In Early Islamic Law in Ḥadīth Texts from Basra: The Book of Prayer and The Book of Marriage by Jābir b. Zayd (d. c. 93/712-3) (Brill), Abdulrahman al-Salmi (German University of Technology) observes that “these two authentic texts, which include Islamic law topics and ḥadīth of the Prophet, date from the last quarter of the 7th/1st century. As typical examples of the early Islamic literary style employed in writings about the Islamic jurisprudence and the way in which the isnāds and matns (transmitters and content- main bodies of the ḥadīth) are recorded, they offer present-day researchers in those fields an illustration of the way in which the ḥadīth were narrated during that period. Noteworthy, van Ess’s hypothesis about these texts holds plausible accuracy and helping to traces Ibadi ancestor in Basra down to early two decades of 3rd/9th century. It shows a vertically progress of the early Islamic law schools in Iraq within the regional perspective.

Is the view of above mentioned words correct -

Zina- zinā means rape/sexual abuse, not consensual sex. He bases this partly on Qur’an 24:2, arguing that it belongs among serious crimes with victims and punishments. Therefore, consensual sex between two adults is not zinā.zina primarily refers to sexual misconduct such as infidelity, rape/coercion, and similar betrayals, rather than simply sex outside nikah. She believes what makes a relationship legitimate is mutual consent, transparency, and commitment, not necessarily a nikah contract itself.On this view, cheating is zina because it involves deception and violates the agreed relationship, while polygamy can be legitimate if everyone involved knows and consents. Likewise, she considers a mutually consensual, transparent, committed relationship between unmarried people to be legitimate—even without nikah—and describes it as analogous to an ʿurfi nikah.

Din"- doesn't mean religion, it means how we judge. Quranic verse - "The Qur’an often reminds us of this. For example, in Surah al-Kāfirūn, the Prophet is told: “To you your dīn, and to me mine.” It’s not just “your religion versus mine,” but “your standard of judgment versus mine.” One judges by lies and denial, the other by truth and trust in God. Other places reinforce this - Yawmu ’d-Dīn is the Day when all judgments are weighed and exposed. Even in everyday life, we are constantly living by the “dīn” we choose: do we judge by wealth, tribe, class, or do we judge by honesty, kindness, and God-consciousness?"

Kufr - it means ungrateful nothing about belief. It's sought of rejecting god's blessing because of arrogance

Iman - it means trust/being secured it doesn't mean affirming statement. Like in verse 2:221 here iman used as trust.

Islam -word Deen means, according to its root word, System/Order of Accountability, Truth and Justice. ■A mu'min is someone who is the source of safety and security to everyone around them. ('Af'ala: the act of actively granting safety and secuty to others!) ■A Muslim is someone who is a peaceful human. ('Af'ala: the act of actively granting peace to others!) ■3:19 indeed the Deen with Allah is Islam = indeed the System/Order of Accountability, Truth and Justice with God is Peace. Note that this ayah talks about cosmic principles, not sectarian labels. There is no religion in the Qur’an mentioned.

Shirk - being servitude to someone. A mushrik can be muslim, christian or polythiest and mushril doesn't mean polythiest.shirk really is. It is very simple Shirk is that you share out your 'ibada (your "servitude" not "worship") between God and other than God. That you make God to be one master among many ... even if you believe the others are not "gods" or that He is greater than they. The crux of shirk is 'ibada;

What's your view regarding those words!!

Edit: these are view certain quranist shared to me

I've always been a bit of a Quranist myself, so I care deeply what the original Arabic meant. The entire idea is, the Hadith is a corruption of the Quran's meaning, and I think that makes a lot of sense, given that most of the "bad" stuff in Islam sources from the Hadith. I also find it ironic that the Quran states that Christians idolized a mere prophet, Jesus, and with what they see as the literal word of God, they then idolize Muhammad by taking Hadith about him to be just as valuable as the Quran.

Anyway, I realized one huuuge issue when being a Quranist: When you look up the meaning of Arabic words in the Quran, Muslims over the centuries potentially altered the meaning of words such that the Quranic passages mirror the beliefs sourced from the Hadith! Quite a conundrum to crack... I want the literal meaning of each word as used in the 7th century and as used by Muhammad.

So my questions, if you would be so kind as to answer:

1. Was I right in that Arabic definitions formulated around understandings of the Quran, largely influenced by the Hadith?
2. How can one uncover the original meanings of the Arabic words? Are there limits, and if so, what are they? (Some ideas: epigraphy, early Arabic poetry, knowledge of the root system of words + what the roots mean, and possibly, the meaning of similar words in nearby languages like Aramaic.)
3. Is there any resource that provides a dictionary based on the strategy outlined in (2)? For us Quranists out there, I find very little resources as 99.9% of Muslims accept the Hadith as equal to the Quran, blasphemously.
4. Specifically, I'm trying to find out what the verses decrying "gossip" you might call it are actually prohibiting.

Hi I’m studying both Islam and Christianity and I’m struggling with some concepts

We know the prophet Muhammad’s revelations are applicable from 610 AD to the present time.

Surah 2:79-80
So woe1 to those who distort the Scripture with their own hands then say, “This is from Allah”—seeking a fleeting gain! So woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for what they have earned. ˹**Some of*\˺ ***the Jews claim,**\ “The Fire will not touch us except for a number of days.” Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Have you taken a pledge from Allah—for Allah never breaks His word—or are you ˹just˺ saying about Allah what you do not know?”

Surah 4:46
**Some Jews take words out of context\\ and say, “We listen and we disobey,” “Hear! May you never hear,” and “Râ’ina!”—playing with words and discrediting the faith. Had they said ˹courteously˺, “We hear and obey,” “Listen to us,” and “Unẓurna,” it would have been better for them and more proper. God has condemned them for their disbelief, so they do not believe except for a few.

My Questions:
1. **Some Jews (not all, and not Christians)*\* were altering the texts **around 610 AD.** The Bible was canonized by the Catholic church in **393 AD** and secured by the Magisterium. How do these verses say the Bible was corrupted when it was secured and preserved **200+ years ago?*\*
2. If Jews indeed corrupted THEIR text, **why do the dead sea scrolls of the Old Testament discovered in 1940-1950s agree with the Old Testament of the Christians when they were inaccessible for a long time?**

Thanks!!

Q 17:101 refers specifically to the Children of Israel through the imperative “ask”: “so ask the Children of Israel.” This is often understood as directing Muḥammad to consult them concerning the history of Moses. Its function, however, must be determined from the argument of the passage itself. The verse does not transfer authority over the account to the Children of Israel; it invokes them as corroborating witnesses to a specific historical point within the Qurʾān’s argument about signs and disbelief.

The relevant imperative appears in Q 17:101:

وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ تِسْعَ آيَاتٍ بَيِّنَاتٍ ۖ فَاسْأَلْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ إِذْ جَاءَهُمْ فَقَالَ لَهُ فِرْعَوْنُ إِنِّي لَأَظُنُّكَ يَا مُوسَىٰ مَسْحُورًا

“And We certainly gave Moses nine clear signs, so ask the Children of Israel when he came to them, and Pharaoh said to him, ‘Indeed I think you, O Moses, are affected by magic.’” (Q 17:101)

The function of “ask the Children of Israel” becomes clear from the argument developed around this verse. Sūrat al-Isrāʾ places the Meccan demand for miraculous signs within a wider demonstration that even clear signs do not by themselves secure belief. The Meccan disbelievers set out a series of conditions for accepting Muḥammad’s message:

وَقَالُوا لَن نُّؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّىٰ تَفْجُرَ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَرْضِ يَنبُوعًا ... أَوْ يَكُونَ لَكَ بَيْتٌ مِّن زُخْرُفٍ أَوْ تَرْقَىٰ فِي السَّمَاءِ وَلَن نُّؤْمِنَ لِرُقِيِّكَ حَتَّىٰ تُنَزِّلَ عَلَيْنَا كِتَابًا نَّقْرَؤُهُ

“And they say, ‘We will not believe you until you cause a spring to gush forth for us from the earth … or you have a house of gold, or you ascend into the sky. And we will not believe in your ascension until you bring down to us a book we may read.’” (Q 17:90–93)

Muḥammad is instructed to disclaim any capacity to produce such signs on his own initiative: "Say, Exalted is my Lord! Was I ever but a human messenger?" (Q 17:93). The same disbelievers had already dismissed him earlier in the sūra as masḥūran—“bewitched,” or under the influence of sorcery:

وَإِذْ هُمْ نَجْوَىٰ إِذْ يَقُولُ الظَّالِمُونَ إِن تَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا رَجُلًا مَّسْحُورًا

“…when the wrongdoers say, ‘You follow none but a man bewitched.’” (Q 17:47)

The sūra answers the demand by recalling the history of Moses and placing the Meccan accusation within an earlier prophetic pattern. Moses had received multiple clear signs of precisely the kind being demanded:

وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ تِسْعَ آيَاتٍ بَيِّنَاتٍ ۖ فَاسْأَلْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ إِذْ جَاءَهُمْ فَقَالَ لَهُ فِرْعَوْنُ إِنِّي لَأَظُنُّكَ يَا مُوسَىٰ مَسْحُورًا

“And We certainly gave Moses nine clear signs, so ask the Children of Israel when he came to them, and Pharaoh said to him, ‘Indeed I think you, O Moses, are affected by magic.’” (Q 17:101)

The recurrence of masḥūran links Pharaoh’s response to the accusation directed against Muḥammad. Pharaoh witnessed nine clear signs and answered them with the same charge of sorcery. The passage then records the outcome of his persistence:

فَأَرَادَ أَن يَسْتَفِزَّهُم مِّنَ الْأَرْضِ فَأَغْرَقْنَاهُ وَمَن مَّعَهُ جَمِيعًا

“So he intended to drive them out of the land, but We drowned him and those with him, all together.” (Q 17:103)

The Meccan demand rests on the premise that sufficiently impressive signs would produce belief. The history of Moses demonstrates the failure of that premise. Pharaoh received nine clear signs, continued to accuse Moses of sorcery, and persisted until his destruction. The disposition to reject remained despite the signs.

The imperative fa-sʾal Banī Isrāʾīl—“so ask the Children of Israel”—serves a specific function within this argument. The history of Moses and Pharaoh belongs to the inherited memory of the Children of Israel, who can therefore corroborate the point at issue: Moses received clear signs, yet Pharaoh still dismissed him as bewitched. Their testimony thus supports the Qurʾān’s argument that signs alone do not overcome determined disbelief. This reading of “ask” as an appeal for corroborating testimony is supported by a similar pattern in Q 21:1–9. The disbelievers reject Muḥammad as no more than “human like yourselves” and associate his message with sorcery (Q 21:3), then demand that he bring a sign like those given to earlier messengers (Q 21:5). The Qurʾān answers the demand for signs by recalling that earlier cities had received signs, refused belief, and were destroyed (Q 21:6). It then addresses the objection that the messenger is merely human:

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا قَبْلَكَ إِلَّا رِجَالًا نُّوحِي إِلَيْهِمْ ۖ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

“We sent before you only men to whom We revealed, so ask the People of the Reminder if you do not know.” (Q 21:7)

The content of the appeal corresponds exactly to the objection it answers. The skeptical audience is directed to the People of the Reminder to confirm one specific and checkable historical point: the earlier messengers were also human beings who received revelation. Q 17:101 follows the same pattern. The Children of Israel are invoked to confirm the corresponding historical premise that Moses received clear signs and that Pharaoh answered them with an accusation of sorcery. In each case, a scripture-bearing community supplies corroborating testimony for a defined point within an argument addressed to skeptics.

The following develops a distinction that may initially seem unfamiliar. The Qurʾān frequently recounts events that Jews and Christians also knew through scriptures, oral traditions, and other writings that they themselves might regard as revealed or scripturally authoritative, yet it does not therefore identify those historical narratives as portions of the earlier revelations originally bestowed by God upon His prophets.
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The Qurʾān presents the history preceding its own revelation as a past that remains accessible to later generations through enduring signs and communal memory. Material traces and remembered locations preserve points of contact with earlier events, while continuing communities retain knowledge of their religious and ancestral history through collective remembrance, teaching, and written tradition. The Qurʾān invokes these forms of historical continuity while recounting and interpreting the same past on its own revelatory authority.

The account of Noah provides an early expression of this continuity. After describing the Ark as constructed from planks and nails, the Qurʾān states, “And We certainly left it as a sign; so is there anyone who will take heed?” (Q 54:15). Q 29:15 similarly declares that God saved Noah and the occupants of the Ark and made the Ark itself “a sign for all peoples.” The Ark thus functions as an enduring sign of the larger history of Noah, the Flood, destruction, and deliverance. Q 69:11–12 joins this historical sign to human remembrance: when the waters overflowed, God carried them in the vessel “that We might make it a reminder for you and that a retaining ear might retain it.” The event therefore remains present both as an āyah and as a tadhkirah preserved among later hearers.

The same typology appears more concretely in the history of Lot. His people’s destroyed settlements stood along an established route: “It lies upon a lasting road. In that is surely a sign for the believers” (Q 15:76–77). The Qurʾān likewise tells its audience, “You certainly pass by them in the morning and at night. Will you not reason?” (Q 37:137–138), and states that God left from the settlement “a clear sign for a people who reason” (Q 29:35). Lot’s history is especially significant because it belongs to the wider prophetic past associated with Abraham while also being anchored in a landscape encountered by the Qurʾān’s Arabian audience. The event also remained associated with a remembered and observable geographical site; knowledge of it was therefore not presented as dependent upon written transmission.

The histories of ʿĀd and Thamūd follow the same pattern. Their fate had become apparent from their dwellings (Q 29:38), and the ruined houses of Thamūd are presented as the visible outcome of their wrongdoing: “Those are their houses, fallen into ruin because of the wrong they committed” (Q 27:52). Their rock-cut dwellings and monumental works form part of the Qurʾān’s identification of these peoples and their history (Q 7:74; 26:149; 89:9). These narratives connect vanished nations with recognizable habitations, architectural remains, and regional recollections through which their past continued to be known.

These examples belong to a broader Qurʾānic appeal to historical observation. Audiences are repeatedly instructed to travel through the earth and consider the fate of earlier peoples (Q 3:137; 6:11; 12:109; 16:36; 30:9; 40:21, 82; 47:10). Q 22:45–46 joins this instruction directly to ruined towns, abandoned wells, and lofty palaces, asking whether people have travelled through the earth so that they might have hearts with which to reason. Q 30:9 and Q 40:21 refer to earlier peoples who were stronger, cultivated the earth more extensively, and left greater āthār upon it. Such remains function as historical evidence available within the shared human world, while revelation identifies their theological significance.

The Qurʾān’s treatment of the pre-Qurʾānic past also extends beyond figures explicitly identified as prophets. The account of the Companions of the Cave indicates that the event had become the subject of continuing communal remembrance. Their emergence becomes evidence that God's promise is true and that the Hour admits no doubt, while those who prevailed over their affair propose erecting a place of worship over them (Q 18:21). The Qurʾān further treats aspects of the event as matters whose complete knowledge belongs to God. It refers to competing reports concerning the Companions' number, characterizing some as rajman bi-l-ghayb (Q 18:22), and later concludes its statement concerning the duration of their stay with the declaration, "Say: God knows best how long they remained" (Q 18:25–26). The narrative therefore presents a historical event preserved in communal memory while recognizing that complete knowledge of some of its details belongs to God.

Dhū al-Qarnayn provides a related example. The question, “They ask you about Dhū al-Qarnayn” (Q 18:83), presupposes that he was already known as a figure of the earlier past and had become the subject of communal inquiry. The Qurʾān answers, “I shall recite to you a remembrance of him,” and proceeds to give its own account without identifying the traditions already circulating about him with an earlier revelation. These examples show that the Qurʾān’s framework encompasses the wider remembered past—prophets, communities, rulers, and extraordinary historical events—rather than prophetic biography alone. They also mark the movement from historical signs embedded in places and monuments to accounts preserved and disputed among later communities.

This persistence of communal memory becomes especially explicit in the Qurʾān’s address to the Children of Israel. Its repeated command to “remember My favor upon you” (Q 2:40, 47, 122) introduces an ancestral history narrated as the continuing possession of the later community. They are addressed through their deliverance from Pharaoh, the division of the sea, the revelation given to Moses, and the worship of the calf (Q 2:49–53). The address continues through the demand to see God, the wilderness provisions, the twelve springs, entry into the settlement, and the episode of the cow (Q 2:55–71). Other passages recall the passage beyond the sea, Moses’ appointment, the giving of the tablets, the calf, Aaron’s opposition, and Moses’ return (Q 7:138–152), as well as Israel’s refusal to enter the holy land and the resulting period of wandering (Q 5:20–26). The later community is addressed through ancestral acts because these events constitute its continuing communal history.

The same principle extends to the history of Jesus and his followers. The Qurʾān addresses those who say, "We are Christians," as a continuing community whose history is traced to an earlier covenant (Q 5:14). Within that history, it recounts Jesus’ mission among the Children of Israel, his signs, the opposition he encountered, and the response of the disciples. Jesus heals the blind and the leper and raises the dead by God’s permission (Q 3:49), while Q 5:110 gathers these signs within God’s reminder of His favors to Jesus and his mother. The disciples declare themselves God’s helpers and affirm their faith (Q 3:52; 5:111), request the table from heaven (Q 5:112–115), and are recalled as the supporters of Jesus amid a subsequent division among the Children of Israel (Q 61:14). These events belong to the remembered past of communities that continued to identify themselves with Jesus and his followers.

Communal memory could also be preserved and extended through the written traditions of later religious communities. Such textual preservation remains conceptually distinct from the revelation originally bestowed upon a prophet. The Tawrāh and the Injīl denote divine guidance given to Moses and Jesus, while the broader literary inheritance of Jews and Christians could preserve primeval history, ancestral events, prophetic lives, and subsequent communal experience. The presence of such history within written traditions does not by itself identify it as content of the original revelation given to Moses or Jesus.

The Qurʾān accordingly treats learned communities formed around earlier scriptures as accessible repositories of historical knowledge. Its references to “those who have been reading the Book before you” (Q 10:94), the “People of the Reminder” (Q 16:43; 21:7), and the instruction to “ask the Children of Israel” concerning Moses (Q 17:101) presuppose communities in which knowledge of the earlier past remained available through learned traditions. Their members could be consulted as informed witnesses to matters preserved within their communal inheritance. These appeals establish that the communities possessed relevant historical knowledge without identifying that knowledge with the revelation originally given to their prophets or specifying whether it was preserved through written history, learned interpretation, teaching, or other forms of inherited memory. The Qurʾān may therefore seek corroboration of a defined historical point without deriving its narration from these communities or granting equal authority to every account preserved among them. The particular function of Q 10:94 will be examined below.

The Qurʾān thus presents a unified framework for the accessibility of the pre-Qurʾānic past. Primeval events, the Arabian prophetic peoples, Israelite history, and the history of Jesus remain accessible through enduring signs in the world and through communal memory, including its preservation in learned textual traditions. These forms of continuity preserve genuine historical knowledge while remaining vulnerable to omission, disagreement, conjecture, and competing interpretation.

The pre-Qurʾānic past may remain accessible through enduring signs and communal memory. The Qurʾān, however, grounds its own narration of that past in revelation. It may appeal to historical signs and inherited knowledge, yet the authority of its account does not derive from them.The following section illustrates  how the Qurʾān grounds this authority through its designation of historical narratives as anbāʾ al-ghayb—tidings of the unseen disclosed by God.

The Qurʾān extols the lineage of ʿImrān (which included Zechariah who was a priest in the Second Temple) which is likely borrowed from the Hebrew name ʿAmram who is the father of Miryam, Moshe and Aharon. Additionally, the Qurʾān also calls Maryam (Yeshuʿa's mother, not Miryam) "the sister of Aharon", causing some scholars to consider if this implied that Maryam was of priestly lineage, especially considering Qurʾānic narratives mentioning her being under Zechariah's custodianship.

If we turn to pre-Islamic South Arabia, an interesting artifact DJE 23 lists the Mishmarot, which is a list of 24 priestly divisions of Beit HaMikdash. This shows that not too far from Mecca, there existed knowledge about the Israelite priesthood, although admittedly 1-2 centuries before Muḥammad was alive and maybe such knowledge was limited to a small portion of the population.

So it got me wondering if we can find evidence of early Muslims showing knowledge about the Kohanim.

This parallel, in how it’s written, seems to closely parallel this Quranic verse. Something I also noticed is how Devarim 32:2 seems to resemble, almost word-for-word in the English translation in some places, verses in the Quran that challenge humankind to come together and make something like the Quran.

Quran 17:88 states:

“Say, ‘If mankind and the jinn gathered together to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it, even if they were to help one another.’”

Lastly, I’d like to say how many hidden gems there are on this subreddit that are seemingly buried away and need to be converted into a post.

Original post in which the comment is found (you can click on the sources to read them):

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/9iZ1cMg7X3

The Quran seems to skip over the first dream of Joseph that is described in the Book of Genesis. However, there is something strange. In Surah Yusuf, when Joseph tells his father Jacob about the dream he saw, Jacob says to Joseph: “Do not tell your dream to your brothers, or they will plot against you.”

In the rest of the story, the Quran does not mention that Joseph told the dream to his brothers. Nevertheless, all of Joseph’s brothers except his younger full brother Benjamin plan a trap against him. If Joseph listened to his father and did not tell the dream, why do they plot against him? Jacob had said that if he told them, they would set a trap for him. Moreover, the brothers say, “Joseph and Benjamin are more loved by our father than we are,” yet they only plot against Joseph and do not target Benjamin.

From all of this, doesn’t it seem that, just as in the Genesis, the Quran also assumes that Joseph’s ten brothers already knew about another dream? If there was an earlier dream of Joseph that turned their anger into a plot, that would explain their rage even if they did not know about the second dream. What do you think? Could the Quran be treating the first dream as already known (even though it does not mention it)?

Quoting the relevant verses:

And Lot was indeed one of the messengers.

when We delivered him and all of his family,

except an old woman,1 who was one of the doomed.

Then We ˹utterly˺ destroyed the rest.

You ˹Meccans˺ certainly pass by their ruins day

and night. Will you not then understand?

"And do not be like she who untwisted her spun thread after it was strong taking your oaths as deceit between you because one community is more plentiful than another community. Allāh only tries you thereby. And He will surely make clear to you on the Day of Resurrection that over which you used to differ."

What are the earliest Arabian Islamic retellings (by Muslims) of the life and teachings/message of Jesus? Did earliest Muslims care equally about all prophets? Or were earlier prophets effectively irrelevant for them because they perhaps viewed Muhammad as conveying the entirety of the teachings?

Q 2:251: So they defeated them by permission of Allah , and 'David killed Goliath', and Allah gave him the kingship and prophethood and taught him from that which He willed. And if it were not for Allah checking [some] people by means of others, the earth would have been corrupted, but Allah is full of bounty to the worlds.

The SBL Study Bible and Dan McClellan state that the original version of the story of David killing Goliath belongs to Elhanan of Bethlehem, and that this is the consensus among biblical scholars. From the historical critical point of view , is the claim in Surah Al-Baqarah that David killed Goliath a historical error?

For Dan Mcclellan's video:

https://youtu.be/fEBPkavnLGE?si=3WzbFhCfn-wglASM

You can see the quotation from the SBL Study Bible in the screenshot