- Nov 21, 2007
- 41
- 0
- 0
- 52
Since Muslims tend to question the reliability of the Bible and suggest that the Bible went through corruption, I thought it would be interesting to turn the table for a while and ask some similar questions to the Muslims about the reliability of the Qur’an.This thread focuses on the early corruption of the Qur’an. Here we are not so much considering the fabrication of the Qur’an which occurred earlier when Muhammad was still alive, as is confirmed by Bukhari (here another thread is needed); This thread looks at the textual corruption, namely that various different Qur’ans were in existence after Muhammad’s death, and that the evidence of this problem had to dealt with severely. The Qur’an did not exist as a book in Muhammad’s life-time; the launch to inaugurate such a compilation was caused by the death of those who memorized it, in a civil-war; furthermore the Bukhari reveals that the task would be complex (why would the task be complex if the Qur’an was so safely memorized and as some Muslim claims, that several written Qur’an were already in existence?):
Narrated Zaid bin Thabit: Abu Bakr as-Siddiq sent for me when the people of Yamama had been killed. Then Abu Bakr said (to me): "You are a wise young man and we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle (saw). So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it (in one book)". By Allah! If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Qur'an. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Apostle (saw) did not do?" Abu Bakr replied "By Allah, it is a good project". (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.477).
Notice here that Zaid bin was choosen because they trusted him, does that mean that they did not trust memorizers in general, it does not seem so, as we shall see. Furthermore notice, the difficulty in compiling the Qur'an; Zaid bin says: that lifting and shifting a mountain would be easier.Lets continue:In this civil-war entire passages of the Qur’an were lost forever (not only does Dawud confirm that entire passages of the Qur’an were lost, but he agrees with Bukhari that the Qur’an was not written down):
Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them. (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.23).
Some years later several Qur’ans have been compiled, and they differ, which might lead to another civil-war. All the various Qur’ans are collected and burned, except for the Qur’an compiled by Zaid Ibn:
Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sha'm and Iraq) differences in the recitation (this indicates that the recitation depended upon the written material, otherwise there would be no point in burning the books) of the Qur'an, so he said to Uthman, 'O Chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur'an) as Jews and the Christians did before'. So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa, saying, 'Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you'. (they need to compile the quran in perfect copies) Hafsa sent It to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid ibn Thabit, Abdullah bin az-Zubair, Sa'id bin al-As, and Abdur-Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. (they need to rewrite the manuscripts) Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, 'In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of the Quraish as the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue'. (is he saying that they should correct dialect problems or deal with all problems in that language) They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.479).
The actual motive to select one Qur’an was to unite the people, not necessarily to pursue the truth:
By Allah, he did not act or do anything in respect of the manuscripts (masahif) except in full consultation with us, for he said, 'What is your opinion in this matter of qira'at (reading)? It has been reported to me that some are saying 'My reading is superior to your reading'. That is a perversion of the truth. We asked him, 'What is your view (on this)?' He answered, 'My view is that we should unite the people on a single text (mushaf waahid), then there will be no further division or disagreement'. We replied, 'What a wonderful idea!' Someone from the gathering there asked, 'Whose is the purest (Arabic) among the people and whose reading (is the best)? (so they require the purest Arabic but also the best reading)' They said the purest (Arabic) among the people was that of Sa'id ibn al-'As and the (best) reader among them was Zaid ibn Thabit. He (Uthman) said, 'Let the one write and the other dictate'. Thereafter they performed their task and he united the people on a (single) text. (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.22).
The best memorizer was bin Masud:
Narrated Abdullah (bin Mas'ud) (ra): By Allah other than Whom none has the right to be worshipped! There is no Sura revealed in Allah's Book but I know at what place it was revealed; and there is no verse revealed in Allah's Book but I know about whom it was revealed. And if I know that there is somebody who knows Allah's Book better than I, and he is at a place that camels can reach, I would go to him. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.488).
He was commanded to submit his Qur’an to be burned:
"I acquired directly from the messenger of Allah (saw) seventy surahs when Zaid was still a childish youth - must I now forsake what I acquired directly from the messenger of Allah?" (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.15).
The above information reveals that: 1) that no Qur’an existed in written form in Muhammad’s lifetime; 2) that a range of Muslims began compiling the Qur’an material after the death of Muhammad; 3) that the various compilations disagreed with each other and almost caused civil-war; 4) that all the compilations, except for one (Zaid bin) were collected and burned; 5) that Zaid bin’s Qur’an had to be rewritten from a different dialect into its assumed original dialect; 6) that the primary purpose was to unite the Arabic people; 7) that the best compilers and memorizers of the Qur’an were not in agreement; that information acquired directly from Muhammad had to be destroyed!As Christians we need to ask three vital questions:1. How do we know which of the compilations were most authentic? 2. How can we be sure that the Qur’an of Zaid bin is correct since all the information to compare it has been burned?3. How do we know whether the Qur’an Muslims read today truly convey the words, which Muhammad uttered?In response to Muslim critic of New Testament authorship1. Christians should ask to see the actual Qur’an from Muhammad in written form; if this one is non-existent Christians have no reason to believe that the Islam which Muslims follow today is in accordance with the original Islam. 2. Christians should deny the Qur’an Muslims read and follow today, since it is the Qur’an of Zaid bin (remember we do not believe in human authorship; whether it reveals historical facts or not), we would like to see the Qur’an of Muhammad only.3. Christians should point out, that we have difficulties believing a book that survived in the manner as Zaid bin’s Qur’an. It seems that the early Muslims had something to hide; they were certainly unable to agree about the compilations.4. Christians should point that the present Qur’an is untrustworthy since the best memorizers of the Qur’an were excluded and the information they received directly from Muhammad was destroyed. 5. Christians should point out that the Qur’an is untrustworthy, since it was written into its present dialect from after Muhammad (we may as well translate the Gospel writings into Aramaic and we have solved our problem).What are some of the further complications here (there is much more related than what we concluded above):More than dialects Firstly the Muslims tend to explain away Uthman’s burning of the Qur’an, by claiming that these were all the same, while the only problem was the reciting dialects. However, here we must point out, that if the problem was only reciting and dialects, there would be no need of burning the books. Hence the reason for burning the early Qur’ans was must have been that of a difference that included more than just dialect. Furthermore, if the issue was dialect and these dialects in fact had been permitted by Allah, then they were in fact burning the Word of God, did Allah permit such an act? Early Islamic disrespect for the Qur'anThis might also suggest that there was in fact little respect for the divine word in the early days of Islam, which may also suggest that if burning it there might also have been not problem corrupting it.The Oral memorization of the Qur'an was not deemed reliableThere are also more problems, why did the Muslim need a written Qur’an in the first place? If they depended upon memorization there would be no need of a written Qur’an, hence the need of a written Qur’an means that they did not trust the memorizaton; in fact Muhammad himself needed Gabrials help every year to retain such information; Now think about it, if Muhammed needed supernatural help to protect the Qur’an how about the reciters who did not receive such help. Is it possible that the writing of the Qur’an was a way to secure the Qur’an since corruption was expected or because corruption had already taken place.Not the Qur'an of God but the Qur'an of ManFurthermore, the collection of the Qur’an reveals additional problems, much like the Muslim accuse the Christians of trusting the book of so and so, like the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of Mark, rather than the Gospel of Jesus or the Gospel of God, well, the Qur’an itself became the book of so and so. For example Abdullah Masud, probably the best early receiter of the Qur’an refused to surrender what he had heard personally from Muhammad. His Qur’an, that is Abdullah Masud’s Qur’an was burned in exchange for another Qur’an that the Islamic leaders had to pick out from a range of different qur’ans. This particular Qur’an they decided to pick out, was the Qur’an of Zaid Ibn. The early Muslims did not trust each others Qur'ansTwo questions need to be asked here: Firstly, the picture here reveals that they had at this time the Qur’an of Abdullah and the Qur’an of Zaid. The Muslim may argue that they were the same, but then we need to ask what the reason was for burning the one of Abdullah? Why did they not simply recognise that they were both the revelations Muhammad had transmitted from Allah? That was simply not the issue here, Abdullah’s Qur’an was burned and the Zaid’s was choosen; so we need to ask the Muslim, that if Abdullah’s Qur’an was still in full existence which one would he believe in the one of Abdullah or the one of Zaid, or any of the others that did not survive burning either. Secondly we need to ask why they trust the Qur’an of Zaid a human person rather than something that was historically authentic (I point this out since this is the Muslim argument against the Gospels); Thirdly, we need to ask the Muslim for the Qur’an transmitted by Muhammed which according to Islam was revealed to him by Allah, now where is that particular Qur’an? If you can burn you can corruptChristians did not burn the books they considered holy, if the Qur’ans that were burned were ok, then the Muslims willingly destroyed what they considered sacred. If you can go to such measures what can hinder you from changing the book? The matter related to corruptionIn Bukhari, the fear is that the Muslim will differ about their books much like the Jews and the Christians, here two vital issues have to be brought up. The Jews and Christians differed in their acceptance of the New Testament. If this applies to the issue here, then passages existing in these Qur’ans, not all Muslims agreed about. These were also passages they could not assess properly whether they were the word of God or not, otherwise we might assume that such assessment would take place – no they simply cleared away all such difficulties by burning it. If Bukhari is referring to Christian refutation of the Gnostic scriptures, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas or the Apocalyptic of Peter. Then we have a similar problem and an additional one. Firstly, orthodox Christians in the fourth century banned and later supposedly burned Gnostic books, however, if this applies to the different consideration of Muslims to the early Qur’an it reveals that there were completely different Qur’ans with different teachings. Secondly, if this was the issue Bukhari referred to, it verifies that Gnostic material was wrong since it initially was destroyed while the orthodox Gospels were vindicated, there is sufficient passages in the Qur’an that verify that the Qur’an and Muhammad accepted the universal Gospels. Interestingly, Gnostics Gospels have survived, and we find traces of these in the Qur’an, yet if we suppose that these Gnostic writings were the authentic ones, then they completely contradict the Qur’an. From this assessment I guess we can, with all reasonable logic conclude that the present Qur'an is not the one Allah gave to Muhammad, neither is it the one Muhammad transmitted to his followers, neither is it the one which some of the earlier reciters transmitted to the Muslim community.
Narrated Zaid bin Thabit: Abu Bakr as-Siddiq sent for me when the people of Yamama had been killed. Then Abu Bakr said (to me): "You are a wise young man and we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle (saw). So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it (in one book)". By Allah! If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Qur'an. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Apostle (saw) did not do?" Abu Bakr replied "By Allah, it is a good project". (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.477).
Notice here that Zaid bin was choosen because they trusted him, does that mean that they did not trust memorizers in general, it does not seem so, as we shall see. Furthermore notice, the difficulty in compiling the Qur'an; Zaid bin says: that lifting and shifting a mountain would be easier.Lets continue:In this civil-war entire passages of the Qur’an were lost forever (not only does Dawud confirm that entire passages of the Qur’an were lost, but he agrees with Bukhari that the Qur’an was not written down):
Many (of the passages) of the Qur'an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama ... but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur'an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them. (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.23).
Some years later several Qur’ans have been compiled, and they differ, which might lead to another civil-war. All the various Qur’ans are collected and burned, except for the Qur’an compiled by Zaid Ibn:
Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sha'm and Iraq) differences in the recitation (this indicates that the recitation depended upon the written material, otherwise there would be no point in burning the books) of the Qur'an, so he said to Uthman, 'O Chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur'an) as Jews and the Christians did before'. So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa, saying, 'Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you'. (they need to compile the quran in perfect copies) Hafsa sent It to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid ibn Thabit, Abdullah bin az-Zubair, Sa'id bin al-As, and Abdur-Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. (they need to rewrite the manuscripts) Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, 'In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of the Quraish as the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue'. (is he saying that they should correct dialect problems or deal with all problems in that language) They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.479).
The actual motive to select one Qur’an was to unite the people, not necessarily to pursue the truth:
By Allah, he did not act or do anything in respect of the manuscripts (masahif) except in full consultation with us, for he said, 'What is your opinion in this matter of qira'at (reading)? It has been reported to me that some are saying 'My reading is superior to your reading'. That is a perversion of the truth. We asked him, 'What is your view (on this)?' He answered, 'My view is that we should unite the people on a single text (mushaf waahid), then there will be no further division or disagreement'. We replied, 'What a wonderful idea!' Someone from the gathering there asked, 'Whose is the purest (Arabic) among the people and whose reading (is the best)? (so they require the purest Arabic but also the best reading)' They said the purest (Arabic) among the people was that of Sa'id ibn al-'As and the (best) reader among them was Zaid ibn Thabit. He (Uthman) said, 'Let the one write and the other dictate'. Thereafter they performed their task and he united the people on a (single) text. (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.22).
The best memorizer was bin Masud:
Narrated Abdullah (bin Mas'ud) (ra): By Allah other than Whom none has the right to be worshipped! There is no Sura revealed in Allah's Book but I know at what place it was revealed; and there is no verse revealed in Allah's Book but I know about whom it was revealed. And if I know that there is somebody who knows Allah's Book better than I, and he is at a place that camels can reach, I would go to him. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.488).
He was commanded to submit his Qur’an to be burned:
"I acquired directly from the messenger of Allah (saw) seventy surahs when Zaid was still a childish youth - must I now forsake what I acquired directly from the messenger of Allah?" (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.15).
The above information reveals that: 1) that no Qur’an existed in written form in Muhammad’s lifetime; 2) that a range of Muslims began compiling the Qur’an material after the death of Muhammad; 3) that the various compilations disagreed with each other and almost caused civil-war; 4) that all the compilations, except for one (Zaid bin) were collected and burned; 5) that Zaid bin’s Qur’an had to be rewritten from a different dialect into its assumed original dialect; 6) that the primary purpose was to unite the Arabic people; 7) that the best compilers and memorizers of the Qur’an were not in agreement; that information acquired directly from Muhammad had to be destroyed!As Christians we need to ask three vital questions:1. How do we know which of the compilations were most authentic? 2. How can we be sure that the Qur’an of Zaid bin is correct since all the information to compare it has been burned?3. How do we know whether the Qur’an Muslims read today truly convey the words, which Muhammad uttered?In response to Muslim critic of New Testament authorship1. Christians should ask to see the actual Qur’an from Muhammad in written form; if this one is non-existent Christians have no reason to believe that the Islam which Muslims follow today is in accordance with the original Islam. 2. Christians should deny the Qur’an Muslims read and follow today, since it is the Qur’an of Zaid bin (remember we do not believe in human authorship; whether it reveals historical facts or not), we would like to see the Qur’an of Muhammad only.3. Christians should point out, that we have difficulties believing a book that survived in the manner as Zaid bin’s Qur’an. It seems that the early Muslims had something to hide; they were certainly unable to agree about the compilations.4. Christians should point that the present Qur’an is untrustworthy since the best memorizers of the Qur’an were excluded and the information they received directly from Muhammad was destroyed. 5. Christians should point out that the Qur’an is untrustworthy, since it was written into its present dialect from after Muhammad (we may as well translate the Gospel writings into Aramaic and we have solved our problem).What are some of the further complications here (there is much more related than what we concluded above):More than dialects Firstly the Muslims tend to explain away Uthman’s burning of the Qur’an, by claiming that these were all the same, while the only problem was the reciting dialects. However, here we must point out, that if the problem was only reciting and dialects, there would be no need of burning the books. Hence the reason for burning the early Qur’ans was must have been that of a difference that included more than just dialect. Furthermore, if the issue was dialect and these dialects in fact had been permitted by Allah, then they were in fact burning the Word of God, did Allah permit such an act? Early Islamic disrespect for the Qur'anThis might also suggest that there was in fact little respect for the divine word in the early days of Islam, which may also suggest that if burning it there might also have been not problem corrupting it.The Oral memorization of the Qur'an was not deemed reliableThere are also more problems, why did the Muslim need a written Qur’an in the first place? If they depended upon memorization there would be no need of a written Qur’an, hence the need of a written Qur’an means that they did not trust the memorizaton; in fact Muhammad himself needed Gabrials help every year to retain such information; Now think about it, if Muhammed needed supernatural help to protect the Qur’an how about the reciters who did not receive such help. Is it possible that the writing of the Qur’an was a way to secure the Qur’an since corruption was expected or because corruption had already taken place.Not the Qur'an of God but the Qur'an of ManFurthermore, the collection of the Qur’an reveals additional problems, much like the Muslim accuse the Christians of trusting the book of so and so, like the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of Mark, rather than the Gospel of Jesus or the Gospel of God, well, the Qur’an itself became the book of so and so. For example Abdullah Masud, probably the best early receiter of the Qur’an refused to surrender what he had heard personally from Muhammad. His Qur’an, that is Abdullah Masud’s Qur’an was burned in exchange for another Qur’an that the Islamic leaders had to pick out from a range of different qur’ans. This particular Qur’an they decided to pick out, was the Qur’an of Zaid Ibn. The early Muslims did not trust each others Qur'ansTwo questions need to be asked here: Firstly, the picture here reveals that they had at this time the Qur’an of Abdullah and the Qur’an of Zaid. The Muslim may argue that they were the same, but then we need to ask what the reason was for burning the one of Abdullah? Why did they not simply recognise that they were both the revelations Muhammad had transmitted from Allah? That was simply not the issue here, Abdullah’s Qur’an was burned and the Zaid’s was choosen; so we need to ask the Muslim, that if Abdullah’s Qur’an was still in full existence which one would he believe in the one of Abdullah or the one of Zaid, or any of the others that did not survive burning either. Secondly we need to ask why they trust the Qur’an of Zaid a human person rather than something that was historically authentic (I point this out since this is the Muslim argument against the Gospels); Thirdly, we need to ask the Muslim for the Qur’an transmitted by Muhammed which according to Islam was revealed to him by Allah, now where is that particular Qur’an? If you can burn you can corruptChristians did not burn the books they considered holy, if the Qur’ans that were burned were ok, then the Muslims willingly destroyed what they considered sacred. If you can go to such measures what can hinder you from changing the book? The matter related to corruptionIn Bukhari, the fear is that the Muslim will differ about their books much like the Jews and the Christians, here two vital issues have to be brought up. The Jews and Christians differed in their acceptance of the New Testament. If this applies to the issue here, then passages existing in these Qur’ans, not all Muslims agreed about. These were also passages they could not assess properly whether they were the word of God or not, otherwise we might assume that such assessment would take place – no they simply cleared away all such difficulties by burning it. If Bukhari is referring to Christian refutation of the Gnostic scriptures, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas or the Apocalyptic of Peter. Then we have a similar problem and an additional one. Firstly, orthodox Christians in the fourth century banned and later supposedly burned Gnostic books, however, if this applies to the different consideration of Muslims to the early Qur’an it reveals that there were completely different Qur’ans with different teachings. Secondly, if this was the issue Bukhari referred to, it verifies that Gnostic material was wrong since it initially was destroyed while the orthodox Gospels were vindicated, there is sufficient passages in the Qur’an that verify that the Qur’an and Muhammad accepted the universal Gospels. Interestingly, Gnostics Gospels have survived, and we find traces of these in the Qur’an, yet if we suppose that these Gnostic writings were the authentic ones, then they completely contradict the Qur’an. From this assessment I guess we can, with all reasonable logic conclude that the present Qur'an is not the one Allah gave to Muhammad, neither is it the one Muhammad transmitted to his followers, neither is it the one which some of the earlier reciters transmitted to the Muslim community.