‘I will cast terror into the hearts of the infidels!’ (Sura 8.12)
1. ADAM
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, tells how on the sixth day, God created ‘man in his own image’. ‘Male and female created He them’ and ‘gave them dominion over everything that moves upon the earth.’
Chapters 2 and 3 tell how ‘The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,’ and placed the man ‘in the garden, of Eden to dress it and keep it,’ whilst telling him that he might eat freely of every tree of the garden except ‘the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.’
Then all the animals are brought before Adam to be named. God creates a companion for Adam, a woman made from his rib, but she is beguiled by the serpent into eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and shares the fruit with Adam.
God curses the serpent saying, ‘on thy belly shalt thou go.’ God then expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, saying to Adam, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.’
In the Quran
The story of Adam as recited by Muhammad in the Quran is completely different to the original 2,500-year-old Hebrew creation myth in the Bible.
In the Quran, Allah says, ‘And when We said to the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam, they all fell prostrate, except Iblis.’ (Sura 2. 34)
This story of the refusal of Iblis/Satan to bow before Adam is from The Life of Adam and Eve, an old Jewish tale circulating at the time of Muhammad.
Iblis then says to Allah, ‘I am better than he (Adam). You created me from fire and him from clay.’ (Sura 7.12 and Sura 38.76)
Again, this tale is not in the Bible, but can be found in the Syriac Book of the Cave of Treasures, thought to have originated as early as the fourth century CE, and circulating at the time of Muhammad, in which Satan says: ‘Ye shall not worship him, and ye shall not praise him with the angels. It is meet that ye should worship me, because I am fire and spirit; and not that I should worship a thing fashioned of fine dust.’
Muhammad’s own description of Adam in the first heaven
Describing his Night Journey to the Temple of Jerusalem on the back of the fabulous winged mule, Buraq, and his Ascent to Heaven accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, Muhammad told his followers, ‘When I entered the lowest heaven, I saw a man sitting there with the spirits of men passing before him. To one he would speak well and rejoice in him, saying, “A good spirit from a good body!” And of another, he would say, “Faugh!” and frown, saying, “An evil spirit from an evil body!”
In answer to my question, Gibril told me that this was our father Adam reviewing the spirits of his offspring. The spirit of a believer excited his pleasure, and the spirit of an infidel excited his disgust, so that he said the words just quoted.’ (Ibn Ishaq: Sirat Rasul Allah. Translation by A. Guillaume, OUP, 1955, p 185).
Muhammad’s claim that Adam was a prophet of Islam
Muhammad was the first person in history to claim that Adam was a prophet. Jews and Christians had never considered Adam to be a prophet. In the original Bible myth, Adam was merely the first man to be created by God. He sinned in eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and that is why he and his descendants were cast out of the Garden of Eden for ever.
Muslim scholars have therefore struggled to reconcile Adam’s sinfulness with what they were taught by Muhammad: 1. That Adam was a prophet, and 2. All prophets are sinless. Their ingenious answer is that God forgave Adam and Eve. Then, after Adam came to earth, he became ‘the very first prophet of Allah as he taught his own children to be faithful and obedient servants to the lord of this world.’ (Sumayyah Meehan, Living Islam)
Where the Quranic stories of Adam differ from the original 2,500-year-old myth of Adam and Eve found in the Bible, Muslims claim that the stories Muhammad recited in the Quran are ‘the actual words of Allah’, and that Jews and Christians have somehow ‘corrupted’ or ‘altered’ their own ancient scriptures to conceal the truth that Adam was a true Muslim and a sinless prophet of Islam.
Prophets of the Quran
ISLAMIC PROPHETS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
PART 1: 1. ADAM/ADAM – 11. YUSUF/JOSEPH
2. IDRIS
Idris is an Islamic prophet not known to Judaism or Christianity. His name is mentioned only once in the Quran ‘as a saint and a prophet’ whom Allah ‘raised to high station.’ (Sura 19.56-57)
Muhammad also mentions in his own Ascent to Heaven as having gone to “the fourth heaven and there was a man called Idris. ‘And we have exalted him to a lofty place.” (Ibn Ishaq: Sirat Rasul Allah. Translation by A. Guillaume, OUP, 1955, p 186)
No other details are given, so there is still, after fourteen hundred years, continuing argument among Muslim scholars as to which Judeo-Christian prophet this Idris figure might possibly equate with. There are many far-fetched theories, with the majority inclining to Enoch, though even that identification has been disputed.
Idris’s ‘identification with the Biblical Enoch, may or may not be correct. All we are told is he was a man of truth and sincerity, and a prophet, and that he had a high position among his people.’ (Abdullah Yusuf Ali: The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary)
3. NUH (NOAH)
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis (Chapters 6 -10) recounts the well-known myth of the Flood that lasted for forty days and forty nights.
God sees the wickedness of mankind and an ‘earth filled with violence’ so He reluctantly decides to destroy his own creation. Noah alone is ‘a just man and perfect in his generations’, so God invites him to build an ark, and take with him into the ark, his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, and to take two of every sort of living thing into the ark with them.
When the flood is over, God orders Noah and his sons to go forth and multiply to replenish the earth with righteous people.
In the Quran
The tale of Nuh, as recited by Muhammad in the Quran, is very different from the original 2,500-year-old Hebrew version in the Bible.
The Nuh of the Quran, whom Muhammad describes as a prophet of Allah, speaks remarkably like Muhammad himself, haranguing his people, saying, ‘I have come to warn you plainly. Beware the torment of a woeful day!’ Similarly, when Nuh’s people mock him, they are also threatened ‘with a scourge everlasting!’
In the Quran, the ‘water wells out from the Oven’ and Nuh ‘and his household and a few believers go into the ark with all the animals.’ (Sura 11.40)
The whole point of the Biblical story about re-populating the world with righteous men is lost, as both Nuh’s wife and an unnamed son die in the Flood along with the wicked of the earth: ‘As the ark moved on amid the mountainous waves, Nuh cried out to his son, who stood apart, ‘Embark with us, my son. Do not remain with the unbelievers!’ The son replied, ‘I will seek refuge on a mountain, which will protect those who enjoy His mercy!’ And thereupon the billows rolled between them and Nuh’s son was drowned.’ (Sura 11.42-43)
The Flood only ends when Allah says ‘O Earth! Swallow thy water! And O Sky, be cleared of clouds!’(Sura 11.44)
We learn elsewhere from the Quran that Nuh’s wife was a wicked woman who ‘betrayed’ her husband and so was condemned by Allah ‘to enter the Fire,’(Sura 66.10) which presumably she did after drowning in the Flood.
Another major difference to the Bible version is that the Flood in the Quran turns out to be a local one, sent down specifically on Nuh’s people as a punishment for not heeding Nuh’s warnings. Apparently Allah has other ‘communities that He will allow to take their ease before visiting them with a woeful scourge.’ (Sura 11.48)
Muhammad’s claim that Noah was a prophet of Islam
Although Muhammad believed that Noah was a prophet, he is not depicted as such in the Bible, but merely as the only righteous man in the world worth saving.
Where the Quranic story of Nuh differs from the original 2,500-year-old myth of Noah found in the Bible, Muslims claim that Muhammad’s version in the Quran is ‘the actual word of Allah’, and that Jews and Christians have somehow ‘corrupted’ or ‘altered’ their own ancient scriptures to conceal the truth that Noah was a true Muslim and prophet of Islam.
4. HUD
Hud is an Arabian prophet, not known to Judaism or Christianity, and Muhammad does not mention seeing him in any of the seven heavens.
According to the Quran, Hud is ‘of the people of Ad. ’ Like Muhammad, Hud harangues his people, saying, ‘Oh, my people! Serve Allah! You have no other God save Him.’ Just like the Quraysh, they reply, ‘O Hud, you have brought us no clear proof and we are not going to forsake our gods on your command.’ (Sura 11.50-53)
‘Then Allah sent a blast of wind as a painful punishment which destroyed everything such that naught could be seen except their dwellings.’ (Sura 46.24-25)
Hud, one of the three Arabian prophets
Hud is not found in any other source than the Quran. He has been described as one of those ‘mysterious Arabian prophets who have often puzzled Quranic scholars and who, to my mind, are really psychological alter egos of Muhammad himself.’ (Tarif Khalidi: Classical Arab Islam. Darwin Press, 1985)
5. SALEH
Saleh is an Arabian prophet in the Quran, not known to Judaism or Christianity, and Muhammad does not mention seeing him in any of the seven heavens.
According to the Quran, Saleh is ‘of the people of Thamud.’ Like Muhammad, Saleh harangues his people, saying, ‘Oh my people! Serve Allah! You have no other God save Him.’ (Sura 7.73) Just like the Quraysh, the chieftains are scornful. They even hamstring a miraculous she-camel given to them by Saleh ‘as a token of Allah.’
‘So the earthquake seized them, and morning found them prostrate in their dwelling place.’ (Sura 7.78)
Saleh, one of the three Arabian prophets
Saleh is not found in any other source than the Quran. He has been described as those ‘mysterious Arabian prophets who have often puzzled Koranic scholars and who, to my mind, are really psychological alter egos of Muhammad himself.’ (Tarif Khalidi: Classical Arab Islam. Darwin Press, 1985)
6. IBRAHIM (ABRAHAM)
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis describes how God orders Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, but an angel stops him at the altar, saying that he has proved his faithfulness. God then provides Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead.
In the Quran
In the Quran, Ibrahim goes to sacrifice an unnamed son, and is stopped by Allah, who accepts ‘a momentous sacrifice’ instead. The son turns out to be not Isaac, but Ishmael, Ibrahim’s son by Hagar, ancestor of the Ishmaelites and supposedly of Muhammad himself. Thus, in the Quran, Allah gives Ibrahim tidings of the birth of Isaac immediately after the attempted sacrifice of the unnamed son. (Sura 37. 112)
In the Quran, Allah gives Ibrahim ‘glad tidings of a gentle son. And when the boy was old enough to work with his father, Abraham said to him, ‘My son, I dreamt that I was sacrificing you. Tell me what you think. He said, ‘Father, do as you are commanded. Inshallah, you will find me steadfast.’ And when they had both submitted, and he had laid his son down upon his face, We called out to him, saying ‘Abraham you have confirmed the dream. This was indeed a true test. We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice and left for him the praise of later generations.’ (Sura 37.101-110)
In a revelation postdating the rejection of Muhammad by the Jews of Medina, the Quran orders Muhammad to change the direction of prayer from Jerusalem Kabah, saying that Ibrahim came to Arabia to join Hagar and Ishmael, and that Ibrahim and Ishmael together ‘raised the foundations of the Kabah in Mecca.’ (Sura 2.127)
The importance of Ibrahim to Islam
The importance of Ibrahim to Islam cannot be underestimated. Muhammad, throughout his lifetime, and in all his furious debates with Jews and Christians, always described Ibrahim as ‘neither a Jew nor a Christian’ but a muslim (one who submits) and a hanif (a believer in the Oneness of Allah). According to Muhammad, Ibrahim dwells in the seventh heaven and is referred to as Ibrahim Khalilullah (Ibrahim, Beloved of Allah).
Muhammad’s own description of Ibrahim in the seventh heaven
After being taken to Jerusalem on the back of the fabulous winged mule, Buraq, Muhammad describes how he went ‘to the seventh heaven and there was a man sitting on a throne at the gate of the immortal mansion. Never have I seen a man more like myself. This was my father Ibrahim. Then he took me into Paradise and there I saw a damsel with ruby red lips. She attracted me so much that I asked her to whom she belonged and she told me ‘Zayd b. Haritha.’ (Ibn Ishaq: Sirat Rasul Allah. Translation by A. Guillaume, OUP, 1955, p 186.)
Zayd was Muhammad’s beloved adopted son and therefore deserving of such a beautiful maiden awaiting him in Paradise.
Muhammad’s claim that Abraham was a prophet of Islam
As the Quranic story of Ibrahim, Hagar and Ishmael is in direct contradiction to the original 2,500-year-old story of Abraham and Hagar found in the Bible, Muslims claim that the Quran is correct, and that Jews and Christians have ‘corrupted’ and altered their own scriptures in order to conceal the fact that Ibrahim was a true Muslim and sinless prophet of Islam who came to Mecca and built the Kabah with his own hands.
7. LUT (LOT)
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis (Chapter 19) relates how two angels are sent by God to destroy the city of Sodom with fire and brimstone because of the wickedness of the homosexual inhabitants.
The virtuous Lot, and his wife and his two daughters, are warned by the two angels to flee and not to look back, but Lot’s wife does look back and is turned into a pillar of salt.
In the Quran
The snippets of the version of the legend recited by Muhammad in the Quran have several crucial omissions and differences to the original 2,500-year-old Hebrew version, besides which Lot was never considered by Jews or Christians to be a prophet as such.
According to the Quran, ‘The people of Lot disbelieved the apostles of Allah.’ Lut harangues his people, saying, ‘Will you fornicate with the males of humans and eschew the wives who Allah created for you?’ whilst claiming to be a ‘truthful apostle’ to them.
But they reject him, saying ‘Lut, desist or you shall be banished!’
Lut asks Allah to deliver him and his kin from their practices. Allah then ‘utterly destroys [the sinners] by pelting them with rain, and evil was the rain that fell on those who were forewarned.’(Sura 26.160-173)
The Quran also includes a claim that Lut’s wife, like Nuh’s wife, perished, condemned to the Fire for ‘betraying her husband.’ (Sura 66.10)
Muhammad’s claim that Lot was a prophet of Islam
As the Quranic story of Lot’s wife is in direct contradiction to the original 2,500-year-old story found in the Bible, Muslims claim that Muhammad’s oral version in the Quran is the correct one, and that Jews and Christians have ‘corrupted’ or altered their own scriptures to conceal the truth that Lot was a true Muslim and prophet of Islam.
8. ISHMAEL
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis recounts how Sarah, Abraham’s elderly wife, had given him no children, so she asked Abraham to sleep with her Egyptian slave Hagar in order to ‘build a family.’ But when Hagar became pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Sarah complained to Abraham, who said that Sarah should do what she thought best. Sarah mistreated Hagar. Hagar fled into the desert, to be told by an angel that if she returned to her mistress, she would have a son whom she should name Ishmael, and that her son would be ‘a wild ass of a man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren.’
However, Sarah then gave birth to a longed-for son, Isaac, and again demanded that both Hagar and her son Ishmael should be sent away. God said to Abraham, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will also make the slave’s [Hagar’s]son [Ishmael] into a nation, because he is your offspring.’
Abraham then sent away Hagar who wandered in the desert of Beersheba with her son. When she ran out of food and water, she lay down to die, but God sent an angel who directed her to a well.
The Bible says that, ‘God looked after the boy Ishmael as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother Hagar got a wife for him from Egypt.’
Ismael’s Egyptian descendants became known as Ishmaelites. Ishmael was never considered by Jews or Christians to be a Prophet as such.
In the Quran
In the Quranic version of the legend, as recited by Muhammad, Ibrahim is depicted as a righteous prophet who Muslims claim would never have treated his slave Hagar in this way.
Therefore, for the sake of Ibrahim’s morality, Hagar is said to have been legally married to Ibrahim, so Ishmael is not illegitimate after all.
When the Jews of Medina rejected him in 622CE, Muhammad had a revelation to change the Muslim qibla [direction of prayer] from Jerusalem to the Kabah in Mecca. He then relocated the story of Abraham and Ishmael to Mecca and said that Hagar had been running between the two hills of Safa and Marwa until she found the Zamzam well.
In order to justify this change of qibla, Muhammad told his followers that Ibrahim had come to Mecca to join Hagar and Ishmael, and had built the ancient pagan Kabah with his own hands, together with Ishmael: ‘Ibrahim and Ishmael laid the foundations of the House with this prayer: ‘Accept this from us, O Lord, the All-Hearing, the All-knowing.’ (Sura 2. 127)
As the Quranic story of Hagar and Ishmael is in direct contradiction to the original story found in Genesis, in which Hagar was merely a slave, and the sacrificed son was Isaac, Muslims claim that Muhammad’s oral version in the Quran is the correct one, and Jews and Christians are said to have ‘corrupted’ or altered their own ancient scriptures.
9. ISHAQ (ISAAC)
In the Bible
In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 22, Isaac is described as the son of Abraham and his wife Sarah. He was very precious to his parents, so it was with great dread that Abraham obeyed a summons from God to sacrifice him on the altar. Abraham had already placed his son upon wood upon the altar (to make a burnt offering) and was lifting the knife to cut his son’s throat when he was stopped by an angel. God provided Abraham with a ram caught in a thicket instead.
Isaac later became the father of Esau and Jacob, and through Jacob, the grandfather of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Isaac is therefore considered to be the second of forty eight prophets of Judaism.
In the Quran
In the Quran, as recited by Muhammad, it is Ishmael who is sacrificed by Abraham, not Ishaq.
Ishaq, being the ancestor of the Israelites, is far less important to Muslims than Ishmael, the ancestor of the Ishmaelites and supposedly of Muhammad himself. So very few details of Ishaq are given except that he was the other son of Ibrahim who also became ‘a prophet among the righteous.’ His name only otherwise occurs in lists with his father Ibrahim, his brother Ishmael and his son Yakub.
Muhammad’s claim that Isaac was a prophet of Islam
As the Quranic story of Ishaq is in direct contradiction to the 2,500-year-old story of Isaac found in the Bible, Muslims claim that Muhammad’s oral version in the Quran is the correct one, and that Jews and Christians have ‘corrupted’ their own scriptures in order to deny the truth that Isaac was not the sacrificed son but a true Muslim and prophet of Islam.
10. YAKUB
(JACOB, later known as ISRAEL)
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis, Chapter 27, describes how Jacob, the second-born twin son of Isaac, cheated his first-born brother Esau out of his birthright. Esau, a mighty hunter, was sent out by his father Isaac, now old and blind, to bring back venison before receiving his father’s blessing. But while Esau was away, his mother Rebekah, who favoured Jacob, helped Jacob to deceive his father into thinking he was Esau, so receiving the blessing instead.
When the deceit was revealed, Esau swore that he would slay his brother Jacob, so Jacob fled to stay with his uncle Laban in Haran. Near Luz on the way to Haran, he had the vision known as ‘Jacob’s ladder’, in which he saw a ladder to Heaven with angels going up and down it, and heard the voice of God blessing him. In Haran, Jacob laboured seven years for his uncle Laban to obtain the hand of Rachel. Instead, he was duped into marrying her elder sister Leah first. He also had two concubines, and by these four women, he had the twelve sons from whom the Twelve Tribes of Israel are supposed to have descended.
Jacob’s two youngest sons, Joseph and Benjamin, by Rachel (who died giving birth to Benjamin), were his favourites. This led to jealousy among the other sons which led to their abandoning Joseph to slavery in Egypt, whilst reporting back to Jacob with Joseph’s blood-soaked coat, leading Jacob to believe that Joseph had been killed by wild beasts.
In the Quran
In the Quran, as recited by Muhammad, Yakub is simply mentioned as a ‘righteous prophet’, and although his name is mentioned over 25 times in various snippets of the Quran, it is almost always in the context of the story of his son Yusuf.
Muhammad’s claim that Jacob was a prophet of Islam
As Yakub is depicted as a righteous prophet in the Quran, the 2,500 year-old Bible story of Jacob cheating Esau out of his birthright, is discarded by Muslims as false, wicked, and ‘unacceptable to Islam.’ Jews and Christians have somehow ‘corrupted’ or ‘altered’ their own ancient scriptures to conceal the truth that Jacob was a true Muslim and sinless prophet of Islam.
11. YUSUF (JOSEPH)
In the Bible
The Book of Genesis describes how Joseph’s jealous brothers conspire to kill him. Reuben tries to save Joseph by suggesting they throw him into a deep pit, and they do so after stripping him of his coat of many colours.
The brothers decide to sell Joseph to some Ishmaelites (Egyptians) passing by with camels laden with spices on their way from Gilead to Egypt. But unknown to them, some Midianite merchants drag Joseph out of the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. On finding Joseph missing, the brothers kill a young goat, and smearing Joseph’s coat with its blood, return to their father, Jacob, who assuming that some evil beast has devoured his favourite son, remains inconsolable.
The Midianites sell Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s and captain of the guard. Joseph rises in his favour and is made an overseer of Potiphar’s house. When Joseph resists the advances of Potiphar’s wife, she cries rape and he is cast into prison, where he correctly interprets the dreams of two fellow prisoners, Pharaoh’s chief butler and chief baker, the first of whom Joseph correctly prophesies will be forgiven, and the second hanged. Two years later, Joseph is brought out of the prison and interprets the Pharaoh’s dreams as prophesying seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh sets Joseph over all the land of Egypt, and during the famine years, people come from everywhere to buy corn, and among them are his brothers.
Joseph reveals himself to them and tells them to return to his father and bid him bring the entire family to live in the land of Goshen so that he can nourish them during the five years of famine still to come. Joseph marries Asenath, daughter of a priest, and has two sons by her, Manasseh and Ephraim, whom he brings to the dying Jacob so as to share in Jacob’s inheritance. Jacob makes Joseph promise to fulfil his last wish - not to be buried in Egypt, but in the land of his fathers.
In the Quran
In the Quran, as recited by Muhammad, Yusuf has an entire sura (chapter) devoted to him. Contrary to the 2,500 year-old version in the Old Testament, Yusuf’s brothers throw him into a well, not a dry pit, and he is taken by an unidentified merchant caravan when they stop for water, and then sold in Egypt for a ‘miserable price’ to an anonymous Egyptian.
The unnamed woman of the house becomes besotted with the wonderfully handsome Yusuf, and when he refuses her, she accuses him of rape, but the man of the house believes Yusuf, not her, and Yusuf is not cast into prison at this time, though he is later, to escape all the women who on seeing him instantly fall into such insatiable lust that they cut their hands with their fruit knives without noticing. This story of the handsome Yusuf and the besotted ladies is from Yusuf and Zulaikha, an ancient tale circulating at the time of Muhammad
In this Quranic version of the story, as recited by Muhammad, two anonymous young men in prison tell Yusuf their dreams and he forecasts that one will be pardoned, but the other will be ‘crucified.’ However, this is a seventh-century Arabic anachronism in the Quran. Crucifixion was not practised in ancient Egypt at the time of the Pharoahs
Yakub is so overcome with grief at Yusuf’s presumed death that his eyes go ‘white with grief’ and his sight is only restored when Yusuf’s shirt is thrown over his face. Yusuf welcomes ‘his parents’ (sic) to Egypt and prays to Allah, ‘Lord allow me to die a Muslim and admit me among the righteous.’
Muhammad’s own description of Yusuf in the third heaven
After being taken to Jerusalem on the back of the fabulous winged mule, Buraq, Muhammad describes how he went ‘to the third heaven and there was a man whose face shone like the full moon. This was my brother Yusuf, son of Yakub. (Ibn Ishaq: Sirat Rasul Allah. Translation by A. Guillaume, OUP, 1955, p 186.)
Here it means that Joseph’s face was utterly beautiful and serene, as ‘handsome and radiant’ as the full moon. For example, in his adoration of Muhammad, Jabir says: ‘The messenger of Allah was more handsome, beautiful and more radiant than the full moon.’
Muhammad’s claim that Joseph was a prophet of Islam
Where the Quranic story of Yusuf differs from the original 2,500-year-old story of Joseph in the Bible, Muslims claim that Muhammad’s oral version in the Quran is the correct one, and that Jews and Christians have somehow ‘corrupted’ or ‘altered’ their own ancient scriptures to conceal the truth that Joseph was a true Muslim and prophet of Islam.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash