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Book Reviews

Revelation and Falsification: The Kitab al-Qira’at of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sayyari, Critical Edition with an Introduction and Notes by Etan Kohlberg & Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, 2009. Texts and Studies on the Qur’an, vol. 4. Leiden & Boston: Brill, viii + 363 pp. + 201 pp. Arabic text, €159, $259. ISBN: 978-9-00-416782-7. [AD]

M O H A M M A D S A E E D B A H M A N P O U R The Islamic College, London, UK

This is a well researched critical edition of one of the earliest Shi‘a books on the variant readings of the Quran (qira’at). The critical edition of the Arabic text of the book is 201 pages; however, the authors have added 270 pages of helpful and valuable notes at the end with a useful index and fifty-seven pages of introduction. Revelation and Falsification is the fourth volume of the Texts and Studies on the Qur’an series edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe and Gerhard Bowering. Given the former’s involvement with the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, one suspects that the volumes of the Texts and Studies on the Qur’an series treat the Qur’an in a way similar to the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. It is just this approach to the Qur’an which I would like to address because it appears to influence Kohlberg’s and Amir-Moezzi’s reading of Al-Sayyari’s book.

Kitab al-Qira’at is one of the books authored by the notorious Shi‘a scholar of the third/ninth century, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Sayyari, who was regarded by all prominent Shi‘a scholars to be an ‘extremist’ (33) and one ‘holding to a corrupt doctrine’ (33, n. 159). The authors’ introduction includes a brief section on the life and works of Al-Sayyari, in which they report categorical condemnation of Al-Sayyari by such prominent scholars as Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Walid (d. 343/954) who was the most influential scholar of the school of Qum, Al-Saduq (d. 381/991), Al-Najashi (d. 450/1058), and Al-Tusi (d. 460/1068) who was the culmination of the school of Baghdad. However, despite such opposition to Al-Sayyari, the authors say that although views such as Al-Sayyari’s have not been expressed among the Shi‘a in

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‘recent decades’, they ‘were widely held in the first centuries of Islam’ (vii). Given Al-Sayyari’s admitted notoriety, the contention that Al-Sayyari is representative of early Shi‘a thought on the Qur’an requires somewhat more support.

In Kitab al-Qira’at Al-Sayyari reports traditions attributed to the Shi‘a Imams which have been understood by the Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi to indicate that alterations to the Qur’an have occurred over the ages. However, it is not clear if Al-Sayyari himself understood most of those traditions in the same way as the authors because the majority of the traditions in Kitab al-Qira’at could be better understood as interpolation of explanation or deeper interpretation of certain Qur’anic terms or expressions. That is why Kitab al-Qira’at is also called Kitab al-Tafsir in many early bibliographies. The Kitab al-Qira’at title derives from the fact that much of the book’s traditions simply allude to nuances in recitation which are regarded as acceptable by all Muslim scholars of the Qur’an. However, there are a few traditions in Kitab al-Qira’at which clearly indicate the alteration of the Qur’an (e.g. traditions 15, 17, 46, 418-422, 680, 692), although this bunch would not go much beyond what could be found in most mainstream Sunni books and would not justify what the authors claim regarding the early Shi‘a doctrine on the Qur’an.

The introduction of Revelation and Falsification is to be commended for the vast research and diversity of the sources consulted therein. It especially provides a good historical survey of the study of the Qur’an by Western scholars. The authors implicitly reveal in the introduction the reason behind their choice of Al-Sayyari’s book for a critical edition. It bears out their assumption of the ‘alteration of Prophetic message’ which they regard to be the common view of ‘the modern scholar’ (1). It moreover provides proof for the authors’ assumption that ‘the vast corpus of early Shi‘i Hadith, openly questioned the integrity of the ‘Uthmanic codex and accused non-Shi‘is of having falsified the Qur’an’ (25); an assumption that both Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi have, following Goldziher, elaborately explained elsewhere. The authors believe that it was not before the Buwayhid period (starting in the mid fourth/tenth century) that Shi‘a scholars (beginning with ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Babawayh, d. 381/991) began to abandon the alteration thesis and adopt the Sunni viewpoint. They provide a long list of Shi‘a scholars who produced ‘practically all pre-Buwayhid Imami works’ (26) and who also believed in the altered character of the ‘Uthmanic codex. However, the reasons they put forth to explain such a

Book Reviews

Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies Spring 2010 · Vol. III · No. 2

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dramatic shift in creed would not go beyond vague and highly hypothetical presumptions. Unlike Al-Sayyari, all the pre-Buwayhid scholars named by the authors were highly respected by post-Buwayhid authors including Ibn Babwayh to whom they attribute the great creedal shift. The same traditions in the pre-Buwayhid works, from which the authors understand the idea of alteration of the Qur’an and attribute it to the said scholars, were reproduced in post-Buwayhid works without creating doubt about the ‘Uthmanic codex. Moreover, it is not clear how Ibn Babwayh could have singlehandedly changed a longstanding creed – which was, according to the authors, central and crucial to the faith – without facing any opposition or criticism by the community of Shi‘a scholars. At any rate, the justifications the authors provide for such an assumption would not go beyond the arguments of Mirza Husayn Nuri (d. 1320/1902) in Fasl al-Khitab. If anyone finds Nuri’s arguments convincing they may also find some substance in the authors’ claims as well.

In the notes the authors have shown their full command and outstanding expertise on Shi‘a and Sunni sources of tafsir (exegesis) together with their meticulous research. For almost every tradition of the book they have provided plenty of alternative sources and extremely useful notes on the isnad (chain of narrators). In most cases the explanation of the isnad includes helpful elucidations and disambiguation about the reporters appearing in the chain of transmission.

All in all, Revelation and Falsification is a valuable contribution to the study of the Qur’an and to creating a deeper understanding of the Shi‘a creed. The way a Shi‘a scholar who believes in the integrity and unaltered text of the Qur’an may read Kitab al-Qira’at might be quite different from the way Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi have read it. Nevertheless, the belief of the authors in alteration of the Qur’an does not diminish the value of their work. For the authors ‘the concept of alteration lies at the heart of the text of Al-Sayyari’ (1). For a Shi‘a scholar, however, apart from certain traditions in the book which led to unanimous condemnation of Al-Sayyari by Shi‘a scholars, the rest of the book explains to us the way the verses of the Qur’an were applied as general concepts to prove the spiritual position of the Imams as an instance of those concepts. Revelation and Falsification implicitly reveals a very important historical fact as well: the Shi‘a Imams saw the Qur’an as the unique and ultimate source through which they could establish and demonstrate their right.

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