The true fact of the matter is that many non-Muslim scholars from
different backgrounds and academic affiliations, some of whom are devoted,
or even zealous, Christians, have acknowledged, in their academic studies
which were written mainly for a non-Muslim, western audience, that the
Qur’anic text was transmitted faithfully from the time of the prophet of Islam
to all the subsequent generations. Here are some of their testimonies:
1. William Muir, a Scottish Orientalist, elected principal of Edinburgh
University and president of the Royal Asiatic Society, whose books are
one of the main sources of the distortion of the image of Islam and its
prophet in modern Christian polemic studies, writes, “The recension of
Othman has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has
it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance, we might
almost say no variations at all, among the innumerable copies of the
Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islam.
Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of
Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet,
have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but ONE CORAN has
been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in
every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable
proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of
the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work
which has remained twelve with so purea
2. Georges-Louis Leblois, a French pastor and author, stated that, “Le
Coran est aujourd hui le seul livre sacré qui ne présente pas de variantes
notables.”
3. Kenneth Cragg, the Anglican priest and prolific scholar, reported
that “the consensus of view—Shi‘ahs excepted—is that the Qur’an as it
stood in recension omits no significant and includes no
extraneous material. The Prophet's death had decisively closed the
4. Bosworth Smith, a Catholic historian and biographer, stated in his
provocative book, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, “We have a book
absolutely unique in its origin, in its preservation, and in the chaos of its
contents, but on the authenticity of which no one has ever been able to
cast a serious doubt.”
5. Philip Hitti, a Maronite Christian from Lebanon and a leading
scholar of Arabic Studies in the United States, states that “Modern
critics agree that the copies current today are almost exact replicas of
the original mother-text as compiled by Zayd, and that, on the whole,
the text of the Koran today is as Muhammad produced it. As some
Semitic scholar remarked, there are probably more variations in the
reading of one chapter of Genesis in Hebrew than there are in the entire
6. Stanley Lane Poole, a British orientalist, who was Professor of
Arabic studies at Dublin University, wrote, “It is an immense merit in
the Kur-an that there is no doubt as to its genuineness [...] that very
word we can now read with full confidence that it has remained
unchanged through nearly thirteen hundred years.” ‘
7. John Burton, professor of Arabic at the University of Edinburgh,
says in the closing sentence of his magnum opus, The Collection of the
Qur’an, that the Qur’an as we have it today, is “the text which has come
down to us in the form in which it was organized and approved by the
Prophet [...]. What we have today in our hands is the Mushaf of
8. Denise Masson, French islamologist, said in the introduction of her
French translation of the Qur’an, “Eventually, in spite of these points of
debate, we can say that the text presently in our possession contains the
criteria of a substantial fidelity.” 09
9. Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, the French orientalist, said, “Le
Coran a été fixé, peu de temps aprés la révélation, par un texte authentique
qu'il n'y a aucune raison sérieuse de considérer comme
10. Hamilton A. R. Gibb, one of the leading orientalists of the twentieth
century, writes, “It seems reasonably well established that no material
changes were introduced and that the original form and contents of
discourses were preserved with scrupulous
11. Theodor Néldeke, one of the greatest German orientalists, said in
his book Geschichte des Qorans (History of the Qur’an) that the Qur’an
is spricht demnach dafiir, daB der Text des othmanischen Qoriins
so und treu war, wie man es nur erwarten
12. Richard Bell, a British Arabist at the University of Edinburgh, best
known for his translation of the Qur’an, announced that, “Modern Study
of the Qur’an has not in fact raised any serious question of its
13. Adrian Brockett, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Durham
University and one of the reputed scholars in the field of the early textual
history of the Qur’an, stated in his of Orientalist Misuse of
Qur’Gnic Variant Readings that Muslims kept the Qur’anic text through
all the generations with a high strictness.”!* He declared elsewhere that
“the transmission of the Qur’an after the death of Muhammad was
essentially static, rather than organic. There was a single text, and nothing
significant, not even allegedly abrogated material, could be taken out nor
could anything be put in”?!
14. Neal Robinson, one of the leading British orientalists today and a
senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Leeds, wrote, “In
broad outline the Muslim tradition has met with widespread acceptance
from non-Muslim scholars.””!°
15. Thomas Walker Arnold, an eminent British orientalist, who was
Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental
Studies, University of London, tells us that “there is a general
agreement by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars that the text of this
recension substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of
Muhammad
16. Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, one of the most reputed of Dutch
orientalists, avowed that “all sects and parties have the same text of the
Qoran,”?!®
17. Charles Cutler Torrey, an orientalist and Semitic scholar, stated that
the Qur’an “lies before us practically unchanged from the form which
he himself Muhammad] gave
18. R. V. C. Bodley, the American orientalist, proclaimed, “Today
there is no possible doubt that the Koran which is read wherever there
are Moslems is the same version as that translated from Hafsa’s master
copy.
201 Muir's book was written in the 13th Century of the Hegira.
202 William Muir, Life of Mohamet: from original sources, London: Smith, 1878, appendix, pp.557-58
203 “Qur'an is today the only holy book that does not show notable variants,” Louis Leblois, Le
Koran et la Bible Hébraique, Paris: Fischbacher, 1887, p.54
204 Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964, p.97
205 Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875,
206 Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1937, p.123
207 Edward William Lane and Stanley Lane Poole, Selections from the Kur-an, London: Trubner,
1879, pc
208 John Burton, The Collection of the Qur’an, pp.239-40
209 Le Coran, trad. De D. Masson, editions Gallimard, 1967, p.xl. (this quote is translated into
English by the Christian apologist William F. Campbell, in his published book The Qur‘an and the Bible
in the Light of History and Science, Upper Darby, PA: Middle East Resources, 1986, section: C. variant
readings in the Qur'an and the Bible, Online text)
210 “The was fixed, shortly after its revelation, with an authentic text that there is no
serious reason to consider as corrupted,” Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Les Institutions Musulmanes,
Paris: E. Flammarion, 1921, p.42
211 Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, London: Oxford
University Press US, 1962, p.34
212 “All that was said supports the view that the of ‘Uthmin was complete and loyal to the
highest level that can be expected,” Theodor Néldeke, Geschichte des Qorans, Leipzig: Dieterich, 1919, 2/93
213. Richard Bell and William Montgomery Watt, Bell’s Introduction to the Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1970, p.51
214 See Adrian Brockett, “Illustrations of Orientalist Misuse of Qur’nic Variant Readings,” paper
presented at the colloquium on the study of hadith, Oxford, 1982
215 Adrian Brockett, “The Value of Hafs And Warsh Transmissions For The Textual History of
‘The in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches Of The History of Interpretation Of The Qur'an,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, خم‎
216 Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity, New York: SUNY Press, 1991, p.194
217 Thomas Walker Arnold, The Islamic Faith, Lahore: Vagar Publications, 1983, فم‎
218 Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism: lectures on its origin, its religious and
political growth and its present state, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916, p.27
219 Charles Cutler Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam, New York: KTAV Pub. House,1967, p.2
220 R. V.C. Bodley, The Messenger: The Life of Mohammed, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969, p.235