Gerd Puin is the acknowledged expert on Arabic palaeography who, since the
70s, has researched the very early Koranic fragments found in the Sana'a
mosque in the Yemen. It is difficult to find an account of his findings,
not
least, no doubt, because the Yemen Government refuses to allow him to
publish his researches: they are evidently unwilling to expose the myth of
the miraculous perfect transmission of the Koran. One only finds
fragmentary
accounts of Puin's results. Here is what Patrick Sookhdeo has to say in
his
"Global JIhad" (p50):
"He discovered unconventional verse orders, textual variations and rare
styles of orthography diverging from the accepted version. According to
Puin
his discoveries indicate that the Qu'ran is composed of a cocktail of
texts,
some preceding Islam, evolving over hundreds of years rather than a text
fixed in the early years of Islam just after Muhammad's death."
In a 1999 Atlantic Monthly article Gerd Puin is quoted as saying that:
"My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not
all
understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a
hundred
years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is
a
huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian
substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one
wants. The Qur'an claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or clear, but if
you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply
doesn't
make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact
is
that a fifth of the Qur'anic text is just incomprehensible. This is what
has
caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur'an is not
comprehensible, if it can't even be understood in Arabic, then it's not
translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid. Since the
Qur'an claims repeatedly to be clear but is not-there is an obvious and
serious contradiction. Something else must be going on."
Political correctness in Western universities is hindering investigations
into early Islamic history. As Sookhdeo observes:
"Violent reaction by Muslim scholars to revisionist Western theories has
had
the effect of dampening some of the interest in these investigations.
Islamist influence in Western academia has also worked to empower
politically correct views that include the acceptance of the Muslim
version
of history. Academics who express doubt on these issues find themselves
open
to ridicule, isolation and even threats of violence."
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