Journal of the American Oriental Society

The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction. By Nicolai Sinai. The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Pp. viii + 242. £90 (cloth); £24.99 (paper).

“Re-interpreting the Qurʾān in the 21st century”, special issue edited by R.T., Religions, 12(8) (2021), https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/21quran with introduction by R.T. (https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/2/134/htm, 5 p.).

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution

2022

Creating the Qur’an presents the first systematic historical-critical study of the Qur’an’s origins, drawing on methods and perspectives commonly used to study other scriptural traditions. Demonstrating in detail that the Islamic tradition relates not a single attested account of the holy text’s formation, Stephen J. Shoemaker shows how the Qur’an preserves a surprisingly diverse array of memories regarding the text’s early history and its canonization. To this he adds perspectives from radiocarbon dating of manuscripts, the linguistic history of Arabic, the social and cultural history of late ancient Arabia, and the limitations of human memory and oral transmission, as well as various peculiarities of the Qur’anic text itself. Considering all the relevant data to present the most comprehensive and convincing examination of the origin and evolution of the Qur’an available, Shoemaker concludes that the canonical text of the Qur’an was most likely produced only around the turn of the eighth century.

Review of “The Qur’ān: What Everyone Needs to Know®”, 2021

This is an Accepted Manuscript (AM) of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the Journal of Religious & Theological Information on March 31, 202, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10477845.2021.1904371

Muslim World, 2018

The book under review, The Qur'an (Norton Critical Editions), hereafter referred to as The Norton Qur'an, marks a new highwater mark in efforts to explore Qur'anic scholarship, and to offer fresh insight into the levels of meaning of the Qur'an itself. The author, Jane McAuliffe, is one of the leading North American authorities on all branches of Qur'anic interpretation, as evidenced by her editorial work on The Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Leiden: 2001-6), and Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an (Cambridge: 2006). The centerpiece of The Norton Qur'an is a revised, updated version of the 1930 rendition by Marmaduke Pickthall: The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, regarded by many as the best available English translation of the Qur'an, despite its several competitors, to be discussed below. But what exceptionalizes The Norton Qur'an is the cornucopia of original essays-at once provocative and productive-that are included as the template within which to consult McAuliffe's revised rendition of Pickthall. They are arrayed as four supplements. Supplement 1 explores Origins in two subsets: Muhammad and the narrative matrix of the Qur'an. Supplement 2 offers Interpretations and Analysis, in five subsets: classical and modern commentary, intellectual amplification, the spectrum of contemporary scholarship, literary studies, and finally Qur'an and Bible. Even more far reaching is Supplement 3, where the reader is challenged to absorb Sounds, Sights, and Remedies within a Qur'anic worldview marked by 3 subsets: learning, reciting, and memorizing; pharmacology and fortune-telling; manuscripts, monuments and material culture. The final, and shortest, Supplement 4 looks at The Qur'an in America, from two perspectives, a 19 th century slave account and a recent book on Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an, the 18 th century rendition of Englishman George Sale, The Koran (1764). The myriad details, and acute analysis, of these several essays should not distract the reader from their underlying, and guiding, principle: in the long history of Qur'an interpretation, spanning centuries, continents and languages, there have emerged two paral

A brief history of the development of the modern Islamic concept of the eternality of the Qur'an in light of tawhid and its development from Mu'tazilite and Ash'arite theology. A defense of the Christian view of the Bible as the eternal Word of God in light of the trinity.

1 as together addressing the relationship between the 'horrific' violence and internecine strife that characterised the first centuries of Islam and the emergence during that same period of codified scriptures. More specifically, Amir-Moezzi seeks to bring into conversation the long-standing scholarly interest in the textual history of the Qur'an and the concern of much early Shīʿī literature with the Holy Book's alteration and falsification. The undertaking provides a welcome reiteration of the still-pertinent complaint that historians' near-exclusive reliance on Sunnī texts and narratives, on the basis that these are somehow less corrupted by sectarian distortions than Shīʿī literature, is untenable. In the case of the texts studied here, however, Amir-Moezzi further contends that the version of events given therein is at times strikingly close to that suggested by many modern historians. The prime interface between scripture and violence discussed here is censorship-the suppression of alternative narratives and alternative scriptures. Shīʿīs, as 'history's vanquished' appear as the chief victims of this violence, and the early Shīʿī accounts that have survived against the odds therefore constitute an especially vital testament to versions of events that the wielders of power and violence sought to eradicate. This book seeks to supply a self-confessedly preliminary investigation of these far-reaching observations through studies of five texts from the early Shīʿī tradition: the Kitāb al-Saqīfa of Sulaym b. Qays al-Hilālī (d. c. 76/695), the Kitāb al-Qirāʾāt of Aḥ mad b. Muḥ ammad al-Sayyārī (d. c. 286/899), Tanzīl al-āyāt al-munzala fī ahl al-bayt by al-Ḥ usayn b. al-Ḥ akam al-Ḥ ibarī (d. 286/899), the Bas ̣āʾir al-darajāt of Muḥ ammad b. al-Ḥ asan al-Ṣ affār al-Qummī (d. 290/902-903) and al-Kāfī by Muḥ ammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī (d. 328/939-940 or 329/940-941). These five works are introduced and examined in chronological order in five respective chapters. Beyond the conclusions advanced therein, Amir-Moezzi aspires in these five studies to bring these works and their importance to greater attention from the scholarly community and beyond. Journal of Qur'anic Studies 20.2 (2018): 112-131 Edinburgh University Press © Centre of Islamic Studies, SOAS www.euppublishing.com/jqs

Al Qamar, 2021

The Quran, being foremost religious and sacred book of the Muslims, gained a significant place in the western religious studies since long. From medieval polemical refutation to the contemporary academic studies a significant number of anthological works have been produced by the western scholarship in the Qur'anic studies. A variety of approaches and methodologies have been applied to expound multiple Qur'ānic themes which intermittently resonate among western scholars of Islam. This paper mentions a brief overview of western contribution from medieval to contemporary times and highlights the major themes in the field of western Qur'anic studies. The gradual development in applying the various socio-religious methodologies is cited as well.

Early modern Europeans developed several ways of thinking about the Qur’an and the person whom they took to be its author, the Prophet Muḥammad. This article looks at two distinct traditions of reading the Qur’an as law and as literature and shows how these traditions intersected and eventually merged. Together, they made the Qur’an fruitful for ‘thinking with’ under a variety of headings. Philologists, not philosophes, advanced this long-term process, though prominent non-scholars such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) took advantage of its fruits and used the example of Muḥammad and the Qur’an in their work. The Qur’an made another contribution to what is now called the Enlightenment. Not too foreign and yet at an intellectually productive distance from Judaism and Christianity, it was a useful point of comparison for the Hebrew Bible. The reinterpretation of Hebrew Bible and Qur’an proceeded in lock step, often through bi-directional comparison, as both works came to be perceived through new aesthetic, rhetorical, and historical lenses. As a result, the two works converged as never before in European intellectual history. What is more, the study of the Qur’an helped to generate a new comparative concept: that of lowercase, plural scriptures.