New Podcast Let Us Reason - A Christian/Muslim Dialogue

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith listen to a clip of a major interview of Dr Yasir Qadi by Mohammad Hijab on the topic of the preservation of the Quran. In this interview Dr Yasi Qadi admits it is a hard subject to discuss and that it should not be a public discussion.  He also says that it is enough to believe it and not question it. The original interview was done on 6/8/2020. This interview was very damaging to the Standard Islamic Narrative, and in it Dr Yasir Qadi admits that the S.I.N. has holes in it and it does not answer all the questions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing last week's discussion,  Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith say that Ibn Mujaahed chose the seven Kira'at in the tenth century.  The criteria for choosing them was popularity.  Hafs differ from the other Kira'at by 93 thousand dots and vowels.  Therefore the preservation claim does not stand the test.  They give several examples between the Hafs and Warsh: 1. Sura 2:184 ; Al miskeen and Al masaakeen; the first is singular noun and the second is the plural form of the noun. 2. Sura 3:146; the words kaatala (fought) and kutila (killed). These differences have huge theological and practice implications.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi discuss the multiple different Arabic Qurans that a Turkish sister called Hattun found in different Arabic countries starting in 2016.  Dr Jay and Hattun took the Qurans to speakers corner in England where they showed them to Muslims who were shocked to hear and see that, because they have been told by their leaders that the Quran has been perfectly preserved to the letter and the dot.  The Muslim response was that these are different readings for different dialects.  There is five thousand differences between the two major versions which are called the Hafs and the Warsh alone.  These differences do not only change the doctrine and the practice, but also the theology.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay continue there discussion from  Shoemaker's book Creating the Quran.  They name some scholars  including Montgomery, Patricia Corona and others who point out that Mecca was insignificant and Medina (Yathrib was a small date oasis with few hundred people living there, and there is no mention of Jews living there as the S.I.N. mentions.  They also say that most scholars conclude that the Quran and Islam is not from central Hijaz but from farther north.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Fadi and Dr Jay Smith continue there review of Shoemaker book; creating the Quran.  Today they focus on where was the origin of the Quran.  They say that there was some rock inscription in Northern Arabian not in the Hijaz. Some of the reasons why the inscription doesn't fit the Hijazi dialect of central Arabia are three distinctive features: 1. The distinctive form of the relative pronoun.  2. The distinctive form of the distal demonstrative .  3. the use of the verbal constructive of ya aleph.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Muslims claim that Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, that Mohammad was born there, and that he also received his revelation of the Quran there.  If that is true where is Mecca? Steven Shoemaker in his book Creating the Quran on page114 mentions that there is no mention of a mecca in any of the great civilizations of the time .  Not only that,but another scholar; Patricia Corona said that there were no trade roues going through Mecca on land nor by the coast of the Red Sea bordering Mecca.  Many scholars say that Islam started way north of Mecca and that most Muslim scholars were Persians.  So Shoemaker concludes that Mecca was further north.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This manuscript was found in Damascus and was moved to Germany.  It looks a lot like the upper layer of the Sana manuscript.  There are three reasons why this manuscript is 8th century and not 7th century: 1. The dots , the circles ,and the verse markings suggests that the text is a later text.  2. .  The page layout and illuminations parallels the 8th century manuscripts.  3.  The ornamentations suggests Abd Al Malik and Al Hajjag new distinctive Islamic Arabic manuscripts.  The question is if this text came from Mecca and Medina, what was happening there? Scholars agree that in the 7th century those two cities where very isolated and insignificant.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay and Al Fadi continue the comparison between the upper and the lower layers of the Sana manuscripts of the Quran with the 1924 Hafs edition of the Quran. They point out differences that changes the meaning of the text; for example Sura  9: 9 in the lower layer of the manuscripts states" the way of Allah while the Hafs Quran of 1924 says 'His way".  Another difference in the upper layer  as an example is Sura 7: 76 "you directed vs he directed" They point out that most of the differences have to do with the diacritical marking which did not exist until the 8th century.  Even with the upper layer of the manuscripts there was no standardized Quran yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Jay Smith discusses the book that Dr Asma Hilali wrote on the Sana Palimpsest manuscripts.  He talks about the conclusions that she came up with by comparing it to todays Hafs Quran; she says that there are seventy variants in sixty three verses.  She also believes that it is a student text.  Jay says that that shuts down the idea of the preservation of the Quran which both Muslim and the Quran claim ( ie Sura 85: 21,22).  Then Jay and Al discuss some of the differences as examples.  Then they ask the question : Is the Quran perfectly preserved? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.