₦airaland Forum

tbaba1234: Before the prophet, there were individuals who called themselves hanifs... They were not pagans.. they claimed to follow the religion of abraham/ismail. This were people who retained what they considered the true faith of abraham. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanif

Did you bother to read the link you posted?. . .The link you posted has nothing to to with a group of people that called themselves the Hanif before the advent of islam rather it is the muslim claim that there were a group of people that claimed to call themselves the hanif. . .

[quote]Ibn ishaq records the stories of some of the hanifs in pre islamic arabia (Ibn Hisham, 1, 77) and how the religion degenerated to idol worship.... ibn abbas also has similar narrations in bukari. there are a few other historical records of these kinds of references to abraham in pre-islamic Arabia. The Quran also records the hanifs in some verses

“So set your countenance for the deen (faith) as a hanif ? the original nature on which Allah created man.” (30:30)

“Say: As for me, my Lord has guided me to a straight path , a correct deen, the way of Ibrahim as a hanif and he was not a polytheist.” (6:161)

As regards finding pre Islamic literature, most of what is preserved of pre islamic literature are in arabic books in libraries somewhere. And many of the topics spoken about are not necessarily relevant to the discussion. It was a largely oral tradition that the arabs believed in.

I have told you that Islamic commentators and their commentaries are doubted by academics in part or in whole. . . . You made a very False claim that according the pagan arabs Abraham built the kaaba. . .Where is that recorded?. . .The Kaaba was not built by Abraham, it was were the arabs at that time used to house their gods before Mohamed came changed it, and brought the Abraham built the kaaba meme. . .

maclatunji: Oral tradition. How did Alex Haley confirm that Kunta Kinte was originally from the Gambia.

Tbaba123 stated something is is very false, so I wanted him to back it up. . . .

tbaba1234: The pagan arabs knew their ancestors, how does that relate to the bible? They knew that the Kaaba was built by their father Ismail... the bible does not say that or acknowledge that... Ismail/abraham were renowned for building the kaaba which was a central place for worship at the time... The story of Ismail to the arabs is independent of the bible or any other book.

Pls which pre-islamic text from the pagan arabs says this? pls provide it let me see. . .

tbaba1234: This is the silliest thing, i have seen in a while...

The pagan arabs in mecca even before islam identified themselves as sons of abraham/Ismail. So they were familiar with Ismail. There is DNA eveidence to show the common ancestry of the Jews and arabs. http://www.dangoor.com/73page25.html

I wonder why you keep insisting that the people living during the time of Mohammed were not exposed to the stories of the bible. . .Funny. . .

tbaba1234: @mazaje
For you, these are myths... Muslims have good reasons to believe that everything is factual, but that is another discussion.

Jesus was born by a virgin is factual or some angel revealed the koran to Mohammed in a cave is factual right?. . .Interesting. . .

There is no conspiracy here, i wouldn't be putting this if it is not a valid claim .... I think it raises serious doubts as to who exactly was crucified.

Jesus, the son of the father was saved. Jesus who is called the messiah was killed, Barabbas is a patronymic not a name. It means 'son of the father'.

Messiah is not an exclusive name for Jesus... It simply means anointed.... Jewish priests were called messiah for instance and many people were called messiah (anointed) in the bible. So you have two people bearing names Jesus could have used... That is the interesting point.

It looks like you didn't read the whole thing i wrote.

This is pure conspiracy and adding meaning to what was NOT written, even if Jesus Barabas was written the text very CLEARLY says that Jesus the christ(messiah) was the one that was crucified. . .How you are trying to give your conspiracy the life of your own is what is totally beyond me. . .Even if Jesus Barabas was written the text very cleary states that Jesus the christ was the one that was crucified. . .

double post

tbaba1234: It isn't about seeking validation, it is about spreading information. Those who seek validation are those uncertain of their faith. I am more than convinced about my faith so i do not need validation of anything but many christians are not aware of these possibilities. They are unaware of their history for the most part. Those who become aware, ask more questions.

Same can be said of muslims. . . . .

The faiths are linked whether you like it or not. Muslims accept Jesus (AS) as a righteous prophet of God... We have fundamental differences in our beliefs.. one of those differences is the crucifixion... like i showed, It looks like the earliest manuscripts offer us clues as to what might have happened if we accept the muslim view. I just threw something out there: two men called Jesus were up for crucifixion... one was released... whether or not this was the way Jesus was saved is still up in the air..

It is all from the christian text...

The faiths are linked only because one copied from the other. . . .The earliest manuscript offer no clue as to what you are suggesting. . . its very clear who the scripts say was crucified. . . . you are only dwelling on conspiracy. . . .

The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah? All of them said, Let him be crucified! Then he asked, Why, what evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified!

Even if Jesus Barabas was written the text goes on to say Jesus the messiah was the one that was crucified. . . .The text do NOT support anything you have posted here. . .

[quote author=emöfine2]I've noticed this as well but I guess this thread also serves to highlight...how much do believers actually know about their faith?[/quote]Very few people know much about their faith. . .Like the fact that no one knows who really wrote all the gospels. . .Very few christians actually know that the authors of the gospels are unknown. . . .

Even though I do not subscribe to the Jesus was crucified for the whole of mankind and resurrected nonsense myth. . .I am just tired of muslims seeking validation for their religion through christianity. . . .Was anybody there when Mohammed was allegedly receiving his revelations in a cave?

pro01: This old spook is on the prowl again. . .snooping around and offering worn out, unsolicited two cents that nobody needs.

tchaik: Funds that are specially marked out for!!!!!!(Name them); the law doesn't mandate you to explain how you spend(or embezzle) them!!!!!
Get the gist yet?

Thanks man. . .

What the hell is security vote?. . .

God revealed himself to me and he said his name is allah and mohammed is his last messenger. . .

God exist and relies on italo to defend his "truth" and make his case for him,eh?. . .Is is not the same god that was said to be addressing the ancient jews true public speech in pages of story books, writing on walls, fightig along side them etc. . .God only revels himself in the pages of ancient story books eh?. . .Interesting. . .

logicboy: Vedaxcool, your Islamic lies and propaganda can work in the muslim section where you silence criticism but they cant work here. This is the reason why you are getting destroyed by many people here. Your reasoning fails




Islam thrives where there is no free speech.

https://weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/behead-those-who-insult-islam.jpg

Vexdacool is the guy putting on the mask. . .

vedaxcool: In islam, Allah requires man think, numerous verses of the Qur'an calls man to reason, ponder, consider etc hence faith in Islam is not just to belief but to understand, to reason and to ponder. Reading the Qur'an u will notice what I will call simple rational argument that are faultless indeed. If the skeptic is an honest person reading the Qur'an will serve as an argument for believing in Allah. But you come to find that most skeptics have been indoctrinated to reject the truth of Islam even before learning the truth for themselves.

Reading the koran is NOT an argument for believing in allah just as reading the bible is also not an argument for believing in jesus. . .You have to be conditioned and indoctrinated first at an early age before you accept these stories, over 95% of muslims were born into the religion. . .That says everything. . .There truth in islam just as there is truth in hindusism or christianity. . Islam is both valid or invalid as other religions and that is a FACT. . .Allah is no better than Zeus or Vishnu god, all are a creation of men and islam is just another arabic culture and way of life they chose to spread around. . .

Islam as we know it today came in 1400 yrs ago, but the Qur'an again establishes what I will call a rational explanation for ur question.

We muslims believe as it is written in the Qur'an that Allah guided humanity from time immemorial till date, as Allah says " there was not a nation we did not send messenger to" hence from the time man was created till date Allah has been sending guide to mankind, hence the message of Islam was present from times past but not in the complete form. And despite the fact that you would not see or hear of people worshiping God as Allah, we learn from the Qur'an that ". . . To Allah are all the beautiful names" hence whether addressed as olorun, omohiri, etc we believe that these could have been names people used to call upon Allah in their own tongue, hence indeed Allah we believe has continue to guide mankind even before the prophethood of muhammad. But we also believe that the pure religion revealed to different nations got corrupted as time went past . . . Most people not believing Islam do so at their ignorance as such.

This is a pure lie, what is the name of the propeht allah sent to the ancient greeks?. . .We have them talking about gods like zeus etc. . .Allah gets no mention. .What about the ancient egyptians, they used to worship ra amun. . .Stop the silly lies that muslims believe this or that, your beliefs are false and have nothing to do with reality. . .How did allah guide the ancient mayan for example or the ancient igbos?. . .The ancient mayans have been practicing their religions for thousands of years, how did allah guide them?. . .What about the ancient aborigines, chines or japanese? How did allah guide them?. . .Its easy to make baseless claims and use the word believe to cover up the nonsense you spew around. .No?. . .We muslims believe this or that. .Who cares about what you believe?. . .Reality is what matters not your indoctrinated beliefs. . .Pure religion got corrupted abi? only islam is the religion that is pure and free from corruption. . .Indoctrination at its best. . .

As long as it is Nigerian women money is ALL that matters, I have countless experiences, I have friends that sleep with married women exclusively ONLY because they are rich, its a game they play among themselves. . .I don't blame them any way. . .I love money personally so I don't blame any body that loves money too. . .Its VERY easy to get girls in Nigeria if you are rich. . .You don't even have to talk. . .

tbaba1234: "Those who have no knowledge also say, ‘If only God would speak to us!’ or ‘If only a miraculous sign would come to us!’ People before them said the same things: their hearts are all alike. We have made Our signs clear enough to those who have solid faith." (Qur'an 2:118)

Another of the FALSE claim by the god proponents. . .Yeah, Allah's claims are clear enough for those who have been indoctrinated to accept the islamic stories and NOTHING else. .If the koran is very clear why is it that about 80% of the world's population reject it and find it meaningless. . .If the Koran is presented to most people on their 21st birthday for the very fist time in their lives there will be very few muslims on earth today. . .Solid faith means solid indoctrination and nothing more. . .There are NO signs only indoctrination. . .

There are many shallow atheists. Many become atheists for silly reasons,some do so after a bit of thought. My experience so far tells me that many of the atheists on nairaland are shallow. I mean no disrespect but it is true... I could name them, but id rather not. The problem with many atheists is that they put all religions in one big basket and do not properly investigate it.

Just as there are many shallow religionist and the fact is that atheist know more about the religions they left than the average person that practices the religion. . .All religions belong to one basket, all are equally valid or invalid. . .All religions are man made, they are a product of man and belong in the same basket. . .No man, no god and no religion , Period. . .

I went through mazaje reasons for becoming an atheist and what i find is that most conclusions are based on very weak or untrue premises. I think that even if atheists are provided with evidence of the truth, they will reject it. Atheism for many people is blind faith built on the shoulders of a richard dawkins and other atheistic prophets. For many, they just left one faith for another. So even if all their reasons for atheism are destroyed, they will still hold on.

talking

I false, there are millions of atheist in existence before dawkins was born, there are hundreds of millions of atheist that do not know who he is so try another lie pls. . .Provide the evidence already and stop talking. . . .Allah exist and yet people like you are the one making his case for him eh?. . .When men were primitive and with out knowledge he was busy parting the red sea for them, making them to divide the moon, causing trees to cry, living for days inside a big fish etc. . .Now Allah is all we see and everything was created by him. . .How interesting. . .What we don't know = Allah did it. . .

I have had discussions with some pretty intelligent people on belief and atheism. You will be shocked at the shallowness of the arguments and I mean really smart people that will probably make me look silly in many other discussions. Deep down, they know there is a God. They have just covered it and rejected it. That is why many atheists result to praying when they are under severe stress/trouble. It happens all the time.

Lie, please stop telling lies. . .I have heard you presented your arguments for islam and Allah all are very weak and rely only on special pleadings. . . .No there is no god, there are only spurious claims that god/gods exist. . . Religion works, in part, by effectively slowing or stopping people from maturing and growing up on intellectual, psychological, emotional and moral levels. As we grow up and become more experienced, more thoughtful and more exposed to various other beliefs and possibilities, then we come to have increasing skepticism about our own beliefs, and increasing awareness of our own biases that lead us to holding those (erroneous) beliefs. Religion suppresses a person's willingness to thoroughly test one's own biases though. Instead, it nurtures those particular biases, especially confirmation biases, that will in turn feed back into the religious beliefs, creating a positive feedback loop that closes itself off to external evaluation.

If people applied a similar level of skepticism to their religious beliefs that they comfortably apply to other beliefs, then religious beliefs would significantly diminish. Religion just suppresses people's willingness to do so, when it comes to their religion. They are left with intellectually absurd and emotionally/psychologically immature beliefs, even though they may entirely sincerely believe them as strongly as (or moreso than) other beliefs that comprise their worldview.

I remember the story of an atheist whose daughter was in a coma and dying. He prayed during that crisis because he felt helpless (he later became muslim)... Many so called atheists will do the same... but for many, they will return to disbelief and forget that they made a prayer when they were in crisis... You guys just reject what is already within you.

Stop telling lies, atheist do not pray to any god, of course you will always "remember" stories of atheist praying to Allah. . . .

The Quran talks this scenario:

Surah 10

22. It is He who enables you to travel on land and sea until, when you are in ships and they sail with them by a good wind and they rejoice therein, there comes a storm wind and the waves come upon them from everywhere and they assume that they are surrounded [i.e., doomed], supplicating God, sincere to Him in religion, “If You should save us from this, we will surely be among the thankful.”

23. But when He saves them, at once they commit injustice upon the earth without right. O mankind, your injustice is only against yourselves, [being
merely] the enjoyment of worldly life. Then to Us is your return, and We will inform you of what you used to do.


Every atheist should do some self-examination and see if the reasons for disbelief are real reasons or not. And if they are real reasons, have they looked at the answers proposed by theists. Some of the concerns might already be addressed...

Actually theist have not even proffered any answers because there is non they can proffer. . .If I ask you a simple question, all you will do is resort to special pleadings and capitalize on things that you and I do not know by claiming special knowledge over things that you do not know at all. . .Pretending to know what you don't is the life blood of all religions. . .I prefer the honest I do not know option and I am very ok with that because that is the truth. . .

For me, the Quran as a text has dismantled any contentions, i could possibly have about faith. The amount of tranquility that comes with certainty of faith is amazing.

I guess what i am saying is, make sure your reasons for atheism are not shallow reasons... If there are, maybe you have to reexamine yourself.

The Koran has dismantled any contention yet over 80% of the world's population do not believe in it and those that do had to be indoctrinated with in since child hood before the can reason along its lines and accept its stories, theology and assertions?. . .The koran makes sense ONLY to those that have been indoctrinated with its assertions which are mostly false by the way. . .

I got this reasons from some where, I added a little to it and it completely sums up why I do not believe in God and religion(It has absolutely nothing to do with anger or frustration). Here are the reasons. . .

*There is not one iota of unequivocal evidence that any God exists.

*God cannot explain all that exists because God itself cannot be explained. This claim just gratuitously swaps one mystery for another.

*Religions do not explain any mechanism or process whereby God created everything. It is effectively an appeal to magic.

*Religious faith is generally indistinguishable from gullibility. Trust and faith, as human concepts, are normally based on experience and reason. Religious faith is necessarily based on belief in unproved and unknowable things.

*A god or anything that exists outside the realm of natural reality is necessarily unknowable, unintelligible and incoherent. It is therefore irrational to believe in something that is supernatural.

*Religious scripture:
*is man-made
*contains many translation, historical and scientific and interpretation errors
*is often self-contradictory
*often contradicts known facts
*promotes conversion by violence
*calls for punishment and death to unbelievers
*contains virtually no specific and unequivocal predictions
*contains only vague predictions beyond its own time
*contains many failed prophecies, predictions and unfulfilled promises of God
*Scripture contains too much that is vague, metaphorical and symbolic to be instructions from a divine being to humans. A perfect being would be expected to be able to communicate much better than that.

*In order to render most of scripture useful, it must necessarily be interpreted. This makes it easily twisted to support nefarious purposes.

*The problems with scriptures outweigh any good messages they may contain. If read at all, they should be considered opinion and philosophy and taken with a grain of salt.

*Morals are based on human sympathy and empathy not on divine guidance. it varies from culture to culture and is always evolving. Establishing moral codes based on theism is unnecessary, riddled with contradictions, and fraught with danger.

*Religion is divisive in that it pits groups of otherwise indistinguishable people against one another. There are already more than enough differences for humans to fight over. And religion is the most intransigent of such divisions because many people feel it is a divine duty to revile those who believe differently than they do even if they don't see the reason in it.

*Religions are generally intractable when it comes to substantive compromise with other religions or belief systems.

*All suggested ways to perceive God rely on internal mechanisms that are subject to personal desires, suggestion, and mistakes. On the question of communicating with God, religion insidiously asks us all to deceive ourselves.

*People are animals. We are only special due to our more developed brain. (We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees)

*Every culture that has existed has had God myths and other superstitions. This is often used as an argument for the existence of God. Rather than indicating that there is a true God, this indicates that people are simply attracted to the idea.


*Goodness, truth, wisdom and all other purported attributes of God are human concepts. When applied to a presumed entity so completely different in kind as to be supernatural, they are meaningless. The idea of God is thus incoherent.

*Infinity is a concept humans cannot comprehend except in a limited mathematical sense. If God is infinite, this also renders him unintelligible.

*Belief in an afterlife is insidious, besides there is no evidence to show the human consciousness survives bodily death.

*Organized religion wastes untold amounts of money and resources that could be used to care for people, promote real knowledge, and advance the human race.

*Theism puts God above people thereby making people subservient, unimportant and expendable.

*Religion relies on guilt, fear and outlandish promises to gain obedience.

*Theism generally precludes any possibility of testing God or questioning his existence substantively. It is something like the wizard of Oz saying, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

*The methods used in proselytizing for religion bear an unmistakable resemblance to the methods of con men. But the scriptures consider this the great commission of mankind.

*There are many good rational and logical arguments against theism but not one argument in favor of it that doesn't rely on a fallacy or assumption.

*There are so many Gods put forth by thousands of religions that no one could ever be certain of picking the correct one, assuming that one exists.


*Prayer is totally subjective and cannot be shown to have any more efficacy than pure chance.

*There is no discernable difference between believing in God and having an imaginary friend.

*People generally rely on facts and evidence in every human endeavor except religion.

*Unequivocal miracles do not occur.

*God supposedly speaks directly to the human spirit. This must be, at least partly, the same concept as mind. People who receive messages in their minds are invariably delusional.

*There is no positive correlation between belief in God and being a moral person.

*Belief in religion has spawned uncounted cults that draw people in by appealing to the concept of faith without proof and the promise of prophets to come. Some examples are: Jim Jones and the People's Temple, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Marshal Applewhite and Heaven's Gate. These groups had religious followers who were convinced to brutalize, mutilate and kill themselves and their children on the basis of this kind of blind faith.

*Religion has an extremely violent history that includes such things as crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, genocide, terrorism and holy war. Untold millions have died in the name of religious icons and for religious beliefs.

*Religions have a long history of misogyny.Religion is just like racism because it segregates people

*Religious dogma is practically immune to the incorporation of new facts. The best it can do is strained reinterpretation.

*The argument that God cannot be proven not to exist is irrelevant when one considers that to do so requires that the concept of a supernatural God be intelligible and coherent, which it is not.

*There is a well known argument commonly called "The Problem of Evil". It basically says that if an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God exists, unnecessary or gratuitous evil would not exist in the world. Thus if God sees this type of evil and does nothing he is either not omnibenevolent because he doesn't care or not omnipotent because he is unable to stop it. There are many counter-arguments that have been used. However the only one that really could defeat the Problem of Evil is if one says that we cannot apply human standards to decide what is or is not gratuitous evil. This may well be true, but that argument renders God unintelligible and meaningless to humans. Either way, the concept of God seems to be highly doubtful.

*Theists claim that God has given humans free will. However, this free will is anything but free. The choices are forced on pain of death and eternal suffering. It is equivalent to having a slave and saying something like: "I grant you your freedom to leave at any time. But if you do, I will torture you mercilessly and kill you as slowly as possible."

How can one be frustrated or angry about something that doesn't exist?. . .Gods don't exist, it is the belief in Gods and religions that exists, 4000 years ago the ONLY God that existed in the mighty Egypt was Amun Ra, in Greece at that time it was Zeus, 1000 years ago the Mayans had their own God. . .Allah and Jesus have now replaced Ran in Eygypt. . .Jesus has replaced most of the Mayan God etc. . .Religion is nothing other than people's culture, some love to spread theirs around while others want to keep it to themselves. . .All Gods are man made and reflect the culture of the society that created the God idea. . .Religions are nothing other than the culture or way of life of a group of people. . .All Gods are man made and as such men MUST write down their books for them, teach other men about them and what they want, fight for them, execute their plans for them, plead on their behalf, spread their supposed message etc. . .The day people stop to believe in a particular version of God that God dies off. . .Zeus, Ra, Phalango and many many other countless Gods that have been relegated to mythology because people no longer believe in them. . , Gods don't exist believe in Gods is what exist. . .I am an atheist because of the FACT that men created all the Gods they worship. . .Without Mohammed, his cronies and the stories they created while indoctrinated people with and made sure the people kept repeating and indoctrinating themselves with their stories and supposed reality, people wouldn't believe in Allah. . .

tbaba1234: The oldest copy of the uthman's Quran is in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and some folios in private hands. The carbon-dating of a folio from this manuscript was carried out at Oxford. The result showed a 68% probability of a date between 640 CE and 765 CE, and a 95% probability of a date between 595 CE and 855 CE (Islamic Art, Indian Miniatures, Rugs And Carpets: London, Tuesday, 20 October 1992 at 10 a.m. and 2.30 p.m., Thursday, 22 October 1992 at 2.30 p.m., 1992, Christie's: London, p. 88 (Lot 225).)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4581684.stm

There are many other relics dating to the first and second centuries after the prophet moved to Medina....There are in egypt, russia, turkey and other part of the muslim world and all of these copies match .....

The distance between them is to wide to make a definite claim on them. . .

Does that still make him an only son?? so if my dad does not know where i am... my brother is an only son..

What if he assumed you were dead. . .

There is no indication of when it happened , we just know the buildings of pharaoh were destroyed

Egypt is not an arabic country, they started speaking arabic in the 7th century... arabic slowly became their language after the muslim conquest

Egypt is in arabia(the region). . . .

they started speaking copt... They are not in the Arabian peninsula... The information was not available... we know the language was lost for centuries...

The language might be lost but not the stories. . .

tales of the ancient' Known by all people?? how? please show me where the Quran says they knew the story.... The Quran tells the prophet that he is unaware of these stories:

Known by the people that were leveling the accusations, how will the Koran say the Prophet was aware of the stories when it is claiming divine revelations. . .

We have many of pre islamic literature, where are these stories??

Very little is left or known about pre-islamic literature. . .

How did the Quran get the knowledge?? The torah should have the same knowledge since it is older..... There is simply no way.... trying to find explanations ... trust me there are no reasonable ones...

There are very reasonable ones, we do NOT know where they got their sources from, once islam took over arabia it changed everything, it became their culture and their way of life, their religion was changed and their way of life altered, you will not expect muslims which is the new dominant culture and religion to keep any record or stories that will contradict what they are espousing. . .We have no record from the pagans and what they know. . .Everything we actually know about the pagans of arabia was told to us from the mouths of muslims. . .We also know that muslims are very good at burning books and destroying things. . .They are still doing it today. . .

How did the Quran come up with the knowledge of preserved bodies How come the bible does not have it

It could be that the bible was not really interested in it. . .The writers of the koran must have heard it from others. . .Egypt was not very far away from them. . .The people moved around and interacted with others. .Let me give you an example, when I was a teenager, I visited Benue state and meet an old woman, she is dead now, she was in her late 70s then I believe, I didn't have much idea about age but she was quite old, she was telling us about how her grand father used to gist her about white people and how the enslaved others and took them to their lands in far way lands. . .She is a complete illiterate, bit some how got to know about how white people were enslaving people in far away lands. . .Oral culture and stories do fly around. . .We do not have the history of the pagans arabs as written by them and what they really know to conclude. . .Muslims make extra ordinary claims when there are actually very simple explanations. . .Egypt was not in Mars, it was very close to them. . .

Like i stated his cause of death is UNKNOWN, unless you can find a reliable evidence that conducted an autopsy on his body... I provided mine
.... The Quran has all of these facts and you hold on to what has not been found? what if the evidence was destroyed? It is such a long time ago? there are still many things, we do not know about ancient egypt...

We know for a FACT that he did NOT die during any chase neither was he drowned. . .Firstly there is NO evidence to show that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt, the story only appears in the bible, the consensus about the most respected Egyptologist and archaeologist that have studied the stories in details including Jews themselves is that Jews were never enslaved in Egypt and that the exodus is non historical. . .Ancient and respectable Jewish historians that lived about 2000 years ago like Josephus have also stated that the story of Jews being enslaved in Egypt is to be found only in the Torah and no where else. . .He made the observation very long before the koran was even written down. . .The story is a myth, it has no evidence to back it up at all. . .So much is known about Ramesses II, nothing in the story about his death comes close to what is written about the nameless Pharaoh in the koran. . .The story in the koran is a general story and can be atrributed to any pharoah, the story of how the nameless pahroah died is the deal breaker, the nameless pahroah is not Ramesses II, to claim other wise is to lie. . .

We have many of pre islamic literature... some books have published them... Where are the stories of egypt? where are they there are no references to anything remotely close to what the Quran talks about.

What exactly do we know about pre islamic arabia from those books and what exactly were reported in the books, very little is known about pre islamic arabia. . .

Just as We have sent among you a messenger from yourselves reciting to you Our verses and purifying you and teaching you the Book and wisdom46 and teaching you that which you did not know. (Quran 2:151)

What is the context of this verse?. . .In what context is it to be related?. . .You can not just quote a verse and generalize it. . .We need to know what it is talking about in context. . .

Unless you can find evidence of that oral tradition, you are lost really.... We still have many of preislamic literature..... Where are these stories where are these traditions?? There should be a hint somewhere.... This language was lost for hundreds of years.... The torah was closer to the time... why is it inaccurate?? It is in the same region?? what other ancient literature in the region has these stories?? For hundreds of years, and every statement is still accurate...

Oral tradition exist every where in the past, it exist even in Nigeria and Africa as whole that was how people keep records of events in the past since most were illiterate and many had not fully developed the writing styles. . .Firstly even the christians claim that Ramesses II is the king the bible was talking about. . .If that is the case then I really do not know what you are talking about the bible getting the tittle of the Kings wrong, how can the bible get the tittle of the king wrong what Ramesses II is the king christians and Jews are talking about. .

The bible calls the leaders of egypt at the time of abraham (AS) and joseph(AS) pharaoh... we know now that is wrong... the Quran does not make this error.. The leader at the time of joseph is simply called a king...

Did you get this in the original Hebrew translation or the English translation?. . .You have to show that the original Hewbew called them pharoahs, if it is the english translation then you have no case because we know that many translation errors exist in the english versions of the bible and the koran as well. . .If the original Hebrew bible does not make that claim them you have no case. . .

There is no way the bible is the source of this book... No way!!! The Quran is a piece of art....QED!!

Even when non hsitorical stories like the Jews being enslaved in Eygypt were reported in the bible, the Koran reported it as well. . .What about the story of the virgin birth of Jesus, even from christian sources we can conclude that Jesus was just an ordinary man that was later turned into a deity, outside sources also indicate that he was a normal human being from the little that was written about him, suddenly we have the koran copying the lies of Christians about Jesus, no?. . .Coincidence? I know we will always disagree on this. . .

I apologize for anything i said that might have been offensive ... Please forgive me! This will be my last contribution.... safe!!

Its alright man, we will always disagree when it comes to religion, but i must say you are the ONLY muslims that I know that has TRULY educated me about islam and the ONLY muslim i know that TRULY knows much about his religion. . .I was raised a muslim, but your knowledge of Islam is truly worthy of emulation, how I wish majority of muslims are like you. . .This is also my last post on this topic. . .Cheers. . .

tbaba1234: You are repeating the same things: this is getting funny... you still have not provided the source of revelation, you are just jumping from pillar to post repeating the same exact things, the same exact stories... PLEASE COME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW :: I hate repeating myself...

What source of revelation are you talking about?. . .I repeat you keep making the error of repeating muslim claims as if they are factual. . .They stories of the muslims remain their own stories as long as they are not corroborated by any external source. . .

Nope, the difference with the christian narrative is that we have the biographies of every single hadith narrator, the biographies of their predecessors up to the prophet. It is what is called 'consistent reporting'... No one knows who is mathew, mark luke and John? Unless you say the whole muslim world was involved in a grand conspiracy, the reporting is too consistent. It is impossible to get their kind of consistency from so many people.

It actually doesn't matter at all since all the stories are coming from a group of people with an agenda and a product they want top sell to people, the product here is islam, which is their culture and way of life they want others to accept and adhere to. . .TWhat do you mean by the whole world, the repots come ONLY from one source and that is from the mouths of the muslims. . .Will you fully accept stories written about Sadamm Husien from the mouth of the americans? A nation that invaded his own nation with an agenda in mind?. . .Will you accept the story of the the crusades from the mouth of the christians?. . .They will try as much as possible to give a very convincing and consistent argument to win over the hearts of others. . .Remember so many people TRULY believed that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction before the war because of the consistent and "true" reporting that was carried out by the americans. . .History weitten by the victor is NOT to be accepted unless if there are so amy external and neutral sources that corroborate such narratives. . .The hadith is nothing compared to the amount of consistency we got about Iraq having weapons of mass destructions by the americans who had an agenda to invade Iraq. . .Of course it is expected of the muslims to come up with a convincing tale, after all they have a religion they wabt to sell to others. . .You would expect them to come up with convincing stories on how they came about their conclusion since they are claiming divine revelation as the source of their stories. . .

I give you an illustration, there are thousands of gospels available in the early years of christianity because there was no consensus on who Jesus was.... there was no consensus... In Islam there is remarkable consensus, even amongst different sects. To say, oh this is just a muslim story is to dismiss the consistency of the reporting and assume a mass conspiracy. This is not a scientific way of looking at things.

This person has already been talked about, his name was Abdullah Ibn Sad Ibn Abi Sarh. He became a muslim in MEDINA and apostasized shortly after... Before that most of the Quran's stories had already been revealed in Mecca.. We have more details on him- He converted back to Islam and died as a Muslim.

According to Abû Omar, "cAbdullâh Ibn Sâd Ibn Abî Sarh converted back to Islam during the conquest of Mecca and his Islam was fine, and later, his behavior was beyond reproach. He was among the wise and the noble from Quraysh, and was the knight of Banî 'Aamir Ibn Lu'ayy was respected among them. Later, 'Uthmân named him to govern Egypt in the year 25 H. He conquered Africa in the year 27 H and conquered Nuba in the year 31 H and he was the one who signed with the Nubites the armistice that is still valid today. He defeated the Romans in the battle of as-Sawaary in the year 34 H. When he returned from his advent, he was prevented from entering al-Fustât [the capital of Egypt], so he went to 'Asqalân where he lived until the murder of cUthmân(R). It was also said: he lived in Ramlah until he died away from the turmoil. And he prayed Allah saying: "O Allah make the prayer of subh the last of my deeds. So he performed wudu and prayed; he read Surat al-Fâtihah and al-'Aadiyât in the first rak'ah and read al-Fâtihah and another sûrah in the second rak'ah and made salâm on his right and died before he made salâm on the left side. All this report was conveyed by Yazîd Ibn Abî Habîb and others. He didn't pledge allegiance to cAlî nor to Mu'âwiyah (RR). His death was before the people agreed on Mu'âwiyah. It was also said that he died in Africa, but the correct is that he died in 'Asqalân in the year 36 H or 37 H and it was rather said 36 H.

i. He became muslim in Medina, left shortly after... he had doubts and left.

ii. The Quranic Stories were revealed in Mecca, so unless he had a time machine... this is not the source of revelation

iii.) He became muslim again and lived a good life

The story does not even state his name, but lets not go into that because that is not what I am driving at. . .What i was driving at is the point that the Christian and Jewish stories were already in existence in arabia during the time of Mohammed. . .According to muslims sources, Mohammed was a merchant that traveled around. . .If the stories were in circulation in arabia at that time, it is only reasonable to conclude that he got the stories from the christian or jewish sources. . .Oral traditions etc. . .

[/quote]In Medina, there were Jews, half of their rabbis became muslim....

We have nothing from the Jews living at that time so any report from muslims alone is NOT to be accepted. . .

Like you, the pagans were looking for an explanation, where is he coming up with these stories? We only examined one story and i pointed out so many things not mentioned in any script of the bible. And i still have more!.... And it can be done for every story. Profound differences with important details..

Salman must have had a time machine for that verse to be talking about him

Salman al farsi narrated his whole story; every detail of his life is available.... He was a persian who emigrated to medina and became muslim there when the prophet (SAW) came there.. Again unles he had a time machine he could not be the source of revelation.

Nahl Sura (The Bee), verse 103 was not talking about about salman al farsi, it was revealed in Mecca and it talked about a foreign slave. It is well known to Muslims that the greater part of the Qur'ân, i.e., about two thirds of it, was revealed in Mecca before the Prophet(P) migrated to Medina (this includes the stories of Biblical Prophets!), where Salmân met him. Furthermore, the Book's literary style is so sublime that even born Arab linguists who have tried over the years to imitate it have not been successful - to say nothing of a Persian or any foreigner.

When they say 'tales from the ancients'- does that mean they are exposed to the stories? you can not interpret stuff with understanding the historical context. They were not sure what to accuse him of. Sometimes they said that he was a sorcerer, at other times they would say he was a poet, or crazy, or a liar. So when they accused him of magic, does that mean they saw him appearing and disappearing or what? It is just one of the many accusations. Trust me, more than even you they will have loved to know the source of revelation... It would have been the easiest way to discredit him.

Firstly we have NOTHING from the pagans to tell us why the accused Mohammed of sorcery, being taught from others or repeating the stories of the ancients. . .But we can know one thing. . .For them to Mohammed of repeating the stories of the ancients means the MUST have been exposed to the stories and MUST jhave known about them to level such accusations, your defense here is very weak. . . If you come and tell me a story that happened 200 years ago and I accuse you of repeating stories from the past, I must have been exposed to the story to know that you are retelling and old tale. . .Their accusation that Mohammed was retelling stories from the old tells us very clearly that they must have been exposed to the stories. . .We do not even have anything from them, we only have the very one sided reports from the muslims. . .It is from there that we are making our deductions. . .

[/quote] seriously dude... you have run out of options... repeating the same things over and over again... Maybe if you say it long enough it will make sense!!

your source makes no sense historically: the statement does not add up... which arab prince?? look at the biased title:: It is for a particular crowd not a scholarly work.
The only contacts you state are in medina, ;;; after most of the Quran had already been revealed... Question: Where did he get all the stories from in Mecca?? I need evidence here and how come the stories are so different??

Again i quote from the catholic encyclopedia:

The Hijaz [Arabian peninsula] had not been touched by Christian preaching. Hence organisation of the Christian church was neither to be expected nor found. [New Catholic Encyclopaedia, Op.Cit, Vol. 1, pp. 721-722.]



The compilation had a process; You might want to learn about it... before mouthing off ignorance;;

You see: for zaid to write down any verse: there must be a written version and 2 memorised corroborators.. The written version must match what has been memorised... He himself had also memorised the whole Quran (one of the reasons he was chosen to compile). so all he needed was a written version and 2 memorisers to corroborate before any thing is written down. In this case, he only found Abu Khuzaimah al-Ansari but Umar , Uthman , Zaid and Uby bin K'ab (Radiya Allahu Anhum)also witnessed that they had heard them from the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) and the prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam) in his life time praised the witness of Abu Khuzaimah al-Ansari and equated it two.

The muslim were spread all over the arabian peninsula... Zaid could only find one witness close to him and got other corroborators who agreed with it.....

1. The Quran verse was written::

2. two memorisers were required to corroborate, he found only one in this case (doesn't mean they did not exist)

3. Zaid himself had memorised the Quran

4. It was corroborated by other witnesses at the time of revelation before writing it down.

as soon as Khuzaimah RA came, ‘Uthmaan RA also came and said ‘I testify that these verses have been revealed from Allaah’. In addition, Imaam Suyuti RHM in his work – Al-Itqan, states that Khuzaimah has a special status as his testimony is equivalent to the testimony of 2 people and hence, this is enough as evidence for the verses to be written down. This is because of an incident that occurred during the life of the prophet SAW where he bought a horse from a Bedouin. However, the Bedouin replied ‘I have not sold the horse to you’. The prophet SAW replied ‘Yes, I have bought it from you’. The Bedouin requested a witness to be brought forth and Khuzaimah bore witness to support the prophet SAW. The prophet SAW said ‘on which grounds to you bear witness?’ Khuzaimah RA replied ‘I bear witness on the grounds that you are trustworthy’. Thus, the prophet SAW made Khuzaimah’s witness equivalent to 2 witnesses (Abu Dawood).

The differences you claim were not differences in the words, up till today muslims recite in those 7 dialects since the time of uthman; there are different dialects of arabic but the meaning is the same.. The Quran is written in the dialect of the prophet.




You are confusing your self here, There is no such thing as original Quran.. People were reciting and writing the Quran in different dialects, in order to prevent the book from being corrupted like the Jewish/christian text.. There was a need to have only one dialect written down... Other written down copies were burnt... Where did original copies come? The Quran had already been written anyways by abubakr so that was a reference copy... There was a need to have it written down in just the dialect of the prophet and distribute to the muslim countries because some people kept notes in their personal copies and some copies were incomplete. All new copies were then made from the official copy (which was called Mushaf Uthman). In this way the Qur'an was preserved and saved from any kind of change, distortion or loss.

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur'an, so he said to 'Uthman, "O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before." So 'Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to 'Uthman. 'Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, 'Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and 'AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. 'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

People still recite in those different dialects today... It was to prevent the corruption of the text that it was written in one dialect. Otherwise, we might have had different Qurans around the world.... There would have easily been a war if the new text differed from what the people had been reciting in their dialect.
It is not about the dots or marks; some dialects might omit one letter in pronouncing a word for instance, the meaning is exactly the same.

Seriously you have no case here. Open your mind and remove the cobwebs...



Seriously? books have been written about these guys: The prophet had scribes who wrote these things down. It is not like today where paper is common , they worte it down on what they could find.
Zaid was the chief scribe.... That was why he was given the duty to compile the Quran in the first place.. a summary biography is on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaid_%28Islamic_scribe%29 , comapnions biographies can be found http://web.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/companions_of_the_prophet/index.htm- http://www.angelfire.com/on/ummiby1/

The whole of Arabic was muslim pretty quickly.. where else do you expect to get these reports from? The only differences were dialectical and people still recite like that today.

Already, i have shown that most scholars western and eastern are satisfied with the compilation of the book.... Any one that studies the compilation will know that....



The compilation of the hadiths were not done just 200 years later, this is a common misconception.. People had these stories memorised and many hadiths were written even at the time of the prophet...
::Ibn ishaq had compiled hadiths by the first century::

At first the Prophet (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) stopped his companions (RadiAllahu Tala Anhum) from writing down hadiths.
[Sahih Bukhari]

Then later he permitted it...

Prophet of Allah (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) said to Abdullah bin Amr (RadiAllahu Tala Anho): Write hadiths, I swear by Him who holds my life in His hand, from this mouth nothing but the truth comes out.
[Abu Dawood, volume 1, pg 158: Sanad is Sahih]

Abdullah bin Amr (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) says: We were seated near prophet of Allah (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) a[b]nd were writing[/b], in this manner was asked: which city will be first conquered, Constinople or Rome?

He (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) said: Hercule's city (Constinople(istanbul,turkey) will be conquered first.
[Darmi, pg 126: Sanad is Sahih]

Prophet (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) said: Write this hadith and give it to Abu shah (RadiAllahu Tala Anho)....
[Sahih Bukhari & Sahih Muslim]

Ali (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) says: We don't have anything but Kitab Allah and the scriptures in which are hadiths of prophet of Allah (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam).
[Sahih Bukhari & Sahih Muslim]

Abu Huraira (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) says: Amongst the sahaba (RadiAllahu Tala Anhum) no one narrates hadiths more than I do save Abdullah bin Amr (RadiAllahu Tala Anho), because he used to write them and I didn't.
[Sahih Bukhari]

Anas (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) heard a hadith and liked it so much, he told his son to write it and he wrote it.
[Sahih Muslim, Kitab ul Iman]

Anas (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) says that when Abu Bakr (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) sent him to Yemen as the governor, he wrote on a scroll and gave it to him whose content was: Start with Allah 's name who is Rehman and Raheem, this is the obligation of Zakat which Prophet of Allah (SallAllah-u-Alaihi-wa-Sallam) has made on the Muslimeen and this is what Allah ordered His prophet
[Sahih Bukhari, Kitab ul Zakat]

The narrator Hamad bin Salma says: I got this book from Anas (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) 's grandson Samama.
[Nasai, kitab ul zakat]

Imam Malik says: I read Omar (RadiAllahu Tala Anho) 's book …
[Muwatta Malik, pg 106]

So yes hadiths were written from the time of the prophet....Compiling hadiths also started early.... The authentication of hadiths is an science.. The amount of work done is remarkable.

The biographies of every narrator in the chain of narration is known... Was he known as a truthful person? Did he have a good memory? Did the narrators meet each other,,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hadith help yourself to some knowledge


Already destroyed above

In other not to keep repeating my self, I will just say I have made my points as to why muslim sorces are NOT to be believed with my rejoinders above. . .The muslism have made very extra ordinary claims, and we know that extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidence but instead of extra ordinary evidence we are being provided with very one sided stories that were complied over 200 years after the supposed events they reported based on oral tradition and a tradition that do not have external corroboration at all as evidence?. . .If the stories of the muslism were corroborated by external sources them some credibility would have been ascribed to their stories but no, we have ONLY them and what they have reported with an agenda in mind. . .

BIGER BOY: Mazaje I respect your zeal and hopefully ur striving to get to the bottom of things, but so far my following of your exchanges with tbaba only indicates delibrate attempt to wiggle around things.
1. Your arguments are bereft of facts, but aren't short of incredulous stretch of the little facts you present. For instance with one poster you argue that tha ahadith are biased narrations from Muslim point of view (u even allude to a grand Islamic conspiracy to cover up events) yet at anoer turn your evidence that the Quran was copied is from either quoting from the same ahadith or from missionary sources. The reasons I find this funny is that if there was a Muslim cover up conspiracy how would they leave evidence that to u seems as ammunition to buttress ur fact(it's either u misunderstood the Hadith or don't want understand at all). Also quoting from missionary sources as a self confessed atheist is rather contradictory, because you should know better that the aim of any missionary writing about Islam isn't to propagate it or set records straight, it's the otherwise.

Please rethink your stance or provide evidences from scholarly sources as tbaba is doing. Good luck

Here is my position. . .The muslims story and tale is VERY slanted, it is one sided and as such it should not be believed because there is an agenda to EVERYTHING the muslsims write down and the agenda is SOLELY for people to accept their new religion, unfortunately we do not have anything else to compare with, most of what we know about Mohammed and they things they claimed happened at that time we know from what they wrote. . .If you read my post you will see that I always try to show that even muslims sources indicate that the people around had some knowledge of Christianity and Jewish stories. . .Tbaba123 keeps claiming that such knowledge did not exist when even muslim sources indicate otherwise, that is the reason I quoted some hadiths and verses in the Koran to show him. . .People at that time were already accusing Mohammed of recounting stories of old which he learnt from other, they can only accuse him of that if they themselves were exposed or had knowledge of such stories. . .Its very simple. . .The hadiths themselves claim that Mohammed had contact with people that were exposed to such stories. . .

As for scholars I don't waste my time appealing to authority all the time because scholars themselves are mostly biased. . .I do apply to authority but I am always very careful and make sure that I always try present universally held positions. . .

tbaba1234: Pharaoh was specifically called lord of the Stakes....it says " and pharaoh, lord of the stakes..", i am particularly interested in the term " lord of the stakes" why lord of the stakes?

That is an interesting title; In fact, i recently learnt that that awtad was used to refer to buildings in classical arabic; because the awtad was the strongest part of a building they usually called it awtad... So when the Quran calls mountains awtad; the classical arab could relate to it because they used to take shelter in the mountains...

Don't wanna go into another argument that will derail this thread so I will let it be. . .

These interpretations date back to the time of the prophet... ibn abbass was a companion so you can't say, i am getting a reformed definition of what the arabs thought this verse meant;

Why ramses II? from the Quranic description:: he is the only one that fits the bill... I can go through the Quranic description step by step if you want...

Was Pi-Ramesses destroyed before the Quranic revelation ? yes... So the Quran is accurate in saying the buildings of the pharaoh built was destroyed... What other meaning are you drawing? It didn't say immediately the building were destroyed... what we know happened immediately was the death of pharaoh... His buildings were apparently later destroyed..

That is not what I was asking, I was asking if the Event happened immediately after his death?

Isn't it interesting that the book mentions festival where was that gotten from?... Like i said, there are many others...

Egypt is in arabia, getting details of the ancient egyptians and how they lived their lives and culture is not a difficult tasks, words do fly and travel around. . .After all they all lived in the same place and the stories of the ancients as stated in the koran were known by the people. . .

Another interesting trivia not mentioned in the bible::

We took the Children of Israel across the sea: Pharaoh and his hosts followed them in insolence and spite. At length, when overwhelmed with the flood, he said: "I believe that there is no god except Him Whom the Children of Israel believe in: I am of those who submit (to Allah in Islam)." (It was said to him): "Ah now!- But a little while before, wast thou in rebellion!- and thou didst mischief (and violence)! "This day shall We save thee in the body, that thou mayest be a sign to those who come after thee! but verily, many among mankind are heedless of Our Signs!" [Qur'an 10:90-92]

The Quran specically said that his body was preserved, interesting isn't it?.......

Ramesses II is not the only Pharaoh whose body has been persevered. . .Many other pharaohs have their bodies mummified. . .

Lying? how? he didn't die of arthritis, The actual mode of death of many of the pharaoh is masked by the mummification; The most recent tests show that he could have been part of the chase ... The Quran says his body was preserved meaning it must have been recovered quickly and mummified...

Part of what chase?. . .The story of the exodus and the Jews being enslaved in Egypt appears only in the bible, even respectable ancient Jewish historians like Josephus acknowledge that. . .Which source do you know states that he died through drowning?. . .Records do show he died at an old age of 90 of natural causes not through chasing any body talk more of drowning. . .I repeat there was never a chase, the story of Jews being enslaved in Egypt appears only in the bible and later in the koran thousands of years later on. . .

We can only say the conditions the pharaoh had, not their mode of death... We know he had idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis from the most recent studies which is a form of arthritis, We can't see for sure if that is what killed him FACT.... the cause of death of Ramesses II can't be verified from his mummy.

He did not die drowning or chasing any group of Jews outside Egypt. . .We have a continuous flow of events after his death, no mention of Jews or any turbulent death. . .The story ONLY appears in the bible. . .Which was an obvious myth. . .All sources indicate he died of old age at 96 an age too old for those days and people of his status, and was buried in the famous Valley of Kings.

These are not small details; like i said there are much more and i can do the same for every story; These details are the difference between revelation and what you call copying because these details are not found anywhere in any script of any bible... You guys have no case for plagarism... you just keep digging yourself into a deeper hole. and like i said, there is more...

I can not speculate about evidence not found , but from what we know; the Quran matches up pretty well and that is pretty amazing considering the fact that most of this were lost for centuries before the Quran was revealed... Like i said, there is no ambiguity from the Quran of who the pharaoh was.. The information given only points to Ramesses II.

They will say, “Yes, a warner had come to us, but we denied and said, ‘God has not sent down anything. You are not but in great error.’ ”
And they will say, “If only we had been listening or reasoning, we would not be among the companions of the Blaze.” (Surah 67 9-10)

There were oral stories and traditions at that time, muslims, christians, jews and all the people at that time used oral means of communication. . .The writers of the koran were not far away from egypt. . .The stories were familiar to them I believe. . .

tbaba1234: Muslim sources claim different?? you sound like a missionary and you keep bringing up weak arguments:: Muslims do not take reports from[i] Kitab al-Masahif[/i] seriously, because many of the reports are not authenticated and are even considered fabricated unless the story is corroborated by an independent, reliable source to be considered authentic.

There are a number of reasons for this:

1. The writer ibn abi dawud was declared a liar by his father abu dawud. Ibn `Adi narrated in al-Kamil fi al-Du`afa' with his chain from `Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn al-Junayd: I heard Abu Dawud say: "My son, `Abd Allah, is a liar."

2. Abu al-Qasim al-Baghawi received a paper from Ibn Abi Dawud in which the latter asked him about the wording of a hadith related from his grandfather. Al-Baghawi read the paper then said: "I swear by Allah that in my view you have brought yourself out of hadith science."

He didn't follow the proper methods of hadith collection, the chain of the narration is weak...

We have numerous independent reports of those that we know memorised the Quran from the companions and wives, we know them by name:

1-4. The Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs. However, Abu Bakr and `Umar died before memorizing it completely, while `Uthman and `Ali were among those who gathered (jama`a) the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him. `Uthman was one of those who used to recite the entire Qur'an in one day and night.
5. `Abd Allah ibn Mas`ud -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
6. Salim, Mawla Abi Hudhayfa -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
7. Mu`adh ibn Jabal -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
8. Ubay ibn Ka`b -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him. He would recite it all in eight days.
9. Zayd ibn Thabit -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
10. Abu Zayd -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
11. Abu al-Darda' -- Allah be well-pleased with him-- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him. His class in the mosque of Damascus counted 1,600 students, each ten with one monitor. If a student made a mistake the monitor corrected him, and if the monitor made a mistake Abu al-Darda' corrected him.
12. Abu Musa al-Ash`ari -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
13. `Abd Allah ibn `Amr ibn al-`As -- Allah be well-pleased with him. He was ordered by the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- to recite it in no less than seven days.
14. Talha ibn `Ubayd Allah -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
15. Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
16. Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
17. Abu Hurayra -- Allah be well-pleased with him. He was examined by Ubay.
18. `Abd Allah ibn al-Sa'ib -- Allah be well-pleased with him. He was examined by Ubay.
19. `Abd Allah ibn `Umar -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
20. `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas -- Allah be well-pleased with him. He was examined by Ubay.
21. `Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
22. `A'isha bint Abi Bakr -- Allah be well-pleased with her.
23. Hafsa bint `Umar -- Allah be well-pleased with her.
24. Umm Salama -- Allah be well-pleased with her.
25. `Ubada ibn al-Samit -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
26. Mu`adh Abu Halima -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
27. Mujammi` ibn Jariya -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
28. Fadala ibn `Ubayd -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
29. Maslama ibn Mukhallad -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
30. Anas ibn Malik -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
31. Umm Waraqa bint `Abd Allah ibn al-Harith -- Allah be well-pleased with her.
32. Abu Umama al-Bahili -- Allah be well-pleased with him.
33. `Utba ibn `Amir -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him.
34. Tamim al-Dari -- Allah be well-pleased with him -- one of those who gathered the Qur'an in the time of the Prophet -- Allah bless and greet him -- and who used to recite the entire Qur'an in one day and night.

These are the ones we know from narration, The ones above are not among the 70 so even if 70 died, we still had many more with the Quran memorised. This number excludes the numerous Companions, and we have not talked about the Ansar and the Muhajirin.... by all accounts there were hundreds who memorised the Quran.

I have addressed this already, I gave an example of a person that was said that he alone was the custodian of a particular surah. . That came according to muslism source. . .Another source claimed only 4 people knew the koran by memory after the death of the prophet. . .

Instead of some words existing in the Quran available, Abdullah Ibn Abbas used to recite the “synonyms” of them. Enes Ibn Malik recited the word “akvamu” in the sixth verse of “The Mantled One” as “asvabu”. Ibn Omar recited the word “fes’av” in the tenth verse of “Friday” as “femzü”, and Ibn Abbas recited the word “kel’ıhni” in the fifth verse of “The Disaster” as “k’essavfı”. Likewise, Ibn Abbas preferred to recite the word “sayhaten” as “zeyfeten”. Enes Ibn Malik recited the word “halelna” in the second verse of “Comfort” instead of “vada’na”. The changes in these cases are not changes of letters but changes of words. This means the claim that even one letter of the Quran has not been changed since the time of the Prophet is not true.
Sources refer to different mushafs. When the examples given are compared, the contents of some mushafs are not the same as those in today’s official Quran. What Ibn Omar says is also very interesting; “None of you should say that he has the whole Quran. Does he who says so know what the whole of the Quran is? It’s certain that most of the Quran has been destroyed.” (See Süyuti, el ıtkan, 2/32)


Both the first and the second original copies of the koran were burnt by the Muslims. There is no doubt that this was done to conceal the truth. And the original copies that were made during the time of Othman and sent to certain central zones cannot be found anywhere in the world.

addressed how?? you can't run away from these things.... all you stated were speculation... please provide evidence, because you are getting routed here..

So now, i am in the US.... My brother is the only son of my parents... You are making no sense... you are defending obvious corruption... Again sounding like an evangelist.... You asked for the story of Ismail that is why that was stated..

Only son since no body knew the where about of the other son according to the story. . .

the "for muslim' only relates to the first sentence: To tie that to the whole of the statement is dishonest to say the least... look at the Quote again:

“For Muslims the Quran is much more than scripture or sacred literature in the usual Western sense. Its primary significance for the vast majority through the centuries has been in its oral form, the form in which it first appeared, as the “recitation” chanted by Muhammad to his followers over a period of about twenty years…
The revelations were memorized by some of Muhammad’s followers during his lifetime, and the oral tradition that was thus established has had a continuous history ever since, in some ways independent of, and superior to, the written Quran… Through the centuries the oral tradition of the entire Quran has been maintained by the professional reciters (qurraa). Until recently, the significance of the recited Quran has seldom been fully appreciated in the West.” (The Encyclopedia of Islam, ‘The Quran in Muslim Life and Thought.’)

Read the second statement: he says
"The revelations were memorized by some of Muhammad’s followers during his lifetime, and the oral tradition that was thus established has had a continuous history ever since, in some ways independent of, and superior to, the written Quran"

Here, he makes a judgement at the end, saying the memorised quran is independent of, and superior to, the written Quran...... This shows that he was not just stating the muslim view

"Until recently, the significance of the recited Quran has seldom been fully appreciated in the West"

Another judgement statement, that the significance of the recited Quran is not yet fully appreciated

If he was just expressing muslim view he would not be making personal judgement statements... stop being dishonest...

The guy was clearly stating the position of muslims how you and how it relates to the west, how you made a long commentary out of it is just beyond me. . .Pls stop being dishonest. . .

tbaba1234: Case fail again
,
1. Waraqa blind ebonite, gospel of mathew... where is the evidence of that in the Quran..

2. Abdullah ibn Salam was a RABBI who became a muslim in MEDINA, i would think he came to that conclusion by reading the torah

3.Salman al farsi was a persian (not arab) who became muslim in MEDINA....

A rabbi and a persian who became muslim in Medina after 87 chapters of the Quran had been revealed in Mecca and most of the stories had been revealed... Bros, you are doing pretty poorly in your attempt to prove your case.... Who taught the prophet when all the verses were revealed in mecca?

Fail. . .You keep repeating the muslim position and story as if its factual, it is not. . .This is nothing difefrent as a christian repeating the christian position on how the bible was complied as if it is factual. . .

The point that I have been making which you keep denying without any evidence is that the gospel and the Torah were already in circulation in arabia as written by muslims sources, Mohammed was in contact with people that were already exposed to the Torah and the gospels according to muslim sources. . .

"There was a man from the House of Neccar…He was a Christian, who later became Muslim. He read Al Baqara and Ali Imran Suras. He also wrote revelations for the Prophet. Later, he converted back to Christianity. He started to say, ‘Muhammad only knows what I taught him. He does not know anything else. (See, Buhari, e's-Sahih, Kitabu'l Menakıb/25,v.4,p.181-182;Tecrid, hadith no: 1477)

The people at that time also accused Mohammed of copying his stories from others, how will they accuse him of copying from others if they didn't have knowledge of the stories?. . .

People accused Mohammed of being taught by by others even at that time. . .How will they know he was taught by others if they weren't exposed to the stories of the others?. . .

"The one who taught Muhammad was a Persian called Salman or (Selman Farisi)". . .Some agree that the foreigner who taught Muhammad was the one who was mentioned in Nahl Sura (The Bee), verse 103 is Salman the Persian. (See, Taberi, the same reference above).

The koran acknowledges this fact but as expected it tries to discredit the people as liars. . .It also indicates that the people were already familiar with the stories. . .

“Deniers claim ‘this Quran is the fabrication of Muhammad. A group of people have helped him.’ They said, ‘The Quran is full of stories from the past. Others wrote it and read it to him all the time.’ O, Muhammad, say, ‘The Quran has come from the one who knows the secrets of the earth and the skies’. Without a doubt, he is the forgiver’ “(Al Furqan, verse: 4-6).

For the people to accuse the Koran to be full of stories from the past means they must have been exposed to the stories of the past before throwing out the accusations against the Koran. . .

Did you read your quotes at all:::

The author makes contradictory statements (I am not ignoring the fact that the book is titled "Sharing Your Faith with a Muslim")

1. Barhebreus writes of an Arabic translation made by a monophysite named Johannes, by the order of an Arab prince in A.D. 640. (The prophet was already dead anyway, by then the whole of arabia was already muslim: which arab prince?? Arabia was under muslim control- my God, you sound like an evangelist now)

2. Oldest extant fragments of Arabic translations from the Greek date from the early ninth century. The oldest extant translation in the Syriac also dates back to the same time.

Apart from the ridiculous lie of an unnamed arab prince since arabia was in muslim hands

Statement 2 renders statement 1 in valid.... Who is barhebreus.... I bet you can only find this kind of stuff in books titled:: "Sharing Your Faith with a Muslim" like seriously dude..

Yeah, I get it declare sources that go against what you agree with as false. . .

Even the church admits that they were non-existent in the arabian peninsula..

Which church agrees?. .As I have pointed out Mohammed was already in contact with ex Christians, one even wrote the koran for him and accused him of lack of knowledge. . .That was reported by muslims sources. . .

There were literally hundreds of memorisers: Partly and wholly in the muslim lands.... the scribes had written on bones and flesh the whole Quran:: It was only compiled less than 2 years after the prophets death: any discrepancy will have easily ignited a war:: There were people who never saw the book but had the whole of it memorized... If there were discrepancies;;; we will have had different copies of the Quran today: No matter what part of the world you go,It is one book.... you can actually give a history of the compilation.

Another lie, according to muslims sources, some of the verses were known by only one persons. . .“I began to collect the verses; some were on date leaves, some on stones. I got some from people who had memorized them. In the end, I got the last verses of the Sura “Repentance” (Al Tawba) from Ebu Huzeymetu'l-Ensari. No-one else had those verses in mind.” Zeyd

As can be seen here, there is a verse that was known by only one person at the alleged time of compilation. . . .If there were many people that memorized the Koran as you claim there won't be any need to gather what was written on bones, stones etc. . .People will just assemble and recite what they have already memorized and it will be written down. . .The claim that some verses were gotten from stones, bones, leaves destroys your arguments of many memorizes partly and wholly. . .According to muslism sources there were different versions or different ways in which people were reciting the koran, that was what made Othaman to create burn up all the different versions leaving his own version which he claims to be the standard version. . .

Even the original koran does not exist according to muslims sources by Caliph Mervan . . . .

“All that was written in the original Quran was conveyed into the “Mushafs” (later copies of the Quran) by Othman, so there was no need for the original one. If it had not been burnt, some suspicions would have arisen and the doubts around the “Mushafs” would not have ceased. I was afraid of that, so I had the original scripts burnt.” (Ref.: ıb Ebi Davud, Leiden 1937, pub., p.243-Suphi e's-Salih Mebahis Fi ulum-il Kuran).

Othman instructed three of the scribes, ‘Should there be a disagreement on any part between Zeyd (who was from Medina) and you, write that part in Quraysh dialect because the Quran was revealed only in that dialect.’
And so they did as they were instructed. Finally, Othman, when the task was completed, sent the original pages back to Hafsa and ordered his men to deliver the new copies to each central zone and had all the previous copies burnt so that not even a page would remain from the old volumes. (See Buhari, e's- Sahih, Kitabu Fedaili'l-Kuran/
As can be understood from the efforts that were told to Buhari and from the way of solving the problems that might have arisen between the people of Quraysh and others, the new copies could not be exactly the same as the verses in the one that Hafsa possessed. On the one hand, it was claimed that “identical copies of the Quran were made”, but on the other hand, when asked why it was necessary to make new copies, it was said that it had to be done due to “the differences of dialects”. However, Dr. Suphi e's-Salih, says in his work called “Mebahis Fi Ulumi'l-Kuran” (Beirut 1979), on pages 80, 84, 85, that this claim is far from being convincing. According Dr. Suphi, at that time, Arabic did not have signs and punctuation marks as to spell the same words to be pronounced in different ways. Back then, apart from the letters to write, the letters with no signs had no dots, either. In short, the “Mushaf” that was produced during the time of Caliph Abu Bakr could not have been written as to contain different dialects even if had been intended. In this case, the question, “What were the differences between Abu Bakr’s (later Hafsa’s) copy and those that were produced by Othman’s scribes?” remains unanswered.

On the other hand, we have gospels which are at least 40 years after christ by mostly unknown authors, Who is mathew, mark, luke and John? How did it come about? what other ancient books did the writers copy from?.... Many scholars do not even know who they are, their history, the fathers, were they religious?? who are these people? There are thousands of manuscripts each different from the other... some with serious differences. . .

Who is Zyed?. . .What about Ebu Huzeymetu'l-Ensari? Who is he and what do we know about him?. . .What other book mentions them beside muslism books?. . .Even your own muslims sources admit that stories were lifted from leaves, bones, stones etc and put together. . It talk about differences that existed by then as well and how the issue was resolved. . .

For every hadith narrator, his father is known, the chain of narration is known (who did he hear this from?), minute details as regards his religiousity is known like did the person pray in the mosque regularly, was he a truthful person? every detail of the person is known before his hadith can be accepted. Not only that, the history of those, he heard is from is known, their fathers are known. It is an incredible body of evidence.
It is wrong to say the hadith did not exist until 200 years later... There was already an oral tradition with the hadiths and ibn ishaq had a book of hadith by the first century after the prophets death, (even though he did not do any authentication). Now we have authenticated hadiths to the smallest of details.

We have so much details which make it easy to classify a hadith as definitely true, maybe true, possibly fabricated or definitely fabricated...

What has a person's father name got to do with the credibility of narrations that were made over 200years later?. . .Everything we know about these people came from a biased source. . .Oral tradition is very very UNRELIABLE. . .Even in this modern age with Televisions, Radio and print media, we still find it difficult to provide accurate chronology of events talk more of oral tradition that spans over 200 years. . ..

The Quran preservation is not doubted by most of the reasonable world..

False, not doubted by muslims who have been indoctrinated to accept the divinity of the tradition. . .

The efforts made at authenticating every single hadith puts it head and shoulders above any biblical text...

I laugh in arabic, sure it will be expected from a muslism, muslims even call it science. . .The hadith as we know that were written over 200 years after the death of the prophet to be of any meaningful value as far as am concerned, 200 years is more than enough to create what ever type of narrative you want to create and project, owing to the fact that they tradition that it was relied upon was an oral tradition something we all know is VERY unreliable. . .

tbaba1234: You just keep jumping from post to post....

Waraqa became a ebonite priest by traveling outside mecca... He came back at old age... Arabic is his language so id imagine, he could say what he learnt of the gospel in his language... He had to travel Outside arabia to learn about christianity (al-Sîrah al-Nabawiyyah, ibn ishaq Mousasat cUlûm al-Qur'ân, Beirut, p.222.)... If it was available in arabia, he would have learnt it there..Ebonites only believe in the gospel according to mathew starting from the baptism.. so we can safely say, he must have been saying what he learnt from mathew from baptism in his language...


If the prophet learnt from him, the Quran will be littered with stories from mathew but that is not the case...

Fact: there was no single written bible scripture in Arabic at the time of Muhammad (SAW)..... Even the church confirms the influence of the church in the arabian peninsula was minimal

The Hijaz [Arabian peninsula] had not been touched by Christian preaching. Hence organisation of the Christian church was neither to be expected nor found. [New Catholic Encyclopaedia, Op.Cit, Vol. 1, pp. 721-722.]

Bottom line is there were people that had knowledge of the bible during the time of the prophet in arabia, that is my point. . ."... Waraqa had been converted to Christianity in the Pre-lslamic Period and used to write Arabic and write of the Gospel in Arabic as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight..." (Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 478)

"... Ka'b read the Torah and said: The Apostle of Allah has spoken the truth. Abu Hurayrah said: I met Abdullah ibn Salam and told him of my meeting with Ka'b." (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 3, Number 1041: Narrated Abu Hurayrah)

"... (Muhammad's father) passed by a woman of the Kath'am (tribe) whose name was Fatimah Bint Murr and who was the prettiest of all women, in the full bloom of her youth and the most pious and had studied the scriptures;..." (Ibn Sa'd's Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, p.104)



According to Mishkat al-Masabih, Book XXVI, ch. XXXIX, pp. 1371, 1372:

Khaithama b. Abu Sabra said: I came to Medina and asked God to grant me a good companion to sit with and He granted me Abu Huraira. I sat with him and told him I had asked God to grant me a good companion to sit with and that he suited me. He asked where I came from and I replied that I belonged to al-Kufa and had come desiring and seeking good. He then said, "Do you not have among you Sa'd b. Malik whose prayers are answered, Ibn Mas'ud who looked after God's messenger's water for ablution and his sandals, Hudhaifa who was God's messenger's confident, ‘Ammar to whom God gave protection from the devil at the tongue of His Prophet, and Salman who was a believer in the two Books? meaning THE INJIL and the Qur'an. Tirmidhi translated it.

Again the hadiths claim waraqa used to write the gospel in arabic. . .The claim that there was no written form of the biblical text is false. . .All these traditions presume the existence of Arabic translations of certain portions of the bible. . .

There is no good evidence of any seats of Christianity in the Hijaz or in the near neighbourhood of Makkah or even of Madina.[Richard Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment, 1925; 1968 (Reprinted), The Gunning Lectures Edinburgh University, London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, p.42.]
[/i]
The prophet could not write but he had scribes who wrote down the whole of the Quran... within 2 year of his death, we had a book. (not 40 years). There are many western and eastern scholars who are very satisfied with the transmission of the Quran.... When i say scholars, i am not talking of people who write anti-islam books for a living... Many of the people i quote do not even like islam::

We have gone through this before the koran as we know it today was not written by the prophet, it did not exist during his time, two years is enough to compose anything the writers wanted. . . .There are muslims scholars who do not even believe in the Prophet Mohammed as portrayed by muslim sources and yet they call themselves muslims. . .You love appealing to authority as if that is the case, you rush to some fringe elements that agree with you or take their words out of context. . .If we are to go by appealing to authority then we will conclude the Jesus indeed resurrected from the dead because there are so many scholars that agree and have written a lot about it. . . .If you want to appeal to authority then lets do it. . .

According to early Christian records there was actual Arabic translations of the New Testament that had been translated during the time of Muhammad:

"The Gospels were translated into Arabic from the original Greek as well as Coptic and Syrian versions. Barhebreus writes of an Arabic translation made by a monophysite named Johannes, by the order of an Arab prince in A.D. 640. Oldest extant fragments of Arabic translations from the Greek date from the early ninth century. The oldest extant translation in the Syriac also dates back to the same time. It is likely, however, that portions of the Gospels were rendered into Arabic at a much earlier date that that mentioned above. George, a bishop of the Arabs of Mesopotamia, wrote a Scholia on the Scripture around the sixth century. But it appears that Christian teaching and preaching in the sixth century (A.D.) Arabia was done mainly by quoting from the Syriac or Ethiopic scripture and then giving a free rendering of it in Arabic..." (Abdiyah Akbar Abdul-Haqq, Sharing Your Faith with a Muslim [Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis MN, 1980], p. 29)

"A Coptic version of the New Testament was current toward the end of the third century... The Gospels were translated into Arabic from the Greek, Syriac, and Coptic versions. Barhebraeus speaks of such a translation made between A.D. 631-640. George, bishop of Arab tribes of Mesopotamia, a friend of James of Edessa (d. A.D. 578) wrote a Scholia on the Scriptures. According to Al-Baidhawi and other Muslim commentators, their prophet received instruction from learned Christians like Warqa b. Naufal, Jubra and Yasara (Baidhawi on Sura 16:105). Also, traditions relate how the prophet used to stop and listen to these two men as they read aloud the Books of Moses (Torah) and the Gospels (Injil). Apparently there was a translation of portions of the New Testament that was extant in Mecca during the rise of Islam. Such a translation must have existed along with the full versions of the New Testament in Syriac and Syriac Lectionaries." (Ibid. p. 56)

As regards the Quran completeness and preseravtion, Scholarly work done by both western and eastern scholars attest to this:

John Burton, at the end of his substantial work on the Quran’s compilation, states that the Quran as we have it today is:

“…the text which has come down to us in the form in which it was organized and approved by the Prophet…. What we have today in our hands is the mushaf of Muhammad. (John Burton, The Collection of the Quran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, p.239-40.)

How can that be when muslims sources claim other wise?. . ."Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them. (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.23). . .

The fact that even accoring to muslims the koran was copied from different forms and that some of it was lost says that what we have today is not the same as what existed during Mohammed. . .When they wanted to compile the koran, they had to search far and wide to put it all together according to their stories. . .

Introduction to the Qur'an, W. Montgomery Watt (Author), Richard Bell Page 3: They assert the job done by the companions preserved the Quran and that the Quran is exactly as it was revealed to the prophet.

These are both christians:

Leading orientalist Kenneth Cragg reflects that:

“…this phenomenon of Quranic recital means that the text has traversed the centuries in an unbroken living sequence of devotion. It cannot, therefore, be handled as an antiquarian thing, nor as a historical document out of a distant past. The fact of hifdh (Quranic memorization) has made the Quran a present possession through all the lapse of Muslim time and given it a human currency in every generation, never allowing its relegation to a bare authority for reference alone.”(Kenneth Cragg, The Mind of the Quran, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973, p.26.)


A.T. Welch, a non-Muslim orientalist, writes:

“For Muslims the Quran is much more than scripture or sacred literature in the usual Western sense. Its primary significance for the vast majority through the centuries has been in its oral form, the form in which it first appeared, as the “recitation” chanted by Muhammad to his followers over a period of about twenty years… The revelations were memorized by some of Muhammad’s followers during his lifetime, and the oral tradition that was thus established has had a continuous history ever since, in some ways independent of, and superior to, the written Quran… Through the centuries the oral tradition of the entire Quran has been maintained by the professional reciters (qurraa). Until recently, the significance of the recited Quran has seldom been fully appreciated in the West.” (The Encyclopedia of Islam, ‘The Quran in Muslim Life and Thought.’)

The majority of scholars hold this position...

Did you read what you posted?. . .They guys are simply stating the position of muslims. . .Did you not see the "For muslisms" qualifier?. . .


He is an expert in Islamic studies... That is what he reads about and teaches everyday of his life.... Did you read his resume at all? He has definitely not in the fringes... He talks about Islam from an academic perspective..

Which one was translated to arabic? As far as we know there were no arabic scriptural text at the time of the prophet.. unless you have concrete evidence to the contrary...

Muslims believe Jesus is a word from God...why was that not replicated in the qoutes?

Muslims believe in angel gabriel...why was that not replicated in the qoutes?

As regards Ismail

This have already been addressed already. . .

The bible says:

Then God said, “Take your son , your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. ”

There was never a time when Isaac was the only son... Ishmael was born before him... There are two options, God is lying (audhu billah) or the script was corrupted... There are no other option...

In the Quran, Ishmael was the sacrificial son, he and his mother went to the wilderness on the command of God... A spring gush forth from his feet (the spring still exists today in Mecca, Zamzam... there are no other similar springs in the whole of the region).....He and his Dad Abraham built the kaaba.... so we do know quite a deal about him...

Isaac was his only son according to the story because his Ishmael and his mother were no longer with them. . .They had left already. . .So what has the existence of a spring that is being tied to a legend got to do with anything?. . .

As regards the exodus, the Quran talks about details of ancient egypt not mentioned anywhere in the bible... The pharaoh of the Quran was definitely Rameses II. There is no ambiguity about it. It was the same pharaoh that took care of Moses as a child and the same one that met him as a man... Adding up the ages of moses as defined by the Quran: from a fully matured man (40)[Qur'an 28:14], when he left egypt, to 8-10 years in midian [Qur'an 28:25-29], to the years when he came back to egypt [Qur'an 7:127-137]. The only pharaoh that served that long was Rameses II.(~66 years, 1279-1213 BCE).. This is all from the Quran...

Why didn't the koran just mention his name?. . .

Now look at the interesting thing said about Rameses II in the Quran compared to what we know of him- this is not found in any biblical scripture:

Has the story of Moses reached thee? Behold, thy Lord did call to him in the sacred valley of Tuwa, "Go thou to Pharaoh for he has indeed transgressed all bounds: And say to him, ‘Wouldst thou that thou shouldst be purified (from sin)? - And that I guide thee to thy Lord, so thou shouldst fear Him?'" Then did (Moses) show him the Great Sign. But (Pharaoh) rejected it and disobeyed (guidance); Further, he turned his back, striving hard (against God). Then he collected (his men) and made a proclamation, Saying, "I am your Lord, Most High". [Qur'an 79:15-24]

The pharoah in the koran is NOT Rameses II pls stop that ridiculous talk. . .His life is well detailed and nothing suggest any thing written about the nameless Pharaoh in the koran is him. . .

Pharaoh said: "O Chiefs! no god do I know for you but myself... [Qur'an 28:38]

Note: the bible pharaoh never made this claim

The setting of the story of Moses and Pharaoh in the Qur'an is in the New Kingdom Period (as compared to the Joseph story), it is worthwhile mentioning one of the characteristics in this period was deification of the Pharaohs and how it started to become the norm.

Compare what the Quran said to this statement:

By the early New Kingdom, deification of the living king had become an established practice, and the living king could himself be worshipped and supplicated for aid as a god. [D. P. Silverman,"Divinities And Deities In Ancient Egypt" in B. E. Shafer (Ed.) Religion In Ancient Egypt: Gods Myths, And Personal Practice, 1991, Routledge: London, p. 64.]

Which historical Egyptian source talk about mentions any Moses a Jew that grew up in the house of Rameses II any where?. . .

Stela no. 410 of Hildesheim Museum shows two people, one is standing wearing the double crown with the uraeus, a short skirt, a necklace and holds the so-called handkerchief or seal in one hand [Figure 5(a)]. He is called: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Lord of the Two Lands ‘Ramesses-meryamun, the [b]God’"[/b].
{L. Habachi, Features Of The Deification Of Ramesses II, 1969, op. cit., p. 32}


That is not a big deal right:: let move to the second description

What is this?. .

The Quran says:

But none believed in Musa except the offspring of his people, on account of the fear of Pharaoh and their chiefs, lest he should persecute them; and most surely Pharaoh was lofty in the land [Arabic: firʿawn la-ʿālin fi-al-ardh]; and most surely he was of the extravagant [Arabic: innahu lamin al-musrifīn]. [Qur'an 10:83]

No evidence ANY where to suggest that the Jews were once enslaved in Egypt during the reing of Ramesses II. . .

The Quran now claims that he exalted himself in the land.... So how was he called in the land..

[i](1,1) Beginning of the Recital of the Victories of the Lord of Egypt. His Majesty (l.p.h) has built himself a castle whose name is Great-of-Victories. (1,2) It lies between Djahy and To-meri, and is full of food and victuals. It is after the fashion of On of Upper Egypt, and its duration is like (1,3) that of He-Ka-Ptah. The sun arises in its horizon and sets within it. Everyone has foresaken his (1,4) (own) town and settled in its neighbourhood. Its western part is the House of Amun, its southern part the House of Seth. Astarte is (1,5) in its Levant, and Edjo in its northern part. (1,6) Ramesse-miamum (l.h) is in it as god, Mont-in-the-Two-Lands as herald, Sun-of-Rulers as vizier, Joy-of-Egypt (2,1) Beloved-of-Atum as mayor. The country has gone to its proper place.

Ramesses II calls himself viz., as god, herald, vizier and mayor.

Not a big deal:: Let's go to more astonishing stuff::

Or have they the dominion of the heavens and the earth and all between? If so, let them mount up with the ropes and means (to reach that end)! But there - will be put to flight even a host of confederates. Before them (were many who) rejected messengers,- the people of Noah, and ‘Ad, and Pharaoh, the Lord of Stakes, and Thamud, and the people of Lut, and the Companions of the Wood; - such were the Confederates. [Qur'an 38:10-13]

The intepretation of this is that Ramesses II had many buildings,

Pls read what you wrote and laugh at your self or should I say the apologist whose work you copied. . .How those the above verse have anything to do with Ramesses II?. . .Why was the Pharaoh of Egypt mentioned in the verse? . . . Is this a joke or what?. . .So the people of Noah, and ‘Ad, and Pharaoh, the Lord of Stakes and Thamud means Ramesses II had many buildings?. . . . . . .This is a fraudulent interpretation my friend. . . Trying to forcefully jong things together to create a narrative is what this action of the apologist you copied from is called. . .

Ibn ʿAbbās (companion of the prophet) said:[b] It means the lord of the secure building. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said: He owned many buildings; [/b]buildings are called awtād. Also according to Ibn ʿAbbās as well as Qatādah and ʿAṭāʾ: He owned stakes and ropes and playgrounds where he was entertained.

Was it not you that said awatad means tent in another thread, now awtad means buildings?. . .Have you started your fraud again here?. . . . I really do not understand what you are getting at here. . .Are you saying that Ramesess II had many buildings as written in the Koran?. . .Where in the Koran was his name mentioned?. . .

Of all the Pharaohs, Ramesses II is the most renowned for his buildings::

Still unconvinced? There's more

[quote]And We made a people, considered weak (and of no account), inheritors of lands in both east and west, - lands whereon We sent down Our blessings. The fair promise of thy Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel , because they had patience and constancy, and We levelled to the ground the great works and fine buildings which Pharaoh and his people erected (with such pride) [mā kāna yaṣnaʿu firʿawna wa qawhumū wa mā kānū yaʿrishūn]. [Qur'an 7:137]

What great works and building could the Quran be talking about?

Per Ramesses was probably the vastest and most costly royal residence ever erected by the hand of man. As can now be seen its known palace and official centre covered an area of at least four square miles, and its temples were in scale with this, a colossal assemblage forming perhaps the largest collection of chapels built in the pre-classical world by a single ruler at one time. [E. P. Uphill, The Temples Of Per Ramesses, 1984, Aris & Phillips, Warminster: England, p. 1.]

The koran could be talking of something else because in another translation of the verse a different meaning could be drawn. . .

Ahmed Raza Khan: Mohammed Aqib Qadri:
And We made the people who were oppressed, the inheritors of the eastern and western parts of the land in which We placed blessings; and the good promise of your Lord was fulfilled for the Descendants of Israel - the reward of their patience; and We destroyed whatever Firaun and his people built and whatever they had contrived.

When did the Koran say the buildings were destroyed?. . .because we know that Pi-Ramesses Pi-Ramesses flourished for more than a century after the death of Ramesses II. . .

The once great Per Ramesses now lies in ruins, this is likely the destruction of the magnificent city talked about in the Quran::

The koran did not mention any city only stated that buildings of the nameless pharoah was destroyed. . .

There is still more!!

"But we can surely produce magic to match thine! So make a tryst between us and thee, which we shall not fail to keep - neither we nor thou - in a place where both shall have even chances." Moses said: "Your tryst is the Day of the Festival [yaum al-zīna], and let the people be assembled when the sun is well up." [Qur'an 20:58-59]


The bible does not mention this!!

Could it be talking about the Heb-Sed (or simply Sed) festival? The festival celebrated 30 years after a new king then every three years after...

Could it, would it. . . Speculations. . .No body has time for that. . .

There are lots more (even more outstanding ones), i have omitted.... but these do not exist anywhere in the bible and they are remarkably accurate descriptions and like i said.. there's more if you want...

So could ramses II have been the pharaoh... The first autopsy carried out on him suggest that Ramesses II suffered from ankylosing spondylitis, now part of folklore , this would have ruled him out of the chase and ofcourse drowning. but now we know from a more recent study that he suffered from idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (A. C. Aufderheide & C. Rodríguez-Martín, The Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Human Paleopathology, 1998.) this is backed up by archealogical evidence (R. K. Chhem, P. Schmit, C. Fauré, "Did Ramesses II Really Have Ankylosing Spondylitis? A Reappraisal", Canadian Association Of Radiologists Journal, 2004, Volume 55, No. 4, pp. 211-217). So he could have been part of the chase. The actual cause of death can not be determined because of the mummification..

What is this nonsense?. . .According to the koran the nameless pharoah died from drowning. . .Ramesess II died of arthritis. . .So that destroys the myth written in the koran that the nameless paharoah is Ramesess II. . .According to the koran Firaun's body will be found from the sea, Ramesses body was not found from any sea. . .He died from severe dental problems and was plagued by arthritis and hardening of the arteries at the age of 90. . .He is NOT the nameless pharoah in the koran. . .Ramesses was NOT part of any chase because there was NO chase in the first place. .Stop lying. . .His history is very well documented and his body is there for all to see, it has been examined he did NOT die from drowning. . .

[b]Could it be that the Egyptians destroyed evidence of the slaves who caused the death of such a great leader or were they (the israelites) not that many? or is the archaelogical find still to come? We never know!!

I said he died of severe dental problems and was plagued by arthritis and hardening of the arteries and you are still repeating the muslim myth?. . .No evidence exist any where of a Jew called Moses in his house hold, no evidence exist any where of the Jews ever being enslaved in Egypt, prominent Jewish archaeologist have concluded that the exodus is non historical. .Where is the evidence that Jews caused the death of Ramesses II?. . .Where is the evidence to suggest that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt?. . .Where is the evidence for the plagues during the time of Ramesses II?. . .

If there was a conscious effort to wipe the traces of the israelites that far back, we can never find it today... Maybe there will be breakthrough..

But from what we know of the egyptian civilisation, the Quran matches up pretty well.... and states things the bible couldn't even think about stating... remember the hieroglyphics were lost before the Quran. If anything the bible should be more accurate since it is older... but the reverse is the case....
The plagarist stuff should be out of the window now because the bible mentions non of these things and this is just one story. [/b]

Well, i think this ends the conversation quite frankly because the amount of information in the Quran not in the bible for just this one story and the accuracy of the information is just outstanding..... This is clear for anyone who reasons:

And We have certainly left of it a sign as clear evidence for a people who use reason. (surah 29:32)

Sure the Koran contains small details that were not included in the bible, but surely it contains all the myth about the Jews being enslaved in Egypt and the fact is that Ramesses II is NOT the nameless pharoah talked about in the koran. . .(Sorry for they typos am at work and had to reply in a haste cos am on break). . .

tbaba1234: Many of the stories in the gnostic gospel existed in the first century and could have been written in many different mediums like i showed earlier... so even if the infancy gospel was compiled later... It does not preclude the fact that these stories did exist earlier. There is no measuring stick to say what is true or not in the gospels....

The word translated as read is "iqra" which really means to recite.... It does not mean to read a book... The prophet in the cave hira was told to "iqra" which is translated as read/recite but he had no book with him.... I hope this drives home the point... waraqa was a blind ebonite priest ((Sahih Bukhari, Book 60, Number 47 8 )... Do blind people read books?? Injeel is not gospels... it is gospel...singular...

There was no way he could have gotten all the information from waraqa because the ebonites only believe in one gospel (the book of mathew)and their version starts when Jesus was an adult at baptism...

Even if we are to go by what you are saying it still destroys your arguments that the arabs were not familiar with the gospels, even a blind man could recite it in arabic according to the hadith. . . .Mohammed did NOT write the Koran as we know it, we do NOT know how the people that wrote it came about the sources they used when compiling it. . Muslsims ONLY narrate his story as the person that got the revelations but those accounts are not reliable, Hadiths as we know them today were complied like 200-300 years after his death. . .Muslims stories are NOT reliable because there are no outside sources to corroborate them besides the fact that they came very long after the events they reported. . .200 years is enough to form what ever it is you want to form. . .

"Of the books of the New Testament, the Ebionites are said to have accepted ONLY a Hebrew (or Aramaic) version of the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Gospel of the Hebrews, as additional scripture to the Hebrew Bible. This version of Matthew, Irenaeus reports, omitted the first two chapters (on the nativity of Jesus), and started with the baptism of Jesus by John." (Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses, Book 1, Chapter 26).

so where did the prophet get the baby stories from?? there isn't much from the gospel of mathew in the Quran; If Waraqa was the prophet's source then the stories from that gospel will be the most common in the Quran... The message continued for 23 years after waraqa's death...

The man you call a fringe scholar is a professor at an IVY league university Yale http://www.yale.edu/religiousstudies/facultypages/bowering.html..... He taught at another ivy league university (university of pennsylvania before going to yale)

The prophet did NOT write the Koran, others did, if he had written the Koran himself then we would have considered what you are saying, the fact that he did not blows that away. . .So what if the guy is a professor in an IVY league university?. . .There are IVY leagues university professors that support the alien abduction stories. . .Even among IVY league professors there are fringes. . .Do you believe what some IVY leagues professors tell you about evolution or the credibility of the bible as the word of god?. . .

I don't think he will be there if he hasn't done credible research work and knows what he is talking about..... This is his speciality... i would believe him over people who do not study this for a living...

There are people like William Craig who is one of the best christian philosopher in the world, he has taught in most IVY league universities. . . .Do you believe what he says about the resurrection of Jesus as a factual event?. . .Why or why not?

The oldest known, dated manuscripts containing Arabic translations of the New Testament are in the collections of St. Catherine’s monastery at Mt. Sinai…dating from 867 AD. (Sidney H. Griffith, The Gospel In Arabic: An Enquiry Into Its Appearance In the First Abbasid Century, in: Oriens Christianus, vol. lxix, 1985, p. 166)

I think we should take the experts word..

The oldest KNOWN it says. . .But according to the hadith waraqa a blind man was already reciting the gospel in arabic during the life of the prophet, no?. . .That should at least tell you that some christian materials were already in circulation in arabia, to claim other wise is just to lie. . .

You have to establish this oral source of this infancy gospel, Otherwise you are back at square 1.....

It didn't use 'son', fine...

what of 'word', 'angel gabriel'... It talks about addressing only mary.... the Quran talks about addressing multiple people... The difference is clear.....

Again similar stories not same... If two people write
1. the president of liberia is a woman

2. the leader of the west africa country of Liberia is the first female leader in Africa.

These statements are similar but can you prove plagarism as a result. Unless you can provide a source of this revelation, you are lost....

Isn't it funny that the one that was written in syriac and translated to arabic is the one that appears in the koran?. . .We do not know how the people that complied the koran did it in reality, we do not know what their sources were, we only have their very one sided and twisted story of how they allegedly wrote it, but we have some indications that they got their stories and copied it from else where. . .Why is it that stories that were banned from the bible and in circulation in arabia popped up in the koran?. . .The stories are similar, the muslims who copied the story had to change it because they do not believe in Jesus,they had to make theor own version from the source they copied it from which are christian sources. . . Read the story of Jesus in the koran, it was changed completely, does the koranic version of Jesus story have any external source outside the koran to back it up?. . .The christian one at least does have some external source from non christian historian outside the bible to back the story up. . .If the koranic version of the story of Jesus is historical then you should be able to present just one external and neutral source that backs it up. . .Take the story of Abraham and his sons, what can you tell us about Ishmael from the Koran alone?. .The Koran was copied from the bible because even its non historical events like the exodus and the myth that the Jews were enslaved in egypt with absolutely no evidence to show for it historically appears in the bible. . .

The Quran claims it comes to confirm what is true from the original scriptures and messages...so saying what had been revealed to a previous prophet to buttress its point is expected.. Basically what it says is that it has been revealed before that the righteous will inherit the earth.... Muslims believe that parts of the bible has truth in it but we can not distinguish..... All the revelations come from one source.. The previous books have suffered some corruption but it doesn't mean they do not contain some truth.

Sure why won't it state that since the Koran came as the source of a new religion?. . .What ever the Koran agrees with in the bible (which it seems to destroy) it claims it is true, what ever it disagrees with it claims is false. . .The bible surely has alot of problems on its own. . .But it is very clear that the stories of the koran were lifted from the bible and changed by those that wrote the koran as we know it today. . .[/quote]

sino: I do understand you, i presented the quotes to show non-Muslims conclusions on the Qur'an and the Prophet(saw). When you have only a single source does it invalidate the information? are there no other means to verify these events if not all, at least some of them?
I got this from wiki
"There are non-muslim sources written in greek, syriac, armenian, and Hebrew by jewish and christian communities. These non-muslim written sources go back to about 636AD and many of the interesting ones dates within some decade later.
One attributed to a 7th century armenian scholar Sebeos, states that Muhammed was a marchant and that his preaching revolved around the figure of Abraham. There are also confirmations of Muhammed's migration from mecca to medina in them"
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Muhammad

Islamic text are not reliable because they have an agenda, and the agenda is for people to revere Mohammed and accept his new religion. . .The hadiths are religious documents. . .Mohammed is barely present in the Koran, only a few episodes in his alleged life being alluded to. Most of what we "know" about Mohammed comes from Ibn Ishaq's lost work Sirah Rasul Allah (Life of the Prophet of Allah) which was written over 120 years after his death, via the later work of Al Tabari. . . .On the external islamic ones, none of them gives us any meaningful details about him, except for one that refers to a Muhammad that was leading raids against the Byzantine empire, which is long after the Muhammad supposedly in the texts. . .The hadiths as we know them today date to about 200-300 years after his death not 50-100 as i earlier on said. . .They are way too long to be of any meaning or value as far as I am concerned. . .

tbaba1234: The gospels of mark-John were not written 45-70... Besides the authors are uncertain. There were literally hundreds of gospels flying around.

Modern New Testament scholars are in substantial agreement that

The earliest was the mark written in the last 60s -early 70s (Thomas (not infancy) is as old as Mark, why was it not included in the gospels??) Is it because it does not transmit divinity to Jesus ... Its (mark) earliest manuscripts makes no mention of resurrection or anything of that sort, that was a later addition to fit the story line.then we had mathew, when was essentially plagarised from mark written in the 80s. When i say plagarised, i mean word for word... whoever wrote mathew will be sued in the present day...

Luke was written in the 90s...

John's Gospel was written early in the second century

Mathew and Luke are essentially copies of Mark:: Examine the transition of Jesus from Mark to John.... in Mark, he was more human... by John, he was God (audhu billah)... It took a full century for that transition to take place... Just read a good translation of the gospels, starting from mark to get a sense of what i am saying.

Jesus died around 36 AD, the first Gospel was written around 70s AD making it about 40-45 years after his death so what exactly are you talking about?. . .I said the gospels were written about 40-70 years after his death. . .

There were hundreds of gospels flying around in the early years; each with a different view of Jesus... Many of the gospels were copies of a previous gospel so you are wrong to say all the gnostic gospel came in the second century, It is inaccurate from a scholarly perspective.. Most of the stories were already available by the first century....

Apart from the Gospel of Thomas which is said to have been composed between 40-120AD, most were written very late. . .

As regards the infancy gospel, many scholars do agree that some of the stories in it could have existed amongst christians from the first century..

The individual stories themselves, however, may derive from the end of the first century-though there is no possibility of proving so early an origin for any of them. (F. Lapham, An Introduction to the New Testament Apocrypha, page 129)

A STORY NOT FOUND IN THE CANONICAL GOSPELS IS NOT NECESSARILY A LEGEND.

Professor Gerhard Bowering (Professor of Islamic Studies at Yale University)(Essay: "Recent Research On The Construction of The Quran." In, "The Qur'an in its Historical Context," p. 70 destroys all of the contentions with this beautiful statement...

[b]"No single collection of biblical writings, normative, apocryphal or midrashic, however, has been identified as the major source in which the Qur'an may have been rooted.[/b]1 To the best of our present knowledge, [b]the Bible had not been translated into Arabic by the time of Muhammad, either in its entirety or in the form of single books.2[/b]

Who is this fringe guy you are quoting?. . .He said the bible had not been translated into Arabic in any form?. . .The hadith says he is a liar. . .Even the hadiths which are muslims sources say other wise. . . .Why do you keep repeating this lie all the time?. . .

Bukhaeri Sahih Volume 4, Book 55, Number 605: Narrated 'Aisha:
The Prophet returned to Khadija while his heart was beating rapidly. She took him to Waraqa bin Naufal who was a Christian convert and used to read the Gospels in Arabic Waraqa asked (the Prophet), "What do you see?" When he told him, Waraqa said, "That is the same angel whom Allah sent to the Prophet) Moses. Should I live till you receive the Divine Message, I will support you strongly."

The guy is a waste of time, he doesnt know what he is talking about. . .

He continues on page 83

During his lifetime, Muhammad had a good number of his Qur'anic proclamations copied down by scribes, but there is no evidence that he used foreign written source materials for the composition of the Qur'an. Until the appearance of evidence to the contrary, [b]one has to support the position that it was oral information on which the Qur'an drew directly, even if behind this oral information there was a core of passages extracted from written traditions that were translated into Arabic from one or the other of its sibling languages. This core, however, has not yet come to light in a distinct form. The almost total absence in the Qur'an of direct parallels with the normative, midrashic or apocryphal biblical traditions 60 makes it impossible to argue for a direct dependence on written sources. Essential sections of the Qur'anic message were received from the oral lore of a variety of religious communities who were rooted in the widely dispersed and non-normative Jewish and Christian traditions. Not a single written source, whether scriptural or liturgical, however, has been identified that would satisfy the search for an underlying Ur-Qur'an, whether postulated as a Christian hymnal or a Syro-Aramaic lectionary, that served as a written source book for the Qur'an."[/b]

Like he said, there was not a single written source... you have to prove evidence for an oral source:

The hadith totally destroys his point, he clearly does not know what he is talking about. . .Where did the gospels waraqa used to read in arabic come from? Did he write it himself?

It is shocking how people look at the similarity between texts and fail to look at the differences... For you to establish that it was plagarized, you have a few steps to go

1. Prove that the story found in the Qur'an and Infancy Gospel are the same and not merely similar.

Now lets compare the speaking in the cradle stuff!!

Infancy
"... Jesus spake when he was in the cradle, and said to his mother: "Mary, I am Jesus the Son of God, the Word, which thou didst bring forth according to the declaration of the angel Gabriel, and My Father hath sent me for the salvation of the world." (Infancy gospel)

Quran
"O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle? He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah. He has given me the Book and has made me a prophet. And has made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and has enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive, And (has made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt.

The Quran does not use the son of God term used in the infancy gospel nor does he call himself Jesus or claim to be the salvation of the world... The Quran does call Jesus the word of God but not in this verse... If it is indeed plagarism, he should.. even if you can say the Muslim disagree with him being the son. how come the thing we agree upon is not included.... Where is angel gabriel mentioned in the Quranic narration? you know the meaning of plagarism right?

The only similarity here is that Jesus spoke in the cradle which can not be proven to be untrue.. It is only if you dismiss the existence of revelation before examining the texts that that you can end up with that conclusion..

If I use your stories with the intention of creating something out of it, you will not expect the stories to be exactly the same, isn't it funny that the story that was originally written in Syriac and later translated to Arabic found its way into the Koran?. . .Why should the Koran use son of god when it is completely against the sonship of god that the gospels claim?. . .The story was copied from the infancy gospel and changed simple. . .Those that gather the Koran into the form we know it today copied it from the infancy gospel it was available to them in Arabic already, all they had to do was change the story. . .

I conclude with this

To stress again, only a very small number of Qur'anic verses parallels small passages of the apocryphal gospels, and only one Qur'anic verse, Q 21:105, is a similar quotation from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), namely Psalm 37:29. The earliest known Muslim Arabic citation from the New Testament is the passage of John 15:23-16:1 which is presented in summary form by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 CE) in Muhammad's biography,

(see F. Wüstenfeld (ed.), Das Leben Muhammeds nach Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, 1, 149-50. For the small harvest of parallels between Qur'anic passages and the Syriac liturgy, see E. Graf, "Zu den christlichen Einflüssen im Koran," Festschrift Joseph Henninger: Studia Instituti Anthropos Bonn, Al-Bahith 28, 1976, 121-44.)

So only one verse in the Quran and the whole of the bible are similar and guess what the Quran even references that it was written in the book:

21:105. And certainly We wrote in the Book after the reminder that [as for] the land, My righteous servants shall inherit it.

Psalm 37:29 The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

I think this destroys your case totally ..You pick one part of the story and scream:: AHA!! when the stories are remarkably different

What are you doing? Are you also posting the works of people that do not know what they are talking about?. . ,Why do you keep going about quoting fringe scholars that do not know what they are talking about?. . .How will the Koran acknowledge that its stories are from the bible when it claims divine authorship from revelation?. . .Why do you keep talking like this?. . .

sino: Non-Muslim verdict on Muhammed and the Qur'an
1. " 'I believe in one God, and Mahomet, the Apostle of God,' is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol: the honours of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue: and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion."
(Edward Gibbon and Simon Ockley, History of the Saracen Empire, London 1870, p. 54.)

2. "Muhammed was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him."
(Diwan Chand Sharma, The Prophets of the East, Calcutta 1935, p. 122.)

3. "Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabis the man who, of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race... Muhammed..."
(John William Draper, M.D., a History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875, vol. 1, pp. 329-330.)

4. "I doubt whether any man whose external conditions changed so much ever changed himself less to meet them."
(R.V.C. Bodley, The Messenger, London 1946, p. 9.)

5. "That his(Muhammad's) reforms enhanced the status of women in general is universally admitted."
(H.A.R. Gibb, Mohammedanism, London 1953, p. 33.)

6. "In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal ruler of Medina, with his hands on the lever that was to shake the world."
(John Austin, "Muhammad the Prophet of Allah." in T.P.'s and Cassal's weekly for 24th September 1927.)

7. "Next to the Bible it(Qur'an) is the most esteemed and most powerful religious book in the world."
(J. Christy Wood, Introducing Islam, New York 1950, p. 30.)

8. "Well then, if the Koran were his own composition other men could rival it. Let them produce ten verses like it. If they could not (and it is obvious that they could not), then let them accept the koran as an outstanding evidential miracle."
(H.A.R. Gibb, Mohammedanism, London 1953, p. 33.)

9. " So there has been no opportunity for any forgery or pious fraud in the Koran, which distinguishes it from almost all other important religious works of ancient times... It is exceedingly strange that this illiterate person should have composed the best book in the language."
(Basanta Coomar Bose, Mahomedanism, Calcutta 1931, p. 4)

These quotes were obtained from the booklet titled: "Muhammad the Prophet of Islam" by Prof. K.S. Ramakrishna Rao

What is this?. . .You clearly do not understand what I was talking about, I was asking for historical sources outside the hadiths which were written by his cronies with an agenda in mind that talk about Mohammed during his period which corroborate anything written about him in the hadith and you are bringing quotes from people that lived 1500-1600 after his death?. . .Let me give you an example, Herod the great was written about by people that lived far away from him in Rome during his period, Some people that lived and had nothing to do with Jesus during the second century wrote a few things about Jesus outside the bible. . .NOTHING we know about the prophet comes out of Muslims sources. . Everything we know about him came from people that were out to convert others and make them accept him and his alleged divine revelations. . .

BIGER BOY: Has it ever occurred to mazaje that the so called gnostic gospels banned by the church was not for any divine reason but because it merely didn't fit the roman church's teachings of a triun god (mind u the Romans had tons of gods b4 xtianity, so adopting 3 more wouldn't be much of stress). Also, the Quran claimed in countless number of verses that, it(the Quran) is a confirmation Of previous scriptures and a criterion over them(a means of sieving divine revelation from mortal interpolations). Thus when we find teachings that the Quran confirms in the Torah, injeel, zabur or even the Vedas; it simply tells us that these are some of the original revelations (still intact) sent to these great prophets in the past which the Quran confirms......

Here is an example of the verse I just explained..."And We have revealed to you the Book with the truth, verifying what is before it of the Book and a guardian over it, ..."

If only you know anything about the gnostic gospels you will know that they were written way to late to be of any value to the story of Jesus. . .The Syriac infancy gospel whose story found its way into the Koran was written in the 5th century almost 500 years after the death of Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas was written about 200 years after the death of Jesus, all the Gnostic gospels were written way too long after the death of Jesus to carry any value. . Compare that to the Gospels of Mark, Matthew etc that were written about 45-70 years after he died(I am not saying they are true). . .Normally you would consider a gospel that was written 40 years after a person';s death to carry more value and be more real than one written 200 or 500 years after his death, no?. . .Which prophet were the Gnostic Gospels sent to? What are their names?. . .

sino: Is this a joke or what? I ask you for a similitude of the qur'an and the best you can do is to talk about your secondary school textbook that has been edited, super editied and revised so many times? What standard are using to compare the two? Mind you, the Qur'an is not a book of science but does contain scientific facts that cannot be refuted by any scientist.
The Qur'an is a holy book, a guide, the criterion for good and evil. There is nothing like it in style and delivery of literature, it stands the test of time and up till now, it remains the same. Over 1400years and no dent to it.

I am telling you that when it comes to simple knowledge of living things and how the interact with their environment my secondary school biology text book offer much insight and helps me to understand the relationship between diverse life forms and their environment than the Koran can ever explain it. . .The bible for example is a better religious book than the Koran any day and any time as a religious book. . .

I would like to know what other sources or outside sources you want?

Extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidence, hope you know that?. . .The Koran makes extra ordinary claims and provides less than ordinary evidence to back its claims. . .I would have expected people living as far away as Rome for example, historians that are neutral to the Islamic course and agenda, to have written some things that will corroborate anything written about Mohammed in the hadiths, but no we have NO outside source to tell us anything about Mohammed all we have are the biased writing's of muslims with their agenda which is to convert people and make them believe their stories. . .Compare the story of Mohammed to that of Jesus and you will see what I am talking about, Neutral writers wrote about Jesus outside the Gospels, some as far as Rome, others are neutral, they just wrote a thing or two about him that agree a little with what the bible says about him for example, what do we have for Mohammed outside what muslims with an agenda and their one sided story? NOTHING. . . .Every thing we know about him, we know only through the mouth of his alleged cronies who had an agenda. . .

The Qur'an states that the course of Allah is on one who writes with his own hands and claims it divine. The Qur'an also put out an open challenge to test its authenticity...i honestly do not know what else you want. Perhaps if i may ask what probability of being authentic(not being distorted) a story with one source and another with say 5 sources? I guess you know the answer mathematically.

What am I to do with the claims that Allah wrote the Koran?. . .Yahweh also wrote the bible so?. . . .

Islamic scholars have really done a most wonderful job in trying to weed off the fabricated hadiths from the authentic ones. The science of hadith is the branch of knowledge that is dedicated to tackle this aspect of the religion. You should look into it and see how hadiths are standardized.
Thank God we are on a religous board and islamic section to be precise not in a history class. Even in your history classes, you have no choice but use thesereligious documents.

The same thing you are claiming was done by islamic scholars is the same thing that was done by christians scholars as well, they weeded out the fake gospels which for some reasons some of their stories appeared in the Koran. . .The hadiths as we know them were written more than 50 years after Mohammed died, some were written about 100 years after he died. Hope youi know what 50 or 100 years means, the had enough time to formulate what ever it is they wanted people to know and project what ever image it is they want people to get. . . Personally the hadith as we know them today were written way too long after the death of Mohammed to mean anything to me or have any value. . .