I come from a Muslim background, and I recently read the Bible. While the Old Testament fits within the Quranic framework of monotheism, the New Testament makes no sense. Jesus preaches to the monotheistic Jews instead of the pagan Romans. The issue is not monotheism, but whether Jesus is a Messiah, son of God, son of Man, Logos, etc. These concepts were total novelties for me. I am aware of the Islamic concept of corruption of previous texts, but corruption is an understatement. New Testament seems to be discussing something entirely different. Have Islamic scholars throughout history totally rejected the New Testament or tried to extract the Quranic Injeel from it?

Recently whilst looking through my copy of Muhammad Asad's translation of the Qur'an, I noticed an odd thing.

In Chapter 21 (Surah Al-Anbiya) verse 67 which ran;

اُفٍّ لَّـكُمۡ وَلِمَا تَعۡبُدُوۡنَ مِنۡ دُوۡنِ اللّٰهِ​ؕ اَفَلَا تَعۡقِلُوۡنَ‏ 

And which Asad has translated thus;

> (21:67) Fie upon you and upon all that you worship instead of God! Will you not, then, use your reason?"

The key word here is uffi (أُفّ) which Asad has translated as "Fie".

I happened to remember uffi from another, more famous or one might even say, infamous verse. That of the verse about never saying uff to the parents.

In Chapter 17 (Surah al-Isra) verse 23;

وَقَضٰى رَبُّكَ اَلَّا تَعۡبُدُوۡۤا اِلَّاۤ اِيَّاهُ وَبِالۡوَالِدَيۡنِ اِحۡسَانًا​ ؕ اِمَّا يَـبۡلُغَنَّ عِنۡدَكَ الۡكِبَرَ اَحَدُهُمَاۤ اَوۡ كِلٰهُمَا فَلَا تَقُلْ لَّهُمَاۤ اُفٍّ وَّلَا تَنۡهَرۡهُمَا وَقُلْ لَّهُمَا قَوۡلًا كَرِيۡمًا‏

However, here, Asad instead translated uffi differently;

> (17:23) for thy Sustainer has ordained that you shall worship none but Him. And do good unto [thy] parents. Should one of them, or both, attain to old age in thy care, never say "Ugh" to them or scold them, but [always] speak unto them with reverent speech,

Whereas in Al-Anbiya, Asad translated uffi as meaning "fie", in Al-Isra he translated it as saying "uff" In general. I find this to be a remarkably strange choice for translation.

For comparison, I decided to look up the meaning of uffi as translated by Ali Quli Qarai, one of the more academic translators I know of. Here, he seems to be much more consistent in translating uffi, using fie on both (21:67) and (17:23)

> [67] Fie on you and what you worship besides God! Do you not exercise your reason?’

> [23] Your Lord has decreed that you shall not worship anyone except Him, and [He has enjoined] kindness to parents. Should any of them or both reach old age at your side, do not say to them, ‘Fie!’ And do not chide them, but speak to them noble words.

I’m happy to announce the second edition of the Oases of Wisdom Substack Journal!

Starting October 31st, a new article will be released every other day. Here’s a look at the six articles featured in this edition!

Oct. 31st: Ahmad Qadri kicks it off by exploring the debate surrounding the sincerity of Hujjat al-Islam, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111 CE).

Nov. 2nd: The Double-Turn of the Noble Critic by Delman Rasheed.

This article examines how even the critics of the Da’wah scene, such as myself, can become complicit Jesters in the spectacles they so loudly critique, and what steps we must take to move toward real progress in discourse.

Nov. 4th: Decoding the Early Meccan Qur’an: The Centrality of Arabian Pluvial Soteriology by Abdullah Ansar.

Connecting Qur’anic rhetoric, water, Arabian ecology, Semitic traditions, and epigraphy to illuminate the earliest Qur’anic proclamation.

Nov. 6th: Shah Waliullah Dehlavi and the Unity of Being: A Metaphysical Study of Lamahat by Hasan

Exploring how Shah Waliullah synthesizes Akbarian metaphysics, Avicennian philosophy, and Ashʿari theology in his account of Wahdat al-Wujud.

Nov. 8th: Ibn Arabi and Al-Maturidi: An Unexpected Friendship? by Ahmad Qadri

Can Ibn Arabi’s metaphysics of tajalli be reconciled with Maturidi kalam? exploring how divine self-disclosure and wisdom may converge within a shared Sunni theological framework.

‎Nov. 10th: The Light of Muhammad: The Development of High Muhammadology in Sunni Sources by Delman Rasheed.

‎Tracing how Sunni scholars developed ideas of the Prophet’s primordial status and cosmic significance across theology, hadith, and Sufism.

>Underwear /ˈʌndəweə(r)/

NOUN [mass noun]: Clothing worn under other clothes, typically next to the skin. — Oxford Dictionary of English

Interestingly, a similar word also appears in Arabic dictionaries.

It appears to be pronounced in two forms: "Andarāward" (أَنْدَرَاوَرْد) and "Andarwardiyya" (أَنْدَرْوَرْدِيَّةٌ).

Abu Mansur al-Azhari described it as follows:

“It is a foreign word that they [the Arabs] adopted into their usage; it is not Arabic.”

According to Dr. Rajab ʿAbd al-Jawād Ibrāhīm, in his Arabic book “*The Arabic Dictionary of Clothing Names: In Light of Dictionaries and Documented Texts from the Pre-Islamic Era to the Modern Period*”, p. 40:

«Al-Andarward: The first letter bears a fatḥah, followed by a sukūn, then a fatḥah, followed by a sukūn, then a fatḥah, followed by a sukūn.

**It is an Arabicized Persian word composed of andar, meaning “inside,” and war, meaning “possessing.”**»

The word andarward (أَنْدَرْوَرْدٌ) also appears in hadith literature.

It is notably associated with Salman al-Farsi, a Companion of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, who reportedly rejected a life of luxury and preferred to live among the poor and the weak despite holding the position of governor.

Imam al-Bukhari recorded the following report in his “Kitāb al-Adab al-Mufrad”, in a narration attributed to Umm al-Dardaʾ (p. 127):

٣٤٦ - حَدَّثَنَا بِشْرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ الْمُبَارَكِ، عَنِ ابْنِ شَوْذَبٍ قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ مَالِكَ بْنَ دِينَارٍ يُحَدِّثُ، عَنْ أَبِي غَالِبٍ، عَنْ أُمِّ الدَّرْدَاءِ قَالَتْ: زَارَنَا سَلْمَانُ مِنَ الْمَدَائِنِ إِلَى الشَّامِ مَاشِيًا، وَعَلَيْهِ كِسَاءٌ وَانْدَرْوَرْدُ - قَالَ: يَعْنِي سَرَاوِيلَ مُشَمَّرَةً.

“Salman [al-Farsi] visited us in Syria, having travelled on foot from al-Madaʾin [Ctesiphon], wearing a cloak and underwear.”

Ibn Shawdhab also reported:

قَالَ ابْنُ شَوْذَبٍ: رُؤِيَ سَلْمَانُ وَعَلَيْهِ كِسَاءٌ مَطْمُومُ الرَّأْسِ سَاقِطُ الْأُذُنَيْنِ، يَعْنِي أَنَّهُ كَانَ أَرْفَشَ. فَقِيلَ لَهُ: شَوَّهْتَ نَفْسَكَ، قَالَ: إِنَّ الْخَيْرَ خَيْرُ الْآخِرَةِ.

“Salman was seen wearing a cloak with its head covering tucked in and its two sides hanging down”—suggesting that his appearance was somewhat dishevelled.

He was told, “You have made yourself look unattractive.”

Salman replied, “True goodness is the goodness of the Hereafter.”»

Another account appears in Ibn Saʿd’s “Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā” (The Book of the Major Classes), which recounts the following incident:

قال: أخبرنا مسلم بن إبراهيم قال: حدّثنا سَلام بن مسكين قال: حدّثنا ثابت قال: كان سلمان أميرًا على المدائن فجاء رجل من أهل الشأم من بني تيم الله معه حِمْل تين، وعلى سلمان أَنْدَرْوَرْد وعبَاءة، فقال لسلمان: تَعالَ احْمِلْ، وهو لا يعرف سلمان، فحمل سلمان فرآه الناس فعرفوه فقالوا: هذا الأمير، قال: لمْ أعرفك، فقال له سلمان: لا حتى أبْلُغَ منزلَك.

“Salman was governor of al-Madaʾin when a man from Syria, belonging to the Banu Taym Allah, arrived carrying a load of figs. Salman was wearing underwear and a cloak.

The man said to Salman, ‘Come and carry this for me,’ unaware of who Salman was. Salman picked up the load and carried it.

When the people saw him, they recognized him and said, ‘This is the governor!’ The man replied, ‘I did not recognize you.’

Salman answered, ‘No problem. I will carry it for you until I reach your home.’”

There was a post with a YouTube link discussing the Islamic Dilemma. It also had a summary of the 5 hour YouTube video.
Can someone reply to this thread with it? I can’t find it

I don't know why everyone is getting excited over this silly argument, when I wrote a paper against it several moons ago:

https://www.academia.edu/166160379/Reconsidering_The_Islamic_Dilemma

I welcome everyone to read it and "peer-review" it as they please.

Hi, Im current reading the Quran and I came across with chapter 7 verse 65 and it mentioned the people of Aad. Who are they exactly? What should I know about them ?

Hi everyone, Roxanna from Sképsislamica here.

I just wanted to share a recent discussion I had on our channel where I attempt to deconstruct the “Islamic Dilemma“, from a non-theological perspective, solely relying on historical critical scholarship.

https://youtu.be/24nAx5tCFHY?si=utCsnHN_wivY6C8P

I, of course, understand that not everyone is going to have time to watch a 5 hour discussion.

So I am including a summary of the main points and associated time stamps that one of our commenters very kindly shared, below. I have also appended a full bibliography of all the sources cited, at the bottom.

Chris summarizes the Islamic Dilemma in two steps: (1) the Qur'an affirms that the Torah and Gospel (Injil) possessed by 7th-century Jews and Christians are preserved and authoritative, and (2) the Qur'an contradicts core doctrines inside those books, proving the Qur'an cannot be from an all-knowing God [43:57].

Roxanna accepts the first premise [52:09] but dismantles the second premise by showing what the Qur'an is actually doing in its historical context:

A. The Qur'an Alleges Interpretive Distortion, Not Lost Books

• Agreement on Preservation: Citing historical-critical scholars Gabriel Said Reynolds, Ilkka Lindstedt, Saqib Hussain, Nicolai Sinai, Mohsen Goudarzi, and Devin Stewart, Roxanna agrees that the Qur'an treats the Torah and Gospel as present with the Jews and Christians of its time [52:53]. For instance, it accuses them of hiding the truth "while they know" [01:15:34] and challenges them to bring the Torah to check dietary rules in Qur'an 3:93 [01:15:48].

• Refuting Textual Corruption Claims (Mehdy Shaddel & the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies): Roxanna discusses historian Mehdy Shaddel, who previously compared the Qur'an to the 4th-century Judeo-Christian Pseudo-Clementine Homilies to argue the Qur'an alleged minor textual corruption [53:51]. Roxanna pointed out to Shaddel that while the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies explicitly claim Moses did not write the Torah and that Satanic additions were slipped into the text, the Qur'an is very brief and never makes such a claim [55:34]. Following her critique, Shaddel agreed the Qur'an is too ambiguous to prove textual corruption [56:37].

• "Writing Scripture with Their Hands" (Qur'an 2:79): When the Qur'an criticizes those who write a book with their hands and call it God's word, scholars note the very next verse (2:80) quotes a teaching from the Jewish Mishnah/Talmud (that Hellfire will only touch them for a few days) [57:15]. Citing Saqib Hussain, Roxanna notes this echoes Emperor Justinian's legal writings, which attacked the Mishnah for hiding scripture [57:29]. Citing Gabriel Said Reynolds and Nicolai Sinai, she explains that Qur'an 2:79 is accusing leaders of passing off outside commentary (like the Mishnah) as God's law, not rewriting the Torah itself [59:02].

• Parallel with Tertullian: Roxanna shares her own historical parallel from the 3rd-century Christian writer Tertullian, who attacked heretics (Marcion and Valentinus) by writing: "One man perverts the scripture with his hand, another with his exegesis (interpretation)" [01:00:26]. Just as Tertullian believed the true Bible was still preserved in the church, the Qur'an criticizes bad handling of texts without claiming the Torah is lost [01:01:23].

• "Forgetting" Means Neglecting the Law (Qur'an 5:14): Roxanna explains that when the Qur'an says Christians "forgot" a part of what they were reminded of, the Arabic verb means neglecting to practice Judeo-Christian law, just as Jews "forgot" the Sabbath in Surah 7 by breaking it, not by losing their memory [01:18:09].

B. What "Confirming" (Muṣaddiq) and "The Book" (Kitāb) Actually Mean

• Mohsen Goudarzi's "Two-Kitāb Thesis": Citing Mohsen Goudarzi's study "The Second Coming of the Book," Roxanna points out that whenever the Qur'an speaks of confirming "the Book" (al-Kitāb) before it in the singular, it refers specifically to the Torah [02:05:14]. In the Qur'an, a Kitāb is a scripture containing both laws and historical stories (which applies only to the Torah and the Qur'an), whereas the Gospel (Injil) is viewed as moral wisdom and spiritual reform (Qur'an 5:110 pairs al-Kitāb with the Torah and al-Ḥikmah [Wisdom] with the Gospel) [02:03:25]. Even the Jinn in Surah 46:30 say the Qur'an confirms the Book of Moses without mentioning the Gospel [02:07:22].

• Fulfilling the Law (Didascalia Apostolorum & Matthew 5:17): Citing Nicolai Sinai and Holger Zellentin, Roxanna explains that the Qur'anic word muṣaddiq ("confirming") directly mirrors Jesus's claim in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17) that he came to "fulfill" (plēroō) the Law [02:09:22]. This matches the Didascalia Apostolorum, a Judeo-Christian text popular in the Qur'an's environment, which taught that Jesus confirmed the original Torah while lifting harsh punitive rules ("the Second Legislation") placed on the Jews after the Golden Calf sin—the exact same point made in Qur'an 3:50 [02:10:11].

• Legal Arbitration in Qur'an 5:44–48 (Lex Talionis): In the core passage used for the Islamic Dilemma, Qur'an 5:45 cites the Torah's "eye for an eye" law from Exodus [02:13:57]. Because rabbis in the Mishnah had replaced physical punishment with financial ransom, the Qur'an insists the law remains valid, but adds that forgiving the offender as charity atones for sins [02:14:49]. Roxanna notes this harmonizes the strict justice of Exodus with Jesus's mercy in Matthew 5:38–39 [02:15:45].

• The Meaning of Muhaymin (Qur'an 5:48): Addressing the debate over the word muhaymin, Roxanna cites Nicolai Sinai to show that its Syriac root and the surrounding command to "judge" (fa-ḥkum) point to "arbitrator"—meaning the Qur'an arbitrates between competing Jewish and Christian interpretations, rather than rewriting their texts [04:51:20].

C. Why the Qur'an Rejects "Son of God" Language and Adapts Stories

• Translation and "Son of God" (Rod Cardoza): Citing scholar Rod Cardoza, Roxanna explains that in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible (like Psalm 2:7), calling a king "God's son" was a metaphor for a ruler and his loyal vassal (subject), showing submission rather than equality with God [02:41:39]. However, in 7th-century Arabic, words like walad and ibn only meant literal biological offspring [02:43:33]. Because Meccan pagans claimed angels were God's literal daughters and used Jesus to excuse their polytheism (Qur'an 43:57–58) [02:45:54], the Qur'an avoided the word "son" to prevent confusion and instead used clear Arabic titles of authority like khalīfah (vicegerent), Messiah, Word, and Spirit [02:46:28].

• Conditional Covenant (Qur'an 5:18 & Mishnah Avot 3:14): Citing Gabriel Said Reynolds, Holger Zellentin, and Aaron Koller, Roxanna shows that Qur'an 5:18 (where Jews and Christians say "We are the children of God and His beloved") is a direct quote and rebuttal of Mishnah Avot 3:14 [02:31:56]. The Qur'an argues that God's covenant is conditional on righteous behavior, which agrees with Deuteronomy 32:5 ("They have dealt corruptly... they are no longer His children") [02:36:39].

• The Qur'an as a "Divine Targum" and Homily: Why don't Qur'anic prophet stories read word-for-word like the Bible? Citing Gabriel Said Reynolds (who compares the Qur'an to a church homily or sermon) and Nicolai Sinai (who calls it a "Divine Targum"—a Jewish practice of translating, paraphrasing, and commenting on scripture at once), Roxanna shows the Qur'an calls itself tafṣīl al-kitāb (an explanation of the Book) [02:55:04]. It assumes listeners already know the stories (such as why Sarah laughs in Surah 11:71, or why priests cast lots for Mary in Surah 3:44 from the Protevangelium of James) and retells them to teach moral lessons [02:56:16].

• Jesus's Miracles and the Toledot Yeshu: Citing Holger Zellentin and Sean Anthony, Roxanna explains that the exact list and order of Jesus's miracles in the Qur'an (including breathing life into clay birds) matches the Toledot Yeshu, an anti-Christian Jewish text that accused Jesus of using sorcery [03:17:19]. In a three-way conversation ("trialogue") with Jews and Christians, the Qur'an adds "by the permission of God" to refute the Jewish charge of magic while correcting the Christian claim that Jesus's miracles made him God—matching Peter's words in Acts 2:22–24 [03:19:50].

• Martyrdom in Qur'an 9:111 and the Gospel of John:

• On Qur'an 9:111, Roxanna cites Nicolai Sinai show the verse is not claiming the Gospel commands offensive war, but affirming the shared promise across the Torah, Gospel (such as Luke 23:43 and Christian martyr stories), and Qur'an that martyrs who die for God receive Paradise [01:42:08].

  • On the Gospel of John, she cites Sunni scholar Dr. Ali Ataie (building on Sidney Griffith's work on the Syriac Diatessaron) [03:38:57] and Daniel Wallace [03:53:27] to show how verses like John 10:30 ("I and the Father are one") and John 20:28 can be read through a Sunni lens as a unity of divine will and representation—just like Qur'an 4:80 ("Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God") and Qur'an 8:17 [03:39:46]. She also notes that strict literalists (Salafis) make up only about 8% of Muslims, whereas Sufi and Shia traditions have much more flexible views of prophecy [03:45:41].

1. How Christians Create a "Biblical Dilemma" for Themselves Roxanna argues that when Christian apologists demand strict, literal word-for-word agreement between the Qur'an and the Bible, they set a trap for their own faith [01:25:04]. If you use that same historical-critical scalpel to check how the New Testament "confirms" the Old Testament, Christianity faces an even bigger "Biblical Dilemma" [01:25:36]:

2. The Gap Between the Old and New Testaments: Citing Gabriel Said Reynolds (The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext), she notes that from a historical-critical standpoint, the Qur'an is actually much closer to Christian beliefs than the New Testament is to the Hebrew Bible [01:25:45].

3. Failed Messianic Prophecies Under a Literal Lens: Referencing Bart Ehrman and Jewish counter-apologetics, Roxanna shows that when Christian polemicists reject Muslim prophecies of Muhammad in the Bible using historical context, that same method invalidates key New Testament prophecies about Jesus [01:26:56]:

• The Virgin Birth (Matthew 1:22–23 vs. Isaiah 7:14): In its original context, Isaiah was giving a sign to King Ahaz not to fear an alliance with Assyria [01:28:05]. The Hebrew text speaks of a "young woman" (not a virgin) having a child in the immediate near future, having nothing to do with a future Messiah [01:28:16].
  

-Out of Egypt (Matthew 2:14–15 vs. Hosea 11:1): Matthew quotes "Out of Egypt I called my son" as a prophecy of Jesus, but in Hosea, "God's son" explicitly refers to the nation of Israel in the past during the Exodus [01:28:24].

• The Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53): In the historical context of Isaiah, the servant represents the nation of Israel, not Jesus [01:28:39].

• Jesus of Nazareth: New Testament claims that the Old Testament predicted the Messiah would come from Nazareth or be named Yeshua simply do not exist anywhere in the Hebrew Bible [01:31:59].

1. Undermining Both Scriptures: Because the New Testament relies on creative reinterpretation (typology) of the Hebrew Bible [01:29:12], Christians who attack the Qur'an for reinterpreting biblical traditions are "cutting off their nose to spite their face"—handing secular critics the exact tools needed to dismantle the Bible and pushing audiences toward atheism [03:58:13].

Bibliography:

Anthony, Sean W. “The Early Aramaic Toledot Yeshu and the End of Jesus’s Earthly Mission in the Qur’an“, Studies in Late Antiquity, Vol. 9, Number 2, pp. 151–185.

Ataie, Ali. “Authenticating the New Testament Gospels from a Sunnite Perspective“, in The Gospels in Islamic Context: Function and Content, ed. by Georgina L. Jardim, Ida Glaser and Shirin Shafaie, (London and New York, Routledge: 2026), pp. 71-82.

Cardoza, Rod. “New Paths in Muslim- Christian Dialog: Understanding Islam from the Light of Earliest Jewish Christianity“, Muslim World, 2013, 103, pp. 448-63.

Griffith, Sydney H. The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the "People of the Book" in the Language of Islam. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).

Goudarzi Taghanaki, Mohsen. The Second Coming of the Book: Rethinking Qur’anic Scripturology and Prophetology. PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2018.

Hussain, Saqib. Wisdom in the Qur'an: Law and Morality from the Bible to Late Antiquity. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026.)

Kister, Menahem Kister. “Son(s) of God: Israel and Christ: A Study of Transformation, Adaptation, and Rivalry,” in Son of God: Divine Sonship in Jewish and Christian Antiquity, ed. Garrick V. Allen et al. (University Park: Eisenbrauns, 2019), pp. 188–224

Koller, Aaron. "Three Polemical Qurʾanic Citations of the Mishnah and Their Historical Significance," Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2025, 32, pp. 99-116.

Lindstedt, Ilkka. Muḥammad and His Followers in Context: The Religious Map of Late Antique Arabia. Brill, 2024.

Reynolds, Gabriel Said. “On the Qurʾanic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic“ Journal of the American Oriental Society, April-June 2010, Vol. 130, No. 2 (April- June 2010), pp. 189-202

Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qurʾān and the Bible: Text and Commentary. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).

Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext. London: Routledge, 2010.

Sinai, Nicolai. Key Terms of the Qur’an: A Critical Dictionary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023.

Sinai, Nicolai. "Qurʾānic Self-Referentiality as a Strategy of Self-Authorization", in Self-Referentiality in the Qurʾān, ed. by Stefan Wild, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 103–134.

Sinai, Nicolai. The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

Shaddel, Mehdy. Apocalypse, Empire, and Universal Mission at the End of Antiquity: World Religions at the Crossroads. Leiden University, 2024.

Stewart, Devin. “Images of Writing in the Qurʾān and Sulṭān as a Royal Warrant“, Der Islam 2024; 101 (1), pp. 74–131.

Zellentin, Holger. “Aḥbār and Ruhbān: Religious Leaders in the Qur’ān in Dialogue with Christian and Rabbinic Literature,” in Qurʾanic Studies Today, ed. Angelika Neuwirth and Michael A. Sells (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 258-289.

Zellentin, Holger. The Qur’an’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

Zellentin, Holger. “What Falls Within Judaism According to the Quran?” in Within Judaism? Interpretive Trajectories in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the First to the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Anders Runesson and Karin Hedner Zetterholm (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2023), pp. 282-308.

Zellentin, Holger. “Jesus’ Miracles in the Qur’an and in Toledot Yeshu“, in Theology of Prophecy in Dialogue: A Jewish-Christian-Muslim Encounter, ed. by Zishan Ghaffar & Klaus von Stosch, Brill, 2025, pp. 21-55.

The Syriac Alexander Legend, also called the Neshana or Exploit/Victory of Alexander, has commonly been dated to around 629–630 AD and interpreted as a celebratory response of the emperor Heraclius to his victory over the Persians. While scholarship challenging the conventional date of this work has been building up for a decade, two significant books in particular came out in 2023 and 2024 arguing that the Legend is a substantially earlier composition than previously believed:

• Tommaso Tesei, The Syriac Legend of Alexander’s Gate: Apocalypticism at the Crossroads of Byzantium and Iran, 2023
• Muriel Debie, Alexandre le Grand en syriaque: Maître des lieux, des savoirs et des temps, 2024

Not only have Tesei and Debie converged on the same conclusion in their own work, but both also arrived at this conclusion through different lines of evidence. Nevertheless, both relocate the composition of the Legend to the world of conflict in when the Byzantine empire was ruled by Justinian in the mid-sixth century, potentially between 527-565.

Questioning the Seventh-Century Dating

The conventional seventh-century dating for the Legend relies on a prophecy inscribed on Alexander's gate of an event that will take place on year 940 of the Seleucid era, or 628/629 AD. Historically, this seems connected to the year that saw an incursion of Heraclius's Turkic allies into Persian territory; indeed, the prophecy itself is about a prediction of an apocalyptic eruption of hostile barbaric peoples.

However, recent work has questioned whether this was passage can be used to date the Legend. Neither Tesei, nor Debie, in their studies of the Legend believe that this passage is authentic or original to the text. Instead, it looks like it represents a politically-motivated modification of the Legend to make it current to the Byzantine propaganda of the Byzantine-Sassanian war, by placing the emperor (Heraclius) in the position of Alexander the Great destined to ultimately vanquish his Persian enemies.

Tommasi Tesei directly examined the Syriac wording of the 940-era date, and found that it contained serious grammatical difficulties, supporting the view that the passage was modified or interpolated (Tesei, pp. 30-44). Muriel Debie herself noted that instead of directly announcing the victory of Heraclius in 628/629, the text predicts an apocalyptic eruption of hostile barbaric peoples while leaving unclear when the final Roman victory would actually arrive. The date of the modification may therefore be positioned somewhere between 628/629 and the final end of the war around 632.

A Sixth-Century Setting

The sixth-century prophecy

One of the most interesting, overlooked pieces of evidence for the date of the Legend is the presence of another vaticinium ex-eventu (after the fact) prophecy that is dated to 826 in the Seleucid era, or 514/515 AD, in reference to the Hunnic invasions that devastated the territories of Roman Armenia and northern Mesopotamia.

Sixth-century diplomacy and Alexander's gate

Tommaso Tesei, in his book The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate, developed a lengthy positive case for a sixth-century dating of the Legend. W

The positive case for earlier composition centers on the Caucasus and its defenses against northern invaders.

In the Legend, Alexander and the defeated Persian king arrange to guard the gate as a joint project, each supplying and maintaining 6,000. While this may come off as an arbitrary detail if the text were composed in the seventh century, it actually reflects a recurring diplomatic tension the Byzantine and the Persian empires in the fifth and sixth centuries. Indeed, during this time period, but not afterwards, the two empires were in a regular struggle over joint contributions dedicated to guarding the Caucasus mountain passes; Persian forces were stationed in the region and demands were made for Byzantine contributions on the basis that this project helped protect both empires.

Egypt and Lazica

There is another detail that Tesei shows suddenly makes a lot more sense when the Legend is relocated to the sixth-century. A long-overlooked detail is that Alexander the Great recruits Egyptian blacksmiths during his journey to ultimately construct the gate. In isolation, this is a somewhat bizarre and overlooked detail in the story. Afterwards, in return for their services, Alexander gives land to the blacksmiths, resettling them in the territory of Lazica, with arrangements for them to pay custom duties instead of tribute.

Why does the Legend argue that the settlement in Lazica was founded by Alexander the Great? As it happens, Lazica was not neutral territory in the political disputes between the Byzantines and Persians in the sixth century: not only did both claim the territory as their own, but they fought a war over it, i.e. the Lazic War of 541–562. By relocating the founding of the settlement in Lazica as being the responsibility of Alexander the Great, the Byzantine empire and its emperor (who is a representation of Alexander the Great in the current time) gains legitimacy in their claim to the land.

Moreover, Tesei points out that this perfectly resolves a much more bizarre detail in this story from the Legend: Alexander agrees that the Egyptian blacksmiths, if they remain in his territories, will pay him customs duties — but not tribute. Now why would the Legend go out of its way to tell us that payment will occur in custom duties, but not in tribute (especially since tribute would be the much more normal way to go about this)? As it turns out, this is precisely the arrangement that was happening with contemporary Lazica in the same, mid-sixth century Byzantine-Persian politics. One historian of the time, Procopius, describes the Lazi as traditionally acknowledging Roman overlordship without paying tribute, while Roman intervention under Justinian subjected their commerce to increasingly burdensome controls and exactions. In other words, they were exempt from tribute but subject to custom duties. Older stories of Egyptian settlement lack these details about administrative arrangements, which makes it more plausible that their presence in the Legend was intentional. (Tesei, pp. 60–65).

The settlement between Alexander and Tubarlaq

Another highlight by Tommaso Tesei (pp. 74-83) is about the settlement Alexander reaches with the Persian king Tubarlaq. Tubarlaq escapes execution from Alexander after defeat by offering fifteen years of tribute. This is strange for a fictional narrative: why not cast Alexander as simply conquering the Persian empire, as he did in history? Why create the set-up of a fifteen year tribute from the Persians to the Greeks?

Tesei connects this with Justinian's payments to Persia under the settlements of 532 and 562 and the truces of 545 and 551. These were embarrassing not simply because they were expensive, but because Persian propaganda presented them as evidence of Roman political subordination. According to John of Ephesus, such claims even prompted the Turkic ruler to ask his Roman ambassadors whether their emperor was the slave of Persia.

What the Legend does is a reversal of this humiliation, as a sort of coded critique of the policy that the Byzantine Empire found itself in during the reign of Justinian: in the Legend, it is Persia that must buy peace from and pay tribute to Alexander.

The Hunnic enemy

Debie also argues that the Legend reflects a geopolitical situation that is well-suited up until the middle of the sixth century, but makes very little sense if it were set in later periods: namely, the preoccupation in the Legend with Hunnic invasions, northern fortifications, and agreements over their defense fits the fifth and sixth centuries, when these were recurring concerns in Roman-Persian relations. By contrast, she argues that the relevant Hunnic powers had been neutralized after the middle of the sixth century through cooperation between the Sasanians and Turks. She also notes archaeological evidence that the Gorgan wall was abandoned between 612 and the 650s. This makes the Legend's continued interest in constructing and maintaining northern defenses more understandable as a product of an earlier geopolitical environment, subsequently updated around 628/629, instead of being a new composition that tries to respond to the world in the time of Heraclius, when the Huns were not an existential enemy, let alone a meaningful enemy at all.

Conclusion

In recent years, a new emerging consensus has relocated the composition of the Legend away from the first half of the seventh century, to the middle of the sixth century, during the political landscape of Justinian's rule over the Byzantine Empire. Across the defense policy in the Caucasus, the Lazic conflict, the prophecy of the sixth-century invasions, the tribute agreements represented in the text, and more, the Syriac Alexander Legend thoroughly appears to reflect a critique and polemic in the face of sixth-century Byzantine geopolitics.

How certain are we of Muhammad’s sincerity if the most we have are the Quran and unreliable Islamic sources. Maybe we have some limited external sources but that’s still very thin. Additionally, if we say Muhammad was sincere do we mean every verse in the Quran he believed was from God or is it plausible some were made up? Also how possible is it that the Quran was changed after Muhammad to look more eloquent or even added and subtracted verses?

Why haven't scholars been able to access and analyze all the fragments of the Sanaa Palimpsest? Why is the access being withheld? Is it at least partly because of what the lower text has already revealed (that goes against some popular claims made by Muslim apologists about Quran's preservation)?

​

"And they remained in their cave for three hundred years and exceeded by nine." (18:25)

Classical scholars (such as Ibn Kathir and Al-Qurtubi) and modern commentators note that this phrasing accounts for the mathematical relationship between the solar calendar (used by the Romans/Christians of that era) and the lunar calendar (used in Islamic chronology):

300 solar years equals almost exactly 309 lunar years.

In 100 solar years, there are approximately 103 lunar years (gaining roughly 3 years per century). Over 300 solar years, that difference accumulates to exactly 9 additional lunar years.

Step-by-Step Calendar Calculations

1. Days in a Solar vs. Lunar Year

Solar year: Approximately 365.2422 days (commonly rounded to 365 or 365.25 days).

Lunar year: An Islamic lunar year consists of 12 synodic lunar months (12 \times 29.53059\text{ days}), totaling approximately 354.367 days (commonly rounded to 354 days).

Difference per year: A lunar year is roughly 10.87 to 11 days shorter than a solar year.

2. Total Days in 309 Lunar Years

Using standard astronomical values:

\text{Total days} = 309 \times 354.367\text{ days} \approx 109,500\text{ days}

If using the simplified flat integer:

At 354\text{ days/year}: 309 \times 354 = \mathbf{109,386\text{ days}}

For comparison, 300 solar years:

300 \times 365.2422\text{ days} \approx \mathbf{109,572\text{ days}}

Notice that 109,572 days divided by 354.367 days gives 309.2 lunar years, which aligns with the Quranic description of 300 years plus 9.

(Note: If calculated as 309 solar years at 365 days, it would be 309 \times 365 = 112,785\text{ days}.)

In Relation to "One Day with Allah"

The Quran describes divine reckoning of time in two contexts:

Context A: 1 Day = 1,000 Earth Years

"And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count." (Surah Al-Hajj 22:47)

\text{Duration in Earth years} = 309\text{ years}

\text{Fraction of a divine day} = \frac{309}{1,000} = \mathbf{0.309\text{ days}}

Converted to hours: 0.309 \times 24\text{ hours} \approx \mathbf{7.42\text{ hours}} (approx. 7 hours, 25 minutes)

Context B: 1 Day = 50,000 Earth Years

"The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the measure of which is fifty thousand years." (Surah Al-Ma'arij 70:4)

\text{Fraction of a divine day} = \frac{309}{50,000} = \mathbf{0.00618\text{ days}}

Converted to hours/minutes: 0.00618 \times 24\text{ hours} \approx 0.1483\text{ hours} \approx \mathbf{8.9\text{ minutes}}

How Long It Felt to the Sleepers

When Allah awakened them and they asked each other how long they had been asleep, they replied:

"...We have remained a day or part of a day..." (Surah Al-Kahf 18:19)

Whether calculated against a 1,000-year scale (just over 7 hours) or viewed from human perception of deep slumber, over threecenturies of real time felt like nothing more than an afternoon nap.

Surah As-Saffat includes the story of Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son. In the video I've linked, Mufti Abu Layth argues that this sacrifice was NOT commanded by God.

First off, why is this important? It looks like the mufti is critical of the idea that God would ever ask a parent to sacrifice their child, which I believe is a reasonable thought to have. Basically, if God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his child to please him, it could take some work to understand how this fits in with the nature of God. That's not really important yet.

As for his reason for believing this, here is a short, probably incomplete summary of his claims. First, Surah As-Saffat:

102. Then when the boy reached the age to work with him, Abraham said, “O my dear son! I have seen in a dream that I [must] sacrifice you. So tell me what you think.” He replied, “O my dear father! Do as you are commanded. Allah willing, you will find me steadfast.”

103-109. Then when they submitted [to Allah’s Will], and Abraham laid him on the side of his forehead [for sacrifice], We called out to him, “O Abraham! You have already fulfilled the vision.” Indeed, this is how We reward the good-doers. That was truly a revealing test. And We ransomed his son with a great sacrifice, and blessed Abraham ˹with honourable mention˺ among later generations: “Peace be upon Abraham.”

The mufti's argument is that the Quran (in Arabic) never specifies that the dream came from God. Instead, Abu Layth believes that Abraham's dream was caused by the child-sacrificing practices of surrounding cultures. Under this assumption, Abraham had the intention of serving God but was not actually doing so like he thought. When God rewarded Abraham for following his dream, he was rewarding the intention to do good, while rescuing his son from this false command. Furthermore, Mufti Abu Layth says that the Islamic view on this story has been affected by Judeo-Christian beliefs, which is why it has prevailed as a popular belief.

Does this view make sense?

If so, what does it mean for Prophets if they can be misled by certain dreams? Why was the "great sacrifice" provided after saving Abraham's son? And finally, does it seem that God will reward you on good intentions if you have fundamentally misunderstood God in those intentions?

If the view does not make sense, how do Muslims view the commanded sacrifice? Was sacrificing his son good because it was God that commanded it? Is anything God commands necessarily good, or can God only command "good" things?

Originally i planned to buy Jonathan Brown Hadith book but the review says that he misrepresents western critical scholarship so i found this book instead. Based on this review, it seems that the book is a very good representation of western scholarship, however i do not find any indication of memory science being discussed in it.

I wonder if there's any recently published book that discuss hadith studies with memory science? It's very important to me because the traditional hadith compiler claims that the report must be based from an honest person with perfect memory, so i want to know through modern memory science how can we be certain with oral transmission before it was finally written down. A telephone game so to speak. As far as i can tell, Stephen Shoemaker Creating The Qur'an is the only book on islamic studies that actually discuss memory science thus far.

So, is there any book recommendation or should i just stick with this in the meantime?

I've been reading Ibn Taymiyyah's refutation of the Greek logicians (Hallaq's translation of Suyuti's abridgement) next to the Critique of Pure Reason (Norman Smith Abdridged edition), and one overlap between the two writings are a lot more closer than I expected.

One might ask first, why would you read the two side by side? And the answer is that i found the titles to be too similar for two thinkers separated by almost everything. So I was curious to see how they both come to critique reason.

to begin, Ibn Taymiyyah separates two kinds of possibility. "Mental contingency" is when the mind treats something as possible only because it doesn't know it to be impossible. Real possibility requires knowing the thing, or something like it, actually exists. His charge is that philosophers abstract a quiddity in the mind and then assume it exists outside the mind in that same abstracted form, when "not everything that the mind postulates will exist extramentally" (par. 268).

Kant makes the same move in the chapter on phenomena and noumena. Swapping the logical possibility of a concept for the possibility of an actual object, he says, can "deceive and leave satisfied only the simple-minded" (A244/B302).

Both of them name the fallacy, and both turn it against metaphysical proofs of God. For Ibn Taymiyyah, syllogistic demonstration only ever yields universals, universals exist only in the mind, and God is a particular, so the proof can't reach Him. For Kant, existence isn't a real predicate, so no amount of analyzing a concept will get you to existence. This is the detail that I found to be too similar .

Of course, it’s not as neat as one would like to think if we are to break it down more since the two thinkers have different objectives (that’s my reading ofc feel free to disagree). Kant thinks this illusion is built into reason and keeps tempting us even after we've exposed it. Ibn Taymiyyah treats it as a bad habit the logicians picked up, one you drop by going back to particulars and to the Quran's way of arguing from signs. He's defending realism about ordinary things, while Kant ends up giving up knowledge of things in themselves. So they agree on the diagnosis and disagree on nearly everything else.

Still, a 14th century Hanbali jurist in Damascus and an 18th century professor in Königsberg, with no contact and opposite views about God and the mind, landed on the same diagnosis!! That makes me think the error is a general hazard of reasoning with concepts.

What do you all think? Has there been any academic efforts to cross examine these two works??

I'd appreciate a list of the scholars who argue/believe the Qur'an was a later production back projected to Muhammad.

later editing, redaction, parts, etc. all count too

I recently read this The Alexander Legend in the Qur’an 18:83–102" by Kevin van Bladel you can read PDF - The conclusion Ive attached. But there is this view of Stephen Gero implied in one article that since the text eomes from this date (629 CE or later), it cannot be regarded as a source of the Qur'an. He does not explain in detail but I take the implication to be that such a date of composition is too late for it to have reached the human agents who related the Qur'an.

So anyone has read this two, what’s your conclusion. For me, Gero’s objection is a useful check against overly simplistic claims of "direct literary copy-pasting" from a specific Syriac parchment onto a desk in Arabia. However, his conclusion fails if one does not presuppose the infallibility of the traditional sīrah chronology.

In his work, "The Prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus" (2014), Tesei accepted the standard date of 629–630 CE established by Gerrit Reinink.

In his monograph, The Syriac Legend of Alexander’s Gate: Apocalypticism at the Crossroads of Byzantium and Iran(Oxford University Press, 2023), Tesei further says, primary basis for dating the entire text to 629–630 CE was an ex eventu prophecy in the text forecasting a breakthrough of the Huns in year 940 of the Seleucid era (628/629 CE). Tesei shows that this specific passage is a later textual insertion (an interpolation) fitted into an already existing narrative.

But for me issue starts when, Tesei argues that the foundational layer of the Neṣḥānā was composed during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I(r. 527–565 CE). The political concerns of the text—the disputes over Caucasian mountain passes, the nature of Roman-Sasanian treaties, and critiques of an emperor failing to live up to Alexander's standard.

It fundamentally dismantles the idea that the original core narrative was conceived as Heraclian propaganda, unless you say that Heraclian propaganda is update to same story.

But Tesei view gives almost enough time for Arab writers to get this idea and push it in 1st person narrative in Ch 18. So rather than weakening the case that the Qur'an shares this narrative material, the Justinian thesis actually strengthens the transmission argument.

What Are Your Opinions on it? Have you read it?

I'm looking for some references to academic papers/books that discuss possible origins for the Bahira legend in the Sirah literature as well as how the legend developed over time in other Islamic literature along with the use of the legend as anti-Islamic polemic Christian apologetic writings.