Qur'an

The ancient Romans’ name for Yemen was “Arabia Felix,” Lucky Arabia. Located at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, its former fabulous wealth gathered from taxes on frankincense caravans built the Great Dam of Marib in the eighth century B.C. More than a thousand years later, in the mid-sixth century A.D., the dam burst, causing such devastation that Muhammad spoke of it in the Qur’an (Sura 34:16) as an example of divine retribution on unthankful greed.

Modern Yemen is the poorest country on the peninsula in spite of its strategic location, which, since the time of Muhammad, has been coveted successively by the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, Nasser’s Egypt, Marxist Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Currently, its wild, mountainous terrain has become the home of AQAP, “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and a fertile ground for terrorist training due to high unemployment and low literacy rates.

Yemen is the homeland of Osama bin Laden’s ancestors; the port of Aden was the scene of the attack on the USS Cole; many of the 9/11 hijackers as well as more than 90 of the Guantanamo detainees are Yemeni, as is the “underwear bomber” who threatened NWA flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

The thinking of Yemeni people challenges western logic. Any control of Yemen is complicated by a strong, moderate Sufi tradition in the east-central region, die-hard Shia followers in the north, and a tribalism in the highlands that cares little for religion and everything for money and land.

In the book's 19 chapters, Ram Swarup provides representative quotes from the collected traditions of Islam to illustrate the main beliefs of Muslims: faith, purification, prayer, fasting. pilgrimage, marriage, divorce, crime and punishment, jihad, paradise, hell, repentance, and many more.

The introduction states: "Muslim theologians make no distinction between the Quran and the Hadiths. Both are considered works of revelation or inspiration.... In the Quran Allah speaks through Mohammad; in the Sunnah he acts though Mohammad....The Quran cannot be understood without the aid of the Hadith, for every Quranic verse has a context which only the Hadith provide."

Ricoldo, a 14th century Dominican monk, studied the Qur'an in Arabic before refuting it. In 1542 Martin Luther translated the Confutatio Alcorani from Latin into German. In 2002 Thomas Pfotenhauer translated Luther's German version of Ricoldo's book and added copious notes.

Ricoldo went to Baghdad in order to present the case for Christianity to the Muslim intellectuals. Overwhelmed and depressed by the task, he wrote the Confutatio to persuade those misled by the Qur'an to return to the true God. Martin Luther shared Ricoldo's desire to recover the straying. Luther asked, "How is one to proceed in an attempt at converting these Muslims?" If Muslims could not be converted, Luther at least wanted Ricoldo's book to guard Christians against the teachings of Muhammad.

In seventeen chapters Ricoldo attacks the authenticity, accuracy, and ability of the Qur'an to reflect either the will or the gospel of God.

Pfotenhauer's notes balance some of the statements of Ricoldo and Luther with portions of the Qur'an and Hadith.

See attachment below to read a summary of each chapter in the book.