Re: Luxenberg's critique

M.S.M. Saifullah wrote:

> > I also said that epigraphy is more conservative than manuscripts, so
> > mss. may have been dotting merrily away for generations before
> > stonecarvers took up the innovation.
>
> May be. But in Arabic epigraphy dotting appears earlier than the
> manuscripts.

Sigh. The earliest Arabic inscriptions are older than the earliest
manuscripts, and the earliest papyri from the Cairo Geniza (dating to
within a decade or so of the Prophet's lifetime) have some dotting.
(They are mundane commercial documents and are probably earlier than the
writing-down of the Qur'an.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.