Origins of the Qur’an . . . . again

[Michael]

I have posted, on numerous occasions, questions regarding the origins of the Qur’an, without (I might add) anyone so much as making a comment. However – I see a number of people do read the post, and as such, I can only assume that no one has the slightest idea where the Qur’an originated from or maybe no one has an interest – “like hey it fell out of the sky – works for me!” sort of approach I see among some/many Christians as to how the Bible came about.

This sort of follows from a post I had about the Sana’a fragments

Anyway, the following quotes are from the An Atheist's Guide to Mohammedanism a quick review of the history of the Qur’an. I find the comments agree with what I read about the Sana’a fragments (which, by the way, was also from a Muslim site).

Unfortunately, the writer here is a little to sarcastic in some places (in typical Atheist fashion), however – the quotes are all properly cited and, when indicated, shown in smaller paragraphs and within quotation marks to indicate when taken from the book cited.

So –Qur’anic accounts outside of the Arabic communities. Given the animosity between Muslims and Christians (as you can see here) the interesting thing is that, at the time, there were no accounts. Apparently, at that time either Christians didn’t care or didn’t know about the Qur’an?

… an examination of Christian accounts from the early centuries of the Arab conquests can give us a clue. The Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, John I, recording lengthy religious discussions with General ‘Amr b. al-‘As on 9 May 639 CE says nothing that would indicate that the 'Hagarians' or 'Ishmailites' (the earliest non-Muslim names for Muslims) had a sacred book of their own - even though the general had been shown the Torah, the Prophets, and the Gospels of the Jews and Christians. 8 This was, of course, only around seven years after the death of Mohammed, during the fifth year of the caliphate of ‘Umar. Around 647 CE, during ‘Uthman's caliphate, the patriarch of Seleucia, Isho‘yahb III, wrote a letter which betrays no knowledge of the existence of the Qur’an, and scholars familiar with this famous character are certain he would have mentioned or quoted the Hagarian book if he had known of it or even simply had heard of it. 9

Do you think the second quote, regarding Mohammed as a military figure, is reminiscent of Julius Caesar’s deification after he died?

More than thirty years later still, in 680 CE, an anonymous writer from the time of the Umayyad caliphate of Yazid ibn Mu‘awiah discussed the Arabs as the simple descendants of Ishmael who still practiced the ancient Abrahamic faith and treated Mohammed as a purely military man, betraying no awareness of any religious function or role played by the conqueror. Even in 690 CE, John Bar Penkaye — although an eyewitness of part of the Arab conquest - knows nothing of any Arabian sacred book existing during the caliphate of ‘Abdul-Malik [685-705]. 10

So apparently Christian historians during the entire seventh century had no idea that the “Hagarite” conquerors had a sacred book. Which may not mean much! But it is reminiscent of the Greek/other historians not knowing about Jesus at the time of his life. So not that surprising – assuming history now has been rewritten in typical fashion.

So what do famous Muslim historians have to say? Well, according to this site: some book was written around the year 835 CE by a certain al-Kindi, whose work was discussed in Alphonse Mingana's "The Transmission of the Koran," which has been reprinted by Ibn Warraq in his extremely useful book The Origins of the Koran. 11 Al-Kindi gives details of the stories circulating among the Muslims some two centuries after the death of Mohammed:

It [the Qur’an] was not at first collected in a volume, but remained in separate leaves. Then the people fell to variance in their reading; some read according to the version of ‘Ali, which they follow to the present day [i.e., c835 CE]; some read according to the collection of which we have made mention [a collection made by Abu Bakr himself]; one party read according to the text of Ibn Mas‘ud, and another according to that of Ubai ibn Ka‘ab.

al-Kindi writes:

Then followed the business of Hajjaj b. Yusuf, who gathered together every single copy he could lay hold of, and caused to be omitted from the text a great many passages. Among these, they say, were verses revealed concerning the House of Umayyah with names of certain persons, and concerning the House of Abbas also with names. Six copies of the text thus revised were distributed to Egypt, Syria, Medina, Mecca, Kufa, and Basra. After that he called in and destroyed all the preceding copies, even as ‘Uthman had done before him. The enmity subsisting between ‘Ali and Abu Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthman is well known; now each of these entered in the text whatever favored his own claims, and left out what was otherwise. How, then, can we distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit? And what about the losses caused by Hajjaj? The kind of faith that this tyrant held in other matters is well-known; how can we make an arbiter as to the Book of God a man who never ceased to play into the hands of the Umayyads whenever he found opportunity?(12)

as-Suyuti [d. 1505 CE](apparently one of the most famous Muslim commentators on the Qur'an) quoted Ibn Umar al-Khattab as saying,

"Let no one of you say that he has acquired the entire Koran, for how does he know that it is all? Much of the Koran has been lost; thus let him say, 'I have acquired of it what is available'."

At some point apparently, Uthman, the third caliph, commissioned to have the Qur’an canonized. But . . . this didn’t appear to do the trick and so . . .

under the direction of the Qur’anic scholar Ibn Mujahid [d. 935 CE], 16 there was a canonization of a specific consonantal system and a limit was placed on the vowels that could be used. This resulted in seven officially sanctioned systems for reading of the Qur’an, although some scholars accepted ten readings and still others found fourteen of merit. In the end, just three systems prevailed: the Medina system of Warsh [d. 812 CE], the Kufa system of Hafs [d. 805], and the Basra system of ad-Duri [d. 860].

Well where does this lead me ultimately? No where really

I just wanted to get an idea of how the Qur’an came about. Honestly, I couldn’t care if it was written in one place and never altered thereafter (as a few Muslim have told me) or altered on a daily bases (say as new insights occur). One way is not inherently better than the other – in this matter anyhow. To me it appears that the Qur’an has run the typical gauntlet as probably all religious works of gathering past stuff then writing, rewriting, re-rewriting, and finally canonization. That’s pretty much the route of most things. Which doesn’t take away from what it contains – as I understand it sounds quite beautiful and poetic if one understands Arabic.

So that’s that.

 

[Godless]

Google anyone?.

I just asked my good friend Google, and here is what came up!;

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/nov96.html

The quar'an is just as fallible as the bible. Though they are just two ceperate types of religious phylosophy, neither of them stands on reason or logic.

Godless.

 

[Michael]

Re: Google anyone?.

Originally posted by Godless
I just asked my good friend Google, and here is what came up!;

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/nov96.html

The Qur’an is just as fallible as the bible. Though they are just two separate types of religious philosophy, neither of them stands on reason or logic.

Godless.

1) The above post is referring to evolution theory and the Qur'an - which by the way was interesting to read. But that's not what I'm getting at - I'm interested in how the Qur’an came about - not life!

2) The fallibility of the book also isn’t really what I was interested in either. There may be some things in either book that are logical as well as illogical.

I didn’t post this because I wanted people to abuse the Qur’an or religion. I mean there are a million threads to do that in. Come and attack Christian belief please comes to mind.

Oh well, I was hoping there may be someone on this board that knows a little secular history in this regards. Alas . . . .

 

[Proud_Syrian]

very simple:

The Origin of the Quran is from ALLAH almighty, it was revealed to prophet Muhammad(pbuh) through the angel Gabriel.

You dont need to go to athiest sites to get information about the origin of the quran when you can find that in any muslim site.

 

[spidergoat]

P.S., from allah...

...you mean except the part which mohammed wrote to save his skin, and then later retracted as satanic? Why would the messenger of god be so easily fooled?

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by Proud_Syrian
very simple:

The Origin of the Qur’an is from ALLAH almighty, it was revealed to prophet Muhammad(pbuh) through the angel Gabriel.

OMG, did you not read the first part of my post?! What I don’t want is:

“like hey it fell out of the sky – works for me!”

Because that’s what you just said!

I’m not disputing that god used some creation to somehow impart information to Muhammad. That wasn’t what I asked. Was it over night? Was it in a single second? Did a book just appear in Muhammad’s hands? Was it over his life time? Was it instead just recited by memory and written down at a later time? Who wrote it? What are the similarities to pre-Islamic traditions? Obviously some traditions still exist in and around Syria today 2003 that are not Qur’anic – so we can safely assume that at the time there were traditions going on as well.

Etcetera.

Basically, I've heard Christians say pretty much exactly the same thing (substituting Jehovah for Allah and Jesus for Muhammad). You know that I’m agnostic-atheist so of course I’m not looking for a ”god made it *poof* just appear in Muhammad’s hands” answer – because that doesn’t answer anything. And I’m positive that Muslim Islamic scholars will not agree with that as being the case – even I know that much.

So, not to belabor the point but it’s like this:
Q: Why do I have blue eyes.
A1: Because god made it that way.
A2: Because both of your parents carry the recessive allele for the eye color.

Q: Why does my brother have brown eyes while I have blue?
A1: Because god made it that way.
A2: One or both of your parents carry the dominate eye color brown.

Obviously, both answers COULD be true. Or only one or maybe none. But the first answer A1 Answers nothing. And quite frankly, it’s a fact that you do not go around living your life in such a way. So why when dealing with a simple “older” historical question would you divert to that line of reasoning? Really, you shouldn’t.

For example. You come home Monday and you find the TV and PC missing. You don’t say to yourself. Oh, God did it. Do ya? No, you certainly don’t.

Originally posted by Proud_Syrian
You don’t need to go to atheist sites to get information about the origin of the Qur’an when you can find that in any Muslim site.

Using your argument then you would advise me to go to a Christian website when researching early Christianity? How much information do you suppose there will be on the number of people who were Gnosis Christians in the year 150 CE? I’ve read, overall, about 50% and in Alexandria much higher. So here we have 50% of the early “Christians” potentially not believing that Jesus was even real – that the entire story was an allegory. Do you think that information is going to be on this Christian website?

Obviously, no you don’t and now that you think about it, you really don’t think that I’m going to get unbiased information about early Christianity from a Christian website?

Right!?

If the answer is a resounding NO WAY then you MUST conclude that the same goes for a Muslim website.

If not, and you truly feel that Muslim websites are truly unbiased then please suggest a Muslim website (In English) dealing with:

1) At a MINIMUM the site MUST contain information regarding the Sana’a fragments because these are truly a remarkable find – and they are held in a national archive in Yemen and as such they should be discussed.
2) pre-Muhammad religious history and the early Islamic religion should be discussed.
3) Early history should be as unbiased as possible.
4) Citations should be evident.
5) There should be a section on how the Qu’ran came to be in your hands.
6) Secular modern archeology is a must as well.

Lastly, here’s a quote from a Muslim website regarding the early history of the Qur’an
and the information I’ve found was on the Muslim website (http://www.muslimedia.com/):

The fact is that the existence of minor differences in wording and in the ordering of the surahs in the earliest masahif (manuscripts) is no surprise to Muslims familiar with classical Islamic scholarship of the Qur'an. Such variations occurred for several reasons. One factor is the dialectical differences then existing in different regions of Arabia. Another is that some of the Sahaba kiram (Companions) recorded such masahif for their own personal use. As these persons had either memorised the Qur'an in its entirety or large portions of it, such masahif were written merely as an aid to memory. Therefore, notes in the margins such as the wording of du'as (supplications) occurred, and the order of surahs varied. Books written by classical Muslim scholars, such as al-Suyuti's Itqan, go into great detail about such issues.

I suppose if you can't or don't want to find such a site then I will have to lump you in with the “I don’t care about this crap - what I’m told by people running the holy houses gets me through the week and lets me sleep well at night” group.

Which is fine of course.

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by spidergoat
P.S., from allah...

...you mean except the part which mohammed wrote to save his skin, and then later retracted as satanic? Why would the messenger of god be so easily fooled?

You know, there are just so many OTHER threads to choose from on the religion form where you can do some good-ole' red-neck-Muslim bashing. Maybe just take it there.

Now, if you want to discuss, intelligently, any retracted information that's a different matter. Yes everyone has heard of the “The Satanic Versus” because of the fatwa issued against what’s-his-face - its kind of ironic that the fatwa hugely enhanced the books general appeal.

Anyway, I guess that does cover a bit of early Islamic history. But the way you have postulated your point is so rude that hardly no one with a religious belief would care to respond. And the response you’d receive would be in kind. But maybe that’s what you want?

If you have any sourced information post it. If not – maybe another, more base, thread would be better suited? Just click here: Come and attack Christian belief please or here: Rape Victims are "Criminals" According to Islam or here Suicide Bombings in the Bible !!

 

[spidergoat]

But the way you have postulated your point is so rude that hardly no one with a religious belief would care to respond

How is what I wrote rude? P.S. said the Qur'an came from allah. Yet the legend is:

...some of his followers were compelled to take refuge in Abyssinia, and it was about this time that Mohammed had a relapse into the old faith. In 616 he published a revelation recognizing three Meccan idols, Lat, Ozza and Manah, as intercessors with Allah. In consequence of this concession to their faith, the Korayshites, his own tribe, fell down on their faces in adoration of Allah, and the exiles in Abyssinia returned to their native land. But Mohammed soon became ashamed of the weakness by which he had purchased public support. The verses were struck out of the Koran and the weakness was attributed to the devil.

http://www.atheists.org/Islam/Mohammed.html


So, according to my source, which may be wrong, at least some of what Mohammed wrote did not come from allah. He attributed to God words that were ultimately politically self-serving. Because of this, I am questioning the credibility of the whole thing. I am not bashing anyone. People should be respected, beliefs should not. Beliefs are just ideas, and should be open to critisism. If someone does not want their beliefs questioned, why come to a (science-oriented) forum? I'm not against muslims, I'm against Islam, and religion in general.

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by spidergoat
So, according to my source, which may be wrong, at least some of what Mohammed wrote did not come from allah. He attributed to God words that were ultimately politically self-serving. Because of this, I am questioning the credibility of the whole thing. I am not bashing anyone. People should be respected, beliefs should not. Beliefs are just ideas, and should be open to critisism. If someone does not want their beliefs questioned, why come to a (science-oriented) forum? I'm not against muslims, I'm against Islam, and religion in general.

Fair enough. And thanks for the post. I just didn't want this to take the turn every other thread of back and forth slander.

That is interesting. It does make political sense to do such a thing - that is if it gains the support of the people you are trying to win over to your cause. I believe Alexander did something of a similar nature in Egypt. Julius Caesar certainly played up his Julii lineage back to the goddess Venus. Yeah, makes sense to me.

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Michael
OMG, did you not read the first part of my post?! What I don’t want is:

“like hey it fell out of the sky – works for me!”

So, not to belabor the point but it’s like this:
Q: Why do I have blue eyes.
A1: Because god made it that way.
A2: Because both of your parents carry the recessive allele for the eye color.

Q: Why does my brother have brown eyes while I have blue?
A1: Because god made it that way.
A2: One or both of your parents carry the dominate eye color brown.

Obviously, both answers COULD be true. Or only one or maybe none. But the first answer A1 Answers nothing. And quite frankly, it’s a fact that you do not go around living your life in such a way. So why when dealing with a simple “older” historical question would you divert to that line of reasoning? Really, you shouldn’t.

As you said, both answers COULD be true, but only option (a) is a complete answer. We could always ask about why the parents eyes are blue, or why did they carry the dominate eye color brown, or why the grandparents where like that, and so on and so forth upto why do we even have eyes, and why weren't our eyes violet or orange. The specific answer is never complete. If you ask, why did billy hit tommy, the specific answer is because tommy pushed billy, but that's not the end of the story, the answer is incomplete, there remains more questions like why did tommy push billy, because billy have been stealing tommy's sandwiches for the last two weeks, and why was billy stealing the sandwich, because tommy didn't pay his bully dues last month, and why is there a bully due, ect, ect......so the specific answer (b) have a higher probablity of being false because it's incomplete and incomprehensive. On the other hand, "god made it that way", is a truly complete answer, yet, it doesn't answer the question to your satisfaction because you wish to track down all the reasons behind why god made things that way. So you are literally chasing wild gooses on an infinite trail that goes beyond any trail passes by man.

My answer to your question might not be satisfactory, but the important part is that it's satisfactory to me. I believe that the creator of the universe including man of course is way higher than man's dimension....Sort of like a black hole that can absorb the entire universe, yet unseen and misunderstood by many.....For that reason, god tells us in the Quran that he may not directly be seen by men or even talk to man. To see god or hear from god is like settling all things at once and no more life to be lived. For our protection, god is veiled from us....It's for that reason, that god uses intermediates to cross the dimension gap and the protective veil. The two questions that I asked myself were:
1- Why are prophets selected to recieve the message....i.e...why can't we all hear those voices that the prophet heared?

2- Why does god need angels to communicate with the prophets.

I found both answers to my satisfaction in the Quran. The first question lies in the quality of character of individuals. Certain few people are very honest, some are governed by emotions, some are straight liers, some are occasional liers, some are lazy, ect...God tells us in the Quran that prophets are just like a copy machine....their hearts act like copiers, and for them to transmit the message properly as given, their hearts must not lie. I know for a fact that my heart lies sometimes, or maybe a lot. I find myself changing words given to me for various reasons, some of them could be good or bad. I justify and rationalize, not because I'm bad, but becuase I don't completely trust in god, and thus my heart will lie or change the information to fit my intentions. All people do that because that's how we are designed, to process, interpret, and act. Prophets are prechosen by god to be like semi-robots. Some of the prophets will is taken away from them. Prophets are destined to be prophets and nothing else and in that way they lack some of the will power and choices available to the rest of us... They have the proof in their hearts about the purity of the message, yet they lack the means to share their visions with others, which makes it very difficult for them. They transmit messages as is, regardless of how much it conflicts with their humanily emotion, family, agendas, ect....Jesus is like that, Mohammed is like that, ect...Their hearts are transparent and their veils toward god are light. They still have a veil though between them and god, and that veil is called life, and that's where the archangels come in to cross the life veil between god and man. Angels are robots totally, they are beyond the life barrier and thus pure transmitters...no processing. no feelings, no emotions. We as regular people are alive and thus veiled from god....in addition to the life veil, we construct additional veils to seperate ourselves further from god. Houses, cars, kids, science, ect....We try to live our lives seperate from god and busy with our man made lives, just so that everything we workded so hard for be snatched away from us when we eventually die as we were destined to. For those of us that had heavy veils, hell or eternal confusion and unacceptance of our fate is the destiny.

 

[Michael]

Flores, thanks for replying.

I understand where you are coming from. But let me take this a little further.

Do you feel that the Bible has mistakes and/or contradiction?

I certainly do. However, I know Christians that consider the Bible the “pure words of God”. No matter what I do or what I say they are utterly and totally convinced that it is truly the words of God. So what can I say? They can always come back with some sort of an answer that inherently can not be refuted (much in the same way that I can say there is an invisible man next to you that only “I” can see and challenge you to disprove it. You can’t). But hey, in many instances they were raised to believe in the Bible and the power of brainwashing a child is tremendous. Where is this going? Well, my point is that you and I can agree that the Bible is obviously flawed (from an unbiased standpoint) and I think we can agree that Christians are (to a degree) just indoctrinated from childhood to believe the way in which they do.

Now we can just sit back and say – hey the Bible is the words of god. And that’s that. But some people wonder to themselves? How did we get this Bible? They could just believe what the Church tells them (Perhaps it was just handed to the Pope from God itself). OR they could take a look back into history and see the story that unfolds leading to the Bible we have today. I find this story to be interesting and worth looking into. Also, it is much more believable than say “it was just handed to the Pope from God itself”. A Christian may think it blasphemy for even making an attempt to look deeper than the stated (and certainly 1000 years ago I could have been killed for doing so). The reason being that the Church knows there is a history there and they do not want the mainstream believer to know it. If not then why don’t they teach it in their Churches? Not that many Christians want to know the history anyway – “God made it” answers it all for them. And, of the few that do investigate the history (a little), surely they could be swayed back to “it was just handed to the Pope from God itself” so long as someone told them something like – “it’s a trick of the Devil or the Atheists are trying to discredit God by discrediting the Bible and are unwittingly doing the will of the Devil! (which for some Christians, Atheists and Satan may be one and the same

If you do just one thing – answer me this, overall would you agree to the essences of what I am getting at in the above paragraph?

Now, let’s say we look at the Qur’an. It also has a story to tell. And, obviously a few Islamic scholars have dug up that history and recorded it centuries ago all the way up to today. It’s much more than “it was just handed to the Prophet from the angle Gabriel”. And actually the historical progression is in some ways comparable to the Bible; complete with powerful historical figures deciding how it plays out. Even just acknowledging the existence of the Sansa fragments at the national archive in Yemen attests to that – they were found by Muslims incidentally, and the Germans invited to look at them where just that - invited - by the Yemani government. Accordingly, although there is no conspiracy here – there is a bit of History. You may nay say me and reply nope the Qur’an is the pure words of god. And that’s that. But some people may wonder to themselves? How did we get this Qur’an? They could just believe what is told to them – perhaps from a parent. OR they could take a look back into history and see the story that unfolds leading to the Qur’an we have today. A Muslim may think it blasphemy for even making an attempt to look deeper than the stated (and certainly even today a person could be killed for insinuating that the Qur’an has a history if they were in the wrong place – say Iran or Arabia). The reason being that the leaders of these countries know that there is a history there and they do not want the mainstream Muslim to know about it. Not that many Muslims want to know the history anyway – “it was conveyed to the Prophet from God” answers it all for them.

How do I know that? Because when I post a quote from a Muslim website like this:

The fact is that the existence of minor differences in wording and in the ordering of the surahs in the earliest masahif (manuscripts) is no surprise to Muslims familiar with classical Islamic scholarship of the Qur'an. Such variations occurred for several reasons. One factor is the dialectical differences then existing in different regions of Arabia. Another is that some of the Sahaba kiram (Companions) recorded such masahif for their own personal use. As these persons had either memorised the Qur'an in its entirety or large portions of it, such masahif were written merely as an aid to memory. Therefore, notes in the margins such as the wording of du'as (supplications) occurred, and the order of surahs varied. Books written by classical Muslim scholars, such as al-Suyuti's Itqan, go into great detail about such issues.

Which clearly demonstrates that there is a history to the Qur’an. AND therefore you’d expect a Muslim to be interested in it and maybe post something of value on this website instead of getting in a good day of flaming – Do I get that – NOPE, Instead I get this:

The Origin of the Qur’an is from ALLAH almighty

Wow – yup answers everything in full. Pffff . . . .Not that it’s a flame but we can agree it sounds very much like the response we would expect from our hypothetical Christian were we discussing in paragraph one.

I have posted a number of time about this topic. I am assuming there are a very small minority of Muslims that care one way or the other about this and there is probably intense pressure from various governments in the ME to keep the information well and truly out of the eye of the mainstream populace. It honestly reminds me of Medieval Europe.

 

[Flores]

Michael,
I read your responce carefully and my answer to you is very simple.

Ask yourself these questions and you might gain some insight of the problem:
1- What is the power of pen or writings?
2- Is a writing or a novel as explicit as a recital on a radio by the author?
3- Is a recital as explicit and clear as pictures of what actually happened?
4- Is a picture as explicit and clear as perhaps a video?
5- Is a video as clear as a live performance?
6- Is a live performace as clear as actually acting out the part yourself?


Religious scriptures by default are completely removed and obselete from the actual live experience. They are merely a guide, and some of us, specially women, work things out without reading the manual, while others like to stick to the letters of the manual...Who's right and who's wrong? It's not our role to judge others, only to examine ourselves. We will eventually be judged by the creator and he(for lack of better words) will settle out all our differences. So live your own values, your own ideas, your own beliefs...Live them, don't just read them......and to all those that are so concerned with all the nonesense details of the bible...Would the creator all mighty rest the destiny of a man on silly questions like:
- Who is the chosen son of Abraham?
- How many times did such and such rape such and such?
- State the geneology of Jesus according to Luke, Matthew, ect?
- State the books of the bible in order?

Come on people.....Give me a freakin break? Our god will never ask us nor expect from us to remember things like that from the bible or the Quran...We will only be questioned about our lives and what we have done with it.

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by Flores
Religious scriptures by default are completely removed and obselete from the actual live experience.

Flores, I understand what your post is saying - advice about how I should view religious texts. This would be great if I were religious and was pondering the religious significance of text. However, I’m not religious and to me taking a look at the history of the Qur’an is no different than looking at the history of Shinto religion or the Greek Parthenon. I thought that because this was a religious forum that I would get some information in this regards. I mean historical, archeological, and more-or-less secular information regarding the past setting that led to the writing of the Qur’an. No one on this board seems to know (either that or care). Oh, a few think an angel conveyed the info to the Prophet. This may satiate me, had I a belief in angels or prophets.

The sad thing is there is a huge amount of written material recorded by many Islamic scholars through the centuries that seems to be kept secluded away from mainstream Muslims. Hence my comment about Medieval Europe. There’s certainly a strong resemblance in terms of power structure. That’s to bad. Regardless, in retrospect, this is maybe what I should have expected. And that’s fine – I did some of my own investigating and have acquired at least a skeletal understanding of the historical events surrounding the Qur’ans inception. And that’s good enough for me.

 

[everneo]

From what i gathered from the links you provided and the information available in some of the islamic sites (both sunni and shia) it seems that the Quran had a history with regard to its form rather than its content.

The compilations of Quran into a book completed during the last years of Caliph Uthman and from the story of dialogue between Amr bin Al'as (muslim commander that conquered Eqypt) and the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, John I, during the period of earlier Caliph Umar, the question of non-existence of a Hagarite Book (Quran) seemed to have an answer. That it was yet to be compiled as a book afterwards.

The Sanaa fragments : It is still not clear how they differ from the current version of Quran, whether by their contents or dialects or order or inserted notes as aids is not known. The researcher Puin shows his excitement rather than the exact type of difference. I think, we have to wait for his expected book on this. Might be those fragments were the surviving, un-authenticated versions of quran that were once ordered to be destroyed by Caliph Uthman after compilation of Quran was complete.

What is worth considering is, IMO, the potential checks and balances, that would prevent any significant alteration of the contents, in an ironically strange way, are the early division of islam into sunni and shia factions. Any unilateral alteration of the contents of the quran would degrade any of these 2 factions as farce on the face of the islamic world.

There were some complaints of 'omissions' rather than changing of the contents. These type of 'omissions' relates to suras praising Ali and damning of some of the members of Ummayah who had grudges against Ali. But this claim of some Shias is in anyway does not indicate 'insertions' or 'alterations' of the contents. For one thing, any such alterations/insertions could have been met with vehement opposition by Ali during the time of compilation for he could tolerate 'omissions' out of his piety but not the alterations.



But in general, Both Sunni and Shia muslims agree with the intgerity of the Quran as an unaltered text in its contents after the compilation.

From some interesting links :

"It is necessary to emphasize here that all grand scholars of the Imami Shia
are in agreement that the Quran which is at present among the Muslims is
the very same Quran that was sent down to the Holy Prophet, and that it has
not been altered. Nothing has been added to it, and nothing is missing from
it. The Quran which was compiled by Imam Ali (excluding the commentaries)
and the Quran that is in the hand of people today, are identical in terms
of words and sentences. No word, verse, chapter is missing. The only
difference is that the current Quran (collected by the companions) is not
in the order that was revealed."

- http://www.irib.com/Special/imam ali/html/en/quran_compiled_by_imam_ali.htm
- (A Shia website - Iran)


Sir William Muir remarks in his Life of Mahomet :-

"Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Maho- metan world. Yet but one Qur'an has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text, The various readings are wonderfully few in number, and are chiefly confined to difference in the vowel points and diacritical signs. But these marks were invented at a later date, They did not exist at all in the early copies, and can hardly be said to affect the text of Othman."

- http://muslim-canada.org/quran_collation.html


The Damascus Manuscript

Al-Kindi (d. around 236/850) wrote in the early third century that three out of four of the copies prepared for 'Uthman were destroyed in fire and war, while the copy sent to Damascus was still kept at his time at Malatja. [GdQ. 111, 6. Note 1.]

Ibn Batuta (779/1377) says he has seen copies or sheets from the copies of the Qur'an prepared under 'Uthman in Granada, Marakesh, Basra and other cities. [Salih, op. cit., p.87.]

Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1372) relates that he has seen a copy of the Qur'an attributed to 'Uthman, which was brought to Damascus in the year 518 Hijra from Tiberias (Palestine). He said it was 'very large, in beautiful clear strong writing with strong ink, in parchment, I think, made of camel skin'. [Salih, op. cit., p.88.]

Some believe that the copy later on went to Leningrad and from there to England. After that nothing is known about it. Others hold that this mushaf remained in the mosque of Damascus, where it was last seen before the fire in the year 1310/1892.' [Salih, op. cit., p.89; Muir, in 'The Mameluke Dynasties' also writes that this manuscript was burnt in Damascus in 1893; see Abbott, op. cit., p.51.]

The Egyptian Manuscript

There is a copy of an old Qur'an kept in the mosque of al-Hussain in Cairo. Its script is of the old style, although Ki6, and it is quite possible that it was copied from the Mushaf of 'Uthman. [Kamal, op. cit., p.56.]


The Madina Manuscript

Ibn Jubair (d. 614/1217) saw the manuscript in the mosque of Madina in the year 580/1184. Some say it remained in Madlna until the Turks took it from there in 1334/1915. It has been reported that this copy was removed by the Turkish authorities to Istanbul, from where it came to Berlin during World War I. The Treaty of Versailles, which concluded World War I, contains the following clause:

'Article 246: Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, Germany will restore to His Majesty, King of Hedjaz, the original Koran of Caliph Othman, which was removed from Medina by the Turkish authorities and is stated to have been presented to the ex-Emperor William II." [Israel, Fred L. (ed.): Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, New York, Chelsea House Pub., Vol. ll, p.l418.]

The manuscript then reached Istanbul, but not Madina. [The same information about this copy was published in a Cairo magazine in 1938 (Makhdum, op. cit., p.l9). Surprisingly the standard book Geschichre des Qorans, the third part of which was published in Germany in 1938, i.e. well after the Treaty of Versailles, although discussing the 'Uthmanic Qur'an and old manuscripts in detail, makes no reference whatsoever to this event. Also, the writer of the History of the Mushaf of ' Uthman in Tashkent, indicates that he does not know what to make of this reference.]


The 'Imam' Manuscript

This is the name used for the copy which 'Uthman kept himself, and it is said he was killed while reading it. [Ibn Said: al-Tabaqatal-kubra, Cairo, n.d., Vol. 111, (1). pp. 51-2.]

According to some the Umayyads took it to Andalusia, from where it came to Fas (Morocco) and according to Ibn Batuta it was there in the eighth century after the Hijra, and there were traces of blood on it. From Morocco, it might have found its way to Samarkand.

The Samarkand Manuscript [Makhdum, op. cit., p.22ff.]

This is the copy now kept in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). It may be the Imam manuscript or one of the other copies made at the time of 'Uthman.

It came to Samarkand in 890 Hijra (1485) and remained there till 1868. Then it was taken to St. Petersburg by the Russians in 1869. It remained there till 1917. A Russian orientalist gave a detailed description of it, saying that many pages were damaged and some were missing. A facsimile, some 50 copies, of this mushaf was produced by S. Pisareff in 1905. A copy was sent to the Ottoman Sultan 'Abdul Hamid, to the Shah of Iran, to the Amir of Bukhara, to Afghanistan, to Fas and some important Muslim personalities. One copy is now in the Columbia University Library (U.S.A.). [The Muslim World, Vol . 30 ( 1940), pp.357-8.]

The manuscript was afterwards returned to its former place and reached Tashkent in 1924, where it has remained since. Apparently the Soviet authorities have made further copies, which are presented from time to time to visiting Muslim heads of state and other important personalities. In 1980, photocopies of such a facsimile were produced in the United States, with a two-page foreword by M. Hamidullah.

The writer of the History of the Mushaf of 'Uthmtln in Tashkent gives a number of reasons for the authenticity of the manuscript. They are, excluding the various historical reports which suggest this, as follows:

The fact that the mushaf is written in a script used in the first half of the first century Hijra.

The fact that it is written on parchment from a gazelle, while later Qur'ans are written on paper-like sheets.

The fact that it does not have any diacritical marks which were introduced around the eighth decade of the first century; hence the manuscript must have been written before that.

The fact that it does not have the vowelling symbols introduced by Du'ali, who died in 68 Hijra; hence it is earlier than this.

In other words: two of the copies of the Qur'an which were originally prepared in the time of Caliph 'Uthman, are still available to us today and their text and arrangement can be compared, by anyone who cares to, with any other copy of the Qur'an, be it in print or handwriting, from any place or period of time. They will be found identical.


The 'Ali Manuscript

Some sources indicate that a copy of the Qur'an written by the fourth Caliph 'Ali is kept in Najaf, Iraq, in the Dar al-Kutub al-'Alawiya. It is written in Kufi script, and on it is written: "Ali bin Abi Talib wrote it in the year 40 of the Hijra'. [Attar, D.: Mujaz 'ulum al-qur'an, Beirut 1399/1979, p. 116]

- http://www.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/books/ulum_al_quran/

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Michael
Flores, I understand what your post is saying - advice about how I should view religious texts. This would be great if I were religious and was pondering the religious significance of text. However, I’m not religious and to me taking a look at the history of the Qur’an is no different than looking at the history of Shinto religion or the Greek Parthenon.

Precisely Michael. You are indeed looking and at the same time quite blind. You are not interested in the content nor the quality of differences...You are only interested in counting how many hands might have handled the Quran. Unfortunately, that doesn't say anything about what might have happened to the content. You speak of different dialects, yet you fail to show the significance of the dialectal change. I have read the Quran in arabic and I objectively judged it by it's contents, and not by it's history. I have also read the bible and I judged it by the content and how things either made sense or not to me.. The content is the key, and my heart and mind are the filter and true test of authenticity

You know what....I wouldn't care if god manifest threw a book straight from the sky while millions are looking, yet the book read like shit...I would still call it shit. And if a criminal wrote a peace of art or miracle that entered my heart and made sense to me, I would value such a book more than one straight from the sky....But the reality is the Quran is a miracle, a beauty, it makes perfect sense, and it heals me... Try to do objective reviewes by reviewing the content rather than the subjective judging of the messangers who may have handled it.

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Michael
I thought that because this was a religious forum that I would get some information in this regards. I mean historical, archeological, and more-or-less secular information regarding the past setting that led to the writing of the Qur’an.

I can't believe that you think all muslims don't study the history of the Quran. For your information, the Quran originated somewhere in the midst of the caribean sea near the coral reefs. Here's my muslim ass in the field studying the archeological information on the Quran.

 

[Michael]

everneo, thanks for the post! I really appreciate the time you spent gathering the information. I think it’s a difficult task to gather some of this information because of present sensitivities as well as language barriers. Which isn’t surprising – the same can be said of many religions (ex: Taoism etcetera). Nevertheless it was a great read. You’re right we’ll have to wait on the Sansa fragments (which I don’t think there has been any German publications?) It would be interesting to see the Samarkand Manuscript! How cool is that – amazing really. I really want to have a copy. Is there a website where I can download it? (The reason being that I think it would make a nice gift for a friend if I could print and bind it nicely)

Off the topic – do you happen to know a little about what year the Torah was canonized? I was thinking 300ish? Similar to the Qur’an, many Jewish take pride in the fact that since canonisation there hasn’t been a change made to the Torah. What are your thoughts on this? Is the Jewish religion centralized are there fractions of this and that or do they all use the same text?

Lastly, and just purely out of curiosity, do you feel that a religious text that does not change in inherently “better” (whatever that means) over a religious text that changes over time (say as new insights are gleaned)?

Thanks!
Michael

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by Flores
Precisely Michael. You are indeed looking and at the same time quite blind. You are not interested in the content nor the quality of differences...You are only interested in counting how many hands might have handled the Qur'an. Unfortunately, that doesn't say anything about what might have happened to the content. You speak of different dialects, yet you fail to show the significance of the dialectal change.

True, but my interest is more academic and yours more spiritual. Accordingly, and from my perspective, before I look into the content I need to put that content into a context. What was going on at the time of it’s inception? For example. The Bible is a jumble of confusion (probably why its such popular book – you can basically interpret anything to mean anything!). However, once I started digging into the history of how the book came about. The similar religions of the time (and earlier), Gnosis, etcetera – it started to make sense – of course it is confusing. Try pasting 100s of religions into one and that’s what you’ll get! So its not the meaning of the writing in a religious sense per say, but more as a sort of connect the historical dots from Mythra to Constantine to the Reformation etcetera.

Does that make sense?

 

[Michael]

Originally posted by Flores
I can't believe that you think all muslims don't study the history of the Quran. For your information, the Quran originated somewhere in the midst of the caribean sea near the coral reefs. Here's my muslim ass in the field studying the archeological information on the Quran.

LOL! Great pic! Yeah, I could go for some Caribbean waters right about now! Actually, the ocean is the reason I migrated from the US to Australia. I love the water.

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought that all Muslims don't study the history of the Qur'an. I really do not think that way. I actually find Muslims to be quite rational in their belief – relative to say other mainstream religions
*cough* Christian *cough*
People are people - of course there are some that do and some that don't. Of the ones that do - some are experts and some just dip their toes in (to use the reef analogy It's just that on this forum, sometimes I really do just want something sort of what everno posted - but other times I do enjoy the conversation. And then factor in the phase of the moon and how well my research is coming along - - again, I didn't mean to give you that impression and your opinion ranks rather higher than most on this forum.

 

[everneo]

Originally posted by Michael
Off the topic – do you happen to know a little about what year the Torah was canonized? I was thinking 300ish? Similar to the Qur’an, many Jewish take pride in the fact that since canonisation there hasn’t been a change made to the Torah. What are your thoughts on this? Is the Jewish religion centralized are there fractions of this and that or do they all use the same text?

Too little. Those who have more knowledge on Torah, like ConsequentAtheist, might help.

do you feel that a religious text that does not change in inherently “better” (whatever that means) over a religious text that changes over time (say as new insights are gleaned)?

If a religious text was written by humans then adapting new insights is the only way for its continued relevance. But the text is believed to be from God and does not contradict reality then there is always a hope to interpret it in the right, just and proper way without corrupting its sanctity. :m: