Motzki
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Harald Motzki
The Collection of the Qur'an: A Reconsideration of Western View in Light of Recent Methodological Developments
Summarized Key Points Of Motzki:
- Motzki looks at three sources
- Paradox of non-Muslim scholarship.
- The History of Research by Non-Muslim Scholars on the Issue of the Collection of the Qur’an
Other Resources on this Topic
Nevo & Negev Inscriptions: The Use & Abuse Of The Evidence By M S M Saifullah & Mansur Ahmed
- An Except about Motzki from the article:
- Harald Motzki, in his recent work "The Collection Of The Qur'an: A Reconsideration Of The Western Views In Light Of Recent Methodological Developments",[13] uses these methodological approaches on the traditions dealing with the collection of the Qur'an by Abu Bakr and `Uthman as mentioned in various hadith collections. He conservatively dates the availability of the hadith of collection of the Qur'an to the last decades of 1st century of hijra by using the date of death of Anas b. Malik. Beyond that Motzki is not willing to commit as one can see in his conclusions:
- We are unable to prove that the accounts on the history of Qur'an go back to the eye-witnesses of the events which were alleged to have occurred. We cannot be sure that the things really happened as is reported in the traditions. However, Muslims account are much earlier and thus much nearer to the time of the events than hitherto assumed in Western scholarship. Admittedly, these accounts contain some details which seem to be implausible or, to put it more cautiously, await explanation, but the Western views which claim to replace them by more plausible and historically more reliable accounts are obviously far away from what they make themselves out to be.[14]
- In other words, the methodology of Wansbrough, Burton and Mingana used to study the codification of the Qur'an appeared to have been finally laid to rest. The focus is now back on the Islamic sources.
From Alphonse Mingana To Christoph Luxenberg: Arabic Script & The Alleged Syriac Origins Of The Qur'an By M S M Saifullah, Mohammad Ghoniem & Shibli Zaman
- This article analyzes the Orientalist, Alphonse Mingana and Christoph Luxenberg's arguement then later dispprove their arguement by providing evidence.The authors conclude with summerizing their article as:
- "examined the claims of Mingana and Luxenberg concerning the origins of various aspects of the Arabic script. It was shown that the Arabic script originated from the Nabataean script as opposed to Luxenberg's syro-aramäische script. The diacritical marks in Arabic were already known before the advent of Islam and it is most likely that they came from the Nabataean script. As for the vowel marks in Arabic, Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali was the first one to introduce them. It is highly unlikely that they could have originated from Syriac because the orthographical needs of Syriac were to a great extent different from that of Arabic. Furthermore, the terminology for vocalization in Syriac script is known only from later authors such as Bar Hebraeus and shows the influence of Arabic orthography. Consequently, the seven ahruf of the Qur'an representing the seven vowel signs of Syriac is rather far-fetched. The analysis of isnad bundles show that the tradition of the revelation of the Qur'an in seven ahruf was already known in the first century of hijra and they can in no way represent the Syriac vocalization of Jacob of Edessa."
Hadith Textual Criticism: A Reconsideration By Mohsen Haredy.
This article looks at:
- The State of Orientalist Scholarship on Hadith Textual Criticism
- Modern Muslim Discourse on Hadith Textual Criticism in Egypt
- The Reaction of Muslim Scholars
