By Kamal Mustafa Azhari for New Age Islam
4 Jun 2021
Translated from Urdu by Newageislam.com
Why and How was the Quran compiled Without any deletion or addition?
Main Points
Allah Almighty promised to protect the Quran
Preservation of the Quran in the Prophet’s Time
Collection of the Quran in the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr
Compilation of the Quran without any distortion in the time of Hazrat Uthman Ghani
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Suspicion No. 6: Did Hazrat Uthman Ghani delete some Surahs during the compilation of the Qur'an?!!
Some sceptics (especially Waseem Rafzi are emphasizing) that Hazrat Uthman Ghani deleted some Surahs from the Holy Qur'an, which were in the Mushaf of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Ubay And if something may be deleted from the Qur'an, something might also be inserted. So the verses of jihad are the result of the same increase. For this reason, how can we believe the Qur'an that is before us today?
And under the guise of this suspicion, they make an unholy attempt to cast doubt on the Quran and its divine promise of protecting the Quran.
Let's give a solid answer to this erroneous suspicion so that falsehood can feel ashamed when opening its mouth without teeth.
This suspicion is refuted for several reasons.
1. Allah the Exalted has promised to protect His Book which was well preserved and written in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), collected in the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq and was unified without any distortion or deletion in the time of Hazrat Uthman Ghani.
Why and how was the Quran collected and compiled?
Allah Almighty has cleansed His beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) from forgetfulness. He Almighty says in the Quran,
“We will make you recite, [O Muhammad], and you will not forget, Except what Allah should will. Indeed, He knows what is declared and what is hidden.” (87:6-7)
However, the same divine promise was not made for the companions and their followers. The Companions and their successors could forget. Therefore, the Qur'an itself encouraged the early believers to write down, as one of the names of the Qur'an is "Al-Kitab" which is derived from 'Al-Kitabat' which requires it to be written.
Therefore, the Prophet (peace be upon him) commissioned a group of expert Companions for this great task, so that they could write down and preserve the Holy Qur'an which was revealed to him.
While writing down all the Divine Revelations of the Qur'an, a great deal of care was taken so that the Qur'an and the hadith could not be mixed. This was the reason that the Prophet initially forbade the writing of his Ahadith [plural of hadith].
Abu Sa'id Khudri reported that Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said:
“Do not take down anything from me, and he who took down anything from me except the Qur'an, he should efface that and narrate from me, for there is no harm in it and he who attributed any falsehood to me-and Hammam said: I think he also said:" deliberately" -he should find his abode in the Hell-Fire.” (Sahih Muslim 3004).
But later, when there was no risk of mixing between the Quran and Ahadith, and the Quran had been preserved in the memories and writings, the writing of Ahadith commonly started. As for not granting permission in the initial days to write down Ahadith, this was mainly because of the possible risk of mixture between the words of the Quran and Ahadith and so that what was not the part of the Qur'an would not be included in the Qur'an.
When the caliphate era of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq came, the Companions who had memorized the Quran began to leave the world. This situation led to the thought of preserving the Holy Qur'an, which can be gauged from the words of Hazrat Umar Farooq as recorded in Sahih Bukhari as follows;
Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari who was one of those who used to write the Divine Revelation narrated:
“Abu Bakr sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra' were killed). `Umar was present with Abu Bakr who said, `Umar has come to me and said, The people have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama, and I am afraid that there will be more casualties among the Qurra' (those who know the Qur'an by heart) at other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost unless you collect it. And I think that you should collect the Qur'an." Abu Bakr added, “I said to `Umar, 'How can I do something which Allah's Apostle has not done?' `Umar said (to me), 'By Allah, it is (really) a good thing.' So `Umar kept on pressing, trying to persuade me to accept his proposal, till Allah opened my bosom for it and I had the same opinion as `Umar."
Zaid bin Thabit added:
`Umar was sitting with him (Abu Bakr) and was not speaking. Then Hazrat Abu Bakr said: “You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you (of telling lies or of forgetfulness): and you used to write the Divine Revelation for Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him). Therefore, look for the Qur'an and collect it (in one manuscript). "By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an. I said to both of them, "How dare you do a thing which the Prophet has not done?" Abu Bakr said, "By Allah, it is (really) a good thing. So I kept on arguing with him about it till Allah opened my bosom for that which He had opened the bosoms of Abu Bakr and `Umar. So I started locating Qur'anic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, and leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Khuza`ima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else, (and they were):-- "Verily there has come to you an Apostle (Muhammad peace be upon him) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty He (Muhammad) is ardently anxious over you (to be rightly guided)" (9.128)
The manuscript on which the Qur'an was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till his death, and then with `Umar till his death, and finally, it remained with Hafsa, `Umar's daughter. (Sahih Bukhari 4679) (May Allah be pleased with all the companions/Sahaba)
InShaAllah we will refute more suspicions by presenting clear proofs and enlightening arguments so that they can be useful for the common people.
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Mustafa Kamal Azhari, the son of a popular Sunni debator Allama Sagheer Ahmad Jokhanpuri, is a classical Islamic scholar (Aalim and Fazil). Presently he is doing research work in the Faculty of Theology at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
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Removing Doubts Concerning Verses of Jihad in Quran: Is Jizya in Islam an act of oppression? Part 2
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