https://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/first_muslim.htm
Quran Contradiction
Who Was the First Muslim?
According to several passages in the Quran, Muhammad was the first Muslim:
This is contradicted by both the Quran and various Islamic traditions which refer to the presence of true believers both before and during Muhammad’s alleged "call" to prophethood. The Quran mentions that Adam, Noah, the Patriarchs, the twelve tribes of Israel, Moses, Jesus etc., were all believers and many of them even messengers who lived a long time before Muhammad:
Apart from various groups being called guided, having the right faith, or even having been given inspiration, we have at least Abraham and the disciples of Jesus being explicitly called Muslims (3:52, 67, 5:111). Certainly both Abraham and the disciples of Jesus lived long before Muhammad.
In fact, the Quran claims that all believers were essentially Muslims:
Would that not qualify them as being Muslims and believers even before Muhammad? Certainly, this would make Adam the first believer, the first Muslim, wouldn’t it?
Excursus:
The Quran says that every person is created in a natural state of religion, which the hadith interprets as Islam. In other words, every human being is born Muslim!
Again, doesn’t this show that every person who lived before Muhammad was already a Muslim, at least for some time, even though many of them may have deviated from the path later on?
Ibn Ishaq mentions four persons during Muhammad’s time who were said to be followers of the religion of Abraham:
Interestingly, the Quran calls Abraham a
Hanif:
Al-Bukhari records Muhammad’s run in with one of these so-called Hanifs:
Amazingly, it was one of these very Hanifs that convinced Muhammad that he was a prophet of God:
These sources make it quite evident that Muhammad was by no means the first believer.
It doesn’t stop here. The Quran elsewhere claims that Moses was the first to believe:
According to the Quran, to be a believer is to be a Muslim since there is no other religion acceptable before Allah:
And, as the above verses showed, the Quran claims that all the prophets and messengers were Muslims. Hence, for Moses to be the first believer means that he was also the first Muslim.
In fact, people can be called Muslims without being Mu'mineen (believers) yet, but certainly not vice versa since the Quran states:
We obviously can’t have two "firsts." Either Muhammad was the first to believe or Moses was the first. Some Muslims get really ingenious and claim that these passages are simply stating that Muhammad and Moses were the first to believe from their respective generations. Others claim that these passages actually mean that these individuals were the first amongst their contemporaries to receive the message:
This last explanation is simply erroneous since nothing in the passages state that "first" here means that they were the first to receive the message. In fact, the Quran itself refutes this claim since we find in the case of Moses that both his mother and brother Aaron were believers who had received inspiration:
Although one could perhaps argue that God spoke to Moses slightly earlier than to Aaron, in the case of Moses’ mother, she clearly received divine inspiration (and believed and obeyed it)
beforeGod spoke to Moses.
The Holy Bible states:
In fact, the immediate context of Sura 7:143 shows that Aaron was already a believer at this time:
The sorcerers’ response presupposes that Aaron was there assisting Moses and was therefore a believer; the fact that Moses assigns him as his successor further assumes this point.
It is quite evident in light of the foregoing that God spoke with Aaron around the same time he had spoken with Moses. This means that Moses was neither the first believer, nor necessarily the first person that God spoke with.
Furthermore, we already saw that both the Quran and Islamic sources plainly show that Muhammad was by no means the first believer. The Quran also shows that there were other believers besides Aaron during the time of Moses:
The presence of an Egyptian believer shows that Moses wasn’t the first believer of his generation. This person must have been a believer for a while since he knows of the prophets sent to the people of Ad and Thamud, of Noah, Joseph, and those that came later.
The problem worsens since this last passage contradicts the following Sura:
Here it is the magicians that are the first ones who came to faith! This contradicts the earlier passages claiming that Muhammad was the first to believe, and that Moses was the first to believe. Even if one wants to restrict it to mean only the first ones among the Egyptians, it contradicts 40:28 quoted above which reports about another Egyptian believer. Moreover, Moses had grown up among the Egyptians (from early infancy until well into his adulthood), he had even been adopted by the wife of the Pharaoh (according to the Quran), so he was certainly counted as an Egyptian by them, not as a foreigner.
Now, someone may say that first here doesn’t mean historically the first to believe, but that Muhammad was first in the sense of being the foremost of believers, the most prominent in position. After all, the Quran does mention that Allah has chosen some prophets above others:
The problem with this view is that the Quran does not explicitly present Muhammad as the premier prophet or messenger. A careful analysis of the Quran actually shows that both Jesus and Moses are in fact greater. Note, for instance, what is said about Jesus’ supposed family and ancestral line (we say supposedly since Jesus wasn’t a descendant of Imran):
Here, Jesus’ mother is exalted above all women with her father Imran being chosen above all else. The text seems to be narrowing down the line of those whom Allah chose above the rest, i.e. beginning with Adam, Noah, then chooses Abraham and his descendants, and from all of Abraham’s descendants chooses the family or house of Imran above the rest. The claim that Mary is exalted above all women supports this understanding of the passage, i.e. that from all of Abraham’s seed Imran and his household, which according to the Quran includes Jesus, were chosen above them all. Furthermore, there are other things which the Quran says about Jesus which makes him vastly superior to Muhammad. For the data demonstrating this, we encourage the reader to consult the following articles:
Even in the above texts where it is stated that Allah has preferred some to others, the author of the Quran didn’t mention Muhammad but Jesus and David. Thus, based on the immediate contexts themselves, we can safely say that Jesus and David were definitely two of the messengers preferred above the others. But we can’t say this of Muhammad.
Besides, one still has to deal with the problem of Moses being the first believer, which could also be understood as implying that he was the most prominent, thereby contradicting the claim that Muhammad was. Even the hadiths say that Muhammad wasn’t as great as Moses:
The hadith also has Muhammad admitting that Abraham was the best creature, not him:
The Muslim may say that Moses and Muhammad were the most prominent amongst their respective contemporaries. In other words, Moses and Muhammad were both the first in the sense of being preeminent over their respective generations.
But even this explanation is problematic since the context shows that, at least as far as Muhammad is concerned, first can only mean the first one (in time) to submit to the unity of Allah:
In S. 6:14 the temporal aspect is obvious. "First" in Sura 6:161-163 has to be understood in a temporal sense as well, since the text speaks of having been guided to a way that is straight, to the right religion, presupposing that he was on a different way before. So there is a change in time in regard to his beliefs, and he is supposed to be the first one who bows to Allah’s will.
The reference to Abraham, the true in faith (6:161) may be taken as an indication that 6:163 is referring to Muhammad being the first Muslim of his time, or among his people, as otherwise it would be in contradiction to the statement only two verses earlier.
More importantly, the Quran shows that Moses wasn’t the most prominent of his time since there was someone named Al-Khadir who was greater:
Therefore, not only is it a mere assumption that first here refers to prominence or preeminence, this assertion directly contradicts the context of the passages which clearly define first to mean the first one submitting to and believing in the unity of Allah (at least in the case of Muhammad). They are also at tension with the Quran’s reference to a servant from Allah who was more knowledgeable and greater than Moses.
And, as we saw above, Muhammad was definitely not the first one to submit to Allah since the so-called Hanifs, which we already mentioned, were said to be monotheists following the religion of Abraham.
Let us summarize all the problems thus far:
- The Quran claims that Muhammad was the first believer/submitter.
- Both the Quran and Islamic sources show that there were true believers both before Muhammad’s birth and during his lifetime, specifically before his alleged call to faith and prophethood, demonstrating that the latter was far from being the first.
- The Quran also claims that Moses was the first to believe. Since you cannot have two firsts, this is a clear-cut contradiction. Moreover, Abraham is explicitly called a Muslim and he lived a long time before both of them.
- This last claim, i.e. Moses being the first to believe, is negated by passages mentioning persons during Moses’ time that also believed, i.e. the Egyptian of Sura 40 who knew of God’s messengers/prophets such as Joseph.
- Sura 26 contradicts Sura 40 since we are told that Pharaoh’s magicians were the first to believe.
To make matters worse, the claim that some of Pharaoh’s magicians believed in Moses contradicts S. 10:83 which says that none believed in him except some of Moses’ own people! (Cf.
this article.)
Our analysis leads us to conclude that first cannot mean preeminence or prominence, but must mean the first in time, either in all of history or within the respective generations. Yet either understanding results in contradictions to other statements of the Quran which show that neither Moses nor Muhammad was the first to believe even during their generations.
And it becomes even more complicated ... There seems to be evidence which shows that the Quran views Abraham as the first Muslim. We saw that in several places believers are called to embrace the religion of Abraham, that Islam is the belief system which Abraham espoused and exhorted his children to walk in (cf. 2:132-133; 3:67; 4:125; 6:161; 22:78).
The constant emphasis on Islam being the religion of Abraham — as opposed to Adam, Noah etc. —, may mean that the Quran’s author assumed that the faith actually started with him. This understanding can be inferred from the following text:
The implication of the above is that Allah started using the term Muslim for believers during the time of Abraham, and that is why it is called his faith or cult. Not coincidentally Abraham is the first one among all the prophets and messengers who are mentioned in the Quran that is expressly called a Muslim!
The following are the occurrences of the words Muslim, Muslims, surrender (i.e.
aslama,
aslamoo,
aslimoo,
oslima,
aslamtu) so that the readers can investigate this issue for themselves: 2:112, 128, 131-133, 136; 3:20, 52, 64, 67, 80, 83-84, 102; 4:92, 125; 5:44, 111; 6:14, 163; 7:126; 10:72, 84, 90; 11:14; 12:101; 15:02; 16:89, 102; 21:108; 22:34, 78; 27:31, 42, 81, 91; 28:53; 29:46; 30:53; 33:35; 37:103; 39:12, 54; 40:66; 41:33; 43.69; 46:15; 49:14, 17; 51:36; 66:05; 68:35; 72:14
Now lest we be accused of misunderstanding the text or distorting the teaching of the Quran, note what the following Muslim author says about this very issue:
In the above quotation there seems to be a misunderstanding regarding S. 22:78. One probably has to understand this verse in the sense that it was not Abraham but Allah who gave the believers the name "Muslims". Still, we would agree that these passages give the impression that this happened first at the time of Abraham, i.e. Abraham and his descendants are the first ones who are explicitly called Muslims in the Quran.
If this is the case then we have several more contradictions which the Muslims must work through. Abraham being the first Muslim would contradict the statements that Moses and/or Muhammad were the first believers/Muslims. This also contradicts the fact that there were other prophets and messengers before Abraham, such as Adam and Noah, who obviously were believers otherwise they couldn’t be Allah’s spokespersons! That is, unless we are to understand from this that even though Noah and others were believers before Abraham, their religion wasn’t Islam. They actually had a different religion.
If the foregoing conclusion regarding Abraham is correct then Muslims have a lot of problems that they must deal with.
Sam Shamoun and
Jochen Katz