Ali Ataie – There are No Holes in the Qur’anic Narrative
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
All praise belongs to Allah,
the Lord of the worlds, the one and
only true God,
the most compassionate, the merciful. There's nothing like
him whatsoever.
Yet he is all hearing and all seeing.
And peace and blessings be upon our master,
Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
the final messenger of God, seal of the
prophets,
the commander of the righteous,
the leader of the messengers,
and the beloved of the Lord of the
worlds. We've entered into the last 10 nights
of the
We've entered into the last 10 nights
of the blessed month of Ramadan.
These are some of the holiest nights
of the year. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
in the Quran,
after taking an oath. And
there's some difference of opinion amongst the
as to what these nights 10 nights refer
to. Some of the exegete say that they
refer to the 1st 10 nights of the
month of Muharram.
Others say the 1st 10 nights of Dhul
Hijjah,
and yet others say the last 10 nights
of
Ramadan. Of course, this was when the Quran
was first revealed to our master Muhammad
The month of Ramadan is that wherein the
Quran was sent down as guidance to mankind.
As clear proofs of guidance and the criterion.
Let him among you who is present fast
during this month. So first and foremost, we
notice from this ayah
that the month of Ramadan is primarily associated
with the Quran,
then fasting.
Fasting during Ramadan was prescribed during the Medina
period.
The Quran is really at the heart of
this month.
What is the Quran?
The guidance and criterion.
That is to say, it is the basis
by which we judge
other religions,
other traditions,
other philosophies, other theologies,
other world views, etcetera. It distinguishes
truth from falsehood,
and the lawful from the prohibited.
Our mother, Assaydah to Aisha, she
said,
The prophet
would exert himself
during the last 10 nights like no other
time.
The prophet
would seclude himself in the masjid, and Jibril
Alaihi Salam would visit him. And, of course,
Jibril Alaihi Salam was the archangel
who would bring the revelation to him.
Say whoever is an enemy to Jibril Alaihi
Salam, for indeed he reveals it,
I e the Quran,
upon your heart by the permission of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And when Jibril Alaihi Salam would visit the
prophet sallallahu alaihi salam in the masjid,
they would recite the Quran to each other.
This is called al Mu'aroga,
which linguistically means a mutual presentation.
This was an annual review of the Quran.
This was an annual review of the Quran
during each Ramadan,
and this was reported by several Sahaba.
And in his final Ramadan, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam reviewed the Quran
twice with Jibril alaihi salam. So during the
prophet's time, there was widespread memorization of the
Quran.
An annual view of the Quran,
inscribal recordings of the Quran.
The entire Quran was written down by command
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in his
lifetime.
The preservation of the Quran is without
question. Indeed, we sent down the reminder,
and indeed, we are its guardians.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is speaking in the
plural of majesty.
So to our young people
and older people,
don't fall into an anti Muslim rabbit hole
on the Internet
or on YouTube, where the Quran is being
attacked.
Most of these anti Muslim channels,
take it from me, I give you
sincere advice. I've been dealing with these people
for decades.
Most of these anti Muslim channels are run
by a bunch of charlatans
who take advantage of the average Muslim's ignorance
of certain particular issues.
They want us to chase these red herrings
and thus cause us to doubt the strength
of our overall established narrative.
Sometimes, Muslim scholars have to listen to this
garbage in order to formulate refutations
if they feel that it's necessary.
But the average lay Muslim should not even
click on these videos. Just ignore the algorithm.
Imam Al Ghazali, he said that just listening
to a zindiq
or a Muftaddir.
Listening just listening
to a heretic or an innovator is a
breach of the right, a breach of the
hack of the ear. It is impermissible for
your ear
to hear such things, let alone listening to
some vile kafir or moustahazi, some mocker who
hates Islam because the truth of Islam destroys
his own false theology,
or the ethical positions of Islam, denounce his
own degenerate lifestyle.
This is really at the root of their
hatred. Many Christian apologists and polemicists who attack
the Quran,
much of their betrayal is due to the
fact that they recognize
they recognize the truth of our narrative
when it comes to the Quran.
So they're filled with envy and frustration
because their narrative
has been utterly deconstructed
by secular academics
and historians.
This is called the guilt complex.
They accuse our narrative of falsehood and attack
our scripture
because they know that their own narrative in
scripture
is in utter shambles.
How do we know this? We read the
Quran. The ayat of the Quran are so
perfect
or so succinct.
It's all in the Quran.
What does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say?
Many of the people of the book, many
of the ahlilkitah,
they long to make you disbelievers
after you have believed
through envy,
through hasad,
on their own account, after the haq, after
the truth has become manifest to them.
Forgive and pardon
until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings his command.
Indeed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is over everything
powerful. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
essentially
get to work. Waqtimus salatuatuzakah.
Wa matuqaddimooli
anfizikum min kayden tajiduhu and Allah. Inna Allah
habima ta'amadunabasir.
So establish the prayer and pay the charity
and whatever good you send before you for
your souls, you will find it with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Indeed Allah is concerning what you do all
saying,
And they say, None will enter paradise
unless he be a Jew or a Christian.
These are their vain delusions.
Say, bring your proof if you are truthful.
Know whosoever submits to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and is a doer of good, his reward
is with his Lord. And no fear shall
come upon them neither shall they grieve.
And the Jews say the Christians follow nothing
true. And the Jews so then the Christian
the Jews say the Christians follow nothing true,
and the Christians say the Jews follow nothing
true, yet they are both readers of the
bible.
Like this speak those who don't know anything.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, will judge between them
on the day of resurrection concerning what they
differed about.
Sadaqah
Allah, this is perfect.
SubhanAllah.
The Jews say that God is absolutely 1.
The Christians say that he's 3 and 1.
There's a trinity. The Jews say that God
is not a man. The Christians say God
became a man who died for our sins.
The Jews say that repentance is all you
need to be right with God again. The
Christians say reconciliation is through blood sacrifice and
vicarious atonement. The Jews say that every single
commandment of the old testament is still binding.
The Christians say the vast majority of the
commandments are abrogated.
And they're both reading the same exact book.
Look at the chaos.
Not only this, the Quran says, and modern
textual criticism has confirmed
that the bible, old and new testaments have
suffered a degree of
textual and exegetical corruption.
There's no doubt about this. I can give
you example, heaped upon example, but this is
not the occasion.
But this is the state of their text.
Yet because of a guilt complex,
they attack the Quran. You know what they
say about people who live in glass houses.
And it's not all of them.
They're not all the same.
Right? We're speaking in general terms.
But here's the point, the Quran that we
read and recite today
with its akhruf and various qira'at
is the very same Quran
that was recited by the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam. There is no doubt in this.
It is impossible to fabricate the Quran.
It has always been impossible.
Just as it is impossible today, it was
impossible at any point in the past. The
reason is because the Quran
was and continues to be a mass transmitted
living tradition.
It is a mass transmitted
living tradition. It was constantly heard and recited
and memorized every day since its inception.
How do we know how to pray?
The sunnah of the prayer was a mass
transmitted, mass practice living tradition. The practice of
the prayer was imprinted upon the companions.
So was the Quran's recitation.
Secular historians basically agree the words of the
Quran were first uttered by the historical Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Whether they believe he was a prophet or
not, he is the quote unquote earthly source
of the Quran. This is the general historical
consensus
and only radical historical revisionist
and anti Muslim Ahlid Kitab with huge chips
on their shoulders
say otherwise.
The Quran was written down,
constantly recited, and constantly memorized
during the prophet's life. You can't pray without
the Quran.
The sahaba and Medina were praying 5 times
a day,
day after day, week after week, month after
month,
year after year, decade after decade.
Around 6:50, the common era, less than 20
years after the passing of the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam, the codex committee of Sayna
Uthman radhiallahu anhu standardized the text based upon
the dominant reading of the prophet himself
salallahu alayhi wasalam.
This codex committee consisted entirely
of eyewitnesses to the prophet. They were all
sahaba,
men who ate food with the prophet, men
who attended the prophet's lectures, men who traveled
with the prophet, men who prayed behind the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. The Uthmani Codex,
as well as its recitational tradition, were transmitted
to the major Muslim metropolitan
areas.
Each major city received a codex, a mushaf,
an aqari
who was a Sahabi and a Hafid.
Medina, Mecca,
Basra,
Kufa, Damascus at least all received a codex
and a Qari who was a Sahabi and
a Hafid.
These furrah taught the people in those cities
how to read the Quran,
and we know the names of these furrah.
An additional manuscript was kept also in the
state archives in Medina. This is called the
imam manuscript.
This is Sayyidina Uthman's personal manuscript, Radi Allahu
Anhu.
The city of Kufa received a codex. Its
query was Abdulrahman as Sunami.
RadiAllahu Anhu.
When we pray Jum'ah in a few minutes,
you're going to hear the qara'ah of Hafs
ibn al Surayman.
This is the qara'ah of 95%
of the Muslim Ummah. If you look in
the back of a Hafs Mushaf,
you will find an ISNA,
a chain of transmission.
It will read the rewire of Hafs ibn
Sulayman.
From Aasid ibn Abu Abu Najood. From Abdul
Abdul Rahman al Sulami. This is the party
who brought the codex into Kufa, from Medina,
from Ali ibn Abi Talib radiAllahu Anhu
and Zayd ibnufabit
radiAllahu Anhu and Ubayi ibnuqab radiAllahu Anhu.
3 imminent imminent sahaba
from the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, from Jibril alaihis salam,
from Al Khalik subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This is our chain of transmission.
What other religious text has something like this?
The answer is none. I've studied them. Not
the Vedas, not the Dhammapada,
not the Dao De Ching, not the Torah,
nor the New Testament.
The is not is the secret of Islam.
The other 5% of the Muslim ummah, they
recite the Quran according to Ibnu Amar al
Shami and Abu Amar al Basri and Nafi
al Madani.
And there are sound asani for these recitational
traditions as well. But here's the point that
people miss.
The prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, he recited
many of the verses of the Quran
in various ways.
This was a function of the 7 akhruf
which were all revealed to him by Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The akhruf are 7 recitational
variations.
Over 30 Sahaba reported the Quran was revealed.
Hanasabaati
Ahruf upon 7 variations.
The Quran is multi formic. It is a
multiformic
text. It is a polyvalent
text. That is to say it displays multiple
levels of meaning.
We need to know these things and not
allow these shayateen to deceive us. For example,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Malik y omidine,
and Malik y omidine.
He is the owner of the day of
judgment and the king of the day of
judgment.
This variation and recitation is intentional.
They were both revealed to the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam to enrich our understanding of
our Lord Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This haraf is
called nominal variation.
Another example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Anoint or wipe your heads and wash your
feet for wudu.
He also says, Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
Wipe your heads and wipe your feet. This
harafah is called inflectional variation.
You see, generally, we wash our feet in
wudu, but there are circumstances where we can
wipe our feet.
When do we do that?
We look to the sunnah.
This is a beautiful aspect of the Quran.
A third example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
and he says,
This harafah is called dialectical variation.
You see the Arab was the first standard
bearer of the religion
and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala facilitated things for
the Arab and revealed certain words and phrases
in different Arab dialects.
This is the wisdom behind it. It's great
wisdom.
When the Quran from the Sahaba arrived in
these Amsar,
these, major Muslim cities, they taught the people
how to incorporate these akhruf into the rasum,
into the continental skeletons of the codices.
And over time, certain recitations became prominent
due to the prominence of their reciters, and
these became the canonical qira'at
like Hafs and Warsh and Ibnu Amar and
Yaqub and Abu Jafar, etcetera. There are 10
of them. And Quran masters like Hari Amar,
may Allah preserve him. He knows all 10
of them.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
he had over 100,000
companions.
Ibn Asakir in his tariqatimash,
he mentions that Abu Darda radiallahu anhu, a
companion had over 1600
students
in Sham.
One of them was Ibnu Amar, the qari
of Sham who rose to prominence.
One companion had 1600
students, teaching 1600 students how to recite the
Quran. Now imagine how many total students from
the Tabi'im there were from all of the
Sahaba who transmitted the Quran.
Even if only 10% of the Sahaba were
transmitting the Quran, that's 10,000
that's,
10,000 Sahaba.
And if each one just had 50 students,
that's half a 1000000
students
in the 2nd generation.
In reality, the numbers are in the millions.
This is called mass transmission.
This is called Tawatur.
The earliest extant manuscripts of the Quran are
dated before 656
of the common era.
Decades ago before these manuscripts were widely accepted
or discovered by Western scholarship,
there was a controversial opinion held by a
man named John Wansbrough, professor at SOAS
in London, the teacher of Pronay and Cook.
She said, he said that the Quran was
actually written in the 8th century
in Iraq by a committee of various authors
from the Abbasid court.
He basically admitted that a single unlettered man
living in the Hejaz in the 7th century
could not have possibly
written the Quran.
He could not have known these things. But
now we have confirmed the Quran manuscripts
from the 7th
century written in Hejazi text type.
The Birmingham manuscript can be dated to the
Meccan period
of the prophet's life. So now some of
these radical revisionists, they have vacillated to the
other extreme.
So now they're saying that the Birmingham manuscript,
was written before the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. 1st, the Quran was written after the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Now it's written
before the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Such
obstinacy.
No. The truth is in the middle. The
Quran was written at the time of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, and of course,
this has always been the general historical consensus.
There's nothing wrong with our narrative.
There are no holes in our narrative. Sometimes
even very learned people, they say things they
regret later.
Maybe he was having a bad day, going
through some sort of crisis, but rest rest
assured, take it from me, I teach Ulumen
Quran,
there are no holes in our narrative.
Or don't take it from me. Do your
own research. There's nothing about the Quran
that a Western scholar at Harvard or Yale
can say to a traditional Alem that will
throw this Alem for a loop and confound
him and can cause him to have some
sort of existential crisis. No, nothing.
We have unparalleled robust scholarship. We have Al
Burhan Fil Illumir Quran
by Imam Badr al Jina Zarkashi.
We have a a masterpiece.
We have Atasheel by Ibnu Jazay al Kalbi.
We have Kitab al Masahith by Ibnu Abi
Dawood. We have 2 books called Kitab al
Tira'at by Ibnu Mujahid and Shem Sadin al
Jazari.
Now another reason why these revisionists
claim that the Quran had multiple authors is
because the Bible, without a doubt,
had multiple authors.
And I'm not just talking about like Isaiah
or Jeremiah or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Literary critics have definitively demonstrated
that the 5 books that are traditionally attributed
to Musa alaihis salaam alone, the Torah, Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these 5 books were
actually written by at least 4 authors
living in different lands in different centuries.
This is a general consensus of biblical historians.
Just by way of comparison,
Isa alaihis salam, Jesus peace be upon him,
he saw none of the 4 gospels that
claimed to preserve his words.
This is a huge difference when compared to
the Quran.
Whether anyone believes that the gospels were inspired
scripture or not, Jesus never saw any of
them. This is just a fact.
The prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasalam, he knew
what Al Fatiha was.
He knew what Al Baqarah was. He knew
what Ayatul Qursi was. He knew what Surah
Yaseen was. But if we took a time
machine
back to Nazareth, Palestine, in the year 30
of the common era, and asked Isa Alaihi
Salam to recite Matthew chapter 23 or John
316
or first Corinthians chapter 15, you would not
know what we were talking about.
So when it comes to the words attributed
to Isa alaihis salam after his departure, we
must be discerning and critical.
Some of his actual words are most likely
there, but some are clearly not.
The oldest complete New Testament manuscripts are dated
350
years
after Isa alaihi salam. The oldest complete Torah
is dated 1500
years after Musa alaihi salam. The oldest complete
manuscripts of the Quran are dated a couple
of decades
after the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The Uthmani codex, which was codified by eyewitnesses
to the prophet.
This is a big difference.
And here's another thing, I'll end with this
inshallah, there's something called stylometric analysis.
Stylometric
analysis.
This is a sophisticated analysis of,
a linguistic style where statistical methods are used
to determine the author or authors of a
text.
This is really cutting edge stuff.
Modern stylometric analysis found that the Quran and
hadiths each had a single yet different author.
There is one author of the Quran, and
there is a different author speaking as the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in the
hadith, and these two authors do not match.
SubhanAllah. Of course, they don't match.
The words of the Quran are the very
words chosen
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah chose the wording of the Quran. They
were first spoken by the prophet Muhammad salallahu
alaihi wa sallam. Yes. But they're not his
words. The prophet was the conduit through which
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us his revelation.
The literary style of the hadith are clearly
distinct from the Quran. This is why many
a hadith were fabricated.
The prophet's style, although highly eloquent, can be
convincingly imitated,
But the Quran is sui generis.
It is one of a kind in its
style and eloquence.
There is nothing like it. It is impossible
to imitate.
It is merges. This means that the Quran
has an internal
incapacitating
mechanism.
So it's not that it's possible to imitate
the Quran, yet Allah simply doesn't allow it.
It is impossible
to imitate the Quran. It is beyond human
capacity.
The Quran also has a deep compositional structure
from the level of the individual ayat all
the way to big suar.
The Quran displays parallelism and concentricism
that is absolutely mind blowing.
This is incredible.
There have been some modern attempts attempts to
imitate,
the style and eloquence of the Quran
by Arab speaking Christians. This is an open
challenge.
These attempts are absolutely
ridiculous.
We read and analyze some of them in
class at the college, and the students tonight,
we can't stop laughing
When we read them, one time we laughed
for an hour straight, just reading what they
believe to be on equal par with the
Quran.
And this Quran is not such as can
be invented despite of Allah, but it is
a confirmation of that which went before it
and an exposition of that which is decreed
for mankind.
Therein, there is no doubt from the Lord
of the worlds.
Or do they say he invented it? Say
bring a surah like unto it
and call for help on all you can
besides Allah, if you are truthful.
So the Quran is impossible to imitate
and or fabricate due to its mass transmission,
as well as its unique literary style.
And hadith are different than the Quran. Most
hadith are not mass transmitted. And as I
said, the literary style of the hadith are
clearly distinct from the Quran.
Modern cutting edge
stylometric analysis confirms this.
Therefore, our ulama developed a highly robust system
by which to authenticate hadith.
We don't just accept anything willy nilly.
Our traditional ulama developed something called al usoolinnaqdilhadith,
the principles of hadith criticism or the principles
of hadith authentication.
This is a deep intellectual study.
There's much more to say but I'm out
of time and my voice is gone.
So.