The Composition and Writing of the Qurʾān: Old Explanations and New Evidence
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Jun 8, 2020
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Abstract
Purpose: This article takes up the view that the Qurʾān was left incomplete as a book and did not take final shape until well after the Prophet’s death. It considers whether this may be deemed valid upon analysis of a type of structural binding occurring in the text.
Methodology: The study takes an analytical and historical approach. It examines center-periphery connection between adjacent sūras in various phases of revelation (structural consistency would suggest a single source for the text, whereas inconsistency would imply multiple hands involved in editing). The study furthermore compares results with those from recent statistical and thematic studies.
Findings: The research highlights continuity. This accords with recent stylometric analysis of the text, which shows a coherent stylistic trajectory. It also accords with an examination of the theme of jihād in the Qurʾān, which reveals overall consistency and adherence to core principles.
Originality: This is the first study to disclose consistency of center-periphery connection in the Qurʾān, strengthening our appreciation of the text’s composition. Furthermore, insofar as this research helps us to perceive links between adjacent sūras, it could aid in textual interpretation. Finally, since the findings call into question the notion that the Qurʾān was arranged later, an updated hypothesis for the early writing and copying 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.
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Keywords
Qurʾānic compositionCenter-periphery connectionCodex Parisino-petropolitanusṢanʿāʾ palimpsestʿUthmānic commission
References
References
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• al-Aʿẓamī, M. M. The History of the Qur'ānic Text from Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments. Leicester, UK Islamic Academy, 2003.
• Bell, Richard. Bell’s Introduction to the Qurʾān, completely revised and enlarged by W. Montgomery Watt. Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 1970.
http://wwwbirmingham.ac.uk/facilities/cadbury/TheBirminghamQuranManuscript.aspx, accessed June 2017.
• al-Bukhārī. Ṣaḥīḥ. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār ṣādir, n.d.
• Burton, John. Collection of the Qur’ān. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1979.
• Comerro, Viviane. Les traditions sur la constitution du muṣḥaf de ʿUthmān. Beirut, Orient-Institut, 2012.
http://corpuscoranicum.de/handschriften/index/sure/4/vers/137/handschrift/15,
accessed February 2018.
• Cuypers, Michel. La composition du Coran: Naẕm al-Qur’ân. Pendé, Gabalda, 2012.
• –––. “Structures rhétoriques des sourates 85 à 90.” Annales Islamologiques, 35 (2001), p. 27-99.
• Déroche, François. La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l’islam: Le codex Parisino-petropolitanus. Leiden, Brill, 2009.
• –––. Qur'ans of the Umayyads: A First Overview. Leiden, Brill, 2014.
• Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, Darwin, 1998.
• Dost, Süleyman. Review of Neuwirth, Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Review of Qur’anic Research, 2.1 (2016), p. 1-5.
• Douglas, Mary. Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition. New Haven, Yale UP, 2007.
• Farrin, Raymond K. Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry. Syracuse, Syracuse UP, 2011.
• –––. “The Pairing of Sūras 8-9.” In Studi del quarto convegno RBS: International Studies on Biblical & Semitic Rhetoric, R. Meynet and J. Oniszczuk eds, Rome, Gregorian & Biblical, 2015, p. 245-264.
• –––. Structure and Qur’anic Interpretation: A Study of Symmetry and Coherence in Islam’s Holy Text. Ashland, White Cloud, 2014.
• –––. “Sūrat al-Nisāʾ and the Centrality of Justice.” Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth Studies, 14 (2016), p. 1-17.
• –––. Tharwa min al-bādiya: al-shiʿr al-ʿarabī al-qadīm. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār al-Farābi, 2013.
• Firestone, Reuven. Jihād: The Origin of Holy War in Islam. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
• Harjumäki, Jouni, and Ilkka Lindstedt. “The Ancient North Arabian and Early Islamic Arabic Graffiti: A Comparison of Formal and Thematic Features.” In Cross-Cultural Studies in Near Eastern History and Literature, Saana Svärd and Robert Rollinger eds, Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2016, p. 59-94.
• Hashmi, Javad. “On the Origin of Jihād: The Ethics of War and Peace in the Qurʾān and During Early Islam.” International Qur’anic Studies Association conference, Boston, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-f9Bes5AA.
• Hoyland, Robert. “The Content and Context of Early Arabic Inscriptions.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 21 (1997), p. 77-102.
• –––. “Epigraphy and the Linguistic Background to the Qur’ān.” In The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 51-69.
• –––. In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2015.
• –––. “New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 69/3 (2006), p. 395-416.
• Ibn Abī Dāwūd. Kitāb al-maṣāḥif. Ed. Arthur Jeffrey, (in Arabic), Cairo, al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya li-l-turāth, 2007.
• Ibn Hishām. Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2001.
• Ibn Shabba. Tarikh al-Madina al-munawwara. Ed. Fahīm Shaltūt, (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār al-turāth, 1990, vol. 3.
• Jeffrey, Arthur, ed. Materials for the History of the Text of the Qurʾān: The Old Codices. Leiden, Brill, 1937.
• Jones, Alan. “The Word Made Visible: Arabic Script and the Committing of the Qurʾān to Writing.” In Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D. S. Richards, ed. Chase F. Robinson, Leiden, Brill, 2003, p. 1-16.
• Kenny, Anthony. The Computation of Style: An Introduction to Statistics for Students of Literature and Humanities. Oxford, Pergamon, 1982.
• Lund, Nils. Chiasmus in the New Testament: A Study in Formgeschichte. Chapel Hill, UNCP, 1942.
• Mingana, Alphonse. “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān.” Journal of the Manchester Egyptian & Oriental Society (1915-1916), p. 25-47.
• Mir, Mustansir. Coherence in the Qur’ān: A Study of Iṣlāḥī’s Concept of Naẓm in Tadabbur-i Qur’ān. Indianapolis, American Trust Publications, 1986.
• Motzki, Harald. “The Collection of the Qur’ān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments.” Der Islam, 78 (2001), p. 1-31.
• Neuwirth, Angelika. Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2014.
• Nöldeke, Theodor, et al. The History of the Qurʾān. Ed. and trans. Wolfgang H. Behn, Leiden, Brill, 2013.
• al-Rūmī, Fahd. Dirāsāt fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. (in Arabic), Riyadh, Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-waṭaniyya, 2003.
• Sadeghi, Behnam. “The Chronology of the Qurʾān: A Stylometric Research Program.” Arabica, 58 (2011), p. 210-299.
• Sadeghi, Behnam, and Uwe Bergmann. “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet.” Arabica 57 (2010), p. 343-436.
• Sadeghi, Behnam, and Mohsen Goudarzi. “Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān.” Der Islam, 87 (2012), p. 1-129.
• al-Ṣanʿānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Al-Muṣannaf. Ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al- Aʿẓamī, (in Arabic), Beirut, al-Majlis al-ʿilmī, 1972, vol. 6.
• Schoeler, Gregor. “The Codification of the Qurʾan: A Comment on the Hypotheses of Burton and Wansbrough.” In The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu, Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx eds., Leiden, Brill, 2010, p. 779-794.
• –––. The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read. Trans. Shawkat M. Toorawa, Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 2009.
• Sinai, Nicolai. The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 2017.
• Small, Keith E. Textual Criticism and Qur'ān Manuscripts. Lanham, Lexington, 2011.
• al-Ṭabarī. Tafsīr. Ed. Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Khālidī, Damascus, Dār al-qalam, 1997, vol. 2. https://www.uni-tuebingen.de/en/news/press-releases/press-releases/article/raritaet-entdeckt-koranhandschrift-stammt-aus-der-fruehzeit-des-islam.html, accessed June 2017.
• Wansbrough, John. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford, Oxford UP, 1977.
• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad’s Mecca. Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 1988.
• Whelan, Estelle. “Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qurʾān.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 118/1 (1998), p. 1-14.
• –––. “Writing the Word of God: Some Early Qurʾān Manuscripts and Their Milieux, Part 1.” Ars Orientalis, 20 (1990), p. 113-147.
• al-Zarkashī. Al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. Ed. Abū l-Faḍl al-Dimyāṭī, (in Arabic), Cairo, Dār al-ḥadīth, 2006.
• Anthony, Sean W., and Catherine L. Bronson. “Did Ḥafṣah Edit the Qurʾān? A Response with Notes on the Codices of the Prophet's Wives.” Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, 1 (2016), p. 93-125.
• al-Aʿẓamī, M. M. The History of the Qur'ānic Text from Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments. Leicester, UK Islamic Academy, 2003.
• Bell, Richard. Bell’s Introduction to the Qurʾān, completely revised and enlarged by W. Montgomery Watt. Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 1970.
http://wwwbirmingham.ac.uk/facilities/cadbury/TheBirminghamQuranManuscript.aspx, accessed June 2017.
• al-Bukhārī. Ṣaḥīḥ. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār ṣādir, n.d.
• Burton, John. Collection of the Qur’ān. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1979.
• Comerro, Viviane. Les traditions sur la constitution du muṣḥaf de ʿUthmān. Beirut, Orient-Institut, 2012.
http://corpuscoranicum.de/handschriften/index/sure/4/vers/137/handschrift/15,
accessed February 2018.
• Cuypers, Michel. La composition du Coran: Naẕm al-Qur’ân. Pendé, Gabalda, 2012.
• –––. “Structures rhétoriques des sourates 85 à 90.” Annales Islamologiques, 35 (2001), p. 27-99.
• Déroche, François. La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l’islam: Le codex Parisino-petropolitanus. Leiden, Brill, 2009.
• –––. Qur'ans of the Umayyads: A First Overview. Leiden, Brill, 2014.
• Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, Darwin, 1998.
• Dost, Süleyman. Review of Neuwirth, Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Review of Qur’anic Research, 2.1 (2016), p. 1-5.
• Douglas, Mary. Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition. New Haven, Yale UP, 2007.
• Farrin, Raymond K. Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry. Syracuse, Syracuse UP, 2011.
• –––. “The Pairing of Sūras 8-9.” In Studi del quarto convegno RBS: International Studies on Biblical & Semitic Rhetoric, R. Meynet and J. Oniszczuk eds, Rome, Gregorian & Biblical, 2015, p. 245-264.
• –––. Structure and Qur’anic Interpretation: A Study of Symmetry and Coherence in Islam’s Holy Text. Ashland, White Cloud, 2014.
• –––. “Sūrat al-Nisāʾ and the Centrality of Justice.” Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth Studies, 14 (2016), p. 1-17.
• –––. Tharwa min al-bādiya: al-shiʿr al-ʿarabī al-qadīm. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār al-Farābi, 2013.
• Firestone, Reuven. Jihād: The Origin of Holy War in Islam. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
• Harjumäki, Jouni, and Ilkka Lindstedt. “The Ancient North Arabian and Early Islamic Arabic Graffiti: A Comparison of Formal and Thematic Features.” In Cross-Cultural Studies in Near Eastern History and Literature, Saana Svärd and Robert Rollinger eds, Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2016, p. 59-94.
• Hashmi, Javad. “On the Origin of Jihād: The Ethics of War and Peace in the Qurʾān and During Early Islam.” International Qur’anic Studies Association conference, Boston, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-f9Bes5AA.
• Hoyland, Robert. “The Content and Context of Early Arabic Inscriptions.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 21 (1997), p. 77-102.
• –––. “Epigraphy and the Linguistic Background to the Qur’ān.” In The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 51-69.
• –––. In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2015.
• –––. “New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 69/3 (2006), p. 395-416.
• Ibn Abī Dāwūd. Kitāb al-maṣāḥif. Ed. Arthur Jeffrey, (in Arabic), Cairo, al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya li-l-turāth, 2007.
• Ibn Hishām. Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya. (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2001.
• Ibn Shabba. Tarikh al-Madina al-munawwara. Ed. Fahīm Shaltūt, (in Arabic), Beirut, Dār al-turāth, 1990, vol. 3.
• Jeffrey, Arthur, ed. Materials for the History of the Text of the Qurʾān: The Old Codices. Leiden, Brill, 1937.
• Jones, Alan. “The Word Made Visible: Arabic Script and the Committing of the Qurʾān to Writing.” In Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D. S. Richards, ed. Chase F. Robinson, Leiden, Brill, 2003, p. 1-16.
• Kenny, Anthony. The Computation of Style: An Introduction to Statistics for Students of Literature and Humanities. Oxford, Pergamon, 1982.
• Lund, Nils. Chiasmus in the New Testament: A Study in Formgeschichte. Chapel Hill, UNCP, 1942.
• Mingana, Alphonse. “The Transmission of the Ḳurʾān.” Journal of the Manchester Egyptian & Oriental Society (1915-1916), p. 25-47.
• Mir, Mustansir. Coherence in the Qur’ān: A Study of Iṣlāḥī’s Concept of Naẓm in Tadabbur-i Qur’ān. Indianapolis, American Trust Publications, 1986.
• Motzki, Harald. “The Collection of the Qur’ān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments.” Der Islam, 78 (2001), p. 1-31.
• Neuwirth, Angelika. Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text. Oxford, Oxford UP, 2014.
• Nöldeke, Theodor, et al. The History of the Qurʾān. Ed. and trans. Wolfgang H. Behn, Leiden, Brill, 2013.
• al-Rūmī, Fahd. Dirāsāt fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. (in Arabic), Riyadh, Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-waṭaniyya, 2003.
• Sadeghi, Behnam. “The Chronology of the Qurʾān: A Stylometric Research Program.” Arabica, 58 (2011), p. 210-299.
• Sadeghi, Behnam, and Uwe Bergmann. “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet.” Arabica 57 (2010), p. 343-436.
• Sadeghi, Behnam, and Mohsen Goudarzi. “Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān.” Der Islam, 87 (2012), p. 1-129.
• al-Ṣanʿānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Al-Muṣannaf. Ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al- Aʿẓamī, (in Arabic), Beirut, al-Majlis al-ʿilmī, 1972, vol. 6.
• Schoeler, Gregor. “The Codification of the Qurʾan: A Comment on the Hypotheses of Burton and Wansbrough.” In The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu, Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx eds., Leiden, Brill, 2010, p. 779-794.
• –––. The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read. Trans. Shawkat M. Toorawa, Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 2009.
• Sinai, Nicolai. The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction, Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 2017.
• Small, Keith E. Textual Criticism and Qur'ān Manuscripts. Lanham, Lexington, 2011.
• al-Ṭabarī. Tafsīr. Ed. Ṣalāḥ ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Khālidī, Damascus, Dār al-qalam, 1997, vol. 2. https://www.uni-tuebingen.de/en/news/press-releases/press-releases/article/raritaet-entdeckt-koranhandschrift-stammt-aus-der-fruehzeit-des-islam.html, accessed June 2017.
• Wansbrough, John. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford, Oxford UP, 1977.
• Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad’s Mecca. Edinburgh, Edinburgh UP, 1988.
• Whelan, Estelle. “Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qurʾān.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 118/1 (1998), p. 1-14.
• –––. “Writing the Word of God: Some Early Qurʾān Manuscripts and Their Milieux, Part 1.” Ars Orientalis, 20 (1990), p. 113-147.
• al-Zarkashī. Al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. Ed. Abū l-Faḍl al-Dimyāṭī, (in Arabic), Cairo, Dār al-ḥadīth, 2006.
How to Cite
Farrin, Raymond K. 2020. “The Composition and Writing of the Qurʾān: Old Explanations and New Evidence”. Journal of College of Sharia and Islamic Studies 38 (1):121-35. https://doi.org/10.29117/jcsis.2020.0258.
Section
Articles in English