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Preservation and variant readings
64 segments in 15 recordings · 2018 to 2024 · 0 verified · 19 checked positions · quran/preservation-and-qiraat · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 29 Sep 2024
29 Sep 2024On Current Events
LatestMufti Tariq Masood's remark on scribal errors, and Islam as a deen of mercy
Mufti Abu Layth says there are no mistakes in the Quran's script, but Islam is a deen of mercy, so Mufti Tariq Masood's error should not bring calls for his death.
machine5 min 09 s0:03on YouTube
Earlier answers · 63 · newest first
2024 · 2
29 Sep 2024On Current Events
LatestIs someone who says something wrong about the Prophet guilty of blasphemy?
Not when there was no such intention: Mufti Abu Layth says Mufti Tariq Masood was clearly wrong, but he meant to praise the Prophet, so calling him a blasphemer is unacceptable.
machine4 min 34 s5:12on YouTube
29 Sep 2024On Current Events
Why is lanasfa'an in Quran 96:15 written with an alif, and is it a mistake?
It is not a mistake: Mufti Abu Layth shows from Sibawayh that the emphatic nun becomes an alif when stopping on it, so the alif spelling is the traditional one.
machine6 min 07 s14:51on YouTube
2021 · 1
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why wasn't the Quran compiled as a book in the Prophet's time?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran was written but not bound as a book in the Prophet's lifetime because it was dynamic, allowing variations that did not change its meaning.
machine3 min 45 s1:17:34on YouTube
2020 · 42
10 Dec 2020video
Yasir Qadhi's reply to Jay Smith over 'holes in the standard narrative'
A played clip of Yasir Qadhi answering Christian polemicists who used his 'holes in the standard narrative' remark, calling them unqualified and likening variant readings to accents.
machine6 min 58 s0:00on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Is Jay Smith a reliable critic of the Quran's preservation?
No: he agrees with Yasir Qadhi that Jay Smith and David Wood are not clued up and chase sensation, repeating academics' summaries without understanding them.
machine6 min 59 s6:58on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Yasir Qadhi still has not explained his 'holes in the narrative'
Mufti Abu Layth says that the controversy over 'holes in the narrative' is one Yasir Qadhi landed himself in deeply, since he never offered a response or clarity at the time beyond suggesting people take his course. He expects critics like Jay Smith to chase him over it because they know he cannot answer it. He jokes at length about Yasir Qadhi wanting Muslims to popularise the word 'ultracrepidarian', saying it shows he has lived most of his life in a library. He says he respects him for saying he holds a different view and for raising awareness that there are some forty views, but is disappointed that in what was meant as his final word he again evaded explaining what he actually believes.
machine5 min 46 s13:57on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Was the Quran always fixed word for word, or was it flexible at first?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the Quran was dynamic in the Prophet's time, with companions allowed to substitute synonyms, and that a fixed vowel-for-vowel text is a modern idea. Writing it down in a worldly script brought its own constraints.
machine8 min 51 s19:43on YouTube
10 Dec 2020video
Can we substitute words of the Quran today as the companions did?
No: the Quran was dynamic in the Prophet's time, but after Uthman's codex and the canonised readings it has reached us fixed, so changing it today would not be correct. He feels word substitution was the original default, not a mere dispensation.
machine6 min 25 s28:34on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it right to attack critics of Islam personally?
Mufti Abu Layth says Mohammed Hijab bears some responsibility for provoking the Quran-tearing, and urges Muslims to attack arguments, not people and their families.
machine5 min 36 s1:35:34on YouTube
19 Aug 2020Responding to Refutations
Introduction: the Quran-preservation debacle and a leaked 2016 email
Mufti Abu Layth introduces a commentary on who leaked a private 2016 email of Yasir Qadhi on the Quran's preservation, an episode he calls a cataclysmic debacle.
machine2 min 34 s0:00on YouTube
19 Aug 2020Responding to Refutations
Who leaked the emails: the missing link revealed
After years of uncertainty over who leaked Yasir Qadhi's email, Mufti Abu Layth says it has transpired that Farid was behind the leak.
machine2 min 37 s2:34on YouTube
19 Aug 2020Responding to Refutations
What did the leak of Yasir Qadhi's emails on the Quran's preservation lead to?
The leak of Yasir Qadhi's emails set off a fitna in which people doubted or left Islam, and Yasir Qadhi's own explanation made it worse. Being clever and well-read does not make someone an academic.
machine3 min 07 s8:46on 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
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What difference does it make that the Quran was first oral and only later written down?
The guest argues that the Mushaf is a secondary product that loses the context and immediacy of the oral revelation, like a printed map compared with live navigation.
machine6 min 59 s13:26on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the 'Book of Allah' the same thing as the written Quran?
The guest argues that equating Kitab Allah with the Mushaf is a later interpretation that downsized the Quran's concept of a transcendent divine writing.
machine5 min 55 s27:58on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Ash'ari view of God's speech really different from the Mu'tazili view?
The guest says the Ash'aris borrowed heavily from the Mu'tazila but differ on whether speech is sounds and letters or meaning; Mufti Abu Layth says sectarian politics produced ambiguous creeds.
machine4 min 07 s46:24on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Were the companions allowed to change words of the Quran, and was that only a temporary concession?
The guest argues the Prophet allowed multiple oral forms of the Quran; Mufti Abu Layth says this dynamism was the Quran's inherent nature, not a temporary concession.
machine6 min 54 s1:03:43on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If the Quran wasn't a book, why is it on a heavenly tablet?
The guest says the one verse on the guarded tablet refers to 'a recitation', not an Arabic text, and that the Quran became Arabic for its audience.
machine1 min 49 s1:35:02on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran abrogate its own verses?
The guest denies abrogation, reading 2:106 as about miracles replaced over time, since ayah in the singular never means a verse. Mufti Abu Layth says he is not against abrogation in principle but that 2:106 does not prove it and that no verse was ever lifted from the Quran.
machine9 min 12 s59:27on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Rashad Khalifa claim to be a messenger of God?
The guest says Rashad Khalifa did claim to be a messenger, not a prophet, commissioned to unveil the miracle of 19, and that the Quran calls Muhammad the last prophet rather than the last messenger. Khalifa held the last two verses of Surat al-Tawba to be interpolations.
machine3 min 55 s1:52:57on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the number 19 structure work in all the readings of the Quran?
The guest says the 19 structure is found in the Hafs reading, where it revealed two spelling errors and two added verses, and that the Warsh reading differs little; he also expresses regard for Ghulam Ahmad Parwez.
machine2 min 35 s2:21:49on 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
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
17 Jun 2020video
What did Yasir Qadhi say to Mohammed Hijab about the preservation of the Quran?
In Mufti Abu Layth's account, Yasir Qadhi said there were 'huge problems' with the preservation of the Quran, discussed only the problem and not the answer, and pointed people to his paid course. Mufti himself says the standard narrative has holes and leaves pressing questions unanswered.
machine2 min 36 s0:00on YouTube
17 Jun 2020video
What should Yasir Qadhi have said about the preservation of the Quran?
Mufti Abu Layth says the mistake was raising the problem in public without any answer: Qadhi should have given some answer, such as saying plainly that the Quran would come out the same as it is today. The fallout, he says, is Qadhi's own fault.
machine6 min 24 s10:24on YouTube
2019 · 15
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
If some hadith are unreliable, doesn't that make the Quran unreliable too?
No: the Quran was passed on en masse as a recited living tradition, so doubts about particular hadith chains do not carry over to it.
machine7 min 37 s1:58on YouTube
28 Sep 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why the Quran could not be corrupted like hadith, and the fashion for chains
Corrupting the Quran was next to impossible because it was recited en masse everywhere; hadith, written down a century later, were easy to fabricate, and chains for the Quran came later as a fashion.
machine10 min 59 s12:47on YouTube
14 Sep 2019video
How do I answer Christians who say the Quran could be corrupted like the Bible?
Earlier revelation was not like the Quran: the Quran is a recitation meant to be preserved word for word, while the Torah was a message and laws and the Injil was the good news Jesus preached.
machine8 min 16 s0:39on YouTube
14 Sep 2019video
If God knew earlier scriptures would change, why not send the Quran first?
The earlier prophets were sent only to the Israelites and their books were never meant to be preserved word for word, so the question rests on a misunderstanding.
machine1 min 55 s11:21on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What are the Sana'a manuscripts and how were they discovered?
The Sana'a manuscripts are parchment pages of the Quran, including much of Surat al-Tawba, found in the 1970s in the loft of a mosque dome in Sana'a, where old sacred texts had been stored and forgotten. Storing texts this way was a common practice.
machine2 min 36 s0:00on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why does the Sana'a manuscript have two layers of text?
The Sana'a parchment is a reused sheet: an earlier Quranic text was wiped and written over, as was common before paper, and modern imaging has recovered the lower text. That lower text differs in some ways from the Quran as read today.
machine2 min 34 s2:36on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Who has studied the Sana'a palimpsest and what is the controversy about?
The Sana'a manuscript is a palimpsest studied by the Puins, Asma Hilali, Sadeghi and Goudarzi, and people online have used it to claim that the Quran Muslims have is not the original. Mufti Abu Layth sets out to answer that claim.
machine2 min 37 s5:10on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Sana'a manuscript show that the Quran was changed?
The Sana'a manuscript and others such as the Birmingham manuscript date to the first century of Islam, when the Quran was the one text Muslims documented and taught everywhere. The Quran was too widespread and too distinctive in style to corrupt profitably, which is why fabrication targeted hadith instead.
machine5 min 15 s7:47on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did the companions ever read or understand the Quran differently from each other?
Muslims already accept that the Quran was revealed with fluidity: the Prophet approved different recitations, and the tradition openly records companions such as Ibn Mas'ud holding mistaken views about what was part of the Quran and pronouncing letters by their tribal dialect. None of this is a shock to Muslims.
machine3 min 54 s13:02on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Why might an early Arab have written a Quranic word differently?
The companions spoke classical Arabic as their everyday language, so substituting a word from memory was far easier for them than for later Muslims who memorise Quranic Arabic as a separate language. Tribal pronunciation differences were known and are not the issue; the general transmission is.
machine2 min 38 s16:56on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Was the Sana'a palimpsest an official copy of the Quran or someone's personal notes?
The lower text contains notes such as 'do not say bismillah here' before Surat al-Tawba, which shows it was someone's personal script, as Asma Hilali argues, and not a standard copy sent out to communities. Mufti Abu Layth finds no evidence for the Puins' view that it was official.
machine2 min 33 s19:34on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What are the differences between the Sana'a lower text and today's Quran?
The lower text differs from today's Quran in twenty to thirty mostly small ways, such as a missing word or a changed pronoun. Mufti Abu Layth's assessment is that it is one person's, possibly a companion's, personal notes written from a mistaken or personal reading.
machine2 min 36 s22:07on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
How did Uthman standardise the Quran, and does that explain the Sana'a text?
Uthman locked in one reading in an undotted script that still allowed the known variant readings, so the lower text is either a person's mistaken note or, less likely, a reading not locked in at that time. Mufti Abu Layth prefers the first, as simple human error from memory.
machine3 min 56 s24:43on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Sana'a manuscript prove the Quran evolved over time?
The discrepancies in the Sana'a text are petty changes of pronouns and dropped words that serve no purpose, so they cannot be a deliberate evolution of the Quran, which nobody would have risked his life for. They are most likely a writer's mistaken notes.
machine3 min 56 s28:39on YouTube
1 Mar 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Does the Sana'a manuscript support or undermine the Muslim account of the Quran's history?
The Sana'a find confirms the traditional account: a first-century Quran, companions who sometimes erred as the hadith say, and Uthman's standardisation of one reading. The largest discrepancy is a dropped word that exists elsewhere in the Quran.
machine4 min 08 s32:35on YouTube
2018 · 3
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
What did Yasir Qadhi write in the leaked emails about the Quran's preservation and the theological schools?
In emails leaked by Dawah Man, Qadhi wrote that the letter-for-letter account of the Quran's preservation cannot stand and proposed discarding the theological schools to rethink kalam from scratch. Mufti Abu Layth reads this as a radical reinterpretation from the man now condemning them.
machine3 min 59 s24:51on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Does Sahih al-Bukhari say the Prophet forgot verses of the Quran and that there was a verse of stoning?
Two Bukhari reports have the Prophet forgetting a verse of the Quran and Umar speaking of a verse of stoning that they used to recite. Mufti Abu Layth says there is no such verse, that this disrespects Umar and the Prophet, and that it implies the Quran has changed.
machine5 min 13 s5:10on YouTube
15 Mar 2018Responding to Refutations
Does 'before his death' in Quran 4:159 refer to the return of Jesus?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says early authorities including Ibn Abbas, Mujahid and al-Dahhak read the pronoun as the Christian who realises the truth at death, and Ubayy ibn Ka'b's recitation has 'before their death'. Referring it to Jesus's return would exclude every Christian who died over two thousand years.
machine2 min 35 s7:51on YouTube