Variant Korans-

[hawk]

IN 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana'a, in Yemen, laborers working in a loft between the structure's inner and outer roofs stumbled across a remarkable gravesite, although they did not realize it at the time. Their ignorance was excusable: mosques do not normally house graves, and this site contained no tombstones, no human remains, no funereal jewelry. It contained nothing more, in fact, than an unappealing mash of old parchment and paper documents -- damaged books and individual pages of Arabic text, fused together by centuries of rain and dampness, gnawed into over the years by rats and insects. Intent on completing the task at hand, the laborers gathered up the manuscripts, pressed them into some twenty potato sacks, and set them aside on the staircase of one of the mosque's minarets, where they were locked away -- and where they would probably have been forgotten once again, were it not for Qadhi Isma'il al-Akwa', then the president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority, who realized the potential importance of the find. Discuss this article in Post & Riposte.

Al-Akwa' sought international assistance in examining and preserving the fragments, and in 1979 managed to interest a visiting German scholar, who in turn persuaded the German government to organize and fund a restoration project. Soon after the project began, it became clear that the hoard was a fabulous example of what is sometimes referred to as a "paper grave" -- in this case the resting place for, among other things, tens of thousands of fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran, the Muslim holy scripture. In some pious Muslim circles it is held that worn-out or damaged copies of the Koran must be removed from circulation; hence the idea of a grave, which both preserves the sanctity of the texts being laid to rest and ensures that only complete and unblemished editions of the scripture will be read.

Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries -- they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God.

The mainly secular effort to reinterpret the Koran -- in part based on textual evidence such as that provided by the Yemeni fragments -- is disturbing and offensive to many Muslims, just as attempts to reinterpret the Bible and the life of Jesus are disturbing and offensive to many conservative Christians. Nevertheless, there are scholars, Muslims among them, who feel that such an effort, which amounts essentially to placing the Koran in history, will provide fuel for an Islamic revival of sorts -- a reappropriation of tradition, a going forward by looking back. Thus far confined to scholarly argument, this sort of thinking can be nonetheless very powerful and -- as the histories of the Renaissance and the Reformation demonstrate -- can lead to major social change. The Koran, after all, is currently the world's most ideologically influential text.

Looking at the Fragments

THE first person to spend a significant amount of time examining the Yemeni fragments, in 1981, was Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography based at Saarland University, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Puin, who had been sent by the German government to organize and oversee the restoration project, recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments, and his preliminary inspection also revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Enticing, too, were the sheets of the scripture written in the rare and early Hijazi Arabic script: pieces of the earliest Korans known to exist, they were also palimpsests -- versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off versions. What the Yemeni Korans seemed to suggest, Puin began to feel, was an evolving text rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D.

Koran Fragments
Yemeni Koran Fragments,
as they were found in 1972.
Photograph by Ursula Dreibholz

Since the early 1980s more than 15,000 sheets of the Yemeni Korans have painstakingly been flattened, cleaned, treated, sorted, and assembled; they now sit ("preserved for another thousand years," Puin says) in Yemen's House of Manuscripts, awaiting detailed examination. That is something the Yemeni authorities have seemed reluctant to allow, however. "They want to keep this thing low-profile, as we do too, although for different reasons," Puin explains. "They don't want attention drawn to the fact that there are Germans and others working on the Korans. They don't want it made public that there is work being done at all, since the Muslim position is that everything that needs to be said about the Koran's history was said a thousand years ago."

To date just two scholars have been granted extensive access to the Yemeni fragments: Puin and his colleague H.-C. Graf von Bothmer, an Islamic-art historian also based at Saarland University. Puin and Von Bothmer have published only a few tantalizingly brief articles in scholarly publications on what they have discovered in the Yemeni fragments. They have been reluctant to publish partly because until recently they were more concerned with sorting and classifying the fragments than with systematically examining them, and partly because they felt that the Yemeni authorities, if they realized the possible implications of the discovery, might refuse them further access. Von Bothmer, however, in 1997 finished taking more than 35,000 microfilm pictures of the fragments, and has recently brought the pictures back to Germany. This means that soon Von Bothmer, Puin, and other scholars will finally have a chance to scrutinize the texts and to publish their findings freely -- a prospect that thrills Puin. "So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word," he says. "They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us to do this."

Puin is not alone in his enthusiasm. "The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt," says Andrew Rippin, a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, who is at the forefront of Koranic studies today. "Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic text is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed."

Copyediting God

BY the standards of contemporary biblical scholarship, most of the questions being posed by scholars like Puin and Rippin are rather modest; outside an Islamic context, proposing that the Koran has a history and suggesting that it can be interpreted metaphorically are not radical steps. But the Islamic context -- and Muslim sensibilities -- cannot be ignored. "To historicize the Koran would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of the Muslim community," says R. Stephen Humphreys, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence. And ideally -- though obviously not always in reality -- Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless."

The orthodox Muslim view of the Koran as self-evidently the Word of God, perfect and inimitable in message, language, style, and form, is strikingly similar to the fundamentalist Christian notion of the Bible's "inerrancy" and "verbal inspiration" that is still common in many places today. The notion was given classic expression only a little more than a century ago by the biblical scholar John William Burgon.
The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it, every Chapter of it, every Verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it ... every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High!Not all the Christians think this way about the Bible, however, and in fact, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1981) points out, "the closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Kur'an in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." If Christ is the Word of God made flesh, the Koran is the Word of God made text, and questioning its sanctity or authority is thus considered an outright attack on Islam -- as Salman Rushdie knows all too well.

Oldest Koran
A page from perhaps the world's
oldest extant Koran, from before
750 A.D. Ultraviolet light reveals
even earlier Koranic writing
underneath. Photograph by
Gerd-R. Puin.
The prospect of a Muslim backlash has not deterred the critical-historical study of the Koran, as the existence of the essays in The Origins of the Koran (1998) demonstrate. Even in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair the work continues: In 1996 the Koranic scholar Günter Lüling wrote in The Journal of Higher Criticism about "the wide extent to which both the text of the Koran and the learned Islamic account of Islamic origins have been distorted, a deformation unsuspectingly accepted by Western Islamicists until now." In 1994 the journal Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam published a posthumous study by Yehuda D. Nevo, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, detailing seventh- and eighth-century religious inscriptions on stones in the Negev Desert which, Nevo suggested, pose "considerable problems for the traditional Muslim account of the history of Islam." That same year, and in the same journal, Patricia Crone, a historian of early Islam currently based at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, published an article in which she argued that elucidating problematic passages in the Koranic text is likely to be made possible only by "abandoning the conventional account of how the Qur'an was born." And since 1991 James Bellamy, of the University of Michigan, has proposed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society a series of "emendations to the text of the Koran" -- changes that from the orthodox Muslim perspective amount to copyediting God.


"A Macabre Farce"

THE Koran is a text, a literary text, and the only way to understand, explain, and analyze it is through a literary approach," Abu Zaid says. "This is an essential theological issue." For expressing views like this in print -- in essence, for challenging the idea that the Koran must be read literally as the absolute and unchanging Word of God -- Abu Zaid was in 1995 officially branded an apostate, a ruling that in 1996 was upheld by Egypt's highest court. The court then proceeded, on the grounds of an Islamic law forbidding the marriage of an apostate to a Muslim, to order Abu Zaid to divorce his wife, Ibtihal Yunis (a ruling that the shocked and happily married Yunis described at the time as coming "like a blow to the head with a brick").

Abu Zaid steadfastly maintains that he is a pious Muslim, but contends that the Koran's manifest content -- for example, the often archaic laws about the treatment of women for which Islam is infamous -- is much less important than its complex, regenerative, and spiritually nourishing latent content. The orthodox Islamic view, Abu Zaid claims, is stultifying; it reduces a divine, eternal, and dynamic text to a fixed human interpretation with no more life and meaning than "a trinket ... a talisman ... or an ornament."

For a while Abu Zaid remained in Egypt and sought to refute the charges of apostasy, but in the face of death threats and relentless public harassment he fled with his wife from Cairo to Holland, calling the whole affair "a macabre farce." Sheikh Youssef al-Badri, the cleric whose preachings inspired much of the opposition to Abu Zaid, was exultant. "We are not terrorists; we have not used bullets or machine guns, but we have stopped an enemy of Islam from poking fun at our religion.... No one will even dare to think about harming Islam again."

Old Koran
From the Yemeni Hoard: probably a ninth- or tenth-century Koran. Photograph by Gerd-R. Puin.

Abu Zaid seems to have been justified in fearing for his life and fleeing: in 1992 the Egyptian journalist Farag Foda was assassinated by Islamists for his critical writings about Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and in 1994 the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed for writing, among other works, the allegorical Children of Gabalawi (1959) -- a novel, structured like the Koran, that presents "heretical" conceptions of God and the Prophet Muhammad.

Deviating from the orthodox interpretation of the Koran, says the Algerian Mohammed Arkoun, a professor emeritus of Islamic thought at the University of Paris, is "a very sensitive business" with major implications. "Millions and millions of people refer to the Koran daily to explain their actions and to justify their aspirations," Arkoun says. "This scale of reference is much larger than it has ever been before."

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

The book by M. M. Azami (The History of the Qur'anic Text) responds in detail to all such myths and fantasies.

However, a direct response to the above article is in order:

Orientalists plot against the Qur'an under the guise of academic study and archive preservation

By Aisha Geissinger

In 1972, a 'paper grave' was found by labourers doing restoration work in the Great Mosque in Sana'a, Yemen. Between the mosque's inner and outer roofs was a collection of old parchment and paper documents, damaged books and individual pages. Centuries of rain and damp, and damage by insects and rats had made much of it unreadable. Qadhi Isma'il al-Akwa', then president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority, thought that the find could be important, and tried to obtain the funds and expertise necessary to examine and preserve the documents. In 1979 he managed to interest a visiting German scholar in the documents, who in turn persuaded the German government to fund and organise their restoration.


The German government sent Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Qur'anic paleology, from Saarland University to supervise the project in 1981. Now, more than 15,000 documents have been cleaned and sorted, and lie in Yemen's House of Manuscripts. The documents include tens of thousands of fragments from almost one thousand different copies of the Qur'an. Some pieces may date back to the first and second centuries after the hijra, making them among the oldest surviving Qur'anic manuscripts. The Yemeni authorities do not want the fact that Orientalists are working on these documents to be widely known, fearing protest from concerned Muslims. So far, they have only allowed Puin and H.-C. Grant von Bothner, an Islamic art historian from the same university, to examine the documents closely.

To the excitement of Puin and von Bothner, some showed minor differences in wording and verse-order from Qur'ans in use today. Knowing that access to the documents could be prevented in future if Muslims realized the implications of their research, von Bothner took more than 35,000 pictures on microfilm of the texts. Now that the microfilm is safely in Germany, Orientalists are free to study the documents and publish their conclusions, and journalists, self-proclaimed reformers and other interested parties can also discuss the implications of the find without having to worry about jeopardizing Puin and von Bonther's research.


An article entitled What is the Koran? was published in the Atlantic Monthly in January 1999 about this restoration project. It clarifies its objectives: Puin wants to challenge the Muslim belief that the Qur'an is the unchanged word of God. Muslims, he says, have agreed with the textual critics of the Bible that the Bible has a history and "did not fall straight out of the sky", but have refused to accept that the Qur'an also has a history. He believes that the fragments found in Sana'a will prove that the Qur'an is "a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad" (p. 46). Andrew Rippin, professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada, claims that they show that the Qur'anic text "is less stable, and therefore has less authority, than has always been claimed" (p. 45).


The fact is that the existence of minor differences in wording and in the ordering of the surahs in the earliest masahif (manuscripts) is no surprise to Muslims familiar with classical Islamic scholarship of the Qur'an. Such variations occurred for several reasons. One factor is the dialectical differences then existing in different regions of Arabia. Another is that some of the Sahaba kiram (Companions) recorded such masahif for their own personal use. As these persons had either memorised the Qur'an in its entirety or large portions of it, such masahif were written merely as an aid to memory. Therefore, notes in the margins such as the wording of du'as (supplications) occurred, and the order of surahs varied. Books written by classical Muslim scholars, such as al-Suyuti's Itqan, go into great detail about such issues.


When the Khalifa 'Uthman ibn 'Affan ordered that one standard text be used and others destroyed, the Sahaba who possessed masahif containing variants did not object to this ruling, which shows that they agreed with his verdict. Moreover, in the subsequent civil war between the supporters of the Khalifa Ali ibn Abi-Talib and Mu'awiya, calls for arbitration according to the Qur'an never involved claims that the other side had an incomplete or changed Qur'an. This would have been a convenient and devastating weapon if it could have been at all convincing. Knowledge about these variations has been preserved by classical Muslim scholarship, and has been useful to scholars of tafsir (Qur'anic interpretation). It was never seen as evidence against the integrity of the Qur'anic text, however, and for this reason Orientalists have not succeeded in building a compelling argument upon it. Having their own documents to build speculations upon gives them much more room to manoeuvre, as they can define the terms and conditions of their research.


Studies of the texts are likely to achieve two main objectives. For Orientalists, the Sana'a fragments provide more material upon which to build conjectures about the 'evolution' of the Qur'anic text and events in early Islamic history. Would-be reformers will use the documents, or, more likely, Orientalists' conclusions about them, to undercut the authority of the classical scholars and contemporary ulama. The Atlantic Monthly indicates that some Orientalists and 'reformers' will work together on the project of reinterpreting the Qur'an: An Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, similar to Biblical encyclopedias written by textual critics, is being published to present the latest Orientalist approaches to Qur'anic interpretation. Nasr Abu-Zaid, who claims that the Qur'an can only be understood as a literary text, and was legally declared an apostate in Egypt in 1995, is on the advisory board.


Western study of the Qur'an and of Islam originated in missionary and military concerns. Modern 'specialists' in Islam have tried to distance themselves from this heritage and project their conclusions as secular, scientific and unbiased. However, the article reveals a persistent Biblical as well as secular bias These specialists seem blissfully unaware that Biblical criticism and their version of Qur'anic studies did not "fall out of the sky" either. These approaches to scripture are products of a particular historical, political and economic climate.


The Bible is the implicit model against which the Qur'an is measured. It is considered a "cocktail" because it does not present material in the chronological or thematic order typical of Biblical narratives. Secular biases in both Biblical and Qur'anic studies are revealed in hostility to divine revelation in any form: any text dealing with miraculous occurrences is deemed inauthentic. Also, the Biblical form of any narrative is considered to be the most authentic, because it is older, while the idea that the Qur'an, as the latest revelation, could be correct in its different accounts of events is dismissed. The limitations of the purveyors of this 'unbiased' and 'scientific' study of the Qur'an are arrogantly imposed on the sacred text itself. Puin claims that one-fifth of the Qur'an is incomprehensible, apparently because he himself cannot understand it. Fourteen hundred years of Muslim scholarship, devotion and art issuing forth from the Qur'an are seen as carrying less weight than the opinions of a handful of non-Muslims who cannot even claim native fluency in classical Arabic.


The fact that the preservation of Qur'anic documents is left in the hands of such people is a tragedy that reflects the impotence and lack of faith of the Muslim Ummah. It brings to mind the ahadith which describe the disappearance of the Qur'an from the masahif and the memories of people which will occur in the Last Days. The openly political agenda of these Orientalists is evident; once the Muslims' confidence in the authenticity of the Qur'an is undermined, Islam will have no social or political authority. Muslims will no longer be able to claim to know what the divine will is on issues ranging from the implementation of Islamic laws to the liberation of al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Convenient solutions, based on the realities of the political and economic domination of the west, will be imposed upon them with utter impunity.

Muslimedia: May 16-31, 1999

[Muhammad]

:sl:

Jazakallah Khayr Ansar.

[Khattab]

Here we go again.....................

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[Ibn Syed]

:sl:
Way to go Ansar. I didn't get what Hawk was trying to say at all. What is his point. To me, what I read is a ton of mumble-jumble. Makes no sense. This article is good at answering:

Here are some lecture notes I made for one of my talks on the noble Quran. They are skimpy, unpolished and do not use the normal spelling convention for certain non-English words and names. Moreover, since the notes were for personal use, I did not write down recommended formulae such as "sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam" at places where the reader needs to be reminded of them. I'm making them available as is due to demand and their general usefulness.

Preservation of the Quran

1. The Quran was committed to writing during the lifetime of the Messenger. [See al-Itqaan of as-Suyooti]

2. The Quran had not been put into a book form until after the Messenger was taken away by Allah because:

a) It was revealed piecemeal over a period of 23 years and the possibility of fresh revelation existed so long as the Messenger was alive.

b) Certain verses were abrogated by subsequent revelation.

c) So long as the Messenger lived, the community had an infallible guide as to the correct recitation.

3. The decision to compile the Quran was a response to a definite crisis.

4. The project at first was thought to be audacious since it was not something done by the Messenger. This shows the companions' care.

5. Many of the companions had committed the entire Quran to memory.

6. Only material which met the following conditions was accepted for inclusion:

a) It must have been originally written down in the presence of the Messenger. [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

b) It must be confirmed by two witnesses. [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

c) It must clearly not represent portions of the Quran subsequently abrogated by the Messenger. [See Ibn Taimiyyah in Qawl, Zarkashi & Qastallani]

7. The expansion of Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula brought about a new crisis which first became evident during the reign of Uthman. Hudhaifah ibn al-Yaman complained that factions in the army were disputing over various Quranic passages and urged him to put an end to it. Unity was being undermined. "The Syrians contended with the Iraaqis, the former following the reading of Ubayy ibn Kab, the latter that of Ibn Masud, each party accusing the other of disbelief." [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

8. The people of Hims, for example, boasted that their way of reciting adopted from al-Miqdad was superior to that of the Basrites, who had learnt from Abu Musa, whose written compilation they acclaimed as "the heart of hearts." [Ibn ul-Athir]

9. Uthman consulted the companions with him who all approved the idea of uniting the community by means of a single text as an excellent idea. [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

10. Why were there different dialectal versions? Because of the inability of certain Arab tribes to master the Quraish dialect.

11. Why reduce to one? Because by the time of Uthman, the Arabs in general had become accustomed to the Quraish dialect. [at-Tahawi]

Ibn-ul-Qayyim suggested the parable: A house may have a number of roads leading to it. If it is in the ruler's judgement that allowing people to use all the roads causes conflict and confusion, then he may decide to permit the use of one road only, forbidding the others. He does not thereby abolish the other roads as such, as they could still lead to the house; he merely forbids their use.

12. Uthman appointed a councl of prominent men for the job. The first members were Zaid, Ibn Zubair, Saeed ibnul-As, Abdur-Rahman al-Harith ibn Hisham. Uthman asked, "Who is the best copyist?" He was told, "The scribe of the Messenger of Allah, namely Zaid ibn Thabit." He then asked, "Who is linguistically more proficient?" The answer was, "Said ibn-ul-As." "Then let Saeed dictate and Zaid write," said Uthman. He further instructed the three Quraish members of the council, "If you differ with Zaid over something, folow the dialect of the Quraish, for the Qura was (first) revealed in their tongue." [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

13. The council followed the following general principles:

a) The original copy was to serve as the principal basis of the new one. [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

b) Additional written material not previously submitted was solicited, so that a wider range of them could be considered. [Ibn Abi Dawud]

c) Variants conforming to the dialect of the Quraish were to be chosen over all others.

d) The entire community was to be apprised of what was submitted, so that the work of final recension would be in effect a collective enterprise, and no one who possessed a portion of the Quran would be passed over. Thus this avoids possible claim that it was an individual effort [Zarkashi].

e) Any doubt that might be raised as to the phrasing of a particular passage in the written text was to be dispelled by summoning persons known to have learned the passage in question from the Messenger. [Suyuti in Itqan]

f) Uthman himself was to supervise the work of the council. [Suyuti in Itqan]

g) Copies were sent to each main division of the Muslim army.

h) All other copies or fragments were ordered to be burnt and a message was conveyed to the major garrison towns to order to emulate the Amir-ul-Mumineen. "I have done away with what is in my vicinity. See that you do away with what is in your vicinity." [Ibn Hajr in Fath]

i) This action was unanimously approved by the companions. Ibn-ul-Qayyim points out it was done for the welfare of the community.

j) Zaid is reported to have said, "I saw the companions of Muhammad (going about) saying, "By Allah, Uthman has done well! By Allah, Uthman has done well!" [Nisaburi]

Ibn Abi Dawud records Musab ibn Sad ibn Abi Waqqas to have testified: "I saw the people assemble in large number at Uthman's burning of the proscribed copies; not a one spoke out against him." Ali commented, "If I were in command in place of Uthman, I would have done the same." [Zarkashi]

:w:

p.s. You spelled it Koran-it is spelled like this, Quran.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl: Ibn Syed,
Christians get angry when Muslims prove that the Bible has been changed, so in their fury they try to prove that the Qur'an has been changed, but they fail miserable because God has vowed to preserve the Qur'an, and thus it will always be preserved.

:w:

[Ibn Syed]

Okay I got it now. Jazakallah Ansar. :) :) :) :) ;)
:w:

[Ibn Syed]

:sl:
If the Quran had been corrupted and I knew I wouldn't have memorized any of it. Basically I am saying that the Quran is uncorrupted and in the Quran Allah himself states that the Quran will never be changed. Makes sense because it is his book. If you made a book you wouldn't want someone to come along and change it. So if Allah says nobody will change the Quran nobody will.
:w:

[hawk]

I am not sayings it changed, I am just saying that there is a history to the quran.

Its only fanciful imaginings that say that the quran was so thoroughly memorised that its complete.

We know that after a battle so many older muslim men died, that the caliph said that they would never be able to get the quran now.

Its not a matter of the Bible being corrupted. The Bible is a history, that is all.
The Majority of Christians do not subscribe to sola-scriptura.

Muslims cannot understand this since their faith is based on sola-scriptura, or only the scripture.

We base our faith not on the Bible, for what is that but a book, but on the living God that leads us forever.

I know this idea is very hard for muslims to understand since, their next question is,
From where do you know about this God, then?

The answer lies in 2 parts, its in the Bible, but the Bible only teaches you the understanding of God. To build a relationship one must then forget the Bible, and learn God.

Many muslims understand this concept, maybe to suggest to them that they should forget the quran to learn about God is too much for them to bear. Still that is the truth.
A Christian must forget the Bible, a muslim must forget the quran, so long as you hold onto these things, you are an idolator, because you have set up a god (in this book) besides the true God.

Only then can you be a true worshipper of God.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:
Hawk, don't think we'll let you do the same nonsense here that you do on understanding islam. It is disgusting to see the ignorant speak about a subject as though they have authority, when they have no knowledge.

I am not sayings it changed, I am just saying that there is a history to the quran.

And we know the Qur'an's history well and it has been well recorded. They teach it in detail in the Uloom Al-Qur'an courses. What have you studied from the Uloom Al-Qur'an? All you have done is read some orientalist nonsense wihtout consulting the original sources. Can I study astrophysics by star gazing, and then expect to have more authority on the subject than astrophysicists?!

Moreover, you did claim that the Qur'an has been changed by titling this thread "Variant Korans". Yet irrefutable evidence indicates that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved.

Its only fanciful imaginings that say that the quran was so thoroughly memorised that its complete.

How can you make such a claim when you have no knowledge of the subject? Show me your degree in Uloom Al-Qur'an.

Rather the Qur'an was memorized by every Muslim at the time of the Prophet saws, and preserved in mutawaatir chains.

Memorization
‘In the ancient times, when writing was scarcely used, memory and oral transmission was exercised and strengthened to a degree now almost unknown’ relates Michael Zwettler.(1)
Prophet Muhammad (S): The First Memorizer
It was in this ‘oral’ society that Prophet Muhammad (S) was born in Mecca in the year 570 C.E. At the age of 40, he started receiving divine Revelations from the One God, Allah, through Archangel Gabriel. This process of divine revelations continued for about 22.5 years just before he passed away.
Prophet Muhammad (S) miraculously memorized each revelation and used to proclaim it to his Companions. Angel Gabriel used to refresh the Quranic memory of the Prophet each year.
‘The Prophet (S) was the most generous person, and he used to become more so (generous) particularly in the month of Ramadan because Gabriel used to meet him every night of the month of Ramadan till it elapsed. Allah’s Messenger (S) use to recite the Qur’an for him. When Gabriel met him, he use to become more generous than the fast wind in doing good’. (2)

‘Gabriel used to repeat the recitation of the Qur’an with the Prophet (S) once a year, but he repeated it twice with him in the year he (Prophet) died’. (3)

The Prophet himself use to stay up a greater part of the night in prayers and use to recite Quran from memory.
Companions of the Prophet: The First Generation Memorizers
Prophet Muhammad (S) encouraged his companions to learn and teach the Quran:
‘The most superior among you (Muslims) are those who learn the Qur’an and teach it’. (4)

‘Some of the companions who memorized the Quran were: ‘Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Ibn Masud, Abu Huraira, Abdullah bin Abbas, Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As, Aisha, Hafsa, and Umm Salama’. (5)

‘Abu Bakr, the first male Muslim to convert to Islam used to recite the Quran publicly in front of his house in Makka’. (6)

The Prophet also listened to the recitation of the Qur’an by the Companions: ‘Allah Apostle said to me (Abdullah bin Mas’ud): "Recite (of the Quran) to me". I said: "Shall I recite it to you although it had been revealed to you?!" He Said: "I like to hear (the Quran) from others". So I recited Sura-an-Nisa’ till I reached: "How (will it be) then when We bring from each nation a witness and We bring you (O Muhammad) as a witness against these people?"’ (4:41) ‘Then he said: "Stop!" Behold, his eyes were shedding tears then’. (7)

Many Quranic memorizers (Qurra) were present during the lifetime of the Prophet and afterwards through out the then Muslim world.
‘At the battle of Yamama, many memorizers of the Quran were martyred. ‘Narrated Zaid bin Thabit al Ansari, who was one of those who use to write the Divine Revelations: Abu Bakr sent me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra were killed). Umar was present with Abu Bakr who said: "Umar has come to me and said, the people have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be some casualties among the Qurra (those who memorized the entire Quran) at other place…"’ (8)

‘Over the centuries of the Islamic Era, there have arisen throughout the various regions of the Islamic world literally thousands of schools devoted specially to the teaching of the Quran to children for the purpose of memorization. These are called, in Arabic, katatib (singular: Kuttab). It is said that the Caliph ‘Umar (634-44) first ordered the construction of these schools in the age of the great expansion’. (9)

Second Generation Memorizers
"…Quranic schools were set up everywhere. As an example to illustrate this I may refer to a great Muslim scholar, of the second Muslim generation, Ibn ‘Amir, who was the judge of Damascus under the Caliph Umar Ibn ‘Abd Al-Aziz. It is reported that in his school for teaching the Quran there were 400 disciples to teach in his absence". (10)

Memorizers in Subsequent Generations
The Number of Katatib and similar schools in Cairo (Egypt) alone at one time exceeded two thousand. (11)
Currently both in the Muslim and non-Muslim countries thousands of schools with each instructing tens of hundreds of students the art of memorizing the entire Quran. In the city of Chicago itself, there are close to 40+ Mosques, with many of them holding class for children instructing them the art of Quranic memorization.
Further Points of Consideration
- Muslims recite Quran from their memory in all of their five daily prayers.
- Once a year, during the month of Fasting (Ramadan), Muslims listen to the complete recitation of the Quran by a Hafiz (memorizer of the entire Quran)
- It’s a tradition among Muslims that before any speech or presentation, marriages, sermons, Quran is recited.
Conclusion
Quran is the only book, religious or secular, on the face of this planet that has been completely memorized by millions. These memorizers range from ages 6 and up, both Arabic and non-Arabic speakers, blacks, whites, Orientals, poor and wealthy.
Thus the process of memorization was continuous, from Prophet Muhammad’s (S) time to ours with an unbroken chain.
"The method of transmitting the Quran from one generation to the next by having he young memorize the oral recitation of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solely on written records…" relates John Burton (12)

"This phenomenon of Quranic recital means that the text has traversed the centuries in an unbroken living sequence of devotion. It cannot, therefore, be handled as an antiquarian thing, nor as a historical document out of a distant past. The fact of hifz (Quranic Memorization) has made the Qur’an a present possession through all the lapse of Muslim time and given it a human currency in every generation never allowing its relegation to a bare authority for reference alone" reflects Kenneth Cragg (13)

We know that after a battle so many older muslim men died, that the caliph said that they would never be able to get the quran now.

A blatant lie. Go back and re-read the narration.

Its not a matter of the Bible being corrupted. The Bible is a history, that is all.
The Majority of Christians do not subscribe to sola-scriptura.

How many Christians have memorized the Bible in Hebrew, greek, or even English?

Compare that with the millioms of Huffadh who have memorized the entire Qur'an in the original arabic in which it was revealed.

We base our faith not on the Bible, for what is that but a book, but on the living God that leads us forever.

You know that true Christians would attack you for such deviant ideas. The notion of following whatever thoughts in your head you believe to be from God, is so blasphemous that you would be regarded as non-Christian.

Rather this is simply a poor excuse on your part to escape the glaring contradictions between a Christian's belief and the commands of the Bible. You turned your back on what God sent you in the book. Those were the words of God and you corrupted them, and today you discard them.

Your claim of following God's 'inspiration' is nothing more than placing your religion upon the subjective calls of your desires. And the Qur'an says to the People of the Book:

2:145 Verily, if you follow their desires after that which you have received of knowledge (from Allah), then indeed you will be one of those in darkness.

:w:

[hawk]

MODERATOR'S COMMENT: YOU WERE WARNED THAT WE WOULD NOT TOLERATE YOUR POSTING LONG ANTI-ISLAMIC ARTICLES TO ESCAPE A DEBATE.

ENJOY YOUR VACATION.

[Ibn Syed]

Ooooh! Burned up. Do you get kicked off the site if you are banned?

[Danish]

:sl:
u can goto Turkey, Istanbul museum, they have the an early quran there...and its absolutely 100% copy of it

[Ibn Syed]

What does that have to do with the topic brother? And Ansar could you close this thread? hawk has been refuted and is done so there is no point in this now.
:w:

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

What does that have to do with the topic brother?

Br. Danish is showing that even the oldest Qur'ans are identical to the ones that we have today - so it is proof that there is no changes in the Qur'an.

And Ansar could you close this thread? hawk has been refuted and is done so there is no point in this now.

I don't think there is any need for that, because other members may have more useful information to post here.

:w:

[Ibn Syed]

I got it now Ansar.
:w:

[Preacher]

I am not sayings it changed, I am just saying that there is a history to the quran.

Its only fanciful imaginings that say that the quran was so thoroughly memorised that its complete.

We know that after a battle so many older muslim men died, that the caliph said that they would never be able to get the quran now.

Its not a matter of the Bible being corrupted. The Bible is a history, that is all.
The Majority of Christians do not subscribe to sola-scriptura.

Muslims cannot understand this since their faith is based on sola-scriptura, or only the scripture.

We base our faith not on the Bible, for what is that but a book, but on the living God that leads us forever.

I know this idea is very hard for muslims to understand since, their next question is,
From where do you know about this God, then?

The answer lies in 2 parts, its in the Bible, but the Bible only teaches you the understanding of God. To build a relationship one must then forget the Bible, and learn God.

Many muslims understand this concept, maybe to suggest to them that they should forget the quran to learn about God is too much for them to bear. Still that is the truth.
A Christian must forget the Bible, a muslim must forget the quran, so long as you hold onto these things, you are an idolator, because you have set up a god (in this book) besides the true God.

Only then can you be a true worshipper of God.

Hawk

I know that you have been banned, and you might have joined this forum under another id. But that is beside the point, having said that the cockamamie stories that your kind concoct may work with ignorant and naive. But they don't fly with the leraned. Had you or whoever wrote the absurd claims known the "definition of the Qur'an", he or she might have avoived putting his/her foot in mouth.

Please read The Definition of Qur’aan!

Needless to point out that your claims are contrary to all known facts.

[Bittersteel]

wasn't the Quran perfectly narrated by Muslims and written down throughout the ages?

Was the Quran narratted and written and copied down by scholars who wrote the hadiths?is there a chance about those scholars making a mistake while copying the Quran even a minor mistake?I am mainly talking about during the middle ages and after the daeth of the Caliphs.

Can someone explain me shortly whatever the hell happened in Yemen?Were the Qurans that were found there totaly different from our Qurans of today's?


.

[Khattab]

:sl:

I may be wrong here may Allah forgive me if I am but are you by any chance hawk under a new username (doubt ou will admit it), Im sure he had something like Abdul Aziz under his username.

:w:

[Khattab]

As for your question I have a direct answer from the Islam-Online team but my computer is playing up so when it is fixed I will inshallah get it for you.

[Bittersteel]

hey I am a Muslim and not hawk.Hawk is a Catholic.I just wanna know,so that I can be reassured and can use this information to debate and prove people in other sites that the Quran was preserved.

Those are some of the final questions I am asking about the preservation of the Quran. Please take your time.

I am Abrarur from understanding Islam forums.

BTW, it is Hawk who caused to raise such questions inside my mind.

[Khattab]

:sl: Ok brother cool, sorry for the mistake inshallah you can forgive me. As for your question I have an answer to it but no access to it at the minute, inshallah I will try and get it for you may take a few weeks though.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

Its ok brother.
few weeks!ok I hope it contains all the details and clears what doubt has risedn inside my mind.Mind these are little doubts.Is the answer big.I hope its big and contains all the details how the Quran was passed down perfectly through the ages.

BTW, what happened in Yemen in that article in page 1?

[Muhammad]

:sl:

I am assuming that the answer which Khattab will provide will be addressing the issue of the preservation of the Qur'an, is this correct?

Regarding the second question of Abdul Aziz; for the time being, I shall direct you to relevant parts of the article posted by Ansar Al-'Adl Insha'Allaah.

Can someone explain me shortly whatever the hell happened in Yemen?Were the Qurans that were found there totaly different from our Qurans of today's?

Orientalists plot against the Qur'an under the guise of academic study and archive preservation

To the excitement of Puin and von Bothner, some showed minor differences in wording and verse-order from Qur'ans in use today.


The fact is that the existence of minor differences in wording and in the ordering of the surahs in the earliest masahif (manuscripts) is no surprise to Muslims familiar with classical Islamic scholarship of the Qur'an. Such variations occurred for several reasons. One factor is the dialectical differences then existing in different regions of Arabia. Another is that some of the Sahaba kiram (Companions) recorded such masahif for their own personal use. As these persons had either memorised the Qur'an in its entirety or large portions of it, such masahif were written merely as an aid to memory. Therefore, notes in the margins such as the wording of du'as (supplications) occurred, and the order of surahs varied. Books written by classical Muslim scholars, such as al-Suyuti's Itqan, go into great detail about such issues.


When the Khalifa 'Uthman ibn 'Affan ordered that one standard text be used and others destroyed, the Sahaba who possessed masahif containing variants did not object to this ruling, which shows that they agreed with his verdict. Moreover, in the subsequent civil war between the supporters of the Khalifa Ali ibn Abi-Talib and Mu'awiya, calls for arbitration according to the Qur'an never involved claims that the other side had an incomplete or changed Qur'an. This would have been a convenient and devastating weapon if it could have been at all convincing. Knowledge about these variations has been preserved by classical Muslim scholarship, and has been useful to scholars of tafsir (Qur'anic interpretation). It was never seen as evidence against the integrity of the Qur'anic text, however, and for this reason Orientalists have not succeeded in building a compelling argument upon it. Having their own documents to build speculations upon gives them much more room to manoeuvre, as they can define the terms and conditions of their research.


Western study of the Qur'an and of Islam originated in missionary and military concerns. Modern 'specialists' in Islam have tried to distance themselves from this heritage and project their conclusions as secular, scientific and unbiased. However, the article reveals a persistent Biblical as well as secular bias These specialists seem blissfully unaware that Biblical criticism and their version of Qur'anic studies did not "fall out of the sky" either. These approaches to scripture are products of a particular historical, political and economic climate.


The Bible is the implicit model against which the Qur'an is measured. It is considered a "cocktail" because it does not present material in the chronological or thematic order typical of Biblical narratives. Secular biases in both Biblical and Qur'anic studies are revealed in hostility to divine revelation in any form: any text dealing with miraculous occurrences is deemed inauthentic. Also, the Biblical form of any narrative is considered to be the most authentic, because it is older, while the idea that the Qur'an, as the latest revelation, could be correct in its different accounts of events is dismissed. The limitations of the purveyors of this 'unbiased' and 'scientific' study of the Qur'an are arrogantly imposed on the sacred text itself. Puin claims that one-fifth of the Qur'an is incomprehensible, apparently because he himself cannot understand it. Fourteen hundred years of Muslim scholarship, devotion and art issuing forth from the Qur'an are seen as carrying less weight than the opinions of a handful of non-Muslims who cannot even claim native fluency in classical Arabic.


Muslimedia: May 16-31, 1999

Hope that helps Insha'Allaah.
:w:

[Khaldun]

:sl:

How can Hawk say its fanciful imagination that the Quran has been completely memorised, I gather that you have never seen a Hafid read then and not to mention six year olds not hesitating on a single word. You maybe are used to the Bible and have got it in your mind that its impossible but be reassured the Quran is very different from the Bible

[Bittersteel]

thanks brothers.Look I don't doubt about the preservationof the Quran.Forgive me and May Allah do the same if I had said that.I am asking how it was preserved.Since if I ever face a question like this by a non-Muslim.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl: Take a look at some of the following links as well:
http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/eng...hFatwaID=74390
http://www.islamonline.net/english/C...rticle03.shtml
http://www.islamonline.net/english/C...rticle02.shtml

:w:

[Bittersteel]

are there still ancient manuscripts in Middle East?Are there any copies of the Quran during Uthman's time?

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:

are there still ancient manuscripts in Middle East?

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/
http://www.qurancomplex.com/OldQuran...=6&SubItemID=2

Are there any copies of the Quran during Uthman's time?

Here's one:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur...s/hussein.html

:w:

[Bittersteel]

Originally Posted in another thread

I agree, so do your ABC's and read the following links:
http://www.islamonline.net/English/...ogy/index.shtml
http://www.islamonline.net/English/...ies/index.shtml
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/Ulum/

Who was Al-Hajjaj and what changes did he make to the Quran?Did he changed the meaning or just the pronounciation?

and please post on the abrogations thread in basics of Islam forum.........

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:

Who was Al-Hajjaj and what changes did he make to the Quran?Did he changed the meaning or just the pronounciation?

He didn't change anything. Please read:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/hajjaj.html

:w:

[Bittersteel]

so he only changed the pronounciation not the meaning?

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:
That's what the report would indicate but the report isn't reliable. I prefer Al-Azami's explanation that Al-Hajjaj took the Uthmanic manuscript, compared it to manuscripts circulating in the area, and changed the latter group of manuscripts to conform with the Uthmanic manuscript.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

a last question for the time being hehe.Did Umar the second caliph insert the verse of stoning in all the Qurans?

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:
No. Its not in the Qur'an, since its recitation was abrogated.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

is it the chronological order of the preservation of the Quranic text like this?

1.Abu Bakr compiled the Quran(Did some of these Qurans contain the stoning verse?)
2.Umar then inserted the stoning verse
3.Uthman then destroyed the Qurans containing the stoning verse and kept a single standard copy.

please correct me if there are mistakes which is most likely and also plz elaborate on each of the points if you want to.Thanks.

EDIT~If not for the stoning verse why did Uhtman burn all those Qurans?

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:

1.Abu Bakr compiled the Quran(Did some of these Qurans contain the stoning verse?)

No they did not contain the stoning verse. I told you its recitation was abrogated.

2.Umar then inserted the stoning verse

No he did not! I said that its recitation was abrogated.

3.Uthman then destroyed the Qurans containing the stoning verse and kept a single standard copy.

No! Uthman prepared a few copies of the Qur'an that were perfect under the supervision of all companions. He then ordered unauthorised copies burned, so that all future copies would be made from these 100% perfectly authentic copies.

This is a brief explanation.
Please read here for more info:
http://drzakirnaik.com/pages/qanda/22.php
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur...raat/hafs.html


:w:

[Bittersteel]

I edited a little too late.thanks for the sites.

[Preacher]

a last question for the time being hehe.Did Umar the second caliph insert the verse of stoning in all the Qurans?

:sl:

Excerpt from:
Is the Verse on Stoning FAKE?
...Umar رضی الله عنه did not tell the wording of that Ayaah آيه about stoning, nor did he tell that if there is a separate Ayaah آيه beside the Ayaah آيه in Surah Noor سورة النور and why it is not included in the Glorious Qur’aan. He only said that if there was no risk involved that people would put a blame on him of making addition in the Book of Allaah, he would have written this verse on a corner of the Qur’aan (al-Nasai’). Another point to be noted that Umar رضی الله عنه did not say that he would have included this verse in the Qur’aan. But before one jumps the gun, he must know that Islaamic Shariah rule about Naskh نسخ includes: Naskh نسخ of recitation and not the commandment. There are also very few Ayaat آيات is Glorious Qur’aan which are recited but command[s] have been abrogated.

:w:
Preacher

[Preacher]

is it the chronological order of the preservation of the Quranic text like this?

1.Abu Bakr compiled the Quran(Did some of these Qurans contain the stoning verse?)
2.Umar then inserted the stoning verse
3.Uthman then destroyed the Qurans containing the stoning verse and kept a single standard copy.

please correct me if there are mistakes which is most likely and also plz elaborate on each of the points if you want to.Thanks.

EDIT~If not for the stoning verse why did Uhtman burn all those Qurans?

:sl:

Did you read the Qur'an what it says, and how would you explain the following Ayat?

The Arrangement of Glorious Qur’aan
إِنَّ عَلَيْنَا جَمْعَهُ وَقُرْآنَهُ
'INNA cALAY -NAA JAMc -HU WA- QUR'AAN -HU

It is for Us to collect it and to give you (O Muhammad SAW) the ability to recite it (the Qur'an), [Glorious Quraan 75:17]

The word *JAMAc* in the above verse implies both collection and arrangement, which is a process quite different from the revelation. It is not true that the verses and chapters of Glorious Qur’aan were arranged after the death of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by someone else, or that they were arranged in the order of their lengths; the longest coming first and shortest last. It is also wrong to say that within the chapters the passages are joined together without any regard to either chronology of revelation or similarity of subject, and that most heterogeneous materials are put together without any regard to logical sequence.

The whole Glorious Qur’aan, complete in every aspect, was available in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) [Katani 2:384]. The Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) say, ‘We used to write down the Glorious Qur’aan in the time of the Rasool Allaah (SAW)' [Hakim: Al-Mustadrik, 2:611]. The arrangement of chapters and verses in the copies of the Glorious Qur’aan at present in our hands does not follow the chronological order of revelation and their arrangement is TAUQIF i.e. affected by the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) under the GUIDANCE of Divine revelation (Qur’aan 75:17-18].

'INNA cALAY -NAA JAMc -HU WA- QUR'AAN -HU...FA- 'IDHAA QARA'NAA -HU FA- ITTABIc QUR'AAN -HU

It is for Us to collect it and to give you (O Muhammad SAW) the ability to recite it (the Qur'an),...And when We have recited it to you [O Muhammad SAW through Jibrael (Gabriel)], then follow you its (the Qur'an's) recital. [Glorious Qur’aan 75:17-18]

It is also said in the Glorious Qur’aan:

WA- QAALA 'ALLADHENA KAFARO LAW-LAA NUZZILA cALAY -HI AL- QUR'AAN JUMLAH WAAH.IDAH KA- DHAALIKA LI- NUTHABBIT BI- -HI FU'AAD -KA WA- RATTALNAA -HU TARTEL(AN)

And those who disbelieve say: "Why is not the Qur'an revealed to him all at once?" Thus (it is sent down in parts), that We may strengthen your heart thereby. And We have revealed it to you gradually, in stages. (It was revealed to the Prophet SAW in 23 years.).

The concise phrase "RATTALNAA -HU TARTEL(AN)" in the above verse comprises the parallel concept of putting the component parts of a thing together and arranging them as well, as well as endowing it with inner consistency. The word "TARTIL" refers to the measured diction and the thoughtful manner in which it ought to be enunciated. Thus, from the very first, it was meant that the verses and the chapters of the Glorious Qur’aan should be arranged in an order different from that of their revelation, otherwise the revelation and the collection and arrangement would not have been described as two different things.

There was an arrangement followed by the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and we know that many Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) committed the Glorious Qur’aan to memory and could recite it in the recognized orders as followed by the Prophet (SAW). This shows that there was a connection of its verses and chapters, and there was a recognized division of the Book and a fixed form and sequence. The chapters were distinctly marked out and their number was determined. Without a known order and sequence of verses, the Glorious Qur’aan could not have been committed to the memory.

(1) Putting into Writing:

The first and the most important point, which assisted in the preservation of the text of Glorious Qur’aan, is that its every verse was put into writing in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), BEFORE HIS OWN EYES. The Glorious Qur’aan itself furnishes abundant evidence that it existed in a written form. Again and again the Divine Writ calls itself a Kitab (Book), which means a Book or writing, which is complete in itself. The application of the word Book to the Glorious Qur’aan was destined, from the very beginning, to be a complete Book. The Glorious Qur’aan is also designated as "Suhuf"

The Glorious Qur’aan, Sura: 80. 'Abasa Verse: 13
فِي صُحُفٍ مُكَرَّمَةٍ
(It is) in Records held (greatly) in honour (Al-Lauh Al-Mahfûz),

* Also means written pages. There are many other references in the Glorious Quraan showing that it will exist in a written form. It is said:

The Glorious Qur’aan, Sura: 52. Tuur Verses: 2-3

وَكِتَابٍ مَسْطُورٍ
And by a Book Inscribed

فِي رَقٍّ مَنْشُورٍ
In parchment unrolled.

* There are also testimonies of the enemies of the Qur’aan that Qur’aan was reduced to writing such as:

The Glorious Qur’aan, Sura: 25. Furqaan Verse: 5

وَقَالُوا أَسَاطِيرُ الْأَوَّلِينَ اكْتَتَبَهَا فَهِيَ تُمْلَى عَلَيْهِ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيلًا
And they say: "Tales of the ancients, which he has written down: and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon."

* There is a lot of historical evidence concerning the documentation of the Glorious Qur’aan. There are numerous anecdotes showing that when the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) received a revelation it was immediately put into writing. The general practice is described by Osmaan (RA), he says: "It was customary with the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) that when any verse of the Glorious Qur’aan was revealed he called one of those persons who used to write Glorious Qur’aan and said, "Write these verses in the chapter where such and such verse occur".' [Abu Dawud 2:123]. Zaid bin Thabit (RA) who was a scribe of the Prophet (SAW) and was especially appointed for writing down the revelation said, 'whenever a revelation descended the Prophet (SAW) called me and I went to him holding my pen and paper. He dictated to me first and then heard it from me and in case something was left, or some mistake was found, it was set right there and then, and afterwards it was published' {Mujam al_Zawaid}. This shows that the Glorious Qur’aan was presented to the public after it was duly written down.

Glorious Qur’aan Verses 80:13-16
فِي صُحُفٍ مُكَرَّمَةٍ (13) مَرْفُوعَةٍ مُطَهَّرَةٍ (14) بِأَيْدِي سَفَرَةٍ (15) كِرَامٍ بَرَرَةٍ (16)

(It is) in Records held (greatly) in honour (Al-Lauh Al-Mahfûz), Exalted (in dignity), purified, In the hands of scribes. Honourable and obedient.

* (2) Memorizing of the Glorious Qur’aan

The memorizing of the Glorious Qur’aan has also assisted in the preservation of its text. Whenever any portion of the Glorious Qur’aan was revealed to the Prophet (SAW), he committed it to memory and continuously recited it from one end to the other. Thus, he always carried the whole of the revealed Qur’aan in his memory. The Prophet (SAW) used to stress the merit of committing the Glorious Qur’aan to memory so much that he said that if a person committed the Qur’aan to memory he would be saved from the torment of Hell. When he made this announcement, a large number of his Companions began to commit the Glorious Qur’aan to memory. The Prophet (SAW) also took pains to supervise the recitation of the Glorious Qur’aan and was anxious to see that no errors crept into the process.


One should also know the definition of the Qur'an, wihtout that one will remain in the dark always.

EDIT~If not for the stoning verse why did Uhtman burn all those Qurans?

Abdul Aziz, the irony of your questions is always that you sound exactly like an inquisitor Christian missionary while mimicking same false claims/questions. I have learned that you are from Bangla Desh, I wonder if there is anyone in your country who can edcuate you about Qur'anic sciences and Islamic sciences? It is pity to see you wonderning all over Internet for so-called answers. As a parent myself, I also wonder why your parent did not teach you about Islam and Qur'an? Nevertheless, I like you to present the evidence that Uhtman burned all Qur'ans allegedly? I suppose you have the supporting facts to establish this claim you have made?

I wish I could believe that you are simply seeking the answer instead of being an inquisitor attempting to create doubts in the minds of naive. Because countless leanred people have answered these questions and have reufted these false claims many times on the Internet. This also include the UI website whose forum you wanted me to join. So why thoese responses and facts are not acceptable to you and you still feel the need to mimick Christians claims based on disinformation?

:w:
Preacher

[Bittersteel]

As a parent myself, I also wonder why your parent did not teach you about Islam and Qur'an?

My mom is always busy and my father is dead.I have trouble in buying books on Islam coz I don't have enough money.And I don't have any nearby person with whom I can discuss about these issues.

sure I faced such questions and at that time I was not able to answer beacause of my lack of knowledge.

...Umar رضی الله عنه did not tell the wording of that Ayaah آيه about stoning, nor did he tell that if there is a separate Ayaah آيه beside the Ayaah آيه in Surah Noor سورة النور and why it is not included in the Glorious Qur’aan. He only said that if there was no risk involved that people would put a blame on him of making addition in the Book of Allaah, he would have written this verse on a corner of the Qur’aan (al-Nasai’).

That clears up my confusion.

Thanks Preacher and everyone else.

[Preacher]

My mom is always busy and my father is dead.I have trouble in buying books on Islam coz I don't have enough money.And I don't have any nearby person with whom I can discuss about these issues.

sure I faced such questions and at that time I was not able to answer beacause of my lack of knowledge.



That clears up my confusion.

Thanks Preacher and everyone else.

:sl:

OK, fair enough, it explains your limitations. I don't know which part of Bangla Desh you lives, but try to find some good and authentic Islamic organizations and some scholars of Islam.

Following links are of authentic Islamic/Muslim website and may help you. Please contact them by sending an email and tell them about your financial hardship also. They will provide you knowledge/education of Deen for free, insha Allah. I know these people, they are doing an excellent job. This program is run and mangaged by highly learned people and scholars.

Wisdom Enrichment Foundation

FOR
For non-degree program join any of the following online learning programs with certificate for a very minimal FEE:
1. Islamic Studies and Personality Development (Note: This Program is FREE for those who can not afford to pay.)
2. Effective Writing and Communication
3. Arabic for Beginners
4. Effective Public Speaking

Click here.

It is all free and insha Allah you will learn much more than you can imagine.

:w:
Preacher

[Bittersteel]

thanks I do have an Arabic teacher and I asked him how was the Quran prserved.He said that Allah said that He will protect the Quran but didn't say how it was preserved.He simply said it was unchanged but not how.

I come from Dhaka.Where do you live?

[Preacher]

thanks I do have an Arabic teacher and I asked him how was the Quran prserved.He said that Allah said that He will protect the Quran but didn't say how it was preserved.He simply said it was unchanged but not how.

I come from Dhaka.Where do you live?

:sl:

An oridinary Arabic teacher or an Imam of your local Masjid may not be an ideal source to learn about Islam in most Muslim countries. The link I have provided you are scholars of Islam, while your Arabic teacher isn't. That is why he couldn't answer your question except giving you a generic answer.

I live in the West i.e. Darul-Kufr.

:w:
Preacher

[Bittersteel]

An oridinary Arabic teacher or an Imam of your local Masjid may not be an ideal source to learn about Islam in most Muslim countries.

agreed.

I live in the West i.e. Darul-Kufr.

huh where is that?Heard the name before tho.

BTW, Preacher why are you so aggressive?Alright its ok to preach but in a friendly amanner.

[Preacher]

agreed.



huh where is that?Heard the name before tho.

BTW, Preacher why are you so aggressive?Alright its ok to preach but in a friendly amanner.

:sl:

I am not aggressive, I am rather assertive.

:w:
Preacher

[Bittersteel]

you are kind of bossy.

[Preacher]

you are kind of bossy.

:sl:

You are entitled to your opinion. Sadly majority of Muslims acts and reacts based on whim and facy, even they are told exactly what is in Qur'an and Sunnah. I see this all the time and does not surprise me. Because these are all singns of Qayamah.

You think on this why Muslims are slaughtered in wholesale rate around the world?

You think on this why Muslims are humiliated worldwide today?

You think on this why Muslims are in majority but still a weak Kafir can over power and scare them?

You think on this why Muslims are being literally raped (men and women) worldwide, while rest of the Muslims watch it happen with lull minds, not to mention offer help to Kuffar who are doing this.

You think on this why Allah said in Qur'an 3:26 وَتُعِزُّ مَن تَشَاء وَتُذِلُّ مَن تَشَاء and why Muslims' fate has become part of Divine Decree وَتُذِلُّ مَن تَشَاء ?

You will find the answer right looking in the mirror that it is no one elase but we, who are responsible of this all.

This onslaught against our learned and scholars has been going on for a long time to acuse them with things like I am subject of.

“ And that time will come soon, when the final battle will be fought, they will descend upon you from every direction. And those who have faith will stand firm, but those who don’t, will join them (your enemy). And so it shall be done that you would be cleansed of the munafiqs, only those will stand to fight for Allah who are strong in faith.”

:w:
Preacher

[Sheikh Haroon]

What do you suggest for these times Preacher?

[Bittersteel]

Hey Preacher I didn't mean to offend you.I was uh half sarcastic.
I know you are assertive.I didn't mean you are wrong or anything.
I respect you.

[Preacher]

:sl:

This brief treatise is a living example of ot perjury, deception, falsification, intellectuall dishonesty and absolute ignorance of Orientalist/s.

Refuting & Exposing the Ignorance of D. S. Margoliouth!

:w:
Preacher

[Usayd]

The Qur'an as the final book cannot be changed - no matter who tries, there are millions of copies of the One Qur'an. The fact that it is the unchanged word of Allah (SWT) is what makes Islam so special.

[Bittersteel]

Can someone tell me a bit about the Tashkent and Topkapi manuscripts and how are they different from today's Qurans?

To how many Qurans was the change of pronounciation of Hajjaj applied?

Originally posted in whyIslam forum


Many Companions of the Prophet used to write down the revelation of the Qur’an on their own whenever they heard it from the lips of the Prophet. However what they wrote was not personally verified by the Prophet and thus could contain mistakes. All the verses revealed to the Prophet may not have been heard personally by all the Companions.

There were high possibilities of different portions of the Qur’an being missed by different Companions. This gave rise to disputes among Muslims regarding the different contents of the Qur’an during the period of the third Caliph Usman (r.a.).

Usman (r.a.) borrowed the original manuscript of the Qur’an, which was authorized by the beloved Prophet (pbuh), from Hafsha (may Allah be pleased with her), the Prophet’s wife. Usman (r.a.) ordered four Companions who were among the scribes who wrote the Qur’an when the Prophet dictated it, led by Zaid bin Thabit (r.a.) to rewrite the script in several perfect copies. These were sent by Usman (r.a.) to the main centres of Muslims.

Was the manuscript of Hafsha which was authorized by the Prophet saws to be corrected and then copied or just several copies were made from it without any correction?

What happened to the copies made by Abu Bakr?
I know I ask a lot of stupid questions but I want to get rid of all confusion.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl: brother,
You'll have to be patient for your questions to be addressed. I'll deal with a few at a time.

To how many Qurans was the change of pronounciation of Hajjaj applied?

As I already mentioned, Shaykh Azami points out that Al-Hajjaj changed nothing, instead he changed local Qur'an copies to match the authentic official copies made by Uthman rd.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

I'll deal with a few at a time.

no prob brother.
Salaam Alaikum.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Can someone tell me a bit about the Tashkent and Topkapi manuscripts and how are they different from today's Qurans?

This is answered in the Book by Azami. There are no real differences.

Was the manuscript of Hafsha which was authorized by the Prophet saws to be corrected and then copied or just several copies were made from it without any correction?

What happened was a copy was prepared by Abu Bakr rd by asking for two witnesses for each verse. These witnesses had to be people who had written down the verse under the supervision of the Prophet saws. THe comapnions had all memorized the Qur'an and had it written down, but to ensure complete accuracy they relied completely on material verified by the Prophet saws. This copy then entrusted to Hafsa.

later, Uthman rd did the whole process again because many more companions were present having returned from traveling/expeditions. This copy was compared with Abu Bakr's and they matched perfectly thus confirming that the Qur'an was perfectly preserved.

What happened to the copies made by Abu Bakr?

Having scrutinised the Uthmanic copies to be 100% accurate, they became the official copies of the state and all other copies were destroyed. Future copies were made from the Uthmanic copy.

It is explained in detail in Azami's book.

If you have any further interest in the subject then you should purchase the book.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

The History of the Quranic text?

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

Yes.

:w:

[anis_z24]

Dear fellow forum user ,

It seems that you don't have any idea about the quran. Therefor you can not say that the quran had a history.
The quran is the true word of god. To prove that lets see anyone who can find a mistake in the quran. Also in the quran Allah(god) has challenged mankind to try to produce a verse like the verses in the quran. People have tried but failed.
Read some verses in the quran with the correct translation and it will show you that its from the knowlege of god since it has solutions for every place,time or event.

[Bittersteel]

I know I know.I face questions and countless of them.Make sure I can answer straightaway and with evidence so I too ask questions.

[Ansar Al-'Adl]

:sl:
Where do you face these questions? I don't think you should be attempting to debate non-muslims on forums without having already studied Islam properly.

:w:

[Bittersteel]

Guess what Ansar?I don't think that and the Quran and Orientalists book can be found in Bangladesh.I checked in one shop and couldn't find it.tho I am still searching......

[SilentObserver]

some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text

I'm not sure why people continued in this thread to deny that there was any changes, but the proof is there. It has been changed some.
And big deal if it was changed a bit. It is to be expected that there would be some differences over such a long time of people copying it into a new book.

[Malaikah]

^Saying that Quran has been changed means that the copy accepted to be the official Quran was changed. But it wasn't!

Just because someone had a copy of the Quran that is different to the official doesn't mean the official is wrong. It means that the person made a mistake in his own copy (Or it could mean so many other innocent things, as details in Ansar's reply).

But the OFFICIAL one was NOT changed!

[SilentObserver]

^Saying that Quran has been changed means that the copy accepted to be the official Quran was changed. But it wasn't!

Just because someone had a copy of the Quran that is different to the official doesn't mean the official is wrong. It means that the person made a mistake in his own copy (Or it could mean so many other innocent things, as details in Ansar's reply).

But the OFFICIAL one was NOT changed!

So why preserve a copy with mistakes in a document grave?

[seeker_of_ilm]

So why preserve a copy with mistakes in a document grave?

Because in Islam we believe we must either destroy, or bury something with Quranic text, instead of merely throwing it away, where it can be disrespected, stepped on, become dirty etc...

[SilentObserver]

Because in Islam we believe we must either destroy, or bury something with Quranic text, instead of merely throwing it away, where it can be disrespected, stepped on, become dirty etc...

But if it was known to contain writings that were different, then it is not sacred. And why keep something that is not the 'true Quran' in the mosque? Wouldn't that be reserved for retired copies of the 'true' Quran?

[Malaikah]

But if it was known to contain writings that were different, then it is not sacred. And why keep something that is not the 'true Quran' in the mosque? Wouldn't that be reserved for retired copies of the 'true' Quran?

Firstly, people had written copies of the Quran before the official copy was complied into one book. These might have been written in different Arabic dialects (because not all arabs understood th dialect the Quran is written in) or they might have just been chapters from here and there but not in any particular order, written for the persons own personal reasons, with footnotes and what not. For more reasons refer to the first article in Ansars first post.

When the official copy was made, all other copies were to be destroyed, whether they contained mistakes or not, because it forced everyone to now go and get an official copy of the Quran and any mistakes that might have been in their unauthorized, personal copies would be disposed of.

Lastly, just because they contain mistakes or footnotes (which btw not all of them did because ALL copies were destroyed whether or not they matched the original), overall there were still the Quran and still had to be disposed of properly (by burning/burial/smudging the ink etc)

[Umar001]

I'm not sure why people continued in this thread to deny that there was any changes, but the proof is there. It has been changed some.
And big deal if it was changed a bit. It is to be expected that there would be some differences over such a long time of people copying it into a new book.

Where, sorry, I am abit slow, please point me towards it.

[SilentObserver]

Where, sorry, I am abit slow, please point me towards it.

In the article provided in the first post.

[SilentObserver]

Firstly, people had written copies of the Quran before the official copy was complied into one book. These might have been written in different Arabic dialects (because not all arabs understood th dialect the Quran is written in) or they might have just been chapters from here and there but not in any particular order, written for the persons own personal reasons, with footnotes and what not. For more reasons refer to the first article in Ansars first post.

When the official copy was made, all other copies were to be destroyed, whether they contained mistakes or not, because it forced everyone to now go and get an official copy of the Quran and any mistakes that might have been in their unauthorized, personal copies would be disposed of.

Lastly, just because they contain mistakes or footnotes (which btw not all of them did because ALL copies were destroyed whether or not they matched the original), overall there were still the Quran and still had to be disposed of properly (by burning/burial/smudging the ink etc)

Much of what is discussed here is similiar to the christian Bible. Muslims talk about different versions of the Bible, but it is different dialects only. King James version says the same thing as English Standard version, only in a different dialect. The words are different, but say exactly the same thing. I assume that is what is being said in this thread about the Quran being in different dialects as well.
So the Quran really is not immune to the same types of accusations that muslims make against the Bible.

ALL copies were destroyed whether or not they matched the original

How do you know this? Is there proof of this? A link perhaps? Thanks.

[Malaikah]

^You are wrong, it is NOT the same. The easiest way to prove why is that the protestants have 8 book less in their version of the bible than the catholic's do.

This does not exist in Islam. Your points are all totally invalid. Take the time to actual read Ansars posts and that should be clear.

[SilentObserver]

^You are wrong, it is NOT the same. The easiest way to prove why is that the protestants have 8 book less in their version of the bible than the catholic's do.

This does not exist in Islam. Your points are all totally invalid. Take the time to actual read Ansars posts and that should be clear.

I have read this thread, including Ansar's posts. Honestly, I only see excuses. Just my opinion of course. But nothing here is convincing.
An arguement can seem very convincing when you want to believe, as in the case of a muslim reading Ansar's posts. But when a person doesn't care one way or the other, as in my case, one can be objective, and not convinced.

No disrespect to Ansar, I've read many of his posts. He is a good debater. But a person can win a debate and still not be right. It just means they have excellent debate skills.

[lolwatever]

I have read this thread, including Ansar's posts. Honestly, I only see excuses. Just my opinion of course. But nothing here is convincing.
An arguement can seem very convincing when you want to believe, as in the case of a muslim reading Ansar's posts. But when a person doesn't care one way or the other, as in my case, one can be objective, and not convinced.

No disrespect to Ansar, I've read many of his posts. He is a good debater. But a person can win a debate and still not be right. It just means they have excellent debate skills.

but Silent, saying that doesn't make any point. or disprove anyone else's reply.

perhaps you could answer her points more methodically....

in short today you don't see Muslims reading different qurans do you? or arguing that one quran is more authentic than another... there is a consensus which is backed by verified chains of narration with regards to the quran that is unanimously agreed to.

[Umar001]

Much of what is discussed here is similiar to the christian Bible. Muslims talk about different versions of the Bible, but it is different dialects only. King James version says the same thing as English Standard version, only in a different dialect. The words are different, but say exactly the same thing. I assume that is what is being said in this thread about the Quran being in different dialects as well.
So the Quran really is not immune to the same types of accusations that muslims make against the Bible.

Actually you are mistaken, if I have understood your post correctly that is.

The King James Version and the English Standard versions are different not because one translates a word as 'veichle' and the other as 'donkey' or such minor details.

Rather, since I am not familier in totality with the English Standard Version, I will emphesise what the Revised Standard Version states, if you read the preface, you will see that the Revised Standard Version claims that the King James version was based upon late manuscripts and have grevious errors such as to call for revision, in my own words. We are not talking about dialect, but are talking about words which effect the meaning and are not copyst errors that have been inserted and ommited. The Manuscripts based to make the translations vary.

Even in the two above versions you have mentioned such can be evident, take a look if you may:

The King James Version, at 1 John chapter 1 verses, 6-7-8 states:

6This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

7For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

8And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Whislt the English Standard Version, at 1 John chapter 1 verses, 6-7-8 states:

6This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

7For there are three that testify:

8the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

In case it was missed, the whole of verse 7 from the King James Version is ommited, i.e. this For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And in the ESV the 8th verse is split into two.

Why is this, because according to the NIV footnotes verse 7 is not found within any manuscripts before the 16th Century thus shattering it's credability.

This is a small example of curroption, now this is not something I say to 'win' a debate, or sound smart but just carrying forth what I have learnt. Thus if you want to show me how a dialect can insert a whole verse which has a fundamental role in doctrine then feel free to do so.

I also would like to thank you for pointing me towards the source and I will read it G-d willing.

Source for quotes, Bible Gateway

Eesa.

[brenton]

^Really well prepared response.

I think there is an analogy between the Qur'an and the Christian Bible, but it isn't "exactly the same thing."

Between ancient versions and today there are variants in both. There are translations of both. There are text critical schools in both Islam and Christian Bible scholars.

But the %/amount of variants in the Qur'an is quite small compared with the New Testament. The Sana'a scraps in Yemen are quite close to today (33AH-58AH/645-690CE). The New Testament's earliest manuscripts are 125-150 years after writing (there are some fragments earlier, about 25 years after, but very few). The insriptions at the Dome of the Rock and the fragments occur for the Qur'an within 65 years of Muhammad's death.
Even the most critical scholars of Qur'an agree that there was a Qur'an by 700CE, and many non-Muslim scholars think the Qur'an is largely what Muhammad taught. Not so the New Testament. While a number of scholars believe the New Testament was completed as the authors state and by about 95CE, critical scholars doubt 3-6 of Paul's letters--putting the Pastoral letters as late as 70-100 years after Paul--both letters of Peter, Jude and James. Acts is not viewed as accurate history, and the gospels are not viewed as apostolic (although they are really anonymous). The Qur'an is much different.
For the New Testament there are hundreds of interesting variants and dozens of significant ones. Besides spelling and grammar and the seven systems of reading Qur'an (the Qur'an critical school is more like the Hebrew Bible schools), the differences are few.

I just don't see who the New Testament & Qur'an compare. Even their composition is different: one man claiming to recite the words of God vs. dozens of men and women working with apostolic writings and oral sayings, forming them as a community into books for the community.
And the "Canon" is different. Within a generation of Muhammad, Uthman standardized the text. There has never been a total standardization of the text, and it took 3 centuries to recognize what the community saw as canonical in Christian experience.

Much different things.

[Umar001]

^Really well prepared response.

Praise be to The Almighty for any good, and I am very happy that you did not take offence to it.

I think there is an analogy between the Qur'an and the Christian Bible, but it isn't "exactly the same thing."

Between ancient versions and today there are variants in both. There are translations of both. There are text critical schools in both Islam and Christian Bible scholars.

Maybe you can just clarify the variants of which you speak of, and what versions also, I think that maybe the idea of variants is something I am misunderstanding.

But the %/amount of variants in the Qur'an is quite small compared with the New Testament. The Sana'a scraps in Yemen are quite close to today (33AH-58AH/645-690CE). The New Testament's earliest manuscripts are 125-150 years after writing (there are some fragments earlier, about 25 years after, but very few). The insriptions at the Dome of the Rock and the fragments occur for the Qur'an within 65 years of Muhammad's death.
Even the most critical scholars of Qur'an agree that there was a Qur'an by 700CE, and many non-Muslim scholars think the Qur'an is largely what Muhammad taught. Not so the New Testament. While a number of scholars believe the New Testament was completed as the authors state and by about 95CE, critical scholars doubt 3-6 of Paul's letters--putting the Pastoral letters as late as 70-100 years after Paul--both letters of Peter, Jude and James. Acts is not viewed as accurate history, and the gospels are not viewed as apostolic (although they are really anonymous). The Qur'an is much different.
For the New Testament there are hundreds of interesting variants and dozens of significant ones. Besides spelling and grammar and the seven systems of reading Qur'an (the Qur'an critical school is more like the Hebrew Bible schools), the differences are few.

I just don't see who the New Testament & Qur'an compare. Even their composition is different: one man claiming to recite the words of God vs. dozens of men and women working with apostolic writings and oral sayings, forming them as a community into books for the community.
And the "Canon" is different. Within a generation of Muhammad, Uthman standardized the text. There has never been a total standardization of the text, and it took 3 centuries to recognize what the community saw as canonical in Christian experience.

Much different things.

Well this is it, when one understands the difference in revelation, compilement, and preservation then one can come at a better understanding without the need to feel threatned or attack the other religion, I think it is through understanding the fundamental basis of both that one can start to analyse the text and preservation.

Thank you for your insight and I await your reply.

Regards, Eesa.

[brenton]

I don't know of any "versians" of Qur'an, but there are variants according to the Islamic histories I've read. I guess I don't understand your question.

[lolwatever]

I don't know of any "versians" of Qur'an, but there are variants according to the Islamic histories I've read. I guess I don't understand your question.

heya brenton :)

perhaps you're referring to the variants in recitation? yes there's 7 ways to recite the quran, and they have all been directly confirmed by the prophet.

It's not like they're 7 diff qurans (the way there's x diff bibles), but seven ways of reciting it... so the words are teh same but the vowels on a efw words are different as well as the way they're pronounced..

all the best :)

[Umar001]

I don't know of any "versians" of Qur'an, but there are variants according to the Islamic histories I've read. I guess I don't understand your question.

Between ancient versions and today there are variants in both. There are translations of both. There are text critical schools in both Islam and Christian Bible scholars.

Maybe you can just clarify the variants of which you speak of, and what versions also, I think that maybe the idea of variants is something I am misunderstanding.

I think this is what I was saying, what I mean was that when you said, 'between ancient versions and today there are variants in both' I understood it to mean that by 'both' you meant, both The Bible and the Qu'ran.

So from there I asked what did you mean by variants in that sentance.

Sorry if I was unclear

Eesa.

[brenton]

Sorry, I am not an expert.
What I meant, was that I read that there were 7 "schools" of variant study in Qur'an study for centuries. What I was saying overall was that the Bible and Qur'an have some things in common, but they are quite different in the way they came about and the way they are studied.

[lolwatever]

Sorry, I am not an expert.
What I meant, was that I read that there were 7 "schools" of variant study in Qur'an study for centuries. What I was saying overall was that the Bible and Qur'an have some things in common, but they are quite different in the way they came about and the way they are studied.

lol sorry 4 late reply just noticed this was sittin in my usercp..

nah it's not 7 "differences of opinion" or "schools of thought"... thehy're 7 official ways of reciting it...

Teh prophet himself said "the quran was revealed on 7 letters" (letters here means 'pronounciations' or 'styles').... as i mentioned in my previous post...

They aren't 7 "versions" of the quran like the way you have x versions of the bible which are independent of one another. The quran is one book that was revealed by the same creator in seven different styles of recitation.

take care all the best :)

[Muhammad]

Greetings Brenton,

For more information about the seven 'styles' of the Qur'an, please see the following threads:

http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...aat-ahruf.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...en-styles.html

We also have a number of threads on the topic of the compilation of the Qur'an, such as:

http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...mpilation.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...ion-quran.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...y-tafseer.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...ction-qur.html

[جوري]

Greetings Brenton,

For more information about the seven 'styles' of the Qur'an, please see the following threads:

http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...aat-ahruf.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...en-styles.html

We also have a number of threads on the topic of the compilation of the Qur'an, such as:

http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...mpilation.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...ion-quran.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...y-tafseer.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/islamic-...ction-qur.html

This is brilliant and all the links seem to work which isn't always the case unfortunately with posts circa 2005