Textual History of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

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>

*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 narrated them this way.

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 they 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.

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 Suratul-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:''

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 Suratul-Baqarah alone.<ref>Jeffery, Materials pp.25-32</ref>  

Muhammad ordered Muslims to learn the Qur'an from four individuals and the first of them was Abdullah bin 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.

Academics 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. 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>

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 open access with a free Jstor account),<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) 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), which fits al-Zuhri's account. 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>

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>

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> 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>

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 canonical 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://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 subsequently 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 many more transmissions), 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.

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 appealed to ahruf when two companions who were both of the Qureshi 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.

Academics 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 used it 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>

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 vast numbers of tiny differences. Yet there is another category, called farsh, of individual differences that cannot be generalised in rules, which also includes changes in wording. In some cases the variations added or omitted words, or 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 - Lesarten tab]</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 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 next section about the popular Hafs and Warsh transmissions.

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 explaination 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://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789004412903/back-1.xml open access appendix] from Nasser, S. H. "The Second Canonization of the Qurʾān (324/936)" Brill, 2020</ref>

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, over 1000 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.

The Uthmanic codex was written in a rasm, which is a "defective" Arabic script, meaning that there was inconsistent use of alifs, no markings for short vowels and sparse (if any) dots that were in later times used to distinguish different but identical looking consonants.

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 (when the traditional qira'at recitations and later orthography break the rhyming structure of a passage) is particularly helpful in this regard, 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>

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 academics 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>

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>