Description

The Authenticity of the Qur’an

How do we know that the Qur’an we have today is the word of God?

The importance of this question cannot be underestimated. Scriptures form the bedrock of a religion's teachings and typically compel people to follow them on the assumption that they are of divine origin. However, with so many competing claims, it is no longer sufficient to rely on mere assumption alone to feel confident that a religious scripture ought to be trusted as Truth. If being a “Muslim” means “one who surrenders to the will of Allah”, then every Muslim should know that it really is the will of Allah that one is surrendering to.

To answer the question, we first need to establish that the Qur’an we have today is the same Qur’an as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (p) and that no corruption has taken place in the transmission of that message. In other words, we initially need to prove the fact that the Qur’an has survived history, perfectly preserved. Secondly, we need to establish who the author of the Qur’an really is. This may be done by eliminating all possible authors that are unacceptable to reason. That is, we may be certain of the definite author by eliminating all unlikely authors. This two-step process is outlined below: