Preservation of the Qur"an

I would like to make a preemption that I'm going to use some academic sources which are generally despised by Muslim believers. Nonetheless, I expect a reasonable discussion that gives empirical evidence on why such scholars and historians are mistaken on a particular matter (if they actually are), as opposed to personal attacks on such scholars based on religious prejudice. DEFINITIONSOriginal Qur'an: What was supposedly revealed to Mohammad in 23 years(technically, about 22.5). Uthman's codex: This is a collection which Pro argues is identical to the original Qur'an. Preserved: Maintained in its original state[1]. MY CASEA- Problems with the collection of the Qur'anFor any collection to be accurate, it must at least satisfy basic criteria. That is to say, we should at least know the collectors, reliable methods of collection, accurate methods of verification and particularly, in the case of ancient books, a detailed comparison between the original copy and the modern-day copy. The Qur'an, as a book, fails to satisfy all of that criteria. A1- Controversy over who actually collected the Qur'an. We don't really know who actually collected the Qur'an, but instead we have different accounts found in Islamic narratives. Although I don't subscribe to the Islamically-ordained, subjective rulings on the authencity of such narratives(or hadeeths), those hadeeths happen to be from a source, Saheeh al-Bukhari, which is generally respected and followed by mainstream Islam:Narrated by Qatada: "I asked Anas bin Malik: Who collected the Qur'an at the time of the Prophet? He replied, Four, all of whom were from the Ansar, Ubai bin Ka'b, Muadh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid. "[Sahih Bukhari 6:61:525]Narrated by Masriq: `Abdullah bin `Amr mentioned `Abdullah bin Masud and said, "I shall ever love that man, for I heard the Prophet saying, 'Take (learn) the Qur'an from four: `Abdullah bin Masud, Salim, Mu`adh and Ubai bin Ka`b. ' " [Sahih al-Bukhari 6:61:521]Narrated by Anas bin Malik: "When the Prophet died, none had collected the Qur'an but four persons: Abu Ad Darda, Mu'adh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid. We were the inheritor (of Abu Zaid) as he had no offspring. "[Sahih Bukhari 6:61:526]In summary, we have three different, conflicting accounts. The Islamic scholar Al-Tabarani even throws in another name, Ibn Jariyah[2], which means that there is no actual confirmation of the identity of the collectors of the Qur'an. A2- Zaid Ibn Thabet's inaccurate measures to collect the Qur'anNarrated by Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari: ". .. By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Qur'an. .. So I started locating Qur'anic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Khuzaima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else. .. " [Sahih Bukhari 6:60:201]We can deduce that Zaid found it extremely difficult to collect the Qur'an, and that he used unreliable methods to collect the Qur'an such as collecting scapula, leaf-stalks, data palms and the memories of "some men. " We also notice that he could not find every verse with each reciter, but had to consult different reciters("some men"), and could find two verses of Surat-Al-Tuaba with only one of those reciters. In conclusion, it is false to assume that Mohammad's reciters had all the Qur'an memorized, when at that time it was not written down as a whole but carried out orally by the Prophet in a partial manner to different people on seperate occasions extending for almost twenty three years. A3- Corruption of the Reciter's political classUthman's collection of the Qur'an was actually collected when Muslims were colonizing areas and conflicts were occurring between Muslims from different states. Reciters in those colonized areas assumed a higher status than other normal Muslims because they can use Qur'anic verses to affect the political situation, even if those verses were false, and so they are described as a political class by many scholars such as Patricia Crone[3] and Leone Caetani[4], who explain how those reciters abused authority and received bribery from the state. Moreover, the criterion to determine if a Qur'anic verse is authentic is itself problematic. It only requires that two reciters agree that a particular verse is authentic, knowing that two reciters can conspire together to add an unknown verse which serves their political interest, provided that most reciters at that time did not have access to the whole Qur'an, but had limited chunks of some verses. B- Evidence that the Qur'an was not preserved. B1- Uthman's confession that he modified the Qur'an. Uthman said:". .. Anfal was from among the early revelations at Madina, and Bara’ah was from what was revealed last. Their contents were similar, so I presumed that they belonged to each other. The Prophet (‘s) never clarified this in his lifetime, so I joined them, without Basmalah in between and placed them among the seven long Surahs. .. "[2]. In other words, Uthman confesses that he found verses similar to each other, so he removed the word "Basmalah" which means "In the name of God" and joined them together and added them among the long chapters of the Qur'an, where he presumed they would belong. B2- Zuhri's reports many lost chapters and versesThe hadeeth scholar and geographer, Al Zuhri reports: "We have heard that many Qur'an passages were revealed but that those who had memorised them fell in the Yamamah fighting. Those passages had not been written down and, following the deaths of those who knew them, were no longer known; nor had Abu Bakr, nor Umar nor Uthman as yet collected the texts of the Qur'an . Those lost passages were not to be found with anyone after the deaths of those who had memorised them. [5]"B3- Early Muslim accounts of the Qur'an not being preservedA’isha(Prophet's wife): "During the time of the prophet, the chapter of the Parties used to be two hundred verses when read. When Uthman edited the copies of the Qur’an, only the current (verses) were recorded[6]. Uba ibn Ka’b(Prophet's companion) asked one of the Muslims, "How many verses in the chapter of the Parties? " He said, "Seventy-three verses. " He (Uba) told him, "It used to be almost equal to the chapter of the Cow (about 286 verses) and included the verse of the stoning[6]". B4- Lack of diacritical marks in Uthman's codexIt could be deduced from early Qur'ans (which all happen to come after Uthman's era) that they did not contain diacritical marks(as the Arabic language at that time did not have those), which means that the Uthman's codex (which was never found in its original form), most definitely did not use any, even when changing diacritical marks, say, for the word "wa-taqu" which means "feared Allah," would change the word into many renditions such as "wa-anfaqu" which means "spent money. " It is understandable that some words can be determined from their context, but that does not apply on many vague verses with words only known by one or two dead reciters. CITATIONS[1] oxforddictionaries. com/definition/english/preserve [2] Muntakhab Kanz al Ummal, v2, p.48 [3] Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, Crone, Patricia & Cook, Michael, p. 3. [4] Leone Caetani, ‘F3;Uthman and the Recension of the Koran’. [5] Ibn Warraq Virgins? What Virgins? And Other Essays. [6] qcc. cuny. edu/socialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter 3 Religion/Koran-Origins. htm