Interviewer is Awais Aftab and is published on his blog
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L'Orientalist (aka Klingschor) has actively written and talked about the history of the Qurʾān, and as far as blogosphere is concerned, his posts are among the best I have seen on the subject, especially given that they bring to light information that is not commonly known. These two posts in particular are worth reading, and I would highly recommend them: The History of the Qur'an and The Umayyad Qur'an. This interview with L'Orientalist is my attempt to familiarize my readers with these ideas.
1.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in the subject and how you went about exploring it?It was a combination of factors. In general, I enjoy researching, analysing, synthesising and dispensing information; I disapprove of ignorance, inaccuracy and fallacy; I desire equality and peace. In particular, I have a passion for the history of the Græco-ʿArabī and Türkī-Īrānī Islāmicate Civilisations, both characterised by the presence of the religion of Islām. In other words, my interest in Islām was a convergence of disparate interests and passions.
2.
These historical details are not commonly known among Muslims and are not brought to light in most literature that exists on the subject. Do you think it is simply ignorance or active suppression?I believe that in the case of the lay Muslim masses, it is simple ignorance; in the case of the Muslim intelligentsia, it is a conscious rejection of most materials critical of Islām under the excuse or conviction that such materials are the product of an ‘Orientalist’ Conspiracy.
3.
In your opinion, when did this idea of the Immutability of the Qurʾān emerge? Was it something that the companions of the Muḥammad believed as well?The perception of a truly immutable Qurʾān emerged in the last century following the popularity and spread of the 1936 Cairo Edition, which dislodged most (but not all) regional variants of the text. Prior to this ‘standardisation’, Muslim scholarship and Islāmī Tradition fully acknowledged the numerous minor variations between different versions of the ʿUthmānī Qurʾān-tradition, the numerous heterodox Qurʾān-traditions that existed prior to the ʿUthmānī Qurʾān-tradition, the fact that some notable early Muslims considered the Qurʾān to be incomplete and and even the fact that Muḥammad himself altered the text and content of the Qurʾān to suit his needs at any given moment. The modern mainstream Muslim stance on the Immutability of Qurʾān is actually quite remarkable in this respect.
4.
And what would you say about the idea of inimitability of Qurʾān?I personally suspect that the Qurʾān’s challenge for dissenters to bring forth a scripture like it was probably only directed at pagans, who lacked a revealed scripture (unlike the Ahl al-Kitāb, i.e. Christians and Jews). I believe that Andrew Rippin (Muslims, pp.34-35) is correct in stating that the doctrine of Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān (Inimitability) only emerged as a coherent dogma during the ʿAbbāsī era, when Arabic-speaking Christian polemicists such as Al-Kindī were criticising the style, structure and coherency of the Qurʾān. It was this polemic that motivated Mediæval Muslims to defensively assert the perfection of their holy book.
5.
Isn’t it ironic that many Muslims, when faced with these conclusions, question the credibility of the historical sources, even though the sources are the works of early Muslim historians including well-cherished works like Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim?It is important to remember that identity politics and personal feeling often trump any other source or authority when it comes to the religiosity of a Believer. Therefore, whenever a ḥadīth presents information that conflicts with the ideals or needs of the Believer—for example, depicts Muḥammad as a misogynist, thus conflicting with the modern Believer’s personal ideals of gender relations—that ḥadīth must be de facto false within the worldview of the Believer. Even though this process is subjective and ad hoc (and thus intellectually untenable), it is entirely predictable and expected from a modern Believer.
6.
Traditional account states that Zayd ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī created a compilation of Qurʾān under orders of Abū Bakr, that was later passed on to ʿUmar and his family. Did this compilation really exist?Richard Bell (Introduction to the Qurʾān, p.42) argued the Zayd/Abū Bakr collection-episode to be a politically-motivated historical fiction, and I personally agree with his view. The collection-narrative of ʿUthmān is far more likely, given the sheer volume of (albeit later) sources that attest to the story.
7.
Ḥadīth Literature seems to indicate there was disagreement among the companion themselves about Qurʾān and several versions are said to have existed. How significant were these differences and how many versions do we know of?Arthur Jeffrey (Materials) documents at least 28 different manuscripts attributed to various early Muslim individuals in Islāmī Tradition. The differences between the early codices are extremely significant. Some purportedly contained variant chapters or chapters with more verses than the current standardised edition. However, most just contain variant or inserted verses, which—although being irreconcilably different in content and meaning—are probably the product of Mediæval Muslim commentary, fabricated for various legal, theological or political reasons.
8.
When the standard ʿUthmānī Codex was created, what happened to other variant versions of Qurʾān?Islāmī Tradition speaks of various purges conducted by rulers and governors such as ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān and Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf to eradicate variant manuscripts. These efforts failed, however, and by the ʿAbbāsī era many of these pre-ʿUthmānī versions of the Qurʾān had crept back into the mainstream and intermingled with the orthodox ʿUthmānī version (E.I.2, V.5, pp.404-409). Eventually, an ʿAbbāsī scholar named Ibn Mujāhid authorised 7 canonical versions of the Qurʾān (each slightly different from the other), whilst all other versions were outlawed and forcibly repressed.
9.
Can you comment briefly on the role of the fifth Umawī khalīfah ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān?The original ʿUthmānī Codex was a Scriptio Defectiva, lacking proper vowels, punctuation and consonantal disambiguation. Many traditions attribute the establishment of the Qurʾān’s diacritical markings to ʿAbd al-Malik’s greatest commander and governor, Al-Ḥajjāj, who attempted to impose this ‘elucidated’ Qurʾān upon the rest of Islāmdom. ʿAbd al-Malik’s brother—the governor of Egypt—refused this imposition and established his own Qurʾān, however, and in general the pre-ʿUthmānī crept back into the Muslim mainstream (discussed above).
10.
What is oldest existing copy of the Qurʾān and what does that tell us?The oldest collection of Qurʾānic materials is the Ṣanʿāʾ Manuscripts, most of which—despite numerous textual deviations—conform approximately to the ʿUthmānī Qurʾān-text tradition. Not enough research has yet been conducted to ascertain to full implications of this manuscript collection, but—to take one example noted by Gerd-Rüdiger Puin—the documents seem to indicate that Mediæval Muslim philologists misread the original text in numerous places, misreading Shāṭān as Shayṭān and Abrāhām as Ibrāhīm (Reynolds, The Qurʾān, p.7). The Ṣanʿāʾ collection also contains the first extant manuscript of a pre-ʿUthmānī Qurʾān ever to be discovered (Sadeghi & Bergmann, The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet).
11.
You base your conclusions on Muslim historical sources mostly. How do you feel about the historians like Patricia Crone and Tom Holland who tend to be radically dismissive of the authenticity of Islām’s early history?I only conduct my discourse within the confines of Islāmī Tradition to demonstrate the point that even if you work within the hermeneutical framework of classical Islām, the religion still shows itself to be intellectually untenable. I actually agree with Crone and Holland’s views on the unreliability of Islāmī Tradition, based upon the critical research of Ignác Goldziher, Joseph Schacht and Herbert Berg. Although the various Revisionist hypotheses (e.g., John Wansbrough, Yehuda Nevo, Christoph Luxenberg, etc.) haven’t yet gained widespread consensus, it is now generally agreed amongst Islāmologists that Islāmī Tradition is unreliable (Donner, Narratives, p.25).
L'Orientalist, thank you very much.
http://awaisaftab.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/lorientalist-on-history-of-quran.html
Topic: Interview with Klingschor on the history of the Q'uran