I read this book by Shaykh Prof. Seyfeddin Ahmet Kara[2] from cover to cover, including all of the footnotes. Sometimes when I read book reviews, it is unclear if the author actually read the book or just skimmed it. But I want to affirm that I read every word, so that you know this review is based on a close reading of the text.
I contend that Kara’s book is a thorough study of a very important issue. Following Harald Motzki’s studies of narrations (aḥādīth) that relate stories about the compilation of the Qur’an by Abū Bakr and ʿUthmān – in which Motzki determined that all the stories go back to the time of Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (d. 742 AD), a scholar who was patronized by the ʿUmayyad caliphate – Kara analyzes every single narration that mentions the compilation of the Qur’an by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.[3] Kara’s conclusion is that the earliest one can see clear evidence of scholars mentioning ʿAlī compiling his own manuscript of the Qur’an is the time of Ibn Sīrīn (d. 729), a scholar working slightly earlier than al-Zuhrī.
The way Motzki and Kara accomplish this task is by mapping out the available evidence on a single topic (in this case, narrations regarding the compilation of the Qur’an after the burial of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him and his family) and analyzing both the isnād (the chain of transmission) and the matn (the actual text that is being transmitted). This is known as the isnad-cum-matn methodology. In this regard, the evidence that links these stories to al-Zuhrī and Ibn Sīrīn (roughly 710-740 AD) is more certain than that which links their presentation of the stories to the time of the early caliphs (632-661 AD). According to the isnad-cum-matn historiographical methodology, it is possible to arrive at earlier dates than these, but one must be able to demonstrate that empirically.
To explain this sort of scholarship in a simple way, we might imagine the following scenario. There was a car accident that tragically took the lives of some people who were beloved to us. We hear different versions of the story from different people, but because those people were beloved to us, we dig deeper and discover that everyone we have heard a story from got their information from the same person. So, we go to that single person and listen to their story. But then they tell us that they were not actually there, but heard it from so and so (whom they trust), who heard it from another person. But we cannot go and hear from those two sources closer to the accident to hear their stories directly. So, we come to terms with the fact that hearing from this source is the closest we are going to get to actually being there to witness the event itself, given our distance in time and space from that historical moment.
What Kara has done, following Motzki’s lead, is careful and painstaking work meant to convince scholars working with empirical methodologies that their conclusions are sound. There is much in this text that the average reader will find boring unless they have an MA or PhD in Islamic Studies or Middle Eastern History. So, I have not written this review because the everyday Muslim should go out and buy this book and try to read it. I have written this because I consider this a new gold standard for those working on ʿulūm al-qurʾān in the English language, whether they are Sunnī ʿulamāʾ, Shīʿī ḥawza students/ teachers, or professional academics in secular universities. If you want to learn more about Kara’s work in a format catered to YouTube viewer, you can see the interview with him done by the podcast Sképsislamica.[4]
It is rare to find traditionally trained scholars in the academic world of Early Islam studies, and it is even more rare for those traditionally trained scholars to take up controversial issues regarding the origins of Islam such as the compilation of the Qur’an. But this book demonstrates that one can be a highly competent scholar who bridges these worlds. Kara has traditional training as well as a British PhD and his book demonstrates his comprehensive attention to varied sources that are part of the broader discourse regarding the textual history of the Qur’an. It includes not only discussion of Western academic work (Wansborough, Shoemaker, Sadeghi, etc.) but also often-cited Sunnī works (M.M. ʿAẓamī’s study of the Qur’anic text, al-Ṣuyūtī’s al-Itqān, etc.) and more recent Shīʿī texts (Hādī Maʿrifat’s discussion in his text on ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, al-Khūʿī’s Prolegomena, etc.).
Everyone talks about being intellectually open, but Kara actually demonstrates it in the pages of his book. He leaves no stone unturned in his study and is willing to accept the outcome of his research and open it up for scrutiny to anyone with the intellectual training to follow his line of argumentation.
Which leads me to my favorite part of the book, which is on page 100 and 101. One of the questions I have always had is the following:
“If you need ʿilm al-rijāl (the biographies of the narrators) in order to authenticate the isnād, then how can you authenticate the biographies without their own isnāds?”
This is one of those complex historical questions that I have never gotten a good answer for. But on pages 100-101 I learned that before I was even born Ayatollah Āṣif al-Muḥsinī from Afghanistan (d. 2019) was asking the same questions to al-Khūʿī, al-Khumaynī and other great ʿulamāʾ of the previous generation and not getting a sufficient answer.[5] Al-Muḥsinī went on to write a book entitled Buḥūth fī ʿīlm al-rijāl where he talks about it, and if you want a taste of it you can read a translated passage by Syed Ali Imran.[6] When you understand this issue, you understand one of the significant reasons why even the best scholars sometimes differ about important issues of theology, law and historical truth.
Which all leads me back to why I read this book. The reason I choose to read this book so closely is because at some point the Muslim intellectual has to make historiographical judgement calls about many contentious issues. Within well-formed orthodoxies, certain questions are answered in clear and unambiguous ways. Sunnī Imams often tell one story about the compilation of the Qur’an in their masjids, and Shīʿī Resident Scholars often tell another story in their masjids, and the average Muslim just nods their head and moves on with their life depending on which masjid they attend. But that has not been the norm in my life. I was exposed to critical historical approaches to scripture before I even became Muslim, and I did not become Muslim by closing my mind off from those perspectives. I became Muslim because I felt that Islam is firmly established in history, even if sometimes it takes a bit of historiographical complexity to get to the point. And so, I take comfort in the fact that one of my teachers (I took a course with Kara in graduate school) can not only open himself to all of the scholarly discussions in human history in English, Arabic and Persian of this critically important historical and theological question, but also move forward as a person of faith after having done so.
And so, I close with the suggestion that if the broader community does want to read a book by Kara about the Qur’an, knowing all of what I have just said, I recommend starting with his large commentary on Sūrah al-Baqarah that is co-authored with Shaykh Muhammad Saeed Bahmanpour.[7]
There does not have to be a dichotomy between seeing the Qur’an as both a text emerging in 7th century human history and also the Speech of God (Kalām Allāh) meant for our guidance in the 21st century, and Kara’s literary output helps us experience that for those willing to take the time to study it.
And God knows best (و الله أعلم).
[1] https://bayanonline.org/r.-david-coolidge
[2] https://www.rug.nl/staff/s.kara/?lang=en
[3] Harald Motzki, “The Collection of the Qur’ān. A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments,” Der Islam 78.1 (2009) pp. 1-34.
[4] https://youtu.be/420UE8aurnU?si=_rCO-Mh4eEw71VNn
[5] For more context on the intellectual career of al-Muḥsinī, see Ahmad Rashid Salim, “For the Sake of God and a Sense of Justice: Past Realities and Future Possibilities of Religious Reform in Afghanistan,” https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/afg.2024.0148
[6] https://iqraonline.net/regarding-the-rules-for-affirming-or-weakening-someone-from-buhuth-fi-ilm-al-rijal-by-muhammad-asif-muhsini/
[7] https://sunbehindthecloud.com/product/understanding-surah-al-baqarah-a-modern-interpretation-of-the-quran-in-the-light-of-the-quran/
