Removing Doubts Concerning Verses of Jihad in Quran: Did Hazrat Uthman delete some Quranic Verses? Part 6
By
Kamal Mustafa Azhari for New Age Islam
4
Jun 2021
Translated
from Urdu by Newageislam.com
Why
and How was the Quran compiled Without any deletion or addition?
Main
Points
Allah
Almighty promised to protect the Quran
Preservation
of the Quran in the Prophet’s Time
Collection
of the Quran in the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr
Compilation
of the Quran without any distortion in the time of Hazrat Uthman Ghani
……………
Suspicion
No. 6: Did Hazrat Uthman Ghani delete some Surahs during the
compilation of the Qur'an?!!
Some
sceptics (especially Waseem Rafzi are emphasizing) that Hazrat Uthman
Ghani deleted some Surahs from the Holy Qur'an, which were in the Mushaf
of Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Ubay And if something may be deleted from the
Qur'an, something might also be inserted. So the verses of jihad are the result
of the same increase. For this reason, how can we believe the Qur'an that is
before us today?
And
under the guise of this suspicion, they make an unholy attempt to cast doubt on
the Quran and its divine promise of protecting the Quran.
Let's
give a solid answer to this erroneous suspicion so that falsehood can feel
ashamed when opening its mouth without teeth.
This
suspicion is refuted for several reasons.
1.
Allah the Exalted has promised to protect His Book which was well preserved and
written in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), collected in the time
of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq and was unified without any distortion or
deletion in the time of Hazrat Uthman Ghani.
Why
and how was the Quran collected and compiled?
Allah
Almighty has cleansed His beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) from
forgetfulness. He Almighty says in the Quran,
“We
will make you recite, [O Muhammad], and you will not forget, Except what Allah
should will. Indeed, He knows what is declared and what is hidden.” (87:6-7)
However,
the same divine promise was not made for the companions and their followers.
The Companions and their successors could forget. Therefore, the Qur'an itself
encouraged the early believers to write down, as one of the names of the Qur'an
is "Al-Kitab" which is derived from 'Al-Kitabat' which
requires it to be written.
Therefore,
the Prophet (peace be upon him) commissioned a group of expert Companions for
this great task, so that they could write down and preserve the Holy Qur'an
which was revealed to him.
While
writing down all the Divine Revelations of the Qur'an, a great deal of care was
taken so that the Qur'an and the hadith could not be mixed. This was the reason
that the Prophet initially forbade the writing of his Ahadith [plural of
hadith].
Abu
Sa'id Khudri reported that Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said:
“Do
not take down anything from me, and he who took down anything from me except
the Qur'an, he should efface that and narrate from me, for there is no harm in
it and he who attributed any falsehood to me-and Hammam said: I think he also
said:" deliberately" -he should find his abode in the Hell-Fire.”
(Sahih Muslim 3004).
But
later, when there was no risk of mixing between the Quran and Ahadith,
and the Quran had been preserved in the memories and writings, the writing of Ahadith
commonly started. As for not granting permission in the initial days to write
down Ahadith, this was mainly because of the possible risk of mixture
between the words of the Quran and Ahadith and so that what was not the
part of the Qur'an would not be included in the Qur'an.
When
the caliphate era of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq came, the Companions who had
memorized the Quran began to leave the world. This situation led to the thought
of preserving the Holy Qur'an, which can be gauged from the words of Hazrat
Umar Farooq as recorded in Sahih Bukhari as follows;
Hazrat Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari who was one of those who used
to write the Divine Revelation narrated:
“Abu
Bakr sent for me after the (heavy) casualties among the warriors (of the
battle) of Yamama (where a great number of Qurra' were killed).
`Umar was present with Abu Bakr who said, `Umar has come to me and said, The
people have suffered heavy casualties on the day of (the battle of) Yamama,
and I am afraid that there will be more casualties among the Qurra'
(those who know the Qur'an by heart) at other battlefields, whereby a large
part of the Qur'an may be lost unless you collect it. And I think that you
should collect the Qur'an." Abu Bakr added, “I said to `Umar, 'How can I
do something which Allah's Apostle has not done?' `Umar said (to me), 'By
Allah, it is (really) a good thing.' So `Umar kept on pressing, trying to
persuade me to accept his proposal, till Allah opened my bosom for it and I had
the same opinion as `Umar."
Zaid
bin Thabit added:
`Umar
was sitting with him (Abu Bakr) and was not speaking. Then Hazrat Abu
Bakr said: “You are a wise young man and we do not suspect you (of telling lies
or of forgetfulness): and you used to write the Divine Revelation for Allah's
Messenger (peace be upon him). Therefore, look for the Qur'an and collect it
(in one manuscript). "By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift
one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than
what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an. I said to both
of them, "How dare you do a thing which the Prophet has not done?"
Abu Bakr said, "By Allah, it is (really) a good thing. So I kept on
arguing with him about it till Allah opened my bosom for that which He had
opened the bosoms of Abu Bakr and `Umar. So I started locating Qur'anic
material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, and leaf-stalks of date
palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with
Khuza`ima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with
anybody else, (and they were):-- "Verily there has come to you an Apostle
(Muhammad peace be upon him) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you
should receive any injury or difficulty He (Muhammad) is ardently anxious over
you (to be rightly guided)" (9.128)
The
manuscript on which the Qur'an was collected, remained with Abu Bakr till his
death, and then with `Umar till his death, and finally, it remained with Hafsa,
`Umar's daughter. (Sahih Bukhari 4679) (May Allah be pleased with all the
companions/Sahaba)
InShaAllah we will refute more suspicions
by presenting clear proofs and enlightening arguments so that they can be
useful for the common people.
--------
Mustafa
Kamal Azhari, the son of a popular Sunni debator Allama Sagheer Ahmad
Jokhanpuri, is a classical Islamic scholar (Aalim and Fazil). Presently he is
doing research work in the Faculty of Theology at Al-Azhar University, Cairo,
Egypt.
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Related Article:
Removing Doubts
Concerning Verses of Jihad in Quran: Is Jizya in Islam an act of oppression?
Part 2