Different versions of the Quran???
21/10/2010 | WAYFARER | IS
When surfing religious websites or reading religious debates, or even when speaking to non-Muslims, you may have heard them proclaim that just like the Bible, there were also numerous versions of the Quran. How true is this? We have always been taught that there was and is only one version of the Arabic Quran, and that it is 100% correct, without omitions or additions.
The accusation is that by the time the Prophet (saw) had passed away, the quran was not yet in book form, and there were separate parchments/scripts with Quranic verses of the same surahs/ayahs, and that they differed from each other. By the time the first and second successors died (Sd Abu Bakr and Sd Umr, Allah be pleased with them), the Quran was still not in book form and there still existed differing versions of the same verses. It was during the reign of the 3rd khalifah, Sd Uthman (Allah be pleased with him), that the various scripts were collected, differing versions compared, and the "correct" ones chosen for inclusion into the Quran. The accusation further explains that it was these men who decided on the final Quran from so many different possibilities, and not Prophet Muhammad (saw) himself. Scary stuff, but is it true?
Well, yes and no. This is really a misrepresentation of early Islamic history. Let's explain:
Prophet Muhammad (saw) was an unlettered man - he could not read or write. The Angel Gabriel gradually revealed the Quran to Prophet Muhammad (saw) over a period of about 23 years. Each time the prophet (saw) would read from memory to scribes, who would record this. They would then recite it back to him several times so that any mistakes in recording would be eliminated. Some verses had meanings that were not immediately apparent, but nevertheless they were God's Words and had to be recorded word for word. It was extremely rare for a particular scribe not to engage in this error-checking phase with this degree of meticulousness, but there were always multiple scribes present. Also, thousands of his companions memorised the Quran and recited it back to him for confirmation of accuracy.
The prophet (saw) instructed the scribes to write down the order in which the revealed verses were to be arranged, as they were not intended to be arranged chronologically. The actual compilation in book form only took place after his death, but all the Quran had been revealed to him by this time, and the sequential order had already been decreed.
But there were also other people who wrote down verses that they heard from Prophet Muhammad who were NOT specifically chosen by him. They were "unofficial" scribes - some of them mere passers-by who overheard the prophet (saw) from a distance and hastily wrote down what they heard and these did not undergo the error-checking process.
It was these scripts that differed from the scripts of those of the trustworthy specifically chosen scribes. Sd Uthman (Allah be pleased with him) had these unofficial "versions" compared with the original, official version as was revealed to the prophet (saw), and erroneous personal "variations" were destroyed or corrected. This khalifah completed this process of recension.
There is only one single version of the Quran in existence. There exists absolute concensus amongst the scholars of Islam that this is identical to the Quran revealed to Prophet Muhammad (saw) and it was "bound" in book form shortly after the prophet's (saw) death, under the authority of the 3rd of the 4 righteous khalifahs.
There was and is only one unchanged official version of the Quran accepted by all Muslims around the globe.