(d) Further extensions of N?ldeke’s assumptions

The Torrey-Bergstr?sser hunt for variant texts

Goldziher’s work on the Qur’ân commentaries in fact reflected a new trend in the orientalist studies on the Qur’ân. By the beginning of the twentieth century the classical Arabic works including the commentaries of the Qur’ân became accessible to the orientalists. Many of the commentators note the variations in the vocalization (qirâ’ât) of a number of words and expressions in the Qur’ân. These variations – some of which have their origin in the dialectical differences of Arabic in morphology, syntax, vocabulary and phonology – were part of the Qur’ânic revelation as indicated by the hadîth, "The Qur’an has been revealed according to seven types of variations" (1) . The variant readings are recorded in all standard works of tafsîr. The qurrâ’ (the Qur’ân reciters) all over the world recite the different variants of each âyah. Educated Muslims, thus, have always been aware of these variations. On learning of these variant readings the orientalists, however, conjured up the existence of different and various texts of the Qur’ân and enthusiastically took up the point to assail the authenticity of the Qur’ân and to prove that the text universally used by the Muslims is not the only text of it but that there exist other different texts.

The earliest notable work in this respect was Leaves from Three Ancient Qurâns Possibly Pre-‘Othmanic with a List of their variants, edited by Rev. Alphonso Mingana and Agnes Smith Lewis and published in Cambridge in 1914. The work does not really concern three ancient Qurâns, as claimed, but only select texts taken from different commentaries focusing on the variant readings of some words and expressions. Mingana followed it up by an article entitled "The Transmission of the Koran", published in 1916, in which he copiously drew on the writings of Paul Casanova, N?ldeke, St. Clair Tisdall and D. S. Margoliouth to cast doubts on the history of the compilation and publication of the Qur’ân during the times of ’Abû Bakr and ‘Uthmân (رضي الله عنهما). (2) Two years afterwards appeared the tenth volume of the Encylopedia of Religion and Ethics. (3) The article on the Qur’ân in it was jointly written by Margoliouth and Mingana. The former summarised his