RE: Bring a Surah like it (is it a sound argument)
November 10, 2011 at 4:57 pm
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2011 at 5:17 pm by Mystic.)
(November 10, 2011 at 3:07 pm)apophenia Wrote: I recently attended a debate with a Muslim scholar who made this argument. It's full of holes. First, how do you measure how "like" one example of literature is to another? There is no objective way, and if you depend on the subjective testimony, then non-Muslims will find plenty "similar" and Muslims none at all. So surely, the sura is in the mind of the beholder. This being the case, it becomes a case of, "I believe, thus be it so." In that case, the Quran is just serving as a middleman for blind faith. The second problem is how to eliminate confirmation bias. If you believe the Quran inimitable, everything you see is unlike it, and every sura unique. Finally is the question of what is meant by similar. In the thinking of Heidegger is the notion that there is sameness in difference and difference in sameness. If there weren't similars in two things, they could not be compared, having no common properties; and the Quran and other "differents" certainly have "similars" -- derived from a human language, poetic, prosodic, argumentative, easily situated hermeneutically, etc. But there is also difference in sameness -- two things, no matter how alike, must differ, or be mistaken for the same thing, an identity; difference in spatial location, difference in theme, in audience, in tropes. So how does one measure the sameness in difference in the Quran, and the difference in sameness amongst its sura, without hopelessly falling into subjectivity and rendering your argument vacuous? Muslims try by pointing out how the forms of Arabic literature prior to that time differ from the form of the Quran. Does this prove that it is unique, rather than either simply innovative or poorly written? No. And if it's simply innovative, we have good reason to think that it stands alone not due to the impossibility of copying, but due to the unwillingness of Muslims to do so. Who better than a Muslim scholar to do so? And who less likely to do so?
Well the Quran is very unlike all Arabic literature. It doesn't resemble the poetry of Arabs. The scholars actually came with this objective criteria showing it's very different from all styles out there.
Quote:Indeed, I would say that both the Tao Te Ching and Sun Tzu's Art Of War are inimitable. What does that prove? Nothing.
You bring a good point. But Muslims argue it's not simply about the content, but it's style that is totally different from all forms of literature. Is this the case with these two writings? Or is it similar to others books but just different subjects?
Quote:Next time a Muslim presents you with this argument, demand they produce an original chapter of the Art Of War in classical Chinese.
Let me know your results.
Of course they wouldn't be able to because they don't know Chinese.
(November 10, 2011 at 4:56 pm)Rayaan Wrote: However, I do think that some Muslims exaggerate this argument by implying as if this is a "conclusive proof" of the Quran's divinity. Like padraic pointed out, this is a logical fallacy because not being able to reproduce or imitate a part of text doesn't necessarily mean that it cannot be ever done. One may just say that this is a mildly or a fairly interesting argument for the Quran, or something that strengthens the Quran's claims, but it would be unreasonable to use this argument as a conclusive evidence.
Well it's not Muslims that are making this claim on their own, the Quran basically says if your truthful of Quran being fabricated, you should bring a chapter like it. In other words, the only way to assert Quran is untrue, is to bring a chapter like it.
So if it's not conclusive evidence of it being true, then there is a problem with Quran being true at all.
Rayaan, I'm wondering how similar you think the following Surah is to Suratal Kaffiroon.
