The Bible and the Quran: Queens, NY, June 25, 2009, Openings

Well good evening and welcome it is truly a pleasure to see all of you here this evening we pretty much packed this place out and it is a pleasure to see all of you here

I thank you for coming and of course most importantly I thank Imam Shamsi Ali for being here with us this evening as well

I begin in the name of the Lord Jesus creator of all things bismi yeshu rad al -khaliq hul we gather this evening not to compromise the truth but to honor the truth

I stand before you as one who believes that every person the sound of my voice is a creature of God the creator made in his image the greatest respect that I can give to my fellow creatures is to speak the truth to them you do not show love for others by compromising the truth you show love for God and for your fellow men by speaking the truth in love with the assistance of the spirit of God and by his grace

I will seek to speak truthfully with you this evening and I pray you will understand that in so doing

I seek to show you true Christian love and respect now

Christians are instructed by their scriptures to speak the truth in love this is a commandment to every believer in Jesus Christ and it is interesting to me that one of the 99 beautiful names of Allah in Islam I believe it's the 51st in most lists is

Ahak the truth we live in a day when our shared commitment to truth based upon divine revelation and God's unchanging character is not shared by many in our culture in fact we ourselves are likely to be deeply influenced by the degradation of the secular society around us yet there could be no mistake about this one fact

Christians and Muslims believe God has spoken he has not left us in darkness he has not left us without guidance without light and so we must honor his truth even when that means honestly disagreeing with one another

I trust our dialogue this evening will honor God by honoring his truth and that it will show the world that Muslims and Christians can disagree yet do so peacefully and with grace in the brief time we have this evening we can only present a foundation for further dialogue you the audience will continue the discussion tonight and in the coming days two major world religions their scriptures are definitional to their entire worldview and interestingly enough to their relationship to one another both religions believe their sacred scriptures are divine in origin

Christians believe the scriptures are sufficient in of themselves Sunni Muslims believe the

Quran and the Hadith are given for our guidance both the

Bible and the Quran present laws by which man is to live which express God's creative purpose and his will for us so what are the differences and how are they relevant to the resultant claims of both

Islam and Christianity well let's begin by looking at the Quran Muslims believe that these are the direct words of God they are not the words of men the

Quran says that many books plural Qutubi have been sent down to men through prophets the

Quran acts as a guard a muhaiman over the preceding books some believe that means a corrector rather than a guard that's something we might be able to discuss now the

Quran presents to us a government controlled textual transmission beginning with the Uthmanic revision of the third of the caliphs this results in a generally unified textual history as you would expect in light of the control of the transmission of the text the 1924

Egyptian edition viewed by most as the official version in Arabic I would imagine there are a number of the

Arabic Quran's here this evening and that's seen by most Muslims as the official version in contrast the

Bible 40 different authors over the course of 1500 years two major languages

Hebrew and Greek and one minor language is about 12 chapters of Aramaic in the

Old Testament primarily in Daniel the textual history of the Old Testament different than that of the

New Testament primarily because the Old Testament or as the Jews refer to it the

Tanakh the Torah the Nevi 'im and the Ketavin is passed on through the nation of Israel so it has a different textual history than the

New Testament the key translation of the Old Testament is called the Greek Septuagint that's what Christians used most of the citations of the

Old Testament in the New Testament are found to be taken from the Greek Septuagint Hebrew and Arabic are both

Semitic languages based upon mainly triliteral roots many of the terms in Arabic familiar to someone who reads

Hebrew because they come from the same roots now the New Testament is written in Koine Greek the common

Greek of the days of Jesus it's a very accurate language capable of in -depth exegesis the

New Testament demonstrates what I call multi -focality now what is multi -focality well multi -focality is the fact that the

New Testament was written by multiple authors from multiple locations to multiple audiences at multiple times from its inception the

New Testament being a collection of books was beyond the control of any one person or group this means the early copies of the

New Testament were distributed far and wide resulting in multiple streams of transmission as a result we have a rich early textual history that protects the text from controlled centralized editing and change let me illustrate with a graphic the initial gospels and epistles of the

New Testament were written at various places at various times some were written for distribution within the community such as the gospels and others were epistles sent to specific locations then copies would be made and sent elsewhere often

Christians traveling from one place to another would encounter a book that they had not heard of before and hence would make a copy of and bring it back to their own fellowship and though a graphic that would represent how many different lines of transmission there were and how often they were interconnected would rapidly become useless due to the number of manuscripts that would be on the screen the fact that complex history of transmission should be kept in mind over time single books will be gathered into collections this was especially true of the gospels and the epistles of Paul hence we have p66 and p75 these are gospel collections in p46 containing the epistles of Paul all dating from the middle to the end of the second century these collections would then come together until finally after the peace of the church in 313 you could have entire copies of the scriptures such as we find in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus but the important point to note is the multifocality of this process multiple authors writing at multiple times to multiple audiences produced a text that appears in history already displaying multiple lines of transmission this results in the textual variance we must study but it also results in our confidence that we continue to possess the original message of Christ Christians are very open about their scriptures and the history behind them here is a screenshot showing my electronic edition of the

Nessie Olin 27th edition of the Greek New Testament together with the information on textual variance provided therein any

Christian who desires to know where variance exists in the manuscript tradition has a wealth of information available today numerous critical editions of the

Greek New Testament have been published since the 16th century in fact one of the texts I have on my desk there in the orange cover is a diglot with the

New English translation and the Nessie Olin 27th edition of the Greek New Testament it's a goldmine of information and so I have brought another one and I would like to give it as a gift to Imam Ali now there is a major difference between the centralized governmental control of the collation and transmission of the

Quranic text and the non -centralized non -controlled transmission of the New Testament let me read some important citations from Islamic history to illustrate the point that I'm making here most of you especially

Muslims are familiar with this text from Sahih al -Bukhari Abu Bakr then said to me Umar has come to me and said casualties were heavy among the qura of the

Quran i .e. those who knew the Quran by heart on the day of the battle of Yalmama and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the qura on other battlefields please know whereby a large part of the

Quran may be lost therefore I suggest you Abu Bakr could order that the Quran be collected so I started looking for the

Quran and collecting it from what was written on palm stalks and white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart so I found the last verse of Surah Al -Tabah,

Surah 9 with Abi Qasami Al -Ansari and I did not find it with anybody other than him then the complete manuscripts or copy of the

Quran remained with Abu Bakr till he died then with Umar till the end of his life and then with Hafsa the daughter of Umar then in the very next section of Sahih al -Bukhari section 510 we read

Hudayfa was afraid of there the people of Sham and Iraq differences in the recitation of the

Quran so he said Uthman oh chief the believers save this nation before they differ about the book the

Quran as Jews and the Christians did before so Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying send us the manuscripts of the

Quran so we may compile compile the Quran materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you and so the process went on and then later it says and when they had written many copies

Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied and ordered that all the other

Quranic materials whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies be burnt this is a key issue in regards to the monic revision taking place about 20 years after the death of Muhammad now here is another interesting quotation from the ancient sources

Ibn Abi Dawud wrote many of the passages of the Quran that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama but they were not known by those who survived them nor were they written down nor had

Abu Bakr Umar or Uthman by that time collected the Quran nor were they found with even one person after them this is one of the early statements that is made now this area of discussion is not new between Christians and Muslims barely 200 years after Muhammad a

Christian wrote a defense of his faith and took note of the issue of the early history the transmission of the text of the

Quran al -Kindi wrote then the people fell to variance in their readings some read according to the version of Ali which they found which they follow the present day some read according to the collection of which we have made mentioned one party read according to the text of Ibn Masud and another according to that of Ubaid Ibn Ka 'b when

Uthman came to power and people everywhere differed in their reading Ali sought grounds of accusation against him one man would read a verse one way and another man another way and there was a change in interpolation some copies having more and some less when this was represented to Uthman and the danger urged to provision the strife and apostasy he thereupon caused to be collected together all the leaves and scraps that he could together with the copy that was written out at the first but they did not interfere with that which was in the hands of Ali or of those who followed his reading

Ubaid was dead by this time as for Ibn Masud this is very interesting they demanded his exemplar but he refused to give it up notice that al -Kindi gives very much the same information regarding the motivation of the

Uthmanian revision that is found in al -Bukhari he likewise makes reference to Ibn Masud's refusal to give in to Uthman's demands tradition relates differing stories about the relationship of Ibn Masud and Uthman but as we will see the readings of Ibn Masud remained in the manuscript tradition of the

Quran for many years hence it seems quite logical that given Ibn Masud being identified as one of the premier qura by Muhammad himself in the hadith he would not have given up his copy of the

Quran but would rather have given his life and compromise in such a fashion just one more citation from that time period it is reported from Ismail Ibn Ibrahim from Ayub from Nafi from Ibn Umar who said let none of you say

I have acquired the whole of the Quran how does he know what all of it is when much of the

Quran has disappeared rather let him say I have acquired what has survived now many

Muslims believe the Quran has no meaningful textual history that the Quran they possess today is a mere image of Uthman's revision but the fact is that there are textual variants in the early copies of the

Quran and evidence of an early editing process seeking to remove Ibn Masud and Ubaid Ibn Kab's influence from the

Quran let's look at a few examples so we have solid facts upon which to base our discussion this evening here is a variant found in surah 3 158 here is the actual text like to blow it up because my eyesight isn't as good as it used to here is the text under consideration which speaks of Allah surely gathering those who have died to himself here is the same text from Quranic manuscript 328 found the

National Library of France in Paris is dated to around a hundred years after Hijra a hundred years after Hijra but as reading

Hijazi text is hard even for those who read modern Arabic let's expand the text out a little bit so that you can see it more clearly now what you can see is that the

Paris manuscript has an extra olive not found the modern printed Quranic text but in this case that extra olive completely changes the meaning in the ancient text says that those who die will not be gathered to Allah while the modern 1924 printed text says they will surely be gathered to Allah now please make sure you understand why

I point this out I am not saying we can't figure out the original reading but I am pointing out how important it is to have a full unedited widely dispersed manuscript tradition with which to make such determinations the fact is that there were competing readings in the earliest centuries of the transmission of the

Quran specifically the tradition of Ibn Masud as well as that of Ubay Ibn Ka 'b persisted in the earliest manuscripts long after the

Uthmanian attempt to enforce a particular set of readings this can be seen in the earliest Islamic tradition for example in reference to surat 1793 where Abdel Razak mentions a tradition from we did not know what a house of ornaments was until we saw in the

Quran of Ibn Masud a house of gold well here again is the is the specific text before us and then we blow it up so we can see it a little bit more clearly and then we bring up the current reading up at the top found in the

Uthmanian version and the current 1924 Egyptian version speaks of a house of ornament while the

Ibn Masud reading has a house of gold once again without the materials destroyed by Uthman how does one logically and truthfully determine such issues of early variance

Surah 2 Al -Baqarah verse 222 provides another example this time based upon the

Fog's Palimpsest manuscript a palimpsest is a manuscript where the original writing has been washed off and another version or a completely different work written on the washed leather using ultraviolet light we can often read the original writing when we read the original text in the

Fog's manuscript at surah 2 222 which I have here on the top and compare the current edition we see not just variation we see wholesale editing words are changed the word order is changed verbal forms are altered grammatical terminations changed etc this is clear evidence that the continued attempt at least a century after Uthman of reading the

Quran of the readings of Ibn Masud this is why Sufyan al -Fawri's relatively short tafsir for instance can list 67 variant readings 24 of which are attributed to Ibn Masud now the existence of these technical issues has been well known to Muslim scholars for centuries but has fallen out of general

Islamic recognition especially in our lifetimes here is just one page of many to be found in the 2007

Turkish publication of the Taktabi manuscript listing variations between the major early

Quranic manuscript these lists are produced by Islamic scholars not orientalists and not

Christians and so the first contrast is between a centrally controlled process

Uthman versus Ibn Masud etc and the non -centralized widespread congregation of the

New Testament text together with the constant search for earlier and earlier manuscripts now as time is short this evening the second contrast is related to the authorship of the

Quran and the Bible the Quran claims to be the very eternal words of Allah given through an angel to Muhammad but the very least we can say the

Quran has one human intermediary that we can identify and that would be the man Muhammad but the

Bible has around 40 authors covering a span of 1500 years the New Testament has eight authors addressing a number of different audiences over a span of 30 to 50 years now the multiplicity of authors negatively introduces issues of consistency allegations of contradiction well doesn't

Paul contradict James things like that but positively it provides a tremendous witness to the spirit -born harmony and consistency of the scriptures when those alleged contradictions are examined and answered and may

I personally say that I can testify to you that after two and a half decades of study of the Christian scriptures and defense of them against leading opponents of the faith the consistency and harmony of the biblical text is one of the most compelling reasons why

I believe the single authorship of the Quran raises questions for me as a

Christian relating to the claim that the Quran has eternally existed in heaven for example the origination of surah 33 verses 37 through 38 and Muhammad's marriage to Zaynab the divorced wife his adopted son

Zayd is just one example that we could look at that a Christian would look at this and go how can this be something that was eternally found in heaven when it seems to be so very much connected to events upon earth likewise since the

Quran has only one author how do we handle those Quranic teachings that Christians would reject as being incompatible with all preceding scriptures does the author of the

Quran show an accurate knowledge for example of the doctrine of the trinity now this is an important question for me anyway for we must honestly admit this evening that most

Muslims understand the Quran to soundly condemn the central elements of the Christian faith in particular the trinity and the deity of Christ such beliefs are described as blasphemy by the

Quran and excess in religion shirk unbelief and those who believe such things will experience the fire note the words of just one section of surah al -maida ayah 72 and 73 they do blaspheme who say allah is christ the son of mary but said christ oh children of israel worship allah my lord and your lord whoever joins other gods with allah allah will forbid him the garden fire will be his abode there will for the wrongdoers be no one to help they do blaspheme who say allah is one of three in a trinity it's literally the word three for there is no god except one allah if they desist not from their word of blasphemy barely a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them now these are strong words so it is quite proper and necessary to ask the simple question does the quran ever accurately define the trinity having examined all possible texts related to the subject i must conclude that it does not and some passages such as surah 5 116 seem to present a completely erroneous understanding of the doctrine of the trinity note the words found in that text and behold allah will say oh jesus the son of mary didst thou say unto men worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of allah he will say glory to thee never could i say what i had no right to say had i said such a thing thou was indeed have known it thou knowest what is in my heart though i know not what is in thine for thou knowest in full all that is hidden now many muslims believe that the trinity represents god the father beginning a child by mary ahmed didot many times misrepresent the trinity in this way assuming christians believe jesus is an offspring of god a separate god one god amongst three nothing could be farther from the truth and one thing is quite certain what christians believed about the trinity was well known in the year a .d

600 so even if one disagrees with the trinity surely what it is is just as knowable and understandable as what taweed is to a muslim so what is this text talking about that is a subject that we must discuss but time is fleeting so our third contrast and that is the person of jesus jesus appears in the old testament prophetically long before his advent he is the central character of the new testament as the eternal logos made flesh as we see in john 1 14 the incarnation is a key difference between us christians believe god who created all things can enter into his own creation for his own purposes and his own glory the incarnation is definitional for the christian faith but it is rejected a priori by islamic theology yet it was plainly taught in the earliest christian scriptures and was surely a part of the angel the christians are exhorted to believe and judge by in such places as surah 5 47 jesus ministry is firmly rooted in history his crucifixion and resurrection formed the very cornerstone of the faith the christian proclamation has always been that jesus died at a particular point in time before many witnesses and rose again the third day this is not just a myth a religious story it took place in history and every single source rooted in the first hundred years after the crucifixion verifies that claim the titles given to jesus in the new testament include son of god the only son who is god the monogamous chaos john 118 the i am the alpha and the omega the lamb of god the lord of glory the king of kings and the lord of lords muslims often express the idea that jesus does not view himself as anything but a mere prophet a mere rasool yet in the gospel of mark at his trial before the jewish authorities jesus drew from the jewish scriptures and said about himself quote from the gospel of mark again the high priest was questioning him and saying to him are you the christ the son of the blessed one and jesus said i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven the jewish leaders reacted with immediate charges of blasphemy why because they knew the source of jesus's claim in the prophecy of daniel daniel chapter 7 beginning of verse 5 13 i kept looking in the night vision to behold what the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion glory and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed that is why the jews what jesus was saying to him and accused him of blasphemy the crucifixion resurrection of jesus becomes the very center point of history itself in the new testament narrative in the cross god glorifies himself by redeeming an undeserving people unto himself jesus voluntarily goes to the cross he gives his life freely so those who believe in him may have eternal life his perfect sacrifice frees those who believe in him from sin and gives to them eternal life for the christian jesus as the god man is prophet priest and king as our high priest he ever lives to make intercession for his people guaranteeing to them the benefits of his death the bible teaches we are united to him in his death burial and resurrection so that his resurrection becomes the guarantee that we too will rise and enter into the rest of god all due to what he has done on our behalf this is why christians seek to live holy lives not to earn salvation but to glorify out of a heart of love the one who has saved us now looking at the quran isa appears 25 times in the quran by name only once in an identifiable location when he is speaking from his cradle most scholars believe that that story in surat 19 is from the arabic infancy gospel originally written in syriac in the fifth or sixth century he is virgin born he works miracles he is however not the son of god in the quran nor does he die upon the cross in fact as cambridge scholar tarif khalidi has written the quranic jesus is in fact an argument addressed to his more wayward followers intended to convince the sincere and frighten the unrepentant as such he has little in common with the jesus of the gospels canonical or apocryphal the quran's denial of the crucifixion is particularly troubling historically as there are few events in history so compellingly witnessed to only one ayah in all the quran denies the crucifixion a total of 40 arabic words with no commentary in the hadith no muslim for over 200 years after muhammad remembered a single thing he ever said about surah 4157 i find that striking as the quran and hadith are clear in their commentaries about other areas of difference with christians yet on this one topic all is silence surah 4157 has engendered many different interpretations amongst muslims and is in itself hardly moving it is hardly clear this is a very important issue as well so in conclusion muslims and christians what do we need to discuss we need to discuss the text of our scriptures christians invite open examination of the history of their text while at the same time rejecting mere naturalistic explanations and materialistic scholarship we as christians and muslims share a worldview that is not limited to the merely natural we should be very careful to draw from scholarship both in the defense of our own faiths and in the criticism of the other's faith that which is consistent with a supernatural worldview i have often noted that much of modern islamic writing about the new testament for example draws from atheistic or secularistic scholarship barterman for example rather than from scholarship that would be consistent with an islamic worldview this situation should not prevail in our discussions with one another we should also discuss the authorship of our scriptures as well as the relationship that exists between them remember the quran makes reference to the torah and the injeel and finally we need very much to discuss the person of jesus and especially the islamic denial of well -founded historical realities regarding jesus's teachings his crucifixion and his resurrection and so we begin our dialogue this evening by focusing upon the key issues we as christians and muslims have an opportunity to demonstrate for the whole world that we have the ability to dialogue with respect to dialogue with grace toward one another without compromising the truth while focusing upon what is really important and i cannot tell you how exciting it is to me to see this room filled with people and i think it's very obvious filled with a majority of muslims this evening and so i am honored that you are here i am honored that imam shams ali is here and i hope that our time will indeed be a blessing to all who have gathered thank you very much for our creator most gracious most merciful let me begin by greeting you all with the peace greetings the great people of prophet abraham moses jesus and muhammad peace upon them all it is indeed an honor for me to be a part of this evening discussion especially as my friend dr james white had debated over 70 times his opponent and i have to acknowledge that this is my first time the topic of our tonight discussions or you may call it debate is al quran and the bible i'm certain that any religious belief should be based on solidly on its holy book our case as muslims we do believe that every single religious act every single of religious practices in our religions is based on the quran and the interpretation of prophet muhammad peace be upon him we do pray five times a day we have fasting zakat charity hajj all these are based in the holy quran and i hope that our christian friends religious practices also are based on their bible because if you don't find the best in the bible of what you do in your churches then how could it justify that these are religious practices before going into my specific points on the subject let me remind ourselves again that muslims will not be muslims without believing in jesus as one of god's mighty prophets and believing in the book which was called angel gospel in fact we find beautiful stories of jesus and his mother in the holy quran and i would like really to suggest my friends christian friends to read especially chapter number three and chapter number 19 of the holy quran according jesus christ i'd like to mention just one of the verses in the holy quran god says and he's god mentions to us that when the angel came to mary to tell her that soon you are going to conceive you're going to be pregnant she said lord as the american people today say god oh gosh let's just change the word god gosh these days oh god how come i'm a pregnant no man ever touched me so the angel responded to her and he said that is very easy for your lord if you wanted to do something you just simply say come and it is be and it is and then the angel described jesus christ to mary with these verses he said and god will teach him the book and the wisdom the law and the gospel and as a messenger rasul apostle to the children of israel with this message the message of jesus i have come to you with a sign from your lord in that i make for you out of clay as it were as dr j mentioned the maritals of jesus christ and i healed those who were blind and the lepers and i quickened the dead by god's permission and i declared to you what you eat and what you store in your houses surely there is a sign for you if you did believe and i have come to you to confirm the law which was before me and to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden to you i have come to you with sign from your lord is what jesus said so fear god and obey me it is god allah who is my lord and your lord then worship him this is the way that is straight straight this is what the angel told to his mother that this is jesus christ is coming to tell the people now regarding his mother i'm not going to recite the whole ayah talking about her but the quran says his mother was a woman of truth and of course regarding the angel it is very clear and mentioned many times in the holy quran but one first i would like to mention in surah number three chapter number three god says and he set down the torah and the gospel prior to these prior to the holy quran as a guide to mankind and he set down the criterion that's a crime now my friends brothers and sisters muslims and christians haven't said that our quran is the criterion that we call for pan is very open and honest as well in the way it criticized the many verses of the bible that were certainly believed to be man -made verses and i have to be very honest in this as well as editions and iterations fabrications that have taken place throughout the bible many times revisions and so god the almighty tells us in the very in a very strong statement in the holy quran chapter number two seven seven seven nine he said don't they know what they conceal and what they reveal this is for the scholars they wrote the bible they conceal something they keep something and then the quran says and there are among them illiterate who know not the book but desires and they do nothing but conjecture for lay christian people they have sentiments coming to the churches listening to the priest listening to the pastors they have sentiments but basically did they ever ask and question the pastors and the priest in my experience in imam in different masajid in different mosques if non -muslims ask me after my speech i challenge them to ask questions you can ask any muslim here mostly coming from three mosques that i'm leading these days i challenge them i ask my christian friends is there any of you challenge the pastors and the priest after this speech after their speech because you have conjecture basically my brothers and sisters so what the quran says here then woe to those who write the book with their own hands and they say this is from god to traffic it with the miserable price feminine woe to them for what their hands do right and both of the gain they make thereby now my friends before i go further i apologize from the bottom of my heart if any of these coming statements may be offensive to you but i'm sincere and i'm honest and mostly i base my statements on the verses of the holy quran let me just mention once again that i am not an advocate of debate you can search my name either in the online internet or anywhere else i am an advocate of dialogue but for a muslim we cannot run away from a challenge if we are challenged and they call me and they say i'm ready and so the holy quran told me and argue with them in ways that are best mean honesty sincerity and straightforward don't go around don't lie just tell them as it is so i'm going to tell you whatever i understand about the quran and the bible now my presentation tonight of course in talking about the quran and the bible just two aspects number one is historical backgrounds and i think dr james talked a lot about that and number two is about the content of each book here we are going to discuss several topics basically number one its message what each holy book contains or contained in regard to the most principles of religious belief what the quran says about god what the quran says about principle religious practices in our religion prayer now what the bible says about god what the bible says about our christian friends religious practices in the churches do the bible say sing song do about say take some instruments bring to your churches we will see that the second one is we are going to see contradictive things do we find contradiction in the holy quran and also we are going to see that in the bible as well and number three we will see some samples of the harmony between god's words and god's creation what does it mean god my friends has two things as a guide for human being beings to understand him to know him number one is written signs this is called ayat we have verses in the quran or in the bible but number two is created signs these two the written the said signs and the created sign must not contradict each other we are going to examine that what the quran says about those and what the bible says about those and the last one is for the second point how the message is presented and here we'll examine the contents of each book to see if those messages can be appropriately attributed to god almighty the stories of many beloved prophets in the holy in the holy bible for example we are going to see that prophet david prophet solomon prophet lox prophet noah we are going to see all these stories and think about it is this an appropriate story to be attributed to god and to his prophets you're going to see that the first point tonight the historical backgrounds of the holy quran how did the holy quran or how was the holy quran transmitted into the present day and how the bible was transmitted into the present day first one is the holy quran the holy quran is most widely read book in the history of mankind you can imagine my friends that muslims pray five times a day over a billion muslims pray five times a day and every time we pray we recite holy quran the most right i can challenge you if any other book is read more than holy quran a source of immense inspiration guidance and wisdom for over 1 .5

billion muslims all over the world it is a miracle of all miracles in the last more than 14 centuries it has been proven to be all times miracles based on the challenges of its contemporary in the time of prophet muhammad peace upon him the challenge to the holy quran is about language and the holy quran challenge the capability of the arab to speak arabic language and that's why if you read the holy in arabic language there are certain to challenge the arab people you speak arabic language you are so capable in arabic language if you can produce just one chapter of the holy quran do so no one can ever produce so far in arabic language it's a challenge it's a miracle and even in language and secondly we are going to say to see also that today's contemporary challenge to the holy quran is about science what the quran says about different proved scientific data that have been proven by different scientists today we're going to see that now the holy quran is believed by muslims and even by some non -muslims to be the words of god to reveal the problem revealed to prophet muhammad and was recorded from the very beginning of the revelation to the end both by memory and in writing both these methods of record started in the life of prophet muhammad and the life of his followers how dr james mentioned about time we are going to mention some others basically before that in fact prophet muhammad himself dictated each verse and each surah each chapter how to place it where how to start how what is the second what is the third what is the end some men of those sahaba the followers even innovated in the holy quran everything is dictated by prophet muhammad true inspiration this is what the muslims believe in the hadith ibn abbas report that utman ibn affan said when the prophet received a revelation he would call a companion to write it down and tell them where to place the first in the holy quranic order is mentioned the council and so it is indisputable that the holy quran has been recorded since the lifetime of prophet muhammad as the points dr james mentioned i'm going to to respond to that in my rebuttal time because this is my presentation so i don't want to waste my time now in the time of khalifah abu bakr the first caliph the first muslim leader when muhammad died there's a problem at the time took place that there's a war called imamah better and there was a lot of muslims who memorized the holy quran died at the time more than 70.