Revelation: Qur'an part 1
This article on the Quran by Shlomi Tal will be divided in two parts. In this first part, he analyzes the authorship of the Quran and the Sura-Like-It challenge.
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The Qur'an is not exempt from criticism; it is a book which orders to hate and oppress and kill people for thinking and believing differently, and therefore it is incumbent upon any modern person to check whether all this misery is inflicted justly or wrongly. I say the latter - it is all in vain - and I aim to make a case for thinking so.
Authorship of the Official Version
The Qur'an which Muslims read today is called the Copy of 'Uthmaan (mas-haf 'uthmaan), traditionally collected and fixed in final form by the third khaliifa (deputy) of Islam, 'Uthmaan. The traditional story of how the official version has come to us is interesting, showing the same shakiness of authorship as in the Bible and the New Testament.
The tradition begins in saying that one man, Muhammad bin Abdillah, received a message from God, Allah, the Creator of the Universe, by way of the angel Jibraa'iil (Gabriel). Here lies the first difficulty: the existence of the creator-god is assumed. There is no evidence for the existence of such a being, in fact there is much evidence for the non-existence of Allah. I believe God does not exist, and I make my case for my belief all over my website. Suffice it here to say that the notion of Allah making contact with a human being implies separation of Allah from his creation, and that cannot be true for the Infinite. But leaving the philosophical objection aside, what proof have we for the allegation that Muhammad received a message from Allah? He could have been the only witness to such reception. One would think Allah would be more thorough and give the revelation to all humanity instead of trusting in a single, solitary man to pass it on.
The tradition goes on to say Muhammad dictated some of the revelation to secretaries, while other parts of it were learnt by heart, kept by the followers of Muhammad. Either way, the contents of the revelation were in a malleable state, liable to additions and omissions until their final canonization. The tradition says Zaid bin Thaabit, a secretary of Muhammad, collected the pieces of revelation "from pieces of papyrus, flat stones, palm leaves, shoulder blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather and wooden boards, as well as from the hearts of men". The Word of Allah, then, was not given as a fixed document from the moment of revelation, but committed to writing later. It is easy enough to alter a written text in the stage of input (as opposed to hardcopy printing and computerized copy-pasting, which do not err in the output of their feeds); how much more so to alter a spoken word, which is suspended in the neurons of the brain and transmitted through interactions with air. Thomas Paine wrote about this in the second part of The Age of Reason, in late 1795 (page 165):
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