Talk:History of the Quran

"Origin of Qur'an according to Tradition"
I fail to see why the traditional mythology is in the forefront of the article, when it should be the factual basis for how the Qur'an was written and compiled? The article on the authorship of the Christian Bible takes a scientific approach to how the Bible was created, so why must we rely on Wahy, which is merely mythology?

Obviously, the Qur'an had to be written by someone or some group of people, or else it wouldn't be here...Or are we really going to let this article give off the insinuation that it was revealed by Allah?

Stevo D (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Parallels with Christian (and Jewish) scriptures are not very illuminating in this context; although disputed, the standard scholarly understanding of the history of the Qur'an is exactly that those who wrote it down thought themselves as recording a series of orally-delivered divine revelations. There is no contrary evidence; which has not stopped a wide range of alternative speculations. But - while the article should take note of these speculation - the scholarly and critical mainstream opinion coheres quite closely with that maintained in traditional Islamic accounts. And the most recent scientific investigations - e.g. carbon dating -  tends more to support the mainstream and traditional versions;and less the alternatives. TomHennell (talk) 11:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Stevo D is correct. TomHennell, your response is idiotic. You are clearly a whiteskinned "liberal" who has been conditioned through brainwashing not to subject Islam to critical thinking. This is real low IQ stuff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:E88D:1020:0:0:0:42 (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

the standard scholarly understanding of the history of the Qur'an is exactly that those who wrote it down thought themselves as recording a series of orally-delivered divine revelations.

That still doesn't answer the question as to who first authored the Qur'an, and how it came to be the document that it is today over the years. I think it's very important to this article to offer a scientific POV on the creation of the Qur'an, one in which it wasn't handed down from Heaven to Muhammad, because let's be honest, that's an inherently Islamic bias.

"the scholarly and critical mainstream opinion coheres quite closely with that maintained in traditional Islamic accounts."

The scholars and 'critical mainstream opinion' believe that this is the word of God as revealed to Muhammad as his Prophet? I have a hard time accepting or believing this. Stevo D (talk) 11:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * "Science" isn't central to the discussion; all that can be determined scientifically is that the oldest dateable islamic artefacts are fully consistent with the traditional (and mainstream accounts). More significant is that critical textual scholarship is similarly almost wholly unilluminating.  Old quranic texts differ greatly, but none of these differences appear to be capable of being fitted within a systematic critical theory of textual evolution.  Very different this from critical New Testament scholarship. There are of course traditional accounts of textual evolution; but we have no surviving written texts transmitting those (or any other) 'earlier' forms of recited revelation.


 * So the traditional Muslim account is that the Prophet delivered a series of utterances that his companions committed to memory at the time, and subsequently set down in writing. Those companions believed those utterances to transmit direct divine revelations, and sometime after the Prophet's death they were edited into a standard content, order and format; both recited and written. Hence the traditional account considers the Quran as simultaneously a recitation and a written text - but written originally in forms of sriptio defectiva; such that a single written text could support a limited range of vocal recitations, and that a single recitation could be represented in a limited range of written script forms.  Hence the transmission within the tradition of a range of recognised 'readings' of equal validity


 * Essentially the mainstream critical account differs only in not asserting that the Prophet himself received the utterances as divine revelation. But from the point onwards from when the utterances were delivered to the companions there is no essential distinction. Paticia Crone states; "Most importantly, we can be reasonably sure that the Qur'an is a collection of utterances that he made in the belief that they had been revealed to him by God. The book may not preserve all the messages he claimed to have received, and he is not responsible for the arrangement in which we have them. They were collected after his death – how long after is controversial. But that he uttered all or most of them is difficult to doubt."   https://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp TomHennell (talk) 15:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

"Science" isn't central to the discussion; all that can be determined scientifically is that the oldest dateable islamic artefacts are fully consistent with the traditional (and mainstream accounts).

I mean we should approach the Qur'an with a scientific analysis and critique, not relying on traditional narratives or Islamic theologians, but through skeptical, critical historical empiricism

Obviously the authorship of the Qur'an is important to many readers (esp. those who use wiki as a classroom source), as it's intellectually dishonest to suggest or insinuate that the Qur'an might have been the result of divine revelation.

"There are of course traditional accounts of textual evolution; but we have no surviving written texts transmitting those (or any other) 'earlier' forms of recited revelation."

This is indeed a problem as per Puin et. al have discussed when attempting to use the comparative method on the the manuscripts found in Sana'a, but that nonetheless doesn't mean we should leave the origins of the Qur'an as ambiguous, or appear to suggest that the Qur'an may have possibly been handed down from God.

It very obviously has a human author (as per Tom Holland).

 "Old quranic texts differ greatly, but none of these differences appear to be capable of being fitted within a systematic critical theory of textual evolution."

This is not factually correct, as the earliest known Qur'an, the Sana'a manuscript, differs in many ways that change entire meanings from the modern Uthmanic Qur'an of today, and I'll be sure to incorporate that fact into the article upon doing a little bit more primary reading.

"Those companions believed those utterances to transmit direct divine revelations,"

What the Sahaba believed or didn't believe is completely irrelevant to the factual origins of the Qur'an, nor does it give any clues as to authorship, which I think is very important to include on an article about the history of the Qur'an, and understanding that this document didn't materialise out of thin air.

Essentially the mainstream critical account differs only in not asserting that the Prophet himself received the utterances as divine revelation.

I've read a number of accounts--from Tom Holland and those compiled by Ibn Warraq--and from what I gather the mainstream (non-Islamic) criticism of the Uthmanic hypothesis is divided into two accounts: Those who believe that the Qur'an was compiled by Muhammad himself, and those (such as Gerd Puin, John Wainsborough and Christoph Luxenberg ) who believe the Qur'an was authored by Nabataeans at a much earlier period pre-dating Muhammad, heavily influenced by Jewish messianism and Near Eastern mysticism, and that it was possibly even written in a tribal language of the Arab Peninsula (as per Luxenberg).

Neither group of academics or archaeologists seriously consider the idea of wahy, and there are almost no mainstream, scientific analyses that believe the Qur'an was a divine revelation from Allah.

Anyway, It'll probably be a day or two, but I have a number of books (at least three sit on my shelf at the moment) that take a historically empirical/critical approach of early Islamic history, and I'll be certainly incorporating them into the article; They just have never really been collected into one place before, so it may be time to break new ground.

Stevo D (talk) 02:05, 18 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I would be wary of relying too much on Tom Holland; as he is far from an authority in this field. The views of the other authors you present should certainly be in the article; but you should note that they are far from representing mainstream scholarly opionion on the subject; which rather tends to spring from the perspective I quoted from Particia Crone (who once held similar views to Wansborough et al; but renounced them as they became increasingly inconsistent with more recent scholarship, and textual discoveries).


 * But by all means improve the article. I would hope that your reading includes François Déroche - especially his "Qurans of the Umayyads" - as he is probably the leading authority in the field currently; and it is the job of Wikipedia to give most prominence to the published opinions of most authoritative scholars. What is not Wikipedia's job is to take a prejudicial view for, or against, the claim that the utterances that eventually were incorported into the Qur'an originated as divine revelation.  There are those who believe that scientific discourse is incompatible with belief in divine revelation; and equally those who beleive that no scientific discourse is possible except by divine revelation.  But while this academice debate is properly dealt with in Wikipedia in articles on the philosophies of science and religion, it has no place here.  Wikipedia records the opinions of leading scholars in the field; and inevitably many of those scholars in this field will aslo be believing Muslims (just as in the counterpart field of bibilical history, many leading scholars will be believing Jews and Christians). Which is why your suggestion that the article should avoid "traditional narratives" cannot be supported; traditional narratives are historical evidence as much as any other; and in this field they represent most of the evidence we have. So the article cannot rule out the proposition the Qur'an is without a human author; and certainly cannot exclude the possibility that all those involved in its compiling (including the Prophet) believed it to be without a human author.  Wikipedia goes where the scholarship goes, not where we think it ought to have gone.


 * Finally, on the Sana'a Palimpsest, may I suggest you read Asma Hilali's book "The Sanaa Palimpsest: The Transmission of the Qur'an in the First Centuries AH", which expands on her article in "The Yemeni manuscript tradition". In my view she comprehensively demolishes all earlier studies in the lower text of the palimpsest by virtue of access to much better recent images; in so doing demonstrating that many of the particualr variant readings formerly claimed by Elizabeth Puin derived from an unsubstantiated expectation that that text might correspond with a known 'variant' tradition. It doesn't; and as Asma argues, may be better understood as a shcoolroom textual exercise than as a full Qur'an. The Birmingham/Paris manuscript BNF Arabe 328(c)(which certainly was a full Qur'an and likely predates any Uthmanic collection) has curently far the best claim to be the earliest known Qur'an. TomHennell (talk) 02:31, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I second Tom's concern about relying on Tom Holland. He's an author of pop history books rather than a specialist in this field. We should rely even less on editorial choices of Ibn Warraq, who not only lacks the academic credentials but also has an axe to grind. However, I'm also uncomfortable with Tom's suggestion of looking directly at scholarly monographs. This is a fluid field with different revisionist currents. Trying to sort it out ourselves (as this article is already doing too much of) would be a form of WP:OR.


 * A more policy-compliant approach would be to base the article on specialist tertiary sources. The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an has a section with three chapters devoted to this topic. The Quran in its historical context (ed., Routledge) has two overview essays: Qur’anic studies and its controversies by Reynolds himself and The Qur'an in Recent Scholarship by Fred Donner (who's something of a go-to guy for doing these kinds of overviews, having also contributed them to the above-mentioned Cambridge Companion and The New Cambridge History of Islam; I just noticed that the introduction to The Quran in Context - Historical and Literary Investigations from Brill opens by citing his verdict that the field of Qur'anic studies is "in a state of disarray"). Finally, here's a brief overview from the Qur'an article at Oxford Bibliographies (by Andrew Rippin):

How the Qurʾan came into being and why it looks the way it does has proven to be a continual focus of attention for scholarship. Most accounts accept the basic framework of the Muslim memory, with the role of Muhammad as the recipient of revelation and the role subsequent caliphs in bringing the text together clearly separated. Some scholarship has wanted to challenge the originality and source of the text itself, tracing it to other religious communities (especially Christian: Lüling 2003; Luxenberg 2007). Others have tried to refine the Muslim accounts of revelation and collection. Burton 1977 argues for a central role of Muhammad himself; Wansbrough 2004 argues for the late emergence of the text; and Motzki 2001 argues for the reliability of historical information that supports an emergence earlier than Wansbrough suggested. Neuwirth 2000, 2003 has paid particular attention to the role of canonization, seeing that as going on during the lifetime of Muhammad and traceable within the Qurʾan itself.


 * I should also note that the emphasis on the traditional account is consistent with current academic practice, as illustrated by this entry from The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, which is a premier academic reference intended for a general audience.


 * Eperoton (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

The reason why I mentioned Ibn Warraq, Tom Holland, et. al. is because they're some of the only authors to talk about provenance within the context of authorship; That is to say, even the passage you quoted from Oxford Bibliography doesn't talk about authorship itself, just where the text originated from, despite both being of equal importance (because I'm sure many are wondering who really wrote the Qur'an, since the idea that it was given down by Allah is purely mythology).

However, it is a great improvement, and should nonetheless be incorporated into the article to give a more clear picture how the Qur'an came to be, not that it was divinely revealed (wahy) in a cave in Arabia, which is pseudo-scientific. Stevo D (talk) 06:41, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * We should be careful to mirror the phraseology used in recent scholarship. It's common to find statements like "Muhammad wrote the Qur'an" in 19th century books, but much less so in the work of the last few generations of scholars. We all agree that the article is in need of improvement. Personally, I'm interested in the subject and I'd like to help, but I have some backlog I need to address first. This academic field also happens to be rather difficult to summarize because of lacking consensus and I'm not as well versed in it as Tom seems to be. I'll leave you with the opening of Donner's above-mentioned chapter:

Qur’anic studies, as a field of academic research, appears today to be in a state of disarray. Those of us who study Islam’s origins have to admit collectively that we simply do not know some very basic things about the Qur’an – things so basic that the knowledge of them is usually taken for granted by scholars dealing with other texts. They include such questions as: How did the Qur’an originate? Where did it come from, and when did it first appear? How was it first written? In what kind of language was – is – it written? What form did it first take? Who constituted its first audience? How was it transmitted from one generation to another, especially in its early years? When, how, and by whom was it codified? Those familiar with the Qur’an and the scholarship on it will know that to ask even one of these questions immediately plunges us into realms of grave uncertainty and has the potential to spark intense debate. To put it another way, on these basic issues there is little consensus even among the well-trained scholars who work on them.


 * Eperoton (talk) 14:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * P.S. Upon further thought, I've added these summaries to the start of the section, as they should help the reader place the details of particular proposals in context. Eperoton (talk) 16:06, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That's much better Eperoton; and I fully agree with your proposal that this 'high level' article is best citing secondary/tertiary studies and authoritative reference works. I would only caution that   Gabriel Said Reynolds and his various associates also represent a self-acknowledged 'revisionist' perspective, that probably needs supplementing with other views.  I would not at all propose that this article takes explicit note of Asma Hilali's work on the Sana'a Palipmsest; I was rather proposing caution against building all-embracing speculative theories on the initial published readings of a single manuscript; when those readings have now been superseded in subsequent scientific examination of the text in question.


 * Clearly Stevo D continues to be unhappy that the article is not discussing 'authorship' explicitly; since as you say, such language has largely dropped out in current scholarly discourse in the field. But as a contingent observation, not every text has an author - an obvious example of such an exception would be the Highway Code.  (I suppose you could argue that the UK Parliament is the author, as the Code is incorporated into a statutory instrument, but that does not tell us anything about how its text came to be as it is). But the Highway Code is a highly controlled text, and consequently has a very explicit body of redactors.  I suggest that the history of the Qur'an as best understood in similar terms.  It is clearly a highly controlled text; and the most recent textual discoveries and scholarship confirm such control to have been fully developed at a very early date (quite what that date may have been being still uncertain).  In that context, the history of the Qur'an is concerned primarily with how (and by whom) the utterances transmitted within it have be redacted, and continue to be redacted. On that current scholarship has a great deal of evidence; alike in the form of identified surviving early physical manuscripts, contemporary inscriptions, reported traditional accounts, and a wide range of critical studies by medieval Islamic scholarship.  While on the subject of 'authorship' we have only recent speculation and hypothetical reconstruction. Good critical scholarship needs evidence to work on. TomHennell (talk) 11:36, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm all for reflecting different perspectives. The material I added combines the somewhat divergent summaries by Rippin and Donner; or more precisely it concatenates them, which is about as much as policy allows us to do. I wouldn't characterize Donner's chapter as a revisionist perspective -- because (from a policy standpoint) he's been commissioned to write similar overviews for mainstream publications like the Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an and The New Cambridge History of Islam, and also because (by my personal assessment) he takes Islamic sources more seriously than hardcore revisionists do, even while taking revisionist criticisms of them more seriously than hardcore "non-revisionists" (for lack of better terms). Eperoton (talk) 13:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I think I would consider Donner a country or occasional member of the Revisionist club. He did contribute to Reynolds 2005 symposium on "the Qur'an in its Historical Context"; which was explicitly presented as taking forwards a Revisionist perspective.   As too did Andrew Rippin.  https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/3640266/the-quran-in-its-historical-context-pdf-islam-and-christian-muslim-  Donner's assessment that Qura'nic Studies were in a state of disarray, comes from that symposium - so it may now be time-expired.  His chapter in the Cambridge Companion of 2006 is more measured.


 * What is definitely in dissaray now is the Revisionist perspective itself; substantially due to the unexpectedly early radiocarbon dating of the Birmingham leaves of BNF Arabe 328(c). On this see Reynolds article in the Times Literary Supplement. http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tag/gabriel-said-reynolds/  Some Revisionists have responded by proposing rather desperate arguments for that dating to have been wrong http://www.kunstkamera.ru/images/news/2015/efimrezvan-lecture.pdf; but as Reynolds admits, Birmingham is in line with plenty of other early radiocarbon dates.  My impression from the article is that Reynolds has altogether abandoned the theory of a 'late' canonisation of the Qur'an (which was once the touchstone of varieties of Revisionism) in favour of arguing that a largely fixed and controlled Qur'an might predate Muhammad. Which is not required by any of the radiocarbon dates (other than some oddities from Lyon), but I suppose avoids admitting that the utterances in the Qur'an might date from the period when Islamic tradition has tended to locate them.  Where Reynolds may be right is in underlining the inconsistency of the Birmingham dates with the traditional location of the canonical redaction of the Qur'an with Uthman.  But that is scarcely a new view, plenty of mainstream scholars have considered that the ubiquitious and monolithic quality of the Qur'an text can only be explained if the canonical redaction preceded Islam's explosive expansion after 640 CE.   TomHennell (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Interesting, thanks. It's been awhile since I read Donner's chapter in the Companion, and if there's a systematic change of perspective between the two, we should consider updating our text. Otherwise, this sounds like a potentially tricky task of reflecting recent developments which have not yet been assessed in tertiary sources. I'm not familiar with the subject well enough to comment in detail. Eperoton (talk) 00:40, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The scholarly consensus on this issue (debated ad nauseum) is that the Quran was "compiled" in the generation of Muhammad, and the most recent empirical evidence indicates that it may have been compiled in its final codified version during Muhammad's own lifetime. This is as scientific a view as can be expressed, because it agrees with the evidence we have, without taking any leap one way or another. I have never seen a non-fringe challenge to this standard view. c Ө de1+6 TP  01:59, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Relevant to this, F.E. Peters, Professor Emeritus of History, Religion and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU, states that modern historians are convinced of the authenticity of the Quran primarily for two reasons: c Ө de1+6 TP  02:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) No significant variations have been discovered in the partial fragments of the Quran from the pre-Uthmanic compilation.
 * 2) All the arguments which claim the Quran has been altered in any way, are “so patently tendentious and the evidence adduced for the fact so exiguous that few have failed to be convinced that what is in our copy of the Quran is in fact what Muhammad taught, and expressed in his own words.” (Source: Francis E. Peters (1994). Muhammad and the Origins of Islam. SUNY Press. pp. 257–. ISBN 978-0-7914-1875-8 )


 * Thanks for the cite c Ө de1+6 TP ;  but 1994 is a bit ago for a summary of current consensus.  I would not disagree with your basic point; but it would be useful to have a citation to a recent published summary of the field by an acknowledged authority.  Can you suggest one?  I don't think that the Revisionist tendency represented by Reynolds and colleagues can simply be dismissed as 'fringe'; even though they clearly are not articulating a consensus view.  The proposition that the Qur'an may have been codified during Muhammad's own lifetime is clearly problematic, as it would controvert the possibility of further revealed utterances being delivered. So the compilation would be expected, in Islamic tradition, to have followed the Prophet's death.  The scientific findings cannot differentiate this point.


 * Another substantial issue arising from the identification of early Qura'an manuscripts is that - if the dates are correct - they point to a much more highly developed, sophisticated and literate cultural context for the early years after the Prophet's death than either the Revisionists, or the classic Islamic traditional accounts, are able to accommodate. This does not now appear to be a context of sheep bones and palm leaves; so much as contracts, petitions, treaties and tax receipts. What we now find are almost all examples of a highly controlled text; but that implies that production of such manuscripts must have been confined to practiced scribes.  But where were those scribes to be found in the early 7th century CE, how did they train their successors and what did they practice on? The consensus used to be that Arabic writing started with the Qur'an, because before then there was nothing to write; that view now looks unsustainable. But is there an academic discussion of the issue? TomHennell (talk) 10:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of any major shift in scholarly consensus on this issue since 1994 (that the Quran was compiled within Muhammad's own generation)... If such a strong consensus shifted, I think we would've all known about it and there would've been a ton of new research and publications. But if Stevo D or anyone thinks this consensus has changed, let them please present their source. Secondly, just because a proposition is 'problematic' for an orthodox position, does not mean it is any less likely. On such issues, I think the 'scholarly consensus' of historians, is actually secondary to the empirical evidence collected by scientists, which should always be given more weight. I side with Proff Cook on this issue: "Carbon dating is backed by scientific rigour, repeatable and verifiable. If someone said analysis of writing or decoration gave a different date, I would ask what backs up that analysis?" (Prof Gordon Cook, head of the SUERC Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, BBC.) A lot of historians have been disturbed by the early dating of the Birmingham manuscript, but they are kidding themselves if they actually think their concerns should be given more weight then the carbon dating results. c Ө de1+6 TP  16:35, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks c Ө de1+6 TP ; but it does stretch credulity a tad, that there was a settled scholarly consensus in 1994, a consensus in disaray in 2005, but then the 1994 consensus still there in 2017. I do think we need a more recent cite; especially as I do not find from my own reading (of François Déroche for instance) that your expressed confidence in carbon dating vis-a-vis paleography, which is also mine, is as widely shared as we both might hope.  Not helped by Déroche, Reynolds and a number of others plainly failing to grasp the principles of probability as they apply to ranges of carbon dates, and consequently falling foul of Zeno's Paradox. TomHennell (talk) 01:29, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Understood, I'll look and ask around for more recent sources. c Ө de1+6 TP  22:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

"Origin according to tradition" should likely be before going into criticism of it. The reason for that is not cause one is more reliable than the other. But because one depends on the other. The Origin according to Academics either supports or critiques the traditional narrative. So we expect the reader to know about it before we go on and debate it.VR talk  20:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

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Ignorance about Naksh.
The person who wrote this article has no Idea about Naksh or abrogation of Quranic laws and verses which he described as lost verses.Also he wrote a lot of weird things without giving a source. 103.106.201.51 (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Salla
What to say 71.123.46.27 (talk) 21:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Revisionist accounts
The section "View of non-Muslim scholarship" is in need of serious editing. To show some of the issues with this section, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook are used as references to the theory that the Quran wasn't spoken by Muhammad. Their book "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World" is also referenced in this section to support that point. The central thesis of this book doesn't seem to be positively accepted by the academic community at all and Crone and Cook have since expressed views that contradict the assertions they made in that book. Crone's updated views have already been referenced in the first topic on this talk page. Crone also gave a summary on the state of scholarship as it pertains to the origin of the Quran where she states that it is "difficult to doubt" that the Quran was "uttered" by Muhammad. All of this, on Crone's views, can be found in this article she wrote titled, "What do we actually know about Muhammad". As for Cook, in a forum in 2006, he states, "Muhammad was born about 570. Forty years later, around 610, he began to receive revelations from on high. He continued to receive those revelations for something like 20 years, and collectively, those revelations constitute the Koran. The Koran was put together in the exact form in which we have it today something like 20 years after his death in 632. Some time around 650 —–give or take a few years — the Koran is put together the way it is now." The fact that these two scholar's views, today, on the origins of the Quran match the mainstream view of the Quran's origins is especially noteworthy given how prominent the two are in the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.

This article is giving too much weight to the skeptical theories of the Quran's origins which seem to be in the minority of the academic community and thus not reflective of the academic community's general views. Accurate minority views should be noted, but they should be labeled as such and not the primary focus of the section. I, however, am not accustomed to editing on Wikipedia so I am hesitant to begin such extensive editing on my own. Input on this matter would be appreciated. Renegade4dk (talk) 00:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)


 * True, there is even contrariy evidence among researches that parts of the Quran predate Muhammad. The article gives too much weight on Criticism, while the best evidence currently available, even among secular scholars, is the account by Muslim sources. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 11:16, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns
Does this edit seem reasonable? I suspect that it might have WP:NPOV issues, particularly regarding WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE, with a great deal of attention and prominence in the lead section being given to Revisionist school of Islamic studies. If there's pushback from others, I'm inclined to restore the stable version of this article. Courtesy pings to and users who have had recent involvement with this topic  for community input. Left guide (talk) 08:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The material appears well-sourced, but looks rather undue in the lead. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:33, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This user has been pushing large additions about the Revisionist school across several articles. I'm also seeing the discussion at Talk:Islam, I'm inclined to encourage more discussion there and perhaps take consensus there as a good example to follow elsewhere. It seems WP:UNDUE, since this school of thought is not widely followed or accepted. A mention of it is fine, but probably not a long paragraph giving it equal weight to other perspectives. R Prazeres (talk) 08:39, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * yeah I noticed that as well. To be honest, if this persists, we should probably take this to either WP:NPOVN or WP:FTN since it appears to be a systemic issue involving multiple related articles. On a smaller note, I also just noticed that the recently updated version of this article contains some weird citation formatting errors appearing in the etymology section, and malformed tags there too. Left guide (talk) 09:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding the general wave of edits concerning the "Revisionist school of Islamic studies, I want to point out at the following: AVOIDCREATE (Wikipedia surveys existing human knowledge; it is not a place to publish new work). WP:NRV ("No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists: the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition, and that this was not a mere short-term interest, nor a result of promotional activity or indiscriminate publicity, nor is the topic unsuitable for any other reason."), WP:ARTN ("If the subject has not been covered outside of Wikipedia, no amount of improvement to the Wikipedia content will suddenly make the subject notable."), and WP:FORUM ("Primary (original) research, such as proposing theories and solutions, communicating original ideas, offering novel definitions of terms, coining new words, etc. If you have completed primary research on a topic, your results should be published in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, open research, or respected online publications."). No Original Research also contains WP:NOTESAL ("A common mistake is to present a novel synthesis of ideas in an article."). The edits seem to be doing such sort of synthesis. It is mostly a text consisting of different references in support of the proposed theory, rather than a lot of sources agreing or dealing with this theory. For example the encyclopedia of Iranica (COINS AND COINAGE – Encyclopaedia Iranica (iranicaonline.org)) cited does speak about the coins, but not about a criticism of Islamic history. The statement "As the Arabs of the Ḥejāz had used the drahms of the Sasanian emperors, the only silver coinage in the world at that time, it was natural for them to leave many of the Sasanian mints in operation, striking coins like those of the emperors in every detail except for the addition of brief Arabic inscriptions like besmellāh in the margins" is completely out of context, and, for someone educated in the history of the Middle East, these coins are of no surprise. Syncretism is well known in the history of Islam, by both Western and Muslim sources. This is no support for Revisionistic School. Not only are the sources most of the time used as a form of synthesis, the theory itself isn't well established in academic sources to be phrase it as a valid alternative account on the history of Islam. Maybe there can be a short reference to a the Criticism section, but I don't see it worth of more attention than that. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 11:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you for the very thorough policy-based analysis of this situation, and I generally agree; throughout these various rounds of discussions, there doesn't appear to be any evidence yet that this material can be presented anywhere on Wikipedia aside from possibly articles like Criticism of Islam and Criticism of the Quran, contextualized in due proportion against other criticisms and of course the mainstream prevailing scholarship. Left guide (talk) 11:49, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Your explanations are really important for me, thank you very much. They will be useful for my future contributions NGC 628 (talk) 12:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)