We have been re-reading Alfred Guillaume's Islam (Baltimore: Penguin, 1956). It is well dated now and in many ways serves as a curio. The author's hope for the future of Islam based upon certain modernising efforts he had observed in his lifetime has now been well and truly dashed by events in our generation. But in other ways, Guillaume's volume remains relevant.
Some things stand out. Islam's epistemological foundation is deeply compromised. The text of the Koran is arranged in an arbitrary fashion,
. . . on the purely mechanical plan of putting the longest chapters first and the shortest last . . . (Ibid., p.58)so that there is no certainty about which particular passages correspond to what time in the life of Muhammad.
. . . scholars, eastern and western alike, have been busy for centuries in trying to determine to what period of the prophet's ministry a particular sura belongs. The problem is further complicated by the inclusion of verses which must have been spoken at Medina in suras which begin in Mecca. (Ibid.)Why might this be a fatal problem?
