Abstract
A number of premodern and modern scholars have proposed emendations to the text of the ‘Uthmānic Qur’ān.2 However, discussions of the principles that should underpin such work remain meager. It is therefore desirable to delve into methodology more deeply than has been customary. The methodological question is this: By what criteria should one assess a proposed emendation? The answer will necessarily depend on one’s model of textual error. This is because any attempt to go from the given text to the original one will use a model of how and why the text could have changed in the first place.3 Some previous writings on this topic tend to conceive of error according to a “unitary model” that focuses on one specific kind, namely, what may be called an “error of the hand,” a type of scribal mistake that can generate a difficult text, that is, a text that is obscure, seemingly incorrect linguistically, or anomalous. I call for a variegated model that takes into account a wider range of possible errors, and in the course of evaluating some specific emendations, I discuss types of mistake that have not been yet considered. I show how the failure to take into account the different kinds of textual error can cast doubt on a proposed emendation that is otherwise supported by the unitary model.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Devin Stewart, “Notes on Emendations of the Qur’ān,” in The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel S. Reynolds (London: Routledge, 2008), 225–48.
Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57, no. 4 (2010): 343–436.
Behnam Sadeghi, “The Traveling Tradition Test: A Method for Dating Traditions,” Der Islam 85, no. 1 (2008): 203–42, 222.
Harald Baayen, “Word Frequency Distributions,” in Quantitative Linguistics: An International Handbook, ed. Reinhard Kohler et al. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 397–409.
Behnam Sadeghi, “The Chronology of the Qur’an: A Stylometric Research Program,” Arabica 58 (2011): 210–99, 245, 279, Figure 27.
Fred Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998), 55–61.
M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’ān: A New Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Arthur Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (London: Oxford University Press, 1983).
Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980).
Abdalhaqq Bewley and Aisha Bewley, The Noble Qur’ān: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English (Norwich: Bookwork, 1999).
Thomas Cleary, The Qur’ān: A New Translation (Chicago: Starlatch Press, 2004).
Rashad Khalifa, The Quran: The Final Scripture (Tuscon: Islamic Productions, 1981).
E. H. Palmer, The Qur’ān: Translated by E. H. Palmer (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1900).
Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’ān: Text and Explanatory Translation (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Lubnānī, 1971).
J. M. Rodwell, The Koran (London: Dent, 1978).
George Sale, The Koran (New York: Garland, 1984).
Mohammad Saeed Shakir, The Glorious Qur’an (Qum: Ansāriyān, 1998).
Mawlawi Sher Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Arabic Text and English Translation, 14th ed. (Surrey: Islam International, 1989).
Abdullāh Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’ān. (Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1991).
Abd al-Latīf Muhammad al-Khatīb, Mu‘jam al-qirā’āt (Damascus: Dār Sa‘d al-Dīn, 1422/2002), 2:440–42.
Michael Cook, “The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran,” Graeco-Arabica 9–10 (2004): 89–104.
Hossein Modarressi, “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur’ān: A Brief Survey,” Studia Islamica 77 (1993): 5–39.
Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi, “San‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān,” Der Islam 87, no. 1–2 (2010 nominally; 2012 online): 1–129, 2–3, footnote 2.
Abū Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarīr al-Tabarī, Jāmi‘ al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-Qur’ān, ed. Sidqī Jamīl al-‘Attār (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr li-l-Tibā‘a wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzī‘, 1415/1995), 7:276.
Al-Khatīb, Mu‘jam al-qirā’āt. 2:440–42; Abū Ja‘far Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tūsī, al-Tibyān fi tafsīr al-Qur’ān, ed. Ahmad Habīb Qasīr al-‘Āmilī (Qum: Maktab al-I‘lām al-Islāmī, 1409), 4:153–54.
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad b. ‘Umar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātih al-ghayb, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1420), 13:9.
Muhammad Sālim Muhaysin, al-Fath al-rabbānī fī ʿalāqat al-qirā’āt bi-l-rasm al-‘Uthmānī (Riyadh: Jāmi‘at al-Imām Muhammad b. Sa‘ūd al-Islāmiyya, 1415/1994), 260–63.
Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Nahhās, Ma‘ānī al-Qur’ān, ed. Muhammad ‘Alī al-Sābūnī (Mecca: Jāmi‘at Umm al-Qurā, 1988), 2:434–35.
Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Mahallī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī, Tafsīr al-Jalalayn (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Nūr li-l-Matbū‘āt, 1416), 137.
Badr al-Dīn Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Zarkashī, al-Burhdān fī ʿulūm al-Qur’ān, ed. Muhammad Abū l-Fadl Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Dār Ihyā’ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, 1376/1957), 1:338.
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Qurtubī, Tafsīr. ed. Ahmad ʿAbd al-‘Alīm al-Bardūnī et al. (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1405/1985), 6:439.
Abū Ishāq Ahmad al-Tha‘labī, al-Kashf wa-l-bayān, ed. Abū Muhammad b. ʿĀshūr et al. (1422/2002), 4:153.
Ibn ‘Atiyya, al-Muharrar al-wajīz fī tafsīr kitāb al-azīz (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1413/1993), 2:299.
Mansūr b. Muhammad al-Sam‘ānī, Tafsir al-Qur’ān. ed. Yāsir b. Ibrāhīm (Riyadh: Dār al-Watan, 1418/1997), 4:112.
Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, Zad al-masir fī ‘ilm al-tafsīr. ed. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Rahmān (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr li-l-Tibā‘a wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 1407), 6:79.
Edward Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (Beirut: Libraire du Liban, 1968).
Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1424/2003), 1:349.
Joseph Lowry, “When Less Is More: Law and Commandment in Sūrat al-An‘ām” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 9, no. 2 (2007): 264–84.
Angelika Neuwirth, Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 290–291.
’Abd Allāh b. ʿUmar al-Baydāwī, Anwār al-tanzil wa-asrar al-ta’wil, ed. Muhammad ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Marʿashlī (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1418), 4:223.
Mahmūd Rāmyār, Tdrikh-i Qur’an. 2nd ed. (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, HS 1362/1983), 340–53.
al-Mīrzā Husayn Taqī al-Nūrī al-Tabrisī, Mustadrak al-wasā’il wa-mustanbat al-masā’il (Beirut: Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt li-Ihyā’ al-Turāth, 1408–09/1987–88), 4:226.
‘Alā’ al-Dīn ‘Alī b. Husām al-Dīn al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-ummāl, ed. Safwat al-Saqqā (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 1409/1989), 2:519.
Muhammad Bāqir b. Muhammad al-Majlisī, Bihar al-anwār, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Wafā’, 1403/1983), 8:109, 89:66.
James Bellamy, “Some Proposed Emendations to the Text of the Koran,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, no. 4 (1993): 562–73, 562.
Andrew Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World: The Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques, 700–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 51–54, 171–72
Patricia Crone, “How did the Quranic Pagans Make a Living?,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68, no. 3 (2005): 387–399.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sadeghi, B. (2013). Criteria for Emending the Text of the Qur’ān. In: Cook, M., Haider, N., Rabb, I., Sayeed, A. (eds) Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought. Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078957_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078957_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29507-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-07895-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)