Some people claim that the Devil is very cunning, and that he could potentially make up something like the Qur’an, while veiling all other demons and human beings from knowing what the real origin of the Qur’an is – How strong would you consider this objection?

Answered by Sharif Randhawa (Researcher at Bayyinah Institute, owner of Qur’anic Musings blog), with slight modifications and an additional note

If somebody had to resort to that explanation, then I would say the debate it pretty much won with him.  The test of a good argument is not to see whether it is resistant to any kind of response whatsoever.  After all, one could always come up with an ad hoc and absurd response to some evidence, for example by claiming that it was set up by magical ghosts or aliens who wanted it that way, but that does not make it a rational response.  If somebody has to go to improbable (even farcical, as in this case) lengths to avoid the conclusion of the argument, then I would say that’s a good argument.

[Note: In the case of someone bringing up ‘Satan’ as an excuse, we would need to know the definition of a miracle for the person bringing the objection. What the situation seems like in this case is that there is no clear definition for the objector as to what separates a “miracle” from a “non-miracle”, and this is why ‘Satan’ can be brought up as an (artificially presented) candidate for the composition of the Qur’an.

To put it another way, it is obvious that only a person who believes in some religion such as Christianity can believe in the existence of ‘Satan’ to begin with. So our question would be, on what basis does he take the amazing works seen at the hands of Moses or Jesus (Alayhimaa Salaam) as proper miracles and not works of ‘Satan’, while discarding that which was given to Muhammad (ﷺ) as a ‘Satanic’ work? One will see that if the discussion goes along systematically, then the reasons provided by the Christian are tied with presupposed soteriological and theological issues that can be dealt with and refuted by the Muslim, thus compelling him, if he is sincere, to take a serious look at the Islamic presentation of matters].