Part One
The creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah in summary
First Issue: What Faith in the Books Includes
Kitāb (كِتَاب) is from katb, writing and gathering, and the Books are the speech of Allah that He sent down to His messengers. Faith in them is the third pillar. It includes belief that they came down from Allah in truth, belief in those named in the Qurʾān, the Torah to Mūsā, the Gospel to ʿĪsā, the Psalms to Dāwūd, and the Scrolls of Ibrāhīm and Mūsā, and in the rest in general, belief in what is authentically reported of their contents, and acting upon the last of them, the Qurʾān, which abrogates what came before it.
Allah said at the end of Sūrat al-Baqarah:
The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, and so have the believers. All of them have believed in Allah, His angels, His Books and His messengers. We make no distinction between any of His messengers. And they say: We hear and we obey. Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the return.
Sūrat al-Baqarah, 2:285 Read the verse (opens in a new tab)
Part Two
The texts of the Qurʾān and the Sunnah
Second Issue: The Qurʾān over the Books Before It
Allah said in Sūrat al-Māʾidah:
And We have revealed to you the Book in truth, confirming what came before it of the Scripture and as a guardian over it. So judge between them by what Allah has revealed, and do not follow their desires away from what has come to you of the truth. For each of you We have made a law and a way. Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation, but He tests you in what He has given you. So race to all that is good. To Allah is the return of you all, and He will inform you of that over which you used to differ.
Sūrat al-Māʾidah, 5:48 Read the verse (opens in a new tab)
Muhaymin (مُهَيْمِن), guardian, is the one who watches over a thing, testifies to it and judges it. The Qurʾān confirms what remains true in the earlier Books and judges what was altered in them. And Allah took on the preservation of the Qurʾān Himself, while He entrusted the preservation of the earlier Books to their people: “indeed We sent down the Reminder and indeed We will be its guardian”, and of the rabbis: “with what they were entrusted to preserve of the Book of Allah.” So the one was kept by Allah, and the others were lost and changed by those entrusted with them.
He said in Sūrat al-Ḥijr:
Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian.
Sūrat al-Ḥijr, 15:9 Read the verse (opens in a new tab)
Third Issue: What the Book Says of the Altering of the Earlier Scriptures
Allah said in Sūrat al-Baqarah:
So woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and then say: This is from Allah, in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for what they earn.
Sūrat al-Baqarah, 2:79 Read the verse (opens in a new tab)
That is the altering of the text itself. And Allah described the altering of the meaning in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: “Among the Jews are those who distort words from their places.” So both kinds of alteration took place. That is why the Prophet ﷺ taught the Muslims how to receive what the People of the Book report.
Al-Bukhārī reported in his Ṣaḥīḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet ﷺ said:
Do not believe the People of the Book and do not belie them, and say: “We believe in Allah and what was sent down.”
al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ (al-Sulṭāniyyah) 3/181
Source, chain and authenticity
Authentic. It is in the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī, and the ummah received the two Ṣaḥīḥs with acceptance; its full chain is given in the Arabic above.
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What agrees with the Qurʾān is believed because the Qurʾān says it. What contradicts it is rejected. What neither confirms nor contradicts is neither believed nor belied, and it is permitted to report it, as the Prophet ﷺ allowed, without building anything of the religion on it.
Part Three
The claims of the opponents and their refutation
“The Torah and the Gospel in the hands of their people are intact, and Ibn ʿAbbās said so”
The claim
Said by Christian polemicists against Islām, and by some who call to the unity of religions
The Torah and the Gospel in the hands of the Jews and the Christians today are the books that Allah sent down. Ibn ʿAbbās said that no one can alter a word of the Books of Allah, and that they only alter its meaning. So the Christian and the Jew who follow them are on a revealed religion.
The response
Ibn ʿAbbās is reported in al-Bukhārī as saying the opposite at length: “How do you ask the People of the Book about anything, when your Book, which was sent down upon His Messenger, is the newest of reports from Allah, which you read pure and unaltered, and Allah has told you that the People of the Book changed the Book of Allah and altered it, and wrote the Book with their own hands and said: This is from Allah?” The sentence quoted against him is about the meaning in a particular context, and it does not undo what he stated in the Ṣaḥīḥ.
And the books themselves bear witness. The Gospels are four accounts by different hands, written after ʿĪsā, that contradict one another on his genealogy and on the events of his last days, and none of them is the Injīl that was sent down to him. The Torah reports the death of Mūsā and what happened after it. The imams who knew them best, Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Taymiyyah, showed in detail where they were changed. Ibn Taymiyyah held that a large part of the text of the Torah was altered and that its meaning was altered still more, and he wrote al-Jawāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ to answer the Christians from their own books.
And even if every word had remained, the law of the Qurʾān abrogates them. The Prophet ﷺ said: “By the One in whose Hand is my soul, no one of this nation, Jew or Christian, hears of me and then dies without believing in what I was sent with, but he will be of the people of the Fire.” Muslim reports it. Whoever says that a Jew or a Christian who has heard of the Messenger ﷺ is upon a religion acceptable to Allah has belied this ḥadīth and the verse “Whoever seeks a religion other than Islām, it will never be accepted from him.”
“The Qurʾān alone is enough, without the Sunnah”
The claim
Said by the Qurʾāniyyūn
The Qurʾān is the only Book, and it is complete and detailed. The Sunnah was written down centuries later and is not revelation, so a Muslim takes his religion from the Qurʾān alone.
The response
The Qurʾān that they claim to follow commands the opposite: “Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it, and whatever he forbids you, abstain from it”, “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah”, and “We sent down to you the Reminder so that you make clear to the people what was sent down to them.” The making clear is the Sunnah, and the one who rejects it has rejected the verse that commands it.
The Qurʾān commands prayer and does not give its number of units, its times in detail or its form; it commands zakāh and does not give its rates. The man who takes the Qurʾān alone either takes these from the Sunnah he rejects, or invents a prayer of his own. And the Sunnah was not written centuries later: it was written in the Prophet’s lifetime by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr and others, memorised and taught in every generation, and gathered with chains whose every man is known. The same Companions carried the Qurʾān and the Sunnah, and whoever doubts the carriers of the one has lost the other, as Abū Zurʿah said in the chapter on the Companions.
“ʿĀʾishah said that the scribes of the muṣḥaf made errors in three verses”
The claim
Said by the Christian polemicists and the orientalists against the preservation of the Qurʾān, and repeated by the Rāfiḍah who claim that the Qurʾān was altered
Hishām ibn ʿUrwah reported from his father that he asked ʿĀʾishah about “wa-l-muqīmīnah al-ṣalāh” (al-Nisāʾ 162), “wa-l-ṣābiʾūn” (al-Māʾidah 69) and “inna hādhāni la-sāḥirān” (Ṭā Hā 63), and she said: “O son of my sister, this is the work of the scribes; they erred in the writing.” So the Mother of the Believers testified that the Qurʾān contains errors of grammar, and the claim that it was preserved letter for letter is false.
The response
Al-Ṭabarī reported the narration with its chain, through Abū Muʿāwiyah from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, and the scholars of the Qurʾān received it and explained it. Not one of them understood from it what the enemy of the Qurʾān understands, and among those who answered it was Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī (raḥimahullāh), the imam of the science of the script of the muṣḥafs, in the very book in which he recorded every letter of that script.
Al-Dānī said in al-Muqniʿ fī Rasm Maṣāḥif al-Amṣār:
كذلك الخطأ على جهة الاتّساع في الاخبار وطريق المجاز في العبارة اذ كان ذلك مخالفا لمذهبهما وخارجا عن اختيارهما وكان الأوجه والأولى عندهما الأكثر والافشى لديهما لا على وجه الحقيقية والتحصيل والقطع لما بيّناه قبل من جواز ذلك وفشوه فب اللغة واستعمال مثله في قياس العربية مع انعقاد الاجماع على تلاوته كذلك دون ما ذهبا إليه إلا ما كان من شذوذ أبي عمرو بن العلاء في " إن هذين " خاصّة هذا الذي يُحمل عليه هذا الخبر ويتأوّل فيه دون إن يقطع به على إن ام المؤمنين ﵂ مع عظيم محلّها وجليل قدرها واتّساع علمها ومعرفتها بلغة قومها لّحنت الصحابة وخطأت الكتبة وموضعهم من الفصاحة والعلم باللغة موضهم الذي لا يجهل ولا ينكر هذا مالا يسوغ ولا يجوز
I say: Its explanation is clear. That is, ʿUrwah did not ask ʿĀʾishah in it about the letters of the script that are added for one meaning and omitted for another, for emphasis of clarity and seeking of lightness. He only asked her about letters of the recitation whose wordings differ and which bear more than one way according to the different dialects in which Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, permitted His Prophet, upon him be peace, and his Ummah to recite, and to keep to whichever of them they wished, as an ease and a breadth for them. And what is of this kind and in this state is far removed from solecism, error, slip and lapse, because it is widespread in the language and clear in the analogy of Arabic. Since the matter is so, what he intended by it does not enter into the meaning of the script, nor is it in any way from its cause. ʿUrwah only called that “laḥn”, and ʿĀʾishah applied the word “error” to its writing, by way of broadening in speech and figure of expression, since it differed from their own preference and was outside their choice, and the more common and widespread was the better and preferable in their view; not by way of reality, verification and certainty, for we have shown before that it is permissible and widespread in the language, and that the like of it is used in the analogy of Arabic, together with the consensus being established upon reciting it so, rather than as the two of them preferred, except for the irregular reading of Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ in “inna hādhayni” alone. This is how this report is to be taken and explained, rather than concluding that the Mother of the Believers, with her great station, her lofty rank and the breadth of her knowledge and of her acquaintance with the language of her people, declared the Companions guilty of solecism and the scribes guilty of error, while their place in eloquence and knowledge of the language is the place that is not unknown and not denied. That is what is neither acceptable nor permissible.
al-Dānī, al-Muqniʿ fī Rasm Maṣāḥif al-Amṣār pp. 121–122
Source, chain and authenticity
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حدثنا عبد الرحمن بن عثمان قال حدثنا قاسم ابن اصبغ قال حدثنا احمد بن زهير قال حدثنا عمرو بن مرزوق قال حدثنا عمران القطان عن قتادة عن نصير بن عاصم عن عبد الله بن أبي فطيمة عن يحيى بن يعمر قال قال عثمان بن عفان ﵁ في القرآن لحن تقيمها العرب بألسنتها.
فان قيل فما تأويل الخبر الذي رويتموه أيضا عن هشام بن عروة عن أبيه انه سأل عائشة ﵂ عن لحن القرآن عن قوله "
إن هذين لسحران " وعن " والمقيمين الصلوة والمؤتون الزكوة " وعن " إن الذين ءامنوا والذين هادوا.. والصبئون " فقالت يا ابن اختي هذا عمل الكتّاب اخطئوا في الكتابة
قلت تأويله ظاهر وذلك إن عروة لم يسأل عائشة فيه عن حروف الرسم التي تزاد فيها لمعنى وتنقصى منها لأخر تأكيداً للبيان وطلبا للخفّة وانما سأله فيه عن حروف من القراءة المختلفة الالفاظ المحتملة الوجوه على اختلاف اللغات التي اذن الله ﷿ لنبيّه ﵇ ولاُمّته في القراءة بها واللزوم على ماشاءت منها تيسير الها وتوسعة عليها وما هذا سبيله وتلك حاله فعن اللحن والخطأ والوهم والزلل بمعزل لفشّوه في اللغة ووضوحه في قياس العربية واذا كان الامر في ذلك كذلك فليس ما قصدته فيه بداخل في معنى المرسوم ولا هو من سببه في شيء وانما سّمى عروة ذلك لحنا وأطلقت عائشة على مرسومه
كذلك الخطأ على جهة الاتّساع في الاخبار وطريق المجاز في العبارة اذ كان ذلك مخالفا لمذهبهما وخارجا عن اختيارهما وكان الأوجه والأولى عندهما الأكثر والافشى لديهما لا على وجه الحقيقية والتحصيل والقطع لما بيّناه قبل من جواز ذلك وفشوه فب اللغة واستعمال مثله في قياس العربية مع انعقاد الاجماع على تلاوته كذلك دون ما ذهبا إليه إلا ما كان من شذوذ أبي عمرو بن العلاء في " إن هذين " خاصّة هذا الذي يُحمل عليه هذا الخبر ويتأوّل فيه دون إن يقطع به على إن ام المؤمنين ﵂ مع عظيم محلّها وجليل قدرها واتّساع علمها ومعرفتها بلغة قومها لّحنت الصحابة وخطأت الكتبة وموضعهم من الفصاحة والعلم باللغة موضهم الذي لا يجهل ولا ينكر هذا مالا يسوغ ولا يجوز وقد تأوّل بعض علمائنا قول امّ المؤمنين اخطئوا في الكتاب أي خطئوا في اختيار الأولى من الاحرف السبعة بجمع الناس عليه لا إن الذي مدّة وقوعة وعظم قدر موقعه وتأوّل اللحن انه القراءة واللغة كقول عمر ﵁ أبي واِناّ لندع بعض لحنه أي قراءته ولغته فهذا بين وبالله التوفيق.
حدثنا الخاقاني قال حدثنا احمد بن محمد قال حدثنا علي بن عبد العزيز قال حدثنا أبو عبيد قال حدثنا أبو معاوية عن هشام بن عروة عن أَبيه قال سأَلتُ عائشة ﵂ عن لحن اُلقرآن عن قول الله ﷿ " إن هذين لسحرن " وعن قوله " والمقيمين اُلصلوة والمؤتون الزكوة " وعن قوله تبارك وتعلى " اِنّ الذين ءامنوا والذين هادوا..والصبئون " فقالت ياابن اختي عمل الكتاب اخطئوا في الكتاب
And al-Ṭabarī (raḥimahullāh), after reporting the same narration, rejected the claim of a scribal error in “wa-l-muqīmīnah al-ṣalāh”, and he gave a proof that no polemicist has answered.
Al-Ṭabarī said in Jāmiʿ al-Bayān:
كتبه لنا الكاتب الذي أخطأ في كتابه= بخلاف ما هو في مصحفنا. وفي اتفاق مصحفنا ومصحف أبيّ في ذلك، ما يدل على أنّ الذي في مصحفنا من ذلك صواب غير خطأ. مع أن ذلك لو كان خطأ من جهة الخطِّ، لم يكن الذين أخذ عنهم القرآن من أصحاب رسول الله ﷺ يُعلِّمون من علَّموا ذلك من المسلمين على وجه اللحن، ولأصلحوه بألسنتهم، ولقَّنوه الأمة تعليمًا على وجه الصواب. (١)
وفي نقل المسلمين جميعًا ذلك قراءةً، على ما هو به في الخط مرسومًا، أدلُّ الدليل على صحة ذلك وصوابه، وأن لا صنع في ذلك للكاتب.
We only chose this over the others because it is mentioned that this is in the reading of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, “wa-l-muqīmīnah al-ṣalāh”, and that it is so in his muṣḥaf, according to what they mentioned. Had it been an error of the scribe, it would have been obligatory that it be in every muṣḥaf other than our muṣḥaf, which was written for us by the scribe who erred in his writing, differently from what is in our muṣḥaf. And in the agreement of our muṣḥaf with the muṣḥaf of Ubayy in this is what proves that what is in our muṣḥaf is correct and not an error. Moreover, had it been an error on the side of the writing, those Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ from whom the Qurʾān was taken would not have taught it to the Muslims they taught by way of solecism; they would have corrected it with their tongues and taught it to the Ummah on the correct way. And in the transmission of all the Muslims of it as a recitation, as it is written in the script, is the strongest proof of its soundness and correctness, and that the scribe had no part in it.
al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān (Dār al-Tarbiyah wa-l-Turāth) 9/397–398
Source, chain and authenticity
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وقال آخرون: معنى ذلك: لكن الراسخون في العلم منهم، ومن المقيمين الصلاة. وقالوا: موضع"المقيمين"، خفض.
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وقال آخرون: معناه: والمؤمنون يؤمنون بما أنزل إليك، وإلى المقيمين الصلاة.
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قال أبو جعفر: وهذا الوجه والذي قبله، منكرٌ عند العرب، ولا تكاد العرب تعطف بظاهر على مكنيٍّ في حال الخفض، (١) وإن كان ذلك قد جاء في بعض أشعارها. (٢)
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قال أبو جعفر: وأولى الأقوال عندي بالصواب، أن يكون"المقيمين" في موضع خفض، نسَقًا على"ما"، التي في قوله:"بما أنزل إليك وما أنزل من قبلك"= وأن يوجه معنى"المقيمين الصلاة"، إلى الملائكة.
فيكون تأويل الكلام:"والمؤمنون منهم يؤمنون بما أنزل إليك"، يا محمد، من الكتاب="وبما أنزل من قبلك"، من كتبي، وبالملائكة الذين يقيمون الصلاة. ثم يرجع إلى صفة"الراسخين في العلم"، فيقول: لكن الراسخون في العلم منهم والمؤمنون بالكتب والمؤتون الزكاة والمؤمنون بالله واليوم الآخر.
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وإنما اخترنا هذا على غيره، لأنه قد ذكر أن ذلك في قراءة أبيّ بن كعب (وَالْمُقِيمِينَ الصَّلاةَ) ، وكذلك هو في مصحفه، فيما ذكروا. فلو كان ذلك خطأ من الكاتب، لكان الواجب أن يكون في كل المصاحف= غير مصحفنا الذي
كتبه لنا الكاتب الذي أخطأ في كتابه= بخلاف ما هو في مصحفنا. وفي اتفاق مصحفنا ومصحف أبيّ في ذلك، ما يدل على أنّ الذي في مصحفنا من ذلك صواب غير خطأ. مع أن ذلك لو كان خطأ من جهة الخطِّ، لم يكن الذين أخذ عنهم القرآن من أصحاب رسول الله ﷺ يُعلِّمون من علَّموا ذلك من المسلمين على وجه اللحن، ولأصلحوه بألسنتهم، ولقَّنوه الأمة تعليمًا على وجه الصواب. (١)
وفي نقل المسلمين جميعًا ذلك قراءةً، على ما هو به في الخط مرسومًا، أدلُّ الدليل على صحة ذلك وصوابه، وأن لا صنع في ذلك للكاتب. (٢)
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وأما من وجَّه ذلك إلى النصب على وجه المدح لـ"الراسخين في العلم"، = وإن كان ذلك قد يحتمل على بُعدٍ من كلام العرب، لما قد ذكرت قبل من العلة، (٣) وهو أن العرب لا تعدِل عن إعراب الاسم المنعوت بنعت في نَعْته إلا بعد تمام خبره. وكلام الله جل ثناؤه أفصح الكلام، فغير جائز توجيهه إلا إلى الذي هو [أولى] به من الفصاحة. (٤)
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وأما توجيه من وجّه ذلك إلى العطف به على"الهاء" و"الميم" في قوله:"لكن الراسخون في العلم منهم"= أو: إلى العطف به على"الكاف" من قوله:"بما أنزل إليك"= أو: إلى"الكاف" من قوله:"وما أنزل من قبلك"، فإنه أبعد من الفصاحة من نصبه على المدح، لما قد ذكرت قبل من قُبْح ردِّ الظاهر على المكنيّ في الخفض.
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So the Qurʾān was not transmitted from a page that a scribe wrote. It was transmitted from mouth to mouth, recited by thousands of Companions who heard it from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the script followed the recitation, not the recitation the script. A scribe’s slip cannot pass into the recitation of the whole Ummah in every land without a single Companion correcting it, and the three readings in question are recited by the mass-transmitted readers and have their known ways in the speech of the Arabs. “Inna hādhāni” is the dialect of Banū al-Ḥārith ibn Kaʿb and others who keep the alif of the dual in every case; “wa-l-ṣābiʾūn” is raised by the grammar of Sībawayh and al-Khalīl; and “wa-l-muqīmīnah” is either the accusative of praise or, as al-Ṭabarī chose, a genitive referring to the angels.
Hence, the narration, on its strongest reading, is the expression of a preference of ʿĀʾishah in dialect, as al-Dānī explained it; and whoever builds on it the claim that the Qurʾān contains errors has accused the Mother of the Believers of declaring the Companions ignorant of their own language, and has accused Allah of breaking His promise: “Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will be its guardian.” The Christian who brings it has no muṣḥaf of his own transmitted by a single connected chain, and the Rāfiḍī who brings it reviles the very woman from whom he takes it.
Sources
- Qurʾān
- al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ (al-Sulṭāniyyah)
- al-Dānī, al-Muqniʿ fī Rasm Maṣāḥif al-Amṣār
- al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān (Dār al-Tarbiyah wa-l-Turāth)