Re(2) : Exchanges with non-muslims about Islam - How is the authenticity of quran not questionable?

Question:
2. Thanks for the compliment and thanks again for treating me so nicely and importantly. However, honestly I do not know how long I will continue to appear decent to you. I may not indulge in name calling, but the questions raised by me will be painful. These questions are not new, but each person has his own way to raise them.

Ali Sina has his own ways and I have my own. He is more aggressive and impatient due to his own reasons. I would not try to defend him as he is more capable of that himself.

Still, I would use this opportunity to make the point that Ali Sina and you were not competing in decency. The debate was not about his or your decency, culture and manners, but about the charges he brought against Mohammad.

3. "The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a possible interpolation in the Qur'an described by Ibn Ishaq in his biography of Muhammad. The disputed verses allow for prayers of intercession to be made to three Pagan Meccan goddesses: Allat, Uzza, and Manah.[1] The part of the story that deals with the "Satanic verses" in the book "was based on the accounts of the Arab historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari."[1] Some Islamic and most non-Muslim Western historians and commentators on the Qur'an have accepted this story of Muhammad's momentary acceptance of the verses. However, a common Muslim viewpoint is that the existence of the verses is just a fabrication created by non-Muslims.[2]"

The text quoted above is from wikipedia article on "The Satanic Verses". The reports of these Islamic historians (I think Ibn Sa'd also reported the same) certainly casts some doubt on the purity and non-changeability of Quran. Secondly, I am aware of the account which tells that Jibril informed Mohammad of the machinations of Satan to insert these verses and hence Mohammad discarded these verses. If one is to believe this fairy tale like account, one must ask whether Allah was not aware of Satan's conspiracy when it was being hatched and if he was why he could not prevent it in the first place.

There is more. Please read the article:

http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/quran.htm#G.

You have already tried to counter the above in your response. However, let me quote you:

"Muhammad, God's mercy be on him, did not leave this world before communicating the entire Qur'an to the Muslim community."

How do you know? Did Mohammad ever say,"The Quran is complete now" or something to the effect? From the accounts I know of, Mohammad had not foreseen his death. Who can guarantee that had he lived a few years more, there would not have been more revelations?

One web site mentions:

"Al Bukhari, a Muslim scholar of the 9th-10th century, and the most authoritative of the Muslim tradition compilers, writes that whenever Muhammad fell into one of his unpredictable trances his revelations were written on whatever was handy at the time. The leg or thigh bones of dead animals were used, as well as palm leaves, parchments, papers, skins, mats, stones, and bark. And when there was nothing at hand the attempt was made by his disciples to memorize it as closely as possible. According to Sahih Bukhari, during the years following Muhammad's death, passages of the Qur'an were lost irretrievably when a number of reciters died at the Battle of Yamama."

Honestly, does it not stretch the imagination a bit too far to believe that such varied and destructible media on which revelations were recorded were all preserved to the full?

Also, the fact that muslims recite the same very Quran from memory is not something wonderful at all. Do you know how many Hindus remember and recite the Ramcharitmanas from memory together? It is more voluminous book than Quran. In ashrams across India , children learn dozens of Sanskrit books by rote. What is miraculous in it? Human memory is so capable that it can remember any amount of text if driven to.

Response:
Thank you for your patience. I was extremely busy during these days. I am responding to two of your queries (second and third) and would concentrate on the rest later.

2. I will need to assure you again that my entry into Islam was not occasioned by an emotional, non-critical methodology. It was through critical enquiry of the Islamic claim that I was able to reach the conclusion that Islam was the message of God. Therefore, no amount of criticism on Islam would, God willing, upset me. And I am not the only one in my rational attachment to Islam; there are many people like me in the world of Islam.

I will repeat what I mentioned earlier about my view on why I decided to discontinue my exchanges with Ali Sina. I did not stop discussion with him because he was indecent and insulting in criticism on Islam. That quality of his was evident from the very word go. He never spared any opportunity to use the most effective words available in his vocabulary to hurl insults at the man I love the most. I knew that his training didn’t include awareness of the other person’s sensitivities. I decided to quit my discussion with him only when I realized that he was not even trying to understand what I was stating. His efforts all throughout the discussion with me were to undo my views. I have no interest in having a dialogue with a person who has a one-sided view that carries no chance of changing.

You might ask if it was not true that that’s how all of us behave and that there was nothing uniquely unacceptable in Ali Sina. I would say that we all have our views to which we are attached emotionally. However, when it comes to an academic discussion, one must set aside the emotional attachment to give way to the possibility that the other view was worthy of being correct. As soon as I realized that Ali Sina was completely devoid of that ability, I said good bye to the debate, because I lost all motivation in doing it and it promised to be, thereon, a complete waste of my time.

3. I mentioned that I believe in Qur’an to be God’s word because I can clearly feel God speaking to me in it. I started reading the text of it with a skeptical approach. I had all the questions in mind that you have raised while going through my reading of Qur’an. However, despite my critical approach, the veracity of the claim that Qur’an had divine origins became gradually clearer to me.

You have dismissed the possibility that Qur’an was preserved by the ability of it being memorized by many people by mentioning that the Ramcharitmanas of Hindus had a similar background. I am getting inquisitive about it. Is it clear who the presenter of Ramcharitmanas was? Do we find that it is mentioning that God is clearly speaking in it? Is it inviting everyone to have faith in it? Does it say that it has remained fully preserved? Do all the Hindus believe that it is a book of God which has been fully preserved in its original form? If answers to all these questions are in the affirmative, then I am excited about it. I will give it a very special status in my schedule to find out what it has to say, because I cannot ignore a serious statement that claims to be from God.

I think I couldn’t clarify myself about the understanding of the authenticity of the Qur’anic text in my earlier message. Qur’an is not believed to be the original message because it was supported by historians like Ibn Sa’d or Bukhari. Not many people have had the opportunity of reading their works. A faith that has to be shared by all peoples, scholars as well as commoners, cannot be based on the works of a few individuals. Qur’an is a book that was accepted, preserved, and passed on by one generation to another. This process carries two qualities: it is foolproof and it can be appreciated by even an ordinary person. If there are mentions in Ibn Sa’d which threaten my understanding, I will carefully consider the strengths of those claims and also the evidences that support the claim of Qur’an’s authenticity. To me, while making a comparison between the two, we are pitching the claim of one individual against that of generations.

There are essentially two explanations offered by Muslims to the incident reported in Ibn Sa’d: i) The incident was true and it was a Satanic whispering which became temporarily effective but was soon overcome by the will of God. ii) The report about the incident was fabricated. I accept the latter understanding.

I would ask you again to consider my line of thinking carefully: Qur’an makes a strong claim that it is the word of God. The history of Qur’an gives two possible versions of how it has reached us. According to one version there were some serious questions about the authenticity of the process through which it has reached us. According to the other version, it has come to us through a process which is foolproof. Both versions have their arguments to support them. Is it not important in a situation like this to read the book with an open, unbiased mind and find out if its text seems to be from God, our Creator, or not?

If you allow me, I will again use the example of a new moon to explain my position: suppose it is important for you to find out if the new moon had appeared on the horizon or not. Some people are claiming that it had appeared and some are claiming that it had not. What I am saying is that instead of listening to both groups to find out as to which of them is making more sense, why don’t you look up to the horizon to find out the truth yourself? However, for it to be done properly, you will have to look at the right direction, use your eyesight as best as you can, and avoid all obscuring objects that are blocking your clear view of the horizon. What I am trying to tell you is that I did exactly that, and I had a clear, unquestionable glimpse of the moon. It wasn’t an imaginary imprint of my mind that I was witnessing; it was a real moon.

In other words, I used my intellect all along to see if the Qur’an was God’s word. I did not allow my emotions or the traditions of my society to influence me. I try to follow the same process even today while forming opinions. In following it I was able to see the truthfulness of the claim that Qur’an is the word of God. However, because my faith owes its existence to my own objective probing, and I am a fallible human, I am open to correction about everything I have hitherto accepted, including my faith. However, whatever critical examination of my faith I have faced as yet, including the one done by Ali Sina, it has only strengthened it. I am not claiming that the criticism doesn’t affect me negatively. What I am claiming is that after the initial dent it makes, when I analyze it carefully, the criticism against my faith I receive helps me in realizing that it is either based on misunderstanding or false or incomplete information. The emotional attachment to my faith, which passes through the filter of my intellect, has thus far remained unaffected.

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