Ep.16: What about the Qur'an's Mysterious Letters?

In this video Jay introduces research by Thomas Alexander concerning where the mysterious letters which we find at the beginning of many Surahs actually came from. Thomas, in his discussion with Jay about a year ago explained not what but who the Qur'an was originally primarily about in its previously written Syro-Aramaic form, and it should come as no surprise that most of the numerous titles in that original Qur'an referred to Jesus. He also pointed to the many outside influences, which came not only from Christian sources, but from Jewish, Persian, Buddhist, Ethiopic and especially Gnostic sources. As to its purposes, it was written primarily as a commentary on the Old Testament Aramaic Peshitta, and the New Testament Aramaic Diattesseron (created by Tatian in 140 AD). Even the word 'Islam' in Aramaic meant "in accordance with scripture", proving that was why the Qur'an was written. So, the word Muslims use to define themselves today originally referred to a series of texts (most likely Christian Lectionaries) which were in accordance with the Biblical scriptures, as the Qur’an hadn’t yet been written that early. The word 'Qur'an', according to Thomas was derived from the Aramaic word 'Qeryan-a' which was the word for Lectionnary, a book used in the church for selected liturgical scriptures, as well as homilies about those scriptures, usually read during a Sunday church service. Ironically Surah 12:1-2 in the Qur'an mentions that the Qur'an is really a lectionary, while Surah 3:7 delineates for the reader which were the canonical scriptures and that which was an apocryphal writing, which in the original Aramaic would have been a caution to those who were reading these lectionaries. Surah 2:78-79, two verses which Muslims use today to suggest that the previous scriptures (i.e. the Bible) had been changed by the Jews, actually warns Muslims not to trust anything written by Jews which is not from scripture, especially any writings which they “write with their own hands, and call it scripture”. What are the Jewish writings which these two verses are referring to? These are the Jewish Talmud and the Mishnah, of which the Qur’an is replete with (see Surah 5:31-32; 21:51-71; 27:17-44). All of these stories were previously written by Jews in the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD, and yet are now right through the Qur’an. So, the Qur’an in Surah 2:78-79 is not attacking the Bible at all, but in effect is actually advising the readers not to trust these stories in the Qur’an. Thomas Alexander explains what the mysterious 'letters' at the beginning of the Suras mean (i.e. the Alif, Lam, and Mim at the beginning of Surah 2), something Muslim scholars have never understood for the past 1400 years, primarily because none of them would have known Aramaic, nor even considered that may be the Qur'an's source. In Aramaic, he says, these letters were used as a key for the reader to refer to the different Psalms of David, so that the readers could know from which Psalm the liturgy of that text was being borrowed. Once you take the Arabic back to its original Aramaic roots, you suddenly find what the text originally said, and the mystery is then solved. The contents of this video are pieced together from many different sources by Thomas, thus most of them only exist in the German language, unfortunately. 1) A lot comes from Karl-Heinz Ohlig‘s article called “Von Bagdad nach Merw” which was published in the book “Vom Koran zum Islam” 2) The Buddhist parallels come from Markus Groß’ article called “Buddhistische Einflüsse im frühen Islam“ published in “Schlaglichter: Die beiden ersten islamischen Jahrhunderte” 3) The Persian influences come from Ignaz Goldziher’s paper which was first published in French called “Islamisme et Parsisme” an English version of which can be found in the Book “Early Islam: A Critical Reconstruction Based on Contemporary Sources” 4) The Koran being a Christian lectionary is discussed in Christoph Luxenberg’s book which exists in English: “The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran” © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 10/26/2022 (68,780) Music: "Feeling the Caribbean Sun" by Horst Hoffman, from filmmusic-io