Themes in Qur'anic Studies – serie

This book takes a comprehensive look at the ways in which Muslims interpret the Qur'an today and at the themes and structural conditions that shape their engagement with their sacred scripture. Muslim Qur'anic interpretation Today includes boldly innovative approaches as well as staunchly traditional ones. They are represented and performed in all types of media and target a wide variety of audiences. The book aims at making sense of these diverse phenomena by combining an analytical overview of the field with detailed case studies of exegetical texts and media from the 2000s and 2010s.The first part offers a comprehensive introductory survey of the field of contemporary Muslim Qur'anic interpretation. It provides a fresh perspective on present-day discourses by emphasising the historical, social, and political dimensions in which they take place. The second part presents samples from recent exegetical works that exemplify larger themes such as media, interpretive methods, and the diversity of the global Muslim community. Commentaries on the texts and their authors help to contextualise the samples and highlight core themes and features of contemporary exegetical debates.Taken together, the two parts of the book can be read as a spotlight on Muslim Qur'anic interpretation in a specific period of time, a time of great challenges and tremendous social transformations, some of them obvious and some of them rarely noted.

Divine Covenant explores the Qur’anic concept of divine knowledge through scientific, theoretical paradigms – in particular natural law theory – and their relationship with seven Islamic scholarly disciplines: linguistics, hadith, politics, history, exegesis, jurisprudence, theology. By comparing scholarship within these disciplines with current state-of-the-art, the study shows how the Qur’anic concept of divine Covenant reflects natural law theory, relates to a range of other legal, political, and linguistic Qur’anic concepts, informs the canon’s entire literary structure, and has implications for a new, legal theory of ‘Islamic origins’.The book makes the case that the Islamic disciplines share political economy, institutional framework, and decisive theoretical topics with the Qur’an. The latter include the natural law-related issues of human rights, constitutional separation of powers, and social contract. The book surveys the scholarly deliberations of these topics within the parameters of each discipline and in changing contexts. In addition, consequences of the modern nation-state institutional order for early modern and contemporary Qur’anic studies are mapped. It is argued that the early and medieval Islamic disciplines offer scientifically valuable knowledge because they refer to the same institutional framework as the Qur’an. The disciplines are also important parts of European political history, where they have inspired social contract theory inclusive of diverse religious identities.

Divine Covenant explores the Qur’anic concept of divine knowledge through scientific, theoretical paradigms – in particular natural law theory – and their relationship with seven Islamic scholarly disciplines: linguistics, hadith, politics, history, exegesis, jurisprudence, theology. By comparing scholarship within these disciplines with current state-of-the-art, the study shows how the Qur’anic concept of divine Covenant reflects natural law theory, relates to a range of other legal, political, and linguistic Qur’anic concepts, informs the canon’s entire literary structure, and has implications for a new, legal theory of ‘Islamic origins’.The book makes the case that the Islamic disciplines share political economy, institutional framework, and decisive theoretical topics with the Qur’an. The latter include the natural law-related issues of human rights, constitutional separation of powers, and social contract. The book surveys the scholarly deliberations of these topics within the parameters of each discipline and in changing contexts. In addition, consequences of the modern nation-state institutional order for early modern and contemporary Qur’anic studies are mapped. It is argued that the early and medieval Islamic disciplines offer scientifically valuable knowledge because they refer to the same institutional framework as the Qur’an. The disciplines are also important parts of European political history, where they have inspired social contract theory inclusive of diverse religious identities.

This book explores the possibility of a hermeneutics of the Qur'an. It starts from the presupposition that the Qur'an can be studied as a philosophical book. Thus the analysis is theoretical more than historical. Many philosophers commented the Qur'an and many supported their theories by resorting to the Qur'an. Thinkers like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi connected traditional theology and philosophy in their Qur'anic commentary. Others like Nasr Abu Zayd used philosophy to deconstruct the Qur'an paving the way for a modern humanistic hermeneutics. This book tries to go a step further: it aims to offer a path within the Qur'an that - through philosophy - leads to a fresh understanding of fundamental tenets of Islamic thought, most importantly tawhid - God's oneness - and to a fresh reading of the Qur'anic text. This book applies the phenomenological and ontological hermeneutics of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger to the study of the Qur'an going far beyond Annemarie Schimmel's phenomenological approach that is neither philosophical nor properly phenomenological (in Husserl's sense).

This book explores the possibility of a hermeneutics of the Qur'an. It starts from the presupposition that the Qur'an can be studied as a philosophical book. Thus the analysis is theoretical more than historical. Many philosophers commented the Qur'an and many supported their theories by resorting to the Qur'an. Thinkers like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi connected traditional theology and philosophy in their Qur'anic commentary. Others like Nasr Abu Zayd used philosophy to deconstruct the Qur'an paving the way for a modern humanistic hermeneutics. This book tries to go a step further: it aims to offer a path within the Qur'an that - through philosophy - leads to a fresh understanding of fundamental tenets of Islamic thought, most importantly tawhid - God's oneness - and to a fresh reading of the Qur'anic text. This book applies the phenomenological and ontological hermeneutics of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger to the study of the Qur'an going far beyond Annemarie Schimmel's phenomenological approach that is neither philosophical nor properly phenomenological (in Husserl's sense).

The Qur'an's biblical foregrounds have long formed a controversial concern within Qur'anic Studies, with field-leading scholars debating the Muslim scripture's complex relationship and response to the Judeo-Christian canon. This contentious subject has largely overshadowed, however, a reciprocal, yet no less rich, question which motivates the present study. Rather than read the Muslim scripture in light of its biblical antecedents, The Qur'an & Kerygma adopts the inverse approach, situating the Qur'an as itself the formative foreground to Western literary innovation and biblical exegesis, stretching from late antiquity in the 9th century to postmodernity in the 20th. The book argues, in particular, that Qur'anic readings and renditions have provoked and paralleled key developments in the Christian canon and its critique, catalyzing pivotal acts of authorship and interpretation which have creatively contoured the language and legacy of biblical kerygma. Structured chronologically, the study's span of more than a millennium is sustained by its specific concentration on four case studies selected from representative areas and eras, exploring innovative translations and interpretations of the Qur'an authored by Christian literati from 9th-century Andalucia to 20th-century North America. Mirroring its subject matter, the book engages a literary critical approach, offering close-readings of targeted texts frequently neglected and never before synthesized in a single study, highlighting the stylistic, as well as spiritual, influence on Western authors exercised by Islamic writ.

The Qur'an's biblical foregrounds have long formed a controversial concern within Qur'anic Studies, with field-leading scholars debating the Muslim scripture's complex relationship and response to the Judeo-Christian canon. This contentious subject has largely overshadowed, however, a reciprocal, yet no less rich, question which motivates the present study. Rather than read the Muslim scripture in light of its biblical antecedents, The Qur'an & Kerygma adopts the inverse approach, situating the Qur'an as itself the formative foreground to Western literary innovation and biblical exegesis, stretching from late antiquity in the 9th century to postmodernity in the 20th. The book argues, in particular, that Qur'anic readings and renditions have provoked and paralleled key developments in the Christian canon and its critique, catalyzing pivotal acts of authorship and interpretation which have creatively contoured the language and legacy of biblical kerygma. Structured chronologically, the study's span of more than a millennium is sustained by its specific concentration on four case studies selected from representative areas and eras, exploring innovative translations and interpretations of the Qur'an authored by Christian literati from 9th-century Andalucia to 20th-century North America. Mirroring its subject matter, the book engages a literary critical approach, offering close-readings of targeted texts frequently neglected and never before synthesized in a single study, highlighting the stylistic, as well as spiritual, influence on Western authors exercised by Islamic writ.