These are their own personal views which may not be attributed to the Imamiyyah.

These are their own personal views which may not be attributed to the Imamiyyah. The case is similar to the views expressed on certain issues by some Sunni scholars, such as Ibn Taymiyyah and others, which the Ahl al-Sunnah do not accept, and hence it is not appropriate to attribute these beliefs to them as a whole.

Hence it is not right to ascribe the views of such persons to the Imamiyyah, as justly pointed out by al­ Zarqani, who observes, "Some Shii Ghulat imagine that `Uthman, and before him Abu Bakr and Umar, altered the Qur'an and deleted numer­ous verses and surahs from it."60 He further says, "Surely some Shii 'ulama' dissociate themselves from this nonsense and it cannot be ascribed to them.61 Dr.

`Abd al- Sabur Shahin also states, "It is the Ghulat who have associated some false traditions with the Quran."62 If one studies the bibliographies of Shii works, one will find that they have written scores of books in refutation of the Ghulat and have dissociated themselves from them and their beliefs.63 One of the things which needs to be pointed out is the presence of some traditionists among Shiis and Sunnis who accept traditions without paying heed to the Qur'an and without examining whether a tradition is in consonance with its teachings or not.

They also accept traditions without studying their chains of transmission and make no effort to differentiate scientifically between the traditions with a view to accepting the authentic and rejecting the inauthentic. Therefore, when they came across some traditions entailing the occurrence of tahrif, they were misled to accepting the presence of tahrif.

Even if they themselves did not believe in tahrif they narrated those fabrications in their books because they imagined the likelihood of these traditions being authentic or understood them to signify something that had nothing to do with tahrif. The responsibility of narrating such traditions lies with them. Anyhow, the Shii `ulama, including their most eminent scholars such as al-Saduq, al-Tusi, al­Murtada, al-Tabarsi and others, do not believe in tahrif and reject its ascription to the Shiah.

They have also emphasized the weakness of the traditions pertaining to tahrif. One can refer in this regard to the introduction of Majma' al-bayan, the introduction of Tafsir al-Safi, al­ Bihar, and other works mentioned earlier. Concluded - wa al-hamdu lillah Previous…