Opinion of Yemeni Fragments??

Greetings,

I recommend you read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Qurani...3544607&sr=8-6

it deals with the matter of the so-called 'yemeni fragments' on pgs 112,141-2, 73, 4-6, 12, 314-8

He deals with Puin and lester's reliance on puin's .. I can't summarize the entire book for you as it would be too time consuming but I really think you'd benefit greatly from purchasing the book as the entire compilation of the Quran is dealt with in a very scholarly fashion!

Peace

format_quote Originally Posted by Seeker1066

Thank you Thank you Thank you....this is just what I was looking for. I really apprecaite your help on this.

Peace to you

my pleasure..I'd be interested in a discussion with you after you've read the book :smile: sorry for the late reply, I am finding it difficult to navigate the new forum so it is perhaps a blessing that this showed up as a new post list...

peace and godspeed!

I am going to excerpt from page 314

In his contribution to the Quran as text, Dr. Puin alludes to the peculiarities found in the Yemeni board:34

• defective writing of the alif. these are more common in the san'a fragments than others
• variations in the position of Ayah sepration within certain verses
• the 'greatest find' is a fragment where the end of sura 26 is followed by surah 27

In authoring what is the Quran from the January 1999 issue of the Atlantic monthly, Toby Lester heavily relied on Dr. Puin's discoveries. One of the main figures in the restoration of the Mushaf in Sana'a Yemen, 35
Dr. Puin found himself and the Yemeni fragments thrust into the spotlight with the article's publication. Lester's words occasioned both sensational joy and anger concerning Puin's work, depending on whether one spoke with Orientalists or devout Muslims, so to counter the anger of the Muslim street and wipe clean the distrust, Puin wrote a lengthy letter in Arabic to al-Qadi-al-Akwa of Yemen. The letter then appeared in the daily arh-Thawara newspaper, and I have reproduced it elsewhere36. praising the sana'a Mushafs and how they fortified the Muslim position, he nevertheless wrote with enough subtlety and vaguness to cast a pall over the whole history of the Quran. Following is a translation of part of the related theme:

The remnants [of these old mushafs] go back, scientifically assured, to the first century hijrah! because of the existence of these manuscripts in Sana'a,....[we have] the only monumental proof of the completion of the Quran in the first c of Hijrah and not, as so many non-Muslim scholars assert, from the early third century of hijrah! Of course Muslims may ask what is the point of such information from a non-Muslim scholar, when Muslims are certain that the complete Mushaf has existed ever since the third caliph, ''Uthman b. Affan. Theirs is simply a belief held in good faith, since we don't have the original copy of the Mushaf written under the supervision of ''Uthman, not any of the further copies which he dispatched to other territories...


anyhow to skip on and on

Not all orientalists allege that the Quran was completed in the early third century. There are some e.g Rev. Mingana who argue that it was completed by the first, and yet we have others, e.g. Muir who held that the pesent mushaf is idenitical to the text given by the prophet. Then there is al-Hajjaj (d.95 A.H.), to whom many western scholars give credit to the Quran's final recording. All these dates belong to the first century, and Puin's imprecision leaves the door open for assigning any date within that period. Precision is key to scholarship and we must abide by it. With the prophet's passing in early 11 A.H. the revelations arrived at their natural end; they were compiled into their external form during the reign of Abu bakr (d.13A.H) their spelling standardized and copies dispatched by Uthman (25-30 A.H). That is the Muslim view. Never have Muslims alleged that the complete Quran did not materialize until Uthman, and if Puin claims this then he certainly does not speak on behalf of any Muslim tongue.

Several dozen first century manuscript exist in various libraries around the world 37, my personal guess is that worldwide, there are about a quarter of a million partial or complete mushaf manuscripts covering all eras 38. Below is a list of these which have been conclusively dated in bold faced numbers..


Now, I won't list those so you'll see them and read more when purchasing the book, but hope that allays any doubts you may have had!

all the best

Took me a while to get a copy too, but I was glad of it.. I can't say why a thousands of anti-Islamic books are in circulation but scholarly Islamic books are so hard to come by.. nonetheless I don't think you'll regret this purchase in general!

peace to you!

Aslam 3likm

I found an article on a forum which refutes the allegation but unfortunately it's in Arabic.
Just (click here)

Seeker speaks Arabic ..thanks for sharing

format_quote Originally Posted by Seeker1066

I want to learn Arabic. I love the way it sounds.

woops sorry.. I was under the impression that you were a Coptic Egyptian.. you somewhat remind me of this fellow, I got to read his story from the stealth crusade.

Submitted by HOW I CAME TO ISLAM on Fri Sep. 12, 2008 1:03 PM PDT.
I was born and raised in a typical middle-class Lebanese Catholic family in Beirut, Lebanon. Two years into the war I was forced to leave, and completed high school in England. Then I went to Columbia College in New York. After my BA I went back to Lebanon and taught at my old school. Two years later I left Lebanon again, this time of my own free will, although it was a more wrenching separation than the first. I left behind my war-torn country and made for my new land of opportunities. I was demoralized, and spiritually at a complete impass. With my uncle's support I went back to graduate studies at Columbia. This is the brief story of my conversion to Islam while there.
While in Lebanon I had come to realize that I was a nominal Christian who did not really live according to what he knew were the norms of his faith. I decided than whenever the chance came I would try my best to live according to my idea of Christian standards for one year, no matter the cost. I took this challenge while at Columbia. A graduate student's life is blessed with the leisure necessary for spiritual and intellectual exploration. In the process I read and meditated abundantly, and I prayed earnestly for dear guidance. My time was shared literally between the church and the library, and I gradually got rid of all that stood in the way of my experiment, especially social attachments or activities that threatened to steal my time and concentration. I only left campus to visit my mother every now and then.
Certain meetings and experiences had set me on the road of inquiry about Islam. During a scholarship year spent in Paris I had bought a complete set of tapes of the holy Qur'an. Back in New York I listened to its recitation for the first time, as I read simultaneously the translation, drinking in its awesome beauty. I paid particular attention to the passages that concerned Christians. I felt an inviting familiarity to it because undoubtedly the One I addressed in my prayers was the same One that spoke this speech, even as I squirmed at some of the "verses of threat". After some time I knew that this was my path, since I had become convinced of the heavenly origin of the Qur'an.
I was reading many books at the same time. Two of them were Martin Lings' "Life of Muhammad" and Fariduddin Attar's "Book of Secrets" (Persian "Asrar-Nama", in French translation). I found extremely inspiring Lings' account of Shaykh Ahmad `Alawi's life in his book "A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century." I did not finish the latter before I became a Muslim; but I am jumping ahead. At any rate, it now seemed my previous experience of religion had been like learning the alphabet in comparison, even my early morning and late night Bible readings and my past studies in the original Latin of Saint Augustine, who had once towered in my life as a spiritual giant.
I began to long almost physically for a kind of prayer closer to the Islamic way, which to me held promises of great spiritual fulfillment, although I had grown completely dependent on certain spiritual habits -- particularly communion and prayer -- and could hardly do without them. And yet I had unmistakable signs pointing me in a further direction. One of them I considered almost a slap in the face in its frankness: when I told my local priest about the attraction I felt towards Islam he responded as he should, but then closed his talk with the words: allahu akbar. "Allahu akbar"? An Italian-American priest?!
I went to two New York mosques but the imams there wanted to talk about the Bible or about the Middle East conflict, I suppose to make polite conversation with me. I realized they did not necessarily see what drove me to them and yet I did not find an avenue where I would pluck up the courage to declare my intention. Then I would go home and tell myself: Another day has passed, and you are still not Muslim. Finally I went to the Muslim student group at Columbia and announced my intention, and declared the two shahada: The Arabic formula that consists in saying "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah" -- the Arabic name for God -- "and I bear witness that Muhammad is His Prophet." They taught me ablution and salat (prayer), and I gained a dear friend among them. Those days are marked in my life with letters of light.
Another close friend of mine played a role in this conversion. This devout American Christian friend had entered Islam years before me. At the time I felt in my silly pride that it was wrong for an American to enter into the religion of the Arabs and for me, an Arab, to stand like a mule in complete ignorance of it. It had a great effect on me from both sides: the cultural one and the spiritual, because he was -- is -- an honest and upright person whose major move meant a great deal to me.
I had also come to realize that my early education in Lebanon had carefully sheltered me from Islam, even though I lived in a mixed neighborhood in the middle of Beirut. I went to my father's and grandfather's Jesuit school. The following incident is proof that there is no turning away of Allah's gift when He decides to give it. One year, when I was 12, a strange religious education teacher gave us as an assignment the task of learning the Fatiha -- the first chapter of the Qur'an -- by heart. I went home and did, and it stayed with me all my life. After parents complained he was fired -- "we do not send our children to a Christian school in order for them to learn the religion of Muslims" -- but the seed had been sown, right there in the staunch Christian heartland, inside its prize school. Now here I was in the United States, knocking at the door of the religion of the Prophet, peace be upon him!
Days after I took shahada I met my teacher and the light on my path, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani of Tripoli, after which I met his own teacher, Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani of Cyprus. May Allah bless and grant them long life. Through them, after some years, my mother also took shahada and I hope and pray every day that my two brothers and stepfather will soon follow in Allah's immense generosity. Allah's blessings and peace on the Prophet, his Family, his Companions, and all Prophets.
Fouad Haddad

either way I wish you well on your search and on your journey.. May Allah swt guide you to what he loves and chooses.. ameen

peace

Thank you for your time and for reading.. that is payment enough..

peace

format_quote Originally Posted by TheRationalizer

I often find Christians criticising Islam are quite annoying. Cold harsh rationalism and demanding irrefutable proof when discussing the Quran, but then immediately irrational excuses and "believe without proof" when the subject switches to Christianity. I think some people need a bit more consistency.

I don't want to turn this into Christian bashing but I'd also like to say that I just can't debate with Christians at all. At least when a Muslim's claims to me make no sense I can see they are trying to make sense.

I don't want this to turn into an atheist bashing thread but atheists on a religious forum are one of the most confusing people to debate or even talk to about religoin. You can understand why other religious people would be here but atheists who seem to think religion is bogus and still come here confuses me. Its not annoying its crazy.

format_quote Originally Posted by TheRationalizer

Very funny :-)

That was serious not a joke.