The Quran that exists today is a single document/ book. It is believed by Muslims to be the literal words of God, exactly as it was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad PBUH. It is believed to be complete, unedited and untampered with.
Question:
How was the Quran first made into the form we have it in today?
According to the Muslim:
The Prophet Muhammad PBUH was illiterate - he could neither read nor write.
So, the verses of the Quran were uttered by him as direct revelations from God. His closest followers of the earliest converts to Islam would write his utterances on whatever they could find and later memorize them. The verses of the Quran were initially transmitted orally but the fragments of written verses were later compiled into a single text. This text, called the Quran, is exactly what we have printed in Arabic today.
Sources:
Muslims also believe in a collection of documents called Hadith. Hadith's are of the writing genre of history. They are believed to be written accounts of people who were close to Prophet Muhammad PBUH. They are not believed to be the literal words of God and are not divine texts in that sense. Their accounts give important insights into the life of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and key events in the history of Islam.
The Difficulty:
With regards to the initial compilation of the Quran, one hadith (from Sahih Al-Bukhari) says this:
Volume 6, Book 61, Number 509: Narrated Zaid bin Thabit:
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 Quran (i.e. those who knew the Quran by heart) on the day of the Battle of Yamama and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Quran may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the Quran 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." 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 Quran and collect it in one book)." By Allah If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Quran. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?" Abu Bakr replied, "By Allah, it is a good project." Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allah opened my chest for what He had opened the chests of Abu Bakr and 'Umar. So I started looking for the Quran 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. The Verse is: 'Verily there has come unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty... (till the end of Surat-Baraa' (At-Tauba) (9.128-129) Then the complete manuscripts (copy) of the Quran remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with 'Umar till the end of his life, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of 'Umar.
So, to summarise what the hadith excerpt above says:
Consider also this excerpt from another Muslim source:
"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." (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p. 23)
Conclusions:
The difficulty for Muslims here is their claim that the Quran of today is exactly as it was revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH. From the first hadith accounts, there isn't any certainty of that. Instead, there is sufficient reason to doubt it, although not to dismiss the claim altogether. It explicitly says that "a large portion" of it may have been lost.
Towards the end of the first excerpt, Zaid bin Thabit does say "I started looking... and collecting it till I found the last verse of Surat At-Tauba". This legitimately can, but doesn't necessarily, mean that every verse to ever be revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH was found. Instead it could mean that he found only the verses that were known to the Muslims who were his sources.
Also, the compiled script is said to be "complete". This also is subject to interpretation. The word "complete" could either refer to the task of compiling the Quran into a single document, or it could refer to the compilation itself being a full record of every revelation from Prophet Muhammad PBUH.
All of this becomes conclusive in light of the second excerpt. It clearly says there were verses only known to the men who were killed and no records of those verses remained. Thus it would have been impossible for these verses to have also been gathered. The claim that the Quran exists today in its complete form exactly as revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH is simply contrary to evidence, and no more than a statement born of unsubstantiated wishful thinking.
Despite what is logically more likely in light of the evidence, what a Muslim chooses to believe in regards to this matter will ultimately depend how strongly influenced they are by personal interests, biases, and predispositions.
Question:
How was the Quran first made into the form we have it in today?
According to the Muslim:
The Prophet Muhammad PBUH was illiterate - he could neither read nor write.
So, the verses of the Quran were uttered by him as direct revelations from God. His closest followers of the earliest converts to Islam would write his utterances on whatever they could find and later memorize them. The verses of the Quran were initially transmitted orally but the fragments of written verses were later compiled into a single text. This text, called the Quran, is exactly what we have printed in Arabic today.
Sources:
Muslims also believe in a collection of documents called Hadith. Hadith's are of the writing genre of history. They are believed to be written accounts of people who were close to Prophet Muhammad PBUH. They are not believed to be the literal words of God and are not divine texts in that sense. Their accounts give important insights into the life of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and key events in the history of Islam.
The Difficulty:
With regards to the initial compilation of the Quran, one hadith (from Sahih Al-Bukhari) says this:
Volume 6, Book 61, Number 509: Narrated Zaid bin Thabit:
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 Quran (i.e. those who knew the Quran by heart) on the day of the Battle of Yamama and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Quran may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the Quran 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." 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 Quran and collect it in one book)." By Allah If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Quran. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?" Abu Bakr replied, "By Allah, it is a good project." Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allah opened my chest for what He had opened the chests of Abu Bakr and 'Umar. So I started looking for the Quran 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. The Verse is: 'Verily there has come unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty... (till the end of Surat-Baraa' (At-Tauba) (9.128-129) Then the complete manuscripts (copy) of the Quran remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with 'Umar till the end of his life, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of 'Umar.
So, to summarise what the hadith excerpt above says:
- A large number of Qurra (muslims who memorised the Quran) died in battle.
- Out of concern that "a large part of the Quran may be lost" Umar (the second caliph of Islam and a father-in-law to Prophet Muhammad PBUH), urged Abu Bakr (the first caliph) to have the Quran verses compiled into one book.
- Abu Bakr then comissioned one of Prophet Muhammad's PBUH official scribes and narrator of this hadith, Zaid bin Thabit, to do it.
- Both Abu Bakr and Zaid bin Thabit recognised that it was a difficult task which Prophet Muhammad PBUH himself did not do nor comission. (All the events recorded in this hadith excerpt took place after Prophet Muhammad's PBUH passing.)
- Zaid bin Thabit thought it was a more difficult task than moving a mountain, which is impossible.
- Zaid did his best to gather all the verses he could, including the last one.
- The completed manuscripts were then kept in the custody of Abu Bakr and passed on to succeeding caliphs.
Consider also this excerpt from another Muslim source:
"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." (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p. 23)
Conclusions:
The difficulty for Muslims here is their claim that the Quran of today is exactly as it was revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH. From the first hadith accounts, there isn't any certainty of that. Instead, there is sufficient reason to doubt it, although not to dismiss the claim altogether. It explicitly says that "a large portion" of it may have been lost.
Towards the end of the first excerpt, Zaid bin Thabit does say "I started looking... and collecting it till I found the last verse of Surat At-Tauba". This legitimately can, but doesn't necessarily, mean that every verse to ever be revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH was found. Instead it could mean that he found only the verses that were known to the Muslims who were his sources.
Also, the compiled script is said to be "complete". This also is subject to interpretation. The word "complete" could either refer to the task of compiling the Quran into a single document, or it could refer to the compilation itself being a full record of every revelation from Prophet Muhammad PBUH.
All of this becomes conclusive in light of the second excerpt. It clearly says there were verses only known to the men who were killed and no records of those verses remained. Thus it would have been impossible for these verses to have also been gathered. The claim that the Quran exists today in its complete form exactly as revealed through Prophet Muhammad PBUH is simply contrary to evidence, and no more than a statement born of unsubstantiated wishful thinking.
Despite what is logically more likely in light of the evidence, what a Muslim chooses to believe in regards to this matter will ultimately depend how strongly influenced they are by personal interests, biases, and predispositions.
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