Part 3: The Qur’an in Freefall 

From Divine Word to Literary Patchwork

The Qur’an claims to be:

• The literal, perfect word of God.

• Preserved intact and unaltered since revelation.

• The final authority on theology, law, and morality.

If true, this would be a miracle unlike any other.

But the evidence paints a very different picture.

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⚔️ Internal Contradictions — A Divine Text Shouldn’t Contradict Itself

A truly divine text would be internally consistent. The Qur’an isn’t.

Key examples:

• Creation timeframe conflict
  7:54 says God created the heavens and earth in 6 days.
  41:9–12 breaks creation into 8 days.

• Alcohol prohibitions evolve
  2:219 acknowledges some “benefit” in alcohol.
  4:43 forbids prayer while intoxicated.
  5:90 calls alcohol “Satan’s handiwork” and prohibits drinking.
  → This gradual progression suggests improvisation, not divine certainty.

• No compulsion vs. calls for violence
  2:256 says “No compulsion in religion.”
  9:5 commands to “kill the polytheists wherever you find them.”
  → Later verses abrogate earlier peaceful commands, a legal and theological contradiction.

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🏛 Historical and Scientific Errors — Divine Books Don’t Get It Wrong

If God authored the Qur’an, it shouldn’t contradict known reality.

Examples:

• Biology: Semen originates from “between the backbone and ribs” (86:6–7), a biological error.

• Astronomy: The sun “sets in a muddy spring” (18:86), an ancient geocentric myth.

• Cosmology: Seven heavens with “lamps” guarded against devils (67:5), echoing pre-Islamic Near Eastern cosmologies.

Historical anachronisms:

• Mary, mother of Jesus, called “sister of Aaron” (19:28) — a 1400-year chronological error confusing two different figures.

• Pharaoh threatening crucifixion (7:124) — crucifixion was unknown in ancient Egypt, a Roman-era punishment.

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📚 Literary Borrowing — Not Revelation, But Recycled Stories

The Qur’an’s stories are often lifted from earlier texts and oral traditions:

• The Seven Sleepers of the Cave (Sura 18) come from 5th-century Christian Syrian folklore.

• Jesus’ miracles as a baby — forming birds from clay — come from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and Protoevangelium of James.

• Many Jewish legends (Solomon, Abraham, Moses) come not from the Hebrew Bible but from post-biblical Jewish midrash.

This suggests literary and cultural borrowing, not divine originality.

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🔐 Preservation Myths — The Qur’an’s Textual History Is Complex and Evolving

Islamic tradition claims the Qur’an is perfectly preserved, but:

• Early variant codices (Ibn Mas’ud, Ubayy ibn Ka‘b) differed substantially.

• The Uthmanic recension (ca. 650 CE) standardized the text, destroying rival copies.

• Multiple canonical qirāʾāt (readings) remain, with significant wording differences affecting meaning.

• The earliest Qur’anic manuscripts (7th–8th centuries) show textual evolution, not perfect preservation.

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🧠 Deductive Syllogism — The Qur’an Is Not Divine

• Premise 1: A perfect, divine revelation would be internally consistent, historically accurate, scientifically correct, original, and textually stable.

• Premise 2: The Qur’an is contradictory, historically inaccurate, scientifically flawed, derivative, and textually unstable.

• Conclusion: The Qur’an is not a perfect, divine revelation.

✅ Valid
✅ Sound
✅ Irrefutable by evidence

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💥 Verdict: The Third Leg Collapses

Pillar	Status
🧱 Mecca	Absent historically
👤 Muhammad	Unverified historically
📜 Qur’an	Contradictory, borrowed, and textually unstable

Islam’s foundational three-legged stool is shattered.

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🪦 Final Thought

The Qur’an is not the product of a perfect, all-knowing deity.
It is a human product — layered, evolving, and deeply intertwined with the cultural and political forces of its time.

And with that, the last leg of Islam’s claim to divine revelation falls.

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📚 Footnotes:

• Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Oxford University Press, 1987)

• Christoph Luxenberg, The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur’an (2000)

• Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and the Bible (2018)

• Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an (1937)

• Stephen Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet (2012)

• Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (1997)