Quick Question

salaam,
 
trying to seek out/contest some information...
 
can anyone give some evidences as to the truth/falseness of the excerpt below? particularly the part that there are different versions in use now still....
 
salaam
fahd

from A. Guillaume, Islam pp. 57-60: 
Before an authorized version (of the Koran) was established under the Caliph Uthman there were four rival editions in use. These have long since disappeared, but we are told that they differed from the authorized version, some containing more and some less than the latter. When men who had learned one version came into conflict with those who possessed a rival version it was feared that scriptural exegesis would pursue the course it had taken among Jews and Christians who at that time accused the one another of corrupting and falsifying the sacred text. 
Uthman then entrusted a commission, in which Zayd took a prominent place, with the task of preparing a text which everyone must accept. Only the men of Kufa refused the new edition, and their version was certainly extant as late as A.D. 1000. Uthman's edition to this day remains the authoritative word of God to Muslims. Nevertheless, even now variant readings, involving not only different reading of the vowels but also occasionally a different consonantal text, are recognized as of equal authority one with another. 
The old Kufic script in which the Quran was originally written contained no indication of vowels, and so the consonants of verbs could be read as actives or passives, and, worse still, many of the consonants themselves could not be distinguished without the diacritical dots which were afterwards added, when and by whom we do not know....Originally considerable freedom prevailed, until a later generation insisted on uniformity but never entirely achieved it... 
The arrangement of the text is arbitrary and haphazard....The Muslim world has not yet come to grips with the problem which Christian Europe faced after the Renaissance, but signs are not wanting that thoughtful Muslims are seeking a way out of the logical impasse....Until all the rival readings scattered in manuscripts and books not readily to be consulted have been collected on a scale comparable with the critical apparatus of the Bible, and until a trustworthy lexicon of the Quran has been compiled, details--many of great importance - will remain obscure.



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