Mecca, Watt published an assessment of Bell’s dating of the Qur’ânic passages (1) . In 1969 he consolidated his views about the Qur’ân and Qur’ânic wahy in his Islamic Revelation in the Modern World. (2) Almost simultaneously he edited and enlarged Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’ân which was published the following year.

Watt’s above-mentioned work may be said to mark the end of the modern period of orientalist study of the Qur’ân which started in the middle of the nineteenth century. As an epilogue to this period one may mention John Burton’s The Collection of the Qur’ân, which was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1977. Burton builds upon the Goldziher-Schacht assumption that the reports and hadîth literature in general are fabrications of the second and third Islamic century and on the Bell-Watt assumptions that the Prophet had made a "collection" of the revelations, some "revised" and some "unrevised", and that the reports about the collection of Qur’ân are manipulated in order to give ’Abû Bakr and ‘Umar (رضي الله عنهما) the main credit and to ‘Uthmân a subsidiary role. With these assumptions Burton blends his own theory of naskh. He says that the Prophet himself had compiled the Qur’ân; but later Muslim jurists "forged" the concept of naskh in order to justify certain fiqh positions and also forged certain verses in support of their views and held that these verses once formed part of the Qur’ân but were abrogated. Burton further says that Muslim jurists, in order to justify their theory of naskh, also claimed that the Prophet could not have compiled the Qur’ân in his lifetime because naskh of any ’âyah could occur at any time as long as he lived; and since he could not have compiled the Qur’ân, it must have been done by his Companions. Hence arose the "forged" narrations about the compilation of the Qur’ân. Initially, the role was given to ‘Uthmân (رضي الله عنه) , but as he became unpopular, the credit of initial compilation was given to ’Abû Bakr and ‘Umar (رضي الله عنه) and a lesser role was assigned to ‘Uthmân (رضي الله عنه). (3) This motive of proving the validity of naskh, further emphasizes Burton, "induced the Muslims to exclude their Prophet from the history of the collection of their Qur’ân text. It was a compelling motive. It was their