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Ṣan'ā' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'ān

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Ṣan'ā' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'ān Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi1 Stanford University / Harvard University Abstract The lower text of Ṣan‘ā’ 1 is at present the most important document for the history of the Qur’ān. As the only known extant copy from a textual tradition beside the standard ‘Uthmānic one, it has the greatest potential of any known manuscript to shed light on the early history of the scripture. Comparing it with parallel textual traditions provides a unique window onto the initial state of the text from which the different traditions emerged. The comparison settles a peren- nial controversy about the date at which existing passages were joined together to form the sūras (chapters). Some ancient reports and modern scholars assign this event to the reign of the third caliph and link it with his standardizing the text of the Qur’ān around AD 650. However, the analysis shows that the sūras were formed earlier. Furthermore, the manuscript sheds light on the manner in which the text was transmitted. The inception of at least some Qur’ānic textual tradi- tions must have involved semi-oral transmission, most likely via hearers who wrote down a text that was recited by the Prophet. This essay argues for these 1) We are grateful to Christian Robin, the Noja Noseda Foundation, and CNRS (UMR 8167, Orient et Méditerranée) for giving us their photographs and ultraviolet images of the DAM 01–27.1 folios. We thank Michael Cook, David Pow- ers, Patricia Crone, and Ursula Dreibholz for reading the essay and providing valuable written comments. We thank Ursula Dreibholz for graciously agreeing to be interviewed by telephone, and Ursula Dreibholz, Lily Feidy, Sharif Kanaana, Sari Nusseibeh, Ghassan Abdullah, Lawrence Conrad, and Alexander Stille for patiently answering our questions by e-mail. We also thank the following persons for their help with various other aspects of the project: Uwe Bergmann, the anonymous owner of the Stanford 2007 folio, Mette Korsholm of the David Collec- tion, Michael Cooperson, Devin Stewart, Robert Waltz, Scott Lucas, M.S.M. Saiful- lah, Sarah Kistler, Bryce Cronkite-Ratcliff, Robert Gregg, Burçak Keskin-Kozat, the staff at the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, Ceci Evangelista of the Office of Development at Stanford University, and the staff at Stanford University Libraries and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Labora- tory. This essay was submitted for publication on August 31, 2011. Der Islam Bd. 87, S. 1–129 DOI 10.1515/islam-2011-0025 © Walter de Gruyter 2012 ISSN 0021-1818 2 Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi conclusions by considering the broad features of the text. The essay also presents the edited text of the folios in the Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, Ṣan‘ā’, Yemen, in addition to four folios that were auctioned abroad. A systematic analysis of all the variants is postponed to future publications. Introduction The Manuscript and the Field of Qur’ānic Studies Scholarly approaches to the early history of the standard text of the Qur’ān can be enumerated in a broad and rough manner as follows: There is the traditional account that is associated with most pre- modern scholars. They held that the Prophet Muḥammad (d. AD 632) disseminated the Qur’ān gradually. Some of his Companions compiled copies of the scripture. These codices had differences. Motivated by the differences and seeking uniformity among Muslims, the Caliph ‘Uthmān (d. AD 656), himself a Companion, established a standard version. He – or, more precisely, a committee of Companions appointed by him – did so by sending master copies of the Qur’ān to different cities – codices that themselves differed slightly in a small number of spots – and people in turn made copies of them. In subsequent decades and centuries, this standard text was read differently by different readers. For example, they often vowelled and pointed the consonants differently, but many of these readings – including those of the famous “Seven Readers” – ad- hered to the undotted consonantal skeletal form of the original master codices. Here, “skeletal form” requires explanation: one does not know the spelling of every word in the original codices of ‘Uthmān. For exam- ple, in most cases it is not known whether the ā sound in the middle of a word was represented by the letter alif. However, at the very least we know the text at the “skeletal-morphemic” level.2 2) The Islamic scholarly tradition does not purport to have preserved the spelling of every word in the codices sent out by ‘Uthmān. Rather, Muslim tradi- tion preserves the original ‘Uthmānic codices at least at the skeletal-morphemic level, that is, with respect to features of the skeletal (unpointed) text that would necessarily change a word or part of word (morpheme) into something else if they were different. Some skeletal variations, such as different spellings of a word, are not skeletal-morphemic because they do not necessarily change a word. Moreover, differences in the way consonants are pointed may change a word, but they are not skeletal-morphemic either since they do not change the skeleton. Normally, a reading is said to differ from the standard ‘Uthmānic rasm Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān 3 It is convenient to call the adherents of this account “traditionalists.” The narrative continues to be fairly popular among the specialists in the Muslim world, in part because most of them have not come to entertain radical doubt about the broad outlines of early Islamic history. By con- trast, scholars located in Europe and North America generally do not ac- cept this account (which is not to say that they reject it). This is due to a prevailing distrust in the literary sources on which it is founded. These sources were compiled long after the events they describe, and the extent to which they preserve truly early reports has been the subject of an evolving academic debate. This Euro-American majority falls into two main groups. The first group, a minority, consists of the “revisionists,” that is, those who consider the traditional narrative as wrong. They reject the idea that ‘Uthmān attempted to fix the text, or they hold that there contin- ued to be major changes in the standard text after ‘Uthmān, or, in the case of Wan sb roug h, they think it may be anachronistic to speak of the Qur’ān at the time of ‘Uthmān in the first place, since the text coa- lesced long after. Notable revisionists include John Wan sb roug h, Patricia Crone, Alfred-Louis de Prémare, and David Powers.3 The degree of textual stability that according to the traditional account had been reached by ca. AD 650 was according to John Wan sb roug h at- tained no earlier than the ninth century AD. Most revisionists are more conservative in their dating, focusing on the reign of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik, that is, AH 65–86/ AD 685–705 as the date of textual final- ity and/or canonization. Revisionists tend to support their views by citing documentary evidence, Christian sources, and Muslim traditions. Their use of the Muslim reports constitutes what they regard as judi- cious reading between the lines, but what their opponents view as mar- shaling cherry-picked, decontextualized, and misinterpreted reports. The second group of scholars, the “skeptics,” is by far larger. Its members likewise do not accept the traditional account, considering it unreliable along with nearly every report in the Muslim literary sources only if it changes both the skeleton and the word, that is, if the change is skeletal and morphemic. All of this has been well-understood for many centuries and is simply taken for granted in the way most Muslim Qur’ān specialists have writ- ten about the different readings (qirā’āt). (We are setting aside a caveat concern- ing cases in which nonetheless the original ‘Uthmānic spelling or pointing is knowable.) 3) For their contributions, see the Bibliography. P. Crone’s approach in her 1994 essay is different from the others we list (or from her 1977 work) in that she provisionally suggests the late canonization of a largely stable text rather than a late date for the attainment of textual stability. 4 Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi bearing on Islamic origins. But they do not subscribe to the theories of the revisionists either, which they consider to be unsupported by the evidence. The scholars in this group are agnostics, so to speak. They may not assert that the standard text came into being or changed signifi- cantly after ‘Uthmān, but they do not deny that it could have. They may be adamant that they are not revisionists, but they are de facto revision- ists in respect of their attitude towards the literary sources. They may be called “skeptics” inasmuch as they are equally unconvinced by tradi- tional and revisionist narratives. They tend to not publish much on Islamic origins, since as skeptics they have few firm beliefs to write about. This belies the fact that they form the larger group. An indication of their size is given by what has not been published: in recent decades, European and North-American academics have written relatively few accounts of the initial decades of Islamic religion based on the literary sources. Many academics have simply moved to later periods (focusing on how the initial decades were remembered), other topics, or languages other than Arabic. There is also a minority among scholars in North America and Europe who support key features of the traditional narrative as re- counted above. They do not take all the reports in the later sources at face value, but they believe that critical and detailed analysis of the lit- erary evidence confirms elements of the traditional account.
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