Home > Surah 46 - The Wind-Curved Sandhills
This surah was revealed during the late Meccan period, a time of intense friction between Muhammad and the Quraysh. The verse serves as a rhetorical "trap" for the Meccan p
It presents a hypothetical (or specific) scenario where a Jewish scholar recognizes the Quran as being "like" his own Scripture.
The Quran’s validity hinges on its physical and doctrinal similarity to the Torah. It fails!
Surah 46:10:
Bethink you: If it is from Allah and ye disbelieve therein, and a witness of the Children of Israel hath borne witness to the like thereof, and hath believed, and ye are too proud? Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.
The verse says the witness bore witness to "the like thereof" ('ala mithlihi).
In order for a Jewish expert to recognize the Quran as being "like" his Torah, the two must be doctrinally and historically consistent.
If the Torah he held was "corrupted" and taught "shirk" (like a Divine Messiah or a Covenant of Blood), and the Quran denied those things, the expert would not see them as "alike." He would see them as opposites.
The witness’s belief confirms that the 7th-century Torah was the reliable standard. If the 7th-century Torah is the standard, and it refutes Islam’s core claims, then the "Witness" in the verse is actually a witness against the Quran.
The Quran uses the Jewish scholar as its primary piece of evidence to shame the Meccans.
You cannot use a witness to prove your case if that witness is relying on a forged or corrupted document.
If the Jew’s "Knowledge" was from a corrupted Bible, his testimony is worthless. But the Quran calls his testimony a reason to believe.
By praising the witness, the Quran is sub-signing the authority of the Bible that produced the witness. If the Bible is the authority, Muhammad’s deviations from it (denying the Cross, etc.) prove him to be a false prophet by the very standard he invoked.
Traditional Islamic commentary often claims this "witness" was Abdullah ibn Salam, a Medinan Jew who converted.
Surah 46 is a Meccan surah. If this refers to a Medinan convert, the Quran is "predicting" a specific conversion to validate itself, or the verse was inserted later.
More likely, it refers to the general class of those who knew the scriptures. This means the Quran is appealing to the entirety of the Biblical tradition as its benchmark. If that tradition (the Bible) as it existed in the 7th century is the benchmark, the Quran fails its own test.
Surah 46:10 says a witness from Israel believed in the Quran because he saw it was 'like' what he already had.
Christians have the Torah and the Prophets. When they compare them to the Quran, They don't see a 'match'; They see a total contradiction on the nature of God, sacrifice, and salvation.
If the 'witness' saw a match, then he was looking at a Bible that taught exactly what the Quran teaches. Can you show me a single 7th-century manuscript that matches the Quran's theology?
If the Bible was already corrupted into a Christian/Jewish 'shirk' book by then, why does your God use a man who reads that 'corrupted' book as his star witness?
Either the witness recognized the Quran because the Bible is the true standard (which refutes Islam), or the Bible is corrupted (which makes the witness’s testimony in 46:10 a fraud). Why should I believe a 'witness' that my own Scripture refutes?"