The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage

553 Pages·2019·5.336 MB·English

by  Angelika Neuwirth, Samuel Wilder

THE QUR’AN AND LATE ANTIQUITY
OXFORD STUDIES IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Series Editor
Ralph Mathisen
Late Antiquity has unified what in the past were disparate disciplinary,
chronological, and geographical areas of study. Welcoming a wide array of
methodological approaches, this book series provides a venue for the finest new
scholarship on the period, ranging from the later Roman Empire to the Byzantine,
Sasanid, early Islamic, and early Carolingian worlds.
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Creation and Cultural Interaction in Late- Antique Gaza
Michael W. Champion
Contested Monarchy
Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century AD
Edited by Johannes Wienand
Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity
Porphyry of Tyre and the Pagan- Christian Debate in Late Antiquity
Michael Bland Simmons
The Poetics of Late Antique Literature
Edited by Jás Elsner and Jesús Hernández-L obato
Rome’s Holy Mountain
The Capitoline Hill in Late Antiquity
Jason Moralee
Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe
Edited by Alexander O’Hara
Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus
Sanctity and Community in the Seventh Century
Alexander O’Hara
Sacred Stimulus
Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome
Galit Noga-Banai
The Qur’an and Late Antiquity
A Shared Heritage
Angelika Neuwirth
The Qur’an and Late Antiquity
A Shared Heritage
Angelika Neuwirth
Translated by Samuel Wilder
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Neuwirth, Angelika, author. | Wilder, Samuel (Translator).
Title: The Qu’ran and late antiquity / Angelika Neuwirth ; translated
by Samuel Wilder.
Other titles: Koran als Text der Spätantike. English
Description: New York, NY : Oxford Univerity Press, [2019] | Series: Oxford
studies in late antiquity | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015795 (print) | LCCN 2018016947 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199928965 (updf) | ISBN 9780190921316 (oso) |
ISBN 9780190921309 (epub) | ISBN 9780199928958 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Qur?an—History. | Qur?an as literature. | Qur?an—Criticism,
Textual. | Qur?an—Evidences, authority, etc. | Qur?an—Manuscripts. |
Qur?an—Relation to the Bible.
Classification: LCC BP131 (ebook) | LCC BP131 .N48913 2019 (print) |
DDC 297.1/2209—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015795
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Preface ix
Postscript xiii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
I.1. The Qur’an as the Document of the Emergence of a Religion 1
I.2. A “European Reading” 2
I.3. The Qur’an as Proclamation 4
I.4. Two Misreflections of the Qur’an: Teleology and the Syndrome
of Epigonality 12
I.5. The “Qur’anic Community” 17
I.6. Qur’an Research as Historical and Literary-C ritical Project 17
I.7. The Qur’an as Panorama— Illuminated in Thirteen Chapters 25
1. How the Qur’an Has Been Read So Far: A Sketch of Research 33
1.1. Projects of Biblical Scholarship 33
1.2. A Great Research Tradition and Its Violent Interruption 37
1.3. Retreat to Islam- Historical Positions 40
1.4. The Qur’an Without the Memory of the Community? New Voices
in the “Authenticity Debate” 47
1.5. The Arabic Side of the Qur’an: Mirror of the Arabian
Environment 55
1.6. The New Center: Not Book or Prophet, but Community 57
2. The Qur’an and Scripture 65
2.1. “Sending Down,” Tanzīl, and “Inspiration,” Waḥy 65
2.2. Al- Qurʾān: Communication of Texts from the Heavenly
Scripture 73
2.3. Orality as Theologumenon 76
2.4. Late Meccan Reflections on Heavenly and Earthly Scriptures 80
v
vi Contents
2.5. Inlibration or Qur’anic Logos Theology? 89
2.6. Medialities of the Qur’an 95
3. The Qur’an and History 105
3.1. History of Communicated Speech 105
3.2. Two Manifestations of the Qur’an 109
3.3. The Conversation with the Older Traditions: Stations of
Community Formation 116
3.4. History Discourse 119
3.5. History in the Qur’an 131
3.6. Prophetic Succession, Counter-H istory, and Chronological
History 135
4. Redaction and History of the Text 139
4.1. History of Transmission up to the Uthmanic Redaction 139
4.2. The “First Official Qur’an Edition of ʿUthmān” 144
4.3. The Imperial Project of ʿAbd al- Malik 147
4.4. Text History 149
4.5. Instructions for Qur’an Reading and the Controls of
the Textual Form 155
4.6. Manuscripts 158
4.7. New Qur’an Editions and Translations 161
5. Sura Structures and Chronology 163
5.1. The Sura as Novelty 163
5.2. The Early Meccan Suras 166
5.3. The Linguistic Form of the Suras 187
5.4. Defining Criteria of Chronology 190
5.5. Middle and Late Meccan Suras 192
5.6. Medinan Suras 196
6. The Liturgical Qur’an: On the Development of Cult at the Time of the
Proclamation 201
6.1. The Ancient Arabian Preconditions 201
6.2. Cult and Canon in Islam 208
6.3. Emergence of a Liturgy 212
6.4. Cultic and Textual Development in the Middle Meccan
Period 217
6.5. Cultic and Textual Development in the Late Meccan Period 225
6.6. Cultic and Textual Development in Medina 229
6.7. From Qur’an to Islamic Cult 235
Contents vii
7. Stages of Communal Formation in the Early Meccan Period 239
7.1. Communal Engagements with Local Traditions: Successively
Pursued Discourses 239
7.2. Psalmic Piety 241
7.3. Excursus: Are the Early Meccan Suras Biographical of
the Prophet? 247
7.4. The Prophetic Office of Warning of the Judgment 254
7.5. Reflection on the Signs of Scripture and the Signs of Creation 264
8. Stages of Communal Formation in the Middle and Late Meccan
Periods 277
8.1. From Real World to Text World: The New People of God 279
8.2. From Mecca to Jerusalem: New Liturgical Forms 282
8.3. Mythical Narrative, Biblical History, and Qur’anic
“Corrective”: Mary and Jesus 290
8.4. Anti- Pagan Polemic 300
8.5. New Homiletic Instruments: Morality Speeches
and Parables/ Likenesses 305
9. Stages of Communal Formation in Medina 313
9.1. The Turn of Exile 313
9.2. The Discovery of God’s Wrath 318
9.3. The Discovery of Ambiguity in the Divine Writing 324
9.4. From Jerusalem Back to Mecca 332
9.5. Qur’an and Martyrdom 337
10. Qur’an and Bible 347
10.1. Similarities, Dissimilarities 347
10.2. Looking for Allegory and Typology in the Qur’an 354
10.3. Allegories in the Qur’an? 359
10.4. “De- allegorizations” 365
10.5. Considerations on Qur’anic Prophetic Speech 368
10.6. Considerations on Qur’anic Narration 373
11. Biblical- Qur’anic Figures 379
11.1. Actors and Interaction Scenarios 379
11.2. Noah— His Qur’anic Development 385
11.3. Abraham— His Qur’anic Development 391
11.4. Moses— His Qur’anic Development 405
12. The Qur’an and Poetry 419
12.1. Prophecy and Poetry 419
12.2. The Ambivalent Heritage of Poetdom and Seerdom 424
12.3. Poetical Topoi in the Qur’an 434
viii Contents
12.4. Poetical Operations in the Qur’an 441
12.5. Coping with Contingency in Poetry and Qur’an 444
12.6. Poets in the Qur’an 447
13. The Rhetorical Qur’an 453
13.1. The Qur’an— Document of an “Age of Rhetoric” 453
13.2. “Incapacitating” Rhetoric 458
13.3. A Contest before Polemic: From Biblical Hymn to Qur’anic
Paraenesis 466
13.4. Rhetorical Bonding of Earthly Events to the Transcendent
Lord of the Worlds: Paraenetic Clausulas 472
13.5. Rhetorical Triumph over the Jewish and Christian Credos 477
Bibliography 483
Index of Persons 521
General Index 525
Citations of Scripture 529
Preface
T
his book could not have been written were it not for my long- term
cohabitation with the three monotheistic religions in the place of their birth,
or at least of their spiritual origin. It is rooted ultimately in insights that reach
back far in time, to my time as a student in Jerusalem, living in the Old City,
in immediate proximity to the Haram al-S harif and the eastern churches and
synagogues. What elsewhere would have to be collected in the imagination— the
sound of Qur’an recitation as a clearly audible voice in a concert of various litur-
gical chants and the presence of Qur’anic script, its calligraphy, as a strikingly
abstract- geometrical representation amidst the omnipresent images exhibited
in the other religions— belonged there to everyday experience. Accordingly, the
Qur’an could scarcely be perceived other than as part of an ensemble of related
holy scriptures, all of them sensually present side by side. It is this experience
above all that is reflected in the volume presented here.
At the same time, however, one cannot ignore that the Qur’an is the core tes-
timony of Arabic verbal creativity. I was fortunate to enjoy the unique possibility
to experience this language in its daily performance and as an object of zealous
scholarly discussions about its subtlest nuances, not only as an observer but as
a participant as well, during a six- year guest professorship at the University of
Jordan, in Amman. The explanations that are set forth in the present volume
have been nourished hermeneutically by the numerous and diverse sugges-
tions offered to me by Arabic-s peaking students and colleagues in Jordan, with
whom I had the opportunity to read texts of classical Arabic literature over the
course of several years. These early experiences were re- actualized often, above
all during periods of teaching in Egypt, during my work as the director of the
Orient Institute in Beirut and Istanbul and, not least, during my still ongoing an-
nual teaching activities at the Dormitio Abbey in Jerusalem.
But teaching experience in Germany has also played into this book. My
work at diverse German universities made me painfully aware that important
ix