Creating the Qur’an : A Historical-Critical Study

435 Pages·2022·7.214 MB·English

by  Stephen J. Shoemaker

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Creating the Qur’an
Creating the Qur’an
A Historical-Critical Study
Stephen J. Shoemaker
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Stephen J. Shoemaker
is work is licensed under a Creative Commons [CC BY-NC-ND] license. To view a
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copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses

Suggested citation: Shoemaker, S. J. Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study.
Oakland: University of California Press, 2022.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.128
Names: Shoemaker, Stephen J., author.
Title: Creating the Qur’an : a historical-critical study / Stephen J. Shoemaker.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2022] | Includes

bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0-520–00000–0 (cloth : alk. paper)
Identi�ers: LCCN 2021060219 (print) | LCCN 2021060220 (ebook) | ISBN
9780520389038 (paperback) | ISBN 9780520389045 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Qur’an—History. | Qur’an—History—Sources. | Qur’an—Criticism,
interpretation, etc.—History—Sources.
Classi�cation: LCC BP131 .S56 2022 (print) | LCC BP131 (ebook) | DDC 297.1/2209—
dc23/eng/20220129

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060219

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060220
Manufactured in the United States of America
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For the Loncoske sisters
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1.
e 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.
e 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.
e Qur’anic Codex as Process: Writing Sacred Tradition in Late Antiquity
9.
e Qur’an’s Historical Context According to the Qur’an
Conclusions
Notes
References
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
e project that resulted in this book was originally conceived within the
scope of my participation in the Center for Advanced Study “Beyond the
Canon,” a collaborative research group at the University of Regensburg,
funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinde, and it marks my primary
contribution to this ongoing Collaborative Research Group. I am
enormously grateful for having been invited to participate in this research
group as well as for the considerable intellectual and �nancial support that it
provided for my research. My thanks especially to Tobias Nicklas, for
initially inviting me to be a part of this project, and also to the two other
directors, Harald Buchinger and Andreas Merkt. Likewise, I thank Stephanie
Hallinger, the center’s academic director, and also the center’s research
assistants, Charlotte von Schelling and Marko Jovanovic, for all of their help
with my research and stays in Regensburg in 2019 and then in 2021–22. All
have become close friends and valued collaborators in the process,
contributing valuable ideas and perspectives to my research during the last
several years on a number of topics. My stay in Regensburg was initially
planned for 2020–21, but it was delayed a year owing to a number of factors,
not the least of which was the global coronavirus pandemic. I am delighted
now at last to be in Regensburg, where, �ttingly, I completed and submitted
the �nal manuscript for this book.
In as much as the particular focus of the Regensburg Center for
Advanced Study is the contours of the Christian canon during late antiquity,
there is perhaps some need for explanation of why a book on the
canonization of the Qur’an is nonetheless an essential part of this broader,
collaborative research trajectory. Initially, I had conceived of this book along
somewhat different lines. It was my intention to write a book that would be
titled “Qur’an and Canon: e Contours of Scripture at the End of
Antiquity.” e plan was to investigate the Qur’an’s emergence as a new
scriptural tradition in the late ancient Near East from a novel perspective,
understanding the Qur’an as a late ancient biblical apocryphon that
eventually became the scripture of a new religious tradition. By approaching
the Qur’an as a late ancient biblical apocryphon of uncertain origin, whose
scriptural destiny was not yet determined, it would be possible to study the
Qur’an as a witness to the diversity and creativity of religious culture in the
late ancient Near East. When viewed from such a perspective, the Qur’an
offers a fascinating example of how an emergent religious community
approached both the boundaries and the riches of scriptural culture in late
antiquity. e idea was to consider how the Qur’an recognizes and embraces
the authority of these antecedent scriptural collections while simultaneously
recon�guring and supplementing their contents. From this perspective, the
Qur’an can challenge and inspire us to rethink the boundaries of the
scriptural canon in late antiquity, as well as conceptualizations of scripture
that were in circulation at this time.
For better or worse, that is not the book I have written. Perhaps I will
write it someday soon, and I think it is a worthy project, perhaps for others
to pursue as well. Nevertheless, as I set out to write, I was hoping that I
could deal with the thorny issues surrounding the date of the Qur’an, its
transmission, composition, and canonization, in only a couple of chapters at
the end of the study. Almost immediately, as soon as I began to set pixel to
page, I realized that this would not work. e whole process of the Qur’an’s
production has been so underresearched from a critical perspective that
there was simply no way to avoid beginning with this subject. Yet, as I began
to write about this topic, it quickly became clear that it would take much
more than just two chapters to set the terms for the historical-critical study
of the Qur’an as part of the scriptural world of Near Eastern late antiquity.
Indeed, it was not long before I realized that this was going to be the subject
of the entire book, and it was going to be a long book at that. And so, rather
than considering the Qur’an primarily as a witness to the rich world of late
ancient apocryphicity, I have instead critically analyzed the process by which
the Qur’an emerged from the scriptural surfeit of late antiquity, both
canonical and noncanonical, to become the new canonical scripture of a
new religion, Islam. It is a topic, I would venture to say without hesitation,
which is essential for understanding the “heterotopias” of religious authority