Roger Pearse

I've no idea how long this article in the Egyptian press will remain online, but have mirrored it here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gstafleu

Interesting. I have some difficulty imagining how this could happen, today, with the bible. Is the Koran somehow more error-prone?

Gerard Stafleu

Roger Pearse

Some more, this time in Kuwait in the 90's, and also mentioned here.

As soon as Shaikh Jabir dissolved parliament on May 4, 1999, opposition leaders said this was orchestrated by the government of Shaikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah to rescue then Justice and Islamic Affairs Minister Ahmad Khalid Al Kleib and Finance Minister Shaikh Ali Al Salem Al Sabah.

Kleib was being grilled in parliament over offensive misprints in several thousand copies of the Koran distributed by his ministry. Kleib faced a no-confidence vote in the following week. Later, Islamist opposition MP Mubarak Al Duweilah said the reasons behind the dissolution of parliament were suspect and charged that the government itself laid the groundwork for the grilling of Kleib.

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure; but the Arabic alphabet has some curiosities, such as letters which are of identical form and only distinguished by dots; while dots are also how vowels are indicated, and may be omitted as desired.

The reason that I find these interesting is the sort of claims made by some Moslems that errors could not possibly creep into the Koran during transmission by the normal processes. Here we see printed editions getting them, and being caught.

What it *does* demonstrate is that Moslems producing Korans are capable of error.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

And another interesting thread, although I don't know what a Mushafs is. The poster is cursing the difference between Saudi and Pakistani produced items.

gstafleu

A Google of "define:mushaf" yields: the Qur’an in a single volume, or codex.

Gerard Stafleu

Roger Pearse

Apparently a Mushafs is a copy of the Koran.

gstafleu

Sort of like "the bible" being a copy of the canon, I guess.

In Christianity we have the concept of "inerrancy" or at least the bible being "god breathed." It seems that for the Koran, which has an "official" language associated with it, this concept has been extended to the level of spelling. Now while the (Texan?) fellow who thought that the bible originally was written in King Jamesian obviously got it wrong, this idea about the Koran has some more substance to it.

But not a lot. The spelling of Arabic would have to remain constant through the centuries, for one thing. Is that even possible? For the languages I know this certainly didn't happen.

Then we all know about copying errors. For this Koranic inerrancy to work one must somehow ban all access to MS's (I seem to remember a recent thread that shows that this is what the authorities actually do). Not only that, at some point a canonical copy must have been established, and somehow that standard must be adhered to. That can only have happened, I'd say, after the printing press was invented, and even then it wouldn't be easy.

Talk about setting one up for a fall! Does Islam have the concept of hubris (overweening pride)?

Gerard Stafleu

makerowner

That's true, but irrelevant to this case, because the Koran is always written with the vowel diacritics
The more likely cause IMO is the fact that the Koran has no narrative structure and is little more than a haphazard assortment of verses on a handful of subjects. It would be easy to read through it without noticing that a whole surah was gone.

French Prometheus

The Sana'a manuscripts :