No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

  Of course, even if the Quran were perfectly preserved, that is not necessarily a miracle. Many texts have been unchanged throughout the ages. But given the abrogation of its text, the missing sections, the portions that had been forgotten, and the controlled destruction of all variants, an objective investigator is forced to ask, “In what way is the preservation of the Quran miraculous?”

  CONCLUDING THE RESPONSE TO THE POSITIVE CASE

  The arguments for the divine inspiration of the Quran all prove unconvincing when we begin to dig beneath the surface. The literary excellence of the Quran proves to be untestable, subjective, and non-sequitur; the prophecies of the Quran are not compelling; the science of the Quran is actually problematic; the numerical patterns are often distorted data combined with exaggerated interpretations; and the Quran has not been preserved in any miraculous sense.

  Because there is no compelling argument, there is no reason to accept the Quran as the Word of God.

  CHAPTER 39

  ASSESSING THE RESPONSE

  WHAT KIND OF BOOK IS THE QURAN?

  When assessing these counterarguments as a Muslim, my immediate response was to bring more evidence to the table, and to provide more examples of fulfilled prophecies and more examples of miraculously scientific knowledge. We had heard dozens of such examples at the mosques throughout our lives. Surely if the first few examples were not convincing, then one of the many others would compel.

  It took months of bringing example after example to the table before I finally realized that, indeed, they all succumb to the same basic critiques.

  It was a different process altogether when I came to learn about the history of the Quranic text. In that case, it was not a series of examples that was called into question, but a foundational narrative of my Muslim faith. We had learned from everyone, not just imams in the mosque but our parents and elders and books that we had read, that the Quran was absolutely perfect in its transmission. Muhammad had relayed it to his scribes, the scribes had written it down and memorized it, the Muslim people treasured it in their hearts and recited it regularly during the prayers, and it was readily written down and preserved. All copies today are exactly the same.

  That is what we had been told. But as I read Sahih Bukhari, specifically the book titled The Virtues of the Quran, it became clear to me that a great deal of the evidence had been left out of the narrative I inherited.

  The truth about the Quranic text and its history is shocking to Muslims when I share it with them today, but it is well documented. Arabic writing was far from perfected during the time of Muhammad, which is why there was no such thing as a written Arabic book.1 When initially writing the text of the Quran, letters and vowel markings were still being standardized, which led to confusion. For these reasons, what the scribes wrote were memory aids for the oral text. This is actually a fairly uncontroversial fact even among Muslim Quran scholars.

  What is controversial is the result of this: The text of the Quran was fluid during the time of Muhammad. He would recite the same verse multiple ways, saying he could do so up to seven ways.2 If at any point a text needed to be canceled, it could simply be abrogated and replaced with another text. Since the text of the Quran was not seen as a written text, this caused little problem: All that was required was to stop reciting certain verses and to “forget” what had been revealed.3

  An advantage of a written text is that clear boundaries must be delineated; the book starts with a certain verse and ends with a certain verse. With an oral text that is being recited in portions, repeated in different ways, abrogated at times, and never publicly read in full from start to finish, it is difficult to determine what the exact contents are. For this reason, when the Quran was finally written down, there were many disagreements about its canon. We have already seen that the final version of the Quran was problematic to Ubay, who said portions were missing, and Ubay was one of the best teachers of the Quran. According to early Islamic sources, Ubay had two chapters at the end of his Quran that are not in the modern Quran: surat al-Hafd and surat al-Khal.4 Ubay was not alone in including these chapters, as at least two other companions of Muhammad believed them to be a part of the Quran.5

  But Ubay was not the best teacher of the Quran. When giving a list of the four best teachers of the Quran, Muhammad named Abdullah ibn Masud first.6 He disagreed with Ubay, saying that Ubay’s final two chapters were divine revealed prayers, not scripture. On that very same basis, though, he disagreed with the modern Quran, insisting that sura 1 as well as suras 113 and 114 are divinely revealed prayers, not portions of the Quran. He left them out of his final version, limiting his canon to 111 suras.7

  Today’s Quran, which was not put together by one of the teachers Muhammad named, is but one of multiple Quranic canons, the one that received official approval by the caliphate and became the standard text when the rest were burned.

  When that happened, the Quran went from a primarily oral text to a primarily written text, and what was recited from memory before was read from a page now. The Arabic script, unperfected as yet, needed to be standardized and finalized. The Quran is what drove the development of this standard Arabic script.

  Three hundred years after Muhammad died, Arabic script had been more or less standardized, so a scholar with significant authority, Ibn Mujahid, ordered that all but seven different readings be made illegal. Some of his elders disagreed with him, as they had been reading the Quran from their childhood in a reading that was now deemed illegal, and they continued reading the Quran the way they always had. One of these, Ibn Shanabudh, was beaten until he publicly recanted.8 This is how the proliferation of different Quranic readings was controlled.

  However, those seven readings each proliferated once more as they were read according to different receivers, until around 1924, when the Muslim world produced its first Arabic Quran. The Royal Cairo Edition picked one of eighty readings for mass production, the reading of Hafs according to Asim; and this is the Quran that most of the world knows today. Some of the Muslim world, however, still has Qurans according to other readings, such as the reading of Warsh according to Nafi. There are some significant differences in meaning between these Qurans, but the vast majority are insignificant—usually just differences in vocalization. Regardless, few Muslims realize that only one hundred years before, there were about eighty different readings of the Quran in the Muslim world, and that there are significant differences in Qurans even today.

  That is the true history of the Quran, not at all what we had been told by our elders and at mosques. The Quran started as an oral text, was transformed into a written text that was not unanimously agreed upon, and has been shaped and crafted by human authority even into the twentieth century.

  The Quran’s textual transmission is pockmarked by human artifice and intervention, and none of the other arguments for the Quran’s inspiration bear the weight of scrutiny. Truly, there is no argument that compels the objective investigator into believing that the Quran is divinely inspired.

  CHAPTER 40

  CONCLUSION

  THERE IS NO COMPELLING REASON TO THINK THE QURAN IS THE WORD OF GOD

  As I studied each of the arguments for the Quran’s inspiration, a pattern became clear: I could find reason enough to defend my faith in the Quran, but it was beyond doubt that not a single one of the arguments could stand on its own merit and compel a careful investigator who did not already believe Islam.

  Could I continue believing the Quran was literarily excellent beyond any other book? Of course I could, dismissing assessments like that of my friend Mike or the scholar Gerd Puin. Could I believe that the Quran has miraculous prophetic knowledge? Yes, I could find such knowledge in the text, even if it was not apparent to others. Could I believe the Quran was miraculously preserved? Yes, I could assume that Allah had guided the Quran in all its shaping and evolving to keep it true to its original text.

  But not a single one of the arguments is compelling to an objective investigator.
The Quran cannot be used as miraculous proof to convince someone who has carefully scrutinized the evidence.

  And that was me: someone who wanted to believe in the inspiration of the Quran but would do so only if the evidence was strong. After carefully considering the five most common arguments, I saw that, far from being so strong that they can vindicate the faith, they actually need to be vindicated by faith.

  CONCLUSION TO QUESTION 2

  ISLAM OR CHRISTIANITY? THE EVIDENCE IS CLEAR

  ASSESSING THE CASE FOR ISLAM AND ITS EFFORTS TO ACCOUNT FOR ISLAMIC ORIGINS

  To be a Muslim, one must confess the shahada: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” The best way to assess the truth of the shahada is by investigating the prophetic status of Muhammad and the claim that Allah inspired the Quran. Even though my heart’s deepest desire was to defend the Islamic faith and remain Muslim, the truth became unavoidable: There was no argument I could use to defend Muhammad’s prophetic status, and there was no compelling reason to think the Quran was from God.

  Once again, it was not just that history did not support the traditional narratives of Islam, but rather that history proved to be entirely incompatible with Islamic origins. When using the same standards to assess the origins of Islam as are used to assess the origins of Christianity, we find a gaping hole in the historical record. The contemporary records of the mid-seventh-century Arabs, supposedly the very earliest Muslims after Muhammad’s time, show that they were not referred to as Muslims and that they never referred to their holy book, never mentioned Muhammad’s name, never referred to Mecca, and did not pray toward Mecca. Given the vast array of records from that time, especially those of the many nations conquered by Arabs, this is not an argument from silence. The contemporary historical record is simply incompatible with the traditional narrative of Islam.

  Similarly, the history of the Quran is incompatible with the narrative we were taught as Muslims. We had been told that the Quran had never been changed, every letter remaining exactly the same from Muhammad’s time until today. On the contrary, the Quran had been fundamentally altered, being very fluid originally as an oral text and then evolving into a written text that remained in various degrees of flux even to this day.

  The traditional Islamic narratives of Muhammad and the Quran are fundamentally incompatible with the historical records. These are the pillars of Islamic confidence, and their foundations are ungrounded.

  This meant that if I wanted to remain Muslim, I would have to do so based on some reason other than objective truth. I could remain Muslim because I liked the Islamic message, because I desired the discipline of sharia, or because I just wanted to keep my family happy.

  But if there was one thing Islam had taught me, it was that I must submit to God and not to man. That meant following the truth, no matter where it led.

  Of course, the very reason I had been investigating the case for Islam was to respond to the case for Christianity. Now I had explored every recourse, and I had to be honest with myself and assess for the last time the case for Christianity and the case for Islam.

  THE EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY OVER ISLAM

  After thoroughly investigating the truth claims of Islam and Christianity, even while a Muslim, there was no avoiding the obvious truth: The evidence in favor of Christianity was far, far stronger than the evidence for Islam.

  The three core claims of Christianity, that Jesus died by crucifixion and rose from the dead proving he was God, are very firmly grounded in history. Even though Islam denies these points, I concluded that the historical evidence for Jesus’ death on the cross was as strong as anything historical could be, that his resurrection from the dead was by far the best explanation of the facts surrounding his crucifixion, and that his claiming to be God was the best way to account for the proclamation of the early church.

  These conclusions were not idiosyncratic but were based on the consensus of scholars across the theological spectrum.1 In other words, the truth of the Christian message makes the most sense of the historical evidence.

  By contrast, neither of the core truth claims of Islam, that Muhammad is a prophet and that the Quran is the Word of God, are compelling. Muhammad’s character does not make one think he was a man chosen by God, nor was he prophesied in the Bible. He had no miraculous scientific insights either recorded in hadith or in the Quran. The Quran, for that matter, cannot be shown to be inspired by its literary quality, by fulfilled prophecies, by mathematical patterns, or by miraculous preservation.

  The traditional Islamic narrative is incompatible with both the history of Christianity and even with its own historical records. To believe in the Islamic account of Christian origins while taking the historical records seriously, we would have to conclude that Jesus was an utterly incompetent Messiah and Allah is a deceptive God. The historical record of Islamic origins makes many scholars wonder whether Muhammad existed, and it makes scholars think the Quran was originally far more fluid and indeed a very different kind of book than it is today.

  The Islamic narratives of Christian origins, and even of Islamic origins, are incompatible with history. In other words, to believe the truth of Islam is to ignore the historical evidence.

  As a Muslim, I wanted to base my beliefs not on blind faith, not on what appealed to me, and not even on my family’s heritage. I wanted to ground my faith in reality. If I wanted to take the records of history seriously, I had to abandon my Islamic faith and accept the gospel.

  But that would come at a tremendous cost, essentially everything I had ever known. Is it worth sacrificing everything for the truth? Is the truth worth dying for?

  CONCLUSION

  IS THE TRUTH WORTH DYING FOR?

  Leaving Islam can cost you everything: family, friends, job, everything you have ever known, and maybe even life itself. Is it really worth sacrificing everything for the truth? The answer is simple: It depends on the value of the truth.

  When we consider the gospel, we find the deep secrets of the world unfolded. We find a triune God because of whom love is eternal and absolute, who did not need the world but created it out of an overflow of his love. In him, Yahweh, we have the Father who loves us unconditionally, who offers us extravagant grace, who runs to us when we turn to him, who makes us with a purpose and orchestrates all things for the good of those who love him. In Yahweh we find the Son who is willing to shoulder our pains, who leads us in exemplary humility by suffering for us, makes our burdens light, and forges a way for us to live life to the full even though we die. In Yahweh we receive the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, who fills us with grace, transforms our hearts, renews our minds, and sends us into the world as God’s hands and feet to serve others as he served us. The gospel is the answer to our individual pains, to the world’s sufferings, and to life’s mysteries.

  There is no God but one, and he is Father, Spirit, and Son. There is no God but one, and he is Jesus.

  It is worth all suffering to receive this truth and follow him. God is more beautiful than this life itself, and the one who loves him is ready to die when death comes, not just to glorify him but to hasten to his arms. Though we will die, we will live.

  Sara Fatima al-Mutairi knew this when her brother locked her in her room. She knew that there was a great difference between the way of Muhammad and the way of the Messiah, and she was confident of the gospel’s truth. She chose not to repent for her faith in Christ.

  On August 12, 2008, a story in the Saudi newspaper Al-Akhdood appeared with this title: “A member of Al-Hasba assassinates his sister over her conversion to Christianity.” The article shares these details: “A Saudi citizen working for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in the Eastern Province killed his sister for allegedly converting to the Christian religion. According to sources close to the victim, the murderer attacked the girl by burning her and cutting her tongue.”

  Our sister, twenty-six-year-old Sara Fatima, was certain of the grace of o
ur God, that it was worth giving up everything to have him. She chose Jesus over this life.

  It turns out, she did not spend her last minutes reconsidering her faith. Instead, her heart was overwhelmed with anguish for Muslims. In the final moments before her brother returned to take her life, she posted a poem online.1 Though he cut out her tongue and took her life, her living voice reaches us now. Here are the words that Sara Fatima left this world:

  My tears are on my cheek and, Oh! the heart is sad.

  On those who become Christians, how you are so cruel!

  The Messiah says: “blessed are all the persecuted”

  And we, for the sake of the Messiah bear all things.

  What is it to you that we are apostates?

  You will not enter our graves or be buried with us.

  Enough, your swords do not matter to me at all!

  Your threats do not concern me, and we are not afraid.

  By God, I am to death a Christian!

  O, my eye, cry for what has passed as a sad life,

  For I was far from the Lord Jesus for many years.

  O history, record! And bear witness, O witnesses!

  We are Christians walking on the path of the Messiah.

  Take from me this knowledge and note it well!

  Jesus is my Lord, and he is the best protector.

  I advise you to pity your state of being