Podcast episode
March 14, 2025
Episode 203: Introducing the Qur’ān, Part I: Revelation, Text, and History
In this episode, Part I of our introduction to the Qur’ān, we introduce some useful terms of art and historical parameters for discussing the holy text of Islām, we give a very basic summary the traditional Islamic account of the Qur’ān‘s origin, and also discuss the modern, scholarly approach to the Qur’ān through text-critical analysis. It emerges that the Qur’ān is not a book, exactly.
This is difficult, delicate, and sublime territory to cover; many thanks to Dr Michæl Noble, whose knowledge saved yours truly from many egregious errors, and hugely enriched this episode. The errors which remain are, of course, mine and not his.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
Qur’ān:
References to ‘the book’ referring (or quasi-referring) to the qur’ān itself: there are too many references to a ‘book’ or ‘books’ or ‘the book’ in the qur’ān to list. Try checking out this article, which breaks down some theme-clusters in a clear way: Danielle Madigan. Book. Encyclopædia of the Qur’an, ed. J.D. McAuliffe, 6 vols (Leiden: Brill 2001-2006).
The ‘guarded tablet’ (al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ): Q 85:22; cf. 22: 70 and 57: 22, where references to Allah keeping a record of events have been taken in exegesis to refer to the Tablet.
God is closer to you than your jugular vein: Q 50:20.
‘Recite, in the name of your lord who created man from a clot of clay …’: 6:1-2.
Secondary:
The Cairo edition (a.k.a. the Amiri Mus’haf, the King Fu’ād Quran or the Azhar Quran): see M. W. Albin, “Printing of the Qurʾān,” in Encyclopædia of the Qur’ān, ed. J.D. McAuliffe, 6 vols (Leiden: Brill 2001-2006), vol. IV, pp. 264–76, or Rezvan, Efim (2020). A History of Printed Editions of the Qur’a. In Mustafa Akram Ali, Shah; Abdel Haleem, Muhammad (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies. Oxford: The University Press,
Gustav Leberecht Flügel. Corani textus arabicus. Tauchnitz, Leipzig, 1834.
John E. Wansbrough. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. The University Press, Oxford, 1977.
Recommended Reading:
SHWEP Episode 203 Recommended Reading
Alexander Nader
March 15, 2025
numbering problems: there are also some problems in the bible: https://wartburgproject.org/faqs/2019/04/the-verse-numbers-in-the-bible
comparing different versions (KJ, Luther, Neue Einheitsübersetzung,…) can be sometimes difficult
Silvius Fabricius
May 8, 2025
When you brought up the question of Muhammad’s literacy, I thought of the work of a scholar, Dr. Ahmad al-Jallad, who is an epigraphist working on pre-Islamic Arab inscriptions. Generally, he seems to find fairly widespread literacy among the Pre-Islamic Arabs (at least enough to inscribe short monuments). But, more interestingly, it seems that inscriptions in Arabia had become pretty much exclusively monotheistic well *before* the rise of Islam. Which is obviously rather counterintuitive.
See his interviews with Dr. Gabriel Reynolds here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_c5P88M2Xk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkfYOdubc8
(I regret to link to a mere video interview, but while he has a good number of papers & books available, including one that gives a plausible explanation for why Jesus’ name is spelled like that in the Quran, I’m not aware of one synthesizing this vital matter as he does in the video.)
If so, monotheism would have been far from a new idea to Muhammad’s audience, and the so-called polytheism he preached against would have been mainly what we might call impure monotheism. Not unlike, perhaps, the way the Protestant Reformers saw the “pagan idolatry” of the Catholic Church- cf. Muhammad’s rejection of the Quraysh letting God’s daughters intercede with the Protestants’ rejection of letting God’s mother intercede. (Under this model, of course, much of the idol-smashing found in later accounts would be legendary projections.)
Earl Fontainelle
May 9, 2025
Silvius,
Thank you for this suggestion. I could not agree more that Dr al-Jallad’s work is unbelievably fascinating. I would add this interview on the Byzantium and Friends podcast, hosted by friend of the SHWEP Anthony Kaldellis:
https://byzantiumandfriends.podbean.com/e/132-who-was-allah-before-islam-with-ahmad-al-jallad/
It completely blew my mind. For anyone who wants to explore the era in Arabia before Islām, this gentleman’s work is amazing. There are TENS OF THOUSANDS of inscriptions.
NB: there is a lot of really cool archæology going on in Saudi Arabia. There is a famous battle from the early days of the Believers at Medinah, known as the Battle of the Ditch. Well, an English scholar is currently leading a team excavating the ditch in question. We are on the threshold of learning a lot more about this period, and I mean a lot more in a kind of quantum leap sort of way, not just the usual incremental dribs and drabs progress we we tend to expect from this kind of history.