Nevo 1994:109)

Nevo also found that "in all the Arab religious institutions during the
Sufyani period [661-684 A.D.] there is a complete absence of any
reference to Muhammad." (Nevo 1994:109) In fact neither the name
Muhammad itself nor any Muhammadan formulae (that he is the prophet
of God) appears in any inscription dated before the year 691 A.D.. This is
true whether the main purpose of the inscription is religious, such as in
supplications, or whether it was used as a commemorative inscription,
though including a religious emphasis, such as the inscription at the dam
near the town of Ta'if, built by the Caliph Mu'awiya in the 660s A.D.
(Nevo 1994:109).

The fact that Muhammad's name is absent on all of the early inscriptions,
especially the religious ones is significant. Many of the later traditions (i.e.
the Sira and the Hadith, which are the earliest Muslim literature that we
possess) are made up almost entirely of narratives on the prophet's life. He
is the example which all Muslims are to follow. Why then do we not find
this same emphasis in these much earlier Arabic inscriptions which are
closer to the time that he lived? Even more troubling, why is there no
mention of him at all? His name is only found on the Arab inscriptions
after 690 A.D. (Nevo 1994:109-110).
61

And what's more, the first dated occurrence of the phrase Muhammad
rasul Allah (Muhammad is the prophet of God) is found on an Arab-
Sassanian coin of Xalid b. Abdallah from the year 690 A.D., which was
struck in Damascus (Nevo 1994:110).

Of greater significance, the first occurrence of what Nevo calls the "Triple
Confession of Faith," which includes the Tawhid (that God is one), the
phrase, Muhammad rasul Allah (that Muhammad is his prophet), and the
human nature of Jesus (rasul Allah wa- abduhu), is found in Abd al-
Malik's inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, dated 691 A.D.
(Nevo 1994:110)! Before this inscription the Muslim confession of faith
cannot be attested at all. It must be noted, however, that the date for this
inscription could itself be much later, possibly added by al Zaher Li-L'zaz
when he rebuilt the inner and outer ambulatories above which the
inscription is situated, in 1022 A.D. (Duncan 1972:46).

As a rule, after 691 A.D. and all through the Marwanid dynasty (till 750
A.D.), Muhammad's name usually occurs whenever religious formulae are
used, such as on coins, milestones, and papyrus "protocols" (Nevo
1994:110).

One could probably argue that perhaps these late dates are due to the fact
that any religious notions took time to penetrate the Arabic inscriptions.
Yet, according to Nevo, the first Arabic papyrus, an Egyptian entaqion,
which was a receipt for taxes paid, dated 642 A.D. and written in both
Greek and Arabic is headed by the "Basmala," yet it is neither Christian
nor Muslim in character (Nevo 1994:110).

The religious content within the rock inscriptions does not become
pronounced until after 661 A.D. However, though they bear religious texts,
they never mention the prophet or the Muhammadan formulae (Nevo
1994:110). "This means," according to Nevo, "that the official Arab
religious confession did not include Muhammad or Muhammadan
formulae in its repertoire of set phrases at this time," a full 60 years and
more after the death of Muhammad (Nevo 1994:110). What they did
contain was a monotheistic form of belief, belonging to a certain body of
sectarian literature with developed Judaeo-Christian conceptions in a
particular literary style, but one which contained no features specific to
any known monotheistic religion (Nevo 1994:110,112).
62

Of even greater significance, these inscriptions show that when the

Muhammadan formulae is introduced, during the Marwanid period (post
684 A.D.), it is carried out "almost overnight" (Nevo 1994:110). Suddenly
it became the state's only form of official religious declaration, and was
used exclusively in formal documents and inscriptions, such as the papyrus
"protocols" (Nevo 1994:110).

Yet even after the Muhammadan texts became official, they were not
accepted by the public quite so promptly. For years after their appearance
in state declarations, people continued to include non-Muhammadan
legends in personal inscriptions, as well as routine chancery writings
(Nevo 1994:114). Thus, for instance, Nevo has found a certain scribe who
does not use the Muhammadan formulae in his Arabic and Greek
correspondence, though he does on papyrus "protocols" bearing his name
and title (Nevo 1994:114).

In fact, according to Nevo, Muhammadan formulae only began to be used

in the popular rock inscriptions of the central Negev around 30 years (or
one generation) after its introduction by Abd al-Malik, sometime during
the reign of Caliph Hisham (between 724-743). And even these, according
to Nevo, though they are Muhammadan, are not Muslim. The Muslim
texts, he believes, only begin to appear at the beginning of the ninth
century (around 822 A.D.), coinciding with the first written Qur'ans, as
well as the first written traditional Muslim accounts (Nevo 1994:115).

Consequently, it seems from these inscriptions that it was during the

Marwanid dynasty (after 684 A.D.), and not during the life of Muhammad
that he was elevated to the position of a universal prophet, and that even
then, the Muhammadan formula which was introduced was still not
equivalent with that which we have today.

For further discussion on the six classifications or periods of the rock

inscriptions, and their content, I would recommend Nevo's article (pages
111-112).

D7: 'Muslim' and 'Islam'

We now come to the words "Muslim" and "Islam." Muhammad's
adherence to the Abrahamic line could explain why no mention is made of
the name Muslim until the latter years of the seventh century (Cook
1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:8). In fact the earliest datable occurrence of
63

this term is not found until the inscriptions on the walls of the Dome of the
Rock which we know was constructed in 691 A.D., 60 years after the
death of Muhammad (van Berchem 1927:217; Crone-Cook 1977:8).

Prior to that time the Arabs were referred to as Magaritai, the term we find
in Greek papyri of 642 A.D. (called PERF 564 and PERF 558: Grohmann
1957:28f,157). In the Syriac letters of the Bishop Isho'yahb III from as
early as the 640s A.D. they were called Mahgre or Mahgraye (Duval
1904:97).

The appearance of these terms is not unique, however, but are found as far
afield as Egypt and Iraq, which is significant (Crone-Cook 1977:159). The
corresponding Arabic term is Muhajirun, which is both genealogical as
they are the descendants of Abraham and Hagar, and historical, as they are
those who take part in a hijra, or exodus. The earlier discussion on the
significance of the hijra pointed out that this was (according to external
sources) possibly towards Palestine and not simply to Medina.

Athanasius in 684 A.D., writing in Syriac used the name Maghrayes to

refer to the Arabs. Jacob of Edessa in 705 A.D. mentions them as
Hagarenes. The Doctrina Iacobi refers to them as Saracens (Bonwetsch
1910:88; Cook 1983:75). Thus, contrary to what the Qur'an says in Sura
33:35, it seems that the term Muslim was not used until the late seventh
century (Crone-Cook 1977:8). So where did the name originate?

According to Crone and Cook the term Islam (and the corresponding word
Muslim) in the sense of "submission to God" was borrowed from the
Samaritans (Crone-Cook 1977:19-20). Crone and Cook maintain that "the
verb aslama has cognates in Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac, but whereas
neither Jewish nor Christian literature provides satisfactory precedent for
the Islamic usage, we find exact parallels to Islam in [the Memar Marqah],
which is the most important Samaritan text of the pre-Islamic period."
(Crone-Cook 1977:19,169; Macdonald 1963:85) They go on to say that,
"the plausible sense of the root to invoke here is that of peace' and the
sense of to make peace.' The reinterpretation of this conception in terms of
the ultimately dominant sense of submission' can readily be seen as
intended to differentiate the Hagarene covenant from that of Judaism."
(Crone-Cook 1977:20)

Though the Qur'an uses this term (Sura 33:35), it seems, from the seventh
century documents which we do possess, that it was not known during the
64

life of Muhammad, which consequently adds more credence to the

possibility of an evolution in the Qur'anic text.

D8: Qur'an
We now come to the Qur'an itself. As was stated earlier, the Qur'an
underwent a transformation during the 100 years following the prophet's
death. We have now uncovered coins with supposed Qur'anic writings on
them which date from 685 A.D., coined during the reign of Abd al-Malik
(Nevo 1994:110). Furthermore, the Dome of the Rock sanctuary built by
Abd al-Malik in Jerusalem in 691 A.D. "does attest to the existence, at the
end of the seventh century, of materials immediately recognizable as
Koranic." (Crone-Cook 1977:18) Yet, the quotations from the Qur'an on
both the coins and the Dome of the Rock differ in details from that which
we find in the Qur'an today (Cook 1983:74). Van Berchem and Grohmann,
two etymologists who have done extensive research on the Dome of the
Rock inscriptions, maintain that the earliest inscriptions contain "variant
verbal forms, extensive deviances, as well as omissions from the text
which we have today." (Cook 1983:74; Crone-Cook 1977:167-168; see
Van Berchem part two, vol.ii, nos.1927:215-217 and Grohmann's Arabic
Papyri from Hirbet el-Mird, no.72 to delineate where these variances are)

If these inscriptions had been derived from the Qur'an, with the variants
which they contain, then how could the Qur'an have been canonized prior
to this time (late seventh century)? One can only conclude that there must
have been an evolution in the transmission of the Qur'an through the years
(if indeed they were originally taken from the Qur'an).

The sources also seem to suggest that the Qur'an was put together rather
hurriedly (as we mentioned in the previous section, on the internal critique
of the Qur'an). This is underlined by Dr. John Wansbrough who maintains
that, "the book is strikingly lacking in overall structure, frequently obscure
and inconsequential in both language and content, perfunctory in its
linking of disparate materials, and given to the repetition of whole
passages in variant versions. On this basis it can plausibly be argued that
the book is the product of the belated and imperfect editing of materials
from a plurality of traditions." (Crone-Cook 1977:18,167)

Crone and Cook believe that because of the imperfection of the editing, the
emergence of the Qur'an must have been a sudden event (Crone-Cook
1977:18,167). The earliest reference from outside Islamic literary
65

traditions to the book called the "Qur'an" occurs in the mid-eighth century
between an Arab and a monk of Bet Hale (Nau 1915:6f), but no-one
knows whether it may have differed considerably in content from the
Qur'an which we have today. Both Crone and Cook conclude that except
for this small reference there is no indication of the existence of the Qur'an
before the end of the seventh century (Crone-Cook 1977:18).

Crone and Cook in their research go on to maintain that it was under the
governor Hajjaj of Iraq in 705 A.D. that we have a logical historical
context in which the "Qur'an" (or a nacsent body of literature which would
later become the Qur'an) was first compiled as Muhammad's scripture
(Crone-Cook 1977:18). In an account attributed to Leo by Levond, the
governor Hajjaj is shown to have collected all the old Hagarene writings
and replaced them with others "according to his own taste, and
disseminated them everywhere among [his] nation." (Jeffrey 1944:298)
The natural conclusion is that it was during this period that the Qur'an
began its evolution, possibly beginning to be written down, until it was
finally canonized in the mid to late eighth century as the Qur'an which we
now know.

All these findings give us good reason to question the true authority of the
Qur'an as the word of God. Archaeology, as well as documentary and
manuscript evidence indicates that much of what the Qur'an maintains
does not coincide with the data at our disposal. From the material amassed
from external sources in the seventh and eighth centuries, we can
conclude:

1. that the Hijra was more-than-likely not towards Medina, but towards
Palestine;
2. that the Qibla was not fixed towards Mecca until the eighth century,
but to an area much further north, and possibly Jerusalem;
3. that the Jews still retained a relationship with the Arabs until at least
640 A.D.;
4. that Jerusalem and not Mecca was more-than-likely the city which
contained the original sanctuary for Islam, as Mecca was not only
unknown as a viable city until the end of the seventh century, but it
was not even on the trade route;
5. that the Dome of the Rock was the first sanctuary;
6. that Muhammad was not classified as God's universal prophet until
the late seventh century;
66

7. that the terms Muslim'/ Islam' were not used until the end of the
seventh century;
8. that five daily prayers as well as the Hajj were not standardized until
after 717 A.D.;
9. that the earliest we even hear of any Qur'an is not until the mid-
eighth century;
10.and that the earliest Qur'anic writings do not coincide with the
current Qur'anic text.

All of this data contradicts the Qur'an which is in our possession, and adds
to the suspicion that the Qur'an which we now read is NOT the same as
that which was supposedly collated and canonized in 650 A.D. under
Uthman, as Muslims contend (if indeed it even existed at that time). One
can only assume that there must have been an evolution in the Qur'anic
text. Consequently, the only thing we can say with any certainty is that
only the documents which we now possess (from 790 A.D. onwards) are
identical to those which are in our hands today, written not 16 years after
Muhammad's death but 160 years later, and thus not 1,400 years ago, but a
mere 1,200 years. The ramifications of this assertion are astounding
indeed.

E: Can We Use These Non-Muslim

Sources?
All the while that modern Islamic historians have been struggling with
Muslim traditions, they have had available to them the Greek, Armenian,
Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Coptic literatures of non-Muslim
neighbours, some of whom were subjects of the Arab conquerors (Crone
1980:15). To a large extent these sources were edited and translated at the
end of the last century (1800s) and the beginning of the present. Yet, they
were left to collect dust in the libraries ever since. The question we must
ask is, Why?

The answer that Muslims give is that these sources were hostile, which
possibly is true. However, given the wide geographical and social
distribution from which they originate, they could scarcely have vented
their anti-Muslim feelings with such uniform results (Crone 1980:16). It is
because there is agreement between the independent and contemporary
witnesses of the non-Muslim world that their testimony must be
67

considered. Whichever way one chooses to interpret them, they leave no

doubt that the Qur'an was the product of an evolving revelation, more than
likely canonized during the early Abbasid period towards the mid to end of
the eighth century, and in or around, what is today Iraq and Iran (see Crone
1980:3-17).

F: Conclusion
What, therefore can we say concerning the Qur'an? Is it the Word of God?
Muslims contend that we can only understand the origins of the Qur'an
through the eyes of Muslim Tradition, which tells us that Allah revealed
his truth through the Qur'an which was sent down to Muhammad. We,
however, suspect the authenticity for this claim, as the primary sources for
the later traditions simply do not exist prior to the eighth century. In fact
the Muslim sources which we do possess are of a relatively later date,
compiled between 200-300 years after the fact, and are dependant on oral
traditions passed down by storytellers whose narratives not only cannot be
corroborated, but suddenly seem to proliferate towards the end of the
eighth century.

Wansbrough takes the position that the Qur'an was compiled even later
than the traditions, and was used as an authoritative stamp to authenticate
later beliefs and laws by those who were responsible for canonizing the
Muslim Traditions. If he is correct, then one would wonder whether
Muhammad would even recognize the Qur'an which we possess today.

Nonetheless, the Qur'an itself has been suggested as a source for Islam,
and its own best authority. Yet it too suffers from many of the same
problems mentioned above. When we open the Qur'an and read it we are
faced immediately with many structural and literary difficulties which
bode ill for a document claiming to be the final and perfect Word of God.
We are presented with spurious "Biblical accounts" which parallel known
second century heretical Talmudic and Christian Apocryphal documents.
And while we wonder how these very human documents found their way
into a supposedly non-human scripture, we are introduced to scientific
peculiarities which have also found their way into its pages. These
difficulties do seem to point away from a divine authorship and point
towards a more plausible explanation; that the Qur'an is simply a
collection of disparate sources borrowed from surrounding pieces of
68

literature, folk tales, and oral traditions present during the seventh and
eighth centuries, and accidently grafted in by unsuspecting later compilers
of the Abbasid period.

Non-Muslim sources which we possess from a variety of surrounding

societies also corroborate the evidence above. Much of what we find in
these external seventh and eighth century sources contradict what the
Muslim Tradition and the Qur'an tell us, causing us to suspect the latter's
authenticity.

In the end we are left with little on which to hold. Muslim sources are
found to be questionable, while non-Muslim sources point to a dearth of
any real evidence for the accurateness of the Qur'an. There is indeed, much
disturbing material here with which the Muslim apologist must now
contend. Yet, I do find solace in the fact that the next time I see a Muslim
holding his Qur'an aloft as evidence of Allah's blueprint for humanity, I
can ask him one simple question, the same question historians are now
asking, "Where, indeed is the evidence for that which they believe?"

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The Caliphs:

632-661 .......... Abu Bakr, Umar 1, Uthman, Ali

(Sufyanid Period)
661-680 .......... Mu'awiyah I
680-683 .......... Yazid I
683-684 .......... Mu'awiyah II
(Marwanid Period)
684-685 .......... Marwan I
685-705 .......... 'Abd al-Malik
705-715 .......... al-Walid
715-717 .......... Suleyman
717-720 .......... Umar II
720-743 .......... Hisham
744-750 .......... Marwan II
(Abbasid Period)