Page 224 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

204 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

tally. Similarly the citing of two or three students is purely representative
and is meant to conserve the author's time and parchment, leaving it up
to the interested scholar to scour the reading notes for full details.
A fundamental difference lies between the Qur'an and the Prophet's
sunna in the case of transmission through a single authority. A lone scholar
memorising a hadith. may, when teaching from memory, find it necessary
to substitute a synonym if the exact word escapes his mind. With no one
else transmitting this hadith, his inaccuracy may pass undetected. Contrast
this with the Qur'an. During the three audible daily prayers, Friday prayers,
tariiwl~, and 'Uiprayers, the Imam recites loudlywith the backing of his entire
congregation: if no one in the congregation objects then his recitation has
everyone's consent - hundreds, thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of
thousands of worshipers. But if objections are voiced in the course of prayer
and the Imam insists on a reading contradictory to 'Uthman's Mushaf, he
will be removed immediately from his post. No inaccuracies in quii'at can
pass undetected, and whatever crossesthe boundaries of the acceptable will
be rooted out, This well-defined boundary is one of the great safeguards
of the Qur'anY
Let us evaluate any fragment that is ascribed as Qur'an in light of the
above principles.Clearly the firstcondition ismissing,as the fragment cannot
proffer any details about the scholars who transmitted it. On to the second
condition: does it agree with the 'Uthmani Mushaf? The presence of even
the slightest disagreement in the consonantal skeleton causes the fragment
to lose all credibility;it may be considered anything except part of the Qur'an.
Such has been the unanimous ruling of Muslims for the past fourteen
centuries.
Speaking of skeletons, it is worth recalling that vowels (and especially
alij in the middle of a word) frequently display orthographic abnormalities
depending on the scribe'sdiscretion- seepp. 131-5and alsothe recentlypub-
lished facsimile of Qur'anic fragments in France." In the latter we find I}LJ

27 Once again I refer to al-Masjid al-Haram in Makkah where, on Friday the lbth
and again on Friday the 23rd of Ramadan (1420A.H.), an estimated 1.6millionworshipers
congregated for Friday prayers. I personally attended the former, and watched the
latter on television.Such a massivecongregation includes countlessthousands of Muslims
who have memorised the entire Qur'an from every imaginable corner, along' with
several other thousands who follow the Imam by looking into a Mushaf during the
tarawih prayers. Any error or lapse of memory, and the Imam is immediately and
audibly corrected by the numerous hundreds in his vicinity. Conversely, by remaining
silent the entire congregation affirms its acceptance of the Imam's qira'at, so that his
recitation issymbolicallybacked by the strength of one millionworshipers. How emphatic
the response would be if the Imam failed to observe a qirii'atacceptable to the masses.
28 F.Deroche and S.N. Noseda, Sources de latransmission manuscrite dutexte Coranique, Les
manuscritsdestyle ~igiizf, Volume 1.Lemanuscrit arabe 328(a)de laBibliotheque nationals de France,
1998.