Ear­ly Preser­va­tion & Trans­mis­sion Of The Qur’an

The fol­low­ing shows the text of the first Sura’ of the Qur’an inscribed on the shoul­der blade of a camel, pre­served in the Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Library.Ency­clopae­dia of the Qur’an, Vol. II (Lei­den : Brill, 2002)

Early Preservation & Transmission Of The Qur'an 1

Early Preservation & Transmission Of The Qur'an 2

We know that the first steps for the preser­va­tion of the Qur’an were tak­en in the life­time of the Prophet. Tra­di­tion records that the Qur’an — in addi­tion to being mem­o­rized — was also writ­ten down on such shoul­der-blades, ribs of ani­mals, flat stones, palm-leaves, pieces of leather and wood­en boards.

How­ev­er, in addi­tion to the use of all this mate­r­i­al, there is no rea­son why papyrus should not have been in nor­mal use in the busi­ness & pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence in Mec­ca, and hence for the record­ing of the Qur’an­ic rev­e­la­tions. In 6:91, the Qur’an refers to the Torah (with the Ara­bi­an Jews) to be record­ed on Qar­tas”. This word refers to a leaf or sheet of papyrus made in rec­tan­gu­lar sheets, past­ed togeth­er or fold­ed to form a book.

In 6:92, the Qur’an speaks of itself in exact­ly the same sense (i.e., writ­ten on Qar­tas”), as it referred to the Torah in the pre­vi­ous verse.

Dr. M. M. Aza­miDr. M. M. Azmi, Kut­tab al-Nabi (Beirut, 1974) men­tions 48 per­sons who used to write for the Prophet, among whom Zayd bin Thabit was very prominent.Endmark


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5 responses to “Ear­ly Preser­va­tion & Trans­mis­sion Of The Qur’an”

  1. Butzdenn Avatar
    Butzdenn

    The orig­i­nal Quran was writ­ten in tan­gi­ble mate­ri­als like bones, leaves, stones etc… Orig­i­nal in the sense that this is the first writ­ten quran­ic materials.

    So log­i­cal­ly, this is the orig­i­nal quran. And most prob­a­bly, it was lost as stated :

    Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif — Many (of the pas­sages) of the Qur’an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yama­ma … but they were not known (by those who) sur­vived them, nor were they writ­ten down, nor had Abu Bakr, Umar or Uth­man (by that time) col­lect­ed the Qur’an, nor were they found with even one (per­son) after them.

    What could be con­clud­ed from this reality ?

    We know that Quran trans­mis­sion was too by oral recita­tion (mem­o­riz­ers). But the orig­i­nal reciters were dead so there is no way to val­i­date if quran was pre­served by recita­tion. There is no way we can com­pare mod­ern recita­tion to the original.

    We know also that the orig­i­nal writ­ten quran (on leaves, bones, stones etc…) were lost so there is no way we could deter­mine the authen­tic­i­ty of mod­ern Quran. We have no way to com­pare mod­ern quran to the orig­i­nal as it was lost.

    So there goes the problem.

    Where is the guar­an­tee that the orig­i­nal mes­sage of Allah is pre­served if there is no way to estab­lish the authen­tic­i­ty of the mod­ern quran ?

    Much so, of the 26 dif­fer­ent quran, which one is real ?

    Log­i­cal­ly, it can­not be deter­mined see­ing that there is no orig­i­nal quran (or orig­i­nal reciters) to val­i­date anything.

    There­fore, Mus­lims, your faith is estab­lished upon uncer­tain­ties. So ask yourselves :

    Is there any real quran ?

    1. Bismika Allahuma Team Avatar

      The answer to your infan­tile ques­tion is that the Quran was pre­served not only in writ­ing but also through mem­o­riza­tion and a mas­ter copy was kept in the house of Haf­sa’, the wife of the Prophet PBUH. Thou­sands mem­o­rised the Qur’an and it was nev­er wiped from mem­o­ry. Plus you lie when you say that there are 26 Qurans”. No such thing exists. There has always been ONE Quran.

  2. Abdul Kallimatullah Avatar
    Abdul Kallimatullah

    Not quite as amaz­ing as the Shroud or Turin, though per­haps as authen­tic (i.e. high­ly questionable).

    Appar­ent­ly this is the rough equiv­a­lent to the div­ina­tion of where ante­lope can be found using ante­lope bones heat­ed over fire.

    Habakkuk 3:17 – 19 ; Song of Songs 2:7 ; Rev­e­la­tion 22:17

    BTW : Is it actu­al­ly life-giv­ing to read books writ­ten on bones ?

    I pre­fer to read the New Tes­ta­ment on paper & then to lis­ten to Jesus.

  3. Callum Beck Avatar
    Callum Beck

    Thanks for show­ing this, very inter­est­ing. A lit­er­al trans­la­tion of the text wd be help­ful for peo­ple like me who are weak in Ara­bic, and an analy­sis of any dif­fer­ences from what one wd fine in Yusuf Ali’s Ara­bic text seems essential.

  4. islamispeace Avatar
    islamispeace

    Broth­er, do you have links to more pic­ture such as the one in this arti­cle ? Jazak Allah Khair.

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