you any more from writing nonsense.
Be it that they don't dare to,
be it that they think: When the goddess says so, it must be so.
The Qur’ān in its emergent phase is not a pre-meditated, fixed compilation, a reified literary artefact, but a still-mobile text reflecting an oral theological-philosophical debate between diverse interlocutors of various late antique denominations.So far: no problem.
Angelika Neuwirth, "Two Faces of the Qurʾan" in Kelber, Sanders (eds.): Oral-Scribal Dimensions ... Eugene, OR: Cascade 2016. p.172
But a truism for "its emergent phase".
Islamic tradition, however, does distinguish between the (divinely) “authored Book,” labelled al-muṣḥaf ... and the Qur’ānic communication process, labelled al-qur’ān.No footnote. No sources given.
first in Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 141-156, here: 143
later in Werner H. Kelber, Paula A. Sanders( eds.) Oral-Scribal Dimensions of Scripture, Piety, and Practice. Eugene, OR: Cascade 2016. pp. 170-187, here: 173?
For the "Islamic tradition" it should be easy to give lots of sources,
but does the Islamic tradition really see al-qurʾān as a communication?
Do Muslims really call the Divine Book al-muṣḥaf?
No and No.
Utter Nonsense! True Neuwirth.
Yes, Muslims make distinctions:
al-kitāb ‒ al-qurʾān ‒ al-muṣḥaf
But al-qurʾān is not a process.
It can be recitation (the core meaning of the word).
It can be the same as al-Kitāb, the divinely authored Book in heaven.
al-muṣḥaf is the rather mundane materialisation, not on a tablet in heaven,
but between two covers on earth ‒ be it written by hand, be it printed.
Before reading Neuwirth ‒ and after reading her ‒ I thought that they call the divine book al-kitāb.
If my credentials are too weak, you might rather believe Yasin Dutton:
we need to distinguish between kitāb, qurʾān and muṣḥaf, which we can see as three aspects of the same thing. Kitāb, we would say, is the divinely-preserved ‘original’, which, as God’s speech (kalām) and therefore one of the divine attributes, is, strictly speaking, indefinable in human terms. In a sense it belongs to a different realm: it is ‘that book’ (dhālika l-kitāb; Q. 2. 2) rather than ‘this Qurʾān’ (hādhā al-qurʾān; e.g. Q. 6. 19, 10. 37, etc). It is, as the Qurʾān says, a book that has been sent down in the form of a qurʾān in the Arabic language (kitābun fuṣṣilat āyātuhu qurʾānan ʿarabiyyan [‘a book whose āyas (‘signs’, ‘verses’) have been demarcated (or ‘clarified’) in the form of an Arabic Qurʾān’] Q. 41. 3) so that it can be understood by people. One could say that it is from the out-of-time and comes into the in-time on the heart, and then the tongue, of the Messenger: ‘The Trustworthy Spirit brought it down onto your heart for you to be one of the warners, in a clear Arabic tongue’ (Q. 26. 193–5). But in doing so it takes on some of the characteristics of ordinary human speech: it is in their language ..."ORALITY, LITERACY AND THE 'SEVEN AḤRUF' ḤADĪTH" in Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 2012). pp38ff.
we could say that the kitāb of Allah gets expressed as qurʾān on the tongue of the Messenger, and then as ṣuḥuf and maṣāḥif by the pens of the Muslims—and all are aspects of one and the same thing. Wa-l-lāhua aʿlamu bi-l-ṣawāb.
