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Islam and Science - Part 2

By Hafiz Shaid Shakoor

The importance of knowing that the Holy Qur'an is authentic cannot be underestimated. Living in a society with so many competing claims, it is not sufficient to rely on assumption alone to feel confident that your divine Book is the truth, is the word of the Almighty.

First and foremost we have to establish that the Qur'an we have today is the same Qur'an revealed to the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) some of fourteen centuries ago and that no corruption has occurred through the transmission of that very message. Secondly we need to establish who the author of the Holy Qur'an is, inshallah this is what I hope to go through in my series of articles.

One cannot simply deny the authenticity of the Holy Qur'an without sufficient proof. If, however someone claims to have found a mistake then he has the right to disqualify it. This is encouraged by Allah (Subhanahu watallah) within the Qur'an:

Say "If the whole of mankind and the jinns were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they backed up each other with help and support." (17:88)

Amongst the numerous beauties of the Holy Qur'an, what make this Holy Book stand out above the other scriptures is that the life of the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam), the history of the Arabs, the events that took place during the twenty three year period that the Holy Qur'an was revealed have not been mingled with the verses of the Qur'an which is not the case with the Bible. Not a single word or syllable has been altered. This Holy Book has been kept in its original form today as we find it, since the time it was revealed to the Noble Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam).

This is the basic procedure that took place when the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) received revelation:

The Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) would call upon a scribe and would dictate the words of revelation to him.
The written text would then be read out to the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam).
After having satisfied himself that the scribe has committed no error in writing, would place the manuscript in safe custody.
The Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) would instruct the scribe into which sequence the holy manuscript is to be placed in the particular surah.

It was ordained in the beginning of Islam that the recitation of the Qur'an is to be an integral part of worship. For this reason the Noble Companions of the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) would commit the verses that were revealed to memory. A large number of the Companions would have memorised the whole of the Qur'an and an even greater number would have memorised a proportion of it.

It is an indisputable historical truth that the Holy Qur'an today is syllable for syllable, exactly the same as what was offered to us by the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) as the word of God.

It was during the caliphate of the closest Companion to the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam) Hadhrat Abu Bakr Al-Siddique (Radi-Allahu anhu) that he gathered all the Huffaz and the written records of the Holy Qur'an and with their help he had the entire text written into book form. During the Caliphate of Hadhrat Uthman (Radi-Allahu anhu) copies of the original were made and sent to the capitals of the Islamic world. To this very day two of these copies still exist one is in Istanbul and the other is kept in Tashkent. Any Qur'an printed in any location in the world can be compared to these and you shall find no errors or variations between them.

How can there be discrepancy if several million Huffaz have existed in every generation since the demise of the Holy Prophet (Sallahu 'Alaihi Wasallam). Should anyone even attempt to alter even a syllable from the original text of the Qur'an, the Huffaz of our day would expose it at once.

Within the last century an institute of Munich University of Germany collected forty two thousand copies of the Qur'an including manuscripts and printed texts produced in each period in various parts of the Islamic world. Research was carried out on these texts for half a century. At the end what was concluded was that apart from human copying mistakes, there was no discrepancy of text between the forty two thousand copies which if u remember were collected from different ages and different places in the globe.

Though it is proven that the text of the Qur'an has remained intact still today, how are we sure that the words actually originated from Allah (Subhanahu watallah) and not some other source? Inshallah this will be covered in the next article.

Continue to Islam and Science - Part 3