Preservation of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

{{Quote|{{Muslim|5|2286}}| Abu Harb b. Abu al-Aswad reported on the authority of his father that Abu Musa al-Ash'ari sent for the reciters of Basra. They came to him and they were three hundred in number. They recited the Qur'an and he said: You are the best among the inhabitants of Basra, for you are the reciters among them. So continue to recite it. (But bear in mind) that your reciting for a long time may not harden your hearts as were hardened the hearts of those before you. We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara'at. '''I have, however, forgotten it''' with the exception of this which I remember out of it: "If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley, and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust." And we used to recite a surah which resembled one of the surahs of Musabbihat, and '''I have forgotten it''', but remember (this much) out of it: "O people who believe, why do you say that which you do not practise" (lxi. 2) and "that is recorded in your necks as a witness (against you) and you would be asked about it on the Day of Resurrection"}}

No copy of the Uthmanic rescension exists despite its centrality as the Ur-Qur'an of all modern readings, so no confirmation is available via comparison with it. A very old palimpset (imprinted scroll which was washed and written over) is extant from Sana'a, Yemen, which contains variants not found in any of the accepted readings of the Qur'an. The Islamic narrative itself comes to us mostly through the hadith tradition, which has been proven since Ignac Goldziher in the 19th century to be unreliable due to the nature of the "asaanid" or chains of authority supporting the hadith and the immense gulf of time between when the hadith were collected and when Muhammad lived. In addition the earliest copies of the Qur'an lack vowel and many diacritic markings, indicating that they were more a guide for memorization than the fully-fleshed out text that is extant today.  

The earliest found copies of the Qur'an do not have diacritical marks, and evidence points to changes made to the Uthmanic recension.<ref name="guardian">{{cite web |last=Taher |first=Abul |title=Querying the Koran |work=The Guardian |date=2000-08-08 |publisher=Guardian News and Media Limited |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4048586,00.html |}}