Ali Ataie – Is the Qur’an preserved With Professor
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Hello, everyone, and welcome to blogging theology. Today,
I'm delighted to talk to professor Aliyatay from
Zaytuna College.
Welcome back, sir.
Thank you, brother Paul. It's,
an honor and a privilege to
join you once again on blogging Theology. I
know I speak for, many when I say
it's the best channel on YouTube. May Allah
continue to bless you and your work, and,
congratulations.
Another milestone, a 150,
1,000 subs.
It's it's, it's great to, and this is
great because it means more people can see
your content, as well. So, this is all
all good news.
So for those, few who don't know, doctor
Ali Atay is a scholar of biblical hermeneutics
specializing in sacred languages, comparative theology, and comparative
literature.
At Zaytuna College, Doctor. Attai has taught Arabic,
creedal theology, comparative theology,
sciences of the Quran,
introduction to the
Quran, and seminal
ancient texts.
He received his MA in Biblical Studies from
Pacific School of Religion and in 2016,
his PhD in Cultural and Historical Studies in
Religion
from the Graduate Theological
Union.
He's a native
Persian speaker and can read and write Arabic,
Hebrew, and Greek. And he joined the Zetuna
College faculty in 2012.
In this blogging theology special,
professor Ali Atay will do a presentation
entitled
Establishing the Preservation
of the Quranic
Text.
And this is going to be a very
wide ranging discussion
looking also at the biblical manuscripts and
common objections from orientalists
and Christian polemicists
such as the holes in the narrative
accusation.
So without more ado, it's over to you,
sir.
Thank you. Once again,
believe it or not, I actually have a
slideshow presentation, for today. So, hopefully, this will
go smoothly. Let me, share the screen here.
Okay. Perfect.
Alright.
So so today,
we'll be,
part 1 of a of a 2 part
presentation on the Quran. My focus today will
be exclusively on establishing the preservation of the
Quran text.
And the next time, Inshallah, I'll look at
the actual,
content and message and style of the Quran
as well as the intertextuality
of the Quran.
That is to say how the Quran engages,
with the text and traditions of Jews and
Christians,
the canonical gospels, the apocryphal gospels, the legend
of Alexander, Talmudic tradition, etcetera. How the Quran
is inimitable,
are there historical
errors in the Quran, are there grammatical mistakes
in the Quran, are there foreign words in
the Quran, etcetera. That will be part 2.
Wow. Inshallah.
But today, our focus,
is the Quran's
preservation.
So let's let's establish what the text is
before we examine it.
And I I do apologize in advance. My
presentation is a bit long winded.
I have about 40 slides that I want
to present,
but, I I thought it was important to
be as thorough as possible for the sake
of the viewers. Absolutely. As you said, there
are several there are several issues that, I'm
frequently asked about that I think I need
to address.
And so I've tried to incorporate my thoughts
about those issues in this,
presentation.
Now now before I officially start,
I want to say,
as something of a prologue,
that I believe
that the underlying
factor
that has led to many modern Muslims doubting
the preservation of the Quran is actually their
own ignorance
of the traditional
sciences of the Quran. In fact, their misapprehension
as to what the Quran even is, the
very nature, the method, and purpose of the
Quranic revelation.
Many Muslims have outright abandoned, the study of
traditional texts concerning the ulnar Quran,
and have rather relied on amateur preachers and
apologists really to teach them about their scripture.
And in fact, they were miseducated
by these preachers and apologists
who in their zeal to repudiate
the Bible and draw a sharp distinction between
the Quran 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. And
of course, this is not exactly true.
This is an inaccurate sort of reductionist
that is to say simplistic understanding of the
Quran that I think has formed our community.
Yep. So so what is accurate? I mean,
what do we learn from our traditional
literature written by our traditional ulama?
We learned that the Quran has has never
been a uniformic text, but rather a multiformic
text.
And it does have text
variants,
but these are not of the same kind
as those of the bible,
specifically the new testament. So there is a
major difference. Okay. So the textual variants of
the new testament were deliberate changes made to
the text,
by scribes
decades and centuries after the prophet Isa Alaihi
Salam, after the prophet Jesus
peace be upon him,
that were motivated by theological rivalries among early
Christian groups,
that definitely made a huge impact
on the theology of Christianity.
The textual variants of the Quran are Yeah.
Can I just sorry? You're
just beginning, but I just wanna say I
will mention some
excellent books for people to follow on if
they wanted to read about, for example, Bart
Ehrman's book, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The
very point you're making, the effect of early
Christological
controversies
on the text of the New Testament. This
is an academic work. I've read it. It's
highly regarded
mainstream scholarship, and it illustrates in much more
detail,
the point that professor Ali Atay is making
here. So sorry to interrupt, but I will
mention this and other works,
which, from a western,
textual critical perspective
substantiate in a mainstream way the points that
Aleutai is making. So sorry to interrupt. Exactly.
Thank you very much. Yeah. That is absolutely
mainstream, and that book is a brilliant text.
Anyone who's interested in textual studies, they have
to they have to get this text. They
have to go through it.
The orthodox portion of scripture is absolutely something
that needs to be done.
Now the textual variants of the Quran,
are traceable to the prophet Muhammad himself,
actually, and are a facet of the very
revelatory
nature of the Quran. In other words, the
Quranic variants are part of the revelation.
So so that is a big difference, and
we'll unpack that obviously during this presentation.
But it is the alim, right, the scholar,
the traditional scholar, not the amateur preacher who
can explain these things to us in sophistication
and, attention, to nuance.
Now this is where the enemies of Islam
sort of come into the picture. Right? So
these revisionists,
and polemicists,
who are agnostic, they're atheist,
they're Christian, they've taken notice,
of the average Muslim's ignorance of his own
traditional literature,
and his claim of textual uniformity.
And so these critics, what they do is
they dip into our traditional literature,
and they pull out these isolated narrations that
debunk
the claim of textual uniformity,
a claim that no real Muslim scholar ever
made. And then they deceptively present this to
their audiences as evidence that the Quran is
not preserved. But what the critics don't tell
their audiences
is that the traditional Muslim authorities
have always believed that the Quran was revealed
in a multi formic fashion
and that this has nothing to do with
the Quran's preservation. All traditional authorities maintained,
that the Quran was preserved in light of
its multiformic nature.
In other words, these critics
weaponize our own literature against us. Okay.
They use our own traditional literature to basically
tear down the straw men that ignorant Muslims
constantly keep creating
with their misguided claims of textual uniformity.
And I'll explain obviously what I mean when
I say the Quran is multi formic. This
is extremely important
to understand. Is it it is the important
point. I'm I'm extremely pleased and and very
grateful that you're making you're stressing this point
at the outset because it is of fundamental
importance.
Fundamental importance. Exactly. Exactly.
But I I wanna begin by actually talking
about the external
evidence of the Quran in the 1st century
of the Hijra
of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. The
Hijra, of course, is the migration of the
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his
followers from Mecca to Medina in 6/22,
of the common era.
So let's go to, this slide here.
Alright.
So to to put it as
a question then, how well is the Quran
attested in manuscripts, physical manuscripts that are dated
to the 1st century?
Now perhaps a comparison of the new testament
will help us put things into perspective here.
First of all, how how how does a
textual scholar date a manuscript?
Well, according to doctor Haytham Sitti, who has
been on blogging theology,
and is probably the the foremost, scholar of
Quran manuscripts,
in the world, He's the executive director of
ICSA.
Textual scholars basically look at 3 things, 3
main things. Right? So paleography,
orthography,
and and radiocarbon dating. So paleography looks at
letter shapes, how words are written. Orthography looks
at spelling conventions, how words are spelled.
And radiocarbon dating is a is a type
of scientific analysis,
that gives age estimates,
for carbon based materials.
So these are the three main things. Okay.
Now now Jesus, peace be upon him, was
speaking and teaching the gospel
in the late
twenties and early thirties of the 1st century
CE.
So how much of the 27 book canon
of the new testament
is attested in extant manuscript witnesses
that are dated
by
extent simply means
that that we physically have today, existing manuscript.
If you have go to a museum and
say, that's the manuscript there. We can physically
touch it. The extant is just an academic
way of saying an actual existing manuscript in
today's world.
Yes. Exactly. We have them in our possession.
Yep. Now keep in mind that traditional Christians
believe that all of the new testament books
were written in the 1st century
and that they were all authored by apostolic
author
that is to say eyewitnesses to Jesus' life
and message. Of course, many Christian apologists who
are also anti Muslim premises continue to hold
to this view. The view that all of
the new testament was written in the 1st
century by men who interacted with Jesus Christ,
peace be upon him, in some way.
So what percentage of extent new testament
manuscripts are dated to 1st century CE? The
answer is 0%,
literally 0.
The absolute oldest extant manuscript of the new
testament is is John Ryland's papyrus number 52,
which is the size of an ace of
spades,
and contains a few verses of John 18
on its recto and verso.
P 52 is dated between 125
to 150 of the common era. So, that's
anywhere from 90 to a 120 years after
the life of Jesus Christ. I've actually I've
just I've actually seen it. It's in the
University of Manchester in the John Rylands Library,
not far not too far from here. It's
a credit card sized
fragment written on both sides in in Greek,
the language of the gospel itself. And that
is the earliest,
bit of the manuscript from the New Testament
anywhere in the world. And it's stated,
as early as a 150
CE. This is after Jesus's alleged birth date,
that is.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's the oldest thing.
That's that's all there Absolutely. Then then then
maybe p 104, which contains a few verses
of Matthew 21,
it's probably dated 150 to 200, then perhaps
p 90, which is also,
a a a small section of John 18
also dated between 15200.
So let me say it like this, out
of the nearly 8,000 verses in the new
testament,
0 are attested in manuscripts dated to the
1st century, 0 out of 8,000 verses.
And about, I don't know, 25 to 50
verses, let's say it's 50, 50 out of
8,000 verses are attested in manuscripts
before the year
200 of the common era, all of them
between 125 and 2
100.
So let me let me say it again
so it's clear. 0% of the new testament
is attested in manuscripts from the 1st century
CE, and less than 1% is attested in
manuscripts from the 2nd century. So I'm talking
about manuscript
papyri
that is extent that scholars have, as you
said, in their possession.
However, Christian apologists,
like Daniel Wallace at Dallas Theological Seminary,
they'll, you know, they'll argue that, you know,
p 46 and p66
and p 77, these other papyri, p 98,
p 103, These could all be 2nd century
as well, although this is highly disputed.
I think most, textual critical scholars date these
papyri between
203100
of the common era. But okay, fine. Let's
say they're 2nd century. They're still not 1st
century.
There is nothing
from the 1st century of Christianity.
Okay?
And of course, Wallace,
had that infamous moment. Right? He he actually
announced,
in a live debate with Bart Ehrman in
2,012
Very embarrassing. That a first century manuscript of
Mark, right, had had just been discovered and
that the dating was confirmed
by this is what he said. The best
papriologist
on the planet,
a man whose reputation is unimpeachable.
Those are his exact words. And, of course,
this turned out to be a fraud.
There is nothing from the 1st century of
Christianity.
Okay.
Now a a Christian apologist may interject here
and say,
well,
there were early church fathers, you know, the
so called apostolic fathers,
at the end of the 1st century who
referenced books in the Pauline corpus.
Okay? But here, I think we should make
a distinction. Right? So as Muslims, we're interested
in Jesus, peace be upon him. Muslims and
Christians both believe in Jesus. Muslims and Christians
believe that Jesus brought the gospel.
So so even if Paul's letters are referenced
in documents, outside the canon written
3 apostolic fathers who arguably wrote in in
the 1st century of the common era.
Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp
of of Smyrna.
So let's start with Clement of Rome. He
died 99 of of the common era. He
was the author of first Clement, which is
generally regarded as genuine. Yep. And written at
the end of the 1st century,
maybe 96 of the common era. Yeah. First
Clement is a letter that Clement of Rome,
also known as pope Clement,
wrote to Corinth, right, to advise them on
certain church issues. And Clement quoted Paul,
several times. He quoted Jesus once,
in 46 8 of first Clement. He quoted
Jesus from the synoptic tradition, the saying of
the millstone.
But Clement, did not cite it as coming
from Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Right. But the
more important question is, do we now have
a copy
of first Clement from the 1st century where
this one pericope from the synoptic tradition is
attested?
And the answer is no. It is not
extent. Okay.
So moving on. Number 2, Ignatius of Antioch,
who died 108 of the common era according
to Eusebius of Caesarea.
Oh, by the way, just to point out,
but a poor old poor old Iglesias,
he was actually eaten by lions in Rome.
I mean, that was his fate, and he
was taken across,
the Mediterranean
to various towns, and he got various letters
to various churches on his way to be
eaten by lions. Yes. He was a a
martyr. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's a pretty
horrible way to go, but his letters, the
ones we now know of are seem to
be authentic as I'm sure you gotta tell
us anyway.
Yeah. Yeah. So Ignatius, he ran afoul of
emperor Trajan. Right?
So he was he was condemned to death
in Rome. And then while traveling from Antioch
to Rome, he wrote these 7 letters to
various Christian congregations. They're called the 7 Ignatian
epistles.
And in these letters, he quotes a handful
of verses from Matthew, Luke, and John.
There are several problems here, though. Number 1,
if he wrote these letters while en route
to his martyrdom in 108,
then these are not 1st century attestations of
the gospels. 108 is in the 2nd century.
Number 2, many historians of the modern period
highly doubt the reliability of Eusebius who tells
us the story of Ignatius
because Eusebius was basically Constantine's spin doctor.
And so many historians actually date the death
of Ignatius to the 1 thirties or even
1 forties.
And number 3,
there are other historians and protestant authorities
who maintain that these letters are total forgeries.
So they're highly disputed. But let's just say
for argument's sake okay. And and in this
presentation, you'll notice I'm
going to make a lot of argument's sake
arguments or statements, I should say.
Let's say for arguments' sake that Ignatius wrote
these in 99 of the Common Era, the
first century. Do we now have copies of
the Ignatian epistles from the 1st century,
or he quotes a handful of verses from
the gospels?
No. They're not extent. Okay.
And this is also very interesting kind of
as as a side note.
According to the, early church tradition,
Ignatius was a disciple of John the apostle.
And, of course, John was believed to have
written the gospel of John. Of course, nobody
really believes this anymore.
According to the dubious Eusebius,
Ignatius was
the the 3rd bishop of Antioch after Peter
and Avodius.
Also, this is really interesting. Early church fathers
said that the boy that Jesus took in
his arms in Mark 9
and said something to the effect of anyone
who welcomes a a a little child like
this on my behalf welcomes me, something like
that. That boy was Ignatius.
This is this is what many proto orthodox
church fathers said. Who knew Ignatius was born
and raised in Capernaum in the Galilee,
in Palestine.
So historians who date Ignatius' death to the
130s or 140s
compellingly
contend
that the early church kind of fudged the
dates. Right? They sort of pushed everything back
because they wanted to desperately create
a linked chain of transmission
that went from Ignatius
directly to Christ.
Okay. In the nomenclature
of Islam, they wanted to create an Isnad
Muqtasim Marufur.
They wanted to create a chain of transmission
that is totally linked
and goes back to a prophet,
but their deception has been, exposed.
And this this was probably because the Jews
were debating them about the Christian Jesus,
whether they were rabbinical Jews or Jewish Christians.
And in Judea in in Judaism,
the idea of a masorah,
right, an is not is very important, actually.
And so we can imagine, like, the Jews
were saying to these Pauline Christian fathers, you
believe that Jesus,
the Jewish messiah was God,
and that, he was a human sacrifice under
whose authority? And the Christians would say, well,
my teacher so and so learned from Ignatius,
who learned from John the apostle, who learned
from,
Jesus. So clearly a fabricated chain of
transmission.
The the 3rd apostolic father is Polycarp of
Smyrna.
His his his only surviving work that is
genuine is his letter to the Philippians where
he quotes Jesus from Matthew,
four times, the Luke in Jesus once, and
the Mark in Jesus once. So that's it.
Six quotations.
Interestingly,
his letter begins with a reference to the
death of Ignatius.
So this is clearly a second century document,
probably 140, 145
of the common era. I mean, he died
in 155.
So we don't have anything extent from Polycarp
from that period. The early church,
also said that Polycarp was a
disciple of John the apostle.
Now
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria,
Tertullian of Carthage,
Irenaeus of Smyrna, origin of Alexandria, all of
these celebrated early church fathers who extensively
quoted the new testament, they were all either
in the 2nd or third centuries.
Okay? So even if we had their original
autograph writings in our hands,
which we
But even if we did, they would still
not be 1st century
documents. So here's the bottom line here on
the slide,
At the bottom of the slide, there are
0 extent manuscripts. There are 0 extent witnesses
of the 4 gospels from the 1st century
either as manuscripts
or as writings of 1st century Christians?
Okay. 0.
And,
and by the way,
this is why, by the way, many historians
actually,
date Luke, Acts, and John,
to the 2nd century. I think David Litwak
dates Luke, Acts, and 2nd century.
Some scholars think that the writings of Josephus
may have influenced,
the gospel of Luke.
With respect to,
acts specifically, you have, like, Richard Purvo, Amy
Jill Levine,
Steve Mason, Burton Mack, Dennis Macdonald, Paula Fredriksen,
all date acts to the 2nd century. And
so but Bob Oerman himself is inclined to
accept a later date as well. So, actually,
the dating is not getting earlier than earlier.
It's getting later and later in,
in some in some, of these subjects. Lukacs,
as you say. And that's a very different
trajectory perhaps from the the Kranick, story, which
is we're gonna juxtapose and compare and contrast.
Exactly. Very different. Exactly the opposite. Yeah. And,
juxtapose and compare and contrast it. Exactly. Very
different. Exactly the opposite. Yeah.
In in his preamble, Luke himself says, right,
as we know that there were many
poloi gospels, many gospels,
that were written before he decided to write
one. This makes a lot more sense if
he's writing in the 2nd century.
The ACT seminar,
concluded after 10 years of research that the
book of ACTS is 2nd century.
ACTS is of course a sort of whitewashed,
that is to say sort of sanitized,
cleaned up,
idealized
story of the early church
that tries to minimize or downplay
the massive conflict between, we can say, camp
Paul and camp James slash Peter that we
glean from the earlier Pauline epistles.
Most scholars date the gospel of John to
90
or 100 of the common era, some earlier,
some later, even as late as 140.
So dating the original composition of Luke, Ax,
and John
to the end of the 1st century, which
I am willing to do, is still being
generous to the Christian tradition.
Okay. Now now here a Christian apologist might
say something like, well, just because a scholar
or 2
attributes a late date
to 1 or 2 of the gospels doesn't
mean anything. John Wansbrough
dated the original composition of the Quran
to the 8th century.
Does that mean he's right? Right? So so
here's the difference. This is a false analogy.
This is a smoke screen. It's a desperate
sort of deflection.
John Wansborough and his ilk have been definitively
falsified,
and I'll show you why in a minute.
The contentions of Wansbrough and and Cronay,
are sitting really in the dustbins of history.
However, historians who date some of the gospels
to the to the 2nd century have good
reasons for doing so.
The biggest reason is that there are 0
extant manuscripts
of any gospel dated to the 1st century,
and no Christian writer is undisputedly quoting these
gospels in the 1st century. When Clement of
Rome quoted Jesus' statement about the millstone,
he doesn't cite Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Perhaps
he quoted this oral tradition,
Perhaps he was paraphrasing
Mark or Matthew. It's not clear at all
that he has knowledge of Luke, Acts, or
John.
So let me say it again, and then
we'll move on.
There are 0 extant manuscript. There are 0
extant witnesses of the 4 gospels
from the 1st century either as manuscripts
or as writings of 1st century Christians. And
on that point, if I could just, make
another plug,
all these books,
this one is Whose Word is It Anyway?
The story behind the New Testament,
Who Changed the New Testament and Why by
Bart Ehrman. And it talks about these manuscript
traditions, the a, the dating of them, and
also how they were,
changed as well. The copyists of the early
Christian writings,
and originals that matter. The fact that we
don't have originals and why that matters
and theologically motivated alteration of the text. So
this book is, well worth is is not
really written for an academic audience, but more
for an educated public. So I recommend that
to follow on what Doctor. Ali Atay has
just said.
Yes. Thank you. Yeah. It's an excellent excellent
text, a good a good starter book to
get into these issues.
Now, let's look at the Quran's attestation
in its 1st century. Okay? So, I'm not
talking about the biography of the prophet, Right?
I'm not talking about the Sira. I'm
talking about the Quran.
Okay? So so like Jesus, the prophet Muhammad
was also active in the twenties early thirties
of his century and also earlier.
So the first Islamic century corresponds roughly
to the year 6/22 to 7/22 of the
common era, but I will actually limit things
to only the 7th century of the common
era. So 6 99 CE
is sort of the latest date.
There are there are over 2 dozen
confirmed 1st century Hijri,
that is 7th century CE manuscripts
of the Quran extent right now,
and many others out there waiting to be
identified. And doctor Sickly says this number will
definitely increase
Yeah. As more manuscripts
wait to be analyzed in their paleography, orthography,
and radiocarbon dating. So at Mangana 1572
a,
also known as, you know, the the Birmingham
manuscript,
this manuscript was a
was initially misdated as a 2nd century Hijri
manuscript,
primarily because the script was wrongly identified as
Kufic.
It is in fact Hejazic.
In 2011, doctor Abolfadelli had the manuscript radiocarbon
dated,
and the results were stunning.
It was dated no later than 645 of
the common era with
95.4%
accuracy.
That is 13 years after the death of
the prophet, peace be upon him. That is
right around the time Uthman became the 3rd
caliph.
Furthermore, manuscript 328c
was identified as being from the same codex
as the Birmingham manuscript.
So, this comes out to about 8 percent
of the Quran dated to within 13 years
of the prophet at
the absolute latest. Mhmm. I mean, based on
this dating, one could make the case
that Mengana 1572
a and manuscript 328 c was originally a
companion codex,
the mushaf of an unknown companion,
of the prophet.
But is it just this 8%?
Right? How much of the entire Quran is
attested in manuscript witnesses from the 1st century
history? The answer is the entirety
of the Uthmanic text.
Okay? The the website Islamic awareness has listed
all Qur'anic manuscripts
that are dated within the first, Islamic century.
And according to the researchers who run the
site, these manuscripts constitute up to 96%
of the Quran. Now doctor Sittli believes that
that data is outdated actually. Yeah. And it's
closer to a 100%. We have 100%
of the Quran in extant manuscript witnesses
from the 1st Islamic century.
Okay. Okay. Of course, the main subject of
transmission is I mean, this is not your
subject now, maybe later, but the main mode
of transmission of the Quran is not through
manuscript form but through mutawata, multiple multiple
transmission orally,
and in such a fashion that it's impossible
for it to have been forged at all
because so many people,
memorize it and they're all agreement on the
same Quran. You're talking about the the textual
manifestation of that. So unlike the Bible, which
is really just a physical man manuscript tradition,
the Quran is primarily
oral in its mode of transmission, I would
say. Exactly. Primarily oral. Very, very important idea.
And, yeah, we're gonna get there inshallah. Right.
But just to reiterate the point again, there's
we have 100% of the Quran in exit
manuscript witnesses. And so this is the opinion
of of doctor Haytham Sivkani, doctor Manayin Van
Putten,
doctor Sean Anthony.
These scholars obviously hold opinions that I disagree
with, and I'll talk about that. But when
it comes to the attestation of the Quran,
we are all in agreement. The entirety
of the text is attested in the 1st
century Hijri. So this is without question. Okay.
According to Doctor. Siffley, the process of manuscript
dating has become much more accurate in recent
years. So some manuscripts,
as you said earlier, have been reconsidered,
and dated earlier than before.
Doctor Siddky mentions that a manuscript called
So Ri Medina 1A in Turkey is now
believed to be a first century manuscript
written in Hejazic and Kufic and is more
or less the entire Quran.
Other, 1st century manuscripts include the Tak Kapi
manuscript, which is late 1st century, possibly early
2nd century of the Hijra, it's 99% of
the Quran.
The Chubagan
manuscript is 1st century. It's dated between 649
and and 675
of the common era. It's about 26% of
the Quran. There's something called the codex Pericino
Petropolitanist,
which is, 46% of the Quran. You have
codex BL, British Library,
OR 2 165,
57%
of the Quran.
Codex mesh had 90%, codex 331,
29%,
codex 330 g, 21%, codices, Marcell 17, 18,
19, etcetera, etcetera, and many more in the
1st century, including the sunapalemsest,
okay, which is called San'a 1 or c
one,
which is, about 41% of the Quran, but
a different textual tradition,
okay, than the other manuscripts. And we'll talk
about that, but it is by and large
identical
to the Uthmani textual tradition.
And we'll talk about why it's slightly different.
This is a great topic
that only supports
the Muslim narrative.
Okay. So here's the bottom line. The entire
Quran
without
dispute is attested in multiple manuscript witnesses
dated within the 7th century, before 700 of
the common era.
So,
I would say it's, you know, it's it's
high time for these radical
historical revisionists and highly bitter Christian polemicists
to
simply come to terms with this. I mean,
this doesn't mean
the contents of the Quran are true. Right?
We'll talk about the actual content and teachings
and style of the Quran in a future
podcast, Inshallah. So that is a different question.
For today's podcast, my goal is simply to
convey to the audience,
that what we regard nowadays as the Quran,
was first uttered by the historical
Mohammed of Arabia, peace be upon him. And
of course, this is the general historical consensus.
He is the source of the Quran, historically
speaking.
Whether it's a revelation or not is a
question for next time. Whether it's miraculous or
or inimitable,
that's that's next time,
inshallah.
So moving on here,
let's let's talk about,
the Ashraf. Okay.
So this is also an extremely important topic.
Okay? Now doctor Yasser Qadhi, he made some
controversial statements,
not too long ago,
about the Quran with respect to the topic
of,
the akhruf and the qira'at and the relationship.
And and I would translate akhruf as recitational
variations.
Okay. Ahroof is recitational variations and Qira'at as,
canonical reading traditions.
And I'll elaborate,
on these, shortly,
Inshallah. Now I I agree with Doctor. Yasser
that this can be a difficult topic. Okay.
But I absolutely disagree with the notion that
our narrative is somehow
efficient or ill equipped when it comes to
answering the inquiries of modern secular academics.
There are no holes in our narrative.
There is nothing about the aharuf
or qira'at of the Quran
that some western scholar at Yale or Harvard
can point
out to a, traditional Alem that will throw
that Alem for a loop,
and confound him and give him some sort
of existential crisis. We have unparalleled
robust scholarship in these disciplines that goes back
centuries
across countless volumes, and it's all transparent.
Okay. Okay. So it's well established in our
tradition,
that the Quran was revealed to the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi sallam,
upon 7 letters, literally,
sometimes translated as as 7,
modes.
Again, I prefer 7 types of recitational
variations.
So from our perspective, these ahrof are revelation.
They are by design.
They're they're not by accident.
The essential purpose of these Ahroof,
these variations is 2 fold. Okay? The first
is theological,
that the Ahroof enrich our understanding
of the Kalam of God, the speech of
God, the Quran. But by making the Quran
a multiformic text,
Allah
opened up different meanings for us. We are
enriched intellectually and spiritually by the Ahruf.
The Ahruf give us a deeper engagement with
the Kalamullah, and I'll give you examples, Insha'Allah.
The second purpose is, is practical.
The akhruf are means of taisir.
They make the Quran's recitation
and memorization
easier for us. They give us options.
There are multiple correct readings. There is recitational
latitude
and this is out of God's mercy. Again,
this is by design,
not by accident.
The the presence of the 7 Ashraf is
is.
This is something that is well known and
established in the religion.
It cannot be denied.
It's not some sort of secret.
It's mentioned in numerous hadith across multiple volumes,
Buhari and Muslim and Tirmidhi and Nesay, Muslim
Ahmed,
Muwata Malik, Musanaf ibn Abi Sheva, etcetera. Over
20 companions
mentioned this on our hadith corpus.
Many would say that it's Muwata'lafdi,
in other words, mass transmitted
in its in its very,
wording.
And the most eminent secular,
textual critics and historians of today
maintain
that the tradition of the 7 Ahroof most
likely goes directly back to the prophet himself,
because of the popularity and antiquity
of this tradition. In other words, the tradition
of
the the 7 akhruf was not invented
by later Muslim scholars
as a way of sort of explaining why
there is recitational variance in the Quran.
Historically, the source of the tradition of the
Ashraf was the prophet,
that he used it as a way of
explaining
why there was recitational variance
in the Quran. So so that is very
important.
And just a couple of hadith here. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said according to
Ibra Haqqas, it's reported by Imam al Bukhari,
akhraani jibil alayhi salam alharf falamazanastazeeduhuhatinta'a'a'ati
akhruf,
that Gabriel read the Quran to me in
1 Haruf, Haruf is the singular of Ahruuf.
And,
I continued to ask him for increase until
it reached 7 Ahruuf.
Imam Ahmad reports,
this is the famous hadith between a dispute
between Omar and Hisham.
So, Omar and Hisham ibn Hakim
2 companions,
they each read the same verse from Suratul
Furqan differently.
Okay, so they went to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. In fact, Umar dragged Hisham to
the prophet. He took him by his collar.
So so the Muslims from the very beginning,
they were very intent on getting the Quran
exactly right
and investigating,
readings that were questionable.
And so the prophet asked Umar to recite
and Umar recited, and then the prophet said,
hakadhaunzilat,
thus it was revealed.
And then the prophet asked Hisham to recite.
So Hisham recited and then the prophet said
hakadhaunzilat,
like that it was revealed, or thus it
was revealed. But then he concluded by clarifying
in the hadith al Quran, unzilaaalasabati
akhuffaquraummatayasara.
That the
Quran indeed was revealed
in 7 Ahroof. So, read what is easy
for you.
And just a third report, Imam Muslim reports
that Ubay ibn al Qaab said that he
entered the mosque,
and he heard the recitation of 2
different from each other as well as different
from his own. So a type of doubt,
he said,
entered
into his heart. And Doctor. Yasser, he he
mentioned this hadith to make a point that
even a great companion like Ubayy ibn Nukab
was initially puzzled
by this,
multi formic aspect of the Quran. It's very
unique
to the Quran.
And then the prophet explained the akhruf and
their purpose to him and the doubt left
him. And this hadith supports our narrative
that there were several companion reading traditions
before the standardization of the text by the
Uthmani codex committee, and we're gonna talk about
that. But this is what the committee had
to work with.
And there are other reports as well. But
but here's the main point I want to
to emphasize again.
It is most probable historically
historically, that the prophet himself is the source
of these recitational
variations in the Quran, that he recited the
Quran in various ways, and that he claimed
that the reason for this was the 7
achruf. Now a Christian, an atheist,
you know, a secular historian will say that
he doesn't believe that the prophet,
is receiving,
receiving these words from the from god. That's
fine. Whether the prophet is receiving revelation or
not, it makes the most sense historically
to attribute at least a portion of these,
textual variations,
to the prophet himself.
Now
a historian might claim,
that other recitational,
variations that Muslims regard as authentic,
sprang up
after the prophet as well.
I mean, I I don't agree with that,
and I'll show you why.
But I think it must be acknowledged by
historians
that the recitation of the Quran as a
multiformic
phenomenon has a prophetic
provenance,
a prophetic origin
that at the very least, the starting point
of these variations
is not in the post prophetic period.
I mean, I think the most an unbeliever
or a a a skeptical historian,
could say is something like, okay, fine. The
prophet invented the concept of the akhruf because
he couldn't remember
everything he had previously said. I mean, of
course, this is not a historical argument, but
rather highly subjective, wishful thinking.
Now anti Muslim polemicists,
they love to give, Muslim laypeople, the sort
of general Muslim masses,
the impression
that the tradition of the ulama were not
forthright about these things
7 akhruf, that the ulama were sort of
keeping these things a secret because they were
afraid or embarrassed,
or something that this would somehow compromise the
preservation of the Quran,
or that the ulama lied to them and
said that the Quran
was a uniformic text. This is totally false.
All of the seminal kutu of ulamaul Quran,
all of the seminal texts of the sciences
of the Quran written by the traditional ulama
of Ahlus Suna wal Jama'ah
have a section or a chapter on akhruf
and and qira'at.
Okay? This is not some secret teaching that
Muslim scholars have been covering up,
only to be uncovered by these honest and
brave orientalists.
No. The 7 akhruf have nothing to do
with the preservation of the Quran. None of
the ulama who wrote about the akhruf said
that the Quran was not preserved.
Traditional scholars are proud of the fact that
the Quran was revealed. They
praise God that the Quran was revealed.
This is an amazing
and beautiful and elegant and unique aspect of
the Quran. I will get into some examples.
But here here's a quote from the late
M. M. Al Adami,
Rahimullah Ta'ala, from his fantastic book, and I
recommend this book, The History of the Qur'anic
Text. He says, although contemporary scholars outside of
the Islamic text context
have offered a range
of imaginative Yes, there it is. Imaginative interpretations
to get to the quote, real Quran. Those
unfamiliar with the Islamic intellectual tradition should remember
that every last quote, variant
or alternate reading used as evidence that the
classical Islamic account is inaccurate
comes out from the Islamic
intellectual
tradition itself.
Yeah. Okay. And if I can just, just
to show, people, the copy of this book
is actually a second edition,
that's, recently come out. And just to give
it its full title because it's quite significant,
the history of the chronic text from revelation
to compilation,
a comparative study with the Old and New
Testaments.
So this is really as germane to your
point. This is the second edition.
I I do recommend it, obviously, as you
do.
Yes. Yeah. It's an excellent text. Excellent text.
And he also, has several articles that you
can find on on this topic.
Okay. Let's go to the next one here.
So
what exactly are the? Okay. This is a
this is a very important question. There is
a difference of opinion as to exactly,
what they are. Okay? But they are there.
I mean, there's no doubt about this, and
some opinions are stronger than others. Imam Suyuti
lays out these opinions in his master piece
called,
Al Itkam.
And
variations of these opinions. So one opinion is
that they are 7 dialects of Arabic.
Right? So Abu Urbeid Qasem ibn Salam,
he said that the 7 Afrof are 7
dialects of Arabic. This is not a strong
opinion, however.
The second opinion is
that the Ashraf are 7 potential variations
to any one word in the Quran. So,
any one word could have a maximum of
7
different forms.
I believe this was Imam Tabari's opinion.
The 3rd opinion, the akhruf are 7 categories
of recitational variance in the Quran. So this
is the opinion of Abu
father Arazi,
even Qutayba, Imam Al Jazari, the akhruf are
7 categories of recitational variance.
Although different scholars have some slight differences in
their final categorizations,
this is perhaps the strongest opinion. The 7
ahroof are 7 categories of recitational variants in
the Quran that were all recited by the
prophet or approved by the prophet.
So,
let's look at a a few examples here
then.
So there is nominal variation. So this is
one haraf. Okay? This is one,
type of variation
called nominal variation. And so the classic example,
right, is in al Fatiha,
Malik yomideen and Malik yomideen, right? That Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is both owner and king
of the day of judgment. So what's the
difference? Well, you see a king,
may rule and set laws over a kingdom,
but he may not necessarily own everything.
And then the owner may own something, but
may not necessarily
rule over anything. So
Allah is both owner and king. He rules
and owns everything.
The prophet recited it both ways. We know
this. We've known this for 1400 years, But
the skeptic will say, well, how do you
know the prophet recited it both ways?
This just seems like Muslims are trying to
cover up a discrepancy
in their book. So this
can be answered using common sense. We don't
need to rattle off, you know, SNE, the
change of transmission for this.
The prophet 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. I mean, people can
question these things if they want, and and
there are people who always do.
But let's let's ask a basic question.
How many times did the companions of the
prophet hear the prophet recite al Fatiha?
Right.
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 led
the Sahaba in prayer for 15 years. Okay.
So 15 times 354 days, the lunar year,
comes out to 5,310
days.
3 of the daily prayers are audible in
their first two cycles, Fajr Mahlra B'nisha.
Okay? So they would have heard the Fatiha
6 times a day
from the prophet. So 5,310
days times 6 recitations a day equals nearly
32,000
recitations
of Al Fatiha.
The Sahaba heard the prophet 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 Friday prayer, in e prayers, or outside
of prayer in conversations, lectures, and sermons. So,
did the companions of the prophet really get
Al Fatiha wrong?
Was was there really a difference of opinion
as to whether the prophets had Malik or
Malik? Did they really transfer this uncertainty to
their 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, now billions of people. But
the madness doesn't end here.
Some orientalists and modern Christian polemicists
even go further into the Twilight zone.
They claim that Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, one of
the companions of the prophet,
did not even believe that Al Fatiha was
part of the Quran.
And and this is ridiculous beyond comprehension.
Harvard's own doctor Shadi Nasr makes this claim.
I'll come back to this issue,
inshallah.
We'll talk about that. Okay. So I mentioned
a nominal variation as one haraf. There's also
inflectional variation.
Theological and a practical purpose.
So with respect to practice, okay, Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala says, wam sahubirusikum
marajulikum,
sorry, wam
sahubirusikum
arjulikum.
So, anoint or
wipe your heads and wash your feet. This
is for Wudu, right? For
illustrations
or
ablutions before prayer.
He also says,
Wipe your heads and wipe your feet. Okay.
So, this Haraf is called inflectional variation. You
see, generally,
we wash our feet, but there are circumstances
where we can wipe our feet.
When do we do that? Well, we look
to the sunnah, the normative practice of the
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, he could have revealed another verse
that said wipe your feet, but he didn't
do that. He inspired the prophet to recite
the same verse but with a slight adjustment.
He inspired the prophet with another form of
the verse. Okay? And this other form gives
us an additional meaning. This is a very
elegant aspect, a beautiful aspect
of the Quran.
With respect to belief,
chapter 19 verse 34 of the Quran says,
that such was Jesus,
the son of Mary.
Okay? It is it is the word of
truth about which they vainly dispute.
So here the word Qaul
is read in the accusative
Qaulalhaq,
meaning the aforementioned
statement about Jesus
is the true account.
The Christological teaching found in
the preceding verses presents the true Jesus, that
Jesus
is Nabiullah, a prophet of God.
He's Abdullah,
a servant of God, not the son of
God. That Jesus it says is Mubarak, He's
blessed, He's not Madron, He's not Accursed as
Paul says in Galatians.
He's not a deceiver and
blasphemer
as the Talmud says. Now, this same verse,
1934,
is also read
Here, the word Kol is read in the
nominative,
Qaululhaq.
So now, the verse means, such was Jesus,
the son of Mary,
he is the word of truth about which
they are vainly disputing. Jesus is the word
of Al
Haqq, the word of Allah, which is an
honorific title. It's Taqqrini,
which means honorific as Imam Al Razi explains,
if someone is known for his generosity, we
can say that he is generosity itself,
Right? It's figurative. So Jesus was totally truthful
in his speech. Why? Because all of his
speech was wacky. It 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 this way and emphasize his
truthfulness?
Probably because the new testament ascribes to Jesus
false prophecies.
That is to say falsifiable
predictions. We talked about this in our last
podcast we looked at the son of man,
the new testament ascribes to him falsifiable predictions
and blasphemy
while the while the tongue load ascribes to
him deception and and sorcery.
So in this honorific way, Jesus is the
word of god in the Quran, not in
the neoplatonic or trinitarian sense where he is
the pre eternal logos who emanated from the
very being
of an ontologically
or hypothetically superior deity.
The Quran says,
So this is negating Allah and Ma'alulia.
In other words, God did not cause or
beget
a person or son from his own being
in pre eternality,
nor was God the effect of any logically
prior cause. And I think essentially the Quran
here is repudiating
the Nicene creed.
So we see how the Ahroof enrich
the meanings of the Quran. Okay. This is
an aspect
of the utter uniqueness of the Quran.
And then, of course, the first I think
this is a beautiful point. Is is it
intellectually beautiful, and it enriches, one's
a more kind of one dimensional,
understanding which,
some people have. So this actually, elevates, as
you say, is a more elegant understanding of
the revelation, and it is a cause for
wonder, I suppose, a cause for
appreciation and wonder rather than,
seeing it as a problem. It's something we
we need to raise our expectations of of
the the word.
We'll see it in that morning the way
that we have perhaps before.
Yeah. It is it is something you know,
the Quran is sui generis, and we'll talk
about Yeah. The style of the Quran. We'll
talk about the, you know, the, sort of
the the ajaz, what's known as the ajaz
of the Quran,
the incapacitating
nature of the Quran discourse. This is just
another aspect of its utter uniqueness.
If something is a sui generis, if something
is one of a kind, obviously, there's going
to be things that are going to be
strange for people to to understand. But this
is part of that uniqueness that the Quran
revealed in 7 akhruf.
Okay? And
here's a here's another,
a third type of akhruf is called dialectical
variation.
So let's go here too. Yeah. So this
is in in, Al Ikhlas
in Sura 112
which gives our theology in brief.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Okay.
So why does it do this? Well, you
see the Arab was the first standard bearer
of the religion.
So god naturally facilitated things for him and
revealed certain words and phrases,
in different Arab dialects. The
the
the Arab is going to take this message
to the world. Right? This is the wisdom
behind, this harf. The Quran says,
Thus, we have revealed to you an Arabic
Quran, an Arabic recital, in order for you
to admonish
the mother of the cities, meaning Mecca,
and those around it.
The 4th harf is, is called synonymic variation,
synonymic variation. So, in 49 6th the Quran,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, You ayu hil
ladheenaamanu.
Inja'akum fasikun binaba infatabeyanu.
Oh you who believe,
if an immoral person brings you any
news,
investigate to, investigate the truth.
The same verse is read.
Oh, you who believe, if an immoral person
brings you any news, ascertain the truth. So
this is called synonymic variation. So
investigate the
manner, investigate the matter, ascertain the truth. Both
are true. Make tabbi, make tabbi. Either one
can be bread and prayer because they both
conform to the Uthmani Rasam, the continental
skeleton, the shorthand text
of the Uthmani codices, and both are authorized
through senate, through transmission.
So you see the original Uthmani codices, and
and we'll get into the narrative here of
the Uthmani codices,
did not have dots or vowel notations. Okay.
No dots, no vowels,
no.
Right?
No you know, we see.
So
are 2 authorized renditions
of the skeletal of the continental
skeleton,
of the Uthmanitechtual
tradition,
and the remaining are verbal, particular, and syntactical
variations. But I think the examples,
given are, sufficient.
Mhmm. Now
now Muslim scholars have described at length,
in the books of Ulum al Quran
that there are several readings
in pre Uthmanic companion codices
that differed in their Rasam,
in their textual traditions
from the Uthmani Rasam. Okay. So, let's talk
about the history of the Uthmanic textual tradition,
and make sense of these companion codices.
Okay.
So what happened between the revelation of the
Quran
and the standardization
of the Uthmani textual tradition?
So the prophet recited the Quran in prayers
and in lectures
for 23 years,
upon the 7 Ahref,
he recited the Quran as a multiformic text.
Various companions
went home and recorded what they heard from
him, in their personal codices.
Okay. So these included Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
Ubay ibn Nukab,
Abdullah ibn Abbas,
the author of C1, the author of the
senna palimpsest,
whom we can call Companion X,
and others. So these are the
companion codices.
So we have these various text
types or textual traditions. This is a term
used by doctor Haytham Siddiqui.
The textual tradition of Ibn Mas'ud, the textual
tradition of Ibn Kaab, the textual tradition of
Ibn Abbas,
the textual tradition of of companion x, the
the author of 1.
So according to Muslim sources,
during the prophet's time, there was widespread
memorization of the Quran,
scribal recordings of the Quran,
and an annual review of the Quran every
Ramadan with the archangel Gabriel.
This review is called Al Mu'arada.
If historians are hesitant to accept the latter,
that's fine. But certainly, it is a fact
that in the prophet's time, the recitation of
the Quran was widespread,
and it was being written down. Even Shati
Nasr concedes to this that the prophet had
scribes, kuttabalwahi.
Now the vast, vast majority of the texts
of these
companion codices were in total agreement.
However, according to our literary tradition, there were
some minor differences between
them. And our traditional scholars wrote at length
about these differences. Okay? They did not see
this
as a problem of preservation
at all.
Our
classical tradition can easily account for these differences.
We can say that they cause they can
say that they differed because of of four
things. Okay? So various orthographies,
in other words, the companions
spelled words in different ways. They used different
spelling conventions. Right?
Like, you know, Paul, you're in the UK.
You would spell colored
differently than me. You'd spell it with a
u. I don't use a u. There's many
examples like this. It's still English. This does
not affect the meaning whatsoever.
Number 2, variance
due to the revealed akhruv
where the rasem was different, and I'll give
you possible
examples later.
Number 3, scribal errors, you know, just kind
of misremembering
the exact syntax or the exact wording. I'll
give you possible examples of that. And then
number 4, differences due to exegetical
glosses or notes made by companions
in their personal codices.
And I'll give you possible examples,
of that as well.
But let's continue the narrative here.
Okay.
So so
various companions, they go out into the Muslim
world, the newly conquered lands. This was before
the othmanic standardization,
so prior to 650 of the common era.
And they take their textual traditions with them.
So, Ibn Mas'ud goes to Iraq, Ubay ibn
Nukab goes to Syria,
and companion X goes to Yemen.
Okay? So multitudes of people now are becoming
Muslim in these lands.
And at some point, the Muslims in these
lands outside of Medina begin to become aware
of or come into contact with other textual
traditions.
Okay. Textual traditions that they
did not know about,
and these traditions are slightly different
than what they were taught by their teachers.
So, this caused major unrest in these provinces.
Now, the caliph Uthman
is informed of this unrest. So, he forms
his codex committee in Medina
around 650 of the common era, possibly a
few years earlier.
So, he then attempted to recall
all of these various manuscripts floating around the
provinces
because he is going to standardize the text
based upon the dominant readings of the Quran
in Medina at that time.
He's going to standardize the text based upon
the dominant readings of the Quran in Medina
at that time. In other words, the most
prevalent readings of the companions.
Okay? He's also going to write the Rasam,
the continental skeleton, the shorthand text of the
Quran,
in the orthography, the spelling conventions
of the Qurayshi dialect of Arabic because this
was the prophet's tribe and the majority of
the Quran was revealed in this dialect.
So these actions
more or less
stabilize the text once and for all.
Now, Haitham Sichdi and Van Putten and Ben
Am Sadithi and Marzens Podavas, they all suggest
that
the Uthmani textual tradition
was likely a critical addition itself.
And I think this is consistent with our
narrative.
In other words, the Uthmani textual tradition was
drawn out
from the various
companion textual traditions that were present in Medina.
So the companion Zaydib Nufabit,
right, he calls for these manuscripts,
and they were checked against each other, then
checked against the the memories of the hafav,
the memorizers and masters of the Quran who
had served on the codex committee. And only
those readings that were the most
widespread and popular
were recorded in the various of money codices
that would be sent out into the regional
provinces, the Amsar.
Okay?
According to Siftri, Van Putten and Sean Anthony
and others,
all extant Qur'anic manuscripts today
descend from a single text type, the Uthmani
text type,
the Uthmani textual tradition. That is their textual
stemma or textual family.
All extant manuscripts,
except for 1, the lower text of C1.
Okay. The
sun up palimpsest.
But all but all of these scholars maintain
that c one and the Uthmani text type
share a quote common
and we'll say more about it later. Okay?
But I think that with the discovery of
a likely companion codex,
we can now say with a strong degree
of confidence
that the verse order in the companion codices
was very fixed. In other words, the structure
of the Surah was stable, not necessarily the
Surah order,
although the Surah order is generally longest to
shortest.
Okay?
In C1,
2 verses are transposed
and one verse was clearly accidentally skipped. I
mean, these
are scribal errors, but I'll come back to
c one. Okay. So let's look at the
diagram on the slide here.
So the letter p at the top of
the page,
stands for prophetic archetype.
Okay? And represents all of the Quranic recitations
of the prophet
Al Asab Adi Ahroof.
Okay?
There are various arrows
shooting down from p. At the end of
1 arrow, we see I m. That's.
At the end of another arrow, we see
c one. That's the sunnah palimpsest.
And then c 2, c 3, etcetera, etcetera.
Okay. These represent the other companion codices.
These are the various companion textual traditions
that contain minor differences
due to various spelling conventions, variations of the
aroof,
possible scribal errors, and possible exegetical notes. So
this is what Zaid had to work with.
Now under each companion textual tradition, there are
arrows shooting down
but converging upon a single point.
Okay? We can call this point the
Uthmani textual tradition.
So the Uthmani textual tradition
is a critical addition that incorporated the strongest
readings
from the existing companion textual traditions,
which were themselves eyewitness recordings
of the prophetic archetype. So in essence,
the Uthmani textual
tradition was a compilation
of the most widely attested readings of the
prophetic archetype.
The best of the best
gathered from the companion textual traditions in Medina
and checked against the memories of the Quran
memorizers and masters. I mean, the committee could
not have done a better job.
Okay.
The master of money codex
called the Imam manuscript
was then copied at least 3 times
and sent out to the Ansar, right, these
major metropolitan areas.
The the Andalusian scholar,
Abu Amur Adani,
whose book, Al Muknir, is is a major
reference when it comes to,
Qira'at
and and Masahif of the
Quran, manuscripts of the Quran. He he cited
several times in the ifkan by Saudi. Adani
says that there were 4 of money codices.
Okay. So Medina, Kufa, Basra, and
Syria. Okay. But he mentions there could have
been up to 7. Now doctor Sitti conducted
what he called phylogenetic
analysis on these manuscripts,
which is
which is used in biology to track sort
of evolutionary history of organisms.
And so this analysis generated various stemmas or
family trees of of manuscripts.
I don't exactly know how it all works,
but he does. This is some, you know,
cutting edge stuff.
Basically, he analyzed and aggregated
all of the extent Quran manuscripts
that he can get his hands on and
concluded that they all go back to 4
ancestral codices
with the exception of the lower text of
c 1, the sun of palimpsest. Again, I'll
talk about that later in shalom.
So all extant manuscripts with the exception of
c one go back to Medina, Basar Akufa
in Syria.
And based on carbon dating,
the time window, he says, is, quote, consistent
with 650 CE, the time of the caliph
Uthman.
So so Sitti concludes,
as does Van Putten and and others, Nikolai
Sinai,
that the broad strokes, as it were, of
the traditional Muslim narrative
of the Quran standardization by Uthman around 6
50 is historically accurate.
Okay? This is what the physical manuscript evidence
points to. Yep.
Okay?
Doc doctor you're upon. I was just gonna
say Go ahead. Professor Nikolai, Sinai, he's professor
of Islamic Studies University of Oxford. He's one
of the world's leading
authorities on this. He's a German scholar. He's
not a he's not a Muslim, of course.
And his book on historical critical introduction to
the Quran was published last year, which I've
got behind me. I was gonna get it,
but I'm not gonna bother. But,
recommended,
as well. But, yes, he he he endorses
the the standard narrative as you say. So
these are top scholars,
Muslim and non Muslim. There there's a a
consensus, I think, gathering around this point.
Yes.
Yeah. That's that is an excellent text. I
mean, I highly recommend that for anyone,
who wants to an introduction to higher criticism
of the Quran. It's absolutely fabulous text.
Doctor and and I was gonna say doctor
Nazir Khan,
He he wrote a very good article,
on the the variance, the variant readings of
the Quran.
He said that the traditional Muslim narrative is
true because, quote, the absence of any compelling
evidence to challenge it as well as, quote,
the presence of considerable data in its support.
Now now, Sthi,
he further says that the algorithm suggests
that the Medina and codex
is most likely
the Uthmanic archetype. In other words, the Basran,
Kufen, and Himsi or Syrian codices,
were copied from the Madinan. The Madinan codex
was the first codex that was produced.
So all Qur'anic manuscripts today, extant today, go
back to at least 4
Uthmanic codices with the exception of c one.
But the Uthmanic textual
tradition and the c one textual tradition have
a common ancestor, the prophetic archetype.
The problem with c one, we'll see, however,
was that it contained a few scribal errors,
various spelling conventions,
and readings which were not widely recited among
the Sahaba in Medina. But, again, we'll get
to that,
Inshallah.
But let's look a little a bit closer.
I said that there were four reasons for
differences in the companion codices.
So number 1, we said various orthographies.
The companion spelled words in different ways. This
is completely uncontroversial.
Let's focus on number 2, though. Number 2
is variance in the rasam
due to the.
Okay.
K. So let me give you an example
of this, and then we'll circle back to
numbers 3 and 4, scribal errors and and
exegetical
notes.
So the top of this slide says skeletal,
that is Rasmi,
variance in the textual tradition of
of ibn Mas'ud. Right? It's not extant.
Okay?
The only potential
potential companion codices,
that we have are c one and the
Birmingham manuscript. I mean, we have no external
evidence
of Ibn Mas'ud's Mus'haf, his codex.
Okay. C1 is definitely not his codex. Now
I should mention, some contemporary Muslim scholars have
argued that there never was a Mus'af of
of ibn Mas'ud. Okay. This is an opinion.
And and Al Abami, he explains this argument
in his, in chapter 13 of his book,
the history of the Quranic text. Chapter 13
is called the so called Mus'af of Ibn
Mas'ud
and alleged variances therein.
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument. I
think it's an interesting argument, when you engage
it, but,
it's not very compelling in my opinion. I
think Ibn Masrou definitely did have a musshaf.
What happened to his musshaf, his codex? Was
it recalled by Uthman
and destroyed?
Probably not.
One of the students of Imam al Kisai
in Kufa named Yahya
al Farah, he said that he actually saw
a copy of the codex of Ibn Mas'ud
at the end of the 2nd century Hijri.
Okay. So we have eyewitness testimony of its
existence way after Uthman.
Was this a fake, a fabrication? Was it
original? Was it a copy? Allahu'alam, god knows.
According to ibn Abi Dawud, Uthman did decree
that all, personal fragments of the Quran that
differ from the Uthmani Mus'af be destroyed.
But ibn Hajar mentions that that it was
possible that people erased the ink rather than
destroyed or burned their manuscripts. And, of course,
the lower text of c one was erased.
So it's very important that we study c
one. We'll look at that. However, ibn Mas'ud
codex apparently survived well into the 8th century.
Nonetheless,
it is reported
that in the textual tradition of ibn Mas'ud,
Ibn Mas'ud read Surah 101 like this,
Al Qari Atum Manqari Ahamma Adaraka Manqari Ahiyomayapunun
nasukhadfarashin
mabathuth.
So far so good. And then verse 5,
So what does the Uthmani textual tradition say?
So Ibn Mas'ud says the mountains will be
like carded suf.
Uthman says the mountains will be like carded
ehen.
What can account
for this difference?
Well, there are three possible reasons.
Number 1, this was an example of synonymic
variation,
one of the 7 aharof. In other words,
at times,
in order to facilitate
comprehension and retention
for various Arab tribes,
the prophet would recite verses in various ways,
and
sometimes a word with a similar meaning would
be used for another word because the latter
was not known or not popular among a
given tribe.
So suf and echin are synonymous. They both
mean wool.
Right? It doesn't make a difference at all
which word is used in the context of
this verse.
So the prophet recited it both ways. This
was a function of the.
At
times, the prophet's readings had this type of
recitational latitude for the sake of taisir alfahan,
for the sake of facilitating understanding among Arabs.
Now another possibility that I intimated earlier that
this was simply an error that Ibn Mas'ud
wrote down the wrong word. He misremembered it.
A third possibility is that the word
suf,
is that he wrote the word suf somewhere
in his codex, maybe above or below the
verse
as a tafsiri note, an exegetical note. In
other words, to sort of remind himself
that means suf, maybe because he wasn't familiar
with the word
and so he wrote down a synonym.
But then later, some of his
students maybe thought that he was correcting the
muskaf or that he was saying that either
one could be recited as a function of
the akhruf.
Abu Bakr al Bakilani, he said that companions
at times would write tafsiri notes in their
masahif.
Ibn al Jazari said that they would do
this idahan mabayanan,
meaning as a way of sort of clarifying
the meanings for themselves. So these were their
personal codices.
Okay? And so they would write their personal
notes,
in their personal codices.
So these these notes, in the in the
companion codices were really the very first form
of tafsir, of Quranic exegesis
in Islam.
And what's interesting is when we look at
the, like,
the, c one, when we look at the
sunnah palimpsest, we noticed that whoever wrote, whoever
wrote this, possibly a companion of the prophet,
right before Surah number 9,
there's a note that says,
Don't say Bismillah, because it's not the Sunnah
in the Quran to recite Bismillah before. So,
this is definitely
the companion making a personal note to himself,
reminding himself of something.
But for the sake of argument, let's go
with the first possibility.
Okay? Let's say that Ibn Mas'ud,
okay, recited it as suf because this is
when he heard the prophet recite.
Okay. Fine. And there are reports that Ibn
Mas'ud refused to submit his mushaf because he
said that, he learned his readings directly from
the prophet. Fine.
Now, even though Ibn Mas'ud's textual tradition was
popular in Iraq, okay,
it is very likely
that there were several companions
in Medina
who learned the Quran from him. He was
a great teacher of the Quran.
So it is very likely that there were
companions in Medina
who recited Surah 5 sorry, verse 5 of
Surah 101
as Kasuf Al Manfush.
So, so why does the Uthmani textual tradition
say
and not Suf? This is very simple. The
latter reading with Suf was just not widely
attested in Medina
at the time of the codex committee.
Okay. Suf was revealed to the prophet. Okay.
But for the sake of stabilizing the text,
it was abandoned by the codex committee.
Now you might say, how can they abandon
something from the Quran? That's a good question.
How is this not,
tahrifun nas? How is this not textual corruption?
How is this not nasch? How is this
not abrogation?
Well, let's start with the latter.
With respect to nusk, okay, abrogation,
no one other than the prophet
with God's leave can abrogate something. Okay?
Perhaps Souf was abrogated by the prophet during
his final mu'aradah with Jibril, his final review
with Gabriel, and Zaid in the committee knew
this.
So Ihin reflects the the prophet's final recension
with Gabriel.
But, again, let's say for the sake of
argument that it was not abrogated,
that both readings were valid.
How can the codex committee abandon the suf
reading?
Again, this is very simple. The akhruf were
a form of ruxa.
Ruxa means
concession,
alleviation,
or special permission.
The Quran was revealed in 7 Ahruf to
make understanding
easier
and a Ruksa by rule may be abandoned.
For example, if you travel during Ramadan,
you do not have to fast.
You can take that Ruksa
and not fast or not take it and
fast. It's your choice.
So the codex committee made the choice
to stabilize the Rasam upon one harf when
it came to this verse
rather than to have one Uthmani codex say
suf and another Uthmani codex say ihin
because this would have potentially led to the
to the very type of unrest in the
provinces that the, the codex committee
was specifically formed to quell. Okay?
Now so so this was not nusk. Okay?
This was not abrogation of the Quran. This
was abandoning a concession.
Neither was this tahrif,
textual corruption.
So tahrif would have been to change a
word to another word
that was not found in
any companion codex or manuscript and not recited
by any known companion.
For example, if the committee wrote,
like, wabar means
wool in Arabic. I don't know if it's,
if it's modern or classical Arabic,
but just just an example of a word
that is that is totally unattested.
Right? So
so this would have been tariff. This would
have been textual corruption.
If the codex committee
if the codex committee had decided
to fabricate
or corrupt the Quran,
okay, this would have been they would have
been confronted
by 1,000
of other Sahaba
who would have made life,
let's
just say very, very difficult for the committee.
Okay? Well, somebody might say, well, Usman was
assassinated.
Okay.
Yes. He was 6 years later, and that
had absolutely nothing to do with his standardization
of the Quran. He was killed by foreign
rebels who accused him of nepotism. It was
all political.
Okay. I mean, is Ibn Mas'ud Suf or
etcetera?
Is this really the hill that Christian polemicists
want to die on?
Right? Suf or ihin, really? I mean, it's
it's desperation, I know. When we look in
the new testament,
you know, and Christians don't believe in achos.
Right? We see variants
that have major theological implications
like John 118. Right? Is Jesus the only
begotten son? Is he monogenes
huios,
or is he the only begotten god,
the Now that is a variant reading for
you.
Okay. Which one is authentic? Well,
let's
look at the 1st century manuscripts of the
gospel of John. We have 0.
Okay? The oldest are p 66 and p
75, both late 2nd century and they both
say only begotten god.
This is the older and the more difficult
reading, so it's most likely the most authentic.
So, scribes in the later centuries, they
changed it to sun because the author of
John's gospel clearly believed that Jesus was a
second
god. Right? Like, Origen called Christ, the logos,
a deuteros
theos, a second god. Justin Martyr, the father
of Logos Theology,
he called the Logos Allos Theos,
another god. The the Johann and Jesus admits
that he himself has a God.
He's called God and he has a God.
That's 2 Gods.
John was highly influenced by middle Platonic metaphysics.
He explicitly called Christ the logos and the
only begotten God. And so later scribes
wanted to soften his explicit polytheism.
And so they changed only begotten only begotten
god to only begotten son.
So that is a very problematic,
variant reading
that has no similitude in the Quran, even
though Christian polemicists want to sort of equalize,
and we have this and you have it.
It's no.
It's worlds apart. Okay.
Now,
this is where the Christian polemicists will come
in with a Hadith. They love this Hadith,
right? It's going to backfire on them though.
So there's a Hadith in Bukhari, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he said,
was Salim mumu'aabu
Ubay ibn Nuqab.
Ookumaqala alayhi salatu wa salam. So the Prophet
said, take the Quran from 4 men.
From ibn Mas'ud
and Salim and Mu'adh and Ubay ibn Nukar.
Okay? First thing here, the Prophet didn't say
only these 4 men. The prophet mentioned these
4 because
they were the most imminent teachers of the
Quran
in his day.
But here the Christian polemicist says,
The prophet said, Take the Quran from Ibn
Mas'ud,
yet the codex committee abandoned many of his
readings.
Gotcha.
Right? So this is just,
an an an asinine.
You know? That is to say a brainless
argument. So so let's think about this. When
the prophet made this statement,
what did the companions do? Did they ignore
him?
No. They obviously listened to him and learned
the Quran, their Quran from Ibn Mas'ud.
Not all of them, some went to Ubay,
some went to Mu'adh, etcetera.
The companions who learned from Ibn Mas'ud probably
wrote down what they learned. So when Zaid
asked the generality of the companions to bring
their manuscripts
to the masjid,
during the standardization process,
those manuscripts were present. And I already said
that the Uthmani textual tradition was a critical
addition that assimilated the strongest readings
from the existing companion textual traditions.
In other words, much of the textual tradition
of ibn Masbud
was incorporated
into the Uthmani textual tradition.
So the codex committee did take from Ibn
Mas'ud
and ibn Ka'ab
and Salim
and Mu'av
and others. The codex committee was in total
conformity
with this hadith.
This hadith
absolutely works against the Christian polemicis.
Now, C1,
that we'll talk about later. I keep talking
I keep mentioning C1.
The the son Palim says, was also a
companion codex according to Behnam Sadele,
and and I agree with him. And although
C1 is not the Musaf of
ibn Mas'ud, in C1, we see exactly the
same types of differences that are described as
occurring in the Mushaf of ibn Mas'ud.
And this is how Doctor. Sikli describes C1.
He says, quote, by and large, it is
the same Quran we have in the Uthmanic
text type. End quote.
Therefore, logic tells us
that,
that this must also be true of the
Mus'haf of Ibn Mas'rud that by and large,
it is the same as the Uthmanic textual
tradition.
The Uthmanic textual tradition
drew upon,
okay, the textual tradition of Ibn Mas'ud and
others. This is exactly what the prophet said
to do, and this is exactly what the
codex committee did.
Now some orientalists
and many, Christian of polemicists,
claim that since there are reports
that Ibn Mas'ud's codex
did not contain Al Fatiha,
that Ibn Mas'ud did not consider Al Fatiha
to be part of the Quran. Like I
said earlier,
this goes beyond ridiculous. I think we've entered
into the realm of ludicrous.
If this report about his codex is accurate,
it's obvious that ibn Mas'ud did not write
Al Fatiha in his codex because al Fatiha
was so ubiquitous.
There was no need to write it down.
In fact, the Abbasid scholar Abu Bakr alan
Bari, is, is quoted by Imam al Qurtubi.
So the great exeget, Imam al Qurtubi,
in his Al Jami'r I Al Akkam al
Quran.
According to,
Al Anbari,
ibn Mas'ud was asked point blank
why he did not write al Fatiha in
his mushaf.
And ibn Mas'ud responded, lo kataptuhahataptuham
aquli Surah. If I had written it, I
would have written it before every Surah.
Right? This is how Muslims pray. They recite
al Fatiha and then another Surah.
So Al Anvari goes on to say that
Ibn Mas'ud did not write it because there
was no need.
All of the Muslims had it memorized, so
he left it off for the sake of
brevity.
So the argument of the polemicist here is
a nonsecretor.
You know, ibn Mas'ud did not write down
a surah in his mushaf. Therefore, he denied
that it was revelation.
No. At this early time, and you mentioned
this earlier, at this early time, orality took
precedence overriding.
Okay? And here's a quote from doctor Nazir
Khan, who wrote a fantastic essay, by the
way, entitled the origins of the variant readings
of the Quran. He says the reality is
that the Sahaba
is that the Sahaba used their writings of
the Quran as memory aids for personal worship
and recitation
and consequently never intended them as complete official
copies
of the Quran.
Now, Imam Suyuti, he quoted Imam Al Tabri
who who quoted
the verse in the Quran. So there's a
verse in the Quran, 15/80
7, that says,
that we have given you, oh prophet, the
7 oft repeated ones
in the great Quran.
And and Imam Tabari said about the 7
off
repeated ones. Like, what does that mean, the
7 off repeated ones? He says in his
tafsir, qala ibn Mas'ud fatihatul kitab.
Wah
wal Quran al adhin qala sa'il al Quran.
So he said that ibn Mas'ud said about
this portion of this verse, the 7 off
repeated ones, that this is a reference to
the Fatiha,
and that the great Quran was a reference
to the remainder of the Quran.
Okay. So but a critic here might say,
well, those traditions could have been fabricated,
to mitigate the controversy.
They they just seem so convenient.
Okay. But, again, this is not a historical
argument. It's an argument that a Christian apologist,
will use because he's forced to because these
traditions are devastating,
to his case. But, fine, let's forget about
these statements of Ibn Mas'ud. Let's use logic
and common sense. If Ibn Mas'ud did not
consider al Fatiha
to be part of the Quran, how did
he pray?
You know, how did his
students in Kufa pray? His imminent students like
Al Qama ibn Qais or Zir Ibn Khabeis?
How did their students pray? Ibrahim An Nakhai
and Aasen.
How did their students pray? Abu Hanifa
and his students,
Muhammad al Shaybani and Kabi Abu Yusuf. If
Ibn Mas'ud did not believe in Al Fatiha,
this causes a
cascade of unsolved problems.
In Bukhari, we're told that Ibn Mas'ud's student,
Al Khama, traveled to Syria and met with
the other companion, Abu Darda, and they talked
about the textual tradition of Ibn Mas'ud.
Did Alakha Mah dispute with Abu Darda about
and his and his hundreds of students
about the Quranic status of al Fatiha?
No, he didn't. Because if he did, you
better believe we would have heard about that.
It would have made major headlines.
That's it. Okay.
Why didn't Ibn Mas'ud's students in Kufa
clash over the Fatihah,
with the students of Abdurrahman al Sulani when
the latter brought the codex,
sorry, Texas receptus, as Arthur Jeffrey called it,
the Uthmani codex into Kufa.
You know, why didn't they make chakfir upon
ibn Mas'ud,
That is,
anathematize
him and his students for denying a surah
of the Quran and have them brought up
on charges
of blasphemy and thrown in jail and punished.
Now Arthur Jeffery points out that,
that ibn Nabi Dawud mentions in Kitab al
Musahes,
that it was reported that ibn Mas'ud used
to recite al Fatiha
as Arshidna Arshidna Siratal Mustaqi
instead of Idina Siratal Mustaqi.
And, you know, other critics are quick to
point this out as well. I mean, look
how transparent our scholars were. They mentioned all
these things. There was nothing to hide. But
here's the problem for the critics. They can't
have it both ways.
Right? So if their claim is that Ibn
Mas'ud rejected the Fatiha,
they cannot say now out of the other
side of their mouths that he No, he
recited it, but he
recited it as Arshid Nasirat al Mustaqimah, which
is it? Right? And I've already mentioned that
it is beyond obvious that Ibn Mas'ud considered
Al Fatiha
to be a surah of the Quran. So
what about this business of Arshidna? Was this
an authentic
variant reading like Madic or Medic?
Could it have been revealed to the prophet
in this way
in addition to as
a function of the akhruv? And the answer
is yes, it's possible,
although highly improbable.
Or perhaps ibn Mas'ud meant this to be
an explanatory note, a tafsiri note for himself
that, that Hidayah in this verse means Irshad.
Right? They're somewhat synonymous.
Maybe that's
also possible, but it's anomalous.
It's isolated. It has no solid basis. We
have no
external manuscript evidence of this.
And our qira'at come from mass transmitted
living traditions,
not from isolated and spurious reports, not from
remote possibilities.
Right? So the bottom
line is no one denied,
al Fatiha. That is just ridiculous.
Now
the other thing that they bring up, okay,
to create another shu'tah, right, another doubt or
suspicion is the report that states that Ibn
Mas'ud,
Ibn Mas'ud's Mushaf lacked the last two surahs
of the Quran. Right? So it's Surah 113
and 114 called Al Mu'awad attained.
Yeah. So Yuti mentions this.
And therefore, here comes their wild nonsecretary
conclusion again. And therefore, Ibn Mas'ud rejected these
2 Surahs as being the Quran.
Right? And and again, they they cite some
isolated reports that Ibn Mas'ud erased these
surahs from his codex. So my response here
has 4 parts. Okay? Number 1, we have
already established that for Ibn Mas'ud, if something
was not written in his Mus'af, it did
not mean that he rejected it as being
the Quran.
Perhaps he only wrote it in his Perhaps
he only wrote in his Mus'af
what he heard the prophet recite in prayer.
So he didn't hear surahs 113 and 114
in prayer, but he certainly did not reject
them as being the Quran. The Fatiha was
an exception because of its ubiquity. Number 2,
again, our reading traditions come from mass transmission,
not from isolated reports.
Number 3, according to Imam, Shem Sudin al
Jazari in his book Khitab al Nasr fihqratil
Ashar,
4 out of the 10 mass transmitted reading
traditions, and we'll talk about these reading traditions.
4 of, 4 out of the 10, so
Asim, Hamza,
Al Kisai, and Khalaf all in Iraq
can be traced to the prophet through Abdullah
ibn Mas'ud.
And all recite Surah's 113 and
114. And number 4,
even if this were true,
let's entertain this argument again.
Okay. For argument's sake, let's say this is
true. Ibn Mas'ud erased these 2 Surahs from
his Mus'af because he didn't believe them to
be the Quran.
Okay. It is clear from all of his
students
and their students that he eventually
did come to believe in their Quranic status.
This is a point that Ibn Hajar made.
It's very clear. Even if this statement is
true, it's obvious that he changed his mind.
This is yet another red herring that these
polemicists want us to chase.
This is this is them making sort of
a mountain,
out of a molehill.
Moving on here. Yeah. Just can we just,
about my own, thought I mean, obviously, not
a scholar or anything, but I've got my
copy here of the Holy Bible. This is
kind of an analogy,
and this is a very worn copy. I
mean, I I mean, it's it's a brown
because I and, obviously, it starts in Genesis.
It's the Christian Bible, and it ends in
the book of Revelation. Doesn't it? That's what
the bible should be. But in my copy,
there's some missing books. And actually, the last
page is Hebrews
Hebrews chapter
3.
Now, does this mean that the Holy Bible
doesn't contain the book of Revelation or the
letter of James or 123
John?
Because it's not in my copy,
which is extremely well worn away and thumbed.
No. Because because it was worn away by
use. And so I had to replace it
with this one, which is the full copy,
including the book of Revelation, which is missing
for my codex,
for my musha, for my, Christian bible. Yeah.
That I'm not saying that's a serious academic,
alternative, but it just goes to show that
things can get worn away through a lot
of use. It doesn't mean the books are
never there, or they're denied their canonical status,
or they're not inspired. It's just this particular,
book that I have is being worn away
through a constant use. That's it. No. That's
a good point. And and, of course, Surah
113 and 114 are the last 2 Surah
of the Quran. That's the point. They're the
last 2. Yeah. And the book of Revelation
is the last in the Bible, but it's
missing Exactly. My codex.
Does that what does that prove? Does it
prove it was never there in the first
place? Not really. It got worn away through
use.
Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
That's a good point. Now let's move to
the mushaf of another companion. So Ubay ibn
Uqab. Okay?
And the polemicists also,
they really love this mushaf.
Okay. So, again, we don't have the mushaf,
of of ibn Kab. It's not extent. C
one is not the mushaf of ibn Kab.
And C But although C1 more closely resembles
ibn Kab than it does of Ibn Mas'ud.
So what's the big deal about this Mus'haf?
Right? Well, there are reports,
reports that the Mus'af of Ibn Kaab contained
2 additional Surahs
that did not make it into the Uthmani
codex.
Gasp.
Sayyuti in the Iqan, he mentions this as
well and references this to Kitab al Mu'ath.
Sahib,
Al Adami mentions in his book, The History
of the Quran Text, that this was first
mentioned by Hamad ibn Salima, who actually died
167 Hijra, and that there's a major gap
in the ISN ed of this report of
at least 2 or 3 generations.
So Adame calls this report defective and spurious.
Nonetheless, let's look at these so called Suras.
The first so called Sura is called, Surat
Al Khala.
Okay,
and here it is, I'll read the entire
Surah, so called Surah,
Okay? So, oh, Allah, we invoke you for
help
and beg for forgiveness, and we believe in
you and have trust in you and we
praise you in the best way we can,
and we thank you and we are not
ungrateful to you, and we forsake and turn
away from the one who disobeys you. That's
it. This is supposed to be a Surah.
Not sure how many verses it is. The
second so called Surah is
called Surah Al Haft and here it is.
Allahumma Iyaka na Abuuwalakanussaliwanasjuduwailaka
nas
So O Allah, we worship you and ourselves
before you, and we hasten towards you and
serve you. And we hope, to receive your
mercy,
and we
dread your torment. Surely, the, disbelievers shall incur
your torment.
Okay.
Now let's go back here. Yes. So now
Muslims who are listening to this right now,
especially the Hanafis,
have probably immediately recognized
what I just read as
something called Dua Al Kunut. Okay? This is
also called Al Kunut Al Hanafi'ah.
This is a very popular prophetic invocation. Okay?
It is recorded
in numerous,
hadith that the prophet would often recite this
supplication,
Dua'al Qunud, during the audible prayers. I'll cite
a few here. So, Sunan
Abu Majah, number 1182,
created a sound on the authority of Ubay
ibn Nukab,
right? The same Ubay ibn Uqab who wrote
the codex in question.
The messenger of God used to pray witter
and recite Al Qunut before bowing.
Sunan
and Masai also graded a sound on the
authority of Ubay ibn Luqa'ab.
The Messenger of God used to pray 3
cycles during Surat al Wutr and he would
recite in the 1st Sura 87, in
the 2nd Sura 109,
in the 3rd
Sura 112, and then Al Qunut
before bowing. At timmidi number 401,
from Bara'i ibnu Azib, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam used to recite Al Qunut in the
morning and sunset prayers.
So, this was something the Sahaba heard the
Prophet say in prayer. Now, Doctor. Sean Anthony,
who is not hostile, he's not a polemicist,
he's written on this topic of the alleged
loss to surahs. Okay? And this is what
he concludes. This is a quote from Anthony.
A hoard of evidence strongly indicates that not
merely Ubayy ibn Ka'a, but also other companions
regarded the Surahs, he means these 2 Surahs,
as part of the Quran
and therefore part of the prophetic revelation given
to Muhammad.
Now, I don't necessarily
disagree with him here. I think it's certainly
understandable
why some companions could have thought
that these were
Surah. Right? The prophet used to recite them
in prayer.
Okay? And this is no doubt why Ubay
ibn Nuqa'ab and maybe others wrote these supplications
down in their Masahif
because the prophet would
recite them in prayer.
But then Anthony also says that these 2
Suras, quote, for whatever reason came to be
excluded from the canon
by the process of Uthman's collection and textual
canonization
of the prophetic revelation.
For whatever reason, really,
I think the reason is more than obvious.
So, these so called Suras were not deemed
genuine Suras by the codex committee
because the vast majority of the companions
always knew them to be special supplications,
that the prophet would recite in prayer nonetheless,
but not as Quranic Suras.
That the companions who did regard them as
Suras were simply wrong. They were under a
misapprehension.
Again, the Uthmani textual tradition was the most
widely recited rendition of the prophetic
archetype because it was called for the most
widely attested readings of the companions.
Why else would the committee exclude them? Why
else? Why? And Anthony doesn't give an doesn't
give an answer. Do they contain some aberrant
or blasphemous teachings? No. Do they contain, you
know, embarrassing grammatical errors?
No.
Do their meanings contradict the rest of the
Quran in some way? No. Now now this
is enough, but for what it's worth, let's
look at the internal evidence of these so
called Suras.
Now doctor Van Poonen contends
that these, supplications
sound like the Quran. Right? So he he
concludes,
yes. They are Suras of
the Quran. I disagree with him. I actually
don't think that they sound like the Quran.
I think the style and diction of these
so called Surahs
contravene
the Quranic idiom.
The reason is because,
they are the words of the prophet.
So what I mean is they are in
correct Arabic, and the meanings are sound. They
agree with the theology
and message of the Quran, but stylistically,
they are not Quranic.
And Anthony mentions this as well, although, ultimately,
he's not persuaded by it. Van Poonen's opinion
about these surahs is actually at odds with
Noldike and Shuale.
So Nolike and Shuali were the 2 main
authors of the seminal,
history of the Quran in German.
Nolike
and Shuali reject actually rejected these supplications as
being genuinely Quranic on literary and stylistic grounds.
I'll just give you 2 pieces of evidence.
So number 1, the
the vacative Allahumah,
meaning oh god,
never appears in the Quran as the first
word of any verse as it does in
these 2 so called Surahs.
In every occurrence in the Quran, you can
look in the concordance,
Allahumma is preceded by either Qul Qala or
something equivalent
like Their cry therein will be in other
words, God is quoting the people of paradise.
Right? This is equivalent to saying
Okay? So that's 1. And then and number
2, and even Anthony calls this this one
compelling evidence.
In Surah Al Khala, this so called Surah,
it says,
Right? We don't disbelieve in you
with a second person masculine singular,
phenomenal suffix as a direct object. However, in
the idiom of
the Quran, we should have expected to see
nekfuru bika.
Okay? The Quran always uses the preposition be
before the object of the verb kafarayakfuru.
Okay. In other words, this verb always takes
an indirect object.
Like I have some examples here.
Right?
I mean, there are hundreds of examples like
this every single time.
So, no, this is Dua'al Kunut. It is
the inspired speech of the prophet.
It is not the verbatim,
talaqi revealed speech of god.
If Sean Anthony's contention is correct and some
of the companions believed these words to be
Quranic
Suwar,
then the codex committee corrected their misunderstanding.
It it's very simple.
You know, it's ironic, you know, when when
Christian palamuses bring up this issue of the
so called missing surahs,
Paul says in 1st Corinthians
5:9,
he says something very interesting. He says, when
I I mean, most of what Paul says
is interesting. When I wrote to you before,
I told you not to associate with people
who indulge in sexual sin.
When I wrote to you before?
So Paul wrote an
epistle to Corinth before he wrote 1st Corinthians.
First Corinthians is actually 2nd Corinthians,
and 2nd Corinthians is actually 3rd Corinthians.
In other words, the new testament is missing
an entire book.
Perhaps Paul in real 1st Corinthians
said explicitly that Christ was an angel, or
that James was his mortal enemy. I mean,
we'll never know unless it's found, but then
will Christians be willing to amend their canon
and include it? I mean, if it's from
Paul, it it must have been inspired. Right?
Anyway, moving on here.
Now now before we talk about before we
talk about the synapalemcess,
I want to say a few things here.
I'm going to get a bit sort of
psychological,
on you. Now I I personally believe that
many of these
Christian apologists and polemicists who attack the Quran,
much of their vitriol,
I think, is due to the fact that
they,
somewhere in the back of their minds, they
recognize
the strength and accuracy of our narrative
when it comes to the Quran. And so
they're filled with envy and frustration because their
narrative
has been utterly deconstructed
by secular academics and historians. And the Quran
even intimates this. Right? The Quran says that,
many of the people in the book, they
wish to turn you away from faith out
of envy, Hasid and Indian
They wish to turn you away from the
truth and make you unbelievers out of envy
because the truth has been manifested
to them. So, this is called a guilt
complex. Right? So, they vainly accuse our narrative
of false
and attack our scripture because they know
that their own narrative and scripture is in
utter shambles.
The Christian polemicist attitude toward the Muslim is,
well, if my book is going down in
flames, I'm taking your book down, with it.
You see. They want us to sort of
commiserate with them. This is why many Christian
polemicists are probing into the history
of the pre Uthmanic Quran. This is their
obsession. What did the Quran look like before
Uthman?
In other words, what happened between the passing
of the prophet,
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the standardization of the
Quran by the codex committee of Uthman
This is the key period, 632 to 6
50.
Now, if you ask any Christian at random,
where does Jesus, peace be upon him, claim
to be divine in the new testament,
invariably, they will quote the gospel of John.
Right?
Not really Matthew, Mark, or Luke, which all
predated John. They'll quote John 316 and John
858 and John 1030 and John 146.
The author of the gospel of John,
as I said, explicitly refers to Christ as
Theos, a divine being or a God in
John 1:3 and John 118. Thomas refers to
Jesus as my God,
in in John 20, 28.
Of course, the, the gospel of John became
the most theologically influential book in the entire
new testament.
Traditionally, Christians attributed the the authorship of the
gospel of John to John, the son of
Zebedee, a disciple of Jesus. However, as I
said,
most secular and confessional historians today say that
the gospel of John was written around 90,
possibly later, as I mentioned.
And so to maintain
apostolic
authorship of John is just becoming
untenable.
That means a simple Jewish fisherman from the
Galilee who saw Jesus and heard Jesus's Aramaic
teachings
waited until he was
90 years old to write his gospel. And
when he did, he wrote it in a
foreign language.
Here's the historical question that has effectively devastated
Christianity, I think. And I want people to
listen carefully. What did Christians believe about Jesus
before the gospel of John?
Now, I believe that Paul, writing in the
fifties,
believed that Jesus was a God, not the
God, but a God.
For Paul, Christ was the divine son of
God who died for our sins.
I also believe that the synoptics present Jesus
as being a god. However, this is very
much open to debate. One can make a
pretty good argument that Paul and the Synoptics
did not believe that Jesus Christ was divine
in any way. The Unitarians,
make an argument along those lines.
However, in John, I think it's very clear
that Jesus is a divine being
of some sort.
He's called theos explicitly. I think that Johann
and Jesus
himself is claiming some sort of divine status.
Not only this,
by referring to Jesus by the loaded term
logos who was in the beginning with God,
John has
explicitly tapped into this type of Hellenistic metaphysics,
and this would have
eventually crystallized into the full blown doctrine of
the trinity in the early 4th century. So
if not for the gospel of John, would
we have the Christian trinity? That's debatable.
But I think that everyone would agree that
the gospel of John was a highly, highly
theologically
influential document
in the Christian world when it
became popular. Okay. It was a game changer.
Yet today, most historians tell us that none
of the so called divine claims of the
Johannan Jesus should be trusted
as being traceable to the historical Jesus. These
statements of the Johannan Jesus, they're not early,
they're not multiply tested, they're not socially and
theologically coherent.
Also, if the historical Jesus truly made these
pronouncements, the I am statements, there is no
good reason why the Synoptics,
the Synoptic authors did not record them.
So now the Christian polemicist,
right,
battered and broken as it were, wants desperately
to say that the Uthmani codex,
like the gospel of John, was also a
highly
theologically
influential document when compared to the textual traditions
that preceded it. That the Uthmani codex
like John compared to the Synoptix
was markedly different in its content and style
when compared to the companion codices
that preceded it. That's the guild
complex. Right? Now let's look at the difference
here. Okay?
Let's look at the difference.
So what is the Uthmanite textual tradition?
Let's break it down a little bit more.
It is a collection of the dominant readings
of the Quran by the sahaba, Sahaba, the
companions
in Medina in 6 50.
When Uthman commissioned,
Zaid as director of the, codex committee, Zaid
commanded
that all Sahaba who had any personal Quranic
manuscripts, right, companion codices
in their homes to bring them to the
mosque.
Now we know again that the that the
prophet had appointed scribes to write down the
Quran.
According to Muslim sources,
for every portion of the Quran presented,
Zayd demanded 2 witnesses. What does 2 witnesses
mean? So ibn Hajir says,
He says, 2 witnesses who testify
that the verse or literally that which literally
that which was written was written verbatim in
the presence of the prophet. In other words,
2 men who saw it written in the
presence of the prophet. So Al Adami clarifies,
2 men who saw it written under the
prophet's supervision.
2 of the official scribes, really.
And this was based upon the verse in
the Quran that states that whenever we enter
into a contract, let 2 witnesses from your
men,
bear witness. Right?
These men must witness the actual writing of
the contract. Okay? So so we can imagine
that there were many, many manuscripts
submitted by different companions that contained the same
verses. Right? So a lot of duplicates. We
can also imagine that due to the Quran
being revealed in 7 Akrof, that there were
some variations of the same verses in the
manuscripts of different companions.
Two witnesses does not mean that only 2
men were reciting those verses
or that only 2 men remember
hearing the prophet recite those verses. No, it
meant that 2 men distinctly remember when those
verses were ordered by the prophet himself to
be transcribed
officially.
Those verses could have been recited by thousands
of companions,
hundreds of whom heard the prophet himself recite
them. Now, what did Uthman why did Uthman
choose Zayd ibn Thabit to head the committee?
The answer is So in addition to being
the prophet's close companion as well as his
neighbor,
Zayd was also the chief scribe of the
prophet.
He was also a Hafid of the Quran.
Nobody from the companions knew the Quran better
than Zaid and Noufabbath.
Okay? All of the men serving on the
codex committee were hafaa. They had memorized the
Quran. They were Quran masters.
Whenever a manuscript was witnessed for
by 2 men, the committee then checked it
against other manuscripts
and then against their memories
and the memories of the well known Harfath
of the Quran.
And those readings that were
deemed to be the most widely recited among
the hafad,
the Quran masters among the companions, as well
as among the generality of the other companions,
those readings were officially transcribed
in the master of money codex.
So written and recited materials were collated against
each other
to determine the most dominant reading.
Now, why did Zaid do all of this?
Why the 2 witnesses? Why not just write
down
what the committee was reciting? Why look at
the manuscripts?
Well, the answer is Zaid and the committee
wanted to reconcile the written Quran with the
recited Quran. You wanted to make doubly sure
that nothing was left unaccounted for. Perhaps there
were,
perhaps the reverse is written down that were
not being recited. If so, why?
Perhaps there were verses being recited
that were not written down. If so, why?
He wanted to ensure total agreement and accuracy.
So Zaid, he said, I gathered the Quran
from various manuscripts and from the chests of
men.
Right? So let's say for instance, that a
manuscript or 2 was presented that contained the
Dua and Kunut. Right? The the 2 so
called Suras
that were found in the Musaf of Ubayy
ibnqa'ah.
Why were these verses not transcribed in the
master codex by the committee?
Were they somehow theologically offensive? No. We covered
that.
Perhaps these verses lacked a single witness
among the scribes. In other words, they could
not verify that the prophet himself considered these
verses to be the Quran.
Perhaps these verses were not widely recited as
being surahs of the Quran.
In the end, the committee deemed that these
verses constituted a prophetic supplication,
not Quranic ayat, and that the companions who
considered them to be Surahs were simply wrong.
The committee did their due diligence.
Okay? They could not have done a better
job.
Now, according to Muslim sources,
the last two verses of Surah
At Tawba,
okay, had only one witness. His name
was Abu Hoseim Al Ansari. Again,
this does not mean that only one man
was reciting these verses or that only 1
man heard the prophet recite these verses.
It meant that one man remembered when these
verses were transcribed by order of the prophet.
Now Zaid and the committee, they went ahead
and wrote down these verses in the master
codex, despite having only one witness,
precisely because these verses were so widely recited
among many, many Sahaba. There was really no
doubt about them. Okay. So, the rule of
2 was important. The rule of 2 witnesses,
it was important to the committee, but it
was still secondary to what the committee regarded
as being widely recited or mass transmitted
in recitation. Okay?
For the companions,
the earliest Muslims,
the written word was important, but it took
a back seat to what was widespread
in recitation.
The companions prior to the committee did not
consider their personal manuscripts to be official and
complete
codices.
That's very, very important. Okay. Now,
many modern
anti Quran polemicists,
they enjoy raising doubts and suspicions, even the
shubu hat, about the actions of the codex
committee under Uthman. Right? Their claim is basically
that the Uthmani textual tradition, right? The Quran
we recite today is not what the prophet
used to recite,
that the Uthmani text is somehow incorrect or
corrupted. And they will appeal to 2 things
to support their position.
Okay. Number 1, they will appeal to the
radical claims of some extreme elements
of the leaders of the Rafidah, right? The
Shia
who claim that Uthman's committee
corrupted the Quran.
That's number 1. Number 2, they will appeal
to the fact that many of the readings
of the Quran recorded in the various companion
codices
differed from the standard of Mani codex. Okay.
So let's look at the the first so
called piece of evidence.
Now it is true that there have been
a few Shiite scholar
who claimed that Buffman's committee manipulated,
at least a couple of verses in the
Quran that praise the Ahlulbayt, the prophet's family.
In other words, the committee,
did what the Quran
says, that certain Jews did with with the
Hebrew bible. Right?
Which literally means they they shifted words from
the proper context.
They decontextualize
the text, which is a form of textual
corruption.
The Shiites identify these verses as Ayatul,
Ayatul Khadir, they say, and Ayatul Tathir, which
appear in verses in in Suras 5 and
33
of the Uthmanic Quran
respectively. Their claim is that there are statements
in these verses which really belong in other
Surah.
Right? And that by placing them
in these present Surah, Surah 5 33, the
Uthmanic committee altered their true meanings
and their true, context.
Now when these anti Muslim
atheists and Christian polemicists,
whoops.
Sorry about that.
When when they hear stuff like this, right,
they jump all over it. Right? It's it's
music to their ears. You see, they say,
even other Muslims are saying that the Omani
Codex
is corrupted and unreliable.
You know, Wansbur
pointed out that the Muslims went from an
interfaith accusation
of scriptural alteration to an intrafaith
accusation
of scriptural alteration. So here here's my twofold,
response,
to this. Number 1,
the vast majority of Shia
scholars do not make this claim. Okay. This
claim actually clashes
with clear cut texts within
the
Quran.
Right?
That verily we sent down this reminder, the
Quran, verily we are its guardians. I mean,
one would have to interpret this
verse in very strange and highly cryptic ways
in order to maintain
one's claim that the Quran
has been corrupted. Right? Based upon the clear,
plain, and apparent meaning of this verse, the
Quran is preserved, and to say otherwise is
zandaka, is heresy clearly.
So this is a fringe opinion among a
few Shiite exegetes that the overwhelming majority do
not endorse.
Okay. Number 2, historically and logically,
this claim,
totally implodes into
an oblivion.
Let me show you how. So let's think
about this again. If the codex committee of
Uthman manipulated or changed or corrupted verses
of the Quran that praised Ahlul Bayt,
then surely this would have run afoul of
Sayna Ali ibn Abi Fad,
right?
Was Ali secretly reciting the uncorrupted
form of these verses
in his home with Imam Hassan
and Imam Hussein?
If certain Shi'ites should answer this question with
a yes,
then when Ali became caliph and
moved the capital to Kufa, why didn't he
call for another codex committee
to correct the mushaf? I mean, he could
have done that. He became Khalifa tul Muslimee.
He was Amir Umminin,
right? Why didn't he form a second committee
to restore these verses and correct the Uthmani
codex? What did Adi actually do? Well, he
led the prayers in Kufa every day by
reciting the Uthmani textual tradition.
Okay. He recited exactly what was presented to
the Kufans
5 years earlier by Abdul Rahman al Sulami,
the qari who brought the codex
into Kufa from Medina.
So my question for the few Shiite leaders
who continue to claim
that the Uthmani Codex is corrupted is this,
do you really believe that Ali was reciting
in prayer what he believed to be a
corrupted Quran?
Every answer to this question is going to
be problematic.
So the claim that the committee corrupted the
Quran because they wanted to disparage
and delegitimize
the family of the prophet is just is
absolute garbage. Now the second piece of evidence
that these anti Quran polemicists will use,
in order to throw suspicion upon the codex
committee is the fact that some of the
readings in the companion codices
differed from the Uthmani codex. And we talked
about this, but now I want to specifically
talk about the San'a Palimpsest.
Okay. I think we've arrived now. Finally got
here. Finally got to this. Finally got here.
Yes. Building up and here we are.
It's all downhill from here. So so we
talked about Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn Ka'b. Right?
Now the lower text of the Yemeni palimpsest
is is another example.
According to the most authoritative
academic study done on the palimpsest, which was
by Sadri and Budarzi,
the lower text of the Yemeni palimpsest was
most likely a companion codex.
Okay. Sadri calls it C1 as we said,
the codex of an unknown companion. It's the
only manuscript of the Quran ever discovered that
is not part of the Uthmani
textual tradition or the Uthmani textual stemma or
family.
C one is about 41% of the Quran.
It was most likely, written between 617 and
647
of the common era, obviously, before the codex
committee.
Now, I've already explained why there are some
differences among the companion textual traditions. Right? According
to our
traditional sources, there are four possible reasons, a
different spelling conventions,
variance due to the revealed Ahrof where the
Rasm is different, possible scribal errors,
possible exegetical glosses or notes made by companions.
The lower text of c one is is
no different just as our tradition perfectly explains
the variance and the text
traditional traditions of imasurud and Ubayi nukab,
it also perfectly explains the variance in the
textual tradition of c one. So at the
end of the day, c one
is what one of my colleagues refer to
as a big nothing burger.
Right? The the discovery of c one A
big nothing
burger, did you say?
Burger. Yeah. A big I don't know if
you have that express No. I It's something
that's hyped
up. Something that's hyped up but turns out
to be nothing. Okay. This
expression. We don't have that we don't we
don't have that in England, that expression. Anyway,
that's okay.
It's gonna make its way over there now.
Thanks,
Transmission route is very clear. We know we
know who to blame if it does come
over here. But, anyway yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. The discovery of c one actually supports
the Muslim narrative. Right?
So so anti Muslim polemicists,
they want it so bad
to find
additional verses,
additional surahs,
or highly
logically significant material in C1 when compared to
the Uthmani textual tradition, there was nothing significant.
They wanted the differences between the companion codices
and the Uthmani text to be as great
as the differences between the synoptic gospels and
the gospel of John. They wanted to find
something equivalent to
the pericope adulterite
or the Johann and coma or the longer
ending of Mark.
They were disappointed.
Okay?
Now there's there's an outstanding short video, actually,
I recommend on YouTube that explains the nature
of the differences found in the palimpsest. It's
called,
what do these San'a what do these San'a
manuscripts tell us about the Quran by Al
Muqaddima.
So I recommend that. I'll quickly summarize the
major findings.
Okay. There are 35 minuteor textual differences between
c one and the Uthmanic text or instead
of a wa it says fa, instead of
lan it says la
or a definite article is missing from a
word. Okay. These are all differences in prepositions,
particles, and and definite articles.
There are also another 25 or so textual
differences in nouns and verbs.
18 of the 25,
are with similar sounding words.
18 of the 25. So these are easily
explained away as human error.
Right? Sometimes a word in C1
is missing when compared to Uthman. This is
again most likely human error. People were more
much more likely to leave a word out
when when writing from memory than add a
word. There are a few instances, however, where
C1 has an extra word when compared to
Uthman,
but these can be explained away as textual
assimilation, okay, which is another form of human
error. But for example, in the Uthmani tradition,
chapter 2 verse 193, Suratul Baqarah verse 193
says, Wayakunu Dinu Lillah.
Wayakunodinu
lila.
C1, the same verse reads Wayakunadinukuluhulila.
Kuluhu. So, C1 has an
Right? Where did C1 get this word from?
Well, it's very likely that the scribe confused
2193
with chapter 8 verse 39 because 839
sounds a lot like 2193.
And 839
does in fact read, Wayakuna
dinu kulu hulilla.
Okay? So this is called textual assimilation of
parallel verses. Textual assimilation
of parallel verses. It's very common. Mean, I
do this all the time when I'm memorizing.
At least when I'm trying to memorize
the Quran, I confuse similar sounding verses. But
only these phenomena you're talking about are very
well researched and documented in the biblical manuscript
traditions. And all of these are understood and
made allowances for, and no two manuscripts are
absolutely identical because they're all written by hand.
So this is well a well developed and
understood science in a way in biblical manuscript,
traditional textual criticism.
So we should really allow,
some leeway in in in the the thematic
and other textual traditions in the of the
Quran, because we're dealing with human beings who
are talking manuscripts
it's the same process it's you fallible humans
so we would expect I would think we
would expect to see precisely the kind of
phenomena which you have detailed. If we didn't
see it, we there'll be a I would
think it'd be a problem, the problem because
how could it be so different so this
is precisely what we should and do in
fact see and as you say, is to
do with you know, misremembering or actually thinking
of another verse when, and and that's inserted
instead. All this is well recognized in the
biblical tradition, so we should make that, allowance,
I think, for the Quranic manuscript tradition, if
we're gonna be fair and balanced on this.
Yeah. Exactly. But, you know, they say when
you get older, 4 things happen
to you. Right? Number 1, your memory weakens,
and I don't remember the other 3.
Oh, very witty.
Yes. Yeah. So so almost all of these
additions in c one can be explained by
textual assimilation of parallel verses. Yeah. There are
more instances where the Uthmani text has additional
words that are not in c one. Now
this is interesting. According to Sadhli and Bergman,
they have a paper called, an academic paper
called the codex of a companion of the
prophet and the Quran of the prophet. They
say this means that the Uthmani tradition is
closer to the prophetic archetype
than C1 or Ibn Mas'ud.
Okay? Now, from our perspective as Muslims,
we have no problem saying that it is
possible that many of these differences
between c one and the Uthmani codex are
due to the revealed 7 Ahroof. In other
words, it's possible that 2 193 was also
revealed as,
and that the Uthmani committee, you know, stabilized
the
based upon the most prevalent reading.
With with this verse specifically, however, it just
seems like a scribal error. Right? So so
so here's the conclusion of of Sadat and
and Yuy Bergman about the Yemeni palimpsests, and
I'll end this section,
with this quote.
They say,
in any case, textual criticism suggests
the standard version. What do they mean by
standard version? They mean the Uthmani textual tradition.
The standard version is the most faithful representation
among the known codices
of the Quran as recited by the prophet.
This appears at first as a curious coincidence,
but on second thought, it is not surprising.
If anyone had the resources to ensure that
a reliable version be chosen, it would have
been the caliph.
And if anyone had more to lose by
botching up the task, again, it would have
been Uthman, whose political legitimacy and efficacy as
caliph dependent completely
on the goodwill of fellow distinguished associates of
the prophet. The remarkable few and minor skeletal
morphemic
differences among the codices with Monsanto the cities
is another indication of the care that was
put into the process of standardization.
And, I'll talk about those minor skeletal morphemic
differences in a minute here.
Okay.
Okay. Now,
at this point, I wanna talk about
how we go from the Uthmani
Masahif
to the 10 authorized Qira'at. In other words,
how do we go from the Uthmanite textual
tradition
to the canonical reading traditions?
Okay. So the caliph Uthman,
Radhulahu
Anhu, he sent 4, 5,
7, up to 11 copies of the Medina
master codex to these amsar, these major Muslim
metropolitan
areas. There are various reports. According to Suyuti,
the most popular report states that he made
5 copies
of the master codex
and sent them to Mecca, Basar al Kufa,
Damascus,
and another one in Medina.
However, these codices were obviously unvouled.
Right?
So, the diacritical system had not yet been
invented. So, Abu Aswadaduwali
would develop an early form of them a
bit later.
But these codices were also dotless
and dots were used by the Arabs at
the time. So, why didn't Usman
dot his codices?
Well, the answer is very simple. By leaving
the rusum,
right, the continental skeletons of these codices undotted,
Uthman allowed for the akhruf to be accommodated
by reciters.
So reciters in these amsar could plug into
the text
the divinely revealed akhruf, the recitational variances given
to the prophet.
And definitively
dotting the text would have severely limited their
abilities
to do this. Again, the text of the
Quran had always been multiformic,
not uniformic
since the time of the prophet. And so,
if man wanted
that key
stabilized the text once and for all, and
that's true. But
how would all of the Ahruf in their
totality
be accommodated by the Uthmani codices, hence the
Uthmani
textual tradition? Well, the
most coherent answer is that they were not
all accommodated in their totality.
So it is not the opinion of our
classical scholars
that the totality
of the
akhir must be preserved and recited in order
for the Quran to be preserved. As long
as at least 1 harf is presented of
any given verse, then the Quran is preserved.
Okay? This is Imam Al Jazari,
Ibn Hajj al Askalani,
Makki ibn Abi Talib. Not all the akhruf
in their totality
are contained
within the Uthmani textual tradition. That is not
necessary.
Remember, the Ahruf were given as a concession,
a Ruksa. Right? And so, one may abandon
a concession. So
this is why, for example,
all of the Uthmanic codices read Ihin, right,
in Sura 101 verse 5.
And not suf al manfush as we said.
If suf was revealed as a haraf, it
did not, it did not need to be
accommodated.
And having rusum that were at odds
would have caused more turmoil among the provinces.
We talked about that. So the committee chose
Ihmin al Manfush because that was the more
popular reading, the more
widespread rendition of the prophetic archetype.
And so, that's what they wrote in all
of the regional codices. But even with this
said, okay, even with this said, Uthman did
allow for a slight variance
in the rusum of his codices
when it came to some particular
variations,
prepositions and particles,
but not
words or phrases. So according to, Abu Urbeid,
Ibous Salam, with month 6 codices, we're in
99.999
percent agreement
in the Rusum.
There was a difference of 43 characters
out of almost
374,000
characters, and this was intentional.
So the committee did accommodate for a few
of the well attested
particular variations
that very slightly altered the Rusum.
Okay. The the the continental skeleton. For example,
in the Meccan codex, in the codex sent
to Mecca, okay, there is an there is
an additional preposition min in verse 100 of
the 9th Surah.
Okay. That does not appear into other codices.
So that is 2 characters, a mem and
a nun.
Alright. There are a few more of these
totaling 43 characters across 6 codices.
So again, these were intentional. They were accommodating
various authorized readings.
But here's another question.
How did the reciters living in these AMSAR,
living in these
regional provinces, how did they know how to
plug the across into the rassel?
How did they know how to read
an unvoweled, undotted text? Was it all just
guesswork?
Now classical orientalists like Gold Zeyer and Arthur
Jeffery,
they they used to claim that indeed reciters
were at total liberty
to vowel and dot the text however they
wanted. As long as the text made some
sort of sense to them, it was all
good.
And this is why different reading traditions
eventually developed according to these orientalists.
And today, some, you know, neo orientalists and
Christian polemicists still still say this.
This claim is demonstrably
false, and and I'll show you why here
in a minute here. But first, what else
do our sources
say about what Uthman did? So Uthman, mashaAllah,
did an incredible service for this religion. He
did not simply send these codices
to these cities without guidance.
With He sent with each codex a master
Qari,
a trained reciter of the Quran, who was
either a companion of the prophet or a
student of a companion
who had mastered how to read his respective
codex
upon all of its possible and authentically transmitted.
So for example, he sent Al Muhirah ibn
Shihab,
to Syria,
with the damascene codex.
He sent Abdul Abdul Salami to Kufa with
the Kufin codex, etcetera.
So it was these committee appointed Quran
who taught the regional Quran, the regional reciters,
how to read the codices. And I'll demonstrate
this, in in in a minute. Imam al
Sayyuti quoted Zayd ibn Thabit, who said, al
qira'a sunnah. Right? Recitation
is sunnah, I e, it is from the
prophet.
All of this was talati. The recitation of
the Quran was passed down verbatim,
from teacher to student,
teacher to student, okay,
until it reached us. Okay. So how does
this work? So so imagine,
Abdul Rahman al Sunami arrives in Kufa with
his codex.
He arrives from Medina sent by Uthman.
Ibn Mas'ud's textual tradition,
right, was already popular in Kufa when al
Sunami arrived.
However, many of the readings
of ibn Mas'ud were either abrogated by the
prophet during his final mu'a'a with Gabriel,
or they were abandoned by the committee because
they were not strongly backed by the majority
of the companions in Medina, and Uthman wanted
to stabilize the text.
However, by and large, the Uthmani textual tradition
and the textual tradition of Ibn Mas'ud were
in total agreement, as we said. In fact,
as as we said, the the Uthmani textual
tradition was based upon
the strongest
readings of the companions, including many of the
readings of the Ibn Mas'ud. This is why
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud is mentioned in the Isnaad
of Hafs and Asan along with other Sahaba.
Right?
So the Isnaad begins
with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then
Ali ibn Abi Talib and Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
and Ubay ibn
Nukah, and Zayd ibn Nusabit, and others, but
these are the most imminent. Then Abdulrahman al
Sulami, the master party who brought the Kufin
codex from Medina.
Then his most prominent student, Assim, ibn Abi
Najood.
Then one of his most prominent students, Hafs
ugne ibn Sulayman.
Okay?
So here's another question,
though. How did how did Assam vowel and
dot his his regional codex?
You know? Did he have, you know, absolute
free reign
to vowel and dot whatever he wanted,
as long as the,
text made sense?
Or did he have no choice whatsoever?
The answer is in the middle. So he
had what's known as.
He had the ability to choose, but only
from a,
from among a fixed number of variants
that all had origin in the prophetic archetype.
Okay. So variants that were taught to him
by his teacher,
Abdulrahman al Sulami, who mastered
with money, textual tradition with all of its
possible akhov. Variants that had strong and connected
chains of transmission.
Okay.
So reciters
were obligated to fulfill 3 conditions
when they chose their readings. Okay. So in
other words, in order for their readings to
be correct and authorized,
they must fulfill 3 conditions.
Number 1, their readings must be incorrect sorry.
Must be in agreement with the rasim of
at least one of the Uthmani codices.
Number 2, their readings must be mass transmitted,
that is transmitted through generations after generations
of reciters with uninterrupted change of transmission
tracing back to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And number
3 is more secondary.
Their readings must be incorrect Arabic. And I
say secondary because there's nothing mass transmitted that
agrees with the Uthmani textual tradition that is
an incorrect Arabic.
In other words, if the first two conditions
are met, the third is automatically met. Now,
now, Van Putin claims that there is an
authorized reading in the Uthmani textual tradition that
is in incorrect Arabic and that and that
the Quran contains
a grammatical error. This is false. He's he's
wrong. We'll we'll look at that. And also
some of the claims of, Shadi Nasser in
part 2 of this of this series inshallah.
We actually look at the content of the
Quran, the style of the Quran.
Now, in the 4th century Hijri,
okay, an Iraqi scholar named Abu Bakr ibn
Mujahid
wrote a famous book called Kitabu Saba Kitabu
Saba for the Quran.
Okay? He died in, 936
of the common era. Now now during his
time, there were many, many
correct reading tradition
things. Okay. Qara'at within the Uthmani textual tradition.
Dozens of Qara'at had had risen to prominence,
over the last couple of centuries.
Ibn Mujahid, he chose 7 of these popular
reading traditions
and he documented them in his book Kitabu
Saba. Okay? So these are ibn Amr, Abu
Amr,
ibn Kathir, Nafi, Hamza, Al Kisai, and Asim.
Okay? But two points here that I'll make.
These reading traditions were already very popular even
before ibn Mujahed was born.
Okay? This fact is mentioned explicitly by a
Suyuti in the Iqan, And this is why
even Mujahid, you know, chose that. His his
choosing of them probably
made them more popular, but they were already
popular.
Abu Ubaid
made mention of these reading traditions
before Ibn Mujahid.
Suyuti said that by the end of 2nd
century, Hijri, before ibn Mujahid, he said people
were upon the readings of Abu Amr, Hamza,
Asin, ibn A'amr, ibn Kathir al Nafi.
The second point is that
each one of these eponymous Quran
highlighted by, Ibn Mujahid had a multitude of
students
who had been transmitting the Quran from them.
So these were huge,
vibrant
reading traditions.
Okay. One of these eponymous Quran, Ibn Amr
learned the Quran under the companion of the
prophet Abu Darda. This is according to Ibn
Asakir in his, Tariq Dimash, in his history
of Damascus.
Ibn Amr learned the Quran from Abu Darda
who had 1600 students. So, Ibn Amr was
one
of the 1600 students, 1600 students of, of
Abu Darda.
One companion had 1600 students. Now, imagine how
many total students
from the Tabi'im, right, from the 2nd generation
there were, from all of the Sahaba
who transmitted and taught the Quran. So even
if 10 percent So there's 100,000 companions of
the prophet, right? Even if 10% of the
Sahaba
were
transmitting the Quran, that's 10,000 Sahaba. If each
just had 50 students, that's half a 1000000
students
in the 2nd generation.
So in reality, the numbers are in the
millions.
This is called mass transmission.
This is called Tawato.
Okay. Now this is very important to understand.
Over time,
many people erroneously
conflated
these 7 reading traditions,
okay?
These 7 reading traditions in Ibn Mujahid's book
with the 7
aharuf because it's the same number. Right? And
so many people started to say that there
were only 7 correct
meeting traditions because the prophet said the Quran
was revealed upon 7 Ahroof. This, of course,
was a major misunderstanding.
The Qur'at and Ahroof are not the same
things, but they started to say, you know,
Asim is 1 Haruf and Nafir is 1
Haruf and Ibn Amr is 1 Hafno. Asim
and Nafir and Ibn Amr are Qira'at
that drew from the
pool of the 7 aqif. Okay. So that's
a very important distinction. Now, at this point,
Abu Amr Adani,
he basically simplified Ibn Mujahid's text.
Okay. So Adani chose 2 popular students
of each of the 7 eponymous horah
and documented their readings.
Okay. So these are called the 2 Rahweis
or canonical transmitters.
Okay. So in Kufa, the reading tradition of
Asim became popular. We mentioned that. But how
did it become popular? It became popular through
his 2 top students.
One was Shurba, and one was Hafs ibnusuleiman.
Okay? The reading traditions of Shurba and Hafs
were documented by Adani
and eventually standardized with the vowing and dotting.
So this really makes 14 canonical and authorized
reading traditions.
7 eponymous
ura through their 2 respective ra'wee. So 7
times 2 is 14.
Okay. About 4 centuries after,
ibn Mujahid,
Imam Shamsuddin al Jazadi,
whom Suyuti considered the greatest scholar ever in
the field of qira'at,
He wrote a masterpiece called Kitabu Nasar Filqira'atir
Asar. So al Jazari died 14/29
of the common era.
And so Imam al Jazari said that in
fact, the reading traditions of Yaqub al Basri,
Abu Jafar
al Madani, and Khalaf al Baghdadi,
transmitted through their respective Rawis were also correct
and had always been correct and mass transmitted
and multiply tested. And so there are 20
canonical reading traditions. So so 10 eponymous fora
through their respective two raus. And today, about
95% of the Sunni world
reads
Hafs and Asim, right? So, the reading tradition
of Qari Asim through his Ra'i, his transmitter
Has.
3% reads Warash and Nafir.
And the remaining, 2% are divided between Qalun
and Nafir and probably
ibn Nudhaqwan
and ibn,
an ibn
Amr and Aduri,
and Abi
Amr.
The other 15 are studied
and memorized
and known by Quran masters, but not so
much recited in public
congregational, prayers. By the way, there's a there's
a really good website called
nnquran.com,
n as in newspaper,
Quran.com. It's in Arabic,
but,
it shows you,
you put in any verse in the Quran,
it'll show you what what every single Rahi,
what every single transmitter from from the 10,
eponymous,
readers, how they read that particular,
verse.
Now there are 2 things concerning this topic
that
love to point out here. Okay? So I'm
gonna mention them.
Ibn Mujahid, right, he chose
these seven reading traditions,
but he also criticized and disagreed with some
individual articulations
of a few words. So this is true.
First of all, he never criticized anything in
Assam, Nafir and Abu Amr, which is
basically the entire Ummah today. But he did
criticize ibn Amr a few times, and Hamza
once, and I think Kunbul, one of the
transmitters of bin Kathir,
I think once.
So I mean, it's like a total of
6 or 8 words across 7 teraat that
you disagreed with. So so the Quran is
roughly 77
1,000 words, 77,000
times 7, qira'at is about 540,000
words. So, out of 540,000
words, Ibn Mujahid disagreed with 6 or 8
of them. Okay. So I'll give you an
example of what we're dealing with here. So
he disagreed with Qumbul, Qumbul's reading of chapter
96
verse 7. So I'll recite the dominant reading
among the eponymous readers,
and then I'll recite Kumbul's reading. So this
is the reading he agreed with, Arra'ahu Stavana.
Right? Arra'ahu
Stavana. And here's kumbul,
Arra'ahu Stavana.
Now
not much different, sounds pretty much the same.
You know, I think this is ibn Mujahid
just nitpicking.
The polemicists, however, you know, they're they're turning
this into the longer ending of Mark. Right?
So even even Mujahid also criticized one word
in the entire Quran of
of Hamza. Right? It's in chapter 18 verse
97 of the Quran. So here's the dominant
reading and then Hamza's
read. So the dominant reading says, Famastah'u.
Again, Famastah'u.
Now hamza. Famastaru.
Okay. Now maybe you didn't pick up on
the difference. I mean, that is that is
literally
the different again, this is ibn Mujahid sort
of nitpicking, but this is the hill that
these polemices
really want to die on.
Now Christian apologists, they enjoy citing an essay
by, Gabriel Saeed Reynolds,
in in a compendium called the Quran and
its historical context,
where Reynolds, who's also the editor of the
book, he goes into some of these things.
But Reynolds actually says, and this is a
quote from him, ibn Mujahid argued that there
are 7 equal
valid Qur'at.
Ibn Mujahid argued that there are 7 equally
valid Qur'at.
And that's true. This is why ibn Mujahid
wrote his book in the first place. So
so which is it? Is is ibn Mujahid
saying that these 7 are all valid? Or
is he saying that there are errors and
mistakes in some of them? Like readings in
Hamza, in Ibn Amr, in Punbul that I
mentioned earlier.
And so, these are invalid. Which is it?
Is it valid or invalid? So how do
we harmonize these things? Well, it's simple.
Ibn Mujahed did believe that these were equally
valid qaraat
because they were multiply tested. They conformed to
the Uthmani Rasam, and they were in sound
Arabic. But he simply
did not prefer them, these 6 or so
words,
these few words, half a dozen words. There
were strange articulations to him that should be
avoided. That makes the most sense. Okay?
But, okay, let's say for argument's sake, that
indeed, ibn Mujahid believed
in his heart of hearts
that these 6 or 8 words, okay, were
incorrect and he rejected them as being revealed
to the prophet. They're not the Quran.
Here's my response. So, what? That was one
man's opinion. Ibn Mujahid was a great scholar,
but he was not the be all end
all when it came to the Tarahat.
Our religion is not built upon the opinion
of 1 scholar.
It's
built upon the jama'a, the overwhelming majority. This
is why we're called ahlusunam al jama'a. Right?
The the qira'at of the 7 eponymous readers
selected by Ibn Mujahid for his book were
universally accepted as being valid before and after
Ibn Mujahid.
So Ibn Mujahid was simply wrong to disagree
with and reject those few articulations.
Right? The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam, he said,
yadullahi alaljama'a.
Very famous hadith. If we were to make
taweeel of this hadith, the protection of god
is with the majority.
Right?
Now here's the second thing that these polemicists
like to point out.
The fact that some traditional Muslim scholars criticized
Hafs, Imam Hafs,
with respect to his knowledge of hadith, that
he was weak in hadith or that he's
rejected in hadith.
So how how are we taking Quran from
him? My my response again here is, so
what?
Hadith was not his takhasus, was not his
specialty.
Okay? Many of the best Quran today, many
of the best reciters of the Quran, masters
of the Quran today are not necessarily masters
or scholars of Hadith.
They're masters, they're a'mma
of the Quran, of Qira'at,
right? Their focus was on the Quran. The
focus of Hafs ibn Sulayman was on the
Quran. That's number 1. He was an absolute
master of the Quran.
Number 2,
the Hadith scholars who criticized his knowledge of
Hadith praised him in his transmission and recitation
of the Quran. So these are 2 separate
disciplines. Right?
There is not a single example of a
traditional Sunni scholar,
quoting a gara'a of Imam Hafs and claiming
that it's fabricated or somehow
falsified. So the polemicists are once again clutching
its straws here.
Now
now a popular claim of of modern polemicists,
okay, is that ibn Mujahid,
using this sort of apparatus of the Abbasid
government,
He used to prosecute anyone who read outside
of his
of his chosen seven reading traditions.
So this is a bit misleading.
Okay. So let me say 2 things about
this. Number 1,
it is true that the state authorities did
prosecute
certain Quran. Yes.
But really only 2 types of Quran. Okay.
So the first type
who would deviate
from the Uthmani textual tradition
and would publicly recite according to the textual
traditions of individual companions,
such as Ibn Mas'ud and, Ibn Kaab and
others, that were not mass transmitted.
Right? So such a man was Khali Muhammad
ibn Ahmad,
ibn Ayyub al Bawdadi, who was more popularly
known as
Istanbul, who died in 9:39 of the common
era. So he would recite aharuf,
that were known by solitary reports, not mass
transmitted reports,
alright, which were not accommodated by the Uthmanic
codices. So he was he was lashed a
few times when he was released.
The second type was, someone like Hari Abu
Bakr ibn Mittsam
who died in 9/65 of the common era.
He stuck to the Rasim of the Uthmani
codex. Okay? And, he knew the canonical readings,
but he believed that it was permissible
to vowel and dot the Rasam however he
wanted, as long as the Arabic was correct
and without even the slightest consideration for ISNA.
And he repented
of this. So, no one was burned
at the stake or impaled or had their
bones crushed, nothing like this. The second point
is that if if if ibn Mujahid prosecuted
Qur'a,
who read according to Yaqub or Khalaf, for
example,
what is today considered authentic, then how on
earth did those reading traditions
survive
and thrive
until the time of Al Jazari
400 years later, who said that they were
mass transmitted authentic readings?
Why weren't those thousands of Quran who were
reading according to Yaqub and Khalaf and Abu
Jafar, why weren't they brought up on charges?
By the way, the case of Ibnu Miksam
absolutely destroys
the orientalist and Christian claims that textual variance
within the Uthmani textual tradition were the result
of Qur'a having absolutely free reign when deciphering
the rusum of the Uthmani codices.
Ibn Ummixam was arrested for doing this. He
was arrested for vowing and dotting the text
however he wanted. He was arrested for bypassing
oral tradition, for bypassing handed down tradition, and
basing his recitation on his own itch tee
hot and his on his own opinion. Right?
So here's the important point.
Unauthorized
readings were investigated
from the very beginning. Remember, Umar dragged Hisham,
right, to the prophet because he suspected Hisham's
reading to be incorrect and unauthorized. Muslims were
always,
always very, very intent on getting the Quran
exactly right. Okay. Now I wanna provide further
evidence,
that the claim of the orientalist and Christian
polemicist is simply wrong. So let's let's restate
their claim.
Okay. Here's here's the claim, is that the
Quran in these regional areas, right, were absolutely
free to vowel and dot the text however
they wanted without restriction
as long as the context and meaning and
grammar was sound, and that this is why
different reading traditions
came into existence. So let me show you
why this is false.
So so Asm, Al Kisai, Yaqb, and Khalaf
read Al Fatiha as,
right, the owner of the day of judgment.
The other 6 Quran, including Nahir,
they read this as Madiki Yom Adin. So
it's a 6040 split. Right? So here the
orientalist says, you see the Rasam
allows for both. So some Quran chose Malik
and some chose medic. They were free to
make this choice.
And yes, this is true. They were free
to make this choice. But here's the problem.
In Surah number 3 verse 26,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
All 10, upon his Quran
said Malik al Mulk here in this verse.
It's unanimous.
Why?
Why didn't the 6th Quran
who read Maliki Yom Adin and Al Fatiha
read this as Malikul Mulk?
It makes total sense according to its meaning.
It's contextually valid. It's incorrect Arabic.
Why didn't anyone choose this reading? Well, it
seems to me that they did not have
that choice.
They were not authorized to read this word
and this verse as manic.
They did not have
this type of recitational
latitude
in
this
verse. Why? What makes sense? It makes perfect
sense that the region of 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 Qira'ah.
And here's another example of this word.
Right? And in the final Surah of the
Quran, Qul A'udu G rabinas
malikinas
malikinas.
Have you ever heard anyone ever recite this
as malikinnes?
No, never. Why? It's unanimous.
There
is no recitational latitude
in this verse. Why? Because readers were
constrained by the Sunnah of the Torah. Right?
We also find in the Quran chapter 20
verse 114,
Fatahallallahu
malikulhaqq,
the same Rasam in Chapter 23 116,
Fatahallallahu
malikulhaqq.
Amazing. No Qari ever read these verses as
Marikul Haqq.
If they had
free rain, what are the chances of that
happening? Right? Here's a totally different example. This
is from,
chapter 6 verse 83.
It says,
like, we raise degrees.
We raise degrees
for whomever we
will. Right? Again, the Uthmanic codices were dotless.
All 10 hora read these two verbs
as first person common. So here's my question.
If variant readings of the Uthmani textual tradition
originated
with the regional ora who were vowing and
dotting their regional codices at will according to
their,
then why didn't anyone read this as
with the verse in the 3rd person? It
makes perfect sense according to the context of
the verse,
yet no one read the verse like this.
Why? Because they were not authorized to do
that. They were constrained
by the Sunnah of Tiraa.
So, here's the point.
If reciters were free to dot and vowel
the rusum of the Uthmanic codices
as they deemed appropriate,
there would've been tens of thousands
of variant meetings throughout the Quran, tens of
thousands,
and there really isn't. In reality, reciters were
extremely limited
as to how to dot and vowel the
Rasam.
Why? Because they were constrained
by the living oral transmission
of the Quran, the handed down recitational tradition
of the Quran. It was nakal, it's riwa.
These Qur'at were talaki, they're verbatim,
They're not Bilma'ana. They're not according to meaning.
They were transmitted with asanid,
chains of transmission.
This is the most convincing explanation.
But, here's another question.
How many variants exist in the canonical
Uthmani reading traditions? In other words, how many
total words in the Quran are affected by
the aroof?
Okay. And by words, I mean noun, verbs,
and particles. So, not counting like dialectical variations
because those
don't change the meanings.
The answer is not very many, just a
fraction. According to Ibn Majayid, it's about 700
words. So, that is less than 1% of
the Quran.
Van Houten thinks this number is too low.
He puts it at 2,000 words. So, 2
and a half percent of the Quran, which
again is very minimal.
If reciters were free to dot and vowel
the rufum
of the Uthmanic codices, however they wanted, according
to context, there would have been tens of
thousands
of words affected, not 700,
not 2,000,
tens of thousands. Let me give you one
last example. This is a good one.
From the UK used this example. I think
it really
strongly demonstrates,
our contention that raha'a is sunnah.
That the
the the reading traditions,
that are canonized,
they are from a prophetic origin. So the
first verse
of Surah Yaseen. Right?
The first verse is Yaseen. Okay? So now
now look at the the word Yaseen,
how it looks in Arabic. Yeah. Right? The
the you with the two dots underneath connected
to the letter seen. Yeah. Now remove the
dots. Imagine,
you know, what's known as the heikal al
kanima, like these the continental
word devoid
of dots, right, the skeletal word. This is
what the Uthmanic codices look like.
Yet everyone,
without
exception,
recited this as Yacine.
Right? They they could have recited this as
Nuan Seen or Tassine
or Tha cine
or Bassine
or Noon sheen
or Tashine
or thashine
or yashine.
They all recited yashine. They had 9 other
choices at least, yet all 10 Korah said
Yassine.
Why?
Because they were constrained by the Sunnah of
Teraha.
Okay. So
this is kind of the the last part
of the presentation, and then I have a
short sort of epilogue. But this is really
important to mention here, that Suyuti mentions in
the Ithqa, this is what he learned from
Imam al Jazari, that there are, several grades
of authenticity with respect to reported
choronic recitations. Okay. So I want to keep
this simple.
So broadly speaking, there are 4 main grades
of recitation.
So if a particular reading
fails
to meet even one of the even one
of the 3 conditions mentioned earlier. Right? Strong
chain, agreement with 1 with monic codex in
sound Arabic. Right? Then if it fails to
meet one of these 3, then it is
considered an unauthorized
reading and it cannot be recited in prayer.
So the highest grade obviously is mutawatiuh, mass
transmitted.
Okay? And Suyuti says that most readings are
of this type. By consensus, these are the
10 canonical reading traditions as transmitted
by their 2 main Rawis. So for nafir,
for example, they are Qalun and Warsh. For
Assen, they are Shurban Hafs.
These were reported by groups and groups of
Muslim reciters with strong and verified chains of
transmission
that go back to the prophet. Then we
have Ahad readings. So these are readings that
have strong chains,
but too few reciters.
Okay? So they don't have a sufficient number
of authorities.
For example, in in his Mustadirak, Imam Al
Hakim said that on the authority of Ibn
Abbas, the prophet would recite Surah 9, verse
128 as laqajalqumasulaminanfasikum
andfasikum,
in addition to anfasikum.
So there is come unto you a messenger
from the most noble among you, anfasikum.
Anfasu is the superlative of nafis.
In addition to the standard, there is come
unto you a messenger from among yourselves, anfasikum,
with anfus as a plural of nafs. So
the Arabic is correct both ways. The meaning
is sound both ways, and both agree with
the ofmani rasam.
Now, none of the canonical reading traditions read
this as antfasikum.
It was just not very popular.
Okay. So, could this have been revealed to
the prophet as
a haraf? Of course, it could have been.
But since this haraf did not gain prevalence,
this reading only has the strength of a
sound hadith. So it is not strong enough
to be an authorized qira'ah of the Quran
because even a sound hadith is not considered
absolutely definitive.
Okay. There is still a chance of error.
It's not a dalil
So for the Quran, we cannot take that
chance. It has to be absolutely sound and
multiply attested.
Then you have shad readings. So shad means
isolated,
right, or unsound or anomalous. So
a shad reading may be in correct Arabic,
have a sound meaning, and even agree with
the Uthmani Rasam, but the isnaad is somehow
unsound or defective. For example,
instead of and this is an example used
by Moussiyuti, the Ith Khan, Instead of saying
iyaka na'budu, you alone we worship,
somebody says iyaka yurbadu,
you alone are worshipped.
Right? So instead of the verb being first
person plural in the active voice, it's made
in of 3rd person masculine in the passive.
So these readings have no transmissional basis. So
if a reciter were to recite like this,
the authorities would ask him where he learned
this. And if he says from so and
so, the authorities would go to so and
so and ask him, and so and so
would say, I just heard it somewhere, or
I just vowed it myself, or my brother
used to recite like this. And I and
I don't know where he heard it from.
So authorities were very rigorous and particular about
what reciters were reciting in public. And then
finally, we have, Maldua reading. So these are
readings that are deemed fabricated by authorities.
K. These readings have multiple problems, you know,
like, in addition to an unsound or nonexistent,
is not. There are other issues, disagreement with
the Usmani Brassem, grammatical errors,
unacceptable meanings.
So so for example, Abu Aswaddu Wali, he
once heard a man recite chapter 9 verse
3
as Anallaha bari umminan mushrikim orasulihi
instead of orasuluhu.
Right? And so the former, it changes the
meaning to something unacceptable
and has no transmissional,
basis. So, Abdul Ali asked the man
from where he learned his Qara'a and the
man said that he just sort of vowed
it, himself.
So, so Mutawati readings are without question Quran
and may be recited in prayer.
Ahad readings
may have been revealed as Quran. Right? They
may have been revealed as Ashraf,
yet they are outside the Uthmani textual tradition.
So, Ashraf that were either
abrogated or abandoned,
they may not be recited in prayer, but
they have the strength of hadith.
It is possible, but also, but very unlikely,
that shav readings may also have been revealed
as Quranic aharth, but were abandoned or abrogated.
But these readings really don't have any type
of authority,
other than
perhaps serving sort of a minor exegetical function.
And finding al Dort readings are definitely not
Quranic and have no authority whatsoever.
Okay.
So that's pretty much the end of the
main part of the presentation. Now as an
as an epilogue, I want to share my
thoughts
about 2 things, very briefly. Okay? So so
one is,
an oft repeated hadith,
by anti Muslim elements, and the other is
the work of Daniel Brubaker.
Okay. So so let's start with the first.
So Christian missionaries
and Shiite apologists,
so they they love a particular hadith in
the sunan of Ibnu Majah, where Aisha is
reported to have said that a goat
or a sheep
ate the page that contained both the stoning
and the breastfeeding verses. So they love this
hadith. It's like mother's milk to them. Right?
And by the way, in America,
the woke circus is demanding that we say
chest feeding now and not breastfeeding.
So let's make it a point to ignore
that. Anyway,
I I just said, the verse of stoning
and of breastfeeding an adult 10 times was
revealed,
and the paper was with me under my
pillow. When the messenger
of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his
death and a tame sheep, some sometimes it
says goat, came in and ate it.
Okay. So so first things first,
we don't just accept any hadith uncritically.
Okay? So so this hadith is defective
according to probably all Sunni
Muaddithin,
scholars of hadith.
There are several there are several big problems
with this hadith. So number 1, ibn Ishaq
is the Isnat. Okay? And he was known
for being not just weak in Hadith, but
very questionable
in his honesty,
in his reliability, to put it mildly. I
mean, Imam Malik ibn Anas, okay, who was
without question one of the greatest scholars in
the history of Islam, highly revered,
the the imam of Medina,
the founder of the Maliki School, the master
of hadith and and jurisprudence, he referred to
Ibn Ishaq as a deceiver at Dajjal,
that is to say an audacious liar.
Also, there are 2 other versions of this
hadith that that were narrated by imam Malik
and and and Yahya ibn Sa'id,
Al Ansari
that do not include
this strange comment about a goat or a
sheep. And both both Madik and Yahya are
universally known for their reliability,
in in transmission.
The other issue is related to basic reason.
Right? Let's just focus on stoning. Right?
There are multiple reports which state that there
was a verse revealed to the prophet,
which
prescribed
the stoning of married parties found guilty of
adultery. Okay? There's very little dispute about that.
There was a verse.
Several companions of the prophet knew it, memorized
it, and recited it.
Why was it not included in the Uthmani
codex by the committee?
Anything is more plausible than what this hadith
is apparently suggesting. Right? So according to this
hadith, the reason why this verse was no
longer recited as the Quran,
is because a a goat or a sheep
ate the piece of paper upon which the
verse was transcribed
as if losing a piece of paper suddenly
erases the verse from the memories of human
beings.
As I said, in this early period, the
written Quran was
secondary to what was being recited. This was
primarily an oral culture.
Another thing is it is highly implausible
that none of the official scribes of the
prophet,
who are mentioned in our sources by name
and number up to nearly 70 individuals. It's
highly implausible that none of those scribes wrote
this verse down.
Right? Nor did any other companion in the
parent. Only Aisha had this verse written down.
And when the goat ate the paper, the
verse magically,
disappeared apparently.
Now here's what probably happened. Okay? The verse
of stoning was probably written down by someone
and presented to Zaid
during the collation process,
but there was a difference of opinion as
to whether the prophet
ordered the verse to be officially transcribed.
Okay? And in fact, there are a few
narrations, 1 in the Mustad Al Akbar Hakim,
another in Beihaki, I think in in Nasai
that mentioned that the prophet disliked that the
verse of stoning should be transcribed.
So there might have been a problem with
securing the 2 witnesses. Now,
as I said earlier,
the last two verses of a Tovah also
lacked an additional witness, but they were transcribed
by the codex committee. Why? Because the last
two verses of a Tovah were widely recited
by the generality of the companions
and there was no question of abrogation.
So why wasn't the verse of stoning included
by the
committee? Well, it appears that the prophet, for
some reason, did not recite it as part
of the final recension of the Quran in
his final review with Gabriel.
Whether one believes in Gabriel or not, the
committee
and many other companions
must have been of the opinion,
that this verse was not to be or
no longer to be
recited.
In other words, the verse of stoning was
in some form abrogated
by the prophet. Okay. No no no goats
or sheeps needed.
And it seemed that there were a few
companions who wanted to keep reciting it as
the Quran,
but after the committee's investigation and research and
inquiry into the matter, they concluded that indeed
the verse had been abrogated, and the companions
who wanted to keep reciting it were simply
wrong to do
so. That's it.
And then finally here, I wanna give my
brief thoughts on the work of Daniel Allen
Brubaker. So Brubaker is apparently,
a scholar, at least he presents himself as
a scholar, of of early Quranic
manuscripts. So his book is called corrections in
early Qur'an manuscripts.
He has a somewhat popular and provocative YouTube
channel.
For many anti Muslim
Christian polemicists,
Brubaker has become their new savior, so to
speak, every so often. I think he's- Royce
Dailey Brumley He's working. Royce Dailey Brumley He's
working. Royce Dailey Brumley He's working. Royce Dailey
Brumley He's working. Royce Dailey Brumley He's working.
Royce Dailey Brumley He's working. Royce Dailey Brumley
He's working. Royce Dailey Brumley He's working. So
Brubaker's whole shtick
is his claim
that several differences in our manuscript tradition are
actually deliberate attempts
by scribes to change the text because the
text of the Quran remained
flexible even centuries
beyond its standardization.
Several scholars have responded to Brumaker's work and
have thoroughly debunked his assertions, Doctor. Yasser Kadi,
doctor Shabir Ali, 3 Muslim apologists, Mansur Ahmad,
Eyjaz Ahmad, and Farid al Bahrani, they coauthored
a a fantastic 300
page rebuttal to Brubaker.
It's called the Insignificance
of Corrections
in Early Quran Manuscripts. It's free on academia.edu.
I recommend taking a look at it.
The eminent Turkish scholar
of Koranic textual criticism,
doctor Tayar,
Artikulak,
he wrote
an entire book called the refutation of Brubaker's
corrections.
But if people are looking for something brief,
then I highly recommend
the epic dismantling of Brubaker by none other
than doctor Hythem Sitsky. Uh-huh. This was in
2019.
This was doctor Sitsky's review
of Brubaker's book in an academic journal called
or a suitable stop.
It's something like 15 pages. It's very short.
Doctor Sitsky writes, it, meaning Brubaker's book,
suffers from a number of critical flaws
in methodology,
analysis, and discussion.
So his review of Brubaker's book is very
academic. It's very respectful.
There are no ad homonyms. Right? It's not
harsh.
It's it's not highly polemical, but it is
kind of the nail, I think, in the
coffin of Brubaker's so called, scholarship on the
Quran.
Doctor Sify,
did not have to be polemical or provocative
in his review because the facts,
speak for themselves. The
conclusion that anyone will take from doctor Sitsky's
annihilation,
of Brubaker,
is that Brubaker is either highly incompetent
or or highly disingenuous
or both.
So Brubaker highlights in his book,
20 examples in various manuscripts,
where scribes, change the standard text, right, the
Uthmani Russel.
Brubaker wants to think that these changes were
done with the intention of deliberately altering the
the Uthmani Rus'am in order to deviate from
the Rasam for some reason.
Doctor Siddhi also mentions that Brubaker's argument is
a straw man,
that Brubaker essentially, argues against the assumptions of
many lay Muslims
that the text
of the Quran was always in a uniform
text even before standardization.
So Brubaker
shows very little knowledge of traditional Muslim
scholarly literature on manuscripts, on on variants, on
aharuf,
on qira'at,
etcetera. I suspect Brubaker does know better, but
I think he's banking
on the ignorance of his lib Muslim and
Christian readers in order to make some sort
of, dramatic impression.
But to give you an example of, an
idea of the state of his scholarship,
Brudbaker in his book actually pedals
Dan Gibson's
ridiculous
Da Vinci code esque theory
that Petra
was the after
Jerusalem, and that the prophet was born and
raised in Petra.
Right? So Marijn Van Putten, he calls the
Petra thesis
nonsense,
and says that the Quran clearly shows it's
taking place in the Hejaz.
Doctor Sean Anthony calls the petrothesis, quote, total
garbage.
Doctor Sipke actually makes reference to an academic
article by David a King,
who is a scholar of early,
Muslim qiblas.
And the article is called, I love this
title, the Petra fallacy.
Early mosques
do face the sacred Kaaba in Mecca, but
Dan Gibson doesn't know how.
Wow.
Anyway, Brudbaker's Arabic by the way is
atrocious. His pronunciations are horrible.
I mean, they're cringey bad. His translations are
often inaccurate.
It seems like he's a pseudo scholar who's
trying to make a few bucks. I don't
know. Get a few views on his channel.
Maybe he's a fraud. I don't know. Maybe
we should lump him in with the
Christoph Luxenbergs and the Robert Spencers of the
world, which reminds me actually,
and I'll just mention this quickly. Robert Spencer
has a new book. You know, Spencer was
one of these post-nineeleven
opportunists
and disinformation experts. His new book is called
The Critical Quran. That's what he called it.
The Critical Quran by a guy who maintains
that the prophet Muhammad never existed. Right? I
mean, this guy's a radical revisionist crackpot, right,
and regurgitates
the old and tired and thoroughly debunked positions
of John Wansbrough.
And then he actually refers to Christoph Luxenberg
as a great scholar and philologist.
Now, Luxemburg is literally
an academic laughing stock. I mean, lux Luxembourg
was the guy who said the Quran,
who said the Quran
was written in an Aramaic
Arabic
hybrid language. Right?
So like Waleed Salih, Daniel King, Gabriel Reynolds,
Robert Hoyland, Angelica Neuwirth,
Van Putten, even Patricia Krone have a scathing
reviews of Luxembourg. Whoever this guy is, he's
hiding behind an alias.
But according to Spencer, Luxembourg is a great
scholar and and philologist. This goes back to
the guilt complex I mentioned earlier because what
are Muslims saying to Christians? They're saying, You
have this new testament in Greek.
Jesus did not speak Greek. He spoke
Aramaic. So now they're saying, well, the Quran's
in Aramaic.
It's just a it's a it's a pretty
horrible argument.
Anyway,
just to finish up here, doctor Sify goes
through all twenty of Brubaker's examples
and concludes he says, quote, The majority of
changes mentioned in Brubaker's
book are best explained by scribal errors.
Doctor. Sitki wonders
why even the possibility of scribal error was
never even considered by Brubaker when it's clearly
the most plausible explanation.
I'll spare you the details,
but doctor Schifke says that basically all of
Brubaker's examples are explained by either parablexis,
which is like the eye skipping,
didography, which is when you inadvertently
repeat something,
or parallel assimilation that we talked about earlier.
In other words, these are all scribble errors.
I mean, Sitsky concludes that really only one
of Brudbaker's examples, number 5, is worth investigating
further.
And its final
conclusion,
worded very politely is, quote, the main thesis,
namely that the flexibility
of the Quranic text persisted centuries beyond
its standardization,
remains unproven,
end quote.
Oops.
Then I'll just say a couple more things
here. Doctor Shabir Ally actually
points out something good as well. He says
that, of course, individual manuscripts of the Quran
can have errors, and he pointed that out
as well. Muslim scribes were not infallible just
because a scribe made a mistake
by leaving out a word or mistakenly assimilated
2 similar sounding verses
in transcribing a manuscript, does it mean that
he changed
the Quran or that the Quran is no
longer preserved or he thought the Quran was
somehow flexible and things like that? It's ridiculous.
Also, individual memories of Muslims can have errors.
Reciters are not infallible. Reciters make mistakes all
the time.
But the Quran has a double check system
at which we may know what is the
correct reading. It is the collective
memory of the reciters of the community,
as well as the mass attestation
of manuscript witnesses. And Van Putin is clear
on this. I mean, his position is that
is that since the Quran's standardization
in 6:50, the text has not changed at
all. It is stable and preserved. Those are
his words.
Doctor. Sitzky also points out that Brudbacher failed
to
show a pattern of changes in the manuscripts
throughout the centuries.
In other words, Brudbaker shows how the word
Allah in a certain verse is omitted in
a 2nd century manuscript.
Right? But in multiple 1st and third century
manuscripts
of that verse, right, before and after, the
word Allah is there.
It's everywhere. In other words, these mistakes, these
are clearly mistakes, and these mistakes were not
inherited.
Why were they not inherited? Because the standard
text was known.
Now, a Christian apologist may
say here
that the vast majority of changes in the
Greek new testament
manuscripts were also unintentional scribal errors.
And I agree, but as Metzger and Ehrman
and Comfort and many others have shown, there
are also many deliberate theological changes made to
the text. We know this, the longer ending
of Mark, the Johann in coma,
the Percovi Adulteri,
the Luke in Jesus sweating blood, the Luke
in Jesus asking God to forgive the Jews,
the prologue changed from only begotten God to
only begotten son, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
None of the 20 examples presented by Brubaker
have even the slightest
theological significance.
They are unintentional scribble errors,
plain and simple, end of
story, and mercifully, the end of my presentation.
Right.
Very, very brilliant. Well, thank you very much,
indeed,
indeed to Professor Ali Atai.
You might be on mute. Oh, am I
on mute? Is it on mute? Nope. I'm
not on mute. But, I I can, hopefully
recording. So thank you very much indeed for,
your extraordinary presentation.
Comprehensive,
detailed,
intelligible,
clear,
devastating at the end.
I almost I almost feel sympathetic,
Almost feel sympathetic for certain individuals that you
have,
devastatingly critiqued, or cited others who are critiquing
them.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much for
this resource as well, which that's the whole
point of it really, isn't it? It is
a resource for, people in the weeks months,
maybe years to come to have the tools
and the information and the knowledge,
to push back against some of these more
extreme claims and and to be infused with
knowledge and,
a balanced understanding of historical and textual and
linguistic facts. So,
thank you very much indeed for that. And,
well, that well, that is it. I'm I'm
not gonna, say anymore because you've said it
all. So thank you very much.
Thank you, Paul. Thank you for the opportunity.
May Allah
bless you, bless your channel. And, you know,
for the people that are watching this who
have not subscribed to blogging theology,
what's wrong with you? You need to subscribe
now
and, keep growing the channel, Insha'Allah. Thanks for
coming. Thank you very much. Till next time.
Thank you.