Origin and development of the Qur'an

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Regarding the origin and development of the Qur'an, Islamic scholars proceed with the assumption that the Qur'an is exactly the same today as when it was revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The simple reason for this is because of the thousands of Muslims who have memorized the entire Qu'ran word for word in their hearts, and thus, if someone was to attempt to change it, and claim that the edited version was correct, it could easily be proven wrong by these men and women. The majority of secular scholars have adopted a number of other views, none of which assume divine origin. However, they differ strongly among themselves as to the "who", "when", and "how" of Quranic composition.

Contents 1 According to Islamic scholars 1.1 The beginning of the Qur'an 1.2 First written accounts 1.3 Oral transmission 1.4 First official copy 1.5 Different copies 1.6 First standardization 1.7 Oldest copy known today 1.8 Divine origin 2 According to non-Muslim scholars 2.1 Traditionalists 2.2 Iconoclasts 2.3 A return to traditionalism 2.3.1 Textual Evidence 3 "Created" vs. "uncreated" Qur'an 4 Completeness 5 Notes 5.1 References 5.2 Sources 6 External links

[edit] According to Islamic scholars

Adherents to Islam hold that the wording of the Qur'anic text available today corresponds exactly to that revealed to Muhammad himself: words of God delivered to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.

[edit] The beginning of the Qur'an

Muslims believe that revelations were given to Muhammad from 610 AD until shortly before his death in 632 AD, lasting about 23 years.

According to the Qur'an, Muhammad could neither read nor write, but would simply recite what was revealed to him for his companions to write down and memorize. During the time revelations were received by the prophet of Islam, the Muslims were encouraged to memorize them. This is mentioned in the Hadith of Bukhari,:

• Narrated Uthman ibn Affan: The prophet said: "The most superior among you are those who learn the Qur'an and teach it." 6:61:546

• Narrated Abdullah bin Masud: Allah's Apostle said to me: "Recite for me." I said: "Shall I recite it to you although it had been revealed to you?" He said: "I like to hear from others" 6:60:106

[edit] First written accounts

Sahaba began recording suras in writing before Muhammad died in 632. Written copies of various suras during his lifetime are frequently alluded to in the traditions. For example, in the story of the conversion of Umar ibn al-Khattab (when Muhammad was still at Mecca), his sister is said to have been reading a text of sura Ta-Ha. At Medina, about sixty-five companions are believed to have acted as scribes for him at one time or another. The prophet would regularly call upon them to write down revelations immediately after they were revealed to him. However, Muhammad's revelations were not bound into one single book during his lifetime.

[edit] Oral transmission

Many of the companions memorized the revelations under his personal guidance. The revelations Muhammad received were passed on orally from 610 AD until 653 AD. At that time the Quran was officially written under the command of Uthman.

More than 20 of such persons are mentioned by name in the Hadith. Among them were well known persons, such as Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Ibn Masud, Abu Huraira, Abdullah bin Abbas, Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As, Aisha, Hafsa and Umm Salama. Others went over the contents of the Quran with the prophet before his death

Narrated Qatada: I asked Anas bin Malik: 'Who collected the Quran at the time of the prophet?' He replied, "Four, all of whom were from the Ansar: Ubai bin Ka'b, Muadh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid". (Bukhari 6:61:525)

[edit] First official copy

The revelations given to Muhammad were written down by Sahabas under his own (Muhammad) guidance:

Narrated al Bara: There was revealed 'Not equal are those believers who sit and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah' 4:95. The prophet said: 'Call Zaid for me and let him bring the board, the ink pot and the scapula bone.' Then he said: 'Write: Not equal are those believers..." (Buhkari 6:61:512)

The Qur'an was written down during the prophet's lifetime but only on loose pieces of different material. When at the Battle of Yamama in 633 AD a number of Muslims were killed it was feared that part of the revelations might be lost. Therefore, Abu Bakr, the first Muslim leader after Muhammad's death, asked Zaid ibn Thabit to collect all the different writing materials on which the Quran was written down. This was his reaction:

"...By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Quran. I said to both of them, 'How dare you do what the prophet has not done?' Abu Bakr said, 'By Allah, it's a good thing'... So I started locating the Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leafstalks of date palms and from the memories of men. I found with Khuzaima two verses of Surah Tauba which I had not found with anybody else (and they were):--

"Verily there has come to you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty He (Muhammad) is ardently anxious over you (to be rightly guided)" 9:128 ...." (Bukhari 6:60:201)]

The condition that had to be met for a verse to be included in the compilation of the Qur'an, was that it had to be found in the collection (in writing, or by memory) of at least two people, if not more. At times, when Uthman would find a verse in the collection of only one person, he would be the second person as he would remember Muhammad reciting it, and would therefore meet the minimum requirement for that verse to be included in the Qur'an. This compilation was kept by Hafsa bint Umar, one of Muhammad's widows, as well as the daughter of Umar, the second caliph.

[edit] Different copies

A number of Hadith mention that several of Muhammad's companions wrote down their own collections of the revelations.

The best-known among them is Ibn Masud. He claimed to have learned some seventy Surahs directly from the prophet. Muhammad told other people to learn the Quran from him and three others. (Bukhari 6:61:521) However, Surah 1, 113 and 114 were missing in his collection. Ubay bin Kab, the prophet's secretary in Medina, is one of the other three whom the prophet recommended as a teacher of the Quran. Ubay bin Kab's collection contained two additional Surahs and an otherwise unknown verse. His text was widely used in Syria before the appearance of Uthman's text. Abu Musa's collection was used by the people of Basra and was identical with the material of Ubai bin Kab. These different collections of the Quran contained many variant readings. More than 1700 are attributed to Ibn Masud alone.

[edit] First standardization

The many variant reading caused Muslim soldiers from Iraq who followed Ibn Masud's collection, and soldiers of Syria who took Ubay's collection to be the correct one, to accuse each other of lying.

During the caliphate of Uthman ibn Affan, there were disputes about the recitation of the Qur'an. In response, Uthman decided to codify, standardize, and write down the text. Uthman is said to have commissioned a committee (including Zayd and several prominent members of Quraysh) to produce a standard copy of the text. Some accounts say that this compilation was based on the text kept by Hafsa. Other stories say that Uthman made his compilation independently, Hafsa's text was brought forward, and the two texts were found to coincide perfectly. Still other accounts omit any reference to Hafsa. Some Muslim scholars say that if the Qur'an had been collected by the order of a caliph, it would never have been relegated to the status of a keepsake for one of the prophet's widows^{[citation needed]}. It has also been claimed that the story possibly might have been invented to move the time of collection closer to Muhammad's death^{[citation needed]}.

Uthman's reaction in 653 AD is recorded in the following Hadith:

"So 'Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Qur'an so that we may compile the Qur'anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to 'Uthman. 'Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, 'Abdullah bin AzZubair, Said bin Al-As and 'AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. 'Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. 'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Said bin Thabit added, "A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur'an and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): 'Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.' (33:23)" (Bukhari 6:61:510)

In spite of the radical measures taken it is still reputed that there are some verses missing in today's Quran, for example:

"Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: 'Umar said, "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, "We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book", and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession." Sufyan added, "I have memorized this narration in this way." 'Umar added, "Surely Allah's Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him." (Bukhari 8:82:816)

The only reference found in the Qur'an reads:

"The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with a hundred stripes..." 24:2

However, according to Sunni sources,^[1] such allegations are not true as those verses have been abrogated. Such claims of the incompleteness of the Qur'an may be due to sectarian dispute between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. The Qur'an says:

"None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?" 2:106. Furthermore, Muslims believe that God has promised that He will always safeguard the Qur'an from any form of corruptions such as distortion, alteration and so on.

"We (God) have, without doubt, sent down the Message (Quran); and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)" 15:9

When the compilation was finished, sometime between 650 and 656 CE, Uthman sent copies of it to the various parts of the Islamic empire. He ordered the destruction of all other copies.

[edit] Oldest copy known today

Several manuscripts, including the Samarkand manuscript, are claimed to be the original copies sent out by Uthman^[2] in the 7th century CE. Some non-Muslim scholars, however, doubt that any of the Uthmanic originals remain.

Having studied early Quran manuscripts John Gilchrist states: "The oldest manuscripts of the Quran still in existence date from not earlier than about one hundred years after Muhammad's death." ("Jam' Al-Qur'an", page 153) He comes to this conclusion because two of the oldest manuscripts, the Samarqand and Topkapi codices are both written in the Kufic script. It "can generally be dated from the late eight century depending on the extent of development in the character of the script in each case." (Ibid. page 146)

As for the copies that were destroyed, Islamic traditions say that Abdallah Ibn Masud, Ubay Ibn Ka'b, and Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, had preserved versions that differed in some ways from the Uthmanic text. Muslim scholars record certain of the differences between the versions; those recorded consist almost entirely of orthographical and lexical variants, or different verse counts. All three (Ibn Masud, Ubay Ibn Ka'b, and Ali) are recorded as having accepted the Uthmanic text as authoritative.

Uthman's version was written in an older Arabic script that left out most vowel markings; thus the script could be interpreted and read in various ways. This basic Uthmanic script is called the rasm; it is the basis of several traditions of oral recitation, differing in minor points. In order to fix these oral recitations and prevent any mistakes, scribes and scholars began annotating the Uthmanic rasm with various diacritical marks indicating how the word was to be pronounced. It is believed that this process of annotation began around 700 CE, soon after Uthman's compilation, and finished by approximately 900 CE. The Quran text most widely used today is based on the Rasm Uthmani tradition of recitation, as approved by Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 1922. (For more information regarding traditions of recitations, see Quranic recitation, below.)

[edit] Divine origin

Muslims consider the Qur'an a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of Islam. In the Quran, it is claimed that Muhammed was illiterate and neither read a book nor wrote a book (29:48) and that he did not know about past events (3:44, 11:49, 28:44). The Quran also shows that the rejection of its divine origin was present in the lifetime of Muhammad.

"And those who disbelieve say: This (Quran) is nothing but a lie which he has forged, and other people have helped him at it; so indeed they have done injustice and (uttered) a falsehood. And they say: The stories of the ancients-- he has got them written-- so these are read out to him morning and evening. Say: He has revealed it Who knows the secret in the heavens and the earth; surely He is ever Forgiving, Merciful." 25:4-6.

“If they charge thee with falsehood, say: "My work to me, and yours to you! ye are free from responsibility for what I do, and I for what ye do!": 10:41

Muslims argue that it is impossible for a human to produce a book like the Qur'an without the aid of God. The Qur'an states:

“This Qur'an is not such as can be produced by other than God; on the contrary it is a confirmation of (revelations) that went before it, and a fuller explanation of the Book - wherein there is no doubt - from the Lord of the worlds. Or do they say, "He forged it"? say: "Bring then a Sura like unto it, and call (to your aid) anyone you can besides God, if it be ye speak the truth!" 10:37-38

"Or, do they say: He has forged it. Say: Then bring ten forged chapters like it and call upon whom you can besides Allah, if you are truthful. But if they do not answer you, then know that it is revealed by Allah's knowledge and that there is no god but He; will you then submit?" 11:13-14

In another verse, a similar challenge to the disbelievers is mentioned:

"Say: Then bring some (other) book from God which is a better guide than both of them (Torah and Quran), (that) I may follow it, if you are truthful." 28:49

[edit] According to non-Muslim scholars

[edit] Traditionalists

Most secular scholars accept something like the traditional Islamic version; they say that Muhammad put forth verses and laws that he claimed to be of divine origin; that his followers memorized or wrote down his revelations; that numerous versions of these revelations circulated after his death in 632 CE, and that Uthman ordered the collection and ordering of this mass of material in the time period (650-656). These scholars point to many characteristics of the Qur'an — the repetitions, the scientific mentions, the arbitrary order, the mixture of styles and genres — as indicative of a human collection process that was extremely respectful of a miscellaneous collection of original texts. Examples of traditionalists would be Richard Bell, Montgomery Watt, and Andrew Rippin.

[edit] Iconoclasts

Other secular scholars, such as John Wansbrough and his students Michael Cook and Patricia Crone, were less willing to attribute the entire Qur'an to Muhammad, arguing that there is no real proof that the text of the Qur'an was collected under Uthman, since the earliest surviving copies of the complete Qur'an are centuries later than Uthman. (The oldest existing copy of the full text is from the ninth century.^[3]) They alleged that Islam was formed slowly, over the centuries after the Muslim conquests, as the Islamic conquerors elaborated their beliefs in response to Jewish and Christian challenges.

Wansbrough, wrote in a dense, complex, almost hermetic style, and has had much more influence on Islamic studies through his students than he has through his own writings. His students Crone and Cook co-authored a book called Hagarism (1980), which was extremely controversial at the time, as it challenged not only Muslim orthodoxy, but the prevailing attitudes among secular Islamicists. Crone and Cook have since retreated from their claims that the Qur'an evolved over several centuries, but they still claim that the Sunni scholarly tradition is unreliable, as it projects current Sunni orthodoxy onto the past — much as if New Testament scholars were dedicated to proving that Jesus was a Christian rather than a Jew^{[citation needed]}.

The anti-traditionalist banner dropped by Crone and Cook has been taken up by scholars such as Christoph Luxenberg, who supports claims for a late composition of the Qur'an, and traces much of it to sources other than Muhammad. Luxenberg in particular is well-known for his claims that the Qur'an is merely a re-working of an earlier Christian text, a Syriac lectionary. See also Gerd R. Puin.

[edit] A return to traditionalism

Fred Donner has argued for an early date for the collection of the Qur'an, based on his reading of the text itself. He points out that if the Qur'an had been collected over the tumultuous early centuries of Islam, with their vast conquests and expansion and bloody incidents between rivals for the caliphate, there would have been some evidence of this history in the text. However, there is nothing in the Qur'an that does not reflect what is known of the earliest Muslim community.^[4]

Proponents of an early date for the Qur'an would seem to have been supported by recent archaeological finds.

In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of San'a, in Yemen, laborers stumbled upon a "paper grave" containing tens of thousands of fragments of parchment on which verses of the Qur'an were written. (Qur'ans were and still are disposed thus, so as to avoid the impiety of treating the sacred text like ordinary garbage.) Some of these fragments were believed to be the oldest Quranic texts yet found.

The European scholar Gerd R. Puin has studied these fragments and published some preliminary findings. The variations from the received text that he found seemed to match minor variations in sequence reported by some Islamic scholars, in their descriptions of the variant Qur'ans once held by Abdallah Ibn Masud, Ubay Ibn Ka'b, and Ali, and suppressed by Uthman's order.^[5][6]

[edit] Textual Evidence

The Qur'an has much common theology, narratives, and commands as the Bible as well as non-canonical Jewish and Christian documents that have no historical validity. (See Legends and the Qur'an.) Critics write that Muhammad did not know these documents were faulty and used them. Because they are not historically accurate, the Qur'an cannot be historically accurate. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,^[7] the text in the Qu'ran is traced to six sources:

• The Old Testament canonical and apocryphal and the hybrid Judaism of the late rabbinical schools. During Muhammad's time the Jews were numerous in many parts of Arabia, especially around Medina. Later Judaism and Rabbinism are equally well represented.^[8][9]

• The New Testament (canonical and apocryphal). On his journeys between Syria, Hijaz, and Yemen, Muhammad had opportunity to come in close touch with Yemenite, Abyssinian, Ghassanite, and Syrian Christians, especially heretic.

• Sabaism, a combination of Judaism, Manicheism, and Babylonian polytheism.

• Zoroastrianism. One suggestion of Zoroastrian influence on Islam is based on the conclusion by the Jewish orientalist, Ignaz Goldziher, in his book "Islamisme et Parsisme",^[10] that the incident of Isra and Mai'raj in Islam (Muhammad's ascension to the heavens) resembles the Iranian "Divina Commedia" called Arda Wiraz Namag. Ibn Warraq quoted the Christian missionary, Tisdall, on this, claiming that the book Arda Wiraz Namag was composed 400 years after Muhammad.

In this regard, Encyclopaedia Iranica states that: "The Arda Wiraz-namag, like many of the Zoroastrian works, underwent successive redactions. It assumed its definitive form in the 9th-10th centuries AD".^[11] Gignoux says the following about the same: "It is known that the whole of the Pahlavi literature was written tardily, roughly speaking after the Muslim conquest, and that it however transmitted extremely old traditions to us, from Sassanide and even pre-Sassanide times".^[12]

• Hanifism, the adherents of which, called Hanīfs (not to be confused with Hanafi, followers of the Hanafi school of thought), must have been considerable in number and influence, as it is known from contemporary Arabian sources that twelve of Mohammed's followers were members of this sect.

• Native ancient and contemporary Arabian polytheistic beliefs and practices. Wellhausen has collected in his "Reste des arabischen Heidentums" (Berlin, 1897) all that is known of pre-Islamic Arabian religious belief, traditions, customs, and superstitions, many of which are either alluded to or accepted and incorporated in the Qu'ran. From the various sects and creeds, and Abul-Fida, the well-known historian and geographer of the thirteenth century, it is clear that religious beliefs and practices of the Arabs of Mohammed's day form one of the many sources of Islam. From this source Islam derived the practices of polygamy and slavery, which Mohammed sanctioned by adopting them.

[edit] "Created" vs. "uncreated" Qur'an

The most widespread varieties of Muslim theology consider the Qur'an to be eternal and uncreated. Given that Muslims believe that Biblical figures such as Moses and Jesus all preached the same message as Islam, the doctrine of an unchanging, uncreated revelation implies that contradictions between the statements of the earlier divine revelations (the Torah and then the Bible), and the final revelation from God, the Qur'an, must be the result of human corruption of the earlier texts.

Some Muslims have criticized the doctrine of an eternal Qur'an as diluting the doctrine of tawhid, or unity of God. Holding that the Qur'an is the eternal uncreated speech of Allah, speech that has always existed alongside Him, may be a step in the direction of a more plural concept of God's nature (which leads to what Muslims consider the sin of shirk, the association of something with God). This interpretation echos the Christian concept of God's eternal word or logos, some Muslims (e.g. Mu'tazilis and Shi'a) reject the notion of the Qur'an's eternality.

Some modern-day Muslim scholars touch on the doctrine of the eternal Qur'an when they question common conceptions of Islamic law. Reza Aslan has argued that such laws were created by God to meet the particular needs and circumstances of Muhammad's community. Likewise, Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid has claimed that the verses of the Qur'an that talk about Islamic law cannot be understood outside their historical context. However, other Muslim scholars assert that the Qur'an is eternal and is uncreated, while acknowledging that some verses in the Quran were revealed in response to specific historical circumstances. This view has been supported by notable Islamic scholars in the past, such as Ahmed ibn Hanbal.

[edit] Completeness

There are three arguments which suggest that the Qur'an is not complete.^[13] Most Muslims, Sunni and Shia alike, believe that the Quran itself was never abrogated, but instead that the Quranic verse 2:106 is referring to Muhammad's recitations being abrogations of the Torah and the Injil. This is demonstrated further in the Quran which states that "...There hath come to you our Apostle, revealing to you much that ye used to hide in the Book..." 5:15. This is a verse directed at Ahlul Kitab, or People of the Book (Christians and Jews). It states that Muhammad is revealing parts of the Holy Scriptures that Christians and Jews hid/forbade and that they were subsequently lost and the Quran is there to clean up the mess. Majority Muslim opinion maintains that the Quran itself was not abrogated in the sense that parts of it were removed for something better, but that certain parts were later expanded. An example of this is how at the start of Muhammad's prophethood, the Meccan verses dealt more with spirituality, the Medinan verses didn't abrogate the Meccan verses, but added to the collection and created a better understanding of the whole.

According to Mircea Eliade, there are a few haddith that suggest that parts of the Qur'an have gone missing. However, according to Sunni sources^[1] such allegations are not true as those verses have been abrogated, and quote the above verse. The three arguments presented for the incompleteness of the Qur'an are:

• Muhammad had revelations before he revealed those currently attributed to him and that it is possible that Muhammad being human and imperfect did not fully comprehend the significance of the first revelations. Muslims^{[citation needed]} respond to this by saying that this view is of a speculative nature and not based on any grounds, and that the same logic could be applied to any revelation received, prior to Muhammad, by any human. Usually either Surah 96 or 74 is accepted as the first Surah to be revealed to Muhammad.
• The Qur'an itself allows for there to be revelations which might have been forgotten (87:6-7), replaced (2:106, 16:101), divinely changed (22:52), or eliminated by Satan's influence (22:52). Akbarally Meherally, a Muslim comparative religion analyst, responds by saying that verse 2:106 is being misread and taken out of context.^[14] The verse reads:

"Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?"

He states that this verse opens with a conditional sentence. Therefore the opening portion of the sentence is subjected to the rest of it. Substitution is acknowledged. The abrogation is negated and so is the concept of causing to be forgotten.

For claims of Satanic influences in the Qur'an, he responds by saying that again the verse 22:52 is again a conditional sentence and is subject to the next part of the verse, and that the verse is being improperly quoted.^[15] Verses 22:52 reads:

"Never sent We a messenger or a prophet before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But Allah abolisheth that which Satan proposeth. Then Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is Knower, Wise"

Since the verse mentions that Allah has abolished anything that Satan proposed towards the Qur'an, Muslims believe that none of the "Satanic verses" survived in the Qur'an.

• Tradition allows for incompleteness. Muhammad, his wife, and companions have been known to refer to verses that are currently not in the Qur'an.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

• "The great Qu'ran con trick", by Martin Bright, consider.net, December 10, 2001, retrieved April 08, 2006
• A number of works on the Qur'an, including vonDenffer's Introduction to the Sciences of the Qur'an - at SunniPath.com
• Examining the Qur'an - from Islamic-Awareness.org