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Myths About Islam
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John Henry
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Oct 15, 2006 08:06 PDT
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10 Myths About Islam
- Myth #1
4th Edition
By Timothy W. Dunkin
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(c) 2001-2006, All Rights
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Myth #1
The Qur‘an is Preserved and Unchanged Revelation from Allah
Most people are probably familiar with
the place accorded to the Qur'an by Islam, that it is the "holy
book" of the Muslim religion. Perhaps foremost among Muslim claims
concerning the Qur'an is the belief that it was given to Mohammed by
direct revelation from Allah. The ahadith state that the angel Gabriel
transmitted the Qur'an word for word to Mohammed from Allah, and that
Mohammed then recited these words to his companions, who memorised, and
sometimes transcribed, these qira (recitations) which form the
Qur'an 1. Further, this revelation
from Allah has remained the same, never changing across all the centuries
of transmission and transcription. A typical presentation of the orthodox
Muslim claim can be found in the statement of the Pakistani revivalist
and religious authority Maududi below,
“The original texts of most of the former divine Books were lost
altogether, and only their translations exist today. The Qur’an, on the
other hand, exists exactly as it had been revealed to the Prophet; not a
word - nay, not a dot of it - has been changed. It is available in its
original text and the Word of God has been preserved for all times to
come.” 2
And further,
“So well has it (the Qur'an) been preserved both in memory and in
writing, that the Arabic text we have today is identical to the text as
it was revealed to the Prophet. Not even a single letter has yielded to
corruption during the passage of the centuries. And so it will remain
forever, by the consent of Allah."3
Many Muslims claim that after Mohammed's death, fear that portions
of these teachings of Allah would be lost due to battle and deaths of
those who had heard the words of Mohammed motivated early Muslim rulers
to begin compilation of the revelations which Mohammed claimed to have
received. The end result of this compilation, began by Mohammed's
successor Abu Bakr, and finished by Caliph Uthman (644-656 AD), is said
to be the Qur'an in its present form 4 (though what
usually remains unmentioned is that Uthman is reported in the traditions
to have also carried out the destruction by fire of all variant readings
which did not conform to his compilation.)
The Tangible Evidences
Textual and archaeological evidences, however, do not support these
claims. Most of the actual evidence which has been found post-dates
Uthman by at least a century, and additionally differs from the present
“standard” version of the Arabic Qur’an on a number of points. This
divergence is true even for that evidence which is chronologically nearer
to this Caliph.
To begin, Muslim scholars claim to have uncovered 7th century copies of
the original Quranic manuscript, sent throughout the newly formed Arab
Empire by Uthman, these being the Topkapi MSS in Istanbul, and the
Samarkand MSS in Tashkent. However, manuscript experts have ruled out
that possibility, and instead date these manuscripts as being from the
late 8th century, at the earliest. Their reason for doing so is that
these two manuscripts were copied in what is known as the Kufic script, a
style which originated in the Iraqi city of Kufah and was largely used
from the late 8th to the 11th centuries, only gradually finding
widespread use in the rest of the Muslim world until it was replaced
generally by the Naskh script5.
In addition to the anachronistic Kufic script used, other evidence from
examination of the Samarkand codex suggests a later date. This manuscript
bears artistic ornamentation between many of the surat, as well as
medallions containing kufic-style numerals gauging progress through each
individual surah, all of which suggests an 8th or 9th century age for the
manuscript. Islamic calligraphy expert Safadi says,
“It is significant that, until the beginning of the 9th century,
Kufic Qur'ans received little illumination, but once this initial
reluctance was overcome, various ornamental devices were evolved, many of
which served necessary functions. Notable among these were the Unwan
(title pages), Surah (chapter) headings, verse divisions, verse counts,
section indicators, and colophons.”6
The same sort of ornamentation appears on the Topkapi codex as well,
likewise indicating its later date. Further, in contradiction to the
claim that this manuscript is one of the original copies sent out by
Uthman to the various Muslim centres, the Samarkand codex is very
eclectic, with the text from page to page alternating between careful
copying and hasty, untidy transmission; and some pages containing flowing
broad text, while on others the text is cramped and compressed. This
evidence seems to discount the notion that a single scribe copied the
whole manuscript, and even calls into question whether the whole
manuscript would have been copied at one time.
Further, in the Samarkand codex, several differences in reading exist
with respect to the “standard” Quranic text existing today and said to
date directly back to Mohammed’s revelations. Perhaps the most well-known
example is found in the difference on Surah 37:103. In the Samarkand
manuscript, this ayah reads “wa ma aslamaa...”, which translated means
“and they did not submit” (i.e. become Muslims). Yet, the present Arabic
“standard” Qur’an reads “Falammaa aslamaa..” which when translated means
“and they submitted”7. Thus, the change of one word
alters the meaning of the passage to a diametrically opposite meaning!
Additionally, other differences between the Samarkand codex and the
present Arabic version had been noted. They amount to the same sort of
changes in consonantal readings (the Samarkand is without vowel
pointings) and even the changing of whole words, in Surat 2:15, 2:57,
2:284, 5:99, 6:11, 7:27, 7:69, 18:83, 19:72, 20:3, 20:79, 20:108,
36:20-21, 38:26, as well as other ayat8. This shows
us, despite the claims made by many Muslim scholars and theologians
(those quoted above, for instance) that no changes were ever introduced
into the Quranic manuscript history and that the Arabic Qur'an has always
remained the same, that there were indeed alterations in Quranic
manuscripts during the early years of Islam and that the original Arabic
readings have not been preserved intact in each daughter manuscript.
Thus, the Muslim apologetic argument which points to the "perfect
and uncorrupted" Qur'an as a proof of the finality and truth of
Islam, since it has "obviously" been protected by Allah
throughout its history, rests on shaky ground.
It is notable that as yet, no such study has been allowed on the Topkapi
codex, which has been kept under wraps except for brief glimpses. Even
photographic record of this codex is forbidden, which has made objective
analysis of the readings of this document impossible.
A very ancient manuscript, perhaps slightly earlier than the
aforementioned two manuscripts, was housed in the British Museum in
London, and was written in the Ma’il style of script, which was
indigenously used around the Hijaz, which includes Mecca and Medina. This
manuscript, however, has been dated by Dr. Martin Lings (himself a
practicing Muslim) to around the end of the 8th century, and is said to
be one of the two oldest known Quranic leaves9. In
fact, only the Sana’a manuscripts, a cache of ancient Quranic leaves
found in a sealed room of an antiquated Yemen mosque, seem to date
earlier than the first quarter of the 8th century10.
These leaves and fragments date towards the end of the 7th century, but
also contain several readings which differ from the standardised text
used today, as was reported fairly recently in The Atlantic Online
11. The evidences from these texts are important for
two reasons. First, they falsify the Muslim claims to having found the
“original” copies made of Uthman’s recension, and thus cannot be used as
a proof for the early uniformity of the Quranic text. Second, their
readily apparent divergences from the present standard text show that
such uniformity did not even exist in the early Qur’an anywise.
Other tangible evidence of the Qur’an’s mutability exists. Cook mentions
the existence of Quranic quotations on early Muslim coins which differ
from the present Qur’an,
"Equally, when the first Koranic quotations appear on coins and
inscriptions towards the end of the seventh century, they show
divergences from the canonical text. These appear trivial from the point
of view of content, but the fact that they appear in such formal contexts
as these goes badly with the notion that the text had already been
frozen." 12
Essentially, he is saying that the appearance of divergent readings
on what are really official, state-sponsored documents, indicates that
the Quranic text was still in a state of flux, even after the time of
Uthman. This lack of uniformity has likewise implied to scholars that the
Qur’an was not invested with the same air of authority with which it is
held by Muslims in our day. As we have seen, there is not any really
solid evidence that the Qur'an existed in its final, edited form for at
least a century or more after the rise of the Arab Empire. It can perhaps
be rightly suggested that rather than the Qur'an being the beginning of
Islam (as is often claimed), Islam was the finisher of the Qur'an.
"Schacht's studies of the early development of legal doctrine
within the community demonstrate that with very few exceptions, Muslim
jurisprudence was not derived from the contents of the Qur'an. It may be
added that those few exceptions are themselves hardly evidence for the
existence of the canon, and further observed that even where doctrine was
alleged to draw upon scripture, such is not necessarily evidence of the
scriptural source. Derivation of law from scripture...was a phenomenon of
the ninth century...A similar kind of negative evidence is absence of any
reference to the Qur'an in the Fiqh Akbar
I."13
Thus, we see that from the evidence of the 8th century AD legal
creed represented in the Fiqh Akbar I, with its lack of reference to the
Qur'an, that the Qur'an probably had minimal to no impact on early Muslim
society. Indeed, if the Qur'an had existed in its present form, and was
imbued with the gravitas of authority as the revelation of God's law, it
seems very strange that it would hardly have been mentioned in a
foundational legal document for the Muslim community. Only over time did
it develop sufficient status to become a source of law and practice.
Schacht further states in this vein,
"...the first considerable body of legal traditions from the
Prophet originated towards the middle of the second [Islamic] century, in
opposition to slightly earlier traditions from Companions and other
authorities and to the "living tradition" of the ancient
schools of law....the evidence of legal traditions carries us back to
about the year 100 A.H. only; at that time Islamic legal thought started
from late Umaiyad administrative and popular
practice."14
He continues,
"Muhammedan law did not derive directly from the Koran but
developed...out of popular and administrative practice under the
Umaiyads, and this practice often diverged from the intentions and even
the explicit wording of the Koran....Apart from the most elementary
rules, norms derived from the Koran were introduced into Muhammedan law
almost invariably at a secondary stage. This applies not only to those
branches of law which are not covered in detail by the Koranic
legislation - if we may use this term of the essentially ethical and only
incidentally legal body of maxims contained in the Koran - but to family
law, the law of inheritance, and even cult and
ritual."15
Crone also notes that the early caliphs were more or less free to
make and unmake the Sunna (Muslim traditions concerning precepts
supposedly set forth by Mohammed), doing so under their own authority as
"God's representative", not because of any traditions stemming
from the Qur'an or from the example set by Mohammed or his
companions16. Only later, as Hinds and Crone have also
argued, did the religious elite of the second or third Islamic centuries
lend a divine authority to this body of Sunna. Indeed, in another work,
Crone points out that, far from being handed down by Allah in the Qur'an,
the Islamic shari'a is merely a reshaped version of the provincial law
that existed in the Near East from Hellenistic times right down to the
Byzantine period preceding the Arab Empire17. In
effect, Islamic law was built on the substrate of law as had been found
in the region for a millennium, adjusted it according to the custom and
preference of the early caliphs, and finally set it in stone at the
behest of the Muslim ulama (theologians)as the veritable word of Allah,
not to be questioned, only to be obeyed.
Thus, the Qur'an appears to have had only a marginal effect on the body
of Islamic law which was building up in the first centuries of the Arab
Empire. Of much greater impact were the popular practice of the people
themselves and the expedients of governing needed to manage the new
order, and these helped to mold the legal system of Islam in preparation
for the eventual Quranic overlay onto the system. In other words, the
Qur'an was developed and invested with its authority as
"scripture" through a process of evolution in Muslim culture,
instead of the traditional view that the Qur'an laid the foundation for
Muslim society in the ummah. It was not until the 9th century that the
Qur’an began to be invested with the authority with which later Islam
would view it.
Indeed, it should be noted that even as late as the middle part of the
8th century, contemporaneous sources exhibit a knowledge of the existence
of only a part of the Qur'an. John of Damascus was a Syriac Christian
priest who lived in the 8th century, during and after the Arab takeover
of Syria. In his work De Haeresibus (c. 750 AD), John reveals that he had
an intimate familiarity with many Arab traditions. Among these traditions
are certain books which he attributes to "this Mohammed". From
John's apologetic defences, it has become apparent to scholars that he
was only familiar with surat 2-5 of what is presently the
Qur'an18. In addition, John deals at length with
another book, which he refers to by title as the "book on the Camel
of God", which does not appear in the present Qur'an, but yet which
he refers to as one of the books of the "Ishmaelites". He lists
this book in parallel with "the book of the Table" (Surah 4),
"the book of the Heifer" (Surah 2), and the "book of the
Woman" (surah 3), dealing with them in the same way to refute the
heresy taught within them19, which suggests that they
were viewed by the "Ishmaelites" with whom he was dealing as
just as scripturally authoritative as the other books which now do appear
in the Qur'an. The Qur'an also makes passing references to this Book of
the Camel of God (see Surat 7:73,77; 91:13-14), but this book failed to
make it into the final compilation of the Arab holy writings.
Another witness to the status of the Arab religious texts from the 8th
century would be the Emperor Leo III of Byzantium (r. 717-741 AD). Leo
was in a position to be familiar with the religious status of the
Syria-Palestine area, as he was raised on the frontier of Syria, and was
even reputed to be bilingual in Greek and Arabic, and thus would almost
surely have become acquainted with the religious teachings of the Arabs,
whether oral or from a holy book, who were increasingly putting pressure
onto what was left of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor. In a
correspondence which he wrote to the Caliph Umar II (r. 717-720 AD), he
issued a defence of Christianity against the doctrines of the particular
Arab monotheism which was developing. In this defence, he does not
mention the Qur'an (indeed, in the older text of his letter, an Armenian
text dating from somewhere in the late 8th century20,
the Qur'an is not even quoted)21. In his letter, Leo
refers primarily to Surat 2-5, while making a handful of scattered
references which can be interpreted as pointing to other surat of what is
now the Qur'an. Overall, however, the impression is that Leo knew of
written compilations of Surat 2-5, but was relying upon oral tradition
and/or other more unofficial writings, which had either not yet been
assembled into a form of religious compilation by the Arabs, or else had
only very recently been assembled and was still in a state of flux as far
as its form and order were concerned22.
Scholars have noted the great amount of influence which
Judeo-Christianity, here defined as those sects present in Palestine,
Syria, and Iraq which accepted Christ as a Messiah-figure, but who
rejected His deity (e.g. the Nazoreans, Ebionites, etc.), had upon the
initial development of Islam. Indeed, many beliefs of these groups
coincide with those later held by Islam, including a belief that Jesus
Christ was not a member of the Godhead, but was instead a subordinated
prophet of God, and the emphasis upon Abraham as the first "man of
knowledge" who had the knowledge of God conferred upon him by an
angel23. Other aspects of these Judeo-Christian groups
which were later adopted by the Arabs into their developing monotheism
after their military expansion into these regions included the denial of
the crucifixion, the obligation to observe the sabbath and other elements
of the Mosaic law, the qiblah (direction of prayer) towards Jerusalem,
which was the initial direction recorded in Islamic tradition before it
was changed to Mecca. The Arabs, of course, would have been exposed to
the religious beliefs of these groups, as well as those of the Jews and
the various Christian sects, due to the presence of some of these in
Arabia, as well as through trade relations. After the Arabs expanded
their conquests into Persia/Mesopotamia and the eastern end of the
Byzantine Empire, it would not be surprising that these doctrines were
accepted into the larger aegis of the developing state monotheism,
especially as the Arabs sought to differentiate themselves from both the
Jews and the Orthodox Christians of the Byzantine Empire.
This would explain the large amount of borrowing of material in the
Qur'an from Christian, Jewish, and especially Judeo-Christian sources. It
is likely that the Arabs formulated the belief system of Islam only after
leaving the Arabian desert and coming into contact with these
Judeo-Christian groups (primarily) and other belief systems outside of
Arabia. Wansbrough points out that the internal allusions in the Qur'an
itself seem to indicate that it arose against the backdrop of sectarian
strife with other religious groups found in Syro-Palestine and Iraq (and
thus, was not a product of central Arabian revelation),
"Quranic allusion presupposes familiarity with the narrative
material of Judaeo-Christian scripture, which was not so much
reformulated as merely referred to....Taken together, the quantity of
reference, the mechanically repetitious employment of rhetorical
convention, and the stridently polemical style, all suggest a strongly
sectarian atmosphere in which the corpus of familiar scripture was being
pressed into the service of as yet unfamiliar doctrine."
24
Thus, these Judeo-Christian scriptures were relied upon to formulate
and validate the arising Arab monotheism, and the Qur’an as a body of
scripture saw its evolution impressed upon by the traditions and
teachings of the Judaeo-Christian world which existed outside of Arabia.
These traditions and knowledge entered into the consciousness of the
Arabs' new religion from the conquered Christian lands (along with the
large Jewish populations) taken in Yemen, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
Likewise, the trace of Zoroastrian tales in the Qur’an most likely
entered the Islamic realm after the subjugation of the revived Persian
Empire under Yazdegird III, the last Sassanid Shah. Coming into contact
with the higher civilisations of Constantinople and Ctesiphon, each with
their own established monotheistic religion, it is not surprising that
the Arabs would desire to invest their new religion with the same sort of
traditions. As Ibn Warraq points out, the formulation of the Qur'an
likely occurred out of a desire to provide Mohammed, said to be a prophet
of the Mosaic model, with his very own Holy Writ. Just as Moses received
the Word of God from God, so must Mohammed, to legitimise the Arab claims
about his prophethood. In fact, it has been pointed out that Muslim
philologists have systematically tried to manipulate the evidence from
Arabian poetry so as to give a pre-Islamic appearance for such poetry
(patterned along the lines of the Qur'an), for the purpose of giving the
Qur’an a more Arabian flavour and thus substantiate the claim that the
Qur'an was given to an Arabian prophet in pure Arabic, from
God25.
In fact, the very importance of Mohammed as the true moving force behind
the original Arab religion is questionable. Scholars have shown that
pretty much all the biographical information about Mohammed presented by
early Islamic tradition is of questionable trustworthiness. As Cook
states,
"False ascription was rife among the eighth-century scholars,
and...in any case Ibn Ishaq and his contemporaries were drawing on oral
tradition. Neither of these propositions is as arbitrary as it sounds. We
have reason to believe that numerous traditions on questions of dogma and
law were provided with spurious chains of authorities by those who put
them into circulation; and at the same time we have much evidence of
controversy in the eighth century as to whether it was permissible to
reduce oral tradition to writing. The implications of this view for the
reliability of our sources are clearly rather negative. If we cannot
trust the chains of authorities, we can no longer claim to know that we
have before us the separately transmitted accounts of independent
witnesses; and if knowledge of the life of Muhammed was transmitted
orally for a century before it was reduced to writing, then the chances
are that the material will have undergone considerable alteration in the
process."26
Three eminent scholars of Islam, Michael Cook, Patricia Crone, and
Martin Hinds, on very valid logical and evidential grounds, reject the
whole Islamic history of Mohammed which was supposedly presented "in
the clear light of history":
"[They] regard the whole established version of Islamic history
down to at least the time of Abd al-Malik (685-705) as a later
fabrication, and reconstruct the Arab Conquests and the formation of the
Caliphate as a movement of peninsular Arabs who had been inspired by
Jewish messianism to try to reclaim the Promised Land. In this
interpretation, Islam emerged as an autonomous religion and culture only
within the process of a long struggle for identity among the disparate
peoples yoked together by the Conquests: Jacobite Syrians, Nestorian
Aramaeans in Iraq, Copts, Jews, and (finally) peninsular
Arabs."27
Thus, there is a strong and growing scholarly contention against the
traditional (and uncritically accepted) view of Mohammed and very early
Islamic history, including the origination of the Qur'an. Concerning
Mohammed specifically, this will be revisited in chapter 5.
Moving on to a later age, the earliest definitive appearance of the
Qur'an in its present form dates from the 10th century, when the text as
it now stands was compiled from seven different versions of the Quranic
text to form an amalgamated, mutually acceptable text made easier to
understand because of the addition of vowel and diacritical marks to the
Arabic script (where they had previously been lacking, and hence made the
texts harder to read) 28.
Many Muslims claim, however, that Mohammed had already compiled a
complete Quranic manuscript before his death in 632 AD, and that
following manuscripts agreed with this first text perfectly. The claim is
made that there were no conflicting manuscripts produced. These
assertions are contradicted both by evidence from scholarly study, and by
variant Muslim assertions, mentioned above and articulated more fully
below, which claim that Mohammed's followers compiled the Quranic
teachings after his death.
"One thing only is certain and is openly recognized by
tradition, namely, that there was not in existence any collection of
revelations in final form, because, as long as he was alive, new
revelations were being added to the earlier ones."
29
Scholars assert that at Mohammed's death, there was no singular
codex for the Qur'an 30. Indeed, as has been noted
above, there probably was not even a codex of the Qur'an until at after
the middle part of the 8th century (the leaves mentioned earlier are
single pages, not comprising a whole collection of writings). Given the
late appearance of complete Quranic texts, this appears to bear witness
to the truth. However, as was seen above, many Muslim scholars make the
claim that the Qur'an has existed exactly as it was handed down to
Mohammed, even to this day.
Yet, scholarship finds that there was no single copy of the Qur'an even
in existence until long after that year ascribed as Mohammed's death.
However, there may have been portions of the Qur'an which had been
written down at various points, even in the very early years of Islam
(most likely the Surat 2-5 observed by John and Leo, as well as a few
others). However, not all Muslim traditions teach that the Qur'an was
completed in codex form at the time of Mohammed's death. Indeed, one of
the more prominent traditions records the compilation of the Qur'an
(assumed, of course, to be the whole Qur'an) from various sources
(including bones and palm fronds) upon which the recitations has been
inscribed. They were these portions, according to the Muslim traditions
themselves, along with the portions of the Qur'an present in the memories
of various companions of Mohammed, which Zaid ibn Thabit (a companion of
Mohammed who produced a compilation of the Qur'an) sought out to make his
compilation of the Qur'an codex for Abu Bakr, the first Caliph and
successor of Mohammed.
Manufacturing the Qur'an
As was remarked upon before, many Muslims will claim that the Qur'an was
handed down in its present and complete form to Mohammed and has remained
unchanged since (thus circumventing the traditional process of collection
and collation discussed below). However, if such were the case, there
would have been no need for the collection of the texts and recitations
which Zaid performed for Abu Bakr as indicated in the most generally
reliable of the hadith traditions (and which other close companions of
Mohammed had also been doing, independently). Why send out a man to make
the compilation if you already have the complete and perfect text before
you? If nothing else, this affirms the notion, articulated by Cook above,
that the body of early Muslim traditions, usually set down in writing
over a century and a half after the events which they purport to
chronicle, are very untrustworthy as sources for drawing up historical
reconstruction of the early Muslim era. These traditional sources,
produced as they were within the framework of internecine fighting
amongst different factions hoping to gain ascendancy in the Arab Empire,
are naturally polemical and written with the aim of bolstering the
positions and legitimacy of the factions. Hence, there can be several
different versions of the same story, each one placing a different
general or other important personage with whom the faction wishes to
identify, at the site of an important event31.
Let us now look at the most generally accepted tradition of the Quranic
inception, which I will relate in its details. Note that even this
tradition seems to contain some contradictory teachings, and in the very
least some conceptual flaws. Muslims will often claim that the memories
of several hundreds of the close companions of Mohammed were all
supernaturally enhanced so as to allow them all to memorise the Quranic
recitations, so that the Qur'an was preserved perfectly in their witness
as well. But again, this begs the question of why Zaid would have to
range far and wide to search out every last ayat if they were readily
available in the memories of any one of hundreds of companions who were
readily on hand? The fact that these men did NOT have the Qur'an
memorised, and that the recitations were scattered all over the place
seems evident from the hadith literature itself.
Narrated Zaid bin Thabit:" So I started looking for the Qur'an
and collecting it from (what was written on) palm-leaf 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."
32
Note, this tradition says two things: That Zaid had to scrounge up
portions of the Qur'an from all over the place (palm leaves, stones,
etc.) as well as from the memories of men. Also, it says that Zaid found
a verse of the Qu'ran which was known by only ONE companion. Thus, the
idea that hundreds of companions knew the Qur'an perfectly by heart is
not supported even by this tradition.
The truth is that Zaid probably did not get the entirety of the original
Quranic recitations into his compilation. Hadithic tradition demonstrates
this by informing us that many of the reciters were killed at the battle
of Yamama (a battle waged to re-subdue several Arab tribes who revolted
from Islam following Mohammed's death) and that many portions of the
Qu'ran were irretrievably 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."
33
Hence, possibly large portions of the original revelation attributed
to Mohammed simply ceased to exist (perhaps the Book of the Camel of God
would be included in this category?) It was, in fact, the knowledge of
this that prompted Abu Bakr to initiate Zaid's mission to compile the
Qur'an.
Eventually, Zaid got as much of the Qur'an as he could find compiled
together. Once this happened, as Gilchrist reports, the compilation was
concealed, receiving no publicity for several years
34.
Then a crisis arose. Nineteen years after Mohammed's death, a Muslim
general, Hudhayfah, campaigning in northern Syria, reported back to
Caliph Uthman that the troops in his army, some from Syria and some from
Iraq, were using different readings of the Qur'an. The reason for this
was because two other companions of Mohammed, Abdullah ibn Mas'ud and
Ubayy ibn Ka'b, had each prepared their own compilations of the Qur'an
independently of each other and of Zaid. They were also close companions
of Mohammed who knew much of the Qur'an and had found much of the rest.
The problem was that each was propagating a different text from the
other.
Caliph Uthman's solution to this problem was to bring the Zaid
codification out of hiding, establish IT as the "standard"
Quranic text for all Muslims, and he then tried to burn all other codices
which differed from the Zaid text. He also had the Zaid text standardised
to conform to Quraish-style Arabic (spoken around Mecca, and the dialect
Mohammed used). Zaid himself was from Medina, and his dialect and
language was slightly different from that of the Quraish.
Narrated Anas (ra): "Uthman called Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin
az-Zubair, Sa'id bin Al-'As and 'Abdur-Rahman bin Al-Harith bin Hisham,
and then they wrote the manuscripts (of the Qur'an). 'Uthman said to the
three Quraishi persons, 'If you differ with Zaid bin Thabit on any point
of the Qur'an, then write it in the language of Quraish, as the Qur'an
was revealed in their language'. So they acted accordingly."
35
Thus, these three Quraishis went over Zaid's text, and altered it at
any point at which it was not conformable to the Quraish dialect. Further
Muslim historiography reports,
"Abu Amr states that he received the following revelation from
Katada as-Sadusi: "When the first copy of the Qur’an was written out
and presented to [the khalif] Othman Ibn Affan, he said: ‘There are
faults of language in it, and let the Arabs of the desert rectify them
with their tongues.'"36
It appears then that Uthman was still not satisfied with the purity
of the language, and relied upon the Bedouin (traditional arbiters on
questions of Arabic grammar, both before and after the advent of Islam,
due to the prestige of the Bedouin speech and its place as the pure
language of poetry37 to resolve some issues. In
relating the above tradition from Muslim sources, the general sense of
unreliability for these traditions must again be emphasised. However, in
a garbled form and fashion, the traditions may relate legitimate details
about the collection of the Qur'an. While it may not have happened in the
manner described by the historiographers, the details of the collation
and correction of the Qur'an may well reflect analogous events occurring
during the solidification of the Arab Empire and the development of the
Arab monotheism, especially from the tumultuous years of the early civil
wars. Indeed, the kernel of truth most likely is there, surrounded by the
shuck of later literary exaggeration and ornamentation.
Many Muslims will argue that the differences mentioned above between the
various compilations, were due to pronunciation differences, and that no
difference in the actual text existed. One Muslim apologist with whom I
have had much discussion said it this way, "Although minor in
nature, yet the differences in the pronunciation were seen with concern
by the cautious Caliph who feared they could develop into different
versions with the possibility of different meanings. It was required that
just like a standard text, a standard pronunciation should also be
decided."
The problem with this thesis is that differences in pronunciation between
various compilations would not APPEAR in the text, as the use of pointing
to mark vowels was not yet in use for the Quranic text. This is because
Arabic is a language, like all Semitic languages, based on consonantal
word roots, with the weak vowels supplied either by tacit knowledge and
context, or (as in later times) by diacritical marks called
"pointing", that indicate which vowel is used with each
consonant. The same base consonantal root can be used, but have different
pointing marks to indicate different tenses, number, gender, etc. Hence,
it would be possible to have different pronunciations, yes, based upon
regional accents and dialects. BUT, these differences in pronunciation
would not appear in the various texts. The texts could all say the same
thing as far as the actual consonants which were written down, and still
be pronounced differently. The fact that there were significant enough
differences in the texts themselves (which would be INDEPENDENT of
pronunciation) to cause Uthman to seek to eliminate all competitors to
the Zaid text immediately tells us that these readings, the actual WORDS,
represented significant differences between texts.
And differences there were between the texts. For instance, the hadithic
tradition records the following:
Narrated Ibrahim: "The companions of 'Abdullah (bin Mas'ud) came
to Abi Darda', (and before they arrived at his home), he looked for them
and found them. Then he asked them,: "Who among you can recite
(Qur'an) as 'Abdullah recites it?" They replied, "All of
us." He asked, "Who among you knows it by heart?" They
pointed at 'Alqama. Then he asked Alqama. "How did you hear
'Abdullah bin Mas'ud reciting Surat Al-Lail (The Night)?" Alqama
recited:
'By the male and the female.' Abu Ad-Darda said,
"I testify that I heard me Prophet reciting it likewise, but
these people want me to recite it:--
'And by Him Who created male and female.' But by Allah, I will not
follow them." 38
Thus, we see that the text of Surah 92:3 taught and recited by
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud differed from that used by other Muslims, not just in
pronunciation, but in the words themselves, in a way which changes the
meaning of the verse (in this case, eliminating a reference to Allah).
Note also, the reading which it is claimed was spoken by Mohammed himself
is not the one presently found in the Qur'an.
Gilchrist and others report likewise that much controversy was engendered
through the years by reports that ibn Mas'ud left out Surat numbers 1,
113, and 114 from his compilation.
Four notable differences between the Zaid text and the ibn Mas'ud text
are detailed by Gilchrist 39:
Surah 2:275 - Zaid text - Allahiina yaakuluunar-ribaa laa yaquumuun -
"those that devour usury will not stand"
Mas'ud text - Allahiina yaakuluunar-ribaa laa yaquumuun yawmal qiyaamati
- "those that devour usury will not stand IN THE RESURRECTION
DAY."
Surah 5:91 - Zaid text - Fasiyaamu thalaathati ayyaamin - "fast for
three days"
Mas'ud text - Fasiyaamu thalaathati ayyaamin mutataabi'aatin - "fast
for three SUCCESSIVE days"
Surah 6:153 - Zaid text - Wa anna haathaa siraatii - "Verily this is
my path"
Mas'ud text - Wa haathaa siraatu rabbakum - "This is the path OF
YOUR LORD"
Incidentally, the text of Ubayy ibn Ka'b also has this reading, except
that the word "rabbakum" is replaced with "rabbika".
Surah 33:6 - Zaid text - Wa azwaajuhuu ummahaatuhuu - "and his wives
are their mothers"
Mas'ud text - Wa azwaajuhuu ummahaatuhuu wa huwa abuu laahum - "and
his wives are their mothers AND HE IS THEIR FATHER."
The ibn Ka'b text has these same words, but reverses the statements about
Mohammed's wives being mothers and he being fathers to the
"ummah", placing the statement about Mohammed first.
Hence, there WERE very definite differences between these early
renderings of the Qur'an, which cannot be explained away by appeals to
pronunciation. These that I have mentioned are only four of the
differences between early compilations of the Qur'an. Arthur Jeffery's
book, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an, contains over
350 pages of details concerning variant readings between early Quranic
compilations of the time. Further, the eminent scholar of Islam, W.
Montgomery Watt, makes this remark,
"No copies exist of any of the early codices, but the list of
variant readings from the two just mentioned is extensive [ed. note -
obtained from the various works of early Muslim historiographers who
quote these variants], running to a thousand or more items in both
cases." 40
Hence, there appear to have been MANY variations in early Quranic
texts, despite the claims of perfection and invariance which are made for
the Qur'an.
It must be understood what is the place and significance of all that has
been said above. Christianity, once it reached a position to be able to
investigate this type of field with evidence and scientific methodology,
has been able to investigate the textual history of the Bible in a
systematic way. This has enabled Christians to ascertain what were the
readings of the original biblical autographs, even though said autographs
no longer exist today. This has also allowed Christianity to establish
and eliminate spurious alterations or omissions made from individual
manuscripts, thus maintaining a pure text while yet acknowledging the
obvious presence of disparate readings between individual manuscripts.
Thus, through recourse to the examination of the sum total of the
manuscript evidence, along with concurrent evidence from other ancient
versions and the quotations of patristic writers from the early years of
the faith, Christians can be certain that the words of God have been
preserved for them throughout the ages and are available to them today,
even without having the original autographs.
The same assurance cannot be had by the Muslim, who has been barricaded
into accepting as the “orthodox” position the view that the Qur’an has
never once changed since its original inception, and that the Qur’an does
not even HAVE a textual history. Whether a Muslim believes that the
Qur’an was handed down intact and whole to Mohammed and has not changed
since, or that the Qur’an was preserved in the compilation of Zaid and
Uthman and has not changed since, he or she is still placed into the same
logically and factually untenable position. Whereas Christianity has been
realistic about the matter, has accepted that individual manuscripts can
and will become altered over time (whether accidental or purposeful makes
no difference), and has developed a fairly simple yet scientific method
for discerning the true from the false (even if this method has been
abused by those seeking to promote the spurious Alexandrian manuscripts
over and above the vast majority of Traditional Text mss.), Islam does
not have this recourse. Because of the record of Uthman’s destruction and
suppression of alternate Quranic versions, the Muslim has no means by
which to truly and scientifically determine whether the readings in his
present Qur’an are REALLY the original readings. All that can be
truthfully said is that the present readings were those of Uthman’s
purported version. Yet, because of the destruction of so much authentic
source material, there is no way to judge to what extent, numerically and
geographically, the variant Qur’ans of ibn Kaab, ibn Mas’ud, and other
compilers were found. The Muslim cannot in any rational way state that
certain readings found, for instance, in the Mas’ud version were
definitely not the TRUE revelation received by Mohammed. As noted above,
the Mas’ud reading of Al-Lail 92:3 as recorded in the hadithic record is
said to be that which was obtained from Mohammed himself. YET, this
reading does not appear in the present Qur’an, which suggests that an
authentic pronouncement of the prophet of Islam was lost in Uthman’s zeal
to establish a uniform standard. How can the Muslim EVER know (aside from
blind faith) that the current reading of 92:3 is the right one? Islam,
with it’s untenable approach to the textual issue coupled with the
artificial standardisation of a pre-approved text, has trapped itself
into a seemingly inescapable conundrum.
Garbled in Transmission
Thus, from what we have seen above, the text of the Qur'an cannot
rationally be considered to have arrived in its present form without any
changes from when Mohammed claimed to have received it from Allah.
Portions of the Qur'an were (according to Muslim tradition itself) lost
forever at Yamama, there were variant readings all over the Muslim world
until Uthman reigned them in and established the Zaid/abu Bakr text
(after Quraishi revision) as the "standard" text for all
Muslims. Even now, many Shi'ite Muslims will maintain that Caliph Uthman
had up to a quarter of the original Qur'an removed for political reasons:
the ayat spoke of Ali, with whom Uthman had a personal grudge.
But then, what of the other major claim made by many Muslims concerning
the Qur'an, which relates to its present perfection and divine
authorship? The same Muslim apologist which I quoted earlier had this to
say, "That Qur'an is authoritative in Islam, which you'll find in
your nearest bookstore. The presence of a SINGLE text of the Qur'an in
the whole Muslim world is the proof of this." Is this true? Is there
a single text of the Qur'an in Arabic used today the world over?
The answer is, of course, no. The Arabic Qur'ans have come to the present
day through a series of what are called "transmissions".
Essentially, there were in the second century AH (After Hijra, roughly
the 9th century) seven men who were considered authoritative
"readers" of the Qur'an, and their recitations were written
down (transmitted) by other scholars, and these readings have come down
to us today as the various transmissions. Properly speaking, the two main
transmissions used today are the "Hafs" and "Warsh"
transmissions, though two others (the Qalun and the Al-Duri) are also in
print. The Hafs is the most commonly used transmission, though the Warsh
is (or at least used to be until recently) the most common in North
Africa.
For the Muslim assertion to be true, it would have to be shown that there
are NO differences between these various transmissions. It would have to
be true that even though there were seven different reciters and several
different transmitters, they all recite and wrote the same text with no
variance, and this would transmit to us today. Hence, the Hafs and Warsh
ought to be identical.
Yet, they are not. Samuel Green, in his work, The Different Arabic
Versions of the Qur'an, makes a note of many of the differences in
reading between these two particular transmissions, some of which I'll
give below. Please note, the difference in ayat references are due to the
difference in the numbering systems between the two Qur'ans, but they
refer to the same words used in the same ayat/verse:
Surah 3:133 (Hafs) - wasaari'uu
Surah 3:133 (Warsh) - saari'uu
Surah 2:140 (Hafs) - taquluna
Surah 2:139 (Warsh) - yaquluna
Surah 3:81 (Hafs) - ataytukum
Surah 3:80 (Warsh) - ataynakum
Surah 2:259 (Hafs) - nunshizuhaa
Surah 2:258 (Warsh) - nunshiruhaa
Surah 2:9 (Hafs) - yakdhibuuna
Surah 2:9 (Warsh) - yukadhdhibuuna
Surah 2:184 (Hafs) - ta'aamu miskiinin
Surah 2:183 (Warsh) - ta'aami masakiina
These are not merely differences in pronunciation, but instead
differences between transmissions both in diacritical marks (for vowels)
and also consonantal sounds. So, no, the Muslim claim that there is a
single Quranic text used the world over is not substantiated by fact. In
short, if the question is asked: Is the Qur'an uniform and unchanged, we
would have to answer with a negative in both cases.
Home Grown Inspiration
As was mentioned earlier, after the establishment of the Zaid text as the
canon standard across Islam, Caliph Uthman attempted to carry out the
complete destruction of all variant readings by fire. Why did Caliph
Uthman feel the need to carry out the destruction of manuscripts which
conflicted with his compilation? Was Uthman's fear that earlier copies of
the Qur'an contradicted his and would reveal his own text to be deficient
in authority because of the addition and subtraction of material?
Addition and subtraction to the Quranic text there seems to have been,
too. Guillaume reports that many of the original verses of the Qur'an
were lost, either to deliberate removal, or to accidents. One surah
originally had 200 verses in the time of Ayesha (one of Mohammed's
wives), but by the time of Uthman's recension, it had only 73 verses, for
a total of 127 verses subtracted 41. In fact, in the
scholarly realm, that verses have been removed from the Qur'an throughout
its history is almost universally accepted. Many of the Quranic
renderings which Uthman destroyed contained verses which Uthman did not
approve of, probably indicating an overall tendency towards early
addition to and subtraction from what was supposed to be the final,
complete word of Allah. Shi'ite Muslims even today claim that Uthman left
out nearly 25% of the original verses in the Qur'an for political reasons
42.
Further, there is evidence from the traditions which indicates to us that
Mohammed himself made, or at least allowed, direct alteration of the
revelation which supposedly came from Allah. The dissident Iranian
scholar Dashti related one such tradition, about one of Mohammed's
scribes in Medina, a man by the name of Abdollah Abi Sahr. This account
relates that Abi Sahr had, "with the Prophet's consent, changed the
closing words of verses. For example when the Prophet had said 'And God
is mighty and wise' ('aziz, hakim), 'Abdollah b. Abi Sarh suggested
writing down 'knowing and wise' ('alim, hakim), and the Prophet answered
that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of
this type, 'Abdollah renounced Islam on the ground that revelations, if
from God, could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe..."
43 It is not surprising to find out that the tradition
records that Abi Sahr was one of the first men whom Mohammed condemned to
die after Mecca was conquered (though he pardoned him because of Abi
Sahr’s uncle Uthman’s intercession, and upon Abi Sahr‘s reversion back to
Islam)
There is evidence which suggests that the Hijaz, the region in the
Arabian peninsula which includes Mecca, was not even the site of origin
for the new Arab monotheistic religion which developed into Islam. Nevo
and Koren note that the earliest appearance of classical Arabic (the
Arabic in which the Qur'an was supposed to have been handed down in - the
pure language of Allah) dates to around 40 AH (650 AD), found near
Ta'if44. They further argue, on the basis of
archaeological findings in the Hijaz and surrounding regions which show
no evidence for the many pagan Jahiliyya cults attributed to the area by
Muslim tradition in the 6th and 7th centuries, that the point of origin
for the Arab monotheism was not in the Hijaz, but
elsewhere45. The conclusion they draw from their
investigations is that the point of origin for this new religion was in
the conquered lands of Syro-Palestine, where the most interaction between
the Arab invaders and the Christian/Jewish/Judeo-Christian subjects would
take place. Later, the Arabs sought to establish a more independent
identity for their new monotheism, thus creating a biography for Islam
based in the Hijaz, the idealised Arab heartland. The information from
the Muslim traditional historiography concerning the pre-Islamic pagan
system in Mecca and the Hijaz might well have been "imported"
from the pagan Arabs living in the frontier regions of Syria and
Palestine, and transposed backwards as a programmatic example of the
pagan systems which Islam was meant to root out, just as was done in the
ideal history of Mecca. The positive argument from the appearance of
Classical Arabic in the area nearly four decades AFTER the Qur'an was
supposedly handed down and Islam started, is very convincing. It suggests
that this Quranic language was brought into the region from the northern
areas in Syria and Iraq, regions conquered and occupied by the Arabs, and
which had the necessary ferment of religious interaction to cause the
Arabs to desire a defining monotheism of their own. This perhaps
complements the already-present trend towards monotheism which was
growing stronger in Arabia at this time, and which would have flowed out
of the peninsula with the invading tribes. Thus, the many high gods of
the various Arab tribes would each be folded into the supreme god of the
new monotheism, subjugated and assimilated into the developing state
religion. The early holy books of the Arabs to which John of Damascus and
Leo III allude may have originated in the area of Syro-Palestine, and the
dialect began to be recognised more widely as the Arabic of the holy
books of the state religion. However, caution must be employed, for we
must again recognise that the Islamic traditions often are mutually
contradictory and it is a difficult task to piece any coherent chain or
chronology of events from them. It is best to draw general inferences of
the sort of events which took place, and let archaeology and epigraphy
fill in the details.
The early evolution of Muslim doctrine and practice further suggests that
present Quranic and hadithic statements were not always viewed as
inspired or received from Allah. Additionally, they do not all seem to
have existed in Uthman's compilation. Instead, this phenomenon suggests
the constant addition to and taking away from the Muslim holy books, and
the end result is likely that several different authors over at least two
centuries were responsible for the production of the Qur'an. This is
entirely within the realm of possibility, given that the first verifiable
texts of the Qur'an conformable to the reading of one of today's
transmissions dates at its earliest back to the 10th century, while
earlier texts (such as the Yemeni) contain variant readings and
omissions. In short, the Qur'an appears to be a work which was authored
and edited by the Arabs in Syria and/or Iraq which had several variant
readings that were destroyed, and which took several centuries to appear
in its final form available today.
End Notes
(1) - S.N. Fisher, The Middle East, a History, p. 59
(2) - S. Abul Ala Maudadi, Towards Understanding Islam, p.109
(3) - The Holy Qur'an, English Translation of the Meanings and
Commentary, King Fahd Holy Qur'an Printing Complex, p. v
(4) - Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 1, p. 63; vol. 4, p. 709; vol. 6, p. 507,
510
(5) - J. Gilchrist, Jam’ Al-Qur’an: The Codification of the Qur’an Text,
p. 144
(6) - Y.H. Safadi, Islamic Calligraphy, pp. 10-11
(7) - Brother Mark,A Perfect Qur’an, p. 67
(8) - O.E. Sherif and M.A. Elhennawy, “Preserving and Protecting the
Qur’an”, published at
http://www.submission.org/quran/protect.html
(9) - M. Lings and H. Safadi, The Qur’an, pp. 17,20
(10) - A. Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, p. 4
(11) - Toby
Lester, "What is the Koran?", The Atlantic
Online, Jan.
1999
(12) - M. Cook, Muhammed, p. 74
(13) - J. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural
Interpretation, p.44
(14) - J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammedan Jurisprudence, pp. 4-5
(15) - J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammedan Jurisprudence, pp.
224-225
(16) - M. Hinds and P. Crone, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the
First Centuries of Islam, p. 52
(17) - P. Crone, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the
Islamic Patronate, p. 99
(18) - see e.g. J. Meyendorff, "Byzantine Views of Islam.",
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 18 (1964), pp. 117-118
(19) - see Saint John of Damascus: Writings, trans. F.H. Chase, pp.
157-159
(20) - per A. Jeffry, "Ghevond's Text of the Correspondence between
'Umar II and Leo III.", Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 37 (1944),
pp. 269-332; see R. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: a Survey and
Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam,
pp. 490-494 for his discussion supporting an early 8th century origin for
at least some of the material in the text
(21) - Y.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, p. 239
(22) - Y.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, pp. 240-241
(23) - Y.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, p. 193
(24) - J. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural
Interpretation, p. 20
(25) - see Ibn Warraq, The Origins of the Qur'an, p. 25; J. Wansbrough,
Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation, p.
97
(26) - M. Cook, Muhammed, p. 65
(27) - R.S. Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, p.
83
(28) - S.N. Fisher, The Middle East, a History, p. 59
(29) - H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers, Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, p.
271
(30) - C. Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observances, p.28
(31) - see J.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, pp. 87-168 for
some examples of this phenomenon, as well as a general reconstruction of
the events of the Arab takeover of Syria-Palestine as derived from
contemporary literary sources and archaeological discoveries
(32) - Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 6, p.478
(33) - Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.23
(34) - J. Gilchrist, Jam' al-Qur'an: The Codification of the Quranic
Text, Ch.2
(35) - Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.4, p.466
(36) - Ibn Khallikan, Biographical Dictionary, p. 401
(37) - see G.E. von Grunebaum, "The Nature of Arab Unity Before
Islam", Arabica, Vol. 10 (1964), p. 14
(38) - Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol.6, p.441-442
(39) - J. Gilchrist, Jam' al-Qur'an: The Codification of the Quranic
Text, Ch.3
(40) - M.W. Watt, Bell's Introduction to the Qur'an, p. 45
(41) - A. Guillaume, Islam, p.191
(42) - Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical
Literature, eds. J. McClintock and J. Strong, Vol. V, p. 152
(43) - Ali Dashti, Twenty-Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of
Mohammed, p. 98
(44) - Y.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, p. 174
(45) - Y.D. Nevo and J. Koren, Crossroads to Islam, pp. 173-174
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