3:81"God made a covenant with the Prophets: “If after what I have vouchsafed to you of the Scriptures and wisdom, there comes to you a messenger confirming the truth of what you have in your possession, you shall believe in him and you shall help him. Do you,” said He, “affirm this and accept the obligation I lay upon you in these terms?” They answered: “We do affirm it.” Said He: ‘Then bear witness, and I am also a witness with you".
At-Tabari reports a variant reading of 3:81 attributed to ibn Masud in which the covenant is with the people who were given the book, instead of "with the prophets". The narrators are trustworthy but the information they reported is not. On the same page in his Tafsir footnote, At Tabari quotes ibn Hayyan as saying that other trustworthy narrators have reported that ibn Masud's reading of the verse was in perfect congruence with that of Abdullah ibn Kathir and others, as is found in the Uthmanic recension.
Further reading answering The Islam Issue "Ibn Masud testifies to Quranic corruption"
- Sam Shamoun "The Third Caliph’s Abuse of the Quran’s Greatest Compiler" (ibn Masud rejects Uthman's recension)
- Islam critiqued wakes up with the wrong foot...(variants 51:58,92:3, missing chapters)
