Pt. 1 The early history of islam. - The early history of Islam, following inscriptional and numismatic testimony / Volker Popp - A new interpretation of the Arabic inscription in Jerusalem's Dome of the Rrock / Christoph Luxenberg - On the origin of the informants of the Prophet / Claude Gilliot - Abd al-Malik v. Marwan and the process of the Qur'an's composition / Alfred-Louis de Praemare - Pt. 2 New aspects for the emergence and characteristic of Islam .- A personal look at some aspects of the history of Koranic criticism in 19th and 20th centuries / Ibn Warraq - Pre-Islamic Arabic-Koranic Arabic-classical Arabic: a continuum? / Pierre Larcher - From Syriac to Pahlavi: the contribution of the Sassanian Iraq to the beginning of the Arabic writing / Sergio Noja Noseda - Early evidences of variant readings in Qur'anic manuscripts / Alba Fedeli - Luke kome / Laykah, the "Arsians" / Gerd-R. Puin - Raisons d'espaerer / Mondher Sfar - Syriac and Arabic Christianity and the Qu'an - Karl-Heinz Ohlig.