Islam critiqued exposes Muhammad as a false genetician, people transformed into rats?

In answer to the video "The Logic of Muhammad"

This youtuber is not a rat geneticist, but again, neither the prophet. I will address his scientific concerns, but need first to establish certain points.

As is explicit in the Quran, the divine protection of the carriers of the revelation pertains strictly to the revelation itself. But in everyday affairs, the messengers, who are still humans endowed with freewill and thus the potential, if not to sin due to their heightened level of spiritual awareness, to make mistakes, they are left to their own devices in their everyday lives to fight off the assaults of evil forces. No prophet was in a constant state of communication with the divine realm. The hadith and Quran itself speak of long periods where revelation had stopped, and the subsequent tauntings of his enemies on the issue, the questions of his followers and his anxious anticipation. The prophet is for instance reported, as a reflection of his all too often humble character, to have said

"I am only human like you; I forget as you forget. If I forget, then remind me".

This comes in the context of a slight mistake which he had done during prayer, inadvertently shortening it, apparently angry with himself as he suspected the mistake, then humbly accepting the correction from the attendance which confirmed his thought

"The Prophet (peace be upon him) meanwhile, stood by a piece of wood placed in the mosque, leaning against it, as if he was angry. So a man stood and said, 'O Messenger of Allah, have you forgotten or has the prayer been reduced?' So the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) said, 'I did not forget nor has it been reduced.' So the man said, 'Rather you have indeed forgotten.' So the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to the Companions, 'Is what he is saying true?' They said 'Yes' So the Prophet (peace be upon him) went forward and prayed what remained of the prayer, then he gave the salutation, then he prostrated twice, then he gave the salutation".

The prophet did not forget the Quran. He forgot, momentarily like any one with a memory lapse, certain passages. That is irrelevant to the issue of Quran preservation. When these memory lapses occured, the Quran had already been transmitted, in both oral and written form. Hence even regular members of the community, not even renouned memorizers, correcting the prophet's recital. Something important noting in that regard. The Quran assures him

87:6"We shall make you recite (sanuqriuka) so you shall not forget".

Allah was literaly puting the holy words into the prophet's mouth

19:97"We have only made it easy in your tongue that you may give good news thereby to those who guard (against evil) and warn thereby a vehemently contentious people"

and teaching him how to read them out. As the prophecy of Deut18 says

"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him".

Man is apt to forget, and the Prophet was a human being and he too was apt to forget and since the Quran was also a great asset which was being entrusted to him, he would repeat each and every word of the revelation fearing that any of it might slip away from his memory. This verse, telling him he will be made to recite in manner so as to not forget, came as a reassurance, stressing that God has taken upon Himself its impression on his memory. This was not by his own power and leave, being a mortal like anyone else and it is a reminder of this reality that the Quran continues

87:7"Except what Allah pleases, surely He knows the manifest, and what is hidden".

The context of the verse is about intricate, detailed, purposeful divine planing for all things and how nothing escapes God's grasp and knowledge. The prophet's rare occasions of very limited forgetfulness (and his followers and recorders' reminding him) were fully in accordance with that master plan, meant among other things at humbling him as well as to the believers' eyes around him, of his own faillibility as a human being as well of God's being in control of the process of memorization and compilation of the Quran, allowing only what He wills to be temporarily, not completely, forgotten. As a principle, the Quran reminds in many instances of that concept, how this revelation and its very preservation is a mercy from Allah that could be taken away from Muhammad or erase parts of it from the prophet's own memory without him noticing it as said above, therefore man should remain grateful for it and never feel complacent

17:86-7"And if We please, We should certainly take away that which We have revealed to you, then you would not find for it any protector against Us. But on account of mercy from your Lord-- surely His grace to you is abundant".

It is because of this very complacency towards divine guidance, the rejection, persecution and killing of the prophets sent in their midst that God temporarily interrupted an ongoing guiding revelation to the nation of Israel Ezek3:26,24:27,33:21-22.

The Quran never came to correct the prophet's worldviews in terms of knowledge of nature and general causality, neither of his contemporaries but rather guide him and the rest of humanity through him, to the most complete, advanced human spiritual knowledge

"The Messenger of Allah and I passed by some people who were at the top of their date palms. He said: “What are these people doing?” They said: “They are pollinating them, putting the male with the female so that it will be pollinated.” The Messenger of Allah said: “I do not think that it is of any use.” They were told about that, so they stopped doing it. The Messenger of Allah was told about that and he said: “If it benefits them, let them do it. I only expressed what I thought. Do not blame me for what I say based on my own thoughts, but if I narrate something to you from Allah, then follow it, for I will never tell lies about Allah, may He Glorified and Exalted is He.” He continued in another version "You know better about your worldly affairs".

The divine protection  therefore only pertained to the Quran which is the source of that perfect spiritual knowledge. The prophet was "uswa hasana" in his application of the Quran, not how he ate, slept or saw the nature around him. This phrase in no way implies that he was a perfect creation. Many verses urge him and those with him to seek God's forgiveness for shortcomings and the prophet used to implore God daily to be protected from sins. Anyone is free to imitate his lifestyle and adopt his worldviews as found in extra Quranic writings, if one finds any personal benefits in doing so but that isn't a religious requirement nor relevant to it, and that is explicitly stated in the Quran itself.

With that in mind, when the prophet made deductions as related in the ahadith, pertaining to his natural environement, general causality and basic observation of certain phenomenon, it is only expected from him that they would fit what the ancients of his time would find "plausible". These views however, right or wrong, no matter how extraordinary they might seem in light of our current knowledge, have no bearing on the Quran itself, which is again, pledged to be fully protected. It would have been interesting to have had written records of how the previous prophets saw the world, as we have with Muhammad, and see who among them held the most "unscientific" personal views.

There are many examples to be extracted from the ahadith, most of them inappropriately derided and misunderstood by modern people, although none of them are falsifiable and even if proven wrong, as said above, have no bearing on the Quran itself. As to the hadith about Jews changed into rats, besides the report itself describing the incredulity of those that heard it reported on behalf of the prophet by only one person, Abu Hurayra, it also shows the prophet himself giving a loose personal opinion based on observation, not a statement of fact

"Muslim2997 a: Abu Huraira reported that Allah's Messenger said: A group of Bani Isra'il was lost. I do not know what happened to it, but I think (that it 'underwent a process of metamorphosis) and assumed the shape of rats. Don't you see when the milk of the camel is placed before them, these do not drink and when the milk of goat is placed before them, these do drink. Abu Huraira said: I narrated this very hadith to Ka'b and he said: Did you hear this from Allah's Messenger? I (Abu Huraira) said: Yes. He said this again and again, and I said: Have I read Torah? This hadith has been transmitted on the authority of Ishaq with a slight variation of wording."

The same uncertainty is found in another similar hadith

"Then Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) called him out at the third time saying: O man of the desert, verily Allah cursed or showed wrath to a tribe of Bani Isra'il and distorted them to beasts which move on the earth. I do not know, perhaps this (lizard) may be one of them. So I do not eat it, nor do I prohibit the eating of it".

This observation by the prophet could have been directly or indirectly influenced by a belief floating among the Arabs, more particularily the Banu Salim who forbade themselves to eat the flesh of lizards, asserting that it was a metamorphosed Jew.