By David Wood
One of the most popular arguments for Islam is what we might call the “Argument from Perfect Preservation,” which claims that, since the Qur’an has been perfectly preserved for nearly fourteen centuries, God must have been miraculously preserving it. This argument is based on a verse of the Qur’an: “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)” (15:9).i
After quoting this verse, Muslim apologist Mazhar Kazi comments:
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.ii
Kazi’s claim is odd for two reasons. First, it’s certainly no miracle for a book to be preserved for fourteen centuries. The Dead Sea Scrolls, copies of the Bible, and other writings have survived longer than fourteen centuries, so Muslims can hardly appeal to preservation as proof of divine inspiration. Second, it’s simply false to say that the Qur’an has been perfectly preserved. When we turn to the early Muslim sources, we find that entire chapters of the Qur’an have been lost, that large sections of chapters are missing, that individual verses were forgotten, and that words and phrases were changed. Indeed, we know from Muslim reports that Muhammad’s most trusted teachers couldn’t even agree on which chapters were to be included in the Qur’an!
I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE QUR’AN
The first Qur’anic revelation came to Muhammad around the year 610. Muhammad delivered many more verses to his scribes and companions for memorization and recording over the next two decades. These verses were written on stalks of palm leaves, bones of dead animals, flat stones, and whatever else Muslims could find. There was no complete manuscript of the Qur’an during this time.
Qur’anic revelation ceased when Muhammad died. Shortly after Muhammad’s death, Caliph Abu Bakr needed to suppress a rebellion, and he sent many huffaz (people who had memorized portions of the Qur’an) to fight at the Battle of Yamama. Many of these huffaz died, and Muslim sources tell us that portions of the Qur’an were lost:
Many (of the passages) of the Qur’an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama . . . but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur’an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them.iii
Abu Bakr decided that it was time to gather what remained of the Qur’an in order to prevent more from being lost, and he appointed Zaid ibn Thabit to this task. After Zaid completed his codex around 634 AD, it remained in Abu Bakr’s possession until his death, when it was passed on to Caliph Umar. When Umar died, it was given to Hafsa, a widow of Muhammad.
During Caliph Uthman’s reign, approximately 19 years after the death of Muhammad, disputes arose concerning the correct recitation of the Qur’an. Uthman ordered that Hafsa’s copy of the Qur’an, along with all known textual materials, should be gathered together so that an official version might be compiled. Zaid ibn Thabit, Abdullah bin Az-Zubair, Sa’id bin Al-As, and Abdur-Rahman bin Harith worked diligently to construct a revised text of the Qur’an. When it was finished, “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.”iv The Qur’an we have today is descended from this codex.
Read on at: http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbworld.aspx?pageid=8589953021#sthash.5eU6YhdK.dpuf
THINKAPOLOGETICS.COM 