'Tales From Gabriel' is a collection of myths, legends, fables or stories I am collating, each of which are interesting on its own, but more fascinating is, a few hundred or thousand years later, they landed on the pages of the Holy Book of Islam. The Quran, supposedly compiled in the 7th century, is the spoken word of God conveyed to His Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. These tales are post-fact canonised. Have they been plagiarised into Truth? Opinions are strictly personal.
Genesis 4 tells the story of Abel and Cain, the first two of Adam and Eve's three children. Cain was the first born who tilled the land. Abel tended to the flocks. For an offering to their Lord, Cain brought some fruits and Abel brought some portion of the first born in his flock. The Lord was pleased with Abel's offering. Cain was angry out of jealousy and one day in the fields, he killed his brother.
The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Cain was fearful that anyone who finds him would kill him. Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who find him would kill him
That is the short and simple story in the Bible. The Quran carries the same story but with 2 additions.
Quran, surah 5:27-30 The original story:
(as translated by Quran.com)
Relate to them in truth ˹O Prophet˺ the story of Adam’s two sons—how each offered a sacrifice: one’s offering was accepted while the other’s was not, so he threatened ˹his brother˺, “I will kill you!” His brother replied, “Allah only accepts ˹the offering˺ of the sincerely devout.
If you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you, because I fear Allah—the Lord of all worlds.
I want to let you bear your sin against me along with your other sins, then you will be one of those destined to the Fire. And that is the reward of the wrongdoers.”
Still, the other convinced himself to kill his own brother, so he killed him—becoming a loser.
Quran, surah 5:31 A sub-story of a crow burying a dead crow:
(as translated by Quran.com)
Then Allah sent a crow digging ˹a grave˺ in the ground ˹for a dead crow˺, in order to show him how to bury the corpse of his brother. He cried, “Alas! Have I ˹even˺ failed to be like this crow and bury the corpse of my brother?” So he became regretful.
Quran, surah 5:32 A moral exegesis:
(as translated by Quran.com)
That is why We ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever takes a life—unless as a punishment for murder or mischief in the land—it will be as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity. ˹Although˺ Our messengers already came to them with clear proofs, many of them still transgressed afterwards through the land.
The story is lifted off the Bible albeit worded differently, but where did the 2 additional verses come from? Western scholars have written about this and concluded the additional verses came from talmudic literature. For some understanding of talmudic literature, this model is helpful.
The Talmud originally consisted of only the Mishnah. The Gemara was added later on, also progressively over time. Jewish rabbinical inquiry by normative methodology uses a series of questions in all situations. For example, after killing Abel, what did Cain do? Did he bury his brother? Where did he learn about burial? etc. Stories were created for illustration purposes for which there are many. These are not Biblical stories and anyone not familiar with the Jewish Bible and overhearing them narrated in public spaces could easily mistake them for materials from Scripture.
In Midrash (explanation) Tanhuma:
“After Cain slew Abel, the body laid outstretched upon the earth, since Cain did not know how to dispose of it. Thereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, selected two clean birds and caused one of them to kill the other. The surviving bird dug the earth with its talons and buried its victim. Cain learned from this what to do. He dug a grave and buried Abel. It is because of this that birds are privileged to cover their blood.”
In Pirḳe de-R. Eliezer chap 21:
This is a midrash attributed to Eliezer ben Hurcanus, a prominent rabbi in the 1st and 2nd century.
“The dog which was guarding Abel’s flock also guarded his corpse from all the beasts of the field and all the fowl of the heavens. Adam and his helpmate were sitting and weeping and mourning for him, and they did not know what to do (with Abel), for they were unaccustomed to burial. A raven (came), one of its fellow birds was dead (at its side). (The raven) said, ‘I will teach this man what to do.’ It took its fellow and dug in the earth, hid it and buried it before them. Adam said ‘Like this raven will I act.’ He took the corpse of Abel and dug in the earth and buried it.”
In Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5b
“For so we have found it with Cain that slew his brother, for it is written, the bloods of thy brother cry. It says not ‘the blood of thy brother,’ but the bloods of thy brother. – his blood and the blood of his posterity. (Another saying is: Bloods of thy brother – because his blood was cast over the trees and stones.) Therefore, but a single man was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single soul to perish from Israel scripture imputes to him as if he had caused a whole world to perish; and if any man saves alive a single soul from Israel scripture imputes it to him as if he had saved alive a whole world.”
Comments:
There is an excellent Islamic apologetic in Islamic-awareness.org. Basically their contention is the Quran preceded these talmudic writings and therefore it is exactly the reverse, i.e., that the Bible in fact copied from Islam. I like this apologetic article for it is a scholastic historical criticism of the claims of Western scholars, unlike the usual hysterical reaction of vitriol and threats to any views critical of Islam. But is there an aorta of truth in that view?
My personal opinion of the Islamic-awareness.org refutation is :
1. Western scholars are aware these specific Talmudic passages are dated 7th/8th century. However, the oral traditions from which they were based are from thousands of years earlier.
2. Were this an isolated incident, it might have been viewed differently. However, the fact is there are way too many instances of parallelism of Quran to Biblical and non-Biblical Christian stories and legends.
3. There is no complete extant manuscript of the Quran from 7th/8th century. The final complete Quran in more or less current form was compiled sometime in the 9th/10th century.
Note:
According to Islamic narrative, the first caliph after Muhammad's death in 632 AD, Abu Bakr, had compiled a copy of the Quran which was entrusted to Hafsah, the 4th wife of the prophet. (It was narrated by Muhammad ibn Ishaaq she kept it under her bed and some part was chewed by a sheep). The 3rd caliph Uthman, had copies made which were sent to 5 different cities. All these would be 7th century manuscripts. None of these are available today..
Ancient incomplete manuscripts in bits and pieces have been found. The earlier ones are :
Tübingen fragment - kept in Tubingen, Germany. Dated 641 - 671 AD.
Sana'a Manuscript - kept in Yemen. Dated before 671 AD.
Codex Parisino-petropolitanus - kept partly in Paris, Moscow and Vatican City. Made up about 45% of the text. Dated 7th or 8th century.
Topkapi Manuscript - Kept in Istanbul, Turkey. Dated 8th century.
Samarkand Kufic Quran - kept in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Dated 795-855 AD.
Carbon dating of manuscripts are unreliable because the ink cannot be tested. It is only the animal skin parchments that are tested. In ancient times, these writing materials are washed and recycled all the time. So the writings could have come much later.
What is most significant is a quote from Gerd Rüdiger Puin, a German scholar of Oriental studies, specializing in Quranic palaeography, Arabic calligraphy and orthography. He headed a restoration project commissioned by the Yemeni government to study and catalogue the Sana'a Manuscript.
In a 1999 article published in the American magazine The Atlantic, Gerd R. Puin has been interviewed and quoted as saying that:
"My idea is that the Quran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants.
The Quran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,' but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims—and Orientalists—will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Quranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Quran is not comprehensible—if it can't even be understood in Arabic—then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Quran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not—as even speakers of Arabic will tell you—there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on."
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