Corpus Coranicum

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Quranic 9th-century manuscript page, surah 2:175-76 and 2:176-77 Koran-manuscript.jpg
Quranic 9th-century manuscript page, surah 2:175-76 and 2:176-77

Corpus Coranicum is a digital research project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Contents

The project makes sources accessible that are relevant for the history of the Quran. These primary texts include Jewish, Christian, and other textual remains from the world of Quran. To trace its oral and written transmission further, early manuscripts of the Quran are being catalogued and made available through the project’s database. A literary commentary on the Quranic text completes the project. [1]

Begun in 2007, the initial three-year database project is headed by two project leaders: Senior Professor of Arabic Studies Angelika Neuwirth (Freie Universität Berlin) is responsible for the commentary. The research centre is managed by Michael Marx, who is editor-in-chief of the "environmental texts" and the text documentation. [2] The project is currently funded till 2024, but could take longer to complete. [3]

Research units and methodology

The project will document the Quran in its handwritten form and oral tradition, and include an extensive commentary interpreting the text in the context of its historical development. [4]

Manuscripta Coranica

In the Manuscripta Coranica, the earliest surviving handwritten witnesses to the text of the Quran are made available; in addition to images of the manuscripts preserved in libraries and private collections worldwide, the database contains various metadata on the documents. This includes palaeographic and codicological information, provenance, and current location (as far as known). Each entry displays the corresponding Arabic text of the 1924 Egyptian edition (Cairo) alongside the selected manuscript. [5]

Some 2000 pages are transliterated in a markup system developed by the project. For date estimates of manuscripts, the project conducted carbon dating analysis of more than 40 documents. [6]

Variae Lectiones Coranicae

Since early Arabic texts are often ambiguous because the script contains no or few diacritical marks ( rasm ), various interpretations of the Quranic text (variant readings) developed, some of which were subsequently treated as authoritative. These variants include consonantal mutations, and encompass the addition and removal of whole words. [7] To follow the differences between the interpretations, the database Variae Lectiones Coranicae provides a synopsis of the readings used in different exegesis traditions. Each word of a surah can be selected for this purpose and its variants displayed. Both catalogues together aim to serve the research of written and oral transmission of the Quran. [8]

Cultural understanding

A database of diverse texts (including pre-Quranic, Jewish, and Christian texts) places the development of the Quran in the context of its spatial and temporal environment [9] and intends to foster better understanding of the cultural and religious horizons of Muhammad’s contemporaries and his community. [10] The chronological-topographical boundaries of the chosen texts can be linked to the Europe-centred concept of Late Antiquity. [11]

The project's research director, Michael Marx, told Der Spiegel that the Quran did not arise in a vacuum, as for the sake of simplicity some western researchers had supposed. The Arabian peninsula in the 7th century was exposed to the great Byzantine and Persian Empires as well as the ideas of Gnosticism, early Christianity, the ideals of ancient Arabic poetry and the ideas of rabbinic Judaism. Only in light of this world of ideas, Marx added, can the innovations of the Quran be clearly seen, [12] and while parallels exist with non-Quranic texts, it is not a copy-and-paste job. [13]

Commentary

The commentary focuses not only on individual problems but also includes form-critical analyses. [14]

Research aids

A custom font was developed to correctly represent the languages in the digital publication: the "Coranica" Font. It is equipped with glyph sets for Ancient South Arabian, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, etc (Unicode). [15]

Publication

The project publishes its findings digitally on their website, all content is made internationally available (open access). Its databases use SQL. [10]

Project History

In many respects, the project integrates itself into the research tradition of the early 1900 German speaking Oriental Studies. [1] Among other things, it uses the methods of textual criticism and engages with existing preliminary work, including that of Abraham Geiger, Theodor Nöldeke and Arthur Jeffrey. The point of reference remains the chronology as established by the inner-Islamic tradition. [16]

Luxenberg debate

The preparatory phase of the project (2005-2007) coincided with the period of intensive discussions on the preserved Quranic text. In 2000, an author working under the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg published a study on the Quran in which he re-interpreted various passages of the text using his own readings. His hypotheses, methodology and results met with widespread rejection in the research community, but the study was able to initiate a deeper discussion of the traditions of the Quranic text. Even before the project began in 2007, Neuwirth and Marx also commented on the assumptions postulated by Luxenberg. [17] [18]

Gotthelf-Bergsträsser Archive

A focal point of work in the area of text documentation is the digitisation and evaluation of the Gotthelf-Bergsträsser Archive. This source material consists of photographs of ancient Quran manuscripts collected before World War II by Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl. After the British RAF on 24 April 1944 bombarded the building where they were housed, Arabic studies scholar Anton Spitaler claimed the photograph collection had been destroyed. Towards the end of his life, however, he confessed to Neuwirth that he had hidden the photos for almost half a century, and Neuwirth assumed responsibility for the archive. [3]

Although the photographs of the archive form an important part of the objects of study of the Corpus Coranicum, the research ambition of the project goes far beyond the critical apparatus formerly envisaged by Bergsträsser. According to his paper on the matter, this was intended as a commentary on the Cairo edition (1924), in which traditional readings as well as manuscript variants were to be recorded in order to produce a secure text—in the sense of the historical-critical method. [19] These plans never came to fruition. [20]

Schirrmacher controversy

In 2007 journalist-publisher Frank Schirrmacher wrote an article for the Frankfurt Book Fair suggesting that the Academy's preparation of a historically critical Quran edition had been motivated by Pope Benedict XVI's ill-received Regensburg lecture of 2006 and predicting that the Corpus Coranicum would spark similar outrage among Muslims, comparing it to the punishment of Prometheus for bringing fire to mankind. He was enthusiastic that the fruits of their research might even "overthrow rulers and topple kingdoms". [21] Marx promptly called the Al-Jazeera television network to deny any attempt to attack Islamic tenets. [3]

Angelika Neuwirth demurred: "It would be quite wrong to claim triumphantly that we had found the key to the Quran and that Muslims for 14 long centuries had not." Instead, she and her colleagues have chosen a nonconfrontational approach that includes regular dialogue with the Islamic world [12] and aims "to give the Quran the same attention as the Bible." [3]

Michael Marx, Neuwirth and Nicolai Sinai spiritedly defended the project, writing that negative reaction to the papal speech should not be equated with Islamic hostility towards a historical-textual or philological approach to the Quran. [22]

In discussions with Iranian, Arab and Turkish scholars in Tehran, Qom, Damascus, Fez, Rabat, Cairo and Istanbul Marx, Neuwirth and Sinai had contended that even if one considered the Quran as the literal words of God, a contextual reading as a legitimate subject of historical inquiry could create a climate of healthy inquiry and debate among Islamic and non-Islamic researchers alike. The trio's letter also pointed out that the Corpus Coranicum project was in any case not directed to Islamic fundamentalists, but to Germans and other Europeans. [22]

Collaborations and public outreach

Student Humanities Laboratory

In April 2008 the project "Academy and School" announced that the academy's "Student Humanities Laboratory" had created a teaching unit on Quranic research. [23] Through the example of one of the shorter surahs , teenagers would explore the text through the tools of modern philology while experiencing it orally and through calligraphy as well, [24] with the aim of increasing the students' curiosity and scientific interest in the humanities during their transition to university.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quran</span> Foundational Islamic religious text

The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters, which consist of verses. In addition to its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gotthelf Bergsträsser</span> German linguist (1886–1933)

Gotthelf Bergsträsser was a German linguist specializing in Semitic studies, generally considered to be one of the greatest of the twentieth century. Bergsträsser was initially a teacher of classical languages before deciding to approach Semitic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Fatiha</span> First chapter of the Quran

Al-Fatiha is the first surah (chapter) of the Quran. It consists of 7 ayah (verses) which are a prayer for guidance and mercy. Al-Fatiha is recited in Muslim obligatory and voluntary prayers, known as salah.

The Madni Surahs (Surah Madaniyah) or Madani chapters of the Quran are the latest 28 Surahs which, according to Islamic tradition, were revealed at Medina after Muhammad's hijrah from Mecca. The community was larger and more developed, in contrast to its minority position in Mecca.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary in Islam</span> Islamic view of the Virgin Mary

Maryam bint Imran is revered in Islam. The Qur'an refers to her seventy times and explicitly identifies her as the greatest woman to have ever lived. In the Quran, her story is related in three Meccan surahs and four Medinan surahs. The nineteenth Surah, Maryam, is named after her. Moreover, she is the only woman named in the Quran. The Quran refers to her more often than the Bible.

Gerd Rüdiger Puin is a German scholar of Oriental studies, specializing in Quranic palaeography, Arabic calligraphy and orthography. He was a lecturer of Arabic language and literature at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. In regards to his approach of historical research, Puin is considered a representative of the "Saarbrücken School", which is part of the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.

History of the Quran is the timeline and origin of the written compilations or manuscripts of the holy book of Islam, based on historical findings. It spans several centuries, and forms an important major part of the early history of Islam.

In Islam, Qirāʼah are different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Differences between Qiraʼat are slight and include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants, and less frequently entire words. Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.

<i>The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran</i> Book by Christoph Luxenberg

The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran is an English-language edition (2007) of Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (2000) by Christoph Luxenberg.

Those firmly rooted in knowledge is a recurring theme in the Qur'an and Sunnah. This term is of special interest for the Shi'a.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanaa manuscript</span> Early Quranic palimpsest

The Sanaa palimpsest or Sanaa Quran is one of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence. Part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text. The upper text largely conforms to the standard 'Uthmanic' Quran in text and in the standard order of chapters, whereas the lower text contains many variations from the standard text, and the sequence of its chapters corresponds to no known Quranic order. A partial reconstruction of the lower text was published in 2012, and a reconstruction of the legible portions of both lower and upper texts of the 38 folios in the Sana'a House of Manuscripts was published in 2017 utilising post-processed digital images of the lower text. A radiocarbon analysis has dated the parchment of one of the detached leaves sold at auction, and hence its lower text, to between 578 CE and 669 CE with a 95% accuracy. The earliest leaves have been tested at three laboratories and dated to 388-535 CE. Other folios have similar early dates.

Günter Lüling was a German Protestant theologian, philological scholar and pioneer in the study of early Islamic origins. From 1962 to 1965 he was the Director of the German Goethe-Institut in Aleppo, Syria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic holy books</span> Religious scriptures seen by Muslims as holy

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quranic Arabic Corpus</span>

The Quranic Arabic Corpus is an annotated linguistic resource consisting of 77,430 words of Quranic Arabic. The project aims to provide morphological and syntactic annotations for researchers wanting to study the language of the Quran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Quran</span> Early Quranic manuscript

The Blue Quran is an early Quranic manuscript written in Kufic script. The dating, location of origin, and patron of the Blue Quran are unknown and have been the subject of academic debate, though it is generally accepted that the manuscript was produced in the late 9th to mid 10th-century in either Kairouan, Tunisia or Cordoba in Umayyad Spain. The manuscript is among the most famous works of Islamic calligraphy, notable for its gold lettering on a rare indigo-colored parchment. Art historian Yasser Tabbaa wrote that the "evanescent effect" of the gold lettering on the blue parchment "appears to affirm the Mu'tazili belief in the created and mysterious nature of the Word of God."

Angelika Neuwirth is a German Islamic studies scholar and professor of Quranic studies at Freie University in Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Quran manuscript</span> Hijazi-script Quranic manuscript

The Birmingham Quran manuscript is a single sheet of parchment on which two leaves of an early Quranic manuscript or muṣḥaf have been written. In 2015, the manuscript, which is held by the University of Birmingham, was radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 CE. It is part of the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, held by the university's Cadbury Research Library.

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The Revisionist school of Islamic studies is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins.

References

  1. 1 2 Onur, Enes Furkan (2022). Corpus Coranicum projesi dokümantasyon bölümlerinin analizi (PDF) (in Turkish). Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi (Open access). pp. 8–9, 10–11. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  2. ↑ Corpus Coranicum (2008). Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed.). Jahrbuch 2007 (in German). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. pp. 96, 344–345. ISBN   978-3-05-004436-1 . Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Andrew Higgins and Almut Schoenfeld, "The Lost Archive: Missing for a half century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive research on Islam's holy text", Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  4. ↑ Corpus Coranicum Archived 2011-02-26 at the Wayback Machine , retrieved 2010-02-07.
  5. ↑ "Print Edition—Overview". Corpus Coranicum. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  6. ↑ Marx, Michael J.; Jocham, Tobias J. (2019). ""Radiocarbon (14C) Dating of Qurʾān Manuscripts"". In Marx, Michael; Kaplony, Andreas (eds.). Qurʾān Quotations Preserved on Papyrus Documents, 7th-10th Centuries. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-35891-1.
  7. ↑ "Quran Manuscripts, Copyist Errors, and Viable Variants". Is the Quran the Word of God?. 21 August 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  8. ↑ "Project description". BBAW (in German). Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  9. ↑ Marx, Michael; Neuwirth, Angelika, eds. (2009). The Qurʾān in Context. Historical and Literary Investigations. Leiden: Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-17688-1.
  10. 1 2 "About the project". Corpus Coranicum. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
  11. ↑ Neuwirth, Angelika (2010). Der Koran als Text der Spätantike. Ein europäischer Zugang (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Weltreligionen. ISBN   978-3-458-71026-4.
  12. 1 2 Yassin Musharbash, "Die Klimaforscher des Korans" ("Climate researchers of the Quran") in Der Spiegel, 1 November 2007. Retrieved 2010-002-07.
  13. ↑ Interview with Michael Marx, Muslimische Stimmen (German, 440 kB) 14 May 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
  14. ↑ Neuwirth, Angelika; Hartwig, Dirk (2010–2017). Der Koran. Handkommentar mit Übersetzung (in German). Vol. 1–2. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Weltreligionen.
  15. ↑ "Tools". Corpus Coranicum. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  16. ↑ Marx, Michael (2008). "Ein Koran-Forschungsprojekt in der Tradition der Wissenschaft des Judentums: Zur Programmatik des Akademievorhabens des Corpus Coranicum (pp 41-54)". In Hartwig, Dirk; Walter Homolka, Walter; Marx, Michael J.; Neuwirth, Angelika (eds.). "Im vollen Licht der Geschichte". Die Wissenschaft des Judentums und die Anfänge der kritischen Koranforschung (in German). Würzburg. pp. 46–47. ISBN   978-3899134780.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ↑ Neuwirth, Angelika (2003). "Qur'an and History – a Disputed Relationship: Some Reflections on Qur'anic History and History in the Qur'an". Journal of Qur'anic Studies. 5 (1): 8–10. doi:10.3366/jqs.2003.5.1.1 – via euppublishing.com.
  18. ↑ Marx, Michael (2003). "Ein neuer Impuls zur Erforschung des Korans. Teil I-II". Inamo. 33/34.
  19. ↑ Bergsträßer, Gotthelf (1930). "Plan eines Apparatus Criticus zum Koran". Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (in German). München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 6–11. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  20. ↑ De Stefani, Claudio (2021). "Von Sylvestre De Sacy zur Leipziger Schule: Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer". In Massimilla, Edoardo; Morrone, Giovanni (eds.). Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwissenschaften (in German). Hildesheim: Georg Olms. pp. 394–396. ISBN   9783487160184.
  21. ↑ Frank Schirrmacher, "Bücher können Berge versetzen" ("Books can move mountains"), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Bücher, 10 October 2007. Retrieved 2010-02-06.
  22. 1 2 Michael Marx, Angelika Neuwirth and Nicolai Sinai, "Koran, aber in Kontext — Eine Replik" ("The Quran, but in context — a reply"), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 2007.
  23. ↑ Lerch, Gisela (2008-04-03). "Den Koran verstehen lernen. Eine neue Staffel des Schülerlabors Geisteswissenschaften an der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften". idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  24. ↑ Goddar, Jeannett (2019-01-29) [2008-06-28]. "Schüler erkunden die Suren des Koran". Frankfurter Rundschau. Retrieved 2022-07-06.

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