Review of Christian Peltz, Der Koran des Abū l-ʿAlāʾ
The present work is Christian Peltz’s lightly edited two-volume doctoral thesis, Muʿjiz Aḥmad, submitted to the University of Tübingen and published by Hartmut Bobzin and Tilman Seidensticker as volume 11 in their series, Arabische Studien. Peltz’s work is dedicated to a text unique in classical Arabic literature in many respects: Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s (d. 449/1057) Kitāb al-Fuṣūl wa’l-ghāyāt fī tamjīd allāh wa’l-mawāʿiẓ (henceforth Fuṣūl). Maʿarrī’s work has drawn scholarly interest because it has been believed to constitute an attempt at imitating or parodying (muʿāraḍah) the Qurʾān. Although Peltz mentions arguments for and against this hypothesis in one of his chapters, his study does not allow for a decision on this question. However, Peltz does present a wealth of material that will enable future research on the Fuṣūl as a literary work, with a focus mainly on its vocabulary.
Review of Suha Taj-Farouki, The Qur’an and Its Readers Worldwide
The interpretation of the Qurʾān has never been an exclusively Arabic language endeavor. However, the number of Qurʾān translations and qurʾānic commentaries in languages other than Arabic increased steadily, or even explosively, throughout the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first for a number of reasons. For example, nation states promoted national languages and taught them in their educational institutions; literacy in non-Arabic languages became a mass phenomenon, and print technology became widely available. This phenomenon has hardly been sufficiently studied, and comparative approaches that bring a perspective to works in more than one language are still a rarity. Therefore, the publication of this edited volume by Taji-Farouki that presents its readers with an unprecedented broad perspective on the global field of Muslim qurʾānic exegesis is more than welcome. It brings together ten chapters that present exegetical approaches from all over the world: Bosnia, Turkey, South Asia, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, the U.S., East Africa, Germany, and China. Thus, it contains examples from Muslim majority societies as well as diasporic communities, from the early twentieth century to the present, maybe overstretching the term “contemporary” a little. Most of the chapters are original; two have been published elsewhere before.
Review of David Hollenberg, Beyond the Qur’an
Beyond the Qurʾān is a discussion of taʾwīl, allegorical or symbolic interpretation of the Qurʾān, based mainly on Ismāʿīlī works from the tenth and eleventh centuries. It contains five chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1: Competing Islands of Salvation (1–35) is an introduction to the Ismāʿīlī daʿwah (missionary organization). Chapter 2: Ismāʿīlī Taʾwīl and Daʿwa Literature (36–52) is an introduction to Ismāʿīlī works on taʾwīl in general, showing that they were written mainly by dāʿīs (missionaries) for other dāʿīs and were designed to teach them how to educate their charges and to justify Ismāʿīlī doctrines. Chapter 3: Rearing (53–78) describes the process of initiation of Ismāʿīlī acolytes, emphasizing their introduction into a realm of secret knowledge. Chapter 4: Beyond the Qurʾān: Prophecy, Scriptures, Signs (79–99) discusses prophecy and scripture as common themes of taʾwīl. Chapter 5: The Torah’s Imams (100–125) addresses taʾwīl based on the stories of the prophets of the biblical tradition in particular. Conclusions are presented in the Epilogue: After the End of Days—from Imminent to Immanent Apocalypticism (126–129). The core of the work is chapter 5, which is based primarily on Sarāʾir wa-asrār al-nuṭaqāʾ, a work of taʾwīl based on tales of the prophets (qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ) and composed by the dāʿī Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. 347/958). The work presents three main arguments, an overarching historical argument about the Ismāʿīlī daʿwah and other similar movements, and two more focused arguments on the nature of Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl and its use of biblical material.
Review of Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink, Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History
What do we study when we study tafsīr? Addressing this question promises not only a clearer understanding of what tafsīr is, but also a stronger sense of the shared venture in the scholarship that surrounds it. As in many emerging fields, scholars in Tafsīr Studies are concerned to define the boundaries of their object of study; paradoxically, as the boundaries of tafsīr become more defined they also become more provisional and permeable. It is with this paradox that Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History (hereafter TIIH), a collection of studies edited by Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink, is concerned. Görke and Pink pose the volume’s main question about tafsīr: “What kind of disciplinary, dogmatic, sectarian, chronological or regional boundaries are there, how are they affirmed and how are they permeated, transgressed, or shifted?” (11). The overall claim of TIIH is that a variety of criteria may be useful to make sense of the external (definitional) and internal (taxonomical) boundaries of tafsīr, depending on what aspects of qurʾānic interpretation researchers may be concerned with—and researchers of diverse perspectives are concerned with a variety of aspects. The editors of this volume wisely resist an absolute definition of tafsīr and instead issue “a plea for analytical clarity” (21), that is, for scholars to explicate their criteria for defining tafsīr relative to their research objectives. All the contributors to this volume have done admirably well in taking up this plea and in engaging directly with the volume’s question of boundaries.
Review of François Déroche, Qur’ans of the Umayyads
François Déroche’s research on the earliest Qurʾān manuscripts now spans decades. His extensive and direct observation of these material objects, noting and reflecting upon their features and comparing these with what has reached us in secondary history and traditions, have yielded an overall perspective rooted in a depth of familiarity that is virtually unparalleled today and perhaps even (we may imagine) in the early centuries of Islam. One sign of the impact of Déroche’s work is the fact that much of the vocabulary he created to serve his own need for a more precise nomenclature of the Arabic scripts in these objects is now standard in describing and analyzing them. Add to this his attention to their codicology and art historical aspects and the picture, though not complete, is by no means one-dimensional. That Déroche remains a frequent guest speaker and collaborator among various important associations and projects (Islamic Manuscript Association, International Qurʾānic Studies Association, Corpus Coranicum, and others) and a frequent and welcome guest of the public institutions and private collections in which these objects reside (including the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul) is further testament to his personal demeanor, professionalism, and established scholarly reputation, as well as to the integrity and ongoing relevance of his research.
Review of S. R. Burge, The Meaning of the Word
If exegesis is not the beginning point of Islamic scholarship, it was present at the beginning, and in modern times it has not ceased to be a productive discipline. The many applications and implications that commentary and interpretation have for the historical extent of Islamic thought more than justify the recent burst of edited volumes from the Institute of Ismaili Studies variously dedicated to qur’ānic exegesis, of which The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qur’anic Exegesis is the third to appear in three years. The essays in this volume are trained on hermeneutic inquiry at the level of the word—the object of exegesis at its most granular. It is a field of inquiry with natural affinities to lexicography, but as noted in the editor’s introduction, exegesis constitutes a separate practice with separate aims. A disambiguating rubric was therefore needed, and lexicology was made to stand for philology in the service of exegesis, with lexicography relegated to “lexicon-making” (xxi). Whatever the soundness of this delimitation, the volume’s contents, focusing on the former, are a diversely vital addition not only to the critical literature on taʾwīl and tafsīr but to the studies of translation and hermeneutics generally.
Eloïse Brac de la Perrière and Monique Buresi, Le Coran de Gwalior: Polysémie d’un manuscrit à peintures
While the study of individual manuscripts in their own right is fascinating, the level of interest increases exponentially when the historical context and human stories surrounding manuscripts are added to the research. In the case of the Gwalior Qurʾān, MS AKM00281, there is a profoundly interesting context connected with the manuscript, and this context is explored fully in this important new volume. With the dissolution of the Ilkhan Mongol regime in 1336, a number of successor states emerged. They were in turn absorbed into a new empire created by the conquests of the Turco-Mongol warlord Tīmūr (1336–1405), known in the West as Tamerlane. His was a Sunni dynasty which cut a destructive path in the name of jihad across West, Central and South Asia around the turn of the fourteenth century. Tamerlane’s supreme position among Muslim states was established by his defeat of the Mamluks (1400) and Ottomans (1402).
Review of Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions
There was a time not long ago in Islamic Studies when one was hard pressed to find much about the Islamic afterlife, Paradise and Hell, or eschatology in general. Certainly when I was doing my doctoral studies (on a related theme) in the late 90’s, Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad’s The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (1981) had already enjoyed a longer than usual shelf life. Soubi El-Saleh’s La vie future selon le Coran (1971) and one or two fairly brief surveys of the question by German scholars in the early part of the twentieth century, as well as Ragnar Eklund’s Life Between Death and Resurrection According to Islam (1941), accounted for the remainder of an accessible bibliography in this subfield until Josef van Ess’ multivolume Theologie und Gesellschaft (1991–96). A watershed in the field was the 2009 symposium held in Göttingen, entitled Roads to Paradise, which despite its title, included papers on several different aspects of the afterlife, including eschatology in general and Hell in particular. However, the voluminous proceedings of the symposium were not published until this year.
Review of Rawand Osman, Female Personalities in the Qur’an and Sunna
Rawand Osman’s Female Personalities in the Qur’an and Sunna is in four chapters, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. According to the author it is a comprehensive discussion of all the female personalities mentioned in the Qur’ān, as well as three role models from the women of ahl al-bayt (Muhammad’s family), focusing on the theme of jihād al-nafs (struggle of the soul), highlighting the specific features “spiritual motherhood” and earthly/political jihad. Because Osman will treat the texts from a feminist perspective, she first summarizes Islamic feminist approaches, defines and describes them, as well as some of the criticism levelled against them, concluding that the approach of equity feminism is the one most compatible with the Qur’ān. Osman further states in the introduction that her study is an ahistorical one: neither the women nor the primary texts that represent them will be analysed from a historical perspective. This is a problematic move, however, since as the historical context is needed to provide explanations and perspective, as well as account for intellectual shifts based on certain historical developments.
Review Willi Steuhl, Koran erklӓrt
For those scholar-activists among us who are active on the major social media platforms, it seems as if everyone has a (strong) view on Islam/Muslims and/or lays claims of expertise of one kind or another on subjects pertaining to the Islamic tradition. In the age of increasing dominance of social media in “informing” public discourses on Islam and Muslims, the questions pertaining to the role of academic scholars of Islam (and the academic knowledge they possess) in this regard have gained increased saliency. Should scholars and academics specialising in the study of the Islamic tradition (especially those from non-Muslim backgrounds) voice their views outside of the walls of academia and add to these debates? As a scholar from a Muslim background and someone with an activist mindset, I, for better or worse, over the last decade or so, have actively contributed to the dissemination of academic knowledge in non-academic contexts. I am a firm believer that (Western) academics specialising in Islamic Studies, regardless of their backgrounds, are ethically obliged to contribute to the current debates on Islam and Muslims, especially but not only in their native socio-political contexts, so as to help increase the level of informed opinion among the lay audiences. As such, I particularly welcome the timely publication of Koran erklӓrt, edited by Willi Steuhl, which goes some way in achieving this objective, especially in the German speaking world.
Review of George Bristow, Sharing Abraham?
This book is the inaugural volume of the ISRME Studies in Religion and Theology series of the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East. Its author, George Bristow, is a Protestant minister who has lived and worked in Turkey since 1987, and the book is based on his 2015 dissertation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. A brief introduction is followed by eight chapters and six appendices. In this work Bristow aims to present an alternative model of how Christian-Muslim dialogue can be undertaken by replacing the common thematic approach with one that has what he describes as a “scriptural narrative focus” centered on the figure of Abraham (2). To that end, his method highlights the relationship between narrative and worldview by paying attention to the polarities or pairings that underscore the different attributes, principles, and tendencies in the ways the texts of the two religions present and interpret Abraham. Part of Bristow’s research entailed interviewing a group of Turkish imams in order “to consider more deeply the qur’ānic Abraham narrative and the Islamic worldview which these stories articulate, especially as they are retold in Turkey” (1). In this way, he situates his work at the intersection of two fields that have sometimes had a testy relationship: contextual missiology and comparative theology.
Review of Hina Azam, Sexual Violation in Islamic Law
Hina Azam’s study not only makes an incisive contribution to the literature on Islamic penal law, but engages with a much wider set of issues involving Muslim jurists’ conceptualization of marriage and of moral and legal personhood. While the body of the book meticulously examines fiqh texts dating from the formative period through approximately the twelfth century C.E., the project is framed in the introduction and conclusion as a constructive response to the introduction of formally “sharīʿah-based” penalties for illicit sex in a number of countries since the late twentieth century.
