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@KhalilAndani Salam Khalil. Thank you for the Thread. What I will write is not related to the general idea of your thread. But the 1 sentence that " its [Quran] 114 suras organized by text length". This is repeated by a majority of western Scholars of the Quran like a mantra.
@KhalilAndani It is stated that this was the common practice in the late antiquity & for example letters of Paul in the New Testament were arranged similarly. Although generally the length of the Surahs from the beginning of the Quran to the end is decreased, but this is not strictly true.
@KhalilAndani There are clear deviations from this general trend. for example Surah 8 al-Anfal is shorter than Surah 9 al-Tawbah. as acn be seen in the graph the deviations from the general trend are not that exceptional and are more than 1 or 2..
help.qurangateway.org/article/52-sur…
help.qurangateway.org/article/52-sur…
@KhalilAndani Therefore there may be other principles of ordering besides the length of the Surahs possibly related to the content of the Surahs. Ignoring arguments by traditional Muslim scholars & western scholars such as John Burton that Quran was canonized in the time of Prophet himself.
@KhalilAndani Even if we accept Zayd ibn Thabit was responsible for the present ordering of the Surahs, He may have considered other factors in arranging the surahs besides the length of Surahs which is a principle that can be applied by a 5 year old child in organizing a stack of books.
@KhalilAndani Zayd & his group were rational human beings& understood the Quran. Maybe some factors related to the content of the Surahs has considered for ordering the Surahs. Maybe the ordering principles does not cover all the 114 Surahs but a good number of them for a partial ordering.
@KhalilAndani Ordering in a Crystal (Solid) is comprehensive, a liquid crystal has a partial ordering while ordinary liquids have no ordering. For example the 7 Surahs from 40 to 46 all start with disjointed letters حم. They make a block. the 7 surahs should stay together(a partial ordering).
@KhalilAndani There are other local orderings like this. for example the pairing of Surahs as proposed both by Amin Ihsan Islahi and also have been mentioned in traditional commentaries. Clearly surahs 113 & 114 are paired. Islahi argures that nearly all of the Quranic Surahs are paired.
@KhalilAndani For Islahi's views please see
Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled
By Neal Robinson
amazon.com/Discovering-Qu…
Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled
By Neal Robinson
amazon.com/Discovering-Qu…
@KhalilAndani According to Islahi, the surahs of the Qur'an, in their present arrangement as a rule, are paired . That is ... all surahs exist in form of pairs, which each pair is consist of two closely matched surahs which are distinct from the other pairs.
@KhalilAndani A surah pair is made up of two specific adjacent surahs that usually deal with the same ‘amud and contents, although the two surahs differ clearly in their treatment of the ‘amud and the contents. The difference and complementarity of the two paired surahs is to be found
@KhalilAndani in the treatment of their subject matter, rather in the subject matter itself. Due to its difference each surah is distinguished from its pair but to their complementarity they become paired together.
@KhalilAndani Islahi contends in regards to surahs pairing there are effectively 5 category of surahs. The vast majority of the surahs 82 out of 114 are unambiguously paired (Category 1). It seems Islahi implies but not explicitly stating that 16 other surahs are also paired (Category 2) .
@KhalilAndani According to Islahi following surahs considered as pairs : 2-3; 6-7; 10-11; 12-13; 16-17; 18-19; 20-21; 22-23; 25-26; 27- 28; 29-30; 31-32; 34-35; 36-37; 38-39; 42-43; 44-45; 50-51; 52-53; 61-62; 67-68; 69-70; 71-72; 73-74; 75-76; 77-78; 79-80; 81-82; 85-86; 87-88;
@KhalilAndani & 89-90; 91-92; 93-94; 95-96; 97-98; 101-102; 103-104; 105-106; 107-108; 109-110; 113-114. Islahi does not specify these 16 surahs as paired but his description of these surahs suggests that he considers them to be paired: 4-5; 8-9; 14-15; 40-41; 58-59; 65-66; 99-100; 111-112.
@KhalilAndani Pairing is discernible in the Qur'an. for example Surahs 2 &3 are both Madinan with very similar or related contents. At least each is closest or most similar surah to the other one. Pairing puts much more restrictive possibilities for the ordering of the surahs.
@KhalilAndani Now if we ask a sizable number of contemporary quranic scholars (who are unaware of the chronological order of Surahs) this is the 114 chapters you please order them the way you deem suitable. Surah 1 hamd and Surah 2 baqarih by majority of them will be placed 1 &2, again
@KhalilAndani Surah 1 al-Fatiha (not paired)is prefatory to the whole Qur’an and naturally comes in the beginning . This Surah was so much used & emphasized in muslim rituals in the time of prophet that there was no question for Zayd that it should be placed at the beginning of the Qur'an.
@KhalilAndani Surah 2 Baqarah with its powerful beginning, with its content which is more or less a summary of the whole Qur'an. Touching many issues from purely theological to eschatological, historical to practical is by large distance the leading candidate for being the 2nd Surah.
@KhalilAndani Surah 3 is also paired to Surah 2. Surah 4 &5, paired together and touch may important & relevant legal/practical matters, therefpre a good candidate to become after the surahs 2 &3. without additional principle of ordering it is not necessary to place placing 4&5 after 2&3
@KhalilAndani Islahi supplies additional principles of ordering. Even if we do not fully agree with him we can see that these type of considerations makes it probable to place surahs 4&5 after 2&3.
@KhalilAndani More importantly we can see these type of considerations may have been used by Zayd ibn Thabit ( group) to order the surahs, not just the semantically void principle of lengths of Surahs.
@KhalilAndani 2 other notes: By the time of the passing away of the prophet polytheism had been disappeared at least politically in the Arabian peninsula,& the muslim community had to deal with mainly the Jewish & Christians communities if not necessarily as the rival at least as the other.
@KhalilAndani Therefore there is an incentive that the surahs which discuss the issues related to these two communities are placed in the beginning of the book and the ones mainly dealing with polytheism are placed further back into the book s it is the present order of the surahs.
@KhalilAndani One very dominating candidate as a principle of ordering is the chronological ordering. Chronological order of revelation (surhs) is helpful & interesting. But even in our time in writing books & directing movies chapters or scenes are not written or taken in chronologically.
@KhalilAndani It is not the case the first chapter is written first or first scene taken first. editing has a crucial role in the final outcome of a movie.
@KhalilAndani It is also said that other Comapnions of the prophet like Abdullah ibn Masuod, Ubbay ibn Ka'b, Abu Musa Ash'ari,.. had their own codices which while the content of the surahs were Aore or less similar to the canonized Qur'an (Uthmanic codex) but the order of Surah's were not.
@KhalilAndani Therefore ordering surahs on the basis of the length from longest to shortest cannot be that dominant practice in the late Antiquity. then those codices should have had more or less the same ordering s the Uthmanic Codex. Or at least other factors may have been involved,
@KhalilAndani Some of these additional factors maybe be related to very accidental stuff but some specially in the case of Zayd ibn Thabit, who as the chief editor was collecting the Quran in a deliberative process, may have been related to the content of surahs.
@KhalilAndani Similar to the ordering of chapters in most books which is related to their content.
Although Quran in regard to surahs order has a looser structure than most typical books, but still it is worth trying to discover those principles of ordering used by Zayd ibn Thabit.
Although Quran in regard to surahs order has a looser structure than most typical books, but still it is worth trying to discover those principles of ordering used by Zayd ibn Thabit.
@KhalilAndani instead of like a mantra it is repeated that the surahs of the Qur'an were ordered according to the length from longest to the shortest.
@KhalilAndani @threadreaderapp unroll
