Qur'an
composition: secureauthorship: traditional
witness: Birmingham and Sanaa parchment folios, radiocarbon dated to the seventh century
A recitation delivered over roughly two decades presents itself not as a new religion but as the correction of scriptures held to have been distorted in transmission, and fixes classical Arabic as a literary standard in the process.
- earlier scriptures affirmed in principle and held corrected in detail
- a written standard imposed early, with variants suppressed
- rhymed prose distinct from both verse and speech, claimed as inimitable
- Arabic fixed as a literary and administrative standard across three continents
The text is arranged in one hundred and fourteen suras ordered broadly by length rather than by the sequence of delivery, so the Meccan material on judgement and monotheism and the Medinan material on law and community are interleaved. Its language is rhymed and rhythmic prose unlike either poetry or ordinary speech, and its own claim of inimitability became a doctrine and a field of study. Tradition holds that the caliph Uthman had a standard written text established and variant copies destroyed, roughly two decades after Muhammad's death. Beyond its religious authority it fixed the Arabic in which philosophy, science and administration would later be written from Iberia to Central Asia.
Commentary
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