Creating the Quran

Cloaked as “a historical-critical study”, Shoemaker’s work vigorously resurrects and reiterates the centuries-old Western/Orientalist misconceptions and misperceptions about the divine origin of the Qurʾān and the Prophet Muḥammad (blessings and peace be upon him) as the recipient of revelation (waḥy) from God. Almost each page of this study abounds in obnoxious pronouncements about the Qurʾān. The following are some examples: (i) “… the tale of Uthman’s collection remains just one among several conflicting all historically improbable narratives of the Quran’s origins” (p.30); (ii) “…it is sufficiently clear that the pretence of unanimity regarding Uthmanic collection of the Quran is not only deceptive but false (p.30); (iii) “… there remain the ‘thousands’ of variant Quran readings preserved by early Islamic authors or recorded on coinage. The degree to which the Quran remained an unstable text in Islamic usage during the first few centuries of Islam remains effectively still unknown”