Which Koran?: Variants, Manuscripts, Linguistics

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For many millions of Muslims there is one and only one true Koran that offers the word of Allah to the faithful. Few Muslims realize, however, that there are several Korans in circulation in the Islamic world, with textual variations whose significance, extent, and meaning have never been properly examined. The author of Virgins? What Virgins? and Why I Am Not a Muslim has here assembled important scholarly articles that address the history, linguistics, and religious implications of these significant variants in Islam's sacred book, which call into question the claim of its status as the divinely revealed and inerrant word of the Muslim god. This work includes valuable charts that list the many textual variants found in Korans available in the Islamic world, along with remarks on their significance.

Hardcover: 631 pages

Publisher: Prometheus Books (November 24, 2009)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1591024293

ISBN-13: 978-1591024293

Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #997,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #55 in Books > Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Poetry #103 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Regional & Cultural > Middle Eastern #352 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Islam > Quran

The book is here, at last, three years after its bookmark here. I have bought it, and I have read it. I wish to disclose here, and you can check my review of Puin/Ohlig for evidence, that I am a skeptic of Islam. I am not early-Crone and Wansbrough extreme in my critique of its origins, but extreme enough.This book is a collection of others' essays, grouped into four sections. Here are the sections in it:-Part 1 is the introduction wherein Ibn Warraq repeats what he's said in all his other books.-Part 2 concerns Qur'anic linguistics. It starts with a translation of a Noeldeke article. The upshot of it all is that the Qur'an is not written according to classical Arabic rules.-Part 3 - manuscripts - consists almost entirely of articles by Jeffery and Mingana.-Part 4 is about textual variants remembered in Islamic tradition, mostly Shi'ite.There is nothing new in Part 1; and every.single.article. in Part 3 (except Ibn Warraq's own) may be found online, in sites with URLs containing catchphrases like "answering-islam" [excepting the Syriac photos in Mingana's article on BarSalibi's Qur'an]. In 1998, Ibn Warraq could get away with this - they weren't all online then and the Internet was just slower. It is now 2011. There's no excuse.For Part 2, I admit to not having a lot of Semitic-linguistics knowledge. I am grateful to have more Noeldeke in English; and Pierre Larcher's article on "the concept of peace" is interesting. Michael Schub's articles on modern translations - especially "Mauve Athena" - contain useful philological knowledge, as a byproduct of critiquing those translations.Part 4 has Arthur Jeffery looking into the Qur'anic variants assigned to Zayd b. 'Ali and to Ibn Miqsam.

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