Variant Readings of the Qur’an
Book cover image of Nasser, Transmission of the Variant Readings (Brill, 2013).
In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 1, no. 9, Hamza M. Zafer reviews Shady Hekmat Nasser, The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh (Brill, 2013). This book lays out the processes whereby certain readings of the Qurʾan were deemed canonical while others were deemed deviant (shādhdh; pl. shawādhdh) by the early tradition. Nasser brings together an eclectic selection of traditional sources and uses a Motzkian hadith critical methodology to shed light on the development of Muslim scripturalism and its connections to wider ideological transformations in early Islamic thought.
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© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015.