as it is. At that point, your rivals don’t exist. What might be called “Salaf” concepts, successfully packaged as generic and universal Islam, can spread even among people who find Salafism ridiculous.
The sixty-three pages of the pamphlet’s content is divided into three chapters: “Some Evidence for the Truth of Islam,” “Some Benefits of Islam,” and “General Information on Islam.” The “Evidence” chapter takes up the first thirty-five pages, leaving just four pages for “Benefits” and twenty-four for “General Information.” The “Evidence” chapter tells me that the Qur’n expresses a harmony with modern science, which “proves without doubt” that the Qur’n is divinely revealed. Foremost is the Qur’n’s discussion of what happens in the womb. The Qur’n’s treatment of embryonic development (which actually conforms to the stages articulated in ancient Greek medical science6) is presented as advanced beyond anything that human knowledge could have attained prior to modern microscopes. The Qur’n’s description of the fetus as developing from an alaqa, which can be translated as “leech” or “blood clot,” is supported with diagrams comparing the human embryo at this early stage to a leech, showing the two to be similar in shape. In the next stage, the embryo is described as mudgha, which A Brief Illustrated Guide translates as “chewed substance.” The mudgha-stage embryo—the somites of which “somewhat resemble teeth marks in a chewed substance”—is then compared to a photo of chewed bubble gum.7 With a succession of charts, diagrams, and testimonials from apparently non-Muslim scientists at secular Western universities, the Guide proceeds to argue that the Qur’n’s discussions of mountains, clouds, and the origins of the universe all display a divine knowledge to which human knowledge has only started to catch up.
In this pamphlet’s vision of Islam, the Qur’n looks to modern science for confirmation of its claims; the Qur’n derives its authority from non-Muslim obstetricians, biologists, geologists, and astronomers, institutions such as Georgetown University and Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory, and new scriptures such as Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology and Meteorology Today. As A Brief Illustrated Guide frames its argument, these experts, institutions, and texts give the Qur’n permission to say that it comes from God. For the power of such sources, the Qur’n’s heart becomes its discussion of embryos, mountains, and bodies of water. The most crucial objective in an introductory glance at the Qur’n, A Brief Illustrated Guide tells me, is achieved through diagrams of the human cardiovascular system and satellite photos of cumulonimbus clouds. What’s unclear in this section is how the Qur’n could have proven itself before anyone knew that something called “modern science” would someday confirm it. There’s a certain Islam that confronts me in these pages: an Islam that is presented as timeless and universal (and also a faithful and exact replication of what it had been in seventh-century Arabia) but could not have existed prior to the twentieth century.
Apart from scientific proof, the Guide tells me, the Qur’n is also indisputably divine because it challenges all doubters to produce a single chapter that can match the Qur’n in its “beauty, eloquence, splendor, wise legislation, true information, true prophecy, and other perfect attributes.”8 The Guide states that the challenge has not been met, though I am not sure how the contest would be measured. From there, we learn about Muammad’s coming as foretold in the Bible, a theme that in fact goes all the way back to our earliest sources on Muammad. Its placement here rests on the assumption that the non-Muslim reader of A Brief Illustrated Guide holds a deep investment in what the Bible says.
Other proofs in the “Evidence” section include verses in which the Qur’n accurately predicted future events, Muammad’s performance of miracles that were witnessed by many people, and the simplicity of Muammad’s life, which is presented as proof that he was not motivated by a desire for status, wealth, or power. The final proof of Islam’s truth is its “phenomenal growth,” as sources such as The New York Times, USA Today, and Hillary Clinton are quoted as affirming that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America. “This phenomenon,” says the Guide, “indicates that Islam is truly a religion from God.”9
What strikes me throughout the “Evidence” pages is the treatment of humanity’s purpose and ultimate destiny as a math equation. Salafs are supposedly opposed to reason, but the pamphlet repeatedly claims that reason and empirical evidence demand our recognition of the Qur’
as it is. At that point, your rivals don’t exist. What might be called “Salaf