delivered lectures on the San‘â’ manuscripts.

It is not known what exactly they said there on the subject; but in the above mentioned article Puin stresses three things. First, he refers to the attempts made previously by the orientalists like Jeffery, Pretzl, Spitaler and Fischer to collect the existing manuscripts of the Qur’ân with a view to preparing what they call a revised version by comparing any differences in them and regretfully mentions that the very large number of manuscripts collected for the purpose at the university of Munich, Germany, were destroyed by bombing during the Second World war. (1) He then expresses the hope that the San‘â’ find offers an opportunity to resume that project. Second, he mentions what he has been able to note the "discrepancies" in the San‘â’ manuscripts, such as the writing of the letter ’alif (hamzah) in an incorrect way, the numbering of the ’âyahs in some sûrahs, and the order or sûrahs written on a couple of sheets. Third, he recognizes that these "discrepancies" are minor and they would not probably lead to any sudden and significant advance in the field of Qur’ânic studies. Nonetheless he asserts that the Qur’ân, though it claims to be "clear" (mubîn) is not so and that the existence of the above mentioned "discrepancies" show that the sûrahs of the Qur’ân were not written down in their final form during the lifetime of the Prophet and that it is probable that a Qur’ân with a different order of the sûrahs was in circulation for a long time.

It is to be pointed out that these statements and conclusions are far-fetched and totally untenable; but they gave rise to wide speculations among the orientalist enthusiasts. One of them, Toby Lester, held a telephonic conversation with Puin on the subject and then put forth a heavy-weight journalistic article in the January 1999 issue of The Atlantic Monthly under titled "What is the Qur’ân?" (2) The article was made up of three types of materials: (a) information about the San‘â’ find and the conclusions said to have been arrived at by Puin and Bothmer; (b) assumptions of the other orientalists like Wansborough, Cook, Crone,