traditionally Muslims begin anything that they do that's worth doing there's a hadith that says anything worth doing should begin with bismillah ar-rahman rahim which is also the actual first statement in the quran if you open up any Quran the very first thing that will be read is bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim which means in the name of Allah the merciful the compassionate and Rahman and Rahim are derived from the same root because Arabic words and I'm probably going to talk about this a lot over this course of lectures Arabic words are built on tri literal roots the Semitic languages are root based languages so Hebrew has the same phenomenon you're dealing with a language in which a semantic field or a constellation of meanings emerges out of primitive root structures which are based on three letters generally sometimes four but the vast majority are three lettered which is interesting in terms of cosmology three is a very interesting number because it introduces the idea of multiplicity from the one came the to and from the two came myriad form so three is literally the beginning of multiplicity and so language by its nature which is almost inexhaustible in a sense and could in reality be considered inexhaustible is built in the Arabic language on three now the Quran itself is a word which also comes from a root word and there's some differences about it but generally in English it's written like this and now becoming more popular like this generally the word the root words here are ah off ah and yeah and these are three Arabic letters Bob is really a letter that probably we don't have an equivalent it's it's it's done in using something in your throat by squeezing the upper portion of your throat together and ejecting this this sound ah ah it's almost sound like a crow but the the second aa is similar to our our letter R ah and then yeah and it's root meaning you get the word for city which is interesting because it brings in the idea of civilization and traditionally civilizations are built on books the vast majority of human civilizations you will find that there is fundamentally a book at the core of the civilization for the Greek civilization it would probably be Homer and for the in other words we we can't really imagine a Greek civilization without Homer given what we know about the Greeks Plato is dependent on Homer the the playwright's or the planet dependent on Homer for the Hebrew people it was certainly the Torah or their Bible and this will become the foundational book for the Western people's the european peoples the bible really becomes a foundational book first in greek and then in latin and ultimately for the english-speaking people the King James Bible for the Arabs interestingly enough there is no book in the Arabic language until the Quran there's literally no book they're an ancient people and yet there is no book in the Arabic language until the Quran prior to that the closest thing that you could consider literary was poetry that was done orally and there were seven ODEs that were quite popular that were hung in the Kaaba in the house in Mecca and were honored by the Arabs the pre-islamic Arabs as being the quintessence of eloquence and of the Arabic art form of poetry so when the Quran comes to these people this is a radical departure from any previous concepts within the culture of knowledge and the transmission of knowledge there the other route that you're going to find in here is the word to recite ah and uh ah and the Arabic language means two things it means to read and needs to recite so it has an aural and it has a written quality to it now interestingly enough if you look at there's a really wonderful book which I recommend particularly all of you since your teachers if you haven't read it it's really worth reading which is called a is for ox by Barry Sanders and this book is talking about the fact that orality is the substratum of literacy if you do not have an oral tradition you cannot have a literate tradition and one of the things one of his complaints is that our culture is losing its orality the oral tradition in this culture is dying out because of television and other forms of media in which visualization and not or allottee becomes the dominant means of raising our children so if you look at children for the first five years of their life they are oral creatures they're in the oral world are not literate they're in the oral world and traditionally what would happen is they would hear stories and their imaginations would be ignited and this was something that took place in all cultures now in this culture the recent phenomenon is children being raised in front of the television so the mother is no longer transmitting the oral lore the childish lore of the culture to these children but in fact it's being experienced through the media of visualization which is a powerful medium but it has certain effects and Sanders believes that that one of the effects is is the lack of humanization that he believes that orality is a process of humanization the fact that the Arabs are aural people is very significant they're there in aural people and the Quran is a Quran before it's a book in other words the real meaning of Quran is the recital it is the oral book and then the next word that the Quran is identified as is Gita which means book and catawba the root word means to join together it means to join together so what happens with the Arabs is that in 570 of the the Christian era a boy is born in Mecca to a mother who his father dies prior to that during her pregnancy Amina and this boy is named Muhammad sallallaahu Saddam and during this time for the first few years of his life he is sent to the desert to the oral Arabs to learn the language through this tradition of the Arabs in raising the aristocracy Arabs would send their children to the desert Arabs because they considered that they were the most eloquent Arabs and they wanted the children to absorb the language within the first five years of their life because they recognized that children that were raised amongst these these people who spoke a very powerful Arabic would have also strong Arabic even if they spent the later portion of their life in the city and so during this time for the first 40 years of this man's life really from all if we look at it just in terms of a human life very little matters of significance occur in this man's life by all intents and purposes one would really say that had the Prophet not reached his 40th year that he would have been known amongst his people perhaps for one thing only which was that he was extremely trustworthy he was a very quiet person he did not speak much he did not quote poetry he was not a poet he was not known to engage in discourse with the people he was a competitive person he liked to go off and reflect on his own he was known to be extremely kind to poor people to orphans this is all mentioned in the tradition other than that he had no aspirations of being a leader within his people as some people would he was from an aristocratic clan but he happened to be from a sub grouping within that clan that was on bad times Beni Hashim now just prior to his fortieth lunar year because the Muslims when they talk about years they they're talking about lunar years which is about 11 days short of a solar year each year so his 40th lunar year would probably be about 39 years of age in terms of solar little little less problem at the age just before his 40th birthday he began to see some dreams in the tradition but he would go off to a mountain just outside of Mecca which is called gem Bowden or the mountain of light and during that time word that was used to describe what he was doing was to endeth and in arabic hint is is polytheism two-handled means to avoid polytheism to avoid idols so he was going out to this place and he would meditate in this cave and we really don't have a description of the actual practices that he was doing but there was a tradition amongst the arabs called the hanifa or the Hanif and these were people who were inclined towards a type of monotheism they did not worship the idols they did not believe in the idols but they did not necessarily speak out against the idols of the the jacobi arabs or the arabs prior to the Prophet Muhammad's mission so he would go to this cave and in the 40th year in the month of Ramadan he had an experience now there are many ways to look at this experience and Western Orientalists generally said wretched things about the Prophet if you read early traditional literature coming out of Europe just really not very nice thing they've become a lot nicer recently since oil was discovered in the Arabian Peninsula there needs to be diplomacy when we talk about people's beliefs and traditions when you have interests involved there so Orientals have definitely become that's a cynical way of looking at it I think maybe there's been some growth as well within the academic community and certainly the the the impetus for attacking Islam prior to that was often based on an almost evangelical type of Christianity that existed particularly than the Protestants in England the Anglican Church and others who really felt it their duty to Christianize the world there was a very strong ideal that we should civilize the world and certainly the Arabs need it just like anybody else and then you have a long history within the Western tradition of just a type of antagonism between the Islamic forces because they were their world power for centuries and the Christian forces in Europe I mean that tension really they were coexisting with a lot of tension with few exceptions in different places like periods of time in Sicily for instance during the time of Raj King Roger of Sicily where there was a lot of inner penetration going on between the Arabs and the Christians so in the 40th year anyway these Orientalists basically would traditionally say things almost like that he had epileptic fits this type of thing the more recent orientalist and not just Orientals but even theologians like Hans Kuhn wrote an interesting book called Christianity and the world religions one of the things he says in there is that we have to stop speaking derogatorily about the Prophet Muhammad because whatever was taking place there it was certainly by all accounts that we have a sincere phenomenon in other words he's not willing to accept and that's his prerogative that this was a revelation but he is willing to accept that the person was sincerely deluded which is a big difference from simply saying that he was insane or that he was Mao had Mal intention right the experience was basically this it's come down in the tradition that at the age of 40 he was in the cave and a being came to him it was in the form of a man and he said evanov this was the first word ever now if I could be interpreted two ways it can be interpreted recite or read now the problem Ahamed was not he was neither a reciter of poetry nor could he read and he said at that point he said man to be a body I don't know how to recite or I don't know how to it could be interpreted both way generally is interpreted he did not know how to mean ever on a second time ever a third time and then in the tradition it says that he was actually squeezed until he thought that his sides would burst and then he said Amara bismi rabbika alladhi Hara Hara pod in sanam in a de lraa water pocket Akram led a llama by Adam Andaman in Santa Monica Anna and this is the beginning of this phenomenon that will take place for the next 23 years of his life before he dies the revelation said read in the name of your Lord who created the human being from a clinging tissue read in the name of your Lord the most generous who taught the human being with the pen and taught the human being that which he did not know that's not a very eloquent translation but I'm just doing that directly from the Arabic and I'm sure that text will have a better better interpretation there at this point the Prophet was concerned he did not know what was happening to him he went down to his wife and explained to her what happened his wife comforted him hadisha a cobra she said to him she was an older woman she and her uncle had been a an Arab who converted to Christianity she was familiar with revelation she said you are a good person you take care of the orphan you take care of the widows you take care of the needy and I don't think something bad would happen to you like this because he thought that this might be like some kind of evil spirit or something I mean he really he did feel that they go she takes him to her uncle wah tapa bin nofa who had some knowledge of previous books and he says a very interesting thing he said this is the now news now for people that know Greek now most come from Nomos right and Nomos means the law so here in other words he was saying this is Nan's that came to Musa in other words you are being given a revelation that's what this is and he told him your people when they find this out will become your enemies and drive you from the city and he said would they do that because he had never done anything wrong to them before that and he said they will do that and I wish that I could was a young man that I might be by your side doing this now during the next period of time he begins to get these revelation the next one yeah you had was a middle oh you wrapped because he used to wrap himself when he would meditate wrapped in a cloak and these revelations begin to come with a regularity now the chroma Mohammed in a description someone who said I'm he said that sometime the revelation came like a bell like the ringing of a bell in other words it was like it began as a vibration and then it would move into two letters and then into the actual words and it's interesting because if when you hear for instance there's a group of letters that many of the chapters of Quran begin with 19 chapters in the Quran begin with these letters are called Maya and if you hear them recited they I would have been a humanist Varma regime you know him Annie I now you can hear the vibratory the vibratory force there and this is how some of these revelations were beginning literally like a vibration moving into the material world from another realm according to the Muslim tradition during this time he began to tell clothes people and Khadijah is the first person who believes him his wife which is interesting she didn't you know abandon him she was right there and she said I believe this his nephew who was his cousin was living in his house from his uncle the son of his uncle he was taking care of him and even he thought it who was a young boy at that time that he also says that he believes tells him that he believes in the tradition and then other people from very close people that knew him of a bucket acid deal was a very close person but at a certain point he's commanded to warn his family so he gathers them all together and he says to them what would you say if I told you that there was an army on the other side of the mountains of Mecca waiting to attack you and they said we would believe you because your and I mean you're the trustworthy one and he said what would you say if I was Messenger of God and I was sent to you and they said we don't believe you and they rejected them and then as more people begin to into Islam the place began to get worried and it's very interesting what they said he says that they said about the problem they said you said people have lamina he makes us look stupid because he was saying do you worship pieces of wood and stone that can't hear or speak or benefit you and so if that bothered them there's a there's an interesting analogy in the quran with ibraheem or abraham where there's all these idols that his people worshipped and one night he goes in he was only about 12 or 13 he goes in and he smashes all of the idols except for one of them and he puts the accent in the big one and then he leaves and they come back and they find all their eye was smashed so they say this if rahim was talking about this they go get her and they say who did this and he said ask the big one and they said what do you think we're stupid he can't think he can't say anything he said then why are you worshipping you and then it's a very interesting person that what I said I take away after him they became self-reflective very interesting became self suddenly they said he's got a point here now this became troublesome for them because at that point a window opens and if you close very quickly and somebody shouted get rid of him right and then it becomes a mob scene yeah let's not think about this let's kill it right now there's an interesting German philosopher who Heidegger who has a theory about what he calls some Cronus the human beings are thrust into a certain and they literally take on all of these qualities not based on their own individual reality but based on what everybody else has told them and so we learn about the very very quickly and there are certain expectations within the context of them that the other like that we don't belch in public right I mean we learn quickly that there are certain things we don't breach and they're not things that we chose they're things that are imposed on us and obviously they have a purpose and you know we're civilized people right we don't do certain things but also there's a type of what Hydra felt was a type of inauthenticity that went with that because people really had reflected about who they were in their essence or their essential nature they were really simply only confirming what had been reflected back to them from their culture in their society and people that break these models in England they would be caught eccentrics right people that don't and the English actually out kind of allow for that within their culture that they have to be rich that's a prerequisite because if you're poor they call you mad so but I never felt that that a person who had never come to terms with this he called it an undifferentiated person they really hadn't ever thought that the only reason I am the way I am is because I grew up in a certain culture and environment and in this culture and environment has completely imposed upon me a way of doing the world a language that involves a worldview all of these things are literally super upon us and we submit to them without reflection by and large now hiding your solution to it was he said the only authentic act that you could really do once you realize this was die in other words no he's going to teach you how to knock no you get it you will do that very authentically so he said you become a being unto death but for the Muslim and I really think that the Quran really did this to these people it forced them to look at what higher would call their thoroughness in other words why are we worshiping these items why are we burying our girl our baby girls alive cuz who people even think about you see it's like in certain cultures I mean in this culture we have a very serious crisis where there's reflection on both sides with the abortion issue I mean you know there's people say this is wrong and when we hear that man we have to think about it whereas in that culture nobody was there saying it was wrong they were saying was perfectly acceptable now here comes a man who starts saying this is wrong that's a very strong thing for people who have not given lot of reflection to themselves or their cultures so the Quran begins to literally question things very deeply and the first period which is 13 years is called the Meccan period now during the magic period the dominant themes within the Quran are primarily what in Arabic is called Touhey now Joe he is sometimes translated as monotheism which is I don't like that translation the actual word in Arabic means to make one if you translated it quite literally it would be the making of one but the word means from a Quranic perspective is worshiping Allah or God with absolutely no association in that worship nothing is associated in that worship with God nothing whatsoever and this is if you want one word that will give you the theme of Quran it's this word and this is why the Muslims have in the Western comparative religious tradition had they have been called radical monotheists more so than the Jewish tradition and more so than the Christian tradition the Muslims are considered radical monotheists 1 there is absolutely no anthropomorphism in Islam there is no association of god with creation and the probably one of the most definitive verses in the of the nature of Turkey is lays a committee shape there is no thing like God the early community said whatever occurs you were ready to let God is other than that the companion the profitable block of the city of the second quinita are the first honey fine after the messenger said your inability to comprehend God is your comprehension of God your inability to comprehend God is your comprehension of God that is the essence of tahi now here's where we get in a problem we say if God is unknowable then how do we know God right now it's interesting used within the Christian tradition the first person to really deal with this issue I mean there's projects or to the end you might have to make things up but the first person really to deal with this issue is probably Kierkegaard who's a very interesting philosophy because check regard recognizes suddenly that the nobility of God there's definitely a problem there now the way the Christians have tended to deal with that is through Christ Christ becomes the object of God's no ability that God becomes man so that man can understand God right I mean this is this is an element loose in theology for the Muslim the know ability of God is through the creation itself and this is why much of the Quran is focused on telling people to explore the creation itself because the creation is as a theater of manifestation of divine manifestation that God is not entering in is not incorporated it is not becoming he is not becoming in embodying himself into the creation my incarnation is becoming the flesh and likewise what Montgomery wok would like to suggest is that someone of God has in bibley added himself nice fancy PhD work that God became book right which is not true the Muslims do not look at that even though they do believe that the Quran is an attribute of God that this Quran we have here we do not say this is God's you know God on earth or something like that no although we do believe that the pond is the speech of God and we believe it's the uncreated speech of God in the eternal meanings that move into the vehicle of language the intentions of God that is the speech of God so Joe he is a very important theme the next idea is the idea of AHA and Haggadah means what comes after it means the end the Hereafter the interesting thing about the Arabs is the Arabs did not believe in a Hereafter many traditions have a hereafter the Arabs did not believe in hereafter they thought this is it when you die it's over and they said if we're bones and dust will we be brought back to life the Quran says the one who wrought you who created you the first time is capable of creating you a second time in other words the fact that you've come into existence one time a second time even by our own logic would seem to be easier because if you've made something one time it's generally easier the second time around right so there's the logic behind that so the error is denied this idea of a Fiat or the next world now the next world in the Quran is quite descriptive and traditionally the Europeans often have a difficult time with it because it's there are aspects of it that are quite sensual right the idea of Gardens under which rivers flow of fruits of maidens and beautiful youth and these type of things so this idea of an AHA is being introduced into the Iranian culture now they obviously had some their meaning the Christians and the Jews on their Caravan routes and they're hearing on these things but they really had an attitude that was basically characterized as disbelief they did not believe in some other world they thought this is it and for them the world was what they call mu nu WA was virility manhood chivalry poetry women wine this was really the environment of the error and they praised these these qualities and they praised these aspects of the world and much of their poetry is about wine and women and this is what they were interested in suddenly you have a book that's radically challenging that worldview radically challenging it very powerful experience for these people that are forced to begin to think about these things now for the first 13 years the Prophet is persecuted in Mecca this time these people were learning the Quran that was being revealed by memory the Quran was not revealed linearly which is important because it's not a linear book and that's something if you really want to understand the Quran or be able to read it you have to surrender your desire for linearity right Plato would probably have been able to read the book Aristotle definitely not he would have had a very hard time with this book because it does not begin the beginning and end in it it just doesn't work like that so in a sense what the Quran really is demanding for people is that they submit to the book itself and I think it's very fascinating that the really problem the first verse of Quran after the opening chapter is a deal and me three letters nobody knows what they need every commentator on the Quran will ultimately say about these three letters god knows what they need now it's very interesting phenomena to open up a book and the first three letters that you read nobody knows what they mean and I think part of the message there is to let us know that there's a lot of things that we don't know and if we're not to it or if we're not going to admit that as a starting point we're not from this book if we're going to go to the book filled with ourselves and we're going to superimpose upon the book our own ideas then we're not going to get anything out of the book so the book for the 13 years these mekin verses are being revealed now if you look at the the Meccan verses they are even though they're 85 of the chapters in boron are Menken 85 39 of them are medina only 11 out of the 30 parts of the Quran equal parts are from Mecca only 11 19 are from Medina so the Meccan sorezore chapters are very short and they tend to fall towards the end of the book even though they were revealed in the beginning of this dispensation so although the Meccan curses are the first verses they are generally the ones that are found at the end of the book which is very interesting and when Muslims learn the book by heart they will generally begin at the end that's where they'll begin they'll get begin with the last thirtieth of the Quran now the next idea that is being introduced is the idea of what's called Sam and Sam means the end of time now the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him his understanding of himself was that he was the first sign of the beginning of the end the world the existence of this atomic species he actually viewed himself as the first sign in other words all traditions that were based on Revelation according to the Islamic tradition were basically indicating that the human experience will come to an end and this is why within these have the Jewish tradition you have apocalyptic vision within the Jewish tradition you have an apocalyptic vision within the Hindu tradition you have an apocalyptic vision the Kali Yuga period the last period of man within the Buddhist tradition you have an apocalyptic tradition and in many of the more tribal based traditions within the Hopi tradition the the kiwanis Katzie the last period in the Hopi tradition when everything gets out of control within the Mayan all these different peoples had an idea of some apocalyptic end the apocalyptic ending the pond is talked about in terms of asana which is the last moment it's the last moment and the problem at home that talks about signs and the quran mentions signs of this time and so this was also now ultimately the end of time for the Muslim in reality is the end of our own individual life that is our end of time when I die my worldly time is over and so in a sense the Quranic view was trying to bring people into a type of presence of the imminence of death that death is imminent the death is not something in some distant future so for 13 years this was the focus after 13 years the Quran is basically being memorized and if you've lived with oral peoples people that really still maintained and I know dr. cinnamon yang who's from Africa and knows in the West African oral tradition there are people that will recite epic poems of tribes if they don't recycle exactly as they learn them then there did you lose their job it can't be a story child so the Arabs were people that memorize poetry and related poetry exactly to them they had phenomenal memories and I lived with the Mauritania in West Africa whose memories are restored like the young men who's here with us is phenomenal the amount of information that he retains exactly now for people that don't understand this oral tradition they find it very hard to imagine that a human being can memorize this entire tact the Arabic text and not make a mistake now I can bring that young man here and I can read the Quran and I can purposely leave out a verse and he'll correct me immediately now the other thing that's interesting about the Quran is for people who memorize it and even parts of it will quickly learn that the Quran is a self-correcting book because it has a very unusual rhythm that if you find a first moves out of sync suddenly you're aware I've said something wrong and I'll give you example a few last week I met the Select prayer and it was a rather long surah that I read and at the end of it I said a verse that is actually out of the barn but it wasn't the verse that went that place and use almost the same words and that morning probably for the next half hour something would bother and then I realized what it was I said the first wrong and I corrected myself nobody corrected me in the prayer but I corrected myself and it's very interesting when you memorize a farm because I've tried to memorize a lot of things like you know I used to memorize some poetry I went to prep school and you had to memorize poems and and memorize like some piece of Shakespeare and things like that the really interesting thing about it is is that the Quran one is facilitated it's very easy to memorize it's not hard to memorize from for many many people and the other thing is it's actually quite difficult to forget it if you will recite it within reasonable time limits repeated every once in a while it's very difficult to forget but the hothea though the one preserves the Quran is somebody who has memorized it by rote it usually takes about in the Indian subcontinent he'll do it between a year and a half to two and a half years in Mauritania they have more rigorous standards for because they have other things to learn than just rote memorization they usually take about four years doing it and they do it with their children the Arab they say memorization in youth is like carving in stone and memorization in old age is like painting on water and one of the scholars they said it's not that the memory is gone it's that we've got too many words when we get older children yeah they don't have to worry so it all just sticks there or as you get older you're thinking about a lot of other things so but it's still phenomenal what we member memorize so during these 13 years the hold on is being memorized this way it's also being written by the few people who know how to write it because mostly therefore be illiterate and the problem ahamed sending a sound transmission he said we are an illiterate people we don't read them we don't calculate so he was admitting that about his people the Quran itself says what the development of Medina Austria he's the one who sent among the illiterate a messenger you threw out a IOT that he recites to them his signs we use a key him and he purifies that we want to do with key table hikmah and he teaches them the book and wisdom in camera a brother he'll dadada Mubeen even if they were in clear air before that so the Prophet is seen as a messenger first and foremost to the Arabs who are an illiterate people now after 13 years of oppression he makes a migration to Medina right it's actually a flight that's called the hijab he he flees there because actually tried to kill him at that point and he he goes there and he many people begin to become Muslim now the discourse the Quranic discourse radically changes from the Macan period to the medina period you will see a change between these two the focus of the verses moves away from these topics to the social environment how to implement once these have been internalized interiorized how are they implemented in social behavior if you believe in God what is that going to do to alter your character to alter your behavior how will that change you as an individual and a person so the focus becomes on character on building a community on building a society so you will see many of the verses revealed in Mecca begin Oh humanity Oh humankind but in Medina they begin oh you who have accepted in other words the call in Mecca was two people from amongst those people that were those who responded and now the revelation is going to focus on creating an environment in which this teaching will manifest at the societal level not simply at the individual level and so the next 10 years are modeun period for 10 years you call it the medieval period now the interesting thing about the quran is within mekkin verses are medinan verses and within medinan verses are matchin ayahs in other words there are sections because over the 23 year period according to the tradition of the Sunni Muslims during this period it's our belief that Jibreel or Gabriel was coming to the Prophet and telling him the order that the Quran should begin so it was revealed nonlinearly but now it begins to move into a type of sequence and we're getting mostly with the medina Suarez and the Meccans ORS at the end after 10 years during that time the entire Quran is written during the lifetime of the Prophet but it is not collected together there is no collection but during his lifetime the entire Quran is written in his presence and and the Muslims not have any doubt about that the Orientalists the the older ones are actually better than more the more recent ones from Germany but but they would definitely challenge that claim but the Muslims would not have any this is our belief that that during that time now in 632 the Prophet Muhammad dies so a lot is in them and at that point there are even a few revelations right before his death and we know what they were which verses they were so the Prophet left companions behind who had memorized the entire Quran and one of them was a lady even time who the Prophet was commanded to have him recite the Quran to him and he would listen to it many of the Companions had memorized the Quran during this time completely at this point they're teaching the people Islam is beginning to spread now in 633 there was a battle called the battle of Yamano several and it was actually fighting people in next area who had there was a man that would claim that he was a prophet and a lover sent an army to these people and there was a battle ensued and many of the applauded reciters were killed people that knew the Quran by heart were killed in that battle so at that point in Allah wants the the entire book to be collected and he goes to Abu Bakr and he says you have to collect this part on an Apple bucker said I'm not going to do something that the Prophet is leader himself in other words the Prophet didn't put it in a book collected together and I don't want to do that and all and all what I kept telling you you have to do this this is a good thing you must do this what if people died the Quran get lost and he said finally he said I became convinced of that which Anwar was convinced up he decides to collect the entire Quran he gets one of the most learned people of the Quran is a different habits and he tells him you need to gather the front I want you to gather one they said how can you use something that do they were very worried about introducing because much of the Quran is talking about how previous revelations were changed that people came after they changed the teaching of the Prophet so there was a real fear within the first community of doing anything that their prophet had been done so he continues to tell say until safe on he says I realized what abu bakr and omar were saying was true so they begin to collect it and they have a criterion and the criterion is that each piece of the plan must be brought that had been written in the presence of the prophet with two witnesses this is the criterion and this takes place during that period it took him a while to do that and they did this and there's only one verse there are two verses at the end of sort of the Toba which is the chapter of repentance that they could not find two witnesses they only have one who's Ayman now Hosea who was a little soggy from the people of Medina there is a tradition that says that a man from the people of the book came to the Prophet and they he disagreed with the Prophet about something and there were no witnesses and whose aim has had all bear witness for you God and the public looked at him and he said do you were you there that you should believe me and he said we believe our revelation comes to you from God so we won't believe you about a business transaction and so the Prophet said the witnessing of who Zana is like to people and so close Amos those two verses which were known by other companions but it was the written with in the presence of two witnesses that they wanted they were accepted as part and this was made into one most half and which literally comes from so he thought was his tablets and it was done generally they used papyrus and gazelle skin leather things like that higher than that they've been using palm risks and they were using the shoulder blades from camels that are quite ours to write verses and things like this was soup it would use a type of ink and this is how they were writing for bran they put the entire Quran and it was kept Omar Jeb did and then it was given to hustle now during the time a bit of man who is the the third caliph there is a campaign in Azerbaijan and during this time there began to be differences amongst the commence the Muslim about the recitation of plan because one of the things about the Harlem is it it was being written there was no standardized writing so the bran was literally being written for instance like this there were no doubts what these these are called uh a diacritical marks there were no diacritical marks there were no valence and so the book is like this so you don't know this is katha Val or if it's G dad born now because of this reason there were many people who memorize it and you buy one but there were other people that were beginning to learn it with the sheets are beginning to differ so a man wanted to standardize the writing of the Quran and this is done 658 the prophets of light is there dies in 632 soweth man begins to set out and standardized the Quran and again Zaid and three companions prepare they go back to this most half of half Sun and they prepare the pond according to earth man's recommendations and one of them was if you differ about anything the lines of apology because there were different ways of pronouncing words for instance the same woman and the many Timmy said Walkman like that the difference so there are different ways the operation will go ahead when they need us again and other tribe said Baba bhai my lady that said yeah so you got differences of pronunciation so a man has this project carried through and then sends copies identical copies to the various centers of the Muslims and the governors and demands as the head of the Muslim government that all of the pawns be burned except these that were based on this writing now this is very early because I mean if you look within the the Jewish tradition the Bible the Old Testament is really it's gathered over about 900 years according to modern scholarship and you have you have there's four dominant versions like the guy sacré dog and you'll get some very you'll get some big differences the the within the christian tradition also the the final notification is already 325 when there's an agreement on the three on the four gospels and the council of nicaea the companions of the prophet himself were the ones that gathered and did this and there were people who memorized the entire quran from the prophet based on this moral tradition so the quran itself and this is really important to understand the written Quran is not the primary source in which the Quran is protected it is protected through oral transmission this is used one for people who don't have right the farm and two as a crutch for people memorize it to go back and be reminded if their teachers are there or somebody else who is at a hospital but I guarantee you when they finish a printing apply they send it to people who memorize the Quran orally to check it they don't check it against other parts they send it to several or fall where they could levy the people memorize upon and they will look at it email importantly tells a very interesting story in these trucks here in this Geron the Brawn under the words when the quran says in manhattan is ended they got we not out a hospital we have revealed the dis reminder and we have taken it upon ourselves meeting gods it's like a royal need in heaven and we have taken it upon ourselves to protect it even though good to be says that there was a jewish man who wanted to find out from the three traditions about the their books and so he took a torah and he copied the entire torah in hebrew and he put mistakes in it specifically he went to a rabbi and he gave him the torah and he asked him to read the entire torah and tell him if it was a good addition when he came back the man said was an excellent addition even though he knew there were mistakes in when he went to the christian he did the same thing with the gospels and the christian also said that it was an excellent addition of the gospels he did the same thing for the quran and he went to a muslim scholar and asked him to read it and he had his mistakes in there and the muslim scholar told him when he came back you have to burn this because there's mistakes in it now if this is like an apocryphal story or a having a final notice historical validity but i think the point is very one day that the muslims really do view the quran and rightly and justifiably so as a book that is preserved since this early time now in terms of what exists today the the pond we definitely without any doubt the consensus of Orientalist have several parts of the quran from early first century islam there would be some debate amongst orientalists whether there is actually an edition of the bond it goes back to this original earth many addition the muslims would say that there are two possibly four there is a copy now which is called the summer can copy or summer pun which used to be southern russia which is now just kent and it is definitely a first century but is it one of the original with many the muslims believe it is and there is also one in egypt that deadly goes back to the year 68 after hijra without that was on gazelle leather which lasts an incredibly long time and then you also have a edition which is in nature in iraq which is says at the end of it and it's written in an authenticated coopered script on that first period it says again that this was written by adding the fourth cabin so we believe that we do have original text from this first period but even if we didn't there's no doubt in a muslim scholars mind and the vast majority of Orientalists that have really examined this situation like re nicholson in his book called the literary air about history of the arabs he was a Cambridge scholar teacher of AJR Barron who translated the Quran or interpreted it into English Nicholson says there's really no doubt about the authenticity of the piranha now this is not somebody who believes in revelation but he is accepting that the book is in time in terms of its historical authenticity that this is the book that this original community was was hearing and was seeing and so I'm just going to end it there and open it up for some just if there's any questions yeah we read today in the introduction you've made reference to two about the use of wheat when when God is speaking and you said that it's like the Royal week is that the only interpretation in the Arabic language it's called a general evening moon assemble which means the plural of the one who's exalting himself so from an errors perspective if God's using it it's acceptable but when an individual uses in its arrogance and you do find individuals in the Arab world that will say definite gem that can you know we ate a lot today and he's talking about himself and it's actually it's considered bad manners but this is this is the way it's absolutely it's never seen as the rotating more than one God absolutely not why absolutely no idea what's that I didn't mean to imply that I know I know that's not some other there interestingly enough like the Mormons for instance do believe that the we the Old Testament is used to mean a multiplicity of gods and some of the Christians have believed that the we of the Old Testament was used also to indicate the Trinity for instance and there were men you'll find us in in many books a Christian book for the Jews the Jews understand the same way that the Arabs do it's just a plural that's used majestically now it's a stronger I say nm now think you're thinking about the part of me and Cleary points this out I think is really valid inside Cleary says that one of the really interesting things about upon is that the shift of perspectives because sometimes you know component is saying I let it I think that there's no gun but I sometimes that you sometimes landed I don't know who won there's no god but he so it could shifting constantly this change in perspective sometimes it's plural sometimes it's singular and it's a very fascinating from you any other questions uh-huh this isn't about Polly Peck and as we were there and I understood that attached and Brown were pinched by his life session yeah they say that a few of these were stolen and they also say interesting that within the Treaty of Versailles I think it's like in the 246 the RQ 246 one of the conditions of surrender to the Germans was that they would return that with many copy of the Quran that was in their trust from the Ottomans and that's a text that Heritage's disappeared one of them was destroyed in a fire in Syria I think in 1898 so but I have heard that and some of them showed up he stuff of these yeah someone who showed up for sale Sotheby's cosmetics Campbell when Evan is described as they're being maidens and beautiful attendant use this to take a little yes I know well of another only velocity from are you teaser for awesome so the philosopher generally can deal with a yes/no answer there's there's a type of paradox here one on the one hand we don't say that it doesn't not mean that on the other hand we certainly don't say that it means life we understand here right paradise according to the Muslim it says the best description of the course of Revelation is man I thought what no eye has seen no ear has heard and has never occurred to the human mind so there's an idea that we really can't understand what it is but we know that is it is going to be the greatest experience of felicitous this is called Sodom and one of the 13th century scholars actually said that that the sexual the sexual pleasure was the highest physical pleasure that God has given the human meaning not my highest mental because they believed it was higher but it was a hyzer and he actually said that this was to give the human being a taste just for a moment of the leaders of the approximation of the delights of paradise so the Muslim I don't think I've ever been like prudish about those type of things you know I mean there's not the problem was not essential by any and people that say that is a gross disservice to his character because he was not and he could certainly have been and even had he been you he would not have involved advise people that he was not his wives were elderly women they were clears and orphans with the ax and with the exception of one second the second expression he talked about the Torah gospel being bitten and living on the station at first there's a condition of straw Torah which were always had been to always have a stake put into the tower to show that infection would be arrogant for a hebrew scribe to ever try to say this is her was on god will see this is man that's a really good I'm glad you brought that up I'm glad you brought that up I think that's a really good point here sooner arteries because see the Muslims believe that the Quran is the Divine Word of God and therefore they believe that to put a mistake in it would be of the greatest transgression in other words that it is a sacred trust and in fact the Quran says that we gave his trust we offered this trust to the heavens to the earth and to the mountains and they refused to bear it but the human being for now it's interesting because the according to the Quran the Jews and the Christian said we must all feel that they were given the task themselves of protecting their books and they fell short that's what the Quranic version is but then it says about the poem because it's the final one there would be no profit after the profit to clarify there were mistakes it says that God alone has taken it upon God the divine to protect this book so the Muslims actually believe that it is divinely protected for that very reason and I'm really glad you brought up that point I think so really it's a very pertinent point that is from that adds to my comp it's then in two different segments right I partner with a mistakes a lot worth a lot more than a carpet that's made by a machine in Belgium anything else I'm sure is how many people approximately know in turn I would say it's probably it's probably if not in the hundreds of thousands I would say it's you know it would be hard to estimate but I'll give an example imagine what the tribe that I stayed with and there's several thousand of them none of the men do not know the pond by heart every single it dislike a prerequisite for that tribe is the tribe that man's from they all memorize apply and women some of them memorize the entire for on most of the memorize at least like a third so they're really I mean it's very I need to go if you go to Mecca it's very interesting when you're at Mecca there's a million people there and I feel sorry for the Imam because you got a microphone but he makes them escape right mouth shut monitors you can download him he'll make a mistake boom you just hear voices from all over breaking in and correcting him from everywhere really and it's actually teachers if it's not encouraged to do that you're supposed to give the Imam a break correct himself but people are so overzealous you know it's like a knee-jerk response they hear mistake of it I made a mistake and it's an interesting phenomena and at my moss where I pray there's about seven or eight that are hopeful which is in America so that that's a small number but if you go to Pakistan filled with people in memorizer Park West Africa filled with you Egypt filled too brought many in ceará many women Syria there's been a recent phenomenon of a women memorizing the pond in Syria name and when Turkey all over the world you have and many the best bonus items are not Arabs right in fact some of the best formulation would impress people that yeah but if I need to know something out another book chocolate Naaman the sacred SP Topshop is there a piece of the show actually getting my wings have around the customers yes I know yeah it's very time and really it is very comfortable I mean if you're in a mosque praying you'll at least have one or two cos memorizing timelines many the memorize large portions of it and it really it is the book that has created literacy in the world I mean it's you know if you go to country they say the people are illiterate the vast majority of people traditionally Muslim world could read and recite the product and many can understand it because Arabic was it was frança who was the Latin of the Muslim world sacré da the language uh-huh you mentioned last night that your teacher that has memorizing it was like the seventh version there's seven variants now I'm glad you mentioned that there's because I just forgot to mention that there are seven variants which are dialectical in other words some of the Arabs could not pronounce the prophets like language and so the Quran was revealed in different variants based on the different tribes and they're all accepted there's seven of them and it's a hadith the trick it does not change the mean by consensus you will find no doctrinal change in the Quran for instance I learned according to imam watch who's the African recite and there are other people who recite the vast majority muslims recite by awesome or house who's originally from Kufa if they hear me reciting and they're ignorant they might think I'm making mistakes you see they might think up but if they're educated they'll know right away he's reading a sound very so just to give you an example if I said in surah fatiha I would say this phenomenon in our analogy medical unity in wash in house manikyam Edie now malachy means the possessor of the day of judgment many key means the king so the meaning is not changed they're both that they're both uh you should write that word you can see one yard the difference here is same route and the difference would be in the house there's a there's just a mark right there man linking and anything watch magnitude like that so there's only a few differences like that the others will be more pronunciation it is time for the you