(1) Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah stated in Majmu al-Fatawa, 15:252-256: “This claim is impossible for several reasons. Among them is the multiplicity of codices, the fact that a group participated in producing each codex, and that each codex then reached a major city containing many Companions and Successors, who recited the Quran and checked it against their memorization. If someone copying a codex made an error in part of it, his error would be recognized through its contradiction of the memorization of the Quran’s preservers and of the other codices. It would be possible for an error to occur if one scribe wrote a codex and everyone else copied from it without comparing it to the first and second copies. Here, however, every codex was written by a group and reviewed by a vast number of people, fewer than whom would suffice to establish tawatur (mass transmission). Even if it were assumed that a sheet contained a grammatical solecism, it was copied by a group who wrote only in the dialect of Quraysh. If it was not a solecism, would they then refrain from writing it in the dialect of Quraysh? How, then, could they all agree to write ‘inna hadhani’ (‘indeed, these two’), while knowing it to be a solecism not permissible in any of their dialects, as some have alleged? ... “Moreover, the reciters read only what they had heard from others. The Muslims recited Surah Ta-Ha during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and during the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. It was among the earliest portions of the Quran to be revealed and is, by universal agreement, Makkan. Thus, the Companions must certainly have recited this wording. It is impossible that they all recited it with the ya form, as Abu Amr did; for had that been the case, no one would have recited it except with the ya form. It is therefore known that they, or most of them, recited it with the alif form, as the majority recited it. ... This establishes with certainty that the general body of the Companions recited it with the alif form, as the majority recited it and as it is written. ...” See the earlier commentary, 2:309-310, and the references cited there; see also Zad al-Masir, 5:251-252. (2) The text between the brackets is omitted in manuscript B. (3) Omitted in manuscript A. (4) This dialect was also the dialect of Quraysh. For details and poetic evidence, see Tafsir al-Tabari, 16:180-181; al-Bahr al-Muhit, 6:255; Ibn al-Jawzi, Zad al-Masir, 5:298; al-Uqbari, al-Tibyan fi Irab al-Quran, 2:895; and Ibn Malik al-Tai, Sharh al-Kafiyah al-Shafiyah, 1:188-190. (5) Tafsir al-Qurtubi, 11:217. (6) This rajaz verse is attributed both to Abu al-Najm al-Ijli, al-Fadl ibn Qudamah, and to Rubah ibn al-Ajjaj. Abu Zayd cited it in Nawadir al-Lughah, on the authority of al-Mufaddal al-Dabbi, who said: “Abu al-Ghawl recited to me [a poem] by one of the people of Yemen. ...” See Ibn Malik, Sharh al-Kafiyah al-Shafiyah, 1:184, with the editor’s note.