The internet is full of protagonists overstating their claims for every imaginable cause. On Twitter I see many Muslim-bots making extreme claims about the origins of the Koran. They tend to claim that no copy of it deviates at all from any other copy, ever. They explain this extreme claim – no human error? ever? – by reference to the “oral tradition,” that the first Muslims memorised the Koran and so nobody could ever get it wrong and if they did it would immediately be detected. This they invariably contrast to the bible text, to the disadvantage of the latter.
There are various obvious objections to this, and there is likewise a bodyguard of deflections that the same people deploy.
When confronted with Muslims bashing the bible in this way, I have begun to refer to the role of the third Caliph, Uthman, in creating the Koran. Uthman was an early Caliph, who created an official written Koran, copies of which were distributed to provinces of the new Islamic empire. Once these had been created, Uthman had other copies of the Koran burned.
Uthman himself ruled for only a decade before the early Muslims killed him, for corruption. His misdeed, as I understand it, was appointing members of his own family to senior posts instead of those more qualified.
Uthman’s action in burning Korans is documented in the Hadith. It turns out that there is a rather splendid website with the Arabic text and English translation of the Hadith online. This is well-indexed by Google, and so a search quickly found the relevant hadith here. (I have over-paragraphed the English translation).
حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى، حَدَّثَنَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ، حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ شِهَابٍ، أَنَّ أَنَسَ بْنَ مَالِكٍ، حَدَّثَهُ أَنَّ حُذَيْفَةَ بْنَ الْيَمَانِ قَدِمَ عَلَى عُثْمَانَ وَكَانَ يُغَازِي أَهْلَ الشَّأْمِ فِي فَتْحِ إِرْمِينِيَةَ وَأَذْرَبِيجَانَ مَعَ أَهْلِ الْعِرَاقِ فَأَفْزَعَ حُذَيْفَةَ اخْتِلاَفُهُمْ فِي الْقِرَاءَةِ فَقَالَ حُذَيْفَةُ لِعُثْمَانَ يَا أَمِيرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَدْرِكْ هَذِهِ الأُمَّةَ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَخْتَلِفُوا فِي الْكِتَابِ اخْتِلاَفَ الْيَهُودِ وَالنَّصَارَى فَأَرْسَلَ عُثْمَانُ إِلَى حَفْصَةَ أَنْ أَرْسِلِي إِلَيْنَا بِالصُّحُفِ نَنْسَخُهَا فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ ثُمَّ نَرُدُّهَا إِلَيْكِ فَأَرْسَلَتْ بِهَا حَفْصَةُ إِلَى عُثْمَانَ فَأَمَرَ زَيْدَ بْنَ ثَابِتٍ وَعَبْدَ اللَّهِ بْنَ الزُّبَيْرِ وَسَعِيدَ بْنَ الْعَاصِ وَعَبْدَ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنَ الْحَارِثِ بْنِ هِشَامٍ فَنَسَخُوهَا فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ وَقَالَ عُثْمَانُ لِلرَّهْطِ الْقُرَشِيِّينَ الثَّلاَثَةِ إِذَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ أَنْتُمْ وَزَيْدُ بْنُ ثَابِتٍ فِي شَىْءٍ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فَاكْتُبُوهُ بِلِسَانِ قُرَيْشٍ فَإِنَّمَا نَزَلَ بِلِسَانِهِمْ فَفَعَلُوا حَتَّى إِذَا نَسَخُوا الصُّحُفَ فِي الْمَصَاحِفِ رَدَّ عُثْمَانُ الصُّحُفَ إِلَى حَفْصَةَ وَأَرْسَلَ إِلَى كُلِّ أُفُقٍ بِمُصْحَفٍ مِمَّا نَسَخُوا وَأَمَرَ بِمَا سِوَاهُ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فِي كُلِّ صَحِيفَةٍ أَوْ مُصْحَفٍ أَنْ يُحْرَقَ.
Narrated Anas bin Malik: Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to `Uthman at the time when the people of Sham and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Arminya and Adharbijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sham and Iraq) differences in the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to `Uthman, “O chief of the Believers! Save this nation before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before.”
So `Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, “Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.” Hafsa sent it to `Uthman. `Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, `Abdullah bin AzZubair, Sa`id bin Al-As and `AbdurRahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. `Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, “In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur’an was revealed in their tongue.”
They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.
Sahih al-Bukhari 4987
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4987
Uthman’s action makes sense only if the material destroyed was not, in fact, the same as that which he promoted as the “true Koran.”
The Muslim bots respond to this by claiming that the difference was only one of pronunciation. But this hadith does not say so. Rather it makes clear that the text of the Koran was already circulating in different Arabic dialects, and in written copies which did not all contain the same material.
Indeed the preceding hadith openly states that when the koran was collected under Abu Bakr, one verse was only in the possession of one person. Similarly the following hadith is as follows:
قَالَ ابْنُ شِهَابٍ وَأَخْبَرَنِي خَارِجَةُ بْنُ زَيْدِ بْنِ ثَابِتٍ، سَمِعَ زَيْدَ بْنَ ثَابِتٍ، قَالَ فَقَدْتُ آيَةً مِنَ الأَحْزَابِ حِينَ نَسَخْنَا الْمُصْحَفَ قَدْ كُنْتُ أَسْمَعُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقْرَأُ بِهَا فَالْتَمَسْنَاهَا فَوَجَدْنَاهَا مَعَ خُزَيْمَةَ بْنِ ثَابِتٍ الأَنْصَارِيِّ {مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ رِجَالٌ صَدَقُوا مَا عَاهَدُوا اللَّهَ عَلَيْهِ} فَأَلْحَقْنَاهَا فِي سُورَتِهَا فِي الْمُصْحَفِ.
Zaid bin Thabit added, “A verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Qur’an and I used to hear Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuza`ima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. (That Verse was): ‘Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.’ (33.23)
Sahih al-Bukhari 4988
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4988
This attests to a copy where a verse was missing, even though the copyist had actually heard Mohammed himself say that verse. And, far from having memorised it, he had to search until he found someone who had written it down.
None of this is actually surprising. Even if we were Muslim, and accepted that the Koran was from Allah, the fact is that it did not fall from heaven on gold plates, or whatever, but involved a human being giving utterance to it in a local Arab dialect and being copied down by other human beings. The laborious efforts to make sure that it was indeed as Mohammed uttered it also testify to human activity, and, inevitably, some kinds of human error. Muslims believe that these efforts were successful, and that the text today is an exact copy of the text as dictated by Mohammed.
Non-Muslims need not believe this. The Hadith suggests strongly that the process was far more haphazard than the bots would like us to believe. It also suggests strongly that claims to memorisation at this period are false. We may also note that Muslims display no interest in actually finding out by collation whether extant manuscripts copies of the Koran – and indeed printed copies – are actually exactly the same.
But we need not labour this point, except in response to those who deploy it in order to rubbish the bible. There is nothing of significance here. For all practical purposes, it seems likely that the Koran does indeed contain the mission statement of Mohammed and his earliest followers.
إِبْرَاهِيمُ، حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ شِهَابٍ
This means that Bukhari had this tradition from Ibrahim bin Sa’d’s summary of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri’s traditions. The latter taught at the peak of the Umayyad caliphate, under Hisham bin ‘Abd al-Malik. ‘Uthman was another Umayyad. The dynasty put this out to justify their Divine right to interpret this text.
The tradition is (rightly) famous: Harald Motzki, “The Collection of the Qur’an: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments”, Der Islam 78 (2001), 1-34.
A side-effect is that the tradition also pushed out whispers, among Christians and the new Shi’a movement, that the jam’al-Quran was finalised even later, like under ‘Abd al-Malik and his attack-dog Kulayb called al-Hajjaj. De Premare collected some traditions to that effect.
Thank you! Most people know nothing about this stuff, and the bots trade on this ignorance.
Thank you! This is very useful information.