Summary

In the beginning was the Qur'an, the first book of Islam and also the firstbook of Arabic literature. Occasioned by the need to understand andinterpret the word of God, and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad,Muslims made an inventory and study of their tradition. This involved thecollection, transmission and instruction of the sacred text, of the words anddeeds of Muhammad, and also of poetry, from both before and after the rise of Islam - indeed of all matters regarded as pertinent to the proper and scholarly study of the tradition. This activity, which began in the last third of the seventh century, reliedpredominantly on aural study with a master, that is, on oral communicationbetween teacher and student, although writing was already an integral partof this process. In the present work Gregor Schoeler explains how Muslim scholarship evolved from aural to read. The result was the genesis of one of the richest literatures of late antiquity and the early middle ages, as is clear from the widespread dissemination of scholarship through writing and the attendant proliferation of books.