The Qur’an,
Allah’s supposed final revelation, according to Islam, is transcendent, and
consequently, beyond the capacity for conjecture, or criticism. What this means
is that the Qur'an which we possess today is and has always been final and
pure, which prohibits any possibility for verification or falsification of the
text…even though I can prove it is in error which I just did.
There are
known variations of the Qur’an that are theologically contradicting to other
Qur'an even though Uthman ibn Affan attempted to have nearly all the extant
copies destroyed. The official stance of Islam is that the extant copies are
either invalid or forgeries even though most Muslim scholars will acknowledge
their existence and validity and claim to true Islamic truth. What the hadith
show is that because of infighting in the first century after Muhammad's death,
there was no written copies of the Qur'an immediately following Muhammad's
passing but once they were written, two major versions existed within 100 years
and they were radically different. Although there was a concerted effort to
destroy the radically different extant copies were….That is why the printing of
the Qur'an is now controlled governmentally. The last official printing that I
am aware of is Egyptian from 1924.
We also know
from Islamic documented accounts in the Hadith that some pieces of the Qur'an
were lost because some of the sole people that remembered them were killed in
skirmishes and battles following Muhammad's death. That is why extant copies
were collected and made into the Qur'an by later leaders. When those that
collected them tried to corroborate the texts and unify them there were a few
that refused and they were summarily beaten to get them to try and give them
up.
Furthermore
there are Islamic palimpsest that exist that have distinct variations between
earlier writings that have left indentations but were erased right on the
vellum and the text on the face of the palimpsest. There is hard empirical and
obvious editing under black light or ultraviolet light. Not corrections...but rather
intentional editing or redaction. It was either done to cover and inconsistency
or correct a previous error. Considering the Qur’an is supposed to be the
eternal inerrant word of Allah, there is an inherent problem here for Muslims.
The irony is
this. Most knowledgeable Islamic scholars and Imam are very aware of these
issues. The Islamic commoner is not. Yet the official line is that the Qur’an
as the perfect revelation of Allah is maintained…even when it is known there
are redactions. What then are we to do with the problems which do exist in the
Qur'an? If it is such a transcendent book, as Muslims claim, then it should
stand up to any criticism. Yet, what are we to do with the many contradictions,
the factual errors and bizarre claims it makes?
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