In Search of the Original Koran: The True History of the Revealed Text (6 page)

One of the principal questions on the subject of the history of the Koran that was raised very early is whether the text that was handed down contains the totality of the divine revelations brought by the Prophet of Islam.

Of course, such a question presupposes from the start two kinds of facts that must be determined before any answer can be given. First, one must wonder about the heavenly tablet from which the revelations are drawn: does it contain a text that is definite in its contours and very precisely determined in its content? There is nothing less certain.

Second, what about the relationship of the copy to its original, also from the standpoint of completeness? Here again, things do not seem very clear, and what we said above on this question enjoins us to the greatest prudence about whether the revealed copy conforms in completeness. When God announces, "This day have I perfected your religion for you" (5:3), it is not a matter of putting a final ending upon a revelation whose termination has never been announced.

But what is most remarkable is the sharp awareness among the first Muslims of the incomplete character of the revelation-starting with Muhammad himself. In fact, during his final pilgrimage to Mecca, he is supposed to have said: "0 people! Take [after my example] your legal prescriptions (`ilm) before they are seized [by the angel of death], and before the `ilm rise to Heaven."37 The Prophet's companions are astonished by this assertion regarding this incompleteness of revelation, since it is supposed to contain the totality of the `ilm. So they ask Muhammad: "0 Prophet of Allah! How is it that the `ilm can mount to Heaven when we are in possession of pages (masahif) [of the Koran] . . ." The Prophet, visibly embarrassed, blushes and tells them that the Jews and the Christians, too, have pages but they take no account of them. "In fact, by `losing the `ilm' one must understand `the loss of its bearers,"' conclude the authors of the story, somewhat dubiously. Whatever the degree of veracity of this story, it justifies to our intimation of a conviction among the first Muslims-during the Prophet's lifetime and afterward-that the revelation was associated with the destiny of the person of the Prophet, which meant that it would be necessarily broken off at his death. Anas ibn Malik is even meant to have said, "God pursued revelation through his Prophet, in the latter's lifetime, until his Prophet had received the majority of what there was of it ('akthara ma kana). And then, [it was only] after this [that] Allah's Apostle died."38

From a purely theological standpoint, the Koran has enunciated a principle that definitively denies the idea of completeness of Scripture in the face of the inexhaustible words of God: "Say: If the sea were ink with which to write the words (kalimat) of my Lord, and even if We were to add to it a similar sea to replenish it, the sea would surely run dry before the words of my Lord were spent" (18:109). And, "If all the trees of the earth were pens and the sea, replenished by seven more seas, [were ink], [trees and seas would be exhausted but] the words (kalimat) of God would still not be exhausted" (31:27). Undoubtedly this image belongs to an old tradition, since we find in John, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25). The Koran and the Bible are merely drops of water in the face of the ocean of divine words. With this evidence, who could make a claim about the completeness of the Koran-let alone that it could contain the whole science of the universe?

Revelation was conceived as grace, not as a work of art. It could not have an end. Such was the original situation. But from the moment when the idea was born-rather late-of gathering the totality of actually revealed words, it was quickly perceived that this was a totally impossible enterprise. Many texts were forever lost. The son of Caliph Umar could only deplore this fact: "None among you will be able to say, `I have had the total Koran.' What does he know of its totality! Many [passages] have disappeared from the Koran (qad dha- haba minhu qur'anun kathirun). But he should say, `I had what we know of it. "'39

These disappearances are a priori of two kinds. According to the theory of abrogation, which appeared relatively late in Muslim dogma especially along with the emergence of the theory of justice (filth), passages of the Koran were abrogated and eliminated from the recitation. But there exists another category of texts lost in the course of the difficult process of transmission of the Koran in the time of Muhammad and after. It is to this last category that the son of Umar alludes in the astonishing apostrophe that we have just read.

It seems that it is to this same category of lost texts that the theoreticians of the figh are alluding when they speak of the case of Koranic texts that were abrogated in their recitation and not in their juridical power (mn nusikha tildwatuhu duna hukmuhu). This is an astonishing case of abrogation! For what reason would God deprive us of legal texts that he intended to maintain in their legislative power? Suyuti ventured this justification: the reason was to test the zeal of mankind for obeying divine laws without their having any visible traces; he gave the example of Abraham not hesitating to sacrifice his son as soon as he received the order to do so through a simple vision.40

Tradition has bequeathed us numerous testimonies of the loss of revealed texts. For example, AIsha, the Prophet's wife, is said to have declared: "Surah 33 of the Confederate Tribes (al-Ahzab) was read in the time of the Prophet with two hundred verses. But when Uthman wrote the masahif [meaning, fixed the Koranic canon], he was able [to assemble] only what it contains nowadays that is to say, seventy-three verses]."41 We note, then, that Caliph Uthman was unable to find twothirds of the chapter in question. Other surahs are signaled as having lost an important portion of their initial content. This is the case with surah 24, al-Nur ("The Light"), and of surah 15, al-Hijr, which are respectively 64 and 99 verses long, as against 100 and 190 originally.42 Similarly, surah 9, al-Tawba ("Repentance"-but initially it bore the name of the incipit, bara'a, or "Innocence") was supposed to have been as long as surah 2, al-Bagara ("The Heifer"), that is to say 286 verses, whereas it now has only 129. According to certain chroniclers, this major amputation of more than half the original content would explain why this surah does not contain in its present state the liturgical formula b'ism `allah, or basmala, and why it is in fact the only one without this.43

Among the omitted or lost texts, let us mention the celebrated verse on the stoning of the adulterous: "If the old man and old woman fornicate, stone them to death, as a punishment from God, and God is powerful and wise! (idha zanaya al-shaykhu wa al-shaykha, fa- `rjumuhuma l-batta nakalan min Allah, wa Llahu `azizun hakim)."44 In order to certify the authenticity of this verse, tradition reports this speech attributed to Caliph Umar: "God sent Muhammad and revealed the Book to him; and among what he revealed to him there is the verse on stoning. We have recited it, learned and understood it. And God's Messenger has stoned, and we have stoned after him. 1145

There has also been attributed to the same Umar another verse that he was said to have been in the habit of reciting in Muhammad's lifetime: "Do not turn away from the customs of your fathers; this would be impious on your part."46 And this dialogue is also reported between Umar and a companion on the subject of a misplaced verse: "Umar said to Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf: `Did you not find among what was revealed to us this verse: "May you fight (jahidu) like you fought the first time!"? For I could not find it!' And he replied: `It has disappeared (usqita) from the Koran. "'47

During the battle of bi'r ma`una, there was said to have been revealed a verse that puts into the mouths of the dead who fell on this occasion these words that Anas ibn Malik, Muhammad's companion, had the habit of reciting as Koranic text: "Make known to those close to us that we have met our Lord who was satisfied with us and who satisfied us." Anas concludes that this verse ended up "returning to Heaven (hatta rufi`)."48

Here is another text taken by Tradition as a revelation received by Muhammad: "We have made riches (al-mal) descend [on men] in order that they might make prayers and offer the zakat (religious tax). And if the son of Adam had a river [of silver], he would want another one, and if he had two of them, he would want a third. But the belly of the son of Adam will only be filled with earth, and God only pardons he who mends his ways."49

Also attributed to Abu Musa al-Ashlari is a verse from the noncanonic Koran that he is said to have preserved from oblivion: "0 you who believe! Do not say that which you do not do, to avoid a testi mony being written against you and having to answer for it at the Day of Judgment."

Among the characteristics of the corpus of Ubayy is the presence of two surahs absent from the canon of Uthman. Apparently they were also included in the corpus of Ibn Abbas, which has not survived. The first bears the title "The Denial" (al-Khal`) and reads as follows: "In the name of Allah, the merciful Benefactor! 1) 0, my God, from You we implore aid and pardon! 2) We praise you. We are not unfaithful to you. 3) We renounce and leave those who scandalize you." Ubayy's second noncanonical surah, "The Race" (al-Hafd), runs as follows: "In the name of Allah, the merciful Benefactor! 1) 0, my God, it is you we adore. 2) In your honor, we pray and we bow down. 3) Toward you we go running. 4) We await your mercy. 5) We fear your punishment. 6) In truth, Your punishment must strike the Infidels."51 I concur with Blachere's opinion that these apocryphal surahs are distinguished from the first surah ("The Opening"), "only through some nuances in the language and by the slightly clumsy style." He thinks, too, that they might have been removed from the Uthman edition due to the fact that they duplicated the Liminary.52

It is of the greatest interest to note that whereas Ubayy included in his Koran these two short prayers, as extras to those in the opening Liminary (Fatiha) and to the two concluding surahs, 113 and 114, on the other hand Ibn Masud rejected in his Koranic rescension not only the two noncanonical surahs, but also the three canonical prayers: 1, 113, and 114. Why such important divergences? Here no doubt we are witnessing the confrontation of two philosophies of the content of the Koranic text: one "rigorous" viewpoint that considers that the prayer is a genre that properly belongs to humankind and that it must be held apart from the divine area, while the viewpoint that we will call "open" or "liberal" considers prayer as an integral part of sacred liter ature and thereby authorizes its integration into the canon. Let us draw two lessons from this divergence. First, there did not exist in Muhammad's era a very clear vision of the nature of the divine word: Is it a phonetic and literal phenomenon that is strictly codified, or else an authentic inspiration, of course, but one whose literal aspect is of secondary importance? Second, this divergence shows to what extent the contours of the Koranic text were imprecise when the Prophet died, which opened the way to multiple possible canons.