Section: Refutation of their objection, “How could our Scriptures, which are written in seventy-two languages, ever be altered?”

As for their question, “How could our books—set down in seventy-two languages, with in each language many thousands of copies, and preserved for more than six hundred years before the coming of Muhammad—possibly have been changed?” the answer is as follows:

Once the Scriptures had spread so widely, no Muslim—indeed, no recognized group among the Muslims—ever claimed that the wording of every single manuscript on earth had been tampered with. Rather, the majority of Muslims who say that alterations occurred maintain only that some wording was changed before the Prophet’s mission, or that certain copies were altered after his mission; they do not allege a universal corruption of all manuscripts. Some scholars hold that the distortion took place at the very outset, while others contend that part of the text was modified after the sending of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Yet none of them claim that every copy in existence was altered. They say instead that some manuscripts were changed while others remained intact, and that among many people the altered versions became widespread, whereas the unaltered ones did not.

Those uncorrupted copies are still in the possession of certain individuals. And it is self-evident that this possibility cannot simply be dismissed, for no one can know with certainty that every