Taking orientalists by the horns

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 10/22/2006 10:48 AM | Life

M. Yunus BS., Contributor, Yogyakarta

The History of the Qur'anic Text from Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami Gema Insani, Jakarta 2006 386 pp.

The True Nature of Imposture, is the title of a monumental book by orientalist Humphrey Prideaux. In this book, Prideaux hurts Muslims with his statement that Muhammad was an impostor -- an allegation based on his observation of what he considered to be Muhammad's gross deceits, one of which is related to the Koranic texts (p. xxxiii).

Prideaux stressed that the texts in the Holy Koran are fraught with lies, as they were not in line with the concepts found in the Old and New Testaments. The text on the divine concept, in particular, contains a lot of Muhammad's lies, he claimed.

A similar statement was also made by A. Grohmann in The Problem of Dating Early Qur'ans (1952, p. 217), to the effect that some of the writings in the Koran said to be found during the early Hijriyah centuries were mere falsification and based only on assumptions.

This statement, quoted from what M. Minovi has said, is similar in substance to Prideaux's statement, namely that the Koran, as a work by Muhammad, is only a compilation of speeches without any strong and correct foundation and is, therefore, not suitable to be recognized as a holy book.

Such was the way of thinking adopted by the orientalists towards the Koran. The carelessness and phobia in their examinations of the veracity of the Koranic texts are too obvious, and therefore deserve a careful response based on various approaches.

One of the approaches deemed quite representative in this respect is the historical approach, an approach adopted by Prof. Dr. Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami in his book The History of the Qur'anic Text From Revelation to Compilation: A Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments.

Prompted by his intellectual restlessness of being a Muslim, Al-A'zami has felt called upon to respond to the allegations made by Western orientalists.

His decision to adopt the historical approach is highly reasonable in view of the fact that the arguments the occidentalists have made in response to the challenges posed by the orientalists are still lacking in incisiveness.

When argumentation gets caught in a vicious cycle of logic and rationalism, it will only give rise to a new obscure problem. The only way is to rigidly and objectively describe the historical roots of the Koran from its revelation to its compilation in the form of mushaf (the handwritten notes taken down by Muhammad's companions that constitute the Koran).

Broadly speaking, The History of the Qur'anic Text is divided into four categories of study: one, the history of the emergence of Islam, which began with a study about the condition of Mecca during the era of Prophet Abraham and also about the geo-political condition of Mecca toward the arrival of Muhammad up to his appointment as an apostle; two, the compilation of the Koran since the era of the first caliph until the establishment of the mushaf of Ustmani, plus the problem of multiple readings; three, the history of Biblical holy books; and four, the criticisms lashed out by orientalists and responses to these criticisms.

Again, al-Azami's book is, in principle, intended to nullify the careless argumentation often made by the orientalists. This is why, in almost every discussion, the author often quotes their statements.

With critical reasoning, he makes a profound study of the thoughts of a number of orientalists such as Toby Lester, Gerd R. Joseph Puin, Patricia Crone, Gunter Lulling, Goldzhiher and so forth. He has also criticized Snouck Hurgronje, an orientalist who once visited Indonesia during the Dutch colonial era.

The arguments made by the orientalists are actually geared toward how the Koranic texts have been renewed on the basis of their own method.

Basetti-Sani and Youakim Moubarac, for example, insist that the Koran and its interpretations, which are made by Muslim ulema, should actually be in line with the truth as put forth by Christianity.

Meanwhile, an article by Toby Lester may be considered a new card as it makes use of the fragmentation of the Yemeni Koran as bait. He stresses that there is quite a distinct difference between the mushaf of Yemen and that of Ustmani. The words Ibrahim, Qur'an and Simahum for example, have respectively become Ibrhm, Qurn and Simhum (p. 127). The result of this research was later sent to Qadi Ismail bin Ali Al-Aqwa, Yemen's prominent cultural authority.

Regardless of whether or not this finding is correct, there are certainly two questions to address: one, what is the effect of this finding on the original Koranic texts; and two, who actually holds authority over the Koran regarding its writing.

There is only a single answer, though, namely that there will never be any Koranic finding -- be it in fragments or in its entirety -- that will differ from the texts found the world over. If there exists such a different text, then it will not be considered as the Koran, because one of the conditions of acceptance is that it must conform to the texts used in the mushaf of Ustmani (p. 259).

Initially, there were indeed many differences in the Koran, a phenomenon known as the ""multiple readings"" of the Koran. However, during the leadership of the caliph of Ustman, these differences could be settled by choosing the mushaf of Ustmani as the most legitimate reference.

Why was the mushaf of Ustmani chosen as the most legitimate reference? Herein lies the significance of digging into the full historical roots of the Koran.

It is in the context of this significance that Al-A'zami -- in addition to countering the unfounded criticisms of the orientalists -- has written this book: He realizes the correctness of Edward Said's statement that ""they (the orientalists) cannot represent themselves, but must be represented"".

The reviewer is a Yogyakarta-based librarian.

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