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The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph 'Uthmān (r. 644–656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of 'Abd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up until c. 700 ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys arguments against this hypothesis. It concludes that as long as no Quranic passages with a distinct stylistic and terminological profile have been compellingly placed in a late seventh-century context, the traditional dating of the standard rasm (excepting certain orthographical features) to 650 or earlier ought to be our default view. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unlike most ancient Arabic poetry, the poems attributed to Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt treat subjects that are also prominent in the Quran, such as creation, eschatology, and episodes from Biblical history. The authenticity of this corpus has, however, been the subject of some controversy. After a critical survey of previous scholarship, this article examines one particular passage from the Umayya corpus dealing with the destruction of the ancient tribe of Thamūd, which, it is argued, is likely to be pre-Quranic. The article then proceeds to highlight the crucial differences, both in content and in literary format, that exist between Umayya's retelling of the Thamūd narrative and its earliest Quranic version, and concludes with a number of general remarks on the Quran's religious milieu as reflected in Umayya's literary output. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]