In a note of encouragement to his fellow hijackers, September 11 ringleader Muhammad Atta cheered their impending marriage in Paradise to the 72 wide-eyed virgins the Quran promises to the departed faithful. Palestinian newspapers have been known to describe the death of a suicide bomber as a wedding to the black-eyed in eternal Paradise. But if a German expert on Middle Eastern languages is correct, these hopes of sexual reward in the afterlife are based on a terrible misunderstanding.
ARGUING THAT TODAYS version of the Quran has been mistranscribed from the original text, scholar Christoph Luxenberg says that what are described as houris with swelling breasts refer to nothing more than white raisins and juicy fruits.
Luxenberga pseudonymis one of a small but growing group of scholars, most of them working in non-Muslim countries, studying the language and history of the Quran. When his new book is published this fall, its likely to be the most far-reaching scholarly commentary on the Qurans early genesis, taking this infant discipline far into unchartedand highly controversialterritory. Thats because Islamic orthodoxy considers the holy book to be the verbatim revelation of Allah, speaking to his prophet, Muhammad, through the Angel Gabriel, in Arabic.
Therefore, critical study of Gods undiluted word has been off-limits in much of the Islamic world. (For the same reason, translations of the Quran are never considered authentic.) Islamic scholars who have dared ignore this taboo have often found themselves labeled heretics and targeted with death threats and violence. Luxenberg, a professor of Semitic languages at one of Germanys leading universities, has chosen to remain anonymous because he fears a fatwa by enraged Islamic extremists.
Luxenbergs chief hypothesis is that the original language of the Quran was not Arabic but something closer to Aramaic. He says the copy of the Quran used today is a mistranscription of the original text from Muhammads time, which according to Islamic tradition was destroyed by the third caliph, Osman, in the seventh century. But Arabic did not turn up as a written language until 150 years after Muhammads death, and most learned Arabs at that time spoke a version of Aramaic. Rereading the Paradise passage in Aramaic, the mysterious houris turn into raisins and fruitmuch more common components of the Paradise myth.
The forthcoming book contains plenty of other bombshells. It claims that the Qurans commandment for women to cover themselves is based on a similar misreading; in Sura 24, the verse that calls for women to snap their scarves over their bags becomes in Aramaic snap their belts around their waists. Even more explosive are readings that strengthen scholars views that the Quran had Christian origins. Sura 33 calls Muhammad the seal of the prophets, taken to mean the final and ultimate prophet of God. But an Aramaic reading, says Luxenberg, turns Muhammad into a witness of the prophetsi.e., someone who bears witness to the established Judeo-Christian texts. The Quran, in Arabic, talks about the revelation of Allah, but in Aramaic that term turns into teaching of the ancient Scriptures. The original Quran, Luxenberg contends, was in fact a Christian liturgical documentbefore an expanding Arab empire turned Muhammads teachings into the basis for its new religion long after the Prophets death.
Such interpretations will undoubtedly draw the ire of many Muslimsand not just extremists. After all, revisionist scholars have been persecuted for much less; in 2001, Egypts Constitutional Court confirmed the apostasy of former University of Cairo scholar Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, for considering the Quran a document written by humans.
Still, Luxenberg may be ushering in a whole new era of Quranic study. Luxenbergs findings are very relevant and convincing, says Mondher Sfar, a Tunisian specialist on the historic origins of the Quran in exile in Paris. They make possible a new interpretation of the Quran. In the West, questioning the literal veracity of the Bible was a crucial step in breaking the churchs grip on powerand in developing a modern, secular society. That experience, as much as the questioning itself, is no doubt what concerns conservative Muslims as they struggle over the meaning and influence of Islam in the 21st century. But if Luxenbergs work is any indication, the questioning is just getting underway.