Critique and Analysis of James Bellamy's Views in the Article "Some Proposed Amendments to the Text of the Koran"(مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
حوزههای تخصصی:
James Bellamy is one of the contemporary Orientalists in Quranic studies who, considering the Qur'an as a historical text, attempts to recognize some problematic Quranic phrases and suggests their corrections by using the textual criticism method. Analyzing the textual difficulties of the Qur'an, he points out that the Holy Prophet did not cause these errors, but based on some traditions, he believes that the scribes of revelation made mistakes while copying the text of the Qur'an. Referring to twelve of these mistakes, he tries to indicate that the scribes might have made mistakes in every period, and by exemplifying such cases, he proposes their corrections. This article intends to critically analyze the first six proposed corrections of James Bellamy's article entitled "Some Proposed Emendations to the Text of the Koran" published in 1993. A serious critique of Bellamy's view is the neglect of frequency in the written quotation of the Quranic text and the dominance of reading over writing. Furthermore, many of his inscriptional claims are inconsistent with ancient manuscripts of the Qur'an dating back to the early centuries of Islam.