Textual History of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

Morteza Karimi-Nia, [https://www.academia.edu/33908045/Mashhad_Codex_Uthm%C4%81nic_Text_of_the_Qur_%C4%81n_with_Ibn_Mas_%C5%ABd_Arrangement_of_S%C5%ABras_Possibly_Meccan_Medinan_Codex_in_the_Library_of_%C4%80st%C4%81n-e_Quds_paper_presented_in_the_conference_Paleo-Quranic_Manuscripts_Conference_State_of_the_Field_May_4-6_2017_Central_European_University_Budapest_ A new document in the early history of the Qurʾān: Codex Mashhad, an ʿUthmānic text of the Qurʾān in Ibn Masʿūd’s arrangement of Sūras], Journal of Islamic Manuscripts,  Volume 10 (2019) 3, pp. 292-326  DOI:10.1163/1878464X-01003002</ref> The Sana'a manuscript is especially known to have this feature.<ref>Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57, no. 4 (2010): 343–436. See pages 390 ff.</ref><ref>[https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/soth.html Codex Ṣanʿāʾ I – A Qur'ānic Manuscript From Mid–1st Century Of Hijra] Islamic Awareness</ref>

No copy of the Uthmanic recension exists despite its centrality as the Ur-Qur'an of all modern readings, so no confirmation is available via comparison with it. A very old palimpsest (imprinted scroll which was washed and written over) is extant from Sana'a, Yemen (the [[Sana Manuscript|Sana'a Manuscript]]), which contains variants not found in any of the accepted readings of the Qur'an. The Islamic narrative itself comes to us mostly through the hadith tradition, which has been proven since Ignac Goldziher in the 19th century to be unreliable due to the nature of the "asaanid" or chains of authority supporting the hadith and the immense gulf of time between when the hadith were collected and when Muhammad lived. In addition the earliest copies of the Qur'an lack vowel and many diacritic markings, indicating that they were more a guide for memorization than the fully-fleshed out text that is extant today.

===Differences in the Qira'at===

Altogether, there are more than 1000 words with variants among the canonical readings of the Quran<ref>See the tables of variants in Abu Fayyad, Fawzi Ibrahim (1989) [http://theses.gla.ac.uk/78058/ The Seven Readings of the Qur'an: A Critical Study of Their Linguistic Differences]. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.</ref>, about two percent of the total. Some are regarded as dialect differences, while others including vowel differences affect grammar and meaning. Around 300 involve different consonantal dotting, generally changing attached pronouns or producing a different root word. In addition, there are around 40 variants arising from the regional Uthmanic codices (see below), in a few cases adding or omitting insignificant words. It is common for a word to have more than two variants, with no obvious intention in so much variety.<ref name="19.25">A good example is {{Quran|19|25}}, where [https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/19/vers/25 corpuscoranicum.de] shows four canonical readings for the word "it will drop": Ya'qub's yassāqaṭ where "it" refers to the (masculine) trunk, and three other forms such as tassāqaṭ where "it" refers to the (feminine) palm tree (as mentioned for this verse in [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume4/00000103.pdf Lane's Lexicon p.1379]), with or without shaddah to emphasise the number of dates falling. It further documents several non-canonical variants for this same word.</ref>

{| class="wikitable" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center" width="60%"

!Hafs

!Warsh

|

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/2/vers/125 2:125]

|-

|{{Quran|2|140}}

|miskeenin (poor person)

|masakeena (poor people)

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/2/vers/184 2:184]

|-

|{{Quran|3|81}}

|The Warsh version better fits verse 3.144

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/3/vers/146 3:146]

|-

|{{Quran|7|57}}

|

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/7/vers/57 7:57]

|-

|{{Quran|19|19}}

|li-'ahaba (that I may bestow)

|li-yahaba (that he may bestow)

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/19/vers/19 19:19]

|-

|

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/21/vers/4 21:4]

|-

|{{Quran|43|19}}

|Allaha huwa alghaniyyu (Allah, He, is self sufficient)

|Allaha alghaniyyu (Allah is self sufficient)

|[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/57/vers/24 57.24]

|}

The standard Islamic view is that every variant within the canonical qira'at (readings) were recited by Muhammad, and the canonical readers made choices from among the authentic variants passed down to them. The claim is that even when the variants are completely different words or when words are added or omitted, that these are all divinely revealed alternatives. This doesn't address variants that contradict each other, nor explain the large number of superfluous variants<ref name="19.25"></ref><ref>Categories of this type include use of plural instead of singular as in {{Quran|59:114}} "walls" instead of "a wall", active instead of passive as in {{Quran|23|115}} "be returned" instead of "return", extra conjunction as in {{Quran|2|116}} "And they say" instead of "They say".</ref>, nor explain why there would be so many authentic variants that just so happened to be accomodated by the Uthmanic orthography or sound similar.

===Origin of the Qira'at Variants===