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…”
Want to read more? 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!
Following the success of the IQSA 2015 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, we were pleased to make available the Meeting’s presidential keynote paper by Professor Reuven Firestone, entitled “The Problematic of Prophecy.” Now available on our website is the response of Professor Ebrahim Moosa, who poses further questions about religious emergence: How does religion emerge from an environment or a substrate? How does a religion become known in the world? One key element in religious emergence is what we call prophecy. In part, prophecy is an ontological phenomenon: it is about becoming, emergence, proceeding in time. The phenomenon of prophecy plays a direct role in the formation and valorization of scriptures like the Qur’an. You can access the full text of Professor Moosa’s response paper HERE.
Following the success of the IQSA 2015 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, we are pleased to make available on our website the Meeting’s keynote paper by Professor Reuven Firestone, entitled “The Problematic of Prophecy.” Based on qur’anic discourse in relation to preceding and subsequent scriptures and tradition, Professor Firestone offers a theory of religious emergence and the revolutionary challenge it represents to the authority of established religions. In the process, he demonstrates how our awareness of the natural tension between scriptural canonization and competing prophetic claims has value for the critical study of the Qur’an. You can access the paper HERE.
I hope this message reaches you well, and that you found our time together in San Diego, both enlightening as well as enjoyable. Like many of you, I had the pleasure of meeting old friends and making new ones. I speak for myself, council and all IQSA officers when I say that we are quite pleased with how the conference went. Our sessions were well attended, and the papers were engaging and thought provoking. Our current membership numbers over 450 from all around the world, and we had the pleasure of having over one hundred of them represented during the Friday sessions, especially the keynote lecture and reception. 50 people attended our first business meeting, at which prof. Farid Esack was unanimously voted president elect for 2015.
We are, furthermore, heartened and impressed by the enthusiasm for IQSA–both within North American and internationally. Participants and audience members came from around the globe, including Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia, Europe and North America. This all bodes well for IQSA, not least because this is just our second annual meeting. The task of IQSA’s executive office is now to keep up with this growth and accommodate our members for many future meetings.
I am also happy to share with you that our success in San Diego played a significant role within the larger SBL / AAR conference, for the second year in a row. More on this and several other matters of business soon.
Please do not forget to tell your friends, colleagues and peers about us. IQSA members come from an incredibly diverse range of academic backgrounds, including Qur’anic Studies, Islamic Studies, Biblical Studies, Middle East Studies, textual studies, inter-religious studies, hermeneutics, studies on manuscripts or material culture, the hard sciences, and so on. There are numerous ways to stay connected with IQSA throughout the year, namely by:
(b) If you have a minor project you would like to share over our blog
(any language), please contact vdegifis@wayne.edu
(As many as one thousand people may read your post in one
week)
Next, you may anticipate getting full access to the keynote paper by prof. Angelika Neuwirth and response by prof. Andrew Rippin. in December 2014. Soon after the New Year you should also receive news about Membership and Member Benefits for 2015. Current and past papers published by IQSA are available HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/publications/papers/) and program books are available HERE (https://iqsaweb.org/meetings/).
On behalf of us all, I wish to thank our 2014 acting president Andrew Rippin, 2015 president Reuven Firestone, and congratulate as well as thank our 2015 president elect Farid Esack. Also special thanks go to Nicolai Sinai, Gabriel Reynolds, John Kutsko, Irfana Hussain, Vanessa DeGifis, Ryann Craig, Hakaya Productions and our friends at both SBL and AAR. I very much look forward to our meetings next year in Yogyakarta Indonesia (Aug, 2015) and Atlanta, GA (Nov, 2015).
The International Qur’anic Studies Association is pleased to announce its inaugural Executive Board. We are honored to welcome a wonderful roster of Qur’anic Studies scholars to the Board, including:
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…” 
Following the success of the IQSA 2015 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, we were pleased to make available the Meeting’s presidential 
Executive Board. We are honored to welcome a wonderful roster of Qur’anic Studies scholars to the Board, including: