authenticity of their creedal statement about the Quran but also meant to challenge the Sunni claim over the custodianship of the authentic version of the Quran.
A related question in this connection is the opjnion expressed in some of the Shiite traditions regarding the extent of the Quran, which implies that "alteration" in the sense of "omission" had indeed taken place under the Sunni authorities. For instance, Shiite sources speak about a tradition that goes back to the Imam Mul)ammad al‌ Baqir (d. ٧٢٨), who is reported to have told his followers that anyone who claims that he has collected the complete text of the Quran is a liar, since no one other than
Ali b. Abr Talib or other Shiite Imams collected all of it the way it was revealed. The tradition implies that there exists another version of the Quran, more complete and accurate than the one that is now in the hands of the people. How does one ex‌ plain such traditions in the Shiite sources without contradicting the generally held creedal statement among Shiite theologians that the present Quran is complete?
In The Prolegomena, al-Khar takes up the subject of the extent of the Quran in all of its complex historical development. First he provides a convincing interpreta‌ tion of the events and factors that led to the ultimate canonization of the text. Then he discusses the early readers of the Quran who were responsible for its transmis‌ sion. There were, in all, ten well-known readers accepted by the Sunnis as reliable transmitters. With his unusual command over materials in the field of ilm al-rijal (scrutiny of the transmitters), al-Khui establishes the problem of internal incoher‌ ence in their biographies and in their claims about the methods of transmitting the Quran. He then takes up the reading of the Quran adopted by each one, carefully analyzing the variants linguistically and stylistically, to demonstrate that, contrary to their claim of its uninterrupted transmission (tawatur), the reading was based on a single transmission (a/:tad) and fraudulent documentation.
The discussion about different readings leads him to assess the validity of a long‌ standing belief among Sunni historians of the text that the Quran was revealed in seven "styles" (a/:truf). What was the truth about the so-called seven styles, or "dia‌ lects"? Was not the Quran transmitted, as the Quran asserts, in the "clear Arabic" of the people to whom it was revealed? Al-Khui takes up the transmission of the belief about the seven a/:truf, examines its documentation and internal congruity, and shows it to be a cas€ of fabrication designed to vindicate the variants in the several readings attributable to their having been relayed through a single transmission by the ten readers. He examines the various senses in which the Muslim tradition uses the term "alteration," providing examples from the history of the compilation of the text in each of its various significations. After a critical investigation of these signi‌ fications, he comes to the conclusion that the present text of the Quran, although possessing variant readings that do no damage to the original message, is the one that was transmitted personally by the Prophet himself. In this way he makes a dis‌ tinction between the process of transmission that took place under the Prophets personal guidance and its subsequent codification in seven readings under the early caliphs.
Al-Khuis own conviction about the collection and transmission of the Quran by the Prophet during the latters lifetime appears, at several points in the book, as a rebuttal of the traditionally held Sunni account that credits the early caliphs with that meritorious act. In this and other sections of The Prolegomena, al-Khuis textual