The present volume deals with the transmission and dynamics of the textual sources of Islam.
This is not only a reason for continued research on the textual sources of Islam as an academic subject in itself but it also shows that the seemingly obscure subjects that this volume deals with are actually related to the commonly-held myths of an essentialist Islam embodied by the supposedly mono-interpretable sources. The results this research has yielded often show that we actually know much less about early-Islamic history than the work of great scholars like Watt seems to suggest1 and that the application of the texts in Muslims’ daily lives is highly dynamic and far from homoge-neous. This research has brought the study of the textual sources of Islam to a much higher level by critically examining the texts from various points of view. Recent research, including the present volume, has not only shown that the Qurʾān and the Sunna are much more complicated historical sources than is sometimes believed but also that they can be used in different ways with regard to contentious contemporary issues. Muslims, on the other hand, have come up with a host of often hugely divergent replies, thereby showing that the supposedly uniform mes-sage of the sources is much more dynamic and often leads to very different views and interpretations. Non-Muslim critics of Islam often answer this question by stating that Islam is an inherently violent ideology and quote militant passages from the Qurʾān to “prove” their point. This belief in the homogeneity and clear-cut message of the sources begs the question of what the Qurʾān and the Sunna actually say. This view is often espoused by critics of Islam but many Muslims also support the view that their religion is indeed wholly contained in the Qurʾān and the Sunna and that believers must simply follow those sources as closely as possible in order to live up to “real Islam”. Strongly connected to the notion that the Qurʾān and the Sunna are the undisputed textual sources of religious authority for Muslims is the popularly-held idea that these sources can be fully equated with Islam as a whole and that if one wants to know something about that reli-gion, one need only consult these books. While such protests should probably be seen in the wider political context of a perceived Western “assault on Islam”, of which these inci-dents are supposedly only the latest examples, they nevertheless show that criticism of or even insults against these sources in our day and age are sensitive to say the least, as they are in other religions. The protests in the Muslim world following the alleged “abuse” of the Qurʾān by American soldiers in the Guantanamo Bay prison as well as the publication of several Danish cartoons of the Prophet several years ago seem cases in point of how sacred these sources are to believers. Although this does not mean that all Muslims are pious believers who try to model their lives after the examples offered in the Qurʾānic text and the life of the Prophet, both are universally respected from Morocco to Indonesia. The Qurʾān and the records of the Prophet Muḥammad’s acts and say-ings (the Ḥ adīth) remain the undisputed textual sources of religious authority among virtually all Muslims worldwide. INTRODUCTION – THE TRANSMISSION AND DYNAMICS OF THE TEXTUAL SOURCES OF ISLAM
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