Revelation and falsification : : the Kitab al-qiraat of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sayyari / / critical edition with an introduction and notes by Etan Kohlberg and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi.

• Superior document: Texts and studies on the Quran, v. 4
• Author: Sayyari, Ahmad ibn Muhammad, 9th cent.
• TeilnehmendeR: Kohlberg, Etan.; Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Texts and studies on the Quran ; v. 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (576 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

For all Muslims the Qurʾan is the word of God. In the first centuries of Islam, however, many individuals and groups, and some Shiʿis, believed that the generally accepted text of the Qurʾan is corrupt. The Shiʿis asserted that redactors had altered or deleted among other things all passages that supported the rights of ʿAli and his successors or that condemned his enemies. One of the fullest lists of these alleged changes and of other variant readings is to be found in the work of al-Sayyārī (3rd/9th century), which is indeed among the earliest Shiʿi books to have survived. In many cases the alternative readings that al-Sayyārī presents substantially contribute to our understanding of early Shiʿi doctrine and of the early and numerous debates about the Qurʾan in general.

Table of Contents

Introduction -- Issues raised by western studies -- Information, doubts and contradictions in Islamic sources -- Imami views on the question of the falsification of the Quran -- Life and works of al-Sayyari -- Structure and contents of the Kitab al-qiraat -- The edition -- The manuscripts -- Other sources -- Further manuscripts -- Principles of the edition -- Text -- Technical apparatus.