Let Us Reason - A Christian/muslim Dialogue

Dr Jay and Al Fadi discuss the refutations to Dan Brubaker book: Corrections in Early Quranic Manuscripts.  one of the refutations is by  Hythem Sidky who writes a book responding to Dan's book.  Dr Jay and Al Fadi also talk about the historical problems of the Quran, they give an example from Sura 20 : 85-87,95-97,  where it talks about a Samaritan who lived in the time of Moses and helped the Israelites build the golden calf.  The problem with that story is the time period ; Moses lived in 1400 BC and the Samaritan did not exist until 722BC. In conclusion; having even one mistake in the Quran proves that is not divinely preserved. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue their discussion about the interview that Muhammad Hijab had with Dr Yasi Qadi about the Quran preservation.  Al and Dr Jay mention that most Muslims especially in the East do not cross the line of questioning the Quran.  Dr Yasir Qadi had a crisis of faith "knowledge" when he went to Yale university. The interview caused a lot of Muslims to doubt and leave Islam.  They also talked about Dr Brubaker's work on the early Quranic manuscript in his book" Corrections in Early Quranic Manuscripts" . In his work Dr Brubaker researched and found over 800 - 4,000 differences between the Hafs Quran of today and the early manuscripts.  These corrections was made to fit the Hafs Quran of today. This research had a very damaging result to the belief that the Quran is perfectly preserved.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith listen to a clip of a major interview of Dr Yasir Qadi by Mohammad Hijab on the topic of the preservation of the Quran. In this interview Dr Yasi Qadi admits it is a hard subject to discuss and that it should not be a public discussion.  He also says that it is enough to believe it and not question it. The original interview was done on 6/8/2020. This interview was very damaging to the Standard Islamic Narrative, and in it Dr Yasir Qadi admits that the S.I.N. has holes in it and it does not answer all the questions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing last week's discussion,  Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith say that Ibn Mujaahed chose the seven Kira'at in the tenth century.  The criteria for choosing them was popularity.  Hafs differ from the other Kira'at by 93 thousand dots and vowels.  Therefore the preservation claim does not stand the test.  They give several examples between the Hafs and Warsh: 1. Sura 2:184 ; Al miskeen and Al masaakeen; the first is singular noun and the second is the plural form of the noun. 2. Sura 3:146; the words kaatala (fought) and kutila (killed). These differences have huge theological and practice implications.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi discuss the multiple different Arabic Qurans that a Turkish sister called Hattun found in different Arabic countries starting in 2016.  Dr Jay and Hattun took the Qurans to speakers corner in England where they showed them to Muslims who were shocked to hear and see that, because they have been told by their leaders that the Quran has been perfectly preserved to the letter and the dot.  The Muslim response was that these are different readings for different dialects.  There is five thousand differences between the two major versions which are called the Hafs and the Warsh alone.  These differences do not only change the doctrine and the practice, but also the theology.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue there discussion from  Shoemaker's book Creating the Quran.  They name some scholars  including Montgomery, Patricia Corona and others who point out that Mecca was insignificant and Medina (Yathrib was a small date oasis with few hundred people living there, and there is no mention of Jews living there as the S.I.N. mentions.  They also say that most scholars conclude that the Quran and Islam is not from central Hijaz but from farther north.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue there review of Shoemaker book; creating the Quran.  Today they focus on where was the origin of the Quran.  They say that there was some rock inscription in Northern Arabian not in the Hijaz. Some of the reasons why the inscription doesn't fit the Hijazi dialect of central Arabia are three distinctive features: 1. The distinctive form of the relative pronoun.  2. The distinctive form of the distal demonstrative .  3. the use of the verbal constructive of ya aleph. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue there discussion from  Shoemaker's book Creating the Quran.  They name some scholars  including Montgomery, Patricia Corona and others who point out that Mecca was insignificant and Medina (Yathrib was a small date oasis with few hundred people living there, and there is no mention of Jews living there as the S.I.N. mentions.  They also say that most scholars conclude that the Quran and Islam is not from central Hijaz but from farther north.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue there review of Shoemaker book; creating the Quran.  Today they focus on where was the origin of the Quran.  They say that there was some rock inscription in Northern Arabian not in the Hijaz. Some of the reasons why the inscription doesn't fit the Hijazi dialect of central Arabia are three distinctive features: 1. The distinctive form of the relative pronoun.  2. The distinctive form of the distal demonstrative .  3. the use of the verbal constructive of ya aleph.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Muslims claim that Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, that Mohammad was born there, and that he also received his revelation of the Quran there.  If that is true where is Mecca? Steven Shoemaker in his book Creating the Quran on page114 mentions that there is no mention of a mecca in any of the great civilizations of the time .  Not only that,but another scholar; Patricia Corona said that there were no trade roues going through Mecca on land nor by the coast of the Red Sea bordering Mecca.  Many scholars say that Islam started way north of Mecca and that most Muslim scholars were Persians.  So Shoemaker concludes that Mecca was further north.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This manuscript was found in Damascus and was moved to Germany.  It looks a lot like the upper layer of the Sana manuscript.  There are three reasons why this manuscript is 8th century and not 7th century: 1. The dots , the circles ,and the verse markings suggests that the text is a later text.  2. .  The page layout and illuminations parallels the 8th century manuscripts.  3.  The ornamentations suggests Abd Al Malik and Al Hajjag new distinctive Islamic Arabic manuscripts.  The question is if this text came from Mecca and Medina, what was happening there? Scholars agree that in the 7th century those two cities where very isolated and insignificant.  See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi continue the comparison between the upper and the lower layers of the Sana manuscripts of the Quran with the 1924 Hafs edition of the Quran. They point out differences that changes the meaning of the text; for example Sura  9: 9 in the lower layer of the manuscripts states" the way of Allah while the Hafs Quran of 1924 says 'His way".  Another difference in the upper layer  as an example is Sura 7: 76 "you directed vs he directed" They point out that most of the differences have to do with the diacritical marking which did not exist until the 8th century.  Even with the upper layer of the manuscripts there was no standardized Quran yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay Smith discusses the book that Dr Asma Hilali wrote on the Sana Palimpsest manuscripts.  He talks about the conclusions that she came up with by comparing it to todays Hafs Quran; she says that there are seventy variants in sixty three verses.  She also believes that it is a student text.  Jay says that that shuts down the idea of the preservation of the Quran which both Muslim and the Quran claim ( ie Sura 85: 21,22).  Then Jay and Al discuss some of the differences as examples.  Then they ask the question : Is the Quran perfectly preserved?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Sana manuscripts is a palimpsest manuscripts ; which means that there is a lower and upper layers of writing . Scholars say that the two writings are late seventh and early eighth century respectively.  They think that it is two versions of the Quran; the first is a pre- standard Quran which was erased and rewritten as the canonical version.  On comparing the two writing , it was found that there are seventy variants between the two.  Dr Jay says that the lower text was erased because it needed to be updated.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Sana'a manuscript was discovered in Yemen in 1975, it is very old with no dots and vowels.  It is a palimpsest (It has two layers of writings). It had late 7th to 8th century scripts.  It was carbon tested at the university of Arizona in 2007, and was dated to mid 7th century. The same segment was taken to four Europeans labs and they did not agree with the Arizona dating.  Shoemaker concludes that there is a problem with the carbon dating because the process dates the skin of the animal not the time the writing was written.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay discuss the challenges of carbon dating of manuscripts.  They say that carbon dating gives the age of the material that is written on not the ink.  There is no method found that dates ink because the way ink is mixed to make colors.  Animal skin is costly and it takes time to cure.  Shoemaker argues that carbon dating is not entirely accurate .  That is why scholars had to look at the paleography of the writing which help determine the style of writing and in turn the time it was written.  Shoemaker conclude that the carbon dating supports the Abd Al Malik/ Al Hajaj timing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue to talk about three more major qur'anic manuscripts :4. The BNF/ Petropolitanus manuscripts, and it has three fragments, the largest fragment is 26% of the Quran of today (Hafs). 5. Al Husseini manuscripts in Egypt.  It is very large, and has a lot of taping over words.  6. The Sana manuscripts. It is most recent discovery,  1975 in Yemen.  In conclusion;the six major manuscripts are: Not from the 7th century, none of them are complete, they don't agree with each other or with the1924 Hafs Quran of today, and all have a lot of variants.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Al Fadi and Dr Jay talk about  three Quranic manuscripts:  1. The Topkapi Manuscripts: it is kept in the Topkapi palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey. It is dated to early to mid 8th century due to the presence of vowels and dots.  It is not the private copy of Utthman or one of the copies that he sent to various centers. 2. The Samarkand Manuscript, found in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; it is not a complete manuscript(43 Soras only). It is lazy man manuscript, and was written by scribes who didn't know Arabic .  3. Al Ma'il (slanted) Manuscripts, found in the British museum, and has no vowels or dots which makes it an earlier manuscripts. It is dated to early 8th century.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue discussing Shoemaker's book; Creating the Quran.   Today they are wondering what happened to the Al Hajjaj- Abd Al Malik paradigm. They are not convinced with Shoemaker's answer, but they think it is a political reason since Abd Al Malik is an Umayyad , and the Abbasid came after them.  They continue to talk about another scholar Robert Hoyland who said that none of the previous religions in the seventh century has heard of a book called the Quran.  Then they conclude that the strongest arguments for a later Quran is the manuscripts evidence which they are going to discuss in details in later episodes.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay  continue to discuss the book creating the Quran. Today the focus on    1. The dialogue of Abraham of Tiberias, a Christian, with Amir Abdul Al Rahman Al Hashemi, in Jerusalem in the 9th century, during the Abbasid period,mentioning that Al Hajjaj produced the final authoritative version of the Quran. 2. The Apology of Al Kindy, is another Christin work written during the 9th century that talks about Al Hajaj; under Abd Al Malik; made a substantial changes to the Quran.  Abd Al Malik was an Umayyad  Caliph  during the 8th century who built the Dome of the Rock and Arabized the Quran . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.