Shia view of the Quran

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Quran
History
  • Historicity
Manuscripts
Divisions
Content
Reading
Translations
Exegesis
  • Biblical parallels
Characteristics
Related

The Shia view of the Qur'an differs from the Sunni view, but the majority of both groups believe that the text is identical. While some

Uthmanic codex.[2]

History

Main article: History of the Quran § Ali ibn Abi Talib

The Shī‘ah use the same

Mosque of Madinah, where scholars would come to transcribe more copies.[3] Furthermore, Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei believed that Ali possessed a Quran (Tafseer) of his own, which included the divinely revealed commentary of the Quran.[7]

However, Shia have been accused since at least the 10th century by anti-Shia Sunni Muslims of espousing a theory that the contemporary Quran differs from what was revealed to Muhammad because it was (allegedly) edited to remove mention of the importance of Ali — the Shia icon and first Shia Imam. The idea that the Quran was distorted is regarded by these Sunnis as one of the most blatant examples of Shia "heresy".[8] (An example of a denunciation of tabdil — the belief that the Quran was altered — can be found in the work of the 11th century Muslim scholar Ibn Hazm replying to Christian debating point "that the Rawafid [a derogatory name for Shia] maintain that the Companions of your Prophet altered the Koran by way of omissions and additions".)[9]

According to the western Islamic scholar Etan Kohlberg,

Abbasids.[14] According to William St. Clair Tisdall, if such content had existed in the Quran then "Of course the Sunnite Khalifahs had very great reason to endeavour to suppress any such passages".[15]

Shia scholars who supported existence of Qur'anic distortion

Some Shia scholars who supported the view that the Qur'anic text had been distorted were:

Many other Shia scholars have held ambiguous attitudes towards corruption of the Quran, such as

Mohammad-Kazem Khorasani (d. 1911) and Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989).[19]

Tafsīr and Additional Chapters

The Shī‘ah tafsīr on several verses are different from the traditional Sunni view either through a totally different interpretation or by giving the same interpretation, but giving that interpretation a larger impact on their jurisprudence. Shia also tend to interpret the Quran more

Ahlul Bayt.[21]

William St. Clair Tisdall, among other western scholars,[22] has published on the account of differences in content of a Shi'ite version of the Quran.[23]

33:33

Hadith of The Cloak

4:24

4:24, or

Nikah Mut'ah
).

Sūrat al-wilāya

Sūrat al-nūrayn

Sura of Lights.

Misconceptions

There are some common disputed misconceptions and accusations about the Shī‘ah regarding their beliefs.

While Sunnis and the Shī‘ah accept the same text of the Qur'an, some, such as

an-Nūrayn and al-Wilāya.[24] This accusation of tahrīf "tampering" is antithetical to scholars and is considered polemical.[25][26]

Shī‘ah Muslims consider the accusation that they are using a different Qur'an as one of the misconceptions about the Shi'a. The Shī‘ah recite the Qur'an according to the Qira’t of Hafs on authority of ‘Asim, which is the prevalent Qira’t in the Islamic world.[27]

The issue of Tahreef [tampering] has been a matter of disagreement between many classical Shia scholars. It has been mentioned that the likes of

Shia Imams which indicate the distortion of the Quran.[29]

According to

Muhammad Baqir Majlisi
, the difference of opinion among the scholars and jurists was as follows:

No one from the people claimed…’: meaning, those other than the Imāms (as). What is meant by ‘the entire Qur’ān’ is all its words and letters, and what is meant by ‘as it was revealed’ is its arrangement, declensions, vowellike and vowelless diacritics, and the length of verses and chapters.

This is a refutation of the faction that claims that the Qur’ān is what is in the known copies and as read by the reciters of the seven variant readings and their likes.

Our associates differed concerning that; al-Şadūq ibn Bābawayh and a group opined that the Qur’ān did not alter from how it was revealed and nothing was deleted from it, while al-Kulaynī and

al-Shaykh al-Mufīd—may Allāh sanctify both of their souls!—and a group opined that the whole Qur’ān is with the Imāms and what is in the copies is some of it. And the Commander of the Believers [`Alī] (as) compiled it as it was revealed after the Messenger, and went out to the hypocritical Companions, but they did not accept it from him and rather approached its compilation during the reigns of `Umar and `Uthmān, as it will soon be detailed in Kitāb al-Qur’ān.[30]

Some accused Shī‘ah of alleging that Fatimah had her own

Fatimah to console her on the death of her father) in their possession, none of them were Quran.[31]

See also

References

  1. Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an. Leiden: Brill Publishers
    . 2004.
  2. JSTOR 1595789
    .
  3. ^ a b Shirazi, Muhammad (2004). The Qur'an made simple. Vol. 10. London,UK: Fountain Books. pp. xxiv.
  4. ^ Shirazi, Muhammad (2001). The Qur'an - When was it compiled?. London,UK: Fountain Books. pp. 5, 7.
  5. ^ Shirazi, Muhammad (2004). The Qur'an made simple. Vol. 10. London,UK: Fountain Books. pp. xxi, xxiv, xxv.
  6. ^ Shirazi, Muhammad (2008). The Shi'a and their Beliefs. London,UK: Fountain Books. p. 29.
  7. ISBN 9789004118034
    .
  8. ^ Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, p.24
  9. ^ Israel Friedlaender (1908). "The Heterodoxies of the Shiites in the Presentation of Ibn Hazm" (PDF). Journal of the American Oriental Society. 29. American Oriental Society: 61–2. Retrieved 11 April 2015. As for their argument regarding the Rawafid and their contention that the Koran readings were interpolated, the Rawafid do not belong to the Muslims. They consist of a number of sects, the first of which arose twenty-five years after the Prophet's death. It was originally the response of some people abandoned by Allah to the call of those who beguiled Islam, a party which followed the course of the Jews and Christians as regards falsehood and heresy. They are divided into various sections. The most extravagant of them assume the divinity of Ali b. Abi Talib and of a number of people besides him. The least extravagant of them believe that the sun was twice turned backwards for Ali.' How can one be indignant over lies coming from people whose lowest rank in lying is such (as described)?" He then proceeds elaborately to refute this charge. He cleverly beats the Rawafid with their own weapons by pointing to the fact that Ali himself, "who according to most of them is a god, a creator, and, according to some of them, a prophet endowed with speech, while in the opinion of the rest he is an infallible Imam, the obedience to whom is a religious command imposed by Law," did not object to the Koran in its present shape and, while Caliph, did not fight the interpolators, which would have been his sacred duty. "Thus the mendacity of the Rawafid becomes evident, and praise be unto Allah, the Lord of (all) Created Beings!" A brief reference to the same subject is contained Ed. IV, 14615: "unless the Rawafid fall back on ignoring the Quran and (assuming) omissions and additions in it. This is something whereby becomes evident their impudence, ignorance and stupidity.
  10. ISSN 1567-2808
    .
  11. ^ a b Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, p.27
  12. ^ Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, p.26
  13. ^ a b Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, p.vii
  14. ^ Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, pp.20, 24
  15. ^ William St. Clair Tisdall (1913). Zwemer, Samuel Marinus (ed.). "Shi'ah Additions To The Koran" (PDF). The Moslem World. 3 (3): 229.
  16. ^
    ISBN 9789047424369
    .
  17. ISBN 9789004115958
    .
  18. ISBN 9789004125483
    . The Sunni reproach that the Shiites believe in another, i.e. falsified, Koran was already encountered in the heresiographic literature of the twentieth century and was emphatically denied by the Shia, whereas the Shiite defenders of a tahrif theory such as al-Tabrisi or his student Agha Bozorg al-Tehrani always remained in the minority.
  19. ^ Kohlberg & Amir-Moezzi 2009, pp.28–9
  20. ISBN 9780313360251
    .
  21. ISBN 9780815631958
    .
  22. ISBN 978-90-04-21234-3
    .
  23. ^ "William St. Clair Tisdall, Shi'ah Additions To The Koran, In: The Moslem World, Vol. III, No. 3, July, 1913, pp. 227-241" (PDF). Muhammadanism.
  24. ^ "Shi'i Qur'an". bahai-library.com.
  25. ^ "al-shia.com". www.al-shia.com. Archived from the original on 28 March 2003.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  26. ^ "al-shia.com". www.al-shia.com. Archived from the original on 25 April 2003.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  27. ^ "Noorullah Website - Is the Qur'an Corrupted? Shi'ites View". 27 October 2009. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009.
  28. doi:10.1163/157006010x514497
    . Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  29. ^ HADDADIAN ABDORREZA; MOADDAB SEYYED REZA. "A STUDY ON TRADITIONS OF DISTORTION IN AYYASHI EXEGESIS". Hadith Studies. 4 (8): 141–166.
  30. ^ "مرآة العقول في شرح أخبار آل الرسول، ج3، ص: 1". gadir.free.fr.
  31. ISBN 978-0-300-03531-5
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shia_view_of_the_Quran&oldid=1215052695"