The Qur’an You Hold Is Not the Qur’an of the First Century AH

A Forensic, No-Holds-Barred Examination of Manuscripts, Readings, and Standardization

Hook. The standard apologetic claim—“not a dot has changed in the Qur’an since Muhammad”—collapses under primary evidence. Early Qur’anic manuscripts are incomplete, ambiguous, and demonstrably altered; rival text traditions existed; political power intervened to standardize; and the now-dominant edition is a 20th-century Egyptian editorial choice of one canonical reading among many. That is not preservation; that is curation. And curation—especially when coupled with suppression and destruction—cannot be recast as miracle.

This essay lays out the case directly and systematically, from paleography to palimpsests to politics, anchored in the synthesis presented by Gordon D. Nickel in The Gentle Answer (Chapter 18, “Variants in Manuscripts and Readings”). If the premises are true, the conclusion is inevitable: the preservation claim is false.

Primary source used: Gordon D. Nickel, The Gentle Answer (2019), ch. 18 (Variants in Manuscripts and Readings). Book link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/099399721X/ . All factual points below drawn from or explicitly cited in this chapter’s notes to leading scholarship (Déroche, Leemhuis, Small, Sadeghi, Puin, etc.), as indicated by inline markers.

Thesis

The earliest Qur’anic manuscripts are not identical to the Cairo “standard” text.
The writing system used at the outset (scriptio defectiva) ensured massive potential variation before later dots, vowels, and signs were imposed by human editors.
Evidence (including palimpsests) shows real textual differences—omissions, additions, alternate wordings, and variant sūrah orderings—beyond mere vocalization choices.
Canonical “readings” (qirāʾāt) were narrowed by authority across centuries, culminating in a 1924 Egyptian selection of one reading (Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim) that now dominates.
Corrections in early codices systematically trend toward the later textus receptus; political enforcement and manuscript destruction did occur.

Conclusion: The preservation slogan is not supported by the record; it is contradicted by it.

1) No Autographs, No “Uthmanic Codices,” No Identical Text

There is no existing “original” Qur’an (no autographic text-form). The earliest manuscripts known today are already copies; the much-touted “Uthmanic codices” in places like Topkapi/Tashkent fail scholarly authentication. Detailed examination of the famed Topkapi manuscript by Tayyar Altıkulaç showed it cannot be from ʿUthmān’s era (mid-7th century): it contains diacritics inconsistent with the claim that ʿUthmān’s mushaf lacked them; it shows inconsistent spelling, numerous copyist errors, and later features such as verse-ending signs. Scholars date the earliest complete Qur’ans to the 3rd/4th Islamic centuries; for the first two centuries, there are no complete Qur’ans—only fragments and partial codices with contested dates.

Implication: The pious assertion that “we have ʿUthmān’s Qur’an” is not supported. Without autographs or authenticated “Uthmanic” exemplars, the claim that today’s text is identical to Muhammad’s recitations is historically untestable and contradicted by physical evidence.

2) Scriptio Defectiva: The Early Arabic Script Guaranteed Ambiguity

The 7th-century Arabic script was scriptio defectiva—technically “defective” not as an insult but as a description: it lacked the orthographic tools to uniquely encode the language’s sounds. Early Qur’anic manuscripts generally lack diacritical dots (to distinguish letters sharing the same skeleton) and lack short vowels; often hamza, sukūn, tashdīd, and even some long vowels (like alif) are missing. One undotted “tooth” could be b / t / th / n / y depending on later dots; several other shapes have similar ambiguity (e.g., ḥ / kh / j; d / dh; r / z; ṣ / ḍ; ṭ / ẓ; ʿ / gh). Even f and q share a base shape in most positions and differ only by dot count.

In short: the earliest Qur’anic consonantal outlines encode multiple plausible words until human editors supply dots and vowels. Déroche’s assessment is blunt: such manuscripts “simply could not have provided” the solution allegedly sought by ʿUthmān to quell divergent recitations. The text was still “somewhat fluid,” and the “ʿUthmānic transmission was still running along parallel tracks” into the 8th–9th centuries.

Implication: Massive potential variance is baked into the earliest copies by the script itself; later diacritics/vowels are human choices, not neutral reconstructions.

3) From Potential to Actual: Early Manuscripts Show Real Variants

Beyond the inherent ambiguities, early codices show actual differences in the underlying rasm (consonantal skeleton): lack of expected alifs (e.g., in qāla, qālū), orthographic fluctuation in very common words (ʿibād, ʿadhāb, āyāt, shayʾ), and inconsistency even in how “Qurʾān” itself is spelled within a single codex. The well-documented tāʾ / yāʾ prefix ambiguity at imperfect verb beginnings (same undotted form; two dots above vs. two below) yields different persons/genders (she/you vs. he/they)—not a trivial difference. Early Muslim sources acknowledge this ambiguity (e.g., “If you disagree regarding yāʾ and tāʾ, write it with yāʾ”). Scholarly analyses (e.g., Younes on Q 100 and Q 79; Bellamy’s emendations like ḥiṭṭa→khiṭṭa) highlight how small dotting changes materially alter readings.

Implication: Variation is not confined to “harmless” pronunciation; it includes morphological, lexical, and syntactic divergences traceable to the rasm and the late addition of dots/vowels.

4) The Smoking Gun: Palimpsests (Ṣanʿāʾ 1) Reveal a “Different Qur’an”

The Ṣanʿāʾ 1 palimpsest (erased underlying Qur’anic text overwritten by a different Qur’anic text) is pivotal: the scriptio inferior displays different sūrah sequences and textual differences—including omissions (e.g., omission of Q 9:85) and additions (e.g., extra words at Q 24:10)—that fall outside the later standard text type. Scholars closest to the evidence describe the undertext as “a different Qur’an” belonging to a different textual tradition from the ʿUthmānic line. Additional palimpsests (e.g., “Bonham’s” and “Fogg’s”) show omissions, alternate words/orders, orthographic variants, errors, and corrections beyond simple vocalization differences.

Implication: The historical landscape included materially divergent Qur’anic texts, later overwritten/suppressed. That is the opposite of perfect preservation.

5) Qirāʾāt: From Many Readings to Fourteen… to One (1924 Cairo)

Early Muslim literature freely discusses variant readings across a spectrum: different pronunciations, case endings, verbal forms, synonyms/near-synonyms, and interpolations of whole phrases. The famous “seven aḥruf” tradition was widely understood to underwrite such diversity. For centuries, numerous readings circulated; by the 10th century, Ibn Mujāhid (d. 936) restricted acceptable readings to seven (later expanded to fourteen, each with two riwāyāt), with enforcement under the Abbasid vizier Ibn Muqla (d. 940).

Crucial modern pivot (often unknown to lay apologists): In 1924, al-Azhar chose one reading—Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim—as the basis for the Egyptian government’s printed Qur’an. That version became globally dominant under Ottoman and 20th-century influence, not by a miracle in the 7th century, but by editorial selection and state diffusion in the 20th.

Implication: Diversity → curation → restriction → modern single-reading dominance. That is editorial history, not immutable preservation.

6) Standardization by Power: Burning, Bans, Trials, and the “Cairo Drift”

Muslim sources themselves narrate political standardization:

ʿUthmān: collected an edition, sent copies to regions, ordered all rival codices burned to stop divergent recitations among troops.
ʿAbd al-Malik & al-Ḥajjāj: imperial language reforms; added diacritics, alifs, component numbering; distributed copies to major cities—i.e., top-down orthographic normalization.
Ibn Mujāhid & Ibn Muqla: enforced the “seven,” penalized reciters of banned readings (trials/flogging reported for Ibn Miqsam, Ibn Shanabūdh).

In manuscripts, researchers observe a pattern: corrections and overwritings trend toward what later became the standard “Cairo” text (textus receptus). Keith Small quantified this “correction drift,” estimating two-thirds of observed corrections align text toward the emerging standard; Déroche notes that discrepancies with the ʿUthmānic rasm and canonical variants were systematically eliminated over time.

Implication: The standard text was not passively preserved; it was actively enforced—including destruction, suppression, and retro-correction of manuscripts to align with the later norm.

7) “Originals” and Why the Qur’an’s Case Is Harder Than the New Testament’s

Neither the New Testament nor the Qur’an has surviving autographs. But the Qur’an is in a worse position for reconstructing an “original” for three hard reasons:

Scriptio defectiva ensured massive implicit ambiguity in early Qur’anic rasm; Hebrew (with long vowels) and Greek scripts were sufficiently distinct to avoid this unique Arabic problem.
Political standardization and destruction of rival codices (as Muslim sources themselves relate) reduced the variant base, making textual criticism’s reconstructive task harder for the Qur’an than for the New Testament.
The palimpsests reveal non-Uthmanic textual traditions that were overwritten, confirming that diversity existed before the canonical text coalesced.

Implication: By its own historical mechanisms, Islam’s early transmission erased much of the evidence needed to test the preservation claim.

8) The Logical Consequences for the Preservation Claim

Islamic premise asserted: “God’s words cannot be changed” (e.g., Q 6:115; 18:27).
Historical data observed:

Early Qur’anic texts are ambiguous due to script;
Diverse readings/codices existed, including non-Uthmanic traditions;
Power curtailed diversity via burning, bans, and later editorial choices;
The modern “standard” is one reading selected in 1924.

Logical result: The popular claim—“every copy is identical to the first-century Qur’an”—is false. One may try to salvage a weaker thesis (“the Qur’an’s meaning was preserved”), but that is a retreat from the claim actually made by preachers and pamphlets (“not a letter has changed”). The data contradicts verbatim, letter-perfect preservation.

9) Anticipating and Dismantling Common Rebuttals

Rebuttal A: “All differences are just diacritical; meaning unaffected.”
Refutation:

The tāʾ / yāʾ prefix issue changes person/gender of verbs.
Palimpsests show omissions/additions and different sūrah orderings, not merely dots/vowels.
Scholars document lexical and syntactic differences across early witnesses—not safely contained within “harmless pronunciation”.

Rebuttal B: “Seven aḥruf explain all variation; all from God.”
Refutation:

The aḥruf concept historically authorized diversity; later authorities suppressed most of it. That is not “miraculous harmony”; that is human narrowing.
If the aḥruf were genuinely revealed, then suppressing them (burning rival codices, flogging reciters) is suppressing revelation. You cannot both claim divine multi-form revelation and celebrate its enforced elimination.

Rebuttal C: “Regional recitations survived; nothing to see here.”
Refutation:

Yes—for centuries. That is the point. Diversity was real.
The modern near-uniformity exists because one reading (Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim) was chosen in 1924 Cairo and diffused globally. That is editorial standardization, not a 7th-century miracle.

Rebuttal D: “Uthman preserved the original; skeptics deny evidence.”
Refutation:

The physical codices touted as Uthmanic do not authenticate under scrutiny (e.g., Topkapi).
Muslim sources themselves narrate burning of non-conforming codices. Historical preservation by destruction is a contradiction in terms.

Rebuttal E: “This is Christian polemic.”
Refutation:

The chapter synthesizes Muslim sources and mainstream manuscript scholarship (Déroche, Leemhuis, Small, Sadeghi, Puin). The palimpsest is not a polemic; it is parchment.

10) The Comparative Claim Against the Bible Backfires

A standard polemic says: “The Bible is corrupted; the Qur’an is preserved.” Even if one brackets the Bible entirely, the Qur’an’s own manuscript history undermines the preservation claim—on its own terms. But the comparison, when made, still favors the Bible on method:

New Testament manuscript corrections do not exhibit a consistent drift toward a single enforced norm; they reflect scribal error correction, stylistic smoothing, or attempts to match perceived better witnesses.
Qur’anic corrections systematically trend toward the later ʿUthmanic/Cairo text; that is centralized standardization, not organic transmission.
Christianity lacked state power in the formative centuries; Islam’s early state power enforced textual uniformity, destroying rival evidence essential to textual criticism.

Conclusion: The polemical contrast (Bible bad/Qur’an perfect) is indefensible on the manuscript record presented.

11) Formalized Logic (Syllogism)

Premise 1. If the Qur’an has been perfectly preserved letter-for-letter since Muhammad, then the earliest manuscripts should match the modern standard text, show no rival textual traditions, and exhibit no politically enforced standardization.

Premise 2. The earliest manuscripts do not match in numerous places; non-Uthmanic textual traditions are evidenced (e.g., Ṣanʿāʾ 1 undertext); and political power enforced standardization through burning, bans, trials, and later editorial choices (including the 1924 selection of a single reading).

Conclusion. Therefore, the claim of letter-for-letter perfect preservation since Muhammad is false.

12) What This Does—and Does Not—Prove

This analysis does not prove that no Qur’anic content goes back to early Islam; it demonstrates that the popular preservation claim (identity of text “from dot to dot”) is refuted by manuscript facts. Nor does it rest on outsider hostility; it stands on Muslim sources and manuscript-based scholarship collated by Nickel.

If one retreats to a softer claim—“the core message was preserved”—that is conceding the original preservation slogan was false. And once you concede this, appeals to verses that “no one can change God’s words” must be reconciled with a historical record of ambiguity, variance, suppression, and curation.

13) Practical Takeaways

There is no authenticated Uthmanic codex. Claims to the contrary have been investigated and do not hold up.
Scriptio defectiva made early copies intrinsically ambiguous. Dots/vowels were later human additions, not part of the earliest exemplars.
Palimpsests (Ṣanʿāʾ 1) evidence a different textual tradition—with real omissions/additions and sequence differences.
Qirāʾāt diversity was real; only centuries later was it narrowed; in 1924 Egypt, one reading was selected for print and global diffusion.
Corrections trend toward the later standard; manuscripts show retro-alignment rather than passive preservation.
Destruction and punishment (burning codices, flogging reciters) feature in the sources; that is enforcement, not miracle.

14) Conclusion: Preservation or Curation?

The Qur’an’s early textual history, as Nickel presents it from mainstream manuscript scholarship, looks like fluid transmission constrained by politics and later curated into a single standard. The absence of autographs, the defective early script, the palimpsest evidence of non-Uthmanic textual traditions, the centuries-long pruning of readings, the patterned corrections toward a later norm, and the modern (1924) editorial choice of one reading—all converge.

This is not what “perfect preservation from day one” looks like. It is what standardization looks like.

The honest and logically necessary conclusion: The popular preservation claim is false. Anything less is not scholarship; it is slogan.

Notes on Sources & Scope

This article is a close engagement with Gordon D. Nickel’s The Gentle Answer, Chapter 18, which collates and cites the leading technical work in Qur’anic manuscript studies (François Déroche, Frederik Leemhuis, Keith Small, Behnam Sadeghi, Elizabeth Puin, et al.). For a reader-friendly on-ramp, start with the book itself: https://www.amazon.com/dp/099399721X/ . Every factual assertion above is grounded in that chapter’s analysis and references.

Bibliographic Pointer (as consolidated in Nickel’s ch. 18)

François Déroche, Qurʾans of the Umayyads; La transmission écrite du Coran; entries in Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān and Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān.
Frederik Leemhuis, “Codices of the Qurʾān,” “Readings of the Qurʾān,” EQ.
Keith E. Small, Textual Criticism and Qurʾān Manuscripts; “Textual variants…”.
Behnam Sadeghi & Uwe Bergmann; Behnam Sadeghi & Mohsen Goudarzi on Ṣanʿāʾ 1.
Elizabeth (Elisabeth) Puin on the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest.
Adrian Brockett on Warsh/Hafs; Christopher Melchert on Ibn Mujāhid; Arthur Jeffery on old codices.
Chase Robinson; Alfred-Louis de Prémare; Omar Hamdan on standardization.

(For direct quotations and specific examples, see Nickel’s ch. 18, which provides exact references to the specialist literature.)

Mauao Man

Friday, August 22, 2025