Gerd Rüdiger Puin (born 1940) is a German scholar of

Oriental studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studie ...

, specializing in

Quranic The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

Arabic calligraphy Arabic calligraphy is the artistic practice of penmanship, handwriting and calligraphy based on the Arabic alphabet. It is known in Arabic language, Arabic as ''khatt'' (), derived from the words 'line', 'design', or 'construction'. Kufic is the ...

and

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

. He was a lecturer of Arabic language and literature at

Saarland University Saarland University (, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in six faculties that cover all major ...

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ''Sabrigge'' ; ; ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken has 181,959 inhabitants and is Saarland's administrative, commerci ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In regards to his approach of historical research, Puin is considered a representative of the "Saarbrücken School", which is part of the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.

Discovery of the Sanaa manuscript

Gerd R. Puin was the head of a restoration project commissioned by the

Yemeni government The Cabinet of Yemen refers to the governing body of the internationally recognized government of the Republic of Yemen, led by its President Rashad al-Alimi, who is also the chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), the governi ...

, which spent a significant amount of time examining the ancient Quranic manuscripts discovered in the Great Mosque of

Sanaa Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

in 1972, in order to find criteria for systematically cataloging them. According to journalist Toby Lester, his examination revealed "unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment." These scriptures were written in the early Hijazi Arabic script, matching the pieces of the earliest Quranic manuscripts known to exist. Some of the papyrus on which the text appears shows clear signs of earlier use, being that previous, washed-off writings are also visible on it. In 2008 and 2009, Elisabeth Puin published detailed results of the analysis of "Sanaa manuscript DAM" (dar al-makhtutat) 01.27-1, proving that the text was still in flux in the time span between the scriptio inferior and the scriptio superior of the

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

. More than 15,000 sheets of the Yemeni Quranic manuscripts have painstakingly been cleaned, treated, sorted, cataloged and photographed and 35,000 microfilmed photos have been made of the manuscripts. Some of Puin's initial remarks on his findings are found in his essay titled the "Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in Sana'a", which has been republished in the book '' What the Koran Really Says'' (2002), written by the Ex-Muslim author and activist

Ibn Warraq Ibn Warraq (born 1946) is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Qurani ...

. In January 2021, an interview with Puin regarding the discovery of the Sanaa manuscript was conducted by Robert M. Kerr, secretary of the INÂRAH Institute for Research on Early Islamic History and the Koran.

Assessment of the Quran

In a 1999 article published in the American magazine ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'', Gerd R. Puin has been interviewed and quoted as saying that:

Works

* * *

References

* Reprinted in ''What the Koran Really Says'', ed.

, Prometheus Books, 2002, .

External links

Atlantic Monthly article: What is the Koran

{{DEFAULTSORT:Puin, Gerd R. 1940 births Academic staff of Saarland University German Arabists German Islamic studies scholars German male non-fiction writers German orientalists German palaeographers History of Quran scholars Living people Quranic studies academics

Discovery of the Sanaa manuscript

Assessment of the Quran

Works

See also

References

External links