History of Qur’an and Gospel of Barnabas

By Mohammad A Rahman

Qur’an

The words and sentences revealed from God to the Holy prophet Muhammad during his prophetic mission (610-633 AD) are known as the Qur’an.

Each chapter or portion of the Qur’an is called a Surah and each verse of a Surah is called an Ayah which means a sign.  A verse of revelation is a sign of God’s wisdom and goodness just as much as God’s beautiful handiwork in the material creation, or His dealings in history are signs to us, if we would understand. Some Surah and some Ayah are short and some are long, but a logical thread runs through them all. So, by Qur’an we mean the verses, phrases, sentences and chapters uttered by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, not as his own wording but as the word of God, revealed to him by angel Gabriel and which he proclaimed as his everlasting Miracle which bears testimony of his prophethood.

The Holy Qur’an declares that the teaching of the Book and the act of writing are among the main objects of the advent of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad and it considers the pen as the means of educating man even when God is the teacher.

Who taught (to write) with the pen, taught man what he knew not (Qur’an 96:4-5)

Nun. By the pen and that which they write (therewith) (Qur’an 68:1)

The Holy Qur’an commands people to write down their business, their agreements, and other transactions, and keep witnesses to avoid doubts and disputes later on. So it is not credible that the author of the Qur’an, God, who ordered mankind to write down their business transactions minutely did not want His ‘Book’ recorded in precise written form. It is after all the ‘Book’ containing the fundamental principles of truth and justice, the final and the universal Divine Message, not for any section of humanity or for any limited time but for the human race as a whole, for all time in all parts of the world. It is unthinkable too that God left the Qur’an in fragmentary form when He blames the Jews for fragmenting the Book of Moses when they were exhibiting a part and suppressing the other:

And they do not assign to God the attributes due to Him when they say: God has not revealed anything to a mortal. Say: Who revealed the Book which Moses brought, a light and a guidance to men, which you make into scattered writings which you show while you conceal much? And you were taught what you did not know, (neither) you nor your fathers. Say: God then leave them sporting in their vain discourses (Qur’an 6:91)

Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib says: “Nay! During the gradual revelation of the Qur’an there was no chapter, verse, sentence, phrase, word, letter revealed which the Prophet did not recite to me and made me recite, and then dictate to me. I wrote it in its proper place as ordered. He dictated to me not only the text but also the necessary explanatory notes about the date, circumstances and the implications of every verse and chapter.”

Apart from Ali there were a few scholars selected by the Prophet like Abdullah Ibn Mas’ud and Mas’ab Ibn Umayr from the earliest Muslims in Mecca, and Ubayy Ibn Ka’b, Ma’adh Ibn Jabal, Salim Maulla, Hudhayfa, and others who were entrusted with the duty of recording there and then the Qur’an as it was revealed to the Prophet and recited by him. These scribes used to record the Qur’an, as it was revealed, on tablets, bones and the wide flat end of the date palm fronds. They, after recording, used to obtain the approval of the Prophet on the spot and many times afterwards. The Muslims leaned the Qur’an directly or indirectly from these scribes of the Holy Book in the lifetime of the Prophet and later on.

 The statement of the Holy Prophet, ‘Gabriel had placed before me the Qur’an for review once a year and in the last year of ministry he [Gabriel] did so twice which indicated that the time of my departure was close at hand’, asserts that both the Divine Author and the Holy Prophet were so very careful about the Qur’an that no alteration of any kind whatsoever could have been made in it by any one, and that the Qur’an received its complete arrangement and order no later than about two months before the death of the Holy Prophet.

Just about a year after the death of the Prophet, the battle of Yamamah [12/633 CE] took place in which seventy (some reports say seven hundred) of the Huffaz (those who learned the Qur’an by heart) were killed and the Caliph, Abu Bakr along with others conceived the idea of collecting the different chapters and verses into one volume. They feared that should a future battle take place and the rest of the Huffaz be killed, the whole Qur’an would disappear with them.

Thus, on the orders of the Caliph, a group of the Huffaz from amongst the companions including Zayd ibn Thabit, collected the chapters and verses (written on tablets, bones and date palm fronds and kept in the Prophet's house or the houses of scribes), and produced several hand-written copies of the complete Book. They then sent copies of this compilation to all areas of the Muslim domain.

After a time, during the rule of the third Caliph, Uthman it came to the attention of the Caliph himself that differences and inconsistencies were appearing in the copying down of the Qur'an; some calligraphers lacked precision in their writing and some reciters were not accurate in their recitation.

Since the word of God seemed threatened with alteration, the Caliph ordered that five of the reciters from amongst the companions, (one of them being Zayd ibn Thabit who had compiled the first volume), produce other copies from the first volume which had been prepared on the orders of the first Caliph and which had been kept with Hafsah, the wife of the Prophet and daughter of Umar, the second Caliph.

The other copies, already in the hands of Muslims in other areas, were collected and sent to Medina where, on orders of the Caliph, they were burnt (or, according to some historians, were destroyed by boiling). Thus several copies were made, one being kept in Medina, one in Mecca, and one each sent to Sham (a territory now divided into Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan), Kufa and Basra.

It is said that beside these five, one copy was also sent to Yemen and one to Bahrain. These copies were called the Imam copies and served as original for all future copies. The only difference of order between these copies and the first volume was that the chapters "Spirits of War" and "Immunity" were written in one place between "The Heights" and "Jonah."

From historical evidence, Holy Qur’an in our hand today is exactly the same as what was revealed to Prophet Muhammad.

Professor Arthur J. Arberry writes:

“Apart from certain orthographical modifications of the originally somewhat primitive method of writing, intended to render unambiguous and easy the task of reading the recitation, the Koran (Qur’an) as printed in the twentieth century is identical with the Koran as authorized by Uthman more than 1300 years ago.”

Dr. Maurice Bucaille, author of “The Bible, the Qur’an and Science” writes in the chapter titled “Authenticity of the Qur’an”:

“Thanks to its undisputed authenticity, the text of the Qur’an holds a unique place among the books of Revelation, shared neither by the Old nor the New Testament. In the first two sections of this work, a review was made of the alterations undergone by the Old Testament and the Gospels before they were handed down to us in the form we know today. The same is not true for the Qur’an for the simple reason that it was written down at the time of the Prophet [Muhammad]; we shall see how it came to be written, i.e. the process involved.”

 Gospel of Barnabas:

The Following is taken from “The Gospel of Barnabas” published by A & B Publishers Group, Brooklyn, New York, 11238:

The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the Churches of Alexandria till 325 C.E.

Iranaeus (130-200) wrote in support of pure monotheism and opposed Paul for injecting into Christianity doctrines of the pagan Roman religion and Platonic philosophy. He had quoted extensively from the Gospel of Barnabas in support of his views. This shows that the Gospel of Barnabas was in circulation in the first and second centuries of Christianity. 

In 325 C.E., the Nicene Council was held, where it was ordered that all original Gospels in Hebrew script should be destroyed. An Edict was issued that any one in possession of these Gospels will be put to death.

In 383 C.E., the Pope secured a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas and kept it in his private library.

In the fourth year of Emperor Zeno (478 C.E.), the remains of Barnabas were discovered and there was found on his breast a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas written by his own hand. (Acia Sanctorum Boland Junii Tom II, Pages 422 and 450. Antwerp 1698). The famous Vulgate Bible appears to be based on this Gospel.

Pope Sixtus (1585-90) had a friend, Fra Marino. He found the Gospel of Barnabas in the private library of the Pope. Fra  Marino was interested because he had read the writings of Iranaeus where Barnabas had been profusely quoted. The Italian manuscript passed through different hands till it reached "a person of great name and authority" in Amsterdam, "who during his life time was often heard to put a high value to this piece". After his death it came in the possession of J. E. Cramer, a Councillor of the King of Prussia. In 1713 Cramer presented this manuscript to the famous connoisseur of books, Prince Eugene of Savoy. In 1738 along with the library of the Prince it found its way into Hofbibliothek in Vienna. There it now rests.

Toland, in his "Miscellaneous Works" (published posthumously in 1747), in Vol. I, page 380, mentions that the Gospel of Barnabas was still extant. In Chapter XV he refers to the Glasian Decree of 496 C.E. where "Evangelium Barnabe" is included in the list of forbidden books. Prior to that it had been forbidden by Pope Innocent in 465 C.E. and by the Decree of the Western Churches in 382 C.E.

Barnabas is also mentioned in the Stichometry of Nicephorus Serial No. 3, Epistle of Barnabas . . . Lines 1, 300.
Then again in the list of Sixty Books
Serial No. 17. Travels and teaching of the Apostles.
Serial No. 18. Epistle of Barnabas.
Serial No. 24. Gospel According to Barnabas.

A Greek version of the Gospel of Barnabas is also found in a solitary fragment. The rest is burnt.

The Latin text was translated into English by Mr. and Mrs. Ragg and was printed at the Clarendon Press in Oxford. It was published by the Oxford University Press in 1907. This English translation mysteriously disappeared from the market. Two copies of this translation are known to exist, one in the British Museum and the other in the Library of the Congress, Washington, DC. The first edition was from a micro-film copy of the book in the Library of the Congress, Washington, DC.

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