No. of Surahs in the Mushaf of Ibn Mas’ud

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله وحده و الصلاة و السلام على من لا نبي بعده و على آله و أصحابه أجمعين

You will never find a Christian missionary talking about the preservation of Holy Qur’an and then failing to come up with issue of the surahs missing from Ibn Mas’ud’s mushaf.

Surahs missing in Ibn Mas’ud’s Mushaf:

It is said that Ibn Mas’ud’s mushaf (codex) did not have three surahs, al-Fatiha and al-mu’awwazatayn (al-Falaq and al-Nas) i.e. Nos. 1, 113 & 114. (See al-Ittiqan 1/270 al-Haiyaal-Misriya, Cairo, 1974)

Is Qur'an literal or metaphor?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله وحده و الصلاة و السلام على من لا نبي بعده و على آله و أصحابه أجمعين

The short answer to this question is that it is literal and metaphorical where Allah Ta'ala explicitly states it. This is not an issue for Muslims; however the need for this article has arisen due to several sects interpreting everything metaphorically. For example, these sects state that heaven and hell is not a place but a condition, fire of hell is a metaphor and heavenly delights are also all metaphors. The Qur'an says otherwise!