The Qur’ān before the book - History and concepts of Qur’ānic variants (qirā’āt)
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Jan 26, 2021
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Abstract
Purpose: This paper addresses methodological issues related to the concept of ‘Qur’ānic variants and readings’ (qirā’a pl. qirā’āt and ḥarf pl. aḥruf, respectively). I investigate the way they have been depicted in early Islamic narratives, developed in the field of medieval Islamic Qur’ānic sciences (ʿulūm al-Qur’ān), and discussed in Western Qur’ānic studies scholarship in the last two decades.
Methodology: The paper proceeds chronologically by discussing variants in the three aforementioned fields: early narratives, classical Islamic Qur’ānic sciences (ʿulūm al-Qur’ān), and modern Western scholarship.
Findings: The paper shows the necessity of generating a new approach to studying the history of the Qur’ān and its main concepts. The epistemological tools used in Western Qur’ānic studies on the history of the text of the Qur’ān need to be renewed.
Originality: The paper addresses epistemological issues related to Western Qur’ānic studies. It seeks to assess the progress in the field and offers a new perspective on the study of specific topics: Qur’ānic variants and readings.
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Keywords
Variants, Qur’ānEarly IslamCollections of the Qur’ānTransmission of the Qur’ānQur’ānic sciences
References
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Al-Qayjāṭī, Muhammad Ibn Ali, Masā’il fī al-Qirā’āt, (editor: Ben Younes al-Zākī)
Al-Ṣuyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-qur’ān, éd. Muḥammad Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, Maktabat Dār al-Turāṯ, Cairo, s.d.
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, “Canon and canonization of the Qur’ān” Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition, (Brill online).
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, The Arabs and Islam in Late Antiquity: A Critique of Approaches to Arabic Sources, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2014.
———, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity. Allah and His People, Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 2014, pp. 474-477.
———, “Modelling the Paleo-Qur’ān: Declamations, Reiterations, and collations” in, Hilali, Asma, and Burge, Stephen R., The Making of religious texts in Islam. The fragment and the whole, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2019, pp. 35-77.
Burton, James. ‘Muṣḥaf’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Brown, Jonathan, The Canonization of al-Bukhârî and Muslim. The Formation and Function of the Sunnî Hadîth Canon, Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2007.
Chahdi, Hassan, Le muṣḥaf dans les débuts de l’islam. Recherches sur sa constitution et étude comparative de manuscrits coraniques anciens et de traités de qirā’āt, rasm et fawāṣil, Phd. Thesis, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 2016.
Comerro, Vivianne, Les traditions sur la constitution du muṣḥaf de ʿUthmān, Beirut, 2012.
Cook, Michael, ‘The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran’, in George K. Livadas, ed., Graeco-Arabica 9–10: Festschrift in honour of V. Christides, Athens, 2004.
———, The Koran. A very short introduction, Oxford, 2000.
Dutton, Yassin, ‘Some Notes on the British Library’s “Oldest Qur’an Manuscript” (Or. 2165)’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 6, no. 1 (2004).
Eds. ‘Thabīr’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, (Brill online).
Fleisch, Henri., ‘Ḥarf’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Fedeli, Alba, ‘Relevance of the Oldest Qur’anic Manuscripts for the Readings Mentioned by Commentaries. A Note on Sura “Ṭā-Hā”’, Manuscripta Orientalia 15, no. 1 (2009).
———, “Digital Humanities and Qur’ānic Manuscript Studies: New Perspectives and Challenges for Collaborative Spaces and Plural Views” in, Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies (Vol. 38, Issue 1), 2020, pp. 147-159.
Gilliot, Claude, “Colllecte ou memorization du Coran. Essai d’analyse d’un vocabulaire ambigu” in Gilliot (Claude) und TilmanNagel (hrsg. von), Das Prophetenḥadīṯ. Dimensionen einer islamischen Literaturgattung [Actes du Göttinger Kolloquium über das ḥadīṯ, Göttingen, Seminar für Arabistik, 3-4 novembre 2000], Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. I. Philologisch- Historische Klasse, Jahrgang 2005/1), 2005, pp. 14-39.
Geoffroy, Eric, ‘al-Suyūṭī’ Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill online).
Hilali, Asma, ‘La palimpseste de Ṣanʿāʾ et la canonisation du Coran: nouveaux éléments,’ Cahiers Glotz 21 (2010), pp. 443-48.
———, ‘Was the Ṣanʿāʾ Qurān Palimpsest a Work in Progress?’ in David Hollenberg, Christian Rauch and Sabine Schmidtke (eds), The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 12–27.
———, The Ṣanʿā’ palimpsest. The transmission of the Qur’an in the seventh century A.H., Oxford university Press, Oxford, 2017.
———, “Writing the Qur’ān between the lines. Marginal and interlinear notes in selected Qur'ān fragments from MIA, Qatar.” in, Bradford A. Anderson, ed., From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020, pp. 51- 62.
Hilali, Asma, and Burge, Stephen R., The Making of religious texts in Islam. The fragment and the whole, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2019.
Ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Nisābūrī, Muslim, al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ, (in Arabic).
Ibn Kathīr, Ismāʿil, al-Bidāya wa al-nihāya, ma-ktabat al-Falāḥ, (in Arabic), 1963.
Karimi-Nia, Morteza, “A New Document in the Early History of the Qurʾān: Codex Mashhad, an ʿUthmānic Text of the Qurʾān in Ibn Masʿūd’s Arrangement of Sūras”, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, (10) 2019, pp. 292-326.Laher, Suheil, "Between Dogmatism and Speculation: A Critical Assessment of Qirā’āt Studies", Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 176-190.
Leemhuis, Frederick, ‘Codices of the Qur’an’, Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, (Brill Online).
M. Carr, David, Writing on the tablets of the heart: Origins of scripture and literature, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Madelung, Wilfred, ‘Shīʿa’ Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill online)
Nasser, Shady Hekmat, The The Transmission of the variant readings of the Qur’ān. The problem of tawātur and the emergence of Shawādhdh, Brill, Boston-Leiden, 2013.
———, ‘al-Jazari’, Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition (Brill online).
Peters, Rudolph, ‘ʿĀqila’ Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition (Brill online).
Puin, Gerd-R., ‘Observations on Early Qurʾan Manuscripts in Ṣanʿāʾ’, in Stefan Wild, ed., The Qurʾan as Text (Leiden, 1996).
Rabb, Intisar A., ‘Non-Canonical Readings of the Qur’an: Recognition and Authenticity (The Ḥimṣī Reading)’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 8, no. 2 (2006).
Robson, James, ‘Ibn Mujāhid’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Schacht, Joseph, ‘ḳiṣāṣ’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Small, Keith E., Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts (Lanham, MD, 2011).
Shah, Mustafa, (ed.), The Hadith: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, London, Routledge, 2009.
Shah, Mustafa and Abdel-Haleem, Muhammad, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020.
Sadeghi, Benham and Goudarzi, Mohsen, ‘Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān’, Der Islam 87 (2012), pp. 1–129.
Tillier, Mathieu, « Le Coran d’Asmā’ », Les carnets de l’Ifpo, mis en ligne le 3 juillet 2011. URL : http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/2296.
Al-Nawawī, Yaḥya b. Sharaf, al-Minhāǧ. Šarḥ ṣaḥīḥ Muslim Ibn Ḥaǧǧāǧ, Dār Iḥyā’ al-turāṯ al-ʿarabī, Beyrouth, 1972.
Al-Qayjāṭī, Muhammad Ibn Ali, Masā’il fī al-Qirā’āt, (editor: Ben Younes al-Zākī)
Al-Ṣuyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-qur’ān, éd. Muḥammad Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, Maktabat Dār al-Turāṯ, Cairo, s.d.
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, “Canon and canonization of the Qur’ān” Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition, (Brill online).
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, The Arabs and Islam in Late Antiquity: A Critique of Approaches to Arabic Sources, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2014.
———, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity. Allah and His People, Cambridge university Press, Cambridge, 2014, pp. 474-477.
———, “Modelling the Paleo-Qur’ān: Declamations, Reiterations, and collations” in, Hilali, Asma, and Burge, Stephen R., The Making of religious texts in Islam. The fragment and the whole, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2019, pp. 35-77.
Burton, James. ‘Muṣḥaf’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Brown, Jonathan, The Canonization of al-Bukhârî and Muslim. The Formation and Function of the Sunnî Hadîth Canon, Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2007.
Chahdi, Hassan, Le muṣḥaf dans les débuts de l’islam. Recherches sur sa constitution et étude comparative de manuscrits coraniques anciens et de traités de qirā’āt, rasm et fawāṣil, Phd. Thesis, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 2016.
Comerro, Vivianne, Les traditions sur la constitution du muṣḥaf de ʿUthmān, Beirut, 2012.
Cook, Michael, ‘The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran’, in George K. Livadas, ed., Graeco-Arabica 9–10: Festschrift in honour of V. Christides, Athens, 2004.
———, The Koran. A very short introduction, Oxford, 2000.
Dutton, Yassin, ‘Some Notes on the British Library’s “Oldest Qur’an Manuscript” (Or. 2165)’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 6, no. 1 (2004).
Eds. ‘Thabīr’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, (Brill online).
Fleisch, Henri., ‘Ḥarf’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Fedeli, Alba, ‘Relevance of the Oldest Qur’anic Manuscripts for the Readings Mentioned by Commentaries. A Note on Sura “Ṭā-Hā”’, Manuscripta Orientalia 15, no. 1 (2009).
———, “Digital Humanities and Qur’ānic Manuscript Studies: New Perspectives and Challenges for Collaborative Spaces and Plural Views” in, Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies (Vol. 38, Issue 1), 2020, pp. 147-159.
Gilliot, Claude, “Colllecte ou memorization du Coran. Essai d’analyse d’un vocabulaire ambigu” in Gilliot (Claude) und TilmanNagel (hrsg. von), Das Prophetenḥadīṯ. Dimensionen einer islamischen Literaturgattung [Actes du Göttinger Kolloquium über das ḥadīṯ, Göttingen, Seminar für Arabistik, 3-4 novembre 2000], Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. I. Philologisch- Historische Klasse, Jahrgang 2005/1), 2005, pp. 14-39.
Geoffroy, Eric, ‘al-Suyūṭī’ Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill online).
Hilali, Asma, ‘La palimpseste de Ṣanʿāʾ et la canonisation du Coran: nouveaux éléments,’ Cahiers Glotz 21 (2010), pp. 443-48.
———, ‘Was the Ṣanʿāʾ Qurān Palimpsest a Work in Progress?’ in David Hollenberg, Christian Rauch and Sabine Schmidtke (eds), The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 12–27.
———, The Ṣanʿā’ palimpsest. The transmission of the Qur’an in the seventh century A.H., Oxford university Press, Oxford, 2017.
———, “Writing the Qur’ān between the lines. Marginal and interlinear notes in selected Qur'ān fragments from MIA, Qatar.” in, Bradford A. Anderson, ed., From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020, pp. 51- 62.
Hilali, Asma, and Burge, Stephen R., The Making of religious texts in Islam. The fragment and the whole, Gerlach Press, Berlin, 2019.
Ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Nisābūrī, Muslim, al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaḥīḥ, (in Arabic).
Ibn Kathīr, Ismāʿil, al-Bidāya wa al-nihāya, ma-ktabat al-Falāḥ, (in Arabic), 1963.
Karimi-Nia, Morteza, “A New Document in the Early History of the Qurʾān: Codex Mashhad, an ʿUthmānic Text of the Qurʾān in Ibn Masʿūd’s Arrangement of Sūras”, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, (10) 2019, pp. 292-326.Laher, Suheil, "Between Dogmatism and Speculation: A Critical Assessment of Qirā’āt Studies", Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, Volume 38, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 176-190.
Leemhuis, Frederick, ‘Codices of the Qur’an’, Encyclopedia of the Qur’an, (Brill Online).
M. Carr, David, Writing on the tablets of the heart: Origins of scripture and literature, Oxford University Press, 2005.
Madelung, Wilfred, ‘Shīʿa’ Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill online)
Nasser, Shady Hekmat, The The Transmission of the variant readings of the Qur’ān. The problem of tawātur and the emergence of Shawādhdh, Brill, Boston-Leiden, 2013.
———, ‘al-Jazari’, Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition (Brill online).
Peters, Rudolph, ‘ʿĀqila’ Encyclopedia of Islam, 3d edition (Brill online).
Puin, Gerd-R., ‘Observations on Early Qurʾan Manuscripts in Ṣanʿāʾ’, in Stefan Wild, ed., The Qurʾan as Text (Leiden, 1996).
Rabb, Intisar A., ‘Non-Canonical Readings of the Qur’an: Recognition and Authenticity (The Ḥimṣī Reading)’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 8, no. 2 (2006).
Robson, James, ‘Ibn Mujāhid’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Schacht, Joseph, ‘ḳiṣāṣ’, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, 2d edition (Brill Online).
Small, Keith E., Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts (Lanham, MD, 2011).
Shah, Mustafa, (ed.), The Hadith: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, London, Routledge, 2009.
Shah, Mustafa and Abdel-Haleem, Muhammad, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020.
Sadeghi, Benham and Goudarzi, Mohsen, ‘Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān’, Der Islam 87 (2012), pp. 1–129.
Tillier, Mathieu, « Le Coran d’Asmā’ », Les carnets de l’Ifpo, mis en ligne le 3 juillet 2011. URL : http://ifpo.hypotheses.org/2296.
How to Cite
Hilali, Asma. 2021. “The Qur’ān before the Book - History and Concepts of Qur’ānic Variants (qirā’āt)”. Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies 38 (2). https://doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2021.0275.
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Articles in English