So now that we have seen how different regional
codices of the Qur 'an were competing with each
other, let us zoom in on one of the most important
figures in that story, Abdullah ibn Mas 'ud,
because once you see his role, the tension with
the modern narrative becomes even clearer. Let
me start with this question. If Muhammad himself
told his followers who to learn the Qur 'an from,
would that not be a big deal for how we think
about authority and expertise in the text? In
Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, in the section titled
The Virtues of the Qur 'an, there is a report
at the beginning of Chapter 8 that speaks directly
to this. In Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, Book
61, Hadith 521, it says, Narrated Masrook Abdullah
ibn Amr mentioned Abdullah ibn Masud and said,
I shall always love that man. For I heard the
Prophet saying, Take, that is, learn the Qur
'an from four. From Abdullah ibn Masud, from
Salim, from Mu 'adh, and from Ubay ibn Kab. That
is Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 61, Hadith
521. So according to this hadith, when Muhammad
listed the four main people his followers should
learn the Quran from, he began with Abdullah
ibn Masud. Notice also that Zayd ibn Thabit,
the man whose codex eventually became the basis
of the standard Quran, is not mentioned in this
list at all. Sahih Muslim reinforces the same
emphasis. In Sahih Muslim, Book 31, which is
the Book of Virtues, Hadith 6024, there is a
similar report. It says, Masrook reported, We
used to go to Abdullah ibn Amr and talk to him.
One day we mentioned Abdullah ibn Masud. Abdullah
ibn Amr said, You have mentioned a man whom I
love. I heard the Messenger of Allah say, Learn
the Qur 'an from four people. From Ibn Umm Abd,
that is another name for Abdullah ibn Masud.
Then from Mu 'adh ibn Jabal. Then from Ubay ibn
Kab. Then from Salim, the freed slave and ally
of Abu Hudayfa. That is Sahih Muslim, Book 31,
Hadith 6024. Again in this list, Abdullah ibn
Masud comes first. And once more, Zayd ibn Thabit
is not included at all. That tells us that in
the Prophet's own lifetime, at least according
to these respected hadith collections, Abdullah
ibn Masud stood at the top of the list as a Qur
'an expert and teacher. Abdullah ibn Masud himself
speaks with tremendous confidence about his knowledge
of the Qur 'an. In Sahih al -Bukhari, Volume
6, Book 65, Hadith 524, we read this. Narrated
Abdullah, meaning Abdullah ibn Masud. By Allah.
other than whom none has the right to be worshipped,
there is no surah revealed in the Book of Allah,
but that I know where it was revealed. And there
is no verse revealed in the Book of Allah, but
that I know about whom it was revealed. And if
I knew that there was someone who knows the Book
of Allah better than I do, and that his dwelling
place could be reached by camels, I would travel
to him. Hadith 524 So here is a man who Muhammad
himself singled out as a primary teacher of the
Quran, and who claims to know the context of
every surah and every verse. Naturally, he kept
his own codex of the Quran, and as we saw in
the previous section, his codex became the standard
text for the region of Kufa before Uthman imposed
a single official version. Christian scholar
John Gilchrist in his book Jam al -Qur 'an, spends
a whole section comparing the codex of Abdullah
ibn Masud with the codex of Zayd ibn Thabit.
He draws especially on two early Muslim works,
Ibn Abi Dawud's Kitab al -Masahif and Ibn Sa'd's
Kitab al -Tabaqat al -Kabir. These sources preserve
Ibn Masud's reaction when Caliph Uthman ordered
that his codex be rejected. and Zaid's Codex
be adopted as the official version, let me cite
some of those statements clearly. In Ibn Abi
Dawud's Kitab al -Masahif, page 17, there is
a report in which Abdullah ibn Masud says, I
recited from the Messenger of Allah 70 surahs
which I had perfected before Zaid ibn Thabit
had even accepted Islam. That is Ibn Abi Dawud,
Kitab al -Masahif, page 17. On page 15 of the
same book, Ibn Abi Dawud records Abdullah ibn
Masud saying, I acquired directly from the Messenger
of Allah 70 surahs when Zaid was still a young
boy. Must I now abandon what I acquired directly
from the Messenger of Allah? That is Ibn Abi
Dawud, Kitab al -Masahif, page 15. In another
source, Ibn Sad's Kitab al -Tabaqat al -Kabir,
which is a major early biographical dictionary,
we find an even stronger statement. In Kitab
al -Tabaqat al -Kabir, Volume 2, page 444, Abdullah
ibn Masud is recorded as saying, The people have
been guilty of deceit in the reading of the Qur
'an. I prefer to recite according to the recitation
of the one whom I love, meaning the Prophet,
rather than that of Zayd ibn Thabit, by the one
besides whom there is no God. I learned more
than 70 surahs directly from the lips of the
Messenger of Allah, while Zayd ibn Thabit was
a youth with two locks of hair playing with other
youths. That is Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al -Tabaqat al
-Kabir, Volume 2, page 444. In the edited Arabic
edition of Kitab al -Masahif by Abu Bakr Abdullah
ibn Abi Dawud, prepared by Arthur Jeffrey, and
published in Cairo in the year 1355 of the Hijra,
on pages 166 and 167, there is another paraphrase
of Ibn Masud's protest. There he is reported
as asking, Am I to abandon what I acquired from
the very lips of the Prophet? That is Ibn Abi
Dawud, Kitab al -Masahif, edited by Arthur Jeffrey,
Cairo, 1936. So put yourself in his shoes for
a moment. You have been publicly affirmed by
Muhammad as one of the four primary teachers
of the Qur 'an. You have memorized and written
down at least 70 surahs directly from his mouth.
You have taught your recitation to an entire
region like Kufa. Then, years later, a younger
man who was still a child when you were already
learning surahs from the Prophet has his codex
chosen as the official version, and your codex
is ordered to be burned. Is it any wonder that
Abdullah ibn Masud resisted? His words show that
he did not regard Zayd's codex as automatically
superior. On the contrary, he believed that he
himself had closer and more extensive access
to the Prophet's recitation than Zayd ever did.
John Gilchrist, in Jam al -Qur 'an, uses these
statements to argue that the choice of Zayd's
codex under Uthman was not a simple recognition
of one perfectly preserved text over obviously
flawed ones. Rather, it was a political and practical
decision to impose one reading in the face of
serious and sincere disagreement among leading
companions, including the very man Muhammad had
put first on his list of Quran teachers. So here
is the question we are left with. If Muhammad
said, learn the Quran from four, and he put Abdullah
ibn Masud first in both Sahih al -Bukhari and
Sahih Muslim, and if that same Abdullah loudly
protested when his codex was set aside and his
reading was suppressed, what does that do to
the modern claim that the Uthmanic text we have
today is the only legitimate and perfectly preserved
version of the Quran that ever existed?