Hear and Disobey? Another Quranic Blunder

The Quran states that Muhammad was accused of being an “ear,” meaning someone who virtually parrots what he hears from others:

And among them are men who hurt the Prophet (Muhammad) and say: "He is (lending his) ear (to every news)." Say: "He listens to what is best for you; he believes in Allah; has faith in the believers; and is a mercy to those of you who believe." But those who hurt Allah's Messenger (Muhammad) will have a painful torment. S. 9:61 Hilali-Khan

Unfortunately for Muhammad, he often garbled up and confused the things he heard resulting in huge embarrassment since his misunderstanding of what he heard found its way into the Quran.

A case in point would be the words which the Israelites uttered at the time of Moses when they swore to obey the words spoken by YHWH to them from Mount Sinai:

“These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the dense gloom, with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. Now it happened that when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said, ‘Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. So now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? As for you, go near and hear all that Yahweh our God says; then speak to us all that Yahweh our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it (wa shamanu wa ‘asinu).’

“And Yahweh heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and Yahweh said to me, ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken. Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments all the days, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever! Go, say to them, “Return to your tents.” But as for you, stand here by Me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess.’ So you shall be careful to do just as Yahweh your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left. In all the way which Yahweh your God has commanded you, you shall walk, that you may live and that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.” Deuteronomy 5:22-33

Note carefully what the Israelites said:

“As for you, go near and hear all that Yahweh our God says; then speak to us all that Yahweh our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it (wa shamanu wa ‘asinu).” Deuteronomy 5:27

Now compare this to the confused and garbled up version of the Quran:

And, lo, We accepted your solemn pledge, raising Mount Sinai high above you, [saying,] "Hold fast with [all your] strength unto what We have vouchsafed you, and hearken unto it!" [But] they say, "We have heard, but we disobey (samiʿ'nā waʿaṣaynā)" - for their hearts are filled to overflowing with love of the [golden] calf because of their refusal to acknowledge the truth. Say: "Vile is what this [false] belief of yours enjoins upon you-if indeed you are believers!" S. 2:93 Muhammad Asad

Seeing that Hebrew and Arabic are cognate languages Muhammad must have erroneously assumed that the word wa’sinu, which means “and we do/obey it,” sounded like Hebrew for the Arabic phrase wa’asayna (“and we disobey”). Based on his misunderstanding he then mistakenly thought that the Israelites actually said that they hear what God was saying but still chose to disobey him anyway!  

Muhammad’s conflation of what the Israelites actually said is so embarrassing that the late Muslim translator and scholar Muhammad Asad had to explain away this egregious blunder:

It is obvious that they did not actually utter these words; their subsequent behaviour, however, justifies the above metonymical expression. (Asad, The Message of the Quran, fn. 77: https://www.alim.org/translation/asad/2/)

Asad was forced to admit that the Israelites never said what Muhammad attributed to them, and had to explain away this gross error as metonymy or a figure of speech!

The fact is that examples such as this prove that the Quran is not the words of the true God. Rather, it is the ramblings of an uninspired false prophet who was used to lead people astray from the truth by his incoherent, unintelligible perversion of the biblical narratives.

Further Reading

The Garbled-Up Quran: Muhammad’s Confusion of Figures and Names (https://answeringislam.blog/the-garbled-up-quran-muhammads-confusion-of-figures-and-names/)

The Garbled Up Quran Pt. 1 (https://answeringislam.blog/the-garbled-up-quran-pt-1/)