For several decades now few radically new insights into the period of Islam’s origins have emerged in Oriental studies, and this despite the fact that many fundamental questions remain unanswered. One awaits, for instance, a critical investigation filling in crucial gaps in our knowledge of the background to the 1924 standard edition of the Qur’an, which is still currently in universal use. On the present state of research it is possible to affirm there have been several redactions, textual variants or even, as some suppose, various authors of the text of the Qur’an, as yet however there is no comprehensive research into such eminently vital questions.