Some Thoughts on the Authenticity of the Qur'an

Some Thoughts on the Authenticity of the Qur'an

By Abd ar-Rahman Robert Squires. © Muslim Answers

>Question: I was wondering about the recorded Hadith which
>can be found in Sahih Muslim or Bukhari (I forget which) which
>speaks of Zaid Ibn Thabit saying he "Found a verse which he found
>with no one else except one man ". This was when he was asked to
>compile the Qur'an by Uthman (r.a).
>

RS: Yes, this is a Sahih (authentic) hadith. I know that it is reported in Sahih al-Bukhari, but I didn't take the time to see whether it is also in Sahih Muslim. Pardon me for not checking that, since we both agree that it is authtentically reported, there's no real need for that.

>
>Is this contradictory to the claim made by us muslims that there were
>many Hafeez (memorizers/protectors) of Qur'an around who knew the WHOLE ofthe Qur'an by heart?
>According to this Hadith, there were only 2 hafeez, him and the other
>person he found this verse with...??
>

RS: No, it is not contradictory at all because the Qur'an was preserved by memory and still is. Writing was only a secondary way of preserving it. Numerous companions (i.e. at least dozens-upon-dozens) memorized the entire Qur'an, and hundreds memorized parts of it. I'm not sure how many of them had the entire Qur'an in writing, but I don't think many of them (possibly none), even though many of them had parts of it. The Arabs at the time were an oral society, which is something that Westerners tend to forget. The hadith in question simply shows that they came across one verse that only one person other than Zaid had WRITTEN, even though they all had memorized it. How else would they know it was a Qur'anic verse? Zaid and the others knew the verse and where it went in the Surah, but simply looked for someone that had written it down. Some companions wrote hadiths, tafseer and Qur'an on the same scrolls, paper, skins, etc., but the Hafeezs of Qur'an were able to tell the difference between a verse and a non-verse due to memorization. It seems as though some people are trying to confuse memorizing with writing. The hadith clearly shows that no one else had written this verse, NOT that many others didn't have it MEMORIZED. Actually, the hadith proves that they did have it memorized - and memorized rather well at that! How else did they know to go look for it in writing? They simply verified their memories with the written texts or text fragments.

RS: Actually, this hadith is a strong proof for the Qur'an's authenticity because it shows that the group of Companions who set out to write down the entire Qur'an (for the benefit of areas of the rapidly expanding Islamic Empire with many people who didn't have the Qur'an memorized and didn't know Arabic) did everything in their power to ensure that what they wrote was correct. They could have done it from memory, but just to be safe, they collected all of the parts of the written Qur'an just to be doubly sure. It's a fine statement of their meticulousness and their honesty. And speaking of honesty . . . this hadith proves how honest and objective Muslim hadith scholars were. If Muslims had something to hide about the Qur'an, they could have supressed this hadith, not reported it or claimed that it was forged, etc. Did they do this? No! They accepted it as it is, because it is authentic. At first glance, it may make some people wonder, but when thought through it's actually a statement in support of the Qur'an. Just think about it. You could get together a handful of Hafeezs of Qur'an today and they could produce the whole Qur'an from collective memory without flaw. Tarawih prayers in Ramadan are proof enough of that! Don't you think the Companions could have done the same? They could have recited it from memory, especially as a group, no problem. However, they weren't prolific writers, since many of them were functionally illerate. They came from a society that didn't usually write things down. So if only two people wrote a certain verse down, but the verse was recognized to be the correct verse by an entire committee that had the Qur'an memorized, then that's pretty strong proof. Also, think about it: that means that EVERY OTHER verse of the Qur'an was written down by more than two people, or else Zaid would have mentioned other cases - which he didn't. That is something else that can be derived from this hadith as a proof of preservation. How many incidents in the so-called Gospels are only reported in one Gospel? Many of them! Where are all of the people who had the so-called Gospels memorized in order to verify the one witness? There are none! Typical Christian hypocrisy! If the missionaries who use this hadith to attack the authenticity of the Qur'an were consistent in their logic, they'd have to throw out a lot of their New Testatment too! (Maybe all of it!) They think the Muslims haven't thought things out, but they're the ones who are guilty of that!

RS: Another thing to consider is that all of the points that missionaries bring up regarding the Qur'an come from hadith reports. They speak of "different versions" of the Qur'an, but no such Qur'ans exist! There are just hadiths (some without chains of narrators) that says 'Abdullah Ibn Mas'oud's (or whoever's) copy of the Qur'an had a verse that said such-and-such. Many of the alleged hadiths that Christians use are weak, fabricated or baseless. The ones that are true simply show that some of the Companions made mistakes in writing or wrote down one reading instead of another. That's the whole reason that the hadith collector (or narrator) mentioned the difference - because it was seen to be different from the actual established Qur'an. A difference was noticed and it was reported. In order to report a difference, you must have the "Real McCoy" (pardon my slang) - which Muslims have. Christians, in order to determine whether a Bible verse is authentic, just compare different textual fragments. Sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn't. Depending on the age and number of the texts, etc., they decide on how authentic it is. However, they don't have THE text to compare verses with and say this is different than THE Biblical text. On the contrary, they use a methodology to establish a Biblical text based on muliple texts (or fragments). Muslims, on the other hand, have THE text of their scripture, so when something comes up it can be compared with IT. Then it can be said that it agrees or disagrees. Additionally, there are seven different "readings" of the Qur'an, as I'm sure you know, but nobody except those who want to sow doubts in people's minds try to show that any of these readings make a difference in meaning, i.e. Maaliki yawm-id-Deen vs. Maliki yawn-id-Deen (Alif vs fatha, i.e. long aa vs. short a). The Angel Gabriel taught the Prophet, peace be upon him, the seven readings. This comes from hadiths, too, so they can't have their cake and eat it too!

RS: Christians like to hypocritically criticize the fact that 'Uthman burned "copies of the Qur'an", etc. etc., - which is a big distortion. What he burned were incorrect copies of the Qur'an, which, strictly speaking, were not Qur'ans at all. Today if someone was ready to publish a Bible, but then realized there were some mistakes in the printing, or there was other text that was accidently printed in the Bible, they would not publish it. Even if they'd printed 100,000 copies, they'd have to go back and fix it first. The 100,000 that did have mistakes would get ground up and made into yellow post-it stick up notes or newspaper! That's somewhat analagous to what 'Uthman did when he burned to "variant Qur'ans". However, there's a big difference between the Qur'an and the Bible in that the Muslims have always had the Qur'an and knew what it was. It was always thought to be God's word by the Muslims and it was always in the hands of the common people. The same is not true of the Bible, either OT or NT. All of the Companions knew what the Qur'an was, so they burned those with mistakes, etc. Having copies with mistakes in them doesn't mean the Qur'an wasn't preserved. THE Qur'an was preserved. If someone makes a copy of a "Qur'an with mistakes" today, or at anytime, has he changed the Qur'an? No, he's just made one with mistakes - which really isn't a Qur'an at all. But going back to the previous point, the Qur'an was always dear to the Muslim believers and they sincerely believed it to be God's word. It doesn't matter that others disagreed, since the point is that they respected the text itself at least as much (and probably much more) than Muslims today. The same can't be said of such things as the Epistles of Paul, which were really just letters he wrote, which later one people (?) decided that they thought that this texts were "inspired". The same is basically true of the Gospels. They went through many councils deciding which to accept and which not to accept. There were many Gospels out there that CLAIMED to be inspired but really weren't. The Gospel situation is actually more similiar to the process of collecting hadiths, even though not actually the same. Muslim scholars collected chains of narrators as well as the texts. Christians only had the texts, so they just followed their pre-conceived notions on which ones they thought were "inspired". Also, up until the Protestant Reformation, most Christians didn't read the Bible. It was in the hands of the clergy. The common people just learned the cathecism, liturgy, etc. This was especially true during the critical time before the Church decided which books were scriptures.

>
>I would be eternally grateful if you could shed some light on this
>matter as you no doubt would have come across this suggestion.
>I have been able to find no suitable explanation for the missionary.
>

RS: And now for some brotherly advice . . . I respectfully suggest that you go on the pro-verbial "offensive" with these people and try to demonstrate to them that they only pay lip-service to the Oneness of God. Prove to them that they really don't know what it means. They worship, pray and give divine names to Jesus, peace be upon him, who lacks the essential qualities of God according to the Old Testament and, in many cases, the New. You have to drive this point home. Study up on the depth of Tawhid if you have to. That's what makes or breaks the whole argument. Demonstrating to them they they are committing "shirk" according to the Qur'an and the Bible is what it is all about. If you prove that to them, which you should be able to do, then the whole debate about text preservation, polygamy or any of this other side issues that they want to bring up become almost insignificant. Believe me, they will always assume that YOU don't understand, but it's really them that don't. You have to snap them out of it. Hey, I was a Christian for 28 years! Also, we can sit around all day and theorize about whether the Qur'an or the Bible were preserved. The best way to approach it is a face value. Compare the way the Christian text is today, among the various Churches, what it is made up of, how people treat it, etc., and compare it with the Qur'an. Going strictly on internal evidence and current evidence about how attached people are to their respective scriptures, the Qur'an reigns supreme. They claim the Bible is the "best seller", but so what? The Qur'an is the most often read and memorized book in the world. Who cares about how many that are sold.

RS: I hope this helps! Another long one (mostly) off the top of my head, even though I did ask for the opinion of a knowlegable friend of mine over the phone concerning this hadith. (Thanks Dr. 'Abdullah al-Farsi!) He gave me the general outline of this response, even though I kind of filled in the gaps with my own words. Please let me know if you need anything else. I always say that I don't have the time, but it's hard for me not to answer! Take care and ma' salamah!