Koran 17:4-8

17:4 And We conveyed to the Children of Israel in the Scripture that, “You will surely cause corruption on the earth twice, and you will surely reach [a degree of] great haughtiness.(“)

5 So when the [time of] promise came for the first of them, We sent against you servants of Ours – those of great military might, and they probed [even] into the homes, and it was a promise fulfilled.

6 Then We gave back to you a return victory over them. And We reinforced you with wealth and sons and made you more numerous in manpower 7 [And said], “If you do good, you do good for yourselves; and if you do evil, [you do it] to yourselves.”

Then when the final promise came, [We sent your enemies] to sadden your faces and to enter the temple in Jerusalem, as they entered it the first time, and to destroy what they had taken over with [total] destruction.

8 [Then Allah said], “It is expected, [if you repent], that your Lord will have mercy upon you. But if you return [to sin], We will return [to punishment]. And We have made Hell, for the disbelievers, a prison-bed.”

Koran 17:4-8

Notice the missing end quote in Koran 17:4 which was only corrected in the “Saheeh International” translation. You can see the missing end quote in the older Sahih International translation.

Note that Allah doesn’t need Jibril to speak to the “Children of Israel” from the mouth of Muhammad. Also, note that the “temple” in Jerusalem was apparently destroyed by “your enemies” – I wonder what happened to the mosque that Muhammad visited in Koran 17:1, just three verses earlier? It’s a good thing that after the Muslims invaded, they built the Dome of the Rock, to pretend that’s where Muhammad arrived:

Muhammad claims: “servants of Ours” were sent against the Children of Israel. Who these are, not even the scholars of Tafsir Ibn Kathir, 17:4, can make clear:

Neither Allah nor His Messenger required us to refer to them.

Allah gave their enemies power over them…

Nebuchadnezzar conquered Ash-Sham (Greater Syria, including Palestine), destroying Jerusalem and killing them…

Tafsir Ibn Kathir, 17:4

The scholars guess that the passage could be referring to Nebuchadnezzar II, whose empire worshipped Sin, the god of the Moon. So, the “servants of Ours” or the servants of Allah, are Moon worshippers. For more, see Allah’s Face?

For Muhammad to claim people of the past are “servants of ours”, who are Moon worshippers, puts paid to the lie of Allah being the god of Abraham. Worse, “servants of ours” contradict Muhammad being the first Muslim.

The best replacement for this passage is: “”, the empty sentence.