My holy book is accurately sourced

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The Qur'an

Many holy books have existed for centuries. If they are to be considered truthful in any way at all, they must have been transmitted faithfully from the original author to the present time. This is particularly important for Islam which claims that the Qur'an is directly authored by Allah.

Christians refer to the many manuscripts of the Bible which are in (relatively) close agreement. Muslims argue the Qur'an is well preserved because of their oral tradition and there is little variation in the text. However, this claims generally collapse under close scrutiny.

Counter arguments[edit]

The relevance of accuracy transmission is questionable if the original source is unknown or of questionable trustworthiness. Just because a text was transmitted faithfully from an author does not mean that the author was reliable.

Muhammad could have been a weak link in transmission[edit]

Islamic tradition holds that the angel Gabriel transmitted the Qur'an to Muhammad in stages. Muhammad memorized it and transmitted it to his followers. This leaves the possibility that Muhammad made mistakes and no one would have noticed. It would be been more reliable (and credible) if Gabriel had given Muhammad a written copy, particularly if it was extant. Muhammad would forget sections from time to time:

"Narrated Aisha: The Prophet heard a man reciting the Qur'an in the mosque and said, "May Allah bestow His Mercy on him, as he has reminded me of such-and-such verses of such a Surah.""

— Sahih al-Bukhari: vol. 6, bk. 61, no. 556; also Sahih Muslim: bk. 4, no. 1720

Apologists respond by quoting the Qur'an Surah 87:6-7 Bible-icon.png [1] which is begging the question in that it assumes the Qur'an is correct.

Muhammad would also recite the same verse in different ways, so variations were present from the beginning. These variations were each acceptable to Muhammad. [2]

Narrated Al-Bara: There was revealed:

“Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah.” (Qur’an 4.95)
The Prophet said, "Call Zaid for me and let him bring the (writing) board, the inkpot and the scapula bone (the pen) ..." Then he said, "Write: ‘Not equal are those Believers who sit...’", and at that time 'Amr bin Um Maktum, the blind man was sitting behind the Prophet. He said, "O Allah's Apostle! What is your order for me (as regards the above verse) as I am a blind man?" So, instead of the above verse, the following verse was revealed:
“Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) except those who are disabled and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah.” (Qur’an 4.95)

— Sahih al-Bukhari: vol. 6, bk. 61, no. 512; also Sahih Muslim: bk. 20, no. 4676-4677

See also Sahih al-Bukhari 4992 and Sahih al-Bukhari 3476. It is surprising that a divinely authored perfect scripture would exist in multiple versions. This is more of a sign of a forgetful human than divine perfection. Of course, it is possible for Gabriel to have omitted or modified some sections - there is no guarantee of authenticity from a supernatural being.

The Qur'an has not been altered since the time of Muhammad[edit]

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A photograph of a Sana'a manuscript fragment. There is a faint script which is visible behind the later writing.

Muhammad died in 632. Apologists claim that the Qur'an has been preserved exactly from before this time. However, this is not entirely true.

"The original texts of most of the former divine Books were lost altogether, and only their translations exist today. The Qur’an, on the other hand, exists exactly as it had been revealed to the Prophet; not a word - nay, not a dot of it - has been changed. It is available in its original text and the Word of God has been preserved for all times to come. [3]"
"From one end of the world to the other, from China in the Far East to Morocco and Algeria in the Far West, from the scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean to the great desert of Africa, the Qur'an is one, and no copy differing in even a diacritical point is met with in the possession of one among the four hundred millions of Muslims. [4]"

History of editing[edit]

From the beginning of Islam, there was textual variation in the Qur'an, [5][6] partly based on the different versions taught by Muhammad.[2] Abu Bakr, who ruled 632-634, organized the gathering of Qur'anic text fragments to compile a unified text. Before that time, complete written Qur'ans were rare or non-existent. This process would not have been necessary if there was already agreement on the standard text. It is also questionable because Muhammad explicitly approved of the different variants.

Another problem soon emerged: the early text lack of diacritical marks made pronunciation of vowels ambiguous. This was generally acceptable to those who already knew the text orally but was confusing for those reading it without that knowledge. The ambiguity in pronunciation caused different terminology to be used among certain readers. Uthman, who ruled 644 to 656, organised a standardization of the pronunciation of the Qur'an. Before this standardization, would be have been possible for oral tradition to have altered while still remaining consistent with the consonantal text.

Uthman then set about destroying manuscripts that were different from his official text. This would only be necessary of textual variations existed! It is difficult to know with certainty that he preserved the correct version of the Qur'an (if such a thing exists). Apologists argue that copies of Uthman's Quran survive (Topkapi MSS in Istanbul and Samarkand MSS in Tashkent) but they are dated by modern historians to centuries after.

In summary, there was a formal effort to collect, edit and standardise the text, as well as to suppress any alternative versions.

Not all Muslims agreed with the suppression of variant texts by Uthman[edit]

Apologists argue that this standardization process was supported by other Muslims and there were no objections.

"That is why the companions voluntarily gave up their copies to be burned, with the exception of ibn Mas’ud, who kept his along with the Uthamnic recension. [7]"
"The entire community in Madinah, including numerous eminent Companions such as Ali ibn Abi Talib, willingly went along with this plan, and no objections were voiced. [8]"

However, there is evidence that not all Muslims agreed:

"Abdullah (b. Mas'ud) reported that he said to his companions to conceal their copies of the Qur'an and further said: He who conceals anything he shall have to bring that which he had concealed on the Day of Judgment, and then said: After whose mode of recitation do you command me to recite? I in fact recited before Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) more than seventy chapters of the Qur'an and the Companions of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) know it that I have better understanding of the Book of Allah (than they do), and if I were to know that someone had better understanding than I, I would have gone to him. Shaqiq said: I sat in the company of the Companions of Muhammad (may peace be upon him) but I did not hear anyone having rejected that (that is, his recitation) or finding fault with it."

— Sahih Muslim: bk. 31, no. 6022; also Sahih al-Bukhari: vol. 6, bk. 61, no. 522

"Az-Zuhri also narrated that Abdullah Ibn Mas’oud became upset because he was not chosen to copy the Qur’an. He said, “Oh you Muslims, how can I not be chosen ..." Ibn Mas’oud also said, “Oh people of Iraq! Hide your Qurans in your homes (from Uthman).”"

— Sunan Al-Tirmithi, Dar Al-Kotob Al-ilmiyah, 2008, vol. 4, no. 3105, p. 134; also Ibn Sa'd, Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, vol. 2 p. 444

They obviously felt their version was just as valid and that it should not be destroyed.

Palimpsests[edit]

Sana'a manuscript and other similar palimpsests are the oldest partial manuscripts of the Qur'an that remain extant. A palimpsest means a manuscript in which the original (lower) text was erased and the parchment was reused with a later (upper) text. The upper text is essentially identical to the modern Qur'an. The lower text often remains visible but is somewhat obscured. Sana'a manuscript contains roughly half of the Qur'an and probably dates to before 671 CE. The lower text contains many small variants from the standard Qur'anic text. [9]

Gerd R Puin, head of the Sana'a manuscript restoration project, argues that the palimpsests Sana'a manuscripts indicate textual evolution of the Qur'an and pre-Islamic sources were inserted after Uthman. [10] He speculated that some of the text may pre-date Muhammad.

"My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate [5]"

Keith E. Small also noticed evidence of textual variation according to early reports and the use of palimpsests. He concluded that "there is not the possibility of recovering the earliest authoritative forms of the Qur'an". [11] Textual variants were reported in the copies possessed by Ibn Mas'ud and Ubayy b. Ka'b, who were companions of Mohammad.

"From very early times, there was an awareness of textual variants in the Qur’an’s tradition which was accompanied by a desire to bring them under official control. [...] Thee Qur’an, however, is more like the other kind of food produced for the supermarket, food that has been improved in order to make it conform to a desired ideal— like a supermarket accepting only carrots of a certain length and colour, or oranges of a certain size, variety and colour, these without visible blemishes, and then the suppliers being told to only plant and supply these ideal versions. [...] what has been preserved and transmitted for the form of these texts that was chosen from amidst a group of others, which was then edited and canonized at their expense. [6]"

Since the Sana'a manuscript, two more palimpsests have been examined academically. [12] They show a "substantially different nature" compared to the modern Qur'an. [6] This is strong evidence of a wide diversity of textual variation that was suppressed by later editors.

Apologist response to palimpsests[edit]

Apologists respond by saying that there were different variants of the content (not just the consonantal/vowel issues), but these readings were just as valid but not as canonical.

"The great Imam ibn al-Jazari (d.1429 CE-833 H.) wrote that many readings that were not consonantal with the text of the Uthmanic mushaf were indeed read by the companions and the Prophet. We, as Muslims, have believed all along—for 14 centuries—that there were other readings of the same texts used by the companions, and that the Uthmanic project was made to unify Muslims around one text. The real objection here is that the omission of the other readings should be considered as an alteration of the Qur’an! [7]"

Motivated by the desire to standardise the text, the Qur'an was based on an edited amalgamation of the earlier variants. Editing necessarily modifies a text. In this case, the textual variation which was explicitly approved by Muhammad was lost. This refutes the apologist's main claim that the Qur'an has existed without modification.

Oral tradition preserved the Qur'an from alteration[edit]

Apologists argue that people had memorized the Qur'an had could detect any changes.

"And how can one expect any discrepancy, when there have existed several million “Huffaz” (someone who has memorized the entire Quran, word for word, cover to cover) in every generation since the time of the Holy Prophet (p) and in our own time. Should anyone alter a syllable of the original text of the Quran, these Huffaz would at once expose the mistake. [13]"

Memorization, even by many people, is not entirely reliable and not independent of written copies which we used to assist memorization. The Huffaz did not necessarily agree on which version of the text they memorized - there probably were multiple variants of each Surah in existence at the time.

"The manuscript evidence best supports a view that though it was a necessary feature accompanying the written text, an oral tradition of the precise pronunciation of the text was never strong enough or developed enough to unify the earliest Muslim community on a standard recitation of the text. [...] there seems to have been in this period an attitude of flexibility of oral pronunciation that matched the flexibility of the written text. [6]"

Seven basic readings[edit]

After Uthman, there were pronunciation and small terminology differences between Muslims. Even though the Uthman Qur'an was meant to be a definitive version, the Arabic script was not fully developed at the time and still contained minor ambiguities. Abu Bakr b. Mujāhid (died 936) decided to limit the number of official versions (al-qira'at as-sab') based on the main version used in seven selected cities, although a further three were also collected. Each city had two versions produced by "transmitters". The differences between the versions are usually just pronunciation and terminology. Several of these are still in print and some are popular in specific countries. The Hafs version is the most widely used. This is easily accessible evidence that the Qur'an has not been exactly consistent down to the word. [14] [15]

An oral tradition is necessary for preservation[edit]

Some apologists argue that a text must be memorized to preserve it, mainly to undermine scripture from other religions.

"Therefore, for any claimants to proclaim that their scripture is preserved in purity, they have to provide concrete evidence that the Scripture was written in its entirety AND memorized in its entirety from the time it was revealed to our time, in a continuous and unbroken chain. [16]"

That is clearly not true because many books exist that we can be sure have remain unaltered because we have many first edition copies available stored at many different locations. Comparing many different first editions of Harry Potter show they match and we can be confident it remains unchanged. Since we don't have the original "first editions" of the Qur'an, we cannot be sure modern copies are identical. Relying on unreliable means of textual preservation actually counts against the Qur'an as well as other scriptures.

Hadith[edit]

Chain of reporting[edit]

Islamic apologists point out the recording of the chain of reporting for the Haddith and say it guarantees its authenticity.

"The holy Quran has been narrated through narration chains where a large group of narrators who are of very strong memory and minds have narrated the same text from one generation to the next (with the condition of actually meeting each other and listening to each other with no time gaps). This large group of narrators cannot all agree on a lie. The names and the life stories of EACH person is recorded and studied. Each narrator has his whole family recorded. [17]"

References[edit]

  1. [1]
  2. 2.0 2.1 The Preservation of the Qur'an
  3. S.A.A. Maudadi, Towards Understanding Islam, p. 109
  4. [2]
  5. 5.0 5.1 [3]
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Keith Small, Holy Books have a History, 2009
  7. 7.0 7.1 [4]
  8. [5]
  9. [6]
  10. [7]
  11. Keith Small, Mapping a new country: textual criticism and Qur'an manuscripts, 2008
  12. Alba Fedeli, “Early Evidences of Variant Readings in Qur'ānic Manuscripts,” in Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin, eds., Die dunklen Anfänge (Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2005).
  13. [8]
  14. [9]
  15. [10]
  16. [11]
  17. [12]

External links[edit]