Page:Maulana Muhammad Ali Quran.djvu/81

Rh collection of the Qur-án been the work of Zaid alone, unaided by any other companion, there might have been room for such doubts as that he might have overlooked certain passages or embodied others in the Holy Book which were not meant for insertion. But as the concurrent testimony of numerous reports received through different channels shows, Zaid was assisted on each occasion in the task of the collection by the whole body of companions whose assistance was available. In such a case it was impossible, when many of those who knew the whole of the Qur-án by heart were still living, that anything which the Holy Prophet had taught to his followers as being part of the Qur-án should have been overlooked, or any words should have found their way by mistake into it which the Holy Prophet had not meant to be included in the Divine revelation. Such an error could have been made by one man, but it could have been easily rectified by the testimony of the reciters and by the manuscripts written in the presence of the Holy Prophet and the companions, who day and night heard the Holy Qur-án recited by the Holy Prophet and other reciters. No one would deny the possibility of error on the part of one or two individuals, but the fact is self-evident that there were ample means for the correction of all possible errors. Zaid, who did not depend upon writing alone, sought out the writings chapter by chapter where complete chapters had been revealed, and verse by verse where separate verses were revealed, and he had the testimony of the reciters—who had committed to memory the whole of the Qur-án during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet—to corroborate that which was supplied by the writings. To avoid mistakes, he did not rely upon one or two reciters; but in order to correct all possible errors, he sought the evidence of many reciters, comparing their recitals with the written word, for as a rule every verse of the Holy Qur-án was reduced to writing immediately after its revelation. These two mutually corroborative measures precluded all possibility of any error finding its way into the collection or of anything being overlooked. It was the double test which Zaid applied to every verse of the Qur-án that he referred to when he spoke of his collecting the Qur-án from writing and from memory.

I shall now proceed to consider the fourth objection, relating to the existence of reports which speak of certain passages being recited in the time of the Holy Prophet or the existence of the “detached pieces,” as the writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica calls them. That there are some reports showing the existence of some such passages I admit, but they are neither authentic nor reliable, though I am bound to add that misconception with regard to the meaning of certain words has given rise to much misunderstanding as to the true significance of some of these reports. Before considering each of these reports separately, I shall make some general remarks which will, I hope, help the reader to a clear understanding of the subject. To establish the purity of the text of the Holy Qur-án we have to prove two points: firstly, that nothing has been added to the original text, and secondly, that nothing has been omitted. As regards the first of these points, no report, reliable or unreliable, authentic or fabricated, makes the assertion that anything contained in the Holy Qur-án was not part of the Divine revelation in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet, except the solitary report which relates that Ibn-i-Mas'ud blotted out from his copy the last two chapters as contained in our copies of the Holy Qur-án. This I have already discussed, and have clearly shown that Ibn-i-Mas'ud was in error, and that the whole body of the companions opposed him on this point. Ibn-i-Mas'ud thought that these two chapters were meant only to be recited after any portion of the Holy Qur-án was