Part 5 - Appendix 4
Qur'anic Studies: Sources and Methods of
Scriptural Interpretation
by Dr. J. Wansbrough
"Readers who do not have a thorough knowledge of German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, apart from Arabic and English (the language in which the book is written although that is not obvious in many instances!) will probably find no use for it and are advised not to take it up."
G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.
"Since the earliest Arabic literary remains date from the second half of the second century onwards, he therefore assumes that there was nothing going before that time that warrants tracing back the origins of Arabic literary activity to an earlier period . . . Logic alone might preclude serious consideration of this version of Islamic history . . . Suffice it to say that Wansbrough's implication and logic are his, and his alone."
G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.
"It is perhaps tempting to think of him as one of those scholars whose premises and conclusions are drastically wrongheaded, but whose argumentation is brilliant and filled with intriguing perspectives. (To be sure, it is often difficult to say just what his arguments are, for he affects a ferociously opaque style which bristles with unexplained technical terms in many languages, obscure allusions, and Teutonic grammar.)"
R. S. Humphreys, Islamic History - Revised Edition, p.84. Princeton University Press: 1995.
"His conclusion, based on literary and rhetorical analysis, but unsupported by corroborating historical evidence, is that there was a long process of 'canonisation' (at least two centuries) in the Islamic as in the Jewish and Christian cases."
William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word, p.207. Cambridge University Press: 1987.
"What makes Wansbrough's theories so hard to swallow is the obvious disparity in style and contents of Meccan and Medinan suras. If, for the sake of argument, we assume, as he states, that the Qur'anic canon is the end product of a basically oral transmission of logia ascribed to "an Arabian prophet", but which most probably originated gradually with later generations, how then can we account for that difference between the one genre and the other which is, with the acceptance of the historicity of the Hijra and with that of at least the main traits of the Sira, so adequately explained?"
G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.
"Wansbrough avers (p.47) that in certain Qur'anic passages "ellipsis and repetition are such as to suggest not the carefully executed project of one or many more men, but rather the product of an organic development from originally independent traditions during a long period of transmission". In this he is of course attempting to fit the process by which the canon of the Hebrew Bible was established, onto the Qur'an, but it won't wash! J.Burton in his recent Collection of the Qur'an (Cambridge 1976), argues vastly more cogently than Wansbrough's unsubstantiable assertions, that the consonantal text of the Qur'an before us is the Prophet's own recension."
R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
"It is hard to see, however, how the author . . . proves that its composition must have taken eight or ten generations rather than only one to complete. The identification of various pericopes, older scriptural motifs, and language taken from Judaic usage is suggestive of many new interpretive possibilities, but it is not clear that it necessitates the radical conclusion that there was no generally recognised, fixed Qur'anic text before A.H. 200 (especially in view of the difficulty of imagining the development of a community such as that of the 3rd century without such a text). Dr Wansbrough's convincing emphasis . . . makes as much sense when applied to creation of a community in early 7th century Mecca and Medina as to the creation of one in late 8th century Iraq."
William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"Why should he insist that the Sira is concerned to locate the origins of Islam in the Hijaz (implying that this is not the case) when the plain and uncontested evidence is that the Hijaz was its birthplace?"
"A canonical consonantal text was plainly early established. It may be compared with Epigraphic South Arabian, which has a consonantal text but no surviving oral tradition of vowelling - whereas the early Qur'anic text has."
"An historical circumstance so public cannot have been invented."
R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
The Data
"Like some other writers Wansbrough has neglected the significant new data emerging from Epigraphic South Arabian."
R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
"Other early literary remains such as Hassan al Basri's Qadar letter to Abdul Malik which, if proven authentic, must have been written before 110 A.H., does not fit within Warnsborough's proposed chronology of the development of the Qur'anic canon since it offers a number of correct quotations from the Qur'an.
Wansbrough's refrains, however, from drawing attention to equally old texts that abound in Qur'anic quotations such as Al Alim wa 'l - muta'allim and Risala ila'Uthman al-Batti, both ascribed to Abu Hanifah (d.150 A.H.).
Moreover, there are more of those allegedly very early risalas such as the one attributed to Hassan b. Mohammad b. al-Hanafiyyah (d.c.100 A.H.) recently published by Van Ess in Arabica. If that risala can be proved to be authentic it totally undermines Wansbrough's theory since it contains many quotations from the Qur'an."
G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.
Other Sources
"It must be said that the extensive reliance upon Jewish tradition to explain the forms and usages of Muslim scriptural and other early texts constitutes a substantial bias that predetermines many of the conclusions put forward . . .
The very choice of Jewish categories ("haggadic", "halakhic", e.t.c.) to apply to Muslim religious materials smacks too strongly of a cultural-historical bias that tends to gravitate towards a theory of one-way, direct influence from the older tradition to the newer, or of parallel historical development based on the identification of parallel concerns and ideas."
William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.
To Sum Up
"Wansbrough appears to set out to convince us of his learning."
R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.
"Qur'anic Studies is so radical in its basic hypotheses as to ensure that many will reject its conclusions out of hand".
William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.
"It cannot be accepted, as arrogantly asserted, that: 'As a document susceptible of analysis by the instruments and techniques of Biblical criticism it [the Qur'an] is virtually unknown . . . '."
R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.