Monday, January 28, 2013

Textual "Corruption" of the Quran

A very impressive presentation on the corruption of Quran may be found at this link (link to beginning of relevant section). This was much more detailed than any similar presentation I had seen before. The following is a brief outline:

1. Preservation of the Bible

[I will omit these points, which were things I already knew, but which are important.]

2. Preservation of the Qur'an
a. Hadith Demonstrates variation (Bukhari, v. 6, b. 60, n. 468; see also 6.60.467 and Muslim 4.1799-1802).
b. al-NAdim's catalog of books (4th Islamic century) included early literature on the discrepencies among Quranic manuscripts (the presentation lists 7 books from the catalog).
c. Uthman's destruction of the other Qurans (Bukhari, 6.61.510) and Abdullah ibn Masud's resistance.
d. Four common versions of the Qur'an: The Qur'an According to Imam Hafs, The Qur'an According to Imam Warsh, The Qur'an According to Imam Qulan, and The Qur'an According to Imam al-Duri.
e. Example of difference between Warsh and Hafs at 21:4 ("Say ..." vs. "He said ...")
f. Example of difference between Warsh and Hafs at 3:146 ("fought" vs. "was killed")
g. Quran showing the differences among the ten major versions in the margin.
h. Between two versions of the Quran (he didn't specify which two), there are 1354 differences.
i. The Bismallah - Hafs says it is a verse of the Quran, but Warsh says it is just part of the title (appears 113 times, and has 4 words, for a total of 452 words difference).
j. Analysis of the Chain of Narration (Isnad) for the Hafs Quran, but that chain is not historically possible, because Abdullah ibn Masud rejected the Uthman Qur'an.

3. The Qur'an's testimony to the Bible

[Some good points that I had heard before about how the Qur'an testifies to the reliability of the Bible.]

If anyone has Samuel Green's written version of his presentation and his permission to post it on-line, I would love to be able to repost it here. Unfortunately, I do not know how to contact Mr. Green.

-TurretinFan

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