72 Raisins?

A German scholar claims that the Koran wasn't originally written in Arabic, and has been mistranslated. I have to confess to a certain skepticism of the textual criticism field in general. The article claims that the 3rd caliph destroyed the original copies--I'd heard that as "collected the best copies and destroyed the bogus ones." If this is the reporter's take on it, fine--I know how far to trust reporters. But Luxenburg should know better.

And his thesis conflicts with common sense. The text in hand is claimed to be beautiful poetry. (I can't verify that--my efforts at learning Arabic have not advanced far.) It is known to be very obscure in places, but beautiful. I can't see a crufted-up semi-Aramaic version being considered beautiful. Of course, maybe the reporter has really loused up the story...