The prophet
first himself memorized the revelations, then he had clerks write them down.
Some of the companions wrote these revealed verses for themselves in order to
memorize and master them and so they created personal mushafs. Although the literature
on the history of Quran and mushafs do not corroborate the number of personal mushafs
or their possessors, numbers vary from four to seven, and even up to twenty-eight
according to some records. Among these mushafs, particularly those of Ubayy b.
Ka‘b, Abdullah b. Mas‘ūd, Ali b. Abī Tālib and Ibn Abbas have been the most distinguished.
In fact, these are the mushafs of which we have some knowledge. Some of these mushafs
circulated beyond the Hijaz. For example, the recitation according to Ubayy’s mushaf
was welcomed in Damascus and the recitation according to Ibn Mas‘ūd’s gained
influence in Kūfa. We have little or no information about mushafs other than
these four. According to reports, there are a series of disagreement between these
personal mushafs and the mushaf arranged during the times of Caliph Abū Bakr and
Caliph Uthmān in respect to the number of chapters (sūrahs) and their
arrangements. As many reports state, unlike Caliph Uthmān’s mushaf, Ibn Masud’s
mushaf does not include the chapters of al-Fātihah (the Opener), al-Falaq (the
Daybreak) and al-Nās (the Mankind); Ubayy’s mushaf includes the supplications
of Qunūt as two separate chapters; and Ali’s mushaf is arranged according to
the order of revelation. The literature on the history of Quran, books on mushaf,
history of sciences, and Quranic sciences have reported many narratives on the
discrepancy between these personal mushafs and Caliph Uthmān’s mushafs in
respect to the arrangement of chapters.
One of
sources on the arrangement of chapters in personal mushafs is a book of
exegesis, Mafātīh al-asrār, attributed to Muhammad b. Abd al-Karīm
al-Shahristānī (d. 548/1153). It seems that this newly circulating book of
al-Shahristānī is valuable for its hitherto unknown information on the personal
mushafs, including the arrangement of Quranic revelations.
Al-Shahristānī
attaches in the preface two unseen tables comparing the chapters according to
the order of revelation and to the order in the mushafs. Although al-Shahristānī
does not disclose the source of these tables, he states that he has reproduced them
verbatim from a person who is highly learned on the arrangement of chapters and
from trustworthy narrators and books. Al-Shahristānī underlines that these
tables may not exist in other works of exegesis because exegetes do not know or
trust them; and they do not include them in their works for they are occupied
with more important subjects.
The first
table al-Shahristānī provides is related to the arrangement of the Quranic revelation
and it includes reports from five different persons. The first report comes from
the narrators of Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/167), the second one comes from Ali
through Muqātil, the third one comes from Ibn Abbās through al-Kalbī, the
fourth one comes from the narrators of Abū ‘Ali al-Ģusayn b. Wāqid al-Qurashī,
and the fifth one comes from Ja‘far al-Ģādiq.
The second
table on the arrangement in the mushafs provides the lists of chapters according
to Caliph Uthmān, Ibn Mas‘ūd and Ubayy b. Ka‘b. It also includes a
fourth list according to the report from Abū Abd Allah Muhammad b. Khālid
al-Barqī who was a famous Shiite hadīth scholar of the early period of the
Imāmiyya, and a fifth lists relying on the report from Ibn Wādih Ahmad b. Ishāq
b. Ja‘far Ya‘qūbī.
Three
reports in the first table (from Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s narrators, Ali through Muqātil,
Ja‘far al-Sādiq) and the report from Muhammad b. Khālid al-Barqī do not exist
in other extant sources. Therefore, al-Shahristānī’s book appears to be the
only source mentioning these reports.
The most
salient report in the table that lists the reports according to arrangement of Quranic
revelation is from Ja‘far al-Sādiq. According to our knowledge, neither Sunni nor
Shiite sources, except for al-Shahristānī’s exegesis, mention the existence of
such a report/ mushaf attributed to Ja‘far al-Sādiq. Even the existence of some
contemporary sources mentioning Ja‘far’s report/ mushaf do not change this
fact, because ultimately the source for these contemporary sources are, in
fact, al-Shahristānī’s exegesis. By citing al-Shahristānī, Shiite scholar Abū
Abdullah al-Zanjānī mentions this report in his book titled Tārīkh al-Qur’ān as
“Ja‘far al-Sādiq’s mushaf ’s arrangement”, misleading those who later cite him
and some contemporary writers who attribute a mushaf to Ja‘far al-Sādiq. This
leads to an assumption that Ja‘far had a personal mushaf just like Ubayy b.
Ka‘b and Ibn Mas‘ūd. However, it is not plausible to accept its existence
according to our current evidence.
Ibn
Mas‘ūd’s and Ubayy b. Ka‘b’s mushafs listed in the second table of
al-Shahristānī are the most salient personal mushafs on which many debates
occurred. So far we have discussed the arrangements of chapters in Ibn Mas‘ūd
and Ubayy b. Ka‘b’s mushafs according to the information given in al-Fihrist
and al-Itqān, because no other source mention the content and arrangement of
the mushafs of Ibn Mas‘ūd and Ubayy b. Ka‘b. Al-Shahristānī’s Mafātīh al-asrār
is the third source to compare the information provided by the other two
sources as well as to reveal many unknown facts about these mushafs. It is
worth noting that al-Fihrist and al-Itqān narrate that Ibn Mas‘ūd’s mushaf does
not include the chapter al-Fatiģah, whereas according to the list given in Mafātīh
al-asrār, Ibn Mas‘ūd’s mushaf includes it. This seems to open the debate as to whether
Ibn Mas‘ūd considered this chapter as part of the Quran or not.
Similarly,
another important point of debate is Ubayy b. Ka‘b’s mushaf and its inclusion of
Qunūt supplications as Quranic chapters (Khal‘ and Hafd). Even though no record
exists of Ubayy b. Ka‘b’s report that these supplications are part of the
Quran, they are included at the middle/end of the mushaf to be memorized and
recited in prayer. The qunūt supplications are listed after the chapter al-‘Asr
(the Declining Day) in al-Itqān and al-Fihrist, whereas they are added at the
end of the table in Mafātīh al-asrār.
In this
article, I try to examine the sources of reports on the arrangements of
chapters in the personal mushafs that al-Shahristānī recounts and compare them
with other sources that mention the arrangement of chapters in these personal mushafs.
