Quotations from the most ardent opponents of Islam, affirming the authenticity of the Qur'an:

'This Text of the Qur'an is the purest of all works of alike antiquity' (Wherry, Commentary on the Koran, I. p. 349).

'Othman's recension has remained the authorised text from the time it was made until the present day' (Palmer, The Qur'an, p. lix).

'The text of this recension substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of Muhammad himself' (Arnold, Islamic Faith, p. 9).

'All sects and parties have the same text of the Qur'an' (Hurgronje, Mohammedanism, p. 18).

'It is an immense merit in the Kuran that there is no doubt as to its genuineness That very word we can now read with full confidence that it has remained unchanged through nearly thirteen hundred years' (LSK., p.3)

'The recension of 'Othman has been handed down unaltered. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text' (Muir, Life of Mohammed, pp. XXII-XXIII).

'In the Kuran we have, beyond all reasonable doubt, the exact words of Mohammed without subtraction and without addition' (Bosworth Smith, Mohammamed and Mohammedanism, p. 22)

'The Koran was his own creation; and it lies before us practically unchanged from the form which he himself gave it' (Torrey, Jewish Foundations of Islam, p.2).

'Modern critics agree that that the copies current today are almost exact replicas of the original mother-text as compiled by Zayd, and that, on the whole, the text of the Koran todaay is as Muhammad prodcued it. As some Semitic scholar remarked, there are probably more variations in the reading of one chapter of Genesis in Hebrew than there are in the entire Koran' (Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 123).

Non-Muslims from different backgrounds quotes

He is a Christian orientalist. It's better to avoid his books when it comes to acquiring knowledge. Even though, he highly praised our Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), his book[s] are still riddled with inaccuracies.

The History of the Quranic Text [1] From Revelation to Compilation

The Quran consistently refers to itself as a Kitab (Book), or something that is written. Accordingly, the revealed verses were recorded in writing from earliest stages of Islam. Those revealed during the Makkan period were recorded in Makkah and those who revealed during the Madinian period were recorded in Madinah. As soon as a revelation came, the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be on him, would routinely call one of his scribes to write it down. There is also evidence of proofreading after dictation. The scribe would read it back to the Prophet to ensure that no scribal errors had crept in. There were 65 Companions of the Prophet who functioned as scribes at one time or another.

The entire Quran was thus written during the Prophet's own lifetime on parchments by the Prophet's scribes. There were other Companions of the Prophet who also wrote for their own benefit on different objects including parchments, wooden planks or palm leaves. The parchments on which the Prophet's scribes wrote were, however, not bound in the form of a book during his lifetime. Binding could not however, be undertaken as long as there was a continuous flow of revelation. It had to wait until the Prophet's mission had been completed. The Prophet had even instructed the scribes about the placement of different Ayahs (verses) as they were revealed.

The compilation of the Quran in the form of a book took place during the caliphate of Abu Bakr when it became clear after the Prophet's death that there would be no more revelation. The task of binding the parchments in the from of a book was assigned to Zaid bin Thabit who had attended the recitation of Archangel Jibreel (Gabriel) with the Prophet during the month of Ramadan. Nevertheless, a great deal of care was taken to ensure that no errors would unconsciously creep into the compilation of the Quran. Other people were, therefore, asked to bring what they had also written down of the Quran after having directly heard it from the Prophet. To ensure that they had themselves written what they were putting forward, they had to back their claim by two witnesses. Every word was verified by cross comparison as well as against the memories of the Companions who had learned it by heart by directly hearing it from the Prophet himself.

Once the compilation of the Quran in book form was completed during the caliphate of Abu Bakr, it was placed in his custody. After his death, it was passed on to Umar, the second caliph, and then to Hafsah the Prophet's wife, who was also the daughter of Umar. Thus the contribution that was made by Abu Bakr was just to collect all Quran parchments into a master volume after thoroughly verifying their accuracy against what was written by others and memorized by the Prophet's Companions.

However, the pronunciation of the words of the Quran continued to be in various dialects prevalent at that time because the Prophet had allowed the people, out of necessity, to recite the Quran in their own dialects as they were facing difficulty in abandoning their own dialects straight away. Since the Quran was the revealed in the dialect of Quraysh, it was considered necessary to standardize its pronunciation in this dialect in order to avoid any confusion later on. The contribution of Uthman was to standardize the pronunciation of the Quran in the dialect of Quraysh. For this purpose he obtained the Mushaf from Hafsah and appointed a committee of twelve persons from among the Quraysh and Ansar to oversee the task. Several copies were made for distribution to various provinces. Although there is a difference of opinion about how many copies were made, there is a greater support in favor of eight copies. It is the text of these thoroughly checked manuscripts standardized in the dialect of Quraysh which has prevailed and the span of fourteen centuries has not been able to corrupt or dent the skeletal text of this Utmani Mushaf.

Though the text has remained unchanged, a number of reading aids have been added. One of these is the Surah (chapter) separators. These existed before but primarily in the form of Bismillah… (In the Name of God the…) being written in the beginning of each Surah. To this has been added the Surah titles, possibly in a different color also. A second aid was in form of Ayah (verse) separators for which no fixed style was observed in the earlier centuries. A circle at the end of the verse with the Ayah number written on or inside it has now become a standard practice. To make the reading even easier, the Quran was divided by the close of the first century into seven parts called Manazil to enable a person to finish reading the Quran in one week. The third century witnessed the division of the Mushaf in thirty parts ( Juz, pl. Ajza) so that anyone who could not finish reading the Quran in a week could do so in a month. In addition, dots and vowel marks (Tashkil) were added to make the reading of the Quran easier even for those whose command over Arabic was not very good.

[1] The History of the Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation (A Comparative Study with Old and New Testament) by Prof. M.M Al-Azmi (Leicester, UK: UK Islamic Academy, 2003) Book Review; by Dr. Umer Chapra

Threads merged.

okay in Uthmaan's time,other than standardizing the text,was the process of compiling the Quran(like during Abu Bakr's time) repeated?or those Quranic copies were simply copies?

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