Preservation and authenticity of Qur'an (4)

Question:
Thank you very much for your very important time for me. I am grateful to you that despite my rudeness and lack of knowledge, you are very patient with me. I must tell you Sir, that I had no intentions what so ever to offend you in any way or try to waste your time. I may be less experienced in writing emails on these important issues, but at the same time, I enjoy reading your though provoking emails. I have great respect for you Sir, and if I offended you in any way, then please accept my sincere apology.

Now to your latest reply. Before I start replying it, I must tell you sir, I see with amazement that you write very strong arguments in very short paragraphs! Its wonderful to see this, I really want to know how you do that?

Sir you said:
“What you are claiming is that before this unanimous practice started, Muslims had no idea of what was the true nature of Qur’an. The book was left incomplete, unclear, and open to improvements. It was at least two decades after the prophet’s death that a caliph of Muslims corrected the wrong and gave the new faith a proper understanding of what their book of God was like.”

I was just trying to use my logic; it appeared that I was not very successful. Of course there was a start of this whole thing some where by some one. Now there different opinions, you think it was the Prophet Muhammad Himself, started this practice of reciting Quran entirely, I think it was not possible for Prophet Muhammad to do such thing. Why? Well we can both agree that Quran was revealed over a period of roughly 23 years. We can also safely agree with each others that there was no mentioning of any sort of announcement that transmission of Quran is over! There was no mentioning of Allah in Quran or sayings of Prophet Muhammad which claimed that there will be 114 Suras in Quran! And if these things are true then one must assume that there was some sort of confusion among Muslims, especially after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad. Only after demise of Prophet, it was thought that, Okay; now we have a full Quran and we should do something about it. It’s also logical to think that Qur’an was not in one volume till the demise of Prophet Muhammad, as there are sayings of his companions about it.

Now what I am trying to do, is to judge the historical evidence (either you call them evidence or not) on merit, if I am a neutral person, then please understand my position. I can not simply deny or accept any claim, because it was said to me. I can base my opinion after judging things with my Aqal and try to see the possible out comes. If you say that we can not accept Hadiths as a true source of confirming the history, then what should we do? Do you have any other reliable source which we can use other then Quran, as Qur’anic claim about its authenticity falls under the logical fallacies of circular reasoning. However there is also some problem too.

You raised the point that we can not base our judgment on the basis of some hadiths, which may be result of fabrication of Islam enemies. True! Its quite possible, we don’t know, however, you will agree with me that a large part of Muslim world do based their creed on these Hadiths, these Hadiths were often quoted in order to achieve understanding of different religious matters. If we can not trust these Hadiths, then why are we using them? If Muslims are fair, then they should say that we reject these Hadiths totally, as we don’t know about their authenticity. However, we see this is not the case.

Quote: “The verses 106 and 107 of surah al-Baqarah are not talking about the abrogation of Qur’anic. Instead the context is absolutely clear that the mention is of the abrogation of the verses of Torah. The Jews started propagating against the prophet that on the one hand he was claiming that the Torah was the book of God, while on the other he was altering its injunctions. Was it not a contradiction of what he was claiming? In response to that claim, the Qur’an mentioned: “We do neither abrogate a verse nor cause it to be forgotten but bring something better than it or similar to it; do you not know that Allah has the ability to do everything?”“


My first simple question to you will be how you know this? I heard that this particular notion among the modern scholars that the abrogation was not meant for Quran, rather for old scriptures, were based on its problematic conclusions? If indeed it was meant to abrogate Qur’anic verses, do you agree that it will pose a great difficulty for Muslims? Was that not the reason to divert the attention to the old scriptures?

But this particular notion does not solve the problem at all. How will you justify the following?

“The Qur’an teaches that Islam is the continued faithful religion in the same line as the Prophets who were before Muhammad: The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah ... and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (42:13 AYA). The result of this view is that the scriptures given by these Prophets are considered to be genuine scriptures from God: But say, “We (Muslims) believe in the Revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you (Jews & Christians); our Allah and your Allah is One” (29:46 AYA).

In the Qur’an there are many references to the Jewish and Christian Holy Books. In fact the Qur’an addresses Christians and Jews in terms of the Book: O People of the Book! (5:68 AYA).”

Indeed Quran confirms that old scriptures, now if we accept the theory that Quran abrogated the old Scriptures, then it will not make any sense. You said that it was only after Jews who were trying to “started propagating against the prophet that on the one hand he was claiming that the Torah was the book of God, while on the other he was altering its injunctions.” I am sorry but I see no evidence from these verses that it was the case! It says Ayas and not the Ayas of Torah, as a matter of fact, Quran usually called these Scriptures as Books or as scriptures, or with their proper names, like Torah and Injeel, it seems quite an stretch that when it says Ayas, then it was mentioned for Torah or Injeel ! Allah could have said easily he is cancelling Torah and Injeel! I think that was much easier and simple to clear this confusion!

But if we accept your theory for a minute that it was meant for Torah, then how would you justify these Qur’anic verses which are saying totally different thing about Torah!

“28:48-49 Now that the Truth has come to them from Us, they are saying: “Why is he (Muhammad) not given the like of what was given to Musa?” Have they not rejected that which was given to Musa before? They claim: “These (Torah and Qur’an) are the two works of sorcery complementing each other!” And they say: “We believe in neither.” Ask them: “Bring a Book from Allah which is a better guide THAN THESE TWO, I will follow it, if what you say be true!”

Here Allah is telling us that Quran and Torah are two best Books of guidance! And He even challenged people to bring any better Book if they can! And you think we should accept that later Allah forgot these verses and ordered to cancel his previous message because of Quran!

Yes you quoted the verses which say that ““We do neither abrogate a verse nor cause it to be forgotten but bring something better than it or similar to it; do you not know that Allah has the ability to do everything?” “brings one better or similar to replace it ??? , al-Baqarah 2:106.This verse can cause quite a consternation. In the case of the Stoning Verse for example, there was no replacement (better or not). Neither was there any replacement for the Missing Bismillah, the Ibn Adam Verse, the Suckling Verse or the “Pleasing” Verse.

Apart from this, there are few other verses which talk about abrogation, let’s see some of them here.

“17:86 And if We willed We could withdraw that hich We have revealed unto thee, then wouldst thou find no guardian for thee against Us in respect thereof.”

“16:101 And when We put a revelation in place of (another) revelation, - and Allah knoweth best what He revealeth - they say: Lo! thou art but inventing. Most of them know not.”

16:101 is clearly talking about Qur’anic verses, and not about old scriptures, it’s logical to think that when some of the Qur’anic verses were removed then the people who were opposing Prophet had their chances to raise their objection... such as why a perfect God would ever change the message?

But it seems that there are more twists in this story. In verse 02:106 Allah claimed and as you mentioned that It did not say that it will “Abrogate” the verses, rather it says that “abrogate a verse nor cause it to be forgotten” ... but then Allah contradicts Himself when he revealed this verse which I quoted earlier.

“87:06-07 We shall make thee read (O Muhammad) so that thou shalt not forget. Save that which Allah willeth. Lo! He knoweth the disclosed and that which still is hidden;”

Now if we read Hadiths, we do have so called authentic Hadiths in which Prophet Muhmmad admitted that He forgot verses of Quran, but again this is in direct contradiction of 02:106.

I see plenty of evidence about the abrogation in Qur’an, however I can not force some one about it. I hope you will agree with me that by cancelling the old books, Quran just add just another contradiction, because it support and confirm the old Books of other creeds. It does not make any sense, to hear these sorts of arguments, that Allah was supporting and confirming and then changing his mind and cancelling them totally! Does this make any sense to you? Please forgive me; I may not be that intelligent!!

About the variant readings of Quran, I am quite sure, that even if we reject Hadiths totally, there are other historical works done by Muslims who confirm this phenomenon. I personally belief that you are right, in order to be logical, we must assume that Allah sends only one message, the Quran which we see it today in most of the Muslims hands. the Hafs reading of Quran. But Warsh or any other reading of Quran only increases the Problem of its authenticity, but question remain! Why some of the Muslims scholars are so keen to accept it as a valid fact?

I am sure the gentleman you mentioned who is about to finish his Ph.D soon, will make a significant difference in order to understand this phenomenon. I am not aware of his work so I will not comment on it. However, remember, the problem of variant readings of Quran is not going any where soon, it has not firm roots in Islamic creed and its strong and appealing.

Response:
One of the advantages of being brief is that you have a better possibility of remaining focused on the topic and not get lost in the crowd of words. However, I do admit that it carries some problems as well.

I learnt my religion through my common sense and therefore never allowed any of the traditional concepts to interfere with my understanding of it. I had always considered hadith a less reliable source because it involved only a few people in its compilation and in the case of most of them at least at one level of the chain there was just one person involved. How would you respond to a research suggesting that most of the problematic ahadith on Qur’an, the prophet, Ayesha, and Umar were transmitted by one particular individual within most of the chains? (I am not talking about Abu Hurairah, who was a companion of the prophet). Qur’an, on the other hand has been handed down by the unanimity of Muslims. Indeed that unanimity does sometime seem to be challenged by some such reports that were handed down by individuals. When a hadith appears now in the books, it begins to carry a lot of weight, because, after all, it is printed on a book with the impression created in the minds that it was mentioning the prophet’s own words, which in turn gives it an aura of reverence, and many Muslims consider such books as extremely authentic. I consider such books as useful, but compared to Qur’an and common sense, they occupy a relegated position of significance.

You haven’t adequately responded to my point based on common sense: How could it have been possible that the prophet himself didn’t complete the Qur’an and one or a handful of companions corrected the wrong done by him, and yet the Muslim ummah agreed to this compromise formula. I mean, the fourth caliph was considered by some Muslims to be more deserving than the other three and a whole new sect got created which doesn’t even consider the other three worthy of respect, while Qur’an was, according to your understanding, redesigned by an individual and the entire ummah kept mum and meekly accepted the arrangement. Please give this understanding more thought. Bukhari and others are books which just mention what the authors who compiled them after more than two centuries thought was true. How can such source of information be allowed to play a role in deciding as to what happened during the time of the prophet.

You ask as to what should we believe in if not ahadith? I would say the confidence one gets through one’s experience of how Qur’an must have been preserved through our present experience is far greater than any hadith can generate. It can simply not be faulted. Imagine the very same book of ahadith are telling us that the entire Qur’an was being recited during Ramadan in Taravih prayers much before the alleged correcting act of Uthman took place. I wonder what that Qur’an was? And who says that Qur’an doesn’t declare that it was completed? Verse 5:3 does so most unequivocally. There was no confusion whatsoever. Had there been a confusion what magical trick caused it to be replaced by a complete confidence in the book after its nervous, dubious beginning? Also, there is a mention that the Mosque of the prophet had a copy of Qur’an during his own times. When it comes to consulting the ahadith, all of them should be consulted and not just the one that support one point of view.

If Muslims are using ahadith in almost everything, it doesn’t mean that ahadith were authentic. It only means that Muslims are doing what they feel like doing. One should not furnish a wrong approach as a proof to prove that everything else was false. Let’s admit that the overemphasis of ahadith is an exaggeration. No notable earlier scholar, with the possible exception of Ibn Hazm believes that ahadith were fully preserved. Ahadith were important in case there wasn’t any other, more reliable, source that challenged it.

You mention that there wasn’t anything in 2:106-7 that indicated that the verses were not meant for abrogation of Qur’an with Qur’an. The fact of the matter is that if you read the text in its context, the entire passage is addressing the Jews and the problems created by their propaganda. The possibility of Qur’an abrogating its own verses doesn’t simply fit into the context. You try reading the five verses before and five later with both concepts in mind and you would know which one is making sense and which one is not.

Umar’s views on Rajm have also been reported in books of ahadith. We don’t know how correct those reports were. The fact of the matter is that Rajm was a punishment based on the Qur’anic verse of surah Maidah and therefore there was no need for anyone saying anything on that issue. No abrogation of any verse whatsoever took place.

Why did Qur’an abrogate Torah? The Qur’an abrogated its own verses too. The reason is that the Almighty had a number of purposes in mind while taking decisions. Sometimes circumstances change because of change in the manner humans lived. Sometimes an injunction was meant for a particular group of people as punishment because they had rebelled against God. Sometimes it’s simply a test. The fact that certain injunctions of Torah were replaced by certain Qur’anic injunctions in no way takes away the status of Torah as the book of God. However, despite enjoying that status, it is now not directly, practically applicable for all times. That rule is also true for some of the injunctions of Qur’an which were meant for the times of the prophet only.

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