Prerequisite Four: Fount of Guidance
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Prerequisite Three
Pure and Simple Scripture
Accuracy and Preservation of the Qurʼan
Yet another prerequisite, as indicated earlier, for a perennial Nubuwwah is that the revelation vouchsafed to the last and final Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, which forms the basis of its doctrines and teachings, and serves as a connecting link between the Creator and the created, should be preserved without a change of a dot, should remain intelligible and be recited and learnt and studied by people at all times as a living scripture. It should not meet the fate of earlier revelations which were mutilated and changed, nor should it become an ancient writing to be preserved like an archaeological exhibit.
Qurʼanic pronouncements on the subject are quite clear and explicit. At the time the Qurʼan was being revealed to the Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam by the Archangel Jibril ‘alayh al Salam, the Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam felt anxious to commit it all the more readily to his memory in order to produce the word of Allah exactly, without any change, to others. He was promised:
اِنَّ عَلَیْنَا جَمْعَه وَقُرْاٰنَه ۚ فَاِذَا قَرَاْنٰهُ فَاتَّبِعْ قُرْاٰنَهۚ ثُمَّ اِنَّ عَلَیْنَا بَیَانَه ؕ
Indeed, upon Us is its collection [in your heart] and [to make possible] its recitation. So when We have recited it [through Jibril], then follow its recitation. Then upon Us is its clarification [to you].[1]
The promise to fix the Qurʼan in the memory of the Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam having been fulfilled; it was conveyed to the people who memorised it in part or the whole of it. Thereafter, expeditions and battles followed; Muslims began to be dispersed in distant lands, but the Qurʼan continued unchanged in its original form since Allah has already held out His word to safeguard it till the end of time.
اِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَاِنَّا لَه لَحٰفِظُوْنَ
Indeed, it is We who sent down the message [i.e., the Qurʼan], and indeed, We will be its guardian.[2]
Testimony of Non-Muslim Scholars
It is not necessary to cite here the findings of Muslim scholars about the preservation of the Qurʼan for nobody has ever expressed any doubt about it except the Shia. Absolute purity of the Qurʼanic text, free of all corruptions, accretions, and mutilations, is the creed held by those belonging to the Ahlus Sunnah.[3]
Let us have a testimony of a few non-Muslims, especially Christian scholars, who agreed that the Qurʼan is “the most widely read book in existence.”[4]
European scholars of Islam, commonly known as Orientalists, do not share the faith of the Muslims that the Qurʼan was revealed by Allah, but they agree with them that the Qurʼan has never been subjected to anything, such as, redaction of the Holy Text. Sir William Muir, not very sympathetic to Islam and its Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and whose allegations against the latter in his Life of Mahomet forced Sir Ahmed Khan, known for his liberal views and modernism, to pen the Khutbat Ahmediyyah to refute him, acknowledges the textual purity of the Qurʼan in these words:
Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but one Coran has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure text.[5]
Wherry writes in his commentary on the Qurʼan:
The text of the Qurʼan is the purest of all works of a like antiquity.[6]
Lane-Poole testifies:
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.[7]
Bosworth Smith has reached the conclusion that:
In the Kuran, we have beyond all reasonable doubt, the exact words of Muhammad, without subtraction and without addition.[8]
Prof. Arnold writes in the Islamic Faith:
The text of this recension substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of Muhammad himself.[9]
Many more evidences can be produced in support of the preservation of the Qurʼanic text in its original form, but it is perhaps not necessary to prolong with further citations.
Shia Creed in Regard to the Qurʼan
Let us now take the Shia belief in regard to the Qurʼan. They hold that the Qurʼanic text was mutilated; there is almost consensus among their scholars on this point.[10]
‘Allamah al Nuri al Tabarsi has written a treatise entitled Fasl al Khitab fi Ithbat Tahrif Kitab Rabb al Arbab[11] (The Definitive Conclusion in Proving the Distortion of the Book of the Absolute Lord of the Lords) in which he says that more than two-thousand reports handed down by the Imams positively assert that there have been many alterations in the text of the Qurʼan that we have at present.[12] Until the tenth or eleventh century, that is, to the time of ‘Allamah Baqir al Majlisi—who was the greatest expounder of the Shia creed—or even thereafter, the Shia scholars have been advertising the view that the Qurʼan has been subjected to alterations, additions, and redactions.[13]
We have already referred to Ayatollah Khomeiniʼs views in regard to the Qurʼan wherein he said:
It posed no problem to delete the verses (declaring ‘Ali as the vicegerent of the Messenger salla Llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam and the principle of Imamah), to make interpolations in the divine Scripture and to put the Qurʼan out of sight to the end of time.
He also asserted:
The charge of corrupting (the scriptures), laid by the Muslims against the Jews and the Christians, is proven against these Companions.[14]
Usul al Kafi is one of the most authentic theological works on Shiʼism. It gives a number of examples to show that several verses were deleted from the Qurʼan while others were inserted in it.[15] The book makes the allegation that about two-thirds of the Qurʼan has been pilfered since it originally contained as many as seventeen-thousand verses.[16]
Shia scholars hold that the Qurʼan in its original form was compiled by Khalifah ‘Ali radiya Llahu ‘anhu and it is still safe in the custody of the hidden Imam. According to their belief, the Qurʼan with the al Imam al Ghaʼib is entirely different from the existing one.[17]
A few of their Imams are on record that they possess the original Qurʼan known as Mushaf al Fatimah (Fatimahʼs Scripture) which was three times more voluminous than the existing Qurʼan.[18]
Indifference to the Qurʼan
The Noble Qurʼan is read as a textbook by practically every Muslim in every part of the world and the number of those who commit it to memory runs into the millions; there is hardly a town where a hafiz cannot be found or where the entire Qurʼan is not recited once or twice in the Salat al Tarawih[19] during Ramadan; yet the Shia have shown little interest in its teaching or preaching, which is apparently a logical result of their attitude towards the Word of Allah.
It is commonly believed that the Shia do not have huffaz or memorisers of the Qurʼan. The writer of these lines has had an occasion of meeting with an experience of a similar nature during his tour of Iran in 1973, which confirmed this impression. Wherever there is a Muslim religious gathering, Europe and America not excluded, a Muslim is found who can recite a small chapter or a few verses of the Noble Qurʼan before initiating the proceedings of a meeting. But in Iran, it was otherwise.
The writer had gone to that country as the head of a delegation deputed by the World Muslim Organisation. He was invited to a meeting held to welcome the delegates by an eminent theologian known as ‘Ayatollahʼ at his residence in Tehran. The meeting began with the recitation of the Qurʼan, but it was read from the copy of the Scripture held by the son of the theologian. The writer also heard the recitation of the Qurʼan in the masjids of Qom and Mashhad replayed from the cassettes of Egyptian Qurraʼ[20].
This indifference to the Holy Qurʼan seems to be the reason why Iranian libraries lack such illuminated copies of the Qurʼan as are normally found in almost every library of the Islamic world.
An Eye-Opener to the Deniers of the Qurʼan
How can anyone claiming to be Muslim but denying the absolute purity of the Qurʼan present his creed to others with confidence or claim that Islam is the only saving principle for man? How ugly and unattractive is the picture of Islam and its early adherents painted by those who believe in the perversion of the Qurʼan and how can they, with these concepts in their brains, invite others to give faith to the truth of Islam? Does one need anything more to rebut the claim of Islam as the last and eternal faith of mankind?
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[1] Surah al Qiyamah: 17-19.
[2] Surah al Hijr: 9.
[3] There are several treatises in Arabic dealing with the preservation, script etc., of the Qurʼan in Arabic. Urdu knowing people can go through the Tarikh Suhuf Samawi by Nawab ‘Ali.
[4] Charles Francis Potter: The Faith Man Lives By, pg. 1, Kings Wood Surrey, 1935; Philip K. Hitti: History of the Arabs, pg. 126, London, 1953.
[5] Sir William Muir: Life of Mahomet, vol. 1 pg. 22-23, London, 1912.
[6] E.M. Wherry: A Comprehensive Commentary of the Qurʼan, vol. 1 pg. 349, London, 1896.
[7] Lane and Lane-Poole: Selection from the Kuran, Intro. pg. c, Turnber, London, 1879.
[8] Bosworth Smith: Mohammad and Mohammedanism, pg. 22, London, 1874.
[9] T.W. Arnold: Islamic Faith, pg. 9, London.
[10] Only four Shia scholars: Al Saduq, Sharif al Murtada, Abu Jafar al Tusi, and Abu ‘Ali al Tabarsi are exceptions to this agreed view of the Shia theologians, but some of them have been reported to have recanted their view. Anyway, there is always a doubt that they might have expressed their opinions in favour of the purity of the Qurʼan because of their accepted principle of Taqiyyah or dissimulation of oneʼs faith.
[11] This book has recently been published in Pakistan.
[12] Fasl al Khitab, pg. 227, Najaf, 1298 AH.
[13] For details, see Ml Manzur No’mani: Irani Inqilab Imam Khumayni aur Shi’iyyat, pg. 156, Lucknow, 1984.
[14] Kashf al Asrar, pg. 114.
[15] Al Razi: Al Usul min al Jami’ al Kafi, pg. 262, 264-266 and 267, Lucknow, 1302 AH. The author is reported to have got it approved by al Imam Muhammad ibn al Hasan, the twelfth and hidden Imam.
[16] Usul al Kafi, pg. 271.
[17] Ibid., pg. 271.
[18] Ibid., pg. 160.
[19] Special prayers offered during Ramadan.