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Which Quran is the Final Word of Allah "god of the Arabs"?
By Ibn Kammuna (ibnkammuna@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
Most, if not all Muslims believe that the Qurıan is the final word of
Allah, the god of the Arabs. Well, let me start by saying Iıll fully
accept that. Please, just tell me which Qurıan is Allahıs final word.
My goal in this article is to present to the reader, hopefully a
Muslim, the different Qurıans available out there. My hope is that a
good Muslim reader will guide me and show me the light!
When Muhammad died (A. D. 632), his revelations were not collected.
Some of his followers tried to collect those known revelations and put
them in a codex form. So, we had codices of scholars like Ibn Masud,
Abu Bakr, Al-Ashaıri, ..etc. When Islam spread, we had codices in
centers like Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Damascus, and Basra. The situation
was chaotic because there were literally many Qurıans. Uthman, bless
his heart, tried to fix matters by canonizing the Medina Codex, and
destroying all other ³Qurıans². He sent copies of the one he chose to
all places, and ordered the destruction of all other codices. Uthman
tried to standardize the consonantal text of the Qurıan.
However, some variant traditions of the consonantal texts survived a
few hundred years after that. Another problem was that the letters in
the Qurıan were ³unpointed². Many Arabic letters have ³points² or
³dots² above or below them. For instance a ³b² has one dot below it.
The same letter is a ³t² if it had two dots on top. The same letter is
a ³th² if it had three dots on top. The situation is similar for many
other letters. There were also problems with the short vowels since
early Arabic has no sign for short vowels during the time of the
Qurıanic collection. Different variant traditions were in development
to ascertain how the Qurıan should be pointed and vowelized. In the
words of Charles Adams: ³ It must be emphasized that far from being a
single text passed down inviolate from the time of Uthmanıs commission,
literally thousands of variant readings of particular verses were
known.² [Source: Adams, C. E. ³Quran: The Text and Its History.²]
This whole ³mess² continued till Ibn Mujahid (died A. D. 935) came
along and a definite canonization of consonants and a limit on the
variations of vowels was placed. This resulted in the acceptance of
seven systems. Each of the seven systems was traced by two different
transmitters, providing in all, fourteen readings ! (it is amazing to
me that Muslims still talk about ³one Qurıan², whatever that nonsense
means):
1. Nafi of Medina (d. A. D. 785)
2. Ibn Kathir of Mecca (d. A. D. 737)
3. Ibn Amir of Damascus (736)
4. Abu Amr of Basra (770)
5. Asim of Kufa (744)
6. Hamza of Kufa (772)
7. Al-Kisai of Kufa (804)
However, other scholars accepted ten readings and others accepted
fourteen reading. I wonıt go into the details much longer. A note from
Charles Adams is appropriate here:
³It is of some im****tance to call attention to a possible source of
misunderstanding with regard to the variant readings of the Quran. The
seven [versions] refer to actual differences in the written and oral
text, to dictinct versions of Quranic verses, whose differences, though
they may not be great, are nonetheless real and substantial.² (bolded
part is my emphasis)
What I just discussed is a dilemma to the Muslim. There is not ³one
Qurıan² at all. In fact, it is a very live possibility that the ³real²
Qurıan is no longer with us. ³. In fact, it is a very strong
possibility considering all the mess that the Qurıans went through.
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