(I translated my friend's article, which was written in Turkish, into English using artificial intelligence)
"Have you ever deeply contemplated the story of the bellowing calf statue found in Surahs Taha and Araf?
The main protagonists of the story are the Children of Israel. They opposed Pharaoh's claims of being the supreme lord (79:24) and his tyranny, followed the message of Tawhid (Oneness of God) brought by Allah's messengers Moses and Aaron (i.e., followed the walking revelation), and were therefore saved from Pharaoh and his chieftains (20:77-80) – the Children of Israel who were on the right path...
When Moses left his community with his brother Aaron and went to Mount Tur, where he had an appointment with Allah (7:142 in some narrations, though 7:123 is mentioned in the text, check context), he learned that Allah had thoroughly tested the Children of Israel and that they had been led astray by an individual named Samiri (20:85), and he became enraged. Upon his return, he asked his people:
"O my people! Did not your Lord make you a good promise? Did the time seem too long to you? Or did you desire that wrath from your Lord should descend upon you, so you broke your promise to me?" (20:86)
The community replied:
"We did not break our promise to you of our own accord. We were made to carry the burdens of the people's ornaments, and we cast them, and thus Samiri produced something. So Samiri brought out for them a calf, a mere body, which gave a lowing sound. And they said, 'This is your god and the god of Moses, but Moses forgot.'" (20:87-88)
The bellowing calf statue was a test for the Children of Israel. (20:85) It appears that the fact this statue was not ordinary and produced a bellowing sound was made a means of trial for the Children of Israel. The deviation here was not in witnessing the calf statue bellowing—that is, witnessing the extraordinary. In other words, the deviation was not in believing the miracle itself, what the eye saw and the ear heard, but in its perception, in Samiri introducing the statue to the community as "their god and the god of Moses," and in the community not seeing anything contrary to the teachings of Moses and Aaron in this and blindly believing it.
Undoubtedly, Samiri could have looked at this statue and introduced it to the community with words like these:
"This bellowing calf statue is an indication that your Lord Allah, who saved you from Pharaoh's oppression and blessed you, can make a statue bellow. Do not become servants to the statue just because you witnessed an extraordinary feature, but to Allah, who is not in need of anything, including the physical laws He Himself created."
Indeed, from the expression "Samiri brought out a statue FOR THEM" in the community's reply to Moses in the verse, we understand that not everyone in the community followed Samiri's words, and some, despite witnessing the calf statue bellow, did not take it as a god.
In the continuation of the event, after his anger and disappointment somewhat subsided, Moses asked Samiri the reason behind his actions (20:95), and Samiri's answer was:
"I saw what they did not see, so I took a handful [of dust] from the track of the messenger and threw it. Thus my soul prompted me." (20:96)
The word of Allah informs us:
Indeed, in their stories, there is a lesson for those of understanding. Never was the Qur'an a narration invented, but a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of all things and guidance and mercy for a people who believe. (12:111)
The stories in the Quran are certainly not there just for the sake of it. These stories are in the Book because humans are always humans, and their weaknesses and mistakes are always similar.
Let's return to the present day.
There is a group, known as the "19ers," who express their pursuit of a pure intention, such as dedicating religion solely to Allah, and who have made some commendable efforts in this regard, as you know. This group follows the mathematical system found in the Quran, which was revealed in 1974 by an Egyptian biochemist/cleric named Rashad Khalifa and caused controversy in the Islamic world. Rashad Khalifa, who is considered a "messenger" by the 19ers today, claimed that verses 128 and 129 of Surah At-Tawbah were false on the grounds that they disrupted the mathematical order of the 19 system in the Quran, and he introduced this 19 system, of which he was the first witness, to the whole world with these words:
"Allah protects the Quran with the 19 system."
Seeing this flawed proposition, and the "guidance" marketed alongside it to those who witnessed the miracle, it is possible to understand on what grounds those two verses are considered "false verses" by the 19ers. Because if the proposition "Allah protects the Quran with 19" is true, then automatically the verses that disrupt the 19 system are not from the Quran, and verses 9:128-129 become unprotected, later-added false verses.
As someone who recently witnessed the existence of this mathematical system in the Quran (although I was recently accused by the 19ers of not appreciating the miracle "properly" because I did not consider those two verses false), I have come to the conclusion that what befits a believer is not to accept Rashad Khalifa's proposition without questioning, but to question whether it is true by using the intellect that Allah wants us to use as a tool.
Before moving on to the arguments brought by the 19ers to support themselves, let's briefly see why Rashad Khalifa's "guidance" that "Allah protects the Quran with the 19 system" is logically contradictory and flawed.
The verses regarding the protection of the Zikr (Reminder/Quran) are as follows:
Indeed, it is We who sent down the Zikr/Quran, and indeed, We will be its guardian. (15:9)
And they disbelieved in the Zikr/Quran when it came to them. And indeed, it is a mighty Book. Falsehood cannot approach it from before it or from behind it. [It is] a revelation from a [Lord who is] Wise and Praiseworthy. (41:41-42)
What we understand by protection is that it is not possible to add or remove verses from the Zikr.
The rational answer to the question "Does Allah protect the Quran with the 19 system?" should be "no." Why?
Because, according to the 19ers' claim, the mathematical system was able to identify those two verses as false, meaning it protected the Quran against addition. However, what they overlook is that for us to speak of the protection of 19, 19 must also work against the deletion of verses.
The main idea of the fallacious counter-argument put forward by the 19ers amidst a flurry of words to this finding is:
"If even a single verse had been deleted in the past from the part containing the 19 miracle, the 19 miracle would not exist."
While the above proposition is true, this does not point to the protectiveness of 19; rather, it indicates that the function of the 19 system is to bear witness to the fact that the Zikr has been protected by Allah Himself. Because if Allah had not personally protected the Quran before the date the 19 system was revealed, and if, as the 19ers claim, deletion-tampering had been possible just like the alleged addition-tampering, we would neither be able to bring back the deleted verses nor reach the 19 system. In summary, for over 1000 years, 19 has had no function against deletion. In this case, it is Allah Himself who protects the Zikr (protection = preventing addition and deletion), and He does this through method(s) unknown to us. While Allah has promised to protect the Zikr, and His promise is true, and moreover, He has clearly made us witness His own protection through the 19 system, it is unthinkable that He would protect the Zikr against verse deletion but not against verse addition. Besides, just like deleting verses, adding verses is also tampering. In fact, adding verses is a more significant tampering than deleting. Because considering someone else's words as Allah's words involves an element of shirk (polytheism), such as falsely attributing things to Allah.
For the situation to be as the 19ers suggest means that from the Marwanid era, which (allegedly) burned the original Quran containing all verses except those two, until the 1970s when the 19 miracle was noticed, humanity did not have such a thing as a "protected Zikr." What is even more grave is that if this were the case, it would mean that Allah did not keep His promise and deceived the people who were addressed by His message through the Quran during these hundreds of years, that He lied to them. (God forbid!)
The addressee of the Quran is each individual. According to the absurd situation mentioned above, it is a grave situation both for a believer who lived in the 1700s and read the mushaf in his hand "thinking"(!) it was the protected Zikr, and for us who look back and witness that "the Zikr was not protected" during this past period, meaning "Allah did not keep His promise" (God forbid).
Trust in Allah and His word is one of the most important elements of religion. If this trust is destroyed, everything becomes relative. We always believe, thanks to our trust in Allah's promise, that Allah will admit the people of Paradise to Paradise and the people of Hell to Hell, that He will punish Iblis with Hell, that virtuous behavior will be rewarded, that evil and immorality will not go unpunished, and (even if some hadiths claim the Quran is incomplete or has additions, we don't care) that the Book is protected, even before the 19 system emerged. If this trust is already an empty trust, then no matter how much we observe Allah's commands and prohibitions, no matter how good and moral a person we are, everything can go to waste. Evil can be rewarded, and good can be punished...
Now let's briefly look at the arguments put forward by the 19er group and our criticisms of them.
Argument of the 19ers:
Those who witness 19 but do not reject those two verses because they do not appreciate the miracle "properly" are not believing in the testimony of Allah's mathematical system but in the erroneous majority, that is, in the testimony of the headcount of those who corrupted religion with fabricated hadiths and sectarian teachings, in their mushaf.
Objection - Criticism:
No, that's not relevant at all. The trust here is not in the faithfulness of the religious corrupters in preserving the Quranic mushaf, but in Allah's promise. The satanic people who degenerated religion and fabricated hadiths in the name of the prophet would have also tampered with the Zikr if the situation had been in their initiative. Similarly, if these polytheistic-minded, diseased people could have, they would have found a way to kill Prophet Muhammad before he completed his mission. But they could not tamper despite Allah's promise of protection. Besides, claiming that the Zikr could be tampered with (2 verses could be added) despite Allah is to make the power and will of the tamperers superior to Allah's. Allah does not promise to protect the hadiths, but He promises to protect the Zikr. In this case, it is extremely absurd to claim that additions (tampering) can be made to the Zikr, which Allah promised to protect, by citing the tampering done through hadiths.
Prophet Muhammad, during his lifetime, as we all know, was the walking Quran. The verses regarding his protection are similar to the verses presented above regarding the protection of the Zikr/Quran:
Except whom He has approved of messengers, and indeed, He sends before him and behind him observers. (72:27)
O Messenger, announce that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And Allah will protect you from the people. Indeed, Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. (5:67)
Just as our Prophet, who conveyed what was revealed to him in a society with thousands of polytheists, i.e., the walking Quran, was protected by Allah and completed his prophetic mission, the task of conveying Allah's message to people, without omission; after his death, the Quran, which is under the direct protection of Allah despite polytheists, hypocrites, and disbelievers, took over this task of conveying the message completely.
Furthermore, to be able to accuse someone of believing in the mushaf that the majority believes in, there must be a mushaf that a minority believes in. In other words, to make this claim, there must be "at least one" mushaf in the world that has remained the mushaf of a minority for 1400 years, containing all the verses except 9:128-129. Zero is not a minority, it is nothing.
Since there is no mushaf in the world that contains all the verses except verses 128-129 of Surah At-Tawbah, the 19ers resort to hadiths to realize this "imaginary" mushaf. They take the hadith of Ubayy b. Ka'b, who said that those two verses were not from the Quran, as a basis and present Ubayy b. Ka'b's "imaginary mushaf" as evidence.
However, in the pool of contradictory hadiths, there is also a hadith from Ubayy b. Ka'b stating that verses 128-129 of Surah At-Tawbah were the last verses revealed. Their selection of hadiths from the hadith pool that confirm the imaginary mushaf in their minds is no different from what the Sunnis, whom the 19ers criticize, do. In fact, this situation is even more contradictory and inconsistent.
Moreover, as stated before, with this logic, the source accessible to people for over a thousand years would be "unprotected Zikr" not "protected Zikr," which is impossible both because it slanders Allah by claiming He did not keep His promise, and because it implies that Allah's power, i.e., His ability to realize what He wills, may not be possible.
Argument of the 19ers:
"It is not true that '19 is not a protection system.' Because those who accept the 19 miracle without discarding those two verses are saying, 'Proposition 1: Allah promises to protect the Quran perfectly. Proposition 2: Nineteen is not the Quran's protection system. Inference: If there were additions to the mushaf, the Quran would have been unprotected for centuries.' However, the second proposition in the above discussion (that 19 is not a protection system) is refuted by the example that corrected the spelling of the word 'Bastata' in verse 7:69, which means the second proposition is flawed."
Objection - Criticism:
No, again, this is irrelevant. Because not even a spelling mistake, let alone the use of synonymous words, means that the Zikr is not protected.
Protection of the Zikr = Protection of the Message
A spelling mistake is related to spelling, not the message. While even the use of synonymous words is not related to the message, a spelling mistake certainly cannot be. Those who do not know Arabic access Allah's Zikr, His message, through translations. But the use of synonymous words by translators (as long as they do not distort the meaning of the words) does not prevent the message from being received correctly, does it?
Just as the translation of the word "baqara" in 2:67 as "heifer" by Edip Yüksel, "cow" by Yaşar Nuri, or "cattle" by someone else does not prevent us from being direct addressees of Allah's Zikr, His message, spelling differences between mushafs, or even the use of synonymous words, NEVER mean that the Zikr is unprotected and that Allah has not been faithful to His promise for 1400 years. However, those two verses considered false by the 19ers contain a message, meaning they are Zikr.
Argument of the 19ers:
If you add those two verses, there will be no such thing as the 19 system. In this case, you will either accept the 19 system and discard those two verses, or you will reject the 19 system. You cannot take a middle path between these two.
Objection - Criticism:
No. This is also an absurd argument. We have seen before with proofs that the duty of the 19 system is not to protect the Zikr, but to bear witness that Allah Himself protects the Zikr. The moment we witness this system once, we become equal with the 19ers in terms of appreciating the 19 system. What they see and what we see when we look at the system without 9:128-9 is the same. When looking not at the Zikr but at the 19 system, we too see the count of the word "Allah" as 2698, not 2699.
The word "Allah" does not appear 2698 (142x19) times in the Quran, but in the 19 system, which is impossible for humans to fabricate and which bears witness to the Quran's protection by Allah Himself, the word "Allah" appears 2698 (142x19) times.
Furthermore, we also witness here that the 19ers have failed to properly grasp not only the reality of Allah's promise being true, but also the nature of miracles and therefore the 19 miracle.
Miracles, which render humans helpless before the power of Allah, are sent only by Allah, unlike the pantheistic or deistic god figures who are servants of the laws and order they created. They are, as it were, indicators that Allah is not obliged to obey the laws He Himself created and has the power to suspend them even for a while. The miracles in the Quran have purposes such as testing and bearing witness to Allah's Omnipotence. Allah's breaking His own law by resurrecting the dead through Jesus, His suspending the laws of physics for a temporary period to prevent Abraham from being burned by fire, His ability to create a tree that does not burn in the midst of Hell, His making the calf statue bellow within His own permission to test the Children of Israel, the Companions of the Cave sleeping in a cave for many years defying time, and the creation of Jesus or Adam without sexuality are all instances where we are made to witness, albeit briefly, the reality that Allah is not bound by the order and system He established. Miracle deniers, while turning away from miracles, are actually turning away from the reality that Allah is All-Powerful and Self-Sufficient. Saying "Can there be a tree that doesn't burn in the midst of Hell? So this Quran is the myths of the ancients" and saying "Can there be a tree that doesn't burn in the midst of Hell? So the fire of Hell is a symbol" despite clear verses about the reality of Hell's fire and torment, are just different types of turning away from the miracle, that is, from Allah being the Absolute Omnipotent. Despite verse 74:31 clearly stating that the number 19 is a means of trial, and despite Allah, who promised to protect the Zikr, being the one whose promise is true, considering those two verses false on the grounds that they "do not fit the mathematical order" must be a characteristic of those who cannot appreciate miracles and Allah's promise and power "properly."
If the 19ers believe that Allah, by demonstrating His power to "break" the physical laws/existing order of the universe He owns, did not let the fire burn Prophet Abraham, it is hoped that they will also realize that by discarding those two verses on the grounds that Allah "broke" the mathematical order, which is the system of His own book, the Quran, they themselves fall into the position of miracle deniers...
Argument of the 19ers:
Rashad's translation, "The Final Testament," which includes the Arabic text, does not contain 9:128-129. This translation, including the Arabic text, has entered the homes of thousands of people living in many countries around the world since 1989 and has been distributed to thousands of libraries in America and Canada. If Allah's protection of the Zikr means the protection of the mushaf, why do these mushafs we mentioned above, which lack 9:128 and 129, exist in the world today?
Objection - Criticism:
The only mushaf that contains all the verses but lacks verses 128-129 of Surah At-Tawbah (i.e., has been tampered with without suffering a historical loss) is the mushaf mentioned above by the 19ers. (Edip Yüksel's translation titled "Mesaj" is also an extension of this.) This corresponds to the period after 1974, i.e., after the emergence of the 19 system. The mushaf that Rashad Khalifa himself transferred to his computer and through which he witnessed the 19 system contains those two verses.
In an age where the Quran and its hundreds of different translations are so easily accessible, those who have full confidence that Allah's promise will never fail and that His power will always prevail over all tamperers can know that this book, whose name "The Final Testament" resembles tampered holy books (Torah and Bible), is not the Quran. The 19ers, who ask those who write books under the name "The Legend of 19" to refute the 19 system if they couldn't find another book title, should also reflect on the name Rashad gave to this book which does not contain verses 128-129 of Surah At-Tawbah.
Furthermore, someone else could also market a book containing only one surah of the Quran as the Quran, but this would not make it the Quran.
Since we are on the subject, let's all witness how Rashad Khalifa, who claimed messengership, twisted the Quranic verses in his book "The Final Testament":
Rashad's translation of Surah Al-Baqarah verse 30:
Satan: A Temporary "god"
Recall that your Lord said to the angels, "I am placing a representative (a temporary god) on Earth." They said, "Will You place therein one who will spread evil therein and shed blood, while we sing Your praises, glorify You, and uphold Your absolute authority?" He said, "I know what you do not know."
Meaning, according to Rashad, when Allah said He would appoint a khalifa-representative, He was saying He would appoint Satan as a khalifa on Earth (!!!)
Argument of the 19ers:
"In the false verse 9:128, translated as 'Indeed, there has come to you a noble messenger from among yourselves. Grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind (rauf) and merciful (rahim),' the attribute of Allah, Rahim (Merciful), is attributed to the prophet. This situation is proof that the verse is false."
Objection - Criticism:
Innahu kāna farīqun min 'ibādī yaqūlūna rabbanā āmannā faghfir lanā warḥamnā wa anta khayru ar-rāḥimīn.
"Indeed, a party of My servants used to say, 'Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive us and have mercy upon us, and You are the best of the merciful.' Yet you took them in mockery, so much so that they made you forget My remembrance/My Quran. And you used to laugh at them." (23:109-110)
In this verse, it is stated that Allah is the best of the merciful (râhimîn), and there are many verses in the Quran stating that Allah is the most merciful of the merciful, the best of the merciful. Furthermore, it is possible to find verses where some other attributes of Allah are also used for His servants. For example:
"My Lord is Rich (Ghaniyy), Generous (Karîm)!" (27:40) - Used for Allah -
"And We had already tried before them the people of Pharaoh, and there came to them a noble (karîm) messenger." (44/17) - Used for Prophet Moses
"Allah is Forgiving, Forbearing (Halîm)!" (2:225) - Used for Allah
"Indeed, Abraham was compassionate and forbearing (halîm)!" (9:114) - Used for Prophet Abraham
Moreover, this claim of the 19ers resembles Hallaj, who, starting from the premise 'prostration is not made to anyone other than Allah,' praised Iblis between the lines by saying "Iblis's refusal to prostrate to Adam was to declare Allah's sanctity, to show that prostration should not be made to anyone other than Him..." and introduced absurd views into the religion of Islam. And this, despite our clear knowledge from the verses that the factor behind Satan's refusal to prostrate was his statement, "You created me from fire, and him You created from clay; I am better than him."
The 19ers say the attribute "Rahim" cannot be given to a human, but then they unfortunately make the tamperers victorious over Allah and liberally distribute many of Allah's attributes, like "Jabbâr" (The Compeller, who enforces what He wills when He wills), to humans between the lines.
Argument of the 19ers:
Friends who can neither deny the 19 system nor digest its testimony claim that the number 19 has nothing to do with the protection of the Quran. They should ask themselves this: How do you know that a few verses related to the protection of the Quran were not inserted later? History and hadith books are full of smoke indicating many disputes over the Quran. It is even claimed that the first Quranic manuscripts were lost and that the first original manuscript was burned by Marwan. This being the case, can they prove that the verses related to the protection of the Quran were not themselves fabricated? In an era when people were so skilled in the industry of lies that they could fabricate hundreds of thousands of hadiths, why wouldn't rulers fabricate verses to eliminate doubts about the Quran? They will say, "Allah would not allow this." Well, how do you know? What is your evidence? The nineteen system removes even the shadow of these doubts.
Objection - Criticism:
Believers who died before 1974 believed in the Quran despite not knowing the 19 system. Someone who questions by using their intellect and is satisfied with the hundreds of proofs presented in the Book that it is from Allah already comes to believe in Allah and the Hereafter as if they have seen them with their own eyes. Someone who has comprehended Allah properly knows that His promise is true. For someone whose reason for believing in the Quran is already "evidence," mathematics is just one of these pieces of evidence and, like the others, is part of the book. When one reconciles reason, logic, and 19, it appears that Allah's expectation that we center our trust in Him still continues exactly as before. And 19, as 74:31 also indicates, performs a duty that increases the faith of "those who believe."
Furthermore, our being made to witness that even any one of verses 15:9, 41:41-42 is the word of Allah is itself proof that neither deletion nor addition to the Zikr is possible. We are more than witness to the fact that one/all of these are the word of Allah and were not later inserted into the Zikr, thanks to the 19 system. Because if even a single verse had been deleted in the past from the part containing the 19 miracle, the 19 miracle would not exist.
If we return to the story of the bellowing calf statue with which the Children of Israel were tested, unfortunately, almost the same mistakes made there are being made by the 19ers today:
The bellowing calf statue brought forth through Samiri for Allah to test (20:85)
The 19 miracle brought forth through Rashad for Allah to test (74:31)
The ornaments and jewelry, which were the raw material of the calf statue worshipped by the Children of Israel. (According to the tampered Torah, gold earrings)
The metaphor used by the 19ers to describe the verses conforming to the 19 miracle is a "24-carat gold ring," and the foreign substances adhering to this gold ring are verses 128-129 of Surah At-Tawbah.
Samiri's introducing the miracle of the bellowing statue as the god of Moses and the Children of Israel, i.e., as Allah, instead of as a servant of Allah and an indicator of His power.
Rashad's presenting the 19 miracle as "the protector of the Quran," i.e., as Allah, instead of introducing the 19 system as, "Allah protects the Quran Himself; and with the 19 system, He makes us witness His protection."
A group that witnessed the "bellowing" of the statue but did not accept Samiri's proposition.
A group that witnessed 19 but did not accept Rashad's proposition and did not discard those two verses.
The bellowing calf statue, which broke the order in the universe (physical laws) and indicated that Allah is not obliged to comply with it.
The 19 miracle, which (allegedly) breaks the mathematical order in Allah's word, and those two verses indicating that Allah is not obliged to comply with this.
Samiri's given reason: "I saw what they did not see, so I took a handful [of dust] from the track of the messenger and threw it. Thus my soul prompted me." (20:96)
Rashad's given reason: I saw what they did not see, I took a part of the messenger's teaching (Zikr/Quran) and discarded it. I deemed it appropriate. Because it was disrupting the 19 system.
"And [remember] when Moses said to his people, 'O my people, indeed you have wronged yourselves by your taking of the calf [for worship]. So repent to your Creator and kill yourselves [the guilty ones among you]. That is best for [all of] you in the sight of your Creator.' Then He accepted your repentance. Indeed, He is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful." (2:54)
"Then they took the calf [for worship] after clear proofs had come to them. Yet We forgave them that." (4:153)
Finally, the lessons to be drawn from all this are:
1. Accepting even a single hadith from the pool of contradictory hadiths can lead to such terrible consequences. The Quran is the only untampered source of Islam, the religion with Allah, and only it can guide people correctly until the Day of Resurrection.
2. When reading Quranic verses, we should focus not on getting the verses to confirm what passes through our minds, but on forming and shaping what passes through our minds with the Quran. We should primarily consider verses in their primary meanings and observe linguistic features and then consistency with other verses before resorting to interpretation, so that the mistake made by the 19ers is not repeated.
3. All religious experiences and miracles should be passed through the filter of the Quran, not the Quran through the filter of miracles/religious experiences. Indeed, one of the most important factors causing the corruption of religion is the delusion of trying to get the Quran to confirm a religious experience, succumbing to egos, instead of evaluating extraordinary events experienced for trial according to the Quran. This is the underlying reason why even the shirk (polytheism) of Wahdat al-Wujud (Unity of Being) could be inserted into Islam.
4. Allah is not obliged to comply with the physical laws, biological laws, or mathematical order He Himself wrote. Indeed, we call the extraordinary situation that arises when He breaks these orders a miracle. In this case: The Quran with Tawbah 128-129 = Miracle."
http://antispiritualist.blogspot.com/2011/09/mucizeler-boguren-buzag-heykeli-ve-19.html
