The Ministry Resource List continues to be a tremendous blessing to this apologist doing his best to bless the people of God. Last week I listed a very expensive volume, one of the earliest Shia pieces of literature to have come down to us, the Kitab al-qira’at of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sayyari. This new edition, with extensive introduction and notes, contains some of the earliest documentation of textual variation in the Qur’an. It just arrived today, and I wanted to provide a scan of what it provides. I did my best to enhance the contrast in colors in this image, but especially those who cannot detect reds will not see that parts of the text are highlighted in a reddish color, indicating variation. The apparatus at the bottom of the page provides the variant information. For those who have looked at, or own, something like the UBS Greek text, of the Nestle-Aland text, this format is somewhat familiar. What is very, very unusual is seeing this kind of information for the Qur’an, at least, in modern times. While Islam had a period of time in its past when this kind of scholarship flourished, those times have long passed, and the vast majority of Muslims today have no idea whatsoever that this kind of information exists. More to come as time allows!
