afsaruddin - the excellences of the qurʾān; textual sacrality and the organization of early...

The Excellences of the Qurʾān: Textual Sacrality and the Organization of Early Islamic SocietyAuthor(s): Asma AfsaruddinReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2002), pp. 1-24Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3087649 .Accessed: 18/08/2012 13:40

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THE EXCELLENCES OF THE QUR'AN: TEXTUAL SACRALITY AND THE ORGANIZATION OF EARLY ISLAMIC SOCIETY

ASMA AFSARUDDIN

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Faddi'il al-Qurdan is the usual title given to chapters in various hadith compilations or to individual works that deal with the "excellences" or "merits of the Qur'an." It is a sub-category of a literary genre in Islam called fa~d1'il or mandqib ("virtues" or "excellences"). In general, this fada'il material has not been studied in depth, and is usually dismissed as praise or hagiographic literature unworthy of the historian's serious attention. This article shows that both the religious and the social historian may profitably mine the fa.di'il al-Qur'dn literature for valuable insights into, e.g., the position of Qur'dn-reciters in early Islamic society, early attitudes towards writing conventions in the mushafs, modes of recitation, the probity of accepting wages for teaching the Qur'dn, and the authoritativeness of oral vs. written transmission of the Qur'anic text. Vestiges of these issues encoded in fa~di'il al-Qurdan traditions have broader implications for the reconstruction of the religious and intellectual milieu of the formative period of Islam.

INTRODUCTION: GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF THE

FADA'IL AL-QUR'AN GENRE

THERE IS A VOLUMINOUS LITERATURE in Islam called fa~iiDil or manaqib ("virtues" or "excellences") that praises the merits of reciting the Qur'an, of the Com- panions of the Prophet, the performance of religious duties such as hajj and jihad, and of sacred cities such as Makka, Madina, and Jerusalem.I Initially, fa~d'il tra-

ditions were part of hadith compilations. Several of the sub-categories, such as fada'il al-sahaba and fa~daDil

al-buldan, have been studied in some depth;2 but the fada'il al-Qur'dn literature has not received similar attention.

The fa~di'il al-Quran traditions found in common in the so-called canonical and non-canonical hadith compilations have to do largely with the memorization of the Qur'an, its compilation and being written down, its best reciters, and the excellences of certain chapters and verses. The Sahih of al-Bukhari (d. 256/870) has a separate chapter entitledfa~d4'il al-Qur'dn, but the Sahih of Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 261/875) has only a section so titled embedded in his chapter (kitab, lit. "book") on "The Prayer of the Traveler and its Truncation" (Kitab salat al-musafirin wa-qasriha); Qur'an recitation is of

An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the

European Association of Middle East Studies conference held

in October 1999 in Ghent, Belgium. I am grateful to the members of the audience for a stimulating discussion of some of

the points raised in this paper. I would like to thank Dr. Paul

Walker for his careful reading of this paper and suggestions

for improvement. I wish to express my gratitude to the Insti- tute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of

Notre Dame for awarding me an international travel grant to

attend the above conference, and for a travel research grant in 1998-99 which allowed me to look at some fa~dc'il al-Qurdn

manuscripts in the Oriental collection of the University of

Leiden Library, the Netherlands. My thanks to Drs. Hans van

de Velde and Just Witkam at the above library for their assis-

tance in procuring manuscripts. 1 Cf. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, ed. H. Gibb

et al. (Leiden, 1960-); henceforth referred to as EI2), "Fadila," 2: 728-29; and "Manakib" 6: 349-57. For a quick survey of

the fa~di'il literature, see Ernst August Gruber, Verdienst und

Rang: Die Faddk'il als literarisches und gesellschaftliches Prob-

lem im Islam (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1975). 2 For a recent monograph-length study of fa.~dail al-Quds

traditions in particular (Jerusalem, for obvious reasons, is so

far the best studied city in Western languages), see Amikam

Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places,

Ceremonies, Pilgrimage (Leiden, 1995). For the fajdi'il/

mandqib al-sahdba genre, see my article, "In Praise of the

Caliphs: Recreating History from the Mandqib Literature," In-

ternational Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999): 329-50.

1

2 Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.1 (2002)

course an important part of the ritual prayers. The Su- nan works of al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Maja, and Abui Dad'id also containfa~dc'il al-Qur'an traditions, although these traditions are not necessarily grouped as such under a separate rubric in the existing compilations. The one exception is the Sunan of al-Nasd'!, which lacks such traditions, but al-NasaDI has a separate fa~dk'il al-Qur'dn work to his credit (see below).

In the early part of the third/ninth century, separate works onfa~di'il al-Qur'dn began to emerge. According to many, Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi'c (d. 204/820) was the first to compose such an independent treatise on the excellences of the Qur'an, called Mandfi' al-Qur'dn (lit. "Benefits of the Qur'dan).3 This work appears not to be extant. However, Agha Buzurgh al-Tihrani states that the Companion Ubayy b. Kacb was the first to compose a treatise on fada'il al-Qur'dn, basing his statement on a reference to this work by Ibn al-Nadim (d. ca. 380/990) in his (now lost?) Fawz al-'ulim.4 Al-Tihrani also lists a work called Manifi' al-Qur'dn attributed to Jacfar al-Sadiq (d. 148/763), part of which is extant;5 this would make it the oldest Sh!'C composition in the fa~di'il al-Qur'dn genre. The titles Mandfi' al-Qur',dn,6

and less frequently, thawcb al-Qur~an ("Reward[s] of the Qur'dan"), are alternative titles for collections of fa~d1'il al-Qur'dn traditions.7 This suggests that by the mid-second/eighth century, the term fa~diDil had also begun to acquire the connotations of "benefits" and "merits" in addition to the basic and earlier meaning of ""[positive] characteristics." Rudolf Sellheim's blan- ket statement to the effect that the fadi'il al-Qur'Dn traditions were generated "to win back to the study of the incomparable holy book those Muslims who had occupied themselves all too exclusivel with profane science ... "8 would apply only to specific traditions in the later material that list the exaggerated merits of many siiras with the presumed intention of exhorting people to focus on the study of the Qur'an. Selheim's statement cannot be generalized to cover an earlier layer of traditions, which, as this article will show, it is possible to detect. In fact, this survey indicates that the term fa~diail underwent a semantic evolution similar to that which Charles Pellat posits for the term manaqib.9

The third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries were the fioruit for the fa~di'il al-Qur'dn genre. A few examples of the authors of such works follow.10 From the third/ninth century we have thp philologist Aba 'Ubayd al-Qasim b. Sallam al-Baghdadi (d. 224/837),11 whose

3 See Hdjjl Khalifa, Kashf al-zunin 'an asdmi 'l-kutub wa-'l- funiun (Istanbul, 1941-47), 2: 1277.

4 Al-Dharica ild taslnif al-shi'a (Tehran, 1393/1976), 16: 262, #1068. The work Fawz al-'uliim is not listed by Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte des arabischen Literatur (Leiden, 1943-49); henceforth referred to as GAL; the supplements referred to as S), nor by Fuat Sezgin in his Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 1967-84; henceforth referred to as GAS).

5 Dharica, 22:312, #7229. The Handlist of Arabic Manu- scripts in the Library of the University of Leiden and Other Collections in the Netherlands, compiled by P. Voorhoeve (Leiden, 1957), 182, lists this work in the hand of a certain Mawldna al-Shaykh Ibn 'Abd Allah al-Maghr! as given in the colophon of a manuscript acquired from Java, MS Amst. Polak B (4), fols. 228-32. This manuscript was unfortunately not available to me. See also GAL, S, 1: 104, where the title is given as Manafi' suwar al-Qur'dn. A later, alternate title for it, al-Durr al- nazim fi fadd'il al-Qur'dn al-'azim, is given in GAS, 1: 530.

6 For a list of Arabic and Persian works called Manafi' al- Qur'dn, see Dharica, 22: 306-13. There is an anonymous treatise called Manafic al-Quradn at the Leiden University library's Oriental manuscript collection, catalogue number OR 411, fols. 70b-88a. GAL, S, 2: 985, lists a Mandfi' khawdss al- Qur'dn by a certain al-Hakim al-Tamimi; cf. Dharica, 22: 312. A similarly titled work is attributed to Abu 'Ali Muhammad b.

Sacld al-Tamimi (d. 380/990), GAL, S, 1: 422. Both of these works are extant in manuscript form.

7 See, e.g., al-Nasdli, Fadd'il al-Qur'dn, ed. Fdrfaq Hamada (Casablanca, 1400/1980); 123, where the work ends by stating "tamma kitab thawab al-Qur'dn bi-hamdi 'lldhi wa-Cawnih." GAS, 1: 45, refers to Abi Bakr 'Abd al-Salam who composed a Kitab Thawab al-Qurdn in the fourth/tenth century.

8 EI2, "Fadila' 2: 728. 9 See EI2, "Manakib' 6: 357, where Pellat provides a useful

summary of the semantic evolution of the term manaqib. Pellat finds that in the earliest centuries of Islam, mandqib is equivalent to genres he calls neutral, by which he means straightfor- ward biographies designated as tarjama, akhbdr, and tadrif, or those that were more "expressive," that is genres that accentu- ated the positive and noble traits of individuals of certain groups such as fadd'il, mafakhir, and ma'dthir. Later mandqib works, from the fourth/tenth century onwards, like the fada'il, would acquire edificatory purposes to spur the people to emu- late their moral betters.

10 For (incomplete) lists of faId'il al-Qur'an works and their authors, see, e.g., Ibn al-Nadim, al-Fihrist (Cairo, 1991), 1: 61; Dharica, 16: 262-63.

1 Gruber, Verdienst und Rang, 83; EI2, "Fadila '9 2: 728. For Abu 'Ubayd, see H. Gottschalk, "Abul 'Ubaid al-Qasim b. Sallam," Der Islam 23 (1936): 245-89; EI2, s.v., 1: 57.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qurdin 3

Fadad'il al-Qur'n is extant and, to my knowledge, is the oldest work now available in published form. The Andalusian scholar Yahya b. Zakariya b. Ibrahim b. Muzayn (d. 259/873),12 and Muhammad Ibn al-Durays (d. 294/906) also composed fadd1'il al-Qur'dn works.13 The muhaddith Ahmad b. Shu'ayb al-Nasad'i (d. 303/ 915), compiler of one of the canonical hadith compilations, composed a fa~dj'il al-Qur'dn work, which is available today in published form. A Kufan Shl'c scholar, 'All b. al-Hasan b. Faddal (d. ca. 290/902), wrote a fada'il al-Qur'dn work, one of the earliest by a Shl'C author.'4 Two prominent Shl' scholars of the fourth/tenth century, the Qur'an exegete 'All b. Ibrahim al-Qummi (d. after 307/919)15 and Abil Jacfar Muhammad al-Kulaynm (d. 329/941), are credited with similar works.

From later centuries we have thefa~di'il al-Quran of the well-known Qur'an commentator Abu 'l-Hasan 'All b. Muhammad al-WahidI (d. 468/1075).16 Two other works are worthy of mention: Kitcb Fadad'il al-Qur'dn wa-tiliwatuhu wa-khasd'is tulitihi wa-hamalatih of 'Abd al-Rahman b. Ahmad al-Razi (d. 454/1062);17 and al-Tadhkdr ft fa4l al-Qur'dn, by the exegete Muham- mad b. Ahmad al-Ansar! al-Qurtub! (d. 671/1272).18 From the eighth/fourteenth century, we have the Fadad'il al-Qur'an work of another well-known exegete, Abiu 'l-Fida' Ismacil Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1371).19

It is the premise of this study that a closer examination of the contents of the fa1ad'il al-Qur'dn literature yields

valuable insights into the central role of the Qur'an, both as an oral and written text, and of its "people" or its "advocates," the so-called ahl al-Qur'dn, in the early Mus- lim community. The ahl al-Qur'din are a "problematic" group who have eluded easy identification and definition. A survey of the faia'il al-Quran literature allows us, however, to develop a more comprehensive portrait of them and to link them primarily to another "problematic" group of people, the qurrd', Qur'an "reciters" or "readers." In connection with his depiction of the rivalry between the early grammarians and the qurrd', C. H. M. Versteegh has commented that "we have no direct witnesses for the opinions of the [Qur'dn] readers."20 This has compelled scholars to reconstruct the debate between these two groups from the accounts of the grammarians alone. Although none of the fa1ad'il al-Qurdin works in this survey was written by a reader/reciter, individual reports listed in these works emanate from the readers/ reciters themselves. Taken as a whole, these reports provide additional information about the fluctuating social position of the readers/reciters and their attitudes towards, particularly, grammarians and scholars of other stripes. These faddi'il al-Qur'dn works are therefore a valuable source for the reconstruction of this important debate.

It should be emphasized that this study does not claim to be an exhaustive survey of the fa~d1'il al-Qurdan genre. Rather, it looks selectively at fa~d1'il al-Qurd'n sections in certain hadith compilations and a number of individual works on the subject in order to trace a con- tinuum and evolution in the kind of issues with which this literature deals. Mawdiiat compilations (works that list "forged" traditions) are also an important part of the discussion, since many fa~1a'il reports, includingfaiad'il al-Qur'dn reports, may be found in these compilations. Complementary works on Qur'an texts (masdhiff) and Qur'anic sciences ('ulim al-Qur'dn) are also consulted, since they have a direct bearing on the present subject. This preliminary survey allows us to state that, for some people, the Qur'an as the central sacred text of Islam came to stand for the pristine, idealized Muslim polity. How certain groups chose to define their relation to the Qur'an (as its reciters, bearers, advocates, teachers, and explicators of its grammar and language) and what as- pect of the Qur'an they chose to emphasize (oral vs. written) might then be regarded as a hallmark of their piety and fidelity to the memory of the earliest community under the Prophet and his rightly guided caliphs.

12 For whom see al-Qadd 'Iyad, Tartib al-maddrik wa-taqrib

al-masalik li-ma'rifat a'lam madhhab Malik, ed. Ahmad Bakir

Mahmud (Beirut, 1967): 3: 132-34; Muhammad al-Dawudi,

Tabaqdt al-mufassirin, ed. 'Ali Muhammad 'Umar (Cairo, 1392/1972), 2: 367-68, #682. See also GAS, 1: 473, where the

Fada'il al-Qur'dn is not mentioned as one of his works. 13 See al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-huffaz (Hydarabad, 1388/

1968), 2: 643; al-DawUdi, Tabaqat, 2: 105, #465. 14 Ibn al-NadIm, Fihrist, 2: 202; al-Dawudi, Tabaqdt, 1:

397, #346. 15 See al-Dawudi, Tabaqat, 1: 385, #337; Ibn al-Nadim, al-

Fihrist, 2: 202, mentions only that he wrote a work on nawadir

al-Qur'an. 16 Kashf al-zuniun, 2: 1277. 17 Edited by 'Amir Hasan Sabri and published in Beirut,

1415/1994 by Dar al-basha'ir al-islamiyya. 18 The full title is al-Tadhkar ft afdal al-adhkar fi fadl al-

Qur'an wa-qari'ihi wa-mustami'ihi wa- l-'amil bihi wa-hur-

mati 'l-Qur'dn wa-kayfiyyati tildwatih, ed. Tharwat Muhammad

Nafi' (n.pl., 1970). 19 An edition by Sa'ld 'Abd al-Majid Mahmud has been

published in Cairo, 1989 by Dar al-hadith.

20 See his Arabic Grammar and Qur'anic Exegesis in Early

Islam (Leiden, 1993), 177.


Such an endeavor assumed particular relevance in the merit-conscious society first established by 'Umar, the second RashidUn caliph (d. 24/644), in which people were ranked in terms of their moral excellences (mandqib/fa~1aDil), and from which they consequently derived their social standing. Our study, on the one hand, cor- roborates some of the information already available about the organization of early Islamic society from other sources; on the other, it nuances and broadens this information. This line of inquiry also allows us to refine a body of scholarship regarding the origins of the fa1ad'il al-Qur'dn traditions, their nature, and the conclusions to be derived from this corpus concerning the attitudes of early Muslims toward the study of the Qur'an.

COMPARISON OF THE CONTENTS OF REPRESENTATIVE

FADA'IL AL-QUR-AN WORKS

To plot the development in the themes contained in thefa~di'il al-Qur'dn literature, it is necessary to list the contents of fada'il al-Quran sections of certain hadith compilations and of selective individual works.

One of the earliest extantfaad'il al-Qur'dn chapters in a hadith compilation is the one contained in the Mu- sannaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq (d. 211/827). In the published edition of this work, the "book" (kitdb) on fada'il al- Qur'dn follows the "book" on the two 'Ids, which in itself is part of the larger preceding section on prayer.2' The traditions recorded by 'Abd al-Razzaq deal primarily with the following broad issues: a fairly detailed discussion of the verses that require prostration after their recitation and matters related to this, such as the number of these verses and the requirement for those who simply hear such verses to prostrate themselves as well; the portion (Qizb) of the Qur'an to be recited at a time; the necessity of memorizing and retaining the Qur'an; the merits of teaching and reciting or reading the Qur'an;22

and attestations to the Qur'an's excellence, not only in its entirety but also of specific chapters and verses, such as al-Fatiha and al-Baqara, and the last two verses of al- Baqara, recitation of which earns great recompense for the reciter. The fa~dl'il al-Qur'dn section in the Mu- sannaf is clearly not as rich in terms of the range and variety of topics referred to, in comparison with later hadith compilations.23

The hadiths contained in Kitib fa~di'il al-Qur'dn in the Sahih of al-Bukhari, for example, have to do with a wider range of issues.24 The early sections (babs) refer to the manner of revelation and what was first revealed; that the Qur'dn was revealed in the tongue of the Qu- raysh and in seven variant "dialects" (sabcat ahruf).25

21 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani, al-Musannaf, ed. Habib al- Rahman al- A'zam! (Beirut, 1390/1971), 3: 335-84. In this published version, this kitaib is not entitled fadd'il al-Qur'an at its beginning but at its end where it is stated, "the end of the book on the excellences of the Qur'dn" (ikhir kitabjfa~dc'il al-Qur'dn).

22 The root qr' in Arabic signifies both oral recitation and reading from a written text; for a discussion of the significance of this dual meaning, see William Graham, "Qur'an as Spoken Word: An Islamic Contribution to the Understanding of Scripture," in Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, ed. Richard Martin (Tucson, 1985), 23-40; idem, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of

Religion (New York, 1987); esp. 81-115; Theodore N6ldeke, Geschichte des Qorins, rev. F. Schwally (Leipzig, 1909-19), 1: 31-34, 78-82.

23 The older hadith work of Mdlik b. Anas (d. 179/795), mainly a collection of legal hadiths, has, in the version available to us now, even sparser traditions concerning the manner of Qur'dn recitation, particularly during prayer, and lists the excellences of only the first and 112th chapters (al-Fdtiha and al-Ikhlds); see his al-Muwatta', eds. Bashshar `Awad MacrUf and MahmUd Muhammad Khalil (Beirut, 1413/1993), 1: 83- 107.

24 Al-Bukhdri, Sahih, ed. Qdsim al-Shammdci al-Rifa'! (Bei- rut, n.d.), 5: 578-604.

25 Ahruf is understood to be different from qir_'dt; the former is said to signify the seven "dialects" in which the early Muslims used to recite the Qur'dn until the Quraysh! dialect became the standard one. See al-Suyuti, al-Itqdn ft 'uhlm al- Qur'an (Beirut, 1414/1993), 1: 144-58; Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Tahawi, Mushkil al-athar (Hydarabad, 1333/1914-15), 4: 190-91, whose views are quoted in Labib as-Said, The Recited Koran: A History of the First Recorded Version, tr. Bernard Weiss et al. (Princeton, 1975), 132 n. 12. See also Muhammad al-Zarqdni, Mandhil al-'irfdnfl 'Culm al-Qur'dn (Cairo, 1361/ 1942), 1: 130-85; Ibn al-Jazari, al-Nashr fl 'I-qird'at al-'ashr (Damascus, 1345/1926), 1: 19ff; Kristina Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qurdn (Austin, 1985), appendix B, 199-201. Modern Western scholarship on the whole has not been attuned to this distinction, EI2, "Kur'dn" 5: 400-32, barely mentions this distinction between the ahruf and the qird'dt while the ahruf are not mentioned at all in the entry titled "Kira'dt," 5: 127-28. Only in the separate entry for "Harf," 3: 204-5, do we find a brief reference by H. Fleisch, the article's author. Me- dieval Arabic sources for the most part maintain a clear distinction, however, between the ahruf and the qird'at; the term huriif as also occurs in the literature is possibly a variant of ahruf. See, e.g., Ibn al-Jazari, Ghiyat al-nihaya fi tabaqdt

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qurdan 5

They describe the compilation (jam' al-Qur'dn) and writing down of the Qur'anic text (ta'lhfal-Qur'dn) and refer to the Qur'an-reciters from among the Compan- ions. The next few sections deal with the merits of individual siiras such as al-Fatiha and al-Baqara; sections follow that discuss the descent of divine tranquility (sakina) and the angels on those who recite or read the Qur'an. Some traditions state that the only bequest of the Prophet was the written Qur'dnic text (ma bayna '1-daffatayn); others refer to the superiority of the Qur'an over the rest of speech, of the desirability of reciting the Qur'an in a melodious voice, and of the joy of the people of the Qur'an (ahl al-Qur'dn, for whom see further below). There are traditions concerning the excellence of those who learn and teach the Qur'an, memorize it, and are faithful to its injunctions. Other traditions warn against forgetting the Qur'an, refer to the various modes of recitation, and the amount of the Qur'an to be recited at a time.

Muslim's section on the fadi'il al-Qur'dn contains traditions that underscore the necessity of following the precepts of the Qur'an, the reprehensibleness of forgetting the Qur'an, and the desirability of reciting the Qur'an with a melodious voice. There is mention of the Prophet's recitation of SUrat al-Fath (the 48th chapter) on the day of the conquest of Makka; of the descent of sakina upon recitation of the Qur'an; the virtue (faidla) of one who has memorized the Qur'dn; the excellence of one who is proficient in reciting the Qur'an as against one who falters in recitation; the virtue of one who recites the Qur'an and who listens to the recitation; the virtues of reciting the Qur'an during the prescribed prayers and learning it. There are sections that refer to

the merits of certain siiras like al-Fatiha and al-Baqara; of certain ayat like the last two verses of al-Baqara; the excellence of those who learn and teach the Qur'an and act according to its dictates; the seven variant readings (al-qird'dt); and modes of recitation.26

Let us now briefly consider the contents of the following works available in published form27 according to the chronology of their authors, in order to trace the conti- nuities and progression in the range of topics that occur in this literature.

1) Fadd'il al-Qur'dn of AbU 'Ubayd al-Qasim b. Sal- lam al-Harawl (early third/ninth century): The inside title page of this work gives the title as Kikb fadil al- Qur'dn wa-maddlimihi wa-adabih.28 As a compilation of fa~di'il al-Qur'dn traditions, this work is older than the Sahihdn of al-Bukhari and Muslim, and is more wide- ranging than them in its treatment of topics pertaining to the merits of the Qur'an. The work is divided into seventy-one, fairly short chapters, the contents of these chapters may be distilled as follows. They provide a catalogue of the merits of the Qur'an and its properties, the merits of listening to its recital, following its precepts, of holding its "people" (ahl al-Qur'dn) in high esteem, of exerting oneself in pursuit of its "sciences" ('Culim), of its recitation, memorization, and its transmission (lit. "bearing the Qur'an" Ar. hami al-Qur'dn).29 There are reports referring to the earliest compilers of the Qur'an (man jamaca 'l-Qur'dn bayna 'l-lawhayn),30

al-qurrd', ed. G. Bergstrisser (Cairo, 1351/1932), 1: 308, #1354, where the Companion Sacid b. al-Musayyab is mentioned as having transmitted "hurfif al-Qurhdn;" and 1: 257, #1 163, e.g., states that Hakim b. Muhammad transmitted the reading/recitation (rawl 'I-qird-a) from Sacid b. Marwdn; see also passim for this distinction between hurfif and qirda't transmissions.

Versteegh, Arabic Grammar, 166, considers the huraf to be "the variant readings of their [sc. the readers'/reciters'] ikhti- ydr." See also Rafael Talmon, "An Eighth-Century Grammati- cal School in Medina: The Collection and Evaluation of the Available Materials," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 48 (1985): 228 n. 30, for a brief discussion of the various possible meanings of hurfif. The distinction and the connections between ahruf, huraf, and qird'dt need to be meticulously studied for a better understanding of the early history of Qur'anic recitational modes and their relation to the 'Uthmdnic consonantal text.

26 Muslim, Sahih (Beirut, 1416/1995), 1: 455-82. 27 This is mainly for the sake of convenience. I have also

had occasion to look at some fa~dh'il al-Qur'an manuscripts as referred to below.

28 Abfa cUbayd, Fadd'il al-Qur'dn, 39. 29 Certain works of this genre describe the proper etiquette

to be observed and mental attitude to be cultivated by those who "bear" the Qur'an, not only in the physical sense, but also in the sense of having memorized it and bearing it in their hearts and minds. An example of such a work is the treatise al- Tibydn ft Ciddib hamalat al-Qur'dn by Yahya b. Sharaf al-Din al-Nawawi. The edition by Dr. Jumca 'All al-KhFll has been published by al-Maktaba al-Tawfiqiyya in Cairo, 1976, which is the edition we will refer to in this article. A study of the Tibyan has been done by Frederick M. Denny, "The adab of Qur'dn Recitation: Text and Context," in International Con- gress for the Study of the Qur'dn, series 1, ed. A. H. Johns and Syed Husain M. Jafri (Cranberra, 1980), 143-60. There is an

abridgement (mukhtasar) of the Tibydn by Fakhr al-Din al- Bacalbakkl (d. 729/1329), MS Leiden University Library, OR 1525, fols. 34a-48b.

30 Abfa cUbayd, Fadi'il al-Qur'dn, 281.


the revelation of the Qur'anic text in Makka and Ma- dina, its esoteric and exoteric interpretation, and the probity of earning a living by teaching the Qur'an. Ac- counts enumerating the merits of various chapters and verses, such as al-Fatiha and the dyat al-kursi (2:255), discussions regarding the probity of the buying and sell- ing of Qur'an copies, desinential inflection (iCrdb) of the Qur'anic text, its commentary, its embellishment, and its handling by polytheists and non-Muslims in general are to be found in it. The work also deals with the canonical readings (qiridat) of the Qur'an, textual variants of the 'Uthmanic recension, and the abrogation of certain verses not included in the textus receptus.

2) Fadd'il al-Qur'dn of Ibn al-Durays (late third/ ninth century):3" There are twenty-seven chapters in the book, the last sixteen of which deal with the excellences of the various suwar of the Qur'an. The first eleven list the Makkan and Madinan verses and deal with the proper methods of reciting the Qur'an. They describe those who are considered proficient (mihir) in reciting the Qur'dn and those reciters who disliked indicating every ten verses of the Qur'anic text (al-tadshir; for which see below). Details of what one should do upon completion of reciting the Qur'an are given, the excellences of the letters alif and mim in the Qur'an are catalogued, and reference is made to the intercession of the Qur'an on behalf of its "patron" (sdhib) on the Day of Judgment. Other chapters describe the manner of the revelation of the Qur'an, the number of readings, and the excellences of those who learn the Qur'an and teach it.

3) Fadd'il al-Qur'in of al-Nasa'i (late third/ninth century-early fourth/tenth century): This work consists of sixty-three short chapters that discuss how the Qur- anic revelation was dispensed, in what dialect (lisln) it was revealed, the lapse of time between the first and the last revelations, those who recited the Qur'an, those amanuenses who wrote down the revelations, the manner of compilation of the Qur'an, the excellences of individual siiras such as al-Fatiha and al-Baqara or of specific verses such as dyat al-kursi. There is one chapter on the ahl al-Qur'dn and on the command to learn and teach the Qur'an and follow its precepts. It extols the merit of those who learn and teach the Qur'an and recite it proficiently while listing the demerits of those who mispronounce it. There is also discussion of the pro- priety of traveling to enemy territory with the Qur'an and of reciting from the Qur'an while mounted on a

riding animal or while walking. Reports that state how much of the Qur'an should be recited at a time and that warn against forgetting verses are also recorded.

4) Kitub Fadd'il al-Qur'dn wa-tildwatih of al-Razi (mid-fifth/eleventh century): As the title indicates and as the author mentions in his foreword, this work is primarily concerned with "the excellences of the Qur'an, its recitation, and the characteristics of its reciters and bearers (khasd'is tulltihi wa-hamalatih).32 The work has ninety-eight short chapters whose contents may be summarized as follows. The initial chapters deal with the presentation of the Qur'dn orally to the Prophet, especially during the month of Ramadan, the reading of Muhammad himself and those Companions who were distinguished for their reading of the Qur'an. The work catalogues the merits of embellishing Qur'an copies, of proficient recitation, and of cultivating a beautiful voice during recitation. It discusses the excellence of the Qur'an over all other forms of speech and refers to the people of the Qur'an as the people of God who are the best of His community and the most deserving of leadership. Sev- eral chapters follow that underscore their privileged position by asserting their likeness to prophets, except that they do not receive revelation (al-waiy), and list the merits of those who teach the Qur'an to various family members. Like its predecessors, the work refers to specific saras whose recitation garners exceptional reward for the pious.

5) Faddi'il al-Qur'in of Ibn Kathir (eighth/fourteenth century): In this slim volume composed of thirty-three chapters, we find by now the expected accounts of the compilation and writing down of the Qur'an, the various modes of recitation, the virtues of learning and teaching the Qur'an, what portion of the Qur'an to recite at a time, the permissibility of earning a living by teaching the Qur'an, and adjurations against forgetting Qur'anic passages. Missing from this work is the catalogue of unusual excellences ascribed to certain saras or specific verses of the Qur'an.

6) Shi'I Fadd'il works: Unfortunately, none of the early Shl'C fa~dkdil al-Qur'dn works referred to earlier appears to be extant in full. The fourth/tenth century scholar, al-Kulayni, has a section entitled Kitab Fadl al- Qur'dn in his hadith compilation of al-Kaft.33 A comparison of the contents of this rather brief section with the Sunni works discussed above reveals considerable overlap regarding the merits of transmitting the Qur'an,

31 The title of this work is given as Fadi'il al-Qur'an wa- md nazala min al-Qur'dn bi-Makka wa-ma nazala bi-'l- Madina in GAS, 1: 42.

32 Al-Razi, Fadd'il al-Qur'dn, 27. 33 Al-Kulayni, Usil al-K3fi, ed. Muhammad Shams al-Din

(Beirut, 1411/1990), 2: 561-97.


of learning and committing it to memory, of reciting or reading it, and of the various modes of recitation.

In summary, the three relatively early iadith compilations (the Musannaf and the two Sahihs) and the fa~da'il al-Qur'dn works from the third/ninth century indicate in common that many of the traditions contained in them may justifiably be regarded as comprising the more archaic layer compared to many of the traditions found in later individual fa~dI'il al-Qur'dn works. This early layer is primarily concerned with describing the excellences of the Qur'dn (as a whole and of specific individual chapters and verses) and the excellences of those people who taught it and recited it with proficiency.34 Thus it appears that up to the time when al-Bukhar! and Muslim started compiling their hadith works (roughly mid-third/ninth century), the term fa~diil mainly con- noted the positive traits of people, objects, and regions.35

As also becomes evident from the description above, fa~d1'il al-Qur'in works deal with more variegated topics than the shorter, similarly-named sections in hadith compilations. Some of the fa~di'il al-Qur'in traditions included in the individual works treat in a more detailed manner various modes of recitation, lengthier lists of the excellences of the saras, the merits of reciting these chapters, and the consequent generous recompense earned in the hereafter. Some reports encode the controversy surrounding the diacritization and vowelization of the consonantal 'Uthmanic text and the growth of a more elaborate etiquette concerning the preservation and adornment of mushafs. Other traditions manifest an increasing concern with the probity of commercial transactions involving the sacred text. With regard to the ahl al-Qur'dn, thefada'il works and relevant sections in hadith compilations consistently attest to their excellence. A number of these traditions record the resistance

of the ahl al-Qurian to the increasing attention paid by certain groups of scholars to written texts of the Qur'an at the expense of its oral transmission and recitation. The following section will elaborate upon these contro- versies and their implications.

REFLECTIONS OF RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL

ISSUES IN THE FADA-IL AL-QUR-AN LITERATURE

The first three centuries of Islam were its most in- tellectually, theologically, and politically fervid periods. That the religious, intellectual, and political concerns of the time find reflection in some of the fadi'il al-Qurdcn traditions should come as no surprise to us. Based on our study of this kind of literature, these issues may be arranged under three broad rubrics:

1) Reaction of the pious against "professional" scholars (the latter includes grammarians, professional Qur'an-reciters, teachers, and copyists). Some fa~d'il al-QurCin traditions imply negative attitudes on the part of their propagators toward those who seem to be excessively concerned with the mechanics of the language of the Qur'an. For example, al-Durays records in his Fadd'il al-Qur'dn the following report from al- Harith b. Qays,36 one of the Kufan qurra', who died during the reign of Mu'cwiya (reg. 41/661-61/680). Al-Harith said:

I was a man with a defect in my speech (fi lisan lukna) and it was said to me, "Do not learn the Qur'an until you have learned Arabic." Then I came to 'Abd Allah [Ibn Mas'cfd] and I mentioned that to him. I said, "They were laughing while they said, '[Learn] Arabic."' At that 'Abd Allah said, "You are in a time when the commandments (lit. "limits," hudfid) of the Qur'an are preserved and not much attention is paid to its words (lit. "its letters," hurafih), whereas the people after you will be [living] in a time when the words of the Qur'dn will be preserved but its commandments will be lost."37

If this report did in fact originate with al-Harith (and there are no good grounds for thinking it did not), it

34 For arguments in favor of the reliability of 'Abd al-Raz- zaq's Musannaf and the provenance of its traditions from the first/seventh century based on isnad analysis, see the article by Harald Motzki, "The Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San'an! as a Source of Authentic ahddith of the First Century A.H.," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50 (1991): 1-21.

35 Synonyms for this usage would be shamd'il and khasd'is, although these terms are not generally employed in lieu of fa~dail in the sources I looked at. See below for the work by al-Razi which uses khasadis. Due to constraints of space, I am

not listing in full the kind of fadL'il al-Qur'dn traditions contained in the other four books of al-kutub al-sitta. The contents of the fa~di'il al-Qurdn sections in the Sahihan, for our

purpose, serve as representative "canonical" traditions of this

type.

36 For whom see al-Bukhdri, Kitdb al-ta'rikh al-kab/r (Bei- rut, 1986), 2: 279, #2461; Ibn Hajar al-'Asqaldni, Tahdhib al-tahdhib (Beirut, 1416/1996), 1: 336; Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat

al-nihdya, 1: 201, #924. He is one of the companions (ashab)

of Ibn Mas'Tad who transmitted his qirj'a. 37 Ibn al-Durays, Fadd'il al-Qur'dn, 26. A slightly variant

report, also attributed to al-Harith b. Qays, is recorded at 27,

with a different chain of transmission.


appears to be an indictment of an early group of grammarians, or at least some type of linguistically inclined people, who were perceived to be preoccupied with the words of the Qur'anic text at the expense of the divine injunctions contained therein. Al-Harith is of course too early for the "classic" grammarians of the Kufan and Basran schools of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries.38 So to whom could he be referring? There is now a respectable body of scholarship that indicates that there were early Madinan and Makkan "schools" of grammar, centered very likely on study of the Qur'anic text, at least by the first half of the second/ eighth century.39 It is not far-fetched to assume that primitive philological activity was already underway in al-Harith's time, as the report seems to indicate.40 To the pious, the concern on the part of these early grammarians with the mechanics of language-and thus with "humanistic" rather than with purely religious pursuits41- appears to have represented an unhappy trend and been a harbinger of grave moral decay.42

From other reports in some of the faIii'il al-Qur'dn works, it seems clear that an early group of pious scholars subscribed to a "textual purism" that militated against the addition of any graphic features to the 'Uthmanic consonantal text. This purism manifested itself in negative sentiments expressed against the use of vowels and diacritics (naqt/tanqit, lit. "dotting")43 in

the Qur'anic text and against the practice of adorning the mushaf with certain purely ornamental features. Dis- like of public ceremonies to mark an individual's conclusory reading of the Qur'an (khatma) also emanated from this purist attitude which was against ostentation of any kind.44 The famous Kufan scholar Ibrahim al- Nakhdci (d. 96/715), who is counted among the qurra ,45 reported that the Companion al-Mughira b. Shu'ba (d. 48-51/668-71)46 had declared that he [sc. al-Mu- ghira] disliked vocalization of the Qur'anic text (yunqat al-mushaf), or that its reading be grandly and publicly concluded (yukhtamu), or that every ten verses be in- dicated (yu'shar), or that Qur'an copies be sold or bought.47 Another report states that the Basran tObic Abl 'l-'Aliya (d. 90/708-9 or 96/716), a mawl& (non- Arab "client"; p1. mawih) of the Quraysh,8 used to dislike breaking up verses in tens (al-tacshir), placing styl- ized decorations to indicate the beginning and end of each su-ra, and he further stated, "Strip (jarridi) the Qur'an [of its embellishments]."49 The Kitab al-Masiihif

38 Al-Sibawayh!, the "master" grammarian died between 161/778 and 194/810 and al-Farrd' in 207/822.

39 See M. S. Belguedj, "La demarche des premiers gram- mairiens arabes dans le domaine de la syntaxe," Arabica 20 (1973): 172-73; Talmon, "Eighth-century," 224-36; Estelle Whelan, "Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codifica- tion of the Qur'dn," JAOS 118 (1998): 1-14.

40 An example of such an individual from the first/seventh century is 'Umayr b. 'Ubayd, a Qur'dn reader/reciter, among other things, who transmitted huruf. We will meet 'Umayr again.

41 For this kind of "humanistic" studies (adab) centered on the study of language and literature, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam (Edinburgh, 1990), esp. 97ff.

42 The scholars in turn would come to posit a salubrious connection between adab and the religious sciences; a report to this effect cites four people as God's gifts to Islam: al- Shdfi'!, Ibn Hanbal, Yahyd b. Ma'In, the traditionist, and Abu 'Ubayd, the philologist; see Makdisi, Rise of Humanism, 97, 111.

43 For a recent study of the use of dots to mark vowels and variant readings in masahif, see Yasin Dutton, "Red Dots,

Green Dots, Yellow Dots and Blue: Some Reflections on the Vocalisation of Early Qur'anic Manuscripts, Part I, Journal of Qur'anic Studies 1 (1999): 115-40. Strictly speaking, in modern usage, tanqit refers to diacritization and tashkil to vowelling. In the early medieval period, i'jdm referred to diacritization by using short strokes above and below the letter in lieu of the dots we use today to differentiate between a td' and a yd', for example.

44 See Ibn al-Jawzi, Talbis Iblis, ed. al-Sayyid al-Jumayll (Beirut, 1405/1985), 176, where the author criticizes the person who loudly proclaims to others his "khatma." Ibn al-Jawz! comments reproachfully that this was not the way of the righteous forebears who "used to conceal their worship" (kdnii yasturana 'ibadatahum)." For a brief description of khatma practices, see EI2, "khatma," 4: 1112-13.

45 See Ibn al-Jazarl, Ghayat al-nihaya, 1: 284-85, #1272. 46 For whom see EI2, s.v., 8: 347. 47 Ibn al-Durays, Fadd'il al-Qur'an, 42; Abfa 'Ubayd,

Fadd'il al-Qur-an, 394-95. 48 For whom see EI2, s.v., 1: 104-5. His given name is Rafi'

b. Mihran al-Riyahi. Ibn AbN Da'ud declared him to be the most knowledgeable in Qur'an recitation (a'lam bi-'l-qird'a) after the Companions; see Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 2: 172-73; cf. Muhammad Husayn al-Dhahabi, al-Tafsir wa-'l-mufassirun (Cairo, 1396/1976), 115.

49 Ibn al-Durays, Fada'il al-Qur'an, 42-43. For a description of these fawatih (sing. fatiha) and khawatim (sing. kha- tima) as ornamental embellishments at the beginning and end of suiras, see al-Zarkashi, al-Burhan ft 'ulum al-Qur'Dn

(Beirut, 1408/1988), 1: 164-86. Outside of Qur'anic masdhif,


of 'Abd Allah Ibn Ab! Da'Ud (d. 316/928; other death dates are given) records strong objection to ta'shir. Un- der the chapter entitled Kitibat al-'awdshir fi 'i-masdhif, several reports from the Companion 'Abd Allah Ibn Mas'cd are recorded condemning ornate embellishment of the Qur'an. One such report states, "Strip the Qur'dan [of its embellishments] and do not intermingle with it (la takhlita bihi) what is not of it."50 Dislike of al-ta'shir and often of vocalization as well are particularly attributed to early pious figures such as al-Hasan al-Basr! (d. 110/728), Ibn Sirin (d. 11o/728),j1 and AbU 'l-'Aliya from among the Basran tobiciin.2

The imperative jarridii refers to divesting the Qur'an masdhif of the ornate embellishments (and also of vowels and section markers) that appear to have become de rigueur by this time. A report occurring in the early fadh'il al-QurPIn works of AbU 'Ubayd and Ibn al-Durays expresses a blatant antipathy toward such practices. A report from the Kufan mawld transmitter al-A'mash (d. 145/762)53 quotes ShaqIq b. Salama al- Asadi, a Kufan hdfiz (d. 80/699),4 as saying, "Someone passed in front of 'Abd Allah [Ibn Mas'Ud] carrying a copy of the Qur'dn embellished in gold." 'Abd Allah remarked, "Indeed the most deserving of what should adorn the mushaf is its recitation in truth."55 Similar sen- sibilities are encoded in a report of ShI'I provenance related by a certain Muhammad b. al-Warraq who said that he had once shown a mushaf to AbU 'Abd Allah [sc. Jacfar al-Sadiq] in which the text was ringed and divided into tenths with gold. Towards the end, the mushaf contained a su-ra written in gold which Ibn al-

Warraq showed to the Imam. The latter remarked, "I do not like the Qur'an to be written in anything but in black [ink] just as it was written the first time."56

With regard to public witnessing of an individual's conclusory reading of the Qur'an, counter-reports and exhortations are recorded which uphold such practices. Abu 'Ubayd, for example, states that pious scholars such as the exegete Mujahid b. Jabr (d. 104/722) and the Kufan scholar 'Abda b. [Abl] Lubaba (alive 123/740)57 were in the habit of inviting people to bear witness to their recitation's conclusion for it was said that God's mercy would descend at such times.58 Al-Qurtubi reports that when Anas b. Malik would be on the point of concluding the reading of the Qur'an at night with only four or five saras remaining, he would wait till the next morning when he could gather his family (ahlahu) together. He would then conclude the recitation, followed by a supplication.59

On the issue of ijrCb, several authors of fadidil al- Qur'dn works include reports whose texts express support for this practice. For example, one such report recorded by AbU 'Ubayd is related by AbU 'l-Azhar60 who quotes AbU Bakr al-Siddiq as saying, "My inflection of a Qur'dnic verse is dearer to me than my memorization of it."'61 In the following noteworthy hadfth recorded by

these fawatih and khawdtim became quite commonplace in chancery texts by the Mamluk period. See al-Qalqashandi's detailed treatment of this topic in his Subh al-a'sha fi sindat al-inshd', ed. YUsuf 'All Tawil (Beirut, 1408/1987), 6: 582ff.

50 Variant and contradictory reports follow; see Kitab al- Masdhif (Beirut, 1405/1985), 154ff.

51 Ibn Sirin was also known for his opposition to the written transmission of traditions; see EI2, s.v., 3: 947-48; Michael Cook, "The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam," Arabica 44 (1997): 445-450.

52 Kitab al-Masahif, 157; cf. Abfl 'Amr al-Dani, al-Muhkam fi naq! al-masahif, ed. 'Izzat Hasan (Damascus, 1970), 14-15.

53 He is listed in the biographical dictionaries under Sulay- man b. Mihrdn al-Asadi, with a shaky reputation as a muhaddith; see, e.g., Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 2: 422-24.

5 For whom see Ibn al-Jazari, Ghiyat al-nihaya, 1: 328, #1429; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 2: 508-9.

5 Ibn al-Durays, Fada'il al-Qurdn, 43; Abul 'Ubayd, Fadd'il al- Qurdn, 396.

56 Al-Kulayni, Kafi, 593. One may also read into these reports a pious dislike for the excessive attention paid to the written sacred text as the expense of its oral recitation. The prophetic hadith, "Beautify the Qur'an with your voices

(zayyini 'l-Qur'an bi-aswatikum)" may be understood to emphasize the orality of the Qur'dn over its written form. It

may furthermore be seen as expressing sentiment against the beautification of mushafs with ornamental features. This

hadith is recorded by al-HIkim al-Nisdbifri, al-Mustadrak 'ald 'l-sahihayn fi 'l-hadith (Hydarabad, 1334/1915), 1: 571-75, with many chains of transmission. The tension between the

authoritativeness of oral and written transmissions of the

Qur'dn is further discussed below. 57 For whom see Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 3: 511. 58 Fadd-'il al-Qur'uin, 107; see further 108-10. 59 See his Tadhkdr, 68; for more reports, 68-73, and al-

Dariml, Sunan (n.pl., n.d.), 2: 468-69. 60 He is very likely AbU 'l-Azhar al-Khurdsani, who is de-

scribed as matriik al-hadith (sc. whose reports were not ac-

cepted); see Ibn Hajar al-'Asqaldni, Lisdn al-mizdn (Beirut, 1416/1996), 7: 5, #23; Ibn al-JawzI, al-Du'afaJ wa-'l-matriikin, ed. Abua 'l-Fida' 'Abd Allah al-Qadd (Beirut, 1406/1986), 3:

226, #3878. 61 Fada'il al-Qur'-n, 348; for other such pro-icrdb reports,

see 348-50.


al-Qurtubi, Ibn 'Umar reports that the Prophet stated, "For whomever reads or recites the Qur'an without full inflection, the attending angel records for him 'as revealed' with ten merits for each letter; for whomever inflects only part of the Qur'an, two angels are assigned to him who write down for him twenty merits; and for whomever inflects the [entire] Qur'an, four angels are assigned to him who record seventy merits for each letter."62 Neither AbU 'Ubayd nor al-QurtubI records any report that counsels against vocalization of the Qur'anic text as does Ibn Durays. In the case of AbM 'Ubayd, his exclusion of anti-naqt reports is not surprising since he was a philologist himself. As for al-Qurtubi, he probably had no knowledge of such reports or did not think them worthy of inclusion in his work if he did know them.63 Certainly well before his period-the seventh! thirteenth century-the scriptio plena had become the normal-and normative-feature of the sacred text. The

absence of its now distinctive features-desinential inflection and diacritization-would have been regarded as an unacceptable textual deficiency.64

Some of our fadi'il al-Qur'dn works record shift- ing attitudes towards the conventions of recitation or reading of the Qur'dn, as well. One seventh/thirteenth century fada'il al-Qur'dn work in particular records conflicting reports regarding the merits of unusual proficiency and frequency in reciting or reading the Qur'an. In the work entitled Tibylnfi didab hamalat al-Qur'dn by the Shdfi'C jurist and muhaddith Yahyd b. Sharaf al-DIn al-NawawI (d. 676/1277), we find traditions tes- tifying to the ability of certain Companions and scholars such as 'Uthman b. 'Affan, Tamim al-Ddri, Mujahid b. Jabr, and al-Shafi'c to complete one reading of the entire Qur'dn within a twenty-four hour period. Sulaym b. 'Itr (d. 75/694), the first qdss of Egypt, who was appointed qadi in 39 or 40/659-60, was even more adept at reciting the Qur'dn: he is reported to have completed three readings of the holy text in a twenty-four hour period.65

In contradistinction, we also find traditions listed in the same work that counsel the slow, measured recitation of the Qur'an (tartil al-Qur'dn; cf. SUrat al- Muzzammil 73:4). For example, one report from AbM Dharr states that he once heard the Prophet get up while reciting a verse from the Qur'an (al-Mad'ida, 5:118) which he repeated until dawn. Another report relates that Asmad' bt. AbI Bakr (d. 73/692) was overheard by 'Ubada b. Hamza constantly repeating a single verse (Stirat al-TUr, 52:27); she is said to have left for the mar- ket and was still repeating the verse upon her return.66

62 For this tradition and variants, see Tadhkdr, 84-85; and al-Dhahabi, Mizan al-i'tidal ft naqd al-rijdl, ed. 'All Muham- mad Mu'awwad et al. (Beirut, 1416/1995), 7: 56-57, for a variant tradition from 'Umar. See also Ahmad b. Mustafa, known as Tdshkubrizada, Kitab Miftah al-sa'dda wa-misbdh al-siyida (Hyderabad, 1910), 2: 274-79, for the importance of iCrab and its knowledge in relation to the Qur'anic text. A report attributed to 'Abd Allah Ibn Mas'cFd is noteworthy for its harmonizing tendency; on the one hand, it emphasizes the primacy of the oral nature of the Qur'dn while, on the other, it insists on the necessity of inflecting the text; see Ibn al-Jazarl, Al-Nashrfi 'l-qird'at, 1: 210, where the following hadith "Re- cite the Qur'an well and beautify it with the best of your voices and inflect it for it is [in] Arabic and God loves it to be inflected" (jawwidii 'l-Qur'an wa-zayyiniihu bi-ahsani '1- aswtat wa-a'ribihufa-innahu 'arabiyyun wa-'lldhu yuhibbu an yucraba bih)" is recorded.

63 For more pro-i'rab traditions and reflections on their potential significations, see Paul Kahle, "The Qur'an and the 'Arablya;" in Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume, part I, ed. Samuel Lowinger and Joseph Somogyi (Budapest, 1948), 163-82. Kahle is right in assuming that the existence of these pro-icriab traditions implies a prior non-existence or contested existence of icrab. This might apply to both an early practice of oral recitation of the verses without full inflection among some reciters and/or the absence of graphic indication of desinential inflection in the mushafs in the earliest period. Scholars would later (ca. late first/seventh century?) begin to add the vocalic endings along with the internal vowels to the Qur'anic text in the form of colored dots (for more on which see Dutton, "Red Dots" 115ff.). The addition of these colorful dots, along with other purely ornamental features, appears to have raised the ire of our textual purists.

64 In the early Qur'an manuscripts surveyed by Estelle Whelan, many of the writing conventions adopted in mushafs referred to in some of our fada'il al-Qur'an traditions are evident; see her "Writing the Word of God: Some Early Qur'dn Manuscripts and their Milieux, Part 1," Ars Orientalis 20 (1990): 113-25. Many of these Qur'dn folios are richly illu- minated with various ornamental features. Among these are gold rosettes to mark the end of each verse, the letter ha' in gold to mark every fifth verse, and large gilt rosettes to indicate every tenth verse. The manuscripts are also partly vocal- ized with colored dots; see, 118-21.

65 Al-Nawawl, Tibyan, 53-55; Sulaym's name is erroneously given as Sulaym b. 'Umar. For Sulaym b. 'Itr, see Muhammad al-Kindi, Wulat Misr (Beirut, 1379/1959), 37, and n. 7; Wak!' Muhammad b. Khalaf, Akhbar al-qu~d1h, ed. 'Abd al-Aziz Mus- tafa al-Mardgh! (Cairo, 1369/1950), 3: 221-23, where his name is incorrectly rendered as Sulaymdn b. 'Inz; G. H. A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Au- thorship of Early Nadith (Cambridge, 1983), 11, 14.

66 Al-Nawawi, Tibyan, 67.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qurdan 11

Others from among the salaf ("[righteous] forebears") are said to have completed the recitation once a month; while yet others would complete the recitation once in periods ranging from one to eight nights.67 All these reports suggest variable valences attributed to rather amazing virtuosity in reciting the Qur'an. When asso- ciated with the righteous forebears, particularly the Companions and renowned scholars like al-ShaficI, frequency in Qur'an recitation (up to a point) is regarded as a hallmark of their moral excellence. An adeptness greater than theirs in someone like Sulaym b. 'Itr, a professional qa-ss and qddi, could be rather suspect, not attributable to disinterested piety but rather to worldly, even mercenary, motives.

Such suspicions may be found encoded in a tradition from the Companion Jabir b. 'Abd Allah, which relates that the Prophet counseled, "Recite the Qur'an before there appears a group of people who will set it up like the setting up of the featherless, headless arrow (yuqi- minahu iqdmat al-qidh) by hurrying it [sc. the Qur'an] along (yatacajjaluinahu)."I68 The Companion Sahl b. Sacd (d. 88/706; other death dates given)69 is said to have glossed "yatacajjalinahu" as referring to "hurrying along worldly recompense for reciting the Qur'an, whether through money (bi-mal) or through [enhancement of their] reputation (bi-sumca), or through hypocrisy (riyd') and so forth."70

One account occurring in both early and late fadidil al-Qur'dn works pointedly relates that Mujdhid was once asked to determine who was the more excellent (afdal) of two men, one of whom had recited SUrat al- Baqara and Al 'Imrdn while the other had only recited al-Baqara during prayer. The time they took to complete their recitations, bow down, and prostrate during prayer was the same for both. Mujahid pronounced the man who had recited only al-Baqara to be more excellent; he went on to forbid excessive haste (al-ifrat fi Vl-isrdC) in recitation. Other hadiths express criticism of excessive speed in reciting or reading the Qur'dn because it is an impediment to genuine understanding

of the Qur'anic text. A well-documented hadith, which counsels slow, reflective recitation of the Qur'dn, occurs in earlier hadith compilations, such as those of al- Tirmidh! and Ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855). The tradition states, "One who has recited the [entire] Qur'an in less than three days has not comprehended (lam yafqah) [it]."72 Similar traditions counseling unhurried recitation or reading of Qur'anic verses (tartil; tarassul) that allows for contemplation of their meaning (qird'a mufas- sira) are also given by AbU 'Ubayd.73

Traditions that may be understood to express pious aversion to the notion of earning a livelihood and, worse, becoming wealthy, through teaching the Qur'an occur frequently in the literature. Teaching the Qur'an in itself is, of course, a highly meritorious act; early hadith compilations record the oft-quoted tradition, "The best of you is one who learns the Qur'an and teaches it."74 Our three early hadith compilations do not record the controversy over the probity of accepting wages for teaching the holy book. Later hadith and the fa~dh'il al-Qur'dn works in general do refer to this issue.75 AbU 'Ubayd records several traditions in which the Prophet warns believers against earning a living through teaching the Qur'dn. One such hadith related by the Ansdri Companion AbU Sa?Id al-KhudrI quotes Muhammad as saying,

Learn the Qur'dn and entreat God by means of it before a people [appears] who will learn it and ask for the world by means of it. For three kinds of people learn the Qur'dn: a

man who thereby seeks glory, a man who thereby earns a living, and a man who recites it for the sake of God Who is Exalted.76

Another hadith that expresses similar sentiments is related by the Kufan qiiri', Abil Salama, in which the Prophet exhorts, "Recite the Qur'dn, and do not earn a

67 Ibid., 52-53. 68 AbU 'Ubayd, Fada'il al-Qur'dn, 206, 68-69 for a vari-

ant; also ibid., 50. Cf. also Ibn Kathir, Fad'il al-Qur'dn, 184.

The tradition implies that excessive speed in reading or recit-

ing the Qur'dn confers no benefit like the headless, featherless

arrow. 69 For whom see Ibn Hajar al-Asqaldni, al-Isdba ft tamylz

al-sahaba (Beirut, n.d.), 3: 140, #3526; idem, Tahdhib: 2: 124. 70 Al-Nawawi, Tibyan, 50. 71 Abi! 'Ubayd, FadaDil al-Qur'dn, 158; ibid., 69-70; see

also Ibn al-Jazari, al- Nashrfi '1-qird-dt, 1: 207-10.

72 For example, see al-Tirmidhi, Sahih Sunan (henceforth

referred to as Sunan), ed. Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albdnl

(Beirut, 1408/1988), 3: 17; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, ed. Ahmad Muhammad Shakir (Cairo, 1366/1947), 10: 57, #6535; Ibn

al-JawzI, Talbis Iblis, 175. 73 Fadd'il al-Qur'n, 156-58. 74 This hadith is found, e.g., in al-Bukhari, Sahih, 5: 594;

'Abd al-Razzaq, Musannaf, 3: 367-68; al-Tirmidhi, Sunan, 3:

9; Ibn Maja, Sunan, ed. Muhammad Mustafa al-A'zami

(Riyad, 1403/1983), 1: 41; al-Ddrimi, Sunan, 2: 437. 75 Al-Tibyin, 51- 76 Fadd'il al-Qur'an, 205-6; for other reports that similarly

deride the practice of accepting wages for teaching the Qur'an, see 205-8.


living by it. . . " (la ta'kulii bi-hi).77 Ibn al-JawzI in his collection of forged traditions includes the following report from Ibn 'Abbas who related that the Prophet said, "If one to whom God teaches the Qur'an should complain of poverty, God will inscribe poverty between his eyes until the Day of Resurrection."78 The names of Sallam b. Yazid al-QariD,79 and Muhammad b. Ismacil (d. 200/815), also a qdri9 and a mawli,80 occur in the isnad of this hadith. According to this report, the Qur'dan reciter and teacher is expected to content himself with the humble circumstances becoming to his calling in life; its sub-text clearly implies criticism of those who would court riches through teaching the word of God.

Counter-traditions recorded by al-QurtubI in his fa~da- 'il al-Qur'dn work in the chapter entitled "Concerning Accepting Wages for Teaching the Qur'danl gives further indication of the controversy surrounding this sen- sitive issue.81 In one such report Ibn 'Abbas states, "Indeed it is the Book of God for which you have the greatest right to accept wages."82 Some reports even explicitly state what the ideal wage should be for the professional Qur'an reciter. A tradition from 'All recorded by Ibn al-JawzI states that the Prophet had said, "Whoever recites the Qur'dn receives two hundred di- nars. If he is not given this amount in this world, then he will be given it in the next."83 Significantly, one of the late transmitters of this report is the sixth/twelfth century qdri' Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Malik [al-Baghdddi] (d. 539/1144),84 whom we will meet again later. As

seems apparent from the above discussion, analysis of the isnads of conflicting sets of traditions suggests in- tra-qurra' rivalry, with what appears to be one group of pious, non-professional qurrd' expressing their vocif- erous criticism of the professional qurrd' who accept remuneration for their activities. Clearly, pious Muslims were concerned about the licitness of accepting wages for teaching the Qur'dn; the traditions recorded above testify to the controversy surrounding this issue.

To sum up this section, it may be stated that many of the fa~dk'il al-Qur'dn reports preserve for us the vestiges of an early pietistic reaction against the efforts of the grammarians and philologists to fix the reading of the sacred text. To a pious and purist coterie, this appears to have represented unwarranted textual tamper- ing. On record is also their aversion to showy and expensive adornment of copies of the Qur'an and to public ceremonies to commemorate one's conclusory reading of the sacred text. Some of the traditions cited above also record sentiment critical of the increasing "professionalization" and "commercialization" of the teaching of the Qur'an. There is an implicit, and not- so-implicit, assumption that the professional qurra 985 and the 'ulamd' in general master the Qur'an mainly to enhance their scholarly reputations and for monetary aggrandizement, a trend that is vilified in many traditions. Among the professional qurrd' must also be counted a segment of the early qussas ("storytellers"; "popular preachers"), who were appointed by the gov-

77 See al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-awsat (Cairo, 1415/1995), 8: 344, #8823. For 'Abd al-Rahman b. Ishaq AbU Salama, see Ibn al- Jazarl, Ghayat al-nihdya, 1: 365, #1557; no death date is given.

78 Ibn al-Jawzi dismisses this as an unreliable report since its narrators are all disreputable; MawdiCiit, 1: 254. Al-Shawkdn! (d. 1250/1834) lists a similar spurious tradition which states, "If one to whom God has given the Qur'dn considers someone wealthier than him, then he has mocked God's verses"; see his al-Fawi'id al-majmi'a fi '7-ahddith al-mawdiua (Jidda, 1380/ 1960), 297, #7, and #6 for a variant.

79 I have been unable to locate him in the sources. 80 See al-Jazarl, Ghayat al-nihaya, 2: 101, #2859. 81 Tadhkir, 91-93. 82 Ibid., 91. See also al-Nawawi, Tibydn, 50-5 1, for further

discussion of this issue. 83 Mawdiiat, 1: 255. A fourth/tenth century Shi'l source

records a similar report also attributed to 'All; see Ibn Bdba- wayh (d. 381/991-92), Kitab al-Khisal, ed. 'All Akbar al- GhaffrIl (Qum, 1403/1982), 2: 602.

84 Al-Jazarl, Ghdyat al-nihaya, 2: 192, #3209, where he is praised as a virtuous man (kdna sdlihan khayran).

85 My usage of the term "professional qurra" implies a group of people different from the muqri'uin, who, in Ver- steegh's definition, are "specialists in the science of Qur'dnic recitation"; see his Arabic Grammar, 185. The term "professional qurrd"' subsumes the muqri'uin at a later date, of course, but I use the term more generally to refer to those early Qur'dn-reciters who accepted monetary compensation for their services, often while in the employ of the government, and who regarded their activity as a source of livelihood. In contrast, the non-professional qurrd' were pious people who taught and recited the Qur'dn as a mark of their devotion to the word of God and its dissemination, for apparently little or no monetary compensation, as the tenor of some of the fada'il al-Qur'ian traditions suggest. The first professional reciter is said to have made his appearance in 'Umar's time. Accord- ing to al-Tabarl, the second caliph was the first to formally appoint a qdri' to recite from the Qur'dn during prayers, one for men and one for women; see his Ta'rikh al-umam wa'l- muluik (Beirut, 1417/1997), 2: 570; cf. G. H. A. Juynboll, "Qur'dn Recitation in Early Islam," Journal of Semitic Studies 20 (1974): 245.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qurdn 13

ernment as religious functionaries in the mosque and whose task, among others, was to recite publicly passages from the Qur'dn and interpret them.86 The historian al-Maqrizi (d. 846/1442) maintains that there was a distinction between the private qdss and the official one. The latter whose duties included public exegesis of the Qur'dn after the khutba (sermon) on Friday was first appointed by Mu'awiya.7 We will meet these professional qurrd' and qussas again later.

2) Defining Moral and Social Precedence. A number of the fadd'il al-Qurdan works under consideration, as well as similarly named sections in hadith compilations, consistently praise the ahl al-Qur'dn as the most excellent of all people. A hadith from Anas b. Malik, commonly cited in the literature, relates that the Prophet had stated, "Indeed there are people from among the general populace who belong to God." They inquired, "And who are they, 0 Messenger of God?" He said, "The people of the Qur'an are the people of God and His elect." Among those who recorded this tradition are Ibn Hanbal,88 Ibn Maja,89 and Ibn al-Durays90 from the third/ninth century.91 In the isnad of this tradition occurs the name of the Basran transmitter 'Abd al-Rah- man b. Budayl b. Maysara (fl. ca. late second/eighth century), regarded as reliable (thiqa) by Ibn Hibban (d. 354/965) and al-Nasa'i but weak by Yahya b. Macin (d. 233/847).92

By the late fourth/tenth century, traditions about the moral superiority of the people of the Qur'an had prolif- erated. Al-Razi, for example, in his Fada'dil al-QurPdn,

devotes six chapters to the ahl al-Qur'dn and their excellences.93 The headings of these six chapters are: regarding [the fact] that the people of the Qur'dn are the people of God; regarding [the fact] that they are the best of the community (khayr al-umma); regarding [the fact] that they are the most excellent of the community (aftial al-umma); regarding [the fact] that the best among people is one who recites the Qur'an and is the best reciter of it (aqra'uh); regarding [the fact] that they are the best people of the community (khiydr al-umma); and finally, regarding [the fact] that they are the noblest of the community (ashraf al-umma).94 The terms khayr/ khiyar, afdal, and ashraf are indicative of the kind of excellence being attributed to the ahl al-Qur'an in these traditions. The first two terms clearly impute greater moral excellence to them while the last, ashrif, in its general signification, is more indicative of social prominence and genealogical superiority.95 The parallelism of these traditions strongly suggests, however, that the social status of these ashraf, here in reference to the ahl al-Qur'an, is predicated in no small measure on their presumed moral excellence and is a deliberate challenge to the tribe-based nobility of certain groups.96

The spurious traditions (al-mawd4iit) that Ibn al- Jawzi records go even further in ascribing exceptional merit to the reciters of the Qur'an and, by extension, the ahl al-Qur'dn in general. One such tradition recorded by Ibn al-JawzI is reported by Sukayna bt. al-Husayn b. 'All (the granddaughter of 'All, d. 117/735) from her father; in it she relates that the Prophet had stated, "The transmitters (hamala, lit. "bearers") of the Qur'an are the preceptors of the people of Paradise ('urafd' ahl al- janna)." Not surprisingly, the isnad of this report also 86 See Johannes Pedersen, "The Islamic Preacher, wd'iz,

mudhakkir, qdss," Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume, part 1,

ed. S. Lowinger and J. Somogyi (Budapest, 1948), 226-51;

idem, "The Criticism of the Islamic Preacher," Die Welt des

Islams 2 (1953): 215-31; Khalil Athamina, "Al-Qasas: Its

Emergence, Religious Origin and Its Socio-political Impact on

Early Muslim Society" Studia Islamica 76 (1992): 53-74; esp.

59-60; EI2, "K.ss" 4: 733-35. 87 Al-Maqrizi, Khitat, 2: 253-54; EI2, 4: 734. 88 Musnad, 2: 331-32, #1317. 89 Sunan, 1: 42. 90 Fadd'il al-Qurdn, 50; also given by Ibn Kathir, Fadd'il

al-Qur'in, 181. 91 See also al-Hakim, Mustadrak, 1: 556. A slightly variant

version of this tradition is also recorded by al-Nasd'i, Fadd'il

al-Qur'dn, 83. See further my discussion of the terms ahl

al-Qur'in, qurrd', and hamalat al-Qurdn below as closely

related and equally problematic terms. 92 See Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 3: 324, #4439; al-Dhahabi, Mizdn

al-i'tiddl, 4: 261-62, #4825.

93 Al-Razi, Faddail al-Qur'dn, 79-88. 94 Cf. Ibn Kathir, Fadd'il al-Qur'an, 190, where Ibn 'Abbas

relates the marfi-u tradition, "the nobility of my community are

the bearers of the Qur'n," (ashrif ummat! hamalat al-

Qur'an). The editor points out that this is considered to be a

weak tradition (hadfth wiihin) and that the isndd contains the

name of the Basran transmitter Nahshal b. Sac!d al-Basri, gen-

erally regarded as extremely unreliable; see, e.g., al-Dhahabi,

Mizdn al-i'tiddl, 7: 50-51, #9134. 95 See EI2, "Sharif' 9: 329, where a sharef in both pre-

Islamic and Islamic usage, is defined as "a free man who can

claim a distinguished rank because of his descent from illus-

trious ancestors . . that is, a person possessed of nobility

(sharaf... ), whether conferred by inherited or personally ac-

quired glory and honourable conduct or, preferably, both."

96 See below for further discussion of who the qurra& were

and what we may surmise of their social status.


contains the name of a qiri', Muhammad b. 'Abd al- Malik, whom we met earlier, and an earlier qiiri' and a mawld, Ishaq b. IbrahIm (d. 286/899).97 A variant and harmonizing tradition from al-Zuhr! (d. 124/42), in whose isnid occurs the name of a qdri3, AbU 'Abd Al- lah b. Makhlad,98 quotes Muhammad as saying, "The prophets are the masters (sida) of the people of Para- dise; the scholars (al-Culamd') are the leaders (quwwidd) of the people of Paradise; and the people of the Qur'an are the preceptors of the people of Paradise."99 The presence of mawili in some of these isnads is worthy of note, the implications of which will be further discussed below.

The question remains: can we more precisely define this pious, increasingly marginalized group of people distinguished by their tenacious fidelity to the word of God? The tenor of the reports attributed to them point to the traditional qurrai and teachers of the Qur'an, who express their derision for an incipient class of grammarians and later the fully formed Culamd' with their scholarly appurtenances of pointed and parsed texts. This pious segment is very likely part of those groups of people who came to be referred to as zuhhdd, nussak, and Cubbid from the second/eighth century, and also as Sufi from the third/ninth century on, in the rijil works composed by the muhaddithan of these and later centuries, as G. H. A. Juynboll has pointed out.100 Ibn al-Jawzi's use of the terms zuhhdd, nusslik, etc., demon- strates that one did not intend to flatter these groups of people by the application of such devotional appellations to them. In his works, Talbis Iblis and Kituib al- qussds wa-'l-mudhakkirin, Ibn al-Jawz! voices a general scholarly contempt for the proneness of these groups to sentimentality, their absurd abstinence from certain

creature comforts that even the righteous Companions indulged in, and their partiality for traditions of the ta- rhib wa-targhib ("inducing fear and desire") and raqa- 'iq ("causing the heart to soften") types, many of which they are accused of having blatantly forged.'0' Ibn al- JawzI considers the qurrd' to be among the zuhhid and states that "zuhhdd" is a well-known ancient name for them. 102 Furthermore, those qurrd' who joined the Khawarij after the Battle of Siffln (in 37/657) were called, among other epithets, nussak al-Khawarij.103 That a significant number of the early qurrd' joined the Khawarij104 is not surprising to us; on account of their uncompromising pietistic attitude and single- minded devotion to the word of God, they found much affinity with the latter. A number of the qurra', however, are said to have remained loyal to 'All while some joined Mu'awiya's camp and became part of the early 'Uthmaniyya.l05 Their mercurial loyalties would prompt reports describing the qurrid as hypocritical and opportunistic.106

97 For whom see Ibn al-Jazari, Ghdyat al-nihdya, 1: 155, #723; he was originally from Marw and later settled in Baghdad.

98 See ibid., 1: 458, #1913, where his name is listed without the Abil.

99 These two traditions are listed in MawdiCdt, 1: 253-54; for similar and variant traditions, see also al-Suyfli, al-La'dil '7-masnifafi 'l-ahddith al-mawdiua (Beirut, n.d.), 1: 244-45.

100 See his Muslim Tradition, 187-88. As Juynboll remarks, although individuals from these groups of people are often described as personally righteous (salih), their reliability as hadith transmitters is frequently impugned in these works. See also al-Qalqashandi, Subh al-a'sha, 6: 13, where al-zdhid is glossed as "one of the Sifi sobriquets: (min alqdb al-sifiyya) and used in general in reference to "the people of righteous- ness" (ahl al-salh).

101 See Talbis, 151-53, 185-98; Kitdb al-qussas wa-'l- mudhakkirin, ed. Muhammad b. Lutfi al-Sabbagh (Beirut, 1403/1983), 295ff.; cf. al-Nawawl, Taqrib, 15. See Kitab al- qussas, 307, where Ibn al-Jawzi refers to an unnamed qdss. who would ascend the pulpit and start relating, "The Messen- ger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, said, 'Whoever fasts on the day of 'Ashurd' is entitled to such and such [recompense]"'; all of which he is said to have manufactured on the spot.

102 Talbis, 198. 103 Ibid., 301. 104 Ibid., 499; Shaban, Islamic History A.D. 600-750 (A.H.

132): A New Interpretation (Cambridge, 1971), 76; Martin Hinds, "Kufan Political Alignments and Their Background in the Mid-Seventh Century A.D.," International Journal of Mid- dle East Studies 2 (1971): 362.

105 Redwan Sayed, Die Revolte des Ibn al-AStat und die Koranleser: Ein Beitrag zur Religions- und Sozialgeschichte derfrihen Umayyadenzeit (Freiburg, 1977), 299ff.; cf. Hinds, "Kufan Political," 363. This would also explain the imputation (p. 359) of political adventurism and monetary opportunism to the early qurra'.

106 One such tradition is recorded by Ibn Kathir in his Fada'il al-Qur'an, 196, attributed to the Companion 'Abd Al- lah Ibn 'Amr, who reported that he heard the Prophet say, "Most of the hypocrites of my community (munlfiqi ummati) are its reader/reciters (qurrd'uha)." The Successor mentioned in the isnad is 'Abd al-Rahman b. Jubayr al- Misr! (d. 98/716), described as "a faqih, and learned in qirdaa"; see Ibn Ha'ajar, Tahdhib, 3: 331.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qur~dn 15

Some modem scholars have stressed the role of the qurra' in the standing army of the early period and their social status in general to explain both their disgruntle- ment and the criticism directed against them from certain quarters. G. H. A. Juynboll states that the term ahl al-Qur'in, like hamalat al-Qur'dn, referred to specific contingents within the Muslim army;107 similarly, Mar- tin Hinds refers to the qurrid as forming part of military detachments.108 Norman Calder understood the qurria to refer to "temporary or seasonal troops . . . as opposed to full-time professionals, the standing army."109 Juynboll has further stated that the qurrid were of low social rank and were villagers.110 He considers the qurrii to be the same as ahl al-Qur'dn (with which I do not disagree) but then considers the term ahl al-Qur-iin to be a cor- ruption of ahl al-quri, following M. A. Shaban's reading of qurrid as qurd.111 This argument seems rather hastily founded; Redwan Sayed's criticism of this position is apt.112 A variety of sources taken together (including the fa~di'il al-Qur'dn) clearly suggest that qurrid was a broad term, not to be restricted to compo- nents of military contingents or to people from specific socio-economic backgrounds and that it referred primarily to all those who engaged in what their name suggests-reciting the Qur'an. C. H. M. Versteegh has also downplayed the equation of the qurrid with specific military detachments and has suggested that "the im- popularity (sic) of the qurrd' lies in the fact that they overstepped their bounds, so to speak, by claiming on the basis of their ability to memorize and recite the text of the Qur'an a position they had no right to.'1113 By this he means that the qurrd' were perceived by the grammarians in particular as laying claims to a linguistic competence vis-a-vis the Qur'an that only they (sc. the grammarians) supposedly possessed."14 Versteegh's po-

sition is certainly credible in view of our own survey of the fa~di'il al-Qur'in traditions, many of which convey the animosity between the qurrd' and the grammarians, among other types of scholars.

But I would go further and suggest that this debate be seen in its larger socio-political context of the early centuries of Islam. Elsewhere, I have discussed how the principles of slbiqa ("precedence" or "priority" in con- version to Islam, in emigration, and participation in the major battles of Islam) and moral excellence (faglla) became very important in the ordering of early Islamic society."15 As various "interest" groups competed for religious authority and social prominence, they did so on the basis of claiming to outstrip contenders in moral excellence. The early Kufan qurrd' in particular, drawn from the early sahiba, had benefited from the principle of sabiqa first systematically applied by 'Umar, the second caliph, in the setting up of the diwln, the register of pensions. But under 'Uthman, who reversed 'Umar's policy in many ways, they saw their influence eroding; this must have induced considerable anxiety on their part, as has been pointed out by Martin Hinds.116 The principle of sibiqa had conferred on the qurra' what Hinds terms "Islamic sharaf "I7 as opposed to "genealogical sharaf," for which latter notion they are said to have harbored contempt. Many of the qurra' were in fact drawn from the Ansar and the mawdli,l18 two groups that would have to vie with the mostly Arab-born Makkan emigrants to Madina (al-MuhdjirUn) for precedence. We saw above that the isnads of some fa~da'il al-Qur'dn and pro-ahl al-Qur'dn traditions contain the names of mawdld. Subscription on the part of the mawlli to norms of Islamic piety and egalitarianism, expressed best in their loyalty to the Qur'an and in their claim to superior knowledge of it, made the qurrif/ahl al- Qur'dn the equals, at least religiously speaking, of the Makkan-born Muslims (as in the case of Ibn Abza referred to below).

Inasmuch as we see a regional pattern developing in this survey, the following brief observations can be

107 See his "The Qur'an Reciter on the Battlefield and Con- comitant Issues," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen

Gesellschaft 125 (1975): 11-27. 108 See his "Kufan Political'" 363. 109 See his "The Qurrd' and the Arabic Lexicographical

Tradition," Journal of Semitic Studies 36 (1991): 305. 110 See his "The qurrdi in early Islamic history"' Journal of

Economic and Social History of the Orient 16 (1973): 113-29

and "The Qur'dn Reciter'" 22-23. 1 See Shaban, Islamic History, 23, and n. 3. 112 See his Revolte des Ibn al-Af'at, 277-78. 113 Arabic Grammar, 178. 114 For a study of the considerable social power that accrued

to the grammarians, see Michael Carter, "Language Control as

People Control in Medieval Islam: The Aims of the Grammar-

ians in Their Cultural Context," in the special volume (31) of

al-Abhiath entitled Arab Language and Culture, ed. Ramzi

Baalbaki (Beirut, 1983), 65-84. 115 See my forthcoming book Excellence and Precedence:

Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership (Lei-

den, 2002). 116 "Kufan Political," 348ff.; idem, "The Murder of the Ca-

liph 'Uthmn1," International Journal of Middle East Studies 3

(1972): 462ff. 117 "Kufan Political,' 347. 118 Cf. Sayed, Revolte des Ibn al-A rat, 284, 290ff.


made. In the sources that we survey, adherence to the Qur'dn appears to have been most vociferously expressed by the Iraqi qurra', based mainly in Kufa and to a lesser extent in Basra, corroborating Sayed's similar observations based on a close reading of historical and biographical sources."19 Later, the Sufi strongholds of Marw and 'Abbadan appear also as sources for pro-ahl al-Qur'iin and fa4d'il al-Quriin traditions. Pietistic opposition to written transmission of the Qur'an, which will be more fully discussed below, also seems to have emanated strongly from Kufan and, to a lesser extent, Basran circles, paralleling Michael Cook's observations about similar regional patterns of opposition to written transmission of hadith. Closer isnid analysis of pro-ahl al-Qur'iin traditions would likely further confirm this regional trend (a venture that is at present beyond the scope of this article).

Reports such as those given above that ascribe exalted status (albeit mostly deferred until the next world) to the ahl al-Qur'dn betray a defensive undertone, for they point to their valiant efforts to hold their own, both against the professional qussiis and an emerging professional class of 'ulamil' by the second/eighth century. The professional qussais and the 'ulamd' appear to have been regarded by the ahl al-Quriin as being more in- terested in the Qur'an in relation to the practice of their profession or perceived as being more inclined to study hadith over the Qur'dn. For example, vying for precedence between the ahl al-Quriin and an incipient ahl al-hadith is manifest in the following account, recorded by Ibn Kathir, quoted here in part. Al-Harith al-A'war (d. 65/684), one of the early Kufan qurra','20 related:

I passed by a mosque in which the people were discussing hadith. I came upon 'All and said, "O Amir al-Mu'minin, have you not seen people engrossed in hadith?" He said,

"Have they done that?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Have I not heard the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, say, "Indeed they will be [a source of] dissension (fitna)." I asked, "So what is the way out of that, 0 Messen- ger of God?" He said, "The book of God which contains news of what was before you, reports about what will be after you, and a judgment upon what is between you. It is decisive, not frivolous; those who abandon it from among the mighty will be chastened by God and whoever seeks guidance in other than it will be led astray by God. It is the strong rope of God, the wise saying; it is the straight path; it is the one which does not mislead one's desires nor con- fuse tongues."'2'

It contrast to the ahl al-Qur'dn, this account repre- sents those who are inclined to hadith as prone to error and confusion, and contains an indictment of their mis- placed devotion to the reported speech of Muhammad at the expense of the clear speech of God.'22 Among the proponents of hadith should also be included the professional qussas, who are known to have recited not only the Qur'an but also hadith as part of their activities.'23

It should be pointed out that the qurrii/ahl al-Qur'dn were not the only ones alarmed at the rise of the 'ulamil' class. A segment of the older traditions that express suspicion and animosity towards the grammarians and humanistically inclined scholars should also be seen as having been propagated by a certain segment of the qusslis themselves, who were the early moral guard- ians of society and its earliest religious functionaries. It is noteworthy that those labeled sermonizers (wu"iiz),

warners (mudhakkiriin), and preachers or storytellers (qussds) who exhorted others to the right path, are regarded by scholars as having served a praiseworthy religious function, essential to the consolidation of nascent Islam. Ibn al-Jawz! points out that the Qur'an itself counseled Muhammad to admonish, remind, and

119 Ibid., 289ff.; cf. Hinds, "Murder," 462-63; idem, "Kufan Political," 351, 358-59. See also Versteegh, Arabic Grammar, 174, where he states, "During the second century of the Higra, Kufa became the centre of Qur'anic learning, much more so than Basra." A report attributed to Salman al-Fdrisi points to this distinctive status of Kufa; Salman stated, "The people of Kufa are the people of God (ahl Allah), and it [sc. Kufa] is the dome (qubba) of Islam for which every Muslim yearns,"' see Ibn al-Faqih, Kitab al-Bulddn, ed. YUsuf al-Hdwi (Beirut 1416/1996), 201. For differences between Kufan and Basran attitudes toward Qur'dn reading and recitation, see Versteegh, Arabic Grammar, 175-83.

120 For whom see Ghdyat al-nihaya, 1: 201, #922 who "read with" (qara'a 'ala) 'All and Ibn Mas'cid. Some said he was a Shici.

121 Ibn Kathir, Fada'il al-Qur~an, 10, where he states that this hadith became well known through al-HIrith al-A'war's transmissions. There was much "talk" about al-A'war (wa-qad takallamfi fih), continues Ibn Kathir, and some impugned him on account of his opinions and beliefs. As for whether he deliberately lied in his hadiths, only "God knows best."

122 In this connection, see Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri: Qur'anic Commentaries and Tradition (Chi- cago, 1957), 2: 60, where she refers to the rahba ("fear") of the Prophet's hadith on the part of AbU Bakr and 'Umar, for example, giving way "to reverential awe (haibah) and pious pomp and glorification (taczim al-hadith) before the end of the first century."

123 Athamina, "Qasas," 60.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qurdn 17

preach (2:63; 88:21; 51:55; 7:176).124 In his mention of the leaders (al-sdddt) of the qussds and the mudhak- kiruin, he lists the Prophet first, followed by AbN Bakr, 'Umar, 'All, 'Abd Allah Ibn Mas'Ud, 'Utba b. Ghazwan, and other distinguished Companions and Successors.125 Over time, however, these appellations acquired pe- jorative connotations, especially among the 'ulama', because subsequent generations of qussds (presumably after the Tdbictin) became known for their ignorance and their propensity to fabricate or relate faulty traditions.'26 It is worthy of note that the early qussds were expected to be comprehensive (fa-yanbaghi an yakiina kimilan) in their knowledge of various disciplines, as Ibn al- Jawzi points out.127 An example of such a learned qass is MUsa b. Sayyar al-Aswari (death date not available), described by al-Jahiz (d. 255/869) as "one of the won- ders of the world," who could easily explicate the Qur'an in both Arabic and Persian.'28

Among the early qussds should be included the qu1ddh ("judges"), who in the days before the rise of formal fiqh, made legal deliberations to a considerable extent according to ra'y or personal opinion, especially based on personal interpretation of the Qur'an. The dual function of qidlY-qdss was not unusual in the first/seventh century, as in the case of Sulaym b. 'Itr, mentioned above'29 and AbM Idris 'A'idh Allah b. 'Abd Allah al- Khawlan! (d. 86/699), appointed qkdh in Damascus by the Umayyad caliph, 'Abd al-Malik (d. 87/705).130 Abui Idris' learning is underscored when he is described as "the jurisprudent of the people of Syria" (faqih ahl al-

Shdm) and "the scholar of Syria" (Cdlim al-Sham)," second in rank only to the Companion AbN 'l-Darda'.131 The early qadi was also frequently a reader of the Qur'dn, described variously in tabaqdt works as qiriP, or as one of the hamalat al-Qur'dn, or as hdfiz.132 The combination of q4ss-qdri-D was also not unheard of as in the case of Muslim b. Jundub (d. 130/747);133 neither was the combination qdss-qdrTP-qddi as in the case of 'Ubayd b. 'Umayr b. Qatada (d. 74/693), known as AbN Wa'il, who preached during the time of 'Umar b. al- Khattab, transmitted hurtif, and functioned as qadi.'34 These various combinations demonstrate the fluidity of the lines of demarcation between these early occupations and the qualifications in common between them.'35 The rise of the 'ulaml' in the second/eighth century must have elicited dismay and considerable anxiety on the part of these early professional qussdv1/qu~ddh/qurrid over the potential erosion of their influence; the gener- alist would have to cede authority to the specialist.'36

124 See Kitdb al-qussis, section "Fl madh al-qasas wa-'l- wa'z," 163-74.

125 Ibid., 209ff. 126 Ibn Taymiyya lists some of these fabricated traditions in

his Ahadith qussas (Cairo, 1414/1993). See also Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 1: 384-85, where the qdss Thdbit b. Aslam al-Bundni al-Basr! (d. 127/744) is depicted as relating deliberately mixed- up hadiths. Personally, however, he is depicted as a very pious man who recited the Qur'dn day and night.

127 Talbis, 198. Cf. Athamina, "Qasas," 60, 63-64. 128 Al-Baydn wa-'l-tabyin, ed. Hasan al-Sandibi (Cairo,

1351/1932), 1: 284; for examples of other learned qussas, see 1: 284-85. Cf. also Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 2: 153.

129 Cf. Athamina, Qasas, 63. 130 For whom see Shams al-Din Ibn Tulun, Qudit Dimashq,

ed. Saldh al-Din al-Munajjid (Damascus, 1956), 5; Ibn 'Asa-

kir, Ta rikh Madinat Dimashq, ed. Saldh al-Din al-Munajjid

(Damascus, n.d.), 2: 50. See also Irit Bligh-Abramski, "The

Judiciary (Qadis) as a Governmental-Administrative Tool in

Early Islam," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 47.

131 Ibn Tulin, Qudat Dimashq, 5. For Abli 'I-Dardd', whose

status as a Companion is disputed, see EI2, s.v., 1: 113-14. 132 See Quddt Dimashq, 5, #6; 11, #13, 14; 17, #22. 133 See al-Jdhiz, Bayan, 1: 284, where there is a reference to

Ibn Jundub, described as the qass of the Prophet's mosque in Madina during the reign of 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Aziz. He served as the Imam and qdrF of the people of Madina; see further, Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihaya, 2: 297, #3600, where 'Umar b. 'Abd

al-'Azlz is described as having favored Ibn Jundub's reading/ recitation. See also al-Qifti, Inbah al-ruwah 'ald anbah al-nuhah, ed. M. AbU 'l-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo, 1950-73), 3: 261. Ibn Jundub is also described by Ibn al-Jazari as hav-ing been at odds with "the people of Madina" (ahl al-Madina) in pronouncing the glot-

tal stop; the latter is said to "not have pronounced the glottal stop

when Ibn Jundub did" (la yuhammizfina mata hammaza Ibn Jun- dub); ibid. The ahl al-Madina here is a common reference to

either the qurri' or the early nahwiyyuin ("grammarians") or

both, who belonged to the Madinan "school" that we referred to

earlier; see Talmon, "Eighth-century," 226-27, 234. Incidentally, as Talmon points out, Ibn Jundub was a mawld of the Hudhayl.

134 Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihaya, 1: 496-97, #2064; Ibn

Sa'd, Tabaqdt, 6: 64-69. 135 This is important to keep in mind while perusing our

biographical sources; the biographers do not necessarily list all

occupations pertaining to the subject; alternately, these indi-

vidual designations may be understood to subsume two or

more of these occupations. 136 Edmund Beck, in his "'Arabiyya, Sunna, and 'Amma in

der Koranlesung des zweiten Jahrhunderts," Orientalia n.s. 15

(1956): 180-224, suggests that the old-fashioned learning of

the readers was regarded as unscientific by the later grammarians; cf. Versteegh, Arabic Grammar, 177-78.


This dismay in all likelihood found expression in the kind of reports we cited earlier that express hostility toward the religious and humanistic scholars.

The recognition of the centrality of knowledge of the Qur'dn in determining an individual's moral worth was general, extending also to relationships between groups of people, for example, Arabs and non-Arabs. The Fadd'il al-Qur'dn of al-Razi, for instance, contains two sections'37 that deal with this intrinsic relationship between being "the best reciter" of the Qur'an and the most qualified to assume leadership, in one tradition, of the entire Muslim polity, and, in another, in the context of a more restricted situation. In the first section, entitled "Chapter regarding the one who is the best reciter of the Qur'dn being the most deserving of the imamate," there occurs a tradition from the Companion AbU Mas'ud al-Ansari in which he relates that the Prophet said, "The best reciter of them [sc. the people] of the Book of God will lead the people. If they should be equal with regard to [proficiency in] reciting, then [it shall be] the most knowledgeable of them with regard to the sunna."'38 A version of this hadith is often cited by Shl'! authors to confirm the imamate of 'All after the Prophet's death for, according to them, he was the best Qur'an reciter among the Companions.'39

The second section is entitled, "Chapter regarding those who are the most deserving among the people of leadership on account of their memorization of the Qur'dn." Under this heading, we find the following report, according to which Nafi' b. 'Abd al-Harith'40 met 'Umar b. al-Khattab, who asked the former, "Whom did you leave in charge of Makka?" The answer was Ibn Abza. 'Umar asked, "[Is he] a mawid?" NMfi'a replied, "Yes, he is a reciter of the Book of God the Exalted." 'Umar said, "God enhances [the status] of certain people by this Qur'an and diminishes [that of] others by it."''4' This well-attested tradition underscores unam- biguously that a non-Arab could have precedence over

an Arab on account of the former's superior knowledge of the Qur'an. That this report is attributed to 'Umar is not without significance. 'Umar, after all, was the caliph who had set up the diwan, the register of pensions which, since it was committed to financially rewarding Muslims on the basis of piety as manifested in early service to Islam (sabiqa), had the effect of favoring the MuhajirUn, the overwhelming majority of whom were Arabs and, to a considerable extent, from the Quraysh. In this report, 'Umar's true intention in applying the principle of sabiqa becomes clear; in the case of a non- Muhajir Arab and a non-Arab, one had precedence over the other only on the basis of moral excellence, gauged in this case by one's superior religious knowledge. In both this and the report immediately above, we discern a radical religious egalitarian attitude subversive of so- cially and culturally constructed superiorities based on ethnic and tribal considerations.'42

3) The Authoritativeness of Oral vs. Written Trans- mission. One may read into many of the reports contained in the fadd'il al-Qurdn works the insecurities generated in a society that is rapidly making the transition from one based on oral transmission to one based on written transmission. Scholars have recently mar- shaled impressive arguments and a considerable body of evidence to indicate that this transition occurred much earlier than has been commonly assumed and that written documents were prevalent as early as the late first/seventh century.'43 Such a transition brought about an attendant transfer of religious authority and social power from the traditional pious elite to an emerging class of professional religious scholars, whose expertise was defined in large measure by mastery of the written

137 Al-Rizi, Fadd'il al-Qurd1n, 97ff. 138 Ibid., 97. See al-Fasawi, al-Ma'rifa, 1: 449-50, where an

almost verbatim version of this hadith, also from AbN Mas'lid al-Ansdri, is recorded.

139 See, e.g., Ahmad Ibn Tdwfls, Bind' al-maqdla al-fiji- miyyafl naq4 al-risdla al-'uthmaniyya, ed. 'All al-'Adnan! al- Ghurayfi (Qumm, 1990), 287.

140 For whom see Isdba, 6: 226, #865 1. 141 Al-Razi, Fadd'il al-Qur'in, 100; also reported by Ibn

Maja, Sunan, 1: 42; al-Darimi, Sunan, 2: 443; Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi (d. 643/1245), Fadd'il al-Qur'an wa-thawib man ta'allamahu wa-'allamahu, MS Leiden Uni- versity Library, OR 2467, fol. 2a.

142 Cf. Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997), esp. 114ff.

143 See Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri: Historical Texts (Chicago, 1957), 1: 1-31; Fuat Sezgin, GAS, 1: 62ff.; Jeannette A. Wakin, The Function of Documents in Islamic Law (Albany, 1972), 4-7. For recent, comprehensive discussions of these two modes of transmission, see Gregor Schoeler, "Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mundlichen Uber- lieferung der Wissenschaften im fruhen Islam," Der Islam 62 (1985): 201-30; idem, "Weiteres zur Frage der schriftlichen oder mundlichen Uberlieferung der Wissenschaften im Islam," Der Islam 66 (1989): 38-67; idem, "Muindliche Thora und Hadith: Uberlieferung, Schreibverbot, Redaktion," Der Islam 66 (1989): 213-51; idem, "Schreiben und Veroffentlichen: Zu Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten," Der Islam 69 (1992): 1-43; idem, "Writing and Publishing on the Use and Function of Writing in the First Centuries of Islam," Arabica 44 (1997): 423-35.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qur'dn 19

text. Nabia Abbott has stressed that this historical tension between oral and written transmission in Islam's first century found moral overtones. She states that those groups who represented "pious scholarship" and, therefore, were "orthodox," were the ones who "struggled to hold onto the idea of the absolute primacy of oral transmission."144 This attitude, as reported by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 463/1071) and others, is believed to have stemmed from 'Umar's edict against the writing down of hadith; he had himself vowed not "to corrupt the book of God with anything ever." 145 We find a similar trend of pious opposition to an exclusive mode of written transmission of the Qur'dn reflected in the fa~d1'il al-Qur'dn literature. Respect for caliphal precedent would explain to a considerable extent why pious, learned people would resist further additions of diacritics and vowels to the 'Uthmanic consonantal text, not sanctioned by the RashidUn caliphs,146 and why oral transmission, hallowed by tradition, would remain for them the preferred medium.

One account nicely encapsulates the apprehension generated by the ascendancy in the second/eighth century of the mushaf (the written Qur'an copy) over oral transmission. The account states that when 'Ikrima b. [Abi] Jahl (d. 105/723-24) heard that the mushaf had become widespread (intashara), he swooned (ghashiya 'alayhi) and (apparently on coming to) lamented, "It is the speech of my Lord (kallm rabbi); it is the speech of my Lord!'1'47 The emphasis on speech (kallm) draws

attention to what Brinkley Messick has termed "a culturally specific logocentrism" 148 in Islam, borrowing the term from Jacques Derrida.149 This logocentrism privileged the spoken word for, "while recitation was thought to maintain a reliable constancy of meaning, the second medium of writing was seen as harboring a prospect of misinterpretation."150 William Graham, among others, has rightly emphasized the Qur'an's role as an oral, devotional text in Muslim religious life and the primacy of its orality in Islam's early centuries.151 Juynboll cites an account of a stand-off between 'All and the Khawa- rij which should be read as a classic showdown between the authoritativeness of written vs. oral transmission. In this report, after the battle of Siffin, 'Ali turns to a Qur- 'an mushaf and says, "O mushaf, inform the people!" The people (described as qurrd' al-nds) gathered there remonstrated, "It is only ink on paper, we argue on the basis of what we have [orally] transmitted from it!"1 52

144 Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, 2: 24. 145 Taqyid al-'ilm, ed. Yusuf al-'Ish (Cairo, 1974), 2: 19,

and 2: 49-53, where 'Umar is depicted as being averse to writ-

ten copies of hadith and burning them. Cf. also Ibn Sacd,

Kitab al-Tabaqdt al-kabir, ed. Edward Sachau (Leiden, 1904), 5:

140; Ibn al-Jawzi, Sirat 'Umar b. al-Khattiab, ed. Tahir al-Nacsan

al-Hamawi and Ahmad Qadarl Kayladn (Cairo, n.d.), 110-11. 146 For some possible reasons for the eventual spread of

vocalization and the beautification of Qur'an mushafs, see

Adrian Brockett, "The Value of the Hafs and Warsh Transmis-

sions for the Textual History of the Qur'an," in Approaches to

the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'in, ed. Andrew

Rippin (Oxford, 1988), 45. For a comprehensive treatment of

this tension between orality and written transmission, particu-

larly in the case of hadith, see Cook, "The Opponents of the

Writing of Tradition," 437-523, and references therein.

147 See Tibydn, fol. 38b. See also Ibn al-Farra', Kitab al-

Mu'tamad fl usid al-din, ed. Wadi Z. Haddad (Beirut, 1986),

88, where the author says, "the Muslims are agreed that into-

nations and recitations (al-tilawlt wa-'l-qira'dt) are the speech

of God (kalam Allah)." For further discussion of the oral and

written modes of transmission of the Qur'an, see 88-89.

148 The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History

in a Muslim Society (Berkeley, 1993), 25. M. Arkoun has sim-

ilarly stressed this logocentric emphasis in Islamic thought;

see his "Logocentricit6 et v6rit6 religieuse dans la pens~e

islamique: D'apres al-l'lam bi-manaqib al-Islm d'al-'Amird,"

Studia Islamica 35 (1972): 5-51. 149 Of Grammatology, tr. G. C. Spivak (Baltimore, 1974). 150 Messick, Calligraphic State, 25. A similar trend is no-

ticed among early jurists who also preferred oral testimony

from witnesses possessed of moral probity (Caddla) over writ-

ten documents; see Wakin, Function of Documents, 4-10. 151 William Graham, "The Earliest Meaning of Qur'an," Die

Welt des Islams 23-24 (1984): 361-77; "Qur'an as Spoken

Word"' 23-40; idem, Beyond the Written Word, esp. 88-92. 152 See his "The Qur'an Reciter" 24, citing this report from

Ibn Hanbal's Musnad, ed. Ahmad M. Shdkir (Cairo, 1946-56),

1: 86, #656. G. R. Hawting has portrayed the stance of the

qurri'/Khawarij at Siffin as stemming from a "scripturalist

position and a protest against the Oral Law,"' defining oral law

as a combination of sunna and stra; see his article "The

Significance of the Slogan La Hukma illi Lillih and the Refer-

ences to the HudUd in the Traditions about the Fitna and the

Murder of 'Uthman," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Af-

rican Studies 41 (1978): 561. In this he is influenced by John

Wansbrough, who has assumed that the terms "kitib Allah"

and "kalam Allah" included both the canon (imam; mushaf)

and the Sunna"; see his The Sectarian Milieu: Content and

Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978), 69;

and Qur'anic Studies, 51ff. Wansbrough also sees the qurrd'

as arguing over "the sources of authority," i.e., the Qur'an and

the Sunna; see Sectarian Milieu, 119. The fa~da'il al-Qur',an

and ancillary literature cited in this article do not support these

assumptions. Certainly the qurra' were scripturalists in the


The recitational logocentrism described above would be seriously challenged by the entrenchment of a class of professional scholars and scribes by the third/ninth century whose discursive medium became the written word. To state this is not to deny the simultaneity of the two modes of transmission in the early period of Islam, as maintained by Adrian Brockett,153 but to suggest that there was a shift in emphasis from oral to written transmission probably in this century. The fa~d'il al-Qur'dn literature points to the primacy of oral transmission in the early period (the first and second centuries of Is- lam); or perhaps one should say, establishes the higher moral valence attached to orality in the early period by our pietistic circles, since, as tradition informs us, Mu- hammad and his Companions had memorized and dis- seminated the divine word primarily in oral form. It is interesting to compare 'Ikrima's report cited above, as given by al-Nawawl, to a variant version, also from 'Ikrima, as recorded in the earlier Sunan work of al- Darim! (d. 256/869). This version depicts 'Ikrima as placing the mushaf upon his face and exclaiming, "The book of my Lord (kitdb rabbi), the book of my Lord!"154 'Ikrima's dismay over the prevalence of the mushaf in the version recorded by the Tibyln appears to have been transmuted into exaltation of the written Qur'anic text in al-Darimi's version.

Other reports given by al-Darim! point to the superiority of the oral mode of transmission. The Kufan qari' and qidi Muhdrib b. Dithar (d. ca. 116/734) is said to have stated, as recorded by al-Darimi, "Whoever recites the Qur'an from memory ('an zahr qalbih) has

an invitation (dawa) [from God] in this world and in the hereafter."'55 The occurrence of reports alternately sup- porting oral and written transmissions of the Qur'an in al-Darimi's compilation tells us that these divergent views existed concurrently at least in the early second/ eighth century (from the time of the transmitters of these reports), and, very likely, earlier as well.

By the later period, the pendulum has definitely swung towards reliance on written Qur'an copies for recitation. The seventh/thirteenth century scholar al-Nawawl, for example, exhorts the believer to recite from the mushaf rather than from memory (Cald zahri 'I-qaib) since "looking at the written text is a desirable [act of] worship." He continues, "It has been reported by many that the righteous forebears would recite from the mushaf." 156 Al-Nawawi's statement may, in fact, reflect historical reality. It may also be regarded as unequivocally making a religious virtue out of the text-based erudition of the Culam&J, a trait that is retroactively grafted onto the moral exemplars of the early centuries of Islam to create a pious precedent.

ATTITUDES OF HADITH SCHOLARS TOWARD SOME OF

THE FADA'IL AL-QUR'AN REPORTS

In their efforts to separate reliable traditions from spurious ones, the muhaddithuin took a hard look at the corpus of fa~da'il traditions, some of whose texts (mu- tin) were flagrantly in violation of common sense and historicity. The kind of praise traditions in regard to the Qur'an that were most consistently denounced by the ahl al-hadith were those that exaggerated the recompense (thawdb) earned by the believer in reciting certain chapters, such as al-Fdtiha and al-Tawhid, or specific verses, such as dyat al-kursi. 57 The controversial na-

sense of being singularly devoted to the Qur'an, and although we have the one report critical of the ahl al-hadith, the overwhelming majority of reports suggest that the early qurrii' at Siffin, and through most of the first century of Islam, were primarily concerned with the authority of communicative modes-oral vs. written-of Scripture rather than with the authority of sources. Their pietistic conservatism made them militate against exclusive written transmission of the Qur'an, a practice perceived by them as diverging from prophetic and salafi precedent.

153 Brockett in his "The Value of the Hafs and Warsh Trans- missions," 45, states that neither the oral nor the written transmission of the Qur'Zn was primary and suggests that the two processes were rather simultaneous and coeval in importance. Cf. also Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, 2: 57ff.; EI2, "Kitab'" 5: 207; Sayed, Revolte des Ibn al-Asvcat, 279ff., where he points out that the earliest qurrd' were proficient in writing as well.

154 Al-DWriml, Sunan, 2: 440.

155 Ibid., 2: 469. For Muharib, see Ibn Sacd, Tabaqit, 6: 214; Ibn al-Jazari, Ghiyat al-nihiya, 2: 42, #2661; Ibn Hajar, Tah- dhib, 4: 29, where he is generally declared to be a thiqa.

156 Al-Bacalbakki, Mukhtasar Tibyin, fol. 42b. For more of these conflicting reports regarding the merits of Qur'an- recitation from memory vs. the written text, see al-Suyliti, Itqin, 1: 338-39. See also al-Kulayni, Kafi, 2: 577-78, for more traditions which counsel looking at the mushaf while reciting the Qur'5n.

157 In the anonymous treatise Manjfi' al-Qur'an, MS Uni- versity of Leiden library, OL 411, fol. 86a, there is one tradition which states that the Prophet counseled the believer to make two prostrations after the witr prayer (the three rakcas performed at night after the cIsha' prayer). Among other pious utterances, the believer is urged to recite the Throne Verse

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qur'iin 21

ture of this issue is reflected in the following accounts recorded about Siirat al-Tawhid or al-Ikhlas, the 112th chapter. The unusual merit ascribed to this sura is best exemplified in the following tradition commonly related in regard to it, "'Say, he is God the One,' equals a third of the Qur'an." 158 Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1070-71) reports that Ishaq b. Mansur (d. 251/865)159 asked Ahmad Ibn Hanbal regarding the value of this tradition and he did not signify his approval of it (fa-lam yaqul it fthd cald amr). However, according to Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, Ish1q b. Rahawayh (d. 238/853),160 explained this tradition in the following way. He said that when God made His speech more excellent (fa4h41ala) than the rest of speech, He assigned greater recompense to the recitation of part of it [sc. His speech] in order that people would be induced to teach it. He dismisses the understanding of this tradition to imply that reciting it thrice earns for the reciter the reward of having recited the entire Qur'an; "this would not be possible (la yastaqim) even if one were to recite it two hundred times.""161 In commentary on this report, Ibn 'Abd al-Barr counsels "Si- lence on this matter is better than speech regarding it and more sound."'162

As we have seen, all but one of the authors of fa~d'il al-Qur'dn works referred to above record reports attest- ing to the merits of numerous siiras and verses (the one exception is Ibn Kathir as mentioned above). Our survey of the fa~di'il al-Qur'dn literature shows us that there is a certain escalation in the listing of such merits. From the relatively scant references to these exceptional qual- ities in the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq and the .Sahi- han of al-Bukharl and Muslim, for example, we have

the full-blown, detailed cataloguing in later works of the generous recompense guaranteed to the pious upon recitation of certain chapters. The more punctilious hadith scholars took exception to this development. Ibn al-JawzI, al-Zarkashi, and al-Suyilfi, for example, expressed their dismay over the proliferation of such fa~dail accounts and the recording of them by respectable scholars. They questioned the motives of those who circulated these exaggerated accounts; critical scrutiny of their isnids revealed the presence of transmitters with less than sterling reputations.

For example, Ibn al-Jawzi takes exception to the following hadith attributed to Ubayy b. Kab. Frequently cited in this kind of literature, it is related here at some length:

The Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, displayed the Qur'an to me twice in the year in which he died and said, "Gabriel, peace be on him, has commanded me to recite to you the Qur'an and he sends [qara', lit. recites or reads] greetings to you." . . . When the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, recited to me, I asked him if I had a special [part in this]; "if so, impart to me in particular the rewards (thawib) of [reciting] the Qur'an according to what God has taught you and informed you about." He replied, "Yes, Ubayy. Every time a Muslim recites the opening chapter of the Book, he is given as recompense the equivalent of having recited a third of the Qur'dn and of having given alms to every believing man and woman. Whoever recites "Al 'Imran" is given safe passage on the bridge of Jahannam for every verse in it; whoever recites Sflrat al-Nisa' is rewarded the equivalent of having given alms to each person who inherits from him; whoever recites "al-Md'ida" is given ten rewards and ten demerits are wiped out.... And he mentioned the re-

wards that accompanied each siira until the end of the

Qur'an.l63

This custom of listing the merits of each chapter in the Qur'an, although fairly prevalent after the third/ ninth century, was looked at askance by some scholars. For example, al-Zarkash! states that the hadith above attributed to Ubayy b. Ka'b is fabricated. He reports that NUh b. Abi Maryam (d. 173/789-90)164 was once asked

(2: 155) after the first prostration. For such supererogatory acts, he or she attains the merit of having performed a hundred pilgrimages, either the actual hajj or 'umra. Furthermore, for the recitation of each siira in the Qur'dn, the believer is prom- ised merit equivalent to a year's worship and for every verse a city (madina) is said to be built for him or her in heaven. The list goes on with the mention of other abundant rewards for the performance of such actions. Although undated, the exaggerated tone of the contents of this treatise makes it a late work, certainly no earlier than the third/ninth century.

158 See, e.g., al-Muwatta', 1: 99-101. 159 For whom see Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 1: 219-20; Ibn Abi

Yacla, Tabaqit al-Hanibila, ed. Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi (Cairo, 1952), 1: 113-15; al-Khat-lb al- Baghdddl, Ta'rikh Bagh-

dad (Cairo, 1349/1931), 6: 362-64. 160 For whom see EI2, s.v., 3: 902. 161 Al-Suyifti, Itqin, 2: 1140-41. 62 Ibid.

163 Mawdiicdt, 1: 239-40; al-La'dli'l-masniica, 1: 226ff. 164 He was a mawla, son of a Zoroastrian, who was ap-

pointed qddi of Marw. He is described as a Murji'! and prone

to fabricate hadiths; for whom see Ibn H.ajar, Tahdhib, 4: 247-

48; Mizin al-ictiddl, 7: 55-57, #9150; Ibn Hibban al-Busti,

Kitib al-Majriihin, ed. Muhammad Ibrahim Zd'id (Halab,


how he had come to relate a tradition from Ibn 'Abbas regarding the merits of the Qur'an chapter by chapter (ft fad1'il al-Qur'dn siiratan siiratan). He replied, "I saw people turning away from the Qur'an and concerning themselves with the fiqh of AbU Hanifa and the Maghazi of Muhammad b. Ishaq and thus I fabricated these hadiths in their entirety." 165 Al-Zarkash! criticizes Qur'an exegetes like al-Wahid! and al-Thaclabl (d. 427/ 1035-36), who, in their commentaries, consequently came to list such praise accounts at the beginning of each siira. Al-Zamakhshar! (d. 538/1144), however, ap- pended these accounts to the end of each chapter.'66 Ibn al-Jawz! pronounces a similar negative judgment on al-Wahidi and al-Thaclab! for such practices and says that this is not surprising on their part, since they were not one of the ahl al-hadith (implying that they had less scruples about reporting unreliable traditions).167

Ibn al-Jawz! further rebukes Ibn Abi Da'uid for having included this tradition in a work that he composed on the fada'il al-Qur'dn in spite of being aware of the spurious nature of the hadith. He goes on to impugn the reliability of some of the narrators who related this tradition, for example, the second/eighth century Basran traditionist Makhlad b. 'Abd al-Wahid, who was described by Ibn Hibban as "suspect (munkar) of hadith." 168 'Abd Allah Ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181/797) was of the opinion that the zanddiqa169 had fabricated the tradition attributed to Ubayy b. Kacb. Another report states

that a certain "shaykh" related the tradition above from Ubayy to Mu'ammal b. Isma91l (d. 206/821-22).17O The shaykh's transmitters were traced back to the source who was discovered to be a SSidf shaykh living in 'Ab- badan.17' When this shaykh was queried regarding his original transmitter, he replied, "No one related it to me. But when we saw that the people had turned away from the Qur'an, we fabricated this tradition for them so as to turn their faces towards the Qur'an." 172

A number of the above reports may thus convincingly be seen as having been generated against the backdrop of a "battle of piety" waged by various groups as they jostled for moral and political prominence in a society that was still in flux and in which social and political precedence was defined in terms of relative moral excellence. Moral excellence itself would come to be largely predicated on the possession of knowledge; how this knowledge should be defined provided the point of departure for laying claims to this kind of excellence. Ultimately, the ahl al-hadith and the ahl al-fiqh would win the day; their elaborate taxonomy of hadith that could generate certain knowledge, and thus help eluci- date the revealed law, made irrelevant, even seditious (hence the label al-zanidiqa), the less rigorous and relatively unschooled piety of other groups, such as the traditional qurraD/ahl al-Qur'dn and later the ahl al- tasawwuf. 173

CONCLUSION

Our survey indicates that compared to sections similarly named in the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzdq and the

1396/1976), 3: 48. Interestingly, the biographical entries report that Ntih b. Abi Maryam was called Nuih al-Jami' because of his wide education; he had studied, among other disciplines, fiqh with Abu Hanifa and Ibn Abi Layla and maghdzi with Mu- hammad b. Ishaq. It seems that after his formal education, he took a pietistic turn, becoming suspicious of structured religious and humanistic knowledge. For other fada'il al-Qurdn traditions from Nuh, see Ibn al-Jazari, al-Nashrfi 'I-qird'dt, 2: 433.

165 Al-Zarkashi, Burhdn, 1: 432. See also al-Hakim al- Nisabuiri, al-Madkhal ild kitdb al-ikil, ed. Fu'ad 'Abd al- Mun'im Ahmad (Alexandria, n.d.), 54.

166 Al-Burhdn, 1: 432; cf. al-Nawawi, al-Taqrib (Cairo, 1388/1968), 15-16.

167 Mawdcadt, 1: 240. 168 Ibid. For Makhlad, see Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Du'afd' wa-

I-matrukin, 3: 111, #3268; al-Dhahabi, al-Mughni min al- du'afa', ed. Nur al-Din 'Itr (n.pl., n.d.), 2: 648, #6137, where he is dismissed as having reported suspect traditions (la-hu mandkir); idem, Mizdn al-i'tiddl, 6: 388-89, #8396; Ibn Hajar, Lisdn al- mizdn, 6: 9, #8327.

169 This accusation is understandable on account of Nuh b. Maryam's Zoroastrian background.

170 Listed among the ahl al-Basra by Ibn al-JawzI, cAjd'ib Culiim al-Qur'dn, ed. 'Abd al-Fattah 'AshUr (Cairo, 1407/ 1986), 69, and 70 n. 9.

171 MawdiuCdt, 1: 240; see also al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, al- Kifaya fl cilm al- riwdya (Hydarabad, 1357), 401.

172 MawduiCdt, 1: 241; cf. Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, tr. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern (London, 1971), 2: 147.

173 For example, AbU 'l-cAliya, one of the pious Basran tdbicin who is regarded in general as a thiqa, is characterized as being rather unreliable in his hadith reports by al- Shdfi'c, calim and muhaddith par excellence, cf. Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 1: 611. The influence of the qussds did not wane completely after the third/ninth century. The stories they had circulated, like the qisas al-anbiya', became incorporated into learned works of exegesis and their primary function of popular preaching was adopted by many of the culama' in the later period; see Jonathan Berkey, "Storytelling, Preaching, and Power in Mam- luk Cairo," Mamluk Studies Review 4 (2000): 69.

AFSARUDDIN: The Excellences of the Qur'dn 23

Sahilhan of al-Bukhdri and Muslim, for example, the fa~dI'il al-Qur'dn works show many points of conver- gence on issues that point to the unique properties of the Islamic revelation and the excellence of it as a whole and of its parts. The traditions in common in this kind of literature are concerned primarily with the excellence of those who learn and teach the Qur'dn and with the merits of specific siiras, particularly SUrat al-Baqara, al- Fatiha, and al-Ikhlds. Our discussion also clearly indicates a certain evolution in the kind of themes in this type of literature. In tandem with other fa~dI'il genres, particularly the fa~di'il al-sahaba, the fadk'il al-Qur'dn as deployed by certain interest groups became also a literature of advocacy. By this I mean to say that it came to serve, in part at least, as a literary vehicle to advocate the greater excellence of certain groups of people over others in negotiating for precedence (sabiqa) and excellence in a merit-conscious society. According to one set of traditions, the ahl al-Qur'ln resented the encroach- ments of a professional class of grammarians, copyists, Qur'dn-reciters and teachers, who, according to them, sought to "corrupt" the original verbum dei with an excessive concern for the grammatical apparatus of precise reading, by resorting to showy ornamentation to beautify the masahif, and/or by making a livelihood out of teaching the sacred text. We also witness the apprehension of the traditional qurrdi/ahl al-Qur'dn over the increasing preference on the part of the 'ulamd', particularly the professional qurri', for relying on the mushaf rather than on memory for the recitation of the Qur'an. We have suggested that reports conveying this apprehension regarding the switch in the mode of transmission also encode the dismay of the pious non- professional reciters, and a segment of the early professional qussds/qudih/qurri', at the anticipated loss in their social standing and devaluation of their traditional, oral-based learning. In one instance, we encounter suspicion on the part of the ahl al-Qur'dn, who fear a re- sultant attrition in the Qur'dn's preeminence, directed toward the burgeoning hadith literature and its advocates, the ahl al-hadith. Counter-traditions point to the growing ascendancy of a professional class of scholars over the traditional qurra-' and reflect the former's approval of, for example, vocalization of the Qur'anic text, embellishment of the masahif, and acceptance of wages for teaching the Qur'an.

It should be noted here that not a single reference has been found to the mufassiriun ("exegetes") as a group and named as such in this literature. Favorable reference to exegetical activity as a whole, and particularly at a personal level, may be discerned, however, in those reports that counsel deep reflection upon the meaning of Qur-

'5nic verses and that warn believers against hasty and non-contemplative reading of the text. Mujahid b. Jabr, listed as one of the qurra' by Ibn al-Jazari,174 is, after all, also a well-known exegete. One may understand the absence of any judgmental position on the mufassiriin to constitute an argumentum e silentio in favor of the prevalent modern scholarly opinion that exegetical activity as such was not disapproved of in the early period (pace Goldziher),175 or at least did not arouse the kind of suspicion that, for example, the recording and dissemination of hadith did.176 Versteegh's conjecture that "there was no strict separation between tafs r and qird'a" in the early stage seems eminently sensible in light of the present survey.177

Sellheim's remark that "The nucleus of the fadi'il al- Kur'ln consists of sayings-concerning the excellences of the individual suras and verses and the reward for those who occupy themselves with them '1178 is essen- tially correct but incomplete. The nucleus of this corpus of traditions does consist of reports that testify to the excellences of certain siiras and the promise of reward for their recitation. However, such reports in the Mu- sannaf of 'Abd al-Razzdq, the Sahihan, and the early fa'da'il works of Abil 'Ubayd, Ibn Durays, and al-Nasd'i do not yet promise unusual recompense in the hereafter as a consequence. Later versions would add consider- ably to this limited list, culminating in lengthy reports like the one from Ubayy b. Kacb, which enumerate the merits of each siira in an exaggerated manner and catalogue the exceptional rewards earned by the pious in reciting these chapters.

One must also include in this nucleus the archaic traditions that are concerned with emphasizing the moral excellence of the ahl al-Qur'an, who learn, teach, and recite the Qur'an. This is consonant with the early basic meaning of fa4diil as positive traits or excellences. A significant number of traditions found in the later fa~di'il al-Qur'dn works emphasize the greater moral excellence of readers, teachers, and transmitters of the Qur'an relative to other groups of people by recounting in particular the extraordinary otherworldly, and some- times worldly, rewards that accrue to them. By the

174 Ghdyat al-nihiya, 2: 41-42, #2659. 175 Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koran-

auslegung (Leiden, 1920), 56. 176 See Harris Birkeland, Old Muslim Opposition Against

Interpretation of the Koran (Oslo, 1955), 13ff.; Abbott, Stud-

ies in Arabic Literary Papyri, 2: 106-13. 177 Arabic Grammar, 185. 178 E12, "Fadila' 2: 728.


third/ninth century, the concept of otherworldly reward (thawab) is harnessed by certain interest groups as a metaphor for asserting their greater religious authority and social preeminence in this world. Traditions that quite patently display these parenetic and partisan pur-

poses behind their propagation must be considered as belonging to a later layer. The unraveling of the purposes that are interwoven into these reports provides fascinating insights into Islam's contested past.

afsaruddin - the excellences of the qurʾān; textual sacrality and the organization of early...

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