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  • Challenge Of Quran Being Divine

    ودود updated 3 years, 6 months ago 9 Members · 22 Replies
  • Dr. Irfan Shahzad

    Scholar November 7, 2020 at 1:25 am

    Attempts 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.

  • Ahsan

    Moderator November 7, 2020 at 1:32 am

    Thank for the reponse.

    It means there is no way for us and we have to rely on arab linguistics experts any way.

  • Dr. Irfan Shahzad

    Scholar November 7, 2020 at 2:23 am

    yes. However, we can judge to some extent through analysis of the meaning and message of a text.

  • Ahsan

    Moderator November 7, 2020 at 2:28 am

    Thank you very much

  • Faisal Haroon

    Moderator November 7, 2020 at 8:59 am

    One 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:

    Discussion 22427

  • Umer

    Moderator November 8, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    For 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

    ___

    For discussion on this specific point, Please also refer to the following video from 02:55 to 42:08

    https://youtu.be/jRqtMY-1aeM?t=175

  • Ahsan

    Moderator November 9, 2020 at 12:19 pm

    Thank you very much

  • Umer

    Moderator December 13, 2020 at 7:11 pm

    Please also refer to the video below from 15:53 to 20:17

    https://youtu.be/MTmujJ82gt4?t=953

    • Ahsan

      Moderator December 14, 2020 at 10:19 am

      Thank you

  • ودود

    Member December 14, 2020 at 4:11 am

    Is there any objective criteria that computer can use to pass or fail any man made chapters vs Quran?

    • Umer

      Moderator December 14, 2020 at 3:38 pm

      Literary 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.

  • ودود

    Member December 14, 2020 at 4:50 pm

    Even 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.

    • Umer

      Moderator December 14, 2020 at 5:04 pm

      Of 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.

    • Ahsan

      Moderator December 15, 2020 at 6:42 am

      I 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 pm

      I 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).

  • ودود

    Member December 15, 2020 at 12:51 am

    There 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?

  • A Hasan

    Contributor March 12, 2021 at 9:19 am

    Most 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?

  • A Hasan

    Contributor March 12, 2021 at 9:20 am

    Also 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.

  • ودود

    Member March 12, 2021 at 8:55 pm

    I 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?

  • Hamza Ali

    Member May 29, 2021 at 3:41 am

    Please check out the ‘ZAVIA-E-GHAMIDI’ series on YouTube. Ghamidi sahab proves how Quran is divine,beyond human and a miracle.

  • Nadeem

    Member May 29, 2021 at 8:54 am

    Very 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?

  • ودود

    Member May 30, 2021 at 6:15 am

    I 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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