Thursday, January 28, 2016

Criticism of Islam has existed since its formative stages. Early written criticism came
from Christians, prior to the ninth century, many of whom viewed Islam as a radical
Christian heresy.[1] Hindus and Zoroastrians made notable criticism as well. Later the
Muslim world itself offered criticism.[2][3][4] Criticism of Islam in the West was renewed
after the September 11 attacks and other terrorist attacks in the 21st century.[5]

Objects of criticism include the morality of the life of Muhammad, the last prophet
according to Islam, both in his public and personal life.[4][6] Issues relating to the
authenticity and morality of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, are also discussed by
critics.[7] Figures in Africa and India have described what they perceive as destruction of
indigenous cultures by Islam. Other criticism focuses on the question of human rights in
the Islamic world historically and in modern Islamic nations, including the treatment of
women, LGBT people and religious and ethnic minorities in Islamic law and practice.[8][9]
In the wake of the recent multiculturalism trend, Islam's influence on the ability or
willingness of Muslim immigrants to assimilate in the Western world,[10] and other
countries such as India[11][12][13] and Russia,[14][15] has been criticized.

The earliest surviving written criticisms of Islam are to be found in the writings of
Christians who came under the early dominion of the Islamic Caliphate. One such
Christian was John of Damascus (c. 676–749 AD), who was familiar with Islam and
Arabic. The second chapter of his book, The Fount of Wisdom, titled "Concerning
Heresies", presents a series of discussions between Christians and Muslims. John claimed
an Arian monk (whom he did not know was Bahira) influenced Muhammad and viewed
the Islamic doctrines as nothing more than a hodgepodge culled from the Bible.[16]
Writing on Islam's claim of Abrahamic ancestry, John explained that the Arabs were
called "Saracens" (Greek Σαρακενοί, Sarakenoi) because they were "empty" (κενός,
kenos, in Greek) "of Sarah". They were called "Hagarenes" because they were "the
descendants of the slave-girl Hagar".[17]

Other notable early critics of Islam included:


Abu Isa al-Warraq, a 9th-century scholar and critic of Islam.[18]:224

Ibn al-Rawandi, a 9th-century atheist, who repudiated Islam and revealed religion
in general.[18]

al-Ma'arri, an 11th-century Arab poet and critic of Islam and all other religions.
Also known for his veganism and Antinatalism.[19][20]

Medieval Islamic world

In the early centuries of the Islamic Caliphate, the Islamic law allowed citizens to freely
express their views, including criticism of Islam and religious authorities, without fear of
persecution.[21][22][23] As such, there have been several notable critics and skeptics of Islam
that arose from within the Islamic world itself. In tenth and eleventh-century Syria there
lived a blind poet called Al-Ma'arri. He became well known for a poetry that was affected
by a "pervasive pessimism." He labeled religions in general as "noxious weeds" and said
that Islam does not have a monopoly on truth. He had particular contempt for the ulema,
writing that:

They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me that these are fiction from
first to last. O Reason, thou (alone) speakest the truth. Then perish the fools who forged
the religious traditions or interpreted them![2][24]

In 1280, the Jewish philosopher, Ibn Kammuna, criticized Islam in his book Examination
of the Three Faiths. He reasoned that the Sharia was incompatible with the principles of
justice, and that this undercut the notion of Muhammad being the perfect man: "there is
no proof that Muhammad attained perfection and the ability to perfect others as
claimed."[25][26] The philosopher thus claimed that people converted to Islam from ulterior
motives:

That is why, to this day we never see anyone converting to Islam unless in terror, or in
quest of power, or to avoid heavy taxation, or to escape humiliation, or if taken prisoner,
or because of infatuation with a Muslim woman, or for some similar reason. Nor do we
see a respected, wealthy, and pious non-Muslim well versed in both his faith and that of
Islam, going over to the Islamic faith without some of the aforementioned or similar
motives.[3]

According to Bernard Lewis, just as it is natural for a Muslim to assume that the converts
to his religion are attracted by its truth, it is equally natural for the convert's former
coreligionists to look for baser motives and Ibn Kammuna's list seems to cover most of
such nonreligious motives.[27]

Maimonides, one of the foremost 12th century rabbinical arbiters and philosophers, sees
the relation of Islam to Judaism as primarily theoretical. Maimonides has no quarrel with
the strict monotheism of Islam, but finds fault with the practical politics of Muslim
regimes. He also considered Islamic ethics and politics to be inferior to their Jewish
counterparts. Maimonides criticised what he perceived as the lack of virtue in the way
Muslims rule their societies and relate to one another.[28] In his Epistle to Yemenite Jewry,
he refers to Mohammad, as "hameshuga" – "that madman".[29]

Medieval Christianity

In Dante's Inferno, Muhammad is portrayed as split in half, with his guts hanging
out, representing his status as a schismatic (one who broke from the Church).

Some medieval ecclesiastical writers portrayed Muhammad as possessed by
Satan, a "precursor of the Antichrist" or the Antichrist himself.[4]

Denis the Carthusian wrote two treatises to refute Islam at the request of Nicholas
of Cusa, Contra perfidiam Mahometi, et contra multa dicta Sarracenorum libri
 quattuor and Dialogus disputationis inter Christianum et Sarracenum de lege
Christi et contra perfidiam Mahometi.[30]

The Tultusceptrum de libro domni Metobii, an Andalusian manuscript with
unknown dating, shows how Muhammad (called Ozim, from Hashim) was tricked
by Satan into adulterating an originally pure divine revelation. The story argues
God was concerned about the spiritual fate of the Arabs and wanted to correct
their deviation from the faith. He then sends an angel to the monk Osius who
orders him to preach to the Arabs. Osius however is in ill-health and orders a
young monk, Ozim, to carry out the angel's orders instead. Ozim sets out to
follow his orders, but gets stopped by an evil angel on the way. The ignorant
Ozim believes him to be the same angel that spoke to Osius before. The evil angel
modifies and corrupts the original message given to Ozim by Osius, and renames
Ozim Muhammad. From this followed the erroneous teachings of Islam,
according to the Tultusceptrum.[31]

According to many Christians, the coming of Muhammad was foretold in the
Holy Bible. According to the monk Bede this is in Genesis 16:12, which describes
Ishmael as "a wild man" whose "hand will be against every man". Bede says
about Muhammad: "Now how great is his hand against all and all hands against
him; as they impose his authority upon the whole length of Africa and hold both
the greater part of Asia and some of Europe, hating and opposing all."[32]

In 1391 a dialogue was believed to have occurred between Byzantine Emperor
Manuel II Palaiologos and a Persian scholar in which the Emperor stated:

dialogue was believed to have occurred between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II
Palaiologos and a Persian scholar in which the Emperor stated:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only
evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith
is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability
to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a
reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other
means of threatening a person with death.[33]

In Of the Standard of Taste, an essay by David Hume, the Quran is described as an

"absurd performance" of a "pretended prophet" who lacked "a just sentiment of morals."
Attending to the narration, Hume says, "we shall soon find, that [Muhammad] bestows
praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly
incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to;
and every action is blamed or praised, so far as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true
believers."[34]

Nineteenth and twentieth century

During the 19th and 20th centuries, numerous personalities criticized Muslims and Islam.
The Hindu philosopher Vivekananda commented on Islam:

Now, the Muslims are the crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watch-
word is: there is one God (Allah), and Mohammed is His Prophet. Everything beyond
that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith, at a moment’s notice, every man or
woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that does not
belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that teaches anything
else must be burnt. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for five hundred years blood ran all
over the world. That is Mohammedanism.[35]
The more selfish a man, the more immoral he is. And so also with the race. That race
which is bound down to itself has been the most cruel and the most wicked in the whole
world. There has not been a religion that has clung to this dualism more than that founded
by the Prophet of Arabia, and there has not been a religion, which has shed so much
blood and been so cruel to other men. In the Koran there is the doctrine that a man who
does not believe these teachings should be killed, it is a mercy to kill him! And the surest
way to get to heaven, where there are beautiful houris and all sorts of sense enjoyments,
is by killing these unbelievers. Think of the bloodshed there has been in consequence of
such beliefs! [36]
Why religions should claim that they are not bound to abide by the standpoint of reason,
no one knows. If one does not take the standard of reason, there cannot be any true
judgment, even in the case of religions. One religion may ordain something very hideous.
For instance, the Mohammedan religion allows Mohammedans to kill all who are not of
their religion. It is clearly stated in the Koran, Kill the infidels if they do not become
Mohammedans. They must be put to fire and sword. Now if we tell a Mohammedan that
this is wrong, he will naturally ask, "How do you know that? How do you know it is not
good? My book says it is." [37]

Dayanand Saraswati calls the concept of Islam to be highly offensive, and doubted that
there is any connection of Islam with God:

Had the God of the Quran been the Lord of all creatures, and been Merciful and kind to
all, he would never have commanded the Mohammedans to slaughter men of other faiths,
and animals, etc. If he is Merciful, will he show mercy even to the sinners? If the answer
be given in the affirmative, it cannot be true, because further on it is said in the Quran
"Put infidels to sword," in other words, he that does not believe in the Quran and the
Prophet Mohammad is an infidel (he should, therefore, be put to death). (Since the Quran
sanctions such cruelty to non-Mohammedans and innocent creatures such as cows) it can
never be the Word of God.[38]

Pandit Lekh Ram regarded that Islam was grown through the violence and desire for
wealth. He further asserted that Muslims deny the entire Islamic prescribed violence and
atrocities, and will continue doing so. He wrote:-

All educated people start looking down upon the forcible conversions and even started
objecting to their very basis. Since then some naturalist Mohammadis[Muslims] are
trying, rather opposing falsehood and accepting the truth, to prove unnecessarily and
wrongly that Islam never indulged in Jihad and the people were never converted to Islam
forcibly. Neither any temples were demolished nor were ever cows slaughtered in the
temples. Women and children belonging to other religious sects were never forcibly
converted to Islam nor did they ever commit any sexual acts with them as could have
been done with the slave-males and females both.[39]

The Victorian orientalist scholar Sir William Muir criticised Islam for what he perceived
to be an inflexible nature, which he held responsible for stifling progress and impeding
social advancement in Muslims countries. The following sentences are taken from the
Rede Lecture he delivered at Cambridge in 1881:

Some, indeed, dream of an Islam in the future, rationalised and regenerate. All this has
been tried already, and has miserably failed. The Koran has so encrusted the religion in a
hard unyielding casement of ordinances and social laws, that if the shell be broken the
life is gone. A rationalistic Islam would be Islam no longer. The contrast between our own
faith and Islam is most remarkable. There are in our Scriptures living germs of truth,
which accord with civil and religious liberty, and will expand with advancing civilisation.
In Islam it is just the reverse. The Koran has no such teaching as with us has abolished
polygamy, slavery, and arbitrary divorce, and has elevated woman to her proper place. As
a Reformer, Mahomet did advance his people to a certain point, but as a Prophet he left
them fixed immovably at that point for all time to come. The tree is of artificial planting.
Instead of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to the various
requirements of time and clime and circumstance, expanding with the genial sunshine
and rain from heaven, it remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted
some twelve centuries ago."[40]

Winston Churchill criticized what he alleged to be the effects Islam had on its believers,
which he described as fanatical frenzy combined with fatalistic apathy, enslavement of
women, and militant proselytizing.[41] In his 1899 book The River War he says:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the
fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this
fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits,
slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of
property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism
deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact
that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute
property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of
slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands
become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of
the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger
retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a
militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising
fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong
arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of
modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.[41]
According to historian Warren Dockter, Churchill wrote this during a time of a
fundamentalist revolt in Sudan and this statement does not reflect his full view of Islam,
which were "often paradoxical and complex." He could be critical but at times
"romanticized" the Islamic world; he exhibited great "respect, understanding and
magnanimity."[42][43] Churchill had a fascination of Islam and Islamic civilization.[43]
Winston Churchill's future sister-in-law expressed concerns about his fascination by
stating, "[p]lease don't become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a
tendency to orientalism." According to historian Warren Dockter, however, he "never
seriously considered converting".[44][45][46] Churchill had a "limited understanding of
Islam." He primarily admired its martial aspects, the "Ottoman Empire’s history of
territorial expansion and military acumen," to the extend that in 1897 he wished to fight
for the Ottoman Empire. According to Dockter, this was largely for his "lust for glory".[46]
Churchill also believed that Islam and Christianity should be viewed as equals.[47][43]

James Fitzjames Stephen, describing what he understood to be the Islamic conception of

the ideal society, wrote the following:

Not only are the varieties of morality innumerable, but some of them are conflicting with
each other. If a Mahommedan, for instance, is fully to realize his ideal, to carry out into
actual fact his experiment of living, he must be one of a ruling race which has trodden the
enemies of Islam under their feet, and has forced them to choose between the tribute and
the sword. He must be able to put in force the law of the Koran both as to the faithful and
as to unbelievers. In short, he must conquer. Englishmen come into a country where
Mahommedans had more or less realized their ideal, and proceed to govern it with the
most unfeigned belief in the order of ideas of which liberty is the motto.[48]

Zoroastrian writer Sadegh Hedayat regarded Islam as the corrupter of Iran, he said:

Every aspect of life and thought, including women's condition, changed after Islam.
Enslaved by men, women were confined to the home. Polygamy, injection of fatalistic
attitude, mourning, sorrow and grief led people to seek solace in magic, witchcraft,
prayer, and supernatural beings.[49]

The church historian, Philip Schaff described Islam as spread by violence and fanaticism,
and producing a variety of social ills in the regions it conquered.[50]

Mohammedanism conquered the fairest portions of the earth by the sword and cursed
them by polygamy, slavery, despotism and desolation. The moving power of Christian
missions was love to God and man; the moving power of Islâm was fanaticism and brute
force.[50]

Schaff also described Islam as a derivative religion based on an amalgamation of

"heathenism, Judaism and Christianity."[51]
lslâm is not a new religion...[i]t is a compound or mosaic of preëxisting elements, a rude
attempt to combine heathenism, Judaism and Christianity, which Mohammed found in
Arabia, but in a very imperfect form.[51]

J. M. Neale criticized Islam in terms similar to those of Schaff, arguing that it was made
up of a mixture of beliefs that provided something for everyone.[52]

...he [Muhammad] also infuses into his religion so much of each of those tenets to which
the varying sects of his countrymen were addicted, as to enable each and all to please
themselves by the belief that the new doctrine was only a reform of, and improvement on,
that to which they had been accustomed. The Christians were conciliated by the
acknowledgment of our LORD as the Greatest of Prophets; the Jews, by the respectful
mention of Moses and their other Lawgivers; the idolaters, by the veneration which the
Impostor professed for the Temple of Mecca, and the black stone which it contained; and
the Chaldeans, by the pre-eminence which he gives to the ministrations of the Angel
Gabriel, and his whole scheme of the Seven Heavens. To a people devoted to the
gratification of their passions and addicted to Oriental luxury, he appealed, not
unsuccessfully, by the promise of a Paradise whose sensual delights were unbounded, and
the permission of a free exercise of pleasures in this world.[52]

Mahatma Gandhi, the moral leader of the 20th century Indian independence movement,
found the history of Muslims to be aggressive, while he pointed out that Hindus have
passed that stage of societal evolution:-

Though, in my opinion, non violence has a predominant place in the Quran, the thirteen
hundred years of imperialistic expansion has made the Muslims fighters as a body. They
are therefore aggressive. Bullying is the natural excrescence of an aggressive spirit. The
Hindu has an ages old civilization. He is essentially non violent. His civilization has
passed through the experiences that the two recent ones are still passing through. If
Hinduism was ever imperialistic in the modern sense of the term, it has outlived its
imperialism and has either deliberately or as a matter of course given it up. Predominance
of the non violent spirit has restricted the use of arms to a small minority which must
always be subordinate to a civil power highly spiritual, learned and selfless. The Hindus
as a body are therefore not equipped for fighting. But not having retained their spiritual
training, they have forgotten the use of an effective substitute for arms and not knowing
their use nor having an aptitude for them, they have become docile to the point of
timidity and cowardice. This vice is therefore a natural excrescence of gentleness.[53][54]

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, in his book "Discovery of India",
describes Islam to have been a faith for military conquests. He wrote "Islam had become
a more rigid faith suited more to military conquests rather than the conquests of the
mind," and that Muslims brought nothing new to his country.

The Muslims who came to India from outside brought no new technique or political or
economic structure. In spite of religious belief in the brotherhood of Islam, they were
class bound and feudal in outlook.[55]
Modern world

André Servier, a historian who lived in French Algeria at the beginning of the 20th
century, studied the customs and manners of the North African people. He became one of
the few French intellectuals to study the Sira of Ibn Ishaq in depth, and his research
included the Ottoman Empire and the Panislamic movement. He criticized Islam in his
book L’islam et la psychologie du musulman saying that:

Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous
brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was - and it remains - incapable of adapting
itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards
progress and checked the evolution of society.[56]
Islam is Christianity adapted to Arab mentality, or, more exactly, it is all that the
unimaginative brain of a Bedouin, obstinately faithful to ancestral practices, has been
able to assimilate of the Christian doctrines. Lacking the gift of imagination, the Bedouin
copies, and in copying he distorts the original. Thus Musulman law is only the Roman
Code revised and corrected by Arabs; in the same way Musulman science is nothing but
Greek science interpreted by the Arab brain; and again, Musulman architecture is merely
a distorted imitation of the Byzantine style.[56]
The deadening influence of Islam is well demonstrated by the way in which the
Musulman comports himself at different stages of his life. In his early childhood, when
the religion has not as yet impregnated his brain, he shows a very lively intelligence and
remarkably open mind, accessible to ideas of every kind; but, in proportion as he grows
up, and as, through the system of his education, Islam lays hold of him and envelops him,
his brain seems to shut up, his judgment to become atrophied, and his intelligence to be
stricken by paralysis and irremediable degeneration.[56]
Islam is by no means a negligible element in the destiny of humanity. The mass of three
hundred million believers is growing daily, because in most Musulman countries the
birth-rate exceeds the death-rate, and also because the religious propaganda is constantly
gaining new adherents among tribes still in a state of barbarism.[56]
To sum up: the Arab has borrowed everything from other nations, literature, art, science,
and even his religious ideas. He has passed it all through the sieve of his own narrow
mind, and being incapable of rising to high philosophic conceptions, he has distorted,
mutilated and desiccated everything. This destructive influence explains the decadence of
Musulman nations and their powerlessness to break away from barbarism…[56]
Islam is a doctrine of death, inasmuch as the spiritual not being separated from the
temporal, and every manifestation of activity being subjected to dogmatic law, it formally
forbids any change, any evolution, any progress. It condemns all believers to live, to
think, and to act as lived, thought and acted the Musulmans of the second century of the
Hegira [8th century A.D.], when the law of Islam and its interpretation were definitely
fixed.
...
In the history of the nations, Islam, a secretion of the Arab brain, has never been an
element of civilization, but on the contrary has acted as an extinguisher upon its
flickering light. Individuals under Arab rule have only been able to contribute to the
advance of civilization in so far as they did not conform to the Musulman dogma, but
they relapsed into Arab barbarism as soon as they were obliged to make a complete
submission to these dogmas.
...
Islamized nations, who have not succeeded in freeing themselves from Musulman
tutelage, have been stricken with intellectual paralysis and decadence. They will only
escape as they succeed in withdrawing themselves from the control of Musulman law.[56]

Modern Christianity

The early 20th-century missionary James L. Barton argued that Islam's view of the
sovereignty of God is so extreme and unbalanced as to produce a fatalism that stifles
human initiative:[57]

Man is reduced to a cipher. Human agency and human freedom are nullified. Right is no
longer right because it is right, but because Allah wills it to be right. It is for this reason
that monotheism has in Islam stifled human effort and progress. It has become a
deadening doctrine of fate. Man must believe and pray, but these do not insure salvation
or any benefit except Allah wills it. Why should human effort strive by sanitary means to
prevent disease, when death or life depends in no way on such measures but upon the will
of Allah? One reason why Moslem countries are so stagnant and backward in all that
goes to make up a high civilization is owing to the deadening effects of monotheism thus
interpreted. ... even in the most extreme forms of the Augustinian and Calvinistic systems
there were always present in Christianity other elements which prevented the conception
of the divine sovereignty from paralyzing the healthy activities of life as the
Mohammedan doctrine has done.[57]

G. K. Chesterton criticized Islam as a derivative from Christianity. He described it as a

heresy or parody of Christianity. In The Everlasting Man he says:

Islam was a product of Christianity; even if it was a by-product; even if it was a bad
product. It was a heresy or parody emulating and therefore imitating the Church...Islam,
historically speaking, is the greatest of the Eastern heresies. It owed something to the
quite isolated and unique individuality of Israel; but it owed more to Byzantium and the
theological enthusiasm of Christendom. It owed something even to the Crusades.[58]

During a lecture given at the University of Regensburg in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI
quoted an unfavorable remark about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Manuel
II Palaiologos, the Byzantine emperor:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only
evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.[59]
[60]

As the English translation of the Pope's lecture was disseminated across the world, many
Islamic politicians and religious leaders protested against what they saw as an insulting
mischaracterization of Islam.[59][60] Mass street protests were mounted in many Islamic
countries, the Majlis-e-Shoora (Pakistani parliament) unanimously called on the Pope to
retract "this objectionable statement".[61]

Modern Hinduism

Nobel prize-winning novelist V. S. Naipaul stated that Islam requires its adherents to
destroy everything which is not related to it. He described it as having a:

Calamitous effect on converted peoples, to be converted you have to destroy your past,
destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does
not exist, it doesn't matter'.[62]

Modern African traditional

Nobel prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka stated that Islam had a role in denigrating
African spiritual traditions. He criticized attempts to whitewash what he sees as the
destructive and coercive history of Islam on the continent:

Let those who wish to retain or evaluate religion as a twenty-first project feel free to do
so, but let it not be done as a continuation of the game of denigration against the African
spiritual heritage as in a recent television series perpetrated by Islam's born again
revisionist of history, Professor Ali Mazrui.[63]

Soyinka also regarded Islam as "superstition", and said that it does not belong to Africa.
He stated that it is mainly spread with violence and force.[64]

Truthfulness of Islam and Islamic scriptures

Reliability of the Quran

According to traditional Islamic scholarship, all of the Quran was written down by
Muhammad's companions while he was alive (during AD 610-632), but it was primarily
an orally related document. The written compilation of the whole Qur'an in its definite
form as we have it now was not completed until many years after the death of
Muhammad.[65] John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone and Yehuda D. Nevo argue that all the
primary sources which exist are from 150–300 years after the events which they describe,
and thus are chronologically far removed from those events.[66][67][68]

Critics reject the idea that the Quran is miraculously perfect and impossible to imitate as
asserted in the Quran itself.[69] The Jewish Encyclopedia, for example, writes: "The
language of the Koran is held by the Mohammedans to be a peerless model of perfection.
Critics, however, argue that peculiarities can be found in the text. For example, critics
note that a sentence in which something is said concerning Allah is sometimes followed
immediately by another in which Allah is the speaker (examples of this are suras xvi. 81,
xxvii. 61, xxxi. 9, and xliii. 10.) Many peculiarities in the positions of words are due to
the necessities of rhyme (lxix. 31, lxxiv. 3), while the use of many rare words and new
forms may be traced to the same cause (comp. especially xix. 8, 9, 11, 16)."[70]

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "The dependence of Mohammed upon his Jewish
teachers or upon what he heard of the Jewish Haggadah and Jewish practices is now
generally conceded."[70] John Wansbrough believes that the Quran is a redaction in part of
other sacred scriptures, in particular the Judaeo-Christian scriptures.[71][72] Herbert Berg
writes that "Despite John Wansbrough's very cautious and careful inclusion of
qualifications such as "conjectural," and "tentative and emphatically provisional", his
work is condemned by some. Some of this negative reaction is undoubtedly due to its
radicalness...Wansbrough's work has been embraced wholeheartedly by few and has been
employed in a piecemeal fashion by many. Many praise his insights and methods, if not
all of his conclusions."[73] Early jurists and theologians of Islam mentioned some Jewish
influence but they also say where it is seen and recognized as such, it is perceived as a
debasement or a dilution of the authentic message. Bernard Lewis describes this as
"something like what in Christian history was called a Judaizing heresy."[74] According to
Moshe Sharon, the story of Muhammad having Jewish teachers is a legend developed in
the 10th century A.D.[75] Philip Schaff described the Quran as having "many passages of
poetic beauty, religious fervor, and wise counsel, but mixed with absurdities, bombast,
unmeaning images, low sensuality."[76]

According to Ibn Warraq, the Iranian rationalist Ali Dashti criticized the Quran on the
basis that for some passages, "the speaker cannot have been God."[77] Warraq gives Surah
Fatihah as an example of a passage which is "clearly addressed to God, in the form of a
prayer."[77] He says that by only adding the word "say" in front of the passage, this
difficulty could have been removed. Furthermore, it is also known that one of the
companions of Muhammad, Ibn Masud, rejected Surah Fatihah as being part of the
Quran; these kind of disagreements are, in fact, common among the companions of
Muhammad who could not decide which surahs were part of the Quran and which not.[77]

Critics argue that:


the Quran contains verses which are difficult to understand or contradictory.[78]

Some accounts of the history of Islam say there were two verses of the Quran that
were allegedly added by Muhammad when he was tricked by Satan (in an
incident known as the "Story of the Cranes", later referred to as the "Satanic
Verses"). These verses were then retracted at angel Gabriel's behest.[79][80]

The author of the Apology of al-Kindy Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (not to be
confused with the famed philosopher al-Kindi) claimed that the narratives in the
Quran were "all jumbled together and intermingled" and that this was "an
evidence that many different hands have been at work therein, and caused
discrepancies, adding or cutting out whatever they liked or disliked".[81]

The companions of Muhammad could not agree on which surahs were part of the
Quran and which not. Two of the most famous companions being Ibn Masud and
Ubay ibn Ka'b.[82]
Reliability of the Hadith

Hadith are Muslim traditions relating to the Sunnah (words and deeds) of Muhammad.
They are drawn from the writings of scholars writing between 844 and 874 CE, more
than 200 years after the death of Mohammed in 632 CE.[83] Within Islam, different
schools and sects have different opinions on the proper selection and use of Hadith. The
four schools of Sunni Islam all consider Hadith second only to the Quran, although they
differ on how much freedom of interpretation should be allowed to legal scholars.[84] Shi'i
scholars disagree with Sunni scholars as to which Hadith should be considered reliable.
The Shi'as accept the Sunnah of Ali and the Imams as authoritative in addition to the
Sunnah of Muhammad, and as a consequence they maintain their own, different,
collections of Hadith.[85]

It has been suggested that there exists around the Hadith three major sources of
corruption: political conflicts, sectarian prejudice, and the desire to translate the
underlying meaning, rather than the original words verbatim.[86]

Muslim critics of the hadith, Quranists, reject the authority of hadith on theological
grounds, pointing to verses in the Quran itself: "Nothing have We omitted from the Book",
[87]
declaring that all necessary instruction can be found within the Quran, without
reference to the Hadith. They claim that following the Hadith has led to people straying
from the original purpose of God's revelation to Muhammad, adherence to the Quran
alone.[88] Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) is often considered the founder of the
modernist movement within Islam, noted for his application of "rational science" to the
Quran and Hadith and his conclusion that the Hadith were not legally binding on
Muslims.[89] His student, Chiragh ‘Ali, went further, suggesting nearly all the Hadith were
fabrications.[89] Ghulam Ahmed Pervez (1903–1985) was a noted critic of the Hadith and
believed that the Quran alone was all that was necessary to discern God's will and our
obligations. A fatwa, ruling, signed by more than a thousand orthodox clerics, denounced
him as a 'kafir', a non-believer.[90] His seminal work, Maqam-e Hadith argued that the
Hadith were composed of "the garbled words of previous centuries", but suggests that he
is not against the idea of collected sayings of the Prophet, only that he would consider
any hadith that goes against the teachings of Quran to have been falsely attributed to the
Prophet.[91] The 1986 Malaysian book "Hadith: A Re-evaluation" by Kassim Ahmad was
met with controversy and some scholars declared him an apostate from Islam for
suggesting that "“the hadith are sectarian, anti-science, anti-reason and anti-women."[89][92]

John Esposito notes that "Modern Western scholarship has seriously questioned the
historicity and authenticity of the hadith", maintaining that "the bulk of traditions
attributed to the Prophet Muhammad were actually written much later." He mentions
Joseph Schacht, considered the father of the revisionist movement, as one scholar who
argues this, claiming that Schacht "found no evidence of legal traditions before 722,"
from which Schacht concluded that "the Sunna of the Prophet is not the words and deeds
of the Prophet, but apocryphal material" dating from later.[93] Other scholars, however,
such as Wilferd Madelung, have argued that "wholesale rejection as late fiction is
unjustified".[94]

Orthodox Muslims do not deny the existence of false hadith, but believe that through the
scholars' work, these false hadith have been largely eliminated.[95]

Lack of secondary evidence

The traditional view of Islam has also been criticised for the lack of supporting evidence
consistent with that view, such as the lack of archaeological evidence, and discrepancies
with non-Muslim literary sources.[96] In the 1970s, what has been described as a "wave of
sceptical scholars" challenged a great deal of the received wisdom in Islamic studies.[97]:23
They argued that the Islamic historical tradition had been greatly corrupted in
transmission. They tried to correct or reconstruct the early history of Islam from other,
presumably more reliable, sources such as coins, inscriptions, and non-Islamic sources.
The oldest of this group was John Wansbrough (1928–2002). Wansbrough's works were
widely noted, but perhaps not widely read.[97]:38 In 1972 a cache of ancient Qur'ans in a
mosque in Sana'a, Yemen was discovered – commonly known as the Sana'a manuscripts.
The German scholar Gerd R. Puin has been investigating these Quran fragments for
years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which
he dated to early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work,
but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of
orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsests which had
been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.[98]

Criticism of Muhammad

Muhammad is considered as one of the prophets in Islam a model for followers. Critics
such as Sigismund Koelle and former Muslim Ibn Warraq see some of Mohammed's
actions as immoral.[4][6]

Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf wrote a poetic eulogy commemorating the slain Quraish notables;
later, he had traveled to Mecca and provoked the Quraish to fight Muhammad. He also
wrote erotic poetry about Muslim women, which offended the Muslims there.[99] This
poetry influenced so many[100] that this too was considered directly against the
Constitution of Medina which states, loyalty gives protection against treachery and this
document will not (be employed to) protect one who is unjust or commits a crime. Other
sources also state that he was plotting to assassinate Muhammad.[101] Muhammad called
upon his followers to kill Ka'b. Muhammad ibn Maslama offered his services, collecting
four others. By pretending to have turned against Muhammad, Muhammad ibn Maslama
and the others enticed Ka'b out of his fortress on a moonlit night,[99] and killed him in
spite of his vigorous resistance.[102] The Jews were terrified at his assassination, and as the
historian Ibn Ishaq put it "...there was not a Jew who did not fear for his life".[103]
Age of Muhammad's wife Aisha

According to scriptural Sunni's Hadith sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when
she was married to Muhammad and nine when the marriage was consummated.[104][105][106]
[107][108][109]

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, born in Persia 200 years after Muhammmad's death,
suggested that she was ten years old.[107] Six hundred years after Muhammad, Ibn
Khallikan recorded that she was nine years old at marriage, and twelve at consummation.
Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi, born about 150 years after Muhammad's death, cited Hisham ibn
Urwah as saying that she was nine years old at marriage, and twelve at consummation,[110]
but Hisham ibn Urwah's original source is otherwise unknown, and Ibn Sa'd al-
Baghdadi's work does not have the high religious status of the Hadith.

In the twentieth century, Pakistani writer Muhammad Ali challenged the Hadith showing
that Aisha was as young as the traditional sources claim; arguing that instead a new
interpretation of the Hadith compiled by Mishkat al-Masabih, Wali-ud-Din Muhammad
ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib, could indicate that Aisha would have been nineteen years old
around the time of her marriage.[111]

Colin Turner, a UK professor of Islamic studies,[112] states that since such marriages
between an older man and a young girl were customary among the Bedouins,
Muhammad's marriage would not have been considered improper by his contemporaries.
[113]
Karen Armstrong, the British author on comparative religion, has affirmed that
"There was no impropriety in Muhammad's marriage to Aisha. Marriages conducted in
absentia to seal an alliance were often contracted at this time between adults and minors
who were even younger than Aisha."[114] Critics[citation needed] have suggested that Muslim
acceptance of child rape as long as it is not considered an "impropriety" are
representative of the flaws in Islam in general.

According to some critics, the morality of the Quran appears to be a moral regression
when judged by the standards of the moral traditions of Judaism and Christianity it says
that it builds upon. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, states that "the ethics of
Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New
Testament" and "that in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve,
is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is none."[115]

Critics stated that the Quran[Quran 4:34] allows Muslim men to discipline their wives
by striking them.[116] (There is however confusion amongst translations of Quran
with the original Arabic term "wadribuhunna" being translated as "to go away
from them",[117] "beat",[118] "strike lightly" and "separate".[119] The film Submission,
which rose to fame after the murder of its director Theo van Gogh, critiqued this
and similar verses of the Quran by displaying them painted on the bodies of
abused Muslim women.[120] Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the film's writer, said "it is written in
 the Koran a woman may be slapped if she is disobedient. This is one of the evils I
wish to point out in the film".[121]

Some critics argue that the Quran is incompatible with other religious scriptures
as it attacks and advocates hate against people of other religions.[7][122][123][124] For
instance, Sam Harris interprets certain verses of the Quran as sanctioning military
action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and
after. The Quran said "Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day
and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made
unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given
the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are
humbled."[Surah 9:29][125] In The End of Faith Harris argues that Muslim
extremism is simply a consequence of taking the Qur'an literally, and is skeptical
that moderate Islam is possible.[126] Various calls to arms were identified in the
Quran by US citizen Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, all of which were cited as
"most relevant to my actions on March 3, 2006" (9:44, 9:19, 57:10-11, 8:72-73,
9:120, 3:167-175, 4:66, 4:104, 9:81, 9:93-94, 9:100, 16:110, 61:11-12, 47:35).[127]

Max I. Dimont interprets that the Houris described in the Quran are specifically
dedicated to "male pleasure".[128] Henry Martyn claims that the concept of the
Houris was chosen to satisfy Muhammad's followers.[129]

Slavery

Bernard Lewis writes: "In one of the sad paradoxes of human history, it was the
humanitarian reforms brought by Islam that resulted in a vast development of the slave
trade inside, and still more outside, the Islamic empire." He notes that the Islamic
injunctions against the enslavement of Muslims led to massive importation of slaves from
the outside.[130] According to Patrick Manning, Islam by recognizing and codifying the
slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse.[131]

Unlike Western societies which in their opposition to slavery spawned anti-slavery

movements whose numbers and enthusiasm often grew out of church groups, no such
grass-roots organizations ever developed in Muslim societies. In Muslim politics the state
unquestioningly accepted the teachings of Islam and applied them as law. Islam, by
sanctioning slavery, also extended legitimacy to the traffic in slaves.[132]

It was only in the early 20th century (post World War I) that slavery gradually became
outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western
nations such as Britain and France.[133] Gordon describes the lack of homegrown Islamic
abolition movements as owing much to the fact that it was deeply anchored in Islamic
law. By legitimizing slavery and - by extension - traffic in slaves, Islam elevated those
practices to an unassailable moral plane. As a result, in no part of the Muslim world was
an ideological challenge ever mounted against slavery. The political and social system in
Muslim society would have taken a dim view of such a challenge.[134] Some Muslim
leaders, like Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah did ban slavery, but they had little
influence in the Islamic world.[135]

The issue of slavery in the Islamic world in modern times is controversial. Critics argue
there is hard evidence of its existence and destructive effects. Others maintain slavery in
central Islamic lands has been virtually extinct since mid-twentieth century, and that
reports from Sudan and Somalia showing practice of slavery is in border areas as a result
of continuing war[136] and not Islamic belief. In recent years, according to some scholars,
[137]
there has been a "worrying trend" of "reopening" of the issue of slavery by some
conservative Salafi Islamic scholars after its "closing" earlier in the 20th century when
Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the practice
"inconsistent with Qur'anic morality."[138][139]

Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri of Karbala expressed the view in 1993 that the enforcement of
servitude can occur but is restricted to war captives and those born of slaves.[140] Dr.
Abdul-Latif Mushtahari, the general supervisor and director of homiletics and guidance at
the Azhar University, has said on the subject of justifications for Islamic permission of
slavery:[141]

"Islam does not prohibit slavery but retains it for two reasons. The first reason is war
(whether it is a civil war or a foreign war in which the captive is either killed or enslaved)
provided that the war is not between Muslims against each other - it is not acceptable to
enslave the violators, or the offenders, if they are Muslims. Only non-Muslim captives
may be enslaved or killed. The second reason is the sexual propagation of slaves which
would generate more slaves for their owner."

In a 2014 issue of their digital magazine Dabiq, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
explicitly claimed religious justification for enslaving Yazidi women.[142][143][144][145][146]

Apostasy

According to Islamic law apostasy is identified by a list of actions such as conversion to

another religion, denying the existence of God, rejecting the prophets, mocking God or
the prophets, idol worship, rejecting the sharia, or permitting behavior that is forbidden
by the sharia, such as adultery or the eating of forbidden foods or drinking of alcoholic
beverages.[147][148] The majority of Muslim scholars hold to the traditional view that
apostasy is punishable by death or imprisonment until repentance, at least for adult men
of sound mind.[149][150][151]

Laws prohibiting religious conversion run contrary to Article 18 of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."[152]
The English historian C. E. Bosworth suggests the traditional view of apostasy hampered
the development of Islamic learning, arguing that while the organizational form of the
Christian university allowed them to develop and flourish into the modern university, "the
Muslim ones remained constricted by the doctrine of waqf alone, with their physical plant
often deteriorating hopelessly and their curricula narrowed by the exclusion of the non-
traditional religious sciences like philosophy and natural science," out of fear that these
could evolve into potential toe-holds for kufr, those people who reject God."[153]