Christoph Luxenberg

Christoph Luxenberg is the pseudonym of the author of the 2000 book Die Syro-Aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (in English: The Syro-Aramaic Reading Of The Koran: a contribution to the decoding of the language of the Qur'an).

This book takes a philological and text-critical approach to the study of the Qur'an.

The book's thesis is controversial and the author has chosen to remain anonymous, fearing retaliation by angry Muslims.

Luxenberg's thesis

The original script found in the Uthman manuscripts of the Qu'ran, called the rasm does not contain any diacritical marks, the dots that are used to distinguish various letters and vowels in Arabic. The diacritical points were added around the turn of the eighth century on orders of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef, governor of Iraq (694-714).

Luxenberg remarks that the Qur'an contains much ambiguous and even inexplicable language. He asserts that even Muslim scholars find some passages difficult to parse and have written reams of Quranic commentary attempting to explain these passages. However, the assumption behind their endeavours has always been that any difficult passage is both true and meaningful, and that it can be deciphered with the tools of traditional Muslim scholarship. Luxenberg accuses Western academic scholars of the Qur'an of taking a timid and imitative approach, relying too heavily on the biased work of Muslim scholars.

Luxenberg argues that scholars must start afresh, ignore the old Islamic commentaries, and use only the latest in linguistic and historical methods. He argues that Muhammad was preaching concepts that were new to many of his Arab hearers, concepts that Muhammad had learned from his conversations with the Arabian Jews and Christians, or from the Christians of Syria (where he is believed to have travelled). Hence, if a particular Quranic word or phrase seems meaningless in Arabic, or can be given meaning only by tortured conjectures, it makes sense -- he argues -- to look to the Aramaic and Syriac languages as well as Arabic.

Traditional Islamic commentary generally limits itself to Arabic lexicology; Luxenberg proposes expanding the number of languages to be consulted.

Luxenberg also argues that the Qur'an is based on earlier texts, namely lectionaries used in the Christian churches of Syria, and that it was the work of several generations who adapted these texts into the Qur'an we know today.

According to Islamic tradition, the Koran dates back to the 7th century, while the first examples of Arabic literature in the full sense of the phrase are found only two centuries later, at the time of the 'Biography of the Prophet'; that is, of the life of Mohammed as written by Ibn Hisham, who died in 828. We may thus establish that post-Koranic Arabic literature developed by degrees, in the period following the work of al-Khalil bin Ahmad , who died in 786, the founder of Arabic lexicography (kitab al-ayn), and of Sibawayh, who died in 796, to whom the grammar of classical Arabic is due. Now, if we assume that the composition of the Koran was brought to an end in the year of the Prophet Mohammed's death, in 632, we find before us an interval of 150 years, during which there is no trace of Arabic literature worthy of note.

At that time, there were no Arab schools - except, perhaps, for the Christian centers of al-Anbar and al-Hira, in southern Mesopotamia, or what is now Iraq. The Arabs of that region had been Christianized and instructed by Syrian Christians. Their liturgical language was Syro-Aramaic. And this was the vehicle of their culture, and more generally the language of written communication.

Beginning in the third century, the Syrian Christians did not limit themselves to bringing their evangelical mission to nearby countries, like Armenia or Persia. They pressed on toward distant territories, all the way to the borders of China and the western coast of India, in addition to the entire Arabian peninsula all the way to Yemen and Ethiopia. It is thus rather probable that, in order to proclaim the Christian message to the Arabic peoples, they would have used (among others) the language of the Bedouins, or Arabic. In order to spread the Gospel, they necessarily made use of a mishmash of languages. But in an era in which Arabic was just an assembly of dialects and had no written form, the missionaries had no choice but to resort to their own literary language and their own culture; that is, to Syro-Aramaic. The result was that the language of the Koran was born as a written Arabic language, but one of Arab-Aramaic derivation. ^{[citation needed]}

Luxenberg's philological methodology

Check whether a plausible explanation can be found in Al-Tabari's commentary, one that has been overlooked by Western translators;
Check if there is a plausible explanation in the Lisan, the most extensive Arabic dictionary (this dictionary had not been written in Tabari's time, so might contain new material);
Check to see if the Arabic expression has a homonymous root in Syriac or Aramaic with a different meaning which fits the context.
Judge whether or not the meaning of the Syriac/Aramaic root word might make better sense of the passage.
Check to see if there is a Syriac word which would make sense of the passage.
Experiment with different placements of the diacritics (which indicate vowels, etc.) later added to the earliest text, the rasm. Perhaps there is a version of the rasm that will give an Arabic word that makes sense of the passage.
If there is no Arabic word that works, repeat the experiment and look for Syriac words.
Translate the Arabic phrase into Syriac and check the Syrian literature for a phrase that might have been translated literally into Arabic; the original meaning in Syriac may make more sense than the resulting Arabic phrase (such translated phrases are called morphological calques).
Check to see if there is a corresponding phrase in the old Syrian literature, which may be an analog of an Arabic phrase now lost.
Check to see if it is a correct Arabic expression written in Arabic script, but in Syriac orthography.

Luxenberg claims that all such readings are compatible with the rasm, the earliest Quranic texts written in a script that did not use diacriticals.

Luxenberg's conclusions

Luxenberg concludes from his reworking of the Quran that it is derived from a Syro-Aramaic lectionary, with hymns and Biblical extracts, created for use in Christian services. This lectionary was translated into Arabic as a missionary effort. It was not meant to start a new religion, but to spread an older one.

Luxenberg has not emended the whole of the Qur'an according to his notions; he bases his conclusions on what he believes to be a representative sampling of difficult passages.

One passage that he has emended has attracted a great deal of attention. He argues that the word huri, usually interpreted by Islamic commentators as wide-eyed virgins (who will serve the faithful in Paradise; Qur'an 44:54, 52:20 ,55:72, 56:22) actually means white grapes. He says that many Christian descriptions of Paradise describe it as abounding in pure white grapes. This sparked much joking in the Western press; suicide bombers would be expecting beautiful women and getting grapes.^[1]

Luxenberg also argues that the Quranic passage in Sura 24 commanding women to cover themselves, one of the texts on which the doctrine of hijab is based, actually commands women to "snap their belts around their waists". He says that the passage in Sura 33 that has usually been translated as "seal of the prophets" actually means "witness". By this reading, Muhammad is not the greatest of the prophets, but only a witness to those prophets who came before him.

Context of Luxenberg's thesis

The date of the collection of the Qur'an has been a contentious issue ever since the 1960s publications of John Wansbrough, the American born scholar who lived and worked in Britain. Wansbrough adopted a resolutely skeptical approach, dismissing Muslim beliefs regarding the collection of the Qur'an and focusing only on textual and manuscript evidence. He came to believe that far from being collected in 650-656 CE by the caliph Uthman ibn Affan, the Qur'an was the result of a slow, organic growth during the first few centuries of Islam. Wansbrough's works are written in a dense, hermetic fashion and he has had little direct influence. His students Patricia Crone and Michael Cook had a much greater impact with their 1977 publication of Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (now out of print), which argued for a late date for the collection of the Qur'an.

However, later scholarly opinion has swung towards an acceptance of an early date for the Qur'an. Of note here are Fred M. Donner's arguments in Narratives of Islamic Origins and Gerd R. Puin's article describing his work on late 8th century Qur'an manuscripts found in a mosque in Yemen. ^[2]

Response to Luxenberg

Several academics have enthusiastically accepted Luxenberg's thesis [1], [2]. However, many academics seem to feel that his method is a recipe for picking the interpretation that best serves the needs of his argument [3], [4].

In 2004 the German Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) in Berlin held an academic conference focusing on Luxenberg's thesis [5] and an international working group was formed to continue the discussion. Many of the conference discussions were critical of Luxenberg. However, a number of academics have stated that Luxenberg's work is valuable in that it has focused attention on various deficiencies in contemporary Quranic studies.

One is the lack of a critical edition of the Qur'an, referencing the manuscripts that still exist and studying the evolution of the received text as it is known today.

Another is the lack of an etymological dictionary of the Semitic languages that meets the strictest contemporary standards. This would surely contribute to discussions of borrowings from Syriac, Latin and Middle Persian into Arabic.

Notes

^ ""Virgins? What virgins?"". January 12, 2002.
^ Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing, Donner, Darwin Press, 1998, p. 60., ISBN 0-87850-127-4

Bibliography

Luxenberg, Christoph (2000) -- Die Syro-Aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler. ISBN 3-89930-028-9.
Luxenberg, Christoph (2004) -- Weihnachten im Koran. in Streit um den Koran, Die Luxenberg Debatte: Standpunkte und Hintergründe Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler. 2004. ISBN 3-89930-067-X.
Luxenberg, Christoph (2005) --Neudeutung der arabischen Inschrift im Felsendom zu Jerusalem. in Die dunklen Anfänge, neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler. 2005. ISBN 3-89930-128-5.
Puin, Gerd R. -- "Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in Sana'a," in The Qur'an as Text, ed. Stefan Wild, , E.J. Brill 1996, pp. 107-111. Reprinted in What the Koran Really Says, ed. Ibn Warraq, Prometheus Books, 2002
Luxenberg, Christoph (2007) -- The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran - A Contribution to the Decoding of the Koran. Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler. 2007 ISBN 3-89930-088-2.

External links

Popular press

Academic press

[1] ""Virgins? What virgins?"". January 12, 2002.

[2] Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing, Donner, Darwin Press, 1998, p. 60., ISBN 0-87850-127-4

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