An Analysis of the Quran in the
Light of Documented History
By Dr. Rafat Amari
To
begin well
address the question, What
is documented history?
History is based on
documented narration which is information provided by historians through what
they wrote in books during the times in which they lived.
One
example of documented narration is the writings of the Greek historian,
Herodotus, who was born in Asia Minor and lived in the 5th century
B.C.
Still
others who contributed to documenting history are written records or chronicles
of kings and nations. The chronicles of the Assyrians, Chaldeans and Persians
are especially helpful. The most ancient chronicles come from the Assyrians and
date back to the 7th or 8th centuries B.C. These sources would be enough in
themselves, but we have more resources for documenting history, including the
annals and the inscriptions on stones and other archaeological findings.
It is
true we have all of these resources to validate ancient history, but the single
most reliable resource is the Bible. The books of the Bible were written by
various prophets who lived at various times. Moreover, they were inspired by
God to ensure accuracy. Most of the inspired writers of the Old
Testament lived and wrote before the historians themselves.
The
first Biblical writer was Moses who lived in the 15th century B.C. Moses
chronicled the nations as they branched and grew from Noah's sons after the
flood. Moses
writings make up Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Though in the past,
scholars doubted some of the Biblical narrations, today, we have found
archaeological discoveries which confirm the historical accuracy of the Bible.
Although the Bible covers a period in history where there were no historians,
archaeology has increased our knowledge through its excavations in different
sites throughout the
On the
other hand, Islam does not have a single resource to document its claims.
Mohammed wrote in the 7th century A.D., a long time after the documented
histories which had preceded him. He never presented a chronology of history
like we find in the Bible because he never had one. All he had were stories
which he mixed with the personalities he borrowed from the Bible. In some
cases, Mohammed inserted these accounts in other time periods hundreds, and
sometimes thousands, of years from the time in which those personalities lived.
For example, he placed Haman, the prime minister of the Persian
king, Ahasuerus, and the
Pharaoh said, O people, I know no god except me. Therefore, Oh Haman, light me a
kiln to bake bricks out of clay and build me a lofty tower, that I may mount up
to see the God of Moses because I think Moses is a liar.
Mohammed borrowed this story from Genesis, 11:3, 4. After the
flood:
They said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and
bake them thoroughly. They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they
said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to
the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over
the face of the whole earth.
We know that the Pharaohs never built towers which were
characteristic of the towers of
Mohammed Applied the Name Samaritan to the Time of Moses, Even
Though the Samaritans did not Appear Before the 6th Century B.C.
One example of a misapplied title is found in Mohammeds
narration concerning the golden calf, which the book of Exodus says Aaron made
in the wilderness. This occurred when Moses went to the mountain to receive the
Ten Commandments. Due to pressure from the Israelites who saw that Moses was
delayed for 40 days, Aaron submitted to the Israelites demands and made the golden
calf idol for them to worship. Mohammed reported the event in Surah Ta Ha
20:85-97 when he wrote:
Allah said, We have seduced your people in your absence. The Samaritan had led
them astray. Moses returned to his people in a state of anger and sorrow. He
said to them, Oh people, did not your lord make a good promise to you? Did the
promise seem too long for you, or did you want the wrath to come down on you
from the lord, and so you broke your promise to me?
They said, We broke not the promise to you, as far as it lay in our power,
but we were made to carry the weight of the ornaments of the people, and we
threw them into the fire, and thats what the Samaritan threw.
Then he brought a lowing calf before them. So they said, This is your god and the god
of Moses.
Then Moses said, What is the matter with you, O Samaritan? He replied: I saw
what they saw not, so that I took a handful of dust from the footprint of the
Apostle, and threw it into the calf
Go Moses said to him. Your punishment in this life
will be that you will say, 'Touch me not.' And you will have a day of
punishment that will not fail. So look to your God from whom you have gone
astray and whom you have worshipped.
When Mohammed attributed these words to the Samaritan, he
certainly had had Simon, the Samaritan magician in the book of the Acts of the
Apostles, in mind. Simon deceived the people of the city of
The city of Samaria was built by Omri, King of Israel, around the
year 880 B.C., but the name Samaritans was not coined until the 6th century B.C. when it was given to
the people whom the Assyrians brought to Samaria after Sargon II occupied the
city in year 721 B.C. Mohammed, who was ignorant of the history of the
Samaritans, was caught in a major historical mistake.
Mohammed in the Quran Confused Mary, the Mother of Jesus, with Mary, the Sister of
Aaron and Moses
Another example of Mohammeds confusion of the
historical facts was in the Biblical chronology concerning Mary. Mohammed was
misled by the Mandaeans when he considered Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be
Mary, the sister of Aaron and Moses mentioned in the Bible. Mary, the mother of
Jesus, in Arabic is called Miriam, the same name as the sister of Aaron and
Moses as found in Numbers 26:59. In Sura Maryam 19 :28, the text addresses
Mary, the mother of Jesus, Oh sister of Aaron, your father was not a man of evil, nor your
mother a woman unchaste.
Mohammed intended in this Quranic verse to show that
Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the same Mary who was the sister of Aaron and
Moses. This is confirmed in another Surah in which Mohammed contends that
Jochebed, the wife of Amram, who was the father of Aaron and Moses, dedicated
Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she was born. This we read in Surah 3 al-IImran:
35 and 36:
Oh my lord I am delivered of a female child. And Allah knew best what
she brought forth. In no way is the male like the female. And I have named her
Mary.
Mohammed made these statements even though Mary, the sister of
Aaron and the daughter of Amram, was born near the end of the 16th century B.C,
while Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born between 26 and 20 B.C.
Mohammeds confusion resulted from the fact that he was misled by the
Mandaeans, a sect that appeared for the first time in
was placed in the womb of Mary, a daughter of Moses. He was hidden
in her womb for nine months. When the nine months were fulfilled, she entered
labor and brought forth the Messiah.[1][1]
Mohammed was called a Sabian by his co-citizens. For example, on
his return from one of his campaigns, he was thirsty. His companions asked a
woman who carried a water skin to carry water for him. The woman asked, Where? They said To the prophet of Allah, to which she replied, To that one who is called a
Sabian? and they answered, Exactly, to the one you call a Sabian. The woman returned to
When Hasin, the father of a Muslim named Umran, became
Muslim, the tribe of Quraish said he
Not only did the tribe of Quraish make this judgment, but other
Arabian tribes followed suit as well. A man named Labeid went to visit Mohammed
and became a Muslim. He returned to Bani Amer, his tribe, doing ablutions,
which were ceremonial washings like the Sabians performed. He adopted Sabian
slogans such as the cry, Allah Akber, which means, Allah is greater. Labeid began bowing and
kneeling like the Sabians, praying like them and saying the Fatihah. All
the rituals of prayer known to the Arabians as Sabian rituals became
incorporated into Islam. Sirafa Bin Auf Bin al- Ahwas, the poet of the tribe of
Bani Amer, saw Labeids Sabian rituals and mocked him in a poem in which he described
Labeid as one who came to them with the religion of the Sabians.[7][7]
Confusion on the Timing of the Tribes of Ad
and Thamud
Another example which shows Mohammeds ignorance of historical
chronology is where he placed the Arabian tribes of Ad and Thamud. Ad was a
small Arabian tribe which lived in northern Arabia in the 2nd century A.D.
Claudius Ptolemy of
Mohammed claimed members of this tribe inhabited of the earth in
the second generation after Noah. We read in Surah al-A'raf 7, 69:
Call to your remembrance that he made you inheritors after the
people of Noah, and gave you a stature tall among the nations.
And in Sura 23:32:
Then we raised another generation after them - by which he means
after the people who died in the flood at the time of Noah - and we sent a
messenger to them from among themselves saying Worship Allah.
Mohammed claimed that the tribe of Ad was destroyed by a cloud or
wind that Allah brought against it.
The
phrase stature
tall among the nations
in Sura 7:69 indicates that Mohammed was influenced by Manichean literature,
which claimed that the people who lived on earth at the time of the flood were
giants, very tall in stature. Mani, the founder of Manicheism, wrote a book
which he entitled The
Giants.
We also find this idea in other Gnostic literature embraced by the
Manicheans in the 4th century A.D. In 1 Enoch we read that the angels married
the human women and
the women became pregnant and bore great giants, having heights of three
thousand cubits.[8][8] (about 4,500 feet). The idea in the Quran of the two angels Harut and Marut who
came down to Babel and taught magic to people is taken from the book of Giant
of Mani[9][9] The connection between Mohammed and the Manicheans is
affirmed by the fact that many people in the tribe of Quraish,
from which Mohammed came, embraced Manicheism. The Manicheans were called
Zandik at
Mohammed
created a dilemma for Muslims by placing the Arabian tribes, Ad and Thamud, in a period connected with that of Noah, that
is 5000 6000 B.C., so they searched for a
remedy or a way out from this problem. The first Muslim
who proposed a remedy for this contradiction was Ibn Ishak, who died around 774
A.D. (152 years after Mohammed's emigration to
Ibn Ishak was considered by the educated
people of his time as one who
fabricates false genealogies
and as a liar
and deceiver. Since no one before him had mentioned such
modified genealogies, his educated Islamic contemporaries considered him to be
a false historian. Yet, in the generations which followed Ibn Ishak's writings
became the foundation for a new history which backs the Qur'an. Based on the
genealogy that Ibn Ishak invented, Ibn Khaldun (A.D. 1332-1406) claimed that Ad
occupied the south of Arabia and part of western
Muslims
today look to Surah 50, verse 50, where it says he destroyed the ancient Ad,
to claim that there were two Ads: the ancient one (which they placed in
southern Arabia) and another Ad that appeared in the north in the area of the
Muslims
also look to Surah 46, verse 21, where it is mentioned mention the brother of Ad who warned his
people about the winding Sandtracts; in Arabic the winding sand tracts is Ahqaf. They say the first Ad lived
in Al-Ahqaf, which they considered as a place in southern Arabia in the
The
earlier Islamic writers understood the word of Ahqaf not as a place but as
windy sand. Among these writers I mention al-Feiruzabadi.[14][14]
The
Qur'an intended in this ancient Ad a place in northern
To the Thamud we sent Salih, one of their brothers
Remember
how he made you inheritors after the Ad people and gave you habitation in the
land, you build for yourselves palaces and castles in the plains and hew homes
from the mountains.
It is
clear that Mohammed placed this ancient Ad (which he placed after Noah) in the
area where houses were hewed in the rocks which in Surah
al-Hijr 15:80 he specified that the area was the city Hegra (known also as
Hijr):
The inhabitants of Hijr have rejected the messengers. We sent them
our signs, but they turned away from them. Out of mountains they hewed homes
where they were safe. But the cry seized them one morning and gave them no
avail.
We know
Hegra is in north western
Muslim
writers claim the "ancient Ad" lived in southern
Serious Historical Mistakes of Mohammed
About the Tribe of Thamud
This
brings us to the tribe of Thamud. Mohammed claimed the inhabitants of Hegra, a
city built in the 1st century B.C. whose houses were hewn from the rock by the
Nabataeans, were Thamudic. Mohammed placed them in the third generation of
history after the people of the flood, immediately after Ad and Noah. He also
claimed that they would be removed from history through a magical cry. Verses 73 and 74 of Surah7 al-A'raf tell us:
To the Thamud we sent Salih, one of their brothers
Remember how he made you inheritors after the Ad people and gave you habitation
in the land, you build for yourselves palaces and castles in the plains and hew
homes from the mountains.
Historically, Thamud was an Arabian tribe that did not appear
before the 8th century B.C. During the end of that period, they attacked the
Assyrian borders with other Arabian tribes, and they were defeated by Sargon II
who brought some of them to live in
Mohammed in Surah al-Hijr 15:80 placed them as inhabitants of an
Arabian city called Hegra. I quote again the verse:
The inhabitants of Hijr have rejected the messengers. We sent them
our signs, but they turned away from them. Out of mountains they hewed homes
where they were safe. But the cry seized them one morning and gave them no
avail.
At the time of Mohammed, Hegra was called Hijr. Today the term
Hijr is still used for the ruins of Hegra. Hegra is about 24 kilometers
from the old city of
Mohammed attributed this city and its construction to the Thamud
tribe even though the Thamud never hewed their houses in rocks as did the
Nabataeans, though some Thamuds lived in tents in the city when the tribe
flourished after the Christian era began. What happened to the tribe of Thamud?
Mohammed claimed that they were judged through a cry, and removed from history
as we see in Sura Hud 11: 67, 68:
The cry overtook the wrongdoers, and they lay prostrate in their
homes before morning. As if they never dwelt and flourished there. Behold, the
Thamud were removed.
Yet we know Thamud continued to live as an organized tribe until
the 5th century A.D.
THE
CASE OF THE MIDIANITES
Mohammed placed the Midianites close to the time of
The Thamuds were not the only people for whom Mohammed claimed
extinction. Mohammed placed the Midianites close to the time of
Oh my people. Let not my dissent with you cause you to suffer a
fate similar to what occurred to the people of Noah or of Hud
or of
Salih nor are the people of Lut far off from you.
Hud and
Salih were the name of prophets Mohammed assigned to the tribes of Ad and
Thamud. He dated Midian very close to Gods
judgment of Lut, only one or two generations from the destruction of
The Bible tells a different story. The Midianites came from
Keturah, whom Abraham married after Sarah died as reported in Genesis 25:1-6:
Abraham again took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she
bore him Zimran, Jokshan,
It was not until the 18th century B.C. that the descendants of
Midian became a nation.
Heres Mohammeds account from Surah Hud 11: 94, 95 where we read about the cry
that removed the Midianites from history:
The cry seized the wrongdoers and they lay prostrate in their
houses in the morning. As if they had never dwelt and flourished there. Behold,
this is how the Midianites were removed just as were the Thamud were removed.
Removing the Midianites from history at a time close to when Lut
lived shows how Mohammed simply dealt promptly and quickly with
the people of the world by using magical cries. He was completely ignorant of
their history. Not only did he display total ignorance about the chronology of
the people as to when they appeared in history, but he also completely removed
nations from history who lived close to his time. He claimed that they had been
exterminated in ancient times.
On the other hand, the Bible tells us a lot about Midian. Moses
lived among them 40 years when he was in south Sinai. He married a Midianite
woman. Though he had contacts with Jethro, his father-in-law who was a priest
of the Midianites, Moses never reported what the Quran alleges to be the extermination
of the tribe of Midian. Nor did Moses ever mention Shuyeb, the prophet which
Mohammed said was sent to the people of Midian. History tells us the Midianites
continued to exist in the Sinai and north
Mohammed In the Quran Claimed a Magical Cry
Destroyed the City of
The use
of a cry to destroy people and to remove them from history was used by Mohammed
in the Quran
to exterminate the people of
By way
of a parable, I set forth the story of the inhabitants of the city. Then the
messengers came to it. We sent to them two messengers whom they rejected, but
we strengthened those two with a third. They said to the inhabitants, We have been sent on a mission to you. The people replied, You are only men like ourselves, and the
Rahman sent no sort of revelation. You do nothing but lie. They replied, Our lord does know that we have been
sent on a mission to you, and our duty is only to proclaim the clear message. The people replied, for us, we conjured an evil omen from
you. If you desist not, we will certainly stone you and we will inflict a
grievous punishment on you.
The
reporters of the Hadith of Mohammed and his biographers confirmed the city
intended by the Quran
is
The Quran text surely demonstrates that Mohammed had in mind Barnabas and
Paul, the two apostles who preached and taught in
The threat of stoning the apostles did not occur in
Then we read in the same
Surah 36, verse 29, that the magic cry which judged and destroyed the
inhabitants of
The city of
The Qur'an displays an
inadequate knowledge of historical chronology when it presents unsubstantiated
statements, confuses the personalities of the Bible, and adulterates history.
Mohammed took advantage of his local environment at
THE HOOPOE AND SOLOMON AND
THE QUEEN OF
A Comparison Between the Biblical Narration of the Visit of the
Queen of
We will
compare the Qur'anic position about the visit of the Queen of Saba to King
Solomon with the Biblical and historical facts about the same visit.
First
of all, I'd like to turn your attention to the trading relationship between
Saba, called
God
gave Solomon a great gift of wisdom. So
much so, that other rulers heard about his wisdom and came to him bearing
gifts. The Queen of Sheba was among them. In I Kings, chapter 10, we read about
the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. The Bible says:
Now
when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the
Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. She came to
When did the
Queen of
The
book of I Kings specifies that King Solomon had completed most of his important
accomplishments before the visit of the Queen of Sheba. Among the things he did
was the construction of the
King
Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath on the
shore of the Red Sea, in the
According
to the Bible, all these accomplishments were made before the Queen of Sheba
visited
How the
Queen of
We
could ask ourselves how the Queen of Sheba heard of the wisdom of Solomon.
Perhaps Sabaean merchants were already traveling the land route through
northern
I
believe that Solomon's name was famous in
Many
years before Solomon's fleet was constructed, King Hiram, the Phoenician king
of
For he
was wiser than any other man....Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's
wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom.
All the
marine traffic from
The
mythological Quranic narration regarding the visit of the queen of Sheba to
Solomon, copied from the II Targum of Esther
You
will find this difficult to believe, but the
Quran
claims that King Solomon never heard of the
This Quranic myth is copied with little
variation from the mythological Jewish book called the Second Targum of Esther.
The bird in the Targum is a wild rooster, while in the Quran it is the hoopoe. The Targum uses eagles as carriers to
the throne while the Quran uses the Jinn. Other than this,
the Quranic narration is identical to the
Targum.
The Second Targum of Esther was written
before Christ and was widespread among Arabian tribes who embraced Judaism. We
find this myth in Arabian poems written before Mohammed's time, and in the
poems of people claiming to be prophets in
This Quranic myth is copied from the II Targum of Esther, with little
variation. As I mentioned above, most of the details are identical, as example,
the Targum mentioned that the Queen when arriving at Solomons palace, thought the King was sitting
in water and she raised her dress. The
Quran
copied this particular incident from the narration of the Targum. I quote first
the words of the Targum:
Now
when King Solomon heard that she was coming to him, King Solomon arose and went
to sit down in a bathhouse. When the Queen saw that the King was sitting in a
bathhouse, she thought to herself, the king must be sitting in water. So she raised her dress to wade across.
Whereupon he noticed the hair on her legs, to which King Solomon responded by
saying: Your
beauty is the beauty of women, but your hair is the hair of men. Now hair is beautiful for a man but
shameful for a woman.
Mohammed
copied the same idea from the Targum. We read in Surah 27, called al-Naml,
verse 44:
she
was asked to enter the palace, but when she saw plenty of water she raised her
dress uncovering her legs.