dontconvert2islam tries textual criticism, different readings = different Quran?

In answer to the video "Proof The Quran Is Corrupted! Conflicting Textual Variants (Part 1)"

This youtuber, like many people who have not studied much about Islam yet attempt to draw hasty conclusions, does not know what is a qiraa. 

The early Quranic script was very basic, devoid of vowels and diacritical marks. It only consisted of the skeletal consonants. This was suitable for the memorizers. They knew, through oral transmission the correct pronounciation of each word. Others however werent orally introduced to the Quran, and in addition spoke different dialects. They found great difficulty if they opened the Book and tried to read from such basic script for the first time. The Hebrew Bible was similarly only punctualized in the 9th century CE, hundreds of years after it is believed to have been written, to help the person less familiar with Hebrew. 

This basic Quranic script was meant to keep it locked in its original double security system, textual/oral. Any one trying to bypass the established oral tradition and recite or read the Quran on his own would instantly be detected. Just as happens nowadays with critics trying to approach that basic script and suggest multiple possible readings, thinking they are discrediting it while they are in fact confirming the very purpose of those that compiled the Quran in this manner. The kind of recital and textual variants we see, either in the ancient manuscripts or as reported in Quran comentaries, testify to the early fixation of the text. Had the transmission only been oral there would have been variants the likes we have in the hadith literature when the earliest ahadith were strictly passed on orally for many decades prior to being written. This original, defective script of the Quran implies that written copies were only intended as memory aid. This is all the more true if one considers that the Arabic script had already stabilized even prior to Islam, and that Arabs already used diacritical marks. Yet the first official copies did not.

A qiraa is a mode of recitation. A recitation is orally transmitted by one reciter to the next going back to the prophet himself. That is why the fame and spread of a qiraa is in itself testimony of its authenticity and the less it is used the more its legitimacy can be questionned. One cannot create a recital in a vacuum and impose it on the masses, passing it off as authentically received from the prophet. This has never hapenned and never will. The process by which a particular recitation imposed itself was gradual, as it was transmitted from teacher to student. Had there been other mass transmitted qiraat than the 10, it would have been inevitably known. Their spread and use among the Muslims in itself would have provided a major argument for their authenticity, as with the 10.

Sometimes one and the same teacher reciter, taught a different qiraa to a different student. That is nothing new contrary to that youtuber's pompous tone.

Hafs quoted Aasim as saying that the qiraa he taught him was that of as-Sulami, from Ali ibn Abi Talib, from the prophet, while the one that he taught his other main student Shu'ba, was that of Zirr ibn Hubaysh, from ibn Mas’ud, from the prophet. That is why we find that, Shu’ba and Hafs, who studied under the same reciter Aasim, differed from each other in around forty places.

The differences between the 10 readings lie in the manner in which the basic Uthmanic text (absence of vowels and dots) was read. This formidable flexibility of the text allows for people of all cultural-linguistic backgrounds to choose which Quranic Arabic is easier for them to pronounce. As stated earlier, besides the purpose of protecting the text from corruption by locking it with the oral tradition, the defective script allowed the preservation and integration of most authentic readings into the Uthmanic mushaf. Other authentic readings which modified the skeletal text could not be accommodated and thus people progressively ceased reciting them. This is a iew shared by al Dani, Ibn al Arabi, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn al Jazari.

These readings are preserved till this day, the names of the most prominent teachers, and their illustrous students, eachone reciting exactly as his predecessor taught him. The name given to a particular qira'a/reading was after its most excellent or famous reciter, not necessarily after the one that first transmitted it from the prophet. The various readings, all of which are based on the very same text, are actually an integral part of the Quran's miraculous eloquence, with words carrying multiple but complementary meanings whether in areas of story-telling, beliefs or even divine laws.

What is further remarkable is that there are "only" 10 readings while the basic script allows for many times more reading possibilities, with all of them making sense. This in itself is enough to dispel the notion that the 10 qiraat were due to a defective arabic script, rather than inherited by the oral tradition we already know to exist and is well attested. An evident example to corroborate is that of the skeletal m-l-k in surah fatiha read maalik or malik. The word appears in several other places where both reading could equally be applied yet the only place with divergent readings is sura fatiha. This is because the readers were not free to apply their preferences, they were constrained by the sunna of the qiraat. The Sanaa manuscripts have since confirmed this tradition on the qira'at.

(Nicolai Sinai)"Thus, the Sanaa Palimpsest would appear to provide us with an exciting glimpse at a moment in time at which the hegemony of the Quran’s standard rasm had not yet become fully established. This, it must be said, is in line with the general drift of the Islamic tradition, which reports that during the first decades after Muḥammad’s death a variety of quranic recensions were in circulation. Although none of the exact “companion codices” described by Islamic sources have yet been discovered in manuscript, the general types of textual variants ascribed to them correspond to the types of variants found in the lower layer of the Sanaa Palimpsest. 17 The latter thus lends credence to the idea that there was originally more than one recension of the Quran and that the Islamic literary sources preserve a broadly accurate view of the scale and character of textual variance between these different versions of the Arabic scripture".

Among the aspects of the known variant readings confirmed by the most recent scholarly observations is the phenomenon of qira'at tafsiriyya/exegetical recitation. According to Hilali’s general characterization,

“[m]ost of the variations in the lower text include more lengthy text than the corresponding passages in the Cairo edition”.

This has led the major works of Hilali and Sadeghi to conclude that

"the lower text of the palimpsest is derivative from the standard recension".

Hilali further reflects exactly what the Muslim authorities have stated concerning the shaad qiraat. She opines that the authors of the palimpsest integrated interpretative passages into the text without clearly demarcating the 2 because they did not consider their writings to be transmitted to the general public. Their works were meant for personal use. Ibn al Jazari says that some companions would

“insert exegesis into recitation by way of explanation and clarification because they were endeavoring to ascertain the true meaning of what they received from the Prophet by way of recitation; they were safe from confusion [between the text of scripture and the explanations added to it], but some of them may have written it [the explanations] down together with it [the recitation].”

These Recitations were accomodating to the major dialects of the Arabs, thus leading to unifying the Arabic language, and validating all of its variations and subtleties. This not only allowed a faster spread of Islam but also solidified and preserved the language, as part of the divine pledge to protect the Quran. Had there not been approved recital variations, going back to the prophet's time himself, it would have opened the door to tampering with the text to adapt it to different dialects. It would have corrupted the meaning of the text. As time passed, the phenomenon of fame and spread of one religious, political center instead of another led in the Muslim world, movement of students and teachers led to some qiraat being supplanted by others more popular ones. Today the one most spread is that of Aasim through Hafs. 

There are several examples, among them the known case of m-l-k in sura fatiha that can be read maalik/possessor or malik/ruler. It might say in the Hafs reading of

2:271 "If you give alms...yukaffir/this will cover up some of your evil deeds"

while the Doori reading is

"If you give alms...nukaffir/We will cover up some of your evil deeds".

Both readings perfectly complete eachother, with the latter saying Who will provide the covering (God) and the former saying through which action (charity). 9:66 is very similar with Hafs saying

"If we pardon/naafu a group of you we shall punish/nuaadhib another group"

while Doori says

"If a group of you is pardonned/yuaafa another group will get punished/tuaadhab".

Doori explains what the contrasting behaviors spoken of in the passage will result in (a group will be pardonned while another will be punished) and the Hafs says Who will grant forgiveness or inflict punishment. Another similar complementary example is 2:10 in Hafs

"a painful chastisement in what they lied/yakthibun"

while in Doori it is

"a painful chastisement in what yukathibun/they gave the lie/they made a lie".

Both readings come together and reveal that their lie is twofold, consisting in knowingly misrepresenting something that is true. One can give the lie to someone or something by exposing the truth about it, which is commendable. One the other hand one might give the lie to someone/something by inventing a falsehood about him/it, which is a twofold crime deserving punishment. Again in 6:115 Hafs

"And the word/kalimatu of your Lord has been accomplished truly and justly; there is none who can change His words"

while Doori reads

"And the words/kalimaatu of your Lord have been accomplished truly and justly; there is none who can change His words".

The singular kalima refers to God's word in the sense of his promise as amply used in the Quran while the use of the plural kalimaat in the Doori reading reveal that this promise is none other than the words of this book. A last example to corroborate is 43:23 Hafs

"He said/qaala: What! even if I bring to you a better guide than that on which you found your fathers?"

While Doori reads

"Say/qul: What! even if I bring to you a better guide than that on which you found your fathers?".

Hafs is quoting a prophet, but Doori explains that the words of this prophet were directly inspired by God.

Yes, the Quran is truly a miracle of deep, meaningful eloquence that has not finished unraveling its intricacies.

Apostate prophet in search of God; what is the divine name?

In answer to the video "How Allah Got His Name Wrong (Islam Debunked)"

Allah is the only true deity 2:255,23:116-117,37:95-96,59:22-24,112:1-4. As already shown, He can be named by absolutely any name, so long as it is the "best of names", which includes among others, Allah. He isnt restricted to any name or any number of names and all the scholars agree that Allah's names are unlimited so long as they are the best. 

There is a prayer by the prophet in which he calls upon Allah by the name He has chosen to reveal to mankind, and those He kept in the unseen 

"I ask You by every name belonging to You which You named Yourself with, or revealed in Your Book, or You taught to any of Your creation, or You have preserved in the knowledge of the unseen with You..".

99 out of these names are special in the way they affect our existence. When the prophet urged the people to pay heed to those names, he said those who ahsaa ha/assimilates and applies them -not merely memorize them, see Quran 18:12- in the worship and in everyday life is deserving of a great reward. These Divine Names, which punctuate so many Quran verses inform us about the moral quality that human beings must strive to embody. The believer becomes a vessel of mercy, justice, etc. Naming Allah doesnt imply knowing Allah, or encompassing Him, or giving Him a similitude. Humans exist, but nothing like Allah, who ever-exists. Anyone has experienced mercy or existence, but not to perfection and infinity. The names of Allah dont describe the reality of His attributes, but tell us that He possesses a particular attribute to perfection. To clarify further, the name "all merciful" doesnt describe the reality, the essence of Allah's infinite mercy. It tells us that He possesses the concept of mercy, which we have experience of, to perfection, which we cannot fathom.

To limit God's names would be in effect a restriction on His majesty and God can never be contained, neither physically nor linguistically

17:110"Call upon Allah or call upon, Al-Rahman; whichever you call upon, He has the best names".

The most obvious of these attributes is His attribute of Rahma, or mercy.  Al rahman is the most intensive form of rahma. This is because Allah is the most merciful and this is why the attribute of mercy is the only one said to be "written" upon God

6:12,54"your Lord has written mercy on Himself".

Rahman stems from R-H-M meaning WOMB. In order to imagine the implication of the meaning, one has to picture the womb and what it does to the fetus. It nurtures, protects, provides warmth, love etc. The Hebrew equivalent of "rhm", is also found in the Hebrew Bible Deut4:31,Ps86:15 again to stress an important attribute of God from a human perspective. Many Christian and Jewish South-Arabian pre-Islamic inscriptions refer to God with Rahmanan. It is also important to mention that the pagans never referred to any of their deities with Rahmanan and in fact when they were told to

25:60"Prostrate to al-Rahman! they say: And what is al-Rahman? Are we to prostrate to whatever thou biddest us? And it increaseth aversion in them".

It is interesting noting how God, in answer to the derogatory demand to know "what" al rahman is, after giving a glimpse of His identity through the observable mercy pervasive in His creation, cites His servants as being the worldly ambassadors reflecting that attribute of mercy, physically and spiritually sincere and humble, benevolent towards their fellow men, patiently forbearing especially when confronted by the ignorant 25:60-77.

This tone was obviously derogatory, the pagans knew that this term was specifically used by the monotheistic religions so they did not want to give the impression of having forsaken their polytheism and aligned themselves with them. 

The word ALLAH was used since pre-islamic times, by the Hanif, the Arab polytheists, and both Arab Jews and Christians. The verse 22:40 states that all people in whose temples Allah's name is mentionned, were encouraged to stand up and defend their sites and rights to worship in them, including churches and synagogues. 

Elsewhere we read how the pagans recognized Allah as the supreme Creator despite having associated interceding deities to Him 29:60-65,46:28,39:3. The difference between each group however lies in the attributes they give Him and the manner they describe His interaction with the universe. That is why the Quran in sura kafirun does not negate who/man the disbelievers worship, rather what/ma 

109:2"You do not serve what I serve". 

The characteristics of the "Allah" of each group are different. What Muslims worship is not the deity of a chosen race, does not rest or slumber after creation, nor enters it. He does not have sons and daughters, nor a consort, and He did not detach Himself from creation after giving it the initial push. More descriptive points can be enumerated showing the monotheistic deficiency of every thought system claiming to worship One Creator with a common name, in contrast to Islam's supreme tawhid. The word "Allah" in itself however, "Who" is meant by it, is not exclusive to Islam. 

Up to this day, Arab Jews refer to God as "Allah". The Torah prohibits Jews from pronouncing another god's name

Ex23:13"and the name of the gods of others you shall not mention; it shall not be heard through your mouth".

If Allah was a name unknown to them and the name of another God that the unpronouncable Tetragammaton, they would have never repeated it, much less in prayer. A Jew can even go as far as praying inside a mosque but is forbidden of entering a church under any circumstances. The Arabic "Allah" could thus simply be the contraction of al ilah/the God. The word was so persistently and exclusively used to describe the supreme God that stood above the hundreds of interceding deities that it gradually became equivalent to His proper name among the Arabs, whether the pagans, the hanif, the Jews or Christians.

Apostate prophet finds the true YHWH; Allah is the biblical God?

In answer to the video "How Allah Got His Name Wrong (Islam Debunked)"

YHWH, instead of being God's unique, proper name is one of Allah's best names, describing one of His perfect attributes, like al Rahman and endless others, although its correct pronunciation is now forgotten. What strongly corroborates this is that the HB states in Ex6:2-3 that the patriarchs did not known God by the name of YHWH. Yet, as stated earlier, we do read throughout Genesis that from the first humans, down to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all knew the name YHWH. 

The way this contradiction is harmonized is by saying that, although previous people knew the name, they did not know its meaning. In Western languages, a name is a label of identification. In Semitic languages, shem (Hebrew) or ism (Arabic) is meant to reveal something of the essence of the entity. Hence the non-exhaustive "names" of Allah given in the Quran and traditions, each evoking an aspect by which His essence manifests. To further corroborate that what is traditionally construed as a mere label of identification of God in Hebrew, is in fact a description of one of God's attributes is seen in 

Ex3:13-14"And Moses said to God, "Behold I come to the children of Israel, and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh (I will be what I will be)," and He said, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'Ehyeh (I will be) has sent me to you.'" 

God here doesnt answer Moses' question with a word, but with a definition, an expression entailing eternity past and future. That notion is found in many Quranic passages 2:255,3:2,28:88,40:65,57:3,55:27. Once God clearly defined the meaning of the label by which Moses was to identify Him, He finally spelled out His "shem" 

v15"And God said further to Moses, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'YHWH elohe/the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is how I should be mentioned in every generation". 

Moses is thus told to make God known to the Israelites by a label which in the Hebrew language denotes eternity YHWH ELOHE. The Quran conveys in Arabic the same meaning with ALLAHU SAMAD, which Muslims recite in their daily prayers. The traditions also list ALBAQI among the names of Allah, denoting everlastingness. Similarly in the Greek of the New Testament, we find the phrase aioniou theou/the eternal God Rom16:26. Just like the Arabic Quran, the Greek of the New Testament doesnt use the Hebrew tetragammaton YHWH. Nobody will claim that the God John and Jesus spoke of in the NT is other than the God of Moses in the Torah. Writing the tetragammaton is allowed in Jewish tradition, as is done throughout the HB. It is the vowelization and attempted pronunciation that are forbidden. Further, no passage within the NT hints at an awareness of the prohibition to utter the tetragammaton. The NT goes as far as saying that Jesus' name is greater than all names Phil2:9.

We even read that just as Allah was known prior to Islam, the Semitic tribes inhabiting the land of Canaan much earlier than the Israelites also knew YHWH. The very reason, per the Torah, For God deciding to uproot and exterminate those nations, then settling the Israelites instead, was not because of the Abrahamic covenant, but because these nations had become sinners, unworthy to reside in a land previously declared sacred Gen15:16,Deut9,1Sam4:7. The Canaanite were relatives of the Israelites. They were Abrahamic descendants, such as the Moabites descendants of Lot and Edomites whose father is Esau. 

There is no reason to assume that these Abrahamic tribes did not emulate their common forefather by worshiping YHWH. But as the generations passed they corrupted that worship until God sent another Abrahamic branch, the Israelites, to uproot and replace them. Similarily Jethro was a Midianite-Kenite. Midian was the son of Abraham, and Kenite in reference to Adam's son, Cain whose descendants lived among all the people of the Levant. Jethro was thus a non Israelite semite, descendant of Abraham, who had kept the Abrahamic legacy. He proclaims to Moses that YHWH is greater than all false deities Ex18:7-12. 

It is known that Hebrew, like Arabic, as semitic languages have triliteral roots for every word.
With their succesive displacement, assimiliation, loss of culture and language, the Israelites lost one of the 3 stem letters, forcing their linguists to reach the correct view regarding a Hebrew word in light of its usage in the Arabic. Among all Semitic languages, Arabic is known to be the best preserved. Obeid (2009), in his study of the pronunciation of Arabic and Hebrew, inferred that “Arabic is closer to Proto-Semitic language with average 83.67%, and for Hebrew it is 43.36%. And both (Arabic and Hebrew) are incompatible with Proto-Semitic language with average 10.71%”.

The original phonological inventory of Semitic languages (consonants and vowels) has been preserved most fully in Classical Arabic and Old South Arabian languages. This is attested through inscriptions discovered mostly in present-day Yemen and dated to the 1st millennium BCE and the early 1st millennium CE. The loss of the triliteral roots of many words led the Hebrew liguists that could not find one of the lost stem letter to a word, to argue that certain Hebrew words are in fact biliteral, or even monoliteral. This created complications as regards the principles of conjugation of verbs. 

It wasnt until the 10th century that a Jewish Arabic grammarian, David Hayyuj, transposed his knowledge of Arabic grammar, to the convoluted Hebrew grammar, in order to clarify many aspects of the language. The influence of Arabic grammar, which primarily finds its source in the study of the Quran, on Hebrew grammar is such that Hayyuj is said to have become the founder of the scientific study of the discipline of Hebrew grammar. In fact his first works were written in Arabic and the technical terms still employed in current Hebrew grammars are most of them simply translations of the Arabic terms employed by Hayyuj. The Masoretic text didnt even start adding vocalization prior to his works, a crucial step in narrowing down the pronounciation and meaning of the consonantal text. Vocalization maybe transmitted by the oral tradition. But in the case of Hebrew, that oral tradition deteriorated and the language lost its archaic form, mainly due to their hellenization as they lived under Greco-Roman culture. They in addition didnt have a vocalized religious scripture to help in ascertaining the original pronouciation of certain words. Arabic grammar was thus crucial for the Jewish interpretation of their own scriptures.

Acts17apologetics looks for logos; Jesus is the kalima of Allah?

In answer to the video "David Wood Is the Word of Allah! (Just Ask Mohammed Hijab!)"

3:45"Allah gives you good news with a word/kalima from Him (of one) whose name is the Messiah, Isa son of Marium". 

Kalimatun, which means word or statement has a feminine designation. But what follows is in the masculine, making Jesus and word/statement 2 distinct entities. This is because Jesus is the product of the creative word, not the word itself 

4:171"The messiah, Jesus, son of Mary was none other than Allah's envoy and His statement/kalima, He casted it towards Mary including a life giving breath from Him (Allah)". 

It literally says Jesus, the human prophet, born of Mary, was a statement cast towards his mother. It does not say the intangible "pre-incarnate" Jesus was a word cast to Mary. This is what one with a hellenistic theological background would read into the verse. 

The precision of the verse does not end here. It does not say the word was cast inside of Mary, rather ila/towards Mary. For that "pre incarnate" Jesus to become flesh, it would have necessitated for it to enter Mary. So clearly, no human being was literally cast to Mary, and neither does it say it entered her. Simply, Allah cast his statement, His command to Mary. That statement allowed the miraculous process by which a particular human being came to existence. Jesus was not God's word, as denoted in 3:45 but became God's word. Exactly as Adam manifested the creative word of God. Or as the prophet Yahya/John was the manifestation of God's word, given the particular circumstances of his birth

3:39"Allah gives you the good news of Yahya verifying a word/kalima from Allah". 

Kalimatullah in these contexts is thus not some pre-existing entity seperate from God in an intangible shape before becoming physical. It is a command from God that allows a process by which certain physical entities come into being. Adam, Jesus or John did not pre-exist as intangible entities prior to manifesting God's word in physical form. 

Further, the word of God manifests in different ways in this world, not only physical. Kalimatullah is also used in the sense of God's promise 6:34,115,10:64,18:27 etc. Such divine word is a command that can never be reversed or altered once issued 13:41, it can be the promise of victory and assistance to the messengers and their followers 37:171-2 or the promise of chastisement to the rejecters 58:21 or again the promises of miracles or blessings whether in this life or the next. This is because, as repeatedly said in the Book, Allah's statement is truthful and He never breaks His promise

10:55,33:4,38:34"The truth then is and the truth do I speak" 39:20"Allah will not fail in (His promise)".

The association of the kalima of Allah with something also seems to imply truth. This is highly appropriate in light of the descriptions made of Jesus in the NT where he makes false prophecies. Only truth emanates from Allah and Jesus' association with the kalima makes him the embodiment of truth.

The particularities of Yahya/John and Jesus' births, do not make any of them different or special than other human beings in terms of their physical nature. Neither were these miraculous circumstances necessary to accomodate the false notions retrospectively applied to them. For example Jesus did not need to come from a virgin to circumvent human depravity, something Jesus never even spoke of. Neither did Jesus need to combine the immaterial/RUH of Allah, with the material/human mother so as to assume his dual human/divine nature. All humanity has exactly this same dual aspect as Jesus, without any of us being divine. Man has both a principal and a secondary nature. His secondary nature returns to dust and his essence is related to Allah. This is why the Quran attributes the spirit to Allah and the body to the earth 38:71-72.

The Quran leaves no room to the kind of conjecture trinitarians are known for when approaching their Bible, let alone the Quran. Christians feel comforted whenever they superficially approach the Quran and find these familiar Christological themes. They are sometimes bold enough to assume the Quran is confirming their doctrines. After all, none other than Jesus is referred to as God's word, His messiah or a RUH from Allah. But by doing so Christians are missing the consistent Quranic approach of taking up the major trinitarian themes and labels associated to Jesus, then recasts them in a monotheistic, unitarian perspective. It is the case with the kalima, just as with the RUH/spirit or the name "messiah". Jesus is not the literal nor metaphorical "son of God" but simply, the son of Mary as Christians themselves cannot deny. Similarly, Jesus is stripped from any intrinsic power as regards his ascension and ability to perform miracles.

Being the muhaymin/guardian of the previous scriptures and traditions, the Quran could not leave those themes unaddressed. And it does so in an impactful way, using them just as is done in Christian scriptures, while redifining them so as to deny their Christological background. That corrective function goes beyond these aforementioned pillars of Christology. In the Gospels' eschatology, the trinitarian godhead is at the forefront and Jesus is given the leading role of judgement by his "father" Matt25,26. In the Quran, no possible ambiguity exists as to Allah's supremacy on that day, whether in terms of glory, authority or judgement.

Jesus and John were mortals, made from exactly the same elements as other humans, and could not have come into existence without God's word 2:117"Be". The word symbolizes that nothing escapes His grasp in the chain of causality. He may use His command to initiate the chain by creating out of nothing, or He may us it to intervene in a pre-existing chain of causality so as to result in the outcome that He wills

3:59"Surely the likeness of Isa is with Allah as the likeness of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him, "Be", and he was". 

This is an instance of Allah using His word to complete a process. Both Adam and Jesus came to completion through Allah's word. Prior to that completion Adam was fashionned from inorganic earthly elements, or as the Quran quotes Allah 

38:75"him whom I created with My own hands". 

All things were, and are created by Allah's direct involvement. Mankind is no different but because it is a specie with a special connection with its Creator, the Quran uses the image of Allah using His own hands doing so, as a metaphor of special care in fashioning and forming it. When that fashionning process reached physical completion, Adam was ready to receive the spirit from Allah 38:71-2. It is at that point that Allah "said to him, "Be", and he was". That command is what triggered all components within Adam, the physical and the spiritual to fuse and ignite, resulting in what is understood by a "human being"; a creature whose flesh and spirit function simultaneously and interdependantly. 

Without God's word, the mere entry of the spirit within the flesh would not cause this creature to function as a human being. One can finish building a robot, then place its batteries, but it will only function once the switch is turned on. God's word is the switch that ignites the human being, allowing its material and spiritual components to work together.

The process that preceded Allah's command was different in Jesus' case. Unlike Adam, he was not first fashionned from earthly substance, but through the RUH that entered the body of his mother so as to allow her to conceive. At some point during the development of the fetus, Allah's word was cast towards Mary. This was the trigger allowing the fusion of the RUH that had entered her prior, with the fetus, resulting in a creature whose flesh and spirit function together.

A question one might ask is why, if all human beings, including Adam and Jesus, were brought to completion through Allah's word, why did the Quran choose to parallel Adam specifically with Jesus in order to deny Jesus' divinity? Adam is the archetypical human being, made from the dust of the earth. No human being after Adam, endowed with the spirit of Allah, is closer to its original earthly substance than him. In the context of refuting Jesus' divinity, and stressing his humanity, no point of reference among any human being is more appropriate than the human who is closest to its wordly, earthly, humble origins than Adam. Further, the one who is alleged to be a god-man, is as helpless in the process of his completion than a human being made of dust. What kind of deity cannot come into existence in whatever shape and nature, without the intervention of a higher power?

The main idea behind the statement, "then said to him "Be" and he is", often used for God's creative action, is that Allah masters the laws of causality. The imperative form gives a sense of absolute control, contrary to the similar but softer Biblical "Let there be". Grammatically, the statement "kun fa yakun/be and he is" is an idiom. Its constituents, like the gender/tenses/persons remain unchanged regardless of the sentence in which the idiom is integrated. The present tense, although speaking of a past event, also serves as a literary device to involve the audience/reader, making him the spectator of the event as it is unfolding, as if the coming to existence is happening now, in front of him.

Jesus' miraculous conception is a sign not only he would be known by, but also his mother and the name "son of Mary" implies exactly that; she would jointly share this sign with him forever as both of their names will be mentionned together

23:50,21:91"and made her and her son a (single) sign for the worlds".

Jesus as well as his mother were chosen to be made jointly, "A" single sign of the power of the Maker and Creator over all things. So from a Quranic perspective, that miracle equally sets Mary and Jesus appart from humanity. Before discussing the implications of this sign, it is worthwile noting that by honoring Mary in such a way and joining her name to that of one of the most illustrous individuals to have walked the earth, God has defeated in His final revelation and until the resurrection, the slanderous talk of some among her contemporaries and those that followed, who wanted to put a stain on her and abase her. 

As regards the sign, it consists in demonstrating how the resurrection of bodies isnt a difficult task to God. We deem it impossible for a female to give life without the necessary biological process yet God did it, so just as He easily creates life in conditions we think are impossible then similarily He is able to bring the dead back to life even if the conditions make it unfeasable from our perspective. The rejection of the concept of resurrection by many Jews of the time adds to the relevancy of that miracle. 

One can even argue that Jesus was given the greatest evidence for resurrection among God's prophets who all equally stressed the importance of that tenet to their people. This is because Jesus is the only explicit case in the prophetic history where a human's birth did not result from mating. The Quran doesnt even state that Adam was born in such a way, ie that he was not the result of sexual reproduction, and although other miraculous births are recorded in the Quran, including around the time of Jesus as was the case for the prophet John/Yahya, they primarily served the purpose of a reward and were not meant to be disclosed and shared openly other than within the circle of the people concerned. Jesus' birth not only was different than all others in its prominence because as already said, intercourse between a man and a woman did not even precede it, but also because it was primarily meant as a sign for all of humanity.

 As a testimony to this, the Quran uses a linguistic subtelty, showing again and again how it uses words surgically in order to maximize the impact. There is a slight different wording between God's answer to Mary

3:47"Even so Allah creates what he pleases"

and to Zakariya

3:40"Even so does Allah whatsoever He pleases".

The nuance -creates vs does- lies in that the miracle of a child born of a virgin is definately more striking than a child born to a couple, even if barren. It must be kept in mind the Quran was recited in the form of speech, publicly and instantly as it came to the prophet, with no chance a re-editing and modifying, and the 2 verses are very closely located. How would one, let alone a known illiterate without any background in poetry or any form of oral eloquent speeches, instantly and naturally make such a distinction in a flowing discourse?

Islam critiqued is adamant; Solomon and the Queen from Targums and Hekalot?

In answer to the video "Quran, Mysticism and the Ignorance of Allah"

The Quran in that story of Solomon and the Queen maintains a remarkable consistency with the overall message of the book, despite its illiterate author and stealthy, unseen assistants, selecting in a plethora of oral and written traditions, cherry picking along the way the covenient parts that agree with its most subtle meanings, without ever being noticed, then putting together this intricate discource free from any discrepency. 

When a tiny bird with limited mental capacities is hurt by the sight of mankind's ungratefulness towards its Creator, that even inanimate objects devoid of any mental faculties are praising God, that the most massive among them such as mountains wouldnt be able to bear the spiritual weight of a revelation the like of this Quran 59:21,13:31 then what is amiss in mankind that many are unable or unwilling to worship the One Creator? Man is blessed with the most advanced reasoning capacities in creation, combining concrete and spiritual perception 20:50,30:30,76:3,90:8-10,91:7-10. Man is ingrained at birth with a cognizance of the higher realities 23:78,46:26,67:23,76:2 aided with guidance through revelation 2:38-9,7:35-6,20:123. Why would he not, under such circumstances recognize and bow to his Creator? 

This is precisely why the Quran refers to itself as the Muhaymin (Guardian/Arbitrer), when talking about what is contemporary to it in terms of revealed truths, whether available in oral or writen tradition, such as the Torah and Injil. It points out major mistakes in them, filters the Truth from falsehood

21:24"this is the reminder of those with me and the reminder of those before me".

The Quran confirming the past scriptures, as well as any tradition, oral or written, in which divine truths still remain 2:41, means that there is a common real, historical source that runs through these textual and oral traditons. One doesnt undermine the Quran by finding parallels between certain of its passages and supposedly contemporary accounts, since the Quran itself does not claim to bring a new core message. What the Quran says is that it restaures the forgotten or altered truth that is found in those parallel accounts. It is the Muhaymin/guardian, the Furqan/criterion, the Dhikr/reminder. 

The Targum Sheni of Esther, whose version of Solomon's interraction with the animal realm most closely resembles the Quran story, was actually redacted in its final form in the end of the 7th century, long after the Quran was established in textual form and spread throughout Muslim lands. This strikes right at the core of the borrowing claim against the Quran, making the Quran the potential source of the Targum. And even if one were to assert that the Targum draws on an oral source common both to it and the Quran, there is no way of knowing what this source looked like during the rise of Islam, much less prove that this oral version was known in the Hijaz during the advent of Islam. This Targum's earliest manuscript dates to the 12th century, which greatly undermines the notion that it was widely known and popular. 

And once more, similarities doesnt entail borrowing. One first has to establish that the supposed (illiterate) author of the Quran had access to the similarities. One then has to explain how he cherry picked among a long list of books and traditions, besides other philosophies and thought systems, to form a well knit, flawlessly intricate narrative in its literary form that left the masters of eloquence of the time dumbfounded, as well as depth of contents that has not finished unravelling its subtleties. 

Why wasnt the source ever exposed nor came out to denounce him, leaving him reap the fruits of their labor. How wasnt this source detected given the largely exposed lifestyle of the time, the open circumstances in which the prophet lived and received revelation, as well as many other factors, not the least being that the Quran never claims to be relating something unknown in that particular narrative, repeatedly says it is a revelation in a long tradition of revelations. 

This means the superficial similarities might be remnants of revealed truths that eventually found their way into these apocrypha. In those writings from which the Quran supposedly draws, one can many times see how the superficial similarities are poorly weaved into the fabric of the story. The apocryphal writer, or his source, was aware of certain elements of the story but poorly integrated them in the whole account.

This is precisely why the Quran refers to itself as the Muhaymin (Guardian), when talking about the textual and oral traditions contemporaries to it. It points out major mistakes in them, filters the Truth from falsehood 

21:24"this is the reminder of those with me and the reminder of those before me". 

The Quran confirming the past scriptures, as well as any tradition, oral or written, in which divine truths still remain 2:41, means that the principles taught by Muhammad come from a common source, which Muslims believe is the Source of creation, and can be found throughout these textual and oral traditions. This is pointed to in the common phrase "musaddiqan lima bayna yadahi". With the passage of time these traditions were burdenned with additions, suffered from corruption and/or neglectful transmission. The Quran then acts as a criterion that distinguishes truth from falsehood. 

Therefore, and for argument's sake, to Muslims, it is irrelevant whether a story bearing similarities with a Quranic passage was even in circulation during and before Islam. It is even less relevant to Muslims whether the similarities were cannonized in the Bible or not. By what standard is the current Bible canon more reliable than the apocrypha? And what proof is there that the unknown Bible compilers rejected these traditions based on these points common to the Quran? Does the current Bible canon even claim to relate every single aspect of the life of its Biblical characters? Is it quiet possible that during the tumultuous process of transmission of the Bible, more particularily the HB which was lost at least twice as recorded in the Bible itself, some parts of the overall transmitted traditions were retained by the editors charged with reconstituting the lost text, and who reflected their own socio-cultural background in the process? Could they have been Selecting what was appropriate for their storytelling purposes and what was not? Of course from a secular viewpoint, the Quran, as a later text, is irrelevant in determining the authenticity, original versions or actual beliefs of those who originated or penned the previous oral and written traditions, canonized or not. But then so is the NT irrelevant in determining those matters from the HB, just as within the HB itself parts are far removed in time and space from other parts, making certain books insignificant when exploring these matters from earlier or later books. However, as soon as one introduces the divine into the equation, then all groups Jews-Christians-Muslims are equal in their claims as regards the authority of one scripture over another. The only factor from a non-secular view point enhancing one claim over another, would be the group with the most authentic, contradiction-free scripture.

In today's mainstream academia, no Islamicist asserts the Quran was influenced by the textual and oral traditions of its milieu, let alone copies from them. Simply because there is no possibility to know whether the human mind who supposedly authored the text had access to those traditions or understood them. What academics do at most, is present what they see as similarities, without disregarding or minimizing the vast differences. On the other side of the spectrum are Judeo-Christian religious zealots and apologists whose methodology and ideas are vastly inherited from their medieval peers' polemical writings. In order to enforce their untenable, unproven claims of borrowing, they retrospectively cherry pick convenient snippets from within larger stories that have very little to do with the corresponding Quranic passages. Then, not only do they disregard the significant differences loaded with theological meanings, but go on magnifying the tiniest similarities to the maximum so as to serve their paradigm. In the process, they inadvertently attribute to Muhammad an encyclopediac knowledge of texts and traditions, as well as an army of unseen informants from a variety of backgrounds and cultures following him around. This weak methodology can be applied to any thought system so as to build up a case for plagiarism. 

The Judeo-christian scriptures themselves relate, through the successive prophets and inspired personalities, different stories that were known to the addressees. This doesnt mean their statements were inspired by these traditions floating around. Rather, the common truths found between these traditions, and the statements of the prophets come from God. There is a myriad of similarities between the HB and stories, texts, inscriptions, including the Ugaritic mention of Adam and Eve, the Mesopotamian myth of Gilgamesh where he is cheated of immortality by a snake who eats a plant (had Gilgamesh eaten it, it would have made him immortal. The elements are the same but play out differently). There are other such myths circulating in Babylon where the Israelites spent a long time in exile, of a hero tricked out of immortality through the device of a plant/food. One could extend the parallelism with the laws of Hammurabi, or the global flood, among many examples, all predating Moses' supposed writing of the Torah. Some of these similarities might be due, as in the Quran, to being remnants of ancient truths partially preserved by these different cultures. But other biblical parallels with predating writings and traditions obviously are copies of unsophisticated legends floating in the region. The oldest and original account of creation in the Bible isnt found in Genesis but in Isaiah, Job or the Psalms. God in these crude stories divides the seas and fights off aquatic monsters. The same is found in the Ugaritic tablets and in a language very similar to Hebrew, with the myth that creation began when the storm god Baal vanquishing the god of the sea Yam and his sea monster-serpent-dragon helpers. Isa27:1 has a very close wording to what a Canaanite says about Baal 

"When you killed Litan, the fleeing serpent, annihilated the twisty serpent, the potentate with seven heads". 

One shouldnt forget that the canonization of the Bible was a long and controversial process, influenced by men with doctrinal bias, and that the current Biblical text is far from being a valid criterion of what truly constitutes divine knowledge from purely human invention.

The Hekhalot literature, which this youtuber makes a mountain of, do contain a few minor similarities with the Targum Sheni, but this doesnt mean that the Targum draws a few of its elements from the Hekhalot. This is because the Hekhalot themselves draw their material from even earlier sources now lost, and re-adapted to suit the mystical conjectures of the scribes. No manuscript of these Hekhalot was found predating the 12th century. The fragments found at the Cairo Genizah show significant differences with these 12th century Hekhalot manuscripts. This means the Hekhalot literature was circulating in a wide variety of forms throughout different regional channels until very late after Islam. The nature and content of these forms, the relationship among its various parts, even the time and social climate of its composition prior to the 12th century are impossible to ascertain. That is why scholars dispute their dating to anywhere between the 3rd and 8th century. For example, in one scholarly opinion some of the themes it contains cannot be the product of rabbinical thought, but rather reflect the presence of Islamic influence from sources of the 8th and 9th centuries (Heinrich Graetz). 

The critics of Islam will never be able to find this illusive preexisting source, written or oral, on which the document post dating the Quran could have been based upon. They will forever remain in their uncomfortable corner, maybe even coming to the conclusion that the "borrowing" might just have been in the opposite direction, with the Quran and its commentaries serving as the sources of these post Islamic works. Continuing with the Hekhalot, there isnt even scholarly consensus on the dominant theme of this corpus. According to this view, far from being a mystical tradition, the Hekhalot are originally the product of mainstream orthodox Judaism of the 1st century, and then redacted and readapted in many different ways and channels in the following 7 centuries (Scholem). Others, disagree on that 1st century dating and instead place it anywhere up to the years 500, within the circles of the Amoraim rabbis (MS Cohen, PS Alexander, MD Swartz). While some see a mystical pattern running through the corpus, others including Urbach and even Halperin, whom this youtuber vaguely alludes to, argue that the ascent theme shouldnt be seen more than a literary development unrelated to mysticism. 

This is because there is no indication by the scribes as to whether the mystical ascent was practiced at all (Schafer). There is simply no firsthand testimony within this fractured and multilayered work of anyone experiencing any of the revelations described. The Hekhalot is an anonymous corpus that remained in flux as it was transmitted and actively revised by later scribes, they are certainly not the source of the material they contain and which is commonly found in other traditions, such as the Targum Sheni. Finally it is mind boggling how certain "scholars" would distinguish within these traditions between historical and purely exegetical passages when none of the events, much less the characters of the story can be independantly verified in the first place, outside a religious context.

Islam critiqued cannot control his acid reflux; More intricacies in Solomon and the Queen's encounter?

In answer to the video "Quran, Mysticism and the Ignorance of Allah"

Back to the Quranic account of Solomon's encounter with the Queen, every step in the story revolves around Solomon's wisdom and talent to reform her heart and bring her progressively to willfully surrender herself to God. 

First through a letter beginning in a way unheard of for the purely materialistic conquering kings of ancient times, starting with a mention of Allah, al Rahman 27:30. 

Al rahman is the most intensive form of rahma, usually translated as mercy. This is because Allah is the most merciful and this is why the attribute of mercy is the only one said to be "written" upon God

6:12,54"your Lord has written mercy on Himself".

Rahman stems from R-H-M meaning WOMB. In order to imagine the implication of the meaning, one has to picture the womb and what it does to the fetus. It nurtures, protects, provides warmth, love etc. The Hebrew equivalent of "rhm", is also found in the Hebrew Bible as well as the writings attributed to David Deut4:31,Ps86:15 again to stress an important attribute of God from a human perspective. Many Christian and Jewish South-Arabian pre-Islamic inscriptions refer to God with Rahmanan. So it certainly was not a strange terminology for a Semitic prophet to use.

The Second manner in which Solomon cleverly brought the Queen to spiritual submission, was by his rejection of the gifts, proving his wisdom. This is probably one of the deepest and most significant difference between the Quran version and the incomprehensible Biblical depiction of the encounter. Here is a most wise and knowledgable king, having such wealth that the Queen was left breathless, having access to the deep realities, but yet after his exchange in which he demonstrated his knowledge, was content in receiving all kinds of material gifts, instead of having the Queen reform herself spiritually as a result of his demonstration 1Kings10. 

The third device put into place to bring the Queen to submit herself to the sole Creator, was by displacing the Queen's throne between the time she had last seen it and her arrival to Solomon's palace, he demonstrated what he had previously affirmed to the queen's envoys

27:36"what Allah has given me is better than what He has given you".

Notice Solomon's intricate answer, besides demonstrating his wisdom in refusing the gifts, points to them that whatever riches they posess isnt from them but from Allah who gave it to them. The envoys must have reported to their queen of this other peculiarity of the king, in relation to his piety. Finally to have in his posession such an impressive structure as a floor of glass, but nevertheless remain a pious, grateful and God-conscious king was the last thing the queen needed to be convinced of the right spiritual path upon which Solomon was walking. The Quran reflects this special feature of Solomon in several places, including as he prayed Allah to make him the owner of something that can never be passed on, spiritual excellence 38:35. 

The queen of Sheba's encounter with the prophet Solomon is a story related in many different ways in oral and textual tradition, both within and outside the current Bible canon. 

For example in the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Gittin 68a-b), both the background and the details are far from the Quran version. In this Talmud, the bird is described as having the power to cause the wilderness to bloom, thanks to a magical stone, which was sought by Solomon. He needed it to cleave blocks of rock for the building of his temple. Using his mastery of magic, Solomon tricks the demon lord Ashmedai, to give away the stone's location. No interraction between Solomon and the hoophoe is depicted at any point. We find elements of the story scattered throughout different midrash. In Jewish understanding, a midrash is a story within the Talmud, meant at explaining a Biblical passage or conveying a moral point. The story may be historical or not, partially modified or kept as received, so long as the writers' intention is correctly conveyed. As to the current Biblical canon anyway, it is far from constituting the standard of historical accuracy. Very little in terms of authenticity, distinguishes it from what is arbitrarily deemed "apocrypha". 

These different Solomonic stories agree with the Quran in minor places, because there are remnants of truth common to the Quran and these traditions, whether they were canonized or deemed apocrypha by the unknown Bible compilers and editors throughout the ages. What is remarkable is the coherent and intricate manner in which these minor points commonly found in several channels of transmission, come together in the Quran. One would expect to find a recipe for theological, reasonable, inner textual and historical disaster as is found in the canonized text of the Bible. Yet all these points correlate not only in the story itself, but within the larger sura and the Quran overall from a theological, reasonable and inner textual standpoint. 

For instance the background of the story itself is something unheard of in the traditions of the past. The Quran states that the whole encounter was triggered by a bird whose tiny heart was moved at seeing the false worship of a people, then reported it to the prophet Solomon 27:20-27. The Quran in many places states that the entire creation, animate and inanimate glorifies and worships Allah in a manner humans cannot perceive 2:58,13:13-15,16:48-50,17:44,22:18,24:41,45:37,55:6,29,62:1,64:1. That glorification had reached particular intensity in the time of Solomon's father, the prophet David, whom most of creation would join him in his praise of Allah 21:79,34:10,38:17-9. David was known according to Jewish scriptures and oral tradition for his talent for music and divinely inspired poetry very early on 1Sam16:16-23. David is often quoted refering to that universal and unfathomable glorification of God in the Hebrew Bible in

Psalms19,148,69:35"Heaven and earth will praise Him, the seas and everything that moves therein".

Other passages allude to this glorification too, including Job38:7.

Islam critiqued still bloated from his fried bacon; Solomon brings the Queen's throne?

In answer to the video "Quran, Mysticism and the Ignorance of Allah"

Solomon wanted to make her see beyond her and her people's materialistic mindset. They were people, as already shown, who thought that anyone or anything could be bought with riches. And the throne is the highest symbol of worldy power and riches. He wanted to make her understand the deep reality that her power isnt in her hands but could be stripped in an instant by Allah, and her dominion transfered to whomsoever Allah desires. But in the meantime that the plan was discussed and executed by Solomon, the queen left her country to meet him face to face, impressed by this wise man uninterested in wordly riches and ready to summon formidable forces to defend the dignity of the message he was calling her to. 

As she left, the plan was put into place and the throne was displaced in her absence, then brought to Solomon's palace where it was arranged in a manner so as to be recognizable to her when she would be called to see it. This shocked Solomon himself, who in his humble pattern as described in the Quran, immidiately attributed that event to God's will and power 27:40. This is the reality of the noble, humble and pious prophet Solomon, unlike the idolatrous and ungrateful depiction that is made of him in previous scriptures

38:30"most excellent the servant, surely he was frequent in returning to Allah" 2:102"and Solomon disbelieved not".

Neither was his father David a murderous adulterer, nor his mother an adulteress as shamelessly depicted by the lying pens of the scribes of Israel. They were praiseworthy people who were bestowed with favors by Allah, as humbly recalled in Solomon's prayer, quoted just before the story of his encounter with the Queen

27:19"My Lord, grant me that I should be grateful for Your favor that You bestowed on me and on my parents, and that I should do good such as You would be pleased with, and make me enter, by Your mercy, into Your servants, the good ones".

But Solomon did not need to send for her to come see her throne, she had arrived in the meantime and so the throne was pointed to her. She confessed there that she had already inclined to Islam by what she saw and heard from the prophet Solomon even before seeing this miracle. After all, she did go out of her way to come and see him personally instead of confronting him militarily when he rejected her envoys with the gifts and sent with them a declaration of war. Allah further confirmed her statement by pointing that the only thing that hindered her from finding the right path prior to coming to meet Solomon was not stubborness or willful rebellion, but her upbringing in a sinful nation 27:43. 

As she entered the splendid palace whose floors were in places made of glass, it had on her the illusory effect of a wide water expanse. The Queen thus tucked up her dress to avoid stepping on water, exposing a portion of her legs. 

The fantastic tales at that point related by some comentators of her having donkey's legs due to being a jinn hybrid from her mother's side are inauthentic reports traced to Kaab al Ahbar and Wahab ibn Munabbih. 

This tucking of her dress was a gesture beneath the dignity of a woman of her royalty. Solomon then immidiately displayed another aspect of his high character. To avoid her further embarrasement he told her the floor is made of glass. This was the last thing that openned her eyes and heart

27:44"My Lord i have been inflicting much wrong on myself. Now I submit myself with Solomon to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds".

In the racially prejudiced and monolatrous mindset of the scribes of the HB, this queen who had nevertheless recognized Solomon's wisdom, who had left her land, abasing herself to come and seek knowledge from another king, recognized and blessed the ethno-centric "Lord your God" and His "eternal love for Israel", but inexplicably remained a heathen 1Kings10. After all, you do not want some far away nation to come and claim their rights in the land as part of the "chosen race". The NT in Lk11 similarily doesnt indicate whether she eventually abandonned her polytheistic ways, but hints at her being higher in righteousness than the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus. It is also interesting how in the Biblical account, she praises the tribal "Lord your God" while in the Quran she submits herself, together with Solomon, to one and the same God, Lord of all worlds. 

This is the consistent Quran pattern of exposing and correcting the manipulations of the scriptures of the past. 

When for instance the Quran revisits the events at the "burning bush" and Moses' first encounter with the divine source, God reveals Himself to Moses, with words evoking universal, indiscriminate Lordship. Moses would later communicate these words throughout his prophetic career whether in his confrontation with the Egyptian elite, or the Israelites; He is the One Lord besides Whom there are none, the Lord of all worlds/aalamin, a word encompassing in its meaning all human beings in all ages. He will gather and judge every soul indiscriminately based on its individual merit 20:12-16,28:30. The version of the HB again reveals the deep inclination pervasive throughout the Jewish writings, for monolatry and its depiction of an ethno-centered tribal deity

Ex3:6"I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob".

See how the Quran maintains its patterns, consistently and intricately throughout its discources revealed over 23 years in diverse contexts and circumstances.

Islam critiqued feels bloated; Solomon and the Queen?

In answer to the video "Quran, Mysticism and the Ignorance of Allah"

This youtuber claims, in a typical misleading behavior inherited by the untalented missionaries of the past and of today, basing himself on a most superficial reading of the Quran and other sources, that the story of Solomon's encounter with a Queen was simply copied from the available material floating around 7th century Arabia. This will be refuted, by presenting the Quran's version of the story, how it flies far above the closed minds and angry heads of such critics, incomparable in its depth and implications to any of the alleged sources. After doing that i will deal with the alleged mystical Jewish sources.

When the prophet-King Solomon found out that the nighboring kingdom of Sheba were sun worshippers, being a prophet he was extremely offended. He sent them a message in Allah's name that they must not exalt themselves against God and surrender to Allah in Islam 27:31. Later, the Queen would effectively declare her submission, together with Solomon, to Allah 27:44. So this noble Queen, instead of doing as her advisors suggested and go to war, decides to first test Solomon's intentions, in relation to his letter written in Allah's name and calling for her to submit to Allah. It was not a threatening letter, but rather one filled with a noble speech/karim

27:29"surely a honorable letter has been delivered to me".

She did not immidiately ask more specificities as to his religious call because she first wanted to ascertain the purity of Solomon's inner self. This is a crucial lesson, one often repeated in the Quran and neglected, corrupted in the previous scriptures; the unflinshing moral uprightness of a prophet of God can never be compromised so long as he is representing the divine will among a people. The Quran places this trait as one of the most recognizable condition for the truthfulness of an envoy from God.

This reality is expected, contrary to the depictions made in the previous scriptures, that someone sent by, and representing the ultimate truth, should be the best embodiement of that truth among his addressees. This logic did not escape even the pagan queen, who sent Solomon expensive gifts instead of declaring war as desired by her counselors, or asking outright the nature of the message he was calling her to. She wanted to see what his reaction would be, whether he would be interested in power and riches rather than spiritual matters as he was suggesting in his letter. Was he actually telling her to submit to God for her own good or because he wanted to benefit from her conversion in some way.  

Solomon however promptly returned the gifts. Wisdom and prophethood to him were the best gifts a human could hope for. The Quran points to that reality in relation to the prophet Muhammad. The wealthy rejected him among other reasons, because of him lacking in wordly eminence

43:32"and the mercy of your Lord is better than what they amass".

This is in stark contrast with the Biblical narrative, according to which the king Solomon, depicted as hoarding wealth from his subjects, enslaved nations and neighboring kingdoms, readily accepted the gifts of the queen

1Kings10:10-15"one hundred and twenty talents of gold and very many spices and precious stones; there had never arrived such an abundance of spices as those which the Queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon. Also Hiram's ships that delivered gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a huge quantity of almog-wood and precious stones..The weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold. Aside from [that which came through] merchants and the commerce of spice-peddlers and all the dependent kings and the regents of the land".

The righteous prophets of God, contrary to that corrupted depiction that is made, never compromised their integrity with wordly riches. No matter the aspects in which God raised them above their contemporaries, they never used their spiritual gifts in exchange of material reward.
Solomon was no exception to that rule and upon returning the queen's gifts, he communicated God's decree that

27:37"we will most certainly come to them with hosts which they shall have no power to oppose, and we will most certainly expel them therefrom in abasement, and they shall be in a state of ignominy".

Solomon not only rejected the offer brought by the queen's envoys, but did so in a forceful way so as to leave no ambiguity as to his intentions. Not only was he one who could not be bribed with money, but his message of spiritual reform is certainly not one that can be bought. This proved how upright Solomon was as a person and how convinced he was of the truth he was communicating. The Queen of Sheba already inclined to righteousness and was actually reassured by Solomon's gesture of refusing material offers, even ready to go to war so as to not compromise his message. Solomon's threat of invasion was crucial in conveying these points. She didnt take offense at his reaction because she hoped that he would be serious in his intent

27:35"The queen said, when the kings enter a land, they ruin it and debase its honorable people. They do just the same. I shall send them a gift, and wait to see with what reply my envoys return".

This was the wits and wisdom of Solomon who actually did not want to put the threat of invasion into action. This is seen by the fact that immidiately after the Queen's envoys were sent away with their gifts, Solomon, instead of mobilizing his army as he had threatened, requested for his assembly of jinn to perform a deed so impressive that it would expose whether

27:42"she gets to the truth or is one of those who are not guided aright".

He asked them to transport her throne, the symbol of a ruler's dominion, unto him in the blink of an eye.

Islam critiqued reveals a source of the Quran; wise companion of Moses copied from the rabbis?

In answer to the video "Quran, Alexander and Studies in Surah 18"

Some have claimed that the Quran in 18:60-82 is inspired by Joshua ben Levi's encounter with Elijah. The event is mentioned under the title Hibbur Yafeh me-ha-Yeshua. This actually is an Arabic work by the 10th century Tunisian rabbi Jacob ben Nissim ibn Shahin. The original Arabic is called Al-Faraj Ba'd al-Shiddah. A literal translation would be, "the opening following difficulty". This was a Muslim genre, which dealt with relief after distressful times. Ibn Shahin wrote in the same genre, in an Islamic environement, inspired by both the Quran and its commentaries. He simply replaced the Muslim themes with Jewish and biblical characters. This story of Elijah and Joshua ben Levi, which isnt attested in any Jewish source prior to that time, is one of those reshaped stories.

In fact seven other stories in that book have no rabbinic precedent, with three among them having Islamic parallels including in style. In some places, Ibn Shahin quotes passages with close parallels to verses from the Quran (Wheeler). It is in ignorance of these facts that subsequent critics have continued drawing parallels between the unnamed wise companion of Moses in the Quran, with depictions of Elijah in rabbinic texts predating the Quran. These muddled attempts are taken a step higher when parallelisms are drawn between these rabbinic traditions, and the later commentaries of the Quran, passed off as part of the Quran itself and having no basis in the prophetic traditions.

Another alleged source of the story is the Alexander Romances. This is due firstly to the identification of the fish with a certain fish story that comes back to life in "the sermon on Alexander" allegedly written by Jacob of Serugh. Scholarship suggests it is an edited work that probably initiated towards the mid 7th century, casting doubt even on its attribution to Jacob de Serugh.

More damning to this weak attempt at undermining the authenticity of the Quran, is the fact that the opponents very often confuse the Quran itself, with its later commentaries. For example it is in the the Quranic commentaries that the servant of God whom Moses encounters is named "al-Khidr". And it is based on these very commentaries that "al-Khidr" was used instead of "Alexander" in the Arabic, Ethiopic, and Persian versions of the Alexander stories, that were all redacted after the advent of Islam. As to the the Syriac version of the Alexander stories, scholars have disputed its dating, from between the 6th and the 10th centuries. But what is more important is that the fish episode, which is the key point in the argument that Quran 18:60-65 was derived from the Alexander stories, does not occur in the Syriac version.

Some have tried to parallel the story with that attributed to the 7th century Byzantine monk John Moschus. The passages with similarities arent found in authoritative manuscripts (4 in total dating from the 10th to 12th centuries) of the “Spiritual Meadow”, but in a secondary manuscript, among other supplementary stories. Most importantly, reconstructing the original work of John Moschus is impossible given the vast differences between existing manuscripts. In contrast, we do have manuscript proof of the story of Moses and Khidr circulating in the 1st century of Islam. Here again as in other similar cases, the burden of proof is not on Muslims, but on critics to prove that the source they allege influenced the Quran, wasnt in fact copying from it.

Since that youtuber is amused by seamonsters, let him open the passages of his Bible that parallel with unsophisticated legends floating in the region and predating it. The oldest and original account of creation in the Bible isnt found in Genesis but in Isaiah, Job or the Psalms. God in these crude stories divides the seas and fights off aquatic monsters. The same is found in the Ugaritic tablets and in a language very similar to Hebrew, with the myth that creation began when the storm god Baal vanquishing the god of the sea Yam and his sea monster-serpent-dragon helpers. Isa27:1 has a very close wording to what a Canaanite says about Baal

"When you killed Litan, the fleeing serpent, annihilated the twisty serpent, the potentate with seven heads".