The Quran is to orthodox Islam what Jesus Christ is to the historic, orthodox Christian faith. For example, the Holy Bible, particularly the witness of John, identifies Christ as the eternal Word of God who became flesh at a specific point in time:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All
things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was created that was
created. In Him was life, and the life was the light of
mankind… The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and
the world was created through Him, yet the world did not know
Him… The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the
glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has seen
God at any time. The only Son, who
is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.” John 1:1-4, 9-10,
14, 18
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
touched, concerning the
Word of life—the
life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it,
and announce to you the
eternal life, which was with the Father and was revealed
to us—we declare to you that which we have seen and heard, that you also may
have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son
Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:1-3
“I saw heaven opened. And there was a white horse. He who sat on
it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a
name written, that no one knows but He Himself. He is clothed with a robe
dipped in blood. His
name is called The Word of God. The armies in heaven, clothed
in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Out of His mouth
proceeds a sharp sword, with which He may strike the nations. ‘He shall rule
them with an iron scepter.’ He treads the winepress of the fury and wrath of
God the Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh He has a name written: KING OF
KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” Revelation 19:11-16
This is precisely what traditional Sunni Islam believes about
the Quran, with one noted exception. The Quran itself is believed by Muslims to
be the eternal speech of God that became a book. As such, the Quran is like
Christ in that it possesses two distinct natures or aspects, namely an eternal
aspect, and a temporal, physical one.
Lest I be accused of making things up, I will allow the scholars
of Islam to speak to this issue.
Yusuf K. Ibish, in an article entitled “The Muslim Lives by the
Quran,” writes:
I have not yet come across a western man who understands what
the Quran is. It is not a book in the ordinary sense, nor is it comparable to
the Bible, either the Old or New Testaments. It is an expression of Divine
Will. If you want to compare it with anything in Christianity, you must compare it with Christ
Himself. Christ was an expression of the Divine among men, the revelation of
the Divine Will. That is what the Quran is. If you want a comparison for the
role of Muhammad, the better one in that particular respect would be Mary.
Muhammad was the vehicle of the Divine, as she was the vehicle …
There are western orientalists who have devoted their life to the study of the
Quran, its text, the analysis of its words, discovering that this word is
Abyssinian, that word is Greek by origin… But all this is immaterial. The Quran
was divinely inspired, then it was compiled, and what we have now is the
expression of God’s Will among men. That is the important point. (Charris
Waddy, The Muslim
Mind [New York: Longman, 1976], p. 14; bold emphasis mine)
In his Ideals
and Realities of Islam, Seyyed Hossain Nasr states:
The Word of God in Islam is the Quran; in Christianity it is
Christ… To carry this analogy further one can point to the fact that
the Quran, being the Word of God therefore corresponds to Christ in
Christianity and the form of this book, which like the contents
is determined by the dictum in heaven, corresponds in a sense to the body of Christ.
The form of the Quran is the Arabic language which religiously speaking is as
inseparable from the Quran as
the body of Christ is from Christ Himself. Arabic is sacred in
the sense that it is an integral part of the Quranic revelation whose very
sounds and utterances play a role in the ritual acts of Islam. (Op. cit.
[London: George Allen & Urwin, 1975], pp. 43-44; bold emphasis mine)
This next author claims that,
The Quran is eternal, whereas its form (i.e., the Arabic
language and the book in which it is written) is temporal. In fact, in early
Islamic history it was considered blasphemous to say that the Quran was
created, with the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (d. AD 850) going so far as to “decree the death penalty for
anyone who taught that the Word of God (i.e., the Quran) is created.” (John
Alden Williams, ed., Islam [New
York: George Braziller, 1962], p. 179; bold emphasis mine)
And here is what a medieval Muslim theologian stated:
“The Qur’an is God’s speech, which he uttered, and it is
uncreated. Who holds the opposite is a Jahmit, an unbeliever. And who says:
‘The Qur’an is God’s speech’, and stops at that point without adding
‘uncreated’, speaks even more infamously than the latter. Also, who maintains
our sounds, our Qur’an recitation would be created, the Qur’an itself, however,
God’s speech, is a Jahmit, too. And who doesn’t declare all these people as
unbelievers, is like them.” (according to Ibn Abu Ya’la, Tabaqat al-Hanabila,
ed. Muhammad Hamid al Fiqh, Cairo 1952, vol. I, p. 29; transl. Dr. Christopher
Heger)
Noted Islamicist, F.E. Peters, quotes Muslim scholar Ahmad Ibn
Hanbal as saying:
The Quran is the Word of God and it is not created. It is not
wrong to say, “It is not created,” for God’s Word is not separated from Him,
and there is nothing of Him that is created. Beware of discussing this with
those who speak about this subject and talk of the “creation of sounds” and
such matters, and those who go midway and say, “I don’t know whether the Quran
is created or uncreated, but it is God’s Word.” Such a one is guilty of a
religious innovation as is the one who says, “It is created,” for it is God’s
Word and that is not created. (Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Creed) [WILLIAMS
1971:29] (Peters, Judaism,
Christianity, And Islam: The Classical Texts and Their Interpretation [Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990 paperback], p. 47)
Peters quotes another Muslim authority:
The Quran is God’s speaking, which is one of His attributes. Now
God in all His attributes is One and with all His attributes is eternal and not
contingent, (so His speaking is) without letters and without sounds, not broken
up into syllables or paragraphs. It is not He nor is it other than He… (Ibid.)
Muslim scholar, Mahmoud M. Ayoub, speaking of Muhammad’s
relation to the Quran, writes:
… that the words that Muhammad conveyed to his people were not
his own, but were revealed to him by God. It is also understood to mean that
his mind was not contaminated by human wisdom. Rather it was a pure receptacle
for the divine word in
the same way that Mary’s virginity means for Christians that her body was a
pure vessel fit to receive Christ, the Word of God.
In fact, there
is an interesting parallel between Christ and the Qur’an.
Christ is, for Christians, the incarnate Word of God. While the Qur’an is, like Christ,
the eternal divine word, it does not play a role in the
creation of the world. It is the eternal word of God preserved for moral and
spiritual guidance. It is an eternal book: “This surely is a glorious Qur’an,
preserved in a well-guarded Tablet” (Q. 85:21-22). (Ayoub, Islam: Faith and History [Oneworld
Publications, Oxford England, 2004], p. 41; bold emphasis mine)
One Salafi website stated in an answer to a question regarding
whether the Quran is created that,
The evidence that the Qur’aan is not created is the aayah
(interpretation of the meaning):
“Surely, His is the creation and commandment” [al-A’raaf 7:54]
So Allaah describes creation as one thing and commandment as
another. The conjunction implies that the second thing mentioned is different,
and the Qur’aan is part of the commandment because of the evidence of the aayah
(interpretation of the meaning):
“And thus We have sent to you (O Muhammad) Rooh (a revelation,
and a mercy) of Our Command. You knew not what is the Book, nor what is Faith?
But We have made it (this Qur’aan) a light wherewith We guide whosoever of Our
slaves We will” [al-Shoora 42:52]
If the Qur’aan is part of the command or commandment, which is
different from creation, therefore it is not created, because if it were
created, this division of categories would not be correct. This is the evidence
from the Qur’aan. (10153: The Qur’aan was revealed by Allaah, not
created https://web.archive.org/web/20050421150151/https://www.islammuslims.com/islam-qa/Volume_1/Vol1_Ch2_10153.htm)
The passage that this site posted, namely Q. 42:52, is actually
referring to Allah’s Spirit since the Arabic word Ruh (spelled Rooh in the
quotation) means Spirit. Thus, not only have these Muslims argued for the Quran
being uncreated, they have even made a case for the Spirit’s being uncreated as
well!
After all, if the Quran being part of Allah’s command means that
it is uncreated, since Allah’s commands are not part of creation, then the
Spirit must be uncreated as well since the verse that is quoted is actually
referring to Allah’s Spirit. This leaves us with Allah, His Word (the Quran) and
His Spirit all being uncreated!
Sunni Muslim scholar, Gibril F. Haddad, in addressing Shia
claims to the contrary, provides a list of quotes from renowned Muslim
theologians regarding the Quran’s uncreatedness, some of which include:
Ahl al-Sunna agree one and all that the Qur’an is the
pre-existent, pre-eternal, uncreated Speech of Allah Most High on the evidence
of the Qur’an, the Sunna, and faith-guided reason.
In a rare instance of classic kalâm reasoning, Imam Malik gave
the most succinct statement of this doctrine:
“The Qur’an is the Speech of Allah, the Speech of Allah comes
from Him, and nothing created comes from Allah Most High.” Narrated by al-Dhahabi in Siyar A`lam
al-Nubala’ (Dar al-Fikr ed. 7:416).
Hafiz Abu al-Qasim Ibn `Asakir said in Tabyin
Kadhib al-Muftari (Dar al-Jil ed. p. 150-151):
“The Mu`tazila said: ‘the Speech of Allah Most High is created,
invented, and brought into being.’ The Hashwiyya, who attribute a body to Allah
the Exalted, said: ‘The alphabetical characters (al-hurûf al-muqatta`a), the
materials on which they are written, the colors in which they are written, and
all that is between the two covers [of the volumes of Qur’an] is beginningless
and pre-existent (qadîma azaliyya). Al-Ash`ari took a middle road between them
and said: The Qur’an is the beginningless speech of Allah Most High unchanged,
uncreated, not of recent origin in time, nor brought into being. As for the
alphabetical characters, the materials, the colors, the voices, the elements
that are subject to limitations (al-mahdûdât), and all that is subject to
modality (al-mukayyafât) in the world: all this is created, originated, and
produced.”
Hafiz Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi said in al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat
(al-Kawthari ed. p. 265; al-Hashidi ed. 2:18) with a sound chain:
“Something Ibn Shaddad had written was handed to Abu Bakr
al-Marwazi which containing the phrase: “My pronunciation of the Qur’an is
uncreated” and the latter was asked to show it to Ahmad ibn Hanbal for
corroboration. The latter crossed out the phrase and wrote instead: “The
Qur’an, however used (haythu yusraf), is uncreated.”
“In another sound narration, Abu Bakr al-Marwazi, Abu Muhammad
Fawran [or Fawzan], and Salih ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal witnessed Ahmad rebuking one
of his students named Abu Talib with the words: “Are you telling people that I
said: ‘My pronunciation of the Qur’an is uncreated’?” Abu Talib replied: “I
only said this from my own.” Ahmad said: “Do not say this – neither from me,
nor from you! I never heard any person of knowledge say it. The Qur’an is the
Speech of Allah uncreated, whichever way it is used.” Salih said to Abu Talib:
“If you told people what you said, now go and tell the same people that Abu
`Abd Allah [Imam Ahmad] forbade to say it.”” End of al-Bayhaqi’s narration in al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat
(Kawthari ed. p. 265-266; al-Hashidi ed. 2:18). This is a sound
narration also found in Salih ibn Ahmad’s book al-Mihna (p. 70-71), Ibn
al-Jawzi’s Manaqib al-Imam Ahmad (p. 155), and Ibn Taymiyya in Majmu` al-Fatawa
(12:360, 12:425).
The Proof of Islam and Renewer of the Fifth Hijri Century, Imam
Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali said in his “Foundations of Islamic Belief” (Qawa`id
al-`Aqa’id) published in his Rasa’il and his Ihya’ `Ulum al-Din and partially
translated in Shaykh Nuh Keller’s Reliance of the Traveller and by Mrs. Ahmad
Darwish on the Mosque of the Internet:
“The Qur’an is read by tongues, written in books, and remembered
in the heart, yet it is, nevertheless, uncreated and without beginning,
subsisting in the Essence of Allah, not subject to division and or separation
through its transmission to the heart and paper. Musa – upon him peace – heard
the Speech of Allah without sound and without letter, just as the righteous see
the Essence of Allah Most High in the Hereafter, without substance or its
quality.” End of al-Ghazzali’s words.
And Imam al-Tahawi said of the Qur’an in his “Creed of Abu
Hanifa and his Companions”: “It is not created like the speech of creatures.”
And:
Allah says, {Verily, His Command, when He intends a thing, is
only that He says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is!} -Yasîn 82
Ibn `Uyayna explains, “Allah has differentiated his Creation
from his Command. His command is “Be” (Kun).”
Allah says, {Verily! Our Word unto a thing when We intend it, is
only that We say unto it: “Be!” and it is.} – Surah An-Nahl 40
Shaykh `AbdulQadir al-Jilani (Rahimahullah),* explaining that
the word of Allah is not created says, “Allah (subhanehu Wa ta’ala) said, {Verily!
to him (belongs) the creation and the Command}; (Allah) has differentiated his
Creation from his Command, If His Command which is “Be” (Kun) that He creates
His creation (with) is created it would be a repetition that has no benefit –
as if He (Allah) said ‘Verily! to him (belongs) the creation and the creation’;
Allah (subhanehu Wa ta’ala) is far removed from doing such a thing.” From the
book Al-Ghunya li-Talibiy Tariq al-Haqq, volume 1 page 59 (Source: The Uncreatedness of the
divine speech the glorious Qur’an)
And in respect to the attributes of Allah, Haddad further cites:
The `Aqida of the People of Truth is:
sifaatu-l-Laahi laysat `ayna dhaatin
The Attributes of Allah are neither the very Essence,
wa laa ghayran siwaahu dha-nfisaali
nor other than Himself, nor separate.
sifaatu-dh-Dhaati wa-l-af`aali turran
And all the Attributes of the Essence and of the Acts
qadiimaatun masuunaatu-z-zawaali
are pre-existent and without end.
[From the poem Bad’ al-Amali by the Maturidi master, Siraj
al-Din `Ali ibn `Uthman al-Ushi (d. 569).] (Ibid.)
Muslim authorities even threatened to put anyone to death who
denied that the Quran is eternal. For example, renowned Muslim jurist Qadi
‘Iyad quotes a Muslim named Malik saying that:
He said about someone who said that the Qur’an is created, “He
is an unbeliever, so kill him.” He said in the version of Ibn Nafi’, “He should
be flogged and painfully beaten and imprisoned until he repents.” In the version
of Bishr ibn Bakr at-Tinnisi we find, “He is killed and his repentance is not
accepted.” (Qadi ‘Iyad Musa al-Yahsubi, Muhammad
Messenger of Allah (Ash-Shifa of Qadi ‘Iyad), translated by Aisha
Abdarrahman Bewley [Madinah Press, Inverness, Scotland, U.K. 1991; third
reprint, paperback], p. 419)
Finally, Annemarie Schimmel writes:
The problem of the nature of Christ, so central in the dogmatic
development of the early church, has also influenced, in a certain way, the
development of Islamic dogma. Christ’s designation as logos, as the Word of
God, “born not created,” has
most probably influenced Islamic theories about the Koran,
which is regarded by the Muslim as the uncreated Word of God.
Phenomenologically seen, the
Koran has the same position in Islamic dogmatics as has Christ in Christianity.
Harry A. Wolfson therefore coined the term “inlibration,” the “Word become
Book,” in contrast to the Christian concept of incarnation, “the Word became
Flesh.” That explains why theologians emphasized the designation ummi for
Muhammad; this term, first probably meaning “the prophet sent to the gentiles”
was interpreted as “illiterate.” The Prophet had to be a vessel unstained by
external knowledge for the Word’s inlibration, just as Mary had to be a virgin in
order to be a pure vessel for the Word’s incarnation. That is,
the Koran is much more than simply a book… (Schimmel, Islam – An Introduction [State
University of New York Press, Albany 1992], pp. 74-75; bold emphasis mine)
We thus see how the Quran is likened to Christ in that, like
Christ, it is eternal in one sense (being the eternal speech of Allah), and yet
finite in another sense (the book and ink used to record it).
What makes this all the more remarkable is that Islam even had
its own Arians, i.e. individuals who claimed that the Quran was created, which
is similar to Arius and his followers in the fourth century AD who taught that
Christ was created. And just like the Trinitarians opposed the Arians, the
so-called orthodox Muslims also fought against the Islamic group that denied
the eternal nature of the Quran.
This difference in opinion concerning the nature of the Quran
led to a violent rift between these two factions of Muslims, to the point where
they even resorted to bloodshed, as Islamicist Cyril Glassé admits:
“It is a fundamental doctrine of Islam that the Koran, as
the speech of God, is eternal and uncreated in its essence and sense, created
in its letters and sounds (harf wa jarh). It has been asserted that the doctrine of the
uncreated Koran was the result of exposure to the Christian dogma of the Logos;
that, as Christians defined Jesus as the Word of God and as having two natures,
one human and one Divine in one person, so the Muslims transposed this doctrine
by analogy to the Koran as the Word of God made book. The Muslims were indeed
aware of the Christian doctrine; the Caliph al-Ma’mun (d.
218/833), who
supported the Mu’tazilite theory that the Koran was created, wrote to one
of his governors that belief in the uncreatedness of the Koran resembled the
Christians when they claim that Jesus was not created because he was the ‘Word
of God’. During the brief Mu’tazilite ascendancy which began in the Caliphate
of al-Ma’mun, belief in the uncreated Koran was temporarily suspended, arousing
fierce opposition. The Koran was declared to be created, and those opposed to
this view were persecuted during an inquisition called the mihnah
(212-232/833-847) into the beliefs of the religious authorities. Yet
lawyers and Judges staunchly upheld the dogma of the uncreated Koran, and
nurtured it when necessary in secret. Ibn Hanbal went further, and declared that the Koran
was uncreated from ‘cover to cover’, that is, also in its letters and its
sounds. In this he was certainly not intending to imitate the Monophysites, but
he was flogged for his beliefs. When the mihnah came to an
end, the doctrine of the uncreatedness was restored, and has not been
challenged since, in the Sunni world. The Kharijites differ from the Sunnis on
this point, and in their dogmas the Koran is entirely created, which is also
true for the Shi’ites, both Twelve-Imam and Zaydi, whose theology in many ways
is an extension of that of the Mu’tazilites.” (Glassé, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam,
[Harper San Francisco, second edition 1991, 1999], pp. 231-232; bold emphasis
mine)
Here is what John L. Esposito, Professor of Islamic Studies at
Georgetown University, writes concerning the Mutazila view of the Quran and of
God’s attributes:
The Mutazila took issue with the majority of ulama over the
doctrines of the divine attributes or names of God and the eternal, uncreated
nature of the Quran. Both
beliefs were seen as contradictory and as compromising God’s unity (Islam’s
absolute monotheism). How could the one, transcendent God have many divine
attributes (sight, hearing, power, knowledge, will)? The Mutazila maintained
that the Quranic passages that affirmed God’s attributes were meant to be
understood metaphorically or allegorically, not literally. Not to do so was to
fall into anthropomorphism, or
worse, shirk, associationism or polytheism.
Similarly, the Islamic doctrine that the Quran is the speech or word of God
should not be taken literally, for
how could both God and His word be eternal and uncreated? The result would be
two divinities. The Mutazila interpreted metaphorically those
Quranic texts that spoke of the Quran preexisting in heaven. Contrary to
majority opinion, they
taught that the Quran is the created word of God, who is its
uncreated source. The Mutazila critique of those like Ahmad ibn
Hanbal, who believed in the eternity of the Quran, was ably summarized by
Caliph Mamun in a letter to his governor:
Everything apart from Him is a creature from His creation – a
new thing which He has brought into existence. [This perverted opinion they
hold] though the Koran speaks clearly of God’s creating all things, and proves
to the exclusion of all differences of opinion. They are, thus, like the
Christians when they claim that Isa bin Maryam [Jesus, the son of Mary] was not
created because he was the word of God. But God says, “Verily
We have made it a Koran in the Arabic language,” and the explanation of that
is, “Verily, We have created it,” just as the Koran says, “And He made from it
His mate that he might dwell with her.” (Esposito, Islam The Straight Path [Oxford
University Press, New York Oxford: Hardcover, third edition], pp. 71-72; bold
emphasis mine)
Thomas W. Lippman says regarding the Mutazilites that:
… They also rejected the dogma that the Koran was the uncreated
word of God, coeternal with Him. The Mutazilites said that this view
compromised the oneness of God.
In the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun elevated Mutazilism to
the status of official creed. He proclaimed that the Koran had been created by
God and was not coeternal with Him. The test of orthodoxy was the answer to the
question whether God created all things, including the Koran. A “no” answer brought torture and
imprisonment, and the Caliph decreed that all judges must subscribe to the new
doctrine. Mutazilism which originated in rationalism, thus
manifested itself as illiberal and repressive, and after al-Mamun’s death his
successors repressed it as vigorously as he had imposed it. The argument over
the eternality of the Koran is of little relevance to the practice of ordinary
Muslims today; but it shows the extent to which Islam, basically a straight
forward and unequivocal faith, has
undergone the same process of self-analysis as Christianity.
The issues of rationalism and spirituality, divine omniscience and human freedom,
have never been finally settled. (Lippman, Understanding Islam: An Introduction To The Muslim
World [A Plume Book: October 2002, third revised and updated
edition], p. 74; bold emphasis mine)
We thus discover that Christians weren’t the only ones debating
and persecuting each other over the implications of Jesus’ being the Word of
God. Muslims also had to struggle over the issue of the Quran being God’s
speech and hammer out the exact implications this had on its nature, i.e.
whether it is eternal or created or both! And much like Christianity before it,
Islam had, and continues to have its own Arians, Monophysites and Trinitarians
debating and persecuting one another over the exact nature of the Quran.
Therefore, if Christians are blasphemers for believing that
Jesus is the uncreated Word of God who became flesh, having eternally existed
with the Father and fully participating in the infinite Being of God, then the
same must apply to Muslims as well. Muslims are blasphemers for affirming that
a book is the uncreated word of their god, having eternally coexisted with and
as an inseparable aspect of the Muslim deity, being composed of two distinct
aspects, an eternal one along with a temporal created aspect.
What the foregoing shows is that Islam has supplanted the Christian belief in Jesus’ as the uncreated Word of God with the Quran since the Quran is to orthodox Islam what Christ is to historic, biblical Christianity. As such, the Quran is nothing more than a counterfeit Christ, one erected by the enemy to turn Muslims away from the true eternal Word of God, the Word who did not become a book but became a flesh and blood human being named Jesus of Nazareth.
IHS
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