If Muhammad wasn't an actual prophet, then where did the Qur'an come from?

[LuisDantas]

Dantas,

I am talking of te study the history of religion for the sake of studying. no one stands over your head holding a cross or a scimitar.
this is an on line debate. most of the people have a sense of history. the whole im too good for your religion issue has become boring. and if they do they usually leave the forum after a while.

Is that what we were talking about, however? Looks more like a matter of internal coherence for the Abrahamic religions to me. But whatever, let's move on if you wish.

 

[Debater Slayer]

What you are saying already happend!. I agree and believe that no one other Than God can reveal a Book like Quran. But just incase you are not aware, the Bab revealed the equivallent of Quran in ONLY two days and two nights

Sorry, but I'm not Baha'i, therefore I don't believe any of this to be true. You know that lots of Muslim scholars have refuted such thing, right?

Why not? It seems in fact that I must.

Because if you do, someone else will simply come along and judge God from a different point of view, which might be different from yours. In that case,
how will you know that you are not wrong and he's right?

Really? Then whose values and principles should be used to Judge God?

No one. No one should judge God based on their own values and principles.

What they said. We have nothing else, in the end.

What do you mean?

This seems to be a cop out IMO,ok if you could read Arabic you would see the poetic beauty but the meaning would still be the same

There are some tropes and expressions which are just not the same when they are translated to English. Think of it as translating an English-originated idiom into another language. Sounds awkward, doesn't it?

there were great poets before Muhammed Imru al Qais bin Hujr al Kindi for example,some say Muhammed used some of his material.

Keyword right there. Some just doesn't mean anything.

What do you mean? I read that you mentioned that the Quran contains prescientific insights in it before being discovered by modern science. I used to read the same thing from Christians regarding the Bible. The founder of the modern American creationist movement, Henry M Morris, used to argue this in a few of his books. I have encountered this kind of argument in my past conversations with Muslims; they were surprised that I didn't find it convincing.

Lots of people in different religions will use the same argument, but what actually counts is the validity of their claims.

What exactly convinces you the Quran is divinely inspired?

You have already answered this very question yourself in the above quote.

What do you mean?

If Muslims were indeed oh-so-mean and harsh to non-believers, how do you explain then, the existence of so many other religions in Muslim countries?

I have seen this argument about the Quran used before and it's almost always by people who are seriously bothered by the fact that people are not Muslims like them. I wasn't sure if you were one of them or not. I'm glad that you're not although I did get the impression that you might have been by the wording of your first few posts in this thread. I didn't know for sure and I didn't want to make any unfair accusations against you . So I decided to say this in case you or any other Muslims on here are seriously bothered by nonbelief. I'm comforted by the fact that you're not.

I'm certainly not bothered by such thing because it won't affect the religion nor its followers in any crucial way. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that
the portion of ardent and zealous atheists is just as much if not more than those of religious people (Richard Dawkins is a great example of a "fundamentalist" atheist, if that even means anything). That's not to generalize atheists though as it is the same with pretty much all of the other religions/belief philosophies.

I agree to the extent that one copy of the Qur'an is quite enough to inflict on the world. I see no reason to duplicate the "effort". That, however, was not my point. My point was and is, that Arabic writers are hobbled, from the "get go" by their belief that no written work can surpass the majesty and quality of the Qur'an. With that belief in mind, it is unlikely that anyone could possibly pen such a work.

I will assume that you are aware of the fact that there were many non-Muslim poets at the time.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but is not the ordering of the Qur'an the same in English or Arabic? In general, the longest verses appear first, followed by the shorter verses. This is NOT the order that the verses were given by Muhammad originally.

Meccan sura - Wikipedia
(I know, I know... it's Wikipedia, but the information given is accurate in this case.)

I'm completely aware of this fact, but how does the order of the verses affect anything? Also, the arrangement of the verses inside every Sura is the same, what's different is the order of the Sura's themselves.

It is evidence of mental dexterity and highly refined communication skills. For someone who can martial people and fire their imaginations, authoring a book would be fairly easy.

You had Genghis Khan who was nothing short of brilliant in all of these aspects, but he couldn't come up anything even remotely similar to the Qur'an.

Thanks for the offer, however I have chatted about this with several Muslims in the past and none of them could agree on the criteria upon which the work would be judged. This led me to realize that there is NO WORK that could possibly be produced that would SATISFY devout Muslims into admitting the new work was superior to the Qur'an. What you have to try to realize is that Muslims have painted themselves into a corner on this topic. There is virtually no possibility that any work would seriously be considered as having met the challenge. In this regard, the challenge is not worth the paper it is written on.

I have already mentioned that there are lots of non-Muslim poets who can be used as judges and set the criteria too.

There is also the niggling detail that if a person was successful some wacko jacko Muslim would be deeply insulted enough to physically assault the writer. Many have been killed in the name of Islam for much, much less.

Now you're talking about extremists, who are substantially different from moderate Muslims.

I'm sorry, but no it really doesn't. The content itself is incredibly horrendous, contains insane amounts of contradictions (acknowledged by schools of Islamic theology for centuries with many attempts to apologize for such problems) and it contains outright falsehoods. It says that the Earth is flat and that mountains are its roots.

Wow. I don't even know where to begin. You saying that the content is "horrendous" is no more than a subjective opinion. I can equally say that the content
is outstanding and exquisite and you wouldn't be able to prove me wrong whatsoever.

What contradictions are you talking about? Absolutely nowhere in the Qur'an does it say that the Earth is flat, in fact the oval shape of the Earth is mentioned more than once. And where exactly does it state that bit about the mountains being the "roots of the Earth"?

I can judge the content of the book without being able to read it in its original language. I may not be able to judge the poetic value of the text itself, but the presence of any poetic prowess doesn't really hint at divine inspiration.

Sorry, but you really can't. And the scope of said poetic prowess is what's relevant.

No, we're talking about the Qu'ran in whatever version.

"Whatever" certainly doesn't equal the original version.

Do you honestly think that a book containing contradictions and outright falsehoods is better than Hamlet? Better than Catch-22? Better than Paradise Lost, Anna Karrenina, The Divine Comedy, and Don Quixote? Also, oddly enough, those last three are all written in other languages yet their linguistic prowess, depth, and beauty all translate quite well to the English language.

The books you just mentioned are written in languages which share a lot in common with English. There are lots of Latin-originated words in the English, French, Spanish, Italian and Greek languages. I can't imagine it being too hard to transmit that sense of beauty from one of these languages to English.
Arabic however, is fundamentally distinct from all the languages those books are written in which is why it's much harder to maintain a sense of beauty
and depth in a literary work when translating it from one of those languages to Arabic.

Greater works than the Qu'ran have been written by humans. In fact, I posit that Sandman, the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, is a better work than the whole of the Qu'ran. I posit that The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie is also a better work, which is probably why that fatwa was issued against him.

Again, all of these are personal opinions with no rhetoric criteria behind them.

It's relevant because I've never read Plato in its original Greek either and people claim that Plato's original text in classical Greek is among the greatest texts ever written, if not the single greatest literary achievement in human history, yet that beauty adds no strength to Plato's arguments. It also doesn't decry us to claim that his work was divinely inspired.

I never said that it adds any strength to the Qur'ans arguments or ideas, but like I have already mentioned the scope of said beauty and depth is what counts. You also have to take into account the scientific insights in the Qur'an.

 

[LuisDantas]

Because if you do, someone else will simply come along and judge God from a different point of view, which might be different from yours. In that case, how will you know that you are not wrong and he's right?

Not easily, that much is certain. But in these matters being right is not as important as being true.

And let me tell you, those discussion about whether there is a God, what he would be like and what he would want from people are often quite worthwhile, and even inspiring. One can learn quite a lot from other people's conceptions of the divine and the sacred, even if there is never much of an agreement.

 

[no-body]

Sorry, but I'm not Baha'i, therefore I don't believe any of this to be true. You know that lots of Muslim scholars have refuted such thing, right?

You do know a lot of Christian scholars have refuted the Koran, right?

I love the hypocrisy of you mentioning subjectivity and then not applying it to yourself, as if your beliefs are personally and objectively from God.

Pot meet kettle.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Not easily, that much is certain. But in these matters being right is not as important as being true.

How exactly is being right different from being true?

And let me tell you, those discussion about whether there is a God, what he would be like and what he would want from people are often quite worthwhile, and even inspiring. One can learn quite a lot from other people's conceptions of the divine and the sacred, even if there is never much of an agreement.

And how is this relevant to the discussion at hand?

You do know a lot of Christian scholars have refuted the Koran, right?

I love the hypocrisy of you mentioning subjectivity and then not applying it to yourself, as if your beliefs are personally and objectively from God.

Pot meet kettle.

Oh wow. No need for the hostility. Anyway, if those Christian scholars you speak of had any strong evidence to back up their claims, you would have heard more about them, but it happens that you don't. And when I'm saying that Muslim scholars have refuted such claims, how am I being biased and/or subjective?

 

[839311]

We all know that Muhammad (PBUH) was an unlettered man. If he wasn't actually a prophet, then where did the Qur'an come from?

In part he had scribbes write what he was saying, who sometimes offered their own choice of words, which Muhammad accepted. Giving it a poetic spin isn't hard to do. Poetry is practically within anyones grasp. I've read the Koran, and am unimpressed to say the least. Some of it is more or less plagiarised from the bible. Much of it is brutal and terrifying. Many of the laws are primitive by modern standards, and the punishments are simply barbaric.

 

[Debater Slayer]

In part he had scribbes write what he was saying, who sometimes offered their own choice of words, which Muhammad accepted.

No one ever gave him advice pertaining the choice of words to be written; they just wrote what he dictated to them.

Giving it a poetic spin isn't hard to do. Poetry is practically within anyones grasp.

Actually, it is hard and poetry can't be within anyone's grasp, or else we'd all have been able to write poems which is not the case.

I've read the Koran, and am unimpressed to say the least.

Which language have you read it in?

Some of it is more or less plagiarised from the bible.

Some concepts are the same because Muslims hold that the Torah and the Bible were also divinely revealed to Moses and Jesus respectively by God, but then were corrupted and had their content changed over time, so it's natural that you'd find many similarities.

Much of it is brutal and terrifying. Many of the laws are primitive by modern standards, and the punishments are simply barbaric.

There are conditions that govern the enforcement and execution of Islamic laws. You can't just chop a thief's hand off or stone a woman as simply as you might like to think.

 

[no-body]

Oh wow. No need for the hostility. Anyway, if those Christian scholars you speak of had any strong evidence to back up their claims, you would have heard more about them, but it happens that you don't. And when I'm saying that Muslim scholars have refuted such claims, how am I being biased and/or subjective?

I've never heard of these Muslims scholars you speak of either, except in very obscure you tube videos that Muslims occasionally post.

No hostility, just the frustration at your supposed mission to spread debate when it's just you stating your personal beliefs as rhetoric with nothing substantial to back it up.

 

[LuisDantas]

How exactly is being right different from being true?

People can be true to themselves, and to their desire of leading honest actions and beliefs, including the desire of learning if they end up being wrong.

People can't very well know if they are right on many abstract, complex or important matters, however. The existence and will of God definitely included. They may bet on being right and they may even be passionate or quite firm about that. But ultimately, they just don't know - and it is unhealthy to pretend otherwise.

And how is this relevant to the discussion at hand?

Because the premise of the OP is that it doesn't happen.

For Mohammed to be a prophet and for the Qur'an to be the word of God, it must be possible to have a text that is so radically inspired that it equals and probably surpasses the potential for constructive religious inspiration that can be attained without it. The Qur'an is quite dogmatic in nature, and it doesn't do much to encourage people to reach their own conclusions and their own religious wisdom.

While I can see how many people find that confortable in a way, it is quite a loss in disguise.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Sorry, but I'm not Baha'i, therefore I don't believe any of this to be true.

I know you are not a Baha'i and you do not believe. But Millions of Baha'is believe.
But the point is that the Bab and Baha'u'llah revealed much much more than the volume of Quran, and the verses are similar to Quran. Infact Baha'u'llah revealed many Surahs. Have you read any of them?

If you don't believe in Baha'u'llah, then where did His Books come from? Where did Aghdas or Iqan come from?

You know that lots of Muslim scholars have refuted such thing, right?

Don’t forget that the Muslim scholars are not God, they are human beings and can make mistake. We should only put our trust in God, not the scholars or leaders, you know that? If we put our trust, in anyone besides God, such as scholars, that is partnership with God. Right?
Quran teaches that don't just follow your leaders, or your forefathers, but you should investigate the truth yourself, while you put your trust in God. right?

 

[YmirGF]

I will assume that you are aware of the fact that there were many non-Muslim poets at the time.

Yes. And... so...

I'm completely aware of this fact, but how does the order of the verses affect anything? Also, the arrangement of the verses inside every Sura is the same, what's different is the order of the Sura's themselves.

(I'll just assume that you have never attempted to read the Qur'an in chronological order. Do that and come back and tell me it still reads great.)

You had Genghis Khan who was nothing short of brilliant in all of these aspects, but he couldn't come up anything even remotely similar to the Qur'an.

No, actually "you" had ol' Genghis. He became a Muslim, remember?

I have already mentioned that there are lots of non-Muslim poets who can be used as judges and set the criteria too.

Are you seriously suggesting that Muslims would actually agree with what non-Muslims thought on the matter? Seriously? Oh, come now.

Now you're talking about extremists, who are substantially different from moderate Muslims.

In their methods, perhaps.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Sorry, but I'm not Baha'i, therefore I don't believe any of this to be true. You know that lots of Muslim scholars have refuted such thing, right?

Hi, DebaterSlater. I am not a Muslim, so I don't believe any of your claims about the Quran being a special book.

But I am willing to be convinced. Why should I believe you about the Quran?

No one. No one should judge God based on their own values and principles.

No true God would send His words to us in physical form. That would lead us into confusion.

According to your own values and principles, am I wrong about this?

 

[McBell]

No one. No one should judge God based on their own values and principles.

Whose values and principles should be used?
Gods?
He still fails...

 

[Debater Slayer]

I know you are not a Baha'i and you do not believe. But Millions of Baha'is believe.
But the point is that the Bab and Baha'u'llah revealed much much more than the volume of Quran, and the verses are similar to Quran. Infact Baha'u'llah revealed many Surahs. Have you read any of them?

If you don't believe in Baha'u'llah, then where did His Books come from? Where did Aghdas or Iqan come from?

This discussion falls within Islamic beliefs, so I won't be able to engage in it now. But to answer your question, they don't have to be from God unless there is strong evidence implying they are.

Don’t forget that the Muslim scholars are not God, they are human beings and can make mistake. We should only put our trust in God, not the scholars or leaders, you know that? If we put our trust, in anyone besides God, such as scholars, that is partnership with God. Right?

Sure, that's why I also don't believe any of those scholars unless they back up their claims with strong evidence.

Quran teaches that don't just follow your leaders, or your forefathers, but you should investigate the truth yourself, while you put your trust in God. right?

Right, and that's exactly what I have always said.

Yes. And... so...

...And so what?

(I'll just assume that you have never attempted to read the Qur'an in chronological order. Do that and come back and tell me it still reads great.)

Please don't make me reiterate this again; which language have you read it in?

No, actually "you" had ol' Genghis. He became a Muslim, remember?

Sorry, but I don't get the metaphor here.

Are you seriously suggesting that Muslims would actually agree with what non-Muslims thought on the matter? Seriously? Oh, come now.

As a Muslim, if an unbiased and objective judge actually determined that a book is better than the Qur'an poetically, I would seriously consider his judgement, but it just happens that no one has ever said that.

In their methods, perhaps.

You can change that to include rate of tolerance too.

Hi, DebaterSlater. I am not a Muslim, so I don't believe any of your claims about the Quran being a special book.

I thought that was pretty obvious to be honest, but wait...

But I am willing to be convinced.

...That's what I was talking about; if there's sufficient evidence supporting any religion/belief it would surely convince me.

Why should I believe you about the Quran?

There are scientific insights in there, but that's not the subject of the thread. If we discard that for now, we're left with the fact that many of Muhammad's prophecies have been already fulfilled.

No true God would send His words to us in physical form. That would lead us into confusion.

That would lead you to confusion, but it happens that it doesn't in the case of the hundreds of millions of Muslims.

According to your own values and principles, am I wrong about this?

Well, looking at how millions of people don't have the slightest problem in this regard, I would assume that you're wrong not according to my own values
and principles, but rather according to real world statistics.

Whose values and principles should be used?
God's?

No. We don't need to use anyone's anything because, why should we judge God to begin with?

 

[McBell]

No. We don't need to use anyone's anything because, why should we judge God to begin with?

To determine his worthiness of worship.

 

[LuisDantas]

As Mestemia said.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

That's what I was talking about; if there's sufficient evidence supporting any religion/belief it would surely convince me.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. If you have sufficient evidence that the Quran is a special book, it would convince me. Do you have any evidence like that?

There are scientific insights in there, but that's not the subject of the thread. If we discard that for now, we're left with the fact that many of Muhammad's prophecies have been already fulfilled.

I don't know of any prophecies by Muhammad which have been fulfilled, but if you have evidence of that, I'll be glad to examine it.

That would lead you to confusion, but it happens that it doesn't in the case of the hundreds of millions of Muslims.

The 911 guys were apparently confused by the words of the Quran. I think the more literally we take God's Words, the more confused we will be. Liberal Muslims don't seem so confused as conservative or literalist Muslims -- just as it is with other religions which follow Holy Words. That's how it seems to me, anyway.

 

[YmirGF]

To determine his worthiness of worship.

How insolent of you. You dare imply that mere mortals have the capacity to judge god? Shouldn't you be cowering under a rock 'lest you be smote to a cinder?

 

[YmirGF]

...And so what?

and so the point becomes lost, son, much like the idea that every person in Arabia considered Muhammad's poetry to be the best thing since the Kabbah. Given that we only have the commentaries of Muslims to go by doesn't bode well for any thoughts to the contrary.

Please don't make me reiterate this again; which language have you read it in?

English. Oh wait, that nullifies my argument, I suppose.

Sorry, but I don't get the metaphor here.

Oh never mind, it doesn't sound like you are a particularly serious or skilled debater anyway.

As a Muslim, if an unbiased and objective judge actually determined that a book is better than the Qur'an poetically, I would seriously consider his judgement, but it just happens that no one has ever said that.

I simply do not believe you. Given your insistence on the wondrous nature of the Qur'an in Arabic, it follows that any attempts to imitate the Qur'an would also have to be done in Arabic. No doubt you would be inclined to move the goal posts in a heartbeat if anyone came close.

You can change that to include rate of tolerance too.

True, however, the point is that both "extremist" and "moderate" Muslims still cow tow to the same ideology.

There are scientific insights in there, but that's not the subject of the thread. If we discard that for now, we're left with the fact that many of Muhammad's prophecies have been already fulfilled.

Actually there is precious little in the pages of the Qur'an that qualifies as a "scientific insight" but that doesn't seem to stop many Muslims from chanting tired canard. I wonder why only Muslims find their arguments persuasive? What's with that?

 

[England my lionheart]

Debaterslater,some Muslims make a big deal out of Muhammeds literacy and the poetic beauty of the Qur'an but when one looks at the bigger picture of the time like people events and culture we see that poetry was a big thing in those days,even the one thousand and one nights (The Arabian nights) a collection of pre Islam folk tales were perfect for a good orator,so after taking the above and other things into consideration i reached the conclusion that the Qur'an was authored by a Human.







Quote:
Originally Posted by England my lionheart
there were great poets before Muhammed Imru al Qais bin Hujr al Kindi for example,some say Muhammed used some of his material.

Keyword right there. Some just doesn't mean anything.