The most widely reported traditions regarding the event of ʿAlī's collection of the Qur’an are on the authority of ʿIkrima and Ibn Sīrīn and were mentioned in the Sunni sources. We have come across around ten variants, but two of them that were reported in Shawāhid al-Tanzīl and al-Itqān were quoted from other books, namely Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Faḍā’il al-Qur’ān. The remaining variants were recorded in Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shayba, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr, al-Istīʿāb fī Maʿrifat al-Aṣḥāb and Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif.

I initially noted that there was a possibility that Ibn Sīrīn's source was ʿIkrima, despite the fact that he was not included in most of the asānīd; that would mean that Ibn Sīrīn had received these narrations from his shaykh ʿIkrima but did not always mention his name in the asānīd. The evidence for this may be that in Ibn Saʿd's variant, although ʿIkrima's name was not included in the sanad, Ibn Sīrīn mentions ʿIkrima's name at the end of the matn and thus gives the impression that he was his source. However, at the end of my analysis, I will conclude that the source of the tradition was Ibn Sīrīn, and ʿIkrima was mistakenly inserted in the asānīd.

Isnād Analysis

The first tradition was mentioned in the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/826) one of the earliest ḥadīth collections that was recently recovered. Harald Motzki has written extensively about ʿAbd al-Razzāq's work, hence there is no need for us to repeat his study here. ʿAbd al-Razzāq received the tradition in question from Maʿmar b. Rāshid (d. 153/770). As Motzki established, Maʿmar is one of the prime sources of ʿAbd al-Razzāq. In his selected samples, Motzki found that 32 per cent of ʿAbd al-Razzāq's traditions come from Maʿmar. Therefore, it is highly likely that ʿAbd al-Razzāq received the tradition via Maʿmar from Ayyūb b. Abī Tamīma al-Sakhtiyānī (66/68–125/131). Motzki also covered the close relationship between Ayyūb and Maʿmar.

ʿAbd al-Razzāq's Version5 (Ar1):