Posted on 04/06/2022 9:18:17 PM PDT by Cronos
...In prison, he began to study the Quran in greater detail, and focused on the aspects that most puzzled him. Among these was the figure called Dhu-l Qarnayn, “the two-horned one,” who appears in the Quran’s 18th chapter and is believed by many to refer to Alexander the Great. Cerantonio did not see a resemblance between Dhu-l Qarnayn and the Alexander of history—but he noted similarities between Dhu-l Qarnayn and a heavily fabulized version of Alexander’s story written in Aramaic. He considered that the Aramaic version may have plagiarized the Quran, but after acquiring a copy of the Aramaic and translating it for himself, he determined that the reverse was more likely. (“I always knew that being proficient in Aramaic would one day prove useful.”)
...
Realizing that Dhu-l Qarnayn was not at all a real person but was rather based on a fictional account of Alexander the Great instantly left me with only one possible conclusion: The Quran was not divinely inspired,” he wrote. It had taken Alexander the Great fan fiction as fact. “Of course I would have preferred to have discovered all that 17 years ago and avoided much trouble.” He has therefore abandoned not only ISIS but Islam
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(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Wow. Good for him. Not too many inquisitive, questioning minds in islam that would admit to coming to this conclusion and leaving it. Much less by a muslim so deeply ingrained hes in ISIS.
Most Mormons never come to the obvious conclusion that the Book of Mormon is totally fictitious. Some years ago I pointed out to a Mormon Freeper that not a single archaeological discovery had ever verified anything in it. His answer was something like “archaeology is always changing”, which is totally untrue and kind of ridiculous answer. I assume that is a standard mindless answer Mormons give.
Not too many inquisitive, questioning minds in islam >>> That happens when all the guys marry their sisters after a couple of generations.
Mormons must go with “Don’t look too close, Don’t think too hard”. Certainly would explain Romney.
A lot of Aramaic sourced stuff in the Quran. Of course wikipedia includes criticism in its ‘responses’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Luxenberg
Thanks for posting. Bookmark.
Stuck Mojo - For the Cause of Allah
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0VdBmT3Gw&list=OLAK5uy_n3d_UfkTUkYnKOUh3JlUBnFJdyYPGkR-I&index=80
Anyone can edit wikipedia. I edit articles - but you don’t even need to be registered.
There is criticism of Luxenburg, but in my amateur historian opinion, this is unwarranted.
There are two aspect to the Aramaic in the Quran (there are also a few Farsi words)
1. Deflating the “Arabic is a holy language” point - many, if not most Mohammedans think that Arabic is the language of Allah. So telling them that it is an evolution of Nabataen is disconcerting.
2. More critical is the fact that the Quranic text reads better in Syriac than in Arabic indicates that the Quran was created. To nearly all Mohammedans the Quran occupies the place of Jesus in Christianity - i.e. they hold the Quran as uncreated and existing before all time and the literal words of Allah. Saying it was created is soul crushing - note that this is analogous to some Christian sects who consider the Bible to be dictated by God and some Jewish sects who consider the Torah to be the dictated words of God
Interesting article. Thx for posting.
Great post.
For people who like a podcast style of learning, for this topic, see CIRA International and also Pfander Films and also also Thomas Alexander (from Germany) on YouTube.
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CC
Islam is in dire need of a Reformation and someone brave enough to nail their 95 theses to the mosque door.
Islam has had its reformation in 1790. That’s when Al Wahhab and his Salafis tried to bring Islam back to its original form.
We see his descendents today as the Wahhabis namely the Saudis, Taliban and Islamic state. Those are the reformers of Islam
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