Chase F. Robinson. ‘Abd al-Malik . Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005. 139 pages. US$40.00 Cloth ISBN 1-85168-361-5

Abstract

described the early Muslim Arabs advancing into Syria as Mhaggraye (immigrants), whereas earlier the Arabs were mostly called 'Arabdye and Tayydye (Sons of Hagar and Ishmaelites), and he reports that a Syriac document dated to 644 mentions that the Mhaggraye have accepted the Torah but that it never refers to the Qur'an indicating, he thinks, that the Qur'an was not yet in circulation. In Part 3 Devin J. Stewart shows that emendations to the Qur'anic text were speculated over by medieval Muslim scholars as a result of difficulties in it regarding ductus (rasm. orthography) or theological concerns. Andrew Rippin studies the Islamic tradition of investigating terms of foreign origin in the Qur'an and shows that modern western scholars' speculation about the original linguistic and cultural context of the Qur'an is not so new, after all. Whether the "hopeless chaos" Angelika Neuwirth wondered about in the field of Qur'anic studies is assuaged or not by studies like those in this book, it is true that the revisionist and controversial western scholars' publications of recent decades, though not generally or equally accepted, have instigated research in the field that are essential to placing the Qur'an in its linguistic, cultural, and historical context. This book is a good contribution to movement in this direction. Issa J. Boullata McGill University