Disabusing about the Quran’s adaptation of previous scriptures Part 3

Disabusing about the Quran’s adaptation of previous scriptures

Part 3

part 1

part 2

6. The faith and ethical principles of all prophets were quite similar to each other. Because the Creator of man and the world is one. All the prophets are sent by one god and the nature and principles of happiness and misery of humans are fixed and unchangeable. By accepting this fact, if the similar content of invitation of one prophet is a reason for adaptation from previous prophet, so we should accept that only the first prophet is true and the others including Moses and Jesus (PBUT) have no religion. But this is not the subject that the supporters of this doubt will accept it.
7. As Yusuf Haddad implies if the Quran is derived from the Old Testament and it is Arabic version of Torah, why this Arabic translation of Torah regards itself as an independent revelation from Allah? :

وَقَالَ الَّذِینَ کَفَرُوا إِنْ هذَا إِلَّا إِفْکٌ افْتَرَاهُ وَأَعَانَهُ عَلَیْهِ قَوْمٌ آخَرُونَ فَقَدْ جَاؤُوا ظُلْماً وَزُوراً وَقَالُوا أَسَاطِیرُ الْأَوَّلِینَ اکْتَتَبَهَا فَهِیَ تُمْلَى‏ عَلَیْهِ بُکْرَةً وَأَصِیلاً قُلْ أَنزَلَهُ الَّذِی یَعْلَمُ السِّرَّ فِی السَّماوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ إِنَّهُ کَانَ غَفُوراً رَّحِیماً : But the misbelievers say: “Naught is this but a lie which he has forged, and others have helped him at it.” In truth it is they who have put forward an iniquity and a falsehood. And they say: “Tales of the ancients, which he has caused to be written: and they are dictated before him morning and evening.” Say: “The (Qur’an) was sent down by Him who knows the mystery (that is) in the heavens and the earth: verily He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Al-Furqan: 4-6)

وَإِنَّکَ لَتُلَقَّى‏ الْقُرْآنَ مِن لَدُنْ حَکِیمٍ عَلِیم : As to thee, the Qur’an is bestowed upon thee from the presence of one who is wise and all-knowing. (Al-Naml: 6) وَالَّذِی أَوْحَیْنَا إِلَیْکَ مِنَ الْکِتَابِ هُوَ الْحَقُّ مُصَدِّقاً لِّمَا بَیْنَ یَدَیْهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بِعِبَادِهِ لَخَبِیرٌ بَصِیرٌ: That which We have revealed to thee of the Book is the Truth,- confirming what was (revealed) before it: for Allah is assuredly- with respect to His Servants – well acquainted and Fully Observant. (Fatir: 31)
ـ (فَلاَ أُقْسِمُ بِمَا تُبْصِرُونَ وَمَا لاَ تُبْصِرُونَ إِنَّهُ  لَقَوْلُ رَسُولٍ کَرِیمٍ وَمَا هُوَ بِقَوْلِ شَاعِرٍ قَلِیلاً مَا تُؤْمِنُونَ وَلاَ بِقَوْلِ کَاهِنٍ قَلِیلاً مَاتَذَکَّرُونَ تَنزِیلٌ مِن رَبِّ الْعَالَمِینَ وَلَوْ تَقَوَّلَ عَلَیْنَا بَعْضَ الْأَقَاوِیلِ لَأَخَذْنَا مِنْهُ بِالْیَمِینِ ثُمَّ لَقَطَعْنَا مِنْهُ الْوَتِینَ فَمَا مِنکُم مِنْ أَحَدٍ عَنْهُ حَاجِزِینَ وَإِنَّهُ لَتَذْکِرَةٌ لِلْمُتَّقِینَ وَإِنَّا لَنَعْلَمُ أَنَّ مِنکُم مُکَذِّبِینَ وَإِنَّهُ لَحَسْرَةٌ عَلَى الْکَافِرِینَ : So I do call to witness what ye see, And what ye see not, That this is verily the word of an honoured messenger; It is not the word of a poet: little it is ye believe! Nor is it the word of a soothsayer: little admonition it is ye receive. (This is) a Message sent down from the Lord of the Worlds. And if the messenger were to invent any sayings in Our name, We should certainly seize him by his right hand, And We should certainly then cut off the artery of his heart: Nor could any of you withhold him (from Our wrath). But verily this is a Message for the Allah-fearing. And We certainly know that there are amongst you those that reject (it). But truly (Revelation) is a cause of sorrow for the Unbelievers. (Al-Haaqqa: 38-50)

8. The reason of this similarities in the contents of the Quran and pervious scriptures, not the current Torah, is that from the Quran’s viewpoint the basic message of all religions is nothing but faith in God and surrender to Him:إِنَّ الدِّینَ عِندَ اللّهِ الْإِسْلاَمُ: The Religion before Allah is Islam (Al-E-Imran:19); قُلْ مَا کُنتُ بِدْعاًمِنَ الرُّسُلِ : Say: “I am no bringer of new-fangled doctrine among the messengers. (Al-Ahqaf: 9); :وَلَقَدْ بَعَثْنَا فِی کُلِّ أُمَّةٍ رَسُولاً أَنِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ وَاجْتَنِبُوا الطَّاغُوتَ : For We assuredly sent amongst every People a messenger, (with the Command), “Serve Allah, and eschew Evil” (Al-Nahl: 36)

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا  مِن قَبْلِکَ مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا نُوحِی إِلَیْهِ أَ نَّهُ لاَ إِلهَ إِلَّا أَنَا فَاعْبُدُونِ : Not a messenger did We send before thee without this inspiration sent by Us to him: that there is no god but I; therefore worship and serve Me. (Al-Anbia: 25); شَرَعَ لَکُم مِنَ الدِّینِ مَا وَصَّى‏ بِهِ نُوحاً وَالَّذِی أَوْحَیْنَا إِلَیْکَ وَمَا وَصَّیْنَا بِهِ إِبْرَاهِیمَ وَمُوسَى‏ وَعِیسَى‏ أَنْ أَقِیمُوا الدِّینَ وَلَا تَتَفَرَّقُوا فِیهِ : The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah – the which We have sent by inspiration to thee – and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein. (Ash-Shura: 13)

9. Which book is the intention of those who believe the Quran is adapted from the Old Testament? If they mean the book that revealed to Moses, that book does not exist to claim that the Quran has been affected by it and if they mean the current Torah, it has no clear and established author and also most of its followers do not believe its Divine source (Soleimani Ardestani, Abul Rahim, “Holy Book”/ 56-64). Also this book is not free from distortion, fantasy legends and conflicts with reason and science (Bucaille, Maurice, Torah, the Bible, the Quran and Science / 10). In this case, how the Quran, with its sublime meanings and transcendent contents, may be derived from such a book?

How may the Quran which begins with science, pen, education, teaching, reading and honor of human being (Alaq:1-5) and invites men to knowledge, thought, reflection, contemplation, meditation and recognition, be derived from the Torah which regards the tree of knowledge as Forbidden Tree in its opening pages? (Torah, Genesis, 2: 16-17) How the Quran which addresses all people of the world, may be derived from the Torah which has no concern except victory and success of Bani Israel? (Soleimani Ardestani, Abdul Rahim, Judaism / 17 and 22)

The Quran regards itself as a “Mohaimen” to other scriptures (Al-Maeda/48). Mohaimen means a protector and an observer that has domination and hegemony. (Javadi Amoli, Abdullah, Quran in the Quran / 290) The Quran not only has served the Torah and Bible, but also Jews and Christians of the world are indebted to Quran. Shaykh Ja’far Kashif-al-Ghita says: “If the Quran was not revealed, the name of Judaism and Christianity would be vanished from the world.” (Kashf al-ghitā/391)

10. Prophet Muhammad who introduced in the Quran as the last Prophet (Al-Ahzab:40); servant of Allah (Al-Baqarah:23) the owner of an exalted manner (Al-Qalam:4); and immune to the sins and mistakes (Al- Najm) (Allameh Tabatabaei, Mohammad Hussein, Al-Mizan, vol. 2, p. 134) claims and believes that the Quran was revealed to him (Al-Kahf :110). Those who believe that the Quran is adaptation of previous books, what can say about the honesty of this Prophet?

They should either say he is a liar man who committed the biggest plagiarism in the world or say he suffered from hallucination and mistake. In both cases this person cannot be a prophet of Allah. Thus, prophecy and integrity cannot be gathered with belief in adaptation. The orientalists like Yusuf Haddad waste their time in the way of their research, because the necessary point in order to believe in adaptation is acceptance of lying and hallucinating of the Prophet. Fortunately, some orientalists have found this negative requisite and regard this honorable divine Prophet free from any lie. Some of these fair researchers are:

_ “Thomas Carlyle” the great Scottish philosopher (1795 AD) who believes: one of the ugliest shames of this era is attribution of lying and deception to Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam. Now, it is the time that we should confront these shameful words. Shall anyone accept this false slander about him? I do not believe at all, even if lie and deceit spread among all human beings in such a way that it is accepted by them like the truth, because in this case, people will become stupid and crazy.

O brothers! Is it possible for someone to create such a stable religion which have been shining ever since, by lies? I swear to God that this is a lie like other lies in the history of Mecca, forged by a group of haters or worldly-minded people … He is a messenger from the “unknown eternity,” who is sent to us as a prophet, whatever name we give him… We know that his words are not adapted from another one, but are from the “center core of the universe truth”… Muhammad was a drop of the essence of the truth of the universe in my view. His character level was superior to the humble and modest demands such as the rule and kingship or thinking about them. Muhammad was a refulgent star and meteor that lit up the whole world (Thomas Carlyle, The heroes, p. 53 58).

_ “Montgomery Watt”, the English Islamologist, who had made great efforts to destroy the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) image and was famous because of this, could not deny the Prophet’s honesty.  He writes down: “Among the personalities of the world, no one was insulted by his enemies like Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Understanding the reasons of this phenomenon is difficult. However, Islam was the only competitor of Christianity over centuries… Christians nicknamed him “mahvand” which means “god of darkness”… .

Some Westerners attributed lie and deceit to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). They claim that despite his awareness of his lack of revelation, he claimed reception of revelation and prophecy. But I do not accept this view. This is not reasonable because this view cannot justify all the difficulties and deprivations which the Prophet suffered in Mecca. In addition, this view gives no answer to this question that how did those smart great characters and moral persons accepted and respected him?… none of these phenomena can be analyzed except by acceptance of this fact that Prophet Muhammad was honest in his claim of prophecy and read every verse of the Quran that he claimed was from Allah honestly. (Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Madina / 493-495).

_ The authors of the official book of the University of Cambridge, History of Islam, after narrating the dreams and visions and reception of the messages by Prophet Muhammad write down: “the important point is that the messages were not the production of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) conscious mind. He was sure that he can easily recognize what he was thinking about and what was revealed.”

Contemporary historians must accept his honesty in this belief, because only by this fact the emersion and development of such a great religion will be acceptable. But the other issue, meaning this fact that whether the messages were derived from subconscious of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or was created by the social subconscious which was working through him, is out of the competence of the historian. (http://www.payambarazam.ir/ maghalat/Detail.asp?code=2710)

Conclusion

The cause of brief similarities of the Quran with the teachings of former scriptures that is the major argument of claimants of the Quran’s adaptation is more general than what they claim. Because these similarities can be the effect of the unity of the sources of these two books i.e. divine revelation. This similarity is also strong evidence that the similar contents of the Quran and the Torah are free from distortion, because the only holy book that is free from distortion is the Quran. لاَ یَأْتِیهِ الْبَاطِلُ مِن  بَیْنِ یَدَیْهِ وَلاَ مِنْ خَلْفِهNo falsehood can approach it from before or behind it. (Fusselat: 42)

References

1. Mohammad al-Bokhari, Sahih al-Bokhari, 1401 AH.
2. Brockelmann, Carl, history of the Islamic people, 1988.
3. Bucaille, Maurice, the Bible, the Quran and Science.
4. Javadi Amoli, Abdullah, Tafsir Tasnim, Qom, Asra publishing center, 1381, Third Edition.
5. Javadi Amoli, Abdullah, Quran in the Quran, Qom, Asra publishing center, 1385, Fifth Edition.
6. Haddad, Yusuf, al Quran wal Kitab.
7. Zakzouk, Mahmoud, al Istishragh val Khalife, 1405 AH
8. Zamani, Mohammad Hassan, Orientalists and the Quran, 1387, second edition.
9. Soleimani Ardestani, Abdol Rahim, The Holy Book, 1385, second edition.
10. Soleimani Ardestani, Judaism, 1382.
11. Suyuti, Jalaluddin, Al- Itqan fi Ulumil Quran, 1407 AH.
12. Sobhi Saleh, Mabahith fi ‘Ulum Al quran, 1361, fifth edition.
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14. Tibawi, Abdul Latif, al-Mustashriqūn al-nāṭiqūn bi-al-injlīzīyah,Carlyle, 1402 AH.
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21. Watt, Montgomery, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman.
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24. http://www.Payambarazam.ir/majhalat/Detail.asp?code:2710.