Studies in Islam: The Self-Destructive Koran and the Man Who Would Be God, Muhammad - PART ONE by Peter Burrows elburropete@gmail.com - silvercityburro.com. 8/20/17 (The Koran used for and referenced in this article, unless otherwise noted, is the Khan-Hilali translation published by Darussalam, revised edition, March 1999.)
After the first few lines of mortal prayer, devout Muslims believe every word in the Koran is the immortal word of their God, Allah. Muslims hold this belief in spite of the many contradictions in the Koran. Their rationalization of these contradictions should lead any moderately skeptical person to the conclusion that Islam is a fraud and that Muhammad, the greatest con man the world has ever seen, was the source of the “revelations,” not Allah.
The proof of this is found in the Koran itself, and since the Koran is the foundational sacred text of Islam, this means over a billion people believe in a fraud, a very dangerous, murderous fraud.
Before reading any further, if you disagree, if you believe the Koran is in fact a compilation of revelations from God delivered through Muhammad, then stop reading. You are lost. If you are in doubt, I’m hopeful you will not be after reading this.
Muhammad was charismatic and brilliant, but nonetheless human, subject to all the foibles of humanity. He is an especially good example of Lord Acton’s famous observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you follow the chronology of Muhammad’s “revelations” in the Koran, you can trace his descent into Hell as he gained more and more power.
The chronology of the revelations is of utmost importance for another reason, and that gets us to the contradictions in the Koran. These stem from the history of Islam, which began in Mecca when Muhammad believed he met the Angel Gabriel who began imparting the Koran to Muhammad.
Muhammad preached in Mecca for 12 years with little success. He fled to avoid being assassinated and settled in Medina, where his fortunes changed dramatically. When he died 10 years later, he had conquered Arabia and was absolute ruler of all he surveyed.
It was in Medina that “Allah” first commanded Muslims to wage war. In chapter two, the first chapter of “revelations” received in Medina, verse 2:190 says “fight in the way of Allah those who fight you --” which was the first revelation concerning jihad. (See page 50 of Khan-Hilali for this assertion.) Muhammad was beginning to feel the intoxication of power.
It was in Medina that revelations began to equate Muhammad with Allah. The phrase “Allah and His Messenger” is common in the Medina verses, while I could only find one such in the Mecca verses. It was in Medina where Muhammad told his followers that he spoke for Allah, as in verse 4:80: “He who obeys the Messenger (Muhammad) has indeed obeyed Allah --.” Think about that statement!
The contradictions in the Koran, which were becoming apparent even in Mecca, came to a head when rabbis from nearby Jewish settlements attended Muhammad’s Medina sermons and noted inconsistencies in what Muhammad claimed was the word of God now versus the word of God in the past. “Allah” came to Muhammad’s rescue with a revelation that is the most important in the entire Koran, and, in my opinion, reveals the entire religion of Islam to be utter nonsense.
Here is that “revelation,” chapter 2, verse 106, one of the first revelations Muhammad received in Medina: “Whatever a Verse (revelation) do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?”
To abrogate means to cancel or annul, which in this context means that the God of Islam, Allah, can change his mind because He “is able to do all things” and don’t you know that? ABROGATION SAVES ISLAM!
Consequently, every time Muhammad was caught changing his mind, he would say it was ALLAH changing HIS mind. How convenient! Defer to the ultimate authority, shut down debate, put brains in toilet, flush. It’s amazing that people believed this, even more amazing that they believe it today.
As a practical matter, this means the 86 chapters of “revelations” Muhammad received in Mecca can be ignored. Scholars have noted there are no Meccan revelations that order Muslims to spread Islam by force, while there are many such in the 28 Medina chapters, and, because of abrogation, those are the chapters that count.
I wonder if Muhammad was surprised that his abrogation “revelation” met with such acceptance. He used it over and over to abrogate not only Meccan verses but early Medina verses, something very apparent in chapter nine, which is virtually the last chapter of revelations, coming ten years after the first Medina revelations in chapter two, and not long before Muhammad’s death.
Chapter nine contains a number of warlike verses that contradict peaceful verses in Chapter Two, which are therefore abrogated. The best known example is verse 2:106 which says there is no compulsion in religion and is abrogated by verse 9:5, which says slay the pagans wherever they are found unless they become Muslims. There is also verse 2:109, which commands Muslims to “forgive and overlook” Christians and Jews who reject Islam, while verse 9:29 commands that Christians and Jews be fought until they feel “utterly subdued.”
What we have here is a God that in the ten years between the revelations of chapter two and the revelations of chapter nine, goes from commanding no compulsion and live-and-let-live, to commanding kill and utterly subdue. Those ten years saw Muhammad’s power become absolute. One has to assume Allah’s powers were absolute to begin with, so maybe it is not Allah changing His mind.
As an aside, abrogation ALWAYS goes from benign to malign, always from nice to not nice, NEVER the other. way. Muhammad did not become more compassionate as he became more powerful, and he died at the age of 62, before he had a chance to mellow with age, if he ever would have.
Knowing about abrogation is the key to understanding the Koran: Allah would change his mind, which explains the contradictions in the Koran and is why the chronology of revelations is so important. Since the Koran is not in chronological order, don‘t waste your time reading it until you know the accepted chronological order, easily available on the web. Then, to avoid wasting time on abrogated verses, simply read the Koran in reverse chronological order.
The last chronological chapter of the 114 chapters is chapter 110. You can read it in ten seconds. It contains nothing of value. The next to last is chapter nine, by far the most important chapter in the Koran, containing Allah’s final revelations, revelations that were never, with one exception, abrogated and therefore must be obeyed until the end of time.
Chapter nine is replete with commands to kill and subjugate non-Muslims until the world is ruled by Islam. Nothing peaceful, nothing tolerant. That was the message of Islam then, that is the message of Islam today.
I mentioned there was one verse in this final chapter of revelations that was abrogated and it’s verse 9:41, in which Allah orders all Muslims, regardless of health or wealth, to wage war in the name of Allah. Muhammad saw this was causing a lot of difficulties, so in verse 9:91 he said that if you were too ill or too poor to wage jihad, that was OK as long as you were “sincere and true (in duty) to Allah and His Messenger.” Goodbye, 9:41. (Abrogation source: Tafsir Ibn Kathir.)
So, here we have an example of “Allah” changing his mind very quickly to correct a mistake. Seems the God of Islam is not very “all knowing” after all. Kind of short-sighted. Kind of HUMAN. Do you think, ladies and gentlemen, that this proves the “revelations” aren’t from God after all? But, this is Islam: NO THINKING ALLOWED!
I wrote earlier that abrogation saved Islam by explaining away the Koran’s contradictions. If you THINK about it, abrogation means it is Muhammad speaking, not Allah. Verse 9:91, abrogating a very recent command of Allah, shows Muhammad was not at all concerned with this manifest fact. After all, who would dare to question The Man Who Speaks For Allah? In my opinion, abrogation doesn’t save Islam, it destroys it.
Chapter nine has another verse that screams “Muhammad, not Allah,” verse 9:30: “And the Jews say: ‘Uzair (Ezra) is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths, resembling the saying of those who disbelieved aforetime. Allah’s Curse be on them, how they are deluded away from the truth!”
The problem for Islam’s “all knowing” Allah is that Judaism has never worshiped Ezra, or anyone else, as the son of God. From Wikipedia: “Modern historians have described the reference (to Ezra) as ‘enigmatic’ since such views have not been found in Jewish sources.”
Some Muslim scholars claim that the Koran does not say all Jews thought Ezra to be the son of God, just some. Reread 9:30 and tell me where it says “some” Jews. Furthermore, the footnote to verse 9:30 in the Khan translation leads to a long passage from the most respected “gospel” of Islam, Sahih Al-Bukhari, page 6/4581 (O.P.105), in which Muhammad is quoted as saying that on the Day of Resurrection Allah will first simultaneously save the Muslims and cast the pagans into Hell. Allah will then call upon the people of the scripture, Jews and Christians:
“Then the Jews will be called upon and it will be said to them, ‘Who did you use to worship?’ They will say, ’We used to worship ’Uzair (Ezra), the son of Allah.’ It will be said to them, ‘You are liars, for Allah has never taken anyone as a wife or son.”
Into Hell the Jews go. Ditto for the Christians, who are asked the same question, get the same answer from Allah concerning Jesus. What we have here is Muhammad, in both the Koran and in Sahih Al-Bukhari, declaring that the Jews worshipped Ezra as the son of God. The two most sacred texts of Islam both proclaim that utter falsehood. Why?
My interpretation is that someone told Muhammad that some Jews, somewhere, worshipped Ezra as the son of God. Maybe this was true, maybe this was a rumor or maybe this was a complete fabrication. No matter. Muhammad wanted to believe it because he wanted to cast ALL Jews as polytheists, which would doom the Jews to Hell. The Christian Trinity made Christians an easy target, but the steadfastly monotheistic Jews were a problem. Voila! Ezra became the Jews’ Jesus. Problem solved.
This is further proof that Islam is a total lie. I am puzzled that this verse hasn’t been used to ridicule the ridiculous religion of Islam.
Chapter Nine is about 95% of what you need to know about the Koran, and it is sufficient to prove Islam is an abomination and Muhammad a fraud. There are some other verses in the Koran buttressing Muhammad’s divine authority that cement the conclusion that the Koran was Muhammad‘s creation, not Allah‘s…
We’ll get to those in Part Two