Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Regarding the Qur'an in UK

It is exciting news and it only proves what we have known all along: that the copy of the Qur'an read today is pretty much the same copy that was produced in the era of `Uthman, although Orientalists tried very hard to either discover variations or to exaggerate the impact of diacritical marks in the reading of the Qur'an (like Patricia Crone).  But what is missing from the news is this: how did a Qur'an from Arabia wound up in the UK? The answer is simple. There was an Iraqi priest who was hired in the 20th century to either steal or buy at cheap prices old Arabic manuscripts and books. Sadly, Philip Hitti did the same for the Princeton collection.  Those stolen objects and manuscripts need to be returned to the region although no government there dares call for their return. Nasser's regime, to its credit, used to bring up the issue with Western governments.