Textual Integrity of the Qur’an: Sunni and Shi'i Historical Narrations on the Falsification

The Qur’an is the central text in Islam and 1.9 million Muslims around the world strive to shape their lives according to the principles and rulings derived from it.

Yet the textual integrity of the Qur’an has largely been taken for granted and some aspects of it have not been investigated, especially the idea of the falsification (tahrif) of the quranic text.

Since the 2nd century AH, a group of Muslim traditionalists have claimed that certain verses were removed from the quranic text after the death of the Prophet, making the present quranic text incomplete.

Sunni traditionalists (Hashwiyya) advocated the existence of this falsification (in the form of omission of some of the verses of the Qur’an) within a legal framework, while Shi'i traditionalists (Akhbaris) perpetuated the concept to support the succession of the Prophet and sanctity of the Twelver Shi'i Imams.

The limited existing studies on the subject are mostly reviews of the opinions of past and present scholars.

Further, while the falsification has been advocated by both Muslim groups in different ways, the notion has been largely attributed to the Shi'is.

As a result, to this day, it has been a cause of tension between Sunni and Shi'i communities due to the firmly established view regarding the integrity of the Qur’an.

Dr Seyfeddin Kara’s primary goal is to uncover the historical origins of a neglected aspect of the textual history of the Qur’an through undertaking a multidisciplinary study combining quranic studies, hadith studies, Islamic law and biblical studies. “Uncover” means to date the relevant Muslim traditions and reveal the interaction/influence between the Sunni and Shi'i traditionalists in the development of the notion of falsification from the 2nd to the 5th centuries AH.

In his previous study on Ali b. Abi Talib’s quranic codex, SK tested new suitable methods and theories to study the textual history of the Qur’an.