Canonized Islamic scripture are texts which Muslims believe were revealed by God through various prophets throughout humanity's history—specifically the Quran and Hadith. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind, and a completion and confirmation of previous scriptures, revealed to Muhammad between 610 and 632 CE, and canonized around 650 by the Rashidun leader Uthman.Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Cyril Glasse, Holy Books Different readings of the Quran (Ahruf), criticized and dismissed as human works by various groups early, were sanctified and legitimized a few centuries later, accompanied by narratives pointing to the divine source of these readings.Nasser writes, "This position changed drastically in the later periods, especially after the 5th/11th century where the canonical Readings started to be treated as divine revelation, i.e. every single variant reading in the seven and ten eponymous Readings was revealed by God to Muhammad."Nasser, The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān, 2012: p.77 Shia had more than 1,000 hadiths ascribed to the Shia Imams which indicate the distortion of the Quran and according to Etan Kohlberg, this belief about Quran was common among Shiites in the early centuries of Islam. Alleged distortions have been carried out to remove any references to the rights of Ali, the Imams and their supporters and the disapproval of enemies, such as Umayyads and Abbasids.Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, pp.20, 24
Hadith (the record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Muhammad) are also considered by many to be divine revelation, directing Muslims on a broader number of rules than the Quran, including the rules of Sharia (Islamic law). The major compilations, especially that of the Six Books, primarily took place in the ninth century, with their canonization occurring later. The two most important compilations, (the Sahihayn), are Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. These were canonized by Shafi'i's in the 10th century CE, by the Malikis and Hanbali school of fiqh in the 12th CE century, and by Hanafi's in the 14th century. Different collections of hadith would come to differentiate the different branches of the Islamic faith.J.A.C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, 2014: p.8
Traditional story on canonization of Islamic scripture Quran
Uthmanic canonization Prior to the death of Muhammad, many Muslims had the Quran completely memorized, so there was no need or urgency to put the manuscripts together to form an official copy. The Quran was canonized only after Muhammad's death in 632 CE. According to Islamic tradition the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (r. 23/644–35 AH/655 CE) established the canonical Qur'an, reportedly starting the process in 644 CE, and completing the work around 650 CE (the exact date was not recorded by early Arab annalists). It is generally accepted that the Uthmanic text comprises all 114 surahs (chapters of the Quran) in the order known today.
The Qur'anic canon is the form of the Quran as recited and written in which it is religiously binding for the Muslim community. This canonical corpus is closed and fixed in the sense that nothing in the Quran can be changed or modified.
According to the traditional Islamic narrative, by the time of Uthman's caliphate, there was a perceived need for clarification of Qur'an reading. The holy book had often been spread to others orally by Muslims who had memorized the Quran in its entirety (huffaz), but now "sharp divergence" had appeared in recitation of the book among Muslims.Cook, The Koran, 2000: p.119 It is believed the general Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman reported this problem to the caliph and asked him to establish a unified text. According to the history of al-Tabari, during the expedition to conquer Armenia and Azerbaijan there were 10,000 Kufan Muslim warriors, 6,000 in Azerbaijan and 4,000 at Rayy, and a large number of these soldiers disagreed about the correct way of reciting the Quran.
What was more, many of the huffaz were dying. 70 had been killed in the Battle of Yamama. The Islamic empire had also grown considerably, expanding into Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Iran, bringing into Islam's fold many new converts from various cultures with varying degrees of isolation. These converts spoke a variety of languages but were not well learned in Arabic, and so Uthman felt it was important to standardize the written text of the Quran on one specific Arabic dialect.
Uthman obtained written "sheets" or parts of the Quran from Ḥafṣa, one of the widows of Muhammad. Other parts collected from Companions had been "written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels". He appointed a commission consisting of a scribe of Muhammad, Zayd ibn Thabit and three prominent Meccans, and instructed them to copy the sheets into several volumes based on the dialect of the Quraysh — the tribe of Muhammad and the main tribe of Mecca.
Uthman's reaction in 653 is recorded in the following hadith from : "So Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, "Send us the manuscripts of the Quran so that we may compile the Quranic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you." Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin Az Zubair, Said bin Al-As and Abdur Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Quran, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Quran was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, 'Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. 'Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied and ordered that all the other Quranic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt. Zayd bin Thabit added, "A Verse from Surat Ahzab was missed by me when we copied the Quran and I used to hear Allah's Apostle reciting it. So we searched for it and found it with Khuzaima bin Thabit Al-Ansari. [That verse was]: 'Among the Believers are men who have been true in their covenant with Allah.'"
When the task was finished Uthman kept one copy in Medina and sent others to Kufa, Baṣra, Damascus, and, according to some accounts, Mecca, and ordered that all other variant copies of the Quran be destroyed. Some non-Uthmanic Qurans are thought to have survived in Kufa, where Abdullah ibn Masud and his followers reportedly refused.
This is one of the most contested issues and an area where many non-Muslim and Muslim scholars often clash.
The seven aḥruf According to Islamic tradition the Quran was revealed to Muhammad in seven ahruf (translated variously as "styles", "forms", or "modes",Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, Tafseer Soorah Al-Hujuraat, 1990, Tawheed Publications, Riyadh, pp. 29–30. singular harf). However, Uthman canonized only one of the harf (according to tradition). According to Islamic tradition, the other ahruf were destroyed because after Muhammad's death a rivalry began to develop among some of the Arab tribes over the alleged superiority of their ahruf. In addition, some new converts to Islam began mixing the various forms of recitation out of ignorance.Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, Tafseer Soorah Al-Hujuraat, 1990, Tawheed Publications, Riyadh, p. 28-29 Consequently, as part of the canonization of the Quran, caliph Uthman ordered the rest of the ahruf to be destroyed.
The issue of ahruf (lit means letters), whose origin and legality are disputed, Examining the hadith of Umar's surprise in finding out "this Quran has been revealed in seven Ahruf", Suyuti, a noted 15th-century Islamic theologian, concludes the "best opinion" of this hadith is that it is "mutashabihat", i.e. its meaning "cannot be understood." Suyuti, Tanwir al-Hawalik, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Jayl, 1993), p. 199. is considered problematic to discuss today within the orthodoxy of the Quran's divine origin and preservation.Islamic scholar Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi stated in a 2020 interview that "every single student of knowledge ... who studies ulm of Quran" knows "that the most difficult topics are ahruf and qira’at", so vexing that even "the most advanced of our scholars, they are not quite fully certain how to solve all of it and answer questions in there", YouTube, Yasir Qadhi, 8 June 2020, video at 1h24m17s According to some accounts, when Uthman created his official codex, ordered the collection and destruction of other codices collected from different regions -and so expected to be having native different dialects-;The Islamic Caliph Uthman compiled the Quran using one of the during the 7th century, and the other fell out of use.Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, Tafseer Soorah Al-Hujuraat, 1990, Tawheed Publications, Riyadh, pp. 28-29. other accounts suggest that the writing process was based on the Quraysh dialect, and according to scholars who assumed the 'Ahruf' were dialects in themselves, these dialects were abolished through the work of Uthman's committee. According to some researchers like John Wansbroughand Yehuda D. Nevo, later known as the Revisionist school of Islamic studies, the canonization of the Quran, through the unification of "various previous texts" into a single, unchanging standard text and the elimination of others, took place over a period of approximately 200 years. They argued that a common method within Islamic tradition was to legitimize a practice by attributing it to a past authority that enjoyed high popular acceptance. This suggests that the accounts of Uthman's cancellation and burning of the codices may actually refer to a single issue encompassing different codices. The majority of explanations identify the seven with Arabic dialects, although a minority identifies them as categories of Quranic material.Dutton 2012, p. 26. While variant readings were initially scorned and criticized as human creations, five centuries later these readings were sanctified by being linked to a divine source.
Today, the terminology that delves deeply into the various readings the Quran, encompassing diverse narrations and schools, is Qira'at, and it is said to be distinct from "ahruf”, that also go back to Muhammad according to the Hadith.
This does not mean that only one "reading" of the Quran is canonized. The single harf canonized by Uthman did not include vowels or diacritical marks for some consonants, which allowed for variant readings. Seven readings—known as Qira'at—were noted by scholar Abu Bakr Ibn Mujāhid and canonized in the 8th century CE.Shady Hekmat Nasser, Ibn Mujahid and the Canonization of the Seven Readings, p. 129. Taken from The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and the Emergence of Shawaadhdh. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012. Later scholars, such as Ibn al-Jazari, added three other reciters (Abu Ja’far from Madinah, Ya’qub from Basrah, and Khalaf from Kufa) to form the canonical list of ten Qira'at.
Of the ten, the one qira'at has become so popular that (according to one source) "for all practical purposes", it is the one Quranic version in "general use" in the Muslim world todayBöwering, "Recent Research on the Construction of the Quran", 2008: p.74 -- Hafs ‘an ‘Asim, specifically the standard Egyptian edition of the Qur’an first published on July 10, 1924 in Cairo. Mass-produced printing press mus'haf (written copies of the Quran) have been credited with narrowing the diversity of qira'at.
Shia belief