FAQ in dawah: Qur'an

What is the Qur'an?

• Qur'an means 'Recitation' (of the Revelation which come from Allah)
• It's the noble book of Islam, containing 114 chapters (or sūrahs)
• There's only 1 version of the Qur'an
• It's the final revelation of God or Allah
• It's the verbatim (exact) word of Allah and revealed in Arabic language
• Angel Jibrail (Gabriel) transmitted it to Prophet Muhammad verbally (Al-Baqarah 2:97)
• It was first revealed in 610 CE and then through a period of 23 years - 13 in Makkah and 10 in Madinah
• 114 chapters are not arranged chronologically, by size, or by subject matter, but are in a divine order which Allah has decreed
• Originally it was transmitted orally. But Muhammad's various companions, who were literate, wrote the verses on various material and preserved it
• Following Muhammad's death, it was compiled into a book for the first time by the caliphs
• Millions of Muslims around the world has memorised the Qur'an fully

How was the Qur'an revealed?

• Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) would go to secluded cave Hira in Jabal al-Nur (Mountain al-Nur) in Makkah to contemplate about God. He had his first encounter with archangel Jibrail (Gabriel) (RA) in 610 CE when Muhammad was 40 years old
• First verses revealed from the Quran were the first five verses of chapter 96 Al-'Alaq, which begin with the command "Recite" (Iqra) in the name of Allah. Hence why the book is called Qur'an, which means 'Recitation' (of the Revelation which come from Allah)
• Frightened by the encounter, Muhammad went back to his wife Khadijah who took him to her relative Waraqa bin Nawfal, someone from 'People of the Books' (i.e. Christians and Jews). Waraqa confirmed to Muhammad that the angel was the same that came to Moses (i.e. it's Gabriel). Muhammad only met Waraqa 2 or 3 times, no more, as Waraqa passed away soon after. So the Christian's claim that Prophet took all information from Waraqa is a lie
• Qur'an primarily intended to be an oral text, hence the name 'recitation'. So the main way of preserving Qur'an has always been oral tradition, not written text. Written text always looked as secondary source

Recording of Qur'an by writers

• Qur'an revealed gradually over 23 years, so people can embrace and understand it slowly
• Whenever any verse revealed by Jibrail, the Prophet commanded someone to write it down (as Uthman RA narrated in Sunan Abi Dawud 786) and told them to where to put these verses as revealed to him by Jibrail (i.e. Jibrail told Prophet who told the companions)
• Many different writers e.g. Zaid ibn Thabit, Utman bin Affan, Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ubay ibn Ka'b, etc. They are known as 'Qatab al Wahi' (Writers of the Revelation). They were specifically selected by the Prophet
• They wrote Qur'an in any parchment e.g. leather, rocks, wood, or whatever available such as skins of trees, bones. Paper was then not available in the desert of Arabia
• But some companions had their own personal books (Masahef) where they'd write the verse and also their own commentary or understanding of the verse

Qur'an revealed in 7 different dialects (7 harfs or ahruf)

• Arabs had multitude of dialects like English today e.g. English, Scottish, American, Canadian, Australian, etc. Different tribes like Quraysh, Hudhayl, Tameem, Hawaazin, Thaqeef, Kinaanah, had different dialect
• Qur'an first revealed in Quraysh dialect since it was the Prophet's own tribe
• But other tribes struggled with the dialect so the Prophet asked Jibrail we need more ways to recite (Sunan Abi Dawud 1478) as the people there were people of different ability and age and they were struggling (Jami at-Trimidhi 2944)
• So Jibrail recited same verse in different dialect. He did this upto 7 harfs (dialect) as revealed by Allah (Sahih Muslim 819a)
• Allah said any of the 7 are correct (Sunan Abi Dawud 1478). Allah also said in Qur'an recite 'recite whatever you can from it' i.e. that which is easy for you (Al-Muzzammil 73 verse 20)
• 7 ahruf is one proof that Qur'an is from Allah and not Prophet Muhammad. As the prophet didn't know any dialect other than his own Quraysh. It's like asking an English to recite Scottish, American, etc., dialect. He may able to get away with speaking few minutes but not all the time - he'll make mistakes naturally. So how could the Prophet recite over 6,000 verses of Qur'an in 7 different dialect and that too in the most eloquent fashion?
• New small features added in the new dialects which increases or enhances the meaning in the original Qur'an e.g. The Owner of the Day of Judgement vs The King of the Day of Judgement (surah Al-Fatihah). Sometime the changes can be merely in pronunciation
• All ahruf are Qur'an. It's the exact same text but just recited in different ways. Any harf is sufficient so you don't need all 7 for it to be Qur'an (Sunan An-Nasa'I 941)
• Unlike Islam, in other religions the differences does not come from the original source (i.e. God), but are additions made by man afterward
• Jibrail used to repeat recitation of the Qur'an with the Prophet once a year (in Ramadan) and twice in his final year of death (Sahih Al-Bukhari 4998)
• During the final encounter Jibrail showed Prophet the order of the chapters and the verses (Musannaf ibn Abi Shaybah 30919) as well as any verses that was abrogated/removed or caused to be forgotten (Al-Baqarah 2:106). The Prophet conveyed this order to his Companions
• 1,000s of people had memorised the Qur'an fully during Muhammad's time and following his death
• Today, millions have memorised it fully or partially across the globe

Not "different versions of Qur'an" but tons of Qira'at instead

• The 7 different dialect allowed Qur'anic scholars to come up with different ways to recite the Qur'an, each with distinct rules for pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. These authentic methods of recitation are known as 'Qira'at', which derives from the Arabic word for 'teaching'. There were tons of different recitation
• Qur'an is not uniform but multi-formal. There's only 1 version (in terms of content), but 7 different dialect which came from God and gave rise to many recitations, of which 10 are most popular
• Ibn Mujahid was a Qur'anic scholar (c. 9th – 10th century AD)
• He chose his favourite or best 7 recitations based on authenticity and elocution and wrote a book on them called 'Kitab al-Sabah fil Qira'at'. It was his personal choice
• Book became popular and people chose to restrict themselves to these. Many confused the 7 choices of Ibn Mujahid with the 7 ahrufs. Therefore many Islamic scholars criticised Ibn Mujahid for choosing 7 - had he chosen 6 or 8 it wouldn't have confused people
• Later scholars added 3 more recitation to Ibn Mujahid's list to make it total of 10 so it's less confusing
• These 10 became the most popular, even though there are tons more. They were highly mass transmitted and have chains of narration tracing back to the Prophet. We even have the biographies of the narrators of the Qur'an also
• Even today, if you become a scholar of Qira'at and highly eloquent in Arabic language, you can even come up with your own Qira'at! All 7 ahrufs are revelations from Allah so you can come up with as many new Qira'at as you like, it makes no difference
• Anyone who recites any of the Qira'at has an 'Ijaza', a certificate containing name of your teacher and their teachers all the way back to the Prophet (i.e. chain of teachers). Today we have millions of people with ijazas who are reciting the 10 popular qira'ats
• Many non-Muslims confuse - or deliberately mislead - others by claiming the tons of Qira'at refers to different version of the Qur'an, like the Bible. But unlike the Bible where there are differences in actual books and verses, the Qur'anic differences is only on pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. And all such minor differences where divinely sanctioned by God himself and not by men
• The Qur'an is fully preserved like no other book in history

Compilation into a book format for the first time ever

• Around 634 AD, two years after death of the Prophet, during the caliphate of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, there was the Battle of Yamama (11 AH) where a lot of memorisers of Qur'an died. So Umar bin Al-Khattab came to Abu Bakr expressing concern that large part of Qur'an may be lost so he suggested that it should be collected in written text (Sahih al-Bukhari 4986)
• So Abu Bakr bought Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the writers of the verses who also memorised the Qur'an fully, and gave him the task of collecting all the parchments into one book. Which Zaid did. He then gave the book to Abu Bakr to be preserved by him
• To ensure full transparency when it came to compilation, Umar said for each verse given by a person he needed 2 witnesses witnessing him taking that verse from the Prophet (Al Masahef by Ibn Abi Dawud 62)
• Even though they (e.g. Zaid, Abu Bakr, Umar) had already memorised the full Qur'an, they still applied this strict criteria just to be super sure
• This written text was the backup plan. The oral tradition was still the primary source

Standardisation by 3rd caliph Uthman

• Islam spread far and wide and people learnt from companions orally
• Qur'an only learnt from teacher, tracing back to the Prophet (as mentioned by various companions in Kitab al-Sab'ah fi al-Qirat by Ibn Mujahid 1/50). So oral tradition was supreme
• By now there were tons of qira'at
• If a companion heard different qira'at they'd refer back to Prophet to see if it was correct (Sahih al-Bukhari 4992)
• But problems rose when different armies from different land came together they began disagreeing which was true recitation, especially since they were new Muslims and were not aware of different qira'ats. Even today if a Muslim hears a different recitation they can start arguing for no reason!
• Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to the-then caliph Uthman ibn Affan (RA) expressing concern that people were disagreeing and feared they make start arguing like Jews and Christians before them so save them before this happens (Sahih Al-Bukhari 4987)
• So Uthman consulted companions, made a committee and ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa'id bin Al-As, and Abdurrahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite manuscripts in perfect copies, based on the one Abu Bakr compiled and which was with Hafsa. This standardised text was sent to every Muslim province (Sahih Al-Bukhari 4987). This now restricted the choices of ahruf and allowed Muslims to refer to this text to resolve any dispute
• Uthman didn't put any dialectical marks or dots on that standard version so people could recite in multiple ways. So it's one text, but can be recited in different qira'at

Uthman burnt all personal books with commentaries, not the Qur'ans

• The companions had their own personal books with commentaries and interpretations. These are known as 'masahefs'
• To avoid causing further confusion within the community, differing opinions and misinterpretations, Uthman ordered all personal copies, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, to be burnt (Sahih Al-Bukhari 4987)
• But parchments with Qur'anic verses were not burnt, only personal masahef (Al Masahef by Ibn Abi Dawud 19)
• Now there was only one source for reference: the official standardised version (also referred to as Uthmanic codex)

Eloquence of the Qur'an

• Qur'an is the most eloquent speech in Arab language
• Arabs back then were known as masters of language, especially poetry. And Qur'an challenged them in their own field (i.e. bring something like it) so they cannot say Allah challenged them in a field they didn't know
• Qur'an has its own category of language. It's not prose, poetry or speech
• Qur'an introduced new words, grammatical structure and combination of words in Arabic language
• Every chapter in Qur'an introduces a new word - and you can see this objectively in the book. So it's not subjective and based on someone's feeling
• Many Arab said it was magic
• Qur'an has been preserved and made easy for people to memorise, including children, as Allah stated in Al-Qamar 54:40
• Bring one person who has memorised Bible or Torah or Bhagvad Gita, etc., in any language they want
• Even when a non-Arab or non-Muslim listens to the Qur'an they're blown away by its eloquence. They know it is a divine speech
• Qur'an's challenge of bringing 1 chapter (Al-Baqarah 2:23) - not 1 verse as some people say - has not been met in over 1,400 years. And the smallest chapter in Qur'an, chapter 108 Al-Kawthar, only has 3 verses or around 10 words

"Qur'an copied Bible"

• If so, why didn't the Qur'an copy the errors in the Bible?
• Qur'an corrects many mistakes and contradictions in the Bible (e.g. not blaming Eve for fall of mankind, not accusing some prophets of shameful and criminal acts, etc.)
• Similarities stem from the fact that Qur'an and Bible come from same source: divine revelation
• First Arabic translation of Bible was done centuries after Muhammad's death (possibly 8th or 9th century)
• Some stories in one scripture but not in another. For example, Biblical story of Isaiah not in Qur'an, while Qur'anic story of Moses and Al-Khadir (chapter 18) not in Bible
• Both have contrasting views on perception of God, Jesus, salvation, crucifixion, and original sin
• All eyes were on Muhammad (pbuh). If he was getting his information from someone or somewhere, his enemies would know
• Qur'an is the speech of God and Bible is words of man. And not even Jesus's words but his followers