The Computer did it!  

‘How was your day?’ asked Mrs. Smith as her husband came in from work. ‘Terrible,’ he replied, ‘the computer broke down and we all had to think!’ 

In reality it’s no laughing matter. It’s serious business. The computer is an important piece of equipment for any modern office. People rely on it so much that they cannot imagine life without it. Computers are easy to use, they can deal with much more information in a much shorter time than humans and they make tedious work more tolerable.

There are, however some pitfalls. People sometimes forget that the computer can only do the work it is instructed to do. Any data a computer prints should not automatically be taken as sound and true. The information still has to be checked. Computers should not be trusted too much that we forget to think!

Computers are useful machines, which should be manipulated to make-work easy for us. When the figures they produce are used to influence what people should believe, they are dangerous. When someone accepts computer-generated information as infallible they can become a target for exploitation. Long lists of figures can be used to orchestrate how people think. Most of the information can only be checked by another computer and if it provided as ‘evidence’ we need independent research to show that it is in fact true.

In his book “ The Computer Speaks: God’s Message to the World’, published in 1981 Dr. Rashad Khalifa writes: ‘ The data reported in this book represents the Quran’s proof that: It is God’s message to the world; and that it has been perfectly preserved.’

Most people who have read and studied the Quran do not need testimony other than the Quran itself to show that it is from God and that He has safeguarded His own book. There is enough proof within its text to consolidate belief. Any other evidence is just confirmation which believer already accepts as true.

When Dr. Rashad Khalifa discovered the ‘ultimate proof’ by analysing the Quran text with the use of a computer his breakthrough was welcomed by many. But if they had waited a few years before accepting his work as irrefutable proof they would have realized that his motives were to change, that is, if they had not been insidious from the beginning. He used his ‘ computer printouts’ not only to ‘ prove’ that the Quran had ‘Miraculous formula’ but also to launch his claim as messenger of God. However his ‘computer data’ had some basic flaws.

The conclusion of Dr. Khalifa’s research is that when certain words and/or letters are counted, the number ‘19’ is the common denominator. This number is the basic for the Quranic formula. Looking at his work, especially information relating to sura 9, it is apparent that his calculations are not consistent. Certain verses have been counted in wrong order, and the word ‘God’ has been counted wrongly in sura 9-15. Verses, which he accepted as ‘overwhelming evidence’, are dismissed later in later edition of his translation of the Quran.

The discrepancies found within Dr. Rashad Khalifa’s publications and his two translations of the Quran are enough to doubt the authenticity of his work. God says in the Quran:
‘Why do they not study the Quran carefully. Had it been from any other than God, they would found many contradictions therein.’ Sura 4-82.
 

Dr. Khalifa’s work is not inspired by God, and it contains too many discrepancies, which leave an uneasy feeling.