Paul (Bilal) Williams here demonstrates how modern secular scholarship is a) discarding the radical historical-scepticism/ historical revisionism of the 1970s and b) affirming the reliability of the traditional (Islamic) account of the Qur’anic compilation. In particular, Paul refers to Professor Angelika Neuwirth’s entry in the Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an.
Why is this important?
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Categories: Islam
Blogging Theology 
” form-critical analysis leads … to the conclusion that the traditional account of the Quran’s formation, that which considers Muhammad to be its main conduit and the canonical version to be the result of a collection and redaction shortly after his death – an account based essentially on Muslim traditions – cannot be true…these reports are fictions which, perhaps following the Jewish model, aimed at taking the canon back to the early period of Islam.
The hypothesis of a much longer development, one lasting many generations, seems more likely.
The corpus of the prophetical logia that serves as source for the compilation of the canon probably developed through oral composition, whereas the emergence of the canonical text itself was a mainly literary undertaking… there is no way to reconstruct the revelation or life of the prophet Muhammad from Quran, sira, Tafsir or Hadith. To look for historical facts in this literature is a meaningless excercise’
If this a book which demonstrates secular scholarship is affirming the reliability of the traditional (Islamic) account of the Qur’anic compilation then I would hate to see an Orentalist Critique
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form-critical analysis leads … to the conclusion that the traditional account of the Quran’s formation, that which considers Muhammad to be its main conduit and the canonical version to be the result of a collection and redaction shortly after his death – an account based essentially on Muslim traditions – cannot be true…these reports are fictions which, perhaps following the Jewish model, aimed at taking the canon back to the early period of Islam.
The hypothesis of a much longer development, one lasting many generations, seems more likely.
The corpus of the prophetical logia that serves as source for the compilation of the canon probably developed through oral composition, whereas the emergence of the canonical text itself was a mainly literary undertaking… there is no way to reconstruct the revelation or life of the prophet Muhammad from Quran, sira, Tafsir or Hadith. To look for historical facts in this literature is a meaningless excercise’
If this a book which demonstrates secular scholarship is affirming the reliability of the traditional (Islamic) account of the Qur’anic compilation then I would hate to see an Orentalist Critique
LikeLike