Corpus Coranicum – Documentation and Commentary on the Text of the Qur'an

The goal of this long-term Academy Project is, firstly, to document the text of the Qur'an in the form in which it has been transmitted in manuscripts and in oral transmission; secondly, to create a comprehensive database of Jewish, Christian, Old Arabian and other intertexts of individual passages of the Qur'an; and, thirdly, to provide a detailed commentary on the text.

The transmission of the text of the Qur'an is characterised by parallel oral and written traditions, which are given equal weight in the documentation of the text. Accordingly, it is not only the surviving manuscripts that need to be evaluated, but also key works in the Islamic tradition of philological study of the Qur'an.

The database "Texte aus der Umwelt des Korans" collects works from late antique traditions that touch on Koranic themes and concepts, with the aim of providing access to the cultural and religious horizons of the Koran’s immediate addressees.

The final element is the commentary, which on the one hand examines the Qur'an from a strictly diachronic perspective, that is, as a corpus of individual texts created over the course of two decades, while on the other hand it clarifies the literary logic of the individual texts through careful formal analysis.

This long-term Academy Project, established in 2007, is part of the Research Centre for Primary Sources of the Ancient World at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
 

The Academy research project “Corpus Coranicum” is part of the Academies' Programme , a research funding programme co-financed by the German federal government and individual federal states. Coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities , the Programme intends to retrieve and explore our cultural heritage, to make it accessible and highlight its relevance to the present, as well as to preserve it for the future.