Böcker i Texts and Studies on the Qur&#-serien

For all Muslims the QurE3/4an is the word of God. In the first centuries of Islam, however, many individuals and groups, and some ShiEis, believed that the generally accepted text of the QurE3/4an is corrupt. The ShiEis asserted that redactors had altered or deleted among other things all passages that supported the rights of EAli and his successors or that condemned his enemies. One of the fullest lists of these alleged changes and of other variant readings is to be found in the work of al-SayyArA (3rd/9th century), which is indeed among the earliest ShiEi books to have survived. In many cases the alternative readings that al-SayyArA presents substantially contribute to our understanding of early ShiEi doctrine and of the early and numerous debates about the QurE3/4an in general.

The codex Parisino-petropolitanus is one of the earliest witnesses of the handwritten transmission of the Qur anic text which has survived to this day. The various fragments which were part of the original manuscript are scattered among various collections; once put together, they provide a unique picture of the state of the text during the 7th century (orthography and textual peculiarities) and of the circumstances in which the canonical version as we know it today took shape physically. The present study, first of its kind, paves the way for a more accurate understanding of the beginning of Islam, based on a significant document, and of the evolution of the Qur an during that period. Le codex Parisino-petropolitanus est l'un des plus anciens t moins de la transmission manuscrite du texte du Coran qui aient t conserv s. Ses diff rents fragments sont dispers s entre plusieurs collections; une fois mis ensemble, ils donnent un aper u unique sur l' tat du texte au 7e si cle (orthographe et particularit s textuelles) et sur les conditions dans lesquelles s'est organis e mat riellement la constitution de la version canonique telle que nous la connaissons. Cette tude, premi re de son genre, ouvre la voie une compr hension plus fine, appuy e sur un document significatif, des premiers temps de l'islam et de l' volution du Coran au cours de cette p riode.

Although recent scholarship has increasingly situated the Qur' n in the historical context of Late Antiquity, such a perspective is only rarely accompanied by the kind of microstructural literary analysis routinely applied to the Bible. The present volume seeks to redress this lack of contact between literary and historical studies. Contributions to the first part of the volume address various general aspects of the Qur' n s political, economic, linguistic, and cultural context, while the second part contains a number of close readings of specific Qur' nic passages in the light of Judeo-Christian tradition and ancient Arabic poetry, as well as discussions of the Qur' n s internal chronology and transmission history. Throughout, special emphasis is given to methodological questions.