Qur’anic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience

184 Pages·2021·1.717 MB·English

by  Leyla Ozgur Alhassen

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Qur’aˉnic Stories
Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature
Series Editors: Wen-chin Ouyang and Julia Bray
Tis series departs from conventional writing on Classical Arabic Literature.
It integrates into its terms of enquiry both cultural and literary theory and
the historical contexts and conceptual categories that shaped individual
writers or works of literature. Its approach provides a forum for path-
breaking research which has yet to exert an impact on the scholarship.
Te purpose of the series is to open up new vistas on an intellectual and
imaginative tradition that has repeatedly contributed to world cultures and
has the continued capacity to stimulate new thinking.
Books in the series include:
Qur’ānic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience
Leyla Ozgur Alhassen
Te Reader in al-Jāhiz: Te Epistolary Rhetoric of an Arabic Prose Master
Tomas Hefter
Recognition in the Arabic Narrative Tradition: Discovery, Deliverance
and Delusion
Philip F. Kennedy
Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran
Volume I: Te Na‚īªat al-mulūk of Pseudo Māwardī: Contexts and Temes
Louise Marlow
Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran
Volume II: Te Na‚īªat al-mulūk of Pseudo Māwardī: Texts, Sources and
Authorities
Louise Marlow
Al-Jāhiz, the Quibbler: Equivocations in Kitab al-Óayawan and Beyond
Jeannie Miller
Al-JāªiÕ: In Praise of Books
James E. Montgomery
Al-JāªiÕ: In Censure of Books
James E. Montgomery
Óikāyat Abī al-Qāsim: A Literary Banquet
Emily Selove
edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/escal
Qur’a¯ nic Stories
God, Revelation and the Audience
Leyla Ozgur Alhassen
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social
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© Leyla Ozgur Alhassen, 2021
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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ISBN 978 1 4744 8317 9 (hardback)
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Te right of Leyla Ozgur Alhassen to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vi
Acknowledgements vii
1 Introduction: A Narratological and Rhetorical Approach to
Qur’ānic Stories 1
2 Knowledge, Control and Consonance in Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān 3:33–62 14
3 God, Families and Secrets in the Story of Sūrat Maryam 19:1–58 40
4 Evidence, Judgment and Remorse in Sūrat Yūsuf 75
5 Merging Words and Making Connections in Sūrat ˝aha 100
6 Sūrat al-Qa‚a‚ and its Audience 128
7 Conclusion: Reading the Qur’ān as God’s Narrative 156
Bibliography 160
Index 171
Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1 Qur’ānic narrative discourse and story 5
Table 3.1 Various models of the structure of 19:1–58 46
Table 3.2 Verse endings in Sūrat Maryam 47
Table 3.3 Structure in Sūrat Maryam 19:1–58 48
Table 3.4 Signs become more signs 69
Table 5.1 Semantic connections between diferent parts of the Sura 120
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the series editors Wen-chin Ouyang and Julia Bray, as well
as the reviewers of this book, whose feedback has drastically improved it.
Tey, along with Nicola Ramsey, Emma Rees and Kirsty Woods, made this a
smooth and transparent editing and publishing process. Many thanks to the
Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
as well as to Asad Ahmed, Robert Alter, Charles Hirschkind, Margaret Larkin
and the late Saba Mahmood for our discussions on my research. I began my
journey of studying Arabic literature at the University of California, Los
Angeles, with Michael Cooperson, who helped me develop and refne my
thoughts for this book with his knowledgeable, detailed and insightful guid-
ance. Immense gratitude goes to him and the rest of my dissertation commit-
tee members for their support in this process: Carol Bakhos, Lowell Gallagher
and Nouri Gana. Tanks are also due to Kecia Ali, Sarra Tlili, Asad Ahmed
and Michael Cooperson for sharing publishing and professional advice. Te
completion of this book was partially funded by a National Endowment
for the Humanities Summer Stipend. I am also grateful to have received a
Sultan Fellowship from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University
of California, Berkeley. Many thanks to Arielle Tonkin for expanding my
mind by exploring beauty and justice together. It is a blessing to have such
an enlightening and encouraging friend. I am grateful to the artist, Salma
Arastu, for sharing her artwork depicting Qur’ānic verse 20:46 for the cover
of this book. I have been repeatedly struck by the generosity with the gifts
of time and thought that my colleagues and friends have given me by read-
ing and commenting on drafts of this book, and in conversations about my
research.
I thank my parents, Necva and Mehmet Ozgur, for their support and
viii | qur’ānic stories
love. Tey have been my number-one supporters and were always eager to
hear about and discuss my research. My husband, Fares Alhassen, helped me
manage my time and encouraged me to fnish this book. My appreciation
and love go to my entire family. I hope that my children will one day read
this book and beneft from it.
I dedicate this book to my parents, my children and to my dear friend,
Angeles Flores, who taught me that love, learning and knowledge can all be
intricately connected.
1
Introduction: A Narratological and
Rhetorical Approach to Qur’a¯nic Stories
In Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān we read about a woman dedicating the child in her womb
to God (3:35). Here, a story begins with a dialogue, but the readers are not
told that this is a woman to whom they should pay close attention, nor that
the woman is pregnant, nor even her name. Instead, the readers overhear her
prayer to God and from her prayer can infer certain things. With this story,
the audience realises their lack of knowledge and that they know things only
if and when the narrator chooses to relate them.
In response to such reading experiences, this book adopts a literary
approach to the Qur’ān1 and analyses the structure, rhetorical devices, nar-
ratological features, semantic devices, themes and audience reception as
evidenced in scholarly exegesis (tafsīr). For example, Chapter 3 on Surat
Maryam employs a structural analysis, looking at verse length and echoing
phrases in order to demonstrate how the structure changes from a focus on
family relationships to a relationship with God. Tis approach centres on
the relationship between narrator and audience, and how the text aims for a
response from its audience. One may notice, for example, in Sūrat al-Qa‚a‚
a selective presenting and withholding of information in which readers are
given new and exclusive information about Mūsā’s marriage, balanced by
incomplete descriptions of a contract that he enters and, later, the location of
his conversation with God. Tis is a narrative technique that keeps listeners
and readers of the Qur’ān in the dark and makes them wonder about certain
things; the narrator makes it very clear that what we know about this story
is what God tells us. Here, it is useful to look at the reception of Qur’ānic
stories in the context of Qur’ānic commentary: commentators try to supply
the missing details about which the text makes one curious – s uch as the
exact number of the years that Mūsā agrees to work for his father-in-law and