Sources and names › Scholar › Dr Shehzad Saleem (guest)
ScholarDr Shehzad Saleem (guest)
Cited in 27 segments across 3 recordings · 2020 to 2021 · scholar/scholar:shehzad-saleem
Citing segments
Newest first. Each opens the whole segment, not a bare quote.
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Will you invite Javed Ahmad Ghamidi onto Mind Trap?
Mufti Abu Layth says, as his personal view, that Ghamidi himself is down to earth, but the team around him is protective and hard to reach; Dr Shehzad Saleem is the exception.
machine8 min 05 s2:11:08on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Muslims always see the Quran as God's word in the form of a book?
The guest argues that the idea of the Quran as God's literal words in book form was not held by all Muslims historically, and that the Quran presents itself as a series of oral revelations manifesting a heavenly writing.
machine6 min 11 s7:40on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Opening: audio check and introducing Dr Shehzad Saleem
Housekeeping before the conversation: an audio check, then the introduction of the guest, Dr Shehzad Saleem, a specialist on the compilation and variant readings of the Quran from Ghamidi's institute.
machine2 min 38 s0:18on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Dr Shehzad Saleem come to research the history of the Quran?
Teaching the history of the Quran at Al-Mawrid in 1999, the guest was shocked by questions in the Muslim sources themselves: multiple extant readings, reports of a lost rajm verse, compilation by two witnesses, differing companion codices and the Shia account. His book is the result of the quest that followed.
machine7 min 36 s4:02on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Quran preserved exactly as it was revealed?
The guest says the Quran is preserved absolutely, dot for dot and in the revealed order, and that the other readings need a separate explanation; preservation in its original language is what distinguishes it from the Bible. His view develops Farahi's thesis as transmitted through Islahi and Ghamidi.
machine6 min 33 s13:10on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How was the Quran preserved: by memory or in writing?
The Quran was preserved primarily by thousands of companions memorising it and passing it on generation to generation, which is what tawatur means; writing was secondary and always needed a hafiz's testimony.
machine3 min 55 s17:05on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet leave a written Quran, and what did the caliphs really do?
At the Prophet's death the Quran lived in the community's recitation, teaching and notes; he deliberately left no official codex. The caliphs merely spread copies, and the guest says the Bukhari narratives about their compilation are weak in chain and content.
machine3 min 57 s21:00on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where do the variant readings of the Quran come from?
The guest says the Quran was revealed chronologically and then recompiled in a new divine order, as 75:16-19 describes; remnants of the earlier recitation kept by the companions are the biggest source of the qira'at. The final order was fixed when the Prophet revised the Quran twice with Jibril in his last Ramadan.
machine3 min 57 s24:57on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the earlier recitation and other readings get mixed up with the Quran?
The guest names four sources of the variant readings: remnants of the earlier revelatory sequence kept by the companions and later blurred with the Quran under al-Shafi'i's scholarly transmission, the mixing of similar passages, companions' explanatory synonyms taken as readings, and fabrication in the second and third centuries.
machine7 min 53 s28:54on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith that the Quran was revealed in seven ahruf authentic, and what does it mean?
The guest says the seven-ahruf hadith is ambiguous, as al-Suyuti admitted, that its forty-odd interpretations are inconsistent and its versions unsoundly reported and contradictory, so they cancel each other out. He refrains from guessing what the Prophet originally said.
machine5 min 12 s38:06on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Muslim scholars record disagreements about the Quran's text rather than hide them?
The guest says the scholars transmitted the variant reports out of sheer honesty, just as they preserved and marked scribal errors in the mushaf, and that variation was inevitable once the revealed sequence was rearranged. Mufti Abu Layth notes in passing that he agrees with Ghamidi that there is no second coming of Jesus.
machine5 min 16 s44:35on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What was the qira'a al-'amma, and why does Morocco recite a different reading?
The common reading of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali and the companions, al-qira'a al-'amma, is the mushaf we have, while the other readings stayed in scholars' books; Morocco reads Nafi' only because a third-century ruler imposed it on account of Imam Malik's preference. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the early generations were more secure in their faith than later, institutionalised Islam.
machine5 min 14 s48:32on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did the seven canonical readings of the Quran come about?
In the second and third centuries leading reciters were given the privilege of ikhtiyar, choosing one of the inherited variants for each verse by their own criteria, and Ibn Mujahid later popularised seven of them. Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees these readings are not mutawatir and not on the level of the common reading.
machine5 min 16 s53:49on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did the reading of Hafs from Asim become the standard Quran?
The guest relays Ghamidi's thesis that Hafs alone transmitted the common reading without adding his own choices, so his reading coincides with the original. The seven-ahruf hadith was taken as licence for the reciters' choices, and Ibn Mujahid's seven prevailed through his standing and state position.
machine5 min 13 s57:45on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If Quraysh did not pronounce the hamza, why does the Hafs reading of the Quran?
The guest says dialect only changes pronunciation, not the word, and such variation was permitted, while the claim that Quraysh had no hamza is itself unproven. Mufti Abu Layth says he had concluded that the Quran came in a standardised formal Arabic that used the hamza.
machine6 min 31 s1:04:16on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do the early manuscripts with different words undermine the preservation of the Quran?
The guest says such manuscripts were bound to exist once people wrote down the readings, and that a reading needs correct Arabic and a chain to the Prophet, with ijtihad only in preference. Mufti Abu Layth adds that the harshest critics of the readings were Muslim grammarians of Basra such as al-Mazini, until later grammarians like Ibn Malik embraced them.
machine6 min 30 s1:10:45on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Isn't it too convenient that the one preserved reading is exactly the Hafs Quran we have?
Mufti Abu Layth states his own view that the Quran was always dynamic and allowed some flexibility of wording, as Imam Malik and al-Shafi'i held companions could substitute words. The guest answers the convenience objection by saying the reasoning, not the result, should be judged, and that later scholars missed the verses of al-Qiyamah because of a flawed report from Ibn Abbas and a hadith-centric mindset.
machine5 min 12 s1:18:35on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where does the claim that the Quran is preserved to the very dot come from?
Mufti Abu Layth says the slogan that the Quran is preserved to the very dot is not traditional but a creed cemented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when religious people entrenched themselves in fundamentalism against modernity and colonialism. Early Muslims were comfortable with a Quran that was preserved while allowing variation.
machine3 min 29 s1:21:11on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the guest's approach to the Quran's history just confirmation bias?
The guest says his questions came from the Muslim sources themselves, not from Western scholars, who have merely extracted the same data from Muslim books. Muslims must answer such questions rather than snub them, since the Quran is a book for all mankind.
machine2 min 37 s1:24:40on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If Allah promised to preserve the Quran, why are there variant readings at all?
The guest says Allah preserved his part, the real Quran, and left people the discretion that produced the other readings, just as he allowed hadith to be misreported; the test is in seeking the truth through them. Mufti Abu Layth states his own view that the Quran we have is from an umbrella revelation that allowed variations.
machine3 min 54 s1:27:17on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Was there ever a verse of stoning in the Quran, and does stoning still apply?
The guest says Umar's 'verse of rajm' refers to the muharaba verse 5:33, from which exemplary punishment including stoning derives, and that it still applies to extreme crimes under strict conditions. Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Prophet only condoned stoning from Jewish practice until the lashing verse, and that under Maliki scholars like al-Burzuli the hudud change with the age.
machine5 min 14 s1:31:11on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does a reciter's chain of teachers back to the Prophet prove the Quran's text?
A single chain of huffaz only testifies who taught whom and does not authenticate the text on its own; preservation rests on the vast number of people transmitting the same thing, of which one chain is a drop in the ocean.
machine1 min 06 s1:36:25on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Was Ibn Mas'ud's Quran different from the Quran we have?
No: the guest says the reports that Ibn Mas'ud rejected al-Fatiha or the last two surahs are wrongly ascribed to him, and the major companions vouched for the same Quran, the only traceable dispute being over the word 'qul'. Mufti Abu Layth also says he would not advocate cutting the hand today, since for him the hudud have already changed with the age.
machine3 min 57 s1:37:31on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the variant readings of the Quran come from missing dots and vowel marks?
Partly: the guest says the lack of diacritics let words like ya'lamun and ta'lamun be read either way where both were ascribed to the Prophet, one of several causes he lists. Mufti Abu Layth clarifies that nobody is claiming a verse of rajm exists in the Quran.
machine1 min 19 s1:41:28on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
In what sense is the Quran a miracle?
The guest says the Quran's miracle is linguistic, a composition that cannot be emulated, not mathematical. Mufti Abu Layth adds that for him it is a miracle in the subjective experience of reading it, in its civilisational impact and in its literary symmetry, not in bending the laws of nature or in scientific foreknowledge.
machine3 min 56 s1:42:47on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Which reading of the Quran reached India, Malaysia and Indonesia, and why?
The common reading, later called the reading of Hafs, reached the subcontinent and the Far East through the masses, while the other readings took root only where scholars arrived first. Mufti Abu Layth sums up: the Quran is preserved as the qira'a al-'amma of the Prophet's final recitation, and Hafs coincides with it because he made no choices of his own.
machine4 min 53 s1:46:43on YouTube
19 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Closing: thanks, where to find the book, the guest's contact details and his final message on critical thinking
Closing thanks and practical notes: where to buy the book and its concise edition, the guest's public contact channels, and his final message that Muslims must be seekers of truth who question everything and hold opinions on reasoning rather than dogma.
machine8 min 50 s1:51:36on YouTube