ISLAMOCHRISTIANA

47

2021

ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION

PONTIFICIO ISTITUTO DI STUDI ARABI E D’ISLAMISTICA

 ISLAMOCHRISTIANA was founded in 1975 and is published once a year by the Pontificio Istituto di Studi
Arabi e d’Islamistica (PISAI).
The journal publishes articles, documents and book reviews concerned with the theoretical and practical
aspects of Christian-Muslim dialogue, both past and present.
Editorial Board:
Editor: Valentino COTTINI, PISAI
Editorial Board: Christopher CLOHESSY, Michel SAGHBINY, Diego SARRIÓ CUCARELLA, Wasim SALMAN, Jason
WELLE
Notes et Documents Editors: Valentino COTTINI, Eugenia DI GREGORIO
Editorial Assistants: Staff members of PISAI
Secretariate: Eugenia DI GREGORIO and Monica RAMON
Scientific Board:
Salah ABOU JAOUDÉ (Institut d’Études Islamo-Chrétiennes, Beyrouth), Dominique AVON (École pratique des
hautes études, Paris), Cardinal Miguel Ángel AYUSO GUIXOT (Pontificio Consiglio per il Dialogo
Interreligioso, Città del Vaticano), Joseph BOU RAAD (Université Antonine, Beyrouth), Paolo BRANCA
(Università Cattolica, Milano), Martino DIEZ (Università Cattolica, Milano), André FERRÉ (Paris), Cardinal
Michael L. FITZGERALD (Liverpool), Dennis HALFT (Theologische Fakultät, Trier), Michel LAGARDE
(Amelia), Adnane MOKRANI (Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose [Fscire], Palermo), Gianluca PAROLIN (Aga
Khan University, London), Gabriel Said REYNOLDS (University of Notre Dame, South Bend), Khalil SAMIR
(Cairo), Giuseppe SCATTOLIN (Cairo), Roberto TOTTOLI (Università di Napoli, “L’Orientale”), Christian W.
TROLL (Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt a. M.), Dominique and Marie-Thérèse URVOY
(Toulouse), Ida ZILIO-GRANDI (Università di Venezia, “Ca’ Foscari”).
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Tel. 067827819 – Marzo 2022 ISSN: 0392–7288
[9] Book Reviews 353

Déroche François, Le Coran, une histoire plurielle. Essai sur la formation du texte
coranique, Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2019, 297 pp.; Italian trans. Tondi Arianna,
Corano, una storia plurale. La formazione e la trasmissione del testo, Carocci
editori, Roma 2020; English trans. DeBevoise Malcolm, The One and the Many:
The Early History of the Qur’an, Yale University Press, New Haven 2022.

The author of this book is a noted specialist in Arabic manuscripts who holds the chair “Histoire du
Coran. Texte et transmission” since its creation in 2015 at the Collège de France. His previous publications
focus on codicology, the history of the Arabic manuscript book, and early Qur’ānic manuscripts. After
noting in the introduction that the discipline of Qur’ānic studies has relied for a long time almost exclusively
on data transmitted by the Islamic tradition, and while acknowledging his own debt to the work of scholars
such as Viviane Comerro, Yasin Dutton, Shady Hekmat Nasser, and Angelika Neuwirth, the author states
his intention to move the discussion forward by comparing the views of medieval Muslim authors with early
Qur’ānic manuscripts, some of which actually predate the first Islamic treatises on the subject. More to the
point, the present book may be succinctly described as an attempt to determine the place and scope of
variation – both oral and written – in the early history of the Qur’ān.
Variation was an unwelcome notion in later Islamic tradition, which preferred instead to emphasize
the early fixation and promulgation – already during the caliphate of ‘Uṯmān (r. 644-656) – of the Qur’ānic
consonantal ductus, which significantly reduced the possibility of variation. Considered to be God’s
ipsissima verba, it was essential for later Islamic theology to emphasize the perfect correspondence
between the Qur’ān sanctioned by the religious-political authorities and its celestial archetype, the umm
al-kitāb (Q 13:39; 43:4), kept in a heavenly tablet (Q 85:22). The development of the doctrines of the
Qur’ān’s uncreatedness and miraculous inimitability worked to limit any notion of variation, because
many Muslim scholars saw a contradiction between a notion of variation and the timeless perfection and
divine origin of Islam’s sacred book. Moreover, the rejection of variation with regard to the Qur’ān was
no doubt also connected with the traditional Islamic accusation that Jews and Christians had tampered with
their own Scriptures. “This position”, writes Déroche, “makes Islam particularly sensitive to any
questioning regarding the variations that may have affected the revealed text” (“Cette position rend l’islam
particulièrement sensible à tout questionnement sur les variations qui ont pu affecter le texte révélé”,
p. 24).
And yet, Déroche reminds us, the Qur’ān itself includes the idea of variation, for instance by
speaking of revelations that were replaced by God with other revelations (Q 16:101). There is, more
importantly, the famous ḥadīṯ according to which Muḥammad said, precisely in answer to an argument that
broke out among his companions about the correct recitation of a sūra, that the Qur’ān was revealed
according to seven aḥruf and that they could recite it in the way that was easier for them. This ḥadīṯ thus
suggests that different oral versions of the revelations circulated with the explicit sanction of Muḥammad
himself. In fact, as we shall soon see, unlocking the meaning of the word ḥarf – singular of aḥruf – in this
ḥadīṯ becomes crucial for Déroche.
Before going further, let us notice that the author takes for granted that the origins of the Qur’ān are
connected with the preaching of an Arabian prophet known as Muḥammad, active in the Hijaz in the first
third of the seventh century. At several places in the book, the Qur’ān is described as containing the
teachings (“les enseignements”) of Muḥammad, whose spiritual experience is moreover described as
genuine (p. 42). Déroche never questions the biographical framework for the founder of Islam as presented
by the Islamic tradition. Still, he admits that, in regard to Muḥammad’s life, “precise data are scarce and
of uneven historical value” (“données précises sont rares et de valeur historique inégale”, p. 37). In recent
years, some scholars have questioned the Hijaz as the original location for the Qur’ān’s appearance on the
grounds that this Arabian region could hardly qualify as the “sectarian milieu”, to borrow John
Wansbrough’s expression, that must have constituted the Qur’ān’s first audience. While Déroche does not
delve into the debate, he nonetheless approves the recent scholarly push to consider the Qur’ān as a text

Islamochristiana 47 (2021)
354 Recensions [10]

of Late Antiquity and to relativize the traditional image of pre-Islamic Arabia as portrayed by the Islamic
tradition (p. 39).
A key concept in the book that appears again and again is Islamic “orthodoxy”. Déroche never
discusses it, much less problematizes it, even if one readily understands from his use of the term that he
refers to what eventually became mainstream (Sunnī) views on a number of issues regarding the Qur’ān,
including the already-mentioned doctrines of its uncreatedness and pre-existence, conformity with the
heavenly archetype, miraculous inimitability, etc. According to Déroche, these later doctrines controlled
the Islamic narrative of the early collection and transmission of the Qur’ān20.
As already said, unlocking the meaning of the ḥadīṯ of the seven aḥruf is absolutely crucial for
Déroche’s project of determining the place and scope of variation in the early collection and transmission
of the Qur’ān. This ḥadīṯ, which for Déroche suggests that some degree of variation existed in Muḥammad’s
own teaching (p. 72)21, becomes the focus of his attention on pages 78-94. Déroche shows that the Islamic
tradition takes pains to establish the sense in which the word ḥarf should be understood in this context. The
same lack of clarity applies to the number seven, which for Déroche should be taken symbolically to mean
a great multiplicity. The connection established by some Muslim authors between the seven aḥruf
mentioned in the ḥadīṯ and the seven readings (qirā’āt), or systems of recitation of the ‘Uṯmānic
recensionthat were canonized by Ibn Muǧāhid (d. 324/936), is also discussed and dismissed by Déroche,
before he then passes to a review of the views of some modern scholars, both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Déroche draws attention to a version of the ḥadīṯ that suggests that the practice being sanctioned by
Muḥammad here was the possibility of replacing words with their synonyms, the so-called recitation bi-l-
ma‘nā (“according the sense”), as opposed to the verbatim approach that became normative in later
tradition, the so-called recitation bi-l-lafẓ (“according to the verbal expression”). Déroche presents evidence
from various companions and some important figures of early Islamic history that lead to the conclusion
that until the beginning of the ninth century the recitation of the Qur’ān was not yet subjected to the rigid
constraints enforced in later times. Déroche remarks that in their discussion of the ḥadīṯ of the seven aḥruf,
most medieval Muslim scholars do not consider the recensions of the Qur’ān ascribed to different
companions, recensions which the promulgation of ‘Uṯmān’s recension eventually put out of circulation.
According to Déroche, the fact that these other textual Qur’ānic traditions are not even mentioned in the
context of the discussion of the ḥadīṯ can only be explained by a conscious decision on the part of later
scholars to not undermine the established orthodoxy by putting the rival recensions on equal footing with
the ‘Uṯmānic text. To summarize, the fight against variation in the Qur’ān, once variation was perceived
as a threat, took place on two main fronts: first, against the written recensions that offered alternatives to
the recension commissioned and promulgated by ‘Uṯmān; and second, against the variant readings that
could be accommodated by the ‘Uṯmānic consonantal ductus. The latter occurred by progressively
improving the Arabic script that was in use during the early transmission of the Qur’ān – what specialists
term a scriptio defectiva, without vowel markers or diacritics to distinguish the consonants that are identical
in shape.
Chapter four, entitled “La leçon des manuscrits” (pp. 169-229), shows Déroche at his best. The
chapter begins by explaining the reason why the study of ancient Qur’ānic manuscripts is still at its infancy.
Much of the blame is laid on the German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke(1836-1930), who concluded in his
Geschichte des Qorâns, first published in 1860, that the study of manuscripts had nothing substantial to add
to the study of the history of the Qur’ān, which had to be carried on the basis of the information transmitted

20
In the present book, Déroche identifies Islamic “orthodoxy” with the views contained in The
History of the Qur’anic Text, from Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New
Testaments, first published in 2003 by the Indian-born Muslim scholar Muḥammad Muṣṭafā al-A‘zamī
(1930-2017).
21
For a similar idea see Fred M. Donner, “The Qur’ān in Recent Scholarship: Challenges and
Desiderata”, in G.S. Reynolds (ed.), The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, Routledge, London 2008, 34.

Islamochristiana 47 (2021)
[11] Book Reviews 355

by the Islamic tradition. The chapter goes on to show what the detailed study of four early manuscripts can
tell us about the status and the circulation of the Qur’ān within the early Muslim communities. These
manuscripts are the following: 1) the Codex Parisino-petropolitanus, originally from a deposit of the
Mosque of ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ in Fusṭāṭ, where it was discovered at the end of the eighteenth century; it probably
goes back to the third quarter of the seventh century and it is the work of five scribes, all of whom wrote
in Ḥiǧāzī script22; 2) the Qur’ān Manuscript E 20 at the Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg, which
according to Déroche goes back to the eighth century; 3) another manuscript originally from Fusṭāṭ of
which 84 folios survive, 56 of which are presently kept in Paris (BnF, Arabe 331), and which probably goes
back to the first half of the eighth century; and finally 4) the palimpsest Codex Ṣan‘ā’ I, whose undertext
(the scriptio inferior) goes back to the second half of the seventh century and represents, according to
Déroche, the only known example of a textual tradition different from the ‘Uṯmānic recension, but also
different from the recensions ascribed to the companions Ibn Mas‘ūd and Ubayy b. Ka‘b. A first lesson to
be drawn from the study of the manuscript tradition, claims Déroche, is the awareness of the massive
production of Qur’ānic manuscripts already from an early date in Islamic history. Déroche (pp. 180-181)
provides a suggestive illustration of this point by comparing the at least 250 ancient copies of the Qur’ān
(seventh to tenth centuries) originally from the Mosque of ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ that are currently kept at the
National Library of France, with the about 70 exemplars of Carolingian biblical manuscripts preserved at
the same library. The extant early copies of the Qur’ān also indicate that the rasm or consonantal ductus
of Islam’s sacred book had acquired a remarkable stability already from an early date, even though a certain
flexibility can still be witnessed, as evidenced by the different sorts of variants that Déroche illustrates in
his presentation of the four above-mentioned manuscripts. Interestingly, Déroche hypothesizes that the
undertext of Codex Ṣan‘ā’ I and the ‘Uṯmānic recension are both heirs to a pre-existing record of the
teachings of Muḥammad, organized according to his instructions, but which did not include a precise
sequence – or even perhaps a precise length – of the sūras themselves. In fact, Déroche thinks that the
massive production of manuscript copies of the Qur’ān cannot be sufficiently explained by their use for
liturgical recitation. He thinks that the multiplication of copies of the Qur’ān should rather be associated
with the effort to impose a single text on the entire community (p. 228).
Chapter five (Les clausules et le « ḥadīth des sept aḥruf », pp. 231-254) focuses on a type of textual
variant that may be observed in early Qur’ānic manuscripts, namely the variants affecting the final part of
individual Qur’ānic verses. Déroche uses the Codex Parisino-petropolitanus to illustrate how short,
grammatically independent phrases had been appended to pieces of “revelations” in order to integrate them,
by providing them with a fitting rhyme, into a sūra that was still in the process of making. In effect, William
M. Watt had termed these textual segments “detachable rhyme-phrases” because they can be detached
without dislocating the structure of what remains. The chapter goes on to focus on the undertext of Codex
Ṣan‘ā’ I, particularly the cases of variants with regard to the ‘Uṯmānic recension that concern the end of
verses. According to Déroche, such an exercise can give us a measure of the degree of flexibility of the
Qur’ānic text that was acceptable during the seventh century. The variants in question often concern the
final word of the verse carrying the rhyme: in a certain number of cases the undertext of Codex Ṣan‘ā’ uses
a different word, similar in meaning, from the word present in ‘Uṯmān’s recension. It is in this context that
Déroche comes back to the ḥadīṯ of the seven aḥruf. After analyzing different versions of this tradition,
particularly the version in which Muḥammad allows the possibility of substituting the double divine epithets
that most often occur in set formulas in verse-final position (e.g., ġafūr raḥīm – All-forgiving, All-
compassionate; ‘azīz ḥakīm – All-mighty, All-wise, etc.), Déroche argues that the type of variation being
sanctioned here by Muḥammad concerned generally what Qur’ān specialists have called “clausulae”
(parenthetical segments that often serve to close out a Qur’ānic verse or verse section), of which the double

22
On this manuscript, see Déroche’s earlier work La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts
de l’islam, Brill, Leiden 2009.

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356 Recensions [12]

divine epithets are a well-known example. Thus, in Déroche’s view, the ḥadīṯ of the seven aḥruf contains
a kernel of historical truth going back to Muḥammad’s time that regards the oral performance of the
Qur’ānic recitation by the nascent Islamic community: the possibility of replacing a word with another on
the condition of respecting the meaning of the message. This flexibility of the Qur’ānic revelation –
particularly with regard to the end of the verses – became more difficult to maintain after the death of
Muḥammad and the increasing circulation of written copies of the Qur’ān. Thus, the aḥruf mentioned in
the ḥadīṯ should be taken to refer to the different versions, both oral and written, of Muḥammad’s teachings
that circulated with his permission among various groups of believers in Medina while he was still alive
and that gave origin to the different recensions of the Qur’ān that Islamic tradition has associated with
different companions.
To sum up and conclude, Déroche argues that the majority of the later Islamic tradition adopted an
“absolute literalism” in regard to the Qur’ān for politico-theological reasons (p. 266), insisting on the
perfect correspondence between the earthly Qur’ān – whether written or recited – and its heavenly
counterpart. As a result, the variation and flexibility that had characterized the genesis and early
transmission of the Qur’ānic text, both oral and written, was gradually lost or minimized. This process
also affected the relationship to the Qur’ān of the individual reciter (or copyist), who was deprived of a
certain possibility of choice (iḫtiyār) that had characterized the early times, was still practiced throughout
the Umayyad period, and perhaps even continued in early Abbasid times.
Since the study of ancient Qur’ān manuscripts is still at its infancy, as Déroche himself notes, we
can expect that some of the hypotheses and conclusions advanced in this book will be discarded, confirmed
or refined in the next few years, as more manuscripts come to light and become the object of study. In the
meantime, Déroche’s book is a much-recommended reading for those who are interested in the early history
of Islam. The immediate translation of this text into Italian and English demonstrates not just its relevance
but the incisive line of analysis throughout the monograph, which from this point forward will be a mainstay
in serious scholarly discussion in the field of Qur’ānic studies.

Diego SARRIÓ CUCARELLA

Eden Jeff, God Save the USSR: Soviet Muslims and the Second World War, Oxford
University Press, Oxford 2021, 253 pp.

Sebbene il titolo sembri un ossimoro ironico, la lettura del libro God Save the USSR: Soviet Muslims
and the Second World War, scritto da Jeff Eden e pubblicato da Oxford University, svela una fitta relazione
tra le comunità musulmane nei territori dell’Unione Sovietica e il Politbüro del partico comunista.
Oltre ad essere certamente di nicchia, l’argomento presuppone una certa delicatezza. Ogni volta,
infatti, che si analizza la vita e la struttura sociale delle comunità religiose, tutte le sue espressioni devono
essere tenute nella giusta considerazione. Non si può, in primo luogo, negare che la storia delle comunità
religiose nell’era sovietica sia stata scritta principalmente attraverso le voci della diaspora e le sue fonti,
che non raramente hanno il sapore amaro della persecuzione e della marginalizzazione.
L’autore, invece, parte da una prospettiva ben diversa. Il punto centrale è la volontà – almeno in un
periodo bellico – di una crociata culturale sovietica contro il male esterno a cui tutte le espressioni della
società erano chiamate a dare il loro contributo. Non secondario appare infatti il ruolo delle religioni e, in
particolare, dell’Islam specialmente nelle regioni dell’Asia Centrale, del Volga, degli Urali e del Caucaso
(p. 1). L’Armata Rossa non poteva fare a meno del contributo di milioni di musulmani nella lotta contro il
nazismo.
Il libro è diviso in cinque capitoli ben argomentati a cui segue una appendice con i testi della
propaganda sovietica e una selezione di documenti ufficiali, frutto della preziosa ricerca dell’autore. Il
tema centrale è la propaganda e il suo ruolo tanto che «la linea tra fonti “ufficiali” e “non ufficiali” a volte

Islamochristiana 47 (2021)