Qur anic Studies Today brings together thirteen specialists in the field of Islamic studies to provide a range of essays that reflect the depth and breadth of scholarship on the Qur n.

The volume analyses different aspects of the interactions between the Qur an and other religious texts over the course of history. It features essays that probe certain Qur anic figures or themes cross-textually within the Qur an, such as an exploration of Qur anic allusions to the wife of Lot, or an analysis of the Jonah narratives. Other essays focus on particular suras, such as a reading of Suras 10-15...

Representing a new development in the study of Qur'anic text, this book tackles the issue of Qur'anic text structure by fusing the fields of linguistics and Qur'anic studies.

The Qur'an contains many long suras covering diverse topics but with no apparent common context within which such variety can be explained. This book proposes a new explanation of Qur'anic text structure, arguing that the long suras have structure that are explicable within a framework for the mechanisms of human verbal communication. Through a systematic step-by-step analysis of the cognitive process...

Al-Tha'labi was a renowned Qur'anic scholar of the fifth/eleventh century, and his 'Ara'is al-majalis is arguably the finest and most widely consulted example of the Islamic qisas al-anbiya' genre.

Drawing on primary Arabic sources, Klar applies modern critical methods in order to explore the nature of al-Tha'labi's 'Ara'is al-majalis within its historical and literary context, and thereby produces a compelling examination of the stories of Noah, Job, Saul and David as portrayed in the key historiographical and folkloric texts of the medieval Islamic period. Via a close...

This book challenges the dominant scholarly notion that the Qur'ān must be interpreted through the medieval commentaries shaped by the biography of the prophet Muhammad, arguing instead that the text is best read in light of Christian and Jewish scripture. The Qur'ān, in its use of allusions, depends on the Biblical knowledge of its audience. However, medieval Muslim commentators, working in a context of religious rivalry, developed stories that separate Qur'ān and Bible, which this book brings back together.

In a series of studies involving the devil, Adam,...

This book considers the Arabic biographies of Prophet Muhammad, the earliest of which dates from two centuries after his life. These biographies, prized by Muslims, have been approached in the Western study of Islam from a range of positions. Some scholars reject them entirely, seeing in them products of the Muslim community's idealisation of its history, while others accept them at face value, reasoning that, if not exact versions of events, the events could not have differed too much from their descriptions.

The author revisits the debate and reconsiders several key...

This book is a study of related passages found in the Arabic Qur n and the Aramaic Gospels, i.e. the Gospels preserved in the Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic dialects. It builds upon the work of traditional Muslim scholars, including al-Biq (d. ca. 808/1460) and al-Suy (d. 911/1505), who wrote books examining connections between the Qur n on the one hand, and Biblical passages and Aramaic terminology on the other, as well as modern western scholars, including Sidney Griffith who argue that pre-Islamic Arabs accessed the Bible in Aramaic.

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The Qur n and the Aramaic Gospel...