In the1970s a German Protestant theologian scholar named Dr Gunther Luling (a Dr. in Arabistics and Islamics and a pioneer in the study of early Islamic origins) wrote his Doctoral thesis on the origins of the Qur'an, where he reconstructed a comprehensive pre-Islamic Christian Hymnal hidden within the Qur’an, taken from 5th-6th century Syriac Christian hymns.

His 1970 PhD thesis received the ‘Opus Eximium’ (high distinction) grade, the highest available in Germany, which should have promoted him to professorship anywhere, but in 1972 he was kicked out of his University, for no reason. One German scholar said ‘He was a crack-pot’, possibly because his research was just too new and too explosively controversial.

In the 1990s his thesis was translated into English, which gave it a much wider audience, and he was rehabilitated, so that by the time he died in 2014, he had been exonerated.

Following Dr Luling's example another German Arabist and Syriac scholar, Dr Christoph Luxenberg broke new ground on the Qur'an, discovering that much of it came from previous Christian Lectionaries, Homilies, and Hymns, written in Syro-Aramiac, and then interposed into Arabic later on.

Like Luling, he was ostracized by the German academic community. As a result, he changed his name and never publicly showed his face, in order not to be identified.

He was curious concerning the 25% of the Qur'an which even the scholars don't understand, known as the "Dark Passages", and so decided to apply Lulings methodology, using his own 7-step process of peeling back the layers of the Arabic to find what the text originally said.

Here is his 7-step process:

1) He checked al-Tabari's 10th century Tafsir (commentary) for an Arabic meaning for the words in question.

2) He then checked the 13th century Lisān al-ʿArab (“Tongue of Arabs” = Arabic Dictionary) which was compiled by Ibn Manzur (in 1290) for dictionary meanings of those words.

3) He looked to see if there were homonymous (synonymous) roots in the Aramaic, even perhaps with a different meaning.

4) He then tried different diacritics (the 5 dots above and below each of the letters in Arabic) to see if he could fine other alternatives.

5) He finally went to the Aramaic language to find an Aramaic root using different Aramaic diacritics (dots similar to those in Arabic).

6) Upon trying the different diacritics, he then re-translated the Arabic words back into the Aramaic
using the semantics of the Syro-Aramaic word.

7) And finally he tried to find the lost meanings of Arab words using 10th century Syro-Aramaic
lexicons.

After employing these 7-step he was able to reproduce the 25% "Dark Passages" and noticed that they were simply Aramaic Christian Lectionaries, Homilies, and Hymns written by Christian priests in the 4th - 6th centuries in worship to JESUS!

So, his exercise had nothing to do with ‘what he found’, but ‘who he found’!

What can we conclude?

•The Qur’an is a mixture of Arabic and Aramaic words, originally written in Aramaic script, later transcribed into the Arabic script.

•When taking Aramaic into account, the Qur’an can be fully understood as a Christian text.

•During the 9th & 10th centuries (according to the Germans), diacritics/vowels were added and the reading was therefore fixed (scriptio plena).

•The present Qur’an is an interpretative act by Muslim Arabs (no longer Christians) who decided where the dots and vowels would go.

•Thus, the Qur’an was changed, and claims that an oral tradition ensures the correct reading are patently false.

Here then is a possible time line, including 5 periods of Textual evolution:

·7th century = Aramaic texts were transposed into Arabic, though few of the compilers knew
Aramaic well.

·8th – 9th centuries = Arabic manuscripts began to appear, but without diacritics or vowels, making it difficult to read.

·8th – 10th centuries = Qira’at & Ahruf copies were compiled (736 – 905 AD) by over 700 different men put their dots/vowels wherever they chose, and then gave their name to their Qur'anic text.

·10th – 15th centuries = 7 Qira'ats (chosen by Ibn Mujahid in 936 AD), then 14 (chosen by al Shatabi in 1194 AD), then 9 ‘Readings’ (chosen by al Jaziri in 1429 AD) were designated the 30 official Qira'at Qur'ans, with over 93,000 differences between them. As different geographical groups memorized their Qur'an, they followed the Qira'at of their choice, which created problems.

·20th century = So, in 1924 the final and singular ‘Hafs’ Qur’an was chosen, first for Cairo, then in 1936 for Egypt, and then for the whole world in 1985.

So, Muslims began with 1 Qur'an, which became 7, then 21, then 30, and finally back to 1 again. Yet, they still claim that there has always been only 1 Qur'an, without one letter or one word different.

With all this new evidence before you, who then are you going to believe?

© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2022
(62,830) Music: "Natural Paradise" by musiclfiles, from filmmusic-io