title: Tricia Leigh Fisher

text: Fisher made her debut in the 1985 crime drama "Stick", starring Burt Reynolds, Candice Bergen, George Segal, and Charles Durning. She then starred as Daphne Ziegler in the 1986 comedy "Pretty Smart". In 1987, Fisher appeared in the television movie "Strange Voices", opposite Valerie Harper. The following year, she landed a role in the TV movie "Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis", also starring her mother as well as Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver. In 1989, Fisher appeared in two movies, "Hollywood Chaos" and "", followed by roles in the 1990 comedy, "Book of Love" and "Arizona Dream" starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, and Faye Dunaway.


title: Tricia Leigh Fisher

text: In addition to Fisher's work in movies, she has also made guest appearances on "Our House", "Growing Pains", "Ellen", "Wild Card", "7th Heaven", and "'Til Death". In 1996, she portrayed Heidi Fleiss in the CBS television movie "The Making of a Hollywood Madam".


title: Tricia Leigh Fisher

text: On October 7, 2006, Fisher was honored at The Thalians 51st Anniversary Ball along with producer Marc Cherry, her mother Connie Stevens, and her sister Joely Fisher. They performed together at the event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California.


title: Tricia Leigh Fisher

text: In September 2011, Fisher and her husband, actor Byron Thames, appeared in her mother's Las Vegas stage show. In July 2012, Fisher, her husband and children began appearing on the ABC Family reality series "Beverly Hills Nannies".


title: Tricia Leigh Fisher

text: Fisher performed the theme song for her 1986 movie "Pretty Smart", and released a self-titled debut album for Atco Records in 1990. The album's single "Empty Beach", written by Dennis East, was a modest hit.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The Canada women's national soccer team () represents Canada in international soccer competitions. They are overseen by the Canadian Soccer Association, the governing body for soccer in Canada.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The team reached international prominence at the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, losing in the bronze medal match to the United States. Canada qualified for its first Olympic women's soccer tournament in 2008, making it to the quarterfinals. Canada's most significant achievement has been winning the gold medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The team is also two-time CONCACAF Women's Championship winners, and two-time Olympic bronze medallists.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: A certain segment of the Canadian women's soccer fans are closely linked to the U-20 team (U-19 prior to 2006), partly due to Canada hosting the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship in 2002, a tournament in which the team won silver in front of 47,784 fans at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta. Canada also hosted the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, where they were eliminated in the quarterfinals by England. Canada set the tournament and team record for attendance in the process, with 1,353,506 and 54,027 respectively.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The Canada women's team played its first international match on July 7, 1986, a 2–0 away loss to the United States. The team's first major tournament was the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup in Sweden, where the team achieved one draw and two losses in group play and failed to advance. Its first success in a major tournament was the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup in the United States, where Canada finished in fourth place, their first time reaching the semifinals of a major global tournament. Canada hosted the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup for the first time, where they reached the quarterfinals. The Canadian team won the bronze medal at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and its best finish in any major global tournament was its gold medal victory at the 2020 Summer Olympics.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: Captain Christine Sinclair has been called the "backbone" of the Canadian national team, earning her 250th cap in 2016, while ranking first worldwide in international goals scored by any player, man or woman. She was named Canada Soccer's female player of the year every year from 2004 to 2014, and has been nominated for FIFA's Women's World Player of the Year. Despite speculation otherwise, she confirmed in 2016 that she plans to compete in the 2019 Women's World Cup and the 2020 Olympics. She also added prior to the 2016 Olympics that "The young players coming into this Olympic squad have brought an energy and passion to our team and they have risen the bar."


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The SheBelieves Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in the United States.


title: Canada women's national soccer team

text: The Arnold Clark Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in England.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) is a precision-guided glide bomb that is intended to provide aircraft with the ability to carry a higher number of more accurate bombs. Most US Air Force aircraft will be able to carry (using the BRU-61/A rack) a pack of four SDBs in place of a single bomb.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) / GBU-53/B, adds a tri-mode seeker (radar, infrared homing, and semiactive laser guidance) to the INS and GPS guidance of the original SDB.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The original SDB is equipped with a GPS-aided inertial navigation system to attack fixed/stationary targets such as fuel depots, bunkers, etc. The second variant (Raytheon's GBU-53/B SDB II) will include a thermal seeker and radar with automatic target recognition features for striking mobile targets such as tanks, vehicles, and mobile command posts.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The small size of the bomb allows a single strike aircraft to carry more of the munitions than is possible using currently available bomb units. The SDB carries approximately of AFX-757 high explosive. It also has integrated "DiamondBack" type wings which deploy after release, increasing the glide time and therefore the maximum range. Its size and accuracy allow for an effective munition with less collateral damage. Warhead penetration is of steel reinforced concrete under 3 ft of earth and the fuze has electronic safe and fire (ESAF) cockpit selectable functions, including air burst and delayed options.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The SDB I has a circular error probable (CEP) of . CEP is reduced by updating differential GPS offsets prior to weapon release. These offsets are calculated using an SDB Accuracy Support Infrastructure, consisting of three or more GPS receivers at fixed locations transmitting calculated location to a correlation station at the theatre Air Operations Center. The corrections are then transmitted by Link 16 to SDB-equipped aircraft.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: In November 2014, the U.S. Air Force began development of a version of the SDB I intended to track and attack sources of electronic warfare jamming directed to disrupt the munitions' guidance. The home-on-GPS jam (HOG-J) seeker works similar to the AGM-88 HARM to follow the source of a radio-frequency jammer to destroy it.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: In January 2016, the Air Force awarded a contract to Scientific Systems Co. Inc. to demonstrate the company's ImageNav technology, a vision-based navigation and precision targeting system that compares a terrain database with the host platform's sensor to make course corrections. ImageNav technology has demonstrated target geo-location and navigation precision within three meters.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: In January 2016, Orbital ATK revealed that the Alternative Warhead (AW), designed for the M270's GMLRS to achieve area effects without leaving behind unexploded ordnance, had been successfully tested on the SDB.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: In 2002, while Boeing and Lockheed Martin were competing to develop the Small Diameter Bomb, Darleen A. Druyun – at that time Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Management – deleted the requirement for moving target engagement, which favored Boeing. She was later convicted of violating a conflict of interest statute.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: On May 1, 2009, Raytheon announced that it had completed its first test flight of the GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II, which has a data link and a tri-mode seeker built with technology developed for the Precision Attack Missile. And on August 10, 2010 the U.S. Air Force awarded a $450 million contract for engineering and development.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: Although unit costs were somewhat uncertain as of 2006, the estimated cost for the INS/GPS version was around US$70,000. Boeing and the Italian firm Oto Melara have signed a contract covering the license production of 500 GBU-39/B (INS/GPS) and 50 BRU-61/A racks for the Aeronautica Militare, at a cost of nearly US$34 million. US$317m was spent on R&D and spares for SDB II in FY13/14, with US$148.5m requested in these categories for FY15, the total budget split roughly 70:30 between USAF and USN. SDB II production began in FY14 with 144 bombs for the USAF at a unit cost of US$250,000. The FY15 budget requested 246 bombs at a cost of US$287,000 each. When the Pentagon approved the SDB II for production and deployment in May 2015, it had a unit cost of .


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The GBU-39/B began separation tests on the F-22 Raptor in early September 2007 after more than a year of sometimes difficult work to integrate the weapon in the weapons bay and carry out airborne captive carry tests.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The SDB is currently integrated on the F-15E Strike Eagle, Panavia Tornado, JAS-39 Gripen, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and AC-130W. Future integration is planned for the F-35 Lightning II, A-10 Thunderbolt II, B-1 Lancer, B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress and AC-130J. Other aircraft, including UCAVs, may also receive the necessary upgrades.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: Under a contract awarded in September 2006, Boeing developed a version of the SDB I which replaces the steel casing with a lightweight composite casing and the warhead with a focused-blast explosive such as Dense inert metal explosive (DIME). This should further reduce collateral damage when using the weapon for pin-point strikes in urban areas.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: In mid-2012, the U.S. Senate recommended zeroing out funding for the SDB II due to fielding delays with the F-35 Lightning II. With the delay in SDB II fielding, Boeing recommended an upgrade to their SDB as a temporary gap-filler to get desired performance at a fraction of the cost. Called the Laser Small Diameter Bomb (LSDB), it integrates the laser used on the JDAM to enable the bomb to strike moving targets. Boeing began testing the LSDB in 2011 and successfully hit targets traveling . In June 2013, the Air Force announced it would award Boeing a contract to develop and test the LSDB; the contract is for phase one part two engineering, integration and test, and production support and an LSDB Weapon Simulator. Boeing says the LSDB can be built at a lower cost than the planned Raytheon SDB II, as it will use the same semi-active laser sensor as the JDAM to hit moving and maritime targets. However, Boeing admits that it does not have the capability to engage targets in zero-visibility weather, as it lacks the SDB II's millimeter wave radar. The Laser SDB began fielding with the U.S. Special Operations Command in 2014.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: The GBU-53/B is designed with sensors to be able to recognize and hit moving targets. In late September 2020, the SDB II (GBU-53/B) was cleared for operational service by USAF Air Combat Command on the F-15E Strike Eagle, after testing at Eglin Air Force Base. About a year of delay was caused by a clip restraint for the fins, with an early version suffering vibration fatigue. Testing with the F-35 is the next phase of the introduction into service.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: Boeing and Saab Group have modified the Small Diameter Bomb with a rocket motor to be launched from ground-based missile systems such as the M270 MLRS. With the Army demilitarizing cluster munitions from M26 rockets, the company says a special adapter case could reuse the rocket to launch the SDB. After the motor launches it to a high enough altitude and speed, the wings will deploy and glide the bomb to its target. The company believes it can fill a gap for long-range precision fires while using its smaller warhead to save larger rocket munitions for strategic targets. While typical MLRS systems follow a ballistic trajectory, the rocket-launched SDB can be launched to altitude and glide on a selected trajectory. Boeing and Saab Group conducted three successful GLSDB tests in February 2015. The system utilizes an existing weapon paired with a stockpiled rocket motor, while maintaining the loadout on a rocket artillery system. Unlike traditional artillery weapons, the GLSDB offers 360-degree coverage for high and low angles of attack, flying around terrain to hit targets on the back of mountains, or circling back around to a target behind the launch vehicle. The GLSDB has a range of , and can also hit targets behind it. In a 2017 demonstration, the GLSDB engaged a moving target at a distance of . The SDB and rocket motor separated at altitude and the bomb used an SAL seeker to track and engage the target. A 2019 test extended this range to against a target at sea.


title: GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb

text: It is also being considered for use in Ukraine with the HIMARS system. Ukraine has long wanted the ATACMS missiles for their long range. The GLSDB would be a compromise giving them a range of some 150 kilometres (94 miles) using a M26 rocket engine and an SDB. Both the SDB and the M26 are common in the US arsenal. It could be delivered by early 2023 using surplus bombs from the conflict in Afghanistan. Each would cost $40,000 USD.


title: Regression (film)

text: Regression is a 2015 psychological thriller horror mystery film directed and written by Alejandro Amenábar. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson, with David Thewlis, Lothaire Bluteau, Dale Dickey, David Dencik, Peter MacNeill, Devon Bostick, and Aaron Ashmore in supporting roles.


title: Regression (film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 18, 2015. It was released in the United States on October 9, 2015, by The Weinstein Company under the banner RADiUS-TWC. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics.


title: Regression (film)

text: The film takes place in Minnesota, in 1990. Detective Bruce Kenner (Ethan Hawke) investigates the case of John Gray (David Dencik), who admits to sexually abusing his 17-year-old daughter Angela (Emma Watson) but has no recollection of the abuse. They seek the help of Professor Kenneth Raines (David Thewlis) to use recovered-memory therapy on John Gray to retrieve his memories, and come to suspect that their colleague Detective George Nesbitt (Aaron Ashmore) is involved. They detain him but fail to find evidence against him. Detectives suspect a satanic cult is involved because of Angela's testimony, in which Angela says that she was abused by people in masks and someone took pictures of it.


title: Regression (film)

text: Bruce and Kenneth meet Angela's estranged brother Roy Gray (Devon Bostick) to inquire about why he left the house. Using the regression technique on him, he recalls hooded figures entering his room while he was young. Bruce and Kenneth suspect Roy's grandmother, Rose Gray (Dale Dickey), has some involvement but find nothing after a search of her house.


title: Regression (film)

text: Meanwhile, Bruce begins having nightmares involving satanic rituals. Angela tells him that the cult is out to kill her as she has shown her demonic mark to him and that he is in danger as well. She tells him that her mother received miscellaneous calls and saw strange figures staring at her in the street before she herself had an accident. Bruce starts to experience the same things and his nightmares increase in intensity.


title: Regression (film)

text: Rose jumps from the window of her house after seeing ghostly figures, injuring herself. Bruce meets Angela in the church's cemetery to reassure her and after an emotional outburst, she kisses him. Shocked, Bruce leaves her there and returns to his home. He sees a soup advertisement on the street and recognizes the woman in it as the one he sees in his nightmares. He concludes that his imagination has run away with him. He tells Kenneth that all these past memories are induced by therapy and the whole situation is just the result of mass hysteria. Though the professor is initially resistant to the idea, he too comes to suspect that these memories were not real.


title: Regression (film)

text: Bruce is attacked by two hooded figures who finally reveal themselves as George and their colleague, Farrell (Aaron Abrams). George was seeking revenge after Bruce detained him as a child molester and ruined his career. Bruce offers to forget the whole situation if George tells him everything he knows. After George reveals things, Bruce confronts Angela about her abuse and she insists she told the truth. Finally Bruce concludes that she was fabricating everything from the beginning as she wanted to escape from her family, whom she thinks are responsible for her mother's death. She wanted to elope with George, as they had a sexual relationship for some time, but he refused to elope with a minor. Angela accused her father in order to escape the house. When Bruce confronts her, she tells him that no one is going to believe him, especially if she tells them that they kissed in the cemetery. Bruce tells John everything but John decides to take the blame and pleads guilty in order to rescue Angela and hopes that she will forgive him one day for being a bad father.


title: Regression (film)

text: The film ends with a statement that many cases like this were reported before the satanic abuse hysteria faded.


title: Regression (film)

text: On October 31, 2013, it was announced that Ethan Hawke would star in the thriller film "Regression". On February 5, 2014, Emma Watson joined the film to star with Hawke, and on March 25, David Dencik was added to the cast, playing a man who is arrested in a Minnesota town for allegedly sexually abusing his daughter. On May 23, Devon Bostick was added to the cast of the film.


title: Regression (film)

text: Alejandro Amenábar directed his own script, while FilmNation Entertainment holds international rights.


title: Regression (film)

text: Principal photography began on April 15, 2014, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Emma Watson stated, ""First day shooting Regression today – a very cool birthday present xx."" On the day, which was her 24th birthday, she filmed a church scene at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Shooting was taking place in Tottenham on May 5. On June 3, it was reported that Watson was back in Toronto to continue the rest of filming after spending some time in the UK and graduating from Brown. Principal photography concluded June 12. On January 28, 2015, the crew filmed several additional scenes or reshoots in Mississauga.


title: Regression (film)

text: On June 10, 2014, TWC-Dimension revealed a first look photo from the film. On February 12, 2015, the first trailer was released, and on February 1, 2016, the U.S. trailer premiered.


title: Regression (film)

text: In November 2013, TWC-Dimension acquired US distribution rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 18, 2015. It was released in Spain on October 2, 2015 and in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2015.


title: Regression (film)

text: "Regression" was originally set for an August 28, 2015 release in the U.S., but was pulled from the schedule. It was then pushed back to its eventual U.S. theatrical date of February 5, 2016, and was released on Amazon Instant Video thirty days later.


title: Regression (film)

text: "Regression" received generally negative reviews from critics, mostly focused on the film's third act. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 15% rating, based on 40 reviews, leaving a rating average of 4.1/10. The site's consensus reads, ""Regression" boasts a pair of eminently likable leads – neither of whom are able to dislodge the movie from the mire of psychological thriller mediocrity." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 32 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."


title: John Logan (writer)

text: John David Logan (born September 24, 1961) is an American playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his work as a screenwriter for such films as Tim Burton's "" (2007) and Sam Mendes's James Bond films "Skyfall" (2012) and "Spectre" (2015). He is a three-time Academy Award nominee: twice for Best Original Screenplay for "Gladiator" (2000) and "The Aviator" (2004), and once for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Hugo" (2011).


title: John Logan (writer)

text: He has also been nominated for two Tony Awards: Best Play for "Red" in 2010 and Best Book of a Musical for "Moulin Rouge!" in 2020, winning for the former. He also was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie for "RKO 281" in 2000.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Logan was born in San Diego on September 24, 1961. His parents immigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland via Canada. The youngest of three children, he has an older brother and sister. Logan grew up in California and Millburn, New Jersey, where he graduated from Millburn High School in 1979. He moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University, where he graduated in 1983.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Logan was a successful playwright in Chicago for many years before turning to screenwriting. His first play, "Never the Sinner", tells the story of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Subsequent plays include "Hauptmann", about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and "Riverview", a musical melodrama set at Chicago's famed amusement park.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: His play "Red", about artist Mark Rothko, was produced by the Donmar Warehouse, London, in December 2009, and on Broadway in 2010, where it received six Tony Awards, the most of any play, including best play, best direction of a play for Michael Grandage and best featured actor in a play for Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne and Alfred Molina had originated their roles in London and also performed on Broadway, for a limited run ending in late June.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Logan wrote "Any Given Sunday" and the television film "RKO 281", before gaining an Academy Award nomination for co-writing (with David Franzoni and William Nicholson) the Best Picture winner "Gladiator" in 2000. He received another nomination for writing "The Aviator" (2004), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese. Other notable films written by Logan include "", "The Time Machine", "The Last Samurai", and the Tim Burton musical "", for which he received a Golden Globe Award.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Logan's feature films include "Rango", an animated feature starring Johnny Depp and directed by Gore Verbinski; the film adaptation of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus", directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes; "Hugo", an adaptation of the book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret", directed by Martin Scorsese; and the James Bond film "Skyfall", along with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. He wrote the Bond film, "Spectre" (2015).


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Two plays by Logan premiered in 2013; "Peter and Alice", directed by Michael Grandage and starring Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw opened in London at the Noël Coward Theatre on March 25, 2013 and "", directed by Joe Mantello and starring Bette Midler, opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on April 24, 2013.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: He also created the 2014 television series "Penny Dreadful" starring Josh Hartnett, Eva Green and Timothy Dalton, for which he served as sole writer until it concluded with its third season.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: In November 2015, Logan was reported to have rewritten the script for "". During the audio commentary of "Alien: Covenant", Scott mentions that Logan has already started writing "Alien: Covenant 2". In November 2018, it was announced that Showtime would produce a follow-up to the 2014 television series "Penny Dreadful" entitled "", which takes place in Los Angeles in 1938. Logan was the creator, executive producer, and sole writer for the show, which premiered in 2020.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: "Superhero", a new musical by Logan and Tom Kitt, had its world premiere production Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater, with an official opening night on February 28, 2019. In November 2019, it was reported that "Bohemian Rhapsody" producer Graham King is planning to produce a Michael Jackson biopic, with the screenplay written by Logan.


title: John Logan (writer)

text: Logan made his feature directorial debut in 2022 with "They/Them", a slasher film released via the streaming service Peacock.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The Secret World of Alex Mack is an American television series that ran from October 8, 1994 to January 15, 1998, on Nickelodeon (part of the SNICK line-up). The series was co-created by Ken Lipman and Thomas W. Lynch and was produced by Lynch Entertainment, RHI Entertainment, Hallmark Entertainment and Nickelodeon Productions. "The Secret World of Alex Mack" was accompanied by a tie-in series of 34 paperback books, as well as a variety of merchandise. The series concluded with a two-part finale in 1998.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Alexandra "Alex" Mack is an ordinary teenage girl, living with her parents, George and Barbara, and prodigious older sister, Annie, in the industrial town of Paradise Valley, Arizona. The town is largely funded around Paradise Valley Chemical, a chemical factory that employs most of the adult residents, although the factory's staff and history are notoriously shady. While walking home after her first day of junior high school, saddened by an embarrassing encounter with a boy and bullied for having a "Trollz" lunchbox, Alex is nearly hit by a truck from Paradise Valley Chemical, and during the incident, she is accidentally drenched with GC-161, an experimental substance developed by the factory. She soon discovers that it has given her strange powers, including telekinesis, shooting electricity from her fingers, and the ability to dissolve into a mobile puddle of water. Alex finds this exciting and fun, however, her powers prove to be unpredictable (occasionally, her skin glows a bright yellow when she is nervous). She confides only in Annie and her best friend Ray, choosing to keep her powers a secret from everyone else, including her parents, for fear of what the chemical factory's CEO, Danielle Atron, will do to her if she finds out.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The series evolves from Seasons 1–4 from innocent hijinks to darker connotations; Seasons 1–2 mostly deal with cheerful misadventures and comedic encounters with incompetent Paradise Valley Chemical staff Vince and Dave. Seasons 3–4 take on a more serious and dark development, in which it is revealed that Danielle Atron had been developing GC-161 as far back as the 1970s, and that she may have had fellow scientists and researchers systematically assassinated to cover up GC-161's mutagenic effects on people.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Subplots of the series included Barbara Mack going back to college as a mature student, Alex and her friends being targeted by a school bully, Alex's crush, Scott, turning out to be a fairweather friend, and Louis Driscoll befriending Alex and Ray after moving to Paradise Valley as a new student. Vince, meanwhile, is fired in Season 3, replaced by an asocial Vienna-born scientist named Lars Frederickson. Vince makes frequent reappearances as a guest character, obsessed with trying to get his job back. While Alex was initially bullied by an older student named Jessica in Season 1, Jessica's actress, Jessica Alba, left for other projects and the character was replaced with Kelly, a preppy but mean-spirited cheerleader, and later Jo (the aforementioned school bully who goes after Alex and Ray).


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: In Season 4, Alex develops a serious relationship with Hunter, a new boy in town. She initially believes he is infatuated with Danielle Atron after discovering what appears to be a love shrine to the woman in his bedroom, but Hunter is revealed to be investigating Danielle's potential involvement in the death of his scientist father by drowning. Alex shares her first kiss with Hunter.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Thomas W. Lynch, who had created the programs "Night Tracks" and "Kids Incorporated", said the idea for the series was based on an incident from his own childhood. Lynch's father, a nuclear physicist, worked with radioactive material in the family's garage and the chemical spilled out of its container. Lynch said, "Today, they would've shut the whole block down. It cracked me up—the idea that that stuff was right there. What if I ate it? What would happen to me?" For the fictional chemical GC-161 in the show, Lynch said he came up with the GC part of the name while doing DNA research, while the 161 came from the number eight.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Though the character of Alex Mack was initially conceived as a boy, Nickelodeon had the writers change the character to a girl.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The series was filmed in Valencia, Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Valley. The Mack home and Paradise Valley Chemical Plant interiors were filmed in a converted warehouse used as a soundstage. The junior high scenes were filmed at Charles Helmers and James Foster Elementary Schools. Castaic Middle School was used for senior high scenes. The house, used for exterior shots, is located in the Westford Place neighborhood of Valencia.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Near the end of the series' run, Lynch presented star Larisa Oleynik with a package deal that included a fifth season of the show and a feature film, but Oleynik turned the deal down. Said Oleynik, "I have absolutely no regrets about that. It was an incredible thing he was offering me and I knew that at the time, but I was a little burnt out."


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The show premiered on Nickelodeon (part of SNICK line-up) in 1994 and ended in 1998. Internationally, it also aired on YTV in Canada, Kabel 1 in Germany, SVT in Sweden, France 2 in France, Viasat 3 in Hungary, Rai 1 in Italy, Fox Kids in Latin America, Channel 4 in the UK, NHK in Japan and was in the children's weekday lineup for much of the mid-to-late 1990s on the ABC in Australia. Repeats of the show aired in 2003 on The N, but it was soon replaced there. The show aired occasionally on TeenNick's 1990s-oriented block, "The '90s Are All That".


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: "The Secret World of Alex Mack 20 Year Reunion" was recorded in 2018 and released as a TV movie on YouTube and Vimeo. Initially a live convention interview, the reunion featured numerous cast and crew members from the original TV series, revelations about their lives post-series, and discussions of a possible reboot or sequel. It was revealed that many of the cast members had gone on to various endeavors, with moderate success: Larisa Oleynik (Alex) had gone on to earn mainstream adult roles in shows such as "10 Things I Hate About You", while other cast members had largely left acting. Alexis Fields (Nicole) had gone on to a career in interior design, John Marzilli (Vince) had adopted a son who attended the cast reunion, and Darris Love (Ray) became involved in acting and music.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The show's first season (consisting of 13 episodes on two discs) was released by Genius Entertainment on DVD format on October 2, 2007. The set is noteworthy for giving Jessica Alba top billing on the package, most likely in an effort to sell more copies, even though she actually only appears in a supporting role, and only in a few episodes. This was then released in Region 2 on April 2, 2012 and in Region 4 on June 6, 2012.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The first and second seasons are available through Amazon.com's Instant Video section and through iTunes.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: Mill Creek Entertainment released the complete series on DVD for the very first time on August 1, 2017.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: "The Secret World of Alex Mack", during a British release of the series on a DVD boxed set, received a rating of '15' from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), a rating considered restrictive, particularly since the series was initially aimed at preteens. It was eventually revealed by the BBFC that the '15' rating was applied to the boxed set because of a season 1 episode called "Shock Value" where Alex is seen climbing into a clothesdryer from the pilot. According to the BBFC, "The presentation of this behaviour is comic and no negative consequences are shown which would warn young viewers of the potential dangers of hiding in such appliances. While fatal incidents of children trapped in washing machines or fridges are rare, there remains sufficient cause for serious concern. The distributor indicated that they would be happy to accept a higher certificate rather than cutting the episode. The TV series is rather dated and would not have much appeal to a young audience when compared to current children's TV programmes. In addition, as the work was being targeted at an adult 'nostalgia' market, children would not be the natural audience."


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: A book series aimed at young readers was released along with the series. The first and last books of the series are novelizations of the first and last episodes, respectively. The rest of the series consists of completely original stories, tied into the main series through the mentioning of various plot points from the TV episodes. There were 34 books in total, all released as mass-market paperbacks from Simon & Schuster. Authors Diana G. Gallagher and Cathy East Dubowski were the predominant authors of the series, although other authors were recruited in-between to write certain titles.


title: The Secret World of Alex Mack

text: The following titles were included in the series (in order, published between the years 1995 to 1998; note that the exclamation point at the end of each title was a stylized and intentional punctuation):


title: Drake London

text: Drake London (born July 24, 2001) is an American football wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at USC and was selected eighth overall by the Falcons in the 2022 NFL Draft.


title: Drake London

text: London attended Moorpark High School in Moorpark, California. He played football and basketball in high school. As a senior on the football team, he had 62 receptions for 1,089 yards and 12 touchdowns. As a senior in basketball he averaged 29.2 points, 11.9 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. London committed to the University of Southern California (USC) to play both football and basketball.


title: Drake London

text: As a true freshman in football, London started nine of 13 games, recording 39 receptions for 567 yards and five touchdowns. As a freshman in basketball, he played in three games and had three rebounds. He returned to the football team as a sophomore in 2020 as one of the team's top receivers. London was named the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year in 2021. During Southern Cal's eighth game of the 2021 season, London fractured his right ankle, forcing him to miss the rest of the year. London declared for the 2022 NFL Draft following the season.


title: Drake London

text: London was selected eight overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2022 NFL Draft. He was the first wide receiver taken. He made his NFL debut in Week 1 against the New Orleans Saints. He scored his first professional touchdown on a four-yard reception from Marcus Mariota in Week 2 against the Los Angeles Rams.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Maximilian I Joseph (; 27 May 1756 – 13 October 1825) was Duke of Zweibrücken from 1795 to 1799, prince-elector of Bavaria (as Maximilian IV Joseph) from 1799 to 1806, then King of Bavaria (as Maximilian I Joseph) from 1806 to 1825. He was a member of the House of Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Maximilian, the son of the Count Palatine Frederick Michael of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld and Maria Francisca of Sulzbach, was born on 27 May 1756 at Schwetzingen, between Heidelberg and Mannheim.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: After the death of his father in 1767, he was left at first without parental supervision, since his mother had been banished from her husband's court after giving birth to a son fathered by an actor. Maximilian was carefully educated under the supervision of his uncle, Duke Christian IV of Zweibrücken, who settled him in the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts. He became Count of Rappoltstein in 1776 and took service in 1777 as a colonel in the French army. He rose rapidly to the rank of major-general. From 1782 to 1789, he was stationed at Strasbourg. During his time at the University of Strasbourg, Klemens von Metternich, the future Austrian chancellor, was for some time accommodated by Prince Maximilian. By the outbreak of the French Revolution, Maximilian exchanged the French for the Austrian service and took part in the opening campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: On 1 April 1795, Maximilian succeeded his brother Charles II as Duke of Zweibrücken, however his duchy was entirely occupied by revolutionary France at the time.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: On 16 February 1799, he became Elector of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, Arch-Steward of the Empire, and Duke of Berg upon the extinction of the Palatinate-Sulzbach line at the death of Elector Charles Theodore of Bavaria. The new elector, as Maximilian IV Joseph, found the Bavarian army in abject condition on his accession to the throne: Hardly any of the units were at full strength, the Rumford uniforms were unpopular and impractical, and the troops were badly-trained. The young Prince-Elector, who had served under the Ancien Régime in France as a colonel in the "Royal Deux-Ponts" regiment, made the reconstruction of the army a priority.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Maximilian's sympathy with France and the ideas of enlightenment at once manifested itself when he acceded to the throne of Bavaria. In the newly organized ministry, Count Max Josef von Montgelas, who, after falling into disfavour with Charles Theodore, had acted for a time as Maximilian Joseph's private secretary, was the most potent influence, wholly "enlightened" and French. Agriculture and commerce were fostered, the laws were ameliorated, a new criminal code drawn up, taxes and imposts equalized without regard to traditional privileges, while a number of religious houses were suppressed and their revenues used for educational and other useful purposes. He closed the University of Ingolstadt in May 1800 and moved it to Landshut.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: In foreign affairs, Maximilian Joseph's attitude was, from the German point of view, less commendable. He never had any sympathy with the growing sentiment of German nationality, and his attitude was dictated by wholly dynastic, or at least Bavarian, considerations. Until 1813, he was the most faithful of Napoleon's German allies, the relationship cemented by the marriage of his eldest daughter to Eugène de Beauharnais. His reward came with the Treaty of Pressburg (26 December 1805), by the terms of which he was to receive the royal title and important territorial acquisitions in Swabia and Franconia to round off his kingdom. He assumed the title of king on 1 January 1806. On 15 March, he ceded the Duchy of Berg to Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: The new King of Bavaria was the most important of the princes belonging to the Confederation of the Rhine, and remained Napoleon's ally until the eve of the Battle of Leipzig, when by the Treaty of Ried (8 October 1813) he made the guarantee of the integrity of his kingdom the price of his joining the Allies. On 14 October, Bavaria made a formal declaration of war against Napoleonic France. The treaty was passionately backed by Crown Prince Ludwig and by Marshal von Wrede.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: By the first Treaty of Paris (3 June 1814), however, he ceded Tyrol to Austria in exchange for the former Grand Duchy of Würzburg. At the Congress of Vienna, which he attended in person, Maximilian had to make further concessions to Austria, ceding Salzburg and the regions of Innviertel and Hausruckviertel in return for the western part of the old Palatinate. The king fought hard to maintain the contiguity of the Bavarian territories as guaranteed at Ried but the most he could obtain was an assurance from Metternich in the matter of the Baden succession, in which he was also doomed to be disappointed.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: At Vienna and afterwards Maximilian sturdily opposed any reconstitution of Germany which should endanger the independence of Bavaria, and it was his insistence on the principle of full sovereignty being left to the German reigning princes that largely contributed to the loose and weak organization of the new German Confederation. The of the Congress of Vienna was proclaimed in Bavaria, not as a law but as an international treaty. It was partly to secure popular support in his resistance to any interference of the federal diet in the internal affairs of Bavaria, partly to give unity to his somewhat heterogeneous territories, that Maximilian on 26 May 1818 granted a liberal constitution to his people. Montgelas, who had opposed this concession, had fallen in the previous year, and Maximilian had also reversed his ecclesiastical policy, signing on 24 October 1817 a concordat with Rome by which the powers of the clergy, largely curtailed under Montgelas's administration, were restored.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: The new parliament proved to be more independent than he had anticipated and in 1819 Maximilian resorted to appealing to the powers against his own creation; but his Bavarian "particularism" and his genuine popular sympathies prevented him from allowing the Carlsbad Decrees to be strictly enforced within his dominions. The suspects arrested by order of the Mainz Commission he was accustomed to examine himself, with the result that in many cases the whole proceedings were quashed, and in not a few the accused dismissed with a present of money.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Maximilian died at Nymphenburg Palace, in Munich, on 13 October 1825 and was succeeded by his son Ludwig I. Maximilian is buried in the crypt of the Theatine Church in Munich.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Under the reign of Maximilian Joseph the Bavarian Secularization (1802–1803) led to the nationalisation of cultural assets of the Church. The Protestants were emancipated. In 1808 he founded the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: The city of Munich was extended by the first systematic expansion with the new Brienner Strasse as core. In 1810 Max Joseph ordered construction of the National Theatre Munich in French neo-classic style. The monument "Max-Joseph Denkmal" before the National Theatre was created in the middle of the square Max-Joseph-Platz as a memorial for King Maximilian Joseph by Christian Daniel Rauch and carried out by Johann Baptist Stiglmaier. It was only revealed in 1835 since the king had rejected to be eternalized in sitting position.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: In 1801 he led the rescue operation when a glassmaker's workshop collapsed, saving the life of Joseph von Fraunhofer, a 14-year-old orphan apprentice. Max Joseph donated books and directed the glassmaker to give Fraunhofer time to study. Fraunhofer went on to become one of the most famous optical scientists and artisans in history, inventing the spectroscope and spectroscopy, making Bavaria noted for fine optics, and joining the nobility before his death at age 39.


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: As a monarch, Max Joseph was very close to the citizens, walked freely along the streets of Munich without great accompaniment, and conversed with his people in a casual manner. Regardless, he was somewhat eccentric, like some of his descendants and successors. Maximilian married twice and had children by both marriages:


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: His first wife was Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Prince George William of Hesse-Darmstadt (14 April 1765 – 30 March 1796). They were married on 30 September 1785 in Darmstadt. They had five children:


title: Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

text: Maximilian's second wife was Karoline of Baden, daughter of Margrave Karl Ludwig of Baden (13 July 1776 – 13 November 1841). They were married on 9 March 1797 in Karlsruhe. They had eight children, including two sets of twin girls, Elisabeth and Amalie born in 1801, and Sophie and Marie Anne born in 1805.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Criticism of the Quran is an interdisciplinary field of study concerning the factual accuracy of the claims and the moral tenability of the commands made in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. The Quran is viewed to be the scriptural foundation of Islam and is believed by Muslims to have been sent down by God ("Allah") and revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jabreel (Gabriel). It has been subject to criticism both in the sense of being "studied" by mostly secular Western scholars and in being found fault with.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In "critical-historical study" scholars (such as John Wansbrough, Joseph Schacht, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook) seek to investigate and verify the Quran's origin, text, composition, history, examining questions, puzzles, difficult text, etc. as they would non-sacred ancient texts. The most common criticisms concern various pre-existing sources that Quran relies upon, internal consistency, clarity and ethical teachings. According to Toby Lester, many Muslims find not only the religious fault-finding but also Western scholarly investigation of textual evidence "disturbing and offensive".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: According to Islamic tradition, the Quran is the literal word of God as recited to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. Muhammad, according to tradition, recited perfectly what the archangel Gabriel revealed to him for his companions to write down and memorize.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The early Arabic script transcribed 28 consonants, of which only 6 can be readily distinguished, the remaining 22 having formal similarities which means that what specific consonant is intended can only be determined by context. It was only with the introduction of Arabic diacritics some centuries later, that an authorized vocalization of the text, and how it was to be read, was established and became canonical.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Prior to this period, there is evidence that the unpointed text could be read in different ways, with different meanings. Tabarī prefaces his early commentary on the Quran illustrating that the precise way to read the verses of the sacred text was not fixed even in the day of the Prophet. Two men disputing a verse in the text asked Ubay ibn Ka'b to mediate, and he disagreed with them, coming up with a third reading. To resolve the question, the three went to Muhammad. He asked first one-man to read out the verse, and announced it was correct. He made the same response when the second alternative reading was delivered. He then asked Ubay to provide his own recital, and, on hearing the third version, Muhammad also pronounced it 'Correct!'. Noting Ubay's perplexity and inner thoughts, Muhammad then told him, 'Pray to God for protection from the accursed Satan.'


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Quran mentions more than 50 people previously mentioned in the Bible, which predates it by several centuries. Stories related in the Quran usually focus more on the spiritual significance of events than details. The stories are generally comparable, but there are differences. One of the most famous differences is the Islamic view of Jesus' crucifixion. The Quran maintains that Jesus was not actually crucified and did not die on the cross. The general Islamic view supporting the denial of crucifixion is similar to Manichaeism (Docetism), which holds that only Jesus body was crucified but not his spirit, while concluding that Jesus will return during the end-times.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The last recensions to make an official and uniform Quran in a single dialect were effected under Caliph Uthman (644–656) starting some twelve years after the Prophet's death and finishing twenty-four years after the effort began, with all other existing personal and individual copies and dialects of the Quran being burned:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: It is traditionally believed the earliest writings had the advantage of being checked by people who already knew the text by heart, for they had learned it at the time of the revelation itself and had subsequently recited it constantly. Since the official compilation was completed two decades after Muhammad's death, the Uthman text has been scrupulously preserved. Bucaille believed that this did not give rise to any problems of this Quran's authenticity.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Regarding who was the first to collect the narrations, and whether or not it was compiled into a single book by the time of Muhammad's death is contradicted by witnesses living when Muhammad lived, several historical narratives appear:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Sana'a manuscript contains older portions of the Quran showing variances different from the Uthman copy. The parchment upon which the lower codex of the Sana'a manuscript is written has been radiocarbon dated with 99% accuracy to before 671 CE, with a 95.5% probability of being older than 661 CE and 75% probability from before 646 CE. The Sana'a palimpsest is one of the most important manuscripts of the collection in the world. This palimpsest has two layers of text, both of which are Quranic and written in the Hijazi script. While the upper text is almost identical with the modern Qurans in use (with the exception of spelling variants), the lower text contains significant diversions from the standard text. For example, in sura 2, verse 87, the lower text has "wa-qaffaynā 'alā āthārihi" whereas the standard text has "wa-qaffaynā min ba'dihi". The Sana'a manuscript has exactly the same verses and the same order of verses as the standard Quran. The order of the suras in the Sana'a codex is different from the order in the standard Quran. Such variants are similar to the ones reported for the Quran codices of Companions such as Ibn Masud and Ubay ibn Ka'b. However, variants occur much more frequently in the Sana'a codex, which contains "by a rough estimate perhaps twenty-five times as many [as Ibn Mas'ud's reported variants]".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In 2015, the University of Birmingham disclosed that scientific tests may show a Quran manuscript in its collection as one of the oldest known and believe it was written close to the time of Muhammad. The findings in 2015 of the Birmingham Manuscripts lead Joseph E. B. Lumbard, Assistant Professor of Classical Islam, Brandeis University, to comment:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Tests by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit indicated with a probability of more than 94 percent that the parchment dated from 568 to 645. Dr Saud al-Sarhan, Director of Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, questions whether the parchment might have been reused as a palimpsest, and also noted that the writing had chapter separators and dotted verse endings – features in Arabic scripts which are believed not to have been introduced to the Quran until later. Al-Sarhan's criticisms was affirmed by several Saudi-based experts in Quranic history, who strongly rebut any speculation that the Birmingham/Paris Quran could have been written during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. They emphasize that while Muhammad was alive, Quranic texts were written without chapter decoration, marked verse endings or use of coloured inks; and did not follow any standard sequence of surahs. They maintain that those features were introduced into Quranic practice in the time of the Caliph Uthman, and so the Birmingham leaves could have been written later, but not earlier.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Professor Süleyman Berk of the faculty of Islamic studies at Yalova University has noted the strong similarity between the script of the Birmingham leaves and those of a number of Hijazi Qurans in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, which were brought to Istanbul from the Great Mosque of Damascus following a fire in 1893. Professor Berk recalls that these manuscripts had been intensively researched in association with an exhibition on the history of the Quran, "The Quran in its 1,400th Year" held in Istanbul in 2010, and the findings published by François Déroche as "Qur'ans of the Umayyads" in 2013. In that study, the Paris Quran, BnF Arabe 328(c), is compared with Qurans in Istanbul, and concluded as having been written "around the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In December 2015 Professor François Déroche of the Collège de France confirmed the identification of the two Birmingham leaves with those of the Paris Qur'an BnF Arabe 328(c), as had been proposed by Dr Alba Fedeli. Prof. Deroche expressed reservations about the reliability of the radiocarbon dates proposed for the Birmingham leaves, noting instances elsewhere in which radiocarbon dating had proved inaccurate in testing Qurans with an explicit endowment date; and also that none of the counterpart Paris leaves had yet been carbon-dated. Jamal bin Huwaireb, managing director of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, has proposed that, were the radiocarbon dates to be confirmed, the Birmingham/Paris Qur'an might be identified with the text known to have been assembled by the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, between 632 and 634 CE.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Critical research of historic events and timeliness of eyewitness accounts reveal the effort of later traditionalists to consciously promote, for nationalistic purposes, the centrist concept of Mecca and prophetic descent from Ismail, in order to grant a Hijazi orientation to the emerging religious identity of Islam:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In their book 1977 "", written before more recent discoveries of early Quranic material, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook challenge the traditional account of how the Quran was compiled, writing that "there is no hard evidence for the existence of the Koran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century." Crone, Wansbrough, and Nevo argued, that all the primary sources which exist are from 150 to 300 years after the events which they describe, and thus are chronologically far removed from those events.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: It is generally acknowledged that the work of Crone and Cook was a fresh approach in its reconstruction of early Islamic history, but the theory has been almost universally rejected. Van Ess has dismissed it stating that "a refutation is perhaps unnecessary since the authors make no effort to prove it in detail ... Where they are only giving a new interpretation of well-known facts, this is not decisive. But where the accepted facts are consciously put upside down, their approach is disastrous." R. B. Serjeant states that "[Crone and Cook's thesis]... is not only bitterly anti-Islamic in tone, but anti-Arabian. Its superficial fancies are so ridiculous that at first one wonders if it is just a 'leg pull', pure 'spoof'." Francis Edward Peters states that "Few have failed to be convinced that what is in our copy of the Quran is, in fact, what Muhammad taught, and is expressed in his own words".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In 2006, legal scholar Liaquat Ali Khan claimed that Crone and Cook later explicitly disavowed their earlier book. Patricia Crone in an article published in 2006 provided an update on the evolution of her conceptions since the printing of the thesis in 1976. In the article she acknowledges that Muhammad existed as a historical figure and that the Quran represents "utterances" of his that he believed to be revelations. However she states that the Quran may not be the complete record of the revelations. She also accepts that oral histories and Muslim historical accounts cannot be totally discounted, but remains skeptical about the traditional account of the Hijrah and the standard view that Muhammad and his tribe were based in Mecca. She describes the difficulty in the handling of the hadith because of their "amorphous nature" and purpose as documentary evidence for deriving religious law rather than as historical narratives.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The author of the "Apology of al-Kindy" Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (not the famed philosopher al-Kindi) claimed that the narratives in the Quran were "all jumbled together and intermingled" and that this was "an evidence that many different hands have been at work therein, and caused discrepancies, adding or cutting out whatever they liked or disliked". Bell and Watt suggested that the variation in writing style throughout the Quran, which sometimes involves the use of rhyming, may have indicated revisions to the text during its compilation. They claimed that there were "abrupt changes in the length of verses; sudden changes of the dramatic situation, with changes of pronoun from singular to plural, from second to third person, and so on". At the same time, however, they noted that "[i]f any great changes by way of addition, suppression or alteration had been made, controversy would almost certainly have arisen; but of that there is little trace." They also note that "Modern study of the Quran has not in fact raised any serious question of its authenticity. The style varies, but is almost unmistakable."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The traditional view of Islam has also been criticized for the lack of supporting evidence consistent with that view, such as the lack of archaeological evidence, and discrepancies with non-Muslim literary sources. In the 1970s, what has been described as a "wave of skeptical scholars" challenged a great deal of the received wisdom in Islamic studies. They argued that the Islamic historical tradition had been greatly corrupted in transmission. They tried to correct or reconstruct the early history of Islam from other, presumably more reliable, sources such as coins, inscriptions, and non-Islamic sources. The oldest of this group was John Wansbrough (1928–2002). Wansbrough's works were widely noted, but perhaps not widely read. In 1972, a cache of ancient Qurans was discovered in a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen – commonly known as the Sana'a manuscripts. On the basis of studies of the trove of Quranic manuscripts discovered in Sana'a, Gerd R. Puin concluded that the Quran as we have it is a 'cocktail of texts', some perhaps preceding Muhammad's day, and that the text as we have it evolved. However, other scholars, such as Asma Hilali presumed that the San'aa palimpsest seems to be written down by a learning scribe as a form of "exercise" in the context of a "school exercise", which explains a potential reason of variations in this text from the standard Quran Mushafs available today (see Sanaa manuscript for details). Another way to explain these variations is that San'aa manuscript may have been part of a surviving copy of Quranic Mus'haf which escaped the 3rd caliph Uthman's attempt to destroy all the dialects (Ahruf) of Quran except the Quraishi one (in order to unite the Muslims of that time).


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Quran itself states that its revelations are themselves "miraculous 'signs—inimitable ("I'jaz") in their eloquence and perfection


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Several verses remark on how the verses of the book set clear or make things clear, and are in "pure and clear" Arabic language


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: At the same time, (most Muslims believe) some verses of the Quran have been abrogated ("naskh") by others and these and other verses have sometimes been revealed in response or answer to questions by followers or opponents.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Not all early Muslims agreed with this consensus. Muslim-turned-skeptic Ibn al-Rawandi (d.911) dismissed the Quran as "not the speech of someone with wisdom, contain[ing] contradictions, errors and absurdities".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In response to claims that the Quran is a miracle, 10th-century physician and polymath Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi wrote (according to his opponent Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi),


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: "Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one." Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. ... By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: "Produce something like it"?!


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Orientalist Thomas Carlyle, called the Quran "toilsome reading and a wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite" with "endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement" and "insupportable stupidity". Salomon Reinach wrote that this book warrants "little merit ... from a literary point of view".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Iranian rationalist and scholar Ali Dashti points out that before its perfection became an issue of Islamic doctrine, early Muslim scholar Ibrahim an-Nazzam "openly acknowledged that the arrangement and syntax" of the Quran was less than "miraculous".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Ali Dashti states that "more than one hundred" aberrations from "the normal rules and structure of Arabic have been noted" in the Quran.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: sentences which are incomplete and not fully intelligible without the aid or commentaries; foreign words, unfamiliar Arabic words, and words used with other than the normal meaning; adjectives and verbs inflected without observance of the concords of gender and number; illogically and ungrammatically applied pronouns which sometimes have no referent; and predicates which in rhymed passages are often remote from the subjects.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Koran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,' but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims—and Orientalists—will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible—if it can't even be understood in Arabic—then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not—as even speakers of Arabic will tell you—there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Scholar of the Semitic languages Theodor Noldeke collected a large quantity of morphological and syntactic grammatical forms in the Quran that "do not enter into the general linguistic system of Arabic".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Alan Dundes points out the Quran itself denies that there can be errors within it, "If it were from other than Allah, they would surely have found in it many contradictions". (Q.4:82)


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Since the Quran is God's revelation to humanity, critics have wondered why in many verses, God is being addressed "by" humans, instead of Him addressing human beings. Or as sympathetic Western scholars Richard Bell and W. Montgomery Watt point out, it is not unheard of for someone (especially someone very powerful) to speak of himself in the third person, "the extent to which we find the Prophet apparently being addressed and told about God as a third person, is unusual", as is where "God is made to swear by himself".)


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Folklorist Alan Dundes notes how one "formula" or phrase ("... acquit thou/you/them/him of us/your/their/his evil deeds") is repeated with a variety of voices both divine and human, singular and plural:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The point-of-view of God changes from third person ("He" and "His" in "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al- Aqsa"), to first person ("We" and "Our" in "We have blessed, to show him of Our signs"), and back again to third ("He" in "Indeed, He is the Hearing") all in the same verse. (In Arabic there is no capitalization to indicate divinity.) Q.33:37 also starts by referring to God in the third person, is followed by a sentence with God speaking in first person ("we gave her in marriage ...") before returning to third person ("and God's commandment must be performed"). Again in God is both first (We) and third person (God, His) within one sentence.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The "Jewish Encyclopedia", for example, writes: "For example, critics note that a sentence in which something is said concerning Allah is sometimes followed immediately by another in which Allah is the speaker (examples of this are Q.16.81, 27:61, 31:9, 43:10) Many peculiarities in the positions of words are due to the necessities of rhyme (lxix. 31, lxxiv. 3)." The verse starts out with Muhammad talking in first person (I) and switches to third (you).


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: While some (Muhammad Abdel Haleem) have argued that "such grammatical shifts are a traditional aspect of Arabic rhetorical style", Ali Dashti (also quoted by critic Ibn Warraq) notes that in many verses "the speaker cannot have been God". The opening surah Al-Fatiha which contains such lines as


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: "Praise to God, the Lord of the Worlds, ...<br>You (alone) we worship and from You (alone) we seek help. ..."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Other verses (the beginning of , "I have been commanded to serve the Lord of this city ..."; , "We come not down save by commandment of thy Lord") also makes no sense as a statement of an all-powerful God.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Many (in fact 350) verses in the Quran where God is addressed in the third person are preceded by the imperative "say/recite!" ("qul") -- but it does not occur in Al-Fatiha and many other similar verses. Sometimes the problem is resolved in translations of the Quran by the "translators" adding "Say!" in front of the verse (Marmaduke Pickthall and N. J. Dawood for Q.27.91, Abdullah Yusuf Ali for Q.6:114).


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Ibn Masud — one of the companions of Muhammad who served as a scribe for divine revelations received by Muhammad and is considered a reliable transmitter of ahadith — did not believe that Surah Fatihah (or two other surah — 113 and 114 — that contained the phrase "I take refuge in the Lord") to be a genuine part of the Quran. He was not alone, other companions of Muhammad disagreed over which surahs were part of the Quran and which not. A verse of the Quran itself () seems to distinguish between Fatihah and the Quran:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Al-Suyuti, the noted medieval philologist and commentator of the Quran thought five verses had questionable "attribution to God" and were likely spoken by either Muhammad or Gabriel.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Cases where the speaker is swearing an oath by God, such as surahs 75:1–2 and 90:1, have been made a point of criticism. But according to Richard Bell, this was probably a traditional formula, and Montgomery Watt compared such verses to . It is also widely acknowledged that the first-person plural pronoun in Surah 19:64 refers to angels, describing their being sent by God down to Earth. Bell and Watt suggest that this attribution to angels can be extended to interpret certain verses where the speaker is not clear.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In 2020 article a Saudi website published an article claiming that while most Muslims believe the text established by third caliph 'Uthman bin 'Affan "is sacred and must not be amended", there are some 2500 "errors of spelling, syntax and grammar" within it. The author (Ahmad Hashem) argues that while the recitation of the Quran is divine, the Quranic script established by Uthman's "is a human invention" subject to error and correction. Examples of some of the errors he gives are:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: An example of an out-of-place verse fragment is found in Surah 24 where the beginning of a verse — (Q.24:61) "There is not upon the blind [any] constraint nor upon the lame constraint nor upon the ill constraint ..." — is located in the midst of a section describing proper behavior for visiting relations and modesty for women and children ("when you eat from your [own] houses or the houses of your fathers or the houses of your mothers or the houses of your brothers or the houses of your sisters or ..."). While it makes little sense here, the exact same phrases appears in another surah section (Q.48:11-17) where it does fit in as list of those exempt from blame and hellfire if they do not fight in a jihad military campaign.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Theodor Nöldeke complains that "many sentences begin with a 'when' or 'on the day when' which seems to hover in the air, so that commentators are driven to supply a 'think of this' or some such ellipsis." Similarly, describing a "rough edge" of the Quran, Michael Cook notes that verse Q.33:37 starts out with a "long and quite complicated subordinate clause" ("when thou wast saying to him ..."), "but we never learn what the clause is subordinate to."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Examples of lapses in grammar include where the word "performers" should be in the nominative case but instead is in the accusative; where "these two" of "These two are sorcerers" is in the nominative case (hādhāne) instead of the accusative case (hādhayne); and where "have started to fight is in the plural form instead of the dual like the subject of the sentence. Dashti laments that Islamic scholars have traditionally replied to these problems saying "our task is not to make the readings conform to Arabic grammar, but to take the whole of the Quran as it is and make Arabic grammar conform to the Quran."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: A common reply to questions about difficulties or obscurities in the Quran is verse 3:7 which unlike other verses that simply state that the Quran is clear ("mubeen") states that some verses are clear but others are "ambiguous".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In regards to questions about the narrative voice, Al-Zarkashi asserts that "moving from one style to another serves to make speech flow more smoothly", but also that by mixing up pronouns the Quran prevents the "boredom" that a more logical, straight forward narrative induces; it keeps the reader on their toes, helping "the listener to focus, renew[ing] his interest", providing "freshness and variety". "Muslim specialists" refer to the practice as "iltifāt", ("literally 'conversion', or 'turning one's face to). Western scholar Neal Robinson provides a more detailed reasons as to why these are not "imperfections", but instead should be "prized": changing the voice from "they" to "we" provides a "shock effect", third person ("Him") makes God "seem distant and transcendent", first person plural ("we") "emphasizes His majesty and power", first person singular ("I") "introduces a note of intimacy or immediacy", and so on.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Sami Aldeeb, Palestinian-born Swiss lawyer and author of many books and articles on Arab and Islamic law, holds the theory that the Quran was written by a rabbi. Günter Lüling asserts that one-third of the Quran has pre-Islamic Christian origins. Puin likewise thinks some of the material predates Muhammad's life.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Scholar Oddbjørn Leirvik states "The Qur'an and Hadith have been clearly influenced by the non-canonical ('heretical') Christianity that prevailed in the Arab peninsula and further in Abyssinia" prior to Islam.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: When looking at the narratives of Jesus found in the Quran, some themes are found in pre-Islamic sources such as the Infancy Gospels about Christ. Much of the quranic material about the selection and upbringing of Mary parallels much of the "Protovangelium of James", with the miracle of the palm tree and the stream of water being found in the "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew". In Pseudo-Matthew, the flight to Egypt is narrated similarly to how it is found in Islamic lore, with Syriac translations of the Protoevangelium of James and The Infancy Gospel of Thomas being found prior to Islam.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: John Wansbrough believes that the Quran is a redaction in part of other sacred scriptures, in particular the Judaeo-Christian scriptures. Herbert Berg writes that "Despite John Wansbrough's very cautious and careful inclusion of qualifications such as 'conjectural,' and 'tentative and emphatically provisional', his work is condemned by some. Some of the negative reaction is undoubtedly due to its radicalness... Wansbrough's work has been embraced wholeheartedly by few and has been employed in a piecemeal fashion by many. Many praise his insights and methods, if not all of his conclusions." Gerd R. Puin's study of ancient Quran manuscripts led him to conclude that some of the Quranic texts may have been present a hundred years before Muhammad. Norman Geisler argues that the dependence of the Quran on preexisting sources is one evidence of a purely human origin.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Ibn Ishaq, an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of the important biography of Muhammad, also claimed that as a result of these discussions, the Quran was "revealed" addressing all these arguments – leading to the conclusion that Muhammad may have incorporated Judeo-Christian tales he had heard from other people. For example, in al-Sirah an-Nabawiyyah (an edited version of Ibn Ishaq's original work), Ibn Hishām's report "explains that the Prophet used often to sit at the hill of Marwa inviting a Christian...but they actually also would have had some resources with which to teach the Prophet."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: "...saw the Prophet speaking with him, they said: "Indeed, he is being taught by Abu Fukayha Yasar." According to another version: "The apostle used often to sit at al-Marwa at the booth of a young Christian slave Jabr, slave of the Banu l-Hadrami, and they used to say: 'The one who teaches Muhammad most of what he brings is Jabr the Christian, slave of the Banu l-Hadrami."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: A study of informant reports by Claude Gilliot concluded the possibility that whole sections of the Meccan Quran contains elements from or within groups possessing Biblical, post-Biblical and other sources. One such report and likely informant of Muhammad was the Christian slave mentioned in Sahih Bukhari whom Ibn Ishaq named as Jabr for which the Quran's chapter 16: 101–104 was probably "revealed." Waqidi names this Christian as Ibn Qumta, with his identity and religious affiliation being contradicted in informant reports. Ibn Ishaq also recounts the story of how three Christians, Abu Haritha Ibn `Alqama, Al-`Aqib `Abdul-Masih and Al-Ayham al-Sa`id, spoke to Muhammad regarding such Christian subjects as the Trinity.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The narration of the baby Jesus speaking from the cradle can be traced back to the "Arabic Infancy Gospel", and the miracle of the bringing clay birds to life being found in "The Infancy Story of Thomas".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Several narratives rely on Jewish Midrash Tanhuma legends, like the narrative of Cain learning to bury the body of Abel in Surah 5:31. Richard Carrier regards this reliance on pre-Islamic Christian sources, as evidence that Islam derived from a heretical sect of Christianity.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Quran maintains that Jesus was not actually crucified and did not die on the cross. The general Islamic view supporting the denial of crucifixion may have been influenced by Manichaeism (Docetism), which holds that someone else was crucified instead of Jesus, while concluding that Jesus will return during the end-times. However the general consensus is that Manichaeism was not prevalent in Mecca in the 6th- & 7th centuries, when Islam developed.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Despite these views and no eyewitness accounts, most modern scholars have maintained that the Crucifixion of Jesus is indisputable.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The view that Jesus only appeared to be crucified and did not actually die predates Islam, and is found in several apocryphal gospels.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Irenaeus in his book "Against Heresies" describes Gnostic beliefs that bear remarkable resemblance with the Islamic view:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Another Gnostic writing, found in the Nag Hammadi library, Second Treatise of the Great Seth has a similar view of Jesus' death:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Collyridians, early Christian heretical sect in pre-Islamic Arabia, whose adherents apparently worshipped the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, as a goddess, have become of interest in some recent Christian–Muslim religious discussions in reference to the Islamic concept of the Christian Trinity. The debate hinges on some verses in the Qur'an, primarily , , and in the sura Al-Ma'ida, which have been taken to imply that Muhammad believed that Christians considered Mary to be part of the Trinity. That idea has never been part of mainstream Christian doctrine and is not clearly and unambiguously attested among any ancient Christian group, including the Collyridians.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Quran contains divine commands or policies that are ignored in Islamic law (sharia), including , which prescribes a penalty of "100 lashes" for "zina" (sex outside of marriage), while sharia law—based on hadith of Muhammad—orders adulterers to be stoned to death, not lashed.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: This seeming disregard of the founding work of revelation of Islam has been explained by the concept of abrogation (), whereby God sometimes abrogates one (sometimes more) revelation(s) with another—not only in the Quran but also among hadith. "Naskh" also holds that are Islamic laws based on verses once part of the Quran but no longer found in present-day Mus'haf (written copies of the Quran), which is the case with the stoning penalty for adultery.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Among the criticisms made of the concept of abrogation is that it was developed to "remove" contradictions found in the Quran, which "abounds in repetitions and contradictions, which are not removed by the convenient theory of abrogation" (Philip Schaff); that it "poses a difficult theological problem" because it seems to suggest God was changing His mind, or has realized something He was unaware of when revealing the original verse, which is logically absurd for an eternally all-knowing deity (David S. Powers and John Burton); and that it is suspiciously similar to the human process of "revising ... past decisions or plans" after "learning from experience and recognising mistakes" (Ali Dashti).


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Muslim scholars such as Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei argue abrogation in Quranic verses is not an indication of contradiction but of addition and supplementation. An example of the mention of impermanent commands in the Quran is Q.2:109 where — according to Tabatabaei — it clearly states the forgiveness is not permanent and soon there will be another command (through another verse) on this subject that completes the matter. Verse Q.4:15 also indicates its temporariness.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The question of why a perfect and unchangeable divine revelation would need to be abrogated, however, has led other scholars to interpret verse Q.2:106 differently than the mainstream. Ghulam Ahmed Parwez in his "Exposition of the Quran" writes that the abrogation Q.2:106 refers to is of the Bible/Torah, not the Quran:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Some criticism of the Quran has revolved around two verses known as the "Satanic Verses". Some early Islamic histories recount that as Muhammad was reciting Sūra Al-Najm (Q.53), as revealed to him by the angel Gabriel, Satan deceived him to utter the following lines after verses 19 and 20: "Have you thought of Al-lāt and al-'Uzzā and Manāt the third, the other; These are the exalted Gharaniq, whose intercession is hoped for." The Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt were three goddesses worshiped by the Meccans. These histories then say that these 'Satanic Verses' were repudiated shortly afterward by Muhammad at the behest of Gabriel.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: There are numerous accounts reporting the alleged incident, which differ in the construction and detail of the narrative, but they may be broadly collated to produce a basic account.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The different versions of the story are all traceable to one single narrator Muhammad ibn Ka'b, who was two generations removed from biographer Ibn Ishaq. In its essential form, the story reports that Muhammad longed to convert his kinsmen and neighbors of Mecca to Islam. As he was reciting Sūra an-Najm, considered a revelation by the angel Gabriel, Satan tempted him to utter the following lines after verses 19 and 20:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt were three goddesses worshipped by the Meccans. Discerning the meaning of ""gharāniq"" is difficult, as it is a "hapax legomenon" (i.e. used only once in the text). Commentators wrote that it meant the cranes. The Arabic word does generally mean a "crane" – appearing in the singular as "ghirnīq, ghurnūq, ghirnawq" and "ghurnayq", and the word has cousin forms in other words for birds, including "raven, crow" and "eagle".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The subtext to the event is that Muhammad was backing away from his otherwise uncompromising monotheism by saying that these goddesses were real and their intercession effective. The Meccans were overjoyed to hear this and joined Muhammad in ritual prostration at the end of the "sūrah". The Meccan refugees who had fled to Abyssinia heard of the end of persecution and started to return home. Islamic tradition holds that Gabriel chastised Muhammad for adulterating the revelation, at which point is revealed to comfort him,


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Muhammad took back his words and the persecution of the Meccans resumed. Verses were given, in which the goddesses are belittled. The passage in question, from 53:19, reads:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: They are but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers, for which Allah hath revealed no warrant. They follow but a guess and that which (they) themselves desire. And now the guidance from their Lord hath come unto them.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The incident of the Satanic Verses is put forward by some critics as evidence of the Quran's origins as a human work of Muhammad. Maxime Rodinson describes this as a conscious attempt to achieve a consensus with pagan Arabs, which was then consciously rejected as incompatible with Muhammad's attempts to answer the criticism of contemporary Arab Jews and Christians, linking it with the moment at which Muhammad felt able to adopt a "hostile attitude" towards the pagan Arabs. Rodinson writes that the story of the Satanic Verses is unlikely to be false because it was "one incident, in fact, which may be reasonably accepted as true because the makers of Muslim tradition would not have invented a story with such damaging implications for the revelation as a whole". In a caveat to his acceptance of the incident, William Montgomery Watt, states: "Thus it was not for any worldly motive that Muhammad eventually turned down the offer of the Meccans, but for a genuinely religious reason; not for example, because he could not trust these men nor because any personal ambition would remain unsatisfied, but because acknowledgment of the goddesses would lead to the failure of the cause, of the mission he had been given by God." Academic scholars such as William Montgomery Watt and Alfred Guillaume argued for its authenticity based upon the implausibility of Muslims fabricating a story so unflattering to their prophet. Watt says that "the story is so strange that it must be true in essentials." On the other hand, John Burton rejected the tradition.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: In an inverted culmination of Watt's approach, Burton argued the narrative of the "satanic verses" was forged, based upon a demonstration of its actual utility to certain elements of the Muslim community – namely, those elite sections of society seeking an "occasion of revelation" for eradicatory modes of abrogation. Burton's argument is that such stories served the vested interests of the status-quo, allowing them to dilute the radical messages of the Quran. The rulers used such narratives to build their own set of laws which contradicted the Quran, and justified it by arguing that not all of the Quran is binding on Muslims. Burton also sides with Leone Caetani, who wrote that the story of the "satanic verses" should be rejected not only on the basis of "isnad", but because "had these hadiths even a degree of historical basis, Muhammad's reported conduct on this occasion would have given the lie to the whole of his previous prophetic activity." Eerik Dickinson also pointed out that the Quran's challenge to its opponents to prove any inconsistency in its content was pronounced in a hostile environment, also indicating that such an incident did not occur or it would have greatly damaged the Muslims.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Some verses of the Quran are assumed to be directed towards all of Muhammad's followers while other verses are directed more specifically towards Muhammad and his wives, yet others are directed towards the whole of humanity.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Other scholars argue that variances in the Quran's explicit intended audiences are irrelevant to claims of divine origin – and for example that Muhammad's wives "specific divine guidance, occasioned by their proximity to the Prophet (Muhammad)" where "Numerous divine reprimands addressed to Muhammad's wives in the Quran establish their special responsibility to overcome their human frailties and ensure their individual worthiness", or argue that the Quran must be interpreted on more than one level. (See:).


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: British-German professor of Arabic and Islam Joseph Schacht, in his work "The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence" (1950) regarding the subject of law derived from the Quran, wrote:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Schacht further states that every legal tradition from the Prophet must be taken as an inauthentic and fictitious expression of a legal doctrine formulated at a later date:


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: What is evident regarding the compilation of the Quran is the disagreement between the companions of Muhammad (earliest supporters of Muhammad), as evidenced with their several disagreements regarding interpretation and particular versions of the Quran and their interpretative Hadith and Sunna, namely the mutawatir mushaf having come into present form after Muhammad's death. John Burton's work "The Collection of the Quran" further explores how certain Quranic texts were altered to adjust interpretation, in regards to controversy between fiqh (human understanding of Sharia) and madhahib.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Some scientists among Muslim commentators, notably al-Biruni, assigned to the Quran a separate and autonomous realm of its own and held that the Quran "does not interfere in the business of science nor does it infringe on the realm of science." These medieval scholars argued for the possibility of multiple scientific explanations of the natural phenomena, and refused to subordinate the Quran to an ever-changing science. However, there are factual contradictions between the Quran and contemporary science as shown below.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Muslims and non-Muslims have disputed the presence of scientific miracles in the Quran. According to author Ziauddin Sardar, "popular literature known as "ijaz"" (miracle) has created a "global craze in Muslim societies", starting the 1970s and 1980s and now found in Muslim bookstores, spread by websites and television preachers.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: An example is the verse: "So verily I swear by the stars that run and hide ..." (), which proponents claim demonstrates the Quran's knowledge of the existence of black holes; or: "[I swear by] the Moon in her fullness that ye shall journey on from stage to stage" () refers, according to proponents, to human flight into outer space.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Critics argue that verses which allegedly explain modern scientific facts about subjects such as biology, the history of Earth, and evolution of human life, contain fallacies and are unscientific.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Ijaz literature tends to follow a pattern of finding some possible agreement between a scientific result and a verse in the Quran. "So verily I swear by the stars that run and hide ..." (Q.81:15-16) or "And I swear by the stars' positions-and that is a mighty oath if you only knew". (Quran, 56:75-76) is declared to refer to black holes; "[I swear by] the Moon in her fullness; that ye shall journey on from stage to stage" (Q.84:18-19) refers to space travel, and thus evidence the Quran has miraculously predicted this phenomenon centuries before scientists.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: While it is generally agreed the Quran contains many verses proclaiming the wonders of nature — "Travel throughout the earth and see how He brings life into being" (Q.29:20) "Behold in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are indeed signs for men of understanding ..." (Q.3:190) — it is strongly doubted by Sardar and others that "everything, from relativity, quantum mechanics, Big Bang theory, black holes and pulsars, genetics, embryology, modern geology, thermodynamics, even the laser and hydrogen fuel cells, have been 'found' in the Quran".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Quranic verses related to the origin of mankind created from dust or mud are not logically compatible with modern evolutionary theory. Although some Muslims try to reconcile evolution with the Quran by the argument from intelligent design, the Quran (and the hadiths) can be interpreted to support the idea of creationism. This led to a contribution by Muslims to the creation vs. evolution debate.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: According to some critics, the morality of the Quran, like the life story of Muhammad, appears to be a moral regression, by the standards of the moral traditions of Judaism and Christianity it says that it builds upon. The "Catholic Encyclopedia", for example, states that "the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament" and "that in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve, is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is none." William Montgomery Watt however finds Muhammad's changes an improvement for his time and place: "In his day and generation Muhammad was a social reformer, indeed a reformer even in the sphere of morals. He created a new system of social security and a new family structure, both of which were a vast improvement on what went before. By taking what was best in the morality of the nomad and adapting it for settled communities, he established a religious and social framework for the life of many races of men."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: According to the "E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, Volume 4", the term first applied in the Quran to unbelieving Meccans, who endeavoured "to refute and revile the Prophet". A waiting attitude towards the "kafir" was recommended at first for Muslims; later, Muslims were ordered to keep apart from unbelievers and defend themselves against their attacks and even take the offensive. Most passages in the Quran referring to unbelievers in general talk about their fate on the day of judgement and destination in hell.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The Quran's teachings on matters of war and peace are topics that are widely debated. On the one hand, some critics, such as Sam Harris, interpret that certain verses of the Quran sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. Harris argues that Muslim extremism is simply a consequence of taking the Quran literally, and is skeptical about significant reform toward a "moderate Islam" in the future. On the other hand, other scholars argue that such verses of the Quran are interpreted out of context, and Muslims of the Ahmadiyya movement argue that when the verses are read in context it clearly appears that the Quran prohibits aggression, and allows fighting only in self-defense.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: The author Syed Kamran Mirza has argued that a concept of 'Jihad', defined as 'struggle', has been introduced by the Quran. He wrote that while Muhammad was in Mecca, he "did not have many supporters and was very weak compared to the Pagans", and "it was at this time he added some 'soft', peaceful verses", whereas "almost all the hateful, coercive and intimidating verses later in the Quran were made with respect to Jihad" when Muhammad was in Medina .


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Micheline R. Ishay has argued that "the Quran justifies wars for self-defense to protect Islamic communities against internal or external aggression by non-Islamic populations, and wars waged against those who 'violate their oaths' by breaking a treaty". Mufti M. Mukarram Ahmed has also argued that the Quran encourages people to fight in self-defense. He has also argued that the Quran has been used to direct Muslims to make all possible preparations to defend themselves against enemies.


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Shin Chiba and Thomas J. Schoenbaum argue that Islam "does not allow Muslims to fight against those who disagree with them regardless of belief system", but instead "urges its followers to treat such people kindly". Yohanan Friedmann has argued that the Quran does not promote fighting for the purposes of religious coercion, although the war as described is "religious" in the sense that the enemies of the Muslims are described as "enemies of God".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Rodrigue Tremblay has argued that the Quran commands that non-Muslims under a Muslim regime, should "feel themselves subdued" in "a political state of subservience" . He also argues that the Quran may assert freedom within religion. Nisrine Abiad has argued that the Quran incorporates the offence (and due punishment) of "rebellion" into the offence of "highway or armed robbery".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: George W. Braswell has argued that the Quran asserts an idea of Jihad to deal with "a sphere of disobedience, ignorance and war".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Michael David Bonner has argued that the "deal between God and those who fight is portrayed as a commercial transaction, either as a loan with interest, or else as a profitable sale of the life of this world in return for the life of the next", where "how much one gains depends on what happens during the transaction", either "paradise if slain in battle, or victory if one survives". Critics have argued that the Quran "glorified Jihad in many of the Medinese suras" and "criticized those who fail(ed) to participate in it".


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Ali Ünal has claimed that the Quran praises the companions of Muhammad, for being stern and implacable against the said unbelievers, where in that "period of ignorance and savagery, triumphing over these people was possible by being strong and unyielding."


title: Criticism of the Quran

text: Solomon Nigosian concludes that the "Quranic statement is clear" on the issue of fighting in defense of Islam as "a duty that is to be carried out at all costs", where "God grants security to those Muslims who fight in order to halt or repel aggression".