RESOURCESThe question of variant readings is more important for the form of
the Qur'an in Iraq. On this subject, see G. Bergstrasser, "Die Koran-
lesung des I:Iasan von Ba~ra," Islamica2 (1926): 11-57; A. Jeffery's
Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an: The "Kitab al-
Ma$ahif' of Ibn Abi Dawiid (Leiden, 1939); and E. Beck, "Der U1-
manische Kodex in der Koranlesung des zweiten Jahrhunderts," Ori-
entalis 14 (1945): 355-73, and "Die Kodizesvarianten der Am~ar,"
Orientalis 16 (1947): 353-76. But applying the Qur'an to an under-
standing of early Islamic history ought to be less a matter of what its
form was than of how Muslims used it. Although there does not appear
to be any modern scholarship on the early history of the way Muslims
used the Qur'an, it would seem that it functioned as revealed liturgy,
and that its text remained somewhat flexible for about a century. It
was recited during public and private worship; and it was quoted or
paraphrased in inscriptions and on coins and in letters, poetry, and
conversation to claim a divine sanction for a position or point of view,
or to provide an ethical emphasis. The earliest surviving commentary
on the Qur'an is the Tafsir (Cairo, 1969) of Muqatil ibn Sulayman
(d. 150/767), who used other verses of the text itself to explain it.
Reports about Mu!).ammad served as examples and precedents for
Muslims to follow and as a source of social authority for those who
knew about them. As such reports took on the form of ~adith, whether
or not such ~adtth was authentic is less important than how, by whom,
and for what purpose it was used. Of the six standard collections of
~adith compiled during the ninth and tenth centuries, the Jami' a$-
$a~t~ of Mu!).ammad ibn Isma'Il al-Bukhari (810-70) is used most
often. The four-volume edition published by L. Krehl and T. W. Juyn-
boIl as Le recueil des traditions mahometans par Abou Abdallah Mo-
hammed ibn Ismail el-Bokhari (Leiden, 1862-1908) was translated
into French by O. Houdas and W. Marlfais as Les traditions islamiques
(Paris, 1903-14). Both the text and translation were indexed by
O. Rescher in Sachindex zu Bokhari (Stuttgart, 1923). There is also
a more recent Cairo edition (1390/1971) and an edition with an Eng-
lish translation by M. Mu!).sin Khan called $a~i~ al-Bukhari (Gujran-
walla, 1971). Selected ~adith were translated into English by A. Guil-
laume in The Traditions of Islam (Oxford, 1924).
Among the older works that have been influential in interpretations
of early Islam are I. Goldziher's Muslim Studies, tr. C. R. Barber and
S. M. Stern, I (Chicago, 1968); II (Chicago and New York, 1971);
D. B. Macdonald's Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence,