The Qur'an - a European Text. Taking Historical, Literary and Theological Entanglements Seriously 

My main criticism of the liberal/moderate/secular/moderate/ wasathiyah/pluralist/revisionist/progressive approach as well as the conservative/traditionalist/salaf/wahabi approach and other approaches circulating today is that all of these approaches only place the Qur'an alone as kalamullah/ayatullah. As if the product of kalamullah is only the Qur'an, as if it is only the heavenly book. whereas there are many products of the nature of al kalam, including ayat tarikhiyyah (human history), ayat kauniyah (universe), and ayat insaniyah (human self). the Qur'an itself recognizes the existence of these 3 types of ayatullah (besides itself, besides the Qur'an itself). The end result of studying/interpreting/interpreting all other products of Allah's word that have the status of ayatollahs (signs of Allah's power/instructions) have the same status as "dalil shara" as the end result of studying the product of Allah's word called al quran. Furthermore, because all of them have the status of "dalil syara", then all of the above ayatullah also have the status of a source of Islamic law (mashadir ahkam). So the "dalil shara" derived from the research of non-religious scientists (such as the laws of physics, the laws of biology, the laws of psychology, mathematical formulas, statistics, etc.) have the same status of "dalil shara" as the "dalil shara" derived from the study of kalamullah/ayatullah called al quran, because these "arguments of shara" also come from the same product, namely the product of the implementation of the same nature of God: kalamullah. Furthermore: thus the "dalil shara" can all naskh the laws of other ayatollahs because they are all products that have the same legal position / level (both ayatollahs). lex posteriori derogate lex anteriori also applies in the discussion of the legal relationship between the "dalil shara" taken from the 4 types of ayatollahs. wallahualam.

While she covers myriad topics in her lecture, one area she addresses is the idea that the Koran cannot be translated and can only really be understood in Arabic. This is a fundamental flaw at he core of Islam -- when the Holy Book, the word revealed by God, is preserved only for those who speak Arabic, and not just Arabic, but rather in its form as spoken in the 7th Century. That the large majority of the human race, and even the very large majority of Muslims don't speak or understand Arabic, let alone its medieval form, is an insuperable barrier. If one then contemplates the fact that the Koran was not immediately written down as dictated by Gabriel to Mohammad, but rather went through the Prophet, to be memorized by his followers, and then written down only after he had died, some decades later during the Caliphate of Uthman. Even then, the Arabic script of the day was still a pure abjad, and did not contain vowels, so diacritical marks, dots, had to be added later. It's not surprising that large parts of the text has been noted for not making any sense. If it doesn't make any sense in Arabic, how can it be translated? Hence the need for the Hadith, which is problematic on another even more significant level those explanations were written hundreds of years later. Then they had to go through a filtering process since most of the Hadith were discarded as being false. Whether the filtering process was correct is anyone's guess. Islamic scholars will dismiss all these fundamental difficulties as unimportant, but they do nervously, unconvincingly, fearfully. They worry that the truth of the fundamental flaws will be seen no matter how vociferous they are.

Angelika Neuwirth is presently working on a very big project called the Corpus Ksoranicum which won't come to fruition before 2025. At the outset, the aims of the project were 1. to prove that the Qur'an dates the 8th or 9th century. This idea seems to have been dropped since in a chapter in the Cambridge Companion To The Qur'an Neuwirth declares that new findings of fragments tend to confirm the traditional (Muslim) narratives. 2. that the Qur'an is a polyphonic document, i.e. written by different authors. This project as well as all the others carried in the West show one important truth: the impossibility of the European mind to accept the idea of divine revelation. The only Orientalist I know who has agreed that the Qur'an of divine inspiration is William Montgomery Watt who, in an interview declared the Qur'an is of divine source but consists of errors. For this particular reason, it seems quasi impossible for Muslims and European scholars to come to an "entente". Orientalists will never accept the idea that the Qur'an is a revealed word of God and Muslims will always insist it is.

The claim that the Qur'an is a European text has as basis the assumption of its "Judaic and Christian heritage".But the Qur'an denies it clearly and declares it is a revelation from above. The Jewish reformer Abraham Geiger triggered it with his paper in 1933, "Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judentume aufgenommen" and reformulated differently with Christian Watt, Bell, Margoliouth, Wansborough, etc. It has become for some two centuries an obsession, a fer de lance, a defense of Western Christendom to prove that the Qur'an is man-made. Good luck.

Strange claims. God Who knows the future intentionally chosen an Illiterate Prophet for the mission. The speaker claimed that Prophet Muhammad took from Christian and Jewish books in writing the Quran. The Arabic Langue used in the Quran is so rich even the Arabs at that time knew that the Quran was not from this World. ALLAH subhanahu Wataala says in the Quran that had this Book been written, by someone other than Allah, there would have been many errors. Did she find it? She claimed that Verse 112 was taken from Jewish Book. Similarity means the Author of the Books is the same. It is Allah, the God of Abrahamic Faith, the God Who created Adam and Eve.

Fascinating research. May it one day be possible to share with the public without fear. The work offers the ground for an integration between the three Abrahamic formulations - eventually. Meanwhile it offers the possibility for more neighborliness between the traditions. Alas, we are a long way from that at present.

Not all people knowledge about QUR'AN IS QABALLAH SAYYED ALI BI ABI THALIB RA.(Buchari and Moslim)

Impressive to me, as a muslim, by birth and now conviction, This study and similar highlight the uniqueness of preserved the spoken word of GOD himself. and not its depth and universality. No one should be the guardian of the word and its meaning and should hold to the most rigorous tests in any way of human interactions. but still no implementation of islam is a limitation to Quran.

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