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=== Quran === [[Image:SanaaQuoranDoubleVersions.jpg|thumb|right|[[Sana'a manuscript]]s of the [[Quran]]. [[Andrew Rippin]] has stated that the discovery of Sana'a manuscript is significant, and its variant readings suggest that the early Quranic text was less stable than previously claimed.<ref name="atlantic"/>]] {{see also|History of the Quran|Early Quranic manuscripts|Birmingham Quran manuscript}} Textual criticism of the Quran is a beginning area of study,<ref>Christian-Muslim relations: yesterday, today, tomorrow Munawar Ahmad Anees, Ziauddin Sardar, Syed Z. Abedin – 1991 For instance, a Christian critic engaging in textual criticism of the Quran from a biblical perspective will surely miss the essence of the quranic message. Just one example would clarify this point.</ref><ref>Studies on Islam Merlin L. Swartz – 1981 One will find a more complete bibliographical review of the recent studies of the textual criticism of the Quran in the valuable article by Jeffery, "The Present Status of Qur'anic Studies," Report on Current Research on the Middle East</ref> as Muslims have historically disapproved of [[higher criticism]] being applied to the Quran.<ref>Religions of the world Lewis M. Hopfe – 1979 "Some Muslims have suggested and practiced textual criticism of the Quran in a manner similar to that practiced by Christians and Jews on their bibles. No one has yet suggested the higher criticism of the Quran."</ref> In some countries textual criticism can be seen as apostasy.<ref>Egypt's culture wars: politics and practice – Page 278 [[Samia Mehrez]] – 2008 Middle East report: Issues 218–222; Issues 224–225 Middle East Research & Information Project, JSTOR (Organization) – 2001 Shahine filed to divorce Abu Zayd from his wife, on the grounds that Abu Zayd's textual criticism of the Quran made him an apostate, and hence unfit to marry a Muslim. Abu Zayd and his wife eventually relocated to the Netherlands</ref> Amongst Muslims, the original Arabic text is commonly considered to be the final revelation, revealed to Muhammad from AD 610 to his death in 632. In Islamic tradition, the Quran was memorised and written down by Muhammad's companions and copied as needed.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} The Quran is believed to have had some [[oral tradition]] of passing down at some point. Differences that affected the meaning were noted, and around AD 650 [[Uthman]] began a process of standardization, presumably to rid the Quran of these differences. Uthman's standardization did not eliminate the textual variants.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33631745 | title=The origins of the Koran| work=BBC News| date=23 July 2015| last1=Sadeghi| first1=Behnam}}</ref> In the 1970s, 14,000 fragments of Quran were discovered in the [[Great Mosque of Sana'a]], the Sana'a manuscripts. About 12,000 fragments belonged to 926 copies of the Quran, the other 2,000 were loose fragments. The oldest known copy of the Quran so far belongs to this collection: it dates to the end of the seventh to eighth centuries.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} The German scholar [[Gerd R. Puin]] has been investigating these Quran fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to early part of the eighth century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were [[palimpsest]]s which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.<ref name="atlantic"/> In an article in the 1999 ''[[Atlantic Monthly]]'',<ref name="atlantic">{{cite news |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/01/what-is-the-koran/304024/?single_page=true |title=What Is the Koran? |last=Lester |first=Toby |work=The Atlantic |date=January 1999 |access-date=10 April 2019 |language=en-US }}</ref> Gerd Puin is quoted as saying that: {{blockquote|My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants.<br /> The Koran claims for itself that it is "mubeen", or "clear", but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims—and Orientalists—will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible—if it can't even be understood in Arabic—then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not—as even speakers of Arabic will tell you—there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on.<ref name="atlantic"/>}} [[Canadians|Canadian]] Islamic scholar, [[Andrew Rippin]] has likewise stated: {{blockquote|The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt. Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic text is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed.<ref name="atlantic"/>}} For these reasons, some scholars, especially those who are associated with the [[Revisionist school of Islamic studies]], have proposed that the traditional account of the Quran's composition needs to be discarded and a new perspective on the Quran is needed. Puin, comparing Quranic studies with Biblical studies, has stated: {{blockquote|So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us to do this.<ref name="atlantic"/>}} In 2015, some of the [[Birmingham Quran manuscript|earliest known Quranic fragments]], containing 62 out of 6236 verses of the Quran and with proposed dating from between approximately AD 568 and 645, were identified at the [[University of Birmingham]]. David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam, commented: {{blockquote|These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-33436021 |first=Sean |last=Coughlan |title='Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University |work=BBC News |date=22 July 2015 |access-date=10 April 2019 }}</ref>}} David Thomas pointed out that the radiocarbon testing found the death date of the animal whose skin made up the Quran, not the date when the Quran was written. Since blank parchment was often stored for years after being produced, he said the Quran could have been written as late as 650–655, during the Quranic codification under [[Uthman]].<ref name=":1">{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35151643 |title=Birmingham's ancient Koran history revealed |date=23 December 2015 |publisher=BBC |access-date=4 February 2016}}</ref> Marijn van Putten, who has published work on idiosyncratic orthography common to all early manuscripts of the Uthmanic text type<ref>{{cite journal |last1=van Putten |first1=M. |date=2019 |title= The 'Grace of God' as evidence for a written Uthmanic archetype: the importance of shared orthographic idiosyncrasies |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume= 82 |issue=2 |pages=271–288|doi=10.1017/S0041977X19000338 |s2cid=231795084 |doi-access=free |hdl=1887/79373 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> has stated and demonstrated with examples that due to a number of these same idiosyncratic spellings present in the Birmingham fragment (Mingana 1572a + Arabe 328c), it is "clearly a descendant of the Uthmanic text type" and that it is "impossible" that it is a pre-Uthmanic copy, despite its early radiocarbon dating.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1220812853495640066 |title=Apparently some are still under the impression that the Birmingham Fragment (Mingana 1572a + Arabe 328c) is pre-Uthmanic copy of the Quran|last=van Putten |first=Marijn|publisher=Twitter |date=January 24, 2020 |website=Twitter.com |access-date=August 24, 2021}}</ref> Similarly, [[Stephen J. Shoemaker]] has also argued that it is extremely unlikely that the Birmingham manuscript was a pre-Uthmanic manuscript.<ref name="Shoemaker">Shoemaker, Stephen J. "Creating The Quran: A Historical Critical Study" University of California Press, 2022, p. 96-97.</ref>
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