arma@phao.eng.ohio-state.edu (Lama Hamandi) (12/06/90)
n an article about translation of the Bible and the Torah (new and old testaments) Richard says: ***** Anyway, I have to admit to being a cynic in the sense that the Muslim story on God -> Muhammed -> Followers -> Quran transmission seems just too perfect to be believed. I'd like to see some historical documen- tation on this ***** Well, the most evident historical evidence is that we have the same Quran used in all the Islamic (not only arabic) world today as the one that was revealed by Allah (One of the Names of God in Islam) through his Angel "Gabriel" (Jibril in arabic). We know this because of two historical facts: 1. In many countries that are ruled by Non-Islamic or maybe even Anti-Islamic governments (e.g. Turkey, USSR) there are (as mentioned before on this newsgroup) the original copies of the Quran dating back to the period of the prophet and his immediate followers (Sahabah, the beleivers that were with the prophet at his time). 2. The second (stronger) fact is that up to these days we have people all over the islamic (and not only the arabic) world that have memorized Quran as a whole. These are many but they do not differ even in one letter (or even in the pronounciation of a letter) when they recite the Quran. There are also some of them who with memorizing Quran have memorized the chain of people from which they have memorized Quran. The chain begins with the prophet SAW (Salla Allahu Alayhi Wa Sallam : Peace be Upon Him) through very well known men in the history of Islam to the one (in our days) who has memorized Quran. Being 1400 years away from Prophet Muhammad's period (SAW) at least each chain contains more than 14 person. Not all the chains are the same (difference could be in one, two or many of the persons in the chain). Still the same Recitation is prevailing throughout all these chains. It is more on the second fact than on the first one that Muslims nowadays rely when they want to proove to NON-Muslims that the Quran has not been altered (Since to proove to a muslim the same thing only requires him to read in the quran that Allah (God) says that He will preserve the Quran "Inna Nahnou Nazzalna Alzikra wa inna lahu lahafizoun" which could be roughly translated to "Verily We have revealed Quran and We Will protect it"). Since if there was a supression of the other (theoretically) versions of the quran, at least we will have one chain or one person (not necessarily having a complete chain) claiming that he has another version of the Quran memorized. Richard also says: ***** Is someone going to tell me that they really know what happened over a thousand years ago? Some ***** Well, in Islam we have many sources for getting information about the past. Regarding the matters of our faith (Aquida) we rely first on the Quran and Sunnah (Sunnah, all the deeds, sayings, and approvals of the Prophet SAW) Sunnah was collected in many different books after the death of the prophet SAW. But Sunnah was not preserved like Quran, that's why you find today people that have categorized Sunnah in many different categories, among these are Daiif (weak), Hassan (good), Sahih (True). Scholars have differed in classification and in their criteria for categorization. The requirements for a Hadith (another name for Sunna) to be Good (Hassan) for a scholar, may be more strict than the ones for a hadith to be True (Sahih) for another scholar. Among the books of hadith, the most authentic are Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, (they are, were and Inshallah (if god wills) uwill be accepted by all muslims). Quran and accepted Hadiths tell us about thins that happened in the past, this we know to be true (Hadiths are also memorized with a chain in the same way with Quran). Non accepted Hadiths may be true and may be false and for those (as for the old and new testament) we cannot say that they are wrong unless they contradict something in the Quran or in the Acceptable Hadiths, if they do not though, we will not say they are right since they have a probability of being wrong. I hope this answers your question. A final note: Richard, you often use Arabs and Muslims intrchangeably to mean Muslims. It is better in my opinion to use only the word Muslims since otherwise, it would mean that you have the misconception that all Arabs are Muslims, or that all Muslims are Arabs.