Tag Archives: RQR

Write for us!

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New coordinator at the IQSA blog

From this week on, the IQSA blog will have a new coordinator, Mehdy Shaddel, an independent scholar based in Iran, with interests in the Qur’an, late-ancient 1024px-Folio_Blue_Quran_Met_2004.88religion, and early Islamic history. The previous coordinator, Professor Vanessa De Gifis of the Wayne State University, is now the co-editor of our Journal, JIQSA. We would like to thank Professor De Gifis on behalf of the IQSA community for her efforts during her tenure as blog coordinator.

Share your research

If you are undertaking research as a faculty member or post-doc, working on a new project as a graduate student, or would like to share information about an upcoming Qur’an related conference, workshop or service, please consider writing a blog post for us. Posts in languages other than English are acceptable. Blog contributions should be sent to Mehdy Shaddel (mehdyshaddel@gmail.com). Scholarly reviews should be submitted to RQR and academic articles to JIQSA.

Become a member

IQSA is committed to growing Qur’anic scholarship and creating a community where scholars can collaborate, network, and participate in lively discussions. To ensure IQSA’s continued growth, make a commitment and become a member. IQSA members enjoy exclusive access to Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR), Qur’an Seminar, membership directory, job board, the Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (JIQSA), and more.

Qur’anic Studies, a Political Philology?

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neuwirth2

Cover of Koranforschung – eine politische philologie? (Walter de Gruyter, 2014)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 2 no. 5, Mareike Koertner reviews Angelika Neuwirth’s Koranforschung – eine politische Philologie? (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014). In this book Neuwirth presents a concise work of her larger theories of contextualizing the qur’anic text within the intellectual framework of Late Antiquity. She suggests that the study of the reception of biblical materials in the Qurʾan must be analyzed by considering the cultural and religious context in which the Qurʾan emerged and evolved. The qur’anic text heavily interacted with its audiences and is a result of a process of cultural re-negotiation that included elements from the environment in Mecca, the living heirs of the biblical traditions who resided in Medina, and, Muhammad and his community. In answering her question of if the qur’anic studies is a political philology, Neuwirth explains the various meanings of “political.”

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

Divine Encounter with the Qur’an

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Cover of Qur'ans: Books of Divine Encounter (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2015)

Cover of Qur’ans: Books of Divine Encounter (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2015)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 2, no. 4, Yasin Dutton reviews Keith E. Small’s Qurʾāns: Books of Divine Encounter (Oxford: Bodleian Library, Oxford University Press, 2015). In this book, Keith Small presents the Qurʾan collection at the Bodleian Library, Ashmolean Museum, and the David Collection in Copenhagen. The book presents a visual display of the manuscripts in a mainly chronological arrangement. It highlights the theme of the Qurʾan being the point of contact with the Divine. The first two chapters present the earliest manuscripts in the collection. The next two chapters presents the art of manuscript illumination. The final three chapters emphasizes the European encounter with the Qurʾan, global dissemination, and talismanic copies of the Qurʾan.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

The Aesthetic Experience of the Qur’an

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kermani coverIn the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 2, no. 3, Lauren E. Osborne reviews Navid Kermani’s God is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of the Quran (Malden, Mass.: Polity, 2015). In this book, Kermani argues that the aesthetic experience of the Qurʾan has always been linked to understanding the text as a whole since its initial reception. This aesthetic experience is mainly focused on the hearing. Through his analysis, Kermani brings an innovative hermeneutic strategy to Qur’anic studies. His work also provides an innovative way of analyzing early accounts of the reception of the Qur’an. His work covers close readings of an impressive number of sources, bringing into focus an essential aspect of experiencing the Qur’an.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

The Jews of Medina and the Challenge of Early Islamic Historiography

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Cover of Mazuz, Religious and Spiritual Lives of the Jews of Medina (Brill, 2014). Image from brill.com.

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 2, no. 2, Michael Pregill reviews Haggai Mazuz’s The Religious and Spiritual Lives of the Jews of Medina (Leiden: Brill, 2014). This work not only seeks to establish the historicity of much of the data the traditional sources offer us on the culture, customs, and traditions of the Jewish communities of the Ḥijāz in Muhammad’s time, but proposes to offer a conclusive demonstration of the squarely halakhic nature of these Jews. According to Mazuz, much of what the classical Islamic sources relate about Muhammad’s Jewish contemporaries can be correlated with data about Jewish ideas and practices found in the Babylonian Talmud and other mainstream rabbinic sources, which he interprets as proof that these Arabian communities were essentially rabbinic in orientation.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016. All rights reserved.

Twenty Years of Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text

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neuwirthIn the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 2, no. 1, Süleyman Dost reviews Angelika Neuwirth, Scripture, Poetry, and the Making of a Community: Reading the Qur’an as a Literary Text (Oxford University Press/Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014), the first thorough collection of Angelika Neuwirth’s scholarship in English. Neuwirth, a leading scholar of Qur’anic studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, treats the Qur’an as a coherent literary corpus and grounds the text in its late antique and biblical setting with a special interest in its emergence through an ever-evolving communication process. The book under review brings together in a single volume fourteen of Neuwirth’s articles that were published in varying contexts over twenty years. Thus the book embodies the leading edges of first-tier Qur’an scholarship and in the process sheds light on pressing issues of the field today.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016. All rights reserved.

IQSA Membership 2016 Now Open!

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IQSA Membership for 2016 is now open. Membership consists of three levels: Student/International, Mid-range Faculty/General, Full Professor. The Student/International level is $25 (USD) for student and international (non-North American residents) 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. Please join or renew online today!

To become a member, please click HERE, where you will be asked to fill out a membership form and pay the appropriate membership fees. After completing this process, you will receive login information to save for your records and use to access member benefits at anytime. You can then create your own profile for our member directory.

Membership benefits for 2016 include:

Other member benefits will include:

  • Job postings in Qur’anic Studies and related areas
  • Regular updates on IQSA member activities
  • Discounted registration/affiliate rate for the Annual Meeting held annually in November
  • Vote/governance
  • Special offers from publishers

We appreciate your membership and support!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015. All rights reserved.

Variant Readings of the Qur’an

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In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research 1, no. 9, Hamza M. Zafer reviews Shady Hekmat Nasser, The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh (Brill, 2013). This book lays out the processes whereby certain readings of the Qurʾan were deemed canonical while others were deemed deviant (shādhdh; pl. shawādhdh) by the early tradition. Nasser brings together an eclectic selection of traditional sources and uses a Motzkian hadith critical methodology to shed light on the development of Muslim scripturalism and its connections to wider ideological transformations in early Islamic thought.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015.

Translating the Qur’an

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In the latest installment of Review of Qur’anic Research 1, no. 8, Johanna Pink reviews M. Brett Wilson’s new book, Translating the Qurʾan in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2014). At the dawn of the twentieth century, many Muslims considered Qur’an translations to be impermissible and unviable. Nevertheless, printed and translated versions of the Qur’an have gained widespread acceptance by Muslim communities, and now play a central, and in some quarters, a leading role in how the Qur’an is read and understood in the modern world. Focusing on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, and following the debates to Russia, Egypt, Indonesia, and India, Wilson’s book tries to answer the question of how this revolution in Qur’anic book culture occurred, considering both intellectual history as well the processes by which the Qur’an became a modern book that could be mechanically reproduced and widely owned.

For a long time, Qur’an translations have attracted little scholarly attention. Wilson’s book reflects growing interest among scholars to study such texts and the reasons and circumstances of their production, which can help to shed light on the place of the Qur’an in the lives of those who engage with it in different non-Arabic languages.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015.

Reason and Scripture: Questions of Exegetical Authority

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In the latest installment of Review of Qur’anic Research 1, no. 7, Rodrigo Adem reviews Tariq Jaffer’s new book, Rāzī: Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation and Theological Reasoning (Oxford University Press, 2015). Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209 C.E.) had a pervasive influence on Sunnī and Shīʿī theological discourses from the thirteenth century to the present day. Jaffer’s book explores how al-Razi’s approach to the Qur’an embodied pivotal intellectual developments in the Islamic scholarly milieu of his time, focusing in particular on one specific aspect of al-Razi’s exegetical priorities, the so-called “rule of interpretation (qānūn al-taʾwīl),” wherein “reason” (ʿaql) is privileged over “scripture” (naql) for authoritative qur’anic exegesis in matters of theological import.

Full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR) is available in the members-only area of our IQSA website. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015.