Download or read book Textual Criticism and Qur an Manuscripts written by Keith E. Small and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011-04-22 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique work takes a method of textual analysis commonly used in studies of ancient Western and Eastern manuscripts and applies it to twenty-one early Qur'an manuscripts. Keith Small analyzes a defined portion of text from the Qur'an with two aims in view: to recover the earliest form of text for this portion, and to trace the historical development of this portion to the current form of the text of the Qur'an. Small concludes that though a significantly early edited form of the consonantal text of the Qur'an can be recovered, its original forms of text cannot be obtained. He also documents the further editing that was required to record the Arabic text of the Qur'an in a complete phonetic script, as well as providing an explanation for much of the development of various recitation systems of the Qur'an. This controversial, thought-provoking book provides a rigorous examination into the history of the Qur'an and will be of great interest to Quranic Studies scholars.
Download or read book Qur an Manuscripts written by Colin F. Baker and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning over 1200 years, from the 7th to 19th centuries, this history traces the evolution of Qur'an manuscripts across the vast expanse of the Islamic empire, stretching from Spain to the borders of China.
Download or read book The One and the Many written by Francois Deroche and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory account of early Islam’s great diversity by the world’s leading scholar of early Qur’anic manuscripts “There is no one better placed than François Déroche to write the history—and tell the story—of how the Quran went from words uttered by Muhammad to inviolable canonical scripture. This is a meticulous, lucid, and fascinating book.”—Shawkat Toorawa, Yale University According to Muslim dogma, the recited and written text of the Qur’an as we know it today scrupulously reflects the divine word as it was originally sent down to Muhammad. An examination of early Islamic sources, including accounts of prophetic sayings, all of them compared with the oldest Qur’anic manuscripts, reveal that plurality was in fact the outstanding characteristic of the genesis and transmission of the Qur’an, both textually and orally. By piecing together information about alternative wordings eliminated from the canonical version that gradually came to be imposed during the first centuries of Islam, François Déroche shows that the Qur’an long remained open to textual diversity. Not only did the faithful initially adopt a flexible attitude toward the Qur’anic text, an attitude strikingly at odds with the absolute literalism later enforced by Muslim orthodoxy, but Muhammad himself turns out to have been more concerned with the meaning than the letter of the divine message.
Download or read book The Future of Islam written by John L. Esposito and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-04 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John L. Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today--and tomorrow--he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to sweep away the negative stereotypes and provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world. Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics. Are Islam and the West locked in a deadly clash of civilizations? Is Islam compatible with democracy and human rights? Will religious fundamentalism block the development of modern societies in the Islamic world? Will Islam overwhelm the Western societies in which so many Muslim immigrants now reside? Will Europe become Eurabia or will the Muslims assimilate? Which Muslim thinkers will be most influential in the years to come? To answer this last question he introduces the reader to a new generation of Muslim thinkers--Tariq Ramadan, Timothy Winter, Mustafa Ceric, Amina Wadud, and others--a diverse collection of Muslim men and women, both the "Martin Luthers" and the "Billy Grahams" of Islam. We meet religious leaders who condemn suicide bombing and who see the killing of unarmed men, women, and children as "worse than murder," who preach toleration and pluralism, who advocate for women's rights. The book often underscores the unexpected similarities between the Islamic world and the West and at times turns the mirror on the US, revealing how we appear to Muslims, all to highlight the crucial point that there is nothing exceptional about the Muslim faith. Recent decades have brought extraordinary changes in the Muslim world, and in addressing all of these issues, Esposito paints a complex picture of Islam in all its diversity--a picture of urgent importance as we face the challenges of the coming century.
Download or read book The Art of the Qur an written by Massumeh Farhad and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2016 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul, held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., October 15, 2016-February 20, 2017.
Download or read book The Death of a Prophet written by Stephen J. Shoemaker and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The oldest Islamic biography of Muhammad, written in the mid-eighth century, relates that the prophet died at Medina in 632, while earlier and more numerous Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and even Islamic sources indicate that Muhammad survived to lead the conquest of Palestine, beginning in 634-35. Although this discrepancy has been known for several decades, Stephen J. Shoemaker here writes the first systematic study of the various traditions. Using methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical studies, Shoemaker concludes that these reports of Muhammad's leadership during the Palestinian invasion likely preserve an early Islamic tradition that was later revised to meet the needs of a changing Islamic self-identity. Muhammad and his followers appear to have expected the world to end in the immediate future, perhaps even in their own lifetimes, Shoemaker contends. When the eschatological Hour failed to arrive on schedule and continued to be deferred to an ever more distant point, the meaning of Muhammad's message and the faith that he established needed to be fundamentally rethought by his early followers. The larger purpose of The Death of a Prophet exceeds the mere possibility of adjusting the date of Muhammad's death by a few years; far more important to Shoemaker are questions about the manner in which Islamic origins should be studied. The difference in the early sources affords an important opening through which to explore the nature of primitive Islam more broadly. Arguing for greater methodological unity between the study of Christian and Islamic origins, Shoemaker emphasizes the potential value of non-Islamic sources for reconstructing the history of formative Islam.
Download or read book The Sanaa Palimpsest written by Asma Hilali and published by Qur'anic Studies. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a new annotated edition of the two layers of the 'Sanaa palimpsest', one of the oldest Qur'an manuscripts yet discovered, together with a critical introduction that offers new hypotheses concerning the transmission of the Qur'an during the first centuries of Islam. The palimpsest contains two superimposed Qur'anic texts within two layers of writing, on thirty-eight leaves of parchment collectively numbered MS 01-27.1 in the Dar al-Makhtutat (lit. 'the House of Manuscripts') in Sanaa, Yemen. The palimpsest's lower text, which has been dated to the first century of Islam (seventh century CE), was subsequently erased and the parchment was later reused for writing another Qur'anic text, which remains visible in natural light. This upper text is thought to date from the second century of Islam (eighth century CE). The two layers were imaged in 2007 by a French-Italian mission. Both Qur'anic texts are fragmented and present aspects of work in progress. In its lower layer, the manuscript offers the oldest witness of a reading instruction in a Qur'an text and perhaps even in any Arabic text. Such peculiarities offer rare evidence as to how the Qur'an was transmitted, taught and written down in the first centuries of Islam. In this book, Asma Hilali presents an annotated edition of the texts, together with a critical introduction. These contextualise the volume within the field of Qur'an manuscript studies, and engage with the historical and institutional contexts of transmission of the Qur'anic passages. The volume also makes systematic reference to previous studies and partial editions of the same manuscript.
Download or read book The Origins of the Koran written by Ibn Warraq and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars of Islam are familiar with the Koran's many errors and contradictions, but these have rarely been revealed to a wider public. THE ORIGINS OF THE KORAN is an attempt to remedy this deficiency by bringing together classic critical essays which raise key issues surrounding Islam's holy book. Indispensable to scholars and all those interested in the textual underpinning of one of the fastest growing religions in the world.
Download or read book The Original Sources of the Qur n written by William St. Clair Tisdall and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Did Muhammad Exist written by Robert Spencer and published by Bombardier Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there any sound historical evidence that the prophet of Islam actually existed, or is the entire story of Muhammad fable or fiction? It is a question that few have thought—or dared—to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived as a prophet, as well as a political and military leader, in seventh-century Arabia. But this widely accepted story begins to crumble on close examination. In his blockbuster New York Times bestseller The Truth about Muhammad, historian and Islam expert Robert Spencer revealed the often shocking contents of Islamic teachings about Muhammad. Now, in this newly revised and expanded version of Did Muhammad Exist?, he lays bare those teachings’ surprisingly shaky historical foundations. This updated and enlarged version of this acclaimed book examines even more striking and compelling evidence that the story of Muhammad, who for so long was assumed to have lived in the “full light of history,” could be more myth and legend than historical fact. Spencer meticulously examines historical records and archaeological findings, pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam’s origins.
Download or read book The History of the Qur n written by Theodor Nöldeke and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-05-10 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first complete translation of Theodor Nöldeke’s The History of the Qurʾān offers a foundational work of modern Qurʾānic studies to the English-speaking public. Nöldeke’s original publication, as revised and expanded over nearly three quarters of a century by his scholarly successors, Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl, remains an indispensable resource for any scholarly work on the text of the Qurʾān. Nöldeke’s segmentation of the surahs into three Meccan periods and a Medinan one has shaped all subsequent discussions of the chronology of the Qurʾān. The revisions and expansions of Nöldeke’s initial discussions of the orthography and variant readings of the text have found a new audience among those contemporary scholars who seek to create a more sophisticated understanding of the Qurʾān’s textual development.
Download or read book Islamic Codicology written by François Déroche and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is considered the most important and comprehensive on the subject of the material aspects of manuscripts in the Arabic script. Hence its importance in the field of codicology. It is also a resource and tool for researchers in the sciences of manuscripts, cataloguing and manuscript editing.The chapters discuss the makeup of manuscripts, such as the material they are made of: papyrus, parchment, paper, manuscript notebooks, the materials used for writing (pens, inks, colours and paint), the dimensions of the notebooks, their organisation, page layout, presentation, embellishments and their tidying in addition to their binding. The study also looked at the dating of copies and the history of the collections of manuscripts.The book gives a list of terms and academic jargon in addition to the meanings of the terms used in the field of manuscripts (French -English - Arabic)."--
Download or read book What the Qur an Meant written by Garry Wills and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war? There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an. In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims—such as Pope Francis—find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration—and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.
Download or read book How to Read Islamic Calligraphy written by Maryam D. Ekhtiar and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For centuries, Islamic calligraphy has mesmerized viewers with its beauty, sophistication, and seemingly endless variety of styles. How to Read Islamic Calligraphy offers new perspectives on this distinctive art form, using examples from The Met's superlative collections to explore the enduring preeminence of the written word as a means of creative expression throughout the Islamic world. Combining engaging, accessible texts with stunning new photography, How to Read Islamic Calligraphy introduces readers to the major Islamic script types and explains the various contexts, whether secular or sacred, in which each one came to be used. Beauty and brilliance emerge in equal measure from works of every medium, from lavishly illuminated Qur'an manuscripts, to glassware etched with poetic verses, to ceramic tiles brushed with benedictions. The sheer breadth of objects illustrated in these pages exemplifies the ubiquity of calligraphy, and provides a compelling introduction to this unique art form"--Publisher's description
Download or read book The Abbasid Tradition written by Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art contains the largest and most comprehensive range of Qur'anic material in private hands. The entire history of Qur'an production from the seventh to the twentieth century is covered, and includes items from centers as far apart as India and Spain. A team of distinguished academics is cataloguing the entire collection, which is to encompass a series of twenty-six volumes. The Qur'ans in this collection are described and illustrated in four lavish volumes, of which this is the first; it covers the eighth to the tenth centuries.
Download or read book Early Islamic Qiblas written by Dan Gibson and published by Independent Scholar's Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in history Dan Gibson has undertaken a comprehensive survey of Islamic mosques from the first two centuries of Islam. Using this data, Gibson demonstrates that Muhammad and the first four caliphs never knew of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. This book shatters old perspective about Islamic history and is unlocking the truth about Islam.
Download or read book The Quest for the Historical Muhammad written by Ibn Warraq and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars debate the accuracy of the Koran, quest to discover the biographical history of Muhammad, and debate the precepts of Islamic law.
