Islam for Non-Muslims
- RELIGIOUS FAITHS VS IRRELIGIOUS IDEAS
- ISLAM AS A RELIGION
- ISLAM AS A WAY OF LIFE
The Quran as the Original Divine Book
17: THE QURAN AS THE ORIGINAL DIVINE BOOK
Introduction: The Quran is the holy Book of Islam. Originating from God, it not only marks some basic differences from any human publications but also its features set itself apart from other divine Books. God, the Author of all divine Books labeled the Quran as the most qualitative or "Mother of the Books" while also praising it as “honorable” and “blessing” (13:39; 56:77; 12:111). Now follow some details that establish that the Quran is not only a Book exclusively from God but also bears uniqueness among the divine Books.
(A) Most Authentic Book Only from God:
The Quran is the genuine divine Book as “the whole of it is from our Lord, without any trace of doubt” (3:7; 32:2). The following analysis logically proves that it was “not a tale invented” by any man including the Prophet or any other beings (12:111).
(1) Not Created By the Prophet: Arguments
(i) Illiterate: The Prophet was an “illiterate person” in every sense of word (7:157). No one ever saw him to “recite a Book before this, nor transcribe it with (his) right hand” (29:48). So it was quite impossible for an illiterate man like him to compose a classical literature like the Quran.
(ii) Not Poet: The Prophet was not only deficient in literacy, but was also devoid of any background in “poetic” genius (36:69). It was therefore quite impossible for him to compose the rhythmical masterpiece like Quran. “It is not the word of a poet”, as was confirmed by God (69:41).
(iii) Different Styles: The Prophet’s speech in the Hadith features a humble tone and ordinary prosy style. But God spoke in the Quran in a majestic but firm tone and in a poetic and abbreviated language style. This remarkable difference in the tone and style of the language of God and His Prophet strongly suggests the divinity of the Quran.
(iv) Truthfulness: The Prophet had such a strong record of truthfulness that was not only testified by God as being on “straight path” (36:4), but was also admitted by his bitter enemies, leading to his title ‘Al-Amin’ or Trustworthy. It was therefore totally incompatible for him to have made the Quran and falsely named God as its author.
(v) No credit: It is a normal human nature to claim full credit for own achievement. If the Prophet authored the Quran, then why did he not himself desire credit for that?
(vi) Self-Warning? In many verses, God gave warnings to the Prophet. For example, He said if “the Messenger invented any sayings in (My) name, I would certainly seize him by his right hand” and “cut off the artery of his heart” (69:44/45/46). He also warned him with the “penalty of a Mighty day” for any disloyalty (39:13). If the Prophet himself produced the Quran, then why would he give warning to himself?
(vii) Low Profile: If the Prophet authored the Quran, then why would he mention less about his own matters contrasting with normal human nature? For example, the Quran named him only 4 times while citations were made many more times for Moses (about 135 times), Abraham (about 70 times), Jesus (25 times) by name, as some examples. Likewise, it lavishly praises Mary (70 times), the mother of Jesus but never mentioned names of his dearest daughter Fatima, or beloved wives Khadija or Ayesha.
(2) Not by Any Other Men: Arguments
(i) No Human Claimant: No human being has ever claimed authorship of the Quran. The followers of the Prophet, making up his immediate human environment, were the eye witnesses to how Gabriel, the Angel of God sometimes taking the form his handsome disciple Dehiya Kalbi and revealed the text of Quran directly to him. Thus circumstantial evidences never favored any corrupt attempt by anyone making false claim to Quranic authorship. Nor do we know if that ever actually happened, historically speaking.
(ii) Unbeaten Divine Challenge: The Quran is an extraordinary literary work, without any mistakes therein. God affirmed that the Quran is not something that “can be produced by anyone other than God” and challenged to “produce a chapter like this; of a surety you cannot” (10:37; 2:23/24). Then Mr. Labid, the best poetic genius of that time, took up this divine challenge. He put in his best efforts, but failed to produce even a single sentence comparable to the smallest chapter ‘kauthar’. Upon realization that the Quran was divine rather than human, he ended up embracing Islam.
(iii) Difference in Style: The Quran, originating from God, represents His own unique commanding style. He sent down the contents of Quran, piece by piece, at different times and, “by stages” (76:23). Accordingly, you will find the Quran as “repetitive”, without focusing on organization or sequencing (39:23). This contrasts with typical academic writing style such as a classroom essay begins with introduction, then body paragraphs and finally a conclusion, by avoiding repetition, and organizing contents and so on.
(iv) No Discrepancy: If the Quran were written by men, then there could be many co-authors with “much discrepancy” (4:82) with numerous versions. Only one and uniform Book Quran speaks loud and clear for the reality of its single Author, that is, God.
(3) Not by Any Celestial Beings: Arguments
During the Prophet’s time, occasional visibility of the Angel Gabriel while ferrying revelations might be a cause for some suspicion about his role in authoring the Quran. But this does not sit well with the fact that all the Angels were absolutely sinless and truthful with zero chance for them to have invented it in God's name. Among the members of non-human community, there are no other possible candidates including the ‘jinns’ or “evil ones” who could “produce the like of this Quran” (17:88; 26:210).
Since among the creations of God, there is none with the power to create the Quran and there has never been any claimant of its authorship except God, so it is a logical conclusion that the Quran originated exclusively from God.
(B) Different from Other Divine Books:
As a divine Book, the Quran sets itself apart from other Books, as appears from below:
(i) Final Testament: Islam is the last in the series of religions from God and the Quran is the last among the scriptures. Of the three major monotheistic Books, Torah (Old Testament) was sent down on Moses of Judaism and the New Testament portion of the Bible was on Jesus of Christianity. Finally, God delivered His concluding (Quranic) revelations to His last Prophet of Islam which reasonably may be considered as the Final Testament.
(ii) Direct Recorded Speech of God: Every letter, word and sentence of the Quran came directly from God, sent down through Angel Gabriel and accurately recorded under supervision of the Prophet. The Quran is therefore very much like exact audiotaped messages of God, without slightest mix-up in the form of opinion or interpretation of the Prophet. By contrast, the revelations of other divine Books even though came through the same Angel Gabriel but different method was applied for preservation as these were recorded as divine Books by the disciples of the concerned prophets long after their death. As a result, while there has been only one genuine version of the Quran, there had been numerous versions for other holy Books. For example, a born Christian scholar Bucaille observed about the Bible “how successive versions of the texts showed a lack of definite authenticity and moreover their authors were not eyewitnesses (page 127)”.
(iii) Unchanged since Day One: Unlike other holy Books, the Quran was never changed and today it is exactly what it was at the time of its first revelation. This is why, any copy of the Quran found at any part of the today’s world is identical with the 7th century Quran still preserved at the museum of Istanbul (Turkey) and national library of Tashkent (Uzbekistan). Alternatively, you also can verify the original purity of the Quran by checking on the recitations from memory of countless memorizers (hafiz) of the entire Quran. These are practical consequences of God’s commitment “No one can alter the words of God (Quran)” which is “guarded (by God) in safety” (6:34; 5:48).
(iv) Most Comprehensive Holy Book: The Quran is exceptionally the most comprehensive holy Book that covers almost every aspect of human life--moral, social, educational, judicial, political, economic, international and so on. Particularly its moral codes won praise of world class publications like Encyclopedia Britannica. Moreover, being the latest in the series of divine Books, it naturally embodies many modern and progressive elements not often found in other relatively ancient holy Books.
(v) Source of Reliable Knowledge: The Quran is a Book “full of wisdom” about facts of the past, present and future of mankind (36:2). It is because it came from "the Wisest and All-knowing" God Who knows all those “hasten forward and lag behind” (27:6; 15:24). He partially released such information in the Quran: some as confirmation of earlier revelations (10:37) and others as absolutely new and unknown to the people of that time. Since the Quranic facts were never compromised and they were “consistent” (39:23), they always pointed to the right directions such as through revelation of accurate heliocentric (sun-centric) theory instead of Biblical geocentric (earth-centric) theory. Another Quranic disclosure that amazed the scientific world not excluding French scientist Bucaille is its photographic account of human reproductive stages in mother’s womb (23:14) about 13 centuries before invention of x-ray in 1895. Some Quranic revelations looked “mysterious” (33:34; 3:7) and needed Prophet's help for understanding its “hidden meanings” (3:7) and many still continue to be puzzling.
(C) Miraculous Properties Make Quran Exceptional: The Quran bears some miraculous signs that link to God, as described below.
(i) Emotional Tears: If you recite the Quran with due respect even without grasping its meaning, it may fill you with a deep sense of piety. This can move you to the extent of trembling your “skins”, “softening of hearts” and causing emotional
“tears (when you) fall down on (your) faces” in prostration, adding up your humility and spiritual pleasure (39:23; 17:109). The same never happens when you do recitation of a melodious song or rhythmic poem composed by a human being, highlighting a clear contrast.
(ii) Easy Memorization: As another miracle, the Quran can be memorized more easily, quickly and durably than other books, for God made it "easier to understand and remember" (54:17). As a result, across the Muslim world there are millions of memorizers or ‘hafiz’ (about 10 million in one estimate) of the entire Quran which may not be found for any other holy or secular books of such gigantic volume.
(iii) Healing Effects: Similarly, the verses of the Quran miraculously may exert "healing" effect upon your body and mind through “satisfaction” of hearts (41:44; 13:28). This mode of therapy complements to modern medical treatment and is more effective for certain types of ailments like depression, evil obsession etc.
(iv) Mistake-Proof: Another miracle of the Quran is its total freedom from grammatical or factual mistakes down to the level of letter or even punctuation, consistent with God’s claim that “no falsehood can approach it” (41:42). This was quite unusual at a time when there were no devices like computer based spelling check programs etc.
(v) Power of Guidance: We know about handful of famous books authored by world class philosophers and scholars like ‘Politics’ of Aristotle, ‘Republic’ of Plato, ‘Principia’ by Newton etc. However, none of these books specifically focused on guiding human beharior. Instead some books (like ‘Prince’ of Machiavelli, ‘The Communist Manifesto’ by Marx, ‘The Origin of Species’ by Darwin) did misguide and harm people with their imperfect or biased ideas.
By contrast, the Quran has been laser-focused on guiding people toward righteousness, building their character and turning them into good citizens. Roughly speaking, an estimated 1% of the pages of Quran deal with prayer rituals and 99% with humanity and morality. It is therefore rightly designated as the “Light guiding to the Straight Path” and a “sure Guidance” for those “who fear God” and approach it with an open heart and unprejudiced mind (5:16; 2:2). Thanks to its miraculous power of attraction, when you read it piously or listen to it attentively, you will often “feel thrill or tremor in your heart” with “faith strengthened” (8:2). This reality can be concretely measured by (i) continuous waves of conversion to Islam under Quranic influence and (ii) amazing expansion of Islam in a relatively short period of the Prophet’s lifetime, with the Quran being the philosophical basis.
Conclusion: It appears from the above that the Quran as a divine Book has some unique features that set it apart from any other books: human or divine.