Conference

A classical genre of Qur’anic literature, often referred to as mutashābih al-Qurʾān or al-mutashābih al-lafẓī, focused on verses that are repetitive, in that they are near syntactic and lexical matches, with the goal of determining what stylistic reasons might effect minor variations in otherwise similar articulations. These works were a type of linguistic exegesis tied to the development of specialized works in Arabic grammar and lexicology. They were also reflective of the focus on the intentionality of deviations in the style and structure of Arabic speech for communicative or stylistic reasons, a distinctive feature of emerging works on the inimitability of the Qur’an, like the Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz (“Markers of Inimitability”) of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in the eleventh century. Works of this genre have been recognized as significant for their insights on the style of the Qur’an (Witzum, 2015; Palombo, 2022) even while remaining underutilized. This paper focuses on three of the main exemplars of this genre, the Durrat al-tanzil (“Pearls of Revelation”) of al-Khaṭīb al-Iskāfī (d. 420/1029), the al-Burhān fī tawjīh mutashābih al-Qurʾān (“The Proof, on the Explication of the Differential Cases of Parallel Qur’anic Passages”) of Mahmūd b. Hamza al-Kirmānī (d. c. 505/1110), and the Milāk al-taʾwīl (“Foundations of Exegesis”) of Ibn al-Zubayr al-Gharnāṭī (d. 708/1308), to explore what insights from a subset of the exegetical tradition can be derived on stylistic features of the Qur’an. With special reference to Sūrat al-Anʿām, this literature shows how much of this surah, even though one of the ṭiwāl in length, shares distinctive turns of phrase and patterns primarily (but not exclusively) with earlier and later Meccan suras. Analysis from this literature also shows how formal and content considerations like internal usage, the length of the surah, and its tenor can shape structure as well as word choice in al-Anʿām and the Qur’an. This study thus makes use of the literature on parallel verses for its value in understanding the rhetoric of the Qur’an, beyond only considerations of chronology or composition.

In this talk, I suggest that, when considering surah structure, it may be useful to take into account the Qur’an’s moral structuring, and the strategies that it uses to persuade its audience of the truth and urgency of that moral message. One of the Qur'an's major persuasive strategies is the appeal to the emotions of its audience (pathos). The appeal to the emotions is a common rhetorical strategy that was first described by classical rhetoricians and is still recommended to speechmakers today. Arguably, emotion infuses much of the Qur’anic message. Not only does the Qur’an define its community of believers, in part, by their virtuous emotional practices, but it also uses emotional ‘hooks’, such as threats and promises, throughout many surahs. Building on theories developed in the study of rhetoric and in emotions history, and on my own prior work (particularly with Feras Hamza), this talk takes as its examples surahs 7 (al-Aʿrāf) and 9 (al-Tawbah), to show how these surahs use emotive rhetoric to drive the urgency of their moral message. Tracing specific emotion words and scenarios throughout the surahs, I argue (1) that despite an overarching similarity in the boundary rhetoric of ‘insider versus outsider’ in these surahs, they each have a distinct ‘mood’ or emotional tone and tenor, and this affects the urgency of their message; (2) that tracking emotion words and emotive scenarios, with particular attention to repetition, may be a fruitful way of considering these surahs’ structure; and (3) that, ultimately, such emotive rhetoric is an integral aspect of the Qur’an’s moral message and is inseparable from its overarching logic. This approach enables us to question the meaning of the category of ‘emotion’ and to examine the relationship between feeling, thinking, and virtue in the Qur’an.

Numerous studies have highlighted the Qur’an’s emphasis on natural theology, particularly through its exhortations to contemplate cosmic phenomena. This contemplative approach is most explicitly articulated in the so-called “sign passages”, which enumerate cosmological elements as “signs” meant to be recognised as divine by those with a faithful heart. While the Qur’an contains several dozen such passages, it is striking that this distinctive genre is comparatively scarce in the “seven long ones” at the beginning of the corpus, where only a handful of examples appear. This paper will analyse Q 2:164, 3:189–191, 6:96–99, 7:54–58, and 7:185, and compare them with other instances of sign passages across the Qur’an. Additionally, it will explore the apparent underrepresentation of this genre in the longer surahs, considering possible theological and socio-historical implications for this pattern.

The Qur’anic text has repeatedly been described as lacking coherence, with an erratic structure and disjointed composition. Historically, scholars such as Rodwell, Nöldeke, Bell and Blachère have attempted to reorganise the text to align it with the chronology of revelation. Recent works by interpreters such as Drāz, Quṭb, Farāhī and Iṣlāhī proposed that the text has an underlying structure of thematic unity. Their works inspired more theoretically informed contemporary discussions by authors such as Mir, Robinson, and Reda-Tahri. Historical-critical approaches explain the Qur’an’s unconventional text arrangement in terms of redaction theory (e.g. Neuwirth 2006, 2010, Sinai 2017), while synchronic approaches consider the perception of disjointedness as a result of the text’s complexity and non-linear narrative style, suggesting alternative rhetorical and discoursal frameworks to aid in understanding its structure (e.g. Farrin 2010, Cuypers 2011, Dror 2016). The diversity of these approaches highlights the challenges of defining coherence in a text that resists conventional structural analysis. As a result, scholars continue to debate the hidden logic and history of the Qur’an’s composition.

However, my research into discourse markers and paragraph/section divisions in the Qur’an concludes that thematic and structural looseness is a systematic feature of the Qur’anic text (El-Awa 2006, 2017, 2020a, 2020b). In a forthcoming article, I focus on the disjointedness of small text units as a linguistic phenomenon. I analyse text segments that appear disconnected from their immediate contexts, revealing consistent characteristics. I establish links between surah structure, disjointedness, and linguistic features such as ambiguity, coherence, and cohesion. By doing so, I argue that disjointedness is not merely a byproduct of oral composition or historical redaction, but a purposeful stylistic phenomenon embedded in the Qur’an. The Qur’an intentionally maintains a fluid, open-ended arrangement to achieve specific discoursal and communicative functions.

The present paper applies the theoretical definition and categories of disjointedness to a single long surah—one of the Qur’an’s most structurally complex units. By doing so, I assess how disjointedness functions within an extended but more closed textual framework and its impact on thematic and structural organisation. This focused analysis allows a more detailed exploration of how internal divisions and linguistic disconnectedness operate within the surah and surah sections.

I show that disjointedness manifests as a form of ambiguity between two complete Qur’anic sentences, either within or across verses. This ambiguity disrupts the clarity of thematic and structural boundaries, making it difficult for interpreters to divide surahs into distinct sections, such as paragraphs or passages. Scholarly disagreements over surah structures often arise from uncertainty about where long segments begin and end. In such cases, disjointedness emerges at key transition points, where two seemingly unconnected sentences create fluidity in text segmentation.

This paper examines these cases in the long Qur’anic surah to determine the function and degree of disjointedness, expanding the discussion beyond traditional notions of coherence. It contributes to a broader understanding of the Qur’an’s compositional complexity and interpretative possibilities.

Christians do not think that Jesus imparted a revealed text to his followers. However, both the Islamic tradition and modern academic scholarship assume that the Qur’an attributes a distinct scripture named al-injīl (“the Gospel”) to Jesus. I probe this assumption by re-thinking some key Meccan and Medinan texts. The presentation also reflects on the question of when, why, and in what sense the Qur’an’s proclaimer ascribed al-injīl to Jesus.

The Qur’an mentions two categories of Jewish religious leadership: the aḥbār and the rabbāniyyūn. Apart from the handful of verses that that explicitly acknowledge this stratification, Muslim exegetes frequently postulated that various passages in the Qur’an were addressed to this Jewish scholarly class, rather than to the Jews as a whole. The justification for such claims were usually that the Qur’an could only really be addressing the scholarly audience when it insists that those who have knowledge of scripture know that Muhammad’s message is true, or when it implicitly assumes a high degree of familiarity with Jewish scripture.  Often, the tafsīr scholars argued from coherence and narrative flow: if the passage before and/or after a given set of verses was understood to be concerned particularly the rabbis (on the basis of the aforementioned considerations), then the set of verses in question must also concern the rabbis. The present study investigates these claims, particularly with regards to Q 2 and Q 7, exploring the extent to which we can differentiate between the Qur’an’s address to the Jewish scholarly leaders and its address to Jews more generally, and whether this differentiation enables us to say something specifically about the Qur’an’s depiction of Jewish scholars.

In the conclusions to a 2017 article on the structure of Q 2, I proposed that Q 2 might have developed incrementally. I hypothesised that two pre-circulating sermons, Q 2:40–123 and Q 2:121–152, might have been joined together when Q 2 was compiled, with the omission at that point of the overlapping verses Q 2:121–123. Nicolai Sinai, also writing in 2017, expanded this hypothesis to propose a diachronic expansion of the surah in which an independent surah, consisting of Part II (Q 2:40–123), already circulating within the Qur’anic community, accrued Parts I (Q 2:1–39) and III (Q 2:124–152), and was subsequently extended to include Parts IV (Q 2:153–283) and V (Q 2:284–286).

In the first section of the present paper, I would like to revisit these hypotheses and propose an alternative: an independent sermon consisting of Q 2:40–110.122–123 that was expanded by the simultaneous addition of Q 2:111–121 and Q 2:124–152. In this, I will requisition George Guthrie’s 1994 theory of the use of hooked key-words to create unity, expertly utilised by Neal Robinson in his 2001 analysis of the structure of Q 5, as a marker of diachronic expansion. Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, meanwhile, in a 2015 publication, posits the applicability of the 1952 theory of Wiederaufnahme, whereby an existing text unit AB was expanded to AA'B, to the editorial redaction of the Qur’an. I will counter-offer an interpretation of Q 2:40–152 in which an existing text-unit AA' is expanded to ABA'B': the addition of the bridging unit B (vide Guthrie’s hooked key-words) foreshadows the expansion (vide Pohlmann) of AA' into AA'B', and creates thematic unity in the final product. 

This new hypothesis presupposes the memorization of sermons prior to delivery in accordance with what is known about the memorization of speeches prior to delivery in Late Antique rhetoric. It is also assumed, in line with Late Antique rhetoric, that a sermon that had the force of an extempore composition was carefully prepared in advance of delivery. Whether or not this was undertaken with the use of wax tablets, as would appear to be Roman practice, or with the aid of reorderable aide-memoires, as has recently been posited by Monika Amsler with reference to the Babylonian Talmud, is incidental to my hypothesis. The final part of this paper will, however, explore patterns of late antique text composition in the context of the many references to Qur’anic scribes recording the revelations from the mouth of the Prophet.

Scholarship on the Jews of Arabia, including the Hijaz, has advanced significantly, thanks to new epigraphic finds. On the basis of literary sources, Yathrib/Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad spent the last ten years of his life, was home to a significant Jewish community. 

In the so-called Constitution of Medina, which stems from the early Medinan period, a number of Jewish groups are included among Muhammad’s community as allies or group members, depending on how one reads the treaty. Also, jumping to the post-Muhammadan era, quite a few non-Arabic texts note that there was some form of collaboration between Jews and the Arabian believers during, at least, the conquest period. On the other hand, the sīrah narratives, and most modern scholars, claim that that there was a definitive “break with the Jews”: according to this view, the Medinan (and perhaps other Arabian) Jews were either expelled or killed before the death of the Prophet Muhammad, if they did not convert. 

What gives? Various interpretations have been put forward in light of these sources. Based on a critical reading of key sources, I argue that the “break with the Jews” was more limited than previously thought. The conflict was restricted to a few Jewish tribes, with other Medinan Jews either supporting the Prophet Muhammad or remaining neutral. A reading of the Medinan Qur’an also bolsters this interpretation: there appears to be only scarce evidence of actual conflicts with the Jews, though, as is well known, they are rather often castigated. Moreover, even the late surahs (such as Q 5) suggest that there were Jews in Medina. 

This paper explores the relationship between the long discussion of ritual law and practice in Sūrat al-Anʿām (Q 6), at vv. 136–153 (foreshadowed at vv. 118–121), and that surah’s structure. Sūrat al-Anʿām consists mostly of ‘sign polemics,’ in which the signs (āyāt, 32 occurrences) include Scripture in general, the instant Scripture (the Qur’an), and natural signs. References to signs disappear completely, however, in three discrete sections: the surah’s opening (vv. 1–3), its central section containing ‘Biblical’ lessons (vv. 74–90), and its closing (vv. 161–165). References to signs occur only twice in the surah’s passages on ritual law and practice (vv. 118, 150). The paper proposes some ways that the surah’s sign polemics may be connected with its discussions of ritual law, with the goal of providing an overall account of the surah’s structure.

The last 25 verses of Surah 3 include interwoven references to both the good fortune of unbelievers or opponents of the Prophet (vv. 178, 196–97) and the hardships faced by believers (v. 186). The Qur’an addresses these circumstances by insisting that the unbelievers will be humiliated and punished in hell (vv. 176–78, 180, 181–82, 188, 197), while the believers will be rewarded in paradise (vv. 179, 185, 195, 198, 199). This section also includes the direct speech of “those who remember God,” who offer a prayer expressing these same themes (vv. 191–94). The prayer is followed by God’s direct response, promising them a reward in paradise (v. 195). This passage exemplifies the Qur’an as a work of exhortation or argument (maw‘iẓah). It is best appreciated not as a document recording events as they historically happened (say, in Medina), but rather as a thoughtful composition designed to convince the Qur’an’s audience not to be discouraged by the apparent good fortune of their opponents, assuring them that God will ultimately punish and humiliate the unbelievers. This section can therefore be fruitfully studied in the light of late antique homiletics.

As a late Meccan surah which incorporates a wide range of themes, al-Anʿām (Q 6) is a useful case study of interactions within the Quranic text: both diachronically – such that its verses may refer back to earlier ones, or be explained or modified by later ones – or synchronically, as is often the case in tafsīr works. Muslim exegetes have long made use of the principle that “the Qur’an explains itself”, which – if we adopt the same expression of agency – means that al-Anʿām is both a mufassir (active) of various Meccan passages and mufassar (passive) by Medinan ones.

This paper is based on a thorough study of the whole surah through the eyes of exegetes who gave explicit focus and priority to the intratextual principle: tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi l-Qurʾān. Beyond their citations of other Qur’anic passages as thematic parallels, or as evidence for a theological or juristic point, we pay special attention to the aspects of textual interaction which have a bearing on chronology. These include claims of abrogation concerning ten of its verses by later ones, half of which are said to have been cancelled by the “Sword Verse”.

There are two verses in other surahs which appear to reference verses in al-Anʿām; and one verse of al-Anʿām makes explicit allusion to an earlier passage. Based on this, we consider the possibility of a mutually referential relationship between al-Anʿām and al-Nahl (Q 16). Moreover, there appears to be a relationship with Luqmān (Q 31) established by two hadith reports which cite verses from the latter as explanation. As well as questions of chronology, our treatment of the most famous example (in which ẓulm in Q 6:82 is explained by shirk in Q 31:13) appeals to internal aspects of al-Anʿām to question the common presentation of this citation and its significance.

Q 9 (al-Tawbah) figures in studies that deal with various topics, among them the potential reference in the surah opening to Muhammad’s farewell sermon (Rubin 1982), poverty and economics in the Qur’an (Bonner 2005), the redactional growth of the surah opening (Sinai 2017a), the surah’s endorsement of militancy and its link to Christian traditions (Sinai 2017b), and the motif of repentance (Reynolds/Moghadam 2021). In this paper, I look at the surah through the eyes of late antique and early Islamic ascetics and trace a common thread between seemingly disparate verses and sections of the surah. The sections address issues as diverse as militancy, hypocrisy, almsgiving, and charity (and its opposite: greed and avarice), eschatology, etc. I reconsider the links between these sections in light of late antique ascetic ideas revolving around the concept of an eschatological barter and the refiguration of these ideas in the thought of early Islamic ascetics, among them notably Kharijites and renunciants. The imagined barter involves relinquishment in this world, which had a wide range of applications, and a delayed gratification in the world to come. I argue that approaching the Medinan long surahs with premodern categories drawn from roughly contemporary traditions instead of modern ones may help us grasp overlooked semantic links within these complex compositions. 

Recent progress in the study of early Qur'anic manuscripts has significantly advanced the dating of the Qur’an’s codification. However, the process by which the official edition commonly known as the ʿUthmanic muṣḥaf was adopted throughout Muslim lands remains obscure. The silences and biases of historical sources make it difficult to reconstruct this key moment. Tracing the development of a systematised discourse on the Muslim scripture provides one approach to the early stages of the Qur’an’s canonisation. What categories emerged to define and apprehend the Qur'an, and what negotiations accompanied their formation? 

This paper focuses on debates about the identity of the last surah in the group. An early tradition attributed to Saʿīd b. Jubayr asserts that the seventh of the sabʿ al-ṭiwāl is not Q 8 (al-Anfāl) or Q 9 (al-Tawbah) but Q 10 (Yūnus). I examine the origins and transmission of this tradition and argue that it originates in the memory of a pre-ʿUthmanic codex, which positioned Sūrat Yūnus as the seventh surah (not counting the Fātiḥah), as is reported for the codices of both Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy.

Surah 2 is the longest and structurally most intricate surah of the Qur’an, whose emergence likely marked a significant leap in the literary complexity of Qur’anic discourse. Despite Surah 2’s considerable degree of coherence, probed by an illustrious list of scholars, the text also displays signs of progressive literary growth. Thus, v. 102, the surah’s second longest verse, may be analysed as resulting from two successive insertions having been lodged in the midst of what was originally a much shorter verse. Despite the inevitable amount of conjecture involved in such an exercise, my talk will attempt to sketch a model for the textual development by which Surah 2 may, via a series of redactional steps, have reached its canonical form. This will involve the hypothesis that the final version of Surah 2 came to absorb two shorter and originally independent compositions, one later Meccan and the other one Medinan, which can still be hypothetically retrieved from the surrounding text.

Some years ago, Andreas Kaplony published his highly thought-provoking article that tried to create a source-critical division of sections of the Qur'an: the Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn, Ar-Rahmān and Hegemonic groups (Kaplony 2018). The Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn group doesn't only cover surahs 2–7 and 9, but they do make up an important portion of that group. In the present paper, I will reevaluate this source division, which I think has overlooked an important point: compositional formulae and rhyme, which explain much more compellingly the use of Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn than does the hypothesis of it being of a different textual source.

It has been remarked since the times of Geiger that the Qur’an does not maintain a strict distinction between the Torah on the one side and the Mishnah on the other, with Q 5:32 rightfully presented as strong evidence. More recently, Aaron Koller, building on the work of Yitz Landes and myself, has gone further and suggested that the Qur’an indeed considers the entire Mishnah to be of divine origin, pointing to a similar concept that emerges in Palestinian rabbinic discourse of the sixth century CE (with much older roots). In the current presentation, I want to survey the evidence and deepen our analysis of the subject matter. Building on a comparison between the divine legislation for the Red Heifer given in Mishnah Parah 1:1-4, Pesikta deRav Kahana 4:7 and Q 2:67-82, I will argue that both the rabbis and the Qur’an indeed operate with a clear sense of divine authorship of (at least some of) the Mishnah, even if they draw starkly divergent conclusions when it comes to the role of the Israelites’ participation in the process of its creation. The presentation will conclude with a broader reassessment of the Qur’an’s nuanced attitude towards the rabbinic legal tradition, with a special focus on Q 2, Q 3, and Q 9.