The Transmission of the Qur'an in the First Centuries AH
This volume offers an interdisciplinary study of the modalities, actors, technicalities and consequences of the evolving of religious texts within the perspective of the fragment versus the whole. The focus is on fragmentary texts from Islamic rel...
Eric Ormsby, Times Literary Supplement Asma Hilali's reconstruction of the Sanaa Palimpsest affords a privileged glimpse into the most fundamental aspect of qur'anic studies: the recovery of very early fragmented (and often indecipherable) texts. ... Though hers is a highly technical study, Hilali writes with such clarity, ... that even non-specialist readers will find it useful, and, indeed, fascinating. ... The annotated edition of both texts is quite simply masterly. It is on the foundation of such determined and painstaking labour as Asma Hilali has performed that subsequent syntheses, ... must eventually depend.
Jerod A. Gilcher, Gateway Seminary, Reading Religion ...you cannot help but enjoy The Sanaa Palimpsest. It is extremely thorough, clearly written, remarkably accessible (especially for content so technical), historically illuminating, and incredibly interesting for anyone with a love for religious studies.
Aziz al-Azmeh, University Professor, Department of History, Central European University, Budapest Both parts of this volume, the edition and the introduction, are equally impressive, displaying as comfortable and sure a hand with the technicalities of codicology as with scrutiny and assessment of the Sanaa palimpsest as an historical object. Hilali's technical as well as analytical judgements are sober and acutely insightful. They disallow the intrusion of anachronistic considerations and the inflection of judgement by unnecessary yet all-too-common theological or doctrinal assumptions. Instead, the author's interpretation and choices display a keen sense for clues, and open avenues towards reconstructing one more element in the jigsaw puzzle that is the interconnected histories of Qur'anic enunciation, composition, reiteration, redaction, and early circulation.
Franois Droche, Professor of the History of the Qur'an (Text and Transmission), Collge de France Dr Hilali's anticipated publication on the Sanaa palimpsest provides fresh material for the further study of this fascinating document and offers new hypotheses about its origins. I have no doubt that the field of Qur'anic studies will greatly benefit from her insightful study.
Asma Hilali is a Research Associate in the Department of Academic Research and Publications at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. She gained her PhD from l'École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. Dr Hilali has worked in various research centres in Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Her main interest is related to the transmission of religious literature in early and mediaeval Islam, and the issues of how religious texts were used and what impact this use had on their forms and contents.