Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Stephen J. Shoemaker on Surah 55:46-76 as Evidence the Qur'an's Ultimate Source was Oral Traditions, not an Eternal Book

  

Side by Side Comparison of Parallels in Qur’an 55.46-76

(55:46) But such as fears the Station of his Lord, for them shall be two gardens

(55:62) And besides these shall be two gardens

(55:48) abounding in branches

(55:64) green, green pastures

(55:50) therein two fountains of running water

(55:66) therein two fountains of gushing water

(55.52) therein of every fruit two kinds

(55.68) therein fruits, and palm-trees, and pomegranates

(55:54) reclining upon couches lined with brocade, the fruits of the gardens night to gather

(55: therein maidens good and comely

(55:56) therein maidens restraining their glances, untouched before them by any man or jinn

(55:72) houris, cloistered in cool pavilions

(55:58) Lovely as rubies, beautiful as coral

(55:74) untouched before them by any man or jinn

(55:60) Shall the recompense of goodness be other than goodness?

(55:76) reclining upon green cushions and lovely druggets

. . .

 

A prime example of a variant produced in the oral tradition occurs in Qur’an 55:46-76, where two versions of the same tradition are juxtaposed one another the other. . . . I see little reason to doubt, as Wansbrough similarly concludes, that these are two variants of the same tradition whose differences are the result of recurrent oral reproduction. A written model is neither necessary nor all that helpful in seeking to understand the relations and differences between these two versions. Clearly, we have here alternate versions of a single tradition that were produced in the process of oral tradition and then were recorded in writing independently—originally in separate collections one imagines, before being joined together one after the other, following very conservative editorial principles. One assumes, moreover, that these early collections would continue to be expanded and altered in light of the enduring oral tradition, as well as the changing experiences of the community and its expanding knowledge of the traditions of Abrahamic monotheism. Additional variants may have continued to develop alongside the written text in the oral tradition, possibly entering and/or influencing the written tradition as it was still developing. (Stephen J. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Study [Oakland, Calif.: University of California Press, 2022], 218-19)