Quoted from the "ISLAM REVEALED"
ISLAM UNVEILED

THE OLD TESTAMENT

 Any reader of the Quran familiar with the Old Testament discovers that the names and events of Old Testament books and prophets are very definitely copied in the Quran.  However, often the stories in the Quran are garbled and confused.  Muhammad must have heard these stories from his Jewish friends in Medina, where he lived during the time he said he received most of the revelations which became the Quran.  His seventh wife, Raihana, and ninth, Safiyya, were Jewesses.  His first wife, Khadija, had a Christian background.  The eighth wife, Maryam, was part of a Christian sect.  They undoubtedly shared with him much of the Old and New Testament literature, drama, and prophetic stories.
 The Quran singles out the following Old Testament names from among the twenty-eight authentic prophets:  Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, and Jonah. 8
 Compare Genesis 4:1-16 and Surat al-Ma’idah (The Table Spread) 5:27-32.

 Genesis 4:1-16

 Surat al-Ma’idah (The Table Spread) 5:27-32 The passage above echoes an ancient Jewish tradition (c. AD 150-200), preserved by Pirke Rabbi Eleazer:  The Quranic text also reflects its source in the second-century Jewish Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5:  If Islam could trace its origin and prophecy to Abraham, then we would expect to find Old Testament references to Allah, Muhammad, Mecca, the black stone of the Ka’bah, and the many ceremonies and practices of Islam.  We have already seen that the Holy Bible is devoid of references to Muhammad, and there are no biblical references to any thing else Islamic.
 It is much more reasonable to conclude that Islam grew from the polytheistic and animistic culture of Muhammad’s tribe.  In fact, the people of Mecca worshipped 360 idols, one of whom was named Al-ilah!
That being the case, however, there are  numerous passages in the so-called inspired Quran which originally appeared in the Old Testament more that one thousand years before the prophet of Arabia was even born.  Though the Quranic and biblical passages are not identical, they are similar enough to show Muhammad’s dependence on some of the Holy Bible’s teaching for his "revelations."  Here are a select few of the many texts that could be cited:  Other passages worthy of comparison are: Surat Hud 11 and Psalm 14; Surat Yusuf 12 and Psalm 16; Suyrat Ibrahim 14 and Psalm 35; Surat al-Hijr 15 and Psalm 5; Surat al-Kahf 18 and Psalm 34.

Jewish Folklore

 The II Targum of Esther, dating back to the second century AD, is consistently found to be the source of Surat al-Naml (The Ant) 27:17-44.  First, we will look at the Quranic record:

From the II Targum of Esther, we read:  The New Testament

Surat al-Ma’idah (The Table Spread) 5, Surat Maryam (Mary) 19, Surat al-Imran (The Family of ‘Imran) 3, and several other Surats are full of New Testament references.  The Quran mentions Jesus ninety-seven times, plus Zachariah and his son, John, along with the disciples of Jesus.  This indicates that Muhammad knew much more than the average Arab of his time about the New Testament Scriptures.  After all, his uncle, Waraqa, translated portions of the Gospels into Arabic, and Burhaira, a Nestorian mon, was his secret teacher.  There are 131 passages in the Quran in which the Bible is referred to as the Law, Psalms, and the Gospel.
Furthermore, numerous passages in the Quran so closely parallel passages in the New Testament, which is six hundred years older that the Quran, that one can safely conclude that Muhammad borrowed some of the content of his "revelations" from the truly inspired text of the New Testament Scriptrues.  Here are a few choice examples:

Apocryphal Fables

 Surat al-Imran (The Family of ‘Imran) 3:35-37 closely follows a spurious gospel account, The Protevangelion’s James the Lesser. This second century A.D. apocryphal Christian fable tells the story of Zachariah, his wife, and John the Baptist.  The Quranic passage reads:

The Protevangelion’s James the Lesser 4:2, 5:9, and 7:4 states:  Christian Heresies

 It is intriguing and instructive to discover why Muhammad did not believe in the Trinity and the divinity or resurrection of Jesus Christ.  To understand this, we must examine the prevalent deviant doctrines of Nestorius and his followers, sectarian Christians who migrated to Arabia 140 years before Muhammad’s birth.  Muhammad apparently drew his denials from their heresy.
 Nestorius was patriarch of Constantinople from AD 428 to 431.  Orthodox Christians believed, as per scriptural teaching, that Jesus had two natures, one divine and one human.  Although the two were distinct, they were joined together in one person.  Nestorius, however, insisted that in Christ Jesus both a divine and a human person acted in unity, but were not the one divine person with both a divine nature and a human nature.
 In AD 431 the Council of Ephesus judged the Nestorian beliefs to be heretical.  Nestorius was deposed as patriarch.  He and his followers were driven out of the Roman Empire and took refuge in Persia, Arabia, India, China, and Mongolia.  Their followers are identified as Nestorians or Monophysites (the Greek word monos means single, and physis means nature.)  
 Waraqa ibn Nofal, considered to be Muhammad’s uncle, was also a Nestorian and is alleged to have translated portions of the Gospels into Arabic.  He was very influential to Muhammad.  Khadija, Muhammad’s first wife, is rumored to have been a Nestorian Christian.
 At least one branch of the Nestorians still exists in the Middle East.  Called the East Syrian Church, its number as of 1980 was estimated at 300,000.
 Most Christian scholars believe that Muhammad came in contact with Nestorians during his business travels Do Damascus and Egypt with his uncle’s caravans, then later with Khadija’s caravans.  The Nestorians established monasteries on the caravan routes and entertained travelers like Muhammad frequently.  Buhaira, a Nestrorian monk, is recognized as one of the most influential men in Muhammad’s knowledge of the Scriptures.  The descriptions of hell in the homilies of Ephraim, a Nestorian preacher of the sixth century, resemble Muhammad’s descriptions of hell.  16
 What was Muhammad doing between the time he married Khadija and his prophetic call, a period of fifteen years?  Could he have been learning from Buhaira and Waraqa and reading some available biblical scrolls?

 Heathenism

 The ancient Arabs reportedly had seven celebrated temples dedicated to the seven planets.  The temple at Sana was built in honor of Venus, and the one at Mecca was consecrated to Saturn.  Could the Islamic idea of seven heavens have come from these temples?
 Stone worship prevailed at an early period among the Arabs, as among many other nations. Stones, shaped like the famed Egyptian obelisks and ten feet high, are on top of Mt. Seir in Petra, South Jordan.  The ancient Nabatean Arabs worshipped these stone-carved pillars.
 Muslim writers say that Adam, the first man, built the Ka’bah on earth, exactly below the spot its perfect model occupies in heaven.  Ka’bah refers to the building in which the stone is housed.  Supposedly, one thousand angels have been appointed to guard the structure.  Apparently, they were careless in their duties because Abraham and his son Ishmael are said to have rebuilt it after a flood destroyed it!  Several centuries later, the Meccans had to reconstruct again after another flood.
 The stone within the Ka’bah structure is shaped somewhat like an egg and is about seven inches long.  Muslims believe that at first it was whiter than milk, but it has become black from the sin of those who touched it.  17
 Ka’bah is an Arabic word which means a cube.  The structure is also called Baitu’llah, the "house fo God."  At first, the Ka’bah, was open at the top and exposed to torrents of rain, which eventually destroyed it.  However, when Kussai ibn Kilab reconstructed the Ka’bah, he added a roof.
 Some idols of the ancient Arabs are mentioned by name in the Quran.  Al-Lat, the chief idol at Ta’if, is supposed to mean "the goddess."  Al’Uzza probably symbolized the planet Venus, although it was worshipped as the form of a babul tree.  Manat was a large sacrificial stone.  Suwa was a female deity, Yaghus was in the form of a lion, Ya’uk in the shape of a horse, and nasr had the image of an eagle.  In front of the Ka’bah was the great image of Hobal, the guardian deity of Mecca.

 The Secrets of Enoch and the Testament of Abraham

 We must further compare The Secrets of Enoch, a second-century AD Egyptian work in Arabic, 1:4-10 and 2:1, and the Quranic record of Muhammad’s Mi’faj, which is recognized as the night in which he went to heaven by way of Jerusalem.  A’isha, surprisingly enough, declared emphatically, "the body of the prophet of Allah did not disappear but Allah took away his spirit by night."  19  Here is the passage in Surat Bani Isra’il (The Children of Israel) 17:1:

 The elaborate story of this vision is expounded in Mishkat al Masabih, composed in AD 620.  Muhammad told how the angel Gabriel took him on the winged animal, Al-Buraq, and showed him all the seven levels of heaven in one night.  Muhammad announced that he had seen Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others.
 However, the night journey was not really so marvelous.  The tale and its details appear originally in The Secrets of Enoch, which predates Muhammad by four centuries.  Here is an excerpt from Enoch 1:4-10 and 2:1:  As to the description of what Muhammad saw in the various levels of heaven, one can find an earlier record of the very same details in The Testament of Abraham.  21
 Although Muhammad claimed he went to Jerusalem and worshipped at the temple in his spirit, the temple had been destroyed by Titus 570 years before the vision!  The "far distant place of worship" mentioned in Surat Bani Isra’il (The Children of Israel) 17:1 refers to the Aqsa Mosque, which was built as a church in Jerusalem by the Crusaders during the twelfth century.  In 1187 Saladin made it a mosque after he conquered the Holy Land.  In other words, no such place existed at the time of the so-called heavenly journey.  Even the Dome of the Rock mosque was not built until AD 691.
In the Hindu version of the story, the Prophet is Arta, the angel is Azar, and Adam is Ormazd.  The original Hindu source is arta Viraf Namak.  22

 Sabeanism

 Ancient historians like Abi Isa the Moroccan tell that Sabeans were the first religious people whose language was Syriac.  Even Adam spoke that language.  Seba was said to be the same Seba, son of Cush, son of Ham, son of Noah, mentioned in Genesis 10:6,7.  Their worship was monotheistic; they offered sacrifices and prayed seven times a day.  Muhammad apparently borrowed their idea but reduced the number of prayer times to five a day.  The Sabeans fasted thirty days a year, breaking the fast at sunset—two more practices Muhammad "Islamized" during Ramadan.  Dr. Ahmad Shah (Theology—Muslim and Christian), and elderly scholar and dear friend, told me when I visited him in India in 1978 that some writers mistook the Sabeans for followers of John the Baptist because they baptized new members into their group.  He adds that along with God, they also worshipped stars and hierarchy of angels.


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