New Publication—The Qur’an: A Guidebook

New Publication—The Qur’an: A Guidebook

qur'anguideIQSA is excited to share the new publication of a book by Roberto Tottoli, Professor at the University of Naples, L’OrientaleI and IQSA member, The Qur’an: A Guidebook (De Gruyter 2023). The essay Reading and studying the Qur’an is an updated English version of the work appeared in Italian (Rome 2021) Leggere e studiare il Corano which deals with the contents of the Qur’an, the style and formal features of the text, the history and fixation of it and an poutline of the reception in Islamic literature.

The aim of the work is to give a reader a description of what he/she can find in the Islamic holy text and the state of the critical debates on all the topics dealt with, focusing mainly on the growing scholarly literature which appeared in the last 30 years. As such, the work is unique in combining the aim to give comprehensive information on the topic and, at the same, time, reconstruct the critical debate in a balanced outline also emphasizing confessional approaches and the dynamics in the study of the Qur’an.

There is nothing similar in contemporary scholarship and the book is a handbook for students and scholars of Islam but also for readers in religious studies who need to know how the main questions related to the Islamic text have been discussed in recent scholarship.

Find more information about the book at this link.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Robert Tottoli has a BA in Oriental Languages and Literatures from Venezia Ca’ Foscari (1988), and a PhD from Napoli L’Orientale (1996). He studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem under the direction of M.J. Kister (1993-94), and then taught in Turin (1999-2002) and Naples L’Orientale since 2002, where he has worked as full professor in Islamic studies since 2011. He has been Visiting Researcher/Professor at Princeton University (2014), Harvard (2015), EHESS Paris (2016), Institute for Advanced Study Tokyo (2018), University of Pennsylvania (2019) and member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2016-17. Since 2019 he has been PI in the European project ERC-Synergy EUQU (The European Qur’an – cPI Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Cisc, Madrid, PIs John Tolan, Nantes, Jan Lopp, Canterbury).

Prof. Tottoli has carried out research on biblical prophets in Islam (Biblical prophets in the Islamic tradition, Brescia, 1999, English translation 2002), he has dealt with Islamic literature in general and, more recently, with editions and translations of the Qur’an in the modern age (Ludovico Marracci at Work, written with R. Glei, Wiesbaden, 2016). He has translated several texts of Islamic literature into Italian (Malik, al-Muwatta’. Manual of Islamic Law, Turin, 2011, with which he won the King Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz International Award for Translation, 8th Section. 2015) and has edited works on Islam in the West (Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, London, 2015) or on the history of Islamic civilization (The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam, Hoboken, 2018, edited with A. Salvatore, B. Rahimi). Since 2011 he has been writing about Islam for Corriere della Sera.

Call for Papers–Islamic and Jewish Studies around the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Ignaz Goldziher and his Correspondents

Date:
November 12-13, 2021

Convenors:
Kinga Dévényi (Corvinus University of Budapest, and The Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Sebastian Günther (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Sabine Schmidtke (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ)

Topic: When Ignaz Goldziher passed away on November 13, 1921, he left behind a corpus of scientific correspondence of over 13,000 letters from about 1,650 persons, in ten languages. His Nachlass, including the letters as well as his hand-written notes and works, was bequeathed to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The corpus, which is freely accessible in its entirety in digital form (https://konyvtar.mta.hu/index_en.php?name=v_3_2_1_goldziher and https://amirmideast.blogspot.com/2018/06/ignaz-goldziher-correspondence-archive.html?m=1) constitutes the single most important source informing about the history of Arabic, Jewish, and Islamic studies and cognate fields during Goldziher‘s time. Selected portions of the Goldziher correspondence are available in critical editions, while other portions have been consulted for studies on the history of the field, but the bulk of the material has as yet remained untapped.

The conference aims to focus on the correspondence between Ignaz Goldziher and colleagues from different countries preserved in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, addressing aspects of the history of the discipline as seen through the letters. Papers examining specific aspects of Goldziher’s contributions to Islamic and Jewish studies from a wider history of science point of view are also welcome.

This international conference takes place within the framework of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Prize.

Submission of abstracts:
The convenors invite the submission of abstracts for consideration to be sent to Uta Nitschke (nitschke@ias.edu) by January 31, 2021.

Conference location:
Depending on the situation in fall 2021, the conference will either be held virtually, in person or hybrid in Göttingen.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2020. All rights reserved.

Website Launch—Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online

On October 20, 2020, Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online launched. Khamseen is a free and open-access online platform of digital resources to aid the teaching of Islamic art, architecture, and visual culture. It is sponsored by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) at the University of Michigan through the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

khamseen

Khamseen currently offers a collection of short-form video presentations on a range of topics in the scholarly discipline of Islamic art history. These presentations are intended to support educators, particularly those who face limited access to institutional and archival resources, and to bring new voices, perspectives, methodologies, artworks, and objects into classrooms. Besides catering to undergraduate and graduate students, the materials provided here are also intended to help educate and inspire interested audiences outside of academia. Through this platform, we seek to take the study of Islamic art out to the world, reaching a truly international level of engagement and learning thanks to the possibilities of integrated digital technologies. 

Visit the Khamseen website and follow us on our socials: @khamseenislamicart (Instagram), @TeamKhamseen (Twitter), and @KhamseenIslamicArt (Facebook). 

Those interested in contributing to Khamseen may submit their ideas here.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2020. All rights reserved.

Conference: 3rd Annual Edinburgh International Graduate Conference in Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies

The 3rd Annual Edinburgh International Graduate Conference in Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies will be held at the University of Edinburgh on November 22-23, 2019.

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The theme for this year’s conference is Historical inertia: Continuity in the face of change 500-1500 CE: 

Historical discourse has long concerned itself with patterns of change and discontinuity to demonstrate and validate models of periodisation and the compartmentalisation of the wider historical field. Building on these themes, this conference has chosen to focus on the opposing view by concentrating on inertia – how history, material culture, ideas and communities can be seen to maintain a stayed course or deviate if a significant force is exerted upon it. Inertia, a concept that has yet to be applied to mainstream Late Antique studies, introduces perspectives and frameworks that permit new approaches to traditional processes.

This conference will feature numerous papers on qur’anic studies and medieval Islamic history. The complete program can be found here. Additionally, there will be keynote lectures from Averil Cameron and Jack Tannous (Princeton University).

For more information, including registration instructions, visit the conference website.

 

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

Job Vacancy: Islamic Studies Associate Prof. | University of Cincinnati

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Photo Credit: https://www.uc.edu/ucomm/brand.html

The University of Cincinnati invites applications by advanced assistant and associate professors to fill the Inayat and Ishrat Malik Professorship in Islamic Studies. The position will begin in the fall of 2019. The search committee welcomes applications from scholars in the field of Islamic Studies, with research and teaching interests in such areas as Anthropology, Comparative Religion, Arabic, Ethics, Gender Studies, History, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Theology.

Minimum Qualifications:

A Ph.D. is required, as well as prior teaching experience and evidence of scholarly excellence.

The successful candidate is expected to engage in research, to teach on the graduate and undergraduate  levels in their area, and to contribute, via interdisciplinary education and as appropriate, to undergraduate certificate programs in such areas as Religious Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Arabic Studies, Asian Studies, Security Studies, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. The successful candidate should be thoroughly knowledgeable in the Islamic intellectual tradition and in Qur’anic Studies. Enthusiasm to present Islamic teachings in multiple areas of thought and experience and in a style accessible to diverse student audiences is essential. This effort will include the presentation of at least one public lecture in Islamic Studies each academic year. The candidate should also have a track-record of engagement with the Islamic community, demonstrate a willingness to contribute to the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, and be able to build productive relationships with academic partners across campus and with interfaith and cultural groups in the Cincinnati area.

The tenure-track position will be housed in the department in the College of Arts & Sciences most appropriate to the candidate’s degree. Joint appointments are possible.

The successful candidate will be expected to make service contributions to the mission of that department and commensurate with the position of Professorship in Islamic Studies. The teaching load will accord with that of research-active faculty. The University of Cincinnati is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer with a strong commitment to diversity. The University is interested in qualified candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching and service, to the diversity and excellence of the academic community, and we hope to attract applicants who have experience in promoting the success of students from diverse backgrounds. We encourage women, members of racial/ethnic/gender groups underrepresented in higher education, persons with disabilities, and veterans to apply.

For full consideration, apply online at https://jobs.uc.edu (Search Requisition #31164). A complete application will include a letter of interest, a CV, an article-length writing sample, and a one-page statement summarizing your contributions or potential contributions to diversity and inclusion as they relate to teaching, research and/or mentoring. Please use the Additional Documents function to submit the required documents. Three letters of reference must be directly submitted by recommenders to history@ucmail.uc.edu.

 

FOR ALL FACULTY HIRES: OFFICIAL ACADEMIC TRANSCRIPTS WILL BE REQUIRED AT THE TIME OF HIRE

 

The University of Cincinnati, as a multi-national and culturally diverse university, is committed to providing an inclusive, equitable and diverse place of learning and employment. As part of a complete job application you will be asked to include a Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion statement.

As a UC employee, and an employee of an Ohio public institution, if hired you will not contribute to the federal Social Security system, other than contributions to Medicare. Instead, UC employees have the option to contribute to a state retirement plan (OPERS, STRS) or an alternative retirement plan (ARP).

 

The University of Cincinnati is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer / M / F / Veteran / Disabled.

*Content courtesy of Dr. Jeff Zalar (University of Cincinnati)

New Publication “The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction”

(Content courtesy of Edinburgh University Press)

The International Qur’anic Studies Association is pleased to announce the publication of The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction by member Nicolai Sinai (Chair of Programming Committee). Nicolai Sinai is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute, Oxford University, and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. He has published on the Qur’an, on pre-modern and modern Islamic scriptural exegesis, and on the history of philosophy in the Islamic world.

“The Qur’an represents both Islam’s historical point of origin and its scriptural foundation, inaugurating a new religion and, ultimately, a new civilisation. Yet the text itself can be difficult to understand, and the scholarship devoted to it is often highly technical. This comprehensive introduction to the basic methods and current state of historical-critical Qur’anic scholarship covers all of the field’s major questions, such as: Where and when did the Qur’an emerge? How do Qur’anic surahs function as literary compositions? How do the Qur’an’s main themes and ideas relate to and transform earlier Jewish and Christian traditions?” –Edinburgh University Press

sina

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: Background
1 Some basic features of the Qur’an
2 Muhammad and the Qur’an
3 The Qur’anic milieu

Part Two: Method
4 Literary coherence and secondary revision
5 Inner-Qur’anic chronology
6 Intertextuality

Part Three: A diachronic survey of the Qur’anic proclamations
7 The Meccan surahs
8 The Medinan surahs

ISBN Hardback: 9780748695768
Paperback: 9780748695775
eBook (PDF): 9780748695782
eBook (ePub): 9780748695799

Find this publication at your local library or for purchase online at Edinburgh University Press!

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2017. All rights reserved.

RIP Andrew Rippin (1950-2016)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On Tuesday, November 29, 2016, Andrew Rippin passed away at his home in Victoria, British Columbia. Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria since 2013—where he was formerly Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Andrew (or Andy as he was known to some)—was an esteemed colleague, revered mentor, and scholarly inspiration to many members of the IQSA community.

Since entering the fields of Qur’anic and Islamic Studies in the 1980s, Andrew’s scholarly output was immense, helping to shape these fields for almost four decades: he was author or editor of two dozen well-known textbooks, anthologies, and thematic volumes; around eighty journal articles and book chapters; and literally hundreds of encyclopedia entries and reviews. For scholars of the Qurʾān, Andrew was perhaps best known for his profound impact on the study of tafsīr in particular. Viewed collectively, his numerous surveys of the field and introductory works allow the student of the Qur’an and its interpretation to grasp both the immensity of the field and appreciate its transformation over the decades since he published his earliest attempt to take stock of the state of the field, “The Present Status of Tafsīr Studies” (Muslim Studies 72 [1982]: 224-238) some thirty-five years ago.

rippin

Andrew Rippin (1950-2016)

Seeking to apprehend the full range of subjects covered in Andrew’s publications, one is struck by the sheer breadth of his interests and expertise. Already in the articles published during his first decade or so of activity in the field of Qurʾānic Studies, Andrew touched on a number of subjects that would be of interest to him throughout his career: the complex relationship between doctrine, grammar, and lexicography in the formation of the tafsīr tradition; the intertwining of Qurʾān and tafsīr with Jewish and Christian scriptural, parascriptural, and exegetical cultures; the benefits that bringing epigraphic and archaeological data to bear in the interpretation of the Qurʾān might potentially yield; the origins of Muslim attempts to impose hermeneutic frameworks linked to the biography of Muḥammad and accounts of the process of revelation such as naskh and asbāb al-nuzūl upon the Qurʾān; and the construction of authority figures in the received tradition—most notably ʿAbd Allāh Ibn ʿAbbās (d. 68/687)—to demarcate certain strands of exegesis as ancient in pedigree and thus of greater legitimacy.

Today, Tafsīr Studies has clearly emerged as a vibrant field of inquiry. That it should be so is in no small part due to Andrew’s tireless efforts to establish it as such. Andrew long advocated for scholars to take seriously the worlds of meanings and symbols which were produced by classical commentaries on the Qurʾān so that tafsīr and other branches of ʿulūm al-Qurʾān could be seen as significant in their own right, and not simply as records of transmitted traditions. That is, he emphasized the necessity of striking a balance between reading the Qurʾān on its own terms and appreciating the importance of how Muslims have made sense of the Qurʾān as scripture over the last 1,400 years of Islamic history. It is no exaggeration to say that both the revival of interest in the study of the Qurʾān over the last decade and the flourishing of the study of tafsīr in the same period were greatly encouraged by Andrew’s contributions in publishing, teaching, and mentorship.

It is supremely fitting that Andrew has been honored with a Festschrift edited by Majid Daneshgar and Walid Saleh that has just been published by Brill: Islamic Studies Today: Essays in Honor of Andrew Rippin, featuring chapters by some twenty prominent contemporary scholars of Islam as well as two vivid personal tributes by Jane McAuliffe and Claude Gilliot.

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The spring 2014 board meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (from left to right: Hamza Zafer, Fred Donner, Andrew Rippin, Emran El-Badawi, Gabriel Reynolds, Jane McAuliffe, with John Kutsko)

We remember in particular with gratitude that Andrew Rippin served as the inaugural president of IQSA in 2014.  An address which he gave on that occasion can be downloaded here. On November 18 and during his final days the IQSA board of directors announced the Andrew Rippin Best Paper Prize, awarded to an outstanding paper delivered at the annual meeting. Since the announcement of this prize a number of contributions have been received in Andrew’s name.

The richness and sophistication of the contributions to Andrew’s Festschrift is testimony to the massive impact Andrew has had, though the short biographical notes and comprehensive bibliography one may find there only capture his contribution to the field in largely quantitative terms. The depth of his true impact is almost unfathomable, judging from the hundreds of students, colleagues, and friends he influenced over the decades, and who will remember Andrew as the very model of thorough, exacting, yet humane and engaged scholarship.

Board of Directors, International Qur’an Studies Association

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016. All rights reserved.

REMINDERS + NOW ONLINE – Program Book for San Antonio, Nov 18-21

Dear Friends,

We are now days away from the fourth Annual Meeting of the International Qur’anic Studies Association taking place in San Antonio, November 18-21. We are looking forward to another exciting meeting of scholars and friends. For a complete showcase of our events, participants and sponsors we are proud to present the official AM 2016 PROGRAM BOOK (PDF). Viewers are encouraged to further circulate the program book. (Program Book link: https://iqsaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/iqsa-programbook-2016.pdf)

Reminders — Please make sure to attend the following events or perform the needed duties outlined here:

  1. If you want to gain access to all IQSA session in San Antonio as well as our exclusive member benefits please RENEW your 2016 IQSA MEMBERSHIP immediately here (http://members.iqsaweb.org/Sys/Login). It is not too late!
  2. The FRIDAY sessions are FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC. So do not forget to attend the AFTERNOON PANEL, KEYNOTE ADDRESS “‘These are my Daughters’: Lot and His Offer—A Lover/ Scholar Reflects on one of the Qurʾan’s More Awkward Moments”, RECEPTION & FILM SCREENING of “Jesus and Islam / Jésus et l’islam” all on Friday Nov 18. See program for details.
  3. On Saturday Nov 19 Graduate students should attend the Doctoral Dissertation “Lightning Talks” 11:45am-12:45am. See program for details. Only a handful of spots remain. RSVP now contact@iqsaweb.org
  4. On Sunday Nov 20 I call upon all IQSA members to fulfill their duty by attending our Business Meeting at 11:30am-12:15pm. See program for details.
  5. Finally, it will come as no surprise to any of us that the world’s political climate continues to change. Our work is now more important than ever. Please support IQSA and DONATE (http://members.iqsaweb.org/donate). Meanwhile do not forget to enjoy this VIDEO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg-W3Asj3R8) and share accordingly — thank you.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Standing Committees and our partners we would like to express our deepest gratitude to all friends of IQSA, and we look forward to seeing you this Friday.

Sincerely,

Emran El-Badawi, Executive Director

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2016. All rights reserved.

Online Corpora of Classical Arabic Texts

UntitledIt is a truism that the advent of the internet has made life much easier, and this is no less true for academics than other people. One particular way in which the internet could be of use to, inter alia, historians is by making the building of huge corpora of texts much simpler. Moreover, such corpora would not only be much user-friendlier, but also only a click away from us, no matter where in the world we are. The following are several online corpora of mediaeval Arabic books that could be of use to Islamicists. The works included on these websites range from qur’anic exegesis and qur’anic sciences to ḥadīth, history, adab, and fiqh.

Al-Maktaba al-Shāmila is perhaps the greatest and most widely used online library of Arabic books. Books can be searched and read online. Pagination of each book follows that of the published edition used for reproducing the text.

Al-Warāq. It is possible to run searches through both the whole corpus and individual texts on this website.

Kitābkhāna-yi Madrasa-yi Faqāhat contains over 5,000 fully searchable digitised books.

Noor Digital Library. Home to over 8,000 titles in Arabic and Persian, it is possible to run searches through the whole corpus or individual volumes. It is also possible to download a scanned version of the published texts in the members-only area of the website (needs subscription).

Al-Maktaba al-Shīʿiyya does not seem to be maintained regularly anymore, but its
contents are still accessible.

If you know of other websites and corpora that are not listed here, please kindly post the link to them in the comments section below.

REMINDERS + NOW ONLINE – Program Book for Atlanta, Nov 20-23

Dear Friends,

We are now days away from the third Annual Meeting of the International Qur’anic Studies Association taking place in Atlanta, November 20-23. We are looking forward to another exciting meeting of scholars an friends. For a complete showcase of our events, participants and sponsors we are proud to present the official AM 2015 PROGRAM BOOK (PDF). Viewers are encouraged to further circulate the program book. (Viewers may alternately access the program book by visiting IQSAWEB.ORG >> Meetings >> Program Book AM 2015)

Please do not forget our first Panel, Presidential/Keynote Address and General Reception all taking place on Friday, Nov 20 (one day before the official start of AAR or SBL). Our Presidential/Keynote Address is on “Qurʾan and the Problematic of Prophecy,” and will be delivered by IQSA president prof. Reuven Firestone, with a Response by IQSA council member prof. Ebrahim Moosa at 4:00-5:15 pm in Marriott – M104 (Marquis Level). All Friday events are FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Furthermore, I invite all IQSA members to fulfill their duty as members by attending our Business MeetingSunday, Nov 22 at 11:30 am in Marriott – M105 (Marquis Level). This will be immediately followed by the Graduate Student Reception at noon in L504-L505 (Lobby Level) – Marriott. If you have not already please visit IQSAWEB.ORG in order to become a Member, subscribe to our Blog and join the private IQSA Discussion Group. Finally don’t forget to enjoy our new an improved video with Arabic subtitles!

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Standing Committees and our partners we would like to express our deepest gratitude to all friends of IQSA, and we look forward to seeing you this Friday.

Sincerely,

Emran El-Badawi, Executive Director

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015. All rights reserved.

New Book: When Christians First Met Muslims*

Cover of Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims (University of California, 2015); http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520284944.

Cover of Penn, When Christians First Met Muslims (University of California, 2015); http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520284944.

The first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present, Syriac Christians wrote the first and most extensive accounts of Islam, describing a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges not reducible to the solely antagonistic.

Through critical introductions and new translations of dozens of invaluable historical materials, Michael Philip Penn’s When Christians First Met Muslims allows scholars, students, and the general public to explore the earliest interactions between what eventually became the world’s two largest religions, shedding new light on Islamic history and Christian-Muslim relations.

* Description and cover image from publisher product page: http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520284944

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015. All rights reserved.

A Literary Portrait of Qur’anic Origins

by Aaron W. Hughes*

I would like to consider Reza Aslan’s recent IQSA blog post in light of his best-selling book Zealot, because his blog post appears like his book to be essentially a creative literary piece. In a recent review of Zealot published in Critical Research in Religion (2.2 [2014]: 195-221), Richard Horsely, a leading scholar of Christian origins, argues that

the lack of critical analysis of sources and the periodic historical confusions in his narrative, however, suggest that Zealot is not a historical investigation. The biography at the end of the book explains that his formative training was in fiction and that his academic position is in the teaching of creative writing. His presentation of Jesus’ ‘life and times’ (a modern genre) appears to flow out of just this literary experience. (195)

This was by no means a singular charge. Many scholars, not to mention reviewers such as those in the New York Times, were very critical of his book. ArtAslan leaves the intellectual heavy lifting to others and instead reproduces a host of assumptions that are reminiscent of a previous generation of New Testament scholars. He conflates gospel accounts, takes poetic license to embellish stories, and devotes most of his focus on Jesus the individual as opposed to the various social actors that made the many Jesus movements possible. He also assumes that the texts of the New Testament explain how “Christianity’’ broke away from “Judaism,” when many scholars of this period (from Neusner to Boyarin to Horsely himself) have shown, with evidence, that such a separation is much more complicated and much later than this.

Aslan imports this basic methodology into his blog post with the aim of offering us insights into the “Qur’anic Clues to the Identity of Muhammad’s Community in Mecca.” In it he makes the rather unremarkable point that “there is no reason to believe that this term was used to designate a distinct religious movement until many years into the Medinan period or perhaps after Muhammad’s death.” Indeed, why stop there? Why not go further and say that the term may not designate a “distinct religious movement” until the eighth, ninth, or even tenth century? Instead of Muslims, Aslan encourages us to consider using the term that the Qur’an uses, ummah. The Constitution of Medina, not to mention the Qur’an, is simply and unproblematically assumed to date to the time of Muhammad.

Aslan then projects our modern understandings of such terms as “ethnicity,” “religion,” “experience,” and “ethics” onto the seventh century. He never entertains, for example, what the term “Jew” might have signified in the seventh century, especially in Arabia following the codification of the Babylonian Talmud roughly a century earlier. Instead, he assumes that what is meant by “Jew” then is the same as now. He brings in Newby’s irenic reading of the situation—that the Jews would have nothing to object to Muhammad’s prophecy. It could be argued, if we assume as Aslan does, that Jews then were like Jews now, that they would have objected to everything from Muhammad’s still inchoate message to the charge that their scripture had been tampered with. Why not assume, for example, that Muhammad, at least initially, thought he was a “Jew”?

Aslan then speaks of “Arabian Jewish mysticism,” as if that term actually denotes something real in the world. What sources does he have for this pre-kabbalistic mysticism? What were its contours? He then speaks of “theological differences between Islam and the other People of the Book” at the time of Muhammad as if Islam had somehow fallen to the earth theologically complete, as opposed to examining the historical controversies that made theology possible only much later. If “Muslim” only took on its religio-semantic valences much later, then surely the same could be said for “Islam.”

As with Zealot, Aslan concludes his blog post on a very modern note: “The point is that although Muhammad recognized the irreconcilable differences that existed among the People of the Book, he never called for a partitioning of the faiths.” Instead, this partitioning was the product of later jurists. If we want to get to the authentic message, Aslan concludes, then we need to “understand Muhammad’s actual beliefs regarding the Jews and Christians of his time.”

This confusion of myth and history, the conflation of fact and fiction, is dangerous for the historical study of Qur’anic origins. Aslan’s goal is not historical scholarship, but to produce a literary portrait designed to make us feel good about ourselves—and about Islam in the league of religions. But what happens when a modern virtue gets in the way of history? Unfortunately, as irenic terms like “convivencia,” “multicultural,” “symbiosis,” “Abrahamic,” and “tolerant” increasingly litter our intellectual landscape, it is history that ultimately gives way. As the late Chief Rabbi of Israel once said about The Bible Code (1997), “If you have to lie to people to get them to believe, what’s the point?”

* Aaron W. Hughes is Philip S. Bernstein Chair of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2015. All rights reserved.