On the one extreme, Muslims are portrayed as a maniacal monolith; on the other extreme, they’re being portrayed as peace-loving pacifists. During the dark days immediately following 9/11, one thing became painfully obvious—more often than not, we were being informed by rhetoric and emotional stereotypes, rather than reason and evidence. To help wade through the topic of Islam, we’ve produced a resource entitled, Islam: What You Must Know. One of the articles I write for the book is about the subject of “Is the Qur’an Credible?” Here’s a part of that article:
According to Islam, the Qur’an is not only credible, it is God’s only uncorrupted revelation. In other words, the Bible by virtue of the standard of Islam, cannot possibly be an uncorrupted revelation. The truth, however, as I’ve mentioned many times on the Bible Answer Man broadcast is that the Bible can de demonstrated to be divine, rather than merely human in origin. That can’t be said for the Qur’an because unlike the Bible, the Qur’an is replete with faulty ethics and factual errors.
Here’s an example; In Sura 4:3, Muhammad allegedly received a revelation from God allowing men, to “marry women of your choice, two, three, or four.” Ironically, in Sura 33:50 Muhammad received a divine sanction to marry “any believing women who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her.” Here’s the point; other men were only permitted by the Qur’an to marry up to four wives, Allah however, provided Muhammad a divine exception for his marriage to at least 12 women, including one girl he wed at the tender age of 11 (see the Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Husayn Haykal).
Also troubling is the fact that the Qur’an allows men to “beat” (lightly) their wives in order that they might “return to obedience” (Sura 4:34). When we compare the personal morality of Muhammad in the Qur’an with that of the personal morality of Jesus in the Bible, the difference is remarkable. The Qur’an exhorts Muhammad to ask “forgiveness for thy fault” (Sura 40:55). Conversely, Christ’s ethics with regard to every aspect of life––including his treatment of women––was so unimpeachable that He could rightly ask, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” (John 8:46; cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 John 3:5).
Unlike the Bible, the Qur’an is riddled with factual errors. A classic case in point involves the Qur’an’s denial of Christ’s crucifixion. This denial, chronicled in Sura 4:157, is explicit and emphatic: “They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them…for of a surety they killed him not.” In reality; however, the fatal suffering of Jesus Christ as recounted in the New Testament is one of the most well established facts of ancient history. The Qur’anic denial of Christ’s crucifixion has led to a host of other errors as well. From a Muslim perspective, Jesus was never crucified and, thus, never resurrected. Instead, in Islam, God made someone look like Jesus and the look-alike was mistakenly crucified in His place.
Here’s the bottom line; the distance between the Muslim Qur’an and the Christian Bible is the distance of infinity. Not only does the prophetic prowess of the Bible elevate it far above the holy books of other religions, but as new archeological nuggets are uncovered the trustworthiness of Scriptures as well as the unreliability of pretenders is further highlighted. Faulty ethics and factual errors together demonstrate that the Qur’an is devoid of divine sanction. In sharp distinction, ethics and factual evidence demonstrate that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin.
Again, I encourage you check out this great new resource on Islam, entitled Islam: What You Must Know. You can get at our Website of www.equip.org or by calling us at 1-888-700-0274.
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