Welcome back to Varian Quran; I'm Daniel Brubaker.
Well, this is a happy announcement video. I am making two announcements today. The first is to
let you know that, finally, my book, "Corrections in Early Qurʾān Manuscripts," is available in German,
and that is up on Amazon as we speak: As you see this, you can see a link in the description box at
the bottom. And so you, if you are a German speaker or you know someone who is and want to let them
know about that, you can go follow that link at the bottom. I apologize that it took so long to get
that out here. It has been a work in progress for quite some time, and I'm always surprised how the
last little stretch of a project like this takes so much time and I'm also reminded every time
this is the second time I've taken a book through until until publication how much work there really
is, even in a small book, to get all the little details taken care of. If you who are watching this
have ever been through that process, you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't I don't think
you'll understand until you've actually done it! But, it's a fun process, but especially if we want
to get all the details right it takes a lot of revision and going back and checking for typos, and
and back-and-forth with the translators, and then the images, and all the different
things. So, the book actually does have some enhancements from the English edition, including
a better transcription table ... and I will eventually be incorporating these enhancements into
the the English edition as well. What else to say? The book I'm making available, at the moment, in
black and white. And I'm thinking about whether to make available a color German edition as well. So,
if you have thoughts on that please leave comments at the bottom and we will we'll make a decision
going forward. The color edition is more expensive to produce and therefore also to purchase, and so
I don't know if it's worth everyone's while. But, it would be a relatively easy process
to get that available in German in color, as well. Okay, so that is announcement number one.
And, announcement number two is related to the response to the book by Tayyar Altıkulaç.
I initially intended to make a response fairly quickly, but I have reconsidered and want to do
it properly. Now, I'm not going to fault Dr. Altıkulaç for taking a year and a half to make
his response to my book, to publish his response to my book. I am going to take a little bit of
time, but I will not take that much time to get a response out to you. But I do think I want to
make a more formal response to that -- in other words, in a written, printed response. And so, I will
let you know when that is forthcoming, and we'll discuss it on this channel, and I will go through
the points and so forth. I've already told you some of my general responses to his approach in
the previous video, the one with the up on the ski slopes, but I will give you a more
detailed response ... this is where good conversation happens, in the (sort of) back and forth between
the scholar and the other colleagues. And so, I'm happy to be part of that conversation,
but I want to do it in that a little bit more formal process. That is really all
that I have for you today. I apologize that it has been about two weeks since my last video;
there has been a lot going on, as there usually is. Of course, I know that there's a lot of expectation
for the work to be released and discussed, and so forth. There's no shortage of things going
through my through my mind but there has been a shortage of time to take the video and
make the editing alongside everything else. So, look for something else hopefully middle-to-
end of next week. And, I thank you very much for your attention, and for taking a look at this new
book, and for spreading the word. And I do hope to make the translation into Spanish and into
French. Those are the other two languages I think will be valuable to have this book available in.
Hopefully Arabic, as well, at some point. And, I'm open to other languages. If you have
a language that you think is important to have a translation of this book into, please
also mention that in the comments below. Obviously, it's a lot of work to
commission a translation and to get it done right, and
an added difficulty in a book that has technical language in it is that you need to be able to make
a proper translation of the technical details, and the technical terms, and the technical discussion.
And so, that complicates things a bit. So, I won't be able to do a translation into every language, but
if there are some that are worth having, that you feel is important to have, please let me
know, and we'll take a look at it. Meanwhile, I'm also working on the preparation of other
forthcoming books, so this is not the last book, God willing, that I will publish, but
along the way I do want to make it available to as many people as possible.
And so, that is part of my service to you, to do these things as well.
Okay, so that's it for now. Thank you very much. The book is released, and the
answer to the "Refutation" by Dr. Altıkulaç will be forthcoming, but not
right away. By the way, I am getting some very good suggestions from several of you in the comments,
and in other discussions, and I want to let you know that I'm very grateful for that. There
is good material, not necessarily only related to Quran manuscripts (although I am trying to focus my
attention there), but there's just a lot of great material out there. I am paying attention to
the things that you are saying. I'm probably not able to read every single comment, but I do try to
periodically look through the comments, and read them, and think about how this can feed into the
content of upcoming videos, so please do keep that coming. And I also want to say, once again,
a very big thank you to those of you who have been giving financial support. A number of you have been
giving even five dollars a month, or something like that, through the Patreon account or through the
other way ... if you're in the US, there's a tax deductible way to support me in this work.
I don't often mention it, but I do want to let you know that you are much appreciated and it
frees me up to be able to focus the time on this work, rather than to have to spend it elsewhere, so
I really appreciate that. I haven't mentioned too many people by name, but
I will be happy to give recognition as time goes on. You are part of this team if you are
supporting me at any level, in any amount. So, I'm honored, really, that you feel it's valuable
what I'm doing here. So, thank you so much and we will talk to you again soon. Take care. Bye.