Robert Spencer for his footnotes on Shi'a variants used St Clair-Tisdall's 1913 scholia upon... an unpublished text. Ibn Warraq in contact with Spencer could have directed him to Which Koran?'s essays on the topic but did not. Last Monday I took upon myself to run interference: was this Bankipur Library MS for real, or what?
On Monday itself I pulled a PDF from Muhammadanism.org, which I soon realised had some Problems; I got burned out fairly early in the cleanup. On Tuesday I set to incorporating commentary, from the late-1990s commenters Salamah and Gätje. Also from Rahbar 1960+ which, in turn, led me through Jeffery 1938. And I was blogging... too much. That was a long night; I turned in at 8:30 PM.
Wednesday I wanted Muhammadanism's source at The Moslem World; before I found that, I stumbled upon Lawson whose work (pdf) helped fix an early one of Salamah's poor references. Then I remembered... Which Koran had meanwhile reprinted Lawson - and more to the point Bar-Asher. Mind, after getting this merged in, I tired myself out a little earlier. Also I felt some responsibility that it may have been in part my fault, inasmuch as I'd 2/5'ed Which Koran, that Ibn Warraq (apparently) hadn't reminded Spencer of Bar-Asher either.
On Thursday I found English Kulaynî also late 1990s. With isnads. Another late night...
I wanted out of the late 1990s, and I had new motivation to pull Ibn Warraq out of the middle 1990s, ultimately to pull Spencer out of the 1910s. I needed Sayyârî. I started this undertaking Friday evening and continued through... pretty much all Saturday, from 7:45 AM on. That evening I observed that Sayyârî's publishers Etan Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi had already accepted Bankipur as a real MS. From the footnotes. Which footnotes I had to incorporate, Sunday 11 AM to 6 PM. Today I picked up Goldziher and called a halt to the job.
To show my cards: "The Bankipur Dissent" does not accept Bankipur as a real MS. I think Tisdall used a Sayyârî-base transmission from the Bankipur library; not the physical paraQurân which Tisdall claimed. But - I'll have to admit - who cares? The Shî'a didn't care; they merrily copied Sayyârî and several more around his orbit. Based especially on Sayyârî I consider Tisdall vindicated; and by that standard also Kohlberg, Amir-Moezzi and, yes, Spencer. On the narrow question of these qirâ'ât.
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