Koran - Othman's Redaction
The Moslems were as far as ever from possessing a uniform text of the Koran. The bravest of their warriors sometimes knew deplorably little about it; distinction on that field they cheerfully accorded to pious men like Ibn Mas'ud. It was inevitable, however, that discrepancies should emerge between the texts of professed scholars, and as these men in their several localities were authorities on the reading of the Koran, quarrels began to break out between the levies from different districts about the true form of the sacred book. During a campaign in AH 30 (AD 650-1), Hodhaifa, the victor in the great and decisive battle of Nehawand which was to the empire of the Sasanids what Gaugamela was to that of the Achremenida; perceived that such disputes might become dangerous, and therefore urged on the Caliph 'Othman [r. 644-656 AD] the necessity for a universally binding text. The matter was entrusted to Zaid, who had made the former collection, with three leading Koraishites. These brought together as many copies as they could lay their hands on, and prepared an edition which was to be canonical for all Moslems. Uthman's order for the collection of the copies of the Holy Quran came in the year 30 AH (650/651 AD).
To prevent any further disputes, they burned all the other codices except that of Hafsa, which, however, was afterwards destroyed by Merwan, the governor of Medina, in 667 AD. The destruction of the earlier codices was an irreparable loss to criticism; but, for the essentially political object of putting an end to controversies by admitting only one form of the common book of religion and of law, this measure was necessary.
As to how these labors were conducted there is no trustworthy information, tradition being here too much under the influence of dogmatic presuppositions. The critical methods of a modern scientific commission will not be expected of an age when the highest literary education for an Arab consisted in ability to read and write. It now seems to me highly probable that this second redaction took this simple form: Zaid read off from the codex which he had previously written, and his associates, simultaneously or successively, wrote one copy each to his dictation. It certainly cannot have been by chance that, according to sure tradition, they wrote exactly four copies. Be that as it may, it is impossible now to distinguish in the present form of the book what belongs to the first redaction from what is due to the second.
The combination of pieces of different origin may proceed partly from the possessors of the codices from which Zaid compiled his first complete copy, partly from Zaid himself. The individual suras are separated simply by the superscription - "In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner," which is wanting only in the ninth. The additional headings found in modern texts (the name of the sura, the number of verses, etc.) were not in the original codices, and form no integral part of the Koran.
It is said that 'Othman directed Zaid and his associates, in cases of disagreement, to follow the Koraish dialect; but, though well attested, this account can scarcely be correct. The extremely primitive writing of those days was quite incapable of rendering such minute differences as can have existed between the pronunciation of Mecca and that of Medina. The 'Othman's Koran was not complete. Some passages are Koran evidently fragmentary; and a few detached pieces are still extant which were originally parts of the Koran, although they have been omitted by Zaid. Among these are some which there is no reason to suppose Mohammed desired to suppress. Zaid may easily have overlooked a few stray fragments, but that he purposely omitted anything which he believed to belong to the Koran is very unlikely. It has been conjectured that in deference to his superiors he kept out of the book the names of Mohammed's enemies, if they or their families came afterwards to be respected.
But it must be remembered that it was never Mohammed's practice to refer explicitly to contemporary persons and affairs in the Koran. Only a single friend, his adopted son Zaid (xxxiii. 37), and a single enemy, his uncle Abu Lahab (cxi.) and these for very special reasons are mentioned by name; and the name of the latter has been left in the Koran with a fearful curse annexed to it, although his son had embraced Islam before the death of Mohammed. So, on the other hand, there is no single verse or clause which can be plausibly made out to be an interpolation by Zaid at the instance of Abubekr, 'Omar, or 'Othman. Slight clerical errors there may have been, but the Koran of 'Othman contains none but genuine elements, though sometimes in very strange order.
Of the four exemplars of 'Othman's Koran, one was kept in Medina, and one was sent to each of the three metropolitan cities, Cufa, Basra, and Damascus. It can still be pretty clearly shown in detail that these four codices deviated from one another in points of orthography, in the insertion or omission of a wa (" and"), and such-like minutiae; but these variations nowhere affect the sense. All later manuscripts are derived from these four originals.
At the same time, the other forms of the Koran did not at once become extinct. In particular we have editions, some information about the codex of Obay. If the list which gives the order of its suras is correct, it must have contained substantially the same materials as our text; in that case Obay must have used the original collection of Zaid. The same is true of the codex of Ibn Mas'ud, of which we have also a catalogue. It appears that the principle of putting the longer suras before the shorter was more consistently carried out by him than by Zaid. He omits i. and the magical formulae of cxiii. cxiv. Obay, on the other hand, had embodied two additional short prayers, which we may regard as Mohammed's. One can easily understand that differences of opinion may have existed as to whether and how far formularies of this kind belonged to the Koran. Some of the divergent readings of both these texts have been preserved, as well as a considerable number of other ancient variants. Most of them are decidedly inferior to the received readings, but some are quite as good, and a few deserve preference.
The only man who appears to have seriously opposed the general introduction of 'Othman's text is Ibn Mas'ud. He was one of the oldest disciples of the Prophet, and had often rendered him personal service; but he was a man of contracted views, although he is one of the pillars of Moslem theology. His opposition had no effect. Considering that at that time there were many Moslems who had heard the Koran from the mouth of the Prophet, that other measures of 'Othman met with the most vehement resistance on the part of the bigoted champions of the faith, these were still further incited against him by some of his ambitious old comrades until at last they murdered him. Finally that in the civil wars after his death the several parties were glad of any pretext for branding their opponents as infidels;when we consider all this, we must regard it as a strong testimony in favor of 'Othman's Koran that no party, not even that of 'AH, found fault with his conduct in this matter, or repudiated the text formed by Zaid, who was one of the most devoted adherents of 'Othman and his family.
But this redaction is not the close of the textual history of the Later Koran. The ancient Arabic alphabet was very imperfect; it not history only wanted marks for the short, and in part even for the long of the vowels, but it often expressed several consonants by the same sign. Hence there were many words which could be read in very different ways. This variety of possible readings was at first very great, and many readers seem to have actually made it their object to discover pronunciations which were new, provided they were at all appropriate to the ambiguous text. There was also a dialectic license in grammatical forms, which had not as yet been greatly restricted.
An effort was made by many to establish a more refined pronunciation for the Koran than was usual in common life or in secular literature. The various schools of "readers" differed very widely from one another; although for the most part there was no important divergence as to the sense of words. A few of them gradually rose to special authority, and the rest disappeared. Seven readers are generally reckoned chief authorities, but for practical purposes this number was continually reduced in process of time; so that at present only two "reading-styles" are in actual use, the common style of Hals, and that of Nafi', which prevails in Africa to the west of Egypt. There is, however, a very comprehensive massoretic literature in which a number of other styles are indicated.
The invention of vowel-signs, of diacritic points to distinguish similarly formed consonants, and of other orthographic signs, soon put a stop to arbitrary conjectures on the part of the readers. Many zealots objected to the introduction of these innovations in the sacred text, but theological consistency had to yield to practical necessity. In accurate codices, indeed, all such additions, as well as the titles of the sura, etc., are written in colored ink, while the black characters profess to represent exactly the original of 'Othman. But there is probably no copy quite faithful in this respect.
In European libraries, besides innumerable modern manuscripts of the Koran, there are also codices, or fragments, of high antiquity, some of them probably dating from the 1st century of the Flight. For the restoration of the text, however, the works of ancient scholars on its readings and modes of writing are more important than the manuscripts; which, however elegantly they may be written and ornamented, proceed from irresponsible copyists. The original, written by 'Othman himself, has indeed been exhibited in various parts of the Mohammedan world. The library of the India Office contained one such manuscript, bearing the subscription: "Written by 'Othman the son of 'Anau." These, of course, were barefaced forgeries, although of very ancient date; so are those which professed to be from the hand of Ali, one of which was preserved in the same library.
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