In Search of the Original Koran: The True History of the Revealed Text by Mondher Sfar Read Free Book Online Page A

and mother. His mother bore him with much pain. He is born and weaned in thirty months. / When he grows to manhood and reaches forty years, he says: `Lord! Allow me to give thanks to you for the favors you have bestowed on me as upon my father! [...1 "' (46:15). We see here that the second part of this verse concerns a particular person, not identified, while its beginning tackles the general theme of the stages of human development. What person is being spoke of here? But verse 27:19 allows us to answer with near certainty: "At this, Solomon smiled and said: `Lord! Allow me to give thanks to you for the favors you have bestowed on me as well as my father. "'S4 We see here that the author of verse 46:15 does not know the identity of the person concerned in the second part of the verse that begins with "When he grows to manhood . . ." He may even have thought that it was a general statement about human beings, which allowed him to stick it, as if it were a logical consequence, onto the first part of the verse. This mistake is manifestly of great interest for the history of the Koranic text. Could we deduce that someone other than the Prophet committed this erroneous interpolation? Quite logically, we think that must be the case since it is difficult to conceive that Muhammad would leave as authorized such a mistake. This error could only come from someone who was not sufficiently familiar with the revealed texts.

    Let us signal another case held by Blachere to be a mistaken interpolation. In the very middle of the story of Moses confronting Pharaoh's magicians, there occurs a disputed verse that follows this phrase of verse 27:10: "When Messengers stand with Me, they should not be frightened of anyone." And here follows the disputed verse: "Except for those who have done wrong and then substituted good for evil, for I am forgiving and merciful" (27:11). For Blachere, it is clear that this last verse cannot refer to the "Messengers," but to sinners whose story is found elsewhere; and he argues that divine messengers could not be treated in the Koran as sinners. Yet I think that this incidental sentence is theologically correct, even if somewhat surprising in the context. The figure of Muhammad in the Koran sometimes appears as fallible: hesitant, failing to overcome those who contradict him, not to mention forgetting some verses of the Koran, or even being spoken through by Satan. Orthodox exegetes took note of all this, and they interpreted the verse in question (27:11) as referring to the messengers of Allah. That is the paradox: orthodox exegetes knew very well the truth of things-unlike modern hagiographic dogmatists.

    Let us return to interpolations. There also exist glosses that serve to detail, to explain, or to add thematic developments that were not foreseen in the first redaction. For example, the long verse 7:157 introduces into the discourse addressed by God to Moses the idea of Muhammad's coming and the necessity of believing in it. This is an addition that testifies to the process of legitimation by means of the prophetic cycle.
    I may also agree with Blachere in considering that the first phrase of verse 40:35-"those who dispute about the signs [aya] of Allah without any authority that has reached them"-is an interpolation aiming to explain the last phrase of the preceding verse, "Thus Allah confounds the one who is sinful and doubtful (murtab)."ss
    Again, in the verse: "God-like the Angels and those who possess revealed knowledge-attests that / there is no divinity but him / he practices justice, [he of whom it should be said that] there is no divinity but him, the Powerful, the Wise" (3:18). We are in the presence of an interpolation of the expression in apposition "there is no divinity but him"-whose correct placement is just after "God" and not after the conjunction "that." Moreover, this interpolated part constitutes a repetition within the same verse. It is clear that the redactor of this version of the