Dorsey Cadette

About the Quran

There are more than 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and they all believe that the Quran, the
holy book of Islam, is the word of god; To say that in a different way, more than 1,600,000,000
people think that all the information contained in Islams holy book is true and that God provided
that information. It is thought that during a period of 23 years, God spoke through the angel
Gabriel to Muhammad. Muhammads followers wrote down what Muhammad said and later
created the Quran. The Quran has information about a lot of things: holy wars, rules about
marriage, finances, divorce, sex, family, prayer, charity. There is some information within the
Quran, or statements, that are used to confirm the believability of the Quran; Some Muslims use
these statements to try to convince non-Muslims that the Quran and Islam are the truth; These
statements include the scientific predictions and a few statements of God. In this essay, I will
argue that information contained within the Quran does not provide enough evidence to believe
that the Quran is the word of God; I will support that by listing a few scientific predictions and
statements of God that are used to try to convince non-Muslims and I will prove that they are not
convincing. When thinking about the believability of the Quran, two questions always give me
trouble: 1) How do we know that the Quran was not altered? 2) How do we know that the
original Quran was the word of God?
Ive talked to many Muslims during the past few years and they all responded this way to the
first question, The Quran contains a passage from god saying that the Quran will not be
changed. The Quran reads, And recite, [O Muhammad], what has been revealed to you of the
Book of your Lord. There is no changer of His words, and never will you find in other than Him

a refuge. At first I thought they were kidding, but I realized that they are serious. After hearing
that, I thought, The words of the Quran are exactly what is in question; How can they prove the
believability of the words of the Quran with THE WORDS OF THE QURAN. It is a circular
argument. I responded to them, Its possible that a human included that passage about altering
the Quran in order to convince future readers that the Quran was not altered. Some argue that
their parents, friends, Islamic scholars told them that the Quran was not changed, but how do
they know that? They know the same way that all current Muslims do: by testimony, hearsay,
word of mouth. Some Muslims also argue that the bible and torah have been changed, yet they
are not willing to admit the possibility of their own book being changed. I guess God, the allpowerful and all-knowing being, needed a few tries before he could prevent the holy books from
being changed; Or maybe He was able, but unwilling.
The prophet Muhammad split the moon. Jesus walked on water. Moses parted the red sea with
the help of God. All of these men are the prophets, or messengers of god, and they all performed
a miracle. It seems that there were a lot of miracles during that time. A miracle is a violation of a
law of nature by a supernatural thing. Throughout all of our lives, we have conducted thousands
of trials confirming that the laws of nature are in effect and have never been violated: For
example, we confirm the law of gravity many times per day: every time I drop something, it
falls, without exception. The same is true of all the other established laws of nature. With that in
mind, it is difficult for me, and hopefully many others, to believe that these events occurred.
Also, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, experienced a miracle. Why is that miracle any
less believable than the miracles of those men?
Some Muslims argue that the scientific predictions are evidence that the Quran is the word of
god because no human couldve predicted that which is predicted in the Quran. The scientific

predictions in the Quran are not clear in meaning. I will use examples to confirm their
vagueness: This first statement is a prediction about the forming of the universe and the smokelike state it used to be in, Then He turned to the heaven when it was smoke... (Quran 41:11)
This second statement is a prediction about the separation of salt and fresh water, a fact that was
confirmed recently by scientists, He has set free the two seas meeting together. There is a
barrier between them. They do not transgress. (Quran 55:19-20)
This third prediction is about the expansion of the Universe. The word heaven in this
statement, according to Muslims, refers to space and the universe, And the heaven We created
with might, and indeed We are (its) expander. (Quran 51:47)
The three previous statements from the Quran are not very precise and are greatly left open to
interpretation. Lets say that the Quranic prediction reads, A large thing will fly. Someone
could interpret that in many ways. Someone could interpret the expression large thing as a
plane, as a large animal, as an astronomical body, etc. Not only are the predictions vague, but it is
possible that the men, who translated the quran from Arabic to English and who couldve been
familiar with modern scientific discoveries, worded the predictions in such a way as to make
them more convincing to English readers, English readers being non-arabic people who tend to
need more convincing than an average Arabic person. During the late 20th century, a Saudi
Arabian religious organization decided that English readers need a reliable Quran, so they chose
a popular one at that time, made revisions, and republished it. It is possible that those revisions
were rewordings of the scientific predictions so that they would be up to date with modern
discoveries.

After considering the arguments that the Quran is the word of God, it seems to me, and I hope to
you as well, that the believability of the Quran is suspect. First, we looked at the altering of the
Quran and the various arguments. We concluded that we cannot be convinced that it wasnt
changed, but that we have reason to believe it was changed because of the alterations of the Bible
and Torah. Next we examined the possibility of miracles and decided that it is unlikely that all of
those miracles occurred. Finally, we considered the scientific predictions of the Quran and
concluded that they are vague and possibly reworded. In light of all this, I am not thoroughly
convinced, and neither should you be, that the Quran is the word of God.

Works Cited
"The Noble Qur'an - ." The Noble Qur'an - . N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov.
2014.
" Please Choose Your Language ." The Religion of Islam. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov.
2014.
"Islam." , Muslim Religion. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
"Islam." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Khalifa, Rashad. Quran: The Final Testament: Authorized English Version, with the
Arabic Text. Fremont, CA: Universal Unity, 2001. Print.