The Collection of the Qur'an [Hardcover]

John Burton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1977 | ISBN-10: 0521214394 | ISBN-13: 978-0521214391 | Edition: 1

The most surprising feature of the Muslim traditions on the collection of the Qur'ān is their denial of any role in the process to Muhammad himself. The merit of assembling and preserving the record of the momentous divine revelations has been variously ascribed to some half dozen of the Prophet's associates or Companions, and these ascriptions have usually been treated as hopelessly conflicting. Dr Burton argues that they are in perfect agreement. Their sole function was the deliberate exclusion of Mohammed. Dr Burton demonstrates in his analysis of the original Muslim sources a series of subtle distinctions, the most significant being that between the Qur'ān document and source. This 1977 analysis of early Muslim traditions challenges existing scholarly interpretations, and Dr Burton argues his case with a wealth of detail. It is a book which all students of Islam will find required reading.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

The merit of recording the momentous divine revelations in the Qur'ān has been ascribed to twelve of the Prophet's Companions, but not to Mohammed himself, and these ascriptions have usually been treated as hopelessly conflicting. Dr Burton argues that they are in perfect agreement. Their sole function was the deliberate exclusion of Mohammed.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (October 28, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521214394
• ISBN-13: 978-0521214391
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,550,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, scholarly deconstruction of Qur'anic history, July 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collection of the Qur'an (Paperback)

Professor Burton's long out of print work is a brilliant, scholarly deconstruction of Qur'anic history - of the actually assembling of the current commonly used holy book of Islam. This work should be reprinted and widely circulated to further stimulate a reasoned and learned debate about this issue, far from the heat generated by polemicists of both sides.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important "deconstruction" of the Qur'an, January 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collection of the Qur'an (Hardcover)

Burton does essential, thankless spadework in unraveling the convoluted and conveniently forgotten (by conservative Islamists especially) early decades of Islamic and Qur'anic textual history. He thus begins the same process that Biblical scholars began more than a century ago in looking at their "holy book" in the cold true light of history, reason and science.
It is about time.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't read for knowledge about the Qur'an, January 10, 2001

By 

"slm303" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collection of the Qur'an (Hardcover)

Burton makes very clear his hostility towards Muslim sources very early on. His argument seems to be constructed more to find an excuse to reject these sources than to actually reconstruct the history of the collection of the Qur'an. He some how ends up at the conclusion that the Prophet(pbuh) collected the Qur'an in the form we have today. He rejects the knowledge of alternate early versions of the Qur'an as a fiction, invented by early Muslim scholars. While he does have a good critical knowledge of the early Muslim sciences, the conclusions he reaches are untenable. In addition recent research done in Yemen has found several very early Qur'an codexes that appear to be the very alternate versions that Burton rests his thesis upon rejecting.