Disproving the Quran

Does the Arabic Quran perfectly preserve what Muhammad recited?

It depends on who you ask.

Christians sometimes give a fairly negative answer to this question:

For many centuries Muslims have been taught to believe that the Qur’an has been preserved in its original Arabic text right from the time of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, down to this very day absolutely intact without changes, deletions or additions of any kind and with no variance in reading.At the same time they have also been taught that this suggested textual perfection of the book proves that the Qur’an must be the Word of God. No one but Allah, it is claimed, could have preserved the text so well. This sentiment has become so strongly established in the Muslim world that one will rarely find a Muslim scholar making a critical analysis of the early transmission of the text of the Qur’an and, when such analyses do appear, they are predictably unwelcome. (John Gilchrist, “Jam’ Al-Qur’an: The Codification of the Qur’an Text)

Here is another example citing a manuscript find in Sana, Yemen:

In contrast to these fairly negative appraisals of the Quran’s preservation, Muslims give a positive answer:

So well has it [the Qur’an] been preserved both in memory and in writing, that the Arabic text we have today is identical to the text as it was revealed to the Prophet. Not even a single letter has yielded to corruption during the passage of the centuries. And so it will remain forever, by the consent of Allah. ¹The Holy Qur’an, English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, King Fahd Holy Qur’an Printing Complex, p. v

Abdul Rahman Green explains in the following video,

How and why do Christians come to such different conclusions?

How and why do Christians and Muslims come to such different conclusions? What is the motivation?

For Muslims, the motivation for believing the Quran has been perfectly preserved from the time of Muhammad is rooted in the teaching of the Quran:

• Verily We: It is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Quran) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption). (Quran 15:9, Muhsin Khan)
• Nay! This is a Glorious Quran, (Inscribed) in Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz (The Preserved Tablet)! (Quran 85:21-22, Muhsin Khan)

Muslims have argued that the perfect preservation of the Quran is proof that the Quran came from Allah. They have then proceeded to argue that variants in biblical manuscripts is proof that the Scriptures are not the Word of God.

Christians reason that if we can prove variants in the Quran, then we can disprove the Quran (and therefore give legitimacy to the Bible?). But why should Christians begin with the presupposition that Quran 15:9 and 85:21-22 is true? After all, the Scriptures have had variants from the time of Jesus and before Him. From a Christian perspective, proving variants in the Quran does not prove any thing.

Having said this, let us look at three types of Quran variants and why they are useful to our Christian witness to Muslims.

There are three types of Quranic variants.

Qira’at

The first Quran variant is the way the Quran is recited. Muslims believe that as Islam spread throughout Arabia and incorporated new tribes and dialects that the Quran began being recited in new dialects. According to the following hadith:

Ubayy bin Ka’b reported that the Prophet was near the locale of Banu Ghifar when Jibril came to him and said, “Allah has commanded you to recite the Quran to your people in one dialect.” To this he said, “I ask Allah’s pardon and forgiveness. My people are not capable of this.” He then appeared for the second time and said, “Allah has commanded that you should recite the Quran to your people in two dialects.” The Prophet replied, “I seek your pardon and forgiveness from Allah, my people would not be able to do so.” Jibril came for the third time and said, “Allah has commanded you to recited the Quran to your people in three dialects,” and again he responded, “I ask your pardon and forgiveness from Allah. My people would not be able to do this.” He then came to him for the fourth time and stated, “Allah has permitted you to recite the Quran to your people in seven dialects, and in whichever dialect they recite, they will be correct.” (Muslim, Sahih, Kitab as-Salat, hadith no.1789).

These variants in recitation and different dialects (qira’at) go back to the time of Muhammad: ²Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami writes that he dislikes the term variants:

The term ‘variants’ is on that I dislike using in such cases because a variant results, by definition, from uncertainty. If the original author pens a sentence one way, and the sentence is then corrupted due to scribal errors, then we have introduced a principle of uncertainty; a subsequent editor who is unable to distinguish the correct wording from the incorrect will place what he believes to be the correct version in the text, whilst citing the others in margins. Such is the variant reading. But the Quran’s case differs distinctly because the Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s sole vice-gerent for the wahy’s reception and transmission, himself taught certain verses in multiple ways. There is no principle of doubt here, no fog or confusion, and the word ‘variant’ fails to convey this. Multiple is a far more accurate description…(The History of the Quranic Text from Revelation to Compilation, 154)

Narrated ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab:

I heard Hisham bin Hakim reciting Surat-al-Furqan during the lifetime of Allah’s Apostle, I listened to his recitation and noticed that he was reciting in a way that Allah’s Apostle had not taught me. I was about to jump over him while He was still in prayer, but I waited patiently and when he finished his prayer, I put my sheet round his neck (and pulled him) and said, “Who has taught you this Sura which I have heard you reciting?” Hisham said, “Allah’s Apostle taught it to me.” I said, “You are telling a lie, for he taught it to me in a way different from the way you have recited it!” Then I started leading (dragged) him to Allah’s Apostle and said (to the Prophet), ” I have heard this man reciting Surat-al-Furqan in a way that you have not taught me.” The Prophet said: “(O ‘Umar) release him! Recite, O Hisham.” Hisham recited in the way I heard him reciting. Allah’s Apostle said, “It was revealed like this.” Then Allah’s Apostle said, “Recite, O ‘Umar!” I recited in the way he had taught me, whereupon he said, “It was revealed like this,” and added, “The Quran has been revealed to be recited in seven different ways, so recite of it whichever is easy for you .” (Bukhari, Book 9, Volume 93, Hadith 640; also Hadith No. 514, Vol. 6)

Often, the variants non-Muslims use in trying to disprove the Quran are variants—multiple readings—that Muslims have always believed in!

One example is of this is in Sura al-Fattha, where the fourth verse can be recited as mālik (Owner) or malik (King) of the Day of Judgement. Non-Muslims often use this as an example of a variant.³See for example the following YouTube video by Shabir Ali, Maaiki [Owner] or Maliki [King] But Muslims believe both wordings were taught by Muhammad ⁴Taken from, Al-Azami, The History of the Quranic Text from Revelation to Compilation, 155).

If Christians are going to go the route of trying proving variants in the Quran, then they also need to demonstrate that the variants they present fall outside the qira’at tradition. But I think a better use of such variants is to point out that we find these same kinds of variants in the four Gospels and that Jesus taught similar things in different places. If Muslims believe there are legitimate Quran readings, then they should not have a hard time understanding that the differences in the Gospels can often be explained by the fact that Jesus taught similar things in different places, but that He did not always use the exact same words.

Variants mentioned in Muslim literary sources

A second type of variant is found in literary sources. Literary sources indicate various text traditions going back to the Companions of Muhammad:  Ibn Masud and Ubay ibn Ka’b; however, there is no manuscript evidence for these. ⁵Behnam Sadeghi; Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica, Volume 57, Number 4, 2010, 344

While the classical literature records thousands of textual variants, the task of reconstructing the history of the Qur’an is complicated because the variants are not found in any extant manuscripts known to Western scholars. Several valuable works on the history of the Kur’an were written during the 4th/10^th century, but later Muslim scholars, with just a few exceptions, have shown little interest in the problem of reconstructing the history of the canon. (Alford T. Welch, “Al-Kur’an.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al. [Leiden: Brill, 1986-2004], CD-ROM version). ⁶Ibn al-Jazari,  a distinguished scholar in the field of the qira’at of the Qur’an, noted that in his time (1350 AD/751 AH – 1429 AD/833 AH) “important and unimportant scholars alike believed that seven modes (ahruf ) in which the Qurʾān was revealed went well beyond the ʿUtmānic text. He quotes one authority to the effect that other modes can include additions, omissions, substitutions, and transpositions of words” (Behnam Sadeghi; Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica, Volume 57, Number 4, 2010, 346). 

Manuscript Variants

A third type of variant is between Quranic manuscripts.

To my knowledge there are not many variants in Quran manuscripts outside the forementioned qira’at tradition. In fact, I’m only aware of one major example: the Sana Quran.

Examples of Major Variants in the Sana Quran palimpsest ⁷Sadeghi, Behnam; Mohsen Goudarzi, “Ṣan’ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān,” Der Islam [March 2012], 21

Does the Sana Quran disprove the Quran?

Christians might see this and say, “Aha! We’ve found the smoking gun! The sana manuscript proves that the Quran to be false.”

But as I pointed out earlier, some Muslims may believe textual variants disqualify something from being the Word of God; however, this is not a Christian doctrine.

Rather, we should point out to Muslims that both the Quran and the Bible have a textual history. However, by itself, a textual history does not automatically disqualify the Quran or the Bible from being the Word of God. There are other biblical, moral, and logical considerations.

One major consideration is that the Qur’anic Injil is itself an attempt to corrupt the New Testament. Jesus was never given a message from heaven. Jesus was sent from heaven. He is the gospel.

Learn More:

What every Muslim should know about the Bible

What every Christian should know about the Quran, especially the Qur’anic Injil