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Tagged: Atheism, Miracles, Misconceptions, Quran
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Challenge Of Quran Being Divine
Posted by Ahsan on November 7, 2020 at 1:15 amIn order to proof Quran divinity, Allah challenges arabs to produce 10 ayahs or surah like Quran. Recently surah Corona and surah Fay Qaf were published as a claim to be similar to Quran.
My question is how a non arabic speakers can negate this challenge.
there have been attempts to answer these such as
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vuXIg5kE8
but it doesnot help people like me to differentiate Quranic language from Man made arabic sample.
ودود replied 3 years, 6 months ago 9 Members · 22 Replies -
22 Replies
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Challenge Of Quran Being Divine
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Dr. Irfan Shahzad
Scholar November 7, 2020 at 1:25 amAttempts like these have been made in the past too. Had they carried any weight they would have captured the attention of the experts in Arabic, linguistics and Quranic sciences, if not muslims, at least the non Muslims scholars. They have no merit to claim a match with Quran. Quran is unique and proved itself impossible to be imitated.
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Ahsan
Moderator November 7, 2020 at 1:32 amThank for the reponse.
It means there is no way for us and we have to rely on arab linguistics experts any way.
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Dr. Irfan Shahzad
Scholar November 7, 2020 at 2:23 amyes. However, we can judge to some extent through analysis of the meaning and message of a text.
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Ahsan
Moderator November 7, 2020 at 2:28 amThank you very much
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Faisal Haroon
Moderator November 7, 2020 at 8:59 amOne must read and appreciate the Quran and allow it to establish itself as a divine book. Once a person understands the premise as presented by the Quran itself, there remains no doubt in his mind about the divinity of the message.
For a detailed discussion on what it means to believe in divine books, please see:
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Umer
Moderator November 8, 2020 at 1:10 pmFor most part, this challenge has been misunderstood and stayed limited to only literary part of Quran. In reality however, this challenge extends not only to the literary form of Quran but also to the philosophical depth of Quran in terms of topics it has touched, the realities of meta-physics it has unfurled and their relationship with humans beings, their beginning and their end, without any philosophical inconsistency or contradiction on its part.
For details, please refer to following lectures on Identifying the Prophet i.e. Miracles of the Prophet
Discussion 16063 • Reply 16069
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For discussion on this specific point, Please also refer to the following video from 02:55 to 42:08
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Ahsan
Moderator November 9, 2020 at 12:19 pmThank you very much
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Umer
Moderator December 13, 2020 at 7:11 pmPlease also refer to the video below from 15:53 to 20:17
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Ahsan
Moderator December 14, 2020 at 10:19 amThank you
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ودود
Member December 14, 2020 at 4:11 amIs there any objective criteria that computer can use to pass or fail any man made chapters vs Quran?
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Umer
Moderator December 14, 2020 at 3:38 pmLiterary and philosophical significance of a thing is not something that is quantifiable by computers or science for that matter. Science has its limits especially when it comes to literature, philosophy, art and metaphysics. You cannot use a computer algorithm to judge the literary significance of works of Shakespeare, Iqbal, Ghalib etc. etc. Collective Aesthetic Consciousness of people usually decide these factors very well.
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ودود
Member December 14, 2020 at 4:50 pmEven Iqbal or Shakespeare can then make a similar claim and reject any poetry presented as similar or superior to theirs.
What’s is the point of giving such a challenge if there is no objective way to have a unanimous verdict but it’s subjective and judgmental.
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Umer
Moderator December 14, 2020 at 5:04 pmOf course Iqbal holds a very unique and prominent position when it comes to poetry. Similarly (this comparison is just for the sake of argument), Quran holds a very unique and prominent position when it comes to matters of metaphysics, creation of universe, creation of life and human beings, the origin of consciousness and the whole scheme of creation: its beginning and its end in addition to its literary eloquence. We need to look at each work by putting them in the relevant place and genre which they purport to present. We can compare any other book that also makes a similar claim w.r.t these issues and judge for ourselves. This is how it has always worked in human history and will always be like this. This is not something that can be confined to some quantitative scale.
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Ahsan
Moderator December 15, 2020 at 6:42 amI like to mention that as Umair sb said you have to put literature in their own genre. The thing is Quran was revealed in a style which was totally unknown to Arabs even to ligual experts of that time. It can neither be classified as poetry or prose.
(source:https://www.hamzatzortzis.com/gods-testimony-the-divine-authorship-of-the-quran/#_edn44)Now if you look at work of Shakespare or Iqbal or any one else, they didnt come up with new style they just followed previous style and compose things.
Secondly none of them claimed to write word of god. In order to compare them, first you need to bring their claim of being god words. -
Ali
Member May 29, 2021 at 11:54 pmI am not sure if I understand the purpose of this challenge. Is this challenge to prove this is the best book God can write (and if you are able to write similar or better text you have actually gone beyond or on par with God) OR purpose is to confirm whether this is the word of God or the word of the Prophet himself. If we take challenge as being second, following questions comes to mind
– Can prophet Muhammad write it on his own ?
– Can anyone else around him help him write it ?
– Has he copied from previous scriptures (which is still word of God) ?
It seems like Prophet did not have the ability to produce this Quran on his own neither anyone else of his time. This proves this is the word of God. Compared to Bible it seems Quran has its own distinctive prophetology (Reference -> The Bible in Arabic by Sidney H. Griffith)
May be after another 1000 years we are able to understand every word of Quran (It is for humans so we should be able to grasp it eventually specifically what relates to this world). If God decides to reveal another scripture after 1000 years and would like to use similar challenge, the new scripture may come with new literary/philosophical challenges of that time (Again that would not be the best God can possibly write, just sufficient for the people of that time).
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ودود
Member December 15, 2020 at 12:51 amThere are quite a few supplications given in the books of hadiths.
Can a non muslim native arab differentiate between verses from Quran and selected hadiths that have the original wordings in a blind test?
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A Hasan
Contributor March 12, 2021 at 9:19 amMost religions claim their book is divine inspiration. What is the difference between the philosophical depth and the linguistic mastery of the Quran compared to the guru Granth sahab?
You have already admitted there is no quantitative way to judge this. You can’t say Macbeth is better than Romeo and Juliet- it depends on taste and is subjective. So how can this be an objective proof for a miracle?
Furthermore the Quran is the final book of the religion Islam- and if it is the Arabic miracle that makes up a part of its proof of divinity then only 3.6% of the world speaks Arabic and even less would be able to appreciate Classical Arabic. So why is this miracle so hard to understand?
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A Hasan
Contributor March 12, 2021 at 9:20 amAlso just because something is the best- does not necessarily imply that it is divine. If we even concede that there is some way to create an objective hierarchy of linguistic works- the top one is not necessarily divine. It is simply the best.
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ودود
Member March 12, 2021 at 8:55 pmI agree with you.
If the conventional interpretation of the challenge in Quran does not make sense for being too subjective, in what other plausible way the challenge can be a explained then?
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Hamza Ali
Member May 29, 2021 at 3:41 amPlease check out the ‘ZAVIA-E-GHAMIDI’ series on YouTube. Ghamidi sahab proves how Quran is divine,beyond human and a miracle.
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Nadeem
Member May 29, 2021 at 8:54 amVery interesting topic. From all the conversation above, it seems like we are somehow trying to define the challenge, but we do not know for sure what exactly is the challenge. Seems like it is not defined in Quran how to judge the challenge. On the surface it seem like an easy challenge to win. A surah can be written regarding last day or after life which can contain any form of details about the last day or after life. How would someone determine the difference?
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ودود
Member May 30, 2021 at 6:15 amI guess I have found the answer in Wikipedia as follows:
“A number of people, both atheists and members of other religions, have nonetheless attempted to fulfill the challenge, and others have created their own works to meet it. The True Furqan, a Christian work written in Arabic mirroring and published in 1999, it is one of the attempts that did not get recognition either by Muslims nor non-Muslims.”
In other words the criteria is an approval by a jury as to which of the two pieces of work chapters is superior. In the past 1400 years there has never been an occasion where a majority of people had voted for man made verses against the Quran.
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