History of the Quran
In this Book, the Holy Prophet's life, the history of the Arabs and the
events which occurred during the period of the revelation of the Quran
have not been mingled with the Divine Verses, as is the case with the Bible.
The Quran is the pure word of God. Not one word therein is not divine.
Not a single word has been deleted from its text. The Book has been handed
down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Prophet
Muhammad. From the time the Book began to be revealed, the Holy Prophet
had dictated its text to the scribes. Whenever some Divine Message was
revealed, the Holy Prophet would call a scribe and dictate its words to
him. The written text was then read out to the Holy Prophet, who, having
satisfied himself that the scribe has committed no error of recording,
would put the manuscript in safe custody. The Holy Prophet used to instruct
the scribe about the sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed
in a particular Surah (chapter). In this manner, the Holy Prophet continued
to arrange the text of the Quran in systematic order till the end of the
chain of revelations. Again, it was ordained from the beginning of Islam
that a recitation of the Holy Quran must be an integral part of worship.
Hence the illustrious Companions would commit the Divine verses to memory
as soon as they were revealed. Many of them learned the whole text and
a far larger number had memorized different portions of it.
Method of preservations of the Quran during the Prophet's time
Besides, those of the Companions (pbut) who were literate used to keep
a written record of several portions of the Holy Qur'an. In this manner,
the text of the Holy Qur'an had been preserved in four different ways during
the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
Method of preservations of the Quran after the demise of the Prophet
It is an incontrovertible historical truth that the text of the Holy Qur'an
extant today is, syllable for syllable, exactly the same as the Holy Prophet
(PBUH) had offered to the world as the Word of God. After the demise of
the Holy Prophet, the first Caliph Hadhrat Abu Bakr (PBUH) assembled all
the Huffaz and the written records of the Holy Qur'an and with their help
had the whole text written in Book form. In the time of Hadhrat 'Uthman
(PBUH) copies of this original version were made and officially dispatched
to the Capitals of the Islamic World. Two Of these copies exist in the
world today, one in Istanbul and the other in Tashkent. Whosoever is so
inclined may compare any printed text of the Holy Qur'an with those two
copies, he shall find no variation. And how can one expect any discrepancy,
when there have existed several million Huffaz in every generation since
the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and in our own time? Should anyone
alter a syllable of the original text of the Qur'an, these Huffaz would
at once expose the mistake. In the last century, an Institute of Munich
University in Germany collected FORTY-TWO THOUSAND copies of the Holy Qur'an
including manuscripts and printed texts produced in each period in the
various parts of the Islamic World. Research work was carried out on these
texts for half a century, at the end of which the researchers concluded
that apart from copying mistakes, there was no discrepancy in the text
of these forty-two thousand copies, even though they belonged to the period
between the 1st Century Hijra to 14th Century Hijra and had been procured
from all parts of the world. This Institute, alas! perished in the bombing
attacks on Germany during World War II, but the findings of its research
project survived. Another point that must be kept in view is that the word
in which the Qur'an was revealed is a living language in our own time.
It is still current as the mother tongue of about a hundred million people
from Iraq to Morocco. In the non-Arab world too, hundreds of thousands
of people study and teach this language.
The grammar of the Arabic language, its lexicon, its phonetic system
and its phraseology, have remained intact for fourteen hundred years.
A modern Arabic-speaking person can comprehend the Holy Qur'an with
as much proficiency as did the Arabs of fourteen centuries ago. This, then,
is an important attribute of Muhammad (PBUH), which is shared by no other
Prophet or Leader of Religion. The Book which God revealed to Him for the
guidance of mankind is today's in its original language without the slightest
alteration in its vocabulary.
This is taken from part of a speech "Message of Prophet's (saw) Seerah",
given by Syed Abul 'Aala Muadoodi. He compares the history and authenticity
of three scriptures, Torah, Injeel and Quran.
If any one needs specific references, the best book for Quran is Al-Itqan
fi Uloom-il-Quran by Jalaludin Sayyooti If you need more help, please send
e-mail. mmirza@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu (Muhammad Mirza)
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