THE QUESTION BEFORE US
Was the Qur'an preserved in a way the Gospel was not?
Choose a verse number, book icon or underlined word to read more here.
Variety from the beginning.
A familiar argument contrasts an unchanged Qur’an with a corrupted Bible: if the Bible has textual variants, how can it be God’s word? Qur’an promises the guarding of the Reminder. But what kind of preservation do the Islamic sources actually describe? The collection reports in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim make that question concrete.
Umar heard Hisham ibn Hakim recite Surat al-Furqan differently from the way Muhammad had taught him. In the report, Muhammad approves both recitations and speaks of seven . The tradition therefore begins with authorized variation, not with one audible form alone. These seven are not simply the seven canonical readers recognized in later centuries.
Sahih al-Bukhari 4992 · seven ahruf Sahih Muslim 818a · seven ahruf Khatib & Khan · The origins of the variant readings (Yaqeen Institute)
After reciters died at al-Yamama, Umar urged Abu Bakr to have the Qur’an collected. Zayd describes gathering it from palm stalks, thin stones, and people’s memories, and reports finding the closing verses of Surat al-Tawba with one man. The later Muslim explanation is that he sought written corroboration of verses already memorized. The report describes deliberate collection, not a book that reached its final written form without human action.
Bukhari 4987 then recounts differences among reciters from Syria and Iraq. Uthman commissions copies from the sheets held by Hafsa, instructs his committee to use the dialect of Quraysh where they disagree, distributes copies to the regions, and orders other Qur’anic written materials burned. The traditional account thus includes an authoritative standardization and the removal of competing written witnesses.
Not every leading Companion read as that edition does. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud was the first of four men from whom Muhammad told Muslims to learn the Qur'an. In Syria his student Alqamah was asked how he recited Surat al-Layl, and he recited its third verse as "By the male and the female." Abu al-Darda said he had heard the Prophet recite it exactly so, while the people of Syria wanted him to say "And by Him who created the male and the female," the wording in today's Qur'an, and he refused.
Sahih al-Bukhari 4999 · learn the Qur'an from four Sahih al-Bukhari 4944 · Ibn Mas'ud's reading of 92:3 Sahih Muslim 824a · Ibn Mas'ud's reading of 92:3
Early stability, and more than one text.
The manuscript evidence also shows early stability. Birmingham’s two leaves contain parts of 18–20 on parchment radiocarbon-dated to 568–645 with 95.4 percent probability. That dates the skin, not the ink. Separately, Marijn van Putten’s study of shared unusual spellings in early manuscripts argues for a common written archetype. These findings support an early written tradition; they do not establish that every recitation always had identical wording.
University of Birmingham · the Birmingham Qur'an van Putten 2019 · a written Uthmanic archetype (BSOAS, open access)
The manuscripts also show that the standard text was not the only one. In the Sana'a palimpsest, an early Qur'an was washed off its parchment and overwritten with the standard text. Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi found that the erased lower text is a distinct Companion-type codex outside the Uthmanic tradition, with whole words added, omitted, transposed and substituted. They also concluded that the themselves had taken shape before these textual traditions branched apart.
Sadeghi & Goudarzi 2012 · Ṣan'ā' 1 and the origins of the Qur'ān (Der Islam)
Variation also survives in accepted readings. At , Hafs from Asim includes , “He,” while Warsh from Nafi omits that word. Al-Qurtubi records the omission in Nafi’s reading. These are not two different English translations; they are a difference in the Arabic text recited. Both readings belong to the accepted tradition.
Qur'an 57:24 al-Qurtubi on 57:24 (Arabic) Khatib & Khan · The origins of the variant readings (Yaqeen Institute)
Variation, but no corruption.
Muslim scholars answer that these differences are authorized revelation, not corruption. On their account, Muhammad taught multiple forms, Uthman preserved the approved recitation rather than inventing a text, and the community transmitted it through both writing and memorization. The seven or ten canonical readings preserve permitted variation; earlier readings outside the standard text may be explained as abrogated () or explanatory. Khatib and Khan present this defense for the Yaqeen Institute. It is a fuller claim than saying every manuscript has always contained one identical sequence of letters.
Qur'an 2:106 Khatib & Khan · The origins of the variant readings (Yaqeen Institute)
The same standard for both books.
The defense changes the claim being tested. Faithful transmission with authorized variants is different from a claim that every surviving line has always had one identical wording. If preservation can include accepted variation, the existence of variants alone cannot discredit another scripture. If absolute uniformity is required, the Islamic collection reports and canonical readings have to face that test too.
Christians likewise acknowledge that copyists made mistakes and that manuscripts contain variants. Their presence does not establish a wholesale replacement of the Gospel. The fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus preserves the New Testament’s proclamation of Jesus’ saving death and resurrection, long before Islam. The actual question is which reading is supported by the witnesses, and whether a variant changes the claim being disputed.
Nothing in the examples above proves that the whole Qur’an is late or that Muslims secretly hid every variation. Their own scholars discuss the evidence. By the same standard, openly studied New Testament variants do not demonstrate that the pre-Islamic Gospel of the crucified and risen Jesus vanished. A charge of replacement needs a history of the actual passages, not merely the discovery that manuscripts differ.
Khatib & Khan · The origins of the variant readings (Yaqeen Institute) Codex Sinaiticus · contents
The question that matters most.
Muslim defenders distinguish accepted differences in Qur’anic readings from corruption of their faith’s message. Apply the same standard to the New Testament: no essential Christian doctrine depends solely on a disputed textual reading. Variants can affect the interpretation of individual passages, but they do not erase the New Testament’s witness to Christ’s divine identity, his death for sinners and his resurrection. Those beliefs are taught across the New Testament, rather than resting on one contested verse.
Khatib & Khan · The origins of the variant readings (Yaqeen Institute) John 20:24–31 Ehrman (2024) · textual variants and Christian doctrine Tyndale Bibles blog (undated) · textual variants 1 Corinthians 15:1–8
Christians do not believe God's word stands because copyists never erred. We believe it stands because God speaks truly and keeps his word in history. Jesus said:
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
John states why he wrote: that his readers might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life through his name. The Gospel’s transmission brings that invitation before us. The question is whether the Jesus it presents is who he said he was, and whether we will trust him.
Go to the sources.
Complete source list(22)
M. Pickthall · English translation
Qur’an 15:9
9Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.
M. Pickthall · English translation
Qur’an 2:106
106Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?
M. Pickthall · English translation
Qur’an 57:24
24Who hoard and who enjoin upon the people avarice. And whosoever turneth away, still Allah is the Absolute, the Owner of Praise.
King James Version
Matthew 24:35
35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
King James Version
John 20:24–31
24¶ But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
26¶ And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
27Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
29Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
30¶ And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
31But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
King James Version
1 Corinthians 15:1–8
1Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
5And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
6After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
7After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
8And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
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Word meaning · Arabic
أَحْرُف
ahruf (aḥruf, singular ḥarf)
Plural of ḥarf: an edge or side; a letter; a way or mode of speaking.
In this context
In the report that the Qur’an was revealed in “seven ahruf” (Bukhari 4992), scholars explained the term in different ways. Lisan al-Arab reports the grammarian Abu al-Abbas saying they are “nothing but dialects.”
Word meaning · Arabic
سُورَة
surah (sūra)
A chapter of the Qur’an. Al-Raghib compares it to a city wall (sūr) that encloses, or to a rank or station.
In this context
Qur’an 2:23 challenges doubters to produce a surah like it; the readings also refer to surahs by number.
Word meaning · Arabic
هُوَ
huwa
“He”: the third-person masculine pronoun.
In this context
At Qur’an 57:24 most readers include huwa (“He”) before “the Absolute, the Owner of Praise”; al-Qurtubi records that Nafiʿ and Ibn ʿAmir read the verse without it.