Preservation of the Qur'an
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Hello & Salam!
I searched if this topic has been brought up already but it hasn't. If it has I'm sorry.
I searched on other sites but they base their facts on hadiths.My question is about all those ancient manuscripts of the Qur'an that have been found.
For example, the one discovered by the Birmingham University. Historians said that this manuscript has little or no alterations. What does it mean "little"? I mean, there should be NO alteration at all!
I know that the Sana'a manuscript is different than today's Qur'an because in Yemen they spoke a different dialect. Is it the same for the manuscript in Birmingham?Also, I was reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently it shows that most of the Old Testament was never changed except for about 6 words. I've always thought that the Bible was entirely corrupted. If these documents show that it's not, then does it mean that God is a misogynist? And does it mean that all the cruel stuff written in the Old Testament come directly from God?
Also, I read this article that says they contradict the Qur'an http//www.answering-islam.org/Index/D/dss1.html (I know that answering-islam is not reliable, like when it says "The Qumranians believe that God is responsible for good, and Satan (Belial) is responsible for evil. God is not responsible for evil. Islam, however, believes that Allah is responsible for all good and evil" even though the Qur'an states that good comes from God and evil comes from your actions. But what about the rest? What about priesthood?)
I am very confused and I'm not sure what to believe anymore.
My questions are- Why are there differences between ancient Qur'an manuscripts and today's Qur'an?
- How can we reconcile the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Qur'an?
- Is it possible that the Dead Sea Scrolls were corrupted somehow?
- Where do we get the certainty that the Qur'an was never altered?
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Hello & Salam!
I am very confused and I'm not sure what to believe anymore.
My questions are- Why are there differences between ancient Qur'an manuscripts and today's Qur'an?
Salaam and welcome to the forum handshake
Humans make mistakes
- How can we reconcile the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Qur'an?
Why is this important?
- Is it possible that the Dead Sea Scrolls were corrupted somehow?
Yes that is possible
- Where do we get the certainty that the Qur'an was never altered?
Digging up old qurans and compare them with what we got now is no proof at all.
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peace,
- Why are there differences between ancient Qur'an manuscripts and today's Qur'an?
- How can we reconcile the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Qur'an?
- Is it possible that the Dead Sea Scrolls were corrupted somehow?
- Where do we get the certainty that the Qur'an was never altered?
Re 1)
The oldest manuscripts of Quran did not have tashkeel/vocalisation/diacritical marking, only the letters. A quick pic to explain. Thus, the main variance is in this, but there are some letter differences here and there.Does Quran say God will preserve every letter in Quran and make all copies the same? No.
Do these minor differences change the message anywhere? Debatable, but I have never seen a significant example.Re 2)
They do not need to be reconciled. Dead sea scrolls could be made up, just like Quran.Re 3)
Yes it's possible, just like Quran.Re 4)
How does one verify any source/information/guidance? What does Quran say about how to verify it?
Background http//www.quran434.com/study-method.html -
My question is about all those ancient manuscripts of the Qur'an that have been found.
For example, the one discovered by the Birmingham University. Historians said that this manuscript has little or no alterations. What does it mean "little"? I mean, there should be NO alteration at all!
I know that the Sana'a manuscript is different than today's Qur'an because in Yemen they spoke a different dialect. Is it the same for the manuscript in Birmingham?I wouldn't judge the structure of the Quran by looking at only a few ancient manuscripts from diff times. I have some doubts about the sana'a simply because some yemenis did try to distort Islam. Example Abu Huraira. They weren't so loyal even after the death of the Prophet. Checkhttps//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_history_of_Yemen
Not to mention that hadiths weirdly spend a lot of time praising Yemen.
Narrated Abu Masud
The Prophet beckoned with his hand towards Yemen and said, ?Belief (Eeman) is there.?
~Saheeh Al-Bukhaari, Book of Military Expeditions, Hadeeth No. 4069
Narrated ?Uqba bin ?Umar and Abu Mas?ud
Allah?s Apostle pointed with his hand towards Yemen and said, ?True Belief (Eeman) is Yemenite yonder (i.e. the Yemenite, had True Belief and embraced Islam readily), but sternness and mercilessness are the qualities of those who are busy with their camels and pay no attention to the Religion where the two sides of the head of Satan will appear. Such qualities belong to the tribe of Rabi?a and Mudar.?
~Saheeh Al-Bukhaari, The Book of the Beginning of Creation, Hadeeth No. 3079
For morehttps//dammaaj.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/ahadeeth-on-yemen/- How can we reconcile the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Qur'an?
Try following both and see what happens.
- Is it possible that the Dead Sea Scrolls were corrupted somehow?
Yes or no. I haven't come across a single holy book which hasn't suffered from bad interpretations over the years. If men are misogynist then they certainly would try to change the meanings of the verses for their own benefits.
And does it mean that all the cruel stuff written in the Old Testament come directly from God?
- Where do we get the certainty that the Qur'an was never altered?
You can ask him. Try dating him at least once to get the answer.
The Qumranians believe that God is responsible for good, and Satan (Belial) is responsible for evil. God is not responsible for evil. Islam, however, believes that Allah is responsible for all good and evil" even though the Qur'an states that good comes from God and evil comes from your actions. But what about the rest? What about priesthood?
You know one thing I like about the people of Islam is that they are not afraid to show the original text of the Quran when translating it into other languages. They also have sites in which you can look for the meaning of one word using other verses. Very convenient for independent analysis of the book. What I see above is someone's interpretation of the dead sea scroll without giving any source through which we can verify (1736) his claims just as we do with Quran. Thus, we lose the power to judge it.
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Answer should be found in the Grand Qur'aan.
iv) Safety of the Book?Intellectual property in timeline
No mortal individual publisher can undertake the responsibility for the entire timeline to ensure the safety of intellectual property-the form of expression of ideas, choice and arrangement of words?manuscript he has written with his own hands and got copied for circulation by the honored and trust worthy scribes. The intellectual property - the manuscript is the Parlance?verbal Message of Allah the Exalted. The exalted Messenger Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam was absolved of this responsibility and informed
Indeed We have successively communicated Memoir/Reference Book Grand Qur'aan.
And know it; Our Majesty is certainly the protector and guard for it in timeline.
This information reveals that this is the claim by the Living Who is Living in absolute sense; living beyond time frames. The infallibility of this information is confirmed
Contd
Safety of the Book?Intellectual property in timeline
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I read your post briefly and now sought to address your questions.
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Because certain people took the liberty to make changes so that their already established interpretation would make better sense.
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The Old Testament contains immense misinterpretation issues. But Quran is not that much changed, the real issue is with its interpretation.
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It was altered, so you cannot get the certainty it was not. However, it is minimally changed and most of the time it is only diacritics added and which can be removed if one transcribes it or starts a purification project. You have the manuscript from Sana'a which seems to be the oldest in existence and which overwritten text has the original phrase whereas the commonly established one was altered on some words.
Be well
Qarael Amenuel -
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Do you know when the OT was written?
It is not written at one and the same time nor does it have the same author but they are several prophets. Additionally, the projected translation is not so accurate to the language of the authors.
OT is not a "direct divine revelation" but is written down riddles and notes by ancient people. This is what is Torah (ambiguous). Due to their symbiosis in God you could regard them as united however and thus their writings are "divine" in that way.
Be well
Qarael Amenuel -
ot and nt was written in 70 ad with greek version which is not anymore preserve...
then the stories of the life of jesus was written by desciples after the death of jesus christ..
although there is not much written anywhere about his early years of life... where did he really spend that time and what he was doing at that time ?
although jesus christ is the symbol of love ..
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ot and nt was written in 70 ad with greek version which is not anymore preserve...
then the stories of the life of jesus was written by desciples after the death of jesus christ..
although there is not much written anywhere about his early years of life... where did he really spend that time and what he was doing at that time ?
although jesus christ is the symbol of love ..
That is a theory.
There is a source from before year 0 which somewhat causes a problem to confirm the theory which is that they found passage extracts from the Old Testament written before that. It is not a complete manuscript, but it is still enough to find it problematic to safely prove your theory.
Your argument is only a sectarian attempt to nullify what you have no grasp of.
Be well
Amenuel -
And NT was not written 70 AD except a part of it.
Plus nothing can safely say it was exactly that year except vague sources.
The Biblical Gospels are a translation from Syriac Aramaic too and not the original utterances in respective language.
Be well
Qarael Amenuel -
And the Tanakh was perhaps assembled together as a book in the first millennium A.D because there is no one book called Torah but Torah is a collection of mysterious writings.
Plus scrolls have limited capacity to contain text as one unit.
Be well
Qarael Amenuel -
Is not like everything about the bible just theories?
Even the "authors" of the gospels are not even for certain (according to some sources they were added later in the text).The composition of the Biblical Gospels is according to the viewpoint of Eysua's followers (and including their bias), but I do consider the recorded utterances to actually be of him. There is however also a linguistic barrier between the translations we have and the original utterance, as Eysua spoke a dialect of Aramaic/Aramaya and what we have is translated from ancient Greek.
For example what translators translate as "son of" means something else in our languages. It is not as easy as to plainly translate it as "son".
If you search beyond the canonical Gospels in the Bible you can find interesting deviations of the testament, but still Eysua's sayings remain basically the same although in sometimes different viewpoints. In one collection of sayings they have just saved his quotes and no storytelling.
That makes them simple hadith, but one needs to reflect upon what the man is actually seen saying.
And the NT is not a divine revelation (per traditional perception of what "divine revelation" is) at all but the testimony of what individual people have heard and seen, plus potential clerical bias inserted.
And the authors of the Gospels were as you say not certain about what it was Eysua said, such as on the execution day but they only speculated on what he might have said. He used the word amen which the authors seem to have had trouble translating despite that it means "be sure".
I still am certain the authors did translate from an Aramaic source and tried to find some translation of what he had said. And we yet have to find that original source.
Despite that unreliability, I would definitely rank those writings as very interesting teachings when taken into the proper light and away from Christian dogma.
It is difficult to reconcile them with the traditional (sectarian) interpretation of Quran, but that does not necessarily mean they are wrong but the issue is Quran itself and its interpretation. Quran does however emphasize on Eysua IBN Miryem for a reason and that reason being the misconception about "son" which has been used for centuries. Quran explains the phenomenon in other ways therefore instead and retains no one is the biological son of God (i.e. a separate entity besides God) and that the "son of God" phrase means on a spiritual level by the being as God in spirit, and diminishing any other being of you so you and God are in the same Oneness. And for that one needs to defeat themselves, cease being separated and a standalone unit and work symbiotically with God. That is what is referred to as "son of God" in the Gospels but sadly misconceived.
And it is for that I am in ignorance considered an associator ("mushrik" in this forum by some people. People do not understand the underlying dynamics of God. There is no one besides God. Anything else is dualism or worse. In that I am actually an extreme Monotheist while I am erroneously an associator by the conceptualizing of people.
But I am not associating myself with terms such as servant or slave of God, I simply am. Does it make me arrogant? No, but I do not belittle myself and let myself be and evolve my own being.
Be well
Qarael Amenuel
