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Qantara.de - Dialogue with the Islamic World
Islamic Science
On Christian Strophes in the Koran
In his lifes work, German theologian Günter Lüling
challenges Islam to a Reformation. Wolfgang Günter
Lerch read his book "A Challenge to Islam for
Reformation".
Who would have thought that such a remote and
difficult profession such as Koran research would one
day become the hottest iron to cast? Complex studies
from the pens of Arabists and Semitists previously
unknown to the wider public have suddenly come into
the line of fire in the era of the "clash of
civilizations", which is in reality a "collision" with
Islam. The fire comes primarily from Muslims who do
not perceive academic insight in this field of
endeavor, but rather hostility.
In 2000 the book "Die Syro-aramäische Lesart des
Korans" ("The Syro-Aramaic Interpretation of the
Koran") by a German Semitist was published under the
pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg.
He claimed that the majority of the Koran passages
that are unclear (approximately one-fourth of more
than 6000 verses) can be better interpreted if the
assumption is that the Koran originally took shape in
the Aramaic language or in a hybrid language that was
not identical to the high Arabic language, which was
fully developed only much later. Luxenberg thus leaves
out, among other things, the "huris", i.e. the
"virgins of paradise" the Koran promises to the
martyrs.
Search for an appropriate interpretation of the Koran
Günter Lüling, a German orientalist and theologian,
has not hid himself behind a "nom de plume". For forty
years he has strived to find an appropriate
interpretation of the Muslims holy book. And what he
has produced is explosive, in particular for all those
who insist on the inviolability of texts and beliefs.
But to date, it has not been Muslims who have made his
life difficult, but rather his own colleagues. It is
telling that the final version of his lifes work on
the Koran has been published in English by an Indian
publisher. Even Luxenbergs approach managed to garner
the attention of Arabists and Koran researchers at a
conference in Berlin from January 21st-25th. "We still
know far too little", was the preliminary conclusion.
The title of Günter Lülings book already announces
his intentions: "A Challenge to Islam for
Reformation." According to Lüling, the Reformation
called for in Islam is not only necessary, it is also
not possible without a critical look at the holy text
in the manner that he, and others, have undertaken.
Koran research has thus also become eminently
political. Lüling continues what had already begun at
the turn of the 19th to the 20th century: a Koran
exegesis with the historical and critical methods of
Western science, as done before him by Carlo de
Landberg, Martin Hartmann and Karl Vollers. Already at
that time it was hypothesized that parts of the Koran
were based upon Christian hymns.
Lülings dissertation from 1970, which he published in
an expanded version as a book with the title "Über den
Ur-Koran" ("On the Ur-Koran"), already set out on the
path to which he has remained faithful to this day.
This path has led him off the academic beaten track
and into personal hardship because he has questioned
ideas that Muslims have embraced over more than a
thousand years, and also because he has contradicted
some of the main authorities in Koran research.
Revised "Ur-Koran"
As a reviewer of Lülings book, one cannot help but be
astounded at the abundance of details and arguments in
this work of more than 500 pages; in the end one can
only report that it is a stupendous assemblage of
erudition.
In contrast to the new Anglo-Saxon school of Koran
research (Wansbrough revisionism), which is working on
versions of the holy book from two hundred years after
the death of the Prophet Mohammad (632 A.D.), Lüling
believes that essential parts of the Koran existed
already before the arrival of the Prophet i.e. in
the form of Christian hymns and strophic poems.
This is his main thesis, which he understands as a
"reconstruction" of the "Ur-Koran". If Lüling is
right, then much of what Muslims hold to be true would
have to be thrown overboard, namely that the Koran as
it appears today was revealed in toto to the Prophet
and was compiled as a largely reliable text by Caliph
Uthman, who ruled between 644 and 656.
It had long occurred to Muslim exegetes that many
parts of the holy book were unclear, and seven
different interpretations were considered tolerable,
but the historical and critical methods of modern
science were not available to them.
How does Lüling proceed? He bases his analysis on the
extremely defective writing of early Arabic. As in all
Semitic languages, in his version Arabic in general
yields only consonants and long vowels, the short
vowels are left out. Because every letter is important
to the interpretation, the Koran has been given vowels
with the insertion of signs that appeared only much
later.
The same is true of the point notations that determine
if a letter is a "b," "t," "th," "n," "s," "sh," "z"
or "r," "f" or "q". Over the course of many
generations, the Arabic writing used today has
developed from a suggestive, quasi stenographic
writing system into a "complete" form of writing with
the help of diacritical signs, a process that also
occurred with Hebrew under the Masorets.
No interest in deconstructing Islam
It is easy to understand why misreadings are possible
given the lack of clarity in the writing. Like
Luxenberg, Lüling is not interested in deconstructing
the Islamic religion. To the contrary, he anticipates
that his reconstruction of the Ur-Koran will bring new
impulses for Christian-Islamic dialog.
His findings create a bridge between the two
religions, a bridge whichseen in the right waycould
hardly be wider. Concerning the foundations of Islam,
it is standard knowledgeeven among Muslimsthat
biblical and Christian traditions appear in the Koran,
that Jesus played an important role as the predecessor
of Mohammed, as did Mary and the biblical prophets or
patriarchs.
Using many new arguments, Lüling has identified
important parts of the Koran as originally Christian
hymns (responsories) and has attempted to reconstruct
their exact wording. He uses highly academic means for
this work, which of course also requires knowledge of
pre-Islamic poetry in the Orient, its prosody and the
language forms it used.
There were also Christians among the ancient Arabic
poets, and an entire complex of pre-Islamic or ancient
Arabic Beduin poetry and its language and grammar is
among one of the most interesting and particularly
controversial topics in this field of research.
Already in the past century Taha Hussain had expressed
doubt as to the full authenticity of this poetry as it
appears today; he also suspected that there are
"metrical compositions" in the Koran dating from the
time before Mohammad. Large protests were directed
against this work. With his own methods, Lüling
approaches texts such as the suras 96, 80 and others.
It would be going too far to quote in detail his
reconstructions of certain "misread verb forms", but
these new interpretations yield many eschatological
points with changes in content that allow for a more
insightful alignment with religious tradition than the
older interpretations long considered inviolable. They
thus create continuity in religious history.
Wolfgang Günter Lerch
The article was first published in "Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung", 1 June 2004
URL on this Site:
http://qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php?wc_c=478&wc_id=129
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Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
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