File Name: Gilchrist, John - JAM' AL-QUR'AN
File Submitter: david psalms
File Submitted: 27 Aug 2013
File Category: Reference Books (topx)
Author: John Gilchriste-Sword Version: 9.x - 10.x
JAM' AL-QUR'AN:
THE CODIFICATION OF THE QUR'AN TEXT
by John Gilchrist
For many centuries Muslims have been taught to believe that the Qur'an has been preserved in its original Arabic text right from the time of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, down to this very day absolutely intact without changes, deletions or additions of any kind and with no variance in reading. At the same time they have also been taught that this suggested textual perfection of the book proves that the Qur'an must be the Word of God. No one but Allah, it is claimed, could have preserved the text so well. This sentiment has become so strongly established in the Muslim world that one will rarely find a Muslim scholar making a critical analysis of the early transmission of the text of the Qur'an and, when such analyses do appear, they are predictably unwelcome.
What happens, however, when an objective assessment is made of the facts available to us in respect of the original compilation of the Qur'an? When sentiment is gently put aside in favour of a rational evaluation of the evidences a very different conclusion must be reached. As this book will show, in the only records available to us from within the heritage of Islam itself, the Qur'an once contained a number of verses and, at times, whole passages that are no longer part of its text, in addition to an astonishingly large number of different readings in the earliest collections of the book made before the Caliph Uthman summarily consigned all but one of the manuscripts then in existence to the flames and destroyed them.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sources and References
1. THE INITIAL COLLECTION OF THE QUR'AN TEXT.
The Qur'an's Development During Muhammad's Lifetime
The First Collection of the Qur'an Under Abu Bakr
Perspectives on the Initial Collection of the Qur'an
The Missing Verses Found with Abu Khuzaimah
2. THE UTHMANIC RECENSION OF THE QUR'AN.Did Abu Bakr's Codex have Official Status?
Uthman's Order to Burn the Other Codices
The Revision of Zaid's Codex of the Qur'an
The Qur'an Text as Standardised by Uthman
3. THE CODICES OF IBN MAS'UD AND UBAYY IBN KA'B.Abdullah ibn Mas'ud: An Authority on the Qur'an Text
Ibn Mas'ud's Reaction to Uthman's Decree
The Variant Readings in Ibn Mas'ud's Codex
Ubayy ibn Ka'b: Master of the Qur'an Reciters
4. THE MISSING PASSAGES OF THE QUR'AN.The Mushaf: An Incomplete Record of the Qur'an Text
Al-Naskh wa Al-Mansukh: The Doctrine of Abrogation
The Missing Verse on the Insatiable Greed of Man
Umar and the Verses of Stoning for Adultery
5. SAB'AT-I-AHRUF: THE SEVEN DIFFERENT READINGS.The Sab'at-i-Ahruf in the Hadith Literature
The Period of Ikhtiyar: The "Choice" of Readings
Ibn Mujahid's Final Definition of the Seven Ahruf
Reflections on the Unification of the Qur'an Text
6. THE COMPILATION OF THE QUR'AN IN PERSPECTIVE.The Qur'an's Testimony to its own Compilation
A "Master Copy of the Qur'an" in the Masjid an-Nabi?
A review of the History of the Qur'an Text
7. THE EARLY SURVIVING QUR'AN MANUSCRIPTS.The Initial Development of the Written Text
Kufic, Mashq, and the Other Early Qur'anic Scripts
A Study of the Topkapi and Samarqand Codices
Courtesy: Answering-islam.org
Click here to download this file
