
Founded in the Arabic Peninsula in the early 7th century AD, Islam is the second largest religion in the world in terms of number of followers, comprising approximately 23% of the world’s population. According to tradition, the Islam was revealed to the prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah between 610 and 632 AD by the angel Jibrayil (Gabriel in English), sent by the god Allah. Muhammad’s revelations were recorded by his companions and later compiled into the Quran, the holy book of Islam. Was the Quran really dictated by a higher entity to the prophet, as almost 1.7 billion people currently believe? Islamic theologians have concluded that the newer verses contradict the older ones, counting in the Quran no less than 225 contradictions. In addition to these, there are numerous disagreements with biblical stories and confusions, some too big to be ignored. This leads to the conclusion that Muhammad did not receive teachings from any angel, but rather dictated to his followers the stories he had heard from Jews and Christians, as he understood them. Here are some of his errors:
– In Surah 11, verses 45-46, one of Noah’s sons drowned because he was unrighteous. Muhammad probably referred to Noah’s curse on Canaan from Genesis 9:25, which he did not understand.
– In Surah 6, verse 74, Azar is the father of Abraham. In the Bible he is named Terah. Muhammad forgot his name, so he replaced it with an Arabic one.
– In Surah 11, verse 71, Sarah laughed before Allah’s promise that she would have a son, although in Genesis 18:10 she laughed after.
– In Surah 11, verse 81 and Sura 29, verse 32, the angels announced to Lot that his wife would be punished. This did not happen in the Bible.
– Muhammad believed that Abraham wanted to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac, as the Old Testament claims.
– Satan wanted to seduce Abraham to convince him not to sacrifice Ishmael. This event does not exist in the Jewish scriptures.
– In Surah 12, verse 4, the prophet of Islam shows that he does not know the biblical story of Joseph’s dream of the sheaves, mentioned in Genesis 37:7.
– In the same verse, Joseph told his dream to his father. In the Old Testament, he first told it to his brothers.
– In Surah 12, verses 8-10, the ten sons of Jacob decided to throw Joseph into a well to be found by a caravan. In the Bible, the consultation took place only after Joseph went to his brothers in the field, and they did not throw him into the well to be found by a caravan.
– In Surah 12, verse 12, the ten sons ask Jacob to let Joseph play with them. In the Old Testament, Jacob sent Joseph to spy on his brothers.
– In Surah 12, verses 13-14, Jacob predicts what will happen and puts the lie in his sons’ mouths with which they excuse Joseph’s loss. This does not happen in the Bible.
– In Surah 12, verse 18, Jacob does not believe his sons when they tell him that Joseph died. In Jewish scriptures he believes them.
– In Surah 12, verses 19-20, Joseph was found by a caravan, which sold him to an Egyptian. In the Old Testament, his brothers sold him to the caravan.
– The story in Surah 12, verses 25-35, where Joseph’s shirt is torn at the back, women cut their hands when they see him and Allah removes their mischief, does not exist in the Bible.
– The plea of Joseph for Allah and against idols in Surah 12, verses 37-40, is missing from the Old Testament and is performed in Muhammad’s style.
– In Surah 12, verses 50-51, Joseph asks to be cleared of the accusations of the women who cut their hands when they saw him. This does not exist in the Bible.
– In Surah 28, verse 9, Moses was saved by Pharaoh’s wife. In the Old Testament he was saved by the king’s daughter.
– In Surah 7, verse 117, Moses’ staff, transformed into a snake, swallowed the ones of the Egyptian sorcerers, an event that does not exist in the Old Testament story.
– In Surah 7, verse 108 and Sura 26, verse 33, Moses performed the miracle with the leprous hand in front of Pharaoh, which does not exist in the Bible.
– In Surah 7, verse 124, Surah 20, verse 71, and Surah 26, verse 49, the Pharaoh during Moses’ time wanted to crucify the magicians. In Surah 12, verse 41, the patriarch Joseph says that one of his cell mates will be crucified. Crucifixion was not a practice in ancient Egypt, being preferred by the Romans and sometimes by the Persians, Carthaginians and Macedonians.
– Muhammad shows a lack of knowledge about the plagues sent upon Egypt in the story of Moses. In Surah 7, verse 133, they are „flood, and the locusts, and the lice, and the frogs, and blood„. In Surah 17, verse 101, Allah says „We gave Moses nine clear signs„. In the Exodus book of the Old Testament, there were ten „signs” or plagues: turning the water into blood, frogs, lice, gnats, the death of livestock, boils, hail and fire, locusts, three days of darkness and the death of the first-borns.
– In Surah 29, verse 39, Moses showed signs to the Pharaoh and to Quaroon and Hamaan. If this Quaroon is Korah from the Bible, the cousin of Moses and Aaron, Hamaan has no place in this story. Haman is the Persian king’s vizier in the Book of Esther, not the Pharaoh’s.
– In Surah 40, verses 36-37, Pharaoh asked Hamaan to build a tower that would reach the sky, to the god of Moses. The prophet of Islam messed up the story of the Tower of Babel.
– In Surah 18, verses 65-82, Moses met a mysterious character who burned a ship, killed a young man and raised a wall. This character and his actions are not found in the Old Testament.
– In Surah 28, verse 15, two men from opposing sides argued and one asked Moses for help. Moses killed the other with a punch. The story is different in the Bible, where Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite.
– In Surah 7, verse 148, while Musa was away, the Israelites „adopted a calf made from their ornaments – a body which lowed„. In the Bible it was a simple golden statue, not a robotic calf.
– In Surah 2, verse 249, Muhammad mistakes Gideon with Saul.
– In Surah 21, verses 81-82, it is written: „And to Solomon the stormy wind, blowing at his command towards the land that we have blessed. We are aware of everything. And of the devils were some that dived for him, and performed other, lesser tasks. But we kept them restrained„. In the scriptures of the Jews, Solomon did not have power over the wind and had no demons under control. These existed, however, in the legends of the Arabs, which reached Europe in the Middle Ages.
– In Surah 9, verse 30, Muhammad wrongly accuses the Jews of considering Ezra the son of God.
– In Surah 19, verse 28, he calls the Virgin Mary „sister of Aaron„. Because in Hebrew the mother of Jesus and the sister of Moses and Aaron have the same name, Miriam, Muhammad mistakes them.
– Due to the same confusion, the prophet claims the father of Jesus’ mother was named Imran and Elizabeth was her sister. Imran (Amram in the Bible) was the father of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, not of the Virgin Mary. Although the New Testament does not specify his name, the Gospel of James from the 2nd century AD claims the father of Mary was named Joachim. And the Bible only states that Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, was a relative of Maria, without specifying their degree of kinship.
– In Surah 3, verses 42-51, the angels told Mary the good news. In the New Testament, more specifically in the Gospel of Luke, only one angel informed Mary that she would become pregnant: „And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth” (1:26), the same angel whom Muhammad claimed it dictated the Quran to him.
– Muhammad did not consider Jesus to be the son of God or part of any trinity, but only a man, contrary to the New Testament.
– In the Quran, Jesus spoke from the cradle, which does not exist in Christian texts.
– In Surah 3, verse 49, Jesus created a bird out of clay and breathed life into it. This miracle does not exist in the New Testament. However, a similar story circulated among Christians, recorded in the Gospel of Childhood from the 2nd century AD, attributed to the apostle Thomas.
– In Surah 5, verses 112-115, the prophet of Islam shows that he did not understand the story of the Last Supper, so he distorted it, stating that the apostles asked for a table from heaven.
– In Surah 4, verse 157, the Jews did not crucify Jesus, but someone else, because Allah took the prophet to himself. There is no such variant in Christian legends, but on the contrary, the Christian doctrine being based on the sacrifice of Jesus and his resurrection.
– According to Christian tradition, seven saints hid in a cave in Ephesus during the time of the Emperor Decius (249 – 251 AD) and came out during the time of Theodosius II (402 – 450 AD), about 200 years later. In Surah 18, verse 25, they slept in the cave for 309 years.
– For Muhammad, believers will reach the Gardens of Eden in which, according to Surah 47, verses 16, rivers of pure water, milk, wine, and honey flow. In the Judeo-Christian mythology there is only one Garden of Eden, not more, and its four rivers are made only of water.
– In Surah 22, verse 23, believers will wear silk clothes and bracelets of gold and pearls after death in the „Gardens beneath which rivers flow„. Which would be a bit difficult to achieve if people would only reach the afterlife as spirits, not with their bodies, according to all religions.
– In Surah 22, verse 64, the god Allah „holds up the sky lest it falls on earth – except by his permission„. And in Sura 34, verse 9: „If we will, we can make the earth cave in beneath them, or make pieces of the sky fall down on them„. These concepts show Muhammad’s ignorance, considering that the sky isn’t made of solid matter and cannot fall on Earth.
– In Surah 41, verse 11, Allah claims: „And we decorated the lower universe with lamps, and for protection„. If these are the stars and the Moon, a higher entity would never consider them as „lamps” and „protection„.
– It’s also noteworthy Muhammad’s conception of life, for him everything being just a game and distraction: „The life of this world is nothing but diversion and play, and the Home of the Hereafter is the Life” (Surah 29, verse 64), „The life of this world is nothing but game and distraction, but the Home of the Hereafter is better for those who are righteous” (Surah 6, verse 32).
– It should be specified that the prophet of Islam believed that there were passages about him in the Old Testament, which the Jews altered. The truth is that anyone can make this claim, which cannot be confirmed or denied. Therefore, its value is equal to zero.
– The „miracles” of the prophet’s story could not be missing, Muhammad claiming to have been taken to heaven by an angel or to have put the Moon up his sleeve. Just like all religious „miracles”, they have no relevance as long as they are performed without witnesses or in front of witnesses with questionable credibility.
All of these confusions, contradictions of the Bible, reinterpretations and aberrations, along with the 225 contradictions between the new and the old verses, demonstrate that Muhammad received no information from any angel or deity, but instead made everything up. He heard the biblical legends from the Jews and Christians in Mecca, mixed them with elements of Arab folklore and compiled them into his own version, one full of errors caused by a lack of understanding or memory lapses. Not knowing how to write or read, he simply listened to the legends. Even Romanian theologian, philologist and orientalist Silvestru Octavian Isopescul wondered over a century ago: „Isn’t the Quran a patchwork of the Torah, Gospel and fables?„. Taking advantage of the religious chaos of the Arabs and the lack of a centralized religion, Muhammad invented a new religion, Islam. Wanting to become more than just a simple merchant, he declared himself the prophet of the new religion, claiming that an angel sent by the god Allah dictated the Quran to him. The Meccans were not easily fooled, realizing that everything was Muhammad’s invention. They even suspected he composed his suras with the help of others, such as Rabbi Abdallah ibn Salam. Although he was not believed in Mecca, the „prophet” was successful in Medina, where he managed to gather an army to punish the Meccans. Over time, he managed to conquer the entire Arabian Peninsula and impose his religion by force, especially in the last ten years of his life. To give us an idea of the conversion campaign of the peninsula’s inhabitants, in 627 AD, after Medina was besieged by the Meccans, Muhammad besieged the Jews of the Kureiza tribe; after they surrendered, all the men were killed and the women and children were enslaved.
Before he had an army on his side, Muhammad tried to attract followers peacefully, claiming that his verses were dictated by an angel sent by Allah. Logicaly, he first preferred to convert wealthy and influential people. His attempts can be clearly seen even in the Quran. For example:
– At first he didn’t decide on a direction for prayer. Then, to win the favor of the Jews, he established the Qibla (the direction Muslims face during prayers) towards Jerusalem. Seeing that the Jews ignored him, he changed the Qibla to Mecca.
– While trying to convert the noble Walid ibn al-Mughira and other leaders of Mecca, Muhammad was interrupted by the blind Abdallah ibn Umm Maktum, who asked to be initiated into Islam. Annoyed because he was disturbed by a poor man, the prophet wrinkled his forehead and turned his back. In Surah 80 he acknowledges his actions, claiming that he was admonished by Allah for it.
– In Surah 53, the „prophet” spoke about the goddesses Allat, al-Uzza and Manat as „these are swans, flying high and in their midst hope„. Although his religion was monotheistic, he neither denied the existence of the three goddesses nor condemned their cult, preferring to praise them in order to gain the sympathy of the Koreish. Because they remained indifferent to his praises, Muhammad declared the next day that the verses about the goddesses were of satanic inspiration and replaced them with verses 21-23.
Before the adoption of Islam, the religions of Arabia were diverse and polytheistic. Each kingdom had its own pantheon of three to five deities. For example, in Saba, Almaqah was revered as the supreme deity, along with Athtar, Haubas, Himyam and Dhat-Badan. Athtar was the main deity of the Ma’in and Himyar kingdoms, Amm in Qataban and Sayin in Hadhramaut. The three goddesses mentioned by Muhammad in the „satanic” verses, Allat, al-Uzza and Manat, were particularly revered in Mecca and at Kaaba. Alongside these indigenous cults, Christianity (in the northwest, northeast and south of Arabia), Judaism, Zoroastrianism (in the east and south) and Manichaeism made their way. The Arab gods were borrowed from neighbors, as was customary from ancient times. For example, Allat is the Arabic version of Elat, one of the epithets of the goddess Asherah in Canaan. Manat comes from the name of the goddess Anat, also imported from Canaan. Al-Uzza was named after Uzza, one of the alternative names of the angel Metatron in Jewish folklore. Shamash, the sun god in Babylon, was turned into Shams, the sun goddess for Arabs. Hubal represents a combination of the terms „hu” („spirit” or „god”) and „baal” („lord”, „master”). The solar deity Malakbel means „Messenger of Baal” in Aramaic. Athtar was also adopted from Canaan, being the male aspect of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
Allah, the deity of Islam, was not invented by Muhammad, but existed in the polytheistic Arab cults. Regional variants of its name show up in pre-Islamic inscriptions, both Christian and pagan. Even Muhammad’s father was named Abdullah, meaning „Servant of Allah”. According to the official version, the name of the god is composed of the Arabic definite article „al” and the noun „ilah„, which means „god”. If the Arabs adopted a lot of deities from Canaan, the same thing happened with Allah. The particle „al” is equivalent to „el” in the West-Semitic languages, Allah being only the Arabic version of Elah, an epithet of the biblical god and also the Aramaic version of the Ugaritic „eloah„. The plural form „elim” is equivalent to the Ugaritic „elohim„, the name used by the Canaanites to refer to their gods, which was adopted by Jews as an epithet for their deity. The Quran even claims that the Allah of the Arabs is Yahweh of the Jews (none other than Marduk of the Babylonians), as evidenced by Arabic symbolism; the symbol of Islam is the crescent moon and Yahweh means „He who became the Moon”. The Islamic emblem also contains a small star with five rays next to the large crescent moon, symbolizing Marduk’s supremacy over his enemy Enlil, whose symbol was the pentagram. Before being transformed by Muhammad into a single, omnipotent and omniscient god modeled after the Judeo-Christian deity, Allah was a god like all others and even had a family. As the Quran itself acknowledges, the Arabs believed that angels were the daughters of Allah. Allat („Goddess”), one of the three goddesses worshiped in Mecca, is the feminine form of the name Allah, suggesting that she was the consort of the god, following the pattern of other Semitic religions such as El – Elat, Bel – Belet, Anu – Antum, Shara – Shala, or Athtart – Ashtart. This should not be a surprise, considering that in Canaan Yahweh also had a wife, Asherah, and both goddesses disappeared with the rise of Judaism and Islam. And today the polytheistic roots of Islam are hidden so that the Shahada (the Islamic statement of faith) can be applied: „I bear witness that there is no deity but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God„. And yet those roots still exist…
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