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THE ORIENTALIST AND THE QUR' AN 311
iii. Mingana's Attempted Distortion of the Qur'an
Prof. Rev. Mingana, held by some as 'a great scholar of Arabic'," has in
fact a shaky grasp of the subject at best. Publishing An Important Manuscript
24
qf the Traditions qf Bukhari he commits, in copying only a handful of lines,
the following blunders: incorrect transcription of ~..l>-J (which he
transcribes as <i-"..1:>-J); .:.r. J..aill y.l read as .,.ohl\ y.1; omission of such words
as ~l.i.; inability to read partial words such as ;jb:-! (which he conveniently
drops altogether); addition of an extra J ; erroneous translation of the terms
G and [;1, and so on, in a series of errors that can only be classified as
incompetence.
Figure 18.2: One ofthe palimpsest leaves used by Mingana. Source: Mingana &
Lewis (eds.), Leaves from Three Ancient Qurans, Plate Qyran B.
23 Ibn Warraq (ed.), Origins of theKoran, p. 410.
24 Cambridge, 1936.
