Le Coran, une histoire plurielle

"The authenticity of a canon is an essential question for all religions where a scripture holds a central place. But whereas, for other denominations, the truth of the message accommodates variations in the formulation, this is not the position of the Muslim dogma, which considers that the canonical text of the Koran, recited by the faithful or recorded on the first manuscript copies and subsequently printed, reflects very scrupulously the divine word preserved on a celestial original.Contrary to this conviction, which has gradually been affirmed in the first centuries of Islam before completely imposing itself, data borrowed from the Muslim tradition allow, by crosschecking with the indications drawn from the examination of the most ancient Qur'anic manuscripts, to note that plurality has characterized the genesis of the Quran and its initial transmission, both written and oral.By analyzing different strata of the version that has imposed itself, but also the fragments of reviews that have gradually been dismissed, François Déroche shows that the Qur'an has long been open to a plurality of "readings" and reveals an original relationship of the community of faithfuls to it, very different from the absolute literalism towards which Muslim orthodoxy has evolved. This rich and complex story also reveals a Muhammad more concerned with the meaning of the message he announced than with its letter."