Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)

Die Schia und die Koranflschung, Abhandlungen fr die Kunde des Morgenlandes LIII, 1 by
RAINER BRUNNER
Review by: Walid A. Saleh
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 2 (December 2004), pp. 222-224
Published by: Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
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 MESA Bulletin 38/2 (2004)

Die Schia und die Koranfalschung, by RAINER BRUNNER. Abhandlungen fur

die Kunde des Morgenlandes LIII, 1. Wtirzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2001. 141 pages,
name index. 31.00 (Paper) ISBN 3-933563-67-4

Rainer Brunner's monograph offers the reader a detailed study of the doctrine
which has been intermittentlyheld by the Shi'ites that the Sunnis falsified or
tampered with the Qur'an. The of meddling
process with the Qur'an was

supposed to have been carried out by the Caliph 'Uthman and others when they
promulgated the official codex. This notion was called tahrifal-Qur'an in Arabic
and Persian. The story Brunner charts is gripping. His achievement is all the more
remarkable since not only a complete history of the development of the doctrine
is presented, but he has done so in a concise and clear manner. To state that this

study is exemplary in its scholarship is an understatement. The author's

knowledge of the history of this doctrine is nothing if not exhaustive. The reader
soon realizes that in order to tell the stoiy of this Shi'ite religious concept, one
has to document the polemical tug-of-war between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. In
this regard Brunner is well equipped to handle this dimension of the story since
his earlier monograph, Annaherung und Distanz: Schia, Azhar und die islamische
Okumene im 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1996), is a detailed study of the other side
of this war: the 20th century attempt at reconciling the two sects that was

spearheaded by al-Azhar in the late fifties.

This monograph was initially conceived as a history of the doctrine in the
20th century which the author then enlarged to encompass the complete history
starting from the earliest available documentation (p. VII). To understand the
current state of affairs, an overview was unavoidable, and in so far as the early

phase of this doctrine is well documented in the secondary literature, Brunner

offers us an exhaustive summation of the results there. By the end of the 4th /10th

century there was a widespread conviction among the Shi'ites that the Qur'an as
available then was the victim of tampering by the Sunnis (p. 4). In support of this
view the Shi'ites had recourse to traditions from their own imams which spoke of
such falsification. Two kinds of tampering were adduced: the exclusion of certain

expressions, most notably the phrase,// 'Ali, regarding 'Ali, as in verse 5:67, or
the changing of words or expressions, as in verses 3:110 and 25:74 (p. 4). Early
Shi'ite authorities like Furat b. Ibrahim al-Kufi (d. 912), Sa'd b. 'Abd Allah al
Qumml (d. ca. 913), and al-'Ayyashl (d. 932) offerexplicit accusations of Sunnite
meddling with the Qur'an.
The most significant early Shi'ite source, however, to contain such an
accusation against the Sunnis was the canonical hadith collection, al-Kafi fi 'ilm
al-dm of al-Kulayni (d. 940). Since this was one of the four canonical Shi'ite
sources (al-kutub al-arba'ah), and since the tahrif traditions cited here were

unambiguous, the doctrine would prove hard to overlook in the subsequent stages
of Shi'ite theological history. The most famous of these traditions was the one that

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 MESA Bulletin 38/2 (2004) 223

stated that the original Qur'an was made up of three major sections. One third of
the Qur'an was concerned with the imams and their enemies, a second with the
earlier prophets, and a third was concerned with religious obligations and
ordinances (p. 6). The implication was that the portion dealing with the Shi'ite
imams has somehow been dropped.
The tahrlf doctrine was, however, too costly to preserve, and soon the

"high theological" period in Shi'ism would see to it that such a gulat doctrine was
not only dropped but rejected. Thus Ibn Babawayh al-Qummi (d. 991) in his al
I'tiqadat al-imamiyah asserted that the (heavenly) Qur'an is the same as the one

that is available and extant "between the two covers" (p. 7). Anyone who states
otherwise is lying. It is during this period that Shi'ite theologians explained away
the hadiths that were by then part of the Shi'ite heritage that spoke of tahrlf.

These hadiths were held to be genuine, but they were taken to mean something
other than falsification. Thus, for example, al-Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022)
considered the material referred to in these hadiths as mere exegetical
elaborations and not divine word as such.
This new view was enshrined in the most classical of Shi'ite quranic
commentaries, al-Tibyan fl tafsir al-Qur'an of al-Tusi (d. 1067). Here however,
the very veracity and reliability of these traditions was brought into doubt and not

simply explained away. Since these traditions were akhbar ahad (traditions with

one single chain of authorities, which have no other attested chains of

transmissions), al-Tusi argued that they were simply unreliable and as1 such

should be ignored. Yet despite this new attitude among the majority of the Shi'ite
theologians, the old school did not disappear as is evident from the sources (p.9).
The stage is now set for the later development of this doctrine.

Chapter two of the

monograph covers the history of the doctrine in
Shi'ism between the 16th and the 19th centuries. The chapter is mostly a detailed

book-by-book exposition of the doctrine from the Akhbari school literature.

Brunner offers several remarks about this period: the first is that the theme of the

falsification of the Qur'an was revived and supported by the Akhbari school, thus

we witness a reversal to an earlier phase of Shi'ite theology. Moreover, the theme

was mentioned rather frequently. This, however, should not mislead us to think
that the theme played a central role; it was rather discussed in passing, like in the
introductions to Qur'an commentaries, in hadith collections, or in usul al-fiqh

works (p. 36). The discussions were also accompanied by a certain ambiguity in
the phrasing of the doctrine. In many ways, one was at times hard pressed to

ascertain the position of a certain author at any given time (p. 38).
A major development was to happen in the 19th century. The publication
of the book Fasl al-khitab fl tahrtfrabb al-arbab in 1298/1881 by H usayn Taqi
al-Nuri was a major turning point in the history of this Shi'ite doctrine. For the
first time we have a substantial monograph397 pages of tightly written
lithographic printdedicated to the support and exposition of the Sunni

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224 MESA Bulletin 38/2 (2004)

falsification of the Qur'an. Chapter three of Brunner's book is a detailed analysis

of this book, its contents, and its reception. What had been dispersed in arcane

classical, post-classical and Safavid works was meticulously collected and put
forward to the public. This was also a work written in Arabic, and as such
accessible to the Sunnis in the Arab Ottoman world. The polemical literature of
the Sunnis would soon see in this work a treasure trove, and the issue of the
falsification of the Qur'an would become the central concern in the now renewed

polemical wars, which had not been the case before.

The last chapter of Brunner's book is a detailed description of the reaction
of the Shi'ite community in the 20th century to the Sunnis accusation that the

Shi'ites, by their adoption of such a doctrine were, if not outside the realm of

Islam, barely inside it. The story is, needless to say, fascinating. The twists and
turns in it are numerous, and Brunner guides the reader through the maze of this
war. The story is not without ironies, for soon the Shi'ites would accuse the
Sunnis of having started the whole notion themselves. Even the doctrine of

abrogation is drawn into the picture.

This is an outstanding and well researched monograph, and for a long time
to come it will be the definitive study on the topic. There are few, if any, negative
comments to say about it. The amount of work and research that has gone into the

writing of this work is simply staggering. I would have wished that the author had
been exhaustive in his listing of all the secondary sources he mentioned in his
footnotes. But this is rather an unfair criticism. The reader has to be aware that

many works are not cited in the bibliography at the end of the book and as such
one has to comb the footnotes for them (like in pp. 11, 14, 18, 50, 70, 99).
Hopefully a translation of the work into English will be forthcoming.
Walid A. Saleh
University of Toronto

Studies in the Muslim Apocalyptic, by DAVID COOK. Princeton, NJ: The

Darwin Press, 2002. 470 pages. US$39.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-87850-142-8

The Darwin Press's excellent series on Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam
has produced another useful survey on a vital genre of Islamic literature. David
Cook has pieced together a series of studies that he undertook as a graduate
student and compiled a book that, unfortunately, still reads more like a
dissertation. But the value of the survey remains in its function as a reference tool
and a starting point for students in their study of early Islam.
The introduction lays out the parameters of the studies and stresses the

ubiquitous nature of apocalyptic material in Islam: Cook is keen to insist that

apocalypticism was not merely a concomitant of Shi'i messianism. But embedded

in the introduction is a key pillar of his method: early Islam and the literature that

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