Ibn Mas‘ud and Ubayy: The Master Reciters Disagreed About the Canon
Browse all parts & issues
Muhammad himself named Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud first among the four men from whom Muslims should learn the Quran (Sahih al-Bukhari 3808). Yet Islam’s own literature records that Ibn Mas‘ud’s codex omitted Surat al-Fatiha and the last two surahs (113 and 114), which he reportedly did not consider part of the Quran (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif; al-Suyuti, al-Itqan; the reports are discussed by Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari). When Uthman’s standardization came, Ibn Mas‘ud told his students to “conceal your codices” rather than surrender them, and bristled that the community was being ordered to follow the text of Zayd, a junior. Ubayy ibn Ka‘b’s codex, conversely, contained two extra compositions (al-Khal‘ and al-Hafd) used as prayers, and companions reported Surat al-Ahzab had once been as long as al-Baqara (286 verses; today it has 73) — the report transmitted from Ubayy in Musnad Ahmad and discussed in al-Itqan.
Common Muslim Responses
Defenders respond that the Ibn Mas‘ud reports are isolated (ahadahadA “solitary” report transmitted through few chains. It yields probability, not certainty — a key fault line in hadith epistemology.Full glossary →) and contested; some scholars (e.g., al-Nawawi, al-Baqillani) denied their authenticity, or explained that he merely declined to write the surahs because they were so universally known, or considered them protective prayers rather than recitation. Ubayy’s extras were du‘a (supplications) he wrote in his personal copy, and the al-Ahzab report refers to abrogated material withdrawn by Allah.
Counter-Rebuttal
The critic notes the structure of these replies: every report that fits the preservation narrative is accepted from these sources, and every report that does not is declared weak, misunderstood, or abrogated — yet the reports come through the same isnadisnadThe chain of narrators that transmits a hadith. Its reliability is the basis on which hadith are graded authentic or weak.Full glossary → culture that authenticates the rest of the tradition. Explaining lost material as “abrogated by withdrawal of recitation” (naskh al-tilawanaskh al-tilawa“Abrogation of recitation” — the claim that some revealed verses were divinely removed from the Quran's text while their ruling (or memory) remained.Full glossary →) does not rescue perfect preservation; it renames imperfect preservation as a divine act. And the very existence of the category — verses Muslims once recited that are no longer in the Quran — is conceded by the tradition itself, as the next item shows.