If the King is wearing clothes, why are his subjects so insecure as to allow anyone to test the Qur'an's inimitability? 

This is a reply to H. C. Song's post to SRI from March 18th, which can be read at: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=599277669
 
Thank you H C Song for this nice article. However, reading over it, several thoughts came to mind. First, you stated that the "create a surah like it" challenge is to those who claim the Qur'an was copied from an earlier source. I'm not sure what Muhammad's contemporaries said regarding this, and I doubt we have any sources that would give us any kind of true insight on the matter. For modern critics however, I think the feeling that the Qur'an is not an original work is derived from the fact that the Qur'an so closely resembles the folklore already present in the time and area in which it was compiled. The Jews and Christians already had wild stories about characters known as Moses and Jesus, and the Qur'an seems to contain near mirror images of these tales. If two books have relatively similar stories, there are only two possibilities:
 
(1) The later book copied its stories from the earlier book.
 
(2) Both books got their stories from a third source.
 
Most critics would have to go with choice (1). Critics reject the second choice mainly because there is no evidence of this third source that predates both. We know the Torah goes back at least to 300 BCE (I personally don't think it goes back any further, but Christians and Jews will probably tack on another 700-1,000 years). The earliest Qur'an manuscript is from around the late 8th century (some Muslims will however claim it was compiled in the mid-7th century). Regardless, there is roughly a 1,000 year gap between these two manuscripts that mention Moses (Moshe, Musa, et cetera). Where was this original source during this 1,000 year period? Why do we have no evidence of it existing during that period? From 300 BCE to 700 CE, the only manuscript that seems to give the stories about Moses and his troubles in Egypt, is the Torah (which was carried by both Jews and Christians).
 
Muslims of course will go with the second choice, and say that the original source was Allah. It should be made clear that the reason secular critics do not accept this hypothesis is because it has yet to be proven that this particular deity exists. One must first prove Allah exists before they start attributing texts to him. Furthermore,
contradictions between the two texts, and errors in each individual text, seem to negate the possibility that an all-knowing, all-powerful deity is the source (although I acknowledge that Muslims have certain dogmatic explanations as to why the texts differ, as do Christians, and their explanations are also contradictory).
 
Therefore, the secular/atheist critics feel that the Qur'an was copied from the folklore of the Jews and Christians mainly because of the similarities. We know that Jews and Christians were living in Muhammad's time, while the idea of Allah's existence has yet to be proven. You however, argued that the Qur'an's challenge to "produce a surah like it" is in response to those who claim the Qur'an was taken from the Jews or Christians. Before I get to that challenge, I would think the answer to such critics is found in the following aya:
 
[al-`Ankabut 29:48] You did not read the previous scriptures, nor did you write them with your hand. In that case, the rejectors would have had reason to harbor doubts.
 
While this is attempting to answer those who would claim Muhammad's tales closely resemble those of the Jews and Christians, the verse seems to me to be somewhat self-incriminating. I would not accept this as proof that the scripture was not copied. If anything, it sounds as though it is the pains of a guilty conscious captured on paper, as if Muhammad had claimed he didn't copy the scriptures, before he was even accused.
 
Anyway, back to what you wrote. You tried to explain how the idea of a "surah like it", in terms of eloquence, is not a subjective thing. I feel personally that you failed to do that. You gave the story by Al-Faruqi, but I would ask how do we know this story was true? When did this competition allegedly take place, and when did Al-Faruqi write about it? The earliest writings about Muhammad's time (outsied of the Qur'an) are from Ibn Ishaq, who died 140 years after Muhammad did, thus he was not a contemporary of Muhammad's. When was Al-Faruqi's writing written? What is the gap between his writing, and the story that allegedly took place? What were his sources? How can you prove this story is not a tendentious fiction? Why should we accept this tale as true, especially if the author, Al-Faruqi, was not a contemporary of the alleged events that he is reporting?
 
Moving on, I would argue that many people have in fact produced a "surah like it". On what grounds do we judge whether or not the scripture in question is equal to, or greater than any particular surah of the Qur'an? It seems this challenge is very vague, where Muslims say "produce a writing equal to or greater than one of the surahs of the Qur'an" and when someone does, the Muslim says "not good enough". On what grounds are you establishing Qur'anic surahs as superior to other writings?
 
In terms of writing a fantastic tale about the biblical characters in classical Arabic, I think a Christian has already done this. Consider surah Al-Muslimoon:
 
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/suralikeit/original/muslimoon.htm
 
Other surahs like it can be found at:
 
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/suralikeit/original/index.shtml
 
This site was on AOL, and when they attempted to meet the challenge, Muslims complained and demanded that AOL take down the site. Muslim demands included threats of litigation, and even what seemed to be thinly veiled threats of violence. America On-line, probably afraid of upsetting too many people and the consequences that would come with it, TOSed the site. The complete story can be read at:
 
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/suralikeit/
 
Now, the question I have for you is, on what grounds does one say that the surahs found at the above site do not compare to those found in the Qur'an? In what category is the potential "surah like it" attempting to match the Qur'an? I think that in any category you mention, there is a writing that is superior to any particular surah of the Qur'an. Let's consider some categories:
 
POETRY: There are poets from every generation, and every nation. While judging which poem is better than another is clearly a subjective thing, I rarely hear anyone, outside of Muslims, praising the Qur'an's poetic eloquence. In fact there have been critics such as Alan Rippey, Jan Knappert, Alan Gulliame, Ali Dashti, and Theodor Noldeke, who have read the Qur'an in Arabic, and were not at all impressed with it's style or eloquence. On what ground does one absolutely say that one poem is better than another?
 
MONOTHEISM: If we accept a book free of anthropomorphic insinuation or polytheism, I would agree the Qur'an out-does the Bible, but then I would argue the Talmud out-does the Qur'an, as does certain Sikh scriptures, and the Urantia! I would argue we could find a monotheism just as pure, or purer in the Talmud, Rashi, Chazal, and other Rabbinic interpretations of the Torah, as well as in Sikh literature, and the Urantia.
 
RULES FOR LIVING: Muslims will argue that the Qur'an offers a complete way to live one's life, while the Bible doesn't. Actually, they mean they find their way to life in countless writings and traditions found *OUTSIDE* the Qur'an, such as Hadith, Tafsir, and Shariah laws based on the sectarian interpretations of the Qur'an and traditions. In fact, when Muslims attack followers of Rashad Khalifa (submitters), and other anti-hadithist Muslim "heretics", they often ask "how would you know how to do this?" or "how would you know how to do that?" without the hadiths, thereby admitting that the Qur'an cannot stand alone as a book to live one's life by, or rule a government by. Therefore, in terms of legal issues, and life issues, the Talmud would seem superior to the Qur'an, as would Muslim legal writings based on the Qur'an!
 
SCIENCE: As far as religious scriptures and science goes, there is nothing particularly special about what is found in the Qur'an. If we are to use reinterpretation to find new "scientific miracles" in the Qur'an, we could just as easily do the same with other scriptures. When Laozi said "there is movement in all things, even in stillness there is movement", we could argue that this Chinese philosopher was talking about Quantum Mechanics back in 500 BCE. We could argue that the feminine conjugation of Proverbs 6:6, discussing ants, is a scientific miracle (in Hebrew, if you're speaking in general about an animal doing something, the conjugation is masculine, but in Proverbs, the author talks about an ant as if it were female. How did the Jew who wrote this book know that worker ants were female 23 centuries ago? Does this sound familiar to those who try and make a big deal about Muslims who cite the Qur'an's mentioning of bees being female?). Regarding scientific miracles in scripture, the Qur'an has "The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science" by Maurice Bucaille, but it contains things that were said about the bible by Christian whackos years before (for example, in the 70's some Christian whacko tried to say that the Hebrew word for day, 'yom', could also mean a span of time, and others said that if you read the flood story in Hebrew, it can be seen as a local flood. This is nothing more than Christian sophist attempts so reconcile and
reinterpret their texts). There's also the site "It-is-truth.org" which offers all kinds of alleged scientific miracles, but it is sub-par compared to "Vedic Physics" by Dr. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and "Mystery in the Creation" by Rabbi Dovid Brown, which do the same things for Hinduism and Judaism respectively. [See also the Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra]  If we're going to accept scriptures on their scientific know-how, how does the Qur'an even compare with the Urantia? Also, the Qur'an has many errors of science. One example would be surah Ha Mim Sajdah's claim that Allah created the earth, and the trees and plant life in it, within four (maybe six, depending on how you interpret it) days, and then created the sun and the stars afterwards (Qur'an 41:9-11). In no way does such a claim fit in with science. First the verses imply that the earth was made before the "heavens", and it also has plant life existing before there was a sun! It actually reminds Atheists of the Bible's claim that God said "let there be light" one day, and then created the sun a couple days later. In both cases, the believer feels that a certain dogmatic interpretation will reconcile the error, or he will say something to the effect of "anything is possible for God", but it's still an outright error to those who look

 at it rationally. If science is the criterion, I think any college text book would qualify as a "surah like it".
 
STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS: Both the Bible and the Qur'an have fantastic tales about people named Moses, Abraham, Jesus, et cetera. Atheist critcis would not accept either book considering the wild events attributed to the lives of these characters, which seem to be nothing more than fantasy. However, if we cast aside the dislike of wild tales, and accept these characters as true, which book should we accept as having the best information on these people? I would say the Bible, considering that (A) the bible was written at a time closer to the time these people allegedly lived, and (B) the bible offers alot more information than the Qur'an does. In fact, the Qur'an is rather vague, and many of the tales about the Biblical characters cannot be understood without first having an understanding of the Bible folklore. A Muslim might argue that the Qur'an's version of some stories are more logical than those found in the Bible. This is true of tales such as Moses' meeting with the Pharoah (which Mahdi so kindly pointed out to us, which I showed was taken from later Jewish commentary on the Torah's crazy account). However, in other cases, I think the Bible's story of Jesus, in some respects, is more logical than that of the Qur'an's story about Jesus (such as talking babies, or God tricking people into thinking Jesus was crucified when he really wasn't, which Bahai's have jokingly called "the stunt-double theory"). Also, the Qur'an's name for Jesus (Isa) doesn't square up completely with that of a Palestinian Jew in 1st century Judea. Most argue that Isa is the Arabic rendering of Esau, which becomes hard to believe, as no self-respecting Jew would name himself Esau, nor would any Jew name their child Esau, considering the fact that Esau was among the most hated characters of the Bible. Others argue that "Esau" was derived from an Aramaic, or Syriac word, Isho, but when you square that with Hebrew, Isho is the equivalent of Hebrew's ayin-shin-vav, which again gives you Esau. Regardless, if we're going to accept a book based on logic, I think the Urantia again blows the Qur'an (and the Bible) out of the water. How would the Qur'an's wild stories about the Biblical patriarchs even compare to those found in the scientifically conscious Urantia?
 
So, I ask you, on what grounds do we decide whether or not a potential "surah-like-it" is equal to, or better than a surah found in the Qur'an?