Wansbrough's viewpoint concerning the canonizationof the Quran: A critical survey

Abstract

The most skeptical approach towards the authenticity of Islamic original textss, was represented in the late 1970s by John Wansbrough. By insisting that Isnad of hadiths and bibliographical information are not reliable, Wansbrough suggested literary analysis instead of dating of all early Islamic texts including the Quran. By employing literary analysis to early Islamic texts of exegesis, hadith, sira and even the Quran, he came to this conclusion that none of them are earlier than the end of the second or beginning of the third century. In this article Wansbrough's viewpoint concerning the canonization of the Quran has been critically examined.

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