History of the Koran text

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The history of the Koran text shows the origin of the Koran in its historical context. The historical science, like the Muslims, mostly starts from an authoritative edition of the Koran under the caliph Uthman ibn Affan .

Fragments of a Koran found in 1972 in the Great Mosque of Sanaa

The origin of the individual parts of the Koran

Early and late parts of the Koran

As early as the eighth century, Muslim scholars assigned certain Quranic verses to events from the life of Mohammed as occasions for revelation . Building on these assignments and linguistic considerations, various scholars developed a chronology that divided the suras into "Meccan" and "Medin" and put them in an order. Roughly speaking, this chronology can be summarized in such a way that the earliest suras of the Qur'an are at the end, while many of the suras in the beginning come from the later times of the prophetic work of Muhammad. Accordingly, if you want to get close to the historical order of the suras, you have to read it from back to front.

Even the Muslim scholars of the premodern knew, however, that the suras are not all of one piece. The chronological classification is only valid for the main part of the sura, while individual passages can represent insertions from earlier or later times. A certain characteristic of Medinian verses is that they use the address "O you who have accepted the faith" ( yā aiyuhā llaḏīna āmanū ).

Nöldeke's chronology

Based on the material developed by the Muslim scholars and preliminary work by Gustav Weil , Theodor Nöldeke developed a comprehensive chronology of the parts of the Koran in his "History of the Qorāns" in 1860. Thereafter, 24 suras are Medinic, the rest are Meccan. In the Meccan suras he introduced a refinement by distinguishing between three successive periods (early Meccan, Mediterranean, late Meccan) on the basis of stylistic and content-related features. The suras of the early Meccan period are therefore characterized by their strongly poetic form with bold images and short, rhythmic rhymes as well as the string of oaths at their beginning. In the Middle Meccan period the verses gradually increased in length and the divine name ar-Raḥmān became common. In the late Meccan period the verses became even longer, the style more prosaic and thus similar to that of the Medinian period. Nöldeke's chronology of the suras is as follows:

Early Meccan period 96, 74, 111, 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, 105, 92, 90, 94, 93, 97, 86, 91, 80, 68, 87, 95, 103, 85, 73, 101, 99, 82, 81, 53, 84, 100, 79, 77, 78, 88, 89, 75, 83, 69, 51, 52, 56, 70, 55, 112, 109, 113, 114, 1
Mediterranean Meccan period 54, 37, 71, 76, 44, 50, 20, 26, 15, 19, 38, 36, 43, 72, 67, 23, 21, 25, 17, 27, 18
Late Meccan period 32, 41, 45, 16, 30, 11, 14, 12, 40, 28, 39, 29, 31, 42, 10, 34, 35, 7, 46, 6, 13
Medinian period 2, 98, 64, 62, 8, 47, 3, 61, 57, 4, 65, 59, 33, 63, 24, 58, 22, 48, 66, 60, 110, 49, 9, 5

Nöldeke's chronology of the Koran is largely accepted as reliable in Western Islamic studies to this day. On this basis, other literary peculiarities of the individual Quran periods were worked out. Angelika Neuwirth , for example, has shown that in the Middle Meccan period new homiletic elements appear with parables and parables , which are then thematized in the Koran itself in the late Meccan period under the name mathal .

Further subdivisions of the early Meccan period

As part of the Corpus Coranicum , Nöldeke's chronology was further refined with regard to the early Meccan suras. Nicolai Sinai divided the suras into three groups based on the parameter of "structural complexity". The suras of group I (93–95, 97, 99–102, 104–108, 111) contain 4 to 11 verses and show a strong internal coherence in terms of content. The suras of group II (73, 81–82, 84–96) are longer (15–25 verses) and can be divided into different thematic units. Finally, the suras of group III are up to 40 verses long and are divided into a larger number of thematic units. Group III is further subdivided into Group IIIa (53, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79) with a number of syllables per verse that is similarly low as in Groups I and II, and Group IIIb (51, 52, 55, 56, 68, 69, 70), in which the length of the individual verses is considerably longer. Sinai regards these groups as chronologically successive stages of the Koranic text.

Group I is further subdivided by Sinai into various thematic and formal text clusters: a) the Mekka-related suras 105 and 106, b) the suras 95, 102, 103, 104 and 107 with announcements of the Last Judgment , c) the suras 99, 100 , 101, 111 with short eschatological pictures, d) suras 93, 94 and 108 and e) sura 97, which thematizes the power of revelation. Sinai makes it clear that he also understands this classification as a chronological one.

The collection of the Koran

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The Muslim traditions of a collection of the Koran ( dscham'u 'l-quran - ǧamʿu ʾl-qurʾān) already under the caliph Abu Bakr (573–634) seem to contradict reports of a first collection under ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb (634–644) . This contradiction, which can be traced back to the content-wise and often tendentiously tinged reports of the Islamic tradition, has not been finally resolved by historical science until today. A copy of the Koran by Ḥafṣa (c. 604-c. 663), a daughter of Umar, is considered central by both historical science and most of the Muslim scholars. The only problem seems to be that it was a daughter of Umar who apparently inherited the copy of the Koran and not the caliph Uthman , which is remarkable for such an important document.

In addition to the official copy that Uthman had Zaid ibn Thabit create with people who were at his side and whose identity is doubtful in historical scholarship, there were at least four other, different copies according to Muslim tradition, the most important of which was that of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd is. The copy of Ubaiy ibn Kaʿb was also widely used. There were also copies of Abu Musa Abdallah Qais al-'Ashari and Miqdad b. 'Amr.

The Muslim tradition reports that the copy of 'Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud did not contain suras 1, 113 and 114. In addition, there are two different, non-identical Muslim traditions of a very different arrangement of the suras , both of which do not correspond to the arrangement in Uthman's authoritative copy. Contrary to the Muslim view, there are indications that this copy was not destroyed, but that copies were still in circulation for a long time.

The Muslim tradition reports that the copy of Ubaiy ibn Kaʿb contained two other suras, which have also been passed down, but whose first textual evidence is late, in the 16th century. These suras are known under the names Surat al-Khal ' and Surat al-Hafd or both together under the title Sùratu' l-qunùt . There is also a Muslim tradition for this copy of the Koran about a strongly different arrangement of the suras. In the 9th century, the use of Quran readings based on Ubayy's collection was banned.

The two copies in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul and in Tashkent are in no way regarded by historical science as the copies of the Uthmans edition that have survived to this day. In 1972, fragments of old codices on parchment were found in the main mosque of Sana'a , dating from around 710. Not only do they show orthographic deviations in the rasm , but they also have a different arrangement of the suras. This confirms the correctness of the corresponding information in the literature, especially in the Kitab al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim (987–988). The oldest fragments are undoubtedly those recorded in the so-called hijazi mâ'il script. Fragments of these codices are in San'a, a 176-sheet fragment is in the British Library under number Or.2165.

Most of the current copies of the Koran go back to an edition of al-Azhar University from 1923/24, which made a certain consonant text and a single reading more or less binding, although the older Muslim tradition recognized entire encyclopedias on deviating but nonetheless recognized Knows readings . The handwritten basis of this edition is unknown.

The creation of a textus receptus on the basis of existing Koran manuscripts from the early period with the recording of the reading variants in a text-critical apparatus is strictly rejected by the Islamic world. Approaches to this were undertaken in the 1920s and 1930s by Gotthelf Bergsträsser , Arthur Jeffery and Otto Pretzl , but never completed because of the deaths of Bergsträsser and Pretzl.

In 2016 the Tunisian Islamic scholar Abdelmajid Charfi presented a historical-critical edition of the Koran, "an absolute novelty in the Muslim world". "The Berlin Arabist Angelika Neuwirth [...] regards the new edition not only as a scientific pioneering achievement, but also as a real test of courage:" The Salafists do not want to know that the Koran has an earthly history. ""

At the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , a text documentation and a historical-critical commentary on the Koran have been prepared under the title "Corpus Coranicum". The Koran is related to numerous environmental texts and viewed and processed "as a text of late antiquity" by "systematically following up the echoes of older traditions in the Koran".

Modern historical-critical research

Günter Lüling developed a theory based on a Christian original Koran in verse poetry. John Wansbrough assumes that the Koran was created in a lengthy process and that early evidence only contains "Koranic material", but does not indicate the existence of the Koran at that time.

The finds of old Quran fragments z. Some of the things from the first Muslim century in Sanaa have called into question many things that had long been considered certain (see Gerd-Rüdiger Puin ). Ibn Warraq , Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Yehuda Nevo , among others, share the idea that the Koran was compiled from writings from various origins in a lengthy process . An Islamic researcher at the Saarbrücken Institute "Inârah" who wrote under the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg takes the view that the Koran is at least partly based on a Syro-Aramaic model.

The non-fiction book by the author Norbert G. Pressburg, who also publishes under a pseudonym, offers an overview of the research carried out by the Saarbrücken Koran scholars led by Karl-Heinz Ohlig - on the establishment of the historical-critical method in Islamic studies: Good Bye Mohammed .

The work The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran (2002), published by Christoph Luxenberg (but controversial in research ), addresses the origins of the Koran text. He examined the Koran linguistically and came to the conclusion that the Koran contains many Christian elements in the Syro-Aramaic language.

Historical-critical edition in France

Under the direction ("collaboration") of Guillaume Dye and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, a group of 30 scientists from different disciplines ("une équipe [...] composée d'historiens et de specialistes du Coran") has a "Coran" in France des historiens "elaborated. This three-volume edition tries to contextualize the Koran, also in order to clarify the internal contradictions that can be found in the Koran ("le Coran est un corpus qui contient des contradictions").

literature

  • Gotthelf Bergsträsser : Plan of an "Apparatus Criticus" for the Koran . Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences, Munich 1930.
  • John Burton: The collection of the Qur'ân . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1977, ISBN 0-521-21439-4 .
  • Guillaume Dye, Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (eds.): Le Coran des historiens , Les Editions du Cerf, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-204-13551-1
  • Markus Groß, Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Ed.): The emergence of a world religion III - the holy city of Mecca - a literary fiction. INARAH - Writings on the early history of Islam and the Koran. Volume 7. Verlag Hans Schiler; Berlin, Tübingen 2014.
  • Etan Kohlberg and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi : Revelation and Falsification: The / Kitab al-Qira'at / of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Sayyari . Critical edition with introduction and comments. Brill, Texts and Studies on the Qur'an, Leiden and Boston 2009. 363 pp. (English) + 201 pp. (Arabic). Online partial view
  • Angelika Neuwirth : The Koran as a text of late antiquity. A European approach . Publishing House of World Religions, Frankfurt / M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-458-71026-4 .
  • Theodor Nöldeke : History of the Qoran. With a literary-historical appendix about the Muslim sources and the more recent Christian research . New edition Dietrich, Leipzig 1909/38
  1. About the origin of the Qoran . 1909.
  2. The collection of the Qoran . 1919.
  3. The history of the Koran text . 1938.
  • Otto Pretzl : The continuation of the "Apparatus Criticus" on the Koran . Loading of the Academy of Sciences, Munich 1934.
  • Gerd-Rüdiger Puin : Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in San'a '. In: Stefan Wild (Ed.): The Qur'an as Text. A symposium . Brill, Leiden 1996, pp. 107-111. ISSN  0169-8729 .
  • Al-Mushaf wa Qira'atuh. Rabat 2016. 2330 pages, 5 volumes. Mominoun Without Borders for Publishing & Distribution / Beirut. ISBN 9786148030178 , 9786148030062.
  • Nicolai Sinai: "The Qur'an as process" in Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, Michael Marx (eds.): The Qur'ān in Context. Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur'ānic Milieu . Leiden 2011. pp. 407-439.
  • William Montgomery Watt (arr.): Bell's Introduction to the Qur'an (Islamic Surveys; 8). University Press, Edinburgh 2005, pp. 40-56, ISBN 0-7486-0597-5 (reprint of the ed., Edinburgh 1970).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hans-Thomas Tillschneider: Types of historical-exegetical tradition. Forms, functions and genesis of the asbāb an-nuzūl material. Wuerzburg 2011.
  2. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: History of the Qorāns. Vol. I, pp. 59-65.
  3. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke: History of the Qorāns. Vol. I, p. 64.
  4. ↑ Cf. Nöldeke I 66-74.
  5. ↑ See Neuwirth 498-501.
  6. ↑ Cf. Sinai 420-424
  7. ↑ Cf. Sinai 425f.
  8. ↑ Annette Steinich: This book contains explosives: a historical-critical edition puts the Koran in a new light Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 19, 2018
  9. ↑ https://corpuscoranicum.de/about/index/sure/1/vers/1 accessed on January 26, 2020
  10. ↑ See Hans-Caspar Graf von Bothmer, Karl-Heinz Ohling, Gerd-Rüdiger Puin: New ways of researching the Koran. In: magazine research. Saarland University, Saarbrücken 1999, 1, pp. 33-46. ISSN  0937-7301 .
  11. ↑ The Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran, a contribution to deciphering the Koran language. Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 2000, 2007. ISBN 3-89930-028-9 . See, for example, a Telepolis article on popular science reception .
  12. ↑ a b INARAH Institute for Research into the Early History of Islam and the Koran, for the establishment of the historical-critical method in Islamic studies; "Inârah" (Arabic for 'Enlightenment')
  13. ↑ https://www.marianne.net/debattons/entretiens/qu-yt-il-vraiment-dans-le-coran-rencontre-avec-l-un-des-auteurs-du-coran-des

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