The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran

Christoph Luxenberg’s (a pseudonym) highly controversial book, now availablein English, has caused some to see in him an important ally in the waragainst Osama bin Laden and others to shake his book off as “orientalism.”There has been, in English at least, little substantive reporting on the actualarguments advanced. I will try to present a critical review of the main contentionsand types of arguments Luxenberg offers in support.This book has two theses: one brazen and sweeping, the other a collectionof specific arguments and analyses. The sweeping thesis is that theQur’an was originally a lectionary, a collection of texts fromthe Hebrew andChristian Bibles to be read out loud (p. 104). It was set down in Karshuni, aform of Syriac written inArabic characters; however, the Qur’an employedan alphabet more primitive than the one now in use. In particular, diacriticaldots were lacking. Given this double bind, so to speak, its first students hadgreat difficulty understanding the text, particularly insofar as they mistakenlytook it to be written in Arabic. Hence the large amount of significantmisreadings, the individual reinterpretations of which collectively formwhat I call the book’s second thesis.This is clearly not a book that will convince the faithful. But even if onesets aside one’s personal beliefs, some major problems emerge. For example,who was responsible for establishing the Qur’anic text? A key role is ...