That if the Quran was produced by an imperial court it probably didn't have just one author. Therefore it's a debate that needs to be settled in my view.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
How many people wrote the Qur'an?
- Thread starter firedragon
- Start date
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I very much doubt whether it is the first, and won't be the last.
G-d, however, has other ideas. He guides whomsoever He wills, and sends astray
whomsoever He wills.
It's been the same throughout time i.e. people often choose worldly status over truth
firedragon
Veteran Member
So your whole point is on an "if" situation. A hypothetical!
It's not purely hypothetical, there is some evidence to suggest it is probably true in my view. But I am currently in the process of going through Dr Joshua Little's critical review of Dr Stephen Shoemaker's work.
In it Dr Little runs 3 hypothesis through the historical critical process to see which one is most probably truer of the three.
The three hypothesis he runs through from memory are;
1.Al-Hajaj composed the Quran as we know it
2.Al Hajaj modified an existing composition of the Quran
3. Al Hajaj tried but failed to alter the Quran
It's 3 hours long as he walks us through the historical critical method in detail, but so far it is very interesting. I will try to share how he concludes it on Saturday or Sunday when I get time to finish it (so far I'm approx 1hr20min in)
Agreed, if you decide to believe without even looking at the historical evidence you are choosing worldly status (ie respect in the eyes of your Muslim peers) over truth in my view
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..but I understand what the Qur'an teaches .. it can't be compared with
books written by scholars claiming "their book is the first..", trying to "put the light out".
People are free to believe or disbelieve on its merit.
I don't live in the Gulf .. I'm a European on welfare.
I believe it is convenient ad-hominem to accuse sholars of trying to put the light out
Do you attend the masjid? If so you are part of a community. Does charity complement your welfare? Are you part of online Muslim groups? All of these things potentially contribute to worldly status in my view.People are free to believe or disbelieve on its merit.
I don't live in the Gulf .. I'm a European on welfare.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Right .. one either practices their religion .. or they don't.
Welfare IS a charity .. it has been made law and organized by govt., and constantly updated.
No .. I got thrown out .. they didn't like my attitude.
Such is life.
To me, that says something about how many people behave in an extreme way online.
I've never been thrown out of a mosque.
I'm a 'nobody' .. I'd hardly call that status!
firedragon
Veteran Member
It's great to hear anyone saying they will do some study prior to making their personal view their objective truth. Please do go ahead and share your findings when you could.
Cheers.
I believe Joshua Little makes a decent case that Shoemaker is wrong on his Al-Hajaj hypothesis, however Little seems to agree that it would likely have taken the backing of the state to enforce the canonisation of the Quran, so I'm not sure if he has resolved the issue of state authorship of the Quran or simply pushed it back to the time of Uthman.
But I did some Wikipedia reading and it states;
'It is typically accepted nowadays, including among skeptical scholars like Patricia Crone and Stephen Shoemaker, that the majority of the Quran at the least goes back in some fashion to Muhammad.[81]'
Source: History of the Quran - Wikipedia.
So without access to their works I can only assume the academic scholars have good reasons for believing most of the Quran was authored by Muhammad.
firedragon
Veteran Member
Shoemaker is no scholar of the Qur'an.
The Qur'an was authored by one person. Read any actual scholar of the linguistics of the Qur'an. The Balagha of the Qur'an. Etc. Purely from a source critical approach you could assert that the Qur'an is written by one individual.
I think if there was a single hadith that was similar to the Quran from Mohammad (s), I would conclude Mohammad (s) is the author. But all hadiths of Mohammad (s), he speaks way differently then the Quran, although from another perspective he is the speaking Quran and compliments it.
The fact is there is nothing like the Quran, even the words attributed to Mohammad (s) are not at all similar to the Quran.
Linguistically wise, it follows writing pattern more then oral, but these days people can say Mohammad (s) lied about being originally illiterate or had a reputation that he was and took advantage of it.
There's something to consider too, the Quran was revealed all over the place, and dynamically built. How did the Quran ever make sense? Think about it. The end result is what we see, but the way it was built it was something always amazing till it took final form.
Is this possible for us to write sentences all over the place and at the end, it gives a masterpiece of sounding beautiful and eloquent?
No one writes like that that I know of. From near the end to middle, to somewhere there and there, and it comes out a masterpiece at the end.
The fact is there is nothing like the Quran, even the words attributed to Mohammad (s) are not at all similar to the Quran.
Linguistically wise, it follows writing pattern more then oral, but these days people can say Mohammad (s) lied about being originally illiterate or had a reputation that he was and took advantage of it.
There's something to consider too, the Quran was revealed all over the place, and dynamically built. How did the Quran ever make sense? Think about it. The end result is what we see, but the way it was built it was something always amazing till it took final form.
Is this possible for us to write sentences all over the place and at the end, it gives a masterpiece of sounding beautiful and eloquent?
No one writes like that that I know of. From near the end to middle, to somewhere there and there, and it comes out a masterpiece at the end.
I believe I've already demonstrated that to be false in this thread, so I won't waste more time on your no true Scotsman.
Why not provide a link to an academic website which has The Balagha? So far all I've been able to find are heavily apologetic web sites who don't share the methodology or assumptions of skeptical historical critical scholars.
I'm unlikely to waste my time with such websites for the same reason I wouldn't go to Answers in Genesis website for historical critical information about the Bible.
You can listen to both and assess the evidence they both present.
Sure I can, but for that I need to know what the academic response is to the Balagha, so it would be helpful to have a link to their assessment of it and or its themes.
As a layman I'm not going to form even a tentative conclusion based solely of the works of apologists.
Sure that's true. But I think people been avoiding this discussion. The balagha has so many proofs, I think non-Muslim academics simply ignore this dialogue because it's not in their favor to get into it.
The author of the Quran was a person?.
A large degree of the reason academics find it difficult to get into serious historical critical study of the Quran is because certain Muslims take deep offense for the academics daring to take a skeptical stance on it. So of course it's "not in their favour", if you were a target you'd be reluctant to seriously address this whole mess yourself in my view.
Patricia Crone writes;
'The attempt to relate the linguistic and stylistic features of the Qur'an to those of earlier religious texts calls for a mastery of Semitic languages and literature that few today possess, and those who do so tend to work on other things. This is sensible, perhaps, given that the field has become highly charged politically.'
Source: What do we actually know about Mohammed?
A person can research it. There's a lot of academics who criticize Islam, they aren't killed. This is a lame excuse.
I'm sure if it was in their favor as far being able to disprove it, they would get into the research.