Understanding the Qur’an

In this session we will look in some detail at the most important object in Islam,

the Qur’an

The Qur’an is as essential to the Muslim belief system as the Bible is for the Christian

belief system

If the Qur’an is false, so is the Muslim faith

The Qur’an is just over half the length of the New Testament, and

about one fifth as long as the Old Testament

It contains 114 surats, roughly equivalent to a

chapter in the Bible. Surats are divided into ayats (equivalent to

a verse

As we have mentioned before, according to tradition the entire Qur’an was sent down in one night, and was revealed to the prophet Muhammad (By Gabriel) over the course of

the next twenty two years

Historically, this time period is around A.D. 610 – A.D. 632

Each Surah has a name associated with it, example Surah 1 is Al-Fatihah

The organization of the Qur’an is very confusing to someone not familiar with it

(and probably to those who are)

They are roughly in the order of length, with some exceptions made along the way

Surah 1 is seven ayah’s long and is the Muslims so-called Lord’s prayer

While the following Surah contains a stunning 286 ayats, and Surah 3 contains 200

In general it follows the rule, but not at all times

If you want to read the Qur’an, it would be smart to get a guide that tells you what

order to read it in (Chronologically) although within one Surah it can contain material

from multiple times

Because of this confusion (and other things) this lead to a collection of sayings by

Muhammad to be collected into what is called the Hadith literature

They contain a lot of writings

According to a Muslim, you have only read the real Qur’an if you have read it in Arabic

“By the Book [that makes things] clear, We have made it an Arabic Qur’an that you may

understand. And, it is inscribed in the Mother of the Book, which We possess, sublime and wise”

(Surah: 43:2-4)

“These are the signs [or “the verses”] of the manifest Book. We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an, that you may understand”

(Surah 12:1-2)

The majority of Muslims in the world cannot even read the “True” Qur’an (because they

don’t speak English)

Your typical American Muslim has never read the Qur’an in Arabic

Even though they can’t all read the Qur’an in Arabic, they all know how to say the prayers

in Arabic, and often can quote parts of scripture in Arabic

Muslims are very proud of the Qur’an and think it’s extremely unique

In Ulum Al Qur’an: An introduction to the Sciences of the Qur’an, Sheikh Abu Ammar

Yasir Qadhi says:

“The Qur’an is the Arabic Speech of Allah, which He revealed to Muhammad (SAW) in wording and meaning and which has been

preserved in the mushafs and has reached us by mutawattir transmissions, and is a challenge to mankind to produce something similar to it.”

Qur’an perfection is a major issue in Islam, the idea of a person writing or having anything to do with the writing of the

Qur’an is a problem

“This part of the definition affirms that the words of the Qur’an are from Allah, and not from Jibreel or even Muhammad, as some of

the innovated sects of Islam, such as the Ash’arees, allege”

The idea of inspiration is different between the Bible and the Qur’an, in the Bible God

influences by his spirit and inspires individuals to write, but you can still get a sense of that persons style (like Paul). In

Islam, that is not the case

The Qur’an is not as much inspired as it is dictates by Allah from Heaven

Not all early Muslims held to that belief though

There are inconsistencies if Allah dictated the entire Qur’an, why would he tell the same

story differently (sometimes contradictory)?

Surah 7:80: “Will you commit foulness such as no creature ever did before you?”

Surah 29:28: “You commit obscenity such as no creature did before you”

Why is it different if Allah is dictating it? Wouldn’t it be the same?

What did Allah say to the Angels?

Surah 7:11: “Prostrate yourselves before Adam!”

Surah 38:71-72: “I am creating a human being from clay, so when I have fashioned

him and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down before him prostrate.”

The Qur’an doesn’t seem to care about rendering things the same (as Allah would)

How did Allah Respond to Iblis’s refusal?

Surah 7:13: “Then go down from it [the Garden]! It is not for you to show arrogance

here, so leave! You are of the degraded.”

Surah 38:77: “Go out from here! You are accursed! And My curse is on you till the

Day of Judgment

It records two different things said for the same conversation

Errors in the Qur’an?According to the Qur’an, in Surat 7:124;

12:41) the Egyptians practiced crucifixion at the time of Joseph

We know from archeology and history that the Qur’an is incorrect in this area

Britannica reports that the first historical record of Crucifixion was about 519 BC when "Darius I, king of Persia, crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon"

The preservation of the Qur’an

Muslims believe that the Qur’an has been preserved completely since the time it was

given to Muhammad

In Surah 15:9 it reads: “We have indeed, sent down the Remembrance, and We shall

preserve it.:

So strong is this belief that Mazhar Kazi said:

“Muslims and non-Muslims both agree that no change has ever occurred in the text of the Qur’an. The above prophecy for the eternal preservation and purity of the Qur’an came true not only for the text of the Qur’an, but

also for the most minute details of its punctuation marks as well. . . . It is a miracle of

the Qur’an that no change has occurred in a single word, a single [letter of the] alphabet, a single punctuation mark, or a single diacritical mark in the text of the Qur’an during the last

fourteen centuries.”

Is that true? Is the Qur’an the exact same as it originally was?

The Qur’an was written LONG before printing press and photocopying was

available, scribes had to hand copy the entire book for over a thousand years

How was the Qur’an transmitted and passed down over the centuries?

Two kinds of transmission

Controlled, and uncontrolled

The Bible is an example of a free transmission (uncontrolled text)

That means the transmission of the Bible, and the copying of the Bible was not

controlled and governedt by any group of people (like a government)

The Books of the Bible (New Testament specifically) were written by the apostles, and

then copied by others and distributed amongst a vast geographic area in

multiple languages

This means that at no one time can an individual or group compile all the copies of

the Bible and edit them to say something that they want it to say because it’s so

widely copied and spread out

When we deal with this type of method we have small errors that creep in, primarily with

grammar because scribes are not the only people doing the copying

But no one person could change the meaning of the text, because all the other

thousands of manuscripts that people have copied are spread across a wide area and

number of people

The Qur’an is an example of a controlled text

A controlled text is one that is typically copied and distributed by the government

We will look at one of the most authoritative Hadith’s to understand how

the Qur’an came about

Sahih Al-Bukari in volume 6 numbers 509 and 510 is the area we will reference

It traces the origins of those who were directly involved back to what is known as

the Uthmanic Revision

After the prophet (Muhammad) had died, the living voice has been removed and

division begins to take place within Islam

At the time of his death, there is no written Qur’anic text, only some ayat’s available in

written form

These ayat were written on various available items, such as parchment, shoulder bones of

camels, and smooth rocks

But the only authoritative version of the Qur’an exists in the minds of particular men called the Qurra, who have memorized all,

or some parts of the Qur’an

This is important, the text of the Qur’an exist only in the minds of those who have

memorized it

“Allah's Apostle neither talked in an insulting manner nor did he ever speak evil

intentionally. He used to say, "The most beloved to me amongst you is the one who

has the best character and manners." He added, " Learn the Qur'an from (any of

these) four persons. `Abdullah bin Mas`ud, Salim the freed slave of Abu Hudhaifa, Ubai

bin Ka`b, and Mu`adh bin Jabal.” (Sahih Bukhari)

Muslims were not worried about creating a final written version of the Qur’an, they were more worried about who would

lead the Muslims

It did not take long though for a major problem to arise that made it

necessary to do this

We will again look at the Hadith literature that records this for us

“Abu Bakr As-Siddiq sent for me when the people! of Yamama had been killed (i.e., a

number of the Prophet's Companions who fought against Musailama). (I went to him) and found 'Umar bin Al-Khattab sitting with him. Abu Bakr then said (to me), "Umar has come to me and

said: "Casualties were heavy among the Qurra' of the! Qur'an (i.e. those who knew the Quran by

heart) on the day of the Battle of Yalmama, and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields,

whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost.”

According to the reliable Muslim history itself, a number of the learned men who had memorized portions of the Qur’an

were killed in battle

It was feared that if another battle happened, some of the Qurra could be killed there too, which would result in

larger portions of the Qur’anic text being lost for good

“Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the Qur'an be collected." I said to 'Umar,

"How can you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?" 'Umar said, "By Allah,

that is a good project. "Umar kept on urging me to accept his proposal till Allah opened

my chest for it and I began to realize the good in the idea which 'Umar had realized."

Notice that words “something which Allah’s Apostle did not do”

That is important because later on Muslims tried to suggest that Muhammad did collect the Qur’an into a text, when all of their own

sources says he did not

Initially, Zaid Bin Thabit (who is supposed to head this project) is overwhelmed with the

magnitude of work needed. But he eventually warms up to the idea and

begins to do it

“Then Abu Bakr said (to me). 'You are a wise young man and we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle. So you should

search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it in one book)."

Note again that they have to search for the fragmentary scripts, obviously the Qur’an

wasn’t a single book yet, it was orally transmitted and partially written

“So I started looking for the Qur'an and collecting it from (what was written on)

palmed stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I

found the last Verse of Surat At-Tauba (Repentance) with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari,

and I did not find it with anybody other than him.”

Parts of the Qur’an were only remembered by one person at times

Think about this: If only one man knew certain parts of the Qur’an, isn’t it very

possible that some was lost when the Qurra died at Yamama?

How do we know that some of those men weren't the only ones who knew certain

portions of the Qur’an? And if so wouldn’t that mean we only have part of what Allah

revealed to Muhammad?

The next hadith moves us forward to the days of Uthman, about eighteen years after

the event we just discussed

The Islamic state is growing quickly in all directions which leads to another problem

with the Qur’an

The worry is not about loosing the Qur’an, but about disagreements between

faithful Muslims

“Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were Waging war to conquer

Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq)

differences in the recitation of the Qur'an, so he said to 'Uthman, "O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Quran) as Jews and the Christians did before.“ (Bukhari :: Book 6 :: Volume 61 ::

Hadith 510)

Muslims today say this concern was just about issues of pronunciation, but that

doesn’t explain why they feared division

“So 'Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so

that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts

to you." Hafsa sent it to 'Uthman 'Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, 'Abdullah bin…

AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and 'AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the

manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you

disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of

Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue. They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned

the original manuscripts to Hafsa.

'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered

that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts

or whole copies, be burnt.”

There is no information about how long this work took, they simply say “They did so”

They made copies of this final version and sent them to the Muslim empires key centers

We have somewhat of a contradiction. On one hand Uthamn gave the original

manuscripts back to Hafsa, while on the other hand he ordered everyone to burn

their old copies”

One thing we know for sure, Utham wanted to make his version of the

Qur’an, the only version

The Qur’an we have today is the Qur’an that Uthman created years after the

prophet had lived

When a person or committee come together and create a standard version of the text,

and then try to destroy all the other competing version (and the manuscripts it was based on) you have little hope of being

able to verify that it matches the original

Muslims today have to fully trust that what Uthman put in his version of the

Qur’an was correct

If Uthman got it wrong, they don’t have the actually Qur’an that they claim Allah has

given to them

Over a thousand years ago, early Christian apologist Al-Kindi responded to the growing

Muslim faith

Many of the point that we brought up about the Qur’an today he reinforces in his work

Keep in mind there is a lot of political issues going around at this time as to who will leads

the Muslims, and the Sunni Shiite split happens about the time we have

been discussing

There are many details we could not address, but this briefly how the Qur’an came about,

and some issues with it’s history

Memory Verse

Psalm 12:6-7: “The words of the LORD are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times. You shall keep them,

O LORD, You shall preserve them from this generation forever.”