Challenges by Western scholars of the Qur'an

A number of Western scholars have criticized the traditional Muslim view of the history of the
Qur'an. They include Richard Bell, whose ideas were, to some extent, taken up by other scholars,
such as Montgomery Watt. Bell questioned the validity of aspects of the traditional Muslim view,
arguing that some Muslim sources include contradictory statements about whether it was Abu Bakr,
Umar or Uthman who initiated the task of collecting the Qur'an. He also had doubts about the
supposed reasons for initiating the collection of the Qur'an, questioning the truth of reports that a
large number of those who memorized the Qur'an were killed in battle. He further suggested that if
it were true that the first collection of the Qur'an was, in fact, initiated by Abu Bakr, it was obviously
not accorded much authority, as Uthman apparently made a fresh collection only a few years later.
Bell's view is that any collection made during Abu Bakr's time was probably only partial and
unofficial.

While positions such as Bell's do not question Muslim tradition regarding the collection of the
Qur'an in its entirety, other Western scholars have attempted to revisit fundamental aspects of this
tradition. Many have argued that the Qur'an was an evolving text, the content of which may not
have been fixed, in either oral or written form, until well after the Prophet's death. This position
clearly contradicts key aspects ing the Qur'an. Some scholars have also argued that much of the
Islamic tradition and literature on issues related to the collection of the Qur'an was fabricated during
the second century of Islam. The British scholar John Wansbrough was one of the foremost
proponents of this approach. His main ideas are found in his work, Quranic Studies: Sources and
Methods of Scriptural Interpretation, which has influenced numerous scholars in the West.

One of the most controversial aspects of Wansbrough's work was that he approached the Qur'an as
a literary work, in the tradition of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and regarded it as a purely
man-made product. Wansbrough made a number of 'conjectural' proposals, as he called them,
among them that Islam could be more accurately defined as a sect which Islamic tradition regard-
grew out of the Judaeo-Christian tradition during a period of fierce debate between existing Jewish
and Christian groups. He suggested that during this time, Arab tribes adapted Judaeo-Christian texts
to their own cultures, eventually developing their own Islamic' scriptures over the first/seventh and
second/eighth centuries.5 This argument was supported by Wansbrough's assertion that no textual
evidence existed regarding the concept of 'Islam', or the collection of the Qur'an as a text, until 150
years after the Prophet's death. 16

Wansbrough's use of methods of biblical criticism led him to conclude that the Islamic tradition is a
salvation history'- a term used in biblical studies to describe a theologically and evangelically
motivated myth related to a religion's origins that is projected back in time.17 However, his main
aim was not to identify why the Qur'an was compiled. Rather, Wansbrough's focus was on
determining how and when the Qur'an came to be accepted and canonized as 'scripture'; something
he believed did not occur until the Umayyad caliphate, over 100 years after the Prophet's death.18

Wansbrough's work inspired other scholars in the revisionist tradition, such as Michael Cook and
Patricia Crone, who attempted to reconstruct the history of the origins of Islam. In Hagarism: The
Making of the Islamie World,19 Cook and Crone proposed that Islam was actually a messianic Arab
movement allied with Judaism, which attempted to reclaim Syria and the Holy Land from the
Byzantine empire.
Wansbrough himself was critical of the book's methodological assumptions, and the authors
themselves have since moved away from some of their initial theories.

According to a British scholar, Gerald Hawting, Wansbrough was mainly concerned to separate the
link typically made between the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad, who he believed to
be merely an idea created by the Islamic tradition, just as some biblical scholars believe Jesus to be a
product of Christianity.20 Hawting suggests that many scholars do not approach Islam seriously –
instead of examining the religion with academic rigour, many refrain from questioning issues such as
the origins of the Qur'an, possibly out of a desire not to offend Muslims. In contrast, he argues that
Wansbrough took Islam seriously by subjecting the Qur'an to the same critical historical analysis
used in the study of Christian and Jewish texts.

However, for many Muslims, the views of scholars like Wansbrough are highly controversial and,
indeed, unpalatable. An example of the Muslim response to this scholarship is the work of
Muhammad Azami, who, in his work The History of the Qur'anic Text from Revelation to
Compilation,2" attempts to defend the historical reliability of the Qur'an. Azami cites traditional
Muslim sources in arguing that approximately 65 Companions served as scribes for the Prophet for
varying periods, and were reported to have written down entire sections of the Qur'an before the
Prophet's death.22 He also suggests that written documents were, in fact, already part of early
Muslim culture, and that many Companions reportedly had their own records of parts of the
Qur'an.23 Azami argues that, based on available records, the only variations of Qur'anic verses
known at the time were minor and did not alter the meaning of the texts. For instance, minor
variations in vowels sometimes occurred, or there was a shift from the second person to the third
person, with little or no impact on meaning.24

A criticism of this traditional response is that many of these arguments are circular. While revisionist
Western scholars like Wansbrough have questioned the very authenticity of the Qur'an and the
traditions concerning its collection and compilation, Azami's counter-arguments are based almost
entirely on these traditions and the Qur'an itself. As a scholar of hadith, he seems to rely on an
authentication of these traditions, using the traditional approach to hadith criticism, which a number
of Western scholars have also rejected.

However, other scholars of the Qur'an, including some Western scholars, have cited debates among
Muslim communities from the first/seventh century about the content of the Qur'an as evidence of
the Qur'an's early compilation. For example, it is reported that during this time the Kharijis rejected
the twelfth chapter of the Qur'an, and that some early Shi'a accused the official compilers of
excluding certain verses, which supported their views, from the complete official text.25 Other
scholars, such as John Burton, have also argued that the Prophet himself had 'sanctioned' a
complete 'edition' of the Qur'an by the time of his death.26

An American scholar, Estelle Whelan, has also criticized aspects of Wansbrough's analysis for
assuming that the Qur'an's compilation followed a similar path to that of Hebrew scripture.27
Whelan refers to evidence of Qur'anic inscriptions at the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, that date
from around 65-86/685-705, only half a century after the Prophet's death. Some of the most
prominent inscriptions appear to be drawn from Qur'anic verses. While most match the standard
Uthmanic Codex, some appear to contain slight modifications, and at one point two verses are
conflated.28
Whelan argues that the best explanation for the modifications is that they were introduced to allow
the inscription to flow as a single text. She comments that although there were 'efforts to establish
and preserve a standard version [of the Qur'an] ... there has [also] been a tradition of drawing upon
and modifying that text for a variety of rhetorical purposes.29 This practice was 'dependent upon
recognition of the text by the listeners, or readers'.30 This implies that for creative use of Qur'anic
texts to have occurred, they must already have been the 'common property of the community'.31
Further, had the codex still been undergoing revision at this early stage, it is difficult to believe that
the variations in such a prominent inscription would not have influenced the final version.32

Other evidence cited by Whelan includes Qur'anic inscriptions from the Prophet's mosque, in
Medina, that seem to indicate that the order of at least chapters 91-114 had been established by the
end of the first/seventh century.33 She also cites evidence from a number of sources about the exis-
tence of professional Qur'an copyists in Medina at a similar time, which indicates a demand for
copies of an established text.4 Further discussion of Western scholarship on the Qur'an can be found
in Chapter 6.