James A. Bellamy

James A. Bellamy (1925 – July 21, 2015) was Professor Emeritus of Arabic Literature at the University of Michigan.

Bellamy has been an important scholar in the textual criticism of the Quran, even being described as the "doyen" of its emendation, and one of the few to practice emendation since Ignác Goldziher and Theodor Nöldeke.In a series of articles from 1973 to 2002 in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Bellamy proposed a number of conjectural emendations to the standard text of the Quran.Bellamy described textual criticism as like an "addiction" to him. He gave a succinct description of his job as "the correction of errors in texts."

Bellamy's approach makes him a representative of the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.

• "The Mysterious Letters of the Koran: Old Abbreviations of the Basmalah". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 93 (3): 267–285. Jul–Sep 1973. doi:10.2307/599460.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• "Some Proposed Emendations to the Text of the Koran". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 113 (4): 562–573. Oct–Dec 1993. doi:10.2307/606724.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• "More Proposed Emendations to the Text of the Koran". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 116 (2): 196–204. Apr–Jun 1996. doi:10.2307/605695.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• "Textual Criticism of the Koran". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 121 (1): 1–6. Jan–Mar 2001. doi:10.2307/606724.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• "A Further Note on ʿĪsā". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 122 (3): 1–6. Jul–Sep 2002. doi:10.2307/3087526.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, ed. (2006). "Textual Criticism of the Qurʼān". Encyclopedia of the Qur'ān. 5. Brill. pp. 237–252.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)