Is the Quran a Reliable Record of the Teachings of Muhammad

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries Incorporated and is protected by copyright laws of the

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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries Incorporated is prohibited.

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I begin in the name of God Most Gracious Most Merciful. You've seen what we've discussed shortly about the text in the

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New Testament and the problems that we have, and certainly James is going to raise, you know, there's a statement called, inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument.

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Who made that up? Me. Actually, it's James' quotation. Inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument.

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And we're going to probably see that there's going to be a level of inconsistency, even though that there are few variations in the

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Quranic text, James is going to make a mountain out of a molehill, and we'll see how it goes as the discussion goes on.

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Is the Quran a reliable record of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad?

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Number one, the Arabic word Quran is derived in the opinions of many scholars from the verb qarah, meaning to read.

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The Prophet was keen to preserve the text of the Quran to convey the message to humankind. The Quran is regarded as divine in origin, and with regards to the

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Prophet's intense interest in this regard, and his obedience to this particular dictum, in surah 15, verse 9, you read the expression,

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Indeed, it is we who sent down the Quran, and indeed it is us who will be its guardian.

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You see, even though you believe that the Quran is not the word of God, this verse gives an indication who is this us, who is this we.

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It's as if God himself is speaking, can you see that? This is part of the tidings of things unseen, that we reveal unto thee,

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O Muhammad, by inspiration. Even though you might not believe that the Quran is the word of God, reading it gives you an indication that it sounds to be like the word of God, as if God is speaking.

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So the preservation of the text is considered critical in the Quranic text itself. That's not the case in the

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Bible. You don't find mention where God says, I'm going to preserve the New Testament, I'm going to preserve this as mine.

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The Quranic revelation started in 610. In one of the surahs, it tells the

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Prophet, do not move your tongue with it to make haste. Surely on us rests the collecting of it and the recitation of it.

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So number one, the Prophet was well aware that there was a possibility that the Quran could be distorted intentionally.

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And so in the Hadith literature, there are indications where he announced to his followers that any other writings you have, like Hadith, secondary traditions, what the

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Prophet said, did, wrote, ate, how he behaved, all of that was written in the Hadith, that was to be scrapped out, eliminated, in order to preserve the

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Quranic text, in case additions are basically added. Number one, the

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Prophet asked his scribes to write down each verse after revelation. Number two, he recited the

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Quran during prayers, as we do it today. Number three, he asked his companions to recite it in front of him.

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Number four, he urged, ordered those who had learned the Quran to teach those who had not learned.

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You see, today in the Muslim world, there is a tradition called Hifz, Hafezun, where we memorize the

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Quran. I might not know a single word of Arabic, not understand it, but I can memorize it from beginning to end.

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That's a tendency that you have in the Muslim world today, that they can recite the Quran in Arabic without understanding it.

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Even people who don't understand the Quranic text, it's that easy to memorize. Number five, number six, he made the learning of the

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Quran a scale of piety amongst Muslims. He said, with this book, Allah exalts some people and lowers others.

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He urged Muslims to make a practice of reading the Quran. He gave the privilege of leading the prayers to those who had memorized it, and he condemned the forgetting of memorized verses as a grievous sin.

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So, number one, transmission of the text was critical. Then you've got a passage like this here, in Surah 80, verse 11 to 16.

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By no means, indeed, it is a message of instruction. Therefore, whoever wills should remember it on leaves, purified, held in honor, exalted, written in the hands of scribes, noble and pious.

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James says that this possibly refers to angels, but I've looked at four different Quranic translations.

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Muhammad Asad, Muhammad Ali, Yusuf Ali, Muhammad Yusuf Ali, all give the indication that this, in fact, refers to scribes writing the

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Quran in the time of the Prophet. So, to sum up, the Prophet did his best and imposed all precautions to keep the

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Quranic text both in pure form, oral, and in written form, although it was not compiled in a book in his time.

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And one might wonder, why is it that the Prophet did not order one official copy to be kept?

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You see, in the time of the Prophet, there was no book called the Quran. There was no book called the

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Quran in a book like this here. And why was that not the case? It's because of the fact that verses of the

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Quran were being revealed to him continuously up until the day he died. And so, even up to the last day, the book was open.

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And so, the multi -readings of the text could not fit one sole particular written copy.

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Therefore, one cannot say that there was any obscure zone when referring to the history of the

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Quran as there was when concerning the history of the text of the New Testament. You see, there's an obscure zone when you look at the history of the text of the

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New Testament, which is not there in the Quran. The earliest record of the

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Quran was basically written seven years before the Hijra, when the Quran was being revealed.

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This is in the Hadith literature, which speaks about Omar's conversion, that his sister had a parchment that one of the companions had brought with him to teach her family.

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So, you see that we've got traditions indicating that there was a written text that was available in the time of the

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Prophet himself. Besides the above verses, which refers to the Quran's form, there are also a number of Hadith which agree with the above verses.

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Zayd, who's a scribe, is reported to say, we used to compile the Quran from small scraps in the presence of the messenger, meaning they used to write it on scraps of paper, on blade, on stone, on bark tree.

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The above Hadith tells us that the Prophet Muhammad was not only unaware of the condition, was not unaware of the condition of the

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Quran, and also tells us that the Quran used to be compiled for the Prophet Muhammad, meaning that he possibly had an earlier copy, his own personal copy.

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Malik said no one should carry the Masaf by its strap. Masaf means book, nor on a pillow, unless it's clean.

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So, it's clear that the Quran was available in some type of written form during the time of the

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Prophet. Qatada in the Hadith said, I was asked by Anas ibn Malik, who collected the

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Quran at the time of the Prophet? He said four, all of whom were from the Ansar, Ubaid ibn Kab, Muad ibn

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Jabal, Zayd ibn Tabit, and Abu Zayd. So, it's very clear then, that in one sense, you could say, a written form of the

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Quran was available at the time of the Prophet, and that particular proof is inescapable, which contradicts or challenges any

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Hadith which presents the opposite. Why was the Quran not compiled in one entire book during the time of the

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Prophet? As I mentioned, there was a continuous revelation. Arrangement of surahs and verses were not chronological.

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Numerous companions memorized the Quran, and there was no pressing need during the lifetime of the Prophet. You see, the first chapter of the

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Quran is not the first revelation. The 96th chapter is, in fact, the first revelation.

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So, if today, I were to take the Quran, and I were to change the order and arrangement of the surahs, it would still be the same

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Quran. I can start with surah Baqarah, surah Yasin, surah Ma 'idah, surah

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An -Nisa. It'll still be the same textual Quran. More importantly, the oral transmission of the text.

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Even today, many people completely memorize the Quran, and these people are known as hafizun.

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And I challenged earlier on. I said that, look, if you were to destroy all the copies of the

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Quran, every single copy we burned them, like that chap in United States wanted to burn them, let's assume we burn them, we create a bonfire and burn them.

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Will we be able to construct the Quran? Yes, why? Because people memorize it.

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In a secular, 21st century society, there are millions and millions of hafizun.

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Every Ramadan, when we go to the mosque, we recite the taraweeh, salah, where you recite the entire

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Quran from beginning to end, by memory. And each one knows the text.

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If we were to burn and destroy every single New Testament manuscript, and book, and Bible in the world, would we be able to reconstruct it?

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How? How can we reconstruct the New Testament? Have we had anyone memorizing the entire Bible from cover to cover?

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Impossible. Where have you seen that? Can you give me a, where has it happened? And that's a difficulty that we have here.

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The first man to speak the Quran loudly in Mecca, was someone called Abdullah ibn

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Masud. And we told that the Prophet's companions came together, mentioned that the Quraysh had never heard the

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Quran distinctly. Quraysh were those who were the pagans. And when ibn Masud came, and he started reciting, then they subsequently got up and began to hit him in the face.

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But he continued to read it, so far as God willed that he should read. Now, I don't know, but in a debate with Shabir Ali, James White says that ibn

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Masud was beaten to death, because he was apparently, forgive me if I'm wrong, James' indication was that apparently, he may have been reciting the

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Quran differently, and so he was beaten to death. Am I correct? And when Shabir Ali questioned him, where did he get his source, he said, well, he got it from a book called,

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An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quran. So I decided to bring myself a copy of that book, and I've got it here.

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And I want James White to show us in his session, and perhaps a rebuttal, where in this book does it say, that ibn

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Masud had been reciting the Quran differently, and was beaten to death. That's a source for James, so I've brought it here, and I'm going to leave it on the desk, so when

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James White comes, he can probably give me a reference to something that I have perhaps not seen.

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So, what you basically find here is that Hafizun had basically memorized it.

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The Prophet ensured memorization. The Prophet said, the most superior amongst you are those who learn the

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Quran and teach it. There are numerous hadith giving account of the various efforts made. And in addition to that, that was my challenge today, and that's my challenge to James.

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The Quran was memorized by hundreds of Muslims and those who had met the Prophet. Just as the whole

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Quran was preserved by writing, the Quran was preserved by memorization. Was the

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New Testament preserved in this particular manner? And the answer is no.

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And that's why we have the difficulties that we see today. And that's a more, in my view, honest perspective of addressing and looking at these particular texts without wanting to necessarily score points against each other in any particular given fashion.

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Now, after the Prophet had died, during the caliphate of the Prophet of Abu Bakr, there was a battle which took place called the

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Battle of Yamama. And in this battle, not Yomama, the Battle of Yamama, in this battle, many people had memorized the

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Quran and they were martyred. Those hafizun were in fact martyred. So, Abu Bakr feared that the

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Quran might possibly be lost by virtue of the fact that a number of hafizun had basically martyred and they had not had a complete copy available with them at that time.

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So, in view of the fact that a number had been there, what he did was he ordered an individual called Zayd ibn Thabit, who was a personal scribe of the

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Prophet, and Zayd finished the job perfectly. Now, James makes a point in the hadith which refers to the fact that Zayd, a scribe, compiled the

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Quran in a kind of a book form. He says, how can I do something which Allah's apostle has not done?

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Meaning that in the time of the Prophet, you never had a Quran in this kind of book form, cover to cover.

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You never had that. So, Zayd is asking, how can I do something which was not done in the time of the Prophet? But that doesn't mean that the

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Quran was not written in the time of the Prophet, but it means that the Quran was scattered and not collected in one particular volume.

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And what the Prophet did is that he didn't leave the complete Quran in a single volume. Why not? Because the vast majority of his companions had memorized it.

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I mean, look at it from this perspective. We are a thousand years later. We are secular people.

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And yet today, so many people, 1 .5 billion, who take their faith seriously can memorize their

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Quran and recite it to the T. So, if I have to, for example, open this and you recite it,

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I can confirm what's in this particular book. Wouldn't it be possible or similar or greater that in the time of the

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Prophet, the process of memorization and the concern for preserving the text of the

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Quran, which would be far more greater than it is in the 21st century? I thought

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I had an hour. I'm joking. Thank you. So, that's basically the reason and that's a hadith that gives you an indication in terms of that.

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Then there are other passages in the hadith where Zayd says, I found with Khuzaymah two verses of Surah Tawbah which

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I had not found with anybody else. In other words, the hadith collection. We don't have a manuscript which says this. We have a hadith which says that in the process of collecting the text of the

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Quran, Zayd was collecting parchments and he found other verses. What does the words of Zayd mean?

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That doesn't mean that the Quran was not written. It basically means, effectively, that those particular written verses were only to be found in the possession of an individual called

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Khuzaymah, meaning it may not have been written elsewhere, but it would be written in this particular. It's like this.

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If someone has to memorize an essay, all of you memorize the same essay, and you come to an examination and someone has the last paragraph of the essay, and I'm trying to look at all your writings that you particularly possess, and I basically discover only the last paragraph of an essay with one particular individual, it doesn't mean that none of you know what the last paragraph is.

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And that's the case here. It doesn't mean that that was a new verse that he particularly discovered. And on that point, what we can note is that the collection of Abu Bakr was meant to preserve the

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Quran in its entirety and ensure that none of the actual verses were in fact lost.

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During the period of Khalif Uthman, the third Khalif of Islam, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, Islam spread to many areas.

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And what then subsequently happened is that, this looks better, Muslims who were not

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Arabs couldn't read the Quranic text. So they changed the meaning of the verses and many variant readings sprung out because the people were ignorant of the particular

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Arabic. All Arabic was written as lines, and now one can distinguish such and such alphabets easily by marks.

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But this was not the case in the older times. So what happened here was that the

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Uthmanic copy limited the accepted readings to what was the skeleton of the

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Arabic consonantal text. Now let me explain this to you. In Hebrew and in Arabic, both are without vowels in the classical period.

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The vowelization is there to aid you in respect of your pronunciation.

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But without the vowelization, so it's possible that a particular style of recitation, which would technically be viewed as a variant, and that would then subsequently circulate at a particular point in time and would unnecessarily create dispute.

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So to ensure the accuracy of one copy, what Uthman did was he set out five groups of educated reciters.

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Each had a particular copy of the written Quran, and they would proceed under the watchful eye of the teachers.

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And he ordered Zayd bin Thabit, the scribe that I mentioned, to teach the people of Medina with the

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Mas 'haf of Medina and others in respect of how it should be recited. And so the Uthmanic project resulted in the making of several copies of the

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Quran, which was sent to the largest cities of the Islamic State with one copy being kept in the capital.

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That's in Al -Medina. All the companions of the Prophet were alive at the time, approved of what

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Uthman was doing, as stated by Musab, the son of the companion of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqas. You see, James said, well, he'd prefer a free transmission as opposed to a controlled transmission.

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A text by government is a problem. I agree, if anything comes from the government, I would view it in South Africa, certainly, with the greatest degree of caution.

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But the point here is that the copy that was, in a sense, in inverted commas, authenticated by Uthman, which he, in a sense, made several copies of, the companions at the time of the

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Prophet, who were present when the Quran was being revealed, had obviously seen the copy of Uthman.

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So if there was a divergent difference in terms of what was originally there, then,

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James, isn't it probable that they would have raised a significant objection? I mean, it stands to reason.

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James says, well, I cannot accept a controlled text. And I'm saying that, well, look, in actual fact, it wasn't controlled, per se.

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What he was simply doing was eliminating those readings that were creating problems. And the companions who were present at the time of the

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Prophet, had heard the Quran from the Prophet, were now with Uthman, would obviously have made a major, well, created major consternation, had the

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Uthmanic copy been significantly different. And that's the point. Could there be any doubt about the faithfulness of the particular

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Uthmanic text? No. Why not? Because the short span of the time between the death of the

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Prophet and the distribution of the written copies of the Uthmanic Masaf was only 13 to 15 years.

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13 to 15 years. When's the earliest manuscript? When's the earliest manuscript in the

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New Testament? The second century. So compare the second century, 200 years, 150 years, to 15 years.

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Are you telling me that the text prior to the Uthmanic collection was significantly different? If that was the case, why is it that the companions of the

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Prophet never had any issue with what Uthman did? Number two, the dedication and eagerness of the

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Islamic State. Number three, Uthman used the original text at the time of Abu Bakr. So Abu Bakr used

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Zayd bin Thabit to collect the various writings that were there. He commissioned the scribe Zayd bin

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Thabit. And what Uthman did was he used the official copy of Abu Bakr. And those companions who were present at the time of the

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Prophet saw what Uthman did. If there was any difference in the text of Uthman, they would have had a major issue with it, which they didn't.

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And so other copies which were not from Uthman were basically burnt. But burning is not a negative act.

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You see today, if I want to get rid of the Quran, what would I do? I'd either bury it or I'd burn it.

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Do you know that we can burn the copy as a means of disposal? You can bury it.

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So burning is not a negative act necessarily in Islam. And that would be the best means of disposal at that particular point in time.

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And then from the standard copies, more copies were made. And this time there were also teachers of the people to teach them how to recite the

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Quran. You see, had Uthman not done that, then it would have possibly been the case that what happened to the

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New Testament would probably have happened to the Quran. And that's why he took this particular steps.

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And so Christian missionaries have been alleging that Uthman ordered all the copies of the Quran to be burned because of the varying content.

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Well, suppose that there were at any times variations in the

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Quran other than those caused by scribal errors or failures of memory or due to some minor differences in script.

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That is, suppose that some individuals or groups deliberately held on to a text of the Quran that they knew was different from the one followed by the other.

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How could it happen that from century to century and from country to country we find, in principle at least, the same text of the

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Quran? And this is acknowledged by the vast majority of scholars.

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In principle, you've got the same skeletal text. And I'm not talking about rearrangement of surahs or minus the addition of an alif.

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Or for example, a particular verse might be rearranged. The essence is basically the same.

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Looking at it in a providential sense, it is said that Uthman ordered people to burn the text.

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But is it conceivable that people will submit to this order even if they thought that Uthman's text was not the authentic text?

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You see, if the companions at the time of the Prophet thought that what Uthman was doing was an aberration, they would have had an issue, a major, major issue with what he had particularly done.

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If you look at the number of manuscripts that there are in existence of the

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Quran, James spoke about 24 ,000, if you take the Latin and the Syriac, 5 ,700 with the

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Greek. I'm not, according to M .M. Azami in the collection of the Quranic text, there are no less than a quarter million manuscripts of the

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Quranic text. Subject to correction, 450 ,000 manuscripts of the

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Quranic text. Contrast that with 5 ,700. This is a text called the

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Palimpsest of the Codex Sana 'a. The Codex is one of the earliest fragments which were found in 1972.

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What the Yemeni government did was that they commissioned a scholar called Kher Puan to do some sort of study and research on this.

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He studied until 1980, 83, 84, and then it went on into the hands of another professor,

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I think it was Hans Caspar Graf von Bothmer, for another two years. And interestingly enough, in a letter after the publication of an article in the

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Atlantic Monthly where there was a bit of a scandal in terms of what the original Sana 'a manuscript stated, Kher Puan said,

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The most important thing, thank God, is that these Yemeni Quranic fragments do not differ from those found in museums and libraries elsewhere with the exception of details that do not touch the

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Quran itself, but are rather differences in the way words are spelled. This phenomenon is well known even in the

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Quran published in Cairo, which is written. You've got variations in the oldest Yemeni Quranic fragments.

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For example, the phenomenon of not writing the vowel alif is common. Why was the older layer wiped out?

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You see, the Palimpsest is a text over another text where you rub it off and then you write over it.

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Now, some scholars and apologists and polymises have said, Well, the text underneath the text showed us a different type of Quran.

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Well, this is what Kher Puan says. He says, It doesn't necessarily imply an alteration of the very text, since the formative period of the

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Quranic text already may have been completed when the first script was written. Most probably, the arrangement of the surahs was altered.

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That's all. And this hypothesis is corroborated by the fact that amongst the findings in Sana 'a, there are indeed

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Qurans with an arrangement of surahs different from the transmitted Quran. So what?

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If I were to open the Quran with surah Yasin, and then I go to surah Al -Imran, and then

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I go to surah Fatah, and then I go to surah Nisa, then I go to surah Maryam, is it not the same

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Quran? When you start memorizing the Quran, you don't start with surah Baqarah, you start with the last chapter, surah

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Naba, Amma -e -Tasallun. It doesn't matter whether the arrangement of the surahs are the same or not. And that's the point that he was basically making here.

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And that's effectively the case that he has in respect of the palimpsest. And that's a source that you basically have.

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Hans Caspar Graf von Bothmer, Khair Puen, Observations on Early Quranic Manuscripts in Sana 'a. Check it up.

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There's nothing significantly different. What you need to show us is that there's a Quranic text which was discovered in Sana 'a, which tells us now that the

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Prophet is not indeed the Prophet, or that Allah is not God, or there's some significant change in dogma or doctrine, like I showed you, about the

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Trinity, about the Ascension, about the nature of Jesus, about the evolution of Jesus. Show me that in the

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Quranic text. If you're showing me one or two minor variations, rearrangement of the surahs, perhaps misspelling of words, it's meaningless.

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The consonantal text overall, except for a few variations, are primarily the same.

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If you look at the Uthmanic text, the Uthmanic Quran, basically, you'd find that also in certain instances, it is written on a palimpsest.

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And interestingly enough, and I've got the list of differences that are basically here, many of the non -readings in the palimpsest of Uthman can be said to be as a result of a faulty reading.

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For example, there are scribal errors, meaning there's a palimpsest of Uthman, there's a text, and there's a text which has been rubbed off.

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In the text that has been rubbed off, it doesn't necessarily correlate with the text that is there. But these mistakes that are in the text that has been rubbed off can be easily seen, and have been analyzed by scholars.

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And I've got them in front of me, and you can make out the difference. Surah 2, verse 20. فَإِخْوَانُهُمْ Instead of فَإِخْوَانُهُمْ إِخْوَانُكُمْ as a standard reading.

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يَعْمُرُونَ Instead of تُعْمَرُونَ which does not fit the context. The palimpsest has المُنَافِقِين which is grammatically incorrect.

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It should be المُنَافِقُون as a standard reading, and so on. But that doesn't necessarily affect the text in a general.

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It doesn't affect the status of the Qur 'an. The inferior text cannot in any way throw doubt on the integrity of the text.

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This is a scholar called Angelica Neuwirth. She's a contributor to a book called

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The Cambridge Companion to the Qur 'an. These are Qur 'anic scholars. These are professors.

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They study the Qur 'an. This is what she's saying. New findings of the Qur 'anic text fragments moreover can be adduced to affirm rather than to affirm rather than call into question the traditional picture of the text of the

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Qur 'an as an early fixed text composed of the surahs we have. Nor have scholars trying to deconstruct that image succeeded in seriously discrediting the genuineness of the

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Qur 'an as we know it. Basically what she's saying that there are lots of people out there that are trying to discredit the

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Qur 'an. Trying to change and suggest that the Qur 'an says something else. It hasn't been accurately preserved in principle.

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And she says they haven't succeeded. I'll give you certain scholars and I know my time is limited. The following excerpts are just views of the

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Qur 'an by two non -Muslim scholars. James is an apologist. He's not a

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Qur 'anic scholar. In my like humble humility I can say I'm not a biblical scholar.

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But I use the sources of biblical scholars to come to my conclusion. What James has to now do is use the analysis and scholarly works of Qur 'anic scholars.

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Why is it that in your discussions and debates you've never gone to the Cambridge Companion of the Qur 'an?

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You never looked at Angelica Neuwirth for example or William Montgomery Watt or for example people even a classical orientalist a bitter orientalist like William Muir who says that the text of the

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Qur 'an is unimpeachable. Why don't you go to those particular? Why is it that always

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Christian apologists have to rely on revisionist material? Like for example

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John Wandsborough. He says the Qur 'an was developed in the 8th and 9th century. Even though his student

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John Burton says that the Qur 'an that we have today is in principle almost identical to the

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Mas 'haf that we have in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. So why is it that Christian apologists take it upon themselves to go to either the revisionist or pseudo -scholars in order to substantiate or justify their particular point?

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Look at what Watt and Bell say. They say the very fact that varying and even contradictory deliverances in certain instances have been preserved is strong proof that with perhaps minor exceptions we have the whole of what was revealed to Muhammad.

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On general grounds it may be concluded that the Uthmanic revision was honestly carried out and reproduced as closely as was possible to the men in charge of it what

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Muhammad had basically delivered. And effectively, I'll end with a quotation by William Muir who says

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William Muir was a hostile critic of Islam, an orientalist. Maybe he never had access to manuscripts that we have today, but he was hostile to Islam.

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And he concludes, Yet but one Qur 'an has been current amongst the Muhammadans, Muslims, and the constantaneous use by them in all and every age after the present day is an irrefragible proof that what we have now before us is the very text preserved.

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There is probably in the world no other work which has remained 12 centuries, now 14, were so pure a text.

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And I'll leave you at that. If you want to come to the final conclusion, is the Qur 'an a reflection of the teachings of Muhammad?

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I've in principle pointed out to you that we can at least date it to the very time of the

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Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago in contrast to the New Testament. Thank you. Now I'm a little concerned that when we approach these subjects in somewhat of a scattergun effect and we raise all sorts of issues, that the result is that those of you who are trying to follow are not going to be able to follow what the real issues actually are.

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There are all sorts of things I could raise about the canon, the number of surahs, Ubay ibn Ka 'b and Abdullah ibn

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Masud. There are all sorts of things I could raise that would be parallels to what Yusuf Ismail did in regards to the

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New Testament. But I want to remain focused upon the actual thesis of the debate and to focus upon this issue because very clearly what

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Yusuf is saying is, no, a controlled text is the best way. It is the best way. We want Uthman to make a revision and we want to have that certainty of that text.

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And I want to illustrate why that is a bad thing. I do want to just say one thing.

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If when we're done this evening, if the folks here at the university want to leave the microphone on and we've said good night to everybody,

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I will go back there, I will put John 1 -1 in Greek on the screen and I will take seven minutes to explain to you why it teaches the deity of Christ and then ask

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Yusuf to do the same thing from the Greek text. I will do that, only take 15 minutes. If anybody wants to do that, I make that offer. But that's not why we're here this evening.

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The key of the second debate is to apply the same standards here that we did in examining the New Testament.

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Was the transmission of the Quran a free transmission or a controlled transmission? Well, we already know. Yusuf has already admitted it is a controlled transmission and he believes that that is far better.

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Muslims and non -Muslims both agree that no change, this is a quote,

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Muslims and non -Muslims both agree that no change has ever occurred in the text of the Quran. The above prophecy of the eternal preservation and purity of the

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Quran came true not only for the text of the Quran but also for the most minute details of its punctuation marks as well.

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Now, you just heard Yusuf say that's not the case. Interestingly enough, he said, well, when there are variations, they don't matter.

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Any variation in the New Testament text does matter but any variation in the Quranic text doesn't matter even when it affects the actual meaning of the text.

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It goes on, that quote goes on to say, it is a miracle of the Quran that no change has occurred in a single word, a single letter of the alphabet, a single punctuation mark, or a single diacritical mark in the text of the

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Quran during the last 14 centuries. Now, Yusuf has already contradicted this fellow Muslim on this particular subject and has admitted that's not the case and that's a good thing.

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I'm glad that he has done that. Now, at this point, there is truly no question as scholarly sources,

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Islamic and non, both attest to the exact same story. For example, in the al -Mushaf al -Sharif, the top copy of manuscript from 2007 published by Turkish scholars, you have a number of pages like this where you have differences in readings of the major Mushaf of the

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Quran listed. Now, this is sort of a beginning, a sort of movement toward a critical edition of the

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Quran but no critical edition of the Quran exists today. You cannot go by the Nasiha, and it's currently the 28th edition by the way, 28th edition of the

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Quran. If you look at the Arabic Quran, there's not going to be any notes at the bottom that say, well, some

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Su 'ana manuscripts say this and some Palimpsest manuscripts say that. It doesn't exist.

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There are qurans that note the differences between Harfs and Warsh and some of the other printed editions because those differences are relevant but I'm not getting into them this evening.

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I want to focus upon the real issue and that is what level of confidence can we have in light of how these texts were transmitted to us?

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And so, here's an example from an Islamic source of where you have variations. Now, the question that I have to place before everyone is how do you know what the original is in light of the current manuscript tradition of the

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Quran? I just heard it said 450 ,000 manuscripts. I challenge that. I want a list. I can give you the list of all the

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New Testament manuscripts. You can go online, get it right now, look for the New Testament Institute in Munster, Germany.

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You can find the entire catalog available online. Where is that for the Quran? I've actually had people say there are 5 ,000 first -century manuscripts of the

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Quran. Where? Where's the list? I was just looking at islamicawareness .com,

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I believe is the address, and they have an article there on first -century manuscripts of the Quran and it looks almost identical to the

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New Testament. There are very few of them. They admit only 87 % of the texts of the Quran exist in first -century manuscripts. Now, may

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I make another statement here? Comparing the New Testament and the Quran is apples and oranges. You have in the

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Quran is only 56 % the length of the New Testament. Did you hear the memorization stuff? It's barely half the length of the

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New Testament. It's only about, what, 14 % length of the Bible. It's a small book in comparison and it's a much younger book.

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It should have an absolutely perfect text because it's a much younger book than the New Testament and it wasn't the people who wrote it weren't persecuted for 260 years during the time period where it was being transmitted either and had to hide their copies.

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So you're comparing apples and oranges if you don't think about the reality of the history of the text itself.

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Now, I do want to point out some important texts. Ibn Masud, Surah 222, and Fogg's Palimpsest Manuscript.

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Now, this is an example of where we have a variation in the texts of the manuscripts that we have.

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The problem is, I can't even tell you whether it's only two sources or three sources. What do

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I mean by this? Well, I know that the material that I have on the bottom of this screen is from Fogg's Palimpsest Manuscript, but I'm not sure whether that is the

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Surah number one manuscript or not because the sources don't seem to agree. There is no, unlike the

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New Testament where we can go and we can look at the manuscripts. For example, Yusuf is saying, well, you go to Codex Sinaiticus and it had these other books in it.

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Now, he didn't prove that the author thought those were canon. He just assumed that. I've never had anyone even prove that, but at least we know what is contained in Codex Sinaiticus.

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We can go online and find it. We don't even have that level of information about the Quran yet. The level of study of the manuscripts of the

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Quran is in its infancy at this point in time. And ironically, the motivation for the continuation of that study, the

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Corpus Chronicum project and things like that, is not primarily found in religious Muslims. It's found in the

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West. It's not found amongst Muslims, which is an interesting observation. But at the very least, what you have here on the top is the reading from Surah 222 that's found in Uthman's text.

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It's found in the modern text of the Quran. And then below it, you have what's called the palimpsest reading.

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Now, Yusuf didn't really explain to you what that was, but because of the nature of the parchment, you could actually wash off the writing of a book and then write something new on top of it.

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But thankfully, because of the quills, you were actually marking the parchment. And when you use infrared or ultraviolet light, depending on the material, you can read what was originally written underneath it.

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And so we discover in the Fawq's palimpsest manuscript and in the Su 'ana manuscript, so possibly even a third reading, again, it's difficult to know, we find another reading.

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And notice, this is not a simple scribal error, because when we look at this, we discover that there are changes of entire words, changes of grammatical endings, and changes of where the word is in the position in the sentence.

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Now, that's not a scribe making a mistake while quoting something in the text.

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This is clearly editing on the part of the later writing. So you have an earlier form of the text in the palimpsest form, all right?

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Now, if we have palimpsest in the New Testament, if we find a textual variant, what do we do?

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We look at all the other manuscripts we have. But what if you burned all of them? How do you know which one's original?

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That's the problem with a controlled text. That's the problem with a controlled text. Sure, the vast majority read one way, but how do you know that was the original?

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How do you know that's not the edited text that has now become the most popular form? That's the problem with controlled transmission.

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And we have it right here in the text of the Qur 'an. But here is another example. This is from BNF 328a, which is the very, very early

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Qur 'an that is found in the National Library of France in Paris.

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And as you can see on... Oops, sorry about that. Here we go. As you can now see on the screen, this word right here, and unfortunately the projection isn't overly bright, but this word right here is clearly and obviously a textual variant.

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You can see, for example, that the Lamids are at a completely different angle than what's in the rest of the manuscript. Clearly, something has been scrubbed out and put in here.

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Now, I don't have the time to go all through it. There's an excellent book over there called Muhammad is not the father of any of your men by Dr.

39:52

Powers that goes through this in a painstaking way. But what you have here is a term that Umar said he knew what it meant, but he never told anybody what it meant.

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There was a tremendous amount of argumentation in the Hadith sources concerning what this word meant and why it was there and its relationship to Surah 4, 176, which happens to be just the very last ayah of Surah 4 as well.

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Now, you can sort of tell what was originally written if you hold it up to proper light, and you can look at it, and you can make out most of what was originally written.

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But here you have a clear emendation in the consonantal text of one of the earliest

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Qurans. Now, here's where the transmission methodology comes into play.

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How can we know what the original is? Did someone make a mistake? Someone later on tried to fix it?

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But that's not the only thing about this particular variant. Let me show you some other things about it. Here is the variant in its full page, and here you have the variant it's found right there.

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Again, it's very difficult for me to read that. It's a little bit dark. But that's not the only thing that's important about 328a.

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Let me show you something else about 328a. Scholars have discovered that there is a missing page.

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And in fact, the arrow is pointing to what's called a stub. Remember how you would fold parchment into parts.

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You'd fold it into multiple parts and you'd bind them together. So if you cut out one page completely, the opposite side page will also fall out because they're bound together in these quires in the book itself.

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And so to keep the book from falling apart, whoever cut this page out between folios 19b and 20a left enough of the page there so the corresponding page wouldn't fall out on the other side.

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Now, why is this relevant? Why is it relevant? Because the text continues on. Well, what this shows us is that someone was making a purposeful emendation in this copy of the

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Quran. And if you'll notice, when you look at the next page, and hopefully you can see this, notice at the top of this page, the line spacing and lettering is much smaller than it is at the bottom.

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So what's happened is whoever did this made some kind of a change and added something but wanted the addition to look like it continued to flow in the text and so they squished more material onto this page so that it would end at the bottom at the same place the page they had taken out had ended.

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And interestingly enough, the added material is surah 4176, which is directly relevant to the textual variant

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I just showed you before. So in other words, once they made the change, then they had to physically alter the manuscript to allow them to insert another ayah to explain the change they made earlier.

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Now, here you have, I think, indisputable evidence in one of the earliest

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Qurans. And again, if you don't trust me, go to Islamic Awareness and look at their article on the first century manuscripts of the

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Quran and they will mention this particular manuscript as one of the few first century manuscripts of the

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Quran. So you don't have to trust me on it. Now, can I prove, am

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I going to do what Yusuf did and crawl into the mind of the person that did this and go, well, they did it because they wanted to prove this or they were taking this role because honestly the material is relevant to the issue of succession in the

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Islamic Caliphate. And guess what? The biggest issue was going on in the days of Uthman. Who would be his successor?

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What happened right after him? You have Ali, you have the Shiite split, you have all that stuff taking place right at this very time.

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And here's documentary evidence that it impacts the earliest text of the Quran and in fact the Uthmanic text.

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But I can't crawl into people's minds and I'm not going to go there. But what I am going to say to you is this demonstrates why you want a freely transmitted text.

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Because you can't go someplace else and go, well, this one's earlier and therefore this is the original reading because you don't have that wide variety of manuscripts whereby you can have a corrective.

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It's just not there. Now, Yusuf has already mentioned the fact that there is a tremendous amount of information in the

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Hadith itself about the fact that the Quran has a controlled transmission. For example, narrated

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Zayd bin Thabit, Abu Bakr al -Siddiq went for me when the people of Yamama had been killed, i .e. a number of the

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Prophet's companions who fought against Musalima. Abu Bakr then said to me, Umar has come to me and said, casualties were heavy amongst the

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Qur 'an of the Quran, i .e. those who knew the Quran by heart, on the day of the battle of Yamama. And I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the

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Qur 'an on other battlefields whereby a large part of the Quran may be lost.

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Now, if I was going to use Yusuf's technique, I would now stand in front of you and say, why didn't Yusuf tell you about this? But I'm not going to do that.

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But that once. Whereby a large part, kathir, a large part of the

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Quran may be lost. If it was all already there, why would there be a fear that if some more of the memorizers died, that a large part might be lost?

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This is in the actual material that you'll find in Sahih al -Bukhari. Therefore, I suggest you,

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Abu Bakr, order the Quran be collected. I said, Umar, how can you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?

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Umar said, by Allah, that is a good project. Umar kept on urging me to accept this proposal till Allah opened my chest for it and I began to realize the good in the idea which

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Umar had realized. So, I started looking for the Quran and collecting it from what was written on palm stalks, thin white stones, and also from the men who knew it by heart till I found the last verse of Surah al -Tawbah,

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Surah 9, Repentance, with Abu Kazami al -Ansari and I did not find it with anybody other than him.

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He did not find that one verse with anybody but in the memory of one person. Just one person. That is a reason for concern.

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That particular verse is, Verily, there has come to you an Apostle Muhammad from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty till the end of Surah al -Tawbah.

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This is Bukhari 9, 128 through 129. Then, a little bit later on, what you read is,

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Then, the complete manuscripts, copy of the Quran remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with Umar till the end of his life, then with Hafsah, the daughter of Umar.

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Hudayfa bin al -Yaman came to Uthman. Hudayfa was afraid of there, the people of Sham and Iraq's differences in the recitation of the

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Quran. So he said to Uthman, O chief of the believers, save this nation before they differ about the book, the

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Quran, as Jews and Christians did before. So there was a concern. We don't want to be like those

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Jews and Christians arguing about their book. So we need an official version. So Uthman sent a message to Hafsah saying, send us the manuscripts of the

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Quran so we may compile the Quranic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you. Hafsah sent it to Uthman.

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Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin Az -Zubair, Zaid bin Alas, and Abdurrahman bin

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Harith bin Hisham, could be slower to read, to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies.

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Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, in case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Quran, then write it in the dialect of Quraish.

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The Quran was revealed in their language. So this was not just simply a, well, we're just going to take this one manuscript, we're going to rewrite it and distribute this.

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This is a complete revision. They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsah.

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Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied and ordered that all the other

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Quranic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burned. Now Yusuf said, why did they do that?

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Because if they didn't, it would be like the New Testament. In other words, you'd have other sources to make sure that Uthman got it right.

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And what if it was different? It would be in variation. So if you want to just, if you don't want to know what was originally written and you just want certainty, this is the way to do it.

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But if you want to know what was originally written, this is not the way to do it. This is not the way to do it. Now, interestingly enough,

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Zaid bin Thabit added, a verse from Surah Azab was missed by me when we copied the

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Quran and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Qazaimi bin Thabit Al -Ansari. That verse was, among the believers are men who have been true to their covenant with Allah.

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Surah 33, 23. So here was a verse that was not in the compiled manuscript that was made right after the time of Muhammad.

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It was only in the mind of one person. What about those people that died at Yamama? What if they had one of those verses?

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Could something be missing? That is a question that we have to ask. Now, interestingly enough, we have a

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Christian who gives testimony in regards to this subject. There is a man by the name of Al -Kindi. And Al -Kindi wrote a book sometime around 820

49:00

AD or so, in which he dialogues with a Muslim. It is a fascinating work. Let me read some of what he says at this very early period of time.

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The result was that in the Caliphate of Uthman, it was discovered that there was no consent as to the true text. One man then read one version of the

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Quran, his neighbor another, and differed. One man said to his neighbor, my text is better than yours, while his neighbor defended his own.

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So additions and losses came about and falsifications of the text. Uthman was told that various versions were in use, that the text was being tampered with, and that strife with all the mischief of party spirit was being engendered.

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They said, we do not believe that matters can continue as they are. It is an affair of urgency. They are slaying one another.

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The sacred book is corrupted. A second apostasy is imminent. Ubay, the son of Kab, was dead before it was made, while Ibn Masud refused to give up his copy of the

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Quran. So they drove him from his post in Kufa and appointed Abu Musa as governor in his place.

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That'll be relevant to my response to what he brought up in regards to Yasir Qadhi's book later on. When the revision had been completed, according to the various manuscripts, four copies were made in large text, one of which was sent to Mecca, a second remained in Medina, a third was sent to Syria, and is today in Malatya.

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Interesting, al -Kindi even knows where they were sent at this early period of time. Next, Uthman gave instructions, directions,

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I'm sorry, that the leaves and sheets of the Quran should be gathered in from the provinces. He ordered his agents to collect all that they could lay their hands on and destroy them till it should be certain that not a sheet remained in the possession of any private individual.

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Heavy penalties were threatened against the disobedient. All the leaves they could secure were shredded and boiled in vinegar till they were sodden.

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Nothing remained, not even the smallest fragment that could be deciphered. Sounds like a real project here that al -Kindi is talking about.

50:44

You know what happened between Ali, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, how they hated each other and quarreled and corrupted the text, how each one tried to oppose his neighbor and to refute what he had said.

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Pray, how are we to know which is the true text and how shall we distinguish it from the false one? This was al -Kindi's question early on in the period of interaction between Christians and Muslims.

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He knew about the same materials that Bukhari depended upon in the collection of his

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Hadith as well. And so the real question once again, which methodology gives us the most certainty as to the real question?

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Do we possess the original words of the authors we believe to have been inspired of God? The free transmission of the

51:29

New Testament text precludes editing and revision. What he said was, well, look, a later scribe said this.

51:35

How does he know a later scribe said that? Because he knows what the original is. He knows what the earlier reading is.

51:40

It's amazing when I hear critics saying, oh, well, look at this, a later scribe said that. Well, you know that he changed it because why?

51:47

Because we know what the earlier scribes had said. That's why. But if you destroyed the earlier scribe's material, how would you know when someone changed it later on?

51:57

You see, that's the difference between a free transmission and a controlled transmission. So the free transmission of the

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New Testament text precludes editing and revision, and the manuscript tradition shows us tenacity, the original readings still exist.

52:09

Even when later scribes harmonized things, possibly just because they had memorized it Matthew and if Mark's the shorter one or the longer one, just when they're writing, because they've memorized it in another one, they do it without even trying to, or because they were trying to make

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke read the same way, we still know what they were changing from because we have such a wide manuscript tradition.

52:33

That's what's so important about this particular issue. But the controlled transmission of the

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Quran, together with the Uthmanic revision, the possible later work of Abd al -Malik, which I can't even get into this evening, and the evidence of the differing traditions of Ibn Masud, Ubay ibn

52:51

Ka 'b, and possibly others found at Sana 'a, raises serious questions as to the originality of the

52:57

Uthmanic tradition. And the simple fact of the matter is, the Islamic community is not in a position as yet, in light of the infancy of the studying of the manuscripts of the

53:07

Quran in the early period, to make a decision on these matters. It is pure tradition for the

53:13

Muslim to say, ah, Uthman, this is it. Well, look, I have King James Only friends who say, ah,

53:19

King James Only, this is it. Well, the King James wasn't the first one. That wasn't even the first English translation.

53:27

So, the question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we want to know? What was originally written, or what our community wants us to think was originally written?

53:35

Folks, there are people who are willing to trade truth for certainty. But then you really don't have certainty, do you, if you don't have the truth?

53:42

This is a very, very important issue. Islamic scholars and apologists must recognize that merely asserting the perfection of the

53:50

Uthmanic tradition proves nothing. The realities of the variant traditions must be embraced and examined before the

53:56

Quran can be proven to have been accurately transmitted to us in this day.

54:02

Now, okay, yeah, that's what I've got there. Now, it was said, well, there couldn't be any changes whatsoever, because all of this stuff had been memorized.

54:12

I want to read you. This is in one of the footnotes in my book, Whatever Christian Needs to Know About the

54:18

Quran. This is very, very interesting. Al -Tabarani reports, this is

54:25

Sahih al -Bukhari 6 -8. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that was the previous one.

54:31

Sayyuti reveals a relevant story here. This is Jalil al -Sayyuti. He says, Al -Tabarani reports in the work of al -Kabir that Ibn Umar said, two men used to recite a chapter taught to them by the

54:41

Prophet. One night, they awoke to pray, only to find they were unable to recall even one letter of that chapter.

54:48

The next morning, they went to the Prophet to inform him of what had transpired. He said, it is of those parts of the

54:54

Quran that have been abrogated, so ignore it. We were asked, which is better, to have a smaller book, a smaller, newer book that's memorized, or to have a wide documentary evidence of a larger book that was in written form?

55:12

I suggest to you, it's far better to have written documentation than the memories of anybody. When I did a debate on this very subject in London, my opponent tried to get someone who had memorized the

55:24

Quran to come up and to quote what he had put on the screen. It ended up being a debacle because they didn't communicate well, and he really wasn't able to do it, and it didn't work out right.

55:32

But the point is, man's memory is not nearly as good as man's pen.

55:38

And the reality is, the fundamental difference in the presentation of the

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New Testament is far better than the memories of man because it is based on documentation.

55:49

In fact, what I'll do is I'll explain this. I made a mistake in the first debate I did with Shabir Ali.

55:55

It wasn't about the fact there are lots of sources, the Encyclopedia of Islam and the

56:00

Encyclopedia of the Quran, all sorts of sources that talk about the fact that there was a split between Ibn Masud and Uthman.

56:08

And a number of sources report that Ibn Masud was beaten and that he died of his wounds later on.

56:14

Some of the sources just say that he was removed from his post there in Kufa. But there was clearly a division at that particular point in time.

56:21

But when Shabir Ali asked me about what my source was, when I went back to my materials, my footnotes were all in HTML.

56:28

Anybody ever read HTML in direct text? And I read the footnote above the actual source that I had.

56:34

Interestingly enough, within two weeks on my blog, I wrote about this and provided the sources right there.

56:39

For some reason Yusuf either wasn't aware of that or didn't look at that. But you see, I made a mistake and it was a mistake of sight.

56:47

I looked at the wrong footnote, HTML will do that to you, and the footnote was below it. Now, the fact of the matter is those sources still exist, but we make mistakes.

56:57

And I'm awful glad that I wasn't the only one that had that information. Other people had that information, and so the information didn't get corrupted because I was the only one that had it.

57:07

In other words, there's been a free transmission of that information. But when you have a controlled transmission, once somebody makes a mistake, it becomes the standard.

57:16

It becomes the standard. And so my whole point to you all this evening is

57:22

I could sit here and point out that, for example, Ibn Masud. Ibn Masud told his people, and I provide the citations in whatever a

57:30

Christian needs to know about the Quran. There's numerous citations of the Hadith. Ibn Masud told his people, hold on to your manuscripts, don't give them up.

57:38

Why? Because Uthman was saying to do so. And scholarly materials demonstrate that the readings of Ibn Masud continued in the manuscript tradition for hundreds of years.

57:49

And so I just simply ask any Muslim in the audience, upon what basis do you know, given that when

57:55

Muhammad himself in the Hadith was asked, who do we go to to know the Quran, Ibn Masud was one that was mentioned,

58:03

Uthman was not. How do you know that Ibn Masud's readings are not right, where he differed from Uthman?

58:12

The early Tafsir literature is replete with references to variations in the manuscripts.

58:17

They were not embarrassed by it. Only later Tafsir literature removes those things. And so it was the reality of your text.

58:25

Yours is a written, handwritten text, since it's a handwritten text, it has a history. The history of mine is wide open.

58:32

Every single variant that Yusuf mentioned about the New Testament I already knew about, have written about most of them, and lectured about most of them.

58:40

And anyone who's studying textual criticism here at this university would have access to all that information.

58:46

Nothing is hidden. But my Muslim friends, how do you know what Ibn Masud's readings were? Where do you go?

58:54

How can you find the information? There's no critical text that gives you that information. And once there is, what are you going to do with it?

59:03

What are you going to do when the Corpus Chronicum project actually pulls all this stuff together and gives you the variant readings in the

59:09

Sa 'ana Palimpsest manuscripts and things like that? What are you going to do with the variant readings? How are you going to weigh them against one another in light of the

59:17

Uthmanic revision that destroyed many of the manuscripts that could have given us such insight into what the original was?

59:26

I suggest to you that it is far better. You know, some of you sat out here and you're troubled.

59:31

You say, James, do you not believe that the Percocet Adultery is original? No. Why? Because it doesn't appear in any manuscript until 500 years after Jesus.

59:40

And even when it does appear there, it doesn't just appear in John. In some manuscripts it appears in Luke. Now, when you've got a story looking for a place to land, it ain't original.

59:48

Nothing new about that. I've taught on that forever. But you see, we have a basis for looking at those subjects.

59:56

We have a basis for making decisions about those subjects. And I say to my Muslim friends, what's your basis? We have to use even scales.

01:00:04

Apply the same standards. Apply the same methodologies. That's the mark of truth. Thank you very much.

01:00:16

Now they will have 10 minutes for rebuttals. And first, Yusuf will have the floor.

01:00:24

Thank you for that, James. Isn't it interesting how James quite easily skirts over the issues?

01:00:31

That despite him talking about many Quranic variants, he couldn't even explain to us what the actual variants were that he was showing.

01:00:41

He never explained it to any of us. Can he read the script itself? There are only a minority of scholars in the world today can read the script.

01:00:48

And the most that he showed in respect of the Fox Palimpsest was what? A rearrangement of words?

01:00:55

And that's a variant. It's like this saying, I am going to the San Lam Auditorium tonight. And if you had

01:01:00

Yoda from Star Wars, what would he say? Am I going to the San Lam Auditorium tonight?

01:01:07

The point I'm trying to say is that a rearrangement of words doesn't detract from the fact that you've got the same text in essence, in principle.

01:01:16

There is no variation in respect of that. Now let me review some of the positive points and my positive case that I pointed out to vindicate the position that the

01:01:27

Quran today is in fact the reliable record of the teachings of Muhammad. Which James, in fact, agrees to.

01:01:35

Because when I sent an email to him and I proposed this particular topic, he says, well, you know, in principle he doesn't have an issue.

01:01:42

You remember the email, James, that you said that in principle it is in fact the reliable record of the teachings of Muhammad.

01:01:49

So why didn't you tell the audience that tonight? Why is it that you came up with these red herrings in respect?

01:01:56

Well, I can get the emails out for you. He says basically both the New Testament and the

01:02:02

Quran in principle can be reliably traced back to either Jesus or the Prophet Muhammad.

01:02:07

We can go back to that. But let me review some of the positive points that I made. Number one, I said that the Prophet was aware of the potential to corrupt the text and instructed that anything outside of the

01:02:17

Quran be destroyed. James had nothing to respond to this.

01:02:23

Anything outside the Quran, which means the Hadith. The Hadith tradition, such as Bukhari.

01:02:29

Anyone heard of Bukhari? Those non -Muslims out here. When was Bukhari compiled? Bukhari was compiled about two to three hundred years after the demise of the

01:02:40

Prophet. And that's his source which I conventionally used to discuss the development of the

01:02:47

Quran and which he uses as a basis to discuss the development of the Quranic text and the problem.

01:02:54

So he has to rely on a source which dates two to three hundred years after the death and demise of the

01:03:02

Prophet. I mentioned further the point that the Prophet had posed or had created all precautions to keep the

01:03:10

Quranic text pure in both the oral form and the written form. James had nothing to say about this.

01:03:16

I said that the Quran contained passages in written form during the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

01:03:21

Again, James never rebutted this particular point. I said the earliest Quran was written about seven years before the

01:03:29

Hijra, when the Quran was being revealed, when the sister of Omar had a parchment in a possession.

01:03:34

James had nothing to say about this. I gave four reasons why the Quran was not compiled in a book form in the time of the

01:03:40

Prophet. Again, James had nothing to say about this. And what he did raise, and I'm going to come to some of these points which he has raised.

01:03:50

For example, on the top of my head, he makes reference to the work of a

01:03:55

Christian polemicist called Al -Kindi. You remember that? He spoke about Al -Kindi, and Al -Kindi writing about Islam and the development of the

01:04:06

Quran, and seeming to suggest that there were certain problems in the development of the text of the Quran.

01:04:12

It's coming from a work called The Apology of Al -Kindi. Who is Al -Kindi? Al -Kindi is a

01:04:19

Christian polemicist. His full name was Abdul Masih Ibn Ishaq Al -Kindi.

01:04:25

And his work called The Apology of Al -Kindi. The earliest surviving manuscripts of Al -Kindi date to when?

01:04:33

The 17th century. As late as the 17th century, and you are relying upon a work which is written by a

01:04:41

Christian polemicist, who was purportedly commissioned by Peter the Venerable in the 11th century, and you're using that to go and attack the credibility of the

01:04:50

Quran? You know what that is equivalent to? It's like me using the books and the fiction of Dan Brown to attack the integrity of the

01:04:58

New Testament and the Old Testament. I'm using the fictional writings of Dan Brown to say that the

01:05:03

Bible is fictional. But that's what James does. Some scholars like William Muir don't even know if Al -Kindi existed.

01:05:12

For example, William Muir, the orientalist in the 18th, 19th century, he says he acknowledged difficulties in even obtaining a reliable version of the text.

01:05:22

Scholars such as P .S. van Koningsveld continue to argue whether the letters derive from actual persons or represent a work of fiction by a single author.

01:05:33

And that's one of the sources that James uses in attacking the credibility of the Quran. Why didn't he quote you a single

01:05:42

Quranic scholar? Maybe I missed something out. But why is it that James, in his discussion, never quoted you a single

01:05:49

Quranic scholar of note? Even one from the School for Oriental and African Studies.

01:05:54

You could have quoted Patricia Crone or Michael Cook, who are revisionists. Why does he rely on secondary sources and secondary material in respect of his discussions?

01:06:05

This is one source that he could have referred to. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, which he made reference to in principle without discussing what it says about the development of the

01:06:16

Quranic text. He says, in the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Only the canonical

01:06:23

Arabic text as collected and compiled under the Caliph Uthman with the consensus of the companions may be recited in one of the seven acceptable versions of the punctuation and vocalization.

01:06:33

So, for example, where you find even possible variations in recitation, that in Islamic law terminology would be described as Sabata Ahruf, meaning the seven authentic readings in terms of which you can recite the

01:06:47

Quran. So, for example, in today, in the Hafs an -Nafi, if I were to recite in Arabic, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, Ar -Rahmanir

01:06:56

Raheem, Maliki Yawm al -Din. If I were to go to the Maghreb, to Morocco, they would recite it like,

01:07:02

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, Ar -Rahmanir Raheem, Maliki Yawm al -Din. So, can you see?

01:07:07

Maliki Yawm al -Din and Maliki Yawm al -Din. One is owner of the Day of Judgment, the other is king of the

01:07:13

Day of Judgment. Essentially, it basically says that God is either owner or king of the

01:07:18

Day of Judgment. It doesn't detract from the message. So, can you see that the so -called red herrings he was raising doesn't really affect the text itself?

01:07:30

He mentioned about the palimpsest and the underlying reading within the text. Well, I would urge him, and I don't know how much study he has done in terms of Quranic scholarship, but there are two contemporary studies in the history of the inferior texts that are being done in the world today.

01:07:46

One is by someone called Behnam Sadeghi, the other is Asma Hilali, and what they point out, that the palimpsest that you find, and the underlying writing that may be there, is possibly not a codex of the

01:08:02

Quranic text, but a school book dedicated to help the memory of the student learning the Quranic text.

01:08:07

And I pointed out to you, I've got about 20 examples in terms of which the variations exist in the palimpsest, and where you can actually point out that it's not what the actual reciting is.

01:08:19

For example, I gave you an example in Surah 2, verse 220, that instead of the word, the writing proceeds that underneath the text reads, as is the standard reading, but it doesn't fit the context, because the speech is made direct from the

01:08:38

Prophet to the believers. You, for example, have, instead of, instead of, instead of, instead of, instead of, instead of, and what it basically shows you, is that the inferior text can in no way, cast doubt on the integrity of the

01:09:06

Uthmanic recension, because the Uthmanic version has its own particular perfect lineage, attested by a numerable chain of narrators.

01:09:14

There is something in Islam called the Isnat, a chain of transmitters, and a report is only authenticated based on the authenticity of the chain of narrators.

01:09:25

Even if the report seems sound, if the chain of narrators is questionable, that particular report is entirely rejected.

01:09:32

There is an entire science on this particular issue, which doesn't detract from what

01:09:38

I had initially suggested and said. James basically mentioned the story about Ibn Masud, and why is it that Ibn Masud didn't give his text up?

01:09:50

Well, if I have a personal copy of the Bible, and I have my own footnotes, and I have my own marginal notes and annotations, would

01:09:58

I want to give up my personal text? Is there anything that you have seen, James, where Ibn Masud questioned that the

01:10:06

Uthmanic recension was not authentic? Is there anything that you have in the scholarly tradition? Do we have a manuscript of Ibn Masud, or a source which seems to suggest that the writings or the

01:10:21

Koran which was possessed by Ibn Masud was significantly different? Do you have any manuscripts? Nothing at all?

01:10:27

Absolutely nothing? So all he can do is rely on speculation to prove his particular point.

01:10:33

I never relied on speculation. I gave you actual variants and explained it to you. All he could do was present rearrangement of the surahs, perhaps an underlying text in the palimpsest, but nothing that detracts from the point that the overall skeletal text of the

01:10:47

Koran remains the same in terms of message and in terms of authenticity. Thank you.

01:11:02

I am deeply disappointed in Yusuf's response, personally. I am so because when you stand up in front of a crowd and say,

01:11:09

James didn't rebut this, James didn't rebut that, before the guy has his rebuttal time, that's not how you do debates.

01:11:16

I'm supposed to do a presentation, a positive presentation. I'm not supposed to be responding to what he said in my opening statement.

01:11:22

This is my time to do that. So about five minutes of that was just a cheap debating trick, and I don't think we should do that.

01:11:28

That's not honoring to the process or honoring to the audience in any way, shape, or form. Number two, he said,

01:11:35

I'm dependent upon secondary material. Yeah, those pictures of 328A are very secondary, aren't they?

01:11:42

That's as primary as you can get. You can't get any more primary than that. It's Yusuf who does not understand

01:11:49

New Testament textual criticism, never looked at any of the data himself, cannot analyze a textual critical text itself.

01:11:57

He's the one going on secondary material, not me. Bukhari is considered to be primary material in Islamic studies, okay?

01:12:06

I mean, if it was still up here, Sheikh Yasser Qadhi's book is filled with citations of Bukhari and Muslim.

01:12:13

I've listened to all of Sheikh Yasser's lectures on Hadith studies. Don't say I'm using only secondary material.

01:12:20

He then attacked al -Kindi. If you remember, I simply used al -Kindi to demonstrate that the very same traditions found in Bukhari were already known to Christians outside the

01:12:31

Islamic community. To say, you're depending on a Christian polemicist. Yes, I'm pointing out that for the historian, that source, if it is from 820, as many people have affirmed that it is in historical writings, demonstrates that these issues were known outside of the

01:12:47

Islamic community. And in fact, it actually gives better weight to Bukhari, interestingly enough. But instead, we got a polemic response rather than a scholarly response to Yusuf al -Kindi.

01:12:57

No argument that, well, al -Kindi was wrong. No argument about 328a. No argument about the fact that there's clear editing involved in the

01:13:06

Fawq's Palimpsest manuscript. Just, James didn't do this, James didn't do that.

01:13:11

That is simply not worthy. By the way, in the email, what I said was, there is no argument that what we possess today in the

01:13:19

Quran is a fairly accurate representation of Uthman's text. The question is, is

01:13:26

Uthman's text reliable in light of everything I've said this evening? That is my point.

01:13:32

A number of times, you've heard Yusuf say this evening, well, in essence, in principle, we know what the

01:13:40

Quranic text was. These variants don't matter. Listen to my debate with Bart Ehrman.

01:13:46

Fundamentally, what he says, in essence, in principle, we know what the New Testament was, too. In fact, from his perspective, we're just playing around with the original text right now.

01:13:54

We can't go any farther than back. And when you look at the text that Bart Ehrman likes to raise, there are things like, well, in Hebrews 2 .9,

01:14:04

does it say that Jesus died, koris theyu or karis theyu, one letter difference, as if that somehow changes the entire meaning of the book of Hebrews, which it does not.

01:14:14

So take a look at the information yourself. When he's saying, well, in essence, in principle, in other words, when there's a textual variant in the

01:14:20

Quran, it doesn't really matter. When there's a textual variant in the Bible, it does, even if we know what the original was.

01:14:26

1 John 5 .7, I cannot believe that my Muslim friends keep bringing this up. It doesn't appear in the

01:14:32

Greek manuscript tradition until the 14th century. Why keep bringing it up?

01:14:37

The doctrine of the Trinity is not dependent upon it in any way, shape, or form. Where did Athanasius defend the doctrine of the Trinity on the basis of the

01:14:43

Kamiohonium? See, these are the questions we would ask if we were focused in our subject this evening.

01:14:49

Unfortunately, we are not really focused in our subject. I was very concerned that Yusuf said, well,

01:14:55

I don't know how much study James has done on the scholarly material of the Quran. I sent

01:15:01

Yusuf a number of my books, including what every Christian uses about Quran, and he would find the very source he cited in the footnotes of the book, including citations on the specific

01:15:10

Saana manuscripts that we were discussing that I presented to you. Evidently, they didn't get read.

01:15:18

And so, this evening, I bring us back to the key issue. The key issue is not how much information is out there.

01:15:29

I think that's important. And I think that Christians, all of us Christians, we need to know more about where our

01:15:36

Bible came from. You need to know about the longer ending of Mark. You need to know about Mark 16, 9 -20.

01:15:43

That's the longer ending. You need to know about the Pricope Adultery, John 7, 53 -11. You need to know about 1

01:15:48

John 5 -7. And the reason it's in the Afrikaans Bible that was in his hotel room is because that was translated from the

01:15:56

Textus Receptus, which Yusuf erroneously identified, and I think it was just because he was in a hurry. When the picture came up, he said that was

01:16:02

Beza. It's actually Erasmus. But that was based upon the five editions of Erasmus between 1516 and 1535, and then you have the 1550

01:16:09

Stephanus text and the 1598 Beza, and those are the seven printed editions that the King James translators used, and they then were collated together into what's called the

01:16:17

Textus Receptus, and Erasmus inserted the Kamiohonim into the third edition of his text because Codex Monfortianus was written to force him to insert that into 1

01:16:29

John 5 -7. I've examined Codex Monfortianus at Trinity College in Dublin. And so the history of this is well known.

01:16:37

There's no question about what the original of 1 John was. We have so many manuscripts of 1

01:16:43

John that these are not issues, and the Doctrine of the Trinity is in no way, shape, or form based upon the citation of that text, even if there are

01:16:50

Christians who might be confused about the subject. The original reading of the New Testament is not determined by what people in the 21st century think about it.

01:16:57

It was written long before we came along. Long before we came along. The truth of it existed long before we came along.

01:17:04

And so the issue, once again, is this, folks. We have all this information.

01:17:10

We're wide open about it, about the New Testament. But the study of the Koranic manuscripts is in its infancy.

01:17:17

There is no critical text. I asked Yusuf to substantiate his 450 ,000 manuscript.

01:17:25

Ignored it. Didn't even mention it. Didn't even come back to it. Maybe he just didn't have time to.

01:17:31

Okay, fine. But the point is there is no list of these manuscripts.

01:17:36

There is no way of knowing what they read. And I again come back to the Muslim. I know the basis upon which

01:17:42

I read the New Testament. And let me give you an example. Let me give you one example in closing this evening that should really illustrate why this is important.

01:17:51

Every single historical source in the first hundred years after the crucifixion of Jesus confirms the fact that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

01:17:59

Everything. Christian and non -Christian. Every New Testament writer, every secular writer that happened to make mention of it all said

01:18:08

Jesus died under Pontius Pilate. Almost, well, approximately 600 years later one man, 700 miles away, speaking a different language, who did not know anything about the

01:18:22

Old and New Testament, wrote 40 Arabic words that said that Jesus did not die upon a cross.

01:18:28

Or at least that's how most people interpreted those words. They're actually not very clear as to what they actually say. Those 40

01:18:34

Arabic words of Surah 4, verse 157. And as a result, Muslims around the world do not believe that Jesus died upon Calvary's tree and hence they do not believe in the resurrection.

01:18:45

Now what's interesting to me is what we read from Bukhari, from a Muslim source.

01:18:51

It records for us that there were entire verses that now stand in the Quran because they found the memory of one man, and yet there were people who died at the

01:18:58

Battle of Yamama who were memorizers of the Quran. What if they were a person who had only one in their mind too?

01:19:05

And what if someone misremembered this and it was in the mind of one man? That's the problem with memory.

01:19:12

I've got 147 on my clock. And so, I need my 10 minutes. Especially since someone else took more than 10 minutes.

01:19:20

So, here's the point folks. Here's the point. One verse that denies the entire historical reality of the crucifixion, that puts the

01:19:30

Quran against all of history. Where did it come from? There is not a single commentary on the meaning of Surah 4, 157 in all of the

01:19:38

Hadith. No Muslim for 200 years could remember anything that Muhammad said about that surah, about that ayah.

01:19:49

This is why you need a documentary history. This is why you need the free translation of the text.

01:19:56

This is why you don't want people taking the other manuscripts and soaking them in vinegar and burning them.

01:20:03

Because once you do that, you have to trust that that one person that makes the revision got it right.

01:20:10

That's the fundamental difference between how these two texts have come to us.

01:20:15

And if I've been able to help you to see why it is having many manuscripts that come from many places and hence have textual variants but in essence and in principle say all the same thing without any question, if I've helped you to be able to see how that is much better, it gives us much more certainty of the original than a controlled transmission of the text, then

01:20:37

I've been successful this evening. As I said, if we want to talk about these other issues, if we want to talk about John 1, 1,

01:20:43

I'm ready to go. But the subject this evening was the transmission of the text of the New Testament and the transmission of the text of the

01:20:50

Quran, and I hope at least you understand better those issues after being here this evening. Thank you very much.

01:21:01

It's the last closing point for my... I've just got five minutes.

01:21:07

My watch is 25 to I know, Professor, you've been quite fair and accurate about time. Thank you for that,

01:21:13

James. James, I wasn't getting personal with you and I think it's important because I sense that he seems to be offended but I wasn't using a cheap debating trick in terms of pointing out.

01:21:22

I had spoken first on the Quran. I expected him to have engaged some of what I'd suggested as he had spoken second.

01:21:30

It was not a cheap debating trick. He said I had not referred to the fact of the existence of 450 ,000

01:21:36

Quranic manuscripts or a quarter of a million. Well, I was actually referring to the source by M .M.

01:21:42

Al -Azmi, the history of the Quranic text from revelation to compilation, a comparative study with the

01:21:48

Old and New Testaments, and this is quoted by Sami Amiri in the book Hunting for the

01:21:53

Word of God, The Quest for the Original Text of the New Testament and the Quran in the light of textual criticism.

01:22:00

So, that's a particular source which I was referring to and in fact I had read your book. I would have been a fool not to read his book on the

01:22:07

Quran and come to a debate with my eyes totally closed. Let me review some of the issues for tonight.

01:22:13

Number one, there are ten astounding facts that we cannot deny. It was recited by Muhammad as the overwhelming majority of non -Muslim scholars believe.

01:22:22

James may not believe it. The majority of non -Muslim scholars accept it. New Testament, a majority of academic scholars admit that most of the

01:22:30

New Testament book were written by unknown authors. James may disagree with this, but the majority of academic scholars, some are liberal, accept this.

01:22:37

It was memorized and transmitted orally from inception to today. New Testament, no oral preservation of the text exists.

01:22:44

Number three, we have manuscripts from the first century of the Hijra that cover the text. Number four, three,

01:22:50

New Testament, no manuscripts from the first century exist. Quran, number four, Muslims from the first century after the text was revealed read the whole text periodically as commanded by the

01:23:01

Prophet and listened to its recitation every year during Ramadan. Children were taught to recite it. We have no idea about the attitude of early

01:23:08

Christians towards NT in the first century and there is evidence that canonization of what constituted the

01:23:14

New Testament book took place only in the fourth century. Number five, the official copy was agreed upon and established in the era of the companions of the

01:23:24

Prophet. The Gospels written by unknown authors, no historical evidence that the disciples knew these books.

01:23:30

The official copies of the Greek New Testament are still being decided today. Number six, the official copy was approved by thousands of companions.

01:23:39

You see, James keeps on mentioning about Abdullah ibn Mas 'ud. Has he come and brought us a source to suggest that even though ibn

01:23:45

Mas 'ud kept his copy with him, that he challenged the Quranic text that was there and that he said that it's false, it's inaccurate.

01:23:52

We don't have any records about that. Number six, there is no official copy of the New Testament not even today.

01:24:00

Number seven, could I move on Donny? The sectarian schism in the first centuries did not result in the emergence of a different Quran.

01:24:10

You see, James made the point that if there was a division as there indeed was during the time of the

01:24:15

Caliphate between the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Shiites that came out then today if you were to go to Iran where they have a different theology they would have had a different Quran but why is it that the

01:24:26

Shiites in the Muslim world today still follow the same Quran that is in existence in the

01:24:32

Sunni world That would be an ideal situation that the Shiites would have developed a separate Quran to justify their theology yet the

01:24:40

Quran that you see in Tehran and Isfahan is essentially the same to the Quran that you've got in the

01:24:45

Sunni world. Sectarian schism was the main reason for the creation of a huge number of books which claim that they are the words of God to which the new sects attribute a divine source.

01:24:55

Point number eight, Muslims have the original book in its original language. Point number eight, Jesus spoke

01:25:00

Aramaic or maybe Hebrew but the New Testament books were in Greek so even if I were to say tonight yes

01:25:05

James, you can, you have the original New Testament then what do you have the original words of Jesus?

01:25:11

No you don't. Number nine, we have even the minutest intricate details of the history of the

01:25:17

Quran. Number nine, the first hundred years after the writing of the autographs is an obscure zone

01:25:22

You see that whole development period about the text of the Quran is there and preserved in the classical sources.

01:25:29

You have nothing like that in the New Testament. And the last point, number ten, there does not exist any dogmatic issue behind the variants as reported by the companions.

01:25:40

Dogma was behind putting part of the oral tradition into written form and also emergence of what were later called canonical and non -canonical writings.

01:25:48

Can you see that? That in all the discussions in James and I respect him and I respect his scholarship and I respect his humility and his humor indeed he couldn't show us a single variant on dogma and that was the difference between his presentation and mine.

01:26:04

That even though he conceded to the point that there were passages in the

01:26:09

New Testament which substantiated dogma and which many people still believe today those passages are indeed a fabrication.

01:26:17

We have nothing like that in the Quran. We don't have a Quran which says Muhammad is not the prophet of God or Muhammad was not the last prophet of God and so in the final conclusion these are ten major reasons in terms of why the

01:26:33

Quranic text as it stands today in the 21st century is fundamentally more reliable than the text of the

01:26:40

New Testament. Thank you. Very, very quickly.

01:26:47

Five minutes is not a large amount of time. I asked for the source of 450 ,000, not who claimed it.

01:26:54

I know who claims it. It's M .M. Al -Zami in his book but Al -Zami doesn't give us any reference. It's a secondary source.

01:27:00

He doesn't tell us where we can find these 450 ,000 manuscripts anywhere. I address that in my book.

01:27:06

There's a footnote on that as well. In regard to Ibn Masud, I had the reading right here. There is a

01:27:11

Hadith where Ibn Masud, I was going to read it for you and then lost it when I put my iPad down. Ibn Masud specifically said to his people, do not trust the manuscripts that come from Uthman.

01:27:22

Keep the manuscripts that I have given you. He says, he never says that there is a difference. Yes, there is.

01:27:28

The Hadith specifically say so and I believe it was Jamia Termite. Again, it's in the footnote in the book.

01:27:35

Do we have the words of Jesus? Yes. I answer and I say to you, if you are a

01:27:41

Muslim and you read the Quran, are you reading the words of God even if you read it in English? There are some

01:27:46

Muslims that say, no. So God can only speak Arabic? The Christian understanding of inspiration is that that which is written is

01:27:55

God -breathed. All Scripture is Theanostos. So you see, what we have in the

01:28:01

Gospels is the beauty of the Gospels is that we have a multi -faceted presentation and we can trust the

01:28:08

Spirit of God. If you believe in the Spirit of God, you cannot simply dismiss the idea that the Spirit of God could give to us what we need to know about what

01:28:15

Jesus said in an accurate form even when giving it to us in different words from different perspectives.

01:28:21

That's a very shallow view of inspiration if you demand that perspective. By the way, it has not shown us a single variant on dogma.

01:28:29

Again, 328a is talking about something in regards to the succession in the

01:28:35

Caliphate. That's not dogma? That's not relevant to who the successor is? Of course it was.

01:28:42

Of course it was. So I have presented this information to you. We have given the information this evening and I pretty much summarized what

01:28:49

I needed to say. But since I have 2 minutes and 53 seconds and since Yusuf specifically asked me to do it later on,

01:28:55

I'm going to do it. John 1 .1 In the beginning was the

01:29:01

Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. N -R -K -A -N -H -A -L -G -O -S In the beginning. The verb that is used here is ain.

01:29:07

It is an imperfect verb. It's not the aorist verb that would point to a point in origin. John 1 .1a

01:29:12

is saying that the Logos has eternally existed. The Logos is eternal. The Logos did not come into existence at a point in time.

01:29:18

K -H -L -O -G -O -S -A -N -P -R -O -S -T -O -N -T -H -A -Y -O -N The Logos was in the presence of the Father. Prostantion.

01:29:24

Intimate communion with the Father. The only thing he referred to is the issue of the third clause,

01:29:30

K -H -L -O -G -O -S and he quoted from one scholarly source. If you look at the scholarship on this subject today, you will discover that there has been an explosion of discussion concerning the anarthrist predicate nominative.

01:29:42

That is, in that last phrase theos comes before the verb and it doesn't have an article.

01:29:48

Now, if it had an article, it would teach heresy because if it said K -H -T -H -O -S -A -N -H -L -O -G -O -S it would mean all that God is the

01:29:56

Logos is and all that the Logos is God is and that would teach modalism. That would teach an error that we would reject.

01:30:03

Instead, by placing theos in front of the verb, the description is being made of the nature of the theos.

01:30:09

That's what Harner was talking about in what Yusuf was reading. And so, what you have in John 1 -1 is

01:30:17

John 1 -1 -A says the word is eternal. John 1 -1 -B says the word was eternally in communion with theos, theon in the accusative, of course, and that could be identified who that was in verse 18.

01:30:30

We'll look at that in a moment. And the third clause says the word is as to his nature deity, theos.

01:30:36

That's what John 1 -1 tells us. And you see, John 1 -1 is a part of the prologue of John. John 1 -18 is called the book ends.

01:30:42

It's the other end of that. And what it says is no one has seen God at any time. The monogamous theos, the unique God, He has exegeted

01:30:50

Him. He has made Him known. The unique God who is in the bosom of the Father. He's at the Father's side.

01:30:56

There's intimate communion. That's why we can know who God is, is because Jesus can reveal

01:31:01

Him fully and completely. A mere prophet cannot reveal the eternal God fully and completely, but the

01:31:07

God -man can. That's the testimony of the prologue of John. That's the testimony in the original language as well.

01:31:13

And by the way, there really isn't any question about what John 1 -1 said.

01:31:20

If there were so many people that didn't agree with that, the original disciples of Jesus, from the Islamic perspective, why is the manuscript tradition unanimous in its readings of John 1 -1 at that place?

01:31:30

That's a question we want to think about. Thank you for letting me have the few moments to respond to that. Yusuf did ask me to do that later on, so I snuck it in.

01:31:37

Thank you very much for your indulgence. Thank you for your perseverance and your calmness.

01:31:50

And thank you very much for our speakers. I think we had a lively debate.

01:31:56

I forgot something. I apologize. I always try to do this. I think it's a good thing to do.

01:32:02

I have a book for Yusuf. It's called The Old Testament Can, The New Testament Church. It's one of the best books for anybody who wants to know about the can of the

01:32:10

Old Testament. I was going to give it to him that last five minutes. I forgot. I would like to give it to him now if I could, please. A gift from the one speaker to the other one.

01:32:17

Thank you. On your way out,

01:32:26

I think there might be a few copies left of this book of James, Dr.

01:32:32

James White. It's published this year, so it's very, very recent.

01:32:39

I won't read what so many people say here promoting this book, what every

01:32:45

Christian needs to know about the Quran. There's another one of his pulpit crimes, the criminal mishandling of God's word.