There are six variants allegedly reported from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib regarding the event of the collection of the Qur’an: From Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 377/995 or 998), Aḥmad b. Fāris (d. 394/1004), al-Khwārizmī (d. 567/1172), Abū Nuʿaym (336/947-430/1038) and two traditions from al-Ḥaskānī (d. 490/1096). Three of these traditions were taken from the fourth century sources, one of them from the sixth century and two from the fifth century. Aside from Ibn al-Nadīm's tradition, the sources were Sunni sources and hence different from what we have covered in the earlier sections. They all have asānīd that reach ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and report the event that ʿAlī, immediately after the death of the Prophet, locked himself up in his house and preoccupied himself with the process of the collection of the Qur’an.

Due to the similarities in the mutūn of these traditions, I will be considering them as variants. In order to better examine the variants, I divide them into two groups: Ibn al-Nadīm's and al-Ḥaskānī's first version (H1) reaches ʿAbd Khayr through Zuhayr al-Sadūsī; this is the first group and Abū Nuʿaym, al-Khwārizmī's and al-Ḥaskānī's second variants reach ʿAbd Khayr through Ibn Maymūn; that is the second group. Since Aḥmad b. Fāris’ tradition has no sanad, I exclude it from the isnād analysis. However, I may speculate that he perhaps copied the tradition from some other books but mentioned only al-Suddī's name without including the full sanad, as this method of recording traditions might occur occasionally.

Aḥmad b. Fāris's Version (Ah1):

Isnād Analysis

The first tradition that we treat was narrated in Kitāb al-Fihrist of Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. al-Nadīm, (d.385/995 or 998), a famous Shiʿi scholar and biographer.3 This version's transmission line goes through Ibn al-Munādī then al-Ḥasan b. al-ʿAbbās, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Ḥammād, al-Ḥakam b. Zuhayr al-Sadūsī, al-Suddī and finally reaches ʿAbd Khayr, who then reports it from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib.