THE QUR'AN IN OUR HANDS TODAY
http://www.iad.org/

During the early years of Islam, which was mostly confined to Arabia, the use of diacritic or the vowels was not required because Arabs knew their language very well. However, as Islam spread to other parts of the world, the use of diacritical points as well as the vowels were necessary for the proper pronunciation.

For example the letter that sounds like Ba, Ta, Tha, Nun and Ya all looked alike. To the Arab reader there was no confusion, but to non-Arabs it was difficult, hence the use of dots and vowels were introduced by an eminent linguist, Abu-Asswad-ed-Doaly to convey the right sound.

Later copies of the Qur'an either in hand-written form or printed form made use of the 'Tashkil' and 'I'jam'. Therefore apart from the addition of 'Tashkil' and 'I'jam', the Qur'an in our hands today is identical in contents (word for word, syllable to syllable) to the one revealed to Muhammad (PBUP).

It has been the desire of many unbelievers to prove discrepancies in the Qur'an. Numerous attempts have been made since its revelation to find discrepancies in it. The most extensive research was done in the last century in the Institute of Munich, University of Munich, Germany. Forty two thousand copies of the Qur'an including manuscripts and printed texts, produced in different parts of the world were collected. Research was carried for almost half a century and at the end, the researchers concluded that apart from copying mistakes, there was no discrepancy in the text of those forty two thousand copies; even though they were collected from different parts of the Globe and belonged to the period between the 1st century Hijra to the 14th century Hijra. (Ref. Internet, History Of Torah, Injeel and Quran).

Two copies of the original Qur'an from the time of Uthman (pbuh) still exist today, one is in Istanbul and the other in Tashkant. Whosoever is interested, may compare the text of the Qur'an today from any part of the world with these two original copies, he will not find any discrepancy. For a more detailed information please refer to the book called Ulum Al-Qur'an, by Ahmed Von Denffer.

The researchers only confirmed to the world what Allah had revealed in the Qur'an more than 1400 years ago:

Allah has challenged both Man and Jinns (unseen creatures) to produce the like of the Qur'an and no one to this day has produced one like it:

"No falsehood can approach it from before or behind it: it (the Qur'an) is sent down by one (Allah) full of wisdom worthy of all praise.¾ (41:42)

One orientalist like Menzes provides an excellent summary about the Qur'an as follows:

'The pious veneration with which the whole body of the Musulmans from the very first regarded his revelations as the word of God, the devotion with which they committed them to memory and their evidence that transcripts existed even from an early period of Mohammad's ministry combined with the fact that Zaid's collection came into immediate and unquestionable use, all leaves no doubt in the mind that the Qur'an contains the very words delivered to the Prophet. The few variations are confined almost entirely to the vowel forms and diacritical points which are inventions of later periods which were non existent in Zaid's time¾. (Reference, The Sublime Qur'an And Orientalism, by Muhammad Khalifa).

Qur'an is the only religious Book in the world that has been memorized by a great number of Muslims around the globe since the time of the Prophet, and has been carried down as a common practice throughout the world to this day. Those people who memorize the Qur'an are known as Huffaz-al Qur'an. They know the Qur'an word by word, syllable for syllable, hence if the world ever decided to obliterate the Qur'an from the face of this earth, the Huffaz will be able to reproduce the Qur'an in no time - thus making the Qur'an indestructible, imperishable.