Politicizing the Ḳurʾān

Alphonse Mingana has a checquered reputation in academe, and indeed in academia.edu. Bert Jacobs provides the background for Mingana's article on the last third of BarSalibi.

For background I am un-fond of the genre "discredit the source to discredit the thesis". Wiker and Hahn played this game in Politicizing the Bible. So what if the Bible or the Qurʾān were "politicized"? Maybe these texts should be! At the least if "disinterested" scholars are so disinterested they won't deign to do the work, then someone gotta. And even if Mingana was biased in his translation, and in his interpretation; he might still be right. Are his opponents unbiased?

All this said, it may be that behind Mingana - and behind Hoegel - is a florilegium of selected passages, and not a translation. For us the Latins Peter of Toledo did a translation. Nicetas did a selection - as did BarSalibi, and the author(s) of the various 'Umar/Leo dialogues. Some secretary may have selected these passages for them. BarSalibi in particular might rely upon the Shurraya of Abu Nuh - which we no longer have. That content (I hear) also got into an Arabic Tafnid, more explicitly... albeit also lost.

I am reminded of Nicholas Donin's selection of Talmud excerpts on behalf of the Inquisition, or of whatever Louis IX called the Office in Middle French.

The question moves, to who was the secretary. Nicetas' source seemed, to Hoegel, early. Likewise BarSalibi's source might have been early; Jacobs is aware of Abu Nuh, whose Syriac work - it is said - got translated into Arabic and stored in Egypt.