Where is the oral Quran?

We have all heard that the Quran aside from the written scriptures has also been preserved by oral narration.
Apparently from the time of Muhammad the Quran has been memorized and transmitted from generation to generation.
Muslims are very proud of this oral tradition and claim that each person who memorized the Quran has to pass certain test (the person has to be trustworthy, have a good memory and maybe some other attributes which I don't know).
Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran. No more written nor electronic (internet) Qurans.
Here are the questions:
Where do we find the last few people who have memorized the Quran and that have passed the tests to guarantee they have memorized the original Quran revealed by Muhammad?
Is there an organization in charge of conducting the tests on Muslims who are willing to memorize the Quran?
Who are they?
Who keeps the list of the chain of people?

Eddy said:

We have all heard that the Quran aside from the written scriptures has also been preserved by oral narration.
Apparently from the time of Muhammad the Quran has been memorized and transmitted from generation to generation.
Muslims are very proud of this oral tradition and claim that each person who memorized the Quran has to pass certain test (the person has to be trustworthy, have a good memory and maybe some other attributes which I don't know).
Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran. No more written nor electronic (internet) Qurans.
Here are the questions:
Where do we find the last few people who have memorized the Quran and that have passed the tests to guarantee they have memorized the original Quran revealed by Muhammad?
Is there an organization in charge of conducting the tests on Muslims who are willing to memorize the Quran?
Who are they?
Who keeps the list of the chain of people?

Click to expand...

You are talking about Hafeez of Quran. There are minimum 700.000 around the world now. That's the easiest thing in Islam. No one can change single letter in Quran both written and oral, because not only Hafeez of Quran would react, but also us, regular people, since we recite Quran a lot daily and if you say a word in a wrong way, I'm the first to correct you. And that's been like that since the beginning.

Peace be with you Eddy;

Eddy said:

Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran. No more written nor electronic (internet) Qurans.

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The evil empire would have to fight against Allah, the creator of all that is seen and unseen. It is within Allah's power to convert the evil empire to Islam; they cannot win.

In the spirit of searching for a greatest meaning of 'One God'

Eric

Flos said:

You are talking about Hafeez of Quran. There are minimum 700.000 around the world now. That's the easiest thing in Islam. No one can change single letter in Quran both written and oral, because not only Hafeez of Quran would react, but also us, regular people, since we recite Quran a lot daily and if you say a word in a wrong way, I'm the first to correct you. And that's been like that since the beginning.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response but I was looking for more specific information.
Who are these Hafeez?
Are they part of the list that leads all the way to the Quran revealed to Muhammad?
Who has that list?
Who are the people that check the backgrounds of these Hafeez?
I've been told many times there is a very strict background check all the way to the time of Muhammad.
Is that truth?
Is it something you hear or something you can see?
Thanks again.

Eddy said:

We have all heard that the Quran aside from the written scriptures has also been preserved by oral narration.
Apparently from the time of Muhammad the Quran has been memorized and transmitted from generation to generation.
Muslims are very proud of this oral tradition and claim that each person who memorized the Quran has to pass certain test (the person has to be trustworthy, have a good memory and maybe some other attributes which I don't know).
Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran. No more written nor electronic (internet) Qurans.
Here are the questions:
Where do we find the last few people who have memorized the Quran and that have passed the tests to guarantee they have memorized the original Quran revealed by Muhammad?
Is there an organization in charge of conducting the tests on Muslims who are willing to memorize the Quran?
Who are they?
Who keeps the list of the chain of people?

Click to expand...

Every Muslim has memorized some part of the Quraan. We need it when we perform our 5 daily prayers. We may choose which surahs or verses we want to memorize and use in our prayers. So, there are lots and lots of people who have memorized some part of the Quraan and they are able to point out every failure in those verses.

So the entire Quraan is preserved into the memories of masses of common people. They do not have to pass a test or whatever.
The Hafiz is a person who has been memorizing the entire quraan.

So when an evil empire takes control and destroys every single copy of the Quraan, then it is very very easy to regenerate it from scratch because there are so many people available who know at least some part by heart.

There are no few last people who have memorized the quraan...every muslim knows something, and together we know everything. the guarantee comes from the fact that when this happens simultaniously, the final outcome should be that all rewritten Quraans are identical to each other. or when for example 10 of them are identical and one of them differs from the others, we can safely conclude that that one is fraululent.

So there is no need for a chain of people, there is no need for certain people or organization with the task of preservation of the quraan by memory. it all happens automatically.

I think the OP doesn't comprehend what's Quran in general and the nature of its memorization.

The best way for you would be to find the oldest possible written form of Mushaf (Quran) and compare it to the newest. Also, you invite the oldest and the youngest hafiz in the world. 2 are enough. If possible from different countries and let them recite it while you're following the written version without them looking. You'll figure out also that these two are perfectly pronouncing ancient Quraish Arabic accent, since that's also a must for learning to read and recite Quran and you'll never find a mistake or difference between written and recited Quran.

Quran is word of God and no one can destroy it.

Ümit said:

So there is no need for a chain of people, there is no need for certain people or organization with the task of preservation of the quraan by memory. it all happens automatically.

Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA9rh1uOv0

This is the chain I was talking about.
I have no idea how authentic this can be and how do we verify he memorized directly from oral transmission and not from a written Quran?

Eddy said:

This is the chain I was talking about.
I have no idea how authentic this can be and how do we verify he memorized directly from oral transmission and not from a written Quran?

Click to expand...

This particular chain mentioned in the video is for a Hadith, not for the Quran, although similar chain exists for the Quran as well.

How do we know it is authentic? Well, if a person claims that he has studied under so and so teacher, it can be easily verified by asking his peers and classmates. A lie cannot be hidden so easily.

We Muslims have a branch of Science known as علم الرجال 'ilm ar-Rijal, Biographical Evaluation. No other religion on earth has this. The life of every single person in the chain is studied and documented. A historical record is maintained for each one of them. And based on that we can evaluate any given chain.
Every generation of Muslims have maintained this biographical record. You will easily find the statements of their peers, be it in favour of them or against them, clearly documented.

Take for example the Shaikh in that video. He has thousands of students who testify his truthfulness. And hundreds of other scholars around the world who are his peers, testify his scholarship. Same goes for his teachers and their teachers and so on until the Prophet :saws:

AabiruSabeel said:

We Muslims have a branch of Science known as علم الرجال 'ilm ar-Rijal, Biographical Evaluation.

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Thank you for your clarification. So we have established there are multiple chains of narrations for the Quran and that there is a science of Biographical Evaluation.
What I'm looking for is an authentic Quran narration that has been transmitted oraly (100% oraly) and that has survived 1400 years.That Quran would be a narration of the original Quran revealed to Muhammad.
I know "Flos" said there are actually around 700.000 people that have memorized the Quran but I would bet all of them have memorized the Quran from a written Quran and therefore they are no part of any chain of transmission.Do you get my point?It is amazing that all these people have memorized the Quran but it would be almost impossible that an oral chain of narration coming all the way from prophet Muhammad has survived all this time.
Anyone knows of a chain of narration 100% oral and that has never been based on reading from an actual written Quran?

I think you have to understand how the Qur'an is memorized by the students. When the teacher gives them a new lesson, he recites to them a few verses and the students repeat after him. Then they go back to their place and keep reciting until they have memorized the verses completely. The written copy of the Qur'an serves as an aid for the students, in case they forget something. When they have memorized the day's lesson, they go back to the teacher and recite to him, without looking at the written copy.

Then they also recite to the teacher a whole previous chapter or more, as revision of what they had memorized earlier. This way they complete the whole Qur'an memorization. And then they recite the whole Qur'an back their teacher and the teacher certifies the student after listening it completely without any mistakes.

Below is the completion ceremony of one the famous Shaikhs. After the completion, his teacher reads out the whole chain going all the way back to the Prophet :saws:, through the angel Gibreel from Allah :swt:.

Below are a few examples of the sanad (chain) of Qur'an narrated by several scholars around the world.

Eddy said:

Thank you for your clarification. So we have established there are multiple chains of narrations for the Quran and that there is a science of Biographical Evaluation.
What I'm looking for is an authentic Quran narration that has been transmitted oraly (100% oraly) and that has survived 1400 years.That Quran would be a narration of the original Quran revealed to Muhammad.
I know "Flos" said there are actually around 700.000 people that have memorized the Quran but I would bet all of them have memorized the Quran from a written Quran and therefore they are no part of any chain of transmission.Do you get my point?It is amazing that all these people have memorized the Quran but it would be almost impossible that an oral chain of narration coming all the way from prophet Muhammad has survived all this time.
Anyone knows of a chain of narration 100% oral and that has never been based on reading from an actual written Quran?

Click to expand...

To be honest - I think you being dumb now !!!, and frankly your insinuations are getting insulting from your very lack of intelligence.

Let me give you an example.

Lets say your mum has 4 sisters and each sister has 3 kids.

Your mum and all her sisters (5 in total) all verbally tell the 3 bears story to each of their children.
You grow up to the age of 16 and decide to write the story ( the 3 bears) in textual format. By the time you write the story you have 12 cousins who can now verify if your textual representation of the story is matching the oral/verbal transmitted version.

So basically somewhere down the line any verbal transmitted story in any sphere of life - it would be eventually be represented in textual format.

Supernova said:

To be honest - I think you being dumb now !!!, and frankly your insinuations are getting insulting from your very lack of intelligence.

Let me give you an example.

Lets say your mum has 4 sisters and each sister has 3 kids.

Your mum and all her sisters (5 in total) all verbally tell the 3 bears story to each of their children.
You grow up to the age of 16 and decide to write the story ( the 3 bears) in textual format. By the time you write the story you have 12 cousins who can now verify if your textual representation of the story is matching the oral/verbal transmitted version.

So basically somewhere down the line any verbal transmitted story in any sphere of life - it would be eventually be represented in textual format.

Click to expand...

And Eddy insisting on the 12 cousins to learn the bear story orally and to reject the textual version...even though the 12 cousins are more than capable of verifying that the textual version is accurate.

Ümit said:

And Eddy insisting on the 12 cousins to learn the bear story orally and to reject the textual version...even though the 12 cousins are more than capable of verifying that the textual version is accurate.

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Well, I think you and mister smart (Supernova) have just proved my point but I don't believe for a second "the 12 cousins" could verify the textual version is accurate, it is the opposite, the textual version is the one that can prove and correct the mistakes of the oral version.
As (AabiruSabeel) kindly showed, there is to the day a chain of oral Quran transmission.
To be correct it is not a 100% oral transmission because it is aided by written Qurans.
So even if it is a wonderful practice it doesn't lead all the way to Prophet Muhammad.
This doesn't mean the Quran memorized today is not the exact one revealed to prophet Muhammad, it could be or maybe not, there's no way for us to say.
I'm pretty sure there was a real oral chain for some time but later we got the written Quran and as mister Smart (Supernova) said, "any verbal transmitted story in any sphere of life - it would be eventually be represented in textual format.".
At that precise time the real oral chain became what it is today, (a memorization practice of the current Quran).
Now I can say with total confidence that the Muslim "apologists" who at speakers corner lie every week when they claim there's a 100% oral tradition that they are WRONG.
Special thanks to AbiruSabeel for the information provided.
We could have done just fine without mister Smart remarks.

Eddy said:

I'm pretty sure there was a real oral chain for some time but later we got the written Quran and as mister Smart (Supernova) said, "any verbal transmitted story in any sphere of life - it would be eventually be represented in textual format.".
At that precise time the real oral chain became what it is today, (a memorization practice of the current Quran).

Click to expand...

Using the written form for learning purpose does not make it any less oral transmission. There are two reasons for that. First, the Qur'an was also completely written during the lifetime of the Prophet :saws: himself, although it was collected in a single binder during the time of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr :ra:. We have continuous orally transmitted chain as well as written copies since the Prophet's time and they all match each other.

Secondly, the Qur'an has specific ways of recitation known as qira'ah and each qira'ah has its own tajweed (pronunciation) rules. If a person simply tries to read from the written text, without a teacher's supervision, he would not be able to recite everything properly. He can still read but it will not be an accurate recitation. This is where the chain plays a crucial role. Every student learns the qira'ah and tajweed from his teacher by orally listening and repeating and memorizing. So it is essentially an oral transmission.

Eddy said:

We have all heard that the Quran aside from the written scriptures has also been preserved by oral narration.
Apparently from the time of Muhammad the Quran has been memorized and transmitted from generation to generation.
Muslims are very proud of this oral tradition and claim that each person who memorized the Quran has to pass certain test (the person has to be trustworthy, have a good memory and maybe some other attributes which I don't know).
Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran. No more written nor electronic (internet) Qurans.
Here are the questions:
Where do we find the last few people who have memorized the Quran and that have passed the tests to guarantee they have memorized the original Quran revealed by Muhammad?
Is there an organization in charge of conducting the tests on Muslims who are willing to memorize the Quran?
Who are they?
Who keeps the list of the chain of people?

Click to expand...

"Let's imagine that all of a sudden an evil empire takes control of planet Earth and the first measure is to burn and eliminate all copies of the Quran."
- it will never happen because,
But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners. [8:30]

Eddy said:

Well, I think you and mister smart (Supernova) have just proved my point but I don't believe for a second "the 12 cousins" could verify the textual version is accurate, it is the opposite, the textual version is the one that can prove and correct the mistakes of the oral version.

Click to expand...

Normally you are right...but what you should realize is that the oral version of the bear story came before the textual version. in other words, the textual version is a copy of the oral version.
This means that the copy first needs to be verified in order to be used as a reference.

once that has been done, like you said, the textual version can support the process of preservation by oral narration...because why would anyone choose to learn Quraan only by oral narration if textual narration is also available? is having both not better?

Peace be with you Eddy;

You have every right to have doubts about human ability.

But - you don't seem to mention Allah in any of your posts.

Allah chooses whom he wills; and he first chooses people to pass on his message. So the Quran that any Muslim hears or reads today, is the Quran that Allah intends them to read. It is all that is needed as a way of life and a hope for salvation.

Any Muslim will have faith and trust in Allah; and that is sufficient.

In the spirit of searching for a greatest meaning of 'One God'.
Eric

Hello Eddy,

I notice you have made some threads asking specific questions about Islam, but I do not see anywhere where you have told us about yourself. Are you someone considering becoming a Muslim? Do you believe in God? Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere.

Muhammad said:

I notice you have made some threads asking specific questions about Islam, but I do not see anywhere where you have told us about yourself. Are you someone considering becoming a Muslim? Do you believe in God? Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere.

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As you can see on my information on the left side I'm an agnostic. That means at the moment I'm not convinced God exists but I'm open to the idea of believing if God itself finds a way to convince me.
I have to say that I grew up a Christian and little by little I realized I was not a believer. I do love the Christian culture and all the Christian teachings and customs. I love to celebrate Christmas and Easter in family but not for the religious reasons but as cultural events.
Islam sounds so different culturally and often I'm curious about it but I have to admit even if I ever get to believe in Allah, the culture changes would be almost impossible for me to adjust.

Hello Eddy,

Eddy said:

As you can see on my information on the left side I'm an agnostic. That means at the moment I'm not convinced God exists but I'm open to the idea of believing if God itself finds a way to convince me.
I have to say that I grew up a Christian and little by little I realized I was not a believer. I do love the Christian culture and all the Christian teachings and customs. I love to celebrate Christmas and Easter in family but not for the religious reasons but as cultural events.
Islam sounds so different culturally and often I'm curious about it but I have to admit even if I ever get to believe in Allah, the culture changes would be almost impossible for me to adjust.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. God has placed so many things in this world that lead us to Him, things that are before our very eyes and which we see on a daily basis. So it is man who needs to reflect upon these signs that are already there.

Culture changes etc are all secondary issues. The key issue is belief in God, and once a person is endowed with guidance from God then everything else will fall into place, God-Willing.