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From: paul@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Qur'an histories (was Torah and Qur'an)
Message-ID: <1990Dec10.052831.2447@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 90 05:28:31 GMT
Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 48
Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu

Donald Blaise writes..

> In article <1990Dec6.014559.6623@nntp-server.caltech.edu> bes@tybalt.caltech.edu writes:
> >goer@midway.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
> >>Anyway, I have to admit to being a cynic in the sense that the Muslim
> >>story on God -> Muhammed -> Followers -> Quran transmission seems just
> >>too perfect to be believed.
> >
> >I think you would agree that there can be no historical documentation
> >on the God --> Muhammad link in the chain.
> >
> >The Muhammad --> Quran is another matter.  There is ample
> >historical documentation about the development of the Quran.  
> 
> Behnam Sadeghi has provided a thoughtful reply [see his posting].
> Additional detail along this line of criticism can be found in...
> 
> Bell, Richard, 1876-
> [Bell's] Introduction to the Qur'an
> Edinburgh: 1970, 1963, 1958, c1953
> L of Congress: BP130.B4
> Dewey Decimal: 297.12 B413
> 

The reference that I gave to _The Collection of the Qur'an_ in Torah
Histories and Qur'an Histories echoes Behnam's information.

Richard Bell's 2 volume translation of the Qur'an is also very
interesting, as he notes which aya were written on the back of others
and other issues in the complex chronology of each surah!

Interestingly, in Muhammad Asad's introduction (p. ix) to his _The Message of
THE QUR'AN_ he notes:

"This work is based on the recension of Hafs ibn Sulayman al-Asadi, as
it appears in the so-called 'Royal Egyptian' edition of the Qur'an,
first published in Cairo in 1337 H. and regarded by Arab scholars as
the most exact of all existing editions."

1337 H. corresponds to 1959 AD.

I am aware of two "recensions" - the "Cairo" and the "Istanbul". Both
only differ in the numberings of the surah/aya, and even then the
numbering difference is miniscule.

Bell's numbering, in his translation, follows the numbering of the German
scholar Noeldecke, and is quite different in the aya numbering.
Noeldecke tried to number according to text content.