Genesis Of A Holy Book

EPILOGUE:

Additional Comments On The History Of The Recitations

It is often contended that there is surprisingly little variation in most of the extant Koranic manuscripts (to wit: those that were not destroyed).  This is question-begging in the most obvious way.  It simply indicates that only those manuscripts that were not highly variant were retained within Dar al-Islam.  In other words: We end up finding exactly what we should expect to find; and have difficulty finding exactly what we should expect should be difficult to find.

Here, it’s worth quoting John Stuart Mill: “So long as opinion is strongly rooted in feelings, it gains rather than loses instability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.  For if it were accepted as the result of [sound] argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction.  When it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest; and the more persuaded adherents [read: True Believers] are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach.  And while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh entrenchments of [rationalization] to repair any breach made in the old [rationalization].”

I am under no illusions that weighing in on this topic will elicit anything but contempt from hidebound ideologues.  But since nobody else seemed to be taking the reins on the matter, the task seemed ripe for the picking.  I figured: SOMEONE’S gotta do it.  If no one else is going to, then it may as well be me.  (The trick is to not let one’s heterodoxy become self-ingratiating.  Pariah status is not one to be coveted.)

Over the last century, extensive work has been done on this topic—starting with Richard Bell’s “The Origin Of Islam In Its Christian Environment” (1926) and Charles Cutler Torrey’s “The Jewish Foundations Of Islam” (1933).  A dozen other worthwhile sources:

• Patricia Crone’s “Hagarism: The Making Of The Islamic World” (1977)
• J. Spencer Trimingham’s “Christianity Among The Arabs In Pre-Islamic Times” (1979)
• Reuven Firestone’s “Journeys In Holy Lands: The Evolution Of The Abraham-Ishmael Legends In Islamic Exegesis” (1990)
• F.E. Peters’ “Muhammed And The Origins Of Islam” (1994)
• Albrecht Noth’s “The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-critical Study” (1994)
• Michael Lecker’s “Muslims, Jews, And Pagans: Studies On Early Islamic Medina” (1995)
• Robert Hoyland’s “Arabia And The Arabs: From the Bronze Age To The Coming Of Islam” (2001)
• Jonathan Berkey’s “The Formation Of Islam: Religion And Society In The Near East” (2003)
• Gordon Newby’s “A History Of The Jews Of Arabia” (2009)
• Amira El-Zein’s “Islam, Arabs, And The Intelligent World Of The Jinn” (2009)
• Neal Robinson’s “Islam: A Concise Introduction” (2013)
• “Jewish Christianity and the Origins of Islam” —ed. Francisco del Rio Sanchez (2018)

Also notable from Routledge is “The Formation Of The Classical Islamic World”, edited by F.E. Peters (especially vol. 3: “The Arabs And Arabia On The Eve Of Islam”).

Another good reference is Robert Hoyland’s “The Jews Of The Hijaz In The Quran And In Their Inscriptions” in “New Perspectives On The Quran” (p. 91–216).  Gabriel Said Reynolds (of Notre Dame and the IQSA) was the editor of “The Quran In Its Historical Context” (2007) and its sequel, “New Perspectives On The Quran” (2011), both from the Routledge Studies series.

Though a plethora of books have been written on the history of Islam, no comprehensive book has ever been attempted on the history of the Koran.*  This is because simply suggesting that there is any history to uncover is forbidden.  In polite circles, even insinuating that it was man-made is verboten.  For any attempt to articulate any historical background insinuates there there exists a textual genealogy to be accounted for; which implies a derivative (terrestrial) nature.  The gesture would undermine the belief that Islam’s holy book is eternal, sent down from “allah”, and so has no “history” in the usual chronological sense.  It only has a cosmogony.  And so it has gone that, according to conventional wisdom (within Dar al-Islam), there is no genealogy of the “Recitations” PER SE; so there is no history to be written by anyone, anywhere, at any time.  Period.

Per the prevailing (Reactionary) mindset, merely raising questions about the DEVELOPMENT of Islam’s holy book is itself sacrilegious, as it insinuates that the content isn’t timeless.  Consequently, in order to conduct a proper inquiry, one must extricate oneself from this discursive quagmire and commit an act of heresy.

Hence the need for a new paradigm within which it is fine to ask about, say, the Syriac origins of the Koran.  It is hard to fully understand what made the Koran the Koran without coming to terms with this crucial point.

As the official story (within Dar al-Islam) goes, the book’s contents have existed since the beginning of time.  All there is to say on the matter, we are notified, is as follows: The “Recitations” went from the Abrahamic deity’s speech–via the archangel Gabriel’s supernatural conveyance–directly to MoM’s ears, and then from MoM’s lips to his followers’ ears…and subsequently to–two decades later–Zayd ibn Thabit’s pen.  THAT is the Uthmanic Koran…which is identical to the Koran that is used today.  End of story.

The contention, then, is that the current version of the book–a transcript of meticulously preserved orality–has existed unaltered since Uthman ibn Affan (the third Rashidun caliph) commissioned his scribe (the aforesaid Zayd ibn Thabit) to make an official compilation of the “Recitations” in the 650’s.  Hence the book we now have (the so-called “Cairo” edition, composed in Classical Arabic by a cadre of ulema at Al-Azhar University in the spring of 1924) is an exact replica of the “Uthman” edition (a transcript which would not have been composed in Classical Arabic, as Classical Arabic did not yet exist).  That’s all there is to know.  To suppose anything else is to court blasphemy.

Even if we assume–against all common sense–that what is now known as “al-Qur’an” has been (literally) unaltered since its original incarnation was compiled under Uthman (c. 653-56), there is still much reason to be highly suspect of the fidelity of its contents.  For that pivotal interlude occurred more than two decades after MoM’s death.  It is an understatement to note that much can happen to orally-transmitted folklore during the course of an entire generation…amongst highly superstitious, mostly illiterate Bedouins under the tutelage of nascent caliphs jockeying for power.

Bottom line: Nobody knows how the current version of the Koran eventually came to be how it is.  There is scant evidence that would indicate the exact details of the process that yielded the book that is now known as the Koran.  All we CAN say for sure is that, WHATEVER happened, MANY things happened; and we will never know exactly what.

What we DO know is that during the first two centuries of caliphs, there was–invariably–staunch vested interest in things being recorded in a certain way (namely, a way of which the caliphs approved).  Of what DID they approve?  Well, of course, whatever suited their own interests (i.e. abetted their agenda); and so they naturally selected material to be deemed acceptable in the manner they saw fit.

This proclivity was especially salient during the first three caliphates: that of Abu Bakr (632-634), that of Umar ibn al-Khattab (634-644), and that of Uthman ibn Affan (from 644-656).  As we’ve seen, each man (christened “rashidun”) cobbled together his own version of the Mohammedan lore; yet we will never have any idea what, exactly, any of them actually did (in terms of amendments or redactions).  (Abu Bakr, arguably MoM’s closest confidant, never wrote anything down.  The only accounts of him are found in the Hadith are flagrantly biased sources composed centuries later.)  The degree to which the “Cairo” version (compiled in the spring of 1924 by a conclave of “ulema”) can be attributed to the activities of the “Rashidun” caliphs, though, shall remain forever indeterminate.

The significant amount of disagreement that occurred during Islam’s earliest epoch (essentially: the Faith’s embryonic stage) indicates how UN-reliable any verdict ended up being.  Note, for example, the fatal feud between MoM’s eldest daughter, Zayneb, and his closest confidant, Abu Bakr.  This would be extremely peculiar if we were to suppose that the Mohammedan phenomenon were somehow divinely ordained; and a VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT of the Final Revelation had been established at the time.

Clearly, the “Recitations” were still in gestation at the time–being cobbled together without any clear indication of what was (ultimately) to be retained.  In the midst of all this, scriveners were not so much PRESERVING a finished work as contributing–each in his own way–to what was a work-in-progress.

We should bear in mind that the “Recitations” as first conceived were geared primarily toward Syriac-speaking, illiterate Bedouins–many of whom were likely already roughly familiar with bits of Abrahamic lore.  Indeed, denizens of the Hijaz had been made OBLIQUELY privy to relevant material via the propagation of apocrypha culled from Syriac scripture that was widely-circulated in the region at the time.  This is made obvious by the Koran’s countenancing of said apocrypha.  (See my essay on the Syriac source-material for Islam’s holy book.)

There are myriad indications that the “Recitations” were composed after MoM’s lifetime.  Notable is the mention of the “Night Journey” in the opening verse of Surah 17, where we’re told that the flying horse [“buraq”] whisked MoM away from the masjid al-Haraam (the sacred prayer-site in Mecca) to the masjid al-Aqsa (the farthest prayer-site, conjectured to be an allusion to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem).  The problem, of course, is that there was no mosque–in any sense of the word–in Jerusalem at that time.  The Dome of the Rock was erected in the 690’s.  And it is unlikely the early Mohammedans would have referred to the Jewish / Christian holy place at the Temple Mount as a “masjid”.

As I discuss in my essay on the “Syriac Source Material For Islam’s Holy Book”, in its earliest days, the major point of contention for the Mohammedan movement was the matter of Trinitarianism.  Recall that the earliest instance of a CA inscription is on the Dome of the Rock (on the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem, rendered during the last decade of the 7th century–likely at the behest of Abd al-Malik.  It is a strident anti-Trinitarian polemic that used several bits of text that wound up in the “Recitations”.  Tellingly, the sequencing of the text in the inscription does not correspond to its occurrence in the Koran.  Moreover, it uses the first instead of the third person (as in the Koran).

The inscription even includes a clause in the opening line about “the praised one” (that god has no associates) that did not end up in the Shahadah.  In fact, the honorific “Mu-H-M-D” may well have been referring to Jesus of Nazareth, in that the rest of the passage is ONLY about Jesus…and not about some other figure.  This makes sense, as–read this way–the statement simply means that Jesus (the praised one) is MERELY god’s messenger (rasul allah), not his associate (i.e. god’s son; god incarnate).

For the case that “Mu-H-M-D” was an honorific rather than a given name, see Appendix 3 below.

Clearly, the “Recitations” as they came to be did not yet exist at the time this inscription was composed.  In fact, Ockham’s Razor entails that the Koran culled such material from the Dome of the Rock, not vice versa.

Also note that the inscription of (what would become) Surah 17 was not added until the 16th century.  This is a peculiar omission if the Temple Mount had been the place where the fabled “Night Journey” was supposed to have occurred.  For THAT was the rational for erecting the dome at the particular location (the farthest masjid) in the first place.

In spite of all this, it suffices for most Muslims to now assert, post hoc, that the anointed incarnation of the Koran (the “Cairo” version) is identical to whatever Uthman held in his hands (Zayd’s compilation).  This is, of course, an absurd assertion to make.  But even if that WERE the case, chances are that Zayd’s “mushaf” could hardly reflect exactly what MoM actually said, word for word, in its entirety.  In fact, even assuming unimpeachable honesty (in addition to preternatural mnemonic abilities) of every single amanuensis involved in this (extemporaneous) process of oral transmission, maintaining perfect fidelity every step of the way–over the course of CENTURIES–would still have been an intractable task.

Attempts to divine what the INITIAL messages in this “Final Revelation” might have been is therefore a fool’s errant.  Anthropologist Ian Morris put it best: “The greatest triumph of modern philology has been to reveal that in between splitting, fighting, damning, and persecuting one another, the successors found time to write and rewrite their sacred books so many times that sifting the texts for their original meaning can be virtually impossible” (“Why The West Rules–For Now”; p. 255).

Even more confounding is the narrative that the Koran is an eternal book (“al-Lawh al-Mahfuz”) that has existed since the beginning of time–begging the question: Why did god keep it under wraps until 610 A.D.?  It is hard to square this with the narrative that god sent previous revelations (starting with Abraham, through Moses, all the way to Jesus), which were eventually corrupted…thus creating the need for a corrective: the FINAL revelation…which had been available ALL ALONG.

If the corrective had existed since the beginning of time, then why bother with the previous revelations?  If god knew (all along) that the previous revelations were destined to be corrupted…thereby creating the need for the final correction (a correction that had already been in existence)…then what was the point of all the prophetic rigamarole prior to the Seal of the Prophets?

{* …that is, pace some renegade efforts by Ibn Warraq.  In my essays on the Syriac origins of the Koran, I mention a few books that broach the topic–notably Gabriel Said Reynolds’ “The Qur’an In Its Historical Context” and “New Perspectives On The Qur’an”; both from the Routledge Studies series.  As for pulp-trash, the list is endless.  See Kenneth Cragg, Michael Sells, Jonathan A.C. Brown, Yahiya Emerick, Muhammad Asad (who’s “The Message of the Qur’an was inspired by Muhammad Abduh), and Garry Wills for hyper-romanticized depictions of the Koran.  Each is a case-study in unabashed eisegesis.  Then there are the usual suspects: a longer roster of charlatans that includes Karen Armstrong, Reza Aslan, Martin Lings, Mark Hansen (a.k.a. “Hamza Yusuf”), Timothy Winter (a.k.a. “Abdal Hakim Murad”), etc.}