Remember The Battle Of Yo Mama

The Battle of Yamama in December 632 AD was important because anywhere from seventy to over four hundred Muslims who had memorized different collections of the revelations of Muhammad (they were known as reciters) were killed and their knowledge of these particular chats with Allah lost forever. This battle was the end of the internecine Wars of Apostasy that broke out following the death of the Prophet. Apparently there were Arabic tribes that did not believe that Muhammad was Allah's only mouthpiece and who really did not want to continue paying bakeesh to his relatives. That was soon settled by the sword.

"Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them." (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p. 23).

Unlike Islam, the death and resurrection of Jesus brought about a powerful, unprecedented spiritual movement where the only weapon used was the Gospel. Christianity toppled the Roman Empire without an army and without killing a soul.

After the death and non-resurrection of Muhammad (he died on June 8, 632), thousands of reciters were used to compile a collection called the Qur'an or Koran (meaning "he recites"). This was accomplished by the First Caliph, Abu Bakr, in 634 and eventually become known as the Hafsah codex. Hafsah was one of the eleven (?) thirteen (?) seventeen (?) wives of Muhammad; she helped to maintain and protect this manuscript until her death. By this time (656 or thereabouts) other Koranic texts were being used with different numbers of surahs. Uthman, the Third Caliph (644 to 656), ordered the burning of all texts not authorized by him (there were at least three), including the original Hafsah codex. Burning the Hafsah codex today would be comparable to barbecuing the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unthinkable.

The following video was created by a Christian group, "Acts 17 Apologetics." It is a little hokey, but it nicely sums up what Muslim zealots do not want you to know. Please disregard the hand jive fist bump at the end.



The sites that question the authenticity of the Koran are well patrolled by Muslims who do their best to discredit all doubt that the Koran is Allah's miracle. The Koran is, IMHO, a pile of rambling, disjointed, dogmatic crap that will put you to sleep faster than reading Das Capital in the original German after knocking back a sixer.

I cannot find a reference in the Koran wherein anyone who destroys, defaces or uses crayon on the Koran should be killed. The Koran did not exist until two years after Muhammad was dead so there cannot be any revelation from Allah to Muhammad regarding this punishment. There are plenty of other surah references that could be used to satisfy even the most restrictive requirements for the general purpose killing of infidels but nothing specifically relating to the treatment of the Koran.

Again it is only IMHO, but the death penalty is a reflexive action by centuries of Muslim leaders who do not want their meal ticket, the Koran, to be examined critically. In contrast, the codices supporting biblical translation have been torn apart and critically examined under the most hostile circumstances. This has happened so many times over the past half century that I have no problem accepting scripture as it is presented today in a variety of versions. The bible is the progressive revelation of God captured in 66 books written by 40 authors over a period of about 1900 years. Not a twenty-two year series of seizures memorized by ten thousand goat herders.

In Christianity, the search for the earliest Old and New Testament transcripts is earnest and it is ongoing. The oldest Dead Sea Scroll was carbon dated back to 390 BC.

In Islam, the original compilation of the Koran was deliberately destroyed. The earliest one now in existence was compiled by Ibn Ishaq in 768.

Burn a bible, burn a million bibles, rip their pages out, it makes no difference. The Word of God is eternal, immutable truth and it exists independent of any human construct. Apparently the Muslims do not share this assurance. In fact, they are downright twitchy when it comes to their actions towards other competing faiths.

Okay - I am now officially out of the pulpit.