ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a specific instance in which Islamic data and the problem of understanding those data are directly relevant to the development of a more adequate understanding of an important general concept in religion. This concept, or phenomenon, is that of scripture, and as obvious a topic as it might seem in the light of the uniquely scriptural character of the Islamic tradition, it has not received sufficiently serious attention even from those historians of religion with special expertise in Islamic studies. The chapter also considers first the idea of scripture as a generic concept in modern scholarship in religion, examining its limitations and suggesting some correctives. It turns specifically to the Muslim notion of scripture and argues that the role of the Qur'an in Muslim life and consciousness illumines with particular clarity an important aspect of scripture that has received little or no attention in modern scholarship, namely, its oral and aural character, its function as spoken word.
