The Literary Standards of Pre-Islamic Arabia: The Real Judges
The Quran itself tells us precisely how a genuine miracle operates: when genuine experts encounter something beyond human ability, they recognize it instantly. No deliberation. No delay. No several years of resistance followed by a moment of emotional vulnerability. Instant recognition.
This article will show that the Quran's own proclaimed "greatest miracle of all time" i.e., its literary inimitability, failed to produce a single such moment of instant recognition among the most qualified linguistic experts in the history of the Arabic language. That failure is not a matter of hostile interpretation. It is recorded in the Quran's own text.
In the 7th century, the Arabian Peninsula was home to a "super-standard" of oral literature. For the Bedouins and urban Quraysh alike, poetry was not a mere hobby. It was their news, their history, their law, and their highest form of intellectual combat. In a society that called all non-Arabs Ajam meaning "the mute ones" out of contempt for their perceived linguistic inferiority, the standards for eloquence were at their historical peak.
This creates an insurmountable logical problem for modern Islamic apologists. Today's Arabic speakers, whose language has evolved and simplified over 1,400 years, often view the Quran through a lens of accumulated religious reverence. But the native poets, orators, and literary masters of Muhammad's own era were the only people in human history actually qualified to judge whether a 7th-century Arabic text was genuinely beyond human composition. They heard it fresh, without the weight of tradition, without inherited awe, and with the full technical competence of their craft.
Their verdict, as recorded in the Quran itself, was unanimous and devastating: entirely unimpressed.
The Conversion Problem
If the Quran were truly the "Greatest Miracle of all time," as Muslim apologists consistently assert, claiming it surpasses the parting of the Red Sea, the raising of the dead, and every miracle attributed to Moses or Jesus, then it should have operated as an irresistible force upon first contact. The greatest experts in the Arabic language should have been the first to fall.
The historical record shows the precise opposite.
For thirteen consecutive years in Mecca, this alleged "Greatest Miracle of all time" failed to produce mass conversions. The men who had spent their entire lives mastering the Arabic language, the very people whose professional expertise made them uniquely qualified to recognize a linguistic miracle, heard it, assessed it, and walked away unconvinced.
The Quran's Own Standard for Miracles and Its Own Failure to Meet It
The Quran does not leave us to guess what a genuine miracle looks like. It shows us, in vivid and specific detail.
When Moses cast his staff before Pharaoh's court, the men present were not ordinary bystanders. They were Egypt's foremost experts in the precise art Moses was demonstrating, professional magicians who had devoted their lives to the craft. They were the supreme masters of their field. They had every political reason to side with Pharaoh. They had every personal incentive to dismiss what they saw.
And their response was immediate and total.
They did not deliberate. They did not calculate political consequences. They did not take several years to come around. The moment they witnessed something that transcended human capability, they fell prostrate on the spot. Not because someone persuaded them, not because of emotional shock, not because of social pressure. They fell because their professional expertise left them no alternative. They knew, in an instant, that what they had seen was beyond human ability.
The Quran records this in its own words:
"So the magicians fell down in prostration. They said: 'We believe in the Lord of the worlds, the Lord of Moses and Aaron.'" (Quran 26:46–48)
This is Islam's own internal standard for how a genuine miracle functions. Expert recognition is instantaneous. There is no delay, no political negotiation, no tribal calculation, no seven-year timeline from first exposure to eventual conversion under emotional duress. The experts encounter it, they process it with the full weight of their professional competence, and they submit at once.
Now apply this standard, consistently and without special pleading, to the Quran's own claim of literary inimitability.
Muslim apologists describe the Quran's eloquence as "the greatest miracle in all of human history", greater than the parting of the sea, greater than the raising of the dead, greater than anything Moses or Jesus ever produced. If this claim is true, then by the Quran's own internal logic, the response of Arabia's master poets upon first hearing the Quran should have been even more swift, more overwhelming, and more total than the response of Pharaoh's magicians.
Who were these Arabic experts? They were the poets and orators of pre-Islamic Arabia, men who had devoted their entire lives to the Arabic language, men for whom eloquence was not merely a professional skill but a sacred tribal identity. These were the very people who called every non-Arab nation "the mute ones" out of supreme pride in the Arabic tongue. No people in human history were more immersed in Arabic literary excellence, more sensitively attuned to its qualities, or more professionally equipped to identify something beyond ordinary human composition.
If anyone could recognize a linguistic miracle upon first hearing, it was precisely these men.
And what was their response?
After thirteen years of continuous, public recitation across Mecca, thirteen years during which thousands of native Arabic speakers including the greatest poets of the age heard the Quran repeatedly, not a single master of the language stepped forward to say: "I heard this, and I knew immediately that no human being could have composed it."
Not one.
The Quran itself records what they actually said:
"When Our verses are recited to them, they say: 'We have heard this before. If we wished, we could say words like these. These are nothing but tales of the ancients.'" (Quran 8:31)
Read that carefully. These are not the words of ignorant outsiders. These are the words of the people who, by Muslim apologists' own argument, were the uniquely qualified judges, the only people in history with the professional expertise to evaluate the claim. And their professional verdict was: we could produce the same ourselves.
The parallel with Moses is exact, and the contrast is fatal to the inimitability claim.
Pharaoh's magicians were experts confronted with a genuine miracle. Their response: instant prostration.
Arabia's master poets were experts confronted with the alleged "greatest miracle in human history." Their response: thirteen years of sustained dismissal, recorded in the Quran's own text.
This contrast cannot be explained away by appealing to Meccan stubbornness or the hardness of their hearts. That same explanation would apply with equal force to Pharaoh's magicians, who had far more to lose by converting. They faced Pharaoh's wrath, threatened with crucifixion, the very moment they submitted. Despite all that, they submitted instantly, because a genuine miracle leaves experts no room for doubt.
The Meccan poets faced no such consequences for simply acknowledging literary excellence. Admiring a text's beauty carries no penalty. Yet across thirteen years, not one of them acknowledged it as beyond human ability, while every one of them acknowledged that Moses-style miracles were the kind of evidence they were actually waiting for:
"But they said: 'These are confused dreams; he has fabricated it; he is a poet. Let him bring us a sign as the previous messengers were sent with.'" (Quran 21:5)
They called him a poet and demanded a real miracle. To the people most qualified to judge, the Quran's words were not a miracle. They were poetry. Good poetry, perhaps. Human poetry.
There is one more dimension to this failure that deserves to be stated plainly.
If the Quran's literary inimitability is genuinely the greatest miracle in human history, it is the only miracle in the Quran's own record that failed to convince a single qualified expert at the moment of first hearing.
Every other miracle described in the Quran produced immediate recognition from those who witnessed it. The inimitability claim produced thirteen years of dismissal from the most qualified audience it will ever have.
That is not the profile of a miracle. That is the profile of a text that, however genuinely admirable its qualities, did not strike its most qualified audience as something beyond human composition.
The Quran's own standard condemns its own claim.
From the Few to the None: Examining the Individual Cases
Muslim apologists, aware of this problem, have attempted to rescue the inimitability claim by pointing to a small number of individual conversion stories. The names they cite are essentially always the same:
- Umar ibn al-Khattab
- Labīd ibn Rabīʿah (the celebrated pre-Islamic poet)
- Tufayl ibn Amr
- Jubayr ibn Mutʿim
- Walid ibn al-Mughira (who, notably, never converted at all)
That is the complete list. Four or five individuals, at most, out of an entire civilization that, by Muslim apologists' own description, lived and breathed Arabic poetry as its highest cultural achievement.
Let us examine each case on its own terms.
Muhammad preached in Mecca for thirteen years. He encountered thousands of native Arabic speakers, poets, orators, tribal leaders, merchants, scholars, and common people. All of them heard the Quran recited, some of them repeatedly over many years. If the literary inimitability claim is true, every single one of them was being exposed to the greatest miracle in human history every time they heard it.
The result: four names, each one contested, none of them representing a clear case of instant linguistic recognition.
Even these four or five cases collapse under examination. Each one is either based on historically unreliable traditions, or reveals on closer reading that the conversion was driven by emotional impact, political calculation, or social pressure, and had nothing to do with recognizing the Quran as linguistically beyond human ability.
Was the Quran’s Challenge About Eloquence or About the Truth of Revelation?
Several verses repeat the Quran's challenge:
“Then bring a surah like it.” (Quran 10:38)
“Let them produce a discourse like it, if they are truthful.” (Quran 52:34)
“Say: If mankind and jinn gathered to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce the like of it.” (Quran 17:88)
Islamic preachers present these verses as an aesthetic challenge, a test of linguistic mastery. Yet the context of these verses tells a different story.
At the time, Muhammad’s opponents were accusing him of fabricating revelation, not of poor poetry. The Quran repeatedly mentions their charge:
“Do they say, ‘He has fabricated (Arabic: مُفْتَرَيَٰتٍ) it’?” (Quran 11:13)
“Those who disbelieve say, ‘This is nothing but a falsehood he fabricated (Arabic: ٱفْتَرَىٰهُ), and others helped him with it.’” (Quran 25:4)
In response, the Quran says:
أَمْ يَقُولُونَ ٱفْتَرَىٰهُ ۖ قُلْ فَأْتُوا۟ بِعَشْرِ سُوَرٍ مِّثْلِهِۦ مُفْتَرَيَٰتٍ
“If you think this is fabricated, then produce ten fabricated surahs like it.” (Quran 11:13)
Here the word muf’tariyāt (“fabricated tales”) is crucial. It reveals that the challenge was not about eloquence but about authenticity. The Quran was saying: “If you believe I am fabricating revelations, then fabricate your own and see if your gods will help you as mine has helped me.”
This was a challenge of divine authority, not of literary beauty.
How did the native Arabs of Muhammad's era understand this challenge?
According to the Quran’s own witness, the Meccans did not see any miraculous linguistic quality in Muhammad’s recitation. They were unimpressed and dismissive:
“When Our verses are recited to them, they say: ‘We have heard this before; if we wished, we could say words like these. They are nothing but tales of the ancients.’” (Quran 8:31)
They accused Muhammad of borrowing and rewriting ancient stories:
“This is nothing but a falsehood he has fabricated, and another people assisted him in it. These are tales of the ancients he has written down.” (Quran 25:4–5)
Consequently:
- The native Arabic-speaking Meccans did not perceive the Quranic Challenge as a trial of the Quran's literary excellence.
- Instead, they viewed it as a challenge related to the Quran's content and substance, rather than its style or linguistic prowess. They understood Muhammad's claim that his God communicated with him, revealing information about the unseen، past events, and tales of earlier nations. This claim mocked the pagans as their gods didn't communicate with them and didn't provide them with similar knowledge about unseen and past events.
They already recognized the Quran’s somewhat poetic rhythm. The Quran itself records their reaction:
“But they said, ‘These are confused dreams; he has fabricated it; he is a poet. (So, the challenge of producing a text like it means nothing, but) let him bring us a sign as the previous messengers were sent with.’” (Quran 21:5)
This was the main demand of the Meccans and of the Jews right from the beginning, i.e. Muhammad should bring a sign/clear miracle as the previous messengers were sent. But Muhammad and his Allah failed completely in this challenge, as we will see in our next article on this subject:
This verse shows that while they called him a poet, they demanded a miracle, not a poem. To them, the acclaimed eloquent words of the Quran were not proof of divine revelation.
Later reinterpretation: When “inimitability” became a literary miracle
The idea that the Quran is linguistically inimitable, a literary miracle, did not arise during Muhammad’s lifetime or even among his companions. Early Muslims saw the Quran’s power in its message and claim to revelation, not in its rhetoric.
It was centuries later, around the 4th Islamic century (10th CE), that theologians systematized the doctrine of I‘jaz al-Quran (the Quran’s literary inimitability). By then, Arabic had evolved, Islam had expanded into non-Arab regions, and scholars began defending the Quran’s divinity through increasingly abstract linguistic arguments.
But this reinterpretation had little to do with how the native Arab pagans, the Quran’s first audience, had understood it. To them, Muhammad was not a literary phenomenon. He was a man claiming revelation from heaven.
There existed tons of poets in that era, whose poetry was considered great, despite them being illiterates (just like Muhammad). Therefore, the fact of Muhammad's illiteracy would in no way constitute proof of the Qur'an miraculous origin as the great pre-Islamic poets were illiterate.
Now, imagine the mindset of the people of pre-Islamic Arabia. Eloquence and poetry were the essence of their society. The natural taste for Arabic poetry and literature was ingrained in every child. Eloquence and rhetoric flowed through their veins like lifeblood. They possessed a lot of pride in their poetry and literature. They were so proud of poetry that they used to call all other nations "Ajam," meaning "dumb", in comparison to themselves.
So, they were the best people to JUDGE if there existed any literary miracle in the Quran or not. And according to their judgment, the Quran had absolutely no miracle.
Note:
During the era of Muhammad, poetry in Arab culture stood at notably higher standards compared to contemporary Arabic literature. Hence, modern-day Arabs might perceive it as having some literary impact. However, this phenomenon isn't unique to Arabic; many languages had higher literary standards in the past. Take, for instance, the Hindu religious text Ramayana, an epic poem comprising over 24,000 couplet verses divided into seven kāṇḍas. The Hindus of TODAY also claim their Ramayana to be a literary miracle as its literary standard is very high for present-day people.
Consequently, for the people of Muhammad's era, the Quran did not represent a literary miracle.
The Absence of Mass Conversions: A Critical Problem for the Inimitability Claim
If the Quran genuinely represented the greatest miracle in human history, we would expect to find clear historical evidence of mass conversions driven by recognition of its literary supremacy. The historical record, however, reveals no such pattern.
When pressed for examples, Islamic apologists can name only a handful of individuals allegedly converted by the Quran's eloquence. These names include Umar Ibn Khattab, Labīd ibn Rabīʿ al-ʿĀmirī, Tufayl ibn Amr, and Jubayr ibn Mutʿim. Yet even these few cases lack solid historical verification linking their conversions specifically to the inimitability challenge.
The Fundamental Problem: Unreliable Historical Narratives
The core issue undermining these conversion stories is well-documented. Later Muslim generations fabricated countless traditions to strengthen and defend their religion. This is not a controversial claim among scholars of early Islamic history. It is an acknowledged reality within Islamic scholarship itself.
The science of hadith criticism (Ilm al-Hadith) developed precisely because early Muslim scholars recognized that fabricated traditions had proliferated throughout the community. Thousands of invented stories circulated, many created with pious intentions to promote religious virtue or to settle theological disputes.
To understand the scope and mechanics of hadith fabrication in early Islam, please read our article:
Given this documented pattern of fabrication, we must approach the conversion narratives of these few individuals with appropriate skepticism. The same religious motivations that produced thousands of other fabricated traditions would have provided ample incentive to create or embellish stories about eloquent Arabs being overwhelmed by Quranic rhetoric.
(1) Umar Ibn Khattab:
The common Islamic narrative says:
Umar set out to kill Muhammad. On the way, he learned that his sister Fatimah and her husband Sa‘id ibn Zayd had embraced Islam. He went to their house, struck them, then read some verses from Surah Taha. Moved by the beauty of the Quran, he went to Muhammad and accepted Islam.
This version is reported in Ibn Ishaq’s Sīrah, Ibn Hisham, Tabari, and Musnad Ahmad, however, none of them is reliable.
- The reports in Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham are without isnād (chain of narrators).
- The reports in Musnad Ahmad (no. 184, 340, etc.) are mursal (a gap in the chain, missing companions or successors).
- No version of this story appears in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim, despite both books containing detailed biographical and conversion narratives for other figures.
Therefore, by Islamic hadith standards (criteria of sahih: connected chain, trustworthy narrators, consistency, absence of defect), this story fails.
Moreover, classical scholars like Ibn Hajar and Ibn Kathir acknowledged the multiple and contradictory versions of Umar’s conversion. For example:
- Whether he accepted Islam in his sister’s house,
- Or after hearing Muhammad recite in the Ka‘bah,
- Or after secretly listening to the Quran one night,
- Or after witnessing Muslim steadfastness in persecution.
These contradictions indicate legendary development, which early Muslims likely told different moralized stories about Umar’s change of heart to emphasize divine guidance or the power of the Quran.
Such narrative diversity is a hallmark of hagiography, the creation of moralized legends around revered figures, rather than authentic biography.
When we look closer, even the content of the story fails to support the later Islamic claim that the Quran’s “inimitable eloquence” converted Umar. Nowhere is Umar described as being intellectually overwhelmed by linguistic perfection or as having attempted and failed to “imitate” the Quran’s style, which would have been central to the tahaddi (challenge) argument. Instead, he is depicted as emotionally touched by the message of monotheism and moral responsibility. His change of heart is portrayed as spiritual, not literary.
That distinction matters. People can be moved by the moral power or rhythm of many texts, from poetry to scripture, without invoking the supernatural. Nothing in the traditional narrative suggests that Umar saw the Quran as a linguistic miracle. He was convinced by its message, not its syntax.
Historically, this is also far more plausible. Pre-Islamic Arabia was already home to Jews, Christians, and monotheist seekers known as hanifs. A reflective man like Umar might well have found the Quran’s monotheistic call more rational and morally coherent than the tribal polytheism of his peers. That makes his conversion an act of moral persuasion, not of divine literary shock.
In reality, the many conflicting versions, missing chains of transmission, and absence from the most authentic hadith collections point to a single conclusion: the story of Umar’s conversion, as told today, is not history. It is a legend shaped to affirm faith, not to record fact.
The "7-Year Delay": Why the Miracle Failed for Umar Initially
One of the most significant arguments against the "literary miracle" theory is the timeline of Umar's conversion. According to Islamic traditions, Umar converted in approximately the 6th year of Prophethood.
- For roughly 6-7 years, Umar lived in the same small community as Muhammad. Mecca was not a large city—everyone knew everyone's business. Umar heard the Quran recited publicly at the Ka'bah, heard people discussing it in the streets and markets, and as a man known for his eloquence and appreciation of poetry, he was precisely the type of person who should have recognized exceptional literary quality.
- The "Produce a surah like it" challenge (Quran 10:38, 2:23) was revealed early in the Meccan period. If the Quran were a self-evident linguistic miracle that native speakers couldn't resist, why did Umar (who was an eloquent Arab) fail to recognize it for seven years?
- Umar didn't simply ignore Muhammad, but he was a staunch enemy who, according to tradition, set out to kill him. He heard the very same verses that Muslims now claim are "inimitable," yet he found them so unconvincing that his response was violence, not conversion.
If Umar had experienced a linguistic epiphany, a recognition that "no human could produce this", then it would have happened upon first hearing. Poetry and rhetoric were immediate experiences in Arab culture. You don't need seven years to recognize exceptional eloquence.
Instead, his conversion occurred only after:
- Witnessing his sister's blood (physical shock)
- Seeing his family's moral conviction (emotional impact)
- Reading the verses in a moment of personal vulnerability (psychological state)
This pattern indicates moral and emotional persuasion, not linguistic overwhelm.
(2) Labīd ibn Rabī al-ʿĀmirī:
Please note:
- There are no reliable, historically consistent reports about Labīd ibn Rabīʿa al-ʿĀmirī (لبيد بن ربيعة العامري) accepting Islam because of the Qur’an’s style or language.
- The few reports that exist in Islamic sources are mutually contradictory and weak in transmission (isnād).
Labid was a famous pre-Islamic poet. He was alive during Muhammad’s lifetime, and according to some later Muslim biographers, he eventually became Muslim and stopped writing poetry, allegedly saying: “Everything apart from Allah is vanity.”
However, this line, ironically, already exists in his pre-Islamic poetry, which shows that his supposed “Islamic transformation” was retroactively exaggerated.
Tradition 1: Labīd accepted Islam after reading Surah al-Kawthar
This story appears very late in tafsīr and sīrah collections, without early isnād support. It claims that Muhammad hung the verses of Sūrah al-Kawthar on the Kaʿba, Labīd read them, declared that such words could only be divine, and converted.
However:
- There is no authentic early report (in Ibn Hishām, al-Wāqidī, or early asbāb al-nuzūl) mentioning any Qur’anic verses being hung on the Kaʿba.
- Historically, the Quraysh were hostile to Muhammad’s message. It’s nearly impossible that they would have allowed him to post revelations on their sacred structure.
So this tradition is legendary, not historical.
Tradition 2: He converted because of the “disconnected letters” (حروف مقطعات)
Another strand of narrative says that Labīd was amazed by the mysterious letters (e.g., Ṭā-Hā, Yā-Sīn, Qāf) and declared that they could only come from God.
Again:
- This story has no solid chain of narration, and it contradicts the first story.
- Early exegetes (like Mujāhid, Qatādah) interpreted ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿāt symbolically, not as miraculous triggers for conversion.
Scholars of early Arabic literature (e.g., Taha Ḥusayn, Theodor Nöldeke, and Montgomery Watt) note that:
- Most stories of poets or eloquent Arabs embracing Islam because of Qur’anic eloquence are later constructs (2nd–3rd century AH).
- They were meant to bolster the doctrine of iʿjāz al-Qur’ān (inimitability) by showing that even the greatest poets surrendered to its linguistic superiority.
There’s no historical record (contemporary or near-contemporary) showing that any major pre-Islamic poet converted for that reason.
(3) Tufayl ibn Amr:
The story of Tufayl Ibn Amr is as under. Ibn Hisham wrote (English Translation, page 154):
... I (i.e. Tufayl) said. The apostle explained Islam to me and recited the Quran to me. By Allah I never heard anyting finer nor anything more just. So I became a Muslim and bore true witness. I said, `O prophet of God, I am a man of authority among my people and when I go back and call them to Islam, pray to Allah to give me a (miracle as a) sign which will help me when I preach to them.' He said, `O Allah give him (a miracle as) a sign.' So I went back to my people and when I came to the pass which would bring me down to the settlement a light like a lamp played between my eyes and I said, `O God, not in my face! for I fear that they will think that a dire punishment has befallen my face because I have left their religion.' So the light moved and lighted on the top of my whip.
Firstly, this story is not narrated in accordance with the authentic (Sahih) standards as per Muslims' own criteria. This is an aḥād (singular or isolated) narration, and there exist no other tradition which supports it.
Secondly, the portrayal of light appearing between Tufayl's eyes as a miracle leans more towards a fantasy narrative rather than reality. Please read our following article to see how the Quran itself become a witness that all claims about miracles by Muhammad/Allah were false:
Thirdly, it raises a theological problem:
- Allah gives a miraculous “light” to aid Tufayl in calling his people to Islam.
- But Tufayl immediately realizes that the sign might backfire because his people could interpret it as a curse, not a miracle.
- Allah then “relocates” the light to his whip.
This narrative implies that Allah failed to anticipate the social consequences of His own miracle, and that Tufayl displayed greater situational awareness than the deity who sent him the sign. That notion undermines Allah’s foreknowledge and wisdom, key attributes of divinity in Islamic theology.
So, how did Tufayl surpass Allah in wisdom?
(4): Jubayr ibn Mut'im:
Islamic preachers cite Jubayr ibn Mutʿim as one of their clearest examples of the Quran's literary power converting a skeptic. The story they tell is that Jubayr heard the Prophet recite the verse:
"Or were they created by nothing, or were they themselves the creators?" (Quran 52:35)
and was so struck by it that his heart moved toward Islam.
There are immediate problems with the historical reliability of this account. A contradictory tradition attributes his conversion not to this verse but to an earlier one in the same chapter, Quran 52:7, which describes divine punishment rather than a philosophical argument about origins. Two incompatible versions of the same supposedly pivotal moment should, by themselves, give us pause about the story's authenticity.
But the more fundamental problem runs deeper than the contradictions in transmission.
Even if we accept the story entirely at face value, it does not support the inimitability claim. It refutes it.
Notice carefully what Jubayr is described as responding to. He was not struck by the linguistic beauty of the verse. He was not overwhelmed by the style, the rhythm, or the form. He was intellectually arrested by a philosophical argument: the cosmological question of whether things can create themselves or emerge from nothing. That is a question of content, not of composition. It is a theological idea, not a literary achievement.
This distinction is not a technicality. It is the entire point.
The inimitability challenge is a specific claim about linguistic form. It asserts that the Arabic text of the Quran is so perfectly constructed, so far beyond the capacity of human composition, that no poet or writer could reproduce its style. The challenge is about how the Quran is written, not about what it argues. When Muslim apologists present the inimitability claim, they are making a statement about Arabic prose and poetry, about rhythm, syntax, rhetorical structure, and literary excellence. They are not making a claim about the persuasiveness of the Quran's philosophical positions.
What Jubayr responded to, by the account's own description, was the persuasiveness of a philosophical position.
These are entirely different phenomena, and conflating them is a serious error in the apologists' argument.
Consider how common Jubayr's reported experience actually is across human religious history. People have converted to Islam after finding its monotheism intellectually compelling. People have converted to Christianity after being persuaded by arguments about the resurrection. People have converted to Buddhism after finding its analysis of suffering psychologically accurate. People have converted to Judaism, to Hinduism, to Stoicism, to various philosophical schools, after encountering an idea or argument that reorganized their thinking. This is one of the most ordinary and well-documented features of human intellectual and spiritual life. Persuasive ideas persuade people. That is not a miracle. That is how minds work.
If the story of Jubayr proves anything, it proves that Muhammad articulated a philosophical argument that one particular listener found compelling on one particular occasion. That is a statement about the content of Islamic theology. It says nothing whatsoever about whether the Arabic text encoding that argument was beyond human literary ability to produce.
To put the distinction as sharply as possible: a person can be moved to tears by the message of a letter written in perfectly ordinary prose. Being moved by the message tells us nothing about whether the prose itself is miraculous. The medium and the message are not the same thing, and evidence about one is not evidence about the other.
The inimitability claim requires a witness who was overwhelmed specifically by the form of the Quran, who encountered the Arabic text and recognized, as a linguistic expert, that no human craftsman could have produced it. Jubayr, even in the most favorable reading of his story, was a man who found a philosophical argument persuasive. He is not a witness to a literary miracle. He is a witness to the ordinary human experience of being convinced by an idea.
He does not rescue the inimitability claim. He illustrates, once again, how different that claim is from what the actual historical record provides.
(5) Walid ibn al-Mughira:
Islamic preachers often cite the case of Walid ibn al-Mughira to bolster the claim of the Quran's literary miracle. However, he did not even embrace Islam because of this alleged miracle. In fact, he was one of Muhammad's staunchest opponents. So much so that Muhammad denounced him harshly in the Quran (68:10-13), labeling him as "a worthless habitual sweater, a slanderer, a preventer of good, a transgressor, a sinner, and a Bastard زنيم".
Why did Muhammad use such strong language for him in the Quran?
The reason lies in Walid's remarks about the Quran. He referred to it as "the tales of ancient people أَسَٰطِيرُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ" (Quran 68:15) and dismissed it as "magic" and "the speech of only a human being" (Quran 74:24-25).
Quran 74:18-30:
74:18 Indeed (surely), he thought and deliberated إِنَّهُۥ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّرَ
74:19 So may he be destroyed [for] how he (wrongly) deliberated فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:20 Then may he be destroyed [for] how he deliberated ثُمَّ قُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:21 Then he considered [again] ثُمَّ نَظَرَ
74:22 Then he frowned and scowled
74:23 Then he turned back and was arrogant
74:24 And said, "This is not but magic imitated [from others] فَقَالَ إِنْ هَٰذَآ إِلَّا سِحْرٌ يُؤْثَرُ
74:25 This is not but the word of a human being." إِنْ هَٰذَآ إِلَّا قَوْلُ ٱلْبَشَرِ
74:26 I will drive him into Saqar
74:27 And what can make you know what is Saqar (a mountain in hellfire)
74:28 It lets nothing remain and leaves nothing [unburned]
74:29 Blackening the skins
74:30 Over it are nineteen [angels]
(Translated by Sahih International)
Muhammad's purpose in revealing these verses was to refute Walid's judgment about the Quran and to warn of severe punishment for him in the afterlife. However, Muhammad, being human, made a significant error here, as these verses also serve as evidence that Walid did indeed "reflect" and then "evaluate" the Quran as merely magic and the speech of a human being.
Thus, these verses contradict Muhammad and the Quran, indicating that native Arabic speakers did indeed perceive the Quran as nothing more than magic and human speech.
To counter these explicit Quranic verses, Muslims fabricated the following tradition, alleging that Walid did not contemplate to evaluate the Quran, but he only reflected to plot a scheme against the Quran.
al-Mustadrak ala al-Sahihain al-Hakim:
أَخْبَرَنَا أَبُو عَبْدِ اللَّهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ الصَّنْعَانِيُّ بِمَكَّةَ ، ثنا إِسْحَاقُ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ، أَنْبَأَ عَبْدُ الرَّزَّاقِ ، عَنْ مَعْمَرٍ ، عَنْ أَيُّوبَ السَّخْتِيَانِيِّ ، عَنْ عِكْرِمَةَ ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا ، أَنَّ الْوَلِيدَ بْنَ الْمُغِيرَةِ جَاءَ إِلَى النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَقَرَأَ عَلَيْهِ الْقُرْآنَ ، فَكَأَنَّهُ رَقَّ لَهُ فَبَلَغَ ذَلِكَ أَبَا جَهْلٍ ، فَأَتَاهُ فَقَالَ : يَا عَمُّ ، إِنَّ قَوْمَكَ يَرَوْنَ أَنْ يَجْمَعُوا لَكَ مَالًا . قَالَ : لَمَ ؟ قَالَ : لِيُعْطُوكَهُ فَإِنَّكَ أَتَيْتَ مُحَمَّدًا لِتُعْرِضَ لِمَا قِبَلَهُ قَالَ : قَدْ عَلِمَتْ قُرَيْشٌ أَنِّي مِنْ أَكْثَرِهَا مَالًا . قَالَ : فَقُلْ فِيهِ قَوْلًا يَبْلُغُ قَوْمَكَ أَنَّكَ مُنْكِرٌ لَهُ أَوْ أَنَّكَ كَارِهٌ لَهُ قَالَ : وَمَاذَا أَقُولُ فَوَاللَّهِ مَا فِيكُمْ رَجُلٌ أَعْلَمَ بِالْأَشْعَارِ مِنِّي ، وَلَا أَعْلَمَ بِرَجْزٍ وَلَا بِقَصِيدَةٍ مِنِّي وَلَا بِأَشْعَارِ الْجِنِّ وَاللَّهِ مَا يُشْبِهُ الَّذِي يَقُولُ شَيْئًا مِنْ هَذَا وَوَاللَّهِ إِنَّ لِقَوْلِهِ الَّذِي يَقُولُ حَلَاوَةً ، وَإِنَّ عَلَيْهِ لَطَلَاوَةً ، وَإِنَّهُ لَمُثْمِرٌ أَعْلَاهُ مُغْدِقٌ أَسْفَلُهُ ، وَإِنَّهُ لَيَعْلُو وَمَا يُعْلَى وَإِنَّهُ لَيَحْطِمُ مَا تَحْتَهُ قَالَ : لَا يَرْضَى عَنْكَ قَوْمُكَ حَتَّى تَقُولَ فِيهِ . قَالَ : فَدَعْنِي حَتَّى أُفَكِّرَ ، فَلَمَّا فَكَّرَ قَالَ : هَذَا سِحْرٌ يُؤْثَرُ يَأْثُرُهُ مِنْ غَيْرِهِ
... from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both, that Al-Walid ibn Al-Mughirah came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and he recited the Quran to Walid. It was as if al-Mughirah was enchanted by it. This news reached Abu Jahl, so he went to him and said, "O uncle, your people are thinking of gathering wealth for you." The Prophet asked, "Why?" Abu Jahl replied, "To give it to you, so that you leave the path of Muhammad and stay on the religion that you followed previously." Walid replied, "Quraysh know that I am among its wealthiest." Abu Jahl said, "Then say something about Muhammad that would reach your people that you reject him or that you dislike him." Walid replied, "What should I say? By Allah, there is no man among you who knows more about poetry than me, nor do anyone knows more about rhymes, or the poetry of the jinn than me. By Allah, his speech does not resemble anything. By Allah, what he says has a sweetness to it, and upon it, there is a beauty. It is fruitful, its highest part is overflowing, and its lowest part is deep. It rises above, and nothing rises above it. It breaks down whatever is beneath it." Abu Jahl said, "Your people will not be satisfied with you until you say something about him." Al-Mughirah said, "Leave me until I think." When he pondered, he said, "This is magic that influences but cannot be influenced by others."
However, the problem persists: Islamic traditions are highly unreliable, with hundreds of thousands of such traditions fabricated for the sake of religion. For instance, in this tradition, we encounter the perplexing notion of "knowing the poetry of Jinns." How did Walid come to possess this knowledge? Was he in communication with Jinns?
Moreover, why was Walid singled out as the only one able to discern that the Quran was not of human origin? What about other native Arabic-speaking pagans, who boasted numerous skilled poets? Why were they unable to recognize the literary brilliance of the Quran? Does this imply that one must be among the top poets, and know both human and Jinn poetry to recognize the Quranic literary excellence?
Furthermore, contradictions often arise in such cases, where falsehoods are spoken. This inconsistency is evident in another tradition narrated by the same Ibn Abbas, which also contains contradictions.
Tafsir Ibn Kathir, verse 74:11:
عن ابن عباس قال دخل الوليد بن المغيرة على أبي بكر بن أبي قحافة، فسأله عن القرآن، فلما أخبره، خرج على قريش فقال يا عجباً لما يقول ابن أبي كبشة فوالله ما هو بشعر ولا بسحر، ولا بهذي من الجنون، وإن قوله لمن كلام الله، فلما سمع بذلك النفر من قريش، ائتمروا وقالوا والله لئن صبأ الوليد، لتصبو قريش، فلما سمع بذلك أبو جهل بن هشام قال أنا والله أكفيكم شأنه، فانطلق حتى دخل عليه بيته، فقال للوليد ألم تر إلى قومك قد جمعوا لك الصدقة؟ فقال ألست أكثرهم مالاً وولداً؟ فقال أبو جهل يتحدثون أنك إنما تدخل على ابن أبي كبشة لتصيب من طعامه، فقال الوليد أقد تحدث به عشيرتي؟ فلا والله لا أقرب ابن أبي قحافة ولاعمر ولا ابن أبي كبشة، وما قوله إلا سحر يؤثر
He (Ibn `Abbas) said, "Al-Walid bin Al-Mughirah entered the house of Abu Bakr bin Abi Quhafah and asked him about the Qur'an. When Abu Bakr informed him about it, he left and went to the Quraysh saying, `What a great thing this is that Ibn Abi Kabshah is saying. I swear by Allah that it is not poetry, nor magic, nor the prattling of insanity. Verily, his speech is from the Words of Allah!' So when a group of the Quraysh heard this they gathered and said, `By Allah, if Al-Walid converts (to Islam) all of the Quraysh will convert.' When Abu Jahl bin Hisham heard this he said, `By Allah, I will deal with him for you.' So he went to Al-Walid's house and entered upon him. He said to Al-Walid, `Don't you see that your people are collecting charity for you' Al-Walid replied, `Don't I have more wealth and children than they do' Abu Jahl answered, `They are saying that you only went to Ibn Abi Quhafah's house so that you can get some of his food.' Al-Walid then said, `Is this what my tribe is saying Nay, by Allah, I am not seeking to be close to Ibn Abi Quhafah, nor `Umar, nor Ibn Abi Kabshah. And his speech is only inherited magic of old.'
So, the contradictions become apparent:
The first tradition asserts that Walid visited Muhammad, who recited the Quran to him. However, the second tradition contends that Walid visited Abu Bakr's house, where Abu Bakr recited the Quran to him.
In the first tradition, Abu Jahl didn't orchestrate any plot; instead, he simply informed Walid that the Qurayshi people were amassing funds to "BUY his loyalty", dissuading him from following Muhammad and remaining steadfast in his ancestral religion. Conversely, the second tradition alleges that Abu Jahl indeed plotted, informing Walid that the Qurayshi people were gathering funds as "CHARITY" for him, while he visited Abu Bakr's home under the pretense of seeking "food." Abu Jahl hoped to provoke Walid's anger with this plot and thereby ensnare him in his scheme.
Is it plausible to believe that a discerning individual like Walid would so easily succumb to Abu Jahl's ploy, especially when he supposedly knew well that Muhammad's speech was neither poetry nor magic but indeed the words of Allah, a fact he allegedly openly testified to before Quraysh?
The contradictions persist. Yet, a third tradition posits that it wasn't due to Abu Jahl, but rather Walid independently devised this scheme.
Tafsir Ibn Kathir, verse 74:11:
وقد زعم السدي أنهم لما اجتمعوا في دار الندوة ليجمعوا رأيهم على قول يقولونه فيه قبل أن يقدم عليهم وفود العرب للحج ليصدوهم عنه، فقال قائلون شاعر، وقال آخرون ساحر، وقال آخرون كاهن، وقال آخرون مجنون كما ... كل هذا والوليد يفكر فيما يقوله فيه، ففكر وقدر، ونظر وعبس وبسر، فقال إنْ هذا إلا سحر يؤثر، إنْ هذا إلا قول البشر
Al-Suddi claimed that when they gathered in Dar al-Nadwah to agree on a statement to say about him before the Arab delegations arrived for Hajj to dissuade them from following him, some said he was a poet, others said he was a magician, others said he was a soothsayer, and others said he was insane ... All of this while Al-Walid was contemplating what to say about him. So he pondered, estimated, looked, frowned, and scowled, and he said, "This is nothing but magic that has an influence. This is nothing but human speech."
The Quranic verses themselves provide clarity that Walid did not scheme/plot anything. These verses contain no indication of Walid recognizing the speech as Allah's, Abu Jahl's plot, or any planning by Walid.
Surah 74 was revealed early in Muhammad's proclamation of prophethood in Mecca. Throughout his 13-year Meccan life, Walid persistently opposed Muhammad, yet neither Muhammad nor any of his Muslim companions reminded him of the events mentioned in these traditions (i.e., why Walid opposed Muhammad despite allegedly acknowledging the Quran's excellence and divine origin).
The Quran consistently denounces Walid as "a worthless habitual sweater, a slanderer, a preventer of good, a transgressor, a sinner, and a Bastard زنيم," among other things, but never once reminds him that he had previously acknowledged the Quran as Allah's speech and a miracle.
Distortion (تحريف) in translation to fit the Quranic Verses to these fabricated traditions
The correct translation is:
74:18 Indeed (surely), he thought and deliberated إِنَّهُۥ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّرَ
74:19 So may he be destroyed [for] how he (wrongly) deliberated فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:20 Then may he be destroyed [for] how he deliberated ثُمَّ قُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:21 Then he considered [again] ثُمَّ نَظَرَ
(Translated by Sahih International)
However, to align these verses with the fabricated traditions, many modern Quran translators have distorted the translation as follows:
74:18 For he thought and he plotted; إِنَّهُۥ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّرَ
74:19 And woe to him! How he plotted! فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:20 Yea, Woe to him; How he plotted! ثُمَّ قُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ
74:21 Then he looked round ثُمَّ نَظَرَ
(Translated by Yusuf Ali and many other modern Quran translators. Link)
The term "قَدَّرَ" means "to evaluate/to deliberate/to measure/to determine." It belongs to the "Verb (form II)" category. Link.
Unfortunately, many of the modern Quranic translators have altered the meaning of "قَدَّرَ" to "to plot/to plan/to make a scheme." (link).
However, they are caught red-handed, as "قَدَّرَ" has been used in numerous other Quranic verses, consistently conveying the meaning of "to evaluate/to determine" and never as "to plot/to plan". (link). Moreover, even many of modern Quran translators translated it correctly as "to evaluate/to deliberate/to measure/to determine." (link)
This represents a case of "Double Dishonesty" by Islamic scholars. Firstly, they fabricated traditions, and then they distorted the meaning of Quranic verses through incorrect translations to align them with the fabricated traditions.
The Musaylimah Problem: When the Argument Proves Too Much
Even if we set aside every historical and transmission problem examined above, even if we grant every disputed conversion story at full face value, the inimitability argument still collapses. It collapses for a reason that has nothing to do with hadith reliability or isnād analysis. It collapses because of what the argument itself logically entails.
The argument, stated plainly, is this: the Quran produces in its listeners a sense of literary awe so overwhelming that it cannot be explained by human composition alone. People hear it and feel that no human being could have written it. This feeling, the argument claims, is evidence of divine authorship.
The problem is that this same argument was made, by the same kind of people, about a different text, in the same era, in the same language.
Musaylimah ibn Habib, known in Islamic sources as "Musaylimah the Liar," was a contemporary of Muhammad who also claimed prophethood and produced his own revelations in Arabic. He gathered a substantial following among the Banu Hanifa tribe, followers who believed his words were divinely inspired, followers who found his text compelling and his claim credible. Al-Tabari records in his History:
"Musaylimah ibn Habib, known as Musaylimah the Liar, claimed prophethood and was followed by the Banu Hanifa tribe. He composed verses that he presented as divine revelation, which some people of his tribe accepted and believed in. His influence grew, and many adhered to his message, leading to conflicts with the followers of Muhammad."
[Reference: Al-Tabari, "History of the Prophets and Kings," Volume 10]
These were native Arabic speakers. They heard Musaylimah's Arabic text. They responded to it with the same conviction that Muslim apologists cite as evidence for the Quran's miraculous status. They believed, as sincerely as any early Muslim, that what they were hearing was beyond ordinary human composition.
Now the inimitability argument faces a question it cannot answer.
If the subjective experience of literary and spiritual awe among native Arabic listeners is sufficient evidence of divine authorship, then Musaylimah's followers provide exactly that evidence for his text. Their experience was structurally identical to the experience Muslim apologists cite for the Quran. They were native speakers. They were moved. They converted. They believed.
If Muslim apologists respond that Musaylimah's text was actually inferior, that a genuine expert would recognize the difference, they have conceded the entire argument. They have admitted that subjective feeling is not a reliable guide to divine origin, that listeners can be genuinely moved by a text that is not divinely authored, and that the experience of awe does not constitute proof. But that concession destroys the inimitability claim, because the inimitability claim rests entirely on the evidential weight of that subjective experience.
The argument cannot be applied selectively. Either the subjective awe of native Arabic listeners is evidence of divine authorship, in which case Musaylimah's followers provide it as validly as the early Muslims did. Or it is not reliable evidence, in which case the inimitability claim loses its foundation entirely.
There is no third option.
What the Musaylimah case reveals is that the inimitability argument is unfalsifiable in the worst possible sense. Any text that generates sufficient reverence in its followers can be declared inimitable by those same followers. The declaration tells us something about the psychology of the believers. It tells us nothing about the objective status of the text. A claim that can never in principle be falsified is not evidence. It is circular reasoning dressed in literary language.
Fact: People Embraced Islam because of the "Sword Miracle" of Islam, and not because of the "Inimitability" (i.e. the alleged greatest miracle of all time)
These are the factors influencing why Arabic-speaking pagans embraced Islam:
- Lower-status individuals with immature opinions.
- Dissatisfaction with the pagan religion.
- Power dynamics and politics.
- Coercion through Sword: Particularly evident during the later years of Muhammad's life when he wielded absolute power in the entire Arabian peninsula, and he issued threats of violence against all pagans in the Quran (9:5). This fear of sword was a primary catalyst for the spread of Islam.
(1) Lower-status People with immature opinions
According to the pagan Quraysh, only a small number of lower-status individuals believed in Muhammad's message due to their immaturity:
Quran 11.27: The chiefs of the disbelieving nation said, "We find you to be no more than a human like us, and we find that only those of lower status and immature opinion follow you. We do not find you superior to us in any way. In fact, we think you are a liar!".
However, the number of such people was very limited, and many of them were slaves.
(2) Dissatisfaction with the Pagan Religion
Pagan religions often involved strange rituals that seemed nonsensical to many. In contrast, Muhammad's message of monotheism, focusing on one single god, was appealing to certain individuals. According to Muslim accounts, some pagans had already abandoned their faith to become Christians or followers of the Hanif religion. However, their numbers remained relatively small.
(3) Power dynamics and politics
Throughout the entire Meccan period spanning 13 years, only a handful of people embraced Islam. Surprisingly, in Medina, a significant number of people converted to Islam even in Muhammad's absence. How did this happen?
The answer lies in power dynamics and politics.
Medina was home to two major pagan Arab tribes, Banu Aws and Banu Khazraj, alongside three major Jewish tribes and several smaller ones.
The pagan Arabs, feeling inferior to the Jews due to their superior education, wealth, and fertile lands, gradually began to convert to Judaism.
When the children of a woman (in pre-Islamic days) did not survive, she took a vow on herself that if her child survives, she would convert it a Jew.
Moreover, the pagan Arabs were also afraid of the Jews, as they used to hear from their Jewish neighbours that a prophet would be sent at the end of time and that the Jews would follow him and fight the Arabs along with him and kill them in the same manner in which the earlier nations of ‘Ad and Iram were killed and destroyed.
A huge civil war took place in Medina, where al-Aws and al-Khazraj fought each other too. And when al-Aws lost a lot of wars against al-Khazraj, they went to seek the alliance of pagan Meccans, but they refused (Samhudi, Wafaa al-Wafaa, Vol. 1, p. 385). At that time Muhammad presented himself to them, seeking protection in Medina and telling them that he and his followers would then assist them. Some of them accepted Islam at that time.
This was soon followed by the war of Bu'ath (another civil war in Medinah). It took place 5 years before hijra (i.e. Muhammad's migration to Medina).
*Aisha described this war:
Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3846:
"Allah caused the day of Bu'ath to take place before Allah's Messenger (saw) was sent so that when he reached Medina, those people had already divided (in different groups) and their chiefs had been killed or wounded. So, Allah made that day precede Allah's Messenger (saw) so that they (i.e. the two pagan Arab tribes) might embrace Islam."
Most of their key leaders (those who had a similar mentality to ibn Ubbay) who could hinder the message of Muhammad were killed as well as large numbers of their followers. Thus, the new generation of two pagan Arab tribes wanted to unite again and utilised the offer of Muhammad. (Samhudi, Wafaa al-Wafaa, Vol. 1, p. 389, Shireef, Tarikh Makah wa al-Madinah, p. 367)
The promise of the Jews to kill and destroy the polytheistic Arabs on the arrival of their next prophet also made al-Aws and al-Khazraj to accept Islam. As al-Aws and al-Khazraj collectively could exert control over the Jews, they received Muhammad and were able to launch the Islamic state.
In Zad Al-Ma‘ad, Ibn Al-Qayyim wrote (link):
One of the things which Allah Almighty accomplished for His Messenger, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was that the tribes of Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj heard from their allies from among the Jews of Al-Madeenah, that 'A Prophet will appear in our time and we will follow him and kill you, in the same manner in which ‘Ad and Iram were killed.' The Ansar used to perform Hajj, as did the Arabs, but not the Jews. So when they saw the Messenger of Allah, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, inviting people to Allah during the season of Hajj and they observed his manners, some of them said to the others, "You know, by Allah, O people, that this is the prophet whom you were threatened with by the Jews, so do not let them precede you in following him. So hasten to accept his invitation."
(4) Not even 10 Jews believed in Muhammad due to the alleged greatest miracle of inimitability:
The alleged inimitability and literary miracles of the Quran neither ever impressed the Pagans in Mecca, nor it ever impressed the Jews in Medina.
This frustrated Muhammad so much, that he used to say even if 10 Jews believed in him, then all Jews would become Muslims.
عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ " لَوْ آمَنَ بِي عَشَرَةٌ مِنَ الْيَهُودِ لآمَنَ بِي الْيَهُودُ
Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Had only ten Jews (amongst their chiefs) believe me, all the Jews would definitely have believed me."
عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ قَالَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم " لَوْ تَابَعَنِي عَشْرَةٌ مِنَ الْيَهُودِ لَمْ يَبْقَ عَلَى ظَهْرِهَا يَهُودِيٌّ إِلاَّ أَسْلَمَ
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: If ten scholars of the Jews would follow me, no Jew would be left upon the surface of the earth who would not embrace Islam.
Thus, the Jews, who were masters of Hebrew religious literature and had their own sophisticated scriptural tradition, were entirely unimpressed by any alleged Quranic literary excellence, and Quranic inimitability claim.
(5) Pagans didn't accept Islam even after the Victory of Mecca:
Despite the conquest of Mecca by Muhammad in the 7th year of Hijri, the pagan Meccans remained resistant to accepting Islam.
In an effort to prevent opposition from the pagan leaders of Mecca, Muhammad offered stipends to them, fostering a sense of financial interest and aiming to ensure their compliance with Islam. Quran (9:60). But despite getting the stipends, they didn't accept Islam.
(6) Pagans accepted Islam only after they were FORCED to do it under the Fear of Sword
So, the situation was:
- Native Arabic-speaking Pagans of Mecca were not accepting Islam due to its challenge of inimitability or any linguistic miracle.
- They didn't accept it after the conquer of Mecca in 7th Hijri year.
- They didn't accept it even after receiving stipends.
In the 9th Hijri year, Muhammad claimed the revelation of verse 9:5 (i.e. the Verse of the Sword, which ordered to kill all polytheists after 4 months).
Quran 9:5:
And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah (i.e. if they become Muslims), let them [go] on their way.
Muhammad allowed the people of the book (i.e. Christians/Jews/Magians) to stay alive by paying Jizya tax, but he refused to accept any Jizya from polytheists. They either had to accept Islam, or they would be slaughtered.
Only after that, pagan Arabs accepted Islam to save their lives.
The Christians/Jews/Magians paid Jizya but didn't accept Islam. It was difficult for Muhammad to kill Christians and Jews as killing them for not accepting Islam would have angered the Christian Byzantine Empire while killing Magians would have angered the Magian Persian Empire. But pagan Arabs were vulnerable and they had no backing outside of Arabia. Therefore, Muhammad allowed them to stay alive by paying Jizya.
Due to this forced conversion, we do see Christians and Jews in Arab countries, but no polytheists as all of them were forced to convert to Islam.
A Universal Pattern: When Every Religion Claims Its Scripture Is Miraculous
Before reaching a final verdict, one further observation deserves to be placed on the record, because it reveals something important about what the inimitability claim actually is.
Islam is not unique in making it.
Every major religious tradition in human history has produced believers who regard their sacred scripture as a literary achievement so elevated that it transcends ordinary human composition. This is not an accusation. It is a documented, cross-cultural pattern.
The Ramayana, the foundational Sanskrit epic of the Hindu tradition, comprising more than 24,000 couplet verses across seven books, is regarded by millions of Hindu scholars and devotees as a text whose literary excellence is beyond what any contemporary poet could produce. The Sanskrit in which it is composed is held to be of a quality that places it outside the range of ordinary human craft. Hindu tradition attributes it to the divine sage Valmiki writing under divine inspiration. Devoted readers experience it as transcendent. Scholars immersed in Sanskrit literature describe its qualities in terms that closely parallel what Muslim apologists say about the Quran.
Hebrew scholars across centuries have written about the Torah in similar terms, describing its language as possessing qualities that no human author could have achieved independently, pointing to its internal structures, its literary patterns, and the experience of reading it in the original Hebrew as evidence of its divine origin.
The ancient Greeks did not frame the question in terms of divine authorship, but they regarded Homer as a figure whose literary achievement was so far beyond ordinary human capacity that later generations debated whether a single human being could genuinely have composed the Iliad and the Odyssey at all.
In each of these cases, we find the same phenomenon. A community of believers, deeply immersed in a particular literary tradition, encounters their sacred text with the full weight of cultural formation, religious commitment, and linguistic familiarity. They experience it as transcendent. They find it beyond what they could produce themselves. They declare it miraculous or divinely inspired. And they are entirely sincere.
This pattern is not evidence of multiple divine miracles distributed across world religions. It is evidence of a consistent feature of human psychology: communities tend to experience their own sacred literary traditions as uniquely elevated, particularly when those traditions have shaped their entire cultural and intellectual formation from childhood.
The Muslim experience of the Quran as linguistically overwhelming places Islam within this universal human pattern, not above it. The experience is real. The sincerity of those who feel it is not in doubt. But sincerity and universality together undermine rather than support the claim to uniqueness. If the subjective experience of scriptural transcendence is found across every major tradition, that experience cannot serve as distinguishing evidence for any one tradition's claim to divine authorship.
Subjective reverence is not a miracle. It is what religious communities do.
Conclusion: The Text, the Sword, and the Silence of the Experts
The evidence assembled in this article is drawn almost entirely from Islamic sources: the Quran's own text, the canonical hadith collections, the classical biographical literature, and the acknowledged conclusions of traditional Islamic scholarship on questions of isnād and transmission reliability.
That evidence points to one conclusion, and it is inescapable.
The doctrine of Quranic literary inimitability is not a report of what happened in 7th-century Arabia. It is a theological construction assembled centuries after the events it purports to describe, built to solve a problem that the historical record itself creates. The problem is simple: the people who were best positioned to recognize a linguistic miracle did not recognize one. The poets heard the Quran. The orators assessed it. The masters of the Arabic language evaluated it with the full technical expertise of a civilization that had made linguistic excellence its supreme cultural value. And they were not convinced.
This is not the conclusion of hostile critics reading against the grain. It is what the Quran records in its own verses. The Meccans said they could produce the same. They called it human speech. They called it tales of the ancients. They demanded a real miracle, the kind that previous prophets had brought, a sign that operated in the physical world rather than the literary one. The Quran preserves their demand, and it preserves Muhammad's inability to meet it on those terms.
The individual cases Muslim apologists cite to rescue the inimitability claim do not survive scrutiny. Umar converted after years of violent opposition, through emotional shock in a moment of personal vulnerability, in a story that appears in none of the most reliable hadith collections and exists in multiple contradictory versions. Labid's conversion narratives are late, contradictory, and lack credible transmission chains. Tufayl's account is an isolated narration that raises more questions than it answers. Jubayr responded to a philosophical argument, not to a literary form, and his experience mirrors what happens whenever a persuasive idea finds a receptive mind, which has nothing to do with miraculous composition. Walid never converted at all, and the Quran records his verdict on its own text in plain terms: human speech, transmitted magic, the words of a man.
The doctrine of inimitability itself did not emerge during Muhammad's lifetime. It was not the view of his companions. It crystallized in the 4th Islamic century, by which time the Arabic language had changed substantially, Islam had expanded far beyond its original Arabic-speaking context, and the theological need for a permanent, portable miracle had become pressing. The doctrine was constructed to meet that need. It was not derived from the historical record. It was imposed upon it.
And when the literary argument failed to move Arabia's pagans, when the Jews of Medina remained entirely unpersuaded despite Muhammad's sustained efforts to win their recognition, what finally brought the Arabian Peninsula into the fold of Islam was not a literary miracle. It was the verse of the sword. It was Quran 9:5 and the ultimatum it carried: convert or be killed. Polytheists had no powerful empire to protect them, no Byzantine or Persian force that Muhammad needed to avoid antagonizing. They were vulnerable, and the sword reached them.
The expansion of Islam is a historical fact. The inimitability of the Quran is a theological claim. The first does not establish the second. Empires have expanded through force throughout human history without anyone concluding that their founding texts were divinely composed.
The Quran's first audience, the only audience in history with the unmediated linguistic competence to judge the inimitability claim on its own terms, did not find it miraculous. They found it human. They said so, repeatedly, and the Quran recorded what they said.
That silence from the experts is the loudest testimony in this entire debate. The magicians of Pharaoh's court fell instantly. Arabia's poets did not fall at all.
The Quran's own standard condemns its own claim. The record is clear. The conclusion follows.
Hassan Radwan