Thread by @PhDniX

"Is the Quran (perfectly) preserved?" is a question I get a lot. I'm never sure how to answer this, or why I am considered the person to ask. This is obviously a question of faith, not something that can be known as an absolute truth. Against better judgment, a small thread.

You might be surprised to learn that the preservation of the Quran is not something that comes up in my work. Nor is it a theme at conferences about the Quran. When talking about the history of the Quran, "preservation" is simply completely irrelevant.

There are all kinds of things you can say about the transmissions and history of the Quranic text, and even sometimes with high probability. But it is not possible to have certainty that how the Quran we have today is syllable-by-syllable exactly how the prophet said it once.

On top of that, it is never clear to me what "preservation" actually means, and people clearly have vastly different understandings of its meaning. Some are fine with "preserved", others insist on "perfectly preserved", but in neither case is it clear to me what it entails.

The standard consonantal text of the Quran, the Uthmanic rasm, is extremely stable. Since its codification the text underwent almost no changes. This codification took place around its traditionally assigned date during the reign of Uthman. Only some minor changes in spelling.

Despite the stability, some things are simply unknowable about the original codices of ʿUthman. Was Q8:65 miʾatayn '200' spelled مايتين or ميتين? Our earliest manuscripts show both spellings. It's hard to say which one is to be preferred. Is that still preservation? I don't know.

Many argue that the orthography of the Uthmanic rasm is inconsequential, it is not the recited Quran, after all. Considering the precision with which the Uthmanic rasm was copied, it does not seem that the early Muslims found it inconsequential, but one can disagree with them.

When we get to the recited form, we are met with more conundrums. All canonical recitations we have today follow the Uthmanic rasm, but the Uthmanic rasm likely postdates the prophet's death by more than a decade. Is it certainly an accurate reflection of the prophet's Quran?

The Sanaa Palimpsest reflects a different Quran, separate from the Uthmanic text. Reports of companion codices likewise reflecting a different Quran. From a secular perspective, there is nothing to suggest Uthman's text is more correct in every single case.

Taking an inclusive approach, and saying indeed all of this is Quran, but the consensus of the community eventually fell on only sticking to the Uthmanic text brings up the question: what does preserved mean then? Clearly all kinds of forms of the Quran are no longer in use now.

When one turns to the reading traditions, confronted with two competing readings, the question becomes: which one is the original? The answer can, of course, be 'both' as well, but there is no real way to arbitrate that that is always the case.

Readers have an enormous amount of agreement on the text, even in very non-trivial places. In Sūrat yā-sīn, ٮس is universally understood to be يس. While it could have been read as بس, تس, ثس, نس, يش, بش , تش,ثش, نش. As nobody knows what it means this consensus is significant.

But does this consensus among 10 famous readers, necessarily mean that it is exactly as the prophet said it? No. There are plenty of cases in history where people agree on something that evidently did not happen. It requires faith to be certain.

Does that mean we have no insight into what the Quran as recited by the prophet was like? No. We probably have a pretty good idea. The fact that different text types (Uthman, Sanaa, Companions) are still very close to one another is an indication of this.

Let us suppose that the text is perfectly preserved. That we have every single syllable of every single way the prophet ever taught the Quran. That still has no bearing on whether it is true or not. Harry Potter is excellently (if not perfectly) preserved. Doesn't make it true.

@BartEhrman actually made this point when discussing the discovery of the Birmingham fragment, using somewhat more incendiary examples than Harry Potter. But the point stands, regardless of which text you pick.
ehrmanblog.org/the-significan…

A difference with Christianity is that in Islam it is believed preservation is fulfillment of scripture. The Quran is understood as saying that God will provide divine aid in its preservation. Since God is perfect, the Quran must be perfectly preserved.
quran.com/15/9

For many people, this is a central miracle of the Quran. But, like miracle claims in countless other religions, it simply cannot be proven. That doesn't mean it isn't true, but it does mean I cannot tell you whether the Quran is preserved or not.

Hope that clears things up.