The Qur'an is Incomplete and Untrustworthy

1. The Text of the Qu'ran
   1. The Qu'ran is Incomplete
   2. The Order of the Surahs
   3. The Hadiths
2. The Text is Untrustworthy
   1. Were the 3 Meccan Pagan Gods Valid?
   2. Muhammad Inserted Verses to Save Himself (Probably the Truth)
   3. Or Did Satan Insert These Verses? (A Likely Story!)
3. Conclusions

1. The Text of the Qu'ran

1.1. The Qu'ran is Incomplete

The Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad and he transmitted it to his following, who then compiled it in 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 Qur'an, 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 Qu'ran available₃.

“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 (2004)₄

Upon the compilation of the version we have today there were doubts and the writing of Muslim scholars expressed it: That some of the text may have been missed. This was why the compilations were completed in the first place, because those who Muhammad had instructed the words of the angel Gabriel to were becoming old. Early Muslim sources state '[A Koran compiler's] Koran was incomplete, perhaps dramatically so. 'Let none of you say', averred the pious son of Caliph Umar, 'that he has the whole Koran in his possession. How does he know what the whole of it is? Much of the Koran has gone'₂, and early compilers also despaired 'of the sharp divergences in Koranic recitation that had appeared among the Muslims - just had been the case, he warned, among the Jews and Christians before them'₂. Umar was the second caliph (leader of Muslim community); yet despite his concerns he did not collect the parchments, stories and sayings of the Prophet into an authoritive compilation.

“Although the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and 'Umar were concerned about the possibility of the loss 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: A brief history" by Paul Lunde (2003)₅

1.2. The Order of the Surahs

Not only is the Qu'ran is incomplete (there are rules, guidelines and comments by God that we no longer possess), but also it is not compiled in order. The order of texts is important because earlier rulings are overruled by later ones, and sometimes this has happened on rather important topics. But it was not possible for the patchwork canonisation to be done chronologically. We do not know what order the texts were supposed to be in₆.

1.3. The Hadiths

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"
Moojan Momen (1999) [Book Review]₇

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 Montgomery Watt (1989)₈

2. The Text is Untrustworthy

2.1. Were the 3 Meccan Pagan Gods Valid?

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 Meccans₉, 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!

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.

2.2. Muhammad Inserted Verses to Save Himself (Probably the Truth)

It seems 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 Qu'ran. 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.

2.3. Or Did Satan Insert These Verses? (A Likely Story!)

Islamic tradition has it that these verses were not the result of Muhammad's insincerity. They were sneaked into the Qu'ran 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" by Ibn Warraq (1995)₁₀

Which leaves us with some very interesting problems! If Satan can inspire verses then 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, so the Qur'an cannot be trusted.

3. Conclusions

The Qur'an has a few unfortunate problems with the authorship and history of its text. Sometimes in the Qur'an, new verses override and nullify old ones. The first main problem is that most books in the Qur'an are ordered in size order, because the original compilers who brought together collections of Muhammad's sayings did not know what order to put them in. Secondly, there could be any quantity of missing text, potentially including important declarations. Thirdly, the verses that Muhammad said were inserted into the scripture by Satan. These verses pacified three hostile pagan neighbours by saying that their gods were 'valid. If this is true, and Satan fooled Muhammad into saying this, then Satan saved Muhammad's life, and the Qur'an in total is indebted to Satan. Also, we have no way of knowing how many other verses were inspired by Satan, not by Gabriel. Or, and it seems likely, these verses were actually invented by Muhammad in order to save himself (and therefore Islam), then, we do not know how many other verses were worldly compromises. Muhammad later said that these inserted verses were false, but, as the Qur'an is not a complete set of Muhammad's words, we do not know what other verses he likewise nullified.