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Histoire de la transmission du Coran: Difference between revisions
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Abu Bakr As-Siddiq sent for me when the people of Yamama had been killed (i.e., a number of the Prophet's Companions who fought against Musailima). (I went to him) and found `Umar bin Al- Khattab sitting with him. Abu Bakr then said (to me), "`Umar has come to me and said: "Casualties were heavy among the Qurra' of the Qur'an (i.e. those who knew the Qur'an by heart) on the day of the Battle of Yamama, and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the Qur'an be collected." I said to `Umar, "How can you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?" `Umar said, "By Allah, that is a good project." `Umar kept on urging me to accept his proposal till Allah opened my chest for it and I began to realize the good in the idea which `Umar had realized." Then Abu Bakr said (to me). 'You are a wise young man and we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Messenger (ﷺ). So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it in one book." By Allah If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Qur'an. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) did not do?" Abu Bakr replied, "By Allah, it is a good project." Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allah opened my chest for what He had opened the chests of Abu Bakr and `Umar. So I started looking for the Qur'an and collecting it from (what was written on) palme stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I found the last Verse of Surat at-Tauba (Repentance) with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. The Verse is: 'Verily there has come unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty..(till the end of Surat-Baraa' (at-Tauba) (9.128-129). Then the complete manuscripts (copy) of the Qur'an remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with `Umar till the end of his life, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of "<BR>{{Bukhari|6|61|509}}</ref> | Abu Bakr As-Siddiq sent for me when the people of Yamama had been killed (i.e., a number of the Prophet's Companions who fought against Musailima). (I went to him) and found `Umar bin Al- Khattab sitting with him. Abu Bakr then said (to me), "`Umar has come to me and said: "Casualties were heavy among the Qurra' of the Qur'an (i.e. those who knew the Qur'an by heart) on the day of the Battle of Yamama, and I am afraid that more heavy casualties may take place among the Qurra' on other battlefields, whereby a large part of the Qur'an may be lost. Therefore I suggest, you (Abu Bakr) order that the Qur'an be collected." I said to `Umar, "How can you do something which Allah's Apostle did not do?" `Umar said, "By Allah, that is a good project." `Umar kept on urging me to accept his proposal till Allah opened my chest for it and I began to realize the good in the idea which `Umar had realized." Then Abu Bakr said (to me). 'You are a wise young man and we do not have any suspicion about you, and you used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Messenger (ﷺ). So you should search for (the fragmentary scripts of) the Qur'an and collect it in one book." By Allah If they had ordered me to shift one of the mountains, it would not have been heavier for me than this ordering me to collect the Qur'an. Then I said to Abu Bakr, "How will you do something which Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) did not do?" Abu Bakr replied, "By Allah, it is a good project." Abu Bakr kept on urging me to accept his idea until Allah opened my chest for what He had opened the chests of Abu Bakr and `Umar. So I started looking for the Qur'an and collecting it from (what was written on) palme stalks, thin white stones and also from the men who knew it by heart, till I found the last Verse of Surat at-Tauba (Repentance) with Abi Khuzaima Al-Ansari, and I did not find it with anybody other than him. The Verse is: 'Verily there has come unto you an Apostle (Muhammad) from amongst yourselves. It grieves him that you should receive any injury or difficulty..(till the end of Surat-Baraa' (at-Tauba) (9.128-129). Then the complete manuscripts (copy) of the Qur'an remained with Abu Bakr till he died, then with `Umar till the end of his life, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of "<BR>{{Bukhari|6|61|509}}</ref> | ||
[[Sahih Bukhari]] | The story that the Quran had yet to be collected together when Muhammad died might conflict with two (slightly contradictory) accounts collected in [[Sahih Bukhari]], although scholars have noted that the verb jama'a (جَمَعَ) can also mean memorized:{{Quote|{{Bukhari|6|61|525}}| | ||
Narrated Qatada: I asked Anas bin Malik: Who collected the Qur'an at the time of the Prophet? He replied, Four, all of whom were from the Ansar, '''Ubai bin Ka'b, Muadh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid'''.}}{{Quote|{{Bukhari|6|61|526}}| | Narrated Qatada: I asked Anas bin Malik: Who collected the Qur'an at the time of the Prophet? He replied, Four, all of whom were from the Ansar, '''Ubai bin Ka'b, Muadh bin Jabal, Zaid bin Thabit and Abu Zaid'''.}}{{Quote|{{Bukhari|6|61|526}}| | ||
Narrated Anas bin Malik: | Narrated Anas bin Malik: | ||
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The Qur'an itself records that Muhammad himself had forgotten portions of the Qur'an<ref>"''Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it...''" - {{Quran|2|106}}</ref><ref>See also "By degrees shall we teach thee (Muhammad) to declare (the message), so thou shalt not forget, except as God wills. - {{Quran|87|6}}</ref> Muhammad may also have had a somewhat flexible approach to variant readings, typical of oral performance traditions - see the Qira'at section later in this article. | The Qur'an itself records that Muhammad himself had forgotten portions of the Qur'an<ref>"''Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it...''" - {{Quran|2|106}}</ref><ref>See also "By degrees shall we teach thee (Muhammad) to declare (the message), so thou shalt not forget, except as God wills. - {{Quran|87|6}}</ref> Muhammad may also have had a somewhat flexible approach to variant readings, typical of oral performance traditions - see the Qira'at section later in this article. | ||
Hadiths too attest that Muhammad himself forgot parts of the Qur'an and needed his followers to remind him:{{Quote|{{Bukhari|6|61|556}}| | |||
Narrated Aisha: The Prophet heard a man reciting the Qur'an in the mosque and said, "May Allah bestow His Mercy on him, as he has reminded me of such-and-such Verses of such a Surah."}}{{Quote|{{Muslim|4|1720}}| | Narrated Aisha: The Prophet heard a man reciting the Qur'an in the mosque and said, "May Allah bestow His Mercy on him, as he has reminded me of such-and-such Verses of such a Surah."}}{{Quote|{{Muslim|4|1720}}| | ||
'A'isha reported that the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) heard a person reciting the Qur'an at night. Upon this he said: May Allah show mercy to him; he has reminded me of such and such a verse which I had missed in such and such a surah.}} | 'A'isha reported that the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) heard a person reciting the Qur'an at night. Upon this he said: May Allah show mercy to him; he has reminded me of such and such a verse which I had missed in such and such a surah.}} | ||
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==Companion Codices and the Uthmanic Standard== | ==Companion Codices and the Uthmanic Standard== | ||
===Caliph Uthman Standardises the Rasm and Burns the Other Texts=== | ===Caliph Uthman Standardises the Rasm and Burns the Other Texts=== | ||
A widely transmitted hadith reports that the third caliph Uthman was concerned because there were clear differences in the recitation of the Qur'an among the people of the Sham (modern day Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) and the people of Iraq. The differences were so great Uthman and his companions feared future dispute about the true Qur'an and its contents. So Uthman asked Hafsa for her copy so that a committee could write a single version of the rasm (an early stage of Arabic orthography, often called the Qur'anic consonantal text (QCT), which lacked diacritics such as short vowel signs and with scarce use of dotting to distinguish certain consonants). Uthman then sent out his official Quranic codex to a small number of important cities and ordered that all other copies and fragments be burned. This occurred around 650 CE. During the prior 20 years since Muhammad's death, and for some time afterwards, thousands of variants read by the companions which often did not fit this rasm were in circulation, as documented in hadiths and works such as Ibn Abi Dawud's Kitab al Masahif.<ref name="Jeffery">See Jeffery's famous compilation of readings attributed to the companions: Jeffery, Arthur, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76212 Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an. The old Codices], Leiden, Brill, 1937<BR>Also available [https://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Materials_pd/index.htm here]</ref> | A widely transmitted hadith reports that the third caliph Uthman was concerned because there were clear differences in the recitation of the Qur'an among the people of the Sham (modern day Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) and the people of Iraq. The differences were so great Uthman and his companions feared future dispute about the true Qur'an and its contents. So Uthman asked Hafsa for her copy so that a committee could write a single version of the rasm (an early stage of Arabic orthography, often called the Qur'anic consonantal text (QCT), which lacked most word-internal ʾalifs, lacked diacritics such as short vowel signs and with scarce use of dotting to distinguish certain consonants). Uthman then sent out his official Quranic codex to a small number of important cities and ordered that all other copies and fragments be burned. This occurred around 650 CE. During the prior 20 years since Muhammad's death, and for some time afterwards, thousands of variants read by the companions which often did not fit this rasm were in circulation, as documented in hadiths and works such as Ibn Abi Dawud's Kitab al Masahif.<ref name="Jeffery">See Jeffery's famous compilation of readings attributed to the companions: Jeffery, Arthur, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76212 Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an. The old Codices], Leiden, Brill, 1937<BR>Also available [https://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Jeffery/Materials_pd/index.htm here]</ref> | ||
Narrated Anas bin Malik: | Narrated Anas bin Malik: | ||
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However, some time after standardisation and her death, they were handed over to the Caliph by her brother and deliberately destroyed. Sean Anthony and Catherine Bronson note: "Zuhrī—the earliest known scholar to emphasize the importance of Ḥafṣah’s codex for the collection of the caliph ʿUthmān’s recension—also serves as the authority for the accounts of the destruction of Ḥafṣah’s scrolls (ṣuḥuf). Hence, we are likely dealing with two intimately intertwined narratives that originated with Zuhrī and his students." On the identity of the Caliph, they note "at least four versions of the Zuhrī account assert that the caliph ʿUthmān (and not Marwān) requested ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar to hand over Ḥafṣah’s muṣḥaf after his sister’s death, whereupon the codex was either burned or erased." In the other versions, "Marwān has the codex either erased by washing the parchment (ghasalahā ghaslan), torn to shreds (shaqqaqahā wa-mazzaqahā), or burned to ashes (fashāhā wa-ḥarraqahā)" and "Marwān himself cites 'the fear that there might be a cause to dispute that which ʿUthmān copied down because of something therein.'"<ref>Sean W. Anthony, and Catherine L. Bronson. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.1.2017.a006 Did Ḥafṣah Edit the Qurʾān? A Response with Notes on the Codices of the Prophet’s Wives] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 1, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016, pp. 93–125, https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.1.2017.a006. (pp. 108-114)</ref> | However, some time after standardisation and her death, they were handed over to the Caliph by her brother and deliberately destroyed. Sean Anthony and Catherine Bronson note: "Zuhrī—the earliest known scholar to emphasize the importance of Ḥafṣah’s codex for the collection of the caliph ʿUthmān’s recension—also serves as the authority for the accounts of the destruction of Ḥafṣah’s scrolls (ṣuḥuf). Hence, we are likely dealing with two intimately intertwined narratives that originated with Zuhrī and his students." On the identity of the Caliph, they note "at least four versions of the Zuhrī account assert that the caliph ʿUthmān (and not Marwān) requested ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar to hand over Ḥafṣah’s muṣḥaf after his sister’s death, whereupon the codex was either burned or erased." In the other versions, "Marwān has the codex either erased by washing the parchment (ghasalahā ghaslan), torn to shreds (shaqqaqahā wa-mazzaqahā), or burned to ashes (fashāhā wa-ḥarraqahā)" and "Marwān himself cites 'the fear that there might be a cause to dispute that which ʿUthmān copied down because of something therein.'"<ref>Sean W. Anthony, and Catherine L. Bronson. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.1.2017.a006 Did Ḥafṣah Edit the Qurʾān? A Response with Notes on the Codices of the Prophet’s Wives] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 1, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016, pp. 93–125, https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.1.2017.a006. (pp. 108-114)</ref> | ||
For the academic debate regarding whether the Quranic text was standardised under Uthman or 'Abd al-Malik see the dedicated section below. | |||
===Disagreements on the Qur'an=== | ===Disagreements on the Qur'an=== | ||
Sahih hadiths and tafsirs record a great many variations of recitation among the sahaba (companions) for many different verses. | Sahih hadiths and tafsirs record a great many variations of recitation among the sahaba (companions) for many different verses. | ||
*An example involving multiple companions is found in two consecutive verses. Bukhari and Muslim record that Ibn 'Abbas and Sa'id b. Jubair respectively added the word "servicable" to describe the boats in {{Quran|18|79}}, and added the words, "the boy was an unbeliever" to {{Quran|18|80}}.<ref>"''...Ibn `Abbas used to recite:-- 'And in front (ahead) of them there was a king who used to seize every (serviceable) boat by force. (18.79)...and as for the boy he was a disbeliever.''" {{Bukhari|6|60|251}}</ref><ref>Similarly, in Sahih Muslim "''...Sa'id b. Jubair used to recite (verses 79 and 80 of Sura Kahf) in this way: There was before them a king who used to seize every boat by force which was in order, the boy was an unbeliever.''" {{Muslim|30|5864}}</ref> Al Tabari's tafsir for these verses include reports that Ibn Mas'ud too | *An example involving multiple companions is found in two consecutive verses. Bukhari and Muslim record that Ibn 'Abbas and Sa'id b. Jubair respectively added the word "servicable" to describe the boats in {{Quran|18|79}}, and added the words, "the boy was an unbeliever" to {{Quran|18|80}}.<ref>"''...Ibn `Abbas used to recite:-- 'And in front (ahead) of them there was a king who used to seize every (serviceable) boat by force. (18.79)...and as for the boy he was a disbeliever.''" {{Bukhari|6|60|251}}</ref><ref>Similarly, in Sahih Muslim "''...Sa'id b. Jubair used to recite (verses 79 and 80 of Sura Kahf) in this way: There was before them a king who used to seize every boat by force which was in order, the boy was an unbeliever.''" {{Muslim|30|5864}}</ref> Al Tabari's tafsir for these verses include reports that Ibn Mas'ud too recited them this way. | ||
*Another interesting example, recorded in a sahih hadith that appears in many collections, concerns a variant reading of verse {{Quran|2|238}}. It was given by [[Aisha]], according to whom in this verse it says 'the middle prayer and the Asr Prayer', as she heard Muhammad reciting it.<ref>"''Abu Yunus, freedman of Aishah, Mother of Believers, reported: Aishah ordered me to transcribe the Holy Qur'an and asked me to let her know when I should arrive at the verse Hafidhuu alaas-salaati waas-salaatiil-wustaa wa quumuu lillaahi qaanitiin (2.238). When I arrived at the verse I informed her and she ordered: Write it in this way, Hafidhuu alaas-salaati waas-salaatiil-wustaa wa salaatiil 'asri wa quumuu lillaahi qaanitiin. She added that she had heard it so from the Apostle of Allah.''" - Muwatta Imam Malik, p.64. Also in {{Muslim|4|1316}}, for example.</ref> As such, her version of the verse combines what was, according to another hadith, the pre-abrogated version of the verse, which mentions the asr prayer, and post-abrogation version, which says the middle prayer.<ref>{{Muslim|4|1317}}</ref>. What purpose would be served by an abrogation to replace one specific word with another that more ambiguously indicates the same prayer (according to most scholars) is a mystery. | *Another interesting example, recorded in a sahih hadith that appears in many collections, concerns a variant reading of verse {{Quran|2|238}}. It was given by [[Aisha]], according to whom in this verse it says 'the middle prayer and the Asr Prayer', as she heard Muhammad reciting it.<ref>"''Abu Yunus, freedman of Aishah, Mother of Believers, reported: Aishah ordered me to transcribe the Holy Qur'an and asked me to let her know when I should arrive at the verse Hafidhuu alaas-salaati waas-salaatiil-wustaa wa quumuu lillaahi qaanitiin (2.238). When I arrived at the verse I informed her and she ordered: Write it in this way, Hafidhuu alaas-salaati waas-salaatiil-wustaa wa salaatiil 'asri wa quumuu lillaahi qaanitiin. She added that she had heard it so from the Apostle of Allah.''" - Muwatta Imam Malik, p.64. Also in {{Muslim|4|1316}}, for example.</ref> As such, her version of the verse combines what was, according to another hadith, the pre-abrogated version of the verse, which mentions the asr prayer, and post-abrogation version, which says the middle prayer.<ref>{{Muslim|4|1317}}</ref>. What purpose would be served by an abrogation to replace one specific word with another that more ambiguously indicates the same prayer (according to most scholars) is a mystery. | ||
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:Al-Tabari's tafsir for verse 4:24 includes narrations saying that Ibn 'Abbas, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and Sa'id ibn Jubayr (others too in other tafsirs) included the words 'until a prescribed period' ('ila ajal musamma') after the words 'whom you profit by'. | :Al-Tabari's tafsir for verse 4:24 includes narrations saying that Ibn 'Abbas, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and Sa'id ibn Jubayr (others too in other tafsirs) included the words 'until a prescribed period' ('ila ajal musamma') after the words 'whom you profit by'. | ||
Some Muslim scholars sought to explain the reported differences in the mushafs (codices) of the companions as merely being their own exegetical glosses. Such an explanation may be possible in some instances, but certainly not in others such as when pronouns or grammatical forms are changed or words are reported to have been simply omitted, for example in {{Quran|112|1}} where Ibn Mas'ud and Ubayy omitted the word "Say" (qul)<ref>Noldeke, T. et. al. (1909, | Some Muslim scholars sought to explain the reported differences in the mushafs (codices) of the companions as merely being their own exegetical glosses. Such an explanation may be possible in some instances, but certainly not in others such as when pronouns or grammatical forms are changed or words are reported to have been simply omitted, for example in {{Quran|112|1}} where Ibn Mas'ud and Ubayy omitted the word "Say" (qul)<ref>Noldeke, T. et. al. (1909, 1938) "The History of the Qur'an" Ed. and trans. by Behn W. H. (2013) Brill: Leiden pp.443 and 453<BR>His lists of companion variants are based on al Zamakhshari's tafsir, with further sources in footnotes as appropriate (p.431, footnote 280)</ref><ref>Jeffrey, Materials pp.114 and 180</ref>, or Ibn Mas'ud's omission of the entire verse {{Quran|94|6}}.<ref>Noldeke, History of the Qur'an p.442</ref><ref>Jeffrey, Materials pp.110</ref> Other explanations were that these were variations in the revelation ("ahruf", discussed in a section below) or abrogated versions of the verses, which encounter some of the same problems as just mentioned, as well as the issue of their sheer quantity and the difficulty of explaining the purpose of the less clear or specific wordings of the same sentences in the Uthmanic Qur'an. | ||
Many other examples of such variations among the sahaba are discussed in another online article<ref>[http://www.islam-watch.org/Amarkhan/Corruption-in-Quran.htm Corruption and Distortion (Tahreef) in the Quran] by Amar Khan, 2009 [http://www.webcitation.org/6lPZcJIAX webcitation archive link]</ref> | Many other examples of such variations among the sahaba are discussed in another online article and in the next few sections below.<ref>[http://www.islam-watch.org/Amarkhan/Corruption-in-Quran.htm Corruption and Distortion (Tahreef) in the Quran] by Amar Khan, 2009 [http://www.webcitation.org/6lPZcJIAX webcitation archive link]</ref> A full translation of the variants documented in Abu Ubayd's (d. 244 H.) ''Fudail al-Quran'' is also available.<ref>[https://theislamissue.wordpress.com/2021/11/28/variant-readings-from-abu-ubayds-fudail-al-quran/ Variant readings from Abu Ubayds Fudail Al-Quran] See also many other articles on the same website concerning specific pre-Uthmanic variants</ref> | ||
===Qur'an of Ibn Mas'ud=== | ===Qur'an of Ibn Mas'ud=== | ||
It was widely reported that Abdullah ibn Mas'ud's Qur'anic text omitted surah al-Fatiha and the mu'awwithatayni (surahs 113 and 114).<ref name="Itqan ibn Masud">"''Imam Fakhruddin said that the reports in some of the ancient books that Ibn Mas'ud denied that | It was widely reported that Abdullah ibn Mas'ud's Qur'anic text omitted surah al-Fatiha and the mu'awwithatayni (surahs 113 and 114).<ref>For an early report about Ibn Masud omitting al Fatiha see the translation of Abu Ubayd's (d. 244 H.) ''Fudail al Quran'' [https://theislamissue.wordpress.com/2021/11/28/variant-readings-from-abu-ubayds-fudail-al-quran/ here]</ref><ref name="Itqan ibn Masud">"''Imam Fakhruddin said that the reports in some of the ancient books that Ibn Mas'ud denied that Surah al-Fatiha and the Mu'awwithatayni are part of the Qur'an are embarrassing in their implications... But the Qadi Abu Bakr said "It is not soundly reported from him that they are not part of the Qur'an and there is no record of such a statement from him. He omitted them from his manuscript as he did not approve of their being written. This does not mean he denied they were part of the Qur'an. In his view the Sunnah was that nothing should be inscribed in the text (mushaf) unless so commanded by the Prophet (saw) ... and he had not heard that it had been so commanded.''" - as-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an, p.186</ref> Ibn Mas'ud's denial that the last two surahs were part of the Qur'an is also recorded in Sahih Bukhari.<ref>"''Narrated Zirr bin Hubaish:'' | ||
''I asked Ubai bin Ka`b, "O Abu AlMundhir! Your brother, Ibn Mas`ud said so-and-so (i.e., the two Mu'awwidh-at do not belong to the Qur'an)." Ubai said, "I asked Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) about them, and he said, 'They have been revealed to me, and I have recited them (as a part of the Qur'an)," So Ubai added, "So we say as Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) has said."'' {{Bukhari|6|60|501}}<br> | ''I asked Ubai bin Ka`b, "O Abu AlMundhir! Your brother, Ibn Mas`ud said so-and-so (i.e., the two Mu'awwidh-at do not belong to the Qur'an)." Ubai said, "I asked Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) about them, and he said, 'They have been revealed to me, and I have recited them (as a part of the Qur'an)," So Ubai added, "So we say as Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) has said."'' {{Bukhari|6|60|501}}<br> | ||
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''I asked Ubai bin Ka`b regarding the two Muwwidhat (Surats of taking refuge with Allah). He said, "I asked the Prophet (ﷺ) about them, He said, 'These two Surats have been recited to me and I have recited them (and are present in the Qur'an).' So, we say as Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said (i.e., they are part of the Qur'an.''" {{Bukhari|6|60|500}}</ref> | ''I asked Ubai bin Ka`b regarding the two Muwwidhat (Surats of taking refuge with Allah). He said, "I asked the Prophet (ﷺ) about them, He said, 'These two Surats have been recited to me and I have recited them (and are present in the Qur'an).' So, we say as Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said (i.e., they are part of the Qur'an.''" {{Bukhari|6|60|500}}</ref> | ||
When we come to the rest of the Qur'an, we find that there were numerous differences of reading between the texts of Zaid and Ibn Mas'ud. The records in Ibn Abu Dawud's Kitab al-Masahif fill up no less than nineteen pages<ref>Kitab al-Masahif, pp. 54-73</ref> and, from all the sources available, one can trace no less than 101 variants in the | When we come to the rest of the Qur'an, we find that there were numerous differences of reading between the texts of Zaid and Ibn Mas'ud. The records in Ibn Abu Dawud's Kitab al-Masahif fill up no less than nineteen pages<ref>Kitab al-Masahif, pp. 54-73</ref> and, from all the sources available, one can trace no less than 101 variants in the Surah al-Baqarah alone.<ref>Jeffery, Materials pp.25-32</ref> | ||
The following are just a few of the differences in illustration of the nature of the variations between the texts: | The following are just a few of the differences in illustration of the nature of the variations between the texts: | ||
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====Pre-eminent status of Ibn Mas'ud as a reciter of the Qur'an==== | ====Pre-eminent status of Ibn Mas'ud as a reciter of the Qur'an==== | ||
Muhammad ordered Muslims to learn the Qur'an from four individuals and the first of them was Abdullah | Muhammad ordered Muslims to learn the Qur'an from four individuals and the first of them was Abdullah ibn Mas'ud.<ref name="bin Masud">"''Narrated Masruq: Abdullah bin Mas'ud was mentioned before Abdullah bin Amr who said, "That is a man I still love, as I heard the Prophet (saw) saying, 'Learn the recitation of the Qur'an from four: from Abdullah bin Mas'ud - he started with him - Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hudhaifa, Mu'adh bin Jabal and Ubai bin Ka'b".''"<BR>{{Bukhari|5|58|153}}</ref> So, according to Muhammad, Ibn Mas'ud was an authority on the Qur'an. | ||
Ibn Mas'ud swore that he knew all the surahs of the Qur'an, saying "By Allah other than Whom none has the right to be worshipped! There is no Sura revealed in Allah's Book but I know at what place it was revealed; and there is no verse revealed in Allah's Book but I know about whom it was revealed. And if I know that there is somebody who knows Allah's Book better than I, and he is at a place that camels can reach, I would go to him".<ref>{{Bukhari|6|61|524}}</ref> | Ibn Mas'ud swore that he knew all the surahs of the Qur'an, saying "By Allah other than Whom none has the right to be worshipped! There is no Sura revealed in Allah's Book but I know at what place it was revealed; and there is no verse revealed in Allah's Book but I know about whom it was revealed. And if I know that there is somebody who knows Allah's Book better than I, and he is at a place that camels can reach, I would go to him".<ref>{{Bukhari|6|61|524}}</ref> | ||
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*He also regarded "Your Lord has commanded" (waqada rabbuka) in {{Quran|17|23}} to be a scribal error which should have read "And your Lord has advised" (wawassa rabbuka)<ref>Qurtubi in his [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=5&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23] quotes Abu Hatim (d.338 H) "And in Ibn Masud’s Qur’an 'and he advised (وَوَصَّى Wawassa)'. It is the reading of his companions and the reading of Ibn Abbas as well, and Ali and others, and also according to Ubai bin K’ab. Ibn Abbas said: It is only “And your Lord advised (وَوَصَّى Wawassa)”, so one of the waw (و) got attached and he read: 'And your Lord has commanded (وقضى Waqada).' For if it were a fate, no one would have disobeyed God. And Ad-Dhahaak said: I gathered with people when “recommended /commanded” the waw (و) was mixed with the sad (ص) at the time the Quran was written. Abu Hatim mentioned Ibn Abbas, like the words of Ad-Dhahaak. And he said on the authority of Maimon bin Mehran that he said: According to Ibn Abbas’s words to Nora, God Almighty said: {He has prescribed for you the religion which He had advised (وَصَّى wassa) upon Noah and which We have [also] revealed to you}. Then Abu Hatim refused to believe that Ibn Abbas said that. And he said: If we say this is true, the heretics are going to stab our Mushaf."</ref><ref>A similar comment is made by al-Razi in his [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=4&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23]</ref>, as was the reading of Ubayy, ibn Mas'ud and others according to al-Tabari.<ref>Al-Tabari's tafsir for [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=1&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23]</ref> | *He also regarded "Your Lord has commanded" (waqada rabbuka) in {{Quran|17|23}} to be a scribal error which should have read "And your Lord has advised" (wawassa rabbuka)<ref>Qurtubi in his [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=5&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23] quotes Abu Hatim (d.338 H) "And in Ibn Masud’s Qur’an 'and he advised (وَوَصَّى Wawassa)'. It is the reading of his companions and the reading of Ibn Abbas as well, and Ali and others, and also according to Ubai bin K’ab. Ibn Abbas said: It is only “And your Lord advised (وَوَصَّى Wawassa)”, so one of the waw (و) got attached and he read: 'And your Lord has commanded (وقضى Waqada).' For if it were a fate, no one would have disobeyed God. And Ad-Dhahaak said: I gathered with people when “recommended /commanded” the waw (و) was mixed with the sad (ص) at the time the Quran was written. Abu Hatim mentioned Ibn Abbas, like the words of Ad-Dhahaak. And he said on the authority of Maimon bin Mehran that he said: According to Ibn Abbas’s words to Nora, God Almighty said: {He has prescribed for you the religion which He had advised (وَصَّى wassa) upon Noah and which We have [also] revealed to you}. Then Abu Hatim refused to believe that Ibn Abbas said that. And he said: If we say this is true, the heretics are going to stab our Mushaf."</ref><ref>A similar comment is made by al-Razi in his [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=4&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23]</ref>, as was the reading of Ubayy, ibn Mas'ud and others according to al-Tabari.<ref>Al-Tabari's tafsir for [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=1&tSoraNo=17&tAyahNo=23&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=1 tafsir for 17:23]</ref> | ||
*Ibn 'Abbas instructed that {{Quran|2|137}} should be read "And if they believe in that (āmanū bimā) which ye believe" instead of the standard Uthmanic "And if they believe in the like of that (amanū bi-mithli mā) which ye believe". Dr. Hythem Sidky notes that "This variant is recorded as being found in the muṣḥafs of the Companions Ibn Masʿūd and Anas b. Mālik and the Successor Abū Ṣāliḥ. Ibn ʿAbbās is also reported to have disliked the ʿUthmānic reading, which contains bi-mithl, as he considered God to have 'no equivalent (laysa lahū mathīl).'" Sidky notes that the āmanū bimā reading was also attested in the early manuscript BnF Arabe 331.<ref>Hythem Sidky (2019) [https://www.middleeastmedievalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/UW-27-Sidky.pdf Book review: Daniel Alan Brubaker, Corrections in Early Qurʾānic Manuscripts: | *Ibn 'Abbas instructed that {{Quran|2|137}} should be read "And if they believe in that (āmanū bimā) which ye believe" instead of the standard Uthmanic "And if they believe in the like of that (amanū bi-mithli mā) which ye believe". Dr. Hythem Sidky notes that "This variant is recorded as being found in the muṣḥafs of the Companions Ibn Masʿūd and Anas b. Mālik and the Successor Abū Ṣāliḥ. Ibn ʿAbbās is also reported to have disliked the ʿUthmānic reading, which contains bi-mithl, as he considered God to have 'no equivalent (laysa lahū mathīl).'" Sidky notes that the āmanū bimā reading was also attested in the early manuscript BnF Arabe 331.<ref>Hythem Sidky (2019) [https://www.middleeastmedievalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/UW-27-Sidky.pdf Book review: Daniel Alan Brubaker, Corrections in Early Qurʾānic Manuscripts: Twenty Examples] Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 273-288 (p.285)</ref> The opinion of Ibn Abbas is noted in al-Tabari's tafsir for this verse. | ||
Twenty Examples] Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 27 (2019): 273-288 (p.285)</ref> The opinion of Ibn Abbas is noted in al-Tabari's tafsir for this verse. | |||
==Extant Early Manuscripts== | ==Extant Early Manuscripts== | ||
[[File:MvPUthmanicNonUthmanic.png|thumb|Diagram classifying Qur'anic readings<ref>[https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1265724957100834816 Twitter.com] - Dr. Marijn van Putten ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200528101235/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1265724937119170571 archive])</ref>]] | [[File:MvPUthmanicNonUthmanic.png|thumb|Diagram classifying Qur'anic readings<ref>[https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1265724957100834816 Twitter.com] - Dr. Marijn van Putten ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200528101235/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1265724937119170571 archive])</ref>]] | ||
A significant number of early Hijazi manuscript fragments have been radio-carbon dated to the first Islamic century, collectively covering the Qur'an between them. All but one of | A significant number of early Hijazi manuscript fragments have been radio-carbon dated to the first Islamic century, collectively covering the Qur'an between them (for a detailed discussion with images, see the article by Michael Marx and Tobias Jocham<ref>https://corpuscoranicum.de/pdf/Radiocarbon_Dating_of_Quran_Manuscripts.pdf</ref>). | ||
All but one of the early Quran manuscripts discovered so far have been of the Uthmanic text type (the exception being the lower text of the [[Sana'a Manuscript|Ṣan'ā' 1 manuscript]], which is a palimpsest (codex which was washed and written over) found in Sana'a, Yemen, and which contains variants not found in any of the accepted readings of the Qur'an.<ref>"The text does not belong to the 'Uṯmānic textual tradition, making this the only known manuscript of a non-'Uṯmānic text type." 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. p.343</ref>). However, these manuscripts are not identical. Every early manuscript falls into a small number of regional families (identified by variants in their rasm, or consonantal text), and each moreover contains non-canonical variants in dotting and lettering that can sometimes be traced back to those reported of the Companions.<ref name="Morteza Karimi-Nia">Morteza Karimi-Nia of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Foundation, Tehran, says in a paper on the Codex Mashhad manuscript: | |||
{{Quote-text||"''Irrespective of the above-mentioned regional differences, any early Qurʾānic codex simultaneously contains variant readings. In other words, no codex contains only a single reading. However, it must be noted that the seven variant readings attributed to the Seven Readers, which have been prevalent since the fourth/tenth century, are only rarely evident in the Qurʾānic manuscripts of the first two Islamic centuries. In these manuscripts, instead, one can find either the above-mentioned regional differences (as between Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Basra, or Damascus) or differences in lettering and dotting, which do not necessarily reflect the canonical variants of the Seven Readers but can be traced back to the readings of one of the Prophet’s Companions or Followers.''"}} | {{Quote-text||"''Irrespective of the above-mentioned regional differences, any early Qurʾānic codex simultaneously contains variant readings. In other words, no codex contains only a single reading. However, it must be noted that the seven variant readings attributed to the Seven Readers, which have been prevalent since the fourth/tenth century, are only rarely evident in the Qurʾānic manuscripts of the first two Islamic centuries. In these manuscripts, instead, one can find either the above-mentioned regional differences (as between Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Basra, or Damascus) or differences in lettering and dotting, which do not necessarily reflect the canonical variants of the Seven Readers but can be traced back to the readings of one of the Prophet’s Companions or Followers.''"}} | ||
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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 Ṣan'ā' 1 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>See the list of companion variants in Appendix 1 of Sadeghi & Goudarzi, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/110978941/Sanaa-1-and-the-Origins-of-the-Qur-An San'a' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an] Der Islam 87, No. 1-2 (February 2012) 1-129</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> | 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 Ṣan'ā' 1 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>See the list of companion variants in Appendix 1 of Sadeghi & Goudarzi, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/110978941/Sanaa-1-and-the-Origins-of-the-Qur-An San'a' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an] Der Islam 87, No. 1-2 (February 2012) 1-129</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> | ||
Michael Cook's stemmatic analysis of the above mentioned regional variants reported in the Uthmanic copies has shown that they form a tree relationship<ref name="Cook">Cook, M. (2004) “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” ''Graeco-Arabica'', 9-10</ref>. By analysing orthographic idiosyncrasies common to known manuscripts of the Uthmanic text type, Dr. Marijn van Putten has given further proof that they all must descend from a single archetype, generally assumed to be that of Uthman.<ref>van Putten, M. (2019) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/grace-of-god-as-evidence-for-a-written-uthmanic-archetype-the-importance-of-shared-orthographic-idiosyncrasies/23C45AC7BC649A5228E0DA6F6BA15C06/core-reader The 'Grace of God' as evidence for a written Uthmanic archetype: the importance of shared orthographic idiosyncrasies] Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 82 (2) pp.271-288</ref> | Michael Cook's stemmatic analysis of the above mentioned regional variants reported in the Uthmanic copies has shown that they form a tree relationship<ref name="Cook">Cook, M. (2004) “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” ''Graeco-Arabica'', 9-10</ref>. By analysing orthographic idiosyncrasies (i.e. spellings) common to known manuscripts of the Uthmanic text type, Dr. Marijn van Putten has given further proof that they all must descend from a single archetype, generally assumed to be that of Uthman.<ref>van Putten, M. (2019) [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/grace-of-god-as-evidence-for-a-written-uthmanic-archetype-the-importance-of-shared-orthographic-idiosyncrasies/23C45AC7BC649A5228E0DA6F6BA15C06/core-reader The 'Grace of God' as evidence for a written Uthmanic archetype: the importance of shared orthographic idiosyncrasies] Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 82 (2) pp.271-288</ref> | ||
The rasm is only part of the story of the textual transmission of the Qur'an. In the earliest Quran manuscripts (and, we can assume, in the fragments originally collected by Zayd), homographic Arabic consonants were only sparsely dotted to distinguish them, which Adam Bursi has found was the typical scribal practice at that time even for Arabic poetry.<ref>Bursi, Adam. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005 Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 3, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018, pp. 111–157, https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005.</ref> They also lacked | He has noted that the famous "Birmingham Quran" too has these spelling idiosyncracies and therefore is "clearly a descendant of the Uthmanic text type".<ref>[https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1220812853495640066 Twitter.com] - Dr. Marijn van Putten ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200124212157/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1220812853495640066 archive])</ref> It is a two page fragment (Minghana 1572a), now known to be part of a longer manuscript fragment held in Paris (BNF Arabe 328c). In her PhD thesis, Alba Fedeli showed that the combined manuscript contains numerous variants, including some which affect meaning (especially the subject or object of verbs) and a few that had been reported in the qira'at literature. These mainly involve alifs and the sparse consonantal dottings present in the manuscript.<ref>Fedeli calls the combined fragments of this manuscript in Birmingham and Paris MS PaB.<BR />"A comparison between the copy of MS PaB and the Medina muṣḥaf leads to a number of differences being identified. These variants can be understood as a mirror of the linguistic competence of the copyist and his linguistic context, in that the manuscript bears some phonetic, orthographic, morphologic and syntactic variants, but also a few lexical variants, among which there are variants related to the voice and recipient of the message and some variants due to mechanical errors during the copying activity. Lastly, the manuscript exhibits a few peculiar features as regards the subdivision of the Qur’ānic text into verses. Furthermore, the analysis of the manuscript text compared with the literature of the Islamic tradition reveals a few qirā’āt that are substantiated through the manuscript itself."</BR />See pp. 147-199 of Alba Fedeli, (2014). [https://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5864/1/Fedeli15PhD.pdf EARLY QUR’ĀNIC MANUSCRIPTS, THEIR TEXT, AND THE ALPHONSE MINGANA PAPERS HELD IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM] (PDF) (Ph.D.). Birmingham University.</ref> | ||
A few famous manuscripts have been traditionally attributed as Uthman's personal copy, or as one of the original copies he commissioned. None of these claims is supported by evidence. These include the Topkapi manuscript (Sarayı Medina 1a) which has too late a script style, and the Samarkand Codex, which is actually radio-carbon dated to the 8th or 9th century CE, as well as due to the script style.<ref>See for example this [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1612061962510434310 Twitter.com thread] by Marijn van Putten 8 January 2022</ref> | |||
The rasm is only part of the story of the textual transmission of the Qur'an. In the earliest Quran manuscripts (and, we can assume, in the fragments originally collected by Zayd), homographic Arabic consonants were only sparsely dotted to distinguish them, which Adam Bursi has found was the typical scribal practice at that time even for Arabic poetry.<ref>Bursi, Adam. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005 Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 3, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018, pp. 111–157, https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005.</ref> They also lacked most word-internal ʾalifs (unwritten or inconsistent usage in most situations), and had no marks for short vowels or other diacritics. When vocalised manuscripts with vowels and other diacritics start to appear, many (mostly non-canonical) readings are found to be imposed upon the rasm.<ref>See for example comments by leading manuscript expert and linguist Dr. Marijn van Putten [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1282206245026504704 here] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200712065515/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1282206245026504704 archive]), [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1294253564378976259 here] ([https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1294253564378976259 archive]) and [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1212824936768778245 here] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210816162500/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1212824936768778245 archive])</ref> | |||
==Scribal errors in Uthman's codices== | ==Scribal errors in Uthman's codices== | ||
Academic scholars generally believe that the above mentioned regional variants were scribal errors made when the original copies of Uthman's consonantal text were produced. These feature also in the canonical readings (qira'at) of those regions, which were required to keep within the scope of the Uthmanic text. These scribal errors in the original Uthmanic copies have been inherited by all subsquent copies of the Quran that exist in the world, as distinct from isolated mistakes in individual manuscripts. For example, Qurans in North Africa which typically have the reading of Warsh from Nafi will have the text of the Uthmanic copy given to Medina. | |||
The strongest tradition holds that four copies were made, one each for Medina in the Hijaz, Syria (Hims, or less likely, Damascus<ref name="Sidky2020">Sidky, H. (2020) [https://www.academia.edu/49523638/ On the Regionality of Qurʾānic Codices] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, 5(1) doi:10.5913/jiqsa.5.2020.a005</ref>), Basra and Kufa in modern day Iraq. As mentioned above, Michael Cook identified that these 40 or so variants form a stemmatic relationship that indicates a written copying process between the four codices.<ref name="Cook"/> His list was based on al-Dani's work (d. 444 AH) and can also be read online in a paper by van Putten.<ref>See the Appendix in Van Putten, M. (2020) [https://www.academia.edu/41712793/Hi%C5%A1a_ms_%CA%BEIbra_ha_m_Evidence_for_a_Canonical_Quranic_Reading_Based_on_the_Rasm Hišām's ʾIbrāhām: Evidence for a Canonical Quranic Reading Based on the Rasm] Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 30(2), 231-250. doi:10.1017/S1356186319000518</ref> Compiling a similar but improved list of the regional variants widely attested by Muslim scholars, Hythem Sidky reconstructed the same stemma as found by Cook for what must have been four regional exemplar codices.<ref name="Sidky2020" /> This is mainly derived due to the twelve variants shared by Syria and Medina to the exclusion of Basra and Kufa, fifteen isolated Syrian variants and three isolated Kufan variants.<ref>ibid. p. 143</ref> Sidky also found an "excellent agreement" between these reports and the earliest manuscripts. In additon, Sidky was able to reproduce the stemmatic result by means of a phylogenetic analysis of these regional differences within the earliest manuscripts (except that Kufa did not achieve a separate node since only one early Kufan manuscript is available). Sidky also found that "a comparison of literary reports against the earliest manuscripts reveals that knowledge of the regional variants does not date back to the time of canonization but was accumulated over time through careful scrutiny of regional muṣḥafs". This indicates that the Uthmanic committee were unaware or did not share information about these differences. He has also commented separately on this topic that further reasons for believing them to be scribal errors are that they are so few in number in what were obviously and reportedly intended to be identical copies, and that they are so insignificant, looking like typical scribal errors that occur in later copying, especially compared to the kinds of more meaningful variants found in companion readings (see earlier section on these above).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210723202034/https://twitter.com/therealsidky/status/1418667335251075075 Archived Twitter thread] - "How do we know that the variants between the Uthmanic codices are scribal errors?", Hythem Sidky, 23 July 2021</ref> | |||
==Academic debate regarding Uthman or 'Abd al-Malik== | |||
In the early 20th century, a few academic scholars proposed that the consonantal text of the Quran reached its final form not under Uthman, but rather half a century later under 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan and his enforcer, al-Hajjaj around 700 CE. Going further, in the 1970s John Wansbrough advocated a late 8th century CE compilation. Subsequent insights such as Motzki's work on the al-Zuhri hadiths and the radio carbon dating of early manuscripts including Sanaa 1 (both discussed above) have eliminated Wansbrough's more extreme view, though a debate continues between those arguing that the Quranic consonantal text as we know it was standardised under Uthman and those skeptical that this could have happened, instead dating it to the Caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik. This debate and evidence drawn by each side is best exemplified in a two part 2014 article by Nicolai Sinai (both parts are accessible with a free JSTOR account, selecting "Alternative access options"),<ref>Nicolai Sinai (2014) [http://www.jstor.org/stable/24692711 When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Part I]. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 77, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, School of Oriental and African Studies<BR />And [http://www.jstor.org/stable/24692364 Part II]</ref> siding with the Uthmanic viewpoint, and an open access book published in 2022 by Stephen Shoemaker advancing the 'Abd al-Malik theory, and which also responds to Sinai's articles.<ref>Stephen J. Shoemaker (2022) [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780520389045/html?lang=en Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study], USA: University of California Press, doi:10.1515/9780520389045</ref> Shoemaker interprets some Muslim as well as Christian accounts about 'Abd al Malik and al-Hajjaj in support of his view, with the Uthmanic story (traced as far back as al-Zuhri, as discussed above) being a back-projection to lend a more credible lineage to the project. Sinai instead interprets accounts about al-Hajjaj such that he was enforcing Uthman's standard (see the section on al-Hajjaj below). The 'Abd al-Malik camp also contend that their theory is the best explanation for various other strands of evidence. | |||
Since Sinai's articles, further evidence in support of an Uthmanic standardisation has been identified by van Putten proving that all known Quranic manuscripts (except Sanaa 1) must descend from a single archetype (see above). Shoemaker notes van Putten's evidence could fit either theory. However, the archetype necessarily would have to be earlier still than the earliest surviving manuscripts or fragments. This seems to favour an Uthmanic codification, since while Shoemaker and others are very critical of the reliability of manuscript radio carbon dating, the paleographic dating (study of handwriting and ornamentation, supported by dated inscription evidence) would also have to be later than supposed to allow time for a c. 700 CE archetype. Defenders of radio-carbon dating would point out that the three most reputable testing laboratories in the world (Arizona, Zurich and Oxford) concur on a first half of the 7th century date for the Sanaa 1 palimpsest, the most repeatedly tested Quranic manuscript. Another subsequent consideration must be van Putten's work on the Hijazi dialect of the QCT (see below and pages 220-221 of his book), which fits al-Zuhri's account that Uthman instructed for the codices to be written in the Quraysh dialect. Hythem Sidky's work published in 2021 (see above) confirms that four regional exemplar codices were sent out and found that the Syrian codex was likely sent to Hims (modern day Homs) rather than Damascus (as sometimes assumed, with virtually no evidence). Among other evidence he notes that a Hims copy fits a version of the Uthmanic codification account recorded by Sayf b. ʿUmar al-Tamīmī (d. ca. 180/796). It could also perhaps be argued that an Umayyad standardisation would have first ensured that one of the few exemplar copies would go to Damascus had it occured under their reign since this had been their power base since Mu'awiya (661 CE). Also of likely relevance is that in 2006, Fred Leemhuis noted that the Dome of the Rock (built 692 CE) exhibits a probably short-lived orthographic convention in which the letter qaf was distinguised by a dot below the line, and that this convention is also found in four of the oldest Quran manuscripts.<ref>Fred Leemhuis (2006) 'From Palm Leaves to the Internet' in McAuliffe J. D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-48</ref> | |||
==Lost Verses and Surahs from the Qur'an== | ==Lost Verses and Surahs from the Qur'an== | ||
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The lost verse of Rajm ([[stoning]]) was originally found in Surah al-Ahzab<ref>"''Umar said to me ‘How many verses are contained in the chapter of al-Ahzab?’ I said, ‘72 or 73 verses.’ He said it was almost as long as the chapter of the Cow, which contains 287 verses, and in it there was the verse of stoning.''" - Al-Muttaqi ‘Ali bin Husam al-Din in his book “Mukhtasar Kanz al-’Ummal” printed on the margin of Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Volume 2, page 2, in his hadith about chapter 33</ref>. According to hadiths recorded in Al-Suyuti's Itqan the lost verse read, "The fornicators among the married men (ash-shaikh) and married women (ash-shaikhah), stone them as an exemplary punishment from Allah, and Allah is Mighty and Wise,", or alternatively, "A married man or woman should be stoned, without hesitation, for having given in to lust." <ref>As-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an, p.524 (or p.13 of the chapter on Nasikh and Mansukh in the abridged English translation of Al-Itqan by Muneer Fareed)</ref> | The lost verse of Rajm ([[stoning]]) was originally found in Surah al-Ahzab<ref>"''Umar said to me ‘How many verses are contained in the chapter of al-Ahzab?’ I said, ‘72 or 73 verses.’ He said it was almost as long as the chapter of the Cow, which contains 287 verses, and in it there was the verse of stoning.''" - Al-Muttaqi ‘Ali bin Husam al-Din in his book “Mukhtasar Kanz al-’Ummal” printed on the margin of Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Volume 2, page 2, in his hadith about chapter 33</ref>. According to hadiths recorded in Al-Suyuti's Itqan the lost verse read, "The fornicators among the married men (ash-shaikh) and married women (ash-shaikhah), stone them as an exemplary punishment from Allah, and Allah is Mighty and Wise,", or alternatively, "A married man or woman should be stoned, without hesitation, for having given in to lust." <ref>As-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an, p.524 (or p.13 of the chapter on Nasikh and Mansukh in the abridged English translation of Al-Itqan by Muneer Fareed)</ref> | ||
This verse, along with verses regarding [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Adult_Suckling adult suckling], were written on a piece of paper and were lost when a sheep or goat ate them.<ref>“''It was narrated that 'Aishah said: The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow. When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep came in and ate it.''” {{Ibn Majah||3|9|1944}} (Graded Hasan by Dar-us-Salam). Also found in Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal. vol. 6. page 269; Ibn Qutbah, Tawil Mukhtalafi 'l-Hadith (Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulliyat al-Azhariyya. 1966) page 310; As-Suyuti, ad-Durru 'l-Manthur, vol. 2. page 13</ref> The loss of the stoning verse is confirmed by Caliph Umar in [[sahih]] hadith in which this verse is said to have been included in the book "sent down" to Muhammad, "the Book of Allah".<ref>"''...Umar b. Khattab sat on the pulpit of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Verily Allah sent Muhammad (may peace be upon him) with truth and He sent down the Book upon him, and the verse of stoning was included in what was sent down to him. We recited it, retained it in our memory and understood it. Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) awarded the punishment of stoning to death (to the married adulterer and adulteress) and, after him, we also awarded the punishment of stoning, I am afraid that with the lapse of time, the people (may forget it) and may say: We do not find the punishment of stoning in the Book of Allah, and thus go astray by abandoning this duty prescribed by Allah. Stoning is a duty laid down in Allah's Book for married men and women who commit adultery when proof is established, or it there is pregnancy, or a confession....''" - {{Muslim|17|4194}}</ref> In another sahih hadith appearing in many collections<ref>"''Abu Huraira and Zaid b Khalid al-Juhani reported that one of the desert tribes came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and said: Messenger of Allah, I beg of you in the name of Allah that you pronounce judgment about me according to the Book of Allah. The second claimant who was wiser than him said: Well, decide amongst us according to the Book of Allah, but permit me (to say something). Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon ham) said: Say. He said: My son was a servant in the house of this person and he committed adultery with his wife. I was informed that my son deserved stoning to death (as punishment for this offence). I gave one hundred goats and a slave girl as ransom for this. I asked the scholars (if this could serve as an expiation for this offence). They informed me that my son deserved one hundred lathes and exile for one year. and this woman deserved stoning (as she was married). Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace he upon him) said: By Him in Whose Hand is my life. I will decide between you according to the Book of Allah. The slave-girl and the goats should be given back, and your son is to be punished with one hundred lashes and exile for one year. And, O Unais (b. Zuhaq al-Aslami), go to this woman in the morning, and if she makes a confession, then stone her. He (the narrator) said: He went to her in the morning and she made a confession. And Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) made pronouncement about her and she was stoned to death.''" {{Muslim|17|4209}}</ref>, Muhammad says he will judge a married woman who committed adultery with an unmarried man by "the Book of Allah" (meaning the Qur'an<ref>This is clear from the hadith itself, and is also almost always the meaning of "Book of Allah" in other hadiths and verses, including the hadith about Umar and the stoning verse previously mentioned. See for example "'' Narrated `Ikrima: Ibn `Abbas said, "How can you ask the people of the Scriptures about their Books while you have Allah's Book (the Qur'an) which is the most recent of the Books revealed by Allah, and you read it in its pure undistorted form?"''" {{Bukhari|9|93|613}}</ref>) and orders the woman to be stoned and the man to receive 100 lashes. Before becoming lost, the verse on adult suckling had already been abrogated and replaced with a watered down version. Evidently it was not very popular, and was resisted by some of Muhammad's wives.<ref>See for example regarding the abrogation {{Muwatta|30|3|17}} and {{Muslim|8|3421}}, and the displeasure of Muhammad's wives {{Muwatta|30|3|12}}</ref> | This verse, along with verses regarding [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Adult_Suckling adult suckling], were reportedly written on a piece of paper and were lost when a sheep or goat ate them.<ref>“''It was narrated that 'Aishah said: The Verse of stoning and of breastfeeding an adult ten times was revealed, and the paper was with me under my pillow. When the Messenger of Allah died, we were preoccupied with his death, and a tame sheep came in and ate it.''” {{Ibn Majah||3|9|1944}} (Graded Hasan by Dar-us-Salam). Also found in Musnad Ahmad bin Hanbal. vol. 6. page 269; Ibn Qutbah, Tawil Mukhtalafi 'l-Hadith (Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulliyat al-Azhariyya. 1966) page 310; As-Suyuti, ad-Durru 'l-Manthur, vol. 2. page 13</ref> The loss of the stoning verse is confirmed by Caliph Umar in [[sahih]] hadith in which this verse is said to have been included in the book "sent down" to Muhammad, "the Book of Allah".<ref>"''...Umar b. Khattab sat on the pulpit of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Verily Allah sent Muhammad (may peace be upon him) with truth and He sent down the Book upon him, and the verse of stoning was included in what was sent down to him. We recited it, retained it in our memory and understood it. Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) awarded the punishment of stoning to death (to the married adulterer and adulteress) and, after him, we also awarded the punishment of stoning, I am afraid that with the lapse of time, the people (may forget it) and may say: We do not find the punishment of stoning in the Book of Allah, and thus go astray by abandoning this duty prescribed by Allah. Stoning is a duty laid down in Allah's Book for married men and women who commit adultery when proof is established, or it there is pregnancy, or a confession....''" - {{Muslim|17|4194}}</ref> In another sahih hadith appearing in many collections<ref>"''Abu Huraira and Zaid b Khalid al-Juhani reported that one of the desert tribes came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and said: Messenger of Allah, I beg of you in the name of Allah that you pronounce judgment about me according to the Book of Allah. The second claimant who was wiser than him said: Well, decide amongst us according to the Book of Allah, but permit me (to say something). Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon ham) said: Say. He said: My son was a servant in the house of this person and he committed adultery with his wife. I was informed that my son deserved stoning to death (as punishment for this offence). I gave one hundred goats and a slave girl as ransom for this. I asked the scholars (if this could serve as an expiation for this offence). They informed me that my son deserved one hundred lathes and exile for one year. and this woman deserved stoning (as she was married). Thereupon Allah's Messenger (may peace he upon him) said: By Him in Whose Hand is my life. I will decide between you according to the Book of Allah. The slave-girl and the goats should be given back, and your son is to be punished with one hundred lashes and exile for one year. And, O Unais (b. Zuhaq al-Aslami), go to this woman in the morning, and if she makes a confession, then stone her. He (the narrator) said: He went to her in the morning and she made a confession. And Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) made pronouncement about her and she was stoned to death.''" {{Muslim|17|4209}}</ref>, Muhammad says he will judge a married woman who committed adultery with an unmarried man by "the Book of Allah" (meaning the Qur'an<ref>This is clear from the hadith itself, and is also almost always the meaning of "Book of Allah" in other hadiths and verses, including the hadith about Umar and the stoning verse previously mentioned. See for example "'' Narrated `Ikrima: Ibn `Abbas said, "How can you ask the people of the Scriptures about their Books while you have Allah's Book (the Qur'an) which is the most recent of the Books revealed by Allah, and you read it in its pure undistorted form?"''" {{Bukhari|9|93|613}}</ref>) and orders the woman to be stoned and the man to receive 100 lashes. Before becoming lost, the verse on adult suckling had already been abrogated and replaced with a watered down version. Evidently it was not very popular, and was resisted by some of Muhammad's wives.<ref>See for example regarding the abrogation {{Muwatta|30|3|17}} and {{Muslim|8|3421}}, and the displeasure of Muhammad's wives {{Muwatta|30|3|12}}</ref> | ||
Islamic scholars typically explain the loss of the stoning verse as a type of abrogation where the verse is no longer recited but the ruling still applies. Al-Suyuti in his Itqan gives various hadiths in which Muhammad and the Muslim community felt uneasy about writing down, and possibly even reciting such a harsh verse, having witnessed its implementation.<ref>Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an by Al-Suyuti, pp.16-17 of the chapter on Nasikh and Mansukh in the abridged English translation by Muneer Fareed</ref> It seems that as a result even the recitation of the exact wording for this verse was lost over time. It is unclear how this is compatible with preservation by calling it abrogation even though the ruling remains, particularly when it involves such a serious topic as a death penalty. | Islamic scholars typically explain the loss of the stoning verse as a type of abrogation where the verse is no longer recited but the ruling still applies. Al-Suyuti in his Itqan gives various hadiths in which Muhammad and the Muslim community felt uneasy about writing down, and possibly even reciting such a harsh verse, having witnessed its implementation.<ref>Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur'an by Al-Suyuti, pp.16-17 of the chapter on Nasikh and Mansukh in the abridged English translation by Muneer Fareed</ref> It seems that as a result even the recitation of the exact wording for this verse was lost over time. It is unclear how this is compatible with preservation by calling it abrogation even though the ruling remains, particularly when it involves such a serious topic as a death penalty. | ||
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===Surah al-Hafd and Surah al-khal'=== | ===Surah al-Hafd and Surah al-khal'=== | ||
We know that, whereas Ibn Mas'ud omitted three surahs (al-Fatihah, 113 and 114) from his Qur'an mushaf (codex), Ubayy ibn Ka'b had 116 surahs in his, including two extra short surahs, al-Hafd (the Haste) and al-Khal' (the Separation), which he placed between what are surahs 103 and 104 in Uthman's Qur'an<ref name="Noldeke">Both al-Suyuti's Itqan and Ibn Nadim's Fihrist have this sequence in their (otherwise slightly different) lists of the surahs found in Ubayy ibn Ka'b's mushaf according to Theodor Nöldeke et. al. (1909, | We know that, whereas Ibn Mas'ud omitted three surahs (al-Fatihah, 113 and 114) from his Qur'an mushaf (codex), Ubayy ibn Ka'b had 116 surahs in his, including two extra short surahs, al-Hafd (the Haste) and al-Khal' (the Separation), which he placed between what are surahs 103 and 104 in Uthman's Qur'an<ref name="Noldeke">Both al-Suyuti's Itqan and Ibn Nadim's Fihrist have this sequence in their (otherwise slightly different) lists of the surahs found in Ubayy ibn Ka'b's mushaf according to Theodor Nöldeke et. al. (1909, 1938) "The History of the Qur'an" 2nd Edition, Ed. and trans. by Behn W. H. (2013) Brill: Leiden p. 243-244</ref>. | ||
{{Quote|1=|2='''al-Hafd:''' | {{Quote|1=|2='''al-Hafd:''' | ||
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And we disavow and disown anyone who opposes You. | And we disavow and disown anyone who opposes You. | ||
<ref>English translation from https://islamqa.info/en/178209</ref> | <ref>English translation from https://islamqa.info/en/178209</ref> | ||
<ref>A similar English translation (but with the words "O God" accidentally omitted from al-Hafd), together with the Arabic text and textual transmission details can be found in Theodor Nöldeke et. al. (1909, | <ref>A similar English translation (but with the words "O God" accidentally omitted from al-Hafd), together with the Arabic text and textual transmission details can be found in Theodor Nöldeke et. al. (1909, 1938) "The History of the Qur'an" 2nd Edition, Ed. and trans. by Behn W. H. (2013) Brill: Leiden p. 241 Nöldeke considered it unlikely that these two Surahs and Surah al-Fatiha were originally part of the Qur'an.</ref><ref>([http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Miracle/ubay.html the Separation])<BR></ref><ref name=SuyutiItqan>al-Suyuti, Al-Itqan, p.152-153</ref>}} | ||
In form they are du'as (supplications, prayers), much like Al-Fatihah placed at the beginning of the Qur'an, and surahs 113 and 114. | In form they are du'as (supplications, prayers), much like Al-Fatihah placed at the beginning of the Qur'an, and surahs 113 and 114. | ||
Professor Sean Anthony has noted in a detailed paper on the topic that "the literary attestations for the inclusion of al- | Professor Sean Anthony has noted in a detailed paper on the topic that "the literary attestations for the inclusion of al- | ||
Khalʿ and al-Ḥafd in written copies of Ubayy’s codex are multiple, coherent, and geographically widespread – a fact that speaks volumes in favor of their authenticity." and that according to some early sources, Ibn Mas'ud too included Khal' and Hafd in his Qur'an mushaf (codex)<ref>see also al-Suyuti in his Tafseer Dur al-Manthur, Volume 4 page 421</ref>, as also did Ibn 'Abbas in his mushaf, though its presence in Ubayy's is much more widely documented.<ref>See pp.73-79 in Sean Anthony, [https://www.academia.edu/40869286/Two_Lost_S%C5%ABras_of_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81n_S%C5%ABrat_al_Khal%CA%BF_and_S%C5%ABrat_al_%E1%B8%A4afd_between_Textual_and_Ritual_Canon_1st_3rd_7th_9th_Centuries_Pre_Print_Version_ Two ‘Lost’ Sūras of the Qurʾān: Sūrat al-Khalʿ and Sūrat al-Ḥafd between Textual and Ritual Canon (1st -3rd/7th -9th Centuries) [Pre-Print Version]], Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 46 (2019)</ref> One hadith records that Uthman recited them as supplications <ref>according to hadith 7032 in Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah</ref>, as did Umaya bin Abdullah and Umar according to Al-Suyuti.<ref name="SuyutiItqan"></ref> | Khalʿ and al-Ḥafd in written copies of Ubayy’s codex are multiple, coherent, and geographically widespread – a fact that speaks volumes in favor of their authenticity." and that according to some early sources, Ibn Mas'ud too included Khal' and Hafd in his Qur'an mushaf (codex)<ref>see also al-Suyuti in his Tafseer Dur al-Manthur, Volume 4 page 421</ref>, as also did Ibn 'Abbas in his mushaf, though its presence in Ubayy's is much more widely documented.<ref>See pp.73-79 in Sean Anthony, [https://www.academia.edu/40869286/Two_Lost_S%C5%ABras_of_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81n_S%C5%ABrat_al_Khal%CA%BF_and_S%C5%ABrat_al_%E1%B8%A4afd_between_Textual_and_Ritual_Canon_1st_3rd_7th_9th_Centuries_Pre_Print_Version_ Two ‘Lost’ Sūras of the Qurʾān: Sūrat al-Khalʿ and Sūrat al-Ḥafd between Textual and Ritual Canon (1st -3rd/7th -9th Centuries) [Pre-Print Version]], Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 46 (2019)</ref> One hadith records that Uthman recited them as supplications <ref>according to hadith 7032 in Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah</ref>, as did Umaya bin Abdullah and Umar according to Al-Suyuti.<ref name="SuyutiItqan"></ref> Another hadith says that these were du'as given by the angel Jibreel to Muhammad.<ref>“While the Messenger of Allah - peace and blessings of Allah be upon him- was supplicating against the Mudhar, Gabriel came to him and signaled him to remain silent, so he became silent. Then Gabriel said, “O Muhammad, Allah has not sent you to disparage or condemn, rather he has sent you as a mercy. And he has not sent you to bring torment. ‘Not for you, [O Muhammad, but for Allah], is the decision whether He should [cut them down] or forgive them or punish them, for indeed, they are wrongdoers.’ [Qur’an 3:128] Then he taught him this supplication, ‘O Allah! We beg help from You alone …’” Sunan al-Kubra, Hadith 3142</ref> Al-Suyuti quotes another scholar saying that Surah al-Khal' and Surah al-Hafd were removed from the Qur'an and are now used as du'as.<ref>"''l-Husain b. 'l-Munadi in his work l-Nasikh wa l-Mansukh said: of the material that was removed from the Qur'an but not from memory are the two chapters of the qunut supplications that are recited in the witr prayer; they were named l-Khal`a and l-Hafd''" p.15 of the chapter on Nasikh and Mansukh in the abridged English translation of Al-Itqan by Muneer Fareed</ref><ref>A longer quote of al-Munadi's words is even more revealing: "''Az-Zarkashi said in al-Burhaan (2/37): The leading hadeeth scholar Abu’l-Husayn Ahmad ibn Ja‘far al-Manaadi said in his book an-Naasikh wa’l-Mansookh, concerning that which has been abrogated from the Qur’an but was not erased from what people had learned by heart, that this included the two soorahs that are recited in Qunoot in Witr prayer. He said: There is no difference of opinion among the earlier scholars that these two soorahs were written down in the mushafs that were attributed to Ubayy ibn Ka‘b, and it was narrated from the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) that he recited them, and they were called the soorahs of al-Khal‘ and al-Hafd.''" https://islamqa.info/en/195880</ref> | ||
It doesn't seem that there was agreement among the Muslims on whether these were just du'as or parts of the Qur'an, particularly given that such an important figure as Ubayy ibn Ka'b (possibly Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn 'Abbas too) recorded them in his widely reported Qur'an codex. | It doesn't seem that there was agreement among the Muslims on whether these were just du'as or parts of the Qur'an, particularly given that such an important figure as Ubayy ibn Ka'b (possibly Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn 'Abbas too) recorded them in his widely reported Qur'an codex. | ||
Nor does it seem there was complete agreement on whether other surahs that resemble du'as belonged in the written Qur'an given that Ibn Mas'ud left out of his mushaf Surahs Al-Fatihah, and 113 and 114 (called Al-Mu'awwidhatan), as mentioned above. Al-Qurtubi's tafsir contains a narration from Ibn Mas'ud that he omitted Al-Fatihah for brevity<ref>“’Abdullah bin Mas’ud was asked as to why he did not write al-Fatiha in his Mushaf. He replied, ‘If I were to write I would write it before every surah.’” Abu Bakr al-Anbari explains this saying every raka’ah (in prayers) starts with al-Fatiha and then another surah is recited. It is as if Ibn Mas’ud said, ‘I have dropped it for the sake of brevity and I have trusted its preservation by Muslims (collectively).’ (al-Qurtubi, al-Jami al-Ahkam al-Qur’an. Dar al-Kutab al-Misriyah, Cairo, 1964 vol.1 p.115)</ref>, and there was a theory to explain his omission of surahs 113 and 114<ref name="Itqan ibn Masud"></ref>. The canonical Qira'at (recitations of the Qur'an) of the Kufan readers include all 3 surahs yet have Ibn Mas'ud in some chains of their isnads. However, it is known that the canonical reader Hamza made use of Ibn Mas'ud's readings (via his teacher, al A'mash) only insofar as they complied with the Uthmanic rasm.<ref>Shady Hekmat Nasser, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx7i2Y56WuYC&pg=PA57&dq=aasim+qira%27ah&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aasim%20qira'ah&f=false ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh''], pp.57-58. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.</ref> | Nor does it seem there was complete agreement on whether other surahs that resemble du'as belonged in the written Qur'an given that Ibn Mas'ud left out of his mushaf Surahs Al-Fatihah, and 113 and 114 (called Al-Mu'awwidhatan), as mentioned above. Al-Qurtubi's tafsir contains a narration from Ibn Mas'ud that he omitted Al-Fatihah for brevity<ref>“’Abdullah bin Mas’ud was asked as to why he did not write al-Fatiha in his Mushaf. He replied, ‘If I were to write I would write it before every surah.’” Abu Bakr al-Anbari explains this saying every raka’ah (in prayers) starts with al-Fatiha and then another surah is recited. It is as if Ibn Mas’ud said, ‘I have dropped it for the sake of brevity and I have trusted its preservation by Muslims (collectively).’ (al-Qurtubi, al-Jami al-Ahkam al-Qur’an. Dar al-Kutab al-Misriyah, Cairo, 1964 vol.1 p.115)</ref>, and there was a theory to explain his omission of surahs 113 and 114<ref name="Itqan ibn Masud"></ref>. | ||
The canonical Qira'at (recitations of the Qur'an) of the Kufan readers include all 3 surahs yet have Ibn Mas'ud in some chains of their isnads. A common apologetic argument is that therefore Ibn Mas'ud must have included all three surahs in his Quran. However, the isnads to each of the Kufan readers also include transmissions that do not go via Ibn Masud. Moreover, it is known that the canonical reader Hamza (on whose reading also two other Kufan readings depend) made use of Ibn Mas'ud's readings (via his teacher, al A'mash) only insofar as they complied with the Uthmanic rasm.<ref>Shady Hekmat Nasser, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx7i2Y56WuYC&pg=PA57&dq=aasim+qira%27ah&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aasim%20qira'ah&f=false ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh''], pp.57-58. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.</ref> | |||
Sometimes the 14th century scholar Muhammad Abdul Azim al-Zurqani is quoted, who suggested that the companions who included Al-Hafd and Al-Khal' in their Qur'an mushafs were merely noting them down as du'as alongside the Qur'an, and that this had led to the confusion over whether they were considered Qur'anic. But it is a very unlikely theory that Ubayy ibn Ka'b (and possibly other companions) who recorded these surahs in his mushaf would allow such a misunderstanding to occur. We have two independent lists saying that Ubayy ibn Ka'b sequenced these two du'as between what are now surahs 103 and 104.<ref name="Noldeke"></ref> | Sometimes the 14th century scholar Muhammad Abdul Azim al-Zurqani is quoted, who suggested that the companions who included Al-Hafd and Al-Khal' in their Qur'an mushafs were merely noting them down as du'as alongside the Qur'an, and that this had led to the confusion over whether they were considered Qur'anic. But it is a very unlikely theory that Ubayy ibn Ka'b (and possibly other companions) who recorded these surahs in his mushaf would allow such a misunderstanding to occur. We have two independent lists saying that Ubayy ibn Ka'b sequenced these two du'as between what are now surahs 103 and 104.<ref name="Noldeke"></ref> | ||
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==The Qira'at (Variant Oral Readings of the Qur'an)== | ==The Qira'at (Variant Oral Readings of the Qur'an)== | ||
<center><youtube>k6v3b9uPT38</youtube></center> | <center><youtube>k6v3b9uPT38</youtube></center> | ||
As mentioned above, numerous possible oral readings of the Qur'an can be and were imposed upon the Uthmanic rasm (an early stage of Arabic orthography, which lacked diacritics such as short vowel signs and with scarce use of dotting to distinguish certain consonants). Today we have seven or ten canonical qira'at, which are slightly different early oral recitations or readings of the Qur'an by famous readers. There were once many more qira'at, from which twenty-five were described by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam two centuries after Muhammad's death, and restricted to seven after three centuries following a work by Abu Bakr ibn Mujahid (d.936 CE). A further three qira'at were added to the | As mentioned above, numerous possible oral readings of the Qur'an can be and were imposed upon the Uthmanic rasm (an early stage of Arabic orthography, which lacked diacritics such as short vowel signs, most word-internal ʾalifs, and with scarce use of dotting to distinguish certain consonants). Today we have seven or ten canonical qira'at, which are slightly different early oral recitations or readings of the Qur'an by famous readers. There were once many more qira'at, from which twenty-five were described by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam two centuries after Muhammad's death, and restricted to seven after three centuries following a work by Abu Bakr ibn Mujahid (d.936 CE). A further three qira'at were added to the canon many centuries later by Ibn al-Jazari (d.1429 CE) - those of Abu Jafar, Ya'qub and Khalaf. These three had been popular since the time of the seven<ref>Various sized selections of qira'at were published over the centuries. Ibn Mihran (d. 991) was the first to choose the same set of ten. See Christopher Melchert (2008) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25728289 The Relation of the Ten Readings to One Another] Journal of Qur'anic Studies Vol.10 (2) pp.73-87</ref>, and provide additional variants.<ref>See for example 19:25, 82:9, and 21:104 on [https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/ corpuscoranicum.de]</ref> Some scholars regarded them as having a somewhat less reliable transmission status than the seven.<ref>Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (1998), "Variant Readings of the Quran: A critical study of their historical and linguistic origins", Institute of Islamic Thought: Virginia, USA, pp.126-133</ref> Ibn al Jazari lamented that the masses only accepted the seven readings chosen by Ibn Mujahid.<ref>Shady Hekmat Nasser, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx7i2Y56WuYC&pg=PA57&dq=aasim+qira%27ah&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aasim%20qira'ah&f=false ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh''], p. 64. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.</ref> | ||
Al Zarkashi (d.1392 CE) argued that even the differences in the canonical readings are mutawatir (mass transmitted), despite each only having one or a small number of single chains of transmission between Muhammad and the eponymous reader, because the inhabitants in the cities in which they were popular also heard them. Professor Shady Nasser finds it hard to accept al Zarkashi's argument since in that case "variants within one Eponymous Reading should not have existed", as well as due to the presence of multiple popular readers in each city.<ref>Shady Hekmat Nasser, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx7i2Y56WuYC&pg=PA57&dq=aasim+qira%27ah&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aasim%20qira'ah&f=false ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh''], p. 103. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.</ref> As noted above, most canonical readings are not found in early vocalised manuscripts. Ibn al-Jazari | The authenticity of the canonical readings became an important issue to affirm. Al Zarkashi (d.1392 CE) argued that even the differences in the canonical readings are mutawatir (mass transmitted from the time of Muhammad), despite each reading only having one or a small number of single chains of purported transmission between Muhammad and the eponymous reader, because the inhabitants in the cities in which they were popular also heard them. Professor Shady Nasser finds it hard to accept al Zarkashi's argument since in that case "variants within one Eponymous Reading should not have existed" (i.e. students of a particular reader often did not transmit identically), as well as due to the presence of multiple popular readers in each city.<ref>Shady Hekmat Nasser, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Kx7i2Y56WuYC&pg=PA57&dq=aasim+qira%27ah&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=aasim%20qira'ah&f=false ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh''], p. 103. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012.</ref> As noted above, most canonical readings are not found in early vocalised manuscripts. To secure the status of the three readings after the seven, Ibn al-Jazari obtained a fatwa from Ibn al Subki declaring that all 10 readings were fully mutawatir, though later he changed his mind.<ref>Ibid. p.36</ref> | ||
Each of the Qira'at has two canonical transmissions (riwayat) named after its transmitters, one of which is the basis for any particular text (mushaf) of the Qur'an. For example, the mushaf used mainly in North Africa is based on the riwayah of Warsh from Nafi (the reading of Nafi transmitted by Warsh). As Nasser explains, the two-Rawi canon for ibn Mujahid's choice of seven readings was effectively canonized due to the popularity both of a simplified student Qira'at manual by al-Dani (d.1053 CE; who in another more complicated work documents | Each of the Qira'at has two canonical transmissions (riwayat) named after its transmitters, one of which is the basis for any particular text (mushaf) of the Qur'an. For example, the mushaf used mainly in North Africa is based on the riwayah of Warsh from Nafi (the reading of Nafi transmitted by Warsh). As Nasser explains, the two-Rawi canon for ibn Mujahid's choice of seven readings was effectively canonized due to the popularity both of a simplified student Qira'at manual by al-Dani (d.1053 CE; who in another more complicated work documents a larger range of transmissions for each reader), and a poetic form of this manual by al-Shatibi (d.1388 CE).<ref>Nasser, S.H. (2013) "The Two-Rāwī Canon before and after ad-Dānī (d. 444/1052–3): The Role of Abū ṭ-Ṭayyib Ibn Ghalbūn (d. 389/998) and the Qayrawān/Andalus School in Creating the Two-Rāwī Canon", ''Oriens'' 41 (1-02), 41-75</ref> The canonical transmitters all differ in their readings, even when they transmit from the same reader. This two transmitter system was expanded when Ibn al Jazari canonized the three readers after the seven mentioned above, giving twenty canonical transmitters for the ten readers in total. | ||
{| class="wikitable" | {| class="wikitable" | ||
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===Relationship between Qira'at and Ahruf=== | ===Relationship between Qira'at and Ahruf=== | ||
The legitimacy of variant oral readings is derived from some hadith narrations that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad in seven ahruf. The word ahruf literally means words or letters, but is commonly translated as modes of recitation. The nature of these ahruf generated a wide range of theories, some more plausible than others.<ref>These are summarised in Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (1998), "Variant Readings of the Quran: A critical study of their historical and linguistic origins", Institute of Islamic Thought: Virginia, USA, pp.9-20</ref> A popular, though problematic theory was that these were dialects of seven Arab tribes, and only one, that of the Quraysh was retained by Uthman. However, most variants among the canonical readings are not of a dialect nature<ref>Melchert, Christopher [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25728289 The Relation of the Ten Readings to One Another] Journal of Qur'anic Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2008, pp. 73–87</ref>. It also makes little sense of {{Bukhari|9|93|640}} in which Muhammad | The legitimacy of variant oral readings is derived from some hadith narrations that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad in seven ''ahruf''. The word ahruf literally means words or letters, but is commonly translated as modes of recitation. The nature of these ahruf generated a wide range of theories, some more plausible than others.<ref>These are summarised in Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (1998), "Variant Readings of the Quran: A critical study of their historical and linguistic origins", Institute of Islamic Thought: Virginia, USA, pp.9-20</ref> A popular, though problematic theory was that these were dialects of seven Arab tribes, and only one, that of the Quraysh was retained by Uthman. However, most variants among the canonical readings are not of a dialect nature<ref>Melchert, Christopher [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25728289 The Relation of the Ten Readings to One Another] Journal of Qur'anic Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2008, pp. 73–87</ref>. It also makes little sense of {{Bukhari|9|93|640}} in which Muhammad said the Quran was revealed in seven ahruf when two companions who were both of the Quraysh tribe disagreed on a reading. A more tenable view is that the ahruf represent variant readings at certain points in the Quran. | ||
A related question on which scholars differed was whether or not all the ahruf were preserved. One group including Ibn Hazm (d.1064 CE) believed that all seven ahruf were accomodated by the Uthmanic rasm (consonantal skeleton), finding it unimaginable that anything would be omitted.<ref>Nasser, S. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mRAzAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh''], Leiden, Boston:Brill, 2013, p.83</ref>. Al-Tabari argued that only one harf was preserved by Uthman (which he interpreted to mean the dialect of the Quraysh), while Ibn al Jazari said the view of most scholars is that only as many of the ahruf as the Uthmanic rasm accommodated were preserved<ref>Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (1998), "Variant Readings of the Quran: A critical study of their historical and linguistic origins", Institute of Islamic Thought: Virginia, USA, pp.65-67</ref>. Indeed, this latter is more viable theologically, for the non-Uthmanic companion readings must be fraudulent under the first view, and problems with the second view include those mentioned above. | A related question on which scholars differed was whether or not all the ahruf were preserved. One group including Ibn Hazm (d.1064 CE) believed that all seven ahruf were accomodated by the Uthmanic rasm (consonantal skeleton), finding it unimaginable that anything would be omitted.<ref>Nasser, S. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mRAzAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh''], Leiden, Boston:Brill, 2013, p.83</ref>. Al-Tabari argued that only one harf was preserved by Uthman (which he interpreted to mean the dialect of the Quraysh), while Ibn al Jazari said the view of most scholars is that only as many of the ahruf as the Uthmanic rasm accommodated were preserved<ref>Ahmad 'Ali al Imam (1998), "Variant Readings of the Quran: A critical study of their historical and linguistic origins", Institute of Islamic Thought: Virginia, USA, pp.65-67</ref>. Indeed, this latter view is more viable theologically, for the non-Uthmanic companion readings must be fraudulent under the first view, and problems with the second view include those mentioned above. | ||
As part of the majority view reported by Ibn al Jazari, the Uthmanic codex was based on the harf of the "final review" or final revealed version of the Quran<ref>Ibid. p.66</ref>. However, there were around 40 scribal errors in the official copies of the Uthmanic text (see below).<ref>See the list in Cook, M. (2004) “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” ''Graeco-Arabica'', 9-10 or Nasser, S. "The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān (324/936)" Brill, 2020, pp.143-150</ref> Canonical qira'at were required to comply with this range rather than an entirely unified text. Indeed, in some cases they even strayed beyond these boundaries.<ref name="li-yahaba-li-nahaba">See for example {{Quran|19|19}}, where Abu Amr and the transmission of Warsh from Nafi have Gabriel saying to Mary li-yahaba ("that he may give") instead of li-'ahaba ("that I may give") [https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/19/vers/19 corpuscoranicum.de]. The ya consonant for this variant is sometimes written in red ink on manuscripts or superscript in print.<BR>The non-canonical Ṣan'ā' 1 palimpsest solves the theologically awkward reading in another way, using li-nahaba ("that we may give") - See p.64, line 15 of Folio 22B in | As part of the majority view reported by Ibn al Jazari, the Uthmanic codex was based on the harf of the "final review" or final revealed version of the Quran<ref>Ibid. p.66</ref>. However, there were around 40 scribal errors in the official copies of the Uthmanic text (see below).<ref>See the list in Cook, M. (2004) “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” ''Graeco-Arabica'', 9-10 or Nasser, S. "The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān (324/936)" Brill, 2020, pp.143-150</ref> Canonical qira'at were required to comply with this range rather than an entirely unified text. Indeed, in some cases they even strayed beyond these boundaries.<ref name="li-yahaba-li-nahaba">See for example {{Quran|19|19}}, where Abu Amr and the transmission of Warsh from Nafi have Gabriel saying to Mary li-yahaba ("that he may give") instead of li-'ahaba ("that I may give") [https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/19/vers/19 corpuscoranicum.de]. The ya consonant for this variant is sometimes written in red ink on manuscripts or superscript in print.<BR>The non-canonical Ṣan'ā' 1 palimpsest solves the theologically awkward reading in another way, using li-nahaba ("that we may give") - See p.64, line 15 of Folio 22B in | ||
Sadeghi & Goudarzi, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/110978941/Sanaa-1-and-the-Origins-of-the-Qur-An San'a' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an] Der Islam 87, No. 1-2 (February 2012) 1-129</ref> | Sadeghi & Goudarzi, [https://www.scribd.com/doc/110978941/Sanaa-1-and-the-Origins-of-the-Qur-An San'a' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an] Der Islam 87, No. 1-2 (February 2012) 1-129</ref> | ||
Academic scholars who have analysed the isnads and matn of the transmissions generally believe that the main seven ahruf hadith (involving Umar) is very early. It is widely transmitted, with Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 124) as the common link.<ref>Nasser, S. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mRAzAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh''], Leiden, Boston:Brill, 2013, pp. 18-31</ref> It may have been invented at an early stage to accommodate the proliferation of variant readings. Given that the Qur'an and hadith reveal that Muhammad would forget entire verses, another plausible theory would be that he was inconsistent in his recitation and appealed to ahruf as a convenient excuse. In the most widely transmitted ahruf hadith, Muhammad explains the ahruf to pacify an angry Umar, who heard Hisham b. Hakim reading a surah in an unfamiliar way.<ref>See how Muhammad settled a dispute between his followers regarding the correct recitation {{Bukhari|9|93|640}}</ref> In another account, Ubayy b. Ka'b feels denial/disbelief (al takzeeb التَّكْذِيبِ<ref>كذب - [https://lexicon-quranic-research.net/data/22_k/051_kcb.html Lane's Lexicon] pp. 2597-2600</ref>), the like of which he had not felt since before Islam, when Muhammad gives his approval to some unfamiliar and differing recitations (qira'at), then begs forgiveness when Muhammad explains the ahruf.<ref>{{Muslim|4|1787}}<BR>Note that in the translation, "dialects" is ahruf in the Arabic, and "styles" is qira'at.</ref> In another version, Muhammad's explanation to Ubayy gives significant leeway in how the Qur'an was to be recited.<ref>See Abu Dawud Book 8:1472 [http://sunnah.com/abudawud/8/62 sunnah.com] in which the angel reveals up to seven modes. "He then said: 'Each mode is sufficiently health-giving, whether you utter 'all-hearing and all-knowing' or instead 'all-powerful and all-wise'."</ref> | |||
===Differences in the Qira'at=== | ===Differences in the Qira'at=== | ||
Muslims are commonly told that the differences between the Qira'at can be explained away as styles of pronunciation or dialect and spelling rules. Called uṣūl, these are rules that apply to the entire reading, causing | Muslims are commonly told that the differences between the Qira'at can be explained away as styles of pronunciation or dialect and spelling rules. Called uṣūl, these are rules that apply to the entire reading, causing tens of thousands of tiny differences with no impact on meaning. Yet there is another category, called farsh, of individual differences that cannot be generalised in rules, which also includes changes in wording. In a few cases the variants added or omitted words, and others are completely different words or contradict each other in meaning. The Corpus Coranicum database<ref>[http://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/1/vers/1 Corpus Coranicum - Variants tab]</ref>, the Encyclopedia of the Readings of the Quran database<ref>[https://erquran.org/ https://erquran.org] to see the variants in Arabic script and transliterated, including non-canonical variants</ref>, and the nquran website<ref>[http://nquran.com nquran.com] to see the variants in Arabic script</ref> can be used as neutral online sources for verifying the existence of such variations in the Qira'at. The Bridges translation of the Quran by Fadel Soliman can be selected on [https://quran.com quran.com] and highlights words with canonical variants, listing them in English with their readers as footnotes. An interesting example is given below, and more of them are listed in the tables in the next sections. | ||
In {{Quran|18|86}}, Dhu'l Qarnayn finds the sun setting in a '''muddy''' spring, according to the Qira'at used by today's most popular transmissions of the Qur'an. However, in around half of the various Qira'at the sun intead sets in a '''warm''' spring. The latter variant is even used in some English translations. It is easy to see how the corruption arose (whichever one is the variant). The arabic word حَمِئَة (hami'atin - muddy) sounds very similar to the completely different word حَامِيَة (hamiyatin - warm). Al-Tabari records in his tafseer for this verse [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Dhul-Qarnayn_and_the_Sun_Setting_in_a_Muddy_Spring_-_Part_One#Tafsir_.28Commentaries.29 the differing opinions] on whether the sun sets in muddy or warm water. | In {{Quran|18|86}}, Dhu'l Qarnayn finds the sun setting in a '''muddy''' spring, according to the Qira'at used by today's most popular transmissions of the Qur'an. However, in around half of the various Qira'at the sun intead sets in a '''warm''' spring. The latter variant is even used in some English translations. It is easy to see how the corruption arose (whichever one is the variant). The arabic word حَمِئَة (hami'atin - muddy) sounds very similar to the completely different word حَامِيَة (hamiyatin - warm). Al-Tabari records in his tafseer for this verse [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Dhul-Qarnayn_and_the_Sun_Setting_in_a_Muddy_Spring_-_Part_One#Tafsir_.28Commentaries.29 the differing opinions] on whether the sun sets in muddy or warm water. | ||
The reading of Ibn Amir, which is one of those qira'at containing hamiyah instead of hami'ah, is still used in some parts of Yemen, and used to be more widespread.<ref>Leemhuis, F. 2006, 'From Palm Leaves to the Internet' in McAuliffe J. D. (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.150 [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2oLiXT_66EC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150#v=onepage&q&f=false Google books preview]</ref>. In written form this difference is not just a matter of vowel marks. Even the consonantal text with dots is different, though in the original Uthmanic orthography they may have looked the same due to the very limited use consonantal dotting and | The reading of Ibn Amir, which is one of those qira'at containing hamiyah instead of hami'ah, is still used in some parts of Yemen, and used to be more widespread.<ref>Leemhuis, F. 2006, 'From Palm Leaves to the Internet' in McAuliffe J. D. (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.150 [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2oLiXT_66EC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150#v=onepage&q&f=false Google books preview]</ref>. In written form this difference is not just a matter of vowel marks. Even the consonantal text with dots is different, though in the original Uthmanic orthography they may have looked the same due to the very limited use consonantal dotting and word-internal ʾalifs (unwritten or inconsistent usage in most situations) at that time. A scan of a printed Qur'an containing the mushaf of Hisham's transmission from Ibn Amir's reading can even be read online and it can be seen that حَامِيَة (warm) is used in verse 18:86<ref>[http://read.kitabklasik.net/2010/12/mushaf-al-quran-al-karim-riwayat-hisyam.html kitabklasik.net] Click one of the links labelled download to view in pdf format and see page 307 of the 630 page pdf</ref>. | ||
For further discussion, see the section ''Origin of the Qira'at Variants'' further below. | For further discussion, see the section ''Origin of the Qira'at Variants'' further below. | ||
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|[https://quran.com/21/4?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/21/vers/4 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=21&aya=4 nquran.com] | |[https://quran.com/21/4?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/21/vers/4 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=21&aya=4 nquran.com] | ||
|- | |||
|{{Quran|30|22}} | |||
|li-l-'aalimeena (for the knowledgable) | |||
|li-l-'aalameena (for the creations) | |||
|In all the other readings the things mentioned are signs li-l-ʿālamīna (for the creations) i.e. signs for all peoples as in {{Quran|21|91}} and {{Quran|29|15}}, knowledgable or otherwise. | |||
|[https://quran.com/30/22?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/30/vers/22 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=30&aya=22 nquran.com] | |||
|- | |- | ||
|{{Quran|43|19}} | |{{Quran|43|19}} | ||
|'ibaadu (slaves) | |'ibaadu (slaves) | ||
|'inda (with) | |'inda (with) | ||
|As with most of these examples, the rasm (early stage of Arabic orthography in use at the time of Uthman) is the same in both versions (عِندَ vs عِبَٰدُ), in this case allowing two completely different root words to be read since the rasm barely employed consonantal dotting and | |As with most of these examples, the rasm (early stage of Arabic orthography in use at the time of Uthman) is the same in both versions (عِندَ vs عِبَٰدُ), in this case allowing two completely different root words to be read since the rasm barely employed consonantal dotting and word-internal ʾalifs, and lacked short vowels at that time. | ||
|[https://quran.com/43/19?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/43/vers/19 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=43&aya=19 nquran.com] | |[https://quran.com/43/19?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/43/vers/19 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=43&aya=19 nquran.com] | ||
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|Ibn Kathir, Abu Amr,Shu'ba and Hamza read wa-'arjulikum (your feet [genitive case]) | |Ibn Kathir, Abu Amr,Shu'ba and Hamza read wa-'arjulikum (your feet [genitive case]) | ||
|The others read wa-'arjulakum (your feet [accusative case]) | |The others read wa-'arjulakum (your feet [accusative case]) | ||
|The grammatical variance caused different rulings on wudu between Sunni and Shi'i (whether to rub or wash the feet)<ref>Hussein Abdul-Raof, "Theological approaches to Qur'anic exergesis", London and New York: Routledge, 2012, p.101</ref> | |The grammatical variance caused different rulings on wudu between Sunni and Shi'i (whether to rub or wash the feet)<ref>Hussein Abdul-Raof, "Theological approaches to Qur'anic exergesis", London and New York: Routledge, 2012, p.101</ref><ref>Noldeke et al. notice that a compromise variant here (wa-arjulukum) in the reading of al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 110) allows the controversy to be dated as very early. See p.491 in Noldeke et al. History of the Qur'an</ref> | ||
|[https://quran.com/5/6?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/5/vers/6 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=5&aya=6 nquran.com] | |[https://quran.com/5/6?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/5/vers/6 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=5&aya=6 nquran.com] | ||
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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. Due to the constraint of a standard rasm and because any viable variant would need to make sense in context, most variants are mutually compatible. Yet critics point out that some examples such as in the tables above contradict each other. A viable | 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. Due to the constraint of a standard rasm and because any viable variant would need to make sense in context, most variants are mutually compatible. Yet critics point out that some examples such as in the tables above contradict each other. A viable explanation is also lacking for the large number of superfluous variants (examples of which are even more common - see the table in the next section). | ||
It is also notable that the majority of consonantal dotting differences involve person or gender prefixes (t-, y-, n-), while a minority transform one root word into another, which seems to reflect the balance of ambiguity in the rasm. Function words are also often transformed into others by means of vowel and other diacritics, such as the few dozen cases of variants between inna (indeed), anna (that), or an (to).<ref>See the [https:// | It is also notable that the majority of consonantal dotting differences involve person or gender prefixes (t-, y-, n-), while a minority transform one root word into another, which seems to reflect the balance of ambiguity in the rasm. Function words are also often transformed into others by means of vowel and other diacritics, such as the few dozen cases of variants between inna (indeed), anna (that), or an (to).<ref>See the [https://erquran.org/ https://erquran.org/ database] by Shady Nasser and on the filter table view, filter for the seven and ten readings sughra Variant Status, with dotting, imperfect prefix conjugation, or in→an Variant Type filters.</ref> | ||
A more extensive study of differences between the Hafs and Warsh transmissions and comparisons with Qur'an manuscripts can be read online<ref>[http://www.free-minds.org/sites/default/files/WhichQuran.pdf Which Qur'an?] by Layth Al-Shaiban</ref>. Further studies of dialogue variants and superfluous variants are also available.<ref>[https://quranvariants.wordpress.com/dialogue-quran-variants/ Dialogue variants in the canonical Qirāʾāt readings of the Qurʼān] by Avnar Sediche</ref><ref>[https://quranvariants.wordpress.com/superfluous-quran-variants/ Superflous variants in the readings of the Qurʼān] by Avnar Sediche</ref> | A more extensive study of differences between the Hafs and Warsh transmissions and comparisons with Qur'an manuscripts can be read online<ref>[http://www.free-minds.org/sites/default/files/WhichQuran.pdf Which Qur'an?] by Layth Al-Shaiban</ref>. Further studies of dialogue variants and superfluous variants are also available.<ref>[https://quranvariants.wordpress.com/dialogue-quran-variants/ Dialogue variants in the canonical Qirāʾāt readings of the Qurʼān] by Avnar Sediche</ref><ref>[https://quranvariants.wordpress.com/superfluous-quran-variants/ Superflous variants in the readings of the Qurʼān] by Avnar Sediche</ref> | ||
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===The number of Qira'at variants, canonical and non-canonical=== | ===The number of Qira'at variants, canonical and non-canonical=== | ||
Altogether, there are | Altogether, there are around 1,400 words with variants among the canonical readings of the Quran<ref>Marjin van Putten has suggested the number of farsh variants is about 1,400 based on one counting method - see this [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1619296362910351366 twitter.com thread] - 28 January 2023 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20230205001535/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1619296362910351366 archive])</ref><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. These are the farsh differences mentioned above. 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 sometimes 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> | ||
Beyond the canonical variants, the numbers become truely vast. In 2002, Abd al-Latif al-Kitab published his authoritative compendium of qira'at variants, ''Mu'jam al-Qira'at'', which is commonly cited by academic scholars. The main ten volumes list variants reportedly read by the canonical readers and transmitters, the companions, and other early reciters, mostly of the first two centuries.<ref>Abd al-Latif al-Khatib (2002) [https://archive.org/details/FP63091 Mu'jam al-Qira'at (معجم القراءات)]. Damascus: Dār Sa'd-al-Din. See [https://waqfeya.net/book.php?bid=12465\ here] for a useful volume index</ref> Together, these come to approximately 6,000 pages with around 5 variants listed per page. In 1937, Arthur Jeffery had compiled over 2000 companion variants in a smaller work.<ref name="Jeffery" /> The bulk of al-Khatib's compilation thus comprises the variants reportedly read by other early reciters, for example al-Hasan al-Basri or his students. These non-canonical variants include both those that comply with and those that do not fit the Uthmanic rasm standard. It is inconceivable that anywhere near this number of variants for the same words could have been part of Muhammad's recitation. Most of them must post-date the standardisation. | Beyond the canonical variants, the numbers become truely vast. In 2002, Abd al-Latif al-Kitab published his authoritative compendium of qira'at variants, ''Mu'jam al-Qira'at'', which is commonly cited by academic scholars. The main ten volumes list variants reportedly read by the canonical readers and transmitters, the companions, and other early reciters, mostly of the first two centuries.<ref>Abd al-Latif al-Khatib (2002) [https://archive.org/details/FP63091 Mu'jam al-Qira'at (معجم القراءات)]. Damascus: Dār Sa'd-al-Din. See [https://waqfeya.net/book.php?bid=12465\ here] for a useful volume index</ref> Together, these come to approximately 6,000 pages with around 5 variants listed per page. In 1937, Arthur Jeffery had compiled over 2000 companion variants in a smaller work.<ref name="Jeffery" /> The bulk of al-Khatib's compilation thus comprises the variants reportedly read by other early reciters, for example al-Hasan al-Basri or his students. These non-canonical variants include both those that comply with and those that do not fit the Uthmanic rasm standard. It is inconceivable that anywhere near this number of variants for the same words could have been part of Muhammad's recitation. Most of them must post-date the standardisation. | ||
In terms of the material evidence, virtually all known manuscripts are of the Uthmanic text type, the oldest of which lack diacritics and therefore limits the ability to identify variants. Early vocalised manuscripts with diacritics tend to mainly involve canonical variants (albeit the reading as a whole is rarely recognisable as belonging to any known reader). However, as noted above, the Sanaa 1 palimpsest is known for having dozens of non-Uthmanic variants similar to those reported of the companions. In addition, a PhD thesis by leading Quranic manuscript expert, Alba Fedeli, describes a few of the very early Mingana collection manuscripts (including the famous Birmingham fragment, which is now known to be actually part of a larger manuscript). This was notable in that most of the recognisable qira'at variants therein complied with the Uthmanic rasm standard, but were mostly not canonical, matching instead variants reported of companions or (more commonly) early non-canonical reciters.<ref>Alba Fedeli (2014). [https://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5864/1/Fedeli15PhD.pdf EARLY QUR’ĀNIC MANUSCRIPTS, THEIR TEXT, AND THE ALPHONSE MINGANA PAPERS HELD IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM] (PDF) (Ph.D.). Birmingham University. <BR>See the Qira'at sections for the three manuscripts on pp. 170-172, 227-235 and 308-309. These are identifiable sometimes from consonantal dottings, but mostly by the variant usage of | In terms of the material evidence, virtually all known manuscripts are of the Uthmanic text type, the oldest of which lack diacritics and therefore limits the ability to identify variants. Early vocalised manuscripts with diacritics tend to mainly involve canonical variants (albeit the reading as a whole is rarely recognisable as belonging to any known reader). However, as noted above, the Sanaa 1 palimpsest is known for having dozens of non-Uthmanic variants similar to those reported of the companions. In addition, a PhD thesis by leading Quranic manuscript expert, Alba Fedeli, describes a few of the very early Mingana collection manuscripts (including the famous Birmingham fragment, which is now known to be actually part of a larger manuscript). This was notable in that most of the recognisable qira'at variants therein complied with the Uthmanic rasm standard, but were mostly not canonical, matching instead variants reported of companions or (more commonly) early non-canonical reciters.<ref>Alba Fedeli (2014). [https://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5864/1/Fedeli15PhD.pdf EARLY QUR’ĀNIC MANUSCRIPTS, THEIR TEXT, AND THE ALPHONSE MINGANA PAPERS HELD IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM] (PDF) (Ph.D.). Birmingham University. <BR>See the Qira'at sections for the three manuscripts on pp. 170-172, 227-235 and 308-309. These are identifiable sometimes from consonantal dottings, but mostly by the variant usage of word-internal ʾalifs, which was considered to comply with the Uthmanic rasm at that time. Short vowels marks were not yet in use at the time of these manuscripts.</ref> | ||
===Implications of these numbers=== | ===Implications of these numbers=== | ||
Critics argue that it is hard to explain why there would be so many authentic variants available that just so happened to be accommodated by the Uthmanic orthography or sound similar, even granting the rasm selection effect. As mentioned above, | Critics argue that it is hard to explain why there would be so many authentic variants available that just so happened to be accommodated by the Uthmanic orthography or sound similar, even granting the rasm selection effect. Van Putten has made a similar point.<ref>See p. 53 in Van Putten, Marijn, [https://brill.com/view/title/61587 Quranic Arabic: From its Hijazi origins to its classical reading traditions], Leiden: Brill, 2022 isbn: 9789004506251 (Open access in pdf format)</ref> As mentioned above, around 1,400 out of c.77,000 words in the Qur'an have canonical variants. There are two further considerations which greatly multiply the scale of the problem: 1) There is no reason to assume that even if genuine, these were the ''only'' variants that Muhammad uttered which complied with the (yet to be standardised) rasm. 2) There is no reason to assume that he would only have uttered variants that would later fit the Uthmanic rasm standard. Indeed, the companion variants often do not fit this standard. Therefore, the variants would just be a small subset of those he really uttered before any rasm constraint. If the canonical variants are all authentic, these considerations would therefore imply many thousands more. It is far more likely that most of the canonical variants post-date the rasm standard. | ||
Further, it seems doubtful that the Uthmanic rasm standardisation would have been successful had it required so many words to be discarded by the early Muslim communities. A large number of variants would also have provided ample cover for inauthentic ones to be innovated, deliberately or otherwise. The companions would not have had perfect memories, and where we do have reports of companions reading particular canonical variants, sometimes they were attested only of a single companion such as Ibn Mas'ud, or 'Ali when he disliked the main reading.<ref>An interesting example is Q. 17:102 mentioned in the table above. Al-Farrāʼ records for this verse in his ''Ma‘ānī aI-Qur’ān'' that the “I have known” variant is attributed to ʿAlī, who is narrated as saying, “By God, what the enemy of God knows, Musa knows!” (see p. 11 of [https://ramonharvey.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/al-kisai-harvey2016.pdf this paper]).</ref> | Further, it seems doubtful that the Uthmanic rasm standardisation would have been successful had it required so many words to be discarded by the early Muslim communities. A large number of variants would also have provided ample cover for inauthentic ones to be innovated, deliberately or otherwise. The companions would not have had perfect memories, and where we do have reports of companions reading particular canonical variants, sometimes they were attested only of a single companion such as Ibn Mas'ud, or 'Ali when he disliked the main reading.<ref>An interesting example is Q. 17:102 mentioned in the table above. Al-Farrāʼ records for this verse in his ''Ma‘ānī aI-Qur’ān'' that the “I have known” variant is attributed to ʿAlī, who is narrated as saying, “By God, what the enemy of God knows, Musa knows!” (see p. 11 of [https://ramonharvey.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/al-kisai-harvey2016.pdf this paper]).</ref> | ||
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===Origin of the Qira'at Variants=== | ===Origin of the Qira'at Variants=== | ||
The Uthmanic codex was written in a rasm, which is a "defective" Arabic script, meaning that | The Uthmanic codex was written in a rasm, which is a "defective" Arabic script, meaning that it lacked most word-internal ʾalifs (unwritten or inconsistent usage in most situations), had no markings for short vowels, and sparse (if any) dots that were in later times used to distinguish the many different but identically written consonantal letters. | ||
Professor Shady Nasser shows that at the time when Ibn Mujahid wrote his ''Kitab al Sab'ah'' selecting the 7 eponymous readings that later became canonical, adherence of readings to the Uthmanic rasm and good Arabic grammar were already important criteria <ref>Nasser, S. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mRAzAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh''], Leiden, Boston:Brill, 2013, p.53</ref>, but Ibn Mujahid restricted his selection to just 7 by choosing the consensus readings from each of Mecca, Medina, Basra, Syria and the 3 most popular readers from Kufah, where the legacy of Ibn Mas'ud's (now banned) reading meant that there was no dominant Uthmanic reading in that city.<ref>Ibid. pp. 47-61</ref>. Ibn Mujahid's decision to select just 7 readings drew frequent criticism after its publication<ref>Ibid. p.64</ref>. | Professor Shady Nasser shows that at the time when Ibn Mujahid wrote his ''Kitab al Sab'ah'' selecting the 7 eponymous readings that later became canonical, adherence of readings to the Uthmanic rasm and good Arabic grammar were already important criteria <ref>Nasser, S. [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mRAzAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh''], Leiden, Boston:Brill, 2013, p.53</ref>, but Ibn Mujahid restricted his selection to just 7 by choosing the consensus readings from each of Mecca, Medina, Basra, Syria and the 3 most popular readers from Kufah, where the legacy of Ibn Mas'ud's (now banned) reading meant that there was no dominant Uthmanic reading in that city.<ref>Ibid. pp. 47-61</ref>. Ibn Mujahid's decision to select just 7 readings drew frequent criticism after its publication<ref>Ibid. p.64</ref>. | ||
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Dr Marijn Van Putten has shown that while the canonical readings largely comply with the Uthmanic rasm, more specifically they also each closely comply with the regional variants of that rasm, which were sent out to the major intellectual centres of early Islam and contained a small number of copying mistakes. So, the Kufan readings closely correspond to the variants found in the rasm of the codex given to that city and so on.<ref>{{citation |last1=Van Putten |first1=Marijn |date=April 2020|title=Hišām's ʾIbrāhām : Evidence for a Canonical Quranic Reading Based on the Rasm |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338434122_Hisam%27s_Ibraham_Evidence_for_a_Canonical_Quranic_Reading_Based_on_the_Rasm |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=251 |access-date=7 July 2020}} pp.13-15 of the open access pdf</ref><ref>He elaborates in much more detail in this Twitter thread in which he also explains why the opposite explanation, that the regional rasm variants are adaptations to the readings in those places, is "untenable" {{cite web| url=https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1218669152371650560 | title=Marijn van Putten thread on Twitter.com| author=Dr Marijn Van Putten | date= 18 January 2020| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119002517/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1218669152371650560|deadurl=no}}</ref> | Dr Marijn Van Putten has shown that while the canonical readings largely comply with the Uthmanic rasm, more specifically they also each closely comply with the regional variants of that rasm, which were sent out to the major intellectual centres of early Islam and contained a small number of copying mistakes. So, the Kufan readings closely correspond to the variants found in the rasm of the codex given to that city and so on.<ref>{{citation |last1=Van Putten |first1=Marijn |date=April 2020|title=Hišām's ʾIbrāhām : Evidence for a Canonical Quranic Reading Based on the Rasm |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338434122_Hisam%27s_Ibraham_Evidence_for_a_Canonical_Quranic_Reading_Based_on_the_Rasm |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=251 |access-date=7 July 2020}} pp.13-15 of the open access pdf</ref><ref>He elaborates in much more detail in this Twitter thread in which he also explains why the opposite explanation, that the regional rasm variants are adaptations to the readings in those places, is "untenable" {{cite web| url=https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1218669152371650560 | title=Marijn van Putten thread on Twitter.com| author=Dr Marijn Van Putten | date= 18 January 2020| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119002517/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1218669152371650560|deadurl=no}}</ref> | ||
This would be an extraordinary coincidence if the variants are entirely due to oral transmissions going back to the recitations of Muhammad (though certainly the general agreement between readings where the rasm is ambiguous demonstrates that there was also oral transmission <ref>{{citation |last1=Van Putten |first1=Marijn |date=April 2020|title=Hišām's ʾIbrāhām : Evidence for a Canonical Quranic Reading Based on the Rasm |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338434122_Hisam%27s_Ibraham_Evidence_for_a_Canonical_Quranic_Reading_Based_on_the_Rasm |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=251 |access-date=7 July 2020}} pp.15-16 of the open access pdf</ref>). Instead, the regional correspondence of rasm and oral reading variants is easily explained if the readings were adapted to fit the codices given to those regions. By analysing the reported variants between regional codices, modern scholarship has confirmed that they form a stemma (textual tree relationship), suggesting that those particular variants did not originate in oral transmission.<ref>Ibid. pp.14-15 of the open access pdf in which the important stemmatic work of Michael Cook is highlighted.</ref> | This would be an extraordinary coincidence if the variants are entirely due to oral transmissions going back to the recitations of Muhammad (though certainly the general agreement between readings where the rasm is ambiguous demonstrates that there was also oral transmission <ref>{{citation |last1=Van Putten |first1=Marijn |date=April 2020|title=Hišām's ʾIbrāhām : Evidence for a Canonical Quranic Reading Based on the Rasm |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338434122_Hisam%27s_Ibraham_Evidence_for_a_Canonical_Quranic_Reading_Based_on_the_Rasm |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=251 |access-date=7 July 2020}} pp.15-16 of the open access pdf</ref>). Instead, the regional correspondence of rasm and oral reading variants is easily explained if the readings were adapted to fit the codices given to those regions. By analysing the reported variants between regional codices, modern scholarship has confirmed that they form a stemma (textual tree relationship), suggesting that those particular variants did not originate in oral transmission.<ref>Ibid. pp.14-15 of the open access pdf in which the important stemmatic work of Michael Cook is highlighted.</ref> Van Putten sets out these and other arguments that the readings depend not just on oral transmission but also to an extent on the rasm in his open access book ''Quran Arabic: From its Hijazi origins to its classical reading traditions''.<ref>Van Putten, Marijn, [https://brill.com/view/title/61587 Quranic Arabic: From its Hijazi origins to its classical reading traditions], Leiden: Brill, 2022, pp. 52-55 isbn: 9789004506251</ref> | ||
If qira'at variants could sometimes arise from variants in the rasm, we should also expect this to occur even in places where the rasm did not vary. Munther Younes highlights a particularly interesting example among the hundreds known.<ref>Younes, M., [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eQuWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR1 ''Charging Steeds or Maidens Performing Good Deeds. In Search of the Original Qur'an''], London:Routledge, 2018 p. 3</ref> In {{Quran|4|94}} we have the canonical variants fa-tabayyanū or fa-tathabbatū. In this case, the variant root words do not share even a single consonant in common (bāʼ-yāʼ-nūn versus thāʼ-bāʼ-tāʼ), but nevertheless both variants fit the defective script of the Uthmanic rasm, which lacked dots and vowels. Other examples of variants with the same rasm include {{Quran|6|57}}, where 4 of the canonical 7 qira'at have yaqḍi l-ḥaqqa "He judges the truth" rather than yaquṣṣu l-ḥaqqa "He declares the truth"<ref>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/6/vers/57 Corpus Coranicum]</ref> and {{Quran|10|30}} where two readers have tatlū (recounts, recites), whereas the other five have tablū (tests) <ref>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/10/vers/30 Corpus Coranicum]</ref>. In these examples the similarity between the variant readings is graphic (how the rasm looks) rather than phonic (how they sound) and involve consonantal dotting differences that transform one word into another, though short vowel differences make up the bulk of variants. | If qira'at variants could sometimes arise from variants in the rasm, we should also expect this to occur even in places where the rasm did not vary. Munther Younes highlights a particularly interesting example among the hundreds known.<ref>Younes, M., [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eQuWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR1 ''Charging Steeds or Maidens Performing Good Deeds. In Search of the Original Qur'an''], London:Routledge, 2018 p. 3</ref> In {{Quran|4|94}} we have the canonical variants fa-tabayyanū or fa-tathabbatū. In this case, the variant root words do not share even a single consonant in common (bāʼ-yāʼ-nūn versus thāʼ-bāʼ-tāʼ), but nevertheless both variants fit the defective script of the Uthmanic rasm, which lacked dots and vowels. Other examples of variants with the same rasm include {{Quran|6|57}}, where 4 of the canonical 7 qira'at have yaqḍi l-ḥaqqa "He judges the truth" rather than yaquṣṣu l-ḥaqqa "He declares the truth"<ref>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/6/vers/57 Corpus Coranicum]</ref> and {{Quran|10|30}} where two readers have tatlū (recounts, recites), whereas the other five have tablū (tests) <ref>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/10/vers/30 Corpus Coranicum]</ref>. In these examples the similarity between the variant readings is graphic (how the rasm looks) rather than phonic (how they sound) and involve consonantal dotting differences that transform one word into another, though short vowel differences make up the bulk of variants. | ||
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==Changes to the spoken Arabic dialect of the Qur'an== | ==Changes to the spoken Arabic dialect of the Qur'an== | ||
In a number of papers and | In a number of papers and a book dedicated to the topic (all open access in pdf format),<ref name="vanPutten2022">van Putten, Marijn, [https://brill.com/view/title/61587 Quranic Arabic: From its Hijazi origins to its classical reading traditions], Leiden: Brill, 2022 isbn: 9789004506251</ref> van Putten has identified that the Quranic Consonantal Text (QCT) reveals certain features about the Hijazi dialect in which it was originally uttered. These do not match the dialects found in the canonical qira'at, nor for this reason the orthography of Qur'ans published today. Evidence from internal rhyme is particularly helpful in this regard (the traditional qira'at recitations and later orthography sometimes break the rhyming structure of a passage), supplemented by ancient epigraphic (inscription) evidence, including transliterations of the Arabic of that region and time into other languages. Van Putten and Stokes have found that the QCT "possessed a functional but reduced case system, in which cases marked by long vowels were retained, whereas those marked by short vowels were mostly lost".<ref>Van Putten, Marijn; Stokes, Phillip (2018). [https://www.academia.edu/37481811/Case_in_the_Qur%CB%80%C4%81nic_Consonantal_Text_Wiener_Zeitschrift_f%C3%BCr_die_Kunde_des_Morgenlandes_108_2018_pp_143_179 Case in the Qurˀānic Consonantal Text]. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (108): 143–179.</ref> Van Putten has also found, in line with the accounts of early Muslim linguists, that the Hijazi dialect spoken by Muhammad had lost the use of the hamza except for word-final ā.<ref>Van Putten, Marijn (2018). [https://www.academia.edu/35556452/Hamzah_in_the_Quranic_Consonantal_Text_Orientalia_87_1_2018_pp_93_120 Hamzah in the Quranic Consonantal Text]. Orientalia. 87 (1): 93–120</ref> He has also found that nunation at the end of feminine nouns ending with -at was not present in this dialect.<ref>Van Putten, Marijn (2017). [https://www.academia.edu/35131582/_The_Feminine_Ending_at_as_a_Diptote_in_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81nic_Consonantal_Text_and_Its_Implications_for_Proto_Arabic_and_Proto_Semitic_Arabica_64_5_6_2017_pp_695_705 The Feminine Ending -at as a Diptote in the Qurānic Consonantal Text and Its Implications for Proto-Arabic and Proto-Semitic] Arabica (64): 695–705</ref> | ||
These findings are summarised in chapter 7 of van Putten's book published in 2022 ''Quranic Arabic: From its Hijazi origins to its classical reading traditions'' (downloadable free in pdf format)<ref name="vanPutten2022" /> | |||
<ref>For a twitter thread by van Putten summarising this chapter, see [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1500955045755604994 Twitter.com] - 7 March 2022 [https://web.archive.org/web/20220307220749/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1500955045755604994 archive] It also includes a link to threads summarising other chapters of his book.</ref> In the book he further marshals many additional lines of evidence, all supporting that the QCT was composed in Hijazi Arabic and that it lacked ʾIʿrab (grammatical case vowel endings) as well as tanwin present in "classical" Arabic and the canonical readings. Pragmatic considerations and extra-linguistic hints would have resolved to a large extent the resulting ambiguities. Nevertheless, "to the Quranic reciters, placement of ʔiʕrāb and tanwīn was a highly theoretical undertaking, not one that unambiguously stemmed from its prototypical recitation and composition."<ref>Ibid. pp. 153-154.</ref> Chapter 8 usefully puts the findings of the book in the context of the historical development of the reading traditions. | |||
==Reports about Al Hajjaj and the Uthmanic Qur'an== | ==Reports about Al Hajjaj and the Uthmanic Qur'an== | ||
Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf Al-Thakafi, who lived in the years AD 660-714, was a teacher of the Arabic language in the city of Taif. Then he joined the military and became the most powerful person during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik Ibn Marawan and after him his son al-Waleed Ibn Abd al-Malik. | Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf Al-Thakafi, who lived in the years AD 660-714, was a teacher of the Arabic language in the city of Taif. Then he joined the military and became the most powerful person during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik Ibn Marawan and after him his son al-Waleed Ibn Abd al-Malik. | ||
One report in Ibn Abi Dawud's ''Kitab al-Masahif'' claims that the Uthmanic Qur'an was changed by Al-Hajjaj, inserting 11 small changes into the text and sending them out to the main cities. However, this report is not considered credible by | One report in Ibn Abi Dawud's ''Kitab al-Masahif'' claims that the Uthmanic Qur'an was changed by Al-Hajjaj, inserting 11 small changes into the text and sending them out to the main cities. However, this report is not considered credible by academic scholars for a number of reasons, including the fact that all extant manuscripts (except for the Ṣan'ā' 1 palimpsest lower text) can be traced to a single archetype, as explained above. Moreover, Sadeghi and Bergmann have shown that the Basran author of this report about al-Hajjaj had simply mistaken some errors in a particular manuscript as being the Uthmanic standard and compared it with the manuscript of al-Hajjaj.<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. p.365, footnote 36</ref> | ||
Adam Bursi has noted that a number of accounts exist that al-Hajjaj sought to reduce the proliferation of erroneous readings of the Qur'an, though the details of such accounts are challenged by material manuscript evidence. Dotting marks to distinguish homographic consonants were already used sparingly before Islam, which causes Bursi to agree with Alan Jones that "the most that al-Ḥajjāj could have insisted upon was the revival and regular use of earlier features already available within the Arabic script." Further details about the members of a committee of Basran experts formed by al-Hajjaj seem dubious, appearing only in later reports. During the governorship of al-Hajjaj, there is "no evidence of the imposition of the kind of fully dotted | Adam Bursi has noted that a number of accounts exist that al-Hajjaj sought to reduce the proliferation of erroneous readings of the Qur'an, though the details of such accounts are challenged by material manuscript evidence. Dotting marks to distinguish homographic consonants were already used sparingly before Islam, which causes Bursi to agree with Alan Jones that "the most that al-Ḥajjāj could have insisted upon was the revival and regular use of earlier features already available within the Arabic script." Further details about the members of a committee of Basran experts formed by al-Hajjaj seem dubious, appearing only in later reports. During the governorship of al-Hajjaj, there is "no evidence of the imposition of the kind of fully dotted | ||
scriptio plena that the historical sources suggest was al-Ḥajjāj’s intended goal. There is some manuscript evidence for the introduction of vowel markers into the Qurʾān in this period, but this development is not associated with the introduction of diacritics as our literary sources suggest." [i.e. they wrongly suggest both consonantal and vowel marks were introduced at the same time] Bursi concludes that "While ʿAbd al-Malik and/or al-Ḥajjāj do appear to have played a role in the evolution of the qurʾānic text, the initial introduction of diacritics into the text was not part of this process and it is unclear what development in the usage of diacritics took place at their instigation."<ref>Bursi, Adam. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005 Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century.] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 3, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018, pp. 111–157 (see pp. 116-126), https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005.</ref> | scriptio plena that the historical sources suggest was al-Ḥajjāj’s intended goal. There is some manuscript evidence for the introduction of short vowel markers into the Qurʾān in this period, but this development is not associated with the introduction of diacritics as our literary sources suggest." [i.e. they wrongly suggest both consonantal and vowel marks were introduced at the same time] Bursi concludes that "While ʿAbd al-Malik and/or al-Ḥajjāj do appear to have played a role in the evolution of the qurʾānic text, the initial introduction of diacritics into the text was not part of this process and it is unclear what development in the usage of diacritics took place at their instigation."<ref>Bursi, Adam. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005 Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century.] Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, vol. 3, International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2018, pp. 111–157 (see pp. 116-126), https://doi.org/10.5913/jiqsa.3.2018.a005.</ref> | ||
Similar to Bursi, Nicolai Sinai is skeptical of detailed reports about the contribution of al-Hajjaj, and of Omar Hamdan's acceptance of reports that al-Hajjaj replaced existing mushafs with his own version (the so-called "second masahif project"), though Sinai does find more convincing the reports that al-Hijjaj sought to enforce the Uthmanic rasm standard under the Caliphate of 'Abu al-Malik b. Marwan and particularly, to suppress the continued use of the non-Uthmanic reading of Ibn Mas'ud in Kufa.<ref>Sinai, Nicolai. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/24692711 When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Part I.] Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 77, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2014, pp. 273–92 (see pp. 279-285)</ref> | Similar to Bursi, Nicolai Sinai is skeptical of detailed reports about the contribution of al-Hajjaj, and of Omar Hamdan's acceptance of reports that al-Hajjaj replaced existing mushafs with his own version (the so-called "second masahif project"), though Sinai does find more convincing the reports that al-Hijjaj sought to enforce the Uthmanic rasm standard under the Caliphate of 'Abu al-Malik b. Marwan and, particularly, to suppress the continued use of the non-Uthmanic reading of Ibn Mas'ud in Kufa.<ref>Sinai, Nicolai. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/24692711 When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Part I.] Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 77, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2014, pp. 273–92 (see pp. 279-285)</ref> | ||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
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[[Category:Rashidun Caliphs]] | [[Category:Rashidun Caliphs]] | ||
[[Category:Criticism of Islam]] | [[Category:Criticism of Islam]] | ||
[[ar:التاريخ_النصي_للقرآن]] | |||