In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Holy Koran and Facts
I think it is useful to give you my background before I delve into this topic.
In advance I wish to thank my readers for tolerating the short-comings of my novice writings.
I was born in 1947 in Mashed Iran. My parents believed and practiced Islam and we were members of Shiite branch of Islam. Up to age of twenty three I also followed the Islamic faith and I read numerous books and articles about the Islamic teaching, Islamic history and Islamic ideology. I attended many lectures and discussions about the Islamic faith. I also listened to numerous radio broadcast lectures on many aspects of the Islamic faith. At present time I believe in Almighty God, who is the Creator of this Universe. I do believe Mighty God is influencing our lives all the time, and God is in control of our destiny. Because of my background naturally, the Islamic teachings fundamentally have influenced my thoughts.
I got my BS degree in Physics from TehranUniversity. I moved to US in 1972. I got my MS degree from San FranciscoStateUniversity. In 1977 I dropped out of PHD program at UCLA. Because of my background in science I have tried to be very objective writing this article.
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When religions are influencing our laws and our public policies, then religions are a Political Issue, and as a concern member of human race we are obligated to examine the validity of their claims very closely without any intimidation and with absolute freedom.
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In this article I got the translation of all the verses of Holy Koran from the following site:
http://www.submission.org/Q-T.html
And for clarity sometimes I added one or two other translations to resolve any ambiguity that might exist in one translation, or to confirm the validity of the translation.
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[17:36] You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.
[39:17] As for those who discard the worship of all idols, and devote themselves totally to GOD alone, they have deserved happiness. Give good news to My servants.
[39:18] They are the ones who examine all words, then follow the best. These are the ones whom GOD has guided; these are the ones who possess intelligence.
Pickthalltranslation [39:18]. Who listen to speech and follow the best of it. Those are the ones Allah has guided, and those are people of understanding.
[4:82] Why do they not study the Quran carefully? If it were from other than GOD, they would have found in it numerous contradictions.
PICKTHAL Translation [4:82] Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.
[47:24] Why do they not study the Quran carefully? Do they have locks on their minds?
I admire and cherish these verses from the bottom of my heart; these verses encourage us to study Holy Koran and use our own intelligence and judgment. This is the true enlightenment which all of us should submit to it unanimously. This is the essence of our enlightened humanity. Prophet Mohammad was truly a visionary who clearly envisioned these remarkable principles long before the modern world began to comprehend the significance of these principles. He was at least a millennium ahead of his time. These verses are the foundation of our modern enlightened civilization, and the people who disregard these beautiful principles, they have impeached themselves beyond any excuse.
Some statements from Prophet Mohammad:
The Greatest duty of a Muslim is to acquire knowledge.
The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr.
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Now, I have the following concern about the verses of the Holy Koran. If verses of Holy Koran were meant for the righteous people whom God already had enlighten their hearts, then why God bothered sending so many verses regarding the fate of the disbelievers!? On the other hand if God by sending verses of Holy Koran has genuinely tried to enlighten all mankind, then we have to conclude that God has failed in this mission. And such failure from God is not acceptable.
For sure if God was serious in enlightening all Mankind, then he should have done so in much simpler and clearer ways, which would have left no doubt or confusion in peoples mind to dispute his presence and his message. This could have been achieved by a simple physical miracle. After the drowning of the Pharaohs army, God could have restored the departed Red Sea as the permanent miracle to enlighten all Mankind. Throughout our Abrahamic Holy Books this magnificent miracle has been celebrated. Wouldnt this magnificent miracle be the convincing evidence that people are looking for? After all God provided such evidence for one occasion and one group of people, then why deny this convincing evidence from the rest of the humanity!?
Of course that time the purpose of the Red Sea miracle was meant to save the Israelites from the impending threat from the Pharaohs soldiers. But, a permanent departed Red Sea miracle would have served saving the peoples souls from the evils of the Devil. And vast majority of people agree for sure saving the souls is more important than saving the body! Actually this is the essence of our religions; our bodily experiences are for a life time, but our souls experiences are for eternity. That single physical miracle could have settled the whole question of Gods presence beyond any doubt, and then all the peoples attention would have been focused to devise new ways worshipping God, rather than wasting their energy trying to prove or disprove his presence!
I hate to think that I could settle this issue with this simple solution and God did not! Actually, thinking that God refused to provide us a clear and timeless physical miracle and instead he sent us contradictory messages with some questionable prophets, that by itself create a serious flaw in Gods character.And this is not acceptable either. So, the only alternative rational conclusion that I can come up for Prophet Mohammads claim is, that his claim is very questionable, and he is not the prophet that he claims he is, and he himself authored the verses of the Holy Koran, and there was no reciting from God. This conclusion resolves many contradicting issues in the verses of the Holy Koran which I will expose them later on in this thread.
( The limitation of the 10,000 character forced me to split my summarizing comments into this post and the next post.)
May God Bless Us ALL
Unes