Four decades on from their discovery, however, these precious manuscripts remain shrouded in mystery. Only two researchers, both German, have been permitted to study them. When one of these, an expert in Arabic palaeography by the name of Gerd-Rüdiger Puin, publicly asserted that the fragments demonstrated that the Qur’an, no less than the Bible, had evolved over time and was a veritable ‘cocktail of texts’,20 the Yemeni authorities reacted with fury. To this day, the Qur’anic fragments in Sana’a remain unpublished – nor have any further Western scholars been permitted to study them. As a
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