"So much for the controversy over the Sana fragments. It was actualy
Toby Lester who was the one that tried to inflate this whole issue
into something it wasn't, and Dr Puin himself has denied all the
findings Lester ascribes to him, apart from the spelling differences.
The media and western scholars just lapped it up without conscience,
like they always do."
John Burton:
What we have today in our hands is the Mushaf of Muhammad.
--- In proletar@yahoogroups.com, "hadjar_wish" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Reposting
>
> --- In proletar@yahoogroups.com, "Jusfiq HADJAR" <tikungan@> wrote:
>
>
> Dr. Christoph Heger
> Mar 13 1999, 10:00 am hide options
> Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
> From: Christoph.He...@ (Dr. Christoph Heger) - Find
> messages by this author
> Date: 1999/03/13
> Subject: Gerd-R. Puin's position on the Yemeni Qur'ans
> Reply to Author | Forward | Print | View Thread | Show original |
> Report Abuse
>
> Greetings to all,
>
>
> In Toby Lester's article "What is the Koran?", published in the
> January 1999 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, a German scholar, Dr.
> Gerd-R. Puin, played a prominent role, as he is researching on
> the old Yemeni Qur'an manuscripts. Since he felt that his
> position concerning Qur'an scholarship could be misunderstood
> from this article (and especially its various erroneous Arabic
> translations) he asked me to share with this list his following
> paper. He himself has no access to the Internet and its mailing
> lists.
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Christoph Heger
> _________________________________________________________
> _____________
> ____
>
> Dr. Gerd-R.
> Puin
> FR 7.2 Orientalistik
> Universitaet des Saarlandes
> D-66111 Saarbruecken
>
>
> January, l999
>
> My position concerning my work on Yemeni Koran fragments:
>
>
> I have been lucky - and still I am - to study many of the oldest
> Yemeni Koran manuscripts written in the most archaic "Hijazi"
> style.
>
> In these I found variants and peculiarities which are not
> recorded in the traditional Arabic books on qira'at (variant
> readings), or in the books on rasm al- masahif (orthography of
> the Koran[s]) nor in those on the ti'dad al-ayat (counting
> [systems] of verses).
>
> The Hijazi Korans show more variants than those recorded as the
> Seven, Ten or Fourteen Readings, they show more patterns of
> "counting" - i.e. definitions of what is to be understood as a
> verse - than the two dozen "schools" of counting would accept,
> finally, the sequence of how the surahs were arranged in early
> times, was even more variegated than Ibn Nadim's account on the
> sequence of surahs in the Korans of Ubayy or Ibn Mas'ud suggests!
>
>
> If I had not had access to Yamani Koran fragments preserved in
> the Dar al-Makhtutat al-Yamaniyyah, San'a', I could have possibly
> found similar variants and peculiarities in Hijazi fragments of
> the Koran kept outside the Yemen in many libraries or museums,
> e.g. in France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, or Kuwait. A most
> spectacular (complete??) Hijazi Koran can be admired in the
> Islamic Museum of Cairo, only a few meters from the entrance, in
> a special vitrine to the right of the main route; this treasure
> is in Egypt since 1300 years or so, but I know of no
> investigation, of no publication on its peculiarities!
>
>
> There is, on the Muslims' side, no interest in textual research
> on the Koran since 900 years! Except from some western semitists
> who, from time to time, detect the etymology of one Koranic
> expression or another, most of the Arabists feel reluctant to
> make up their minds on the genesis of the Koran. The reason for
> this kind of negligence is quite clear: Both the Muslims and most
> of the Arabists conceive any early deviation from the Koranic
> scripture (as is represented by the Cairo print edition) for a
> lapsus calami, a mere scribal error.
>
>
> Yet, if "scribal errors" happen to occur with the same words,
> more often than twice, in the same manuscript or even in two or
> three, then it is common (philological) sense to look out for a
> rationale!
>
> This is my position: taking recurrent deviations from the
> (printed) Koran for serious and not for insufficiencies of the
> early scribes!
>
> The Koran, being the biggest Arabic text corpus extant from late
> antiquity, even in its actual printed edition bears witness of
> all stages of orthographic reforms through which the text passed
> down to us. I feel confident that an insight into the development
> of Koranic orthography will at least lead to a different notion
> of the text in some cases, and to a better understanding in many
> many more passages.
>
> This will not, I'm afraid, bring about the breakthrough in the
> understanding of the Koran, but it might contribute to show that
> the Koran has a history, not only in the sense of asbab al-nuzul
> ("causes for revelation"). The breakthrough might come along with
> the answer upon the question: What is the language of the Koran?
>
> Meanwhile, I stick to the manuscripts.
>
> Dr. Gerd-R. Puin
>
>
> Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
> ======================================
>
> Orang Islam tipikal kudu sadar bahwa al-Mushaf itu TIDAK berbukti
> berisi wahyu Allah
> dan hadits itu mustahil ada yang sahih
>
> --- End forwarded message ---
>
> --- End forwarded message ---
>
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