By Abdul Shaitan Vexen Crabtree, 2002 Nov 28
Pages on Islam by Vexen Crabtree
The Koran was revealed to Muhammad and he transmitted it to his following who compiled it during the decades after his death. Varied compilations of fragments of the recital were created in the mid 650s1. There were multiple compilations at the time, each using different material based on the recitations of different caliphs. This variation caused concern for Muslim scholars at the time. 'We thus face serious contradictions in our source material regarding two issues: who collected the Koran, and what it was collected from. In historical terms, the differences between the rival accounts are not trivial'2. In the tenth century there were between 7 and 14 major different versions of the Koran available4.
"When the Prophet died in 632, ten years after he migrated from Makkah to Madinah, the Quran was scattered in fragments and in partial private collections written on stones, bones, palm leaves and skin parchments. Private collections varied in length, form, and content. Minor, but often significant variations in the reading of certain words or phrases existed as well. These variant readings persisted and finally became identified with specific Quran readers of the first and later generations of Muslim scholars. As Islam spread beyond Arabia, major disagreements in reading and actual grammatical mistakes by reciters led to a call for an official collection to be used throughout the Islamic domains.
This task may have been initiated by Abu Bakr, the first caliph or successor to the Prophet as head of the Muslim community. Abu Bakr is said to have been motivated by the deaths of many Quran reciters in the wars of apostasy. [...] The death of a large number of oral transmitters of the Quran could have resulted in the loss or grave distortion of the sacred text."
"Islam: Faith and History" by Mahmoud M. Ayoub, p43-44
 The Koran V. short Introduction |
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“Although the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and 'Umar were concerned about the possibility of the less of revelation by the deaths of men and women who had memorized portions of it, it was not until the third caliph 'Uthman, that all the materials were gathered together to produce a standard written text. This was completed by 650 and all subsequent Qur'ans reflect this text.”"Islam" by Paul Lunde, p27
The Koran is incomplete... there are rules, guidelines and comments by God that we no longer possess. The Koran is not compiled in order, the patchwork canonisation period was not capable of being done chronologically. We do not know what order the texts were supposed to be in. The missing text may contain really quite important rules and texts! For example, the important rule "Muslims must cut their beard, for health and hygiene purposes, once a month or once a week if they work in the kitchens" may have been missed out! We do not know what is missing... it really could be anything.
At one point Muhammad and his kin were opposed by the polytheists around them. In particular, they were oppressed by the followers of 3 pagan gods in Mecca. When defeated, surrounded and under siege, Muhammad 'seems to have even compromised his monotheism, at first, to make peace with the Meccans'3, and suddenly recalled some text that stated that the three pagan gods were valid intercessors [Q53:19-20], after all! Lucky for Muhammad he remembered this important fact!
However, when Muhammad had a powerful army and his exiled followers returned, he recited a further passage... saying that it was an error, the three pagan gods were not valid! How could this be? There are two possibilities, the first of which I accept and the second that Islam has accepted traditionally.
Realistically
... it can be seen that Muhammad was defeated and gave in to pressure from his enemies. He compromised truth, God's eternal word, for material benefits: To stay alive. This is the truth of the matter. If Muhammad can do this here, he could have done it with any part of the Koran. We do not know which parts of the text were due to Muhammad's materialism and selfishness and which parts he honestly thought were the words of Gabriel. Like the Christian scriptures, we are left only with Human text, not Godly text.
The Satanic Verses
However Islamic tradition has it that these verses were not the result of Muhammad's insincerity. They were verses that were sneaked into the Koran by Satan. At an emotional moment Satan tricked Muhammad into thinking that these verses were genuine, and it was only later that "God annuls what Satan casts" (Q22:52).
"Muslims have always been uncomfortable with this story, unwilling to believe that the Prophet could have made such a concession to idolatry. [...] It seems unthinkable that such a story could have been invented by a devout Muslim such as al-Tabari [...]. Besides, it explains the fact why those Muslims who had fled to Abyssinia returned: they had heard that the Meccans had converted. It seems apparent that this was no sudden lapse on the part of Muhammad, but had been carefully calculated to win the support of the Meccans. It also casts serious doubts on Muhammad's sincerity: Even if Satan had really put the words in his mouth, what faith can we put in a man so easily led astray by Satan? Why did God let it happen? How do we know there are no other passages where Muhammad has not been led astray?"
Why I am not a Muslim"Why I am not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq p102
Which leaves us with some very interesting problems!
Because if Satan can inspire verses we do not know which ones are valid and which ones are not. For all intents and purposes, the faked ones were real from the time Satan slipped them in until the time God annulled them. A period of some years! What further verses is God to cancel? What other verses were inspired by Satan? We do not know... as a result the Koran cannot be trusted!
We cannot trust the Koran
If Muhammad falsified the words of Gabrielle to save his own neck then we cannot trust Muhammad... yet if it was Satan who inspired the verses, we cannot trust the Koran! Adding to this the fact that we know there is text missing from the Koran... what are we left with? Instead of inspired holy scripture, it sounds more like the insincere legacy of Muhammad, or the mixed opinions of God and Satan! Some scripture is not only missing, or wrong, but designed to deceive: In all cases, the book is not the pure word of God, and is not a suitable text for Muslims to know the will of God.
Even the Hadith texts are broken
Islam does not only rely on canonical texts. The Hadith sayings are given religious authority and attributed to Muhammed:
"Modern Western scholarship, however, examining critically the earliest surviving documents, has cast a much more fundamental doubt over the Hadith literature. The first to raise questions about the traditional version of the rise of the Hadith literature was Ignaz Goldziher. He showed that up to three centuries after Muhammed, many individuals, political parties and sectarian movements within Islam were manufacturing Traditions that supported their claims and positions. These Traditions, claiming to be on the authority of Muhammed, gave each faction legitimacy and authenticity"
"The Phenomenon of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Momen, 1999
p325. More quotes from this book
It is clear that Islam has serious issues with its texts. Historically, Muslim scholars have known this.
"...[critics say] that the Koran often copied Biblical stories, and sometimes did so inaccurately, [...].Against the charge that Muhammad had copied from previous scriptures Muslims developed the doctrine of Muhammad's illiteracy, which implied his complete inability to read the scriptures. The doctrine was based on the application to Muhammad in the Koran of the adjective ummì. which was alleged to mean 'illiterate'. The word occurs a number of times in the Koran in both singular and plural, and appears to have been taken from the Jews and to mean 'Non-Jewish' or 'Gentile' or 'unscriptured'."
"Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity" by W. Montgomery Watt, p9
In Muslim dogma, this Earth belongs to Satan. Satan wishes to keep power on this Earth as part of a conflict with God... Satan believes he can hold some power apart from God, whereas God disagrees. Satan was given the Earth: Stars, Galaxies and the whole Universe were created in order to show Satan how insignificant his domain is and how temporary his "power" is. But by submitting yourself completely to God (like the animals and disabled people have done) you ignore Satan's power, and show him he has no power. So, materialism is Satanic. Materialism is giving temporary power to Satan, anything not of God is doing the same. This sets the scene for the Islamic religion's stance on mankind... the word Islam means "submission" to God.
Where does Muhammad and the Koran stand in light of this dualistic cosmic power struggle? Muhammad, if he altered God's word, was a materialist and the Koran a materialistic tool... a tool of Satan. Or at least parts of it. Following the Koran means that in part at least, you are following Satan. Which means Islam is a self-contradictory religion.
However if you don't believe Muhammad did this, and you subscribe to the theory that the Satanic verses were from Satan, not from Muhammad, then we have a deeper problem. Because Satan's verses in to the Koran saved Muhammad's life from the pagans by temporarily inspiring Muhammad's new religious dogma. What does it mean that Muhammad, supposedly dependent and submitted purely to God, was saved by Satan? The entire Islamic religion would only exist because of Satan himself.
So is Islam submission to God... or Satan? If the former, then it is submission to God only by means of the actions of Satan... Satan truly had power of control over the creation of the Islamic religion.
It seems that even the "good" of the Koran is based on Satan's power... Satan chose to let Muhammad live, when faced with the pagans whom Muhammad could not conquer without Satan's help. Or... if Satan did not inspire the verses, then Muhammad himself perverted God's law and therefore his recitation of the Koran is not pure or from God, at least in part, due to the materialistic (Satanic) Earth... the Earth that had power over even Muhammad. With verses missing, verses created by Muhammad according to his needs and not according to truth, and with an unknown quantity of verses inspired by Satan, the Koran is more of a mistake than divinely inspired. No wonder The Satanic Verses is such a painful reminder for Muslims of how their scripture is indebted to Satan!
"Satan represents the state of affairs recognized by Satanists: That all good is based on evil: That love and altruism are both selfish and carnal. Satan represents the evil and uncaring attitude of the dark force in nature. It represents good being dependant on evil and life being ultimately defeated by death. Satan represents all of this evil which in turn creates all good. Without our evil sides we are lost and Satan represents acceptance of this."
"Good relies on Evil" by Vexen Crabtree 2002 Oct 14
Notes:
I have used the popular layman spelling of the Koran, rather than the technically more correct spelling of Qur'an or Qur'aan (or any of the other variants) because it is better to adopt a universal spelling, making archiving much easier. I have spelt Muhammad according to the same criteria, instead of the less frequently used Muhammed.
Bibliography:
Ayounb, Mahmoud M.
"Islam: Faith and History", 2004. Oneworld Publications. Softback.
Lunde, Paul
"Islam: A Brief History". Revised 2003. First published in UK 2002 by Dorling Kindersley Ltd, London, UK.
By Abdul Shaitan Vexen Crabtree 2002 Nov 28
