Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The implications of this really can't be overstated -- like digging up dinosaur bones, or the increasingly undeniable evidence of a heliocentric solar system -- there will always be people who deny reality no matter what, but reformers need proof they can hang their hats on and build a movement around. Faith can live on -- it just needs to make more room for material reality. Two articles worth reading: Andrew Higgins in the Wall Street Journal: The Lost Archive:
On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran.
The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright impossible," Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.
Mr. Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars -- and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave...
...and Spengler has at it in Asia Times: Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code.
Mick Hartley has a good post on the subject: Koranic Scholarship
Oh, yes, this will have as much impact as the discovery of the Judas Gospel had on Church doctrine...
Scorn is not an argument, Noga.
It's easy to belittle this discovery. Heck, it's easy to belittle anything... ask anyone who has a cynical teenager in the house.
Whether this discovery amounts to anything in the end remains to be seen. (That's assuming that the photographs themselves ever see the light of day. Right now it sounds as though access is tightly controlled by people who don't want the photos examined.)
My hope is that, sooner or later, photos will leak out to the Internet -- at which point it's an open ball game. Holding on to information exclusively is harder to do today than it ever has been before.
But for me, the bottom line is this: Islam is very much in need of a Reformation. Christianity had one, five centuries ago, and it took rather less than the Gospel of Judas to get that ball rolling.
Will these discoveries start the ball rolling for Islam? I have no idea. But it's certain that the absence of these discoveries will accomplish nothing.
Believe, if you wish, that we're no better off with these discoveries than without them. Speaking for myself, however, I still hold out the hope that the Western world can one day coexist peacefully alongside the Islamic world, without a need for one to exterminate the other.
The stakes are high enough that a little hope, I think, can be a good thing.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Nothing evolved it seems like.
"Say: "If the mankind and the jinns were together to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they helped one another.""
I know the dead sea scrolls were kept away from public ( because they were scared it will reveld diffrent things than whats present) but what about this forgery? I think if they keep the photos its better for them so they dont get embarresd in the public.
this way it will keep hope in some that try to minimize things.
My hummble assumption is that the photographer took pictures of diffrent quran handwrittings. ex ( ruqa'a handwritting, dewaani, koufi , ....) and thought they are diffrent. aljazeera logo for example is aljazeera in arabic writting and caligraphy...we can read it easily but foreighners cant.
its trust
because the quran didnt evolve and wont change. its the miracle of islam. the last warnong from god to all people at all times. it cant be changed and god promised that. its the last book to be reveld for humanity.
after reading it nobody has an excuse, because he heard and understood.
this book has its own power. not like any other book.
{Say: "If the mankind and the jinns were together to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they helped one another."}
when it was reveild a member of quraish tribe addresed his poeple
"
Oh Quraish, a new calamity has befallen you. Mohammed was a young man the most liked among you, most truthful in speech, and most trustworthy, until, when you saw gray hairs on his temple, and he brought you his message, you said that he was a sorcerer, but he is not, for we seen such people and their spitting and their knots; you said, a diviner, but we have seen such people and their behavior, and we have heard their rhymes; you said a soothsayer, but he is not a soothsayer, for we have heard their rhymes; and you said a poet, but he is not a poet, for we have heard all kinds of poetry; you said he was possessed, but he is not for we have seen the possessed, and he shows no signs of their gasping and whispering and delirium. Oh men of Quraish, look to your affairs, for by Allah a serious thing has befallen you."
may we all be away from arrogance
Commenter #3:
Perhaps you should read the article again. For example, as to your assumption that "the photographer took pictures of different quran handwrittings. ex ( ruqa'a handwritting, dewaani, koufi , ....) and thought they are different" -- you assume that the people working on this project cannot read Arabic.
However, the person who first worked on this project, Anton Spitaler, was an Arabic scholar at the Academy of Bavaria, and served, during World War 2, in the German-Arab Infantry Battalion 845 -- as a translator. The person who has taken over the project, Angelika Neuwirth (a student of Spitaler's), is a professor of Arabic studies at Berlin's Free University.
In short, I think we can safely assume that they can understand what they're reading.
If you believe that the Qu'ran was written by Allah, and that every word is perfect, and that not a word of it can ever be changed, well, you're entitled to that belief, and I won't try to argue with you about it -- because there's nothing to argue about.
If, however, you believe as you say, that "the quran didnt evolve and wont change. its the miracle of islam. the last warning from god to all people at all times. it cant be changed and god promised that. its the last book to be revealed for humanity... after reading it nobody has an excuse, because he heard and understood." -- well, then, in that case we have a problem.
Because you see, if that is your argument, then you are saying that all people should follow the Qu'ran, exactly as it is today, and have no excuse for not following it.
That is but a short step away from global jihad, my friend.
(It is also arrogant in the extreme. If you insist that I must follow your Holy Book and not my own, but that I cannot demand the same of you, then what is that but arrogance?)
* * *Perhaps the idea of a war between Islam and the rest of the world doesn't bother you; perhaps you don't mind the thought of hundreds of millions of people dead, Muslims and non-Muslims, in such a war. Perhaps you're even willing to accept the idea of Islam losing such a war, and the faith of Islam dying out, just as faith in Zeus and Jupiter died out.
I am not happy with any of those ideas. I would much prefer a world in which people of different faiths can live together. But I would fight, and die, rather than convert to Islam at the point of a sword.
Here in the West, we have found ways for people of different beliefs to live together peacefully -- and, for more than 200 years, it has worked well. And the principles are simple. I am free to worship God in whatever manner I desire, so long as I do not prevent my neighbor from worshipping God his way -- or from choosing not to worship God at all. (Or, as a famous American judge once said, "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.")
But it seems that too many Muslims are not content to worship Allah in a particular way; they wish to make sure that other people worship exactly the way they do. And that, in a world of more than 4 billion non-Muslims, is not acceptable.
What is better? To preserve the rights of every Muslim to pray, so long as he or she does not prevent others from praying differently? Or to fight until one side conquers the other, with the very real risk that Islam would lose -- and be eliminated? Think about it.
I very much hope that Dar al-Islam chooses the first path -- for your sake, as well as ours.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
I would add that in addtion of the deaths of hundreds of millions of muslims, the retaliatory destruction of mecca and the kabba, and medina and qom should be factored in by islamo supremecists.
Ok Mr.brookline.
lets assume that they have the expertise and tools to look at the quran and determine things professionally. so we will wait. what can we do else. I mean how many space shuttels were launched in India adn china and japan and the US during those last 10 months?
on the other hand when I said that they will have no excuse, I meant no excuse in front of god, not us as muslims to wage wars agianst those who dont believe.
and I am sad that you dragged things to the extent of a war between those who believe in the quran and dont believe.
america has its own system and your ok with it.....fine! nobody will impose anything on you.
other countries even dont need anybody to impose the type of rule they deserve.
each sticks to his borders.
(ON this point especially we cant compare islam to america, religeon to faith!)
if this is the case, then compare christian rule to islamic rule,
jeweish rule to islamic. that would be fare.
dimansions between a state and a religeon are diffrent.
back to to the issue of evolved or not evoloved.........lets wait and see.
although nobody cares what western experts say. for example jews discover and crticize their texts and claim diffrent things between them.
its their right
christians also.(alot)
they have their meetings and change texts or change rules every reliegon has its community that can discuss these issues.
but not a single islamic scholer even raised the though that the koran is missing or wrong or compiled wrongly or evolved. so when adherents of islam hear that a western expert has evidance, its his problem. but if a respected muslim scholer says this, then they might look into his discovery.
My point is,
we can have fun with these discovries from arabist or orintalist and look at them, but they wont be taken seriously by relgous establishment.
we have our scholers who look into things and work and decide.
ofcourse you know the many claims aginst the koran, so unless an evidance is prooved, then this is a forgery and in the list of other cliams agianst the koran.
why they attack the koran or islam? because they feel nothing can be from god, they think that everything should be corrupted or changed or not perfect, so they seek to proof this also.