According to a presentation widespread in Muslim tradition, the Qur'an, inscribed on the " Tablet preserved "(al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ), would be entirely " descended " in heaven, in a place called bayt al-ʿizza, before being revealed to Muḥammad in a fragmented way over some twenty years. Muslim tradition in fact recognizes three types of Qur'an : the Qur'an of the Tablet, the Qur'an " celestial " and the Qur'an " terrestrial ", which are said to be identical and the fruit of divine revelation. The Qur'an is defined in the first place as the revealed word(waḥyi/tanzīl) and recited word(iqra'/qara'nāhu), but the Qur'anic text was very early written down and disseminated in this form in the nascent Muslim empire. How did Muḥammad and the early faithful conceive the Qur'an and revelation ?
The early Muslims' conception of the Qur'an and revelation seems to differ from that of later generations, due to the political and theological issues facing the latter. Defining the nature of the Qur'an not only raises the problem of revelation on a theological level, but also that of the Qur'anic corpus and its qirā'āt : does the Qur'an, along with the variants of its reading, form one and the same nature, or are they two quite distinct natures ? Scholars as different as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1012) or al-Zamaẖšarī (d. 538/1143) are unanimous in defending the revealed and unchanging nature of the Qur'an despite their differences over its ontological status. Is it possible for a text to be both revealed and multiform ? What role did graphic standardization of the text play in the first centuries ? Why is the history of the Koranic corpus and the qirā'āt absent from the theological debate ? What do the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts tell us about this, or about the transition to the written word ? What has been the position of Muslim scholars with regard to transmission according to meaning(bi-l-maʿnā) ? The Koran is a text subject to interpretation. Exegetical works are both numerous and heterogeneous, in both Sunnism and Shiism. How have exegetes dealt with the multifaceted nature of the text ? How did they integrate the history of the text into their discourse ? What influence did variant readings and, more generally, variation have on their works ?