- W. Montgomery Watt, Bellʼs Introduction to the Qurʼan (completely
revised and enlarged), Edinburgh, 1970, pp.108-120. Bell notes that the
Geman scholar Theodor Nöldeke was the most important nineteenth-
century scholar with regard to the chronological ordering of the Koran
(see Bell, p.109). Nöldekeʼs book was published in 1860, 1909, 1913
and 1938, attesting to the importance of this book, and to the widespread
knowledge among educated Germans about the chronological order of the
Koran. By contrast, Bellʼs own works on the chronological Koran have
been almost entirely forgotten since the 1960s. Bell also lists other
scholars who preceded him in their interest in the Koran, most notably
Rodwell (1861) and Sir Willam Muir (1858,1861) in English; Hartwig
Herschfeld (1878, 1886, 1902) and Hubert Grimme (1895) in German;
Regis Blanchere in French (1947, 1949, 1951). See Bell, p.111-112.
Bellʼs Introduction to the Qurʼan was reissued in 1970, edited by one
of the twentieth-centuryʼs most notable apologists for Islam, W.
Montgomery Watt. The Foreword to this “revised edition” makes it clear
that Watt has adopted the position of Dhimmi, saying that he has altered
the way that Bell talks of the Koran, removing references where Bell had
referred to it as “Mohammedʼs Koran”. Watt explains the dhimmitude of
his scholarship thus:
One major change in the form of expression has seemed desirable.
Bell followed his European predecessors in speaking of the Qurʼan as
Muhammadʼs own [...] With the greatly increased contacts between
Muslims and Christians during the last quarter of a century, it has become
imperative for a Christian scholar not to offend Muslim readers
gratuitously, but as far as possible to present his arguments in a form
acceptable to them. (p.vi)
Thus, the position of critical and independent scholar Bell was
subjected to the revisionism of an apologist for Islam. It should perhaps
come as no surprise that it is extremely difficult for a reader in the twenty-
first century to locate an original copy of Bellʼs Qurʼan, or Bellʼs
Introduction to the Qurʼan. The revisionists have been extremely
thorough, to the extent that few people interested in the critical
dana p.
(Dana P.)
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