Bible Compared to Quran
Based on transcripts of vairous lectures given by Yusuf
Estes & Dr. Gary Miller
Introduction by Yusuf
Estes
It should be stated at the outset of this work, that
Muslims do not seek to put down or desecrete the Holy Bible. It is
a matter critical matter of faith for Muslims to believe in the
original revelations that came down to Moses, David, Solomon and
Jesus, just as it is is important for Muslims to believe in the
revelation of the Quran that came to Muhammad, peace be upon him.
The key word here however, is "original". As we all know the origin
of the Bible is clouded with centuries of copying, translating and
passing down information, now long lost with only copies of
manuscripts remaining to remind us of what once was the
Bible.
Additionally, it should be noted that Muslims do not seek to
destroy the Christians or Jews belief in the Word of God, rather it
is an obligation for Muslims to call to what is right and to halt
that which is evil. Certainly, causing the "People of the Book" (as
the Quran refers to Christians and Jews) to fall into disbelief and
leave off any faith in God at all, is the very opposite of the
direction Muslims should take in presenting any comparison between
Islam and what has come down in the past from the Almighty God. We
only seek to bring about more light to the people seeking guidance
and pray for all of us to be successful with our Lord in this life
and in the Next life and we ask His Guidance and Support in doing
so, ameen.
THE BIBLE
[Yusuf Estes]
Old Testament
There exists today a number of different versions in the ancient
Hebrew language of the Jewish Book called the Torah [Law] and this
is usually referred to in Christianity as The Old Testament.
Naturally, there have been many different translations to a great
number of languages over the centuries and one could not expect
them to be identical in text or meaning. What we have in English
today still remains somewhat similar to large amounts of these
older documents.
New Testament
There are also different versions of the Gospel or what is commonly
called The New Testament in the Koine Greek language and Latin and
these also have many translations to even other langugaes. Even
amongst the English translations there are great differences. To
mention two very clear differences for example; the Catholic Bible
[c. 325 A.D] contains 73 books in total, while the Protestant Bible
contains only 66 books, and although the newer (Protestant version)
was taken from the Catholic Bible even then these books do not
match completely with each other. There is no common denominator
for any of the many different versions of the Bible.
Dead Sea Scrolls
There have been a number of scrolls and parchments found in places
surrounding what we call the "Holy Land" over the centuries, not
the least of which are those often referred to as the "Dead Sea
Scrolls" or as they are known to the scholars "Wadi Qumran
Scrolls." These were discovered in the last century around 1930 and
have been proven to be very ancient and could well be older than
any other extant manuscripts. Much of what has been translated from
these scrolls is similar to some of the oldest manuscripts, but
there are still very important differences worthy of note. We would
like to recommend some important reading on this topic at the end
of this paper.
THE QURAN
[Yusuf Estes]
Quran Means "Recitation"
The word "Quran" means: "that which is recited; or that which is
dictated in memory form". As such, it is not a book, nor is it
something that reaches us only in written form. The documentation
in writting about the Quran has been preserved in museums thoughout
the world, including the Topekopi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the
museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and also in England. Keep in mind
also, the Quran is only considered "Quran" while it is in the
recitation form, not in the written or the book form. The word for
what is written and held in the hand to be read by the eye is
called "mus-haf" (meaning script or that which is written
down).
Only One Version - Arabic
There are no different versions of the Quran in the Arabic
language, only different translations and of course, none of these
would be considered to hold the value and authenticity of the
original Arabic Recitation. The Quran is divided up into 30 equal
parts, called "Juz'" (parts) in the Arabic language. These are
learned by Muslims from their very early beginnings as
children.
Memorized by Millions -
Entirely
The important thing to keep in mind about the Quran is the
memorization and transmission of the actual "Rectiation" just as it
came to Muhammad, peace be upon him, from the Angel Gabriel and was
learned and memorized by his companions and they in turn, passed it
down to their followers and continued in this way until we see
today, over 10,000,000 (ten million) Muslims who have committed the
entire Quran to memory. This is not a small feat. After all, how
many other works of literary value have been memorized and passed
down through so many generations, in the original language, without
a single change in even one sentence?
Each Muslim Has "Quran"
Memorized
All Muslims have memorzied a portion of the Quran in the Arabic
language, as this is an important part of their daily prayers. Many
Muslims have memorized large portions of the Quran from one tenth
to one half to all of the entire Quran, and all in the original
Arabic language. It should be noted, there are over one and a half
billion (1,500,000,000) Muslims worldwide and only about 10% are
Arab, all the rest are learing the Quran in Arabic as a second
language.
God Speaks in First Person to Mankind
in Quran
The Quran contains clear statements from Almighty God (Allah) and
it is Him speaking to all of us in the first person. He tells of us
our own creation, the creation of all that is the universe and what
has happened to those before us and what is to become of us if we
do not take heed of the warnings clearly spelled out in His
Revelation. He speaks also to Muhammad, peace be upon him, to show
that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is not making this up himself and
even chastises Muhammad, peace be upon him, for making human
assumptions rather than waiting for revelation in matters (ie.;
surah At-Tahreem and surah Abasa).
Quran Mentions Itself
The Quran refers to itself as "The Quran" (The Recitation) and
mentions that it is to all mankind and jinn (another creation of
Allah, similar to humans in that they could make choices as to
whether or not they would obey God's Commandments, and they existed
before humans).
Quran Describes God's Nature
Exactly
The Quran is clear on who God is and who He is not. There is no
room left for doubt after reading the Quran in the Arabic languge:
God is One. He is the only Creator, Sustainer and Owner of the
Universe. He has no partners. He has no relatives; wives, children
or offspring. He is not like His creation and He does not need it
for His existance, while all the time the creation is totally
dependent on Him. His attributes are clearly spelled out as the
epitome of each and every one. He is for instance, the All-Knowing;
the All-Hearing; the All-Seeing; the All-Forgiving; the All-
Loving; the All-Merciful; the Only One God. There is never a
contradiction to this found anywhere in the Quran.
Quran Challanges Readers
The Quran makes the clear challange, that if you are in doubt about
it - then bring a book like it. Also, to bring ten chapters like it
and then finally, to bring one single chapter like it. 1,400 years
- and no one has been able to duplicate it's beauty, recitation,
miracles and ease of memorization. Another challange for the
unbelievers to consider; "If this (Quran) were from other than
Allah, you would find within it many contradictions." And yet,
another challange offered by Allah in the Quran is for the
unbelievers to look around for evidences. Allah says He will show
them His signs within themselves and on the farthest
horizons.
Scientific Miracles in
Quran
The scientific miracles of the Quran could not have been understood
at that time, yet today we take for granted the many things
included in the revelation of the Quran. Some include mentioning:
The formation of embryo in the womb of the mother (surah 98); deep
seas partitions; waters that do not mix; clouds and how they make
rain and how lightning is caused by ice crystals; formation of the
earth's mountains deep underground; orbits of planets and stars and
moons - and even the mention of space travel {O company of jinn and
mankind, if you are able to pass beyond the regions of the heavens
and the earth, then pass. You will not pass except by authority
[from Allah].} [surah 55:33].
[Watch videos of world's top scientists commenting on the "Miracle
of Science in Quran"]
http://islamyesterday.com/videos/science/
- COMPARISON of BIBLE &
QURAN-
[Dr. Gary Miller- with Commentary by Yusuf Estes]
Bible is Collection of Writings
-
Quran is Recitation From God to Muhammad (peace be upon
him).
Whereas, The Bible is a collection of writings by many different
authors, the Quran is a dictation (or recitation). The speaker in
the Quran - in the first person - is God Almighty (Allah) talking
directly to man. In the Bible you have many men writing about God
and you have in some places the word of God speaking to men and
still in other places you have some men simply writing about
history or personal exchanges of information to one another (ex:
Epistle of John 3). The Bible in the English King James Version
consists of 66 small books. About 18 of them begin by saying: This
is the revelation God gave to so and so… The rest make no claim as
to their origin. You have for example the beginning of the book of
Jonah which begins by saying: The word of the Lord came to Jonah
the son of Elmitaeh saying… quote and then it continues for two or
three pages.
Compare this to the beginning of the Book of "Luke" begins by
saying: "In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a
narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, (2)
Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word delivered them to us, (3) It seemed good to
me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the
very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent
Theophilus, (4) That you may know the certainty of those things in
which you were instructed.
We see the author of the Book of "Luke" saying essentially, "Many
people have written about things, it seems fitting for me to do so
too." "Luke" says it seems to him that as long as others are taking
in hand to write something about it, even though they were eye
witnesses to the whole thing, he feels that even though he was not,
he still has "perfect understanding of all things from the very
first."
Therefore this is only a letter from one person to another, neither
of whom knew Jesus, peace be upon him, nor were eyewitnesses to any
of what had taken place. [Y. Estes]
If you compare that to one of the four accounts of the life of
Jesus, Luke begins by saying: "many people have written about this
man, it seems fitting for me to do so too". That is all… no claim
of saying " these words were given to me by God here they are for
you it is a revelation", there is no mention of this.
"Bible" is NOT in the
Bible
The Bible does not contain self-reference, that is, the word
'Bible' is not in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible talk about
itself. Some scriptures are sometimes pointed to in the Bible, say:
Here where it talks about itself, but we have to look closely. 2nd
Timothy 3:16 is the favourite which reads: "All scripture is
inspired of God" and there are those who would say, here is where
the Bible it talks about itself, it says it is inspired of God, all
of it. But if you read the whole sentence, you read that this was a
letter wrote by Paul to Timothy and the entire sentence says to
Timothy: "Since you were a young man you have studied the holy
scriptures, all scriptures inspired by God" and so on… When Timothy
was a young man the New Testament did not exist, the only thing
that stems he was talking about are scriptures - which are only a
portion of the Bible - from before that time. It could not have
meant the whole Bible.
Bible Curses Church Fathers Who REMOVED Book of Revelations
There is at the end of the Bible a
verse which says:
Rev 22:18 "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book (Revelations): if anyone adds to these
things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this
book:
19. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, god shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from
the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
[Y. Estes]
"Let anyone who takes away from this book or adds to this book be
cursed". This to is sometimes pointed to me saying: Here is where
it sums itself as a whole. But look again and you will see that
when it says: Let no one change this book, it is talking about that
last book, #66 (or is it #73 in the Catholic Bible?), the Book of
Revelation. It has too, because any reference will tell you that
the Book of Revelation was written before certain other parts of
the Bible were written. It happens today to be stacked at the end,
but there are other parts that came after, so it can not be
referring to the entire book.
(Incidentally, according to different manuscripts much older than
the King James Version, there are different words at the end of the
Book of Revelation, so how would we resolve that matter? -
Y.E.)
Note: The Book of Revelation was taken out of the
Bible several times and then replaced and then taken out and
replaced according to various Church Councils throughout Church
history. Guess the Church Fathers didn't read the curse at the end
of the book?
Whose Word Is It?
It is an extreme position held only by some Christian groups that
the Bible - in its entirety - cover to cover is the revealed word
of God in every word, but they do a clever thing when they mention
this, or make this claim. They will say that the Bible in its
entirety is the word of God; inerrant (no mistakes) in the original
writings.
So if you go to the Bible and point out some mistakes that are in
it you are going to be told: Those mistakes were not there in the
original manuscript, they have crept in so that we see them there
today.
They are going on problem in that position. There is a verse in the
Bible Isaiah 40:8 which in fact is so well known that some Bibles
printed it on the inside front cover as an introduction and it says
: "The grass weathers, the flower fades, but the word of our God
stands forever". Here is a claim in the Bible that the word of God
will stand forever, it will not be corrupted, it won't be lost. So
if today you find a mistake in the Bible you have two choices.
Either that promise was false that when God said my word wont fade
away, he was mistaken, or the portion which has the mistake in it
was not a part of the word of God in the first place, because the
promise was that it would be safeguarded, it would not be
corrupted.
Are There Mistakes?
I have suggested many times that there are mistakes in the Bible
and the accusation comes back very quickly: Show me one. Well there
are hundreds. If you want to be specific I can mention few. You
have for example at 2nd Samuel 10:18 a description of a war fought
by David saying that he killed 7000 men and that he also killed
40000 men on horsebacks. In 1st Chronicles 19 it mentions the same
episode saying that he killed 70000 men and the 40000 men were not
on horsebacks, they were on foot. The point be what is the
difference between the pedestrian and not is very
fundamental.
How Did Judas Die?
Matthew 27:5 says that Judas Iscariot when he died he hung himself.
Acts 1 says that, no he jumped off a cliff head first. If you study
Logic very soon you will come in your course to what they call an
"undecidable propositions" or "meaningless sentences" or statements
that can not be decided because there is no contextual false. One
of the classic examples sited is something called the Effeminites
paradox. This man was Cretan and he said "Cretans always lie", now
was that statement true or false? If he was a Cretan and he says
that they always lie is he lying? If he is not lying then he is
telling the truth then the Cretans don't always lie ! You see it
can not be true and it can not be false, the statement turns back
on itself. It is like saying "What I am telling you right now is a
lie" would you believe that or not? You see the statement has no
true content. It can not be true and it can not be false. If it is
true it is always false. If it is false it is also true.
Well in the Bible at Titus 1:12 the writer is Paul and he is
talking about the Cretans. He says that one of their own men - a
prophet - said "Cretans always lie" and he says that what this man
says is true. It is a small mistake, but the point is that it is a
human mistake, you don't find that if you carefully examine the
true content of that statement. It can not be a true
statement.
Who is the Author?
Now I come back to the Quran, and as I mentioned the speaker in the
Quran is - in the first person - is God. The book claims throughout
that it is the word of God. It names itself 70 times as the Quran.
It talks about its own contents. It has self-reference. The Quran
states in the first Sura after Fatiha that "This is the book, there
is no doubt in it, it is a guidance for those who are conscious of
God" and so on and so on… It begins that way and continues that way
stressing that. And there is one very amazing statement in the
Quran when you come to the fourth Sura 82nd Ayah which says to
those who say Quran is something else than the word of God. It
challenges them saying: "Have they not considered the Quran, if it
came from someone other than God they will find in it many
mistakes". Some of you are students, would you dare to hand in a
paper after you completed a research work or something at the
bottom you put down there "You wont find mistakes in this". Would
you dare to challenge your professor that way?. Well the Quran does
that. It is telling: If you really think you know where this came
from then starts looking for mistakes because you wont find any.
Another interesting thing the Quran does is that it quotes all its
critics. There has never - in hundreds of years - ever been some
suggestion as to where that book came from but that the Quran does
not already mention that objection and reply to it. Many times you
will find the Ayah saying something like: Do they say such and such
and so, say to them such and such and so. In every case there is a
reply. More than that the Quran claims that the evidence of its
origin is in itself, and that if you look at this book you will be
convinced.
Difference of Authority
So the difference in Christianity and Islam comes down to a
difference of authority and appeal to authority. The Christian
wants to appeal to the Bible and the Muslim wants to appeal to the
Quran. You can not stop by saying: This is true because me book say
it is, and somebody else would say something else is true because
my book says differently, you can not stop at that point, and the
Quran does not. The Christians may point to some words that it is
recorded Jesus said and say this proves my point. But the Muslim
does not simply open his book and say: No, no the Quran says this,
because the Quran does not simply deny something the Bible says and
say something else instead. The Quran takes the form of a rebuttal,
it is a guidance as the opening says (Huda lil mutakeen). So that
for every suggestion that the Christian may say: My Bible say such
and such, the Quran will not simply say: No that is not true, it
will say: Do they say such and such then ask them such and such.
You have for example the Ayah that compares Jesus and Adam. There
are those who may say that Jesus must have been God (Son of God)
because he had no father. He had a woman who was his mother, but
there was no human father. It was God that gave him life, so he
must have been God's son. The Quran reminds the Christian in one
short sentence to remember Adam - who was his father? - and in
fact, who was his mother ? He did not have a father either and in
fact he did not have a mother, but what does that make him? So that
the likeness of Adam is the likeness of Jesus, they were nothing
and then they became something; that they worship God.
Quran Invites - Not
Demands
So that the Quran does not demand belief - the Quran invites
belief, and here is the fundamental difference. It is not simply
delivered as: Here is what you are to believe, but throughout the
Quran the statements are always: Have you O man thought of such and
such, have you considered so and so. It is always an invitation for
you to look at the evidence; now what do you believe?
Special Pleading of the
Bible
The citation of the Bible very often takes the form of what is
called in Argumentation: Special Pleading. Special Pleading is when
implications are not consistent. When you take something and you
say: Well that must mean this, but you don't use the same argument
to apply it to something else. To give an example, I have seen it
in publications many times, stating that Jesus must have been God
because he worked miracles. In other hand we know very well that
there is no miracle ever worked by Jesus that is not also recorded
in the Old Testament as worked by one of the prophets. You had
amongst others, Elijah, who is reported to have cured the leper,
raise the dead boy to life and to have multiplied bread for the
people to eat - three of the most favourite miracles cited by
Jesus. If the miracles worked by Jesus proved he was God, why don't
they prove Elijah was God? This is Special Pleading, if you see
what I mean. The implications are not consistent. If this implies
that then in that case it must also imply the same thing. We have
those who would say Jesus was God because he was taken up in the
heaven. But the Bible also says the a certain Einah did not die he
was taken up into the heaven by God. Whether it is true or not, who
knows, but the point is if Jesus being taken up proves he is God,
why does not it prove Einah was God? The same thing happened to
him.
Clear Parts & Difficult Parts of
Bible
I wrote to a man one time, who wrote a book about Christianity and
I had some of the objections I mentioned to you now. And his reply
to me was that I am making matters difficult to myself, that there
are portions in the Bible that are crystal clear and that there are
portions that are difficult, and that my problem was that I am
looking at the difficult part instead of the clear parts. The
problem is that this is an exercise in self deception - why are
some parts clear and some parts difficult? It is because somebody
decided what this clearly means, now that makes this very
difficult. To give you an example, John Chapter 14 a certain man
said to Jesus: Show us God, and Jesus said: If you have seen me you
have seen God. Now without reading on the Christian will say: See
Jesus claimed to be God, he said if you have seen me, you have seen
God. If that is crystal clear then you have a difficult portion
when you go back just a few pages to Chapter 5 when another man
came to Jesus and said: "show us God", and he said: "you have never
seen God, you have never heard his voice". Now what did he mean
there if on the other occasion he meant that he was God?, Obviously
you have made matters difficult by deciding what the first one
meant. If you read on in Chapter 14 you will see what he went on to
say. He was saying the closest you are going to seeing God are the
works you see me doing.
Bible Does Not Claim Jesus Claimed to
Be Son of God
It is a fact that the words "son of God" are not found on the lips
of Jesus anywhere in the first three Gospel accounts, he was always
calling himself the Son of Man. And it is a curious form of
reasoning that I have seen so often that it is established from
Bible that he claimed to be God because - look how the Jews
reacted. They will say for example he said such and such and the
Jews said he is blaspheming, he claimed to be God and they tried to
stone him. So they argue that he must have been claiming to be God
because look! - the Jews tried to kill him. They said that's what
he was claiming. But the interesting thing is that all the evidence
is then built on the fact that a person is saying: I believed that
Jesus was the son of God because the Jews who killed him said
that's what he used to say! His enemies used to say that, so he
must have said it, this is what it amounts to. In other hand we
have the words of Jesus saying he would keep the law, the law of
Moses and we have the statement in the Bible, why did the Jews kill
him? Because he broke the law of Moses. Obviously the Jews
misunderstood him, if he promised he would keep the law, but they
killed him because he broke the law, they must have misunderstood
him, or lied about him.
Writers of Bible - Out of
Context
When I talk about the Bible and quote various verses here and there
I am often accused of putting things out of context, to say you
have lifted something out of what it was talking about and given it
a meaning. I don't want to respond to the accusation as such, but
it doesn't seem to occur to many people that perhaps those who
wrote portions of the Bible in the first place were guilty of the
same thing. Maybe they - some of those writers - believed a certain
thing and in order to prove it quoted from their scriptures - the
Old Testament, the Hebrew writings - quoted out of context to prove
their point. There are examples of that kind of thing. In Matthew 2
it said that a king wanted to kill the young child Jesus so he with
his family went to Egypt, and they stayed there until that king
died, and then they came back.
When the writer of Matthew, whoever he was, because the name
Matthew won't be found in the book of Matthew; when he described
this event saying that he came back out of Egypt, he said: "This
was to fulfil a prophecy which is written" and then he quotes Hosea
Chapter 11 "Out of Egypt I called my Son". So he said because Jesus
went to Egypt and then came back out of Egypt and we have this
passage in the Hebrew scriptures "out of Egypt I called my son"
Jesus must have been the son of God. If you look and see what he
was quoting, Hosea 11:1 he quotes the second half of a complete
sentence, the complete sentence reads: "When Israel was young I
loved him and out of Egypt I called my son". Israel the nation was
considered as the son of God. Moses was told to go to Pharaoh and
say to him: If you touch that nation of people, you touch my son;
warning him, warning Pharaoh: don't touch that nation, calling the
nation "the son of God". So that this is the only thing talked
about in Hosea 11:1. "Out of Egypt I called my son" can only refer
to the nation of Israel. I mentioned this point some months ago
here in another talk, to which a young lady with us objected that
Israel is a symbolic name for Jesus. You will have a hard time
finding that anywhere in the Bible because it isn't there. You can
take an index of the Bible and lookup the word "Israel" everywhere
the word occurs and you will find no where in any place that you
can connect the word Israel with Jesus. But never mind - suppose it
is true, read on, the second verse says "and after that he kept on
worshipping Bal", because this is what the Israelites were guilty
of, very often they kept falling back into Idol worshipping. So if
that "Israel" really meant Jesus and it means that Jesus is the son
of God that came out of Egypt they must also mean that Jesus from
time to time used to bow down to that idol Bal. You have to be
consistent, and follow through on what it says. So the point is
whoever wrote Matthew and Chapter 2 was trying to prove a point by
quoting something out of context, and he undid himself, because if
you follow through on it, it can not be so.
Quran Has Internal
Evidences
Now I can come back to the claim the Quran makes that it has
internal evidence of its origin. There are many many ways that you
can look at this. As one example, if I single out somebody here and
say: You know, I know your father - he is going to doubt that, he
has never seen me with his father. He would say, how does he look
like, is he tall short does he wear glasses? and so on, and if I
give him the right answers pretty soon he will get convinced, "Oh
yes, you did meet him". If you apply the same kind of thinking when
you look at the Quran, here is a book that says it came from the
one who was there when the universe began. So you should be asking
that one: So tell me something that proves it. Tell me something
that shows me you must have been there when the universe was
beginning. You will find in two different Ayahs the statement that
all the creation began from a single point, and from this point it
is expanding. In 1978 they gave the Noble prize to two people who
proved that thats the case. It is the big bang origin of the
universe. It was determined by the large radio receivers that they
have for the telephone companies which were sensitive enough to
pick up the transmissions from satellites and it kept finding
background noise that they could not account for. Until the only
explanation came to be, it is the left over energy from that
original explosion which fits in exactly as would be predicted by
the mathematical calculation of what would be this thing if the
universe began from a single point and exploded outwards. So they
confirmed that, but in 1978. Centuries before that here is the
Quran saying the heavens and the earth in the beginning they were
one piece and split and says in another Ayah : "of the heavens we
are expanding it".
Quran Has Exact Accuracy
Let me tell you about a personal investigation, it occurred to me
that there are a number of things you can find in the Quran that
give evidence to its origin - internal evidence. If the Quran is
dictated from a perfect individual; it originates with God, then
there should not be any wasted space, it should be very meaningful.
There should be nothing that we don't need that you can cut off,
and it should not be missing anything. And so that everything in
there should really be there for a specific purpose. And I got to
thinking about the Ayah which I mentioned before, it says, the
likeness of Jesus is the likeness of Adam. It an equation, it uses
the Arabic word (mithel), it says Jesus, Adam, equal. You go to the
index of the Quran, you look up the name ISA it is in the Quran 25
times, you lookup the name Adam it is there 25 times. They are
equal, through scattered references but 25 of each. Follow that
through and you will find that in the Quran there are 8 places were
an Ayah says something is like something else, using this (Mithel),
you will find in every case and take both sides of it whatever that
word is look it up in the index and it will be lets say 110 times
and lookup the other word and it will be said to be equal to the
same 110. That is quite a project of co-ordination if you try to
write a book that way yourself. So that everywhere you happened to
mention that such and such is like such and such that then you
check your index, filing system, or your IBM punch cards or
whatever, to make sure that in this whole book you mentioned them
both the same number of times. But that's what you will find in the
Quran.
Quran Provides Reason
What I am talking about is built on a thing that is called in
Logic: Use and Mention of a Word. When you use a word, you are
using its meaning. When you mention a word, you are talking about
the symbol without the meaning. For example, if I say Toronto is a
big city - I used the word Toronto as I meant this place Toronto is
a big city. But if I say to you Toronto has 7 letters, I am not
talking about this place Toronto, I am talking about this word -
Toronto. So, the revelation is above reasoning, but it is not above
reason. That is to say we are more apt not to find in the Quran
something that is unreasonable, but we may find something that we
would have never figured out for ourselves.
Unique Word Refers to Itself in
Quran
The author of this sentence said if this book came from someone
besides God then you will find in it many Ikhtalafan
(inconsistencies). The word Ikhtilaf is found many times in the
Quran. But the word Ikhtalafan is only found once in the Quran. So
there are not many Ikhtilafan in the Quran, there is only one -
where the sentence is mentioned. So you see how things are put
together perfectly. It has been suggested to mankind: Find a
mistake. Man could not get hold of a mistake, and he is very
clever, because this sentence could also mean: Find many Iktilafan
and so he quickly goes to the index to see if he can find many of
them and there is only one... Sorry clever person.
[end of Dr. Gary Miller and Yusuf Estes]
Bible And Quran - Originally Both From
Allah
Conclusion: Both the Bible and the Quran
have come to us by way of Almighty God, then through His angel
Gabriel and then to the prophets, peace be upon them. However, when
the next step comes into play (that of the human beings faithfully
transmitting it on to others and future generations) we find out
that Allah has only perserved His Last and Final Revelation for all
times. And He certainly did not need the humans to do that.
Respect For Holy Books
Muslims should respect the Bible because it does still contain some
of the original teachings of Allah. But there is no need to go to
Bible classes or purchase one to read to try to learn about what
our purpose is here in this life. The Quran makes it clear that
Allah has indeed, perfected our "way of life" for us and has
conferred on us His favor and has chosen for us to submit to Him in
Islam.
We would like to suggest to the non-Muslims to consider obtaining a
Quran (order one free through our site if you like) and then
investigate for themsleves what the Quran is really all about and
what it might mean to them in their lives.
[Free Quran available at: http://islamtomorrow.com/free ]
Final comment from Yusuf
Estes:
I would like to state that after years of studying the Bible and
then learning the Arabic language to read the Quran as it was
originally recited to Muhammad, peace be upon him, by the angel
Gabriel, I have come to an amazing conclusion. It seems to me that
the Bible and the Quran are most definitely from the exact same
source and they compliment each other very nicely. In fact, it
appears that the Bible does not contradict the Quran, except in the
very same places where the Bible contradicts itself.
islamtomorrow website
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Mark Madonna
Since