I don't want to sidetrack the thread and I agree that the Koran was penned in about the 7th century (pulling that out of the air there, I am not sure of the exact century)
Muhammad had his first "revelation" in AD 610 (interstingly, he was convinced that he had been possessed, or at least encountered, an evil spirit and was going to kill himself; it was his wife Khadijah that convinced him it was actually an encounter with an angel). Further revelations didn't occur until AD 612 and apparently lasted until his death in AD 632. While Muhammad supervised the recoring of the individual Surahs he did not himself
write any of them as far as I am aware. Many people claim Muhammad was actually illiterate so what effect this supervision would have is debateable (personally, I think this wasn't the case since he was a merchant and would likely have had at least rudimentary reading and writing skills; regardless though, he had others write down the verses for whatever reason).
Muhammad also had a habit of having people insert new material in texts that had already been recorded. The verses were recorded on a variety of materials such as parchment, papyrus, palm leaves, flat rocks and animal bones. There is also the probability that some of the verses of the Qu'ran were actually lost at the Battle of Yamama.
It was Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, that had the Qu'ran verses collected into one place. Once this was done Abu Bakr gave the text to one of Muhammad's widows. Oddly, the text was kept under wraps and not copied or spread fo several years. Meanwhile, different versions of the Qu'ranic text were in circulation. It was the third Caliph, Uthman who actually codified the Qu'ran and made this text the official version. This was done since areas such as Damascus and others had their own traditions regarding the text (I blieve there were four versions of the text in existence at the time, but it could have been more). Uthman formed a committee, got out the text that Muhammad's widow had apparently kept hidden since Abu Bakr entrusted her with it and had them revise the text and then distribute it throughout the empire with the orders that every other version of the Qu'ran, whether complete or a partial collection of verses, be destroyed.
One
very important thing to keep in mind when actually reading the Qu'ran is the abrogation theory. Namely, the later verses abrogate the earlier verses when they stand in conrtadiction. Unlike, for example, the Catholic view that there is no contradiction in the Bible because God is the source of all truth and so cannot contradict himself the Muslim view is quite different. God in Islam is not bound by anything, even his own nature, and so is free to change his mind. (I don't have my notes with me now but IIRC there is even a verse in the Qu'ran where Allah actually says this.) Any discussion of Qu'ranic interpretation that doesn't take abrogation seriously is not going to get an accurate picture of the religion. While some individual Muslims reject abrogation it is still the view of the religion in general.
but it was my perception that the faith didn't really 'get going' until more recently? Certainly in terms of the division that most of us are guilty of thinking of as being the Muslim/Islamic religion i.e. the 'nasty' one.
You might want to study a bit of history about the spread of Islam, particularly as it spread westwards.
Time for some in depth research I reckon ... then again, searching for details of such things on the Net may well get me on a 'watch list' these days
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I seriously doubt this, but if this is a real concern a trip to the local library, or better still, to a near by university library would be easy enough.
Pax,
Chris
