Table Of ContentQurʾānic Studies Today
Qurʾānic Studies Today brings together specialists in the field of Islamic studies
to provide a range of essays that reflect the depth and breadth of scholarship on
the Qurʾān.
Combining theoretical and methodological clarity with close readings of
qurʾānic texts, these contributions provide close analysis of specific passages,
themes, and issues within the Qurʾān, even as they attend to the disciplinary chal-
lenges within the field of qurʾānic studies today. Chapters are arranged into three
parts, treating specific figures appearing in the Qurʾān, analyzing particular suras,
and finally reflecting on the Qurʾān and its “others.” They explore the internal
dimensions and interior chronology of the Qurʾān as text, its possible conversa-
tions with biblical and non-biblical traditions in Late Antiquity, and its role as
scripture in modern exegesis and recitation. Together, they are indispensable for
students and scholars who seek an understanding of the Qurʾān founded on the
most recent scholarly achievements.
Offering both a reflection of and a reflection on the discipline of qurʾānic stud-
ies, the strong, scholarly examinations of the Qurʾān in this volume provide a
valuable contribution to Islamic and qurʾānic studies.
Angelika Neuwirth is Professor Emeritus of Arabic Studies at the Freie Univer-
sität in Berlin.
Michael A. Sells is Barrows Professor of the History and Literature of Islam and
Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago.
Routledge Studies in the Qurʾān
Former Editor:
Andrew Rippin
University of Victoria, Canada
Series Editor:
Walid Saleh
University of Toronto, Canada
In its examination of critical issues in the scholarly study of the Qurʾān and its
commentaries, this series targets the disciplines of archaeology, history, textual
history, anthropology, theology and literary criticism. The contemporary rele-
vance of the Qurʾān in the Muslim world, its role in politics and in legal debates is
also dealt with, as are debates surrounding Qurʾānic studies in the Muslim world.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
The Qurʾan and its Biblical Subtext
Gabriel Said Reynold
Qurʾanic Hermeneutics
Al-Tabrisi and the craft of commentary
Bruce Fudge
New Perspectives on the Qurʾan
The Qurʾan in its historical context 2
Edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds
The Qurʾan and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions
Emran Iqbal El-Badawi
Mary in the Qurʾan
A Literary Reading
Hosn Abboud
Shaping a Qurʾanic Worldview
Scriptural hermeneutics and the rhetoric of moral reform in the
caliphate of al-Maʾmūn
Vanessa De Gifis
Qurʾānic Studies Today
Edited by Angelika Neuwirth and Michael A. Sells
Qurʾānic Studies Today
Edited by Angelika Neuwirth
and Michael A. Sells
First published 2016
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Angelika Neuwirth and Michael A. Sells
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material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Neuwirth, Angelika, editor. | Sells, Michael Anthony, editor.
Title: Qurʾanic studies today / edited by Angelika Neuwirth and
Michael A. Sells.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge studies in
the Qurʾan
Identifiers: LCCN 2015039797 | ISBN 9781138181953 (hbk)
Subjects: LCSH: Qurʾan—Study and teaching. | Qurʾan—Criticism,
interpretation, etc.—History.
Classification: LCC BP130.77 .Q87 2016 | DDC 297.1/2207—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039797
ISBN: 978-1-138-18195-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64665-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vii
Contributors viii
Acknowledgments xi
Note on Transliteration xii
Introduction 1
PART 1 15
1 Wansbrough, Bultmann, and the Theory of Variant
Traditions in the Qurʾān 17
DEVIN J. STEWART
2 Lot’s Wife: Late Antique Paradigms of Sense and the Qurʾān 52
NORA K. SCHMID
3 The Sign of Jonah: Transformations and Interpretations of
the Jonah Story in the Qurʾān 82
HANNELIES KOLOSKA
PART 2 103
4 End of Hope: Sūras 10–15, Despair and a Way Out of Mecca 105
WALID A. SALEH
5 The Casting: A Close Hearing of Sūra 20:1–79 124
MICHAEL A. SELLS
6 Qurʾānic Studies and Philology: Qurʾānic Textual Politics of
Staging, Penetrating, and Finally Eclipsing Biblical Tradition 178
ANGELIKA NEUWIRTH
vi Contents
7 The “Sunna of Our Messengers”: The Qurʾān’s Paradigm
for Messengers and Prophets; a Reading of
Sūrat ash-Shuʿarāʾ (26) 207
SIDNEY H. GRIFFITH
8 Textual and Paratextual Meaning in the Recited Qurʾān:
Analysis of Performance of Sūrat al-Furqān by Sheikh
Mishari Rashid Alafasy 228
LAUREN E. OSBORNE
PART 3 247
9 Maʾsal: What the Ṭalal Would Tell Us 249
GHASSAN EL MASRI
10 Aḥbār and Ruhbān: Religious Leaders in the Qurʾān in
Dialogue with Christian and Rabbinic Literature 262
HOLGER M. ZELLENTIN
11 Reinterpreting the Qurʾānic Criticism of Other Religions 294
MUN’IM SIRRY
Bibliography, Qurʾānic Studies Today 311
Index of Qurʾānic References 337
Index 353
Figures
3.1 Cubiculum of the Velatio, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, 2nd–4th
century CE; taken from: Vincenzo Fiocchi Nicolai, Fabrizio
Bisconti, and Danilo Mazzoleni, Le catacombe cristiane di
Roma: Origini, sviluppo, apparati decorativi, documentazione
epigrafica (Regensburg, Germany: Schnell & Steiner, 1998), ill. 29. 93
3.2 Sarcophagus with Jonah story, Rome, late 3rd century CE,
Lateran Museum; taken from: Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann,
ed., Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage, vol. 1, Rom
und Ostia (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1967), ill. 11, rep. I.35. 94
3.3 Endymion Sarcophagus, Rome, 3rd century CE, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; taken from: Paul
Zanker and Björn Christian Ewald, Mit Mythen leben. Die
Bilderwelt der römischen Sarkophage (Munich: Hirmer, 2004),
p. 322, ill. 15. 94
3.4 Jonah Praying, Asia Minor, 280–290 CE, The Cleveland
Museum of Art; taken from: James Snyder, Henry Luttikhuizen,
and Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk, Snyder’s Medieval Art (Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006), p. 4. 95
5.1 Some Major Early Mūsā Passages in the Qurʾān 125
5.2 Transdiscursity in Sūra 79 and Sūra 20 134
5.3 Mūsā, the Fire, and Waḥy in Sūras 20, 27, and 28 141
5.4 Opening the Breast: Mūsā (Sūra 20) and the Prophet (Sūra 94) 147
8.1 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:1–4 236
8.2 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:5–6 238
8.3 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:7–9 239
8.4 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:9–10 240
8.5 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:34–35 241
8.6 Alafasy Recitation A, Q 25:62–63 242
Contributors
Sidney H. Griffith is Ordinary Professor Emeritus in the Department of Semitic
and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America.
His publications include: Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-
Century Palestine (1992); The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic
(2002); The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims
in the World of Islam (2008); and The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the
“People of the Book” in the Language of Islam (2013).
Hannelies Koloska is a research associate at the Corpus Coranicum project at
the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her publica-
tions include: Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jauzī: Kitāb aḥkām al-nisā’—Das Buch der
Weisungen für Frauen (2009); Offenbarung, Ästhetik und Koranexegese: Zwei
Studien zu Sure 18 (al-Kahf) (2015); and “Das Geheimnis der Siebenschläfer:
Christliche Heilige und Gleichnisse in Sure 18 (“Die Höhle”),” in Welt und
Umwelt der Bibel (2012).
Ghassan el Masri is head of the research project “Ruin to Resurrection” at Corpus
Coranicum, at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
His writings include: “The Qurʾān and the Character of Early Arabic Poetry,”
in Qurʾān and Adab, ed. Nuha Shaar (in press); “Contribution à une meilleure
compréhension de l’histoire de la Digue de Maʾrib au Yemen,” in Regards
croisés d’Orient et d’Occident (2015); “Min al-baʿad ilā al-āḫira: Poetic Time
and Qurʾanic Eschatology,” in Les Origines du Coran, le Coran des Origines
(2015); and his dissertation “Ad-Dunyā and al-Ākhira in the Qurʾān and in
Pre-Islamic Poetry” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2011).
Angelika Neuwirth is Professor Emeritus of Arabic Studies at the Freie Uni-
versität in Berlin (FU), director of the FU research unit “From Logos to
Kalam,” and Director of the online research project “Corpus Coranicum:
Textgeschichtliche Dokumentation und Historisch-Literaturwissenschaftlicher
Kommentar” at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humani-
ties. Her writings include: The Qurʾān in Context, co-edited with Nicolai Sinai
and Michael Marx (2010); Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren
Contributors ix
(1979; 2nd ed. 2007); Der Koran als Text der Spätantike (2010); Der Koran,
Kommentar I: Poetische Prophetie: Frühmekkanische Suren (2011); Koran-
forschung eine politische Philologie? (2014); and Scripture, Poetry, and the
Making of a Community (2014).
Lauren E. Osborne is Assistant Professor of Religion at Whitman College in
Walla Walla, Washington. Her writings include her dissertation, “From Text
to Sound to Perception: Modes and Relationships of Meaning in the Recited
Qurʾan” (University of Chicago, 2014), in addition to “The Experience of the
Recited Qurʾan,” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies (2016).
Walid A. Saleh is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. His publications
include: The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commen-
tary of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (2004); In Defense of the Bible: A Critical Edi-
tion and an Introduction to al-Biqāʿī’s Bible Treatise (2008); and “The Gloss as
Intellectual History: The Hashiyahs on al-Kashshaf,” in Oriens (2013).
Nora K. Schmid is Researcher at the Collaborative Research Center 980 “Epis-
teme in Motion” at Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. Her writings include:
“Quantitative Text Analysis and Its Application to the Qurʾan: Some Prelimi-
nary Considerations,” in The Qurʾān in Context (2010); and “Abū l-ʿAtāhiya
and the Versification of Disenchantment,” in The Place to Go: Contexts of
Learning in Baghdād, 750–1000 C.E. (2014). She is currently co-editing the
volume Denkraum Spätantike together with Angelika Neuwirth and Nora
Schmidt.
Michael A. Sells is Barrows Professor of the History and Literature of Islam and
Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. His publi-
cations include: Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes (1989); Mystical
Languages of Unsaying (1994); Early Islamic Mysticism (1996); The Bridge
Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (1996); Stations of Desire: Love
Odes of Ibn ʿArabi and New Poems (2000); The Cambridge History of Arabic
Literature: al-Andalus, co-edited with María Rosa Menocal and Raymond P.
Scheindlin (2000); and Approaching the Qurʾan (2nd ed. 2007).
Mun’im Sirry is Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame
in Indiana. His writings include: Scriptural Polemics: the Qurʾān and Other
Religions (2014); “The Qurʾan and Its Polemical Context: Between Chrono-
logical and Literary Approaches,” in al-Bayān: Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth
Studies (2015); “Muslim Prayer and Public Spheres: An Interpretation of the
Qurʾanic verse 9:45,” with A. Rashied Omar in Interpretation 68 (2014); and
“Muqatil b. Sulayman and Anthropomorphism,” in Studia Islamica 3 (2012).
Devin J. Stewart is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Emory
University. His publications include: Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite
Responses to the Sunni Legal System (1998); Disagreements of the Jurists:
A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory (2015); “Sajʿ in the Qurʾān: Prosody and
