The book under review comprises a critical edition of a third/ninth century text on the subject of qirā’āt (variae lectiones) collated by the Shii author Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī (d. c. 3rd/9th century). According to its editors, al-Sayyārī's work is one of the earliest surviving Imāmī Shii literary texts devoted to the genre of variae lectiones and is of “major importance both for the doctrinal history of Shīʿism and, more generally, for the history of the redaction of the Qur'an”. The critical apparatus is impressive. The introduction is divided into six sections, the first three written by Amir-Moezzi (pp. 1–30), and sections 4–6 (pp. 30–53) by Kohlberg. The detailed notes cover the referencing of a given dictum cited in the text; cross-referencing to selected works on qirā’āt; biographies of narrators who feature in the manuscript; and explanatory comments on the Arabic text (pp. 55–289). Additionally, the paragraphs of the Arabic manuscript, extending over 201 pages, are individually referenced. The editors have previously published a French version (in Journal Asiatique, 293, 2005, 663–722).
Works on qirā’āt usually comprise inventories of readings linked to the textual transmission and recitation of the Quran. Within the traditional corpora many differences between individual readings tend to be infinitesimal in countenance, occurring at the morpho-syntactic and morpho-phonological levels of the text. They preserve vocalic as well as consonantal variants. Although technically referred to as “variants”, many of these are not viewed as deviations from the established text, but liturgically valid alternatives. However, the literature also preserves types of variants which constitute distinctive departures from the standard skeletal text (rasm); these feature consonantal variants along with graphic instances of exegetical interpolation and modifications in the word order of certain verses. Traditionally, the view is that the skeletal text of the Quran provides the nucleus around which these readings are finely constellated.
The Kitāb al-qirā’āt follows the conventional order of the Quran, citing the lectiones, which are embedded in vignettes and supported by isnāds, under their relevant chapters. Many of these readings are confined to selected verses within a specified chapter and feature lexical substitution as well as vocalic, morpho-syntactic, and consonantal variants. There are numerous instances of textual interpolation, although occasionally it is difficult to ascertain whether the author is presenting a “variant”, which is believed to be a record of the originally revealed text, or merely resorting to exegetical paraphrase. Nonetheless, the instances of textual interpolation are distinctly polemical in tone; they are aimed at promoting what Kohlberg describes as “an Imāmī message”, which is fleshed out using exegetical dicta and glosses (p. 41). Such readings include explicit references to the caliph ʿAlī and his immediate family, the issue of wilāya, and other motifs connected with the history of Shiism. Many of these are ruminated over in the reports accompanying the main text on lectiones, although readings of a “neutral” countenance also occur. Kohlberg maintains that “the issue of the integrity of the Qur'an features prominently” in al-Sayyārī's text. (p. 41). He posits that the title of the work “reflects the belief that the text of the original Qur'an had been tampered with” (p. 46). In al-Sayyārī's introduction this construct of taḥrīf (falsification) is presented through a series of fragmented statements: a number of these comprise seemingly oblique references to inconsistencies in the transmission of the originally revealed text; others are much more forthright, claiming that additions as well as omissions were an insidious feature of the officially redacted Qur'an. Kohlberg adds that “it was doubtful whether al-Sayyārī's aim was to encourage his readers to recite the Qur'an in accordance with the qirā’āt which he cited. Instead, he must have seen his task as that of recording and preserving those readings which the Imāmī community regarded as reliable” (p. 45). One might conclude that it is equally conceivable that the work had an exegetical function, being primarily aimed at buttressing the concept of taḥrīf, which had acquired greater form and definition in the third/ninth century. Significantly, al-Sayyārī's own reputation and standing are vigorously denounced in the classical Shiite biographical literature; materials he transmitted were treated with open suspicion and shunned within mainstream Shiism.
The editors' preface states that certain Shiis believed that “the text of the Qur'an was intentionally corrupted in order to delete all reference to the rights of ʿAlī and his successors” and that “such views, though not often expressed in recent decades, were widely held in the first centuries of Islam” (p. viii). The construct of taḥrīf has a somewhat obscure history both in terms of its provenance and semantic compass, which appears to have gone through several phases of gestation; therefore, the use of the phrases “widely held” and “first centuries” gives the inaccurate impression of a uniform notion of taḥrīf ab initio, following the introduction of the ʿUthmanic codex. Texts devoted to taḥrīf are ascribed to various individuals who precede al-Sayyārī such as Muḥammad b. Khālid al-Barqī (fl. early 3rd/9th century); additionally, there are statements attributed to eminent Shiite authorities, but these surface in the later literature. Moezzi does point out that “in the Buwayhid period an original esoteric suprarational tradition which upheld the doctrine of taḥrīf was marginalized as scholars were either constrained or advocated a rapprochement with Sunni orthodoxy”, and that even figures such as Ibn Bābawayhi passed “in silence over the many traditions which mention falsification, erasure, or alteration” (pp. 26–7). Even so, there is scant evidence to suggest that taḥrīf was a fully developed doctrine before the end of the second/eighth century. This explains why, within Twelver Shiism, revered scholars such as Ibn Bābawayhi (d. 381/991), al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), and Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūṣī (d. 460/1067) soundly denounced the notion of taḥrīf; it was not shelved for reasons of expediency. Critically, in an earlier study Kohlberg concluded that “the internal discussion and dissension within the Imāmite community on the attitude to the ʿUthmānic Codex is a product of the intricate political and religious history of Shīʿism. The bitter disappointment at ʿAlī's failure to win the caliphate after Muḥammad's death and to bequeath it to his descendants was at the root of the ensuing allegations against the first three Caliphs”, adding that “the traditions, even if mostly forged, which implied that deliberate omissions had occurred grew out of the deep frustration and reflect widely held views among the Imāmites” (Etan Kohlberg, “Some notes on the Imāmite attitude to the Qur'an”, Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition. Oxford: OUP, 1972, p. 219). In an unrelated study it has been suggested that extremist Shiite groups were not originally responsible for propagating views about the Quran and taḥrīf, but that the reports used to sustain such discourses emanated from Sunnite circles (Hossein Modarressi, “Early debates on the integrity of the Qur'an”, Studia Islamica, 1983, 77). However, one needs to bear in mind that in Sunni circles these materials were not being used to fortify the notion of taḥrīf, but to facilitate the adumbration of an idealized history of the collection of the Quran.
Interestingly, referring to various Sunni reports, Moezzi contends that “despite all attempts by ‘orthodox scholars' to conceal differences, an examination of the uncertainties and divergences found in the sources clearly shows that a great protest movement against the official version of the Qur'an took place from the very beginning”; it is even suggested that “it took many centuries for the version called ʿUthmanic to be accepted by all Muslims” (p. 23). One does wonder which sources are being referred to: the condemnation of Ibn Miqsam and Ibn Shanabūdh along with the significance of the codex of Ubayy is fleetingly mentioned; and earlier in his introduction reports on the collection of the Quran are discussed. Still, none of these materials are contextually relevant to the claims that there was “a great protest movement”. Indeed, one suspects that pronounced arguments among early Sunni luminaries about the devotional importance of lectiones, together with variegated discussions on conceptual constructs such as abrogation, are being inadvertently identified with the developed notion of taḥrīf. Fittingly, John Wansbrough expressed the view that even non-canonical (amṣār) codices (metropolitan or indigenous) did not display the “differences either among themselves or from the ʿUthmānic recension which are alleged to have provoked the editorial measures attributed to the third caliph” and that even the non-canonical variants ascribed to the figure of Ibn Masʿūd were in his view “not genuinely independent of the ʿUthmanic recension” (Quranic Studies. Oxford: OUP, 1977, 44–5). The works of the early grammarians, including luminaries such as Sībawayhi (d. c. 180/796), al-Farrā’ (d. 207/822), and al-Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (d. 215/830), hold the keys to unravelling the intricacies surrounding the historical imposition of the ʿUthmānic codices, but these have not been discussed in the introduction nor are they used in the notes section. Yet, if one were to discount the pro-Imāmī readings which feature in the Kitāb al-qirā’āt, the remaining lectiones would certainly be consistent with the form of variants featured in the literature of qirā’āt. Accordingly, al-Sayyārī's text is crucial not only for gauging the doctrinal development of the notion of taḥrīf in the early third/ninth century, but also, in certain respects, it provides an evident indication of the textual authority achieved by the ʿUthmānic codex.
