Sūrat al-Insān, Meccan or Medinan? A Thematic and Rhetorical Reading of Sūrat al-Insān (Q 76) in Parallel with Sūrat al-Qiyāmah (Q 75)
أو توليدها. هذه الدراسة وأمثالها قد تساهم في فهم ترتيب السور في المصحف عبر مالحظة اإلشارات النصية وتحليلها، والروابط اللغوية والموضوعات المتكررة لتقديم تفسير لهذا الترتيب، وللرسالة التي ُيعطيها في تلك الحقبة من النزول. وتنضم هذه الدراسة إلى مصاف الدراسات الموضوعية التي اهتمت بنظم القرآن وترتيبه، وتكمن ميزتها في جمعها بين منهجيتين: غربية وإسالمية، مما قد يساعد على بناء جسور التواصل والتحاور بين األكاديميين في العالمين الغربي واإلسالمي
On the Regionality of Qurʾānic Codices
The ʿUthmānic codification of the Qurʾān as described by Muslim sources includes the distribution of at least four regional exemplars to Syria, Medina, Basra, and Kufa. Orthographic variants between these codices were identified and collected by Muslim scholars in the rasm literature. This paper explores the subject of qurʾānic regionality through material evidence. Combining philological, literary, and phylogenetic analysis, a stemma of early qurʾānic manuscripts is constructed and compared against idealized representations. This process of reconstruction identifies four ancestral codices from which all examined manuscripts descend. It illuminates the presence of a new regional subgroup I have termed neo-Basran, suggesting a local orthographic reform. Additional evidence is presented for the historicity of the ʿUthmānic canonization and the distribution of four regional exemplars. Ḥimṣ, as opposed to Damascus, is also identified as the city to which the Syrian exemplar was dispatched. Finally, a comparison of literary reports against the earliest manuscripts reveals that knowledge of the regional variants does not date back to the time of canonization but was accumulated over time through careful scrutiny of regional muṣḥafs.
The Prophet’s Visions in Sūrat al-Najm
The opening verse of Q al-Najm 53, an oath by “the star” (najm) and its movement in the night sky, is followed by a relatively lengthy description of two vision experiences of the Prophet. This study aims to better understand the opening oath in the sūrah and its relationship to the subsequent visions. I will argue on the basis of evidence from Safaitic inscriptions, the anwāʾ works, and pre-Islamic poetry that the oath by the star refers to the rising and setting of the Pleiades in the night sky, and that these allusions would have been readily understood by the Qurʾān’s audience. The appearance and motion of the Pleiades serve to provide a visual analogy to the supernatural visions of the Prophet. Appreciating the relationship between the oath and the subsequent visions then allows us to better understand the visions themselves, and address questions such as whether the object of the vision was God or an angel.
From Coptic to Arabic: A New Palimpsest and the Early Transmission History of the Qurʾān
Recently identified on the antiquities market, the Copto-Qurʾānic Palimpsest represents an important artifact for the history of the transmission of the Qurʾān. Because its biblical lower (i.e., erased) text is in Coptic, the qurʾānic upper text is likely to have been written in Egypt. Hence, it provides us with our first piece of evidence for localizing early qurʾānic manuscript production. Going beyond the problem of dating and provenance, the present study aims to place the Copto-Qurʾānic Palimpsest in its context of production and to provide a snapshot of the scribal practices of the Qurʾān in the early Islamic centuries.
The Qurʾānic Doublets: A Preliminary Inquiry.
The present study involves a presentation and analysis of repeated phrases, or doublets, in the Qurʾān. I identify twenty-nine doublets of at least nine words (allowing for minor variation), the great majority of which are complete verses, found in different sūrahs. To provide a methodological framework for the analysis of these doublets I consider the history of scholarship on doublets in the Synoptic Gospels, distinguishing between harmonizing interpretations and the classifications of redactional and source doublets. With four exceptions (Meccan-Medinan doublets), the units making up qurʾānic doublets are both found within sūrahs traditionally identified as Meccan (Meccan-Meccan doublets) or both found within sūrahs traditionally identified as Medinan (Medinan-Medinan doublets). This distribution suggests the existence of pre-canonical texts, most likely one with Meccan material and one with Medinan material, which produced the doublets within each qurʾānic subcorpus. That Meccan-Medinan doublets are so rare suggests that repeated material in the Qurʾān is not always due to a process of repeating or re-composition (where an earlier qurʾānic phrase is redeployed, and possibly reshaped, for a later passage) but instead due to the redaction of discrete, pre-canonical texts.
Review Essay: Al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī and the History and Study of Muʿtazilī Exegesis
عن حجة القراءات أيضا. وواضح أن المحقق لم يتفطن لسياق الكالم وأنه عن ِس، فقراءة أبي عمرو هي: ً اإلدغام وليس عن إبدال التاء ياء ُ . ثم إن تعليق المحقق ملب “بل يؤثرون.” أما استشهاد الجشمي بآية: “وزرابي مبثوثة” في هذا السياق، فغريب ًا بالمحقق أن يشير إلى ذلك ويعلله. ثم إن من القراءات ّ وفي غير محله، وكان حري ما أخذه من كتب التفسير المتأخرة كفتح القدير للشوكاني والجامع ألحكام القرآن للقرطبي )ج 10 ،ص 7101.
“Their Prayer at the House Is Nothing but Whistling and Clapping of Hands” (Q al-Anfāl 8:35): Negotiating Processions in the Qurʾān
In this article, I argue that the Qurʾān as a post-axial text contains traces of an anti-processional ideal in its position on circumambulation (ṭawāf), the Kaʿbah, and the pilgrimage (ḥajj). This argument is based on the observation that the Qurʾān both presents processional circumambulation as a legitimate ritual of reverence (e.g., Q al-Baqarah 2:125) but also seems to hint at an ideological uneasiness regarding this particular ritual (Q al-Baqarah 2:158, al-Anfāl 8:34–35). Taking a theoretical perspective from the study of religions, particularly the work of Robert Bellah, the article proposes that the Qurʾān negotiates a compromise between an initial anti-processional ideal and the feasibility and long-term durability of its ritual practices. A circumambulation with particular gravitas and without “clapping” and “whistling,” as demanded in Q 8:35, is the pragmatic result of such a negotiation. From this perspective, the most important thing, according to the Qurʾān, is to pray and address one’s devotions to God, but if members of the community feel a need to perform circumambulation, then that is acceptable provided certain conditions are met.
The Controversy over Reciting the Qurʾān with Tones (al‑qirāʾah bi’l‑alḥān)
Whether it is acceptable to recite the Qurʾān with tones (al‑qirāʾah bi’l‑alḥān) touches on two larger issues, the acceptability of music and the distinctiveness of Islam from Christianity and Judaism. Various ḥadīth reports apparently caused difficulty for traditionalists who rejected recitation with tones. The reports themselves were evidently too well established to be rejected. Sometimes they were nullified by more or less strained interpretation, sometimes by paraphrase. Early Ḥanbalī literature is strongly opposed to recitation of the Qurʾān with tones. Mālikī literature also rejects it, but the Ḥanafī school seems to have been divided. By contrast, the earliest Shāfiʿī literature is permissive.
Fa’ṣdaʿ bi-mā tuʾmar: A Motif-Based Study of Sūrat al-Ḥijr
A stone motif runs through several levels of the fifteenth sūrah of the Qurʾān, Sūrat al-Ḥijr, along with two lesser motifs of sound and dryness. Several textual features suggest that around the time of this sūrah’s revelation, resistance to Muḥammad’s call became more intense and that he was deeply affected by this opposition. When read in this light, the stone motif appears to represent the rigidity of those who reject the Qurʾān, thus perhaps aiming to prepare the Messenger for the challenges he was about to face. The dryness motif further reinforces the theme of rigidity, whereas the sound motif is linked to various verbal manifestations, including the Qurʾān itself and the Meccans’ ridicule of the Prophet. In this article, I study these motifs with the aim of not only drawing attention to a literary feature of Sūrat al-Ḥijr that— to the extent of my knowledge—has remained thus far unexplored, but also to add my voice to those who call for the sūrah to be read as a unity, in this case through the study of sūrah motifs as a structuring device.
The Verse Numbering Systems of the Qurʾān: A Statistical and Literary Comparison
This article compares the seven verse numbering systems of the Qurʾān recorded in classical sources: Medina I, Medina II, Mecca, Damascus, Ḥimṣ, Basra, and Kufa. It compares them statistically to determine the possibility of genetic relationships, the incidence of variation and the typical causes, and whether any of the systems might be considered more reliable than the others. It also compares a number of cases from a literary perspective. The article next suggests a scenario as to how the Kufan system became dominant and concludes with a preference indicated for Medina I.
Connecting the Dots: Diacritics, Scribal Culture, and the Qurʾān in the First/Seventh Century
Modern historians assert that the earliest manuscripts of the Qurʾān were written in an Arabic scriptio defectiva, devoid of orthographic aids such as consonantal diacritics and vowel markers. In fact, the earliest extant manuscripts—those in the Ḥijāzī script, dated to the first/seventh century— do exhibit consonantal diacritics, though only sporadically and insufficiently to create a completely unambiguous text. Previous studies have provided inconclusive results regarding the uses of these spare diacritics and have suggested that scribes may have purposefully excluded them from Qurʾān manuscripts in order to allow different readings of the text to coexist in the same text. Focusing on the few diacritics that do appear in early manuscripts, this paper situates early Qurʾān manuscripts within the context of other Arabic documents of the first/seventh century that exhibit similarly infrequent diacritics. Shared patterns in the usages of diacritics indicate that early Qurʾān manuscripts were produced by scribes relying upon very similar orthographic traditions to those that produced Arabic papyri and inscriptions of the first/seventh century
My God? Your Lord!” A Qurʾānic Response to a Biblical Question
Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā (Q 93) is often regarded as reflecting details from the sīrah of Muḥammad, or the biography of the qurʾānic prophet. The present study suggests that this sūrah should be understood as a re-reading of a biblical text, Psalm 22. The article consists of three parts. The first surveys the traditional tafsīr of the sūrah and examines the correlation between Sūrah 93 and Muḥammad’s sīrah. The second part contains the main discussion, which compares Sūrah 93 with Psalm 22. This comparison demonstrates the links between the two texts and their exegetical traditions, in terms of form, content, and function. Part 3 examines the two texts from an additional dimension: that of the linkage between Sūrah 93 and Psalm 22 on the one hand, and prophetic and savior figures, to whom exegetical traditions connect both texts, on the other.
