2,743
edits
Textual History of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
| [checked revision] | [checked revision] |
Lightyears (talk | contribs) |
Lightyears (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 132: | Line 132: | ||
==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</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 those 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: | 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 those 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: | ||
| Line 141: | Line 141: | ||
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 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 medial alifs, any 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://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1294253564378976259 here] and [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1212824936768778245 here]</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 medial alifs, any 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== | ||
| Line 402: | Line 402: | ||
Apart from other earlier variant readings, and those of al-Duri from Abu Amr still used in Sudan, and of Hisham from ibn Amir still used in parts of Yemen, there are two different readings of the Qur'an currently widespread in printed text (mushaf), named after their respective 2nd-century transmitters: Hafs from Asim (one of the Kufan readers) and Warsh from Nafi (of Medina). | Apart from other earlier variant readings, and those of al-Duri from Abu Amr still used in Sudan, and of Hisham from ibn Amir still used in parts of Yemen, there are two different readings of the Qur'an currently widespread in printed text (mushaf), named after their respective 2nd-century transmitters: Hafs from Asim (one of the Kufan readers) and Warsh from Nafi (of Medina). | ||
The Hafs reading is the more common today and is used in most areas of the Islamic world, but this was not always the case. The popularity of Hafs arose during Ottoman times. Earlier, it was so unpopular that it is not found in manuscripts for the first several centuries (though was documented by Ibn Mujahid), and many of his variants that are unique among the canonical readers are attested in early manuscripts only as part of non-canonical secondary readings added later, if at all.<ref>See [https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/1421578449437794305 Today, by far the most dominant recitation of the Quran is that of Ḥafṣ (d. 180/796) who transmits from the Kufan reciter ʿĀṣim (d. 127/745). But this dominant position it has today appears to have been a rather recent one.] - Twitter.com thread by Dr. Marijn van Putten 31 July 2021 and [https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/1390665501395886080 There are no known Mushafs in the reading of Ḥafṣ before the 13th century or so. And even at that time Abū ʿAmr was still clearly much more popular.] - Twitter.com Dr. Marijn van Putten 7 May 2021</ref> The Warsh reading is used mainly in West and North-West Africa as well as by the Zaydiya in Yemen. Here are some of the differences. | The Hafs reading is the more common today and is used in most areas of the Islamic world, but this was not always the case. The popularity of Hafs arose during Ottoman times. Earlier, it was so unpopular that it is not found in manuscripts for the first several centuries (though was documented by Ibn Mujahid), and many of his variants that are unique among the canonical readers are attested in early manuscripts only as part of non-canonical secondary readings added later, if at all.<ref>See [https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/1421578449437794305 Today, by far the most dominant recitation of the Quran is that of Ḥafṣ (d. 180/796) who transmits from the Kufan reciter ʿĀṣim (d. 127/745). But this dominant position it has today appears to have been a rather recent one.] - Twitter.com thread by Dr. Marijn van Putten 31 July 2021 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20211026212320/https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/1421578449437794305 archive]) and [https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/1390665501395886080 There are no known Mushafs in the reading of Ḥafṣ before the 13th century or so. And even at that time Abū ʿAmr was still clearly much more popular.] - Twitter.com Dr. Marijn van Putten 7 May 2021 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20210507135200/https://twitter.com/PhdNix/status/13906655013958860 archive])</ref> The Warsh reading is used mainly in West and North-West Africa as well as by the Zaydiya in Yemen. Here are some of the differences. | ||
{| class="wikitable" width="80%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="1" align="center" | {| class="wikitable" width="80%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="1" align="center" | ||
| Line 530: | Line 530: | ||
|Ibn Kathir and Abu Amr read 'illa mra'atuka (except your wife [nominative case]) | |Ibn Kathir and Abu Amr read 'illa mra'atuka (except your wife [nominative case]) | ||
|The others read 'illa mra'ataka (except your wife [accusative case]) | |The others read 'illa mra'ataka (except your wife [accusative case]) | ||
|These variants give rise to conflicting instructions from the angels to Lot<ref>See the explanation in [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=11&tAyahNo=81&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 Tafsir al-Jalalayn], which is also common among early | |These variants give rise to conflicting instructions from the angels to Lot<ref>See the explanation in [https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=11&tAyahNo=81&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 Tafsir al-Jalalayn], which is also common among early commentators and grammarians, who clearly did not hold the centuries later view that every variant is divine. Much later, for example, Abu Hayyan claimed that in both readings the exception refers to Lut's wife looking back, despite the contradiction with other surahs mentioning that she stayed behind, and despite Ibn Mas'ud's version which omits the look back part, and despite the fact that a variant wasn't needed (and the embarassement could have been avoided) if they both meant the same thing.</ref><ref>Regarding this variant see also [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1452668408269520904 The story of Lot (...) finds clear parallels with the story as told in Gen. 19. A thread on a specific reading variant."] Twitter.com thread by Dr. Marijn van Putten - 25 October 2021 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20211026204953/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1452668408269520904 archive])</ref> | ||
|[https://quran.com/11/81?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/11/vers/81 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=11&aya=81 nquran.com] | |[https://quran.com/11/81?translations=149 Bridges translation]<BR>[https://corpuscoranicum.de/lesarten/index/sure/11/vers/81 Corpus Coranicum]<BR>[https://www.nquran.com/ar/index.php?group=ayacompare&sora=11&aya=81 nquran.com] | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Line 608: | Line 608: | ||
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>. | 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>. | ||
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=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> | ||