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

GABRIEL SAID REYNOLDS
Of these theories perhaps the least known, but by no means the least provocative,
is that of Günter Lüling, originally expressed in his 1974 publication Über den
Ur-Qur’an: Ansätze zur Rekonstruktion vorislamischer christlicher Strophenlieder
im Qur’an. 47 The title indicates Lüling’s primary thesis, that the Qur’an preserves
within it earlier Christian writings. Yet Lüling also believes his theory has serious
consequences for the future of Islam, for which reason he gave the English
translation of his book a substantially modified title: A Challenge to Islam
for Reformation.
According to Lüling, the Qur’an contains four different textual levels. The first
level, the original text, is a strophic hymnal, composed by the Christian community
of Mecca. This community consisted both of Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian
believers. The former had adopted the Nicene doctrines of the Byzantine empire,
whereas the latter maintained the ancient (and true) teaching of Christ himself,
that he was an angel of the divine council incarnate, sent to undermine the
hierarchical, monotheistic Judaism of his day. The second level consists of
passages from that hymnal which were edited and Islamized in Muhammad’s
time. The third level contains those passages originally composed in
Muhammad’s time, and which have an exclusively Islamic meaning. The fourth
and most recent level are those passages altered by post-Muhammadan Muslims
during the editing of the Arabic rasm, the process by which the Qur’anic text went
from scriptio defectiva to scriptio plena.
For Lüling, then, the first task of the Qur’an scholar is archaeology. He seeks
to dig through the various levels of the Qur’an in order to uncover the original
Christian hymnal lying underneath. This can be seen through his examination of
the aforementioned chapter 96 (surat al-‘Alaq) of the Qur’an. Opposing the
traditional view, Lüling argues that a bit of textual archaeology will show that
chapter 96 was originally a Christian hymn. The speaker is not God but rather the
believing Christian. The intended audience is not Muhammad but his fellow
Christians. God is not calling Muhammad to recite the Qur’anic revelations that
Gabriel will give to him. The believer is exhorting his community to pray: “Recite
in the name of your Lord who created....”
Meanwhile, Lüling re-reads the mysterious term zabaniya of verse 18,
traditionally understood as the proper name for an angel of punishment in hell, as
rabbaniyya. He argues that it is cognate to Aramaic rabbouni (“lord”), the title by
which Jesus is called in Mark 10:51 and John 20:16. In Lüling’s reading both
terms, Qur’anic rabbaniyya and Biblical rabbouni, are references to the great
angels of the divine council, among whom is Jesus. 48
Lüling proposes a similar reinterpretation of the Qur’anic references to
mushrikun “those who associate (something with God),” a term traditionally seen
as a reference to the Meccan pagans against whom Muhammad preached. In fact,
Lüling concludes, this term is an echo of the internal debate that raged between
Christians in pre-Islamic Mecca. The faithful followers of Christ, who held an
angel-Christology, labeled their Trinitarian opponents with this term, accusing
them of associating Christ and the Holy Spirit with God. In Lüling’s reading this
10