Wednesday, February 26, 2014

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:

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anikh Rejwan said:

"every uslim goes by this rule"

It's good to know that in a religion with several different sects who consider each other deviants from the true faith and without a central governing body there's at least something all muslims have in common. Sure, it doesn't explain how the hadith David quoted contradicts the quran, nor does it explain to how said hadith was not considered false and discarded by muslim scholars since it apparently it contradicts the quran, but hey, it's refreshing to see a cornered muslim insulting his interlocutor's intelligence instead of outright insulting or threatening him or his family.

Anonymous said...

Anyway, there's soething i'd like to ask Anikh: if it's quran over hadith, then why is it that under sharia law adulterers are to be stoned? According to the quran (24:2), adulterers are to be punished with 100 lashes. According to several hadiths, the punishment for adulterers is stoning. So, according to Anikh, islamic law should punish adulterers with 100 lashes. Well, there's a hadith that says that stoning was in the quran, but was lost. So, how does that "quran over hadith" works? Isn't it weird how thousands of scholars for over one thousand years managed to screw up such a basic principle?

Sisgp said...

http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/02/welfare-jihad-somali-muslim-migrants-protest-welfare-reform-maine/

Baron Eddie said...

This is really sad.

Anikh Rejwan is deceiving himself plus it shows their ignorance about the reality in Islamic world!

He can not say that there because a sword will be put so close to his neck that he will change his mind so quick that he will amaze himself ...

Hadith is an Islamic source and they use it, and believe in it ...

Please, pray for all Muslims because they are poor ...

Thanks David and Sam for this information

Radical Moderate said...

David Wood

The Muslims keep lining up and you keep knocking them down lol.

Unknown said...

Wow... I'm just wondering why muslims heart is sooo hard, that they even reject any truth served to them...

Unknown said...

Well , Muslims are try so hard to Help their allah god..... maybe they try to create another allah...?

erlingsmat said...

Could we not use the same argument when Muslims claim the Bible has been corrupted/changed/mistranslated ?