Many books have been written by nonmuslims and muslims alike on the subject of originality and validity of the quran but none of them really shows proper understanding of this subject. The same is true about many videos on internet about it such as one can find on youtube etc.
Can the originality of the quran be clearly proven? Yes, the originality of the quran can be clearly proven beyond a shadow of doubt. How? From the existing copies of the quran around the world.
This is a most important point that each and every person must come to know and particularly a person who claims to be a muslim.
Let us look at the quranic copies that we have around the world in a bit of detail to see how the existing copies of the quran prove to us human beings that the quran we have today is original.
Let us first look at the way the quran was written down in ancient format of writing. If one gathers ancient copies of the quran that still exist today, one will see in them a special way of writing the quranic text. For example, in those copies we will see that they do not have diacritical marks which we call in arabic harakaat ie damma, fatha and kasra or tanween etc. The other thing one cannot fail to notice is that they do not contain any dots or naqaat for distinguishing alphabetical letters of same shape from each other or one can clearly see that BAA, TAA, SAA, NOON and YAA use exactly the same shape. JEEM, HAA and KHAA use the very same shape, DAAL and ZAAL, RAA and ZAA, SEEN and SHEEN, SWAAD and DWAAD, TWAA and ZWAA, AIN and GHAIN, FAA and QAAF are written using the very same shape. This is most important point to note. The question one has to ask oneself is, is it possible for any person at all to read such a text that is written down this way unless one already knows the actual message in this kind of text format? My answer is, no, it cannot be read no matter how hard one tries unless one is already familiar with the message in the text.
What does this prove beyond a shadow of doubt? It proves the quran we have today in its written form has come from the original source ie directly from the final messenger of God. Not only that it also proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the quran we have today was transmitted by the final messenger of God in two completely independent ways or channels. a) through memory ie people had committed the quran to their memories directly from the final messenger of God and b)through writing and again directly from the final messenger of God.
The vitally important points in this regard for people to understand are:-
The way the quran was written down could not be read unless the quranic text was fully memorised by people. If anyone thinks it could be read then go ahead and try it yourself. Ask someone to write something down for you in that format without telling you what one is writing and then you try and read it yourself. You will soon find out that you cannot make out the text as to what it is saying.
But how does this prove the quran we have today is original? It is because the quranic text we find in the existing copies of the quran proves, it could not have been written down by people from their own memories. Not only that but one can try and do so oneself and one will fail badly even today. So the claim by muslims that they can recreate the quranic text merely from their memories if all written copied of the quran somehow became destroyed is false. Why?
Because there are some particular problems which people face when someone dictates the quranic text from one's memory for others to write it down. What are those problems?
Those problems are different ways of writing a particular piece of quranic information. For example, if I tell a group of people to write a number eg three. Will the person write 3 as a digit or as a word? You will agree that some could write 3 as a digit and others could write three as a word. If the quran was copied the same way from dictation by someone from one's memory then people could write it down different ways. Likewise if I told a person to write ALIF then one could end up writing letter alif or word. In the quran we have many surahs which contain some letters in their beginnings eg surah al baqarah starts with ALIF, LAAM and MEEM letters. So if a group of people was told to write down alif, laam, meem then what do you think people will write down? Letters alif, laam and meem or words alif laam meem? Then in arabic language we have some words that can be written with different spellings or letters eg word SIRAAT can be written either by using letter SEEN or SWAAD. So if a group of people were told to write word SIRAAT what do you think people will write down? SIRAAT with SEEN or SWAAD? You will agree that some could write down word siraat with seen and others with swaad. It is just as we write english word REALISE with letter S or Z ie REALIZE. Not only this but there are borrowed words in each and every human language from other languages which can be written down different ways eg see in english in how many different ways people spell word MUHAMMAD or QURAAN ie they write it as mohammed or mohamed and so on and so forth or QURAN or KORAN etc etc.
Can you therefore see the problems when people have to read a text from an awkward way of writing without having it in their memories? Likewise can you see the problems if a group of people is told to write some information down from their memories? This will create a lot of variations or differences between people whether they memorise some information or write it down unless they memorised it and wrote it down exactly the same way right from the very beginning or original source.
Now the big question, in the existing copies of quran worldwide, do we find any such fatal differences at all? The answer is no, none at all. They are all exactly the same go and check them. This is impossible to happen unless all copies of the quran were copied from the copies exactly the same way. This explanation proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the quran we have today is exactly the same. This claim can also be verified by looking at the quranic text in written form and reading it out from one's memory. Despite coming down to us in two completely independent ways or channels the over all the quranic information remains exactly the same. A clear proof that the quran we have today has been preserved perfectly except for some copying errors by the copiers or scribes of the quran.
This proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the claims made by ignorant muslims and nonmuslinms about the changed quran are utterly false. Muslims have been spreading false information about the quran in order to defend false reports in the hadith books and nonmuslims have been using the same reports to discredit the final messenger of God, the quran and deen of islam.
Before I move onto errors in the copies of the quran around the world, it should be born in minds of people that God works with his creatures in the world he has created. This is why when God plays his part in wider scheme of things he makes no mistakes but his human creatures have no immunity against making unintentional mistakes called human errors. Even though God revealed his message to his final messenger in the form of the quran and his messenger preserved it perfectly in form of a memorised information as well as in form of a written information and passed it on through his supporters generation after generation his supporters did make copying errors during this transmission process. However as it is possible for human beings to make unintentional errors so it is possible for them to detect those errors and if they chose they can correct them as well therefore actual message of God does not suffer in such a way that it could be invalidated or discredited.
It is a fact that the quranic copies that still exist worldwide contain scribal, printing and book binding errors. It is time that I explained what are the features or characteristics or properties of these kinds of errors.
When a person is copying a text from another copy of a written text it is possible that a person puts extra letters or words or phrases in the text of the copy one is making or preparing. One can also omit letters or words or phrases and even sentences or paragraphs or pages by looking at one copy and turning the pages of the other copy from which one is copying. One may end up copying a letter or word or sentence or even a page more than once. Likewise when one is binding pages of a written text in form of a book, one may end up missing some pages or put extra pages or one may end up putting the pages in wrong order. It is because human mind does not remain fully attentive at all times when one is doing something. This is how human errors occur or take place and are found in almost each and every copy of the quran. In the printed copies printing related errors occur eg misprints are found in copies.
The good thing is such error are always detected by people who read the quran from those copies and inform the publishers or printers or scribes of the copies. These errors are detectable because of their fixed characteristics. Such errors are also correctable because they are clearly obvious. It is because if any letters are added to words or are omitted from the words then words cannot be read correctly as words. Likewise additions and omissions or disordering of words in sentences makes sentences senseless and if any pages are missed then continuity of text becomes disturbed. So just as preventing human errors is not possible for human beings so human beings are good at detecting human errors. It is then up to people to correct these correctable errors or not to bother but make later copies better.
No doubt the quran claims that the quran will remain intact but since God does things through things so where people are involved in program of God things will happen the way they should. God does not make mistakes through absence of mind but people do therefore when it comes to people they can make mistakes in memorising or copying the quran but they can also detect and correct the mistakes they may make in this regard. All because only God is God and humans can only be humans. Humans are not supernatural beings otherwise such errors by human beings will not have taken place at all. This is how the quran has been kept original by God and his people.
Any errors in any copy are always correctable because copies with errors can be compared with each other as all copies cannot have exactly the same errors. Moreover later copies can be compared with the earlier ones if need be. Not only that but written copies can be tested against memorised version and the memorised version can be tested against the written version. However such exercises should be carried out every now and then by people at ummah level and not at individual level. At individual level people should inform the authorities responsible for publishing of the quranic text to keep the scribal or printing errors to a bare minimum. Unintentional human errors in the copies of the quran make no difference to validity of the quranic text because the original message of the quran remains intact.
There is no proof at all in the existing copies of the quran around the world for any deliberate changes. All errors found in the existing copies of the quran are unintentional and not deliberate. Unintentional errors occur from human beings naturally but to make deliberate changes one has to have an agenda to make purposeful changes in a piece of information to suit one's agenda so that the agenda or purpose of the existing information could be diverted from what it is to what serves the agenda of the person who makes changes to the information. There is no sign of such fatal changes in any existing copy of the quran around the world. A clear proof the quran has been preserved perfectly. Human errors found in the copies do not invalidate the originality of the quran as we have it. For a detailed explanation of things about the quran, deen of islam and pakistan see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
The other point to note is that God has stated in the quran that he has revealed the quran and he will protect it or that none can change his words. What it means is that none can change his words deliberately. Human error are part of human nature ie the way God has created them.
Yet another point which has started this issue of changed quran is so called variant readings of the quran as claimed by ignorant or foolish mullahs. Some claim seven readings other ten and so on and so forth. All these reports are about vast number of different human interpretations of the very same quranic text and nothing more. The interpretations on basis of which muslims are divided into many sects even today despite having the very same quran.
Looking at this issue in another way, one has to ask oneself if the quran was memorised and written down to unite muslims and to keep them united then how could different readings which are taken as different versions of the quran both in text and memory unite muslims? This in fact will have actually confused muslims instead and it will have made memorising of the quran a most difficult process or exercise if not altogether impossible. Because how will people know which reading to memorise and which text to use for it and which to leave out? The original writing style of the text was such that no one could make any sense of it just from the text alone. So this whole claim of variant readings in sense of different versions makes absolutely no sense at all unless it means different interpretations of the very same quran by individuals.
Yet there are another people who claim different readings by which they mean there were different versions of the quran during the reign of uthman both in text and memory forms before uthman ordered compilation of the uthmanic version of the quran to unite muslims on one reading of the quran and one text style called uthmanic rasm. But if we look at the uthmanic quranic text and accept seven or ten readings of it according to reports in hadis books then we are back to where we started from so what was the point of this whole exercise? So this whole things either makes sense the way I have explained above or it makes absolutely no sense at all as to why uthamn burnt all the rest of copies of the quran when even his own version still keeps the same differences? It is also possible that these so called authentic reports may have been inserted into hadis books during the period when islam was turned into a religion instead of a way of life when muslims turned imperlists and adopted imperialism.
Can the originality of the quran be clearly proven? Yes, the originality of the quran can be clearly proven beyond a shadow of doubt. How? From the existing copies of the quran around the world.
This is a most important point that each and every person must come to know and particularly a person who claims to be a muslim.
Let us look at the quranic copies that we have around the world in a bit of detail to see how the existing copies of the quran prove to us human beings that the quran we have today is original.
Let us first look at the way the quran was written down in ancient format of writing. If one gathers ancient copies of the quran that still exist today, one will see in them a special way of writing the quranic text. For example, in those copies we will see that they do not have diacritical marks which we call in arabic harakaat ie damma, fatha and kasra or tanween etc. The other thing one cannot fail to notice is that they do not contain any dots or naqaat for distinguishing alphabetical letters of same shape from each other or one can clearly see that BAA, TAA, SAA, NOON and YAA use exactly the same shape. JEEM, HAA and KHAA use the very same shape, DAAL and ZAAL, RAA and ZAA, SEEN and SHEEN, SWAAD and DWAAD, TWAA and ZWAA, AIN and GHAIN, FAA and QAAF are written using the very same shape. This is most important point to note. The question one has to ask oneself is, is it possible for any person at all to read such a text that is written down this way unless one already knows the actual message in this kind of text format? My answer is, no, it cannot be read no matter how hard one tries unless one is already familiar with the message in the text.
What does this prove beyond a shadow of doubt? It proves the quran we have today in its written form has come from the original source ie directly from the final messenger of God. Not only that it also proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the quran we have today was transmitted by the final messenger of God in two completely independent ways or channels. a) through memory ie people had committed the quran to their memories directly from the final messenger of God and b)through writing and again directly from the final messenger of God.
The vitally important points in this regard for people to understand are:-
The way the quran was written down could not be read unless the quranic text was fully memorised by people. If anyone thinks it could be read then go ahead and try it yourself. Ask someone to write something down for you in that format without telling you what one is writing and then you try and read it yourself. You will soon find out that you cannot make out the text as to what it is saying.
But how does this prove the quran we have today is original? It is because the quranic text we find in the existing copies of the quran proves, it could not have been written down by people from their own memories. Not only that but one can try and do so oneself and one will fail badly even today. So the claim by muslims that they can recreate the quranic text merely from their memories if all written copied of the quran somehow became destroyed is false. Why?
Because there are some particular problems which people face when someone dictates the quranic text from one's memory for others to write it down. What are those problems?
Those problems are different ways of writing a particular piece of quranic information. For example, if I tell a group of people to write a number eg three. Will the person write 3 as a digit or as a word? You will agree that some could write 3 as a digit and others could write three as a word. If the quran was copied the same way from dictation by someone from one's memory then people could write it down different ways. Likewise if I told a person to write ALIF then one could end up writing letter alif or word. In the quran we have many surahs which contain some letters in their beginnings eg surah al baqarah starts with ALIF, LAAM and MEEM letters. So if a group of people was told to write down alif, laam, meem then what do you think people will write down? Letters alif, laam and meem or words alif laam meem? Then in arabic language we have some words that can be written with different spellings or letters eg word SIRAAT can be written either by using letter SEEN or SWAAD. So if a group of people were told to write word SIRAAT what do you think people will write down? SIRAAT with SEEN or SWAAD? You will agree that some could write down word siraat with seen and others with swaad. It is just as we write english word REALISE with letter S or Z ie REALIZE. Not only this but there are borrowed words in each and every human language from other languages which can be written down different ways eg see in english in how many different ways people spell word MUHAMMAD or QURAAN ie they write it as mohammed or mohamed and so on and so forth or QURAN or KORAN etc etc.
Can you therefore see the problems when people have to read a text from an awkward way of writing without having it in their memories? Likewise can you see the problems if a group of people is told to write some information down from their memories? This will create a lot of variations or differences between people whether they memorise some information or write it down unless they memorised it and wrote it down exactly the same way right from the very beginning or original source.
Now the big question, in the existing copies of quran worldwide, do we find any such fatal differences at all? The answer is no, none at all. They are all exactly the same go and check them. This is impossible to happen unless all copies of the quran were copied from the copies exactly the same way. This explanation proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the quran we have today is exactly the same. This claim can also be verified by looking at the quranic text in written form and reading it out from one's memory. Despite coming down to us in two completely independent ways or channels the over all the quranic information remains exactly the same. A clear proof that the quran we have today has been preserved perfectly except for some copying errors by the copiers or scribes of the quran.
This proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the claims made by ignorant muslims and nonmuslinms about the changed quran are utterly false. Muslims have been spreading false information about the quran in order to defend false reports in the hadith books and nonmuslims have been using the same reports to discredit the final messenger of God, the quran and deen of islam.
Before I move onto errors in the copies of the quran around the world, it should be born in minds of people that God works with his creatures in the world he has created. This is why when God plays his part in wider scheme of things he makes no mistakes but his human creatures have no immunity against making unintentional mistakes called human errors. Even though God revealed his message to his final messenger in the form of the quran and his messenger preserved it perfectly in form of a memorised information as well as in form of a written information and passed it on through his supporters generation after generation his supporters did make copying errors during this transmission process. However as it is possible for human beings to make unintentional errors so it is possible for them to detect those errors and if they chose they can correct them as well therefore actual message of God does not suffer in such a way that it could be invalidated or discredited.
It is a fact that the quranic copies that still exist worldwide contain scribal, printing and book binding errors. It is time that I explained what are the features or characteristics or properties of these kinds of errors.
When a person is copying a text from another copy of a written text it is possible that a person puts extra letters or words or phrases in the text of the copy one is making or preparing. One can also omit letters or words or phrases and even sentences or paragraphs or pages by looking at one copy and turning the pages of the other copy from which one is copying. One may end up copying a letter or word or sentence or even a page more than once. Likewise when one is binding pages of a written text in form of a book, one may end up missing some pages or put extra pages or one may end up putting the pages in wrong order. It is because human mind does not remain fully attentive at all times when one is doing something. This is how human errors occur or take place and are found in almost each and every copy of the quran. In the printed copies printing related errors occur eg misprints are found in copies.
The good thing is such error are always detected by people who read the quran from those copies and inform the publishers or printers or scribes of the copies. These errors are detectable because of their fixed characteristics. Such errors are also correctable because they are clearly obvious. It is because if any letters are added to words or are omitted from the words then words cannot be read correctly as words. Likewise additions and omissions or disordering of words in sentences makes sentences senseless and if any pages are missed then continuity of text becomes disturbed. So just as preventing human errors is not possible for human beings so human beings are good at detecting human errors. It is then up to people to correct these correctable errors or not to bother but make later copies better.
No doubt the quran claims that the quran will remain intact but since God does things through things so where people are involved in program of God things will happen the way they should. God does not make mistakes through absence of mind but people do therefore when it comes to people they can make mistakes in memorising or copying the quran but they can also detect and correct the mistakes they may make in this regard. All because only God is God and humans can only be humans. Humans are not supernatural beings otherwise such errors by human beings will not have taken place at all. This is how the quran has been kept original by God and his people.
Any errors in any copy are always correctable because copies with errors can be compared with each other as all copies cannot have exactly the same errors. Moreover later copies can be compared with the earlier ones if need be. Not only that but written copies can be tested against memorised version and the memorised version can be tested against the written version. However such exercises should be carried out every now and then by people at ummah level and not at individual level. At individual level people should inform the authorities responsible for publishing of the quranic text to keep the scribal or printing errors to a bare minimum. Unintentional human errors in the copies of the quran make no difference to validity of the quranic text because the original message of the quran remains intact.
There is no proof at all in the existing copies of the quran around the world for any deliberate changes. All errors found in the existing copies of the quran are unintentional and not deliberate. Unintentional errors occur from human beings naturally but to make deliberate changes one has to have an agenda to make purposeful changes in a piece of information to suit one's agenda so that the agenda or purpose of the existing information could be diverted from what it is to what serves the agenda of the person who makes changes to the information. There is no sign of such fatal changes in any existing copy of the quran around the world. A clear proof the quran has been preserved perfectly. Human errors found in the copies do not invalidate the originality of the quran as we have it. For a detailed explanation of things about the quran, deen of islam and pakistan see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
The other point to note is that God has stated in the quran that he has revealed the quran and he will protect it or that none can change his words. What it means is that none can change his words deliberately. Human error are part of human nature ie the way God has created them.
Yet another point which has started this issue of changed quran is so called variant readings of the quran as claimed by ignorant or foolish mullahs. Some claim seven readings other ten and so on and so forth. All these reports are about vast number of different human interpretations of the very same quranic text and nothing more. The interpretations on basis of which muslims are divided into many sects even today despite having the very same quran.
Looking at this issue in another way, one has to ask oneself if the quran was memorised and written down to unite muslims and to keep them united then how could different readings which are taken as different versions of the quran both in text and memory unite muslims? This in fact will have actually confused muslims instead and it will have made memorising of the quran a most difficult process or exercise if not altogether impossible. Because how will people know which reading to memorise and which text to use for it and which to leave out? The original writing style of the text was such that no one could make any sense of it just from the text alone. So this whole claim of variant readings in sense of different versions makes absolutely no sense at all unless it means different interpretations of the very same quran by individuals.
Yet there are another people who claim different readings by which they mean there were different versions of the quran during the reign of uthman both in text and memory forms before uthman ordered compilation of the uthmanic version of the quran to unite muslims on one reading of the quran and one text style called uthmanic rasm. But if we look at the uthmanic quranic text and accept seven or ten readings of it according to reports in hadis books then we are back to where we started from so what was the point of this whole exercise? So this whole things either makes sense the way I have explained above or it makes absolutely no sense at all as to why uthamn burnt all the rest of copies of the quran when even his own version still keeps the same differences? It is also possible that these so called authentic reports may have been inserted into hadis books during the period when islam was turned into a religion instead of a way of life when muslims turned imperlists and adopted imperialism.
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