Re: !!! You Be the Judge !!!

The Quran: the Sun Sets in a Mud Puddle?
by Dave Miller, Ph.D.


The Quran contains a considerable amount of uninspired folklore from
Jewish (and other) sources. It also occasionally incorporates elements
of mythology and fairytale in its pages. In a surah that Muslim
sources identify as one in which Muhammad answered questions designed
by Jewish rabbis to challenge his prophethood (Pickthall, n.d., pp.
211-212), the Quran relates the story of Dhu'l-Qarneyn--"The Two-Horned
One." In conveying the story, the Quran gives credence to the
outrageous superstition that the Sun sets in a mud puddle:

They will ask thee of Dhu'l-Qarneyn. Say: I shall recite unto you a
remembrance of him. Lo! We made him strong in the land and gave him
unto every thing a road. And he followed a road till, when he reached
the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring,
and found a people thereabout: We said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish
or show them kindness. He said: As for him who doeth wrong, we shall
punish him, and then he will be brought back unto his Lord, who will
punish him with awful punishment! But as for him who believeth and
doeth right, good will be his reward, and We shall speak unto him a
mild command. Then he followed a road till, when he reached the
rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We
had appointed no shelter therefrom. So (it was). And We knew all
concerning him (Surah 18:84-92, emp. added).

Observe that the Quran's account is not worded in such a way as to be
allowable on the basis of accommodative or phenomenal language--even as
we speak of the Sun setting or rising. The inclusion of the location
of the Sun's setting--a muddy spring--places the account squarely into
the realm of myth.

The same mistake is made earlier in the same surah (vss. 10-27) when
the Quran lends credibility to the legend of the "Seven Sleepers of
Ephesus" (see Campbell, 2002; Gilchrist, 1986). The legends (which
predate the Quran) spoke of seven (the number varies) noble Christian
youths who fled persecution during the reign of Decius the Emperor who
died in A.D. 251. The youths took refuge in a cave near Ephesus, but
then were sealed in to die. Instead, their lives were miraculously
preserved by falling into a deep sleep that lasted for nearly 200
years, a sleep the Quran claims lasted 309 years (vs. 26). For the
Quran to dignify such outlandish tales is to disprove its own
inspiration.

REFERENCES
Campbell, William (2002), The Quran and the Bible in the Light of
History and Science, [On-line], URL: http://answering-islam.org.uk/Campbell/contents.html.

Gilchrist, John (1986), Muhammad and the Religion of Islam, [On-line],
URL: http://answering-islam.org.uk/Gilchrist/Vol1/5c.html.

Pickthall, Mohammed M. (n.d.), The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New
York: Mentor).


http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=8&article=702
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