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Is the Quran Good, Or Evil?
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Naeem argued that Muhammad is misrepresented because the hadith give multiple contradictory portraits of Muhammad. The major hadith collections, Naeem said, were written down over 200 years after Muhammad's death, and a flawed method of collection produces contradictory results.
Naeem said critics accept the most negative hadith reports wholesale and filter out the positive ones. Naeem asked critics to quote the hadith's praise of Muhammad too, if they treat those books as authoritative.
Naeem proposed the Quran as the reliable picture of Muhammad, since it is the book Muhammad taught. Naeem said this portrait differs from both the hadith collections and the villain of Christian polemic.
Naeem said the Quran teaches freedom to worship and that the messenger's task was only to warn of the Day of Judgment. Those who accepted became brothers and those who rejected were left alone, which Naeem compared to Jesus' instruction to shake the dust off the feet of towns that did not receive the disciples.
Naeem denied that Muhammad married a six-year-old or consummated a marriage at nine, calling the accusation an egregious lie. Naeem said the Quran does not condone such marriage.
Naeem argued that the Quran permits marriage only to mature, legally competent women. Citing Quran 4:6, Naeem reasoned that children cannot enter financial contracts, that marriage involves a financial contract in the dowry, and so the Quran rules out marriage for children.
Naeem said the Quran 65:4 ruling on women who have not menstruated concerns post-pubertal women with adult features and an adult understanding of contracts. Naeem added that the Bible also sets no fixed marriage age and that marriage at puberty was normal in biblical times.
Naeem said judging Muhammad from the hadith is like judging Moses from the Talmud, citing Talmudic passages about minors. Naeem also argued that religious traditions decay soon after their founders, pointing to the Pharisees, the later Catholic and Orthodox churches, and Islamic scholars.
Naeem concluded that Muhammad should be judged by the scripture taught, not by the ideas and actions of later followers.
Apostate Prophet said the greatest evil a religious book can commit is presenting falsehood as divine truth, rather than commanding immoral acts. Apostate Prophet said this corrupts the basis for telling good from evil and truth from falsehood, and set aside a list of immoral commands.
Apostate Prophet argued that every worldview seeks human flourishing and truth, and that not all worldviews can be correct. Following a falsehood misdirects people, and Muslims were described as the first to suffer from the Quran's misdirection.
Apostate Prophet defined truth as correspondence with reality and evil as what is morally wrong or undermines fundamental goods such as truth. Honest mistakes were separated from deliberate falsehood, and Quran 10:17 was cited as calling the invention of a lie about God gravely evil.
Apostate Prophet said the Quran presents its content as the speech of the Creator and forbids questioning it. Quran 4:82, 2:2 and 5:48 were cited as claiming the text is free of contradiction, beyond doubt and complete, which Apostate Prophet said masks falsehood as God's speech.
Apostate Prophet argued that if the Quran is God's word it cannot be mistaken, so one demonstrably false claim is enough to show it is not divine and is evil. Apostate Prophet said it was not necessary to show that every word is false.
Apostate Prophet argued that Quran 7:157 is demonstrably false in saying Muhammad is described in the Torah and Gospel held by Jews and Christians at the time. Apostate Prophet said no such description appears in the Bible.
Apostate Prophet, who described being a Christian who believes Jesus is God in the flesh, argued that Quran 61:6, in which Jesus announces a messenger named Ahmad, puts words into Jesus' mouth that are not in the Gospels. Quran 3:85 was cited as claiming to confirm earlier scriptures while telling Jews and Christians to follow only Islam.
Apostate Prophet asked how it could be good to lead humanity to believe the Quran is God's word if the Quran is not true. Good elements, such as promoting charity, were described as unable to offset a false core that misdirects and corrupts followers, including those who defend it.
Apostate Prophet described leaving Islam, about ten years as an atheist, and then becoming a Christian through the testimony of Christians, apostles and martyrs and the story of Christ. What turned Apostate Prophet against the Quran was reading it several times as a Muslim and concluding it was false.
Apostate Prophet pointed to the Quran's story of Dhul-Qarnayn in chapter 18, which was said to borrow late-antique legends of Alexander the Great. Those legends include a two-horned Alexander who reaches the places of sunrise and sunset and builds a wall against Gog and Magog, and the Quran was said to present Alexander as a Muslim guided by God.
Naeem said the Quran tells believers to be kind to enemies, return evil with good, control anger and speak peace. Naeem asked whether the oppression seen in some Sunni countries reflects the Quran.
An audience member asked how Sunni Muslims can follow Muhammad's example without the hadith, given Quranic commands to obey the messenger. Naeem answered that the Quran does not say to follow Muhammad's actions, that obeying the messenger means obeying the message God brought, and that the verses do not point to later hadith collections.
An audience member asked whether the hadith are historically reliable for transmitting the Quran, and why Naeem believes today's Quran is the preserved revelation. Naeem answered that the hadith are not very reliable, being oral chains written down about 200 years later, and that the Quran's uniform text across sects shows special protection, unlike the Bible, which Naeem said has suffered distortion.
An audience member asked whether Darwin's coherent journals, which meet Naeem's criteria, would count as proof for evolution. Naeem answered that the analogy fails because Darwin did not claim the work came from God, and evolution does not correspond with Naeem's own reality. Asked about historical impact, Naeem said it could be a factor but was the questioner's criterion rather than Naeem's.
Apostate Prophet summarised that the Quran says Muhammad is found in the Torah and Gospel, that the passage is not there, and that Naeem's evidence that those texts differed at the time was the Quran's own testimony.
Naeem said ancient history is disputed, with atheists, Christians, Sunnis and Shia each offering their own accounts, so much of it rests on faith and testimony. Naeem said trust in the Quran's testimony on matters that cannot be verified rests on its coherence, textual integrity and correspondence with reality.
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Apostate Prophet argued that belief in the Quran leads people to reinterpret its evils. Quran 9:29 was read as commanding the fight against those who do not believe in God and the Last Day, including Jews and Christians, until they pay the jizya while humbled, and was said to cover all who do not accept Islam.
Naeem said 9:29 should be read within 9:1–30, which Naeem argued concerns polytheists who broke a treaty and fighting at the sacred place, not a general command against Jews and Christians. Naeem added that the Quran says there is no compulsion in religion and that the messenger's role is to warn.
Apostate Prophet said that in the chronological order Apostate Prophet follows, the Quran's mentions of Jews and Christians begin charitably and become hostile, with 9:28–31 the final instructions about them. 9:28 was read as expelling polytheists, 9:29 as permitting the fight against Jews and Christians until they pay protection money, and 9:30 as giving the reason: their claims about Ezra and the Messiah.
Apostate Prophet said mushrikun in the Quran refers to the pagan polytheists of Mecca and Medina, whom the Quran separates from Jews and Christians. The Quran was said to call Christians who believe Jesus is God disbelievers and to command fighting disbelievers, but never to describe Jews and Christians together as mushrikun.
Naeem said whether a given Jew is a mushrik depends on the individual: a person who takes rabbis as lords over God's command could be, while a person devoted to God alone would not. Naeem argued the Quran distinguishes disbelief from partner-ascribing, describes People of the Book with both labels, and uses them interchangeably with different emphasis.
Naeem argued that the principle of charity favours reading 9:29 as addressing aggressors in war, not a blanket command to fight every Jew and Christian who rejects Islam. Naeem cited 10:99, which says God could have made everyone believe, as a counterpoint to compelling belief.
Apostate Prophet proposed a hypothetical uninspired author who claims their words are divine revelation. Such an author would be expected to be inconsistent and to change views as they dealt with polytheists, Jews and Christians over time.
Naeem called the hypothesis unscholarly. Naeem said the Quran does have theological disagreements with Christians, such as its denial of God having a son, but argued it does not teach barbarism or degeneracy.
Apostate Prophet said that moving from praising believing People of the Book to commanding their killing wherever they are found is not an oversight but a change of personality that no ordinary author would make.
Naeem said a prophet who first invited Jews, Christians and others, and was later rejected and mocked by them, could reasonably change stance toward them. Naeem said this would not in itself be a total change of personality.
Asked why the Quran is revelation, Naeem gave three criteria: coherence of message, textual integrity, and making sense of reality through the oneness of God. Naeem said coherence is necessary but not sufficient, and that unseen matters such as the angel's role are accepted on the testimony of the book.
Asked whether every word of the Quran is accurate and true, Naeem said yes, God willing.
An audience member asked whether any historical Jewish group held Ezra to be God's son, as Quran 9:30 implies. Naeem answered that Naeem could not name one today and had not researched it, and argued that a false prophet would be unlikely to invent such a claim. Another speaker suggested Muhammad may have misunderstood Jewish claims or invented the claim to condemn them, and Naeem replied that this did not fit the picture of a highly intelligent figure.
An audience member cited a Muslim scholar who describes the Nakhla raid as an early instance of Muhammad permitting raids and looting, and asked what grounds later violence against Hindus, Christians and Jews if the Quran commands no violence. Naeem answered that the Quran says there is no compulsion in religion, that Naeem had not heard of the scholar, and that early Islamic history rests largely on hadith, which Naeem does not regard as reliable.
An audience member asked whether Naeem affirms reinterpreting earlier revelation in light of the Quran, and whether the Quran's command to kill idolaters conflicts with Christ's teaching to turn the other cheek and love enemies. Naeem answered that the Quran also contains turn-the-cheek and peace-speaking passages, and that fighting is permitted only against those spreading corruption or attacking places of worship and people.