16:15

Airmano,

Allah (swt) orders us to obey those in authority after Prophet Muhammad (sallAllahu Alaihi Wassallam):

O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. (An Nisa 4:59)

Prophet Muhammad (SallAllahu Alaihi Wassallam) said that the best generation was his, and then those after them and then those after them. He referred to the 3 as the best in Islam.

�those in authority among you� mean the Scholars, the righteous rulers who Obey Allah (swt) and His Messenger. Uthman (r.a) was one of the rightly guided caliphs who was obedient to Allah and His Messenger. The Quran in circulation today is the same standard text published during his time.

One more important point to mention is that Uthman (r.a) was not the first one to compile the standard text. Instead this text was already compiled at the time of Abu Bakr (r.a) who was the first Muslim Caliph and successor of the Prophet. He compiled this text and it was being kept with the wives of the Prophet. It was that same text that Uthman (r.a) used to publish and disseminate across the Muslim territory. Also he had appointed a council of many companions of the Prophet, who were memorizers of the Quran, under whose supervision this final authoritative and standard text was compiled. So it was not a one man show by Uthman (r.a). He made this decision according to the commandment in the Quran that Muslims should decide their matters after counseling among themselves.

The words you are referring to, like the Sana�a Script that came to the fore very recently (2012), is a variant reading issue. The early Qurans did not contain vowels and dots for Arabs as they would read the Quranic letters without them but they were later added for the Non Arab Muslims for them to be able to read in a particular way. That however does not change the meaning of the words being said by Allah (swt), for example in an article about the Quran it says:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33631745

Reciters disagreed over whether verse 57 in sura 6 says God "tells" the truth (yaqussu) or "judges" truthfully (yaqdi), two words that look similar in the Arabic script. But since both ideas are ubiquitous in the Koran, the overall message of the scripture is not affected by either reading.

From the above, it is evident that Muslims have lived with a measure of diversity within an otherwise largely stable and uniform text since the beginnings of Islam.

Muslim theologies have assimilated this historical reality in various ways.

While opposing opinions have always existed and persist today, the predominant view has been that the different versions and readings of the Koran that are traceable to early Islam all enjoy God's endorsement.

....so every now and then when an old copy of the few pages of a very old Quran dating back to the earliest times of Islam, the Prophet�s times, comes to the fore it is just a matter of variant reading, that contains meanings in addition to the ones in the standard text. Basically variant readings actually give even clearer meanings of some of the verses in Quran. It does not change the meaning of the Quran. It never has. Therefore deviation is not the correct word to say in this case.