1. Quran

Quran 18:86 in Arabic word for word creates two independent problems:

1. First, Dhul Qarnayn reached (balagha) a location: the setting place of the sun (maghriba l-shamsi).
2. There, he found (wajada) the sun setting in a muddy spring (ʿaynin ḥami-atin). And he "found (wajada) near it a community".

In Quran 18:90, Dhul Qarnayn travels to a different place and reaches (balagha) "the rising place of the sun" (maṭliʿa l-shamsi).

2. Tafsir al-Tabari on 18:86: Muhammad's Companion Ibn Abbas and the Salaf Debate on Whether the Spring in Which the Sun Sets Is Muddy or Hot

Tafsir al-Tabari preserves the debate between the salaf over whether the spring where the sun sets is muddy or warm. Tabari says both readings are correct because the sun could set in a spring that is both hot and muddy.

Tabari's introduction:

>(the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring). The readers differed on how to read this. Some of the readers of Madina and Basra read it as (in a muddy spring), meaning that the sun sets in a spring that contains mud. While a group of the readers of Medina and the majority of the people of Kufa read it as, (in a warm spring) meaning that the sun sets in a spring of warm water.

Mention of those who said: (setting in a muddy spring)

>Ibn Abbas: (and he found it setting in a muddy spring) he said: In black mud.
Ibn Abbas, that he recited: (in a muddy spring) he said: it is black mud.
I heard Abdullah b. Abbas said: Muawiyah recited this verse, and he said (warm spring) and Ibn Abbas said: it is (muddy spring). He said: So they sent to Ka'b Al-Ahbar and asked him. Ka'b said: As for the sun, it disappears in 'Thatin', which matched what Ibn Abbas said, and the word tha'at means "mud".
Ibn Abbas used to speak about the muddy spring and would pronounce the word as (in a muddy spring) then he explained it as black mud. Nafi' said that Ka'b was asked about it and he said: "You are more knowledgeable in the Quran than I am, but I find it in the Book disappearing in black mud."
Mujahid: (in a muddy spring). He said: black mud.
Ibn Abbas: I read (in a muddy spring) And Amr bin Al-Aas recited (in a warm spring), so we were sent to Ka'b. He said: It sets into black mud.
Qatadah: (setting in a muddy spring) and the mud: the black mud.

Tabari's verdict:

>And in my (Tabari's) mind the correct opinion is to say that they are both popular readings in the land, and each one has a correctness about it and an understandable meaning, and neither contradicts the other, for it is possible that the sun sets in a hot spring that has mud and sludge, so a reader who uses "hot spring" is describing its temperature, and the reader who uses "muddy spring" is describing that it has mud and sludge.

Tafsir al-Tabari 18:86, 10/374

3. Hadith

Muhammad directly says in a hadith, considered authentic in chain, that the sun sets in a spring:

>"I was sitting behind the Messenger of Allah who was riding a donkey while the sun was setting. He asked: Do you know where this sets? I replied: Allah and his Apostle know best. He said: It sets in a spring of warm water (Hamiyah)."

Sunan Abu Dawud 4002

4. Pre-Islamic Poem

A poem in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, attributed to the pre-Islamic king Tubba, describes this as well:

>"He saw where the sun sinks from view" "In a pool of mud and fetid slime"

Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, p. 12

5. Syriac Alexander Legend

Historians trace the Quranic character Dhul Qarnayn to a legend about Alexander the Great circulating around Muhammad's time, the Syriac Alexander Legend, which also says this:

>"So the whole camp mounted, and Alexander and his troops went up between the fetid sea and the bright sea to the place where the sun enters the window of heaven; for the sun is the servant of the Lord, and neither by night nor by day does he cease from his travelling. The place of his rising is over the sea, and the people who dwell there, when he is about to rise, flee away and hide themselves in the sea, that they be not burnt by his rays; and he passes through the midst of the heavens to the place where he enters the window of heaven... And when the sun enters the window of heaven, he straightway bows down and makes obeisance before God his Creator; and he travels and descends the whole night through the heavens, until at length he finds himself where he rises."

Budge, Syriac Alexander Legend, p. 148

I've posted this argument along with others on this website (with linked sources): https://islamsproblemabc.github.io/islam-problems/

In Authentic Hadiths, Muhammad made multiple failed prophecies about the apocalypse (al-Saah).

• The Quran uses al-Saah for ONLY the literal apocalypse 30+ times.
• Nowhere else in the sahih (authentic) hadiths does al-Saah mean personal death - except to rescue this exact set of failed predictions.

Authentic Hadiths:

(Anything in parenthesis or like "X said this meant" was added later, and "to you" isn't in the original Arabic.)

1. As near as the index and middle finger

• "I saw Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) pointing with his index and middle fingers, saying, 'The time of my Advent and the Hour are like these two fingers.'" (Sahih Bukhari 4936)

2. Three different boys "won't grow old" before it happens

• "If this young boy lives, he may not grow very old till (he would see) the Last Hour (al-Saah) coming." (Sahih Muslim 2953a)
• "If this boy lives he would not grow very old till the Last Hour (al-Saah) would come." (Sahih Muslim 2953b)
• "Thereupon Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) said: If he lives long he would not grow very old till the Last Hour (al-Saah) would come." (Sahih Muslim 2953c)
• "If this (slave) should live long, he will not reach the geriatric old age, but the Hour (al-Saah) will be established." (Sahih Bukhari 6167)

3. It will happen within 100 years

• "Allah's Messenger as saying this one month before his death: You asked me about the Last Hour (al-Saah) whereas its knowledge is with Allah. I, however, take an oath and say that none upon the earth, the created beings, would survive at the end of one hundred years." (Sahih Muslim 2538a)
• "Do you realize (the importance of) this night? Nobody present on the surface of the earth tonight will be living after the completion of one hundred years from this night." (Sahih Bukhari 116)

4. People understood it literally until it didn't happen

• "The people made a mistake in grasping the meaning of this statement of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and they indulged in those things which are said about these narrators (i.e. some said that the Day of Resurrection will be established after 100 years etc.)" (Sahih Bukhari 601)

5. Dajjal (antichrist) will come after the conquest of Constantinople

(Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. The Dajjal did not come.)

• "the outbreak of the great war will be at the conquest of Constantinople and the conquest of Constantinople when the Dajjal (Antichrist) comes forth. He (the Prophet) struck his thigh or his shoulder with his hand and said: This is as true as you are here or as you are sitting (meaning Mu'adh ibn Jabal)." (Sunan Abu Dawud 4294)

I've posted this argument along with others on this website (with linked sources): https://islamsproblemabc.github.io/islam-problems/