The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies

1023 Pages·2020·32.891 MB·English

by  Mustafa Shah (editor), M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (editor)

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Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Print Publication Date: May 2020 Subject: Religion Online Publication Date: Jun 2020
Copyright Page
(p. iv)
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements  
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Print Publication Date: May 2020 Subject: Religion Online Publication Date: Jun 2020
Acknowledgements
(p. v)
The editors would like to express their profound appreciation to Tom Perridge for propos­
ing this volume for the Handbook series some years back and for all his encouragement
throughout the intervening periods. The support offered by Karen Raith has been excep­
tional and we should also like to express our gratitude to her. For help in securing permis­
sions for the use of images, we would like to thank the British Library; the Chester Beatty
Library and its trustees; the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Austrian Nation­
al Library; the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London and the Khalili Family
Trust; the Asiatic Press in St Petersburg; and Sinéad Ward, Sheila S. Blair, Jonathan M.
Bloom, and Efim Rezvan. The editors also wish to thank Valerie Joy Turner for all her
work.
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List of Illustrations
List of Illustrations  
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Print Publication Date: May 2020 Subject: Religion Online Publication Date: Jun 2020
List of Illustrations
(p. xiii)
7.1 Ancient South Arabian (ASA) script chart. © Peter Stein. Used by permission.112
7.2 Distribution of the scripts and languages of pre-Islamic Arabia. © A. Al-Jallad.116
13.1 A folio from the British Library’s oldest manuscript of the Qur’an, Or. 2165, fea­
turing verses from Q. 18:57–68 (The Cave). The manuscript comprises 121 folios con­
taining over two-thirds of the complete text. © British Library Board.195
14.1 Verso of a detached palimpsest folio from an early Qur’an manuscript copied on
parchment in Ḥijāzī script with a non-ʿUthmānic recension beneath another copy of
the text. Copenhagen, David Collection, inv. no. 86/2003. Photo by: Pernille
Klemp.223
14.2 Opening text folio from the Qur’an manuscript copied on paper and signed by
ʿAlī ibn Hilāl known as Ibn al-Bawwāb at Baghdad in 391/1000–1. Dublin, Chester
Beatty Library, ms 1431, fol. 9b © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library,
Dublin.227
14.3 Colophon detached from juzʾ 28 of a 30-volume Qur’an manuscript copied by
Aḥmad al-Suhrawardī and illuminated by Muḥammad ibn Aybak ibn ʿAbd Allāh be­
tween 701 and 708 (1301–8). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
www.metmuseum.org, Rogers Fund 55.44.230
14.4 Double-page spread from a manuscript made for the Ottomans in 1204/1789–90
in the tevâfuklu style, a rubrication of congruence in which sections of identical text
were written in red on facing pages. London, Khalili Collection, ms QUR33, fols.
189b–190a. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art ms QUR33, fols. 189b–
190a; courtesy of the Khalili Family Trust.234
15.1 Interior of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, 72/691–2, showing the mosaic in­
scription at the top of the west section of the arcade with Q. 4:171–2. Photo: Sheila S.
Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom.242
15.2 Roundel with Q. 33:33 on the façade of the Aqmar Mosque erected under the
Fatimids in Cairo in 519/1125. Photo: Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom.246
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List of Illustrations
(p. xiv) 15.3 Foundation inscription around the portal of the Masjid-i ʿAlī in Isfahan
rebuilt during the reign of the Safavid Shāh Ismāʿīl with twelve Qurʾanic verses con­
taining the name Ismāʿīl. Photo: Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom.249
15.4 Minaret of Jām erected by the Ghurid Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn on 570/1174–5,
with the entire text of Sūrat Maryam (Q.19:1–98) inscribed around the lower shaft.
Photo: David Thomas, MJAP2005.251
16.1 The title page of Theodor Bibliander and Philip Melanchthon (eds.) Machumetis
Saracenorum principis, eiusque successorum vitae doctrina ac, ipse Alcoran … Basel:
Ioannes Oporinus, 1543. The Austrian National Library (19.В.40). Courtesy of the Li­
brary.257
16.2 Bifolio from Ludovico Marracci, Alcorani textus universus:ex correctioribus
Arabum exemplaribus summa fide, atque pulcherrimis characteribus descriptus.
Patavii: Ex Typographia Seminarii, 1698. The Austrian National Library (14.L.36).
Courtesy of the Library.259
16.3 Page 2 of the standard ‘Kazan Qur’an’ which reproduced the Saint Petersburg
edition published, following the 1787 decree of Catherine II, at the privately owned
‘Asiatic Press’ in St. Petersburg.262
16.4 Bifolio from the full-size traced facsimile of ‘Samarqand Kūfic Qur’an’, which
was published in St. Petersburg.264
19.1 The composition of Sūrat al-Fātiḥa’s according to Semitic Rhetoric.323
19.2 Mirror composition of Sūrat Yūsuf.324
19.3 Ring composition of Sūrat al-Takwīr, verses 19–25.325
21.1 The suras ordered by increasing MVL, part 1.353
21.2 The suras ordered by increasing MVL, part 2.353
21.3 MVL and 95 per cent confidence intervals, part 1.353
21.4 MVL and 95 per cent confidence intervals, part 2.354
21.5 The correlation of MVL and characteristic introductory elements.355
21.6 MVL correlated with three important Qur’anic terms.355
21.7 MVL correlated with formulaic density.356
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List of Contributors
List of Contributors  
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies
Edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Print Publication Date: May 2020 Subject: Religion Online Publication Date: Jun 2020
List of Contributors
(p. xv)
Muhammad Abdel Haleem

is King Fahd Professor of Islamic Studies at SOAS. He is Director of the Centre of Is­
lamic Studies at SOAS and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Qur’anic Studies. Among
his published works are The Qur’an: English Translation with Parallel Arabic Text
(Oxford University Press, 2010), The Qur’an: A New Translation (Oxford University
Press, 2016), Understanding the Qur’an: Themes and Style (I. B. Tauris, 2010), and
Exploring the Qur’an: Context and Impact (I. B. Tauris, 2017). He also wrote, with El­
said Badawi, An Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage (Brill, 2007).

Kamal Abu-Deeb

is Emeritus Professor of Arabic in the University of London, where he held the Chair
of Arabic 1992–2007. He was awarded the prestigious al-Owais Prize for Literary
Studies and Criticism for the 2014–15 session. He has published numerous books and
articles, including al-Jurjānī’s Theory of Poetic Imagery (Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1979). He
has taught and lectured at a number of universities including Oxford, Columbia,
Berkeley, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Yarmouk, and Sanaa. He has been Vis­
iting Professor at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, the Agha Khan University, London,
since 2015.

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List of Contributors
Asma Afsaruddin

is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures in the Hamilton Lugar School of
Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Her publi­
cations include Jihad: What Everyone Needs to Know (forthcoming from Oxford Uni­
versity Press), Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015),
Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford Universi­
ty Press, 2013), and The First Muslims: History and Memory (Oneworld Publications,
2008).

Anna Akasoy

is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Graduate Center, City University of
New York. Her areas of expertise include the intellectual culture of Muslim Spain and
contacts between the Islamic world and other cultures. Her publications include
Philosophie und Mystik in der späten Almohadenzeit: Die Sizilianischen Fragen des
Ibn Sabʿīn (Brill, 2006), Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes
(Routledge, 2011), and Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy
in Early Modern Europe (Springer, 2012).

Muntasir F. Al-Hamad

is Associate Professor of Arabic for Non-Native Speakers at Qatar University. He spe­
cializes in comparative syntax in the Semitic languages. He is a Fellow of the UK’s
Higher Education Academy. He has recently edited Lisān al-ʿArab: (p. xvi) Studies in
Contemporary Arabic Dialects (LIT Verlag, 2017), co-edited Near Eastern and Arabian
Essays: Studies on Arabia in Honour of John F. Healey (Oxford University Press,
2019), and is the author of Non-Verbal Communication in Qatari Culture (in Arabic)
(Qatar University Press, in press).

Ahmad Al-Jallad

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List of Contributors
is the Sofia Chair of Arabic at Ohio State University, USA. His work focuses on the
languages and writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia and the ancient Near East. He
has authored and edited books and articles on the early history of Arabic, language
classification, North Arabian and Arabic epigraphy, and historical Semitic linguistics,
including An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions (Brill, 2015), A Dictio­
nary of the Safaitic Inscriptions (W. K. Jaworska, 2019), and The Damascus Psalm
Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī (Oriental Institute, 2019).

Sulaiman bin Ali bin Ameir Al-Shueili

is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Islamic Sciences at Sultan Qa­
boos University. He received his BA in Uṣūl al-Dīn at Sultan Qaboos University, his MA
in Quranic Sciences from the University of Jordan, and his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies
from the University of Edinburgh.

Herbert Berg

is Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the Universi­
ty of North Carolina Wilmington. His research focuses on the formation of Islam (par­
ticularly on Ibn ʿAbbās) and the formation of African American forms of Islam (partic­
ularly on Elijah Muhammad). His publications include The Development of Exegesis in
Early Islam (Routledge, 2000), Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins
(Brill, 2003), Elijah Muhammad and Islam (NYU Press, 2009) and he recently edited
the Routledge Handbook on Early Islam (Routledge, 2017).

Sheila S. Blair

recently retired from the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship of Islamic
and Asian Art at Boston College and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair in Islamic
Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, positions she shared with her husband and
colleague Jonathan Bloom. She has written, co-written, or edited two dozen books and
hundreds of articles on all aspects of Islamic art, but her special interests are the us­
es of writing and the arts of the Mongol period. She is the author of Text and Image in
Medieval Persian Art (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
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List of Contributors

Stephen R. Burge

is Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London. He is the au­
thor of Angels in Islam: Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī’s al-Ḥabāʾik fī akhbār al-malāʾik (Rout­
ledge 2012), and editor of The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qur’anic Exege­
sis (Oxford University Press, 2015). His main research interests are Qur’anic Studies,
the works of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, ḥadīth studies, tafsīr and angelology.

Massimo Campanini

was previously Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Trent University. He has
translated the literary works of many Muslim philosophers into Italian (al-Ghāzalī, al-
Fārabī, Averroes) and published several monographs on medieval and contemporary
issues alike, among which are The Qur’an: Modern Muslim Interpretations (p. xvii)
(Routledge, 2011), The Qur’an the Basics (Routledge, 2016) and al-Ghazālī and the Di­
vine (Routledge, 2018).

Michel Cuypers

Doctor of Persian Literature (University of Teheran, 1983), is a member of the Do­
minican Institute for Oriental Studies (Cairo), specializing in the exegesis of the
Qur’an and the text’s composition according to the theory of Semitic rhetoric. His
publications include The Banquet: A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qur’an
(Convivium Press, 2009), and The Composition of the Qur’an (Bloomsbury, 2015), and
A Qur’ānic Apocalypse: A Reading of the Thirty-Three Last Sūrahs of the Qur’ān
(International Qur’ānic Studies Association, 2018).

François Déroche

is Professor of the History of the Qur’an: Text and Transmission at the Collège de
France in Paris. Among his many publications are: The Abbasid Tradition: Qurʾans of
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List of Contributors
the 8th to 10th Centuries (Nour Foundation,1992); Islamic Codicology: An Introduc­
tion to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script (Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Founda­
tion, 2006); La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l’islam: Le codex
Parisino-petropolitanus (E. J. Brill, 2009); Qurʾāns of the Umayyads: A First Overview.
(Brill, 2014); and he has edited along with Christian Robin and Michel Zink the re­
cently published Les origines du Coran, le Coran des origins (Académie des Inscrip­
tions et Belles-Lettres, 2015).

Yasin Dutton

is Emeritus Professor of Arabic Studies in the University of Cape Town. He is the au­
thor of The Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur’an, the Muwattaʾ and Madīnan ‘Amal
(Curzon Press, 1999) and Original Islam: Mālik and the Madhhab of Madīna
(Routledge, 2007), as well as numerous articles on early Islamic law, early Qur’anic
manuscripts, and the application of Islamic law in the modern world, particularly in
relation to economic and environmental issues.

Jeffrey Einboden

is a Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor at Northern Illinois Uni­
versity, and author of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature in Middle Eastern Lan­
guages (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), Islam and Romanticism: Muslim Currents
from Goethe to Emerson (Oneworld, 2014), and The Islamic Lineage of American Lit­
erary Culture: Muslim Sources from the Revolution to Reconstruction (Oxford Univer­
sity Press, 2016).

Ayman A. El-Desouky

is Chair of Comparative Literature at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He
studied comparative literature, literary theory and modern philosophy at the Universi­
ty of Texas at Austin and taught at Johns Hopkins and Harvard before relocating to
the UK in 2002. Among his publications are: ‘A Life in Quotes: Notes on Frye’s Theory
of Typology and the Discontinuous Temporalities of Qur’anic
Revelations’ (forthcoming, 2019); ‘Between Hermeneutic Provenance and Textuality:
The Qur’an and the Question of Method in Approaches to World Literature’ (Journal
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