Page 226 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

206 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

language, was valid, obviating the need to search the proper channels
of qira'at and verify the correct diacritical marks associated with
every verse. 33
One scholar sought to ignore the second principle, and the other the first.
Rev. Mingana felt sorry for these two scholars." At least we can take comfort
in knowing that they were shown greater mercy than William Tyndale (c.
1494-1536) who, for his English translation of the Bible (on which the King
James Version is based), was sentenced to burn at the stake. 35

5. Conclusion

Judeo-Christian scholars have long cast their eyes towards the Qur'an in
search of variances, but so securely has Allah preserved His Book that their
vast efforts and resources have yielded them little more than fatigue. In
the 20th century the University of Munich set up an Institute of Qur'anic
Research. Its halls lay host to over forty thousand copies of the Qur'an,
spanning different centuries and countries, mostly as photos of originals,
while its staff busied themselves with the collation of every word from every
copy in a relentless excavation for variants.

Shortlybeforethe SecondWorldWar,a preliminaryand tentativereport
was published that there are of course copying mistakes in the manu-
scriptsof the Qur'an, but no variants.During the war,American bombs
fellon this Institute, and all was destroyed, director, personnel, library
and all... But this much is proved - that there are no variants in the
Qur'an in copies dating from the first to the present century."

Jeffery acknowledges this fact bleakly, lamenting that, "Practically all the
early Codices and fragments that have so far been carefully examined, show
the same type of text, such variants as occur being almost always explainable
as scribal errors".37 Bergstrasser also reached a similar conclusion.38Jeffery

33 ibid, ii:124.
34 Mingana, Transmission, pp. 231-2.
35 "William Tyndale", Enryclopedia Britannica (Micropaedia), 15thedition, 1974, x:218.
36 M.Hamidullah, "The Practicability of Islamin ThisWorld", Islamic Cultural Forum,
Tokyo, japan, April 1977, p. 15;seealsoA. jeffrey, Materials, Preface, p. 1.
37 Arthurjeffery'sreview of "The Riseof the North ArabicScriptand It's Kur'anic
DevelopmentbyNabiaAbbott", TheMoslem World, vol. 30(1940), p. 191. Tocomprehend
his statementread thisworkpp. 155-6.
38 Theodor Noldeke, Gesduchte des Qgrans, Georg 01ms Verlag, Hildesheim - New
York, 1981, pp. 60-96.