Western Approaches to the Dating the Quranic Revelation

This work focuses on the Western approaches to dating the revelation. These attempts can be classified into two groups. Though Gustav Weil, J. Medows Rodwell, Theodor Nöldeke and Régis Blachère almost have the same orders of the surahs as that of Islamic tradition, Sir William Muir, Hartwig Hirschfeld, Richard Bell and W. Montgomery Watt have different and critical orders. This article will attempt to evaluate methods and sources of these Western approaches and discuss their role in the study of dating the Quranic revelation.