Hi potentialmuslim,
Welcome to the forum. I'm pleased to hear that you're considering Islam. :) I'm also pleased to hear about your belief in the existence of a creator and designer (perhaps "God" is too loaded a term these days) and moreover, that you believe in this on a rational basis. I believe that the existence of a creator is completely intuitive, such that one doesn't actually need intellectual arguments to establish it. Consequently, everything points to it's existence, ranging from our own base intuition to the most complex of intellectual arguments. We appear to be living in a day and age where many people seem to depend on such arguments as cosmology, design and objective morality to establish something which I really think is a given. Given the intuitive nature of belief in the existence of a creator, I think this fact is rather unfortunate.
I noted with interest the following statement from your opening post:
format_quote Originally Posted by
potentialmuslim
I believe in a Creator through reason, not faith (cosmological argument and argument from design) - making the leap to accepting a revealed religion will be difficult.
You may be surprised to hear this, since it's likely that every experience you've had with religion tells you otherwise, but as Muslims, we believe that Non-Muslims can (and perhaps even should) believe in Islam based on reason and objective investigation. As you know, we believe that many Prophets came before Muhammad (:saws:) including Jesus (peace be upon him). What's more, we believe that all of these Prophets came with something extroardinary ("miracle" is probably another one of those terms which carries too many preconceptions), because of which people believed in them. This was explicitly stated in an authentic statement of the Prophet Muhammad (:saws:) wherein he said:
There has not been a single prophet except that Allah gave him miracles because of which people believed in him. I have been given the Inspiration (i.e., the Quran) as my miracle, which Allah revealed to me. I hope, therefore, that I will have the largest number of followers on the Day of Judgement.
Yes, you read correctly. We literally believe that the Qur'an is a miracle (which can most appropriately be defined as "an event which lies beyond the productive capacity of nature") and, furthermore, we believe that this can be assessed by objective standards. Why? Because the Qur'an itself, in several places, provides the criteria by which it boldly claims to be a revelation from the divine. One such place occurs in the second chapter of the Qur'an and reads as follows:
And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah [chapter] the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah , if you should be truthful. But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers. [2: 23-24]
The Qur'an is basically saying here, that if you are in doubt that this truly is a revelation from the creator, then you must
produce a chapter like it and if you are unable to do so, then you should accept that this is indeed an inspiration from the divine. In academic terms, we would say that the Qur'an's claim to divine origin is
falsifiable - if somebody is able to "produce a chapter like it" (and I will get on to exactly what this means in a moment), then the Qur'an's claim will have essentially been falsified. Note here that the shortest chapter in the Qur'an consists of just three verses.
But wait; isn't this challenge subjective? What does it mean by "a chapter like it"? How can we objectively judge whether a person has succeeded in "producing a chapter like it"? Has anybody tried in the past? What is so unique about the Qur'an anyway and what exactly makes it inimitable? If you're interested in finding out more, I'd point you towards
this website which was set up by Hamza Andreas Tzortzis - one of many people who have converted to Islam on an intellectual basis and who now lies at the forefront of articulating the message of Islam and the rational arguments for it.
Finally, I want to point out that there are some Islamic scholars who believe that, to stand the test of time and still be relevant as a miracle in the 21st century, the Qur'an should also be a scientific miracle. I would argue that it certainly doesn't disappoint although I'll let you be the judge of that. One such scholar is Dr. Zakir Naik and you can access one of his recent lectures on the topic
here.
Regards