With far less provision of evidence you accept the testimony of scientists … this is being very lenient on them. You accept their word … but when it comes to me - it is my belief.
Even I believe the holy Qur’an was compiled in to one manuscript after the passing of Sayyiduna RasoolAllah (SAW) … That is not my contention … what I am asking for is to be shown from very old manuscripts and the very new to see if they are different. If those critics have a point this will be easy to demonstrate. And we can easily see from the context of the verses whether something is missing or not. Throwing this high level ‘mud on Islam’ stuff around is playground antics … settle down and let’s analyse this carefully.
Yes people have challenged the dates, but they have failed to provided good reason why they are challenging the dates … and when this manuscript was dated it was done by non-Muslims - ie. it was done independently. That is the same level of “scientific” analysis that is done on dinosaur bones - if you accept that you should accept the other … I require myself to be consistent … if I believe in the technique then I will also support the same technique used for other artefacts too. Will you? Please search independently and we will look in to any possible and convincing challenge for this dating.
As I said earlier - it is not just the date that makes the holy Qur’an unique - it is the literary style, the grammar perfect text, the fact that it was presented by a person who had not studied (SAW) and its prophetic nature as well as it wisdom and its internal consistency.
And for every other book you wish to compare with the Qur’an - let’s get down to the meat of it and compare them - like scientists would.
Let me also emphasise that there are other holy scriptures and Vedas could well have originated from Divine authority from prophets of different chains. God Knows Best. They do seem to speak of very similar matters.
As a scientist bella88 you should know that it is easy to tell what is a lie and what is not - purely by analysing the claim … I admit that most of my evidence is “third person testimony” - but the same applies in a court of law … we can try to do more things to get better results. For example for those who claim the manuscripts we say are old, if they are contesting this - then they need to provide evidence where they have obtained the manuscript to test it themselves … if they can’t show that then they are blatantly lying … you see how we can investigate this matter?
Just look at this nicely prepared scholarly work on the text of the Rigveda …
The surviving form of the Rigveda is based on an early Iron Age (see dating below) collection that established the core ‘family books’ (mandalas 2–7, ordered by author, deity and meter [SUP][12]](Rigveda - Wikipedia)[/SUP]) and a later redaction, co-eval with the redaction of the other Vedas, dating several centuries after the hymns were composed. This redaction also included some additions (contradicting the strict ordering scheme) and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi (termed orthoepische Diaskeuase by Oldenberg, 1888).
As with the other Vedas, the redacted text has been handed down in several versions, most importantly the Padapatha that has each word isolated in pausa form and is used for just one way of memorization; and the Samhitapatha that combines words according to the rules of sandhi (the process being described in the Pratisakhya) and is the memorized text used for recitation.
The Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the text’s fidelity and meaning[SUP][13]](Rigveda - Wikipedia)[/SUP] and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral traditionalone.[SUP][14]](Rigveda - Wikipedia)[/SUP] In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections, as well as certain permutations. This interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics. The Rigveda was probably not written down until the Gupta period(4th to 6th centuries AD), by which time the Brahmi script had become widespread (the oldest surviving manuscripts date to the Late Middle Ages).[SUP][15]](Rigveda - Wikipedia)[/SUP] The oral tradition still continued into recent times.
The original text (as authored by the Rishis) is close to but not identical to the extant Samhitapatha, but metrical and other observations allow to reconstruct (in part at least) the original text from the extant one, as printed in the Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 50 (1994).[SUP][16]](Rigveda - Wikipedia)
[/SUP]It makes no claim that is beyond its scope … although one of the oldest scriptures - I acknowledge that - the text that can be analysed scientifically is only just over 1000 years old … and even that is said to be different in places … No problem … But for me who presents the Qur’an as the Word of God that is preserved … such things cannot be there … (there can be typos in some prints of the Qur’an, but these are easily overlooked because when reciting people know what the word should be - we are collectively very familiar with the Qur’an. And we correct them and inform the printers of the mistakes - who would then recall and reprint or ask us to dispose of the copies)
YES. how many times do you need to be told that???
how do you define life? a man, perhaps?
well, no sorry that's not correct.
Peace philosophy
Only once ... I need to be told only once ... but my question was more of a leading question - TLK understood it ... he provided the reference. When I read it - the article from the Telegraph - I noticed the same old journalistic language ... When studying the method I found this:
a) The cells were existing
b) The original DNA was existing that they copied, transcribed in to a computer code, and used the computer with a very cool chemistry set to build the chemical structure back
c) The watermark - that in essence is a non-interfering snippet of protein, that has been done in other cases - it is called recombinant DNA ... They mass produce insulin using the same technique, by altering the DNA of yeast cells.
d) They got the original DNA out of the cells
e) They inserted their DNA into the cells
f) They zapped the cells similar to how they would zap cloned cells (electricity)
Then they would wait ...
Now ... for me this is not "creation" - this is actually making "the Frankenstein Monster"
They have used existing ideas - copied the DNA sequence - not invented a new one ... All the cells material is borrowed ... mitochondria, cell membranes and the rest ... all taken from nature. They patched it together, buzzed it and then LEFT IT TO FATE ... of course this is exactly the workings of Dr. Frankenstein ... nothing was to say he made the monster.
The species of single celled organism that was produced is still the same creature found in nature ... can they design they own creature? And for me this is not playing God ... God does not experiment and does not make failed attempts ... And it is God who gave the life into their laboratory experiment too and it was God who chose not to give life to their other attempts.
We already know that we will eventually be given a lot of "power" - that itself will present itself to be a great test on our minds ... but if we are prepared for it then we will be able to resist the glare that blinds us from seeing the truth.
We put so much effort and intelligence in to the production of a single celled organism and still we can't do it without nature's help ... To think that life is a mindless interplay of chemicals is the biggest deception that we can put ourselves in ... I believe the wisdom of God - why we are being able to make these things (i.e. life) is to show us that evolution cannot be true - these things don't happen by chance - but by careful and intelligent administration.
Sister PD And brother Philosophy may have a point. Though I haven't read the brothers post.
Sister PD? ... Philosophy is a sister :D
And well they may have a point ... I am not doubting that at all ... I just want to delve a bit deeper in to their point to see how strong it stands to criticism and most importantly how well my point stands to detailed scrutiny as well ... I hope the people I speak to can show me their words are true so that I can conform with them ... I am not for debates I do not want to win ... I just want to know what the truth is ...
Prophet mohammad not being able to read or write has nothing to do with proving divinity of Quran. He could have easily had other people make grammatical corrections. also, he didn’t write the quran. miracle would have been if he didn’t know how to read or write but was able to write down the quran as Gabriel was revealing it to him. how do you know that prophet mohammads friends/caliph/sahabas didn’t make grammatical corrections?
I thought according to islam, only torah, zabur, injeel were from God? now vedas is too? Anyway, whether they are similar or not, how does that prove divinity of either scripture?
there is absolutely no evidence that ANY holy scripture is the word of God. if a book doesn’t make sense to me, (I have read quran many many times with urdu and english translations) there is no way i can ever accept it to be word of God. thats a whole another topic. but for you to claim that quran can not have criticism or be the only unchanged book which was directly read to the prophet from Gibrail over the period of 23 years,memorized exactly word to word by other people, and then compiled all together many years after prophets death, and was never changed?? sorry I have absoultely no evidence to believe that. even during those 23 years that it was ‘revealed’, plenty of things could have been edited, changed, deleted. and the fact that it was compiled later on also leaves room for changes. again, you will come up with more websites and claims that its not true but again, you know you have no evidence.
Prophet mohammad not being able to read or write has nothing to do with proving divinity of Quran. He could have easily had other people make grammatical corrections. also, he didn't write the quran. miracle would have been if he didn't know how to read or write but was able to write down the quran as Gabriel was revealing it to him. now that would have been a miracle. how do you know that prophet mohammads friends/caliph/sahabas didn't make grammatical corrections?
I thought according to islam, only torah, zabur, injeel were from God? now vedas is too? Anyway, whether they are similar or not, how does that prove divinity of either scripture?
there is absolutely no evidence that ANY holy scripture is the word of God. if a book doesn't make sense to me, (I have read quran many many times with urdu and english translations) there is no way i can ever accept it to be word of God. thats a whole another topic. but for you to claim that quran can not have criticism or be the only unchanged book which was directly read to the prophet from Gibrail over the period of 23 years,memorized exactly word to word by other people, and then compiled all together many years after prophets death, and was never changed?? sorry I have absoultely no evidence to believe that. even during those 23 years that it was 'revealed', plenty of things could have been edited, changed, deleted. and the fact that it was compiled later on also leaves room for changes. again, you will come up with more websites and claims that its not true but again, you know you have no evidence.
A logical mind would produce all those arguments that you shared, but I like to add few things
Grammatical corrections? Dont know exactly what you are trying to say here, but Prophet did not know how to read or write, but grammar has nothing to do with it. You dont need to know how to read Urdu, but you can still speak out a perfect sentence.
Quran has changed few times during revelation. There are few ayats of Quran that are considered Kahirjul Hukm and then there are couple that are Kharijul Qirat. First ones are the one that are still part of Quran, but no longer valid as an order. Second one are the ones that are not even part of the Quran anymore. This all happened within Prophets time and with his order. (I need to find a confirmed source for that. just writing it our of memory).
What evidence do we have that its word of God, and not a book that is cooked up by Prophet himself? Nothing but the historical record that claims such. Prophets life is the only life in recorded history where you can probably (if do research) can find out each and every day of his last 23 years in writing. With that transparency, and surrounded equally by his opponents as by his friends, its almost impossible to make false claims on such consistent level. His opponents, that were scholars of different religions, sat with him and asked him questions that only they knew answers of. Prophet answered those questions only after getting revelations. Point is this that yes there ais no 'scientific' evidence that book is words of God, but there is no evidence or proof either that prophet himself authored that book
and btw, for anyone to believe that *ANY holy scripture is the word of God, *one has to believe in GOD first. There is no freekin way that I can prove to you (outside historical records) that my great great grandfather was Ali Ahmed Khan, if you refuse to believe that a person by that name ever existed. You first have to believe in the existence of an entity before linking the entity to any phenomena.
as per psyah, one of the reason why quran is true is because it has perfect in grammar while prophet did not know how to read and write. and yes i agree with you, just because someone cannot read or write, doesn’t mean they cannot come up with perfect sentence in a language they are fluent in.
there is no evidence that quran was not changed during propehts time by him and his companions or even after his death. quran wasn’t compiled (according to some sources) for atleast 20 years after prophet mohammad’s death. many Muslims even agree that the quran we see today was complied by Uthman. he also burned some copies which he thought were not authentic or had errors. this shows that there were some discrepancies or errors already. Upon the canonization of the Qur’an, Uthman ordered the burning of all personal copies of the Qur’an. The reason why Uthman gave this order is discussed further in the section below entitled “The Collection of the Qur’an”. The copy of quran kept with wife of Mohammad named Hafsa was accepted for public. Until then, several copies of Quran were available in different regions of Arabia with some grammatical errors, so Uthman’s order allowed only one version of Quran to exist to prevent any misinterpretation of quranic text or word of God (Allah). History of the Quran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
where do you find all the details regarding prophet mohammads life and transparency? hadith? narrations by his wives, and sahabas? why cant those sources be biased?
why would it be impossible to make fake claims? people do it all the time. many people have claimed to be prophet and their followers believed them and still do. I don’t see why Joseph Smith couldn’t have been a prophet but Mohammad was.
I believe in God and so do many other people who believe in God but not in divinity of Quran. Beleiving in God doesn’t mean I or anyone needs to accept Quran, Bible, or Vedas as the word of God as it makes no sense to me the way any of the books have been ‘revealed’ to certain people
as per psyah, one of the reason why quran is true is because it has perfect in grammar while prophet did not know how to read and write. and yes i agree with you, just because someone cannot read or write, doesn't mean they cannot come up with perfect sentence in a language they are fluent in.
Peace bella88
Well actually you couldn't correct the Qur'an in grammar ... It sets the grammar for Arabic ... But in addition to state that 'his friends could have corrected him' is like making a stab in dark ... So test that theory ... Who would have corrected him (SAW)? Where and on what statement? As I showed earlier ... the link of the Book of Mormon showed clear passages that are alleged to have been changed by scribes later on ... Simply saying 'this could have happened' does not make it so ... As far as is the claim and evidence no one human authored the Qur'an and so far no one has been able to reproduce like it ... So how could his (SAW) friend's have helped him ... When all of them and his (SAW) opponents were struck in awe of the scripture? As documented in history ... To make a counter claim ... Well you need to show how or else it is just an unscientific statement.
The holy Qur'an came in a 17th form or style of Arabic that was unparalleled ... At the time the art of Arabic poetry was at its height ... None of the poets dared compete with the linguistic style of the Qur'an ... There is even an account based around the shortest Surah ... It has 3 verses and traditionally they used to write 4 verses ... They tried to add a 4th and could not do it ... The best poet did make a 4th which was deficient ... But it only confirmed the superiority of the Qur'an.
Regarding Jospeh Smith ... Well he didn't realise that revelation is heavy and hurts ... From him his translations were an oddity ... For reason he was given revelation in another language and he translated the words ... All previous prophets were given revelation in their own language ... So that itself removes him from a signature ... Also, Sayyiduna Muhammad (SAW) was not just a prophet ... But he was the final one ...
where do you find all the details regarding prophet mohammads life and transparency? hadith? narrations by his wives, and sahabas? why cant those sources be biased?
why would it be impossible to make fake claims? people do it all the time. many people have claimed to be prophet and their followers believed them and still do. I don't see why Joseph Smith couldn't have been a prophet but Mohammad was.
bella88
You are right it is not impossible to make false claims ... But when they are made they are easy to detect ... For one they will contradict other statements ... That is why we look for contradictions ... Secondly, they will be few and have broken chains ... We can't have a mass indoctrination without something becoming clear about that from a historical point of view ... For example the canonisation of the Bible was a systematic approach to standardising the Bible and this sent echoes through history and we all know about the Council of Nicea and the conversion of Constantine ... Similar things should be sought for in Islamic history or history about Muslims ... Can you do that?
once again, you have no evidence or proof that Quran is the word of God and not something prophet mohammad and others came up with themselves. the linguistic style of Quran is no different from linguistic styles of many other holy scriptures. also, there is no non-biased evidence that poets at the time couldn’t dare to challenge quranic style. most of the pre-islamic arabian poetry/books/culture were termed as Jahiliya by the prophet and were burned and erased. we have no unbiased source of this claim. And you think quran is well written, to me it seems very repetitive and not quite impressive for something which was sent by God himself.
as far as that no one has been able to reproduce surahs like in quran, you are mistaken. many people have taken up that challenge and produced surahs like quran. if you google ‘surah like quran challenge’, you will see plenty of them. but not only that, but there was also 2 surahs which some people say were supposed to be in quran but were later taken out as they were not ‘authentic’ as per the quran compiled by Uthman which were surah Al-Nurayn and Al-walayah.
if you read it, it does have very similar style of writing to quran but according to most muslims including shiahs, these weren’t part of quran. Surah of Wilaya and Nurayn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. if you read this ‘fake’ surah, its hard to even tell it wasn’t part of quran as it sounds very much like a quranic surah.
bella88
You are right it is not impossible to make false claims ... But when they are made they are easy to detect ... For one they will contradict other statements ... That is why we look for contradictions ... Secondly, they will be few and have broken chains ... We can't have a mass indoctrination without something becoming clear about that from a historical point of view ... For example the canonisation of the Bible was a systematic approach to standardising the Bible and this sent echoes through history and we all know about the Council of Nicea and the conversion of Constantine ... Similar things should be sought for in Islamic history or history about Muslims ... Can you do that?
false claims are not easy to detect for those who have faith. why is there mormons in this world when it's so obvious to you that book of mormon is fake? if bible is changed so much, why is there christians? if torah has been changed , why are there Jews? there are many different religions here and many followers of each faith.
for me, its very easy to detect why Quran couldn't have been from God and why Prophet Mohammad couldn't have been a prophet. I dont think i can share why i think that here as it would go into the category of serious offensive blasphemy and I know very well being an ex-muslim myself that any criticism of the prophet is highly offensive to most muslims. i dont care to explain what i think of islam and quran here, but you can easily search online for many reasons why people donot consider prophet mohammad to be a real prophet.
Regarding Surah Wilaya and Nurayn these are forgeries and grammatically poor and unlike the Qur’an. They break metering in recitation as well and the repetition is over done. Repetition in the Qur’an is necessary as it is used as emphasis and also for drawing different subjects together. This chapter does a semblance of emphasis but beyond the necessary balance as found in the Qur’an.
Here the critics of this language in the chapter are obviously going to be Muslims - but here is a reference to a truthful Orientalist who states the facts, as this site alleges.
These forgeries have never entered any script for regular reading … There is no other book that has managed to remain so pure -
No one said these two surahs are supposed to be in the Qur’an except some deviant individuals.
Look you have to be scientific and sincere about this topic. Picking up anti-Islam polemics is not scholarly work and if accepted without investigation it is also unscientific.
Yes there are many things on Google searches that will uncover a lot of attempts of poor comparison … One only needs to look at them. I have seen them - please don’t think that I have not seen them. They are on the whole trying to change the Qur’anic meaning which from the onset defeats the challenge … The challenge is to bring a verse “like” the Qur’an - when they bring verses like “Jesus died on the cross” then it fails … :hehe: You should actually read some of their attempts with an impartial mind and heart.
false claims are not easy to detect for those who have faith. why is there mormons in this world when it's so obvious to you that book of mormon is fake? if bible is changed so much, why is there christians? if torah has been changed , why are there Jews? there are many different religions here and many followers of each faith.
for me, its very easy to detect why Quran couldn't have been from God and why Prophet Mohammad couldn't have been a prophet. I dont think i can share why i think that here as it would go into the category of serious offensive blasphemy and I know very well being an ex-muslim myself that any criticism of the prophet is highly offensive to most muslims. i dont care to explain what i think of islam and quran here, but you can easily search online for many reasons why people donot consider prophet mohammad to be a real prophet.
I agree - False claims are hard to detect - but not for people of faith - for people who do not want to investigate deeply ... so that include many religious fanatics but it also includes pro-evolution atheists/agnostics ... They share their trait of acceptance based on high level sophistry and do not go the extra mile to undertake proper investigation. As a Muslim I do not rest until I have looked up every criticism carefully and/or investigate anything that my heart finds uneasy with - within my religion. I don't just accept it with bias ... Yes, and in their defence the Bible has changed yet there are still Christians - this should not be a problem for the believers in evolution - whose theory has changed equally as much - nay, more than the Christian scriptures.
They have created simple form of life from scratch, right?
Although debate is there as to know whether the bacteria cells are alive or dead, I want to know how cytoplasm , nculeod, cell membrane were created.
your opinion is very subjective. you feel like quran’s repetition is necessary, I really don’t think it is. to me it sounds obvious that its man-made.
I never said they were part of quran. but they sound very much like a quranic surah. this just shows its possible to make up a surah which is quran-like. if you dont think these surahs are quran-like, then please, google quran like surah challenge. there is tons of them which sound very much like quran.
so its a scientific fact that quran is the truth?? please dont call your own belief and faith a scientific fact.
I am way more impartial than you. trust me, I have been where you are. I have been a muslim for most of my life so i know exactly where you are coming from. anyway, my point was not to bring up why i think quran or islam is not the truth. i dont care what you or anyone believes in. But dont claim that its a scientific or proven fact that Quran is the word of God. if you have faith that it is, thats perfectly fine.
I agree - False claims are hard to detect - but not for people of faith - for people who do not want to investigate deeply ... so that include many religious fanatics but it also includes pro-evolution atheists/agnostics ... They share their trait of acceptance based on high level sophistry and do not go the extra mile to undertake proper investigation. As a Muslim I do not rest until I have looked up every criticism carefully and/or investigate anything that my heart finds uneasy with - within my religion. I don't just accept it with bias ... Yes, and in their defence the Bible has changed yet there are still Christians - this should not be a problem for the believers in evolution - whose theory has changed equally as much - nay, more than the Christian scriptures.
again, you are extremely biased when it comes to your own religion vs others. its very easy to find flaws and nonsense in other peoples faith but not your own. And no if it were that easy to figure out false claims especially when there are beautiful promises of afterlife and painful torment for those who dont believe in certain things. humans WANT to believe that they will live forever after death and be rewarded for good deeds.
humans donot want to accept permanent death and we will make up any belief to help us get over that fear. why are there so many religions today, and there were even more religions in the past, before christian and muslim invasions. even within islam there seems to be a great division . Ahmadis believe the promised messiah already arrived where as other muslims consider that as a false claim. this is where all the problems arise, when you claim your faith to be the only truth and others are wrong. the first humans even had their own religion and through out history many civilizations have worshiped multiple gods. Native Americans who lived for over 20,000 years and south americans, aztecs, mayans had their own religion which had nothing to do with Abrahimic faith. hindus, jain, buddhist have their own religion very different from islam and christianity. middle east is where all the abrahamic religions started. it seems like geographically, every continent had their own belief system which people made up. until the european and muslim invasions, rest of the world had their own belief system which they had been following for thousands of years. who are you to claim that yours is the only truth and every thing else is false? sounds very arrogant to me.
Again, you're comparing evolution to the bible or holy scriptures? that really makes no sense. science is an ever growing field. we know alot more today than we did yesterday. unlike religion, which is set in stone and makes claims which you must believe or go to Hell. I am sorry but to me that sounds like a whole bunch of man-made stories. anyway, this topic isn't about why religion is wrong.
your opinion is very subjective. you feel like quran's repetition is necessary, I really don't think it is. to me it sounds obvious that its man-made.
Peace bella88
Ok I'll tell you what - you tell me which verses we should check out and analyse for repetitiveness ... We can't just say "your opinion is very subjective" and yet on the other side you say "to me it sounds obvious" ... let's eliminate subjectivity here ... Come on bring the verses of repetition here ... we will compare them with the repetition in the false chapters and by the way - this idea of over repetition didn't come from me - it came from that non-Muslim scholar who analysed the false chapters. Just to demonstrate to you that my opinion has not been given here ...
We will get to the other parts later ... inshaAllah.
Ok I'll tell you what - you tell me which verses we should check out and analyse for repetitiveness ... We can't just say "your opinion is very subjective" and yet on the other side you say "to me it sounds obvious" ... let's eliminate subjectivity here ... Come on bring the verses of repetition here ... we will compare them with the repetition in the false chapters and by the way - this idea of over repetition didn't come from me - it came from that non-Muslim scholar who analysed the false chapters. Just to demonstrate to you that my opinion has not been given here ...
We will get to the other parts later ... inshaAllah.
Not just one or 2 verses, the entire quran is repetitive. yes your opinion is a typical opinion of a believer which is biased and subjective. And very frankly, this is not the forum to discuss why quran is false as that comes in category of insult to religion. im not here to prove why I feel the way I do regarding islam. this thread wasn't really about this topic anyway, dont know why you felt the need to bring quran as truth here. but when you claim quran as the truth, just know there are plenty of critics. if you want to learn why some people may not consider Quran as not the word of God, just google. I donot wish to get banned for serious offensive blasphemy. some users have already complained about me for 'anti-islam' propaganda maker. so no, i cannot go into detail on this forum. please feel free to check out other forums of ex-muslims where you can see every criticism and breakdown of verse to verse errors and contradiction.