u/Ben_Ezra

Hello everyone, As-Salam Aleykoum,

There is something that crossed my mind recently: you all know that according to the traditional narrative, the third Caliph Uthman burnt every other codices and asked everyone to rely only on his own manuscript.

I don’t want to question the traditional narrative (I stand with the Uthmanic canonisation), however I wondered if the burning of other codices was an undeniable fact.

Because the Sanaa palimpsests were not destroyed and I know that in some Jewish practices, unreliable manuscripts were buried rather than burnt because in spite of the mistakes, there were still remains of divine scripture.

What do you think ?

I was currently reading Michel Orcel’s book “Naissance de l’Islam” and here he was quoting the Armenian Chronicle “Pseudo-Sebeos”. The author of the chronicle describes Muhammad as someone very knowledgeable about Jewish and Christian scriptures. And Orcel argues that it could imply that Muhammad wasn’t illiterate (which is what many historians currently believe). And the word “ummi” used in surah 62, doesn’t necessarily mean “illiterate” but can refer to someone “ignorant towards the divine law” (i.e. Jewish and Christian scriptures). That means that Muhammad wasn’t an “illiterate prophet” but rather “a prophet for the Gentile”.

I think this word has already been discussed but I wanted to provide another source.

On Uthman burning other quranic codices