God, revelation and the Qur’an — Questions people ask about Islam

Is there a God at all?

It runs the other way from what is usually said: the assumption does not sit on one side only. Whoever says "God is necessary in himself" has stopped at a truth he does not explain by anything above it, and whoever says "the universe is just there" has stopped at a truth he does not explain by anything above it. The disagreement is over the place of the stop, not between a man who explains and a man who declines to 1. As for the charge that "God" is a name placed on whatever we have not understood, that is a fair objection, and the book grants it and states plainly that it does not hold the version of the claim the objection demolishes. It then draws a distinction stated before the dispute rather than after it: an argument from a gap rests on what has not been explained yet, so it is hostage to a paper published tomorrow, while an argument from regularity rests on what has actually been explained, so it does not vanish with more explaining 2. And this does not establish that God exists, nor weigh in favour of that to any degree worth counting. Its aim is to remove the claim that science has made the question unnecessary, not to answer the question 2. Beyond that, the version your objection breaks is not the version the field actually used: Muslim theologians argued either from the temporal origination of the world or from its contingency, "because what is contingent must have something to determine it, bringing it about in one of the two admissible states" 5. And the Qur'an puts the matter as a question rather than an assertion: "Or were they created out of naught? Or are they the creators?" 3 — two alternatives which the commentary calls false and impossible, so that a third is left standing 4.

1 The believer too ends at a brute fact. Whoever says 'God is necessary in himself' has stopped at a truth he does not explain by anything above it; and whoever says 'the universe is just there' has stopped at a truth he does not explain by anything above it. So the disagreement is not between one man who explains and another who does not — both of us stop — the disagreement is over the place of the stop, and over whether there is any difference between the two places that counts … And this does not establish that the necessary is one, nor that it knows and is able and wills, nor that it is good, nor that it is the God of any particular religion. The most this chapter reaches — were it to come off in full — is a being that stands of itself; and moving from that to prophethood and revelation and law is a further step needing evidence of another kind … Richard Swinburne — the best known of those who have built a cumulative probabilistic argument for theism — declares his result to be a probability greater than one half, not a certainty and not an obliging proof, and he enters evil into the scale as a witness against himself

5. Why is there anything at all? · Open the passage

2 And it is a fair objection. And I do not hold the version of the claim that it demolishes — and I declare that before I defend anything, because whoever defends a poor version supposing himself to be defending religion has lost both … An argument from a gap rests on what has not been explained yet, so it is hostage to a paper published tomorrow. An argument from regularity rests on what has actually been explained, so its subject matter does not vanish with more explaining — because it is a question about the successful description itself and not about what that description is missing … It does not establish that God exists, nor weigh in favour of that to any degree worth counting … it may be that regularity is not open to the question at all, either because the final theory is logically unique, or because asking for an explanation of the existence of explanation is a demand with no meaning to it. And if either of the two is so, there is nothing in this chapter, not a broken analogy but a fallen claim.

13. Has science not made God unnecessary? · Open the passage

3 Or were they created out of naught? Or are they the creators?

Surah At-Tur 52:35 · Open the passage

4 Were these idolaters created without any creator or maker at all, or are they the creators of themselves? Both alternatives are false and impossible. By this it is established that it is God, glorified be He, who created them, and He alone is the one to whom worship is due and for whom alone it is fit.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah At-Tur 52:35 our rendering · Open the passage

5 In theology they argued for the existence of the Maker by two roads: either the temporal origination of the world, or its contingency, because what is contingent must have something to determine it, bringing it about in one of the two admissible states. And the road of arguing from origination entails contingency, because everything originated is contingent, while not everything contingent is originated.

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti · Mu'tarak al-Aqran fi I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 280 our rendering · Open the passage

6 And the priority of the wording is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one — and I made it the first time 'the condition that makes this above board', and that is a plain logical blunder: I made the necessary sufficient … For if one man counts 'a God' as one hypothesis, and his opponent counts 'a universe standing with no cause' as one hypothesis, the razor gives no ruling between them — because it has no ruler for counting hypotheses.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

The strongest objection

"Both of us stop" is a draw, not an argument, and no faith comes out of a draw. If the two places are equal in being a halt with nothing to justify it, then the universe is a given I can see and God is an addition I cannot — and the razor cuts what is surplus, not what is in plain view. And the "regularity" you offered as a clean alternative to the gap may not be open to the question at all, in which case what falls is not one example inside your argument but the whole of it.

The last part is right, and the book says it against itself instead of hiding it: it may be that regularity is not open to the question at all, either because the final theory is logically unique, or because asking for an explanation of the existence of explanation is a demand with no meaning to it — and if either is so, "there is nothing in this chapter, not a broken analogy but a fallen claim" 2. As for the razor, it does not decide anything here: if one man counts "a God" as one hypothesis and his opponent counts "a universe standing with no cause" as one hypothesis, the razor gives no ruling between them, because it has no ruler for counting hypotheses 6. And that the contingency formulation stood in the theologians' books long before the objection 5 is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one; making the necessary sufficient is a plain logical blunder, and the book charges itself with it 6. The most this whole section reaches, were it to come off in full, is a being that stands of itself — not a prayer, not a scripture, not a law. The best known of those who have built a probabilistic argument for theism declares his result to be a probability greater than one half, not an obliging proof, and he enters evil into the scale as a witness against himself 1.

What shows the Qur'an is from God rather than authored by Muhammad?

The difference is that this claim does not send you to the testimony of the man who brought it. It appoints its judges from among its own opponents: "then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah" 1 — that is, seek the help of whomever you can among your supporters 2. It also rests on what his hearers already knew of him before the claim was ever made, not on what he reports about himself: "I dwelt among you a whole lifetime before it (came to me)" 3 — "for you know" it, as the commentary puts it 4. Heavier still, the text rebukes the man carrying it, in public, exactly where his interest ran the other way: "He frowned and turned away" 5 — and the one who frowned is the claimant himself, turning from a blind man who had come for guidance while he was busy calling the chiefs of Quraysh 6. And: "And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind" 7 — the fear being of what people would say about him 8. The challenge was put to people who were masters of that very craft and who had every motive to break it: to expose him as a liar, to defend their old religions, to be rid of his war. They did not, and fell back on excuses instead 9. This is a scale, not an advertisement: whoever accepts here the claimant's testimony about himself has abandoned the scale 10.

1 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

Surah al-Baqarah 2:23 · Open the passage

2 So bring a surah that matches a surah of the Qur'an, and seek the help of whomever you can among your supporters, if you are truthful in your claim.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Baqarah 2:23 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Say: If Allah had so willed I should not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you. I dwelt among you a whole lifetime before it (came to me). Have ye then no sense?

Surah Yunus 10:16 · Open the passage

4 For you know that I remained among you a long time before my Lord revealed it to me, and before I recited it to you. Will you not then use your minds to ponder and reflect?

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Yunus 10:16 our rendering · Open the passage

5 He frowned and turned away

Surah Abasa 80:1-2 · Open the passage

6 A change and a frown appeared on the face of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and he turned away because the blind man, Abd Allah ibn Umm Maktum, had come to him seeking guidance, while the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, was occupied with calling the leading men of Quraysh to Islam.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Abasa 80:1 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And when thou saidst unto him on whom Allah hath conferred favour and thou hast conferred favour: Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah. And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind whereas Allah hath a better right that thou shouldst fear Him. So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto thee in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of Allah must be fulfilled.

Surah al-Ahzab 33:37 · Open the passage

8 And you conceal within yourself - O Muhammad - what God revealed to you concerning Zayd's divorce of his wife and your marriage to her; and God will bring to light what you concealed. You fear that the hypocrites will say, 'Muhammad has married the divorced wife of his adopted son,' while God has more right that you should fear Him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Ahzab 33:37 our rendering · Open the passage

9 It is known of their condition and their zeal that one of them would hold forth about insects and vermin and snakes, and in describing halters and girth-straps, and matters no one heeds and no one needs, and they would vie in that with the fiercest rivalry and boast of it with the loudest boasting. How then could they have been able to match him in these broad meanings and eloquent expressions, when matching him would have carried with it his refutation, and the defence of their ancient religions, and their deliverance from his charge that their judgement was foolish and their way misguided, and their release from his contention, and then from his warfare and his fighting? Yet they did none of it, ... and instead they fall back upon excuses, and prop those up with falsehoods.

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani - I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 35 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And whoever accepts in this matter the testimony of the claimant about himself has left the scale and taken the advertisement - and we are claimants, so do not accept our testimony in it.

22. Criteria for testing a claim of revelation · Open the passage

11 And the third is an admission, not a condition: these four do not answer your original question. ... and all four are internal: they work after the distance has been crossed, not upon the crossing. They are a filter on what is claimed, not evidence that there is anything claimed at all.

To one who says: Show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

12 And here is my own condition, stated plainly as you asked: if there were published, from the codices of the first century - by an academic body that neither opposes us nor takes our side - a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words, not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif, a difference that no known reading transmitted with its chain accounts for - then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so.

To one who says: Show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Everything you have brought comes from inside the text, and the text is the thing in dispute. The challenge is judged by taste, which cannot be measured, and the people who say it was never met are his own followers. As for the rebuke, it is a device every skilled author knows — and whoever could compose the book could plant self-blame in it to buy your belief. So the circle stays closed, and the claimant is witness and judge at once. And the very book you refer to concedes this in its own words [[11]].

The admission stands, and nothing here takes it back: these criteria are a filter on what is claimed, not evidence that there is anything claimed at all 11. But the charge that the circle is closed breaks at one point. The claim wrote out the condition of its own falsity with its own hand and handed the running of it to people who are not its own: a first-century codex, published by an academic body that neither opposes it nor takes its side, differing from the text in our hands in the words and not in the dots, a difference that no reading transmitted with its chain accounts for 12. That is the separation you asked for. Not that the claim is true, but that it belongs to the class of claims about which an opponent's own procedure could return the verdict 'false' 12. As for the rebuke, it is not an argument from taste but from motive. Both passages fall exactly where a man composing the book would have gained by silence: turning away from a blind man for the sake of the chiefs of Quraysh 6, and fear of what the hypocrites would say about his marriage 8. Whoever claims revelation and leaves his claim no single shape of refutation has taken it out of the scale, and his testimony about himself is not accepted 10.

Why this God and not another? Had I been born in India I would be a Hindu.

Yes — where you were born explains how the belief reached you, and it settles nothing about whether it is true 6. That distinction was not invented for this argument: the Quran itself makes "we found our fathers following a religion" the plea of the deniers in every township to which a warner was sent, not the plea of the believers 1, and it answers that plea with a single question that moves the weight from birth to evidence: "What! Even though I bring you better guidance than that ye found your fathers following?" 2 — and Tafsir al-Muyassar names their plea a false objection 3. Ibn Abd al-Barr draws the line between the two in a written definition: blind imitation is to hold another man's statement while you know neither the basis of the statement nor its meaning; following is to follow him after the merit of his statement and the soundness of his position have become clear to you 4. And he lays the blame on every imitator who has no proof, whether his imitation ends in disbelief, or in sin, or in a mistake in some worldly affair 5. What makes the answer heavier will not be hidden from you: the strongest form of your objection is not about place but about mechanism — that the road which brought me here could not have given me anything other than what it gave me, whether the religion is true or false. The book states that form plainly and says that whoever presses it has pressed the strongest thing in the matter, and that it has not finished with it 6. By its own account the objection is entirely correct against anyone who has never examined anything, and the only way out is work, not a claim: that you apply the standard to your own position as you apply it to its opposite; that you read the strongest opponent in his own books, not in your side's replies to him; and that you know in advance which result would have changed your mind 6.

1 And even so We sent not a warner before thee (Muhammad) into any township but its luxurious ones said: Lo! we found our fathers following a religion, and we are following their footprints.

Surah Az-Zukhruf (Ornaments of Gold) 43:23 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 (And the warner) said: What! Even though I bring you better guidance than that ye found your fathers following? They answered: Lo! in what ye bring we are disbelievers.

Surah Az-Zukhruf (Ornaments of Gold) 43:24 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and the messengers before him said to those who met him with this false objection: Will you follow your fathers, even if I bring you from your Lord something more guiding to the way of truth and more indicative of the path of right conduct than the religion and creed you found your fathers upon? They said in obstinacy: We reject and disbelieve what you were sent with.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Az-Zukhruf (Ornaments of Gold) 43:24 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Among the scholars, blind imitation (taqlid) is not the same as following (ittiba), because following is to follow the one who speaks on the basis of what has become clear to you of the merit of his statement and the soundness of his position, whereas blind imitation is that you hold his statement while you know neither the basis of the statement nor its meaning, and you refuse anything besides it; or that his error becomes clear to you and you follow him anyway out of awe at differing with him, when the corruption of his statement has already become clear to you. To hold this in the religion of God, glorified and exalted, is forbidden.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih (The Comprehensive Exposition of Knowledge and Its Merit), p. 1710 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Abu Umar said: The scholars have argued from these verses for the invalidity of blind imitation … The likeness drawn between the two kinds of imitation lies only in the imitator having no proof: as if one man imitated and so fell into disbelief, and another imitated and so fell into sin, and another imitated in a matter of his worldly affairs and got it wrong — each one of them is blameworthy for imitating without proof, because all of it is imitation, one part resembling another, even though the sins in it differ.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih (The Comprehensive Exposition of Knowledge and Its Merit), p. 2176 our rendering · Open the passage

6 The answer in two lines: where you were born explains how the belief reached you and settles nothing about its truth — but that answer on its own is not enough, for the strongest form of the objection is not about origin but about the mechanism: that the road which brought it to you could not have given you anything other than what it gave you, true or false. … Whoever presses this second form against me has pressed the strongest thing in the matter, and I do not hold that I have finished with it. … 1. That you apply the standard to your own claim as you apply it to its opposite. 2. That you read the strongest thing the opponent has said in his own books, not in your side's replies to him. 3. That you know in advance which result would have changed your mind — for whoever does not know that has not examined, though he read a thousand pages. … The objection is entirely correct against anyone who has never examined anything. … And the limit of this chapter: it establishes no proof of the existence of God and no proof of any particular religion. Its aim is to clear an argument out of the way, not to put an argument in its place.

16. Had I Been Born in India · Open the passage

Every human being is born by his mother upon the fitrah (the original natural disposition), and afterwards his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian; and if the two of them are Muslims, he is a Muslim. Every human being born by his mother is jabbed by Satan in his two sides, except Mary and her son.

Abu Hurayrah · graded by Muslim · Sahih Muslim 2658 · sound (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is an evasion on two counts. First: you argued at me from the Quran and from Ibn Abd al-Barr to establish that blind imitation is blameworthy — I am asking you about the circle and you argue from inside it. Every religion has a text condemning imitation and commanding investigation, and that has never stopped its followers from ending up where they were born. The second count is heavier: the symmetry you are hinting at does not hold. Not believing is a single position; believing is thousands of positions that contradict one another and cannot all be true. So your mechanism produces contradictory outputs according to the line of longitude, and at most one of them is true. What distinguishes your share of them, other than the very mechanism under suspicion?

The second count holds, and the chapter states it in words it does not soften: whoever presses this form has pressed the strongest thing in the matter, and it does not claim to have finished with it 6. The first count does not land, because the texts were not brought as proof that Islam is true. They were brought to defeat your claim that my Islam is geography: the standard you are judging me by is a standard my own text holds against me before it was ever yours, and Ibn Abd al-Barr applies it to the Muslim himself, making every imitator without proof blameworthy even though the sins in it differ 5. And the limit of what is settled here is stated in the chapter itself: it establishes no proof of the existence of God and no proof of any particular religion; its aim is to clear one argument out of the way, not to put another in its place 6. If that argument is cleared away, then your real question — why Islam in particular? — is to be pursued on its own evidence, not on where I was born. That is a different question, and it is not answered here.

Has the Qur'anic text really been preserved?

The first half of your question is refuted by the facts: the manuscripts you are asking for are published as photographic images, free of charge, and the codices of the first and second centuries, with the material on their readings, are in the Corpus Coranicum archive at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy — a body that neither opposes us nor takes our side 1. As for your second half, it is granted to you exactly as you put it: "Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian." 2 is a claim, not a proof. But its content is definite — "that anything be added to it or taken away from it, or that anything of it be lost" 3 — and it is the definiteness of that content which makes the claim falsifiable, not which excuses anyone from testing it. The condition is written out here plainly: if there were published, from the codices of the first century, by a neutral academic body, a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words — not in dotting or the drawing of an alif — a difference that no reading transmitted with its chain accounts for, then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false 4. Nor is what weighs against us kept back: 'Uthman "ordered that everything else of the Qur'an, in every sheet and codex, be burned" — and the one who reports that is al-Suyuti's book, not an opponent's 5. And the condition has been run on us, in a small matter: the text of the codex displayed here was set against a third source, and five places out of six thousand two hundred and thirty-six came out odd; in every one of them the error was ours, so they were corrected and it was written down that they had been there 6.

1 The photographed manuscripts are published on the web free of charge: … and the Qur'anic codices of the first and second centuries, with the material on their readings, are in the Corpus Coranicum archive at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy. I am not sending you to them so that you will find what pleases me, and I do not claim that opening them is reading them. I am sending you to them because the first two levels can be run in an evening: who published them? And is he an opponent or an ally?

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

2 Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.

Surah Al-Hijr 15:9 — Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 We, We have sent down the Qur'an upon the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and We undertake to preserve it: that anything be added to it or taken away from it, or that anything of it be lost.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Hijr 15:9 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And here is my own condition, stated plainly as you asked: if there were published, from the codices of the first century — by an academic body that neither opposes us nor takes our side — a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words, not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif, a difference that no known reading transmitted with its chain accounts for — then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so. That is a condition open today, and the archive I sent you to is itself the place where it is run, and its researchers do not agree, and I do not know its outcome before it comes.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

5 When they had copied the sheets into the codices, 'Uthman returned the sheets to Hafsa, and sent to every region one of the codices they had copied, and ordered that everything else of the Qur'an, in every sheet and codex, be burned.

Al-Suyuti · Al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 164 our rendering · Open the passage

6 We set the text of the codex we display against a third source that is neither ourselves nor the party we took it from, and five places came out odd from six thousand two hundred and thirty-six — the error in every one of them was ours: among them a superfluous alif maqsura that no eye catches, and among them the joining of two words that the script separates, which threw off the word count in our index. We put them right and wrote down that they had been there.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

7 [164] 'Abdullah narrated to us; Ahmad ibn al-Azhar narrated to us; Abu 'Asim narrated to us | from Ibn Jurayj, from 'Ata', who said: it is in the reading of Ibn Mas'ud (al-Baqarah: 198) | ^ (in the seasons of the Hajj) ^ .

Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani · Kitab al-Masahif, p. 166 our rendering · Open the passage

8 It is no sin for you that ye seek the bounty of your Lord (by trading). But, when ye press on in the multitude from 'Arafat, remember Allah by the sacred monument. Remember Him as He hath guided you, although before ye were of those astray.

Surah Al-Baqarah 2:198 — Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 Every ancient text has disagreement in it, so the presence of disagreement is no charge. The charge is that the disagreement should be known among its own people and kept from everyone else. So ask: where are the variants between copies published? In the margins of their own books, or only in the books of those who attack them? A tradition that prints its own disagreement — with the names of its transmitters and their chains — gives you a reason to believe it elsewhere.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

10 The soundness of the transmission is one question, and the truth of what was transmitted another. If it is established that a text came down letter for letter as it was said, what is established is that it is the text of whoever said it — not that whoever said it was truthful. The first criterion sets a condition; it establishes nothing.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

The strongest objection

The burning spoils the evidence. Whoever destroyed the copies that differed and then showed you what survived has manufactured the agreement; the uniformity of the manuscripts is the trace of a policy, not the trace of preservation. And your archive in Berlin displays nothing but the offspring of that one codex — so collating against it is collating a copy against its sister, not against an independent original.

The burning happened, and the report of it is in the books of its own people, not in the books of their opponents 5. But it did not destroy the record: two centuries later Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani wrote Kitab al-Masahif and printed in it the variant readings with their chains, among them "it is in the reading of Ibn Mas'ud (al-Baqarah: 198) in the seasons of the Hajj" 7 — and that addition is not in the codex in our hands 8. This is where the difference lies: the charge is not that disagreement exists but that it is kept hidden, and "A tradition that prints its own disagreement — with the names of its transmitters and their chains — gives you a reason to believe it elsewhere" 9. The condition that would break the claim stays open on the manuscripts, not on the books; the archive's researchers do not agree; and its outcome is not known before it comes 4. And take one last limit, so that you are not sold more than there is: "The soundness of the transmission is one question, and the truth of what was transmitted another. If it is established that a text came down letter for letter as it was said, what is established is that it is the text of whoever said it — not that whoever said it was truthful" 10.

Then who made God?

The question overturns a premise that was never stated. The argument says "every contingent thing has a cause" — the contingent being that for which existence and non-existence stand equal — not "everything has a creator"; had it said the second, it would have pulled itself down in two lines 1. This is not a restriction cut to fit the conclusion, and the test of that is whether it works outside this subject: the argument's own opponents use it. Oppy holds that the naturalist may posit for the physical universe an initial state that exists necessarily, and answer you with it 2. As for your second prong — "then let the universe be that" — it nominates a candidate for the seat rather than removing the seat: whatever the chain ends at, if something before it acted upon it, "that would be the Lord, the Creator", and the matter must end at "a Creator who is not created and who has no need of anything besides Himself" 3. And the text you are addressing takes God out of your premise from the start: "He is the First and the Last" 4 — "the First, before whom there is nothing" 5 — and "He begetteth not nor was begotten" 6, that is, "He has no child, no parent, and no consort" 7. Then it puts the same division to you: "Or were they created out of naught? Or are they the creators?" 8 — "Both alternatives are false and impossible" 9. None of this means your question has collapsed. Its form collapsed and its content stood — that the stopping point is arbitrary — moving from "thing" to the definition of "the contingent" and to the claim that the universe belongs to it 10.

1 The argument does not say 'everything has a creator' — had it said that, it would have pulled itself down in two lines. It says: 'every contingent thing has a cause', and the contingent is that for which existence and non-existence stand equal.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

2 The argument's own opponents use the division in this very place — Oppy holds that the naturalist may posit an initial state that exists necessarily for the physical universe, and answer you with it. And a tool your opponent uses against you is not cut to your measure.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

3 By this verse He guided them to the falsity of an unending regress, by the immediate judgement of reason: that the chain of created things ends, at its beginning, at a first before which there is nothing, just as it ends, at its end, at a last after which there is nothing … And had there been before it something acting upon it, that would be the Lord, the Creator; and the matter must end at a Creator who is not created and who has no need of anything besides Himself.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 421 our rendering · Open the passage

4 He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things.

Surat al-Hadid 57:3 · Pickthall · Open the passage

5 He is the First, before whom there is nothing; the Last, after whom there is nothing; the Outward, above whom there is nothing; and the Inward, beneath whom there is nothing.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Hadid 57:3 our rendering · Open the passage

6 He begetteth not nor was begotten.

Surat al-Ikhlas 112:3 · Pickthall · Open the passage

7 He has no child, no parent, and no consort.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Ikhlas 112:3 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Or were they created out of naught? Or are they the creators?

Surat al-Tur 52:35 · Pickthall · Open the passage

9 Were these idolaters created without any creator or originator of them, or are they the creators of themselves? Both alternatives are false and impossible.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Tur 52:35 our rendering · Open the passage

10 What has fallen is one particular form: 'everything has a creator, so who created God?' — this saddles the argument with a premise it never stated. As for the content of the objection — that the stopping point is arbitrary — that has not fallen, it has only moved: from an arbitrariness in 'thing' to an arbitrariness in the definition of 'the contingent' and in the claim that the universe belongs to it.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

11 The complexity that counts in assessing hypotheses is neither richness of effect nor difficulty of conception. It is the number of things you posit and their kind: how many entities? how many independent properties? and how many free numbers must you set by your own hand?

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

12 Your saying 'power without limit' and 'knowledge without limit' is not more complex than 'power of a specified magnitude', but simpler than it by this measure — because the infinite has no number in it to be set, while the specified magnitude calls up an extra question: and why this magnitude and not another? And this is Richard Swinburne's argument in its place.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

13 This answers the formulation about the magnitude of the power, and does not touch the specificity formulation at all. For infinite power does not fix which world is willed; and the free parameter lies in the content of the will and not in the magnitude of the power. So whoever says that a knowing, willing self is not free of parameters — since it has knowledge of a particular content and a will directed to particular ends, and all of that requires specifying — has found a place I have not answered.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

14 And the hardest of it stands where it stood, in three things: why should the necessary being be a God and not some first physical state? and what is the evidence for the principle that 'every contingent thing has a cause'? and how is modal collapse to be turned aside? I hold no decisive answer to any one of them, nor does anyone I have read on either side.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

Satan comes to one of you and says: Who created this? Who created that? — until he says: Who created your Lord? So when he reaches that, let him seek refuge with God and let him stop.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 3276 · Authentic (sahih) our rendering

Satan comes to one of you and says: Who created such and such? — until he says to him: Who created your Lord? So when he reaches that, let him seek refuge with God and let him stop.

Abu Hurayra · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 134 · Authentic (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

That is a defence of a wording, not of a claim. Take the objection at its strongest, not in the "complexity" form that is easy for you: any being that picks out this particular world from among countless possible worlds must carry in itself as much specificity as it picks out; a will directed to these laws and not others is a free parameter, whether you call it a number in an equation or a content in a will. You have not removed a single parameter. You have moved it from physics to theology and then called it simple. What explains, on your account, is heavier than what is explained — and that is the very thing we asked to have explained.

Half of that is answered, and the other half conceded. The complexity that counts in assessing hypotheses is neither richness of effect nor difficulty of conception; it is "the number of things you posit and their kind: how many entities? how many independent properties? and how many free numbers must you set by your own hand?" 11. By that measure Swinburne answers that "power without limit" is simpler, not more complex, than "power of a specified magnitude", because the infinite has no number in it to be set, while the specified magnitude calls up an extra question 12. But this answers the formulation about the magnitude of the power and does not touch the specificity formulation at all; and whoever says that a knowing, willing self is not free of parameters "has found a place I have not answered" 13. The hardest of it stands in three things — why the necessary being should be a God and not some first physical state, what the evidence is for the principle that "every contingent thing has a cause", and how modal collapse is to be turned aside — and on these: "I hold no decisive answer to any one of them, nor does anyone I have read on either side" 14.

Isn't the Qur'an's "scientific miracle" decisive evidence — and do those claims hold?

The matter runs against what is commonly said, and we are the first to say it: we counted by machine some well-known numerical claims that are put about in the books of "inimitability", and the count went against four that we had been displaying, so we dropped them — not because they harm us in argument, but because they were testable, were tested, and fell 1. The Qur'an never issued a challenge in the name of science. Its stated challenge is that someone "produce a surah of the like thereof" 2. Al-Baqillani — and his book is the most famous ever written on the subject — built the aspects of inimitability on three things: reporting the unseen, recounting the tales of the ancients, and the excellence of composition and arrangement. Science is not among them 3. Al-Zarkashi goes further: the very verses on which most of these claims turn — the sending down of rain, what is in the wombs — he puts in a class where "there is no room for independent reasoning in interpreting it" 4. As for the prediction you are asking for, it exists, and it is not scientific: "The Romans have been defeated … and they, after their defeat will be victorious" 5 — within a few years, the verse goes on to say: a bounded term, no more than ten years and no less than three, stated at the hour of the defeat, and it came about after seven 6. That is the kind of claim that gets weighed, because it could have been overturned. And whoever reads a statement about nature in a text as a scientific report has accepted the test with his own hand: if what is measured goes against him, he is bound to drop his reading 7.

1 And we counted by machine some well-known numerical claims that are put about in the books of 'inimitability', and the count went against four that we had been displaying, so we dropped them. And we did not drop them because they harm us in argument, but because they were testable, and were tested, and fell.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

2 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:23 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 And the fourth chapter, p. 72: he devoted it to expounding the three aspects of the Qur'an's inimitability he had already set out, namely: reporting the unseen; recounting the tales of the ancients and the lives of those who went before; and the excellence of its ordering, composition and arrangement.

al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an) — from the survey of the book in the edition's introduction, p. 18 our rendering · Open the passage

4 The third: that which none knows but God Most High. It is what runs in the course of the unseen, such as the verses that touch on the coming of the Hour, the sending down of rain, what is in the wombs, the meaning of the spirit, the disconnected letters, and every ambiguous passage in the Qur'an according to the people of truth. There is no room for independent reasoning in interpreting it, and no way to it except by transmitted authority, from one of three sources: a text of the revelation, or an explanation from the Prophet, peace be upon him, or the consensus of the community on its interpretation. If no such transmitted authority has come down from these quarters, we know that it is among what God Most High has kept to His own knowledge.

al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 165 our rendering · Open the passage

5 In the nearer land, and they, after their defeat will be victorious

Surah al-Rum (The Romans) 30:2-4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 Persia defeated the Romans in the part of Syria nearest to Persia, and the Romans will defeat the Persians within a span of time no more than ten years and no less than three… And that came to pass: the Romans defeated the Persians after seven years, and the Muslims rejoiced at it, because the Romans were a people of scripture, even though they had altered it.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah al-Rum (The Romans) 30:2 our rendering · Open the passage

7 So what does a falsifiable claim look like in speech attributed to a god? That it should say something a fact could overturn… or that a statement about nature in it should be read as a scientific report. This last is a door that many of my own people go in by, and whoever goes in by it has accepted the test with his own hand: if what is measured goes against him, he is bound to drop his reading as we drop a count.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

8 Ibn al-Fadl al-Mursi said in his commentary: the Qur'an has gathered the sciences of the first and the last, such that none has truly encompassed them in knowledge except the One who spoke them, and then the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, apart from what He, glorified and exalted, has kept to Himself.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Perfection in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 331 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Al-Rummani said: the aspects of the Qur'an's inimitability appear from these sides: the failure to produce a rival to it although the motives were abundant and the need pressing; the challenge to all people; the turning away (al-sarfa); eloquence; reporting things to come; the breaking of custom; and measuring it against every miracle.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Perfection in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 321 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And the truest thing about it is that it fails claims and establishes none. If a text came through all four it would not follow that it is from God; it would follow that it survived four doors at which most of what is claimed falls.

To the one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is a retreat, not an answer. You drop the "scientific miracle" and what is left in your hand is a literary miracle that cannot be measured and that nobody can recognise unless he has mastered your language — that is, evidence that reaches only those who believed before they saw it. As for the Romans, that is a report about a war between two warring empires: the outcome had two possibilities and no third, a term of a few years covers anything between three and ten, and anyone betting that a long war would turn would be right half the time with no revelation at all. And your citing of al-Zarkashi and al-Baqillani is selective: neither of them knew modern science, so their silence about it is not a denial of it, and your own tradition contains a man who said the Qur'an had gathered the sciences of the first and the last — and out of that very door came the industry you now disown.

You are half right about the selectivity, and that half is granted: al-Itqan records that Ibn al-Fadl al-Mursi said the Qur'an "gathered the sciences of the first and the last" 8, and that is the root from which the modern industry grew. It is not something being hidden. As for the Romans, your objection is sound as far as it goes: two possibilities and a term of seven years are not a decisive proof. It is not offered here as a proof but as a model of the shape a claim must have to enter the scales — what marks it off from the scientific reading is that it would have fallen had the term run out with nothing happening, whereas the scientific reading never falls, because it is reworded after every result. As for eloquence, in the way the early writers framed it, it is not a matter of taste: the first of its aspects for al-Rummani is "the failure to produce a rival to it although the motives were abundant and the need pressing" 9 — and that is a general historical claim, overturned by history and not by taste. To overturn it, produce the rival. And the last thing to be said is that this whole balance "fails claims and establishes none": if a text came through all its doors, it would not follow that it is from God 10. So whoever sold you the "scientific miracle" as decisive proof sold you what he does not own — and no decisive substitute is being offered you in its place.

Hasn't science made the God hypothesis unnecessary?

It is the reverse of what is commonly said: science has not cleared out a field that once belonged to God. It answered a different question from the one that was asked — "how does what goes on go on", not "why is there anything going on in the first place, and why is it regular" 1. That does not establish God, nor come near to establishing him; all it does is remove the claim that science has established that he does not exist 1. The retreat you describe is real, but it belongs to one kind of argument only: an argument resting on what has not been explained yet is hostage to a paper published tomorrow, while an argument resting on the success of the description itself does not vanish with more explaining 2. As for the claim that God was always a name for what we do not know, the classical texts themselves tell against it. Ibn al-Qayyim affirms causes and their effects and rejects the position of those who denied them 3, and he holds that the reality of monotheism is not complete except by taking up the causes, and that suspending them damages trust in God — so on his account knowing the remedy is monotheism completed, not monotheism retreating 4. And the Qur'an draws its argument from the regular and the known, not from the unknown: "the difference of night and day", the "dispersing all kinds of beasts therein", and "the ordinance of the winds, and the clouds" 5 — which in al-Tafsir al-Muyassar are signs of his oneness, for a people who grasp where the proofs lie 6.

1 The answer in two lines: science answers the question 'how does what goes on go on', and the question of God is a question about 'why is there anything going on in the first place, and why is it regular'. And the completeness of the first answer is no annulment of the second. And this does not establish that God exists — all it does is remove the claim that science has established that he does not; and those are two different things, and I shall take care not to run them together.

13. Hasn't science made it unnecessary? · Open the passage

2 An argument from a gap rests on what has not been explained yet, so it is hostage to a paper published tomorrow. An argument from regularity rests on what has actually been explained, so its subject matter does not vanish with more explaining — because it is a question about the successful description itself and not about what that description is missing.

13. Hasn't science made it unnecessary? · Open the passage

3 These hadiths comprise the affirmation of causes and of their effects, and the refutation of the position of those who denied them. It is possible that his saying, 'for every disease there is a remedy', holds in its general sense, so that it takes in the fatal diseases as well, and the diseases no physician is able to cure: God, Mighty and Majestic, has appointed remedies for them that do cure them, but he has folded the knowledge of them away from human beings and given them no path to it — for created beings have no knowledge except what God has taught them.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 12 our rendering · Open the passage

4 In the sound hadiths there is the command to seek treatment, and that it does not conflict with trust in God, just as it is no conflict with it to ward off the affliction of hunger, of thirst, of heat and of cold by their opposites. Rather, the reality of monotheism is not complete except by taking up the causes that God has set in place, by decree and by law, as bringing about their effects; and suspending them damages trust in God itself, as it damages the command and the wisdom, and weakens trust from the very side where the one who suspends them supposes that leaving them makes trust stronger.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 13 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of night and day, and the ships which run upon the sea with that which is of use to men, and the water which Allah sendeth down from the sky, thereby reviving the earth after its death, and dispersing all kinds of beasts therein, and (in) the ordinance of the winds, and the clouds obedient between heaven and earth: are signs (of Allah's Sovereignty) for people who have sense.

Surat al-Baqara 2:164 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 In the creation of the heavens, in their height and their vastness, and of the earth, with its mountains and its plains and its seas; and in the difference of night and day in length and in shortness, in darkness and in light, and in their succeeding one another, each of them following the other … there are signs of the oneness of God and of the greatness of his favours, for a people who grasp where the proofs lie, and who understand his indications, glorified be he, of his oneness and of his sole right to be worshipped.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, Surat al-Baqara 2:164 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And I claim no immunity for this distinction. History shows that what was taken for a final regularity has been reduced to a more general regularity: on Newton's account the orbits of the planets needed a divine intervention to hold them steady against the cumulative disturbance, and then dispensed with it once the problem was treated mathematically a century after him — and that was a regularity, not a gap in the description.

13. Hasn't science made it unnecessary? · Open the passage

8 And it is not a probability. It is a ratio of two volumes in a mathematical space — the denominator of the fraction and not its numerator — and its subject is the low entropy of the initial state. And worse than that: Penrose himself brings it forward as a call for a physical explanation, and he proposed a law to that end in 1979 (the Weyl curvature hypothesis). So the gap on which an argument was built among us was one whose author was asking physics to close it, decades before it was passed on to us.

13. Hasn't science made it unnecessary? · Open the passage

9 Then again, the argument from regularity itself — the soundest thing in this chapter — is the weakest thing in natural theology in the judgement of those who have gone over it honestly: it names a real puzzle and does not put forward a constrained hypothesis that can be tested. And whoever says that uniformity is a brute fact admitting of no explanation has fallen into no contradiction. So there is no settling it here, and I shall say so whenever it is true.

13. Hasn't science made it unnecessary? · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is a distinction drawn after the defeat: every time a field falls, you say it was never your field to begin with. And "regularity" is nothing but the last gap under a cleaner name — what was taken for a final regularity has been reduced to a more general one, again and again, so why bet on the last link holding when every link before it has already gone? Besides, you yourselves built on the gaps, and numbers were passed around among you that do not mean what you took them to mean.

All of that is right, and it was said in the chapter itself before it was said here. Its author states that he claims no immunity for the distinction, and he brings up Newton's orbits as an example: they needed a divine intervention to hold them steady, and then dispensed with it once the problem was treated mathematically a century after him 7. As for the numbers that were passed around, he counts them against his own case and not for it. Penrose's number is not a probability, and Penrose himself brought it forward as a call for a physical explanation and proposed a law to that end in 1979 — the man whose number it is was asking for the gap to be closed, decades before it was passed on to us 8. He goes further: the argument from regularity, the soundest thing he has, is the weakest thing in natural theology in the judgement of those who have gone over it honestly, and whoever says that uniformity is a brute fact admitting of no explanation has fallen into no contradiction 9. So what is left after all that is not a verdict for one side. It is only that "science has made it unnecessary" is an answer to a question other than the one asked 1.

If God wanted to be known, why a book people dispute over rather than a sign everyone sees?

The question rests on a premise the text itself contradicts. The text does not claim that an overwhelming sign is beyond it. It says such a sign is possible, and that it was withheld on purpose: "If We will, We can send down on them from the sky a portent so that their necks would remain bowed before it." 1 The commentary on the verse reads: "but We did not will that; for the faith that profits is faith in the unseen, chosen freely." 2 And the overwhelming channel has already been tried, and it did not produce what is assumed of it: "Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them" 3 — "God granted them what they asked, and they denied it and perished." 4 Even a book seen and handled would not settle the matter: "Had we sent down unto thee (Muhammad) (actual) writing upon parchment, so that they could feel it with their hands, those who disbelieve would have said: This is naught else than mere magic." 5 And "one language, one man, one century" is the opposite of what the text says about itself, not a description of it: "And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them" 6 — "And every nation has a messenger who guides them to God Almighty." 7 A single tongue is the mark of every sending, not a peculiarity of this one. As for the cosmic sign that everyone sees, the text claims it rather than excludes it: "We shall show them Our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth" 8 — "in the far reaches of the heavens and the earth, and the great events God brings about in them, and in themselves and the wonders of God's signs" 9. As for why a text at all, the trade is stated openly by the best-known defender of the text's miracle: every prophet was given what dazzled the masters of his own age's craft — medicine for the people of Jesus, magic for the people of Moses — "then this miracle was of the kind that the first and the last stand before it in one and the same standing, and its force remains until the Day of Resurrection." 10 And "dispute over interpretation" is affirmed by the text, and confined to one part of it rather than spread over all of it: "the Scripture wherein are clear revelations - they are the substance of the Book - and others (which are) allegorical" 11 — and the clear verses are "the foundation of the Book, referred to when something is ambiguous, and whatever differs from them is referred back to them." 12

1 If We will, We can send down on them from the sky a portent so that their necks would remain bowed before it.

Surah al-Shu'ara 26:4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 If We willed, We would send down upon the deniers among your people a sign from the sky that would frighten them and drive them to belief, so that their necks would become bowed and lowly. But We did not will that; for the faith that profits is faith in the unseen, chosen freely.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Shu'ara 26:4 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them. And We gave Thamud the she-camel - a clear portent save to warn.

Surah al-Isra 17:59 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 Nothing kept Us from sending down the signs the idolaters asked for except the denial of the nations before them. God granted them what they asked, and they denied it and perished. And We gave Thamud — the people of Salih — a clear sign, the she-camel, and they disbelieved in it, so We destroyed them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Isra 17:59 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Had we sent down unto thee (Muhammad) (actual) writing upon parchment, so that they could feel it with their hands, those who disbelieve would have said: This is naught else than mere magic.

Surah al-An'am 6:7 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them. Then Allah sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will. He is the Mighty, the Wise.

Surah Ibrahim 14:4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 The disbelievers of Mecca say: if only a perceptible sign had come to him, like the staff of Moses or the she-camel of Salih. That is not in your hands, Messenger; you are only one who conveys to them and warns them of God's might. And every nation has a messenger who guides them to God Almighty.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Ra'd 13:7 our rendering · Open the passage

8 We shall show them Our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth. Doth not thy Lord suffice, since He is Witness over all things?

Surah Fussilat 41:53 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 We shall show these deniers Our signs in the conquests and the rise of Islam over the regions and over the other religions, and in the far reaches of the heavens and the earth, and the great events God brings about in them, and in themselves and the wonders of God's signs and the marvels of His making that they contain, until those signs make it plain to them, beyond doubt, that the Noble Qur'an is the truth revealed from the Lord of the Worlds.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Fussilat 41:53 our rendering · Open the passage

10 As the people of Jesus knew their own shortfall in what they had reckoned to be the utmost attainable in treatment, and in reaching the highest ranks of medicine, so he came to them with what dazzled them: raising the dead, and healing the blind-born and the leper; and as Moses came with the staff … Then this miracle was of the kind that the first and the last stand before it in one and the same standing, and its force remains until the Day of Resurrection.

al-Baqillani, I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 102 our rendering · Open the passage

11 He it is Who hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture wherein are clear revelations - they are the substance of the Book - and others (which are) allegorical. But those in whose hearts is doubt pursue, forsooth, that which is allegorical seeking (to cause) dissension by seeking to explain it. None knoweth its explanation save Allah. And those who are of sound instruction say: We believe therein; the whole is from our Lord; but only men of understanding really heed.

Surah Al 'Imran 3:7 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 He alone sent down the Qur'an to you: some of it verses of clear import, which are the foundation of the Book, referred to when something is ambiguous, and whatever differs from them is referred back to them; and some of it other verses that resemble one another and bear more than one meaning, whose intent is settled only by joining them to the clear ones

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Al 'Imran 3:7 our rendering · Open the passage

13 And this, though it parts in one respect from the splitting of the sea and the bringing forth of the white hand and the like — namely that people are equal in knowing their inability before it, since it breaks the customary order, without hard reflection or far-reaching consideration. … For the inquiry into knowing the inimitability of the Qur'an needs reflection, and depends on attending to premises and on uncovering matters that we shall mention after this place.

al-Baqillani, I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 31 our rendering · Open the passage

14 Does it exist in its first language, or in a translation of a translation? Look: in what tongue was it said to have come down? And is there in your hands today a text in that tongue, or is what you read a transmission of a transmission? Every link in that chain is a place where something can leak.

To one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

15 And here is my own condition, stated plainly as you asked: if there were published, from the codices of the first century — by an academic body that neither opposes us nor takes our side — a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words, not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif … then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so.

To one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

16 And what is heavier than is supposed: divine hiddenness. Heavier, to my mind, than evil is, for the man who has searched in earnest and not found, because it touches him himself and does not touch the world.

12. The heaviest question in the chapter · Open the passage

The strongest objection

All of this is circular. Everything offered as an answer is taken from the very book whose source is in dispute, and a man asked "why did you choose the worst channel?" who replies by quoting that same channel has answered nothing. More plainly still, the defect is conceded inside the tradition and not only from outside it: "And this, though it parts in one respect from the splitting of the sea and the bringing forth of the white hand and the like — namely that people are equal in knowing their inability before it, since it breaks the customary order, without hard reflection or far-reaching consideration." [[13]] That is, the defender of the text's miracle concedes that before a sensory sign people stand equal without reflection, and that his own channel is the narrower door — which is the objection itself, in the words of the one who makes the claim. Heavier than either is what stands in "Naught hindereth Us from sending portents save that the folk of old denied them" [[3]]: one generation is denied decisive evidence for the offence of a generation before it, which it neither saw nor chose.

The concession stands and is not resisted: the text is the narrower door at first encounter, and that is stated in the same passage: "For the inquiry into knowing the inimitability of the Qur'an needs reflection, and depends on attending to premises." 13 But the trade is declared, not hidden. Ease in the moment is paid out, and what is taken in return is that "the first and the last stand before it in one and the same standing" 10 — before a sensory sign only those present stand equal, and whoever comes after them meets not a sign but a report of a sign. The trade carries something further with it: the claim becomes open to testing, which a finished event cannot be. "Does it exist in its first language, or in a translation of a translation? … Every link in that chain is a place where something can leak." 14 A single fixed tongue is the condition of the test, not its flaw. And the one who makes the claim writes the terms of its refutation himself: "if there were published, from the codices of the first century … a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words … then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so." 15 As for the circularity, it stands and is not denied: these are internal answers, and they do not bind anyone who has not granted the source. The book itself writes that divine hiddenness is "heavier, to my mind, than evil is, for the man who has searched in earnest and not found, because it touches him himself and does not touch the world." 16

Isn't the Qur'an borrowed from earlier scriptures and tales?

No, and the claim runs backwards. The Qur'an does not hide the overlap with what came before it; it asserts it: "And lo! it is in the Scriptures of the men of old" 1. The Tafsir al-Muyassar glosses the verse: "The mention of this Qur'an is recorded in the books of the earlier prophets" 2. So the very thing produced as evidence of copying is the text of the Qur'an's own claim. Nor is the accusation modern. The Qur'an reports it, in nearly these words, from the men of its own generation: "And they say: Fables of the men of old which he hath had written down so that they are dictated to him morn and evening" 3. Its second form is named in the commentary: they would have said "he learned it from the earlier books, or copied it out of them" 4. When they named the teacher they had in mind, the reply turned on the product, not on who kept company with whom: "And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech" 5. Al-Zarkashi notes that they said it "though they knew that their companion was unlettered and that there was no one in his presence to dictate or to write anything" 6. And the closest man to have actually run your hypothesis ran it in the open, and his name is still on record: al-Nadr ibn al-Harith "entered the land of Persia and learned the old stories, then came back and would say: I can tell you better tales than Muhammad tells you" 7. That is why the dispute moved off the question of whether the man had heard these stories somewhere, and onto a condition that a single page could break: he "challenged the Arabs as a whole with the Qur'an when they said he had forged it" 8.

1 And lo! it is in the Scriptures of the men of old.

Surah Ash-Shu'ara 26:196 · Open the passage

2 The mention of this Qur'an is recorded in the books of the earlier prophets, which announced it beforehand and confirmed it.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Ash-Shu'ara 26:196 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And they say: Fables of the men of old which he hath had written down so that they are dictated to him morn and evening.

Surah Al-Furqan 25:5 · Open the passage

4 It is among your clear miracles, O Messenger, that you did not read any book and did not write letters with your right hand before the Qur'an was sent down upon you, and they know this. Had you been a reader or a writer before revelation came to you, the people of falsehood would have doubted it, and they would have said: he learned it from the earlier books, or copied it out of them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Ankabut 29:48 our rendering · Open the passage

5 And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech.

Surah An-Nahl 16:103 · Open the passage

6 At times, out of their ignorance and their confusion, they would say: "And they say: Fables of the men of old which he hath had written down so that they are dictated to him morn and evening" — though they knew that their companion was unlettered and that there was no one in his presence to dictate or to write anything

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · Al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 103 our rendering · Open the passage

7 They said: wherever "Fables of the men of old" occurs in the Qur'an, the one who said it is al-Nadr ibn al-Harith ibn Kalada. He used to say it because he entered the land of Persia and learned the old stories, then came back and would say: I can tell you better tales than Muhammad tells you; he only tells you fables of the men of old. And concerning him came down the verse about the one who says that he will send down the like of what God has sent down. And the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, had him put to death as a bound captive on the day of Badr

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · Al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 156 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Know that the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, challenged the Arabs as a whole with the Qur'an when they said he had forged it. So God, mighty and majestic, sent down upon him the verse asking whether they say he has forged it, and telling them to bring ten surahs like it. Then, when they proved unable to bring ten surahs that resemble the Qur'an, He said: bring a single surah like it

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · Al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 90 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Passing the criteria does not yield certainty. It yields that the claim is still standing after the examination. And that is less than enthusiasm supposes, and more than rejection supposes.

22. The criteria for testing a claim of revelation · Open the passage

10 It weights and does not prove, and it does not work until there is a tie. That is, it is a rule for choosing between two hypotheses that stand equal in explaining the data. And if they do not stand equal it does not work at all — and the simpler hypothesis that does not explain the data is thrown out, and its being simpler does not plead for it.

15. Who created God? And Occam's razor · Open the passage

The strongest objection

All of this is the accused testifying for himself. The line "in the Scriptures of the men of old" is not an answer; it is an admission dressed as a virtue. A man who is told "your words are borrowed" and answers "yes, and that is my evidence" has not rebutted the charge. He has promoted it into a doctrine. Being unlettered is a report his own followers transmit about him, and al-Zarkashi is a Muslim writing eight centuries later, so he is no neutral witness. Al-Nadr ibn al-Harith was killed by the winning side, and it is that same side that narrates his defeat. As for the demand that they bring a single surah like it, that is a ruler of taste, not a test: who is the judge, and by what measure is any given piece pronounced its like?

Your first half is sound, and it is granted exactly as you put it: the report that he was unlettered and the account of al-Nadr both come from inside the tradition, and neither is offered here as proof — "Passing the criteria does not yield certainty. It yields that the claim is still standing after the examination" 9. The break is in your second half. You are not carrying out a weighing; you are assuming one. The razor "weights and does not prove, and it does not work until there is a tie… And if they do not stand equal it does not work at all" 10. And the tie is precisely what has to be established, not what may be granted at the start. Your hypothesis explains the overlap of the stories, and nothing else. It still owes an account of why the supposed copyist tells his own opponents, out loud, that what he brings is already recorded in the books of those before him 1; why he stakes his claim on a condition that would bring it down the moment anyone produced its like 8; and why his answer, when his teacher was named, was an argument about language 5. As for al-Nadr, the one report carries what tells against this answer and what tells against your objection in a single line: that "the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, had him put to death as a bound captive on the day of Badr", and that the experiment was carried out all the same, that the man who ran it was named, and that the account of him was not buried 7.

By what standard is a claim that God has spoken to be tested?

The standard is one, and it can be said in plain words: name in advance the thing which, had it happened, would sink your claim — a criterion you frame after you already know which claim you want to see succeed is not a criterion but a description of it, and you are free to strike out anything that looks cut to measure 1. And it is applied to the one who states it on the same page: the condition is written out with its limits — a codex from the first century, from an academic body that neither opposes nor takes sides, a difference in the words and not in the dotting, one that no reading transmitted with its chain accounts for — and it is said that the archive where such a thing would be run is open today, that its researchers do not agree, and that its outcome is not known before it comes 2. None of this was invented for this answer: al-Baqillani puts the falsifier inside the definition of the miracle itself — "if it were sound that they should be able to do it, the evidentiary force of the miracle would be void" 3 — and says that the claimant made the challenge the proof of his truthfulness, and made overturning it cheaper for his opponents than fighting and departure from their homelands 4. The text states its own condition: "then produce a surah of the like thereof" 5, and "If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity" 6 — that is, it hangs its truthfulness on an examination to be carried out on its own composition 7. And what weighs against this is not folded away: the book admits that another of its criteria "favors a text like ours", that it deleted the ranking of its criteria because ranking after the answer is known is the very fault itself and not a branch of it, and that it did not run the scale on its own text in the book 8.

1 The first: the scale is set down before you know the answer. A criterion you frame once you already know which claim you want to see succeed is not a criterion but a description of it. So if any of the four is cut to our own measure, you are within your rights to strike it out. And under the third criterion I will name for you one particular thing which, had it happened, would have made me say our claim is false; for a man who demands a falsification condition of you for four pages and then does not state his own has failed his own criterion on the very page where he set it down.

To the one who says: Show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

2 And here is my own condition, stated plainly as you asked: if there were published, from the codices of the first century — by an academic body that neither opposes us nor takes our side — a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words, not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif, a difference that no known reading transmitted with its chain accounts for — then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so. That is a condition open today, and the archive I sent you to is itself the place where it is run, and its researchers do not agree, and I do not know its outcome before it comes.

To the one who says: Show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

3 …And the servants are unable to (4) produce the like of it only because, if it were sound that they should be able to do it, the evidentiary force of the miracle would be void (5); and [God] (6) has made it the custom that the doing of that be impossible for them (7), and that they not be able to do it.

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 97 our rendering · Open the passage

4 What shows that they were incapable of producing the like of the Qur'an is that he challenged them to it until the challenge grew long, and made it a proof of his truthfulness and his prophethood, and included (3) in his rulings the lawfulness of their blood and their wealth and the captivity of their offspring. Had they been able to give him the lie they would have done it, and would have secured the deliverance of themselves and their families and their wealth from his ruling by an easy matter — one that was their own habit in their tongue and familiar in their speech — and that would have spared them the burden of fighting, and much wrangling and dispute, and departure from their homelands, and the surrender of family and offspring to captivity.

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 29 our rendering · Open the passage

5 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:23 · Open the passage

6 Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.

Surah An-Nisa (The Women) 4:82 · Open the passage

7 Will these people not look into the Qur'an, and the truth it brought, with a look of reflection and pondering — for it came in a soundly ordered arrangement that settles it as being from God alone? And had it been from other than Him, they would have found in it much discrepancy.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · An-Nisa 4:82 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Our draft made the soundness of the transmission 'the strongest of them' and its effect on the one who bears it 'the weakest of them'. … And ranking after the answer is known is the very fault itself, not a branch of it. So the ranking was deleted. … And we put a warning against ourselves: this very criterion favors a text like ours. … What settles the matter is that the criterion be run, not that it be announced, and we have not run it on our own text in this book, and we say so.

22. Criteria for testing a claim of revelation · Open the passage

9 So a claim's being unfalsifiable does not make it false — it makes it untested by this instrument, and that is another thing. … And we acknowledge two difficulties: that the condition in the second and the third opens the door of reinterpretation, and whoever wishes to reinterpret will not lack a way — and that is a flaw in the criterion on our side, not a merit of ours.

22. Criteria for testing a claim of revelation · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Your condition is built out of four restrictions — first century, a neutral body, a difference in the words, no reading with a chain to account for it — and every one of them is an escape hatch. So you did not set a condition before you knew the answer; you set a condition you know will not occur, and then counted the setting of it as a virtue. Besides, falsifiability was formulated by Popper as a line between science and what is not science, so extending it to a claim of revelation is a metaphor, not a scale. And finally: to admit that you did not run your scale on your own text is not integrity — it is the admission that what you handed me is an announcement, not a procedure.

The first restriction is sound where it stands, and the book writes it down before you raise it: the door of reinterpretation is open in this criterion, "whoever wishes to reinterpret will not lack a way — and that is a flaw in the criterion on our side, not a merit of ours" 9. Popper's limit is stated there too and not folded away: what is unfalsifiable does not thereby become false; it becomes untested by this instrument alone 9 — so the criterion marks the limit of the instrument, not the limit of the truth. As for the condition being safe from ever occurring, what settles that is not how cheap it is but whether it is live: it is open today, the place where it would be run is a named archive, and its outcome is not known to the one who set it before it comes 2. And this form has been run before at a real price: overturning the challenge was the cheapest course open to the opponents of the claim and would have spared them war and captivity, and they did not do it 4; and the ruling that what men are able to do voids the proof is written into the definition of the miracle itself, not into some later defense 3. Your last objection stands exactly as you put it: the procedure was not carried out on the text in the book, and the book says so in its own words 8 — so take the scale, and do not take the claimant's testimony about himself.

The challenge to produce a sura like it — what is it worth as a test?

The matter runs against the common account on one decisive point: the text does not keep the judging in the hands of the one making the claim. It hands it to the opponent in so many words — "call your witness beside Allah" and "call (for help) on all ye can besides Allah" 1 2. And the standard is bounded in the text, not open: the challenge permits the surahs to be "invented", made up in their content, so the contest is over composition, not over the truth of what is reported 3 4. The faculty that does the judging is not a Muslim invention either: it is the same faculty that ranked Jarir, al-Farazdaq and al-Akhtal, Zuhayr and al-Nabighah, al-Buhturi and his peers — at work on old Arabic poetry that has nothing to do with the claim 5. Al-Jurjani answers this exact question: those addressed were the transmitters of that poetry, its memorizers, the men who knew its measures. Had they seen in what they had memorized any superiority over the Qur'an, or anything close to it, they would have claimed it, and it would have been reported from them 6. He then narrowed the aspect until it became something to be examined rather than tasted: for him composition is "the deliberate pursuit of the meanings of grammar and its rules", and the proof of inimitability has no source of derivation but that 7. As for its being a test, that too rests on a qualification in the text itself: "And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it" is a statement about the future — "you will inevitably be unable in the future" — and "they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another" closes off the excuse of small numbers and weak means 8 9 10.

1 And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:23 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Or say they: He hath invented it? Say: Then bring a surah like unto it, and call (for help) on all ye can besides Allah, if ye are truthful.

Surah Yunus (Jonah) 10:38 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 Or they say: He hath invented it. Say: Then bring ten surahs, the like thereof, invented, and call on everyone ye can beside Allah, if ye are truthful!

Surah Hud 11:13 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 Do these idolaters of the people of Mecca say that Muhammad has invented this Qur'an? Say to them: if the matter is as you allege, then bring ten surahs like it, invented, and call upon whomever you can of all God's creation to help you produce these ten surahs, if you are truthful in your claim.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar (The Simplified Exegesis) · Hud 11:13 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Whoever cannot judge between the poetry of Jarir, al-Farazdaq and al-Akhtal, or judge the merit of Zuhayr against al-Nabighah, or the merit of al-Buhturi against his peers, and does not recognize the feebleness of Musaylimah's composition, and does not know that it belongs to the class of thing that is mocked and derided … how can he look into what we have described, and judge what we have set out?

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 86 our rendering · Open the passage

6 It was said to them: this passage, whatever is in it, does not damage the point of the argument. For they were, as is not hidden, transmitters of the poetry and the orations of the pre-Islamic Arabs, and they knew their ranks in eloquence with the knowledge of men to whom the aspects of merit are not obscure. So had they seen, in what they transmitted and memorized, any superiority over the Qur'an, or seen it as close to it, or such that it could be matched by its like, or had it occurred to them, when they compared and weighed, that this thing they were challenged to match could have been matched by those before them had the challenge been put to them, they would have claimed that and said so; and had they said it, it would have been reported.

Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani · Dala'il al-I'jaz (The Proofs of Inimitability), p. 586 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Now that it is established that there is no doubt and no uncertainty that composition is nothing other than the deliberate pursuit of the meanings of grammar and its rules among the meanings of the words, it follows that whoever seeks the proof of inimitability in the composition of the Qur'an, if he does not seek it in the meanings of grammar and its rules and its modes and its distinctions, and does not know that these are its mine and its wellspring, its place and its station, and that it has no source of derivation but them, and that there is no way to seek it in anything besides them — he has deceived himself with lying hope, and delivered himself over to delusion.

Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani · Dala'il al-I'jaz (The Proofs of Inimitability), p. 525 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones.

Surah al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:24 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 If you are unable now — and you will inevitably be unable in the future — then guard yourselves against the Fire by believing in the Prophet, peace be upon him, and by obeying God Most High.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar (The Simplified Exegesis) · al-Baqarah 2:24 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Say: Verily, though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another.

Surah al-Isra' (The Night Journey) 17:88 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 Know that no challenge to produce a thing is valid while the one addressed is ignorant of the aspect in which the challenge was made. A man's saying to his like, "if you have made a ring, you are able to make the like of it," does not hold until he gives him access to the aspect in which he claims the one addressed is incapable … so it must be that the inimitability lies in some other matter outside that.

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 92 our rendering · Open the passage

12 Then al-Nazzam claimed that its inimitability is by diversion — that is, that God turned the Arabs away from matching it and took away their minds, and it was within their power, but an external matter hindered them, so it became like the rest of the miracles.

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (Perfection in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 313 our rendering · Open the passage

13 It is a corrupt position, by the evidence of His words: "Say: Verily, though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another." For it indicates their incapacity while their power remains. Had they been stripped of the power, there would have been no benefit left in their assembling, since it would rank as the assembling of the dead, and the incapacity of the dead is nothing great, worth making mention of.

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 93 our rendering · Open the passage

14 So what does a falsifiable claim look like in speech attributed to a god? That it should say something a fact could overturn: that it should claim for its text a preservation that can be set against the manuscripts; or report an event in a time and a place that can be dug in; or lay down a number that can be counted; or promise something within a term that can be waited out; or that a statement about nature in it should be read as a scientific report.

To one who says: show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

There was no prophet among the prophets but was given something on account of whose like people came to believe. What I was given was a revelation that God revealed to me. So I hope to be the one with the most followers among them on the Day of Resurrection.

Abu Hurayrah · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 4981 · authentic our rendering

The strongest objection

The qualification you bring was never stated in the challenge. It was extracted after centuries of argument. Al-Zarkashi himself lays down that a challenge is not valid while the one addressed is ignorant of the aspect in which it is made; he then reviews the proposed aspects, cancels them one by one, and ends by saying the inimitability lies "in some other matter outside that" — which means the specialists themselves never agreed on what is being measured. On what ground, then, is an opponent asked to meet a standard that was never fixed for him? And al-Nazzam was one of them, one of their leading men, and he said the Arabs were able and were merely diverted. That is an admission from inside the community that the text alone does not carry the claim. You have written yourselves that a claim which swallows every possible outcome has said nothing about the world, and that a criterion which occurs to its holder only after he knows the answer he wants is a conclusion dressed as a premise — and "composition" was named after the answer was already known. As for the silence of the Arabs, that is an argument from silence, reported in the books of the side that won; and whoever did object after them, you are the ones who judged him. That is the circle, and it has not been broken yet.

Al-Zarkashi's condition is sound and is accepted as it stands: there is no challenge while the one addressed is ignorant of the aspect 11. Al-Jurjani met it, not by softening it but by naming it: he confined the aspect to composition, defined it as "the deliberate pursuit of the meanings of grammar and its rules among the meanings of the words", and denied that the proof of inimitability has any source of derivation besides it 7. As for diversion (al-sarfah), it is an admission of the failure, not a refutation of it: al-Nazzam says God turned the Arabs away and took away their minds, and that producing the like was within their power 12; the verse joins the failure to the survival of the power — "though they were helpers one of another" 10; and al-Zarkashi called it "a corrupt position", because stripping them of power would void any benefit in their assembling, so that it would rank as "the assembling of the dead" 13. And whoever denies that there is any judging in this field at all must cancel along with it the judgment between Jarir and al-Farazdaq, and between Zuhayr and al-Nabighah — a judgment the specialists pass on texts that belong to no one here and serve no interest here 5. One thing remains, neither hidden nor passed off onto anyone else: the standard of falsification appealed to here does not count literary quality among the kinds of thing it can weigh. What it counts is a preservation that can be set against the manuscripts, an event that can be dug for, a number that can be counted, and a promise within a term that can be waited out 14.

If it is preserved letter for letter, what are these differing readings?

The picture is not quite what it looks like. What is called preserved here is a single written form of the text — one skeleton of letters — not a single chain of pronunciation. It was copied in the caliphate of Uthman from the sheets held by Hafsah; one codex made from it was sent to every region, and everything else was ordered burned 1. "The codex transmitted by mass transmission is the codex of Uthman, and the written form of the letters is one, except for what the codices varied in, and that is some ten-odd letters" 2. A reading is not accepted except on three pillars: that it accord with Arabic even in one way, that it accord with one of the Uthmanic codices even by way of possibility, and that its chain of transmission be sound. "Whenever one of these three pillars is defective, the reading is called weak, or anomalous, or void, whether it comes from the seven or from someone greater than them" 3. So the variation is not an open field. It is held inside one frame of letters: whatever departs from the agreed-upon written form is anomalous by definition, and the places where the codices themselves differ are named one by one — the omission of "huwa" in al-Hadid, the waw of "sari'u", the dual in "minhuma munqalaban" in al-Kahf 4. That variation is original, not something that crept in later: "The Qur'an was sent down in seven modes" 5. And the control went down to the single letter: the scribes of the codex differed over "al-tabut" and "al-tabuh", the matter was taken up to Uthman, and he ruled on it 6. The claim itself is stated in the text: "Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian." 7 Its meaning: "We undertake to preserve it from anything being added to it or taken from it, or anything of it being lost" 8. And it is a claim that can be shown false, not one kept out of reach: a text from the codices of the first century differing from what is in our hands in the words — not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif — that no reading transmitted with its chain accounts for, would defeat it 9.

1 Hudhayfah saw their disagreement over the Qur'an, so he said to Uthman ibn Affan: O Commander of the Faithful, save this nation before they differ over the Book as the Jews and the Christians differed. So he sent to Hafsah: Send me the sheets, that we may copy them into the codices and then return them to you. Hafsah sent the sheets to Uthman, and Uthman sent to Zayd ibn Thabit, Sa'id ibn al-'As, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham and 'Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, telling them to copy the sheets into the codices. And he said to the three men of Quraysh: whatever you and Zayd ibn Thabit differ over, write it in the tongue of Quraysh, for it was sent down in their tongue. Then, when they had copied the sheets into the codices, Uthman sent to every region a codex from those they had copied, and he ordered that whatever was besides that, in any sheet or codex, be burned [another said: be torn up].

Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani · Kitab al-Masahif (The Book of the Codices), p. 87 our rendering · Open the passage

2 The imams hold that the codex of Uthman is one of the seven modes … and all of it is true. The codex transmitted by mass transmission is the codex of Uthman, and the written form of the letters is one, except for what the codices varied in, and that is some ten-odd letters.

al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Sciences of the Qur'an), p. 214 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Every reading that accords with Arabic even in one way, and accords with one of the Uthmanic codices even by way of possibility, and whose chain of transmission is sound — that is the sound reading, which may not be rejected and which it is not lawful to deny. Rather it is one of the seven modes in which the Qur'an was sent down, and people are obliged to accept it, whether it comes from the seven imams, or from the ten, or from others among the accepted imams. And whenever one of these three pillars is defective, the reading is called weak, or anomalous, or void, whether it comes from the seven or from someone greater than them. This is what is sound in the view of the verifying imams among the early and the later generations. The Imam and Hafiz Abu 'Amr Uthman ibn Sa'id al-Dani stated it plainly; the Imam Abu Muhammad Makki ibn Abi Talib laid it down in more than one place; likewise the Imam Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn 'Ammar al-Mahdawi; and the Imam and Hafiz Abu al-Qasim 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Isma'il, known as Abu Shamah, verified it. It is the doctrine of the early generations, and no disagreement with it is known from any of them.

Ibn al-Jazari · al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-'Ashr (The Publication on the Ten Readings), p. 8 our rendering · Open the passage

4 in Surat al-Hadid, with (huwa) omitted; and likewise (sari'u) with the waw omitted; and likewise (minhuma munqalaban) in the dual, in al-Kahf; and other than that in many places in the Qur'an in which the codices differed, so that the reading came from the imams of those regions in accordance with their own codex. Had that not been so in one of the Uthmanic codices, reading it that way would be anomalous, because it would contravene the agreed-upon written form. And by our saying afterwards "even by way of possibility" we mean what accords with the written form even by estimation, since accordance with the written form may be by realization, which is express accordance, and may be by estimation, which is accordance by possibility; for the express written form has been departed from in places by consensus, such as: (al-samawat, al-salihat, al-layl, al-salah, al-zakah, al-riba)

Ibn al-Jazari · al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-'Ashr (The Publication on the Ten Readings), p. 10 our rendering · Open the passage

5 The Qur'an was sent down in seven modes.

Umar ibn al-Khattab · al-Bazzar · al-Bahr al-Zakhkhar 1/425 · graded hasan (good) our rendering

6 al-Zuhri said: They differed that day over al-tabut and al-tabuh. The men of Quraysh said al-tabut, and Zayd said al-tabuh, so their disagreement was taken up to Uthman, and he said: Write it al-tabut, for it is in the tongue of Quraysh.

Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani · Kitab al-Masahif (The Book of the Codices), p. 88 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.

Surat al-Hijr 15:9 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 We it is who sent the Qur'an down upon the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and We undertake to preserve it from anything being added to it or taken from it, or anything of it being lost.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar (The Simplified Exegesis) · al-Hijr 15:9 our rendering · Open the passage

9 And here is my own condition, stated plainly as you asked: if there were published, from the codices of the first century — by an academic body that neither opposes us nor takes our side — a text differing from the codex in our hands by a difference in the words, not in dotting and pointing and the drawing of an alif, a difference that no known reading transmitted with its chain accounts for — then the claim of preservation as it is made today would be false, and I would say so. That is a condition open today, and the archive I sent you to is itself the place where it is run, and its researchers do not agree, and I do not know its outcome before it comes.

To one who says: Show me a text that can be tested · Open the passage

10 When he had finished the codex, it was brought to Uthman, and he looked into it and said: You have done well and finely. I see in it some linguistic irregularity [lahn] that the Arabs will set straight with their tongues.

Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani · Kitab al-Masahif (The Book of the Codices), p. 119 our rendering · Open the passage

The Qur'an was sent down in seven modes.

Umar ibn al-Khattab · al-Bazzar · al-Bahr al-Zakhkhar 1/425 · graded hasan (good) our rendering

The Qur'an was sent down in seven modes.

Umar ibn al-Khattab · al-Bazzar · al-Bahr al-Zakhkhar 1/425 · graded hasan (good) our rendering

The strongest objection

This describes what Uthman did. It is not proof that what he collected is what was sent down. Your own books say that "the imams hold that the codex of Uthman is one of the seven modes," and that the readings of Ibn Mas'ud and Umar which differ from it are, along with it, "all true" [[2]] — meaning that texts counted as Qur'an were burned so that one text could stand. Your books also say that Uthman looked into the codex once it was finished and said: "I see in it some linguistic irregularity [lahn] that the Arabs will set straight with their tongues" [[10]] — so the man who collected the codex you call preserved admitted himself that it contained something needing to be set straight. Unity here is the work of authority upon a text that was not one, and Ibn al-Jazari's pillars are a standard drawn up centuries later to legitimize whatever survived the burning [[3]].

The first half is accurately transmitted, and that is why you read it in our books and not in the books of our opponents. The reports of the disagreement and the burning are collected with their chains in a Muslim work whose whole subject is exactly that, Kitab al-Masahif — The Book of the Codices 1 — and the report of the irregularity is in that same book 10. Anyone wanting to bury this would have buried that first. Nor are the pillars Ibn al-Jazari's own invention. He traced them to al-Dani, Makki ibn Abi Talib, al-Mahdawi and Abu Shamah, and said: "It is the doctrine of the early generations, and no disagreement with it is known from any of them" 3. As for the irregularity: the written form is not a phonetic transcript, so departing from it is not an error in what is spoken. "The express written form has been departed from in places by consensus, such as: (al-samawat, al-salihat, al-layl, al-salah, al-zakah, al-riba)", and for that reason accordance with it may be "by realization" and may be "by estimation" 4 — which explains why the difference between the codices themselves is counted at "some ten-odd letters" and not in the body of the text 2. As for scraping and correction on one particular sheet, that is a copyist's matter, not a matter of text. What settles it is a stated material condition, open today on an archive we do not own: a text differing in the words that no reading transmitted with its chain accounts for 9.

Why was it revealed in Arabic if it is for all people?

The objection assumes the opposite of what the text itself lays down. The Qur'an states the rule it is to be judged by: "And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them" 1 — "in the language of his own people, so as to make God's law clear to them" 2 — and it states alongside it that the message was sent "unto all mankind" 3. So the universality is in who is addressed, not in the tongue. Al-Zarkashi settled the reason for the tongue before the question was ever put: "God addressed His creation only with what they understand, and for that reason He sent every messenger in the tongue of his own people" 4 — and whatever tongue is chosen, it is the tongue of one particular people. The text also raised the opposite case first: "And if We had appointed it a Lecture in a foreign tongue they would assuredly have said: If only its verses were expounded (so that we might understand)? What! A foreign tongue and an Arab?" 5 — "If only its verses had been made clear, so that we might understand it and know it" 6. As for telling someone who read a translation that he has not read the Qur'an: that is a claim about the form in which the challenge is made, not about the meaning. "For translation is the substitution of one word for another that stands in its place, and that is not possible — unlike explanation" 7. This is why conveying the meaning was never forbidden; what was forbidden was calling it recitation: "The prohibition of translation applies specifically to recitation; as for translating it in order to act upon it, that is permitted out of necessity" 8 — and the Prophet's letter to "Heraclius, chief of the Byzantines" carried a single clear verse 8 9. And the part that weighs against this answer is better stated than hidden. In the same passage al-Zarkashi limits what may be translated to "its clear passages and what is obscure in meaning, to the extent of necessity", and directs anyone who wants more than that "to learn the Arabic tongue" 8. The shortfall of translation is something they admit, not something they deny.

1 And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them. Then Allah sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will. He is the Mighty, the Wise.

Surah Ibrahim (Abraham) 14:4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 We sent no messenger before you — O Prophet — except in the language of his own people, so as to make God's law clear to them; then God leaves astray from guidance whom He wills, and guides to the truth whom He wills. He is the Mighty in His dominion, the Wise, who puts each matter in its proper place as wisdom requires.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Ibrahim (Abraham) 14:4 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And We have not sent thee (O Muhammad) save as a bringer of good tidings and a warner unto all mankind; but most of mankind know not.

Surah Saba (Sheba) 34:28 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 Know that it is well established that God addressed His creation only with what they understand, and for that reason He sent every messenger in the tongue of his own people and sent down His book in their language …

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Qur'anic Sciences), p. 13 our rendering · Open the passage

5 And if We had appointed it a Lecture in a foreign tongue they would assuredly have said: If only its verses were expounded (so that we might understand)? What! A foreign tongue and an Arab? - Say unto them (O Muhammad): For those who believe it is a guidance and a healing; and as for those who disbelieve, there is a deafness in their ears, and it is blindness for them. Such are called to from afar.

Surah Fussilat (They Are Expounded) 41:44 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 Had We made this Qur'an, which We sent down to you — O Messenger — in a foreign tongue, the idolaters would have said: If only its verses had been made clear, so that we might understand it and know it. Is this Qur'an foreign while the one it was sent down to is an Arab? That cannot be. …

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Fussilat (They Are Expounded) 41:44 our rendering · Open the passage

7 The consensus is settled that it must be recited in the form in which its inimitability inheres, because translation falls short of it, and because other tongues fall short of the clarity of expression that belongs to it alone among all tongues … For translation is the substitution of one word for another that stands in its place, and that is not possible — unlike explanation.

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Qur'anic Sciences), p. 464 our rendering · Open the passage

8 I have seen it stated by some of the later scholars that the prohibition of translation applies specifically to recitation; as for translating it in order to act upon it, that is permitted out of necessity. It should be confined to setting out its clear passages and what is obscure in meaning, to the extent of necessity — the oneness of God and the pillars of worship — and nothing beyond that should be attempted; and whoever wants more than that is directed to learn the Arabic tongue. This is what the evidence requires, and for that reason the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) wrote to Caesar with nothing but a single clear verse carrying a single meaning: the oneness of God and disavowal of associating anything with Him.

Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Proof in the Qur'anic Sciences), p. 465 our rendering · Open the passage

9 … From Muhammad, the Messenger of God, to Heraclius, chief of the Byzantines. Peace be upon whoever follows guidance. To proceed: I call you with the call of Islam. Accept Islam and you will be safe; God will give you your reward twice over. And if you turn away, then upon you is the sin of the Arisiyyin. And: People of the Scripture, come to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God, and associate nothing with Him, and take not one another as lords beside God; and if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad (Provisions of the Hereafter), p. 600 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Also, the Prophet (peace be upon him) was sent to every nation, and God has said, "And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk." So there must be in the book he was sent with something of the tongue of every people, even though its own origin is in the language of his own people.

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an (The Perfect Guide to the Qur'anic Sciences), p. 393 our rendering · Open the passage

11 And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. Lo! herein indeed are portents for men of knowledge.

Surah al-Rum (The Romans) 30:22 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 The text is there. Published in its first language, entire, not abridged nor sifted nor arranged to suit you, and with it translations into eleven languages, most of them credited to a named translator whose name you know and can judge, and you can set the translation against the first text word by word.

The Unwritten Letter · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Then you are conceding the charge rather than answering it. What most of those addressed actually read is "explanation, not Qur'an"; the translation is deficient on the testimony of your own scholars; and the remedy offered is "learn the Arabic tongue". So the text by which the whole world is to be judged is locked behind a single language, and the promise of universality turns into the promise of a substitute admitted to be deficient. That excludes most of the people addressed; it does not make anything clear to them.

What is locked behind the language is the form in which the challenge is made, not what is to be understood and acted upon. That is exactly why conveying the meaning was permitted "in order to act upon it" while calling it recitation was not 8. Al-Suyuti runs the argument in the opposite direction entirely: "the Prophet (peace be upon him) was sent to every nation … So there must be in the book he was sent with something of the tongue of every people" 10 — on their account universality leaves a trace inside the text rather than hanging above it as a claim. And the difference of tongues is something the Qur'an offers as evidence, not an obstacle it apologises for: "the difference of your languages and colours" 11. The intermediary remains, and there is no denying it, but it is an intermediary that can be checked: "The text is there. Published in its first language, entire, not abridged nor sifted nor arranged to suit you … and you can set the translation against the first text word by word" 12. A claim whose only warrant is the person who wrote it leaves you no way to disprove it, and none to believe it either 12.

Why a final prophet? Why does revelation stop at one century?

It is the reverse of what is commonly assumed: in the Qur'an, finality is a claim for which the text itself gives a reason — not silence without cause. Muhammad is "the Seal of the Prophets" 1, and so "there is no prophethood after him until the Day of Resurrection" 2. The succession of prophets before him also had a stated cause: every nation had its own warner sent to it, and "there is not a nation but a warner hath passed among them" 3. This last message was not sent to one people in particular but "unto all mankind" 4, that is, "to all people" 5 — and what no single people bounds does not call for a successor sent to some other people. Then completion was announced: "This day have I perfected your religion for you" 6; and responsibility for the text was announced with it: "lo! We verily are its Guardian" 7 — guarded "from anything being added to it or taken away from it, or any part of it being lost" 8. If that holds, the corrective work for which one message kept following another loses its reason. As for why revelation stops at one particular century, the answer settled on by al-Suyuti lies in the structure of the evidence, not in some undisclosed will: "The miracles of the prophets passed away with the passing of their eras, so none witnessed them but those present at them; whereas the miracle of the Qur'an continues until the Day of Resurrection" 9. A proof that dies with its witnesses calls for renewal in every generation; a proof that remains does not 9.

1 Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever Aware of all things.

Surah Al-Ahzab 33:40 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

2 Muhammad was not the father of any of your men; rather he is the Messenger of God and the Seal of the Prophets, so there is no prophethood after him until the Day of Resurrection. And God is aware of everything you do; nothing is hidden from Him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Ahzab 40 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Lo! We have sent thee with the Truth, a bearer of glad tidings and a warner; and there is not a nation but a warner hath passed among them.

Surah Fatir 35:24 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

4 And We have not sent thee (O Muhammad) save as a bringer of good tidings and a warner unto all mankind; but most of mankind know not.

Surah Saba 34:28 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

5 We sent you — O Messenger — only to all people, as a bearer of good news of God's reward and a warner of His punishment; but most people do not know the truth, and so they turn away from it.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Saba 28 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Forbidden unto you (for food) are carrion and blood and swineflesh, and that which hath been dedicated unto any other than Allah, and the strangled, and the dead through beating, and the dead through falling from a height, and that which hath been killed by (the goring of) horns, and the devoured of wild beasts, saving that which ye make lawful (by the death-stroke), and that which hath been immolated unto idols. And (forbidden is it) that ye swear by the divining arrows. This is an abomination. This day are those who disbelieve in despair of (ever harming) your religion; so fear them not, fear Me! This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favour unto you, and have chosen for you as religion al-Islam. Whoso is forced by hunger, not by will, to sin: (for him) lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:3 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

7 Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.

Surah Al-Hijr 15:9 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

8 It is We who sent down the Qur'an upon the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and We undertake to guard it from anything being added to it or taken away from it, or any part of it being lost.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Hijr 9 our rendering · Open the passage

9 …And because this law was to endure across the pages of time until the Day of Resurrection, it was singled out with an enduring rational miracle, so that people of insight might see it… The miracles of the prophets passed away with the passing of their eras, so none witnessed them but those present at them; whereas the miracle of the Qur'an continues until the Day of Resurrection, with its breaking of custom in its style, its eloquence, and its reports of things unseen. No age passes without something appearing in it of what it foretold would come to be, indicating the soundness of its claim.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 308 our rendering · Open the passage

10 …and that he is the Seal of the Prophets, and that there is no prophet after him… Then he says: 'My proof is that God has sent down upon me a clear Arabic book whose wording you know and whose meanings you understand, yet you cannot produce the like of it, nor ten chapters of it, nor a single chapter, however hard you strove, and though jinn and men joined with you.' Then their own souls did not urge them to oppose him and to expose the excess of his claim, though that was within their power… Their rage at what he said and at what he claimed reached such a pitch that they abandoned their sound judgement for it and cast off obedience to their excellent minds, until they confronted him with every vile thing and met him with every kind of harm and injury.

Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani · Dala'il al-I'jaz, p. 578 our rendering · Open the passage

11 …that Moses said: 'There is no prophet after me.' What indicates what we have said is that, had their claim been sound, miracles would not have appeared at the hand of Jesus, peace be upon him.

Ibn al-Jawzi · Nawasikh al-Qur'an, p. 113 our rendering · Open the passage

12 The first to take up this noble office was the master of the messengers, the leader of the God-fearing, the Seal of the Prophets, God's servant and His messenger, the trustee of His revelation and His envoy between Him and His servants; he would give rulings on God's behalf by His clear revelation… Then the office of giving rulings was taken up after him by the mainstay of Islam, the company of faith, the army of the Qur'an.

Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in, p. 8 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

The claim of finality guards itself. Whoever announces that he is the last has made every claimant after him refutable by the announcement rather than by evidence — and that is exactly the move any new claimant makes, so it is immunity, not argument. Beyond that, everything above is spoken from inside the claim: the text testifies to its own completeness and its own preservation, and the witness and the one testified for are the same. Heaviest of all, finality closed the door of correction: an error that enters the community's understanding has no corrector to await from heaven.

The claim was not announced bare. A public test of very low cost was attached to it, one that would have brought it down had it been met — "and that he is the Seal of the Prophets, and that there is no prophet after him… yet you cannot produce the like of it, nor ten chapters of it, nor a single chapter". Al-Jurjani's argument is that his opponents' rage reached the point where "they confronted him with every vile thing", and still they did not take the cheaper road, though it was within their power 10. As for the point that any claimant can say it: it had in fact been said before him — the words "There is no prophet after me" were attributed to Moses — and Ibn al-Jawzi's answer is not by announcement but by comparison: "had their claim been sound, miracles would not have appeared at the hand of Jesus, peace be upon him" 11. That is a measure aimed at us exactly as it was aimed at them: the door is not closed by saying "he is the last"; it is closed by no one coming after him who passes what he passed. As for the door of correction, what is closed is revelation, not explanation. The one who held the office of the "Seal of the Prophets" "would give rulings on God's behalf by His clear revelation", and then "the office of giving rulings was taken up after him" by his companions 12 — revelation ceased and explanation remained. One thing stands that cannot be pushed away and is not concealed here: completeness and preservation are stated by the text about itself 6 7, so they explain the structure of the claim without establishing it — establishing it is asked of the test that was put forward 10 and of the permanence of the evidence 9, not of the announcement.

But the Qur'an contains what contradicts science — how then is it from God?

The case is the reverse of what is commonly said: not one of the three passages at issue is a statement about the structure of the physical world. The first is a report about a traveller who reached a place, and the close of the verse is about how a people are to be dealt with, not about the orbit of the sun 1; and "he found it" refers what is seen back to the one seeing it: "he found it, to the eye, as though it were setting in a hot spring of black mud" 2. This very objection was raised and answered in the eighth century of the Hijra: "its apparent sense is that the sun has a fixed place in which it sets … just as you say: it sank into the sea, when in fact it is in the sky; that is only relative to your own line of sight" 3. And where the text speaks of the course of the sun itself, it says: "They float, each in an orbit" 4. The second passage has the resurrection for its context, not anatomy: it opens with "So let man consider from what he is created" 5, and its point is "so that he may know that re-creating a human being is no harder than creating him the first time" 6. The third is explained as mansions set for the stars, and "by them people are guided to the routes and the times" 7, and as a sky that is "firmly built" 8 — that is, a description of what is seen and made use of, not a model of the heavens to reason from.

1 Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness.

Surat al-Kahf (The Cave) 18:86 · Pickthall · Open the passage

2 When Dhu'l-Qarnayn reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it, to the eye, as though it were setting in a hot spring of black mud, and he found a people there where it set. We said: O Dhu'l-Qarnayn, either punish them, by killing or otherwise, if they do not acknowledge the oneness of God, or treat them well, teaching them guidance and showing them the right way.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Kahf 18:86 our rendering · Open the passage

3 His words, exalted is He: (he found it setting in a muddy spring) — its apparent sense is that the sun has a fixed place in which it sets. … The answer is that it is fixed relative to that place and that time, not relative to all other times and regions, just as you say: it sank into the sea, when in fact it is in the sky; that is only relative to your own line of sight.

Badr al-Din Ibn Jama'ah (d. 733 AH) · Kashf al-Ma'ani fi al-Mutashabih min al-Mathani, p. 243 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And He it is Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. They float, each in an orbit.

Surat al-Anbiya (The Prophets) 21:33 · Pickthall · Open the passage

5 So let man consider from what he is created.

Surat al-Tariq (The Morning Star) 86:5–7 · Pickthall · Open the passage

6 Let the human being who denies the resurrection consider from what he was created, so that he may know that re-creating a human being is no harder than creating him the first time. He was created from a fluid poured out in a rush into the womb, issuing from between the man's backbone and the woman's chest. The One who created the human being from this fluid is well able to bring him back to life after death.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Tariq 86:5–8 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Among the proofs of Our power is that We set in the nearest heaven mansions for the stars in which they come down, and by them people are guided to the routes and the times and to seasons of plenty and of drought; and We adorned this heaven with stars for those who look at them and reflect and take heed.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Hijr 15:16 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Your Lord is the One who made the earth a spread-out bed for you, so that life upon it would be easy, and the sky a firmly built structure; and He sent down the rain from the clouds and brought forth by it, for you, kinds of fruit and sorts of plants as provision for you …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Baqara 2:22 our rendering · Open the passage

9 Al-tara'ib is the plural of tariba, and it is also said tarib. The scholars differed over its meaning. Among the soundest of what has been said about it is what 'Atiyya related from Ibn 'Abbas, who said: al-tara'ib is the place of the necklace. Ibn Abi Talha related from Ibn 'Abbas that he said: al-tara'ib is between a woman's breasts. Sa'id ibn Jubayr said: al-tara'ib is the ribs down to the lower part of the backbone. Mujahid said: what lies between the shoulders and the chest. Al-Dahhak said: al-tara'ib is the hands and the feet and the eyes. Qatada said: al-tara'ib is toward the backbone. Al-Layth ibn Sa'd related from Ma'mar ibn Abi Habiba, who said: al-tara'ib is the soft part of the heart, and from it the child comes. Abu Ja'far said: these opinions are not contradictory, for it is related that the fluid comes out of the whole body, even from every hair of it, except that the first opinion is the one used in the speech of the Arabs.

Abu Ja'far al-Nahhas (d. 338 AH) · I'rab al-Qur'an, p. 123 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And this criterion cuts in both directions, and that is the most dangerous thing about it. Whoever requires of his own claim that it be falsifiable is bound to accept the falsification if it comes. And we tried it on ourselves in a project earlier than this book: widespread numerical claims attributed to a text we hold in reverence, in which the forms were counted mechanically, and the count went against three of them, and they were dropped from display. … And we do not make this bigger than it is. What was dropped is a set of appended claims on which we had built nothing and which nobody held to be a pillar of his religion, not the parent claim. And confessing to a sin you did not commit is no test.

22. The criteria for testing a claim of revelation — The criterion: falsifiability · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is a linguistic escape. "He found it" does not save you: the Qur'an reports the description without disowning it, and if it were false, correcting it in the next verse would have been the easiest thing in the world. Besides, your own tradition read it at face value for centuries, and it was moved to "how it looked to the eye" only after modern astronomy pressed you and you needed a way out. As for al-Tariq, the context of resurrection does not erase the fact that the verse fixes one particular anatomical exit — from between the backbone and the tara'ib — and that is a plain error; and your explaining it as the man's backbone and the woman's chest makes it worse, not better.

The claim that this is a late move is refuted by the record: Ibn Jama'ah (d. 733 AH) raised the question in so many words and answered it, and there was no modern astronomy pressing anyone in his day 3. And the verse itself closes the scene with "Either punish or show them kindness", so the subject of the passage is justice, not sunset 1. But there is something here that weighs against that answer, and it is not folded away: books of tafsir do carry the physics of their age. Al-Nahhas (d. 338 AH) reports seven clashing opinions about the word al-tara'ib — the place of the necklace, between a woman's breasts, the ribs, what lies between the shoulders, the hands and the feet and the eyes — and then reconciles them by saying: "these opinions are not contradictory, for it is related that the fluid comes out of the whole body, even from every hair of it" 9. That passage tells against you, not for you, in one respect; and it tells against you in a second: their seven-way disagreement over a single word means that the commentary is a human layer which was never settled and never made binding, and that the physics you complain of sits in the reconciliation, not in the text 9. As for the criterion, it is accepted in both directions, and no exemption is claimed for this side: "Whoever requires of his own claim that it be falsifiable is bound to accept the falsification if it comes." Numerical claims attributed to this text were counted in this project, and "the count went against three of them, and they were dropped from display"; and the book itself keeps that in proportion: "What was dropped is a set of appended claims on which we had built nothing … And confessing to a sin you did not commit is no test" 10. So you are not facing someone who denies the criterion, but someone who says: apply it to the text, and not to its commentators.

Aren't there contradictions in the Qur'an?

The matter is not what it is usually said to be. By its own definition, abrogation occurs only in command and prohibition; as for a statement that does not carry the sense of a demand, "abrogation does not enter it". So the term you have named is held by its own limits away from the place where a contradiction happens, since a contradiction can only be between two statements 1. Your objection was raised centuries before you. The Jews denied abrogation, "supposing it to be a change of mind, like a man who holds an opinion and then something else occurs to him", and the answer given was that it is "a statement of the term of a ruling — like giving life after death … illness after health … poverty after wealth" 1. The Qur'an itself reported the same accusation and did not fold it away: "And when We put a revelation in place of (another) revelation, - and Allah knoweth best what He revealeth - they say: Lo! thou art but inventing" 2; and its sense is that the rulings come down "at different times" according to what serves the good of creation 3. And what is heavy is not hidden here — neither what weighs on you nor what weighs on us. The books of abrogation were genuinely padded, and the plainest men to say so came from inside the tradition, not from outside it. Ibn al-Jawzi rejects the claim that a certain verse was abrogated: "how can its abrogation be claimed when it is a statement, and abrogation does not enter a statement?" 4. Al-Suyuti rules on "how faulty is the work of those who entered into the books of abrogation many verses of statement, of promise and of threat" 1, then settles the whole list at "twenty-one abrogated verses — with disagreement over some of them" 5, and puts it in verse: "People have said much about the number of the abrogated … and entered into it verses beyond count." As for the scale you began with — "If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity" 6 — its limit is declared here, not concealed: coherence is "a criterion that rules out and does not establish" 7. Whoever breaks it has felled the claim; whoever does not break it has not yet established anything.

1 Abrogation is among the things God singled out this community for, for reasons that include making matters easier. The Muslims are agreed that it is permissible. The Jews denied it, supposing it to be a change of mind, like a man who holds an opinion and then something else occurs to him. That is false, for it is a statement of the term of a ruling — like giving life after death and the reverse, illness after health and the reverse, poverty after wealth and the reverse; and that is not a change of mind. So it is with command and prohibition … Third: abrogation occurs only in command and prohibition, even if worded as a statement. As for a statement that does not carry the sense of a demand, abrogation does not enter it, and of this kind are the promise and the threat … And once you know this, you know how faulty is the work of those who entered into the books of abrogation many verses of statement, of promise and of threat.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 55 our rendering · Open the passage

2 And when We put a revelation in place of (another) revelation, - and Allah knoweth best what He revealeth - they say: Lo! thou art but inventing. Most of them know not.

Surat an-Nahl (The Bee) 16:101 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 And when We replace one verse with another — and God the Creator knows best what serves the good of His creation among the rulings He sends down at different times — the disbelievers say: you, Muhammad, are only a liar, inventing against God what He did not say. But Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace) is not as they claim. Rather, most of them have no knowledge of their Lord, nor of His law and its rulings.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat an-Nahl (The Bee) 16:101 our rendering · Open the passage

4 So this verse likewise only stated what the law prohibited at that time; there is then neither an abrogating nor an abrogated verse. And how can its abrogation be claimed when it is a statement, and abrogation does not enter a statement?

Ibn al-Jawzi · Nawasikh al-Qur'an (Nasikh al-Qur'an wa-Mansukhuh), p. 437 our rendering · Open the passage

5 These, then, are twenty-one abrogated verses, with disagreement over some of them; the claim of abrogation is not sound for any others.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 61 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.

Surat an-Nisa (Women) 4:82 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 The criterion: the coherence of the conception — Is there a contradiction in the description? Is an attribute affirmed of God and then its like denied in another place with no difference between them? … And its limit: coherence is a condition that does not suffice. A carefully invented account is perfectly coherent, and a truthful testimony may look confused until it is understood. So this is a criterion that rules out and does not establish — a sieve that stops the gravel, and tells you nothing about the salt that passes through it.

22. The criteria for testing a claim of revelation our rendering · Open the passage

8 The third: what was commanded for a cause, and then the cause falls away — such as the command, at a time of weakness and small numbers, to be patient and to forgive, which was then abrogated by the obligation to fight. In truth this is not abrogation; it belongs rather to the category of deferral … in the sense that every command that comes must be obeyed at a given time, for a cause that requires that ruling, and then it passes, with the passing of that cause, to another ruling, and that is not abrogation. Abrogation is only the removal of a ruling, so that obeying it is no longer permitted.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 56 our rendering · Open the passage

9 And His words in al-Baqara, speak kindly to people: some counted it among the abrogated, by the verse of the sword … But Ibn al-Hassar showed this to be a mistake, in that the verse relates the covenant taken from the Children of Israel, so it is a statement, and there is no abrogation in it; and judge the rest by that … And a category that belongs to specification, not to abrogation — Ibn al-Arabi took pains to sort it out and did it well … And a category that lifted what the practice had been in the age before Islam, or in the laws of those before us, or at the beginning of Islam, and was not sent down in the Qur'an … Counting this in the category of the abrogating is plausible, but not counting it is more so, and that is what Makki and others preferred; and they explained it by saying that if that were counted as abrogating, the whole Qur'an would be counted among it, since all or most of it lifts what the disbelievers and the People of the Book were upon.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 58 our rendering · Open the passage

10 "I sat, my brother and I, in a gathering that I would not exchange for red camels. My brother and I came, and there were elders among the Companions of the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) sitting at one of his doors. We did not want to break them apart, so we sat to one side. They mentioned a verse of the Qur'an and disputed over it until their voices rose. The Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) came out angry, his face reddened, throwing dust at them and saying: Gently, my people! By this were the nations before you destroyed — by their disagreeing with their prophets, and their striking the books one against another. The Qur'an was not sent down for one part of it to belie another, but for one part of it to confirm another. So what you know of it, act by it, and what you do not know of it, refer it to one who knows it."

The grandfather of Amr ibn Shuayb · Ahmad Shakir · Takhrij Sharh al-Tahawiyya, p. 168 · sahih (sound) our rendering

"I sat, my brother and I, in a gathering that I would not exchange for red camels. My brother and I came, and there were elders among the Companions of the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) sitting at one of his doors. We did not want to break them apart, so we sat to one side. They mentioned a verse of the Qur'an and disputed over it until their voices rose. The Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) came out angry, his face reddened, throwing dust at them and saying: Gently, my people! By this were the nations before you destroyed — by their disagreeing with their prophets, and their striking the books one against another. The Qur'an was not sent down for one part of it to belie another, but for one part of it to confirm another. So what you know of it, act by it, and what you do not know of it, refer it to one who knows it."

The grandfather of Amr ibn Shuayb · Ahmad Shakir · Takhrij Sharh al-Tahawiyya, p. 168 · sahih (sound) our rendering

"I sat, my brother and I, in a gathering that I would not exchange for red camels. My brother and I came, and there were elders among the Companions of the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) sitting at one of his doors. We did not want to break them apart, so we sat to one side. They mentioned a verse of the Qur'an and disputed over it until their voices rose. The Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) came out angry, his face reddened, throwing dust at them and saying: Gently, my people! By this were the nations before you destroyed — by their disagreeing with their prophets, and their striking the books one against another. The Qur'an was not sent down for one part of it to belie another, but for one part of it to confirm another. So what you know of it, act by it, and what you do not know of it, refer it to one who knows it."

The grandfather of Amr ibn Shuayb · Ahmad Shakir · Takhrij Sharh al-Tahawiyya, p. 168 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is a definition laid down after the question, not before it. Saying "abrogation is in rulings, not in statements" does not deny the change; it only softens its name. The ruling was one thing and became its opposite, and that is a change in the speech of one you hold to be unchanging — and calling it "a statement of the term" describes the result rather than answering it. Then the twenty-one are an editing carried out centuries after the generation that received the revelation, and the earliest lists are far wider than that. So the reduction is an apology that appeared when the question grew heavy, not a preserved text. And your hadith, which forbids "striking the books one against another" and orders that what is not known be referred "to one who knows it", closes the very door that "Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an?" opened.

The change is granted, not denied, and it is the claim itself rather than an excuse for it. A ruling is tied to a cause: "every command that comes must be obeyed at a given time, for a cause that requires that ruling, and then it passes, with the passing of that cause, to another ruling — and that is not abrogation" 8. What changes is the condition of the one under obligation, and that "is not a change of mind" 1. And the twenty-one are not a reduction without a rule. The rule is stated, and you can test it yourself. Excluded is "a category that belongs to specification, not to abrogation". Excluded is whatever lifted the practice of the age before Islam, because "if that were counted as abrogating, the whole Qur'an would be counted among it, since all or most of it lifts what the disbelievers and the People of the Book were upon". And excluded is whatever is a statement — such as the command to speak kindly to people — "so it is a statement, and there is no abrogation in it; and judge the rest by that" 9. So open the earliest lists and sort their entries: which of them are command and prohibition, and which are statement, or specification, or the lifting of an earlier law. As for the hadith, it does not bind you, and it is not brought as proof against you. Its place is that the question was raised in the first generation and was not invented in a late quarrel, and its wording is: "The Qur'an was not sent down for one part of it to belie another, but for one part of it to confirm another" — a claim about the text that can be tested, not an order to stop testing it 10. One thing remains, and it is not denied: everything above bars the felling of the claim, and does not establish revelation 7.

Fine-tuning — isn't the multiverse or the anthropic principle explanation enough?

The second half of your objection is correct — and it is the position taken here before it was yours. The chapter of the book on this question is "a clearing away and not a building: its aim is to get three false figures out of the Arabic literature" 1. The rule behind that is not a courtesy paid to you; it is a text that binds: "(O man), follow not that whereof thou hast no knowledge" 2 — "rather, make certain and verify" 3. As for the first half, it is not met here with mockery. To treat the multiverse as "a contrivance invented to escape the inference" is a description that is "not correct, and whoever said it weakened his own position" 4. The hypothesis "does explain: that some universe exists with values permitting life"; the best-known objection to it is that it does not explain why this universe, the one I am in, is the one that fits 5. And the opponents of that objection have a strong answer: the datum in your hand is not "this universe is tuned" but "the universe I could exist in is tuned" — a proposition whose probability the multiverse does raise — and the dispute over this very point stands among philosophers to this day, with no settling of it 6. The anthropic principle in its weak form is "a proposition that cannot be denied" 7, but "it reaches one place and stops there: it accounts for why we see what we see, not for why what we see came to be" 8. And the argument you are demolishing is not built on here in the first place: unless the total range within which the value could have fallen is known, "the ratio the proof rests on is undefined, neither small nor large" 9.

1 This chapter is a clearing away and not a building: its aim is to get three false figures out of the Arabic literature, and to state the limits of what is left after them. And it tips no scales, nor is it meant to leave any leaning in you.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

2 (O man), follow not that whereof thou hast no knowledge. Lo! the hearing and the sight and the heart - of each of these it will be asked.

Surah Al-Isra 17:36 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 Do not follow — O man — what you have no knowledge of; rather, make certain and verify. Man is answerable for what he used his hearing, his sight and his heart in: if he used them in good he gains reward, and if he used them in evil he gains punishment.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah Al-Isra 17:36 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Much of what is written in Arabic treats the multiverse hypothesis as a contrivance invented to escape the inference. And this description is not correct, and whoever said it weakened his own position. And its best-known forms were not put forward for that purpose at all.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

5 It does explain: that some universe exists with values permitting life. For if the samples are very numerous and the values vary across them, the existence of one that answers is to be expected.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

6 And the opponents of this objection have a strong answer that must be set out: that observation here is not like observation at the table. You cannot observe a universe other than one that permits your existence, so the datum in your hand is not 'this universe is tuned' but 'the universe I could exist in is tuned' — and that is a proposition whose probability the multiverse does raise. And the dispute over this very point stands among philosophers to this day, and there is no settling it, and whoever told you it is settled in one side's favour has abridged for you what has not been abridged for the people of the subject.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

7 The anthropic principle in its weak form is a proposition that cannot be denied: no universe is observed except one that allows an observer to exist.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

8 It reaches one place and stops there: it accounts for why we see what we see, not for why what we see came to be. The difference between the two is what the whole subject turns on.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

9 The claim that 'the range permitting life is very narrow' presumes that we know the total range within which the value could have fallen. And if that range is infinite, then there is no uniform normalisable probability distribution over it at all — so the ratio the proof rests on is undefined, neither small nor large.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

10 If the generator is asked, 'and why is it of this character?' — then the designer is asked the same question: a mind with a will and knowledge and power, choosing these values rather than those. So why is he of these attributes? And why did he want a carbon universe rather than another?

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

11 I say that it is a serious postulate with its sources in physics, and that there are serious objections to it which have not all been answered. And whoever wanted more of me than this was asking for a settling I do not have.

7. Fine-Tuning — As It Truly Is, Not As It Is Commonly Told · Open the passage

12 Ibn Wahb said: I heard Malik mention the saying of al-Qasim ibn Muhammad: For a man to live ignorant is better than to say about God what he does not know.

Ibn Abd al-Barr · Jami' Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 1830 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Then this is a retreat dressed up as honesty: you have dropped the figures, you have granted that the ratio is undefined and that the multiverse is unsettled — so nothing is left in your hand to argue with. And the weapon you draw on the generator turns back on you: if it is asked "and why is it of this character?", your God is asked the same question. Your postulate has no advantage over mine.

The second half of that is not an objection to the position here; it is the text of the chapter: "If the generator is asked, 'and why is it of this character?' — then the designer is asked the same question: a mind with a will and knowledge and power, choosing these values rather than those" 10. As for the first half, it is no retreat, because no proof from fine-tuning was put to you for you to retreat from. The multiverse is "a serious postulate with its sources in physics, and that there are serious objections to it which have not all been answered. And whoever wanted more of me than this was asking for a settling I do not have" 11. And declining a claim that has no measure is not a weakness in this religion: "For a man to live ignorant is better than to say about God what he does not know" 12.

And numerical miracle — isn't the matching of word counts evidence?

No. The count that discredited these claims was run here, against this site's own articles. Al-akhira, the hereafter, was said to occur a hundred and fifteen times; it occurs seventy-one. Al-barr, land, was said to occur thirteen times and al-bahr, sea, thirty-two; they occur nineteen and twenty-three. Four articles were dropped from the site's own Secrets section, and the command that re-runs the count is published in the open 1. And rejecting this line of argument is not a modern apology invented once a calculator exposed the arithmetic: Ibn Hajar says of the abjad reckoning, "this is void, not to be relied on … for it has no root in the Law", and Ibn al-Arabi says, "among the void things is the science of the disconnected letters at the openings of the suras" 2. The aspects of inimitability counted by the scholars who wrote on the subject are three: reports of the unseen 3; the Prophet's being unlettered, together with what he reported about earlier peoples; and the marvel of the composition 4. Number is not one of them. And the test the text sets for itself is a test of reflection, not of arithmetic: "Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity." 5 — "a look of reflection and pondering, seeing that it came in a sound, consistent order" 6. So your objection to the numerical claim holds. It was this site's objection before it was yours.

1 1. We took articles put forward under the head of numerical inimitability and counted their words in the text ourselves. It was said that the word al-akhira — the hereafter — occurs a hundred and fifteen times; we found it seventy-one. It was said that yawm — day — occurs three hundred and sixty-five times and ayyam — days — thirty; we found them two hundred and seventeen and twenty. It was said that al-barr — land — occurs thirteen times and al-bahr — sea — thirty-two; we found them nineteen and twenty-three. So four articles fell: there had been twenty and there are now sixteen. And the command that runs the count again in front of you: `php tools/verify_claims.php`.

The Unwritten Letter · Open the passage

2 Ibn Hajar said: this is void, not to be relied on. It is established of Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with him, that he forbade the abjad reckoning and indicated that it is a part of sorcery; and that is not far-fetched, for it has no root in the Law … And the judge Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi said, in the notes of his journey: among the void things is the science of the disconnected letters at the openings of the suras.

al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 25 our rendering · Open the passage

3 A section on the aspects of the Qur'an's inimitability. Our colleagues and others have mentioned three aspects of inimitability in this. The first: that it contains reports of things unseen, and that is something human beings have no power over and no way to reach.

al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 32 our rendering · Open the passage

4 The second aspect: it was known of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, that he was unlettered — he did not write, and was not able to read well. … The third aspect: that it is marvellous in its arrangement and wondrous in its composition, reaching in eloquence the limit at which the incapacity of creation before it is known.

al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an, p. 33 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.

Surat al-Nisa 4:82 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 Will these people not look into the Qur'an and the truth it brought — a look of reflection and pondering — seeing that it came in a sound, consistent order that settles it as being from God alone? Had it been from other than Him, they would have found in it much contradiction.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Nisa 4:82 our rendering · Open the passage

7 People have derived the earthquake of the year seven hundred and two from the divine words about the earth being shaken: the alif stands for two and the dhal for seven hundred … And likewise some of the leading Arab scholars derived the conquest of Jerusalem and its deliverance from the hands of the enemy from the opening of Surat al-Rum by abjad reckoning, and other things besides.

al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 181 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And whoever brought you a wonder and called it evidence has cheated you. And this site I am writing from within has dropped four articles of the 'numerical miracle' kind because the counting told against them — not because they are weak, but because they are not true; and a claim credited to religion which the counting tells against does religion more harm than silence.

From the Deep · Open the passage

The strongest objection

You are cherry-picking. Your count threw out whatever disagreed with it, then you dressed the throwing-out up as honesty and made it an argument in your favour. And your own scholars were in this business: al-Zarkashi reports the date of an earthquake, and the date of the conquest of Jerusalem, being derived from the letters of the Qur'an by abjad reckoning. So it comes from your tradition, not from the games of moderns. You gave it up only when the machine could expose it.

The second half is true, and there is no disputing it: al-Zarkashi does report this in al-Burhan — the earthquake from the words about the earth being shaken, and the conquest of Jerusalem from the opening of Surat al-Rum, both by abjad reckoning 7. But it was not a consensus even in his own time: Ibn Hajar called it void, with no root in the Law, and Ibn al-Arabi placed it among the void things 2. The dispute is old and it sits inside the tradition itself; it did not arrive from a calculator. As for the cherry-picking, it is answered by act rather than by word: the count is run against what this site itself publishes, what fell is named with its figures, and the command is published so that anyone may run it back against us 1. And whoever brought you a wonder and called it evidence has cheated you 8.

Could he not have been sincere yet mistaken?

The question assumes something that was never the case: character is not the argument, and never was. Al-Baqillani states this plainly — 'a prophet is not distinguished from a liar by his form … nor by his own word, nor by anything else, save the proof that appears upon him, by which his truthfulness is inferred' 1. What distinguishes him lies in the proof he sets before you, not in the man's life and not in what he reports about himself. The scale offered to you here for testing a claim of revelation is five criteria — soundness of the text, coherence of the conception, falsifiability, moral content, and its effect on the one who carried it 2 — and none of them is 'was he sincere in himself', neither in our favour nor against us. Then the claim itself is not 'he was sincere'. Its wording is "The heart lied not (in seeing) what it saw" 3, and the commentary reads: 'The heart of Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, did not belie what his eye saw' 4 — so what is asserted is that the thing seen occurred, not that the one who saw it was truthful. And in "Your comrade erreth not, nor is deceived" 5 there is a denial of straying, not merely a denial of lying: 'Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, has not turned aside from the path of guidance and truth, nor has he departed from right direction' 6. So 'sincere yet mistaken' is not a middle position the claim leaves open. It contradicts the claim, and it has to be argued for as anything else is argued for 3 5. And this should be said here before you say it: quoting these verses proves nothing to you. The book you are being referred to says so in its own words — 'whoever accepts in this matter the testimony of the claimant about himself has left the scale and taken the advertisement — and we are claimants, so do not accept our testimony in it' 7.

1 You must know that it is among the rulings of miracles, when they appear at the hands of the prophets, that they claim them as their proof and their signs; for the sending of a prophet is not sound without his being given a proof and supported by a sign, because a prophet is not distinguished from a liar by his form … nor by his own word, nor by anything else, save the proof that appears upon him, by which his truthfulness is inferred.

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an) · p. 89 our rendering · Open the passage

2 Five criteria, and they are handed over to you to weigh with them whatever you please — including what we ourselves say in this book. Most of them rule out and do not establish, and that is their limit and not their fault …

22. Criteria for Testing a Claim of Revelation · Open the passage

3 The heart lied not (in seeing) what it saw.

Surah An-Najm 53:11 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 … The heart of Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, did not belie what his eye saw.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · An-Najm 53:11 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Your comrade erreth not, nor is deceived;

Surah An-Najm 53:2 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 God, exalted be He, swears by the stars when they set: Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, has not turned aside from the path of guidance and truth, nor has he departed from right direction; rather he is at the utmost of uprightness, balance and soundness, and his speech does not issue from the desire of his own soul.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · An-Najm 53:2 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And we give notice against ourselves: this very criterion favours a text like ours. So whoever rejects our putting it forward has a case, and let him weigh with the five unranked. And whoever accepts in this matter the testimony of the claimant about himself has left the scale and taken the advertisement — and we are claimants, so do not accept our testimony in it.

22. Criteria for Testing a Claim of Revelation · Open the passage

8 Passing the criteria does not yield certainty. It yields that the claim is still standing after the examination. And that is less than enthusiasm supposes, and more than rejection supposes.

22. Criteria for Testing a Claim of Revelation · Open the passage

9 Does the claim say something whose contrary could turn out to be the case? Or is it framed so that every possibility agrees with it?

22. Criteria for Testing a Claim of Revelation — The criterion: falsifiability · Open the passage

10 As for the speech of Musaylima the liar, and what he claimed to be a Qur'an, it is too base for us to occupy ourselves with, and too silly for us to think about. … We have transmitted a portion of it only so that the reader may marvel and the one who looks may see clearly, for it … for all its silliness has led men astray, and for all its feebleness has made men slip; and the field of ignorance is wide!

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an) · p. 70 our rendering · Open the passage

11 And whoever is unable to judge between the poetry of Jarir, al-Farazdaq and al-Akhtal, and to judge between the merit of Zuhayr and al-Nabigha, or the merit … between al-Buhturi and his fellows, and does not recognise the silliness … of Musaylima in his composition, and does not know that it belongs to the class of thing that is mocked and derided … how can he look into what we have described, and judge what we have set out?

Abu Bakr al-Baqillani · I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an) · p. 86 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

All of this is quotation, not proof. Al-Baqillani points me to 'the proof that appears upon him' and then makes that proof the text itself, so I am testing the claim by the claim. And the verses you brought forward are a denial issued by the accused party in its own case. You have not ruled out the possibility of error at all. You have only quoted the one accused of it saying that it did not happen — and that is what every claimant does.

The last part is granted, and it is written in the source itself before anyone says it: 'Passing the criteria does not yield certainty. It yields that the claim is still standing after the examination. And that is less than enthusiasm supposes, and more than rejection supposes' 8. As for the circle, what is asked for is an examination of the text, not belief in it, and the criterion carrying the weight here is falsifiability: 'Does the claim say something whose contrary could turn out to be the case? Or is it framed so that every possibility agrees with it?' 9 — a question put to the text from outside, which does not ask the text's leave. The same has been done to another claimant, one not merely suspected of lying: al-Baqillani set out the speech of Musaylima, 'what he claimed to be a Qur'an', in its own words so that it could be compared 10. Comparison is a craft that is learned, not a taste that is asserted, and al-Baqillani admits its price in the same place. Of the man who cannot judge between the poets he asks: 'how can he look into what we have described, and judge what we have set out?' 11 — this scale is not open to everyone, and that is its limit, not its merit.

Why was it revealed piecemeal over twenty-three years rather than all at once?

Contrary to what is usually assumed, this very objection is recorded inside the text in the words of the people who raised it, and answered at the time rather than afterwards: "And those who disbelieve say: Why is the Qur'an not revealed unto him all at once?" 1. The Jews raised it too, arguing by analogy with the Torah 2. The answer was not to deny the description but to give its reason: "thus We sent it down in parts, so that We may strengthen your heart by it" 3. Nor does the tradition hide any part of what the objection describes. "And (it is) a Qur'an that We have divided, that thou mayst recite it unto mankind at intervals" 4 is explained as meaning that it came down "according to events and to what circumstances required" 5; and abrogation, answering a questioner, and rebutting something that had been said are themselves listed as the reasons for its coming piecemeal 6. The description is granted in so many words; the dispute is over what it means, not over whether it happened. The stated reason is gradualness for the sake of acceptance, and it is attested by someone who lived through the revelation: what came first mentioned the Garden and the Fire, and when people had turned to Islam the lawful and the forbidden came down — "Had the first thing to come down been: do not drink wine, they would have said: we will never give up wine" 7. Set beside this is the report that the Torah came down all at once and people shrank from carrying it 8. What breaks the analogy of "an author responding to his circumstances" is that the order of the written text is not the order of events: al-Baqarah opens a run of ten suras of which Hud is the tenth, yet Hud is Meccan while al-Baqarah is Medinan and came down after it 9. A man who writes a book in response to the events of his life does not reverse his order against them.

1 And those who disbelieve say: Why is the Qur'an not revealed unto him all at once? (It is revealed) thus that We may strengthen thy heart therewith; and We have arranged it in right order.

Al-Furqan 25:32 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Ibn Abi Hatim reported, by way of Sa'id ibn Jubayr from Ibn Abbas, that he said: the Jews said, O Abu al-Qasim, why was this Qur'an not sent down all at once, as the Torah was sent down to Moses? And the verse came down. He also reported it from him by another route with the wording: the polytheists said. And he reported the like of it from Qatadah and al-Suddi.

al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 121 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Those who disbelieved said: why was the Qur'an not sent down to Muhammad all at once, like the Torah, the Gospel and the Psalms! God, exalted be He, said: thus We sent it down in parts, so that We may strengthen your heart by it and increase your assurance through it, so that you may take it in and carry it; and We set it out deliberately and without haste.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, Al-Furqan 25:32 our rendering · Open the passage

4 And (it is) a Qur'an that We have divided, that thou mayst recite it unto mankind at intervals, and We have revealed it by (successive) revelation.

Al-Isra 17:106 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 And We sent down to you — O Messenger — a Qur'an that We made clear, made firm and set out in detail, separating guidance from error and truth from falsehood, so that you may recite it to people calmly and unhurriedly. And We sent it down in parts, one thing after another, according to events and to what circumstances required.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, Al-Isra 17:106 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Another said: it was not sent down all at once because part of it abrogates and part is abrogated, and that is only possible in what is sent down piecemeal; and part of it is an answer to a question, and part is a rebuttal of something said or something done. This has already been mentioned in the words of Ibn Abbas: Gabriel brought it down in answer to what people said and what they did …

al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 120 our rendering · Open the passage

7 I was with Aisha, Mother of the Believers, may God be pleased with her, when an Iraqi came to her and said: which shroud is best? She said: woe to you, what harm does that do you? He said: Mother of the Believers, show me your copy of the Qur'an. She said: why? He said: perhaps I may put the Qur'an in order from it, for it is recited out of order. She said: what harm does it do you which part of it you read first? What first came down of it was a sura of the Mufassal in which the Garden and the Fire are mentioned; then, when people had turned to Islam, the lawful and the forbidden came down. Had the first thing to come down been: do not drink wine, they would have said: we will never give up wine; and had there come down: do not commit fornication, they would have said: we will never give up fornication. There came down at Mecca upon Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, while I was a girl at play, the words that the Hour is their appointed time and that the Hour is more grievous and more bitter (al-Qamar 54:46). And the suras of al-Baqarah and al-Nisa came down only while I was with him. He said: so she brought out the copy for him, and dictated to him the verses of the suras.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 4993 · sahih (sound) our rendering

8 These are sound and explicit reports that the Torah was sent down all at once. From the last of them a further wisdom in sending the Qur'an down piecemeal may be drawn: it is more conducive to acceptance when it comes down by stages, unlike what would have happened had it come down all at once, when many people would have shrunk from accepting it because of the many duties and prohibitions in it.

al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 122 our rendering · Open the passage

9 A group of the exegetes held that His words, then bring ten suras, mean the like of al-Baqarah through to the sura of Hud, which is the tenth; and it is known that the sura of Hud is Meccan, and that al-Baqarah, Al Imran, al-Nisa, al-Ma'idah, al-Anfal and al-Tawbah are Medinan, sent down after it.

al-Zarkashi, Al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 258 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Had the Qur'an come down all at once, as they demanded of him, it would have come down in this order. Its suras and verses came down separately only because people needed them one situation after another, and because it contains the abrogating and the abrogated, which could not have come down together. The fullest statement of the wisdom in its coming piecemeal is His saying: "And (it is) a Qur'an that We have divided, that thou mayst recite it unto mankind at intervals". This is a principle on which many questions are built.

al-Zarkashi, Al-Burhan fi Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 258 (the verse in Pickthall's rendering, Al-Isra 17:106) our rendering · Open the passage

I was with Aisha, Mother of the Believers, may God be pleased with her, when an Iraqi came to her and said: which shroud is best? She said: woe to you, what harm does that do you? He said: Mother of the Believers, show me your copy of the Qur'an. She said: why? He said: perhaps I may put the Qur'an in order from it, for it is recited out of order. She said: what harm does it do you which part of it you read first? What first came down of it was a sura of the Mufassal in which the Garden and the Fire are mentioned; then, when people had turned to Islam, the lawful and the forbidden came down. Had the first thing to come down been: do not drink wine, they would have said: we will never give up wine; and had there come down: do not commit fornication, they would have said: we will never give up fornication. There came down at Mecca upon Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, while I was a girl at play, the words that the Hour is their appointed time and that the Hour is more grievous and more bitter (al-Qamar 54:46). And the suras of al-Baqarah and al-Nisa came down only while I was with him. He said: so she brought out the copy for him, and dictated to him the verses of the suras.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 4993 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

All of this is description, not proof. A book that responds to its circumstances does exactly this: it answers the man who asks, it replies to its opponent, and it changes its ruling when the situation changes — then calls the change abrogation. "Gradualness for the sake of acceptance" is a reason formulated after the fact, not before it; it explains the behaviour without distinguishing where the behaviour came from, and every successful preacher moves by stages. As for the written order differing from the order of revelation, that refutes nothing: a compiler arranged the text after his death. The order is a committee's handiwork, not a testimony from heaven.

It is true that piecemeal revelation on its own establishes no source, and no such claim is made here; anyone who reads it as an independent proof is loading it with more than it carries. What is claimed is narrower: the objection uncovers nothing that was hidden, since the description is stated openly in the text and given its reason there before anyone raised it as an objection 1 6. As for "a committee's handiwork", the sources themselves say otherwise: for them the order is fixed and prior, not something settled later by human judgement — "Had the Qur'an come down all at once, as they demanded of him, it would have come down in this order" 10. That is a claim about transmission, and it is accepted or rejected on the evidence of transmission, not by finding it implausible. Gradualness is the one thing here that can be tested: it was put in a definite form that admits refutation — warning and encouragement first, then the lawful and the forbidden 7. Whoever wants to knock it down should knock it down with the order of revelation, not by calling it a reason formulated after the fact.

Why isn't "I don't know" a sufficient position?

Yes. "I don't know" is a complete epistemic position, and nothing obliges you to produce grounds for it — the book you are arguing with says so before you do, and does not contest it: "We do not demand grounds from you for a negative. Suspension of judgement is not a claim, and whoever demands evidence of the man who suspends has inverted the burden." 1 The Quran itself forbids asserting what one has no knowledge of: "(O man), follow not that whereof thou hast no knowledge." 2 Its plain commentary reads: do not follow, O man, what you do not know; rather verify and be sure 3. So the prohibition falls on the man who speaks without knowledge, not on the man who withholds judgement. Ibn Umar went further and made "I do not know" one of three things that are knowledge itself, rather than its opposite 4. What is asked of you is one small thing: "that your suspension follow from looking at what is set before you and not from turning away from it" — for 'I looked and it was not enough for me' is not 'I did not look' 5. And the book grants that "this request is slight" and that "the chapter yields nothing against you" 6. The limits of suspension in the Islamic tradition are drawn, not open-ended: Sahnun was asked whether a scholar may say "I do not know" about something he does know, and he barred it where a standing text of the Book or an established sunna settles the matter, while allowing it where the matter is one of considered opinion, since there the scholar does not know whether he is right or wrong 7. So the dispute is not over whether suspension is legitimate. It is over which of those two kinds the case set before you belongs to — and that is a question of looking, not a question of burden.

1 1. We do not demand grounds from you for a negative. Suspension of judgement is not a claim, and whoever demands evidence of the man who suspends has inverted the burden. And we do not say to you 'so prove that he did not speak', and we do not count your silence a position to be defended.

21. Silence: A Claim, or a Suspension of Judgement? · Open the passage

2 (O man), follow not that whereof thou hast no knowledge. Lo! the hearing and the sight and the heart - of each of these it will be asked.

Surat al-Isra 17:36 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 Do not follow, O man, what you do not know; rather verify and be sure. Man is answerable for what he used his hearing, his sight and his heart in: if he used them in good he attains the reward, and if he used them in evil he incurs the punishment.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Isra 17:36 our rendering · Open the passage

4 ... from Abd Allah ibn Umar, who said: "Knowledge is three things: a speaking Book, a sunna that has gone before, and I do not know." Abu Hudhafa also related it from Malik, from Nafi, from Ibn Umar, who said: "Knowledge is three" - and then he mentioned it.

Ibn Abd al-Barr - Jami Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 1605 our rendering · Open the passage

5 2. And what we ask is one thing and a small one: that your suspension follow from looking at what is set before you and not from turning away from it. And there is a difference between 'I looked and it was not enough for me' and 'I did not look'. The first is a complete epistemic position, and there is nothing in this book that finds fault with it.

21. Silence: A Claim, or a Suspension of Judgement? · Open the passage

6 3. And we grant that this request is slight. For whoever looked and found it not enough has discharged what is on him, and we have nothing beyond that to bind him with. So the chapter yields nothing against you - and our saying so plainly is better than a title that leaves the impression that it did.

21. Silence: A Claim, or a Suspension of Judgement? · Open the passage

7 Ibn Waddah said: Sahnun was asked, may a scholar say "I do not know" about something he does know? He said: "As for what a standing Book of God or an established sunna covers, that is not open to him; but as for what belongs to considered opinion, that is open to him, because he does not know whether he is right or wrong."

Ibn Abd al-Barr - Jami Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 1617 our rendering · Open the passage

8 A man is questioned in his grave: what do you say about this man? As for the believer, he says: he is the servant of God and His Messenger; he came to us with the clear proofs and with guidance. As for the doubter, he says: Ah, ah, I do not know. I heard people saying something, so I said it. And this is why God made an exception for those who bear witness to the truth knowingly [al-Zukhruf 43:86].

- · Ibn Taymiyya · Majmu al-Fatawa 14/409 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

9 ... from Abu al-Dhayyal, who said: "Learn to say I do not know; for if you say I do not know, they will teach you until you know, and if you say I know, they will question you until you do not know." ...

Ibn Abd al-Barr - Jami Bayan al-Ilm wa-Fadlih, p. 1843 our rendering · Open the passage

A man is questioned in his grave: what do you say about this man? As for the believer, he says: he is the servant of God and His Messenger; he came to us with the clear proofs and with guidance. As for the doubter, he says: Ah, ah, I do not know. I heard people saying something, so I said it. And this is why God made an exception for those who bear witness to the truth knowingly [al-Zukhruf 43:86].

- · Ibn Taymiyya · Majmu al-Fatawa 14/409 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

This concedes with one tongue and binds with the other. You say no grounds are demanded of me, and then your own text puts the man who said "I do not know" into the torment of the grave. Whoever makes torment the penalty for a position has loaded it with something heavier than the entire burden of proof — and then calls his condition "slight". Weighing the competing claims of revelation is not slight. It is a whole lifetime.

The hadith names the doubter's fault in its own words, and that fault is not suspension of judgement: "As for the doubter, he says: Ah, ah, I do not know. I heard people saying something, so I said it." 8 He spoke without looking and then did not know; he did not look and find it insufficient. That is exactly the distinction the answer sets as its condition: 'I looked and it was not enough for me' is not 'I did not look' 5. A report confirms it, treating "I do not know" as a door that opens rather than a wall that closes: learn to say I do not know, for if you say I do not know they will teach you until you know 9. As for the weight of looking, that is granted — which is why you are not asked to survey every claim ever made, only to look at what is set before you 5. And the book says plainly, right after: "For whoever looked and found it not enough has discharged what is on him, and we have nothing beyond that to bind him with." 6