When the Quran was revealed on the Night of Power (Lailat al Qadr) several centuries ago, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the world was given a mercy which is unmatched till this day. And nothing will match it till the end of times. In fact, Allah has challenged islam's doubters, a challenge which hasn't been answered so far and by the grace of Allah, never will be.

Think about it for a moment, if the Holy Quran was not from God almighty, then surely this challenge would have been met by someone by now. Man was able to go to the moon after all.

The most compelling proof that Muhammad ﷺ was the last prophet of God is the inimitable nature of the Quran. We will discuss some of these inimitability factors in this post inshallah.

1. Preserved throughout history, as promised by Allah almighty.

The preservation of the Quran was guaranteed by Allah himself. It is a miracle in itself that a book which was primarily memorized by the followers of Islam and documented on disjointed materials over a span of 23 years could survive, let alone survive without being corrupted by man. Muslims would learn some part of the Qur’an from the Prophet ﷺ or his Companions, then they would travel back to their countries and autonomously teach it to their family, friends, and students, who would then relay it onwards to others.

These oral transmissions continued independently for centuries, all across the world, and somehow, today all 1.8 billion Muslims still recite the Qur’an exactly as it was taught to the Prophet’s Companions.

It is also remarkable that the Qur’an in written form today perfectly matches the original manuscripts of the Qur’an compiled by the Prophet’s Companions (may Allah be pleased with them)

Think for a moment, how many mistakes do we make on a daily basis when writing, and this with modern technologies such as spell and grammar checkers. Rewind back to the days of prophet Muhammad ﷺ with no computers to keep track of the written Quran, there should have been multitude of misaligned manuscripts.

Some of Islam critics argue that the Quran could have been changed when it was compelled by Abū Bakr and standardized by ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with them). This argument falls flat on its face due to the thousands of people who had completely memorized the Quran by the time it was documented on paper. even a single letter change would not match those memorizations any more.

2. A literary masterpiece

All the highest authorities of the Arabic language, be it in Arabia or abroad, all of them are in consensus on the literary uniqueness of the Qur’an.

It is important to note that before Islam, the arabs of that time valued language almost as much as water. Which in an environment as harsh as the desert, means life or death. In fact language and the eloquence in language were so much appreciated back then that whenever a poet was discovered in an Arab tribe, others would come to congratulate and celebration would take place with feasts. The vocabulary, grammar and strict language norms were passed down generation to generation. One had to study years, sometimes decades under a master to gain the title of poet.

The Quran was revealed at a time when the Arabs were at the pinnacle of expression; Yet virtually overnight, these same people experienced a Quran that was the purest of Arabic, the most eloquent. So much so that even their best literature at the time, could not even come close to the genius of the Holy Quran.

These prideful Arabs could not explain how they were collectively unable to challenge or produce a single chapter with “similar” literary features, according to their own biased judges, when its shortest chapter is only ten words (108:1-3), And let's remember that they were the masters of Arabic. The fact that prophet Muhammad ﷺ was illiterate, no one could or can claim that he wrote the Quran, which is more than 6000 verses of the purest and most eloquent Arabic ever seen.

As argued by Al-Baquillani (d. 1013 AH) in one of his books (The Inimitability of the Quran), the fact that the reaction of the first listeners of the Quran was to spend fortunes trying to smear the name and mission of the Prophet of Islam, instead of accepting the Quran's challenge and producing something similar like it. Effectively outperforming the unlettered man and ending his religion even before it started is proof of its divine nature.

May Allah grant us all understanding and He knows best.