Nevo and J. Bellamy about the Qur’ân and (c) indications about what the orientalists are doing or proposing to do in the field of Qur’ânic studies, specially the preparation of a Qur’ânic Encyclopedia.

Reference has already been made to the works of Wansborough, Cook, Crone and Nevo. As regards J. A. Bellamy, he is also somewhat influenced by "revisionism" in as much as he conceives copyists’ errors in the Qur’ân needing corrections. In a series of articles written between 1991 and 1996 and published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society (1) he examines some twenty-two difficult words and expressions in the Qur’ân which he thinks are mistakes due to errors committed by copyists or mistakes in the originals from which, according him, parts of the Qur’ân were drawn. Therefore he suggests emendations of these words and expressions, understandably by the orientalists themselves. The words and expressions dealt with by Bellamy have been explained and interpreted by both classical commentators and modern lexicographers. He has disregarded these explanations and interpretations and have drawn his conclusions on faulty understanding or misinterpretations of them. (2)

Similar in nature are the compilations entitled Approaches to the Qur’ân, edited jointly by G. R. Hawting and K. A. Shareef and published in 1993, and Kenneth Cragg’s The Event of the Qur’ân: Islam in its Scripture, published in 1994. To the same category belong the works of Andrew Rippin. He appears to have made his debut in the field of Qur’ânic studies by writing an article published in 1985 under the title "Literary Analysis of the Koran, Tafsir and Sira: The Methodologies of John Wansborough". (3) In general Rippin endorses the skepticism and