Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 7 no. 3 (2021)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 7, no.3), Reuven Firestone (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) reviews Michael Pregill’s, The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

In the review, Firestone writes “Michael Pregill’s The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an sets out, via a thick reading of a single pivotal and representative narrative in the story of the Calf (or “Golden Calf” in common Jewish and Christian discourse), to situate the Qur’an within the larger religious and literary context of the Late Antique world. That it takes him nearly 450 pages to present and develop his argument attests to the complexity of the intertextual relationships he examines and the sticky methodological issues that have plagued and continue to beset those trying to make sense of traditions known from the Bible as they occur in the Qurʾān. It also attests to the extent of due diligence he undertook through his exhaustive reference to earlier research on the episode in its many literary settings…”

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Recent Publication—The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage by Angelika Neuwirth (Oxford University Press, 2019)

IQSA is excited to share a recent publication from the eminent Qur’an scholar Angelika Neuwirth. Neuwirth’s Der Koran als Text der Spätantike has been translated into English by Samuel Wilder and published under the title The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage.

SYNOPSIS
Typical exegesis of the Qur’an treats the text teleologically, as a fait accompli finished text, or as a replica or summary of the Bible in Arabic. Instead Neuwirth approaches the Qur’an as the product of a specific community in the Late Antique Arabian peninsula, one which was exposed to the wider worlds of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, and to the rich intellectual traditions of rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. A central goal of the book is to eliminate the notion of the Qur’an as being ahistorical. She argues that it is, in fact, highly aware of its place in late antiquity and is capable of yielding valuable historical information. By emphasizing the liturgical function of the Qur’an, Neuwirth allows readers to see the text as an evolving oral tradition within the community before it became collected and codified as a book. This analysis sheds much needed light on the development of the Qur’an’s historical, theological, and political outlook. The book’s final chapters analyze the relationship of the Qur’an to the Bible, to Arabic poetic traditions, and, more generally, to late antique culture and rhetorical forms. By providing a new introduction to the Qur’an, one that uniquely challenges current ideas about its emergence and development, The Qur’an and Late Antiquity bridges the gap between Eastern and Western approaches to this sacred text.

Readers can purchase this book online at Oxford University Press, or find a copy at their institutional or local library.

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 6 no. 1 (2020)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (vol. 6, no.1), Naomi Koltun-Fromm (Haverford College) reviews Robert C. Gregg’s Shared Stories, Rival Tellings: Early Encounters of Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

In her review, Koltun-Fromm writes “In this rather hefty tome, Robert Gregg sets out to share with us the myriad ways the Bible and biblical lore has been read over the centuries across multiple cultural, linguistic, and religious contexts. This book’s comparative yet innovative nature opens up new avenues for looking at this vast interpretive corpus. In particular, Gregg engages equally, openly, and with the same level of academic curiosity with all the material he presents here, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish. Despite its heft, this is more a “popular” book than monograph, but that does not make it any less of a good read (it is very readable) or academically useful. While aimed at the educated generalist audience, this volume proves indispensable to anyone interested in comparative biblical exegesis and wants to familiarize oneself with trends in corpora outside of one’s normal fields. Even for those of us who were Gregg’s students, and familiar with this material, but especially for those of us who were inspired by Gregg and have made careers writing about this same material, this book still has much to teach us…”

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Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 5 no. 9 (2019)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 5, no.9), Eléonore Cellard (Collège de France) reviews Asma Hilali’s The Sanaa Palimpsest: The Transmission of the Qurʾan in the First Centuries AH (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

In her review, Cellard writes “‘The Sanaa Palimpsest: The Transmission of the Qurʾan in the First Centuries AH’ by Asma Hilali aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the transmission of the Qurʾān in the early Islamic centuries, presenting a new interpretation of one of the most discussed documentary witnesses in recent years: the palimpsest of Ṣanʿāʾ. This monograph is the culmination of a long investigation, that started with the digitization project De l’Antiquité tardive à l’Islam (2005–2008) funded by the French ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche). One of the aims of this project, directed by Christian J. Robin, was the digitization of three Qurʾān manuscripts found in the Ṣanʿāʾ mosque in 1972 or 1973 and kept in one of the mosque’s libraries, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt. Of the three digitized manuscripts, one—inventoried as DAM 01-27.1—is of particular interest because it is a palimpsest, parchment leaves from which a previous text has been erased in order to write a new text above. The most intriguing feature is that its lower and upper texts are both qurʾānic. Then, what are the motivations behind this recycling operation?…”

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New Publication: Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Oxford University Press, in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, has recently published a new volume in its Qur’anic Studies Series, Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran, edited by Alessandro Cancian (Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies).

The volume is composed of seventeen chapters that touch upon different aspects of the impact, understanding and use of the Qur’an in contemporary Iran. It covers the last two centuries of reflection on revelation and scripture in the Persian-speaking world. The collection is meant to provide academics working in the fields of the intellectual and religious history of early modern and modern Iran, as well as in Qur’anic Studies, with a comprehensive overview of the richness and plurality of Iran’s engagement with the Qur’an. It achieves this by bringing together different approaches from theology, mysticism, exegesis, reformism, cinema, music, and visual and popular culture.

Lloyd Ridgeon, Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Glasgow, gave the following review of the volume:

This essential work, composed of chapters authored by some of the world’s leading academics in Islamic and Iranian studies, provides a comprehensive analysis of how the Qur’an is received in modern Iran. The collection’s range of topics has been carefully considered, shedding light on modern hermeneutical problems, mystical ways of perceiving the sacred text, and its significance in modern cultural forms including cinema and music, among others. The chapters have been researched with meticulous care to detail. Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran looks set to become a classic work.

For more information on the contributions to this volume, see the table of contents below:

Introduction: Alessandro Cancian

Section I: Power, Authority and Exegesis

1 Rational-analytical Tafsīr in Modern Iran: The Influence of the Uṣūlī School of Jurisprudence on the Interpretation of the Qur’an 19
Seyfeddin Kara

2 Striving Beyond the Balance (al-Mīzān): Spiritual Practice and the Qur’an in the Ṭabāṭabāʾī Ṭarīqa 41
Sajjad Rizvi

3 Privileging the Qur’an: Divorce and the Hermeneutics of Yūsuf Ṣāniʿī 77
Liyakat Takim

4 Al-Amr bi’l-maʿrūf and the Semiotics of Sovereignty in Contemporary Iran 101
Neguin Yavari

5 The Limits of a ‘Fixed’ Qur’an: The Iranian Religious Intellectual Movement beyond the Historical Methods 123
Banafsheh Madaninejad

6 Soroush’s Theory of Qur’anic Revelation: A Historical-Philosophical Appraisal 149
Yaser Mirdamadi

Section II: Alternative Approaches: Between Marginality and Legitimacy

7 A Sufi Defence of the Qur’an: Ḥusayn ʿAlī Shāh’s Rebuttal of Henry Martyn 185
Reza Tabandeh

8 Abrogation and Falsification of Scripture according to Shi‘i Authors in Iraq and Iran (19th–20th Centuries) 225
Rainer Brunner

9 Speaking the Secrets of Sanctity in the Tafsīr of Ṣafī ʿAlī Shāh 243
Nicholas Boylston

10 Exegesis and the Place of Sufism in Nineteenth-Century Twelver Shi‘ism: Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādīand his Bayān al-saʿāda 271
Alessandro Cancian

11 In the Company of the Qur’an by Muḥyī al-Dīn Ilāhī Ghomshei 291
Leonard Lewisohn

Section III: The Arts, Material Culture and Everyday Life

12 A Contemporary Illustrated Qur’an: Zenderoudi’s Illustrations of Grosjean’s Translation (1972) 325
Alice Bombardier

13 Women, the Qur’an and the Power of Calligraphy in Contemporary Iran 353
Anna Vanzan

14 The Divine Word on the Screen: Imaging the Qur’an in Iranian Cinema 375
Nacim Pak-Shiraz

15 Notes on Ritual Prayer in Iran: Qunūt Choices among a Group of Shi‘i Women 409
Niloofar Haeri

16 Twelver Shi‘i Women’s Appropriation of the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran 421
Ingvild Flaskerud

17 The Qur’an as an Aesthetical Model in Music? The Case of Muḥammad Riḍā Shajariyān between the Qur’an and radīf 445
Giovanni De Zorzi

Want to read more? Buy this book online.

Text accessed and reproduced with the kind permission of Alessandro Cancian.

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 4 no. 9 (2018)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 4, no.9), Johanna Pink (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) reviews Kristian Petersen’s Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, & Language in the Han Kitab (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

In her review, Pink writes… “Some readers of the Review of Qurʾanic Research might wonder whether a book on Islam in China is worth their attention. It most definitely is, especially if their interest transcends the Qurʾānic text itself and extends to Muslims’ engagement with their sacred scripture. As the author of Interpreting Islam in China, Kristian Petersen, rightfully criticizes, “much of Western scholarship has associated Islam very closely, and at times even exclusively, with Arab Muslims in the Middle East—often establishing essentialized orientations of the center and the periphery” (3)… It is therefore highly advisable especially for scholars who have no expertise on Islam in China to take his book seriously as a contribution to our understanding of how the Qurʾān was read and interpreted by Muslims throughout history, across space and language divides…”

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Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 3 no.7 (2017)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 3 no.7), David Larsen (New York University) reviews The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qur’anic Exegesis (Edited by S.R. Burge: Oxford University Press, 2015).

“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…”

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Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an

“Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an brings together scholars from various disciplines and fields to consider Islamic revelation, with particular focus on the Qur’an. The collection provides a wide-ranging survey of the development and current state of Qur’anic studies in the Western academy. It shows how interest in the field has recently grown, how the ways in which it is cultivated have changed, how it has ramified, and how difficult it now is for any one scholar to keep abreast of it. Chapters explore the milieu in which the Meccan component of the Qur’an made its appearance. The general question is what we can say about that milieu by combining a careful reading of the relevant parts of the Qur’an with what we know about the religious trends of Late Antiquity in Arabia and elsewhere. More specifically, the issue is what we can learn in this way about the manner in which the ‘polytheists’ of the Qur’an related to the Jewish and Christian traditions: were they Godfearers in the sense familiar from the study of ancient Judaism? It looks at the Qur’an as a text of Late Antiquity-not just considering those features of it that could be seen as normal in that context, but also identifying what is innovative about it against the Late Antique background. Here the focus is on the ‘believers’ rather than the ‘polytheists’. The volume also engages in different ways with notions of monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia. This collection provides a broad survey of what has been happening in the field and concrete illustrations of some of the more innovative lines of research that have recently been pursued.”

Description courtesy of Oxford University Press

Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an
Carol Bakhos and Michael Cook, Eds.
S.L.: Oxford University Press, 2017
ISBN: 9780198748496

A review of this publication is forthcoming in IQSA’s Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR). For full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR), members can log in HERE. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 3 no.5 (2017)

In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 4, no.5), Vanessa De Gifis (Wayne State University) reviews Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History (London: Oxford University Press/Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014), a collection of studies edited by Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink. In this volume, Görke and Pink pose an essential inquiry 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, contingent upon the particular aspects of qurʾānic interpretation with which researchers are concerned.

For full access to the Review of Qur’anic Research (RQR), members can log in HERE. Not an IQSA member? Join today to enjoy RQR and additional member benefits!

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 7 no. 3 (2021)

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 7 no. 3 (2021)

Recent Publication—The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage by Angelika Neuwirth (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 6 no. 1 (2020)

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 5 no. 9 (2019)

New Publication: Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 4 no. 9 (2018)

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 3 no.7 (2017)

Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya, Late Antiquity, and the Qur’an

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 3 no.5 (2017)

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