The Shi'a Belief on |
Interpolation of the Qur’ān |
In the belief of the Ahlus
Sunnah wal Jama’ah, the Qur’ān as we have lit today is a pristine,
uncorrupted text, that does not in the least depart from the Qur’ān dictated by
Rasulullah |
Among the diverse
segments of this Ummah, only the Shi’a are known to have held a
different view on the issue of the purity of the text of the Qur’ān. The traditional
belief of the Jafarī Shia is that the Qur’ān as we have it today is not the same as
the Qur’ān left by Rasulullah |
It can be proven without a shadow of doubt that despite all protestations to the contrary, belief in the distortion of the text of the Qur’ān has for centuries been the belief of the vast majority of the Ulama of the Jafari Shia. Whatever statements the Shia make today on this issue are nothing but the product of a frenzied anxiety that the truth of beliefs held by the pioneers of their faith should not be revealed. It is this anguish that prevents them from being completely honest in this regard and admitting the irregularities of the past. |
Yet, this eagerness to conceal the truth about the past can be understood. It can be understood firstly because of the seriousness of the matter, for it will be difficult to find a Muslim who will not think of such a belief as outright kufr. The second reason why we can understand the anxiety with which contemporary Shia are distancing themselves from this time-honoured belief of their elders reaches deeper than the first. To summarise it, one might use the example of a multi-storey building. One cannot remove the lower floors without expecting the upper stories to come crashing down. Similarly, in this case, if the truth in the matter of the interpolation of the Qur’ān is admitted, its admission will not be without repercussions on other matters of history and belief, that will make the unbridgeable chasm between the Ahlus Sunnah and the Shia even deeper. |
Most of those who have heard of this belief have very vague understanding of its nature. There are those who think of it in terms of-an extra ten juz (parts) in the Qur’ān while others visualise a secret version of the Qur’ān peculiar to the Shia. Both these ideas are not totally devoid of truth but because of their vagueness they are easily defeated by arguments such as "But I have been to Iran, and they read the same Qur’ān as us. They even print it in Iran. When their Qaris come to our countries, they recite as we do." |
When we say that the Shia have a different Qur’ān. It must not be misunderstood to mean that the n recited and published in Iran, for example is supposed to be different from the Qur’ān we have. What it means is: |
that the most important hadīth sources of the Shia are filled with over 2000 ahadīth that explicitly or by implication indicate that the Sahābā y interpolated the Qur’ān. |
that the most prominent Ulama of the Shia have for centuries held this belief and set it forth in their writings. |
and that the original, uncorrupted version of the Qur’ān, according to Shi'ite legend, is in the custody of the hidden Imam, who will bring it back to earth when the time for his reappearance is due. The fact that they read the same Qur’ān as we do is not necessarily because they believe in the purity of the text of the Qur’ān. It is because of the command of their Imams that for as long as the hidden Imam does not emerge from his occultation, they are to use the same Qur’ān as the Ahlus Sunnah. |
Contemporary Shi’i scholars have been known to complain whenever efforts are made to re-examine the issue of Tahrif al-Qur’ān, that these are the efforts of persons who wish to spread mischief and disunity in the ranks of Muslims. Yet, when the Shia themselves launch into scathing attacks upon the personalities of the Sahābā (RA), that is seen as objective moves towards correct perspectives of early Muslim history. The Shia have in the past been likened to the Jews. It is not our intention here to endorse that comparison, but one cannot help noticing the similarity between the way the Jews on the one hand raise the cry of ‘anti-Semitism’ against their own Semitic cousins, the Arabs, and slaughter them on the other hand, and the way the Shia invoke the issue of unity whenever objectionable issues in their faith come under scrutiny, while in the meantime they have a field day trampling upon the beliefs of the Ahlus Sunnah. For as long as issues like that of Tahrif al-Qur’ān are swept under the mat, unity will remain beyond our reach.
|
| About Us|Ar Rasheed|Library|Q & A|Noticeboard|Masājid|Calendar|Guest Book|Halāl|Links |
to his scribes.
From the Sahābāh y it was transmitted to the Tabi’īn and from them
to the next generation and thus it remained for more than fourteen centuries. Such care
and scrupulousness went into the safeguarding of the Qur’ān that even western
scholars were forced to remark that no other book in history has maintained its purity of
text as has the Qur’ān.