Introduction
A.E. Housman defines textual criticismas as “the science of discovering error of the texts and the art of removing it “,(Application, 67). But he goes on to say that it is not an excat science. So perhaps we might be justified in calling textual criticissm “the art of discovering error in the texts and the art of removing it”. Classicist divide the process of textual criticism into three stages:
1) Recension
2) Examination
3) Emendation
Recension is the establishment of the preliminary text; one examines it to determine whetherit is the best possible text and where it is not, one tries to emend. If the work is well-done, the result is the revised version that is closer to the author’s original.
Quranic Textual Criticism
The Qur’an began as the work of oral composition that took twenty years-odd to complete. It dominated untill an official written version, known as the utsmanic recension, was produced. But even thereafter, the oral tradition remained of primary importance. Readers reciting in public, whether they dependent on Utsmanic recension or not, couldn’t simply omit ambivalent words, nor could they recite one or two variant of a single rasm. Thay had to make choice.
Quranic recitation soon became a profesionalism and many reciters made collections of variants for their own use. The result werw rather chaotic but garduallly some order was introduced as the utsmanic recension was accepted by more and more. Ultimately, compability with the Utsmanic recension became a sine-qua-non for any acceptable reading. Competing recensions were eclipsed by the Utsmanic recension and were ultimately declared as non-canonical. Likewise, the variant readings that could be applied to the Utsmanic recension were much reduced. In early 4th / 7th century, Mujahid declared that only seven system of readings were canonical, the others were shadh. The recensionn used today is the utsmanic recension, to which has been affixed the reading of ‘Asim bin Abi Najud, transmitted by his student, Hafs bin Sulaiman.
The earliest generation of reciters and transmitter of the utsmanic recension soon relized that it contained mistakes, some of which they claimed were copyists’ error. The problem of recitation presented by these mistakes, were solved in three ways: some simply corrected the text, others retained the text as it was and only corrected their recitation, still other – and it was the common solution – recited the text as it was written.
Western Textual Criticism on The Quranic Texts
G. Bergstrasser ( in Noldeke, GQ, iii,2 f.), noted several of that early identified mistakes. For example, in Q.S. 20: 63, we find the consonantal structure ‘n hdhn lshrn, read by Hafs as In hadhani lasahirani, this is wrong since in in the construction in ... la .., introduces verbs only. I ( writer ) preffer to read Inna hadhayni lasahirani, accepting the emendation of Abu ‘Amr bin al-A’la. The ya was lost not because the scribes was ignorant of grammer, but because of bad handwriting. Ya before final nun and after a space is often minuscule and can be easily be missed.
Another method of emendation was employed by J. Barth ( Studien Zur Kritik Und Exegese des Qorans), who tries to test the inner connection of the suras and their possible disjunction. Most of Barth proposals based on the assumption that the text has been disarranged and that many verses, phrases, and words are out of place and should be returned to their original location. An example of Barth’s methode can be seen in his treatment of Q.S. 97: 4-5, tanazzalul malaikatu warruhu fiha biidzni rabbihim min kulli amrin salamun hiya hatta mathla’il fajr. He claim that min kulli amr, cannot be construed since it cannot mean bikulli amr. He proposes to read the last proportion, biidzni rabbihim hatta mathla’il fajr, salamun hiya min kulli amr.
Sample of Selected Emendation
a) Hasab: fuel. Read hatab, with ubay bin Ka’ab in Q.S. 21: 98. Hasab cannot mean fuel, hatab occurs with this meaning in Q.S. 111: 4 and 75: 12. The mistake was caused by a copyst omitting the vertikal stroke of “ta”, turning into a “sad”.
b) Ummah: time, while Q.S. 11:8 and 12: 45, . Read amad, which has that meaning four times, in Q.S. 3:30, 18:12, 57:16, 72:25. Final dal was turned into ha, either because the copysts’ pen fed to much ink or his hand was unsteady and twitched upward and to the right after the dal was complete.
c) Abban: fodder, pasturage, Q.S. 80: 31. Read Lubban: “nuts”. Abb has no acceptable meaning here but lubb fits in well with the other blessing that God has bestowed into humankind (Q.S 80:27-31). The copyst’s penas it turn to the left after the lam breafly ceased to flow, breaking the connection with the following ba and converting the lam into alif.
(Summarized from: Arthur Bellamy, “Textual Criticism”, in Jane Dammen McAuflife (ed.), Encyclopaedia of The Qur’an, Leiden: Brill, 2006, page 237-)
Notes
In this extent, i’d like to give the appreciation for western scholars contribution to the study of The Qur’an. However, we’ve got to be aware, that historical study on the Qur’an is ultimately different with non-historical study, such as a theological, soteriological, etc. At this point we’ve got to make the purpose same at all.
As i find out, The quranic textual criticism isn’t something new in this extent. The third calliph, Utsman bin ‘Affan, had make a first ever recension of the Qur’an. It just quoted reveals clearly to the next textual criticism. The following textual criticism was depeloved by many muslim scholars. Most of these criticism was the examination of the quranic text.
Particuraly, i have several notes and questions here as respons for this summary:
1) J. Barth, in his treatment on Q.S. of Q.S. 97: 4-5, tanazzalul malaikatu warruhu fiha biidzni rabbihim min kulli amrin salamun hiya hatta mathla’il fajr, claims that min kulli amr, cannot be construed since it cannot mean bikulli amr. I’d like to exam this treatment with classic arabic grammer examination, while arabic grammer scholars (an-nuhat), mentioned about ten meanings of word min, one of these related meanings is mujawazah and isti’anah, (see Hasyiyah Khudlary ‘ala Ibn Malik, 2: 17 ), which has similiar meaning with bikulli amrin.
2) At the part entitled “selected emendation”, Arthur Bellamy put a lot of emendation works on quranic texts. I just wonder about the manuscript he came up with ?. The arguments that built his emendation works came out from the consonantal structure of early arabic script, which has no any signs of vowels and other signs as we know today. The question is which manuscript that Arthur came up with ?. How does he mentioned those copyst error, such as omitting a words, over-using of the ink, etc ?
3) Ultimately, the most crucial problems of quranic textual criticism is to showing how the errors occured ?, why, where, and how ?
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