History of the Qur?an

This first complete translation of Theodor Noldeke's The History of the Qur?an offers a foundational work of modern Qur?anic studies to the English-speaking public. Noldeke's original publication, as revised and expanded over nearly three quarters of a century by his scholarly successors, Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergstrasser and Otto Pretzl, remains an indispensable resource for any scholarly work on the text of the Qur?an. Noldeke's segmentation of the surahs into three Meccan periods and a Medinan one has shaped all subsequent discussions of the chronology of the Qur?an. The revisions and expansions of Noldeke's initial discussions of the orthography and variant readings of the text have found a new audience among those contemporary scholars who seek to create a more sophisticated understanding of the Qur?an's textual development.