The Shi'a and the Qur'an: Between Myth and Reality

Over the past several months, I've obtained several books on Shi'a Islam since I wanted to increase my knowledge about their beliefs and practices. This was mainly due to the fact that there's been considerable coverage of the Shi'a and their scholars due to the ongoing troubles in Iraq, but also because I have some Shi'a acquaintances, thus I wanted to avoid a future case of foot-in-mouth disease — which is generally contracted by opening one's mouth when not knowing what the heck one is talking about (a rather common malady when it comes to speaking about religion, since self-appointed Grand Muftis seem to be a dime a dozen these days). So just as I continuously read on the subjects of Judaism, Christianity, Biblical studies and other related topics in order to stay up to snuff on the subject of comparative religion, I decided it was about the time that I did the same in regards to Shi'a beliefs and practices.

Prior to this endeavor, about the only books that I had read on Shi'ism were short booklets, mostly published in Saudi Arabia, that had a very rabid, and thus seemingly exaggerated and distorted, anti-Shi'a outlook. Due to this, I decided to purchase An Introduction to Shi`i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi`ism, by Moojan Momen, which I happened to see in a local bookstore one day, and Doctrines of Shi'i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, by Ayatollah Ja'far Sobhani. As I've always said, if you want to learn something about a particular religion, read books on it by people who believe in it and adhere to it. This methodology, which should obviously be the one employed by any sincere truth seeker, seems to be lost on a lot of Islamophobes out there who seemingly have only tried to learn about Islam, whether Sunni or Shi'a, from those who are openly hostile to it. I always try to keep in mind that if I had adopted this rather moronic approach, I'd probably still be warming up some church pew somewhere. Anyway, even though Moojan Momen's work is an academic work written by a seemingly rather secular Shi'a, I think both of these books still clearly fall into the category of not being hostile to their subject matter.

Even though I still haven't read either of the above-mentioned books cover-to-cover, I did happen to come across something quite interesting in them the other day. This had to do with the Shi'a view of the preservation and status of the Glorious Qur'an. Unfortunately, there have been some Sunni Muslims, mostly of the so-called "Salafi" and Wahhabi variety, that in their zeal to lambaste the Shi'a and scrounge up any piece of evidence that will put them further out of the fold of Islam, have actually managed to damage Islam as a whole — or at least provide some ammunition to its enemies. This is because some Christian missionaries and Orientalists have gathered these arguments together and attempted (and that's a key word) to use them to bring the veracity of the Qur'an into question. Such arguments have already been dealt with in detail in such articles has M. S. M. Saifullah's excellent Surah al-Walayah & Surah al-Nurayn: Their Authenticity & Literary Style. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide even more evidence that these missionary and Orientalist claims against the Qur'an are tenuous at best:

"Says the Shaykh Abu Ja'far: Our belief is that the Qur'an, which Allah revealed to his Prophet Muhammad is (the same as) the one between the two boards (daffatayn). And it is that which is in the hands of the people, and is not greater extent than that. The number of suras as generally accepted is one hundred and fourteen."[1]

And later, the same source says:

"And he who asserts that we say it is greater in extent than this (the present text) is a liar."[2]

As M. S. M. Saifullah rightly says, this "would have been a proof good enough to stop here and dismiss what the missionaries are claiming about the 'Qur'an' which Shi'ites have." However, An Introduction to Shi`i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi`ism, which is one of the books that I purchased recently and one of the references used in M. S. M. Saifullah's article as well, has some even more valuable quotes from Shi'a sources:

"With regards to the question of the text of the Qur'an, it has already been noted that the early Shi'is believed that the Qur'an has been altered and parts of it has been suppressed. The Nawbakhtis are said to have adhered to this view although it went against their usual position of agreeing with Mu'tazili thought. The compiler of the earliest, authoritative collection of Twelver Traditions, al-Kulyanî, seems to have given some substance to this view in several of the Traditions that he relates. Ibn Babuya, however, takes the position that the text of the Qur'an is complete and unaltered. Al-Mufid appears to have wavered somewhat on this point during his lifetime. He seems to have accepted the fact that parts of the Qur'an had been excised by the enemies of the Imams in some of his early writings, although he refused even then to state that anything had been added. In his later writings, however, al-Mufid had reinterpreted the concept of omissions from the text of the Qur'an to mean that the text of the Qur'an is complete (although he does allow that the order needs to be changed) but that what has been omitted is the authoritative interpretation of the text by 'Alî. In this manner, al-Mufid and most subsequent Shi'i writers were able to fall into line with the rest of the Islamic world in accepting the text of the Qur'an as contained in the recension of 'Uthmân."[3]

Similar to this, I found the following passage on page 93 of Doctrines of Shi'i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices:

"But we observe that this great soul [Imam 'Ali ibn Abu Talib], to the end of his life, never said anything about even a single word of the Qur'an having been altered. If, God forbid, such an alteration had in fact taken place, a person such as he would never have remained silent. Rather, we see the contrary: that he continuously called upon people to meditate upon the Qur'an…For these, and other reasons, the great scholars of the ahl al-bayt, from the beginning of Islam to the present day, have stressed the immunity of the Qur'an against any alteration (tahrif). It must be stressed that this is has been the position of all Shi'i authorities in all periods; and to this day, all the Shi'i leaders without exception uphold this position."[4]

Later, this same source says on page 95:

"If some Shi'i scholars have written books in which the alteration of the Qur'an is mentioned, we observe that, after the publication of such books, Shi'i scholars have written many refutations of the errors contained in them. In the like manner, when an Egyptian scholar published the book al-Furqan in 1345/1926, in which he tried to prove that the Qur'an had been altered — basing himself upon certain narrations found in the books of the Sunnis, concerning the abrogation or writing of certain Qur'anic verses — the Shaykhs of al-Azhar repudiated the opinion and banned the book."

In conclusion, page 95 of Doctrines of Shi'i Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices also says: "The revealed Book for all the Muslims of the world is the Glorious Qur'an, consisting of 114 Suras, of which the first is the Sura al-Fatiha, and the last is the Sura al-Nas." This final statement, taken in context with all of the others, makes it abundantly clear that the Shi'a certainly do not believe that the Qur'an has been altered in any way.

In order to clarify a point made above, in which I touched on the fact that so-called "Salafis" and their cohorts, especially in Saudi Arabia, seemingly enjoy trying to put the Shi'a "further out of the fold of Islam", I want to say that the general belief amongst Sunni Muslim scholars is that the Shi'a are Muslims — albeit mistaken ones in some regards — who are within the fold of Islam. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the schism of Shi'ism has been strongly condemned over the centuries by many of the seminal figures of Sunni Islam, the moderate mainstream position is that the Shi'a are indeed Muslims. This is generally because they not only share our testification of faith of "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Messenger", but adhere to the five pillars of Islam and pray to the same Qiblah as well. Ultimately, the mainstream of the Ahl al-Sunnah believe the same thing about the Shi'a as the Shi'a believe about them: that they are within the fold of Islam in spite of their innovations and mistaken beliefs. I say this last part somewhat hesitantly, because there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that the Shi'a hold that Sunni Muslims are outside the fold of Islam for failure to recognize their foundational belief of the Imamate. However, I certainly don't intend to dig through the all of the relevant Shi'a sources in order to sort out their scholars' various views on this question.

One final note, because I feel that I should mention that a good way to get more of an authentic feel for a religion, and the mentality and operative world view that it produces in its adherents, is to put aside the sometimes dry works of non-fiction and pick up a less academically inclined book that is meant for popular consumption — or sometimes a work of contemporary literature or even a DVD. In this regard, even though I'm certainly no big fan of the corrupting waste of time known as television, I have to say that I a few years ago I thoroughly enjoined both of the critically acclaimed Iranian films Secret Ballot and The Children of Heaven. Likewise, I've read substantial portions of In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran, a recent insider's view of Iran by Christopher de Bellaigue, who has lived there for years and covers it for The Economist. I really felt this book provided me with a very authoritative and believable glimpse at what makes Iran and Iranians tick — and in saying this I don't mean to imply that Iranians are strictly synonymous with Shi'a (since they're not), but rather offer it up simply as advice on how to learn about a cultural-religious milieu that one isn't familiar with. On that note I'll mention another book, since I've read a lot of good things about it: The Mantle of the Prophet, by Roy Mottahedeh. Supposedly this book provides one of the best inside looks at late twentieth century Iran and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and thus has been described as being "essential for understanding Iran and Iranians". Having mentioned these two works, and keeping in mind the current tensions between Iran and the United States, I can't help but endorse a must read that came out last year entitled All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer. This book clearly exposes some of the dastardly deeds that the U.S. has carried out in Iran over the past few decades and how, in spite of their rhetoric, they've never really promoted democracy over there. Indeed, after reading this book you'll understand that Americans have less cause to be angry with Iran than vice versa, since the taking and holding of the hostages from the U.S. Embassy was almost nothing compared to the much larger, heinous and long-lived crimes that the U.S. helped facilitate in Iran...and those who know and those who don't know certainly are not equal.

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NOTES:

[1] Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Babwayh al-Qummi, I'tiqadatu'l Imamiyyah (The Beliefs of Imamiyyah), English translation: A Shi'ite Creed, 1982 (Revised) Asaf A. A. Fyzee, World Organization of Islamic Services, Tehran, Iran, p. 77.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Moojan Momen, An Introduction To Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism, 1985, George Ronald, Oxford, page 81.
[4] An interesting and valuable footnote (#65) is included after this statement, and it can be found on pages 210-11 of Doctrines of Shi'I Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, by Ayatollah Sobhani. Since this footnote provides a list of valuable references for verifying the above stated Shi'a beliefs, I'm including it here in its totality:

65. The following authorities can be referred to regarding this matter: 1) Fadl b. Shadhan, (d. 260 / 873 AH; he lived in the time of the Imams), Kitab al-Idah, p. 217; 2) Shaykh Saduq (d. 381 / 991), Kitab al-i'tiqadat, p. 93; 3) Shaykh Mufid (d. 413/1022), Majmu`at al-rasa'il, p. 266; 4) Shaykh Murtada (d. 436/1044), Jawab al-masa'il al-tarabilsiyyat; 5) Shaykh Tusi (d. 460/1067), Kitab al-tibyan, vol. 1, p. 3; 6) Shaykh al-Tabarsi (d. 548/ 1153), Majma' al-bayan (see his introduction where he clearly stresses the absence of any possibility of alteration with regard to the Qur'an); 7) Sayyid b. Tawus (d. 664/1265), Sa'd al-su`ud, p. 144 (where he says: `The non-existence of alteration — such is the position of the Imamiyya); 8) `Allama Hilli (d. 726/1325), Ujubat al-masa'il al-mihna'iyya, p. 121 (where he says: `This is the truth: that no addition or diminution has been effected in regard to the Qur'an, and I seek protection from God against speaking the word "alteration" (tahrif); for such an idea causes doubt to be cast on the miracle that was authentically transmitted to us by the Holy Prophet.').