Dear Hugo,
It seems despite
a 34 page long discussion on the miraculous nature of the Qur'an, you are repeating exactly the same points explained and addressed there to other members. That discussion was closed due to certain members showing a complete lack of interest in pursuing the real answers, manifested by blatant overlooking of information and repetition of baseless assertions. The last post in that thread details the other issues encountered. From what I am seeing here, it does not look like much has changed.
1. I have seen you quote Dr Al Azami on several occasions. If you are truly interested in what he has to say, then please tell me what you think about his conclusion at the end of the first half of the book dealing with preservation of the Qur'an (page 260). In that conclusion, Dr Al Azami makes mention of the following, (this is not the exact quote):
Munich University in Germany, at the turn of the current century, embarked on an extensive research project on the reliability of the Qur’an. A large team was involved in obtaining almost all the editions ever published anywhere in the world, including the oldest copy of the Qur’an said to have been used by the third Islamic leader ‘Uthman B. Affan, which was available in the Taskqand library in Uzbekistan. The researchers vetted and tallied the copies with each other and compared them with the oldest one. Their findings were remarkable. The conclusion reached was that no changes ever occured in the Qur’an and the presently available Qur’an is exactly the same as the oldest extant copy.”
2.More about preservation
of the Qur'an, which may help you with some of your other questions:
Sir William Muir who was a Christin preacher from Oxford University who says,“The recension of ‘Uthman has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance, – we might almost say no variations at all, – amongst the innumerable copies of the Koran scattered throughout the vast bounds of empire of Islam. Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of ‘Uthman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Muhammad have ever since rent the Muslim world. Yet but one Koran has always been current amongst them…. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.”
William Muir. The Life of Mohammad(1912). Edinburgh. p. xxii-xxiii
Adrian Brockett says regarding the preservation of the Qur’an via both memorisation and writing,“There can be no denying that some of the formal characteristics of the Qur’an point to the oral side and others to the written side, but neither was as a whole, primary. There is therefore no need to make different categories for vocal and graphic differences between transmissions. Muslims have not. The letter is not a dead skeleton to be refleshed, but is a manifestation of the spirit alive from beginning. The transmission of the Qur’an has always been oral, just as it has been written.”
He also says,“Thus, if the Qur’an had been transmitted only orally for the first century, sizeable variations between texts such as are seen in the hadith and pre-Islamic poetry would be found, and if it had been transmitted only in writing, sizeable variations such as in the different transmissions of the original document of the constitution of Medina would be found. But neither is the case with the Qur’an. There must have been a parallel written transmission limiting variation in the oral transmission to the graphic form, side by side with a parallel oral transmission preserving the written transmission from corruption.”
Andrew Rippin. Approaches of the History of Interpretation of the Qur’an(1988). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 34
Bernard Lewis who was a writer, critic, historian and Orientalist says about the Qur’an,“From an early date Muslim scholars recognized the danger of false testimony and hence false doctrine, and developed an elaborate science for criticizing tradition. “Traditional science”, as it was called, differed in many respects from modern historical source criticism, and modern scholarship has always disagreed with evaluations of traditional scientists about the authenticity and accuracy of ancient narratives. But their careful scrutiny of the chains of transmission and their meticulous collection and preservation of variants in the transmitted narratives give to medieval Arabic historiography a professionalism and sophistication without precedent in antiquity and without parallel in the contemporary medieval West. By comparison, the historiography of Latin Christendom seems poor and meagre, and even the more advanced and complex historiography of Greek Christendom still falls short of the historical literature of Islam in volume, variety and analytical depth.”
Bernard Lewis. Islam in History(1993). Open Court Publishing. p. 104-105
3. There are over 50 different versions of the Bible in English alone, and please remember that these
contain different numbers of books. It is not just a case of merely being different translations. There is no agreement amongst Christians as to which books qualify as scripture, such that each of the major doctrinal factions champion their own versions of an "inspired scripture" and one man's scripture is another man's apocrypha. This is a very stark contrast to the consensus over the Qur'an in the Muslim world.
Peace.
