An Examination and Critique of the View of EQ (The Leiden Encyclopedia of Qur'an) on the Text of the Qur'an

One of the most important issues in Qur'anic sciences, which has a close relationship with the revelation of the Qur'an, is the text of the Qur'an. The revelation of the text of the Qur'an requires that this text be eloquent, beautiful, and coherent, in terms of appearance and deep, harmonious and without contradiction, in terms of content. Due to the importance of this issue and its relationship with the revelation of the Qur'an, orientalists have elaborated on it in their works. Furthermore, they have studied the text of the Qur'an in terms of literary structure and continuity and conceptual coherence, and in terms of compatibility of the content of the verses with each other and with the experimental sciences. This paper, which has been authored in a descriptive-analytical method using library documents, first raises the issue and then deals with the views of orientalists and EQ authors on this issue. In the third stage, it has compared the views of previous orientalists to the views of the authors of EQ, and at the end, it has criticized the views of orientalists about the text of the Qur'an. The findings suggest that some EQ articles have an impartial and appropriate approach because their authors are Muslim. However, most of the basic papers written by orientalists have continued the path of earlier orientalists and by assuming that the Qur'an is non-revelatory, they have followed the subject of the text of the Qur'an.