Islam critiqued is truly sceptical; why write Quran if memorization is best?

In answer to the video "Perfect Preservation of the Quran is a Modern Invention"

Even at that point when Muslims felt the need to securize the written Quran, and when it was achieved, it neither diminished nor discouraged the process of memorization, so much so that even today Muslims can count in their ranks thousands of huffaz. Just as the prophet greatly encouraged the act of memorizing the Quran, after him, Memorizers were held in high esteem by the people. Some women even asked to be taught the Quran instead of receiving their dower of marriage as reported in (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasai, al Taj).

The Prophet used to recite different passages from the revealed text while leading the daily prayers and declared the process of memorising the Book an act of great virtue, in countless traditions. The phenomenon reached a point that some Companions went to the extreme of reciting the whole book in one night. However, when the Prophet was informed, he asked them not to seal the Quran in less than three days or a week. (Al Nasai, al Musnad). The prophet said; 

"Whoever completes a recitation of the Quran, it is as if he has reached the station of prophethood except that he does not receive revelation"(Usul al-Kafi) 

"The nobles of my nation are those who bear the Qur'an (in their hearts), and the people of the night (who worship Allah during the hours of darkness)"  

"The number of stations in the garden of Paradise corresponds to the number of verses of the Qur’an. When someone who knows the Qur’an enters the garden he will be told: ‘Recite and for every verse ascend a station.’ There will be no station higher than he who has memorised the entire Qur’an".

Many other traditions show the constant encouragement from the prophet to take care, write down, memorize and transmit the Quran to all members of the society men, women and even children.

"Allah will crown the parents of the one who teaches his child the Quran"  

"The best of you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it"  

"One who teaches his child the Qur’an is like one who has made ten thousand Hajj pilgrimages"  

‘The hearts of men can become rusty just as iron rusts. He was asked: O Messenger of Allah what is their polish? He (S) said: The recitation of the Quran and remembrance of death’

So many of the later-generation Muslims emulated their predecessors in memorising the entire Quran and the number of huffaz increased from generation to generation from an estimated 40 after the prophet's death to hundreds in the next generation and the number continued to swell until now more than 1400 years later we can count hundreds of thousands across the globe with some reciters as young as 10 years old. One cannot but see in this phenomenon, the realisation of the prophecy made 1400 years ago 

54:17"And certainly We have made the Quran easy for remembrance, but is there anyone who will mind?". 

The contemporaries of Muhammad proudly preserved the poems and speeches of the pre­Islamic era so it would be inconceivable for these same people to be careless regarding their personal copies of the great Book whose laws they proclaimed, for which they had staked their lives, left their homes, spent their wealth, abandoned their families and children.

Abu Bakr's collection, as stated earlier was assembled on loose parchments. It was not compiled in book form and reproduced, up to the time of Uthman. It was meant for safekeeping so as to ensure the availability of a complete and approved written testimony to the Quran. Also, AbuBakr's collection was not meant as a standard by which people should refer to in their recital. And so, until the time of Uthman, people kept using their personal codices and ways of recital. Under Abu Bakr' caliphate, Muslim land had not yet expanded beyond the Peninsula, a territory where people were already familiar with the proper reading and recitation of the Quran. However with the rapid expansions to new lands and people under Umar then Uthman, the complete Uthmanic text, properly ordered and rewritten according to the new rasm (more on that point later), was sent to various provinces along with a memorizer to demonstrate the proper reading. Uthman did so under his caliphate upon receipt of the very first report about variant recitations in the provinces.

As already stated, the differences were dialectical and in the manners of vocalization; and this is what the reporter, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, who was sent on a campaign to Azerbaidjan had noticed on his return march. A plan to tacle the issue was put in place the same year. It is to be noted, recital variations had already been detected and addressed by the previous caliph who had rebuked ibn Masud for accepting to teach in the Hudhail dialect to accommodate some people of Iraq. But by Uthman's time, the variations were more widespread given the expansion of the Muslim empire.

Again, this process of proper Quranic education and memorization of the far provinces had already started under Umar the previous caliph who had been entrusted with Abubakr's compilation. Umar sent teachers that established schools in Kufa, Basra, Syria out of which came 100s of students and future teachers would come out from. The reason that prompted Uthman's Quran project, and Abubakr's before him, is thus very different than having to put a canon together from among conflicting traditions each claiming to be the divine truth. This was the case with Christianity's competing sects like the Marcionites, Ebionites, Gnostics, proto-orthodox (named as such because they were the ones that eventually were adopted by the state) each insisting that they correctly upheld the teachings of Jesus. All were in competition to become the rightful, officially endorsed version.

Uthman's collection was therefore not a new one nor the first, but the second based on Abu Bakr's compilation that was in Hafsa's hands. A lesser known, but complimentary narration suggests that Uthman, prior to requesting Abu Bakr's compilation that was in Hafsa's hands, first commissioned the compilation of a mushaf based on primary, independent sources, including the companions' parchments as well as all material he could gather from Aisha. Only then did he compare that compilation to Abubakr's that was in Hafsa's hands. Both versions agree to Hafsa's suhuf playing a crucial role in the final authentication of Uthman's mushaf.

This secondary narration adds even more strength to the Quran's authenticity as we now have a double compilation effort from 2 different sources (Abu bakr, then Uthman) 10 years appart, each agreeing with one another. Besides spelling mistakes or omissions which are known and documented, the written parts of the Quran originally disseminated among the Muslims confirmed one another. Among those anecdotal spelling mistakes which were detected, hence irrelevant to the process of transmission which is primarily oral, the hadith speak of Uthman asking Ubayy ibn Kaab to check the correct spelling of taghut which was found to be written sometimes with an elongated alef. Uthman then returned the original to Hafsa, further showing that no difference whatsoever existed with Uthman's compilation otherwise he would have simply destroyed Hafsa's copy, as he did with other imperfect copies later on.

According to some reports, he even destroyed his own copy that pre-dated his compilation

"I too had a copy of the Quran but I erased it and am content to rely on this copy".

What further corroborates that Uthman's compilation did not differ from the scattered writings left by the prophet, then collected by Abu Bakr a few month after the prophet's death, is the fact that up to this day, the Uthmani script allows the preservation of all the approved recitations going back to the Prophet.                                                                                                                                 

Islam critiqued meditates; why didnt Muhammad compile the Quran?

In answer to the video "Perfect Preservation of the Quran is a Modern Invention"

The revelation of the Quran was a long and gradual process, explicitly meant, among other things at solidifying it in the believers' hearts 28:51, as a sign of Allah's pledge to secure it and preserve it. This process continued until very shortly before the prophet's death. He did not know when he would die, as affirmed in the Quran itself 7:188,46:9 although he had the feeling that Gabriel's double recitation of the entire Quran, instead of the usual single review a year, was an indication of his approaching end. Another indication was the total victory of Islam in the Peninsula, marked by the conquest of Mecca. God favoured His prophet by telling him to seek forgiveness as the sign of victory manifests, so as the ensure him a honourable station in the hereafter, and teaching the Muslims through him they should not feel complacent in terms of righteousness because of worldly success 

110:1-3"When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest, And you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes, Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance". 

Because he did not know his exact time of death, he could not have commanded the compilation himself while the possibility was still open for new revelation to be inserted among the previous ones, in a location within the existing text that was between his hands.

The prophet, being simply the conveyer of the message, kept on communicating what was revealed to him. So long as he was alive, the descent of revelation was still a possibility, given his function as a reformer and teacher. It is his death that signified the end of revelation. It did happen, as with Moses or Muhammad, that long intervals separated 2 revelations, but never did God remove revelation completely from his messengers long before their death.

Neither did the prophet know where a revelation had to be placed until the divine order would be given

75:17"Surely on Us (devolves) the collecting of it and the reciting of it".

According to Ibn Abbas, the prophet didnt even know when a sura would end until he would receive the bismillah formula. Gabriel did not just oversee the correct recitation, but also the collecting together of the various written parts as stated in the verse. Ibn Abi’l-‘Aas, one of the scribes, describes how he once witnessed the phenomenon

“I was sitting with the Messenger of Allaah when he fixed his gaze on something, then lowered his gaze until he was almost looking at the ground, then he gazed at something. He said, ‘Jibreel came to me and told me to put this aayah (he recited 16:90) in this place in this sura".

Just as he was commanded from on high, the prophet in turn would supervise the placement of verses, passages and suras in specific places, within the already existing text. 

Uthman himself in a statement reflects the Quranic doctrine of divine arrangement of the Quran. When ibn Al Zubayr told him 

"This verse, which is in Surat a/ Baqarah, 'Those who die and leave wives behind ... without turning them out,' has been abrogated by another verse. Why then do you write it (in the Qur'an)? 'Uthman said, 'Leave it (where it is), 0 son of my brother, for I will not shift anything of it (i.e., the Qur'an) from its original position".

As a side note, No report attributed to the prophet exists identifying the final revelation. The various opinions that came to us are those of companions and their successors, giving their ijtihad. Not every single companion was present every time revelation descended. Days or months could pass before the information circulated everywhere. When certain reports speak of last verse, this "last" is determined by context for example in a discussion on abrogation some argued that such and such a verse came last and thus cannot be abrogated 

("The people of Al-Kufah differed concerning this Verse: "And whoever kills a believer intentionally." So I went to Ibn 'Abbas and asked him, and he said: 'It was revealed among the last of what was revealed, and nothing of it was abrogated after that.'") 

other narrations spoke of the last verse in the sense of latest group of revelations, as in the case of ayaat ul riba 2:275-2:280 

("One of the last verses to be revealed was the verse on riba")

 as is similarly meant for 9:11 

("It was narrated that Anas bin Malik said: "The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'Whoever departs this world with sincerity towards Allah..This is confirmed in the Book of Allah, in one of the Last Verses to be revealed, where Allah says: "But if they repent...")

 or last revealed about a particular issue as in the case of 4:176 

("Narrated Al-Bara' bin 'Azib: The last verse revealed about the decease who left no descendants or ascendants...")

The majority opinion is that 2:281 was last to be revealed overall. It is implicitly understood based on a narration that the prophet Muhammad died a few days later.

This gradual process solidified the Quran in the believers' hearts 28:51, as a sign of Allah's pledge to secure it and preserve it. Consequently the Prophet would memorize each verse as it was revealed, recite it to the "Scribes of the Revelation" (kuttab al-wahy) who would write it down immediately, in the manner of prophets of old. Jeremiah for instance dictated his prophecies to his disciple Baruch son of Neriah, when God commanded him

Jer30:1"Write for you the words that I have spoken to you, on a scroll"  

Jer36:4"And Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote from Jeremiah's mouth all the words of the Lord that He had spoken to him, on a roll of a book".

The prophet Jeremiah was literate and also wrote a scroll by himself Jer51:60. 

Uthman stated

"It was customary with the messenger of Allah that when a portion of different chapters was revealed to him, and when any verse was revealed, he would call one of those persons who used to write the Holy Quran and say to him: Write this verse in the chapter where such and such verses occur".

So although the prophet did not and could not have compiled the Quran himself, yet by reviewing with the memorizers the revelations in his, and their hands, and supervising the writing and placement of every new revelation, he made sure that once his life would come to an end, his followers would have a complete, structured and authentic Quran they would be able to assemble into a book. The difficulty for his followers would consist in gathering the Quran in its twofold transmission form so as to corroborate the one with the other; oral first and foremost, and then textual from all available loose materials on which it was written, such as palm-leaves, bones, parchments etc which were not even all available in one and the same place. Despite this monumental task, there never was disagreement as to the sequence of verses in any recitation 

“I am going to leave with you two heavy burdens. The first of them is the Book of Allah: in it is the true guidance and the light. Therefore, hold fast to it.” Then he (the Prophet) prompted and induced the Muslims to adhere to the Book of God. Then he said: “And my household. I remind you of Allah in matters relating to my household. I remind you of Allah in matters relating to my household. I remind you of Allah in matters relating to my household".

As a side note the second part of the hadith comes in the context of a group of soldiers' harsh and unwarranted disrespect of Ali, the prophet's cousin and son in law, at the location of Ghadir.

That double security system; textual/oral had preserved the Quran so well, that the Muslims did not immidiately feel the need of collecting and compiling it into a book after the prophet's death. After all the Quran, by its very definition is a "recitation" meaning a primarily oral phenomenon in a traditionally oral society. This security assurance however did not last for long. A few months following the death of the prophet, this double security system was compromised. Abu Bakr ordered the collection following the loss of reciters on the day of Yamamah as authenticaly and strongly supported by the Islamic history, then handed it down to Umar who left it to Hafsa. 

Islam critiqued is amazed; but what about the initial defective Quran script?

In answer to the video "Perfect Preservation of the Quran is a Modern Invention"

The basic nature of early scripts was suitable for the memorizers. They knew, through oral transmission the correct pronounciation of each word. Others however werent orally introduced to the Quran, and in addition spoke different dialects. They found great difficulty if they opened the Book and tried to read from such basic script for the first time.

The Hebrew Bible was similarly only punctualized in the 9th century CE, hundreds of years after it is believed to have been written, to help the person less familiar with Hebrew. 

This basic Quranic script was meant to keep it locked in its original double security system, textual/oral. Any one trying to bypass the established oral tradition and recite or read the Quran on his own would instantly be detected. Just as happens nowadays with critics trying to approach that basic script and suggest multiple possible readings, thinking they are discrediting it while they are in fact confirming the very purpose of those that compiled the Quran in this manner. The kind of recital and textual variants we see, either in the ancient manuscripts or as reported in Quran comentaries, testify to the early fixation of the text. Had the transmission only been oral there would have been variants the likes we have in the hadith literature when the earliest ahadith were strictly passed on orally for many decades prior to being written. This original, defective script of the Quran implies that written copies were only intended as memory aid. This is all the more true if one considers that the Arabic script had already stabilized even prior to Islam, and that Arabs already used diacritical marks. Yet the first official copies did not.

Papyri dated to 22AH contain dotting on several letters (PARF 557/558). A Quran manuscript, the Birmingham manuscript, radio carbon dated with high probability to the lifetime of the prophet's time or at most a few years after his death, has a partially dotted script. The lower script of the Sanaa manuscript is equally dotted in some instances. All the Hijazi manuscripts available, which are the earliest, are partially dotted.

Thus, this purposeful omission by the scribes, writing in a defective script, meant that it would have been impossible to read the Quran accurately strictly using the text. This reinforces the notion that an oral tradition was well established prior to the compilation effort.

This by the way is one of the aspects of Muslim tradition confirmed by the Sanaa manuscripts. The authors of these texts made use of near-synonyms with certain passages from the Uthmanic recension. These near symonyms, known and listed in the Islamic tradition as parts of the prophetic approved readings, have led scholars that do not give much weight to the Muslim tradition, to actually confirm it once more as truthful. Comenting on various studies of the Sanaa manuscripts, Nicolai Sinai says

"The phenomenon (that is, of near symonyms) does, however, shed valuable light on the initial stage of the Quran’s transmission history, insofar as it suggests some degree of oral transmission in which transmitters were forced to rely on their memory of the gist of what was being said, rather than being able to check a written original. As Sadeghi has highlighted, the fact that an examination of the lower layer of the palimpsest yields a fair number but not a downright overabundance of such synonymic substitutions is best explained by an admixture of oral and written transmission. One may accordingly follow him in conceiving of the Quran’s textual transmission as being ultimately rooted in the transcription of oral proclamations recited at speed, thus accounting for the original transcribers’ occasional disagreement about whether a given verse employed, say, alnār or jahannam. The fact that Islamic works ascribe similar synonymic substitutions to some of the non-ʿUthmānic codices of the Quran reportedly com- piled by certain companions of the Prophet adds further weight to this hypothesis".

But this phenomenon of oral preservation was of course not exclusive to the Quran.

The pre and early post-Islamic culture was predominently oral. Poets for example extremely rarely compiled their poetry into writing. The Quran was actually the very first Arabic book. Interestingly, the meaning of the word itself reflects that process. Quran, from qara'a means "to read" and in Arabic the term can be used both for reading from a physical text or from memory. The compilation of the Quran, the first Arabic book was a landmark in the history of the language and literature, beginning the transition from an oral to written society.

So, as Muslim territories expanded rapidly just a few decades following the prophet's death, the memorizers of the Quran could not keep up in reaching and educating every new community. It was not possible to send a reciter to every corner of the caliphate, before the need to read and recite the Quran had reached every community and individual. That is why the authorities had to further improve upon that basic orthography, making it easier for someone to read the Quran even if he wasnt fully acquainted with its recital prior. This will be shown later on.
                                                                                                                                         
So in 22/642, a little more than 10 years after the prophet's death, the caliph Uthman, in an effort to standardize the script of the Quran so as to allow it to be read the authentic recitations, took the loose pages of the Quran from Hafsa, the prophet's wife after her father Umar's death, for a copying in the form of a book or mushaf. There were no differences between the 2. Uthman simply used AbuBakr's compilation as a blueprint for the multiple copies he later disseminated in the Muslim territories. The process was done in combination with the approval of the best reciters of Medina. This is in keeping with the prophet's own practice of dual authentication and preservation of the Quran since the very first revelation. Again, Uthman's mushaf was thus nothing but a clean and perfect copy of Abu Bakr's collection of the Quran, when he was the first caliph. Prior to Uthman's compilation efforts, Abu bakr collected the Quran from all the various supports on which it was written and that were found in the prophet's house, then handed it to Umar who left it to Hafsa. This will be detailed a little later.

Islam critiqued goes back in time; Early Muslims opinion on the Quran?

In answer to the video "Perfect Preservation of the Quran is a Modern Invention"

There is zero proof that early Muslims doubted the Quran's authenticity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once the institution of prophethood was sealed, Allah, contrary to His previous revelations, pledged that He would gather and structure, then protect His final revelation. No other book or divine scripture has this pledge of protection from God Himself. Many Quranic verses refer to the ongoing process of writing it down 80:11-16,85:21-22,6:77-80,25:5.

Many ahadith whether from the Muatta, Kitab Al-Nida Lil-Salah, Bukhari's Kitab Fadailul-Quran, all confirm the Quran was entirely written on different support in Muhammad time, although not compiled in one book. This in itself wasnt a problem to the multitude of memorizers contemporaries to the prophet. They knew its correct order.

We read in sahih Muslim of the prophet's command

"Do not take the Qur'an on a journey with you, for I am afraid lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy".

Again in Bukhari

"its confirmed that among those who compiled the Quran in the Prophet's time are Abdullah Ibn Mas’oud, Muadh and Ubayy Ibn Ka’b".

This close circle of the prophet's companions recited the Quran as it was revealed, from beginning to end (10 times according to some traditions) in front of the Prophet all of which indicates that it was in a gathered and structured form although not collated in the form of a book.

Again in al-Sirat al-Mustaqim, Anas, whom this youtuber claims did not think the Quran was correctly preserved, says:

"Four men collected the Qur’an during the life of the Prophet (S) those being my father, Mu’adh, Zaid(Ibn Thabit), and Abu Zaid".

Zaid ibn Thabit reported

"We used to collect the fragments of the verses of the Quran and put them in their appropriate places at the instruction of the Messenger of Allah (S). Despite this, the verses were still fragmented so the Prophet (S) ordered ‘Ali (a) to gather them in one place and warned us against losing them." 

Other examples of Quran compilers during the Prophet's time is the one of a woman named Umm Waraqah (al Itqan,v1,p215).

The Quran challenges its opponents to find discrepancies in it, or to produce similar verses or suras meaning that these suras were there in the public hands. The Quran was transmitted, learned and passed down both verbally and in script form, on a scale never seen for any document, let alone religious. Any unbiased individual can see this is a process which is still continuing today. But the primary source of transmission was always oral.

All written texts were dependent on it and it still is the case today as all written texts must be attested *by the oral tradition of transmission through a Hafiz. Again, this simply is a statement of fact. Writing down was only meant to consolidate the process of oral preservation. This is what the novices to Islam, which is the case of most of its self-proclaimed critics, fail to grasp. They approach Quran authenticity with their own scriptural history in mind, thinking that the Quran was put to writing out of thin air.

This dual method of control, textual but mainly oral, which was never practiced by the transmitters of the Bible, made it impossible for any tampering as it would immediately be detected by the thousands of memorizers in all corners of the Muslim territories. The number of people having transmitted the Quran is so vast that any error in the transmission, textual or oral, became impossible. This is why the Quran is labelled "mutawattir", a level of authenticity attributed to an oral transmission when it has been related exactly the same way by countless independant sources.

Extremely few ahadith have been labelled as such or reached the level of multiple independant sources as the Quran. Most ahadith are based ahad reports or singular transmissions. Further and in contrast to the Quran, the ahadith require isnad (detailed chain of transmission) to be validated, because the earliest communities often disputed and argued about the veracity of these statements.

The Quran never required any isnad to gain a sense of credibility and authenticity because the text and veracity of the Quran was agreed to by a consensus of the earliest Islamic communities. Despite the abundance of 1st-2nd century hijra manuscripts, there is zero proof that the Quran was transmitted in anyway other than tawatur. Hence the position of mainstream academia as regards the authenticity of the Islamic narrative of compilation, preservation, transmission of the text and recitals. See further below.

The Quran, contrary to both hadith and sunna does not seek support because it has community consensus or reliable transmission chain. Rather, it requires one to believe in its veracity based on it clear arguments. No scripture can be accepted purely on the basis that the same community profess its Divine origins and have themselves sought to protect it.

When Islam spread to territories where the people hadnt yet received an oral transmission of the Quran, but only the script, they were confused on the proper pronunciation of the words. The basic nature of the early script, especially the lack of headings or separations between the suras, could have most probably been the reason for some people to have confused the beginning and ending of certain suras.

There are for instance 2 reports attributed to Abu Ubaid and Aisha, reports that are deemed unauthentic and unreliable by hadith scholars, on sura Ahzab. In one report the person argues that there was a time when sura Ahzab, which currently counts 73 verses was similary in length to surah Baqarah which now has 286 verses. Some people thought that al ahzab and others were longer than they actually were. This could easily be explained by the fact that both al ahzab and al baqara were revealed in Medina. But sura Baqara was revealed over 10 years and so it could have been that at the time the comment was made on sura Ahzab's length, al baqara was also around 70 verses in length until a time came where it became longer. Assuming for argument's sake that al Ahzab did count 200+ verses, one would have to explain the intricate internal coherence of this short sura as we have it today. It has no inappropriate gaps, no discordant passages or unexplainable blanks the likes of which one would expect finding in a sura out of which a chunk of 200 verses was taken away, leaving only a mere 70. Even if we forget the issues regarding this hadith's authenticity, this misunderstanding could have been due to the basic early Quranic script as noted before, with no separations between verses and suras.

Similarly some companions were unsure whether sura tawba/bara'a and sura anfal, the one preceding it, were one and the same sura. Hence the famous absence in today's Quran, of the opening formula from sura tawba, the bismilla

"What is your reasoning with Surah Al Anfal, which has less than a hundred verses, and Surah At-Tawbah, which has more than a hundred verses, yet you put them together without writing in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful between them and you placed them with the seven long surahs. Why did you do that? Uthman said: Al-Anfal was among the first to be revealed in Medina and At-Tawbah was among the last of those revealed of the Quran and their discussions resemble each other, so we thought that they were part of each other. Then the Messenger of Allah died and it was not clear to us if they were part of each other. For this reason, we put them together without writing in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful and we included them with the seven long surahs".

Even a superficial reading of that report reveals the inconsistencies. Uthman himself in that hadith states that Anfal and Tawba/Bara'a were revealed on different occasions, meaning he knew they were separate. In addition the prophet never said they were a single unit. He recited on several occasions sura Tawba on its own. His companions prior to Uthman's compilation, treated sura tawba as a separate sura

“I entered the mosque on a Friday when Muhammad was delivering the sermon. I went and sat near Ubayy. The Prophet recited Surah Bara’ah/tawba.” "Umar ibn Khattab had written the directive: “Learn Surah Bara’ah and teach your women Surah Nur.”

Further ibn Abbas states that the companions divided the Quran into 7 portions, composed of 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 suras and then the last portion which extends from the mufassal to the end. This grouping can only be correct if anfal and tawba are separate. All these facts, as well as the suspicion on the personality of 'Awf or of Yazid al Farisi who is the sole narrator from ibn Abbas, make it highly unlikely that Uthman was unsure about the separation between anfal and tawba.