Introduction

The Qur’ān is arguably one of the most important and influential works in humanity’s literary corpus. A recent resurgence in scholarly interest has produced much published work on various aspects of its history and evolution over the centuries, including its origins, divergent strands of transmission, and attempts at standardization. Numerous scholars have addressed a vast array of closely related issues, such as the concomitant rise of the Arabic language and the Arabic script, the development of classical Arabic literature in general, and the literature on the Qur’ān in particular. Yet, most scholars tend to focus on the written Qur’ān, without paying much attention to the oral Qur’ān or to the interactions between the two. Scholarly focus also tends to fall on the early history of the Qur’ān, with far less attention to its more recent history, as if assuming that the centuries-long evolution of the text has reached completion and that there is now an established ‘fixed’ text, ne varietur. In fact, the Qur’ān continues to evolve. What we see now is only its current form along the continuum between its past and its future. My goal in this monograph is, first, to distill the findings of a wide variety of scholarly disciplines into a coherent narrative of the Qur’ān’s history and, second, to clarify the current status of the Qur’ān in that evolutionary historical context so as to form a basis for future scholarly research.

Before proceeding, we should ask: what is the Qur’ān? One might presume the answer to be evident. But, as we shall see, the question is entirely justified, and despite the thousands of volumes written on the subject over the past millennium, one that has yet to be answered precisely. Generally, it is well known to be the holy scripture of Islam. Muslims believe it to be the literal words spoken by God, conveyed by the angel Gabriel to the ears of Muḥammad, then uttered from his lips to audiences of the earliest believers. In this view, it was never originally a book at all, but words heard and spoken. Even its self-referential use of the term ‘book’ is problematic.2 Clearly, at some point, it became a book, and it is in this sense that most of us today, including Muslims, are familiar with it. For most observant Muslims, their understanding of the Qur’ān’s history is influenced by the fact that they view it not only as the word of God, but also as a literary masterpiece and a legal text.3 Viewed from outside the faith by historians of religion, the Qur’ān is the youngest among the scriptures of the world’s major religions, and scholars of the Arabic language note that it was the first Arabic literary work in book form.4 The combination of these two points is worth considering closely: one of the greatest and most influential masterpieces of Arabic literature was also the first book ever written in the Arabic language. This upending of the typical historical development of literature, in which civilizations pass from less developed literary stages to a ‘golden age’ during which the masterpieces and classics are composed, makes Arabic literature and Islamicate civilization unique. Unlike societies in which an already existing literary corpus was transformed by a new scripture, in the case of the Qur’ān the situation is reversed: the appearance of the new scripture among a largely illiterate people and the need for its transcription and propagation catalyzed a social transformation in which the written word acquired newfound, nearly sacred, significance. Arguably, the Arabic language, Arabic script, literacy and literature all evolved because of the Qur’ān. This irony presents scholars of the Qur’ān’s history with unusual challenges: how can one study the origins of what is arguably the most influential literary work of a civilization when there are no literary traces of its earliest appearance?5 The lack of a fully developed literary culture meant that the Qur’ān was transmitted orally as well as in a primitive written form. These two strands of transmission were sometimes interlinked, and at other times, independent of each other. Further complicating matters, the earliest primitive Arabic script was unable to capture fully the complete phonetic range of the Arabic language. By the time Arabic orthography fully matured, the Qur’ān was being recited orally by many different people in many different ways, each claiming to be reciting it in exactly the same way that Muḥammad had. Thus, within a very short period after his death, and perhaps even within his lifetime, there were multiple variant versions of at least portions of the Qur’ān, if not of the complete text, in circulation, either orally, or in primitive written form, or both. Matters became increasingly complicated as the centuries passed. All of these developments make the answer to our question more complicated than initially presumed: What is the Qur’ān?6

The Arabic word qur’ān denotes something read or read aloud (recited). The Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic defines the Arabic verb “qara’a / yaqra’u” as “to recite or to read out aloud (s.th., to s.o.).”7 The Arabic verbal noun, qirā’ah, may be translated either as ‘reading’ or as ‘recitation,’ referring either to the act of reading or reciting something or to that which is read or recited.8 The noun, al-qur’ān, is often translated as ‘the recitation,’ referring to the words of God as revealed to and recited publicly by Muḥammad. Be that as it may, the use of the term in Muḥammad’s time clearly did not refer to the books commonly found in mosques throughout the world today.9 These often beautifully calligraphed and ornamented volumes contain fully developed orthographic markings, numbering and partitions for verses, chapters and other divisions, and many other features that certainly did not exist in Muḥammad’s time. In a certain sense, equating ‘the Qur’ān’ with these books does a great disservice to Muḥammad’s original oral recitation. Some scholars have highlighted the fact that the Qur’ān is as much an action as it is a tangible object.10 The etymological link between the Arabic word qur’ān and the Syriac qeryāna has been well-established within the Western qur’ānic scholarly community11 and there are links with Rabbinic Jewish words as well.12 The etymological links between Arabic qur’ān and its Syriac and Hebrew cognates suggest that, whatever the connection may be, the term qur’ān must have referred originally to the recitation of a scripture or to the reading of a scripture aloud, as was done among the Christian and Jewish communities of Arabia in Muḥammad’s time.13 The affinities between Semitic languages14 and the inherent elasticity of Semitic roots allow for cognates to signify very similar concepts, sometimes with only slight modifications, in other Semitic languages.15 In this way, it is not difficult to see how the Syriac word qeryāna could have been incorporated into Arabic as qur’ān and acquired its new meaning in its new context.

It was in that new context that this new ‘book’ came to be called the qur’ān, the recitation. Worthy of note is a comparison to the holy book of the Christian tradition, the Bible, from the Greek word biblia (books). The names given to these two works reflect their nature or, at the very least, the perceptions of their nature by their respective faith communities. Whereas the early Christian community believed the books of the Bible to have been ‘inspired’ by God, Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the very words spoken by God, without any element of human speech. Whereas the term ‘word of God’ is used relatively loosely in other religious traditions, for Muslims, the Qur’ān is literally the word of God spoken to mankind.16 While Muslims believe the Qur’ān was recited by Muḥammad, they view Muḥammad as merely the Messenger of God who recited the words that God commanded him to recite; the recitation is actually God’s.17 This notion has always been far more integral to the Muslim view of the Qur’ān than to the Christian view of the Bible. It was not until Saint Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 CE) and, later, Pope Gregory I (d. 604 CE), that Christians developed the notion that the Gospels had been dictated to the Evangelists by God Himself.18 For most devout Christians today the Bible is a collection of written works: the Book of John, the Book of Mark, etc. For Muslims, by contrast, the Qur’ān is not the ‘Book of Muḥammad,’ but rather the literal, verbatim word of God. It is for this reason that no other religious community has experienced as profound an impact by its scripture on the everyday lives of its members as Muslims have.19 Lay Christians, in particular, suffer some of the greatest difficulties in understanding Muslims in this regard. For Christians, God’s word became flesh.20 Thus, they naturally (but incorrectly) assume that the role of the Qur’ān in Islam is the same as the role of the Bible in Christianity. In fact, however, whereas for Christians Jesus represents their direct encounter with the Divine and the historical event...