The Method of Transmission of the Qur’an

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is a comment on the message about the Birmingham Qur’an Leaves by Shaykh Abu al-Huda Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Ya’qubi. 

The Qur’an is proven authentic by verbal narration of a group of narrators who took it from the mouth of the Prophet (s.a.w.), and memorised it, not by writing and leaving it on leaves.  Writing it down in the seven copies during the time of Sayyidina Abu ‘Amr ‘Utsman ibn ‘Affan (r.a.) in seven copies was not for authentication, because authentication relied on memorisation, and mutawatir, large group, narration was the proof of its validity. 

The maswahif of some swahabah, and they are all trustworthy, had extra words which were rejected by consensus of the swahabah, and considered tafsir, commentary and exegesis, not Qur’an.  Therefore, we do not have any consideration for any leaves or parchments discovered from the first century even if they were written by a companion of the Prophet (s.a.w.), if they have different or extra words.  So, the question posed in Dr. Ayman Rushdi Suwayd’s comment, “Who wrote it,” is irrelevant and has no impact on the authentication of the Qur’an, even no matter who the writer is; because the Qur’an was proven via mutawatir oral narration.  So is the other question which he posed about, “Where was it copied from”; it is irrelevant to the authenticity of the Qur’an.  So, when the good doctor said, “Our System is based on who wrote and where from,” here meaning “our method”, it is incorrect. 

Our method for the authenticity of the Qur’an was based on mutawatir oral narration.  It is upon this tawatur, the seven copies, which were ordered to be copied by Sayyiduna ‘Utsman (r.a.) relied on.  These seven copies were later on narrated by mutawatir and were considered the source of the authentication of the various qira’at of the Qur’an.  So, the condition of mutawatir narration to prove any was later on replaced by finding the verse in one of the seven copies. 

Finally, narration from books and papers is the weakest method of narration.  It is called “wijadah” amongst the scholars of the methodology of ahadits.  It does not prove any Qur’an nor the soundness of any hadits.  There is a lot more to say but we tried to be brief in these remarks as it is important to draw the attention of Muslims around the world the main method of the authentication of the Qur’an which Allah (s.w.t.) Guaranteed is memorisation and oral narration, not writing.




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