MUST READ: WHICH KORAN (PART II) - - - THE SIGNIFICANCE OF KORANIC VARIATION

Which Koran? (Part II)

The Significance of Koranic Variation
by Ibn Warraq (March 2008)


DO VARIANTS MATTER?

The variants between Korans (as set out last month) are not trifling, and are, in fact, of great significance. The problem is to work out what significance, and this proves to be no easy matter. For a flat-footed fundamentalist like Maududi, the admittance of any variant whether in the extant printed Korans available in the Islamic world or in the manuscripts like the Samarqand Quran or those recorded in the Hadith, commentaries and grammars is, of course, devastating. Variants constitute an irrefutable, knock-down argument against his absurdly rigid position (as quoted in part I), a position not held by all Muslim scholars, however. I believe their significance lies in a wider context, in their profound implication for the sources of the rise of Islam, for the forging of Islamic identity, for the genesis of the Koran itself, for Islamic Jurisprudence, for the so-called oral tradition, and for the history of the Arabic language and orthography. I shall leave these implications for later.

Even simply on their own terms, variants do result in significant differences in meaning which in turn have consequences for Islamic practice, ritual and belief. Thus, the variants in the printed Korans are not trivial. As an example of a variant reading on the level of vocalisation though not of the underlying graphic shape (or, in Arabic, rasm), there are the last two verses of Sura LXXXV: 21-22: (21) bal huwa qur’änun majïdun; (22) fï lawhim mahfüzun or mahfuhzin. The last syllable is in doubt. The Hafs Koran has, as we saw earlier, mahfuhãin, the genitive, giving the meaning, "It is a glorious Koran on a preserved tablet." This is a reference to the fundamental Muslim doctrine of the Preserved Tablet. But the Warsh transmission has the nominative ending -un, and we get "It is a glorious Koran preserved on a tablet." Did the doctrine arise out of the reading, or did the doctrine influence the choice of the reading?

In Sura III verse 13, there is much ambiguity as the exact reference of the pronoun is not clear:

Bell: "You have already had a sign in two parties which met, one fighting in the way of Allah, another unbelieving, who saw them with their eyes twice as many as they were …."

Yusuf Ali: "There has already been for you a sign in the two armies that met (in combat): One was fighting in the cause of God, the other Resisting God; these saw with their own eyes Twice their number."

Arberry: "There has already been a sign for you in the two companies that encountered, one company fighting in the way of God and another unbelieving; they saw them twice the like of them, as the eye sees …."

This verse is a said to be a reference to the miracle of the battle of Badr, when Muslims putatively defeated forces twice their own number. However, this interpretation is much easier if we read the verb as saying "you saw them" tarawnahum, as in the Warsh reading, and not yarawnahum (they saw them) as in the Hafs reading. Warsh gives us a miracle, Hafs gives us a confusion of pronouns.

Ignaz Goldziher, one of the creators of modern Islamic Studies, showed how Hadith, Muslim Tradition, reflected "the social, political and religious ideals of transmitters themselves and of the societies or groups they served as spokesman. By Sunna was to be understood, not the inherited instruction of the Prophet, but the ius consuetudinis of a group or party, large or small. By hadith is meant the vehicle of that sunna, a report, verbal or written, conveying a description of the relevant practice, opinion or custom approved by the disseminators of the report."[1] Influenced by Goldziher’s work, Joseph Schacht elaborated a thesis that "rather than spreading out from an original centre at Medina, Islamic Law originated in the provinces. Reference of the Sunna to the Prophet was the end rather than the beginning of a process. Its purpose was to verify some local legal viewpoint. In other words, the Sunna differed and was differently defined from region to region."[2]

Of course, the conclusions of scholars like Goldziher and Schacht are equally applicable to Koranic variants, many of which are known to us through hadith, rather than extant Koranic manuscripts. In other words, the variants reflect the ideology, as Burton shows, of groups that wish to argue for their own viewpoint, to establish a ruling, to settle conflict of sources. For example the rite of Tawäf, going round the two hills of Safä and Marwa during Hajj, Pilgrimage, are considered obligatory by certain Muslim jurists despite a certain ambiguity in Surah II.158, which is interpreted by some to mean that the Tawäf was optional. Others still also regarded the Tawäf as optional but this time the view "was explicitly derived from the variant reading of II.158 transmitted in the muæùaf of `Abdullah Ibn Mas‘üd."[3]

Burton argues that when practice was at variance with the Koran, the partisans of the practice appealed to the Sunna of the Prophet, their opponents "improve the wording of the Qur’än, inserting a word and appealing to the authority of a Companion of the Prophet , from whom not merely a variant reading, but a variant Qur’än had apparently been transmitted. The alleged variant reading unmistakably proceeded from one of two rival and competing interpretations. To that extent the reading arose at a secondary stage."[4]

There is a similar exchange of argument and counter-argument concerning the penalty for breach of oaths [Surah V.89], a three days’ fast, ending as before with an appeal to a variant reading from Ibn Mas‘üd. Al-Shäfi‘ï argued that the Koran did not stipulate if the fast should be consecutive, hence Muslims were free to choose consecutive or separate days. Ùanïfs argued that the fast should be consecutive, as a variant reading of Ibn Mas‘üd indicates. The same variant reading was attributed to Ubayy.[5] Ubayy also had a very significant variant reading of Surah IV.24 concerning the Muslim Law on marriage; only with his interpolation does IV.24 "sanction the doctrine of mut’a, or temporary marriage, rejection of which was elsewhere being propounded on the basis of information from a third Companion of the Prophet as a part of the Sunna. Evidently the Qur’än, in the form of the Ubayy reading, is playing the role of a counter-sunna, rather, a counter-exegesis, the function of the Ubayy interpolation to gloss and bring out the full meaning of the root of samta`tum, mt`."[6]

As Al-Suyütï put it, "The differences in the readings indicate the differences in the legal rulings."[7] Thus we have two opposing doctrines - the invalidation of the ritual purity [wudü’] and the contrary doctrine - depending on how we read a certain word in IV.43 and V.9 as lämastum or lamastum; it is worth noting that all the printed Korans that I have listed in part I except the Flügel have the "defective" writing, with the long vowel after the letter läm indicated by a dagger alif, only the Flügel has the plene alif. Similarly, we have two opposing doctrines depending on how we read II.222 -yathurna or yattahirna -concerning the permissibility of sexual intercourse with a menstruating woman at the expiry of her period but before she has cleansed herself. [8]

Finally we have the example of V.6, as al- Suyütï says, "The verse was revealed to sanction two distinct legal doctrines: arjulakum - enjoined the washing of the feet, ajulikum -permitted the wiping of the feet."[9] Herbert Berg summarises the larger significance of these two interpretations, "Al-Tabarï adduces 47 hadiths which seek to clarify the expression wa-arjulakum ila al-ka`bayn (and your feet to the ankles) of Quran V:6. The first 27 hadiths read the passage as arjulakum (accusative); the other 20 hadiths read the passage as arjulikum (genitive)….Goldziher would see in these two sharply divided sets of hadiths the vestiges of a later debate within the Muslim community about the proper form of wudü’ (ablution) that has been projected back to the earlier generations of Muslims. Schacht might trace this ablution debate in other texts to determine the relative chronology and the provenance of the hadiths. He might also, along with Juynboll, seek a common link to help date the debate. ‘Ikrima is a candidate since he appears in five hadiths, though the isnads form more of a spider pattern. Wansbrough would abandon such use of the isnad except to note that their presence implies that the 47 hadiths reached their final form after 200 A.H.[9 Century, C.E.] Moreover, the hadiths are primarily halakhic and masoretic: they contain pronouncements from the Prophet, his Companions and their Successors and have recourse to variant readings and grammatical explanations. Their presence implies a relatively late date as well."[10]

Burton following Al- Suyütï argues that "the majority of variant readings came to be regarded as little more than exegeses that had gradually crept into the texts transmitted from the Companions."[11] While the latter observation may well explain some of the mechanism of how the Companion texts came into being, I would go further and doubt the very existence of Codices belonging to the Companions; they have been conjured up by exegetical hadiths. In other words, the question of variants leads inexorably to the questions of the authenticity of hadiths relating them.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Which Koran? (Part II) - - - The Significance of Koranic Variation

2) Which Koran? (Part I)