Page:William Goldsack-The Qurān in Islām (1906).djvu/21

 12 From the cumulative evidence of these different traditions it is clear that the Qurān reading of Ibn-Masʿūd was the correct one, and that, at that time at least, it was free from additions or corruptions. Yet the astounding fact confronts us that Ibn-Masʿūd was a bitter opponent of ʿUsmān’s recension of the Qurān; that he, in fact, not only refused to have anything to do with it, but consistently refused to hand over his own copy to the Khalif. Not only so, but when the latter gave orders for the collection and destruction of all copies of the Qurān except his own, Ibn-Masʿūd immediately advised his own disciples, the people of Iraq, to hide their copies of the Qurān, and not to give them over to destruction, in these words,



“O people of Iraq, hide your Qurāns, and shut them up under lock and key.”

It is recorded that the Khalif forcibly seized and burnt Ibn-Masʿūd’s Qurān, and so unmercifully chastised the companion of the prophet that he died a few days later from the beating he received. But the significant fact remains that Ibn-Masʿūd not only refused to give up his perfect copy of the Qurān in favour of an arbitrary compilation made by ʿUsmān, but also urged his disciples to continue reading his own edition. The whole narrative makes it clear that ʿUsmān’s Qurān differed very considerably from the reading which Ibn-Masʿūd had learnt from the prophet; for on no other hypothesis can the former's unmerciful treatment of this great theologian be explained. We shall have occasion, later on in this little book, to point out some of the grave differences between the readings of Ibn-Masʿūd and ʿUsmān; it must suffice here to remind the reader that Ibn-Masʿūd’s Qurān contained neither Sūra Fātiha, nor Sūras Talaq and Nas. One cannot but wonder at the temerity of the Khalif in thus destroying the