Which Koran?: Variants, Manuscripts, Linguistics

Few Muslims realise that there are several Korans in circulation in the Islamic world, with textual variations whose significance, extent, and meaning have never been properly examined. Ibn Warraq has here assembled important scholarly articles that address the history, linguistics, and religious implications of these not-trifling variants in Islam's sacred book. In a lengthy introduction, Warraq notes that historical and linguistic evidence suggests that there was considerable confusion regarding what should be included in the Koran in the early years of Muslim history. Although the caliph Uthman canonised a specific text some fifteen years after the death of Muhammad, variant readings of certain passages have persisted to the present. This can be seen in discrepancies between the two main printed versions of the Koran available today (the Warsh transmission found in West and Northwest Africa and the Hafs transmission, stemming from Kufa, and widely available through the standard Egyptian edition of 1924). This, coupled with the fact that Muslim secondary literature (the "Hadiths") discusses missing Koranic verses and even Muhammad's sometimes faulty memory, strongly indicate that the Koran cannot be considered an inert revelation. Warraq organises the articles in this volume into subsections dealing with the language of the Koran; pre-Islamic poetry and its possible influence on the writing of the Koran; influences from Jewish and Christian sources and from "Qumran" (the "Dead Sea Scrolls"); problems of obscure vocabulary and orthography; variant readings in different Koranic manuscripts; and, questions surrounding the biography of the prophet Muhammad. As a visual aid, Warraq has compiled a unique and valuable chart of thirty-two Koranic variants found in Korans available in the Islamic world, along with remarks on their significance. In-depth yet accessible to non-specialists interested in Islam, "Which Koran?" raises important questions about Islam's holy book.

About the Author :
Ibn Warraq is the highly acclaimed author of Why I Am Not a Muslim, Virgins? What Virgins?, and Defending the West. He is also the editor of The Origins of the Koran, What the Koran Really Says, Leaving Islam, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, and Which Koran?.

Review :
""Despite the text's extraordinary significance, the origins of the Koran are obscure in the extreme. Much like earlier compilations edited by Ibn Warraq, Which Koran? brings together a wealth of important European scholarship, much of which is translated into English for the first time. It will be of great interest not only to specialists in early Arabic and Koranic studies but also to students of early Islam and those interested in scripture more generally."-Chase Robinson, formerly professor of Islamic history at the University of Oxford, now Distinguished Professor of History and provost of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and author of Abd al-Malik, Islamic Historiography, and Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest