Contradictions in the Qur'an

The purpose of this page

We do not reject the Qur'an because of this list of contradictions. There are many reasons of much more substantial nature why we do not believe the Qur'an to be from the one true God. You will find those discussed on other pages of this web site (e.g. [1], [2]). This page is not intended as an attack on the Qur'an. Sadly, many Muslims have become unnecessarily aggravated because they did not understand the purpose of this collection.

It is my experience that many Muslims try to evade a discussion of the real issues regarding the truth of Islam and Christianity by pushing "101 Bible Contradictions" (or similar compilations) into our face. Muslim web sites abound in articles and collections attacking the integrity of the Bible by means of contradiction lists. Many have the attitude that "because the Bible is riddled with contradictions, errors, absurdities and problems, there is no need for me to make the effort to understand it." With such an attitude no real dialog can develop. Our goal is to get beyond superficial word games to discussing the relevant core issues over which we differ.

It has mostly proven useless to explain one set of contradictions because there is always another one that can be added to the list. It is important to be able to give explanations of the difficult Biblical passages including those that seem contradictory. We are working hard to provide good answers to honest questions in our Bible Commentary and the section on alleged Bible contradictions. However, most Muslims' rejection of the Bible is not based on such contradiction lists. For most Muslims this rejection is an integral part of their faith long before they have ever seen any such "contradictions". These lists are usually only used as a convenient means to justify a rejection of the Bible which would otherwise be very difficult to explain rationally.

Counteracting this evasive or even hostile attitude is the purpose of this page. If both sides can come to the recognition that their own book, the scripture which is the basis of their faith, be it the Bible or the Qur'an, contains some very difficult passages which might even look like plain errors or logical contradictions (depending on the level of hostility employed when looking at it), then we might be more forgiving towards the other and be motivated to not judge prematurely but to make a serious effort to understand each of the books and the essential teachings of the respective faith in a deeper way before we come to a decision why we do or do not believe them.

Debates about contradictions are rarely fruitful because people tend to insist reading the texts of the opponent in the most rigid and literal manner to make it look bad, while being very lenient with their own book, allowing extra assumptions, metaphorical interpretations and other means to somehow explain how this can be understood without being a contradiction.

Some Muslims have proven by their provided responses that they possess a quite ingenious and creative mind. It is for our readers to decide whether or not the provided answers are fully satisfactory for them. It is not for me to make that decision on their behalf. This is one reason that I will not remove even those contradictions that I find answered to my personal satisfaction. A second reason is that keeping the effectively answered contradictions on this site will help Muslims and Christians who don't know the possible responses to contradictions they encountered elsewhere, to find them here. As such this page can be a valuable resource for both Christians and Muslims, similar to various Christian pages about seeming Bible contradictions. To compare like with like, I will make the strongest possible case for something being contradictory and wrong, similar to the Muslim attacks on the Bible. The difference to Muslim web sites is that we give the right of response.

It is our prayer that even this page may help Muslims and Christians to make progress in mutual understanding, to come to a proper perspective regarding the "contradictions issue" and to a realization what the real issues are which we need to concentrate on in our dialogs and debates.

Having clarified the purpose of this page we now challenge our Muslim friends with the following compilation to rethink their approach for determining the truth of scripture.

Introduction

Because the Bible seemingly contains errors therefore the Bible is not God's word. The Qur'an on the other hand is free from discrepancies and this is proof that the Qur'an is from God since Sura 4:82 states:

Do they not ponder on the Qur'an?

Had it been from other than Allah,

they would surely have found therein much discrepancy.

See also this Muslim presentation: The no-contradiction challenge of the Qur'an.

But reality is not as simple as many would want us believe.

There are three basic categories of contradictions in the Qur'an:

Internal contradictions: Verses contradicting each other or the laws of logic External errors: Verses contradicting the facts of history or science Verses contradicting the earlier revelations

Further: Contradictions between Muslim Traditions and the Qur'an

For your convenience: Download all contradictions in a .zip format.

If you are able to resolve to your own satisfaction the Qur'an problems presented here, then probably you will be able to understand that Christians can with a similar effort explain to their own satisfaction most of the difficulties in the Bible. Try to be fair and evaluate the Bible with an equal standard as the Qur'an. Don't judge it with harsher criteria than you are ready to use when reading the Qur'an. Even better, read the Bible to understand its meaning and message and not to find fault with it on such superficial levels.

Think about this: Errors in the Bible prove that the Qur'an is not from God.

To several of the presented problems Muslim responses are available on our site. Links to the individual responses will be given usually at the bottom of the pages dealing with the specific issue. If you want to contribute your personal response to one of the topics below I need to insist that you do this in this format also outlining my policy on linking or displaying Muslim responses, as well as the issue of using English translations of the Qur'an. But some think my offer is dishonest. There are further Muslim responses to this summary page available.

Important notice: This is an overview page which only gives short summaries of the observed contradictions. Before you respond to any of them, first click on the link to the detailed discussion of the individual contradiction!

Internal Contradictions:

Further:

Further pages with Muslim responses:

Misha'al Al-Kadhi's response titled "Does the Word of God in the Noble Qur'an Contain Contradictions?" He never informed me that he was writing about me ... Maybe he hoped that as long as I don't know about it he will not be refuted? Carefully compare my reasoning and his reply, since many times he only responds to the short abstract given on this page, without paying any attention to the detailed discussion of each of these contradictions, found when one follows the given links.

The same approach was taken by Laaman Ball in his Response to Internal Contradictions which prompted my question in return.

Some interesting responses from the sectarian Qur'an Only camp: [*]

Osama Abdallah also put together a number of responses [*]

Answering Islam's Critics is Shabir Ally's new page in response to the Qur'an Contradictions. Having just written a response to only the first entry above, he already claims they are all invalid. That seems somewhat premature to us.

External Contradictions:

The Qur'an in Contradiction to the Earlier Revelations:

Ultimately, the strongest, most serious problem of the Qur'an is that it affirms the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians as authentic and true revelation from God (cf. what the Qur'an says about the Bible), while radically denying central aspects of their message, e.g. the core themes of sacrifice and atonement in the Torah, the crucifixion of Jesus, the deity of Jesus and even the mere messianic title "Son of God" for Jesus, the very nature of God, the fall and the sinfulness of man (*, *), necessity and means of salvation, etc. For this reason Muslims had to invent the unwarranted theory of corruption of the earlier scriptures, even against the clear testimony of the Qur'an itself.

In the following some smaller discrepancies between the Qur'an and the scriptures it supposedly confirms.

Do they not ponder on the Qur'an?

Had it been from other than Allah,

they would surely have found therein much discrepancy.

-- Sura 4:82

Since this verse is claiming that there is "no contradiction / discrepancy" in the Qur'an, therefore itself has to be part of the list of contradictions because it contradicts the existence of the above listed contradictions. Or would you say because it says "much" and the above aren't "enough of them" yet to qualify for "much", all is actually fine?

If you want to use these contradictions when talking to your Muslim friends, then read this.

A book on this topic, listing several hundred difficult issues in the Qur'an is:

`Abdallah `Abd al-Fadi

Is the Qur'an Infallible?

Order Number VB 4009 E

available from:

Light of Life, P.O.Box 13, A-9503 Villach, Austria

Also available in Arabic.

Other Pages on these topics:



Chapters 6 - 11 in the book "Behind the Veil"

If you know of another contradiction or error I have missed so far, I would appreciate a message informing me about it.

The reason for this page...

If you have browsed the contradictions page and have the feeling this is a really mean, disrespectful and distasteful attack on the Qur'an, ... and Muslims would never do things like that to the Bible ... maybe you would like to have a look around some Muslim sites:

The Bible Criticism Page [1], [2], [3], [4] is copied and displayed on many Islamic sites and often one of the first links that you see when entering these Islamic pages: [1], [1a], [2], ... [3], and a similar page is here. What do you think about Muslims using Atheist material? I take no joy in this approach. Muslims have forced it on me with their pages.

Please read the purpose statement for this page to understand my motivation better. Furthermore, there are "genuinely" Muslim pages, that are not just relying on the atheists, but they have their own Bible contradictions. I am giving again several locations of the identical text, to show how important these books are to Muslims and how often they are used.

Shabir Ally's "101 Clear Contradictions in the Bible" are quite popular, but it is interesting to note that none of the Muslim pages is willing to link to the Christian response to their attack on the Bible. What is the fear? Why do Muslims demand that we link to their responses on the Qur'an contradictions but they are not willing to link to the Christian response to Bible contradictions?

Abdul Rahman Dimashkiah presents "Let the Bible Speak" ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5])

Dr. Norlain Dindang Mababaya's "God: Is not the Author of Confusion" is responded to on our site

101 Questions About Christianity ([1], [2], [3])

====> Christian Responses

Evaluating the Claims of the Qur'an

Answering Islam Home Page