DE GRUYTER J. Int. Qur’anic Stud. Assoc. 2025; aop Joshua J. Little* On the Historicity of ‘“Uthman’s Canonization of the Qur’an, Part 1: The State of the Field https://doi.org/10.1515/jiqsa-2025-0016 Abstract: The identity of the early Muslim ruler or statesman who canonized the underlying consonantal text (rasm) of the Qur’an has been heavily debated in Western scholarship for more than a century. On the one hand, most Western scholars—past and accepted the Islamic historical tradition’s unanimous identification of the early Arab Muslim ruler b. ‘Affan )1: 24-35/644-656( as the Qur’an’s can- onizer. On the other hand, a persistent revisionist minority have instead sided with certain Christian sources in identifying the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. and his infamous governor al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d. 95/714) as the true canonizers and even collectors or composers of the Qur’an. Some Western scholars have also argued for various medial positions: that al-Hajjaj redacted and re-canon- ized ‘Uthman’s canonical text; and/or that al-Hajjaj merely corrected some scribal errors therein; and/or that al-Hajjaj merely added diacritical markings thereto. The present article-the first in a tripartite series—contends that the available evidence strongly supports and confirms the ‘Uthmanic hypothesis, on the one hand; and Keywords: Qur’an; collection; codification; canonization; ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan; al-Hajjaj b. ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan; Umayyad; Marwanid; ‘Uthmanic.
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| Title | Historicity of Uthman's Canonization |
|---|---|
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DE GRUYTER J. Int. Qur’anic Stud. Assoc. 2025; aop Joshua J. Little* On the Historicity of ‘“Uthman’s Canonization of the Qur’an, Part 1: The State of the Field https://doi.org/10.1515/jiqsa-2025-0016 Abstract: The identity of the early Muslim ruler or statesman who canonized the underlying consonantal text (rasm) of the Qur’an has been heavily debated in Western scholarship for more than a century. On the one hand, most Western scholars—past and accepted the Islamic historical tradition’s unanimous identification of the early Arab Muslim ruler b. ‘Affan )1: 24-35/644-656( as the Qur’an’s can- onizer. On the other hand, a persistent revisionist minority have instead sided with certain Christian sources in identifying the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. and his infamous governor al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d. 95/714) as the true canonizers and even collectors or composers of the Qur’an. Some Western scholars have also argued for various medial positions: that al-Hajjaj redacted and re-canon- ized ‘Uthman’s canonical text; and/or that al-Hajjaj merely corrected some scribal errors therein; and/or that al-Hajjaj merely added diacritical markings thereto. The present article-the first in a tripartite series—contends that the available evidence strongly supports and confirms the ‘Uthmanic hypothesis, on the one hand; and Keywords: Qur’an; collection; codification; canonization; ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan; al-Hajjaj b. ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan; Umayyad; Marwanid; ‘Uthmanic.