Astral Religions
The Crescent Moon Symbol
The Gods of the Quraysh
Praying Toward Mecca
A Muslim Taxi Driver
Conclusion
Marriage, Divorce, Adultery and Polygamy
Sinlessness
A Sinful Muhammad?
The Quranic Muhammad
Many Variant Readings of the Quran
Some Verses Missing
Changes in the Quran
Some Verses Abrogated
Some Verses Added
No Originals
Some of the pre-Islamic Sources for material in the Quran
Arabian Sources
Jewish Sources
Heretical Christian Sources
Sabean Sources
Eastern Religious Sources
Arab Racism
A Carnal Heaven
ConclusionIt should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.
The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born (Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38).
Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:
"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" (Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85).
The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. (There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190).
Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:
'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:
'"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' (Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979).
For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:
"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" (Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643).
"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" (Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma).
"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" (Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb).
"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry"(Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971).
"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" (Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983).
"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings).
To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:
"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" (The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102).
Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:
"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" (The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31).
Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:
"In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a "high god." In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment" (William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad's Mecca, p. vii. Also see his article, "Belief in a High God in Pre-Islamic Mecca", Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 16, 1971, pp. 35-40).
Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:
"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" (Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York, Barrons, 1987, p. 28).
According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36).
Astral Religions
In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! (Islam, p. 7).
The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.
Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.
The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.
"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" (Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61)".
The Crescent Moon Symbol
The symbol of the worship of the moon god in Arabian culture and elsewhere throughout the Middle East was the crescent moon.
Archaeologists have dug up numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon god. In the same fashion as the sun is pictured above the Egyptian deity.
While the moon was generally worshiped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as a male deity.
The Gods of the Quraysh
The Quraysh tribe into which Muhammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah's three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.
The worship of the three goddesses, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, played a significant role in the worship at the Kabah in Mecca. The first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah.
The literal Arabic name of Muhammad's father was Abd-Allah. His uncle's name was Obied-Allah. These names reveal the personal devotion that Muhammad's pagan family had to the worship of Allah, the moon god.
Praying Toward Mecca
An Allah idol was set up at the Kebah along with all the other idols. The pagans prayed toward Mecca and the Kabah because that is where their gods were stationed.
It only made sense to them to face in the direction of their god and then pray. Since the idol of their moon god, Allah, was at Mecca, they prayed toward Mecca.
The worship of the moon god extended far beyond the Allah-worship in Arabia. The entire fertile crescent was involved in the worship of the moon.
This, in part, explains the early success of Islam among Arab groups that traditionally had worshiped the moon god.
The use of the crescent moon as the symbol for Islam which is placed on the flags of Islamic nations and on the top of mosques and minarets is a throwback to the days when Allah was worshiped as the moon god in Mecca.
While this may come as a surprise to many Christians who have wrongly assumed that Allah was simply another name for the God of the Bible, educated Muslims generally understand this point.
A Muslim Taxi Driver
During one trip to Washington D.C., I got involved in a conversation with a Muslim taxi driver from Iran.
When I asked him. "Where did Islam obtain its symbol of the crescent moon?" he responded that it was an ancient pagan symbol used throughout the Middle East and that adopting this symbol had helped Muslims to convert people throughout the Middle East.
When I pointed out that the word Allah itself was used by the moon-god cult in pre-Islamic Arabia, he agreed that this was the case.
I then pointed out that the religion and the Quran of Muhammad could be explained in terms of pre-Islamic culture, customs, and religious ideas. He agreed with this!
He went on to explain that he was a university-educated Muslim who, at this point in his life, was attempting to understand Islam from a scholarly viewpoint. As a result, he had lost his faith in Islam.
The significance of the pre-Islamic source of the name Allah cannot be over estimated.
Conclusion
In the field of comparative religions, it is understood that each of the major religions of mankind has its own peculiar concept of deity. In other words, all religions do not worship the same God, only under different names.
The sloppy thinking that would ignore the essential differences which divide world religions is an insult the uniqueness of world religions.
Which of the world religions holds to the Christian concept of one eternal God in three persons? When the Hindu denies the personality of God, which religions do not agree with this? Obviously, all men do not worship the same God, or goddesses.
Note: Christians do not understand "the peculiar concept of one eternal God in three persons" but one eternal God with three major offices or dispensation claims.
The Quran's concept of deity evolved out of the pre-Islamic pagan religion of Allah-worship. It is so uniquely Arab that it cannot be simply reduced to Jewish or Christian beliefs.
Marriage, Divorce, Adultery and Polygamy
In his personal life, Muhammad had two great weaknesses. The first was greed. By looting caravans and Jewish settlements he had amassed fabulous wealth for himself, his family, and his tribe (Ali Dashti, 23 Years, p. 86-87; Encyclopedia Britannica, 15:648).
When we turn and look at the life of Muhammad we find that he clearly killed and robbed people in the name of Allah according to the Quran. He taught his disciples by example, command, and precept that they could and should kill and rob in Allah's name and force people to submit to Islam.
His next greatest weakness was women. Although in the Quran he would limit his followers to having four wives, he himself took more than four wives and concubines.
The question of the number of women with whom Muhammad was sexually involved either as wives, concubines or devotees was made a point of contention by the Jews in Muhammad's day. Ali Dashti comments:
"All the commentaries agree that verse 57 of Sura 4 (on-Nesa) was sent down after the Jews criticized Mohammad's appetite for women, alleging that he had nothing to do except to take wives" (Ali Dashti, 23 Years, pp. 120-138).
Since polygamy was practiced in the Old Testament by such patriarchs as Abraham, the mere fact that Muhammad had more than one wife is not sufficient in and of itself to discount his claim to prophethood. But this does negate the fact that the issue has historical in terms of trying to understand Muhammad as a man.
It also poses a logical problem for Muslims. Because the Quran in Sura 4:3 forbids the taking of more than four wives, to have taken any more would have been sinful for Muhammad.
One Muslin apologist with whom I was conversing argued as follows:
"Muhammad was sinless. The Quran makes taking more than four wives a sin. Therefore Muhammad could not have taken more than four wives. Why? Because Muhammad was sinless."
I pointed out that the question of how many wives Muhammad or anyone else had should be answered on the basis of the historical and literary evidence and not blind faith.
Muslim scholar and statesman Ali Dashti gives the following list of the women in Muhammad's life:
1. Khadija 12. Hend 2. Sawda 13. Asma (of Saba) 3. Aesha 14. Zaynab (of Khozayma) 4. Omm Salama 15. Habla 5. Halsa 16. Asma (of Noman) 6. Zaynab (of Jahsh) 17. Mary (the Christian) 7. Jowayriyi 18. Rayhana 8. Omm Habiba 19. Omm Sharik 9. Safiya 20. Maymuna 10. Maymuna (of Hareth) 21. Zaynab (a third one) 11. Fatema 22. Khawla Several observations need to be given about the above list:
The first 16 women were wives. Numbers 17 and 18 were slaves or concubines.
The last four women were neither wives or slaves but devout Muslim women who "gave" themselves to satisfy Muhammad's sexual desires.
Zaynab of Jahsh was originally Muhammad's adopted son Zaid's wife. The fact that Muhammad took her for himself has been problematic to many people, Muslims included. (God does not break His Own Word and He never changes His mind. Now read Sura 33:36-38).
(The vindicated prophet Moses taught under the Old Testament, that a minister could only marry a virgin or the widow of a minister (Leviticus 21:13-15). The vindicated prophet Jesus taught under the New Testament that an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher can marry only a virgin in the faith -- because he is a type of Christ Who is uniting only with virgins to the Word.
Every prophet from Adam taught that any woman who has more than one living husband is an adulteress, and her subsequent husband is in adultery with her first husband as polygamy was legal only for the man -- Genesis 3:16; Romans 7:1-3).
Aesha was only eight or nine years old when Muhammad took her to his bed. According to Hadith, she was still playing with her dolls. This facet of Muhammad's sexual appetite is particularly distressing to Westerners.
While in Islamic countries an eight-or-nine-year-old girl can be given in marriage to an adult male, in the West, most people would shudder to think of an eight-or-nine-year-old girl being given in marriage to anyone. (Although it is condoned by the Jew's Talmud).
This aspect of Muhammad's personal life is something that many scholars pass over once again because they do not want to hurt the feelings of Muslims. Yet, history cannot be rewritten to avoid confronting the facts that Muhammad had unnatural desires for little girls.
Finally, Mary, the Coptic Christian, refused to marry Muhammad because she would not renounce Christianity and embrace Islam. She bravely chose to remain a slave rather than convert.
The documentation for all the women in Muhammad's harem is so vast and has been presented so many times by able scholars that only those who use circular reasoning can object to it.
Sinlessness
According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ lived a perfect and sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21).
When His enemies came to accuse Jesus before Pilate and Herod, they had to invent charges because no one could find anything against Him.
But when we turn to the life of Muhammad, we find that he was a normal human being engaged in the same sins which afflict all of us. He lied; he cheated; he lusted; he failed to keep his word, etc. He was neither perfect nor sinless.
A Sinful Muhammad?
After I had given a lecture on Islam at the University of Texas (Austin) in 1991, I was challenged by some Muslim students to prove that Muhammad was a sinner
My first response was to point out that the burden of proof was not on me but on them. I then asked, "Where in the Quran is it ever stated that Muhammad was sinless?"
They could not refer me to a single passage in which such an idea is even suggested, much less taught.
They demanded that I show from the Quran where Muhammad was said to be a sinner. I answered their challenge by citing several passages from the Quran which clearly reveal to any honest reader that Muhammad was a sinner.
The Quranic Muhammad
In Sura 18:110, and elsewhere, Muhammad is commanded by Allah:
"Say, I am but a man like yourselves."
Nowhere in the Quran is Muhammad said to be sinless. Instead, Allah tells Muhammad that he is no different than any other man.
Those Muslims who claim that Muhammad was sinless have failed to note Sura 40:55, where Allah told Muhammad to repent of his sins!
Muhammad Pickthal translates Sura 40:55 as saying:
"Ask forgiveness of thy sin".
The only way out of this passage is to state that Allah was wrong to ask Muhammad to ask for forgiveness because he had nothing to forgive!
Pickthal's translation of Sura 48:1, 2 states:
"Lo! We have given thee,
(O Muhammad), signal victory,
that Allah may forgive thee
of past and that which is to
come, and may perfect His
favor unto thee, and guide
thee on a right path"Not only was Muhammad commanded to repent of his sins and to seek forgiveness, but he was also reminded off his past sins that Allah had already forgiven and of future sins which would need future forgiveness!
Muhammad was not sinless according to the Quran. He was just one more poor sinner in need of forgiveness and redemption.
Many Variant Readings of the Quran
Muslims attack the Bible on the grounds that it sometimes has conflicting wording from different manuscripts. Yet this is exactly the case with the text of the Quran. There are many conflicting readings on the text of the Quran as Arthur Jeffery has demonstrated in his book, Material for the History of the Text of the Quran (New York, Russell F. Moore, 1952).
At one point Jeffery gives 90 pages of variant readings on the text. For example, in Sura 2 there are over 140 conflicting and variant readings on the text of the Quran.
All Western and Muslim scholars admit the presence of variant readings in the text of the Quran (Dashti, 23 Years, p. 28; Mandudi, Meaning of the Quran, pp. 17-18; McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, V152).
Guillaume points out that the Quran at first "had a large number of variants, not always trifling in significance" (Islam, p. 189).
"It is interesting to note that in scholarly Muslim journals, there is beginning to be a grudging acknowledgment of the fact that there are variant and conflicting readings on the text of the Quran" (One example would be Saleh al-Wahaihu, "A Study of Seven Quranic Variants," International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Vol. V (1989), #2, pp. 1-57).
Some Verses Missing
According to Professor Guillaume in his book, Islam, (pp. 191ff.), some of the original verses of the Quran were lost.
For example, one Sura originally had 200 verses in the days of Ayesha. But by the time Uthman standardized the text of the Quran, it had only 73 verses! A total of 127 verses had been lost, and they have never been recovered.
The Shiite Muslims claim that Uthman left out 25 percent of the original verses in the Quran for political reasons (McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia,V:152).
That there are verses which got left out of Uthman's version of the Quran is universally recognized (Shorter Encyclopedia off Islam, pp. 278-282; Guillaume, Islam, p. 191; Wherry, A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, pp. 110-111).
John Burton's book, The Collection of the Quran, which was published by Cambridge University, documents how such verses were lost (London University Press, 1977, pp. 117ff. See also Arthur Jeffery, Islam: Muhammad and His Religion, New York; Liberal Arts Press, 1958, pp. 66-68).
Burton states concerning the Muslim claim that the Quran is perfect:
"The Muslin accounts of the history of the Quran texts are a mass of confusion, contradiction and inconsistencies" (Burton, Collection, p. 231).
Changes in the Quran
One interesting way that some off the original verses of the Quran were lost is that a follower of Muhammad named Abdollah Sarh would make suggestions to Muhammad about rephrasing, adding to, or subtracting from the Suras. Muhammad often did as Sarh suggested.
Ali Dashti explains what happened:
"Abdollah renounced Islam on the ground that the revelations, if from God, could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as he. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites" (Dashti, 23 Years, p. 98).
It is no wonder that when Muhammad conquered Mecca one of the first people he killed was Abdollah, for he knew too much and opened his mouth too often.
Some Verses Abrogated
In the abrogation process spoken of earlier, verses which are contradictory to Muslim faith and practice have been removed from the text, such as the "satanic verses" in which Muhammad approved of the worship of the three goddesses, the daughters of Allah.
The Arabic scholar E. Wherry comments:
"There being some passages in the Quran which are contradictory, the Muhammadan doctors obviate any objection from thence by the doctrine of abrogation; for they say that God in the Quran commanded several things which were for good reasons afterwards revoked and abrogated" (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Qurun, p. 110).
Wherry goes on to document numerous examples of verses taken out of the Quran.
Canon Sell in his work, Historical Development of the Quran, also comments on the practice of abrogating verses out of the Quran if they are troublesome:
"It is to us astounding how so compromising a procedure can have been permitted to be introduced into the system by friends and foes (Madras: Diocesan Press, 1923, pp. 36-37).
Some Verses Added
Not only have parts of the Quran been lost, but entire verses and chapters have been added to it.
For example, Ubai had several Suras in his manuscript of the Quran which Uthman omitted from his standardized text.
Thus there were Qurans in circulation before Uthman's text which had additional revelations from Muhammad that Uthman did not find or approve of, and thus he failed to place them in his text.
No Originals
As to the claim that the original manuscript of the Quran is still in existence, we have already pointed out there was no single "manuscript" of the Quran.
Caesar Farah in his book on Islam, states:
"When Muhammad died there existed no singular codex of the sacred text" (Caesar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York; Barrons, 1987, p. 28).
The Shorter Encyclopedia off Islam comments:
"One thing only is certain and is openly recognized by tradition, namely, that there was not in existence any collection of revelations in the final form, because, as long as he was alive, new revelations were being added to the earlier ones" (p. 271).
Some of the pre-Islamic Sources for material in the Quran
Arabian Sources
The Quran repeats fanciful Arabian fables as if they were true.
"Arabic legends about the fabulous jinns fill its pages" (G.G. Pfander, Balance of Truth, pp. 283).
"The story of the she-camel who leapt out of a rock and became a prophet was known long before Muhammad" (Suras 7:73-77,85; 91:14; 54:29).
The story of an entire village of people who were turned into apes because they broke the sabbath by fishing was a popular legend in Muhammad's day (Suras 2:65; 7:163-166).
The gushing 12 springs story found in Sura 2:60 comes from pre-Islamic legends.
In what is called the "Rip Van Winkle" story, seven men and their animals slept for 309 years in a cave and then woke up perfectly fine (Sura 18:9-26)!
This legend is found in Greek and Christian fables as well as Arabian lore.
The fable of the pieces of four dead, cut-up birds getting up and flying was well known in Muhammad's time (Sura 2:260).
It is also clear that Muhammad used such pre-Islamic literature as the Saba Moallaqat of Imra'ul Cays in his composition of Suras 21:96; 29:31,46; 37:59; 54:1, and 93:1.
Jewish Sources
Many of the stories in the Quran come from the Jewish Talmud, the Midrash, and many apocryphal works.
This was pointed out by Abraham Geiger in 1833, and further documented by another Jewish scholar, Dr. Abraham Katsh, of New York University, in 1954 (The Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229; Jomier, The Bible and the Quran -- Henry Regency Co., Chicago, 1959, 59ff; Sell, Studies, pp. 163ff.; Guillaume, Islam, p. 13).
1. The source of Sura 3:35-37 is the fanciful book called The Protevangelion's James the Lesser.
2. The source of Sura 87:19 is the Testament of Abraham.
3. The source of Sura 27:17-44 is the Second Targum of Esther.
4. The fantastic tale that God made a man "die for a hundred years" with no ill effects on his food, drink, or donkey was a Jewish fable (Sura 2:259ff.).
5. The idea that Moses was resurrected and other material came from the Jewish Talmud (Sura 2:55, 56, 67).
6. The story in Sura 5:30,31 can also be found in pre-Islamic works from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem.
7. The tale of Abraham being delivered from Nimrod's fire came from the Midrash Rabbah (see Suras 21:51-71; 29:16, 17; 37:97,98).
It must be also pointed out that Nimrod and Abraham did not live at the same time. Muhammad was always mixing people together in the Quran who did not live at the same time.
8. The non-biblical details of the visit of the Queen of Sheba (Saba) in Sura 27:20-44 came from the Second Targum of the Book of Esther.
9. The source of Sura 2:102 is no doubt the Midrash Yalkut (chapter 44).
10. The story found in Sura 7:171 of God lifting up Mount Sinai and holding it over the heads of the Jews as a threat to squash them if they rejected the law came from the Jewish book Abodah Sarah.
11. The story of the making of the golden calf in the wilderness, in which the image jumped out of the fire fully formed and actually mooed (Suras 7:148; 20:88), came from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer.
12, The seven heavens and hells describe
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