 All praise belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the Lord of the worlds, the one and only true God, the most compassionate, the merciful. There's nothing like him whatsoever, yet he is all hearing and all seeing. And peace and blessings be upon our Master Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the final Messenger of God, the Seal of the Prophets, the Commander of the Righteous, the Leader of the Messengers, and the Beloved of the Lord of the Worlds. Alhamdulillah, we've entered into the last 10 nights of the blessed month of Ramadan. These are some of the holiest nights of the year. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Qur'an, after taking an oath. And there's some difference of opinion amongst the Mufasireen as to what these nights, 10 nights, refer to. Some of the exigents say that they refer to the first 10 nights of the month of Muharram, others say the first 10 nights of Dhul-Hijjah, and yet others say the last 10 nights of Ramadan. Of course, this was when the Qur'an was first revealed to our Master Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, The month of Ramadan is that wherein the Qur'an was sent down as guidance to mankind, as clear proofs of guidance and the criterion. Let him among you who was present fast during this month. So first and foremost, we notice from this ayah that the month of Ramadan is primarily associated with the Qur'an, then fasting. Fasting during Ramadan was prescribed during the Medinan period. The Qur'an is really at the heart of this month. What is the Qur'an? Al-Huda wal-Furqan, the guidance and criterion. That is to say, it is the basis by which we judge other religions, other traditions, other philosophies, other theologies, other worldviews, etc. It distinguishes truth from falsehood and the lawful from the prohibited. Our mother, Asaidat-u-Aisha, radiallahu ta'ala anha, she said, The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would exert himself during the last 10 nights like no other time. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam would seclude himself in the masjid and Jibril alaihi sallam would visit him. And of course, Jibril alaihi sallam was the archangel who would bring the revelation to him. Say whoever is an enemy to Jibril alaihi sallam for indeed he reveals it. i.e. the Qur'an upon your heart by the permission of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And when Jibril alaihi sallam would visit the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam in the masjid, they would recite the Qur'an to each other. This is called al-Mu'aradah, which linguistically means a mutual presentation. This was an annual review of the Qur'an. This was an annual review of the Qur'an during each Ramadan, and this was reported by several Sahaba. And in his final Ramadan, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam reviewed the Qur'an twice with Jibril alaihi sallam. So during the Prophet's time, there was widespread memorization of the Qur'an, an annual view of the Qur'an, inscribable recordings of the Qur'an. The entire Qur'an was written down by command of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam in his lifetime. The preservation of the Qur'an is without question. Indeed, we sent down the reminder, and indeed we are its guardians. So to our young people and older people, don't fall into an anti-Muslim rabbit hole on the internet or on YouTube where the Qur'an is being attacked. Most of these anti-Muslim channels take it from me. I give you sincere advice. I've been dealing with these people for decades. Most of these anti-Muslim channels are run by a bunch of charlatans who take advantage of the average Muslim's ignorance of certain particular issues. They want us to chase these red herrings and thus cause us to doubt the strength of our overall established narrative. Sometimes Muslim scholars have to listen to this garbage in order to formulate refutations if they feel that it's necessary. But the average lay Muslim should not even click on these videos. Just ignore the algorithm. Imam al-Ghazali, he said that just listening to a zindiq or a mubtadir, listening to a heretic or an innovator is a breach of the right, a breach of the haqq of the ear. It is impermissible for your ear to hear such things, let alone listening to some vile kafir or mustahzi, some mocker who hates Islam because the truth of Islam destroys his own false theology or the ethical positions of Islam denounce his own degenerate lifestyle. This is really at the root of their hatred. Many Christian apologists and polemicists who attack the Qur'an, much of their vitriol is due to the fact that they recognize they recognize the truth of our narrative when it comes to the Qur'an. So they're filled with envy and frustration because their narrative has been utterly deconstructed by secular academics and historians. This is called the guilt complex. They accuse our narrative of falsehood and attack our scripture because they know that their own narrative in scripture is in utter shambles. How do we know this? We read the Qur'an. The ayaat of the Qur'an are so perfect or so succinct. It's all in the Qur'an. What does Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala say? They long to make you disbelievers after you have believed through envy, through hasad on their own account after the truth has become manifest to them. Forgive and pardon until Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala brings his command. Indeed Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is over everything powerful and then Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says essentially get to work and establish the prayer and pay the charity and whatever good you send before you for your souls you'll find it with Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. Indeed Allah is concerning what you do all seen and they say none will enter paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian. These are their vain delusions. Say bring your proof if you are truthful. No, who so ever submits to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and is a doer of good. His reward is with his Lord and no fear shall come upon them. Neither shall they grieve. And the Jews say the Christians follow nothing true. Yet they are both readers of the Bible. Like this speak those who don't know anything. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala will judge between them on the day of resurrection concerning what they differed about. Sadaqa Allah. This is perfect. Subhan Allah. The Jews say that God is absolutely one. The Christians say that he's three and one. There's a trinity. The Jews say that God is not a man. The Christians say God became a man who died for our sins. The Jews say that repentance is all you need to be right with God again. The Christians say reconciliation is through blood sacrifice and vicarious atonement. The Jews say that every single commandment of the Old Testament is still binding. The Christians say the vast majority of the commandments are abrogated. And they're both reading the same exact book. Look at the chaos. Not only this, the Quran says in modern textual criticism has confirmed that the Bible, old and new testaments, have suffered a degree of textual and exegetical corruption. There's no doubt about this. I can give you example, heaped upon example, but this is not the occasion. But this is the state of their text. Because of a guilt complex, they attack the Quran. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses. And it's not all of them. We're speaking in general terms, but here's the point. The Quran that we read and recite today with its ahruf and various teraat is the very same Quran that was recited by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. There is no doubt in this. It is impossible to fabricate the Quran. It has always been impossible. Just as it is impossible today, it was impossible at any point in the past. The reason is because the Quran was and continues to be a mass transmitted living tradition. It is a mass transmitted living tradition. It was constantly heard and recited and memorized every day since its inception. How do we know how to pray? The sunnah of the prayer was a mass transmitted, mass practiced living tradition. The practice of the prayer was imprinted upon the companions. So was the Quran's recitation. Secular historians basically agree the words of the Quran were first uttered by the historical Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, whether they believe he was a prophet or not. He is the quote unquote earthly source of the Quran. This is the general historical consensus and only radical historical revisionists and anti-Muslim ahlid kitab with huge chips on their shoulders, say otherwise. The Quran was written down, constantly recited and constantly memorized during the Prophet s life. You can't pray without the Quran. The Sahaba and Medina were praying five times a day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, around 650 the common era, less than 20 years after the passing of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The codex committee of Sayyidina Orthman, the radiallahu anhu, standardized the text based upon the dominant reading of the Prophet himself sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. This codex committee consisted entirely of eyewitnesses to the Prophet. They were all Sahaba, men who ate food with the Prophet, men who attended the Prophet's lectures, men who traveled with the Prophet, men who prayed behind the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The Uthmani codex, as well as its recitational tradition, were transmitted to the major Muslim metropolitan areas. Each major city received a codex, a Mus'af, a Naqari who was a Sahabi and the Hafidh. Medina, Mecca, Basra, Kufa, Damascus, at least all received a codex, and a Naqari who was a Sahabi and the Hafidh. These Qur'an taught the people of those cities how to read the Qur'an. And we know the names of these Qur'an. An additional manuscript was kept also in the state archives in Medina. This is called the Imam manuscript. This is Sayyidina Orthman's personal manuscript, radiallahu anhu. The city of Kufa received a codex. It's Qari with Abdulrahman al-Sulameen, radiallahu anhu. When we pray Juma in a few minutes, you're going to hear the Qara'ah of Hafs ibn Sulaiman. This is the Qara'ah of 95% of the Muslim Ummah. If you look in the back of a Hafs Mus'af, you will find an Isna, a chain of transmission. It will read the Rewire of Hafs ibn Sulaiman, from Asim ibn Abi Najud, from Abdulrahman al-Sulameen. This is the Qari who brought the codex in the Kufa from Medina, from Ali ibn Abi Talib, radiallahu anhu, and Zaid ibn Thabit, radiallahu anhu, and Ubay ibn Ka'ab, radiallahu anhu. Three imminent, imminent Sahaba from the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, from Jibril alaihi wa sallam, from Al-Khalaq, subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is our chain of transmission. What other religious texts has something like this? The answer is none. I've studied them, not the Vedas, not the Dhammapada, not the Daud-e-Ching, not the Torah, nor the New Testament. The Isna is the secret of Islam. The other 5% of the Muslim Ummah, they recite the Quran according to Ibn Amr al-Shami, and Abu Amr al-Basri, and Nafi al-Madani. And there are sound asani for these recitational traditions as well. But here's the point that people miss. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he recited many of the verses of the Quran in various ways. This was a function of the seven Ahruf which were all revealed to him by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The Ahruf are seven recitational variations. Over 30 Sahaba reported the Quran was revealed ala sada'ati ahruf, upon seven variations. The Quran is multi-formic. It is a multi-formic text. It is a polyvalent text. That is to say, it displays multiple levels of meaning. We need to know these things and not allow these chayateen to deceive us. For example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is Maliki yawmidin and Maliki yawmidin. He is the owner of the Day of Judgment and the King of the Day of Judgment. This variation and recitation is intentional. They were both revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to enrich our understanding of our Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala. This harf is called nominal variation. Another example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, wa a'ritu lakum anoint or wipe your heads and wash your feet for wudu. He also says, wa a'ritu lakum wipe your heads and wipe your feet. This harf is called inflectional variation. You see, generally we wash our feet in wudu, but there are circumstances where we can wipe our feet. When do we do that? We look to the sunnah. This is a beautiful aspect of the Quran. A third example, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, This harf is called dialectical variation. You see, the Arab was the first standard bearer of the religion and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala facilitated things for the Arab and revealed certain words and phrases in different Arab dialects. This is the wisdom behind it. It's great wisdom. When the Qur'an from the Sahaba arrived in these Amsar, these major Muslim cities, they taught the people how to incorporate these akhruf into the russum, into the continental skeletons of the codices. And over time, certain recitations became prominent due to the prominence of their reciters. And these became the canonical qiraat, like Hafs and Warsh and Ibn-u-Amar and Yaqub and Abu Jafar, etc. There are 10 of them in Qur'an masters like Qari-u-Amar. May Allah preserve him. He knows all 10 of them. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he had over 100,000 companions. Ibn Asakir in his tarikh al-Dimash, he mentions that Abu Darlgha, radiallahu anhu, a companion had over 1600 students in Sham. One of them was Ibn-u-Amar, the Qari of Sham who rose to prominence. One companion had 1600 students teaching 1600 students how to recite the Qur'an. Now imagine how many total students from the Tabi'een there were from all of the Sahaba who transmitted the Qur'an. Even if only 10% of the Sahaba were transmitting the Qur'an, that's 10,000 Sahaba. And if each one just had 50 students, that's half a million students in the second generation. In reality, the numbers are in the millions. This is called mass transmission. This is called tawatur. The earliest extant manuscripts of the Qur'an are dated before 656 of the common era. Decades ago, before these manuscripts were widely accepted or discovered by Western scholarship, there was a controversial opinion held by a man named John Wandsbro, professor at SOAS in London, the teacher of Prone and Cook. He said that the Qur'an was actually written in the 8th century in Iraq by a committee of various authors from the Abbasid court. He basically admitted that a single unlettered man living in the Hejaz in the 7th century could not have possibly written the Qur'an. He could not have known these things. But now we have confirmed Qur'an manuscripts from the 7th century written in Hijazi text type. The Birmingham manuscript can be dated to the Meccan period of the Prophet's life. So now, some of these radical revisionists, they have vacillated to the other extreme. So now they're saying that the Birmingham manuscript was written before the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. First the Qur'an was written after the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. Now it's written before the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. Such obstinacy. Now the truth is in the middle. The Qur'an was written at the time of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. And of course, this has always been the general historical consensus. There's nothing wrong with our narrative. There are no holes in our narrative. Sometimes even very learned people, they say things they regret later. Maybe he was having a bad day, going through some sort of crisis. But rest assured, take it from me, I teach Uluma al Qur'an. There are no holes in our narrative. But don't take it from me. Do your own research. There's nothing about the Qur'an that a Western scholar at Harvard or Yale can say to a traditional Alim that will throw this Alim through a loop and confound him and cause him to have some sort of existential crisis. No, nothing. We have unparalleled, robust scholarship. We have Al-Burhan fi Uluma al Qur'an. By Imam Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi. We have a masterpiece, Al-Itqan fi Uluma al Qur'an. By Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti. We have Al-Tasheel fi Uluma al-Quran fi Uluma al-Tanzeel. By Ibn Jaze' al-Kalbi. We have Kitab al-Masahif. By Ibn Abu Dawood. We have two books called Kitab al-Qiraat. By Ibn Mujahid al-Shams al-Din al-Jazari. Now another reason why these revisionists claim that the Qur'an had multiple authors is because the Bible, without a doubt, had multiple authors. And I'm not just talking about like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Literary critics have definitively demonstrated that the five books that are traditionally attributed to Musa al-Salam alone, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these five books were actually written by at least four authors living in different lands, in different centuries. This is a general consensus of biblical historians. Just by way of comparison, Isa al-Salam, Jesus peace be upon him, he saw none of the four Gospels that claim to preserve his words. This is a huge difference when compared to the Qur'an. Whether anyone believes that the Gospels were inspired Scripture or not, Jesus never saw any of them. This is just a fact. The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam, he knew what al-Fatiha was. He knew what al-Baqarah was. He knew what Ayatul Kursi was. He knew what Surah Yasin was. But if we took a time machine back to Nazareth, Palestine, in the year 30 of the common era, and asked Isa al-Salam to recite Matthew chapter 23 or John 316 or 1st Corinthians chapter 15, he would not know what we were talking about. So when it comes to the words attributed to Isa al-Salam after his departure, we must be discerning and critical. Some of his actual words are most likely there, but some are clearly not. The oldest complete New Testament manuscripts are dated 350 years. After Isa al-Salam, the oldest complete Torah is dated 1500 years. After Musa al-Salam, the oldest complete manuscripts of the Qur'an are dated a couple of decades after the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam. The Uthmani Codex, which was codified by eyewitnesses to the Prophet. This is a big difference. And here's another thing. I'll end with this, inshallah. There's something called stylometric analysis. Stylometric analysis. This is a sophisticated analysis of a linguistic style where statistical methods are used to determine the author or authors of a text. This is really cutting edge stuff. Modern stylometric analysis found that the Qur'an and hadiths each had a single yet different author. There is one author of the Qur'an, and there is a different author speaking as the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam in the hadith. And these two authors do not match. Subhanallah. Of course they don't match. The words of the Qur'an are the very words chosen by Allah s.w. Allah chose the wording of the Qur'an. They were first spoken by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam. Yes, but they're not his words. The Prophet was the conduit through which Allah s.w. gave us his revelation. The literary style of the hadith are clearly distinct from the Qur'an. This is why many hadith were fabricated. The Prophet's style, although highly eloquent, can be convincingly imitated. But the Qur'an is sui generous. It is one of a kind in its style and eloquence. There is nothing like it. It is impossible to imitate. It is mu'ajiz. This means that the Qur'an has an internal incapacitating mechanism. So it's not that it's possible to imitate the Qur'an, yet Allah simply doesn't allow it. It is impossible to imitate the Qur'an. It is beyond human capacity. The Qur'an also has a deep compositional structure from the level of the individual all the way to Big Suar. The Qur'an displays parallelism and concentricism that is absolutely mind blowing. This is incredible. There have been some modern attempts to imitate the style and eloquence of the Qur'an by Arab speaking Christians. This is an open challenge. These attempts are absolutely ridiculous. We read and analyze some of them in class at the college. In the students tonight, we can't stop laughing when we read them. One time we laughed for an hour straight, just reading what they believed to be on equal power with the Qur'an. And this Qur'an is not such as can be invented despite of Allah. But it is a confirmation of that which went before it, an exposition of that which is decreed for mankind. There is no doubt from the Lord of the worlds. Or do they say he invented it? Say bring a surah like unto it and call for help on all you can besides Allah if you are truthful. So the Qur'an is impossible to imitate and or fabricate due to its mass transmission as well as its unique literary style. And hadith are different than the Qur'an. Most hadith are not mass transmitted. And as I said, the literary style of the hadith are clearly distinct from the Qur'an. Modern cutting edge stylometric analysis confirms this. Therefore our ulama developed a highly robust system by which to authenticate hadith. We don't just accept anything willy-nilly. Our traditional ulama developed something called al-usul-i-naqtid hadith. The principles of hadith criticism or the principles of hadith authentication. This is a deep intellectual study. There's much more to say, but I'm out of time and my voice is gone. So jisaka la khairan.