even more so, not only the written words were preserved, but the way they *are pronounced*. For a person to be a "qari'" and be trustworthy enough to recite the qur'an in public or on tv, say, he has to obtain an 'ijaza' or an authorization from a reputable existing qari'. To obtain such an ijaza the potential new qari' must correctly read aloud *all of the qur'an* in front of the authorizer. Some even might choose not to give an ijaza unless the new qari' reads it in front of at least two reputable authorizers so they tell an authorization requester to go and seek authorization to some other qari' first.
This chain of "approval by reading aloud" continues till it reaches the students of the companions, who learned how every part is pronounced from the companions
and got similarly verified by them and the companions who learned/were similarly verified by prophet muhammad. so that means that the qur'an is being spoken today in the same way the prophet was speaking it. It's amazing how you could be talking to, say, an egyptian muslim scholar speaking in the usual egyptian dialect of arabic, but when he reads the qur'an aloud, he switches completely to the original style of arabic as spoken by native arabs from the arab peninsula.
This propagation of trustworthiness is called the isnad (arabic for 'support'). Incidentally, there is an ordering of qur'an receiters based on the number links in the chain of isnad for a specific person. The shorter the chain, the higher the person's isnad. For example among the current highest level receiters of the qur'an are ones who have only 27 links of ijaza between each of them and prophet muhammad. It is very interesting to know a famous qari's biography and witness the names of everyone in the complete chain of isnad from him or her to the prophet!
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