[Music]
all praise is due to Allah we praise him
we seek his help and we ask for his
forgiveness we take refuge with Allah
from the evil of ourselves and from the
evil consequence of our evil actions
whomsoever Allah guides there is none to
misguide and whomsoever Allah leaves to
go astray there is none to guide and
today over the next series of programs
we are going to be doing our best to
prove to you that that is the case that
indeed there is nothing worthy of
worship except Allah and that Muhammad
Sall wasam is the messenger of Allah and
today we are going to be talking about
the
preservation of the Quran now why are we
going to be talking about the
preservation of the Quran why is that
important and what has that got to do
with proving that Islam is the truth
well I think from one
angle it's a very important issue
because if we are going to say that one
of the evidences that we're going to put
forward to show that Islam is indeed
from Allah the creator of the heavens
and the Earth is the Quran and the
things that the Quran
says are a type of or constitute type of
evidence then a person may quite rightly
ask well how do we know the Quran is
authentic and to be perfectly honest
this is one of the issues that Muslims
themselves bring up with for example the
Bible or or the vadas or the teachings
of Buddha or anyone else one of the
issues that we have is that okay well
you claim these things are from this
teacher or are from God or whatever but
prove it how can we be sure that your
scriptures are authentic they maybe they
have been corrupted maybe they have been
distorted maybe there is some truth
there and some falsehood there so what
we would like to do today is to do our
best to show that the Quran is
indeed a book that has been preserved
from
corruption and from Distortion so this
is really a very very important issue
from one angle because then when a
person hears that something is from the
Quran or indeed for that matter that
something is from the prophet Muhammad
and it has been authenticated
as being from the prophet sallallah alai
wasam may God's peace and blessings be
upon him then you can be sure that this
is something authentic this is something
verified this is something that not H
that has not been changed and corrupted
over time so this gives us a lot of
confidence that what we're mentioning
from the Quran is indeed something that
is true and something that is correct
so um that is what we're going to be
dealing with but inshallah before we do
that we would just like to recap on
something very important that we
mentioned in a previous series of
programs because ultimately at the end
of the day my dear brothers and sisters
one of the strongest proofs and
evidences that Islam is from Allah is
what the Quran teaches about Allah and
now we have already mentioned this and
we've been through this in another
series of programs but I want to go
through it again very briefly without
repeating everything you see the Quran
has a very beautiful teaching about God
and in fact if this was the only thing
that the Quran was
teaching the Oneness of God the
uniqueness of God the Transcendence of
Allah if this was the only thing the
Quran was teach teaching really for a
person who is very logical and rational
and who is really in touch with their
nature and their inner selves then for
them that probably would be enough of a
proof and evidence that the Quran is
from God because what we find is that
nearly every religion in some way or
another way
distorts the belief in the Oneness of
God in some way or another for example
Christianity teaches that there is one
God that there is one Creator who has
bought this whole universe into
existence in one way or another this
idea is corrupted by the idea or the
concept that for example as Christianity
teaches that God has become man and that
somehow Jesus is both human and God so
this is really a corruption and a
distortion of the pure teachings of
monotheism because in reality what we
find is that this is a type of
impossibility how can something be
completely human and completely Divine
at the same time because the qualities
of true Divinity and the qualities of
true Humanity are incompatible God is
eternal whereas human beings are
finite God is self-sufficient whereas
human beings are needy how can something
be Eternal and be finite at the same
time how can something be
self-sufficient and needy at the same
time you see this is the problem so any
religion that teaches that God is a man
or that God is like some created thing
really how can we accept that to be true
because when it's talking about God is
is already upon a type of corruption and
a distortion and a falsehood whereas
Islam is free from this type of thing
the things that Islam teaches about God
are really very rational and very
reasonable and this is one of the
strongest reasons for believing that the
Quran is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
so what we want to emphasize upon today
my dear brothers and sisters may Allah
have mercy upon you may Allah guide us
all of us closer to the truth is the
issue of the preservation of the
Quran now one of the things that I want
to touch upon is the historical evidence
of the preservation of the Quran but
another thing I want to introduce is why
this is itself a type of miraculous
concept why it is really a type of
amazing thing why the preservation of
the Quran itself is one of the proofs or
one of the evidences rather it's more
accurate to say one of the evidences
because proof is one evidences are many
one of the evidences that the Quran is
from Allah subhana wa ta'ala the creator
of the heavens and the Earth so let's go
into a little bit about the
historical preservation of the Quran now
according to traditional mus Muslim
sources according to the teachings of
the Hadith the teachings of the prophet
sallallah alaihi wasallam and those
people who came after him the sah and
the um the way that the Quran was
preserved at least in terms of writing
because there are two ways that the
Quran has been preserved it has been
preserved
partially through writing now mostly in
Western culture for example a lot of
emphasis and a lot of importance is
given to the preservation in writing
whereas in fact it is not necessarily
true that something has been written
down in a scriptural form and that we
have something written down in a
scriptural way is necessarily the most
authentic thing anyway inshallah
brothers and sisters we're going to get
back to that but now we're going to have
a short break insh and I will be back
with you in a few minutes to talk about
the historical preservation of the
[Music]
Quran salam alaikum brothers and sisters
welcome back to the proof that Islam is
the truth and today we're talking about
the preservation of the Quran and I just
wanted to read an Ayah from the Quran
verily we have revealed the the reminder
which is one of the words for the Quran
and verily Upon Us Allah is saying upon
us is the preservation of it this is a
promise in the
Quran that Allah will preserve the Quran
and the reality of the preservation of
the Quran is without doubt one of the
miraculous aspects of the Quran and one
of the proof the proofs and the
evidences that it is from Allah in fact
you will find that nearly every type of
book and scripture and writing through
time goes through many alterations and
distortions and Corruptions now this may
not be the case so much today with the
invention of the printing press but of
course in ancient times when books were
largely
transcribed by scribes that then there
was a lot of opportunity for Corruptions
and distortions and
additions and deletions to take place
yet throughout the
1,400 years of Islamic history the Quran
has remained the same in fact it is one
of the most remarkable things that you
could take a copy of the Quran today you
could take a copy of the Quran today so
for example if we took this Quran here
if we took this Quran here and we looked
at the Arabic so this is of course an
English Arabic Quran but if you looked
at the Quran today and you took this
Quran and you compare it with a Quran in
Saudi Arabia and you compare it with the
Quran in Morocco and you compare it with
the Quran in China and you compared it
with the Quran in Siberia and even if
you went back in history 100 years 500
years 1,000 years 1,200 years in fact
the most ancient manuscripts that we
have of the Quran date to a time that is
almost contemporar to the time of the
Prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam it
means we have
manuscripts of the Quran dating back all
the way back to the time of the prophet
sallallah alaihi wasallam and the
amazing thing is that if you examined
these manuscripts you would find that
the actual words of the Quran are
exactly the same okay the style of
writing may be different the use of
certain diacritical marks may be
different but the actual words remain
exactly the same this is a fact actually
this is one of the Great arguments
against those people who claim there are
some people who are trying to claim that
the Quran has evolved it's an evolved
text they're trying to make the same
claims about the Quran that have been
discovered about the Bible but no one or
very few people take these claims really
seriously and part of the reason is is
that the sheer weight of evidence
against such a claim is there because we
have these texts of the Quran we have
different manuscripts in places like for
example Tashkent uh we have manuscripts
in Cairo we have manuscripts in Yemen we
have very very ancient manuscripts that
date really to the time very close to
the time of the Prophet sallallah wasam
let's go very briefly through the
history of the written preservation of
the Quran now of course during the
lifetime of s. wasam the Quran was never
actually collected as one book and the
reason for that of course is that as
long as the prophet sallallah alai
wasallam was alive it was still possible
that some more verses of the Quran would
be revealed however the prophet
sallallah wasam he used to recite the
Quran from beginning to end every
Ramadan and in the Ramadan before he
died the prophet sallallah alai wasallam
recited the Quran twice and the angel
Gabriel jiel used to come and go through
the Quran with the prophet sallallah
alaihi wasallam in the month of Ramadan
so the Quran was known
from to it was known by the people who
used to memorize the Quran and what was
known as the Quran was understood but it
was never written down as what is called
a mus they wrote down the Quran in
various pieces and fragments but it was
never written down as one book
however after the prophet sallallah
wasallam died there were what was called
the wars of RDA these are the wars of
apostasy when many people began to
apostasis and leave the religion of
Islam and there were some Wars against
those people and in those Wars many of
those people who had memorized the
entire Quran who are known as the hu the
memorizers or the preservers from ha
which means to preserve in Arabic these
people had preserved and memorized the
entire Quran in their memory we will get
back to that at a later stage about the
oral transmission and memorization of
the Quran but now we're talking about
the written preservation of the Quran so
these people many of them were killed in
battle so it was said to Abu Bakr who
was the ruler of the Muslims the first
kff or the first ruler of the Muslims
some people said to him why don't you
write down the Quran to make sure that
we don't suffer from what the people
suffered from who came before us meaning
the Jews and Christians from their
distortions and the Corruptions in their
text because we're afraid that if the
are killed in great numbers then maybe
the preservation of the Quran will not
be
maintained so anyway there was some
dispute about this because some of them
said well how can we do something that
the prophet s. wasam never did but they
agreed and Omar and Abu Bakr having
discussed it with each other they agreed
and the companions had agreed that this
was a good idea so what they did is they
got someone called
zbit they got him to organize this
collection of the Quran and with the
agreement of those people who were the
huas who were still
living they agreed to collect the Quran
and to write it as one mus from the
beginning to the end and they got a
unanimous decision about that in fact
they got an agreement on every single
aah two people a minimum of two people
had to agree every single single Ayah of
the Quran they had to agree that this
was the right Ayah and it was in the
right place also so this was the first
mus and it stayed with Abu Bakr and then
when Abu Bakr died it was given to Omar
and when Omar died he gave it to his
daughter HSA haa was also one of the
wives of the Prophet sallallah alaihi
was now after the death of Omar the
Islam had spread over over many many
different lands Islam had entered into
Persia it had entered into Egypt and
there were so many people becoming
Muslim now some of the people began to
argue with each other about the reading
of the Quran because the prophet
sallallah wasallam and it's very
important he had allowed the Quran to be
read in seven different
dialects so there were seven different
dialects they were all considered to be
the Quran and the prophet allowed the
reading of the Quran in those seven
different dialects however some of the
people who read it in one dialect began
to argue with those who read it in
another dialect and they were saying our
reading is the right reading and your
reading is the wrong reading and vice
versa and they nearly came to blows over
this issue so one of the generals came
toan B aan and said look this is a
problem let us unite the people under
one reading and this way we will avoid
dissension and controversy soan he said
okay this is a good idea what we will do
is we will unite The People Under the
reading of the quesi dialect the quesi
dialect was the dialect that the prophet
sallallah alai wasam he used to use the
most often okay this was the dialect the
prophet
alai wasallam himself used to use so
once again he ordered a compilation of
the Quran and who did he get the same Z
ibit they got the same Z IB thit to make
a compilation of the Quran and once
again he got a total agreement for each
Ayah a minimum of two people had to
agree about this Ayah that it was
correct and that its placement in the
Quran was correct and once again they
made a compilation of of the text of the
Quran then they compared this new
compilation with the compilation that
had been made by Abu Bakr and they found
that the two corresponded exactly they
were both corresponding exactly one with
the other so thenan ordered that every
copy that people had made and every
writing that people have made of the
Quran should be destroyed and the way
that they destroyed it was by burning it
okay this is considered to be a clean
and pure way to destroy the text of the
Quran it's not like in maybe in Western
culture these days you know when they
want to get rid of books they burn the
books as a type of protest no this was
considered to be a clean way to dispose
of the Quran so every Quran they had was
either washed as the mus that was given
to uh from Abu Bakr and Omar to H it was
actually washed clean and every type of
copy of the Quran was destroyed except
this what is called the Imam manuscript
that was the Imam manuscript compiled
byman under the supervision of
zbit and from that seven copies or maybe
nine copies were made so from that Imam
manuscript seven or nine copies were
made and these these copies were
distributed all over the Muslim world at
the time and every Quran therefore had
to be an exact replica an exact copy of
those
qurans so we still have according to
many experts in the field we still have
two or three of those original
manuscripts existing that was compiled
in the time of Usman IBN afan which is
only
some uh 20 years after the death of the
Prophet Muhammad sallah alaihi wasallam
and as I said you can go anywhere in the
world today and you can take a copy of
the Quran and you can compare it with
one with qurans anywhere and you can go
back in history 300 400 500 years and
you can compare those qurans then with
the qurans that we have today and you
will not find they are different not by
a word not by a
letter so this is a fact this is a fact
and this is really an astounding Miracle
of the Quran that Allah subhah wa ta'ala
he said that verily we have revealed the
vi the reminder and upon us is the
preservation of it so this is the way
that Allah subh wa ta'ala in his
infinite wisdom has preserved the Quran
what is important here for the rest of
our discussions in the series to come is
of course that when we are referring to
the Quran we are referring to a document
that is verified and certified to be
authentic it is something that we do not
differ about all the different Muslim
sects all of us we agree upon one single
text of the Quran and we have agreed
upon one single text of the Quran for
1,400 years so this is a book that is
preserved this is a book that is
authentic this is a book that we can
trust in and we can believe in and this
is inshallah what we will be discussing
later in future programs the next one is
the oral preservation of the Quran
until
then May the peace and blessings of
Allah be upon all of