Textual History of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

Al-Tabari's tafsir for verse 4:24 includes narrations saying that ibn 'Abbas, ubay 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'. If one were to speculate that this represents an abrogated version of the verse, it is unclear why there would be no evidence and why these sahaba would not seem to know.

===Ubay bin Ka'b===

Ubay ibn Ka'b, was another one of the four which were singled-out by Muhammad,<ref name="bin Masud"></ref> and was considered the best reciter of the Qur'an.<ref>"''Affan ibn Muslim informed us ... on the authority of Anas ibn Malik, he on the authority of the Prophet, may Allah bless him; he said: The best reader (of the Qur'an) among my people is Ubayyi ibn Ka'b.''" - Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, Vol. 2, p.441 </ref> He was known as Sayidul Qura' (The Master of Reciters). Umar the Caliph also agreed that Ubay was the best reciter, even though he rejected some of what Ubay recited.<ref>"`Umar said, Ubai was the best of us in the recitation (of the Qur'an) yet we leave some of what he recites." {{Bukhari|6|61|527}}</ref>  

Some examples where Ubay agreed with Ibn Mas'ud and disagreed with Zayd include the following:  

From Abu Ubaid we find that, whereas Surah 17:16 in the standard text reads ''amarnaa mutrafiihaa fafasaquu'', Ubay read this clause ''ba'athnaa akaabira mujri-miihaa fdmakaruu''.<ref>cf. Nِoldeke 3.88; Jeffery, p.140</ref>

Professor Yasin Dutton briefly lists examples in Islamic literature of differences "involving the addition or omission of substantial amounts of material, such as an āya or even a sūra".<ref>Yasin Dutton (2012) "Orality, literacy and the 'seven aḥruf' ḥadīth", Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 23 (1) pp.1-49"</ref> These examples and one or two more are explored in this section.  

There are claims in the hadith that certain verses are missing. For example the '[[Stoning|stoning verse]]' for adultery. The present day Qur’an does not contain the [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Stoning|penalty of Rajm]] (stoning) for married adulterers, which abrogated the previous penalty. Rather, the Qur'an now extant assigns whipping as the punishment for adultery:{{Quote|{{Muslim|17|4194}}|Abdullah b. 'Abbas reported that '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.}}[[Al-Nurayn and Al-Wilaya|Al-Nurayn and al-Wilaya]] are two surahs (chapters) that are claimed to be included in the Qur'an by the scholars of some Shi'ite sects. These sects argue that Ali had a different copy of the Qur'an as compared with the third Caliph Uthman. Sunni Muslims scholars see claims of the existence of these verses as frauds. Sunni scholars often allege that they are forgeries intended to increase animosity towards the Shi'ite Muslims in the Sunni world.

We know that, whereas Ibn Mas'ud omitted three surahs (al-Fatihah, 113 and 114) from his Qur'an mushaf (codex), Ubay 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 Ubay ibn Ka'b's mushaf according to Theodor Nöldeke et. al. (1909, 1919) "The History of the Qur'an" 2nd Edition, Ed. and trans. by Behn W. H. (2013) Brill: Leiden p. 243-244</ref>.

According to some early sources<ref>See pp.78-79 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>, 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 Ubay's is much more widely documented. 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> One 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 Ubay ibn Ka'b (possibly ibn Mas'ud and ibn 'Abbas too) recorded them in his widely reported Qur'an codice.  

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 Ubay 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 Ubay ibn Ka'b sequenced these two du'as between what are now surahs 103 and 104.<ref name="Noldeke"></ref>

Some argue that Ubay ibn Ka'b must have had no issue with the two extra surahs being left out because there is a hadith recorded 9 centuries after Muhammad, which says that Uthman had Ubay dictate the text for Zaid to write down, with refinements by Sa’id bin al-‘Aas. Such evidence is very late, as well as contradicting sahih hadiths about Zaid's collection process.

As detailed in the sections above, there were non-Qur'anic surahs and verses that sounded very much like those of the Qur'an. Surah al-Hafd and Surah al-khal', and the verses about Adam and the valleys sounded so Qur'anic that they were at one time believed to be so by speakers of 7th century Arabic, Sahabah no less. Theories that these were once part of the Qur'an and later abrogated, or that Al-Hafd and Al-Khal' were du'as given to Muhammad by Jibril do not give a reason why they may have been abrogated or why confusion was allowed to arise about the status of the latter two when they were recorded in the mushafs of three companions.

 

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 canonical seven many centuries later by ibn al-Jazari (d.1429 CE) - those of Abu Jafar, Ya'qub and Khalaf. These three were 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. Christopher Melchert (2008) [https://jstor.org/stable/25728 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>