Brief introduction to why we should doubt the claim that the Qur’ān is of divine origins — evidences that show Muhammad frequented with Christians and Jews (this includes Muhammad listening to the People of the Book recite their scriptures), and evidences of plagiarism:
The tafsīr of Surah al-Muddaththir, ayāh 25 by Al-Jalalayn, says: “this is nothing but the speech of humans’ similar to what they the idolaters had said ‘It is only a human that is teaching him’ Q. 16103”. But who is this ayāh specifically referring to? Ibn Abbas, in his tafsīr, tells us in the tafsīr of the same ayāh (25) in Surah al-Muddaththir: “(This) which Muhammad (pbuh) says, is (naught else than speech of mortal man) the speech of JABR and YASAR”. Now that we know their names, who were these two individuals? Al-Jalalayn tells us in his tafsīr of Surah An-Nahl, ayāh 103: “And verily wa-laqad is for confirmation We know that they say ‘It is only a human that is teaching him the Qur’ān’ — this was a CHRISTIAN BLACKSMITH whom THE PROPHET USED TO FREQUENT. God exalted be He says The tongue the language of him to whom they refer to whom they incline with the accusation that he is the one teaching him is foreign’; while this Qur’ān is in a clear Arabic tongue one of lucidity and clarity so how can a foreigner be teaching him?”. Here, it is clear that Muhammad would regularly go and see this Christian blacksmith.
Links:
https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=74&tAyahNo=25&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=73&tSoraNo=74&tAyahNo=25&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=16&tAyahNo=103&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 In Asbab al-Nuzul, in the tafsīr of Surah al-Al-Baqarah, ayāh 98, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab is a witness to seeing Muhammad present at the study circles that the Jews would have about their Torah: “[2:98] (Who is an enemy to Allah, and His angels...) [2:98]. Abu Bakr al-Asfahani informed us > al-Hafiz Abu'l Shaykh [al-Asfahani] > Abu Yahya al-Razi> Sahl ibn 'Uthman > ‘Ali ibn Mushir > Dawud > al-Sha'bi who said: “Said 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be well pleased with him: 'I used to go to the JEWS UPON THEIR STUDY OF THE TORAH and was amazed to see the CONFORMITY OF THE QUR’AN WITH THE TORAH and OF THE TORAH WITH THE QUR’AN. On one occasion they said: 'O 'Umar! We do not like anyone more than we like you'. I asked: 'And why is that?' They said: 'Because you come to us and mix with us'. I said: 'I come to you only because of my amazement at how the different parts of the Book of Allah strengthen each other, and how the Qur'an is in conformity with the Torah and how the Torah is in conformity with the Qur'an'. AS I WAS WITH THEM ONE DAY, ALLAH’S MESSENGER, Allah bless him and give him peace, PASSED BY BEHIND ME”.
Link:
https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=86&tSoraNo=2&tAyahNo=98&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 Also in Asbab al-Nuzul, the tafsīr of Surah an-Nahl, ayāh 103, we find another piece of evidence that links the above-mentioned, ‘’blacksmith’’ to two individuals. This also shows us what Muhammad would do when in their presence: “(And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish…) [16:103]. Abu Nasr Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Muzakki > Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Hamdan al-Zahid > ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz > Abu Hisham al-Rifa‘i > Ibn Fudayl >Husayn > ‘Abd Allah ibn Muslim who said: “We OWNED TWO CHRISTIAN YOUTHS from the people of ‘Ayn Tamr, ONE CALLED YASAR AND THE OTHER JABR. Their TRADE WAS MAKING SWORDS but THEY ALSO COULD READ THE SCRIPTURES IN THEIR OWN TONGUE. The MESSENGER OF ALLAH, Allah bless him and give him peace, USED TO PASS BY THEM AND LISTEN TO THEIR READING. As a result, the idolaters used to say: ‘He is being taught by them!’ To give them the lie, Allah, exalted is He, revealed (The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech)”.
Link:
https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=86&tSoraNo=16&tAyahNo=103&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 The different fables and legends that found themselves within the Qur’an:
In Surah al-Ma’idah, ayāh 30-35, there is a story connected with Cain and Abel. It is in the 31’st ayāh, that it is related that after Cain had killed his brother: “Then Allah sent a crow searching in the ground to show him how to hide the disgrace of his brother. He said, "O woe to me! Have I failed to be like this crow and hide the body of my brother?" And he became of the regretful.” This fable has its origins in a Rabbinical work known as the, ‘Targum of Jonathan’. Pirke Rabbi Eliezer, in Chapter XXI, says, "Adam and his companion sat weeping and mourning for him (Abel), and did not know what to do with him, as burial was unknown to them. Then came a raven, whose companion was dead, took its body, scratched in the earth, and hid it before their eyes. Then said Adam, 'I shall do as this raven has done,' and at once be took Abel's corpse, dug in the earth and hid it”.
This fable is also found in the Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu. The English translation of it, is: “Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu: An English Translation of Genesis and Exodus from the Printed Version of Tanhuma-Yelammedenu with an Introduction, Notes, and Indexes”.
Link (page 33):
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WLOi9vWEzTEC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=Raven&f=false In several places of the Qur'ān the story is told of Abraham being cast into a fiery furnace by order of a king (whom some of the mufassirīn name as Nimrod), because of his refusal to worship idols. Ibn Abbas clearly identifies Nimrod in his tafsīr of Surah al-Anbīya, ayāh 52: ‘’(When he said unto his father) Azar (and his folk) Nimrod son of Canaan and his host: (What are these images unto which ye pay devotion) which you worship?’’. It is said in Surah al-Anbīya’, ayāh 69, that when Abraham was cast into the fire, Allāh said: “Allah said, "O fire, be coolness and safety upon Abraham”. The origins of this other fable is found in a Jewish book called the, ‘Midrash Rabba’. From the Torah, we learn that Abraham (before his entrance into the land of Canaan) resided in the city named, ‘’Ur’’ in the land of Chaldea; but that the God of the Torah brought him out of that city and took him to the, ‘’land of promise’’. Thus in Genesis 15:7, we read, "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees’’. Ur being a city, was unknown to the ignorant Jewish author of the Midrash, this being a Jewish scribe named Jonathan Ben Uziel, who mistook the Hebrew word "Ur" for the Hebrew word which also means "fire.", thus mistakenly supporting the idea that the God of the Torah had delivered Abraham out of a fire.
So, to explain the verse "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees," a story was invented of Abraham being cast into fire by Nimrod, where he was then miraculously saved by God. This story was well known to the Arabian Jews of Muhammad's time. In the Midrash Rabba (also named as Genesis Rabbah), it is written, in Rabbah 38.13 by a first-century Jewish sage called R. Hiyya (Hiyya the Great) that, “this happened at the time when Nimrod cast Abraham into the oven of fire, because he would not worship the idols (fire; water; cloud; and wind) that leave was withheld from the fire to hurt him”. Therefore, this fable, based on a mistranslation and misunderstanding of the Biblical verse in question which mentions the word ‘Ur’, made itself into the Qur’ān as a verse, which instead of talking of a city, refers to a Jewish fable of Abraham being saved from an imaginative, ‘’fire’’. So how can the Qur’ān be of divine origins, when this verse is of the origins of a Jewish sage?
To highlight other similarities with this:
In Surah al-Anbīya’, ayāh 57, (with Abraham speaking): ‘’And [I swear] by Allah, I will surely PLAN AGAINST YOUR IDOLS after you have TURNED AND GONE AWAY”. In the Midrash Rabbah, it says: “Terah was a manufacturer of IDOLS. He ONCE WENT AWAY somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place”. In the next ayāh, 58, it says: “So he made them (idols) INTO FRAGMENTS, EXCEPT A LARGE ONE AMONG THEM, that they might return to it [and question]”. Again, in the Midrash Rabbah, it says: “So he took a stick, BROKE THEM, and put the stick IN THE HAND OF THE LARGEST”.
Link to the tafsīr of Ibn Abbas:
https://quranx.com/tafsirs/21.52 and:
https://quranx.com/tafsirs/2.258 We find a long story of Prophet Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in which it is stated that the former sent a letter to the Queen by a bird, inviting her to stop worshipping the sun and to only worship Allāh. The story goes on to say that the letter resulted in the determination of the Queen to visit Solomon. In Surah An-Naml, ayāh 44, (when she arrived at the palace of the King): ‘’She was told, "Enter the palace." But when she saw it, she thought it was a body of water and uncovered her shins [to wade through]. He said, "Indeed, it is a palace [whose floor is] made smooth with glass." She said, "My Lord, indeed I have wronged myself, and I submit with Solomon to Allah, Lord of the worlds."
In the Targum Sheni (a commentary of the Book of Esther) 1:3, a Rabbinical work full of fables and mythical stories, practically the whole story as told by Muhammad, is found within it. In this Targum, which can be supplemented by details found in the Alphabet of Ben Sira and Josephus (Ant. 8:165–73), we read, "Solomon, know that she (the Queen) was come, arose and sat down in the palace of glass. When the Queen of Sheba saw it, she thought that the glass floor was water, and so, in crossing over lifted up her garments’’.
Another important thing to note, is that there is no evidence that the Queen of Sheba even existed, when analysing the archaeological evidence found from the excavations done on the ancient Sabaic Awwām Temple, or which is also known as, ‘’Maḥram Bilqīs’’ in Sirwah, Yemen, and the Almaqah temple of Meqaber Gacewa near Wuqro (Tigray, Ethiopia). To make the claim that Queen Sheba did exist, but that the archaeologists could just not find any evidence of her, is a very weak claim to makee. First, the archaeologists found plenty of evidence of inscriptions from the ancient Sabean kingdom (from old stones) in Ethiopia and Yemen. Other than there being no evidence of the existence of Queen Sheba reigning from 950 B.C. (a time where she is thought to have reigned), there is also no mention (on any of the inscriptions found from these excavation sites) of any other female ruler existing during this period either. Two, both of these excavation sites, in Yemen and Ethiopia, were scanned by the use of terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques. This allows for there to be high quality 3D data of the sites, thus, not allowing for any details to be missed.
For the main resource on the archaeological findings from Yemen:
https://dainst.org/en/-/archaologische-berichte-aus-dem-yemen?_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdainst.org%2Fen%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fpublikationen%2Freihen%3Fp_p_id%3Dcom_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_cur%3D0%26p_r_p_resetCur%3Dfalse%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_assetEntryId%3D109077 and another source:
https://dainst.org/en/-/epigraphische-forschungen-auf-der-arabischen-halbinsel?_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdainst.org%2Fen%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fpublikationen%2Freihen%3Fp_p_id%3Dcom_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_cur%3D0%26p_r_p_resetCur%3Dfalse%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_assetEntryId%3D109363 and:
https://dainst.org/en/web/guest/ergebnis/-/asset_publisher/NZrOgZ37QcYu/content/neuerscheinung-zora-7 and:
https://dainst.org/en/-/hefte-zur-kulturgeschichte-des-jemen?_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdainst.org%2Fen%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fpublikationen%2Freihen%3Fp_p_id%3Dcom_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_cur%3D0%26p_r_p_resetCur%3Dfalse%26_com_liferay_asset_publisher_web_portlet_AssetPublisherPortlet_INSTANCE_Oc8C5zUcIrVI_assetEntryId%3D110491 and:
https://dainst.org/en/web/guest/ergebnis/-/asset_publisher/NZrOgZ37QcYu/content/3000-jahre-alter-tempel-im-reich-von-saba-jemen- and:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=61cbcc421ba74bb89d3ced5332298744 The story of God holding a mountain over the Israelites, in order to frighten them. In Surah al-A’raf, ayāh 171, it says: “And [mention] when We raised the mountain above them as if it was a dark cloud and they were certain that it would fall upon them, [and Allāh said], "Take what We have given you with determination and remember what is in it that you might fear Allāh.”
1. Allāh is trying to establish fear.
2. He does this through the use of the mountain and;
3. Reminds the Israelites about the Law, by saying to, “take what We have given you”.
In the Jewish tract called the Abodah Sarah (a tract where the Jewish commentators turned this into a fanciful story of God holding the mountain over the people), we read that God "inverted THE HOLY MOUNTAIN ABOVE THEM like a pot, and said unto them, 'if YE RECEIVE THE LAW, well; but if not, THERE WILL YOUR GRAVE BE.'"
The tafsīr of this ayāh:
http://www.alim.org/library/quran/AlQuran-tafsir/TIK/7/171 In Surah al-Hijr, through ayāh 16-18, it states that the devils plot to hear what is being said in heaven, and are then driven away by shooting stars (which are cast at them by the angels). The ayāt: “And We have placed within the heaven great stars and have beautified it for the observers. And We have protected it (heaven) from every devil expelled [from the mercy of Allah] except one who steals a hearing and is pursued by a clear burning flame (the shooting star)”.
Many try and claim that Ibn Kathīr did not take a literal view concerning the shooting stars being thrown at the devils, but this is a false position to hold. Ibn Kathīr himself confirms that he takes a literal view, in his tafsīr, by saying: “Here, Mujahid and Qatadah said that Buruj big stars refers to the heavenly bodies. (I SAY): This is like the Ayah: (Blessed be He Who has placed the big stars in the heavens.) 25:61 `Atiyah Al-`Awfi said: "Buruj here refers to sentinel fortresses.'' He made the "shooting stars'' to guard it against the evil devils who try to listen to information conveyed at the highest heights. If any devil breaches it and advances hoping to listen, a clear "shooting star'' comes to him and destroys him. He may already have passed on whatever he heard before the fire hit him, to another devil below him; the latter will then take it to his friends among humans, as is stated in the Sahih.
Explaining this Ayah, Al-Bukhari reported from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet said: (When Allah decrees any matter in heaven, the angels beat their wings in submission to His Word, with a sound like a chain beating on a smooth rock.'') (`Ali and other subnarrators said, "The sound reaches them.'') "When the fright leaves their (angels') hearts, they (angels) are asked: `What did your Lord say' They respond: "The truth. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.' So those who hope to hear something listen, and they are standing one above the other.'' Sufyan the narrator described them with a gesture, spreading the fingers of his right hand and holding it in such a way that the fingers were above one another. "Sometimes the flaming fire hits one of these listeners before he is able to convey what he has heard to the one who is beneath him, and he is burned up, or sometimes the fire does not hit him until he has pit on to the one beneath him, so he brings it to the earth’’. Another similar verse is found in Surah al-Mulk, ayāh 5.
These verses are simply a reconstruction of a Jewish fable preserved in the tractate of the Chagigah 16a, where it is says that: The demons "listen from behind a curtain" (shom’in me ‘ahoray ha- pargod), and; that they then whisper a combination of “true and false prophecies to the kahana” (soothsayers/fortune tellers).
Link:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eZQH0xCYiaAC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=hagigah+listen+from+behind+a+curtain&source=bl&ots=7irLpiW0kY&sig=ACfU3U3gnuwx4O2oDlR1Wl_-dI8VSrfyfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAoJyv5urmAhWMXsAKHbtuBCsQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=hagigah%20listen%20from%20behind%20a%20curtain&f=false and:
https://www.sefaria.org/Chagigah.16a.6?with=Commentary&lang=bi and:
https://islamqa.info/en/answers/114820/he-went-to-a-fortune-teller-then-he-repented-but-he-found-that-what-the-fortune-teller-told-him-is-coming-true-day-after-day In Surah Maryam, ayāh 29-30 we find the fable which mentions Jesus and Mary, where Jesus speaks whilst in the cradle. In the 29’th ayāh, it says: “So she pointed to him. They said, "How can we SPEAK to one who is in the CRADLE a child?". Then in the next ayāh, 30, it says: “[Jesus] said, "Indeed, I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Scripture and made me a prophet”. In, “The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour”, an apocryphal text that was produced as early as the 6’th century (some historians claim that the text comes from the 5’th century), on page 405, it says: “He has said that JESUS SPOKE, and, indeed, when He was lying in His CRADLE said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world”.
The reasons to why this story is deemed to be historically unreliable:
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/why-shouldnt-we-trust-the-non-canonical-arabic-gospel-of-the-infancy-of-the-savior/ In Surah Ali ‘Imran, we find the fable of Jesus giving life to birds that are made out of clay. In the 49’th ayāh of this Surah, it says: “And [make him] a messenger to the Children of Israel, [who will say], 'Indeed I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I design for you from clay [that which is] like the form of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird by permission of Allah. And I cure the blind and the leper, and I give life to the dead - by permission of Allah. And I inform you of what you eat and what you store in your houses. Indeed in that is a sign for you, if you are believers”. This story is also repeated in Surah al-Ma’idah, ayāh 110, where it mentions: “... and when you (Jesus) DESIGNED FROM CLAY [what was] LIKE THE FORM OF A BIRD with My permission, then you breathed into it, and IT BECAME A BIRD with My permission”. We find the origins of this fable in the apocryphal text, “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas”, on the second chapter, where it says: “He then made some soft MUD and FASHIONED TWELVE SPARROWS from it”, and in the same second chapter, “But Jesus clapped his hands and cried to the SPARROWS, “Be gone!” And THE SPARROWS TOOK FLIGHT and went off, chirping”. Dating this text, Bart Ehrman’s book, called “Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It Into the New Testament” states, “Most scholars believe that such “infancy Gospels” began to circulate during the first half of the second century”.
Link (page 58):
https://www.baytagoodah.com/uploads/9/5/6/0/95600058/319098485-lost-scriptures-books-that-did-not-make-it-into-the-new-testament-bart-d-ehrman-pdf.pdf In Surah Maryam, we find the fable of Mary being in a, “remote place”, where she is then led to go to a, “palm tree” (for support), because of the pain of bearing Jesus in the heat of the desert. This also resulted in her to feel hungry and thirsty because of the journey. In the 22’nd ayāh, it says: “So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him TO A REMOTE PLACE”, and in the 23’rd ayāh, “And THE PAINS OF CHILD BIRTH DROVE HER TO THE TRUNK OF A PALM TREE and was in oblivion, forgotten”, and in the 24’th ayah, “But he (Jesus) CALLED HER FROM BELOW HER, "Do not grieve; your Lord has provided BENEATH YOU A STREAM”, and in the 25’th ayah, “And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; IT WILL DROP UPON YOU RIPE, FRESH DATES”. In the, “Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew”, it says: “... their JOURNEY, while they were walking”, and, “Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it FULL OF FRUIT”, but then Mary also says, “I am thinking more of the want of WATER”, and then Jesus says, “Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, REPOSING IN THE BOSOM OF HIS MOTHER, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and REFRESH MY MOTHER WITH THY FRUIT”. Then after, Jesus says, “... OPEN FROM THY ROOTS A VEIN OF WATER“ (referring to the stream of water appearing at the bottom of the palm-tree, where Mary would have been sitting/kneeling on as she would not have had energy to be upright), Jesus then says, “... and at ITS ROOTS there began to COME FORTH A SPRING OF WATER,”.
Link (page 377, chapter 20. Page 662 on the pdf itself):
https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Ante-Nicene-Fathers-VOL-8.pdf In Surah al-Kahf, we find the fable of a group of, “youth” that retreated to a, “cave” so that they can avoid persecution, and then slept there. They do this for, “300 hundred years and exceeded by nine”, so a total of 309 years. This is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf, ayāh 25, where it says: “And THEY REMAINED IN THEIR CAVE FOR 300 YEARS AND EXCEEDED BY NINE”. After Allāh supposedly provides us with the total amount of years that the group of youth sleep in the cave for, Allāh then weirdly goes on to say in the very next ayāh, the 26’th: “Say, "ALLĀH IS MOST KNOWING OF HOW LONG THEY REMAINED. HE HAS [KNOWLEDGE OF] THE UNSEEN OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH”. Does this mean that the youth did NOT sleep in the cave for 309 years, as this knowledge is of the, “unseen” which only Allāh knows of? If the youth did in fact sleep for a total of 309 years, then what was the point in Allāh initially disclosing the supposed total amount of years that the youth slept in the cave for, if it is best known by him anyway? If one was to say that Allāh is only reiterating his power of having witnessed this event himself, and that this does not take from the fact that the youth slept in the cave for a total of 309 years, this does not hold any weight. This is because in the 19’th ayāh one of the, “speakers” from amongst the youth questioned the other concerning how long they slept for, by saying, “How LONG have you REMAINED [here]?", and then solely BECAUSE OF THE WRONG ANSWER towards this question (from another person of the group) being, “They said, "We have remained a day or part of a day”, somebody else from the group then says, “They said, "Your LORD IS MOST KNOWING OF HOW LONG YOU REMAINED”. So how long did they actually sleep in the cave for? Did Allāh purposefully want to hide this, for whatever reason, by providing a false amount?
Some other similarities between this fable and the ayāt found in Surah al-Kahf include the instance of when Allāh mentions in the 19’th ayāh of the Surah: “... So SEND ONE OF YOU with THIS SILVER COIN of yours TO THE CITY and let him look to which is the BEST OF FOOD and bring you provision from it and LET HIM BE CAUTIOUS”. This is similar to when the source of the Christian fable says, “Then they decide to SEND ONE of their number, Iamlikha (=Iamblichus), TO THE CITY in order to see if Decius has already returned and they give him some SMALL CHANGE to BUY BREAD”. Another striking similarity, is when the 10’th ayāh of the Surah says: “[Mention] when the youths retreated to the cave and said, "Our Lord, GRANT US FROM YOURSELF MERCY and prepare for us from our affair RIGHT GUIDANCE”, and the 13’th ayāh, where it says: “It is We who relate to you, [O Muhammad], their story in truth. Indeed, they were youths who BELIEVED IN THEIR LORD, and WE INCREASED THEM IN GUIDANCE”. Hence, they are believers in God, and prayed to God so that he can strengthen them and correct their affairs. In the Christian fable, these ayāt are mirrored when it says: “In the cave THEY PRAY TO GOD and GOD RAISES UP THEIR SPIRITS into heaven and sends a watcher to guard their bodies”.
This story has its origins from a Christian fable that is known as the story of, “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus”, and there are two early witnesses of this story, one that can be dated from early 6’th century, and the other from late 6’th century. In the book that Pieter W. Van der Horst wrote, called “Pious Long Sleepers in Greek, Jewish, and Christian Antiquity”, he says, “The first author to tell us the story of the Seven Sleepers is the Syrian bishop Jacob of Sarug (ca. 450-521), ALTHOUGH HE BASES HIMSELF UPON AN OLDER SOURCE. The other early witness of this story, Gregory of Tours (ca. 538-594), states that his knowledge of the story comes from a Syriac source”.
Link (pages 14-15):
http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/13th/papers/Horst.pdf Interestingly enough, Ibn Kathir also says that he knows of an opinion that some used to hold that, '' (...that they may grow more in faith along with their (present) faith.) (48:4) There are other Ayat indicating the same thing. It has been mentioned that THEY WERE FOLLOWERS OF THE RELIGION OF AL-MASIH `ISA, `ISA BIN MARYAM, but Allah knows best''.
Link to his tafsir on Surah al-Kahf, ayah 17:
http://www.recitequran.com/en/tafsir/en.ibn-kathir/18:17 As there are very clear similarities, if you want to argue that the Qur’ān is a, ‘furqān’ (the criterion of what is correct, and in this case the accuracies of the stories found in the Qur’an which are supposedly to be of divine origins) as Surah al-Furqān, ayah 1 says: ‘’Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His Servant that he may be to the worlds a warner –‘’, then you need to prove that these Jewish and Christian fables and legends, those of which have been rejected by the majority of religious (Jewish and Christian) scholarship (and also non-religious secular scholarship), that these stories are indeed accurate and not mere fables and legends. You will also have to argue for how the misunderstanding of a Biblical verse which mentions the city, ‘’Ur’’, is not actually a misunderstanding and mistranslation of the Biblical verse in question (Genesis 15:7), and that therefore the story concerning Abraham being saved from a, ‘’fire’’ after he was placed within it on Nimrod’s orders, is actually an accurate story not based on any fable whatsoever. Two, if you want to argue that that the Qur’ān is a book that was brought to confirm the previous scriptures (as Surah al-Baqarah, ayah 97; Surah al-Ma’idah ayah 48; Surah Ali 'Imran, ayah 3; etc; says) and therefore it is understandable to why there would be remnants of these stories found within the Qur’ān, if this is the position that you want to hold, then again, you have the same issue of having to prove that these Jewish commentaries; and Christian fables, are directly of divine origins, or have come from some of the previous divine books that Allāh has revealed to mankind. Thus, a catch-22 situation.
So is the Qur’ān really the, ‘’Muhaymin’’ as it claims to be?
Topic: Qur'anic studies today