Quranic Miracles

[Khairan]

Here is an excerpt from an essay by Jeremiah McAuliffe Jr., PhD, a revert from Catholicism. I think he makes some excellent points which it is useful to remember when trying to have this discussion with non-Muslims.

Muslims set themselves up for problems when they try to convince non-Muslims of the truth of the Qur'an by resorting to the "scientific facts" approach to the Qur'an, or by portraying the Qur'an as some kind of a history book. It is not. It is a type of literature we call "scripture" and needs to be read properly as a scripture. (Indeed, does not the Qur'an itself mention something of how to read it?)
We do not read a book of poetry in the same way that we read a book on the science of botany. They are two different literary genres. Interestingly, both types can communicate truth about reality, but by using different methods of communication and styles of literature. We can read a poem about a tree and say "Yes, that is true of trees". We can also read a scientific paper about a tree and say the exact same thing, but if we treated the poem like a scientific paper, or expect poetic beauty from a scientific paper we are going to be in big trouble rather quickly! So too, when Muslims treat the Qur'an as something it is not. We then have only ourselves to blame when anti-Muslims ridicule us by turning this against us.


When we understand the dynamics of literary genre and how that effects our understanding of any book whatsoever we are armed with a powerful weapon to refute the false statements of anti-Muslims.