Qur’anic preservation

There are fewer topics more central to the discussion between Christians and Muslims than the reliability of the Biblical and Qur’anic texts. This article is something of an introduction to that discussion, with particular interest in the question of whether the holy book of Islam, the Qur’an, is ‘perfectly preserved’. I openly confess: I am not an Islamic scholar, nor do I have a grasp of Arabic; nonetheless, respecting the limits of my expertise the methodology I will employ here is a rather straightforward historical-critical survey focusing on claims made about the Qur’an by Islamic scholars and cross-examining those claims with the recorded history of the Qur’an’s transmission throughout the centuries following the death of the prophet Muḥammad (ca. AD. 570-632). Brief points of comparison to the nature and transmission of the Judeo-Christian scriptures will be offered along the way.

The basic form of my argument runs thus:

Premise 1: Either the Qur’an we possess today is the word of Allāh or it is not.

Premise 2: If the Qur’an we possess today is the word of Allāh then it contains the original word-for-word Arabic dictation received by the prophet Muḥammad, which is unchanging and eternal.

Premise 3: The records of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī show that we do not possess a word-for-word dictation of Allāh to the prophet Muḥammad and that changes were made to the Qur’an after the death of Muḥammad.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Qur’an we possess today is not the word of Allāh.

Leaving Premise 1 to stand on its own, my evaluation of Premise 2 will include a general overview of the nature of the Qur’an from the standpoint of selected Islamic scholars. From here, evaluation of Premise 3 will include an introductory assessment of the Qur’an’s transmission according to two selected texts from the collection of Ḥadīth known as Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.

Premise 2: The Nature of the Qur’an According to Islam

The Qur’an is the primary text of the Islamic faith. Etymologically, the word ‘Qur’an’ derives from the Arabic القرآن‎ (al-Qurʾān) which literally means “the recitation.” It is divided into 114 suras, the plural of sūrah (equivalent to a ‘chapter’), with each sūrah divided into āyāt, the plural of āyah (equivalent to a ‘verse’). From beginning to end, the Qur’an is roughly organized according to the length of its suras (rather than chronologically). Broadly, these suras can be divided in two major groups according to the life of Muḥammad: one representing the Meccan suras preached by Muḥammad while he lived in Mecca (AD. 610-622), the other representing the Medinan suras preached by Muḥammad while he lived in Medina (Hijra) (AD. 622-632). Although the former has many more suras than the latter, in terms of textual content both the Meccan and Medinan suras roughly balance given the vast length of the suras in the Medinan group (i.e., surat 2,3,4 and 5 alone contain 782 āyāt).

As the suras tend to draw on many different materials throughout the Meccan and Medinan periods of Muḥammad’s life, it is notoriously difficult to determine the historical context of given passages within the Qur’an. Hence, over the centuries a system of external commentaries known as the Tafsīr were developed, which depend on other collections of Muḥammad’s writings known as the Ḥadīth. Together, the Tafsīr and Ḥadīth collections have become the normative lens by which Muslims interpret the Qur’an.

Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the singular, word-for-word Arabic dictation of Allāh (god), mediated through Jibra’il (the angel Gabriel) and revealed to the prophet Muḥammad. The dictation is believed to have commenced in AD. 610, continuing over a span of approximately 23 years (see sūrah 25:32; 17:106). According to the Ḥadīth, it is believed that Jibra’il handed down the revelation to Muḥammad in “seven ahruf [mutawaatir]” (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3.41.601), where ahruf refers to ‘meanings’ (i.e., letter or word, distortions, dialects, etc).¹

Accordingly, only the original “clear Arabic language” (26:195) is said to contain the authentic words of Allāh. For example, sūrah 12:1–2 reads: “By the Book [that makes things] clear, we have made it an Arabic Qur’an that you may understand. And, it is inscribed in the Mother of the Book, which we possess, sublime and wise (43:2–4). These are the signs [or “the verses”] of the Manifest Book. We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an, that you may understand”. (cf. 26:195; 41:3; 39:28; 19:97; 20:113; 16:103; 46:12; 42:7).”

Indeed, some Sunni Muslims go so far as to say that the Qur’an has attributes common with Allāh himself. For example, Sufyaan ibn ’Uyaynah has written: “Another characteristic of the kalaam [Arabic Speech] of Allāh is that it is uncreated… He has lied (who says that the Qur’an is created)! Allāh has stated, ‘To Him belongs the Creation and the Command,’ so the creation is the creation of Allāh, and His Command is the Qur’an.”²

In other words, it is not that the Qur’an is the ‘continued speech’ of Allāh, but rather that the Qur’an is the direct speech of Allāh; the uncreated, fixed, and eternal word of god such that none of its words could be said to have originated from a created being. As I. A. Ibrahim elaborates: “The Qur’an is the literal word of God, which He revealed to His Prophet Muḥammad through the Angel Gabriel. It was memorized by Muḥammad, who then dictated it to his Companions. They, in turn, memorized it, wrote it down, and reviewed it with the Prophet Muḥammad. Moreover, the Prophet Muḥammad reviewed the Qur’ān with the Angel Gabriel once each year and twice in the last year of his life. From the time the Qur’ān was revealed, until this day, there has always been a huge number of Muslims who have memorized all of the Qur’ān, letter by letter. Some of them have even been able to memorize all of the Qur’ān by the age of ten. Not one letter of the Qur’ān has been changed over the centuries.”³

Or even stronger, Mazhar Kazi writes: “It is a miracle of the Qur’an that no change has occurred in a single word, a single [letter of the] alphabet, a single punctuation mark, or a single diacritical mark in the text of the Qur’an during the last fourteen centuries.”⁴

Given the eternal nature of the Qur’an and the logical force of claims like those of Kazi, it seems to me that a critical question facing every Muslim is whether or not they can say with confidence that the Arabic Qur’an they possess today is the same – word-for-word – dictation received by Muḥammad?’ Any answer to this question must begin with the Ḥadīth, for there we have the earliest records of when, where and how the Qur’an was assembled, as well as who was involved and the motivation of its collation. Before we turn there, however, a brief first point of comparison is in order.

A First Point of Comparison: The Nature of the Qur’an and The Judeo-Christian Scriptures

Comparing the nature of the Qur’an with the Judeo-Christian scriptures, the content volume of the Qur’an amounts to approximately 56 percent of the Christian New Testament and 14 percent of the combined length of the total Judeo-Christian cannon of the Old and New Testaments. The Qur’an is also a much younger body of work compared to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures; the amount of time it took to be transmitted in oral and written fashion, prior to modern invention of the printing press (1440), was 600 years less than the New Testament and some 2,000 years less than the oldest portions of the Old Testament. Moreover, unlike the Qur’an, the Judeo-Christian scriptures stand alone in terms of perspicuity (cf. Deut. 6:6-7; Psa. 19:7; 2 Tim. 3:14-15) and the mode of revelation, being divine inspiration as opposed to a recitation (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16 θεόπνευστος, theópneustos or God breathed-out). Moreover, the Bible is not a single unit of text, singularly revealed to one author; it is a library of 66 books written by (a minimum of) 44 authors, in three languages, across three continents, over a span of approximately 1,600 years. What this means, then, is that Christians do not find themselves ‘bound’ in strict fashion to the original revelation, whether verbal or written, in the way Muslims are. The New Testament Greek, for example, is not considered ‘divine’ simply because it was the tongue in which it was written. The same cannot be said of the Arabic of the Qur’an which is, itself, enshrined, both textually and even in the daily recitation of prayers.

Examining the Text of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī Book 6, Vol. 61, No. 509

Of particular importance for our present study are the collection of Ḥadīth known as Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (completed around 846/232 AH) which record the history of the Qur’an through to the third Caliph, ʿUthmān (ca. AD 579-656). Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī records that about one year after the death of Muḥammad (ca. AD 632) war broke out,⁵ and a great number of those who had memorized the Qur’an (known as Qurra’) were killed: “Abu Bakr As-Siddiq sent for me when the people of Yamāmah had been killed [i.e., a number of the Prophet’s Companions who fought against Musailama]. [I went to him] and found ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab sitting with him. Abu Bakr then said [to me], ‘Umar has come to me and said: Casualties were heavy among the Qurra’ of the Qur’an [i.e. those who knew the Qur’an by heart] on the day of the Battle of Yalmāma, and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra’ on other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Qur’an may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you [Abu Bakr] order that the Qur’an be collected. […] you should search for [the fragmentary scripts of] the Qur’an and collect it in one book.’ By Allāh 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 did not do?’ Abu Bakr replied, ‘By Allah, it is a good project.’ […] So I started looking for the Qur’an and collecting it from [what was written on] palmed stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I found the last Verse of Surat At-Tauba [Repentance] with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. […] Then the complete manuscripts [copy] of the Qur’an remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with ‘Umar till the end of his life, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of ‘Umar.”” (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6.61.509).⁶

In this text, we read of the first collation of the Qur’an by Abu Bakr. Keeping in mind Premise 2: if the Qur’an is the word of Allāh then it contains the original word-for-word Arabic dictation received by the prophet Muḥammad,⁷ we see in the above text how the Qur’an was not collated during the lifetime of Muḥammad. Indeed, to the contrary, we read of a fear that “a large part of the Qur’an may be lost” with the death of Qurra’ (i.e. those who knew the Qur’an by heart) in the Battle of Yamāmah, after Muḥammad’s death.⁸ Furthermore, we observe that amid his collation of the Qur’an, Abu Bakr apparently found one sūrah with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari which he “did not find… with anybody other than him” which leads us to wonder: how can Muslims be sure that there were not others who had memorized suras but died during the battle of Yamāmah before they could share them with Abu Bakr⁹ How could Abu Bakr possibly know if he successfully ‘got them’ all?

Examining Text 2: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī Book 6, Vol. 61, No. 510

Continuing with Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, same book, following number, we read: “Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to ʿUthmān at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their [the people of Sham and Iraq] differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to ʿUthmān, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.” So ʿUthmān 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.” Hafsa sent it to ʿUthmān. ʿUthmān then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, ‘Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and ‘AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. ʿUthmān said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the ʿUthmān, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.” They did so, and when they had written many copies, ʿUthmān returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. ʿUthmān 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. Said bin Thabit added, “A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur’an and I used to hear Allah’s Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. [That Verse was]: ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.’ (33.23) (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6.61.510).

Historically, this number (510) occurs approximately 18 years after the previous (509) wherein we read of Abu Bakr’s collation. The third Caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān (579-656) is in power when he is approached by Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman (d. 656) regarding “differences in the recitation of the Qur’an.” Note, first of all, that these are differences of recitation, not merely pronunciation; Hudhayfah was concerned about substantial differences he was hearing as the Qur’an was being recited. Indeed, why else would he petition ʿUthmān, asking that he “Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before”? As before with Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6.61.509, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6.61.510 seems to confirm Premise 3: we do not possess a word-for-word dictation of Allāh to the prophet Muḥammad and that changes were made to the Qur’an after the death of Muḥammad (for at least 23 years).

In response to Hudhayfah, ʿUthmān ordered a collection “so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies;” that is, “rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies.” And where points of disagreement arose in the course of rewriting the Qur’an, ʿUthmān ordered the three Quraishi men tasked with the project to “write it in the dialect of Quarish” (i.e., reduce the seven ahruf to just one, the Quarish). In short, what ʿUthmān organized was a controlled redaction of the Qur’an, which again leads us to wonder: if the Qur’an was already a fixed text at the time of Muḥammad’s death, then why was it necessary to convene an editing committee to “rewrite” it? Couldn’t ʿUthmān have simply utilized the previous collation of Abu Bakr? Though the answer from Islamic tradition might escape us, we do get an indication from Islamic history, as this very number states: “A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed” (cf. 33:23) in the first collation by Abu Bakr (i.e., 33:23 was ‘missing in action’ for some 23 years after the prophet’s death before it was discovered). Clearly, the history of the Qur’an reveals that it was not a fixed word-for-word text, at least until the ʿUthmānic revision. But again, this only leads us to ask once more: how many more suras or āyāt remained missing? How many died with the memories of the 70 plus Qurra’ on the battlefield of Yamāmah?

Finally, we note in this number that after the rewriting of the Qur’an, ʿUthmān ordered that “all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.” Here, it must be said that with the ʿUthmānic Revision and the burning of all other Qur’anic materials we come to a point in history beyond which no textual scholar, Muslim or otherwise, can profess with any degree of certainty that the text of the Qur’an we possess today is the same, word-for-word, as that received by Muḥammad. Even if ʿUthmān had been successful in collecting all of the Qur’anic contents (which, as we have suggested, seems highly doubtful), there would be no way of ever knowing. To presume otherwise, is to simply assume that: (1) ʿUthmān was successful in collecting all of the Qur’anic materials; (2) ʿUthmān had the authority to rewrite the Qur’an in the Quarish dialect; and that (3) ʿUthmān remained faithful, word-for-word, in his revision, uninfluenced by the socio-political context within which he set to task.¹⁰

Cumulatively, these points seem to reinforce, once again, the proposition of Premise 3: The records of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī show that we do not possess a word-for-word dictation of Allāh to the prophet Muḥammad and that changes were made to the Qur’an after the death of Muḥammad.

A Second Point of Comparison: The Transmission of the Qur’an and The Judeo-Christian Scriptures

Like the contrast in natures between the Qur’an and Judeo-Christian Scriptures, we once again find a contrast in the manner of each text’s transmission throughout history. Where the Islamic Qur’an is a controlled medieval text, the Christian New Testament is a freely transmitted ancient text, and with respect to textual criticism, this difference makes all the difference on the matter of reliability . The Old and particularly New Testament manuscripts contain a plethora of variant readings attesting to the tenacity of their transmission, a feature which should give every Christian confidence that we do, in fact, possess accurate copies of the originally inspired texts. In contrast to the Islamic Qur’an, the cumulative case for the reliability of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures is thus compelling: the multi-focality of authorship, geographical dissemination and the widely varied times of writing combine to make a strong case against any notion of a Christian ʿUthmānic Revision. There was simply never a period in the history of the Church where uniformity was enforced upon the transmission of the New Testament. As foremost New Testament textual critics, Kurt and Barbara Aland, explain: “One of the characteristics of the New Testament textual tradition is tenacity, i.e., the stubborn resistance of readings and text types to change… This is what makes it possible to retrace the original text of the New Testament through a broad range of witnesses… once a reading occurs it will persist with obstinacy… it is precisely the overwhelming mass of the New Testament textual tradition which provides an assurance of certainty in establishing the original text.”¹¹

To Sum Up…

A simple comparison of Islamic beliefs about the Qur’an and the Islamic records pertaining to the history of Qur’anic transmission contained in the Ḥadīth, raise many problems for Muslims. If truth is the correspondence of a proposition to reality as it is, then at best we could never know whether the Qur’an is true apart from some sort of fideistic leap, and at worse we might be inclined to say the basic claims about the divine nature and revelation of the Qur’an are simply false. To my mind, it is difficult to see how any Muslim could say with confidence that the Arabic Qur’an we possess today is the same – word-for-word – recitation received by Muḥammad. And note the basis for this difficulty: it is drawn from the texts of Islam itself, the Ḥadīth. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī casts serious doubt as to the originality of the ʿUthmānic Revision meaning that absolute and dogmatic statements like that of Mazhar Kazi – “that no change has occurred in a single word, a single [letter of the] alphabet, a single punctuation mark, or a single diacritical mark in the text of the Qur’an during the last fourteen centuries”¹² – are brute and baseless. (Tangentially, this is one of the reasons why I am in full support of initiatives like the Quran Gateway spearheaded by Andy Bannister which are putting the textual evidence of the Qur’an and Ḥadīth in the hands of everyone online to see these difficulties for themselves).

Merely asserting the perfection of the Qur’an or the ʿUthmānic tradition proves nothing. The realities of the very traditions must be embraced and examined before the Qur’an can be demonstrated to be accurate in its transmission.

Is the Qur’an perfectly preserved? Unless or until new evidence arises to the contrary, the conclusion seems inescapable: the Qur’an we possess today is not the word of Allāh.

1. The reason for this is given later: “It was revealed in this way. This Qur’an has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever (way) is easier for you (or read as much of it as may be easy for you).” (6.61.514). Note, amongst Muslim scholars there are different ways or regarding the preservation of the ahruf, as Qadhi explains: “The differences in the qira’at are remnants of the differences in the way that the Prophet taught the recitation of the Qur’an to the different Companions, and these differences were among the seven Ahruf of the Qur’an which Allāh revealed to the Prophet. Thus, the ten authentic qira’at preserve the final recitation that the Prophet recited to Jibra’il. In other words, the qira’at are manifestations of the remaining Ahruf of the Qur’an.” Yasir Qadhi, An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qur’an (Birmingham, UK: Al-Hidaayah Publishing and Distribution, 1999), 202.
2. Qadhi, An Introduction, 35. Or as contemporary Islamic scholar, Sheikh Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi (also known as Yasir Kazi), elaborates: “The Qur’an is the Arabic speech (kalaam) of Allāh, which he revealed to Muḥammad in wording and meaning, and which has been preserved in the mus-hafs [manuscripts] and has reached us by mutawaatir transmissions [i.e., universal or unchanging], and is a challenge to mankind to produce something similar to it”. Ibid., 25. Note, Qadhi represents a conservative, orthodox Sunni position.
3. I. A. Ibrahim, A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam (Houston: Darussalam, 1997), 5.
4. Mazhar Kazi, Evident Miracles in the Qur’an (Richmond Hill, ON.: Crescent, 1997), 42–43. Kazi makes this comment after quoting sūrah 15:9 “We have, indeed, sent down the Remembrance, and we shall preserve it.” See also, I. A. Ibrahim, A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam (Houston: Darussalam, 1997), 5; and Maulana Muhammad Ali, English Translation of the Holy Quran with Explanatory Notes, ed. Zahid Aziz (U.K.: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Lahore Publications, 2010), 52.
5. With the death of Muḥammad, it is understood that revelation from Allāh ceased. As sūrah 5:4 reads: “this day have I perfected your religion for you, completed my favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.”
6. All citations of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī are from: “Sahih Bukhari,” accessed December 27, 2019, https://www.sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_6_61.php.
7. Donner, Fred, “The Historical Context” in J. D. McAuliffe ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 31-33. Often, it is argued, there is an unbroken scribal chain which can be traced right back to Muḥammad. For a list of these names, see, for example, Muhammad Mustafa A’zami, The History of the Qur’anic Text: from Revelation to Compilation, 2nd ed. (Petaling Jaya: Islamic Book Trust, 2011), 68.
8. The Battle of Yamāmah was a part of the ‘Ridda Wars’ ( حروب الردة), ‘the wars of apostasy’, lasting AD. 632-633. It was a series of military campaigns launched by the Caliph Abū Bakr as-Șiddīq (573-634), who was the father-in-law of the prophet Muḥammad, against Arabian tribes who rebelled against the shura council election of Abu Bakr as the successor to Muḥammad (the Caliph), pledging allegiance to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law and successor-elect of Muḥammad instead of his father-in-law. In short, the struggle for who to recognize as the legitimate successor of the prophet Muḥammad fragmented the Ummah (Muslim community): those who followed Abu Bakr, the elected political power, came to be known as the Sunnis, while those who followed to the successors to Muḥammad (the twelve Imams, Ali, Hasan, Husain, and descendants) came to be known as the Shias.
9. As to the number of Qurra’ killed, Hussein Abdul-Raof writes: “The first collection of the Qur’an is instigated by the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭtāb (d. 23/644) who feared that some of the Qur’an may be lost after the death of 70 companions in the battle of Yamāmah (d.11/632) who used to know the Qur’an by heart, known as ḥuffāẓ (singular ḥāfiẓ), meaning memorizers of the Qur’an.” Hussein Abdul-Raof, Culture and Civilization in the Middle East, vol. 18, Schools of Qur’anic Exegesis: Genesis and Development (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2010), 37.
10. The Christian convert, Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (not to be confused with the philosopher Abu Yûsuf ibn Ishâq al-Kindī), gives a more detailed account of the ʿUthmān Revision in his infamous Apology. See N A. Newman, ed., The Early Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Collection of Documents from the First Three Islamic Centuries, 632-900 A.D. (Hatfield, Pa.: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993), 1. 455-459. If al-Kindi is correct, then we could rightly conclude that there are yet large portions of text missing from the Qur’an. For example, sūrah Nur has 64 āyāt in our current Qur’an, while sūrah Baqara has over 200. Thus, if sūrah Nur was once longer than sūrah Baqara, then it would follow that there are at least 136 āyāt missing.
11. Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 291-292.
12. Kazi, Evident Miracles in the Qur’an, 42–43.