I expected elderly academics in a dark, dusty room lined by religious books. I thought their tales would take me on a magical journey into a kind of Da Vinci Code world. But at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Potsdam, I find instead a young researcher in a modern office, who tells me that much of his work is tedious analysis of ancient manuscripts.
I am visiting Michael Marx, co-ordinator of a fascinating project called Corpus Coranicum. The aim of the endeavour, little known outside scholarly circles, is to produce a collection of material to provide chronological commentary on the Koran and place it in historical context.
I’d heard that this systematic approach, involving databases and scientific manuscript analysis, was a first. I knew that much of the Muslim world might prefer it to remain that way. For believers, the Koran is a transcript of the word of God as told to the Prophet Mohammed. It is not to be questioned even in the mildest and most constructive way — and never to be doubted. “Generally speaking, in the Muslim tradition, dealing with Koranic manuscripts is considered an odd thing,” says Mr Marx, words that sound to me like an understatement.