Ask A Question About Islam And Muslims

21 Questions

The authentic Hadeeths from the Holy Prophet (SAWA) and his holy
progeny, the Ahlul Bayt (AS) are confirmed through a very strict
procedure of checking every narrator and every narration which means
that the scholars check every narrator whether he is trustworthy or
not and up to what extent he is trustworthy according what has been mentioned about him in the books of Rijaal. If all the narrators are
trustworthy then the Hadeeth will be taken as authentic. We also study
the content and the text of the Hadeeth which should not contradict
any Qur’anic verse or any other authentic Hadeeth. By this very strict
procedure our scholars are sure that no unauthentic Hadeeth can be
taken as authentic. Now the question of whether all the authentic
Hadeeth are available or not, the answer is that all the authentic
Hadeeths are with infallible Ahlul Bayt (AS). The Imam (AS) of every
time is the authority and he has all the knowledge about every Hadeeth
from the Holy Prophet (SAWA) and the Ahlul Bayt (AS). We cannot say
now that our knowledge or all our scholars’ knowledge today has all
the Hadeeths but for sure, our Imam, Imam al-Mahdi (ATFS) has all that
knowledge and he is guarding and supervising and supporting the
followers of Ahlul Bay (AS) and guiding the scholars to the real
knowledge of Islam.

Wassalam.

Bismillah

Thank you for your question. There certainly was corruption of the hadith from the Prophet (saw) and Imams (as) even during their lifetimes and so at times the companions of the Imams (as) would check hadith that they did not recognise with the Imams themselves. Since the time of the ghayba one of the most important concerns of scholarship is to deal with the corpus of hadith and define benchmarks for deciphering authentic traditions from less authentic ones. There are a number of methodologies for doing that, some of which are quite technical but are discussed in the sciences of usul, hadith and rijal.

May you always be successful 

Additionally, it does not make sense to directly compare the process of compilation of the Bible and the Qur'an because the two scriptures are quite different structurally and in terms of the historical circumstances surrounding them.

The Qur'an is much newer than the Bible, much shorter than the Bible, emerged in one region and in a short span of time. There has never been any question of what portions of the Qur'an to consider canonical. It was also all in a single language and dialect. Stylistically, the Qur'an is internally consistent indicating it is the work of a single author and does not have interpolations (whether or not one considers that author to be God, it still has a single "voice"). While, at the time of the Prophet, Mecca and Medina did not have sophisticated means of producing books, it was not long before advances in those areas, such as the use of paper, came to the Islamic world; and, in fact, it was through the Islamic world that some of these technologies were transferred to Europe. 

In contrast, the compilation of the Bible is much more complicated. The scriptures are much older, span a broader length of time, and there is a lot more complexity with respect to how it came to be a single text. (There are numerous works on this subject available.) It becomes even more complicated if one considers both the New and the Old Testaments. It is not as if someone 2000+ years ago held out a book (or, rather, a scroll) called "The Bible" that is exactly the same as you find today; there was a process. 

So, from a purely historical perspective, there are very different circumstances surrounding the compilation of what today we know as the Bible and the Qur'an, and the nature of the two books is also quite different. Therefore, it is not a one-to-one comparison and it is best to look at the compilation of each scripture separately and consider the validity or authenticity of each one separately. 

Quran is the only Holy text which is completely intact, unlike Torah and Bible which have been distorted and changed into many different versions.

There is possibility at of misquoting the prophet Muhammad (SAWA) while writing the Quran as the Prophet and the writer (Imam Ali) both are Infallible supported by Allah (SWT) and His Angles. Allah (SWT) has promised to keep the Quran intact ( Verily, We Have sent the Thikr (Quran) and We will be guarding it (from corruption))(انا نحن نزلنا الذكر وانا له لحافظون )(Sura 15, verse 9)

The Prophet (SAWA) has recited the Quran and supervised writing it. No question at all of any error in writing the Quran as all the Infallible Imams read the Quran in the same way which confirms that there is no error whatsoever.

The fact of the purity of Quran is admitted even by the enemies who tried every thing to harm Quran but could not as Quran is protected by Allah (SW) and no one or power can make any change in Quran as it's enemies tried and failed.

Wassalam