Some scholars, in reference to the Torah revealed to Moses, said it cannot be corrupted, based on the verse saying God's words cannot be changed 6:115.
Any worldly copy of the Torah can be altered. But so long as there exists the possibility for the original to be reproduced, God's words remain unaffected, only the copy of these words.
The Quran is the speech of Allah, and that speech is with Allah, uncreated, eternal, unchanged like any other attribute of His. The analogy of God's speech to the Quran we touch with our hands or recite from our minds, is as God's mercy which manifests in tangible and abstract things. Both types of manifestations are created means through which God's uncreated attributes of speech and mercy are made known to humans. These attributes arent limited to those particular manifestations
31:27"and If all the trees on the earth were pens, and the sea replenished with seven more seas [were ink], the words of Allah would not be spent".
God's speech is therefore unexhaustive. It can potentially bring into existence a limitless number of words of revelation, among them the Hebrew Torah of Moses or the Arabic Quran of Muhammad
14:4"And We did not send any messenger but with the language of his people, so that he might explain to them clearly".
Allah further states about the revelation to Muhammad, that He
43:3"made it an Arabic Quran".
The eternal speech of Allah takes on in this world the form that is relevant to the divine purpose. The Arabic Quran was thus not continuously spoken since eternity. It is the manifestation in time of God's eternal attribute of speech. Just like we may say a healthy newborn is the manifestation in time of God's eternal attribute of mercy.
Assuming for argument's sake that all things in the heavens and the earth are destroyed, including all Torahs and Qurans, the mother of the book that contains all revelations, and even the preserved tablet/lawh mahfuz. So long as the potential to generate a true Quran and Torah exists, then Allah's words that were revealed to Moses and Muhammad remain unaffected. As stated earlier, the physical and abstract things in which God's attributes manifest in this world do not exhaust the attributes themselves, neither do these manifestations share the uncreated essence of the attributes they are representing. This is the problem of Trinitarians. Jesus, a created being, is not merely a manifestation of God's word, rather he incarnates it fully, becoming this divine "person" with contradictory attributes Trinitarian thinkers have been struggling to explain for over 2000 years. Christians are quick to try and parallel the notion of uncreatedness of God's speech as manifested in the Quran, with their idea derived from the Gospel of John where God's uncreated word manifested in Jesus. The two concepts, arent comparable. Further, why would trinitarians even need the Quran to explain the logical and philosophical problems of their theology.
Not a single group within Islam says the Quran was a separate entity floating around next to God since eternity past. This is how some Christians, with their trinitarian worldview, misrepresent the statement that the word of Allah is uncreated. In Christianity, the word is not an attribute but a divine person among others like the father and holy spirit, each with distinct attributes. One man with multiple attributes isnt many men just as One God with multiple attributes isnt many gods. This is tawhid. Yet Trinity says each person is divine but with different attributes, resulting in 3 different gods. The analogy Christians attempt between tawhid and trinity stops at the word of God being eternal. Christians made that word a person with attributes among other distinct persons, while Muslims kept the word as an attribute among others within the essence of the One God. As an aside, since the word or speech of God is not an attribute within the divine essence but a separate divine entity along with 2 others, does it mean that only this divine entity called "word or speech" has the ability to speak and that the other 2 divine entities are mute?
If God's word is a separate divine entity that became flesh in Jesus, what about the words uttered by Jesus who is now divine? Are his words separate divine entities? Further, if the Torah is God's word, as Jews and Christians believe, does that make it divine as Jesus is? These are the kinds of problems Trinitarians are entangled with due to their conjectures on ambiguous matters, instead of relying on firm statements on God's oneness and unity. Muslims on the other hand, despite the early disputes as to whether the Quran was created or not, never went out of the way to declare the attributes of God, like His word, separate divine entities. No Muslim ever believed God's speech to be a separate conscious part. The reason why this issue is often brought up by Trinitarians is that the Quran is the only book that claims to be Allah's direct speech. The Bible doesnt make that claim. The closest one finds is an anonymous claim made about Jesus being God's word. Muslims on the other hand stick to clear and firm statements of scriptures to define their cardinal beliefs, including that "nothing is like a likeness of Him".
As to Badr and the assisting angels.
In a vision to the prophet, Allah made the future adversaries of the Muslims look few in numbers because had He shown them as they truly were
8:43"you would certainly have become weak-hearted and you would have disputed about the matter".
In that prophetic vision, the prophet saw what would occur at the battlefield, namely the fact that the ill-equiped and outnumbered Muslims will be assisted by angels whose number will be proportionate to the believers' degree of patience and God-consciousness, "pouring down" from Heaven, thousand after thousand in succession/murdifin like an orderly army is sent section after section in waves 3:123-5,8:9.
The number of angels was meant, not to answer a logistical necessity since the verses make it clear that
3:126"there is no victory, save from Allah, the Mighty, the Wise"
but to serve 2 purposes. It is also important to keep in mind, before delving into these 2 deeper purposes of sending divine assistance, that whether at Badr or Uhud, no Quranic verse points to those angels as having actively participated in the battlefield.
The first purpose of mentioning the number of angels was to make their promised vast numbers a means of stirring the believers' God-consciousness and spirituality. They are clearly told the degree of divine assistance is directly correlated to their level of God-consciousness as already shown in 3:123-5 and in fact they would later be reminded from the example of the battle of Uhud, that so long as they had shown a spiritually upright attitude God was by their side and the victory was theirs up to the point where they submitted to their greed 3:152.
The same idea is reiterated elsewhere, as in 8:65 where they are told (through 2 examples in order to establish it as a general law) how patience and resolve will grant them a power ratio of 10 to 1. Since that ratio is directly correlated to a certain level of patience and resolve, and that they had still not attained that level yet, for the time being their military might is limited at 2 to 1. Due to this weakness, Allah has limited the capacities of their enemies, not letting them exceed too much that of the believers
8:66"For the present Allah has made light your burden, and He knows that there is weakness in you.."
This rule regarding divine assistance is demonstrated from their defeat at the battle of Uhud where they had behaved unrighteously and greedily, and from their victory at Badr, where they had been God-conscious, selfless and disregarded any worldly pursuit, and thus became deserving of divine assistance. They were in both cases much inferior in military capabilities than their foes, thus showing that their victory had nothing to do with their own selves, and came from elsewhere
8:9-18"Allah is the weakener of the struggle of the unbelievers".Divine assistance being proportional to faith is again demonstrated in sura baqara where, after God told the Israelite warriors, through their prophet, that He is with the sabireen/the steadfast, the Israelites going to battle with Talut/Saul, requested that God first and foremost fills them with sabr/steadfastness and then grants them victory. Even when Moses set up for the hardest mission, confronting one of the greatest and most powerful kings alive, he only asked for God to "expand his chest". He was asking God to calm him with confidence, assurance, towards the fact that he will succeed with God's help. Moses is demanding God to increase his faith in Him, because God's help is contingent on strong faith and assurance.
In fact this pattern can be seen almost all throughout the wars the Israelites were involved in, from the times of Moses when those lacking faith were warned not to fight the Canaanites, because divine assistance in battle is the prerogative of those worthy of it. Consequently, they were sent to wander 40 years in the desert until the last one from those that had shown distrust in God was dead and a worthy generation raised in their stead. God promised them through Moses, just as He did with Muhammad and the nation about to be established under his leadership, that should they abide by the covenant and the divine ordinances, then in battle they will be assisted in a way that
Lev26:8"Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you".
What is most interesting is that, as already observed earlier, there is a direct correlation between spirituality and level of divine help. This did not escape the early rabbinical commentators, as here stated by Rashi
"Since five will pursue a hundred, this means that each Jew will pursue twenty enemies; therefore, should Scripture not have written here: “and a hundred of you will pursue two thousand”? But, [the Torah teaches us that] there is no comparison between a few who fulfill the Torah and many who fulfill the Torah [and thus, here, the larger the group of pursuers, the higher proportionately is the number pursued]. — [Torath Kohanim 26:10]"
see also 1Chr12:14.
That notion of proportionality of divine help in relation to the level of spirituality continued down to the time of king Ahab whose small band of 7000 Israelites, the only ones left among their nation to have preserved the straight path and the only ones to have been selected for the battle, were made victorious against an enemy several times greater than them in number and power 1Kings20,19:18. Again in their war with the Hagarites, the sons of Reuben prevailed because of having shown spiritual worthiness and were thus deserving of divine assistance 1Chr5:18-20.
This important relationship between divine assistance and level of spirituality is the reason behind the many Quran verses denouncing those shallow in their faith who were averse at the thought of leaving their homes to defend the oppressed 4:75-77,8:5-6.
In the Hebrew Bible, Deborah the prophetess denounces in her song the slackness of those tribes who were slow in joining the ranks of the Jewish fighters against the oppressive Canaanites, contrasting them with shining examples of bravoury and temerity of the people who offered their lives on the battle fields Judges4,5. Therefore in order not to compromise victory, as happened before when those of feeble spirituality had disunited the sincere believers and corrupted their God-consciousness 9:47-8, the hypocrites half heartedly joining the Muslims in battle, and who had already shown cowardice on previous occasions were told that
9:83"By no means shall you ever go forth with me and by no means shall you fight an enemy with me; surely you chose to sit the first time, therefore sit (now) with those who remain behind"
despite their ability to provide with material assistance 9:46. In the times of Gideon, up to 20.000 of a total 30.000 Jewish fighters were forbidden to join the battle against the Midianites on account of their fear and cowardice Judges7:3.
It is the mark of every prophet that whenever he sets forth for war in the way of God, he selects only the righteous and worthy elements to be the bearers of the banner of truth, side by side with him. This is because the law of God regarding the divine assistance of the believers in battle is on a level directly related to the degree of spirituality of the fighters. The prophet Talut/Saul put all able men through a test of privation to see who would be allowed to join him fight the pagan armies 2:246-251.
Besides encouraging God-consciousness in battle, the second object of announcing divine assistance was to uplift the righteous warriors psychologically and motivate them in the face of the overwhelming power they were about to face
3:126"And Allah did not make it (the descend of angels) but as good tidings for you, and to reassure your hearts thereby".
As the vision of angelic assistance was communicated to the believers 3:123-4,8:10 it impacted them greatly by making them 8:12"firm" in their resolve which in turn had the effect of casting "terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve". All that is left for them to do now is engage in battle "smite above the necks and smite every finger of them". Their enemies were terrorized because they were psychologically defeated, seeing those whom they thought were weak and helpless engage them instead with such ferocity and resolve, as if they were 3:13"twice as many". When the parties met at first prior to the beginning of the confrontation, the Muslims who were convinced that the heavenly hosts were on their sides saw the enemy coalition as few despite clearly outnumbering them in manpower and equipment, and the Quraysh alliance's first impression upon seeing the Muslims was their small number 8:44.
It is reported some of the enemies were even considering to send their slaves to fight the relatively small Muslim troops, thinking it wouldnt be necessary for themselves to go to the battlefield. The hypocrites of Medina, among the Muslim community, thought the Muslims were completely deluded as they set themselves to war in such condition 8:49. This emboldened both parties to engage in battle; the few Muslims and the angels on their sides against the large coalition of Meccans with evil forces on their side, whispering their suggestions to incite them further 8:48. It was so
8:44"in order that Allah might bring about a matter which was to be done".
That matter was to make that battle a 8:41"day of distinction", making it a landmark and a criterion for the believers as well as the disbelievers and a concrete proof of the truthfulness of Muhammad's years of prophetic warnings.
Further reading answering Sam Shamoun "The Farce of Quranic Abrogation"
1-Apostate prophet sees more reasons to piecemeal revelations; supporting the believers? (the blind man and 4:95)
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