The Islamic Method of Examining the Textual Preservation of the Quran

Almost any Muslim in the world will tell you that the Qur'an has been perfectly (and miraculously) preserved, from the time it was revealed to Muhammad down to the present. The most glaring difficulty with this claim is that the Muslim sources are filled with stories about the Qur'an being changed (not to mention stories about Muhammad's companions disagreeing about which chapters are supposed to be in the Qur'an, stories about Uthman burning manuscripts of the Qur'an to cover up textual differences, etc.). So why do Muslims conclude that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved when their sources say the opposite?

The answer to this riddle is found in Islamic methodology. In short, the Islamic method of examining the textual preservation of the Qur'an is this:

(1) Conclude, before examining the evidence, that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved.
(2) Reject any and all evidence that proves the Qur'an has been changed.
(3) After rejecting any and all evidence that proves the Qur'an has been changed, conclude that it has been perfectly preserved.

You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. To illustrate, consider a brief conversation I recently had with a Muslim on Facebook.

Muslims were claiming (as usual) that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved while the Bible has been corrupted. So I brought up a hadith in which Aisha refers to two verses of the Qur'an that were eaten by a sheep. Since these verses are not in the Qur'an today, we know that they were lost.

Here we have Aisha herself (the "Mother of the Faithful") saying that two verses of the Qur'an were lost. How will a Muslim respond to the evidence?

There you have it. If something doesn't support the Qur'an, it goes in the toilet. This methodology will surely be confusing to the uninitiated. After all, if we want to learn about the history of the Qur'an, we don't go to the Qur'an itself, but to the Hadith and other sources that discuss the preservation of the Qur'an. But those are the sources that say the Qur'an has been changed, so the evidence goes in the toilet (just as Uthman burned Qur'an manuscripts because of the differences). Anikh will simply reject any evidence that conflicts with the Muslim myth of perfect preservation:

Anikh even confirmed that all Muslims use this method:

Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of Islam. Muslims believe things that are factually and demonstrably false, but they reject any evidence (even evidence from their most trusted sources) that refutes their beliefs. How can a religion that requires its adherents to adopt this methodology possibly be the true religion?

For a brief introduction to the myth of perfect preservation, watch this: