How To Prove The Quran Has Been Preserved Accurately

How can we be sure that the Qur’an we have 

today is the same Qur’an that the Prophet Muhammad taught to his companions 1400 years ago? 

This is a central question to the legitimacy of the religion of Islam, and to answer it, we need 

to know how the Qur’an was given to the Prophet, preserved by his companions, and 

distributed around the Muslim world. This is a story of language, 

history, and the commitment of an entire civilisation to 

preserving the words of God. According to the Muslim understanding, the 

Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad over 23 years, from the age of 40 to his 

death at the age of 63. Over those 23 years, he received the revelation from God in 

a number of ways. Most commonly, it was spoken to him directly by the Angel Gabriel, 

but at other times it came during his dreams, and on a number of occasions, it even came to 

him directly from God, and he experienced this as the sound of a heavy bell, after which the 

words of the revelation were made clear to him. Throughout those 23 years, the Prophet endeavoured 

to share the revelation with those around him as soon as it came. He did this verbally, as he 

couldn’t read or write, but he strongly encouraged others around him to write down the revelation, 

as well as memorise it. This was the basis of how Muslims believe the Qur’an became preserved, 

not purely through written or oral means, but with both strengthening the other. The 

companions around him constantly strove to memorise the verses, with many eventually 

memorising the entire book, and simultaneously wrote these verses on whatever they had around them.

Parchment, bone, wood, stone. Over time at least 65 companions functioned 

as scribes for the Prophet, who eventually established a school in Madinah dedicated to 

teaching 900 of his companions to read and write. However, the dialect of the Quraishi tribe that 

the Prophet spoke in was not the only dialect of the Arabian peninsula, and as the religion 

was adopted by a growing number of tribes, they began to struggle with understanding 

the Qur’an. To overcome this, the Prophet was given permission to teach the Qur’an 

in 7 of the main dialects in the region, allowing the message to be understood more widely. 

These dialects didn’t affect the written records, as they were only different when 

the Qur’an was actually vocalised. This was the state of the Qur’an at the death 

of the Prophet. Hundreds of companions who had memorised the complete Qur’an in 7 official 

dialects, all of which were considered valid ways of reciting the Qur’an, as well as an incredible 

amount of written records that were held by the Prophets companions throughout Madinah and beyond. 

The placing of each verse within each chapter had been established by the Prophet, but because 

each chapter functions as an independent unit, the companions had different ways of ordering the 

chapters themselves within the book as a whole. With the death of the Prophet, the 

leadership of the Muslim community passed to his close friend Abu Bakr, who was 

quickly beset by conflict on the outskirts of the now considerably large Muslim state. 

This conflict led to the battle of Yamamah, which saw many of those who had memorised the 

Qur’an killed. Whilst many huffaz remained, it highlighted the critical issue of 

preserving the entirety of the Qur’an, which was in danger if the memorisers were all 

killed. Abu Bakr decided to appoint Zaid ibn Thabit to compile all of the written verses of 

the Qur’an into one collection, using only those verses which had been written in the presence of 

the Prophet himself. These manuscripts would then be verified by those who had memorised the entire 

Qur’an at the hands of the Prophet himself. This was where the important concept of tawatur, or 

multiply attested sources, came into play. In order to be 100% sure that a verse of the 

Quran was in fact a verse of the Quran, it needed to have multiple independent chains of 

transmissions from different memorisers of the Quran. In this way, any verse that came to Zaid 

could be corroborated through both written and oral means, essentially guaranteeing that every 

single verse put in the final book was conveyed by the Prophet. Once this had been completed by 

Zaid, he penned the completed text which became known as the Suhuf, and gave it to Abu Bakr. 

This was now the official text of the Qur’an. With the death of Abu Bakr it was given 

first to Umar, and then to the widow of the Prophet Hafsa when Umar himself passed away. 

Throughout this time the religion had spread incredibly rapidly, now reaching from Libya 

in the West to Khorasan in the East. With this influx of non-Arabs who had embraced Islam, those 

7 official dialects began to cause some issues. Variant readings were beginning to crop up, and 

in order to stamp out the issue, the then Caliph ‘Uthman decided that the original Quraishi dialect 

would become the official reading of the Qur’an. He appointed a committee of 12 companions to 

essentially repeat the process of Zaid ibn Thabit, gathering all of the primary sources, rectifying 

any differences, and confirming them with those who had memorised the text orally. Once this had 

been completed, he sent for the original suhuf, which was held by Hafsa, and compared the two 

collections for any differences. Once completed, this final copy was read out to ‘Uthman and the 

companions, who all agreed upon its accuracy, and decided to burn the original sources in order 

to avoid any future divergence with the text. This text is referred to as the ‘Uthmani Mushaf, 

and it was the first written Qur’an to be sent throughout the Muslim world with accompanying 

reciters. It’s considered to be exactly the same as the Qur’an we read today, with only 

one pretty big difference. It didn’t include any skeletal or diacritical marks, which 

are essential in differentiating different words which otherwise look exactly the same. 

For example, this is the word for elephant, fiil, and this is the verb to kiss something, 

qabbal. However when you remove the markings, they look exactly the same. This was the 

way the Mushaf was written. Now whilst these diacritical marks weren’t invented 

until 30 years after the death of Uthman, these markings, what are called skeletal dots, 

were known to the Arabs at the time of ‘Uthman, but he must have intentionally decided not 

to include them in his original Mushaf. Whilst we don’t really know why, one possible 

reason was that he wanted to ensure that the Qur’an would always be taught and preserved 

through both written and oral methods. And that’s where these official teachers that 

were sent out with the Suhuf came into play. Without an official teacher guiding them, 

students who studied the Qur’an wouldn’t be able to read the text, but with both 

the written text and a spoken reciter, the Qur’an was now completely standardised, 

and able to be transmitted across the Muslim world. Over time however, the usefulness of 

this approach began to diminish, and within the caliphate of ‘Uthman, these skeletal dots 

began to be used in new copies of the Mushaf, and this quickly became the standard 

for all personal copies of the Qur’an. So apart from the development of new 

calligraphy styles and publishing methods, every Qur’an from then until today has been 

exactly the same, and every hafiz of the Qur’an has learnt the exact same book by heart. 

That is a 1400 year mutawatir chain of people who learnt the same book from their teachers, 

and taught the same book to their students, which is why until this very day we can 

open up a copy of the Qur’an, and know with confidence that this is the same special 

book that was taught by the Prophet himself.