A New Reading of the Compilation of the Quran during the Caliphate Era, with Emphasis on the Critique and Review of Orientalists' Opinions

Zabandan, Mustafa; Panahi Durcheh, Akbar

doi:10.22034/iso.2024.724696

A New Reading of the Compilation of the Quran during the Caliphate Era, with Emphasis on the Critique and Review of Orientalists' Opinions

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mustafa Zabandan ¹

Akbar Panahi Durcheh ²

¹ Independent researcher

² Assistant Professor, Department of Theology and Islamic Education, Faculty Member of Farhangian University of Isfahan

10.22034/iso.2024.724696

Abstract

The opinions of Orientalists regarding the extensive and contradictory narrations about the compilation of the Quran can be categorized into two main groups. The first group, citing the internal contradictions within these narrations, asserts the widespread fabrication of narrations about the Quran’s compilation during the Caliphate era, in the late second and early third centuries AH. Consequently, some of them date the true compilation of the Quran to the Prophetic era, while others place it during the time of Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf Al-Thaqafi. The second group, relying on the chains of transmission and sources of narrations about the Quran’s compilation in the Caliphate period, dates them to the first century AH and, considering the role of Ibn Shihab Az-Zuhri as a common link in all the chains, regards him as the propagator of these narrations during both Abu Bakr’s and Uthman’s caliphates; however, they do not delve into the content evaluation of these narrations. As a result, on one hand, the breadth of chains of transmission and the sources of these narrations, and on the other hand, the contradictions in their contents, indicate the authenticity of events related to the compilation of the Quran during the Caliphate era, while certain aspects remain unclear. Therefore, this study first highlights the content contradictions within these narrations, proving the inaccuracy of the common narrative of a two-stage compilation during Abu Bakr’s and Uthman’s times, and then offers a new reading of the narrations about the Quran’s compilation in the Caliphate period. According to this article’s approach, the Companions always recorded the Prophet’s interpretive narrations in the margins of their Qurans; for example, the distinction of the Alawi mus'haf was in its comprehensive collection of interpretive narrations. However, due to the conflict of some Prophetic interpretation with the political interests of the ruling class, the two caliphs sought to compile a Quran without interpretive marginalia and warned people against transmitting and writing down these narrations. Uthman, through extensive copying of the Quran from Hafsa’s version and sending it throughout the Islamic world while simultaneously destroying other Qurans, officially established the method of the two caliphs, which was the complete elimination of the tradition of writing interpretive marginalia in the Quran’s margins.

Keywords

Compilation of the Quran

Uthmanic Quran

Ibn Shihab Az-Zuhri

Orientalists

Nöldeke

Burton

Motzki