Ali Ataie – Ask the Expert of Scripture If You Do Not Know
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AI: Transcript ©
All praise belongs to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
the Lord of the worlds, the one and
only true God, the most compassionate, the merciful.
There is nothing like him whatsoever,
yet he is all hearing and the all
seeing.
And, peace and blessings be our Master,
Muhammad the final messenger of God, the seal
of the prophets,
the commander of the righteous, the leader of
the messengers, and the beloved of the Lord
of the worlds.
In this khutba, inshallah, I want to, continue
the topic that I started during Ramadan, the
month of the Quran,
the topic of establishing the preservation of the
Quran.
I mentioned last time that in recent times
there has been a renewed sense of vigor
among some radical historical revisionists
and some Christian polemicists,
to create certain shubuhat, certain doubts or suspicions
in the minds of the Muslim masses
with the ultimate goal of convincing us that
our sacred scripture is not preserved.
And this is just indicative of the broader
current zeitgeist, which wants to sort of tear
down traditional religion and traditional morality,
and replace the worship of God with the
worship of the self, the worship of the
nafs.
We also mentioned how Allah
perfectly
reveals to us in the Quran the intentions
and motives of those who attack the
Quran. Now, the underlying reason that has caused
many Muslims to struggle with this issue is
actually their own ignorance
in the traditional sciences of the Quran. In
fact, their misapprehension
as to what the Quran even is,
the very nature of the Quran, the method
and purpose of the Quranic revelation. Many Muslims
have outright abandoned
the study of traditional texts concerning the Ulumul
Qur'an,
and have rather relied on amateur preachers and
apologists to teach them about their scripture,
and in fact, they were miseducated
by some of these preachers and apologists, by
certain du'av and certain du'as, who, in their
zeal
to repudiate the Bible and draw a sharp
distinction between the Qur'an and the Bible,
they began to assert that the text of
the Quran was uniformic in nature from its
very inception,
that unlike the Bible that has numerous textual
variants, the Quran has no textual variants. This,
of course,
is not true. This is an inaccurate
reductionist,
simplistic
understanding of the Quran that has harmed our
community.
So what is accurate? What do we learn
from our traditional literature written by our traditional
ulama?
We learn that the Quran has never been
a uniformic text, but rather a multi formic
text,
and it does have textual variants, but these
are not of the same kind
as those of the Bible,
specifically the New Testament. There is a major
difference.
The textual variants of the New Testament were
deliberate changes
made to the text by scribes
decades centuries
after the Prophet
that were motivated by theological
rivalries among certain early Christian groups,
The textual variants of the Quran are traceable
to the Prophet Muhammad
himself
and are a facet of the very revelatory
nature of the Quran. In other words, Quranic
variants
are part of the revelation.
That is a big difference.
And it is the Alem, the scholar, not
the amateur preacher, who can
the Quran commands
us.
Ask the experts of scripture if you don't
know. Now, this is where the enemies of
Islam come into the picture.
These revisionists and polemicists, whoever they are, atheists,
agnostics, some of them are Christian,
they've taken notice of the average Muslim's ignorance
of his own traditional literature
and his claim of textual uniformity. And so,
they, the critics, they dip into our traditional
literature, and they pull out isolated narratives that
debunk the claim of textual uniformity,
a claim that no real Muslim scholar ever
made, and then they deceptively present these isolated
opinions, or narrations I should say, to their
audiences as evidence that the Quran is not
preserved.
But what the critics don't tell their audiences
is that traditional Muslim authorities have always believed
that the Quran was revealed in a multiformic
fashion,
and that this has nothing to do with
the Quran's preservation.
All traditional authorities maintain that the Quran was
preserved in light of its multiformic
nature. In other words, these critics weaponize
our own literature against us. They use our
own traditional literature
to tear down the straw men
that many ignorant Muslims constantly
keep creating
with their own misguided claims of textual
uniformity.
So, what do I mean when I say
the Quran is multiformic?
So, I touched on this a little, little
bit last time as well.
It is well established in our tradition that
the Quran was revealed to the prophet Muhammad
upon 7 letters, literally, sometimes translated
7 modes or 7 types of recitational variations.
These akhruf are revelation.
They are by design. They're not by accident.
Their origin is with the Prophet
not after him.
The essential purpose of these akhruf, these variations,
is twofold. The first is theological.
The akhruf enrich our understandings of the kalam
of Allah
By making the Quran a multiformic
text,
Allah opened up different meanings for us. We
are enriched intellectually and spiritually by the akhruf.
The akhruf give us a deeper engagement with
the kalam of Allah. I'll give you examples,
inshaAllah.
The second purpose is practical. The akhruf are
a means of kesir.
They make the Quran's recitation and memorization easier
for us. They give us options. There are
multiple correct readings. There is recitational latitude.
This is out of the mercy of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Again, this is by design,
not by accident.
The presence of the 7 akhruf is something
that is ma'arum min ad Din. This is
something that's well known and established in the
religion, cannot be denied, and it's not some
secret. It's mentioned in numerous ahadith across multiple
volumes. Bukhari, Muslim, Timothy, An Nasai,
Muslim Ahmad, Muwata Malik, Musandath ibn Abi Sheba,
etcetera, etcetera.
Over 20 companions mentioned this on our hadith
corpus. It is Mu'tawatil love thee. It is
mass transmitted. It is very worded. Just one
hadith. Imam Ahmad reports the famous hadith, the
dispute between Umar and Hisham. So Umar and
Hisham, Ibnu Hakim
they each read the same verse of Surat
Al Furqan,
and they read it differently. They went to
the Prophet
In fact, the hadith says that Sayyidina Umar
dragged Hisham to the Prophet
So, you see, the Muslims from the very,
very beginning were very, very intent on getting
the Quran exactly right and investigating readings that
were questionable.
The prophet asked Umar to recite, so Umar
recited. And then the prophet said, hakadhaunzilat,
like this it was revealed. And then the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam asked Hisham to recite,
so he recited. And then the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam said, hakada unzilat, thus it was
revealed.
But then concluded by clarifying, in the hadith
al Quran,
Indeed, the Quran was revealed in 7 akhruf.
So read what is easy for you. And
I'll give you specific examples in a minute,
Insha'Allah. But if we don't know these things,
that's on us. We need to fix ourselves.
Our ignorance has opened the door
for our enemies to deceive and beguile us.
They're like sharks who smell blood in the
water.
Let us obey the command of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala when he says, afalayatatjabbaroonal
Quran.
Do they not deeply reflect about the Quran?
Do they not ponder with profundity
about the Quran? So we need to ask
ourselves, are we doing this? Are we engaging
with the kalam of Allah at a deep
level? Are we studying these 'uloom, these disciplines
that are essential to understanding the Quran and
fortifying our iman?
We don't have to be ulama, but we
have to know something.
We have to know something. We have to
be able to hold our own. Ignorance will
not do.
The prophet
said,
the Quran will be approved for you or
against you. And Abdullah ibn Mas'ud radiallahu anhu
said that this refers to the ommul kayama.
Or do you find yourself inching farther and
farther away from the Quran,
becoming more and more estranged from the Quran
because you stumbled across some video on the
Internet
of some profligate,
apostate, or some bitter unbeliever or atheist
who thinks that he has the Quran all
figured out, and he's caused you to doubt
Allah and His Messenger.
So be forewarned about such people. Do not
befriend such people. Do not incline towards such
people, even if they come to you with
smiles and giggles.
Listen to the words of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
The true sovereignty on that day, the day
of judgment, will belong to the most compassionate
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and that will be
a difficult day for the unbelievers.
On that day, the wrongdoer will bite his
hands. This is an expression of regret.
Saying, oh, woe unto me would that I
had taken a path with the messenger. Ibn
Kathir, Imam Al Qurtubi, and many, many others.
They mentioned that the immediate occasion of this
verse's revelation
was a man who was misled by his
so called friend away from Islam and away
from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. A man
in Mecca from the Quraysh who was going
to take a path, a sabil
with the messenger salallahu alaihi wa sallam. The
sabil is al Islam. He was going to
become a Muslim or he had become Muslim,
and his so called friend talked
him out of it. And on that day,
the Quran says the wrongdoer, this man will
bite at his hands and say,
Woe unto me. I wish I had taken
a path with the messenger.
Yahweh
Latani.
Oh, woe unto me, I should not have
taken so and so as a friend.
Fulan means so and so in Arabic. According
to the tafsir,
this friend was a mushrik and a mustahazi
named Ubay ibn Khalaf, but he's not named
here in the ayah
because there are people like him in every
generation.
In other words, Ubay is just a archetype
who manifests throughout history as different people.
The Quran is teaching us a universal lesson.
The man who was misled by his so
called friend continues speaking in the Quran.
Indeed he caused me to go astray.
After the zikr, after the Quran has reached
me, I had the Quran,
and I let it slip through my fingers.
Indeed, Satan is the forsaker of man.
And the messenger will say, Oh my Lord.
My people have deserted and abandoned this Quran.
This is what happened. A believer entertained
the rantings of an anti Muslim polemicist,
an obstinate degenerate.
And that degenerate caused the believer to abandon
the Quran and leave Allah as messenger.
And on the day of judgment, the former
believer will have no one to blame but
himself because he stood he should have sought
out the truth about the Quran.
He should have sought out the experts and
masters of the Quran. He should have heard
both sides of the issues.
One of the names of the day of
judgment in the Quran is Yom Al Hasra,
the day of regret,
the day of You Laitani,
the day of Yahweh Lata,
the day of, oh, I should have,
the day of, oh, if only I had,
the day of, ah, what was I thinking?
May Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, save us from
such regret.
And warn them of the day of regret
when the matter will be settled, yet they
are in oblivion and they do not believe.
Our faith in Allah and his messenger is
not blind.
It's it's not without evidence. Our faith, our
conviction is based upon and fortified by knowledge.
If the foundations and fortifications
of the fortress of our convictions are weak,
then shaitan will send his minions to attack
us, and they will win. They will tear
down the walls and rip up the floor
of our fortress.
In the Quran, what was the first piece
of advice
that Luqman Al Hakim, Luqman the Sage, Luqman
the Wise gave to his son. He said,
You.
Oh my dear son, do not associate do
not associate with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It
is the gravest of wrongdoing.
Now how many times in the Quran do
we find Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanding us
to obey our parents, to be grateful to
our parents,
to honor our parents. This is a sustained
command in the Quran in Sunnah.
God and parents. God and parents.
Yet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
But if they, your parents, try to make
you associate with me what you have no
knowledge of, then do not obey them.
But keep their company in this world with
courtesy.
Don't just obey somebody in religious matters, even
if it's your parents
without knowledge. Let alone some bitter Internet troll
who's seeking popularity and wealth.
There is no taqlib and aqeedah. You have
to know what you're worshiping.
Our knowledge of Allah and his messenger in
his book must must be discursive to a
certain extent. In other words, we have to
be able to explain why we believe
that the Quran is the word of God.
Again, we don't have to be ulama, but
we have to know something. We have to
be able to hold our own. Wallahu musta'an.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, fakihhunwakaydunashadu
alashaytan min alfi'Abid.
A single jurist, a single faqih. And here
it is likely that faqih means any Muslim
with a profound understanding of the religion. Not
technically a trained jurist.
In the early literature to have knowledge of
Fiqh meant to have a deep understanding of
the religion, a single faqir,
a single Muslim who has a deep knowledge
of the deen is more severe on Satan
than 1,000 ignorant worshipers.
Now the Quran is preserved according to the
Quran itself, But can this claim be substantiated
by evidence?
Or is this just a circular argument? The
short answer is absolutely.
It is substantiated by evidence. Allah
commands the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in the
Quran.
Say, this is my path, my deen. I
call to it with clear sight. According to
Imam Al Qurtubi, Al Abbasira means,
with certitude and truth. Ibn Kathir says, yaqeen
andburhan.
Certitude and evidence.
This is my religion. I call you to
Allah based upon evidence,
and evidence must be sought. So what is
the external evidence of the Quran in the
1st century of the hijrah of the prophet
Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam? In other words, what
percentage of the Quran
is attested in manuscripts, physical manuscripts,
that are dated to the 1st century Hijri?
So I'm not talking about Sira. I'm talking
about the Quran,
our primary text.
Perhaps a comparison with the New Testament will
help put things into perspective.
Now Jesus, peace be upon him, was speaking
and teaching the gospel in the late twenties
early thirties of the 1st century of the
common era. So how much of the 27
book canon of the New Testament
is attested in extant manuscript witnesses that are
dated to the 1st century CE? What percentage
of New Testament manuscripts that we have today
are dated to the 1st century CE, the
century of Isa alaihis salam? The answer is
0%.
Literally 0.
There is nothing from the 1st century of
Christianity.
What about the Quran?
There are over 2 dozen confirmed
1st century Hijri. That is 7th century CE
manuscripts of the Quran, extant right now, and
many others waiting to be identified. And this
number is only going to increase as more
manuscripts await to be analyzed with their paleography,
and orthography, and radiocarbon dating.
So how much of the Quran is attested
in manuscript witnesses
from the 1st century Hijri? The answer is
the entirety of the Quran. We have 100%
of the Quran
in extant manuscript witnesses from the 1st Islamic
century before 700 of the common era. This
is a fact.
It's time for these radical historical revisionists,
and highly bitter Christian polemicists
to simply come to terms with this. Now
I want to explain, I only have a
few minutes left, the multiformic aspect of the
Quran that I referenced earlier. This is a
manifestation
of the beauty, the magnificence, and utter uniqueness
of the Quran. There's nothing like the Quran.
Let's start with the classic, classic example again.
In al Fatiha, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
manikiyomadeen
and manikiyomadeen.
We talked about this last time, Allah is
both owner and king of the day of
judgement. But what's the difference? You see, a
king may rule and set laws over a
kingdom,
but he may not necessarily own anything.
An owner
may own something, but may not necessarily rule
over anything. Allah is
both owner and king.
He rules and owns everything.
These variants complement each other. And the prophet
salallahu alaihi wasallam recited it both ways.
How do we know this? How do we
know that the prophet salallahu alaihi sallam recited
it both ways? I mean, we've known this
for 1400 years, but the radical skeptic will
say,
how do you know he recited it both
ways?
This just seems like Muslims are trying to
cover up a discrepancy in their book. This
can be answered using common sense. We don't
need to rattle off
asanid, chains of transmission for this. The prophet
salallahu alaihi wasallam recited it both ways, is
as factual as saying, Thomas Jefferson was the
3rd president of the United States or Caesar
Augustus was the 1st Roman emperor. People can
question these things if they want, and there
are always people who are going to question
these things. But let's ask a basic question.
How many times did the companions hear the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam recite al Fatiha?
Let's think about this. The 5 daily prayers
were mandated in the 8th year of the
Meccan period.
Al Fatiha must be recited in every prayer
cycle. Everybody knows this. So the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam led the Sahaba in prayer for
15 years, 15 times 354,
the lunar year, comes out to 5,310
days. Actually did the math on this. 3
of the daily prayers are audible in their
first two cycles. Fajr and Maghrib and Isha.
So they would have heard the Fatiha 6
times a day from the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. So 5,310
days times 6 recitations a day is nearly
32,000
recitations of Al Fatiha.
The Sahaba heard the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
recite Al Fatiha
32,000
times over the course of 15 years, and
this is not counting the times the prophet
recited Al Fatiha in Suratul Jum'ah or Suratul
Eid or outside of prayer and conversations and
lectures and sermons. Did the Sahaba really get
this wrong? Was there really a difference of
opinion as to whether the Prophet said, Madikiyom
Ad Din or Madikiyom Ad Din? Did they
really transfer this uncertainty to their students? This
is ridiculous.
He obviously recited it both ways. The Quran
was and continues to be a mass transmitted
living tradition.
It was constantly heard, recited, and memorized
every day since its inception
by dozens, 100, 1,000,
1,000,000,
billions of people. Imam al Suyuti quoted Zayd
ibn Thabid who said, alatira a sunnah.
Recitation is sunnah. In other words, it is
from the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam. All
of this is talaqi. The the recitation of
the Quran was passed down verbatim
from teacher to student, teacher to student until
it reached us.
In our contention,
that recitation is inherited, is supported when we
look at other verses in the Quran. Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala
says, All 10 canonical Quran
said,
It's unanimous.
Why? Why didn't the 6 Qur'a who read
and
read this as?
The meaning is sound. It's contextually valid, and
it's in correct Arabic. Why didn't anyone choose
this reading?
It seems to me that they did not
they did not have that choice. They were
not authorized to read this word in this
verse as malik.
There is no recitation of latitude
in this verse.
Why? What makes sense? It makes perfect sense
that the Quran were constrained by the living
oral transmission of the Quran, The handed down
recitational tradition of the Quran.
They were constrained by the sunnah of.
Let's look at another example of how the
multi form text of the Quran enriches our
understandings
of our theological convictions. In Surat Mariam verse
number 34, Allah
says, This is how Ibn Amr and Asam
and Yaqoob read this verse. These are 3
of the 10 eponymous and canonical reading traditions.
This vowing of the text was taught to
them by their teachers. It is through transmission,
through.
The word qawl here is in the accusative,
qawlalhaqq
meaning the aforementioned statements
about Isa alaihis salam is the true account.
The Christological teaching found in the preceding ayat
presents the true Isa Alaihi Salam
That Jesus, peace be upon him, is a
slave of Allah and his prophet who received
revelation.
He's not the son of god.
That Jesus is Mubarak. He's blessed. He's not
he's not accursed. As Paul says in the
New Testament, in Galatians, He was not a
deceiver or a blasphemer
as the Talmud says.
He was kind to his mother he was
not arrogant or defiant.
The salaam of Allah
is upon Isa Alaihi Salam
throughout
his
life.
Such was Jesus, the son of Mary. It
is the word, the of truth about which
they are vainly disputing.
Now this verse is also read,
with in the nominative.
This is a reading of the 7 other
eponymous and canonical reading traditions, including nafir. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam recited it both ways.
This difference is by design,
not by accident.
This enriches our understanding.
So now the verse means such was Jesus,
the son of Mary. He is the word
of truth about which they are vainly disputing
that Isa alaihi salam is the word of
Al Haqq, the word of Allah, which is
an honorific title. It's taqrimi as Imam Ar
Razi says. If someone is known for their
generosity,
we can say he's generosity itself,
that Jesus, peace be upon him, was totally
truthful in his speech. Why? Because all of
his speech was wahi, was revelation.
He only spoke the words of God. Therefore,
he's called the word of God as a
way of honoring and praising him. Why does
the Quran praise him in such a way
and emphasize his truthfulness? Probably because the New
Testament
ascribes to Jesus false prophecies, that is to
say falsifiable
predictions
and blasphemy, while the Talmud describes to him
deception and sorcery.
So in this honorific way, Isa alaihis salam
is the word of God, not in the
neoplatonic
or trinitarian sense where he is the pre
eternal logos who emanated from the very being
of an ontologically or hypostatically
superior deity. The Quran says,
This is negating and
In other words, Allah
did not cause or beget a person or
son from his own being in pre eternality,
nor was Allah an effect of any logically
prior cause.
So we see how the qira'at, which are
derived from the aharuf, you see how they
enrich the meanings of the ayat.
This is an aspect of the uniqueness of
the Quran.
I think I'm out of time. Inshallah Ta'ala.
We'll continue next time. Inshallah Ta'ala.