Did Ibn Masud Deny Surah Al-Falaq and Surah An-Nas?
Without knowledge, research, or thought, they said that our master Abdullah ibn Masud, may Allah be pleased with him, said that the two Mu’awwidhatayn are not from the Quran and that he removed them from his copy of the Mushaf.
We will begin, God willing, to respond to them, and Allah is behind the intention.
First, We Must Know Some Important Rules Before Responding to This Slander
The Quran was transmitted to us by continuous transmission, and the absence of a contradiction is not one of the conditions of continuous transmission.
It is not among the conditions of the Quran that Abdullah ibn Masud agree with it, because if he denied the Quran in its entirety, this would not detract from its mutawatir transmission, despite the weakness of the narration. This is a rule.
Mutawatir transmission means mass transmission through so many independent transmitters that deliberate agreement upon a lie is impossible. The Quran is established by this kind of transmission, not by the isolated position of one individual.
The two Mu’awwidhatayn are proven to be from the Holy Quran in Sahih Muslim no. 814 and Sahih Ibn Hibban no. 1842.
We will begin, with the help of Allah, by mentioning what they use as evidence for their claim, and then we will respond.
The Report They Use as Evidence
I said to Ubayy:
“Your brother scratches them out from the Mushaf,” and he did not deny it.
It was said to Sufyan:
“Ibn Masud?”
He said:
“Yes, and they are not in Ibn Masud’s Mushaf. He used to see the Messenger of Allah ﷺ seeking refuge with them for Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn, but he did not hear him recite them in any of his prayers. So he thought that they were two incantations of refuge, and he insisted on his assumption. The rest were certain that they were part of the Qur’an, so they entrusted them to him.”
References mentioned: Tuhfah 19, Mu‘tala 19, Majma‘ 7/149, Musnad Imam Ahmad.
We see from the report that Ibn Masud did not hear the Messenger of Allah ﷺ recite them in prayer, and therefore he did not write them in his personal copy of the Quran. He thought that they were two incantations that the Prophet ﷺ used to seek refuge with for Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn.
Meaning: he heard them from the Prophet ﷺ, and he did not deny that they were revelation.
Nor does he speak from his own inclination.
Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri transmitted their recitation from the Prophet ﷺ in his saying:
Narrated by: Al-Tirmidhi, hadith no. 2058; Al-Nasa’i, hadith no. 5494; Ibn Majah, hadith no. 3511.
Source mentioned: Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an Da’wat al-Mubtaleen by Dr. Munqidh al-Saqqar.
The Report of Al-Tabarani
Al-Tabarani included in his book Al-Mu‘jam Al-Kabir the saying of Ibn Masud:
“Do not mix with the Qur’an what is not in it, for they are two incantations that the Prophet ﷺ used to seek refuge with: Say, ‘I seek refuge with the Lord of the daybreak’ and Say, ‘I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind.’”
Their chain of transmission goes back through their chains on the authority of Abu Ishaq ‘Amr ibn Abdullah Al-Hamdani, on the authority of Abdul Rahman bin Yazid.
Now let us look at what was said about Abu Ishaq in hadith criticism.
The Problem With Abu Ishaq in the Chain
Abu Ishaq, despite the scholars documenting him, was described by Ibn Hibban as a mudallis.
A mudallis is a narrator who may narrate from someone he met using ambiguous wording, such as “from,” while omitting a weak intermediary. The narration of a mudallis is not accepted unless he explicitly states direct hearing, such as “he narrated to me.”
The narration of a mudallis is rejected when it comes in the form of ‘an‘anah, as in the narration from ‘Abd al-Rahman.
Abu Hatim said: “He is truthful; he is not to be relied upon.”
Al-Nasa’i said: “There is nothing wrong with him.”
Yahya al-Qattan said: “He was careless.”
Ahmad said: “His narration is confused.”
Salim ibn Qutaybah said: I came from Kufa and Shu‘bah said to me:
“Who did you meet?”
I said:
“I met Yunus ibn Abi Ishaq.”
He said:
“What did he narrate to you?”
So I told him, and he was silent for a while.
I said to him:
“He said: Bakr ibn Ma‘iz narrated to us.”
He said:
“Why did he not say to you: Ibn Masud narrated to us?”
Ibn al-Madini said:
Then he said:
“And this is Sufyan and Shu‘bah saying: On the authority of Abu Ishaq, on the authority of Abdullah ibn Muqal, on the authority of Adi ibn Hatim.”
I said:
“His two sons are more reliable than him, and his hadith is good.”
The Chain Is Not Strengthened by the Other Route
This narration is also not strengthened by Al-Tabarani’s narration through Abu al-Jahm al-Hanafi, because he narrates on the authority of Hasan ibn Ibrahim al-Karmani.
Ibn Hibban said about him that he has strange narrations. Some scholars authenticated him, while others weakened him, such as Al-‘Aqili, who said about his hadith that he was mistaken. Abu Zur‘ah said that he is good, and Al-Nasa’i said that he is not strong.
The weakness of the chain of transmission of this narration becomes clear to us, and it is not acceptable to rely upon it.
No Companion Is Authentically Known to Have Denied This From Ibn Masud
We must also note that no report has reached us from the Companions denying this from Abdullah ibn Masud. What they denied was his objection to not participating in the writing of the Mushaf.
What invalidates all of these weak narrations is that the recitation reported on the authority of Asim bin Abi Al-Najoud Al-Kufi, from Zirr bin Hubaysh Al-Asadi, includes the readings of Zirr on the authority of Abdullah bin Masud, and the readings of Ibn Masud on the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
It is well known that the recitation of the Holy Quran is transmitted repeatedly, and it was not reported that the two Mu’awwidhatayn were absent from the recitation of Abdullah ibn Masud.
This confirms to us the weakness of these narrations.
The critic’s argument collapses because the Quran is established by mutawatir transmission, the two Mu’awwidhatayn are established in authentic reports, and the recitation path connected to Ibn Masud does not exclude them.
Source Benefit
Most of the ideas mentioned here were inspired by the book Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an Da’wat al-Mubtaleen by Dr. Munqidh al-Saqqar. May Allah forgive him, his parents, and all Muslims, because the book is easy to present.
I ask Allah to make this work purely for the sake of His Noble Face.
References Mentioned
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Narrated by Al-Tirmidhi, hadith no. 2058; Al-Nasa’i, hadith no. 5494; Ibn Majah, hadith no. 3511. Source: Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an Da’wat al-Mubtaleen by Dr. Munqidh al-Saqqar.
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Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an Da’wat al-Mubtaleen, p. 106.
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Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’.
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Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an Da’wat al-Mubtaleen by Dr. Munqidh al-Saqqar, p. 107.
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The book The Ultimate Goal for the Disciple in the Science of Tajweed, p. 30, by Sheikh Attia Qabil Nasr, seventh edition.
The IslamWeb page for Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’ was cited in the original source material as supporting reference for the narrator discussion:
This scan is from the IslamWeb entry connected to Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’. The page is being used in the article as a biographical and narrator-evaluation reference. Its relevance is not that it directly proves the Quranic status of the two Mu’awwidhatayn by itself, but that it supports the discussion around narrator reliability and hadith transmission. In this refutation, the scan functions as supporting evidence for the criticism of the chains used by opponents who claim that Ibn Masud rejected Surah Al-Falaq and Surah An-Nas.
The claim that Ibn Masud denied the two Mu’awwidhatayn as part of the Quran is not established. The Quran is transmitted by mutawatir transmission, and the Quranic status of Surah Al-Falaq and Surah An-Nas is established in authentic reports and the mass recitation of the Ummah. The reports used to claim that Ibn Masud removed them from the Mushaf suffer from chain problems and do not override the established transmission of the Quran. The objection is therefore built on weak reports and a misunderstanding of how the Quran was transmitted.