by Dr. Ali Shehata
The Preservation of the Quran
This last point of our introduction to the Quran leads us to one of the most practically important characteristics of the Quran, and that is its preservation. Logically, if God wished to send down a Message for all of humanity from the time of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh --till the Day of Judgment, it would reasonably have to be protected from any changes, be they additions or subtractions.
Interestingly, one of the strongest arguments against Christianity being the final message for mankind is this very point. As it is well documented, the language which Jesus used to preach during his lifetime was primarily Aramaic.* So naturally we would want to have in our possession one Aramaic copy of the Gospel, with no other variant copies being in existence. But the problem is, there is no original Aramaic Gospel or Bible—only translations of the original Greek manuscripts into Aramaic. * Tharoor, I. (2014, May 27). What language did Jesus speak? The pope and Israel’s prime minister disagree. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/27/whatlanguage-did-jesus-speak-the-pope-and-israels-prime-minister-disagree
The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament of the Bible are either in Greek or Hebrew, but none in the original language of Jesus. Furthermore, there is an extensive gap between the actual events and when they were written, a gap often over a generation! In fact, the earliest copy of New Testament text discovered to date is called Papyrus 52 (P52), which contains a small fragment of John’s gospel, (18.31-33, 37-38). It was discovered in 1934 by C. H. Roberts, and is believed to have been copied from its (now extant 96 CE) original no later than 150 CE, but no earlier than 100 CE.* So, current day Bibles rely on a translation (actually many different versions of the same story) to try to piece together what Jesus really said and did during his brief life. Hence, any English Bible is actually a translation of a translation! How then could this be the final message to mankind when the original wasn’t even preserved, and in fact not even written, in many cases, for decades after Jesus left the earth? Surely God would preserve it if it were meant for the rest of time.
* “Recent research points to a date nearer to 200 AD, but there is as yet no convincing evidence that any earlier fragments from the New Testament survive. Carbon-dating is a destructive method and has not been used on the Fragment.” (Retrieved from: http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/special-collections/guide-to-special-collections/st-johnfragment/what-is-the-significance/)
But, this is in fact one of the characteristics of the Quran. It has been preserved not only in writing from the time of the Prophet pbuh, but also in the hearts of thousands, even millions, of devoted worshippers ever since the time of its revelation. Surely, this is something for rational people to reflect on.
In fact, God has taken it upon Himself to protect this Quran from corruption and changes, or even loss, when He said:
We have without doubt sent down the Revelation and We will assuredly guard it. {15:9}
How the Quran Was Preserved: Memorization and Print
The Quran as it was revealed by God has reached us today unchanged and pure through two ways that both provide a check and balance system to one another, and there is no other system of religion which has continued till this day that possesses such a secure form of transmission.
The Prophet Muhammad pbuh himself was the first to begin memorizing the revelation after the Angel Gabriel had brought it to him, as is evidenced by the following passage:
Move not your tongue with it, [O Muhammad], to hasten with recitation of the Qur'an. Indeed, upon Us is its collection [in your heart] and [to make possible] its recitation. So when We have recited it, then follow its recitation. Then upon Us is its clarification [to you]. {75:16-19}
And
A Messenger from Allah, reciting purified scriptures. {98: 2}
The Prophet pbuh also instructed his Companions to memorize it. One prominent example is that of the Companion of the Prophet, Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, who was the first man to recite the Qur’an publicly in Mecca. This shows that even early on in the spread of Islam, the recitation of the Quran from memory was practiced by the Companions. The later Caliph (Term used for the leader of the Muslim Empire) Abu Bakr was also known to recite the Quran from memory in front of his house in Mecca. In fact, the Islamic scholar Al-Suyuti records that over twenty of the famous Companions, in addition to the hundreds of less well known Companions, had committed the entire Quran to memory and had been approved to teach it to others due to their great proficiency in it.
It is thus well established in Islamic history that the Qur’an was memorized during the lifetime of the Prophet by his Companions, and furthermore that this tradition has continued among the subsequent Muslim generations till today. Today, it is estimated that there are millions of Muslims who have memorized the entire Quran, with the vast majority of Muslims having memorized at least some parts of it.
Commenting on the importance of the memorization of the Quran to the preservation of the Quran, author John Burton writes in his book An Introduction to the Hadith, “The method of transmitting the Quran from one generation to the next by having the young memorize the oral recitation of their elders had mitigated somewhat from the beginning the worst perils of relying solely on written records….” (Burton, John. (2001). An Introduction to the Ḥadi¯th. Edinburgh University Press)
Secondly, the Quran was also, of course, written down and compiled into a book, or mus-haf as it is known in Arabic. This process though was done in two phases:
1. Writing down of the Quranic revelation on different parchments, and other materials, as it descended upon the Prophet pbuh.
2. The Gathering of all these parchments and segments into one book within two years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh.
We shall now take a more in-depth look at these stages to better understand the process of collecting the Quran.
The reports and evidences of the Quran having been written from the very beginning are numerous and I will only give one famous example here to substantiate this point. When the Message first came down upon the Prophet pbuh, he was in Mecca, his birthplace. After the people began to hear of the news of the revelation, they began to oppose him fiercely and the early converts to Islam were very few and very weak. There was much fear and the majority didn’t declare their faith in public. One such person who initially opposed the Prophet greatly was Umar ibn Al-Khattab; a man who would later become a close and beloved Companion of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh and the second leader, or Caliph, of the Muslim empire.
One day, Umar awoke and decided that he had heard enough about this man Muhammad pbuh and decided that he would kill him and end the matter once and for all. On his way to kill Muhammad pbuh, someone came and told him that Umar’s own sister had accepted Islam in secret. Enraged he went off to his sister’s home to investigate the matter.
Upon arriving and finding his sister and her husband reading a portion of the Quran, he aggressively shoved his brother-in-law to the side and struck his sister causing her to bleed. After they admitted their conversion, Umar, feeling remorse over hitting his sister so hard, requested to read the portion of the Quran in their possession and promised he wouldn’t damage the parchment on which it was written. After ritually washing himself, as his sister requested him to do, he read the page in which a portion of sura 20 was written. Upon reading just a few passages, his eyes became moist with tears, and he remarked, “How fine and noble is this speech....” He then immediately went to the house of one of the Companions named al-Arqam, the place where the Prophet pbuh would meet in secret with the early converts, and declared the testimony of faith before the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Thus, this well known historical event illustrates how, even in the earliest days of the spread of Islam, large passages of the Quran had already been written down. Concerning the collection of the Quran into one volume, many people ask, “Why wasn’t the Quran collected into one written volume during the life of the Prophet?” There are at least four clear reasons why this didn’t happen, as follows:
1. The Quran itself was not revealed in one time, but rather sequentially over 23 years. In fact, scholars believe that the last verses to be revealed of the Quran came down just nine days before the death of the Prophet. Fatoohi, L. (2014). The First and Last Revelations of the Qur'an. Birmingham: Luna Plena Publishing.
2. Some verses were abrogated, or replaced by God, in the course of the revelation, and thus it was not always known when something was revealed whether another verse later would be revealed to replace a previous one.
3. The verses and suras (chapters) were not revealed in the order in which they would be later recorded, but were arranged at a later time, before the death of the Prophet, under the guidance of the Archangel Gabriel. This means, that sometimes a segment of verses would be revealed and later another verse might come down and God would command for it to be inserted into the middle of the segment received previously.
4. The Prophet pbuh was severely ill before his death and during the descent of the last revelations.
Yet, nonetheless there are many evidences that support the presence of written volumes of the Quran in a gathered form during the life of the Prophet. One such evidence is the early historical report that states, “When people came to Madinah to learn about Islam, they were provided with copies of some of the chapters of the Qur’an to read and memorize them.” (Hamidullah, M. (1955). As Sahifa tul Sahiha - Sahifa Hammam Ibn Munnabbih. Hyderabad)
Another powerful evidence comes from the Quran itself which states:
This is indeed a Qur’an most honourable, in a book well guarded, which none shall touch except those who are pure. A revelation from the Lord of the Universe. {56:77-80}
From the hadith, we also read the following from Abdullah ibn ‘Umar, who states:
The Messenger of God said: “Do not take the Qur’an on a journey with you, for I am afraid that it might fall into the hands of the enemy.” [Bukhari]
The reason for this prohibition appears to be two-fold: 1) due to the risk, early on in Islam and prior to the standardization of the Quran, that enemies of the Muslims would seek to corrupt the text, and 2) due to the fear of the enemies of Islam belittling or abusing the words of God.
Another well known report gathered in the books of Seerah (biography and study of the life of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh) states that during the Final Pilgrimage of the Prophet that he gave a sermon to the large gathering of Muslims there, and that in it he said: “I have left with you something which if you will hold fast to it you will not go astray—the book of God (Quran) and the practice of his Prophet (Sunnah).” [Muwatta]
This advice from the Prophet also indicates that the Quran was available as a book, or in one volume, before his death, or otherwise he would have described it in other terms. Concerning the positioning of verses in the suras, the Companion, and later caliph, Uthman states that in the latter days of the Prophet, whenever a verse was revealed, that he used to call someone from the scribes (who used to write for him) and tell them: “Place these verses in such and such sura.” This passage demonstrates clearly how the Prophet pbuh gave instructions for the arrangement of the material.
Furthermore, there are three hadith in the famous collection of Bukhari (recognized as the most authentic book in Islam after the Quran), stating that the Archangel Gabriel used to recite the Qur’an with the Prophet ﷺ once a year in the fasting month of Ramadan, but that he recited it with him twice in the year which he died.* (“Gabriel used to repeat the recitation of the Qur'an with the Prophet (ﷺ) once a year, but he repeated it twice with him in the year he died.” [Bukhari])
Lastly, the position and arrangement of the verses was obviously well known to the Companions, as they needed this knowledge in order to perform their daily prayers, which involves the recitation of parts of the Qur’an in the prayers.
In summary then, the following factors provide for significant evidence to establish the collection of the Quran in writing during the lifetime of the Prophet pbuh:
1. Quranic revelation was written down very early in the days of the Prophet’s call.
2. The Prophet pbuh had many dedicated scribes, over twenty, who wrote down scripture when it was revealed.
3. The Prophet pbuh himself instructed his scribes as to where the verses should be placed upon their revelation, and thus established their position and arrangement.
4. This position and arrangement was well known to the Companions and strictly maintained by them in their daily prayers and other acts of worship.
5. The Archangel Gabriel reviewed the entire Quran with the Prophet ﷺ annually in Ramadan, and went through it twice in the year the Prophet died.
6. There are several established reports about the existence of the written Quran, in the form of a book, during the lifetime of the Prophet.
So, upon his death, the Messenger had left the Muslims of that era, and those to come, hundreds of Companions who had memorized the entire Quran, as well as written copies of the chapters with verses arranged and ordered, some in volumes and others loosely separated.
So, the writing and collection of the Quran, both being done in the lifetime of the Prophet, comes in sharp contrast to the collection of the religious scriptures of other faiths. It is an undeniable fact that the Old and New Testament scriptures, were written, compiled and edited over much longer periods of time, sometimes centuries; and even today are subject to criticism and re-evaluation as was done with the King James Bible when it was revised into the English Revised Version of the Bible in the late nineteenth century. This, of course, also is beside the fact that the entire Gospel of Jesus, as mentioned previously, has been either lost or destroyed. (Revisers of the King James Bible were tasked with making changes only if they were deemed necessary to be more accurate and faithful to the Original Greek and Hebrew texts. In the New Testament alone more than 30,000 changes were made, over 5,000 on the basis of what were considered better Greek manuscripts.)
The Final Preparation of the Quran
The Quran that remains in the hands of billions of Muslims today was prepared in two main stages by the two Companions Abu Bakr and Uthman during their respective periods of leading the Muslim empire after the death of the Prophet.
In the year 633 CE (about six months after the death of the Prophet), the noble Companion Abu Bakr was the caliph of the Muslims and led them in the Battle of Yamama. It was in this crucial battle that a large number of Muslims who had memorised the Qur’an, approximately seventy, were killed. Thus, some of the Companions feared that unless a standard written copy of the Qur’an were prepared that portions of the revelation might be lost.
It was decided after some deliberation that the main scribe of the Prophet during his lifetime, Zaid ibn Thabit, would lead the task of gathering all the written portions of the Quran. Using the memory of multiple persons as a check and balance, he compiled one volume of the Quran. His committee in this momentous task was composed of some of the most devout, God-fearing and trustworthy Companions of the Prophet, and also included those who had memorizered the entire Quran. Zaid himself was also one of the main Companions certified by the Prophet during his lifetime to teach the Quran.
The committee, in examining the written material submitted to them, insisted on very stringent criteria as a safeguard against any errors (Al-Asqalani, Ahmad ibn Hajar. (1997). Fath al-bari Sharh Sahih alBukhari. Riyadh: Dar al-Salam.)
1. The material must have been originally written down in the presence of the Prophet. Nothing written down later on the basis of memory alone was to be accepted.
2. The material must be confirmed by two witnesses, that is to say, by two trustworthy persons testifying that they themselves had heard the Prophet recite the passage in question.
Umar said, “Whoever received anything of the Quran from the Prophet, then let him bring it.” And they used to write it on the parchments and bones and date-palm leaves. He said that nothing would be accepted from anyone until two witnesses testify to it. And this demonstrates that Zayd was not satisfied solely with finding it written down, until someone testified that he heard it, even though Zayd himself had memorized it. Hence, they used to take this extra step in order to be more cautious. And Abu Dawud records a narration on the authority of Hisham ibn ‘Urwa that his father said that Abu Bakr said to Umar and Zayd, “Sit down at the door of the Mosque and whoever of two witnesses come to you regarding the Quran, then write it down.” The men of this narration are trustworthy despite the chain being broken, and the intended meaning regarding two witnesses was memorization and writing, or it meant that they both testify that what was written down was actually written down under the authority of the Messenger, or it meant that they both testify that it was sent down as Quranic revelation. And thus, it was their methodology that nothing was written down, until they receive what was written down during the time of the Prophet him, and not just from memorization. (Al-Asqalani, Ahmad ibn Hajar. Fath al-bari Sharh Sahih al- Bukhari. Kitab: Fadaa'il Al Qur'aan, Baab: Jami' Al Qur'aan, Commentary on Hadith no. 4603)
This official manuscript on which the Qur’an was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till his death, and then with the next caliph, Umar ibn Al-Khattab till his death, and finally it remained with Hafsa, Umar’s daughter. It should be further noted that other personal manuscripts of the Quran did exist with some of the well known Companions at this time as well. Some modern day critics have tried to use the presence of these copies to indicate some sort of jealous quarreling between the Companions, whereas no such thing has ever been documented in any authentic sources.
Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari, who was one of those who used to write the Divine Revelation, narrates: “Abu Bakr sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors of the battle of Yamama. 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 more casualties among the those who have memorized the Qur'an on other battle-fields, whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost, unless you collect it. And I am of the opinion that you should collect the Qur'an.’ … Then Abu Bakr said to me, ‘You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you of telling lies or of forgetfulness, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for God’s Messenger (ﷺ). Therefore, look for the Qur'an and collect it in one manuscript.’ By God, if [Abu Bakr] had ordered me to move one of the mountains, it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an. … So I started locating the various passages of the Qur'anic and collecting it from parchments, bones, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Abi Khuzaymah two Verses of Surat-atTauba which I had not found with anybody else, ‘There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Grievous to him is what you suffer, [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind and merciful. But if they turn away, [O Muhammad], say, ‘Sufficient for me is Allah, there is no deity except Him. On Him I have relied, and He is the Lord of the Great Throne’.’ (9.128-129) The manuscript on which the Qur'an was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till God took him, and then with Umar till God took him, and finally it remained with Hafsa, Umar's daughter.” [Bukhari] Note: “And when Zayd found [these two verses] with Abi Khuzaymah, [the committee] remembered it just as how Zayd remembered it (and hence it was accepted).” (Al-Asqalani, Ahmad ibn Hajar. Fath al-bari Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari. Kitab: Fadaa'il Al Qur'aan, Baab: Jami' Al Qur'aan, Commentary on Hadith no. 4603)
In fact, a careful study of these other manuscripts indicates that they differed from the official copy of Abu Bakr by sometimes no more than twelve or fifteen verses, and that none of these Companions with the deficient copies ever held their copy to be more correct or complete than the official manuscript collected by Zaid ibn Thabit and his team.
Some Companions used to write their own manuscripts and add comments or explanations to verses. At that time, writing did not include brackets or using a different color or font to distinguish the addition from the original text. Therefore, the comment/explanation was part of the original sentence, i.e. verse, leading some who examined them years and decades to think that it was part of the Quran, when in reality it was not. Needless to say the writer (Companion) knew the difference and could tell them apart. Thus, the Companions did not have a different Quran, they had the same one with their comments added.
Indeed, the copy of the Quran prepared by Zaid ibn Thabit’s team was unanimously approved by all of the Companions at that time, without exception. Concerning the ijmaa’, or unanimous concensus of the Muslim community, the Prophet had said,
My community will never agree upon error. [Ibn Majaah]
Had Zaid ibn Thabit even have made one mistake, even of a single letter in transcribing the Quran, the memorizers of the Quran, (which totalled in the tens of hundreds at that time) would have caught it right away and corrected it publically. This is exactly where the check and balance system of preservation of the Quran comes into play; a system which is not found for any other scripture besides the Quran.
The Mus-haf of Uthman
The Quran was originally revealed in the dialect of Arabic most common to the tribe of Quraish that inhabited Mecca. But to facilitate the understanding of the text for people who spoke other dialects, God revealed the Quran in seven dialects of Arabic. It is essential, though, to understand that though the dialect was different, the meaning was unchanged. To understand better, it would be like having a book written in both the dialect of the American South and in British English—both of these English dialects are notably different in pronounciation and even in vocabulary, though they can convey the same meaning in their own manner. Thus, were the varying Arabic dialects at the time.
During the period of the third Muslim Caliph, Uthman ibn ‘Affaan, as the Muslim Empire was growing rapidly, differences in the reading of the Quran among the various tribes became excessive. As each region had learned the Quran from a different Companion, according to the seven dialects in which the Quran was revealed, the various dialectical recitations began to clash. Disputes were happening, with each town calling its recitation the correct one. Hence, the Quran entered into its second, and final stage, of preparation and dissemination, known as the manuscript of Uthman. We read the following historical account in the hadith of Bukhari,
Anas bin Malik narrates, “Hudhaifa ibnul-Yamaan came to Uthman at the time when the people of Syria and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Armenia and Azerbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of the differences between the people of Syria and Iraq in their recitation of the Quran, so he said to Uthman, ‘O Chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran), as the Jews and the Christians did before.’ So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, ‘Send us the manuscript of the Quran collected by Abu Bakr so that we may compile the Quranic verses in perfect copies and return the manuscript to you.’ Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid ibn Thabit, Abdullah ibn AzZubair, Sa’eed ibn Al-‘Aas and Abdur Rahman ibn alHarith ibn Hisham to rewrite the manuscript in perfect copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, ‘In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Quran, [concerning pronounciation or dialect only] then write it in the dialect of Quraish as the Quran was revealed in their tongue.’ They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscript to Hafsa. Uthman then sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Quranic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.” [Bukhari]
So, the Quran that Uthman had mass produced and sent off to the Muslim provinces to be the standard or official Quran contained no differences (deficiency or addition) from the manuscript (mus-haf) that Abu Bakr had collected only six months after the death of the Prophet. This version of the text, also known as “Mus-haf Uthman,” constitutes the consensus of the Companions, whom all agreed that it contained what Muhammad ﷺ had brought as revelation from God, and it was in one uniform dialect to remove dispute. Indeed, upon this collection, Naysaburi records that Zaid ibn Thabit said, "I saw the Companions of Muhammad going about saying, ‘By God, Uthman has done well! By God, Uthman has done well!’” Naysaburi, al-Nizam al-Din al-Hasan ibn Muhammad. (1962). Ghara’ib al-Quran wa-ragha’ib al-furqan. 4 vols. Cairo.
The last and most powerful statement that can henceforth be mentioned is that of the copies made by Uthman, two still exist till this very day. One is in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the second one is in Istanbul, Turkey. As a matter of fact, their text and the order of their verses and surahs can be compared with any other copy of the Quran from any place or period of time, and they will be found to be nothing less than identical.
It is this amazing feat of preservation that prompted British author Sir Williams Muir, author of Life of Mohammad, to write, “There is otherwise every security, internal and external, that we possess the text which Muhammad himself gave forth and used … There is probably no other book in the world which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.” (Muir, W. and Weir, T. (1975). The Life of Moḥammad. New York: AMS Press.)
Of course, since the time that these words were written, another two hundred years have also passed still without any change in the Quran, and why should there be any change when the Master of the Universe Himself has undertaken the protection of this book.
Concluding Remarks
The noted German Muslim writer Ahmad von Denfer has written an excellent book on the sciences of the Quran, called Ulum al-Quran(Von Denffer, A. (2015). Ulum al Qur'an. New York: Kube Publishing Ltd.). I include here some of his well written comments on the Quran as a conclusion to this chapter. Those who embark upon a study of the Quran often proceed with the assumption that this Book is, as it is commonly believed to be, a detailed code of guidance.
However, when they actually read it, they fail to find detailed regulations regarding social, political and economic matters. In fact, they notice that the Quran has not laid down detailed regulations even in respect of such oft-repeated subjects as Prayers and [Charity]. The reader finds this somewhat disconcerting and wonders in what sense the Qur'an can be considered a code of guidance.
The uneasiness some people feel about this arises because they forget that God did not merely reveal a Book, but that he also designated a Prophet. Suppose some laymen were to be provided with the bare outlines of a construction plan on the understanding that they would carry out the construction as they wished. In such a case, it would be reasonable to expect that they should have very elaborate directives as to how the construction should be carried out. Suppose, however, that along with the broad outline of the plan of construction, they were also provided with a competent engineer to supervise the task. In that case, it would be quite unjustifiable to disregard the work of the engineer, on the expectation that detailed directives would form an integral part of the construction plan, and then to complain of imperfection in the plan itself.
The Quran, to put it succinctly, is a Book of broad general principles rather than of legal minutiae. The Book's main aim is to expound, clearly and adequately, the intellectual and moral foundations of the Islamic programme for life. It seeks to consolidate these by appealing to both the person's mind and to his/her heart. Its method of guidance for practical Islamic life does not consist of laying down minutely detailed laws and regulations. It prefers to outline the basic framework for each aspect of human activity, and to lay down certain guidelines within which man can order his life in keeping with the Will of God. The mission of the Prophet pbuh was to give practical shape to the Islamic vision of the good life, by offering the world a model of an individual character and of a human state and society, as living embodiments of the principles of the Qur'an.
With this being said, we shall now move on to the other source of Islamic revelation, the Hadith—or traditions—of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh, where will see more of the precise details that the author described above.
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