Seeing the old Qur'anic manuscripts shook me
Assalamu alaikum. I was comparing how Islam and Christianity preserved their scriptures, and as someone born Muslim I always accepted that the Qur'an had been preserved completely. But actually looking at the manuscripts - the script on animal skin, imagining words about cosmology, biology, humanity's purpose, laws and ethics written in the context of old Arabia - changed how I felt. Even the Ṣanʿā' manuscript made me confront that there were people writing down, as best they could, what another person was saying. Another person was conveying these incredible, seemingly miraculous things - information no human could have known on their own. That’s what happened historically, whether or not someone accepts them as the words of Allah. It grounded me in a way that felt a bit frightening. If I were a historian who had never heard of the Qur'an before and suddenly found that manuscript, I think it would terrify me. Compare that to the earliest Bible manuscript being centuries after Jesus (peace be upon him) - imagine someone composing an account about you 400 years after your death. Would you trust them to get it right? The Qur'an felt so timeless and perfect that I hadn’t really taken in its history. Reading it on my phone with an English translation, I forget that these words were produced over 1400 years ago, not now. How anyone can reject it is beyond me. I know guidance is from Allah alone, but the truth seems crystal clear. May Allah grant us knowledge and understanding and make us a means of light for those who are lost. Ameen.