RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESare reciting the Book (Ar. tatluna l-kitab)? Have you no sense?" Com-
panions at Basra and Kufa produced local variant systems for vocal-
izing the words of the Qur'an when they recited it, and sometimes
they made a copy (Ar. mU$~afJ of their version. Points of law and
interpretation were embedded in these local systems of vocalization,
and this contributed to the development of local systems of Islamic
religious tradition (sunna). The system of vocalization most closely
associated with Ba~ra was that identified with Abii Miisa al-Ash'ari
whose mU$~af was the basis for the teaching of the Qur'an there. His
system was preserved by his disciples even after 'Uthman's attempt
to standardize the Qur'anic text. One of his disciples was l;Ii~~an ibn
'Abdullah ar-Raqashi (d. after 689), who had his own mU$~afbased
on that of Abii Miisa, which he taught to al-l;Iasan al-Ba~ri. Anas ibn
Malik, who copied down the ma$a~if of Basra, had his own version
of the Qur'an, and the Follower, Abii l-'Aliyya, also transmitted a
system of vocalization.^16
Similar traditions developed at Kufa, where 'Abd ar-Ra~man ibn
Abi Layla transmitted 'All's way of reciting the Qur'an to al-Kisa'i.
But the predominant vocalization system at Kufa was that of 'Ab~
dullah ibn Mas'iid, whose mU$~af contributed to the development of
the local sunna at Kufa as the basis for the law allowing a divorced
woman full maintenance during the legal period of separation (Ar.
'idda)Y The importance of these reciters of the Qur'an as bearers of
a sacred liturgical tradition resembles that of the hirbadhs among
Magians.
Because the status of local leaders rested on their knowledge of the
Qur'an and of precedent, they resented 'Uthman's attempt to stand-
ardize the Qur'anic text and to suppress the iocal variants. They also
resented 'Uthman's abandonment of 'Umar's policy of Islamic priority
in political appointments. They were able to find a religious justifi-
cation for opposition to the Islamic regime by accusing 'Uthman of
violating precedent. During the century after the conquest, it was
common to include a reputation for reciting the Qur'an as an attribute
of critics and opponents of the government. Nevertheless, when al-
l;Iajjaj had difficulty establishing a vocalized text of the Qur'an, he is
16 Abii Nu'aym, Awliya', I, 257, 11, 94; R. Blachere, "Abii 'l-'Aliya," E1(2), I, 104;
Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, VII(1), 93; Pellat, Milieu Ba~rien, pp. 73-74.
17 N.]. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh, 1964), p. 31; Ibn an-Nadim,
Fihrist, I, 53-58, 67.