Rooster Ate Qur'an Verses? Preservation and Hadith Weakness
Non-Muslims cite a hadith in which a rooster allegedly ate a scroll containing two revealed rulings, claiming this proves the Qur’an is incomplete. This objection fails on multiple grounds: the Qur’an was preserved through mass memorization, making the loss of any single material sheet irrelevant; the Prophet’s living conditions render the physical scenario implausible; the narration itself is weak in its chain of transmission; and the Bible itself admits to numerous lost books and epistles.
Grade: Da’if — weak chain due to Muhammad ibn Ishaq
Non-Muslims say that chickens ate from the Qur’an during the time of the Prophet, so how can chickens eat from the words of God? And where are the verses that chickens ate now?
Oral Preservation Makes Material Loss Irrelevant
The Qur’an’s preservation through mass memorization renders any claim of material loss irrelevant. Even if a single physical sheet were destroyed, the Muslim community had already committed the entire Book to memory and writing.
First: If this narration were true and a verse of the Noble Qur’an was lost, would the Muslims be unable to write another page other than the one eaten by the rooster, especially since they wrote in the Mushaf 6236 verses with 77277 words? The community possessed the complete written codex; the loss of one sheet would not impede them from reproducing it.
Second: No verse of the Noble Qur’an was revealed without the Companions and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) agreeing to memorize it, so the fact that this page was eaten by a rooster will not harm the Qur’an by deletion or addition, as it is preserved in the hearts. An example of this is if a man memorized the Qur’an and a fire broke out in his house and burned all the Qur’ans in his house, the Qur’an would not be lost because it was preserved in his chest.
Grade: Sahih
The Prophet Did Not Possess a Bed
Third: The Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not have a bed, as in some authentic narrations he would stand and make marks of mats in the place where he slept.The Prophet’s ascetic lifestyle is well-documented; he frequently slept on a leather mat or directly on the ground. The scenario of a scroll hidden beneath a bed presupposes furniture he did not own.
Fourth: It is not reasonable that the Messenger would put the Qur’an under the bed if he had a bed in the first place. The scrolls of revelation were kept with utmost care and respect; placing them beneath a sleeping surface contradicts the established practice of honoring the Qur’anic text.
The Chain of Transmission is Weak
Fifth: This narration is rejected and not authentic, as it is from the path of Muhammad ibn Ishaq, on the authority of Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr, on the authority of Umrah, on the authority of Aisha.
[!scholar] Ahmad ibn Hanbal — Tahdhib al-Kamal (24:422)
It was said to Ahmad ibn Hanbal: If Ibn Ishaq is the only one to narrate a hadith, is it acceptable? He said: No, by God, I saw him narrating a single hadith from a group, and he did not separate the words.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s verdict on Ibn Ishaq’s solitary narrations is decisive: when Ibn Ishaq is the sole transmitter, the hadith is not accepted.
The hadith of Aisha is hardly authentic; because with this it is not lost from the hearts to memorize it, and it is not difficult for them to prove it in another document, so we know that this hadith has no basis.
Al-Sarakhsi adds a rational objection alongside the chain criticism: the very fact that the Qur’an was preserved in hearts and could be documented again proves the narration has no basis.
[!scholar] Yaqub bin Shaibah and Ibn Numayr — Tarikh Baghdad (1:277)
If he narrated from someone he heard from from the well-known ones, then he is a good hadith narrator, truthful, but he only came from him that he narrated false hadiths from the unknown ones.
Other hadith critics confirm the pattern: Ibn Ishaq narrates reliably from known authorities, but transmits false reports from unknown sources.
[!scholar] al-Dhahabi — al-Ulu (p. 39)
Ibn Ishaq is an authority in the battles if he attributed it and he has strange and anomalous narrations.
The Bible’s Own Lost Books
Finally: Why do you deny for us what is in you? The Bible itself admits to lost books and epistles that its own scholars acknowledge as missing.
So Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.” Then Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the anger of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
The Bible itself records the discovery of a lost book of the law, with no prior knowledge of its existence. The Book of the Law was entirely forgotten until Hilkiah “found” it.
Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord.
[!admission] Antonius Fikry — Interpretation of the Book of Numbers (p. 53)
“And here we hear about the Book of the Wars of the Lord, and it is mostly a poetic book to praise the Lord for the works of His care for His people in the wilderness… and we do not know about it except what is written here.”
The same pattern appears with other lost scriptures cited in the Bible itself.
And he said that the children of Judah should learn the song of the bow. Behold, it is written in the Book of Jasher.
“Some scholars believe that this beautiful book was lost during the captivity.”
“It appears to the one who is deeply versed in the Old Testament that the Song of Joshua, Joshua 10:13, and the Lamentation of David for Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. 1:18-27, are taken from this lost book… The beauty of this book, which we perceive in the fragments quoted from it in the Old Testament, gives rise to hope that it will be found complete in the end, especially since it could not have been written before the time of David and Solomon.”
Christian sources openly admit these books are lost, with scholars expressing hope that the Book of Jasher might one day be recovered complete.
I wrote to you in the epistle not to associate with fornicators.
Paul himself references a previous letter that no longer exists.
[!admission] Antonius Fikry — Interpretation of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (p. 80)
“Some say that there is a lost epistle in which he said this to them.”
The scholarly consensus confirms the loss.
“There is a lost epistle to the Corinthians: in (1 Corinthians 5:9) the apostle mentions a letter to the Corinthians that seems to have been lost… In the fifth century, after the second epistle to the Corinthians, a short epistle from the Corinthians to Paul and another from Paul to the Corinthians were included, and they are found in Syriac, and it seems that they were accepted in many circles at the end of the fourth century, and they are part of the apocryphal works of Paul, and the date of their writing goes back to about 200 CE.”
This narration is da’if due to Muhammad bin Ishaq, who is a false narrator. The Qur’an was preserved through oral and written transmission simultaneously, making the loss of any single sheet inconsequential. The scenario described is historically implausible given the Prophet’s ascetic living conditions. Moreover, the Bible itself testifies to multiple lost books, undermining any objection raised from that quarter.