Readings Copy

Readings Copy

Essential Reading:

  • Here’s a basic introduction to thinking about the Qur’an and the Bible that I started but never quite finished. Those of you coming to the Qur’an (or the Bible) for the first time might find it a useful starting point. This is a web link that will open a new window.
  • Quran.com is an easy to navigate for both reading and listening to the Qur’an. Here are some Suras you may want to read: Qur’an Suras 1, 12, 19, 53, 60, 86-115.
  • Donner, Fred. “Muhammad and the Believers’ Movement.”  Chapter in Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam, 39-89.  Harvard University Press, 2010. Donner takes a moderate  approach to the sources and Muhammad and the Believers is his effort to reconstruct the early history of Islam aimed at a popular audience.  In this chapter he gives a summary of the traditional biography of Muhammad, an overview of sources, along with a summary of his own reconstruction which is based primarily on his reading of the Qur’an.
  • El-Badawi and Reynolds, “Focus On Quran and the Syriac Bible”. (web link) A short article introducing one of most promising areas of recent scholarship on the Qur’an, that is the relationship of the language of the Qur’an to Syriac and particularly to the Syriac Bible, the Peshitta. We are only beginning to see how closely intertwined the Qur’an is with Christianity in the Near East. See also the video conversation between El-Badawi and Reynolds which I’ve posted on the videos page for this week.  
  • Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an and its Biblical Subtext, Introduction, Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.  London: Routledge, 2010. A seminal study of the Qur’an’s relationship to biblical texts by one of the leading scholars in the field.
  • Reynolds, Gabriel Said.  “Biblical Background”. Chapter in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān, Second Edition, edited by Andrew Rippin and Jawid Mojaddedi, 303-319. Chichester: Wiley, 2017.  This is a useful overview of an important topic and the scholarly debates around it.  Reynolds is non-committal about his own views.  

Recommended Supplementary Reading:

  • Berg, Herbert. “The Collection and Canonization of the Qur’an.”  Chapter in Herbert Berg, ed. Routledge Handbook of Early Islam, 37-48.  Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2017.  
  • Brown, Daniel.  A New Introduction to Islam, 3rd edition. Chichester: Wiley, 2017. Chapter 5: The Qur’an.
  • Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur’an, Appendix II pp. 162-170. Fazlur Rahman, originally from Pakistan, was a distinguished scholar of Islam at the University of Chicago, and a major contributor to modern Muslim conversations about the Qur’an and its interpretation.  His Major Themes of the Qur’an presents a way of interpreting the Qur’an that is radically different from the classical tradition of Qur’an commentary.  These few pages present his thoroughly modern understanding of the relationship of Muslims to other monotheists according to the Qur’an, and will give a taste of his approach to hermeneutics. 

Bibliography:

  • Arberry, A. The Koran Interpreted. London: Allen & Unwin, 1955.  From a literary perspective, this is the most elegant English translation.
  • El-Badawi, Emran. The Qurʿan and the Aramaic Gospel Tradition. New York; London: Routledge Press, 2013. 
  • Cook, Michael. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  • Déroche, François. Qur’ans of the Umayyads. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014. A study of the earliest Qur’an manuscripts.
  • Goudarzi, Naser, and Hossein Sadeghi. “The Sana’a Manuscripts: A Reappraisal of the Dating and Provenance of the Earliest Qur’anic Manuscripts.” Der Islam, vol. 89, no. 1, 2012, pp. 113-148. A critique of the dating and provenance of the earliest Qur’an manuscripts.
  • Griffith, S. “Christian lore and the Arabic Qurʿan: The “Companions of the Cave” in Surat al-Kahfand in Syriac Christian tradition.” In G.S. Reynolds (ed.), The Qurʿan in Its Historical Context. London: Routledge, 2008, 109-37. 
  • Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʿan. Baroda, India: Oriental Institute, 1938; reprint: Leiden, Brill, 2007. 
  • Jeffery, Arthur.  The Qurʿan as Scripture. New York: Moore, 1952. 
  • Lawrence, Bruce. The Qur’an: A Biography. London: Atlantic Books, 2006.
  • Mattson, Ingrid. The Story of the Qur’an. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.
  • Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an in its Historical Context. London: Routledge, 2007. A survey of modern critical approaches to the Qur’an.
  • Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an and its Biblical Subtext. London: Routledge, 2010.
  • Saleh, Walid.  In Defense of the Bible: A Critical Edition and an Introduction to Al-biqai’s Bible Treatise. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
  • Shoemaker, Stephen. “Christmas in the Qurʿan: The Qurʿanic Account of Jesus’ Nativity and Palestinian Local Tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28, 2003, 11–39.
  • Small, Keith. Textual Criticism and Qur’an Manuscripts. Leiden: Brill, 2011. A survey of the textual history of the Qur’an.
  • Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur’an: Traditions and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. A study of the portrayal of women in the Qur’an.
  • Wansbrough, John. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. A seminal contribution to the critical study of the Qur’an.
  • Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service, 1989. One of the most widely distributed English translations of the Qur’an.