Thread by @IssueIslam

This is my first Twitter 🧵 that I'm doing on Quranic variants. The first variant I'm looking at is from Q 24:27. This verse deals with believers entering a house. They can't do so until they "seek familiarity (tasta'nisu) and greet it's inhabitants"

However, it appears the earliest Muslims did not agree with the reading of Tasta'nisu. Many believed in Tasta'dhinu "seek permission". One such person as recorded in Bayhaqis Shuab Al-Iman was Ibn Abbas

Ibn Abbas explains his reasoning in a variety of sources. The major one being from the tafsir of Al-Tabari

Abu Bishr was considered the most reliable narrator from Sayd Jubayr. Shu’bah heavily spoke against hadith fabrication. Ghundahs hadith were the most reliable from Shubah. Bashar was one of Tabaris most important teachers from Basra and had a superb reputation as a Hadith scholar

It should thus come as no surprise that Ibn Hajar Asqalani deemed this an authentic hadith.

Sayd bin Jubayr wasn't the only one to transmit this from Ibn Abbas. Mujahid Ibn jabr Al-Makki did the same thing in a hadith declared Sahih according to Bukhari and Muslim by Al-Hakim and Dhahabi.

This also appears in the manuscript tafsir of Sufyan al-Thawri (d.161)

It should come as little surprise in this case that those who rejected this report did not do so because of the chain of narration. Abu Hayyan simply ranted and anathematised the transmitters.

Razi seemed somewhat scared. Saying that if Ibn Abbas' statement is accepted, the orthodox view of perfect preservation is at risk

The objections were purely dogmatic

What Ibn Abbas is proposing here is not absurd

Ibn Abbas was not alone in his view that Tasta'dhinu "seek permission" is correct. Ubai Bin kab also agreed. Ikrimah says Ubai had a changed word order. "Until you seek permission and greet"

Ikrimah himself also recited Tasta'dhinu

Qatadah Diamah is another who believed in Tasta'dhinu. Note that the hadith from Sayd Arubah uses the noun, while Mamar uses the conjugated verb

As did Yahya bin Kathir.

Ibn Masud also agreed with Tasta'dhinu, however he also had a swapped word order.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ibrahim Nakhai who was a well known follower of Ibn Masuds reading also recited it this way.

However, Al-Amash Al-Kufi who was described as the heir to the Ibn Masud reading to Shady Nasser did not agree with the word order change. But he did agree with Tasta'dhinu

He cited this also from the companions of Ibn Masud

Ibn Mujahid on page 66 of his Kitab al-Sabah, lists 9 companions of Ibn Masud who followed his reading and named them

Two Quranic manuscripts also include Tasta'dhinu. The first is the lower text of the Sana'a manuscript, which follows Ibn Masuds reading.

The second is possibly Wetzstein 1913

The fact that it is:

-tastaʿnisū is reported as error
-'tastaʾdhinū is matched in the Sanaa text
it involves both word switching and rearrangement [switching 'tastaʿnisū'>'tastaʾdhinū', and rearranging with 'ḥattā tusallimū ʿalā ahlihī'],
-That a mistake can easily be made.

lends great evidence to Ibn Abbas' claim.

Some argue that he retracted this position. However there's no evidence that he did. That his students: Mujahid, Abu Salih and Sayd transmitted this opinion and nothing else shows that they understood it to be his authentic explanation.

In fact Sayd bin Jubayr himself said it was a scribal error, so it's unlikely based on that alone that Ibn Abbas changed his mind

It should also be noted that there is a minor difference between the two words as stated by Maududi in his tafsir

Emory University associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies, Devin Stewart in the book “the Quran in its historical context”, 230-231 also this variant using logic

Ibn Abi hatim al-Razi, who was one of the most prominent exponents and practitioners of hadith criticism also agreed with Ibn Abbas

For the conclusion of this thread, I leave you with this interesting question: