Ep.13: Thomas Alexander on doctrinal changes in Surah 96

After about a year's hiatus, Thomas Alexander returns to Pfanderfilms to help us understand what Günter Lüling actually did, and demonstrate how his methodology works.

Günter Lüling, according to Thomas, believed that we cannot trust the current Arabic diacritics (the 5 dots and 3 vowels used to delineate what a letter or word actually was), because they did not exist in the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts, but were added much later, usually in the 8th - 10th centuries, due to an agenda imposed by the Abbasid Muslims which we now refer to as the 'Standard Islamic Narrative'.

When you look at many of the Surahs which are poetic, there simply are too many words and ideas which just don't make sense in our current Qur'an, suggesting that those are not the original letters or words which existed in the original texts they were borrowed from.

Therefore, Lüling decided to take off the existing diacritical marks and replace them with other Arabic diacritical marks to see if he could find a better meaning to these texts; and unsurprisingly that is exactly what he found.

This exercise is not something which he invented. Others, like Alphonse Mingana (in Britain) had dome something similar before him, but Lüling was one of the first to actually apply this methodology.

To use as his model, he chose Surah 96, because it was a smaller Surah, and because it has particular problems with comprehension, even today. Here is what he found...

Verse 1: This first verse begins with the phrase "Read in the name of your Lord", and is used by Muslims today as a reference to the angel Gabriel demanding that Muhammad read verses of the Qu'ran in the Hira cave in 610 AD. Yet, in other places in the Qur'an the word for "Read" is rendered "Praise", so why was this word changed here? By changing it back to "Praise" Lüling found that it suddenly made sense as a hymn where Christians would sing "Praise the name of the Lord".

Verse 2: The Arabic uses the word "Clot" to parallel other passages in the Qur'an which say Adam was formed from a clot, yet the proper rendering in Arabic is "clay" which supports the Biblical reference to the substance from which Adam was created.

Verses 15-16: In the Qur'anic text it refers to a forelock, which is a "Lying, sinful forelock"; but this makes no sense, since how can hair speak and lie? Lüling changes it to "He will be seized by his forelock" (or given 'honour'), which completely changes the meaning, but makes a lot more sense Biblically and theologically, suggesting that the lying forelock was added at a later date.

Verse 17: The Qur'an says "Let him call his associates" which Lüling changes to "Let him call his 'high council", which fits the context and can be traced to Old Testament texts as well.

Verse 18: In the Qur'an the word "Zabaniyah" is used, which means 'a celestial being' but commonly rendered, the "guardians of hell". Yet Lüling notes that this word is not found anywhere else in the Qur'an and is not even an Arabic word. Lüling therefore replaces the 'Z' with 'R' so that the word then becomes "Rabaniyah" which in Arabic means teacher, and was used by the Christians as a title for Jesus Christ (see Mark 10:51 and John 20:16). Thus, the reference to Jesus makes more sense in this verse than the 'guardians of hell'.

When Lüling replaced the diacritics and vowels in the above examples he found that he brought the text back to a more reasonable and understandable rendering.

He also noticed that it worked much better to put the texts into 3-line verses rather than the way it is now in the Qur'an. Once he did this he found that the last words of the verses rhymed with the previous ones, proving that this was intentional, as it was a hymn which employed "Mnemonics" to help the singers memorize the verses easier.

In conclusion, Thomas notes that it looks like the later Abbasids took a perfectly good hymn which praised Jesus Christ, and changed the dots and vowels to create a story concerning the angel Gabriel and Muhammad in the Hira cave, so that the Qur'anic text then supported their Standard Narrative.

As Gabriel Said Reynolds says, the later traditional writers (i.e. those who compiled the SIN) needed to have authority for their traditions, so they removed certain dots and vowels from the Qur'anic text and replaced them with other dots and vowels as an "attempted exegesis" of the original text. But in doing so, they didn't exegete the text at all, but "eisegeted" the text, which destroyed its original context and led to simultaneously destroying it original meanings.

© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 10/11/2022
(68,630) Music: "Feeling the Caribbean Sun" by Horst Hoffman, from filmmusic-io

[IslamicOrigins]

Fair play to Thomas for sharing this with us. Very helpful.

[pfanderfilms]

There are some Muslims below who have said that I have been lying concerning the conclusions of Luling's thesis, and this proves that I haven't read his book. They are incorrect, I did read the book, but many years ago, in fact in the last century, as I was partly responsible for getting it translated into English in the late 1990s.

So, why was I not aware that most of Lulings research was on antecedent Arabic words and not Aramaic words, as I've been touting? That mistake was due to the fact that in the over 20 years since I read it I simply hadn't remembered that it was mostly antecedent Arabic words which he was looking for, and assumed that it was mostly Aramaic words, due to the fact that Luling claims many of these texts are derived from Aramaic hymns written before the 8th century.

That is why it is important that we bring on board men like Thomas Alexander, who are currently working with this book, researching it and writing about it, and therefore can more correctly represent what Luling actually said, and why it follows similar conclusions to those of Luxenberg and Sawma.

I'm more than willing to stand corrected when correction is due, as I admitted in this episode.

[nadeemsiddiq]

I cannot wait for Thomas Alexander's book to come out! Amazing work!

[tonikhoury]

You both are a great team! Thomas is back

[mattaikay]

God bless you both Dr Alexander & Dr Smith.

[TheAncientLight]

St. John of Damascus in the 8th century calls Islam “heresy of the Ishmaelites” and “forerunners of the Antichrist” he was the first of Church fathers to write about Islam and in his book “on heresies” he talks about Mohammed and how he copied and changed some of the Christian teachings and hymns mainly from the Levant

[simonhengle]

What a cracking video, Thomas's work is top notch in bringing to light the work of the German scholars👍

[RVMTube]

It is amazing how human pride has kept Islam propped up with lies. The lightest of scratching at the surface makes everything fall apart. It is amazing what could happen now that your team is digging up the foundations... and they are found completely lacking and absent, much like Mecca's foundations.

[Ethiopia_Getahun.]

Because of Dr Jay honest videos with reference many Muslims are leaving Islam.

[hagalhagal]

This material would be excellent in the 3 minute Koran series. :)

Thanks Thomas for your work :)

[samuelflores]

Great job! God bless you both and your ministry!

[trevorgriffiths]

Brilliant 🤩.. We “NEED” more like this..

[jperez]

I was just listening to murad in sneakers corner and he has dug up the iranian connection and abu muslim and all the other parts that make up this frankenstein of the origins of Islam. The whole religion was welded together and made up.

[julietabraham]

Nice to see Thomas Alexander after a long time, seemed like ages.Looking forward to more from you brethren and Thomas's forthcoming book.I have 2 opinions wondering about the literal struggle of Moslem scholars misinterpreting the Quran due to lack of the Aramaic there are syriac words such as Reyouna( shepherd) Kalat, ( bride) transliterated into Arabic as Raina and K alalat and the isogesis when it can't be explained followed by Allah hu Alim or was it deliberatelytransliterated with sexual connotations as this is a book where supposedly spirituality is entwined with sensuality and eroticism. Verse 96: 16 is good fodder to ruminate on...time alone will tell....Ameen

[maxschon]

In 26:17 I am sorry I have to disargee with Dr. Jay: The 16th might be a doxology like in the Lord's Prayer as a closing sentence. Like: "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, and now, and always, and into the ages of ages. Amen."

[mannyhabib]

Very good work Thomas! on another note, I always wondered why Allah sent Gabriel to Mohammed asking him to "read", Allah who knows all must have known that Mohammed cannot read? Allah didn't tell Gabriel either, that's prolly why Gabriel lost his patience and started squeezing Mohammed. Also, Gabe asked Mohammed to read, did Gabe have the original Koran, the one in heaven ? Did he take that document back with him after squeezing poor Mohammed three times? lots of questions...

[maxschon]

And the way they used always THREE lines refers to the Trinity and using it seven times = seven the holy number in judaism and christianity. The last is a closing sentence.

[jonnyy]

(When) can we get the original (Aramaic) Koran.I'd be interested in reading it.

[collybever]

So surah 96 was originally a hymn about Jesus, not Hira cave, according to Luling's analysis.
"We started singin' bye, bye Mr Jibril guy, drove my camel to the zamzam but the zamzam was dry, them good ole mummins were drinking camel and quai singin', this'll be the day that i see why, this'll be the day that i see why."

[gaurangsethi]

Is there anyone one can have the Aramaic read aloud to hear the rhymes for oneself? Is there no Aramaic channel on youtube that can do it? Christian or not. If it is supposed to be 25 verses and not 19 & there is a rhyme pattern sustained, I would like to hear it.