The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume I — Page 9
I - Early Sources of Sīrat & Islāmic History 9 Prophet sa himself tried and after finding them completely reliable appointed them to the educational tuition of other companions. 1 Moreover, following the demise of the Holy Prophet sa when the Holy Qur’ān had been brought into book-form, the number of Ḥuffāẓ 2 increased at such an astonishing pace, as in the time of Ḥaḍrat ‘ Umar ra alone, at one place, there were more than 300 Ḥuffāẓ in the Islāmic Army. 3 As a result of these reasons, behind which the hand of divine protection was playing its part, the text of the Holy Qur’ān has been protected from the dangers of distortion and misappropriation since the beginning of Islām. Following this time period, authenticated copies of the Qur’ān were distributed throughout diverse countries and the number of the Ḥuffāẓ grew to such extent as any possibility of distortion was completely uprooted. Both friend and foe has admitted that there is absolutely no doubt or uncertainty in the fact that the Qur’ān present today is exactly that which was revealed to the Holy Prophet sa 1300 years prior, without a single alteration even to a diacritical sign. In this regard, the viewpoints of various Christian research scholars are presented below. Sir William Muir writes: “There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text. ” 4 “To compare (as the Moslems are fond of doing) their pure text, with the various readings of our Scriptures, is to compare things between the history and essential points of which there is no analogy. ” 5 “There is otherwise every security, internal and external, that we possess a text the same as that which Mahomet himself gave forth and used. ” 6 “We may upon the strongest presumption affirm that every verse in the Corân 1 Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, Kitābu Faḍā’ilil-Qur’ān, Bābul-Qurrā’i min Aṣḥābin-Nabī sa , Ḥadīth No. 4999 2 People who have committed the Qur’ān to memory (Publishers) 3 Kanzul-‘Ummāl fī Sunanil-Aqwāli wal-Af‘āl, By Imām ‘Alā-ud-Dīn Al-Muttaqī bin Hassām-ud-Dīn, Volume 1, Part 2, Kitābul-Adhkār, Bābu fil-Qur’ān, Faṣlun fī Faḍā’ilil-Qur’āni Muṭlaqan, p. 124, Ḥadīth No. 4016, Dārul-Kutubil-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut, Lebanon, Second Edition (2004) 4 Life of ‘Mahomet’, Sir William Muir, p. 558, Reprint of the 1894 Ed. , Published by Voice of India New Delhi 5 Life of ‘Mahomet’, Sir William Muir, p. 558 (footnote 1), Reprint of the 1894 Ed. , Published by Voice of India New Delhi 6 Life of ‘Mahomet’, Sir William Muir, p. 561, Reprint of the 1894 Ed. , Published by Voice of India New Delhi