حلقات الإقراء فـي بلاد العراق فـي خلافتي الفاروق وذي النورين

Abstract

This study aims to shed light on an early phenomenon of Islamic civilization, i.e. the foundation of Qurʾānic academies in the metropoles of recently conquered countries, like Basra and Kufa in Iraq or Homs, Damascus and Jerusalem in Greater Syria. Particular attention shall be paid to the Qurʾānic academies in Basra and Kufa. Both of them were established by famous companions of the prophet, the former by Abū Mūsā al-Ašʿarī (d. 44) in the Great Mosque of Basra and the latter by ʿAbd Allāh b. Masʿūd (d. 32) in the Supreme Mosque of Kufa. The formation of these two Iraqi Qurʾānic academies coincided with the creation of similar ones in Greater Syria, where highly capable Ṣaḥābī celebrities like ʿUbādah b. aṣ-Ṣāmit (d. 34), Abū d-Dardāʾ (d. 32) and Muʿādh b. Jabal (d. 18) dedicated themselves to the teaching of Qurʾān in the mosques of Homs, Damascus and Jerusalem. All these Qurʾānic academies were founded on the initiative of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 23), the second Caliph, who considered the project as an important part of his cultural and educational policy with regard to the recently incorporated countries. Therefore, he supported and supervised the project until his death in the year 23. Then, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (d. 35) continued his work and he proved to be a suitable successor in this respect, because he both unified and canonised the Qurʾānic consonant text (rasm) and sent a copy of it to each of the above-mentioned centres of Qurʾān learning. In addition to that, he dispatched a number of experts, i.e. so-called qurrāʾ, who had the task to instruct the people in the academies of Basra, Kufa and elsewhere according to the new standard, while all other Qurʾān manuscripts, that had been used thus far, were confiscated and extinguished by the caliph’s authorities. Despite the fact, that the relevant sources provide only little information about this particular chapter of early Islamic scholarship, the present study tries to depict, how the teaching of the noble Qurʾān was organised and performed at that time. In this connection, two central questions shall be raised: firstly, what kinds of methods were used to accomplish the ambitious mission to alphabetise, arabize and islamize the subjects of the newly conquered countries, given the fact, that only a couple of decades earlier the Arabs of the Hijaz had been a non-literate people? And secondly, what impact did the Qurʾānic academies and their teaching system have on Islamic learning in general? The proposed study attempts to give an answer to these questions.