firedragon
Veteran Member
Form criticism is an official term for Biblical criticism that was aligned with the Old Testament predominantly and has taken huge strides and evolved in to New Testament criticism as well. With the presumption that its common knowledge I would like to ask "Has anyone tried this with the Qur'an?".
If you wish to understand form criticism, it is basically an identification of varying patterns created by linguistics that would change with purpose, socio-economical background, sociology of religion, sociology in general, and basically looking for different genres in a given text tracing forms of transmission or/and times. Where in the world does the ideas or different ideas in the particular book come from? What went on around it?
There are somer who have attempted few methods of criticism with the Quran and the work is quite extensive. The issue with all this analyses lie in such vast differences in the hypothesis and the conclusions they come up with. When applying criticism one has to try and shed the presumptions and biases which is hard to do, and it is of course assumed that a believer of the Quran would have biases for and the non-believer would have biases against. Nevertheless reading the non-believers who attempted literary criticism have varied so much it is very much unlike any other scripture, vis a vis the Old Testament and New Testament.
For example, one scholar (Non-Muslim of course) would come to a conclusion that the Quran is all homily, yet another would say its all prayer which are so vastly different in simple genre. How in the world could two scholars come up with such vastly different conclusions? This is of course others like liturgical, poetic, prayer, just sermons, and of course polemic. One conclusion of all of these put together as analyses, is that the Qur'an is in fact all of this put together. The sinister problem with this is that generally when you apply criticism to text as an example to the Tanakh, you can basically demarcate texts and volumes and place them in one genre or/and authorship altogether. As an example according to the documentary hypothesis the Torah or the Pentateuch, Genesis, exodus, Leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy were penned down by four different schools of thought at very different times in very different sociological settings and purpose. That is an academic exercise. For example, Deuteronomy is a whole other book written by a single source (individual or school of thought). But a different source altogether in comparison to the other four books in the Torah. Whats up with the Qur'an? Well, you can not do that with the Qur'an. According to these scholars what you could do with the Quran is pick and choose similar genres like a prayer or address of God like "Allahumma" which means "Oh God" and put that as one genre of prayer. Well, this means it is spread across the Quran, unlike criticism of the Torah. I hope you understand. With the Qur'an, this is the case with all the forms. It is all spread across the Quran.
If you take the first chapter of the Quran generally called Surathus Sanaa or Alhamdhu Surah, you would notice that within those 6 verses you get several forms. One is a prayer that says guide us, one is polemic which simply denies polytheistic view and promotes monotheism simply by the word Allah and sentences like Rabbil Alamin, then you get Homily which summarises theology in a nutshell, and its also simple poetry with rhythmic narration. One thing that most of the scholars come to at the end is that the Quran is overall a recitation. Place it with any other Arabic literature you would see that the Qur'an is wholly a recitation. Also what most do not seem to note is that though they conclude the Quran is a recitation, they fail to note that the Quran is named a recitation. Quran means a recitation. It is indeed either remarkable or strange that the name itself correlates with the foundation of the Quran arrived at after extensive criticism.
Simply put, the genres in the Quran are all over the place but you could pick and choose the similar genres from various places in the Quran and sum them up for analysis. The outcome ultimately is this. It was useless. Because there was no really out come of placing the Quran to different sources. The Quran still is written by one person. Its not that the exercise is invalid. It provides so much knowledge of the Quran, yet it seems like the end goal of many of the analysis have failed to be achieved.
It is a fact that some Muslims have this notion that criticism of the Quran is a sin as if God told you its a sin. Also, people have a dogmatic aversion to the word criticism. Criticism is an academic exercise, not like the street use where you criticise other peoples clothes which always sounds derogatory. But I feel Muslims truly don't have much to worry and its silly to worry because if you simply look at the criticism the outcomes are quite remarkable.
I would like to hear thoughts of our learned members.
Peace.
If you wish to understand form criticism, it is basically an identification of varying patterns created by linguistics that would change with purpose, socio-economical background, sociology of religion, sociology in general, and basically looking for different genres in a given text tracing forms of transmission or/and times. Where in the world does the ideas or different ideas in the particular book come from? What went on around it?
There are somer who have attempted few methods of criticism with the Quran and the work is quite extensive. The issue with all this analyses lie in such vast differences in the hypothesis and the conclusions they come up with. When applying criticism one has to try and shed the presumptions and biases which is hard to do, and it is of course assumed that a believer of the Quran would have biases for and the non-believer would have biases against. Nevertheless reading the non-believers who attempted literary criticism have varied so much it is very much unlike any other scripture, vis a vis the Old Testament and New Testament.
For example, one scholar (Non-Muslim of course) would come to a conclusion that the Quran is all homily, yet another would say its all prayer which are so vastly different in simple genre. How in the world could two scholars come up with such vastly different conclusions? This is of course others like liturgical, poetic, prayer, just sermons, and of course polemic. One conclusion of all of these put together as analyses, is that the Qur'an is in fact all of this put together. The sinister problem with this is that generally when you apply criticism to text as an example to the Tanakh, you can basically demarcate texts and volumes and place them in one genre or/and authorship altogether. As an example according to the documentary hypothesis the Torah or the Pentateuch, Genesis, exodus, Leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy were penned down by four different schools of thought at very different times in very different sociological settings and purpose. That is an academic exercise. For example, Deuteronomy is a whole other book written by a single source (individual or school of thought). But a different source altogether in comparison to the other four books in the Torah. Whats up with the Qur'an? Well, you can not do that with the Qur'an. According to these scholars what you could do with the Quran is pick and choose similar genres like a prayer or address of God like "Allahumma" which means "Oh God" and put that as one genre of prayer. Well, this means it is spread across the Quran, unlike criticism of the Torah. I hope you understand. With the Qur'an, this is the case with all the forms. It is all spread across the Quran.
If you take the first chapter of the Quran generally called Surathus Sanaa or Alhamdhu Surah, you would notice that within those 6 verses you get several forms. One is a prayer that says guide us, one is polemic which simply denies polytheistic view and promotes monotheism simply by the word Allah and sentences like Rabbil Alamin, then you get Homily which summarises theology in a nutshell, and its also simple poetry with rhythmic narration. One thing that most of the scholars come to at the end is that the Quran is overall a recitation. Place it with any other Arabic literature you would see that the Qur'an is wholly a recitation. Also what most do not seem to note is that though they conclude the Quran is a recitation, they fail to note that the Quran is named a recitation. Quran means a recitation. It is indeed either remarkable or strange that the name itself correlates with the foundation of the Quran arrived at after extensive criticism.
Simply put, the genres in the Quran are all over the place but you could pick and choose the similar genres from various places in the Quran and sum them up for analysis. The outcome ultimately is this. It was useless. Because there was no really out come of placing the Quran to different sources. The Quran still is written by one person. Its not that the exercise is invalid. It provides so much knowledge of the Quran, yet it seems like the end goal of many of the analysis have failed to be achieved.
It is a fact that some Muslims have this notion that criticism of the Quran is a sin as if God told you its a sin. Also, people have a dogmatic aversion to the word criticism. Criticism is an academic exercise, not like the street use where you criticise other peoples clothes which always sounds derogatory. But I feel Muslims truly don't have much to worry and its silly to worry because if you simply look at the criticism the outcomes are quite remarkable.
I would like to hear thoughts of our learned members.
Peace.
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