In Search of the Original Koran: The True History of the Revealed Text (5 page)

If the modifications of the Koran made in the course of revelationin the name either of the evolution of things or of divine omnipotence-aroused a hostile reaction among the Prophet's immediate entourage, what happens if this is compounded by revelations aroused by Satan-which, moreover, were ordered by God himself? This additional complication in the identity of the Koran has been produced and clearly acknowledged: "And We have assigned for every prophet an enemy: the devils of humankind and Djinns, who inspire each other with vain and varnished falsehoods. If Allah had willed it, they would not have done it" (6:112). These devils (shayatin) of human or infernal nature have the function of inducing the Prophet into error. They even go so far as to inspire false revelations in him: "Never did We send a single Messenger or Prophet before you, but when he recited, Satan threw some [false revelations] into his recitation" (22:52). Does the Koran here correspond to the Bible, where in Ezekiel it is a matter of "foolish prophets who follow their own spirit" and whose "visions are false and their divinations a lie. They say `The Lord declares,' when the Lord has not sent them" (Ezekiel 13:3, 6)? Perhaps. But this is a case of false prophets who are not inspired by God. On the other hand, the Bible does give an example of prophets mandated by God to speak false prophecies. In a vision that the prophet Micaiah had, God asked his angels to help him entice Ahab, king of Israel. One of them then came forward and "stood before the Lord and said, `I will entice him.' `By what means?' the Lord asked. `I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets' he said. `You will succeed in enticing him,' said the Lord. `Go and do it"' (1 Kings 22:21-22). Thus when the Koran formulates the rule of the test of falsehood that God imposes on all his prophets, it is inscribed within an ancient tradition, of which the Bible offers us here a remarkable illustration.

Let us now envisage the consequences of such a practice upon the revealed texts. For in these conditions of booby-trapped revelations, how can one distinguish the true from the false? The Koran's answer in the verses quoted above is rather reassuring: "Never did We send a single Messenger or Prophet before you, but when he recited, Satan threw some [false revelations] into his recitation. But Allah will cancel (yansukhu) anything that Satan throws in and Allah will confirm (yuhkimu) His signs. [God does this] to make Satan's interjections a temptation for those whose hearts are tainted, whose hearts are hardened" (22:52-53). We can see that these satanic revelations are diffused among believers like the rest of the divine message, so that the bad ones fall into the trap set for them, and their sins are thereby all the more aggravated. But once this goal is attained, God proceeds to the elimination of the demonic words that he had inspired. But, how? God does not specify.

We are making our way to the emergence of two types of divine revelations: some are true and sure, others are false and doubtful: "It is He who has sent down to you the Book [kitab], wherein are clear revelations (muhkam) which are the essential part of the kitab (hunna ummu al-kitab); and other [signs] which are ambiguous (mutashabihat). Those whose hearts are doubtful pursue the ambiguous part, seeking to create dissension (fitna) by interpreting it. [But] God alone knows its interpretation" (3:7).

Here we may see clearly the similarity (in the three cases that we have just reviewed) among the three kinds of division that have been introduced into the revealed text: 1) that of the modification of the text; 2) that of satanic revelations; and finally 3) that of the ambiguous nature of a portion of the revelation. In the first case, we are in the presence of suppressed revelations, those contrary to the ones that are "fixed (thabbata)" and that conform to the "heavenly tablet (umm al- kitab)" (13:39). But in the third case, the unambiguous text is described as both fixed (muhkam) and as representing "the essential part of the kitab (umm al-kitab)" (3:7); the latter term has been used in the case of textual modification, even though here it does not have quite the same meaning. Similarly, on the subject of the satanic revelations, the healthy part of the revelation is called "clear/confirmed (muhkama)"-literally, "fixed," a word used, as we have just seen, to describe the univocal text.

We may conclude from these comparisons that God gives himself the right to suppress a portion of the revealed words, either to improve the text or because these words were dictated by Satan. On the other hand, the equivocal parts (mutashabihdt) are treated in a strangely similar way to the suppressed parts, as if they were a revelation of inferior quality, destined to occupy a marginal place. As for the verse 13:39 that we have quoted, God concludes his statement on his capacity to suppress what he wants of revelation with the words: "With Him is the Mother of the Book." This reminder rings as an invitation to consider as doomed to disappear that which does not correspond to this hard kernel of revelation. And so those revelations called mutashabihat have the same status as that part to be suppressed. Moreover, Muslim legal scholars were not mistaken about this when they assimilated these ambiguous revelations to the abrogated verses. But that is another subject.

The Koran gives us on several occasions the image of a prophet subject to severe pressure from his pagan entourage, Jewish or Christian, pushing him to produce false revelations: "In truth, the [Enemies] sought to entice you from Our Revelations, hoping that you might invent some other scripture against Us, and thus become their trusted friend. And if We had not strengthened your faith, you might have made some compromise with them. In that case, We should have made you taste a double punishment in this life and in death. Then you would have found no ally against Us" (17:73-75).

Moreover, Muhammad hesitates to communicate a part of the revelation: "Perhaps you omit a part of what is revealed to you and you therefore feel anguish ..." (11:12). Then God orders him to communicate the withheld revelation: "0 Messenger! Proclaim what has been sent to you from your Lord. And if you do not, you will have failed to proclaim His message" (5:67). The enemies in effect try by any means to push the Prophet to manipulate the revelation: "Bring us a Reading other than this, or change it." And God makes his Prophet answer them: "It is not for me to change it of my own accord; I follow only what has been revealed to me" (10:15). These same enemies go so far as to pretend to prophesy, with one saying: "`This was revealed to me,' when nothing was revealed to him, or the man who says: `I can reveal the like of what Allah has revealed"' (6:93).

In the face of this pressure and these provocations, the Prophet attempts to resist, with the help of Allah. Does he succeed? Unfortunately, not always. The satanic revelations, inspired by Allah, are there to illustrate the difficulty of the task.

Here we touch upon another type of breakdown susceptible to affecting the revealed text, again according to the divine doctrine of the Koran. In the first place there is the technical weakness in the transmission of the revelation by Muhammad. Allah explains to him the right way to communicate: "You need not move your tongue too fast in pronouncing [the revelation] ! It is up to Us to see to its collection and recital! When We recite it, follow closely its recitation, and then it is for Us to explain its meaning" (75:16-19).

Another obstacle derives from the Prophet himself: forgetting. Tradition reports a famous story from his wife AIsha: "The Prophet, having heard someone recite the Koran in the Mosque, said: `Allah will have mercy on this man, for he has reminded me of some such verse that had escaped me in such-and-such surah. "'24 Another version relates: "He reminded me of a verse that I had forgotten."25 The Koran confirms this possibility of forgetting on the part of the Prophet: "None of Our revelations do We abrogate [nansukhu] or cause to be forgotten . . ." (2:106). This forgetting is interpreted here as coming from Allah and being decided upon by Him.

Another characteristic of revelation that makes it an improvised phenomenon, and consequently barely compatible with a preestablished textual project, is its causal link to events in, and the daily history of, the new community created around its prophet. This is what Tradition refers to as "asbab al-nuzul," or "that which caused the revealed words."

Even more surprisingly, this Tradition went so far as to make certain of the Prophet's companions veritable "inspirators" of the revealed texts. Suyuti, for example, devotes chapter 10 of his book Itgan to this phenomenon: "On what was revealed in the Koran according to the expressions pronounced by certain Companions." Suyuti reports that the companion best illustrated in this domain is the future caliph Umar. His son is supposed to have said: "The Koran recorded nothing literally from what these people say, except for Umar. The Koran was revealed according to certain of his words."26 Mujahid is even said to have asserted that sometimes "Umar had a vision and then the Koran was revealed according to that."27 Several compilers of hadiths have mentioned a saying by Anas that reports: "Umar said: `I was in unison with my Lord on three occasions: 1) I said: 0 Messenger of Allah, if we made the place where Abraham stood a place of prayer?' And then the verse was revealed: `Make the place where Abraham stood a place of prayer' (2:125); 2) and I said: `O Messenger of Allah, good people and less good people frequent your women. If you ordered them to veil themselves?' And then the verse of the Veil was revealed; 3) the wives of the Prophet were in league against him because of some story of jealousy and I said to them: `If perchance the Prophet repudiates you, his Lord will give him wives who are better than you,' and then a verse [66:5] was revealed in these same terms." -g

Another story, again according to Anas, reports that when this verse is revealed: "We created man from a mass of clay. . ." (23:12), Umar said: "Blessed be Allah, the best of Creators!" and so verse 23:14 was revealed in the same words.29 Other words of Umar's are said to have been taken verbatim into the Koran, such as: "Whoever is an enemy to Allah and his Angels, and to his Apostles, to Gabriel and Michael, [that one is Allah's enemy] for Allah is an enemy to the unbelievers" (2:98).30

Other companions also had the privilege of seeing their words reproduced verbatim in the Koran, as, for example, Sald Ibn Mucadh, when he exclaimed: "Glory to Thee [our Lord]! This is a most serious slander!" with respect to the accusations circulating against Aisha, the wife of the Prophet. Thus verse 24:16 textually repeats this exclamation.-' The same expression has been attributed to others, such as Zayd ibn Haritha and Abu Ayyub.32

It is also reported that in the course of the battle of Uhud, when Mus`ab ibn `Umayr was wounded, he did not cease crying: "Muhammad is only a Prophet coming after other Prophets. If he dies or is killed, you will turn back on your heels." Then he died. And so verse 3:144 uses the same words.

In the same lineage of ideas, Suyuti came to pose a more general question about the historical veracity of words put into the mouths of the angels'33 and even about the anonymous entourage around God's apostle, as in the prayer of Fatiha (surah 1, "The Opening"): were these words supposed to have been really said by these personages or else only imagined and presumed to have been said?34 But this question, which relates even more to the semantics and rules of the enunciation, demonstrates the pertinence and the subtlety of the questions posed within Muslim Tradition about the nature of the revealed text, which testifies to an openness of mind and a freedom of inquiry-of which one finds few traces these days.

On the other hand, Tradition tells us of the role of Muhammad's secretaries in the elaboration of certain verses. Zayd ibn Thabit is said to have asked Muhammad to add two verses, 4:98 and 4:99, in order to exclude the impotent and the blind from the punishment announced in verse 4:97 against those who refused to emigrate from Mecca to Medina and to fight alongside the Prophet.35

Even so, there did exist in the circle around the Prophet some dishonest secretaries entrusted with the task of transcribing the revelation. They managed to manipulate the sacred text without Muhammad's knowledge. One of them, who has remained anonymous, had written "the Magisterial, the Clairvoyant" instead of "the Magisterial, the Omniscient," and vice versa. He even made this admission: "I wrote around Muhammad whatever I wanted." Tradition reports that upon his death, each time they tried to bury him, the earth rejected him.36