By: Dr Thameem Ushama
Malaysia has denounced extremist Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan’s conduct of burning a Quran on Saturday outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
The prime minister of Malaysia urged the Swedish government to take immediate action against those responsible for the heinous act and to take urgent measures to confront the rise of Islamophobia.
Therefore, it is timely and appropriate to know about the burned Book.
The Book was revealed in Makkah about fourteen centuries ago, addressing social, religious, cultural, behavioural, and civilisational issues of the people of Arabia.
This Book was revealed over the course of 23 years rather than all at once. In general, historians argue that the Arab people lived illiterate lives, and they were known as the ‘people of ignorance’, prior to the revelation of this Book.
Their morality was flawed because social order was in jeopardy, their worldview was nebulous and illogical, and their rites and rituals were intricate.
This Book made its way to the populace through a nobleman who was the ‘First Recipient’. Historians have emulated the First Recipient; he was also known as ‘Mercy of all the Worlds’.
People of various tribes were familiar with him for his reliability, honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness. This Book served as a comprehensive guide for those who believed in it and lived during its revelation and, afterwards, hundreds of millions throughout history.
According to this Book, its teachings are helpful to everyone, providing solutions to problems facing people in general and its believers in particular.
As the belief goes, this Book contains words of God — the Creator, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Eternal and Everlasting, and the most Merciful and Compassionate.
The fact that this Book is pure and untainted is another essential feature. Its adherents are still concerned about its purity, originality, and authenticity.
This Book offers holistic, thorough, and all-encompassing living counsel to anyone who embraces it and faithfully follows it in all walks of life.
It also provides systems, ethics, and laws. Its morals are timeless and relevant to all eras. It is asserted that the Book is preserved and undistorted; it has never been altered. Regarding the nature of this Book, lies are spread.
Furthermore, there are persistent rumours concerning its purity and contemporary relevance. Nevertheless, many misunderstandings over the Book’s veracity on social media exist.
Despite the abundance of historical and scientific data, a few prejudiced people, motivated by irreligious, liberal, secular, and post-modern proponents, are sceptical of its validity.
Some are even tempted to burn it. They raise doubts regarding the veracity of the Book’s text, particularly its early documentation and preservation, due to a lack of proper understanding and appropriate knowledge.
Even some sceptics of Western education cast doubt on its truth. As a result, an investigation or a response must be based on reliable historical sources.
The transcription of the revealed text is mentioned explicitly in this Book itself. It was successfully carried out at its revelation using the available resources.
The early heritage has enough proof to conclude that the revelations were penned directly under the supervision and direction of the First Recipient. Unquestionably, the recording of the revelation was established according to a well-known narrative.
Authentic Traditions on the First Recipient’s authority confirm that the Book was a written record. Numerous reliable reports demonstrate how the Book was recorded during its revelation. The scribes worked on the text’s writing.
The scribes were present to record every passage as it was passed down to the First Recipient, even in the most challenging circumstances.
A correspondence given to Hercules, the Byzantine emperor, and containing passages from the Book recorded therein, is one convincing indication of the text’s presence in written form.
Another illustration of documenting the text is the written text that people brought with them when they first went to Abyssinia. This text had been made public before their migration.
They read words from its chapter titled Maryam when the Christian King Negus of Abyssinia asked the immigrants what they had to say about Jesus as evidence of their claim.
When the King recognised that the recital was accurate and consistent with what he knew about Jesus, he offered the immigrants consolation, protection, and safety.
The fact that everyone who visited Madinah received written copies of the Book is another piece of evidence of its textual documentation and preservation.
These historical instances show how much time and effort was put into documenting the Book’s text in order to ensure its legitimacy, veracity, authenticity, and accuracy.
The scribes operating directly beneath the Book’s First Recipient did record the Book texts word for word. Multiple copies of the revelation appear to have been carefully and painstakingly written down on various leather items, bones, and stones.
According to a renowned historian, there were at least 15 copies of the Book. The Book was written with the help of several additional friends of the First Recipient.
Since very early in the mission, even from the initial revelation, emphasis has been given to writing and regularly reciting the Book’s passages. The supernatural revelation captivated the First Recipient, and he eagerly anticipated its continuation.
First Recipient’s main objective was to recall it right away when it was revealed and absorb and understand its meanings, messages, mysteries, and complexity. The comrades of the First Recipient followed him, looked up to him as a model, and obeyed his orders.
Over 23 years, this Book was revealed in bits and pieces. The First Recipient understood his obligations since he cared about the divine word. He committed everything to memory, like the Arabs who naturally had this fantastic quality.
According to a narrative, the First Recipient’s four companions put together the text; he had many scribes doing the job. History has shown that other people were attempting to write and preserve it.
The populace engaged in competitive memorisation, teaching their wives and kids the texts and reciting prayers while memorising them.
According to early historical records, the First Recipient walked around while listening to the precise rhythms of the book recital.
They were urged to continue their modest efforts by the First Recipient. Their ability to retain the Book shows that they not only kept it entirely in their memories but also read it aloud to the First Recipient on several occasions and passed it on to other people in a continuous line of command.
Many companions retained the Book in their memory, and many slowly moved to new places where they guided others on how to recite it both from memory and written sources.
The First Recipient’s companions likewise used their memories to describe it. Since the start of the revelation, some have been transcribing the text.
The passages were written down in various materials, including palm branches stripped of their leaves, palm stumps, scraps of cloth, leather, paper, sheep bones, and hunch and hump.
This dossier demonstrates that, in addition to memorising, more emphasis was placed on textual documentation. The textual record, during the time of the First Recipient, was a means of retaining the entire text without loss.
The scribes wrote it down because the revelation was being memorised and memorably descended over time. Who the First Recipient is and what the Book refers to here.
The First Recipient was Muhammad (peace be upon him), God’s chosen Messenger of Islam. The Book referred to in this discourse is the Quran — the Holy scripture of Muslims.
Now, it is noteworthy that several Western writers have confirmed the Book’s original purity. Even those who deny this Book as God’s word concede that it contains precisely what Muhammad (peace be upon him) transmitted 14 centuries ago.
Here are select scholars views on the purity of the text of the Book. “The testimonies are that the Quran’s text is the purest of all works of similar antiquity (Wherry, E. M, Commentary on the Quran (London: Trubner, 1882-1886, vol. 1, 349).
Uthman’s compilation has remained the authorised text from the time it was made until the present day (Palmer, L. The Quran With an Introduction by R. Nicholson First published in 1880 (London: Oxford University Press, 1928, iv).
‘The text substantially corresponds to the actual utterances of Muhammad himself (Sir Thomas Walker Arnold, The Islamic Faith, (London: Ernest Benin, 1928, 9).
“All sects and parties of the Muslim community have the same text of the Quran” (C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism: Lectures on its Origin, its Religious and Political Growth, and Its Present State, (New York: Putnam, 1916, 18).
“It is an immense merit that there is no doubt as to its genuineness… that the words of Quran have remained unchanged” (Lane and Lane-Poole, Selections from the Kuran, (London: Trubner, n. d, Introduction, c).
“The Quran at the time of Uthman has been handed down to us unaltered, and there is probably in the world no other work which has remained for twelve centuries with so pure a text” (William Muir, Life of Mahemet, (London: Smith, 1860, Introduction, xxii-xxiii).
“The Quran has, beyond all reasonable doubt, the exact words of Muhammad, without subtraction or addition” (Bosworth Smith, Mohammad and Mohammedanism, (London, n. p., 1874, 22).
These quotations demonstrate that the Quranic text is unquestionably pure, authentic, and original.
Therefore, the Quran is God’s revealed message, which has been preserved for generations without addition, subtraction, deletion, or distortion, and proposals for altering or dropping or eliminating some verses, paragraphs, or chapters of the Quran are neither acceptable nor valid.
This piece of writing discloses that the Quran contains God’s words, so attempting to trash and burn it exhibits the most extreme examples of barbaric, despicable and abhorrent behaviour, absurd and illogical beliefs, and anti-Islamic attitudes.
(The writer is a Professor at the Department of Usul al-Din and Comparative Religion, International Islamic University Malaysia)