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

INTRODUCTION
18 See Muhammad Hamdi al-Bakri, Usul naqd al-nusus wa-nashr al-kutub, muhadarat
al-mustashriq al-almani Birjstrasir, Cairo: Matba‘at Dar al-Kutub, 1969. Bergsträsser
was a guest professor at the University of Cairo during the academic year 1931/2.
The Egyptian/German Egyptologist Makram Rizq quotes Bakri’s description of the
incident in his brief fascicle entitled “Freundschaftsmord unter Orientalisten im August
1932” (both Bakri and Rizq place Bergstrasser’s death in 1932). Rizq agrees with
Bakri’s view of Bergsträsser’s death. He comments that “die damaligen ‘Neo-Nazis’ für
ihn einen heimtückischen Mordplan entworfen haben. Diesem freundlich-kannibalischen
Plan nach, durfte die Liquidierung von Bergsträsser nicht nach Mord riechen, sondern
nach Zufall-Tod, nach Unfall-Zufall. Dafür fand man auch gleich einen Zufall-
Orientalisten unter den Studenten von Bergsträsser selbst.” As with Bakri, Rizq does
not name the student he accuses of Bergsträsser’s murder. As far as I can tell, this
fascicle was self-published and distributed personally by Dr Rizq.
19 G. Lüling comments, “Awful as it is to say it, German Arabistics and Islamics, together
generally labeled ‘Semitic Philology’, were peculiarly vulnerable to the all-permeating
personnel policy of the Third Reich.” “Scholarly criticism of the Koran,” The Journal
of Higher Criticism 3, Spring 1996, 1, 79. Lüling continues by describing his research
into the Nazi files of German Semiticists, which – according to his account – he was
allowed to view on the condition that he would omit the names of those associated with
that regime. He comments: “More or less everyone had been involved,” (p. 80), and
gives the names of only two scholars who were not: Walther Braune and Hans Heinrich
Schaeder, both of Berlin. Meanwhile, Lüling describes Anton Spitaler of Munich as the
“epigon” (p. 95) of Nöldeke, a scholar whom Lüling accuses of anti-semitism (p. 78).
20 See O. Pretzl, “Die Fortführung des Apparatus Criticus zum Koran,” Sitzungsberichte
der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1934, vol. 2.
21 Leiden: Brill, 1937.
22 A. Jeffery, “The textual history of the Qur’an,” Journal of the Middle East Society
(Jerusalem) 1, 1947, 35–49; reprint: The Qur’an as Scripture, New York: Moore, 1952,
89–103; cf. Idem, “The present status of Qur’anic studies,” Middle East Institute:
Report of Current Research, Spring 1957, 2.
23 Jeffery provides a detailed assessment of work on the Qur’an through 1957 – including
the publications related to the Bergsträsser project – in his “The present state of
Qur’anic studies.”
24 “Das Koranarchiv der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften besaß Fotokopien
der beiden Hss., sie wurden mit dem größten Teil der Bestände des Archivs durch
Kriegseinwirkung vernichtet. Dadurch wurde die Weiterführung des geplanten
Apparatus Criticus zum Koran schon von den Unterlagen her unmöglich gemacht.”
Spitaler, “Die Nichtkanonischen Koranlesarten und ihre Bedeutung für die arabische
Sprachwissenschaft,” in a note added in 1972 to the reprint of this brief statement, Der
Koran, Wege der Forschung 326, 413, n. 2. The original statement is printed in Actes
du XXe Congrès international des orientalistes, bruxelles 5–10 septembre 1938,
Louvain: Bureaux du muséon, 1940, 314–15. Cf. A. Neuwirth, Grundriß der arabischen
Philologie, in W. Fischer and H. Gätje (eds), Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982–92, 2, 112.
25 I understand that a project on the text of the Qur’an is currently being planned at the
Freie-Universität Berlin. In November 2005 a seminar was held there during which a
model format for the presentation of a Qur’anic sura with variants was proposed.
26 Lüling believes that Spitaler kept the microfilms secret with the intention of writing a
definitive work on the text of the Qur’an, “what in the end he was obviously incapable
of achieving.” See A Challenge to Islam for Reformation, Delhi: Molital Banarsidass,
2003, xxi, n. 8.
27 “Was in der gedruckten Fassung kaum oder gar nicht zum Ausdruck kommt, deutete er
in mündlichen Unterhaltungen gelegentlich vage an, nämlich die Zweifel, die ihm mit
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