Christopher Hitchens - The Portable Atheist - Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

Here, it might be appropriate to give some examples. Verse 15 of sura 20 is totally out of place; the rhyme is different from the rest of the sura. Verses 1–5 of sura 78 have obviously been added on artificially, because both the rhyme and the tone of the rest of the sura changes; in the same sura verses 33 and 34 have been inserted between verses 32 and 35, thus breaking the obvious connection between 32 and 35. In sura 74, verse 31 is again an obvious insertion since it is in a totally different style and of a different length than the rest of the verses in the sura. In sura 50, verses 24–32 have again been artificially fitted into a context in which they do not belong.

To explain certain rare or unusual words or phrases, the formula “What has let you know what…is?” (or “What will teach you what…is?”) is added on to a passage, after which a short explanatory description follows. It is clear that these explanatory glosses—twelve in all—have been added on at a later time, since in many instances the “definitions” do not correspond to the original meaning of the word or phrase. Bell and Watt give the example of sura 101.9–11, which should read: “his mother shall be ‘hawiya.’ And what shall teach you what it is? A blazing fire.” “Hawiya” originally meant “childless” owing to the death or misfortune of her son, but the explanatory note defines it as “Hell.” Thus most translators now render the above sentence as, “shall plunge in the womb of the Pit. And what shall teach you what is the Pit? A blazing fire!” (see also 90.12–16.)

Of course any interpolation, however trivial, is fatal to the Muslim dogma that the Koran is literally the word of God as given to Muhammad at Mecca or Medina. As Regis Blachere in his classic Introduction to the Koran said, on this point, there is no possible way of reconciling the findings of Western philologists and historians with the official dogma of Islam.

We also have the story of Abd Allah b. Sa’d Abi Sarh:

The last named had for some time been one of the scribes employed at Medina to write down the revelations. On a number of occasions he had, with the Prophet’s consent, changed the closing words of verses. When the Prophet had said “And God is mighty and wise,” Abd Allah suggested writing down “knowing and wise” and the Prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Abd Allah renounced Islam on the ground that the revelations, if from God, could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites.

Needless to say, the Prophet had no qualms about ordering his assassination once Mecca was captured, but Uthman obtained Muhammad’s pardon with difficulty.

William Henry Burr, the author of Self-Contradictions of the Bible, would have a field day with the Koran, for the Koran abounds in contradictions. But Burr’s euphoria would be short-lived; for Muslim theologians have a rather convenient doctrine, which, as Hughes puts it, “fell in with that law of expediency which appears to be the salient feature in Muhammad’s prophetical career.” According to this doctrine, certain passages of the Koran are abrogated by verses with a different or contrary meaning revealed afterwards. This was taught by Muhammad at sura 2.105: “Whatever verses we [i.e., God] cancel or cause you to forget, we bring a better or its like.” According to al-Suyuti, the number of abrogated verses has been estimated at from five to five hundred. As Margoliouth remarked,

To do this, withdraw a revelation and substitute another for it, was, [Muhammad] asserted, well within the power of God. Doubtless it was, but so obviously within the power of man that it is to us astonishing how so compromising a procedure can have been permitted to be introduced into the system by friends and foes.

Al-Suyuti gives the example of sura 2.240 as a verse abrogated (superseded) by verse 234, which is the abrogating verse. How can an earlier verse abrogate a later verse? The answer lies in the fact that the traditional Muslim order of the suras and verses is not chronological, the compilers simply having placed the longer chapters at the beginning. The commentators have to decide the chronological order for doctrinal reasons; Western scholars have also worked out a chronological scheme. Though there are many differences of detail, there seems to be broad agreement about which suras belong to the Meccan (i.e., early) period of Muhammad’s life and which belong to the Medinan (i.e., later) period. It is worth noting how time-bound the “eternal” word of God is.

Muslims have gotten themselves out of one jam only to find themselves in another. Is it fitting that an All-Powerful, Omniscient, and Omnipotent God should revise His commands so many times? Does He need to issue commands that need revising so often? Why can He not get it right the first time, after all, He is all-wise? Why does He not reveal the better verse irst? In the words of Dashti,

It seems that there were hecklers in those days too, and that they were persistent. A reply was given to them in verses 103 and 104 of sura 16: “When We have replaced a verse with another verse—and God knows well what He sends down—they say, ‘You are a mere fabricator.’ But most of them have no knowledge. Say (to them), ‘The Holy Ghost brought it down from your Lord, truly so, in order to confirm the believers.’”

On the assumption that the Quran is God’s word, there ought to be no trace of human intellectual imperfection in anything that God says. Yet in these two verses the incongruity is obvious. Of course God knows what He sends down. For that very reason the replacement of one verse by another made the protesters suspicious. Evidently even the simple, uneducated Hejazi Arabs could understand that Almighty God, being aware of what is best for His servants, would prescribe the best in the first place and would not have changes of mind in the same way as His imperfect creatures.

The doctrine of abrogation also makes a mockery of the Muslim dogma that the Koran is a faithful and unalterable reproduction of the original scriptures that are preserved in heaven. If God’s words are eternal, uncreated, and of universal significance, then how can we talk of God’s words being superseded or becoming obsolete? Are some words of God to be preferred to other words of God? Apparently yes. According to Muir, some 200 verses have been canceled by later ones. Thus we have the strange situation where the entire Koran is recited as the word of God, and yet there are passages that can be considered not “true”; in other words, 3 percent of the Koran is acknowledged as falsehood.

Let us take an example. Everyone knows that Muslims are not allowed to drink wine in virtue of the prohibition found in the Koran sura 2.219; yet many would no doubt be surprised to read in the Koran at sura 16.67, “And among fruits you have the palm and the vine, from which you get wine and healthful nutriment: in this, truly, are signs for those who reflect” (Rodwell). Dawood has “intoxicants” and Pickthall, “strong drink,” and Sale, with eighteenth-century charm, has “inebriating liquor” in place of “wine.” Yusuf Ali pretends that the Arabic word concerned, “sakar,” means “wholesome drink,” and in a footnote insists that nonalcoholic drinks are being referred to; but then, at the last moment, he concedes that if “sakar must be taken in the sense of fermented wine, it refers to the time before intoxicants were prohibited: this is a Meccan sura and the prohibition came in Medina.”

Now we can see how useful and convenient the doctrine of abrogation is in bailing scholars out of difficulties. Of course, it does pose problems for apologists of Islam, since all the passages preaching tolerance are found in Meccan, i.e., early suras, and all the passages recommending killing, decapitating, and maiming are Medinan, i.e., later: “tolerance” has been abrogated by “intolerance.” For example, the famous verse at sura 9.5, “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them,” is said to have canceled 124 verses that dictate toleration and patience.