Page 223 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

THE SO-CALLED MU~J:IAF OF IBN MAS'UD 203

4. J1lhen Can A?ry Writing beAccepted as Part if the Qyr'an?

Hammad b. Salama reported that Ubayy's Mushaf contained two extra
suras, called al-Ba/adand al-Khala'.25 This report is completely spurious
because of a major defect in the chain, as there is an unaccounted-for gap
of at least two to three generations between Ubayy's death (d. ca. 30 A.H.)
and Hammad's (d. 167A.H.) scholarlyactivity. Besidesthis,we must remember
that a note written in a book does not make it part of the book. But let us
accept that a fewextra lineswere scribbled inside Ubayy's Mushaf for argu-
ment's sake. Would these lines ascend to the position of Qur'an? Certainly
not. The completed 'Uthmani Mushaf, disseminated with instructors who
taught after the manner of relevant authorities,forms the basisfor establishing
whether any given text is Qur'an ~ not the unsubstantiated squiggles of
an illegitimate manuscript.

i. Principles for Determining Whether a Verse Belongs to the Qur'an

The following three principles must be fulfilled before the manner of re-
citation for any verse can be accepted as Qur'an:
The qiri/atmust not be narrated from a single authority, but through
a multitude (enough in fact to eliminate the danger of mistakes seep-
ing through), going back to the Prophet and thereby advocating
recitational authenticity and certainty.
The text of the recitation must conform to what is found in the
'Uthmani Mushaf
The pronunciation must agree with proper Arabic grammar.
All authoritative works on qira'at (uld}), such as Ibn Mujahid's Kitiib as-
Sabrafial-Qira'at, generallymention a lone reciter from everycentre of Islamic
activity followedby two or three of his students. Such sparse listings appear
to contradict the veryfirstprinciple: how can citingone reciter and two pupils
from Basra, for example, prove that this qira'atwas transmitted through a
multitude? In clarifying this issue the reader is asked to review "Certificates
of Reading" from the previous chapter." Prof Robson and Ishaq Khan,
supplying the transmission lineage for Sunan IbnMqja through Ibn Qudama,
arrive at a mere handful of names, whereas by tracing the reading certificates
we fmd over four hundred and fiftypupils. And that is only in one manu-
script; additional copies from the same chain might yield a far greater

25 Ibn Durais, Fat/ii'il al-Qyr'iin, p. 157.
26 See this work pp. 184-91.