Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
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THE PRINCE OF MEDINA t 93<br />
various written versions of the Quran. So it was done, <strong>and</strong> a st<strong>and</strong>ard<br />
edition was produced. Copies were sent to all the Muslim<br />
centers, with the order that older versions be destroyed. The latter<br />
might seem like an impossible task in an early medieval society,<br />
<strong>and</strong> so it evidently was since modern scholars have discovered in<br />
very old manuscripts <strong>and</strong> the remains of ancient commentaries<br />
various slightly different readings of quranic lines <strong>and</strong> verses.<br />
None of these variants challenges the basic meaning of the received<br />
text, but there are enough of them to cause us to believe that somewhat<br />
differing versions of the Quran were in circulation long after<br />
650, <strong>and</strong> to suggest to others the even more radical position that<br />
the Quran as we know it, at least in the <strong>for</strong>m we know it, did not<br />
come into existence until well into the eighth century.<br />
The Arrangement of the Suras<br />
Though the collection of God’s revelations to Muhammad is selfdescribed<br />
as al-Quran, or “The Recitation,” it also calls itself a<br />
“Book,” though that word is to be understood in its symbolic<br />
sense, in much the same way we use “Scripture.” These revelations,<br />
the Quran asserts, are a Book in the same sense that the <strong>Jews</strong><br />
<strong>and</strong> <strong>Christians</strong> possess a Book, a Scripture. That Book came from<br />
God, it is made clear, was delivered to Muhammad <strong>and</strong> pronounced<br />
by him, but the actual physical book in the sense of pages<br />
within covers came later <strong>and</strong> was produced by human beings. So<br />
too was the order of the suras, which, as we now have them are<br />
arranged, after a short introductory prayer (the Fatiha, or “Opening”)<br />
that is reckoned as the Quran’s first sura, roughly in descending<br />
length. This arrangement, whose original purpose we cannot<br />
fathom, obviously tells us nothing about the order in which they<br />
were actually revealed to Muhammad, but it is possible, based on<br />
their changing style <strong>and</strong> differing content, among other things, to<br />
discern somewhat generally their original chronological sequence.<br />
From the point of view of prayer, ritual, or meditation, the chronological<br />
order of the suras is of no concern whatsoever to Muslims,<br />
who recite the work in its present nonchronological order,