Various Reading of Sura 30:1-10

Question

Assalamualaikum

I have read academic page on verse 30:1-10, al-Rum, according The paper is long and goes into great detail, but I will summarize just the first few pages, which I read.

The 4 readings are:

ġulibat al-Rūm … sa-yaġlibūna, “the Romans have been vanquished … they will van- quish”

ġalabat al-Rūm … sa-yuġlabūna, “the Romans have vanquished … they will be van- quished”;

ġalabat al-Rūm … sa-yaġlibūna, “the Romans have vanquished … they will win”;

ġulibat al-Rūm … sa-yuġlabūna, “the Romans have been vanquished … they will be vanquished.”

Is 7 or 10 reading of Quran, follow this reading(anyone of 4), if not then what this reading is about?

Answer 1

The first/third version corresponds to the traditional vocalisation, sa-yaġlibūna. The two others read sa-yuġlabūna, which is written the same in the unvocalised text. sa-yuġlabūna would make sense in the context of the Sura as well as to what really happened much later.

The open question is whether the oral tradition of the Quran is 100% reliable, knowing that the Uthmanic original manuscript was lacking both, consonant points and vowel signs. Unfortunately, this question cannot be answered. Islamic scholars tend to say yes, whereas many authors in Islamic science allow the hypothesis that the oral tradition may have had gaps so that the text may to some extent have been reconstructed from the written source.