Frederik Leemhuis. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Volume 1, Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
A designation generally used to refer to the maṣaḥif, plural of muṣḥaf, meaning “a copy of the complete text of the Qurʾan” as these existed in the early period of Islam (see J. Burton, Muṣḥaf). These ancient codices, both extant and presumed, are important for the study of the history of the text of the Qurʾan. There are supposedly two categories of these early codices, the pre-ʿUthmanic codices and those with an ʿUthmanic text.
Until the present day, no pre-ʿUthmanic codices of the Qurʾan have been discovered and definitively identified, although possibly some extant palimpsest leaves may contain a non-ʿUthmanic text (Nöldeke, GQ, iii, 97-100, but also see W. Diem, Untersuchungen, 211 and 226-7). Nevertheless, many textual variants reported to have existed in these pre-ʿUthmanic codices are known from other sources such as exegetical works (tafasir, sing. tafsir) and specialized works dealing with non-canonical readings (al-qiraʾat al-shadhdha) like Ibn Jinni’s (d. 392/1002 Muḥtasab and the much earlier Maʿani l-Qurʾan works by al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (d. between 210-21/825-35) and al-Farraʾ (d. 207/822). Or they are found in works dealing specifically with the nonʿUthmanic codices as such, like the Kitab al-Maṣaḥif of Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani (d. 316/929; Jeffery, Materials) which appears to be the only surviving example of this specialization in early qurʾanic studies.
Codices of the second category, however, those with an ʿUthmanic text, have been preserved. Yet the age of the oldest ones, written in the maʾil script, has still not been established beyond doubt. Some of the codices that were discovered in the loft of the Great Mosque of anʾaʾ in 1972 appear to be of a very early date. However, very little of this material has become available for philological study and until now it is not clear to what extent these manuscripts deviate from the ʿUthmanic orthographic rendering (rasm, G.-R. Puin, Observations, 107-II). For a number of leaves from ancient codices that were originally preserved in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus some scholars have suggested an Umayyad origin (Ṣ. al-Munajjid, Dirasat, 90-5; see also S. Ory, Nouveau type).
According to prevailing Islamic tradition, the members of a group led by Zayd b. Thabit (q.v.; d. ca. 34-5/655) discharged the task, assigned to them by the third caliph ʿUthman (r. 23-35/644-56), of producing a complete codex of the Qurʾan. This became the master copy, usually referred to as al-imam. Copies of this codex were made and sent to the chief centers of the Muslim empire; all other codices were ordered to be destroyed. In Kufa, ʿAbdallah b. Masʿud (d. ca. 33/653) refused, however, to destroy his codex, and his reading apparently remained in use there for some time. Eventually, some seventy years later, the famous governor al-Ḥajjaj b. Yusuf (d. 95/714) felt compelled to suppress it. Other codices, like those of Ubayy b. Kaʿb (d. 21/642), ʿAli b. Abi Ṭalib (q.v.; d. 40/661), the Prophet’s wife ʾaʾisha bt. Abi Bakr (q.v.; d. 58/678) and Abu Musa al-AshʿAri (d. ca. 42/662), are also reported to have been destroyed. Nevertheless, from these codices variant readings are reported in classical Islamic literature.
The ʿUthmanic recension credited by Muslim tradition to the group led by Zayd b. Thabit only established the rasm of the text, i.e. the writing of the consonantal structure but without the diacritics and vowel signs incorporated at a later stage. Thus the reported variant readings of the ancient pre-ʿUthmanic codices—of which the Ibn Masʿud codex appears to have been the most important—are of two kinds: those which do and those which do not presuppose a different rasm than that recorded in the ʿUthmanic master copy.
Variant readings of the first kind range from a difference of one Arabic character, like the reading of siraṭ instead of ṣiraṭ in Q I:6 and all subsequent occurrences in the Qurʾan as reported from a codex attributed to Ibn ʿAbbas (d. ca. 67-8/686-8), to the addition of whole verses or even suras like “The Renunciation” (Surat al-Khalʾ) and “The Service” (Surat al-Ḥafd) in Ubayy’s codex. Reported omissions fall within the same range: from wa-nunsiha, “and we cause to be forgotten,” instead of aw nunsiha, “or we cause to be forgotten,” in Q 2:106 as reported from ʿAli and Ubayy, to the omission of the first and the two last suras from the codex of Ibn Masʿud.
The readings reported from Ibn Masʿud of the kind which presupposes a different rasm may be characterized as follows: (a) They offer synonyms to the ʿUthmanic text like irshadna for ihdina in Q I:6, both meaning “guide us.” (b) They leave less room for ambiguity, as in taʿwiluhu illa ʿinda llahi, “its interpretation is only with God,” for wa-ma yaʿlamu taʿwilahu illa llahu, “and none knows its interpretation, save only God,” in Q 3:7, the frame of which excludes the possibility of the following phrase, al-rasikhuna fi l-ʿilm,” those firmly rooted in knowledge,” being also “those who know.” (c) They provide clarification, as in the addition of fi mawasim al-ḥajj, “in the seasons of the pilgrimage (q.v.),” after an tabtaghu faḍlan min rabbi-kum, “if you seek bounty from your Lord,” in Q 2:198. (d) They provide more easily understood alternatives like mithaq alladhina utu l-kitab, “the covenant (q.v.) of those who were given the book” instead of mithaq alnabiyyin, “the covenant of the prophets,” in Q 3:81. It is thus no wonder that these readings continued to play a role in classical exegetical literature (tafsir). Indeed one often finds in early commentary (tafsir) a qurʾanic term explained by a synonym or a phrase which elsewhere is mentioned as a variant reading. This is hardly surprising in view of the interdependence of early exegetical activity and the regular recitation of the Qurʾan (F. Leemhuis, Origins, 24 and 26-7).
Sometimes non-ʿUthmanic readings also occur among the ones which the commentators explain and ʿUthmanic readings are qualified as scribal errors. In Sufyan al-Thawri’s (d. 161/778) commentary on Q 24:27 (Tafsir, ad loc.), Ibn ʿAbbas is quoted as having said that tastaʿnisu, “engaging in social talk,” is a scribal error for tastaʿdhinu, “asking for permission.” In the tafsir tradition of Mujahid (d. 104/722) on Q 3:81 (both in al-Ṭabari’s Tafsir and in the independently preserved recension of Mujahid, ad loc.), the case is the same, the above-mentioned reading of Ibn Masʿud being presented as the correct one. In the manuscript of the commentary of Sufyan al-Thawri the more than 60 variant readings transmitted are nearly always clustered together near the end of his treatment of each sura. Most of these are attributed to Ibn Masʿud and his followers and the majority of them, but certainly not all, do not necessarily presuppose a nonʿUthmanic rasm. The same treatment of variant readings is found in the Jamiʿ of the Maliki traditionist of Egypt, Ibn Wahb (d. 197/813; cf. M. Muranyi, Materialien, 239-42). All of this suggests that in the first half of the second Islamic century (720-70 C.E.) variant readings were considered to fulfill a separate exegetical function and that the ʿUthmanic recension, apart from some exceptions, had been accepted as the textus receptus. About half a century later, al-Farraʾ (Maʿani, i, II) explicitly contrasts “the reading (qiraʿa) of Ibn Masʿud” with “our reading.” Nevertheless, these texts also make clear that the existence of variant readings which presupposed a nonʿUthmanic rasm was considered a matter of fact.
Apart from the connection with qurʾanic exegetical literature, there is also a connection with the corpus of ḥadith as some additions from the non-ʿUthmanic codices are also reported as sayings of the Prophet, whether inspired by God or not. The verse about the greed of man, “If man had two valleys of riches…” (law [kana] anna libni adama wadiyani min malin…), for instance, is reported both as an addition in Ubayy’s codex at Q 10:24 and in all the six canonical ḥadith collections as an utterance of the Prophet and sometimes as a nonʿUthmanic Qurʾan quotation as well. It also appears that, at least in some cases, the supposed existence of some verses in non-ʿUthmanic codices functioned in the framework of the doctrine of the abrogation (q.v.) of the recited text but not of the divine directive contained therein (naskh al-tilawa duna l-ḥukm, cf. J. Burton, Collection, 68-86).
It is often asserted that Ibn Masʿud’s codex contained a number of Shiʿi readings which were omitted from the ʿUthmanic codex. Although some of these readings are reported to have also been present in other codices, like Ubayy’s and ʿAli’s, a separate Shiʿi Qurʾan codex is not known. It could be argued, however, that if there ever was a distinct Shiʿi codex of the Qurʾan it probably would have contained the explicit Shiʿi readings reported from Ibn Masʿud’s codex.
Eventually, the readings from the preʿUthmanic codices which show a different rasm disappeared from the recitation of the Qurʾan. Those which did not, continued to play a role in the recitation systems of the Qurʾan as variant readings of the ʿUthmanic text. Parenthetically, it should be noted that al-Farraʾ (Maʿani, 95) suggests that in some cases a canonical reading may actually have its origin in a different rasm. Those non-ʿUthmanic readings which fitted in with the later systems of the seven, ten or fourteen accepted recitation systems (qiraʾat) remained accepted, like the reading ḥasanan of Ibn Masʿud in Q 2:83 which is also the reading of Ḥamza, al-Kisaʾi, Yaʿqub, Khalaf and al-Aʿmash whereas the rest (of the fourteen) read ḥusnan. Those readings which did not fit acquired the qualification of “deviant readings” (qiraʾat shadhdha) and became unfit for recitation, although they continued to play a role in the interpretation and linguistic explanation of the Qurʾan.
Alongside the different readings of these pre-ʿUthmanic codices, a variant order of suras (q.v.) is frequently mentioned, the most plausible being the ones of Ibn Masʿud and Ubayy. As in the case of the variant readings of the pre-ʿUthmanic codices, until recently there was no extant manuscript evidence to support this. In some early codices from an Ṣanʿaʾ, however, such different arrangements are indeed found, agreeing or nearly agreeing with what is known from the Ibn Masʿud and Ubayy arrangements (G.-R. Puin, Observations, 110-1).
Although the concept of the ʿUthmanic rasm suggests a uniform and invariable text, such uniformity is not presented by most of the oldest extant codices. Considerable variation in orthography is found especially in connection with long a and words which in the later classical Arabic orthography required a hamza. Even the word qurʾan is found spelled as qrn (e.g. in Q 50:1 of the St. Petersburg fragment as reproduced in E. Rezwan, Frühe Ab schriften, 120-1). In addition to their value for study of the Qurʾan’s textual history such evidential examples are important for the history of Arabic orthography.
Before the second World War, two complementary projects for preparing a critical edition of the Qurʾan were initiated. A. Jeffery’s aim was to present all variants of the ʿUthmanic text that could be collected from the Islamic literary tradition, whereas G. Bergströsser planned to collect variants from (photographs of) extant early manuscripts of the Qurʾan. Although neither project survived the war, Jeffery was able to publish his harvest of readings of the old codices together with his edition of the Kitab al-Maṣaḥif of al-Sijistani (d. 316/929), and at least part of Bergsträsser’s work found its way into the third volume of Geschichte des Qorans (Nöldeke, GQ), which was com pleted after his death in 1933 by O. Pretzl, T. Nöldeke having died in 1930.
According to the hypothesis of J. Wansbrough (QS, esp. 43-52), which asserts that the Qurʾan only reached its final, standard form during the formative process of the first two centuries of the Islamic community, the reports of the ʿUthmanic recension and of the existence of pre-ʿUthmanic codices, as well as accounts of their suppression must be regarded as fiction, probably patterned after Jewish views about the creation of the Hebrew scriptural canon. On the other hand, J. Burton’s (Collection, esp. 160-89) thesis considers the collection and codification of the Qurʾan to have been the work of the prophet Muḥammed himself and the stories about its later collection and codification are therefore to be entirely distrusted since their function was probably only to provide a basis for the doctrine of abrogation (naskh).
From these two contrasting views, it is apparent that the paleographical study of ancient codices has produced no clear, unambiguous and generally accepted results with respect to the dating of extant codices. Recent, new studies, however, do appear to be more promising in their attempts to develop a chronological framework based on an inductive approach or to apply classical, art-historical methods to the paleography of the early qurʾanic manuscripts.