CHAPTER ONE The Quran: The Book of God

Testament. The Gospel according to Matthew begins with this abridged genealogy: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1) The genealogy of Christ is then given in detail, beginning with Abraham and ending with Joseph who, according to the New Testament was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.” (Matt. 1: 16) When the reader turns to the Gospel according to Mark, he finds these words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark. 1:1) According to one chapter of the New Testament, Jesus was the son of a person named Joseph, while another chapter of this very New Testament says he was the son of God. Undoubtedly, in its original form, the Injil was the Word of God and free of all inconsistencies. It was only in later years, that human beings made additions of their own, introducing contradictions into a formerly consistent text. The Christian Church has evolved yet another extraordinary contradiction in order to explain away this discrepancy in its sacred book. The description given of Joseph in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984 edition) is as follows: ‘Christ’s earthly father, the Virgin Mary’s husband.’ Secular Contradictions For an instance of serious internal contradiction in secular writings, I turn to the works of Karl Marx, who commands an immense following in the modern world. The famous American economist, John Galbraith, has written of him: ‘If we agree that the Bible is a work of collective authorship, only Mohammad rivals Marx in the number of professed and devoted followers recruited by a single author. And the competition is not really very close. The followers of Marx now far outnumber the sons of the Prophet.’ But Marx’s enormous popularity does not change the fact that his work is little better than a collection of glaring contradictions. For example, Marx considers the existence of class as the root of all evil in the world. According to his philosophy, class distinction is derived from the system of private ownership, and the control exercised by the bourgeoisie over the means of production enables them to plunder the lower labouring class. The solution prescribed by Marx consisted of confiscating the properties of the capitalist class and putting them under the administration of the labouring class. Thus, he claimed, a classless society would come into being. But herein lies the basic flaw in Marx’s philosophy. For what comes into