9 quotes found
"Far from Islam having been born in the full light of history, its birth was shrouded in what has appeared, to an increasing number of scholars, an almost impenetrable darkness. To be sure, there are very few scholars who would go so far as to claim that the Prophet never existed. Someone by the name of Muhammad does certainly appear to have intruded upon the consciousness of his near-contemporaries."
"Qur'anic studies, as a field of academic research, appears today to be in a state of disarray. Those of us who study Islam's origins have to admit collectively that we simply do not know some very basic things about the Qur'an – things so basic that the knowledge of them is usually taken for granted by scholars dealing with other texts. They include such questions as: How did the Qur'an originate? Where did it come from, and when did it first appear? How was it first written? In what kind of language was – is – it written? What form did it first take? Who constituted its first audience? How was it transmitted from one generation to another, especially in its early years? When, how, and by whom was it codified? Those familiar with the Qur'an and the scholarship on it will know that to ask even one of these questions immediately plunges us into realms of grave uncertainty and has the potential to spark intense debate. To put it another way, on these basic issues there is little consensus even among the well-trained scholars who work on them."
"Based on archaeology, script geography and areal linguistics in the Late Antique Roman-Byzantine Middle East (including Arabia), the Qur’an could not have originated in the Arabic script or language in the Mecca/Medina region. Current epigraphic and linguistic knowledge decisively contradicts the traditional narrative; one must instead look more closely at greater Syria, toward the Ghassanids and in particular the Lakhmids or the descendants of deported Arabs from in and around Merv. This is where the translation from Aramaic to Arabic script was completed. If these arguments for how and where the Qur’an was written down are examined, then much of its content will be easier to understand."
"In fact, “almost all the religious terms in the Qur’an,” Mingana notes, “are derived from Syriac.” These include words that have come to be closely identified with Islam itself, including Allah; ayah (sign, in the sense of a divine manifestation, or verse of the Qur’an); kafir (unbeliever); salat (prayer); nafs (soul); jannah (Paradise); taghut (infidelity); and masih (Christ)."
"“There is no hard evidence for the existence of the Koran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century, and the tradition which places this rather opaque revelation in its historical context is not attested before the middle of the eighth.”"
"It was Umar, Abu Turab and Salman the Persian who composed that (“your P’ourkan” [or Furqan]), even though the rumour has got around among you that God sent it down from the heavens…. As for your [Book], you have already given us examples of such falsifications and one knows among others of a certain Hajjaj, named by you as governor of Persia, who had men gather your ancient books, which he replaced by others composed by himself according to his taste and which he disseminated everywhere in your nation, because it was easier by far to undertake such a task among a people speaking a single language. From this destruction, nonetheless, there escaped a few of the works of Abu Turab, for Hajjaj could not make them disappear completely."
"Hajjaj “gathered together every single copy” of the Qur’an he could find “and caused to be omitted from the text a great many passages... Then Hajjaj “called in and destroyed all the preceding copies, even as Uthman had done before him.”... “the enmity subsisting between Ali and Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman is well known; now each of these entered in the text whatever favored his own claims, and left out what was otherwise. How, then, can we distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit?”.... “And what about the losses caused by Hajjaj? […] How can we make an arbiter as to the Book of God a man who never ceased to play into the hands of the Umayyads whenever he found opportunity?”"
"Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, "In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit on any point in the Qur'an, then write it in the dialect of Quraish, the Qur'an was revealed in their tongue." They did so, and when they had written many copies, `Uthman returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. `Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt."
"As far as the historiography of early Islam is concerned, the burden of proof has shifted decisively: what was once effortlessly assumed is now painstakingly documented. In fact, much of what was radical in the 1970s and early 1980s is now middle-of-the road..."