Page 153 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

ARABIC PALAEOGRAPHY AND ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE QUR'AN 133

was the same as reading qdl(JL;) when the word is spelled ql (J'),15 which
is a common abbreviation in the J:Iejazi Mu~.I).af.16 Given that reading and
recitation were based on an oral learning tradition, such shorthand did not
threaten to corrupt the holy text. If a teacher recited I)L; (read as qalli, the
alifat the end not being pronounced due a certain grammatical rule) and
the student scribed it as P (following his own standard) but read it back
correctly as I)L;, then the anomalous vowel spelling bore no illconsequences.
Ibn Abi Dawud narrates the following incident:

r..u L.Jj .'-'? ~i ~I J ~~j v..JJ1~ ~Ij :JL; ''$''jWI -4y. -fJ.>. :JL;
~.JJI..\".,.J dI~ JJ if :Jw ,dI~ ~....A.-Y- V. (~I
L.Jj.A-- 0i ~1 ':l1.;1 J ,..,J!...::..ilkLi ,;J1J").~ \,""jWI -4y..J !JI~ JJ :I)L;
~'-'? ~ ~I J ~Ij ~4j v. 1J4 L. :JL; ,~..:J>.~
.?dt ..:Jlp ,o~1 <~ JJj..,;i 'ft"'J1.JJ1 ~\:~ ,JL;
.? ')\>,.j ,-:....i..L..:> :JL;
'JI J r':l ,-,L; «P» ~I J ..,;l5:.. 0lS' ~I J .JJI ~ ~Ij .....iJ1 0lS'J
~J ,c..AJi JI r':l c..AJi ,-,L; <d)L;» .JJI ¥ ~ 'J1J 0j ,-,lS' «yS»
J
17.c..AJ\ JI 0j c..AJi ,-,lS' <djlS'»
J
"Yazid al-Farsi said: "Ubaidullah bin Ziyad added two thousand extra
letters (....;?) in the Mushaf When al-I:Iajjaj bin Yusuf came to Basra
and was informed of this, he inquired who had carried out this alter-
ation for 'Ubaidullah; the reply was Yazid al-Farsi. Al-I:Iajjaj therefore
summoned me; I went to see him and had no doubt that he intended
to kill me. He asked why 'Ubaidullah had requested the addition of
these two thousand letters. I replied, 'May Allah keep you on the right
path; he was raised up in the lowly community of Basra [i.e. far from
the learned areas, in a region lacking literary taste and sophistication]'.
This spared me, for al-Hajjaj said that I spoke the truth and let me go.
What 'Ubaidullah wanted was simply to standardise the spelling within
his Mushaf, re-writing «P» as «1)\:;», and «y5» as «ljl5"»."

As the matter did not involve corrupting the text but rather reinstating
some vowelswhich had been dropped for abbreviation, al-Farsi leftal-J:Iajjaj's

15 See Ibn Abt Dawud, al-Masiihif, p. 105 (the printed text has been corrected).
Teachers and students were bound to teach, learn and read orally according to the
isniids (which emanated directly from the Prophet) and within the boundaries of the
'Uthmani Mushafs consonantal text. Malik bin DInar's reading was both true to the
consonantal text and to the hadiths on which he based his recitation.
16 See for example F. Deroche and S.N. Noseda, Sources dela transmission manuscrite
du texte Coranique, Us manuscrits destyle higazi, VOlume 2, tome 1. Le manuscrit Or. 2165·(f 1
il 61) defa British Library, Lesa, 2001, p. 54a.
17 Ibn Abi Dawnd, al-M~ii.I}if, p. 117. The printed text has been corrected.