Many times Muslims will bring up variant readings within the Bible such as John 7:58-8:11 to prove that the Bible is “corrupted”. However, this is an unfair criticism for two reasons. The first being that before the printing press in the 16th century, all texts we hand copied. So all texts prior to the printing press were prone to variant readings due to the nature and process of hand-copying. The second reason is that there are variant readings within the Quran as well. Especially the controversy behind Rashid Khalifa and Chapter 9:127-128 of the Quran. In his translation of the Quran, he omits these verses claiming that they were inserted by Pagans in attempt to corrupt the Quran.
*9:1 & *9:127 This is the only sura that is not prefixed with the Basmalah. This phenomenon has puzzled the students of the Quran for 14 centuries, and many theories were advanced to explain it. Now we realize that the conspicuous absence of the Basmalah serves three purposes: (1) It represents an advance divine proclamation that the idol worshipers were destined to tamper with the Quran by adding 2 false verses (9:128-129). (2) It demonstrates one of the functions of God’s mathematical code in the Quran, namely, to guard the Quran against any alteration. (3) It provides additional miraculous features of the Quran’s code. Due to their extraordinary importance, the details are given in Appendices 24 and 29. One immediate observation is that the number of occurrences of the word “God” at the end of Sura 9 is 1273 (19×67). If the two false verses 128 & 129 are included, this phenomenon—and many more—will vanish.
Sura 9: Ultimatum (Barã’ah) [Footnote] – Rashid Khalifa
From this footnote left by Quranic Scholar Rashid Khalifa, he leaves a regard as to why in his translation he omits verses 128-129. One of these reasons being that it could have been added by idol worshippers in order to corrupt the Quran.
Regardless if Muslims want to argue that Rashid Khalifa and his strange claims about numbers, specifically the number 19 and it’s correlation with Quranic inerrancy make him an unreliable source to analyze this dilemma. Further reinforces the Christian side of the argument, showing that disagreements based on variant readings in Christianity and Islam are based on different interpretations and schools of thought. And thus does not provide evidence for the corruption of a religious text.
Home 