133-210 FIQSAS ON THE REGIONALITY OF QUR’ANIC CODICES: HYTHEM SIDKY" Independent Scholar Abstract ‘The ‘Uthmanie codification of the Qur'in as described by Muslim sources inchades the distribution of at east four regional exemplars to Syria, Medina, Basra, and Kua. Orthographic variants between these codices were identified sand collected by Muslim scholars inthe ram literature, This paper explores the subject of qurinic vegionality through material evidence. Combining philological, literary and phylogenetic analysis, a stemma of early quranic manuscripts is constructed and compared against idealized representations This process of recomtraction identiis four ancestral codices from which all examined manuscripts descend, It iuminates the presence of a new regional subgroup Ihave termed neo-Baaran, suggesting a local orthographic reform, Additional evidence is presented forthe higtoricity ofthe ‘Uthmanic canonization and the distribution of four regional exemplars. Him, as ‘opposed to Damascus, is aso identified as the city to which the Syrian exemplar was dispatched. Finally, a comparison of literary reports against the earliest manuscripts reveals that knowledge of the regional variants does rot date back tothe time of canonization but was accumulated overtime through careful scrutiny of regional mash. Introduction Nearly fifteen years ago, Fred Donner offered an evaluation of then-recent scholarship on the Quran in which he distilled out the most fundamental questions for historians and philologists regatding the Islamic scripture. He admitted that, atthe time, “to ask even one of these questions immediately plunges us into realms of grave uncertainty"! One of the questions concerned * [thank Marija van Posten, Sean Anthony, and Gabriel Said Reynolds for ure siseusions and feedback, Thanks alo to Ramon Harvey for hs valuable comments onan earlier deat of this paper 1. Fred Donner, "The Qu’ in Recent Scholarship: Challenges and Desiderat oi: hup://ax doi ong/ 10.5913/jiqsa.5.2020.2005,13 HYTHEM SIDKY the standardization of the queanie text: “When, how, and by whom was it codiied?"? ‘The traditional answer to this question was, and remains, that che thd caliph ‘Uthman b. ‘AMfin ( 24/644-35 /656) ordered a standard text to be ‘compiled ito a single authoritative codes (muta) and then that a number of copies be sent out co the major cites; he ordered all older copies, partial or complete to be destroyed. As early as Noldeke, scholars in the West argued ‘that the traditional Muslim account regarding the Quan’s codification seems broadly credible. Reliant on the rim iterature,* consisting of works dedicated to maintaining the archaic spelling of the Quran and documenting orthographic differences between mushafs, Noldcke observed that the variants listed for the mushafs of Kula, Basra, Medina, and Syria form a stemma. He concludes, in accordance with the traditional narrative that there were four original “Uthmanic Qur'ins sent out to the four regions and that the Medinan codex was the archetype? Cook extended Néldeke's work by performing a systematic stemmatic analysis of the regional variants and arrived at a more cautious but also more refined conclusion. The very fac that the data adit a stemm {ee ftom contamination, Cook reasons, is sufcient dismiss allegations of| fabrication since it would require knowledge of stemmatis, which Muslim inly did not have” On the other hand, Cook is not so hasty in assigning priority to the Medinan codex, He dutifully motes thatthe reports alone are not sulicient to identify a single most probable stemima, and instead leaves open four possible scenarios (which will be evaluated below} scholars cert in Gabriel Said Reynol 2008, 29-50. 2. This is undoubtedly related to Donner's first question: “Can the Qur’in as we have it today be traced back to some kind of original version®” As far a the written Ihinory of the text is concerned, ths has been recently proven by Van Pasten to go ‘back ta single archetype around the ime of Uthinda. See Mari van Putten, "The Grace of God’ as Evidence for a Written Uthmanie Archetype The Importance of ‘Shared Orthographic Idioryncrasis.” BSO4S'B2 (2019): 271-288, 3. GQ, 3.11 “The Qur'an in Is Historical Context (Abingdon: Routledge, 4. Historically, the ealest works of this type refereed co i rather than asm. (Over time the gene shifted towards the term rasm, which I use henceforth since ite Detter recognized, 5. GAO, 8.6 6. Michael Cook, "The Stemma of the Regional Codice of the Koran,” Grae Arabica 9-10 (2008): 89-108, 7. Both Gook and Noldeke recognized the inferiority of the variants ofthe Syrian codex, which leaves only three possible options. discuss this later on in the article.