Re: "The Quran has never been corrupted or changed"

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- mighty_cats
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Re: "The Quran has never been corrupted or changed"
OP - November 03, 2010, 05:20 PM

Ive decided to copy+paste some of the topics from my discussion board on facebook, in the hopes that some of you might like the refutations to common islamic arguments.
http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=173697882645130

Rule of the thread : If you like the post then you need to 'like' (and hopefully) 'share' my 'Quran debunking community page'
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quran-Miracles-Debunked/173697882645130
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A frequent non-argument claimed by Muslims is that the Quran has never been altered in its 1400 year history, this ofcourse, is bogus.

Now, I could argue a number of points, such as human-mind fallibility and how information becomes corrupted as soon as its taken in
(let's not forget that Muhammad had to remember information before ever getting people to write it down)

I could also argue about how there were a large number of times where the information prior to the book could have easily become damaged and unreadable and/or how there was a strangely large gap between Muhammad having the information written down and the book being published as a whole (with unknown people compiling it and being able to get hold of it)...but let's focus on something else for the moment...

What do the Ziasudra, Egyptian hieroglyphics, The book of the Dead and the Sumerian Tablets have in common?
They have all remained unchanged for thousands of years longer than the Quran, so should we now consider the Babylonian or Egyptian Pagan religions to be authentic or credible?
The answer is no.

A text can remain unchanged for an infinite period of time but this does not alter the problems that existed from the moment the pen touched the paper.
I recently came across an old test paper of mine from School, pretty good, B-grade with about 5 issues as demonstrated by the teacher..

Now heres the question, how long does this paper have to sit in my drawer before the problems disappear? The simple answer is that they won't.

Some muslims will argue that 'the Quran has no errors', this will be answered in a separate post, but the fact remains..

Simply because something has remained unchanged doesn't validate its authenticity or give credence that the information is accurate.
- Zebedee
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Re: "The Quran has never been corrupted or changed"
Reply #1 - November 03, 2010, 05:40 PM

Well, the claim is simply false anyway. There are variant readings or recitations ('qira'at') which mean that certain words are different, such as verbs being either second or third person, or being imperative rather than present tense. That and, there are numerous ahadith that talk about verses being removed from the Qur'an, such as verses of suckling or stoning.

It says in Ma'ariful Quran that some early scholars of Islam discovered as many as 20 different versions or readings of the Qur'an. Tafsir Ibn Kathir even includes a number of these narrations in which the companions talk about variant readings and removed verses.

This particular argument is nonsense that's just parroted by people who don't know what they're talking about.
- Paloma
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Re: "The Quran has never been corrupted or changed"
Reply #2 - November 03, 2010, 10:08 PM

The diacritical marks were added later.

Without them, words could have several different meanings :

Quote
I do not think an English reader will appreciate how big a problem this is without solid examples. Let me give a couple of examples. Take two Arabic words like “Sami” and “Shami”. The two words are written in Arabic the same way except for one minor thing: the word “Sami” has no dots on top of the letter “S”. the word “Shami” has three dots on the same first letter. So the difference between the two words is just three dots on the first letter. Now, the difference in meaning is huge. The word “Sami” in Arabic can be a man’s name, but also means “High in position”. A man with “Sami” morals means a man with high moral values. The word “Shami”, on the other hand, means “Syrian”, or someone from “Sham” (could mean the from the city of Damascus, or from the country of Syria). Here is another example: take the word “Hal” in Arabic (with heavy H). It mean “situation”. In contrast, the word “Khal” may mean “Empty” or “Uncle-on the mother’s side”. Now the difference in writing in the Arabic language between the two words is just one dot on top of the first letter in the word “Khal”. The word “Hal” is not dotted at all. You see, one dot difference can make a huge difference in the meaning of the word in the Arabic language. This huge Qur’anic problem cannot be appreciated by an English reader without live examples. I tried to clarify this matter in the two examples I just mentioned.
As if this is not enough, vowels presented another problem for the Muslims. Arabic script is consonantal. Vowels influence the meaning in the Arabic language. They are represented by orthographical signs above or below the letters. So, after settling the problems associated with consonants, Muslims had to decide on which vowels to employ in each case where there is a wording issue. Using different vowel renders a different meaning!

The above problems eventually led to the growth of different centers with their own traditions on how the Qur’anic texts should be pointed and vowelized. So, it is clear that Uthman did not succeed in getting rid of the older Qur’anic codices. Charles Adams observes about the Qur’an:

…far from being a single text passed down inviolate from the time of ‘Uthman’s commission, literally thousands of variant readings of particular verses were known in the first three (Muslim) centuries. Theses variants affected even the ‘Uthmanic’ codex, making it difficult to know what its true form may have been.”

Quote
According to Ibn Taymiyyah in "Sheik of the Muslims", Muslims began using diacritical marks because reading errors began to appear:

"The companions (Muhammad’s friends or “Sahaba”) did not vocalize or provide diacritical points for the letters of the Qur’anic copies which they wrote, but later during the last part of the companions’ era, when reading errors came into being, they began to provide diacritical points for the copies of the Qur’an and to vocalize them. This was admissible by the authority of the majority of the scholars, though some of them disliked it. The truth is, it should not be disliked because the situation necessitated it, and the diacritical points distinguish the letters from each other while vocalization explains the grammatical inflection."

Ibn Taymiyyah, "Sheik of the Muslims" (vol. XII, pp. 576 and 586)
Ibn Taymiyyah also states:

"The companions of Muhammad had never used the diacritical points or the vocalization for the Qur’an. For each word, there were two readings—either to use (for instance) ‘ya’ or ‘tah’ in such words as ‘they do’ or ‘you do’. The companions did not forbid one of the readings in favor of the other, then some successors of the companions began to use the diacritical points and vocalization for the Qur’an."

Ibn Taymiyyah, "Sheik of the Muslims" (p. 100)

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Diacritical_Marks_of_the_Quran

Like a compass needle that points north, a man?s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.

Khaled Hosseini - A thousand splendid suns.
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