The Qur'an in its historical context (pdf - Islam and Christian-Muslim ...

GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS
meaning for al-raqim, perhaps by researching other languages or place names,
resources often neglected by or unavailable to the classical scholars. Finally, they
could emend the word, proposing an alternative spelling (perhaps al-raqqam or alzaqim),
hoping to arrive at a form whose meaning is better known. Whatever choice
is made, translators of the Qur’an are compelled to develop their own reading.
On the shape of the Qur’an
The common belief that the Qur’an has a single, unambiguous reading is due in
part to the bravado of translators, who rarely express doubt about their choices.
Yet it is above all due to the terrific success of the standard Egyptian edition of
the Qur’an, first published on July 10, 1924 (Dhu l-Hijja 7, 1342) in Cairo, an
edition now widely seen as the official text of the Qur’an. 2 Initially, however,
the publication of this edition was a purely Egyptian affair. It was the work of
a government appointed committee, led by Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Husayni
al-Haddad, 3 that was meant to establish a uniform text for religious education
in Egypt. 4
Minor adjustments were subsequently made to this text in following editions,
one published later in 1924 and another in 1936. The text released in 1936
became known as the Faruq edition in honor of the Egyptian king, Faruq
(r. 1936–52). 5 Yet the influence of the Cairo text soon spread well beyond Egypt.
It has been adopted almost universally by both Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims, and
by critical scholars as well, who have long since given up Gustav Flügel’s 1834
edition. Writing in 1938, Otto Pretzl noted with amazement that in his day for the
first time a de facto canonical text had emerged. 6
Yet the Egyptian project was never intended to be text-critical, at least as
this term is commonly understood. The scholars who worked on that project did
not seek to reconstruct the ancient form of the Qur’an, but rather to preserve
one of the canonical qira’at “readings” (here meant in the specialized sense it
has in Islamic tradition), that of Hafs (d. 180/796) ‘an ‘Asim (d. 127/745). But
these qira’at are part of the history of the text, not its starting point, and the
idea of a discrete number of different yet equally canonical qira’at did
not develop before the fourth/tenth century, when great divisions over the
Qur’anic text led Ibn Mujahid (d. 324/936), among others, to sponsor this
regulatory concept.
Ibn Mujahid argued that there are seven, equally valid qira’at. Others argued
for ten, or fourteen. The gradual (yet never complete) acceptance of the argument
for seven qira’at (often attributed to Ibn Mujahid’s use of a prophetic hadith that
speaks of “seven letters” of the Qur’an) 7 was generally accompanied with the
caveat that each qira’a has two versions. Effectively, then, fourteen different
versions were considered equally authentic, only one of which was Hafs ‘an
‘Asim. Even in this scenario there is no unanimity over the precise shape of the
Hafs ‘an ‘Asim qira’a. Four different lines (turuq) of transmission are claimed
for it, and discrepancies abound in the various texts claiming to transmit it.
2