MOREY & THE QURAN’S COMPOSITION
I post chapter eight of the late Dr. Robery A. Morey’s book, Islamic Invasion: Confronting the World’s Fastest Growing Religion, published by Christian Scholars Press, Revised and expanded edition 1992, pp. 118-128.
Eight
The Structure of the Quran
When a person who is familiar with the Bible picks up a Quran and begins to read it, he immediately recognizes that he is dealing with an entirely different kind of literature than that which is found in the Bible. Whereas the Bible contains much historical narrative, the Quran contains very little. Whereas the Bible goes out of its way to explain unfamiliar terminology or territory, the Quran does not.
Structural Differences
In fact, the very way that the Bible is structured, as a library of 66 books, reveals that it is ordered according to chronology, subject, and theme.
But when you turn to the Quran, you find a jumbled and confused ordering of individual Suras.
Some Western scholars have stated that the structure of the Quran is so mixed up that it requires the utmost sense of duty for anyone to plow through it!
Western Comments
The Scottish scholar Thomas Carlyle once said:
It is a toilsome reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite. Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran.1
The German scholar Salomon Reinach has stated:
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.2
Historian Edward Gibbon has described the Quran as “an incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and sometimes is lost in the clouds.”3
McClintock and Strong’s encyclopedia concludes:
The matter of the Koran is exceedingly incoherent and sententious, 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.4
Even the Muslim scholar Ali Dashti laments the literary defects of the Quran:
Unfortunately the Qor’an was badly edited and its contents are very obtusely arranged. All students of the Qor’an wonder why the editors did not use the natural and logical method of ordering by date of revelation, as in ’Ali b. Abi Taleb’s lost copy of the text.5
The standard Islamic reference work, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, refers to the “disjointed and irregular character” of the text of the Quran.6
To find literary parallels to the Quran, one must search into the pre-Islamic Arabic literature where we find numerous examples of such ecstatic and often confused poetic material.
Mecca and Medina
Muhammad’s religious ministry as contained in the Quran was spread over two different periods. The first one took place in Mecca beginning at least by the year A.D. 612 and lasting approximately ten years.
The other period is centered in Medina and once again lasts approximately ten years until Muhammad’s death in A.D. 632.
This twofold division of Meccan ministry and Medinan ministry has been acknowledged by most scholars in the field.
An Unforeseen Death
As we have already pointed out, Muhammad did not foresee his own death, although he claimed to be a prophet of God. Therefore he made no preparations for the gathering together of his revelations so that they could be placed into one document.
No Original Manuscripts
From historical accounts that are unimpeachably accurate and trustworthy, we know that when Muhammad fell into his seizures or trances and then spoke to others what he saw during such episodes, he did not write these things down on a manuscript.
Despite the farfetched claims of some modern Muslim apologists, Muhammad himself did not write or prepare the final manuscript of the Quran.
His death was unexpected, not only by his followers, but also by him. He did not even have the opportunity to gather together the scattered records of some of his Suras.
Bones, Leaves, and Stones
It was left up to Muhammad’s followers to try and write down what he said. These records were written on whatever was handy when Muhammad fell into one of his unpredictable trances.
The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam comments:
The Koran was collected from the chance surfaces on which it had been inscribed: “from pieces of papyrus, flat stones, palm leaves, shoulder blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather, wooden boards, and the hearts of men.”7
Even the internationally known Muslim scholar Maududi admits that the Quran was originally recorded “on leaves of date-palms, barks of trees, bones, etc.”8
The strange materials on which the Quran was written are verified by all general reference works such as the encyclopedias and by the standard reference works on Islam.
When there was nothing around which could be written on, the attempt was made to memorize Muhammad’s revelations as closely as possible.
According to Maududi, the task that confronted the followers of Muhammad after his unexpected demise was to gather together the scattered sermons of Muhammad, some of which were written on biodegradable articles, and others which were not written down but committed only to memory.9
This, of course, created great difficulties. Some of the tree bark crumbled or broke and some of the stones were lost. Worse yet, Ali Dashti notes that animals at times ate the palm leaves or mats on which the Suras had been recorded.10
Some of those who were the only ones who remembered certain Suras died in battle before they had the opportunity to commit in writing what they had heard.
The gathering together of Quranic material lasted for several years. Much confusion reigned as the memory of one person would not exactly correspond to the memory of another.
This is a sad fact of human nature that cannot be overlooked. When more than one person is present and hears the same speech, disagreement as to exactly what was said can often arise.
As we shall see later on, this was overcome by the use of physical force and the attempt to coerce people to use one particular version of what Muhammad said as opposed to other versions.
The Order of the Suras
As you pick up the Quran, you will discover that the 114 Suras, or revelations, given to Muhammad are not laid out in the chronological order in which Muhammad received them.
If this were so, then the first Sura would be the first revelation Muhammad received and the last Sura would be the last revelation.
Neither is the Quran laid out in terms of a progressive historical narrative in which we follow the life, actions, and teachings of Muhammad from beginning to end.
We are confronted instead with a jumbled mass of Suras which defy any natural organization according to context.
The way that the Quran was put together by those left behind after Muhammad died was to simply do so on the basis of size.
Thus the Quran is arranged from the biggest Sura down to the smallest Sura, irrespective of the chronology in which an individual Sura was given.
Mass Confusion
This causes tremendous problems and confusion. In the Quran one will often find that what is clearly commanded in the first part of the Quran is “abrogated,” that is, contradicted, by something that is written in the latter part of the Quran.
To reconstruct the life and teaching of Muhammad in a chronological order, one must jump all over the Quran from one Sura to another.
This, of course, causes tremendous confusion to anyone who attempts to understand the Quran as a piece of literature.
Dating the Suras
Since religious leaders tend to get long-winded the longer they minister, most scholars believe that the shortest Suras are the first ones Muhammad preached. As time went on, the Suras got longer as he had more to say.
But there is at times a mixture of Meccan and Medinan revelations in the same Sura so that even size is not an infallible guide in dating the Suras.
First Person
Muslims claim that the Quran is always written in the first person, that Allah himself is always speaking to man.
Such a claim, however, does not fit the text of the Quran. There are many sections in which it is clear that Allah is not speaking, but Muhammad is.
Endless Repetition
Another problem with the Quran is that since it was intended to be memorized by those who were illiterate and uneducated, it engages in endless repetition of the same material.
One frequently encounters the same stories over and over again in the Quran.
While this is no doubt helpful to the illiterate masses often found in the Muslim world, it does make it more tedious for literate people.
The Right “Feel”
The last observation about the Quran as a whole is that it does not have the feeling that it is complete.
When you pick up the Bible, you find that it begins at the beginning of all things, the creation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).
As you proceed through the Bible, you learn in chronological order about creation, the fall of man into sin, the great flood, the tower of Babel, the calling of Abraham, the patriarchs, the calling of Moses, the exodus, the building up of the nation of Israel, the ultimate captivity of the nation, the people going into exile, their return under Cyrus, the rebuilding of Israel, the prediction of the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Messiah and His life, death, and resurrection, and the beginning of the church age. Then you come to the last book of the Bible, and you read about the end of the universe.
The Bible gives us a sense of wholeness or completeness for it begins at the beginning and runs all the way through to the end of history.
No Beginning or End
But when you turn to the Quran, because of its disordered condition, you are not left with that feeling of completeness.
You are, as it were, left hanging after each Sura because there is no logical connection from one to the other.
For example, one Sura will deal with some pedestrian matter such as Allah wanting Muhammad’s wives to stop arguing and bickering in his presence while the next Sura attacks the idols of the Arabians.
Thus you are left with a feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction that you are not getting the whole story.
Conclusion
If you were to contrast the 66 books of the Bible written over a period of several thousand years by at least 40 different authors with the Quran which came through one man, Muhammad, during his lifetime, there would be no contest as to which was the superior literature.
The fact that the Quran claims that it is a continuation of the Old and New Testaments is actually damaging to the Muslim cause because the Quran, in the final analysis, simply does not fit the literary style or structure that is found in the Old and New Testaments.
Most Western scholars have concluded that to go from the Bible to the Quran is to go from the superior to the inferior, from the greater to the lesser, from the real to the counterfeit.
1 Quoted by Professor H.A. Gibb in Mohammedanism, An Historical Survey, p. 37.
2 Salomon Reinach, Orpheus: A history of Religion (New York: Livercraft, Inc., 1932) p. 176.
3 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Milman Co., n.d.) I:365.
4 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, V:151
5 Dashti, 23 Years, p. 28.
6 Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 231.
7 Ibid., p. 230. See also Guillaume, Islam, p. 57.
8 Abdullah Maududi, The Meaning of the Quran (Lahore: Islamic Pub. ltd., 1967), p. 17.
9 Ibid., p. 17.
10 Dashti, 23 Years, p. 28.
FURTHER READING
The Garbled Up Quran Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5
The Garbled-Up Quran: Muhammad’s Confusion of Figures and Names