Joseph Kenny OP: Qur'ān and Hadīth studies: Scholarship in early Islam

The word Qur'ān literally means "recitation". It was applied to any individual sūra or segment of a sūra as it originated, so that the present Qur'ān is really a compilation of numerous "qur'ān"s. These were promulgated during Muḥammad's prophetic career of 12 years in Mecca and 10 years in Medina. The story of his receiving the Qur'ānic revelations and his debate with his contemporaries about their authenticity belongs to the life of Muḥammad.[2] Here we are concerned with the text of the Qur'ān and its development during Muḥammad's 22 years of prophetic activity.

The Qur'ān contains stories, warnings and exhortations about many things, but the one common point expressed or implied throughout the book is its claim to divine origin. It is entirely in the form of God's own speech in direct quotation; it never, like the Bible, talks about God or to God or simply narrates history, unless God is understood as dictating the prayer or narrating the story. The word tanzīl or a variant is used about 250 times to say that God "sent down" the Qur'ān. For example: "This is an indubitable revelation (tanzīl) of the Book from the Lord of the universe. Do they say he invented it? Yet it is the truth from your Lord, so that you can warn the people..." (32:2-3). The Qur'ān also claims to be a copy of a heavenly archetype, "the mother of the Book (umm al-kitāb) which is with us" (43:4), or the "guarded tablet (lawḥ maḥfūẓ)" (85:22). Such a claim denies any possibility of debating, questioning or criticising the wisdom of the Qur'ānic messages, and gives an absolute authority to Muḥammad's leadership, which was based on a constant flow of Qur'ānic oracles.

How did these Qur'ānic oracles come to Muḥammad? Only two visions are mentioned, those reported at the beginning of his prophetic experience and described in 53:1-18: A "very powerful and strong" figure "revealed a message to his servant". The implication of the word "servant" (abd) is that the vision was of God. But in 81:15-25 the same experience is reinterpreted as a vision of an angel, since it may have been thought impossible to see God in this life. On the other hand, Moses' petition to see God (7:143) led some Muslim theologians to say that prophets and saints can see God in this life.

There is no evidence that Muḥammad heard voices externally, but only inwardly, by promptings or suggestions in his mind. Q. 42:51 states that "it is not fitting for God to speak to any man except by suggestion or behind a veil or by sending a messenger to suggest by God's permission what he wishes". The word translated "suggestion" is waḥy, another word for revelation which in variant forms occurs 78 times in the Qur'ān. It is used of Zechariah's sign language (19:11), of demons' suggesting ideas to one another (6:112), of God's telling bees where to nest (16:68) or the earth to yield up the dead on the Last Day (99:2-5). It refers also to practical suggestions God made to the prophets, such as that Noah should build the ark (11:36; 23:27), that Moses should depart with his people (20:77; 26:52) and use his staff to part the sea (26:63) or bring water from the rock (7:160). Similarly Muḥammad received the "suggestion" that he should follow the religion of Abraham (16:123). Doctrinal "suggestions" are usually brief phrases, such as "Your God is one God" (21:108; 41:6).

These quick suggestions may often have been just of ideas, leaving to Muḥammad the work of formulating the exact words. Q. 73:5-7 tells of Muḥammad's chanting or working on the Qur'ān at night when impressions are strongest and speech is most proper.[3]

Others interpret the passage as referring to night prayer. In another passage Muḥammad is warned not to force the composition but to wait for inspiration when the words will come:
"Do not move your tongue to hasten it (the Qur'ān).
We are responsible for its collection and recitation.
When we recite, follow the recitation.
Then it is our responsibility to explain it" (75:16-19).
Note, however, that Muslim theologians insist that the revelations made to Muḥammad were not merely ideas but included the complete wording.

Muḥammad, as observed above, at first thought these inspirations came directly from God, and later attributed them to an angel. The angel was eventually identified as Gabriel. In a polemical passage against the Jews it is said, "Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel! - Gabriel brought the Qur'ān down upon your heart by God's permission..." (2:97). Early in Muḥammad's prophetic career the Qur'ān came as an experience foisted upon him from without. When he tried to bring about this experience on his own he was frustrated, but by learning to relax his mind he found that the Qur'ānic passages flowed more easily. Later in his life it became a simple thing for him to tune in on Qur'ānic revelations any time he wished, giving the impression that he was the composer. Yet he always claimed the authority of revelation from God for any such passages.

One proof Muḥammad offered for the divine origin of the Qur'ān was its inimitability. The Qur'ān challenges his opponents: "If men and jinn conspired to produce a Qur'ān like this one they could not, even if they put all their forces together" (17:88). "Tell them, 'Bring a divine scripture with better guidance than this one and I will follow it'" (28:49). "If they say he invented it, tell them, 'Invent ten sūras like it.. if you are right'" (11:13). This challenge was later simplified: "Bring one sūra like it.. if you are right" (2:23).

Muḥammad taught the Qur'ān to his followers and they learned it by memory for use in their prayer and for instructing others. Yet the Qur'ān states in many places that it is a written "book" or "scripture" (kitāb), comparable to the Jewish or Christian scriptures, only in Arabic. Writing was not new to Arabia in Muḥammad's time. South Arabian stone inscriptions date before the Christian era, and inscriptions in the dialects of northwest Arabia begin several centuries before Muḥammad. Classical Arabic inscriptions have been found in Syria, one from about 300 AD and another of the 6th century. No such inscriptions have been found around Mecca and Medina, although the Meccan traders must have kept written records of their accounts, as is reflected in the Qur'ānic preaching about the Last Judgement when the accounts of men's deeds written in a book by angels will be opened and read.

The writing of Arabic at this time, however, was very primitive. It was a kind of shorthand, which was only a reminder of the words to a reader who had already memorised the passage. Modern Arabic has dots above and below several homomorphic letters to distinguish them into different consonants. For example, only a dot makes the difference between "ḥ", "j" and "kh", or between "b", "y", "n", "t" and "th". This system of dots did not exist in Muḥammad's lifetime.

Moreover, Arabic writing normally consists only of consonants and the reader must supply the vowels, but around the 9th century some strokes were invented to indicate the vowels where different vowels would give a different meaning. This system is now used throughout the Qur'ān to make sure it is read correctly, but was unknown in Muḥammad's time.

Al-Ḥajjāj (d. 714) is sometimes said to have encouraged experiments in pointing the Qur'ān, but the system was perfected only in the 9th century, taking inspiration from the systems developed for Hebrew and Syriac in the 6th or 7th centuries.[4]

Until pointed texts were available, memory was absolutely necessary to read the Qur'ān accurately.

As for writing materials, the Qur'ān mentions Jewish Scriptures being written on raqq (52:3), which is probably parchment, prepared from animal skins. It also speaks of qirtās (from the Greek carta), or papyrus sheets, with reference both to Jewish Scriptures (6:91) and the Qur'ān (6:7). These sheets were bound together to form a book. The Qur'ān uses the word ṣaḥīfa (pl. ṣuḥuf) for sheets of unspecified material. The ḥadīth that Zayd ibn-Thābit collected scraps written also on flat stones, palm-leaves, shoulder-blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather and wooden boards seems not authentic, an invention of those who wanted to contrast the simplicity of Muḥammad and his Companions with the luxury of the Umayyads and `Abbāsids.

All Muslim tradition maintains that the Qur'ān was written down by various secretaries and that Muḥammad took no part in writing it. There is no reason to challenge this tradition, but later Muslim apologetes went further to claim that Muḥammad was illiterate and could not write at all. The point of this claim was to make it all the more clear that the Qur'ān is a miracle. The chief argument for this claim is the translation of the word ummī in Q. 7:157 ("the ummī messenger and prophet") as "unlettered". The basis for this interpretation is the word's application to the Medinan Jewish community in Q. 2:78: "Some of them are ummiyyūn who do not know Scripture, but only fancies, and are only guessing." These ummiyyūn are likely Arab proselytes, as can be judged from other contexts where the meaning appears to be "non-Jewish", for instance: "Speak to those who were given Scripture and to the ummiyyūn..." (3:20). Some Jews are cited as saying, "We have no obligation to the ummiyyūn" (3:75). Finally, God "raised up among the ummiyyūn one of their own men as a messenger" (62:2). In Hebrew the related word אֻמָּה (umma, cf. plural in Genesis 25:16) means "tribe" or "nation"; the same for the Aramaic אֻמַיָּא (Daniel 3:4,7,31; 5:19; 7:14; Ezrah 4:10). In Arabic the noun umma means "people" or "community", so that the adjective ummī must mean "native" or "belonging to the Arab community", and not "unlettered".

Muḥammad, however, was not schooled in Jewish or Christian Scriptures, as is clear from Q. 29:48, "You were not formerly reciting from Scripture nor writing it with your right hand. Otherwise the deniers would have reason for their doubts." The absence of direct Biblical quotations in the Qur'ān confirms the fact of Muḥammad's unfamiliarity with the Bible, but no conclusion can be drawn that he was unable to read or write in Arabic.

The traditional account of Muḥammad's receiving the prophetic mission is also frequently adduced as an argument for his illiteracy. According to Ibn-Hishām,[5] Gabriel told Muḥammad to "recite". Muḥammad replied: mā aqra'u, which can mean either "I do not (cannot) recite" or "What shall I recite?” since ma can mean "what" or "not". Another version has mādhā aqra'u, which can only mean "What shall I recite?" Even the negative meaning in another variation, mā ana bi-qāri', "I am not a reciter", would normally mean that Muḥammad was not a professional reciter, that is, a rabbi or scribe who could read Jewish Scripture; this was in Hebrew and was not translated into Arabic.

An argument that Muḥammad could write is the fact that he worked for many years as a trader, and presumably could keep accounts. Also the Meccan objection that the Qur'ān was "olden stories which he wrote while they were dictated to him morning and evening" (25:5) implies a literacy which is not denied in the following verse: "Answer, 'He brought down the Qur'ān who knows what is hidden in heaven and earth...'" (25:6).

Other evidence is the letter Ibn-Hishām says Muḥammad wrote and gave to `Abdallāh ibn-Jaḥsh before the battle of Nakhla,[6] and Muḥammad's amendment of the text of the treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyya, agreeing to call himself "Muḥammad ibn-`Abdallāh" instead of "Muḥammad the Messenger of God".[7]

In conclusion, it seems that Muḥammad could read and write as much as any Meccan trader, but he certainly did not read the Bible, but at most could have heard paraphrased Biblical stories which circulated orally.

The sizeable portion of the Qur'ān containing biblical and apocryphal parallels makes us wonder what was the cultural level of Muḥammad and the Arabs of Mecca and Medina. On the one hand the Qur'ān seems to claim a revealed originality for these passages. For instance, after the story of Noah there is the statement, "This is an announcement of unseen events which we reveal (suggest) to you. Neither you nor your people knew about them beforehand" (11:49). Similar statements are made with reference to stories about Joseph (12:102), Moses (28:44-6) and Mary (3:44). Al-Bayḍāwī interprets Q. 11:49 to mean that "certain details" (ba`ḍu-hā) were not known beforehand.

On the other hand, many of the narratives in the Qur'ān simply allude to stories and events supposing that the reader is already familiar with them. Certainly biblical and apocryphal stories were widely known in the Middle East. Most of the people were illiterate, but had a rich culture of oral literature which was promoted by professional poets and storytellers. Religious and secular material from all sources reached the masses just as it does on TV today. It was inevitable that the Qur'ān should adapt to and reflect this general culture of the people.

Jewish historical lore was very much a part of general Arabian culture. Christianity was much less familiar. Neither Orthodox nor Monophysite teachings, which prevailed in the Byzantine world and Ethiopia, nor Nestorianism, which existed in Persia, seem to have been known. The Christianity reflected in the Qur'ān is of a Judaeo-Christian type, which prevailed among the Semitic people who were not affected by Greek culture.[8]

Whatever the cultural background of the Qur'ān, it is evident that the stories and narratives are not mere repetitions of existing stories, but have been reworked and infused with a specifically Islamic message. So they have an originality uniquely appropriated to Muḥammad's purpose and mission.

The Qur'ān in its present form consists of 114 sūras. Aside from the opening Fātiḥa, which is a standard prayer for every occasion, like the Christian Our Father, the arrangement of the sūras is not chronological, but proceeds roughly from the longest to the shortest. Sūra 2 has 286 long verses. Sūra 114 has only 6 short ones. The longer sūras, moreover, are concatenations of many short, originally separate, passages.

Scholars are unanimous in recognised that there was an editing process in the Qur'ān. Muslim tradition recognises this not only in the arrangement of sūras, but also in the insertion of verses of different dates, for example Medinan verses in a Meccan sūra. The dates are determined by the historical context of the verses (asbāb at-tanzīl), which is supplied by Islamic tradition. Western scholars also have tried to date the passages, relying not merely on the authority of tradition, but also on the correspondence of certain themes with certain periods of Muḥammad's life. Régis Blachère distinguishes three periods in Mecca and a fourth in Medina.[9]

The 1st Meccan period is marked by : a) a call for purification, love and perseverance, b) stress on God's power illustrated in human conception, death, resurrection, judgement, heaven and hell, c) a conciliatory, moving to a hostile attitude towards the traditional religion, d) short prayers and statements of belief, and 3) a terse style with short verses and powerful rhythm and rhymes.

The 2nd Meccan period is marked by: a) hotter polemic with followers of the traditional religion, b) greater stress on God's oneness and opposition to polytheism, c) comparison with former peoples punished by God for not accepting their prophets, d) tripartite homilies consisting of a doctrinal statement, examples and a conclusion, and 3) the introduction of artificial rhymes, such as the plural endings īn and ūn.

The 3rd Meccan period is marked by: a) a continuation of the tripartite homilies of the 2nd period, b) continuing preaching of God's oneness, goodness, omnipotence and omniscience, c) much briefer and stereotyped descriptions of heaven and hell, d) the presentation of Abraham as the founder of Ḥanifism, 3) the first mention of Joseph and Shu`ayb, f) development of Muḥammad's role as a warner and deliverer of an Arabic Qur'ān, with the theme that men easily turn to God in hardship and to evil in prosperity, g) dropping of the divine name Raḥmān, and the introduction of the terms furqān and balāgh to designate the Qur'ān, and h) unbalanced verses verging on simple prose.

The Medinan period is marked by: a) administrative and military concerns, b) details of marriage, inheritance and other legal matters, c) reference to Judaism and Christianity, and d) a prosaic style, with long verses.

Editing shows up not only in mixing material of different dates, but also in the rough patchwork style that results from reworking and revision. Sometimes rhyming passages are interrupted by verses of a different rhyme, or adjustments of an original rhyme by additional phrases to fit the rhyme of another context. For instance, in 23:12-14 an original rhyme ending in "a" has been adjusted to fit the ūn/ īn rhyme of verses 15-16. Sometimes there are interruptions in the flow of thought by parenthetical verses evidently inserted later, or verses which qualify or explain or give exceptions to a statement and appear to be of a later date. Sometimes insertions break the grammatical structure and leave phrases hanging unconnected, or pronouns are suddenly changed from singular to plural or from second to third person without an antecedent. Sometimes an unusually long verse is sitting in the midst of a series of short verses.

Breaks in grammar and flow of meaning sometimes are an indication of the fusion of originally separate passages which had different continuations. In one version story X had the ending A; in another version the same story X had the ending B. When they were put together, story X was given with ending A, to which ending B was appended. Even with the many repetitions and variations in the present Qur'ān, it represents a boiling down of many more variations of themes delivered on different occasions and later fused to save on volume. An example is Q. 23: Passage X ends with verse 63. There follow three different endings, each beginning with ḥatta idhā: A (verses 64-76), B (verses 77-98) and C (verses 99-118). Verse 77 does not join easily with verse 76, nor 99 with 98, yet both join very happily with 63, showing that they are al variant continuations of the same passage.

The extensive editing evident in the Qur'ān is not surprisingly discussed in the Qur'ān itself. The problem the Qur'ān faces is how to reconcile the fact of editing with the teaching of the divine origin of the Qur'ān.

The first point the Qur'ān makes is that Muḥammad would not change the Qur'ān deliberately on his own authority: "When our probative signs are recited to them, those who expect not to meet us say, 'Bring a different Qur'ān or change this one.' Answer, 'It is not for me to change it of my own accord. I only follow what is revealed to me. If I disobey my Lord, I fear the punishment of the Mighty Day'" (10:15). This passage can be taken with the very many condemnations of forging or inventing (iftirā') any statement about God. The necessity for God's inspiration to make any change in the Qur'ān was so recognised by Muḥammad's followers that any apparent deviation shocked them. While `Abdallāh ibn-abī-Sarḥ was taking dictation of Q. 23:12-14 he so admired the description of man's creation that he interrupted with "Blessed be God, the best creator!" Muḥammad told him to put this down (in verse 14), thereby causing Ibn-abī-Sarḥ to doubt Muḥammad's prophetic claims. He then gave up Islam and returned to Mecca.10]

A second point is that Muḥammad did not change or omit anything in the Qur'ān because of forgetfulness: "We will recite to you and you will not forget, except what God wishes" (87:6-7; cf. 17:86 & 18:24). How Tradition viewed the functioning of Muḥ ammad's memory can be seen in the ḥadīth, "The Messenger of God went into the mosque to pray and heard a man recite by night, and said, 'May God be kind to that man! He has just reminded me of a verse which I had forgotten from one sūra'".[11]

A third point is that God does initiate changes in the Qur'ān: "When we substitute one verse for another — and God knows best what he brings down, they say, 'You are simply an inventor'. But most of them do not know" (16:101). Islamic theology uses the Qur'ānic term naskh (abrogation) to designate the various forms of change made in revealed texts or ordinances.

Among the varieties of naskh, first there is the abrogation of ordinances or rulings of an earlier Scripture by a later one. Jesus says, "I am verifying the Torah which you have, yet declaring lawful for you some of the things that were forbidden to you..." (Q. 3:50). Similarly Muḥammad is told, "For whatever sign/verse (āya) we cancel (mansukh) or cause you to forget we bring a better one or one just as good" (2:106). This verse is usually understood of revisions within the Qur'ān, but in the context it is followed by a series of changes in laws which were partly hold-overs of Jewish custom and were not modified: There was a change in the qibla (verses 115, 177, 124-151), in the pilgrimage rites (158, 191-203), dietary laws (168-74), the law of talion (178-9), bequests (180-2) and the fast (183-7). So Q. 2:106 (like 16:101) can be seen as an abrogation of some Jewish laws accepted for a time in Islam.

A second kind of naskh recognised by Muslim scholars is the suppression or withdrawal of certain Qur'ānic verses to make way for a new one. This is technically called naskh al-ḥukm wa-t-tilāwa, suppression of the ruling and the wording. In one ḥadīth Anas says about the Muslims who were killed in the battle of Bi'r Ma`ūna, "A Qur'ān verse came down about them and we were reciting it until it was withdrawn: 'Inform our people for us that we have met our Lord. He is pleased with us and has satisfied our desires.'"[12] Another instance is the so-called "Satanic verses" which aṭ-Ṭabarī says were originally part of Q. 53.[13]

After verses 19 & 20, "Have you considered al-Lāt and al-`Uzza, and Manāt the third besides?", Muḥammad was moved by Satan to placate his opponents by adding, "Those are the high flying ghurnūqs [Numidian cranes] whose inter`cession can be counted on". Then God sent Gabriel to point out Muḥammad's error by means of Q. 22:52-3, "We have never sent a messenger or a prophet before you, but that Satan intervened in his intention while he was formulating it. So God cancelled what Satan inserted. Then God adjusts his verses/signs, to make Satan's insertion a stumbling block for the diseased of heart and the hard-hearted..." In place of the Satanic verses in Q. 53 we now have the continuation, "Should you have male children and God females? These goddesses are only names which you and your ancestors have given them without any authority from God. You are only following your fantasies and the cravings of your hearts..." (53:21-2).

A third kind of naskh admitted by most classical Muslim scholars is the abrogation of a ruling in one verse of the Qur'ān by another verse of a later date, in other words "suppression of the ruling but not of the wording" (naskh al-ḥukm dūn at-tilāwa). The chronology of Qur'ān verses obviously is of crucial importance for legal opinions assuming abrogation, since the later abrogates the earlier. An alleged abrogated verse is Q. 2:240, which says that widows should be bequeathed support for a year. The legal schools say that this ruling is replaced by Q. 2:234, which states that widows must wait four months and ten days before remarriage; the jurists take this as the time support is to be discontinued.[14]

These and other classical examples depend on questionable exegesis, so that many modern Muslims think that no verse of the Qur'ān is abrogated by another. They may be right in principle, even if their exegesis by harmonisation is not always accurate. Rather than strict abrogation within the Qur'ān, a better case could be made for development of doctrine, whereby verses edited later into a passage add important qualifications to its meaning. A possible example is Q. 74:55-6, "anyone who wishes will remember this," followed by, "They will not remember unless God wishes".

A fourth kind of naskh can be noted here for the sake of completeness, although it will be discussed later. It is the alleged cancellation of a verse without abrogating its legal force, naskh at-tilāwa dūn al-ḥukm. An example is the ruling that martially restricted (muḥṣan) adulterers are to be stoned. No such ruling is mentioned in the present Qur'ān, but many early Muslim scholars maintained that there once was such a verse and it still remains in force. Perhaps to defend the existence of such verses the following story of `Abdallāh ibn-Mas`ūd was produced: "The Messenger of God taught me how to recite averse, which I learned by heart and put in my book. When I went to bed that night I could not remember it any more, and found the place in my book blank. I then asked the Prophet, and he answered that the verse had been withdrawn the evening before."[15]

Commentators generally agree that Muḥammad himself did a considerable amount of the editing that put the Qur'ān into its present shape. The question is how much work, if any, he left to his successors to carry out.

The traditional account most commonly accepted attributes the final editing of the Qur'ān to the caliph `Uthmān, who commissioned Zayd ibn-Thābit to do the work; this was between 12 and 24 years after Muḥammad's death. Defenders of this account point to the unlikelihood that Muḥammad had time to do all the long and difficult work of editing because of his preoccupation with public affairs, and that death caught him by surprise. They also point to the tradition of variant readings or variant editions of the Qur'ān ascribed to different Companions of Muḥammad. `Uthmān tried to suppress these variations, but some of them have been preserved to this day. If Muḥammad had edited the Qur'ān, the argument goes, how could these variant editions arise?

The story of `Uthmān's edition of the Qur'ān has been questioned by some because of its late appearance and the possibility that the story was motivated by a desire to defend variant readings which support certain legal positions.[16]

They also point out that the Qur'ān in fact is in quite a rough unfinished state, and that it would be unlikely that anyone but Muḥammad himself could dare do much to the text and get away without serious dissension arising, making the imposition of a uniform Qur'ān impossible. That very few substantial variations have survived points to the responsibility of Muḥammad himself for the text, since his authority could not be challenged.

Ḥadīth support for the view that Muḥammad finalised the text of the Qur'ān is found in the story that Gabriel reviewed the text with Muḥammad annually, and twice during the last year of his life, so that al was settled in the "final review".[17]

There is also the tradition, which as-Suyūṭī assures us Muslims unanimously accept, that Muḥammad was responsible for the order of verses in each sūra. `Uthmān is quoted as saying, "The Messenger of God sometimes had a lengthy sūra revealed to him, and sometimes when a particular section was revealed he would call one of his secretaries and say, 'Put these verses in the sūra where such and such a topic is mentioned.'" On another occasion Muḥammad "sat staring for a while and afterwards said, 'Gabriel came to me and ordered me to put this verse in this particular section of this particular sūra'".[18]

These arguments for Muḥammad's finalisation of the Qur'ān will be examined later. Suffice it to say that those who accept an editing of the Qur'ān after Muḥammad's death are giving credence to the authenticity of Tradition and casting doubts on the authenticity of the Qur'ān. Those who maintain that the Qur'ān was edited before Muḥammad's death are doing the opposite: challenging Tradition and Islamic historiography and supporting the authenticity of the Qur'ān. This dilemma will be examined later.

CHAPTER 2
THE STATUS OF ISLAMIC TRADITION: SUNNA & ḤADĪTH

Unlike secular civil law or even the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, Sharī`a, for the Muslim community, means a legal system that is divinely ordained. Yet Sharī`a is not contained in one or even a few books. It is God's will as recognised first in Qur'ānic revelations and secondly in the Sunna, the pronouncements and precedents attributed to Muḥammad as the Prophetic leader of the Muslim community. The Qur'ān and Sunna, however, are not a systematic code, but scattered regulations. These regulations, moreover, do not cover every matter of life which requires decision, and they are sometimes open to various interpretations; so that human reason must come into play. The human effort to understand and interpret revealed law is known as fiqh.

For the first 150 years of Islam, fiqh was a very free adaptation of Islamic principles to new circumstances. Existing customary law was retained as far as possible, and Muslim jurists made new decisions on the basis of their considered personal opinion, or ra'y. In this way legal custom was evolving and, through common acceptance or agreement (ijmā`), even taking on the name and authority of Sunna. Sunna concretely means "straight" or "beaten path", but commonly refers to an "established norm" or "set example".[19]

The human element in the early development of Islamic law, to say nothing of the strife and civil wars of this period, naturally resulted in divergent legal practice. The peace established by `Abdalmalik (685-705) permitted the studied formation of these practices in regional schools of law. The earliest schools arose in Medina, the first political capital of Islam, and Kūfa in Iraq, which was the principal Arab military base outside Arabia. Soon Baṣra, Damascus and Mecca also became centres of legal thought. Each of these towns developed its own Sunna or ijmā` reflecting local practice and/or the ideals propounded by the scholars of these towns[20]

The confusion and anarchy prevailing during the last years of Umayyad rule led to further polarisation of the different schools of law. When the `Abbāsids gained power they found a situation of intolerable legal fragmentation, so that al-Manṣūr (754-775) decided to ask Mālik ibn-Anas to compile his Muwaṭṭa' to uniforms legal practice.[21]

Al-Manṣūr did not succeed in eliminating the differences of the schools, yet Mālik's work prompted a shift in legal opinion from local geographical loyalty to personal loyalty to an acknowledged scholar. The Medinans turned to Mālik ibn-Anas (d. 796) and the Iraqians to Abū-Ḥanīfa (d. 767). Other schools came into being purely as a result of the personal leadership of certain men. Such a man was Aḥmad ibn-Ḥanbal (d. 855), whose chief rallying point was the rejection of any philosophical reasoning about the faith, or any analogical reasoning about God's law. He would accept as legitimate authority only the letter of the Qur'ān or authentic Sunna of the Prophet.

A fourth school formed posthumously around ash-Shāfi`ī (d. 820), a man who had a deep and permanent impact on all of Sunnī thought. His principle was the total sovereignty of God and his revealed will, so that any purely human law was seen as a competition with God's authority. Ash-Shāfi`ī's conclusion and rallying point therefore was the rejection of ra'y or any form of human reasoning as a source of law and the demand that every point of Sharī`a be founded on a Qur'ānic prescription or on a Sunna that can be authentically ascribed to the Prophet through a chain of witnesses, called an isnād. It is doubtful whether Muḥammad ever intended to make a legal legacy of his own decisions and example apart from the Qur'ān. Yet the logic that revelation must guide all of life forced Muslims to seek some divine seal for their extra-Qur'ānic legal system.

Sunna, in strict Shāfi`ite terminology, became equivalent to Ḥadīth, or traditions recorded about the Prophet. As a result of its new importance a massive movement of Ḥadīth gathering took shape. Since for most practices no tradition from Muḥammad existed, ḥadīths were invented en masse. The authority for inventing ḥadīths was found in a forged ḥadīth quoting Muḥammad that any good sayings that exist can be assumed to have been said by him and can be accepted on his authority. To prevent extremes in the free invention of ḥadīth, a second ḥadīth was fabricated as a control: "He who tells a deliberate lie about me (Muḥammad) should be prepared for his seat in hell."[22]

Of the hundreds of thousands of ḥadīths that were amassed, most were eventually rejected as spurious from a critique of their isnāds, not from any internal reason. The remainder were embodied in the commonly accepted "authentic" (ṣaḥīḥ) collections of al-Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim ibn-al-Ḥajjāj (d. 875), Abū-Dā'ūd (d. 888), at-Tirmidhī (d. 892), an-Nasā'ī (d. 916), and Ibn-Māja (d. 886).

Classical Muslim scholars had three criteria for evaluating an isnād: 1) the character of the transmitter, 2) the continuity of the chain of transmission back to Muḥammad without a break, and 3) the number of transmitters at each stage of the transmission. (A large number argues for authenticity.) Accordingly they classify ḥadīths as either ṣaḥīḥ (authentic), or ḥasan (good), or ḍa`īf (weak), or mawḍū` (forged). Apart from the Mu`tazilites, who criticised ḥadīths because of their frequent anthropomorphisms and inconsistencies, Muslim scholars developed no other method of evaluating ḥadīths besides examining their isnāds. Yet isnāds were invented only in the 2nd century of the Islamic era (Az-Zuhrī, d. 742, is said to be the first to have supported a ḥadīth with an isnād), and at first were not carried back to Muḥammad but only to his Companions or their successors. There is, moreover, no guarantee that even the isnāds which contain the most widespread and reliable transmitters are not forged.

Using the methods of historical and literary criticism, Ignaz Goldziher has shown how the Tradition literature represents a late development, and that the ḥadīths are only projected back to Muḥammad to claim his authority.[23]

Joseph Schacht, in addition, has shown that Islamic legal traditions did not develop in Medina and then spread out to other places, but originated in the provinces and represent the customary law of these conquered territories and the elaboration of Muslim jurists of those places.[24]

Although in general agreement with Schacht, Noel Coulson is prepared to recognise the substantive (though not verbatim) authenticity of many ḥadīths,[25] and Fazlur Rahman thinks that these collections are at least faithful to the spirit of Muḥammad, and that his Companions and their successors adopted as Sunna what he would have said or done in new circumstances.[26]

Ash-Shāfi`ī scored another more radical point in the debate about Sunna by decisively asserting the principle, which beforehand was not clearly accepted by everyone, that the Prophet's legal decisions were divinely inspired.[27]

To substantiate his point he interpreted Qur'ānic verses (e.g. 2:129) referring to "the Book and the Wisdom given to the Prophet to mean "the Qur'ān and the Ḥadīth". Before this time the Prophet was recognised as the most qualified to interpret the Qur'ān, but still as a human interpreter. Therefore scholars like Mālik held that his rulings could be rejected when better reasons were advanced. Such wavering regarding the Prophet's absolute authority was ended through the influence of ash-Shāfi`ī. Thereafter Muslims generally accepted the principle that the Qur'ān and the Sunna of Muḥammad (as presented in collections of ḥadīth) are the only possible sources of Sharī`a.

According to the followers of ash-Shāfi`ī, Sharī`a is founded on Qur'ān and Sunna, but can be interpreted and applied to new cases through analogical reasoning (qiyās, solving new cases in the light of previous cases which has a common ground - `illa) and consensus (ijmā`). Independent reasoning, however, found its way back into the final formulation of Islamic jurisprudence in the 10th century through the re-introduction of the principles of istiḥsān or istiṣlāḥ). These make "equity" and "public interest" an intention of God which jurisprudence must bear in mind in cases where the Qur'ān and Sunna are silent, rather than follow analogical reasoning blindly, whatever the consequences.[28]

Four schools of law have been noted: the Mālikī, the Ḥanafī, the Ḥanbalī and the Shāfi`ī. There were others which died out, and there was a completely different development of law in Shī`ism which we pass over. The fact of divergence in laws which claim to represent the will of the one God was a scandal at first, and the different schools engaged in severe recrimination of one another for some time. The general acceptance, however, of ash-Shāfi`ī's theory of the sources of law made the rivalry die down, and a ḥadīth was produced to say that differences of opinion come from God's mercy. (ikhtilāf al-umma raḥma).[29]

According to ash-Shāfi`ī's peace formula only the least common denominator about which all were in agreement (ijmā`) was indubitably binding as God's will. Other laws were a matter of conjecture (ẓann). Such a principle, we might think, opens the door for all kinds of diversity in Sunnī Islam, but soon after ash-Shāfi`ī's time the principle of ijmā` (consensus or agreement) was invoked to tolerate only those differences which were in circulation among the four schools at the time of ash-Shāfi`ī. No new opinions contradicting these positions would be allowed. Within such limits the scope of human reason in applying Sharī`a by analogical reasoning (qiyās) or more generally by ijtihād (the "effort" of one's own judgement) quickly spent itself, and by the early 10th century jurists recognised that the "door of ijtihād was closed". Ijmā` thereby became the all-inclusive authority in Islam. It guaranteed the authenticity of the Qur'ān as the word of God and the authenticity of Tradition or Ḥadīth, and set limits to the variations of opinion in Islamic law and theology.[30]

A student thereafter had only to repeat or imitate (by taqlīd, blind imitation) the teaching of his predecessors. so writers of legal treatises kept to either condensing earlier long works or to versifying or expanding condensed works.

Fazlur Rahman observes that ijmā` was originally a pragmatic authority moulding the future by adaptation and new solutions (gained through ijtihād), but with ash-Shāfi`ī it became a prophetically sanctioned absolute authority of the past, true and valid forever and closed to any revision.[31]

We may note, finally, the characteristics and distribution of the four Sunnī legal schools existing up to now:

Although legal questions were very prominent in early Islam, there was also an interest in the life of Muḥammad. This interest was generated by a natural curiosity to know the origins or roots of Islam, by reverence for the person of Muḥammad whose legend was growing, and particularly by legal requirements, as the later importance of Ḥadīth made detailed information about Muḥammad's life the basic ammunition in legal debates.

In the 8th century several biographies of Muḥammad, concentrating on the battles (maghāzī) that he fought, were compiled by scholars such as ash-Sha`bī (d. 721), `Urwa ibn-az-Zubayr (d.c. 712), `Āṣim ibn-`Umar ibn-Qatāda (d. 737) and az-Zuhrī (d. 742). These works are lost and known only from quotations by later writers.

A comprehensive life of Muḥammad was written by Ibn-Isḥāq (d. 768) 125 years after Muḥammad's death. This biography (sīra) survives in an amplified edition by Ibn-Hishām, who died in 833, two centuries after Muḥammad's death. Besides this there is important information in the Annals of aṭ-Ṭabarī (d. 922). Also informative for some details are the Maghāzī of al-Wāqidī (d. 822) and the Ṭabaqāt of Ibn-Sa`d (d. 845). The Ḥadīth collections of al-Bukhārī etc. have very little to add about the life of Muḥammad, and concern mostly legal or theological questions.

The biographies of Muḥammad have to be read critically. The basic outline of facts seems reliable enough, but there is some obvious reshaping of the events to support certain legal or theological positions. There is also a considerable amount of fanciful legend designed to enhance Muḥammad's authority and divine mission, some of this occasioned by debates with Christians. The description of various contemporaries of Muḥammad may be correct as to the events which occurred, but the motives and character ascribed to these persons is obviously coloured by controversies among Muslim factions at the time of the writing. Each faction or party had its ancestors or authorities among the various Companions of Muḥammad, and a writer would want to show that the ancestors of his opponents were not good Muslims.

In the development of legal tradition we noted that the initial stage was marked by an adoption of the customary pre-Islamic law of the provinces and a pragmatic evolution of Sunna. This altogether human process could not withstand the totalitarian logic of Islam, which required all law to come under the umbrella of divine authority. The legal system was already too entrenched to be changed; so it was projected back in the form of ḥadīth to the prophetic authority of Muḥammad. Ash-Shāfi`ī in this way neutralised the threat of liberal thinking.

On the other hand, it was clear that the legal system now claiming Muḥammad's authority did not rest on the Qur'ān, and in some instances was in conflict with the Qur'ān. Fundamentalist devotees of the Qur'ān (known to us through ash-Shāfi`ī's writings) then became a third party in the struggle, challenging in the name of the overriding authority of the Qur'ān the prevalent man-made legal system and the so-called Muḥammadan authority for it. They also maintained the complete sufficiency of the Qur'ān, denying even late in the 2nd century of Islam that there was any other legitimate source of law. They said that anything not determined in the Qur'ān was deliberately left unregulated by the divine Lawgiver.[35]

The Qur'ānic party represented a minority opposition to the established system, but its arguments constituted a powerful threat.

Ash-Shāfi`ī was committed to the existing legal system and to defending it on the basis of Mu-ammadan authority. Although he was very clever in debating and arguing, he knew he would have to draw on all his skill to face the challenge of defending Sunna against the Qur'ān.

His first argument was to quote the Qur'ān in support of the necessity of Prophetic Sunna, for example: "Whatever the Messenger gives you accept it; whatever he forbids you give it up" (59:7). There are innumerable recurrences in the Qur'ān of the command "to obey God and his Messenger". Moreover, the many Qur'ānic assertions that Muḥammad taught "the Book and the Wisdom", ash-Shāfi`ī argued, can only refer to the Qur'ān and the Sunna, since the Wisdom can refer to nothing else. Ash-Shāfi`ī concludes that every Muslim has the solemn obligation of obeying Muḥammad in all things, that is, by observing the Sunna to the letter.

Another argument that ash-Shāfi`ī used was to counter the Qur'ānic party's exaggeration of the sufficiency of the Qur'ān with an exaggerated focus on man's inability to understand the Qur'ān without the help of the Sunna. He stressed how the Qur'ān could lend itself to so many different interpretations, and man would be groping in blindness, he argued, if he tried to understand the Qur'ān without the help of divinely provided Sunna. Moreover, many Qur'ān verses are abrogated by others and these can be known only by Sunna.[36]

Ash-Shāfi`ī's last argument effectively made Sunna superior to the Qur'ān, since any interpretation of the Qur'ān must conform to it. Yet he would never admit as much, and said that the two could never clash. He knew that any claim that the Sunna ever once overruled the Qur'ān would make him lose the debate with the Qur'ān party. To avoid any head-on collision, he elaborated two principles:

In vain did the Qur'ānic party counter ash-Shāfi`ī's tactic of quoting the Qur'ān to support Sunna by the opposite procedure of quoting Sunna to support the Qur'ān. They quoted the ḥadīth: "The Prophet said, 'Compare what I am reported to have said or done with the Book of God. If it agrees, I did actually say it; if it disagrees, I did not say it.'" Ash-Shāfi`ī challenged the isnād of thisḥadīth and came back with another ḥadīth whose isnād he admitted was also weak: "Don't let me find one of you hearing a command or prohibition from me and saying, 'We shall follow what we find in the Book of God.'"[38]

Ash-Shāfi`ī won the debate with the Qur'ān party, and his arguments assured the victory of Sunna. He was then able to consecrate Sunna with the full authority of revelation. The Qur'ān, he said, was waḥy matlū or lafẓī (recited or verbal revelation), while the Sunna is waḥy ghayr matlū (non-recited revelation), that is, a revelation of the meaning (ma`nawī), for which Muḥammad was left to find his own words, but revelation nonetheless.[39]

Once the threat of the Qur'ān party receded and the position of Sunna was assured, its supporters could go further than ash-Shāfi`ī and maintain that in case of conflict Sunna does overrule the Qur'ān. The Qur'ān (53:4-5) was sometimes cited as proof: "He does not speak from mere whim, but it is a revelation revealed." This verse obviously refers to Qur'ānic revelation, but is stretched to apply to Sunna.[40]

The rationale for the possibility of Sunna overruling the Qur'ān is explained by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111):

Al-Ghazālī goes on to maintain also the reverse possibility of the Qur'ān overruling Sunna, citing the example that the Qur'ān (2:142-4) imposed the Mecca qibla to replace the Jerusalem qibla which had been, he said, introduced by Sunna.[43]

Muḥammad ibn-Mūsā al-Hamdhānī expressed the supremacy of Sunna in slogans like, "The Sunna is the judge of the Qur'ān", and "The Qur'ān has greater need of the Sunna than the Sunna has of the Qur'ān". He gave the following examples of Sunna overruling the Qur'ān: The Qur'ānic rules on inheritance were abrogated by Prophetic rulings forbidding believer-unbeliever inheritance and slave-free man inheritance. Bequests to parents and kin were set aside by ḥadīths that no statutory heir might benefit by bequest. Sunna also cancelled the widow's benefits of Q. 2:180 & 240 and extended the kinds of relationships constituting an obstacle to marriage. Sunna permitted travellers to shorten their ṣalāt even when danger was not at hand, etc.[44]

The debates between representatives of different schools of law and between proponents of Sunna and the Qur'ān party took a new turn with the availability of a new weapon to all the parties. This was appeal to variant readings of the Qur'ān traced back to the authority of one or another of Muḥammad's Companions. The appeal to Qur'ān variants does not seem to have been aimed at rejecting any part of the received text, but at establishing additional verses, phrases or words that would support a particular legal point. When the Qur'ān party found their insistence on the obvious meaning of the Qur'ān rebutted by an opposite interpretation resting on the authority of Sunna, they could appeal to a variant reading to help their case. Likewise the proponents of any legal practice challenged by the Qur'ān party could, instead of putting their practice under the aegis of Sunna and the authority of Muḥammad, appeal to a variant Qur'ān verse to give the practice divine authority.

An example of the majority of fiqh schools using this device is their appeal to the "stoning verse", as noted above. Q. 4:15 says that the penalty for married or adulterous woman is confinement "until death releases them or God appoints a way for them". The change of the penalty to stoning first appears in a ḥadīth transmitted from `Ubāda:

The particular wording of the verse and its place in the Qur'ān is given in the following ḥadīth:

The stoning verse presented some embarrassment, because it conflicted with the prevalent fiqh by allowing older unmaritally restricted adulterers to get away with flogging (Q. 24:2), while while young maritally restricted (muḥṣan) adulterers could be stoned. Some said that this was the reason why the verse was not included in the Qur'ān. Mālik escaped this difficulty by equating shaykh and shaykha with thayyib and thayyiba (non-virgin), meaning the maritally restricted. Yet the real reason for the verse not being in the Qur'ān must be that people realised that it did not belong there. Ash-Shāfi`ī thought that the verse was not Qurānic but a Sunna explanation indicating a special exception (takhṣīṣ) to the general. rule of flogging.[48]

Ash-Shāfi`ī, nevertheless, accepted the principle of "abrogation of the wording but not of the ruling", since he accepted the existence of a variant Qur'ānic verse concerning the bar to marriage arising from a child's sucking from a foster mother. The Qur'ān (4:23) simply states the marriage prohibition, arising from this relationship. The variant verse states that five attested suckings were required to set up the bar.[49]

An example of a minority appealing to a Qur'ān variant is an addition to Q 4:24 permitting temporary marriage (mu`ṭa). The present wording is: "Give the women you have enjoyed their rightful wages." The reading attributed to Ibn-Mas`ūd and Ubayy is. "Give the women you have enjoyed for a fixed time their rightful wages."[50]

The implication of all these appeals to variant Qur'ān readings is that the present Qur'ān is incomplete. Distinction was made between the Muṣḥaf (codex/edition) presently in circulation and the Kitāb Allāh (Book of God) which contained many more verses lost or forgotten by men, although still valid. Essentially, the appeal to variant readings was a case of "abrogation of the wording but not of the ruling" mentioned above.

Almost all the classical scholars accepted the existence of variant readings even though some, like aṭ-Ṭabarī, had no practical use for it, since he put the stoning penalty and similar cases under Sunna.[51]

The major problem about any variant verses is who was responsible for leaving them out of the present Qur'ān. Jalāladdīn as-Suyūṭī (d. 1503) clearly stated the two possible alternatives: 1) The verses were abrogated while Muḥammad was alive and by his prophetical authority (even though the ruling remained in effect), and 2) The verses were lost in the compilation of the Qur'ān after Muḥammad's death.[52]

Aṭ-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and Muḥammad az-Zarkashī (d. 1392) similarly admitted either possibility.[53]

Aṭ-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 933) quite easily said that the transmitters and compilers failed to produce a perfectly accurate edition,[54] but as-Sarakhsī (d. 1097) said that this is inadmissible. He maintained that abrogation of a verse could only come from Muḥammad, and that after his death the soundness of the transmission is guaranteed by the promise of Q 15:9: "We have brought down the Recollection the Qur'ān) and we are preserving it."[55]

Traditions, nevertheless, multiplied that verses were deliberately or indeliberately added, dropped or altered in the Qur'ān by Muḥammad's Companions after his death, and that the present Qur'ān is only one questionable representation of its original form as delivered by Muḥammad. Either Tradition is authentic and the Qur'ān is not, or the Qur'ān is authentic and Tradition is not.

CHAPTER 4
ḤADĪTH AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF THE QUR'ĀN

The main motives, of course, for wanting to exclude Muḥammad from finalising the Qur'ān was to allow appeal to variant Qur'ān verses, either In matters all the schools agreed about (as the stoning penalty for married adulterers) or in matters where one school disagreed with another. The embarrassment of claiming a post`Muḥammadan edition of the Qur'ān is shown in the reports (see below) that the caliphs had scruples about doing a job which Muḥammad never did nor recommended to be done.[59]

According to one set of traditions Abū-Bakr was "the first to gather the Qur'ān between two covers".[60] Yet other traditions give the credit to `Umar:

We may note, by the way, that the death of 700 Companions (according to other Information) could hardly have been a serious loss for the Qur'ān, since in the lists of names only two of them could have known much of the Qur'ān by memory. The rest were recent converts.[61]

The following ḥadīth quoting Zayd reconciles and combines the previous two previous traditions:

The sheets (ṣuḥaf) that Zayd prepared in this manner remained in the keeping of Abū-Bakr. On his death, they passed to `Umar who then bequeathed them on his death to his daughter Ḥafṣa.

Still another ḥadīth credits `Umar together with `Uthmān for the first edition of the Qur'ān:

In these ḥadīths we notice first of all a discrepancy about who first collected or edited the Qur'ān. Political considerations may well explain the discrepancy. `Uthmān may have been the first credited with editing the Qur'ān, as will be discussed later, but his unpopularity made people project the work back to one or another of his predecessors.[64] We can also note that the story of any official edition completed under Abū-Bakr or `Umar is not reconcilable with the story of the disputes and dissension which necessitated `Uthmān's edition. If, however, the work attributed to `Uthmān was to be represented as a continuation of what Abū-Bakr began, some connecting link was needed. This was found In the "pages of Ḥafṣa", daughter of `Umar and widow of Muḥammad.

Ḥafṣa'a pages, however, were not very important in the whole story, because she would hardly have been the guardian of an official text on which the government of Islam depended. Besides, her pages were elsewhere described as being very different from that of `Uthmān. The story goes "how when Marwān was Governor of Medina he sent to Ḥafṣa demanding her Codex that he might destroy it, but she refused to give it up. When she died Marwān assisted at her funeral and at its conclusion sent and with much insistence demanded the Codex from `Abdallāh ibn-`Umar, Ḥafṣa's brother. `Abdallāh finally sent it to him and he had it destroyed, fearing, he said, that if it got abroad the variety of readings that `Uthmān desired to suppress would recommence."[65] Rather than Ḥafṣa, the real link in the chain is Zayd ibn-Thābit, to be discussed later.

Another discrepancy in these and other ḥadīths is the assertion on the one hand that much of the Qur'ān is lost and the present edition is incomplete, and the assurance on the other hand that the present Qur'ān edition is complete. The incompleteness of the Qur'ān is illustrated by the following ḥadīth:

The completeness of the Qur'ān is illustrated by `Umar's and `Uthmān's requirement of two witnesses for any verse to be included in their edition. (Cf. Q 2:282.) No dubious isolated reports (khabar al-wāḥid), as were common in the Ḥadīth world, could be included, but the Qur'ān text had to have widespread witness or recogni`tion (tawātur).[67] Only and all such passages were included.

Such opposite statements about the completeness or incompleteness of the Qur'ān can be reconciled if we understand whether they are referring to the received text authorised by one of the caliphs or to the "Book of God" revealed to Muḥammad, whose additional material Islamic law made use of in so far as it was able to substantiate it by the witness of one or other of Muḥammad's Companions. Al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013) concludes:

The tradition, given in the previous section, that `Uthmān completed the editing of the Qur'ān begun by his predecessors supposes that there was no collec`tion of the various parts of the Qur'ān into one volume until `Uthmān (644-656) completed this job, perhaps 15 or 20 years after the death of Muḥammad. The formality of two witnesses was the only guarantee of the authenticity of the contents, according to this supposition.

Quite a different supposition underlies the tradition that `Uthmān made his edition in response to the dissension arising over editions already completed and circulated by several different persons. `Uthmān's work In that case was to select from the existing editions and produce a single authorised edition, to the exclusion of all others. The guarantee of its authenticity in this case is not two witnesses, but the consensus (ijm...`) of the Muslim community at large, which agreed about a basic text, but differed only with regard to certain details of its reading.

The following is one of several versions given by Ibn-abī-Dāwūd (d. 928) of the commonly known story:

Another ḥadīth reports differences not only between Iraq and Syria, but also between rival Iraqian factions:

In general, far from protesting `Uthmān's highhandedness in destroying editions of the Qur'ān coming from reliable secretaries of Muḥammad, the leading personalities in Medīna applauded `Uthmān's action for unifying Muslims around a single text. `Alī is even quoted as saying, "If I were in power I would have done the same."[72]

Opposition, however, was heard from the Arabs who came from Egypt to protest to `Uthmān. One of their grievances was that he had "effaced (maḥā) the Book of God."[73]

Other opposition is reported from the secretaries of Muḥammad who were left out of the editorial team. In Kūfa `Abdallāh lbn-Mas`ūd is quoted as saying, "I could recite over seventy sūras which I heard from the mouth of the Prophet while Zayd lbn-Thābit was a child with his hair hanging in curls, playing with other children." A variant ending is, "while Zayd was still an infidel within his father's hips."[74]

In fact, `Uthmān is reported to have failed in his attempt to impose a uniform Qur'ān on the Muslim world. One ḥadīth reports a meeting in Baṣra of Abū-Mūsā, `Abdallāh lbn-Mas`ūd and Ḥudhayfa, the instigator of `Uthmān's edition:

To the protesters from Egypt `Uthmān replied, "The Qur'ān is from God. I prohibited the variant readings because I feared there would be dissensions among you. But now take any reading (ḥarf) you wish." There follows, in this passage of Ibn-abī-Dāwūd, a long list of variants used in Medina, Kūfa and Baṣra.[76]

Rather than achieve uniformity, `Uthmān died and the real age of dissension or difference (ikhtilāf) was yet to come. Most of the variants listed by Ibn-abī-Dāwūd are no more than inconsequential lexical variations, synonyms or alternative grammatical constructions. These were different from the additional phrases or verses that were of interest to the legal schools (madhāhib). Just as these schools justified their opposing positions with ḥadīths ascribed to different Companions (and eventually to Muḥammad), so they also had resort to doctrinally different Qur'ān readings ascribed to the same Companions. The Qur'ān variants were thus used for the same purpose and in the same way (with isnāds) as ḥadīths.

The different schools at first indulged in mutual recrimination, but when it became clear that agreement would never be reached, or that one side was getting the upper hand, we hear appeals for toleration, such as we might expect from a minority to the majority. Among many ḥadīths with the same message is the following:

Another pluralism-promoting ḥadīth introduces the concept of "the seven forms" or "readings" (aḥruf):

Abū-Hurayra summarises the idea: "The Qur'ān was revealed in seven forms, and contention about the Qur'ān is disbelief."[79]

Many different identifications of the seven readings were proposed. One was that it referred to seven different Arabic dialects: the Hudhayl, Kināna, Qays, Ṭalḥa, Taym ar-Rabbāb, Asad ibn-Khuzayma, and Quraysh.[80] Aṭ-Ṭaḥāwī and aṭ-Ṭabarī maintained that these readings were permitted in the early days because of the illiterate people's inability to learn the Qur'ān in the Quraysh dialect. Later the concession was withdrawn by the infallibly guided caliphs because of the dissensions it occasioned.[81] Al-Bāqillānī is of the same opinion.[82]

When the dialectical hypothesis broke down, new theories emerged. Among 34 theories reported by as-Suyūṭī, the 26th one is that the seven forms refer to the readings (qirā'āt) of Abū-Bakr, `Umar, `Uthmān, `Alī, Ibn-Mas`ūd, Ibn-`Abbās, and Ubayy lbn-Ka`b.[83]

This theory did not gain wide acceptance, but it reminds us of the many more than seven Companions who are said to have sponsored variant readings. Jeffery lists 15 "primary codices" and 13 "secondary codices".[84] We should note not only the number, but also the fact that they are called editions or codices (maṣāḥif). A whole separate edition is very much more than variants of a single basic text. Jeffery comments:

Al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013) and the Qāḍī `Iyāḍ (d. 1149) both accept the existence of full variant editions. They also accepted reports that these editions put the sūras in a different order, for instance, that Ubayy's edition had sūra 4 before 3. So `Iyāḍ concluded that Muḥammad had not fixed the order of sūras, but left that to his Companions.[86] `Alī is reported to have arranged the sūras chronologically in his edition, beginning with sūras 96, 74, 68, 73, 111, 81, although another arrangement of sūras is also attributed to him.[87]

The variant editions are also said to have differed in their contents. Ibn-Mas`ūd's omitted sūras 1, 113 and 114, since these were considered mere prayers. The editions of Ubayy and Ibn-`Abbās are said to contain two extra sūras, al-Khal` and al-Ḥafd.[88] These are the two qunūt prayers of Mālikī ṣalāt.

In evaluating the reports about all these different editions or readings, we must bear in mind the interest of the legal schools in asserting their existence, so that they could quote Qur'ān variants in support of their positions. The theory of "seven readings" did not end here, and a form of it survived in later Sunnite orthodoxy, as will be seen in the following chapter.

CHAPTER 5
QUR'ĀN AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF ḤADĪTH

The previous chapter gave evidence from Tradition that the Qur'ān is incomplete: We know of many variant readings and can suppose there were many more that `Uthmān disposed of in his bonfire, an act which shocks textual scholarship where every variant manuscript is a help to ascertain the correct original, as New Testament scholars know. The conclusion these traditions let us draw is that the Qur'ān, as we have it now, is a dubious document, one of many variant collections of only approximate reports of the messages Muḥammad originally delivered; these were thrown together arbitrarily with much of the original material left out or abridged by his followers. This chapter will give evidence for a contrary view.

Quite another view emerges when we question the traditions and look behind them at certain other facts. As for the completeness of the Qur'ān, from a human point of view it is likely that much was forgotten or not recorded during Muḥammad's lifetime, especially in the early years, and some more lost by not being trans`mitted after his death. But this problem, at least for the lifetime of Muḥammad, is one the Qur'ān itself faces and solves by ascribing any omission to divine agency, so that nothing is lost which should been conserved, and nothing conserved which should have been omitted. See again the discussion of abrogation in chapter 1, and the statement of al-Bāqillānī (chapter 5).

The common agreement about a basic text which alone was valid for prayer also points to its authenticity. Mālik lbn-Anas (d. 796), for example, said that ṣalāt using the edition of Ibn-Mas`ūd was invalid.[89] Even though variants whose "wording was abrogated but not the ruling" never gained acceptance into the commonly received edition. This clear recognition of the distinction between the received edition (the muṣḥaf) and the larger "Book of God" points to a consensus about a single Qur'ān tradition, even though it may have been subject to inconsequential lexical or grammatical variations.[90] It Is significant that the substantial variations or additions ascribed to the Companion editions and used for the purpose of legal arguments were not unanimously held to be really Qur'ānic. Some said that the same verses were simply sunnas or exegetical annotations of the Qur'ān.[91]

Another argument for the existence of a single recognised Qur'ānic tradition from the time of Muḥammad is the teaching of i`jāz, the inimitability of the Qur'ān, discussed above (ch. 1). Many early Muslims interpreted this teaching as referring to the very wording of the Qur'ān. Yet a text which is verbally inimitable could not have been subject to variant wordings all endorsed by Muḥammad's alleged permission to substitute any word which agrees with the meaning revealed by God. As-Suyūṭī quotes al-Jazarī as saying, "Anyone who says that any of the Companions thought it legitimate to recite the Qur'ān according to its meaning [with any words] is a liar."[92] The tradition of i`jāz, therefore, points to a single received text.

The idea that only one text is correct is further supported by the way it was supplied with an isnād. We saw how Ibn-Mas`ūd protested `Uthmān's edition because it was done by Zayd ibn-Thābit, a small boy and newcomer who could not come near Ibn-Mas`ūd's knowledge of the Qur'ān. Ash-Shāfi`ī's work on Tradition caused a complete turnabout in the judgement of these two men, because he popularised a new criterion: The later, and not the older, witness is the more reliable, for the reason that the later witness is reporting Muḥammad's final version of the Qur'ān, whereas the older witness may be reporting verses which were later revised or abrogated.

The claim to be the later witness then became the point of many ḥadīths associated with the tradition of an annual and a final review of the Qur'ān by Gabriel. Al-Bukhārī (Book faḍā'il al-Qur'ān, chapter kān Jibrīl ya`ruḍ) has the ḥadīth: "Gabriel used to recite the Qur'ān to me and I to him once a year, but this year he recited the whole Qur`ān to me twice. I take it that my end is at hand." Aṭ-Ṭabarī and many other scholars maintain that the `Uthmān text represented the text finally reviewed by Gabriel. Some ḥadīths claim that Zayd was present at the final review, as does the following:

Not to be outdone, Ibn-Mas`ūd's supporters produced ḥadīths maintaining that Ibn-Mas`ūd's text represents the final review.[94] The whole argument about who is the latest, and therefore best, witness presupposes the existence of a single correct text.

Another argument for the existence of a single complete Qur'ān tradition from the time of Muḥammad is the tradition and consensus described above (ch. 1) that Muḥammad himself fixed the order of all the verses. The report that `Umar put two verses at the end of sūra 9 and said, "If they were three verses I would have made them a separate sūra," is an exceptional, although embarrassing, statement.[95] Only the order of sūras was questioned. Al-Bāqillānī thought it possible either that Muḥammad fixed this himself or that he left it to his people. Al-Bāqillānī preferred the last possibility.[96]

As-Suyūṭī quotes others who say that the order of sūras comes from Muḥammad himself, but notes that the more common opinion is that the arrangement was made by the Companions.[97]

These arguments all point to the conclusion that the Qur'ān was virtually fixed in its present form right from the time of Muḥammad. Possibly the order of sūras was not fixed, although modern studies make it likely that the order of certain groups of sūras was fixed by Muḥammad. As for variant editions of the Qur'ān which various Companions are said to have made before `Uthmān, these most likely never existed as independent volumes, but are only the fabrications of ḥadīths determined by the interest of the legal schools. The doctrinal variations or additions ascribed to the Companions can safely be taken to be mere exegesis of the Qur'ān (tafsīr) or sunnas.

The very many other inconsequential variations, however, can represent different textual traditions in the transmission of the single Qur'ān text. It would be extremely unlikely for every secretary or Companion of Muḥammad to have memorised and transmitted every verse with absolute accuracy and complete uniformity. We can point to the report of al-Hajjāj's (d. 714) entering eleven corrections into the `Uthmān edition.[98] Some doubt, then, can be entertained as to the authenticity of the present Qur'ān in every smallest detail, the same as we can say of the New Testament. In both documents few variants of any consequence have any plausible authenticity. The vast manuscript evidence available to New Testament textual criticism, however, puts the details of that document on a surer footing than the details of the Qur'ān, where we have no way of judging which of the over one thousand variants is correct in the passages where they occur. Classical Islamic scholarship has, however, addressed itself to the problem and attempted to distinguish readings that are universally agreed on (mutawātir), well known (mashhūr), isolated (uḥād), odd (shādhdh), forged (mawḍū`), or interpolated (mudraj).[99]

Textual tradition tended to become more fixed in the 8th and 9th centuries because of two factors: One was the introduction of dots to distinguish consonants and other marks to indicate vowels etc., which students of Arabic are familiar with and were discussed above (ch. 1) This development enabled scholars to put in writing the exact reading which beforehand could only be preserved orally.

The other factor was the development of isnāds for the various readings. Thus Tradition became the final argument in admitting the validity of any reading, and not logic or analogy (so dear to the Baṣra school) or linguistics (which prevailed in the Kūfa school).[100] The composers of isnāds at first did not hesitate to include names of suspect Companions such as Ibn-Mas`ūd and Ubayy, but by the beginning of the 10th century these names could no longer be accepted in a Qur'ānic isnād, unless the reading in question was in accord with the basic text ascribed to `Uthmān. This demand limited the multiplication of readings, although it was impossible to uniforms them completely.

Professional Qur'ān reciters (qurrā') specialised in memorising Qur'ān traditions according to a certain isnād. By the middle of the 9th century a consensus zeroed in on certain of these reciters, recognising them as reputable authorities to the exclusion of anyone else. To continue the tradition of the "seven readings", seven reciters were recognised. But agreement could not entirely be reached about these, and some lists have ten and others fourteen reciters. Even for the list of seven, each of the seven had to have two disciples transmitting variant versions of their master, to accommodate a greater variety of readings.

The chief proponent of the "seven readings" which alone are valid was Ibn-Mujāhid (859-935). In his book Al-qirā'āt as-sab`) he gives the following list of seven reciters, each with two transmitters:[101]

Ibn-Mujāhid's theory was upheld in the courts, and one scholar, Ibn-Miqsam, was forced in 934 to recant his view that any reading may be accepted which agreed with the consonantal outline, made reasonable sense, and was in accord with grammar.[102] Ibn-Mujāhid's theory was not immediately accepted everywhere, but eventually it became the majority teaching. It was popularised in a well-known poem of ash-Shātibī (d. 1194), called Ḥirz al-amānī wa-wajh at-tahāhī fī l-qirā'āt as-sab`, which is used by traditional Arabic scholars in Nigeria.

The different readings held sway in different areas of the Muslim world, but the age of printing changed the situation again, and finally brought the uniformity, which was desired for so long. A few printings were made in the 19th century, but in 1923 King Fu'ād of Egypt had an edition printed with an excellent format and great accuracy. He used the text of `Āṣim of Kūfa, as related by Ḥafṣ (underlined in the list above). This edition has been disseminated in photo-printings, and has eliminated all variant readings from common knowledge and use. In fact, the ordinary Muslim of today is not aware that any variant readings exist, much less that more serious variants are alleged to have existed before the time of `Uthmān. There has yet to be made a critical edition of the Qur'ān, listing all the variants that have survived.

CHAPTER 6
EVALUATION OF THE QUR'ĀN AS REVELATION
SOME NON-MUSLIM VIEWS

The Qur'ān itself claims to be of divine origin, as explained in chapter 1. Muslims profess their belief in this claim in many ways: 1) by reciting the Qur'ān in ṣalāt, 2) by meditating on it privately (dhikr) or reciting it on certain evenings, as during Ramaḍān, the middle of Sha`bān (nuṣf Sha`bān), at wakes for the dead, etc., 3) by using it for medicine, whether curative (as by drinking ink washed from a Qur'ān slate), preventative or protective (in the form of amulets) - even though such use is frowned on by stricter Muslims, 4) by respecting the Qur'ān by decorating it, putting it in a place of honour (never piling anything on top of it), and observing the Qur'ānic taboo "Only the purified may touch it" (Q. 56:79); the impure is interpreted as those who have not done the purification required for prayer, or non-Muslims.

This chapter will give a historical review of the principal objections raised against the Qur'ān's divine origin, together with some assessment of these objections. Any objection to the Qur'ān as revelation is at once an objection to Muḥammad's claim to be a prophet and to the validity of Islam as a religion. While focusing on criticisms of the Qur'ān, we must bear in mind the full implications of these criticisms.

The question of authenticity has been discussed in the previous chapters. The point of referring to it in this chapter is that the present Qur'ān cannot pretend to be of divine origin if it does not authentically present what Muḥammad delivered. To the extent that it was changed or edited after Muḥammad's death, it is certainly not divine. If we accept the tradition that `Uthmān edited the Qur'ān and burned several very divergent copies, we would automatically pronounce the Qur'ān a largely human document — unless we accept the back-up theory of aṭ-Ṭabarī and others that `Uthmān was infallibly guided in editing the Qur'ān.

We have seen in the last chapter strong evidence that the Qur'ān was almost completely edited in its present form (apart from the vocalisations and consonant points) under the supervision of Muḥammad himself. Some doubt lingers, however, as to the exact vocalisations, attested by the nearly one thousand variant readings that have survived (e.g. in the work of Ibn-abī-Dāwūd) and in the later variant readings (vocalisations) accepted by Ibn-Mujāhid. In so far as a Muslim has a choice of variant readings, he cannot be sure which one of them is the correct one "revealed" by God. It is true that the variant readings are mostly minor grammatical differences which hardly affect the meaning. They are instances, nevertheless, of the human element in the Qur'ān, a fact which may or may not disturb Muslims, depending on their expectations of what revelation should be.

Although the life of Muḥammad by Ibn-Hishām describes detailed discussions of the Meccans criticising Muḥammad's claims,[103] the Qur'ān itself is our best source of information about these objections. For instance, "The evildoers whisper to one another, 'Isn't this man just a mortal like yourselves? Will you take to sorcery (siḥr) with your eyes open?'.. They say, 'A jumble of dreams!' or 'He has forged it', or 'He is a poet (shā`ir)...'" These and other verses have five main points:

1) The objection that Muḥammad was a poet meant fundamentally that he was inspired by spirits, since such inspiration was considered necessary for good poetry (as the Greeks posited inspiration by the "muses"). Qur'ān 37:36 combines the two ideas in the phrase "possessed poet", where the word majnūn (possessed) is derived from the noun jinn (spirits). So it amounts to the same objection to say that Muḥammad was a "poet" or "possessed" (with the added connotation of "mad"), or a "sorcerer" (sāḥir), or even a diviner or soothsayer (kāhin). Because Muḥammad often went into a trance or some other altered state of consciousness when he was reciting a new sūra, people believed he was receiving some kind of inspiration. Since the Meccans would not agree that it was from God, they proposed that it came from the jinn (See also Q. 7:184; 15:6; 69:42), and therefore the Qur'ān need not be taken seriously.

2) The second objection, concerning the poetic style of the Qur'ān, could only have been a secondary consideration in the minds of Muḥammad's contemporaries, but was more important to Muslims a century or more after Muḥammad, when the teaching of the inimitability (i`jāz) of the Qur'ān was applied specifically to its literary qualities. The reply reported by Ibn-Isḥāq to the objection that Muḥammad was a poet can be understood in the light of later discussions projected backwards to the time of Muḥammad: "No, for we know poetry in all its forms and meters".[104]

It is true that Qur'ānic passages, except for isolated verses, do not fit into any of the Arabic poetic meters. But they are close to poetry by having a loose meter and at least assonated final syllables, like:

This style is called saj`, a kind of free verse, and falls in between poetry and prose.

Saj` style was typically used by Arabian traditional diviners or soothsayers (kāhin), especially in the form of a string of obscure oaths leading up to a statement about the future or some other mystery. Several passages of the Qur'ān in the Meccan period resemble the oaths of diviners (37:1-4; 51:1-6; 77:1-7; 79:1-14; 100:1-6) and others contain oaths of a slightly different style (e.g. 52:1-8; 75:26-30; 31:1-14; 84:1-6; 89:1-5; 91:1-10), but most of the Qur'ān, especially in the Medinan period, steers away from oaths and has a saj` style all its own.[105]

The reply that the Qur'ān is not poetry because it does not fit into the traditional forms and meters misses the point of the objection, that it was inspired by spirits other than God. This objection, the same as the first listed above, received no direct reply; the claim that the Qur'ān is a self-evident miracle was deemed sufficient. The objection of spirit or demon inspiration was repeated by some medieval European writers,[106] and was taken up in our own time in a very distorting book circulating in Nigeria, called Who is this Allāh?, which maintains that the Allah of the Qur'ān is a demon.

3) The third objection used by the Meccans was that the Qur'ān was a compilation of borrowed stories. "The unbelievers say, 'This is just a forgery which he invented with the help of others'.. They say, 'Stories from olden times which he wrote down as they were dictated to him morning and evening'" (Q. 25:4-5; see also 68:15). "We know that they are saying, 'A human being teaches him..'" (16:103). Muḥammad certainly had the opportunity of discussing religion with Jews and Christians. Commenting on these verses, aṭ-Ṭabarī gives the names of some foreign Christian slaves in Mecca who gave Muḥammad information about their religion.[107] Ibn-Hishām adds:

According to my information, the Messenger of God often used to sit at the shop of a Christian young man named Jabr, at al-Marwa; he was a slave of the Banū-l-Ḥaḍramī. They used to say, "By God, Jabr the Christian slave of the Banū-l-Ḥaḍramī teaches Muḥammad most of what he preaches." So God revealed the verse: "We know that they say that a human person teaches him, but the one whom they refer to speaks a foreign language, whereas this is clear Arabic" (Q. 16:103).[108]

Besides slaves, Muḥammad talked with Waraqa, Khadīja's Christian cousin, and could meet with Christians coming from the Eastern noma dic Arab tribes, the settled Arabs of Yemen, and from Ethiopia, especially during the annual trade fair. He could also meet Jews from Medina and other nearby places. his earlier business trips to Syria exposed him to contact with Christian hermits and other knowledgeable people. We saw in chapter 1 that Muḥammad did not read Jewish or Christian Scriptures, yet was exposed to Biblical and apocryphal stories which circulated throughout Arabia and the Middle East.

Muḥammad's answer to the charge of forgery, plagiarism and lack of originality was provided by the Qur'ān verses claiming a revealed originality for the Qur'ānic narratives. The originality of the Qur'ān, however, is not in the material it contains, but in the way it makes use of this material. The stories of the previous prophets, for example, have been reworked so that they focus on experiences that parallel Muḥammad's own: The people live in ignorance of God; the prophet calls them to worship the one true God; many refuse to believe an mock the prophet; they are finally punished by God.[109] The stories are so cast in an Islamic mould that the characters and action appear stereotyped compared to their Biblical parallels.

The very claim commonly made by Muslims that Muḥammad did not found Islam but only revived the religion that first came with Adam is a denial of originality. The Qur'ān brought no new teachings, but only synthesised previous ones with special focus on God's unity and transcendence and the authority of Muḥammad in transmitting God's definitive message.

4) The objection that Muḥammad made changes in the Qur'ān on his own authority or through forgetfulness was considered in chapter 1. The inconsistency of some of his recitations evidently shocked some of his hearers who had been led to expect divine revelations in which the prophet had no active role. The replies, as we have seen, reaffirm this expectation and call for more and more faith: that any changes are made only by God's command, and that even if Muḥammad forgets a passage, this is only because God wanted him to forget it.

5) Lastly, the Meccans asserted that Muḥammad composed the Qur'ān himself. Not seeing anything special about it, they demanded to see a miracle from Muḥammad before they would believe. "Those who disbelieve say, 'If only a sign (āya) were sent down to him from his Lord!' Tell them, "God leads astray those he wishes and guides to himself those who turn to him'... [They say], 'If only there were a recitation (qur'ān) by which the mountains were moved or the earth split or the dead spoke to him!' No, God has command over everything.." (Q. 13:27,31).[110]

Muḥammad's repudiation of any claim to work miracles in the ordinary sense is coupled with his presentation of the Qur'ān itself as a miracle:

If men and jinn joined together to produce the like of this Qur'ān they could not do so, even if they pooled their efforts. We have presented people with every sort of illustration in this Qur'ān, but most people prefer not to believe. They say, "We will not believe you unless you make a spring gush forth from the earth for us, or unless you bring God and the angels to back you up, or unless you get a beautifully decorated hours, or ascend to heaven. Even so, we will not believe in your ascension unless you bring down to us a book that we may read." Answer, "Glory to my God! Am I not only a human being and a messenger?" Tell them, "If angels were walking at home on the earth we would have sent them an angel from heaven as a messenger.." (Q. 17:88-95).

Other verses claiming that the Qur'ān cannot be imitated are given in chapter 1. The idea that the Qur'ān is a miracle (mu`jiza from i`jāz, "inimitability", literally "making the challenger unable to imitate") is also implied by the very frequent designation of Qur'ānic verses as āyāt (signs). These are similar to the cosmic wonders of God's creation which also call for adoration of their Maker.

The objection that the Qur'ān is a human document composed by Muḥammad was taken up in the middle ages by Muslim philosophers, such as Muḥammad ar-Rāzī, al-Fārābī and Ibn-Sīnā. They held the view that Muḥammad was gifted with a superior intelligence, and that enabled him to understand and express the religious wisdom that is in the Qur'ān. This is a view that few Muslims accept because of the principle that the Qur'ān is solely of divine origin.

Islamic teachings began to be known in Europe in the early Middle Ages, particularly with Robert of Ketton's Latin translation of the Qur'ān in 1143. The many medieval scholars who wrote about Islam were mainly interested in refuting it where it conflicted with Christian teaching. Much of what they wrote was based on misinformation and many of their criticism of the Qur'ān were frivolous. nly the more major points they raised are considered. These are: 1) the distortion and muse of the Bible, 2) the lack of miracles, and 3) the unacceptable standards governing violence and 4) sex in the Qur'ān and the life of Muammad.[111]

1) Regarding Qur'ānic and Muslim attitudes to Christian Scriptures, medieval scholars were aware of the Qur'ānic teaching of taḥrīf (cf. Q. 2:75; 4:46; 5:13-15) and its interpretation by Muslim writers. This meant that, although the original Torah, Psalms and Gospel were revealed, the text has been corrupted and/or misinterpreted by Christians and Jews, as the case may be.[112] The medieval scholars defended the authenticity of their Scriptures using the argument of widespread manuscript witness, as best they knew about manuscript tradition in those days before the explosion of Scriptural knowledge in the 20th century.

Another objection they made was to the distortion of Biblical stories in the Qur'ān into "fables", so that the Qur'ān is put above historical evidence and certain facts are denied (such as the crucifixion of Jesus); Christian teachings are also denied, and prophesies of the coming of Muḥammad are gratuitously asserted to have been in the Bible (Cf. Q. 7:157; 61:6). Because of the presence of Biblical stories in the Qur'ān, most medieval writers thought that Muslims should accept the Bible and they tried to reply to Muslim positions by using the Bible, or at least the Old Testament. St. Thomas Aquinas was "the great and lonely exception"[113]

in realising that Muslims do not accept Christian Scriptures (although they may take something that agrees with Islam as a surviving remnant of the original true revelation). He said:

2) As for the objection that Muḥammad worked no miracles, medieval Christian writers, far less than Muḥammad's Meccan contemporaries, could hardly be expected to recognise that the Qur'ān is a miracle. They delighted in pointing out that Muḥammad disclaimed working any other miracle, even though many are attributed to him in Ḥadīth literature. These miracle stories likely arose from early controversies with Eastern Christians who also demanded probative miracles.

The nature of a probative miracle (there are others), in Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition, is that it does not compel belief in what it is meant to prove, or compel acceptance of the authority of the one who produces it. Nevertheless it should be self-evident, at least upon examination, that it is of divine origin, or at least beyond human capacity to produce. This is precisely what Muḥammad's Meccan critics and the medieval Christian writers were not prepared to admit in the case of the Qur'ān, and they did not see any other miracle.

3) Regarding violence, medieval critics made the point that in place of miracles Muḥammad came to success by the strength of arms, and that Muḥammad attacked people and took their property unjustly. The critics did not fully realise that the military success of Islam was taken as a sort of miracle and was used as a minor argument for God's approval of the Islamic religion. Of the first major Islamic victory, the Qur'ān says:

You have a sign (āya) in the two companies who met. One was fighting for the cause of God and the other was unbelieving. The latter saw the former in an open vision as twice their number. God confirms those he wishes with his help. Here is an example for those who can understand. (3:13)

The approach of these verses is like that of the Old Testament, where God is described as giving the Israelites victory. So also is the principle of conquering those who refuse the rule of Islam, and taking their possessions as booty, one fifth of which goes to the Prophet and other pious causes (Cf. Q. 8:41). The medieval critics rightly saw that such recourse to violence is contrary to the Gospel, although they admitted that Christian practice was not consistent with the Gospel. "There was more fraternal love between the Muslims whose religion was one of killing, than between Christians who followed the religion of love," observed Ricoldo da Monte Croce.[115] 4) The Qur'ānic laws concerning sex and marriage and Muḥammad's example in this matter came under particularly scathing criticism. The medievals objected to the Islamic approval of marrying up to four wives and keeping any number of concubines; they also objected to divorce. In the case of Muḥammad, they criticised his having many wives and concubines, even more than other Muslims were allowed, and particularly his sanctioning the divorce of his adopted son Zayd from Zaynab so that he could marry her. The Qur'ān describes the latter incident as follows:

When you told him to whom God and yourself showed favour [Zayd]: "Keep your wife for yourself, and fear God," you were hiding in your heart what God was making manifest [Muḥammad's desire for Zaynab], and you were respecting men, although God more rightfully should be respected. So when Zayd broke off relations with her, we married her to you, so that the Believers would have no problem about the wives of their adopted sons if these break off relations with them..." (33:37)

This incident offended against traditional Arabian custom, because for the Arabs it was incest. This Qur'ānic verse changed the custom and excluded full adoption from being recognised in Islamic law. The incident is offensive to Christian standards principally because Muḥammad provoked the divorce and married the divorce lady. Regarding Muḥammad's marriage privileges, the Qur'ān says:

You may defer [relations with] those [of your wives] if you wish, and take close to yourself those you wish. If you desire one of those you put aside, that is all right. At least they can be comforted and not saddened and may enjoy what you give to each of them. (33:52)

The fundamental Christian objection to these verses is their toleration of polygamy and the treatment of women captured in war as slave concubines.

Yet with regard to Muḥammad's own relations with women, a careful study of their circumstances allows one to conclude that "it is not too much to say that all Muḥammad's marriages had a political aspect."[116] Most of his wives, moreover, were older and had been married before, so that their physical attractiveness was not a strong motive for marrying them.

The same medieval Christian objection to sensuality is extended to the Qur'ān's description of Paradise, where eating, drinking and sex are promised as a reward to the Believers. The objectors tried to show that this was catering to licentiousness, but their fundamental point was that biological functions connected with the preservation and propagation of life do not exist in the next life. One of the fuller Qur'ānic descriptions of Paradise is 56:10-38:

Christian critics would have less problem about these passages if they could be taken symbolically as referring to joys that are beyond human understanding - as they interpret the Song of Songs. But, these critics point out, the literal interpretation was the only one tolerated among Muslims of their time, and the Philosophers who proposed metaphorical interpretations were condemned.[117]

Most of the Medieval critics failed to understand that the Philosophers' neo-Platonic position of metaphorical interpretation extended also to fundamental beliefs such as the physical resurrection of the dead, so that it was not easy for the theologians to make concessions on this matter. The critics also failed to appreciate the thelogians' discussions of the principle of bi-lā kayf or tanzīh in the question of Qur'ānic anthropomorphisms about God - that is, God is above any literal application of these descriptions; they apply to God in some real way, but "we do not know how".[118]

Sunnite Muslim theologians, however, generally had little problem about taking the Qur'ānic descriptions of the next life literally. Note, however, the statement of Muḥammad ibn-Yūsuf as-Sanūsī (d. 1490) that the pleasures of the next world are like some of the pleasures of this world in appearance (ṣŽratan) but differ from them in reality (ḥaqīqatan), so that all they have in common is their names.[119]

The following passage of Thomas Aquinas, with the ambiguous information it is based on, summarised the best of medieval thought about Islam:[120]

On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this. The point is clear in the case of Muḥammad. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In al this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muḥammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms - which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muḥammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost al the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.

The views of 19th and 20th century orientalists are summarised by W.M. Watt as follows:[121]

The view of Professor Watt himself is that Muḥammad was of good mental and physical health, and that his alleged moral failures have been exaggerated.[122] The only new objection that surfaces in Watt's study of Muḥammad's life is his intolerance of any criticism of his claim to be a prophet, whether from the Jews or the Hypocrites or the Arab poets.[123] Nevertheless, Watt, concludes, Muḥammad was a good man and a reformer by the standards of Arabia at his time.

Muslims, however, claim that Muḥammad is a model of conduct and character for all mankind till the end of the world. How valid is this claim and what can today's secular or Christian world learn from Muḥammad? Professor Watt answers:[124]

The final point that Professor Watt makes is that Muḥammad was sincere, that is, he believed in himself and his mission and was not deliberately trying to deceive. This is quite another question from whether Muḥammad was truly sent by God as a prophet. Watt and many other scholars, without rejecting Muḥammad's claim altogether, point to his creative imagination and psychological endowment as contributing greatly to the composition of the Qur'ān and to Muḥammad's success as a leader of men.[125]

A theological assessment of the Qur'ān, and thereby Islam, involves much more than a review of the principal objections raised in the course of history, as was done in this chapter. The whole concept and mode of revelation and the way man relates to God are far more fundamental issues. These cannot be adequately discussed here, yet the main lines of thought can be briefly summarised:

Revelation, for Muslims, is the dictation of a bookof God's direction and guidance for mankind. For Christians it is primarily the self-disclosure of God himself in the person of Jesus, "the Word of God". Secondarily it is the living witness of the Church sent by Jesus with the power of the Spirit to witness Jesus to the world by word and action. Thirdly it is the witness to Jesus' life and preaching in the Gospels and other New Testament writings, and indeed in the Old Testament as well, which foreshadows the Gospel. These writings, Christians generally maintain, are not pure dictations, but God makes use of the human experience, thought and imagination of the human writer to express what God wishes to be said.

Man relates to God, according to Muslims, by using his intellect, will and other God-given powers to render God obedient service with a sincere and pure heart. Friendship or intimacy with God is out of the question, because of the unbridgeable gap between Creator and creature. The most that can be said is that a sincere Muslim is "drawn near" (muqarrab) to God. Christians agree with Muslims that there is a radical gap between the Creator and creatures, and that man, of his own powers, cannot commune with God. Yet Christians believe that God bridges the gap by giving the believer a new life which enables him to relate directly with God through faith, hope and love in this life and permanent beatific (completely satisfying) vision in the next life.

It remains to consider the particular objections raised thus far, which amount to the following:

1) That the Qur'ān is not a miracle, and Islam enjoys no other sign of God's approval. Muḥammad's illiteracy, so vigorously maintained by some Muslim writers, is really irrelevant to the question whether the Qur'ān is a miracle, because a miracle should be something that no man, however learned, could produce. Those who know Arabic and listen to the Qur'ān chanted do find it impressively beautiful, and it can even put them in a trance, as I observed in Cairo mosques. This is because of the rhythm, the rhyme and, above all, because in a context of public worship it evokes consciousness of God.

Yet I have observed the same phenomenon in Buddhist, Shinto and Christian worship where religious texts are sung. A string of charismatic choruses may have that effect without having any claim to great artistic merit, but great classical Church music, such as Bach's cantatas, are overwhelmingly beautiful, especially if performed live within a church liturgy. It has been argued that the best of Gregorian chant and other great Church music was composed with the help of divine inspiration. Moreover each great composer has a unique and original style which is inimitable.

The point is that the Qur'ān does not stand apart from other great art works which are very beautiful and inimitable and may even have been composed with special divine inspiration, but are not miracles. It should also be observed that, although sections of the Qur'ān are very beautiful, the book as a whole is far from a perfect piece of literature, with rambling from one topic to another and so much repetition.

All other miracles ascribed to Muḥammad are legendary and go against the Qur'ānic preaching which disclaims for Muḥammad any miracle working except the delivery of the Qur'ān itself.

As for the success of Islam in winning over so many adherents and defeating its enemies, we must concede that whatever God wishes to succeed cannot fail (cf. Acts 5:39), but God permits many things which are evil or not altogether good. So Islam must be evaluated by its intrinsic teaching and merits, not by its success to which many human factors contribute.

2) That the Devil inspired Muḥammad. Those who advanced this hypothesis assume that Islam is mostly or wholly erroneous and evil. Yet the divergences between Christian and Islamic beliefs should not obscure many beliefs held in common. A theological assessment should do justice to these and, in recognising their truth, recognise to some extent God's care and guidance for the adherents of the Islamic religion. This was the approach of Vatican II and many papal statements. On the other hand, the Qur'ān — rightly or wrongly — has been understood and used by millions of Muslims to contradict and shut their own and others' ears to the fundamental truths of Christian revelation. The Devil is “the Father of lies” (John 8:44). So the Devil can be seen as behind Muslim opposition to Christian revelation. Yet the Devil's influence is mostly restricted to a social bondage which sustains ignorance and prejudice. Most Muslims follow what they sincerely think is God's will and cannot be charged with formal complicity with the Devil.

3) That the Qur'ān is a human document, composed and revised at will by Muḥammad, utilizing materials he learned from others. This is one of the views of Muḥammad's contemporaries and of medieval Muslim philosophers. For one who does not subscribe to the divine origin of the Qur'ān it is the most benign view. Yet even Muslims, who maintain that the Qur'ān is totally of divine origin, must come to terms with the obvious human aspect of the Qur'ān, because to reduce Muḥammad's intelligence, learning and cultural exposure in order to claim a divine originality for the whole Qur'ān is an untenable position.

Muslims could do no better than to examine the position of Catholics and most Christians on Biblical inspiration which accommodates full human participation in the divine action of producing the whole Bible. This position presupposes a philosophy of primary and secondary instrumental causality. Without this understanding of inspiration a Muslim would find incomprehensible any Christian recognition of the possibility of a lesser and partial inspiration of the Qur'ān and other religious masterpieces.

To summarize, I would say that the Qur'ān is a document fully composed by Muḥammad, using and adapting style, vocabulary, stories and religious concepts he learned. It has considerable literary beauty and some important religious and moral teaching, and to that extent is the result of divine guidance. Nevertheless its teaching about God, human destiny and moral matters is quite limited and some teachings a Christian would have to reject as erroneous. Also on the literary side there are some imperfections; Muslims, however, who hold a priori the absolute perfection of the Qur'ān are not prepared to recognize these.

4) That Muḥammad practiced and preached violence, injustice and repressive treatment of non-Muslims. The Qur'ān has many passages enciting to war or punishment. Muslims of our day generally insist that these are just reactions to specific acts of aggression against the early Muslims and that violence is only defensive. Opinion is divided about equal treatment of non-Muslims, with most insisting on the principle of equality (often with some qualifications) but some, such as Sayyid Quṭb and those he has inspired, saying that Christians and Jews have lost their right to toleration.

Yet Islamic society throughout its history has been tainted with injustice. In the time of Muḥammad we can think of how he treated poets and the Jews and ordered assassinations (which Muslim apologetes usually try to justify). In the present time we can think of the persecution of non-Muslims in Sudan. In most countries with a majority of Muslims it is forbidden to invite Muslims to the Christian faith.

It has been argued that all these practices are against the teaching of the Qur'ān.[126] Yet there is little unanimity about this question and opponents of religious liberty also quote the Qur'ān.

5) That Muḥammad practiced and preached relationships with women that violate the dignity of marriage. It seems clear that the dominant motive in all Muḥammad's marriages was not sexual craving but to forge political alliances or, when he took women from vanquished people, to demonstrate his military power. Nevertheless, the very practice of polygamy (even with equal treatment), the use of women as political pawns, their relegation to half the status of a man in inheritance and giving witness, and their function as sex objects for men in Paradise (the ḥŽrīs) are not only repugnant to Christian standards but also fly in the face of contemporary secular standards of women's rights.

To conclude, applying the Muslim distinction between dār al-islām and dār al-ḥarb to the theological plane, we can equate dār al-islām with the homeland of God's kingdom which, on earth, is the Church. Muslims are living in dār-al-ḥarb in a status of dhimma, where they can believe in God and worship him freely within strict limits. Let them stray outside these limits and Sharī`a sanctions will descend on them from Islamic governments and their brothers and sisters. The invisible force patrolling this dār al-ḥarband confining Muslims within the bounds of their dhimma is the devil. But the devil is not the master of the universe; God patrols the devil, limiting his action and breaking through his fences to extend his light and mercy to those he wishes in the way he wishes.

CHAPTER 7
QUR'ĀN COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES

This section is not an exhaustive study, but simply an annotated bibliography of the major works in chronological order.

1. Ā`isha, تفسير أم المؤمنين (Riyāḍ, 1996, gathered by `Abdallāh abū Sa`ūd Badr).

2. Ibn-`Abbās (d. 68/687), كتاب غرائب القرآن (Cairo, 1993) — a questionable text; cf Gilliot 22:303; J. Wansbough, Quranic Studies, bibliography, for other mss.) — a cousin of Muḥammad, of great repute among later Qur’ānic scholars who tried to base their opinions on his authority. Many recent works try to collect his sayings.

3. Ibn-abī-Ṭalḥa (d. 120/737), “from Ibn-`Abbās”, تفسير (Cairo, 1991), compiled by Rāshid `Abdal-mun`im ar-Rajāl (Gilliot, MIDEO 21, 439-40).

4. As-Suddī (d. 128/745) (Gilliot, MIDEO 22, 296; E. Kohlberg, A medieval Muslim scholar at work. Ibn-Tāwūs and his library, 1992, 348).

5. Mujāhid b. Jabr (d.c. 100-4/718-22), تفسير (Cairo, 1989, ed. M. `Abdassalām Abū-n-Nayl; cf. Gilliot, MIDEO 21, 440).

6. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), تفسير (Cairo, 1992, 2 vols., collected by M. `Abdarraḥīm) - another man of repute in Qur’ānic theological and ṣūfic circles. His opinions are known only through later writers (Gilliot, MIDEO 22, 295-6).

7. Ibn-Shihāb Zuhrī (d. 124/742), تنزيل القرآن (Cf. Wansbrough, p. 179 ff.), the earliest extant work on the circumstances of Qur’ānic revelation (أسباب النزول).

8. Abū-Muḥammad Ismāīl ibn-`Abdarraḥmān as-Suddī (d. 128/746), تفسير السدي الكبير (ed. M. `Aṭā` Yūsuf, Cairo, 1993, 1 v.). — a reconstituted tafsīr; cf. Gilliot 22:296.

9. Al-Kalbī (d. 146/763) — His work was also attributed to al-`Abbās. or al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 817/1415).

10. Muqātil ibn-Sulaymān (d. 150/767), تفسير (Cf. Wansbrough, passim). He treats systematic themes of Islamic life.

11. Sufyān ath-Thawrī (d. 161/778) (Gilliot, Les débuts de l’exèse coranique, 89).

12. Ibn-Wahb (125-179/743-812), الجامع, ed. Miklos Muranyi (Wiesbaden,1993-5, 3 vols.), previously by J. David-Weill (Cairo, 1939, 2 vols.).

13. Sufyān b. `Uyayna (d. 196/811) (Gilliot, Les débuts de l’exèse coranique, 89-90).

14. Ash-Shāfi`ī (d. 204/819) رسالة: أحكام القرآن (Cairo, 1951, 2 vols.; cf. Wansbrough; Watt, Formative period; etc.). He is important for the debate on the relationship of the Qur’ān to Sunna.

16. `Abd ar-Razzāq as-San`ānī (d. 211/827), تفسير القرآن (Riyāḍ, 1989, 3 vols.; cf. GAS I, 99).

17. Al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (d. 215/830), كتاب معاني القرآن (Cairo, 1990, 2 vols.; cf. Gilliot, MIDEO, 21, 441-2) — a dictionary.

18. Ibn-Ḥazm (d. 226/841), الناسخ والمنسوح. On margin of Jalālayn (Cairo, 1925, 2 vols.).

19. Hūd ibn-Muḥakkim al-Hawwārī (3/9^th c.), تفسير كتاب الله العزيز (Beirut, 1990, 4 vols.).

20. Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), صحيص, Books تفسير and فضائل القرآن (Cf. Wansbrough, 181). He wrote this collection of Ḥadīth, which has these sections on Qur’ānic interpretation.

21. Muslim (d. 261/875), صحيص, Book تفسير (cf. Wansbrough, p. 180), another major collection of Ḥadīth with a section on the Qur’an.

22. Ibn-Qutayba (d. 276/889), تأويل مشكل القرآن، غريب الرآن.

23. At-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), صحيح, Book تفسير (cf. Wansbrough, 182), another Ḥadīth collection.

24. Al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) تفسير (Cairo, 1908, 1 vol.; GAS I, 647; G. Bwering, The mystical vision of existence in classical Islam. The Qur’ānic hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl al-Tustarī Berlin 1980).

25. Hūd ibn-Muḥkim (d.c. end of 3/9 c.) تفسير. — an Ibāḍīte work (GAS I, 41).

26. Abū-`Abdarraḥmān Aḥmad ibn-Shu`ayb ibn-`Alī an-Nasā`ī تفسير النسائي (Cairo, 1990, 2 vols.).

27. Muḥammad ibn-Jarīr aṭ-Ḥabarī (d. 311/923), جامع البيان عن تأويل أيآت القرآن (cf. Gilliot,...). He gathers interpretations of past authors (with an isnād of their transmission) as well as giving his own views.

28. Furāt ibn-Furāt al-Kūfī (d.c. 310/922), تفسير — a Shī`ite work (GAS I, 539).

29. At-Tirmidhī, al-Ḥākim (d. 318/930), تصحيل نظائر القرآن (Cairo, 1970).

30. Al-`Ayyāshī (d.c. 320/932), تفسير الأيّاشي — a Shī`ite work.

31. Al-Azharī Abū-Manṣūr Muḥammad (d. 321/933), كتاب معاني القراآت (Cairo, 1991-3, 3 vols.) —on variant readings; cf. Gilliot 21:444; 22:298.

32. Al-Qummī (d.c. end of 4/10 c.), تفسير القرآن — Shī`ite (GAS, I, 45-6).

33. Al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), تأويلات أهل السنة (Cairo, 1971), ed. Ibrāhīm `Ūḍīn.

34. Abū-Ja`far an-Nuḥḥās (d. 338/949), كتاب الناسخ والمنسوخ (Cairo, 1938).

35. Al-Jaṣṣāṣ Aḥmad ibn-`Alī Abū-Bakr ar-Rāzī (305-370/917-981), أحكام القرآن.

36. Ibn-Khālawayh: Abu-`Abdallāh (d. 370/980), إعراب القراءات السبع وعللها (Cairo, 1992, 2 vols.). Cf. Gilliot 22:301.

37. Aṭ-Ṭastī: Abū-l-Ḥusayn `Abdaṣṣamad (d. 346/957), مسائل الإمام الطستي عن أسئلة نابع بن الأزبق وأجوبة عبد الله بن عباس (Cairo, 1992; cf. Gilliot, MIDEO 23, 317).

38. Abū-l-Layth Naṣr ibn-Muḥammad ibn-Aḥmad ibn-Ibrāhīm as-Samarqandī (d. 375/985), تفسير السمرقندي (Beirut, 1993, 3 vols.).

39. Al-Qushayrī (d. 376/968) لطائف الإشارات (Cairo, 1983) — a Ṣūfī commentary.

40. Al-Ḥākim an-Nīsabūrī (321-405/933-1014), المستدرك على الصحيحين (Cairo, 5 vols.).

41. Ibn-Ghalbūn: Abū-ṭ-Ṭayyib `Abdalmu’min (d. 389/999), الاستكمال لبيان جميع ما تأفي في كتاب الله من مذهب القرّاء السبعة في التبخيم والإمالة وما كان بين اللفظين مجملا كاملا (Cairo, 1991). Cf. Gilliot 22:298.

42. `Abdaljabbār: al-Qāḍī ibn-Aḥmad al-Hamdānī (d. 410/1019), متشابه القرآن (Cairo, 1969, 2 vols.).

43. As-Sulamī (d. 412/1021)حقائق التفسير (GAS I, 671-4; Bwering, “The Qur’ān commentary of al-Sulamī,” in W.B. Hallaq, Islamic studies presented to Charles J. Adams, 1991, 41-56; ed. Bering, Beirut, 1995); also زيادات حقائق التفسير (Beirut, 1995, ed. G. Bowering: The minor Q. commentary).

44. Ath-Tha`ālabī (d. 427/1035), الكشف والبيان عن تفسير القرآن, also عرائس المجلس في قصص الأنبياء — a Māturīdite.

45. `Alī ibn-al-Ḥusayn al-Mūsawī al-`Alawī (355-436/966-1044), أمالي المرتضى< (Cairo, 1954, 2 vols.).

46. Al-Māwardī (364-450/974-1058), التفسير المسمى النكة والعيون (Kuwait, 1993, 4 vols.). Cf Gilliot, 22:296.

47. Hibatallāh ibn-Salāma ibn-Naṣr al-Maqqarī (d. 410/1019), الناسخ والمنسوخ (Cairo, n.d.).

48. Aṭ-Ḥūsī (d. 460/1067), التبيان في تفسير القرآن — Shī`ite.

50. al-Wāḥidī `Alī ibn-al-Ḥasan an-Nīsābūrī (d. 468/1076), الوسيط في تفسير القرآن المجيد (Cairo, 1995); also أسباب النزول (Cairo, 1991); cf. Gilliot 22:304.

51.Hibatallāh al-Mu`ayyadfīddīn ash-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1077-8), المجالس المؤيدية (Bombay, 1975) - a Shī`ite.

52. Ad-Dāmaghānī Abū-`Abdallāh (d. 478/1085), الوجوه والنظائر للأفاظ كتاب الله العزيز (Cairo, 1995); cf. Gilliot 23:326. Also الوجوه والنظائر لأفاظ نكاب الله العزيز (Cairo, 1992); cf. Gilliot 22:303.

53. Al-Kiyā al-Harrās: Abū-Ḥasan `Alī (d. 504/110-11), أحكام القرآن (Cairo, 1975, 4 vols.).

54. Al-Bāqūlī: al-Jāmi` (d.after 535/1141), معاني القرآن وإعرابه (Cairo, 1994, 5 vols.) — wrongly attributed to az-Zajjāj (d. 316/928). Cf. Gilliot 23:324.

55. Az-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), style='font-size:13.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Traditional Arabic";mso-ascii-font-family: الكشاف عن حقائق التنزيل A major commentary focusing on grammatical and lexical points. His Mu`tazilite views appear occasionally; also نكة الأعراب في غريب الإعراب في القرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1985).

56. Abū-Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn ibn-Sa`ūd al-Farā’ al-Ghawī (d.c. 516/1122) التفسير البغوي (Cairo, 1955, 7 fas. — in that of al-Khāzin).

57. Abū-l-Faḍl Rashīdaddīn al-Mībudī (d. 520/1126), كشف الأسرار وودّة الأبرار تفسير خواجه عبد الله أنصاري (Teheran, 1913).

58. Ibn-al-`Arabī: Abū-Bakr ibn-`Abdallāh al-Ma`āfirī (d. 543/1148), الناسخ والمنسوخ في القرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1992, 2 vols.); cf. Gilliot 22:304. Also أحكام القرن (Cairo, 1957-9, 4 vols.).

59. Ibn-`Aṭiyya: Ibn-Muḥammad `Abdalḥaqq al-Qurṭubī (481-541/1088-1146), المحرّر الوجير في تفسير الكتاب العزيز (Cairo, 1993, 5 vols.).

60. Aṭ-Ḥabrīzī (d. 548/1153) (cf. M.O.A. Abdul, The Qur’ān: Shakh Tabrisi’s commentary, Lahore, 1977).

61. Ibn-Wathīq al-Ishbīlī (d. 654/1256), كتاب في تجويد القراءة ومخارج الحروف (Cairo, 1990). Cf. Gilliot 22:301.

62. Abū-l-Barakāt al-Anṣārī (d. 577/1181), البيان في غريب إعراب القرآن (Cairo, 1980, 2 vols.).

63. Abū-l-Baqā` al-`Ukbarī (d. 616/1219), إملاء ما من الرحمن من وجوه إعراب القرآن (Cairo, 1961/1992). Cf. Gilliot, 22:300.

64. Al-`Izz ibn-`Abdassalām (577-660/1181-1262), تفسير القرآن (Beirut, 1996, 3 vols.).

65. Abū-Mūsā Muḥammad Abū-Bakr ibn-abī-`sā al-Madanī al-Iṣfahānī (d. 581/1185), المجموع التغيث في غريب القرآن والحديث (Makka, 1986) — a dictionary of terms.

66. Abū-Bakr Muḥammad ibn-Mūsā (d. 584/1188), الاعتبار هب النسخ والمنسوخ من الأثار (Cairo, 1982).

67. Ibn-al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), زاد المسير في علم التفسير (Beirut, 1964-5, 6 vols.; cf. J. McAuliffe, “Ibn al-Jawzī’s exegetical propaedeutic: introduction and translation,” in Alif. J. of Comparative Poetics 8 (1988), 101-13); also سلوة الأحزان (Alexandria, 1970). — cf. Gilliot 23:323 on another work wrongly attributed to him.

68. Fakhraddīn ar-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), كتاب زاج المصير في علم التفسير = التفسير الكرير (cf. J. Jomier, MIDEO 13, 253-90; 15, 145-72) — a large work containing much Ash`arite philosophical and theological discussion.

69. Al-Ḥarāllī: Fakhraddīn (d. 609/1212), مفتاح الباب المقفل لفهة القرآن المنزل (Cairo, 1994; cf. Gilliot 23:323).

70. Abū-`Abdallāh Sha`la (623-656/1226-1258), صفوة الراسخ في علم المنسوخ والناسخ (Cairo, 1995).

71. Muḥyīddīn ibn-`Arabī (d. 638/1240-1), تفسير القرآن لاكريم (Beirut, 1978, 2 vols.).

72. Ibn-an-Naqīb: Jamāladdīn (d. 642/1244), مقدمة تفسير في علم البيان والبديع وإعجاز القرآن (Cairo, 1995; cf. Gilliot 23:321) — sometimes wrongly attributed to al-Jawzī.

73. Shu`la: Shamsaddīn (d. 656/1258), صفوة الراسخ في علم المنسوخ والىاسخ (Cairo, 1995).

74. Muḥammad ibn-abī-Bakr ar-Rāzī (d. 666/1267-8), غرائب آي التنزيل (Cairo, 1985).

75. Al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1273), جامع لأحكام القرآن — with wide coverage of interpretations.

76. Al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685-716/1286-1316), أنوار التنزيل وأسرار التأويل — an abridgement of Zamakhsharī, with Mu`tazilite tendancy.

77. Ibn-al-Qayb: Abū-`Abdallāh Jamāladdīn Muḥammad ibn-Sulaymān al-Balḥī (d. 698/1299), مقدمة تفسير (Cairo, 1990).

78. `Abdallāh ibn-Aḥmad ibn-Muḥammad an-Nasafī (d. 701-6/1302-7), تفسير القرآن الجليل (Cairo, 1936, 3 vols.).

79. Aṭ-Ṭūfī Sulaymān... aṣ-Ṣarṣarī al-Baghdādī (657-716/1259-1316), الأكير في علم التفسير (Cairo, 1977).

80. Ad-Dīrīnī: `Izzaddīn (d. 697/1297), أبيات في الظاآت وكرحها (Cairo, 1992); cf. Gilliot 22:303.

81. `Alā’addīn `Alī ibn-Muḥammad ibn-Ibrāhīm al-Baghdādī al-Khāzin (d. 725/1325), mso-hansi- تفسير الخازن (Cairo, 1955, 7 fasc., includes commentary of al-Baghawī).

82. `Abdarrazāq al-Qashānī (d. 731/1330) تفسير ابن العربي (cf. P. Lory, Les commentaires ésotiques du Coran d’après `Abd ar-Razzāq al-Qashānī, Paris 1980) —a Ṣūfī commentary inspired by his master, Ibn-`Arabī.

84. Ibn-Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), المقدمة في أصول التفسير — takes a narrow position on the choice of interpretations (cf. Calder, Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr, 130; McAuliffe, “Quranic hermeneutics: the views of al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr,” in Rippin, Approaches to the history of the interpretation of the Qur’ān, Oxford 1988, 46-62); also التفسير الموضوعي (Cairo, 1994, ed. `Abdarraḥmān `Amīra).

85. An-Nīsābūrī: Niẓāmaddīn Ḥasan ibn-Muḥammad ibn-alḤusayn al-Muqmī (d. 728/1328), غرائب القرآن ورغائب الفرقان، التفسير الجامع للقرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1962-4, ed. I. `Aṭwah `Iwaḍ, 30 fas.); also أسباب النزول (Cairo, n.d.). Cf. Gilliot 23:325.

86. Muḥammad ibn-Aḥmad ibn-Jazī al-Kalbī (693-741/1294-1340), التسهيل لعلوم التنزيل (Cairo, n.d.).

87. Ismā`īl ibn-Kathīr (d. 774/1372-3), تفسير القرآن العظيم (Cairo, 1937, 4 vols.). He takes the cautious approach of Ibn-Taymiyya of few possible interpretations.

88. Ibn-`Arafa (716-803/1316-1401; finished 757/1356), تفسير (ms. in Tunis).

89. Ibn-al-Hā`im: Shihābaddīn (d. 815/1412), التبيان في تفسير غريب القرآن (Ṭanṭa, 1992). Cf. Gilliot 22:302.

90. Abū-Aḥmad al-`Askilānī (773-852/1371-1448), العجاب في بيان الأسباب (Jadda, 1997, 2 vols.).

91. Ibn-al-Jazarī: Shamsaddīn (d. 833/1429), تقريب النشر في القراآت العشر (Cairo, 1961). Cf. Gilliot 22:299.

92. An-Nuwayrī Shamsaddīn (d. 857/1453), شرح طيّبة النشر في القراآت العشر (Cairo, 1986-93, 6 vols.). Cf. Gilliot 22:299.

93. Jalāladdīn al-Maḥallī (791-864/1389-1459) & Jalāladdīn as-Suyūṭī (819-911/1445-1505) =Jalālayn, تفسير الجلالين.

94. Jalāladdīn as-Suyūṭī, الجر المنثور في التفسير بالمأثور (Beirut, 1990, 6 vols.); also لباب العقول في أسباب النزول (Cairo, n.d.; Guillot, 23:321).

95. Al-Fayrūzābadī: Majdaddīn (d. 817/1414), بصائر ذوي التمييز في لطائف الكتاب العزيز (Cairo, 6 vols.).

96. `Abdarraḥmān ath-Tha`ālabī (d. 875/1470-1), الجواهر الحسان في تفسير القرآن (Beirut, 1996, 3 vols.).

97. Muḥyīddīn Muḥammad ibn-Sulaymān al-Kafīfī (d. 879/1474), التيسير في قواعد علم التفسير (Cairo, 1998, small vol.).

98. Burhānaddīn Abū-l-Ḥasan Ibrāhīm `Umar al-Biqā`ī (d. 885/1480), نظم الدرر في تناسر الأيات والسور (Cairo, 1976/1992, 22 vols.); also مصاعد النظر للإشراف على مقاصد السور (Riyāḍ, 1987). Cf. Gilliot: 22:298.

100. Abū-l`Abbās Aḥmad ibn-Muḥammad ibn-`Ajībah al-Ḥasanī (d. 1224/1809), البحر المرير في تفسير القرآن المجيد (Cairo, 1957)

101. `Abdallāh ibn-Fūdī (d. 18..), ضياء التأويل في معاني التنزيل (Cairo, 1961, 2 vols.).

103. Abū-l-Faḍl Shihābaddīn Maḥmūd al-Alūsī al-Baghdādī (1806-1854), روح المعاني في تفسير القرآن العظيم ولاسبع المثاني (Cairo, n.d., ed. M. ash-Sharqāwī, 4 vols.).

104. Sulaymān ibn-`Umar al-`Ajīlī (d. 1887), الفتوحاغت الإلهية، توضيح تفسير الجلالين للحقائق الخقية (Cairo, 1934, 4 vols.).

105. Muḥammad Ṣadīq Ḥasan (d. 1889), نيل المرام من تفسير أيات الأحكام (Cairo, 1979).

106. Muḥammad Jamāladdīn al-Qāsī (1866-1914), محاسن التأويل (Cairo, 1957-60, 17 vols).

107. Muḥammad `Abduh (d. 1905) and Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935), تفسير المنار. This appeared serially in the review al-Manār, republished in 6 volumes (1346-1353 H.). It expressed moderate modernising views (cf. J. Jomier, Le commentaire coranique du Manār, Paris 1954).

108. `Ā’isha `Abdarraḥmān (under pseudonym: Bint ash-Shāṭī, d. 1913), التفسير البياني للقرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1968, a series) —a lexical study of 14 short sūras.

110. Muḥammad ibn-`Alī ibn-Muḥammad ash-Shawkānī (d. 1931), فتح القدير، الجامع بين فىي الرواية والدراية (Cairo, 1969, 5 vols.). Cf. Gilliot: 23:325.

111. Muḥammad Fu’ād `Abdalbāqī, المعجم المفهرس لألفاظ القرآن (Cairo, 1938) —a complete concordance, excellently done, an indispenable study tool — if you do not have a CD-Rom.

112. Ḥanṭāwī Jawharī (d. 1940), الجواهر في تفسير القرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1936, 36 fascicules) —tries to show how “scientific” the Qur’ān is.

113. Aḥmad Muṣṭafā al-Mirāghī (1881-1945), تفسير المراغي (Cairo, 1946).

114. Ḥasan al-Bannā (d. 1949), مقدمة في التفسير (Kuwait, 1971).

115. Aḥmad Sa`d al-`Aqqād (1889-1954), ضياء الأكوان في تفسير القرآن.

116. Ḥusayn Muḥammad Mukhāwif, صفوة البيان لمعاني القرآن (Cairo, 1956, 2 vols.).

117. `Abdalmuta`all Muḥammad al-Jarī, النسخ في الشريعة الإسلامية كما أفهم (Cairo, 1961/1986): “ لا منسوخ في القرآن، ولا نسخ في السنة، أُبدع تشريع فيما قيل إنه منسوخ ”.

118. Muḥammad `Izza Warūza, التفسير الحديث (Cairo, 1962-64, 12 vols.).

119. Muḥammad aṭ-Ṭāhir ibn-`Āshūr,تفسير الخرير والتنوير (Cairo, 1964).

121. Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966), في ظلال القرآن — A member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Quṭb wrote this radical Ḥanbalite commentary while in prison (cf. Olivier Carré, Mystique et politique, lecture révolutionnaire du Coran par Sayyid Quṭb, frère musulman radical, Paris: Cerf, 1984; A.H. Johns, “Let my people go! Sayyid Quṭb and the vocation of Moses,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 1 (1990), 143-70). English tr. of part 30 by M.A. Salahi-A.A. Shamis, In the shade of the Qur’an. London: Redwood Burn.

122. Aḥmad ash-Sharbāṣī, أخلاق القرآن (Cairo, 1971, 6 vols.) — by theme.

123. Muḥammad Ḥusayn aṭ-Ṭabāṭabā` (d. 1981), الميزان في تفسير القرآن (Beirut, 1991, 21 vols.).

124. Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ḥamza, Ḥasan `Alwān, Muḥammad Aḥmad Barā’iq, تفسير القرآن الكريم (Cairo, 1984), 27 fascicules.

127. Muḥammad MaḥMūd Wajāzī التفسير الواضح (Cairo, n.d., 22 fasc.).

128. Committee of scholars, التفسير الوسيط (Cairo, 1973-1990, 55 fasc.).

129. Aḥmad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī, التفسير الوسيط (1997, 15 vols.).

130. Aṣ-Ṣīrī, مجموع البيان في تفسير القرآن (Cairo, n.d.).

Latin translations (complete only; there are many incomplete ones)

1143, Robert of Ketton, Liber legis Saracenorum quem Alcoran vocant, a Latin translation of the Qur’ān. Basel: Theodorus Bibliandrus: 1543. 5 vols. in 1, the first only is Qur’ān.

1698, Ludovico Maraccio, Alcorani textus universus. Padova, 2 vols. in 3. —a new Latin translation who devoted 40 years to Islamic studies.

English translations

1515, ?, “Here begynneth a lytell treatyse of the turkes law called Alcoran. And also it speketh of Machamet to Nygromancer,” London: Wynkyn de Words, 61 p. partial tr.; photstat reprint (where, when?).

1648, Alexander Ross, The Alcoran of Mahomet translated out of Arabique into French... and newly Englished. London: Randal and Taylor. —an English version of the former.

1734, George Sale, The Qur’ān, an English translation with notes and an important "Preliminary Discourse".

1834, Gustav Flügel, Corani textus arabicus, an Arabic edition whose verse numbers differ somewhat from those of the Cairo edition. It was commonly used in the West up to 1950.

1861, J.M. Rodwell, The Koran. London: Hertford. — This is not much used today.

1880, E.H. Palmer, The Qur’ān. Oxford: Clarendon, 2 vols. - also not much used today.

1882, Stanley Lane-Poole, The speeches and table-talk of the prophet Mohammad; chosen and translated. London: Macmillan. — partial.

1905, Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan, The Holy Qur’an. Karnal: Azizi Press. —the first Indo-Pakistani tr. by a Muslim.

1910, Abu’l-Fadl, Selections from the Koran. Allahabad: Asghar. — incomplete.

1916, Mirza Abu’l-Fazl, The Koran (Bombay), follows the Cairo verse numeration. Has often been reprinted.

1917, Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Holy Qur’ān, Arabic text, translation and commentary (Lahore). The commentary presents the Ahmadiyya views of the author. The translation follows the Cairo verse numeration. It has often been reprinted, with a revised edition in 1951.

1930, Marmaduke Pickthall, The meaning of the Glorious Koran, an explanatory translation. This is archaic in expression and difficult to read, but approved by Muslims because done by an English Muslim. It follows the Cairo verse numeration.

1931, A.F. Badshah Hussain, The Holy Quran. Lucknow: Moayyedul Waezin. —has only suras 1 & 2; follows Shī`ite interpretation.

1937, Richard Bell, The Qur’ān... (see above), 2 vols., follows Flügel’s verse numeration.

1938, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’ān, text, translation and commentary (Lahore). It follows the Cairo verse numeration, and has often been reprinted.

1939, Richard Bell, The Qur’ān: translated, with a critical re-arrangement of the Surahs, 2 vols.

1953, Richard Bell, Introduction to the Qur’ān. A revised edition was published in 1970 by W.M. Watt.

1955, A.J. Arberry, The Holy Koran interpreted, a rather good translation using a poetic format of short lines, although the English is somewhat archaic. It follows Flügel’s verse numeration.

1956, N.J. Dawood, The Koran (Penguin), a very readable translation, arranges the sūras chronologically; some interpretations differ from traditional Muslim exegesis. No verse numbers marked in early editions.

1957, Firozuddin Ruhi, Holy Qur’an. Karachi: Idara-e-Tabligh al-Qur’an. —the first two juz’ only.

1957, Kamal’ud-Din-Nazir Ahmad, A running commentary of the Holy Qur’an. London, n.d., before 1958.

1962, Ali Ahmad Khan Julundhri, Translation of the Glorious Holy Qur’ān. Lahore: World Islamic Mission.

1962-68, S.M. Abdul Hamid, The divine Qur’an. Dacca: Islami Tabligh Missiion, 3 vols.

1964, Khadim Rahmani Nuri, The running commentary of the Holy Qur’an. Shillong (India). —with Arabic.

1964, Muhammad Asad, The message of the Qur’an. Geneva: Islamic Centre. —first nine suras.

1964, Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmad, The Noble Qur’an. Karachi: Maktaba-i-Matloob. —tr & commentary (tr. from Urdu) on first two parts.

1967, Abdul Latif, The Tarjuman al-Qur’asn. Bombay: Asia Publ. House. 2 vols. —not finished.

1967-70, Muhammad Akbar, The meanings of the Qur’an. Lahore: Islamic Publications, 8 vols. —not finished.

1968, T.B. Irving, Al-Qur’ān, selections from the Noble Reading, a partial translation, thematically organized, approved by the Federation of Islamic Associations of U.S. and Canada, uses Cairo verse numeration; 1985, The Qur’an — complete.

1969, Malik Ghulam Farid, The Holy Qur’an. Rabwah: Oriental and Religious Pub. Corp.

1974, Hashim Amir Ali, Message of the Qur’an presented in perspective. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle. —Arabic and English.

1975, S. Athar Husayn, The message of the Qur’ān, a partial translation, no verse numeration.

1975, Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, The Holy Qur’an. Lahore: Islamic Book Centre. —partial.

1975, Altaf Gauhar, Transaltions from the Quran. Lahore: Idara Tarjuman-ul-Quran. —partial

1978, Muhammad Taqui al-Din al-Hilali-Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Holy Qur’an. Ankara: Hilāl (2^nd ed.). —with commentary from Ibn-Kathīr and aṭ-Ṭabarī etc.

1980, Muhammad Asad, The message of the Qur’ān. Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus; Dublin: Cahill.

1993, Fadhlalla Haeri, Keys to the Qru’an. 5 vols. —partial, with commentary.

French translations

1647, André du Ryer, L’alcoran de Mahomet translaté d’arabe en françois. Paris: Antoine de Sommaville. —the first French tr. Du Ryer was resident for the King of France at Alexandria.

1861, Fatma Zaida, L’Alkoran. Lisbon: Société typographique franco-portugaise.

1949-50, R. Blachère, Introduction au Coran. & Le Coran: traduction selon un essai de reclassement des sourates, the latter 2 vols., later published as one. These two works are invaluable reference tools.

1956, Henry Mercier, Le Coran. Rabat: Etitions techniques nord africaines. — partial.

1959, Muhammad Hamidullah, Le Saint Coran. Paris: Dupont. — pref. Louis Massignon.

1972, Jean Grosjean, Le Coran. Paris: Club du Livre, 2 vols. — with notes by Jacques Berque.

1976, Noureddin Ben Mahmoud, Le Coran. Rabat: Moncho. — based on tr. of Kasimirski.

German (only to mention this one)

Qur’ān studies

1860, Theodor Nldeke, Geschichte des Qorāns, the foundation of all later Qur'ānic studies. 2nd edition by Friedrich Schwally (I, 1909; II, 1919) and by Gotthelf Bergstrsser and O. Pretzl (III, 1938).

1861 ff., Aloys Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, 3 vols., with 36 pages in the introduction on the Qur'ān and the chronology of the sūras.

1878, William Muir, The Coran, its composition and teaching..., goes further into the chronology of the sūras.

1895, Hubert Grimme, Mohammed. Cf. vol. 2, "Einleitung in den Koran". He has his own thematic chronology of the sūras based on doctrine.

1902, Hartwig Hirschfeld, New researches into the composition and exegesis of the Qoran. He proposed a new chronology of the sūras based on the style of passages rather than of complete sūras.

1905, Leone Caetani, Annali dell'Islam, which includes some treatment of the Qur'ān.

1911-13, P. Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde, which discusses the state of the Qur'ān in Muḥammad's lifetime.

1926, Josef Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, an analysis of Qur'ānic narratives and proper names.

1937, Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the study of the text of the Qur'ān, including an edition of Ibn-abī-Dāwūd's كتاب المصاحف.

1920, Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung, containing lectures on various questions about the Qur'ān.

Rippin, A., “The present status of tafsīr studies,” Muslim World 72 (1982), 224-38.

OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles, tr. Anton Pegis. Image Books, 1955.

Coulson, Noel, Conflicts and tensions in Islamic jurisprudence. Chicago, 1969.

Coulson, Noel, A history of Islamic law. Edinburgh, 1964.

Daniel, Norman, Islam and the West. Edinburgh, 1960.

Goldziher, Ignaz, Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols. Halle, 1889-90.

Guraya, Muhammad Y., "The concept of Sunna, a historical study", Islamic Studies, 11:1 (1972), 13-44.

Guraya, Muhammad Y., "Historical background of the compilation of the Muwaṭṭa' of Malik b. Anas," Islamic Studies, 7:4 (1968), 379-392).

Guraya, Muhammad Y., "The concept of Sunnah, a historical study," Islamic Studies, 11:1 (1972), 13-44).

Hasan, Ahmad, "Early modes of ijtihād: Ra'y, qiyās and istiḥsān," Islamic Studies, 6:1 (1967), 47-79).

Hasan, Ahmad, "Origins of the early schools of law," Islamic Studies, 9:3 (1970), 255‑269)

Hasan, Ahmad, "The argument for the authority of ijmā`," Islamic Studies, 10:1 (1971), 39‑52)

Hasan, Ahmad, "The concept of infallibility in Islam," Islamic Studies, 11:1 (1972), 1‑11)

Hasan, Ahmad, "The sources of Islamic law," Islamic Studies, 7:2 (1968), 165‑184)

Hasan, Ahmad, "The Sunnah: its early concept and development," Islamic Studies, 7:1 (1968), 47‑69)

Hasan, Ahmad, "The theory of naskh," Islamic Studies, 4:2 (1965), 181‑200)

Hasan, Ahmad, "Ijmā`, an integrating force in the Muslim community," Islamic Studies, 6:4 (1967), 389‑406)

Hasan, Ahmad, "Ijmā` in the early schools," Islamic Studies, 6:2 (1967), 121‑139)

Ibn-Hishām, As-Sīra an-nabawiyya. Cairo, 1955 (2 vols.).

Kenny, Joseph, Muslim theology as presented by M. b. Yūsuf as-Sanūsī, especially in his al-`Aqīda al-wusṭā. Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1970.

Kenny, Joseph & Babs Mala, "Muslim use of Christian Scriptures", West African Religion, 18:2 & 3 (1979), pp. 31-41.

Rahman, Fazlur, Islam. N.Y., 1966.

Rahman, Fazlur, Islamic methodology in history. Karachi, 1965.

Schacht, Joseph, An introduction to Islamic law. Oxford, 1964.

Watt, W. Montgomery, Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965/60/53.

Watt, William Montgomery, Muḥammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Watt, W. Montgomery, Muhammad, prophet and statesman. OUP, 1964/61.

Wensinck, A.J., The Muslim creed. London, 1932.

Yusuf, S.M., "The sunna, its place in Islam," Islamic Studies, 1:4 (1962), 41-50).

محمد حسين الذهبي، التفسير والمفسرون (القاهرة، 1967)

محمد الفاضل بن عاشور، التفسير ورجاله (تونس، 1997)

متيع عبد الحليم محمود، مناهج المقسرين (القاهرة، 1978)

جلال الدين عبد الرحمان السيوطي، طبقات المقسرين (القاهرةو 1976)

[1]For this chapter see Régis Blachère, Le Coran, traduit de l'arabe (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 1966); Introduction au Coran (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1959); Le Coran (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1973); Richard Bell, The Qur'ān translated, with a critical re‑arrangement of the surahs (2 vols. Edinburgh: Clark, 1937); W. Montgomery Watt, Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ān (Edinburgh UP, 1970); John Burton, The collection of the Qur'an (Cambridge UP, 1977); Theodor Nldeke, Geschichte des Qorans, vols. 1-2 revised by F. Schwally, vol. 3 revised by G. Bergstrsser & O. Pretzl (Hildesheim: Olms, 1981, reprint of 1909‑38).

[3]According to the interpretation of Richard Bell in The Qur'ān translated (Edinburgh: Clark, 1937) II, p. 613.

[4]Cf. Régis Blachère, Introduction au Coran (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1959), pp. 79 ff.

[8]Cf. my Early Islam, ch. 1, and "Judaeo-Christianity in the background of Islam", Nigerian Dialogue, n. 2 (1977), pp. 55-57.

[11]Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Book Faḍā'il al-Qur'ān, chapter Nisyān al-Qur'ān.

[12]Cf. Ja.āladdīn as-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī `ulūm al-Qur'ān, II, p. 26.

[13]Cf. Alfred Guillaume, The life of Muḥammad, a translation of Isḥāq's Sīra Rasūl Allāh (Oxford U.P., 1955), pp. 165-7; W.M. Watt, Muḥammad at Mecca (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), p. 102.

[17]Cf. Bukhārī, Ṣaḥūḥ, Book Faḍā'il al-Qur'ān, chapter Kāna Jibrīl ya`ruḍ al-Qur'ān.

[19] The exact literal meaning is debated. See F. Rahman, Islam, p. 58, his Islamic methodology in history, pp. 3-4, and M.Y. Guraya, "The concept of Sunnah, a historical study", Islamic Studies, 11:1 (1972), 13-44.

[20]On the early schools see J. Schacht, An introduction to Islamic law, ch. 6, F. Rahman, Islam, pp. 48-9, N. Coulson, A history of Islamic law, chs. 2 & 3, his Conflicts and tensions in Islamic jurisprudence, chs. 1 & 2, and A. Hasan, "Origins of the early schools of law", Islamic Studies, 6:2 (1967), 121-139, and "Ijmā`, an integrating force in the Muslim community", Islamic Studies, 6:4 (1967), 389-406.

[21]Cf. M.Y. Guraya, "Historical background of the compilation of the Muwaṭṭa` of Mālik ibn-Anas", Islamic Studies, 7:4 (1968), 379-392.

[27]Cf. N. Coulson, A history of Islamic law, p. 56, and A. Hasan, "The sources of Islamic law", Islamic Studies, 7:2 (1968), 165-184.

[28]Cf. N. Coulson, Conflict..., p. 7, and J. Schacht, Introduction, pp. 60-61. On early use of istiḥsān cf. A. Hasan, "Early modes of ijtihād: ra'y, qiyās and istiḥsān", Islamic Studies, 6:1 (1967), 47-79.

[29]In the Ḥanfite document Al-fiqh al-akbar I, n. 7; cf. A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 102 ff., and W.M. Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, pp. 132, 267.

[33]See my translation, The Risāla, treatise on Mālikī law of `Abdallāh ibn-abī-Zayd al-Qayrawānī (922-996) (Minna: Islamic Education Trust, 1992).

[34]Cf. W.M. Watt, Formative period..., p. 68, and Muḥammad at Mecca, xi ff.

[96]Itqān, I, 61. Note that Burton, 215, mistranslates this passage and gives the opposite opinion.

[98]Cf. Ibn-abī-Dāwūd, Kitāb maṣāḥif, ed. A. Jeffery, Materials..., p. 117.

[111]For a full discussion see Norman Daniel, Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1960).

[112]For a fuller discussion of this see J. Kenny & Babs Mala, "Muslim use of Christian Scriptures", West African Religion, 18:2&3 (1979), pp. 31-41.

[118]Cf. A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 207 and passim; see his index for "bilā kayfa"; see also J. Kenny, Muslim theology as presented by M. b. Yūsuf as-Sanūsī (Ph.D. thesis, U. of Edinburgh, 1970), pp. 168-171.

[119]Al-`aqīda al-kubrā (Cairo, 1936), p. 490; cfr. Kenny, Muslim theology, p. 267.

[120]Summa contra Gentiles, Book 1, chapter 6, tr. Anton Pegis (Image, 1955), pp. 73-4.

[123]Cf. Ibid., ch. 6 on the Jews, pp. 15, 18 & 68 on the poets, and pp. 180-191 on the Hypocrites. See his Muḥammad, prophet and statesman, pp. 123, 127, 205 on the poets.

[126]Muhammad Talbi, "Religious liberty: a Muslim perspective," Islamochristiana, 11 (1985), 99-113.

CHAPTER 1:	THE QUR'ĀN IN THE LIFETIME OF MUḤAMMAD
CHAPTER 2:	THE STATUS OF ISLAMIC TRADITION: SUNNA & ḤADĪTH
CHAPTER 3:	QUR’ĀN AND SUNNA IN CONFLICT
CHAPTER 4:	ḤADĪTH AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF THE QUR'ĀN
CHAPTER 5:	QUR'ĀN AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF ḤADĪTH
CHAPTER 6:	EVALUATION OF THE QUR'ĀN AS REVELATION: SOME NON-MUSLIM VIEWS
CHAPTER 7:	QUR'ĀN COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES
	Arabic works
	English translations
	French translations
	German translation
	Qur'ān studies
	General bibliography

District	Reader	First Rāwī	Second Rāwī
Medina	Nāfi` (d.785)	Warsh (812)	Qālūn (835)
Mecca	Ibn-Kathīr (735)	al-Bazzī (854)	Qunbul (903)
Damascus	Ibn-`Āmir (736)	Hishām (859)	Ibn-Dhakwān (856)
Baṣra	Abū-`Amr (770)	ad-Dūrī (860)	as-Sūsī (874)
Kūfa	`Āṣim (744)	Ḥafṣ (805)	Shu`ba (809)
Kūfa	Ḥamza (772)	Khalaf (843)	Khallād (835)
Kūfa	al-Kisā'ī (804)	ad-Dūrī (860)	Abū-l-Ḥārith (854)

QUR'ĀN AND ḤADĪTH STUDIES:
SCHOLARSHIP IN EARLY ISLAM

by
Joseph Kenny, O.P.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1
THE QUR'ĀN IN THE LIFETIME OF MUḤAMMAD [1]

CHAPTER 2
THE STATUS OF ISLAMIC TRADITION: SUNNA & ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 3
QUR’ĀN AND SUNNA IN CONFLICT

CHAPTER 4
ḤADĪTH AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF THE QUR'ĀN

CHAPTER 5
QUR'ĀN AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 6
EVALUATION OF THE QUR'ĀN AS REVELATION
SOME NON-MUSLIM VIEWS

CHAPTER 7
QUR'ĀN COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES

Latin translations (complete only; there are many incomplete ones)

English translations

French translations

German (only to mention this one)

Qur’ān studies

OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY

QUR'ĀN AND ḤADĪTH STUDIES:SCHOLARSHIP IN EARLY ISLAM

byJoseph Kenny, O.P.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1THE QUR'ĀN IN THE LIFETIME OF MUḤAMMAD [1]

CHAPTER 2THE STATUS OF ISLAMIC TRADITION: SUNNA & ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 3QUR’ĀN AND SUNNA IN CONFLICT

CHAPTER 4ḤADĪTH AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF THE QUR'ĀN

CHAPTER 5QUR'ĀN AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 6EVALUATION OF THE QUR'ĀN AS REVELATIONSOME NON-MUSLIM VIEWS

CHAPTER 7QUR'ĀN COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES

Latin translations (complete only; there are many incomplete ones)

English translations

French translations

German (only to mention this one)

Qur’ān studies

OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHY

QUR'ĀN AND ḤADĪTH STUDIES:
SCHOLARSHIP IN EARLY ISLAM

by
Joseph Kenny, O.P.

CHAPTER 1
THE QUR'ĀN IN THE LIFETIME OF MUḤAMMAD [1]

CHAPTER 2
THE STATUS OF ISLAMIC TRADITION: SUNNA & ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 3
QUR’ĀN AND SUNNA IN CONFLICT

CHAPTER 4
ḤADĪTH AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF THE QUR'ĀN

CHAPTER 5
QUR'ĀN AUTHENTICITY OVER THAT OF ḤADĪTH

CHAPTER 6
EVALUATION OF THE QUR'ĀN AS REVELATION
SOME NON-MUSLIM VIEWS

CHAPTER 7
QUR'ĀN COMMENTARIES AND STUDIES