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be written" (John 21:25). The Koran and the Bible are merely drops of water in the face of the ocean of divine words. With this evidence, who could make a claim about the completeness of the Koran-let alone that it could contain the whole science of the universe?

     

Revelation was conceived as grace, not as a work of art. It could not have an end. Such was the original situation. But from the moment when the idea was born-rather late-of gathering the totality of actually revealed words, it was quickly perceived that this was a totally impossible enterprise. Many texts were forever lost. The son of Caliph Umar could only deplore this fact: "None among you will be able to say, `I have had the total Koran.' What does he know of its totality! Many [passages] have disappeared from the Koran (qad dha- haba minhu qur'anun kathirun). But he should say, `I had what we know of it. "'39
    These disappearances are a priori of two kinds. According to the theory of abrogation, which appeared relatively late in Muslim dogma especially along with the emergence of the theory of justice (filth), passages of the Koran were abrogated and eliminated from the recitation. But there exists another category of texts lost in the course of the difficult process of transmission of the Koran in the time of Muhammad and after. It is to this last category that the son of Umar alludes in the astonishing apostrophe that we have just read.

    It seems that it is to this same category of lost texts that the theoreticians of the figh are alluding when they speak of the case of Koranic texts that were abrogated in their recitation and not in their juridical power (mn nusikha tildwatuhu duna hukmuhu). This is an astonishing case of abrogation! For what reason would God deprive us of legal texts that he intended to maintain in their legislative power? Suyuti ventured this justification: the reason was to test the zeal of mankind for obeying divine laws without their having any visible traces; he gave the example of Abraham not hesitating to sacrifice his son as soon as he received the order to do so through a simple vision.40
    Tradition has bequeathed us numerous testimonies of the loss of revealed texts. For example, AIsha, the Prophet's wife, is said to have declared: "Surah 33 of the Confederate Tribes (al-Ahzab) was read in the time of the Prophet with two hundred verses. But when Uthman wrote the masahif [meaning, fixed the Koranic canon], he was able [to assemble] only what it contains nowadays that is to say, seventy-three verses]."41 We note, then, that Caliph Uthman was unable to find twothirds of the chapter in question. Other surahs are signaled as having lost an important portion of their initial content. This is the case with surah 24, al-Nur ("The Light"), and of surah 15, al-Hijr, which are respectively 64 and 99 verses long, as against 100 and 190 originally.42 Similarly, surah 9, al-Tawba ("Repentance"-but initially it bore the name of the incipit, bara'a, or "Innocence") was supposed to have been as long as surah 2, al-Bagara ("The Heifer"), that is to say 286 verses, whereas it now has only 129. According to certain chroniclers, this major amputation of more than half the original content would explain why this surah does not contain in its present state the liturgical formula b'ism `allah, or basmala, and why it is in fact the only one without this.43
    Among the omitted or lost texts, let us mention the celebrated verse on the stoning of the adulterous: "If the old man and old woman fornicate, stone them to death, as a punishment from God, and God is powerful and wise! (idha zanaya al-shaykhu wa al-shaykha, fa- `rjumuhuma l-batta nakalan min Allah, wa Llahu `azizun hakim)."44 In order to certify the authenticity of this verse, tradition reports this speech attributed to Caliph Umar: "God sent Muhammad and revealed the Book to him; and among what he revealed to him there is the verse on stoning. We have recited it, learned and understood it. And