Ageless Qur'an Timeless Text

This posthumous work by the outstanding Qur’an scholar, Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azmi (d. 20 December 2017) complements and supplements his The History of the Qur’anic Text: From Revelation to Compilation (2003). The latter cogently describes how the Qur’anic text was sent down to the Prophet Muhammad (blessing and peace be upon him), how it was meticulously recorded by the Companions and how its definitive copy was compiled under the supervision of the Caliph [Uthman. In so doing, he demolished the Orientalists’ aspersions cast against the authenticity of the Qur’anic text. His critique constitutes a masterly rejoinder to the bizarre neo-Orientalist stance that the Qur’an came into being in the ninth century, some 250 years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death! Azmi’s contribution to Hadith scholarship is equally impressive. His earlier works Studies in Early Hadith Literature (1967) and Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature (1977) refute the Orientalists’ allegations, especially of Joseph Schacht (1902–1969), and help readers appreciate better the methodology of Hadith collections.