Summary
Richard Kroes summarises the argument of the book as follows:
According to Luxenberg, the Qur'an was not written in classical Arabic but in a mixed Arabic-Syriac language, the traders' language of Mecca and it was based on Christian liturgical texts. When the final text of the Qur'an was codified, those working on it did not understand the original sense and meaning of this hybrid trading language any more, and they forcefully and randomly turned it into classical Arabic. This gave rise to a lot of misinterpretations. Something like this can only have happened if there was a gap in the oral transmission of the Qur'anic text. That idea is in serious disagreement with the views of both traditional Muslims and western scholars of Islam.
Read more about this topic: The Syro-Aramaic Reading Of The Koran
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