The Qur'an in its historical context (pdf - Islam and Christian-Muslim ...

CLAUDE GILLIOT
The same Van Reeth offers his support, with refinements and connections, to
the interpretation of Luxenberg of the so-called virgins of paradise (Q 44:54;
52:20), and ephebes of this same paradise (Q 52:24; 56:17; 76:19), 111 mentioned
in the present day text Qur’anic text (and which have fueled the imagination of
so many Muslim men). The origins thereof are likewise in Syriac literature. They
are obscured by a deformation in the present day Qur’anic text. Thus kurâ
d’enbên in the Syriac version of the Apocalypse of Baruch becomes in the Qur’an
hur al-‘ayn.
Other historical backgrounds that could suggest an Aramaic path include the
question of the origins of Arabic writing and the close relations between Mecca
and Hira, 112 along with the question of Biblical passages translated into Arabic
and the use of Arabic in portions of Christian liturgy, 113 subjects which we have
discussed elsewhere and to which will we not now return.
Conclusion: toward a critical restruction of the Qur’an
It appears difficult to follow Nöldeke on a number of fundamental points.
Essentially, when he declared: “It is important to note that the good linguistic
sense of the Arabs kept them, almost entirely, from imitating the particular
peculiarities and weaknesses found in the language of the Qur’an” (“Wichtig ist
nun, daß der gesunde Sprachsinn der Araber sie fast ganz davor bewahrt hat, die
eigentlichen Seltsamkeiten und Schwächen der Koransprache nachzuahmen”), 114
he nevertheless held that, dialectal occurrences notwithstanding, this language
was Classical Arabic (or better: ‘arabiyya). In this he was followed by the great
majority of Islamicists, including Régis Blachère (1900–73) and Rudi Paret
(1901–83), to mention only translators of the Qur’an. He continues to be followed
in this presently, with some notable exceptions.
We distance ourselves from this conviction of Nöldeke and no less from
another: “Slight clerical error there may have been, but the Koran of Othmán
contains none but genuine elements – though sometimes in very strange order,” 115
or likewise: “Nothing inauthentic: the Qur’an contains only genuine passages”
(“Keine Fälschung: der Korân enthält nur echte Stücke”). In fact, this proposition
contains two hypotheses: On one hand, that the Qur’an we have is in fact the
‘Uthmanic codex; and on the other hand, that this ‘Uthmanic codex in fact
contains the authentic revelations delivered by Muhammad. Nevertheless Nöldeke
later (1909) admitted the possibility that there were interpolations in the Qur’an, 116
after the publication of a contribution of August Fischer on this subject. 117
Too little has been made of the work carried out by al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf in the
epoch of the Umayyad ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 65–86/685–705). Without going so far
as to consider, with Paul Casanova (d. 1926), that the ‘Uthmanic recension is
a fable, or that it “n’a qu’une filiation fantaisiste,” 118 one can presume that
modifications were made to the text. 119 Having said that, we are still in need of
precise research, such as those that Fred Leemhuis conducts which have shown
that at the beginning of the second/eight century qira’a (“variant”) and tafsir
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