Multiple Testimonies from renowned christian scholars specializing in Islamic studies and early Islamic history

1. CHRISTIAN SCHOLARS TESTIFY FOR
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE QURAN
DR. EMAD SALIH

2. SIR WILLIAM MUIR 1819-1905
• “The recension of Othman has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been
preserved, that there are no variations of importance, we might almost say no variations at all, among
the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islam.
Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter
of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but ONE
CORAN has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to
the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text
prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which
has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.” (Life of Mohamet: From Original Sources, London:
Smith, 1878, Appendix, pp. 557-58)

3. GEORGES-LOUIS LEBLOIS 1825-1889, A FRENCH PASTOR AND
AUTHOR: “QUR’ĀN IS TODAY THE ONLY HOLY BOOK THAT
DOES NOT SHOW NOTABLE VARIANTS,” (LOUIS LEBLOIS, LE KORAN ET LA
BIBLE HÉBRAÏQUE, PARIS: FISCHBACHER, 1887, P.54)
Bosworth Smith 1839-1908, a Catholic historian and biographer,
stated in his provocative book, Mohammed and
Mohammedanism, “We have a book absolutely unique in its
origin, in its preservation, and in the chaos of its contents, but
on the authenticity of which no one has ever been able to cast
a serious doubt.” (Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875,
p.41)

4. STANLEY LANE POOLE 1854-1931, A BRITISH ORIENTALIST, WHO WAS PROFESSOR OF
ARABIC STUDIES AT DUBLIN UNIVERSITY, WROTE, “IT IS AN IMMENSE MERIT IN THE
KUR-AN THAT THERE IS NO DOUBT AS TO ITS GENUINENESS [...] THAT VERY WORD
WE CAN NOW READ WITH FULL CONFIDENCE THAT IT HAS REMAINED UNCHANGED
THROUGH NEARLY THIRTEEN HUNDRED YEARS.”
(EDWARD WILLIAM LANE AND STANLEY LANE POOLE, SELECTIONS FROM THE KUR-AN, LONDON:
TRUBNER, 1879, P.C)
Philip Hitti 1886-1978, a Maronite Christian from Lebanon and a leading scholar
of Arabic Studies in the United States, states that “Modern critics agree that the
copies current today are almost exact replicas of the original mother-text as
compiled by Zayd, and that, on the whole, the text of the Koran today is as
Muhammad produced it. As some Semitic scholar remarked, there are probably
more variations in the reading of one chapter of Genesis in Hebrew than there
are in the entire Koran.” (Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1937, p.123)

5. JOHN BURTON, PROFESSOR OF
ARABIC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH
• “the text which has come down
to us in the form in which it was
organized and approved by the
Prophet [...]. What we have
today in our hands is the Muṣḥaf
of Muhammad.”
• (John Burton, The Collection of the Qur’an, pp.239-
40)
DENISE MASSON, FRENCH
ISLAMOLOGIST !901-1994
• “Eventually, in spite of these
points of debate, we can say
that the text presently in our
possession contains the criteria
of a substantial fidelity.”
• (Le Coran, trad. De D. Masson, editions
Gallimard, 1967, p.xl )

6. Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, a
French orientalist:
“The Qur’ān was fixed, shortly after
its revelation, with an authentic text
that there is no serious reason to
consider as corrupted,”
(Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Les Institutions
Musulmanes, Paris: E. Flammarion, 1921, p.42)
• Hamilton A. R. Gibb, one of the
leading orientalists of the
twentieth century, writes,
• “It seems reasonably well
established that no material
changes were introduced and that
the original form and contents of
Mohammed’s discourses were
preserved with scrupulous
precision.”
• (Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Mohammedanism:
An Historical Survey, London: Oxford University Press US,
1962, p.34 )

7. •Theodor Nöldeke, one of
the greatest German
orientalists:
•“All that was said supports
the view that the Qur’ān of
ʿUthmān was complete
and loyal to the highest
level that can be expected,”
• (Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorans,
Leipzig: Dieterich, 1919, 2/93)
•Richard Bell, a British
Arabist at the University
of Edinburgh:
•“Modern Study
•of the Qur’an has not in
fact raised any serious
question of its
authenticity”
• (Richard Bell and William Montgomery Watt, Bell’s
Introduction to the Qur’ān, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1970, p.51)

8. • Adrian Brockett, professor of Arab
and Islamic Studies at Durham
University:
• “the transmission of the Qur’ān
after the death of Muhammad was
essentially static, rather than
organic. There was a single text,
and nothing significant, not even
allegedly abrogated material, could
be taken out nor could anything
be put in.”
• (Adrian Brockett, “The Value of Hafs And Warsh Transmissions For The Textual
History of The Qur’ān,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches Of The History of
Interpretation Of The Qur’ān, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p.44
• )
• Neal Robinson, one of the
leading British orientalists today
and a senior lecturer in Islamic
Studies at the University of
Leeds:
• “In broad outline the Muslim
tradition has met with
widespread acceptance from
non-Muslim scholars.”
• (Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity,
New York: SUNY Press, 1991, p.194)

9. • Thomas Walker Arnold, British
orientalist, who was Professor of
Arabic and Islamic Studies at the
School of Oriental Studies, University
of London,
• “there is a general agreement by
both Muslim and non-Muslim
scholars that the text of this
recension substantially corresponds
to the actual utterances of
Muhammad himself.” (Thomas Walker
Arnold, The Islamic Faith, Lahore: Vaqar
Publications, 1983, p.9)
• Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje,
one of the most reputed of
Dutch orientalists:
• “all sects and parties have the
same text of the Qoran.”
• (Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje,
Mohammedanism: lectures on its origin, its
religious and political growth and its present
state, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916, p.27)

10. • Charles Cutler Torrey, an
orientalist and Semitic
• “The Quran is practically
unchanged from the form
which he himself [i.e.
Muhammad] gave it.”
• (Charles Cutler Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of
Islam, New York: KTAV Pub. House,1967, p.2)
• R. V. C. Bodley, the
American orientalist:
• “Today there is no possible
doubt that the Koran which
is read wherever there are
Moslems is the same
version as that translated
from Hafsa’s master copy.”
• (R. V. C. Bodley, The Messenger: The Life of
Mohammed, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969,
p.235)

11. • Rom Landau, Professor of Islamic
Studies at the University of the Pacific:
• “it became the task of Muhammad’s
secretary, Zayd ibn-Thabit, to bring these
sayings together in textual form. Abū Bakr
had directed the work, and later, after a
revision at the command of Uthman, the
Koran took its standard and final form that
has come down to us unchanged.”
• (Rom Landau, Islam and the Arabs, London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1958,
p.200)
Forster F. Arbuthnot, a notable British
orientalist:
• “a final and complete text of the Koran
was prepared within twenty years after the
death (A.D. 632) of Muhammad, and that
this has remained the same, without any
change or alteration by enthusiasts,
translators, or interpolators, up to the
present time. It is to be regretted that the
same cannot be said of all the books of
the Old and New Testaments.”
• (Forster F. Arbuthnot, The Construction of the Bibe and the Koran, London:
Watts & Co., 1885, p.6)

12. THANK YOU