Page:William Goldsack-The Qurān in Islām (1906).djvu/40

 Rh all change the Qurān condemns itself, and proves its human origin. The reader desiring further information on this important topic may procure from the Panjab Tract Society, Lahore, the following Urdu publications: Hidāyat-ul-Muslimīn, Minār-ul-Haqq, Mizān-ul-Haqq, Tahqiq-ul-Imān, Tahrīf-i-Qurān and. Tawil-ul-Qurān. Let the reader, then, with all earnestness, pursue the study of this all-important subject; for those whose opinions and comments we have quoted are the foremost of the scholars of Islām, and their testimony cannot lightly be set aside. We have seen what men like Kāzī Baizāwi, Imām Husain, Muslim, Bukhārī and Jallāl-ud-Dīn have to say with regard to the Qurān. We have seen how, even in the life-time of Muhammad himself, grave differences arose in the various readings of the Qurān; we have traced the history of the unsuccessful attempts made to reduce them all to one uniform text; we have noted how gravely the recension of ʿUsmān differed from that of Abū Bakr and the copy of Ibn-Maʿsūd; and we have seen, upon the testimony of the greatest commentators of the Qurān, how the present text contains “innumerable” differences of reading, many of which entirely alter the meaning of the passages concerned; and, finally, we have noted the consensus of testimony, afforded by the traditions, to the fact that large portions of the Qurān have disappeared altogether. Such being the case, surely it is the highest wisdom for Muslims to turn to that scripture in the hands of the ‘People of the Book’ which Muhammad himself commanded men to believe and follow. Manifestly they were uncorrupted at the time of the Arabian preacher, as his repeated references to them clearly show; and that they have not been corrupted since that time is equally cerain; for copies still exist in the great Museums of Europe which were written long before the time of Muhammad, and these agree with the Gospels current to-day.