Let Us Reason - A Christian/muslim Dialogue

Al Fadi, Dr Jay, and Brother Mel are starting a new series called Exposing the Myth.  In this episode they are talking about how Islam borrowed from the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.  1.The name of the ZamZam well is zoroastrian in origin.  The name Zam is a pagan god which refers to mother nature.  2. The Black stone in al Kaaba is connected to another demon called Afraditi(Venus/ Lucifer).  3. The Jamarat represent Satan.  4. The Sunna/ hadith was written in persian lands.  5. The times of prayer, the washing before prayer, the kibla, and the word Jin were borrowed from Zoroastrianism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi continue with three more historical problems with the Quran: 1. The Al Aqsa mosque( Sura 17: 1), which Muslims believe that Mohammad ascended into heaven from, was built in 710 AD, and Mohammad died in 632 AD.  2. The chain mail that is mentioned in Sura 24: 10-11 that King David wore around 1000BC ,was not invented until 200 BC. 3. The reference to the crucifixion in Sura 7: 121-124 during the time of Moses and Pharaoh in 1400 BC and Joseph 1800BC (Sura 12 :41). The crucifixion was invented 1300 years later. Yet the Quran denies the crucifixion of Jesus in Sura 4 : 157 ; this is a theological and a historical problem.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi discuss the refutations to Dan Brubaker book: Corrections in Early Quranic Manuscripts.  one of the refutations is by  Hythem Sidky who writes a book responding to Dan's book.  Dr Jay and Al Fadi also talk about the historical problems of the Quran, they give an example from Sura 20 : 85-87,95-97,  where it talks about a Samaritan who lived in the time of Moses and helped the Israelites build the golden calf.  The problem with that story is the time period ; Moses lived in 1400 BC and the Samaritan did not exist until 722BC. In conclusion; having even one mistake in the Quran proves that is not divinely preserved. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Al Fadi and Dr Jay discuss sixteen example of changes made to a number of Quranic manuscripts to fit the 1924 Hafs edition of the Quran. Al and Jay took those examples from Dr Daniel Brubaker book" Creating the Quran" .  This book has been so damaging to the standard Islamic narrative that claims that the Quran has been perfectly preserved.  Listen to this episode to learn the details of these damaging changes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue their discussion about the interview that Muhammad Hijab had with Dr Yasi Qadi about the Quran preservation.  Al and Dr Jay mention that most Muslims especially in the East do not cross the line of questioning the Quran.  Dr Yasir Qadi had a crisis of faith "knowledge" when he went to Yale university. The interview caused a lot of Muslims to doubt and leave Islam.  They also talked about Dr Brubaker's work on the early Quranic manuscript in his book" Corrections in Early Quranic Manuscripts" . In his work Dr Brubaker researched and found over 800 - 4,000 differences between the Hafs Quran of today and the early manuscripts.  These corrections was made to fit the Hafs Quran of today. This research had a very damaging result to the belief that the Quran is perfectly preserved.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith listen to a clip of a major interview of Dr Yasir Qadi by Mohammad Hijab on the topic of the preservation of the Quran. In this interview Dr Yasi Qadi admits it is a hard subject to discuss and that it should not be a public discussion.  He also says that it is enough to believe it and not question it. The original interview was done on 6/8/2020. This interview was very damaging to the Standard Islamic Narrative, and in it Dr Yasir Qadi admits that the S.I.N. has holes in it and it does not answer all the questions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing last week's discussion,  Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith say that Ibn Mujaahed chose the seven Kira'at in the tenth century.  The criteria for choosing them was popularity.  Hafs differ from the other Kira'at by 93 thousand dots and vowels.  Therefore the preservation claim does not stand the test.  They give several examples between the Hafs and Warsh: 1. Sura 2:184 ; Al miskeen and Al masaakeen; the first is singular noun and the second is the plural form of the noun. 2. Sura 3:146; the words kaatala (fought) and kutila (killed). These differences have huge theological and practice implications.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi discuss the multiple different Arabic Qurans that a Turkish sister called Hattun found in different Arabic countries starting in 2016.  Dr Jay and Hattun took the Qurans to speakers corner in England where they showed them to Muslims who were shocked to hear and see that, because they have been told by their leaders that the Quran has been perfectly preserved to the letter and the dot.  The Muslim response was that these are different readings for different dialects.  There is five thousand differences between the two major versions which are called the Hafs and the Warsh alone.  These differences do not only change the doctrine and the practice, but also the theology.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue there discussion from  Shoemaker's book Creating the Quran.  They name some scholars  including Montgomery, Patricia Corona and others who point out that Mecca was insignificant and Medina (Yathrib was a small date oasis with few hundred people living there, and there is no mention of Jews living there as the S.I.N. mentions.  They also say that most scholars conclude that the Quran and Islam is not from central Hijaz but from farther north.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue there review of Shoemaker book; creating the Quran.  Today they focus on where was the origin of the Quran.  They say that there was some rock inscription in Northern Arabian not in the Hijaz. Some of the reasons why the inscription doesn't fit the Hijazi dialect of central Arabia are three distinctive features: 1. The distinctive form of the relative pronoun.  2. The distinctive form of the distal demonstrative .  3. the use of the verbal constructive of ya aleph.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Muslims claim that Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, that Mohammad was born there, and that he also received his revelation of the Quran there.  If that is true where is Mecca? Steven Shoemaker in his book Creating the Quran on page114 mentions that there is no mention of a mecca in any of the great civilizations of the time .  Not only that,but another scholar; Patricia Corona said that there were no trade roues going through Mecca on land nor by the coast of the Red Sea bordering Mecca.  Many scholars say that Islam started way north of Mecca and that most Muslim scholars were Persians.  So Shoemaker concludes that Mecca was further north.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This manuscript was found in Damascus and was moved to Germany.  It looks a lot like the upper layer of the Sana manuscript.  There are three reasons why this manuscript is 8th century and not 7th century: 1. The dots , the circles ,and the verse markings suggests that the text is a later text.  2. .  The page layout and illuminations parallels the 8th century manuscripts.  3.  The ornamentations suggests Abd Al Malik and Al Hajjag new distinctive Islamic Arabic manuscripts.  The question is if this text came from Mecca and Medina, what was happening there? Scholars agree that in the 7th century those two cities where very isolated and insignificant.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi continue the comparison between the upper and the lower layers of the Sana manuscripts of the Quran with the 1924 Hafs edition of the Quran. They point out differences that changes the meaning of the text; for example Sura  9: 9 in the lower layer of the manuscripts states" the way of Allah while the Hafs Quran of 1924 says 'His way".  Another difference in the upper layer  as an example is Sura 7: 76 "you directed vs he directed" They point out that most of the differences have to do with the diacritical marking which did not exist until the 8th century.  Even with the upper layer of the manuscripts there was no standardized Quran yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay Smith discusses the book that Dr Asma Hilali wrote on the Sana Palimpsest manuscripts.  He talks about the conclusions that she came up with by comparing it to todays Hafs Quran; she says that there are seventy variants in sixty three verses.  She also believes that it is a student text.  Jay says that that shuts down the idea of the preservation of the Quran which both Muslim and the Quran claim ( ie Sura 85: 21,22).  Then Jay and Al discuss some of the differences as examples.  Then they ask the question : Is the Quran perfectly preserved? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Sana manuscripts is a palimpsest manuscripts ; which means that there is a lower and upper layers of writing . Scholars say that the two writings are late seventh and early eighth century respectively.  They think that it is two versions of the Quran; the first is a pre- standard Quran which was erased and rewritten as the canonical version.  On comparing the two writing , it was found that there are seventy variants between the two.  Dr Jay says that the lower text was erased because it needed to be updated.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Sana'a manuscript was discovered in Yemen in 1975, it is very old with no dots and vowels.  It is a palimpsest (It has two layers of writings). It had late 7th to 8th century scripts.  It was carbon tested at the university of Arizona in 2007, and was dated to mid 7th century. The same segment was taken to four Europeans labs and they did not agree with the Arizona dating.  Shoemaker concludes that there is a problem with the carbon dating because the process dates the skin of the animal not the time the writing was writtenSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Anthony Rogers continue their discussion of Isaiah 53.  In this session they discuss how Jesus and His disciples talked about the fulfillment of Isaiah 53; 1. In Luke 24 after Jesus's resurrection ; he is explaining to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus  how the Christ will suffer, die and come back to life.  2. All four accounts of the gospel mention Isaiah 40 a voice crying out in the wilderness . 3. Jesus told his disciples that he will go to Jerusalem to die.  4. Another example was in Acts 8 where Philip is explaining the suffering Messiah to the Ethiopian who was reading Isaiah 53.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Anthony Rogers continue in Isaiah 53 about the reason for the death of the righteous servant.  It is atone for the guilt of the people (53:5,11).  This is the gospel message in advance.  The gospel is the good news; in Isaiah 40:9, 52:7.  Is. 53:1 the gospel is proclaimed. The gospel of Mark starts as it is written in Isaiah.  Zachariah 6:12 talks about the branch/ The Nazarene/ the Messiah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Anthony Rogers continue discussing Isaiah 52 and 53, They notice that this servant is an individual, a human, a man, not a nation.  The pronoun "He" is being used many times.  In Isaiah 52:13, This servant will be highly exalted.  In Isaiah 2, the Lord alone will be exalted; This shows the divine identity of this figure.  Isaiah 52: says that this upright man will suffer and die, buried , resurrected and exalted (Is. 52:13,14).  He will be stricken, smitten , and afflicted (Is. 53:4) . He will be chastened, scourged , and crushed (Is. 53: 5). This figure will die for the sins of his people, and he will succeed. This person is the Lord Jesus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr David continue to disprove the myth of the perfect preservation of the Quran.  In this episode they go to a book called Fadaelle Al Quran;  in Sura 33 there is only 73 verses left of 200 original verses; the reason is that a sheep ate it according to Ayesha who had the only copy of the sura.  According to Muslims the Quran was preserved by memory. in Sura 87: 6,7 Allah allows Mohammad to forget some suras that He wills.  In Hadith Al Bukhari 50:38,39 Mohammad claims that Allah caused him to forget some verses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.