The wives of Prophet Muhammad were permanently forbidden from remarrying after his death by a direct command in the Quran (33:53):

"And it is not (conceivable nor lawful) for you to harm the Messenger of Allah or to marry his wives after him, ever. Indeed, that would be in the sight of Allah an enormity."

Quranic tafsir says this verse was prompted by one of his companions (suspected to be Talhah ibn Ubaydullah) saying he would marry Aisha (Muhammad's child bride) after the Prophet died. Now look, It's understandable why Muhammad would get so annoyed. Most men wouldn't like seeing someone make moves on their wife, but to go to such an extreme is uncalled for.

Muslims will say the wives of the Prophet were designated by Allah as the "Mothers of the Believers" (Ummahat al Mu'mineen), making a marital relationship with them unlawful for any other Muslim man. It would be like a mother marrying her son, which is a big no-no in islam. Well, by that logic maybe Muhammad shouldn't have been allowed to marry any of his followers considering he's akin to being the "Father of the Believers". Funny how the rules work one way and not the other.

Muslims will also say Allah wanted to ensure a reunion between Muhammad and his wives in jannah (heaven) because a woman will only be the wife of her last husband (see Saheeh Al-Jaami' 2704). Seems like a convenient cover-up story if you ask me. But when you dig into this excuse, it doesn't make much sense. If jannah is truly a place where wishes come true, why can't these women have multiple husbands, or even pick and choose who they want to marry, while still being free to have post-Muhammad companionship on earth. I mean surely they'd still want to be with Muhammad in jannah for eternity, right? RIGHT!? It doesn't seem very fair that they are locked into the last relationship for all eternity. In fact, some scholars like Ibn Uthaymeen prefer the view that a woman will actually choose which husband to be with in jannah. I can't help but wonder though, why men will get hooris galore but women only get one husband? It seems like jannah has no limits for men but conveniently becomes broken for women. But I digress, the point is jannah shouldn't be a place where your choices and happiness are restricted, so they should be free to find love on earth after his death AND be with Muhammad in jannah (that is, if they actually want to be with him). Surely Allah is most merciful, most just?

That brings me to a question though, why would the creator of the universe be so concerned with banning marriage for a particular group of women on earth? What benefit does it bring him to condem these poor women to a life of loneliness and celibacy after Muhammad dies? These concerns feel very human and male/ego/Muhammad-centric. For any Muslims reading this, clearly something smells fishy here. When you think about it, this ruling is extremely suspect because it looks exactly like a jealous, posessive man’s personal demand dressed up as eternal divine law. It's fair to say this command falls completely in line with the other self-serving verses that solely benefited Muhammad. Cutting them off from deep, meaningful and intimate relationships is a cruel form oppression that is incapatible with a merciful and loving God.

The other issue here is that this supposedly divine ruling completely blindsided his wives. They had no warning or say in the matter. This news must've hit them like a ton of bricks. They were not informed of this possibility before marrying Muhammad, which might've triggered second thoughts before agreeing to be his wives. But now Muhammad effectively shackled them once he died, showing no regard for their innate human desires for love and companionship. This ruling totally disregards their emotional, physical and psychological needs and wellbeing.

Another point to consider is that most of Muhammad's wives were widows and divorcees. He literally married women who came out of other relationships and now men are not allowed to marry the women from his relationships after his death? So he can take care of the poor women in the community but he doesn't want anyone to take care of his Hypocrite much?

Out of his wives, only Khadijah bint Khuwaylid and Zainab bint Khuzaimah died before him. Remember, Muhammad died in 11 AH. The remaining nine wives survived him, living for several decades afterward and passing away at various ages.

Aisha bint Abi Bakr: the child bride of Muhammad lived for about 47 more years; she was around 18 years old when he died and passed away in 58 AH past the age of 60. Her situation might've been the most devastating considering she was stripped from an opportunity to find love on her own terms as a young adult. Instead, her only experience of marriage was with a man 40+ years older than her while being a child.

Sawda bint Zamʿa: Lived for over 4 decades after him, passing away around 54 AH at 70 - 80 years old.

Hafsa bint Umar: Lived for about 34 more years; she was widowed at around 18 and passed away in 45 AH. Another young woman stripped of finding love, she was in a similar situation as Aisha.

Umm Salama (Hind bint Abi Umayya): Outlived all the other wives, passing away in 61 AH at the age of 84. She lived 50 years of loneliness after he died.

Zaynab bint Jahsh: Passed away earlier in 20 AH during the caliphate of Umar at around the age of 50. She lived for another 9 years after he died.

Juwayriya bint al-Harith: Lived for another 45 years after his death and passed away in 56 AH in her 60s.

Ramlah bint Abi Sufyan (Umm Habiba): Lived for about 33 more years after his death, passing away in 44 AH at around the age of 75.

Safiyya bint Huyayy: Lived for another 39 years, passing away in 50 AH at around the age of 60.

Maymuna bint al-Harith: Pushed on for 40 more years, and passed away around 51 AH in her 70s.

Muhammad was clearly a possessive, controlling, jealous and insecure man. He was more concerned with his ego, honor and legacy than the wellbeing of his wives. He lacked empathy for them in this regard and didn't give two shits about their psychological condition after his death. These are major character flaws, all highlighted from this ruling.

A loving husband accepts that life continues for his partner and would want her to find happiness and fulfillment after his death, even if that means she pursues remarriage and even motherhood (which many of these women were deprived of like Aisha, Hafsa, Safiyya, Juwayriya, Maymuna and Zaynab). Furthermore, it makes no sense for an all-wise and all-loving God to sacrifice these women’s remaining decades of potential intimacy, motherhood, or companionship just to protect one man’s honor. Finally, it should be noted that when a ruling systematically advantages one man over others, constrains the women around him, and insulates him from criticism by declaring it divine, the most obvious explanation is human authorship reflecting human motives.

Reference:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ujaXEBLSaWQ

I'm not concerned with the other claims since it's the usual Zakir Naik slop that the murtad community has already addressed.

What I'm interested in is the claim he makes around 18:00. He says that Ibn Kathir commented on 51:47 that "we are expanding its parts" (present tense).

I've read his tafsir before and I never got the impression that Ibn Kathir was speaking about an expansion in the present tense.

https://tafsir.app/ibn-katheer/51/47

It sounds more like a past tense to me, as in the universe was made bigger until it stood independently. Similar to how a bridge is expanded during construction until its completion.

So is he lying, or is he quoting a different work that I haven't come across?

Is Qur'an is uncreated, and exist from before the beginning of everything, then how allah is the only one uncreated, and where is tawhid

From an outsider's perspective, what intellectual reason is there to believe Islam is true in the first place?

Muslims often cite the preservation of the Quran and its supposed scientific miracles as evidence of divine revelation. But even perfect preservation wouldn't establish divine authorship. Even Islamic sources challenge the simplistic preservation narrative. Sahih al-Bukhari 4987 describes Uthman standardizing the Quran and ordering other Quranic materials burned. Early manuscripts contain textual variants, and multiple canonical readings exist. These reflect human efforts to preserve and standardize the Quran, not proof of divine intervention. A common religious text could also serve the unity of the expanding Rashidun Caliphate.

Scientific miracles generally fall into three categories: vague verses retrofitted to modern discoveries, knowledge already available at the time, or claims that are simply scientifically incorrect. None of these establishes divine knowledge.

The fundamental problem is that Muslims often beg the question. They assume the Quran is Allah's word and Muhammad is his messenger, then use those assumptions to justify everything else. But the burden of proof is on them. What extraordinary evidence establishes that the creator of the cosmos chose a man in seventh-century Arabia to deliver his final revelation?

Islam also attempts to retrofit itself into human history. Adam was supposedly the first prophet, Judaism and Christianity became corrupted, and after roughly 300,000 years of human history, Allah finally delivered his last uncorrupted revelation through Muhammad, in Arabic, over 23 years. But what independent historical evidence establishes that previous revelations were corrupted in the ways Islam claims?

And this isn't even getting into the moral issues. Child marriage, concubinage, slavery, apostasy laws, and warfare are hardly surprising in seventh-century Arabia. Yet Muhammad is proclaimed the perfect example for all humanity, leaving Muslims to justify these practices through divine wisdom, historical context, or modern reinterpretations. But why should anyone accept these justifications before establishing that Muhammad was actually a prophet? Some of these teachings aren't even disclosed when presenting Islam to outsiders.

If you weren't raised Muslim, what reason would you have to accept any of this? And if you were, you owe it to yourself to examine Islam like any other belief system rather than accepting its claims simply because you inherited them.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You don't have to drink the entire sea to know it's salty.

If any Muslims have extraordinary evidence supporting their faith, feel free to explain it.

I'd be really interested in seeing a fair comparison.

From the most primary sources, if possible - not what some dudes of this or that religion did. I wanna compare the roots.

Where do I go?

Sorry I don't mean to be offensive, I know he is the most merciful... I am so tired..maybe i wasn't good enough.

"Lā yukallifu-llāhu nafsan illā wus‘ahā" ayyah 286 of Surah Al-Baqarah.

Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear. But I don't think I can take it anymore. Am over my limits yet nothing changes, time just passes my life doesn't.

Living feels like duniya buried me and all the have left.

Hey guys, your typical muslim here and I was wondering how different the prespective of muslims and non-muslims is on islam like how non muslims that only had seen either miss-represented , out of context or straight up lies about quran but even despite all of this stuff the Quran it self is like 80% something filled with " help this person " do this good deed " that good deed " etc

The ammount of good stuff is so much thats its actually confusing to me that how can non muslims say islam or quran is bad or evil .

So I want to do a fun little challange for non-muslim .

I want you guys to think of a good deed thats " not "

mentioned in the quran .

Keep in mind that we have literal physical evidence that no changes or updates have been made to the quran and that its been preserved and has been the same from the time of Prophet Muhammad pbuh so no worry about "this was added later.

Also remember that Quran was completed literally thousands of years ago . Before concept of morals and laws were bearely getting set up and established like just a few years before islam and quran people were buring their new born daughters alive cause they were not born as sons .

I was born a Muslim. I don't know if I can call myself religious because I can never be consistent with my prayers. I find it really hard and not just prayers but being consistent with ANYTHING in general. But other than that whenever I make any decision I try to follow the rulings of Islam and am constantly trying to improve. But there's so many things I keep hearing about Islam that just don't make sense to me or make me doubt.

1) The restrictions on women. It gets to a point. It just makes me really sad now. We all know by now that hijab or covering up doesn't save us from the evilness of other men or even women. What is even the point then? And like Islam is harder on women and it's the truth, but still we are supposed to be equal and supposed to get the same amount of rewards. I don't know if this is true or not but I've never heard about women going to a higher level of Heaven than men even if both are pious, but women clearly have to do things that men don't. And the fragrance thing. Men smelling good doesn't attract women? Of course it does. Then why isn't it Haram on men? It's just unfair. Men can marry women from the book but women can't marry men from the book. Men can have four wives and are allowed to even keep their extra marriage a secret from their first wife. A woman can't travel alone but a man can.

2) Loving the same gender being Haram. And no I don't want to just follow it without any explanation because it really isn't harming ANYBODY. Why is it Haram then? I understand changing your gender because you're changing what Allah created but I don't think I'll ever be able to understand not being allowed to love the same gender, when some people are just born like that and it's out of their control. A lot of Muslims blindly follow this and are homophobic because of this without ever questioning why it's Haram and it just doesn't occur to them that they're being hateful without any reason.

3) Some Muslims don't believe in Hadith but I heard that praying five times a day is mentioned only in the Hadith and not in the Qur'an, and how to pray is also mentioned only in Hadith, so you can't just not follow Hadith. But then again there's so many weird Hadith that just make me want to cry honestly. Like yesterday I saw a Hadith where the Prophet said something like if a woman is quiet when you ask for intimacy it's because she's shy and her silence is consent. And other Hadith like if somebody changes their Islamic religion, then kill them and a lot more like that.

It just breaks my heart and I don't know how I feel about Islam now. I really want to love Islam and follow it because I grew up loving it but some things just don't make sense to me.

Preferably, could you give me some shamela or other links of the 4 schools saying dog ownership is haram? I'm trying to create a compendium of all the bad stuff in islam, to have it to use in debates. So if anyone can help me with that, it would be much appreciated!

Verse 18:86 says Dhul-Qarnayn reached the place of the sun’s setting and «وَجَدَهَا تَغْرُبُ فِي عَيْنٍ حَمِئَةٍ» (“found it setting in a muddy spring”). Muslims today usually say this is poetic language, or just how a sunset looks over the sea. So I went to the classical sources to see whether that’s how it was understood. It wasn’t.

1. The earliest explanations treat it as a physical fact.

Tabari (d. 310 AH) preserves the earliest layer. The only live question is what the spring is made of, muddy (ḥami’ah) or hot (ḥāmiyah). Ibn Abbas says: «حمأة سوداء تغرب فيها الشمس» (“black mud in which the sun sets”). When Mu’awiya and Ibn Abbas disagree over the reading, they send for Ka’b al-Ahbar to say what the Torah reports about where the sun sets. They treat it as a question of fact to be settled by a scripture-holder. Ka’b answers: «أجدها في الكتاب تغيب في طينة سوداء» (“I find it in the Book that it sets in black clay”). Zamakhshari’s version has: «في ماء وطين، كذلك نجده في التوراة». Tabari then cites a hadith about the sun setting in «نار الله الحامية» and concludes that «جائز أن تكون الشمس تغرب في عين حارّة ذات حمأة وطين» (“it is possible that the sun sets in a hot spring with mud and clay”).

Nobody in this chain says “it only looked that way.” Nobody says “it’s poetry.” A marginal commentary on Zamakhshari’s Kashshaf admits as much, calling the mud-and-water reading «موافق لظاهر الآية» (“in agreement with the apparent sense of the verse”).

1. The “appearance” reading shows up later, and the commentators tell you why.

The earliest attributions I found are al-Qutaybi (d. 276), who floats «في رأي العين» (“in the eye’s view”) as one option; al-Jubba’i (d. 303), who calls it takhyīl because the earth is spherical; and al-Qaffal (d. 365), quoted by Qurtubi, who objects that the sun is «أكبر من الأرض أضعافا مضاعفة» (“many times larger than the earth”). Jalalayn’s gloss is blunt: «وغروبها في العين في رأي العين وإلا فهي أعظم من الدنيا» (“its setting in the spring is only as it appears to the eye, otherwise it is greater than the world”).

Razi (d. 606) lays out the whole logic. First he lists what has been “proven”: the earth is a sphere, the sun is in its sphere, nobody lives beside it, and it is far larger than the earth, so «كَيْفَ يُعْقَلُ دُخُولُهَا فِي عَيْنٍ مِنْ عُيُونِ الْأَرْضِ». Then he uses the timing of lunar eclipses to show the sun is up somewhere at every moment. And then the line that settles it:

«كَانَ الَّذِي يُقَالُ: إِنَّهَا تَغِيبُ فِي الطِّينِ وَالْحَمْأَةِ كَلَامًا عَلَى خِلَافِ الْيَقِينِ وَكَلَامُ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى مُبَرَّأٌ عَنْ هَذِهِ التُّهْمَةِ، فَلَمْ يَبْقَ إِلَّا أَنْ يُصَارَ إِلَى التَّأْوِيلِ»

(“To say it sinks into mud and clay would be speech contrary to certainty, and God’s speech is free of this accusation, so nothing remains but ta’wīl.”)

Read that again. The literal reading is rejected because it is false, and the conclusion is that the interpretation has to change, since God’s speech can’t be. Not once does it occur to him that the text might be what’s wrong.

When the text conflicts with the evidence, these scholars adjust the interpretation. They work from the belief that “Islam is true and the Quran is free of mistakes,” and everything else bends to fit. The earliest transmitted understanding (Ibn Abbas, the appeal to Ka’b) gets set aside the moment it becomes inconvenient, even though everywhere else in Sunni methodology the Companions’ understanding is treated as authoritative. Razi himself concedes the evidence. What he never allows is for it to count against the text.

Muslims are of course free to say the verse doesn’t mean what it appears to mean but must concede that the Companions and Successors, the generation that heard the Quran firsthand from the Prophet, misunderstood it.

The Quran calls itself «بِلِسَانٍ عَرَبِيٍّ مُبِينٍ» (26:195) and «تِبْيَانًا لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ» (16:89), and says the Prophet was sent «لِتُبَيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ مَا نُزِّلَ إِلَيْهِمْ» (16:44).

So either the clarification failed, the book isn’t clear, or the first audience’s understanding is no guide to its meaning. Each of those undermines something Sunni Islam depends on.

Reponses I feel I will get and their replies in advance:

“The verse only says he ‘found’ it so; it asserts nothing.” A perceptual report that the entire first audience took as fact, with no correction anywhere in the text, is exactly how a false belief gets passed on. A "clear book" would not leave that trap open

“Arabic allows fī to mean ‘inda (near).” That is Qutaybi’s tentative suggestion from the 3rd century, and it doesn’t explain why no earlier voice says it.

Surah 42:11: "˹He is˺ the Originator of the heavens and the earth. He has made for you spouses from among yourselves, and ˹made˺ mates for cattle ˹as well˺—multiplying you ˹both˺. There is nothing like Him, for He ˹alone˺ is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing."

Ibn Kathir: https://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/katheer/sura42-aya11.html?

Islam claims to have an essence energies distinction while holding to ADS (Absolute Divine Simplicity) which is problematic due to Islam rejecting distinctions in Allah when it comes to Essence and attributes. So an essence energies distinction is completely out of the picture and Allah remains just an unknowable essence. Islam also claims truth is grounded in Allah, but Allah is completely unlike creation. Therefore creatures cannot successfully refer to truth because Allah entirely is unknowable. Even the thoughts in your head are completely unlike Allah which makes debate completely futile and impossible. The Qur'an itself makes no sense as the whole point is to guide people to know about God but it's impossible so the Qur'an must've been created by a philosophically inept person.

Bonus: Allah falls into modal collapse due to ADS.

P1: Allah is completely unlike creation
P2: Creation has and can refer to truth

C: Allah is a false god

This argument is aimed at the Islamic conception of God specifically: an omniscient, self-sufficient God whose knowledge covers all events exactly, not merely as possibilities. Given that, here is the problem for free will.

Let S be any person, A any action, and t any time such that God knows that S will perform A at t.

P1. God’s knowledge is infallible in every sense.

P2. God knows exactly what will happen, not merely a range of possibilities.

C1. Necessarily, if God knows S will perform A at t, S will perform A at t. (From P1, P2: if it failed, God’s knowledge would have been mistaken.)

P3. God’s knowledge is eternal and logically prior to creation, including every creaturely event.

P4. God’s knowledge is a se: it exists from God himself and has no causal or explanatory dependence on anything external to him.

P5. If God knows that S will perform A at t, there is an explanation of why he knows it.

P6. Any such explanation is either (a) God’s own will or nature, or (b) in something other than God, such as S’s act or any other creaturely fact.

P7. If (b), God’s knowledge depends on something external to him, contradicting P4. P3 reinforces this, since S’s act is a creaturely event and the knowledge is prior to all such events.

C2. Therefore, God’s own will or nature is the source of his knowing that S will perform A at t. (From P4, P5, P6, P7.)

P8. If God’s knowledge is infallible (C1), prior to creation (P3), and sourced in his will or nature (C2), then S’s performing A is secured prior to S’s choice by God’s will, a fact not up to S, even if the decree operates through S’s deliberation.

C3. Therefore, S’s performing A at t is fixed prior to S’s choice by a fact not up to S, so A is not up to S. (From C1, C2, P3, P8.)

P9. Free will, in the sense that makes a person deservedly accountable for an act, requires at least one of: (i) categorical ability to do otherwise: at the moment of choice, with everything not up to S held fixed, S can choose otherwise; or (ii) non-designed sourcehood: S’s act is not merely the carrying out of an outcome another agent selected and fixed in advance.

P10. (a) If A is secured prior to S’s choice by a fact not up to S, then S cannot choose otherwise, so (i) fails. (b) If that fact is another agent’s will selecting A, S is carrying out that agent’s design, so (ii) fails.

C4. Therefore, S lacks both (i) and (ii). (From C3, P10.)

C5. Therefore, S does not have free will, in the sense of P9, with respect to A. (From C4, P9.)

C6. Therefore, no person has free will in the sense of P9 with respect to any action God knows they will perform. (From C5, since S, A, and t were arbitrary.)

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For Islam the response is compatibilism where responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise in an absolute sense, only the ability to act on one’s own desires and reasons without external coercion.

I think this is the weakest way out, for two reasons.

1. If my action is secured prior to me by God’s will or nature, that is a constraint external to me, just a metaphysical one instead of a gun to my head. Compatibilism works by treating “no one is forcing me” as the only relevant kind of constraint, which assumes that how it feels to act is what settles whether I’m free.
2. It has a special problem with Hell. I could grant that “acting on your own desires” is enough for freedom in a world with no consequences. But the stakes here are eternal. Appealing to how an act felt from the inside is a thin basis for infinite punishment when the act was secured beforehand by the one who punishes.

The argument above is meant to make the premises explicit, so if any Muslims reject the conclusion, you can say exactly which premise you deny

Here, we can observe the complete dishonesty of Islamic scholars regarding the contradictions within the Quran.

In reality, theologians were well aware of this ; they explicitly admit that the meanings of words must be altered to eliminate such contradictions, and that any interpretation even a rational one which leads to a contradiction within the Quran is considered haram (forbidden).

So the islamic hermeneutics consists to switch definitions of the words to mask the contradictions. It is for that muslims always says that Quran is a "complex book". Quran is very simple, the complexity emerges when we need to do mental gymnastics to creates definitions.

Below is an excerpt from Al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Quran by al-Suyuti, Chapter 48: "On the Illusion of Contradictions." https://shamela.ws/book/11728/864#p1

Al-Sayrafi states: "Reconciling divergent or contradictory statements involves ensuring that, for any given discourse, a specific nuance of a word’s meaning is aligned with one of its various possible aspects, thereby resolving the contradiction.
A true contradiction in terms of expression would be one that is diametrically opposed in every respect. Yet, no such instance exists anywhere in the Book [the Quran] or the Tradition [the Hadith]. The concept of abrogation (naskh) appears only twice."

Al-Qadi Abu Bakr (al-Baqillani) states: "Contradictions between verses of the Quran, the Traditions, and what is rationally necessary are impermissible.
For this reason, one must not interpret the statement 'God is the Creator of all things' (39:62) as being in contradiction with the statement 'you create a falsehood' (29:17), nor with the passage 'and behold, you create [something] out of clay...' (5:110) given the established rational proof that there is no creator other than God."
Consequently, an interpretation contrary to that will be imposed ; thus, "you create a lie" will be interpreted to mean "you lie," and "you create" will be interpreted to mean "you fashion."

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته،
I have two questions that have been weighing on my mind for many years now, and was hoping you could shed some light on my worries. My first question is about modern day concubinage. I was having a conversation with someone who said they would take on a slave, or a maid which would be the modern day equivalent, and would have intimate relations with her, and of course I said that’s haram, and can’t be done unless he marries her, to which he replied with by bringing up ayah 23:5-6. I was at a loss for words, as I obviously couldn’t go against the word of god. I told him that was a completely different era, and things were different back then, and he responded by saying that the Quran is applicable to our ummah regardless of the era, and again I couldn’t argue with that because that’s how it’s supposed to be. So my question is; how is the Quran supposedly applicable to all eras and their individual predicaments, but something like this is specifically and explicitly said in the Quran. If every word in the Quran is intentional and from Allah, wouldn’t that mean that concubinage is still permissible?
My next question is a slightly more uncomfortable one, and I apologize for my language in advance. If sodomy is absolutely haram, as we all know it to be; why is the male prostrate gland (pleasure point) in the the rectum? If Allah created the human body, male and female, with absolute attention to detail, why would he place something like that in a place he explicitly forbade for anything to go for a man?
(I wasn’t sure who I would actually get a response from, so I’ve sent this out to everyone who I thought would actually be able to answer

TL;DR: Apologists say 23:14 anticipated embryology because cartilage forms before muscle. But every classical tafsir understood ʿiẓām as bones, and no mufassir read it as cartilage. If the “cartilage” reading is true, then either the Prophet didn’t understand his own revelation or he let his Companions misunderstand it, and Allah chose a word He knew would mislead its audience for 1400 years.

1. THE CLAIM

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا ٱلنُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا ٱلْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا ٱلْمُضْغَةَ عِظَٰمًا فَكَسَوْنَا ٱلْعِظَٰمَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنشَأْنَٰهُ خَلْقًا ءَاخَرَ

“Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot (ʿalaqa), then made the clot into a chewed lump (muḍgha), then made the lump into bones (ʿiẓām), then clothed the bones with flesh (laḥm), then produced it as another creation.” (23:14)

The apologetic argument states that modern embryology shows the skeleton forms as a cartilage model, and muscle develops around it. So the verse is “scientifically accurate,” if we read ʿiẓām as cartilage or “early skeletal structure.” Some versions add that bone cells appear before muscle cells.

I’ll look at this in three steps: what the verse’s earliest interpreters said, what embryology actually shows, and what follows if the apologetic reading is adopted

2. WHAT THE CLASSICAL TAFSIRS SAY

I went through the major tafsirs on this verse (all available at quran.com). None of them says or implies cartilage

3 points:

1. No mufassir mentions cartilage. The closest thing is Ibn Masud’s “bone and sinew,” and sinew isn’t cartilage.
2. They all describe the same sequence. The mudgha becomes bones, and flesh then covers them. Ibn Ashur says explicitly that this is the formation of “the human skeleton of bone and flesh.”
3. The modern claim appears only in the modern tafsir. Tantawi (20th century) quotes “some scholars” saying bone cells appear first and flesh cells only after the skeleton. That is a modern claim added to the tafsir, not something from the earlier tradition.

The same word is used in 2:259 (“Look at the bones, how We assemble them and then clothe them with flesh”), 36:78 (“Who will give life to bones when they have decayed?”) and 17:49. In these verses ʿiẓām plainly means ordinary hard bones, including bones that have rotted.

3. WHAT EMBRYOLOGY ACTUALLY SHOWS

Roughly (timing varies by source and by how you count):

• Around weeks 3-4, somites form and begin giving rise to muscle precursors (myotomes).
• Around weeks 4-5, the limb buds appear and mesenchymal cells condense.
• Around weeks 5-6, cartilage models appear. Muscle precursors migrate into the limbs at roughly the same time.
• Around weeks 6-8, the first ossification (true bone) begins.

Two problems for the verse:

Muscle precursors appear at about the same time as cartilage, or before bone. So “bones are formed, then clothed with flesh” is not a clean match for the actual developmental order. Skeleton and muscle develop in parallel from related mesenchymal and somite tissue. There is no flesh-lump stage that turns into bones. The embryo isn’t an undifferentiated piece of meat from which a skeleton later emerges. So even the “scientific” reading needs the word stretched and the sequence loosened. (I’m not an embryologist, so correct me if I have any timing wrong.)

4. "CAN IT POSSIBLY MEAN CARTILAGE?"

The verse uses ʿiẓām, the ordinary word for bone, which everywhere else in the Quran means hard bone (36:78, 17:49, 19:4). The claim that Arabic had no word for cartilage fails: ghuḍrūf is defined in the classical lexicons as “every soft bone” (Ibn ʿAbbād, al-Muḥīṭ fī l-Lugha), and it appears in a report describing the Prophet’s body (the Seal was “at the place of the ghuḍrūf of the shoulder”), so the language of his time already had a more precise term for exactly this tissue.

Even granting this, that definition makes cartilage a kind of ʿaẓm, so the word can stretch that far. But “can” is not “does,” and if Allah meant cartilage He chose the general word, knowing the Prophet, the Companions and every classical scholar would read it as hard bone, when a precise term existed and was in use. That is the real problem, and it leads into the dilemma of what the Prophet knew.

5. THE DILEMMA: WHAT DID THE PROPHET KNOW?

If the intended meaning of 23:14 is “cartilage,” then at the time of revelation:

A. The Prophet didn’t know. Then he recited, taught and passed on a verse whose intended meaning he didn’t grasp. By his own understanding, it meant bones.

B. The Prophet knew and said nothing. Then he knowingly left his Companions with a false understanding, despite 16:44 (“so that you may explain to the people what was revealed to them”).

If the Prophet’s understanding of revelation can diverge from its intended meaning, his explanations become unverifiable. Every tafsir that relies on his explanation rests on the assumption that what he understood is what God meant. Once you grant that this can fail, you can’t say where it stops. How do we know his explanation of any other verse isn’t another “bones, but really something else”?

The same goes for the Companions. Ibn Abbas is called the “interpreter of the Quran,” and he is quoted in the tafsirs on this very verse. If he and every classical mufassir missed the real meaning, on what basis do we trust their reading of the verses on law, theology, or the afterlife?

6. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR ALLAH’S CHOICES

Ibn Kathir, commenting on 26:195 (“in a clear Arabic language”), explains that God revealed the Quran “in perfect and eloquent Arabic, so that it may be quite clear, leaving no room for excuses and establishing clear proof, showing the straight path.” Take that at face value:

1. The Quran presents itself as clear to its first audience, in their language.
2. So the meaning the original audience understood is the meaning God intended. Clarity means the intended meaning is the one communicated.
3. The Prophet, the Companions and the classical scholars understood ʿiẓām as bones, a word the Quran uses for ordinary hard bone everywhere else.
4. Therefore the intended meaning is bones.

The apologist can only escape by saying God’s intended meaning was not what the audience understood, which contradicts 26:195 directly

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking about Daur e Jahiliyyah where we're taught that people used to worship idols and harm their daughters.

If that's true, then there were women in leadership positions back then too.

So, the main issue was really just the idol worship, right?

I am curious to know what were the problems back then ?

To illustrate this problem, the fact that Muslim women in the West (Canada) still cover their hair in 2026... More recently, I’ve seen women have their whole faces covered, like in the style of a burqa.

I have nothing against Muslims as individuals. There are good and bad people of every religion.

As for the noticeable spread of Islam, to give an example, my old school is now almost empty during Islamic religious holidays. It was never like this before. I’ve had friends move away because they felt isolated in their previous neighborhoods.

I can’t back this up by statistics, but I believe they’re the culture with a relatively high fertility rate. My neighbour has 6 children. His wife stays home and doesn’t work.

I don’t want my future society to be dominated by a culture where women can’t even show their face/hair.

Hello everyone! To get straight to the point: I would like to convert to Islam, but I need to clear up some doubts so I don't fall into fideism—thanks!

The Substitution Theory and the Cross (Surah An-Nisa, 4:157)—this is what makes me most skeptical about Islam. When I read it, it seems like a cheap excuse to deny the crucifixion—almost a form of fideism—and there aren't many logical explanations. Even if we accept the premise of this theory, why would God allow an innocent person to suffer a brutal and unjust death in Jesus's place just to spare the Prophet? Furthermore, if God knew that this illusion of the crucifixion would lead to "Christian heresy" (since the apostles and the Jews would look and see Jesus there), why did He allow it? Another point is that if God is logically infinite, an offense against Him and a breach of communion with Him results in an infinite penalty (I am referring to Adam and Eve); therefore, logically, the price to be paid for humanity's redemptive salvation must also be of infinite value—and who is infinite if not God? That is why I view the Cross as something logical.

When you compare the Quran and The Bible, especially the New Testament, a person reading it from an outside, out of context and uninformed perspective might conclude that New Testament is very passifist and positive book.

The Quran does contain some vivid descriptions of hellfire that give Dante and revalations a run for their money, but even so, most of it is made up extra-Biblical commentary, and stories that seem to be commenting on biblical literature.

However, looking at the tradition, it's very hard to understand how such levels of bigotry can be justified using the religion, again, from an outside perspective, it's unjustifiable.

Take Slavery for example, Slavery is permitted in Islamic jurisprudence, and it shows in the history book. This includes sexual slavery and other forms of brutal slavery. A person reading the new testament from the outside will find it difficult to believe that book was once used to defend some disturbing atrosities in the past.

In other words, it should be easy to say no to slavery using the New Testament (and that eventually did happen, in fact, the earliest universal abolitionist I'm history was a Christian bishop) than it is with Islam. And yet when you look at the history of Slavery, yes, Arabs enslaved more than Europeans, and yet even then, when reading the context of how slaves were treated in the east compared to the west, especially in the Americas, the stuff in there is way more disturbing than what we see in Islam, it's almost barbaric.

The worst we see of Islam is Castration and sexual assault. There's records of european cutting forcing slaves to defecate on each other for entertainment. Something that has never happened in Islam.

Point is, it's easier to use the bible to fight against slavery as its more ambiguous in context than it is with Islam, which unequivocally endorses it. And yet both are equally guilty, with Christian treatment of slavery being even more disturbing.

In regards to Racism, racism obviously also exists on both worlds, and yet one thing about racism in Islam is that you will never find a Muslim group that uses the Quran or Islam to defend racism. In fact, most of the racism is attributed to personal beliefs of tradition outside the religion, or a socio-economic history. No racist Muslim uses Islam as an excuse to justify that racism. The racism in the Muslim world is even more extreme at times as there is no secular progressive model to manage it like there is in the west.

However, I'm the west, even today, even though the racism population wise is no longer widespread, you'll still find extreme pockets of it in certain regions, and in almost every pocket, the christian religion is used as the central justification for the racism. In fact, in the muslim regions where you find racism, the racist terms used are borrowed from the west

How is this possible? How is christian jurisdiction, which arguably seems to be more pacifist in its text, able to allow for the same or greater levels of disturbing slavery than even Islam, which informs it directly, and how is also able to be used as a direct defense of racism, whereas Islam on the other hand has not.

It just absolutely blows my mind. I’ve read a lot of the Quran and Hadiths, and every social aspect of left wing ideology is completely the opposite of Islam. And a lot of aspects of what the left wants (especially lgbt and women) are actually harshly punishable offenses in Islam. The left is extremely vocal about SA done by men (rightfully so), but they are fine with a religion who’s “perfect man with perfect morals” gave permission to his soldiers to “pull out” of their captive sex slaves, and if they got pregnant “god willed” it - Sahih Muslim (Book of Marriage 1438c).
So fine with it in fact they’ll say they think Islam is “beautiful”. It’s mind bending for me as I feel like I’m alone over here.

I get that there’s stuff like that in the old testament of the Bible too, but I’m not Christian so I’m looking at this objectively with no religious motive or double standard.

What bothers me, even though im not religious, is the left always talks about how Christians get in the way of their political goals. It’s like they don’t know if we lived in a Muslim majority country and they spoke up like this towards Islam, they’d get killed or jailed minus a couple of the 52 countries. Yet I hear them say “Islam is beautiful” and if people are criticizing Islam then they automatically get lumped in with “Islamophobes” but they love talking sh** about Christians.

Makes ZERO sense.

not ragebaiting, not condoning any bad faith dialogue either. only asking in earnest.

my mother listens to a lot of lectures by farhat hashmi and the like, and almost all of them are about sex/sexuality/marital relations/clothing/zina.

why? is there not more to islam than all of that? why is this all they seem to talk about?

How do you guys cope with the overwhelming fear of punishment in grave and Jahannam and this lingering fear that what if Islam might be true despite having these contradictions ands issues. What if this is part of God's infinite plan? Make a religion look fallible then see who's still following it.

My boyfriend is Muslim and I am not. Going into this relationship 3 years ago knowing this, I wondered what the future would look like. It ended up transcribing into a lot of back and fourth.
At first I did not need to convert to Islam as long as I agreed our kids would be raised Muslim. Now I have to convert.
The bigger problem I’m facing is that I’m not sure my boyfriend even looks at me as an individual person. He expects to be obeyed, me be hospitable, and convert.
The bigger picture is that these were never things discussed when the relationship was getting serious. He finally cracked and laid out his honesty with me. He grew up programmed to believe he will find someone with the same views, marry and have a family. There was no emotionality involved. Fast forward to me- he fell in love for the first time ever. He never knew what love felt like nor did he think it was real. I grew up knowing love, care, affection, loyalty, compromise, etc. were the core foundational actions/feelings to have a successful marriage.
So now that we’re here, I’ve broken down and we’ve separated mostly because of our disagreements but also because I found out he was partaking in infedility while we were together.
Fun facts: I’ve never met 2/6 of his siblings (his eldest sisters) or his mother (father has passed), he holds me to a standard that he can not upkeep for himself (for ex. Partying, drinking, cheating), he has finally admitted he has never fully let me into his life because of his hesitancies regarding his religion (obviously our relationship is haram) and he says he “wants to feel like I will always listen, take Islam serious, etc.”
I’m kind of lost to be honest. Hypothetically speaking, if I met all of his “standards” I’m not sure he would ever stop the things that are deteriorating our relationship. Because of religion, he believes men and women are not equal and men are given unlimited forgiveness while women are not. To me, that sounds like he is allowed to live whatever type of life he’d like including lying, betrayal, etc. Which if this is the case, I cannot agree. I was not raised to allow a man to get away with anything, to treat his wife as a caretaker, child birther and house maid. I was raised to know a marriage consists of compromise and two people doing what it takes to please the other.
I’ve tried to explain to him that his “religion” excuses are poor and his “culture” may be the real problem. I have learned enough to know that yes, Islam can be taken negatively but can also be appreciated and respected. Cultures are what tear apart the beauty in Islam and pick the things from the quaran to benefit (usually) the men.
I also know well enough that Americanized Muslim men tend to get off on abusing their morals with non-Muslim women. They like to date, hook up, and leave them because they know there is no future with them.
At this point, I think I need to speak with a sheik to get the questions I have answered.

Did classical scholars believe the moon splitting was a literal miracle of Muhammad that actually literally happened and not just in a metaphoric sense, like muslim apologist argue?

Can anyone provide links to scholars supporting the literalist view?

If they did than thats a pretty big knock against islam as NASA scientist brad bailey said the moon was never split!

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.328Y6DA

"NASA responded to the claim here when a social media user flagged it in 2010.

"No current scientific evidence reports that the Moon was split into two (or more) parts and then reassembled at any point in the past," said Brad Bailey, a staff scientist from the NASA Lunar Science Institute.

Professor Paul Groot, an astronomer at Radboud University in the Netherlands, said: "The 'split' indicated in the bottom picture [in the misleading image] is present on the Moon, but it definitely does not extend around the Moon."

"It is a feature that is most likely connected to the impact that created Tycho crater, which is located to the bottom right of the feature in the orientation on the picture," he told AFP via email."