To the Sources 

The motto of the Renaissance was 'ad fontes,' to the source! While the study of the literary remains of classical antiquity was no novelty, the medieval scholastics had not cared much whether they encountered a philosopher's thoughts in an Arabic commentary. . .even if the Greek philosopher had never set foot in the desert. The Renaissance wanted to know where things came from. The student of the Koran might also be interested to know where some of this stuff comes from.

The Koran denies that the Koran has sources:

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Mohammed indignantly denies that he is the author of the Koran:

"Do they say, 'This Koran is of his own devising?' Say: On me be my own guilt, if I have devised it, but I am clear of that whereof ye are guilty." (Koran, Sura 11:37).

'Compiler' might be a more accurate word than 'author,' as we shall see. The hadith, the traditions of Mohammed and his early followers, follow the same pattern, recording accusations that Mohammed learned his tales from others: "Narrated Anas: There was a Christian who embraced Islam and read Surat-al-Baqara and Al-Imran, and he used to write (the revelations) for the Prophet. Later on he returned to Christianity again and he used to say: 'Muhammad knows nothing but what I have written for him.' Then Allah caused him to die, and the people buried him, but in the morning they saw that the earth had thrown his body out." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 814). In the Muslim sources, the truth of these attributions is indignantly confuted, often on grounds that the individuals named as informants were not native Arabic-speakers. What does the evidence say? Is the Koran an original work, or stitched together from overheard stories?:

Fiery Furnace

The Christian reader upon first encountering the Koran discovers a familiar cast of characters, but sometimes what they are doing is unfamiliar. For example, did you know the idolaters wanted to throw Abraham into the fire?:

Who ever tried to burn Abraham? And how were they made the sufferers instead? Like when did any of this ever happen? It's in the Jewish sources; you could read about it in the Midrash Rabba, Chapter XVII, commenting on Genesis XV. 7: "Abraham went down into the furnace of fire and was delivered." And the story undergoes all manner of expansion, as tends to happen to made-up stories. How did Nimrod get in on the act? He turns up in the Jewish legends, anachronistically enough. Well, you see, it's like this:

These are legendary embellishments of the Bible story, but they are not original to Mohammed. There are, as always, many different versions; the Talmud says that Abraham was in prison for ten years: "R. Hanan b. Raba further stated in the name of Rab: Abraham our father was imprisoned for ten years." (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Bathra, 91a). Of course there are multiple attempts, etc.:

"Nimrod, however, was not to be turned aside from his purpose, to make Abraham suffer death by fire. One of the princes was dispatched to fetch him forth. But scarcely did the messenger set about the task of throwing him into the fire, when the flame leapt forth from the furnace and consumed him. Many more attempts were made to cast Abraham into the furnace, but always with the same success — whoever seized him to pitch him in was himself burnt, and a large number lost their lives." (Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 1, Kindle location 2216).

I'm not suggesting that Mohammed could read Hebrew, or could read at all, nor that he had access to a volume of the Talmud, or similar compilations of this material, but some of his informants had likely been instructed by people who had been instructed by people who had. The expanded and improved versions of the story were in circulation before Mohammed ever incorporated them into his Koran; they are not original.

In the Cradle

In the Koran, Baby Jesus speaks in the cradle:

Where does this story come from? From the circle of the apostles who had walked with Jesus through the hills and vales of Galilee? Well, no:

They Are All Dead

Sura 2:52-53 contains the perplexing information that the thunderbolt destroyed the children of Israel at Sinai, but they were then raised to life. Like, when did this happen?:

It was at Sinai, while God was giving them the Law:

"R. Joshua b. Levi also said: At every word which went forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, the souls of Israel departed, for it is said, My soul went forth when he spake. But since their souls departed at the first word, how could they receive the second word? — He brought down the dew with which He will resurrect the dead and revived them, as it is said, Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, Thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary." (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbath 88b).

Abraham's Apologetic

The Bible does not give us much of Abraham's apologetic against the idolaters. It stands to reason that a man who late in life leaves his home on religious grounds must have had more than a few arguments on the topic of religion, but they are not recorded. No sweat, the Koran gives us all the missing detail:

Not entirely novel to the student of Jewish folklore. Only think, had Abraham figured out that the earth is round, he could have remained a polytheist! The sun does not actually go out when it sets:

The stories go back a ways; the Book of Jubilees gives us Abraham the apologist, arguing with Terah: "Why do ye worship things that have no spirit in them. For they are the works of (men's) hands, and on your shoulders do ye bear them, and ye have no help from them. . ." (Book of Jubilees, Chapter 12, Section 5, Kindle location 849).

You can understand what the people who made these stories up were thinking. As a monotheist, Abraham was self-taught; what could he have learned from Terah? Idolatry? Astrology? "So that a man may very properly say, that the written laws are nothing more than a memorial of the life of the ancients, tracing back in an antiquarian spirit, the actions and reasonings which they adopted; for these first men, without ever having been followers or pupils of any one, and without ever having been taught by preceptors what they ought to do or say. . .did in reality spend their whole lives in making laws, never of deliberate purpose doing anything open to reproach. . ." (Philo, On Abraham, Chapter 1). So what was the process of reasoning which he followed? One can speculate, but that's all it is. These stories are fictional.

Hatchet Job

The Koran gives us Abraham the iconoclast, destroying his father's idols:

Abraham destroyed the idols: "So, he broke them all in pieces, except the chief of them, that to it they might return, inquiring." (Koran Sura 21:59). In the by now familiar pattern, this incident is unfamiliar to the Bible reader, but familiar to those who follow Rabbinic legend:

Here the Book of Jubilees gives us Abraham the arsonist: "Abram arose by night, and burned the house of the idols, and he burned all that was in the house and no man knew it. And they arose in the night and sought to save their gods from the midst of the fire." (Book of Jubilees, Chapter 12, Section 12, Kindle location 862).

The idea that Abraham was a pioneer and leading theologian of monotheism is deeply embedded in Judaism: "For Abraham was the first to teach the Unity of God, to establish the faith (in Him), to cause it to remain among coming generations, and to win his fellow-men for his doctrine; as Scripture says of him: 'I know him, that he will command,' etc. (Gen. xviii. 19)." (Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, p. 349). It must puzzle Muslims that Christians don't know these things about Abraham, but they are imaginative expansions of the Bible account rather than things attested.

Falling Rocks

Another perplexing episode connected with the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai involved the inversion of the mountain, with the intent of giving Israel an offer they could not refuse:

Unlike the familiar Bible stories Mohammed retells, this incident does not ring a bell, at least to the Christian reader. When did that ever happen? It was at Sinai, while God was giving them the Law:

Moses in the Bulrushes

When the Hebrews were groaning under Egyptian oppression, a baby boy was born, under Pharaoh's decree that all the male children of that race should be killed. His mother entrusted him to the waters, setting him out in an ark, and his sister waited to see what would become of him. The Bible text credits the idea of a Hebrew nurse to Moses' sister:

"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother." (Exodus 2:5-8).

Mohammed has the child refusing Egyptian nurses:

Is this original? No; not much of this material is. We discover that Moses rejected the Egyptian nurses because they were unclean:

Seven Portals of Hell

In the Koran, Hell has seven portals:

Why seven? Perhaps mirroring the seven heavens, which pertain to the number of planets? But it was the Rabbis who first computed that number. David is said in the Talmud to have rescued Absalom from the seven dwellings of Hell:

"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, thus he said: O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son. And the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom my son, my son. Why is 'my son' repeated eight times? Seven to raise him from the seven divisions of Gehinnom; and as for the last, some say to unite his [severed] head to his body and others say to bring him into the World to Come." (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah, 10b.).

Here's the list:

Satan's Fall

There are bits and pieces of the Koranic account of Satan's fall presented in the Bible, but the puzzle does not come together into this complete conformation:

Where does it come from? "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n." (John Milton, Paradise Lost). Or maybe Jewish legend:

There is an apocryphal work, called 'The Life of Adam and Eve' or in some versions, 'The Apocalypse of Moses,' which tells a similar story. Satan is the speaker:

"Having gone forth Michael called all the angels saying: 'Worship the image of the Lord God, just as the Lord God has commanded.' Michael himself worshipped first then he called me and said: 'Worship the image of God Jehovah.' I answered: 'I do not have it within me to worship Adam.'" (Life of Adam and Eve, 14.1-3).

Solomon's Throne

The Koran incorporates elements of the legendary expansion of Solomon's throne found in Jewish folklore:

. . .you get the idea. The "phantom" is Asmodeus, by the way. This idea, of the birds, winds and demons being subject to Solomon along with the human beings over whom he did historically govern, is found even in the Talmud:

Not only the inhabitants of the nation-state of Israel, but the whole natural realm, physical and spiritual, is subject to his reign: "Solomon, it must be remembered, bore rule not only over men, but also over the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, demons, spirits, and the spectres of the night. He knew the language of all of them and they understood his language." (Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 4, Kindle location 1433). This concept that the demons were subject to Solomon is continued into Christian apocrypha: "Jesus saith unto him: Were not all things made by my word, and by the will of my Father the spirits were made subject unto Solomon? thou, therefore, being commanded by my word, go in my name and ask him what thou wilt." (Gospel of Bartholomew, Chapter IV, Verse 21.)

Like many of the odd ideas of the Rabbis, this one starts from a toe-hold in scripture. We begin with a hyper-literal interpretation of 1 Chronicles 29:23, unconstrained by common sense: "Then Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD [הוהי] as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him." Common sense grows flustered: 'but it doesn't mean that.' Realizing that common sense is just the set of misconceptions about the world one has absorbed by the age of eighteen, let's discard it. What cannot be literally true of Solomon, a mere man and a fallible one at that, is literally true of his greater descendant and heir, the Messiah. Nature is subject to Him, as it cannot have been to Solomon or any other mere man, like the song says:

"Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O thou of God and man the son, Thee will I cherish,
Thee will I honor, Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown.

"Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring: Jesus is fairer,
Jesus is purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing."
      (Fairest Lord Jesus, Anonymous in Munster Gesanguch, 1677).

The beautiful pictures of nature are painted with Jesus's brush, because He is the Word through Whom God made the world. Muslims accuse Christians of excess, although no amount of praise and honor could be excessive when offered to God incarnate. Whatever we have said to this point, we are just getting started, we are just warming up. But certainly it is excess to ascribe sovereignty over nature to Solomon, a mere man and a deeply compromised one at that. It is downright silly. The winds and the rains did not spring up in obedience to Solomon's command; the Koran is repeating childish fables. Muslims scoff at the intercession of Jesus, but live in the forlorn hope of intercession by a child molester and camel thief. Combine a little of what they say, excessively, about Mohammed ibn Abdallah, and a little of what they say, excessively, about Solomon the king, and you have a starting point for talking about Jesus, not excessively but soberly and scripturally.

Reza Aslan is a Muslim revert who has revived some of Reimarus' conjectures about Jesus, and the purported failure of His mission. Here is one Muslim who is certain Jesus really was crucified. Whether because of his own cultural biases or for some other reason, he looks down upon people who make a living through humble pursuits, although many of the Rabbis did so: "Rabbi Kahana was so needy that he had to support himself by peddling with household utensils." (Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 4, Kindle location 2056):

Air Mail

How did Solomon communicate with the Queen of Sheba? Via air mail, of course:

Is this fable original to the unlettered Arabian prophet? No more so than usual, although the call to Islam is a personal touch:

Quoth the Raven

Mohammed explains who taught Cain to bury his brother's corpse:

There is with this one a modification, because the original Jewish legend has Adam and Eve burying the body of Abel, taught by the raven, not the murderer himself:

Some of the borrowings recorded here are trivial. Some, however, are consequential and important. The Koranic doctrine that Jesus was not really crucified is not original to Mohammed ibn Abdallah. But this one he did not pinch from the Rabbis! Where did he get it from? From the Gnostics. Gnosticism is a major heresy that arose in the early Christian centuries, amounting to a compromise between Christian monotheism and existing pagan theological paradigms. If Muslims knew anything about it, they would have to agree it's a heresy! So how can it be the Gnostics who 'got it right' respecting the crucifixion?:

Seven Sleepers

There are many more stories like this, which are already familiar to some readers of the Koran, and not to others. The 'Seven Sleepers' is one of my personal favorites; this Christian folk-tale, a Rip Van Winkle-type of story, made the cut even though at later stages of his career, disappointed of his earlier hopes of acceptance by them, Mohammed condemns the Christians to hell as idolaters.

As is clear from the original version of the story, these brave young men were Christians:

What joy these honorable Christian men must have felt when they saw the sign of the cross set upon the city gate! Hallelujah!

Bible difficulties are as much beloved of Muslims apologists as of atheists:

Mohammed ibn Abdallah, like many caring and intelligent people, was troubled that what should unite all people into one,— the worship of God, — is more likely to divide them. And so, like many of those troubled by this problem, he resolved it by making darn sure they would all see it his way. He seems to have started out expecting both Christians and Jews to accept his prophetic mission: "And now have we caused our word to come unto them, that they may be warned: They to whom we gave the Scriptures before it, do in it believe." (Sura 28:51-52). Reading the early suras, such as the short ones at the back of the book (the current organization of the Koran is by length, not chronology), one can understand how members of both groups might have given him friendly encouragement. But when he grew elated and assigned himself the task of resolving their differences, without first taking the trouble to find out what they were, of course they grew less encouraging. Ultimately he and his followers settled for the silence of the grave in place of the hearty 'Amen' he had once expected. Then we hear: "Whoso desireth any other religion than Islam, that religion shall never be accepted from him, and in the next world he shall be among the lost." (Sura 3:79):

In the Sanctuary

In the Koran, Mohammed explains that little Mary (who seems to be conflated with Miriam of the Old Testament: she is the sister of Aaron and daughter of Imran) grew up in the sanctuary, with her food miraculously supplied:

Have we heard of this before? You bet! The most popular source, and it remains popular to this day with the perpetual virginity crowd, is the Protevangelium of James. The sanctuary she grew up in is no less than the temple at Jerusalem, and indeed, she was raised in the Holy of Holies:

What is wrong with this charming picture? For one thing, in real life, only the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, not little children: ". . .no small enormities were committed about the temple itself, which, in former ages, had been inaccessible, and seen by none; for Pompey went into it, and not a few of those that were with him also, and saw all that which was unlawful for any other men to see, but only for the high priests. . ." (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIV, Chapter IV, 4). Death is the penalty:

"Moreover, then the erection was in the dwelling-house of the governor; but they say, that which is now contemplated is to be in the inmost part of the temple, in the very holy of holies itself, into which, once in the year, the high priest enters, on the day called the great fast, to offer incense, and on no other day, being then about in accordance with our national law also to offer up prayers for a fertile and ample supply of blessings, and for peace to all mankind. And if any one else, I will not say of the Jews, but even of the priests, and those not of the lowest order, but even those who are in the rank next to the first, should go in there, either with him or after him, or even if the very high priest himself should enter in thither on two days in the year, or three or four times on the same day, he is subjected to inevitable death for his impiety, so great are the precautions taken by our lawgiver with respect to the holy of holies, as he determined to preserve it alone inaccessible to and untouched by any human being." (Agrippa, quoted in Embassy to Gaius, Philo Judaeus, XXXIX)

One human creature, once in a year: "And in the center was the temple itself, beautiful beyond all possible description, as one may conjecture from what is now seen around on the outside; for what is innermost is invisible to every human creature except the high priest alone, and even he is enjoined only to enter that holy place once in each year." (Philo Judaeus, On Monarchy, Book II, Chapter II). Only the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, and then not without blood: "Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance. . ." (Hebrews 9:6-7). Failure to observe these precautions was potentially deadly: ". . .and the LORD said to Moses: 'Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.'" (Leviticus 16:2).

Not only was the author of this pseudepigraphic work not James, he was not even Jewish. The reader can judge from this circumstance how likely it is that this composition contains credible historical information.

Life-Giving Rain

That rain brings life is evident to the eyes of every desert-dweller. This routine miracle is open to inspection: "And God sendeth down water from Heaven, and by it giveth life to the Earth after it hath been dead; verily, in this a sign to those who hearken." (Sura 16:67, 25:50-51, 29:63, 30:18,23,47-49, 35:10, 41:39, 43:10, 50:9-11). There is a mightier rain coming:

While some of the ideas Mohammed got from the Rabbis, like Solomon talking to the ant, are basically just silly, here he's onto something. The Mishnah correlates the rain with the resurrection; the Rabbis speculated that God would raise the dead by means of the rain and dew:

God Prays

The Christian reader is perplexed to discover, in the Koran, that God prays:

What is translated here as "He [God] blesseth you," is literally, 'He prays for you.' Realizing that this act of 'prayer' or 'blessing' is a corporate act, engaged in by men, angels, and God Himself, it is somewhat awkward that it must be translated differently depending upon which agent simultaneously engaged in this joint project the focus has fallen. This, too, is not original. As with so much else in the Koran, Mohammed learned it from his instructors, who learned it from their rabbis:

At best, Islam is a derivative religion. Everything that Mohammed knew, that was true, he learned from Christianity. At worst it is a debased derivative religion, which borrows from the worst and least credible latter-day productions of the 'people of the book,' or rather 'people of the book-of-the-month.' Muslims should ascend to the source and drink the pure water of the Bible, not gulp from a spigot far downstream tainted and mixed with impure human speculation.

Seven Heavens

Mohammed ibn Abdallah numbers seven heavens:

“See ye not how God hath created the seven heavens one over the other? And He hath placed therein the moon as a light, and hath placed there the sun as a torch...” (Sura 71:14-15).

Where did he get that idea? The Christians? The Jews? Or a once-popular system of astronomy perfected by Claudio Ptolemy, but long obsolete?