God Arises
Religion and Society
~ 410 ~
claim, it challenges anyone who wills to produce a
book of similar quality. “And if ye are in doubt
concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave
(Muhammad), then produce a chapter of the like
thereof, and call your witnesses beside God if ye are
truthful” (2:23).
“Say: Verily, though mankind and the
Jinn
(a
race of spirits) should assemble to produce the
like of this Quran, they could not produce the
like thereof though they were helpers one of
another” (17:88).
Over the last 1300 years there have appeared on the
scene innumerable enemies of the Quran and Islam
who could easily have prepared a book like the
Quran in Arabic in answer to this challenge, and
indeed, some of them did attempt to do so. But
history shows that from the time of Musaliema
(d.633) and Ibn Muqaffa (724-761) to the Crusades
(1095-1271) no one, including Christian Orientalist
has succeeded in such an attempt. More astonishing
is the fact that the legal principles laid down by the
Quran so many centuries ago have retained their
veracity till today. It has of course happened that
