Quoted
from the "ISLAM REVEALED"
THE
QURAN EXPOSED
THE
QURAN MISQUOTES THE NEW TESTAMENT
The
Story of Zacharias
The
Quran
(Remember) when
the wife of ‘Imran said: My Lord! I have vowed unto Thee that which is
in my belly as a consecrated (offering). Accept it from me, Lo! Thou, only
Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower!
And when she was
delivered she said: My Lord! Lo! I am delivered of a female--Allah knew
best of what she was delivered--the male is not as the female; and lo!
I have named her Mary, and lo! I crave Thy protection for her and for her
offspring from Satan the outcast.
And her Lord accepted
her with full acceptance and vouchsafed to her a goodly growth: and made
Zachariah her guardian. Whenever Zachariah went into the sanctuary where
she was, he found that she had food. He said: O Mary! Whence cometh unto
thee this (food)? She answered: It is from Allah. Allah giveth without
stint to whom He will.
Then Zachariah
prayed unto his Lord and said: My Lord! Bestow upon me of Thy bounty goodly
offspring. Lo! Thou art the Hearer of Prayer.
And the angels
called to him as he stood praying in the sanctuary: Allah giveth thee glad
tidings of (a son whose name is) John, (who cometh) to confirm a word from
Allah, lordly, chaste, a Prophet of the righteous.
He said: My Lord!
How can I have a son when age hath overtaken me already and my wife is
barren? (The angel) answered: So (it will be). Allah doth what He will.
He said: My Lord!
Appoint a token for me. (The angel) said: The token unto thee (shall be)
that thou shalt not speak unto mankind three days except by signs. Remember
thy Lord much, and praise (Him) in the early hours of night and morning.20
The Quranic story of Zacharias
has its origins in Pvotevangelion's James the Lesser, a second-century
A.D. apocryphal Christian fable, and from Luke 1:5-20. Here is the reconstruction
of the Protevangelion story with the direct quotations found in the Quran
italicized for emphasis.
And Anna (wife of Joachim)
answered, "As the Lord my God liveth, whatever I bring forth, whether it
be male or female, I will devote it to the Lord my God, and it shall minister
to him in holy things, during Its whole life ... and called her name Mary
... And the high-priest received her, and blessed her, and said, "Mary,
the Lord God hath magnified thy name to all generations, and to the very
end of time by thee will the Lord shew his redemption to the children of
Israel."
But Mary continued in
the temple as a dove educated her there, and received her food from the
hand of an angel. Then the high-priest (Zacharias) entered into the Holy
of Holies, and taking away with him the breastplate of judgment made prayers
concerning her.2'
Muhammad's eighth wife, Maryam,
was a Christian slave girl from Ethiopia. Al-Moqawqas, the Governor of
Egypt, sent her along with her sister and a white mule as gifts to Muhammad.
It is very likely that Maryam either brought copies of the above documents
with her, or simply related the stories of Jesus, the son of Mary, to Muhammad.
Upon closer scrutiny of the chronological order of the Surats, you will
have to agree with me that the popular name for Jesus, "Son of Mary," began
in the Quranic text after Maryam entered Muhammad's life.
The
Bible
Luke's Gospel gives
the accurate record in chapter, verses 5-20:
There was in the
days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of
the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her
name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in
all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had
no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced
In years.
So It was, that
while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division,
according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense
when he went Into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the
people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
Then an angel of
the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But
the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is
heard; your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his
name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at
his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink
neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit,
even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel
to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power
of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared
for the Lord."
And Zacharias said
to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife
is well advanced in years.
And the angel answered
and said to him, "I am Gabriel, who stands In the presence of God, and
was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold,
you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take
place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in
their own time.
One of the obvious mistakes
in the Quranic story is its claim that Zacharias was speechless for three
days, whereas the Gospel states (verse 20) that it was actually nine months.
There are other incompatible statements which become apparent upon reading
the three above-mentioned records.
Mary,
the Mother of Jesus
One of the most absurd
mistakes in the Quran is the reference to Mary as the sister of Aaron.
Her identity seems to be quite mixed up. Let us look at Surat Maryam (Mary)
19:28 first:
Oh sister of Aaron!
Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot.
The Mary of the Quran
depicted as the mother of Jesus is 1,570 years removed from the real Mary,
as indicated from Numbers 26:59: "The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed
the daughter of Levi, was born to Levi in Egypt; and to Amram she bore
Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam."
The valiant effort
of Muslim theologians to explain that the Quran is simply stating her de
descendency from the priestly family of Aaron and Imran is totally
unsatisfactory. This mistaken Quranic identity is obvious. Compare
the much older historical record of the New Testament's Luke 1:26-
35:
Now in the sixth
month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.
The virgin's name was Mary.
And having come
in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with
you; blessed are you among women!"
But when she saw
him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting
this was.
Then the angel
said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall
call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the
Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.
And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there
will be no end."
Then Mary said
to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?"
And the angel answered
and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of
the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who Is
to be born will be called the Son of God."
Now, to solve the problem
for our Muslim the theologians, I direct their attention to a simple solution.
First, Elizabeth was called the daughter of Aaron, which refers to the
fact that she was from the lineage of Aaron. Mary, the mother of Jesus,
came to visit her while Elizabeth was six months pregnant with John the
Baptist. In Luke's Gospel the story is told in one and the same chapter,
as indicated above. Apparently, because Muhammad heard numerous stories,
he could not accurately remember the details from either the Apocrypha
or the Gospels. The end result was the gross mistake of making Mary the
daughter of Amram and the sister of Aaron.
The
Birth of Jesus
We are told in the
Quran that the miraculous birth of Jesus took place under a palm tree (Surat
Maryam [Mary] 19:21-26). This story first appeared in an apocryphal fable
of the second century A.D. The relevant portions of the story are italicized:
Now on the third
day after Mary was wearied in the desert by the heat, she asked Joseph
to rest for a little under the shade of a Palm Tree. Then Mary looking
up and seeing its branches laden with fruit (dates) said, "I desire if
it were possible to have some fruit. Just then the child Jesus looked up
(from below) with a cheerful smile, and said to the Palm Tree, "Send down
some fruit. Immediately the tree bent itself (toward her) and so they ate.
Then Jesus said. 'O Palm Tree, anise; be one of my Father's trees in Paradise,
but with thy roots open the fountain (rivulet) beneath thee and bring water
flowing from that fount.
After presenting the Quranic
and the apocryphal references, let us now consider the accurate record
of Matthew 1:25-2:6:
[Joseph] did not
know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His
name JESUS.
Now after Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise
men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who has been
born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come
to worship Him.
When Herod the
king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And
when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together,
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him,
"In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:
'But you, Bethlehem,
in the land of Judah,
Are not the least
among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall
come a Ruler
Who will shepherd
My people Israel."'
Fables about Jesus
Two of the most far-fetched
and fantasy-filled fables ever attributed to Jesus are recorded in the
Quran .
Then she pointed to
him. They said: How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy?
He spake: Lo! I am
the slave of Allah. He hath given me the Scripture and hath appointed me
a Prophet ....
The First Gospel of
the Infancy of Jesus Christ which is a second-century Arabic apocryphal
fable from Egypt, is the source for this Quranic fable:
... Jesus spake even
when he was in the cradle, and : said to his mother: "Mary, I am Jesus
the Son of God. That word which thou didst bring forth according to the
declaration of the angel...."
Next, we look into
the tale that Jesus breathed life into birds of clay. According to Surat
al-Imran (The Family of 'Imran) 3:49:
And will make him a
messenger unto the children of Israel, (saying): Lo! I come unto you with
a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of
a bird, and I breathe into It and it is a bird, by Allah's leave.
The source for this
Quranic fiction is found in the earlier Thomas' Gospel of the Infancy Jesus
Christ, an apocryphal fable from the second century.
Then he took from the
bank of the stream some soft clay, and formed out of it twelve sparrows
...Then Jesus clapping together the palms of his hands, called to the sparrows,
and said to them: "Go, fly away."24
Neither of the above
quotations from either source recognized by biblical scholars, historians,
or theologians as authentic events in the life of Christ.
Feeding the Disciples
The New Testament records
several instances when Jesus supernaturally obtained or multiplied
food for the needy. However, there is no biblical or
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