Studia Islamica, 2000 we JA Ibn Mujahid and the Establishment of Seven Qur’anic Readings Ton Mujahid (d. Baghdad, 324/936) is famous for establishing seven acceptable textual variants or readings (gird' at) of the Qur'an, beyond which no reader might go. Two Qur'an readers were famously tried for reciting unacceptable variants, Ibn Miqsam in 322/934 and Tbn Shannabidh in 323/935. Both were forced to recant. The trials of Ibn Miqsam and Ibn Shannabiidh have been presented as triumphs of the traditionalist party. Ibn Mujahid did indeed bring some of the forms of hadith science to Quran science. However, he was personally much closer to the traditionalists’ semi-rationalist adversaries. The study and transmission of the qur'anic rea- dings before Ibn Mujahid had been carried on mainly by grammarians and littérateurs, not traditionists (muhaddithan). Neither he nor his successors ever completely assimilated their ways Ahmad ibn Misé ibn al-‘Abbas ibn Mujahid was born in 245/859-860 and died 324/936.(’) He learnt Qur’an and hadith in Baghdad and seems to have travelled from it only to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a notoriously lenient critic, states that Ibn Mujahid was highly reliable in hadith; however, I have found no comment from any other rijal expert, and it seems safe to say that Ibn Mujahid was little active in trans- mitting hadith.@) There is no record of his studying jurisprudence apart from hadith, but he was evidently sympathetic to the Shafi‘i school. Shafi‘i sources quote him as saying, Whoever reads the reading of Abu ‘Amr, follows al-Shafi‘i (tamadhhaba bi-al-Shafi‘r; in jurisprudence, perhaps also theology), (1) Ibn al-Nedim, Kitdb al-Firisi, ed. Gustav Fligel, w. Johannes Roedigger & August Mueller (Leip- 2igF. C. W. Vogel, 1872), 31. For biographies of Ibn Mujahid, v. al-Dhahabi, Tavith al-islam, ed. “Abd al-Salam Tadmuri, 46 vols. to date (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al- Arabi, 1987-), 24 (A.H. 321-330):144in, (2) Al-Khatib’ al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 14 vols, (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanji, 1931), 5:144. Ton ‘Mujahid is missing from all the major rijal collections; e.g., Ibn Hibban, K. al-Thigat and K. al-Dw‘afa', and bn Hajar, Lisan “al-Mizan."CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT trades in silk, and relates the poetry of Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, his elegance (arf is perfected. @) His involvement in adab, indicated here by references to Ibn al-Mu'‘tazz and elegance, is confirmed by many anecdotes and quotations. (“) With his admiration for Shafi‘i jurisprudence, it bespeaks something other than a tra- ditionalist orientation, probably more positively an adherence to the semi- rationalist theological party. This agrees also with his association with the vizier “Ali ibn ‘Isa, whom he helped, along with an Aba al-Husayn al-Wasiti, to write a Kitab Ma‘ani al-Qur‘an wa-tafsirih. (°) Ihave referred already to the traditionalists and semi-rationalists. The for- mer were those who rejected kalam and accepted only the Qur'an and hadith as sources of law and theology. In their view, expertise in hadith and expertise in the law were virtually the same. Asked a juridical question, they preferred to answer by reciting the relevant hadith reports (including, still, the opinions of Companions and Followers). (°) They called themselves ashab al-athar, ahi al-sunnah, or ahl al-sunnah wa-al-jama‘ah. In ninth-century Baghdad, they were roughly the Hanabilah, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his followers. ‘The semi-rationalists, who presumably called themselves mutakallimi ahl al-sunnah, developed jurisprudence as a separate field from hadith and used the rational techniques of kalam to defend traditionalist theological tenets. They were associated with the nascent Shafi‘i and Maliki schools of law. The traditionalists condemned them yet more sharply than their Shi‘i, Mu‘tazili, and other contemporaries. (’) Among the Hanabilah, the strict traditionalist position began to be compromised already by the work of al-Khallal (4 311/923) in setting up a Hanbali school of law parallel to the Shafi‘i and others. George Makdisi has said of Islamic law in general, “It shunned equally the rampant Rationalism of the philosophico-theological movement, and the effete fideism of the hadith movement.” (*) Later in the tenth century, leading @) ALsnawi, Tabagat al-shaf'iyah, ed. “Abd Allah al-Jabirt, Ihya’ al-Turdth al-Islami, 2 vols. (Bagh: dad: Ri'asat Diwan al-Awgaf, 1971), 2:394; al-Dhahabi, Tarik al-islam 24 (A.E. 321-330):145. () V. al-Khati al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad 5:144-148; Yaqat, The Irshdd al-ari itd ma’rifat al-adtb, ed. D. 8. Margoliouth, E. 1. W. Gibb Memorial Ser. 6, 7 vols. (Leiden: B. J. Brill, 1907-27), 2:116-119 = ‘Mi‘jam al-udaba’, ed. Thsan “Abbas, 7 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islam, 1993), 2:520-523 (5) ALDhahabi, Tarikh al-islam 25 (AHL, 331-350):108. I have not identified this AbU al-Husayn al-Wasif. He might be Abi al-Hasan al-Wasitt (4, 310/922-923 or after), one of Ibn Mujahid’s shayk whom y. alDhahabi, Ma'rifat al-qurra’ al-kibar, ed. Bashshar “Awwad Ma'raf, Shu'ayb al-Ama’tt, &Salib ‘Mahdi “Abbas, 2 vols. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risalah, 1984), 1:250; Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihayah fi fabagat al-qurra’, ed. Gotthelf Bergstraer & Otto Pretzl, 3 vols. in 2 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kinanj, 1932, 1935), 2:135f. For is visting the vizier’s son, v. Yaqit, Irshad 2:117 = "Abbas, ed, 2:520f, For “Ali ibn “Is4’s juridicaltheotogical stance, v. Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallaj, trans. Herbert Mason, Bol- lingen Ser. 98, 4 vols. Princeton: Univ. Press, 1982), 1:400F. (© V. Susan A, Spectorsky, “Ahmad Ibn Hanbal's Figh,” Jounal ofthe American Oriental Society 102 (1982):461-465. (7) V. Christopher Metchert, “The Adversaries of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal,"Arabica 44 (1997): 234-253 (8) George Maktisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West (Edinburgh: Univ. Press, 1990), 19. ¥. also Christopher Melchert, The Formation ofthe Sunni Schools of Law (Leiden: Brill, 1997), chaps. 1,7 6 *IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR' ANIC READINGS Hanabilah began to dabble with kalam in theology. (°) In Ibn Mujahid's time, though, Baghdadi traditionalism was still quite extreme, Qur'an transmitters and hadith Let us begin with the circles in which the qur'anic readings were trans- mitted and studied until Ibn Mujahid. It is remarkable that most of Tbn Mujahid's Seven Readings themselves did not, for the most part, come from notable traditionists. As a rough measure of his activity as a traditionist, the name of each reader is followed by the proportion of the Six Books in which his name appears, even in a single isnad. Table 1: Qur'anic Readers in the Six Books 4) ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Amir (d. 118/736), Damascene : 2) “Abd Allah ibn Kathir al-Dari (d. 120/737-738), Meccan ‘i 3) ‘Asim ibn Abi Najfad Bahdalah (4. 127/744-7459), Kufan . .... . 6/6 4) Abi ‘Amr Zabban Yon ‘Ammar ibn ‘Uryan ibn al-‘Ala’ (d. 154/770-7712), Basran. ee eee eee 5) Hamzah ibn Habib (d. 156/772-7739), Kufan ....... + 6) Nafi' ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman (d. 169/785-786), Medinese. 7) ‘Ali ibn Hamzah al-Kisd’i (d. 189/804-805), Kufan . . ‘As can be seen, three of these readers do not appear in the Six Books at all. Ibn Kathir (n° 2), a Follower, is the only one to appear in all of the Six Books. Ahmad ibn Hanbal preferred the reading of ‘Asim (n° 3), but concer- ning his rank in hadith transmission, even he comments halfheartedly, “He was good, trustworthy, but al-A°mash kept more than he.” Most other rijal critics depreciated his transmission of hadith. (°) Hamzah (n° 4) appears in five of the Six Books, but most critics gave him only a middling rank, sadziq, in hadith. (") Even the principal transmitters of the Seven Readings were fairly insi- gnificant as traditionists. ("°) (9) A. Kevin Reinhart, Before Revelation, SUNY Series in Middle Fastern Studies (Albany: State Univ of New York Press, 1995), 216 (10) Ton Hajar, Kita Tahdhid “al-Tahdhib,"12 vols. (Hyderabad: Majlis Da’rat al-Ma’ anf al-Nizamiyah, 1325-27), 5239 (11) Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib 3:27 (12) The principal transmitters ae listed by al-Qayrawani, Talis alin bila a-ishardt fat al-sab’, ed. Subay’ Hamzah Hakimi (Jidda: Dar al-Qiblah lil-Tagafah al-slamiyah & Beirut: Mu assasat &t-Qur"an, 1988), 20, Al-Suyiti provides the same list but points out that sore heard not directly from one ofthe Seven but from their followers: al-Suyit, aF-tgan ft “ulm al-Qur°dn, notes by Mustafa Dib al-Bught, 2 vols. (Damascus: Dae Ibn Kathir & Dar al-‘Ulum al-Insniyah, 1993), 1:230 (naw* 20).CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT Table 2: Transmitters From the Seven in the Six Books 1) Hafs ibn Sulayman (4. 180/796-7972), Baghdadi, then Meccan, < “Asim 216 2) Sulaym ibn ‘Isa (d. 188/803-8042), Kufan, < Hamzah 0/6 3) Shu‘bah ibn ‘Ayyash (d. 193/8092), Kufan, < ‘Asim 516 4) ‘Uthman ibn Sa‘id al-Qurashi Warsh (d. 197/812-813), Egyptian, < Nafi® 016 5) Yahyé ibn al-Mubarak al-Yazidi (4, 202/817-818), Baghdadi, < Aba Amr 016 6) “isd ibn Mina’ Qala (d. 220/835), Medinese, < Naf 016 7) Khallad ibn Khalid (2) al-Shaybani (d. 220/835), Kufan, < Hamzah — oo - 016 8) Khalaf ibn Hisham (d. 229/844), Baghdadi, < Hamzah — 216 9) al-Layth ibn Khalid (4, 240/854-8955), Baghdadi, < al-Kisa’i 016 10) Hafs ibn ‘Umar al-Diirt (d, 240/854-855), Baghdadi, < Aba ‘Amr, al-Kis@’} =e 6 11) ‘Abd Allah ibn Abmad ibn Bashir ibn Dhakwan (d. 242/857), Damascene, < Ibn ‘Amir 216 12) Hisham ibn ‘Ammar (4, 245/859), Damascene, < Ibn ‘Amir 516 13) Abmad ibn Muhammad al-Bazzi (d. 250/864-865), Meccan, < Ibn Kathir 0/6 14) Salih ibn Ziyad (2) al-Sast (d. 261/874), Mesopotamian, < Abi ‘Amr 0/6 15) Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman Qunbul (d. 291/903-904), Meccan, Tb Kath ——— v6 Nine of these readers appear in none of the Six Books. Only Hisham ibn “Ammar (n° 12), preacher for the Umayyad mosque and a minor jurispru- dent, made a considerable figure as a traditionist. He was sometimes dispa- raged for relating hadith reports he had not heard, also for demanding pay- ment for reciting hadith. Ahmad ibn Hanbal condemned him for declaring that his pronunciation of the Qur'an was created, a distinctive semi-rationa- list position. (*") Rijal critics roundly belittled Ton “Ayyash (n° 3) as a tradi- tionist. (“) (13) V. al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-islam, 18 (AH. 241-250):520-528; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib 11:52-54; also. al-Khallal, Musnad min masa'il Abt ‘Abd Allah Ajumad ibn Mulammad ibn Hanbal, ed. Diya’ uddia Ahmad, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh Publication 29 (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1975), 556. I cannot agree that his evaluations were so positive as Sezgin reports: Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrif- tums, 9 vols. to date (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967-), 1:111. For the distinction between an uncreated Que’ an and its created pronunciation as a distinctive semi-rationalist position, v. Melchert, “Alpmad,” 241-246. (14) Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib 1: 34-37.IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ANIC READINGS In the Later Middle Ages, six men were renowned as the principal stu- dents of the different readings up to and including Tbn Mujahid. ("*) ‘Table 3: Principal Students of the Readings 1) Abit ‘Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam (d. Mecca, 224/839?) 2) Ahmad ibn Jubayr al-Kafi (d. Antioch, 258/871-872) 3) Isma‘ll ibn Ishaq ul-Jahdamt (d, Baghdad, 282/896) 4) Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. Baghdad, 310/923) 5) Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Dajiini (4. [al-Ramlah] 310's/923-932) 6) Ahmad ibn Misa ibn al-‘Abbas ibn Mujahid (d. Baghdad, 324/936) Three of these six were active traditionists (n* 1, 3, and 4). All but one were apparently associated with Baghdad. The philologist Aba ‘Ubayd was mainly active in Baghdad, moving to Mecca only in 219/834-835, while Muhammad al-Dajini probably taught there for a time, as Tbn Mujahid, who notoriously did not travel, is said to have studied under him. () Only ‘Abmad ibn Jubayr, then, is not associated with Baghdad. Compare previous lists (no one in Table 1, four or five of the fifteen chief transmitters from them in Table 2). The same three traditionist Baghdadis were also active in the field of jurisprudence. The particular approach to jurisprudence of Aba ‘Ubayd (n° 1) is difficult to place. He is variously counted a follower of al-Shaybani, of al-Waqidi, and of al-S | (7) Ismail ibn Ishaq al-Jahdami (n° 3) was a prominent Maliki. Al-Tabari (n° 4) is commonly credited with elaborating his own system of jurisprudence. Another remarkable feature is the semi- rationalist tendency of all these jurisprudents. Ahmad ibn Hanbal reproa- ched Aba ‘Ubayd for his theological writings. (") Al-Tabari’s difficulties with the Hanabilah are well known. (“*) Al-Jahdami’s theological position is harder to specify. However, his chief teacher, the Basran Ahmad ibn (45) The same six are named by Abi al-Qasiin al-Nuwayri, Sharh "Tayyibat al-nasir ft al-gird’at ‘al-ashr,” ed.” Abd al-Fattah al-Sayyid Sulayman Abi Sunnah, Majma’ al-Buhath al-Islamiyah bi-al-Azhar, 3 vols. (Cairo: al-Hay'ah al-‘Ammah li-Shu'in al-Matabi al-Amiriyah, 1406/1986), 1:169f, and by al-Suyati,Irgan 1:230F (naw* 20), (16) Al-Dhahabi, Tarik al-iskam 23 (A.H, 301-320):638. (17) For al-Shaybini, v. al-Dhahabi, Siyar a°Idm al-nubala’, 25 vols. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risalah), 9 (ed. Kamil al-Kharrat, 1982):135; ef, al-Khafib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, 2:175. For al-Wagidi, v. bn Hajac, Tahdhtb 9:36, For al-Shatt', v. al Abadi, Kitab Tabagat al-fugaha’ al-shafi'tyah, ed. Gosta Vites- tam, Verdffentlichungen der “De Goeje Stiftung” 21 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964), 37. (18) Ibn Abi Ya'lé, Tabagat al-handbilah, Muhammad Hamid al-Figi, 2 vols. (Cairo: Matba°at al-Sun- nah al-Mubammadiyah, 1952), 1:57. (19) E.g,, v. Franz Rosenthal, “General Introduction,"The History of al-Tabari, SUNY Ser. in Near Eas- tem Studies, Bibliotheca Persica, 38 vols. (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1985-), 1:71-17.CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT al-Mu‘adhdhal (d. ca. 240/854-855), was surely a semi-rationalist: he enga ged in kalam, for which Ahmad ibn Hanbal disparaged him, (°) and he abs tained from declaring whether the Qur'an was created. (*) Ibn Mujahid, too (n° 6), is plausibly located amongst the semi-rationalists, as I have argued above. Finally, Aba ‘Ubayd, al-Jahdami, al-Tabari, and Ibn Mujahid were all active in adab, for which see their biographies in Yaqiit's dictionary of littérateurs. ) This suggests that, just as the chief qur'anic readings were transmitted apart from hadith, by separate experts, so the specialized study of variant qur'anic readings developed above all in Baghdadi belletrist circles. Curiously missing from al-Suyati's list of the most prominent students of the readings are Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276/889), whose K. al-Qira'at is mentio- ned by Ibn al-Nadim, (”) and Aba Bakr Ibn Abi Dawid (d. 316/929), author of K. al-Masahif (not mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim). Like Abi ‘Ubayd, al-Jahdami, al-Tabari, and Ibn Mujahid, Ibn Qutaybah and Ibn Abi Dawid were active mainly in Baghdad. Like them, both were active in the field of adab and both were close to court circles. Ibn Qutaybah is famous as an apo- logist for traditionalism, but the traditionalists themselves did not embrace him, and he sometimes endorsed semi-rationalist positions. (*) Ibn Abi Dawid, however, was known primarily as a traditionist and apparently led the Hanbali assault on al-Tabari. They seem to be examples of how acci- dents of manuscript preservation and modern publication have helped make some medieval writers far more prominent in modern scholarship than they were in their own time. This is not to argue that traditionalists were uninterested in the qur'anic readings. Ibn al-Nadim attributes books on the readings to half a dozen tra- ditionalist jurisprudents (fugaha' ashab al-hadith). (°) However, the section he devotes exclusively to books about the readings is indeed dominated by grammarians and other littérateurs, not traditionists. (*) What became the (20) ALDhahabi, Tavikh al-iskim, 17 (A.H. 231-240):52, 54; engagement in kalm noted by the Maliki biographer Ibn Farhiia, al-Dibaj al-mudhahhab, ed. Muhammad al-Ahmadi Abii al-Nar, 2 vols, (Cairo: Di al-Turath, 1972, 1976), 1:141 (21) A-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-isldm 17 (A.HL 231-240): 54; Siyar 11 (ed, Salih al-Same, 1982): 520 (22) Yagit, Mu'jam, ed. ‘Abbas, 5:2198-2202 (Abu ‘Ubayd), 2:647-651 (al-Jahdami), 6:2441-69 (al-Tabati), 2: 520-523 (Ibn Mujahid) (23) Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, 35 (24) Cf. Gérard Lecomte, Zbn Qutayba (Damascus: Institut Francais de Damas, 1965), pt. 2, chap. 1. For endorsement of semi-rationalist positions, v. esp. Ibn Qutaybah, al-Ikhtlaf fi al-lafz wa-al-radd ‘alé al-jahmiyah wa-al-mushabbihah, ed. Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsi, 1349; unacknowledged reprint from Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-“Imiyah, 1405/1985). (25) In chronological order, Z'idah ibn Qudimah (4. Asia Minor, 161/771-7782), K. al-Qira’at (226, |. 17); Hushaym ibn Bashir (4. Baghdad, 183/799), K, al-Qira'at (35, . 17; 228, 1. 9); Surayj ibn Yunus (4 235/849), K. al-Qird'at (231, |. 15); Khalifah ibn Khayyat al-~Usfuri (d. 240/854-8557), Bastan, K. Tabagat aal-qurra', K. Ajai al-Qur’an (232, 1 168); al-Fadl ibn Shadhan (4, 290's/903-9132), K. al-Qira’at (35, 1. 20; 231, 1. 23); and Ibn $#id (d. Baghdad, 318/930), K. al-Oira'at (233, 1.18); references to Ibn al-Nadim, Fih= vist (26) Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, 35, listing twenty books 10IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ANIC READINGS, classical tradition of qur'anic textual studies thus apparently neglected the work of earlier hadith specialists, building rather on a particular tradition at the intersection of hadith, grammar, jurisprudence, adab, and Sunni kalam. Similarities between Qur’an and hadith sciences One expects similarity between Qur’an transmission and hadith transmis- sion because both involved learning a more or less set body of data from one shaykh or several. Biographies of Qur’an readers come in virtually the same form as biographies of traditionists: the essential data are name, shaykhs, and dates. Qur’an readers kept track of chains of transmission much as did traditionists, There are suggestions that Qur’an specialists began to keep more careful track of chains of transmitters about the time of Ibn Mujahid. Ihave made a random sample of Qur’an readers who died from A.H. 200 to 400 inclusive (A.D. 815, 1010) in the most comprehensive extant biogra- phical dictionary of Qur'an readers, Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihayah. About two-thirds of these readers died in A.H. 324 (i.e., when Ibn Mujahid died) or before. Ibn al-Jazari usually names their chief authorities; that is, the shay- khs from whom they learnt the Qur’an. The average comes to 1.9 named shaykhs for those who died in 324 or before, 5.5 for those who died after. After Ibn Mujahid’s time, then, Qur’an readers evidently came to gather their material more in the manner of traditionists, carefully keeping track of their sources. ‘The most common terms describing the transmission of the Qur’an are qira’ah (reading, recitation), tilawah (reading aloud), and ‘ard (submission to criticism). The phrase gara’a al-gira'at ‘ardan, followed by a list of authorities, suggests that the student read the Qur’an before his master, enabling the master to point out any mistake. The phrases rawd al-gira'at ‘ardan and akhadha al-gira'ah ‘ardan presumably mean the same. Thaye found no primary or secondary source that asserts a difference bet- ween gird’ah and ‘ard. (”) Al-Suyiti strongly suggests that they were the same when he states, “Further evidence in favor of reading before (al-gird'ah ‘alé) one’s shaykh (as opposed to merely hearing him) is the Prophet’s... submission to (ard ‘ald) Gabriel during Ramadan of each year.”() If gird'ah and ‘ard were virtually synonymous, sama*ah was different. For example, Ibn al-Jazari tells us that Ibn Ghalbiin (d. Old Cairo, 399/1009) learnt the readings by ‘ard from one set of authorities but simply heard (27) They are identified by, among others, Gotthelf BergstriBer & O. Pretal, Geschichte des Qordns 3: Die Geschichte des Korantexts (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1938), 170, and Gregor Schoeler, “Die Frage der schrift- lichen oder mUndlichen Uberlieferung der Wissenschaften in frhen Islam,” Der Islam 62.(1985):204. (28) Al-Suydti,Irqan 1: 312 (naw* 34),CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT (sami‘a) the variants from another set and Ibn Mujahid’s Seven from yet another.(*) The natural interpretation is that whereas reading before the shaykh was necessary for the valid transmission of one reading, the student more often learnt the variants by taking notes as his shaykh listed off his peculiar choices. The student did not need to read back what he had taken down. At that, one also sees gara’‘a used of learning the variants. (”) Al-Suyiiti urges that the student should read before his master, or repeat the master’s reading, so that the master may correct mistakes. It is not enough, he says, merely to hear the shaykh’s recitation, for, unlike in the field of hadith, precise pronunciation is critical. (¢') From Ibn al-Jazari’s bio- graphies of specialists, it appears that reading back to the shaykh was the usual procedure. Perhaps two or three might recite at the same time. (*) ‘Abd Allah ibn Salih al-"Tjli (d. 211/826-827), a Kufan transmitter, would go through the Qur'an fifty verses at a time (*) ; however, I have no informa- tion on other transmitters for comparison on this point. Preference for ‘ard and qira'ah over sama‘ah is understandable; yet mere sama‘ah must always have been common, not least because it took less of the shaykh’s time and attention. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahim (d. Bagh- dad, 296/908-909) spent 80,000 dirhams in Old Cairo on 80,000 complete recitations. (“) Tbn Mujahid would take one dinar for a reading, the diffe- rence presumably reflecting in part the greater care it required of him to cor- rect a student. (*) A description of his circle as including 84 deputies (khalifah) suggests that he also read for others merely to hear. (*) Another description indicates a circle comprising 300 students. (*’) Ibn al-Anbari relates of al-Kisa’i, “They would flock to him concerning the readings, so he gathered them and sat on a chair and read out the Qur’an from first to last. They would listen and correct (yadbitiina) from him, even the wagf and ibtida’.”(*) The last points, concerning oral delivery, are just the sort of subtleties one would most expect to elude written transmission, or to be faul- tily annotated. At that, there is some uncertainty over the precise mode of transmission among early students of the Qur’an. Hence, for example, Ibn Mujahid states that Hamzah read before (gara’a ‘ald) al-A‘mash in Kufa, (29) Ibn al-Fazari, Ghayat al-nihayah 1:339. (30) E.g., “It is sald that Hamzah did not read the Qur'an before the disputed letters (gara’a “alayhi hurd al-ikhcilaf)": al-Andacabi, Oi "Nasif al-Tandbi (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risalah, 1985), 116. (1) Al-Suyati, Zigan 1:312 (naw” 34). (32) AL-Suydi, ligan 1:312 (naw” 34), (33) Al-Andarabi, Qird'de al-qurrd’, 115. (34) ALDhahabi, Tarith al-islam 22, (A. 291-300): 276F. (35) ADhahabi, Tartkh al-isldm 24 (A.H. 321-330):145. Tbn Mujahid’s Damascene student al-Husayn ‘ibn “Uthman (4, Baghdad, 404/1013), the last of his students to die, likewise charged one dinar for reading the Que'an (Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihayah 1: 2438). (36) Al-Dhahabi, arith al-isldm 24 (A.H. 321-330): 146. 37) Ibn al-Sazari, Ghayat al-nihdyah 1: 142. (38) Ton al-Anbari, apud Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib 7314. Cf. al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad 11; 409, rather read before him ‘al-marifin, ed, Ahmad 12IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ANIC READINGS then acknowledges that, alternatively, he was said merely to have heard (sami‘a) al-A‘mash’s reading. (*) Presumably, earlier students of the quranic readings had been less careful to distinguish how they had learnt them. In the field of hadith, likewise, gird'ah and ‘ard meant reading hadith back to the shaykh, while samd‘ah meant simply hearing the shaykh and taking notes. For much the same reasons that Qur’an specialists preferred reading back, careful traditionists preferred it, too. () The terms akhbarant and haddathani normally indicate whether one has repeated a hadith report to a shaykh, who has given his approval of it, or actually heard it from the shaykh’s own lips. And as with Qur’an transmission, there was some confu- sion in practice, so that some traditionists reversed akhbarani and hadda- thani. (") Differences between qur’an and hadith sciences ‘The special vocabularies of the sciences of Qur’an and hadith developed at about the same time, perhaps that of Qur’an science slightly earlier in the tenth century. Western scholars have variously identified Ibn Abi Hatim (d. 327/938), Ibn Khallad al-Ramahurmuzi (d. ca. 360/970-971), and al-Hakim al-Naysabiiri (d. 405/1014) as the first to systematize the vocabulary of hadith science. (‘®) Apart from the distinction between gara’a and sami"a, though, the two sciences seem to have shared little. For example, Ibn Mujahid applies the term hafiz to anyone who has memorized the Qur’an, however insecurely. (“*) The same term is prominent in biographies of tradi- tionists, but signifying not that someone has memorized a minimal amount, rather that he has memorized great quantities and often relates from memory, although without any strong implication of accurate relation. (“) The traditionists who used the term seem to have been uninfluenced by its meaning in Qur’an science, suggesting distance between the two fields. Another term of Qur’an science is tajarrada, which Ibn Mujahid seems to use in the sense of “specialize.” Hence, for example, Hamzah was among those who specialized in (tajarrada li-) recitation (*) ; Ibn Mubaysin (29) Ibn Mujahid, K.al-Sab"ah fi al-gird'a, ed. Shawgi Dayf (Cairo: Dar al-Ma°arif, 1972), 72. (G0) AL-Khatib al-Baghdidi, al-Kifayah fi lm al-rivayah, ed. Ahmad "Umar Hashim (Beirut; Dir aLKitab al~Arabi, 1986), 296-316; bab al-qawl fi al-gira'ah... V. also KhaldtnAbdab, Asbab ikheilf al-muhaddithin, 2 vols. (Jedda: al-Dax al-Sa' diya lil-Nashe wa-a-Tawa", 1405/1985), 1: 152. (Al) V. Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn., sv. “Hladith,"by J. Robson. (42) V. erik Nael Dickinson, “The Development of Early Muslim Hadith Criticism: ‘The ‘Taqdima’ of Ibn AbI Hatim al-Razi (4327/938),"Ph.D. diss'n, Yale Univ., 1992; Leonard T. Librande, “Contrasts in the ‘Two Farliest Manuals of ‘ulin al-hadith: The Beginnings of the Genre,”Ph, D. diss'n, McGill Univ., 1976. (43) Ibn Mujahid, Sab‘ah, 45. (44) Leonard'T. Librande, “The Scholars of Hadith and the Retentive Memory,"Cahiers donomastique arabe, 1988-92 (1993), 39-48 (45) Ibn Mujahid, Sabah, 72. 13CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT (d. 123/740-741) was among those who specialized in and undertook (tajar- rada li-, agama bi-) qur’anic recitation. (“*) Similarly, Ahmad ibn Hanbal is quoted as saying, “I do not care for anyone who writes books. One should concentrate on (yujarridu) hadith.”(") These usages are close enough to the non-technical meaning of jarrada that they need not imply borrowing bet- ween specialists in Qur’an and hadith. Moreover, there are hints that tajrid in Qur'an science refers to specialization in one particular reading, which has no analogue on the side of hadith. (“*) In jurisprudence, tajrid normally refers to stripping juridical discussions of all reference to actual cases. (°) If Tbn Mujahid and his contemporaries tended to assimilate Qur’an trans- mission to hadith transmission by stressing acceptable chains of transmission, their assimilation was very incomplete. Tbn Mujahid appears to have been careless about chains of transmission, himself, omitting to mention interme- diary links in his account of his own chosen seven. (“) Also, he did not assert that the seven readings of his choice were the product of integral transmission. For example, the reading of Nafi* was said to be his personal synthesis of five earlier Medinese readings, the reading of al-Kisa’i his personal synthesis of the readings of Hamzah and others. (*!) Such systematic mixing and matching has no analogue in hadith transmission, Al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) lays out rules for reckoning the quality of different isnads for the recitation of the Qur'an, and states at the end that no one else had done this before him. (®) Here is a sign of how incomplete the assimilation of Qur’an transmission to hadith transmission had remained until his time. Not even al-Suydti proposes to introduce the terminology of rijal criticism so oddly missing from biographies of Qur’an transmitters: thigah, sadiig, and so forth. Tbn Abi Dawad (d. 316/929) offers a chapter on the permissibility of copying the Qur’an for payment, followed by a chapter on its hatefulness. (*) Presuma- bly, the practice became prevalent before moralists had pondered it and decided against, We have numerous reports of shaykhs who taught the qut’anic variants for payment, including Ibn Mujahid, By contrast, reports of ninth-century tradi- tionists who took money for relating hadith are few and entirely disparaging. (*) Again, Qur’an science lines up more closely with grammar, where payment for instruction was usual, than with hadith. (46) Ibn Mujahid, Sab‘ah, 65. V. also Bergstier & Pretzl, Geschichte 3: 166, 189, (47) Tn Hani’, Masa'il al-imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, ed. Zohayr al-Shawish, 2 vols. (Beirut: al-Maktab aLIslami, 1400), 2:245, (48) See Magdisi (Muqaddast, Ahsan al-tagasim, ed. M. J. De Goeje, Bibliotheca geographorum Ara- bicorum 3, 2nd edn. (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1906), 144, where the mujarrad (particular) reading is contrasted to the jaz, the usual reading that everyone knows, (49) Wael Hallag, “Fro Fatwas to Fura: Growth and Change in Islamic Substantive Law,"Islamie Law and Society 1 (1994): 44, (50) Al-Suyati, liga 1: 230 (naw* 20) (51) Ibn Mujahid, Sabah, 62, 78; al-Andarabi, Qird'a al-qurra’, 119. (52) Al-Suyuti,Itgdn 1: 235 (naw 21), (53) Ibn Abi Dawid, K. al-Masahif, ed, A, Jefferey (Leiden: B. J. Bill, 1937), 130-133, (4) Hisham ibn “Ammar has been mentioned already. V. also al-Khatibal-Baghdadi, Kifiyah, 184-188; bab karahat akhdh al-ajr. 14IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ ANIC READINGS Several recent works have treated the question of whether knowledge was usually transmitted orally or by writing. (*) Written notes cannot have been necessary to Qur'an transmission, for one often reads of blind Qur’an rea- ders. For example, the Baghdadi al-Duri mentioned above among major transmitters from the seven (Table 2, n° 10) was blind, likewise the Palesti- nian al-Dajiini mentioned among leading students of the readings (Table 3, no. 5). Blind men make up roughly a tenth of the Qur’an readers mentioned in al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, and a similar proportion in the random sample of Qur’an readers who died from A.H. 200 to 400 inclusive (AD. 815, 1010) in Ibn al-Jazari, Ghayat al-nihdyah. By contrast, blind men make up roughly one in a hundred traditionists in Tarikh Baghdéd, like- wise in a rough sample from al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-islam. In practice, then, writing was less crucial to the transmission of the Qur’an than to the trans~ mission of hadith. Presumably, oral transmission is responsible for many of the variant readings; for example, at Q 1.6, where the accepted readings are ihdina al-sirat al-mustaqim, al-sirat, and al-zirdt. Still, some of the variant readings are explicable only by written trans- mission; for example, at Q 2.58, where the accepted readings include nagh- {fir lakum khatayakum, yughfar lakum, and tughfar. If transmission had been always oral, there never would have arisen the vexed question of whether any reading consistent with the unpointed text was permissible. Ibn Mujahid argues that it is a blameworthy innovation to read any variant that agrees with the unpointed text, regardless of whether a previous authority has so read. (*) Obviously, then, some (not only Ibn Migsam) did rely on the writ- ten text to this degree. Reliance on written transmission is in line with the predominance of littérateurs among students of the qur’anic variants, for such reliance was always more characteristic of literary studies than of law and hadith. (*) We do read that certain transmitters had nuskhahs from their masters. (*) Al-Suyiiti states that it is not necessary to the validity of one’s reading to a shaykh that it be by memory (min al-hifz). Reading from a writ- ten copy (min al-mushaf) is an acceptable alternative. (”) Finally, let us recall the story that the caliph “Uthman controlled variation not by training reciters but by sending out written copies and having others destroyed. Mus- lims would not have believed it unless they had been accustomed to relying on writing for the transmission of the Qur’an. By contrast, written notes always played a supporting rdle in hadith transmission, inasmuch as only (55) Schoeler, “Frage,” Der Islam 62 (1985): 201-230; idem, “Mindliche Thora und Hadit. Uberliefe- rung, Schreibverbot, Redaktion,"Der Islam 66 (1989): 213-251; idem, “Schreiben und Verdffentlichen. Zit Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten,” Der Islam 69 (1992): 1-43; Norman Calder, Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), ch. 7; Michael Cook, “The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam,” Arabica 44 (1997): 437-530. (56) Ibn Mujahid, Sabah, 46f. (57) Makdisi, Rise of Humanism, 76F. (58) For a list of early examples, v, Bergstrater & Pretzl, Geschichte 3: 206 (59) Al-Suyat, ligdn 1: 312 (naw” 34). 15CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT Someone who had personally heard a hadith report from the last-named authority in its isndd was qualified to pass it on. There were several reasons why the transmission of the Qur’an should have differed from that of hadith. The main difference may be the extent of the materials to be mastered, The whole Qur’an is said to be about two- thirds as Jong as an Arabic translation of the New Testament. The Sahih of al-Bukhari, comprising some 7,000 hadith reports, occupies four volumes, Abii Zur‘ah al-Razi (d, Ray, 264/878) said, “I am amazed by one who gives juridical opinions concerning questions of divorce when he knows by heart fewer than a hundred thousand hadith teports.”(®) This would fill forty or fifty volumes. Abi Zur‘ah al-Razi expressly compared Qur’an with hadith, indicating that hadith required far more frequent practice. When I become ill for a month or two, it noticeably affects my memori- zation of the Qur’an. As for hadith, you will notice the effect if you leave it for (a few) days. (*) CThat is, Abi Zur‘ah continually returned to his notebooks in private to refresh his memory of hadith, whereas it was enough to go through the Whole Qur’an once a month to retain it in his memory. Al-Suyati quotes authorities who considered it sufficient to recite the Qur’an twice a year. () Surely this is why more blind men practiced Qur’an recitation than hadith; that is, the far greater extent of the hadith to be mastered forced traditionists to rely more heavily on written notes. Another reason why the transmission of the Qur’an should have differed from that of hadith is the devotional function of the Qur’an. Studies by Denny, Graham, and Nelson have reminded us strongly that the Qur’an was not primarily a collection of propositions to be looked up but a liturgy to be recited. (“) It was the uncreated word of God according to both traditiona- list and semi-rationalist theologians. By contrast, hadith was mainly the transmitted basis of the law. Its sacral character lay not so much in the exact words as in, first, its presentation of propositions on which to base a righ- ‘cous life and, second, the social setting of its transmission, reproducing the (60) Al-Dhahabi, Siyar 13 (ed, ‘Ali Aba Zayd, 1983): 69. (61) AL-Dhahabi, Siyar 13: 79, (62) Al-Suyati, tgan 1: 327 (naw” 35). (69) Frederick M. Denny, “Exegesis and Recitation: Their Development as Classieal Forms of Quy'énie Flety.” pp. 91-123 in Frank E. Reynolds & Theodore M, Ludwig, eds, Transitions and Transformerions the History of Religion: Essays in Honor of Joseph M. Kitagawa (Leiden: . . Bil. 1980) dem, "The Ang Se Gur an Recitation: Text and Context,” pp. 143-160 in A. H, Johns, ed, Interational Congress forthe ‘Study ofthe Qur'an, 2nd edn. (Canberra: Australian National University, 1982) idem, "Quy'an Retains Wanwaltion of Oral Performance and Transmlssion,"Oral Tradition 4/I-2 (anuaty-May 1985), 16IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR'ANIC READINGS experience of the Companions and putting the traditionist in communication with the Prophet. (“) Because it was difficult to remember the exact wording of thousands upon thousands of hadith reports, traditionists accepted that hadith would be transmitted with textual variants. Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/777-778) was quoted as saying, “If I start relating hadith to you ‘just as [have heard,” do not believe me.”(®) One has only to look up the references in a line or two of Wensinck’s Concordance to see extensive variation from one collection to another. The Qur'an, too, was related with textual variants, but the diffe- rences are remarkably narrow. Widespread paraphrase of hadith is the rea- son why philologists continually quoted the Qur’an to establish the best Ara- bic usage but seldom quoted hadith. (“) As the shorter text, the Qur’an was easier to transmit without variation, while its nature made exactness more desirable. This very comparison was urged in favor of paraphrasing hadith: Yahya ibn Sa’id al-Qattan (d. Basra, 198/813) is said to have feared to over- burden people by insisting on verbatim transmission of hadith, “for the Qur’an is more sacred (aktharu hurmatan), yet it is permissible to recite variants of it (an yuqra’a ‘ald wujiih) so long as the meaning is the same”: all the more, he implies, one must allow variation in hadith transmission. ) ‘The transmission of hadith verbatim (al-riwdyah bi-al-lafz), rather than by paraphrase (bi-al-ma’nd), seems to have become more usual, though, during Ibn Mujahid’s lifetime. Al-Hakim al-Naysabari devotes one chapter of his handbook of hadith science to the problem of garbled asanid (chains of transmitters), another to the problem of garbled mutiin (the actual texts of hadith reports). (*) Whereas al-Hakim’s examples of distorted asdnid involve transpositions or outright substitutions, his examples of distorted mutin are all about misinterpreting written notes; for example, reading al-mugit (one who sets.a time) for al-mughith (one who gives aid), or ‘anzah (goat) for ‘anazah (spear). J infer that increasing reliance on notebooks is what made it possible to demand relation verbatim. The examples of mis- takes that al-Hakim cites in the chapter on asdnid are mainly from traditio- (64) On the connection with the Prophet, ». William A. Graham, “Traditionalism in Islam,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1992-93): 495-522. For a contrasting interpretation of Islamic Jaw as making present the life of the Prophet, v. Aziz al-Azmeh, “Orthodoxy and Hanbalite Fideism,” Arabica 35 (1988) 253-266; idem, "Muslim Genealogi History of Religions 31 (1992): 403-411 (65) Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Kiféyah, 245; bab dhikr man kina yadhhabu ilé ijazat al-riwayah ‘ald al-ma‘nd... The whole chapter is relevant, likewise the one befor (66) V. now Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, s.v. “Shawahid,” by Cl. Gilli (67) AUKhatib al-Baghdiadi, Kayan, 246; bab dhikr man kina yadlhabu iléicatal-riwayah...Unplan- ned variation still happens. I once prepared an exact transcription of Q.81.1-14 fr a clas, then played Yor them ‘tape of ‘Abd al-Basit’s recitation of it. I was astonished by an added lam at the beginning of v.14, ‘alimat nafswm ma akdarat. Tt isnot a variant recognized by Tbn Mujahid. It is said of Ton Mujahid himself that he twice recited the Qur’an to God in hs sleep, both times making mistakes, He was dejected, but God comforted him, “Perfection is for me, perfection is for me": Yat, Irshdd 2: 118 = Mu’jam, ed, ‘Abbas, 2:521f. (68) Al-Hakim al-Naysabori, Ma'rifar ‘uliim al-hadith, ed. Muazzam Husayn (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyab, 1937; repr. Medina: al-Makiabab al-‘lmiyah, 1977), 146-153. leyCHRISTOPHER MELCHERT nists of the eighth century, suggesting that the problem was recognized early. By contrast, the examples in the chapter on mutiin (where paraphrase is an issue) come from the ninth and early tenth centuries. If word-for-word accuracy was increasingly demanded in the field of hadith, all the more it must have been demanded in the field of qur’ anic recitation. A longstanding concem for reciting the Qur’ an verbatim partly explains the predominance of grammarians among students of the readings. Ibn Mujahid required the Quran reader to know Arabic grammar for the sake of accuracy. He asserts that someone who does not know grammar but merely repeats what he has heard will soon forget the precise "rab (case endings). (°) Among tenth-century traditionists, concern for accuracy led not to the demand that one know grammar but that one know jurisprudence, for then alone would one understand the significance of any particular wording and avoid mistakes. (®) The concern for relating the Qur'an verbatim seems to have been earlier and more urgent than for relating hadith verbatim. Still, rising concer for relating hadith verbatim is another example of how the sciences of hadith and Qur'an became more similar in the time of Ibn Mujahid without being completely alike. The establishment of seven readings A. T. Welch has characterized Ibn Mujahid’s purpose in limiting the acceptable variants to seven as being to “renounce the attempts of some scholars to achieve absolute uniformity (something which he realised was impossible), and at least ameliorate if not bring to an end the rivalry among scholars, each of whom claimed to possess the one correct reading.” (”') This is possible, although I myself have not come across any claim to possess the one correct reading, When someone asked Ibn Mujahid why he had not him- self chosen one reading, he said, “We need to engage ourselves in memori- zing what our imams have gone over more than we need to choose a variant for those after us to recite.”(") This might point to a realization that it was impossible to achieve absolute uniformity. It still seems to me more indica- tive of a perceived need to put a stop to the multiplication of readings, hence limiting the burden of qur’anic scholarship. This seems to be the drift of al-Suyuti’s explanation: that people wished to limit themselves to what might easily be memorized and checked. () (69) Ibn Mujahid, Sab‘ah, 456 (70) tba Hibban, apud Tn Rajab, Shark “al "al-Tirmidhi, ed. Hammam ‘Abd al-Rabim Sa‘id, 2 vols, (al-Zarqa’, Jordan: Maktabat al-Manis, 1987), 1:430. Ibn Rajab asserts that no one had made such a requi rement before Ibn Hibbin (d. 354/965), complaining that strictly applied it would make one reject most of the great memorizers, such as al-A'mash (d, 148/765?) (71) Bneyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, s.v. "Kur'an,” by A. T. Weleh (72) AlDhahabi, Tarikh al-isiam 24 (A.H, 321-330): 146. (73) Ma yas" huts hifzulu wa-tanbit al-qird’ah bik: al-Suyat Tegan 1: 2514 (naw* 22-27), 18IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ ANIC READINGS, Western scholars have also asserted that Ibn Mujahid’s choice of seven acceptable readings was related to the hadith report that the Qur’an had been revealed in seven ahruf. (*) That hadith report does seem to deal with tex- tual variants. Yet al-Tabari interprets it as referring to seven recensions of which only one had been preserved, the other six irretrievably lost in “Uthman’s codification () Al-Tabari’s Kitab al-Jami’ fi al-gira’ at proposes twenty readings ("9 : piainly, he thought the seven ahruf had nothing to do with the gird’at. A little later, Ibn Hibban (d. 354/965) would write of Uhitly-five to forty different explanations for the hadith report of seven ahruf. (”) Ibn Mujahid himself does not explain why he has seven readings rather than six or ten. Al-Suyiiti explains that an Ibn Jubayr al-Makki, a predeces- sor to Ibn Mujahid, had composed a book on five acceptable readings, one from each city to which “Uthman had directed a codex. Ibn Mujahid’s seven were also related to “Uthman’s codices, Ibn Jubayr’s five plus two more to represent copies sent to Yemen and Bahrain. Nothing further had been heard of these last two, so Ibn Mujahid exchanged two additional Kufan rea- dings for them to complete the number. (") Al-Suyiiti quotes half a dozen authorities against identifying the Seven Readings with the seven ahruf of the hadith report. (”) He even quotes a rea~ der of the earlier eleventh century, al-Mahdawi, as wishing that Ibn Mujahid had chosen some other number than seven in order to prevent confusion with the hadith report. (®) If Ibn Mujahid’s choice of seven was not related to the seven ahruf, it becomes easier to explain why other scholars, both before and after Ibn Mujahid, wrote books about six, eight, ten, eleven, and other numbers of acceptable readings. (*) It also explains why no one undertook to identify the different readings with different Companions, as they should have if the Muslims of the Classical period had held the variants to be dia- Jectal differences from the Prophet's time. (74) Exg., Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn., sv, “Kus'an,” by A. T, Welch; Encyclopedia of Religion, sv. "Qur'an: The Text and Its History,” by Charles J. Adams, Presumably, the tradition goes back to Nol- deke, perhaps by misunderstanding: v. the qualified endorsement of BergstriBer & Pretzl, Geschichte 3: 184. (15) Ab-Tabari, Tafsir al-Tabari, ed. Mabmiid Muhammad Shakir & Ahmad Muhammad Shakir, 30 vols., 2nd edn, (Cairo: Dar al-Ms'arif, 1969), 1: 58:64 = Jami" al-bayan fi tafsir al-Qur’an, 31 vols. (Cairo; al-Marba'ah al-Maymaniyah, 1321), 1:20-22. (76) Claude Gilliot, Langue et theologie en islam: Vexégese coranique de Tabari (m. 311/923), Btudes ‘musulmanes 32 (Paris; Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1990), 136. Chap. 6 treats the problem of variant rea dings at length. (7) Theodor Noldeke, Geschichte des Qordns 1: Uber den Ursprung des Qordns (Leipzig: Dieteri- ch'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1909), 50. (78) Al-Suyiii, figan 1:252 (naw 23-27). 1 have not certainly identified this Tbn Jubayr. It is tempting to identify him with the Ahmad ibn Jubayr al-Kiifi mentioned above (Table 3, no. 2). (79) Abii Shama (d. 665/1268), Abu al-‘Abbas Ibn ‘Ammar (al-Mahdawi; d. after 430/1038)), Aba Bakr thn al-"Arabi (al-Tshbili, d. 43/1148), Abi Hayyan (d. 745/1345), and Maki (al-Qaysi, d. 437/1045): al-Suyiti, figan 1: 250F (naw* 23-27, tanbih 3). Similarly, BergstraBer & Pretal, Geschichte 3: 184 (80) AL-Suyiii, Fegan 1:250. (B1) V. BergstiBer & Pretzl, Geschichte 3:207-209, 224.228; Ahmad Nasif al-Janabi al-qurra’ by al-Andarabi, 33. “Dirisah,” Qira’ar 19My CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT fa seven readings; also with a book in favor of the readers of the great centers. (*) Like Tbn \ lujahid, then, he seems to have accepted the prin- Ciple of limiting variants. Unlike Ibn Mujahid, he advocated complete freedom [0 vowel the received Consonantal outline in any fashion consistent with Kufan grammar. At the instigation of Ibn Mujahid, he was arrested, tried before the gadis and witness-notaries, and Made to recant on threat of chastisement, «) Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ayyib ibn al-Salt ibn Shannabadh (alterna- tively Shanbadh and Shanabiidh) was a major Qur'an reader, the list of whose students is very long. (*) A neat-contemporary source States that he would recite variants that had been “related of ‘Abd Allah ibn Mas‘id, al-Husayn [d, 328/940] and Ibn Mujahid.) (") He Was chastised and recan- ted after ten lashes, (*) His recantation States, “T used to recite variants dif- fering from what is in the codex (mn, ‘Shaf) of ‘Uthman ibn “Affan .. . which is subject to consensus and on which Were agreed the Companions.” It was signed by at least three witnesses, Ibn Mujahid at the head of the list, (”) (82) For biographies of Ibn Migsam, y, Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte 8 : 158; 9: 149, (Ss) “A great lia.” “untrustworthy,” “renaming from persons he had not seen,” “blameworthy": Ibn Haier, Lisdn “al-Micin,” 7 vols. (lyderabuar Majlis Diitatal-Mar nif, 1329-31), 12260 on Muhammad Abd alRahman al-Marasht, 9 vols. (Beme Dar Ihya’ al “Avabi & Mu’assasat al-Tarikh MaAtabi 1995), 1: 394. The standard cation of ArKhatb al-Baghdadi, Tarith Baghdad, states thar Ibn Migsam was trustworthy (2:206); yet Ibn Lajat quotes al Khatib to exacly the opposte chase Until there sre cientific edition of Tarik Baghdad, the Sneston of a-Khalibs actual opinion must remain oper (84) V. Sezgin, Geschichte 9: 1496 (0) Abii Tahir Ibn Abi Hashim (4. 349/960), x: al Bayan, apud al-Kbati al-Baghdadh, Tarith Baghdad 125) On his students, above allv. ton al-tazant Chavet abnibiyah 2:52, For other biographies of Ibn Shannabidh,v. al-Dhahabi, Tarkh a islam 34 (AH.321-330)233f, and The Eneyelopacdie of Islam, new edn, 8.v. “Iba Shanabit {GP ton a-Sawz, al-Muntasam f tart al-muae srg amar, 83.328; ed. Muhammad ‘Aba a- Qadir (Ata & Mustafé Abd al-Qadir ‘Ata, w: No'aym Zurzor, 18 vols. (Beirut: Dar aL Kuror al-Tniyah, 1992), 13:348, (88) Ismail ibm “Ali al-Khutabi adh, Tarikh Baghdad bar a Rad b-Allah a-at-Mutagé lita, e James Hey- % 1939), 626; Ibn al-Nadim, Firisr, 32; Yaqut, Irshad 6: 3028 = 20IBN MUJAHID : SEVEN QUR’ANIC READINGS There was an element of personal rivalry between Ibn Shannabidh and Tbn Mujahid. Tbn Shannabidh would complain that this “Atshi (after Suq al-‘Atsh; ie., “this local boy”) had never made his feet dusty in pursuit of knowledge; that is, had not travelled as Ibn Shannabiidh had. (”°) However, Tbn Mujahid had to persuade a vizier, a qadi, and a crowd of jurisprudents that Ibn Shannabidh should recant, so his personal enmity does not alone explain what happened to Ibn Shannabiidh. ‘Some scholars have presented the trials of Ibn Miqsam and especially of Tbn Shanuabadh as triumphs of the traditionalist party. (°') To the contrary, however, no medieval account actually mentions the Handbilah. Moreover, it was the Hanabilah’s manner at this time not to raise complaints to the constituted authorities but rather to take the law into their own hands. In 321/933, the Hanbali leader al-Barbahari was forced into hiding over oppo- sition to a proposal to curse Mu‘awiyah. He seems unlikely to have shortly influenced the vizier, gadis, and others, to arrest someone else. In 323/935, the Hanabilah looted shops, attacked wine sellers and singing girls, and sma- shed musical instruments. (”) Neither the Maliki qadi Abi al-Husayn nor Ibn Mujahid the belletrist and admirer of al-Shafi‘i looks notably traditiona~ list. It does not appear that Ibn Mujahid chose his seven according to tradi- tionalist preferences. Ahmad ibn Hanbal considered “hateful” two of Ibn Mujahid’s Seven, namely the readings of Hamzah and al-Kisa’t. (*) Finally, the traditionalist tendency was not to codify and simplify traditional lear- ning, but rather to stick to it in all its immensity without spinning theories or asking new questions. Ahmad himself could be cited in favor of putting together one’s own reading of the Qur’an on the basis of known variants, just as Ibn Shannabidh had done. (“) Neither should we interpret these trials as endorsements by non-Hanbali scholars of Ibn Mujahid’s particular choice of seven readings. No account of Tbn Migsam’s trial mentions the Seven of Ibn Mujahid, Rather, all accounts stress the issue of interpreting the consonantal outline and departing from received tradition. Likewise, no account of Ibn Shannabiidh’s trial mentions the Seven. Rather, all accounts stress the issue of rare variants, shawadhdh, (90) AL-Dnahabi, Ma‘rifaal-qurra’ 1:277, For Ton Mujahid’ residence in Sig al-‘Atsh,v. Ibn al-Nadim, Fitrist, 31. A-Dhahabi objects that infact fon Mujhid had tavelle, making the pilgrimage to Mecca. (Ot) Ex, by Simha Sabari, Mowvements populaires & Bagdad a l'époque “Abbasid,” Centre “Sbilosh” des Etudes du Moyen-Orient et de l'Afrique, Université de Tel Aviv, Etudes de Civilisation et d'Histoire Ila- rmigues (Pais: Librairie d’ Amérique et @’Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1981), 106, 149, n. 44; Makdist, Rise of Humanism, 6 (02) Henti Laoust, La Profession de foi d'lbn Barta (Damascus: Institut Francais de Damas, 1958), axial; Fneyciopaedia of Islan, new en, sv, “al-Barbahari,” by H. Laous (03) Ibn Abi Ya'lé, Tabagatal-hanabila, 1: 146, 325 (san. Harb ibn Ismail, Hubaysh tbn Sind, and Mohammad ibn al-Haytham). His objections mainly concem pronunciation, secondarily that these readings ‘were litle used (contr Ibn Mujahid, who asserted that the reading of Hamzah had prevailed in Kuta to bis wn time: Sab‘ah, 71). They seem tobe the two readings Ibn Mujahid added to Tbn Jubayt's lst. (04) ALDhahab, Tarikh al-isldm 24 (AH, 321-330): 235, 21CHRISTOPHER MELCHERT his own confession the issue of non- ‘Uthmanic variants in particular. (**) If these trials had amounted to endorsements of Ibn Mujahid’s Seven, no later scholar should have proposed a different set of acceptable readings. On the whole, then, the Seven Readings of the Qur’an are to be classified with the “canonical” Six Books of hadith: they were never formally ratified, or even universally accepted; they did restrain growing complexity; modern scholars have had difficulty talking about them without simplifying histori- cal reality; but indeed their recognition, however halting and incomplete, did mark a widely observable turn in the tenth century towards limited agree- ment and manageability. Christopher MELCHERT (Princeton, N.J.) Now at the University of Oxford, Oxford, VK. W (95) V. note 86; also al-Hamadhini, Takmilar tarith al-Tabari, ed. Albert Yasuf Kan‘an (Beirut al-Matba’ah al-Kathalikiyah, 1958), 87. 22