Todd Lawson is Emeritus Professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Toronto. He has taught in the field of Islamic Studies for over forty years and published numerous books and articles in Quranic Studies and related topics. He lives in Montreal.

‘Did James Joyce know the Quran? Todd Lawson brilliantly demonstrates how the Quran anticipates literary modernism as both epic and apocalypse. Its epic voice encompasses a vast temporal and spatial canvas – the cosmos, creation, humanity, time, history – while its chapters, singly and collectively, evoke an apocalyptic musicality. The ‘end’, as Lawson reminds us with lapidary prose unfolding insight upon insight, can be instrumental as well as temporal. The apocalyptic vision of the Quran underscores its true ‘end’: to herald and expedite a just community living in accordance with God’s will, enjoying both peace and prosperity. This innovative book charts new ways of reading literary modernism as Quranic commentary on a grand scale…’

• Introduction 1 The Quran as Epic2 The Quran as Apocalypse3 An Apocalypse of Reunion: The epic of Joseph4 Duality and Opposition: The apocalyptic substrate5 Water and the Poetics of Apocalypse6 Chaotic Cosmos and the Symmetry of Truth7 Joycean Modernism in Quran and TafsirConclusion: Epic and the domestication of apocalypse AbbreviationsGlossaryAcknowledgementsNotesAppendix BibliographyIndex