Have you heard about an ancient koran found in Germany which shows different passages from the officially accepted koran of today?
Yes! Was also thinking about that.
Two links:
Lost Archives:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html
Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code (published in 2008):
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA15Ak03.html
Just one example of how the Quran, generally Mo, Islam & Islamic traditions have been influenced by preceding religions, religious books & customs:
The “Lost Archive” in #68 says “Islamic tradition emphasizes oral transmission” in reciting the Quran, because Mo was illiterate & his followers had to memorize his words as revealed to him by Allah....
Well, the Avesta and the Gathas in Zoroastrian tradition are orally transmitted as well, particularly by Zoroastrian priests (mobeds). Of course Zoroastrian text and religion are by far older than Islam.
Post Arab-Islam invasion of Iran oral transmission & reciting the Avesta from memory became necessities, because the Moslem-Arabs burned as many Zoroastrian texts as they could find.
But, prior to that, it was also the tradition because the Gathas (17 hymns believed to be spoken by Zoroaster himself) are in rhythmic poetic verse form, in ancient Prakrit & Sanskrit (old Aryan languages). The root word for the Gatha is “gai”, which means speak, sing, recite or extol.
An interesting connection between the “rhythmic poetic verse form” of the Gathas and Persian (Iranian tradition) is when one looks at Iranian literature over the centuries, even post-Islam. Iranians are not good at prose, but excel in poetry, with numerous fairly famous poets right up to present day.
Most notably, Ferdowsi’s famous Shah-Nameh (Book of Kings) which is about reviving the Persian language and pre-Islamic history (written around 10th century AD), is mostly written in “rhythmic poetic verse”, rather than prose.