Genesis Of A Holy Book

Hungry Sheep:

A well-known illustration of how slipshod the process of preserving material was is furnished by MoM’s widow, Aisha.  The former child-bride mentions over 286 original verses in Surah 33 (an amount of exposition comparable in length to Surah 2).  Only 73 of those verses survived.  Among the content redacted, she mentions, were prescriptions for stoning…and protocols for adult breast-feeding. {7} 

Though the third caliph (Uthman) would eventually the ultimate authority when it came to approving material (as we’ll see forthwith), a confidant named Ubay ibn Ka’ab may well have been party to that particular redaction…in cahoots, that is, with a wayward sheep (alt. goat).

(The attitude, then, amounted to: “Don’t like what some of this says?  Well, then just say a sheep at it.”  Problem solved.)

A wayward sheep, you say?  Indeed.  The only mention of what might have happened to the (now lost) stoning and breast-feeding verses is found in a “sunan” Hadith–that of Ibn Majah (vol. 3, book 9; either no. 1944 or no. 2020 depending on the edition). {21}  The passage goes beyond parody.  Behold:

“It was narrated that Aisha said, ‘The verses of stoning and of breast-feeding an adult ten times were revealed; and I kept the manuscript under my pillow.  When the messenger died, we were pre-occupied with his death; and a domesticated sheep came inside and ate it.”

Even if we were to doubt this rather zany tale (deemed “hasan”; and thus unimpeachable), there seems to have been no problem retaining the verse in the official record.  After all, Aisha obviously remembered the verses-in-question, as she was recounting it orally (that is: by memory).  In any case, memorization was the only way that EVERY OTHER verse was originally transmitted.

Moreover, one would think that the Creator of the Universe could protect his final Revelation from a hungry sheep.  To this day, there remains no other official explanation for these verses not being included in Islam’s holy book.

To reiterate: These verses pertained to adult-breast-feeding (as a way to discourage philandering men).  So there is another reason for their eventual redaction…which also happens to be the most obvious: Husbands don’t want other men suckling their wives’ breasts.  (One can also imagine that the wives were not too keen on suitors being instructed to suckle their breasts as a way to ward them off.)  In the end, neither a pillow NOR the Creator of the Universe was able to protect this particular portion of the Final Revelation to mankind.

But why did such bizarre directives exist in the first place?  Aisha’s testimony in Muslim’s “sahih” Hadith offers a possible answer: “It was narrated that Aisha said: Among the things revealed in the Koran was that ten breast-feedings render one ‘mahram’. {7}  That was then abrogated with five breast-feedings.  The messenger died when this was still among the things being recited.”  As if this weren’t clear enough, the passage continues: “It was narrated from Amrah that she once heard Aisha say [regarding nursing as a qualification for making a person “mahram”] that ten breast-feedings were revealed in the Recitations, then five breast-feedings were revealed too” (no. 3597-98).  It’s almost as if there was an effort to attenuate the daffy-ness of the pronouncement by coyly modifying what the revelation was supposed to have prescribed.  (Surely, staving off adultery by mandating prurient acts didn’t seem to be the wisest of measures.  And maybe TEN times was a tad-bit excessive.  Five occasions would suffice!)

Fortuitously, no such Koranic passages (regarding either stoning OR breast-feeding) now exist.  This should come as little surprise, as such prescriptions are, to be frank, asinine.

And–insofar is it was supposed to be a preventive measure to stave off fornication–men (who were the ones in charge of orally transmitting the revelations) probably did not want their wives breastfeeding other men as a prophylaxis against infidelity.  The incentive to preserve those particular recitations was probably nil.  An excuse for their disappearance was promptly contrived after MoM’s death.

And so it went that the daffiest account of lost verses is from Aisha, MoM’s youngest wife: A sheep ate the sole copy of a key passage, which she had hidden beneath her pillow.  Elsewhere, Aisha claims that much of Surah 33 was lost–bringing it from the original 286 verses down to its current 73…though the explanation for this other mishap wasn’t that a hungry sheep absconded with last copy.  No explanation was forthcoming.  People just seemed to forget about the other material.

The peculiar episode of the “khuruf” was not an isolated incident.  Another noteworthy account is from Abu Musa al-Ashari, who relayed that significant parts of the “Recitations” had been forgotten by the Salaf.  This included an entire chapter–one that may well have been the longest in the book–which contained an odd parable about a son of Adam and three valleys.  In volume 2 of Muslim’s Hadith (no. 2286), Abu Musa al-Ashari announces to fellow reciters at Basra: “We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity Bara’at [Surah 9; a.k.a. “at-Tawbah”].  However, I have forgotten it…with the exception of this which I remember out of it: ‘If there were two valleys full of riches for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley; and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust.’”

Such losses of material was evidently not uncommon.  In his “Kitab Fada’il al-Qur’an”, Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Salam reported that Ibn Umar (son of the caliph Umar) declared: “Let none of you say, ‘I have learned the whole Koran.’  For how would he know what the whole of it is when much of it has disappeared?  Let him say instead, “I have learned what remains thereof.’”

(In the same book, Abu Ubayd confirmed that Aisha had once reported: “Surah 33 used to be recited in the time of the Prophet with over 286 verses; but when Uthman commissioned his mushaf, he did not procure any more of it than there is today.”)

All this is quite strange, as god assures us that the entirety of the “Recitations” would be perfectly preserved (6:115; 15:9; 18:27; and 75:16-19).  OF COURSE that claim needed to be included…if the veneer of credence was to be maintained.  Alas.