Theo Todman's Book Collection (Book-Paper Abstracts)

Back Cover Blurb

1. The most surprising feature of the Muslim traditions on the collection of the Qur’an is their denial of any role in the process to Muhammad himself. The merit of assembling and preserving the record of the momentous divine revelations has been variously ascribed to some half dozen of the Prophet's associates or Companions, and these ascriptions have usually been treated as hopelessly conflicting. Dr Burton argues that they are in perfect agreement. Their sole function was the deliberate exclusion of Muhammad.
2. Dr Burton demonstrates in his analysis of the original Muslim sources a series of subtle distinctions, the most significant being that between the Qur’an document (mushaf) and the Qur'an source (Kitab allah). The former, the universally acknowledged text of Scripture, was alone to be used for liturgical purposes. In the long-continuing debates between the many regional schools of Islamic law, on the other hand, each group of scholars proclaimed its right to adduce variant readings. This development underlines the use of the Qur'an as a source, and the attribution of a local codex to one or other of the Prophet's Companions shows the Qur'an source, like the Sunna (the acts and sayings of Muhammad according to tradition), being furnished with its pedigree (or isnad).
3. A crisis seemed imminent when in the second Muslim century (roughly between A.D. 850 and 950) certain legal views which were agreed between the schools were rejected by a powerful fundamentalist group on the ground that they were not mentioned in the Qur'an texts. Two replies were offered. The first, that the Prophet himself had legislated on these matters, proved unsatisfactory since it raised the problem of the repeal of the Qur'an. The second suggestion, that these matters had been treated in the Qur’an and the relevant verses omitted on the assembly of the texts, ensured that medieval Islam would regard the mushaf as incomplete. This certainty necessitated the placing of the collection of the Qur'an in the period following the Prophet’s death.
4. This analysis of early Muslim traditions is the first such work for many years to challenge existing scholarly interpretations, and Dr Burton argues his case with a wealth of detail. It is a book which all students of Islam will find required reading.