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The Quran's Historicity
Continued:
THE QURAN.
Coming to the Quran itself, the sources suggest that it was put together
rather hurriedly. Mr. Wansbrough states that ‘’the book is strikingly lacking in overall structure, frequently
obscure and inconsequential in both language and content, perfunctory in its
linking of disparate materials, and given to the repetition of whole passages in
variant versions. On this basis it can plausibly be argued that the book is the
product of the belated and imperfect editing of material from a plurality of
traditions’’ as quoted in Crone-Cook ‘’Hagarism’’.
As to when that event took place we can only make an educated guess from
the earlier discussion concerning the dating of the earliest manuscripts. From
this, we can conclude quite scholarly that there was no Quaranic documentation
in existence in the mid-late seventh century. The earliest reference from
outside Islamic literary traditions to the book called ‘’Quran’’ occurs
in the mid-eight century between an Arab and a monk of Bet Hale, but this
certainly not implies that the book was then as we know it now. Both Crone and
Cook conclude that except this small reference there is no indication of the
Quran before the end of the seventh century.
In their research, both Crone and Cook go on to maintain that it
was under the governor HAJJAJ BEN YUSUF (663-714), around 705 that a logical
context in which the Quran (or a nascent body of literature) could have been
compiled as Muhammad’s scripture. From an account attributed to Leo by
Levond, the governor Hajjaj is shown to
have collected all the old Hagarene writings and replace them with others ‘’according
to his own taste, and disseminated them everywhere among his nation’’.
That is also logical with the fact that both the Samarqand and the Topkapi
manuscripts, the oldest Quran we have, are written in Kufic, a Persian dialect
from Kufa, and not in Arabic. A reasonable conclusion is that it was during
this period that the Quran began its evolution, possibly beginning to be written
down, until it was finally canonized in the mid to late eight century as the
Quran which we now know.
Still the archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Quran proves
to be the most damaging. Not only do the seventh and eight century ruins and
inscriptions from the area seem to contradict the notion that Muhammad canonized
a direction of prayer during his lifetime, or that he had formulated a scripture
known as the Quran, but the idea of his universal prophethood, that he was the
final ‘’seal’’ of all prophesy is brought into question. This indeed is
significant and troublesome.
We now uncovered coins with supposed Quaranic writings on them, dated
from 685, coined during the reign of Abd al-Malik. Furthermore, the Dome of the
Rock he constructed in 691 attest of the same discrepancies in its inscriptions
from the quotations we now find in the Quran. Two etymologists, Van Berchem and
Grohmann, after extensive research on these inscriptions, maintain that they
contain ‘’variant verbal forms, extensive deviances, as well as omissions
from the text which we have today’’ (‘’Arabic Papyri from Hirbet el-Mird’’
as cited by Crone-Cook).
If these inscriptions had been derived from the Quran, with the variants
which they contain, then how could the Quran have been canonized prior to the
late seventh century ? One can only conclude that there must have been an
evolution in the transmission of the Quran through the years, IF INDEED THEY
WERE ORIGINALLY TAKEN FROM THE QURAN.
We now may summary this short thesis :
1)
The Jews were friends with the Arabs until at least
640.
2)
Jerusalem
was the
original Holy Sanctuary for Islam until the beginning of the eight century.
3)
Mecca
was
unknown as a viable city until the end of the seventh century and it wasn’t
known as a trade route.
4)
The Qibla was not fixed towards
Mecca
before the eight century.
5)
Muhammad was not known as the seals of prophets until
the late seventh century.
6)
The earliest we even hear of any Quran is not until the
mid-eight century.
7)
The earliest Quaranic writings do not coincide with the
current Quaranic text.
8)
The Quran which is in our possession is NOT the same as
that which was supposedly collated and canonized in 650 under caliph Uthman, as
Muslims contend.
9)
The documents which we now use (from 790 onwards) were
not written 16 years after Muhammad’s death but rather 160 years later, and
thus not 1,400 years ago, but more so 1,200 years ago.
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The whole article relies on the authority of John Wansbrough (from SOAS,
University
of
London
) ‘’Quaranic Studies : Sources and Methods of Scriptural
Interpretation’’ (1977) and his ‘’The Sectarian Milieu : Content and
Composition of the Islamic Salvation History’’ (1978). Also on the authority
of Patricia Crone and Michael
Cook (from
Oxford
University
) ‘’Hagarism : The Making of the Islamic World’’. Then of Patricia
Crone’s ’’Slaves on Horses : The Evolution of the Islamic Polity’’
(1980) and ‘’Mecca Trade and the Rise of Islam’’ (1987).
From Joseph Smith’s
http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/qurmanu.htm
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END OF PART 1.
To be followed.
The Cat, for faithfreedom.org
Disclaimer: This article is published for its academic value and
does not necessarily reflect the views of FFI.
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