Proving Qur'an Preservation
History of the Quranic Text from Revelation to Compilation:
Concise List Of Arabic Manuscripts Of The Qur'an Attributable To The First Century Hijra
https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/hijazi.html
View Quranic Manuscripts here: https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/
Basics about the Preservation of the Quran and the collection of the Quran (Written and Memorization)
https://www.islamawareness.net/Quran/quran_proof_preservation.html
https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/19/viewall/preservation-of-quran/
https://www.whyislam.org/on-faith/the-preservation/
https://www.answering-christianity.com/quran/quran_textual-reply.html
Proof the Quran was Preserved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjhyoBSuDkk
How to Prove the Quran has been preserved?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n281Zyywyn4
https://www.gainpeace.com/about-quran/proof-of-the-preservation-of-the-quran
https://www.islamicity.org/4782/a-contemporary-review-of-the-preservation-of-the-quran/
Preservation Efforts of the Sahaba: https://icraa.org/quran-preservation-efforts-prophets-lifetime/
Quranic Compilation and Preservation:
During the Prophets time: https://www.letmeturnthetables.com/2010/08/quran-compilation-prophet-lifetime.html
Abu Bakr's Circumstances: https://www.letmeturnthetables.com/2010/09/quran-preservation-circumstance-abu.html
Abu Bakr's Efforts: https://www.letmeturnthetables.com/2011/01/quran-preserve-compile-abu-bakr.html
Uthman's Efforts: https://www.letmeturnthetables.com/2011/06/quran-compilation-uthman.html
Doubts about the Manuscripts & Preservation of the Quran covered:
Did the Uthmanic Mushaf include all the 7 Ahruf? https://twitter.com/ShAmmarKhatib1/status/1273922380650274816
Versions of the Quran?: https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/qiraat/hafs Are there Scribal Errors in the Quran?: https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/scribal/scribal
The Quranic Orthography: https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/scribal/haleem.html
Reading the Quran from the Prophet's time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUs7fhVmkaQ
Muslim Studies on Quranic Manuscripts: https://icraa.org/muslim-studies-on-quranic-manuscripts/
Recitations of the Quran, Mistakes or Eloquence?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxSbGeW5Kko
Removing Doubts about the manuscript variants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQ2bkO8y7A
Differences in manuscripts of the Quran?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjURdYS5KO
Is there 26 versions of the Quran? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3npWgX_w50
The 26 versions argument debunked briefly (English CC, Arabic): https://youtu.be/UPBMVB-AUCM?t=261 (Begin 4:50)
Dan Brubakers Corrections Refuted: https://callingchristians.com/2019/06/08/corrections-in-early-qur%ca%bean-manuscripts-twenty-examples-dan-brubaker/
How did Abu-Bakr carry out the compilation
Bukhari 4986-“One year after the Prophet’s death, Abu Bakr (the first Caliph), ordered that the written Qur’an (present with the Prophet’s Companions after the Battle of al-Yamama), be collected. He assigned Zaid b. Thabit to accomplish the mission. Zaid, who had memorized the whole Qur’an, and who had recited the whole text twice in front of the Prophet the year of his death, did not accept any Qur’anic text as authentic unless it existed in a written form, and had been written under the Prophet’s supervision.”
The result was, in effect, a recopying of the text which had been copied down before, under the supervision of the Prophet. This copy of the Qur’an collected under the supervision of Zaid remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with ‘Umar (the second Caliph) until the end of his life, and then with Hafsah (Umar’s daughter, who was the Prophet’s widow). The companions chose to learn the Qur’an in a deliberate manner, as reported by Ibn Mas‘ud who said that they used to learn only ten verses at a time, making sure they completely understood their meanings, and then they would start to apply them in their daily life. Only after this, would they proceed to learn further verses.**
How did Uthman carry out the compilation?
Firstly, Uthman made it so 2 witnesses were demanded for every portion of the Quran presented.
Secondly, Zaid b. Thabit was chosen to head the Committee, as he was the closest to the prophet and was the best Quran memoriser.
Thirdly, Whenever a manuscript was witnessed for by the 2 men, the Committee then checked it against other manuscripts, and then against their memories and memories of the well-known Huffaz of the Quran. As well as among the generality of the other companions, those readings were officially transcribed into the Master Uthmanic Codex.
Lastly, Then, after acceptance and agreement to prevent corruption, the other peoples Quran were collected by authorities and burnt. This meant that anyone who wanted to copy the Quran, they would be able to do so, directly from the Master Uthmanic Codex.
Extra information
**Uthman used the copy of the Qur’an that was with Hafsah, to compare to what he had, to authenticate the Uthmanic master codex even further. Throughout the above events, he also asked Aisha to send him the parchments which were dictated by the Prophet (and which she kept in her house), for another comparison. Once satisfied with all comparisons and checks, the compilation was complete. After the compilation, none of the companions complained about any issues such as additions, omissions, etc. Conclusion,
The Quran was perfectly preserved.
Bukhari 4987
What some academics say about the Quran’s preservation:
John Burton: “the text which has come down to us in the form in which it was organized and approved by the Prophet. What we have today in our hands is the Mushaf of Muhammad.”
- John Burton, The Collection of the Quran, рр.239-40
Thomas Arnold: “there is a general agreement by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars that the text of this recension substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of Muhammad himself.”
- Thomas Walker Arnold, The Islamic Faith, Lahore: Vagar Publications, 1983, p.9
Philip Hitti:“Modern critics agree that the copies current today are almost exact replicas of the original mother-text as compiled by Zayd, and that, on the whole, the text of the Koran today is as Muhammad produced it. As some Semitic scholar remarked, there are probably more variations in the reading of one chapter of Genesis in Hebrew than there are in the entire Koran.”
- Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1937, p. 123
R. V. C. Bodley: “Today there is no possible doubt that the Koran which is read wherever there are Moslems is the same version as that translated from Hafsa’s master copy.”
- R. V. C. Bodley, The Messenger: The Life of Mohammed, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969, p.235
This highly revisionist approach ( that the Quran reached its final canonical form in the 9th century) was not informed by the manuscript record, for the most part because the text-critical study of manuscripts was underdeveloped at the time. The earliest manuscripts of the Quran are invariably undated, but with the advent of radiocarbon dating it has become possible to challenge this late canonization on the basis of material evidence. We now have a good number of manuscripts that have been confidently radiocarbon dated to the seventh century CE. famously the early dating of the fragment colloquially known as the Birmingham fragment (Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham, Mingana Arabic 1572a) made quite a splash in the media when its radiocarbon dating was published to be between 568 CE and 645 CE – the earliest end of that range would mean the text could potentially predate the prophet Muhammad’s career (cf. Fedeli, “Early Qurʾānic Manuscripts”)
*** The Comparative Textual Criticism of Religious Scriptures. Karin Finsterbusch Russell E. Fuller Armin Lange Jason K. Driesbach LEIDEN | BOSTON p,153***
“The recension of Othman has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed,has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance, we might almost say no variations at all, among the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islam. Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but ONE CORAN has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.”
William Muir, Life of Mohamet: from original sources, London: Smith, 1878, appendix, pp.557-58
"The Quran is today the only sacred book which does not present notable variants"
Qur’ān is today the only holy book that does not show notable variants,” Louis Leblois, Le Koran et la Bible Hébraïque, Paris: Fischbacher, 1887, p.54
“the consensus of view is that the Qur’ān as it stood in ʿUtmān’s recension omits no significant and includes no extraneous material. The Prophet's death had decisively closed the Book."
Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964, p.97
“We have a book absolutely unique in its origin, in its preservation, and in the chaos of its contents, but on the authenticity of which no one has ever been able to cast a serious doubt.”
Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875, p.41
“Modern critics agree that the copies current today are almost exact replicas of the original mother-text as compiled by Zayd, and that, on the whole, the text of the Koran today is as Muhammad produced it. As some Semitic scholar remarked, there are probably more variations in the reading of one chapter of Genesis in Hebrew than there are in the entire Koran.”
Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1937, p.123
“It is an immense merit in the Kur-an that there is no doubt as to its genuineness […] that very word we can now read with full confidence that it has remained unchanged through nearly thirteen hundred years.”
Edward William Lane and Stanley Lane Poole, Selections from the Kur-an, London: Trubner, 1879, p.c
"The Collection of the Qur’ān, that the Qur’ān as we have it today, is the text which has come down to us in the form in which it was organized and approved by the Prophet […]. What we have today in our hands is the Muṣḥaf of Muhammad.”
John Burton, The Collection of the Qur’an, pp.239-40
“Eventually, in spite of these points of debate, we can say that the text presently in our possession contains the criteria of a substantial fidelity.”
Le Coran, trad. De D. Masson, editions Gallimard, 1967, p.xl. (this quote is translated into English by the Christian apologist William F. Campbell, in his published book The Qur'an and the Bible in the Light of History and Science, Upper Darby, PA: Middle East Resources, 1986, section: C. variant readings in the Qur’an and the Bible, Online text)
"The Quran was fixed, shortly after the revelation, by an authentic textwhich there is no serious reason to consider as altered."
__"The Qur’ān was fixed, shortly after its revelation, with an authentic text that there is no serious reason to consider as corrupted,” Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Les Institutions Musulmanes, Paris: E. Flammarion, 1921, p.42
“It seems reasonably well established that no material changes were introduced and that the original form and contents of Mohammed’s discourses were preserved with scrupulous precision.”
Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, London: Oxford University Press US, 1962, p.34
“Everything therefore suggests that the text of the Ottoman Quran was as complete and faithful as could be expected.”
__“All that was said supports the view that the Qur’ān of ʿUthmān was complete and loyal to the highest level that can be expected,” Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorans, Leipzig: Dieterich, 1919, 2/93
“Modern Study of the Qur’an has not in fact raised any serious question of its authenticity”
Richard Bell and William Montgomery Watt, Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’ān, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1970, p.51
Muslims kept the Qur’ānic text through all the generations with a high strictness
Adrian Brockett, “Illustrations of Orientalist Misuse of Qur’ānic Variant Readings,” paper presented at the colloquium on the study of ḥadīth, Oxford, 1982
“the transmission of the Qur’ān after the death of Muhammad was essentially static, rather than organic. There was a single text, and nothing significant, not even allegedly abrogated material, could be taken out nor could anything be put in.”
Adrian Brockett, “The Value of Hafs And Warsh Transmissions For The Textual History of The Qur’ān,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches Of The History of Interpretation Of The Qur’ān, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p.44
“In broad outline the Muslim tradition has met with widespread acceptance from non-Muslim scholars.”
Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity, New York: SUNY Press, 1991, p.194
“it became the task of Muhammad’s secretary, Zayd ibn-Thabit, to bring these sayings together in textual form. Abū Bakr had directed the work, and later, after a revision at the command of Uthman, the Koran took its standard and final form that has come down to us unchanged.”
Rom Landau, Islam and the Arabs, London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1958, p.200
“a final and complete text of the Koran was prepared within twenty years after the death (A.D. 632) of Muhammad, and that this has remained the same, without any change or alteration by enthusiasts, translators, or interpolators, up to the present time. It is to be regretted that the same cannot be said of all the books of the Old and New Testaments.”
Forster F. Arbuthnot, The Construction of the Bibe and the Koran, London: Watts & Co., 1885, p.6
The Hebrew text of the Old Testament, like the text of the Quran, is alike in all manuscripts (except for some unintentional errors)
The Text of the New Testament, 291
“there is a general agreement by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars that the text of this recension substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of Muhammad himself.”
Thomas Walker Arnold, The Islamic Faith, Lahore: Vaqar Publications, 1983, p.9
“all sects and parties have the same text of the Qoran.”
Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism: lectures on its origin, its religious and political growth and its present state, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916, p.27
“The Quran lies before us practically unchanged from the form which he himself [i.e. Muhammad] gave it.”
Charles Cutler Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam, New York: KTAV Pub. House,1967, p.2
"Today there is no possible doubt that the Koran which is read wherever there are Moslems is the same version as that translated from Hafsa’s master copy.”
R. V. C. Bodley, The Messenger: The Life of Mohammed, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969, p.235