MOREY’S LIST OF QURANIC ERRORS PT. 2
This the continuation of the chapter from Morey’s book: MOREY’S LIST OF QURANIC ERRORS.
Convenient Revelations
The Quran contains convenient revelations for the personal gain or pleasure of Muhammad:
• When Muhammad wanted his adopted son’s wife, he suddenly got a revelation from Allah declaring it permissible to take another man’s wife (Sura 33:36–38).
• When he wanted more wives or wanted to stop his wives from quarreling, he got a quick revelation for it (Sura 33:28–34).
• When people bothered him at his house, he received convenient revelations setting up rules concerning when to visit him and when not to bother him (Suras 33:53–58; 29:62–63; 49:1–5).
Legendary Materials
Muhammad used much legendary and fanciful material as sources for the Quran.16
As Professor Jomier, one of France’s greatest Middle East scholars, points out:
Moslems receive these narratives as the word of God, without inquiring about their historical background. In fact we have there a popular, poetic form of legends, variants of religious themes known from other sources.17
Arabian Sources
The Quran repeats fanciful Arabian fables as if they were true.
• Arabic legends about the fabulous jinns fill its pages.18
• The story of the she-camel who leapt out of a rock and became a prophet was known long before Muhammad (Suras 7:73–77, 85; 91:14; 54:29).
• The story of an entire village of people who were turned into apes because they broke the sabbath by fishing was a popular legend in Muhammad’s day (Suras 2:65; 7:163–166).
• The gushing 12 springs story found in Sura 2:60 comes from pre-Islamic legends.
• In what is called the “Rip Van Winkle” story, seven men and their animals slept for 309 years in a cave and then woke up perfectly fine (Sura 18:9–26)!
This legend is found in Greek and Christian fables as well as Arabian lore.
• The fable of the pieces of four dead, cut-up birds getting up and flying was well known in Muhammad’s time (Sura 2:260).
It is also clear that Muhammad used such pre-Islamic literature as the Saba Moallaqat of Imra’ul Cays in his composition of Suras 21:96; 29:31, 46; 37:59; 54:1, and 93:1.
Jewish Sources
Many of the stories in the Quran come from the Jewish Talmud, the Midrash, and many apocryphal works.
This was pointed out by Abraham Geiger in 1833, and further documented by another Jewish scholar, Dr. Abraham Katsh, of New York University, in 1954.19
1. The source of Sura 3:35–37 is the fanciful book called The Protevangelion’s James the Lesser.
2. The source of Sura 87:19 is the Testament of Abraham.
3. The source of Sura 27:17–44 is the Second Targum of Esther.
4. The fantastic tale that God made a man “die for a hundred years” with no ill effects on his food, drink, or donkey was a Jewish fable (Sura 2:259ff.).
5. The idea that Moses was resurrected and other material came from the Jewish Talmud (Sura 2:55, 56, 67).
6. The story in Sura 5:30, 31 can also be found in pre-Islamic works from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem.
7. The tale of Abraham being delivered from Nimrod’s fire came from the Midrash Rabbah (see Suras 21:51–71; 29:16, 17; 37:97, 98). It must be also pointed out that Nimrod and Abraham did not live at the same time. Muhammad was always mixing people together in the Quran who did not live at the same time.
8. The non-biblical details of the visit of the Queen of Sheba (Saba) in Sura 27:20–44 came from the Second Targum of the Book of Esther.
9. The source of Sura 2:102 is no doubt the Midrash Yalkut (chapter 44).
10. The story found in Sura 7:171 of God lifting up Mount Sinai and holding it over the heads of the Jews as a threat to squash them if they rejected the law came from the Jewish book Abodah Sarah.
11. The story of the making of the golden calf in the wilderness, in which the image jumped out of the fire fully formed and actually mooed (Suras 7:148; 20:88), came from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer.
12. The seven heavens and hells described in the Quran came from the Zoharand the Hagigah.
13. Muhammad 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 hell (Suras 42:17; 101:6–9).
Heretical Christian Sources
One of the most documented and damaging facts about the Quran is that Muhammad used heretical “Christian” Gnostic gospels and their fables for material in the Quran.
Encyclopedia Britannica comments:
The gospel was known to him chiefly through apocryphal and heretical sources.20
This has been demonstrated many times by various scholars.21
For example, in Suras 3:49 and 100:110, the baby Jesus speaks from the cradle! Later on, the Quran has Jesus making clay birds come alive.
The Bible tells us that the first miracle Jesus did was at the wedding at Cana (John 2:11).
Sabean Sources
Muhammad incorporated parts of the religion of the Sabeans into Islam.22
He adopted such pagan rituals as:
• Worshiping at the Kabah
• Praying five times a day toward Mecca (Muhammad chose five of the same times the Sabeans prayed.)
• Fasting for part of a day for an entire month
Eastern Religious Sources
Muhammad derived some of his ideas from Eastern religions such as Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. All of these things were in existence long before Muhammad was born.
The Quran records the following things which are ascribed to Muhammad but in reality were previously known stories now attributed to him for the first time:23
• The story of a flying trip through seven heavens
• The Houries of paradise
• Azazil and other spirits coming up from Hades
• The “light” of Muhammad
• The bridge of Sirat
• Paradise with its wine, women, and song (from the Persians)
• The king of death
• The peacock story
Mistakes About Jesus
The Quran contradicts the Bible’s teaching on the person and work of Jesus Christ by saying in Suras 4:157; 5:19, 75; 9:30:
• Jesus was not the Son of God.
• He did not die for our sins.
• He was not crucified.
• He was not divine as well as human.
• He is not the Savior.24
The utter contradiction between the biblical and quranic view of Jesus cannot be easily dismissed. This is clearly not an issue of corruption but of contradiction. It is one of the fundamental issues which will forever divide Christianity from Islam.
Mistakes About the Trinity
The Quran contains many errors about what Christians believe and practice.
One of the most significant is that the Quran misrepresents the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
Muhammad mistakenly thought that Christians worshiped three gods: the Father, the Mother (Mary), and the Son (Jesus), (Sura 5:73–75, 116).25
As Richard Bell pointed out:
[Muhammad] never understood the doctrine of the Trinity.26
Encyclopedia Britannica states:
[There are] mistaken concepts of the Trinity in the Quran.27
Yusuf Ali’s translation of the Quran tries to avoid this error by deliberately mistranslating Sura 5:73.
The Arabic text condemns those who say that “Allah is the third of three,” that is to say Allah is only one of three gods! Both Arberry and Pickthall translate this correctly.
Ali mistranslates Sura 5:73 to read:
They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity.
The words “in a Trinity” are not in the Arabic text. Ali puts it in his translation in an attempt to avoid the rather obvious error that Christians believe in three gods.
In reality, Christians believe only in one God who is in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They do not believe that Mary is a part of the Trinity.
Even the Concise Dictionary of Islam admits:
In some cases the “material” which forms the substance of Quranic narrative, details of the creeds of Christianity and Judaism for example, does not correspond to those religion’s own understanding of their beliefs. This could be said, for example, of the notion of the Trinity found in the Quran, the story of Satan’s refusal to bow down to Adam, the Docetist view of the crucifixion, all of which can be traced to the dogmas of Gnostic sects, which are heretical in relationship to orthodox Christianity and Judaism. The Trinity “seen” in the Quran is not the Trinity of the Apostles Creed, or of the Nicene Creed.28
The Quran is so clearly erroneous at this point that Muslims such as Yusuf Ali must mistranslate the Quran to get away from it!
Mistakes About the “Son” Of God
The Quran also makes the mistake of saying that Christians believe Jesus is the “Son” of God in the sense that God the “Father” has a male body and had sexual intercourse with Mary.
In Muhammad’s mind, to say that God had a son was to blaspheme because it meant that God had sex with a woman (Suras 2:116; 6:100, 101; 10:68; 16:57; 19:35; 23:91; 37:149, 157; 43:16–19).
Christians believe that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).
Thus Jesus is the “Son” of God, but not in the sexual sense that Muhammad understood. God the “Father” is not a man and hence does not have a male body and has not had sex with anyone. The Quran is 100 percent wrong on this issue.
Praying Toward Jerusalem
The Quran makes the mistake of teaching that Christians bow in prayer toward Jerusalem (Sura 2:144, 145). Christians do not bow toward any place on earth when in prayer.
Is Allah The Name of Christ?
Christians do not claim that Allah is the name of the Messiah or the Christ as Sura 5:72 claims. They believe in one God in three persons and that Jesus Christ was human as well as divine.
Mistakes About Jewish Beliefs
The Quran makes the mistake of claiming that the Jews believed that Ezra was the Son of God, the Messiah, just as Christians claim that Jesus was (Sura 9:30). Nothing could be further from the truth.
As the Concise Dictionary of Islam points out:
There are many details regarding Judaism which are in variance with Jewish belief.29
Arab Racism
According to the literal Arabic translation of Sura 3:106, 107, on Judgment Day, only people with white faces will be saved. People with black faces will be damned. This is racism in its worst form!
As Victor and Deborah Khalil point out in their article on Islam:
American blacks have been widely wooed by Islam, but through misinformation. They hear, “Christianity is the white man’s religion; Islam is the religion of all mankind.” They are told that Allah and Mohammed are black. In reality, Muslims in the Middle East still regard blacks as slaves. It would be worse than blasphemy for them to believe that either Allah or Mohammed were black.30
It must be also pointed out that Arab Muslims were enslaving black Africans long before Westerners, to their shame, got involved.
A Carnal Heaven
The Quran promises a heaven full of wine and free sex (Suras 2:25; 4:57; 11:23; 47:15).
If drunkeness and gross immorality is sinful on earth, how is it right in Paradise?
Is this not yet more proof that Islam reflects the ideas and customs of seventh-century Arab culture?
The Quran’s picture of paradise is exactly what a seventh-century pagan Arab would have thought wonderful.
The carnal concept of a harem of beautiful women and all the wine you can drink is in direct conflict with the spirituality and holiness of the biblical concept of heaven (Revelation 22:12–17). The contradiction cannot be clearer.
The Problem of Usury
In seventh-century Arabia, the practice of charging interest on money that was loaned to people was condemned as usury. Thus, it is no surprise to learn that Muhammad likewise condemned usury in the Quran (Suras 2:275ff.; 3:130; 4:161; 30:39).
The reason we point this out is that modern Muslims openly disobey the Quran at this point. Muslims will now charge interest on the money they loan out, and they will pay interest on the money they borrow.
If the Muslims were to apply the Quran’s condemnation of usury to their modern-day financial practices, there would be no Muslim banks. Not even Muslim governments would charge interest or receive interest on any loans.
This is why some Muslim apologists try desperately to stay clear of the issue of usury, or else they try to define usury as taking unjust interest.
But it is clear, not only from the Quran, but also from the historical context, that Muhammad was prohibiting the charging of any interest at all on money that was loaned out, particularly to fellow Muslims.
An Interesting Discussion
In one conversation with a Muslim, I brought up the Quran’s condemnation of charging interest on the money lent out to others. He dismissed this because he claimed that the Quran at that point was only reflecting seventh-century Arabian culture and therefore could be disregarded!
Then I pointed out that if this same principle was applied to all the other cultural elements within Islam, such as the five pillars, civil laws, dietary laws, dress codes, etc. Islam itself would collapse like a house of cards. After digesting this, he stated that the Quran’s condemnation of usury was not a “cultural” law but the eternal law of Allah.
I could not help but point out that the Quran’s condemnation of usury was either cultural and hence could be disobeyed or it was the eternal word of Allah and he would have to give up any interest-bearing accounts he had.
To this he gave no response.
To the rational mind, it is clear that every time a Muslim accepts interest payments on his bank accounts, loans, or mortgages he is demonstrating to one and all that the Quran is really the product of seventh-century Arabian culture and not the eternal Word of God.
Conclusion
While the devout Muslim believes with all of his heart that the rituals and doctrines of Islam are entirely heavenly in origin and thus cannot have any earthly sources, Middle East scholars have demonstrated beyond all doubt that every ritual and belief in Islam can be traced back to pre-Islamic Arabian culture.
In other words, Muhammad did not preach anything new. Everything he taught had been believed and practiced in Arabia long before he was ever born. Even the idea of “only one God” was borrowed from the Jews and the Christians.
This irrefutable fact casts to the ground the Muslim claim that Islam was revealed from heaven. Since its rituals, beliefs, and even the Quran itself can be fully explained in terms of pre-Islamic sources in Arabian culture, this means that the religion of Islam is false. It is no surprise, therefore, that Western scholars have concluded that Allah is not God, Muhammad was not his prophet, and the Quran is not the Word of God.
13 Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229.
14 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, VI:407. See also Dashti, 23 Years, p. 92.
15 Dashti, 23 Years, pp. 82ff.
16 For the documentation on the sources of the Quran, see the books listed in the bibliography under such names as Jeffery, Katsh, Tisdall, Gibb, Bell, Sell, Muir, Guillaume, Preserved Smith, Pfander, Shorrosh, Sweetman, Seale, Zwemer, as well as the standard reference works such as encyclopedias and dictionaries on Islam.
17 Ibid., p. 51.
18 Dashti has an interesting discussion of the jinn on pp. 158ff. See also Rudolph Frieling, Christianity and Islam: A Battle for the True Image of Man (Edinburgh: Flores Books, 1980), p. 40ff.
19 The Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229; Jomier, The Bible and the Quran (Henry Regency Co., Chicago, 1959), 59ff.; Sell, Studies, pp. 210ff.; Guillaume, Islam, p. 13.
20 Encyclopedia Britannica, 15:648.
21 Richard Bell, Introduction to the Quran, pp. 163ff. See also: Bell, The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment, pp. 110ff., 139ff.; Sell, Studies, pp. 216ff. See also Tisdall and Pfander.
22 Encyclopedia of Islam (ed. Eliade), pp. 303ff.; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, pp. 1:219ff.
23 See Sell, Studies, pp. 219ff. for details.
24 Guillaume, Islam, pp. 38ff.; Jeffery, A., “Anti-Christian Literature,” Muslim World, vol. 17 (1927) pp. 216–219. Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, pp. 254–264, 286–291. See also Cragg’s work, The House of Islam.
25 Concise Dictionary of Islam, pp. 229ff.; H Becker, Christianity and Islam, pp. 21ff.
26 Richard Bell, Introduction to the Quran, p. 141.
27 Encyclopedia Britannica, 12:708.
28 Concise Dictionary of Islam, pp. 229–230.
29 Ibid., p. 2.
30 Victor Khalil and Deborah Khalil, “When Christians Meet Muslims,” Christian Herald, July/August 1988, p. 44.
FURTHER READING
A Reply To Shabir Ally’s Attack On Dr. Robert Morey
Exposing More of Shabir Ally’s Misinformation and Deceit Pt. 1, Pt. 2