Omya,
I'll deal with your questions in individual posts, so please bear with me. There was so much in them and they made good reading.
Yes, I know the meaning of Al-Fatiha as The Opening. It is written in the preface of my Quran, (The Holy Qur-'aan Transliteration in roman Script by MA Haleem Eliash MA Dip ED with original Arabic text and English Translation by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall. copyrighted in India 1978 and 1981. This edition was bought in Africa) and I basically copied the entire quote.
Now, since my last post, I have done lots of reading and have discovered these two basic problems that Muslim theologians have with it's placement and it's revelation
1. It was given as probably the third revelation to Mohammed
and was placed at the beginning, as it was thought that that was the most appropriate place for it to go
2. There is definite discrepencies amongst Muslim theologians as to if it was a revelation given at Mecca or Medina
3. According to Muslim theologians, during the lifetime of the Prophet, The Companions of the Prophet had at least 15 and possibly as many as 23 written manuscripts of his teachings.
A list of Companions of whom it is related that they had their own written collections included the following: Ibn Mas'ud, Ubay bin Ka'b, 'All, Ibn 'Abbas, Abu Musa, Hafsa, Anas bin Malik, 'Umar, Zaid bin Thabit, Ibn Al-Zubair, 'Abdullah ibn 'Amr, 'A'isha, Salim, Umm Salama, 'Ubaid bin 'Umar. [See Ibn Abi Dawud: Masahif, p 14 Ansari, M.: The qura'nic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society; Karachi, 1973, drawing upon various sources, says (1, p.76, note 2) that there existed at least 15 written copies of the Qur'an in the Prophet's lifetime. In addition to the list of 15 names quoted above, he includes Abu Bakr, 'Uthman, Mu'adh b. Jabal, Abu Darda', Abu Ayyub Ansari, 'Ubada b. al-Samit, Tamim
and the early manuscripts that were collected are known to contain discrepancies...
The Mushaf of Ibn Mas'ud (d. 33/653)
He wrote a mushaf, in which sudras 1, 113 and 114 were not included. Ibn al-Nadim [Fihrist, I, pp. 57-8.] however said he had seen a copy of the Qur'an from Ibn Mas'ud which did not contain al-fatiha (Sura 1). The arrangement of the suras differed from the 'Uthmanic text. The following is the order attributed to Ibn Mas'ud's copy: [Fihrist, I, pp. 53-7.]
2, 4, 3, 7, 6, 5, 10, 9, 16, 11, 12, 17, 21, 23, 26, 37, 33, 28, 24, 8, 19, 29, 30, 36, 25, 22, 13, 34, 35, 14, 38, 47, 31, 35, 40, 43, 41, 46, 45, 44, 48, 57, 59, 32, 50, 65, 49, 67, 64, 63, 62, 61, 72, 71, 58, 60, 66, 55, 53, 51, 52, 54, 69, 56, 68, 79, 70, 73, 74, 83, 80, 76, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82, 88, 87, 92, 89, 85, 84, 96, 90, 93, 94, 86, 100, 107, 101, 98, 91, 95, 104, 105, 106, 102, 97, 110, 108, 109, 111, 112.
This list is obviously incomplete. It contains only 106 suras and not 110, as Ibn Nadim wrote.
In Sura al-baqara, which I take as an example, there are a total of 101 variants. Most of them concern spelling, some also choice of words (synonyms), use of particles, etc.
Examples:
Pronunciation:
2:70 Ibn Mas'ud reads al-baqira
in place of al-baqara
Spelling:
2:19 He reads kulla ma
in place of kullama
Synonyms:
2:68 He reads sal (seek, beseech)
in place of ud'u (beseech)
Assuming that all these are reliable reports, the copy of Ibn Mas'ud would then have been prepared for his personal use and written before all 114 suras were revealed.
Nadim, who lived in the tenth century (4th century Hijra) also added: 'I have seen a number of Qur'anic manuscripts, which the transcribers recorded as manuscripts of Ibn Mas'ud. No two of the Qur'anic copies were in agreement and most of them were on badly effaced parchment ... [Fihrist, I, p. 57.]
This note indicates that the question of authentic manuscripts of Ibn Mas'ud needs to be treated with some caution.
We will no doutbt continue this discussion OMYA, but I would appreciate your comments on these first?
Thanks
Carol
Oh.. I don't think you can change the avatar name. I think they are part of the numbering systems designated by webmaster.