Descripción del proyecto
Investigación sobre las tradiciones de lectura del Corán
Los fieles islámicos suelen creer que el Corán es una transcripción literal de las prédicas orales de Mahoma. En el siglo VII, cuando se compiló el libro por primera vez, se usaron al menos siete conjuntos diferentes de instrucciones de lectura, signos diacríticos en la pronunciación esenciales para la transmisión del significado. Sin embargo, estos no se normalizaron ni canonizaron hasta el siglo X, lo cual hace que las instrucciones de lectura utilizadas en los textos coránicos anteriores a la canonización sean un rico recurso histórico de interpretación. El equipo del proyecto QurCan, financiado con fondos europeos, ahondará en esta cuestión. Obtendrá información sobre la recitación original y cómo las tradiciones de lectura dieron origen al libro sagrado que se usa en la actualidad.
Objetivo
The perfect preservation of the Quran back to the time of Muhammad, Islam’s founder, is a contentious topic. In the popular imagination, each syllable printed in the Quran today is believed to be identical to the way Muhammad taught his followers. One easily gets this impression from modern printed Qurans, the vast majority of which are based on the reading tradition of Hafs in the transmission of Asim. A reading tradition instructs the reader how to pronounce each syllable in the Quranic text. But, this uniformity is a recent development. All sects of Islam recognize at least 7 canonical, equally valid, reading traditions. The reading traditions emerged to alleviate the ambiguities of the early Arabic script of the Quran in the middle of the 7th c. CE. At that time, the Arabic script could not express short vowels or distinguish between many consonants, leading to significant differences in pronunciation and in some cases even wording. Without a tradition of instruction, the Quranic text would be—in some cases—impossible to decipher. The canonisation of these reading traditions, however, does not go back to the time of Muhammad, rather it was the 10th c. scholar ibn Mujahid who established the canon. Up until recently, it was thought that his work functioned as our historical horizon—everything we can know about the pre-canonical situation is filtered through his choices and thinking. However, there are hundreds of Quranic manuscripts from the time preceding the canonisation stretching back at least to the beginning of the 8th c. that make use of diacritics to instruct the reader. These pre-canonical reading traditions provide a vista into the pre-history of Quranic recitation, yet they have so far gone almost entirely unstudied. QurCan aims to mine these rich historical sources to understand what Quran recitation was like before ibn Mujahid, how the reading traditions developed, and how this led to the crystallized canon that we know today.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedInstitución de acogida
2311 EZ Leiden
Países Bajos