The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Quran: The Problem of Tawatur and the Emergence of Shawdhdh (Texts and Studies on the Quran, 9) - Hardcover

Shady Hekmat Nasser

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004240810 ISBN 13: 9789004240810

Publisher: Brill Academic Pub, 2012

Synopsis

This work is a study of the transmission of the variant readings of the Qurʾān, the canonization of the system Readings, and the emergence of the non-canonical shawādhdh readings. Nasser argues that Ibn Mujāhid and the early Muslim scholars viewed the variant readings as legal rulings aḥkām and that the later generation of Qurrāʾ were responsible for moving the discipline of Qirāʾāt from the domain of fiqh to the domain of Ḥadīth. After studying the theories of tawātur in detail, Nasser shows that the transmission of the system Readings of the Qurʾān failed to meet the conditions of tawātur set by the Uṣūlīs, thus creating a paradox between the transmission of the physical text, the muṣḥaf, and the transmission of its oral recitation, the "Qurʾān".

About this title

About the Author

Shady Hekmat Nasser, Ph.D. (2011), Harvard University, is a senior Lector of Arabic at Yale University.

Review

"...a detailed and well written study."
Shahrul Hussain in The Muslim World Book Review34.4 (2014).

"Nasser's work is thorough and thought provoking; his efforts to understand the history of the transmission of the variant readings of the Qurʾān have surely paid off."
Ghassan el Masri in Al-Abhath 62-63 (2014-2015), 170-173.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 9004240810
• ISBN 13: 9789004240810
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 252