Sensitive business

TorgoX on 2004-01-17T20:48:12

Dear Log,

«This means that soon Von Bothmer, Puin, and other scholars will finally have a chance to scrutinize the texts and to publish their findings freely -- a prospect that thrills Puin. "So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word," he says. "They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us to do this."»

--"What Is The Koran": Researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world. This is, as one scholar puts it, a "sensitive business"

"The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too"? Note to all hysterical Eurasian throngs: explore the distinction between "historic" and "histrionic". The two are usually mutually exclusive.