Professor Andrew Rippin (1950–2016)
The International Qurʾanic Studies Association is delighted to announce that the eighth annual Andrew Rippin Best Paper Prize (open to papers delivered by early career scholars at the 2024 Annual Meetings) has been awarded to Madeline Wyse for her paper: “Irony in Early Islamic Exegesis: Case Study of David in Ibn Abī Shaybah’s Muṣannaf.” The winner of the Andrew Rippin Best Paper Prize receives a cash award. In addition, an expanded and edited version of the winning paper qualifies for publication in the Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association.
This award is given in honor of Professor Andrew Rippin (1950–2016), a leading scholar of the Qurʾān and inaugural president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (2014). Prof. Rippin is remembered as “an esteemed colleague, revered mentor, and scholarly inspiration to many members of the IQSA community.” An announcement regarding submissions for the eighth annual Andrew Rippin Best Paper Prize will follow the 2024 IQSA Annual Meeting.
An abstract of the award-winning paper follows:
“Irony in Early Islamic Exegesis: Case Study of David in Ibn Abī Shaybah’s Muṣannaf.”
Kitāb al-muṣannaf fī al-aḥādīth wa-ʾl-āthār of Ibn Abī Shaybah (d. 235/849) contains an unusual early Islamic account of the tale of David, Bathsheba and Uriah. This tradition ironically inverts and parodies elements of more mainstream early Islamic narratives and challenges their emphasis on moving depictions of David’s repentance. This paper reads the narrative as salacious, and jesting – yet also as a serious contribution to an active and unresolved early Islamic legal debate about justice, power and private repentance. It considers the critical capacities of this form of serious jesting and argues that Ibn Abī Shayba’s inclusion of the text in his Musannaf reflects its legitimacy as a recognized mode of religious engagement in his milieu.
Madeline Wyse is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, with dual specializations in Islamic Studies and Rabbinic Studies. Her dissertation, Parodies of Prophets and Patriarchs: Intertextuality and Dissent in Rabbinic and Early Islamic Literature, examines the shifting role of irony and parody in depictions of biblical heroes across Classical Rabbinic midrash, early tafsīr and hadīth collections, and Judeo-Arabic Bible commentary. Her research interests also include Rabbinic and Islamic legal theory and practice.
On behalf of the entire IQSA team, congratulations to Madeline and thank you to all those who submitted papers!