Page:William Goldsack-The Qurān in Islām (1906).djvu/37

 28 more traditions from reliable authorities, which will enable the reader to see that we are only stating plain facts, There is a well-known tradition of Ibn-ʿUmr’s to the following effect,



"Ibn-ʿUmr said, Let no one of you say, ‘I have the whole Qurān’. That which is known is not the whole, for a great part has been taken from it; but say, I have that which has been saved (made manifest) from it.”

Yet another tradition runs to this effect,



"Ibn-Jīsh said, Ibn-Kāb said, ‘How many verses are there in Sūra Akhrāb?’ I said, ‘Seventy-two or seventy-three. ’ He said, ‘Sūra Akhrāb was (once) equal to Sūra Bakr’.” This well-known tradition is found in the famous work of Jalāl-ud-Dīn Seyuti, known as the Itqān. It tells us that Stūa Akhrab, now containing seventy-two or seventy-three verses, was once equal to Sūra Bakr which contains two hundred and eighty-six verses. Thus it is seen that from this one Sūra alone over two hundred verses have absolutely disappeared.

There is also a well-known tradition of Ibn-Abbas to the effect that,