After several centuries of unquestioning endorsement of the bible, historical and literary scholarship finally began to take a less cautious and more unbiased approach to biblical studies. Since then we have seen a flood of books and material informing us about the bible's very man-made past and its gradual evolution into the form we find it in today. Muslims will gladly jump on the bandwagon of biblical criticism, because their religion teaches them that the Hebrew and Christian bibles were corrupted by the hands of men, which made it necessary for God (Allah) to reveal a new inerrant word. This new word, according to them, is the Qur'an - a book supposedly dictated by their prophet Muhammad, inspired by visions and revelations.

The Islamic community often gleefully proclaims why Jesus was not God and how the Christian bible has been corrupted, but what serious skepticism and criticism have they applied to their own religious text? They may frequently state that the Qur'an has remained unchanged since Muhammad first recited it, yet such statements are more articles of faith than they are fact. The fact is that there are numerous ways in which we can ascertain that the Qur'an has possibly gone through the same editing process as any book in human history.

I. Who Wrote the Qur'an?

Although all Muslims believe the Qur'an contains the exact words of Muhammad, they do not believe he was the one who wrote them down. Tradition holds that Muhammad would recite and memorize the inspirational words he received during his visions, and for a while his followers imitated his technique. At some point, Zayd ibn Thabit was appointed as Muhammad's personal scribe, writing down the words of the 'prophet' as he dictated them. These initial documents were simply scraps of parchment, wood, leaves, and other easily accessible but fragile materials. Writings allegedly existed during Muhammad's lifetime, but they were scattered across several lands, mere private collections of bits and pieces.

The process of canonizing these written recitations (or Suras) into the Qur'an began in 633 AD, a year after Muhammad's death. Muhammad's successor, Abu Bakr, realized the importance of collecting and compiling the Suras after hundreds of Muslims died at the Battle of Yamama, taking their memorizations of Qur'anic verses to their graves [1]. Bakr ordered for the scattered Suras to be collected into one volume and appointed Zayd ibn Thabit to do the job. However, even Muslim tradition indicates that this was an immensely frustrating task for Thabit:

The written copies Thabit collected were only permitted into the collection if they could be validated by the recitations of at least two of Muhammad's living companions. This filtering method was not necessarily a bad idea, but what of those Suras that may not have been successfully located by Thabit, or those which the companions might have forgotten or never even heard? Did the 'prophet' recite every verse of the Qur'an to every single one of his companions? Only faith can make one think that this process of canonization somehow flawlessly compiled the original and exact words Muhammad spoke.

This first compilation of Suras was kept by Umar, who succeeded Abu Bakr. Once Umar died and his successor Uthman took over, standardization of the Qur'an was finally ordered. There is some dispute regarding the text that Uthman based his Qur'an on, but he allegedly commissioned Zayd ibn Thabit to reassemble the writings into Muhammad's tribal language of Quraish, after issues arose about how to properly recite the Qur'an with the different dialects the writings had been passed down into. So the first standardized copies of the Qur'an were sent out to several centers of the Islamic empire sometime around 650-656 AD, nearly twenty years after Muhammad's death. When Uthman's Qur'an was completed and distributed, many variations were destroyed to help establish standardization.

II. Evidence of Change

Even after giving the lengthy backstory to the Qur'an, with all its troublesome obstacles included, I know there will be some who require further evidence that the text has changed over time. Before we get into the facts, consider the assumption you make if you are one of those individuals who demands irrefutable proof that the Qur'an has changed. There is no book in history that has not gone through some sort of editing process - it is absolutely normal and expected for a book to be different from its first draft. Even if no alternate copies exist for a writing, you can rest assured that there are still variations between the final copy and what the author originally intended or attempted. Since a perfect transition from recitation to writings to canonization is undoubtedly a unique and unnatural occurrence, the burden of proof is on those making such a claim, not those who keep history, literature and context in mind.

In 1972, the Sana'a manuscripts were discovered at the Great Mosque in Yemen [2]. Carbon-14 dating has put some of the parchments at around 645-690 AD, meaning the collection is currently the oldest known Qur'an. Arabic calligraphy and Quranic paleography specialist Gerd R. Puin has been studying the documents since 1979 and noted several interesting observations in a 1999 interview with The Atlantic...

In the interview, Puin also says that several of the fragments show signs of earlier text that was scraped off and written over. An individual named Samuel Green has also written an excellent article about the standardization of the Qur'an and how the hadiths (traditions of the 'prophet') may tell us that variations existed even in Muhammad's day [4]. It's a fascinating thing that Muslims feel that some modern translations of the Qur'an into non-Arabic languages are less authentic than the original texts. Allah could ensure the safe and inerrant transition of his words through Muhammad to fragmented writings and then into the first standardized Qur'an, but he is not willing to guarantee the accuracy of the Qur'an into variant translations today?

There are a few hadiths that mention Suras which are not found in Qur'an too. Can any Muslim find me this 'suckling verse' in the Qur'an?

How about this Sura on stoning as punishment for those caught in adultery? The Qur'an only ever recommends flogging or house arrest as punishment for adultery, in Sura 24:2 and 4:15-16.

Now let's tally up the scores. First of all, we have nothing written by Muhammad himself, as we have nothing written by Jesus himself. The Qur'an, like the bible, was primarily transmitted orally before it was written down and compiled several years after the death of its central figure. There are variations in the earliest extant copies of the Qur'an, much like variations we find in the earliest extant copies of the bible. Lastly, there are also verses that are apparently missing from the Qur'an, as there are missing letters of Paul and other books from the bible. If Muslims believe the bible is corrupt based on the issues of its authorship and alteration, intellectual honesty would call them to doubt their very own religious text as well.

III. Insecurity and Wishful Thinking

Why do so many Muslims fervently believe that the Qur'an has remained unchanged for nearly 1400 years? How does such dogma benefit them? I am no psychologist or sociologist, but perhaps they (like many of us) prefer the comfort and assurance of having some absolute certainty in life. Maybe being able to rely on a book for all the answers is a way for them to cope with the cold, unpredictable, and occasionally chaotic nature of our lives. However, it is not so evident that something needs to be eternal and unchanging in order for us to comfortably depend on it or find the strength we need in it.

A desire for certitude and superiority of one's religious belief may also indicate a feeling of insecurity within their faith. Some Christians, Jews, and even a few Muslims seem to get along just fine without pretending their holy books are inerrant works of God. Is it the message that matters most or is it the accuracy and impeccable form with which the message has come to you that matters most? Of course, such details might matter to fanatics who plan on killing or dying for their faith, but that kind of blind surrender to an archaic text can never be good anyway. If you are so insecure in your faith that you must force out all doubt and skepticism so that you can be comfortable - your mental state is in quite unhealthy condition.

So why specifically do Muslims think the Qur'an has never changed? Because the book says it hasn't? Well, both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures claim to be everlasting and unchanging too, but you Muslims believe they have been corrupted anyway. There is no more reason to assume the Qur'an is flawless and unaltered than there is to assume that the Tanakh and the bible are. I think it's long past time for us to stop trusting what ancient books may tell us about their own reliability and start looking at real evidence and appreciating the historical and cultural contexts of the writings more than the literal truth or 'divine inspiration' of their contents.

1. Anonymous. Battle of Yamama. Wikipedia. Retrieved Mar. 17, 2009.
2. Anonymous. Sana'a manuscripts. Wikipedia. Retrieved Mar. 17, 2009.
3. Lester, T. 1999. What Is the Koran?. The Atlantic. Retrieved Mar. 17, 2009.
4. Green, S. 2004. How And Why The Qur'an Was Standardized. Retrieved Mar. 17, 2009.