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Scribal Concerns About The Holy Qur'an
Are There Scribal Errors
In The Qur'ân?
Muhammad Ghoniem,
M S M Saifullah, cAbd ar-Rahmân Robert Squires
& cAbdus Samad
© Islamic
Awareness, All Rights Reserved.
Assalamu-alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:
In the following article, we contemplate
giving some clues in answer to the strange claims
made by Mr. Newton on the scribal issues of the Qur'ân.
In short, the author of that page
notices rightfully that the spelling of many words in the Holy Qur'ân does
not match their spelling in modern literature. He wishes to prove that the
Qur'ân is not miraculous and uses scribal pecularities to support his claims.
He, of course, seems to be unaware of the way the Arabic script developed due to
many reasons, the primary one being the correct pronunciation of the letters in the
Qur'ân.
The Rise
& Development Of The Qur'ânic Script
Let us first deal with the idea of introduction of
vowel signs in the Qur'ân and the need for then. These signs are called tashkîl
in Arabic and they help to determine the correct pronunciation of the word and to
avoid mistakes. When the Islamic state expanded, more and more Muslims of non-Arab
origin and also many ignorant Arabs studied the Qur'ân, thus faulty pronunciation
and wrong readings began to increase. Abû 'Ubaydah narrated about Abû
al-Aswad al-Du'alî::
Abû al-Aswad derived grammar from
cAlî Ibn Abî Tâlib, for
whom may there be peace, but he did not disclose to anyone what he had learned from
cAlî, whose countenance may Allah honour,
until Ziyad appointed him for the composition of something to serve as a guide to
the people, so that they could understand the book of Allah. Abû al-Aswad asked
to excused from this task, until one time when he heard a reader recite, Allah is quit of the idolators and of His Apostle (Qur'ân 9:3 should have been read as Allah is quit of the idolators and so is His Apostle). Then he said, "I never supposed that the
condition of the people would come to this!" So he returned to Ziyad and said,
"I will do what the emir has ordered. Let there be sought for me a scribe who
is intelligent and obedient to what I say". They brought, therefore, a scribe
from the cAbd al-Kays Tribe, but he [Abû al-Aswad]
was not satisfied with him. Then they came with another one, about whom Abû
al-cAbbas al-Mubarrad said, "I regard him to
be one of those [who are intelligent]." So Abû al-Aswad said [to the new
scribe], "If you see that I open my mouth in pronouncing a letter, place a mark
above, on top of it. If I close my mouth [making a u sound], place a mark
in front of the letter, and if I split [my lips] double the mark." So this was
the marking system of Abû al-Aswad.[1]
It is interesting to note that the early manuscripts
and parchments of the Qur'ân as well as the inscriptions are devoid of vowel
signs.
From the Qur'ân
of cUthmân, the Third Rightly Guided Caliph, Kept
In Taskent.
Tombstone inscription
of cAbd ar-Rahmân al-Hijri at Aswân,
Egypt.
Dated 31 A. H. / 654 C. E.
(Islamic Museum, Cairo, Egypt)
On the issue of Qur'ânic manuscripts and parchments,
Nabia Abbott writes:
When we come to consider the vowel signs,
1st century manuscripts are of no aid, since no such signs appear in any secular
document of that date. However, Kur'ân manuscripts credited to the period show
a consistent vowel system in which a single red dot above, below, or to the side
of a letter stood for the vowels A, I, and U respectively, and two such dots indicated
the tanwin. The text of early Kur'âns, however, is never completely
voweled, the vowel sign for one or more of the letters of a given word being used
only where it was essential for a correct reading. The Arabic traditions place the
introduction of the system early in the Muslim era, in fact crediting cAlî with it. Whether cAlî
deserves the credit or not makes little difference for the date in question, for
the majority of the sources credit a contemporary of cAlî,
Abû al-Aswad al-Du'alî, with the system. They tell how, having at first
refused to introduce the system at the request of Ziyad Ibn Abihi, governor of Irak,
he finally did so when he heard the Kur'ân being wrongly recited. The system
could not have been widely spread or generally used, for we find Hajjâj
facing the same problem in Irak and ordering Nasr Ibn cAsim
to safeguard the pronunciation of the Kur'ân; Nasr, so the story goes,
introduced the double dots for the tanwin. even this did not estabish the general
use of the system, for again we find Yahya Ibn Yacmar
given credit for it, which credit is likewise shared by Hasan al-Basri.
Still these efforts and their results proved insufficient, for again Khalîl
Ibn Ahmad is credited with introducing the hamzah and the shaddah,
the raum and the ishmam, as he is also credited with the vowel signs
that are still in use for A, I, and U. The last were originally miniatures of the
letters alif, y and w, respectively.[2]
The above quotes clearly mention
that the reasons for the introduction of tashkîl and as well as tanwîn
signs was, to facilitate the correct reading of the Qur'ân. A superfluous change
in the script does not mean it is corrupted.
An excellent example which shows how the Arabic script
progressed is the writing of the letter qâf on the Dome of the Rock.
The letter qâf is marked by one stroke below it five times on the Dome
of the Rock, whereas today, qâf is written with two dots on top. Examples
of this kind can only be found in early copies of the Qur'âns. For details
of inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock.[3]
(a)
(b)
Comparative study of the
Qur'ân scripts adopted in the (a) Middle East and (b) North Africa (except
Egypt).
The cursive script of North
Africa is called Maghribi script. Notice the dot position for qâf and
fa in Maghribi script as well as the verse numbering system! This is from
Surah al-Baqarah.
Another important example would be the Maghribi script
which is used in North Africa. Before the practice of marking fa with one
dot above and qâf with two dots above was established, both these letters
were marked by one sign (dot or stroke) only. This usage still persists in Maghribi
script, which has fa with a dot below and qâf with a dot above.
In early times, however, the opposite way of marking, i.e., fa with a dot
above and qâf with a dot below is also attested.
Sometimes, it is also advisable to stop and reflect...
The Alleged
Scribal Errors
The script of any language (not only
Arabic) is subject to many changes and amendments agreed upon by the users of that
language throughout history. Writing being a communication tool, the script must
be devoid of ambiguity so that the information carried gets from the sender to the
recepient without ambiguity. Once in a while, linguists decide to change certain
scribal rules in order to simplify the script. For instance, a recent amendment in
Arabic script occurred in the middle of the 1980's. It concerned the rules of drawing
the hamzah. Originally, in some cases, the hamzah was drawn on a wâw
letter and was followed by a long vowel wâw, thus putting two consecutive wâws
in the same word. In this regard, Arab linguists decided to eliminate the first wâw
and draw the hamzah either on the line or on a hook (nabirah) followed
by the second wâw. Here is the illustration of this recent rule:
The following is the spelling of
the word/name ra'ûf before the mid-80's:
The following is the spelling of the same word after
1985:
The same applies to many other words like mas'ûliyyah
(i.e., responsibility) or sho'ûn (i.e., concerns). So, what do we have
here? If the argument of the critic was acceptable then the Arabic literature published
before 1985 would be full of errors! Actually, the script being a matter of conventions,
one cannot say that books older than 1985 are full of mispelled words while the ones
published after that date are correct. In reality, both are correct given the scribal
conventions prevailing in their time. It doesn't make sense to judge written
material based on conventions other than the ones in which it was written.
It is noteworthy that the Qur'ân is written
according to the cUthmânic scribal conventions (rasm) and not according
to the modern conventions. After learning the conventions of the cUthmânic
script (it is as easy as any alternative convention), any reader is able to read
the Holy Qur'ân correctly. This means that the message of the Qur'ân
is entirely transmitted from the hardcopy to the reader without ambiguity. It is
also noteworthy that the modern script still bears many anomalies that could
be amended later. For example, words like dhâlik or lâkin
ought to be written with alif letters but, according to the modern scribal
conventions, they are written without alif. This is to say that:
(i.e., lâkin) ought to be written
and the word
(i.e., dhâlik) ought to be written
But even in the modern script those anomalies are
not corrected. In the aforementioned elaboration, we have conclusively established
that the position of the critic is both unreasonable and ill-founded. One question
may remain: Why don't Muslims
abandon the cUthmânic script and adopt
the modern script? This question needs
a separate exposition and may be too lenghty for the purpose of this article. We
will discuss about it briefly, insha'allah.
The Qur'ânic Orthography
The discussion in this section is adapted from Qur'ânic Orthography: The
Written Representation Of The Recited Text Of The Qur'ân by M A S Abdel Haleem, Islamic
Quarterly, pp.171-192, 19xx.
In the cUthmânic copies, the Qur'ân was written in a particular
rasm (orthography) which became known as al-rasm al-cUthmâni (the cUthmânic
way of writing the text of the Qur'ân) also referred to as rasm al-mushaf.
As the copies made at his orders and distributed to various parts of the Muslim world
were meant to be authoritative, it is no wonder that their rasm assumed authority
as the correct way of writing the Qur'ân. Arabic orthography at the time was
not yet developed in the way we have known for centuries, particularly in two important
areas. There was no distinction between letters of the alphabet of similar shape
and there were no vowel marks. This may now give the impression that such a system
must have given rise to great confusion in reading. This was not actually the case
because the morphological patterns of words in Arabic enable readers to read even
very unfamiliar material without the short vowels being marked. More important, however,
as far as the Qur'ân was concerned, was the fact that learning and reading
relied above all on oral transmission. In the Islamic tradition, writing remained
a secondary aid; nevertheless, to ensure correct reading of the written texts of
the Qur'ân, particularly for those coming after the first generation of Muslims,
steps were taken gradually to improve the orthography. This started with the two
above mentioned areas by introducing dots to indicate different vowels and nûnâtion
and these were put in different coloured ink from that of the text. There were also
dots to distinguish between consonants of similar shape. This work was carried out
chiefly by three men: Abû-l-Aswad al-Du'alî (d. 69 / 688), Nasr
Ibn cAsim
(d. 89 / 707) and Yahyâ Ibn Yacmur (d.129 /746). Understandably there was some opposition
at first to adding anything to the way the Qur'ân was written. Ibn cUmar
(73/692) disliked the dotting; others welcomed it, clearly because it was, in fact,
doing no more than ensuring proper reading of the Qur'ân as received from the
Prophet, and this view was accepted by the majority of Muslims throughout the different
parts of the Muslims world, from the time of the tâbicûn.
The people of Madinah were reported to have used red dots for vowels - tanwîn,
tashdîd, takhfîf, sukûn, wasl
and madd and yellow dots for the hamzas in particular. Naqt
(placing dots on words in the mushaf), became a separate subject of
study with many books written on it.
Al-Khalîl Ibn Ahmad (d.170/786)
introduced the traditional vowel signs into Arabic orthography instead of the dots,
but tht dotting system continued in writing Qur'ânic material. Eventually the
traditional vowel signs were adopted for the Qur'ân.
Alongside the development of studies in Arabic grammar,
Arabic orthography also developed for linguistic and literary material, and although
the cUthmânic
rasm was one of the sources of ordinary orthography the latter began to differ
from the cUthmânic
rasm of the Qur'ân. The question was asked whether it was admissible
to write the Qur'ân itself in the new orthography. Mâlik (179/795) was
asked and said: No, the Qur'ân should be written only in the way of the first
writing. He was also asked whether the additional wâw and alif
(as in the word 
)
should be deleted since they were not pronounced and said no. Similarly Ibn Hanbal
(244/858) said it was unlawful to deviate in writing the mushâf
in wâw, yâ, alif
or any other way. In line with such views, it
will be seen that adherence to the Qur'ânic rasm has persisted up to
the present.
A fine example of following
the rasm al-cUthmâni (The cUthmânic way of writing of the text of the
Qur'ân) to this day. The above print is of Warsh Qirâ'ât.
Conclusions
In principle, the cUthmânic script bears more significance than
what we may imagine. In fact, not only is it the script in which the first copies
of the Holy Qur'ân were written but it bears many references to the Science of Qirâ'ât (Science of
Readings) as well. Shifting to the modern script
would make the Qirâ'ât aspect a specialist's affair and would deprive
"normal" Muslims from even noticing it. The next step would be that the
Muslims who are not familiar with Qirâ'ât will become easy prey for anti-Islamic
propaganda, the kind of groundless criticism we are rebutting right now. For a short
introduction about Qirâ'ât, the readers may insha'allah, refer here.
In short, the claim of so-called scribal errors in
the Qur'ân is not only ridiculous but also a fanciful imagination of an extremely
ignorant person.
And Allah knows best!
Related Article
Qur'ânic
Orthography: The Written Representation Of The Recited Text Of The Qur'ân
Articles Refuting Newton's Works
Pseudo-Callisthenes, Dhul-Qarnain & Alexander The Great
On Pre-Islamic Poetry & The Qur'ân
Responses To The Grammatical Errors In The Qur'ân
References
[1] Bayard Dodge (Editor and Translator), The Fihrist of al-Nadim,
1970, Columbia University Press, pp. 87-88.
[2] Nabia Abbott, The
Rise of The North Arabic Script & Its Kur'ânic Development,
1939, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 39.
[3]
Christel Kessler, cAbd
al-Mâlik's Inscription In The Dome Of The Rock: A Reconsideration, 1970, The
Journal Of The Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 2-14.
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