Ten reasons

Why Islam's claims fail

Each reason is a plain claim, then the evidence: the Quran in Pickthall's translation, the Bible in the World English Bible, hadith by collection and number, history by named source, and an honest note wherever scholars disagree.

The Quran vouches for the Bible it contradicts

The Quran calls the Torah and the Gospel guidance and light, tells Christians to judge by the Gospel they had, and says no one can change God's words. That Gospel says Jesus died, rose and is the Son of God. Both cannot be true.

Jesus was crucified. The Quran denies it 600 years later.

Roman, Jewish and Christian sources from the first and early second centuries record Jesus' execution under Pontius Pilate. One verse written about six centuries later says it only appeared so. History sides with the eyewitnesses.

Jesus claimed what no prophet ever claimed

Jesus did not say he knew the way. He said he is the way. He used God's own name, forgave sins against God, accepted worship and told the high priest he would sit at God's right hand. The Quran's "only a messenger" is not the Jesus of history.

Muhammad, as Islam's own sources record him

You do not need hostile sources to examine Muhammad. Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, the earliest biography and the Quran itself record his marriages, his wars, his executions and his law on apostasy. Set that record beside Jesus.

One witness, no signs, and a text that changed

Islam rests on revelation received by one man alone, without the public signs the Quran itself says it will not give. The earliest Islamic sources record verses withdrawn, verses lost, rival codices burned and an episode later scholars wished away.

Errors the Quran says it cannot have

The Quran says a book from anyone but God would be full of incongruity. It calls Mary the sister of Aaron, puts Haman in Pharaoh's court, places a Samaritan at Sinai, sends a traveller to where the sun sets in a muddy spring, and describes a Trinity no Christian has ever believed.

The covenant runs through Isaac, not Ishmael

Genesis blesses Ishmael and names Isaac as the son of the covenant and the son Abraham offered. The Quran never names the son of the sacrifice, and early Muslim scholars were split on who it was. The Mecca-Abraham story is first written in the Quran itself.

Prophecy points to Jesus. The "Muhammad prophecies" do not.

The Hebrew prophets foretold a suffering servant pierced for our sins, a ruler from Bethlehem and a Messiah cut off before the Temple fell. Jesus fits. The texts Muslims cite for Muhammad, Deuteronomy 18 and the Paraclete of John 14-16, say something else when you read them whole.

God is love, and he lets you call him Father

The Quran says God loves those who obey and does not love the disbelievers. It refuses the words Father and son. The Bible says God is love, loved us while we were still sinners, and adopts those who trust Christ as his children, with assurance now.

Islam's practice rests on reports written down centuries later

How to pray, fast, give and live as a Muslim comes mainly from hadith and biography, collected 120 to 250 years after Muhammad. Sunni and Shia Muslims accept largely different collections. The New Testament was written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

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