Critiquing Islam 2.0

From Within the Canon

Why the Qur’an Fails Its Own Test — and What That Means for Muhammad

Part 2: Abrogation, Ambiguity, Contradictory Math, Faulty Preservation, and a Death That Matches the Qur’an’s Own Threat

Thesis: Islam claims the Qur’an is a perfected, clear, contradiction-free revelation from God, delivered by a prophet whose words were guarded from error. Islam’s own sources say otherwise. The Qur’an sets up an “acid test” (no contradictions if it’s from God), then immediately fails it through abrogation, ambiguity, numerical conflicts, and preservation problems acknowledged in hadith. And Muhammad’s own death lines up uncannily with the Qur’an’s stated punishment if a prophet fabricated revelation. If you want the truth without sugarcoating, keep reading.

Part 1 recap (30 seconds): We saw a terrified Muhammad, squeezed by an unidentified entity in the cave, needing a Christian relative to tell him it was Gabriel; long pauses in revelation followed by repeated suicidal intentions; bewitchment that produced hallucinations; Satanic Verses spoken by Muhammad himself and only “fixed” after the fact; and a consistent pattern of conveniently self-serving revelations. That alone is enough to call the witness unreliable.
Part 2 goes after the book itself.

1) Islam’s “Acid Test” Backfires (Qur’an 4:82)

“Do they not reflect upon the Qur’an? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found within it much contradiction.” (4:82)

This is presented as slam-dunk verification: No contradictions ⇒ Divine origin.
It’s a bad test on its face. I can produce a phonebook, a legal code, or a well-edited novel without contradictions. Are those divine? Coherence is a necessary condition for truth, not a sufficient one. That’s Logic 101.

But let’s grant the test for the sake of argument. If contradictions appear, by Islam’s own standard the book fails. The rest of this essay shows exactly that — contradictions in doctrine, method, math, and history as preserved by the tradition itself.

2) “Clear, Detailed Guidance”… with Verses No One Can Understand (Qur’an 6:114; 11:1 vs 3:7)

The Qur’an repeatedly claims clarity and detailed exposition:

“He revealed the Book explained in detail.” (6:114)
“A Book whose verses are perfected, then explained in detail.” (11:1)
“This is the Book, no doubt in it, guidance for the God-conscious.” (2:2)

Then it punches itself in the mouth:

“He has sent down to you the Book; in it are precise verses — the foundation of the Book — and others ambiguous. As for those with deviation in their hearts, they follow the ambiguous, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation. No one knows its interpretation except Allah…” (3:7)

So which is it — clear and detailed, or ambiguous to the point that only Allah knows? You cannot be a manual of guidance for humanity while simultaneously admitting parts of your manual are indecipherable to humanity. Guidance that includes un-guidance is double-speak.

Common pushback: Muslims often say 3:7 has an alternative reading: “No one knows its interpretation except Allah and those firm in knowledge.” Two points:

The verse’s primary reading in mainstream recitation stops at “except Allah.” The addition relies on punctuation and interpretive choice; the ambiguity of the grammar is precisely the problem in a book that calls itself “clear and detailed.”
Even if “the firm in knowledge” know it, who are they, precisely, and which interpretations are correct? Sunni schools disagree; Shīʿa disagree with Sunnis; Sufis diverge again. A “clear book” should not need this much post-hoc guesswork to tell us what God allegedly meant.

Add the mysterious disjointed letters (Alif-Lām-Mīm; Ḥā-Mīm; Yā-Sīn; Qāf; Nūn…) that open many surahs — Muslims commonly admit no one knows their meaning; “Allah knows best” — and the case is worse. A book that publicly advertises clarity keeps introducing built-in black boxes.

Bottom line: Islam can’t have it both ways. You cannot sell the Qur’an as self-sufficient, plain guidance and then hide behind ambiguity clauses and “Allah knows” whenever the text boxes you in.

3) The Abrogation Paradox (Qur’an 2:106; 16:101): Perfection That Needs “Better”?

“We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth better than it or similar to it.” (2:106)
“When We substitute one verse in place of another… Allah knows best what He sends down.” (16:101)

Let’s be clear: abrogation (naskh) is not fringe; it is a classical doctrine in Sunni Islam. The Qur’an itself says verses get replaced. Traditional lists of abrogation (across jurists) range from a handful to scores of verses.

The problem is conceptual and fatal:

If the Qur’an is “perfected” and “clear,” why did God need to install better verses later? “Better” than perfect is a logical contradiction.
If God knew from eternity what the final ruling would be, why reveal a placeholder, then repeal it? That’s not omniscience; that’s patching.

Muslim reply: “Abrogation reflects mercy and divine pedagogy — gradualism.” Example: wine — first tolerated (2:219), then restricted (4:43), then prohibited (5:90–91). Response: That might make sense inside a community that already trusts Muhammad. It does nothing to validate the Qur’an as eternal revelation. “Gradualism” is admission of instability — which is precisely what 4:82’s “no contradictions” test pretends we won’t find.

Worse: 2:106 says verses may be “caused to be forgotten.” By whom? Muslims say by God Himself — a theological fig leaf over a simple fact: Muhammad forgot. Hold that thought — we’ll see the hadith say exactly that.

Concrete abrogation examples:

Qibla change — early Muslims faced Jerusalem; later, Mecca (2:142–150). That’s not nuance; that’s direction reversal in ritual identity.
No compulsion in religion (2:256) vs fighting and subjugation commands (9:5, 9:29). Classical jurists debated the scope for centuries because the later Medinan verses obviously clash with the early tolerant tagline. If 2:256 is “contextual,” then the popular apologetic proof-text evaporates by Islam’s own methods.
Visiting graves/meat storage — Muhammad said “I forbade you… now I permit you.” This is explicit prophetic abrogation in hadith, not just Qur’an — proof that contradictory commands were normal in the community’s life.

This is not how a perfect heavenly book looks. This is how policy evolution looks.

4) Muhammad Forgets Revelation; Companions Fight Over Recitation; “Seven Aḥruf” vs “One Mushaf”

The apologetic slogan says the Qur’an is “perfectly preserved, letter for letter.” The sources say otherwise.

Muhammad forgot verses.
Multiple reports (e.g., from ‘Ā’isha) show Muhammad hearing someone else recite and saying, “May Allah have mercy on him; he reminded me of such-and-such verse I had been made to forget.” Whether you claim God “made him forget” (per 2:106) or it was human lapse, the outcome is the same: forgetfulness is on record.

Companions fought over different wordings.
The famous incident: ʿUmar hears Hishām b. Ḥakīm reciting Sūrat al-Furqān differently than he learned it from Muhammad. ʿUmar is so alarmed he drags Hishām to the Prophet. Muhammad listens to both and says, “It was revealed in this way… and this way… the Qur’an came in seven aḥruf; recite whichever is easier for you.” Translation: multiple acceptable forms of the same text were acknowledged — by Muhammad.

This alone destroys the fairytale of one fixed wording from day one. It also raises brutal questions:

Where are those seven aḥruf now? Only one written skeleton (the ʿUthmānic rasm) was standardized.
Later Muslims canonized ten (or seven) qirāʾāt (reading traditions), each with thousands of points of divergence (vowels, dots, wording). Which is the exact one “on the Preserved Tablet”?
The third caliph ʿUthmān’s solution to chaos was to copy one consonantal skeleton, order competing codices burned, and enforce his standard across the empire. That is not miraculous preservation; that is political standardization with document destruction.

Even popular preachers concede “holes in the narrative.”
When a modern Sunni scholar bluntly admits the preservation story has gaps too sensitive to discuss publicly, believe him. The tension between aḥruf, qirāʾāt, and the single Mushaf is not a “Shīʿa rumor.” It’s in your own hadith.

Bottom line: The Qur’an’s own story of itself is plural and messy. The haloes were photoshopped on later.

5) The Numbers Don’t Add Up: Six Days? Eight? Seven?

The Qur’an repeats the Six Days line (7:54; 10:3; 11:7; 25:59; 32:4; 50:38). Fine. Then Surah 41:9–12 lays out a timeline:

Earth created in two days (v. 9).
Provisions and ordering in four days (v. 10).
Heaven fashioned into seven heavens in two days (v. 12).

Even if “four days” includes the first two (the classic defense), we still have 2 (earth) + 2 (heaven) = 4, and “in four days” doing heavy grammatical gymnastics to avoid a straight 2+4+2=8 reading. The fact that Muslims argue about whether the grammar is additive or inclusive proves the same point as Section 2: this “clear and detailed” book isn’t clear or detailed when it counts.

It gets worse. A report found in Sahih Muslim (yes, Muslim) narrates a seven-day creation sequence (clay Saturday, mountains Sunday, trees Monday, etc., Adam Friday). Muslims often label that report “problematic.” Exactly. You’re staring at three different counts — six, eight, and seven — across the Qur’an and hadith. A God who stakes His book’s divinity on lack of contradiction wouldn’t leave you doing arithmetic theology to save face.

Common defense: “The 41:10 ‘four days’ includes the first two (total six), and the hadith in Muslim is weak.” Great. So now your clarity needs a PhD in Arabic grammar and you’re admitting your “most authentic books after the Qur’an” contain glaring errors. Either way, the acid test of 4:82 is broken.

6) More Internal Tensions the “Clear Book” Shouldn’t Have to Outsource to Apologists

A few more for the record:

a) What was created first — heaven or earth?

Passages can be read both ways. 2:29 suggests the earth prepared, then heaven “turned to.” 79:27–33 seems to reverse the order. Classical tafsīr scrambles to harmonize, but the point remains: the “clear book” is opaque on basic chronology.

b) What is man created from?

Clay (e.g., 15:26), water (e.g., 21:30), a “clinging clot” (96:2), dust (3:59), “a drop” (16:4), “nothing” (19:67), by the command “Be!” (3:59). Muslim answer: different stages or perspectives. Fine — then stop pretending 4:82 won’t find contradiction. Outside the Islamic sphere, this reads like patchwork.

c) Christology contradictions inside Islam’s own claims

Jesus is “a Word from Allah” and a “Spirit from Him” (4:171), born to a virgin by God’s breath/command (19; 3:47), yet the Qur’an also insists He’s just a messenger. The text simultaneously elevates and demotes Christ, creating a doctrinal tension that the later tradition tries to flatten. “Clear and detailed”? Then pick a lane.

d) Affirmation of earlier Scripture that contradicts the Qur’an

The Qur’an tells the People of the Gospel to judge by what Allah revealed in it (5:47), praises the Torah and Gospel as guidance and light (5:44, 46), and never says those texts were corrupted before Muhammad. Yet the Qur’an contradicts core Gospel claims (e.g., crucifixion… which the Qur’an denies in 4:157). To escape, Muslims retro-invent tahrīf (textual corruption) before Muhammad — despite the Qur’an affirming those scriptures then in circulation. Another contradiction… solved by another ad hoc doctrine.

You can keep stacking these. The pattern remains the same: a book that markets itself as clear, detailed, perfected keeps leaning on ambiguity, post-hoc harmonization, and special pleading.

7) The Qur’an Foretells the Fate of a Fabricator — Then Muhammad Describes That Fate on His Deathbed (Qur’an 69:44–47)

This one writes itself.

“If he [Muhammad] had fabricated sayings in Our Name, We would have seized him by the right hand; then We would have cut from him the aorta; and none of you could have protected him.” (69:44–47)

Years earlier, after the battle of Khaybar, a Jewish woman served Muhammad poisoned meat. He allegedly perceived it after tasting; one companion died. Fast-forward: in his final illness, multiple hadith report Muhammad saying he still felt the effects of the Khaybar poison, and “it is now cutting my aorta.” The phrasing echoes 69:46 like a neon sign.

Muslim defense: “He lived years after Khaybar, so this isn’t Allah striking him down, just lingering effects.” That doesn’t help you. The Qur’an says what the punishment would be like (aortal severing), not how quickly it would occur. Muhammad himself, in his own mouth, describes his dying sensations in the same terms the Qur’an uses for divine retribution on a fabricator.

If you’re going to stake your book on public tests (“no contradictions,” “God will cut the fabricator’s aorta”), don’t be shocked when those same tests turn on your prophet.

8) “But Wait, Tafsīr Says…” — Anticipating the Apologetics and Why They Fail

Let’s address the standard escape hatches directly.

“No contradictions allowed” means “no real contradictions,” just “apparent” ones.

That’s a rubber clause. Anyone can play that game. If contradictions are defined as “anything our later tradition can massage away,” your “acid test” is meaningless. The point of 4:82 is public falsifiability. If it collapses into “trust our scholars,” the test is a bait-and-switch.

“Ambiguous verses test humility.”

Then stop calling the book clear and detailed. Tests of humility don’t coexist with marketing claims of straightforward guidance for all humanity. You can have a mystery cult or a manual, not both.

“Abrogation is divine pedagogy.”

Pedagogy is by definition temporal and provisional. The Qur’an sells itself as final and perfect. “We bring better” is not final; it’s iterative. The very doctrine you use to explain away contradictions proves the text is unstable over time.

“He forgot because Allah made him forget (2:106).”

You are literally saying God erased verses from the prophet’s memory. That’s not a defense; that’s an admission that the line between “revelation I remember” and “revelation Allah deleted” is porous — especially in a community that had to fight over readings, burn variant codices, and stabilize one version by decree.

“Seven aḥruf means modes, not texts.”

Tell that to ʿUmar who nearly throttled Hishām over wording. Muhammad validated divergent recitations as equally revealed. If “modes” reduces to distinct wordings, you’ve conceded plural revelation at the ground level. If “modes” reduces to dialects or synonyms, you still face the fallout: which one is on the Preserved Tablet? All of them? Some of them? That’s not preservation; that’s ambiguity weaponized.

“Creation days reconcile if you read the Arabic carefully; the hadith about Saturday is weak.”

Then the “clear book” needs constant scholarly triage to prevent face-plants in basic arithmetic. And you’re still left with a canonical collection (Muslim) carrying a glaring creation timeline report you now need to explain away. That’s the opposite of what 4:82 promised.

“Christ as ‘Word’ or ‘Spirit’ is honorary.”

Fine — but the Qur’an’s own exalted language creates theological tension with its insistence that Jesus is only a messenger. Don’t act like Christians invented the ambiguity. Your own text did.

“Aorta verse and poison — coincidence and metaphor.”

Muhammad didn’t speak metaphor on his deathbed (“I feel as if my aorta is being cut by that poison”). He tied his illness directly to Khaybar’s poison and used the same physiological description the Qur’an uses for a fabricator’s fate. You can deny the implication. You can’t deny the parallel.

9) The Cumulative Case: A Chain With Links You Can’t Ignore

Stack the facts:

The Qur’an’s own test (4:82) promises no contradictions if divine.
The Qur’an admits ambiguous verses whose interpretation only Allah knows (3:7), undercutting its claims of clarity and detailed exposition (6:114; 11:1).
The Qur’an builds in abrogation (2:106; 16:101), openly replacing earlier verses with better or similar ones — a tacit confession of instability.
The Prophet forgot verses, companions fought over wording, and Muhammad ratified multiple forms (seven aḥruf). The community standardized on one written skeletal text and burned competitors. “Perfect preservation” is marketing, not history.
The creation timeline is a shambles if taken at face value: six days (repeated), a plausible eight by 41:9–12’s math, and a hadith that narrates seven.
Multiple doctrinal tensions (order of creation; substance of man; Qur’an affirming earlier scriptures it contradicts) gut the “clear and detailed” advertisement.
The Qur’an’s self-curse for a fabricator — aortal severing — collides with Muhammad’s own description of his death-throes: “it is cutting my aorta.”

You can spin any one of these. You cannot spin all of them and keep a straight face. The idea that this is a perfect, clear, contradiction-free book, delivered by a man whose mouth was guarded from error, is refuted by Islam’s own sources.

10) “Tell It Like It Is”: What An Honest Verdict Looks Like

A “clear, detailed” book doesn’t hide behind ambiguity clauses and mysterious letters.
A “perfected” revelation doesn’t need better verses later.
A “perfectly preserved” text doesn’t need caliphal bonfires to erase competitors and enforce one version.
A prophet whose memory needed reminders, whose community fought over wordings, and who authorized multiple forms cannot double as a guarantor of a single, pristine text.
A book that dares to set up a public falsification test (4:82) and a public curse (69:44–47) can’t complain when its own record meets both criteria head-on.

If you’re a Muslim who’s never been shown this side of the story, you’ve been living on apologetics, not evidence. If you’re a non-Muslim flirted with by the “scientific miracles” and “perfect preservation” myths, now you know why those claims collapse under primary sources.

11) Sources to Check (All Within the Islamic Corpus)

Qur’an: 2:2; 2:106; 3:7; 4:82; 5:44–47; 6:114; 7:54; 10:3; 11:1; 11:7; 16:101; 25:59; 32:4; 33:37; 41:9–12; 50:38; 69:44–47; 79:27–33; 96:2.
Hadith examples:
- Muhammad forgetting verses / being reminded (reports via ‘Ā’isha in Bukhari/Muslim).
- ʿUmar vs Hishām, seven aḥruf confirmation (Bukhari).
- Creation in seven days report (Muslim) — often contested, but in the canon.
- Abrogation in practice: “I forbade you… now I permit you” patterns, e.g., visiting graves, storing sacrificial meat, wine rulings (in canonical hadith and Qur’an).
- Khaybar poison and Muhammad’s aorta statement in his final illness (Bukhari; Abu Dawud).
Classical doctrines: Naskh (abrogation) discussed across tafsīr and usūl al-fiqh; aḥruf vs qirāʾāt debates in hadith, qiraʾāt manuals, and tafsīr; ʿUthmānic recension and burning of variants in hadith histories.

If you want exact Arabic chains and numbering keyed to common editions, say the word — I’ll lay them out surgically.

12) Conclusion: The Book Fails Its Own Bar, and the Messenger Fails With It

Islam built a house on two pillars: a flawless book and a protected messenger. The book is not flawless by its own criteria — it is ambiguous where it claims to be clear, fluid where it claims to be final, numerically inconsistent where it claims to be ironclad, and historically plural where it claims to be singular. The messenger is not protected in the way the mythology suggests — he forgot, authorized multiple wordings, watched his community fight over recitation, and died describing precisely the aortal fate the Qur’an reserves for a fabricator.

You can keep telling yourself there are no contradictions. Or you can be honest: the contradictions are everywhere, and Islam’s own sources put them there.

To be continued. Next up: the transmission history in detail — competing codices, variant readings, official recension, and why “perfect preservation” is the most successful PR slogan in religious history, not a historical fact.