Fourth Contention

In order to remove the blame of distortion from their books they often claim that “the copies and versions of the sacred books were so such circulated in both the East and the West that it was as impossible to change them.” This contention also is as laughable as the third one.

 Because, in the presence of unambiguous admissions of distortions by the Judaeo-Christian scholars, this contention is of no help to them.

The Judaeo-Christian books can never be compared to the Holy Qur`an as far as their history and authenticity is concerned. This is because the biblical books were in such a state before the invention of printing that they could easily be tampered with.

Their popularity was not to the extent that could prevent distortion. We have already seen how the heretics of the East and the Jews manipulated the text of the Latin translation which was the best known in both the East and the West.

 Admissions of both Catholics and Protestants to this effect have already been cited. On other hand, the Holy Qur’an, right from the time of its revelation, has been known to, and acted upon by, thousands of people in every age. In addition to its preservation in book form it has been kept preserved in the hearts of thousands of people throughout the ages.

The Holy Qur'an was not, even for a single day, in a state that any change in it would physically have been possible, the preservation of the whole of the Holy Qur'an by memorising it is still practiced throughout the Islamic world.

There are always thousands of people present in Qur’anic schools who have memorised all of the Holy Qur’an along with its complete intonations as practiced by the Holy Prophet himself. Any one can verify this fact for himself. For example, there are one thousand ‘Huffaz’ 18[1] present in the university of al- Azhar in Cairo alone. There is no village and town in Egypt where Huffaz are not found.

There is, however, no tradition of memorising the sacred books in the Judaeo-Christian world. There are only rare examples of this practice.

The Christian population of the world is larger than the Muslim population and they are financially in a better position but in spite of this we have never heard of any hafiz of the Old or the New Testament. There is only the Prophet Ezra who was supposed to have memorised the Pentateuch. It is the miracle of the Holy Qur’an that even today there are many hundred thousand people who treasure the Holy Qur’an in their hearts. This ever-living miracle of the Holy Qur'an can be seen any where in the Islamic world.

As proof of this there is an account of an English officer who visited a Qur’anic School in Saharanpur in India and saw the children busy learning the Holy Qur'an by heart. The officer asked the teacher what book it was. Discovering that it was the Holy Qur’an, he asked how many of those children had memorised the Holy Qur'an completely.

 The teacher pointed to a few of them. The officer asked one of them to come forward and held the Holy Qur'an himself and asked him to recite from various places. The student recited the portions exactly as was written with all its intonations. He was very astonished at this and remarked that he was witness to the fact that no other book of the world could claim the status of being as original and authentic as the Holy Qur’an for a child of twelve or thirteen year of age was able to write it down without making a mistake.

8[1] Huffaz, sing. Hafiz, someone who has memorised the Holy Qur’an completely with all its intonations. Such people conduct the prayer of Tarawih in the month of Ramadan and recite the whole of the Holy Qur’an by heart in the 29 days of the month. There are at present more than a hundred thousand Huffaz in the sub continent of 1ndia and Pakistan alone.