Talk:Origin and development of the Qur'an

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[edit] Factual Inaccuracy

quoting from the article:- "The anti-traditionalist banner dropped by Crone and Cook (C&C) has been taken up by scholars such as Christoph Luxenberg and Abraham Geiger, both of whom support claims for a late composition of the Qur'an......" Now Crone and Crook published their work in 1970's, whereas Abraham Gieger, in autobigraphical article is said to be a 19th century rabbi. How could rabbi Gieger pick up a banner more than a century earlier it was dropped by C&C ?

I just noticed that myself. I'll try to give that a fix. Breadhat 05:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV Fork

This article seems to be a POV fork. Someone has copied the relevant section from the Qur'an article and then added a thick frosting of Muslim legend, Quranic quotation, and hadith, all of which seem intended to disprove academic accounts. The article seems to be Sunni POV as well. This needs extensive work. Zora 02:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

added references. Note that this is a view "accordibf to Muslim scholars". The Hadieth of Bukhari is regarded by most Muslims as most authentic
Blubberbrein2 11:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

POV forks are deprecated. You can't have your own "Muslim" article. It either has to be an expansion of the main article, or be deleted. Bukhari is evidence for what Muslims thought at the time he wrote, not for what "actually" happened, whatever that was.
I'm tired and should think on this a bit. If this article is to be kept, it has to be radically restructured and expanded. Zora 11:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Bukhari wrote about what the Mohammed (and his companions) said and did. It is one of the main sources of Islam besides the Qu'ran. You are right that it is a Muslim source, and it is highly regarded among Muslims, see Sahih Bukhari.

To know about the islamic story about the early period of islam, i.e. about the history of islam(under which the origin and development of the Qu'ran falls), one can mainly only use islamic sources. See also the article I started about the Historical Mohammed
Blubberbrein2

[edit] Style and Refrences

I have 2 questions:
1. Do there exist other sources from which you could draw? There seems to be only one source, Bukhari. If it is possible 3 different sources should be employed at minimum.
2. Could this article be a bit more concise? There's a lot of information here, at least some of which could be removed with some additional wikification.
Also, there are many POV statments subtle inserted into the text let's all try and remember NPOV. -Kode 01:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

About citing ahadith, will Sunni and Shi'i sources be included? Many Shi'iites consider some ahadith from the Bukhari, Sahih, and Muslim collections not reliable. I don't know exactly which ones, but this should certainly be adressed too.

Atomsprengja 05:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

Please double check my changes, I have removed as much POV wording as I could. I want to make sure I didn't lose any info. I did improve the formatting a great deal I'm sure. -Kode 01:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Kode, that's a big improvement. The article could still use a lot of work, of course -- we need to go further into the different Islamic views, and much further into the history of Western academic scholarship. But you don't have to do all of that! Thanks so much for the effort. Zora 02:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I reverted Cltfn's edits

He put arguments re the sources of the Quran in the intro section, where they do not belong. They are controversial, therefore should not be presented as the truth. Furthermore, they are simply wrong as a statement of current academic thinking on the Qur'an. Cltfn is quoting the popular press on Luxenberg, Luxenberg, or he is quoting 100 year old books that are long since out-dated. Cltfn, if you want to present the academic POV, you're going to have read some books and journals. You can't just pick up a bunch of quotes from anti-Muslim websites and assume that they represent the state of the art. They don't. Personally, I don't accept the traditional Muslim POV on the Qur'an, and I'm not arguing for it. But I do insist that anyone who consults this encyclopedia to find out what academics think should get a straight account of contemporary opinion. Zora 05:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not quoting Luxenberg, although I will as soon as his book is published into English . Zora your mediations between the traditionalist and the secular POV is appreciated, however I think you are marginalizing the secular POV to appease the traditionalist. This is to the point that you are obstructing a great deal of very legitimate and encyclopedic material. Perhaps you are not current with current academic opinion, there are 3 major groups , the traditionalists , the apologists and the secular scholars. Perhaps we should present the 3 groups opinions in their own sections . How about that? --CltFn 05:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
So far as I know, there are two groups, the late-development and the early-development, and the early-development is in the ascendent right now, thanks to the Sana'a manuscripts and the retreat of Crone from the earlier radical position. Luxenberg is not widely accepted. Quoting Wellhausen and Muir is not helpful, save for a history of academic views -- which would not be a bad idea. BTW, since I don't read Arabic and I'm not part of the academic milieu, I'm probably several years behind the times. Unless we get academic reinforcements, we're not going to be cutting edge. Praps I can ask dgl to comment.
Instead of waiting for Luxenberg, you should be waiting for Puin! That might be exciting. Zora 07:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


Actually the 2 groups are the traditionalist early developement which is based on nothing more than anachronistic revisionism and (the destruction of contrary evidence and murder of dissident scholars) and the secular research one based on standards of historical and archeological and philological research . The scientific approach of the secular scholars is very ascendent right now, actually has been for quite a long time . The San'a manuscript by the way is dated the 9th century, according to Puin and his colleague H.-C. Graf von Bothmer, who made 35,000 microfilmed photos of the manuscripts. I suggest that the best way to intelligently develop this article then will be to clearly represent the 2 groups in the article.

--CltFn 12:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


I completely agree and promote in presenting a neutral point of view in all Wikipedia articles, but I have moved the following statement: "Modern day philologists view the Qur'an as an eighth century Arab compilation and adaptation of earlier Judeo-Christian scriptures and traditions, that had spread to Arabia in the Aramaic and Syriac dialects" to the section under 'According to non-Muslim scholars'.
In both sources that are provided for this statement, this view is described to be held by a "small" group of scholars [1], and a "handful" of people [2]. I feel that it is vital that we DO present this view, but since it is a minority view compared to the view of approximately 1.4 billion Muslims (including Muslim philologists and scholars), we should follow Wikipedia's policy on NPOV, which says:
"NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." (Emphasis mine)
Also, one of the sources mentioned for the statement is a web blog, and according to Wikipedia's policies on Reliable sources:
"At the other end of the reliability scale lie personal websites, weblogs (blogs), bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, which are not acceptable as sources"
Furthermore, the source mentioned for the article in the blog entry is not valid anymore. It has also been already mentioned in the introduction that non-Muslim and secular scholars are skeptical of the origin and development of the Qur'an.
Also, the claims mentioned under 'Textual evidence' are presented as facts and not claims and research of non-Muslim scholars. I dont want to remove the information presented there because I feel that it contains important findings and opinions, and is relevant and valuable to this article. But further work needs to be done on it before it is not POV anymore. --Jibran1 02:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I've moved the section Textual Evidence to 2.2.1 a sub category of Secular Scholars and Colaborative Effort. That should fix the first bit. If we can change that beginning line we can address the rest of your concerns. -Kode 23:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Textual Evidence

I'm moving this section to under secular sources. If it's possible to reduce the number of loaded words and offer a more NPOV stance we can put it back. As I understand things muslim scholars would take issue with these 6 points. -Kode 22:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


I think that some of the wording is definitely biased-

"... apocryphal and non-orthodox Christian legends, on the other hand, are one of the original sources of Qu'ranic faith."

This is saying outright that the Qur'an is in fact a result of historical influences on Muhammad, thus denying its claim of divine origin. I guess it makes sense in the context of the Catholic Encyclopedia, but it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. This isn't even my main concern, actually, I see no reason why the Catholic Encyclopedia should even be counted as a reliable source, since it is, in many instances, not only biased, but also racist and prejudiced. examples-

"As war is the normal condition of savagery, so to the Indian warlike glory was the goal of his ambition"

"In reality, the Jews were far from prepared for the fulfilment of the promises which the almighty had repeatedly made to their race."

and, in the article on Islam (Mohamedanism, according to the C.E.)-

"The joys and glories of Paradise are as fantastic and sensual as the lascivious Arabian mind could possibly imagine."

"It is hardly necessary here to emphasize the fact that the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament."

"In matters political Islam is a system of despotism at home and aggression abroad."

The whole Textual Evidence section is a cut and paste from the C.E. article, so should we then also include as textual evidence that the qur'an contains "a combination of fact and fancy often devoid of force and originality," as well as "legends," "threats," and "fanciful descriptions of heaven" and that "the most creditable portions are those in which Jewish and Christian influences are clearly discernible," as the "Encyclopedia" says? I won't include all the errors (or in some cases, like "the man is allowed to repudiate his wife on the slightest pretext," obviously intentional lies) about the shari'a.

How then would anyone ever consider this acceptable?

Atomsprengja 05:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry Kodemage

Kodemage, instead of reverting Cltfn's edits, as they deserve, you tried to make sense of them. I'm sorry, I reverted to an earlier version that did not have all that outdated nonsense. It is REALLY nonsense. He's quoting 100-year-old stuff, long exploded, as if it were current academic thought. He is grossly exaggerating the support for Christoph Luxenberg. Cltfn thinks Luxenberg is right, and that academics agree -- everything I've read suggests that they think he may be right on isolated points, but that his general thesis is poppycock. Cltfn is getting his "information" from anti-Islamic websites rather than actually reading the academic material. This is not a question of different POVs, this is a question of gross misrepresentation of academia. As an academia groupie :) I protest.

I will add material re Luxenberg when I find time for it. It should be mentioned, and isn't, which may be one reason that Cltfn is so insistent. Zora 06:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Zora, 100 year old information is not invalid by default. Especially when dealing with ~1300 year old subject. Let's talk about this a mlittle bit more, what information that Cltfn is inaccurate? -Kode 22:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article in dire state

The article seems to have been thoroughly worked over by anti-Muslim editors not familiar with scholarship, and eager to publicize anything that proves Muslims "wrong" and also by Muslim editors eager to prove academic sceptics "wrong". The result is a complete muddle, with Muslim arguments interpolated into the non-Muslim section and several extremely distorted versions of the academic state of affairs.

I rewrote some of the article, but there's still a lot to do. This is discouraging. Zora 00:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Zora. I agree; we should send this article to Dr. Z for a good revision :) giordaano212.190.72.16 10:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Uthman and the collection of Qu'ranic verses

There are numerous factual innaccuracies in this article that I can see; I'm certainly no expert in the field of Islamic studies, but I'm surprised others having caught them. They may be a result of POV rearing its ugly head among some of the contributers, but I'm not sure.

Chief among them is the assertion that Uthman could not have adulterated or excised suras when he collected them for the purpose of codifying them into one volume, since Mohammed was alive at the time. From what I know, this is absolutely false; this event did not occur until Uthman was Caliph, in which case Mohammed already would have been dead for at least a decade. Aside from that, there is no information from that period concerning this event that in nearly that definitive; a number of scholars, western and Muslim alike, have asserted that Uthman had direct control over the editing process, and subsequently burned earlier copies of suras he had collected after the scribes copied his authoratative position. While I want obviously want to present a NPOV in this article, and I realise that many Sunni feel Uthman to be a righteously guided Caliph, many have posited that Uthman carried out this action in order to consolidate his control over the Caliphate and destroy opposition to him; early Muslim scholars generally report that Uthman was nepotistic, power hungry, expansionistic, et cetera. This is far cry from an accusation of him fabricating verses to justify his actions, but it may indicate that he collected already existing verses which supported him and excised those which spoke out against his actions under the claim that they were unorthodox. I have no opinion either way, and know that this presenting this information, while not -specifically- supporting a Shi'i view, discredits the Sunni view of Uthman. This article seems to support an apologetic view of Uthman and the other earlier compilers and consolidaters, to the point where I thought it was overly representative of Sunni views. As this is a commonly proposed academic view, but approaches it from the perspective of higher criticism, I realise that some Muslims may be inherently against voicing this opinion here. My question is this: in the interest of encyclopaedic knowledge, should it be presented? And if so, in what way to be as neutral as possible? I'd like to hear from you all before I attempt any sort of re-write. Kaelus 06:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-intellectual?

I'm having trouble understanding why this article is split between the thoughts of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. The article is about historical events, and those events don't change is someone is Muslim or not. (There is one exception: believing that the Qur'an cannot be changed, but everything else is a matter of scholarship.) My point is that seperating them implies that the religious thoughts of Muslims are incompatible with NPOV thoughts of non-Muslims, ie, anti-intellectual. This is obviously false, consider that most non-Muslim scholars ascribe (at least the vast majority) of the Qur'an to Muhammad. I know this adds a lot of work to already big and messy article. What do others think about eliminating this division? --Ephilei 19:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] createdness of Qur'an

There is different idea about this issue. Mu'tazila thinks Qurán has been created. Look at Mihna--Sa.vakilian 13:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First person used in text

The earlier Prophets were sent to specific communities while Prophet Muhammad was sent to both mankind and jinnkind for all time to come, as claimed by the Muslims. If such a claim is true the very different nature - local versus global - can result in some changes between the scriptures. I am suggesting this so that further analysis along the lines of local versus global of the three scriptures could be performed. May be we make the mistake of insisting on identical concepts just because God knows everything there is to know and should not have to revise. Don't teachers tune their lessons to match the level of their audience?

POV or original research? Is there any supporting evidence ?

rgds <b>Johnmark<br>H 18:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

shouldn't be in there really. ITAQALLAH 18:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Completeness

I question the factual accuracy of the statement that most Muslims do not believe that the Quran (or, more precisely, Ayaat of the Qur'an) was ever abrogated. While I am not familiar enough with the Shia POV to answer on their behalf, I can say that the view that Abrogation occured is the normative one among Sunni Scholars. That 2:106 refers to earlier Scriptures is the minority view (supported by Muhammad 'Asad in his Tafsir). If one were to look at the works at the greatest scholars in the Sunni Tradition and at those Tafseers that are most highly regarded, one would find that these support a belief in abrogation. In addition, it seems as the interpretations introduced in this section are speculative; either no source is given or the source is questionable. Akbarally Meherally is not a scholar. He is an anti-Ismaili polemicist and critic of hadith. His qualifications in Islamic Studies appear to be extremely slight. لقمانLuqman 14:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If you mean "نسخ", Shi'a believe it has happened for example at first wine wasn't banned compeletely:"و لا تقربوا الصلوة و انتم سكاري" Then wine was banned completely. Also there is an Ayat in Qur'an which says abrogation is possible:"None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things? "(2:106)--Sa.vakilian 03:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

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