Authenticity of the Qur'an
How It Came To Be Written
Thanks to its undisputed authenticity, the text of the
Qur'an holds a unique place among the books of
Revelation, shared neither by the Old nor the New
Testament. In the first two sections of this work, a
review was made of the alterations undergone by the Old
Testament and the Gospels before they were handed down to
us in the form we know today. The same is not true for
the Qur'an for the simple reason that it was written down
at the time of the Prophet; we shall see how it came to
be written, i.e. the process involved.
In this context, the differences separating the Qur'an
from the Bible are in no way due to questions essentially
concerned with date. Such questions are constantly put
forward by certain people without regard to the
circumstances prevailing at the time when the
Judeo-Christian and the Qur'anic Revelations were
written; they have an equal disregard for the
circumstances surrounding the transmission of the Qur'an
to the Prophet. It is suggested that a Seventh century
text had more likelihood of coming down to us unaltered
than other texts that are as many as fifteen centuries
older. This comment, although correct, does not
constitute a sufficient reason ; it is made more to
excuse the alterations made in the Judeo-Christian texts
in the course of centuries than to underline the notion
that the text of the Qur'an, which was more recent, had
less to fear from being modified by man.
In the case of the Old Testament, the sheer number of
authors who tell the same story, plus all the revisions
carried out on the text of certain books from the
pre-Christian era, constitute as many reasons for
inaccuracy and contradiction. As for the Gospels, nobody
can claim that they invariably contain faithful accounts
of Jesus's words or a description of his actions strictly
in keeping with reality. We have seen how successive
versions of the texts showed a lack of definite
authenticity and moreover that their authors were not
eyewitnesses.
Also to be underlined is the distinction to be made
between the Qur'an, a book of written Revelation, and the
hadiths, collections of statements concerning the actions
and sayings of Muhammad. Some of the Prophet's companions
started to write them down from the moment of his death.
As an element of human error could have slipped in, the
collection had to be resumed later and subjected to
rigorous criticism so that the greatest credit is in
practise given to documents that came along after
Muhammad. Their authenticity varies, like that of the
Gospels. Not a single Gospel was written down at the time
of Jesus (they were all written long after his earthly
mission had come to an end), and not a single collection
of hadiths was compiled during the time of the Prophet.
The situation is very different for the Qur'an. As the
Revelation progressed, the Prophet and the believers
following him recited the text by heart and it was also
written down by the scribes in his following. It
therefore starts off with two elements of authenticity
that the Gospels do not possess. This continued up to the
Prophet's death. At a time when not everybody could
write, but everyone was able to recite, recitation
afforded a considerable advantage because of the
double-checking possible when the definitive text was
compiled.
The Qur'anic Revelation was made by Archangel Gabriel
to Muhammad. It took place over a period of more than
twenty years of the Prophet's life, beginning with the
first verses of Sura 96, then resuming after a three-year
break for a long period of twenty years up to the death
of the Prophet in 632 A.D., i.e. ten years before Hegira
and ten years after Hegira. [Muhammad's departure from Makka to
Madina, 622
A.D.]
The following was the first Revelation (sura 96,
verses 1 to 5) [ Muhammad was totally overwhelmed by these words.
We shall return to an interpretation of them, especially
with regard to the fact that Muhammad could neither read
nor write.].
"Read: In the name of thy Lord who created,
Who created man from something which clings
Read! Thy Lord is the most Noble
Who taught by the pen
Who taught man what he did not know."
Professor Hamidullah notes in the Introduction to his
French translation of the Qur'an that one of the themes
of this first Revelation was the 'praise of the pen as a
means of human knowledge' which would 'explain the
Prophet's concern for the preservation of the Qur'an in
writing.'
Texts formally prove that long before the Prophet left
Makka for Madina (i.e. long before Hegira), the Qur'anic
text so far revealed had been written down. We shall see
how the Qur'an is authentic in this. We know that
Muhammad and the Believers who surrounded him were
accustomed to reciting the revealed text from memory. It
is therefore inconceivable for the Qur'an to refer to
facts that did not square with reality because the latter
could so easily be checked with people in the Prophet's
following, by asking the authors of the transcription.
Four suras dating from a period prior to Hegira refer
to the writing down of the Qur'an before the Prophet left
Makka in 622 (sura 80, verses 11 to 16):
"By no means! Indeed it is a message of
instruction
Therefore whoever wills, should remember
On leaves held in honor
Exalted, purified
In the hands of scribes
Noble and pious."
Yusuf Ali, in the commentary to his translation, 1934,
wrote that when the Revelation of this sura was made,
forty-two or forty-five others had been written and were
kept by Muslims in Makka (out of a total of 114).
--Sura 85, verses 21 and 22:
"Nay, this is a glorious reading [In
the text: Qur'an which also means 'reading'.]
On a preserved tablet"
--Sura 56, verses 77 to 80:
"This is a glorious reading
In a book well kept Which none but the purified teach.
This is a Revelation from the Lord of the Worlds."
--Sura 25, verse 5:
"They said: Tales of the ancients which he has
caused to be written and they are dictated to him morning
and evening." Here we have a reference to the
accusations made by the Prophet's enemies who treated him
as an imposter. They spread the rumour that stories of
antiquity were being dictated to him and he was writing
them down or having them transcribed (the meaning of the
word is debatable, but one must remember that Muhammad
was illiterate). However this may be, the verse refers to
this act of making a written record which is pointed out
by Muhammad's enemies themselves.
A sura that came after Hegira makes one last mention
of the leaves on which these divine instructions were
written:
--Sura 98, verses 2 and 3:
"An (apostle) from God recites leaves
Kept pure where are decrees right and straight."
The Qur'an itself therefore provides indications as to
the fact that it was set down in writing at the time of
the Prophet. It is a known fact that there were several
scribes in his following, the most famous of whom, Zaid
Ibn Thâbit, has left his name to posterity.
In the preface to his French translation of the Qur'an
(1971), Professor Hamidullah gives an excellent
description of the conditions that prevailed when the
text of the Qur'an was written, lasting up until the time
of the Prophet's death:
"The sources all agree in stating that whenever a
fragment of the Qur'an was revealed, the Prophet called
one of his literate companions and dictated it to him,
indicating at the same time the exact position of the new
fragment in the fabric of what had already been received
. . . Descriptions note that Muhammad asked the scribe to
reread to him what had been dictated so that he could
correct any deficiencies . . . Another famous story tells
how every year in the month of Ramadan, the Prophet would
recite the whole of the Qur'an (so far revealed) to
Gabriel . . ., that in the Ramadan preceding Muhammad's
death, Gabriel had made him recite it twice . . . It is
known how since the Prophet's time, Muslims acquired the
habit of keeping vigil during Ramadan, and of reciting
the whole of the Qur'an in addition to the usual prayers
expected of them. Several sources add that Muhammad's
scribe Zaid was present at this final bringing-together
of the texts. Elsewhere, numerous other personalities are
mentioned as well."
Extremely diverse materials were used for this first
record: parchment, leather, wooden tablets, camels'
scapula, soft stone for inscriptions, etc.
At the same time however, Muhammad recommended that
the faithful learn the Qur'an by heart. They did this for
a part if not all of the text recited during prayers.
Thus there were Hafizun who knew the whole of the
Qur'an by heart and spread it abroad. The method of
doubly preserving the text both in writing and by
memorization proved to be extremely precious.
Not long after the Prophet's death (632), his
successor Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Islam, asked
Muhammad's former head scribe, Zaid Ibn Thâbit, to make
a copy. this he did. On Omar's initiative (the future
second Caliph), Zaid consulted all the information he
could assemble at Madina: the witness of the Hafizun,
copies of the Book written on various materials belonging
to private individuals, all with the object of avoiding
possible errors in transcription. Thus an extremely
faithful copy of the Book was obtained.
The sources tell us that Caliph Omar, Abu Bakr's
successor in 634, subsequently made a single volume (mushaf)
that he preserved and gave on his death to his daughter
Hafsa, the Prophet's widow.
The third Caliph of Islam, Uthman, who held the
caliphate from 644 to 655, entrusted a commission of
experts with the preparation of the great recension that
bears his name. It checked the authenticity of the
document produced under Abu Bakr which had remained in
Hafsa's possession until that time. The commission
consulted Muslims who knew the text by heart. The
critical analysis of the authenticity of the text was
carried out very rigorously. The agreement of the
witnesses was deemed necessary before the slightest verse
containing debatable material was retained. It is indeed
known how some verses of the Qur'an correct others in the
case of prescriptions: this may be readily explained when
one remembers that the Prophet's period of apostolic
activity stretched over twenty years (in round figures).
The result is a text containing an order of suras that
reflects the order followed by the Prophet in his
complete recital of the Qur'an during Ramadan, as
mentioned above.
One might perhaps ponder the motives that led the
first three Caliphs, especially Uthman, to commission
collections and recensions of the text. The reasons are
in fact very simple: Islam's expansion in the very first
decades following Muhammad's death was very rapid indeed
and it happened among peoples whose native language was
not Arabic. It was absolutely necessary to ensure the
spread of a text that retained its original purity.
Uthman's recension had this as its objective.
Uthman sent copies of the text of the recension to the
centres of the Islamic Empire and that is why, according
to Professor Hamidullah, copies attributed to Uthman
exist in Tashkent and Istanbul. Apart from one or two
possible mistakes in copying, the oldest documents known
to the present day, that are to be found throughout the
Islamic world, are identical; the same is true for
documents preserved in Europe (there are fragments in the
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris which, according to the
experts, date from the Eighth and Ninth centuries A.D.,
i.e. the Second and Third Hegirian centuries). The
numerous ancient texts that are known to be in existence
all agree except for very minor variations which do not
change the general meaning of the text at all. If the
context sometimes allows more than one interpretation, it
may well have to do with the fact that ancient writing
was simpler than that of the present day. [ The absence of diacritical marks, for example,
could make a verb either active or passive and in some
instances, masculine or feminine. More often than not
however, this was hardly of any great consequence since
the context indicated the meaning in many instances.]
The 114 suras were arranged in decreasing order of
length; there were nevertheless exceptions. The
chronological sequence of the Revelation was not
followed. In the majority of cases however, this sequence
is known. A large number of descriptions are mentioned at
several points in the text, sometimes giving rise to
repetitions. Very frequently a passage will add details
to a description that appears elsewhere in an incomplete
form. Everything connected with modern science is, like
many subjects dealt with in the Qur'an, scattered
throughout the book without any semblance of
classification.
* It is imporatnt to say that Qur'an was collected during the Prophet's lifetime. The
Prophet, and before his death, had showed the collection
of Qur'an scrolls to Gabriel many times. So, what is said
in regard to collecting of Qur'an during the ruling
period of the Caliphs after the Prophet means copying the
same original copy written in the Prophet's life which
later were sent to different countries, and it does not
mean the recording or writing of Qur'an through oral
sources as it may be thought. Yet, many of the Companions
have written the Qur'an exactly during the lifetime of
the Prophet. One of those was Imam Ali's copy. He,
because of his close relation with the Prophet, his long
companionship, didn't only collect the dispersed scrolls
of the Qur'an, but he rather could accompany it with a
remarkable Tafseer, mentioning the occasion of each
verse's descension, and was regarded the first Tafseer of
Qur'an since the beginning of the Islamic mission. Ibn
Abi Al-Hadeed says," All the scholars agree that
Imam Ali is the first one who collected the
Qur'an," (see Sharhul Nahj, 271). Another one,
Kittani, says that Imam Ali could arrange the Qur'an
according to each surah's order of descension, (see
Strategic Administration, 461). Ibn Sireen Tabe'ee
relates from 'Ikrimeh, who said that 'lmam Ali could
collect the Qur'an in a manner that if all mankind and
jinn gathered to do that, they could not do it at all,' (see al-Itqan 1157-58). Ibn Jizzi Kalbi also
narrates, "If only we could have the Qur'an which was
collected by Ali then we could gain a lot of
knowledge," (see al-Tasheel, 114). That was only a
brief note about the benefits of Imam Ali's Mus'haf, as
Ibn Sireen had declared, "I searched so long for
Imam Ali's Mus'haf and I correspounded with Medina, but
all my efforts gone in vain.' (see al-Itqan, 1/58,
al-Tabaqat,2/338). Thus; it becomes certain that Qur'an
has been collected by Imam Ali without simple difference
between it and other known copies, except in the notes
mentioned by Him which renders it as the most excellent
copy has ever been known. Unfortunately, the inconvenient
political conditions emerged after the demise of the Prophet, (i.e after the wicked issue of Saqeefah) was a
main obstacle to get benefits from that remarkable copy
of the Qur'an.
