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The History of The Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments Muhammad Mustafa AlAzami 9781872531656 Books

Download As PDF : The History of The Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments Muhammad Mustafa AlAzami 9781872531656 Books

The History of The Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments Muhammad Mustafa AlAzami 9781872531656 Books

The research on comparative religious aspect and the contemporary environment is great. It is a wonderful reference book on the origins of written Quran.


Tags : The History of The Qur'anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments [Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Qur'an reigns supreme in Muslim hearts as the most sacred of texts: a profusion of exalted ideas to rouse the mind,Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami,The History of The Qur'anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments,UK Islamic Academy,1872531652

The History of The Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments Muhammad Mustafa AlAzami 9781872531656 Books Reviews

Dr. Al Azami has written this book to get even with journalist Toby Lester's piece in the Atlantic Monthly of 1999 in which the journalist had the nerve to question whether the Qur'an could have gone through a developmental period to reach our current version (normally the 1924 Cairo edition) of the text. How do I know this? He says so on the first page of the preface. That there are differing versions of the text can be seen by a simple examination of the Warsh text in use in Morocco and Tunisia and the Hafs text used in other parts of the world. Dr Al Azami would have us believe that these are not really differences, just the true version and deficient ones. He spends many chapters ignoring much of the modern manuscript finds to try to prove his point. In this he fails.
Dr. Al Azami's attack on the history of early Christianity and the text of the New Testament are irrelevant to whether the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved, a position not shared by al Muslims. In addition, his attacking the text of the New Testament is weak at best. He begins chapter 16 by quoting various "Christian Scholars" who question whether we can know anything of the historical Jesus. His lack of scholarship in this area is exposed when we do a simple check on the credentials of first scholar he uses, G. A. Wells. This "Christian Scholar" is actually. by his own statement neither a Christian nor a scholar in a related field. Dr. Wells was a professor of the German language at the University of London. This is but one example of the quote mining and selective use of material that characterizes the entire book.
Dr. al Azami has the right to defend his beliefs, with whatever passion he deems appropriate, and we have the right to recognize that only a Wahhabi or Salafi Muslim would accept this book as the be all and end all of textual comparison.
Short bearded dude Can you please provide a citation to the SOAS article that you referred to in your review. Thanks.
Excellent work. A solid read for beginner and intermediate readers on the history of the Quranic text. Anyone curious as to how the Quran came into its current form should consider checking out the book.
I should probably preface my review by saying that nobody should study the transmission of the Qur'an without actually reading this book. Due to a lot of other literature out there seeking to somehow cast doubt over the Qur'an, it's important to get the facts straight before delving into critical works, the reason being is that even nowadays a lot of them essentially misunderstand the nature of the transmission of the Qur'an. For example, applying textual criticism on the Qur'an is simply category error.

This is a very scholarly work but the author is still able to maintain a pace suitable for the interested layman.

THE GOOD.

Azami's work is analytical, not simply repeating the history of the compilation of the Qur'an, but also looking at a lot of early manuscripts and scholarly inspections of them, to show us that we indeed have Uthman's compilation of the text. I don't think anybody actually doubts that anymore anyway. What's also important is that he analyzes contentions against the traditional Muslim position.

He covers the causes of variant readings, and demonstrates how they could not have been due to the fact that the Uthmanic codex did not have any dots.

I actually came across a few interesting documents inside the book. There seems to be a reproduction of a letter written by the Prophet's scribe. It lacks diacritical dots, a tell-tale sign of a very early document. I'll have to look more into that.

All in all, if not for the few negatives, I'd give this 5/5, but let's get on to the bad.

THE BAD

The section on the old and new testaments was completely unnecessary and not very good either. Azami seems to be fed up with the state of Islamic Studies in the west in his day, where a lot of renowned scholars are prone to wishful polemic rather than actual useful contributions to the fields. However, he seems to take this as some sort of attack from Christianity against the Muslim traditions. While I agree that Quranic studies in the West can be quite potato, it has become rather a bit more realistic over the last few decades. Furthermore, it's not like biblical studies is solely the arena of conservative Christian believing scholars- a lot of standard beliefs among bibilical scholars clearly contradict Christian belief, such as the authorship of the Torah, or the actual contents of Jesus's message.

I watched an interview of him earlier, where he said something to the effect of, "When a muslim scholar errs, it is because he made a genuine mistake... when an orientalist errs, he does so because he is dishonest". I think that's a rather harsh assessment, and one that is outdated. You definitely get that same sentiment when you read his first and last few chapters.

Yes, it's true, people like Mingana, Jeffrey, Schacht et-al were dishonest when supporting their theories on the Qur'an and Hadith literature, I think it's false to simply make a blanket statement on all of orientalism today. There are people in Islamic Studies who don't have some sort of itch to prove Islam wrong. This can be clearly shown by one article in SOAS released very recently that pretty much breaks apart revisionist theories on the origins of the Qur'an.

The bottom line Props to Azami for a wonderful book on the Qur'an, but pick up a book by a biblical scholar for information on the bible.
This is a very detailed book. Al-Azami masterfully explains the history of the Qur'an and its "immaculate" preservation, using archaeological and other historical evidence to back up his claim. He also deals with the orientalist claims made against the Qur'an and refutes the likes of Jeffrey, Goldziher and Mingana, using the evidence. He then proceeds to compare the history of the Qur'an's preservation with those of the Old Testament and the New Testament and shows quite conclusively that there really is no comparison. This book should be required reading for all interested in the actual history of the Qur'an. I also recommend Ahmad Al-Iman's book "Variant Readings of the Qur'an A Critical Study of Their Historical and Linguistic Origins".
The research on comparative religious aspect and the contemporary environment is great. It is a wonderful reference book on the origins of written Quran.