The Scriptures

the texts that carry it — language, era, and use Part of Stories & Scripture →

Tajwid, and the ten readings. The Quran is not read, it is recited, to rules governing vowel length, nasalisation and where the voice may stop. There are ten canonical readings, differing in vowels and occasionally in a word, all considered equally the Quran — a fact that surprises people who expect a single fixed text. Language Quranic Arabic, recited aloud to fixed rulesComposed Rules codified from the eighth century; the seven and then ten readings canonised by Ibn Mujahid, d. 936 Open the book — context →

The Quran. For Muslims, God's speech verbatim — recited before it was ever a book. Language Classical ArabicComposed 610–632 CE; standardized under Uthman Open the book — context →

The hafiz. The whole book — about 6,236 verses — carried in memory, with a chain of teachers behind it. Millions of people hold it, many of them children, and Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria and Iran run competitions for it on national television. It is the reason the text has a second, independent transmission line. Language Arabic, held entirely in memoryComposed From the first generation to now, unbroken Open the book — context →

The Hadith collections. The Prophet's words and deeds, sifted and graded — the sunna made searchable. Language ArabicComposed compiled in the ninth century CE Open the book — context →

The four books. Al-Kafi, Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, Tahdhib al-Ahkam and Al-Istibsar — the Twelver Shia hadith corpus, compiled in the ninth to eleventh centuries. Much of the content overlaps the Sunni collections; almost none of the chains do, because the two traditions disagree about which of the first generation to trust. ⚖ contested within Language ArabicComposed Compiled ninth to eleventh century Open the book — context →

Nahj al-Balagha. The sermons and letters attributed to Ali, collected around 1010. The letter of instruction to Malik al-Ashtar on governing Egypt is read as a manual of just administration well outside Shia circles, and the Arabic itself is taught as a model of prose. Some Sunni scholars dispute the attribution. ⚖ contested within Language Arabic — the prose is studied as literature in its own rightComposed Compiled by al-Sharif al-Radi around 1010 from earlier material Open the book — context →

The sira. Ibn Ishaq wrote the life of the Prophet in the eighth century and it survives mainly through Ibn Hisham's edited version, which states plainly that material was left out as objectionable. Nearly every story Muslims tell about the Prophet comes through this book, and historians have been arguing about the editing for twelve hundred years. held by most Language ArabicComposed Ibn Ishaq, d. 767, surviving through Ibn Hisham's edited recension, d. 833 Open the book — context →

Tafsir. Verse-by-verse commentary — al-Tabari's runs to thirty volumes and quotes everyone he disagrees with. Which tafsir a mosque or a family uses is a sharper indicator of where they stand than which school they name, and the twentieth-century Urdu and Indonesian commentaries reshaped the religion for hundreds of millions. held by most Language Arabic, now translated into everythingComposed Al-Tabari, d. 923, through Ibn Kathir, d. 1373, to the twentieth-century Urdu and Indonesian commentaries Open the book — context →

Usul al-fiqh — the roots of the law. Al-Shafii's Risala set out how you get from a text to a ruling: Quran, then the practice of the Prophet, then consensus, then analogy. Once the method is explicit, disagreement becomes legitimate — which is why four Sunni schools can give four answers and all four are orthodox. held by most Language ArabicComposed Al-Shafii's Risala, c. 820, and the foundational texts of each school Open the book — context →

The Mathnawi. Twenty-five thousand Persian couplets, opening with a reed cut from the reed bed and complaining about the separation. Rumi's admirers called it the Quran in Persian; his critics thought that was exactly the problem. It is recited, sung, and danced to in the Mevlevi ceremony. ⚖ contested within Language PersianComposed Composed by Jalal al-Din Rumi in Konya, 1258–1273 Open the book — context & 1 source →

Ihya Ulum al-Din. Al-Ghazali left the most prestigious chair in Baghdad, disappeared for eleven years, and came back with forty books on how to pray, eat, marry, earn and die. It is the most widely read Islamic book after the Quran and the hadith, and it is what made Sufi practice respectable to the jurists. held by most Language ArabicComposed Al-Ghazali, completed c. 1105 after he abandoned his chair in Baghdad and disappeared for eleven years Open the book — context →

Translation, and the argument about it. Most of the world's Muslims do not read Arabic, and the tradition holds that the Quran in another language is not the Quran — the standard title is an interpretation of the meanings. So the book people actually read is a rendering with the Arabic beside it, and which rendering carries real theological weight. ⚖ contested within Language Everything — and the Arabic is held to be untranslatableComposed Latin from 1143; English from 1649; the twentieth century opened the floodgates Open the book — context →