Who wrote the Koran?

[zerinus]

It’s a two parter, Zerinus, . . .

It is a “no parter” actually, because it neither addresses the OP question, nor relates to my answer to him.

. . . I address you in it because of your defense of Mormonism . . .

Sure I defend Mormonism. It is, after all, true!

(this is a Catholic website, I believe)

Sure it is; and this particular forum is devoted to “non-Catholic religions,” which includes “Mormonism,” right?

. . . and your criticism of Catholic doctrine and belief.

I am not an outspoken critic of Catholic “doctrine and belief”. I don’t believe in it obviously, otherwise I would be a Catholic. But I don’t call it “Babylon,” or “church of the devil,” or “not Christian,” or any of the other nasty things that Protestants and Evangelicals and other fundamentalist Christians etc. have always called it. On the contrary, I have a lot of respect for the Catholic Church, and so does the LDS Church.

Also, I would like you to address the similarities between Islam and your religion: this would throw great light upon the problems with both in light of mainstream Christian belief.

Been there, done that. You are wasting your time.

zerinus

 

[JonathanKinsman]

Yes. Damascus, today is a Holy Day of Obligation.

But why wait for those days to attend the Mass and receive the Eucharist?

Zerinus floats around the threads looking to defend any comments he deems derogatory (and some are) towards Mormonism. We have quite a few ex-Mormons on these forums who do a great job explaining what is non-Christian about Mormonism. Zerinus, however, will never address the issue, he addresses a parallel argument (showing websites that attack Catholicism, for example).

Here, his answer to the original question is enlightening. For as a Mormon if he believes everything about his religion being the one true Faith then he must explain away Islam. For modern day Mormonism (since the early 70s) has been refashioned to claim that the Church is in Apostasy and their are the true catholic church of Latter Day Saints.

Mormonism attacks my belief and I will answer them wherever they speak.

His answer also shows his lack of historical facts concerning the origins of Arabic literature and the Koran. I addressed that.

Pax Christ

Salve Regina!

 

[meedo]

One argument in favor of the Koran being the word of God that I have heard used is that Mohammed, being illeterate, could not have written it without Divine intercession. But then I read this (admittedly on wikipedia):

The Qur’anic revelations were originally memorised by Muhammad’s companions as Muhammad spoke them, with some being written down by one or more companions on whatever was at hand, from stones to pieces of bark. Compilations of the Qur’an began under the Caliph Umar, but it was Uthman who decided upon a definitive copy and destroyed all other versions that had resulted from the differences of pronounciation of the words.

If this is the case, then what does Mohammed’s illeteracy have to do with anything?

As you said, this is one argument, not ‘‘the’’ argument for Muhammed bieng a prophet. Him Bieng illeterate, somthing that everybody knew at the time, prevents him from reading or writing any text, thus preventing him from any means of studying literature or grammer or anything . This leaves the option of him bieng taught by someone. Again, it was somthing that just didnt happen because simply it would have been known and discredited. Muhammed lived in Mecca . Its a desert town, not a huge metropolitan city. If muhammed regularly visited someone ( all of meccans were pagan idol worshippers) for knowledge it would have been known. He was never accused of any of this . Actually he was never accused of any lying or dishonesty and he was often called to judge between people. Aftter the revelations began to Muhammed at the age of 40 his wife advised him to go and see her cousin who have become christian ( there is no indication he was a trinitarian christian) . This cousin recognized that what was revealed to Muhammed comes from the same source of what God has revealed to Moses and other prophets before, he wished he would be alive to support him when he was persecuted by his people, something that came to the horror of muhammed ofcourse . Any way this man died shortly after. The Quran have been revealed partially along 22 years afterwards. Muhammed would recite it and whomever knew how to write would write as much as they could. The arab were great poets yes. But its a huge mistake to mix that with their ability of writing. The jews of the time called their bretheren arabs the ‘‘illeterates’’ because of that . The Quran was not of any sort of potry made at the time or before and brought amazement to the Meccans and other arabs.

Its easy to claim stuff about muhammed but in the context of his life and history , allegations of copying and learning frpom somebody else doesnt stand a chance .

hope that helped clarify

salam

 

[JonathanKinsman]

The miraculous nature of the Koran (if I am understanding your question correctly) evidently lies in the fact that, according to Arabic speakers, it is considered to be a very high class Arabic literature. Its literary qualities are said to be unsurpassed by anything that has been written in Arabic before it or since. So claim (and has always been claimed by) the Arabic speakers and scholars, including independent Western scholars. I don’t speak the language myself, so I can’t vouch for that; but this is (and has always been) the near unanimous claim of Moslems men of letters throughout Islamic history. The miracle claim arises from the consideration that Mohamed being illiterate, could not have produced a work of literature of this calibre without divine intervention.

zerinus

Look at your last sentence, Zerinus. This is where Mormonism and Islam have that glaring problem of who came first and whose religion is truer.

They both claim the same origin, in fact, since Islam is first historically, I think your religion is the copycat here!

Both Islam and Mormonism revise their ‘divinely given’ texts and claim (Mormons anyway) that they are merely ‘making clearer’ what was meant. The irony is that we have copies of prior Mormon documents and the ‘making clearer’ revisions are worthy of Big Brother and other Orwellian metaphors.

This thread is to discuss non-Catholic religions: many of us are converts from Protestant or other traditions which are non-Christian.

You are disingenous to claim that since you spout the same party line on other threads. Answer our questions, Zerinus.

Here’s a good one: why do you think the Church has stated that Mormons do not receive valid Christian baptism?

 

[zerinus]

Yes. Damascus, today is a Holy Day of Obligation.

But why wait for those days to attend the Mass and receive the Eucharist?

Zerinus floats around the threads looking to defend any comments he deems derogatory (and some are) towards Mormonism. We have quite a few ex-Mormons on these forums who do a great job explaining what is non-Christian about Mormonism. Zerinus, however, will never address the issue, he addresses a parallel argument (showing websites that attack Catholicism, for example).

Here, his answer to the original question is enlightening. For as a Mormon if he believes everything about his religion being the one true Faith then he must explain away Islam. For modern day Mormonism (since the early 70s) has been refashioned to claim that the Church is in Apostasy and their are the true catholic church of Latter Day Saints.

Mormonism attacks my belief and I will answer them wherever they speak.

His answer also shows his lack of historical facts concerning the origins of Arabic literature and the Koran. I addressed that.

Pax Christ

Salve Regina!

Your post is absolute bonkers. I will here only reply to something you wrote in your previous post:

There is no Arabic literature before the Koran. This is so because the language was not a written language, it was still developing (like Hebrew developed from Aramaic) in those centuries.

This is sheer nonsense. Everybody knows that Arabic had great literature before the Koran, and also a written language. The written language was in Kufi script, and poetry (especially a poetic form called the qasida) was well developed. And of course, Arabic literature flowered in leaps and bounds after Islam.

zerinus

 

[inJESUS]

great posts all:thumbsup:

Muhammad in many peoples’ opinion was not an illiterate man. How can his uncle and his cousin who were highly educated, raise an illiterate? Anyway, even as a very succesful merchant is iliterate,( btw, numbers in trade were not used at that time but letters) don’t forget that he lived 40 years before proclaiming himself, or Waraqa ben Nawfal proclaiming him a prophet. 40 years of listening to scriptures, and 40 years being taught by Waraqa, the family friend who used to translate scriptures into Arabic infront of Muhammad. So illiteracy is absolutely irrelevant. Let’s all remember Homer was illiterate yet wrote great poetry. Poetry was part of that culture and one can be a poet without being literate. So one can listen to apocryphal gospels, myths and legends and some rabbinal interpretation as Muhammad obviously did, and put them in a poetic style. Even the poetic style of the Quran is doubted by many becauseof it’s meaningless repetitions, strange grammatical phrases and mistakes, non-cohererance of ideas, mismashed history ecc. And not to forget that all vowels and marks were added later to the Quran. We are talking about billions of vowels. Am sure Allah was not dctating these vowels to scribes. And not to forget the ahadith talking about lost suras/ayas, and the ahadith accusing Uthman of changing Allah’s word and so forth.Even in the Quran, Muhammad was accused of being taught, and what is his excuse? he replies : how can i be taught by a foreing tongue and the Quran is in Arabic? oh was he serious?obviously the ones who taught him knew other languages since Medina at that time was a trade center. One can even read Muhammad’s challenge of bringing a sura like it…here again, was he serious? what kind of subjective challenge is this? do you expect Muslims to say : oh yes that sura is better? all this myth of Quranic eloquence is an excuse to convince people that it’s divine…they had to find some excuse since he performed no miracle unless in the imagination of his laters followers…if Muhammad was a prophet because of this, then so was Homer

 

[inJESUS]

Muhammad was encircled with poets…i remember reading a hadith with a poet “inspiring” an aya and Muhammad replying : yes i received it that way too…

obviously it made me laugh …i don’t remember the hadith…if i find it i’ll post it…

 

[inJESUS]

Jonathan, Arabic language existed before Islam, and so was pre-Islam poetry written, that’s why we can read it now…so Muhammad had a long time listening to poetry and enteracting with poets, and killing some later

 

[inJESUS]

Let me add, there are indeed proof, written by many Arabs and orientalists, quoting mainly Islamic sources, about the origin of the Quranic doctrines, where they were taken from, and how these doctrines developped historically. I got an Arabic online and free book but the majority here don’t read Arabic unfortunately, and those who know Arabic like Meedo, assert no relationship between other peoples’ doctrines and Islam yet refuse to read any book that traces each and every doctrine and ritual found in Quran to the Nasara, a Christian cult, using mainly Islamic sources and historical data. With time these books will be translated, and many will be shocked, and will understand the Quran like never before.

 

[Damascus]

In Jesus,

With all due respect, you are aware of the miracle other than the Koran that Mo did? the water coming from his fingers?

Where did I hear that one from? Am I wrong?

 

[inJESUS]

In Jesus,

With all due respect, you are aware of the miracle other than the Koran that Mo did? the water coming from his fingers?

Where did I hear that one from? Am I wrong?

Anyway the Quran says he did no miracles. The scribes of course did not like that fact so they created some miracles from him, and as far as i remember, some miracles resembled what Jesus did. So one begs the question, the Quran mentions the miracles of prophets, but not that of Muhammad if he indeed did some? you’ll find many miracles in ahadith, and many sites boasting about it, but they contradict the Quran which says, regarding miracles : i am nothing but a messenger. In other words, no miracles .

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

We always here Muslims claiming ad nauseum that Muhammad was never accused of lying during his lifetime. But this isn’t true according to the Quran. Muslims who make this claim presume their interlocutors have never read the Quran and so do not know the relevant ayats.

meedo:

If muhammed regularly visited someone ( all of meccans were pagan idol worshippers) for knowledge it would have been known. He was never accused of any of this . Actually he was never accused of any lying or dishonesty and he was often called to judge between people.

[25.4-6] The unbelievers say: 'This is but a falsehood he has forged – another nation has helped him. ’ So they have come with wrong and falsehood. They say: ‘He has written tales of the ancients, they are recited to him at dawn and at the evening.’ Say: 'It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of heavens and earth. He is Forgiving, the Most Merciful.

See here, meedo? The Quran says that the unbelievers accused Muhammad of a falsehood he had forged. What is a ‘falsehood he had forged’? Isn’t it lying?

 

[inJESUS]

Rodrigo, there are many ayas like this, because Allah needed to keep sending ayas to refute people. People accused him of forgery of ancient tales ( proved a thousand time that he forged myth and legends and apocryphal gospel and Talmud), others accused him of being taught ( proved as well since his doctrines were known before Islam), of being demon possessed ( to which he confessed once- being under magic), and of being a mad poet- yet Allah said he is no poet and it does not befit him to say poetry, and at the same time you read Bukhari hadith about him reciting poetry. Yes as an “illiterate”, he was good at reciting poetry. Others accused him of lying because he kept abrogating his message ( hadith or tafsir i don’t remember).So yes people accused him of forgery, and lying, and being taught ancient tales, and as we say : no smoke without fire.

 

[inJESUS]

In Jesus,

With all due respect, you are aware of the miracle other than the Koran that Mo did? the water coming from his fingers?

Where did I hear that one from? Am I wrong?

sorry i didn’t reply in details first so here’s more details.
if you read Islamic sites, many will talk about “countless” miracles he did, from water flawing from his fingers to multiplying bread like Jesus, to fixing a man’s eyes like Jesus did somehow , to splitting the moon ( which many tafasir like Razi says it is a FUTURE event when the last hour approaches, not something done by Muhammad) ecc. But there are countless ayas that, after being asked why no miracles, these ayas NEVER talk about indeed any miracle:

The unbelievers say, ‘Why has a sign not been sent down upon him from his Lord?’ Thou art ONLY a warner, and a guide to every people. S. 13:7 in other words, you do no miracles.

Naught prevented Us from sending the signs but that the ancients cried lies to them;

And is it not **ENOUGH **for them that we have sent down to thee the Book which is rehearsed to them?
(So if Muhammad did perform miracles then this falsifies the sufficiency of the Quran)

There are a dozen and more ayas about the same theme of miracles, and not once does Allah say he indeed did miracles, on the contrary, Allah needed to gives pretexts why he is NOT doing miracles.
Here’s a Muslim scholar who agrees:

This highly elliptic sentence has a fundamental bearing on the purport of the Qur’an as a whole. In many places the Qur’an stresses the fact that the Prophet Muhammad, despite his being the last and greatest of God’s apostles, WAS NOT EMPOWERED TO PERFORM MIRACLES similar to those with which the earlier prophets are said to have reinforced their verbal messages. His ONLY miracle was and is the Qur’an itself

geocities.com/masad02/017

 

[Valke2]

As you said, this is one argument, not ‘‘the’’ argument for Muhammed bieng a prophet. Him Bieng illeterate, somthing that everybody knew at the time, prevents him from reading or writing any text, thus preventing him from any means of studying literature or grammer or anything . This leaves the option of him bieng taught by someone. Again, it was somthing that just didnt happen because simply it would have been known and discredited. Muhammed lived in Mecca . Its a desert town, not a huge metropolitan city. If muhammed regularly visited someone ( all of meccans were pagan idol worshippers) for knowledge it would have been known. He was never accused of any of this . Actually he was never accused of any lying or dishonesty and he was often called to judge between people. Aftter the revelations began to Muhammed at the age of 40 his wife advised him to go and see her cousin who have become christian ( there is no indication he was a trinitarian christian) . This cousin recognized that what was revealed to Muhammed comes from the same source of what God has revealed to Moses and other prophets before, he wished he would be alive to support him when he was persecuted by his people, something that came to the horror of muhammed ofcourse . Any way this man died shortly after. The Quran have been revealed partially along 22 years afterwards. Muhammed would recite it and whomever knew how to write would write as much as they could. The arab were great poets yes. But its a huge mistake to mix that with their ability of writing. The jews of the time called their bretheren arabs the ‘‘illeterates’’ because of that . The Quran was not of any sort of potry made at the time or before and brought amazement to the Meccans and other arabs.

Its easy to claim stuff about muhammed but in the context of his life and history , allegations of copying and learning frpom somebody else doesnt stand a chance .

hope that helped clarify

salam

Thanks for the response. If I understand correctly from what you, ANgelos and others have said, it is an islamic understanding that he could not write and that the Koran was written by others.

I had always thought an argument was that he couldn’t write before hearing God but that he was later able to write the Koran.

You did clarify for me the basis of the argument – which is an illiterate person would not have the necessary education to orally set forth the Koran (as opposed to writing it).

Thanks.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Valke,
Are you saying that you believe Muhammad was divinely inspired since he lacked sufficient education to even orally construct the Koran?

 

[Mannyfit75]

One argument in favor of the Koran being the word of God that I have heard used is that Mohammed, being illeterate, could not have written it without Divine intercession. But then I read this (admittedly on wikipedia):

The Qur’anic revelations were originally memorised by Muhammad’s companions as Muhammad spoke them, with some being written down by one or more companions on whatever was at hand, from stones to pieces of bark. Compilations of the Qur’an began under the Caliph Umar, but it was Uthman who decided upon a definitive copy and destroyed all other versions that had resulted from the differences of pronounciation of the words.

If this is the case, then what does Mohammed’s illeteracy have to do with anything?

The Devil wrote the Koran and use Mohammed as his instrument.

 

[Valke2]

Valke,
Are you saying that you believe Muhammad was divinely inspired since he lacked sufficient education to even orally construct the Koran?

Not what I believe. But that it is one of the proofs offered by muslims to support that Muhammed was a true prophet (at least those that I’ve spoken to online).

 

[Valke2]

The Devil wrote the Koran and use Mohammed as his instrument.

The Devil wrote the Koran? Did he take a 1400 year sabbatical before writing the Harry Potter series?

 

[havemercy]

The Devil wrote the Koran? Did he take a 1400 year sabbatical before writing the Harry Potter series?

hahahsodhq98wh0w3fyhofh seizure