Textual History of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

Textual History of the Qur'an (view source)

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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>[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>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 further proven 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>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>
 No copy of the Uthmanic recension exists despite its centrality as the Ur-Qur'an of all modern readings, so no confirmation is available via comparison with it. A very old palimpsest (imprinted scroll which was washed and written over) is extant from Sana'a, Yemen (the [[Sana Manuscript|Ṣan'ā' 1 Manuscript]]), which contains variants not found in any of the accepted readings of the Qur'an. The Islamic narrative itself comes to us mostly through the hadith tradition, which has been proven since Ignac Goldziher in the 19th century to be unreliable due to the nature of the "asaanid" or chains of authority supporting the hadith and the immense gulf of time between when the hadith were collected and when Muhammad lived. In addition the earliest copies of the Qur'an lack vowel and many diacritic markings, indicating that they were more a guide for memorization than the fully-fleshed out text that is extant today.
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 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, Damascus 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>.
-Nasser further shows that grammarians such as al-Farra<ref>Ibid. p.167</ref>, and scholars such as al-Tabari readily criticised variants in these same readings shortly before they were canonised<ref>Ibid. pp.41-47</ref> (as did al-Zamakhshari 200 years afterwards)<ref>Ibid. pp.6-7</ref>). Even ibn Mujahid said variants now considered canonical were wrong.<ref>Ibid. pp.59-61 (for specific examples of him criticising such variants, many of which are unique to particular readers or transmitters, see the list and summary table in chapter 2, pp.64-89 of Nasser's follow-up book Nasser, S. H. "The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān (324/936)" Brill, 2020; or see the examples given by van Putten on Twitter.com [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1296392400735277057 here] and [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1090545330402267136 here]</ref> After ibn Mujahid's book, a genre of literature arose that "''indicates the rising need to provide grammatical and syntactic proofs in order to back up the arguments necessary to assess the superiority of one reading over another.''" <ref>Ibid. pp.60-61 (see also the footnote on p.61)</ref>. Ibn Mujahid's decision to select just 7 readings drew frequent criticism after its publication<ref>Ibid. p.64</ref>. The consensus notion that all variants in these 7 were divinely preserved in a chain back to the Prophet himself only came about later, by which time there was of course no room for arguments and reasoning to try to prove the superiority of one variant over another.<ref>Ibid. pp. 59-61</ref> As Nasser writes, "''The problem that caused heated discussion for centuries afterwards was the origin and transmission of the eponymous Readings; were these Readings transmitted through tawātur or single chains of transmission? Are there Readings better than others or are they equally divine?''"<ref>ibid. p.65</ref>.
+Nasser further shows that grammarians such as al-Farra<ref>Ibid. p.167</ref>, and scholars such as al-Tabari readily criticised variants in these same readings shortly before they were canonised<ref>Ibid. pp.41-47</ref> (as did al-Zamakhshari 200 years afterwards)<ref>Ibid. pp.6-7</ref>). Even ibn Mujahid said variants now considered canonical were wrong.<ref>Ibid. pp.59-61 (for specific examples of him criticising such variants, many of which are unique to particular canonical readers or transmitters, see the list and summary table in chapter 2, pp.64-89 of Nasser's follow-up book Nasser, S. H. "The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān (324/936)" Brill, 2020; Similarly, see the [https://data.brill.com/supp/9789004412903/variants.html open access appendix] from Nasser's book and search for the word "wrong" to see which of the variants documented by ibn Mujahid were described as such, whether in terms of transmission or the reading variant itself being wrong; or see the examples given by van Putten on Twitter.com [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1296392400735277057 here] and [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1090545330402267136 here]</ref> After ibn Mujahid's book, a genre of literature arose that "''indicates the rising need to provide grammatical and syntactic proofs in order to back up the arguments necessary to assess the superiority of one reading over another.''" <ref>Ibid. pp.60-61 (see also the footnote on p.61)</ref>. Ibn Mujahid's decision to select just 7 readings drew frequent criticism after its publication<ref>Ibid. p.64</ref>. The consensus notion that all variants in these 7 were divinely preserved in a chain back to the Prophet himself only came about later, by which time there was of course no room for arguments and reasoning to try to prove the superiority of one variant over another.<ref>Ibid. pp. 59-61</ref> As Nasser writes, "''The problem that caused heated discussion for centuries afterwards was the origin and transmission of the eponymous Readings; were these Readings transmitted through tawātur or single chains of transmission? Are there Readings better than others or are they equally divine?''"<ref>ibid. p.65</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>{{cite journal |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 |doi=10.1017/S1356186320000218 |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=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>