Qaffol ash-shoshiy faqih va

Imam Shashi in stories related to bringing
Mus’hafi Usman to our country
Undoubtedly, Tashkent is one of the cities in the sight of Allah. In the 
Muyi Mubarak madrasah, which is part of the Hazrati Imam Complex, one 
of the most prominent and sacred shrines in the capital, is housed an unique 
manuscript of the Holy Koran. In 651 AD, the pages of Koran were written 
by the companions (sahobas) under the leadership o f Zayd ibn Sabit (r.a. -
may Allah be pleased with him) were compiled into a book and presented 
to Caliph Usman ibn Affan (r.a. - may Allah be pleased with him). This 
manuscript is kept in Tashkent today.
Imam Shashi was very popular among the people. Therefore, some 
legends about the extradition of the Mus’hafi Caliph Usman, which is kept 
in Tashkent, are associated with his name. There are more than a dozen 
narrations about how the M us’haf came to our country. Sheikh Ismail 
Mahdum Sotti Akhund Namangani’s book “History of the Mus’hafi Usman 
in Tashkent” written in 1971 (1391 on hegira) gives detailed information 
about the nine known narrations. Two of them are named af
t
er Kaffal ash- 
Shashi.
1. One of the narrations about the arrival of M us’hafi Usman in our 
land is given in the book “ Silsilat ul-Arifin” by Sheikh Abu Ahmad 
Muhammad Qazi Andijani-Shashi. He was one of the caliphs of the 
governor of Hodja Ahror and wrote:
“Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali Kaffal ash-Shashi al-Kabir, who died 
in 364 AH, was one of the famous scholars of the Shafi’i school of law and 
lived in his hometown of Shash (Tashkent). He used to make many 
pilgrimages to and from Baghdad. He also received most of their 
knowledge in this city. On one of his trips to Baghdad, he saw that the 
clerics were in a state of confusion. Because the Roman emperor Caesar 
sent a wonderful poem in Arabic to the caliph, asking him to “ either write 
a proper answer to this poem, or pay tribute every year, or prepare for war”. 
At that time, they could not fight the Romans and did not have enough 
money to pay the required tribute. All the scholars and nobles of Baghdad 
gathered. But they could not answer that question. The Roman’s 
ambassador was hurrying them. When the sheikh entered Baghdad, words

---

were spread that “a great scholar had come to Baghdad from the land of the 
Turks”. The caliph sent a man and told him that if he wrote an oath o f reply, 
he would give him what he wanted in return. The sheikh agreed and said, 
“I am doing this for you, but I have a condition. At first, you will give me 
the M us’haf of Usman”. After some hesitation, they agreed to this request 
and handed over the M us’haf to the sheikh ... ”
2. Another narration was narrated by Umar Riza in his book “Mal 
Qur’an”. Listing one by one the M us’hafs of Usman in the Islamic world, 
Umar Riza said: “ One of the Mus’hafs was taken from Bukhara to Moscow 
in 1904 and later returned to Bukhara. After the bolsheviks seized power 
in Turkistan, he was taken to Moscow for the second time. But the 
Muslims’ efforts to bring him back were successful. It is said that the copy 
was brought by Abu Bakr Shashi and was later placed near the tomb of 
Hodja Ahror Vali. The Bolsheviks say they got it from there”.
O f course, we do not think that Imam Shashi brought to our country 
a unique manuscript of the Koran written by the third caliph, Usman ibn 
Affan (r.a. - may Allah be pleased with him). We don’t have enough 
grounds for that. However, the above information shows that Kaffal Shashi 
had a high reputation among the people. In any case, the unique manuscript 
of M us’hafi Usman is currently housed in the Muyi Mubarak madrasah, 
which is part of the Hazrati Imam Kaffal ash-Shashi complex. Visitors to 
the Koran visit the tomb o f the scholar at the same time as they visit the 
words (kalam) of Allah.