Thanks for your input Muhammad. That's a lot of information so let's start with the list of claims you made about the Quran's divine nature and then we can see if they stand up to scrutiny. I have a very skeptical way of thinking so I don't just accept statements for the sake of statements. And I don't have any time for claims based on opinion or impact. These have no place or importance to those not part of the faith group. For example your following claims are pointless to me...
By all means, investigate and analyse these points. However, to dismiss claims on the basis that they are 'pointless' to you is not scrutiny, it is merely a get-out clause for someone who can't be bothered or doesn't want to research. And someone who isn't interested in researching truth but rather forwarding baseless opinions is not worth anyone's time. Your views about the Qur'an have no place for us Muslims.
Right from the very first point you have shot yourself in the foot. The language and style of the Qur'an is a clear, undeniable miracle of the Qur'an that even the most eloquent Arabs at the time of the Prophet ﷺ were forced to accept. Many people recognised the divine nature of the Qur'an simply by hearing it. And, despite giving you the example of orientalists (there are many others
here) who admitted to the eloquence of the Qur'an, you are claiming this is an 'opinion-based' claim when clearly it isn't.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says (what means):
{Say: If humankind and the jinn gathered in order to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce the like of it, even if they were to each other assistants.} [Quran 17:88]
As for your mentioning of Shakespeare and others, did they challenge other literary figures, before and after them, to produce the like of what they produced, or did they claim to be Prophets so that people should believe in them? Using the example of Shakespeare, his work is not considered inimitable. His sonnets are written predominantly in a frequently used meter called the iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. Since the blueprint of his work is available, it is not surprising that the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe has a similar style, and that Shakespeare has been compared to Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher and other playwrights of his time. Likewise for the other examples you have thrown in - they have no relevance here. There is nothing that people uttered or wrote, even if it was of the highest level of quality in terms of words and meanings, but there were other people who came up with something equal to it or like it or close to it, whether it was poetry, oratory, words of knowledge, aphorisms, argument, exhortation, essays, or the like. Nothing of that exists, but there was something equal to it or like it or close to it. The Qur’an, as people – Arabs and non-Arabs alike – know, is something for which no equal has ever existed, despite the keenness of the Arabs and the non-Arabs to produce something to match it.
As for laws and morals, Muslims have whole youtube channels trying to justify Islam's morals and laws from the constant barrage of internal and external criticism. States like Saudi, UAE, Sudan and others are already trying to distance themselves from these morals and laws. So even within the Muslim community there is no consensus of the superiority of these laws and morals.
You are mixing different issues here. People criticise things even without good reason, so the mere presence of criticism is not an evidence against the validity of a claim. States opting for westernisation of their countries has nothing to do with moving towards religious morals. Instead you should consider the huge numbers of people accepting Islam all around the world.
There is no specific ease of memorising the Quran. I did a search and it says that it can take up to 3 to 5 years to memorise the Quran. That's not miraculous or out of the ordinary. That's what you would expect for a book the size of the Quran.
What is extraordinary is how Muslims everywhere memorize the Qur'an, many millions memorizing the entire Qur'an from cover to cover, such that Huffaadh (singl. Hafidh - one who has memorized the entire Qur'an by heart) are ubiquitous within the Muslim community. It is not uncommon nor surprising to find children even as young as six or seven or younger who have completed their memorization of the entire Qur'an. If all the books in the entire world were to be lost or destroyed, only the Qur'an would be recovered letter for letter as it is preserved in the hearts of so many millions.
What do you base your claim on that Muhammad had no recourse to these tales and information. When I read the Quran one of the things that was repeated a lot. Was that Muhammad’s opponents kept accusing him of just retelling old stories that their forefathers used to tell them.
These were allegations of the disbelievers which illustrated their stubbornness to accept the message; they were not based upon sincerity. There are numerous points which prove that the Prophet ﷺ
did not have recourse to such information. For example, the People of the Book (Jews/Christians) would test the Prophet ﷺ
with information that he could not know about. A group of Jewish rabbis said, 'Ask him about three things which we will tell you to ask, and if he answers them then he is a Prophet who has been sent (by Allah); if he does not, then he is saying things that are not true, in which case how you will deal with him will be up to you. Ask him about some young men in ancient times, what was their story For theirs is a strange and wondrous tale. Ask him about a man who travelled a great deal and reached the east and the west of the earth. What was his story And ask him about the Ruh (soul or spirit) -- what is it If he tells you about these things, then he is a Prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit.' Then the verses of Surah Al-Kahf (the 18th chapter of the Qur'an) were revealed, which mentioned the things they had asked about: the young men and the traveler.
Moreover, it is known that the Prophet ﷺ did not have a teacher from whom he could learn such information. He was raised among the same people who later opposed him, so they were witness to his honesty and truthfulness. Every aspect of his life was exposed to them, so if the Prophet ﷺ was receiving information from a teacher this would have been known to them. Even some of his adversaries who had made this assertion changed their minds later on and accused him, instead, of magic or being possessed by evil etc.
What made you say 95% was a gross overestimation when in reality it was favourable to you.
Even if 99.9% of the world did not speak Arabic, the point I mentioned earlier still remains. Whilst it is true that knowledge of the Arabic language is necessary for Islamic scholarship and a more complete appreciation of the Qur'an's miraculous beauty, this is not necessary for the basic practice of Islam and more importantly, anyone can learn Arabic if they have the resources and invest a moderate amount of time and effort. Some of the greatest scholars of Islam have been non-Arabs.
Even if a person is not a linguistic expert themselves, it is sufficient to know that multitudes of scholars from western, eastern, religious and non-religious backgrounds have testified to the Qur’an’s inimitability. Likewise it is also known that the 7th century Arabs were best placed to challenge the Qur'an yet they collectively failed to produce an Arabic text that matched the Qur’an’s linguistic and literary features.
If your claim is that Muhammad was an ordinary man who spent 23 years composing a book which was often based on reactions to events and people from his own life. And that he died before collecting this book into a final edition.Then sure your claims make complete sense.
That is obviously not my claim but your own. In reality, you are evading the point being made which again highlights an insincere attempt at understanding the Qur'an. Anyone who researches with an open and honest mind will reach the conclusion that the best explanation is that the Qur’an is from Allah سبحانه وتعالى.
It has been my experience with agnostics such as yourself that discussions of this nature, when approached without sincerity and willingness to know the truth, end up being a waste of time. Had you been a sincere seeker of truth, you would not be ignoring facts and jumping to false conclusions from the get-go. For that reason this thread is now closed.
