[proletar] Fwd: Reposting: PUIN: My position concerning my work on Yemeni Koran fragments
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 --- Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[proletar] Fwd: Reposting: PUIN: My position concerning my work on Yemeni Koran fragments:
--- In proletar@yahoogroups.com, Jusfiq HADJAR [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dr. Christoph Heger Mar 13 1999, 10:00 am hide options Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (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 --- Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
