The Quran—The Miracle Given to the Prophet

we only possess a translated account of what the Prophet Jesus said and did, and that too, in ancient Greek, which is considerably different from the modern language. By the end of the 19th century, the Greek language had changed so much that the meaning of at least 550 words in the New Testament—about 12% of the entire text—was challenged. At that time, a German expert, Adolf Deissman, discovered some ancient scrolls in Egypt. From them, it emerged that biblical Greek was, in fact, a colloquial version of classical Greek. This language was spoken in Palestine during the first century A.D. Deissman was able to attach meanings to some of the unknown words, but there are another fifty words whose meanings are still unknown.176 Ernest Renan (1823 - 1894) extensively researched Semitic languages. He wrote a book on their vocabularies, in which he had this to say about the Arabic language: The Arabic language is the most wonderful event in human history. Unknown during the classical period, it suddenly emerged as a complete language. After this, it underwent no noticeable changes, so one cannot define it as an early or a late stage. It is just the same today as it was when it first appeared.177 In acknowledging this “astonishing event of human history”, Renan, a French orientalist, acknowledges the miraculous nature of the Quran. It was the Quran’s phenomenal literary style, which preserved the Arabic language from alteration, such as other languages, have undergone. The noted Christian writer Jurji Zaydan (1861-1914) is one