Shia view of the Quran

History

The Shī‘ah use the same Qur'an as Sunni Muslims, however they do not believe that it was first compiled by Uthman ibn Affan. The Shī‘ah believe that the Qur'an was gathered and compiled by Muhammad during his lifetime. This completed version of the Qur'an was kept next to the pulpit of Muhammad within the Mosque of Madinah, where scholars would come to transcribe more copies. Furthermore, Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei believed that Ali possessed a Quran of his own, which included the divinely revealed commentary of the Quran.

According to orientalist professor Etan Kohlberg, Twelver Shia believed in the distortion of the Quran up to the era of the Buyids, and this belief was common among Shia during the early Islamic centuries. Among other reasons, the distortion was alleged to have been carried out to remove any references to the rights of Ali and the Imams, the approval of their supporters and the disapproval of their enemies, such as specific Umayyads and Abbasids. According to William St. Clair Tisdall, if such content had existed in the Quran then "Of course the Sunnite Khalifahs had very great reason to endeavour to suppress any such passages".

Since at least the 10th century, Sunnis have incessantly attacked Shia for their perceived espousal of Quranic distortion and regard it as one of the most blatant examples of Shia "heresy". When 11th century Muslim scholar Ibn Hazm argued the Muslim claim that the gospels had been corrupted, one Christian counter-argument was "that the Rawafid maintain that the Companions of your Prophet altered the Koran by way of omissions and additions." This accusation of tabdil (alteration)—a result of Shi'ite distrust towards the companions—was scathingly refuted by Ibn Hazm.

Shia scholars who supported Qur'anic distortion

Some Shia scholars who supported the view that the Qur'anic text had been distorted were:

Many other Shia scholars have held ambiguous attitudes towards corruption of the Quran, such as Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1698), Mulla Ahmad Naraqi (d. 1829), Morteza Ansari (d. 1864), Mohammad-Kazem Khorasani (d. 1911) and Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989).

Tafsīr

The Shī‘ah tafsīr on several verses are different from the traditional Sunni view either through a totally different interpretation or by giving the same interpretation, but giving that interpretation a larger impact on their jurisprudence. Shia also tend to interpret the Quran more allegorically (Batin) and less literally than Sunnis. For example, Shia writers, including Ali Ibn Ibrahim Qomi, usually allegorically interpret the term Bani Isra'il (sons of Israel) as a code word for the Ahlul Bayt.

33:33

Hadith of The Cloak

4:24

4:24, or an-Nisa, 24, also called as "the verse of Mut‘ah", is the Qur'anic verse that some Shī'ites use to prove the legality of temporary marriages (Arabic: Nikah Mut'ah‎‎).

5:55

wali

Misconceptions

There are some common disputed misconceptions and accusations about the Shī‘ah regarding their beliefs.

While Sunnis and the Shī‘ah accept the same text of the Qur'an, some, such as Muhibb-ud-Deen Al-Khatib, claim that Shī‘ah dispute the current version, including that they add two additional sūratayn, an-Nūrayn and al-Wilāya. This accusation of tahrīf "tampering" is antithetical to scholars and is considered polemical. The above sūratayn are considered forgeries and do not appear in published Qur'ans.

Shī‘ah Muslims consider the accusation that they are using a different Qur'an as one of the misconceptions about the Shi'a. The Shī‘ah recite the Qur'an according to the Qira’t of Hafs on authority of ‘Asim, which is the prevalent Qira’t in the Islamic world.

The issue of Tahreef [tampering] has been a matter of disagreement between many classical Shia scholars. It has been mentioned that the likes of Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (author of Bihar al-Anwar), Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Kulayni (author of Kitab al-Kafi), Ni'matullah Al Jazaa'iri (author of Anwar Al Nu'maniyyah, d. 1701) and Al Ayyaashi (author of Tafsir Ayyashi) among others were of the view that the present Qur'an is not the same as was revealed to Muhammad ibn Abdullah and omission/corruption has taken place. Overall, it is claimed that the Shia have more than 1,000 hadiths ascribed to the Shia Imams which indicate the distortion of the Quran.

According to Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, the difference of opinion among the scholars and jurists was as follows:

No one from the people claimed…’: meaning, those other than the Imāms (as). What is meant by ‘the entire Qur’ān’ is all its words and letters, and what is meant by ‘as it was revealed’ is its arrangement, declensions, vowellike and vowelless diacritics, and the length of verses and chapters.

This is a refutation of the faction that claims that the Qur’ān is what is in the known copies and as read by the reciters of the seven variant readings and their likes.

Our associates differed concerning that; al-Şadūq ibn Bābawayh and a group opined that the Qur’ān did not alter from how it was revealed and nothing was deleted from it, while al-Kulaynī and al-Shaykh al-Mufīd—may Allāh sanctify both of their souls!—and a group opined that the whole Qur’ān is with the Imāms and what is in the copies is some of it. And the Commander of the Believers [`Alī] (as) compiled it as it was revealed after the Messenger, and went out to the hypocritical Companions, but they did not accept it from him and rather approached its compilation during the reigns of `Umar and `Uthmān, as it will soon be detailed in Kitāb al-Qur’ān.

Some accused Shī‘ah of alleging that Fatimah had her own Mus'haf (Qur'an), the Mushaf of Fatimah, which was allegedly three times larger than the current Qur'an. Again, Shī‘ahs reject this as a misrepresentation of facts aimed at discrediting them. According to Momen Shiite Imams had certain books (including of Fatimah (Mashafe Fatimah) a book revealed by Gabriel to Fatimah to console her on the death of her father) in their possession, none of them were Quran.