The "Middle Prayer" Variant: When a Private Qur'an Held One Word More
Q 2:238 names "the middle prayer" but not which one. The private codices of Hafsa and Aisha are reported to have added four words - "and the Asr prayer." Was it Qur'an, an abrogated reading, or a written-in gloss? The books, both columns.
By John Shaqi · July 21, 2026 · 15 min read
When a Private Qur'an Held One Word More
Before a single official copy of the Qur'an had been sent to the great cities of Islam, some of the Prophet Muhammad's closest companions kept their own handwritten codices - private mushafs. Two of them belonged to women at the very center of his household: Hafsa bint Umar and Aisha bint Abi Bakr, both his wives. According to the classical reports, at one famous verse about prayer their codices carried four extra words that are not in the Qur'an recited today.
The verse is short. The addition is shorter. Yet the question is old and heavy: were those words revealed Qur'an later dropped, a reading God abrogated, or a human gloss - a line of commentary - written straight into the sacred page? For fourteen centuries the scholars have answered in more than one voice. Let us open the books.
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