Muslims claim they believe in Moses and the Torah. Therefore, they claim to believe in Judaism. However, how can this be when their religion, Islam, commands them not only to hate the Jews but to kill the last Jew as Allah declared in the Qur’an? Qur’an 1:5-6:
5Guide us to the straight way, 6the way of those whom you have graced (the Muslims), not those whom the wrath is against (the Jews),…
Muslims do not know the Moses of the Torah. To prove my point, we simply ask:
Who was Moses?
According to Muslim scholar Ibn Kathir, “Moses is Ibn Amran, Ibn Kah’es, Ibn Azer, Ibn Levi, Ibn Jacob, Ibn Isaac, Ibn Abraham.” However, not a single verse in the Qur’an or hadith indicates such a lineage.
The Bible names Moses’ father as Amram, not Amran, in Exodus 6:20.
Muslim scholars disagree on Amran’s identity in Qur’an 3:33:
33Surely Allah chose Adam and Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of Amran, above the worlds. Some say he was the father of Moses. Others say he was the father of Mary, Jesus’ mother. All Muslim scholars agree that Amran was the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Obviously, Mohammed thought that she was the sister of Moses and Aaron, as proven by his reference to Mary, Jesus’ mother, in Qur’an 19:28: 28O sister of Aaron,…
Now let us look at Moses and the burning bush. According to Qur’an 28:29:
29So when Moses had fulfilled the term and departed with his family, he saw a fire on the mountainside. He said to his family, “Stay, surely I see a fire. Perhaps I may bring you news from it or a brand from the fire, perhaps you will be warmed…” Mohammed stated that after Moses completed the agreed years of work, he took his family and went to Egypt. While they were on their way, on a dark, cold winter’s night, as stated by Ibn Kathir, they got lost. Then on the right side of the west mountain, Moses saw the burning bush. While his family waited, he investigated how he could find his way back to Egypt. This event is also described in Qur’an 20:10: 10When he (Moses) saw a fire, so he said to his family, “Stay, surely I perceive a fire. Perhaps I may bring you a lighted torch from it or find guidance at the fire.” Also, in Qur’an 27:7: 7When Moses said to his family, “Surely I have perceived a fire. I will bring you news from it, or I will bring you a blazing brand, perhaps you warm yourselves.”
The wording of Moses’ quotations in these three passages is similar, and the differences would probably not be significant to Western readers. It is important to point this out to Muslims because they insist that one of the “proofs” that the Bible is corrupted is minor variations in the wording of Jesus’ or others’ sayings in the Gospels. In other words, they are not all written exactly the same by the author of each Gospel. However, the Qur’an’s quotations of Moses regarding the same incident is recorded three different ways despite the fact that they claim to have been communicated by one angel, Gabreel, to one man, Mohammed.
According to Exodus 3, Moses was not on his way to Egypt when he was confronted by the burning bush. Rather, he was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep, and his family was not with him. There is no evidence to indicate that it was a cold or dark night or even that he was lost. Moses had done this work for forty years and was very familiar with the area.
Muslims do not believe in Moses if they practice Islam. For example, Moses stated that if a man divorced his wife and she marries a new husband and if the new husband divorces her or dies, she cannot remarry her first husband. See Deuteronomy 24:1-4. However, according to the Qur’an, a man can remarry his ex-wife after she marries and is divorced from another husband. Qur’an 2:230:
So if he divorces her [a third time], so it is not lawful for him to take her again until she has sex with another husband. So if he divorces her, then there will be no sin on them if they return to each other…
These are examples of the confusion in the Qur’an and of Muslim scholars concerning the events in Moses’ life. To discover more errors in the Qur’an concerning Moses, please read our book,
Exposing the Truth about the Qur’an, the Revelation of Error, Volume 1
. www.thestraightway.org
Footnotes:
Ibn Kathir,
Stories of the Prophets 1, vol. 1, Abo Al Fida Ishamail Ibn Kathir Al Kurashi Al Damashce (Beirut: Dar Al-Arab Heritage, 1408 AH, 1988), 274.
2, Ibn Kathir, 286.