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Riyadh, 30/06/1987
INTRODUCTION
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istory amply demonstrates that deviants desiring to found their own cults among Muslims usually begin their quest by presenting themselves as firm defenders of the faith. This deception is perpetrated in order to attract followers and gain popularity among the ignorant masses. Furthermore, it should also be noted that even the novel ideas and controversial issues of the cults will often contain some truth, otherwise the errors of the cults would be too obvious to people from the outset. For example, deviant Shi’ism’s call has always been for the protection of the rights of Ahl al-Bait (the Prophet’s (r) family) as a guise for excommunicating most of the Prophet’s companions, defaming his wives and consequently denying the prophetic traditions which they conveyed. Ghulam Ahmed, founder of Qadianism/Ahmadism, initially wrote articles in Indian newspapers in defense of Islaam against Hindu and Christian missionary claims[13] before declaring his own prophethood. In America, Elijah Muhammad openly called black Americans to Islaam and the Qur’aan, but what he actually gave them was a concoction of racist fantasies and fables in which black men became gods and white man were portrayed as devils created by the black gods. Similarly, Dr. Rashad Khalifa’s stated aim from the time he initially presented the Miraculous 19 Theory in the early 1970s until the mid 1980s was to physically prove two things: 1. that the Qur’aan is God’s final message to the world, and 2. that the Qur’aan was perfectly protected from the slightest distortion, addition or loss.[14] However, in 1985 he has cancelled the second aim by claiming that the last two verses of Soorah at-Tawbah (the ninth chapter) were fabricated,[15] and he has interpreted the first aim to mean that only the Qur’aan alone should be followed and anyone who follows the Sunnah [the compiled sayings and actions of the Prophet (r)] he has labeled a pagan, idol worshipper.[16]
The initial presentation of Rashad Khalifa’s seemingly amazing findings in his book entitled, The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World,’ [17] took the Muslim world by storm. Most Muslims readily and unquestioningly accepted Khalifa’s claims as they had the aura of “scientific fact” about them. Furthermore, his stated aims, to prove the divine origin of the Qur’aan and the purity of its text, were both among the basic tenets of Islaam. However, many religious scholars who initially heard his claims had serious reservations about accepting them. For example, prior to 1981, a Pakistani scholar by the name of Maulana ‘Abdul-Quddoos Haashimi wrote an article in which he rightly pointed that the pseudo-science of numerology, on which some of Khalifa’s arguments were based, was a product of ancient mythology and as such had no place in Islaam. He also condemned the widespread use of the number 786 to represent the Qur’aanic phrase Bismillaahir-Ra h maanir-Ra h eem (In the Name of Allaah, The Beneficent, The Merciful) as well as the use of numerical equivalents of Qur’aanic verses and chapters in the preparation of amulets commonly known as Taweez. After referring to ancient reverence of 19 and its appearance among deviant Shi’ite sects like the 9th century C.E. Karamatians, he concentrated on the 19th century Shi’ite off-shoot, Bahaisim, in which 19 is glorified as the central core of the universe since the founder of Bahaisim, Ali Muhammad Bab, was born in 1819 (1+8+1+9=19). He concluded his article by stating that if 19 has any religious significance, it belongs to Bahai thinking as the Bahai religious calendar has 19 months consisting of 19 days each and the number 19 can found written on walls and even embossed on chairs in all Bahai premises.[18] On the other hand, the vast majority of common Muslims who heard or read about the theory eagerly and blindly accepted Khalifa’s “discovery”. Foremost among them was the internationally known Islamic debater, Ahmed Deedat, who enthusiastically began spreading Rashad Khalifa’s findings to all corners of the world. In 1979, Mr. Deedat published a 75 page booklet entitled, Al-Qur’an the Ultimate Miracle, [19]in which he presented an emotion-packed summary of Rashad Khalifa’s data and arguments. One of Mr. Ahmad Deedat’s public lectures on this topic was also video taped and distributed worldwide under the title, “Al-Qur’aan: A Visual Miracle.”[20]
However, Khalifa later began to publicly make heretical statements beginning with his claim that he had calculated the exact date of the Day of Judgment.[21] Consequently, most of his admirers in the Muslim world, including Mr. Deedat, were forced to denounce him and disassociate themselves from him. Doubts about the correctness of his initial premise of 19 being the mathematical key to the Qur’aan were then raised and a number of emotional articles were written against both him and his theory. In fact, one of the leading scholars of Saudi Arabia, Shaikh ‘Abdullaah ibn ‘Abdul ‘Aziz ibn Baz, wrote a fatwaa (religious ruling) concerning Khalifa’s heretical claims in which he declared him an apostate.[22]
During this period, Rashad Khalifa became firmly entrenched in the U.S.A. He married an American and gave up his Egyptian nationality to become an American citizen. From his base in Tucson, Arizona, he freely distributed copies of his monthly newsletter to all Islamic centers throughout the U.S.A. and Canada. He also built a following among the new Muslim converts, whose Islamic knowledge was limited. Female converts who feel restricted by the Islamic dress code and rules against free-mixing with males were particularly attracted to his ideas by his rulings canceling Islamic dress codes and allowing women to pray beside men in congregational prayer, etc. However, there still remains the question of whether the basis on which Rashad Khalifa’s theory is built is valid or not, as it continues to attract the unsuspecting and the ignorant. Hence, it is not sufficient to merely discredit Rashad Khalifa based on his many heretical statements, any one of which is sufficient to remove him from the fold of Islam. This controversy has to be laid to rest by a factual dismantling of its foundations.
The following chapters of this book systematically and methodically challenge and disprove the vast majority of the so-called fundamental ‘facts’ of Rashad Khalifa’s theory. Furthermore, they clearly expose his deliberate falsification of data and alteration of the Qur’aanic text in order to bolster his theory of 19 as the miraculous numerical code of the Qur’aan. This work will demonstrate, without a shadow of a doubt – God willing, that the Theory of 19 is a shoddily concocted hoax unable to withstand serious scientific scrutiny. However, before proceeding with the refutation of Dr. Rashad Khalifa’s claims, the following summary of his theory has been prepared for readers unfamiliar with its core issues.
In the book, Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle, Rashad Khalifa overwhelms the reader with 247 pages of data proving 52 so-called “physical facts”. Each “fact” is supported with pages of tables containing additions, multiplications and divisions of letters, words and verses from the Qur’aan. This book, due to its size alone, is enough to convince the casual reader of its authenticity, as even a few errors would not be enough to counter the apparently extensive body of data to support the theory. However, under closer examination, it becomes evident that the 52 “facts” are in fact based on a relatively small number of principles that may be grouped together and refuted under the few general headings that I have chosen as chapter titles.
1. INTERPRETATIONS OUT OF CONTEXT
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he Qur’an, like any other text, may be misinterpreted if verses are taken out of their context or out of the context of the text as a whole. While compiling his so-called “facts”, Rashad Khalifa freely took verses out of their context in order to interpret them in an unorthodox manner and to create multiples of 19 where they do not exist. For example, when Khalifa presented his interpretation of verse 30 (“Over it are nineteen.”) of Soorah al-Muddaththir (74) in his book, Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle, he mentioned before it some other verses taken at random from various parts of the Qur’aan. Then he deliberately misinterpreted them in order to build his case. He made the statement: “A great Secret will prove the authenticity and divine source of the Quran,” then he quoted verses 4-6 of Soorah al-Furqaan (25):
“The disbelievers said, “This is a fabrication by him (Muhammad) done with the help of others.’ Indeed, they have produced a blasphemy and a lie. They also said, ‘Tales of the men of old which he has written down and are dictated to him morning and evening.’ Say, ‘He who knows the Secret of the heavens and the earth has revealed it. Surely, He is forgiving and merciful.’ ”[25]
Following that, he made the statement: “This great Quranic secret is to be unveiled at a time subsequent to the era of the prophet Muhammad,” and then he quoted verse 20 from Soorah Yoonus (10):
“They will say, ‘If only a miracle were sent down to him from his Lord! They say, ‘The future belongs to Allaah. So wait! Indeed, I am waiting with you.”[26]
Khalifa then turns to Soorah al-Muddaththir and claims; “ THE SECRET REMAINED HIDDEN FOR 1400 YEARS described in Chapter 74, entitled “AL-MUDDATH-THIR” which means “THE HIDDEN (SECRET).”[27]
Following that misinterpretation of the word muddaththir [28], Rashad Khalifa then translated the first seven verses of Soorah al-Muddaththir. However, despite his mistranslation of a number of words,[29] it is obvious that the verses are referring to a human being[30] and not an inanimate object like the number 19. His mistranslation is as follows:
“O you hidden secret. Get up and warn. And glorify your Lord. Shed your covers. Avoid falsehood. Do not exceed the limits. And persevere in serving your Lord.”[31]
He then does a verse-by-verse translation of verses 18-30. Following that, he summarizes what he claims to be the five objectives of verse 31, without translating it, and then continues to translate verses 32-35. Khalifa purposely avoids the translation of verse 31 because it provides the contextual meaning for verse 30, proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that number nineteen mentioned in verse 30 refers to none other than the angels guarding the Hellfire and not the miraculous mathematical code, as he claims. Verses 24-30 are as follows:
“Then he [32] said, ‘This is only magic from of old; This is nothing but the word of a mortal!’ Soon I will cast him into Hellfire! [33] And what will explain to you what Hellfire is? It leaves nothing and spares nothing. It burns man up. Over it are nineteen.”
And verse 31:
“And We have only appointed angels as guardians of the Fire; and We have only set their number as a stumbling-block for the disbelievers, in order that those who received a Scripture may gain certainty and the believers may increase in faith; and that those given the Scripture and the believers may not doubt; and that those with diseased hearts and disbelievers may say, ‘What does Allaah mean by this symbol?’ In this way Allaah cause whomsoever He wishes to go astray and guides whomsoever He wishes. No one knows the soldiers of your Lord besides Him and this is nothing but a reminder to mankind.”
Khalifa interprets the meaning of verse 30 as:
“…anyone who claims that that Qur’an is man-made (verse 25), will be proven wrong by means of the number 19 (verse 30).”[34]
However, the verse says; “Over it are nineteen” and not “Over Him are nineteen,” as he claims. The Qur’aan uses the attached feminine pronoun ها haa and thus could not possibly refer back to verse 25 which along with verse 24 says; “Then he said, ‘This is only magic from of old; This is nothing but the word of a mortal!’ ” Even if Khalifa tried to claim that “it” refers to the Qur’aan which is described in verse 24 by the disbeliever as manmade, it would not work because the word Qur’aan is masculine and the demonstrative pronoun “this” used to refer to the Qur’aan is هذا haa th aa which is also masculine. The feminine pronoun haa, in fact, refers to the closest preceding feminine noun s aqar (Hellfire) mentioned in verses 26-7 and described by two feminine verbs in verse 28 تَذَر ta th ar and تُبْقِي tubqee and a feminine adjective in verse 29 لَوَّاحَة lawwaa h ah. [35]
Another example of misinterpretation can be found in the Qur’aanic quotes used by Rashad Khalifa to back his claim that the Qur’aan is the only source of guidance and that seeking guidance from the Prophet’s (r) sunnah constitutes idol-worship. Khalifa quoted the following portion of verse 38 of Soorah al-An‘aam (6) in Arabic and English in his book Quran, Hadith and Islam, [36]
مّاَفَرَّطْناَ فيِ اْلكِتَابِ مِنْ شَىءٍ “We left nothing out of this Book (Qur’an)”
Then he stated the following:
“The Arabic text of this verse consists of 19 letters. The number of this verse is 38 or 19x2.”
However, the complete text of the verse is as follows:
) وَماَمِن دَآبّةٍ في ارَْض وَلاَ طَائرٍ يَطيٌر بجَنَاحَيهِ إِلأَ أٌمَمٌ أَمْثَالُكُم مّاَ فَرَّطْنَا فيِ الكِتبِ مِنْ شَىءٍ ثُمَّ إلَى رَبِحمْ مُحْيشَرُونَ (
“All animals crawling the earth or flying on wings or communities like you. We have omitted nothing from the Book, and they shall all be gathered to their Lord in the end.”
The complete Arabic text contains much more than 19 letters! It should also be noted that the Arabic text does not use the demonstrative pronoun “this” but merely the definite article “the.” Hence, from the context of the verse, “the Book” referred to here is not the Qur’aan, but the heavenly Book, al-Law h al-Mahfoo z, in which all things are written.[37]
On the following page Khalifa repeats the same trick by quoting, in both Arabic and English, a piece of verse 114 of the same soorah as “God revealed this Book fully detailed,” and deceptively states: “The Arabic text of this verse consists of 19 letters. The number of this verse is 114; or 19X6.”[38] However, as in the previous case, the complete Arabic text of the verse contains much more than 19 letters as is obvious from the following quote of the complete verse and its translation:
) أَفَغَيْرَ اللهِ أَبْتَغِي حُكْمًا وَهُوَ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْكِتَابَ مُفَصَّلاً وَالَّذِيْنَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّهُ مُنَزَّلٌ مِنْ رَّبِكَ بِالْحَقِّ فَلاَ تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْمُمْتَرِينَ (
“Say, ‘Shall I seek another judge besides Allaah when it is He who revealed to you the Book explained in detail?’ Those to whom We have given the Book know full well that it has been sent down from your Lord with truth. So, do not be doubtful.” [39]
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