Islamic scholarship in hiding

Spengler comments on the fascinating story of some ancient Koranic manuscripts coming to light that could be the Islamic equivalent of finding the bones of Jesus Christ:

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, "The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals, some of whom lived a century or two apart.

The thing is, evidence that could lead to this conclusion has been firmly suppressed, though now there are signs that the information could be breaking free. But if so, the struggle for academic freedom and knowledge will be fraught with risk:

Apart from the little group at the University of the Saarland and a handful of others, though, the Western Academy is loathe to go near the issue. In the United States, where Arab and Islamic Studies rely on funding from the Gulf States, an interest in Koranic criticism is a failsafe way to commit career suicide.

If only it were a matter of career suicide. A couple of years ago I was at a conference of journalists who write about religion and culture. A professor speaking at a morning seminar was one of the world's foremost scholars of Islamic culture and religion, though not a Muslim himself. The session was off the record, either in its entirety or designated parts, I can't recall. His presentation was factual, and even dry. I couldn't imagine what controversial thing he had said, and asked him during the Q&A period why we couldn't quote him.

He said quite evenly that he could be killed. Murdered, because some of what he'd found in his scholarly research undermines Islamic orthodoxy. He couldn't take the risk of being identified with that knowledge.