Canon and canonisation of the Qurʾān - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Al-Azmeh, Aziz
Leiden
Brill
(4,906 words)
Like that of other scripturalist religions, the Islamic literary canon consists of various texts and layered textual traditions of varying degrees of sanctity, authority, and stability, acquired at various times in history. The Qurʾān and ḥadīth (collections of Prophetic and Shīʿī Imāmist logia and exempla) have complex histories of composition and canonisation , accompanied and sustained by scholarly and institutional traditions and sanctions, called consensus (ijmāʿ) among Sunnīs, that have the pragmatic authority of a lower-order canon. These components of the Muslim canon might be seen to correspond schematically to