Quran is the word of God

[KanzulHuda786]

Literary Challenge
In the following verses Allah has challenged the whole of mankind to try and produce a single chapter like the Qur’an. This challenge, which has remained unmet, captivated the minds of the Arabs at the time of revelat-ion.
“If you are in doubt of what We have revealed to Our Messenger, then produce one chapter like it, call upon all your helpers, besides Allah, if you are truthful.� Surah al-Baqarah (The Heifer) 2: 23.
“Or do they say: “He (Prophet Muhammad, ) has forged it (this Qur’an)?� Nay! They believe not! Let them then produce a recitation like it (the Qur’an) if they are truthful.� Surah at-Toor (The Mount) 52: 33-34.
The Qur’an was revealed over 1430 years ago and the challenge to produce something like the Qur’an has remained to this day. Throughout the centuries, thinkers, poets, theologians and literary critics have attempted to challenge the Qur’an. Some of these challengers in the past have included: Musaylamah; Ibn Al-Mukaffa; Yahya ibn Al-Hakam al-Ghazal; Sayyid ‘Ali Muhammad; Bassar ibn Burd.
 Some may argue that William Shakespeare, who was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, is often used as an example of unique literature. The argument posed is that if Shakespeare expressed his poetry and prose in a unique manner – and he is a human being – then surely no matter how unique the Qur’an is, it must also be from a human being.
 However there are some problems with the above argument. It does not take into account the nature of the Qur’an’s uniqueness and it doesn’t understand the uniqueness of literary geniuses such as Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare composed poetry and prose that received an unparalleled aesthetic reception, the literary form he expressed his works in was not unique. In many instances Shakespeare used the common Iambic Pentameter (The Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of five iambic feet. The word “pentameter� simply means that there are five feet in the line.) However in the case of the Qur’an, its language is in an entirely unknown and unmatched literary form. The structural features of the Qur’anic discourse render it unique and not the subjective appreciation of its literary and linguistic makeup.
In Arabic language three different modes- poetry- 16 rhythmic patterns, common speech – mursal , saj mixture of both.
Classical scholars such as al-Baqillani and al-Rummani view the Qur’an as having its own unique literary form. This view is also supported by western scholarship which can be found in the writings of famous orientalists such as Arthur J. Arberry, Professor Bruce Lawrence and D.J. Stewart.
The Arabs, who were known to have been Arabic linguists par excellence, failed to successfully challenge the Qur’an. Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, who was a notable British Orientalist and translator, states: “…and that though several attempts have been made to produce a work equal to it as far as elegant writing is concerned, none has as yet succeeded.�
The implication of this is that there is no link between the Qur’an and the Arabic language; however this seems impossible because the Qur’an is made up of the Arabic language. On the other hand, every combination of Arabic words and letters have been used to try and imitate the Qur’an.

Rational Deduction
Rational deduction is the thinking process where logical conclusions are drawn from a universally accepted statement or provable premises. This process is also called rational inference or logical deduction.
In the context of the Qur’an’s uniqueness the universally accepted statement supported by eastern and western scholarship is:
“The Qur’an was not successfully imitated by the Arabs at the time of revelation�
1. The Qur’an could not have come from an Arab as the Arabs, at the time of revelation, were linguists par excellence, there was literally a shakespear of the arabic language in every corner and they failed to challenge the Qur’an. They had even admitted that the Qur’an could have not come from a human being. Arabs at that time fought many battles against the muslims to try and destroy in Islam when they could have got the best arab writers and academically produce a book like the quran but they knew they couldn't and had to fight wars against us. It also cannot come from an Arab in the present time as the arabic language to the mixing of differnt cultures dialects and languages in the arab countries has suffered something called language degenration which means the pure arabic language is not at thes stnadard as the time of the quran 1400 years ago, for example the word for teleophone in arabic nowadays is telephooon, which is basically elongated english words.
2. The Qur’an could not have come from the Prophet Muhammad due to the following reasons:
a. The Prophet Muhammad was an Arab himself and all the Arabs failed to challenge the Qur’an.
b. The Arabs linguists at the time of revelation never accused the Prophet of being the author of the Qur’an.
c. The Prophet Muhammad experienced many trials and tribulations during the course of his Prophetic mission. For example his children died, his beloved wife Khadija passed away, he was boycotted, his close companions were tortured and killed, yet the Qur’an’s literary character remains that of the divine voice and character. Nothing in the Qur’an expresses the turmoil and emotions of the Prophet Muhammad. It is almost a psychological and physiological impossibility to go through what the Prophet went through and yet none of the emotions are expressed in the literary character of the Qur’an.
d. The Qur’an is a known literary masterpiece yet its verse were at many times revealed for specific circumstances and events that occurred. However, without revision or deletion they are literary masterpieces. All literary masterpieces have undergone revision and deletion to ensure literary perfection, however the Qur’an was revealed instantaneously.
e. The hadith or narrations of the Prophet Muhammad are in a totally different style then that of the Qur’an. How can any human being express themselves orally over a 23 year period (which was the period of Qur’anic revelation) in two distinct styles? This is a psychological and physiological impossibility according to modern research.
f. All types of human expression can be imitated if the blueprint of that expression exists. For example artwork can be imitated even though some art is thought to be extraordinary or amazingly unique. But in the case of the Qur’an we have the blueprint – the Qur’an itself – yet no one has been able to imitate its unique literary form.
g. Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, did not go to any school, study from any teacher, or even learn how to read and write. He even had no interest in poetry, which was one of the most prized disciplines of his time. Yet suddenly at age forty, he began to recite this immaculate revelation
h. He himself denied it, he had a book which as an outstanding eloquence and wisdom and people used to in that culture used to make those with the best poetry to the top this is what they cherished at that time. If he wanted money, power, he would have just said yes this is from me.
i. The Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, himself was most deeply moved by the Book. He used to stand for hours in solitary midnight prayers reciting from the Book until his feet used to get swollen. How preposterous that one should attempt to attribute the Book to him. Has there ever been another example of somebody getting so moved by his own words

3. The Qur’an could not have come from a Non-Arab as the language in the Qur’an is Arabic, and the knowledge of the Arabic language is a pre-requisite to successfully challenge the Qur’an.
4. Some say it is from satan, this in fact is deep because it shows that people do think that it is supernatural, however it can't come from him because each time satan is mentioned in quran he is mentioned in a negative terms- he is called as an enemy to humanity, why would satan make people go towards god and away from me. Everytime a muslim recites quran he says I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed satan.
5. The Qur’an can only have come from the Divine as it is the only logical explanation as all other explanations have been discarded because they do not explain the uniqueness of the Qur’an in a comprehensive and coherent manner.

[KanzulHuda786]

It is impossible for a human being to compose something like it, as it lies outside the productive capacity of the nature of the Arabic language. The productive capacity of nature, concerning the Arabic language, is that any grammatically sound expression of the Arabic language will always fall with-in the known Arabic literary forms of prose and poetry. All of the possible combinations of Arabic words, letters and grammatical rules have been exhausted and yet its literary form has not been matched linguistically.

Let me ask a few questions before I run out to learn this languge.

Are you saying that it is impossible to meet the challenge because the rules of the languge make it impossible to do so?

If so, the challenge becomes totaly invalad, as a challge that can never be met due to the nature of the languge is well - invalad.

But, again "like" is vauge, if I memorise just one bit of the chapter in your languge and produce it from memory, then I've met the requirement.

If the challge is to produce something else that falls with (X) range then I have to have that range clearly defiend, just saying that it is impossible for humans to do meens that the challege is set up so that no one can do it.

So, perhaps you can explain the rules of the challege and clarify how long the chapter needs to be, what "like" meens, and what the other rules are so I can do this - if it is set up to be made to fail, then clearly it is a false challenge.

I am really too knowledgable about the ins and outs of this challenge because I haven't really studied the arabic language or the quran for that matter but I know a website where you can get a lot more information abuout this challenge if you are interested and sincerely want to know more.

http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/essays-art ... rary-form/

[Divine Insight]

@ Playhavock,

I think I understand the challenge. I could be wrong, but here's what I'm getting from what has been said thus far.


STEP 1:

Supposedly the Qu'ran is written a very precise style of poetry.

Different styles of poetry have difference rules. So there will be a "form" that the poetry must adhere to. That's a common theme in poetry circles. You'll be expected to write poetry that meets this form (whatever poetry rules appear to be used in the Qu'ran)

So first you will be given the rules of this poetic form.

STEP 2

The poetic verses of the Qu'ran also make sense. They convey meaningful thoughts and stories. So you can't just write gibberish as poetry using this form. You must actually tell a meaningful story that makes sense.

Whether you need to tell precisely the same stories as in the Qu'ran I don't know. Perhaps that's also part of the challenge?

STEP 3

Apparently you must do this in the Arabic language to satisfy the challenge.

You can't tell meaningful stories in English using this same poetic form and claim to have met the challenge. Actually I think you should be able to use any language you want because if you can show that you can do it in English you could probably also do it in other languages as well, but obviously religious zealots of the Qu'ran are probably going to force the issue that it need to be done in Arabic just to try to make the challenge harder for people.

STEP 4

You can't just copy the existing Qu'ran word-for-word because you're not creating the poetry yourself. You wouldn't be meeting the challenge that way.

So you have to restate the same stories just as poetically as is done in the Qu'ran using "newly created poetry".

This has to be the case, because they are proclaiming that this "Can't be done". Well if the Qu'ran itself is an example of such poetry then clearly it not only can be done but it has been done.

They are claiming that the original poetry had to have been written by God because no human could have created such perfect poetry whilst still telling a meaningful story.

That appears to be their "argument" for divine origin of the Qu'ran.

They are claiming that no human could have done such a great job of conveying meaningful stories so poetically in Arabic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So that seems to be the challenge.

As I have already pointed out there are problems with this challenge.

And here they are:

1. The original Qu'ran would have had many contributors.

It was originally an oral tradition that was indeed handed down in poetic verse orally.

Thus as it was being handed down it no doubt became "refined" with each retelling. People kept finding more poetic ways of saying the same things. So it's really no surprise that the poetry in an oral tradition like this would naturally evolve to become more refined over time.

So as a single individual you're going to need to compete with eons of refined poetry to write stories that are as cleverly poetic.

So you're already at a disadvantage there.

2. The best and most clever way to say things has no doubt already been exhausted.

If you are expected to re-write the very same stories in a more poetic fashion than they have already been written in the Qu'ran you're going to really be in a pickle, because if the stories did evolved as I had suggested in #1, then only stands to reason that the most clever rhymes have already been exhausted.

You'd be hard pressed to say the same thing more poetically than it has already been said. For the simple reason that you only have a limited number of words to use and the best one's have already been chosen.

You could take almost and famous poem, and challenge someone to re-write the very same thing more poetically whilst still saying the same thing in each verse!

Could you even do that with poetry written by mortal poets? I wouldn't even want to take on that challenge. Let me write a brand new poem that says something else and I can come up with something more creative. But demand that I make precisely the same points they made in their poem and do it more poetically than they did, would indeed be quite a challenge.

3. The challenge could be made impossible for even writings that are known to have come from mortal men.

That's a fundamental problem right there. By placing enough restrictions on their challenge they can basically force it to be impossible.

The problem is that you could to the same thing using poetry written my mortal men.

If I demand that you re-write a Shakespeare play and convey precisely the same thoughts he did in every sentence of his play but that make your version sound even more poetic than his by using different wording, you'd probably find that to be very difficult to even impossible too.

And Shakespeare was no God.

So simply by demanding that you convey precisely his same thoughts in every sentence using different words that are even more poetic than his, they will have created a challenge that will indeed be near impossible to meet.

~~~~~

So my response is that their challenge doesn't prove that the Qu'ran came from any God. All it proves is that a challenge can be created that is impossible to meet.

If I can't even meet the same challenge with the works of Shakespeare, and I know that didn't come from any God, then why should I assume that if I can't do it with the Qu'ran it implies that it must have come from God?

That's my argument against the outrageous claims of this so-called "challenge".

They'd have to show me that they could easily meet their own challenge applied to the works of mortal men before they could convince me that there is anything special about not being able to meet this challenge applied to the Qu'ran.

[A Troubled Man]

,,,

[A Troubled Man]

I haven't really studied the arabic language or the quran for that matter .../

And yet, you are here to tell us the Quran is the word of God.

That's like saying someone hasn't really studied science for that matter, but they're here to tell us all about General Relativity.

[Divine Insight]

I haven't really studied the arabic language or the quran for that matter .../

And yet, you are here to tell us the Quran is the word of God.

That's like saying someone hasn't really studied science for that matter, but they're here to tell us all about General Relativity.

Truly. It's a confession of total blind faith. Believing rumors about things without even bothering to look into them to see if they have any merit at all.

And then "preaching" to everyone else that these things are absolute "truths"?

[playhavock]

Well, I overlooked the fact that even if a writen word could not be produced again (somehow) that would not make it true, only evedance makes something true, but it seems then that the challange is made to be unwinnable and a justfication that it is unwinnible is that it is made by "god" rather then the challenge itself is in no way an honest challenge. However, everything pretty much came apart when they said they knew very little about the Quran. I know ZERO about it. Its a myth book unless and untill someone can show that it is other then that. But, for sake of augment I wanted to see if the challenge could be done - and it appears the answer is a big "no" because it is to vegue and the goal post can always be moved. Also, in the end even if you could do it, it still does not make what you write true or what they wrote false, because - thats not how logic works. But, I realised that I have to set aside logic... and now that I've done so for a few posts in this topic I feel at a lost, I best put logic back next to me and on top of me and I realise that made no sence since logic is not a thing that one can do such things with. I best go now, my brain can not take much more

[B Brown]

Just assume for the purpose of this text that the Quran is the word of the one and only God.
Then do we all really want to follow a God who not only condoned slavery and concubinage but actually advocated it.
If that is the will of God then we should all be brave enough to tell that God to do what HE HE HE wants with us and challenge HIM HIM HIM to send us to everlasting punishment. Are we really all so cowardly to refuse to stand up for humanity and justice.

[southern cross]

The really funny thing about this challenge and the claim that the challenge has never been met and therefore constitutes a miracle is that those judging such an attempt are the same people who claim it is impossible.
Ergo if someone actually took up the challenge and met it, those who believe it impossible would never admit that the challenge had been met. I mean only muslims can determine if the IMPOSSIBLE challenge has been met and it can't be because it's impossible.
Much like a tiger chasing it's tail around a tree ie a vicious circle

I'm sorry, I just realised that I had necroed this.
Carry on
As you were

[B Brown]

I notice this debate has been dormant for some time.
1) The composition of the Quran had nothing to do with a god. It was compiled by a vicious group of men, influenced by their abhorrent ex leader, Muhammed.
2) It is an extremely unpleasant text, obsessed with terrifying people of the time, and unfortunately even to this day, into obedience to the rule of very unpleasant and extremely non intellectual men. to this day ordinary people, and especially women and children live severely limited and bigoted lives because of that man and his lackeys.
3) All I can add is that if this is the word of a god we all need to build a new Tower of Babel to reach it/him and let it/him know that human beings want nothing whatever to do with it/him.
4) Even if it was written in the most sublime poetry ever it would not justify the nastiness of what it reveals about the nature of whoever composed it.
5) If Muhammed needed an angel to help him for 21 years to come up with such evil I shudder to think what the angel was like.

[Artie]

If Allah and the Christian God is the same god shouldn't both the Quran and the Bible be equally linguistically amazing? Or aren't they the same god?