IBN KATHIR ON THE QURAN’S CORRUPTION

Al-Bukhari said: Musa bin Ismail narrated to us, Ibrahim narrated to us, Ibn Shihab narrated to us, that Anas bin Malik narrated to him, that Hudhayfah bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman bin Affan, and he was fighting with the people of the Levant in the conquest of Armenia and Azerbaijan with the people of Iraq; Hudhayfah was alarmed by their disagreement in reading, and Hudhayfah said to Uthman: O Commander of the Faithful, this nation realized before they differed in the book the difference between the Jews and the Christians, so Uthman sent to Hafsa: Send us the scrolls so that we may copy them, 4 and then return them to you. So Hafsa sent them to Uthman. So he ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin Al-Zubayr, Saeed bin Al-Aas, and Abdul-Rahman bin Al-Harith bin Hisham, and they copied it into the Qur’an.

Uthman said to the three Quraysh men: If you and Zaid bin Thabit disagree about anything in the Qur’an, write it in the Quraysh language. It was revealed in their language, and they did so, until when they had transcribed the pages into the Qur’an, Uthman returned the pages to Hafsa, and sent to every region a Qur’an of what they had transcribed, and he commanded everything else from the Qur’an to be written. (Ibn Kathir, The Book of the Virtues of the Quran https://shamela.ws/book/22800/54)

Every newspaper or Qur’an must be burned.

Ibn Shihab Al-Zuhri said: Then Kharijah bin Zaid bin Thabit informed me. Zaid bin Thabit heard he said: He said: I lost a verse from Al-Ahzab when we copied the Qur’an. I had been hearing the Messenger of God reciting it, so we searched for it and found it with Khuzaymah bin Thabit Al-Ansari: {Among the believers are men who have been true to what they covenanted with God} so we added it to its surah in the Qur’an.

This is also one of the greatest virtues of the Commander of the Faithful, Othman bin Affan.

The two sheikhs preceded him in memorizing the Qur’an, so that something would be removed from it, which is to gather people on one reading so that they would not differ in the Qur’an, and all the companions agreed with him on that, but it was narrated on the authority of Abdullah bin Masud that he expressed some anger because he was not among those who wrote the Qur’an, and he ordered his companions to bind their Qur’an when Uthman ordered the burning of everything except the Imam’s Qur’an. Then Ibn Masud returned to Al-Wefaq1, until Ali bin2 Abu Talib said: If Uthman had not done that, I would have done it.

1 in “t”: “he says.”

2 in “A”: “in the Qur’an.”

3 The author refers to what was reported by Muslim (2462/114) and the context for it, and Al-Nasa’i in “Al-Fada’il” (22) who said: Ishaq bin Ibrahim Al-Hanzali told us, Abdah bin Sulayman told us, Al-A’mash told us, on the authority of Shaqiq, on the authority of Abdullah Ibn Masud said:

{And whoever defrauds will bring what he defrauded on the Day of Resurrection} [Al Imran: 161], then he said: Who do you order me to recite upon? I recited to the Messenger of God seventy-some surahs, and the companions of the Messenger of God knew that I was the most knowledgeable of them in the Book of God, and if I had known that someone was more knowledgeable than me, I would have gone to him.
Shaqiq said: So I sat in the circle of Muhammad’s companions and I did not hear anyone say that to him or criticize him. Narrated by Ibn Abi Dawud, p. 16.

Al-Hasan bin Ismail bin Suleiman disagreed with them, saying: Abdah bin Suleiman told us, on the authority of Al-Amash, on the authority of Abu Ishaq, on the authority of Hubayra bin Yarim, on the authority of Ibn Masud, so he mentioned some of it. Narrated by Al-Nasa’i 8/134.

Although Al-Hasan bin Suleiman is trustworthy, the narrations of Ibn Rahawayh and Harun are more likely, and their narrations were considered more likely by two reasons, which I mentioned in “Al-Taslah.” and thank God.

1 His graduation will come soon.

2 It was included by Abu Ubaid in “Al-Fada’il” (p. 157), and by Ibn Abi Dawud in “The Qur’an” (12, 23) through chains of transmission on the authority of Shu’bah, on the authority of Alqamah bin Marthad, on the authority of a man, on the authority of Suwayd bin Ghafla, on the authority of Ali that he said when Uthman burned the Qur’an “If he hadn’t made it, I would have made it.”

Thus, he narrated it on the authority of Shu’bah, his trustworthy companions, including: “Muhammad bin Jaafar Ghandar, Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi, and Abd al-Rahman bin Mahdi.” Yaqub bin Ishaq Al-Hadrami differed from them, and he was truthful. He narrated it on the authority of Shu’bah, on the authority of Alqamah bin Marthad, on the authority of Suwayd bin Ghafla, on the authority of Ali.

He dropped the intermediary between Alqamah and Suwayd.

It was narrated by Ibn Abi Dawud (p. 12), and the group’s narration is undoubtedly more likely, but it was narrated by Umar bin Shibh in “Tarikh al-Madina” (3/994-995, 996), Ibn Abi Dawud (p. 23) and Al-Bayhaqi – as in “The Beginning and the End” 7/236 “From the path of Muhammad bin Aban, he said: Aqlamah bin Marthad told me, he said: I heard Al-Izar bin Harith, saying: When Al-Mukhtar came out… he mentioned it at length, and it included: “Ali said: O people! Beware of the exaggeration of Uthman; what you say: burn the Qur’an?! By God, he did not burn it except on behalf of a group of the companions of Muhammad. If I had been appointed as he was appointed, I would have done the same as he did.”

I said: This is a chain of narration whose men are trustworthy, except for Muhammad ibn Aban, who is Ibn Salih al-Kufi. Translated by Ibn Abi Hatim in Al-Jarh. And the amendment, 3/2/199, and he quoted his father who said: “He is not strong in hadith, his hadith is written metaphorically!” And Ahmad said: “He was not lying”. So the hadith is possible to improve in both ways. And God knows best. (Ibid. https://shamela.ws/book/22800/55#p1)

The four imams, Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali, agreed that this was among the interests of the religion, and they were the caliphs whom the Messenger of God said: “You should follow my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs from after me,” and the reason for this was Hudhayfah bin Al-Yaman, when he was a conqueror of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the people of the Levant and Iraq had gathered there, and Hudhayfah heard from them readings on various letters, and he saw from them a lot of disagreement and separation, so when he returned to Uthman, he informed him, and said to Uthman: “Before they differed regarding the Book, this nation realized the difference between the Jews and the Christians.”

This is because the Jews and Christians differ in the books they have in their hands. The Jews have a copy of the Torah in their hands, while the Samaritans differ from them in many words and meanings as well. The Torah of Samaria does not have the letters hamza, nor the letter ha or yaa. The Christians also have a Torah in their hands, which they call the antique, and it is contrary to the copies of the Jews and the Samaritans.

As for the Gospels in the hands of Christians, they are four: the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Gospel of John. They are also very different, and each of these four Gospels is of a nice size. Some of them are close to fourteen pages in medium handwriting, and some of them are larger than that, either half or twice, and their content is the biography of Jesus, his days, his rulings, and his words, and with it a little of what they claim to be the word of God, and it is with this is different as we said. Likewise, the Torah, with its distortions and alterations, was later abrogated by this purified Muhammadan law.

When Hudhayfah said that to Uthman, it frightened him, and he sent to Hafsa, the Mother of the Believers, to send him the manuscripts she had from what the two sheikhs had collected, to write that in one Qur’an, and he carried it out to the horizons, and gathered the people to read with it and abandon everything else. So Hafsa did so. Uthman commanded these four, namely: Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari, one of the writers of revelation to the Messenger of God, Abdullah bin Al-Zubair bin Al-Awwam Al-Qurashi Al-Asadi, one of the jurists of the Companions and their eminent men in knowledge and deed, origin and virtue, and Saeed bin Al-Aas bin Umayyah Al-Qurashi Al-Umawi. He was generous, generous and praised, and he was the person most similar in tone to the Messenger of God. And Abdul Rahman bin Al Harith bin Hisham bin Al Mughirah bin Abdullah bin Umar bin Makhzum Al Qurashi Al Makhzumi.

So these four people sat down and wrote copies of the Qur’an, and if they disagreed about placing¹ the writing in any language, they returned to Uthman, just as they disagreed about the coffin², should they write it with a ta’ or a ha’? Zaid bin Thabit said: It is the coffin, and the three Quraishi said: It is the coffin, so they pleaded with Uthman, and he said: Write it in the language of the Quraish. The Qur’an was revealed in their language, and Uthman⁴ – and God knows best – arranged the surahs in the Qur’an, giving the length by seven, and multiplying it by two hundred.

1 Sahih hadith.

It was included by Abu Dawud (4607), Al-Tirmidhi (2676), Ibn Majah (42, 43, 44), Al-Darimi (1/43-44), Ahmad (4/126, 127), and Abu Ubaid in “Sermons and Sermons” (2) And Ibn Hibban in his Sahih (102) and in Al-Thiqat (1/4), and Al-Tabari in his “Tafsir” (10/212), and Ibn Nasr in “Al-Sunnah” (21, 22), and Ibn Abi Asim in Al-Sunnah, 1/19, 26-27, 29, 30, And others in Al-Irbad bin Sariyah said: The Messenger of God preached to us one day after the morning prayer an eloquent sermon, which made eyes shed tears and hearts were terrified by it, and a man said: “This is a Farewell sermon, so what do you entrust us, O Messenger of God?” He said: “I advise you to fear God, listen, and obey, even if a slave is an Abyssinian, for whoever of you lives will see a lot of disagreement. And beware of new matters; It is a misguidance, so whoever of you realizes that, you should adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs; bite it with your molars.” Al-Tirmidhi said: “A good and authentic hadith.”

Abu Naim said: “It is a good hadith from the authentic hadith of the Levant.” It was transmitted by Ibn Rajab in Jami’ al-Ulum (p. 226).

1 in “A”: “place”.

2 It was included by Al-Tirmidhi (3104), Omar bin Shibah in Tarikh Al-Madina (3/1000-1001), Ibn Abi Dawud in The Qur’ans (p. 19), and Al-Bayhaqi (2/385) from Al-Zuhri’s saying.

Al-Hafiz said in Al-Fath (9/20): “Al-Khatib said: It was only narrated by Ibn Shihab as mursal.” a. e.

Al-Bayhaqi narrated it on the authority of Abu al-Walid, on the authority of Ibrahim ibn Sa`dah, on the authority of al-Zuhri, saying, “And his action returns the transmission.” God knows.

3 In “A” and “T”: “So they retreated.”

4 of “A”. (Ibid. https://shamela.ws/book/22800/57#p1)