The Preservation of the Qur’ân and the Integrity of Its Text

Allah revealed the Qur’ân to be His last, all-embracing scripture containing the final manifestation of the Divine Law. This necessitates that it has to be safeguarded from the mischievous hands of men and from all corruption. This protection has been a reality from the time the Qur’ân was revealed until today. It shall remain so until Allah inherits the Earth and everything on it. It contains no additions or deletions. It has reached us by so many chains of transmission that it is impossible for them to have conspired on a lie. It has been recorded and memorized innumerable times.

There has been no change in its text over time, not even in a single word. Some of those who have committed it to memory cannot speak Arabic; nevertheless, they recite it exactly as it was revealed.

Allah has guaranteed the integrity of the Qur’anic text. Allah says:
Verily, it is We who have sent down the Remembrance, and surely We will guard it from corruption.
Allah says:
And the Word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can change his words. And He is the all-Hearing, the All-Knowing.
As for the previous scriptures, they were for a limited duration of time. Allah gave human beings the responsibility of preserving them, and they lost them through corruption, alteration, and concealment. Allah says:
Verily, We revealed the Torah, wherein is guidance and light, by which the Prophets who submitted themselves passed judgment, and (likewise) did the rabbis and priests, as they were entrusted with the protection of Allah’s Book, and they were witnesses thereto.
The Qur’ân has been preserved in exactly the form it was revealed. This fact is agreed upon by all those who study the text of the Qur’an, both Muslim and Non-Muslim.

The preservation of the Qur’ân was achieved in many ways. During the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the following factors facilitated its preservation:

1. The revelation came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) in a manner that was conducive to memorization. When he was asked how the revelation came to him, Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: “Sometimes, he comes to me like the clanging of a bell, and this is the most difficult for me. It weighs upon me and I commit to memory what he says. And sometimes the angel comes to me in the form of a man and speaks to me and I commit to memory what he says.”

2. The angel would review the Qur’ân with the Prophet. This would take place every year during the month of Ramadân. Gabriel would approach him every night in Ramadan and recite to him from the Qur’ân. In the final year of his life, Gabriel recited it to him twice during the month of Ramadân. All of this was out of the greatest care for the preservation of the Qur’ân and the accuracy of its recitation.

3. The revelation was recorded in writing and reviewed. The Messenger (peace be upon him) had scribes who would write down the revelation as it came down. He would then have it read to him again until he was sure that what was written was correct.

4. Only the Qur’ân was allowed to be recorded during the early years to prevent anything else from being confused with it, like the hadîth of the Prophet (peace be upon him) or commentary of the Qur’ân. After the Qur’ân was firmly established and there was no danger of it getting mixed up with other texts, he permitted other things to be written.

5. Learning and teaching the Qur’ân were actively encouraged. The Prophet (peace be upon him) used to encourage his Companions to learn and teach the Qur’ân and to memorize it and assist each other in memorizing it. He would have those most learned in the Qur’ân lead the prayers and lead the armies. There was a good reason for everybody to memorize the Qur’ân, for it is the book that must be recited during the obligatory prayers and its injunctions must be used as the basis for the activities of daily life.

5. The Arabs had very strong memories. They rarely missed anything. This was especially true for the Qur’ân, which came with the highest, most eloquent literary style that made memorizing it all the easier and more desirable. A great number of people memorized it and committed it to writing. It was memorized by young and old, men and women, city dwellers and Bedouins.

After the death of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Companions were active in memorizing, recording, and preserving the Qur’ân. Two great historical events exemplify this:

1. During the reign of the first Caliph Abû Bakr al-Siddîq, many of the people who memorized the Qur’ân died in war. He and a few other leading Companions began to fear that the Qur’ân would be lost when the people who memorized it died off. He ordered that the Qur’ân should be compiled. Every written copy of the Qur’ân was referred to, even fragments written on wood or leather, and all those who memorized the Qur’ân were brought forward. Then the Qur’ân was brought together in one volume to be kept in the care of the Caliph and the Caliphs that succeed him.

2. The Arabs, by the grace of Allah, were allowed to recite the Qur’ân according to their various dialects to make things easy on them.

During the reign of the third Caliph, `Uthmân ibn `Affân, this started to cause some confusion among the Muslims, so he decreed that all Muslims must recite the Qur’ân in one manner, according to the dialect of Quraysh, the most prominent Arab tribe. He then had a number of copies made of the Qur’ân and had them distributed to the different provinces and major cities.

It has been confirmed by certain orientalists that some early scholars looked at the Uthmani manuscripts or copies of them in different cities of the Muslim world. Quatromere was among the most prominent of these, as indicated by Bergestrasser and Pretzel in their historical study of the text of the Qur’ân.

The famous explorer Ibn Batûtah saw some of the manuscripts that were purported to be Uthmani in Granada, Marrakech, Basra, and elsewhere during his many journeys.

It is well known that Ibn Kathîr of Damascus (a scholar of the 8th century A.H.) saw the Uthmani Qur’ân that had been sent to Syria. He shares this distinction with Ibn al-Jazarî and ibn Fadl Allah al-`Umarî. Some researchers are of the opinion that this manuscript then spent some time in the Russian Tsar’s archives in what is now Leningrad then was sent to England. Others believe that it remained in the main mosque in Damascus until it caught fire in the year 1310.

It is known with certainty by every researcher that no other book has received the same level of care or reached us with so many chains of authority.

Thus, the Qur’ân – as Chevalier said – came “…more complete and more precise than any person could expect.”

No wonder, since this is the book of Allah about which Allah said:
Falsehood does not approach it from before it or behind it. It is a revelation from the All-Wise, the Worthy of Praise.
The following is the testimony of some Western scholars:

Lobloa says: “The Qur’ân is the only sacred scripture existing today that has had no changes made to it worth mentioning.”

Moyer says: “The Qur’ân that was compiled by `Uthmân has been passed down from hand to hand in numerous ways until it reached us without any alterations. It has been preserved with the greatest care, so much so that it has suffered no changes worth mentioning.”

We can say that it has suffered no changes at all in all of its innumerable copies that are in circulation throughout the Muslim lands. All of the Muslim sects, no matter how much they might differ, use only one Qur’ân. This consensus of use over the same exact accepted text up to the present day is the greatest proof that the text is accurate and authentic.

Professor Maurice Bucaille says that in the libraries of Europe, like the National Library in Paris, there are a number of manuscripts of the Qur’ân that date back to the second and third century of Islam.