Qur’ān

Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, 2020

This article challenges the view, common among Western academics since early last century, that the Qurʾān was left incomplete as a book and did not take final shape until well after the Prophet's death. Against this, it highlights an example of structural continuity: that of center-periphery connection between adjacent sūras. This type of connection is identified throughout the phases of revelation, from the early Meccan period to the late Medinan one. The structural consistency illuminated here indicates that one author or authority likely arranged the Qurʾān, a finding in accordance with recent stylometric analysis of the text carried out at Princeton University. It also accords with an examination of the theme of jihād in the Qurʾān, the conclusions of which were presented at the 2017 International Qur'anic Studies Association conference in Boston. Far from suggesting a multiplicity of voices, the doctrine of jihād is characterized by overall consistency and adherence to core principles, pointing to a likely single origin. Next, before the conclusion of the article, an updated hypothesis for the early writing and transmission of the Qurʾān is presented, taking into account the existence of minor variations in the old codices, the reports about an ʿUthmānic commission issuing a standard text, and the fact that no prototype manuscript has been discovered.

International Journal of Advanced Research, 2020

For the first time, an objective text analysis of the Prefixed letters known as mystery letters, Huroof-e- Muqatta’at (cut letters) referred to as Prefaced Letters in this paper. The study of these letters had been a closed subject for a long time till the author reopened it with pure Textual Linguistic and Stylistic tools. A Stylistic Approach that adopts the functional linguistic approach with additional help from Katamba’s morphological templates to follow Stylistic analysis of the Qur'anic texts in order to propose a meaningful linguistic role of the ‘prefaced letters’ in this paper. Theory in linguistics and the stylistic analysis of the complex relations in the Qur'anic chapters reveal specific cohesive and coherent character to these letters. This research shows that apparently undecipherable letters interconnect the long Qur'anic chapters and their series and the context and structure of the Qur'an are reread and explained in terms of a contemporary linguisti...

Dead Sea Discoveries 29:3, 2022

The Quranic text today is recited in ten canonical reading traditions with two distinct canonical transmissions each. These reading traditions are distinct in their phonological and morphological details, as well as the interpretation of the ambiguous consonantal text. However, they all have in common that they adhere to the consonantal skeleton of the standard Quran text. Despite this adherence, on rare occasions readers do deviate from this standard text. This paper examines those cases, and explores the reasons why the canonical readers felt licensed to do so. Especially ʾAbū ʿAmr was prone to deviate from the consonantal text in cases of perceived grammatical issues. Moreover, the readers occasionally deviated from their regional consonantal text when other regional codices had another form. Finally, readers deviated from the consonantal text, in cases where the text came in conflict with the pausal spelling principle.

M.M Al-Azami, 1999

PREFACE This work comprises a short introduction to the history of the Qur'an, its recording and its collection. The reader may therefore be puzzled as to why one third of the material in this book tackles the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT), wondering what significance this has on the Qur'an's history. This significance shall, I hope, be made clear as the chapters progress, since I have attempted to present only those details which have a direct bearing on the current subject matter. The idea of authoring a book about the Qur'an, about its collection and immaculate preservation, had long germinated in my mind, and approximately three and half years ago I finally began working on this book alongside another entitled Islamic Studies: What Methodology? It was journalist Toby Lester's article in The Atlantic Monthly (January 1999) however, and the chaos it had the potential to sow among Muslims, which prompted a greater concentration on this work. His article suggested that Muslims, despite believing in the Qur'an as the unadulterated Book of Allah, were thoroughly incapable of defending this view in any scholarly fashion. The gauntlet was thrown, and I felt it necessary to take on this challenge and explain the stringent methodology used by early Muslim scholars in accepting a text as genuine, or rejecting it as fake. This has led to the unavoidable repetition of some material in both books. As most of the scholars that Lester quotes are either Jews or Christians, I also considered it fitting to cover the histories of the Old and New Testaments by way of comparison. This should help the reader to see the disparity of opinions between Muslim and Orientalist scholars with a fair measure of insight. With their insistence on a purely oral transmission, most Orientalists reject all reports that cite recording and compilation of the Qur'an during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime. Many of them even deny that any final compilation occurred during Abu Bakr's reign, while some accept the role of the third caliph 'Uthman in this regard. Only fifteen years lapsed between the Prophet's death and 'Uthman's distribution of written copies of the Qur'an to different provinces of the Muslim world. Viewing this interval...

It is a common claim by some Muslims that not a dot of the Qur'an has been changed since it was first revealed to the prophet Muhammad. This paper looks at the earliest Muslim sources which seriously question this claim.