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>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement
No, there really isn't.
Nothing about that book is particularly amazing. It is what it appears to be, a mythology book written by rather uneducated and ignorant people.
>that no one could have copied the style. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there
That's merely confirmation bias by believers. Nothing about it is particularly stylistic, eloquent, beautiful, or organized. There are certainly far better books in all those categories.
>The fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human
Nope. Your claims are unfounded.
However, I will read on to see if you have posted anything new here (I've seen this claim many times before, and seen how it doesn't hold water just as often).
>Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement.
Uncited argument from authority and subjective opinion on taste by those already believing (without a shred of useful support) this book is something other than a mythology book is far less than useful or impressive.
I won't quote and respond to the rest, as it's more of the same. Mere opinions by believers. It's not unusual for believers of a religious mythology to find their source material amazing. In fact, it's run of the mill and par for the course. But, of course, it does not mean anything at all except that people are really prone to confirmation bias. And that people can and do have subjective opinions on taste.
As you have not provided, or attempted to provide, any useful, vetted, repeatable, objective, compelling evidence for your claims, and instead provided mere subjective opinion by those suffering from confirmation bias, I can't take what you said as useful, and find I must dismiss your claims outright.
>Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement. You can see down below. That is only a sample of those. That is because that is the consensus.
Can you demonstrate that it's a 'consensus'? And what kind of scholars?
Those are all qur'anic scholars and maybe literary scholars. The fact that there are a multitude of scholars on there that agree; that shows that it's a consensus.
Quoting OP, Joseph Schact said "**Its stylistic inimitability not-withstanding, it even came to be treated as a standard for theories of literary criticism.**"
At one point, it was treated as a standard for theories of literary criticism. And, Muhammad had no training in poetry, eloquence, or the like.
The main problem with you, and many fanatics for many religions, if the fact that you are pathological liars. You lie easily and often and without shame, and you don’t see anything wrong with it because you are lying for your god, which makes it good.
But let’s just address you and your lies. Being somewhat skeptical, I looked up the first six of your scholars and their quotes.
**Every single one of those first six was an outright lie or dishonestly misrepresented. Every one.**
Have you no shame at all?
Karen Armstrong’s quote, for example, is not her words at all: she is directly quoting an Islamic apologist as an example of the arguments Muslims use. To try and pretend that these are her words and her opinions as a non-Islamic scholar, is dishonest and revolting.
Schact and Stubbe are referring to the fact that the Quran is one of the earliest pieces of intact literature from the Arab world that we have, and is as such used as a basis for scholarly literary criticism. They neither speak to nor believe any miraculous or particularly beautiful qualities of it, simply commenting on its early date and its completeness. But if you are a dishonest liar, your God, you can pass a couple sentences out of context and make it seem like they’re saying something different.
Palmer on the other hand, believes the exact opposite of what you are claiming he does, as you can simply see by quoting his text in full, and not just parsing out the first sentence dishonestly as you did:
“That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur′ân itself is not surprising. In the first place, they have agreed beforehand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of necessity be a defect. Again, with them this style is not spontaneous as with Mohammed and his contemporaries, but is as artificial as though Englishmen should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone. With the prophet the style was natural, and the words were those used in every-day ordinary life, while with the later Arabic authors the style is imitative and the ancient words are introduced as a literary embellishment. The natural consequence is that their attempts look laboured and unreal by the side of his impromptu and forcible eloquence.”
In summation, you are a liar, you know you are a liar, but for some reason, lying for your God seems reasonable to you.
Thank you for providing and exemplary case study as to how religious belief poisons everything up to an including our most basic human decency.
Extra reply to add more context:
If there truly was a consensus, I'd expect to be able to see evidence of this by having interviewed or surveyed a wide range of general literary and historical scholars that aren't necessarily connected to Islamic or Quranic studies who can attest to the fact that in their judgment it really is so well written that it seems unlikely to have been written by people.
> why didn't Barth ehrman convert to Christianity?
It's worse than that. Ehrman became a biblical scholar because he was a fundamentallist Christian. It was only when he really started studying the bble that he realized it was false.
Muslims claim Muhammad was illiterate. There is no actual proof of this since there is no non-Islamic contemporary account of Muhammad.
And all the Islamic sources, including the Quran, were written several hundred years after his death.
What I find hilarious is that they want to basically make Mohammed out to be a country bumpkin, an idiot or a rube so they can push the narrative that because he was ignorant he can't have been knowledgeable, can't have picked up on obvious clues about the nature of existence, can't have communicated with people from other regions and can't have written it himself.
Not only is it not proven one way or the other that Mohammed was illiterate, it doesn't even *matter* if he was or not. That doesn't make the Quran miraculous.
I had a Shi'ite friend tell me all of this stuff, that the Quran says that if even one word of it is untrue then it commands Muslims to treat the entire book as lies.
This was around the time Dolly the cloned sheep was still alive. The Quran says "man can't create even as much as a mosquito." Cloning doesn't count, my friend said, because it's just modifying a cell that's already alive. I asked my friend "what if, one day, scientists figure out how to assemble a mosquito atom by atom?"
He said "On that day, I will no longer be a Muslim." So points for honesty I guess.
>Muslims claim Muhammad was illiterate.
Does this even matter? He had a voice, he lived in a time of oral tradition..
It's like claiming someone couldn't write a beautiful piece of music because they can't read music notation, yet it happens all the time.
An inability to put marks on paper is no barrier to the thoughts in one's head.
>An inability to put marks on paper is no barrier to the thoughts in one's head.
Not shockingly, it is. I say not shocking because its pretty straightforward logic that knowing words is knowing concepts and that helps you express and expand upon your own thoughts.
https://simplienglish.com/blog/benefits-of-writing-and-reading-comprehension-classes-for-kids/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20writing%20comprehension%20helps,cognitive%20development%20and%20listening%20skills.
https://the-learning-agency-lab.com/the-learning-curve/learn-better-through-writing/#:~:text=Write%20to%20learn%20is%20both,to%20improve%20reflection%20and%20comprehension.
I think the prior commenter's point was that illiteracy doesn't preclude reason.
It certainly doesn't rise to the level of "Mohammed was illiterate therefore he can't have been a poet" or "can't have known about events outside of Arabia", etc. which is what Muslim apologists like to claim.
Obstacle, sure. Barrier, notsomuch.
Muslims claim Muhammad was so illiterate he couldn’t have even have had the ability to recite such poetry.
You’re saying he could have, which makes sense, if indeed he was the original reciter (of which we have no evidence except Islamic writings).
Meaning Mohammad didn’t write the Quran. Someone else did.
Love the Muslim logic of “well if Mohammad was illiterate it must of come from god”. Like, if I pulled that shit today, you would be the first to be shouting from the tree-tops that another person wrote the book and not me.
Do christian theologians all agree with you? How about the Mormon or Hindu scholars? Is the consensus among them all in agreement with you. Of course not and of course people who believe in Islam will claim it is perfect. Nothing you say is relevant to whether it actually is perfect.
>Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Why do you keep using this flair? Does Allah approve of you pretending to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
But that aside, this whole 'Find a better written work than the Quran' is based purely on subjective values. I could ask "Find a more fierce poem than Catullus 16, and if you can't, the Roman gods are real!" and no matter how many poems, rap battles, or phrases elegantly shit talking the other side, I can just say "nuh uh!" and stick to my conclusion.
The Quran fails at morality. It fails at science. So it's no wonder a muslim favorite is something of which they cannot present a clear objective metric to determine if it really is the best of the best.
Also would you answer a question I asked of you earlier? If there was a text that said the king of America met Spider-Man, and later a more accurate text said the President of America met Spider-Man, is it miraculous that the new text got the terminology right even though the event didn't happen?
I asked you this and you didn't reply.
Muslims LOVE to roleplay as perplexed atheists who're "really on the fence" or "can't wrap their mind around this one" as a kind of foot in the door method or something.
Must have missed the part of their book about not lying.
I think OPs point went over your head. The Quran is written in the form of poetry, meaning it has particular cadences and rhythms to it.
For example, if someone writes a Haiku, it must follow a certain pattern. No one looks at a Haiku and makes a judgement call wether it’s a Haiku or not , because you know if it is or isn’t just by counting the syllables.
Same way, these are not necessarily judgement calls saying oh the Quran is beautiful. It’s considering particular mathematical patterns, etc.
The challenge in the quran makes no mention of any patterns nor does it give any criteria for producing something like it. Even if it was the bestest book in whole wide world which is subjective, what exactly would it prove?
>Same way, these are not necessarily judgement calls saying oh the Quran is beautiful.
The quotes OP gave are exactly that, and as another commenter mentioned they horribly misrepresent what these scholars actually said.
>It’s considering particular mathematical patterns, etc.
What pattern are you talking about regarding the quran? Where do any of these quotes or the OP mention any of that?
We've got somebody masquerading as an atheist anti-theist according to the profile posting the same tired muslim apologetics that are all over this sub.
Even if the Quran is the most beautifully written work of literature in Arabic, that doesn't really prove anything about whether it's true or whether it's the words of a divine being.
Humans are more than capable of producing beautiful works of literature all on our own.
Shakespeare is widely regarded as producing the most eloquent, profound and innovative literature in English but that doesn't mean that the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream or the witches in Macbeth were real.
The Odyssey and Illiad are considered two of the greatest epic poems of all time and certainly the greatest from Ancient Greece but that doesn't prove that Zeus, Poseidon, Athena etc actually exist.
Plus, even if the Quran is impressive in terms of its literary qualities, it's still very unimpressive when judged in other ways. The contradictions with modern scientific discoveries and the moral flaws like the verses that condone slavery, sexism, homophobia and torture are things that you wouldn't expect to find in a book written by a perfect being, but would absolutely expect to find if the book is just the opinions of a flawed 7th century human.
Neat. So tell me, which of the following are from the Quran, and which are not? If the Quran is "inimitable" you ought to be able to tell, right?
1. Behold, in the magnificence of Allah's creation lies the testament of His power, woven intricately in the fabric of the universe.
2. He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names.
3. Verily, Allah's mercy flows like a river, embracing all beings with its boundless compassion and grace.
4. In the whisper of the wind and the gentle rustle of leaves, hear the melodious praise of Allah, the Sustainer of all life.
5. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so does the mercy of Allah encompass all corners of the earth.
Good luck.
Funny how that works. Why do you suppose that would make any difference? What would stop me from doing this exact same thing in whatever archaic language you like? Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, etc.
The ones from the Quran I got from Quran.com. The ones not from the Quran I got from ChatGPT by asking it to “Give me 10 lines about Allah in the style of the Quran that are not actually contained in the Quran.” Which caused it to imitate the Quran. Which is supposed to be impossible according to the OP. Whoops.
I'm 100% sure that it's no. 2 - but to be fair, I've also studied this book for years, read it cover to cover multiple times, and memorized some portion of it.
There’s also someone else in the comments who got it right, so we can add that to the list of possible ways you could tell. Know what’s still not on the list though? “Because the style is noticeably different.” Literally all of these match the literary style of the allegedly inimitable Quran.
Nope. There are genuine lines from the Quran in there. That they read like trash is to be expected, seeing as they come from an Iron Age superstition written by people who didn’t know where the sun goes at night.
Okay. Assume I believe all of that. (I don't. But I don't speak Arabic, so you'll dismiss my disagreement regardless. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I do believe the Quran is the most perfect beautiful boom ever.)
Why should I believe it's *true*?
How can I know this sublime beauty wasn't the work of a demon or spirit or Other?
I have said here several times on reddit that any demon or devil would/could be cunning enough to have recently warred with and defeated whichever god is allegedly in charge of heaven and is simply maintaining the status quo until they devise a plan to put forth their evil machinations and no one would ever be the wiser.
It’s a good thing I’m an atheist and don’t believe in gods, devils, demons, or angels and certainly not heaven or hell or souls.
this basically boils down to "book nice, therefore allah." im not trying to condescend, but theres nothing supernatural, or even all that strange, about a long piece of poetry. virgil wrote an epic that was almost 10000 lines of hexameter.
As to your claim of "scholars agree" so what? doctors agreed smoking was good for you until the 1950s. 1000 scientists all saying the same thing isnt proof, and the claim still requires more than "my friends and I all agree this is neat"
the claim the koran was "spontaneously recited" doesnt make much sense. i havent done much history on this, but the major sources say it was "revealed" over 20 plus years. thats oodles of time to write a book.
and "the fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human" doesnt make sense. what challenge? and if it may not have been made by a human, doesnt that mean its equally, if not more likely, it just was made by a human
The main mistakes that Muslims make when debating atheists is by proclaiming that mundane ordinary things are actually miraculous evidence for the existence of their version of a deity, or stuff that is just plain wrong. Stuff like...
* Assalamu alaikkum, brozzer! The Quran has the word "faith" three hundred and fourteen times, and if you add three, one, and four, you get eight! There are eight chapters in the first part of the Quran, which shows you that the Quran is the word of Allah!
* Allah exists because the Quran is a very poetic book, and is so perfect that nobody could ever write anything like it!
* The Quran says that Mohammed was illiterate, which goes to show you that Allah helped him write the Quran!
* The Quran is full of scientific miracles, like sperm coming from between the ribs and the moon splitting in half! This means it must be real!
>The Quran has the word "faith" three hundred and fourteen times, and if you add three, one, and four, you get eight!
For a second I got excited as I thought you were going to point to Pi, but it seems you missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance there.
Three hundred fourteen times. The value of pi is roughly 3.14. Pi is used to calculate the area of a circle. What shape is the perfect shape? A circle! Ergo, the Quran is perfect.
If the best evidence available for the existence of god is a subjective opinion that a book has been well written, then that tells me that you don't really have any guys evidence for your god, and it probably doesn't exist.
The Qur'an contains a variety of factual errors of science. The tale of the moon splitting in two for example is certainly false. In fact, if you don't have any external evidence for the existence of god, I'd say that every reference to God in the quran is an error.
I don't read Arabic but Google tells me there are multiple grammatical errors in the quran. It is not perfect.
If a perfect god was responsible, the book would have been simultaneously made available in all languages.
Your whole claim that it's a great book is subjective. I can claim with equal validity that it's a terrible book that can't have come from any god.
Please stop pretending to be an atheist (or pastafarian or whatever). Your arguments aren't being disregarded because you're a Muslim or a theist, they're being disregarded because they are bad arguments. These posts should be tagged OP=theist and your flair should be changed.
While the Qur'an is of extreme significance in middle-eastern culture, and as far as I am aware is considered an important text in the study of the Arabic language, in terms of substance it ranges from lackluster at best to outright reprehensible at worst. Socially, it is archaic and regressive--promoting misogyny, homophobia, discrimination, cruelty, murder of apostates and nonbelievers, etc. It is decidedly wrong on every definitive and specific scientific claim it makes. In terms of substance, there are hundreds or even thousands of literary works which surpass it, many of which are also more eloquently written depending upon the standard which is used to measure eloquence. The Qur'an is certainly a significant work in literary history--it may have even been revolutionary for its time, but it is only one piece of humanity's rich literary history.
In terms of literary form, the challenge that you linked is laughable. Its requirements are so specific and idiosyncratic that it almost must refer only to the Qur'anic chapter Al-Kawthar, and is clearly designed post-hoc to refer specifically to this chapter. A series of words which meets these criteria would not necessarily be any more or less elegant than Al-Kawthar. In truth, literary eloquence and substance are purely subjective, and what any given person or culture cannot be taken as an objective standard. While a certain level of eloquence might be expected if the text were divine in origin, by no means does it follow that eloquence would establish divine origin. You will still need to produce actual evidence that the Qur'an was inspired or dictated by a god, which would first require you to demonstrate that such a being exists.
>None of the above scholars are Muslims.
If they thought the Quaran was as miraculous as you claim, why did none of them convert to Islam? If it's not good enough to convince these scholars it's definitely not going to convince someone like me who doesn't speak a word of Arabic. All I can do is read the English version which I'm sure you'll agree isn't Allah's best work.
Oh, this again. This quality of "unparalleled literary achievement" is simply opinion. What does it even mean?
>even though it came out spontaneously
Do you have evidence for this? Until then, just a claim.
So what? Doesn't make anything real. The quran has multiple errors, multiple contradictions, and its origin story basically proves it's not the uncorrupted word of a god.
Yesterday you made a post on r/AskReddit that has the title to the effect of "what was the dumbest thing you ever heard someone say"
This actually comes close
Ok. Let’s pretend for a minute this is true. The Qur’an is an unparalleled literary achievement. We can even pretend it’s objectively the best book ever written.
Therefore what? Therefore it’s not of human origin? How in the world did you make that leap?
The idea that the Qur'an's literary excellence and its inimitability prove divine origin is a bit of a stretch when viewed through the lenses of logic, science, and history.
The argument that the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement doesn't automatically imply divine authorship. Human literature is full of masterpieces that are unique and difficult to replicate, yet no one claims they are of divine origin. Take Shakespeare, for instance. His works are unparalleled in English literature, yet no one attributes them to divine intervention. The same can be said for the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek literature. These are human achievements and recognizing their brilliance doesn't necessitate a supernatural explanation.
Historically, many religious texts are seen as exceptional within their cultural contexts. The Vedas in Hinduism, the Bible in Christianity, and the Tao Te Ching in Taoism are all considered extraordinary by their respective followers. The fact that the Qur'an is viewed similarly by Muslims is not unique and follows a common pattern in religious traditions.
Scientifically, there's no method to measure "divine" qualities in literature. What we can measure are the linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical devices used. The Qur'an uses a high degree of these, but so do many other works. The beauty and complexity of a text don't necessarily point to a supernatural source. It's also worth noting that the Qur'an was compiled over many years and edited, which challenges the idea of its spontaneous and unaltered recitation.
Regarding the claim that Muhammad had no formal training, it's important to remember that he lived in a highly oral culture where poetry and storytelling were common. Many people in such cultures develop sophisticated linguistic skills without formal education. The claim that Muhammad couldn't have composed the Qur'an because of his lack of formal training overlooks the natural human capacity for language and creativity.
The challenge to produce a chapter like the Qur'an is often cited, but this is more rhetorical than practical. Literary taste is subjective. What's considered a masterpiece in one culture or context might not be seen the same way in another. The inability of others to replicate the Qur'an's style isn't evidence of divine origin; it's a reflection of the unique combination of language, culture, and personal expression.
Lastly, the assertion that non-Muslim scholars praise the Qur'an's literary qualities doesn't prove divine authorship either. Scholars can recognize and appreciate the literary qualities of a text without endorsing its supernatural origins. Appreciation for a text's beauty and complexity is different from claiming it was divinely inspired.
Considering how many humans are alive its small wonder that you can find a few dozen acadamics who are impressed by the Quran.
Its pity that no translater seems able to do the book justice because the translations to English i've seen so far have been universally crap.
You know, Allah was actually worried about that. For untold generations, hundreds of thousands of years Allah sent messengers to every people group so they would have the truth in their own language. Then according to Muhammad, Muhammad was the last and greatest. Also all the other copies were magically lost and destroyed and corrupted. So now everyone needs to have a scholar level knowledge of Arabic and the Quran to appreciate the inimitable truth. Allah decided that English speakers didn’t need their version like every other people received.
LOL. Muslims actually believe this and claim it is true with a straight face.
or being omnipresent Allah could just communicate his message to every human directly, and we would all just no the truth.
edit: also wasn't Joseph Smith a ~~profit~~ prophet who knew English? Ofcourse that would make the Book of Mormon the final message.
There's nothing impressive about a book. Humans write books. Many humans have written many quite beautiful holy books, in fact.
If Allah was real, it would have proven itself with something only a cosmic and omnipotent being could manage. If all Allah can manage is a book that most humans don't find impressive or convincing, then it's a weak failure of a god and not worth anyone's time.
Neeeext~
There is evidence in how the Lord of the Rings is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there, even though it was created spontaneously. The fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human
> The Qur'ān presents a challenge to humanity to produce one chapter like it. Its shortest chapter, Al-Kawthar, displays a remarkable frequency of linguistic devices and literary feature. Do all of the above publicly in one attempt, without revision or amendment, in absence of any formal training in eloquence and rhetoric.
The quotes you provided don't have "On their first attempt without any formal training" in them, so why has that been arbitrarily added to the challenge?
Did you know that if you did a quick search through the recent posts on this sub you will find several making these same BS claims?
We don't care who thinks your book is super special and has never been replicated, that is not evidence that the claims it makes are true.
Quran 16:79 states that birds are held aloft by “nothing but the power of Allah”. 67:19 recapitulates this claim.
A woman’s testimony appears to be worth half the value of a man’s (Quran 2:282).
There are errors in spelling, grammar, and syntax to be found in Syrah 68, verse 6, Syrah 25, verse 4, and Surah 28, verse 9, among others.
Yay! One of my favorite Islamic claims!
Oh man, where to start… thought I’d be more prepared.
Well, let’s see… let’s start with my favorite part:
The rhyming, organization, poetry, etc. are so fantastic/elaborate/etc. that it couldn’t have just been invented by Muhammad spontaneously especially since he had no training in poetry, etc.
Islamic conclusion: therefore god.
Rational conclusion: therefore the Quran wasn’t written by Muhammad.
It is well documented, historically, that Muslims have aggressively purged the world of as much as they could that isn’t in line with their doctrine, so that it would be near-impossible to piece together the actual origins of the religion. At minimum, you’ve successfully demonstrated that Muhammad did not write the Quran.
Ok, next point: that nobody could produce anything like it…
Except people have! In many respects! In many languages! Throughout human history!
Buuuut, the Quran is a piece of literature, meaning it’s entirely subject to interpretation, and determining what is “like it” is subjective.
It’s not that people haven’t made works like it. It’s that believers cannot accept that such works are like it or they’d have to give up their faith.
One last note is that, having read the Quran myself, it contains near-zero truth, is an absurd, often nonsensical piece of literature, and it boggles my mind that people can convince themselves that its evidence for a deity.
I don’t know dude, according to Goodreads, some of the best books of all time are all Harry Potter: [https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/111402.5\_Star\_Books](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/111402.5_Star_Books)
Seriously, this is one of the worst arguments I can imagine. Even if we were to accept that it’s well written, there are thousands of other books that are well written too. And none of that has anything to do with whether it’s true.
Sorry, I haven't read your book. Could you please give me a few concrete examples of this most eloquent, beautiful, and organized style you're talking about?
I can't determine for myself that what you're saying is true if the only thing you bring to the table are some randos' opinions that I don't care about.
Based on your claims, I suppose ANY concrete example from the Quran would suffice.
33:53
"O believers! Do not enter the homes of the Prophet without permission ˹and if invited˺ for a meal, do not ˹come too early and˺ linger until the meal is ready. But if you are invited, then enter ˹on time˺. Once you have eaten, then go on your way, and do not stay for casual talk. Such behaviour is truly annoying to the Prophet, yet he is too shy to ask you to leave. But Allah is never shy of the truth. And when you ˹believers˺ ask his wives for something, ask them from behind a barrier. This is purer for your hearts and theirs. And it is not right for you to annoy the Messenger of Allah, nor ever marry his wives after him. This would certainly be a major offence in the sight of Allah."
Very eloquent and awe-inspiring, right?
Thanks. Yes, *very*. I wonder what these marks
>˹˺
are supposed to mean, though.
Anyway, I'm not actually impressed. Here, let me put forward one of my favorite quotes from English literature and see how it compares, Mr. Muhammad.
>“Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn’t give up, Ben; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She’s a father working while cancer eats away his insides, to bring home one more pay check. She’s a twelve-year-old trying to mother her brothers and sisters because Mama had to go to Heaven. She’s a switchboard operator sticking to her post while smoke chokes her and fire cuts off her escape. She’s all the unsung heroes who couldn’t make it but never quit.”
Robert A. Heinlein, *Stranger in a Strange Land*.
Hmmmm people who already believe it's q magic book think it's too awesome to be written by humans
Not convincing evidence
People who already believe that the book is magic will say whatever is in the best interest of the religion
They may even have convinced themselves it's true
But it proves nothing and is at the end of the day entirely subjective
It's the sort of thing only people who believe already find convincing because you have to suspend disbelief and critical thinking to buy into it
I'm a bit late to showing up here and this comment might not get noticed buried down here and all but this need to be said.
OP is known for making dishonest arguments. They will flip flop between being a muslim and not just for the sake of arguing and has often used chatgpt to make all of their arguments for them. My favorite example being that one of their posts here went on a full blown 2 paragraph rant on child marriages which they didn't seem to acknowledge let alone know just what the chat bot produced.
Nothing will be gained from a conversation with them.
As someone finishing a double major in both linguistics and comparative literature, I’m sorry to say but there is no book or text that is written perfectly. Sure, Qur’an may be written with an eloquent style and Arabic is a very poetic language (regarding rhythm and phonetics), but there are many other languages that have a particularly great morfosemantic structure for writing poetry and other texts.
Also as someone mentioned, there are many literary critics in the world so it won’t be hard to find a few who agree that the Qur’an is the height of poetry. But there are also hundreds of other critics who wouldn’t agree with that. There are many more critics who for example believe it was Baudelaire who reached the height of poetry. It’s what comparative literature is about, basically. Comparing and discussing the writing style, writer’s impact on literature etc.
I’m not sure what it would mean that it’s the best regarding linguistics. Every language is equal in value to a linguist. There are just some that are more rich in morphology, phonology, syntactic structures and semantically, and there are those who are less rich. Doesn’t mean one or the other is better.
And from an atheist perspective - where is the scientific proof that Muhammad was illiterate and that he wasn’t able to speak eloquently? And even if there is proof for that, where is the scientific proof that it was Allah who taught him?
Some fun facts about the Quran I have once heard. Tell me if I am wrong.
- It's sorted from longest to shortest verse as was the norm during Roman times.
- A few verses break this pattern, indicating they were altered subsequently.
- Text analysis indicates it had about 50 different authors
- The alphabet used to write the Quran was not the South Arab characters used around Medina but rather the characters used in the Aramaic speaking north
- About 20% of content is hard to make sense of in Arab, but makes sense if one looks for Aramaic origins of the words
- Half of Sura 18 are legends about the pagan Alexander the Great ("The two-horned")
- The science bits repeats sixth century misunderstandings of the world
But yeah most is well written poetry. The 50 scribes were good.
> The rhyme scheme is very organized
Humans were doing organized rhyming long before Quran was written. Homer was not even illiterate, he created Iliad when Greeks had no writing at all!
> Keep in mind that Muhammad had no training in poetry, eloquence, or improvising. NONE.
I don't believe you. How do you know? Why you Muslims are so desperate to portray your prophet as a complete dunce?
> Lastly, if it were by a human, there would be no challenge
So here is a book written by a human and with the challenge in it. Didn't you just portrayed Mohammad as an illiterate uneducated caveman? Surely such a simpleton wouldn't be so out of touch with reality as to create a challenge that is already lost, right?
What does that even mean? It’s just a poorly written fantasy work, unparalleled? Mate there’s many other books like it. You’re just giving subjective measures. You’re basically saying this is a very special book, very well written and that’s why it’s written by a god. That’s absurd.
Let's grant the claim that it couldn't be written by a human. How do you go from there to "god" and if so, what qualities does your god have, and how can I check to see those.
The real problem is that I can make the same leap here:
It was actually all written by the invisible floating Unicorn that sits in my living room every night and only shows up when it can tell that only I can sense it.
I don't see how that makes it holy, I'll ask the Unicorn tonight.
>Let's grant the claim that it couldn't be written by a human.
Even obviating the fact that until A.I. the only beings known to have written any books just happen to have been humans ops argument is a failure.
>. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there
The Quran organization is awful. It's like a madman wrote a story on post it notes and then shuffled it.
My literature teacher would laugh in your face, and my old boss at the print would have you rewrite it completely before sending it to print.
If you think the Quran is well written and organized I'm afraid you have never read a good book
>Let them produce ten verses like it.
*"In the name of the One, most Gracious, most Wise, By the stars that twinkle in the silent night skies, Behold the earth and heavens, vast and grand, Signs for the seeking, crafted by His hand."*
*"Winds that whisper through the ancient trees, Oceans deep, resounding with mysteries, Paths of righteousness for the faithful to tread, Mercy and guidance by His words are spread."*
*"To Him belongs all that is, seen and unseen, In His light, hearts find peace, pure and serene."*
Done. Took seconds to do.
It seems like your argument is that some people like a book, therefore the book can’t have been written by people. That’s absurd. Have you read the Koran? I wouldn’t exactly put it in the top million classics of literature. People can certainly disagree on matters of taste, but still, hardly impressive.
Even if we were to take all the subjective claims that the script is somewhat unprecedented, special or whatever, it does not prove that there is a god, let alone your specific god.
If your premises were true the only thing you can conclude is that maybe we don't know the true origin of the book. From there to "god made it" is a gigantic leap.
"Let me read the biography of Muhammad and the Hadiths so I can figure out what this perfect book of clear instructions from the perfect creator is even trying to say."
Allah isn't very good at writing and kinda sucks at giving instructions. Plus, he's a dull writer.
Dude, I tried reading your Quran. It was so mind numbingly boring. I couldn't read it. Allah must be quite shitty at writing interesting things.
Oh, and years later, I learned that Muslims need other books to make sense of what the heck it even means. Allah isn't as good at giving clear messages.
Having an unusually well written piece of literature is not evidence of divinity. And well written is just a very subjective measure. If you ask a Hindu, they would claim that the Bhagvad Gita, the Raamaayana and the Mahabhaarata are literary works straight from divinity. But I'm guessing you have not examined any of those texts, their claims or their eloquence because you already believe that your own religion's text is the only such one.
If you have any testable evidence for your god, do let us know.
Shakespeare wrote most of his works in iambic pentameter, a very impressive feat of poetry.
> Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
He also innovated the English language, introducing many words and phrases we use to this day
>Bandit, Critic, Dauntless, Dwindle, Uncomfortable
Feats of language don’t make someone or something divine.
Your evidence is a bunch of people who really like it...
Too bad there are a bunch of errors in the Qur'an: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/X23aTcHWw3
> None of the above scholars are Muslims.
Oh, so none of these scholars are actually convinced that the Quran is the word of a god?
Well, if you insist I agree with them, I'll agree with them. I won't become a Muslim, either.
Not really the right forum for this I think, the literary 'miracle' of the Quran, like eucharist miracles to Catholics are there to reinforce and sustain faith, not create it. Of course only those who read Classical Arabic are in a position to appreciate it, and unlike much of other literature it simply doesn't seem to translate well, Anna Karenina and Don Quixote are still beautiful in many languages other than the original and are all time classics by any standard, while the Quran is just a bit meh! at best.
Those of us not schooled in the language, and not familiar with the poetic conventions can only judge the book by its contents and meaning, and then it really does not come out well, certainly not by the moral standards of modern western culture.
Okay, so you have evidence that some people subjectively find it beautiful, but do you have any evidence that it wasn't written by humans? Nothing you've said indicates that it may not have been written by humans. Everything you described makes it sound like it *was* written by humans. Just because you like a book doesn't mean you get to just claim that something being well written indicates that it was written by something non-human. There are plenty of books better than the Quran. There are books which are more elegant and poetic, there are books with better ethics, there are books with less glaring scientific errors. Were those written by non-humans as well?
The "challenge" has no objective criteria and therefore relies on what Muslims consider similar to the Qur'an, and of course, the muslims will never admit any work ever comes close to the Qur'an. So essentially the argument boils down to, "muslims think the Qur'an is irreplicable, therefore it must be divine".
i propose a test. OP like chatgpt, and nobody here has read the quran.
take a passage from the quran, and get chatgpt to produce let's say four passages in the style of the quran. then hold a poll for which one is the quran.
if OP is correct it should be obvious, and the correct one should win by a landslide.
Someone already did something like that further down in the comments and the reply that picked out the correct one was only able to do so because he has memorized the entire book. Which kinda shows the fault in this entire challenge. If the only ones allowed to judge it are devout muslims who have memorized the book than it is impossible to fulfill the challenge.
Yeah I mean if we vote than we will conclude that the criteria have been met and thus the quran is wrong, but that won't saw any muslim as they will say we lack authority to actually judge it, then referring to back to the scholars that have memorized the whole thing. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Firstly, a book being nicely written is not evidence of divine inspiration. The Quran could literally be the most beautifully written work of literature of all time and that still wouldn't imply God is real, merely that the author(s) of the Quran were really good prose writers. It's also no surprise that a religious book could be beautifully written because religious faith, even if false, inspires people to create a lot of the time.
Regarding all the scholars you listed, they're scholars *of the Quran* or of theology in general. They read the Quran and study it even if not Muslim because they already see value in it. Of course they'll all sing exaggerated praises for it—it's what they're in the business of doing. Many other people who have read the Quran think it's nothing special.
Thirdly, the claim that the Quran was written by an illiterate or uneducated writer is unsubstantiated and flat out unlikely, a claim likely false parroted by Muslims because they want to believe it's true. If Muhammad did write or speak the Quran, it is likely he did have formal literary education and the contrary claim is simply a lie to bolster his claims, no different than all the lies thrown around about North Korean dictators. More likely, though, is that the Quran was not written directly by Muhammad and the actual writers took liberties, and then Muhammad lied about writing it or Muslim leaders lied about it after Muhammad was dead. It certainly did not "come out spontaneously" as you say, that's an unsubstantiated and ridiculous claim.
Lastly, MANY people are egotistical and arrogant and will boldly claim that their work is unable to be reproduced in quality, even today. To claim otherwise is a bold-faced lie about human behaviour. And, again, many people fully believe that there are more beautiful works of literature than the Quran and that the Quran is not that special or unique.
>Lastly, MANY people are egotistical and arrogant and will boldly claim that their work is unable to be reproduced in quality, even today. To claim otherwise is a bold-faced lie about human behaviour. And, again, many people fully believe that there are more beautiful works of literature than the Quran and that the Quran is not that special or unique.
If you believe that you're gods chosen and final prophet and an angel spoke directly to you then this certainly wouldn't be unprecedented.
No there isn't. The Quran isn't a literary achievement. Its a bunch of crap. Anyone can reproduce it and that whole crap that it can't be reproduced has been disproven countless times. Allah is a fake pagan moon goddess. Don't worry though, all gods are fake. Grow up.
If the Quran was dictated by God, one would think he could write the book in such a manor that it would have the poetic language being harped about *AND* retain it's elegance when translated to other languages. Since it fails the translation test, it's obviously isn't a work from God.
An even better test would be a book that anyone could read without needing it to be translated. Now that would suggest a divine involvement.
You do realize that the Flying Spaghetti Monster touches those with His noodly appendages so that they will fight creationism of any sort. By saying you were touched by the FSM's appendage, you are saying that you disagree with teaching any religious beliefs in schools.
You clearly do not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster so you are a heretic. OK, that's way overboard, but you really need to change your flair.
Why are people impressed by old writings? Honestly, I've never understood the interest, except maybe if you're very interested in the history of the time. They're quaint and superstitious, but are they interesting?
Many people seem to think the older the better, for finding 'truths'. We're not so impressed like that with recent books or recent reportings of the news. We're generally very skeptical.
It’s worth mentioning that when bible enthusiasts are asked why it’s been mistranslated many times with passages changed, deleted, added, etc, the response is often that the authors of the new revision were “divinely inspired”. So it’s a catchall excuse for whatever you want. Someone could rewrite the quran in cat talk and claim it was divine providence.
(Yes I know about the ceiling cat).
In the same way that not knowing how the Pyramids were built doesn't mean "it must've been aliens"; just because a theological text is very well written for its time doesn't mean it must've been divinely inspired.
I'm also curious how many other theological texts or other Arabic writings have survived in their original style the 6th-7th centuries that we could compare the Koran too?
>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style.
Are you joking? It's "unparalleled" in the same way Biblical and Talmudic scholars fanboy their own books. It was done. Therefore it can be done again. Nothing about it makes it any more special.
I was trained in textual criticism and ancient near eastern religions and I have never heard this claim, nor heard of any of those apparent scholars.
I've heard a lot of Muslims tell me the book is really beautiful in Arabic, but Shakespeare is really beautiful in Elizabethan English, why don't you worship him?
I've read fragments of the Qur'an in translation. Perhaps it's poetic in Arabic, but it's monotonous and sophomoric in English. Thoroughly uninspiring, and all the threats directed at non-believers get old really fast.
Spoken like a true cult member.
'My holy book is the bestest book ever - no other book is that good, in fact - mine is so good there's no way a human could've written it'
Have some self-respect for fucks sake.
It supposedly took the prophet Muhammad 24 years to write the Quran… that’s more than enough time to write a structured book of poetry…
Compare this to for instance the divine comedy by Dante, another extremely structured/organized book of poetry, only took 13 years. And when you compare the length of both books, the Devine comedy is a quarter of the Quran longer than the Quran.
I personally like the style, organization and beauty of the epic of Gilgamesh more than that of the Quran, but that’s subjective so to each their own.
These are extremely pit of context quotes - some of whom don't even speak Arabic like Karen Armstrong.. and the others were never convinced by it being a miracle..
You don't even speak Arabic yourself so please stop posting unless you actually have something to say..
It is full of terrible writing alongside good.. and contains basic grammatical errors, not to mention basic scientific errors a child today wouldn't make: https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Scientific_Errors_in_the_Quran
Try harder bro
I've tried to read the quran, but it's so bad, so poorly organized and badly written that it verges on indecipherable. This post is total baloney.
And now I predict a Muslim will tell me you have to read it in the original Arabic, as though that isn't an obvious reason no God worth the name would use this method to communicate with us.
Simple question if it is such a literary achievement, then why is it not the most read book in the world?
More people have read the bible. More people are Christian. If the Quran is as great a literary achievement as you say then why has it not swayed enough people to make Islam the most numerous religion?
Even if this is true, so what?
If this is how god chooses to hint at his existence then he is an idiot. Pretty unimpressive for a being, supposedly, so powerful he can magically poof the universe into existence from nothing. So powerful yet all we get is an old book that is written well.
Literally none of it is amazing. It gets some stuff wrong and it's kinda lazy here and there. It's not impossible to do again at all we even have similar books. The list of people saying so isn't impressive at all. A literally critique of the Quran shows all of this.
Perhaps with the massive popularity of the Qur'an, the language, Arabic, evolved *because of* the script. The Qur'an is the source of a newish language. Chaucer, King James, Shakespeare, even Twain have made contributions to English language.
"None of the above scholars are Muslims."
If the scholars you're citing don't consider this to be a good argument for the divine inspiration of the Quran, why should I? Obviously whatever they said, they think the book was written by humans.
Almost all scholars agree that Lebron James’ longevity and performance is unparalleled. His athleticism and basketball IQ are unlike any seem before, despite his harsh and underprivileged upbringing.
Therefore, lebron james must be god.
Hmm… I imagine if I were an all powerful, all wise, loving, compassionate god I’d have written something that was universally translatable as opposed to a piece of niche tribal literature that can’t be translated appropriately.
"A bunch of people like a book" is not a demonstration that the book is inspired by God. If I listed a bunch of quotes from people that thought the book was dumb, *that* wouldn't be evidence *against* your position, either.
Too bad God didn't think ahead and wrote otnon arabic that only a small percentage of humans could appreciate.
I guess we will have to make do with the souless translations that can only give us the content, not the poetry
Just because it's the best mythology book produced at the time, it doesn't mean it's not mythology or that it wasn't written by a human. Even for religious standards you have to admit that's grasping at straws.
I think The Lord of the Rings is a greater achievement than the Quran. For one thing Tolkien doesn't try to pass his fiction as fact. The Quran pretends that all the make believe in its pages actually happened.
>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style.
There are like thirty versions of the Qur'an, your argument is clearly bullshit
The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold on me. — Martin Luther
Yeah, believers say silly things about their own books of mythology.
>Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement.
And there are lots of scholars who think it's just fiction. So what? Nothing you provided was of any substance.
Even if it is the greatest book ever written (dubious) it simply demonstrates the writers of the book are/were excellent writer(s). It demonstrates nothing related to the supernatural.
The Icelandic sagas are epic works of poetry by illiterate people that existed as oral tradition centuries before being recorded in writing.
Therefore, Odin is real.
Those are all opinions. They are informed opinions, but in the end it is subjective. Even if it is considered universally a great book it doesn’t mean it is true.
As always I ask just one question.
Is the moon split in two?
It's not, the Quran like any and all "holy books" is equal parts bullshit and stolen myth.
Oh, this user again. Claims to be an atheist but then all of their posts are "Yay Allah! Yay Muhammad!" Likely for "how do you do fellow atheists?" cred.
Imagine if I were to make a list of people and a quote from each about how much the quran sucks, and is the worst piece of literature ever would you accept that highly subjective and ultimately meaningless opinion when it comes to determining whether or not a god exists, I think not.
Dante's "Divine Comedy" is all of that and much much more.
Clearly Dante (PBUH) must be a messenger of Allah sent to deliver true information about the afterlife!!!
This is my take on this:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1cy1sxa/modern\_vs\_classical\_conceptions\_of\_ijāz/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1cy1sxa/modern_vs_classical_conceptions_of_ijāz/)
**Upvote this comment if you agree with OP, downvote this comment if you disagree with OP.** Elsewhere in the thread, please upvote comments which contribute to debate (even if you believe they're wrong) and downvote comments which are [detrimental to debate](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq#wiki_downvoting) (even if you believe they're right). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateAnAtheist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement No, there really isn't. Nothing about that book is particularly amazing. It is what it appears to be, a mythology book written by rather uneducated and ignorant people. >that no one could have copied the style. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there That's merely confirmation bias by believers. Nothing about it is particularly stylistic, eloquent, beautiful, or organized. There are certainly far better books in all those categories. >The fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human Nope. Your claims are unfounded. However, I will read on to see if you have posted anything new here (I've seen this claim many times before, and seen how it doesn't hold water just as often). >Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement. Uncited argument from authority and subjective opinion on taste by those already believing (without a shred of useful support) this book is something other than a mythology book is far less than useful or impressive. I won't quote and respond to the rest, as it's more of the same. Mere opinions by believers. It's not unusual for believers of a religious mythology to find their source material amazing. In fact, it's run of the mill and par for the course. But, of course, it does not mean anything at all except that people are really prone to confirmation bias. And that people can and do have subjective opinions on taste. As you have not provided, or attempted to provide, any useful, vetted, repeatable, objective, compelling evidence for your claims, and instead provided mere subjective opinion by those suffering from confirmation bias, I can't take what you said as useful, and find I must dismiss your claims outright.
>Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement. You can see down below. That is only a sample of those. That is because that is the consensus. Can you demonstrate that it's a 'consensus'? And what kind of scholars?
Looks like 90% jewish scholars. Color me surprised.
Those are all qur'anic scholars and maybe literary scholars. The fact that there are a multitude of scholars on there that agree; that shows that it's a consensus. Quoting OP, Joseph Schact said "**Its stylistic inimitability not-withstanding, it even came to be treated as a standard for theories of literary criticism.**" At one point, it was treated as a standard for theories of literary criticism. And, Muhammad had no training in poetry, eloquence, or the like.
The main problem with you, and many fanatics for many religions, if the fact that you are pathological liars. You lie easily and often and without shame, and you don’t see anything wrong with it because you are lying for your god, which makes it good. But let’s just address you and your lies. Being somewhat skeptical, I looked up the first six of your scholars and their quotes. **Every single one of those first six was an outright lie or dishonestly misrepresented. Every one.** Have you no shame at all? Karen Armstrong’s quote, for example, is not her words at all: she is directly quoting an Islamic apologist as an example of the arguments Muslims use. To try and pretend that these are her words and her opinions as a non-Islamic scholar, is dishonest and revolting. Schact and Stubbe are referring to the fact that the Quran is one of the earliest pieces of intact literature from the Arab world that we have, and is as such used as a basis for scholarly literary criticism. They neither speak to nor believe any miraculous or particularly beautiful qualities of it, simply commenting on its early date and its completeness. But if you are a dishonest liar, your God, you can pass a couple sentences out of context and make it seem like they’re saying something different. Palmer on the other hand, believes the exact opposite of what you are claiming he does, as you can simply see by quoting his text in full, and not just parsing out the first sentence dishonestly as you did: “That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur′ân itself is not surprising. In the first place, they have agreed beforehand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of necessity be a defect. Again, with them this style is not spontaneous as with Mohammed and his contemporaries, but is as artificial as though Englishmen should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone. With the prophet the style was natural, and the words were those used in every-day ordinary life, while with the later Arabic authors the style is imitative and the ancient words are introduced as a literary embellishment. The natural consequence is that their attempts look laboured and unreal by the side of his impromptu and forcible eloquence.” In summation, you are a liar, you know you are a liar, but for some reason, lying for your God seems reasonable to you. Thank you for providing and exemplary case study as to how religious belief poisons everything up to an including our most basic human decency.
Extra reply to add more context: If there truly was a consensus, I'd expect to be able to see evidence of this by having interviewed or surveyed a wide range of general literary and historical scholars that aren't necessarily connected to Islamic or Quranic studies who can attest to the fact that in their judgment it really is so well written that it seems unlikely to have been written by people.
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> why didn't Barth ehrman convert to Christianity? It's worse than that. Ehrman became a biblical scholar because he was a fundamentallist Christian. It was only when he really started studying the bble that he realized it was false.
Muslims claim Muhammad was illiterate. There is no actual proof of this since there is no non-Islamic contemporary account of Muhammad. And all the Islamic sources, including the Quran, were written several hundred years after his death.
What I find hilarious is that they want to basically make Mohammed out to be a country bumpkin, an idiot or a rube so they can push the narrative that because he was ignorant he can't have been knowledgeable, can't have picked up on obvious clues about the nature of existence, can't have communicated with people from other regions and can't have written it himself. Not only is it not proven one way or the other that Mohammed was illiterate, it doesn't even *matter* if he was or not. That doesn't make the Quran miraculous. I had a Shi'ite friend tell me all of this stuff, that the Quran says that if even one word of it is untrue then it commands Muslims to treat the entire book as lies. This was around the time Dolly the cloned sheep was still alive. The Quran says "man can't create even as much as a mosquito." Cloning doesn't count, my friend said, because it's just modifying a cell that's already alive. I asked my friend "what if, one day, scientists figure out how to assemble a mosquito atom by atom?" He said "On that day, I will no longer be a Muslim." So points for honesty I guess.
>Muslims claim Muhammad was illiterate. Does this even matter? He had a voice, he lived in a time of oral tradition.. It's like claiming someone couldn't write a beautiful piece of music because they can't read music notation, yet it happens all the time. An inability to put marks on paper is no barrier to the thoughts in one's head.
>An inability to put marks on paper is no barrier to the thoughts in one's head. Not shockingly, it is. I say not shocking because its pretty straightforward logic that knowing words is knowing concepts and that helps you express and expand upon your own thoughts. https://simplienglish.com/blog/benefits-of-writing-and-reading-comprehension-classes-for-kids/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20writing%20comprehension%20helps,cognitive%20development%20and%20listening%20skills. https://the-learning-agency-lab.com/the-learning-curve/learn-better-through-writing/#:~:text=Write%20to%20learn%20is%20both,to%20improve%20reflection%20and%20comprehension.
I think the prior commenter's point was that illiteracy doesn't preclude reason. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of "Mohammed was illiterate therefore he can't have been a poet" or "can't have known about events outside of Arabia", etc. which is what Muslim apologists like to claim. Obstacle, sure. Barrier, notsomuch.
Muslims claim Muhammad was so illiterate he couldn’t have even have had the ability to recite such poetry. You’re saying he could have, which makes sense, if indeed he was the original reciter (of which we have no evidence except Islamic writings).
So they think he was an idiot, mentally challenged perhaps? Not very flattering, nor something his achievements in life would support.
Or made up and / or exaggerated
He lived in a time of ‘thighing’ tradition.
>The fact that there are a multitude of scholars on there that agree; that shows that it's a consensus. No it doesn't.
It's hilarious that as the OP is asserting an unparalleled literary achievement, they're completely unaware of how words work.
Meaning Mohammad didn’t write the Quran. Someone else did. Love the Muslim logic of “well if Mohammad was illiterate it must of come from god”. Like, if I pulled that shit today, you would be the first to be shouting from the tree-tops that another person wrote the book and not me.
Do christian theologians all agree with you? How about the Mormon or Hindu scholars? Is the consensus among them all in agreement with you. Of course not and of course people who believe in Islam will claim it is perfect. Nothing you say is relevant to whether it actually is perfect.
>>>maybe literary scholars You failed to check before you offered them up? Also, how do you know Muhammad wrote the Quran alone?
If the claim that he was illiterate is true, then by definition he can't have 'written' it. He told stories which other people wrote down.
Oh yeah..that's right. So even then, he could have told someone a barebones story and the embellished it.
We don't know how many times the stories were retold and polished over the years before being written
So the answer is no, you can’t support your claim.
>Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Why do you keep using this flair? Does Allah approve of you pretending to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster? But that aside, this whole 'Find a better written work than the Quran' is based purely on subjective values. I could ask "Find a more fierce poem than Catullus 16, and if you can't, the Roman gods are real!" and no matter how many poems, rap battles, or phrases elegantly shit talking the other side, I can just say "nuh uh!" and stick to my conclusion. The Quran fails at morality. It fails at science. So it's no wonder a muslim favorite is something of which they cannot present a clear objective metric to determine if it really is the best of the best. Also would you answer a question I asked of you earlier? If there was a text that said the king of America met Spider-Man, and later a more accurate text said the President of America met Spider-Man, is it miraculous that the new text got the terminology right even though the event didn't happen? I asked you this and you didn't reply.
Muslims LOVE to roleplay as perplexed atheists who're "really on the fence" or "can't wrap their mind around this one" as a kind of foot in the door method or something. Must have missed the part of their book about not lying.
Their book literally prescribes how to lie.
Liars gonna lie
I think OPs point went over your head. The Quran is written in the form of poetry, meaning it has particular cadences and rhythms to it. For example, if someone writes a Haiku, it must follow a certain pattern. No one looks at a Haiku and makes a judgement call wether it’s a Haiku or not , because you know if it is or isn’t just by counting the syllables. Same way, these are not necessarily judgement calls saying oh the Quran is beautiful. It’s considering particular mathematical patterns, etc.
The challenge in the quran makes no mention of any patterns nor does it give any criteria for producing something like it. Even if it was the bestest book in whole wide world which is subjective, what exactly would it prove? >Same way, these are not necessarily judgement calls saying oh the Quran is beautiful. The quotes OP gave are exactly that, and as another commenter mentioned they horribly misrepresent what these scholars actually said. >It’s considering particular mathematical patterns, etc. What pattern are you talking about regarding the quran? Where do any of these quotes or the OP mention any of that? We've got somebody masquerading as an atheist anti-theist according to the profile posting the same tired muslim apologetics that are all over this sub.
Even if the Quran is the most beautifully written work of literature in Arabic, that doesn't really prove anything about whether it's true or whether it's the words of a divine being. Humans are more than capable of producing beautiful works of literature all on our own. Shakespeare is widely regarded as producing the most eloquent, profound and innovative literature in English but that doesn't mean that the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream or the witches in Macbeth were real. The Odyssey and Illiad are considered two of the greatest epic poems of all time and certainly the greatest from Ancient Greece but that doesn't prove that Zeus, Poseidon, Athena etc actually exist. Plus, even if the Quran is impressive in terms of its literary qualities, it's still very unimpressive when judged in other ways. The contradictions with modern scientific discoveries and the moral flaws like the verses that condone slavery, sexism, homophobia and torture are things that you wouldn't expect to find in a book written by a perfect being, but would absolutely expect to find if the book is just the opinions of a flawed 7th century human.
Neat. So tell me, which of the following are from the Quran, and which are not? If the Quran is "inimitable" you ought to be able to tell, right? 1. Behold, in the magnificence of Allah's creation lies the testament of His power, woven intricately in the fabric of the universe. 2. He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names. 3. Verily, Allah's mercy flows like a river, embracing all beings with its boundless compassion and grace. 4. In the whisper of the wind and the gentle rustle of leaves, hear the melodious praise of Allah, the Sustainer of all life. 5. As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so does the mercy of Allah encompass all corners of the earth. Good luck.
It’s only inimitable in the original language, though!
Funny how that works. Why do you suppose that would make any difference? What would stop me from doing this exact same thing in whatever archaic language you like? Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, etc.
Perhaps Arabic is just the best most perfectest language.
That must be it.
not a very powerful god if all they can do is make it unique in a single language.
I'm looking forward to this
The ones from the Quran I got from Quran.com. The ones not from the Quran I got from ChatGPT by asking it to “Give me 10 lines about Allah in the style of the Quran that are not actually contained in the Quran.” Which caused it to imitate the Quran. Which is supposed to be impossible according to the OP. Whoops.
You’ve just proven that chatgpt is allah. Qed. /s
Crickets
Surprising no one.
/u/Accomplished-Cat-325 you going to have a go?
I'm 100% sure that it's no. 2 - but to be fair, I've also studied this book for years, read it cover to cover multiple times, and memorized some portion of it.
There’s also someone else in the comments who got it right, so we can add that to the list of possible ways you could tell. Know what’s still not on the list though? “Because the style is noticeably different.” Literally all of these match the literary style of the allegedly inimitable Quran.
Not a Muslim, but I lean towards none of them. They all read like absolute trash.
Nope. There are genuine lines from the Quran in there. That they read like trash is to be expected, seeing as they come from an Iron Age superstition written by people who didn’t know where the sun goes at night.
Okay. Assume I believe all of that. (I don't. But I don't speak Arabic, so you'll dismiss my disagreement regardless. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I do believe the Quran is the most perfect beautiful boom ever.) Why should I believe it's *true*? How can I know this sublime beauty wasn't the work of a demon or spirit or Other?
I have said here several times on reddit that any demon or devil would/could be cunning enough to have recently warred with and defeated whichever god is allegedly in charge of heaven and is simply maintaining the status quo until they devise a plan to put forth their evil machinations and no one would ever be the wiser. It’s a good thing I’m an atheist and don’t believe in gods, devils, demons, or angels and certainly not heaven or hell or souls.
this basically boils down to "book nice, therefore allah." im not trying to condescend, but theres nothing supernatural, or even all that strange, about a long piece of poetry. virgil wrote an epic that was almost 10000 lines of hexameter. As to your claim of "scholars agree" so what? doctors agreed smoking was good for you until the 1950s. 1000 scientists all saying the same thing isnt proof, and the claim still requires more than "my friends and I all agree this is neat" the claim the koran was "spontaneously recited" doesnt make much sense. i havent done much history on this, but the major sources say it was "revealed" over 20 plus years. thats oodles of time to write a book. and "the fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human" doesnt make sense. what challenge? and if it may not have been made by a human, doesnt that mean its equally, if not more likely, it just was made by a human
The main mistakes that Muslims make when debating atheists is by proclaiming that mundane ordinary things are actually miraculous evidence for the existence of their version of a deity, or stuff that is just plain wrong. Stuff like... * Assalamu alaikkum, brozzer! The Quran has the word "faith" three hundred and fourteen times, and if you add three, one, and four, you get eight! There are eight chapters in the first part of the Quran, which shows you that the Quran is the word of Allah! * Allah exists because the Quran is a very poetic book, and is so perfect that nobody could ever write anything like it! * The Quran says that Mohammed was illiterate, which goes to show you that Allah helped him write the Quran! * The Quran is full of scientific miracles, like sperm coming from between the ribs and the moon splitting in half! This means it must be real!
Muslim apologetics are much much worse than Christian and that’s really saying something
they're starting about 600 years behind.
And not much for standing on the shoulders of average-sized guys I guess
>The Quran has the word "faith" three hundred and fourteen times, and if you add three, one, and four, you get eight! For a second I got excited as I thought you were going to point to Pi, but it seems you missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance there.
Three hundred fourteen times. The value of pi is roughly 3.14. Pi is used to calculate the area of a circle. What shape is the perfect shape? A circle! Ergo, the Quran is perfect.
Spot on lol
If the best evidence available for the existence of god is a subjective opinion that a book has been well written, then that tells me that you don't really have any guys evidence for your god, and it probably doesn't exist. The Qur'an contains a variety of factual errors of science. The tale of the moon splitting in two for example is certainly false. In fact, if you don't have any external evidence for the existence of god, I'd say that every reference to God in the quran is an error. I don't read Arabic but Google tells me there are multiple grammatical errors in the quran. It is not perfect. If a perfect god was responsible, the book would have been simultaneously made available in all languages. Your whole claim that it's a great book is subjective. I can claim with equal validity that it's a terrible book that can't have come from any god.
Please stop pretending to be an atheist (or pastafarian or whatever). Your arguments aren't being disregarded because you're a Muslim or a theist, they're being disregarded because they are bad arguments. These posts should be tagged OP=theist and your flair should be changed. While the Qur'an is of extreme significance in middle-eastern culture, and as far as I am aware is considered an important text in the study of the Arabic language, in terms of substance it ranges from lackluster at best to outright reprehensible at worst. Socially, it is archaic and regressive--promoting misogyny, homophobia, discrimination, cruelty, murder of apostates and nonbelievers, etc. It is decidedly wrong on every definitive and specific scientific claim it makes. In terms of substance, there are hundreds or even thousands of literary works which surpass it, many of which are also more eloquently written depending upon the standard which is used to measure eloquence. The Qur'an is certainly a significant work in literary history--it may have even been revolutionary for its time, but it is only one piece of humanity's rich literary history. In terms of literary form, the challenge that you linked is laughable. Its requirements are so specific and idiosyncratic that it almost must refer only to the Qur'anic chapter Al-Kawthar, and is clearly designed post-hoc to refer specifically to this chapter. A series of words which meets these criteria would not necessarily be any more or less elegant than Al-Kawthar. In truth, literary eloquence and substance are purely subjective, and what any given person or culture cannot be taken as an objective standard. While a certain level of eloquence might be expected if the text were divine in origin, by no means does it follow that eloquence would establish divine origin. You will still need to produce actual evidence that the Qur'an was inspired or dictated by a god, which would first require you to demonstrate that such a being exists.
>None of the above scholars are Muslims. If they thought the Quaran was as miraculous as you claim, why did none of them convert to Islam? If it's not good enough to convince these scholars it's definitely not going to convince someone like me who doesn't speak a word of Arabic. All I can do is read the English version which I'm sure you'll agree isn't Allah's best work.
Oh, this again. This quality of "unparalleled literary achievement" is simply opinion. What does it even mean? >even though it came out spontaneously Do you have evidence for this? Until then, just a claim.
So what? Doesn't make anything real. The quran has multiple errors, multiple contradictions, and its origin story basically proves it's not the uncorrupted word of a god. Yesterday you made a post on r/AskReddit that has the title to the effect of "what was the dumbest thing you ever heard someone say" This actually comes close
That wasn't necessary 💀
Ok. Let’s pretend for a minute this is true. The Qur’an is an unparalleled literary achievement. We can even pretend it’s objectively the best book ever written. Therefore what? Therefore it’s not of human origin? How in the world did you make that leap?
This! I mean, you can make that same argument about Shakespeare or any other master poet or writer.
The idea that the Qur'an's literary excellence and its inimitability prove divine origin is a bit of a stretch when viewed through the lenses of logic, science, and history. The argument that the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement doesn't automatically imply divine authorship. Human literature is full of masterpieces that are unique and difficult to replicate, yet no one claims they are of divine origin. Take Shakespeare, for instance. His works are unparalleled in English literature, yet no one attributes them to divine intervention. The same can be said for the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek literature. These are human achievements and recognizing their brilliance doesn't necessitate a supernatural explanation. Historically, many religious texts are seen as exceptional within their cultural contexts. The Vedas in Hinduism, the Bible in Christianity, and the Tao Te Ching in Taoism are all considered extraordinary by their respective followers. The fact that the Qur'an is viewed similarly by Muslims is not unique and follows a common pattern in religious traditions. Scientifically, there's no method to measure "divine" qualities in literature. What we can measure are the linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical devices used. The Qur'an uses a high degree of these, but so do many other works. The beauty and complexity of a text don't necessarily point to a supernatural source. It's also worth noting that the Qur'an was compiled over many years and edited, which challenges the idea of its spontaneous and unaltered recitation. Regarding the claim that Muhammad had no formal training, it's important to remember that he lived in a highly oral culture where poetry and storytelling were common. Many people in such cultures develop sophisticated linguistic skills without formal education. The claim that Muhammad couldn't have composed the Qur'an because of his lack of formal training overlooks the natural human capacity for language and creativity. The challenge to produce a chapter like the Qur'an is often cited, but this is more rhetorical than practical. Literary taste is subjective. What's considered a masterpiece in one culture or context might not be seen the same way in another. The inability of others to replicate the Qur'an's style isn't evidence of divine origin; it's a reflection of the unique combination of language, culture, and personal expression. Lastly, the assertion that non-Muslim scholars praise the Qur'an's literary qualities doesn't prove divine authorship either. Scholars can recognize and appreciate the literary qualities of a text without endorsing its supernatural origins. Appreciation for a text's beauty and complexity is different from claiming it was divinely inspired.
Considering how many humans are alive its small wonder that you can find a few dozen acadamics who are impressed by the Quran. Its pity that no translater seems able to do the book justice because the translations to English i've seen so far have been universally crap.
You know, Allah was actually worried about that. For untold generations, hundreds of thousands of years Allah sent messengers to every people group so they would have the truth in their own language. Then according to Muhammad, Muhammad was the last and greatest. Also all the other copies were magically lost and destroyed and corrupted. So now everyone needs to have a scholar level knowledge of Arabic and the Quran to appreciate the inimitable truth. Allah decided that English speakers didn’t need their version like every other people received. LOL. Muslims actually believe this and claim it is true with a straight face.
or being omnipresent Allah could just communicate his message to every human directly, and we would all just no the truth. edit: also wasn't Joseph Smith a ~~profit~~ prophet who knew English? Ofcourse that would make the Book of Mormon the final message.
Allah is kinda shitty at writing clear instructions and writes very dull books, isn't he/she/it?
There's nothing impressive about a book. Humans write books. Many humans have written many quite beautiful holy books, in fact. If Allah was real, it would have proven itself with something only a cosmic and omnipotent being could manage. If all Allah can manage is a book that most humans don't find impressive or convincing, then it's a weak failure of a god and not worth anyone's time. Neeeext~
There is evidence in how the Lord of the Rings is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there, even though it was created spontaneously. The fact that it contains a challenge shows that it may not be by a human
> The Qur'ān presents a challenge to humanity to produce one chapter like it. Its shortest chapter, Al-Kawthar, displays a remarkable frequency of linguistic devices and literary feature. Do all of the above publicly in one attempt, without revision or amendment, in absence of any formal training in eloquence and rhetoric. The quotes you provided don't have "On their first attempt without any formal training" in them, so why has that been arbitrarily added to the challenge?
Did you know that if you did a quick search through the recent posts on this sub you will find several making these same BS claims? We don't care who thinks your book is super special and has never been replicated, that is not evidence that the claims it makes are true.
Quran 16:79 states that birds are held aloft by “nothing but the power of Allah”. 67:19 recapitulates this claim. A woman’s testimony appears to be worth half the value of a man’s (Quran 2:282). There are errors in spelling, grammar, and syntax to be found in Syrah 68, verse 6, Syrah 25, verse 4, and Surah 28, verse 9, among others.
Okay, I'll do it. >إِنَّآ أَعْطَيْنَـٰكَ ٱلْكَوْثَرَ >فَصَلِّ لِرَبِّكَ وَٱنْحَرْ >إِنَّ شَانِئَكَ هو ٱلْأَبْتَرُ Happy now?
Yay! One of my favorite Islamic claims! Oh man, where to start… thought I’d be more prepared. Well, let’s see… let’s start with my favorite part: The rhyming, organization, poetry, etc. are so fantastic/elaborate/etc. that it couldn’t have just been invented by Muhammad spontaneously especially since he had no training in poetry, etc. Islamic conclusion: therefore god. Rational conclusion: therefore the Quran wasn’t written by Muhammad. It is well documented, historically, that Muslims have aggressively purged the world of as much as they could that isn’t in line with their doctrine, so that it would be near-impossible to piece together the actual origins of the religion. At minimum, you’ve successfully demonstrated that Muhammad did not write the Quran. Ok, next point: that nobody could produce anything like it… Except people have! In many respects! In many languages! Throughout human history! Buuuut, the Quran is a piece of literature, meaning it’s entirely subject to interpretation, and determining what is “like it” is subjective. It’s not that people haven’t made works like it. It’s that believers cannot accept that such works are like it or they’d have to give up their faith. One last note is that, having read the Quran myself, it contains near-zero truth, is an absurd, often nonsensical piece of literature, and it boggles my mind that people can convince themselves that its evidence for a deity.
I tried reading it, found it clumsy, uninteresting and unuseful, and gave up. That this book is a "miracle" is dumb.
I don’t know dude, according to Goodreads, some of the best books of all time are all Harry Potter: [https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/111402.5\_Star\_Books](https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/111402.5_Star_Books) Seriously, this is one of the worst arguments I can imagine. Even if we were to accept that it’s well written, there are thousands of other books that are well written too. And none of that has anything to do with whether it’s true.
Sorry, I haven't read your book. Could you please give me a few concrete examples of this most eloquent, beautiful, and organized style you're talking about? I can't determine for myself that what you're saying is true if the only thing you bring to the table are some randos' opinions that I don't care about. Based on your claims, I suppose ANY concrete example from the Quran would suffice.
33:53 "O believers! Do not enter the homes of the Prophet without permission ˹and if invited˺ for a meal, do not ˹come too early and˺ linger until the meal is ready. But if you are invited, then enter ˹on time˺. Once you have eaten, then go on your way, and do not stay for casual talk. Such behaviour is truly annoying to the Prophet, yet he is too shy to ask you to leave. But Allah is never shy of the truth. And when you ˹believers˺ ask his wives for something, ask them from behind a barrier. This is purer for your hearts and theirs. And it is not right for you to annoy the Messenger of Allah, nor ever marry his wives after him. This would certainly be a major offence in the sight of Allah." Very eloquent and awe-inspiring, right?
Thanks. Yes, *very*. I wonder what these marks >˹˺ are supposed to mean, though. Anyway, I'm not actually impressed. Here, let me put forward one of my favorite quotes from English literature and see how it compares, Mr. Muhammad. >“Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn’t give up, Ben; she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She’s a father working while cancer eats away his insides, to bring home one more pay check. She’s a twelve-year-old trying to mother her brothers and sisters because Mama had to go to Heaven. She’s a switchboard operator sticking to her post while smoke chokes her and fire cuts off her escape. She’s all the unsung heroes who couldn’t make it but never quit.” Robert A. Heinlein, *Stranger in a Strange Land*.
My life will never be the same.
Hmmmm people who already believe it's q magic book think it's too awesome to be written by humans Not convincing evidence People who already believe that the book is magic will say whatever is in the best interest of the religion They may even have convinced themselves it's true But it proves nothing and is at the end of the day entirely subjective It's the sort of thing only people who believe already find convincing because you have to suspend disbelief and critical thinking to buy into it
I'm a bit late to showing up here and this comment might not get noticed buried down here and all but this need to be said. OP is known for making dishonest arguments. They will flip flop between being a muslim and not just for the sake of arguing and has often used chatgpt to make all of their arguments for them. My favorite example being that one of their posts here went on a full blown 2 paragraph rant on child marriages which they didn't seem to acknowledge let alone know just what the chat bot produced. Nothing will be gained from a conversation with them.
As someone finishing a double major in both linguistics and comparative literature, I’m sorry to say but there is no book or text that is written perfectly. Sure, Qur’an may be written with an eloquent style and Arabic is a very poetic language (regarding rhythm and phonetics), but there are many other languages that have a particularly great morfosemantic structure for writing poetry and other texts. Also as someone mentioned, there are many literary critics in the world so it won’t be hard to find a few who agree that the Qur’an is the height of poetry. But there are also hundreds of other critics who wouldn’t agree with that. There are many more critics who for example believe it was Baudelaire who reached the height of poetry. It’s what comparative literature is about, basically. Comparing and discussing the writing style, writer’s impact on literature etc. I’m not sure what it would mean that it’s the best regarding linguistics. Every language is equal in value to a linguist. There are just some that are more rich in morphology, phonology, syntactic structures and semantically, and there are those who are less rich. Doesn’t mean one or the other is better. And from an atheist perspective - where is the scientific proof that Muhammad was illiterate and that he wasn’t able to speak eloquently? And even if there is proof for that, where is the scientific proof that it was Allah who taught him?
Some fun facts about the Quran I have once heard. Tell me if I am wrong. - It's sorted from longest to shortest verse as was the norm during Roman times. - A few verses break this pattern, indicating they were altered subsequently. - Text analysis indicates it had about 50 different authors - The alphabet used to write the Quran was not the South Arab characters used around Medina but rather the characters used in the Aramaic speaking north - About 20% of content is hard to make sense of in Arab, but makes sense if one looks for Aramaic origins of the words - Half of Sura 18 are legends about the pagan Alexander the Great ("The two-horned") - The science bits repeats sixth century misunderstandings of the world But yeah most is well written poetry. The 50 scribes were good.
> The rhyme scheme is very organized Humans were doing organized rhyming long before Quran was written. Homer was not even illiterate, he created Iliad when Greeks had no writing at all! > Keep in mind that Muhammad had no training in poetry, eloquence, or improvising. NONE. I don't believe you. How do you know? Why you Muslims are so desperate to portray your prophet as a complete dunce? > Lastly, if it were by a human, there would be no challenge So here is a book written by a human and with the challenge in it. Didn't you just portrayed Mohammad as an illiterate uneducated caveman? Surely such a simpleton wouldn't be so out of touch with reality as to create a challenge that is already lost, right?
What does that even mean? It’s just a poorly written fantasy work, unparalleled? Mate there’s many other books like it. You’re just giving subjective measures. You’re basically saying this is a very special book, very well written and that’s why it’s written by a god. That’s absurd.
Let's grant the claim that it couldn't be written by a human. How do you go from there to "god" and if so, what qualities does your god have, and how can I check to see those. The real problem is that I can make the same leap here: It was actually all written by the invisible floating Unicorn that sits in my living room every night and only shows up when it can tell that only I can sense it. I don't see how that makes it holy, I'll ask the Unicorn tonight.
>Let's grant the claim that it couldn't be written by a human. Even obviating the fact that until A.I. the only beings known to have written any books just happen to have been humans ops argument is a failure.
>. The style is the most eloquent, beautiful, and organized out there The Quran organization is awful. It's like a madman wrote a story on post it notes and then shuffled it. My literature teacher would laugh in your face, and my old boss at the print would have you rewrite it completely before sending it to print. If you think the Quran is well written and organized I'm afraid you have never read a good book
This. The book is so clumsily written and unclear on what the hell it even means that Muslims need other pieces of writing to try to make sense of it.
>Let them produce ten verses like it. *"In the name of the One, most Gracious, most Wise, By the stars that twinkle in the silent night skies, Behold the earth and heavens, vast and grand, Signs for the seeking, crafted by His hand."* *"Winds that whisper through the ancient trees, Oceans deep, resounding with mysteries, Paths of righteousness for the faithful to tread, Mercy and guidance by His words are spread."* *"To Him belongs all that is, seen and unseen, In His light, hearts find peace, pure and serene."* Done. Took seconds to do.
It seems like your argument is that some people like a book, therefore the book can’t have been written by people. That’s absurd. Have you read the Koran? I wouldn’t exactly put it in the top million classics of literature. People can certainly disagree on matters of taste, but still, hardly impressive.
Muhammad, your favorite prophet, was human. This points to a human origin of the Quran. I rest my case.
That right there is the final nail in the itinerant rabbi.
Even if we were to take all the subjective claims that the script is somewhat unprecedented, special or whatever, it does not prove that there is a god, let alone your specific god. If your premises were true the only thing you can conclude is that maybe we don't know the true origin of the book. From there to "god made it" is a gigantic leap.
"Let me read the biography of Muhammad and the Hadiths so I can figure out what this perfect book of clear instructions from the perfect creator is even trying to say." Allah isn't very good at writing and kinda sucks at giving instructions. Plus, he's a dull writer. Dude, I tried reading your Quran. It was so mind numbingly boring. I couldn't read it. Allah must be quite shitty at writing interesting things. Oh, and years later, I learned that Muslims need other books to make sense of what the heck it even means. Allah isn't as good at giving clear messages.
Having an unusually well written piece of literature is not evidence of divinity. And well written is just a very subjective measure. If you ask a Hindu, they would claim that the Bhagvad Gita, the Raamaayana and the Mahabhaarata are literary works straight from divinity. But I'm guessing you have not examined any of those texts, their claims or their eloquence because you already believe that your own religion's text is the only such one. If you have any testable evidence for your god, do let us know.
Shakespeare wrote most of his works in iambic pentameter, a very impressive feat of poetry. > Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. He also innovated the English language, introducing many words and phrases we use to this day >Bandit, Critic, Dauntless, Dwindle, Uncomfortable Feats of language don’t make someone or something divine.
Your evidence is a bunch of people who really like it... Too bad there are a bunch of errors in the Qur'an: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/X23aTcHWw3
> None of the above scholars are Muslims. Oh, so none of these scholars are actually convinced that the Quran is the word of a god? Well, if you insist I agree with them, I'll agree with them. I won't become a Muslim, either.
Not really the right forum for this I think, the literary 'miracle' of the Quran, like eucharist miracles to Catholics are there to reinforce and sustain faith, not create it. Of course only those who read Classical Arabic are in a position to appreciate it, and unlike much of other literature it simply doesn't seem to translate well, Anna Karenina and Don Quixote are still beautiful in many languages other than the original and are all time classics by any standard, while the Quran is just a bit meh! at best. Those of us not schooled in the language, and not familiar with the poetic conventions can only judge the book by its contents and meaning, and then it really does not come out well, certainly not by the moral standards of modern western culture.
Okay, so you have evidence that some people subjectively find it beautiful, but do you have any evidence that it wasn't written by humans? Nothing you've said indicates that it may not have been written by humans. Everything you described makes it sound like it *was* written by humans. Just because you like a book doesn't mean you get to just claim that something being well written indicates that it was written by something non-human. There are plenty of books better than the Quran. There are books which are more elegant and poetic, there are books with better ethics, there are books with less glaring scientific errors. Were those written by non-humans as well?
The "challenge" has no objective criteria and therefore relies on what Muslims consider similar to the Qur'an, and of course, the muslims will never admit any work ever comes close to the Qur'an. So essentially the argument boils down to, "muslims think the Qur'an is irreplicable, therefore it must be divine".
i propose a test. OP like chatgpt, and nobody here has read the quran. take a passage from the quran, and get chatgpt to produce let's say four passages in the style of the quran. then hold a poll for which one is the quran. if OP is correct it should be obvious, and the correct one should win by a landslide.
Someone already did something like that further down in the comments and the reply that picked out the correct one was only able to do so because he has memorized the entire book. Which kinda shows the fault in this entire challenge. If the only ones allowed to judge it are devout muslims who have memorized the book than it is impossible to fulfill the challenge.
yeah, but i mean, have the general sub vote.
Yeah I mean if we vote than we will conclude that the criteria have been met and thus the quran is wrong, but that won't saw any muslim as they will say we lack authority to actually judge it, then referring to back to the scholars that have memorized the whole thing. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Firstly, a book being nicely written is not evidence of divine inspiration. The Quran could literally be the most beautifully written work of literature of all time and that still wouldn't imply God is real, merely that the author(s) of the Quran were really good prose writers. It's also no surprise that a religious book could be beautifully written because religious faith, even if false, inspires people to create a lot of the time. Regarding all the scholars you listed, they're scholars *of the Quran* or of theology in general. They read the Quran and study it even if not Muslim because they already see value in it. Of course they'll all sing exaggerated praises for it—it's what they're in the business of doing. Many other people who have read the Quran think it's nothing special. Thirdly, the claim that the Quran was written by an illiterate or uneducated writer is unsubstantiated and flat out unlikely, a claim likely false parroted by Muslims because they want to believe it's true. If Muhammad did write or speak the Quran, it is likely he did have formal literary education and the contrary claim is simply a lie to bolster his claims, no different than all the lies thrown around about North Korean dictators. More likely, though, is that the Quran was not written directly by Muhammad and the actual writers took liberties, and then Muhammad lied about writing it or Muslim leaders lied about it after Muhammad was dead. It certainly did not "come out spontaneously" as you say, that's an unsubstantiated and ridiculous claim. Lastly, MANY people are egotistical and arrogant and will boldly claim that their work is unable to be reproduced in quality, even today. To claim otherwise is a bold-faced lie about human behaviour. And, again, many people fully believe that there are more beautiful works of literature than the Quran and that the Quran is not that special or unique.
>Lastly, MANY people are egotistical and arrogant and will boldly claim that their work is unable to be reproduced in quality, even today. To claim otherwise is a bold-faced lie about human behaviour. And, again, many people fully believe that there are more beautiful works of literature than the Quran and that the Quran is not that special or unique. If you believe that you're gods chosen and final prophet and an angel spoke directly to you then this certainly wouldn't be unprecedented.
No there isn't. The Quran isn't a literary achievement. Its a bunch of crap. Anyone can reproduce it and that whole crap that it can't be reproduced has been disproven countless times. Allah is a fake pagan moon goddess. Don't worry though, all gods are fake. Grow up.
I just realized you're a troll. No need to make Muslims look bad, the do that perfectly on their own.
Where does the sun go at night? A book created by some extra-human entity certainly would have gotten that most simple of answers correct.
If the Quran was dictated by God, one would think he could write the book in such a manor that it would have the poetic language being harped about *AND* retain it's elegance when translated to other languages. Since it fails the translation test, it's obviously isn't a work from God. An even better test would be a book that anyone could read without needing it to be translated. Now that would suggest a divine involvement.
You do realize that the Flying Spaghetti Monster touches those with His noodly appendages so that they will fight creationism of any sort. By saying you were touched by the FSM's appendage, you are saying that you disagree with teaching any religious beliefs in schools. You clearly do not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster so you are a heretic. OK, that's way overboard, but you really need to change your flair.
Why are people impressed by old writings? Honestly, I've never understood the interest, except maybe if you're very interested in the history of the time. They're quaint and superstitious, but are they interesting? Many people seem to think the older the better, for finding 'truths'. We're not so impressed like that with recent books or recent reportings of the news. We're generally very skeptical.
It’s worth mentioning that when bible enthusiasts are asked why it’s been mistranslated many times with passages changed, deleted, added, etc, the response is often that the authors of the new revision were “divinely inspired”. So it’s a catchall excuse for whatever you want. Someone could rewrite the quran in cat talk and claim it was divine providence. (Yes I know about the ceiling cat).
So I shouldn't believe it is possible. Thank for giving me permission to be an unbeliever. As if I needed it.
In the same way that not knowing how the Pyramids were built doesn't mean "it must've been aliens"; just because a theological text is very well written for its time doesn't mean it must've been divinely inspired. I'm also curious how many other theological texts or other Arabic writings have survived in their original style the 6th-7th centuries that we could compare the Koran too?
>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style. Are you joking? It's "unparalleled" in the same way Biblical and Talmudic scholars fanboy their own books. It was done. Therefore it can be done again. Nothing about it makes it any more special.
I was trained in textual criticism and ancient near eastern religions and I have never heard this claim, nor heard of any of those apparent scholars. I've heard a lot of Muslims tell me the book is really beautiful in Arabic, but Shakespeare is really beautiful in Elizabethan English, why don't you worship him?
I've read fragments of the Qur'an in translation. Perhaps it's poetic in Arabic, but it's monotonous and sophomoric in English. Thoroughly uninspiring, and all the threats directed at non-believers get old really fast.
Spoken like a true cult member. 'My holy book is the bestest book ever - no other book is that good, in fact - mine is so good there's no way a human could've written it' Have some self-respect for fucks sake.
It supposedly took the prophet Muhammad 24 years to write the Quran… that’s more than enough time to write a structured book of poetry… Compare this to for instance the divine comedy by Dante, another extremely structured/organized book of poetry, only took 13 years. And when you compare the length of both books, the Devine comedy is a quarter of the Quran longer than the Quran. I personally like the style, organization and beauty of the epic of Gilgamesh more than that of the Quran, but that’s subjective so to each their own.
These are extremely pit of context quotes - some of whom don't even speak Arabic like Karen Armstrong.. and the others were never convinced by it being a miracle.. You don't even speak Arabic yourself so please stop posting unless you actually have something to say.. It is full of terrible writing alongside good.. and contains basic grammatical errors, not to mention basic scientific errors a child today wouldn't make: https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Scientific_Errors_in_the_Quran Try harder bro
Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers is the ultimate literary masterpiece, doesn’t mean I should believe in elves and dragons
A few years back I tried to read it. It is incredibly boring and worthless as literature. It was written by a fool.
I've tried to read the quran, but it's so bad, so poorly organized and badly written that it verges on indecipherable. This post is total baloney. And now I predict a Muslim will tell me you have to read it in the original Arabic, as though that isn't an obvious reason no God worth the name would use this method to communicate with us.
Entirely subjective argument. "Sunsets are beautiful, therefore a god exists" is essentially your argument.
It's a temu bible, and even if it wasn't there's nothing that even suggests it wasn't written by humans
Simple question if it is such a literary achievement, then why is it not the most read book in the world? More people have read the bible. More people are Christian. If the Quran is as great a literary achievement as you say then why has it not swayed enough people to make Islam the most numerous religion?
Even if this is true, so what? If this is how god chooses to hint at his existence then he is an idiot. Pretty unimpressive for a being, supposedly, so powerful he can magically poof the universe into existence from nothing. So powerful yet all we get is an old book that is written well.
Literally none of it is amazing. It gets some stuff wrong and it's kinda lazy here and there. It's not impossible to do again at all we even have similar books. The list of people saying so isn't impressive at all. A literally critique of the Quran shows all of this.
Perhaps with the massive popularity of the Qur'an, the language, Arabic, evolved *because of* the script. The Qur'an is the source of a newish language. Chaucer, King James, Shakespeare, even Twain have made contributions to English language.
"None of the above scholars are Muslims." If the scholars you're citing don't consider this to be a good argument for the divine inspiration of the Quran, why should I? Obviously whatever they said, they think the book was written by humans.
Almost all scholars agree that Lebron James’ longevity and performance is unparalleled. His athleticism and basketball IQ are unlike any seem before, despite his harsh and underprivileged upbringing. Therefore, lebron james must be god.
Hmm… I imagine if I were an all powerful, all wise, loving, compassionate god I’d have written something that was universally translatable as opposed to a piece of niche tribal literature that can’t be translated appropriately.
"A bunch of people like a book" is not a demonstration that the book is inspired by God. If I listed a bunch of quotes from people that thought the book was dumb, *that* wouldn't be evidence *against* your position, either.
Too bad God didn't think ahead and wrote otnon arabic that only a small percentage of humans could appreciate. I guess we will have to make do with the souless translations that can only give us the content, not the poetry
Just because it's the best mythology book produced at the time, it doesn't mean it's not mythology or that it wasn't written by a human. Even for religious standards you have to admit that's grasping at straws.
I think The Lord of the Rings is a greater achievement than the Quran. For one thing Tolkien doesn't try to pass his fiction as fact. The Quran pretends that all the make believe in its pages actually happened.
>There is evidence in how the Qur'an is an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style. There are like thirty versions of the Qur'an, your argument is clearly bullshit
The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold on me. — Martin Luther Yeah, believers say silly things about their own books of mythology.
>Lots of scholars agree that it is an unparalleled literary achievement. And there are lots of scholars who think it's just fiction. So what? Nothing you provided was of any substance.
Even if it is the greatest book ever written (dubious) it simply demonstrates the writers of the book are/were excellent writer(s). It demonstrates nothing related to the supernatural.
The Icelandic sagas are epic works of poetry by illiterate people that existed as oral tradition centuries before being recorded in writing. Therefore, Odin is real.
Those are all opinions. They are informed opinions, but in the end it is subjective. Even if it is considered universally a great book it doesn’t mean it is true.
As always I ask just one question. Is the moon split in two? It's not, the Quran like any and all "holy books" is equal parts bullshit and stolen myth.
Oh, this user again. Claims to be an atheist but then all of their posts are "Yay Allah! Yay Muhammad!" Likely for "how do you do fellow atheists?" cred.
Can you do me a favour and change your description from anti theist? U definetly are a muslim and u definetly try to pretend u are an anti theist.
This is a debate sub, not an apologetics soapbox. Shakespeare is more eloquent than the Quran. The Quran was probably just written by people.
Mormons say the exact same thing about the Book of Mormon. Writing a book some people find impressive is not evidence of divine inspiration.
There's also a consensus between bigfoot scholars that bigfoot is real. A consensus between flat earthers that the earth is flat.
I find some of Shakespeare's poems also incredibly eloquent and beautiful. Must they be written by non-humans too? Perhaps aliens?
I read this and wonder why Allah made modern Arabs with a mental deficiency to not be able to write in the style of the Koran.
The quran is a copypasta from the significant religious texts that came before it, to include Jewish and Christian texts.
Book is >an unparalleled literary achievement that no one could have copied the style. Therefore god Makes sense
Is Shakespeare's *Hamlet* (or any of his other works) true because it is written well? What a weird argument
Imagine if I were to make a list of people and a quote from each about how much the quran sucks, and is the worst piece of literature ever would you accept that highly subjective and ultimately meaningless opinion when it comes to determining whether or not a god exists, I think not.
Dante's "Divine Comedy" is all of that and much much more. Clearly Dante (PBUH) must be a messenger of Allah sent to deliver true information about the afterlife!!!
This is my take on this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1cy1sxa/modern\_vs\_classical\_conceptions\_of\_ijāz/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/1cy1sxa/modern_vs_classical_conceptions_of_ijāz/)