The Preservation of Quran

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Valiya's picture
The Preservation of Quran

Quran has been preserved in its pristine purity since it was revealed 1400 hundred years ago. It has been preserved through an unbroken chain of oral tradition that can be traced back to the prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Today, the world over there are hundreds of thousands of Quran memorizers who have committed the whole book to their memory, and there is no disagreement between any of them.

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maryam's picture
Oh yea..:-)

Oh yea..:-)

If all the books in the world were somehow to be destroyed the only book which could be rewritten word for word without a single mistake is the GLORIOUS QURAN...!!!

Valiya's picture
Absolutely

Absolutely

Sheldon's picture
@ROYISM "absolutely"

@ROYISM "absolutely"

..not, time and again you have endorsed the rape of children, and murder. The koran is an ignorant work of fiction, from an era epitomised by ignorance, and filled with barbarity, immorality, and fictional myths.

It's leather bound toilet paper, and not even good quality arse wipes at that.

watchman's picture
We'll see ....

We'll see ....

watchman's picture
OK... lets do this thing....

OK... lets do this thing....

You are postulating that :

"Quran has been preserved in its pristine purity since it was revealed 1400 hundred years ago."

1/"through an unbroken chain of oral tradition that can be traced back to the prophet Mohammed ."
&
2/ Today's Quran is the same as the first written version and that was a verbatim rendering of the revealed verses.

Agreed ?

Valiya's picture
Todays quran is the same as

Todays quran is the same as what was revealed to Mohammed. If thats what u mean agreed.

Sheldon's picture
We have exact copies of all

We have exact copies of all the Harry Potter books, so fucking what, it doesn't validate a single of word of it, though it is spectacularly better fiction than that fetid turgid nonsense you keep trying to peddle on here.

mysticrose's picture
What if those memorizers

What if those memorizers eventually suffers fro memory loss? It's quite funny how some individuals can sacrifice that way.

watchman's picture
So ... the verses were

So ... the verses were revealed to Mohammed ..... written down by "secretaries" and "companions" ...as they came.
Collected into the Quran (document) on the orders of AbuBakr after the death of Mohammed by Zayd Ibn Thabit (one of Mohammed's secretaries).

The impetus for this collation of the verses was the battle of Yamama (apparently 632 AD.where many of those who had memorized portions of the recitation died.
It should be noted that we have no provable information for this battle.

This [single copy] was kept by AbuBakr in his home while he lived then upon his death it was kept in the home of his successor Umar. Upon Umar's death it was left in the possession of Hafsa ,Umar's daughter and one of Mohammed's widows.
Umar's successor ,Uthman arranged for the manuscripts to be standardised and copied. By this time there seem to be several documents ... (apparently ,although not definitely ,the extra documents came from Hafsa.)

The "team" that Uthman gave this task to was told that if there were any disagreements on any point then they were to write it in the dialect of Quraish as the quran was revealed in this tongue.

The fact that this order was necessary seems to indicate disagreement between various source documents.

Sorry it got so wordy .... but did I cover the salient points?

watchman's picture
Sorry ... that should read ..

Sorry ... that should read ...

"we have no independent ,provable information for this battle".

Valiya's picture
By independent provable

By independent provable information what do you mean? Are u looking for extra-traditional sources outside of hadith?Battle of yamama was fought against musailamatul kazzab.

the rest of the narrative is okay.

watchman's picture
"Are u looking for extra

"Are u looking for extra-traditional sources outside of hadith?"

Yes .... Evidence ... always.

Any way ... to continue ....

Uthman then sent copies of his book to all the Arab centres ...
accompanied by readers to give the "authorised" rendering of the texts.
He also ordered that all previous Quranic texts be burned.

Now this poses ,from my point of view, several questions...

What previous texts ?

Why destroy them ?

Were these alternative versions ?

Is this an indication of other Qurans ?

Valiya's picture
I am sure u know about the 7

I am sure u know about the 7 harfs of the quran. So i am not going to explain it in detail unless it is news to u. Uthman standardized the quran in 1 harf...and burnt the rest of it.

toto974's picture
@Royism

@Royism

You could do it for those that have not the same knowledge as you????

Valiya's picture
Do u have extra traditiinal

Do u have extra traditiinal proof for the rest of the narrative? If not, then y ask only for yamama?

Sorry i am typing on my phone. so keeping it short.

Nyarlathotep's picture
so wait: you are saying it is

so wait: you are saying it is amazing there is only one version of the Quran, then you tell us the other versions were burned...

Valiya's picture
U wont ask this questn if u

U wont ask this questn if u know abt harfs. If u know and yet feel the same...please explain ur contention nyalthorp

watchman's picture
Valiya..

Valiya..

I am aware of harfs .... not sure I understand it correctly ....but am aware.

If you're having probs with posting on your phone ... I'll give it a go at explaining to Nyarlhotep...(love that name ..brought back memories of my youth)..

Anyway... the 7 Harfs are in said to be the 7 different ways in which the Quran was said to be delivered... I've seen it implied that these differences were due to differing Arabic dialects ...but I think this may be incorrect. It seems to mean differing versions ...using differing but similar meaning words ......

I think....

Hold on ..think I've got a quote from a hadith somewhere ....

“I heard Hishaam ibn Hakeem reciting Soorat al-Furqaan in a manner different from that in which I used to recite it and the way in which the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) taught me to recite it. I was about to argue with him whilst he was praying, but I waited until he finished his prayer, and then I tied his garment around his neck and seized him by it and brought him to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and said, ‘O Messenger of Allaah, I heard this man reciting Soorat-al-Furqaan in a way different to the way you taught it to me.’ The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said to him, ‘Recite it,’ and he recited it as I had heard him recite it. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, ‘It was revealed like this.’ Then he said to me, ‘Recite it,’ so I recited it and he said, ‘It was revealed like this.’ This Qur'aan has been revealed in seven different ways, so recite it in the way that is easiest for you.’”

(Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 2287; Muslim, 818)

watchman's picture
Valiya...

Valiya...

Sorry ...I just read back and realised i just totally ignored your question....

"Do u have extra traditiinal proof for the rest of the narrative? If not, then y ask only for yamama?"

No I have not found evidence for much of the traditional narrative ....

I chose Yamama because :

1/ it touches on the reasons for the committing of the verses to writing .

2/ it is a battle site and IF it happened it should be locatable .. if it didn't happen then there is no imperative for committing the Quran to writing in a society that has a long ,strong oral tradition .(bringing the traditional narrative into question)

Valiya's picture
Watchman

Watchman

Yes, the hadith you quoted about Harf is right.

That’s what I mean by the 7 different harfs. Now you say that you don’t entirely agree with the meaning of harf as dialect. Whatever the meaning of harf is, the following points can be ascertained from the hadith.

1. There were 7 harfs.
2. All 7 were taught and approved by the prophet
3. The purpose of harf was not to give a different message, but to facilitate recitation.
4. The harfs were same in meaning
5. Reciting quran in any one harf is good enough for guidance

From a Muslims point of view, even if one harf is extant today, then the Quran can be deemed as 100% preserved.

Next, you raised the point about Yamama.

This is being reported by a contemporary of Mohammed (PBUH). If this historical account is questionable, then I wonder how you can accept the historicity of Alexander or for that matter any other history from antiquity.

In any case, I would like you to consider the following auxiliary evidences:

There is manuscript evidence of the textual compilation of the whole quran from the first century of Islam, datable to the period of the first four caliphs. As I am sure you know about this, I am not going to invest my time on sourcing out the evidence for you here.

This shows textual compilation had indeed taken place. Now, why should someone cook up a story of a battle that never took place as proof for an event that is factual? It would have been better for the image of a caliph to say that he had ordered such a seminal event in the history of Islam purely on foresight, instead of as a reaction to a crisis.

ex-christian_atheist's picture
Just a couple questions:

Just a couple questions:
1) How do you trace back an oral history if it was never written down? And how would you know that what was finally written down was what Mohammed originally said
2) Even if the book was not modified over time, does this hold any implications? Or is it just an interesting fact?

Valiya's picture
Ex Christian

Ex Christian

A small correction. It’s not that the Quran was never written down. It is the most attested historical textual document in the world. There are plenty of hadith (which can be translated as the accounts about Mohammed by his contemporaries) which say that every verse uttered by the prophet as Quran was instantly put down in writing by many scribes, while a greater a number committed them to the memory.

Therefore, the oral tradition and the textual tradition were going side by side. However, the oral tradition had/has greater weightage because the actual meaning of Quran is ‘Recitation.’ The belief is that the angel came to the prophet and recited it to him, and DID NOT hand over a divine scroll or something like that. What the prophet gave his companions was recitation. The text therefore only represents the quran orthographically, while the sound is what the quran really is.

Even if for the sake of argument I agree with you that quran was never written down – the proof of preservation is that the whole world recites the quran the same way – including shias and sunnis, which is the biggest schism in Islam.

Then the burden of proof will fall back on you to show how a tradition that has been handed down from generation after generation in the last 1400 hundred years does not have any conflict. Say in a game of Chinese Telephone (where secrets are passed around), you whisper a secret to 1 person, who whispers it to 2 others, and each of them to 2 more and so on. Say about 10 or 15 links later, you ask the final recipients to tell you the secret and all them utter the secret verbatim the same, would you ask for any more proof for the integrity of that transmission?

By the way Ex-Christian, what happened to our debate on God? Are you still game?

ex-christian_atheist's picture
I have replied to your last

I have replied to your last message, and I'm waiting on a reply.

l understand now what you meant about oral tradition. I disagree about the burden of proof. If you are insisting that the fact that it remained the same all these years means that the words must be true, it is your burden to prove that the claim is true. I simply say, no it does not logically follow that because you believe it to be the same now as it was 1400 years ago, that the words must be true and from a higher power. I would say 1 obvious explanation would be that exact memorization is taken so seriously, and making mistakes and chinging anything is so blasphemous that it is a high priority in the minds of Muslims to make sure they don't make any mistakes. This doesn't indicate to me that any God is responsible. Just that the humans who tell the story take it very, very seriously.

Sheldon's picture
ROYISM " It (koran) is the

ROYISM " It (koran) is the most attested historical textual document in the world."

HahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahvHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahHahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah...

uh, oh no, irony overload....damn it, you owe me another irony meter...

Cognostic's picture
@ROYISM: "It’s not that the

@ROYISM: "It’s not that the Quran was never written down. It is the most attested historical textual document in the world."

ha ha ha ha ha ha..... What Sheldon Said!

Valiya's picture
Ex-christian

Ex-christian

This debate is not whether Quran is the word of God or not. We are simply debating if the book that Mohammed (PBUH) gave his companions is avialble to us intact. Whatever the message in it be. And if u can agree that book has been well preserved, then I would consider my task achieved.

You points on ID were great. I will send my response in a bit.

Cognostic's picture
@Royism: RE: " We are

@Royism: RE: " We are simply debating if the book that Mohammed (PBUH) gave his companions is avialble to us intact." No we are not. Muhammad never gave anything intact to anyone. The Quaran was never written down or memorized during the life of Muhammad. It was constructed from bits and pieces of memory as well as parchments, stone carvings and carvings on bone that were found, organized, picked through, selected and rejected, and then put into a book in the stupidest way ever thought of; by shortest to longest. It took an idiot to construct the quaran,. Imagine watching a Harry Potter movie but instead of a chronology it was written from the shortest scenes to the longest scenes. It would be a retarded movie just as the Quaran is a retarded book.

watchman's picture
Valiya ..

Valiya ..

“Now you say that you don’t entirely agree with the meaning of harf as dialect.”.. steady on there .. don’t go misrepresenting me ….. what I said was ,” not sure I understand it correctly “.

What I mean is that as what we have left of the Quran appears to be derived from the Quraish tribe. Im afraid my knowledge of pre Islamic tribes is just not good enough for me to form any opinion on whether the Harfs were dialects ,idioms or even minor languages in their own right.
Hence my admission of limited understanding.

However , to your point :” From a Muslims point of view, even if one harf is extant today, then the Quran can be deemed as 100% preserved.”

I would raise the following objection : What is left is no longer the Quran of Mahommed ,but the Quran of Uthman … based on some of the original verses ,to be sure …but no longer (how was it you put it ?),” preserved in its pristine purity”.

Any way … you go on:

“I wonder how you can accept the historicity of Alexander or for that matter any other history from antiquity”

I would not , if the only references we had were from Macedonian sources ,however we have documentary evidence (both for and against )for Alexander ,his family and his conquests from Greece in general ,Athens in particular ,Egypt and the Levant. Not to mention archaeology
.
Your further point ,” There is manuscript evidence of the textual compilation of the whole quran from the first century of Islam, datable to the period of the first four caliphs.”

No …No that is not so ….
Assuming you mean the Tashkent ,the Topkapi and ,of course, the Sana’a Manuscripts These are only fragments … large fragments in some cases but fragments non the less. Thus not able to prove “the whole Quran”.

If you have other documentary evidence in mind please let me know .

“Now, why should someone cook up a story of a battle that never took place as proof for an event that is factual?”
Possibly and I do say POSSIBLY for the simple expedient of disseminating a somewhat “adjusted” version of a culturally important religious document.
Look at the events of Uthmans “reign” ..look at Uthmans subsequent reputation.
Nothing solid I admit and I have NO EVIDENCE …(consequently I would reject this as an hypothesis … but it could warrant examination at least).

Any way ,whatever the reason there is no independent evidence.

Valiya's picture
Watchman

Watchman

Firstly, Sorry for misrepresenting you there.

You said: “I would raise the following objection : What is left is no longer the Quran of Mahommed ,but the Quran of Uthman … based on some of the original verses ,to be sure …but no longer (how was it you put it ?),” preserved in its pristine purity”.

By this are you implying that you want to see a manuscript written by the Prophet himself? The cream of the students of the prophet, all of them people who had memorized the whole quran during the life of the prophet, unanimously, gave us a Quran saying that this is the Quran they learnt from the prophet. And none of them had any difference of opinion on this. What more do you want? If you don’t believe these people, then what is the use even if you had a manuscript signed by the prophet himself? You can dismiss it as a forgery by these conspiring companions. Anything about the prophet has to come to us through these people only.

If on the other hand, you are saying that while these companions were sincere to the cause of recording the Quran, their human fallibility could have caused them to err and hence mistakes in the quran could have occured. This at best can only be a hypothesis and cannot be entertained until evidence is provided. By logic, when there are errors there is bound to be differences of opinion. It’s hard to get everyone to agree on a mistake.

You said: “I would not , if the only references we had were from Macedonian sources ,however we have documentary evidence (both for and against )for Alexander ,his family and his conquests from Greece in general ,Athens in particular ,Egypt and the Levant. Not to mention archaeology.”

What I meant about Alexander is that none of the historical sources about him are his contemporaries. The farthest we can go back is 2 centuries later. Whereas in the case of Quran, it is the contemporaries of Mohammed (PBUH), who are reporting.

Moreover, the battle of Yamam, while seminal in the history of Islam, was nothing more than a local event when looked at from the perspective of world history. Arabs had not yet emerged as a world force. It was fought in Arabia, between the Arabs. In fact, the enemies were apostates, who had just defected from the Muslim camp.

It was at best an internal conflict. How do you expect there to be independent sources for this historical event. By Historical Critical Method your arguments are valid only if this was a big event, or a war fought between say a byzantine power and the Muslims, and there was total silence on the matter in the enemy camp.

Moreover, even if you had any external source talking about any local historical event, for example, say an Egyptian is narrating about an event that occured in Greece between the Greeks, then by logic, the only way he could have learnt it is from Greek sources. That doesn’t make his testimony any more valid than a local source.

.
You said: “No …No that is not so ….
Assuming you mean the Tashkent ,the Topkapi and ,of course, the Sana’a Manuscripts These are only fragments … large fragments in some cases but fragments non the less. Thus not able to prove “the whole Quran”.

I submit that point to you. I stand corrected. However, yes these are large fragments. The 80 folios of sana manuscript cover nearly half of the quran, and if all if it is exactly the same as the quran we have today, i don’t think it calls for a big leap of faith to figure out how the rest should have been. About the so called variant inferior script in the sana manuscript... I will write about it when you present your case.

You said: “Possibly and I do say POSSIBLY for the simple expedient of disseminating a somewhat “adjusted” version of a culturally important religious document.
Look at the events of Uthmans “reign” ..look at Uthmans subsequent reputation.
Nothing solid I admit and I have NO EVIDENCE …(consequently I would reject this as an hypothesis … but it could warrant examination at least).”

You have conceded that it’s merely a hypothesis. At least if you had shown some deducible evidence of how a supposedly controversial verse favored the regime of Uthman or something of that sort, this argument would have been worth considering. But as you have admitted that you don’t have evidence, I will leave it at that.

watchman's picture
OK then lets get to it...

OK then lets get to it...

Re the Sana'a palimpsest ....

I will take the line that it represents evidence for a previous version of the Quran (possibly Ibn Masud).

Dating from a very early period of Islam I will say (as you knew I would) it calls into question the "unaltered" claims made by many Muslims.

Im interested to read what you think of it.

Link for anyone interested to look up....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana%27a_manuscript

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