Additional light is shed upon this subject by a tradition of ʿAli, which runs thus, “At the time that Abū-Bakr became Khalif, ʿAli was sitting in his house. When the former came to visit him, ʿAli addressed him thus, ‘I saw that people were adding to the word of God, and I resolved in my mind that I would never wear my outer cloth again, except at the time of Namāz, until I had collected the word of God’." These various traditions make it perfectly clear that the differences in the reading of the Qurān were by no means confined to pronunciation, but that certain persons were in the habit of ‘adding’ words of their own at the time of reciting the Qurān. From Islāmic history we learn that ʿAli did actually carry out his intention of making a collection of the Qurān; and it is a matter for sincere regret that ʿAli’s compilation is not to be found to-day. That it would have differed materially from the present Qurān is practically certain; for it is recorded that when ʿUmr asked him to lend his copy in order that other copies might be compared with it, he refused, saying that the Qurān he possessed was the most accurate and perfect, and could not be submitted to any changes and alterations which might be found necessary in the other copies. He further said that he intended to hand down his copy to his descendants to be kept until the advent of the Imām Māhdi.
CHAPTER III
THE READING OF IBN-MASʿŪD
Amongst the many proofs of the corruption of ʿUsmān's Qurān may be mentioned the facts connected with the edition of Ibn Masʿūd. In the 20th Chapter of the 24th portion of the Mishkāt-ul-Musāhib a tradition of the prophet is recorded, in which he named ten of his most prominent and faithful
