Corpus Coranicum

Corpus Coranicum is a research project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities towards a critical edition of the Quran.

Begun in 2007, the initial three-year database project is led by Semitic and Arabic studies Prof. Angelika Neuwirth at the Free University of Berlin. The project is currently funded till 2025, but could well take longer to complete.

The project will document the Quran in its handwritten form and oral tradition, and include an extensive commentary interpreting the text in the context of its historical development.

Much of the Corpus Coranicum source material consists of photographs of ancient Quran manuscripts collected before World War II by Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl. After the British RAF on April 24, 1944 bombarded the building where they were housed, Arabic studies scholar Anton Spitaler claimed the photograph collection had been destroyed. Towards the end of his life, however, he confessed to Neuwirth that he had hidden the photos for almost half a century, and Neuwirth assumed responsibility for the archive.

The project's research director, Michael Marx, told Der Spiegel that the Quran did not arise in a vacuum, as for the sake of simplicity some western researchers had supposed. The Arabian peninsula in the 7th century was exposed to the great Byzantine and Persian Empires as well as the ideas of Gnosticism, early Christianity, the ideals of ancient Arabic poetry and the ideas of rabbinic Judaism. Only in light of this world of ideas, Marx added, "can the innovations of the Quran be clearly seen," and while parallels exist with non-Quranic texts, "it is not a copy-and-paste job."

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