Proof of Islam by Abdur-Raheem Green

From: http://www.turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55684

There is a new series of Abdur-Raheem Green called "Proof that Islam is the truth. It consists of 15 parts & leaves no doubt that Islam is from God - please use it as dawah - it's very effective!!! Here is the text of the first 2. Check my posts below for the rest. Insha Allah there'll be a complete series soon 1) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...64317084235735 - Proof of Islam2) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...33037095732725 - Preservation of The Quran3) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...42827890344130 - Oral Transmission of the Quran4) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...59280204476683 - The Preservation of the Sayings of the Prophet (SAAS)5) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...85453318958160 - The Miracle of the Arabic Language 6) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...24689564190559 - Stories of Those Who Heard The Quran7) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...82000573333553 - Embryology8) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...39541429266312 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 1)9) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...17738990716881 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 2)10) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...19879500738454 - Historical Facts 11) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...42048047945656 - Witness of The People of The Book12) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...14393355747579 - Muhammad (SAAS) in the Bible (Part 1)13) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...87470694906693 - Muhammad (SAAS) in the Bible (Part 2)14) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...56966207513103 - Prophecies of the Prophet (SAAS)15) http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...78999449422685 - Signs of the Last Day__________________________________________________ _______P.S.: There may be a few mistakes in the text, especially with Arabic words that are said in English. I would be thankful to you if you correct me ))__________________________________________________ _______Part 1 - Proof of IslamAssalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, all praise is due to Allah, we praise him, we seek his help & we ask for his forgiveness & we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves & from the evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides none can misguide & whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there's none to guide. I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship & that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam is the Messenger of Allah & his true worshiper. My dear listeners, brothers & sisters in Islam, brothers & sisters in humanity, today I'm going to be embarking on a journey, a journey to take you through a very amazing a& interesting topic & that is the proof that Islam is the Truth. And that really is what I'm going to be trying to show to you over the next series of programmes that we can prove that Islam truly is the religion that has been revealed by Allah, the creator of the heavens & the Earth for the guidance & the benefit of all the humanity.Now before of course we actually go into the main topic itself I would like to spend a little bit of time dealing with what may seem to be periphery issues but they are very important. I want to talk about what is proof, what is faith, when I say we can prove that Islam is the truth what do I mean by that? Some people would already look at that as a type of oxymoron. How can you prove a faith to be true? Isn't faith supposed to be something that you believe without proof? Isn't that what the meaning of faith is? So I want to examine that, what is the meaning of faith & what is the meaning of proof. But first of all I would like to mention an ayat of the Quran. The ayat of the Quran is actually, it's not only one ayat, it's something that is repeated again & again in the Quran. So the Quran tells us: Say. If what you claim is true bring your proof, bring your evidence, bring your proof, if you are making a claim about Allah, if you are making a claim about anything in fact, what is upon you & what is an obligation upon you is to bring your "burhan", your proof, your evidence. And this is something that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah mentions many-many different times in the Quran. In other words it is not enough just to make a claim, you have to prove your claim. And this is something that the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he also mentioned that the proof is upon the claimant, the person who is making a claim has to prove it, because otherwise we would claim the blood & the property of each other. And this is the reality. So I'm sure that every single one of you is familiar with this in your daily life. For example if someone comes round to check your electricity meter or to check your gas meter if you have such a thing, or your water meter if you have such a thing, then that person would usually be wearing a uniform or they will usually carry an identity card. If that person came knocking at your door dressed like someone from the Hell's angels' motorbike club with you know long hair & I don't know leather jacket & with you know love & hate tattooed on his fist, you, I don't think you would be letting that person in your house. Rather you would say: "You know what you stay right where you are cause you are not coming at my house & checking out my house & seeing what's in there" because what you are thinking: "Oh. this person is now going to come, this person is now going to rob me, this person is going to come in my house & steal everything." So if someone is coming to check the utility bills you want to see an id, you want to see the person wearing a uniform before you let that person in your house. In other words you want some type of evidence that that person is who they claim to be. Similarly in another example if I said today for example all these studios here they don't belong to peace TV, they belong to me, they belong to Abdur-Raheem Green & this is my place & you guys get out, I'm in charge of here now. No one is going to take me seriously. If I go to court & I want to make a claim about something, if I want to claim some place belongs to me, or some property belongs to me, then I have to bring evidence, I have to bring proof, I can't just say: "Well, what's my proof? I believe it, I have faith. You know that's not good enough, no one accepts that type of thing in everyday life. So why should it be any different when it comes to religion? In fact if you think about it, the issues in religion are even more important than these worldly issues. Whether this place belongs to me or belongs to Peace TV, whether someone robs my house or not is very insignificant compared to the consequences of what any religion is saying because religion is talking about the purpose of our whole life, religion is talking not only about the purpose of this life, but about what is going to happen to us in the life to come, the eternity. So therefore is it enough that someone just comes along & makes a claim, someone just says: "Oh, God says this, God says that, you should believe this you should believe that. Surely the logical approach to anyone who makes a claim about God is "bring your evidence if what you say is true" and this is what Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah tells Muslims to say. For example if a Christian comes to us & makes a claim about God that Jesus is God or he is the son of God, or the Bible is from God, well, bring your proof if what you say is true. And this is the same for anybody about anything. It's only a matter of time before a person is going to say: "Well, you know, you Muslims, you claim your religion is from God, you claim your religion is from the Creator, well, you bring your proof if what you say is true. And in fact really that's just what we are waiting for, because we will be more than happy to furnish & to provide the proof to show that Islam is the Truth. And that's what we are going to be hoping to do Insha Allah Wa Ta Allah over with the will of God, over the next few programmes. And that is to really show some & to give a bit of insight into some of the evidences that we can have and that we can show in order to illustrate & to show that Islam really is the religion that has been revealed by Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth. And I say bring evidences because if you open the dictionary & you look at the dictionary "evidence" or the dictionary description of "proof", "proof" actually is a collection of evidences. And when you get enough evidence then you could say that that thing is proven to be true. Because of course on a philosophical level we could say we can't really prove absolutely anything. In an absolute sense you can't prove anything, there is always I suppose a type of room for a little bit of doubt, however small, there's always a potential for some type of doubt. And so what we really mean here when we say "we are going to prove that Islam is the Truth", what we hope to do is to provide so much evidence that a person will not really have any reasonable cause to doubt that thing. It's rather like a court, it's rather like when you go to court for example. Now in the UK for example we have a jury system that means that when a particular case goes before the court the jury makes a decision based upon the evidence in front of them. And that's what they should do. They shouldn't be looking: Oh what is the colour of this person's skin. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is beautiful or ugly. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is rich or poor. No. The way that it should be done is that people should look at the evidence, and they should look at it dispassionately & they should look at it clearly from a type of intellectual unbigoted point of view & so based upon the evidence they make a verdict. They have to make a verdict: "Guilty" or "not guilty". Now ultimately that verdict has to be made, ultimately that decision has to be made: Is the person guilty or not guilty. And that in a sense is what I want to move on to is the actual, what we could call faith. What is faith? What do we mean by faith exactly? Because for some people as I've mentioned, isn't it an oxymoron proving faith, isn't faith supposed to be something that you just believe. Well, that's what we are going to look into. Isn't faith something you just believe or is it something that can actually be proven in some way. Ok, brothers & sisters, we are going to take a break, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi Wa Ta Allah va Barakatu Assalamaleykum. brothers & sisters. Welcome back to "the proof that Islam is the truth" & today we are talking about what is proof & what is faith, & can we prove a religion to be true. Now let’s go back to the issue of faith. What do we mean by faith? Now let's take an example, one of the things I often ask people is "do you believe the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days. And most people I ask this say "yes, we believe that, we do believe that's true". I say "do you believe it 100 % are you absolutely sure, do you really believe it? They say "Yes, we believe it, we are sure it's true, it's a fact". So they call it a fact. Then I say: "Ok, prove it. And it's very interesting how many times I get complete blank expressions. Because although most of us believe that the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days, if we were actually asked to prove it then most of us will not be able to do that. That doesn't mean that we don't believe this thing based upon some good reasons, & of course the reasons that we believe that is because well, for example, the scientific community, scientists have examined certain things, they've come up with certain theories & they have made certain observations. So based upon those theories & those observations of those theories in practice & so many scientists have observed these things so many times than they consider it to be a fact they consider it to be something that is proven to be true. But of course most of us ourselves couldn't really prove it, we wouldn't really know what exactly is the evidence we might have some type of idea, but we have faith in the scientific community, we have faith in science because, look at what science has done, look what science has produced, so there are many reasons so that we might have faith in something & this is a type of faith, it is a faith in science, it's a faith in the teachings of science. It's may be not what we are used to in terms of religious faith, but it's still a belief, it's still a type of faith. And therefore when it comes to Islam, when it comes to the teachings of Islam, when it come to our topic here "the proof that Islam is the truth", the evidences that we can accumulate, to know that Islam is the divine revelation from Allah, then what we are really talking about here is this type of faith. It's the same type of faith when you go to a doctor, & you know you put your faith & your trust in a doctor, & you know he examines you, & he looks at you, & you believe that because he is the doctor, you trust him because he's the doctor, because he studied, because he's got knowledge, you trust & you believe that his diagnosis is going to be accurate & is based upon some information. And so this is the type of faith that we are talking about in Islam. We don't mean when we talk about faith in Islam, when we talk about belief, when we talk about Iman we don't mean believing something unbelievable something unbelievable without any evidence. No. What we mean in Islam is we are asking you, Allah is asking you to believe something entirely believable. That there is one God, that this universe has one Creator. And you watch my previous series of programmes about the proof of the existence of God which I do encourage you to refer to as an essential part of this, then you'll be familiar with what I'm talking about. So we are asking you, the Islam is asking you to believe that there is one God & to believe that God has sent guidance to a human being Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. And that God has given some evidences through which & by which any reasonable rational person can come to know that Islam is truly the religion that has been revealed by the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all the human beings. And so that is what we are going to be touching upon over this series. These evidences what are they? Now some of these evidences are rational proofs that are connected with what we've already talked about in previous series about the existence of God, but we are not going to be repeating that. What we are going to be going through is some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, we'll be talking about what exactly is a miracle, what do we mean by a miracle exactly, what place does it have in this process of proving & understanding that something is from God & we'll be going through those things to discuss & to understand these evidences. Finally I would really like to finish with a sura from the Quran & it's sura “tobayana” where Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah says never kullilathina kafiru min ahlil kitab wal mushrikina. So never will those people from the ahlil kitab from the people of the book, or the mushrikina, or the people who are making shirk with Allah, they are making partners with Allah whether it is the idol worshipers or the atheists or the pagans or whoever. They will never leave off their disbelief. They are not going to leave off their disbelieving in Allah and they are not following Allah's guidance until there comes to them aldeyana until it comes to them the clear evidence. So this is Allah is telling us something really about the nature of people. People need evidence, they need proof, they need something to make them realise & understand that this thing or such & such thing is true. And what is that proof? Rassula min Allah. A Prophet, a Messenger from Allah. So this is one thing. The Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam himself is of course one of the clear evidences that Islam is the truth. And actually we talked about this already in a previous series of lectures so we won't be repeating that. Rassula min Allah yaklus suhufam mutahara. And that means that he is bringing purified pages. And this here is a reference to of course the Quran & that is something that we are going to be talking about. We are going to be talking about the Quran. This is of course the great miracle that Allah has given to the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the Quran. Thiha kutubun kaima & that means with like the laws that are clear & that are obvious. So this is the other thing. It is the guidance of Islam, the guidance of the Quran that the laws that are there in a religion of Islam. This is another whole topic, my dear brothers & sisters, that we are going to be exploring. Some of the beautiful aspects of the religion of Islam, the Muslim way of life, how we can examine it & how this way of life itself is a type of proof & an evidence that it is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So these are some of the areas that we are going to be examining. We are going to be talking about the Quran, we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran & memorisation of the Quran, some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, for example the amazing scientific facts that are contained in the Quran, the historical information, the facts that are concerning historical events that no one could have known 1400 years ago. Also the prophesies of the Quran & the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, some things the Quran tells us about the future & things that Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam told us about the future, things that he said were going to happen & they happened exactly how the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam said it would happen. Also we are going to be talking about the miracles of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the amazing things that were done by the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam. In addition we'll be talking about the miraculous nature of the Quran, its linguistic miraculous nature, the beauty of the Quran & other amazing facts about the Quran. Also we will be talking about the witnessing of the people of the book. This is some of the very strong evidences that many people from ahlil kitab, from the scholars of the Jews & the Christians have recognised that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam is the messenger of Allah. So Insha Allah we will be mentioning some of those evidences that have been used from the Bible to show that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam has been foretold in the scriptures. And also we will be talking about the stories of some of those people like Abdullah Ibn Salam, one of the Jewish Rabbis of Medina & of course the famous story of Salman Al Farsi which is very-very instructive in that regard. So we'll be talking about some of those things which is a very-very interesting aspect, which is another series of evidences. And that's what we say: we are going to bring these evidences together: the miraculous nature of the Quran, and the linguistic miracle of the Quran, the scientific statements, the historical statement, the witnessing of the people of the book, the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam. really in fact if we look at any single one of these items on, they would be really unique & amazing. But really when we begin to combine them & when we begin to gather them altogether we can see that really we have so many evidences to amass from so many different angles to show that really our claim is not just a claim. It is not just something we are saying based upon just faith as people understand it. No. Really there are many-many good strong reasons to believe that Islam is exactly what it claims to be - the revelation from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all of humanity. And there's something I would like to add, maybe it's not exactly part of our topic but I would like to add it is that evidence is very important for us as Muslims. Whatever you do as a Muslim, whatever you believe as a Muslim, whatever you practice as a Muslim it should be based upon evidence. Our religion is not based upon guesswork, it's not based upon what I think or what I imagine or upon some cultures or some traditions that we may follow. Being a Muslim is supposed to be based upon following the evidence. And the evidence means what the Quran says & what the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam says. So my brothers & sisters we look forward to you in our next programme to continue with this exciting discussion, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi wa ta Allah va BarakatuPart 2 - "Preservation of the Quran"All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, we seek His help & we ask for His forgiveness, we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves & from evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides there's none to misguide & whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there's none to guide. And today over the next series of programmes we are going to be doing our best to prove to you that that is the case, that indeed there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah & that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam is the Messenger of Allah. And today we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran. Now why are we going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran, why is that important & what has that got to do with proving that Islam is the Truth. Well, I think from one angle it's a very important issue, because if we are going to say that one of the evidences that we are going to put forward to show that Islam is indeed from Allah, the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth is the Quran, & the things that the Quran says are a type of or constitute type of evidence. Then a person may quite rightly ask: well, how do we know the Quran is authentic & to be perfectly honest this is one of the issues that Muslims themselves bring up with for example the Bible or the Vedas or the teachings of Buddha or anyone else. One of the issues that we have is that ok, when you claim these things are from this teacher or are from God or whatever, but prove it, how can we be sure that your scriptures are authentic, may be they have been corrupted, may be they have been distorted, may be there is some truth there & some falsehood there. So what we'd like to do today is to do our best to show that the Quran is indeed a book that has been preserved from corruption & from distortion. So this is really a very-very important issue from one angle because then when a person hears that something is from the Quran or indeed for that matter that something is from the Prophet Muhammad & it has been authenticated as being from the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam may God's peace & blessings be upon him, then you then you can be sure that this is something authentic, this is something verified, this is something that has not been changed & corrupted overtime. So this gives us a lot of confidence that what we are mentioning from the Quran is indeed something that is true & something that is correct. So that is what we are going to be dealing with. But Insha Allah before we do that we would just like to recap on something very important that we mentioned in a previous series of programmes. Because ultimately at the end of the day, my dear brothers & sisters, one of the strongest proofs & evidences that Islam is from Allah is what the Quran teaches about Allah. Now we've already mentioned this & we've been through this in another series of programmes. But I want to go through it again very briefly without repeating everything. You see the Quran has a very beautiful teaching about God, & in fact if this was the only thing that the Quran was teaching - the oneness of God, the uniqueness of God, the transcendence of Allah. If this was the only thing the Quran was teaching really for a person who is very logical & rational, & who is really in touch with the nature & the inner selves, then for them that probably would be enough of a proof & evidence that the Quran is from God, because what we find is that nearly every religion in some way or another way distorts the belief in the oneness of God, in some way or another. For example Christianity teaches that there is one God, there's one Creator, who has brought this whole universe into existence in one way or another this idea is corrupted by the idea or the concept that for example as Christianity teaches that God has become man & that somehow Jesus is both human & God. So this is really a corruption & a distortion of the pure teachings of monotheism, because in reality what we find is that this is type of impossibility. How can something be completely human & completely divine at the same time? Because the qualities of true divinity & the quality of true humanity are incompatible. God is eternal whereas human beings are finite, God is self-sufficient whereas human beings are needy. How can something be eternal & be finite at the same time? How can something be self-sufficient & needy at the same time? You see this is t he problem. So any religion that teaches that God is a man or that God is like some created thing, really how can we accept this to be true? Because when its talking about God is already upon a type of corruption & a distortion & a falsehood, whereas Islam is free from this type of thing. The things that Islam teaches about God are really very rational, & very reasonable & this is one of the strongest reasons for believing that the Quran is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So what we want to emphasise upon today, my dear brothers & sisters, may Allah have mercy upon you, may Allah guide us, all of us closer to the truth, is the issue of the preservation of the Quran. Now one of the things that I want to touch upon is the historical evidence of the preservation of the Quran. But another thing I want to introduce is why this is itself a type of miraculous concept, why it is really a type of amazing thing, why the preservation of the Quran itself is one of the proofs or one of the evidences rather, this is more accurate to say, one of the evidences, 'cause proof is one, evidences are many, one of the evidences that the Quran is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth? So lets go into a little bit about the historical preservation of the Quran. Now according to traditional Muslim sources, according to the teachings of the Hadeeth, the teachings of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam & those people who came after him the Sahaba & the tabein. The way that the Quran was preserved, at least in terms of writings, because there are two ways that the Quran has been preserved. It has been preserved partially through writing. Now mostly in Western culture for example a lot of emphasis & a lot of importance is given to the preservation in writing. Whereas in fact it is not necessarily true that something has been written down in a scriptual form & that we have something written down in a scriptural way is necessarily the most authentic thing. Anyway Insha Allah, brothers & sisters we are going to get back to that, that now we are going to have a short break Insha Allah, & I'll be back with you in a few minutes to talk about the historical preservation of the Quran. Salam Alleykum, brothers & sisters, welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & today we are talking about the preservation of the Quran. And I just wanted to read an ayat from the Quran: "Verily we have revealed the thikr, the reminder, which is one of the words for the Quran & verily upon us, Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah is saying upon us is the preservation of it". This is a promise in the Quran that Allah will preserve the Quran. And the reality of the preservation of the Quran is without doubt one of the miraculous aspects of the Quran & one of the proof, the proofs & the evidences that this is from Allah. In fact you will find that nearly every type of book & scripture & writing through time goes through many alterations & distortions & corruptions. Now this may not be the case so much today with the invention of the printing press but of course in ancient times when books were largely transcribed by scribes then there was a lot of opportunity for corruptions & distortions & additions & deletions to take place. Yet throughout 1400 years of Islamic history the Quran has remained the same. In fact it is one of the most remarkable things that you could take a copy of the Quran today, you could take a copy of the Quran today. So for example if we took this Quran here, if we took this Quran here & we looked at the Arabics, this is of course an English-Arabic Quran, but if you looked at the Quran today, & you took this Quran & you compare it with the Quran in Saudi Arabia & you compare it with the Quran in Morocco & you compare it with the Quran in China & you compare it with the Quran in Siberia & even if you went back in history 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 1200 years, in fact the most ancient manuscripts that we have of the Quran day to a time that is almost contemporious to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. It means we have manuscripts of the Quran dating back, all the way back to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. And that the amazing thing is that if you examined these manuscripts you would find that the actual words of the Quran are exactly the same. Ok, the style of writing may be different, the use of certain diacritical marks may be different, but the actual words remain exactly the same. This is a fact. Actually this is one of the greatest arguments against those people who claim, there are some people who are trying to claim that the Quran has evolved, it's an evolved text, they are trying to make the same claims about the Quran that have been discovered about the Bible. But no one or very few people today take these claims really seriously & part of the reason is, is that the shear weight of evidence against such a claim is there. Because we have these texts of the Quran & we have different manuscripts in places like for example Tashkent, we have manuscripts in Cairo, we have manuscripts in Yemen. We have very-very ancient manuscripts that date really to the time very close to the time very close to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Let's go very briefly through the history of the written preservation of the Quran. Now of course during a lifetime of Rasulullah Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam the Quran was never actually collected as one book & the reason for that of course is that as long as the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam was alive it was still possible that some more verses of the Quran would be revealed. However the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he used to recite the Quran from beginning to end every Ramadan & in the Ramadan before he died the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam recited the Quran twice & the angel Gabriel (Jabril) used to come & go through the Quran with the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam in the month of Ramadan. So the Quran was known from Sura Al Fatiha to sura An Nas. It was known by the people who used to memorise the Quran & what was known as the Quran was understood but it was never written down as what is called a Muskaf. They wrote down the Quran in various pieces & fragments but it was never written down as one book. However after the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam died there were what was called the wars of ridda, these are the wars of apostasy when many people began to apostatise & leave the religion of Islam. And there were some wars against those people & those wars many of those people who had memorised the entire Quran who were known as the hufaz, the memorizers or the preservers from "hafith" which means to preserve in Arabic, these people had preserved & memorised the entire Quran in their memory. You will get back to that at a latest age about the oral transmission & memorisation of the Quran but now we are talking about the written preservation of the Quran. So these people many of them were killed in battle so it was said to Abu Bakr, who was the ruler of the Muslims, the first Caliph or the first ruler of the Muslims. Some people said to him: why don't you write down the Quran to make sure that we don't suffer from what the people suffered from who came before us meaning the Jews & Christians from their distortions & their corruptions in the text, because we are afraid if the Hufas are killed in great numbers then may be the preservation of the Quran will not be maintained. Anyway there was some dispute about this because some of them said well how can we do something that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam never did. But they agreed & Omar & Abu Bakr having discussed it with each other they agreed & the companions had agreed that this was a good idea. So what they did is they got someone called Zeid Ibn Thabit. They got him to organise this collection of the Quran & with the agreement of those people who were the Hafaz who were still living they agreed to collect the Quran & to write it as one Mushaf from the beginning to the end. And they got an unanimous decision about that, in fact they got an agreement on every single ayat, two people, a minimum of two people had to agree. Every single ayat of the Quran they had to agree that this was the right ayat & it was in the right place also. So this was the first Mushaf & it stayed with Abu Bakr & then when Abu Bakr died it was given to Omar, & when Omar died he gave it to his daughter Hafsa. Hafsa was also one of the wives of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Now after the death of Omar the Islam had spread over many-many different lands. Islam had entered into Persia, it had entered into Egypt, & there were so many people becoming Muslim. Now some of the people began to argue with each other about the reading of the Quran, because the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, & it's very important, he had allowed the Quran to be read in seven different dialects. there were seven different dialects, they were all considered to be the Quran & the Prophet allowed the reading of the Quran in those seven different dialects. However some of the people who read it in one dialect began to argue with those who read it in another dialect and they were saying: "our reading is the right reading & your reading is the wrong reading" & vice versa. And they nearly came to blows over this issue. So one of the generals came to Othman Ibn Athan & said: look, this is a problem. Let us unite the people under one reading, & this way we will avoid deception & controversy." So Othman he said: "Ok, this is a good idea. What we will do is we will unite the people under the reading of the Qurashi dialect." the Qurashi dialect was the dialect that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam he used to use the most often. Ok, this was the dialect, the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam himself used to use. So once again he ordered a compilation of the Quran. And who did he get? The same Zeid Ibn Thabit, he got the same Zeid Ibn Thabit to make the compilation of the Quran & once again he got a total agreement for each ayat a minimum of two people had to agree about this ayat that it was correct & that its placement in the Quran was correct & once again they made a compilation of the text of the Quran. Then they compared this new compilation with the compilation that had been made by Abu Bakr & they found that the two corresponded exactly. They were both corresponding exactly one with the other. So then Othman ordered that every copy that people had made & every writing that people had made of the Quran should be destroyed & the way that they destroyed it was by burning it. Ok? This was considered to be a clean & pure way to destroy the text of the Quran. Not like in may be in Western culture these days you know when they want to get rid of books they burn the books as a type of protest. No. This was considered to be a clean way to dispose of the Quran. So every Quran they had was either washed as the Mushaf that was given to from Abu Bakr & Omar to Hafsa, it was actually washed clean. And every type of copy of the Quran was destroyed except this what is called as Imam manuscript, that was the Imam Manuscript compiled by Othman under the supervision of Zeid Ibn Thabit. And from that seven copies or may be nine copies were made. So from that Imam Manuscript seven or nine copies were made & these copies were distributed all over the Muslim world at the time. And every Quran therefore had to be an exact replica & exact copy of those Qurans. So we still have according to many experts in the field, we still have two or three of those original manuscripts existing that was compiled in the time of Othman Ibn Athan which is only some twenty years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. And as I said you can go anywhere in the world today & you can take a copy of the Quran & you can compare it with one with Qurans anywhere. And you can go back in history 300, 400, 500 years & you can compare those Qurans then with the Qurans that we have today & you will not find they are different, not by a word, not by a letter. So this is a fact. This is a fact & this is really an astounding miracle of the Quran that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah he said that "verily we have revealed the Vikr, the reminder & upon us is the preservation of it." So this is the way that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah in his infinite wisdom has preserved the Quran. What is important here for the rest of our discussions in the series to come is of course that when we are referring to the Quran we are referring to a document that is verified & certified to be authentic. It is something that we do not differ about. All the different Muslim sects, all of us, we agree upon one single text of the Quran. And we have agreed upon one single text of the Quran for 1400 years. So this is a book that is preserved, this is a book that is authentic, this is a book that we can trust in & that we can trust in & that we can believe in, & this is Insha Allah what we will be discussing later in future programmes, the next one is "the oral preservation of the Quran" until then Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings of Allah be upon all of you.
__________________My prayers and my rites, my living and my dying are for Allah alone the Lord of all the worlds