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This is the 2nd 
of my series on lost readings. Today we will look at Q al-Nūr 24:27 where believers are instructed to not enter a house until they “make [their] presence known and greet its inhabitants” (tastaʾnisū wa-tusallimū ʿalā ahlihā).
![This is the 2nd of my series on lost readings. Today we will look at Q al-Nūr 24:27 where believers are instructed to not enter a house until they “make [their] presence known and greet its inhabitants” (tastaʾnisū wa-tusallimū ʿalā ahlihā).](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsitUtsXAAISOhN.jpg "This is the 2nd of my series on lost readings. Today we will look at Q al-Nūr 24:27 where believers are instructed to not enter a house until they “make [their] presence known and greet its inhabitants” (tastaʾnisū wa-tusallimū ʿalā ahlihā).")
of my series on lost readings. Today we will look at Q al-Nūr 24:27 where believers are instructed to not enter a house until they “make [their] presence known and greet its inhabitants” (tastaʾnisū wa-tusallimū ʿalā ahlihā).
It is widely reported that ibn ʿAbbās considered the reading (tastaʾnisū) to be a scribal error, and should have been (tastaʾdhinū) or “to ask permission.” There are over half a dozen transmissions in Tabari alone!
This is actually not an absurd proposition. Anyone who has edited a pre-modern Arabic text certainly has come across similar textual corruption, or taṣḥīf. Both words bear a lot of similarity as is shown below. All it would take is a momentary lapse for this to happen.
But just because something is possible doesn’t make it true. So is there any additional evidence we can draw upon in support of this proposition? For starters, both Ubayy and ibn Masʿūd are reported to have read tastaʾdhinū with the latter also having a transposition.
Also, and quite crucially, this verse also appears in the undertext of the Sanaa palimpsest as “ḥattā tusallimū ʿalā ahlihī wa-tastaʾdhinū”! This has the same word arrangement as ibn Masʿūd’s codex, with the only difference being the singular vs. plural. Amazing!
I don’t know of any other manuscript attesting tastaʾdhinū. However, Wetzstein 1913 looks like it *might* have at some point, but we can't be certain. Clearly (tastaʿnisū) is the result of modification. The تستـ...وا looks original but there is an erasure in the middle… The end!
