Christians are frequently placed on the defensive.

Has the Bible been corrupted? Did Jesus really claim to be God? Was He actually crucified? Has the doctrine of the Trinity compromised monotheism?

Those questions deserve answers, and the preceding articles have supplied them. But Christianity is not the only faith carrying a burden of proof. Islam does not merely criticise Christian revelation. It presents another book, another prophet and another account of Jesus, then demands that the earlier witness be reinterpreted wherever it disagrees.

That claim must now enter the witness box.

Why should anyone believe that the Qur'an came from God?

The usual answers form a cumulative case. The Qur'an is said to be linguistically inimitable, scientifically prescient, mathematically structured, perfectly preserved, prophetically accurate and beyond the natural ability of Muhammad. Its transformation of individuals and civilisations is offered as further confirmation.

Some of these claims are stronger than others. Some belong to classical Islamic theology; others are products of modern popular apologetics. They should not be bundled together carelessly or dismissed with mockery. Each must be allowed to establish whatever it genuinely can.

But the decisive question remains:

Do these features establish that the Qur'an is a revelation from God, or do they become miraculous only after its divine origin has already been assumed?

The strongest Islamic case

The most serious Muslim case does not rest upon a single numerical coincidence or disputed scientific translation.

It begins with Muhammad's circumstances. He was not formed in the recognised Jewish or Christian schools of scriptural learning, yet over approximately twenty-three years he recited a work possessing a distinctive Arabic voice, sustained theological purpose and extraordinary power over its hearers. The Qur'an challenged its opponents to produce anything comparable. They answered with opposition and warfare, Muslims argue, but never met the literary challenge.

The book also contains statements which Muslims understand as fulfilled prophecy, especially the prediction that the defeated Romans would reverse their fortunes. Its text was memorised, written, collected and transmitted with remarkable stability. Its language has shaped worship, law, civilisation and personal devotion across many centuries.

The informed argument is therefore cumulative:

  • Muhammad was not equipped by ordinary education to produce the Qur'an.
  • Its literary form is without equal.
  • Its contents include knowledge and predictions beyond his natural reach.
  • Its structure exhibits an order later readers continue to discover.
  • God providentially protected it.
  • Its effects bear witness to its power.

Taken together, Muslims argue, divine revelation provides the best explanation.

That case deserves a proportionate answer. The Qur'an need not be a worthless book in order to be a human one. It may possess beauty, force, memorable recitation and historical importance without being the speech of God. The task is to identify exactly where the evidence crosses—or fails to cross—the distance between the remarkable and the miraculous.

What would a miracle establish?

A miracle is not merely something impressive, unusual or difficult to explain at first sight. Human beings produce extraordinary poetry, music, mathematics, architecture and acts of memory. A rare achievement does not become supernatural merely because most people could not reproduce it.

If a feature of the Qur'an is offered as evidence of divine authorship, at least four questions must be asked:

  1. Is the alleged feature actually present?
  2. Was it identified by clear rules rather than discovered through selective treatment?
  3. Is it beyond a credible human explanation?
  4. Does it authenticate the Qur'an's message, or merely describe an interesting characteristic of the book?

The distinction is elementary but essential. Perfect preservation does not prove inspiration. Literary beauty does not prove historical accuracy. A successful prediction does not automatically authenticate every theological statement made by the predictor. An apparent scientific correspondence does not establish foreknowledge unless the text actually communicated the discovery before scientists supplied it.

Islam's miracle claims must bear the weight placed upon them.

The challenge to produce a sūrah like it

The Qur'an issues a challenge to those who doubt its origin:

"And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witnesses beside Allah if ye are truthful" (Surah 2:23, Pickthall).

Elsewhere it challenges mankind and the jinn together to produce the like of the Qur'an (Surah 17:88). Surah 10:38 calls for one comparable sūrah; Surah 11:13 calls for ten.

This challenge became the foundation for the classical doctrine of iʿjāz al-Qurʾān: the Qur'an's miraculous inimitability. Muslim scholars did not all explain that inimitability in exactly the same way. They examined its eloquence, arrangement, rhetoric, concision, information and effect. Nevertheless, the governing conclusion was that no human composition could equal it.

Literary power should be acknowledged

Christians should not pretend that the Qur'an has no literary power simply because they reject its divine origin.

Its proclamation, rhythmic movement, imagery, warnings, recurring themes and changes of address have profoundly affected Arabic-speaking hearers. Its liturgical recitation cannot be reduced to the experience of silently reading an English translation. Even readers who do not accept Islam can recognise that the Qur'an occupies an extraordinary place in Arabic literary and religious history.

Conceding that costs Christianity nothing. The question is not whether the Qur'an can be beautiful or powerful. The question is whether its quality is demonstrably beyond human production.

What exactly must be imitated?

For the challenge to function as publicly accessible evidence, the conditions of success must be identifiable.

What must a rival composition reproduce?

  • its vocabulary;
  • its rhythm;
  • its rhetorical devices;
  • its theological content;
  • its emotional effect;
  • its grammatical structures;
  • its length;
  • its supposed freedom from error;
  • or all these qualities in some undefined combination?

Who judges the result? Native Arabic speakers disagree about the literary quality of ordinary works. Muslim specialists may explain that the trained ear perceives features which an outsider misses. That may be true, but it makes the miracle increasingly dependent upon the judgement of those already schooled within the tradition which declares it incomparable.

Suppose an Arabic composition were offered as an answer. If Muslims judged it inferior, would that prove the Qur'an miraculous? Or would their judgement simply restate their belief in its supremacy? What outcome could ever count against the claim?

A test whose only authorised judges already affirm that it cannot be passed is not an independent test.

Unique does not mean divine

Great literature is often recognisable precisely because its voice cannot be reproduced without becoming imitation. Shakespeare, Milton and the biblical prophets possess distinctive styles. No second writer can become Isaiah by approximating Isaiah's cadences. Yet stylistic singularity does not prove that every singular work was verbally revealed by God.

The Muslim argument must therefore establish more than uniqueness. It must show that the relevant kind and degree of uniqueness are impossible for a human mind.

That conclusion does not follow from admiration. Nor does it follow from Islam's historical victory. A community's failure to accept a literary challenge may reflect reverence, hostility, differing standards or the impossibility of agreeing upon a judge. It does not provide a measurable boundary between exceptional human rhetoric and divine speech.

The doctrine of iʿjāz expresses the Muslim experience of the Qur'an as incomparable. It does not independently compel the unbeliever to identify its author as God.

Does the Qur'an contain modern science?

Scientific miracle claims now occupy a prominent place in popular Islamic apologetics. Verses are said to anticipate embryology, cosmic expansion, the origin of life, the separation of waters and the stabilising function of mountains.

These arguments should be distinguished from the classical literary case. Medieval Muslim interpreters certainly reflected upon nature and treated creation as a sign of God. But the programme of matching Qur'anic phrases with modern scientific discoveries expanded especially in recent apologetics. It often begins with the discovery and then returns to the text searching for correspondence.

That order matters.

The expanding universe

Surah 51:47 is frequently translated in a way which appears strikingly modern:

"And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander" (Surah 51:47, Sahih International).

Pickthall renders the same clause:

"We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof)."

The Arabic expression can be discussed lexically, and a Muslim is entitled to argue for a rendering involving expansion. The problem is not that such a translation is linguistically impossible. The problem is the leap from a possible rendering to a miraculous scientific prediction.

The verse does not describe galaxies receding, give a rate of expansion or distinguish an expanding universe from the broad extension of the heavens through divine power. Its immediate concern is God's might in creation. Earlier readers did not derive modern cosmology from it and then teach astronomers that the universe was expanding.

The scientific discovery supplies the technical concept. The verse is then translated and interpreted in its light.

That may produce compatibility. It does not establish prediction.

Embryonic development

Surah 23 describes humanity as created from an extract of clay, then as a drop placed in a secure lodging, followed by an ʿalaqah, a muḍghah, bones and flesh (Surah 23:12–14). Modern presentations correlate these expressions with successive stages of embryology.

Again, broad visual correspondences are possible. An embryo can appear clinging; at one stage its form may be compared with something chewed. The language is vivid.

But an analogy is not a scientific description. The translation of ʿalaqah has ranged through clot, clinging thing and leech-like substance. The vocabulary can be adjusted towards whichever modern feature the apologist wishes to emphasise. The verse does not supply microscopic anatomy, genetic information or a developmental mechanism unavailable to ancient observers.

The sequence of bones followed by their being clothed with flesh also requires interpretation in light of modern development, where skeletal and muscular tissues differentiate through overlapping processes rather than as two cleanly separated constructions.

The point is not that the Qur'an should have been written as a medical textbook. It plainly was not attempting to be one. The point is that a theological meditation expressed through observable stages should not be converted into a modern laboratory report and then offered as proof of supernatural authorship.

The proper test

Ask one question whenever a scientific miracle is proposed:

Did the passage communicate the scientific discovery before science discovered it, or did the discovery enable later readers to find a new meaning in the passage?

If the meaning becomes precise only after the scientific result is known, the argument is retrospective.

Flexible language will naturally survive changes in scientific understanding because readers can explore new applications. That may make a text enduring. It does not make every later correspondence miraculous.

Nor is compatibility enough. Ancient people knew that water was indispensable to life, that children developed in the womb and that the heavens were immense. A statement must be not merely true, but sufficiently precise, surprising and antecedently recoverable to demonstrate knowledge beyond its historical setting.

The commonly cited verses do not meet that burden.

Are numerical patterns a divine signature?

Shabir Ally has published a brochure presenting mathematical correspondences among the Qur'an's words, letters, chapters and verses. Its examples include equal word counts, the twelve occurrences of a selected form of "month", 365 occurrences of a selected form of "day", and relationships among chapter numbers, verse totals and significant words.

Ally asks whether these patterns are best explained by chance, human design or divine design. Since Muhammad recited the Qur'an over many years without modern counting tools, Ally concludes that God provides the best explanation.

This is an excellent opportunity to apply a consistent evidential standard.

Counting depends upon definitions

"Day occurs 365 times" sounds miraculous because it immediately evokes the number of days in a solar year. But the claim depends upon which forms count.

The brochure specifies "day" without suffixes. Related grammatical forms are excluded. Singulars, plurals, attached pronouns, spellings, roots and derived words may be grouped or separated according to the calculation being attempted.

The same problem affects paired word counts. Does one count an exact written form, a lemma, every inflection or every derivative from the root? Are definite articles included? Are singular and plural forms combined? A total is meaningless until the rule producing it has been fixed.

The danger is obvious. If the rule is chosen after the numbers are inspected, the pattern partly reflects the selection process. Include the forms which produce the attractive result; exclude those which disturb it.

This does not prove dishonesty. Human beings are exceptionally good at noticing correspondences once large quantities of data are available. That is why a genuine statistical test defines its method before searching and reports failures as well as successes.

One double correspondence is not double

The brochure's largest calculation begins with two totals:

  • the 114 chapter numbers add to 6,555;
  • the selected verse-numbering system contains 6,236 verses.

It then adds each chapter number to that chapter's verse total. Fifty-seven results are even and fifty-seven odd. The even results add to 6,236, while the odd results add to 6,555.

The two final sums are presented as a double correspondence. But together all the results must total:

6,236 + 6,555 = 12,791.

Once one group has been shown to total 6,236, the other must total 6,555. The second equality is not an independent miracle. It is mathematically forced by the first.

The remaining pattern may be interesting, but "interesting" is not the same as "designed by God". Researchers were free to examine odd and even numbers, sums, products, halves, word positions, chapter positions, repeated names, letters and many other relationships. When enough operations are tried on a large dataset, apparently meaningful coincidences will emerge.

The brochure never establishes how many unsuccessful relationships were examined before the successful ones were selected. Without that information, no responsible probability can be assigned to the result.

The 1924 problem

The most revealing feature is Ally's own explanation of the text being counted.

He acknowledges that written verse numbering developed over time, that different numbering systems existed and that his patterns belong to the form represented by the widely circulated 1924 Cairo edition. He then concludes that God supervised the historical process until this final arrangement emerged.

That is a theological interpretation of history. It is not independent evidence for it.

The mathematical claim begins with a particular edition and counting tradition, searches that form for patterns, then uses the discovered patterns to authenticate the form with which it began. Yet other recognised systems divide the same Qur'anic wording into different numbers of verses. The Kūfan count used in the Cairo edition produces 6,236; other traditional counts produce other totals.

A pattern built from 6,236 cannot prove that 6,236 is the divinely intended numbering. It presupposes the very arrangement it claims to verify.

Nor does the Qur'an reveal the counting algorithm. Nothing in the text tells readers which grammatical forms to include, which numbers to add, which results to divide or which coincidences carry theological meaning. This is not comparable to an error-checking code whose rules are specified before transmission. It is pattern hunting after transmission.

Numbers can decorate an argument. They cannot convert a selected modern arrangement into revelation.

Does perfect preservation prove a miracle?

The preservation of the Qur'an is important historical evidence. Its text did not suddenly appear many centuries after Muhammad. Early manuscripts and an early standardised consonantal tradition provide substantial evidence that the received Qur'an is rooted close to Islam's beginnings.

Christians should concede that without reluctance. We do not need a late and hopelessly lost Qur'an in order to reject Islam.

But preservation and inspiration answer different questions:

  • Preservation asks: do we substantially possess what the original community transmitted?
  • Inspiration asks: did those words come from God?

A false statement may be copied perfectly. A human book may be transmitted with extraordinary care. Neither achievement turns its author into a prophet.

The argument becomes weaker still when popular rhetoric shifts between definitions. "Not one letter has changed" suggests the absence of textual plurality or historical decision. More informed explanations appeal to authorised readings, early standardisation, scribal conventions and divine providence operating through the entire process.

That may be a defensible doctrine of providential preservation. But it is the same broad category Muslims often refuse to allow Christians. If God can preserve the Qur'an through real human transmission, standardisation and recognised plurality, the presence of human transmission and manuscript variants cannot automatically prove that the Bible was corrupted.

One standard must govern both books.

Even if the strongest Muslim account of Qur'anic preservation were granted in full, the decisive question would remain untouched:

Why believe that the message so carefully preserved was true when first proclaimed?

Preservation cannot answer that question.

Did the Qur'an predict the Roman victory?

The strongest commonly cited Qur'anic prophecy deserves better treatment than the numerical claims.

Surah 30 announces:

"The Romans have been defeated In the nearer land, and they, after their defeat will be victorious Within ten years—Allah's is the command in the former case and in the latter—and in that day believers will rejoice" (Surah 30:2–4, Pickthall).

The Arabic expression rendered "within ten years" traditionally denotes a small number of years, commonly explained as three to nine. The standard Muslim chronology places the passage after severe Byzantine defeats by the Persian Empire. The emperor Heraclius subsequently reversed Byzantine fortunes and achieved remarkable victories.

Under that chronology, the passage is a genuine prediction and should be acknowledged as such. It is considerably more relevant to the question of revelation than discovering that selected forms of "day" can be counted to 365.

How much does it prove?

The prediction is specific enough to deserve attention, but its evidential force must still be proportionate.

First, its precise pre-fulfilment date rests principally upon the Islamic historical tradition. We possess early evidence for the Qur'anic text as a whole, but not a dated manuscript proving exactly when those particular words entered public circulation relative to each stage of Heraclius' recovery.

Secondly, the prophecy predicts a reversal in an existing war between two enduring empires. At the depth of Byzantine humiliation that reversal may have looked unlikely, but it was not an event outside every natural possibility. Empires counterattack; military fortunes change.

Thirdly, "victory" can be associated with different points in a recovery extending over several campaigns. The dating must therefore be stated carefully rather than adjusted around whichever event produces the desired interval.

Nevertheless, we need not explain the passage away. Let the strongest Muslim chronology stand. A successful geopolitical prediction is evidence to be weighed.

But it does not follow that every claim in the Qur'an is therefore revealed by God. Human beings sometimes make accurate predictions. The evidential force depends upon specificity, improbability, secure prior publication and repeated reliability. One successful prediction cannot carry an entire theology while the book contradicts historically established revelation concerning Christ.

The Bible itself forbids judging a prophet by an isolated sign alone. Even a sign must be tested alongside the prophet's message and fidelity to God's prior revelation (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). Truth does not contradict truth.

The Roman prediction is the strongest evidence considered so far. It deserves weight. It does not bear the weight of Islam.

Could Muhammad have produced the Qur'an?

Muslim apologetics frequently describes Muhammad as an illiterate man incapable of producing the Qur'an by natural means. Surah 7:157 calls him the ummī prophet, translated by Pickthall as one "who can neither read nor write".

The traditional understanding of Muhammad as unlettered is ancient and should not be dismissed. Yet the precise force of ummī has been debated. It may also relate to being outside the communities possessing earlier Scripture—a gentile or scripturally untaught prophet. The word alone does not provide a modern educational biography.

Even granting that Muhammad could neither read nor write, the conclusion still does not follow.

Illiteracy is not inability to speak, remember, preach or compose orally. Muhammad lived within an oral culture. The Qur'an emerged through recitations delivered across approximately twenty-three years in changing circumstances. It was not presented as a complete bound volume written by Muhammad in a single sitting.

Nor does lack of literacy entail isolation from ideas. Arabia belonged to the wider world of late antiquity. Jewish, Christian and other religious narratives circulated through preaching, conversation, trade, worship and oral retelling. A person need not read a Syriac manuscript to encounter a story carried by people.

None of this proves that Muhammad consciously fabricated the Qur'an. Sincerity, unusual ability, religious experience, oral composition and interaction with an inherited narrative world can operate together. There are more human possibilities than either deliberate fraud or verbal revelation from God.

The Muslim argument presents a false choice when it asks, "How could an illiterate man have written this book?" He did not need to sit alone and write the modern codex. The historical claim is that he recited material over many years, while followers remembered, wrote, arranged and transmitted it.

That is extraordinary history. It is not inexplicable human history.

What about the Qur'an's power to transform lives?

The Qur'an has inspired devotion, sacrifice, moral reform, memorisation and community across centuries. Many Muslims testify that its recitation produces reverence, peace, conviction or fear of God.

Those experiences should not be ridiculed. People are not machines, and the power of a text cannot be measured only by propositions abstracted from its worshipping community.

But transformative power does not uniquely identify divine revelation.

Other religions transform lives. Political ideologies create disciplined communities. Great literature gives readers courage, consolation and moral vision. People have abandoned destructive behaviour through beliefs which cannot all be simultaneously true.

An experience may show that a book possesses power over the person experiencing it. It does not, by itself, show that every claim in the book corresponds to reality.

The apostles did not ground the gospel merely upon the fact that it moved them. They proclaimed events:

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).

Christian faith certainly transforms lives, but its truth does not rest upon transformation alone. It rests upon who Christ is and what God did in public history through His death and resurrection.

Experience must answer to truth. Truth cannot be inferred simply from the strength of experience.

Do the arguments become stronger together?

The informed Muslim may object that none of these signs was intended to stand alone. Literary inimitability, prophecy, preservation, structure, Muhammad's circumstances and the Qur'an's effects reinforce one another. A cumulative case should not be defeated by demanding that every strand prove divine revelation independently.

That principle is correct. Cumulative arguments are legitimate. Several modest but independent pieces of evidence may together support a conclusion more strongly than any one could alone.

But accumulation does not automatically create strength. The strands must be genuine, relevant and sufficiently independent.

  • Literary supremacy is judged within a tradition already confessing the book's supremacy.
  • Scientific precision is often produced by interpreting flexible language after the discovery.
  • Numerical patterns arise through selective rules applied to a chosen edition.
  • Those patterns are then used to authenticate the edition they presuppose.
  • Preservation shows continuity with an early text, not divine authorship.
  • Muhammad's lack of formal learning does not eliminate oral human composition.
  • Transformation demonstrates influence, not unique truth.

These arguments repeatedly depend upon the conclusion they are meant to prove. The Qur'an is treated as divine, therefore its beauty is miraculous, its ambiguities contain science, its numerical coincidences are intentional, its historical transmission was providential and its effects are signs of God. Those claims are then returned as evidence that the Qur'an is divine.

Circular claims do not become independent by being placed side by side.

The Roman prediction is different. It possesses some external evidential value and deserves corresponding weight. Yet one limited historical prediction cannot overcome the wider collision with the earlier revelation Islam claims to confirm.

The Qur'an must answer the Gospel

Islam does not arrive in an empty religious landscape. It claims continuity with Abraham, Moses, the prophets and Jesus. It calls the Torah and Gospel revelations from God and presents itself as confirming what came before.

That creates a test more objective than literary admiration or number patterns.

Does the Qur'an faithfully account for the earlier revelation and the historical Jesus?

The preceding articles have established the conflict:

  • The Gospels identify Jesus within the divine identity; the Qur'an denies His divine Sonship.
  • The crucifixion is embedded in the earliest Christian proclamation and established by historical evidence; the Qur'an denies that Jesus was killed and crucified.
  • The apostolic Gospel announces Christ's death for sins and bodily resurrection; Islam offers no historical alternative Gospel containing its account.
  • The Qur'an appeals to the Torah and Gospel connected with Jews and Christians, yet contradicts the Scriptures their geographically dispersed communities possessed before Muhammad.

These are not obscure manuscript variations. They concern the identity and work of Christ at the centre of the biblical revelation.

No claim of eloquence can make two contradictory accounts simultaneously true. No numerical correspondence can reverse a crucifixion. No doctrine of preservation can transform a seventh-century denial into first-century testimony.

If the Qur'an came from the God who gave the Gospel, it should explain and confirm that Gospel better than a natural historical account explains the Qur'an.

It does not.

The better explanation

Two broad explanations now stand before us.

The Islamic explanation

God revealed His final speech to Muhammad. Its language is superhuman, its contents include signs of knowledge unavailable to its messenger, its structure bears divine design, its prediction was fulfilled, its text was providentially protected and its power confirms its origin. Apparent contradictions with the Gospel result from Christian corruption or misunderstanding.

The historical explanation

The Qur'an emerged through the preaching of a gifted and forceful religious leader within the Jewish, Christian and Arabian world of late antiquity. Its distinctive language, urgent monotheism and eschatological warning gave it power. Its followers preserved and standardised it with great care. Later readers, already convinced of its divine origin, discovered modern science in flexible expressions, mathematical intention in selected patterns and supernatural proof in the book's historical success.

Which explanation accounts for more of the evidence with fewer unsupported assumptions?

The historical explanation permits the Qur'an to be impressive without declaring every impressive feature miraculous. It explains why scientific meanings follow scientific discoveries, why numerical claims depend upon selected conventions, why preservation demonstrates transmission rather than truth, and why Islamic stories and arguments belong recognisably to the religious world in which the movement arose.

Most importantly, it explains why the Qur'an can honour Jesus while contradicting the earlier sources concerning His identity and death. It encountered Christian claims, accepted some, rejected others and recast Jesus within its own prophetic framework.

The Islamic explanation must do far more. It must establish divine authorship through criteria which repeatedly depend upon prior faith, then explain why God's final revelation contradicts the publicly transmitted Gospel it claims to confirm.

That is not the explanation with greater cumulative power. It is the explanation carrying the greater cumulative burden.

The verdict

Is the Qur'an a miracle?

It is a remarkable book. It possesses literary force, historical influence and a deeply rooted place in the lives of Muslims. Its early transmission deserves serious study. The Roman prediction deserves more respect than the easy dismissals sometimes offered by Christian polemicists.

But remarkable is not miraculous.

The literary challenge has no independent criterion by which a successful imitation could be recognised. Scientific miracles acquire their precision retrospectively. Numerical miracles depend upon selective counting and a textual arrangement they then claim to authenticate. Preservation does not prove inspiration. Illiteracy does not exclude oral composition. Transformation is not unique to truth.

When these arguments are examined, the supposed miracle repeatedly retreats into an interpretation available only after the Qur'an has already been accepted as God's word.

The burden of proof has not been discharged.

Islam cannot answer the historical Gospel by pointing to the beauty of its denial. It cannot overturn apostolic testimony through arithmetic performed upon a modern edition. It cannot use careful transmission as proof that the transmitted message came from heaven.

The decisive question is not whether the Qur'an can astonish those who believe it. The decisive question is whether it tells the truth about God and Christ.

On that question, the evidence is not suspended between two equal possibilities. The Gospel stands within the revelation promised beforehand, proclaimed by eyewitnesses, rooted in public events and preserved across communities centuries before Islam. It declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, and that He rose from the dead.

The Qur'an arrives later and says otherwise.

Beauty cannot turn contradiction into confirmation. Preservation cannot turn error into revelation. A pattern cannot make the later witness older than the evidence.

The Qur'an does not fail because it lacks influence.

It fails because, where the two revelations collide, it does not tell the truth about Christ.

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Primary sources and further reading