New Podcast Let Us Reason - A Christian/Muslim Dialogue

The Sana manuscripts is a palimpsest manuscripts ; which means that there is a lower and upper layers of writing . Scholars say that the two writings are late seventh and early eighth century respectively.  They think that it is two versions of the Quran; the first is a pre- standard Quran which was erased and rewritten as the canonical version.  On comparing the two writing , it was found that there are seventy variants between the two.  Dr Jay says that the lower text was erased because it needed to be updated.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Sana'a manuscript was discovered in Yemen in 1975, it is very old with no dots and vowels.  It is a palimpsest (It has two layers of writings). It had late 7th to 8th century scripts.  It was carbon tested at the university of Arizona in 2007, and was dated to mid 7th century. The same segment was taken to four Europeans labs and they did not agree with the Arizona dating.  Shoemaker concludes that there is a problem with the carbon dating because the process dates the skin of the animal not the time the writing was written.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay discuss the challenges of carbon dating of manuscripts.  They say that carbon dating gives the age of the material that is written on not the ink.  There is no method found that dates ink because the way ink is mixed to make colors.  Animal skin is costly and it takes time to cure.  Shoemaker argues that carbon dating is not entirely accurate .  That is why scholars had to look at the paleography of the writing which help determine the style of writing and in turn the time it was written.  Shoemaker conclude that the carbon dating supports the Abd Al Malik/ Al Hajaj timing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue to talk about three more major qur'anic manuscripts :4. The BNF/ Petropolitanus manuscripts, and it has three fragments, the largest fragment is 26% of the Quran of today (Hafs). 5. Al Husseini manuscripts in Egypt.  It is very large, and has a lot of taping over words.  6. The Sana manuscripts. It is most recent discovery,  1975 in Yemen.  In conclusion;the six major manuscripts are: Not from the 7th century, none of them are complete, they don't agree with each other or with the1924 Hafs Quran of today, and all have a lot of variants.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Al Fadi and Dr Jay talk about  three Quranic manuscripts:  1. The Topkapi Manuscripts: it is kept in the Topkapi palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey. It is dated to early to mid 8th century due to the presence of vowels and dots.  It is not the private copy of Utthman or one of the copies that he sent to various centers. 2. The Samarkand Manuscript, found in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; it is not a complete manuscript(43 Soras only). It is lazy man manuscript, and was written by scribes who didn't know Arabic .  3. Al Ma'il (slanted) Manuscripts, found in the British museum, and has no vowels or dots which makes it an earlier manuscripts. It is dated to early 8th century.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue discussing Shoemaker's book; Creating the Quran.   Today they are wondering what happened to the Al Hajjaj- Abd Al Malik paradigm. They are not convinced with Shoemaker's answer, but they think it is a political reason since Abd Al Malik is an Umayyad , and the Abbasid came after them.  They continue to talk about another scholar Robert Hoyland who said that none of the previous religions in the seventh century has heard of a book called the Quran.  Then they conclude that the strongest arguments for a later Quran is the manuscripts evidence which they are going to discuss in details in later episodes.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay  continue to discuss the book creating the Quran. Today the focus on    1. The dialogue of Abraham of Tiberias, a Christian, with Amir Abdul Al Rahman Al Hashemi, in Jerusalem in the 9th century, during the Abbasid period,mentioning that Al Hajjaj produced the final authoritative version of the Quran. 2. The Apology of Al Kindy, is another Christin work written during the 9th century that talks about Al Hajaj; under Abd Al Malik; made a substantial changes to the Quran.  Abd Al Malik was an Umayyad  Caliph  during the 8th century who built the Dome of the Rock and Arabized the Quran . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith discuss the book written by Daniel Janosik, John of Damascus; The First Apologists to the Muslims.  John of Damascus is a Christian monk and apologist whose father served in the Umayyad Caliphate  in Damascus.  John does not use the word Islam, but instead he calls it the heresy of the Ishmaelites. Al and Jay also talk about Emperor Leo the third correspondent letters with Omar the Second.  Both John and Leo indicate that the Quran we have today is different than the Quran in the 7th and 8th centuries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This paradigm focuses on the Umayyad caliphate in particular Abd Al- Malik bin Marwan and his governor Al Hajjaj.  Abd Al Malik built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and was anti trinitarian. He attacked the trinity, the divinity and the sonship of Christ.  Al Hajjaj formed a committee  to produce a new collection of the Quran. Dr Jay Smith gives the 12 reasons from Shoemaker's book; creating the Quran, why he believes that a later Quranic creation of the Quran is done by Abd Al Malik and Al Hajjaj.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Noldeke/Schwallian Paradime  states that the Uthmanic Quran is the standard Quran and does not question it .  In this episode Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith discuss some scholars that say otherwise.  They are discussing Steven Shoemaker book; Creating the Quran.  They conclude that the Quran ascribed to Uthuman was really established by Abd Al Malik which they will discuss in a coming episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.