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Top Five Reasons Islam is False

1. Muhammad Taught Scientific Errors

Scientific errors are important, because anyone today can verify them as false - a luxury that Muhammad's audience in the 7th century did not have.

To this end, Muhammad taught the falsehood that flies carry both diseases, and their corresponding cures, on either wing, so they should be fully submerged in a drink that they touch:

Sahih al-Bukhari 3320

Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet (ﷺ) said "If a house fly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink) and take it out, for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease."

This is also narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari 5782, Sunan Ibn Majah 3505, and Sunan Abi Dawud 3844. It is verifiably false, and an extremely dangerous teaching.

If the wings of a fly are analyzed, it will not be the case that one will have a disease, and the other will have the corresponding cure for that disease. One wing of a fly is not always sterile and disease-fighting, with the other being only diseased and devoid of cure. And, adding the entire body of the fly to a drink has just exposed a person to millions and millions of bacteria, making the situation worse than it was when only a wing was submerged. This is a foolish, false teaching from a man who told us to obey him as if he were God (Surah 4:80, Sahih al-Bukhari 2956, 2957), and never question any of his judgments (Surah 4:65, 33:36, 49:1).

Muhammad also taught the falsehood that Ajwa dates grant immunity against poison, and magic:

Sahih al-Bukhari 5445

Narrated Sa`d:
Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "He who eats seven 'Ajwa dates every morning, will not be affected by poison or magic on the day he eats them."

This is also narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari 5768, 5769, 5779, Sahih Muslim 2047a-b, and Sunan Abi Dawud 3876, and not only is this false, it's exceptionally ironic, because Muhammad was both bewitched and poisoned in his life, according to himself, and he eventually died as a result of the poisoning (Sahih al-Bukhari 4428).

Other scientific falsehoods he taught, along with articles covering each claim, are as follows:

  • The sun sets in a muddy spring ⟶ article
  • The sun goes to Allah's throne after sunset, and then asks for permission to return at sunrise, demonstrating that he didn't understand that it is always sunset somewhere on earth ⟶ article
  • Water is not made impure unless its taste, color, or smell changes, which is extremely false, and dangerous ⟶ article
  • Diseases do not spread from one animal to another ⟶ article
  • Semen comes from between the backbone and the ribs ⟶ article
  • Women have yellow semen, and whichever partner's semen is discharged first determines the appearance of the baby ⟶ article
  • Semen lives in a woman for 40 days before becoming a clot of blood ⟶ article
  • Babies develop in 5 stages, including bones uncovered with flesh ⟶ article

Many of these scientific falsehoods have the potential to cause harm, and yet Muhammad claimed divine revelation for them, and said all of these things while professing his judgments to be equivalent to God's (Surah 4:65, 4:80).

2. The Quran Has Been Corrupted

Many Muslims base their faith on the perfect preservation of the Quran. Even though preservation of a text does not prove that it is divine, we don't have to leave the realm of Islam's own sources to demonstrate that the Quran has not been preserved.

The most concise example of this corruption would be the verses of breastfeeding an adult five times, which according to Aisha, were in the Quran, and recited at the time of the death of Muhammad, yet such verses are absent from any Quran today:

Sahih Muslim 1452a

'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that it had been revealed in the Holy Qur'an that ten clear sucklings make the marriage unlawful, then it was abrogated (and substituted) by five sucklings and Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) died, and it was before that time (found) in the Holy Qur'an (and recited by the Muslims).

The lost verses referenced above taught that a woman breastfeeding a man five times made him unlawful for marriage. Originally, it was ten times, but Allah's word is so "eternal" that it had to be modified within a single man's lifetime. Then, this ceased being recited completely. Why was it modified from ten breastfeedings to five, if it's Allah's eternal word? And, why isn't it recited as part of the Quran anymore, when it was at one point?

The above is far from the only example of lost parts of the Quran that Islam's sources tell us about. Lost verses and chapters are mentioned repeatedly in various Hadith:

  • Sahih al-Bukhari 4090 ⟶ Mentions that a verse of the Quran was revealed in connection with some Arab tribes, which is no longer in the Quran
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 4727 ⟶ Ibn Abbas recites Surah 18:79-80 with additional words which are not in the modern Quran
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 6830 ⟶ Ibn Abbas mentions a verse that was once recited as part of the Quran, which is no longer in the Quran
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 4481, 5005 ⟶ Says that Ubai bin Ka'b was the best Quran reciter (Muhammad agreed, Sahih al-Bukhari 4999), yet some of what he recited as part of the Quran is not in Zaid bin-Thabit's recension
  • Sahih Muslim 2462, Jami at-Tirmidhi 3104 ⟶ Says that Abdullah Bin Masud, another one of Muhammad's top reciters (Sahih al-Bukhari 4999), did not like Zaid bin-Thabit's recension, telling people to keep their existing Qurans
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 6829-30, Sahih Muslim 1691a, Sunan Ibn Majah 2553, Sunan Abi Dawud 4418, Jami at-Tirmidhi 1432 ⟶ The verses of stoning an adulterer were once recited as part of the Quran, and now are not
  • Sahih Muslim 1452a-b, Sunan an-Nasai 3307, Sunan Ibn Majah 1944 ⟶ The verses of stoning and breastfeeding were lost after Muhammad's death, but recited as part of the Quran prior to then
  • Sahih Muslim 1050 ⟶ Abu Musa al-Ash'ari says that two chapters of the Quran, which were recited at the time of Muhammad, are lost

This topic of the corruption of the Quran is covered in much more detail, in its own article here.

3. Muhammad Gave False Prophecies

Muhammad taught a very imminent end of the world, and in turn, gave many prophecies of signs that were to accompany the Last Hour. He also gave narrations establishing a time boundary on when the Last Hour was to take place.

For instance, in the following narration, he set a time bound of 100 years for the Last Hour:

Sahih al-Bukhari 564

Narrated `Abdullah:
"One night Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) led us in the `Isha' prayer and that is the one called Al-`Atma by the people. After the completion of the prayer, he faced us and said, "Do you know the importance of this night? Nobody present on the surface of the earth tonight will be living after one hundred years from this night."

This is also narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari 116. The Arabic in the passage actually says "not a single person on the surface of the earth will remain", but that is obscured by the Muslim translators here in order to accommodate the Muslim defense of this failed prophecy, which is to say that it is Muhammad prophesying that the current earth's population would all be dead in 100 years.

This defense fails for a few reasons:

  • How is the current population's lifespan being under 100 years from this particular night remarkable? Why is that significant enough to specially mention? What does that have to do with "this night"?
  • What would be the point of giving such a prophecy, which has no theological significance at all, and is unverifiable? Again, what does that have to do with "this night"?
  • Limiting the current population's lifespan to 100 years, in the 7th century, is not remarkable as a prophecy. Even today, it's rare for someone to live to the age of 100
  • We know from other narrations, recorded in Sahih Muslim 2538a and 2539, that he would specifically set this one-century limit when asked about "the Last Hour"

Any impartial observer can consider the above proposals, and determine that the Muslim defense of this passage is ad-hoc, and illogical. Muslims need to understand that simply having "a response" means absolutely nothing, if that response is logically absurd, and uncompelling.

He gave many such narrations in context to the Last Hour, many of which are false, and impossible, as covered in this article. Perhaps the most absurd is one that stems from the Quran itself (Surah 18:92-99, 21:95-97), where we learn about the vicious, savage tribes of Gog and Magog, which are currently kept at bay by Allah miraculously repairing an iron wall between two mountains every day, placed there originally by Zul-Qarnain. One day, they will be allowed to break through, and will attack all of the earth. This bizarre, obviously-false prophecy is covered in its own article here.

4. Muhammad's Relationship to the Bible

Muhammad claimed that he was a continuation of the Biblical line of prophets (Surah 3:3-4), and claimed to be mentioned in the Torah and Gospel that people had at his time:

Surah 7:157

157 Those who follow the Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel in their possession. He directs them to righteousness, and deters them from evil, ...

We know what the Torah and Gospel looked like during his time, because there are existing copies of the entire Bible from centuries before Muhammad, and also tens of thousands of quotations of the Bible in writers writing in many different languages, in many different countries, who likewise lived prior to Muhammad. Anyone with an internet connection can read these writers and verify this. They are called the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene writers, and we have thousands of pages of their writings.

However, in spite of Muhammad's claim, he is not mentioned anywhere in either the Torah, or the Gospel, let alone both of them. The Bible passages which Muslims use in an attempt to vindicate his claim in Surah 7:157 are dishonest to the point of foolishness and insanity, as covered at-length in this article. There is no way for a person who is sincere in their quest for the truth before God to remain a Muslim, if they undertake a serious examination of just this one claim of Muhammad's.

Not only is his claim to be mentioned in the Bible completely indefensible and false, but also the religion and God that he taught is entirely different from that of the Bible. He got even basic things, such as the name of God, completely wrong.

The name of God in Abrahamic tradition is Yahweh (Exodus 3:13-15), which is affirmed by the fact that it is embedded in many of the names of the prophets, such as Jesus ("Yahweh is salvation"), John ("Yahweh is gracious"), Elijah ("My God is Yahweh"), and so on - all of whom the Quran affirms as prophets. Yet, this special divine name is entirely absent from the Quran, and the Hadith. Muhammad didn't even know the name of the God that he was supposed to be affirming. Many such themes shared between the Old and New Testament, yet missing from Islam entirely, are covered in this article.

Similarly, despite his frequent claims of affirmation (Surah 2:40-41, 2:89, 5:43-47, 5:68, etc.), he contradicted what the Bible taught on many dozens of doctrines, affecting thousands of verses of Scripture. To give one example:

Surah 2:230

230 So if a husband divorces his wife, then it is not lawful for him to remarry her until after she has married another man and then is divorced. Then it is permissible for them to reunite, as long as they feel they are able to maintain the limits of Allah. These are the limits set by Allah, which He makes clear for people of knowledge.

Contrasted with:

Jeremiah 3:1

1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

Above, Muhammad taught that after a divorce, a woman must marry another man, before the original couple can be reconciled. The Bible says that such a practice causes the land to be "greatly polluted", and in the original giving of the Law, the Lord calls the practice an "abomination" (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).

Anyone can look at the above, and see that the Bible's ruling makes infinitely more sense than the Quran's, and there is zero motivation for anyone with a brain to "corrupt" Jeremiah 3:1 and Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to change from the Quran's nonsensical requirement of committing adultery (Matthew 5:31-32) before reconciliation is allowed. Rather, Muhammad simply made his own rule up, and the rule is ridiculous, and contradicts what God actually commanded.

He taught things such as that God is not a father to anyone (Surah 5:18, 19:88-92, etc.), even though the Jews and Christians, whose Scriptures he claimed prolifically to affirm, had known God as their Father, as testified in Scripture, for thousands of years before Muhammad (Deuteronomy 14:1, Isaiah 63:16, 64:8, Hosea 1:10, John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, etc.). He made silly historical mistakes, like conflating Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron (Surah 19:27-28, 3:33-39, 66:12). Many such examples of Muhammad contradicting what he claimed to affirm are covered in this article.

So, Muhammad claimed to affirm our Scripture, then proceeded to contradict it in hundreds of ways, and teach things that no text recognized by Jews or Christians has ever taught. At the same time, he affirmed practices of local Arabian Paganism, lied by saying that all of the Biblical prophets did these things - which no historian on earth believes, and there is no historical evidence whatsoever to support - and created his own, new religion of "Islam", where he gets to be obeyed as God (Surah 4:80, Sahih al-Bukhari 2956, 2957).

Some examples of his blatant, obvious adoption of local Arabian Paganism are covered in the following articles, all of which appeal to quotes from Muhammad's own companions, in which they testify that they had done the exact same practices before Islam when they lived as Pagans near Muhammad's hometown:

There is much more that could be said - see the linked articles - but in summary, Muhammad invalidated his own false religion, by claiming to affirm something that he knew nothing about, and prolifically contradicted.

5. Muhammad Fabricated Revelations

Muhammad lied, and falsely attributed revelations to God on many occasions - the aforementioned scientific falsehoods being one example.

However, his most egregious false revelation was when, rather early in his prophetic career, he recited revelations given to him by Satan, according to himself. This incident of the Satanic Verses, covered in its own article here, had in its aftermath the most damning confession any self-proclaimed "prophet" could ever give:

The History of al-Tabari, Vol 6, pg. 111

That evening Gabriel came to him and reviewed the surah with him, and when he reached the two phrases which Satan had cast upon his tongue he said, "I did not bring you these two." Then the Messenger of God said, "I have fabricated things against God, and have imputed to Him words which He has not spoken."

In the Bible, the Lord was clear in stating that this type of thing was never to happen to a true prophet. Anyone who did what Muhammad did, according to his own testimony, would immediately be put to death under the Law of God:

Deuteronomy 18:20

20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

Apart from the Satanic Verses incident, and all of the prolific contradictions of science, medicine, and previous Scripture that he claimed to affirm, he also gave "revelations" which were all-too-human in nature and purpose. Consider the following:

  • Only the Prophet gets to have as many wives as he wants (Surah 33:50)
  • No one can marry the Prophet's wives after him (Surah 33:53)
  • Allah tells everyone, in his eternal word to mankind, not to annoy the Prophet by staying too late as his house after dinner (Surah 33:53)
  • Allah tells everyone, in his eternal word to mankind, not to speak too loudly around the Prophet, or call to him from outside of his house (Surah 49:1-5)
  • The Prophet received a dream that he was supposed to marry a six year-old girl when he was over fifty years old - old enough to be her grandfather (Sahih al-Bukhari 7012, article)
  • The Prophet received a revelation that Allah would marry him to the wife of his adopted son Zaid, while they were still married (Surah 33:37-40, article)
  • The Prophet received a revelation that having intercourse with his slave girl is fine, and that if his wives don't stop behaving badly toward him, he might just divorce them all, and then Allah would give him better wives (Surah 66:1-5, article)

The last of the above revelations, by the way - Surah 66:5 - is actually a quotation from Umar, the second Caliph, according to himself (Sahih al-Bukhari 402). The fact that Umar actually had multiple "revelations" that made their way into the Quran is covered in this this article. Such is just one example of the extremely ad-hoc nature of many of Muhammad's "revelations".

In addition, the Quran contains stories which we know originate from non-inspired Jewish commentary on the Bible, Christian apocrypha, as well as a legendary biography of Alexander the Great. Some articles covering this are as follows:

Finally, he put words into people's mouths prolifically, and made everyone in his book sound exactly like him. This phenomenon, which is actually quite funny when analyzed at a large scale, is covered in its own article here.

Muhammad's revelations were not divine. They were very human, very fallible, and often, very ridiculous, or altogether false.

Bonus - Muhammad's Moral Atrocities

While the morality of Islam flexes to accommodate all of the horrible things Muhammad did and allowed, when viewed from any other perspective, Muhammad's life was marked by a litany of moral atrocities:

  • He was responsible for an absurd amount of death and bloodshed during his conquests of the Arabian Peninsula, in which he fought and encouraged offensive warfarearticle
  • He had a man tortured to extract information on where money was hidden ⟶ article
  • He had intercourse with a prepubescent nine year-old girl when he was fifty-four years old, and made child marriage an institution ⟶ article
  • He caused the divorce of his adopted son Zaid, abolished adoption, and then married his son's ex-wife ⟶ article
  • He took Safiyya as his wife after slaughtering her tribe and family at Khaybar, including her father, brother, and her husband Kenana, who was the tortured man mentioned in the bullet point above ⟶ article
  • He taught that women were lacking in intelligence, and were more likely to go to Hell than men ⟶ article
  • He allowed his followers to beat their wives ⟶ article
  • He allowed his followers to rape female captives ⟶ article
  • He allowed prostitution (Mut'ah) ⟶ article
  • He demanded that anyone who left his religion must be killed ⟶ article
  • He beheaded 600-900 prisoners of war from the tribe of Banu Qurayza after they surrendered, and took their wives and children as captives (Sahih al-Bukhari 3804, 4121, 6262, History of al-Tabari Volume 8, pg. 34-35, Sirat Rasul Allah, Guillaume, pg. 464)
  • He personally owned and traded slaves (Sahih al-Bukhari 6161, 7263, Sahih Muslim 1602, Sunan an-Nasai 3827, 4621)
  • He cursed people who had wronged him (Sahih al-Bukhari 2934), he asked his followers to kill his personal enemies (Sahih al-Bukhari 3031-32, 4037), he rebuked them for not killing his personal enemies (Sunan Abi Dawud 4359), and he tolerated it when they did so of their own accord (Sunan Abi Dawud 4361)

Most every Muslim - or anyone else, for that matter - is a better person than Muhammad. He was one of the most evil, wicked men to ever live.

Conclusion

Taken on their own, any one of these points invalidate Muhammad as a prophet. Taken together, they leave no excuse for an intellectually honest Muslim to stay in Islam.

Muhammad was just one of many false prophets that Jesus Christ warned about (Matthew 24:11). Unlike Muhammad, Jesus could uphold the authority of all the prophets that came before Him (Matthew 5:17), because they all prophesied of Him (Acts 3:18). I pray that Muslims make the right decision, and trade the false prophet Muhammad for the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.