I spend a bit of time of religious forums, and one favourite debate topic of mine is “How do you know that yours is the true religion?”.
A common response that I get on some Islamic forums is that the language of the Qu’ran is inimitible. That is, no human, nor group of humans working as a team, can produce poetry of the kind found in the Qu’ran.
Indeed, there is a verse in the Qu’ran that challenges doubters to produce a verse like it:
And if you (Arab pagans, Jews, and Christians) are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down (i.e. the Qur’an) to Our slave (Muhammad Peace be upon him ), then produce a surah (chapter) of the like thereof and call your witnesses (supporters and helpers) besides Allah, if you are truthful. [Qur’an 2:23]
Sheikh Abdur Raheem Green gives some details about the criteria for meeting this challenge (taken from here):
I can’t speak/read/write Arabic, but I am sure there are many of those who can.
The door appears to be wide open to discredit the validity of Islam as a religion, here. My question is, has the challenge been met?
There’s no “Islamic Council of Challenge Assessment”, if that’s what you mean.
It appears as though the assessment is done as a bit of a general consensus. Or at least, it would be up to Islamic clerics to explain why a challenge has failed. But if we break the points made by Green down a bit, some of the criteria can be fairly objectively measured:
The challenge is to produce in Arabic, three lines - Check
That do not fall into one of these sixteen Bihar - Check
That is not rhyming prose - Check
Nor like the speech of soothsayers - Possibly subjective
Not normal speech - Check… ?
That it should contain at least a comprehensible meaning and rhetoric, i.e. not gobbledygook - Check
Personally I would say that it is a perfectly easy task for pretty much anyone who is well-read, particularly if they know a few languages. Unfortunately I don’t know Arabic or I’d write out some examples.
I don’t get it. What does anything the OP has written have to do with “disproving” Islam? I swear, the whole notion of proof has shot the wad. It used to be that to prove something, you needed inferences that followed from premises in accordance with rules of the system. Nowadays, all you seem to need is a worshipful reference to some caricature of science and a steadfast determination to believe nothing except optical illusions and fanciful musings that you don’t even comprehend.
Because the Qu’ranic verse that I posted is a challenge to those who doubt whether Islam is the religion from God.
You doubt the Qu’ran is from God? Well, the challenge is to produce just 3 lines like it. “We bet you can’t, because no man is capable of matching the literary prowess of the Qu’ran. Only God himself can produce writing of this standard”. ← That’s the claim, hence the challenge.
Due respect, but the problem seems to be that you don’t know what proof means. The challenge is posed in such a way that meeting it is impossible. If the cited verses are The Standard, then it means that any deviation from them is necessarily imperfect. It’s a circular argument, and all circular arguments are valid. You can’t win this.
The starting premise is absurd. Allah, who claims to have created all things and claims to controls everything with all power and knowledge is so incompetent he can’t even make man to preserve his word and has to send a revision.
Compare this to God, where His people come back from captivity and even though the city and temple is destroyed they find a copy of the Word, preserved by God.
Compare the forced worship Allah demands, compared to the free will worship of followers of Jesus.
Compare the intimate relationship that Jesus desires but does not force, compared to the distant relationship that Allah demands.
Compare the absolute promise of the Lord Jesus of salvation compared to the works requires that Allah demands that may or may not get you into heaven.
Also compare the story of Adam and Eve. The Word of God states that Eve was deceived and fell, Adam however was not deceived, therefor willingly accepted death (to be with Eve, who he loved). This foreshadows us the church being deceived into sinning, having absolutely no way to correct for it, and Jesus willingly accepting death to pay and rejoin us to Him. The Koran states that it was equal decision between Adam and Eve, maintaining much of the story line but altering just enough to remove the foreshadow of Christ.
As for supernatural poetry, demons and Satan himself are supernatural beings capable of it.
Actually, it’s not quite as clear cut as that. It is not certain upon reading relevant passages that Adam was not deceived. There is also no narrative that explains his intentions, namely being willing to accept death to be with the one he loves.
To me, it reads as if Adam was passing the blame, pointing at Eve saying “It was her, god! It was that woman you put here.” Indeed, the Bible says Adam was with her when she took the fruit.
An accomplice in crime it seems!
This all seems like a massively pointless task. On your checklist, the fourth point is the most important, but I’d go and remove the ‘probably’.
Are you people still working off the false notion that Allah is a different person than the Jewish/Christian God, despite all of the textual similarities between the Qu’ran and the Old Testament? Even from an agnostic standpoint, it’s fairly obvious that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the Allah of Muhammad.
Note: that Eve never gets the death sentence, and is called Eve because she is the mother of the living.
Eve was deceived, Adam willfully disobeyed. These is the difference and the bases of all gender based issues in scriptures. Men are charged to overcome, women are charged to continue in faith (and childbearing) and put in a position of submission.
Perhaps that’s part of it, but I don’t think it’s that much passing the buck, as you can not lie in front of God, He is just too holy. So Adam and Eve must have been telling the truth.
Allah is unquestionable a false god, a servant of Satan, a attempt to deceive the people away from Jesus. The similarities are intentional and a deception. God states very clearly about such deceptive efforts of Satan and the dangers of adding or taking away from His Word.
Do people of a religious persuasion believe that their thoughts and actions somehow transmutate their physical being at death, in a way that is unavailable to non-believers?
Religious opinion. From my perspective, it’s about as useful as arguing about how many angels can pin the head of a dancer, but I guess it actually means something to you.
From an actual real-world perspective, they’re the same entity, paranoid religious delusions aside.
Islam claim to be descendants of Abraham through Ishmael, which is of the slave woman, and the descendants are under servitude to Allah. Jewish claims to be descendants through Isaac, the free woman and are eventually free under Christ.
