The Preservation of the Qur’an and Hadith. A look at how the Quran and hadith was preserved in its original form.
The Arabic word
“hadith” broadly means a narrative, or a story. In Islamic literature,
it has the very specific meaning of the individual narrations about
Muhammad, which capture his many sayings and actions, as conveyed
to us by his companions. The Arabic word “qur’an” literally means a
recitation. Muslims believe that God chose Muhammad to be His final
messenger, and revealed to Muhammad His final book of guidance
for mankind, the Qur’an.
We can see that this Hadith has a large amount of corroboration. It
would be virtually impossible to fabricate such a report given that there
are multiple independent chains, consisting of people from different
times and places, and yet they all report the same Hadith. If they are all
reporting the same thing, it means that the event was very likely to have
happened, as suggesting otherwise would be to suggest some sort of mass
conspiracy, among the companions, to fabricate lies. This is absurd to
suggest because the companions were being killed and tortured during
the time of Muhammad and fought and died for Islam for decades after
Muhammad had died. To suggest they fabricated lies knowingly would
mean all of these companions had died for an idea they knew they were
lying about. Muslims have access to thousands of such authentic statements of Muhammad. These can be found in the famous collections of
authentic Hadith in books such as Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. In
fact, if you look at the references at the back of this book, you will notice
that I have utilised authentic Hadiths from collections such as Sahih
Bukhari and Sahih Muslim in my quotations of Muhammad’s prophecies earlier in this chapter.
We can trust the information that has been conveyed to us in the
Qur’an and Hadith because these Islamic source texts are the most
reliable of any ancient or religious text in history, for a number of
unique reasons. Unlike other ancient and religious texts, the primary
means of preserving the Qur’an and Hadith has, and always will be,
through memorization.
The Qur’an mentions its own preservation
in this manner:
“And We have certainly made the Qur’an easy for
remembrance, so is there any who will remember?” [54:17].
Muhammad was tasked by God with memorising, transmitting, and explaining the verses of the Qur’an to the Muslims, as they were revealed
from God to him through the Angel Gabriel: “Truly, this Qur’an has
been sent down by the Lord of the Worlds: the Trustworthy Spirit
[Angel Gabriel] brought it down to your heart [Prophet], so that you
could bring warning” [26:192-194].
In turn, these Muslims who had
learnt the Qur’an directly from Muhammad himself, known as the
Companions, passed on what they had memorised of the Qur’an, as
well as what they had witnessed Muhammad saying and doing (i.e.
the Hadith), to neighbouring tribes and nations. This legacy of mass
memorisation has continued throughout Islamic history. Muslims
today have no doubt about the perfect preservation of the Qur’an and
Hadith.
This oral tradition spanning over 1,400 years has seen the
Qur’an and Hadith being passed down from teacher to student in an
unbroken chain going all the way back to Muhammad himself, without any mistakes or change in their wording. Today, it is estimated that
there are many millions of Muslims who have memorised the Qur’an
and Hadith, in their original Arabic.
Here are just a few examples of what some non-Muslim textual scholars
have to say about the preservation of the Qur’an. The Orientalist scholar
William Graham stated that:
In Muslim piety, however, the written word of its scripture has
always been secondary to a strong tradition of oral transmission
and aural presence of scripture that far surpasses that of Judaic or
Christian usage. In Islam, the functions of the holy book as an oral
text have predominated over its functions as a written or printed
one. As an English Arabist put it long ago, “from first to last the
Koran is essentially a book to be heard, not read.” For countless
millions of Muslims over more than thirteen centuries of Islamic
history, “scripture”, has been a book learned, read, and passed on
by vocal repetition and memorization.(1)
The Orientalist A.T. Welch writes:
For Muslims the Qur’an is much more than scripture or sacred
literature in the usual Western sense. Its primary significance for
the vast majority through the centuries has been in its oral form,
the form in which it first appeared, as the “recitation” chanted
by Muhammad to his followers over a period of about twenty
years… The revelations were memorized by some of Muhammad’s
followers during his lifetime, and the oral tradition that was thus,
established has had a continuous history ever since, in some ways
independent of, and superior to, the written Qur’an… Through the
centuries the oral tradition of the entire Qur’an has been maintained by the professional reciters. Until recently, the significance
of the recited Qur’an has seldom been fully appreciated in the
West.(2)
Bible scholar Kenneth Cragg reflects that:
This phenomenon of Qur’anic recital means that the text has
traversed the centuries in an unbroken living sequence of devotion.
It cannot, therefore, be handled as an antiquarian thing, nor as a
historical document out of a distant past. The fact of hifdh (Qur’anic
memorization) has made the Qur’an a present possession through
all the lapse of Muslim time and given it a human currency in every
generation, never allowing its relegation to a bare authority for
reference alone.(3)
The scholar of Islam Sir William Muir, who was an ardent critic of
Islam, states:
“There is probably no other book in the world which
has remained twelve centuries [now fourteen] with so pure a text”.(4)
In fact, if every written copy of the religious scriptures in existence today
were to be somehow destroyed, then it is only the Qur’an and Hadith that
could be recreated perfectly, thanks to their mass memorisation. Those
who memorise the Qur’an and Hadith are people of all ages. The vast
majority are not Arabs and do not even speak Arabic as a language. The
oral memorisation of the Qur’an and Hadith is a phenomenon unique
to Islam.
Let’s now take a look at the Hadith in more detail. Each Hadith consists
of two aspects: a report and its chain of narration. The report is information about what was said or done by Muhammad, as witnessed by
his companions. The chain is the sequence of people who have passed
the report down to us. Knowing the chain that is associated with
the report is crucial because without it anyone can make any claim
they like about Muhammad and we would have no way of verifying
whether it was an authentic report. Chains allow the scholars of Islam
to distinguish authentic Hadith from weak and fabricated ones by
scrutinising the chains. This methodology was pioneered by the early
Muslim scholars and is known as the science of Hadith verification.
Many different factors – such as the name of each individual in the chain who transmitted the report, their biographical information, the
number of independent transmitters, and many others – are taken
into account by the scholars of Islam. This level of scrutiny simply
does not exist in any other ancient or religious tradition, including the
Judaic and Christian traditions.(5) The scholars of Islam have dedicated
their lives to evaluating the authenticity of the Hadith. Without such
a methodology, we would have no way of reliably distinguishing the
authentic reports from the weak and even fabricated reports that have
been attributed to him.
We can see that testimony is fundamental to the transmission of Hadith
as we rely on the say-so of the companions who transmitted the reports.
Can testimony be considered a reliable source of knowledge? Testimony
is in fact an indispensable source of knowledge, this holds true for facts
we would never deny. For many of us, these truths include the existence
of Amazonian native tribes, photosynthesis, ultraviolet radiation, and
bacteria. Let’s elaborate further. How would you prove to a perfect
stranger that your mother did in fact give birth to you? As bizarre as
this question sounds, it will help clarify a very important yet underrated
source of knowledge. You might say “my mother told me so”, “I have a
birth certificate”, “my father told me, he was there”, or “I have checked
my mother’s hospital records”. These responses are valid; however, they
are based on the statements of other people. Sceptical minds may not be
satisfied. You may try to argue a basis for your conviction by using the
‘DNA card’ or by referring to video footage of your birth. The conviction that your mother is who she says she is isn’t based on a DNA home
test kit. The reality is that most of us have not taken a DNA test. It is
also not based on video footage, as you still have to rely on the say-so
of others to claim that the baby is actually you. So why are we so sure?
This admittedly quirky example re-emphasises an important source of
knowledge: testimony.
In fact, most of what we know is based on the say-so of others. The
world being a sphere is a striking example. The belief that the world
is a sphere is—for most of us—not based on mathematics or science.
It is purely centered on testimony. Your initial reactions may entail the
following statements “I have seen pictures”, “I have read it in science
books”, “All my teachers told me”, “I can go on the highest mountain
peak and observe the curvature of the Earth”, and so on. However,
upon intellectual scrutiny, all of our answers fall under testimonial
knowledge. Seeing pictures or images is testimonial because you have
to accept the say-so of the authority or person who said it is an image
of the world. Learning this fact from science textbooks is also due
to testimonial transmission, as you have to accept what the authors
say as true. This also applies when referring to your teachers. Talk
of attempting to justify your conviction by standing on the highest
peak is still based on testimony, as many of us have never done such
a thing. Your assumption that standing on the highest peak will
provide you with evidence for the roundness of the Earth is based
on the say-so of others. Even if you have done it before, it does not in
any way prove the roundness of the Earth. Standing on a peak will
only indicate that the Earth has some form of curvature—and is not
a complete sphere (after all it can be semi-circular or shaped like a
flower). In summary, for the majority of us, the fact that the world is
round is not based on anything but testimony.(6)
Let’s now look at an example of a Hadith prophecy in detail. Here is a
prophecy where Muhammad correctly foretold that two of his closest
companions, Umar and Uthman, would die as martyrs:
Anas bin Malik reported: “The Prophet once climbed the mountain
of Uhud with Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman. The mountain shook
with them. The Prophet said (to the mountain), ‘Be firm, O Uhud!
For on you there are no more than a Prophet, a truthful one and two
martyrs’”
Notice that the report starts with the statement “Anas bin Malik reported”. Anas bin Malik is a famous companion of Muhammad and he
is narrating to us an incident in which Muhammad uttered the above
prophecy. However we are not only relying on Anas bin Malik’s testimony that Muhammad uttered these words, as this report reaches us through
multiple chains of transmission. In other words, other companions
of Muhammad also narrated the same prophecy. Here is a diagram
summarising the names of the companions who narrated this report
about Muhammad, as well as those who the companions passed the
report onto.(7)
Note that due to space constraints, the below diagram
has been limited to seven generations of narrators after Muhammad:
Is there any reason to doubt the reliability of the Qur’an and Hadith?
The estimated millions who have memorised them have done so via a
direct transmission starting from Muhammad himself. The implications
of this are astonishing. If millions of people who have memorised them
can trace their oral memorisation down the centuries of teachers and
scholars, all the way back to Muhammad himself, who could doubt the
authenticity of this oral tradition? This is especially so if these millions
of memorisers live in different places in the world, and have learnt the
Qur’an and Hadith from different teachers and scholars. The amount of
varying oral transmissions and the amount of people who have learnt
them, and the fact there are no discrepancies in what they have memorised,
is not a historical accident.
The conclusion can only be that the Qur’an
and Hadith memorised today are the same ones that were taught over
1,400 years ago. There is no other rational explanation for this unique
oral phenomenon, unless someone argues that all of these memorisers
throughout the ages – at different points in time and different places in the world – somehow came together to ensure that they all memorised
and recited the exact same Qur’an and Hadith. To pose such an argument,
however, is conspiratorial and absurd.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that this unique oral tradition of
memorisation does not exist in Islam, and let’s also say that we do
not possess any chains of transmission so we cannot reliably trace
the predictions directly back to Muhammad himself. This makes
absolutely no difference, because we have written records of these
predictions dating back hundreds of years, and in many cases, over
a thousand years, before the events they foretell actually took place.
So, it in no way diminishes the phenomenon of the accuracy of the
predictions. In fact, we have surviving written copies of Hadith collections dating back to as early the first century of Islam. Some of
the collections are so early that they were written by people who
personally knew the companions of Muhammad and were their
students.(8)
Now, if people who lack insight into the future really
were inventing predictions in the name of Muhammad, then what
should we expect to find in the accuracy of these predictions? There
would undoubtedly be many failed prophecies, just like we saw with
Nostradamus, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, and others. This
is just the norm in history. But this is not what we find with the
predictions in the Qur’an and Hadith, they are all highly accurate
and crucially, without failure. If you still really think that these kinds
of predictions are something that can easily be fabricated, then why
not perform a simple experiment. Write down ten detailed predictions in different areas for the coming year. For example, it could
be the winning team of this season’s sporting competition such as
football or basketball. It could be the next natural disaster that will
strike humanity, such as an earthquake. It could also be something
unexpected politically such as a scandal or assassination. Do this for
ten different areas, and provide the same level of detail as we have
seen in the Qur’an and Hadith (i.e. identify specific people, places,
events). You will find that most predictions with any kind of detail
actually end up failing to be accurate. This is even with the advent of modern technology like the internet, which means we have the
advantage of being much better informed about what’s going on in
the world than those of the past could ever have dreamed of.
Finally, this flawless preservation of the Islamic source texts is, in
fact, the fulfilment of a promise within the Qur’an itself. We find that
the author of the Qur’an makes a bold claim about its preservation:
“We have sent down the Qur’an Ourself, and We Ourself will guard
it” [15:9].
How could the author of the Qur’an have guaranteed that
it would be perfectly preserved to this very day, especially considering the many social and political changes that the Muslim world has
undergone in over 1,400 years since the Qur’an was first revealed?
Examples of such change include disputes over the succession of
leadership of the Muslim world after the death of Muhammad, the
incorporation of many foreign words into the Arabic language as a
result of Islam spreading into foreign lands and mixing with new
cultures and languages, and the sudden influx of non-Arabs into the
religion, many of whom did not speak Arabic. The track record of all
other revealed scriptures throughout history proves that the opposite
is the case: when faced with similar social and political changes to
those which the Qur’an has endured, intervention with, or loss of, the
text was the normal consequence. The flawless preservation of the
Qur’an is the unique exception to this rule.
References: This article is copied from the book "The Forbidden Prophecies"(Chapter 2) by Abu Zakariya.
To download the free book👇
1) William Graham, Beyond the Written Word, pp. 79 – 80.
2) The Encyclopedia of Islam, ‘The Quran in Muslim Life and
Thought.’
3) Kenneth Cragg, The Mind of the Quran, London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1973, p. 26.
4) Sir William Muir, Life of Mohamet, London, 1894, Vol.1, Introduction.
5) Please refer to chapter 6 of the IERA publication “Jesus: Man,
Messenger, Messiah” for more information on this subject. You can
download a free copy here: https://iera.org/jesus/
6) See essay “GOD’S TESTIMONY: THE DIVINE AUTHORSHIP
OF THE QUR’AN” by Hamza Tzortzis. Accessed on 24th August 2018: http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/gods-testimony-the-divine-author-ship-of-the-quran/
7) Diagram generated using the Hadith Encyclopedia ‘Jawami alKalim’, software version 4.5.
8) A. F. L. Beeston, T. M. Johnstone, R. B. Serjeant and G. R. Smith,
Arabic Literature To The End of Ummayyad Period, p. 272.
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