The Living Qur’ān

This Work Aims To Distill The Findings Of A Wide Variety Of Scholarly Disciplines Into A Coherent Narrative Of The Qur’ān’s History, From The First Oral Recitation To The Four Published Variants In Active Circulation Today. In The Process Of Unraveling The Complicated Relationships Between The Oral Qur’ān And The Written Qur’ān, It Becomes Clear That There Are, In Fact, Two Histories Of The Qur’ān And That The Overall History Of The Qur’ān Cannot Be Appreciated Without Understanding The Interactions Between These Two Occasionally Intertwined But Often Independent Component Histories. Discrepancies Between The Four Qur’ānic Variants That Are In Active Use Today Are Indexed And Analyzed. While Most Scholarship Views The Qur’ān Either In Relation To Its Past And Its Possible Origins, Or In Relation To Its Contemporary Status As A Static, Fixed Text, This Work Adopts An Organic, Developmental Approach Recognizing That The Qur’ān Is A Living Text That Continues To Evolve. Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Contents -- Abbreviations For Commonly Cited Sources -- Note On Definitions, Conventions, Style, And Aims -- Introduction -- Part I: The Written Qur’ān -- The Qur’ān’s Origins -- Semitic Precursors -- The Arabic Language And Its Script -- The Paper Revolution -- Verse, Chapter, And Other Divisions -- Part Ii: The Oral Qur’ān -- The Inherent Orality Of The Qur’ān -- Interactions Between The Written And Oral Qur’ān -- Versions Of The Oral Qur’ān -- The Qur’ānic ‘cambrian Explosion’ And The Seven Aḥruf -- Delimiting The Proliferation -- Part Iii: The Qur’ān Today -- Transmission -- Canonization -- Four Active Qur’āns In Print Today -- Methodology And Statistical Analysis -- Conclusion -- Timeline -- Appendices -- Appendix A Underrepresented And Misrepresented Qur’ānic Minorities -- Appendix B Plates/images -- Appendix C Discrepancy Indexes – Scans -- Appendix D Discrepancy Indexes – Patterns And Categories -- Bibliography -- Index Ali J. Hussain. Issued Also In Print. Mode Of Access: Internet Via World Wide Web. In English.