Bismika Alllahuma

Тод Lawson
Журнал американского востоковедного общества (JAOS), том 122, 3, (Июл-CSept 2002), P. 658

Это будет собрание статьей в Qur'? nic изучает некоторыми из самых влиятельных предыдущих пионеров в поле: N? статья ldeke известная для Britannica (9th варианта, 1891); Изучение Caetani «Uthm? традиция recension nic» (1915); Mingana: «3 стародедовское Korans» (1914) и «передача Koran» (1916); 4 seemingly idiosyncratically выбранных статьи Артур Джеффри (1935? 39); Изучение Margoliouth вариантов (1925); Geiger «сделало Muhammad одалживает от иудейства» (1898) [этапы]; W. St. Источники Clair-Tisdall «мусульманства» (1901) [этапы]; и учредительства Torry «еврейские мусульманства» (1933) [этапы]. Собрание кончается с обсуждением Андрюа Rippin истовым стимулировать, состязательно, daunting, и ill-starred работы Джон Wansbrough (1985). Здесь, одно получает впечатление что Wansbrough будет единственным post-war эрудитом принять литературоведческие presuppositions и заключения другого более предыдущие авторы серьезно достаточно для того чтобы отжать эти к некоторым логическим выводам. Почему это должно быть поэтому не адресует. Но обсуждение производит salubrious проницательность: Qur'? n first and foremost пример «истории спасения», не книги истории qua истории, и той стабилизации?? и поэтому вроде канонизация?? текста произошл на гораздо последне периоде чем вообще предположено. [1]

Я собрано здесь совместно, оно станет ясно к читателю что каждая статья важна также как продукт специфического временени, места и? lan. Такое деиствительно просигнализировано на dustjacket где point out что эта «penetrating работа» начинает с «первым поистине научным изучением Koran» (т.е., n? ldeke). Редактор, «Ibn Warraq», такое же dustjacket определяет как «автор «почему я не Muslim», сделали обслуживание для старшекурсников и другие которому имеют затруднение в поисках оригиналы этих groundbreaking?? и, в некотором чувстве?? реликвии Qur'? scholarship nic. It will also quickly become clears to the contemporary student of Islam, however, that several of these various essays are about much more than the pure vertical love of Qur’?nic scholarship.

Beyond questioning the motives for publishing such a collection at the end of the twentieth century, the reader is confronted with an “Introduction” distinctive for its repeated lapses in style: “the founder of the Shias” (p. 11), “Heilgeschichte” (p. 34), unreferenced quotations and assertions (e.g., pp. 14, 19, 34).

Arrogance and amateurish deductions abound; and all is sounded in the key of gormless hysteria: ?Some of the stories in the Koran are enormously long; for instance, the story of Joseph takes up a whole chapter of 111 verses. Are we really to believed that Muhammad remembered it exactly as it was revealed?? (p. 13); or even better: ?Most scholars believe that there are interpolations in the Koran.?[2] (p. 17). Indeed.

This same “Introduction” uses for a motto a statement published in 1933 by that prolific apostle of scientism, Saloman Reinach (1858?1932): ?From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time absorbing it.?[3] (p. 9).

It is difficult to see how this characterization improves upon the more famous and better written one by Thomas Carlyle a hundred years earlier, except perhaps in degree of offensiveness. It must be said that it undoubtedly demonstrates the editor’s diligence and industry in finding churlish things to say about the Qur’?n in English.

It is difficult to recommend this production, except perhaps for antiquarian interests and the archaeology of the study of Islam.

Tood Lawson, McGill University.

External Link

• Yasin Dutton, The Origins of the Koran - A Critical Analysis

Notes (added by Asif Iqbal)

[1] The excessively skeptical attitude towards the sources and the general conclusions reached at by J. Wansbrough, especially the one cited here, has not been accepted by the serious and mainstream Islamic scholarship. To really understand the position of this argument of Wansbrough, let us reproduce Professor Lawson’s above description:

The Qur’?n is first and foremost an instance of “Salvation History”, not a book of history qua history, and that stabilization??and therefore a kind of canonization??of the text occurred at a much later period than generally assumed.

Now consider the response of Alford T. Welch to this argument:

A distinctive feature of the Koran that cannot be ignored if the Muslim scripture is to be fully understood is its close relationship to the life of Muhammad and his contemporaries… [T]he Koran is a historical document that reflects the prophetic career of Muhammad and responds constantly to the specific needs and problems of the emerging Muslim community.

It abounds in references and allusions to historical events that occurred during the last twenty or so years of Muhammad’s lifetime, a period during which it was itself a history making event. (Qur’anic Studies?Problems and Prospects, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 47, 1980, p. 626)

Moreover, the newly-discovered Qur’?nic manuscripts (for instance the Sana’? manuscripts etc.) suggest the existence of a canonized Qur’?n at the end of the first Islamic century. All this is truly troublesome for Wansbrough’s theories.

[2] cf., even N?ldeke’s remarks from his Encyclopedia Britannica article:

…there is no single verse or clause which can be plausibly made out to be an interpolation by Zaid at the instance of Ab? Bakr, `Umar or `Uthm?n. Slight clerical errors there may have been, but the Koran of `Uthm?n contains none but genuine elements…

[3] cf. Sir H. A. R. Gibb’s remarks:

… years of close study confirm[s] his [i.e., Thomas Carlyle's] further judgment that in it [i.e., the Qur'?n] “there is a merit quite other than the literary one. If a book come[s] from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small account to that.” Though, to be sure, the question of literary merit is one not to be judged on a priori grounds but in relation to the genius of the Arabic language; and no man in fifteen hundred years has ever played on that deep-toned instrument with such power, such boldness, and such range of emotional effects as Mohammed did. (in Mohammedanism, London: Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd ed., 1957, pp. 36?37).