The Possibility of Writing the History of the Qurʾān by Bypassing Islamic Narratives and Materials -Stephen Shoemaker Example

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Research shows that Qurʾānic studies in the West have navigated away from the Nöldekean-Schwallian paradigm in recent years. By using this paradigm, Western thinkers attempt to write the history of the Qurʾān with the support of Islamic narrations. American orientalist Stephen Shoemaker claims that the revisionist school broke this paradigm and brought a new perspective to the field in 1977. Stating that the Nöldekean-Schwallian paradigm, which followed the standard Sunnī Qurʾānic history, blocked the field until the 1980s, Shoemaker criticizes Islamic narrations and does not take them as references. Shoemaker believes that the studies will not go beyond the Sunnī paradigm by using purely Islamic narrations. The author, who claims that the Qurʾān emerged and was written in a political environment, argues that historians should consider the works of the surrounding cultures. Shoemaker, who uses the historical criticism method used in holy book readings in the West, focuses on what happened to the Qurʾān rather than what the Qurʾān tells us. Is it possible to write the history of the Qurʾān by bypassing Islamic narrations? The main focus of this article is to reveal the answer to this question through Stephen Shoemaker's work Creating the Qur'an. The work, published in 2022, was seen by Fred Donner as a milestone for the field and stated that everyone working in this department should read it. Our study will ultimately discuss the impasses of Shoemaker's approach. In this context, the research will generally apply data collection, text, and discourse analysis methods.