SOME SERIOUS QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS...
1. The Quran many places tells that Allah decides everything - absolutely everything (f. ex. the time of your death is decided even before you are born). But the Quran also tells that man has a free will. These two are not possible to combine. (Muslim thinkers have not been able to explain this through 1400 years (the same goes for the next 3 questions, whereas question no. 5 is not discussed in Islam - there may be death penalty or at least extrication for it). F. ex. “The Message of the Quran” - a book certified by the al-Ahzar Muslim university in Cairo, one of the top Muslim universities - says: “We can not explain it, but it has to be true, because it is said in the Quran”. A very impressive statement when you know the Quran is full of mistaken facts and logically invalid statements, “signs” and “proofs”.
2. The Quran states that Allah is omniscient and knows everything also concerning the future. But the Quran also states that man has free will. These two statements are not possible to combine, as if man has free will, his dictions will change the future - and it will not be possible to foresee these changes if man’s will really is free, this even if the will only is free to a miniscule degree.
3. The Quran states that Allah is omniscient. But it also states that Allah sends accidents and catastrophes and demands fighting and war to test you. How do Islam combine these two statements? - if Allah is omniscient, he knows everything and testing is for no reason.
4. The Quran many places states that Allah blocks the way - or the way back - to Islam for some people, especially for “bad” persons. That makes them not regret and repent, which at least a few would have done under “normal” circumstances. All the same he sends these persons to Hell. How can he then be called a good god?
5. If the Quran is manmade - like all the mistaken facts and f. ex. invalid “proofs” may indicate - and if there somewhere exists a real god, Islam blocks all Muslims under threat of death penalty many places, from searching for this possibly real god. Is this a good fate in case?
Then there is the question of what values a society is built on. These values can roughly be split in 3:
A. Positive values - like honesty, caring for others, etc.
B. Empty values - things, acts or thoughts people believe are valuable because they are told so, but that really has no value.
C. Negative or false values - what tradition etc. tell is priceworthy, but that in reality are bad.
a. Islam has some positive values - like be honest, deal fairly, take care of orphans, etc.
b. Islam has a lot of empty values - like meaningless formalities, aping Muhammad also in meaningless details, etc.
c. And Islam has a big lot of negative/false values - like stealing/robbing, raping, enslaving, suppressing others, murder, hate and war.
TO MY MURDERER.
Not to be panegyric about Muhammad is bad, according to Muslims. To ask critical questions about him is heresy and carries a death penalty. And to draw conclusions about him Muslims do not like - it counts nothing that they may be 100% true - makes it a duty for all and every Muslim to murder him. Or her. Also Muhammad had women murdered when they opposed him. One can ask questions about Allah and one can disbelieve Allah, but not the saint Muhammad - he has to be an unquestioned saint even though he cannot be called a saint, because the Quran prohibits it. Why has he got to be without doubt the perfect and infallible saint? Simply because as a man he was a doubtful person with a doubtful morality - and all the same all Islam rests only and utterly only on such a man’s words.
Are you angry because of my words? But can you be angry because of things Islam itself tells? My words here are logical conclusions from reading the Quran, some strengthened Hadits and Islam’s own history about Muhammad - f. ex. Ibn Ishaq. Can you be angry because I believe what Islam itself tells? Did you yourself really read the Quran and the Hadits and Ibn Ishaq - read it with your brain and with all your knowledge about history, geography, archaeology, astronomy, psychology, etc., not only with your eyes and/or your imprinted old ideas - and saw the mistakes before you sentenced me to death?
There is no doubt that Muhammad raped at least two women, there is no doubt that he liked many wives, there is no doubt that Muhammad took slaves and also accepted and took part in slave trade (was it some 2ooo women and children that were taken slaves and sold from the last Jewish tribe in Yathrib?), there is no doubt that he for years lived from stealing, extorting and murdering (the first years in Medina), there is no doubt that he used torture, there is no doubt that he betrayed people - he even himself said that war was betrayal (and that what was not Muslim area, was war area) - there is no doubt he was a murderer (he had many opponents murdered), there is no doubt he was a mass murderer (f. ex. the 700), there is no doubt that Islam was very much changed (it is easy for anyone to see if they read the surahs chronologically) around/after 622 AD (what was wrong with his teachings in Mecca?) , and it is easy to see that Islam in Medina became a religion of hate, stealing/robbing, rape and war. All this from esteemed Muslim books - as I said: From among others Ibn Ishaq, Hadith and the Quran.
Can you be angry with me because I quote such thoroughly Islamic books?
Can you be angry with me because I point to that ALL Islam is built only on this man’s word?
Can you be angry with me because I mention this man’s merits as told in Islamic books?
Can you be angry with me because I mention these plain ISLAMIC truths?
Do you really want to murder me because I tell what the Quran and Islamic history books tell?
Do you claim that I am making up things, when it is so easy to check if I quote and tell the truth?
The thing is that freedom - also the freedom to tell what is true, not only what a terrorist or a dictator likes that you tell - has to be defended. And a sure way to loose that freedom, and all other freedom, is to give in to terror, be it from states or murderers. One can be careful because of danger. But one has to be able to face one’s own mirror in the mornings.
There were two reasons for my decision to start this work:
1. There is a real chance that in the future Islam will become dominant. That will in case be a stagnant world - for more than 900 years Islam has been unable to bring forth a single new idea benefiting humanity. You can date the total stagnation to 1095 AD (1198 AD in Mahgreb/Spain).
It also will be a world of scarcity and hunger, because a system where the most pious, not the best qualified, have the final word on many levels, will not be able to feed so big a population - Muslims make many children. This even more so as such closed systems are very open to corruption and consequently to inefficiency.
Well, may be I am too pessimistic - in 1941 it looked like the Nazis were winning. But true information and a stronger will among the democracies to fight when they really had to, than the brainwashed Nazi religion believed, turned the tide.
2. All the mistaken facts in the Quran prove that something is wrong - it cannot be made by an omniscient god. All the invalid “signs”, statements, not to mention “proofs”, etc. are even worse, because to make mistakes can happen (though not to an omniscient god). But active use of invalid statements and invalid proofs, are not honest mistakes - that is the hallmark of cheats, deceivers and swindlers - - - and knowing the real character and moral of Muhammad according to ISLAMIC history (not the later religious gloss some Muslims have painted him with), that is sinister. Especially as there have been so many self-proclaimed “prophets” quite similar to Muhammad through history, though not as successful as him.
If Islam is a made up religion, and if there somewhere exists a real religion (which I honestly have come to doubt during my studies of the Quran), Islam blocks the road to that religion for all Muslims. It will in case be a rude awakening for them if there is a Last Day when they expect to enter the honestly primitive Paradise described in the Quran, and find - - what?
My only request before you murder me - or anybody else - is that you first read all the Quran and control if my information about mistakes and logically unfounded statements and “signs” (remember that I said logically unfounded, because it is the foundation under them all that is lacking - Allah is a great god if he made the sun - - - but there nowhere really is proved that he made the sun). But during your reading you shall use your knowledge - not just what someone or the imams tell you, but real, controlled knowledge - and your brain, not just your eyes or ears.
It is not possible for an intelligent, educated person used to asking questions, not to see the mistakes and the logical wrongs in the Quran. (Why do you think some educated Muslim so strongly stress that you should believe without questions and without asking for proofs or real indications? - but you have to be very naïve to accept this in such serious questions as religion and eternity).
This will be sent anonymously to a number of names I have found - not possible to trace that way.
INTRODUCTION.
There are many learned books about the Quran - but who reads learned book? This “book” is so simple, that everybody can read it and understand it - and each comment or explanation does not take much time to read and understand, even if you have little knowledge about such things. And not least: It so closely follows the Quran (Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation to English, in Islam reckoned to be one of the three best, if not the very best, translations ever made to English - the two others are Pikthall and Shakir (though Mohsin Kahn is not too bad either)), that everybody can control that every quotation is 100% correct - and that then the conclusions are right.
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Once more: FOR FREE USE AND SPREADING vocally, for friends, in print, on Internet or however - remember to refer to the name and Internet addresses whenever you use it, so that more people can find it. If there ever is a printer brave enough to print it, let the royalty go to Save the Children. Perhaps later when the text is not new? PUT IT MANY PLACES on Internet - Muslims will like to block it.
It also is fully permitted to use material from this book for further work, if you refer to at least the title and Internet address of this book. (But if someone publishes a work too dissimilar to the contents of this one, saying it is a revised volume from Klog Belaest, ask him or her to tell the meaning of the code above - it is a clear identification. That a code is necessary tells something about how life in a possible future Muslim society may be).
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This “book” may be extra informative to non-Christians (and non-Jews), as the Quran to a large degree builds on (twisted) stories from the Bible. Non-Christians - and also many Christians - do not know the Bible well, and then are unable to see what is made up and what may be true (I say “may be” because also not all of the Bible is proved). Also many are not well enough versed in science, history, geography, etc. to see where the Quran is wrong - sometimes wildly wrong.
Also the stories in the Quran often are in accordance with religious fables, legends and fairy tales that were well known in Arabia at that time, but that are proven to be made up and not true - whereas stories Muhammad did not know from the Bible (he hardly knew the Bible at all, only the religious stories and fables that sometimes really were from the Bible, but mostly were made up, and he did not know which were which - it is likely that Muhammad in all his life never even saw a Bible) and quoted falsely, he promptly explained were falsified by the bad non-Muslims, and that his stories were the true ones.
Finally: No human is perfect - and I far from it. If I have overlooked points that should have been included, please inform me. And if I have made mistakes - but I mean real mistakes, not something based on religious wishful thinking - I would dearly like to know, so I can correct the “book”. Go to the Feedback form
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It is normal for many Muslims to try to explain away any information that does not conform to the standard dogmas of Islam, not to mention if information - even obvious facts - indicate or show that something is wrong with the religion or with the Quran. A very normal way to do it is simply to state - without proofs - that you are lying. Or that you are an Islam hater or a Jew lover and as such everything you say is to be dismissed as lies. But even if I were an avid Islam hater, that is not the question - the question is: Does this person speak the truth at this point? (Actually there is a better chance to get the difficult questions from the hater of something, because a lover will never mention them - especially not in religion). But actually I am no hater of Muslims - only frightened by Islam and stupefied that so many Muslims can read the book and not react to the mistakes and other strange points.
As this book so closely follows the Quran, it is easy for you to control that all quotations are correct. Then use your brain: Is what the writer says further logical and correct? And the other way around: If someone tries to explain away something or simply call something a lie: Just open the book and check - and there you also have the references to where to find it in the Quran, so you can go directly to the Quran and see if the writer is lying or the “opponent” is bluffing. (The Quran in English paperback just costs a few Euro or pounds - according to Muslims the translation made by
Abdulla Yusuf Ali may be the best - and is the one used as basis for this book - but the one translated by Pikthall or Shakir may be as good.)
Then use your own brain when reading this book and when discussing with or reading pro-islamists - it sometimes is so essential for Muslims to prove that there are no mistakes in the Quran (because then something is wrong with the religion) that they sometimes “twist” the facts a little - or not a little. Also remember to use your knowledge and brain when you read the Quran.
For many Muslims it is better to not doubt and not to find out if something is wrong - and get a surprise in the (perhaps) next life, than to check all the possible mistakes and invalid “signs” etc. that an omniscient god never had used - and may be do find out that something is wrong in time to search for the right religion (if such one exists) on this side of the possible Day of Doom. After the Day of Doom it is said to be too late.
Besides: If they do not check if something is wrong, fanatics will not murder them.
PREFACE.
Originally I was little interested in religion, but as more and more Muslims arrived in the West, I found that I ought to read their holy book - the Quran (also written the Qur’an or the Koran) - because it is not possible to understand people or their culture, without knowing their religion.
I did. And was shocked and frightened. I had been told - especially by Muslims - that Islam is a peaceful religion. In a way it is - but only towards other Muslims, and then only as long as some Muslims do not declare that some other Muslims are not really Muslims. There is a lot of incitement to war and hate and discrimination towards non-Muslims in the Quran.
But I know a number of Muslims - most of them do not live according to those points in the Quran. And little by little my attention gravitated towards a mystery: The Quran tells it is sent down by the omniscient god Allah, and is perfect and without mistakes, Muhammad told the book was sent down from the god and was perfect and without mistakes, Islam tells the same, and so do Muslims.
AND ALL THE SAME THERE ARE LOTS OF MISTAKEN FACTS IN THE QURAN.
The Quran denies it. Muhammad denied it. Islam denies it. Muslims deny it. But all the same: Anybody with good knowledge of f. ex. geography, history, archaeology, or astronomy will find a number of mistakes in the book.
F. ex. the Quran tells about the Muslim Alexander the Great (under the Arab “nickname” Dhu’l Quarnayn = “The Two-Horned One“, which is a well known name for Alexander) in surah 18, that he travelled west till he found the place where the sun set “in a spring of murky water”. In addition to the other wrong points here, we know from history that Alexander never travelled west. Macedonia (his native country) and Egypt were the furthest west he ever came.
And what about the statements about 7 material heavens or firmaments that is frequently mentioned in the book? - with the stars fixed to the lowermost of these (the heavens have to be material to make it possible to fix the stars to one of them). And how about using stars as weapons against bad spirits? - the maker of the book obviously did not know the difference between a shooting star and a real star. Any god had known better. But Muhammad believed this - this was the astronomy of that time there (actually it is from Greek and also Persian/Indian astronomy of that time, a fact Muslims NEVER mention).
Not to mention the most well known mistake: According to the Quran, Mary - mother of Jesus - was the daughter of Imran and sister of Aron (and consequently of Moses). It is known from Hadith (Muslim traditions about Muhammad) that already Muhammad tried to “explain” those two mistakes, but neither he nor later Muslims have succeeded - scientists of religion (included some Muslim ones) agree on that Muhammad made a mistake here. Either when creating or when reciting it.
And to mention a last one: According to the Quran Jesus was thought the Gospel as a child/youth. But the oldest of the Gospels (there are four, not one) was written some 25 years after Jesus died (new discoveries say may be some years earlier). They simply did not exist - could not exist - when Jesus was young. After all the Gospels are the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and could not be written until after his final disappearance. More about this later.
The whole religion of Islam is built on one presumption: That Mohammad always spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and never forgot or made details wrong - and especially so when he told that the Quran was sent down from Allah, the omnipotent and omniscient god. But an omniscient god does not make mistakes “en masse”. Neither does he use invalid “signs” or “proofs” - only cheats and deceivers do that.
This became a mystery for me - the mistakes etc. were so many and so obvious. But hundreds of millions of Muslims could not all live in a fool’s paradise or in an illusion. I had to be wrong and there had to be some explanation. The mistakes were so easy to see - anybody can go to the Quran and find them. There had to be something I had overlooked.
And the mystery became even deeper as it dawned on me that a number of the mistakes were in accordance with the picture of the world and of history that learned men in the Middle East believed in at the time of Muhammad. Any god had recognized them as mistakes, but Muhammad believed it all to be correct. It was simply in accordance with what Muhammad thought was correct geography, history, astronomy, etc.
I honestly tried to find explanations. But it is difficult to get answers - “explanations” yes, explanations no. And the answers were not even polite sometimes - I “had to be stupid or an Israel-lover or a Muslim-hater or I just parroted anti-Islamic propaganda” to ask such questions and not simply accept that the Quran is perfect and without mistakes, no matter what mistakes it contains. Even organisations for Islamic information were sarcastic as they answered my stupidity: I f. ex. asked for an explanation about the statements in the Quran that the heavens are supported by “pillars you do not see”. The answer was that “everybody with an IQ greater than 60, understand that that means there are no pillars”. I replied that I know the difference between invisible pillars - the statement in the Quran - and not-existing pillars, and asked for a real explanation. I never got an answer.
The enigma still is an enigma for me.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT MUHAMMAD.
Muslims turn raving mad when someone says something not flattering about Muhammad - f. ex. the cartoons about him some time ago (an episode that told the rest of the world a lot more about Islam and about Muslims than Islam and Muslims really wanted us to understand). But Muslims will have to accept that most of the world really does not believe Islam is the true religion - if they did, they had become Muslims long time ago. Consequently they then of course do not believe that Muhammad always said the truth - if they did, they had turned Muslims quickly.
Also: It is not an insult to anyone - f. ex. Muhammad - to tell what is true (f. ex. that a person who let 700 helpless prisoners be murdered, and then took all their families for slaves - or personally raped a newlywed woman after having tortured her husband to death the day before - is not an obviously good man). Neither is it an insult to ask honest questions, even if it is questions about f. ex. Muhammad - f. ex. how can the surahs and verses where it clearly is Mohammad who speaks, be sent down from Heaven and be copies of a revered “Mother book” there, so old that may be it was never written, but always existed? (The last is not said in the Quran, but is an accepted “truth” for many Muslims).
His life can be split in three:
1. “Ordinary” life (ca.570-610 AD). He became a salesman when he grew up. Muslim traditions tell he was an honest one. There is no special reason to disbelieve this, but also there are only Muslim sources - and for Muslims/Islam it is very essential to believe he was honest and never lied or cheated or betrayed, because all Islam only rests on his words.
2. Self proclaimed prophet in Mecca for a rather peaceful religion with a few followers (610-622 AD).
3. Self proclaimed prophet in Yathrib/Medina (622-632 AD) who changed his religion sharply towards hate and blood and suppression in and shortly after 622 AD. This is very easy to see if you read the surahs in chronological order. Non-Muslim experts on Islam’s history agree on that his morality and his religion detoriated very much and became much more inhuman after he came to Medina - perhaps this was a cause of his growing success, as the war and suppressing/enslaving and robbing religion attracted the Arab warrior tribes much more than his former peaceful version. It is very clear from the Quran if you read the surahs in chronological order and from the Hadith that Muhammad liked power and liked to be the undisputed ruler - the representative of Allah, and in some ways even trying to be synonymous with Allah - and that he aspired for more and more power - - - and “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Stealing/robbing, extortion, hate, rape, dishonesty, betrayal, suppression, enslavement, slave trading, torture, assassination, murder, mass murder and war - everything was “lawful and good” and liked by Allah in order to forward his religion and consequently his power. Regarding Islam the dishonesty (f. ex. the 30 men guaranteed safe conduct for peace talks, but instead murdered), betrayal (remember f. ex. his “war is betrayal” combined with the fact that everything outside Islam was and is “land of war”) and lust for power may be most serious - how reliable is such a man when he talks about his platform for power, his religion?
He also personally practised rape of young women and he became a grand scale womaniser - - - and needed Allah’s help to keep his harem peaceful and obedient some times. Either also his personal moral and ethic also detoriated - or hidden sides of his personality surfaced.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT ALLAH.
The old Arabs had lots of deities. Some 360 were represented in the Kabah in Mecca. Of these 4 were dominant in the region around Mecca: al-Lah, and his three daughters al-Lat, al-Uzza and (al-) Manat. The top god was al-Lah (the name means “the god“ - not “God“, but “the god“).
Muhammad changed the name of this old polytheistic main god slightly from al-Lah to Allah, told that all the other gods were just fantasy and made up, and that Allah and the Jewish/Christian god Yahweh was the same god - a statement that only Islam states, but most Jews and Christians oppose, and with a good reason; as there are too many fundamental differences; it can not possibly be the same god behind Islam and the two others. (“Do not kill” vs. “Do not kill without a good reason”, the search for and the value of the “lost lamb” vs. “Do not mourn the wrongdoers”, to mention just two.)
Allah is also a much harder god towards non-believers than Yahweh - at least as you meet Yahweh in the New Testament (NT) versus Allah in the late parts of Muhammad’s teachings in the surahs from Medina. In the Old Testament (OT) it is told about wars 2000-4000 years ago. NT hardly accepts war. The Quran, and especially the surahs from Medina, not only incites to hate and war against non-believers, but also makes such a war a duty - before, now and for all the future, until Islam is dominant and all others are suppressed, second class citizens with few rights, and paying extra tax. Nice texts for terrorists. The difference is that the Christian religion sometimes have been disused for political or military purposes in spite of the religion and the NT, whereas Islam has been used - and disused - in accordance with the religion, and especially in accordance with the last some 22 surahs from Medina (the ones really valid according to Islam’s and Muhammad’s and the Quran’s rules for abrogation (when two or more verses disagree, the youngest one is the correct one - the ones from Medina are the youngest ones - and the ones preaching hate and rape, suppression and blood).
No, it is not the same god behind these religions - not unless Allah is at least schizophrenic.
Well, as I did not find the answers, I list the mistakes I have found, and ask any and all Muslims and non-Muslims for explanations. Please tell me where I am wrong, so I can understand why Islam is a real and true and benevolent religion. But please let it be real explanations, not fast words just to hide a mistake - I mostly will see through fast talk anyhow. If I have made mistakes, tell me and they will be corrected (but on the other hand; if there are mistakes I have overlooked, I will appreciate information about that, too - but again; it has to be real mistakes, not speculations, and mistaken facts, not just divergences from the Bible or similar). AND: Allah never - NEVER - proved his existence. There only were words.
THE MAKING AND TRANSLATION OF THE QURAN - AND SOME QUOTES.
If nothing else is said, all quotations are from “The Holy Qur’an”, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the 2000 edition from Wordsworth Classics, printed with permission from Islamic Propagation Centre, Islamic Vision, 434 Coventry Road, Birmingham, B10 OUG, UK. Mr. A. Yusuf Ali is reckoned by Muslims to be one of the top 3 translators of the Quran to English, if not THE best.
The book is cheap in paperback, and anybody can read it and control if my quotations are correct. And look for the mistakes or other things if they want.
According to Muslim sources, the story goes that the Quran got its final content ca. 650 AD (not later than 656 AD under the third caliph, Uthman). But that is not 100% true. This partly because even if everybody was ordered to burn old Qurans and only keep the new, official one, it took long time before all other ones were destroyed, and the texts were known to many educated people. Besides the Arab written language at that time had no vowels and also still had none of the points Arabs today use when writing - the written language was not perfected until around 900 AD. Because of that, it frequently is difficult to know what word really was written. In cases where more than one meaning is possible, all are judged to be correct by Islam. And also in the Hadith (explanation further down) it is said that according to Muhammad, the Quran was sent down in 7 versions that all were correct, even where they differed. Not to mentioned all the different varieties that existed in earlier times because of the unclear language. (f. ex. in 1972 a number of very old Qurans were found in Yemen. They turned out to have small, but significant differences compared to modern ones - and then western scientists were denied access.) So when a Muslim tells the Quran is always correct, it is pertinent to ask him which Quran (the Arabic Quran dominating today, is the canonised Egyptian edition printed in 1924).
Actually for a long time there were 14 - fourteen - canonised versions of the book (Ibn Warraq: Why I am not a Muslim): Even after Othman’s version, there were lots of others, partly because of the unclear alphabet. Then there was made a “final” canonisation influenced by the great Muslim teacher Ibn Mohair (dead 935 AD). They stated that 7 variants (other Muslim teachers accepted 10 to 14) had to be accepted as correct. But as each existed in two versions, one ended up with 14 different, all accepted as correct, because it was fully possible to understand the original in those different ways (and actually more), as the original as mentioned was written by means of a far from perfect alphabet. (To make an example in English: If you know that the vowels are omitted, and you have two letters you think represents a word - f. ex. “h” and “s” - the word can as well be “house” as “hose” or even “his“ or “has“).
These canonized versions (they called it “ways of reading” - may be to hide that there were many variants). 1. name is the editor, 2. and 3. names are the narrators:
1+2: Nafi from Medina after Warsh or Qalun.
3+4: Ibn Kathir from Mecca after al-Bazzi or Qunbul.
5+6: Ibn Amir from Damascus after Hisham or Ibn Dhakwan.
7+8: Abu Amr from Basra after al-Duri or al-Susi.
9+10: Asim from Kufa after Hafs or Abu Bakr.
11+12: Hamza from Kufa after Khalaf or Khallad.
13+14: Al-Kisai from Kufa after al-Duri or Abul Harith.
As you understand there is a good reason for asking Muslims which Quran is the one perfect and without mistakes - and which one Allah really sent down (if he did). Only one of these really can be 100% correct - and may be none. Most likely none - too many varieties are possible.
Over the years 3 of these 14 came to dominate: Nafi after Warsh, Asim after Hafs and Abu Amr after al-Duri. And today there mostly are two versions: Asim after Hafs - the one used when printed in Egypt in 1924 - and Nafi after Warsh (used in parts of Africa). The first is dominant today.
As the question of mistakes is very essential for Islam, I have chosen to quote all places where I have found something that clearly is wrong (numbered by numbers) or very likely wrong (numbered by letters). This means that the same mistake often will be repeated in different connections. I have made one exception: The words “heavens” or “firmaments” or “tracts“ (referring to the 7 heavens - borrowed from Greek and/or Persian/Indian astronomy) are used in plural at least 196 times - there is no doubt that 7 heavens is reckoned to be a fact by the Quran - but I mention and count only a few of them, as the point is not really an essential one to the religion. I thought about doing the same for the words “true” and “truth” where the words refer to the statement of the Quran being absolutely true, but as this is a much more essential statement, I have chosen to mention most of them, so the reader will be able to find the places - if it is too boring to read it many times, just skip it. You also will find many answers repeated many times - simply because the Quran tells the same story and the same tales again and again, and often in boring prose - not good literature, no matter what Muslims say.
And: During all these centuries lots of explanations for the mistakes have emerged (I will mention some of them). Some may be true, some make question marks, and some obviously are just fast-talk. Use your knowledge and your brain when you meet such explanations: Are they reliable explanations? Is it something that demands more research? Or is it simply fast-talk?
After the long list of mistakes, there will be a chapter about war and a number of short chapters about some other related topics.
SHORT ABOUT HADITHS:
In Islam you will meet the word Hadith frequently. That is short stories or tales about things Muhammad (and especially in Shi’a Islam also some other early Muslims) said and did. What Islam recon to be the most reliable collections, were collected 200-300 years after Muhammad, but as such tales then had been used and disused at a large scale for political and other purposes, already then there were literally hundreds of thousands of them, and most of them fakes (made up f. ex. by leaders wanting their followers to believe that this or that was according to Muhammad’s ways.) The best collectors did a huge and - I think - honest work to sort the good from the bad, and today there are some thousands Hadits said to be true, but even today they are sorted in four categories according to how likely it is that they are true. There are mainly three criteria for evaluating how likely a Hadith is true: Who told it to whom? How reliable were those persons? And did more persons tell the same story? The weak spot of course is that if someone faked a Hadith, it was as easy to fake who had told it, too. Some may be true, some perhaps not, even in the best collections. The story with the three faked cartoons of Mohammad - faked by mullahs in Denmark to incite more anger - tells volumes both about how easy faking is, and about what morality even the clergy sometimes represent: The goal justifies - or sanctify - the means. There is little doubt today that also a number of the accepted Hadiths in reality are fakes - and it is difficult to know which are which.
- AND A SERIOUS PS:
WHEN READIG THE QURAN - AND EVEN MORE WHEN YOU ARE READING COMMENTS, EXPLANATIONS OR “EXPLANATIONS” ABOUT WHAT IS TOLD IN THE BOOK, YOU SHOULD REMEMBER:
1. Muslims seldom or never use critical thinking when thinking or talking about their religion. They accept the Quran as the ultimate truth, and then try to adjust reality if “the map does not fit the terrain”. This no matter how obvious the mistake is.
2. Explaining things, Muslims often make conclusions going further than logic really permits.
3. Explaining things, Muslims often states things for true that are not proved.
4. Explaining things, Muslims often states that they are right without proofs, and then demand proofs from any opponent. (Efficient way to “win” a discussion).
5. Muslims tends to not accept science if that science collide with their religion.
6. Muslims tends to use science if it can be made to look - sometimes with a twist or two - like it supports their religion. Big Bang f. ex. is used to prove that the Quran is right when it says that the heavens and the Earth was once one body - even if it is easy to show it is wrong. Or that the big flood really was the flooding of the empty basin that became the Mediterranean Sea (f. ex. ”The Message of the Quran”, certified by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif Islamic Research Academy in Cairo) - which is even more easy to prove wrong, as that happened a few million years ago, before Homo Sapiens (modern man) even existed, and besides took many years to happen - water only rising some meters a year - as the strait was narrow in the beginning).
7. The Quran some places tell it is to be read literally. All the same some Muslims use “advanced” arguments to “explain” points or verses they do not want to be mistakes, to be figurative ones.
8. There is not one single valid proof for a god in the Quran, with the possible exception of some “proofs” taken from the Bible - and they speak about the Jewish and Christian god (most of us do not know it, but his name is Yahweh) not Allah. And there definitely is not one single valid proof for the existence of Allah - in spite of what Islam tells us. Not one single. Only statements - some of them very loose - and invalid “signs” and “proofs“.
9. Muslims tell that Allah and Yahweh is the same god. But only Muslims (and a few others who take after Muslims on that point) say so. And there are so fundamental differences at too many central points, especially compared to the Christian religion, that the statement simply is not true - not unless Yahweh is schizophrenic.
10. Islam tells that where the Quran differs from the Bible, the reason is that the Bible is falsified. Science tells that the reason is that Muhammad knew the Bible badly, and the easy way out when he said something colliding with the Bible, was to state that the Bible was falsified. An extra point here is that the stories in the Quran often are taken from apocryphal (made up) Jewish and Christian legends and fairy tales, not from the Bible, and when then the story is different or does not exist in the Bible, Muhammad simply and boldly explains the obvious; that the reason why the Quran has a different story, is that the Bible is falsified. Hardly one single real scientist today believes that the Quran is sent down by an omniscient god - and no professor of history outside believing Muslims ever uses it for a source of historical facts for history before 610 AD, no matter if Muslims insist that every word and every comma is true - which is not true.
11. Muslims tend to dismiss you as “Muslim hater” or “Israel lower” etc. in debates if they do not like what you say. BUT IF THE FACTS YOU PRESENTS ARE TRUE, THEY ARE TRUE NO MATTER WHETHER YOU ARE THIS OR THAT - YOUR PERSON IS IRRELEVANT FOR THE FACTS. Muslims often “forgets” that.