FrontPage Magazine

The media is abuzz with news that a portion of the Koran, which Muslims believe was first recited by their prophet, Muhammad, may actually predate Muhammad himself. Many seem to think that such news will have a large impact on the Muslim world and make Muslims rethink the veracity of their faith.

Thus Tom Holland, a British historian, asserts, “It destabilizes, to put it mildly, the idea that we can know anything with certainty about how the Koran emerged. And that, in turn, has implications for the historicity of Mohammed and his followers.”

A Koranic manuscript consultant at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Dr. Keith Small, is more emphatic and “told the Times that if the dating is confirmed, as he believed would happen, it could raise serious problems for Islam,” since “This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition. The history of the rise of Islam in late Near Eastern antiquity would have to be completely revised.”

Nonsense. This recent discovery, far from threatening “the edifice of Islamic tradition” or “rais[ing] problems for Islam” is currently being used all around the Muslim world in support of Islam, for a number of reasons.

First, the carbon dating is not radically incongruous with Islamic dating. It indicates that the text was written sometime between 568 and 645. Muslim tradition holds that Muhammad lived between lived 570 and 632, and that the Koran was collated and finalized around 650.

In other words, if the text was written anytime from 610-645—a full 35 years that fall within the range of the carbon testing—it poses no problems for Islam, for Muslims believe that Muhammad began receiving “revelations” or the ayat that became the verses of the Koran when he was forty. All it would mean is that, instead of believing that the Koran was collated in 650, portions of it were written down a few years earlier.

Hardly a thing to rock the faith of most Muslims.

In fact, there is very little that Western scholars and scientists can do or say about Islam that would have much influence on the Islamic mindset. The fact is, over centuries, lots of things have emerged that should put the veracity of the Koran and Islam to the test—whether the plausible suggestion that Muhammad never existed, certainly not the Muhammad of Islamic tradition, or whether the fact that the Koran, which says of itself that it is written in “pure Arabic” (see 12:2, 13: 37), has several Syro-Aramaic words in it. Or perhaps that the Koran says, very literally, that the sun sets in a pool of dark mud (18:86).

Science doesn’t hold much weight with the modern Islamic mindset—not when it contradicts the Koran. The earth is round? So say the lying infidels, responded the late Saudi grand mufti, Bin Baz: if the Koran says the earth is flat (88:20), the earth is flat!

Interestingly, even in the West, if people come to believe that the Koran predates Muhammad, it won’t matter much: we will still be told to respect Islam since Muslims believe it. Whether one rejects the prophethood of Muhammad—the definition of a non-Muslim—or whether one rejects traditional Islamic chronology it’s the same conclusion: Islam is a false religion.

The problem here is that we are dealing with reciprocal projection—the Western mentality projecting its onetime appreciation for reason onto Muslims, and the Muslim mentality projecting its own subversive methods onto the Other, the Infidel, the sworn enemy. Westerners may think this will have an impact on Muslim faith because they know it would have an impact on their own. Conversely, Muslims, who from the start have built their faith on casting doubt and aspersions on the faiths of others, are convinced that any Western claim, scientific or otherwise, that casts doubts on the origins of Islam is merely the latest infidel conspiracy.

After all, was it not Muhammad himself who taught that the texts of Judaism and Christianity—the Bible—are corrupt and fraudulent. Is it not obvious, Muslims are thinking, that the infidels will turn this argument on us by saying the Koran is of dubious authenticity?

If reason was a cornerstone of Islamic thinking—it was laid in its grave by the ulemain the 10th century—Muslims would have lost faith in Islam a long time ago (many have and do but remain nominal Muslims due to fears of the apostasy penalty).

Meanwhile, it's not the age of the Koran but its contents that speak against its veracity.

A book that calls for savagely killing all who do not submit to its authority; that calls for beheadings, crucifixions, and mutilations; that justifies theft, extortion, and the sexual enslavement of “infidel’ women and children; a book that calls for everything ungodly but claims to have been written by God is false on principle. Carbon dating is irrelevant.

But of course, while Western academics, politicians, and media can openly discuss this issue of the Koran’s dating—after all, it’s “scientific”—criticizing the Koran from a moral point of view, which is what’s needed here, remains unthinkable (remember: morality is relative in the West).

And so, when all is said and done, the mantra that “Islam is peace” will continue to be chanted mindlessly in the West.

Ari David recently interviewed me on the Glazov Gang. The main topic of discussion was my recent article, How Nazism Explains 'Moderate' and 'Radical' Islam. The 12-minute video follows:

CDN

By Bob Taylor

CHARLOTTE, NC, September 3, 2015 – One of the great myths of contemporary religion is buried in the mirage that represents the growth of Islam. A recent column by Islamic scholar and writer, Raymond Ibrahim, not only dispels those mistaken ideas, but explains in common sense language what everyone should understand about Islamic expansion both past and present. Not only does Ibrahim’s analysis explain much about what modern day experts call “moderate Muslims” it also provides keen insights into the motivations of ISIS. As Ibrahim explains, “Early historical sources—both Muslim and non-Muslim—make clear that the Islamic empire was forged by the sword; that people embraced Islam, not so much out of sincere faith, but for a myriad of reasons—from converting in order to enjoy the boons of being on the ‘winning team’ to converting in order to evade the dooms of being on the ‘losing team.’ Modern day Muslims and other apologists—primarily in academia, government, and mainstream media—reject this idea.” Using 7th century Egypt as the basis for his rationale, Ibrahim points out, and backs up with historical evidence, that “Alexandria was one of the most important ecclesiastical centers of ancient Christian learning along with Rome and Antioch, one of the original three sees.…in recent times, both the oldest parchment to contain words from the Gospel (dating to the 1stcentury) and the oldest image of Christ were discovered in separate regions of Egypt.” During that time in history, unlike today, “whatever religion a person was born into was accepted with absolute conviction.” This statement by Ibrahim is critical in two ways. First, it explains why so many “converted” Muslims perpetuated the religion through centuries of ancestral evolution. More importantly however, it also explains why the Hijrah in 622 AD when Muhammad left Mecca and traveled to Medina to establish the foundations of Islam was such a significant historical event. For a 7th century person to leave his tribal roots to re-establish himself elsewhere was a personal decision of major proportions.Thomas Madden, a historian of Medieval Europe and the Crusades, sums it up this way: “(T)he medieval world was not the modern world. For medieval people, religion was not something one just did at church. It was their science, their philosophy, their politics, their identity, and their hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth.” Ibrahim cites Madden again in his column: “It is easy enough for modern people to dismiss the crusades as morally repugnant or cynically evil. Such judgements, however, tell us more about the observer than the observed. They are based on uniquely modern (and, therefore, Western) values. If, from the safety of our modern world, we are quick to condemn the medieval crusader, we should be mindful that he would be just as quick to condemn us (regarding our values and priorities)…. In both societies, the medieval and the modern, people fight for what is most dear to them.” Given the brutality of the conquering Arabic armies and the hardships of survival in the harsh desert climate, many Christians opted to convert to Islam rather than face persecution or the extreme financial consequences of jizya, or Islamic taxation levied against non-Muslims. In essence, the converts became “Muslims in name only” which is key to understanding the growth of Islam and its millions of so-called “moderate” Muslims. “Bouts of extreme persecution regularly flared up,” writes Ibrahim. “And with each one, more and more Christians converted to Islam in order to find relief. “Today the whole of North Africa is reportedly 99% Muslim – yet few are aware that it was (a) Christian majority in the 7th century when Islam invaded. Once all these Christians converted to Islam, all their progeny became Muslim in perpetuity, thanks to Islam’s apostasy law, which bans Muslims from leaving Islam on pain of death.” It is, in fact, quite possible that if the penalty for conversion from Islam had been ignored some 14 centuries ago, Islam as we know it today could very easily have died with the Prophet Muhammad in 632. As Raymond Ibrahim points out, “Past and present, Islam has been a religion of coercion. More than half the territory that once made up Christendom – including Egypt, Syria, Turkey, North Africa – converted to Islam due to bouts of extreme violence and ongoing financial bleeding.” Consider that thought next time someone criticizes the Crusades or attempts to denounce Christianity by apologizing for simply attempting to regain territory that was “stolen” from them by marauding Islamic expansion. And then consider Ibrahim’s most salient point, “The Islamic State and like organizations and Muslims around the world are not aberrations but continuations.” The concept is not difficult to grasp, but it has major implications for understanding Islam as we know it today.