Quranic textual history? Yes sir.

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It is commonplace among Muslims to argue/suggest that the Quran has no "textual transmission" because what Muhammad received from Allah was simply written down and kept untouched thence forward. Because of this staunch religious belief, very little work has been done on the textual history of the Quran. (In fact, there were so many different early manuscripts that one leader had all manuscripts but one burned.)

There is a recent dissertation that examines the textual history of the Quran. Larry Hurtado offers some good thoughts:



Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 1, 2013 at 12:21 AM

    The printed Quran we have today is generally accepted as that of the "Uthmani Codex". The original was compiled about a dozen years after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) --around 644CE. at this time (according to Muslim history) other variations were destroyed. However, the Uthamni codex relied on a previous compilation done at the time of Caliph Abu Bakr soon after the death of the Prophet(pbuh) around 632 CE. This compilation took into account the 2 existing written Quran (not in book form) and the oral transmission---the vetting process was rigorous----all oral transmissions needed to have 2 witnesses that saw the transmission from the Prophet(pbuh) to the listener/reciter.
    Therefore Small may not think there was an "original Quran" but for Muslims---there is evidence that there was----and that the printed Quran we have today can be traced back to the Uthamni codex---and from there to the Prophet(pbuh).

    (See Compilation of the Quran---internet video by Khalid Blankenship or Sheikh Hamza Yusuf)

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