Quranic studies

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A page from the Sanaa manuscript -- the oldest Islamic archaeological document to date. Blue koran sanaa.jpg
A page from the Sanaa manuscript — the oldest Islamic archaeological document to date.

Quranic studies is the academic application of a diverse set of disciplines to study the Quran (including its exegesis and historical reception), drawing on methods including but not limited to ancient history, philology, textual criticism, lexicography, codicology, literary criticism, comparative religion, and historical criticism (the historical-critical method). [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Quranic studies can be divided into three primary domains. The first seeks to understanding its original meaning, sources, history of revelation, and the history of its recording and transmission. The second seeks to clarify the reception of the Quran in other texts and through centuries of exegesis. The third involves the study and appreciation of the Quran as literature independently of the other two domains. Until the twentieth century, the second and third domains were largely ignored by researchers. [5]

Historical criticism

Quranic studies employs the historical-critical method (HCM) as its primary methodological apparatus, which is the approach that emphasizes a process that "delays any assessment of scripture’s truth and relevance until after the act of interpretation has been carried out". [1] To read a text critically

means to suspend inherited presuppositions about its origin, transmission, and meaning, and to assess their adequacy in the light of a close reading of that text itself as well as other relevant sources ... This is not to say that scripture should conversely be assumed to be false and mortal, but it does open up the very real possibility that an interpreter may find scripture to contain statements that are, by his own standards, false, inconsistent, or trivial. Hence, a fully critical approach to the Bible, or to the Qur’an for that matter, is equivalent to the demand, frequently reiterated by Biblical scholars from the eighteenth century onwards, that the Bible is to be interpreted in the same manner as any other text. [1]

By contrast, to read a text historically would mean to

require the meanings ascribed to it to have been humanly ‘thinkable’ or ‘sayable’ within the text’s original historical environment, as far as the latter can be retrospectively reconstructed. At least for the mainstream of historical-critical scholarship, the notion of possibility underlying the words ‘thinkable’ and ‘sayable’ is informed by the principle of historical analogy – the assumption that past periods of history were constrained by the same natural laws as the present age, that the moral and intellectual abilities of human agents in the past were not radically different from ours, and that the behaviour of past agents, like that of contemporary ones, is at least partly explicable by recourse to certain social and economic factors. [1]

Textual criticism

Modern textual criticism of the Quran remains in its infancy, with the study of manuscripts only picking up in recent decades. However, the large growth of digitized manuscripts has resulted in a recent acceleration in publications on the subject. [6]

Companion codices

Several codices of the Quran were compiled soon after the death of Muhammad by his Companions, in addition to the compilation of Uthman. Companion codices in tradition are attributed to Abdullah ibn Masud, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari. [7] Little information is available about the codex attributed to the latter, but the former two were transmitted as late as the eleventh century with several authors describing their variants with the Uthmanic codex. Both have textual variants and different surah selections compared to the codex of Uthman. The codex of Ibn Masud lacks the first surah in Uthman, as well as Uthman's last two surahs. The codex of Ubayy has two additional surahs beyond the selection found in the codex of Uthman. [8] The historicity of the companion codices is widely accepted, [9] especially in light of the recent discovery of the Sanaa manuscript, a manuscript of a companion codex independent of, and predating, the codex compiled by Uthman. [10]

Canonization

According to tradition, the Quran was canonized by the caliph Uthman, and individuals who used personal copies were expected to follow the new standard. This standard, however, lacked dotting, which is needed in Arabic to unambiguously differentiate between letter shapes. The earliest manuscripts have a small amount of dotting, but it is very sparse. In the second half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st century, a certain amount of historical controversy emerged surrounding the canonization of the Quran. Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi classify scholars of Quranic studies into four groups with respect to the question of the canonization of the Quran: traditionalists, revisionists, skeptics, and neo-traditionalists. [11] Traditionalists accept the traditional account of the formation of the Quran, including the canonization it underwent during the reign of the caliph Uthman under a committee of Muhammad's companions, and that copies of the canonized Quran were sent to major cities to replace alternative versions. Revisionists reject this narrative, holding that it was someone other than Uthman who canonized the Quran or that the Quran continued to undergo significant revisions after the canonization. The skeptics, who Sadeghi and Goudarzi call "de facto revisionists", are agnostic with respect to whether the content of the traditional narrative is historical. Finally, neo-traditionalists affirm the primary elements of the traditional account but via critical historiographical analysis as opposed to merely trusting the traditional sources. [12]

Recent radiocarbon, orthographic, and stemmatic analyses Quranic manuscripts converge in agreement on an early canonization event for the Quran (during the reign of Uthman, as opposed to Abd al-Malik, the most commonly cited alternative) [13] [14] and that copies of the canonized text were sent to Syria, Medina, Basra, and Kufa. [15] In the decades after the canonization, a "rasm literature" emerged whereby authors sought to catalogue all variants that existed in copies or manuscripts of the Quran that descended from the Uthmanic standard. Among the most important of these include the Kitab al-Masahif by Abī Dāwūd (d. 929) the al-Muqni' fi Rasm al-Masahif by al-Dānī (d. 1052–1053). Such works, though, due to their lateness, do not reflect a number of the consistent variants in the earliest manuscripts. [16] All extant manuscripts (including the Birmingham manuscript, Codex Mashhad, and others) follow the Uthmanic standard, except for the Sanaa manuscript, which appears to reflect variants attributed to companion codices, i.e. alternative codices of the Quran (with respect to the Uthmanic codex) that were composed by different companions or followers of Muhammad. Some of Muhammad's followers to compose codices of the Quran that were ultimately rejected by the Uthmanic standardization include Ibn Mas'ud and Ubayy ibn Ka'b. [17]

Readings (qirāʾāt)

After the Uthmanic standardization, variants in pronouncing or dotting the Quran emerged, which are now known as qira'at. Prominent reciters began to develop and transmit their own manners of reciting the Quran in the 8th century. Though a large number of these emerged, only seven of them were chosen for canonization in the tenth century especially as a result of the efforts of Ibn Mujahid (d. 936). These are known as the seven readers. Of the seven readers he chose, one each came from one of the centers of the empire, except for Kufa, from which three readers were chosen. Ibn Mujahid recorded the qira'at of each teacher through a number of transmission from that teacher/reader (riwāyah pl. riwāyāt), usually by direct students. A century later, al-Dani canonized two transmitters for each eponymous reader were chosen. Much later, Ibn al-Jazari (d. 1429) canonized yet another three readers, to for the ten recitations. The ten readings are typically identical in terms of their rasm, although some exceptions exist, especially in the reading of Abu Amr. The nature of the variants in terms of dotting varies in terms of function/impact: sometimes they influence the meaning of a text, and in other times they merely represent different word forms. Common types of variants include those as a result of dialectical variants, noun formation, singular versus plural, different verb stem, and more. Today, the reading of Hafs as transmitted by Asim is the most popular in the Muslim world and is represented by 1924 Cairo edition. [18] [19] Recent studies on the origins of the qira'at suggest that they are regional variations of a single, common oral ancestor that may date between roughly the time of Uthman's reign to the late seventh century. [20]

Today, the form of the Quran most commonly used by researchers is the Cairo edition, established in 1924 in Egypt using an Amiriyya metal typeface. (This was preceded by some lesser-known print editions, including the Hinckelmann edition and Marracci edition, both from the late 17th century, and the Flugel edition, established in 1834 and only superseded by the Cairo.) The majority of physical copies, however, are high resolution print reproductions of a Quran that had been originally handwritten by a calligrapher, though these are largely derived from the Cairo edition itself, which adopted the Hafs reading. [21] The orthography Cairo edition is largely faithful to what is found in seventh-century manuscripts, although not entirely: [22]

This is especially the case for the use of letter ʾalif, which is used to write the ā significantly more often in modern print editions than is typical for early manuscripts. But there are also several other innovative orthographic practices compared to early manuscripts. For example, the nominative pronoun ḏū is consistently spelled و ذ in modern print editions, while in early manuscripts it is consistently followed by an ʾalif, ا و ذ .

So far, no critical edition of the Quran exists. The Corpus Coranicum project has, as its explicit goal, to produce such an edition, although in-practice is presently more focused in producing text editions of early manuscripts, one of the most recent completed examples being Codex Amrensis 1. [23]

Historical context

Contemporary interest of the Quran in its historical context was spurted by Christoph Luxenberg's publication of The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran in 2007, even though Luxenberg's thesis, that the Quran originated as a proto-scriptural Aramaic text in an Arabic-Aramaic bilingual environment, [24] has been universally rejected by other academics. [25] [26] [27] Today, some of the primary historians studying the Quran in its historical context include Gabriel Said Reynolds, Holger Zellentin, Emran El-Badawi, and Joseph Witztum. [28]

Important contexts for the Quran and the emergence of Islam include the period of late antiquity (including the political and religious influences of the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire) and pre-Islamic Arabia. [29]

Syriac

One of the primary interests of this group of new researchers is especially in the Syriac Christian context of the Quranic narrative, and many new findings have been made with this approach. [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] Several of the authors writing in Syriac that have been focused on include Ephrem the Syrian, Jacob of Serugh, and Narsai. One of the most notable publications in the recent work in the study of the Quran in its historical context has been Witzum's dissertation, The Syriac Milieu of the Qurʾan: The Recasting of Biblical Narratives. This work demonstrated the crucial importance of Syriac literature in the construction of the Quranic narratives of the prophets. [35]

Some believe Syriac intertextuality studies have overshadowed potential intertextualities, even if they are less common, in Greek sources. [36]

Rabbinic

The Quran refers twenty times to Jews (yahūd/allādhīna hādū), and also often refers to Israel or Israelites (banū isrāʾīl) and the People of Scripture (ahl al-kitāb). In addition, similarities between Quranic stories and motifs have regularly been observed with earlier rabbinic literature, especially in the Mishnah and Talmud, going back first to the studies of Abraham Geiger in the first half of the 19th century. The first major work in this regard was Geiger's 1833 Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?. The closest and most well-known intertext is that between Quran 5:32, which refers to a dictum that comes from the children of Israel, and Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 (in its form from the Palestinian Talmud). [37] Another oft-cited parallel is the tradition of raising a mountain above the Earth, found in both Quran 2:63 and the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 88a). [38] It has also been argued that the Quran responds in some instances to ideas found in rabbinic literature, such as the idea that an individual may only go to and remain in hell for a few days. [39] Legal continuity been the Quran and rabbinic texts has also been argued for in several instances. [40] [41]

In understanding the conduit by which these stories may have appeared in the cultural milieu out of which the Quran emerged, many scholars have worked on understanding the spread of Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia. A significant Jewish presence in South Arabia (Yemen) is known from the Himyarite Kingdom, as well as some evidence from the northern Hijaz, but inscriptional data from the central Hijaz (such as in Mecca and Medina) remains thin, although Islamic tradition and the Constitution of Medina both claim the presence of notable Jewish tribes in this region and time. [37]

Arabian

Recent years have seen a growth in the emphasis on considering the Quran in its pre-Islamic Arabian context, especially in light of the growth of archaeological discoveries from the region in recent years. One emphasis has been on the finding from the archaeological record, contrary to prior belief, that Judaism and Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia were significantly more widespread than had been thought before, and that monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia had become the dominant form of religious belief in the fifth and sixth centuries. [42] [43] Asides from archaeology, similar observations have also been made regarding the representation of the "associationists" (mushrikūn) in the Quran, who though they provide intercessory prayer to intermediate beings, still believe in Allāh as the singular omnipotent Creator being [44] [45] as well as Islamic-era collections of pre-Islamic poetry where there is a noted rarity of polytheistic invocations. [46]

Recent archaeological work has also resulted in many grammatical insights about the Quran, including demonstrations of how the spelling of some of the names of Quranic figures (like Jesus) are attested in Safaitic inscriptions [47] and how the Arabic of the Quran is in continuity with the late phase of pre-Islamic Arabic (known as Paleo-Arabic) in its Hijazi dialect. [48] Research has also investigated the continuity between Quranic ritual and ritual from pre-Islamic Arabia. For example, Arabic words for pilgrimage (ḥajj), prayer (ṣalāh), and charity (zakāh) are known from pre-Islamic Safaitic Arabic inscriptions. [49] In particular, both ḥajj and ʿumra have been argued to share many precise continuities with pre-Islamic Arabian ritual. [50] Pan-Arabian pilgrimage to the South Arabian Temple of Awwam has also been described. [50] Furthermore, it has been widely described that black stones believed to be of heavenly or meteorite origins were popularly used in Arabian cults. [51] [52]

Greek

Hellenization of pre-Islamic Arabia

There is evidence of Hellenization in pre-Islamic Arabia, including in parts of the Hejaz. Roman rule had long been imposed on Arabic-speaking populations in Syria, the Transjordan, Palestine, and the northern Hejaz (the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, established in 106 AD by the conquest of the Nabataean Kingdom). [53] Roman military encampments have been found at Hegra as well as in Ruwafa, reflected by a set of second-century Greek-Arabic bilingual inscriptions from northwestern Arabia known as the Ruwafa inscriptions. [54] More recent Latin inscriptions have revealed a Roman military presence as far south as the Farasan Islands, in southwestern Saudi Arabia. [55] At Qaryat al-Faw, capital of the ancient Kingdom of Kinda, statues of Greek deities such as Artemis, Heracles, and Harpocrates have been discovered. The Roman emperor is also mentioned repeatedly in Safaitic inscriptions. Arabic-speaking tribes were gradually converting to Christianity or becoming foederati of the emperor, resulting in increasing integration into the Roman world over time. In the mid-sixth century, for example, Justinian I was closely allied with the Ghassanids, a Hellenized Christian Arab kingdom. [53] The Letter of the Archimandrites dating to 569/570, composed in Greek but preserved in Syriac, demonstrates the presence and distribution of episcopal sees from its 137 Archimandrite signatories from the province of Roman Arabia. [56]

Hellenism and the Quran

Trends in Hellenization have been related to the Quran in various ways. In 2014, Omar Sankharé published what is still the only book-length investigation of the subject, in his volume Le Coran et la culture grecque. He studied the Quran vis-a-vis Greek literary descriptions of the flood, the legend of Korah, the triad of female intercessory beings mentioned in Quran 53:19–23, the story of Alexander the Great so-named as Dhu al-Qarnayn, the Surah of the Cave and Plato's Republic, and more. [57] Others have related Quranic to Hellenistic notions of time. [58] Individual studies have also focused on the following elements:

  • Cole has demonstrated a notable overlap between Quranic law, like Surah Al-Ma'idah (5), and late Roman law, like the Corpus Juris Civilis codified during the reign of Justinian I. [53] [59]
  • Expressions such as being "dyed by the dye of God" (Quran 2:138) also echoes a widespread phrase, found from the Republic to late antiquity. [60]
  • The story of Jesus' birth in relation to the palm tree has also been related to a tradition witnessed in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, ultimately going back further still to a reworking of traditions surrounding Leto's labor. [61] [62]
  • The figure of Luqman in Quran 31 has been related by some to the Greek philosopher Alcmaeon of Croton. [60]
  • Quran 52:24 has been related by Walid Saleh to Ganymede. [63]

Jewish Christian

It has long been argued that Jewish Christianity played an important role in the formation of Quranic conceptions of Christians in Muhammad's Arabia. [64] [65] The first major argument put forwards that Jewish Christianity played an important role in the formation of Quranic tradition was Aloys Sprenger in his 1861 book Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad. Since then, numerous other authors have followed this argument, including Adolf von Harnack, Hans-Joachim Schoeps, M. P. Roncaglia, and others. [66] The most recent notable defenders of this thesis have been Francois de Blois [67] and Holger Zellentin, the latter in the context of his research into the historical context of the legal discourses present in the Quran especially as it resembles the Syriac recension of the Didascalia Apostolorum and the Clementine literature. [68] In turn, several critics of this thesis have appeared, most notably Sidney Griffith. [69] [70] De Blois provides three arguments for the importance of Jewish Christianity: the use of the term naṣārā in the Quran (usually taken as a reference to Christians, as in Griffith's work) which resembles the Syriac term used for Nazoreans, the resemblance between the description of Mary as part of the Trinity with traditions attributed to the Gospel of the Hebrews, and dietary restrictions associated with the Christian community. In turn, Shaddel argued that naṣārā merely may have etymologically originated as such because Nazoreans were the first to interact with the Arabic community in which this term came into use. Alternative sources as well as hyperbole may explain the reference to Mary in the Trinity. However, Shaddel does admit the ritual laws as evidence for the relevance of Jewish Christians. [71] In the last few years, the thesis for the specific role played by Jewish Christians has been resisted by Gabriel Said Reynolds, [72] [73] Stephen Shoemaker, [74] and Guillaume Dye. [75]

Origins of the Quran

Geography

Outside the Hejaz

During the 1970s and 1980s, several theses were put forwards suggesting that the Quran originated either outside of the Hejaz, or outside of the Arabian Peninsula entirely. [76] The most common argument for this theory is that the Quran presupposes a context suffused with Christian tradition and some degree of Christological controversies that are a better fit for a text which emerged among Christian communities in Mesopotamia or the Levant. The first publication to this effect was John Wansbrough's Quranic Studies in 1977. Instead, the Quran was hypothesized to have come about in Mesopotamia. [77] Wansbrough was soon followed by Gerald Hawting in his book The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam, [78] although Fred Donner has commented that Hawting was unable to provide any new evidence for an extra-Arabian origins of the Quran. [79] In the same year as Wansbrough, the book Hagarism also argued for an origins of the Quran outside of the Hejaz, although they placed it in northwestern Arabia as opposed to outside of Arabia entirely. [80] More recently, Stephen J. Shoemaker has argued that while Muhammad's life and career can be placed in the Hejaz, and that Muhammad's oral teachings are the ultimate source of the Quran, the Quran itself was written down, redacted, and edited in the Levant before being canonized during the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. [81] Guillaume Dye believes that the Qurans origins cannot be tied down to any one locale; while sections of the Quran would have originated in the Hejaz, Dye believes that other parts of the Quran have different contexts and may emerge from different regions of Arabia before being redacted together by Muhammad. [82]

Inside the Hejaz

According to Tommaso Tesei, the majority of academics (himself included) favor an origins of the Quran within the Hejaz. [83] This position has long been held by previous generations of scholars as well, including among Theodor Noldeke and his contemporaries in the 19th century, as well as mid-20th century writers like W. Montgomery Watt. [84] Regarding the argument that Quranic familiarity Christian tradition favors a localization north of Arabia, Hejazi proponents origins argue that Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia had sufficiently spread for long enough that its traditions would have also been present in the Hejaz. [85] It is also commonly argued that, given Islamic tradition unanimously places the origins of itself and the Quran in the area of Mecca and Medina, there is no good explanation for why these regions would have been invented and back-projected as the locale of origins had Islam and the Quran originated elsewhere. Not only that, but it would be difficult to explain on this scenario how all dissenting or contravening traditions would have been suppressed without a trace. [86] Some have gone further and argued that this scenario would require a conspiratorial level of forgery. Second, recent research has demonstrated a prominent role for local Arabian beliefs and traditions in the structuring of the content of the Quran. [87] Third, Harry Munt has argued that all the toponyms mentioned in the Quran are Hejazi, and that the Constitution of Medina (whose authenticity is widely accepted among critical scholars) is also indicative of a Hejazi origins [88] :

It has often been noted that the Qur’an ‘has little concern with the proper names of its own place and time’ (Reynolds 2010: 198; see also Robin 2015a: 27–8), which, I think, makes it all the more significant that it does mention a handful of Ḥijāzī toponyms, including Badr (Q. 3:123), Ḥunayn (Q. 9:25), Yathrib (Q. 33:13), and Mecca (Q. 48:24)—this last notably in close conjunction with al-masjid al-ḥarām, ‘the sacred place of worship’, which appears in the following verse—as well as the tribe of Quraysh (Q. 106:1). Furthermore, the so-called ‘Constitution of Medina’, which is widely accepted as a genuinely early (i.e. start of the first-/seventh-century) document preserved in two third-/ninth-century Arabic works, does place a ‘Prophet’ (nabī) and a ‘Messenger of God’ (rasūl Allāh) called Muḥammad in a place called Yathrib (Lecker 2004).

Finally, it has recently been demonstrated that the Quran was written in a local Hejazi dialect of Arabic from late pre-Islamic Arabia. [48] In a similar vein, the exact form of the spelling that the divine name Allah takes on in the Quran is only attested by inscriptions within the Hijaz, but with a slightly different spelling outside of it. [89]

Authorship

There is little agreement on whether the Quran has one or more authors. Tommaso Tesei says that the hypotheses have not yet been critically adjudicated. [90] The first study which directly scrutinized the issue was by Behnam Sadeghi, who argued using stylometric analysis for a single author. [91] On the other hand, Gabriel Said Reynolds has argued in favor of a multi-authorship view, on the basis that the use of doublets in the Quran favors the hypothesis that it was the redactional product of two earlier texts (which fell along the lines of what are now classified as Meccan and Medinan surahs). [92] [93] Tesei also favors multiple authorship on the basis that there is at least one primary cluster of surahs which is stylistically significantly different from the rest of the Quran, [90] corresponding nearly to but not exactly along the lines of the traditional Meccan surahs. [94] Most recently, Michael Pregill has argued that the Quran can be divided into layers with three different roughly categorical levels of familiarity with biblical and parabiblical tradition; the Quranic text may in-turn have originated beforehand with Muhammad acting as the ultimate redactor of the stories and texts to weave them into what became the Quran. [37]

History of the field

Predecessors

Silvestre de Sacy was one of the first to inaugurate the historical-critical approach to the Koran in Europe. Although he is best known for his philological research on the Arabic language, he also wrote a number of commentaries on the Koran with critical notes. For example, he questioned the authenticity of verse 3:144, speaking of the Prophet's death, which he claimed was a later addition by Abu Bakr pronounced after Muhammad's disappearance.

Modern Quranic studies

The modern discipline of studying the Quran may be considered to have begun in 1833, with the publication of the book Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (‘What Did Muhammad Take Over from Judaism?’) by Abraham Geiger. The primary objective of this book was to demonstrate that the Quranic reception of biblical narratives did not occur directly via a reception of the books of the canonical Bible, but through parabiblical intermediaries such as midrash (traditional Jewish exegesis of biblical texts). Geiger, being a rabbinic scholar, focused on the Qurans correspondence with the Jewish literary tradition. This approach continued in the works of Hartwig Hirschfeld, Israel Schapiro, and others, before finally culminating in Heinrich Speyer's Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran, published in 1931. This mode of scholarship however came to an end with World War II, when a mass of Jewish academics were dispersed from Nazi Germany, and the primary contributors transitioned to working in adjacent areas of research. During this period, a different but smaller school of research emphasizing the influence of Christian texts (prominently including Tor Andrae); while research on pagan influences was not entirely absent from this time, it was comparatively severely understudied. [95] In recent years, a trend that has been called the "New Biblicism" or "Syriac Turn" of Quranic studies has emerged, refocusing on the intertextuality of the Quran with a much greater attention paid to Christian intertexts. The current paradigm of research was initiated by Christoph Luxenberg; though his thesis was universally rejected among academics, it generated considerable new interest in studying the Quran in light of its historical context. The primary historians of this new wave of scholarship have included Gabriel Said Reynolds, Holger Michael Zellentin, Emran El-Badawi, and Joseph Witztum. [28]

In 1844, Gustav Weil published the first critical introduction to the Quran in Europe, with a second edition in 1878. The work was titled Einleitung in den Koran. This work succeeded an earlier book three-part book of his which treated the subjects of Muhammad, the Quran, and then Islam. In 1858, French Académie des Inscriptions announced a European-wide competition for a work on the history of the Quran. Three people jointly won: Theodor Noldeke, Aloys Sprenger, and Michele Amari. While Amari's work was never published, that of Sprenger and Amari would become foundational publications in the emerging field of Quranic studies. [96]

In 1860, Noldeke published his thesis as a book titled Geschichte des Qorans (History of the Quran). Subsequent editions of the book were published by Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergsträsser, and Otto Pretzl between 1909 and 1938. This work had a major influence and, for a significant time, resulted in a consensus among Western scholars that the Quran reflected the preaching of Muhammad in Mecca and Medina, and that it should be chronologically periodized into four main types of surahs: Meccan surahs, which were divided into Early Meccan, Middle Meccan, and Late Meccan surahs, followed by Medinan surahs. Noldeke also accepted a canonization event during the reign of the third caliph, Uthman. (These views have been categorized by some as the "Noldekian paradigm". One of the first to question this paradigm was Hartwig Hirschfeld in his 1902 work New researches into the composition and exegesis of the Qoran.) As for Sprenger, his work was published in 1861–65 in three volumes under the title Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad, nach bisher größtenteils unbenutzten Quellen. Both Noldeke and Sprenger owed much to the Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an of Al-Suyuti which had summarized hundreds of works of the medieval Islamic tradition. [96] Other important publications from this early time included the Die Richtungen der Islamischen Koranauslegung of Ignaz Goldziher, which founded the critical study of the tafsir (commentary, exegesis) of the Quran and the Materials For The History Of The Text Of The Quran The Old Codices by Arthur Jeffrey in 1934. [97]

After WW2

After World War II, there was no primary locus for the study of the Quran. The major scholars from this time period, including Arthur Jeffrey, W. Montgomery Watt, William Graham, Rudi Paret, and others, thought it best to treat the Quran as Muslims do (as sacred) and so avoided discussion of its relationship with earlier Jewish and Christian literature. In light of this, decrials of research that focused on the origins of the Quran, efforts towards promoting Christian-Muslim dialogue, the move to read the Quran in light of traditional exegesis instead of earlier tradition, the disbandment of the primary locus of Quranic research in Germany after the war, and other reasons, the study of the historical context of the Quran would descend into obscurity for the remainder of the twentieth century, until being revived by the turn of the twenty-first century. [98]

During this period, many works from this time sought to foster good relations with Muslims; for example, Johann Fück wrote works about the originality of Muhammad. In addition, growing attention was paid to the tafsir (in which important progress was made) in part to avoid thorny critical issues surrounding the Quran and Muhammad. This continued well into the twentieth century, the latter period of which was best characterized by the works of Andrew Rippin, Jane McAullife, and Brannon Wheeler (as in his book Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis). [99] Books that critically appraised traditional sources concerning the origins of the Quran only began to appear in the 1970s, starting with the revisionist writings of Günter Lüling (1974), John Wansbrough (1977), and Patricia Crone and Michael Cook (1977). Though the theses advanced in these books were rejected, they resulted in a considerable diversity of new perspectives and analyses. [100]

The present phase of Quranic studies began in the 1990s and, since then, the field has witnessed an explosion of interest and popularity. [4] This has coincided with the formation of new journals such as the Journal of Qur'anic Studies, societies such as the International Qur'anic Studies Association (IQSA), and the publication of major resources like The Encyclopaedia of the Quran (2001–6). 2007 saw the initiation of the Corpus Coranicum project, led by Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, among others. In 2015, the publication of the Study Quran by HarperCollins included an English translation of the text, accompanied by a massive collection of traditional interpretations for each verse from a total of several dozen Islamic exegetes. [101]

Despite the progress, there is still significant work to do in the field. For example, a critical edition of the Quran, which has been available for the Bible for decades, is still unavailable, despite an effort towards producing one in the first half of the twentieth century that was cut short by the second world war. [102] Only one critical translation of the Quran has so far been published, by Arthur Droge in 2014. [103] [104]

Significant works

Commentaries

English

German

French

Journals

The following journals publish often or exclusively in Quranic studies.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quran</span> Central religious text of Islam

The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God (Allāh). It is organized in 114 chapters which consist of individual verses. Besides its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language. It is the object of a modern field of academic research known as Quranic studies.

Tafsir refers to an exegesis, or commentary, of the Quran. An author of a tafsir is a mufassir. A Quranic tafsir attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, interpretation, context or commentary for clear understanding and conviction of God's will in Islam.

John Edward Wansbrough was an American historian of Islamic origins and Quranic studies and professor who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vice chancellor from 1985 to 1992.

Al-Mu'awwidhatayn, an Arabic expression meaning "The Two Protectors" or "The Two Protective Incantations", refers to the final two surahs (chapters) of the Quran: 113 (Al-Falaq) and 114 (Al-Nas). They are called by this name because of their use of the term ʿādhā in a phrase that occurs in both surahs: ʿqul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi al- ... min .... Likewise, the two surahs appear consecutively in the Qur'an, are both very short, and bear additional stylistic resemblances with one another, broadly functioning as incantations that appeal to God's protection from evils or ailments. Some in the Islamic tradition have claimed that the two surahs were also revealed at the same time to Muhammad.

The mysterious letters are combinations of between one and five Arabic letters that appear at the beginning of 29 out of the 114 chapters (surahs) of the Quran just after the Bismillāh Islamic phrase. The letters are also known as fawātiḥ (فَوَاتِح) or "openers" as they form the opening verse of their respective surahs.

The history of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the timeline ranging from the inception of the Quran during the lifetime of Muhammad, to the emergence, transmission, and canonization of its written copies. The history of the Quran is a major focus in the field of Quranic studies.

In Islam, qirāʼa refers to the ways or fashions that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is recited. More technically, the term designates the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the Quran. Differences between qiraʼat include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants, entire words and even different meanings.. However, the variations don't change the overall message or doctrinal meanings of the Qur'an, as the differences are often subtle and contextually equivalent.Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.

<i>The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran</i> Book by Christoph Luxenberg

The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran is an English-language edition (2007) of Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (2000) by Christoph Luxenberg.

The Quran is viewed to be the scriptural foundation of Islam and is believed by Muslims to have been sent down by God and revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jabreel (Gabriel). The Quran has been subject to criticism both in the sense of being the subject of an interdisciplinary field of study where secular, (mostly) Western scholars set aside doctrines of its divinity, perfection, unchangeability, etc. accepted by Muslim Islamic scholars; but also in the sense of being found fault with by those — including Christian missionaries and other skeptics hoping to convert Muslims — who argue it is not divine, not perfect, and/or not particularly morally elevated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanaa manuscript</span> Early Quranic palimpsest

The Sanaa palimpsest or Sanaa Quran is one of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence. Part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic holy books</span> Religious scriptures seen by Muslims as holy

Islamic holy books are certain religious scriptures that are viewed by Muslims as having valid divine significance, in that they were authored by God (Allah) through a variety of prophets and messengers, including those who predate the Quran. Among the group of religious texts considered to be valid revelations, the three that are mentioned by name in the Quran are the Tawrat, received by prophets and messengers amongst the Israelites; the Zabur (Psalms), received by David; and the Injeel, received by Jesus. Additionally, the Quran mentions God's revealing of the Scrolls of Abraham and the Scrolls of Moses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corpus Coranicum</span> Research project

Corpus Coranicum is a digital research project of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The Quran states that several prior writings constitute holy books given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, in the same way the Quran was revealed to Muhammad. These include the Tawrat, believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, the Zabur revealed to David (Dawud); and the Injil revealed to Jesus (Isa).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Quran manuscript</span> Hijazi-script Quranic manuscript

The Birmingham Quran manuscript comprises two leaves of parchment from an early Quranic manuscript or muṣḥaf. In 2015, the manuscript, which is held by the University of Birmingham, was radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 AD. It is part of the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, held by the university's Cadbury Research Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early Quranic manuscripts</span> Documentary texts in Islamic studies

In Muslim tradition the Quran is the final revelation from God, Islam's divine text, delivered to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). Muhammad's revelations were said to have been recorded orally and in writing, through Muhammad and his followers up until his death in 632 CE. These revelations were then compiled by first caliph Abu Bakr and codified during the reign of the third caliph Uthman so that the standard codex edition of the Quran or Muṣḥaf was completed around 650 CE, according to Muslim scholars. This has been critiqued by some western scholarship, suggesting the Quran was canonized at a later date, based on the dating of classical Islamic narratives, i.e. hadiths, which were written 150–200 years after the death of Muhammad, and partly because of the textual variations present in the Sana'a manuscript. Muslim scholars who oppose the views of the Western revisionist theories regarding the historical origins of the Quran have described their theses as "untenable".

According to Islamic tradition, the Quran was revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel (Jibril) in seven ahruf, translated variously as "styles", "ways", "forms" and "modes". Islamic scholars agree that the ahruf were styles used by the early Muslims to recite the Quran.

Gabriel Said Reynolds is an American academic and historian of religion, who serves as Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology and assistant professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His scholarship focuses on Qur'anic Studies, Origins of Islam, and Muslim-Christian relations, and to a more limited extent, also covers World Religions, World Church, and History of Christianity.

Canonized Islamic scripture are texts which Muslims believe were revealed by God through various prophets throughout humanity's history—specifically the Quran and Hadith. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind, and a completion and confirmation of previous scriptures, revealed to Muhammad between 610 and 632 CE, and canonized around 650 by the Rashidun leader Uthman.

Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry refers to the corpus of Arabic poetry composed in pre-Islamic Arabia roughly between 540 and 620 AD. Traditional Arabic literature called it al-shiʿr al-Jāhilī, "poetry from the Jahiliyyah". Surviving works largely originate from Najd, with a minority coming from the Hejaz.

Mohsen Goudarzi Taghanaki is an Iranian Quranic studies scholar and assistant professor of Islamic studies at Harvard Divinity School.

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Sources

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