The Qurʾān and the Pausal System

A Brief Outline of the Project This book is divided into two parts that are sometimes intertwined within each chapter and sometimes separated into individual chapters. The chapters and sections that make up part one argue that the pausal system, rather than being a post-fourth/tenth-century phenomenon, is a fundamental aspect of early Qurʾānic textual transmission and possibly even a pre-Islāmic Arabic concept that has accompanied Muslims in an unresolved fashion to this day. In Chapter Four, “Pausal System and Verse Endings of the Qurʾān,” the reader is guided to understand the function of pausing at specific instances during the ritual Muslim prayer in early Islām. In particular, I analyze the formulaic incipit to Qurʾānic recitation and Qurʾānic chapters. The reader is encouraged to reconsider the early juristic literature and its impact on linguistic phenomena or vice versa. The traditions analyzed in Chapter Four represent a stream of the ritual life of Muslims in early Medina and Islāmic Fusṭāṭ (Egypt). The latter was guided by a juristic tradition that condensed profound linguistic reflections on the Qurʾānic text. The chapter begins with a succinct narration of the history of textual transmission of the Qurʾān in light of Muslim accounts and scriptural evidence. In particular, I highlight the pivotal role attributed to the third Rightly Guided Caliph ʿUṯmān b. ʿAffān and other figures in rescuing the divine message from corruption and misinterpretation. In this narration, the oral nature of the Qurʾān that does not fully correspond to the early “defective” nature of its written text renders the preservation of the sacred material vulnerable, susceptible to repeated erosion, loss, and change. The chapter continues by investigating Qurʾānic references to its piecemeal and segmented nature, and analyzes the classical Muslim reception of these Qurʾānic verses. For the early Muslim community, the verses seem to theorize the segmented nature of divine revelation and its guiding principles for recitation in prayers and teaching in educational settings. In these interpretations, the first Qurʾānic chapter (sūra), the Opening (al-Fātiḥa), stands as foundational for the Qurʾānic community as opposed to previous religious congregations, mainly Jews and Christians. So much so that for specific Muslim juristic traditions, the believer must recite Q 1 entirely and aloud before starting his prayer; in fact, this constitutes the only valid way to open his prayer. In Chapter Two, “Qurʾānic Sciences and Pausal System,” the reader is invited to question the presupposition that the study of Qurʾānic linguistic and interpretative phenomena can be categorized as Qurʾānic sciences (ʿulūm al-Qurʾān) and how this Qurʾānic textual segmentation evolved from the third/ninth century to the eighth/fourteenth century. During this period, although a differentiation between fields of study was recognized, they were highly interdependent and reliant on pre-Qurʾānic sources. The division into fields of study was further supported by the didactic and educational organization upon which the Muslim world was structured. The extensive territories of the Muslim Empire led to critical moments when Muslims sought to develop Qurʾānic fields of study independently. Chapter Two is not organized chronologically but is divided thematically to highlight distinct developmental stages in Muslim thinking about the challenges of textual preservation of the Qurʾān and its potential corruption by non-Arabs. The chapter begins by analyzing what can and cannot be defined as Qurʾānic science. These definitions typically depend on external “sciences,” such as linguistics, and adhere to their rules to some extent. In fact, when a linguistic rule provides a solution to a specific issue, the Qurʾān does not necessarily need to conform to this rule, especially when the canonized Qurʾānic script does not align with the applicable rule for the Arabic script. The chapter continues by examining the notion of completeness (tamām), a pivotal guiding principle for determining the correct placements of pauses in the Qurʾān. Accordingly, this completeness can be categorized into two main types: exegetical or semantical, and linguistical or syntactical. The chapter further analyzes the range of terminology used in classical pausal literature and presents thorough lists of the various pauses codified by classical Muslim scholars. Notably, this range of pauses does not seem to exceed what was initially established in the early third/ninth century. Chapter One, “Qurʾān Printed Editions and the Pausal System,” argues that the classical pausal system literature provided ready-made material for the committees and editors who occasionally further synthesized it. The chapter begins with an overview of the printed editions from the tenth/sixteenth century to the present, with a major focus on the history of Egyptian printed editions. It emerges that the pausal elements have always been included in the editions but have been restricted in recent ones, particularly those influenced by the Muǧammaʿ al-Malik Fahd li-Ṭibāʿat al-Muṣḥaf al-Šarīf in Saudi Arabia. This institution aims to standardize the printed editions of the Qurʾān and the classical Qurʾānic literature, along with their translations in the most widely spoken languages. This extends to the extent that non-Saudi printed editions of the Qurʾān introduced in Saudi Arabia are collected and discarded daily from the pilgrims traveling to Mecca. Instead, a Saudi copy of the Qurʾān is distributed freely to pilgrims. The chapter further analyzes the two main classical works on the orthography of the Qurʾān that committees have followed to prepare their printed editions of the Qurʾān. The second part of the book analyzes the pausal marks in Qurʾānic manuscripts and printed editions. I argue that Muslims indicated the pauses in Qurʾānic manuscripts from the early period, as demonstrated through the Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus. These pauses form the basis of the oral revelation received by the Prophet Muḥammad and taught to his people. Orality presented specific challenges, particularly textual variation. This prompted the Prophet to actively engage in the mission of transcribing the Qurʾān onto parchment. Unfortunately, he died before this mission was completed, although several fragments and folios of the Qurʾān had already been transcribed prior to his death. The consonantal corpus of the Qurʾān displayed significant variance until ʿUṯmān fulfilled the mission begun by the Prophet and canonized the written text to prevent the spread of variation. The folios from the time of Muḥammad were necessarily devoid of any dotting; only the bare consonantal structure was recorded, and the variants in recitation were already recognized by the Prophet, who explicitly authorized all of them. ʿUṯmān did not add anything to the consonantal corpus; he sent several copies to the main provinces along with professional Reciters to teach the correct pronunciation of this bare script according to the provincial variants. The pausal system was one of the aspects those Reciters, or Teachers, were required to teach to the provincial people. The latter marked the newly learned elements in their private copies of the Qurʾān after copying the new bare consonantal corpus from the ʿUṯmānic muṣḥaf. The new extra-scriptural elements were indicated through clusters of dots or strokes. These served to denote verse endings, pauses, and consonantal dotting. The Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus is viewed from this perspective as a Qurʾānic codex written in a didactic environment at a later stage than the ʿUṯmānic canonization in Fusṭāṭ. Chapter Three, “Pausal Marks in Qurʾānic Manuscripts,” analyzes the evolution of pausal marks notation in Qurʾānic manuscripts. After the cluster of dots, several symbols and letters have been utilized to indicate this recitational phenomenon. In this chapter, those signs are studied and presented based on twenty Qurʾānic manuscripts I have consulted. The results are preliminary but allow for further research in the field. The chapter continues by scrutinizing the scribal organizational process behind several paleographical elements of six selected manuscripts: the Qurʾān of Iṣfahān, the Qurʾān of Ibn al-Bawwāb, the Ṣulayḥid Qurʾān, the Sasanian Qurʾān, the Qurʾān of Bust, and the Qarmāṯian Qurʾān. Notably, these manuscripts exhibit their peculiar features through the use of different ink colors. In particular, the use of gold represents a crucial point for juristic literature of the fourth/tenth century, which is not always reflected in the exemplars I have examined. Another aspect that emerges highlights the tension between the responsibility that influential calligraphers had in transmitting proper norms of writing the Word of God and the introduction of scribal innovations of the period concerning several aspects of the manuscript, such as calligraphy, ink colors, and extra-ductus elements. The calligrapher was often responsible for illuminating the folios, which increased his responsibility compared to the past. Chapter Three thus confirms that the Qurʾānic manuscript was intended for teaching and recitation. Not only was it considered the sacred Word of God, but it also served as the primary source for learning its connected fields of study, such as recitation and interpretation. Chapter One argues that the pausal system has been restricted in modern printed editions of the Qurʾān, as this is seen in contrast to the verse division traditions. The main source for this argument is a Prophetic tradition reporting that the Prophet used to pause his recitation at the end of verses. Notably, the authoritative transmitter of this account is the same figure referenced in the introduction of the basmala at the beginning of each Qurʾānic chapter and at the opening of the prayer. Through the analyses of Chapter Four, it becomes clear that this account does not demonstrate any preeminence of verse division over the pausal system.