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Part 2: The True State Of The Qur'an

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CHAPTER XIV: MORE THINGS TO PONDER

‘Heretical Steps’?

All this raises another matter, for Bilal Philips, in refuting Dr. Khalifah’s false ‘Miraculous #19’ theory about the text of the Qur’an, has also accused him of making a "HERETICAL STEP". 

The "heretical step" was that he reproduced a portion of a Qur’anic printing in which a ‘correction’ had been made in Q7:69! The printing had replaced the sad in the graphic form of Q7:69 with sin above the text, which Islam uses to ‘alter’ the pronunciation of the sad in the graphic form and places above the text! [As already noted, the same word bastatan is correctly spelled with a sad in Q2:247.] 

But, Philips, knowing all we have examined, in a feigned effort at horror wrote: 

"This was achieved by taking the heretical step of actually deleting a Sad from the Surah. Dr. Rashad Khalifa rewrote the same word which he had previously held up as evidence of divine intervention in maintaining the miraculous code of 19. He removed the Sad from the word and replaced it with a Sin ." (#19, p. 23; emphasis added)

There is no difference between this and all the ‘corrections’ that the Turks, etc., had done over the centuries, and which the Egyptians ‘undid’ in their 1924 Egyptian text. 

For example, what of Q21:88 and the missing nun which has been inserted into the Turkish graphic form? And, Islam still continues to print all such "heretical steps" and calls them ‘perfect’, and ‘protected’ Qur’ans! 

All this enforces the conclusion that one cannot agree with Hamidullah that "only one consonant" is ‘missing’ from the text of the Qur’an! It also causes one to conclude that the Qur’an is neither ‘perfect’ nor ‘protected’. 

After all, each and every case of ‘overriding’ and ‘replacing’ and ‘adding to’ we have examined involves ‘wrong’ or ‘missing’ consonants that in reality are being ‘replaced’ by other consonants, even if they are "made to appear" vocal. And what does it matter if it was scribal error or later deviation from the ‘Uthmanic attempt to preserve ‘1 Form’? 

In fact, as for the charge of "heresy", one can easily take the subheadings from Bilal Philips own book 19 HOAX AND HERESY, and apply them directly to everything Islam has been doing, all that we have just noted! He writes: 

"5. LETTER COUNT: DATA FALSIFICATION (p. 20)
...The falsification of letter count data may be grouped under three

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headings;
a) Counting non-existent letters
b) Not counting existing letters
c) Changing the Text of the Qur’an".

And, he continues to give data under:

"A. Non-existent Letters.
B. Existing Letters Ignored
i) Additions to The Qur’an’s Text
ii) Deletions from The Qur’an’s Text" (‘19’, p. 23) 

Surely it couldn’t have been better stated if it had been written for the purpose of defining Islam’s tamperings?! 

The content of only one of these sections will indicate how well they express what we have seen of Islam’s actions concerning the text of the Qur’an (to say nothing of its other books): 

But this is identical to what Islam is claiming, "That the Qur’an was perfectly protected from the slightest distortion, addition or loss"; yet all the while it is ‘modifying the text of the Qur’an in order to make its letter-count conform to [its] theory’ of ‘perfection’! 

It too is making 1) "changes to increase the letter count", and 2) "changes to decrease the letter count"!!!! Why? "To conjure up [a] "miraculous" [perfect Qur’an]"! 

Yet outwardly Islamic scholars seek to present an attitude of ‘horror’ that there could have been the least problem with the writing of "the men around Muhammad". The following is one such presentation concerning the overwriting of one waw with alif in what is only one of the letters which many followers of Islam claim to be from Muhammad: 

"The 10th line of this second letter shows an overwriting in which the grammatical mistake of writing the alphabet wao [waw] has been corrected by converting it into the alphabet alif but the wao is still visible and not erased! ... the grammatical error and overwriting the very contents of the text

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speak against their authenticity. (Deep Into The Qur’an, p. 360)

We have seen much more than this. "Take your own Qur’an and compare!!"

It is because of all that Islam has sought to deceive its people with that they have actually believed that the Qur’an was ‘Perfect’ and ‘Preserved’, superior to every ‘Book’. They have thus accepted as ‘true’ what they were told was the consequence of such beliefs - that its teachings were ‘pure’ and others’ teachings ‘corrupt’. The foundation for this we have seen is not true. 
 

More Alterations - To "‘Uthman’s Copy"!

However, some early records indicate that 11 alterations were made by al-Hajjaj to "‘Uthman’s copy". As Von Denffer, relates: 

The full text of this can be seen in the scans of pages 117 and 118 of ibn Abi Da’ud’s Kitab al-Masahif at right. [Portions of pages 117 and 118 (upper and lower respectively as demarcated by ***) indicating the eleven alterations to the Qur’an by the strongman Al-Hajjaj. For convenience the ‘old’ and ‘new’ texts have been underlined and the Aya and Surah numberings encircled.] 

*** 

The full list of texts are Q2:259; 5:48; 10:22; 12:45; 23:85-89; 26:116; 26:167; 43:32; 47:15; 57:7; and 81:24. 

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A 1997 Internet article discussed this topic stating its main source as: 

"Dr. 'Umar Ibn Ibrahim Radwaan did research on this issue for his Ph.D thesis in University of Imaam Muhammad Ibn Saud. His thesis was published as a book from Riyadh in two volumes. The book is called Aaraa' al-Mustashriqeen hawl Tafseer: Diraasah wa Naqd (The Views Of The Orientalists About The Holy Qur'an & Its Interpretation: Study and Criticism)." 
(http://x42.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=296713427.1&CONTEXT=944266486.1567621125&hitnum=15)

The article notes Dr. Radwaan as indicating that all but 2 of these changes were alterations from one of the 7 readings to another of the 7 readings, but which indeed would require alterations to the consonantal text (graphic form). This would deny the ‘exact copy’/’unaltered’ assertions. 

While some question the ability of al-Hajjaj to accomplish such a thing, the above mentioned article admits that this was mentioned by the early Christian al-Kindi (whom Von Denffer mentions as "died around 236/850" - Ulum, p. 61). He wrote: 

"As for your (book), you have already given us examples of such falsifications, and one knows, among others, of a certain Hajjaj, named by you as the governer (sic) of Persia, who had men gathered up your ancient books, which he replaced by others composed by himself, according to his taste, and which he propagated everywhere in your nation, because it was easier by far to undertake such a task among the people speaking a single language. from (sic) this destruction, nevertheless, there escaped a few works of Abu Turab, for Hajjaj could not make them disappear completely. [[3], pp. 298]

The insistence that this was ‘merely’ altering the Qur’an of Uthman from one set of ‘accepted readings’ to another is little comfort to people who have been taught that NO CHANGES have ever occurred to the Qur’anic text. And all the more when, as we have seen, there is nothing to commend such ‘7 readings’ as having any relation to the ‘7 Forms’. 
 

‘Uthman’s Graphic Form or "The Ottoman Script"

Having seen all we have, one can now understand what is involved when Islam today proclaims that a Turkish text has been "revised according to ‘Uthman’s graphic form". The truth is that the Turks had earlier been altering the graphic form to remove some spelling mistakes and accommodate readings. 

Other than that they had corrupted the Kufan graphic form to be like the Medinan. Now the texts are being ‘Re-EDITED ACCORDING TO ‘UTHMAN’S GRAPHIC FORM’ for Kufah, not simply ‘revised’. 

Yet because these textual adulterations are part of the ‘official’ Qur’an of Turkey it means that today these Arabic texts go on being printed in their 

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present form with mixed readings, and despite there being so much corruption of the graphic form which is still used to simulate that of Kufah. 

Further to this, although Islam today places a great deal of stress on the ‘Uthmanic ‘graphic form’, as if declaring "Look - it’s original!", one can find evidence that this is something which has in fact replaced its earlier preference for a very different graphic form - one that was upheld as the highest standard available for the Qur’an prior to the 1924 Royal Cairo text: 

* "The explanatory notes to the Teheran Kadirgali text ... clearly refers to the orthography of the "Ottoman" copies in the way the Egyptians refer to the orthography of the copy of ‘Utman". (Studies..., Ph.D., Brockett, p. 12)

 

* "And a possible new emphasis on the term "bir-rasmil-’Utmani" could be seen to capture the motivation behind the whole new Egyptian Tradition. This was to take it to mean "according to the graphic form of the Caliph ‘Utman" rather than any reference to the Ottoman script." (Studies..., Ph.D., Brockett, p. 40)

It is evident that for many centuries much of Islam had admitted to itself that the best it had of the Qur’an was its texts in "the Ottoman script" - the very thing which the Egyptians rejected in 1924 because of corruption and corrections! I say ‘much of Islam’ since there are those like a Pakistani 

It seems obvious that the issuing of the 1924 Edition was an attempt to leap into Islam’s past so it was "made to appear" to have always been interested in ‘Uthmanic status and purity. However, since the Ottoman empire is said to have begun in 1301 AD, the Ottoman script only came about some time after that. Thus the 1924 Edition was, in reality, a new attempt to take the text back some 1300+ years from 1924 to 640 AD (30 AH), the time when ‘Uthman issued his corrupt texts. 

However such an attempt is an impossibility which begins with the question as to which purported ‘original’ Qur’an are we speaking of ‘restoring’? Was it Form 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7? 

Is what exists even similar to one of the ‘7 Forms’? So few Companion attestations exist and they vary so widely from what is presently accepted as "the graphic form of ‘Uthman" that Islam assures us they are only useful for tafsir. Further to this, they are something Islam admits as unknown to the extent of "35 sayings". 

Neither does Islam have any ‘original’ MSS by which to assess the so-called ‘Uthmanic graphic forms, and a text like the Samarqand disagrees violently with the present "’Uthman’s graphic form"! 

The fact is that the texts of ‘Uthman, themselves full of discrepancies, can never be ‘restored’ to any claimed pre-’Uthmanic graphic form. 

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