Answering Objections to Islam · Positive Evidences

The Literary Challenge (Tahaddi)

In short

• 1.It was made publicly in Mecca, to poets whose entire reputation rested on words.
• 2.Q 17:88 raises it further: even all people and jinn together could not produce the like of it.
• 3.The attempts that are recorded, such as Musaylima's, were remembered as laughable, not as rivals.

The claim being examined

The Qur'an challenges its opponents to produce a chapter like it (Q 2:23, 10:38, 17:88). People say that is just a matter of taste.

The Islamic position

The challenge was made to the most language-proud society of its day, in their own language, with their whole standing at stake — and what they produced in reply was war, not a chapter.

Analysis

The Qur'an does not fit the categories Arabic already had. It is not poetry with metre, and it is not the ordinary rhymed prose of the soothsayers. That is why the accusations against the Prophet (SAW) kept changing — poet, soothsayer, magician — and never settled on one. They could not name what they were hearing. Navid Kermani's book God Is Beautiful gathers the reports of how people reacted, including hostile listeners who were shaken by simply hearing it recited. Be honest about the limit. This argument is strong for someone who knows Arabic and weak in translation. So do not offer it as a knock-down proof in English. Offer it as an invitation: learn a little of the language, or sit with a reciter, and judge for yourself.

From the Qur'an

Sources

More in Positive Evidences

• The Preservation of the Prophetic Biography and Isnad
• Scientific Claims in the Qur'an: A Cautious Approach
• Deuteronomy 18:18 and the Prophet Like Moses
• Tawhid: The Coherence of Islamic Monotheism
• Salvation Without a Mediator