Many Muslims on the internet are delighted to walk into this post-Christian territory and find that the work of challenging Christian scripture is already well-worked and popularized in our culture.īut what happens when those tools so well sharpened on Christian manuscripts get turned to the Quran? Enter Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts by Keith E.
And because The West is broadly post-Christian, there is a lot of interest, history, and groundwork in textual criticism with which to challenge and test Christian self-narratives that might’ve otherwise gone untested. The Christian canon weathers rigorous academic criticism that batters and breaks the faith of many Christians who want to feel certain of a scripture untouched by human hands. Small should find a prominent place in libraries of academic institutions involved in the field of qur'anic studies and the early period of Islam.t is a good introduction for scholars new to the field.A popular talking point between Muslims and Christians is the very different nature of the history of their sacred text verses ours (which from my vantage means Quranic textual history vs. Textual Criticism and Qur'an Manuscripts by Keith E. This is an important contribution to scholarship on the Qur'an. This editorial project, sponsored by the Umayyad caliphs, resulted in the destruction of most if not all of the earliest manuscripts, with the result that it is currently impossible to recover the original form of the text. Comparison of the manuscripts with the evidence of literary sources suggests that the text remained open and fluid during the first half of the seventh century, and that the production of a standard text was not completed until the end of that century. Based on a careful and systematic analysis of the manuscripts, Small traces the historical development of the Qur'anic text from the rise of Islam until the 10th century CE. 14:35-41, which describes how Abraham settled his son-presumably Ishmael-in Mecca. In this study, Keith Small applies the principles of textual analysis to twenty-two manuscripts-most of them early-that contain Q. Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria, Canada Small's work is certain to reignite a vigorous debate about how scholars assess the evidence provided by written sources when faced with assertions concerning the primacy of simultaneous and robust oral transmission. Employing processes of textual criticism rigorously developed in New Testament studies, this work provides a fresh view of a controversial topic that has rarely been broached before regarding the establishment of the written text of the Qur'an. By situating the manuscript evidence alongside the information provided by Islamic tradition, Small brings new insights to the history of the development of a standardized text of the Qur'an.
#Quran textual criticism full#
This detailed study of a series of early manuscripts of the Qur'an is the first work to bring out the full implications of several generations of scholarly activity in the area of Quranic textual studies. Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 9780739177532 Number of pages: 288 Weight: 372 g Dimensions: 229 x 150 x 18 mm MEDIA REVIEWS This controversial, thought-provoking book provides a rigorous examination into the history of the Qur'an and will be of great interest to Quranic Studies scholars. He also documents the further editing that was required to record the Arabic text of the Qur'an in a complete phonetic script, as well as providing an explanation for much of the development of various recitation systems of the Qur'an. Small concludes that though a significantly early edited form of the consonantal text of the Qur'an can be recovered, its original forms of text cannot be obtained. Keith Small analyzes a defined portion of text from the Qur'an with two aims in view: to recover the earliest form of text for this portion, and to trace the historical development of this portion to the current form of the text of the Qur'an.
This unique work takes a method of textual analysis commonly used in studies of ancient Western and Eastern manuscripts and applies it to twenty-one early Qur'an manuscripts.
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