In the previous videos we talked about what Shabir Ally did say concerning the changes in the Qur'an, trying desperately to slough these changes off as nothing which would impinge on any beliefs, practices or doctrines. I now want to talk about the other 10 minutes of his talk, and refer to those 'Elephants in the Room' which he didn't want to talk about.
Shabir talked about the 'Ahruf' (defined by him as 'dialects') which are to be expected in a recited text, as long as they didn't change any doctrines (i.e. such as adding another god to the 'oneness of god'). And then he admitted that the precise words or wording were not important, as long as the message remained in tact. How many Muslims would agree with that?!
Later he even admitted that the wording was being diluted and corrupted, so that it had to be rewritten at the time of Uthman in 652 AD, by Muhammad's secretary, Zaid ibn Thabit. Why this secretary hadn't written it down to begin with, while Muhammad was living was not explained by Shabir.
Nonetheless, Zaid ibn Thabit, according to Al Bukhari 6:509-510 finally wrote it down 20 years after he had first compiled it (under Abu Bakr, in 632 AD), proving in both occasions that recitation wasn't good enough, as it could be open to corruption...and indeed was during the time of Uthman.
What is odd is that Uthman demanded that the Qur'an be rewritten in the 'Quraishi' dialect...but that would require vowels and dots, none of which existed in the mid 7th century! Shabir didn't pick that up, nor does anyone else seem to understand this. How can you write a dialectical text in Arabic at a time when the very vehicle to delineate those written dialects had yet to be invented? That wouldn't happen for another hundred years, which is why Al Buhkari thought this was all that was wrong, redacting a problem which would exist in his 9th century environment back to the 7th century.
Once Thabit had written that final text, Uthman then had all the other written manuscripts which disagreed burned, proving that these corruptions which had infiltrated the Qur'an at his time were not differing recitations, but completely different written Qur'ans!
Once again Shabir didn't respond to this problem, continuing to state that these were only recitation differences. How can you burn oral recitations...by burning someones mouth?
And then Uthman took that final copy and copied it out either 4-9 times and sent it out to every one of his provinces, which means there should be at least 4-9 existing copies of that original Qur'an in existence today...so where are they? All of the cities he sent it to (except for Jerusalem) have always been under Muslim control, and still are...so why can't they find even one complete copy of the this canonized text anywhere in the world today?
Once again Shabir was silent...stating simply that these changes had only to do with Ahruf, or Qira'at changes, in other words, different readings, or different recitations, and nothing to do with the skeletal (Rasm) consonantal text.
This, then is the 'elephant in the room' which no Muslim, including Shabir Ally, wants to talk about.
© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020
(28,710) (Music: "small adventure", by Rafael Krux (from filmmusic-io - License CC BY)
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