Usool at Tafseer

The Methodology of Qur’aanic Explanation

Book of Dr. Bilal Philips
Summary
Chapter 8 The Qur’aanic Text

Order of the Verses and Chapters

It was the Prophet صل الله عليه وسلم himself who ordered the arrangement of aayah in each Soorah as evident in the following hadeeth:

Once while I was sitting with Allaah’s Messenger صل الله عليه وسلم, he rolled his eye upwards in a stare, then after a while he lowered them and said, ‘Jibreel came to me and ordered me to place this aayah in this place in this Soorah.

He was making reference to 16:90.

Once Umar ibn al Khattaab was confused concerning the law of inheritance, he kept asking the Prophet صل الله عليه وسلم about it until he became annoyed, prodded him in the chest and said,

Isn’t the verse (revealed) in the summer, the one at the end of Soorah an Nisaa enough for you?[1]

If the order of verses was not fixed, these hadeeths and other like them, which attach special benefits or particular verses would be meaningless.

Uthmaan personally checked the position of each aayah in every Soorah, making sure that everyone was in place, even if they were abrogated verses.

In their personal copies of the Qur’aan, some of the Sahaabah have different orders of the Soorah. For example, Alee ibn Abee Taalib compiled his copy chronologically. Other companions such as Ibn Mas’ood and Ubay ibn Ka’ab have different orders of Soorah as well. These great companions did not argue with the order Caliph ‘Uthmaan and the committee of Qur’aanic compilation. Further they even burned their copies. None of this would have taken place if the order of the Soorahs was not fixed.

While some Sahaabah were listening, Jibreel reviewed the Qur’aan with the Prophet صل الله عليه وسلم during every Ramadaan. For such review to be of any value, a fixed order had to have been there.

THE ‘UTHMAANEE SCRIPT

There is nothing recorded from the Prophet صل الله عليه وسلم to indicate that the script used to copy the Qur’aan during Caliph ‘Uthmaan’s era was fixed.

The ‘Uthmaanee Mus-haf differs slightly with standard Arabic. Al-Baaqillaanee argued that for someone to insist upon writing the Qur’aan according to a specific set of written symbols requires a proof from the Qur’aan and Sunnah, and there is no such proof. Some prominent Sahaabah had mus-hafs which differed from the writing system employed in the ‘Uthmaanee Mus-haf. Ibn Khaldoon argued that when the ‘Uthmaanee Mus-haf was written, the rules of Arabic writing had not yet been standardized, therefore there is no need to stick to its writing. The Qur’aan should be written so what ordinary people read according to standard Arabic in order to protect the ignorant to fall into errors of recitation that change the meaning. The changes were all made for one purpose: to make it easier for the average Muslim to recite the Qur’aan easily and correctly.

The ‘Uthmaanee Mus-haf were written without dashes to indicate the vowels, and without dots to distinguish the look alike letters. The verses were not numbered, nor were there any punctuation signs to indicate pauses or even ending of verses.

All the literate Arab Muslims of those days possessed a natural grasp of the language which enables them to read texts written in this simple form without any difficulty. Non Arabs new converts made errors in recitation due to their unfamiliarity of the language, especially in Iraq, that lead to drastic changes in meanings of text being recited.

Abul Aswad ad Du’alee developed some signs which the masses could more easily read. He developed the fist set of marks to indicate the vowelling of the Arabic text. Fathah was indicated by a dot above the beginning of the letter, a kasrah below the beginning of the letter, and a dammah was at the end of the letter. Later on dots were added to distinguish look-alike letters and vowel signs evolved from letters related to them (like what we have now).

Decoration of Text

Third century AH marked the beautification of Qur’aanic calligraphy. The name of the Soorah was written. A variety of names of Soorah became common since not all the names of Soorah were revealed or named by the Prophet صل الله عليه وسلم. It was also divided into thirty equal parts (juz) etc during this time.

Scholars of this time opposed these additions. Most however were not against the dots and dashes as these had become a real necessity such as Al Hasan Al Basree, Ibn Sereen and Rabee’ah. The Qur’aanic texts of today are clear evidence that the opposition of the scholars was ignored, but the feared interpolation of decorative additions has not occurred, due mainly to the continuing tradition among Muslims of memorizing the whole text of the Qur’aan in its original purity.






Abu Khalid


[1] Muslim