Islam and The Qur'an satisfy the criterion of validity
Well you may ask, “What’s the difference between a
Muslim’s belief Vs a Christians belief.” Don't they both just boil down to blind
faith? With all due respect, the answer is no. So let me further explain why I
make such a claim. In order for a religion to have a valid claim to Truth, it
must fulfill TWO criteria:
1) Proof of Divine Revelation: miracles, prophecies, otherwise humanly
inaccessible knowledge, divine characteristics that can be testable today that
render revelations impossible to have come from anyone but God.
2) Textual Authentication: through an unbroken chain of transmitters, to insure
the doctrine is the same as the one that the Prophet originally taught.
The Verdict
1 without 2 is useless because all you can end up doing is ACCEPTING that a historical figure was a Prophet, but you cannot accurately pinpoint everything he taught, meaning that you will either not believe in a portion of what he taught OR believe in things which he NEVER taught.
This is obviously dangerous because it leads to a logical fallacy:
Person A is a Prophet of God, therefore whatever is claimed to have been said by
him, or whatever is quoted on his behalf, I will believe in.
Well that's obviously fallacious reasoning since you will end up believing in
things Person A never even said, but rather, what others have placed in his
mouth and disguised under his authority.
2 without 1 is equally useless because being able to prove that a text
or doctrine has been perfectly transmitted from Person B, is USELESS if there is
no substantiating evidence that Person B is a Prophet receiving Divine
knowledge. In this case, all you have done is established with certainty WHAT
was quoted by someone, but that doesn't tell you anything about what that
person's source was. Without evidence that it came from God, you just have a
perfectly preserved personal opinion of a man, or worse yet, a liar.
So in conclusion both criteria must be fulfilled in order for a religious claim
to Truth to be taken seriously and be credible.
I can tell you very easily that Islam acknowledges the original revelations of
God to the Prophets we share with Judaism and Christianity, so you'll find the
problem with the MODERN claim of these two is that they fulfill criterion #1 but
not #2.