Library: Modern Library: Features: 2000: Qur'an: A Work of Multiple
Hands?
Qur'an: A Work of Multiple Hands?
Denis Giron
[The Qur'an] is strikingly lacking in overall structure,
frequently obscure and inconsequential in both language and
content, perfunctory in its linking of disparate materials, and
given to the repetition of whole passages in variant versions. On
this basis it can plausibly be argued that the book is the product
of belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of
traditions.1
This is the conclusion Michael Cook and Patricia Crone came to
after following the scholarship of Dr. John Wansbrough. The
argument is that textual analysis of the Qur'an will lead one to
realize that Islam's holiest scripture is actually nothing more
than a compilation of variant traditions; traditions that were
floating around at the time of the book's writing. Such theories
are formulated by applying modern Biblical scholarship to the
Qur'an.
In the nineteenth century, scholars took an in depth look at the
Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which is essentially
Judaism's equivalent of the Qur'an. Literary and historical
analysis caused these scholars to theorize that the Torah is not a
single narrative but a composite of four different source
documents cleverly combined in such a way as to appear to be one
continuous narrative chronicling the early history of the Hebrew
people. The process through which the discovery was made came to
be known as Documentary Hypothesis or Higher Criticism, and is
credited largely to the nineteenth century historian and Bible
scholar, Julius Wellhausen. This theory has since gained greater
popularity due to the writings of Richard E. Friedman2 and others.
In recent years, Muslims, when in discussions with their
Christian counterparts on the topic of the Bible versus the
Qur'an, have willingly parroted this theory, not fully
understanding how scholars came to these conclusions. To the
Muslims, the fact that Western scholars had concluded that the
Bible is nothing more than variant traditions woven together into
a single text was more than enough to invalidate the Bible, and
somehow simultaneously validate the Qur'an. What none of these
Muslims ever realized was that the same theories could be applied
quite easily to the Qur'an as well.
Qur'an: The Speech of Allah?
The claim that the Qur'an is the word of God is, at this point,
wholly unsupported. This is a claim that Muslims accept on blind
faith. To a Muslim, such statements may seem both blasphemous and
outrageous, but we must approach such things rationally. We cannot
take a certain group on their word when it comes to the origins of
their tribal folklore. To be fair, a Muslim would first have to
prove that God, or Allah, actually exists before they can begin
attributing books to Him or Her.
However, the style of the Qur'an is something that will
undoubtedly come up when putting forth any theory about the
Qur'an's origin. Muslims will no doubt be somewhat offended by the
application of Biblical criticism to the Qur'an. The Bible does
not read as the direct "word of God" the way the Qur'an does. For
example, in the Bible, God is consistently referred to in the
third person (e.g. "God said to Moses," et cetera). The Qur'an, on
the other hand, is narrated in the first person3. It is generally
presented as God's word to Muhammad. Because of this, Muslims will
claim there is no comparison between the Qur'an and Bible.
First of all, it should be noted that the examples that this
article will focus on will be the variant stories presented in the
Qur'an (regardless of the narrator), thus the exact style will be,
at times, irrelevant. Second, despite the propaganda of the
Islamic missionaries, the Qur'an is not always presented as the
speech of God. Numerous critics of the Qur'an have pointed to
instances where God is mentioned in the third person. Regarding
these critics, Benjamin Walker writes:
"Some asked what need there was for God to take oaths like any
mortal being, as when he swears by the fig and olive, and by Mount
Sinai (95:1); by the declining day (103:1); and by the stars, the
night and the dawn (81:15-18). Above all, they asked why the
Almighty had to swear on himself[.]"4 Another, rather obvious
example would be al-Fatihah, the opening chapter of the Qur'an. As
Ibn Warraq notes, "[t]hese words are clearly addressed to God, in
the form of a prayer."5 Much like the critics mentioned by Walker
above, one might wonder why God would begin with the words
bismillah, ar-Rahman, ar-Raheem ("in the name of God, the most
merciful, the most benevolent").
One final example would be the verse6 that Muslims claim is
referring to the israa7. The verse begins with "asraa bi
cabdeehee lailan," ("glory to Him who caused his servant to
travel by night"). If we were to even accept the fantastic claim
that the Qur'an is the word of some provincial sky god, one would
need to ask who is speaking in this verse, and even label it an
interpolation! Why does the Mighty Phantasm of Islam feel the need
to praise himself? Surely this is the speech of Muhammad,
Jibreel8, or whomever the reciter(s) of the Qur'an may have been.
Putting aside the assumption that Allah is the source of the
Qur'an (i.e. the skygod hypothesis), this verse still is a
possible example of an interpolation in the Qur'an. The verse
continues, "from the sacred place of worship, to
al-masjidul-aksa." According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad went
from Mecca to Jerusalem, stopping at al- masjidul-aksa, or the
al-Aksa Mosque. The problem is, the al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem
was built roughly 46 years after the traditional time given for
Muhammad's death. Therefore, if this verse is in fact claiming
that Muhammad paid a visit to this Mosque, one would have to
conclude that the verse was an interpolation added into the text.
Some Muslims have tried to reconcile this error by claiming that
al- masjidul-aksa is actually the temple of Herod, but this is
impossible, as that temple was destroyed five centuries before the
traditional time given for Muhammad's birth. In short, to claim
that it was referring to the temple of the Jews is to admit an
error in the Qur'an, and to instead accept that it is a reference
to the actual masjidul-aksa now standing in Jerusalem is to admit
that this is an interpolation placed in the Qur'an after Muhammad
was long dead. The only reasonable response I have seen is that
put forth by Saqib Virk9. Virk decided to abandon Orthodox Islamic
tradition, and claim that Muhammad merely went to "the farthest
mosque" (the literal translation of al-masjidul-aksa), which is an
unknown point. Stories about Muhammad visiting Herod's temple or
the al-Aksa Mosque were merely created afterwards to make sense of
the verse.
Qur'an: The Speech of Muhammad?
I originally was inspired to write this article after reading
Zulfikar Khan's essay "Koran - The Ultimate Truth"10. Khan's essay
is an unflinchingly brutal attack on the Qur'an's integrity, which
focuses mainly on the issue of contradictions in the text. While
the essay is a fun read, Khan commits what I feel is a fallacy
committed by many critics of Islam: he assumes that because the
Qur'an is not the word of God, it must be the word of Muhammad.
For example, Khan will show a numerical discrepancy in the Qur'an,
and exclaim something along the lines of "apparently, Muhammad
didn't know how to add integers."
Zulfikar Khan exposed numerous contradictions in the Qur'an, and
there is no doubt that Muslim apologists will offer all kinds of
wild confabulations in an attempt to reconcile each one. It is
quite obvious that in the world of apologetics, such characters
are more than willing to sacrifice their intellectual integrity in
order to salvage their cherished beliefs. Regardless, this is not
an issue I'm interested in. At this time, the issue is with
regards to the fact that Khan never considered the possibility
that the Qur'an is a work of multiple authors. Surely numerous
conflicting statements in a text is a sign that the text is from a
plurality of sources.
The failure to consider authors other than Muhammad, the fallacy
of bifurcation11, is a problem that is found in nearly all
criticisms of Islam. Everything we know about Muhammad comes not
from the Qur'an, but from extracanonical sources such as sira
literature, and various ahadith compilations; and, unfortunately,
critics are a bit too willing to accept it all on face value. Even
with writers such as Ibn Warraq12 and Ibn al-Rawandi13, writers
who have set a new tone in secular criticism of Islam, there is a
hint of conflict. The writer seems torn between rejecting the
traditional claims about the Qur'an's origin, and working with
these traditions in order to formulate an understanding of
Muhammad's role.
The reality is we have no reliable sources from which we can
make any decisions with regard to the role Muhammad played in the
creation of the Qur'an. The Qur'an itself tells us nothing,
outside of a few ambiguous mentionings of a certain muhammad, or
"praised one." All information on Muhammad, who he was, his
interaction with Jibreel, his prophethood, et cetera, are derived
from a highly questionable source: the ahadith. These are
traditions that were, for the most part, written down and compiled
more than two hundred years after the events they are allegedly
relating. In fact, by the admission of the Muslims themselves, the
most respected ahadith are those compiled by Imam Bukhari, who
died in the late ninth century (roughly 870 CE), nearly two
hundred and forty years after the time that Muhammad allegedly
lived.
Furthermore, the dating system of the early Muslims is so weak
that the issue of the gap in time between the writing of the
ahadith and the events they are reporting becomes even more of a
problem. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was born during
'am-al-fil, the year of the elephant, which was allegedly 570 CE.
This was, according to Islamic folklore, a year that many of the
pre-Islamic Arabs remembered, because it is when an army of
Ethiopian warriors on Elephants was repelled by birds throwing
stones. Following that, we get another tradition that tells us
that Muhammad was called to prophethood at the age of forty
(approximately 610 CE). It is from here that the Islamic calendar
starts, based on a shaky tradition, that is itself based on
another shaky tradition, and therefore it is totally unreliable14.
Muslims will, no doubt, demand that we accept the highly
tendentious ahadith collections as a reliable source of
information, but there is no real reason to do so. Many of these
traditions contradict one another, or are of a highly absurd
nature. Even worse, the Qur'an itself seems to warn the believers
against resorting to any hadith- based information. One verse of
the Qur'an15 warns against those who spread "frivolous stories"
(lahv-al-hadith), and yet another16 says, in a very straight
forward way: "tilka aayaatullahi nutloohaa 'alayka bil haqqi
fabi-ayyi *HADEETHI* ba'dallaahi wa aayaatihi yoominoon," or
"These are the revelations of God which we recite to you
correctly; in what hadith[17] other than God and his revelations
will they believe?"
Qur'an: Repetitive Revelation?
From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit.
Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and
coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is
humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre
literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and
that millions of men are still wasting time absorbing it.18
This description of the Qur'an by Salomon Reinach is rather
fitting, particularly the part about repetition. One would wonder
why the same statement needs to be said over and over again if it
is from a single person. What is worse, many of these duplicate
statements differ in context and wording. Once one is aware of
this, it is easier to understand the theory that the Qur'an is a
work of multiple hands.
The first example will be the discussion between Allah and Iblis
(or Satan) that allegedly took place at the time Adam, the first
man according to the Islamic folklore, was created. As the story
goes, when Allah created Adam, He demanded all the angels
prostrate before the first man (it seems this would be an act of
shirk19, but that's another issue). Everyone bowed before Adam,
with the exception of Iblis. A conversation between Allah and
Iblis took place, and resulted in Iblis being expelled from
heaven. Now we will look at two versions of the story (ten verses
each), one from fifteenth chapter of the Qur'an (surah al-Hijr),
and the other from the thirty eighth chapter of the Qur'an (surah
Sad).
[al-Hijr 15:28] Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about
to create man, from sounding clay from mud moulded into shape;
[al-Hijr 15:29] "When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and
breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto
him."
[al-Hijr 15:30] So the angels prostrated themselves, all of them
together:
[al-Hijr 15:31] Not so Iblis: he refused to be among those who
prostrated themselves.
[al-Hijr 15:32] (God) said: "O Iblis! what is your reason for not
being among those who prostrated themselves?"
[al-Hijr 15:33] (Iblis) said: "I am not one to prostrate myself to
man, whom Thou didst create from sounding clay, from mud moulded
into shape."
[al-Hijr 15:34] (God) said: "Then get thee out from here; for thou
art rejected, accursed.
[al-Hijr 15:35] "And the curse shall be on thee till the day of
Judgment."
[al-Hijr 15:36] (Iblis) said: "O my Lord! give me then respite
till the Day the (dead) are raised."
[al-Hijr 15:37] (God) said: "Respite is granted thee."
[al-Hijr 15:38] "Till the Day of the Time appointed."
***************************************************
[Sad 38:71] Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to
create man from clay:
[Sad 38:72] "When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and
breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto
him."
[Sad 38:73] So the angels prostrated themselves, all of them
together:
[Sad 38:74] Not so Iblis: he was haughty, and became one of
those who reject Faith.
[Sad 38:75] (God) said: "O Iblis! What prevents thee from
prostrating thyself to one whom I have created with my hands? Art
thou haughty? Or art thou one of the high (and mighty) ones?"
[Sad 38:76] (Iblis) said: "I am better than he: thou createdst me
from fire, and him thou createdst from clay."
[Sad 38:77] (God) said: "Then get thee out from here: for thou art
rejected, accursed.
[Sad 38:78] "And My curse shall be on thee till the Day of
Judgment."
[Sad 38:79] (Iblis) said: "O my Lord! Give me then respite till
the Day the (dead) are raised."
[Sad 38:80] (God) said: "Respite then is granted thee-
[Sad 38:81] "Till the Day of the Time Appointed."
Now the two stories are essentially the same. First, one wonders
why this story needs to be repeated. If, as is the claim of
Orthodox Islamic tradition, Muhammad was receiving this
information from God, why would God need to say this numerous
times? Aside from the above two versions, the story also appears
numerous times elsewhere in the Qur'an20. Worst of all, all these
versions differ in one detail or another.
One question that I have asked Muslims before with regard to the
verses above is: what was the exact conversation? What exactly did
Allah say to Iblis? What was Iblis' exact response? The Muslims
may claim that al-Qur'an yufassiru bacduhu bacdan (different parts
of the Qur'an explain one another), and others will simply say
that such questions should not be asked, but the reality is that
none of them have an answer. The reason for this is that, while
the general theme of the story is the same, the exact details
differ. This is undoubtedly caused by multiple traditions that
were floating around at the time of the Qur'an's compilation;
variant traditions that were woven into the text.
There are numerous other examples of repetition, such as the
story of Jesus' miraculous virgin birth, obviously taken from
Christian folklore, and ultimately coming from Hindu folklore21.
While the story is generally the same, the exact dialog between
Mary and the angel(s) differs22. Moreover, surah al-Imran 3:45
begins with "When the angels said..." while the version in Maryam
19:17 only has one angel. Muslims have tried to reconcile this by
claiming that the version in al-Imran is actually referring to
only one angel, but he is spoken of in a plural tense out of
respect. Regardless of how true this claim is, the fact still
stands that in one version the angel is given this "royal
plurality," while in the other he is not given such respect. This
points to variant traditions.
Qur'an: A Compilation of Contradictions?
In the previously mentioned essay of Zulfikar Khan, numerous
contradictions are mentioned. While Muslims may be able to
explain away some, there are others that are simply inescapable.
One example would be the contradiction between surah Ha Mim
As-Sajdah 41:9-12 and surah An-Nazi'at 79:27-30. Here are the
respective verses, courtesy of the scientifically conscious Ahmed
Ali translation:
[Ha Mim As-Sajdah 41:9-12] Say "Do you refuse to believe in Him
who created the earth in two spans of time, and set up compeers to
Him, the Lord of all the worlds? He placed firm stabilisers rising
above its surface, blessed it with plenty and growth, and
ingrained the means of growing its food within it, sufficient for
all seekers in four spans. Then he turned to the heavens, and it
was smoke. So He said to it and the earth: "Come with willing
obedience or perforce." They said: "We come willingly." Then he
created several skies in two spans [...]
***************************************************
[An-Nazi'at 79:27-30] Are you more difficult to create or the
heavens? He built it, Raised it high, proportioned it, gave
darkness to its night, and brightness to its day; And afterward
spread out the earth. Putting aside the absurd idea of clouds that
speak (they said: "we come willingly;" talking water vapor?), and
other nonsense that can be found in the above, I would like to
comment on the obvious contradiction between these two variations
of the creation story. In the first version, the heavens are
adorned after it was said the earth was in existence, while the
latter claims exactly the opposite. It is quite easy to see how
these contradictory accounts came to be in a single text. Before
the Qur'an was compiled, there must have been different people
with their own traditions. When the text was put together, variant
traditions were given equal consideration, and included into the
compilation.
One more quick example should be more than enough. In the
Qur'an, on two occasions it is written that the Jews, the
Christians, the mysterious Sabians, and anyone else who believes
in God and does good deeds shall have nothing to fear or regret23.
However, surah al-Imran 3:85 contradicts this claim, by stating
that anyone who chooses a religion other than Islam will have
paradise denied them. Some heterodox Muslims, such as the
followers of Rashad Khalifa, have translated islaam in surah
al-Imran to mean "submission to God," thus including Jews and
Christians, and making the verse fit with the previously mentioned
verses.
Unfortunately this still does not work when one considers surah
an- Nisa' 4:150-151, which speaks of painful punishments for those
who do not accept all the prophets of Islam. These differing views
cannot be reconciled, and amount to a contradiction. This
contradiction is so embarrassingly obvious that tafsir24 informs
us that al-Imran abrogates the the other verses. The claim of
abrogation opens the door to arguments about invalid verses, Allah
changing his mind, and the dubious claim that the Qur'an is a copy
of an unalterable book in heaven25. It is quite obvious that there
were different persons or groups with their own versions of what
God said. Some preached a tolerant Islam, where Jews and
Christians were seen as fellow believers; others had a differing
view, where only Muslims were on the right path.
Conclusion
Through all this, it has been shown that the Qur'an is indeed
given to repetition of whole passages of variant versions. Blatant
contradictions have been shown. With this now before us, how can
we conclude that this text is the word of an Almighty God, or even
a single Arab nomad? It is quite clear that the Qur'an is, as Cook
and Crone said at the outset, "the product of belated and
imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of traditions."
There is simply no other possibility. Whenever the Qur'an was
compiled, its compiler (s) took numerous variant traditions into
consideration, and included many, or even all, of them into the
official cannon. The result is the Qur'an we have today.
Post Script: Book Recommendation
At the time I started toying with this theory, I received an
email from Orientalist scholar Dr. Christoph Heger
([EMAIL PROTECTED] online.de), who wrote:
I have been too busy as to participate in a lot of interesting
discussions which you, Dionisio [Denis], initiated. But I would
like to let you know the conviction of mine and others that you
are right, of course: The transmitted Qur'an is the work of
multiple hands, comprising texts of different origins and having
gone through various stages of editing. It is a really rewarding
target of scholarly research to discover these various origins and
strata.
So those who are able to read German I may point to a new work on
Qur'an scholarship:
Luxenberg, Christoph, Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran : ein
Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache. Berlin (Das
Arabische Buch) 2000. 312 p. ISBN 3-86093-274-8 Pb. : DM 58.00,
sfr 58.00
A rough translation of the German title would be "The
Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur'an - a Contribution to
Decyphering the Language of the Qur'an". It is really
illuminating!
Notes
1. Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the
Islamic World, (Cambridge, 1977) p. 18
2. For example, see Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman
3. Though it should be noted that this is first person plural, as
in "We said to Moses," et cetera.
4. Walker, Foundations of Islam, (Peter Owen, 1998) p. 156
5. Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim, (Prometheus, 1995) p. 106
6. Surah Bani Israa'il 17:1
7. This is, according to Islamic folklore, the event where
Muhammad flew on his flying horse to Jerusalem, and then ascended
into heaven.
8. That is, the angel Gabriel, of Judeo-Christian folklore, who,
according to Islamic tradition, is the one who brought Allah's
message to Muhammad.
9. Virk is a Qadiani Muslim of internet fame. This argument is not
from a published work; rather it is taken from the
quasi-intellectual dialog that takes place in the usenet newsgroup
soc.religion.islam.
10. Zulfikar Khan's essay, at the time of this writing, could be
found on-line at
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/koran.html
11. The assumption that the source of the Qur'an is either
Allah, or Muhammad, without considering other possibilities.
12. Consider the aforementioned Why I Am Not a Muslim, as well as
The Origins of the Koran (Prometheus, 1998), both by Warraq.
13. Consider al-Rawandi's Islamic Mysticism: A Secular
Perspective (Prometheus, 2000), as well as the second chapter of
Ibn Warraq's Quest for the Historical Muhammad (Prometheus, 2000),
which was also written by al-Rawandi.
14. For more on the shaky Islamic calendar, see Conrad, Lawrence
I, Abraha and Muhammad, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 50 (1987) pp. 225-240; this same article can also
be found reprinted in Warraq, Quest for the Historical Muhammad,
pp. 368-391.
15. Surah Luqman 31:6
16. Surah al-Jathiyya 45:6
17. Hadith (plural: ahadith) can be translated as "tradition,"
"story," et cetera.
18. Reinach, Salomon, Orpheus: A History of Religion, (New York,
1932), p. 176, as cited in both Warraq, Quest for the Historical
Muhammad, p. 9, and Katz, Bernard, The Ways of an Atheist,
(Prometheus, 1999), p. 145
19. The act of worshipping something other than Allah.
20. See surat al-Baqarah 2:34; al-A`raf 7:11-15; Bani Israa'il
17:61; et cetera.
21. See The Mahabharata, abridged translation by Krishna Dharma,
p. 62. Kunti, a virgin, is visited by a celestial being (in this
case, the sun god Surya, not the angel Gabriel), and he informs
Kunti that she is going to bear a child. She exclaims that is
impossible since no man has touched her, to which the celestial
being replies that such things are easy for God.
22. Compare surah al-Imran 3:45-50 with surah Maryam 19:16-21.
23. See surat al-Baqarah 2:62, al-Ma'ida 5:69, and also consider
al- 'Asra 103:2-3.
24. Orthodox commentary on the Qur'an, somewhat of the Islamic
equivalent of Rabbinic commentary.
25. Surah al-Buruj 85:21-22.
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