Where Did The Qur'an Come From?

[Markxxx]

Assuming that the Qur'an wasn't a product of Allah, where did it come from?

It seems to me, that would mean Muhammed made it up from scratch and dictated it or he got the story ideas from other sources floating around at the time.

I tried googling this but all I get too much religious clutter, when I'm trying to find out, more factual information about what the stories were based on.

Thanks

[Chronos]

No author has ever written anything from scratch. Everyone gets ideas from other sources floating around at the time. If Mohamed wrote the Qur'an himself, then this is as true of him as of anyone else.

As for the influences, they would certainly include the Jewish and Christian scriptures at the very least. Nobody would deny that the three religions are fairly closely linked, though of course there are differing explanations for the nature of the links.

[John Mace]

No author has ever written anything from scratch. Everyone gets ideas from other sources floating around at the time. If Mohamed wrote the Qur'an himself, then this is as true of him as of anyone else.

We know that didn't happen, since Mohammad was illiterate.

[Meatros]

We know that didn't happen, since Mohammad was illiterate.

Perhaps he dictated it to someone, much like Joseph Smith.

Also, I'm not convinced we *know* Mohammad was illiterate. I freely confess I haven't done a lot of research (and consequently could be speaking right from my rump) but it seems to me this claim could be easily made - even if it weren't true.

So, I'll ask, what do you mean we know Mohammad was illiterate?

[Little Nemo]

As I see it, there are four possibilities:

1. Allah revealed it to Muhammad (via the angel Gabriel)
2. Some other supernatural entity, falsely claiming to represent Allah, revealed it to Muhammad
3. Muhammad made it up, consciously or unconsciously
4. Some other person made it up and attributed it to Muhammad

Number one is the standard Muslim belief. Number three would be the standard secular belief.

Number two is for people who believe in supernatural entities but specifically reject Islam. This would include some Christians who feel that Muhammad was deceived by Satan.

Number four is a conspiracy theory. It's hard to believe because there's strong evidence that Muhammad existed as a historical figure and was recognized in his lifetime as the source of the Quran.

As the OP noted, a lot of the content of the Quran is similar to the content of scriptures from previous religions. Muslims don't deny this. Their belief is that these events historically happened and were known to people prior to Muhammad. But the stories about these events became distorted. The Quran was revealed to Muhammad to set the true account down.

[ñañi]

We know that didn't happen, since Mohammad was illiterate.

Well, he was illiterate according to tradition, which developed some years afterward. He is described in the Qur'an as "unlettered" but there is some scholarly debate about what exactly that means in that context. It may refer more broadly to Muhammad coming from a community that did not have the (capital-B) books, or the scriptures. It may also refer to partial illiteracy. There is also a minority tradition among Islamic scholars that he became literate after the Qur'an started to be revealed to him.

Based on what Muhammad did in his early life in business, I would say the odds are he had some sort of practical literacy. Here is an interesting take on the matter (http://askanislamicist.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/could-muhammad-read/). The problem (with this as well as a lot of early Islamic history) is that there is still so much that we just don't know yet. We are still dark on how much literary activity was around Arabia pre-Islam, with more work I'm aware of focusing on the great poets of that time.

Expanding on this a little, there's a kind of annoying trend in popular Islamic discourse that tends to over-exaggerate how primitive society was at that time in order to emphasize the miraculous nature of the Qur'an. This has gone hand in hand with the increasingly popular proliferation of scientific miracles of the Qur'an, which hold that the Qur'an (and also hadith) are full of scientific facts and information that could not have been known at the time of its writing. Popular examples of this concern advanced embryology, mountain formation, the speed of light, etc, all supposedly in the Qur'an. So "How could Muhammad, an illiterate desert man, have made up something as amazing as the Qur'an?" is a way of illustrating simply the doctrine of the inimitability (Ijaz) of the Qur'an. It's a part of the general impulse that motivates the above two trends as well. The extent that it is historically true is still debated.

The trend of finding "scientific miracles" is one that dates pretty closely to the modern era, for obvious reasons, (Classical Muslim scholars tended to emphasize the continuity of the Qur'an with ancient science, though you can see interesting parallels from that time in the transformation of the "splitting of the moon" from an eschatological future sign into a historical miracle) while the "awful backwardness of the world pre-Islam" idea has roots in long-held Islamic ideas of the general enlightening of Arab peoples that took place with the appearance of Islam. Neither trend is necessarily illustrative of Muslim scholarship or consensus at any time, especially the scientific miracles trend. As popular as it is in some circles, I don't know any serious Islamic scholar who would press that point in an academic setting.

Ok, too much. Now to the OP. I previously wrote a long post on the subject here of new scholarly investigations of who wrote the Qur'an (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13630352&postcount=3), and it is still a young field that has a LOT of work to do.

Traditional views of the Qur'an's development (taken from Islamic tradition) that emphasize unitary authorship and a purely Arabic creation context have been challenged a lot recently. Most suras seem to come from the right time and context, but the development of an official canonized Qur'an incorporating some of these fragments of verses has a lot to do with the flowering 200 years after the death of Muhammad of Qur'anic exegesis and Islamic Jurisprudence based on Hadith, which were broadly compiled around this time.

Analyzing verses of the Qur’an has led some scholars to both classify them as serving different functions in a proto-Islamic liturgical framework, as well as drawing inspiration from earlier Christian works that were likely written in Syriac-Aramaic.

Where did it come from? I'd say a lot of it was liturgical recitations that developed as a gradually more distinct sect emerged and gained independence, with quite a bit of historical inspiration from diverse sources (Not just Jewish and Christian, but also Persian and from ancient Greek knowledge as well). I'm not sure if borrowing is always the right word, since the Qur'an does understand itself as a text, as a distinct Arabic Qur'an, that is in conversation with texts that came before it like the Bible. But I guess borrowing is fine, I'm blanking on a replacement.

The Qur'an was made to a particular people in a particular place, and we see lots of exhortations to a community concerned with present day events as well, that would have been made on the spot. Leaders after Muhammad, most famously Abu Bakr and Uthman, did much to standardize the Qur'an's form(s), and Islamic jurists a couple of hundred years afterward really made it official, and so we have the Qur'an today, in several different forms, based on different pronunciations of the recitations. (The early Qur'ans were written in a script that did not have vowels, and it was standardized based on the Quraysh (tribe of Muhammad) dialect, but... well, it's a long story. How much difference there is between these different recitations (10 are accepted, plus I think 7 are kind of ok) is something I am totally not qualified to speak on. Here's a thesis on the subject (http://www.scribd.com/doc/21972348/Studies-in-Two-Transmissions-of-the-Qur-an-by-Adrian-Alan-Brockett))

Hope that helps, I can dig out my textbooks if anyone has questions or sees something I got blatantly wrong.

[New Deal Democrat]

Muhammad was illiterate, but he heard stories from the Bible. His knowledge of the Bible is anecdotal. It resembles the knowledge of an adult who has never read the Bible, but who remembers Bible stories from Sunday School.

Although he claimed to be God's greatest prophet, he knows nothing of the writing prophets, like Isiah, and Jeremiah, because concepts are difficult to convey in the oral tradition.

[Tamerlane]

4. Some other person made it up and attributed it to Muhammad

Number four is a conspiracy theory. It's hard to believe because there's strong evidence that Muhammad existed as a historical figure and was recognized in his lifetime as the source of the Quran.

Yes, but it is important to remember that even Muslim tradition acknowledges that it wasn't compiled until after Muhammad's death. While it is extremely likely that there was a historical Muhammad who was the wellspring of the Qur'an, as ñañi points out there is controversy over whether whatever transmission existed was pure. There is definitely room for post-Muhammad accretions, modifications and fudging, especially as the Islamic world was undergoing very rapid change in those early decades.

[BrainGlutton]

Where Did The Qur'an Come From?

I can't seem to find the relevant tract on his website any more, but Jack Chick has conclusively demonstrated that it was drafted in the Vatican.

[Little Nemo]

Yes, but it is important to remember that even Muslim tradition acknowledges that it wasn't compiled until after Muhammad's death. While it is extremely likely that there was a historical Muhammad who was the wellspring of the Qur'an, as ñañi points out there is controversy over whether whatever transmission existed was pure. There is definitely room for post-Muhammad accretions, modifications and fudging, especially as the Islamic world was undergoing very rapid change in those early decades.Nani pointed out that these theories, while possible, are not the consensus among Quranic scholars. I'm not a Quranic expert but I'll follow the mainstream until more evidence is supplied that the conventional view is wrong.

And the consensus would lead to the conclusion that we have a pretty good record of what Muhammad said. He was a major figure in the founding of Islam. It wasn't like the situation where you had Paul building a religion based on things Jesus had said thirty years earlier. Muhammad was recognized as an authority in his own lifetime - when he spoke, people paid close attention to what he was saying. And he was in a position to make sure people weren't misquoting him.

The Quran was recognized as the most important things that Muhammad said. When he died his successors immediately began writing it all down while it was still fresh in everyone's memory. It would be like if when Jim Morrison died, everybody realized that nobody had written down the lyrics to his songs. But it wouldn't be difficult to do it from memory and any mistakes would be easily spotted. ("No, you idiot, the Holy One said 'Passionate lady, give up your vows' not 'Ask any lady to give up her house'.")

There is even a system of citing. Islam has a tradition of isnad, which is the formal listing of how a report was passed on from one person to another. You wouldn't say "Muhammad said this." You'd say "I heard from Adbul that he heard from Ali that Ali heard from Umar that Umar heard Muhammad say this." Muslim scholars study these listings to determine how accurately they relay information.

[Chronos]

Quoth John Mace:
We know that didn't happen, since Mohammad was illiterate. And illiterates are never exposed to any stories?

[Tamerlane]

Nani pointed out that these theories, while possible, are not the consensus among Quranic scholars. I'm not a Quranic expert but I'll follow the mainstream until more evidence is supplied that the conventional view is wrong.

I'm not necessarily arguing the conventional view is wrong either :). Just pointing out that it is well within the realm of possibility that there may have been selective ( consciously or not ) editing. Tradition holds that the supposed definitive version was produced almost twenty years after Muhammad died and that there were other versions then extant that were destroyed in the name of standardization. I doubt there was anything near the conflict over what constituted Biblical Canon, but that there was a need for standardization indicates that it probably wasn't a word for word recitation, even if close to it.

[Little Nemo]

I'm not necessarily arguing the conventional view is wrong either :). Just pointing out that it is well within the realm of possibility that there may have been selective ( consciously or not ) editing. Tradition holds that the supposed definitive version was produced almost twenty years after Muhammad died and that there were other versions then extant that were destroyed in the name of standardization. I doubt there was anything near the conflict over what constituted Biblical Canon, but that there was a need for standardization indicates that it probably wasn't a word for word recitation, even if close to it.And I'm not arguing the unconventional view is necessarily wrong. It just doesn't pass the sniff test to me.

I can see it happening with Christian scripture. Nobody wrote anything down until several decades had passed. And it was over two hundred years before anyone decided to make an official collection. By that point, a lot of honest errors are going to have developed and become accepted, even without any deliberate attempt to deceive.

But things moved a lot quicker in Islam. Even if it was twenty years after Muhammad's death, there still would have been plenty of people who'd been around and had direct knowledge of what he had said. Trying to revise the message would have been a very obvious deception.

To re-use my popular music example, it would be like if Pat Robertson started claiming that John Lennon was a devout Christian who sang "Imagine we're in Heaven, it's easy if you try." Even if he went around burning all the original copies he could find and replacing them with his own version, there'd still be a lot of us who'd know he was lying.

[even sven]

I want to thank you all for the most fascinating thread I've read in a while.

[Niceman]

Hello

I think it's important to differentiate between 2 entities:
1- Where Did The Qur'an Come From?
2- Was it really preserved ?

To answer first Q we need to remember that God challenged the world to imitate it, however no body of Arabs of high eloquency could produce something similar.
http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/338/
http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran_who_wrote.htm

Although the literary aspect of the Quran is the strongest and most apparent aspect of its miracle, is the most difficult aspect to discuss in non-Arabic terms. The Quran is in “…clear Arabic” (Quran, 26:195), and in order to understand its miracle in this respect, a thorough understanding of the Arabic language is essential. However, it would be more prudent to give two examples (of the many examples recorded) of the impact that the eloquence of the Quran had on its first listeners.

Perhaps one of the most famous stories is the story of al-Waleed ibn al-Mugheerah. Al-Waleed was the most eloquent and highly esteemed poet of Makkah at the time of the Prophet. He once passed by the Prophet (peace be upon him), and heard him reciting the Quran. This had a visible effect on him, and he went away shaken and startled by what he had heard. The news of this incident spread throughout Makkah. Aboo Jahl, a staunch opponent of Islam who was afraid that the people of Makkah might be affected by this news and convert to Islam, rushed to al-Waleed, and told him, “O my uncle! Say something (against Muhammad (peace be upon him)) so that the people will know that you are against him and hate (his message).”

Al-Waleed replied,
“And what can I say? For I swear by Allah (note: the disbelievers like al-Waleed believed in Allah as the Creator, but they were still pagans in worship), there is none amongst you who knows poetry as well as I do, nor can any compete with me in composition or rhetoric – not even in the poetry of jinns (i.e. genies)! And yet, I swear by Allah, Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) speech (meaning the Quran) does not bear any similarity to anything I know, and I swear by Allah, the speech that he says is very sweet, and is adorned with beauty and charm. Its first part is fruitful and its last part is abundant (meaning it is full of deep meanings), and it conquers (all other speech), and remains unconquered! It shatters and destroys all that has come before it (of poetry, because of its eloquence)!” Aboo Jahl responded, “Your people will not be satisfied until you speak against him!” Al-Waleed therefore requested Aboo Jahl, “Leave me for a few days, so that I may think of an appropriate response to give to the (people of) Quraish.”

After the few days were over, Aboo Jahl came back to him and asked him what he had prepared. Al-Waleed, during this time, could not think of any explanation to give except, “This (the Quran) is a type of magic that has an effect on its listeners.” In response to this, Allah revealed,

{Nay! Verily he (i.e. al-Waleed) has been stubborn in opposing our verses and signs… Verily, he thought and plotted; So let him be cursed, how he plotted! And once more, let him be cursed; how he plotted! Then he thought! Then he frowned and was irritated; then he turned back and was proud! Then he said, ‘this is nothing but magic from old; this is nothing but the word of a mortal!’ I will cast him into the Hell-fire…} (Quran, 74:16-26] (Any person who understands even the most basic amount of Arabic cannot help but notice the sheer power and eloquence of these very verses themselves.) This, then, is the testimony from the greatest poet alive at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him)!

Yet another incident is that of Utbah ibn Rabee when he listened to a part of Quran.
When Utbah returned to his people, they said to themselves, “I swear by the Lord of the Ka’bah (i.e. the House in Makkah), this Utbah is not the same as the Utbah that left us!” And indeed, it was not the same Utbah. He said, “O people! I have heard a speech the like of which I have never heard before. I swear by Allah, it is not magic, nor is it poetry, nor is it sorcery. O gathering of Quraish, listen to me. Leave this man alone, for I swear by Allah, the speech that I have heard from him (meaning the Quran) will soon be news…”


Some people said it was taken from previous scripture, however, this is not applicable
(i) The day-to-day life of the Prophet was an open book for all to see. In fact a revelation came asking people to give the Prophet (pbuh) privacy in his own home. If the Prophet had been meeting people who told him what to say as a revelation from God, this would not have been hidden for very long.

(ii) The extremely prominent Quraish nobles who followed the Prophet and accepted Islam were wise and intelligent men who would have easily noticed anything suspicious about the way in which the Prophet brought the revelations to them - more so since the Prophetic mission lasted 23 years.

(iii) The enemies of the Prophet kept a close watch on him in order to find proof for their claim that he was a liar - they could not point out even a single instance when the Prophet may have had a secret rendezvous with particular Jews and Christians.

(iv) It is inconceivable that any human author of the Qur’an would have accepted a situation in which he received no credit whatsoever for originating the Qur’an.

Thus, historically and logically it cannot be established that there was a human source for the Qur’an.

6. MUHUMMAD (PBUH) WAS AN ILLITERATE

The theory that Muhummad (pbuh) authored the Qur’an or copied from other sources can be disproved by the single historical fact that he was illiterate.

7. ARABIC VERSION OF THE BIBLE WAS NOT PRESENT

The Arabic version of the Bible was not present at the time of Prophet Muhummad (pbuh). The earliest Arabic version of the Old Testament is that of R. Saadias Gaon of 900 C.E. - more than 250 years after the death of our beloved Prophet. The oldest Arabic version of the new Testament was published by Erpenius in 1616 C.E. - about a thousand years after the demise of our Prophet.

8. SIMILARITIES IN THE QUR’AN AND THE BIBLE DUE TO COMMON SOURCE

The similarities between the two signify a common source that is one true God and the continuation of the basic message of monotheism and not that the later prophets have plagiarised from the previous prophets.

If someone copies during an examination he will surely not write in the answer sheet that he has copied from his neighbour or Mr. XYZ. Prophet Muhummad (pbuh) gave due respect and credit to all the previous prophets (pbut). The Qur’an also mentions the various revelations given by Almighty God to different prophets.

9. MUSLIMS BELIEVE IN THE TAURAH, ZABOOR, INJEEL AND QUR’AN

Another name for the Qur’an is the ‘The Furqan’ which means the criteria to judge the right from the wrong, and it is on the basis of the Qur’an that we can decipher which part of the previous scriptures can be considered to be the word of God.

10. SCIENTIFIC COMPARISON BETWEEN QUR’AN AND BIBLE


http://www.elnaggarzr.com/en/index.php

Finally, I think also that Muhammad can't make this ayat:
Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they find written in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel, who enjoins upon them what is right and forbids them what is wrong and makes lawful for them the good things and prohibits for them the evil and relieves them of their burden and the shackles which were upon them. So they who have believed in him, honored him, supported him and followed the light which was sent down with him - it is those who will be the successful.

, then hurry up back to add his name to previous Hebrew scripture !!

[Simplicio]

But things moved a lot quicker in Islam. Even if it was twenty years after Muhammad's death, there still would have been plenty of people who'd been around and had direct knowledge of what he had said. Trying to revise the message would have been a very obvious deception.

Was it twenty years? Thats the tradition, but I thought that the earliest examples of Koran fragments were not until ~100 years after the death of the Prophet. Thats a lot longer window for inaccuracies to enter arise.