Monthly Archives: January 2019

Preliminary Considerations on the Corpus Coranicum Christianum: The Qur’ān in Translation – A Survey of the State of the Art | December 5 – 7, 2018, Berlin

Posted on by

The Corpus Coranicum project requires little introduction to the readers of this blog. Its emerging daughter project, hosted by the FU Berlin, Corpus Coranicum Christianum, developed out of the doctoral research conducted by Manolis Ulbricht, co-supervised by Angelika Neuwirth, on the early Greek translation of the Qurʾān preserved in Nicetas of Byzantium’s Refutation of the Qurʾān (c.870). At present, the long-term goal of this interdisciplinary project is to study qurʾānic translations from the seventh century to the early modern period, in the principal ‘Christian’ languages, i.e. Greek, Syriac, and Latin, comparatively, and to make these texts available online through a synoptic digital edition. The aim of this initial workshop was three-fold: (i) to bring together scholars from various disciplines working on qurʾānic translations; (ii) to establish a methodological framework for a future digital database and a comparative analysis for translation techniques; and (iii) to explore avenues for further collaboration.

corpuscor

The scope of the sources included in this preliminary workshop was intentionally broad, ranging from full translations to quotations, or mere allusions to the qurʾānic text. As most source material is available in Latin, the Corpus Coranum Latinum made up the most prominent part of the programme, with three panels. In a first panel devoted to the earliest sources, the translations by Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo were assessed with regards to the issue of the readership (Nàdia Petrus Pons) and the presence of scientific vocabulary (Julian Yolles). In addition, the qurʾānic quotations included in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin translations of Arabic scientific treatises were examined (Charles Burnett). A second panel examined the sources through which Latin Christians read the Qurʾān, with papers on the Latin glosses in Latin and Arabic Qurʾāns (José Martínez Gázquez), Robert of Ketton’s use of Ṭabarī’s tafsīr (J. L. Alexis Rivera Luque), and the question of the character of Ramon Marti’s Islamic sources (Görge K. Hasselhoff). The focus of the third panel was on early modern Qurʾān translations, with papers on the sixteenth-century translation by Egidio da Viterbo (Katarzyna K. Starczewska), the seventeenth-century translation and commentary by the Jesuit, Ignazio Lomellini (Paul Shore), and the recently discovered 1632 translation by Johann Zechendorff (Reinhold F. Glei). Finally, a presentation of the ERC-funded project on the Qurʾān in European cultural history, which will commence soon, should also be mentioned here (Jan Loop).

The single panel of Greek Qurʾān translations covered both the first appearances of the Qurʾān in Byzantium, as well as the late Byzantine Period. The former period was addressed with papers on the linguistic character of the eighth – ninth-century Greek translation, especially its non-classical vocabulary (Erich Trapp), and the historical background of Muslim-Byzantine rivalry behind its emergence (Jakub Sypiański). The late period involved papers appraising the knowledge of the Qurʾān and Islam by Gregory Palamas (Evangelos Katafylis) and John VI Cantacuzene (Marco Fanelli)

Papers on the Corpus Coranicum Syriacum, the language least represented at this workshop, were presented on the qurʾānic quotations in the Arabic disputation of Abū Qurra with the Caliph al-Maʾmūn, which were compared with those contained in the Garshuni version of the Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā (Yousef Kouriyhe), and on the double/triple occurences of qurʾānic verses in Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī’s Disputation against the Arabs (Alexander M. Schilling).

A special panel on the interdisciplinary nature of the overall project and its implications was entitled Corpus Coranicum Christianum – A Digitalized Trial Version. It consisted of papers on the Greek translation preserved by Nicetas of Byzantium (Manolis Ulbricht), the Syriac excerpts from the Qurʾān in Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī’s Disputation against the Arabs (Bert Jacobs), and the Latin translation by the seventeenth-century Fransiscan Germanus de Silesia (Ulisse Cecini). Prior to the workshop, these three scholars had agreed to provide micro-editions of selected common passages (Q 3:42-7; 90:1-4; 112), which were digitally processed in an online interactive edition by Joel Kalvesmaki (see http://textalign.net/quran/). The trial session continued with a presentation on the make-up and functions of this tool (Joel Kalvesmaki), and concluded with a brief comparison of the translation techniques applied to the selected materials.

Besides the work on the sources themselves, the workshop gave special attention to the use of digital humanities in the study of qurʾānic translations. This included an introductory workshop on the goals and techniques of the DH (Nadine Arndt, Oliver Pohl), as well as presentations on the Paleocoran Project (Oliver Pohl), the interactive digital edition of the New Testament (Holger Strutwolf), Ediarum (Nadine Arndt), and the valence of TEI for editing synoptic editions (Joel Kalvesmaki).

The proceedings of this first Corpus Coranicum Christianum workshop are planned for publication. A second workshop will be held in the near future.

Bert Jacobs, KU Leuven

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

Call for Papers: IQSA Annual Meeting 2019

Posted on by

2014am-sandiego-2

The International Qur’anic Studies Association has opened its call for papers for its Annual Meeting to be held in San Diego, California from November 22–25, 2019. Paper proposals should be submitted through the SBL’s automated online submission system under the corresponding “Affiliates” link by March 6, 2019 (note: IQSA membership is required for proposal submission; see below). Submission links can be found below under the respective program units. If you require further information or experience difficulties with the submission process, please contact the chairs of the program unit to which you would like to apply.

Please note that all proposals must include:

  • Author name and affiliation
  • Paper title
  • 400 word paper abstract (written in English)

Eligibility for proposal submissions is contingent upon the following:

  • Active IQSA membership is required at the time of proposal submission for the IQSA Program, and the membership status of all applicants will be checked prior to acceptance
  • Participants must maintain current IQSA Membership through their participation in the Annual Meeting

Please also note that:

  • To ensure equity and diversity amongst participants, participants should submit only one paper presentation per IQSA Annual Meeting
  • All participants must adhere to IQSA’s Professional Conduct Policy
  • Participants will be required to register for the conference by submitting payment through SBL’s online submission system (users are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the “Super Saver” rates which end mid-May)

 

The Annual Meeting includes panels for each of IQSA’s six program units:

Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus
The Qur’an: Surah Studies
Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics
The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism
The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition
The Qur’an and Late Antiquity

IQSA will also run two additional panels this year:

The European Qur’an: The Islamic Holy Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1142–1850
The Societal Qur’an

 

PROGRAM UNIT 1
Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus

Program Unit Chairs
Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau
Mohsen Goudarzi

The  Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus unit invites proposals for papers that engage with the techniques utilized in the Qur’an for crafting imagery, characters, and narratives. Proposals may attend to artistic and literary strategies as well as to the broader social, religious, and political ends towards which these strategies are deployed.

PROGRAM UNIT 2
The Qur’an: Surah Studies

Program Unit Chairs
Marianna Klar
Shawkat Toorawa

The  Surah Studies Unit of IQSA invites proposals for individual papers on any aspect of Surat al-Waqi‘ah (Q 56). Proposers may, for example, wish to explore: the surah’s liturgical and devotional importance for Muslims (it appears in almost all lists of the suwar al-munjiyat, the “surahs that save”); the surah’s division of the judged into three groups (companions of the left, companions of the right, and frontrunners), rather than the more usual pairing into those in paradise and those in hell; Shiite interpretations of the surah, notably the frontrunners (al-sabiqun v. 10, al-muqarrabun v. 11); the surah’s structure and composition, notably the shift that takes place after v. 75; the rhyme scheme and the reasons for the departures from it; the surah’s eschatological and polemical themes; and much else besides.

The Surah Studies Unit encourages and welcomes diverse methods and approaches. Indeed, the raison d’être of the panel is to bring different perspectives on a given surah—especially surahs receiving little scholarly attention otherwise—into dialogue with one another.

 

PROGRAM UNIT 3
Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics

Program Unit Chairs
Karen Bauer
Feras Hamza

This unit aims to understand and contextualise the methods and hermeneutics applied to the Qur’anic text, both historical and contemporary. The Methodology and Hermeneutics unit addresses questions that might implicitly govern other units, such as: What is Qur’anic Studies, and how does the study of the Qur’an differ from the study of its interpretation? What are the methodological differences between descriptive and normative approaches to the text? How does context (intellectual, social, ethical, historical) affect hermeneutical approaches to the text? The unit welcomes papers addressed to the hermeneutics and methods of particular schools of interpretation or thought, and also on hermeneutics as applied to specific subjects or concepts such as social justice and gender.

This year the Methodology and Hermeneutics unit additionally invites submissions with a special focus on European hermeneutics and the Qur’an. The predominantly European tradition of 20th century hermeneutics that is exemplified by such seminal figures as Dilthey, Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, Tillich, and Ricoeur has produced a rich and sustained inquiry into the possibilities of an epistemology of, and an interpretive methodology for, “the text.” Interrogating the very relationship between the reader and the text, this hermeneutical tradition has offered insights into the nature of language, readership, reception, discourse as event, interpretive predispositions, and “worlds” opened up by the text. To what extent do these insights have implications for our understanding of the Qur’an? What  insights from the European tradition have had resonance with scholars of the Qur’an, and have prior attempts to incorporate such insights been successful?

 

PROGRAM UNIT 4
The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism

Program Unit Chairs
Alba Fedeli
Shady Hekmat Nasser

The aim of the Manuscripts and Textual Criticism unit is to provide a cross-disciplinary setting for the exploration of the various interconnected issues that arise when questions concerning the Qur’an’s text are investigated through the prism of its manuscript tradition. This latter term encompasses the field of Qur’an manuscripts per se, but also alludes to such information regarding the history of the text that can be gleaned from the citations, marginal notes, and detailed analysis provided in other branches of the Islamic sciences, for example Qur’an commentaries and the qira’at literature. It is hoped that bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines will serve to enrich and strengthen each of these fields. The Manuscripts and Textual Criticism unit seeks to create a forum for the application of textual criticism to the Qur’anic text attested both in physical manuscripts and within the wider Islamic tradition. It also aims to investigate palaeographic, codicological, and art historical features in the Qur’an’s manuscript tradition.

The unit welcomes papers on any topic within the range of the interests of the Manuscripts and Textual Criticism program unit. In addition, the unit proposes a special thematic session for 2019: “Life of Qur’an manuscripts.” We invite proposals that touch upon issues related to the modification of manuscripts after they have been produced. Papers dealing with all eras and regions of the manuscript tradition are welcome. Submissions might focus on the insertion of marginalia notes, colophons, waqf statements, annotations, additions, amendments, the recycling of writing surfaces, etc., or on references to such practices in the traditional literature.

 

PROGRAM UNIT 5
The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition

Program Unit Chairs
Nora K. Schmid
Holger Zellentin

This unit was established in order to study the Qur’an’s relationship to the biblical tradition in the broadest possible sense of the term. We are interested, for example, in exploring the Qur’an’s reaction to the exegetical, homiletic, and narrative traditions of the Bible, in both written and oral form. We invite an engagement with the books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, regardless of a particular book’s status of canonization within specific Jewish or Christian groups, and in the various languages of their original composition as well as in later translations. We especially encourage studies of the legal corpora that have developed in close dialogue with this biblical tradition prior to the emergence of the Qur’an and, subsequently, in exchange with the Qur’an.

For the 2019 Annual Meeting we further announce a themed session: “Theology of the Body in the Biblical Tradition and in the Qur’an.” This session will investigate the body as a useful site for studying qur’anic theological discourses in comparison with the biblical tradition. Since Peter Brown’s groundbreaking work, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988), the scholarly turn to the body has transformed the study of religion. In the Qur’an as well as in biblical traditions, the body figures prominently both as a site of human agency and as an agent itself. We welcome proposals for papers that deal with the diverse ways in which theological discourse shapes human attitudes towards the body (e.g., attitudes towards celibacy, diet, discipline, the embodied components of ritual, etc.), as well as papers that investigate the impact of the somatic on theological discourse (e.g., embodiment in devotional piety, corporeal aspects of apocalyptic representations, etc.), in the Qur’an and in biblical traditions.

 

PROGRAM UNIT 6
The Qur’an and Late Antiquity

Program Unit Chairs
Johanne Christiansen
Michael Pregill

For the 2019 IQSA Annual Meeting in San Diego, the Qur’an and Late Antiquity program unit invites proposals that utilize various types of material or evidence—be that  literary, documentary, or epigraphic—to illuminate the historical context in which the Qur’an was revealed and the early Islamic polity emerged. We are especially interested in papers that present and discuss comparative methodologies to contribute to a better understanding of the Qur’an’s place in the  cultural, political, social, and religious environment of Late Antiquity.

 

SPECIAL PANEL 1
The European Qur’an: The Islamic Holy Scripture in European Culture and Religion 1142–1850

Panel Chairs:
John Tolan
Roberto Tottoli

The Muslim holy book has been a part of European culture since its first translation into Latin by Robert of Ketton in 1142. Qur’an manuscripts and manuscripts of Qur’an commentaries, meanwhile, have been used, commented upon, and circulated in Europe since the Middle Ages. Beyond the mere fact of translating, copying, and printing the Qur’an in Europe (in Arabic, Latin, and the various European vernaculars), this panel will explore how the Qur’an was mobilized in debates about European cultural identities: in polemics between Protestants, Catholics, and Unitarians; in debates about the power of the Catholic (or Anglican) Church; in discussions about the renewal and reform of Christianity or Judaism; in debates about the place of religion in secular European societies. We invite papers on these and other instances of the impact and the utilization of the Qur’an in Europe between the twelfth and early nineteenth centuries.

 

SPECIAL PANEL 2
The Societal Qur’an

Panel Chairs:
Thomas Hoffmann
Johanna Pink

The  Societal Qur’an  panel invites proposals for papers that investigate the Qur’an in its lived and societal contexts throughout history, from Late Antiquity to contemporary Late Modernity.  Proposals are encouraged that engage with sociological, anthropological, and political science theories and methods in their pursuit of the societal and lived Qur’an. Papers might, for instance, discuss topics such as ritual and artistic uses of the Qur’an, practices of teaching the Qur’an, talismanic and medical uses of the Qur’an, the production of manuscript, print, and new media versions of the Qur’an, or the deployment of the Qur’an in terms of social identity and political organization.

 

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

Tenth SOAS Qur’ān Conference, November 9 – 10, 2018, London

Posted on by

Around a hundred delegates met in London from November 9 – 10, 2018 for the Tenth SOAS Qur’ān Conference. The conference theme was “Text, Translation and Culture” and featured presentations in both English and Arabic. SOAS LIBRARY, BLOOMSBURY

The conference began with an opening address by Professor Abdel Haleem, who first established the conference. The first morning featured two panels on qur’ānic rhetoric, which included papers by Adam Flowers (Chicago), on The qur’ānic Exhortation, Salwa El-Awa (Swansea), on Discourse Markers as Indicators of Text and Structure in the Multiple-topic qur’ānic Suras: A Meta-analysis of Q. 2, Thomas Hoffmann (Copenhagen), on A Qur’anic Self-Deconstruction? Q. 20:113 and Mamoon Abdelhalim Wagih (Fayoum University), on ‘أثر النحو العربي في خدمة النص القرآني’ (The Role of Arabic Grammar in Understanding and Interpreting the qur’ānic Text). 

After coffee, Rachel Claire Dryden (Cambridge) discussed The Typology of Rain and Other Weather-Related Phenomena in the Qur’ān, Johanne Louise Christiansen (Copenhagen) examined How to be Deliberately Vague: On the Rhetorical Strategy of Vagueness in the Qurʾān and Ulrika Mårtensson (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) analysed Between mustaqīm and mukhliṣ: ‘Covenant’ as a Linguistic and Rhetorical Analysis of the Canon’s Composition and Key Concepts. The first morning’s session concluded with a presentation by Professor Haleem himself on Sūrat al-Mulk, Q 67: Reading the Qur’an According to its balāgha: ‘ḥaqqa tilāwatihi’. 

In the afternoon, a panel on qur’ānic reception featured Mirina Paananen (Oxford), who discussed Taghannī or not taghannī? Ibn al-Jazarī on the Musical Recitation of the Qurʾān, Suleyman Dost(Brandeis), who examined The Rise and Fall of a Genre: The maṣāḥif Books in Context. Under the broader theme of qur’ānic theology, Livnat Holtzman (Bar-Ilan University), presented on The Rhetorical Aspect of āyāt al-ṣifāṭ: The Ashʿarite Prohibition of Gestures and the Ultra-Traditionalistic Response (12th–14th Centuries), Oliver Leaman (Kentucky), asked Is the Ethics of the Qur’an Utilitarian? and Ramon Harvey (Ebrahim College), discussed Al-Māturīdī on Abrogation of the sharīʿa in the Qur’an and Previous Scriptures. 

Day two of the conference continued with presentations on contemporary approaches to the Qur’ān by Todd Lawson (Toronto), who spoke about The Qur’an and the Shaykhiyya, Walid Saleh (Toronto), who discussed The Encyclopaedia of Tradition-based Qur’an Commentary and Sohaib Saeed (Glasgow), who examined Qurʾān Citations in Qurʾān Exegeses: A Case Study of Sūrat al-Anʿām (Q. 6) and a panel on tafsir, which included presentations by Ahmad Al-Dubayan (ICCUK), ‘نقد منهج المعالجة اللغوية لدى محمد شحرور’ (Linguistic Methodology of Muhammad Shahrur), and Ahmed Bouaoud (Université Abdelmalek Essaadi), ‘القرآن والتاريخ بحث في أطروحة أنجليكا نويفيرت حول تاريخ النص القرآني’ (Qur’ān and History: Angelika Neuwirth’s Thesis on the History of the Qur’anic Text). 

The afternoon sessions focused on different aspects of qur’ānic translation: Nàdia Petrus Pons (Autonomous University of Barcelona) discussed the Transmission and Survival of Mark of Toledo’s Latin Qur’an translation, Nora S Eggen (Oslo), analysed Modality in translations of the Qur’ān and Shawkat M. Toorawa (Yale), examined Ḥaqqa tilāwatihi—Doing the Qur’an justice in English translation. 

The theme of qur’ānic translation continued with presentations on The Qur’ān in Non-Western Languages such as that by Johanna Pink (Freiburg), on Joseph and the Tiger, Mary and the Angel: What we can learn from Javanese Qur’an Translation, M. Brett Wilson (CEU/Macalester College), on The Poet of Islam’s Translation of the Qur’an and Philipp Bruckmayr (Vienna), which was entitled From Manuscripts to Printed Editions: The Translation of the Qurʼān into Indochinese Languages. 

The conference concluded with some closing remarks by Professor Abdel Haleem. Many thanks to the SOAS Qur’ān conference team for organizing such a successful conference. 

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

2019 Reminders & Updates

Posted on by

iqsa

A belated Happy New Year from the International Qur’anic Studies Association! 2019 ushers in a range of new publications, exciting events, and organizational developments for the IQSA community.

HOW TO SAVE MONEY THIS YEAR

Attending conferences and accessing quality scholarship cost money–but we have got you covered, (1) with versatile “five tiered” IQSA membership, and (2) with early registration through SBL (about $195).  A graduate student could pay as little as $220-225 for both membership and registration (and enjoy two free meals on the house 🙂. The same advice more or less applies to faculty members and independent scholars. Pay early. Save money.

Students or scholars experiencing extenuating circumstances should write contact@iqsaweb.org about temporarily waiving the membership fee.

WHY BECOME A MEMBER IN 2019?

IQSA Membership for 2019 is now open! Membership consists of five levels: Student/International, Mid-range Faculty/General, Full Professor, Lifetime, and Institutional. The Student/International level is $25 (USD) for student and international (Global South) scholars. The Mid-range Faculty/General level is $50 (USD) for all non-student scholars, professionals, and mid-range faculty. The Full Professor level is $75 (USD) for full professors. The Lifetime level is a one time installment of $2,000 (USD) and Institutional membership is $400 (USD) annually.

Member benefits include:

  • DISCOUNTED Registration for Annual Meetings (IQSA, SBL, AAR)
    • IQSA Membership makes users eligible to register at the SUPER SAVER level prior to May 24th at the low cost of $195.00 as affiliates
  • Free passes to Annual Meeting events, including the Exhibitor Hall, private general and graduate student receptions, sessions, panels, and more
  • Access to the membership directory – an internal network of over 200 scholars!
  • Access to IQSA publications, including the monthly Review of Qur’anic Research, the Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, and more
  • Professional development opportunities for graduate students and junior scholars, including volunteer, job postings, and employment networking
  • Eligibility for Andrew Rippin Best Paper Prize ($250 USD and potential publication in JIQSA)
  • [ Starting 2019: To be eligible to present at annual and international IQSA conferences IQSA membership dues must be paid by the time the paper abstract is accepted – no exceptions! ]

To become a member, click HERE. To renew or edit your membership, sign in to your member account, click the “Join IQSA” tab, and select “Edit your member profile” at the bottom of the page.

JOIN US IN TANGIER, MOROCCO!

Membership also grants access to IQSA’s quickly approaching third biennial International Qur’an Conference to be held from July 25-26, 2019 and hosted by the Tangier Global Forum of the University of New England, Tangier, Morocco. The main theme of the conference is Reading the Qur’an in the Context of Empire. The conference will take place in English, Arabic and French. Please submit your abstracts (300 words) to: iqsatangier2019@gmail.com by January 30, 2019. Modest financial support may be available to accepted panelists by request, and contingent upon available funds. All accepted panelists are required to renew and/or sign up for IQSA Membership immediately in order to secure a position in the program. For more details, visit the 2019 International Meeting page.

Should you have questions about the conference, please contact IQSA conference director, Majid Daneshgar (majid.daneshgar@frias.uni-freiburg.de) or the IQSA administration (contact@iqsaweb.org).

READ OUR NEW PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT POLICY

Members should note IQSA’s newly published Professional Conduct Policy, to which all members and event participants are expected to adhere in order to best promote mutual understanding through scholarship and open inquiry. Members are encouraged to read and abide by the policy now available online.

WHO WANTS TO VOLUNTEER?

IQSA is currently seeking Blog contributors and a grant writer (the latter will receive free membership/benefits). Also for IQSA friends and members outside North America, stay tuned later this year for our “IQSA regional coordinator” program. If you are interested, write contact@iqsaweb.org.

STAY CONNECTED!

IQSA members make new discoveries, have fascinating conversations and share all sorts of cool and material exclusively over social media and discussion group. Join for free and see what you’re missing!

To stay informed throughout the new year, follow IQSA via www.iqsaweb.org, the weekly Blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Also join the IQSA discussion group by sending an email to iqsa-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

– DONATE NOW –

Over the years IQSA members have been extremely generous. Thank you. We encourage our members and affiliates to continue support for our mission by clicking this link to make a donation. The International Qur’anic Studies Association is a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, and every gift ensures its continued role in building bridges across the globe via the critical study of the Qur’an.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 5 no. 1 (2019)

Posted on by

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 5, no.1), Devin Stewart (Emory University) reviews Karim Samji’s The Qur’ān: A Form-Critical History (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018).

quranformcriticalhistory

In his review, Stewart writes “The urge to provide an inventory of the types of speech included in the Qurʾān is an old one. As Karim Samji points out, in one passage of his famous Qurʾān commentary Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) interprets the seven “letters” (aḥruf) in which the Qurʾān was revealed as seven types of speech contained in the sacred text: command (amr), rebuke (zajr), exhortation (targhīb), admonition (tarhīb), debate (jadal), narrative (qaṣaṣ), and parable (mathal) (270). However, this urge has not been met with sustained interest and methodical investigation on the part of modern scholars in Qurʾānic Studies. Karim Samji’s The Qurʾān: A Form-Critical Historyis therefore an important contribution to Qurʾānic Studies, the first attempt to apply biblical form criticism to the Qurʾān in a sustained manner to provide an overview of the main genres contained in Islam’s sacred text…”

Want to read more? For full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR), members can log in HERE. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.