The Corpus of Qur’anic Readings (qirāʾāt)

The history of the study of the corpus of qirāʾāt or Qur’anic readings is principally defined by the substantive contributions made by the work of Theodor Nöldeke, Gotthelf Bergsträsser, Otto Pretzl, and Arthur Jeffery. From the publication of critical editions of manuscripts and supplementary research covering classical scholarship on Qur’anic variants, to the establishment of a manuscript archive on the Qur’an, it is widely acknowledged that the cumulative efforts of these scholars effectively laid the foundations for much of the academic work carried out on the history of the textual transmission of the Qur’an. Offering a review of the principal debates and arguments germane to the study of Qur’anic readings, this chapter also assesses approaches to the treatment and synthesis within the Islamic tradition. It suggests that recent research boosted by the availability of a broader range of critical editions of manuscripts and related studies will contribute to a profounder understanding of the historical importance of this corpus.

The Qur’an and Christianity

This chapter advocates a critical stance towards both normative Christianity and normative Islamic tradition but highlights the inadequacies of revisionist histories of early Islam. It suggests that the fātiḥa was intended to replace the Lord’s Prayer and that sura 112 was a response to the Christology of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It finds a precedent for the 114 suras of the Qur’an in the 114 logia of the Gospel of Thomas. It argues that Q. 7:157 was revealed in Medina but concedes that Q. 61:6b may be a later editorial addition. However, it stresses that regardless of whether these two passages are authentic the biblical teaching about the prophet like Moses and the Paraclete is the key to understanding the dynamics of the Qur’anic discourse. It maintains that the Qur’an is not concerned with the death of Jesus as such. Rather Q. 4:156–7 rebuts Jewish anti-Christian polemic and Q. 3:55 serves to strengthen the believers in the face of death and defeat. Q. 5:112–5 differs from the biblical accounts of the last supper because the crucifixion is not viewed as an act of atonement. The three elements in Jesus’ name, al-Masīḥ ʿĪsā Ibn Maryam, are examined in the light of the Qur’anic chronology, philology, and the New Testament. The background to the designation of Christians as naṣārā is explored with reference to the New Testament and other pre-Islamic sources.

The Manuscript and Archaeological Traditions

The academic study of the early physical evidence of the Qur’an’s transmission has a long and convoluted history. Beginning in earnest with the provisional efforts of the Danish scholar Johann Christian Georg Adler, and followed by the contributions of distinguished individuals such as Michele Amari, Nabia Abbott, Adolf Grohmann, and others, over the years the field has witnessed an intricate array of approaches brought to bear on the study of the various materials. Within these contexts, preliminary advances in Arabic palaeography, epigraphy, codicology, numismatics, art history, and papyrology have played intricate roles in the analysis of the available sources. In this chapter key junctures in the attempts to investigate the early transmission of the Qur’an and its chronological provenance are reviewed with the aim of shedding light on developments within the field.

Glorifying God’s Word

This chapter discusses how an oral revelation was transformed into a written document and how the form of that written document changed to meet the varying needs of the expanding Muslim community. It also considers the methodologies appropriate to study these diverse documents, the questions raised by them, and the ways that this information has been and can be used. It opens with some general considerations about scope, methodology, and the like. Given the vast nature of the material, the many changes to it over time, and the goal of placing these physical changes in their historical and social contexts, the chapter then adopts a chronological framework, dividing the past millennium and a half of production into four major blocks.

Prophets and Personalities of the Qur’an

The message of the Qur’an is carried by a large cast of dramatis personae, the majority of whom have counterparts in the Bible. They include humankind (foremost among them the Prophets), angels, and jinn. The Qur’an has long been regarded as an epigone, lacking internal coherence, and the roles played by its characters of minor interest. The chapter outlines the stages by which it has become recognized as a definite and defining discourse in its own right, using the cultural language of late antiquity in its own way, and shaped by its interaction with the community to whom it was first revealed. The prophets and personalities known from other traditions accordingly have refashioned roles in a new framework. This shift in approach has generated new ways of viewing the Qur’anic discourse, and uncovering layers of meaning within it. These contrast with and sometimes challenge the insights of the classical tradition of exegesis.

Twelver Shīʿī Exegesis

In this chapter normative approaches to exegesis from a Twelver Shīʿī perspective are combined with a diachronic historical approach. From the normative perspective, the function of exegesis is to reveal the walāya of the imams and the close complementarity of the Qur’an and the imam is the central concern for the exegete. That process begins with the classical tradition in which the Qur’an is glossed on the basis of the sayings of the imams alone, both through explicit citation and through claims articulated that draw on oral teaching. From a diachronic perspective, one finds that the development of exegesis in the Twelver Shīʿī context follows the wider scholarly engagement in different milieux over roughly three or four stages of development. Hence one finds comprehensive exegeses that examine all aspects of understanding from the language to the law, others that focus on philosophy and theology, and others still that engage in mystical speculation. The traditions of exegesis remain very much alive and flourishing in the present in manners of social engagement as well as a shift towards a more thematic approach to making sense of the Qurʾan in the contemporary world from a Shīʿī perspective.

Qur’anic Syntax

In this study, ‘syntax’ means the way the diverse parts of a sura or diverse suras are connected between each other to compose coherent sets with semantic unity. The classical Islamic tradition (al-Zarkāshī, al-Suyūṭī, al-Biqāʿī …) has partially studied it under the titles of naẓm, ‘composition (of the text)’, and ʿilm al-munāsaba, ‘the science of correlation (between verses or suras)’. Some modern Muslim exegetes (Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, Saʿīd Ḥawwā) pushed the syntax analysis further, in an original way. Orientalists (Neuwirth, Crapon de Caprona, Salwa El-Awa, Robinson, Zahniser) have been interested in the syntax of the text since 1980. Cuypers elaborates on the Semitic rhetoric, discovered in biblical studies but perfectly applicable to the Qur’anic text.

The Form of the Qur’an

This chapter considers the history of the Qur’anic text from its origins until its final presentation as a fixed text, with a particular focus on research questions. It briefly considers how this text moves from a pre-revelation phase (the Preserved Tablet) to a post-revelation phase of a spoken and written Qur’an. We see an initial degree of allowable variation in the time of the Prophet being reduced by caliphal decree at the time of ʿUthmān. This first standardization is followed by a second, concerning mainly spelling, in the time of ‘Abd al-Malik. Over the next two centuries, local traditions become solidified into the commonly accepted readings of today, while other non-standard variants maintain a limited presence only in the literature.

Popular Culture and the Qur’an

Assessing the multiple ways the temporal and spatial boundaries of the Qur’an have been expanded through the interaction with culture, this chapter sets out to probe the reciprocal but also ambiguous relationship between the Qur’an and popular culture. It attempts to address the central question of how does a bound book in period-specific Arabic become a universal source of mercy in multiple dialects of Arabic but also in multiple non-Arabic languages, as also for oral cultures, semi-literate populations, and non-elite groups, all of whom draw upon and relate to its divine aura? Issues of language access/privilege, literacy in multiple registers, and the post-Enlightenment, colonial triad of reason/belief/magic—all have to be examined with attention to the central role of the Qur’an as both vehicle and transformer of popular culture, for Muslims and non-Muslims, from West Africa to South-East Asia.

Jihad and the Qur’an: Classical and Modern Interpretations

This chapter focuses on three conceptualizations of jihad endemic in the Western Academy and subjects them to a critical analysis. It references interpretations of key verses in the Qur’an by some of the most prominent commentators in the pre-modern and modern periods and provides an overview of the key debates concerning the treatment of jihad in the Qur’an. The chapter concludes by assessing whether these predominant conceptualizations can be supported on the basis of the Qur’an and its interpretations. Furthermore, such an assessment has implications for whether the military jihad described in the Qur’an can be regarded as ‘holy war’, as is the frequent translation in Western languages.