by
Damien F. Mackey
“If only Muslims could find the name “Haman” or something similar
in Egyptian records … as this would allow them to claim that Haman
is indeed an Egyptian name, and thus enable them to disconnect
the Haman in the Qur’an from the Haman found in the
biblical book of Esther”.
Jochen Katz
In conventional terms, this (the back-dating of Haman to the era of Moses) would be a dislocation of the biblical Haman backwards in time by approximately a millennium.
But that is what Islam does to ancient history, time and time again. It mangles it.
See for instance my article:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
(7) Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
in which a supposed “Mohammed” of the C7th AD claims to be a “brother” of the prophet Jonah who is actually situated well back in BC time, and has connections with a “Nineveh” that had long ceased to exist.
For a proper chronology of Haman and his historical identity, see e.g. my article:
King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman)
(7) King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman) | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Now, Jochen Katz has attempted to restore some sanity with regard to the Qur’anic dislocation of Haman in his article, “The Haman Hoax”:
https://www.answering-islam.org/authors/katz/haman.html
Introduction
The Qur’an contains several instances of “historical compression”, i.e. stories in which two or more separate historical events are combined to create a new story, or a character from one story is transferred or imported into another story. For example, in the Qur’an we find Saul and David in the story of Gideon, or a Samaritan together with Moses in the Exodus narrative. A list of many more such historical compressions is provided on this page.
Damien Mackey’s comment: I might as well include these “historical compressions” here:
In the following some smaller discrepancies between the Qur'an and the scriptures it supposedly confirms.
Historical Compressions:
1. Saul, David, Gideon and Goliath
2. A Samaritan tempting the Israelites in Moses time?
3. Prophets and Kings in Israel before the time of Moses?
4. Moses and the Gospel?
5. Punishment for future disobedience?
6. Mary, the sister of Aaron?
7. Pharaoh and Haman?
8. A Pharaoh Who Forgot to Die in Time?
9. Was there a second period of slaying the sons of the Israelites?
10. Moses or Jacob?
11. Did Joseph's parents go to Egypt?
12. Abraham's name
13. Abraham and Solomon
Other contradictions in comparison to the Bible:
Introductory remark
14. Did God teach Adam the names of the animals?
15. Noah's Age
16. Were Believers Really Called Muslims Before the Time of Muhammad?
17. The Quran’s Mistakes regarding the Biblical Patriarchs
18. Who Adopted Moses: Pharaoh’s Daughter or Pharaoh’s Wife?
19. Adoption by Adaption analyzes various discrepancies inf the quranic version of the stories of Moses and Joseph.
20. A Flood in the time of Moses?
21. Israel, the Quran and the Promised Land
22. The Quran, Moses and the Tablets of Stone
23. Solomon Working with Demons
24. Israel's Response to the Covenant: ‘We Obey’ or ‘We Disobey’?
25. Where is the Blood?
26. Divinely Inspired Ignorance?
27. Which Prophets Did the Jews Kill?
28. What kind of book is the Injil?
29. Animal sacrifices for Christians?
30. Why did the Queen of Sheba come to Solomon?
31. Ezra the Son of God?
32. Jesus reached old age?
33. Did the golden calf say 'Moo'?
34. Did disobedience result in extra commandments?
35. How many messengers were sent to Noah's people?
Further discussion: Who are those messengers that were rejected by Noah's people?
36. The Progeny of Abraham?
37. Two young men?
38. How many wings does an angel have?
Jochen Katz continues:
Whether these stories and characters were confused by the author of the Qur’an out of ignorance or deliberately merged for a certain purpose, these new stories are presented to the readers as reports of historical events and therefore constitute historical errors in the Qur’an.
One of the best known examples of such apparent historical confusions in the Qur’an is the character of Haman in the story of Moses and Pharaoh. Pharaoh and Haman were two of the most dangerous figures in the history of the Jews. Both of these men attempted genocide against the Israelites. Pharaoh gave the command to kill all male newborn babies (Exodus 1) and Haman plotted to have all Jews killed who were living in exile in Persia (Esther 3).1
However, these two events were separated in two ways: (a) the geographical distance of several thousand kilometers between Egypt and Persia, and (b) about a thousand years distance on the historical timeline.
Since the character of Haman is so obviously out of place in the story of Moses and Pharaoh, this matter has a high embarrassment factor, and Muslims apparently felt the pressing need to find a reasonable solution to this charge of a historical error in the Qur’an.
If only Muslims could find the name “Haman” or something similar in Egyptian records … as this would allow them to claim that Haman is indeed an Egyptian name, and thus enable them to disconnect the Haman in the Qur’an from the Haman found in the biblical book of Esther.
In fact, apologists for Islam have managed to devise a hoax that has impressed and misled many people over the last 15 years. This hoax went through three main stages of development (associated with Maurice Bucaille, Islamic Awareness, and Harun Yahya) and all three stages are available on the internet, plus plenty of variants.2 ….
As a foretaste of the things to come, let me mention in this introduction only two details out of the many false Muslim statements on this topic.
Maurice Bucaille claims to have consulted a prominent Egyptologist about the name Haman and a possible transliteration of that name in hieroglyphs. He then writes:
In order to confirm his deduction about the name, he advised me to consult the Dictionary of Personal Names of the New Kingdom by Ranke, where I might find the name written in hieroglyphs, as he had written before me, and the transliteration in German. I discovered all that had been presumed by the expert, and, moreover, I was stupefied to read the profession of Haman: “Chief of the workers in stone-quarries,” exactly what could be deduced from the Qur'an, though the words of Pharaoh suggest a master of construction.
For comparison, here is the entry in Ranke’s dictionary:
Quite obviously, Bucaille lied. Ranke’s transliteration does not say “Haman”, nor does Ranke say anything about him being the “Chief of the workers in stone-quarries”. [The meaning and implications of this entry will be discussed in great detail in the next two sections of this paper.]
Harun Yahya wrote about ten years ago:3
The name "Haman" was in fact mentioned in old Egyptian tablets. It was mentioned on a monument which now stands in the Hof Museum in Vienna, …
This is another lie. There is not even one Egyptian tablet, let alone many, on which the name Haman was found, nor is the artefact with the inscription that allegedly contains the name Haman “a monument”; it is a door post and it does not say “Haman”.
Most ironically, there has not even been a “Hof Museum” in Vienna for more than eighty years!
The whole story is a hoax from start to finish. ….
Damien Mackey’s comment: Read the whole of Jochen Katz’s article.
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