Did the Mongols destroyed Uthman's 5 Quranic Manuscripts?

No Muslims, the MONGOLS didn't destroy your Qur'ans!

PfanderFilms - Dr Jay Smith gave the Facts

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A real ‘elephant in the room’ for Muslims concerns the problem of Uthman’s 5 Qur’anic manuscripts which have never been found, yet they were sent to 5 distinct cities in 652 AD in order to preserve the text in the Quraishi dialect. That’s only 1400 years ago, not very long for manuscript preservation, especially if they were written on Velum, which these 5 were. One of our viewers, Euro Pg, believes he has the solution, when he writes, “…You have to take in consideration the Mongol invasion and the fact that they destroyed millions of books. And the Spanish inquisition and their destruction of Islamic texts”. So, it was the Mongols who are to blame for the disappearance of the earliest Uthmanic manuscripts! Let’s see if he is correct… Let's see what the Mongols did between 1220 – 1260 AD, when they conquered many cities of the Muslims world, such as: Khojend (Tajikistan), Urgench (Uzbekistan), Bukhara (Uzbekistan), Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Merv (Turkmenistan), and Nishapur (Iran); could they have destroyed Qur’ans upon conquering those cities? We do know that they left cities alone that didn’t fight back (like Khojend, Urgench, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Nishapur. But others who resisted, like Merv, were utterly destroyed, imams were killed, and Qur’ans were tossed from their wooden cases to make feeding troughs for their horses…who then trampled the torn texts beneath their feet (note not destroyed, but damaged). It was in Baghdad, in 1258 AD, however, that Muslim claim the majority of the “millions” of manuscripts were destroyed, by Hulegu (Genghis’s grandson). According to the legend, “Mongol hordes destroyed Baghdad and its thirty-six public libraries, the pillagers tearing books apart so the leather covers could be used for sandals. So many books were thrown into the Tigris that ‘they formed a bridge that would support men on horseback’, and the water turned black with the ink from the books.” According to Yusuf Chaudhary, writing in Feb.27, 2019, in his piece entitled ‘Examining the Tigris “River of Ink”, he mentions that this story became popularized in Europe by E.G. Browne, in his 1906 work, ‘A Literary History of Persia: From Firdawsī to Sa’dī,’. Yet, the earliest reference of the sacking of Baghdad was in the Kitábu’l-Fakhrí, by Ibn Taqtaqi, in 1302 AD (a mere 44 years after the siege), and in it there was nothing written down about destroying any Qur’ans, or any books. So, where did Browne get his source for the “river of ink”? This came from Ibn Khaldun, who died 1406 AD, 148 years after the siege. This story was then repeated by al-Qalqashandī (d. 1418), Ibn Taghrī Birdī (d. 1470), and al-‘Iṣāmī (d. 1699). This suggests an anti-Mongol Polemic, which began in 1406 AD and continued up to 1699 AD, and thus became the standard account by 1906 AD. Other earlier primary sources that describe the siege of Baghdad do not mention any books destruction however, such as Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286), Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadhānī (d. 1318); yet they would have been authors who would have been concerned about any books destructions. So, what happened to the Qur’ans? The answer is simple; the books were preserved and moved to Marāgheh by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274). al-Ṣafadī (d. 1363) writes, “Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī built a magnificent dome and observatory in Marāgheh [or Marāgha, south of Tabriz, Iran], and he made in it a large, expansive library and filled it with books that were taken from Baghdad, Syria, and Upper Mesopotamia until there were over 400,000 volumes gathered there.” Conclusions: 1) Doubtless, the Mongols were a bloodthirsty people, ready to destroy whole cities. 2) However, if a town submitted, it was spared (i.e. Bukhara & Samarkand), and if it didn’t, it was destroyed (i.e. Merv). 3) Western scholars who claim that the Mongols destroyed all the books/manuscripts in Baghdad seem to be following the work of Browne in the early 20th century. 4) Browne and the Muslims seem to be following Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) in his Tarīkh, written 148 years after the siege of Baghdad, as an anti-Mongol polemic, thus, not an authentic historical account. 5) They should have gone to the much earlier source, Kitábu’l-Fakhrí, by Ibn Taqtaqi, writing around 1302 AD, a mere 44 years after the event, as he says nothing about such destruction of books/manuscripts. 6) Other sources nearer the time suggest that the famous Islamic scholar Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274) removed books from Baghdad (and Basra and Syria), to Marāgheh with the blessing of the Mongol Hülegü (the grandson of Genghis). 7) So, none of the supposed earliest Qur’anic manuscripts sent to the provinces by ‘Uthman were destroyed by the Mongols.           Therefore, where are they? Or better yet, did they even exist? Or is it just a legend? You decide.... Look to the Video © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2021