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Summary note

Creating the Qur’an presents the first systematic historical-critical study of the Qur’an’s origins, drawing on methods and perspectives commonly used to study other scriptural traditions. Demonstrating in detail that the Islamic tradition relates not a single attested account of the holy text’s formation, Stephen J. Shoemaker shows how the Qur’an preserves a surprisingly diverse array of memories regarding the text’s early history and its canonization. To this he adds perspectives from radiocarbon dating of manuscripts, the linguistic history of Arabic, the social and cultural history of late ancient Arabia, and the limitations of human memory and oral transmission, as well as various peculiarities of the Qur’anic text itself. Considering all the relevant data to present the most comprehensive and convincing examination of the origin and evolution of the Qur’an available, Shoemaker concludes that the canonical text of the Qur’an was most likely produced only around the turn of the eighth century.

Source of description

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jun 2022)

Rights and reproductions note

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:

Language note

In English.

Contents

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The Traditional Narrative of the Qur’an’s Origins: A Scholarly Sunnism
• 2. ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Ḥajjāj, and the Composition of the Qur’an
• 3. Radiocarbon Dating and the Origins of the Qur’an
• 4. The Hijaz in Late Antiquity: Social and Economic Conditions in the Cradle of the Qur’an
• 5. Literacy, Orality, and the Qur’an’s Linguistic Environment
• 6. Remembering Muhammad: Perspectives from Memory Science
• 7. Re-Remembering Muhammad: Oral Tradition and Collective Memory
• 8. The Qur’anic Codex as Process: Writing Sacred Tradition in Late Antiquity
• 9. The Qur’an’s Historical Context According to the Qur’an
• Conclusions
• Notes
• References
• Index

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ISBN

0-520-38904-2

Doi

• 10.1515/9780520389045

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