Page 323 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE ORIENTALIST AND THE QUR'AN

The controversies surrounding Arabic palaeography and Ibn Mascud's
Mushaf having already been dealt with, we now turn our attention to the
broad spectrum of Orientalist attacks against the Qur'an in their numerous
other forms, offeringa taste of some of the Western effortsaimed at defaming
the Qur'an's textual purity through the use of profane sources and simple
deceit.

1. TheNecessity rifProving Distortions in the ()y-r'an

Intent on proving the West's moral and theological superiority Bergstrasser,
Jeffery, Mingana, Pretzl, Tisdall, and many others dedicated their lives to
finding within the Qur'an all the evils of textual corruption uncovered in
the course of Biblical scholarship. As is apparent from the previous chapter,
countless variations flood the passages of the Bible: "Cette masse enorme
depasse ce dont on dispose pour n'importe quel texte antique; elle a fourni
quelque 200,000 variantes. La plupart sont des variantes insignifiantes ...
Deja Westcott et Hort, en dormant ce chiffre, constataient que les sept
huitiernes du texte etaient assures ... II y en a pourtant".' Taken together
they weaken core issues of theology and raise many concerns about spur-
ious episodes interpolated into the text through populist influences. While
the urgency of proving a similar outcome for the Qur'an has gained fresh
momentum in the last few years because of the Middle East's shifting
political landscape, effortsin this field have largely predated these concerns.
Among the historical works are: (1)A. Mingana and A. Smith (eds.),Leaves
from ThreeAncient Qyrans, Possibly Pre-'Othmdnia witha listif their Variants, Cam-

1 A. Robert and A. Feuillet (eds.), Introduction it la Bible, tome I (Introduction
Generale, Ancien Testament), Dcsclee & Cie, 1959,p. Ill. Roughly,the New Testament
has some 200,000 variants, most of which are insignificant (such as variations of
spellings).Westcott and Hart, while giving this number, noted that seven eighth of the
text were assured; yet there are very important variants as well. Interestingly the figure
of 200,000 variants was reduced to 150,000 in the English translation of the above
work [A. Robert and A. Feuillet, Interpreting the Scriptures, translated by P.W. Skehan et
al, Desclee Company, l'-i""Y, 1969, p. 115]. See this work pp. 285-90.