#STRask - How Would You Respond to Someone Claiming the Quran Is the True Word of God?

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Questions about how to respond to someone claiming the Quran is the true word of God and how one can discuss the gospel with a Baháʼí.   How would you respond to someone claiming the Quran is the true word of God? How can I discuss the gospel with a Baháʼí?

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel, and you're listening to Stand to Reason's hashtag STR-Ask. That's right. And we're starting with a question from Lucy today. All right. How would you respond to someone claiming the Quran is the true word of God? Well, that's simply a claim. I would ask them why they think that's the case. And I listen to what they say.

Now, I think that the justification in the mind of the mind of most Muslims, turns out to be Fideistic. And what that means is the Fideistic relates to the word faith. It's just a faith statement because it's written by God. And God doesn't make mistakes. So it's the true word of God. Well, how do you know it's the true word of God? Because it's written, you know, something like that. And so many Christians are this way too in the way they approach scripture, but the question is going to be, how, why would they say that's the case? And it would be interesting to hear what Alan Schleeman has to say about this, but as far as I know, they don't have any substance, because it's the perfect book. Now, there is no textual history

to this book. Pardon me, that's clear, because there weren't copies and copies and copies that were made and circulated. There was one copy and all the other copies were apparently destroyed. This is part of, I think, the factual background to the book is not just an anti-Muslim claim. And so you end up with one document, but you have no means by which you can test whether that one document reflects exactly what Muhammad wrote in the original. And though, Muslims would claim the Bible's been corrupted because we have variance between the manuscripts. It's these multitude of manuscripts. I mean, Dan Wallace says, you know, the average manuscript from antiquity is like four feet high.

If you look at all the existing copies we have, where when it comes to the biblical material, the Greek biblical material, it's a mile high. So when you have so many things that you can compare together, you have a way of determining whether what the original was because you have textual criticism. You can't apply textual criticism to the Quran because there's no textual history. And also it claims things about Jesus that the documents that were written 600 years before the Quran was written. I see Muhammad is born in 575, so yeah, about 600 years before the Quran was written by the people who are closer to the events, these things contradict. So from a purely historical perspective, why would we think that the Quran got it right, Muhammad got it right, and the original writers got it wrong?

And I think the answer is going to be because the Quran is the perfect word of God. But of course, that's circular. So I think the Quran can be demonstrated to actually have historical accuracy on a fair look at the material regarding Jesus' life. And it has no textual history that's meaningful to determine whether the Quran that we have now is an accurate representation of what Muhammad originally penned, if he in fact. fact-pended. I think there might be some questions about that. And again, this is where Alan would know so much more than I would, but I'm just raising some of these questions. And so the answer is, how do you deal with all of that? This would be the question of the Muslim, to the, for the Muslim.

How do you deal with all of that? And the way they deal with it is the declaration that this is the perfect Word of God, and it's uncorrupted. In other words, it's a faith. statement, and that's why I call it fideistic. It's true because they believe it so. They don't believe it so because it's true, because if that were the case, they would have to have some outside means of demonstrating its soundness, its theological accuracy, and its historical accuracy. But that isn't what has appealed to. As far as I understand it, I hope I'm not mischaracterizing it. Well, just so people aren't confused, I don't know how far. along how many years it was after the writing before one kind of branch was chosen and then the

rest were destroyed because they were competing texts at some point. I don't know how early that was, but you're right. I think after that you lost those other competing versions. It's so ironic too that one of the chief claims of Muslims against Christians is that their Bible has been corrupted. That our Bible has been... Our Bible has been corrupted. Now, there's a very sound argument against that, and it's kind of clever because it uses the Quran and leverages the Quran against that claim regarding the Gospels, for example.

But nevertheless, at least we have an apparatus in place to be able to sort through the differences to be able to establish with just a massively high degree of certainty that these, that what we have now represents the original, but there's no apparatus like that at all available for the corrupt. No, and of course we've got two different issues here. One of them is, do we have what was originally written? And the other one is, is it the Word of God? So we've got two separate issues.

You mentioned the problem with the first one. The problem, I mean, the second one, I can't remember which one I said first now. Do we have the original? And is it the Word of God as a second one? Right. So the second one about whether or not it's the Word of God, the thing that makes this difficult is that it's very unlike the Bible. The Bible is over so many years and so many different authors. And you've got all these different people recording history and giving prophecy and then having it fulfilled. And so there's all these ways where the Bible meets reality that you can look at.

Right. But if you have a book that's written by one person. With no textual history. Well, yes. So where is it coming from? It's a different, there's a, you can't test it in the same way you can test the Bible. Right. So I think it is a good idea to say, well, what is it that you think shows this to be the word of God?

Because there, there, I don't know how you could be anything but, videistic, as you said, because there's not, it's not that, that he's giving all of these prophecies and, I mean, a long history over a period of time, or whatever it is, it's coming from one man, it's a revelation given to him. And that's the hardest thing to test to know if that is reflecting reality. And I think what Alan would probably say, if I can guess what Alan would say, is that he would probably use this opportunity to turn the subject. subject to the gospel because what the Quran does say is that you should pay attention to the words of the book or the gospel, as they call it, which he makes a case that that's talking about the actual written gospels. And then use that to bring the gospel to their attention.

Yeah, and that's just clever leverage of the Quran without taking issue with the Quran. which there are grounds to do that. But instead of doing that, since these people more than anyone else are people of the book, I mean, as a rule, even the Jews and Christians are, you know, it's a mixed bag there with regards to the Bible. Them, they're people of the book. And if Allah says it, then that settles it. And here it is, all their things. But Allah also says the gospels are sound.

And when this was written in the sixth century, we have gospels that we now possess Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus that last time I saw were sitting side by side in the British Museum. I saw them. They were existing when he wrote those things. So that means at least those books are not corrupted. And of course, that has the full gospel, obviously. Those are almost entire Bibles. So it's a clever argument that Alan uses to leverage their source of authority in favor of ours. And you can read about this.

He just wrote this little booklet called The Ambassador's Guide to Islam, where he explains how he uses that. So that might be a good way to go. Another thing you might want to do, because, again, I don't know how you would argue with someone, I guess, depending on the reasons they give you. But what you could say is, look, okay, so there are certain places where the Quran disagrees with the Bible. And one of them would be that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, someone else died in his place, something like that. And therefore he didn't rise in the dead. So there's a point of contact with history. So you could discuss that and say, well, either the Quran has this right or the Bible has this right.

Why don't we look at what the reasons are for that? So that is one touch point I know about that maybe you could look into historically. Sure. But these are all just to keep in mind, Lucy, that it is not your job to refute the claim that they're making, that the Quran is, how did she put it? The true word of God. The true word of God. It is their job to defend it, just exactly like outsiders, require that we defend the same claim that we make.

So some of the things we've suggested are the kinds of things that could be offered. Like, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? But the first thing you want to get from them is you want them to answer the question. Well, too, what do you mean by that? Explain, help me to understand your point.

And secondly, how did you come to that conclusion? These are model questions. you could form them differently in conversation. But then let that person give the reasons why they think that's the case. And my suspicion is you're going to be coming up with things like this because I don't know other defenses they have. I honestly don't know. Well, here are the reasons, the great historical evidence, the textual evidence,

I just don't see that. So in any event, let them carry the burden of proof on this claim that they're making. And again, I recommend all of Allen's articles and things on our website. You can look that up. He's written quite a bit about Islam. So that would be a good place to go because he's the expert on that. Especially this book that you mentioned, the Ambassador's Guide to Islam, because it does explain that line of thinking that has been very, very effective to get Muslims thinking.

And as I understand it, I think this is one of the things. things that former Muslim Abdou Murray said he could not deal with and really had an impact. And, of course, we've had him on the show. He's written a number of books. He's got his own apologetics organization, so he's quite a player. You mean that argument he made in there? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, let's go to a question from Sandy. How can I even discuss the gospel with a Baha'i? Well, I actually had a TV debate when Lee Strobel had his. show with the Baha'i person. I honestly, I can't, I think it was Baha'i. Maybe it wasn't. But in any event, Baha'i have their temple, their place of worship, is round and has multiple entrances all around the radius of the building. And each of those entrances are meant to represent a different religion. And so everyone comes to the same. center, which is truth about God of some sort, through the path of these different religions.

So it is a deeply pluralistic religion, and I think for them, this makes them feel like we are so kind and compassionate and good. Okay. Now, there's a problem with pluralism of this sort, and it can be exposed with a couple of questions. Okay. One of them is Hinduism, at least many, Vedantic Hinduism, holds that God is not personal. The only reality is a unity that's called monism, oneism, I call it, in the story of reality. And everything else is an illusion. Now, the Muslims and Christians and Jews believe that God is a personal being. And this is, and each is foundational to their understanding.

of God. So how is it that God can be personal and impersonal at the same time? If he's impersonal, then the Jews and Christians and Muslims are wrong at this point. By the way, that's an important one. If he's personal, then they're right and the Muslims and the Hindus are wrong, but they can't both be right. And this trades on the notion that religions are incommensurable, most of them. That is, they can't, they may overlap in small ways like the monotheistic religions do, but, I mean, insignificant. And those ways of overlapping there are significant, but the differences are also significant. Christians are deeply committed to the idea that Jesus is the Messiah. Jews are deeply committed to the idea that he is not, and that Christians worship a man.

And so he either is or he isn't the Messiah. And if he is, the Christians are right and the Jews are wrong. If he's not, the Jews are right and the Christians are wrong. But in either case, can they both be right? And this is central. These aren't the ideas like, you know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. These are critical foundational issues. And this is why I say these various religions are incommensurable.

So this would be the question I would ask. If Hindus believe this about God and the monotheistic religions believe this, can they both be right? Well, obviously not. Well, then somebody's wrong. Well, who's right? What, Baha'i, what does Baha'i hold to be the case about the fundamental nature of God? That's a fair question.

The problem here is not bigotry or intolerance. The problem here is math. They just can't all be right. They can all be wrong. We could be wrong, but they can't all be right. And Baha'i seems to hold that they're all right in some significant sense that makes the distinctions between them inconsequential in the long run. And that's what needs to be defended. And maybe you could start by asking questions to figure out what their conception of God is.

Because if you're going to say that everyone is, quote, right, what you're really saying is there is some kind of a spiritual reality that, cares about certain things and all of these things get those things right, then the places where they disagree, it doesn't matter. But there is a greater spiritual reality that they claim is the true spiritual reality. So if you can try and draw that out a little bit, so you can separate what they think from what Christianity is. Because right now they just think, I mean, I'm assuming because this is not my specialty either. Yeah. But if they think Christianity is sort of subsumed under this whole kind of amorphous spiritual reality,

you would do well to separate it out in their mind. So if you can draw out what do you think spiritual reality is? What do you think the divine is? What do you mean when you say that? What does that thing or person or whatever it is want from? us. And then you can start... Ask for justification. Yeah, you could do that. But I think first what you need to do is just separate it from

Christianity. So they understand, oh, well, Christianity teaches this and just make the differences as clear as you possibly can. So they understand the different worldviews. I mean, you don't even have to point it out. You can do this all in the under the idea of just finding out, it exactly what they believe and then explaining exactly what you believe. And the differences will become apparent. And at that point, you can tell them what the gospel is in light of the whole worldview because it's not going to make much sense to them in their worldview. So you have to make the whole thing clear to them. You know, what's curious about this whole thing is that in order to hold the view that Baha'i holds about the correctness of all religions, they have to disagree

with all religions, because every religion holds that its take on reality is accurate. And there is a sense, kind of, where Hinduism can find a place for other religions, because on their view, in the attempt to kind of lose yourself in the, in the, in, Brahmin is Atman and Atman is Brahmin, you know, to, for the Atman, the individual to be lost into the Brahmin that he already is, consciousness itself as part of the illusion is self-consciousness, as individuality. You go through certain practices, religious practices, called asanas. Now, it turns out, I mean, Hinduism has these asanas, like meditation, for example, but they're willing to accept other religious practices as legitimate asanas,

like Christian practices of sort, that will move them closer to this state of a of being lost in the one. But notice that that just simply presumes that the Christian understanding of reality is false, and they are able to do some things that will abet their success, spiritual success, in light of the truth of Hinduism. So even though Hinduism is a little broader, it is only in a very limited sense. They still hold that Hinduism is an accurate understanding of reality. Now, the Baha'i would have to say that they're all wrong on that. Everyone, unless they are willing to say one of them is right as an ultimate thing,

and I don't know which one that would be, and I think it's fair, as you're pointing out, figure out what their view is and don't let it be amorphous, you know, like add some distinction to it, ask questions. Yeah, ask them where they agree with Christianity. What are the agreements that you see that we have? What are the disagreements that you see that we have? just whatever you can do to make it clear that you're talking about two different things. Yeah.

And so ultimately, though, is how is it then that they, their take, their pluralistic take, turns out to be the correct take. They're right and everybody else is mistaken. I mean, that's really what it abounds to you. You cannot avoid that. And I think it's fair to ask them now. And also I should just point out, think about when Christianity, and the gospel was first going out. It was going out to two people who believed, like think about Mars Hill, right?

You have all these different statues to different gods, and Paul comes in and he starts telling them the gospel. So this isn't like this is the first time this has happened. Christianity spread in a pagan world. Right. The gospel is powerful and true, and we all know that we're, you talk about this all the time, Greg, we all know that we're guilty. We all have that sense that we're guilty. Christianity offers the forgiveness for that. And this message of Jesus dying for our sins spread through the pagan world. So don't think that it can't have any power. I mean, go look at how Paul preached to the people who thought that everyone was fine. It spread through the ancient world like wildfire.

When you think about what it accomplished in three or four centuries, you know, by the time of the Council of Nicaea and Constantine, Constantine didn't make Christianity the religion of the realm. He just made it legal because the guy just before him was. a brutal persecutor of Christians. But it took four centuries to do what the Muslims did in one century, but the only blood that Christians shed was their own, by contrast with the Muslim Crusades, essentially. It's interesting. They never used that word to describe it, but it was much more brutal and much less justified than the Christian crusades. Anyway.

And ultimately, talking to anyone, I mean, the tactics just apply. You find out what they believe, you find out why they believe it, you challenge them on a few things, you explain to them the gospel, and the worldview of Christianity, so it makes sense to them, make sure they follow along each step, so you're not saying words they don't understand. And it's the same for anyone. You find out what they believes. Just start there. All right. Thank you, Lucy and Sandy. We love hearing from you. Send us your question. And maybe you'll get on our show here. So to speak. I save so many of them. And again, like, sometimes I will go back and use a question from a long time ago if it fits well into a topic. I remember where they are. And I go back and I find them. So if you haven't heard your

question answered yet, you may still hear it. All right. Thanks so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Coker for Stand to Reason.