Phoenix From Ashes

"Good Arabic" would not be completely necessary for collation of variations, just and understanding of the scripts and letters (ok, perhaps bit more, but I'm not sure that "good" is a necessary quality for some of the potential tasks).

A general knowledge of some others would be good but not necessary for collation of variations. Once variants are collated, they could be examined by those with more expertise.

I suppose. There certainly seems to be a lack bravery considering the lack of such literature.

I don't know if I quite agree with this either. Perhaps obsessed but I would prefer "interested in history of religions, especially Islam", although I'm sure some would be quite "bitter" about their pursuit as many atheists are with respect to Christianity and Judaism especially.

True, but it is time to learn. There is more to the world than Western literature. It is time for a new renaissance in the West, a renaissance where we begin to learn more about Eastern/Asiatic cultures and history, subjects that have been ignored for too long to our peril.

There are similarities between Syriac and Arabic as there are similarities between Hebrew and Arabic. It is simply another language to learn, and it would be quite a potentially useful language considering the direction the world is heading in these days. I have a very small helping of Arabic under my belt, enough to barely pronounce and look up words, but I want more. However, I want more time in life as well. Arabic is becoming more important to me by the day, and I believe it will be even more important (for all of us) in the near future.

Phoenix From Ashes

Thanks Blui. Could you offer any links to sellers where these books may be purchased, or to reviews of the books?

Also, do you know the philosophical views of the scholars themselves?

Tammuz

You could check out Qur'an: A Work of Multiple Hands? by Denis Giron. Here is an article defending the multiple hands theory from a Muslim critic. Here is the the entire Freethought Mecca library on Islam, which apart from criticcism of the Quran's origin also contains articles debunking some Muslim claims about the Quran.

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World could also be interesting, though the authors seem to not agree with everything in the book these days. After all, the book is from 1977.

Ibn Warraq has written some books on Islam, such as Quest for the Historical Muhammad (or via: amazon.co.uk) and Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book (or via: amazon.co.uk). His book Why I Am Not a Muslim also touches briefly on the early Islamic sources.

Blui

Iirc, the majority of academics who study the Quran both through existing variants and the tales (Hadiths) recorded by Muslims and other sources consider that there are eyewitness accounts of variants of the Quran prior to Uthmun's burning of rival QUrans, such as missing Surahs etc, there are small changes done to the Quran by the scribes, for example i recall that it was said the Egyptian versions corrected some mistake in the earlier versions.

Basically the Quran is corrupted and incomplete, but not to a very large extant.

RAFH

I don't know what you looked at online, but I did find the following which seemed to be sincere:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/
http://www.mostmerciful.com/
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php...ranic_studies/
http://atheism.about.com/od/bookrevi...tKoranSays.htm
http://ahjur.org/quran/vqbasic.htm
https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no46237.htm
http://www.al-islam.com/articles/art...p?fname=Q_S002
http://www.uga.edu/islam/quran.html
http://www.islam-guide.com/bqs/15authenticity.htm

Some of it is xian commentary and criticism of the quran, some of it is atheist commentary and criticism of the quran and some of it is islamic commentary of the quran.

There really isn't any islamic criticism of the quran, its simply not permitted. The tradition of islam is the book is authentic and unchanged except for diacritical corrections early on. You can get hurt trying to question that issue with most islamists.

There probably does exist some variation of the texts, both over time and across geography though its generally hard dogma that all official texts of the quran are in the original arabic. That does tend to maintain the text.

Personally, though I have known some islamics quite well, their religion was never an issue, they were very private about it and apparently had no desire to discuss or debate it. Seeing as how I don't speak, read or write arabic, I can't really study the books in depth. I do know enough I don't consider it any more sensible or authentic than xianity. For the most part it is based heavily on the Abrahamic traditions and pretty much follows the hebrew mythology up to about the time of the diaspora. As much of the hebrew mythology was the same as a lot of the religious traditions of the middle east, that's not particularly surprising.

As islam is also of the 'take it or die' sort of religion, I don't find it any more attractive or sensible than xianity or judaism. However. some, even many, islamics take that point a bit more to heart in the here and now than xianity or judaism does currently which concerns me but then again, I've not had to deal with that up close and personal as I have with xians. One aspect I don't like is its a very much church and state type of religion which as far as I am concerned is very dangerous. There is also the issue that many islamics are not well educated, often illiterate and usually very poor. Very few actually read and write arabic so they have to take whatever their imam tells them as truth. In most countries with an islamic majority, the government is also islamic and enforces the religion as law. I don't believe democracy can exist within an islamic state. These are often totalitarian goverments that tend to keep things as they are and have a vested interest in directing anger and frustration of their masses elsewhere than themselves. This is why Israel is so often held up for attack and with it the US. If you think about it, its a lot easier to huff and puff and burn the US flag then to confront the armed troops of your own government who have orders to shoot to kill and that includes later on disappearing your entire family.

So I don't see islam as being all that different than xian or judaism for that matter though I don't really think I have to worry about the Israelis coming over and attacking me.

I think your interest in this issue is great and I wish you well in your research. There's bound to be something out there. I would try European sources as they've had a lot more contact. I would avoid xian sources unless they are very well documented and even then I would be very aware of the obvious bias, same for the jewish sources. Atheist, they are going to have their bias as well but you may get more references and documentation to work back from.

mirage

The Encyclopaedia of the Quran is in its fourth volume at 350-odd galactic credits. It's edited by a respected secular scholar and is supposed to be the first attempt at a definitive scholarly overview and to take into account more recent evidence like the early quranic "graveyard" fragments in that Yemeni Mosque.

Joan of Bark

Of course, if God in his infinite wisdom had written the Scriptures more clearly, there would be no need to debate them.

BH

I for one would like to see more studies of the Holy Quran via critical scholarly research.

I have been told that there are "variants" to the text of the Quran. However, they really are not variants at all but reflections of the different subdialects found in the Arabia at the time.

I know neither Arabic nor have I personally seen any of these manuscripts. I am just sharing what I have read and maybe it will help somehow.

BH

Also, I fogot to tell you about the so-called two extra Shia Surahs found in one copy of the Quran in India. They are from the 16th century common era and from what I understand have been rejected by the vast majority of Shia. The only reason they were called the Shia Surahs is because they set up Caliph Ali as being the personal favoite of Prophet Muhammed.

Blui

One of the greatest obstacles of any study into Islam is the extreme lack of historical recording in the Middle East during its development, this of course is no surprise considering the lower level of 'intellectualism' as compared to say, The Greek's.

So what we have is mainly tales from Muslim sources, which have been argued to be partly fabricated even by early Muslims, their self-contradictory in some accounts and of course you get large dashes of made-up supernatural events.

It makes any kind of cross-checking by extant witnesses or sources virtually impossible.