The Four-fold Division of the Qur’an; It being Sent down upon a Single Harf; A Count of the Number of its Verses

al-Muhsini: The verse demarcations as we conventionally have them cannot be reliably attributed back to the prophet, likewise the division of the Qur’an into thirty parts, both of these developed later, it is possible therefore to count more verses or less depending on what one considers to be a verse. This report does not then contradict with the popular count which we have of less than seven thousand verses - Allah knows best.It is also possible that the additional amount over what we have is to be characterized as the Ta’wil (interpretation) of the Qur’an. For not all that came down (was divinely revealed) was Qur’an, of course, the Qur’an is wholly divine (i.e. all of it came down)I say: The researchers who worked on the Dar al-Hadith edition of al-Kafi (published in 1429 AH) prefer the variant which they find in 2 of the manuscripts they looked into (177B dated to 845-855 AH & No. 279 dated to the 980s) both of which do not contain the word عشر, thus they establish the text as سبعة ألف آية - ‘seven thousand verses’ - a close approximation to the count we have today. However, those who want to go with this option must explain how the vast majority of manuscripts, some much earlier than the two above, got this wrong. After all, as the researchers of Dar al-Hadith reveal, the 7 primary manuscripts they generally rely on and the 20 other manuscripts which they consulted are all united in fixing the phrase as سبعة عشر ألف. The team are consequently favouring the minority variant in this case over a much stronger manuscriptal tradition! For a new discovery that reveals a flaw in the chain refer to the article here: http://www.revivingalislam.com/2010/09/hadeeth-17000-verses-in-quraan-saheeh.html