The word Qur'an means “recitation.” It was a word used in churches for the
reading of the Bible in the time of Mohammed. They are verses that Mohammed
recited while exhibiting behavior resembling seizures. His followers wrote the
verses on any material that was at hand.
As detailed earlier in this book, the respect for the Qur'an grew rapidly
after Mohammed’s escape to Medina. His followers believed that Mohammed was
building on the credibility of the Bible. They revered him as a Biblical prophet
equal to Abraham, Moses and David. They believed the content of the Qur'an to be
lofty in its laws and so beautiful in its poetry that it surpassed the many
poets among the idol worshipers.
Decades after Mohammed’s death, many of those who claimed to have committed
his verses to memory were dying fighting for Islam. Thinking that the verses
would be lost, a committee gathered and compiled the first Qur'an but a problem
developed after the Qur'an was copied and distributed. A successor to Mohammed,
Caliph Uthman, discovered that the copies of the Qur'an did not agree. The fact
that they were different was a scandal. Uthman had a committee of a few leaders
establish a standardized copy. Uthman then attempted to have all other copies of
the Qur'ans burned.
The collection of sixty-one verses in this chapter reveals several things.
These verses, recited by Mohammed, made lofty claims about the Qur'an. The
Qur'an purported to agree with the Bible, which had been completed for centuries
before the Qur'an, and commanded Muslims to believe in both the Qur'an and the
Bible. It claims to be perfect Arabic, a copy of an eternal tablet in heaven,
without equal in literary style and without error. The Qur'an claims to reveal
hidden details to astound mankind. For example, the Qur'an announced that
nineteen angels guard Hell (74:26-31). This news was expected to amaze the
Christians into believing in the Qur'an.
The reasons that many of Mohammed’s contemporaries did not believe in the
Qur'an can be found in the text of the Qur'an itself. For example, when certain
“revelations” were changed, it caused doubt about the perfect divine source of
the verses. The direction for prayers was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca with
the explanation given that Allah allowed this correction to be made to the
Qur'an as a test to see who would still believe in a “divine revelation” that
needed to be altered. Another example would be the verses Mohammed recited which
allowed for the veneration of the daughters of Allah. These were erased and
replaced by other verses with the explanation that they were Satanic verses that
Mohammed received and later had to retract. For a strategic moment in time,
these “Satanic verses” appeased the idol worshipers.
The Qur'an reveals several other reasons the people of Mohammed’s day
rejected the Qur'an. Some rejected Islam because of the manner in which Mohammed
recited the verses. It looked too much like the seizures of demon-possession or
insanity. Others, who knew the Bible, realized that Mohammed was reciting Arab,
Jewish and Christian fables as if they were actual Biblical history. These
people rejected the Qur'an because of its content.