Cabinet 14: Middle Eastern Texts

With many religious books, we tend to subordinate human authorship in favour of divine authorship. Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, between 610 and 630CE. Thence the work was recited and dictated to scribes, and compiled into a single book by Caliph Abu Bakr (c.573-634) shortly after Muhammad’s death. A notable feature of the Qur’an is that its text has remained unchanged since that time.

Qur’an (1846?) Shoults MS.11