This was somewhat obscured in the Quran section and I copied it here to increase exposure for the benefit of browsing Muslims. I will also consolidate and add portions of the rest of the thread it came from.
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2576.0The motivation for including it here is to help Muhammad's followers understand some of the deception they have been brainwashed into believing:
The Quran is a recited book, it is poetic, mathematically precise with rhythm and tone, the writing of its verses is immaterial to the word and merely a simplification for the purposes of teaching it. The miracle of the Quran is that an illiterate person can learn it by heart and thus preserve its integrity. The preservation is the words of the Quran itself as changing even one dot would change the tone, sound, meaning and context in some instances and therefore corrections are spotted immediately.
Since the early Qurans were penned in the classical Arabic language which is not the modern Arabic of today his claim would seem quite demonstrably to be false. In fact
one of the things classical Arabic specifically lacked was DOTS over the letters that he references, which makes the meanings of words considerably and specifically ambiguous! Which would probably have a lot to do with the fact that
in the oldest Quran, about one out of every five verses, simply don't make sense! From this Wikipedia article:
"The scriptures
were written in the early Hijazi Arabic script, matching the pieces of the earliest Qur'ans known to exist."
Wikipedia on Hijazi script"Hijazi script, also Hejazi; Arabic: خط Øجازي‎ ḫaá¹á¹ ḥiǧÄzÄ«, literally "
Hejazi writing", is the collective name for a number of early Arabic scripts that developed in the
Hejaz region of the Arabian peninsula, which includes the cities of Mecca and Medina. As the name suggests, it is associated with the Hejaz region of Arabia. This type of script was already in use at the time of the emergence of Islam. It was one of the earliest scripts, along with Mashq and Kufic.
The script is notably angular in comparison with other Arabic scripts and tends to slope to the right.
The script does not yet contain any dots or diacritical marks: only the consonants are represented.
(image of: "An Early Qur'anic Manuscript (1st century Hegira / 8th century AD).")
MÄʾil (="sloping") script is a calligraphic Hijazi script found in a number of the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts. The two terms are often used interchangeably."
Yet in typical forum Muslim fashion what does our friend say about the leading German expert, that was
hired by the Yemeni government specifically because of his expertise, in ancient manuscripts? Described as: ".....a German scholar and an
authority on Qur'anic historical orthography, the study and scholarly interpretation of ancient manuscripts. He is also a
specialist in Arabic paleography."
Hi Peter it is answers like this that tells me that your or your Yemeni expert know very little of Islam and that you understand even less of scripture.
Yet do we have to wonder why all of the various versions were collected up and burned on two separate occasions, except for a preferred version, by both Bakr and Uthman. With Uthman having had to sit down and do some serious editing.
From Islam Reviewed:
"When the compilation was done, it was kept by Abu Bakr until his
death. His successor, Umar, then took custody of it. Afterward, it came
into the possession of Hafsa, one of Muhammad's widows (a daughter of
Umar).1 The companions of the prophet also did their own compilations
and produced other manuscripts for use in various provinces. There were
four rival provinces, each using a different text of the Koran.2
During the reign of Khalif Uthman (the third Khalifah), reports
reached him that in various parts of Syria, Armenia and Iraq, Muslims
were reciting the Koran differently from the way it was being recited by
Arabian Muslims. Uthman immediately sent for the manuscript in Hafsa's
possession and ordered Zaid Ibn Thabit and three others, Abdullah Ibn
Zubair, Said Ibn Al-As and Abdullah Al-Rahman Ibn Harith B. Hisham to
make copies of the text and make corrections where necessary. When
these were completed, we read that Uthman took violent action
regarding other existing Koranic manuscripts:
"Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they
had copied and ordered that all the other koranic materials,
whether written in fragmentary manuscripts, whole copies, to
be burnt." (Sahih al-Bukhari Vol. 6 Page 479).
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/textual_history_of_the_koran.htmIt's important to understand that the Arabic language did not even exist, prior to the Christian era and there are no written examples from prior to the 4th century AD:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2561.0Video on oldest Quran al-Walid reign 705 to 715 AD - different from Cairo text in use today. Words changed verses and whole chapters rearranged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSEaPxePZchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsh1ZyXnMT4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_R._PuinGerd Rüdiger Puin (born 1940) is a German scholar and an authority on Qur'anic historical orthography, the study and scholarly interpretation of ancient manuscripts. He is also a specialist in Arabic paleography. He was a lecturer of Arabic at Saarland University, in Saarbrücken Germany.
Sana'a Qur'an find
Gerd R Puin photo of one of his Sana'a Qur'an parchments, showing layered revisions to the Qu'ran
Gerd Puin was the head of a restoration project,
commissioned by the Yemeni government, which spent a significant amount of time examining
the ancient Qur'anic manuscripts discovered in Sana'a, Yemen, in 1972, in order to find criteria for systematically cataloging them. According to writer Toby Lester,
his examination revealed "unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment."[1] The scriptures were written in the early Hijazi Arabic script, matching the pieces of the earliest Qur'ans known to exist.
Some of the papyrus on which the text appears shows clear signs of earlier use, being that previous, washed-off writings are also visible on it. In 2008 and 2009 Dr Elisabeth Puin published detailed results of the analysis of Sanaa manuscript DAM (dar al-makhtutat) 01.27-1
proving that the text was still in flux in the time span between the scriptio inferior and the scriptio superior of the palimpsest (Ein Frueher Koranpalimpsest aus San'a', part 1 in Schlaglichter 2008, part 2 in Vom Koran zum Islam 2009, both ed. Markus Gross and Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Verlag Hans Schiler Berlin).
More than 15,000 sheets of the Yemeni Qur'ans have painstakingly been cleaned, treated, sorted, cataloged and photographed and 35,000 microfilmed photos have been made of the manuscripts. Some of Puin's initial remarks on his findings are found in his essay titled the "Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in San'a" which has been republished in the book
What the Koran Really Says by Ibn Warraq.
Assessment of the Qur'anIn the 1999 Atlantic Monthly article referenced below, Gerd Puin is quoted as saying that:[1]
My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants. The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’anic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid. Since the Qur’an claims repeatedly to be clear but is not—there is an obvious and serious contradiction. Something else must be going on.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_R._Puin_________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Koran_Really_SaysWhat the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary (2002) is the title of a book edited and translated by Ibn Warraq and published by Prometheus Books. The book is a collection of classical essays, some translated for the first time, that provide commentary on the traditions and language of the Koran, discussing its grammatical and logical discontinuities, its Syriac and Hebrew foreign vocabulary, and its possible Christian, Coptic and Qumranic sources.
_________________________
Muhammad's followers have gutted and destroyed this Wikipedia article. Before long Wikipedia will be nothing more than another propaganda tool of Muhammadanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_R._PuinHere's what it was reduced to
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerd_R._Puin&oldid=456381351Here is an archived page from the "history" button just before the destruction
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerd_R._Puin&oldid=449535620Later....
I undid the destruction that was done to the page. Everyone should get involved with helping Wikipedia from being victim to Muhammad's followers. That undo only took the push of 3 "undo" links, which I noted in "discussion".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gerd_R._Puin#Destruction___________________________
What Is the Koran?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/01/what-is-the-koran/4024/?single_page=true_____________________
On the Arabic language:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2561.0_______________________
The net effect of allowing words dozens of different meanings cast the Quran into hopeless and irreconcilable confusion and made it's interpretation fair game for whoever followed to interpret it in any fashion they so chose. The kind of confusion Puin described of the Quran and we witnessed once again recently in the forum in the confusion regarding the adult "suckling" hadith.
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2612.0
