The attempted attacks on the authenticity of the Quran have reached the time of the prophet Muhammad through the claim that Abdullah Ibn Sad Ibn Abi Sarh, one of his scribes, actually contributed to its creation by anticipating the revelation of the verse 23:14, before the prophet recited it. The prophet then allegedly told him to write it down as part of the Quran. He is said to have then apostatized and returned to Mecca for protection.
Al hafidh al iraqi in his sira in the form of a poetry and in the part speaking of the prophet's scribes, lists 42 names among them Ibn Abi Sarh, emitting reserves as to whether he was truly a scribe or not. He then says that Sarh, along with 2 other scribes apostized with only Sarh later returning to Islam. Nothing is said of the reason of his apostasy, nor of the supposed way in which Sarh "used to direct Muhammad to write this or that"etc. as claimed by modern polemicists.
Before getting into a factual analysis of the report on sura 23, why would only 1 scribe out of more than 40 doubt Muhammad's truthfulness if all others like him were free to edit the text as they deemed it fit?
As to Abi Sarh's claims, assuming them to have been truly uttered, there are several internal factors exposing him as a liar. Abi Sarh embraced Islam after the hijra (the circumstances of his initial conversion are unknown) and joined the Muslims in Medina where his apostasy later occured. His conversion and apostasy thus occured in Medina. This means sura 23, which he supposedly contributed to and thus led him to leave Islam, must have been revealed there, in Medina, yet this sura is a known Meccan sura with no exception of any single verse. That alone is strong enough evidence to discard the claim, taking down with it the polemic on 6:93, also Meccan, which the polemicists try to depict as revealed in relation to Sarh following his "exposing" of Muhammad by "creating" a verse of sura 23. Disregarding the reports stating Sarh reverted to Islam before Mecca's conquest, meaning without any compulsion, after which he lived and died as a pious Muslim, the polemicists attempt using other reports stating Sarh was on an execution list and thus converted under duress after the Muslim invasion of Mecca.
If those reports are taken as true, the only information that can be drawn from them is that until the very last moment while his conversion could have made the difference between life and death yet he did not convert. He was forgiven and had thus no reason to "fear" anyone in his decision process in later reverting to Islam.
Nothing is said in those reports of the sentence against him having anything to do with the (disproven) claims on suras 6 and 23. Some reports do however say that he, along with a few others were on an execution list for (among other crimes like murder) their war-inciting, devisive poetry and anyone familiar with the culture of the time knows what role a certain type of poetry played in initiating bloody conflicts. It is a type of offence falling under the Quranic category of fasad fil ard, crimes punishable by death.
Some side arguments to keep in view is that, supposing the allegations concerning his contribution to sura 23 as true, followed by his apostasy and return to Mecca, then it would be very obvious for him to make such grandiose claims, since he now needed the sympathy and favors of the Quraysh whom he had previously betrayed in a time of war. He needed to allay their suspicions and resentment.
A similar case is that of al Rahhal Ibn Unfuwah. He was sent on a mission to Banu Hanifah, the people of Musaylimah the false prophet, whom he eventually joined. He then tried gaining the people's sympathy there by claiming the Prophet agreed to share the prophetic mission with Musaylimah, and some followed him. We even have cases of a whole Jewish delegation paying reverence to the Meccan idols by bowing to them, so as to forge an alliance with the prophet's enemies. The ahadith and the Quran in 4:51 refer to that shocking incident. These kinds of public renouncement of one's position in favour of a former enemy for political purposes were common. A similar case to abi Sarh is that of a Muslim in Medina who decided to betray the prophet, fearing for his relatives left behind in Mecca at the hands of the Quraysh
"I heard `Ali saying, "Allah's Messenger sent me, Az-Zubair and Al-Miqdad somewhere saying, 'Proceed till you reach Rawdat Khakh. There you will find a lady with a letter. Take the letter from her.' " So, we set out and our horses ran at full pace till we got at Ar-Rawda where we found the lady and said (to her). "Take out the letter." She replied, "I have no letter with me." We said, "Either you take out the letter or else we will take off your clothes." So, she took it out of her braid. We brought the letter to Allah's Messenger and it contained a statement from Hatib bin Abi Balta a to some of the Meccan pagans informing them of some of the intentions of Allah's Messenger. Then Allah's Messenger said, "O Hatib! What is this?" Hatib replied, "O Allah's Messenger, Don't hasten to give your judgment about me. I was a man closely connected with the Quraish, but I did not belong to this tribe, while the other emigrants with you, had their relatives in Mecca who would protect their dependents and property . So, I wanted to recompense for my lacking blood relation to them by doing them a favor so that they might protect my dependents. I did this neither because of disbelief not apostasy nor out of preferring Kufr (disbelief) to Islam." Allah's Messenger, said, "Hatib has told you the truth." `Umar said, O Allah's Apostle! Allow me to chop off the head of this hypocrite." Allah's Messenger said, "Hatib participated in the battle of Badr, and who knows, perhaps Allah has already looked at the Badr warriors and said, 'Do whatever you like, for I have forgiven you".
There was a Christian who embraced Islam and read Surat-al-Baqara and Al-Imran, and he used to write (the revelations) for the Prophet. Later on he returned to Christianity again and he used to say: “Muhammad knows nothing but what I have written for him.” Then Allah caused him to die, and the people buried him, but in the morning they saw that the earth had thrown his body out. They said, “This is the act of Muhammad and his companions. They dug the grave of our companion and took his body out of it because he had run away from them.” They again dug the grave deeply for him, but in the morning they again saw that the earth had thrown his body out. They said, “This is an act of Muhammad and his companions. They dug the grave of our companion and threw his body outside it, for he had run away from them.” They dug the grave for him as deep as they could, but in the morning they again saw that the earth had thrown his body out. So they believed that what had befallen him was not done by human beings and had to leave him thrown (on the ground).
People apostize from their religion, abandon their community or revert to a former state all the time, for many different personal reasons and in all religions and cultures. This happens especially in the times of the prophets, where people give up on their struggle and sacrifices, then seek to fight and undermine the legitimity of the prophet in their midst.
Waraqa the pre-Islamic hanif among others, is another of those candidates whom the critics like pointing to as a potential candidate for being an inspiration to Muhammad. In this one of many attempts at throwing all potentialities regardless of any logical, reasonable or contextual consideration, in the hope that a few will stick, these critics would have us believe that Waraqa was giving private lessons in scriptures to the prophet Muhammad and yet still believed in him prior to his death as a true messenger of God, wishing he could live on to support him in his difficult mission. The Quran itself testifies, and nobody ever came up to deny it, despite the various calumnies reported both in the Quran and hadith the likes of which almost all prophets were victims of, that the prophet knew nothing of the religion prior to his call. Nothing is known of the complete picture and signs which Waraqa saw that led him to believe in the prophet so strongly, but what is known is that he did, and that there was at the time great hope among the monotheist communities of the Hijaz, that a prophet and salvific figure fulfilling the prophecies of the HB and the NT would soon rise.
Historically, as stated earlier and as corroborated in the Quran itself, many people in the earliest days of Islam would convert, apostise, revert or remain non-Muslims, in some cases multiple times in a lifetime, guided by different reasons. They mostly did so to escape the Islamic justice system following a serious crime.
In a time in Medina where the Jews did not spare any means, from deception to open hostility and war mongering, at opposing the rise of the nascent Muslim community, an incident occured involving both Jews and Muslims. A Muslim man, who had been absent from his house came back and saw that some of his precious belongings were gone. Circumstancial evidence immediately pointed to a particular household among the Ansar, who were at the time the main supporters of the prophet. When the culprit, from the bani Ubayriq clan, saw that suspicion was pointing to him, he decided to frame a neighboring Jew by entrusting him with the stolen property and then falsely accusing him. In light of the evidence, nobody, including the prophet could deny the Jewish man's guilt, despite his repeated claims of innocence, and even though the original circumstancial evidence pointing to the Ubayriq was still lingering in the Muslims' minds. Until revelation came on that occasion, pointing to deceiving appearances among so called Muslims and the importance of upholding justice impartially 4:105-113. The prophet, against all strategical and political wisdom, given the interests at play, judged in favor of the Jew and openly declared the Muslim's guilt. In his impartiality, he did not even resort to covering up the matter so as to safeguard the pride of his allies. The Muslim deceiver and hypocrite in question, some reports name him Bashir, others Tu'mah, then apostized, left Medina and joined the Meccan idolaters.
Others, that originally were drawn into the community out of immitation or interest, without deeper inquiries found themselves doubting the divine origin of the Quran, and this in no way constitutes an argument nor is relevant in determining the truth of Muhammad's prophethood. The opposite would mean that every single prophet of the Bible was a false prophet, since all of them were doubted, accused of all sorts of things, besides liars, madmen or demon possessed. All had people wavering in their faith among their addressees, some apostizing, others remaining hypocrites and others reverting back to faith. Jesus was eventually abandoned by his closest entourage, some of them doubting his truthfulness (Thomas) while others conspired to kill him (Judas).
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