In the Name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful.
I just read the article you mentioned about the incompleteness of the Quran. Actually I myself have the exact same article printed out, as it was given to me by a freind who found it interesting. But I think a few points have to be made, because the conclusions made by the article are very whimsical and inaccurate, for the following reasons:
Point #1 - The persons involved in deciphering the transcripts found and studying them were ALL western, non - Muslim scholars. Some of them were German and also one was Jewish. Go figure! The people with the most hostile intentions against Islam are studying the Quran and Islamic studies. This is exactly what we meant by Western Orientalists covering the truth of Islam from the masses by means of their so-called “intellectualism”, through which they try to decieve people.
Point #2 - The scholars themselves did not even consult any Islamic scholars on the issue, to see their opinions or interpretations. By Islamic scholars I do not mean “Muslim” scholars. There is a difference. An Islamic scholar is a Muslim scholar who is learned in the feilds of the Islamic studies. But a Muslim scholar can be learned in any field, but will still be called a Muslim scholar. They did not even consult any Islamic scholars on this issue, but rather based all their final conclusions and interpretations on their limited scholarly knowedge. Objectivity means viewing all possible interpretations to an issue then coming to the most logical conclusions. Obviously these Orientalist scholars have ignored the rule of objectivity.
Point #3 - There have even been some Islamic scholars in the past who have debated the authenticity of the Quran, such as Husain Ibn Muhammad Taqi al-Nuri al-Tabarsi (c 1254/1838 - 1320/1902). And yet all of their claims have been refuted several times over by the greatest Islamic scholars of both the past and the present. Even within the some Sunni Hadeeth books there are traditions of that claim that certain verses of the Quran were either added or deleted, and yet these cannot be used as proof against the authenticity of the Quran because of 2 obvious reasons. a) the traditions themselves are ‘ahad’ traditions, meaning they have only been narrated by one chain of authorities, and the chain of authorities (those people who relate the traditions) have all been criticized as being weak. This is not because of the traidition itself that they are claimed as weak, but because the scholars themselves have reviewed and studied the history and life of these narrators and come to the conclusion that they were either liars, untrustworthy, ect… b) a large number of traditions were fabricated, and so to test those traditions the scholars must test them with the Book of God (the Quran). If the traditions agree with the Quran and its spirit then the hadeeth or tradition is accepted as authentic, if not then it is discarded and labelled as weak or unauthentic. All traditions that are found in some Islamic hadeeth books are in total conflict with what the Quran teaches, and therefore the Quran is the standard and not the hadeeths. The Quran is the Word of God, the traditions are the Word of the Prophet, and although both are types of revelation, the former is of more value and wight than the latter.
Point #4 - When Muslims say that the Quran will never be altered or changed, that does not mean that every version of the Quran that has appeared up until now and will appear in the future is 100 % unaltered and authentic. Sometimes copies are made that have a few deletions or alterations. But this does not effect the authenticity of the Quran. Becaus what we mean is that the original Quran in the hands of MOST Muslims is the oiginal, and those few (very few) exceptions do not effect this claim. I myself have a version of the Quran wherein some of the verses are lengthier than the ones in the original one used by all Muslims. Of course I do not read from this one because it is NOT the Quran. Mistakes took place in its publication most probably. But the claim still stands, because God has preserved the popular and original copy which is in the hands of the great majority of Muslims from any alterations or deletions. This cannot be compared to the Christian position of their Holy Book on the issue, for Christians (the majority) hold all their many versions of the Bible to be of equal authority, and they have several versions of it. Muslims have one version of the Quran that is read the same way all over the world, with a very few copies that have been altered or changed, which they do not read from nor hold as authentic.
And so as in the article under discussion, those Orientalists were very ignorantly assuming that what Muslims mean by “God preserving the Quran” was that we believe that God will prevent any person in the world to ever change any letter in the Quran, from now till the Day of Judgement, or that every single copy will be unaltered and unchanged. That is not at all what Muslims mean by the infalliblity of the Quran. As I have explained above, it may be that a few copies are altered here and there, but 1) these are a very few and are not the ones used by the majority of Muslims, and 2) they are not held as authentic, and are usually just errors in copying or writing, unlike the Bible for example which has been tampered with for individual and personal purposes (both secualr and religious).
Point #5 - Those manuscripts found, the ones mentioned in the article, are not the oldest of manuscripts found, for scholars have found other similar manuscripts dating at the same dates, all of which are in complete harmony with each other. This shows that the ones found in Yemen are an exception, a deviation from the oirginal ones.
Point #6 - The Orientalists in the article seemed to be stressing the fact that the manuscripts found were unidentical from the Quran we have today because of the “change of order of the verses”. This is seen by the following statement “Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant…” But what these Orientalist are ignorant of the fact that the chronological order of the Quran as we have it today is not the same as it was revealed to the Prophet Mohammad. The order in which we have it today was that compiled by the third Caliph Uthman, because he wanted to make an official copy of the Quran that everyone had and could read. He did this presumably because of the various versions of the Quran that had been circulating since the death of the Prophet. What I mean by various versions is only their chronological order and nothing more, ie. no deletions or additions to the original text. And so the third Caliph, about 20 years after the death of the Prophet, collected all the manuscripts of the Quran and put them into one set order that all Muslims would use. And so the Quran as we have it today, although the same Quran and the same verses, is not in the same order as it had been revealed to Prophet Mohammad. And yet this does not take away the infallibility and authenticity from the text.
And although it may be agreed that there were slightly few differences in the original texts, they were not to such an extent as to bring about new “meanings” in the verses, which is very different from the case of the Bible, as I have shown in some of the old forums I participated in.
As a last remark I would just like to say that the greatest flaw in the article you base your claims on is the fact that the scholars involved are a) western orientalists with very obvious biases, and b) that they are not learned whatsoever in the history of the Quran or Islam or how it was compiled. Even though they may be intellectuals or scholars in the feild of Islamic studies, it is very obvious to any reader that they do in fact hold a suspiscious hostitlity towards Islam, albeit veiled and indirect ofcourse. This is shown by their sarcastic comments on Salman Rushdie, and their constant foolish comparisons between Islam and Christianity, and also their outright remarks that indicate that all Muslims are all fanatics who have a temper and are not able to rationalize or reason for themselves, a people who are compelled to follow their emotions more so than their minds. This is very obvious by their indications that Muslims should follow the path of the Renaissance and Reformation of Europe – indirectly meaning we should seperate religion from state, or in fact rid ourselves of religion altogether. All this while the Reformation itself had its roots in the role Islam and Muslim philosophers and scientists played in translating Greek texts into Arabic, which in turn were translated into Latin, and the many medical works and mathematical advancements made by important figures such as Aviceena and Averroes.
Anyone can see that the Orientalists in the article indeed did have a sort of hostility towards Islam and the Quran, and that their biases overshadowed their scientific research and objectivity. In fact all this article did was to further prove to me how all of what I said in my previous post was very true, and that my claim that your sources were anti-Islamic was indeed fact and not just speculation. Hostility doesnt necessarily mean that one has to outwardly manifest this hatred. It is more effective when it is done through “diplomatic” or “scholarly” methods, therefore in keeping with what today is popularly praised as “intellectualism”.
Anyways the truth of the Quran is very evident like I said, and its authenticity will remain manifest, although the unbelievers try to hide it.
And say: “Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood perished: for Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish.” (Quran 17:81)
Your sources therefore are weak and blatantly erroneous, and the intentions were wicked and unscholarly because of the many points I provided above, and many others I have chosen to overlook. So much for your claims about the authenticity of the Quran. It was worth a try though I guess. 