The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes

The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes

Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion

Mark Durie

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 Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Notes on Transcription, Qurʾanic Citations, Terms, and Names
List of Qurʾanic Proper Names
Introduction: A Fundamental Question
1 Preliminaries to a Qurʾanic Theology
2 The Eschatological Crisis
3 A Nonbiographical Qurʾanic Chronology
4 Monotheism
5 Rasulology and Prophetology
6 Lexical and Narrative Studies

Conclusion: The Genesis of a New Religion?

Bibliography
General Index
Index of Bible Passages
Qurʾan Index
About the Author
 Figures

Figure
Relexification of linguistic signs
0.1
Figure
Carbon dating of early Qurʾanic manuscripts
1.1
Figure
Topics in Qur’anic Theology
1.2
Figure
Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 1
3.1
Figure
Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 2
3.2
Figure
Distribution of sūrahs by Average Lexical Distance
3.3
Figure Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD: pre-transitional, post-transitional, and
3.4 mixed
Figure
Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q73
3.5
Figure
Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q22
3.6
Figure
Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q29
3.7
Figure
Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q8
3.8
Figure
Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD, separating mixed sūrahs
3.9
Figure
Pre-transitional sūrahs
3.10
Figure
Post-transitional sūrahs
3.11
Figure
Nöldeke’s classification of sūrahs, by AFD vs. ALD
3.12
Figure
Sūrahs which say the Messenger or messengers are “only a warner”
3.13
Figure Sūrahs which refer to requests to “hurry” or “bring on the punishment”
3.14
Figure
Sūrahs with athāqa “cause to taste”
3.15
Figure
Sūrahs with ṣabara “be patient”
3.16
Figure Sūrahs with at least one of the two features of the Eschatological Crisis (cf.
3.17 Table 3.2)
Figure
Sūrahs with jāhada, jihād, or mujāhid “struggling with others”
3.18
Figure
Sūrahs with references to migration
3.19
Figure
Sūrahs with “obey Alla¯h and the Messenger”
3.20
Figure
Sūrahs with references to hypocrites and hypocrisy
3.21
Figure
Sūrahs with references to “those in whose hearts is a disease”
3.22
Figure
Sūrahs with references to nabī “prophet”
5.1
Figure
Phono-semantic matching
6.1
Figure
Sūrahs with references to shayāṭīn (indef.)
6.2
Figure
Sūrahs with references to al-Shayṭān (def.)
6.3
Figure
Sūrahs with references to jinn
6.4
Figure Sūrahs rejecting that Alla¯h has offspring or rejecting that ʿIsa¯ is Alla¯h or the
6.5 son of Alla¯h
Figure
Sūrahs with references to al-Maṣīh
6.6
Figure
Stories of the Fall
6.7
Figure
References to “fighting” (Form III derivatives of q-t-l)
6.8
Figure
The historical relationship of Judaism and Christianity
7.1
 Tables

Table 2.1 Classification of sūrahs by theological characteristics

Table 2.2 Pre-transitional sūrahs by Eschatological Crisis features
Table 3.1 Average Formulaic and Lexical Distance of sūrahs
Table 3.2 Verse length, AFD, and ALF of passages in Q85
Table 3.3 Formulaic and Lexical Distance of passages in Q74
Table 3.4 Exclusion from the “Sacred Mosque”
Table 4.1 Two dimensions of disbelief
Table 5.1 The named messengers of the Qurʾan
Table 6.1 Stories of the Fall of Iblīs
Table 6.2 Stories of the Fall of Ādam
Table 6.3 Summary of forms discussed in chapter 6
 Foreword

The spotlight of this book is on the Qurʾan. Its purpose is to advance our
understanding of the Qurʾan and Qurʾanic Theology in relation to the Bible and
to Biblical Theology. However, it has been deliberately written for a broad
readership, not only for scholars of the Qurʾan but also for others who are
interested in the Qurʾan, its theology, and its treatment of Biblical reflexes.
In today’s world the question of the relationship between the Bible and the
Qurʾan is not merely an academic one. There has been a long history of physical
and intellectual conflict between Muslims and Christians, and the ongoing
realities of jihād, religious persecution, suspicion, prejudice, and fear inevitably
influence theological engagement between Christianity and Islam. There is
considerable psychological pressure in all sorts of directions upon academic
activities which seek to explore the interface between the faiths.
It is regrettable that in some cases western scholars have not maintained
scholarly objectivity in dealing with the Qurʾan. An example is found in Watt’s
revision of Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an. Watt commented that he altered
passages which conveyed Bell’s view that Muḥammad was the author of the
Qurʾan, because he considered it an affront to Muslims’ understanding of
Alla¯h’s authorship:
it has become imperative for a Christian scholar not to offend Muslim readers
gratuitously, but as far as possible to present his arguments in a form
acceptable to them. Courtesy and an eirenic outlook certainly now demands
that we should not speak of the Qur’an as the product of Muhammad’s
conscious mind . . . I have therefore altered or eliminated all expressions
which implied that Muhammad was the author of the Qur’an, including those
that spoke of his “sources” or of the “influences” upon him. (Watt and Bell
1970, vi)
In keeping with standard principles of scholarly objectivity, my intention is to
treat academic matters on the basis of available evidence, without regard for
religious sensibilities.
 The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958, §114) once wrote: “One thinks
that one is tracing the outline of the thing’s nature over and over again, and one
is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it.” He was
reflecting that, far from merely describing the nature of things, propositions say
as much about the language they are couched in as about the reality of what they
purport to refer to. The challenge for any scholar is that a part of what they
“trace” is but the frame through which they are peering. One way to help
overcome this limitation is by using diverse frames, which reveal how an object
looks from different angles.
The past forty or so years of Western scholarship on the Qurʾan have involved
a series of exercises in de-framing and re-framing the text of the Qurʾan. My
own academic training is in linguistics and theology, and this has influenced how
the Qurʾan is viewed in this work. It is my sincere hope that the perspectives
offered here, including some fresh de-framings and re-framings of the Qurʾanic
text, will make an enduring contribution to the larger scholarly endeavor of
seeking to understand the Qurʾan better for what it actually is.
 Acknowledgments

This book has been a good while in the making. Throughout its genesis my
loving wife Debby and many friends sustained me with many encouragements.
I am grateful to Peter Riddell for his invaluable guidance in launching and
pursuing this project.
I am thankful for those who have commented on drafts of sections or the
whole, in various stages along the way. Of course I alone am responsible for the
flaws that remain.
My thanks also go to Andy Bannister for making available textual data files of
Qurʾanic lexical items and formulae, extracted from the Quran Gateway corpus
(qurangateway.org), which provided the raw data used to develop the stylistic
timeline of chapter 3, and also for access to the Quran Gateway site for analysis.
This book was researched and written in the midst of many other duties. I am
grateful to those whose generosity made it possible for me to find the time to
write this book, and in particular to an anonymous donor whose gift helped free
me up from other responsibilities and provided essential resources.
 Notes on Transcription, Qurʾanic Citations,
Terms, and Names

Qurʾanic references are in the form Q2:256, signifying “sūrah 2, verse 256.”
Qurʾanic citations are translated from the Cairo edition of 1924. In translating
the Qurʾan, proper names are presented as transcribed Arabic forms instead of
anglicized Biblical renderings, for example, Ibrāhīm instead of Abraham, and
likewise Allāh instead of God. Allāh is distinguished in translation from ʾilāh,
which is rendered “god” or “God,” depending on the context, for example,
allāhu lā ʾilāha illā huwa “Alla¯h: there is no god except him” (Q2:255), but
wa-ilāhu-nā wa-ʾilāhu-kum wāḥidun “Our God and your God is one” (Q29:46).
In discussing God in Biblical contexts, the expression YHWH is often used, but
God is used when translating Elohim or Θεος in New Testament contexts, and
God is also used in comparative contexts, when both Allāh and YHWH are
encompassed by the reference.
The following English translations are occasionally cited:

• The Koran Interpreted (Arberry 1998).

• The Qurʾan: Arabic Text with Corresponding English Meaning (Assami,
Bantley, and Kennedy 1997).
• The Qurʾan, A New Annotated Translation (Droge 2014).
• The Noble Qurʾan (al-Hila¯lī and Kha¯n 1998).
• The Holy Qurʾan (Yūsuf ʿAlī 1999).

Arabic verbs are cited in their third-person singular form, following standard
practice.
It is common for scholars and others to refer to Muḥammad as “the Prophet
Muḥammad” or just “the Prophet.” He is referred to here as “Muḥammad,” in
keeping with the standard approach used in New Testament scholarship, in
which Jesus of Nazareth is normally referred to as “Jesus,” and the term
“Messiah” refers to an office. However, the human mediator of the Qurʾan is
normally referred to as “the Messenger” (al-rasūl), using the Qurʾan’s own
preferred title. The Qurʾanic Messenger is capitalized to distinguish this person
from the various other messengers referred to in the Qurʾan.
Where quoted citations from other authors include material in rounded
brackets (. . .), this is an inclusion by the translator or cited author. Unless
otherwise indicated, material in square brackets [. . .] is my own addition.
Translations from non-English sources are my own, unless otherwise indicated.
Biblical citations are from the New Revised Standard Version, ©1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The term “the Bible” or “Biblical” is used here in its Christian sense, to refer to
the Old Testament together with the New Testament, in the canon accepted by
the majority of Christians today. The term “Hebrew Bible” is used to refer to the
Tanakh, the books of the Hebrew canon.
Arabic romanization is a modified version of the standard used by the
American Library Association and the Library of Congress. Modifications are:

1. The prime ' is not used to separate adjoined consonant phonemes.

2. Word-initial hamzah (glottal stop) is transcribed as ʾ only where it forms part
of the underlying phonological structure of a word, for example, ʾahl “people,
inhabitants.” The hamzat al-waṣl is normally not transcribed, nor are initial
non-root glottal stops in derivative forms, for example, al-islām (for ʾal-
ʾislām). Hamzah is also not transcribed at the start of proper names which
would otherwise begin with a vowel, for example, Iblīs (for ʾiblī).

Citation forms of words with tāʾ marbūṭah, the feminine singular ending, use the
transcription -h, following the consonantal script of the Qurʾan, for example,
sūrah, Tawrāh.
 List of Qurʾanic Proper Names

ʿĀd place/people to whom Hūd was sent

Ādam Adam
ʿAdn in the phrase jannāt ʿAdnin “Gardens of Eden,” referring to paradise
al-Aʿrāb Bedouins, desert Arabs
ʿArabī Arabic (adj.), the language of the Qurʾan
Badr the place of a battle (Q3:123)
Bakkah place of the “first House” (Q3:96); often interpreted as Mecca
Dāwūd David
Dhū l-Kifl “one with a fold; one with a double portion,” a prophet
Dhū l-
“one with two horns,” traditionally Alexander the Great
Qarnayn
Firʿawn Pharaoh
Hāmān associate of Firʿawn
Hārūn Aaron
Hārūt and
two messenger angels in Babylon (Q2:102)
Mārūt
Hūd a messenger
Iblīs the Devil (see al-Shayṭān)
Ibrāhīm Abraham
Ilyās Elijah; variant Ilyāsīn (Q37:130)
father of Maryam (and by deduction of Maryam’s brother Hārūn—cf.
ʿImrān
Q19:28 and Hārūn’s brother Mūsā). Cf. Biblical ʿAmrām.
al-Injīl book sent down to ʿĪsā, normally translated “gospel”
ʿĪsā Jesus
Ismāʿīl Ishmael
Jahannam hell (from Hebrew gêhinnōm)
Jālūt Goliath
Jannah,
“garden,” “gardens”—paradise
Jannāh
Jibrīl Gabriel
Kaʿbah a sacred place; lit. “cube” (Q5:95, 97)
Lūṭ Lot
al-Madīnah “the town,” taken to refer to Medina
Madyan Midian
Maʾjūj see Yaʾjūj
Makkah Mecca (Q48:24)
Mārūt see Hārūt
Mary the mother of Jesus or Miriam, the sister of Moses, apparently
Maryam
considered to be one and the same person
al-Masīḥ the Messiah, a title for ʿĪsā
Muḥammad praised one, Muḥammad
Mūsā Moses
al-Nār the Fire—Hell
Naṣrānī (pl.
Christian
Naṣārā)
Nūḥ Noah
al-Qurʾan “the recitation,” the Qurʾan
Quraysh a people (Q106:1), the tribe of Muḥammad
al-Raqīm probably Petra (Q18:9)
al-Rass a people (Q25:38; Q50:12)
al-Ṣābiʾūn a community of believers whose identity is unclear and disputed
Ṣāliḥ messenger to Thamūd
al-Sāmirī a “Samaritan” who made the golden calf
al-Shayṭān the Devil (see Iblīs)
Shuʿayb messenger to Madyan
Sulaymān Solomon
Ṭalūt Saul
al-Tawrāh Torah
Thamūd a place and a people to whom Ṣālīḥ was sent, in Northwest Arabia
Tubbaʿ a people or a leader with whom a people, qawm tubbaʾ, is associated
ʿUzayr possibly Ezra
Yaḥyā John the Baptist
Yaʾjūj and
Gog and Magog (Q18:94; Q21:96; Ezek. 38:2–3)
Maʾjūj
Yaʾqūb Jacob
al-Yasaʾ Elisha
Yathrib a town, identified with Medina (Q33:13)
Yūnus Jonah; see Dhū-l-Nūn
Yūsuf Joseph
Zakarīyā Zechariah, father of Yaḥyā (Q19:7) and guardian to Maryam (Q3:37)
 Introduction
A Fundamental Question

This book addresses the question of whether there is a unifying continuity, what
might be called a “family resemblance,” between the Bible and the Qurʾan.
Similarities between these two scriptures are plain enough, but how deep do they
go? Is what the Qurʾan has in common with the Bible enough to make it a
continuous development from the Bible, in some coherent sense, or does the
Qurʾan represent a break from the Bible, a separate, creative development with
similarities which do not run deep? This is the question explored by this book,
and the answer proposed will be that the Qurʾan is a creative theological
innovation, which repurposes Biblical lexical and textual materials to serve its
own distinctive theological agenda.
This introduction defines the problem of the resemblances between the Bible
and the Qurʾan, explaining why this has been such a puzzling challenge for
Qurʾanic studies (§0.2). Next comes a survey of the extent of Christian and
Jewish influences in Arabia around the time of the Qurʾan (§0.3), and an
examination of the Qurʾan’s own awareness of its connection to the Bible,
including controversies around this topic which are reported in the Qurʾan
(§0.4). Some earlier Christian understandings of the connection are noted (§0.5)
and trends in modern scholarly approaches are surveyed (§0.6), including a
warning about the importance of keeping diachronic and synchronic analysis
distinct. Section §0.7 introduces a methodological framework for exploring the
question of whether Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan reflect continuity or
discontinuity, drawing on an analogy from language genesis. A final section
(§0.8) summarizes our core thesis, and provides a road map for the following
chapters.

0.1 THE CONTINUITY THESIS

What might it mean to assert a relationship of continuity between the Bible and
the Qurʾan? There are different understandings of continuity, and it is important
to be precise which one we wish to interrogate. Here are examples of authors
who have emphasized continuity between the Bible and the Qurʾan, in different
ways:

• Block (2014, 308–309) has suggested in The Qurʾan in Christian-Muslim

dialogue that both scriptures are divinely inspired revelation. He concludes
that they are connected by a continuity grounded in what Block refers to as the
“objective” unity of sharing a divine author, the “One True God.”
• Bulliet (2004, 6), in The Case for Islamo-Christian Culture, argued against the
“Judeo-Christian” cultural label, claiming that “the scriptural and doctrinal
linkages between Judaism and Christianity are no closer than those between
Judaism and Islam, or between Christianity and Islam.” Thus Bulliet sees a
comparable continuity between Islam and the Biblical faiths as exists between
Judaism and Christianity.
• Reynolds has argued in The Qurʾan and Its Biblical Subtext that the Bible and
the Qurʾan are “in harmony” with each other, and the Qurʾan is “within the
tradition” of the Bible:

it emerges that Qurʾan and Bible, far from being incompatible or in

opposition, are very much in harmony. . . . The Qurʾan can no longer be seen
as a foreign or irrelevant book. It now appears as a work very much within
the tradition of Biblical literature, and should be considered as such at
universities and seminaries alike. (2010b, 258)
Our intention is to interrogate such claims of continuity. But first we must make
the question of continuity or discontinuity precise. Then we may consider the
evidence in the light of this precision. The approach followed here is to examine
points of similarity between the Qurʾan and the Bible, real and claimed, and
inquire whether these parallels point to a shared religious inheritance, or a
discontinuous genesis for the Qurʾan, which did not arise from an inherited
tradition.
This approach draws on a linguistic analogy, namely a contrast in diachronic
linguistics between inheritance and borrowing. Inheritance and borrowing
produce very different structural outcomes in languages and, in a way which can
be made precise, the distinct results of these two processes are often readily
discernible. Consider the case of English skirt and shirt. Both ultimately come
from Proto-Germanic *skirt-, but one is inherited, and the other borrowed. In the
history of English a regular sound change resulted in all inherited instances of
syllable-initial Proto-Germanic *sk- changing to /ʃ/ (spelled sh-). Examples
include ship, shine, shoe, shoot, and shove. This means that words in English
which commence with sk (spelled sk or sc) can be readily identified as borrowed.
For example, skirt, sky, and skin are borrowed from Old Norse, skiff is from
Lombardic via Italian, and screw is from Old Dutch via French.
Based on the observation that inheritance and borrowing can produce
discernibly different results, we will consider whether the Qurʾan’s many
parallels with the Bible show characteristics of inheritance or borrowing.
The distinction explored here between continuity and discontinuity, between
inheritance and borrowing, is not intended to be polemical. Neither type of
influence is in inherently superior or inferior to the other, and neither provides a
basis for a value judgment. Although Donner (2011a, 37; 2011b, 642) has
pointed out that to propose a relationship of borrowing could be and sometimes
has been taken to imply dependence and therefore inferiority, nevertheless, a
polemical approach could assume continuity just as much as discontinuity.
Indeed, from very early on some Christian writers treated the Qurʾan as a
Christian heresy, a position which presupposes some degree of theological
continuity. McGrath (2009, 83) defines heresy, as understood in the Christian
tradition, as “an intellectually defective vision of the Christian faith, having its
origins within the church.” Such a view of Islam is reflected, for example, in the
writings of Anastasios of Sinai (d. 700 CE), who spoke of the “false opinions” of
Muslim Arabs as if they were some kind of Christian heresy, referring to Arabs
as “Arians” (Griffith 2012, 420). Not much later, John of Damascus (d. 749 CE)
included his famous refutation of the faith of the Ishmaelites in his heresiology,
On Heresies. Concerning Islam, John writes that “a false prophet appeared to
them named Muḥammad, who chanced upon the Old and New Testaments, and
conversing in like manner with an Arian monk introduced a sect (hairesin) of his
own” (Schadler 2018, 219).1 This was also the view of Islam held by the
medieval polymath, Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464 CE), who concluded that
Muḥammad had converted from idolatry to Nestorian Christianity, and after that
developed heretical views (Hopkins 1994, 16). To call Islam a heresy implies
that it arose as a breakaway from within Christianity. Although the label heresy
is pejorative, it presupposes at a degree of continuity between Islam and
Christianity, namely that Islam diverged from Christianity by means of a
sectarian division. It presupposes a shared inheritance.
In this introduction, we will review some of the puzzling questions posed by
the extensive relatedness of the Bible and the Qurʾan, and then consider
responses to those questions found in the Qurʾan itself, from Christian responses
to Islam and from modern scholarship. After this we will explore a linguistic
analogy to propose a methodology for answering our key question of whether
Biblical materials reflected in the Qurʾan show signs of having been inherited or
borrowed.

0.2 THE CHALLENGE OF RELATEDNESS

It is obvious to all that there are similarities between the Qurʾan and the Bible,
and the Qurʾan also shows parallels with extra-Biblical Christian and Jewish
writings. These relationships, their explanation and significance, have been a
continuing focus of debate and inquiry for Muslims and non-Muslims for more
than a millennium. Four examples will suffice to indicate the diversity of these
associations:

• There is a similarity between Q5 of the Qurʾan and the Bible’s account of

when the Israelites refused to enter Canaan (Num. 14). In the Qurʾan Mūsā
(Moses) calls his people to enter the “Holy Land” (Q5:21). The people confess
fear of the inhabitants (Q5:22), but two unnamed men (paralleling Joshua and
Caleb of Num. 14:6–9) speak in favor of entering the land (Q5:23). The people
refuse (Q5:24), and Allāh then forbids them to enter, condemning them to
“wander the earth” for 40 years (Q5:26).
• The Qurʾan’s story of the “companions of the cave” (Q18:7–26) is similar to
the post-Biblical Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Griffith
2008a).
• There is a parallel between the Babylonian Talmud2 and Q5:32. The two
passages, commenting on the murder of one of Ādam’s sons by another
(Q5:27–31), say that killing a person is like killing or destroying “all the
people” (Qurʾan) or “a complete world” (Talmud).
• Our final example is that some figures of speech in the teachings of Jesus have
parallels in the Qurʾan: the camel going through the eye of the needle (Q7:40;
Mt. 19:24), the grain of wheat bearing a hundredfold (Q2:261; Mt. 13:8), and
the mustard seed (Q21:47; Mt. 17:20).

We will use the term reflex to describe a relationship of similarity between

Biblical and Qurʾanic materials, without any implied commitment to a specific
model of how the similarity came about. Thus the story of Yūsuf in Q12 can be
said to be a reflex of the Joseph story in Genesis, and vice versa and the Arabic
word masīḥ is a reflex of the Hebrew māshiaḥ “messiah,” and vice versa.
0.2.1 The Puzzle of Christian and Jewish Influences
The many similarities between the Qurʾan and the Bible are, as Andrae (1936,
91) put it, a “riddle.”3 Actually there is more than one riddle. One of the
Qurʾan’s riddles is the question of the relative influence of Christianity and
Judaism. On the one hand certain doctrinal emphases in the Qurʾan appear to
owe more to Christianity than to Judaism, including the prominence given to al-
Shayṭān (Satan); beliefs about intercession in the afterlife (Bell 1926, 56); the
Qurʾan’s eschatological vision of the future, including Judgment Day; the use
made of the fear of future judgment to motivate good works; and the anti-Jewish
themes of the Qurʾan, which parallel Christian anti-Jewish polemic.4 On the
other hand the Qurʾan includes much more material from the Hebrew Bible than
the New Testament, it rejects or is hostile to core Christian doctrines, such as the
incarnation and the crucifixion, and apart from this it knows almost nothing of
the New Testament beyond the Lukan birth narratives.
Another riddle of the Qurʾan is the combination of remarkably numerous and
diverse reflexes of Biblical materials, as well as extra-Biblical Christian and
Jewish literature, alongside a striking unawareness of basic facts concerning the
sources of this material. Let us consider some examples:

• The Qurʾan conflates Maryam (Miriam), the sister of Mūsā (Moses) and Hārūn
(Aaron) and daughter of ʿImrān (ʿAmrām) (Num. 26:59) with Maryam
(Mary)5 the mother of ʿĪsā (Jesus) (Q19:27–28; Q66:12; Q3:33–36).
• The Qurʾan refers to Hāmān as a senior official of Firʿawn (Pharaoh),
mentioning him six times (Q28:6, 8, 38; Q29:39; Q40:24, 36). The Biblical
Hāmān—the name is identical—was a vizier under Ahasuerus (Xerxes) in
Esth. 3–6.
• In the Qurʾan’s version of the story of the golden calf, someone called al-
Sāmirī “the Samaritan” leads the Israelites into error in the wilderness
(Q20:85–88, 95). However, in the Bible the Samaritans are the remnant people
of the northern Kingdom of Israel. This ethnonym arose centuries after the
time of the Exodus, being derived from the name of the city Samaria (Hebrew
shomron “watch mountain”), which was only founded in the time of Omri (1
Kgs 16:24), around 870 BCE (van Beek 1962a, 1962b).
• In other respects the Biblical timeline has been flattened, so the Qurʾan
displays little awareness of stages in the history of Israel. For example, in
Q5:20–21 Mūsā addresses his people before they enter the holy land, telling
 them to remember that Allāh had appointed prophets and kings among them in
the past, even though in the Biblical account there were no kings of Israel until
some time after Canaan was settled. In spite of this previous account,
elsewhere the Qurʾan describes how the people of Israel, after Allāh had
drowned “Pharaoh’s people” (and not just his army) in the sea, did not move
on toward a promised land, but took over the farms, gardens, and buildings of
the Egyptians, succeeding them (Q44:25–28; cf. Q7:136–37).
• Another puzzle, given the large volume of Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan, is
the surprising rarity of accurate citations of actual text of the Bible (Griffith
2013, 55–56).

These puzzles are a paradox of how to understand both the Messenger (the
human reciter of the Qurʾan) and his intended audience. They beg the question:
By what processes could the Messenger and his audience have become aware of
so much Christian and Jewish narrative material, yet with such gaps in their
Biblical knowledge? The paradox of the audience is at least as significant as that
of the Messenger. Given the often remarked-upon allusive nature of this material
in the Qurʾan, which presupposes familiarity on the part of the audience with the
Biblical references, what kind of audience could collectively be presumed to
know so much, and yet know so little about the Bible at the same time? If the
Messenger and his intended audience had a religious formation in Judaism or
Christianity, why were there such knowledge gaps? On the other hand, if they
did not have a religious formation in either faith, by what means could the
Messenger and his audience have received such extensive exposure to the
Bible’s contents?

0.3 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM IN ARABIA

The religious milieu of the Ḥijāz, in which the Qurʾan reportedly arose, was well
aware of both Judaism and Christianity and the same was also true of other
regions frequented by Arabic speakers. Finster (2011, 70–74) has provided a
detailed overview of the reported presence of Christianity among the Arab tribes.
By the end of the sixth century CE substantial numbers of Arabs in the Levant,
Mesopotamia, and Arabia had converted to Christianity: Najrān, an important
Arab city 1,000 kilometers to the southeast of Mecca, was predominately
Christian by the time Islam arose;6 the kingdom of Ḥimyar in the south had been
under Christian rule for fifty years during the sixth century (Robin 2012); the
region of Bet Qaṭraye off the East Arabian coast in the Persian gulf had a
Christian presence from the fourth to the ninth century (Witztum 2011, 259); and
Petra, the former Nabataean capital, and later southern capital of the Byzantine
province of Palaestina Tertia, whose influence spread south into Arabia (Nehmé
2017, 149) and north into the Levant, included a Christian community from at
least the third century CE: Asterius, Bishop of Petra, was reported to have
attended the Council of Alexandria in 363 CE (Wace and Piercy 1999, 123).
The datable Jewish presence in the Arabian Peninsula goes back at least to the
first century BCE, both in the Ḥijāz in the north and Ḥimyar in the southwest
(Hirschberg 2007, 294; Hoyland 2011, 110). Muslim Arab historians mention
around 20 Jewish tribes dwelling among the Arabs (Hirschberg 2007, 294). In
the south the Jewish presence had risen to prominence from at least the end of
the fourth century CE (Rippin 2005, 14). The Ḥimyarite kingdom had exerted
influence into the Ḥijāz for several centuries before Islam arose, and a Jewish
monarchy ruled the Ḥimyarites during the fifth century CE.
Ibn Isḥāq attributed the adoption of Judaism by the Ḥimyarite king Asʿad Abu
Karib in the first half of the fifth century to the influence of two Jewish rabbis
from Yathrib (Medina) (Guillaume 1955, 7–11; see also Smith 1954, 462). He
also reports extensive contacts between Muḥammad and the Jews of Medina.
The concept of sectarian competition between monotheistic faiths was also
familiar in Arabia by the time of the Qurʾan. A massacre of Najrān Christians
had been conducted by Dhu Nawās, the Jewish king of the Ḥimyarites, in 523
CE, reportedly in an attempt to compel them to convert to Judaism. Ibn Isḥāq
gives an account of a massacre by fire and the sword of some 20,000 Christians,
associating it with Q85:4–8 (Guillaume 1955, 17). This massacre was also
referred to in contemporary Christian sources.7 In retaliation, the Christian
Ethiopians destroyed the Ḥimyarite kingdom in 525 CE (Smith 1954, 431),
ending six centuries of Yemeni dominance in the region.
According to tradition, Muḥammad was born c. 570 CE, or some 45 years after
these momentous events. Within the ḥadīth and sīrah there are references to
Christians who were known to Muḥammad, endorsed him, and could have
influenced him. One was Muḥammad’s wet nurse, Umm Aymān, an Ethiopian
(Shahīd 2006, 15). Another was the cousin of his wife Khadījah, Waraqah ibn.
Nawfāl, who Ibn Isḥāq described as “a Christian who had studied the scriptures
and was a scholar” (Guillaume 1955, 83, 99, 107). Another was the monk
Baḥīra, who was “well versed in the knowledge of Christians” (Guillaume 1955,
79–81). Mention is also made of a Christian slave named Jabr, of whom critics
of Muḥammad had said “The one who teaches Muḥammad most of what he
brings is Jabr the Christian” (Guillaume 1955, 180).8 There is also a reference in
a ḥadīth to a nameless Christian and one-time scribe for Muḥammad, who had
converted to Islam but then returned to Christianity, and claimed to have been
the source of much of Muḥammad’s knowledge.9 Indeed this idea, that
Muḥammad was receiving help from others, goes back to the Qurʾan itself
(Q25:4–5). The ḥadīths also refer to some Jews who, like Waraqa and Baḥīra,
endorsed Muḥammad (Guillaume 1955, 79, 90, 93).10
All across the Arabic speaking world for the time period in which the Qurʾan
arose, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula, there is
more than enough evidence, from a wide variety of sources, of the potential for
contact between Christians and Jews on the one hand, and the Arabic speakers
who comprised the initial Qurʾanic community on the other. This contact could
have taken the form of side-by-side coexistence, or contact facilitated through
travel, such as trade journeys, or the movement of slaves.
We will now consider the Qurʾan’s awareness of its own relatedness to the
Bible, and the controversies concerning this which are reported in its pages.

0.4 THE QURʾAN’S SELF-AWARENESS OF RELATEDNESS

The Qurʾan itself is aware that it shares an affinity with the “books” of previous
messengers. Indeed this is a core component of the Qurʾan’s message. According
to the Qurʾan, similarities are due to the common source of revelation in Allāh.
This self-understanding is communicated in many places, such as Q26:192–97,
which states that the Qurʾan’s message was a “sending down” which was also
“in” the former scriptures, and as such its authenticity could be discerned by
learned Jews.
The Qurʾan has an ambivalent attitude to these former scriptures. On the one
hand it appeals to their authority to validate its own message. On the other hand,
there are allegations of corruption against them (Lazarus-Yafeh 2000b, 394).
Guided by the teachings of the Qurʾan, Muslim scholars later developed an
understanding that the scriptures held by the ʾAhl al-Kitāb “People of the Book”
(Christians, Jews, and “Sabians”; cf. Q2:62; Q5:69; Q22:17) are corrupted
versions of divinely revealed books once delivered by messengers of Allāh to
their forebears:
The obligation of belief applies to the original revelations, not the various
 scriptures in the hands of non-Muslims, which are textually corrupt in their
present form. (Sheikh ʿAbd al-Wakīl Durūbī, cited in Keller 1994, §u3.4, 811;
cf. Q4:46; Q5:13)
The term kitāb “book” in the phrase “People of the Book” refers to these former
scriptures, as originally delivered by Allāh. In Islamic sciences the doctrine of
corruption of former scriptures is known as taḥrīf “alteration, forgery.”11 To the
extent that these scriptures, although preserved incompletely, may still reflect
elements of previous revelations given by Allāh, common divine authorship is
appealed to by the Qurʾan to account for similarities. However, the Qurʾan itself
advises that in order to gain a true understanding of Allāh’s revelations,
Christians and Jews should now look to the Qurʾan, and to its Messenger,
Muḥammad, who was sent as the final Messenger to humanity to correct and
clear up whatever had been lost from previous revelations, or become confused
(Q16:43–44).

0.4.1 Disputes Reported in the Qurʾan

The provenance of the Qurʾan was already in dispute at the time of its
composition. A key issue was the relationship between the Qurʾan and previous
texts. Conflict over this relationship is a recurring theme of the Qurʾan. One
charge was that the Qurʾan was plagiarized from other sources. There are
references to retorts which had decried recitations of parts of the Qurʾan as
asāṭīru al-awalīna “tales of ancient people,” appropriated from the common
heritage of the audience, who “have heard this already” (Q8:31; cf. Q16:24). The
claim is also made that the Messenger needed help from others, who were more
knowledgeable than him, and were “dictating” the recitations to him (Q25:4–5).
Such passages suggest that the rejecters of the Messenger were claiming that his
revelations were stories recycled from the collective knowledge of the audience.
The insinuation was that the Messenger was drawing on legends, cobbling them
together with the help of others, and repurposing them as alleged divine
revelation. To this charge of plagiarism the Qurʾan responds with repeated
denials, affirming the truth of the Messenger’s revelations (Boullata 1988, 139–
40).

0.5 PRE-MODERN CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDINGS

From the earliest period in their encounters with Islam, non-Muslims were aware
of the relatedness between the Bible and the Qurʾan, and proposed a variety of
theories to account for this. As we have seen, from very early on, some Christian
commentators treated Islam as a heresy which arose from or under the influence
of Christianity. The Risālah or Apology of Al-Kindi, a medieval Arabic Christian
polemical work thought to date from the ninth or tenth centuries CE,12 claims
that Sergius, a Nestorian monk, sought refuge from persecution in Mecca, where
he influenced Muḥammad toward Christianity and made him his disciple. The
Apology further claims that, after Sergius died, two Jews, Abdallah and Kab,
being jealous of the monk’s former influence upon Muḥammad, ingratiated
themselves with him, and tampered with his Qurʾan, interpolating elements from
the Hebrew Bible and Jewish law into it (Muir 1887, 13ff, 70–71).
It became commonplace among Europeans to regard Islam as a concoction of
Muḥammad, compiled with Christian and Jewish assistance. Al-Kindi’s claims
were reechoed, for example, in the acerbic views of William Okeley who
published an autobiographical narrative of his bondage and escape from Algiers
in 1675:
their Prophet was but a Cobler. . . . Mahomet, by the help of Sergius, a
Nestorian Monk, and Abdalla the Jew, had patch’d up a Cento of Jewish, and
Monkish Fopperies, which was now their Religion. (1675, 13)13
The idea that Muḥammad was a “cobbler” was also Luther’s, who opined that
Islam was “a faith woven together out of the faith of Jews, Christians and
heathens” (Luther 1842, 49).

0.6 WESTERN UNDERSTANDINGS IN THE MODERN ERA

A change of tack from the derogatory view of Muḥammad as a “cobbler” was
offered by Abraham Geiger, the founder of Reform Judaism. Geiger’s (1833)
prize-winning essay on the Jewish sources for Qurʾanic materials made a break
with centuries of European commentary, launching modern Western scholarship
on the Qurʾan.14 His encyclopedic command of Rabbinic sources made his essay
a landmark for Qurʾanic studies.

0.6.1 From Muḥammad to the Community

The title of Geiger’s path-breaking essay was “What did Muḥammad take from
Judaism?” This title reflects a perspective which endured throughout the first
century of Western research into Qurʾanic reflexes of Jewish and Christian
materials. Geiger believed that Muḥammad, as the author of the Qurʾan, had a
personal familiarity with Jewish sources and drew directly upon them. In the
spirit of nineteenth-century romanticism, he held a high view of the creative
“poetic” agency of Muḥammad in his intentional “borrowing” from Judaism.
Geiger’s working assumption was that Muḥammad had “the greatest respect”
(1833, 22) for the Jews, and “the fantasy-rich development” of their traditions
“appealed to Muḥammad’s poetic imagination,” so he was “probably keen to
borrow a good deal from Judaism and incorporate it into his Qurʾan” (1833, 23).
For Geiger the question of the relatedness of the Qurʾan and the Bible became:
“How did Muḥammad gain exposure to the teachings of Judaism and/or
Christianity, and what did he do with them?” This turned the problem of Biblical
reflexes in the Qurʾan into a question about its human author.
The formative stages of modern Western scholarship on the Qurʾan followed
Geiger’s approach. Scholars read the text of the Qurʾan as the creative work of
Muḥammad, in the light of external influences which provided sources for his
religious ideas. Reynolds characterizes this trend of scholarship as follows:
this idea was usually connected to the historical principle that Muḥammad
was the sole author of the Qurʾan. This principle, meanwhile, was often
shaded with the conviction that a merchant from an obscure corner of the
Arabian Peninsula was incapable of composing narratives on Biblical themes.
Thus Muḥammad was usually assumed to have borrowed material from Jews
and Christians. The Qurʾan consequently was seen as something of a
scrapbook of earlier religious ideas. (2010b, 35)
Reynolds observed that scholars had long been intrigued by the possibility that
the seedbed of Islam was provided by heterodox Christian or Jewish sects which
sought refuge in the Arabian Desert. They sought to account for the theological
divergence of the Qurʾan from the Bible by the divergence of these sects from
Rabbinical Judaism or Christianity. They imagined that Muḥammad had drunk
from the Biblical wells through heretical straws supplied by these sects.15 This
account could, it was thought, provide a handy explanation for what Reynolds
(2010b, 7) called “the idiosyncratic nature of Biblical material in the Qurʾan.”16
Acceptance of the central role of the life of Muḥammad and his agency in the
genesis of the Qurʾan held sway among Western scholars until the second half of
the twentieth century. A high water mark of the approach which viewed the
Qurʾan through the lens of the life of Muḥammad was the books of Watt (1953,
1956) and Paret (1957). As late as 1961 Paret stated that the “the picture of
Muḥammad that has so far been worked out by European Orientalists is well
founded and can be modified and rounded out merely in matters of detail” (1961,
27).17
From the 1960s researchers’ attention shifted away from Muḥammad toward
the community in which the Qurʾan arose. This shift was spurred on by
skepticism about the standard understanding of Muḥammad’s life, for reasons
we shall explore in §1.3. Wansbrough’s (1977, 1978) application of source-
critical methods to Qurʾanic studies in the 1970s sought to completely
disconnect the text of the Qurʾan, not only from the later tafsīr tradition, but also
from the traditionally accepted scenario in which the Qurʾan is Muḥammad’s
personal text generated first in Mecca and then in Medina in the early seventh
century. Wansbrough proposed instead that the Qurʾan was a much later work,
created in southern Iraq by a community and not a single individual.18

0.6.2 From Sources to the Qurʾanic Milieu

Geiger’s essay had combined a focus on Muḥammad’s authorship with a deep
knowledge of Jewish sources of late antiquity. In the century that followed
Geiger, a series of studies were published studies which sought to source
distinctive features of the origins of Islam in the teachings of Jewish or Christian
sects in Arabia. Not atypical was Schwally’s remark in 1919 that:
Muḥammad knew Judaism and Christianity so well, as was only possible in
Mecca at the time, and became so dependent upon these religions, that there
is hardly a religious concept in the Koran which is not taken from them.
(Nöldeke and Schwally 1919, 121)
The culmination of a century of research built on these assumptions was
Speyer’s (1931) monumental Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran, which
exhaustively documented Biblical correlates of Qurʾanic passages.
In their exploration of sources, scholars have differed as to whether to assign
the greater weight of influence upon the Qurʾan to Christianity or Judaism. The
diversity of theories may be considered a response to the “riddle” of Jewish and
Christian influence in the Qurʾan (§0.2.1). Some scholars followed Geiger’s
emphasis on the contribution of Jewish sources,19 while others have highlighted
contributions from Christianity.20 Still others have suggested the Qurʾan was
influenced by a community of a mixed Christian-Jewish character.21 Over the
past four decades the work of revisionists has offered an array of alternative but
mutually incompatible ways to dispense with the traditional account of the
origins of the Qurʾan.22 What these various models have in common is that they
all assume radically innovative accounts of the context in which the Qurʾan
emerged.
Undoubtedly influenced by pressure from the “disarray” (Donner 2008, 29)
and “chaos” (Neuwirth 2004, 82) caused by the revisionists, the focus in
Qurʾanic research has shifted in the past few decades to the context or milieu in
which the Qurʾan arose in late antiquity. As Reynolds (2008b, 18) put it, there
has been a need for “a new movement . . . at once innovative and cooperative”
which considers the Qurʾan in the light of a re-constructable historical context,
rather than in the light of Islamic sources written centuries after its initial
composition.
In their introduction to The Qurʾan in Context: Historical and Literary
Investigations into the Qurʾanic Milieu, Sinai and Neuwirth describe the
descriptive synchronic goal of this enterprise, in contrast to the earlier emphasis
on treating the Qurʾan as a compilation from prior sources:
what contextual readings of the Qurʾan aim at is not to unmask the Qurʾan as
a mere blueprint of earlier Christian and Jewish “sources,” but rather to
reconstruct, as fully as possible, the cultural lexicon of the Qurʾan’s audience,
i.e., the linguistic and cultural “code” employed by the text—whoever its
author may be—in order to make itself understood. (2011, 15)
In this vein, a series of recent conferences have explored different dimensions of
the context in which the Qurʾan originated.23 Witztum’s 2011 dissertation, The
Syriac Milieu of the Quran is a textbook example of work in the recent mode. He
explores the setting in which the Qurʾan could have derived some of its Biblical
reflexes. Tracing a Christian Syriac influence upon materials from the Hebrew
Bible in the Qurʾan, he argues that the Qurʾan’s treatment of these materials is
more akin to Syriac Christianity than the Judaism of the period. He concludes
that the community of the Qurʾan was “well aware of Christian lore and belief,
but there was also actual interaction between Muslims and Christians” (Witztum
2011, 257), and suggests that the specific means by which Syriac Christian
influences were transferred into the Qurʾan was the public performance of
homilies and hymns.

0.6.3 Literary Theoretical Terminology

There has been a trend in recent Qurʾanic studies to draw on terms from
postmodern literary theory. Intertextuality, a term coined by Kristeva (1969,
1980) is invoked to describe the relationship between the Bible and the Qurʾan
(e.g., Firestone 2003, 10). A difficulty with the use of literary theoretical terms in
reference to Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan is that a clear distinction is not
always maintained between a synchronic semiotic relationship and a diachronic
relationship of cause-and-effect. Literary theoretical approaches are concerned
with semiotics: they analyze the ways in which hearers and readers construct
meanings from texts. For example, the term subtext as used in literary theory
refers to a rhetorical device, namely an unstated but intended meaning implied
by a text.
In the case of the Qurʾan, it is often far from clear that Biblical reflexes
fulfilled a semiotic function at the time of the Qurʾan’s composition which relied
in any way on familiarity on the part of the author or hearer/reader with a
Biblical source. A diachronic cause-and-effect relationship does apply when the
Bible has influenced the form of the Qurʾan across time, but this is not the same
thing as a semiotic device such as a literary allusion, which requires knowledge
on the part of the audience to be an effective communicative device.
Let us consider an example from English. If in my everyday speech I use one
of the idioms that Shakespeare originally coined in The Tempest, such as strange
bedfellows or sea change, it would be wrong to conclude that I was alluding to
The Tempest. These expressions have long since become nativized as part of the
linguistic and cultural code of the English language. No doubt acts of literary
reference have taken place over the centuries past, and still do take place, when
people pick up Shakespeare’s words and link them to their original context,
using them in an allusive fashion. Today, however, most people who use these
particular expressions are just speaking English, not invoking The Tempest,
because the allusions have long since passed into the “code” of English speakers.
In the light of these reflections, a crucial question to be asked in connection with
Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan, such as the reference to a camel going through
the eye of the needle in Q7:40 (cf. Mt. 19:24), is whether they reflected an actual
literary, communicatively “live” reference to a Biblical text, or even to
secondary texts such as hearers’ encounters with Rabbinic or Christian exegesis
(Neuwirth 2014e, 7), or were they simply a deployment of the cultural and
linguistic code held in common by the Qurʾanic community, with no Biblical
reference intended or received?
At times the distinction between synchrony and diachrony can become
confused. For example, Firestone (2003, 2–3) must have been referring to a
diachronic relationship of historical cause-and-effect when he wrote that the
Qurʾan “contains so many parallels with the Hebrew Bible and New Testament
that it could not possibly exist without its scriptural predecessors as subtexts.”
Here he uses the term subtext loosely in the sense of “source materials.” On the
other hand he also uses the term subtext in its usual semiotic sense in the very
same article when he describes the Qurʾan’s references to disasters falling upon
unbelievers as having the “subtext” of pointing to residents in Muḥammad’s own
town (2003, 14), for Muḥammad is telling this parable against his neighbors.
Firestone’s use of subtext to refer to source materials as well as literary allusion
is doubly confusing. In literary semiotics a subtext is a meaning implicit in a
text, not an actual other text. When an earlier text is evoked by a later text, the
earlier text is termed a hypotext (Genette 1982). Genette speaks of the later text
being “grafted” onto the earlier text, by a process of “transformation” in which
the later text evokes the earlier text.
Reynolds has argued that the Biblical-Qurʾanic connection is so strong and
close that research into the Qurʾan should be considered as virtually a
subdiscipline of Biblical studies:
. . . from a literary standpoint the relationship between the Qurʾan and
Biblical literature is significantly closer than that between the New Testament
and the Hebrew Bible. (2010b, 232–233)
Reynolds develops these ideas further in the Qurʾan and Its Biblical Subtext,
where he repeatedly makes use of literary metaphors, such as conversation,
subtext, and harmony, to characterize the relationship between the two
scriptures. However a conversation implies a communication which goes back
and forth in real time; likewise harmony implies two or more musical parts,
working together at the same time; and the concept of subtext, adapted from
literary theory, as we have noted, refers to a meaning which is implied and
intended to be understood without having to be made explicit. These are
synchronic terms, being used to describe diachronic relationships.
Reynolds (2010b, 233) cites Firestone’s diachronic use of “subtext” with
approval, so it is perhaps not surprising that the confusion between synchronic
and diachronic uses of the terminology of intertextuality in Firestone also makes
its way into Reynolds’ works, in which many of his examples of Biblical
“subtexts” in the Qurʾan are not based on any demonstrated audience familiarity
with the proposed “subtext.” Let us consider one example. Reynolds (2010b, 65)
examined the function of the word rīsh “feathers” in Q7:26, in which Allāh tells
humanity “We sent down onto you clothing, (which) covers your shameful parts,
and feathers [rīsh].” He links rīsh to a Talmudic tradition (2010b, 70) that blood
could not have been shed in Eden, since Adam and Eve were vegetarians (cf.
Gen. 1:29–30; 9:3) so, it was proposed, Allāh used feathers rather than skins of
slaughtered animals to clothe Ādam and his wife, reinterpreting Gen. 3:21. This
accounts for the otherwise inexplicable use of the word rīsh in Q7:27. Reynolds
(2010b, 67–71) then characterizes this Talmudic tradition as a “subtext” for the
Qurʾan. However, Reynolds’ explanation for this otherwise puzzling textual
feature of the Qurʾan is an application of what Saussure (1959, 1) called
“philology.” This is an exercise in highly skilled textual paleontology, which
accounts for a fossilized feature of a text that has no obvious active function in
its current position. This particular verse, although it comes after a telling of the
Ādam story, does not actually refer to Ādam and his wife in the Garden. Rather,
it is an observation that Allāh provides clothing to humankind in general—the
“children of Ādam”—as a “sign” for them to heed. The turn of phrase is
characteristic of the Qurʾan’s theology of signs and messengers in their role of
calling people to heed signs from Allāh. In the context of a recitation of one of
the signs of Allāh, the word rīsh “feathers” functions here like a fossil embedded
in a rock: the relationship between Gen. 3:21 or Talmudic literature on the one
hand and the appearance of rīsh in Q7:26 is like that between a long-passed
living thing and its fossil. If Reynolds’ diachronic explanation is correct, the
origin of this textual fossil can be explained by reference to its textual prehistory,
but this relationship of cause and effect need not have made any contribution to
the semiotics of the verse in which it occurred.24 This is a diachronic
relationship, not a synchronic one.
Reynolds (2010b, 129) rightly calls his analytical technique “philological,” for
it is primarily concerned with the history behind the text of the Qurʾan, and not
its communicative function. His findings do establish striking and at times subtle
connections between the Qurʾan and the Bible, generating many valuable
insights. However, the existence of these associations seems insufficient to
support the use of synchronic terms such as “harmony,” “conversation,” and
“subtext” to characterize the relationship between the two scriptures. Exposing
these associations represents a discerning of historical sources, “fossilized”
features which for the most part have become separated from their original
context and are meaningless outside of them. The opacity of many of these
references points to a disconnection between the Qurʾan and its Biblical reflexes,
not to a semiotic continuity.25
It is striking that tafsīr—commentary by Muslim scholars on the Qurʾan—does
not normally look to insights from Biblical studies to explain textual features.
Reynolds has suggested that this was because Muslim scholars were
disconnected from the tools of Biblical scholarship, and thus not equipped to
uncover the kinds of evidence he adduces:
The mufassirūn as a rule did not know the other languages of the Qurʾan’s
historical context, that is, Syriac, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Ethiopic, Pahlavi,
and Ancient North/South Arabian. They were not familiar with the religious
texts of those languages. They did not have studies in front of them such as
Speyer’s Die biblische Erzählungen im Qoran or Jeffery’s Foreign
Vocabulary of the Qurʾan. (2010b, 22; cf. Speyer 1931; Jeffery 1938)
However, there is another possibility that the Qurʾan is semiotically
disconnected from its Biblical reflexes, and its original reciter did not expect his
audience to be able to comprehend these apparent allusions, and may not have
been aware of many of them himself. In this case, these literary allusions are
only apparent to scholars, and not a genuine example of semiotic intertextuality.
The situation is surely as Wansbrough (1977, 20) described it in Qurʾanic
Studies that “scripture was being pressed into the service of as yet unfamiliar
doctrine,” the communicative focus being on the service these materials were
being pressed into. A diachronic explanation for these features does not reveal
meaning as intended by the reciter or apprehended by the audience, but instead
offers an historical account of the sources from which certain Qurʾanic materials
ultimately came. This is an exercise in textual paleontology.
One of the problems with reading of the Qurʾan as a compilation of forms
borrowed from Christian and Jewish sources is that it decontextualizes what is
borrowed, not only from its previous context, but also—and this is more
important—from its communicative context in the Qurʾan. A comprehensive
account of such materials needs to consider context in both directions. The
necessary corrective to the confusion between semiotics and diachronic cause-
and-effect relationships between texts is to attend to the synchronic study of the
Qurʾan.26 This was what Neuwirth (2014e, xx) called for in her acerbic critique
of Reynolds, in which she rejects a form of research in which “the text is
immediately broken down into haphazard textual pieces that only need to be
screened for their Christian essence.”

0.7 METHODOLOGY: THE CREOLIZATION MODEL

We are considering here the Qurʾan’s handling of Biblical materials using a
semiotic systems approach, which treats theological meaning as a crucial aspect
of a synchronic description of the Qurʾan. The approach used here contrasts with
the earlier historical approach of European scholars, exemplified by the
Geschichte des Qorāns series (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 1919; Bergsträsser
and Pretzl 1938), which assumed the basic features of the Islamic account of
Muḥammad and the origins of the Qurʾan and then sought to trace the history of
the development of the Qurʾan within the historical framework supplied by
Islam. Our approach also differs from recent “Qurʾanic milieu” investigations
into the cultural and linguistic systems which applied within the Qurʾan’s
original context. The focus here is on the Qurʾan itself, and its own internally
projected system of meanings, which is referred to here as Qurʾanic Theology,
rather than to the cultural milieu in which the Qurʾan arose. The question being
asked here is to what extent reflexes of Biblical materials in the Qurʾan preserve
theological meanings of the Biblical sources from which they ultimately were
derived, and to what extent they have been “pressed into service” by supplying
them with theological content which conforms them to their Qurʾanic context.
This question bears on the issue of whether the Qurʾan bears a “family
resemblance” to the Bible.

0.7.1 What Metaphor Shall We Borrow?

No less important than the channel by which Biblical reflexes made their way
into the Qurʾan are the principles and means by which the materials have been
adapted and incorporated into their new context. Cook, in an article on the
development of kalām in Islam, puts the question as follows:
[Regarding the question of] the originality of Islamic culture. I subscribe to
the view that the raw materials of this culture are for the most part old and
familiar, and that is in the reshaping of these materials that the distinctiveness
and interest of the phenomenon resides. (1980, 43)
One of the key challenges in understanding the connection—or lack of it—
between the Qurʾan and its Biblical antecedents, is how to conceptualize the
relationship. We will explore how the Biblical reflexes have been accommodated
into Qurʾanic structures through two metaphors.
The Building Metaphor
Kevin McCloud’s Man Made Home is a Channel 4 British television series in
which the presenter first builds a shed in the woods from locally sourced and
recycled materials, and then moves it to the seaside, where he converts it into a
holiday shack. During the course of the series McCloud enthusiastically keeps
“repurposing” materials. For example, he builds a spa bath for his shed in the
woods out of the casing of a plane’s jet engine, and scavenges beams from a
wrecked boat washed up on the beach to build a deck for his seaside shack. Each
time McCloud repurposes materials the new function is quite different from the
old one. The spa bath has nothing to do with flying planes. The deck, while
vaguely nautical in feel, is not a boat.
The metaphor of building from repurposed materials was introduced by
Woodberry (1989) in an evocative article on missional practice, entitled
“Contextualization among Muslims: Reusing Common Pillars.” Arguing that the
pillars of faith in Islam had been derived from models used in Judaism and
Christianity, Woodberry compares these spiritual practices to actual pillars in the
great mosque of Qairawan:
As I stood recently in the great mosque in Qairawan in present-day Tunisia, I
looked at the collection of pillars from various sources that had been
organized together into one harmonious whole. The early Muslim builders
had freely incorporated pillars from previous Christian churches as was also
done elsewhere in the Empire. The columns were modified and whitewashed
so that they would blend into their new home.
These pillars illustrate what also took place in early Muslim religious
observance. What have come to be known as the “pillars” of Islam are all
adaptations of previous Jewish and Christian forms. (1996, 171)
Another image, which Woodberry introduces at the end of his article, is that of
the Hagia Sophia, the great basilica of Constantinople, now Istanbul, which,
unlike the Qairawan mosque, is not constructed from reused building materials
from churches, but is an actual church adapted by being painted over and the
addition of minarets.
A building, created for a particular purpose, can be adapted in two quite
different ways to serve a new purpose. One way is through renovation, by which
a building is varied and even extended while still retaining core features of the
original. An example is the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into an imperial
mosque. A very different way is through demolition and recycling of building
materials—such as the repurposed pillars of the Qairawan mosque in Tunisia. In
the first process one could say that there has been only one building, but it has
changed through renovation into something which is a continuous development
from the older building. In the other process there are two completely different
buildings which share features because of repurposing of building materials.
This will result in points of similarity at a micro level between the new and the
old buildings. For example, a worshipper from the former church might
recognize a brick here or a feature there, such as a pillar, put to a new use in the
new mosque. An informed visitor like Dudley Woodberry might even be able to
recognize the source and original function of recycled items, but there will be no
necessary preservation of structure or of the unifying organizing principles
which coordinated the parts of the former building together in a pattern. The
relationships between components will have been set aside and even destroyed
in the recycling process as new structural relationships are conformed to the
design requirements of the new building. A pillar may still be a pillar, but the
roof it holds up will look completely different, and the pillar will no longer be in
the same relative locations to other pillars that it had before: its structural
alignment in the whole building will be completely redefined. A recycled brick
will be in a different place in the new building, its relationship with surrounding
bricks replaced by new relationships. To apply this analogy to the Qurʾan, we
may ask whether the Qurʾan constitutes an extension of a Biblical faith, or a
repurposing of Biblical materials to construct something quite different.
As we have already noted, everyone agrees that there are Biblical reflexes in
the Qurʾan. The question is how to construe these points of similarity. For
example, does the Qurʾan’s retention of the title al-Masīḥ for ʿĪsā provide
evidence that the Qurʾan has in some sense developed out of a Biblical literary
inheritance? In this case the presence of the form al-Masīḥ in the Qurʾan could
be counted as evidence for continuity. Or is this more like a recycled brick or
pillar, deployed in a new structure, and repurposed to serve a new function
appropriate only to its new context? To answer this question will require an
analysis of the design of the new structure as well as an understanding of the old.
The Language Metaphor
Another useful metaphor is that of a language. Buildings are static physical
objects but a language has dynamic features not unlike a religious tradition: both
religions and languages are social and cognitive constructs. They exist in
people’s minds, and are shared across communities. Both are transmitted from
one generation to the next. Both are produced and maintained collectively. They
have individual components, but also larger organizing systems into which these
components are integrated. Both are shared tools by which communities make
sense of their world.
The structures of a language consist of ordered systems of relationships
between signs and their components. It was Saussure who is credited with
directing the attention of linguistic science to the importance of these structures.
He called the study of these structures synchronic linguistics. In a series of
lectures delivered in 1911–13, and published posthumously in 1916 as Cours de
linguistique générale, De Saussure (1959) faulted previous approaches to the
study of language. He explained that the “grammatical” approach, initiated by
the Greeks, was designed to determine normative forms. Then came the
“philological” approach, which began in the eighteenth century. The purpose of
this approach was not to study language as its “sole object,” but to “correct,
interpret and comment upon written texts,” supported by an “interest in literary
history, customs, institutions, etc.” (1959, 1). After this came the “comparative”
approach to the study of language, begun in the nineteenth century, which sought
“to illuminate one language by means of another, to explain the forms of one
through the forms of the other” (1959, 2). Saussure faulted the comparative
approach because it “did not succeed in setting up the true science of linguistics.
It failed to seek out the nature of its object of study” (1959, 3). The comparative
approach undertook comparisons without adequately analyzing the object of
comparison.
Saussure (1983, 10) argued that the study of langue (“linguistic structure”)—
that is, of formal relationships between linguistic elements—should take “pride
of place” in the study of language: “The linguist must take the study of linguistic
structure [langue] as his primary concern, and relate all other manifestations of
language to it” (1983, 19).
Let us consider how the analogy of language might be applied to the problem
of the origins of Islam, and specifically to the Qurʾan’s temporal relationship to
the Bible. In diachronic linguistics—the study of how languages change and
evolve over time—a key concept is that of family relationship. Two languages
may share a common ancestor, as do French and Spanish, which both came from
Latin. French corps and Spanish cuerpo, both meaning “body” are similar in
form and have essentially the same meaning because they share a common
origin in Latin corpus. This is an inherited similarity.
When two languages derive from a common source they do not merely share
similar words with a common history in a chaotic hotchpotch of similarities. The
similarities will tend to have cognate related structures at every level. The
structural relationship between singular and plural nouns in German, Icelandic,
and English is a case in point. Consider, for example, the words for “mouse” in
the three languages:
The singular and plural forms in these three languages all show an internal
variation in the vowel, which is a shared feature defined in terms of a
relationship between elements in a structural system. The phonologically similar
nouns have inherited a similar morphological system of vowel variations.
Singular Plural
English mouse Mice
Icelandic mús Mýs
German Maus Mäuse

In comparative linguistics, which seeks to trace how languages are related and
the ways they have developed, structural similarities—that is, similarities in
structural relationships within a language—are regarded as particularly strong
evidence of relatedness. To prove relatedness, the main focus of attention is the
comparison of structures, particularly through regular and systematic
morphological and phonological correspondences (Campbell 2013, 111; Ross
and Durie 1996, 6–7). When the history of a language is reconstructed, this is
not done by compiling vast lists of assorted similarities, but by tracing the way
in which the language system as a whole has evolved. Language change and
development is not merely the accumulation of thousands of changes in
individual words: it involves regular adjustments to a whole system which affect
the many elements arrayed in the system. For example, when sounds change
within a language, it is not the case that each word has its own idiosyncratic
history. Rather all words with a particular sound or combination of sounds tend
to change together in a similar way. Consider the case of Middle English long
vowel /u:/. This changed, in what is known as the Great English Vowel Shift, to
/aʊ/: /mu:s-/ became /maʊs/ “mouse,” /hu:s-/ became /haʊs/ “house,” /lu:s-/
became /laʊs/ “louse” and /u:t/ became /aʊt/ “out,” all words with the same
sound changing together in the same way. The change was regular at the
systemic level. Reconstructing the history of languages involves developing
models of such regular system-level changes.
Not all similarities between languages are due to a common inheritance.
Certainly there can be inherited similarities—features which two languages
share because they come from the same original language—but similarities can
also be due to borrowing. A shared feature need not be inherited: it could be due
to borrowing of one language from the other, or they may have both borrowed
from another source or sources. For example, the English word menu was
borrowed from French menu in the seventeenth century, so in this case, the fact
that both languages have this word in common is not evidence that English and
French are connected by a family tree relationship. It is evidence of contact, but
not of a shared origin.
How can we distinguish between borrowed features and inherited features?
Features which are inherited are embedded in cognate structural systems, and
their differing characteristics are the result of consistent system-wide changes. In
contrast, features which are borrowed have been extracted from their original
context and inserted into new, potentially quite different structures. When
something has been borrowed, much can be lost along the way, a process of
attrition which can be entirely individual and specific to the form in question.
Borrowing is characteristically disruptive—even destructive—of previous
structural relationships. It is a process akin to plucking a brick or tile from one
building and inserting it into another. When a word is borrowed, it is uprooted
from its original structural context; it is given a new meaning which may or may
not be similar to the old meaning; its phonological form is conformed, partially
or wholly, to the target language;27 and, set in its new context, it loses its
systemic relationships with other elements in the source language. Consider, for
example, the English word juggernaut. This is a borrowing from Hindi
Jagannāth “lord of the world,” which comes from Jagannātha, a Sanskrit name
for a Hindu god. The English meaning arose from the use of large chariots in
religious rituals associated with “the uncouth idol of this deity at Pūrī in Orissa,
annually dragged in procession on an enormous car, under the wheels of which
many devotees are said to have formerly thrown themselves to be crushed.”28
Here the potentially destructive character of borrowing is apparent: the English
meaning is new, and the original meaning is no longer apparent. Moreover, the
internal structure of the Sanskrit word, which was a compound formed from
jagat “world” and nātha “lord, protector,” was obscured and lost when the word
was incorporated into English.
It is normal for a borrowing process to conform a lexical item to the
phonological structure of the receiving language. For example, the English term
RV (for “recreational vehicle”) was borrowed into Japanese as ārubui,
conforming the—for Japanese—unpronounceable English syllables to a
conventional Japanese phonological structure. Meaning can also be lost or
severely modified when borrowing occurs. Like the sounds which make up the
auditory form of words, meanings do not exist in isolation within a language.
They can be deeply embedded in a particular cultural context, as well as in the
broader semantic structures of a language. When words are borrowed, meanings
can often be completely reinterpreted along with the pronunciation of the word,
to conform a word to the semantic structures and requirements of the target
language.29
It follows from these observations that a borrowed word may be distinguished
by its disrupted structural relationships within the target language, in comparison
to the source language.
We are now ready to consider a key question concerning reflexes of Biblical
material found in the Qurʾan, namely is the material borrowed, or inherited?
Here the terms borrowed and inherited are used in a technical way analogous to
the linguistic sense:30 the question is, do the Biblical reflexes point to an
evolving but common tradition, with some degree of conservative preservation
of systemic structural relationships in which the reflexes are embedded, or to a
disruptive, destructive process of contact between two distinct systems in which
an element from one system has been repurposed to function in a new way
within a different system? And let us be reiterate that there is absolutely no sense
that borrowing is “bad” and inheriting is “good.” This distinction, when applied
here as a question about the genesis of the Qurʾan, is not a moral judgment.

0.7.2 Language Genesis and Contact Linguistics

To speak of borrowing or inheritance in relation to individual words is well and
good, but in the case of the Qurʾan and the origins of Islam, we are talking about
the genesis of a religion, not simply events in the continuing evolution of a
religion. So let us extend our linguistic metaphor to consider the process of
language genesis. The purpose of this comparison is to derive insights from how
a new language can come into being, a process in which a language arises which
did not previously exist and was not derived from a process of inheritance and
evolution from a previous language.
Linguists use the term “language contact” to refer to situations where speakers
of different languages engage with each other. Normally in language contact,
speakers with native proficiency can influence each other’s languages. A typical
example might be normal lexical borrowing from one language to another.
However, in contexts of dislocation of speakers from their native environments
—as, for example, on a slave plantation—disruption to speech communities and
intensive contact can result in the genesis of a whole new language through
creolization.
Creolization is a form of language genesis, which can result in the formation of
a new language. This can happen when the lexical forms of one language are
combined with the grammatical system of another language or language(s).
Consider the case of Haitian Creole, in which most of the vocabulary is
recognizably French in origin, but the grammar—the inner logic and worldview
of the creole—has most in common with the West African languages spoken by
the slave communities among whom the creole first developed (Lefebvre 1998).
Linguists have described the process leading to the establishment of a new creole
as relexification, in which grammatical structures and meanings from substrate
languages are repopulated using phonological forms taken from a superstrate
language. The key point for our consideration here is that the result can be a
massive volume of phonological similarities in forms between the creole and the
superstrate language, which is established through a process of discontinuous
transmission that pairs substrate language grammatical features (syntactics)31
and semantic structures with phonological forms from the superstrate language.
The process works as shown in Figure 0.1.
Figure 0.1 Relexification of linguistic signs.

Virtually all of a creole’s phonological forms can be taken from a superstrate

language. Under such circumstances the superstrate language provides the
phonological forms for the creole lexicon, and the shared semantico-grammatical
worldview of the substrate language (or languages) provides the meanings and
grammar. For example, Haitian Creole combines the grammar and semantic
structures of West African languages with French phonological forms, which
are, however, also somewhat altered to conform to phonological systems typical
of West African languages.
Another example is Solomons Pidgin, a creole which combines the distinctive
grammar and semantics of indigenous Solomon Islands languages with English
phonological forms, altered to conform to Solomons languages’ phonotactics.
Solomons languages share considerable typological similarities—their
grammatical systems are commensurate in many respects—so that it is possible
to speak of a generic Solomons linguistic system, which, aggregated together,
became the substrate for Solomons Pidgin, just as West African languages
provided the substrate for Haitian Creole.
The anthropologist Roger Keesing was doing field research in the Solomons.
He began by learning the Kwaio language, one of the indigenous Solomons
languages. After this he found it incredibly easy to learn Solomon Pidgin
because it followed Kwaio grammar and word meanings so closely:
I had earlier been struck, when I had learned Solomon Pidgin in the 1960s
through the medium of Kwaio, an indigenous language I already spoken
fluently, that this learning task mainly required learning Pidgin equivalents of
Kwaio morphemes. The syntax of Solomon Pidgin was essentially the same
as the syntax of Kwaio . . . The semantic categories . . . corresponded to
Kwaio ones, not English ones; grammatical morphemes corresponded to
Kwaio ones, not English ones. Thus . . . Pidgin baebae corresponded to the
Kwaio marker of future/nonaccomplished mode, ta-, not to English “by and
by.” (Keesing 1988, 1–2)
Here is an example of two parallel sentences in Kwaio and Solomons Pidgin
which illustrates Keesing’s point:

KWAIO
Gila ta-la leka
They FUT-they go

SOLOMONS PIDGIN
Olketa bae-i go
They FUT-they go
“They will go.” (Keesing 1988, 214)

In the Pidgin sentence the phonological forms are all borrowed from English:
olketa < altogether
bae (future marker) < by and by
-i < he
go < go
However, the grammatical structures are typical of Solomons languages.
An important point about this analogy is that creolization can result in
similarities of forms on a massive scale, but not as the result of linguistic
inheritance. Today Haitian Creole is not considered to be a Romance language,
one of the family of languages that developed from Latin; instead it is a new and
distinct creation. The fact that a comparative linguist can easily point out
thousands of similarities between the forms of Haitian Creole and French words
—for virtually the whole lexicon of Haitian Creole has been borrowed from
French—does not establish membership in the same linguistic family as French.
The similarities do not reflect an inherited linguistic system, but massive
borrowing of individual elements, uprooted and separated from the linguistic
system of French. Haitian Creole did not evolve from French, but borrowed
massively from it.
Another important aspect of this understanding of creolization is that the first
generation innovators—the people in whose mouths the new language arose, and
to whose infant children it was transmitted—were not native speakers of the
superstrate language. As non-native speakers they did not acquire an insider’s
knowledge of the superstrate language’s linguistic structures. They were
borrowing superstrate lexical forms as outsiders, from something they only
partially understood, by fitting them into a very different linguistic grid, which
was supplied by their own inherited tongue(s), the linguistic substrate. The
substrate language(s) provided the structural container into which the borrowed
superstrate lexical forms were fitted. So the superstrate features have gone
through a borrowing process, by which they were extracted from the superstrate
language and fitted into the linguistic system of the substrate. In contrast the
substrate features in the creole have an inherited character, preserving aspects of
the linguistic system of the substrate language(s).
Despite the huge volume of French lexical forms which have been
incorporated into Haitian Creole, the genesis of the creole as a distinct linguistic
system took place in the mouths and minds of African slaves, not their French-
speaking masters. It would be a mistake to infer that first speakers of the creole
must have actually been French speakers, on the grounds that only this could
explain the heavy French influence on the new language. The key to the identity
of the initial speakers of Haitian Creole lies in its grammatical and phonological
structures, which are characteristically West African.

0.7.3 Contact Theology

The question we will be exploring here is whether Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan
can be studied as an exercise in “contact theology,” asking whether the Qurʾan
could be the outcome of a process analogous to creolization. We can ask whether
a substrate-superstrate relationship might apply in relationship to the different
religious influences which contributed to the Qurʾan, with Jewish and Christian
references functioning as a kind of superstrate contribution to the emerging new
faith. The analogy of “relexification” in contact theology would be adaptation of
a preexisting theological framework (analogous to the grammar of a language)
which is repopulated with surface forms taken from other religious sources. If
we did find that Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan have the characteristics of
superstrate contributions, this analogy would beg the question of the substrate:
What was the preexisting theological framework into which Biblical reflexes
were fitted? This is an important question, and we will return to it in the
conclusion, noting possibilities for further research. However, here we are
focusing on the logically prior question of whether Biblical reflexes have the
characteristics of borrowed (and thus superstrate) material.
Are there putative cases of religious creolization? As it happens, the creole
context of Haiti provides us with a candidate of a creolized religion. Haitian
Vodou (Voodoo) co-opts Christian saints as names of the lesser deities or spirits
under the supreme God Bondye (from Bon Dieu “Good Lord” in French).
Voodoo rituals include the recitation of European saints’ names, the Lord’s
Prayer, and Hail Marys, all borrowed from Christianity. There is also use of
altars, monstrances, crosses, and votive candles reminiscent of Catholic worship
practices (Blier 1995; Cosentino 1995). Nevertheless, despite these apparent
similarities, the fundamental theological structure of Voodoo remains
recognizably West African, although the spirits’ names, and to a certain extent
the rituals of Voodoo, have been populated with repurposed names of Christian
saints and fragments of Christian rituals.
Further putative examples of creole religions are the cargo cults of the Pacific,
which meld an indigenous “big man” culture and associated ancestor worship
practices with Western consumer goods. Symbols associated with Christianity
and Western society such as crosses or items of technology are integrated by
cargo cults through fetishization and ritual into cultic practices. In the Vanuatu
John Frum cult, John Frum, an American deity (“John From” America), was
said to be a manifestation of Karaperamun, the god associated with a particular
mountain, who would bring prosperity, especially in the form of Western goods
(Guiart 1952; Gregory and Gregory 1984).
 In relation to this analogy we can note that the expression “mixed language” is
often unhelpful and can be misleading for contact linguistics, being too
imprecise and blunt an instrument, because it implies a blending together of two
structural systems, which is not how influence through language contact actually
works. Linguistic systems have too much cognitive inertia and coherence to be
easily blended. Similarly, in the context of contact theology, the term
“syncretism” might be considered equally imprecise and thus uninsightful.
To explore the creolization model for the Qurʾan and its relationship to the
Bible, we will not attempt to develop a specific model of the process of how
particular reflexes of Biblical materials have made their way to the Qurʾan, for
this is unnecessary for the purposes at hand. We will not, for example, be
exploring the liturgical or poetic performance genres of late antiquity in relation
to which the oral recitation of the Qurʾan may have developed, nor the specific
discourse contexts in which borrowing of lexical and narrative elements may
have taken place. Consider the case of the etymology of juggernaut, introduced
above. We can be confident that this is a borrowing from Hindi Jagannātha, and
discern its original structure, noting the structural repositioning of the word
within English that has taken place, without needing to reconstruct the social
contexts in which English speakers were first exposed to this Hindi expression
and the discourse contexts in which they initially began to use it metaphorically
in English. In any case, we lack much of the data needed to reconstruct the
actual processes behind the genesis of Islam with any degree of certainty. We can
gain insight into the context in which these processes took place—the Qurʾanic
milieu—but being able to identify contextual features of the actual process of
borrowing is a far cry from being able to develop a comprehensive model of the
process itself.
In keeping with the linguistic analogy proposed here, we will focus on the
structural relationships of Biblical reflexes within the Qurʾan, and compare these
to their structural relationships within the Bible. The similarity or difference
between these relationships will help clarify whether the shared features have an
inherited (substrate) character, or a borrowed (superstrate) character. If the two
sets of structural relationships are dissimilar, this is evidence of structure-
disrupting borrowing, and a superstrate character, rather than structure-
preserving inheritance.
In this connection, it is instructive to reflect on how a creole appears to
speakers of its superstrate language. Native speakers of the superstrate language
tend to consider the creole as a bowdlerized form of their own tongue, not
realizing that it has a distinct structural system in its own right which has been
deeply influenced by the substrate language(s). They see only strange similarity.
Can a similar category error be seen in the trend of scholarship which sees the
Qurʾan as a kind of bowdlerized Bible, “as a text subsidiary to the Bible rather
than as an original scripture in its own right” (Neuwirth 2014e, xix)?
A criterion for distinguishing inheritance from borrowing is the extent to which
structural relationships are preserved through the process of transmission. The
incorporation of superstrate lexical materials into a creole is broadly destructive
of the systemic relationships of signs in their source context in the superstrate.
For example, the sounds of the borrowed forms are fitted into a completely new
phonological system, and their meanings are also adapted to the demands of the
new linguistic system into which they are placed.
A simple example of how this works with borrowing—though not in a
creolization context—is the transformation of the Arabic words al-kuḥl “the
powder” and al-jabr “reunion of broken parts” into the English words alcohol
and algebra. The distinction between the separate contributions of al- as the
Arabic definitive article and the second element of each phrase was lost when
the expressions were borrowed and compressed into a single word of English.
Nevertheless the phonological forms are preserved as destructured, repurposed,
and reanalyzed features of the linguistic sign. The sounds of the borrowed words
are slotted into new structural relationships supplied by the borrowing language.
For example, in alcohol the Arabic phoneme /ḥ/, which is alien to the English
phonological system, has been replaced by the English phoneme /h/, and the
syllable coda -br in jabr, also alien to English, has been restructured to conform
to English phonotactics, by adding an epenthetic /a/, to give the new syllabic
structure for algebra of /'æl-jə-bra/.
The destructive aspect of borrowing is only ever partial. Borrowed forms
inevitably retain some formal features which can only be explained by reference
to their original source. Algebra still bears a discernible phonological
resemblance to al-jabr. However, such features are preserved as fossilized
features of the linguistic sign in the recipient language, divorced from their
original structural relationships. A speaker of English can be proficient in using
the word algebra without having any awareness or knowledge of its origins in
Arabic.
Where the greatest loss often occurs in linguistic borrowing is lexical meaning
and grammatical function. Phonological structure may also be affected—
depending on the distance between the two phonological systems—but not
necessarily to the same extent. This is seen in both the examples of alcohol and
algebra. A partial phonological similarity is retained, but grammatical structure
has been stripped away completely, and meaning reanalyzed, both processes
being reflected in the repurposing of the definite article when the forms were
reanalyzed into English. Note also that it is immaterial for the argument
presented here whether these terms were borrowed directly from Arabic or via
an intermediary language. It is discerning the outcome of the whole process of
borrowing that we are concerned with.
We are ready now to make an important point, upon which the whole analysis
offered here hinges. Recall that our purpose is to be able to identify whether
Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan are borrowed in a disruptive process in which
structural relations are not preserved, or inherited in a process of change which
preserves structure. If we are to apply this analogy to the question of whether
religious influences are borrowed or inherited, we need to ask what is the analog
of linguistic structure in the context of religions. In particular, what is the
synchronic system or “grammar” of religious texts like the Bible or the Qurʾan?
It is proposed that, in the case of the Bible and the Qurʾan, the analog of
linguistic structure is the scripture’s theology, which is the whole interconnected
web of ideas about God and humankind which establishes the relationships
between different parts of a religious text. The theology of a scripture gives
coherence to the diverse materials throughout its corpus.
This analogy implies that to establish some kind of inherited, genetic
relationship—a relationship of continuity—between two scriptures, such as the
Bible and Qurʾan, it is not enough to establish numerous formal lexical or even
discourse-structural superficial similarities between two passages in the separate
scriptures. Even a massive volume of similarities cannot be sufficient evidence
by itself to prove inheritance, as the analogy of creolization showed. The
minimum that massive similarities prove is that contact has taken place. What is
crucial for demonstrating an inherited relationship is preservation of structural
relationships, in other words, of the theological content of the reflexes, and also
the way this content interacts within the whole theological system in which it is
situated. In the case of the Qurʾan and the Bible, when considering the outcome
of contact theology, we need to understand the theological relationships of
Biblical reflexes in their Qurʾanic context, as well as in their Biblical context,
and to ask whether and to what extent these relationships have been preserved.
In subsequent chapters we will be examining a number of reflexes of Biblical
materials in the Qurʾan, to consider whether there are signs of loss of theological
structures comparable to what we find in lexical borrowing. However, to attempt
this we need to have access to a theological analysis of some key features of the
Qurʾan, as well as a grasp of Biblical Theology.

0.7.4 Creativity and Theological Innovation

A model which distinguishes system-external borrowing from genetic
inheritance must also allow for the possibility of systemic change within an
inherited theological tradition. Theological systems, like languages, are not
static. They evolve and develop in complex ways, so the very fact that
theological changes have taken place is not in itself evidence of disruption to
system-level diachronic continuity.
One of the ways theological change happens is through the development of
new meanings or functions for signs. Often such change can be incremental,
consisting of the addition of a meaning which can exist alongside and in addition
to earlier meanings. This is a normal aspect in linguistic change.
Consider the innovation during the 1960s of a new meaning for the English
word mouse to refer to a computer pointing device. The new meaning was
metaphorical, based on the similarity observed between the device’s attached
cord and a mouse’s tail (Hale and Scanlon 1999, 122). The creative use of
language which leads to such a semantic innovation is distinct from the
repurposing of “borrowing” discussed above, which is destructive of systemic
relationships. Compare the semantic change in the meanings of mouse to the
way juggernaut came into the English language. The process which introduced
juggernaut into English involved a loss of original meaning and phonotactic
restructuring. The situation with mouse was quite different. Speakers of English
can still readily identify a computer mouse as a metaphorical extension from the
primary meaning of mouse, and the primary meaning has not been erased by the
addition of a new meaning. The outcome is not replacement of one meaning by
another, but polysemy. Moreover, mouse in its new meaning retains all the
phonological and grammatical features it had before, including its irregular
plural mice.
This example is analogous to innovative readings of passages of scripture
which can arise within a religious tradition. Consider, for example, the New
Testament citation of Jer. 31:15 by Matthew: “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to
be comforted, because they are no more” (Mt. 2:18). In its context in Matthew,
this citation is made to support an observation that “what was said through the
prophet Jeremiah” prophetically anticipated Herod’s massacre of the infants.
However, in its original context the Jeremiah passage is not presented as a
prophecy at all, but as an evocative poetic lament over the deportation of Jews
into exile by the Babylonians along the Jerusalem road.32 Matthew here is
attributing a new, prophetic meaning to Jer. 31:15, a text not originally presented
as a prophecy. Matthew’s reading of Jer. 31:15 does not replace or obliterate the
plain meaning of the original text, which remained available to communities of
believers. The creativity involved in this interpretation did not involve a loss of
structure or meaning comparable to that of juggernaut, but is comparable to the
development of an additional, polysemous meaning for mouse.
One of the implications of creative reframing of theological meaning within a
religious tradition is that multiple meanings or functions can coexist, without
disruption, and a scriptural tradition can encompass different phases of
theological development, as we shall propose for the Qurʾan in chapter 2.
Another example of development within a theological tradition is the trajectory
of Messianic ideas found in the Hebrew Bible. Ginsberg (2007, 111) identifies a
series of stages in the development of Messianic theology in the Hebrew Bible.33

Stage 1. This is “the doctrine that David’s present position of power will endure
throughout his lifetime and be inherited by an endless chain of succeeding
links in his dynasty” (Ginsberg 2007, 111; 2 Sam. 7; 23:1–5), including
sovereignty over alien peoples (2 Sam. 22:44–51; Ps. 18:44–51; Ps. 2).
Stage 2. This is the “doctrine, or hope, that the House of David would again
reign over Israel as well as Judah, and would again exercise dominion over
neighboring nations” (Ginsberg 2007, 111). It was expressed through prophetic
reinterpretation of Stage 1 texts, and articulated by the latter prophets (Amos
9:11–12; Isa. 11:10; Hos. 3:5; and Ezek. 37:15ff, especially verses 24ff).
Stage 3. This is reflected in Isaiah where there is a shift of emphasis “from the
perpetuity of the dynasty to the qualities of the future king: the foundation of
his throne will be justice, and, finally, he will be charismatically endowed for
sensing the rights and wrongs of a case and for executing justice” (Ginsberg
2007, 111; Isa. 9:1–7; 16:4–5; 11:1ff).

In each of these stages a new theological development builds on preceding ones,

for example, Stage 2 builds on Stage 1 as a restoration of the Davidic dynasty,
and Stage 3 is an elaboration of the attributes of this kingship. This pathway of
theological development is cumulative, with the result that Messiah in the
Hebrew Bible is polysemous, having an evolving range of meanings, with all
three stages of meaning being simultaneously available to readers within the
canon of the Hebrew Bible. The result is a canon which is not univocal, but in
which the layered meanings of Messiah are structurally related and
interconnected.

0.8 OUTLINE OF CORE THESIS AND REMAINING

CHAPTERS
In the chapters that follow it will be argued that the relatedness between the
Bible and the Qurʾan is not due to inheritance, but to borrowing, and the Qurʾan,
in repurposing Biblical materials, applies them to serve its own theological
agenda. The arguments from which this conclusion is derived are put forward in
chapters 4–6, but before we can progress to considering these arguments, some
preparatory work is needed.
Chapters 1–3 lay a foundation for engaging in theological analysis of the
Qurʾan, including a method for establishing a chronology for the Qurʾan which
is not dependent upon the biography of Muḥammad.
The status of “theology” in relation to Islam and to the Qurʾan is not
unproblematic. In chapter 1, sections §1.1–§1.2 define the character of Scriptural
Theology are an area of research, and explore possible reasons why the study of
Qurʾanic Theology has been neglected in the past. Section §1.3 explains why it
is reasonable to exclude consideration of and reliance upon the life of
Muḥammad materials (the Sunnah) from an investigation of Qurʾanic Theology.
Section §1.4 outlines the methodological principles followed here for developing
a Scriptural Theology of the Qurʾan. This section explains and illustrates the
difference between analyzing the Qurʾan’s own theological concerns, and the use
of the Qurʾan to answer questions which are not actually in focus in the Qurʾan
itself. Section §1.5 then provides a concise orientation to Qurʾanic Theology in
the form of a summary overview.
The theology of the Qurʾan is not univocal or static, but shows many signs of
internal development. Chapter 2 explores theological developments within the
Qurʾan in relation to a crisis triggered by its eschatology, as well as
consequential changes in its understanding of messengers. Sections §2.1–§2.6
introduce the ideas of the Eschatological Crisis and the Eschatological
Transition, which provides criteria for tracking the Qurʾan’s internal theological
trajectory. This trajectory is important for the development of our argument in
chapters 4–6 because it correlates with changes in the way Biblical reflexes are
handled in the Qurʾan.
Chapter 3 develops stylistic milestones for the chronology of the Qurʾan on the
basis of its theological trajectory. The power of these stylistic and theological
tools is then illustrated by applying them to five sūrahs which have been
previously described as having mixed provenance (§3.2). A final section to this
chapter (§3.3) further illustrates and confirms the value of these metrics to map
some of the features of the course and impact of the Eschatological Transition.
Chapters 4 and 5 are a comparative exploration of two core themes of Qurʾanic
Theology: its monotheism and its doctrine of messengers. These are two aspects
of Qurʾanic Theology often considered to have been based upon or derived from
Biblical precedents. In chapter 4 we explore Qurʾanic monotheism, inquiring to
what extent its characteristics correlate or diverge from those of Biblical
monotheism, and asking whether the parallels and differences in the two
treatments of monotheism can be best accounted for in terms of inheritance or
borrowing. Chapter 5 explores the Qurʾan’s understanding of messengers in
detail, introducing the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism, and asking
whether Qurʾanic Rasulology, including the evolution of this doctrine through
the Eschatological Crisis, shows signs of being borrowed or inherited from
Biblical Prophetology. These chapters conclude that systematic features of the
theological treatments of monotheism and prophets in the Bible do not transfer
over to the Qurʾan, and that theological innovations which play a central role in
Qurʾanic monotheism and Rasulology do not originate from the Bible.
While chapters 4 and 5 take core themes of Qurʾanic theology as their starting
point, chapter 6 explores the treatment by the Qurʾan of eight Biblical reflexes
which are significant for Biblical Theology. It inquires how and to what extent
lexical or narrative Biblicist materials have been incorporated into Qurʾanic
Theology. The question asked in relation to each of the eight topics is whether
the Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan demonstrate preservation of Biblical
theological structure—which would be evidence of inheritance—or loss of
theological structure—which would be evidence of borrowing. The topics
covered are:

Lexical Studies
• Christology (§6.2);
• Pneumatology (§6.3);
• divine presence (§6.4);
 • holiness (§6.5);
• Satan and “satans” (§6.6);
A Mixed Lexical and Narrative Study
• covenant (§6.7);
Narrative Studies
• narratives of the Fall, encompassing sin and the problem of evil (§6.8);
• fighting prophets and warfare (§6.9).

These eight reflexes have been selected because they engage with systemic
connections within Biblical Theology. Our methodology requires us to consider,
in each case, whether the use made by the Qurʾan of these reflexes has preserved
their systemic theological connections. In each case we will conclude that these
connections have not been preserved.
Finally, the conclusion reviews the findings of previous chapters, and suggests
possible directions for further research.

NOTES
1. See also Janosik (2011, 68) and Suermann (2011, 138ff). Although Schadler (2018, 213–214) argues
against the view that John of Damascus thought of Islam as a “Christian heresy,” proposing that he used
hairesin in its philosophical sense of a “school of thought,” John introduced his treatment of Islam by
juxtaposing the mention of Muḥammad’s hairesin with references to the Old and New Testament and an
Arian monk, as if to imply that these were sources drawn upon by Muḥammad. This positioned his
treatment of Islam as derivative, at least in some measure, from Christian origins. Furthermore, Schadler
(2012, 21) reports that a number of John’s contemporaries, including Theodore Bar Koni, Theodore Abu
Qurrah, and Nicephorus of Constantinople chose to address Islam outside the framework of heresiology
used by John, referring to Muslims as pagans.
2. Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin 37a (Epstein 1969).
3. Firestone (2003, 19) has also commented on the perplexing “nature and consistency of the
sometimes strange divergences from biblical texts.”
4. See Andrae (1923–1925, 104–106), Reynolds (2010a; 2010b, 251; 2012), and Witztum (2011, 275–
279).
5. Greek Mariá, or Mariám is the Greek version of Hebrew Miryām. The Septuagint consistently uses
Mariám, while the NT prefers Mariá, but has Mariám as an occasional variant, particularly in the Gospel
of Matthew.
6. According to Ibn Isḥāq, author of an early biography of Muḥammad, Najrān was “at that time the
centre of the Arabs’ country” and the first place Christianity had been established in Arabia (Guillaume
1955, 14–16).
7. See Smith (1954, 451–453) for a discussion of the Martyrium Arethae, the “Book of the Himyarites”
and a letter from Bishop Simeon of Beth Arsham, included in John of Ephesus’ “Ecclesiastical History.”
For an account of another Christian source, the letter of consolation from Jacob of Serugh to the Najrān
survivors, see Schröter (1877). See Monferrer Sala (2010) for a discussion of an Arabic account.
8. Shahīd (2006, 15) identifies Jabr as an Ethiopian and proposes that, in so far as the Qurʾan targets
Christians, these would have been Ethiopians.
9. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī Book 56, Number 814 (Khān 1997, 4:523).
10. Although Ibn Isḥāq suggests that the Arabs of Medina became interested in Muḥammad because of
their previous familiarity with the teachings of Jewish rabbis who lived there (Guillaume 1955, 128),
most of the numerous references in the ḥadīths to Muḥammad’s interactions with Jews living in Arabia
are conflictual.
11. See discussions of taḥrīf in McAuliffe (1991, 168–170), Lazarus-Yafeh (1992, 19ff; 2000a),
Reynolds (2010a), and Sirry (2014, 100ff).
12. See Muir (1887, 13ff) who notes that this work was cited c. 1000 CE by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī.
13. The italics is in Okeley’s original text.
14. See Rippin (2004, ix; 2007), Neuwirth (2012, 238–239), and Sinai and Neuwirth (2011, 3).
15. For a refutation of this idea on rhetorical grounds, see Reynolds (2014).
16. A permutation of this approach is Block’s (2012) argument that the original context of the Qurʾan
was a polemic against Christian heresies.
17. Translation by Sinai (Sinai and Neuwirth 2011, 2).
18. Other works of 1970s revisionists which explored the Qurʾan based on a rejection of the traditional
account of Muḥammad’s life and his role in the Qurʾan’s genesis were Crone and Cook’s Hagarism
(1977), and Lüling’s Über den Ur-Qurʾan (1974).
19. Those who have emphasized Jewish influence include Torrey (1933), St. Clair-Tisdal (1998), Crone
(1987, 248), Cook (Crone and Cook 1977) and Obermann (1941). There has been not been a consensus
about which form of Judaism the Qurʾanic believers may have encountered. See the review of Jewish
influence theories by Mazuz (2014, 1–7), who argues that, judging from Muslim sources, the Jews of
Medina followed Talmudic-Rabbinical Judaism.
20. Christian influences have been highlighted by Bell (1926), Andrae (1923–1925), Mingana (1927),
Grégoire (1930), Lüling (1974), Bowman (1967, 1972, 1982), researchers associated with the Inârah
Institute, and Witztum (2011), who concluded that Qurʾanic references to the Hebrew Bible came via
Syriac Christianity. Andrae also allowed for Jewish influences (1936, 82), and a significant contribution
from Muḥammad’s own personal religious experiences (1936, 63). One Inârah Institute scholar, Ohlig
(2010, 388) has proposed that the Qurʾan’s focus on figures from the Hebrew Bible is an artifact of the
mediating influence of Syrian Christianity “with its strong affinity to the Old Testament, its preference
for the pattern of Moses and the prophets, and so on.”
21. The number of scholars in this third group is large and diverse, including Rudolph (1922), Andrae
(1936), Goitein (1955), Lüling (1981), al-Ḥaddād (1982), Pines (1984), Nevo and Koren (2003, 190ff),
Gnilka (2007), de Blois (2002, 2011), Segovia (2013), and Crone, in two recently published posthumous
articles (2015, 2016). Zellentin (2013, xiii, xvi) considers Judaeo-Christianity to be a “religious
tendency” which endorses both Jesus and Torah-observance simultaneously, without constituting a
separate social identity, and which is traceable in both Jewish and Christian groups throughout late
antiquity. For contrary views, see Stroumsa (2015) and Cameron (2015, 259).
22. See the works of Wansbrough (1977, 1978), Cook and Crone (1977), Nevo and Koren (2003),
Lüling (1974, 1981), and the Inârah scholars, who include Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Volker Popp, the
pseudonymous Christoph Luxenberg, Gerd-R. Puin and Markus Gross. Their findings are reported in a
series of publications of Inârah: Institut zur Erforschung der frühen Islamgeschichte und des Koran
(Inârah: Institute for Research on Early Islamic History and the Koran). See for example, Puin and Ohlig
(2007), Ohlig (2007, 2010), Gross and Ohlig (2008, 2009, 2010, 2012), Luxenberg (2002), Ohlig and
Puin (2009), and see also Ibn Warraq (2014). Concerning mutual incompatibilities of the revisionists’
theories, see the discussion in Reynolds (2008a, 14–15).
23. The published collections of papers from these conferences include Neuwirth and Sinai (2011),
Reynolds (2008b), Reynolds (2011a), and Nagel and Müller-Luckner (2010).
24. As Sinai (2015–2016, 48) puts it, these insights are not due to “the fact that this tradition reliably
preserves the way in which the Qurʾanic proclamations would have been understood by their original
audience.”
25. Neuwirth (2014e, xxxvi, fn 2) rightly rejects Reynolds’ use of the term subtext, because it implies a
“verifiable” (i.e., demonstratively semiotically significant) reference to earlier texts. However,
Neuwirth’s own use of intertext to refer to “works and traditions which seem to be echoed or reflected in
the Qurʾan” reflects a convenient vagueness which is also a long way from the standard literary meaning
of intertext.
26. For an extended apology for this approach, and an exemplification of it, see Sinai (2017b).
27. This conformity need not be complete: borrowings may exhibit phonotactic features which are alien
to the borrowing language (Campbell 2013, 62).
28. Juggernaut. Oxford English Dictionary Online. March 2013.
29. When two languages are very close to each other, sharing similar cultures, cognitive structures, and
linguistic structures, there may be minimal disruption of phonological and grammatical structural features
in borrowing, and under these conditions, it can be difficult to distinguish borrowed forms from
genuinely inherited cognates.
30. Note that the use of the term borrowed here is quite different from its use in Islamic studies, in
which the term is sometimes used to reference the agency of an author appropriating materials from other
sources. Borrowing here simply refers to the taking up of materials in the Qurʾan which ultimately had a
Biblical source.
31. Linguistic signs can be considered a tripartite construct, which Mel’čuk (2006, 384) has called a
“triplet,” comprising, in addition to a phonological form and a meaning, also syntactic features which
determine how the sign can be used in relation to other signs.
32. In 1 Sam. 10:2, Rachel’s tomb is said to be in the territory of Benjamin, and Ramah in Benjamin is
situated along the road the exiles would have taken away from Jerusalem. The literary allusion in
Jeremiah is perhaps also to Rachel’s death when giving birth to Benjamin (Gen. 35:19), since the death of
a mother in childbirth after heavy labor can be associated with intense grief and anxiety on the mother’s
part for the fate of her unborn child.
33. Presupposed by all these stages is a preexisting concept that anointing with oil was a sign of
consecration, on the basis of which the term Messiah became a title for kings, for example, in Isa. 45:1
which refers to Cyrus as the “Lord’s anointed.”
 Chapter 1

Preliminaries to a Qurʾanic Theology

A central question addressed here is whether there is a deep continuity between

the Bible and the Qurʾan. A key issue in exploring this question is the
theological function of Biblical reflexes within the Qurʾan: do Biblical reflexes
in the Qurʾan manifest retention of Biblical theological content, or do they
manifest theological repurposing, to serve different theological purposes from
their function in the Bible? In order to explore this question, we need to be able
to refer to the theology of the Qurʾan. However, when Jeffery (1957, 6) surveyed
the state of Qurʾanic studies in 1957, he lamented that “we still have no
comprehensive work on the theology of the Qurʾan.” To be sure, there are works
which deal in part with topics which are relevant to a theology of the Qurʾan.
Examples are Izutsu’s (1964, 1966) exploration of what he called the
Weltanschauung or “worldview” of the Qurʾan, and Andrae’s (1923–1925, 45–
46, 237) exploration of the Qurʾan’s homiletische Anwendung “homiletic
application.”1 Nevertheless, more than half a century after Jeffery’s survey there
is as yet no comprehensive overview which attempts to give a systematic
account of the whole of Qurʾanic Theology. This lack means that we will need to
provide an account of those aspects of a Qurʾanic Theology that are required for
our task at hand.
Ideally, to understand the Qurʾan in its own terms a Qurʾanic Theology is
needed paralleling Biblical Theology. In Christian scholarship the distinction
between Exegesis, Biblical Theology, and Systematic Theology is well known
and established. This chapter begins with a discussion of the meaning of
“theology,” of the place of Biblical Theology within the Christian tradition, and
of the very different place occupied by theological inquiry within the Islamic
tradition. There is also an account of the methodology used here for theological
analysis of the Qurʾan, defining the way textual evidence is used to discern and
define Qurʾanic theological categories.
 1.1 THE ANALOGY WITH BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
From the perspective of Christian tradition, the term for the study of religious
ideas in general, including those found in a text, is theology. In Western
Christianity the academic discipline of theology (or, as it is sometimes known,
divinity) can include a wide range of studies concerned with the coherence of the
teachings of the Bible and the Christian tradition of interpretation and
application of scriptures. A degree in theology could encompass ethics, Biblical
and exegetical studies, pastoral studies, as well as the study of doctrine. Thus it
is customary to refer to the place where these disciplines are pursued as a
“Theological College.”
In the Christian tradition theology has become a cover term for all religious
sciences. It was not always so. The older and original sense of theology
concerned the doctrine of God, which is “theology proper.” This was the sense
of theología famously used by Gregory of Nazianzus in his Theological
Orations (McGuckin 2001, 278),2 and it remains the sense in Eastern Orthodoxy
to this day.
The fact that a term for the doctrine of God has become a cover term for
Christian studies in general reflects the prominence of belief in Christian
discipleship. The core emphasis of Judaism is on discerning and keeping the
commandments, including religious rituals: it is on orthopraxy rather than
orthodoxy (Segal 2002, x). As Solomon (1996, 25, 28) put it in Judaism: A Very
Short Introduction, “the rabbis were less concerned with the precise definition of
correct belief” (cf. also Wyschogrod 1983, 56). After its parting of the ways with
Judaism, and having rejected “law” as the primary constituting feature of
religious identity (Flusser 1984, 96–97), Christians came to be concerned with
defining “right belief” as the basis for relationship with God. The traditional
Christian emphasis3 on orthodoxy rather than orthopraxy was in part due to the
teachings of the New Testament, but was also influenced by the pathway of
Christianity’s development. The apologetic challenge of responding to each new
heresy, and the Greek philosophical climate in which the early church developed,
together helped reinforce the New Testament’s concern with right belief.
In Christianity, the structure of what Christians should believe and the
reasoning behind this became a key focus in the formation and defense of faith.
It is this preoccupation with belief which placed theology in its central place
within Christian studies.
1.1.1 Biblical and Scriptural Theology
In the Western Christian tradition there are distinct levels of inquiry which
together constitute the general enterprise of articulating belief in the light of
scripture. At the micro level, Exegesis is concerned with exploring the meaning
of specific texts in context. At the highest level of synthesis, Systematic
Theology—also called dogmatics or just “theology”—asks, “What should the
church today believe?” “Theology Proper,” referred to above, is a subset of this
third level of inquiry. Systematics is concerned with “that shared knowledge and
faith which unites us into a church” (Schlatter 1973, 119) or, as Barth (1975, 16)
famously put it, “Dogmatics as such does not ask what the apostles and prophets
said but what we must say on the basis of the apostles and prophets.” Systematic
Theology draws authority from the Bible, but it is also informed by the
interpretive tradition of the church, for “Scripture cannot be understood apart
from the ongoing role of communal tradition” (Brueggemann 1997, 4).
Standing between exegesis and systematics is Biblical Theology, which only
developed as a distinct subdiscipline relatively late, within German protestant
Christianity. Johann Philipp Gabler argued in a 1787 lecture that a clear
distinction should be drawn between Biblical and dogmatic theology.
Recognizing the diversity of the Bible, and the differences in religious ideas
between its various authors, he proposed that logically prior to constructing a
Systematic Theology was the task of determining what authors of individual
books of the Bible have to say:
When these opinions of the holy men have been carefully collected from
Holy Scripture and suitably digested, carefully referred to the universal
notions, and cautiously compared among themselves, the question of their
dogmatic use may then profitably be established, and the goals of both
biblical and dogmatic theology correctly assigned. (Sandys-Wunsch and
Eldredge 1980, 142)
Today Biblical Theology has as its purpose the synthesis of understandings of a
particular book (or family of books) in the Bible, such as the Psalms or the
writings of Paul, in its own terms. Work in Biblical Theology may also address a
theme of scripture, such as covenant or salvation, and the task of discerning a
unifying theme across the whole of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament to
give coherence to the differing theologies contained within them. An example is
Eichrodt’s (1961) Theology of the Old Testament, in which he argued that the
unifying theme of the Hebrew Bible is “covenant.” Eichrodt’s stated goal was
“to construct a complete picture of the OT realm of belief, in other words to
comprehend in all its uniqueness and immensity what is, strictly speaking, the
proper object of OT study” (1961, 25). Another example is the collection of
chapters in Hafemann and House’s (2007) Central Themes in Biblical Theology,
which discuss the unifying Biblical themes of covenant, commands of God,
atonement, the servant of the Lord, the day of the Lord, the people of God, and
the history of redemption.
The idea of a Biblical Theology can be readily generalized to apply to other
scriptures in other religious traditions. We could speak, for example, of a
Qurʾanic Theology, or a theology of the Book of Mormon, or of the
Maha¯bha¯rata. We shall use the term Scriptural Theology to refer to the more
general idea that a text or collection of texts revered as scripture within a
religious tradition can be analyzed in a way analogous to that used in Biblical
Theology.
The following sections discuss some of the issues associated with the status of
a Scriptural Theology—a Qurʾanic Theology—and theology in general—in
Islamic religious sciences, which is by no means comparable to the situation in
Christianity.

1.2 THE STATUS OF “THEOLOGY” IN ISLAMIC SCIENCES

In Islam the religious sciences are structured very differently from in the
Christian tradition. What is striking about traditional distinctions of Islamic
religious training, as reflected in distinct areas of specialization within higher
institutes of Islamic learning, is that there is no overarching disciplinary project
devoted to articulating what Muslims believe, which carries anything like the
weight as “theology” in Christian studies. Among the Islamic sciences the
premiere label co-opted as an umbrella term for all studies of the nature and
essence of the religion is sharīʿah. Thus Gardet (1986b, 1147) states, “in the
universities of Muslim countries the faculties of religious sciences are called
kulliyyāt al-sharīʿa, a term generally rendered [in English] by ‘Faculties of
theology.’” For example, within the University of Jordan all the Islamic sciences
are housed under the umbrella of a “Faculty of Sharīʿah.” Another example is
the Islamic University of Madinah, which until recently was wholly devoted to
the study of Islam, having five faculties, the first of which in published lists was
the Faculty of Sharīʿah. The other four faculties were Qurʾanic Studies, Ḥadīth
Studies, Daʿwah and Uṣūl al-Dīn “calling to Islam” and “fundamentals of the
religion,” and the Faculty of Arabic.4 None of these five titles approximates the
idea of “theology.”

1.2.1 Kala¯m
The term kalām has often been rendered in English as “theology.” Here we will
consider what kalām is and why it is not relevant for the kind of Qurʾanic
Theology required here. Kalām, which means “speech” or word,” was used to
translate logos in the works of Greek philosophers, in all its meanings, and the
Greek term for “theologians” (theológoi) has sometimes been translated as aṣḥāb
al-kalām al-ʾilāhī “masters of the divine kalām” (Wolfson 1976, 1). However,
within Islamic thought kalām “quickly acquired the senses of ‘conversation,
discussion, controversy’” (Gardet 1986b, 1147). In essence ʿilm al-kalām was
developed as a discursive method of identifying and responding to differences
between Islamic theological schools (Nagel 2000, 84), and kalām discourses are
instruments for maintaining orthodoxy in the face of sectarian disputes. These
discourses take the form of recitals of the attributes of Alla¯h and the attributes
of prophets.
Although kalām has often been translated as “theology” (Wolfson 1976, 2), it
is not treated as a core discipline of Islamic formation in Islamic religious
institutions, and the term could never be used as an umbrella term for all Islamic
sciences in the way theology is used in English. Indeed it is quite rare for an
Islamic higher educational institution to have a “Department of Kala¯m” at all.5
Engagement in the methods of kalām requires the use of reason for intellectual
exploration, but this has been actively discouraged by some respected Muslim
jurisprudents as a dangerous distraction from the obligation of Muslims to focus
on obedience (Abrahamov 1998, 27ff). For some scholars the practice of kalām
also became associated with the heretical muʿtazilah school, so when the
jurisprudent al-Shāfiʿī spoke of the ahl al-kalām “people of the kalām” this was
intended as a term of derogation (Wolfson 1976, 29). Al-Ghaza¯lī, after devoting
considerable effort to studying kalām himself, warned others against it:
Take it, then, from one who has familiarized himself with disputation [kalām]
and, after a careful study and a thorough investigation of it . . . has come to
dislike it, and has ascertained that the road to the realities of knowledge is
closed from this direction. . . . It has only one benefit: it preserves the creed
for the common folk . . . . (Faris 1999, 2.27–2.28).
A Christian analogue to al-Ghaza¯lī’s position would be to assert that
confessional statements or catechisms are useful to instruct believers in which
they must believe, but studying or investigating the theological reasoning behind
them is a dangerous and unhelpful exercise. Such a view, if applied to
Christianity, would be unthinkable for most Christians.
For some orthodox Sunnīs, a beneficial purpose of kalām has been to define
what Muslims must believe so they receive guidance to stay on the straight path.
As Keller (2005) explained, “Islamic theology [kalām] is based on an ethical
rather than speculative imperative,” the purpose being to clarify a Muslim’s duty
to believe as an act of obedience, not to provide a framework for reasoned
exploration of belief by believers. This is not about Anselm’s motto “faith
seeking understanding,” but “faith seeking obedience.”
In the mainstream of Islamic thought, sectarian theology has often been treated
as the handmaiden of jurisprudence. In practice the purpose of making
theological distinctions was to determine what was heresy, so that heretics could
be distinguished, as a jurisprudential question, and believers could dissociate
themselves from them and their practices. This explains Watt’s (1962, xii)
observation that creedal statements are regularly included in works of
jurisprudence “since it was a ‘legal’ obligation (according to the sharīʿah) to
believe certain doctrines and profess them publicly.”
In conclusion, the traditional Islamic discipline of kalām cannot generate the
tools needed for the kind of reasoned exposition of Qurʾanic Theology needed
here, because kalām is about defining what Muslims must believe, not what the
Qurʾan says.

1.2.2 Western Treatments of Islamic “Theology”

When Western scholars write about “Islamic theology” there is no consensus
about what this phrase means. Some scholars have used the phrase “Islamic
theology” or “Muslim theology” to refer to Islamic sectarian controversies.6 In
such surveys only a handful of theological themes are prominent, such as the
question of whether the Qurʾan is created or uncreated, or the distinction
between Alla¯h and his attributes. These topics are discussed by Western
scholars under the heading of the term theology because they are reminiscent of
topics in the Christian theological tradition, not because they come under a
coherent category within Islamic sciences which is analogous to Christian
dogmatics.
In other ways too, Western scholars have tended to impose an external frame in
their discussions of “Islamic Theology.” An example is the deployment of the
Christian term Heilsbotschaft “message of salvation” by Tilman Nagel to
characterize the purpose of faith in Islam.7 Although the Qurʾan does repeatedly
refer to Alla¯h “saving” (n-j-w) people in various contexts, “salvation” is not a
central metaphor in the Qurʾan to describe the purpose of faith.
Summary comparisons of Biblical and Qurʾanic doctrines have sometimes
been guilty of oversimplification, if not significant distortion. Consider Watt and
Bell’s (1970, 157–158) claim that, “In general the teaching of the Qurʾan is in
accordance with that of the Old Testament. . . . On the other hand, there are
considerable differences between the Qurʾan and the New Testament.” In fact
there are major Qurʾanic doctrines which are emphasized on almost every page,
such as belief in the resurrection of the dead, judgment day, and the torments of
Hell, which have more in common with the New Testament teachings than with
the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand certain central preoccupations of the
Hebrew Bible, such as divine holiness, the personal presence of YHWH, and
covenantal theology—including the covenantal loving-kindness of YHWH
(ḥesed)—are barely reflected in the pages of the Qurʾan.
In reality there is no traditional Islamic discipline which can readily be
translated as “theology,” neither in a sense that encompasses the whole of
systematics, nor as a broader cover term for the Islamic sciences, nor in the sense
of a Scriptural Theology. This becomes even clearer when we consider that
many subjects which are dealt with in Christian Systematic Theology—whether
general topics such as the community of faith (the doctrine of “the church”),
covenant, and eschatology, or more specific topics such as warfare or sexual
ethics—have not fallen within the purview of Western scholarly treatments of
“Islamic theology.” Nevertheless, a broader approach to “Islamic theology” than
a focus on sectarian disputes has been taken in a handful of comparative studies
of Islamic theology, mainly conducted from a Christian perspective.8
As we have noted, theology can be used to refer to the whole of Christian
studies, to Biblical Theology, or to Systematic Theology. What we are
particularly concerned with here is to establish a Qurʾanic equivalent of the mid-
tier theological enterprise of Biblical Theology which lies between exegesis and
systematics. We call this Qurʾanic Theology.
Earlier Western scholarship on the Qurʾan—and much contemporary work as
well—has focused on understanding the history of the Qurʾan as a literary text.
This diachronic approach, not conducted under the label of “theology” at all, is
exemplified in the various editions of the monumental Geschichte des Qorāns,
by Nöldeke, with emendations and further additions by Schwally, Bergsträsser,
and Pretzl (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 1919; Bergsträsser and Pretzl 1938). In
the period when these works appeared, the same Religionsgeschichte approach
was dominant in scholarly work on the Bible.
Some studies have addressed what could be called Qurʾanic Theology in the
synchronic sense which is our focus here. There is Chapter 9 of Watt and Bell’s
(1970) Introduction to the Qur’an, which offers a synopsis of a theology of the
Qurʾan, Jeffery’s (1958, 85–154) outline of Islamic doctrines, which is mainly
comprised of quotations from Islamic sources, and Madigan’s contribution on
“Themes and Topics” in the Cambridge Companion to the Qurʾan (2007).
Tilman Nagel’s (2001) Islam: Die Heilsbotschaft des Korans und ihre
Konsequenzen addresses, in concise form, the political and social consequences
of the teachings of the Qurʾan, including implications for Western civilization.
Marshall’s (2014) God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers explores the theological
status of unbelievers in the Qurʾan, and specifically Alla¯h’s treatment of them
in this life.9 The books of Izutsu (1964, 1966), God and Man in the Qur’an and
Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qurʾan use word studies to define what he
calls the “worldview” of the Qurʾan. Firestone’s (1999) Jihad: The Origin of
Holy War in Islam offers a detailed exploration of the important theological topic
of holy warfare. Anne-Boisliveau’s (2013a) Le Coran par lui-même provides a
synchronic account of the Qurʾan’s self-referential metalanguage. Renard’s
(2014) reader of Islamic theology includes a chapter which surveys four
theological themes in the Qurʾan. Riddell (2017) has surveyed thematic
developments within the Qurʾan, focusing on the changing status of the
Messenger, and the Qurʾan’s evolving understanding of distinctions between
believers and disbelievers. Two important recent explorations of aspects of
Qurʾanic Theology are Saleh’s (2016) “End of Hope,” which builds on
Marshall’s work to explore the crisis of hope in Q10–Q15 (referred to here as the
Eschatological Crisis, see chapter 2), and Griffith’s (2016) “Sunna of Our
Messengers,” which investigates features of the Qurʾan’s theology of messengers
(discussed here in chapter 5) and contrasts this with Biblical understandings of
prophethood. Finally Sinai’s (2017b) The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical
Introduction offers many insights on the theology of the Qurʾan.
Not all these works, although addressing aspects of Qurʾanic Theology,
consider themselves to be works of theology. For example, nowhere does
Firestone refer to his book on jihād as a study in “theology.” Nevertheless it is a
study of a theological idea in the Christian sense of “theology”—the dogma of
divinely sanctioned war—and in this respect Firestone’s book is a contribution to
Qurʾanic Theology. Likewise Marshall’s God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers,
while it explores the key theme of “unbelievers” in the theology of the Qurʾan,
almost never uses the word theology. The word only appears in the last two
pages, including in the very last sentence, where Marshall (2012, 185) refers in
summary to “Muḥammad’s Theology” and “The Qurʾanic Vision of God.”
Alongside the works of Western scholars there have been increasing numbers
of studies published by Muslims in recent decades on Qurʾanic theological
topics. These are partly a response to the challenge of presenting a reasoned
account of the Qurʾan to Muslims who live in the modern world. The task of
engaging with modernity has required a systematic rearticulation of a Qurʾanic
worldview, and this has stimulated exposition of the Qurʾan’s teachings in ways
which have affinities with Western theological works. This is not because these
authors are writing for Christian audiences, but because they are writing for
people with a modern mindset, including many Muslims, who need to address
intellectual challenges coming from the West.10
What has not happened as yet is the integration of these various resources into
a coherent subdiscipline examining what the Qurʾan actually says about God and
humanity, its main themes and the structure of its thought, so there is as yet no
single major reference work which gives a unified overview of the Qurʾan’s
theological vision.

1.3 A THEOLOGY OF THE QURʾAN, NOT THE SUNNAH

It is an essential point that the analyses of certain aspects of Qurʾanic Theology
offered here are constructed as synchronic, evidence-based descriptions which
rely wholly upon the internal evidence provided by the text of the Qurʾan, and
not on later Islamic interpretations, such as the traditional accounts of the life of
Muḥammad or the commentaries. Marshall (2014, 10) rightly rejects the view of
Smith (1980, 504–505) that the meaning of the Qurʾan “that it is the business of
scholarship to uncover” lies only “in the minds and hearts of Muslims.” There is
a place for engaging with the Qurʾan of faith, but this in no way exempts
scholarship from engaging with the text itself.
This work intentionally does not attempt to interpret the Qurʾan through the
lens of the life of Muḥammad as recorded in the sīrah and ḥadīths, including
traditions concerning the “occasions of revelation” (asbāb al-nuzūl). We agree
with Marshall’s arguments in favor of studying the Qurʾan for its own sake
(Marshall 2014, 16), but go a step further in not relying on any assumptions
about even the most basic framework of the biographical events alluded to in the
text of the Qurʾan. This is in keeping with a considerable body of research on the
origins of Islam which regards the Sunnah as a post hoc development after the
Qurʾan came into being (cf. §1.3.2).
It must be borne in mind that our purpose in deploying Qurʾanic Theology here
is to inquire into the status of Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan. What we require to
know is in what state these reflexes have been incorporated into the Qurʾan, not
what subsequent centuries of Islamic tradition made of these materials. This
requirement means that religious practices which are not readily derivable from
the Qurʾan receive little or no attention here, such as the idea that there are five
“pillars” of faith (arkān al-dīn lit. “corners of the religion”). The teaching and
practice of the five pillars is based on a ḥadīth,11 and while the Qurʾan does
contain references to individual religious practices including zakah, daily
prayers, fasting, and pilgrimage, nowhere does it group these into a single list as
a summary of the religious duties of Muslims.
Islam as a system of belief and praxis is not built solely upon the Qurʾan.12 The
canon of mainstream Islam also includes the Sunnah—the example and teaching
of Muḥammad—alongside the Qurʾan. A great deal of Islamic jurisprudence
including regulations for the most fundamental religious observances, such as
the format of daily acts of worship, are derived from the Sunnah.

1.3.1 The Traditional Account of Islamic Origins

Here we briefly overview the traditional account of the Qurʾan, based on Muslim
understandings of the genesis of the religion, as viewed through the evidence of
the Sunnah.13 The expressions traditional and the tradition are used here to refer
to the broad consensus represented by the mainstream schools of Islam
concerning the origins of Islam and the Qurʾan.
According to the tradition, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Alla¯h ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib
was a Meccan Arab, who lived c. 570–632 CE. Around 610, when Muḥammad
was 40, he began to receive verbal revelations in Arabic from Alla¯h via the
angel Jibrīl. These were received in oral, not written, form, and they continued to
be received up until his death. The revelations were memorized by Muḥammad’s
followers and written down on a variety of materials. After his death they were
compiled into a single collection in 632–634 CE at the order of Abū Bakr, the
first Caliph. A standardization of this text to eliminate variations took place
around 20 years later, under the Caliph ʿUthma¯n.
 Muḥammad experienced opposition in Mecca when he began to share his
recitations, which warned of future judgment in graphic terms. He called upon
the Meccans to accept him as a “messenger” sent from Alla¯h, the one and only
God, to the Arab people, and to renounce idols. Despite persecution Muḥammad
gathered together a small band of believers, who migrated to Medina in 622 CE.
In Medina Muḥammad’s religious movement gained momentum and
flourished, taking on a more organized and regulated character. As well as being
its spiritual leader, Muḥammad became the political and military head of an
emergent theocracy. From Medina the community took up arms to establish and
extend the dominance of their religion. They conquered Mecca, the rest of
Arabia, and neighboring nations, fighting against Arab pagans and subjugating
Christian and Jewish communities to the rule of Islam.
Central to Islamic faith and practice is the example of Muḥammad. It is his
Sunnah, together with the Qurʾan, that provide guidance to believers. In this
connection, it is important to note that the Qurʾan itself, in many and varied
ways, demands allegiance to the Messenger, whose role is one of the main
themes of the Qurʾan. Some of the Qurʾan’s emphases about the Messenger are:
The Messenger’s instructions are Alla¯h’s guidance for the faithful: “whoever
obeys the Messenger has obeyed Alla¯h” (Q4:80; cf. Q4:59; Q24:46–47, 54;
Q33:36; Q58:13);

• Allegiance to the Messenger is allegiance to Alla¯h (Q48:10), and no one is a

believer until they willingly submit to the Messenger’s guidance (Q4:65);
• Those who follow the Messenger will be successful (Q24:52) and counted
among the blessed (Q4:69);
• The Messenger’s manner of life is exemplary (Q33:21), his character is great
(Q68:2–4), and he is not subject to deception or error (Q53:1–3);
• Opposing or disbelieving in the Messenger leads to a terrible fate in this life
(Q8:12–14) and the next (Q4:115; Q48:13; Q72:23).

The canonical texts of Islam, providing the foundation of religious faith and
practice, are the Qurʾan and the traditions (ḥadīths) which bear testimony to the
Sunnah of Muḥammad and his Companions. Also important is the genre of
biography (sīrah) of Muḥammad, which sets the traditions in a biographical
frame. These canonical sources are supplemented by the application of reasoning
(ijtihād) and, for later generations, the consensus of scholars (ijmāʿ). Over time
consensus developed about how to interpret these sources, reflected in the
madhāhib (sg. madhhab) or schools of Islamic jurisprudence. There are four
major Sunnī schools, three major Shīʿah schools, and a handful of other less
widely followed schools.
From the perspective of traditional Islam, the life of Muḥammad as reported in
ḥadīths provides the context for reading and interpreting the Qurʾan. Some
ḥadīths provide specific information about occasions in the life of Muḥammad
(asbāb al-nuzūl) in which particular verses of the Qurʾan were “sent down.”
Chapters (sūrah, pl. suwar) of the Qurʾan are assigned by scholars to different
periods in Muḥammad’s life, such as “early Meccan” or “late Medinah,” and this
provides a biographical context for their interpretation. Muslim scholars set their
reading of particular Qurʾanic passages in the context of the asbāb al-nuzūl. The
tafsīr “commentary” literature devotes considerable effort to linking particular
verses to contexts in Muḥammad’s life. Where ḥadīths provide an explanation of
a verse given by Muḥammad himself, this is considered to have priority over any
explanation which might be offered by the mufassirūn independent of the
ḥadīths. As al-Ṭabarī stated about such verses “the only necessary discussion of
them is that whereby the messenger of God explains his interpretation”
(McAuliffe 1988, 49).

1.3.2 Issues with ḥadīth and Contexts of Revelation

One difficulty with the assumption that Qurʾanic verses should be interpreted in
the light of their asbāb al-nuzūl is that a great many passages of the Qurʾan do
not have a ḥadīth tradition associated with them to provide a context, and when
there is evidence of a context in the ḥadīth traditions, it is often contradictory. As
Firestone (1999, 49) put it, “The problem with relying on [contexts of revelation]
is that they seldom agree and often contradict one another.” Hawting (2015) has
recently published a detailed investigation of Q8, comparing it with the
traditional accounts from the ḥadīth and sīrah of the Battle of Badr incident,
which is the supposed context for the “sending down” of Q8. His conclusion
(2015, 90–91) is that interpretations which link the traditions to Q8 are “forced,”
requiring “considerable effort to establish links between the Quranic text and the
battle.”
A problematic aspect of the relationship between the Qurʾan and the Sunnah is
that while most scholars believe that the text of the Qurʾan goes back to the first
Islamic century, the ḥadīths were only compiled into canonical collections—the
“Six Books”—in the latter half of the third Islamic century. The earliest full
extant biography of Muḥammad is the Sīrat Rasūl Allāhof Muḥammad ibn
Isḥa¯q (d. 151/768). It was composed about 150 years after Muḥammad’s death,
and the edition which survived is the recension of Ibn Hisha¯m (d. 218/833)
most likely dated after 200 AH.14
There are serious methodological difficulties with interpreting the Qurʾan in
the light of texts which postdate it by 200 years. It was Goldziher’s seminal
insight in the nineteenth century that the stories about the life of Muḥammad,
which exegetes had relied upon to explain the Qurʾan, were late creations,
developed to support sectarian agendas:
A more thorough acquaintance with the enormous corpus of ḥadīths should
lead us to skeptical caution rather than optimistic trust with regard to the
materials amassed into scrupulously compiled collections. . . . We consider
the overwhelmingly greater part of it to be the result of religious, historical
and social developments of Islam in the first two centuries. The ḥadīths
cannot serve as (source) documents for the history of the childhood of Islam;
instead they reflect the influence of aspirations which emerged in the
community during its maturer stages of development. (1890, 5)
Lammens (1910) concluded that the sīrah literature was generated by the needs
of Qurʾanic exegesis, and Schacht (1967) developed this idea further in his
research into the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, arguing that the vast body
of traditions about Muḥammad and his Companions were put into circulation
toward the end of the second century AH in order to support a preexisting body
of law:
The traditions from the Prophet and his Companions do not contain more or
less authentic information on the earliest period of Islam to which they claim
to belong, but reflect opinions held during the first two and a half centuries
after the hijra. (Schacht 1949, 143)15

1.3.3 Issues with the Muḥammad Traditions

It is accepted here that the Islamic exegetical tradition, which relies heavily on
the life of Muḥammad for its interpretive framework, is a later construct. Even
the barest outline of the life of Muḥammad—that is, that someone called
Muḥammad was the Messenger figure in the Qurʾan, which was sent down to
him first in Mecca and then Medina—is difficult to reconcile with contemporary
historical sources and the Qurʾan’s own internal evidence.
The Qurʾan itself has scant information on Muḥammad, only mentioning him
by name (written as m-ḥ-m-d) four times (Q3:144; Q33:40; Q47:2; Q48:29), but
this word could also be an epithet meaning “praised one.” Furthermore Q61:6
states that “his name” is Aḥmad “most praised,” which could also be an epithet.
The name Muḥammad is also mentioned surprisingly rarely in contemporary
non-Muslim sources until well into the second Islamic century, and when
Muḥammad first appears, it is not in reference to a religious leader. The earliest
coin to bear the inscription mḥmd dates from 685 CE / 66 AH–689 CE / 69 AH
(Heidemann 2011, 167), a generation after Muḥammad died. There are also two
relatively early Syriac references to Muḥammad, one which has been dated to
637 CE, another to 640 CE, as well as a reference in the Khuzistan Chronicle of
c. 660 CE, which reads “their leader was Muḥammad” (Penn 2015, 23–24, 28,
49). While these references mention the name Muḥammad, they seem to identify
him as the living leader of Arab armies rather than a deceased founder of a
religion. The Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, dated 634 CE states that “a false
prophet has appeared among the Saracens,” and again the reference is to a living
leader (Crone and Cook 1977, 3–4; Nevo and Koren 2003, 208). The next
Christian reference to Muḥammad is John bar Penkaye, dated to 687 CE, but this
time he is identified as a teacher of a legal tradition (Penn 2015, 92; Hoyland
1997, 196). There are numerous monotheistic Arabic inscriptions from the first
few centuries of Islam, but the name Muḥammad only begins to be attested in
dateable inscriptions in the second Islamic century (Nevo and Koren 2003,
297ff).
There is also scant reference to Mecca or Medina in the Qurʾan, or detail about
these places. Mecca is mentioned only once (Q48:24),16 and there is a single
reference to a place named Yathrib (Q33:13), identified with Medina. The
expression al-madināh, which means “the town,” occurs 14 times in the Qurʾan,
of which only 4 mentions relate to a place in the lived context of the Messenger.
Two of these mentions (Q9:101 and Q9:120) contrast the aʿrāb, “Bedouin
Arabs” living in the open country, with “people of the town.” The other two are
references to “hypocrites” being expelled from and returning to “the town”
(Q33:60; Q63:8). It is far from clear from this small handful of mentions that al-
madināh was a place name at the time the Qurʾan was being composed.
Crone (1987, 2008) has pointed out a number of problems concerning the
geography of the Qurʾan. One is the complete lack of pre-Islamic historical or
archaeological evidence concerning Mecca and its environs: there is no physical
evidence that Mecca existed at the time of Muḥammad. It is also striking that
recurring place names in the Qurʾan, Thamūd,17 Madyan (Midian), and ʿĀd, all
refer to localities well to the north of Mecca and Medina.18 Another issue is the
observation in Q37:137–38 that the Qurʾan’s audience can pass by the remains
of Lūṭ’s people in the morning and by night. The Biblical account of the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is associated with the region around the
Dead Sea, so Crone (1987, 163) wryly observed: “One would not have guessed
from this remark that the Meccans had to travel some eight hundred miles to see
the remains in question.” The Qurʾan again implies its audience was closer to the
Dead Sea than to northern Arabia when it says “the people of Lūṭ are not far
from you” (Q11:89). This passage, from Q11, refers to Alla¯h’s destruction of
various peoples, including the people of Hūd, (located at ʿĀd) and the people of
Ṣa¯liḥ (at Thamūd), as well as the people of Lūṭ. ʿĀd and Thamūd are associated
with northern Arabia, but it is only (the ruins of) the people of Lūṭ, much further
to the north, which the Messenger states are “not far from you.” This implies that
ʿĀd and Thamūd—and Arabia—were further away than the Dead Sea from the
site of the Qurʾan’s initial recitation. There is also a reference in a “Meccan”
sūrah directing the attention of believers to the “towns around you” (Q46:27)
which Alla¯h had previously destroyed; however, there are no such ruins of
towns around Mecca. Yet another geographical problem is the reference to the
“Romans” (i.e., the Byzantines, who styled themselves Rômaioi) being defeated
“in the nearest (part) of the land” (Q30:2–3), which could refer to defeats by the
Persians at Jerusalem in 614 CE or Damascus in 613 CE, but neither of these
locations can be considered to be “nearest” to Mecca.
Another issue is that references to agricultural practices and other geographical
features—or the lack of them—cannot be reconciled with a location in the
Arabian Desert.19 The Qurʾan speaks of its audience living and working in an
abundantly fertile agrarian setting (Crone 2005), in which the “Meccan”
associators are farmers who are invited to feast their eyes on ripening crops,
including grain, grapes, vines, olives, pomegranates, and lush foliage (e.g.,
Q6:99; Q13:4; Q23:19) providing fodder for “your cattle” (Q80:24–32), all of
which are a sign of Alla¯h’s benevolent sovereignty.20 Concerning olives, Crone
(2005, 393–394) has pointed out that Mecca lacks the winter chill necessary for
olives to set fruit.
Furthermore, although the Messenger is mocked by disbelievers in a “Meccan”
sūrah for not having a garden to provide him with food, “If only he had a garden
to eat from” (Q25:7–8), Mecca was no oasis, having only a well to sustain it.
Very little apart from saltbush grows there naturally.21 It would normally be
impossible for diverse food crops to grow anywhere near Mecca, and it would be
strange indeed for one Meccan to mock another for not owning a garden.22
There are two further geographical issues which have until now have not
received the attention they deserve in Qurʾanic studies. One concerns the
relationship between the Qurʾan’s eschatology and its geography, and the other
concerns the dialect in which the Qurʾan was composed.
As we shall see (§2.1), the Qurʾan projects a two-stage eschatology, warning of
a “nearer” and a “further” punishment (e.g., Q13:31). The “nearer” punishment
was to be a catastrophic outpouring of divine wrath, which in the past took the
form of earthquakes, fire, drownings, windstorms, thunderbolts, and airborne
projectiles. “Meccan” sūrahs in particular warn of an imminent destruction
which will catch people unawares, and call its audience to repent before the
terrible day comes. These warnings include repeated references to earthquakes
(Q7:72–78, 91, 155; Q29:36–38; Q67:16), and many references to the apparently
very obvious, visible evidence of destroyed towns from past generations (§2.1).
The Qurʾan’s doomsday preaching had potential antecedents in a series of
violent earthquakes accompanied by widespread fire and tsunamis, which killed
many thousands across the Levant in the preceding centuries. We know from
contemporary historical records that c. 363 CE a major earthquake wreaked
destruction all over Palestine, including upon Petra (Brock 1977, 276; Sbeinati,
Darawcheh, and Mouty 2005). The devastation was considered by Christians and
pagans alike to be a sign from God (Levenson 2013). Another major incident
was the great Levantine earthquake of 551 CE, which caused widespread
casualties throughout the region, drowning thousands by tsunami, and after
which Petra, previously the southern capital of Palaestina Tertia, was never fully
restored (Russell 1985, 45). So at the time the Qurʾan was first being recited,
experiences of destructive earthquakes, even to the extent of whole towns
becoming uninhabitable, were part of the living memory of populations in the
Southern Levant. This context could help explain the psychological appeal of the
eschatological warnings of the Qurʾan. However such natural disasters would
not have been part of the experience of Arabs from Mecca or Medina, because
the southern Ḥija¯z is located on the Arabian Plate, which is the most
tectonically stable area in the region, and is shielded from the impact of
earthquakes.23 The worst disaster desert dwellers might fear in Arabia is the
occasional flash flood or windstorm. In contrast, the region along the Dead Sea
Transform fault is highly susceptible to earthquakes (Jreisat and Yazjeen 2014).
While not conclusive evidence, the potential for synergy between recent lived
experience of natural disasters and the eschatological warnings of the Qurʾan
suggests that the Messenger’s initial preaching could have found a more
receptive audience, and a more natural context in which to flourish, in the
Levant rather than in the middle of the Arabian Desert.
Another type of evidence which points away from Mecca to the Southern
Levant is the dialect in which the consonantal skeleton or rasm of the Qurʾan
was recorded. In several respects the rasm differs from the standard for reciting
Classical Arabic24—the difference being signaled by the pointing—and where
there is evidence available from rhyme, it is the rasm and not the pointing which
aligns with the rhyme. Furthermore, as we shall see, in each case the rasm
accords with what we know of the Southern Levantine Arabic.
The search for the point of origin of the Qurʾanic dialect exercised the minds
of Muslim grammarians to a considerable degree, and engaged Western scholars
until around the middle of the twentieth century, when progress seemed to reach
an impasse. Rabin (1955) provides a good overview of the state of the field at
that time. The brilliant and painstaking recent work of linguist Al-Jallad (2015,
2017a) on pre-Qurʾanic Arabic offers tools which cast fresh light on this
important question.
The four features we shall consider here are word-final unstressed inflectional
vowels (iʿrāb); the feminine ending -at/-ah; alif maqṣūrah; and the assimilation
of coronals or “sun letters.” The arguments presented here rely upon two
assumptions: (a) that the spelling of the Qurʾanic rasm was phonemic at the time
the Arabic script became fixed, and (b) the rhyme patterns in the Qurʾan reflect
the phonology of the dialect in which the Qurʾan was first composed and recited.
In the Qurʾanic script, unstressed inflectional short final vowels are marked
with diacritics: they are not represented in the rasm. These endings are known as
iʿrāb because they were characteristic of Bedouin (aʿrāb) dialects, in contrast to
settled urban dialects and the dialects of conquered Arabized populations
(Fleisch 1986, 1250). Although classical pre-Qurʾanic Arabic poetry
incorporated iʿrāb endings in its rhyme schemes (Zwettler 1978, 147), the
Qurʾan does not. This can be illustrated by Q1, the first sūrah, which has a
rhyme scheme in -īn/-īm, but the inflectional endings added after this syllable,
and marked by diacritics, vary between -u, -i, and -a. The irrelevance of case
endings to Qurʾanic rhyme schemes suggests that they had been lost to the
dialect in which the Qurʾan was first recited. Where was this dialect’s native
location? We know that Nabataean Arabic had lost case endings by the end of
the first century BCE (Diem 1973), as had Southern Levantine Arabic by the
sixth century CE (Al-Jallad 2017a, 165),25 so the Southern Levant is a possible
location.
In Nabataean Arabic the feminine ending *-at had changed to -ah in pausal
(non-construct) position as early as the second century BCE (Al-Jallad 2017a,
158–159). This seems to have been a regional feature in the Southern Levant,
following a parallel change which had already taken place in Hebrew. However,
Ancient North Arabian Desert inscriptions do not show this change, retaining -at
in all positions (Macdonald 2004, 498).26 We find that in the rasm of the Qurʾan
the change *-at > -ah is regularized to all positions, including non-construct
contexts. This is restored in non-pausal positions to –at in the standard recitation
of the Qurʾan by the addition of two superimposed dots, the pointing for t over
the h, to give ‫( ﺔ‬tāʾ marbūṭah), these dots indicating that letter hā’ is to be
pronounced as /t/. If we proceed from the assumption that the rasm of the Qurʾan
was written phonemically, this implies that the change *-at > -ah had been
regularized to all positions in the dialect of the Qurʾanic rasm. This is confirmed
by Qurʾanic rhyme patterns, in which the feminine singular tāʾ marbūṭah ending
rhymes indiscriminately with regular -h.27 On the other hand, it never rhymes
with regular t. The evidence of the rhymes indicates that at the time the Qurʾan
was composed “tāʾ marbūṭah” was pronounced as /h/ in all positions. In this
respect the dialect in which the Qurʾan was composed appears to have taken
what was a feature of Southern Levantine Arabic, and regularized it throughout
the paradigm. This regularization represents a more advanced stage in the
replacement of *-at with –ah in all positions, and as such it most likely to have
taken place in the Southern Levant, where the sound change was first initiated
and where it had been established for centuries in Nabataean Arabic.
Alif maqṣūrah is the use in Classical Arabic of word-final dotless yāʾ ‫ى‬
to represent /a¯/. However, Qurʾanic rhyme schemes only
pair alif maqṣūrah with
itself, and never with word final /a¯/ spelled with alif.28 This indicates that alif
maqṣūrah was not pronounced as /a¯/ when the Qurʾan was originally being
recited. Al-Jallad (2017a, 153) has proposed that alif maqṣūrah goes back to an
earlier *-ay, and found in his study of Graeco-Arabica that it “generally agrees
with Qurʾanic orthography” by reflecting an /ē/ pronunciation for earlier *-ay.
For example dhū sharā “Lord of the Mountain,” spelled with a final ‫ى‬, is
reflected in the Graeco-Arabica of the Southern Levant as δουσαρης, in which
the feminine ending -ης most likely stands for Arabic /-ē/ (Al-Jallad 2017a, 154).
Here again, the evidence shows that the pronunciation of Qurʾanic Arabic at the
time of its initial composition aligns with the Arabic of the Southern Levant.
 Our final piece of evidence concerns the assimilation of the definite article al-
to following coronal consonants, this assimilation being marked by a diacritic.
The lack of assimilation in the rasm agrees with the evidence of Graeco-Arabica,
Nabataean, Safaitic, and Ḥismaic scripts (Al-Jallad 2017a, 167; Macdonald
2000, 51), and as such it is a northern Arabic feature.29 This is our fourth piece
of evidence that the Arabic of the Qurʾan was not a Meccan dialect, but instead
conformed to features of the Southern Levantine dialects.
The fourth piece of evidence cited above could be accounted for if the
unassimilated al- spelling reflects either an underlying phonological
representation or the variety of Arabic in which its writing system was first
fixed. However, the other three features of the rasm are aligned with the rhyme
of the Qurʾan, which indicates that the Qurʾan was composed and first recited in
a dialect very close or identical to the variety in which the spelling of the rasm
became fixed. This was mostly likely Nabataean Arabic dialect, that is, the
dialect of Palaestina Tertia. The orthography for Arabic is known to have been
developed from Nabataean Aramaic, but what is crucial for our purposes is that
three distinctive phonological features of the Qurʾanic rasm, reflected in the
rhyme but corrected in the pointing, are features native to Arabic dialects from
the Southern Levant, as shown by Al-Jallad’s (2017) research on Graeco-
Arabica. This implies that the Qurʾan was originally recited in the Arabic of
settled areas in the Southern Levant.
Of course it is not impossible that Levantine Arabic could have provided the
basis for a koiné which was also in use in the Ḥija¯z, but what we can be quite
sure about is that the “clear Arabic” (ʿarabī; Q26:195) in which the Qurʾan was
first recited was not the native dialect of Mecca.30 Later, the modifications in
pronunciation imposed upon the rasm by the extensive use of diacritics served
the grammarians’ desire to conform Qurʾanic recitation to what they considered
was the “gold standard,” namely Bedouin speech (Rabin 1955, 24). This then is
another kind of evidence that decouples the Qurʾan from Mecca and the life of
Muḥammad.
The manuscript record also presents another potential difficulty for the
traditional life of Muḥammad account. There was much media attention given in
July 2015 to the dating of some leaves of a Qurʾanic manuscript held in
Birmingham (Mingana Arabic 1572a), which were originally part of a
manuscript which is mainly held in Paris. Carbon dating placed the manuscript
between 568 CE and 645 CE, with a 95 percent probability.31 This is challenging
for the standard account of the origins of the Qurʾan. Muḥammad was active as a
messenger from 570 to 632 CE, and the text of the Qurʾan was reportedly
standardized under Uthman between 650 and 655 CE. If the Islamic account of
the standardization of the Qurʾan were true, we should expect extant manuscripts
to date from no earlier than 650 CE. The window of time between 568 and 645
CE stretches from before Muḥammad was born, to a time five to ten years before
the Uthmanic standardization, when all other previously existing manuscript
copies were reportedly burnt. The 77-year window of this dating overlaps with
Muḥammad’s lifetime, so at first sight this would appear to be a manuscript that
escaped the fires of ʿUthmān.
Although it was the Birmingham fragment that caught the world media’s
attention, other manuscripts have even earlier dates. In the Great Mosque of
Ṣanʿa¯ʾ in Yemen, a cache of manuscripts was found behind a wall during
renovations in 1972. Some leaves from that cache have been carbon dated, and
the results were reported by Robin (2015, 65). Two leaves dated from 543–643
CE, one from 433–599 CE, one from 603–662 CE, and one from 388–535 CE,
all within 95 percent probability. Robin (2015, 65) reports that the fragment
which dated 388–535 CE was retested by three other laboratories, giving the
results 504–550 CE (1423 ± 23 BP,32 Oxford), 480–546 CE (1437 ± 33 BP,
Zürich), and 410–460 CE (1515 ± 25 BP, Kiel). All these dates are too early to
accord with the traditional account of Muḥammad’s life, who was reported to
have commenced receiving Qurʾanic revelations in 610 CE, which continued
until his death in 632 CE. Folios of the manuscript ms. or. fol. 4313, of the
Berlin State Library, has been dated to 606–652 CE (Marx and Jocham 2015).
The Uthmanic recension replacing all previous manuscripts, which were
reportedly destroyed, was created c. 650–655 CE. The challenge of all these
dates for the traditional account of the origin of the Qurʾan is apparent from
Figure 1.1.33
Figure 1.1 Carbon dating of early Qurʾanic manuscripts.

Carbon dating is of parchment on which a text is written, so what is being

dated is the period when the sheep was alive. This raises the question of how
long parchment was stored before being used. A single Qur’an would have
required the skins from a hillside of sheep, an expensive proposition indeed, so it
could be argued that since parchment was very valuable, it would have been
unusual to store it for a long time. Another possibility is that parchment can be
scraped clean and reused.34 Nevertheless, these dates are startling. What is most
significant is not the existence of one or two exceptionally early dates, but the
fact that in multiple instances carbon dating results cannot be reconciled with the
dating of the life of Muḥammad, let alone the Uthmanic recension: the outer
limit of some dates finish even before Muḥammad’s prophecies commenced.35
 The combined weight of the inconsistencies between historical and
geographical evidence and the text of the Qurʾan seems troubling if not
devastating for the traditional account of the context in which the Qurʾan arose.
In the light of these considerations, a decision has been made here, in developing
a Qurʾanic Theology, not to rely to any degree upon a “Life of Muḥammad”
reading of the Qurʾan. The biographical approach inevitably tends to direct
attention to features of the Qurʾanic text which are highlighted by a life of
Muḥammad reading of the text, while diverting attention away from features that
are either overlooked in the Sunnah corpus,36 or are inconsistent with it. By
setting aside the biographical frame, we are able to focus on the theological
themes of the Qurʾan and their internal development. This is in line with Sinai’s
(2017b, 2) call for a critical study of the Qurʾan, by which he means “to suspend
inherited presuppositions about its origin, transmission, and meaning.” The
decision to set the life of Muḥammad frame aside has meant that the reader will
find minimal engagement here with the Muslim exegetical tradition, which relies
on the assumed validity of this frame.
In the light of the many complications surrounding the history of the Qurʾan,
we prefer to refer to the messenger-recipient of the Qurʾan simply as “the
Messenger” (al-rasūl). This title, which is used 332 times in the Qurʾan, is
preferred over “the Prophet” because it is far and away the most frequent term
for the Qurʾan’s central human protagonist. In comparison, nabī “prophet”
occurs much less frequently (only 75 times), the name (or title) Muḥammad
“praised one” is used only four times, and the name Aḥmad “most praised one”
once. In order to mark his distinctive status “Messenger” is capitalized when
referring to the key protagonist of the Qurʾan.
It must be emphasized that the analyses offered in the following chapters do
not depend upon any assumptions about the identity of the Messenger derived
from sources of the Sunnah, nor about the Qurʾan’s geographical setting. It is
largely immaterial to the theological and linguistic arguments developed here in
which specific temporal and geographical setting the Messenger was active, and
we also do not propose any one specific location as the most likely one to have
hosted the genesis of the Qurʾan.

1.4 METHODOLOGY FOR A QURʾANIC THEOLOGY

This section lays out methodological principles for developing a synchronic
evidence-based Qurʾanic Theology. The theological analyses included in the
following chapters were based upon careful attention paid to every verse and
passage in the Qurʾan. The themes found in these passages were organized into
categories to generate a database for developing a comprehensive Qurʾanic
Theology. The methodology for categorizing and interpreting these themes and
weighing up their theological significance is described here.
Methodology is a critical issue. In Islamic tradition, the task of theological
synthesis has been subservient to the requirements of jurisprudence, so Islam
itself has not produced a methodological consensus on how to “do” Qurʾanic
Theology as a synthetic task, in the sense needed here. Christian theologians
have given much attention to methodologies in their inquiries into the Bible.
They constantly ask, “How is theology rightly done?” However, when Western
scholars have offered overviews of Qurʾanic Theology, such as Watt and Bell’s
(1970) chapter on the doctrines of the Qurʾan, or Nagel’s (2006) chapter on
Qurʾanic Theology in the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan, they do not make their
methodology explicit.
Attention to methodology is necessary to minimize the risk of reading
categories into the Qurʾan which do not actually sit well with the text. It is not
uncommon for Western scholars, when exploring Islamic theological topics, to
structure their discussion around how themes such as “salvation,” “sin,” or
“prophecy” are treated in the Qurʾan, yet these are Biblical theological themes,
and using them as a framing device is not necessarily a helpful window into
Qurʾanic Theology. Also some Western scholarship on the Qurʾan which has
engaged with theological issues has done so piecemeal, in the service of literary-
historical analysis, and not with a view to comprehensive theological analysis
based on a consistent approach.37

1.4.1 Reliance on Qurʾanic Categories

Our first methodological principle is to use Qurʾanic categories for analyzing
Qurʾanic Theology. While it can be tempting to describe Qurʾanic Theology
using Biblical or Christian categories, wherever possible one should use
Qurʾanic terms to develop its theological metalanguage. Consider, for example,
the concept of “salvation.” The verbs najjā and anjā, both meaning “save,”
together occur a total of 60 times in the Qurʾan, mostly in the specific context of
Alla¯h rescuing his messengers from people who reject them, but the derived
nominal najāh meaning “salvation” only occurs once (Q40:41), as a metaphor
for the Garden. Alla¯h is nowhere referred to as “savior” and there is indeed no
word in the Qurʾan which means “savior” or “deliverer.” In contrast, words
based on the root h-d-y, all referring to different aspects of “guidance,” occur
316 times. The noun hudā “guidance” alone appears 88 times. This makes the
concept of guidance, not salvation, a preferred category for describing Alla¯h’s
assistance to humanity.

1.4.2 Prioritizing the Qurʾan’s own Concerns

An evidence-based account of Qurʾanic Theology is not the place to look for
speculation or “daring theological hypotheses” (Cole 2007, 28). Its focus is
squarely on what the Qurʾan itself has to say, and what it is most concerned to
say, so in developing and relying upon a Scriptural Theology of the Qurʾan we
shall endeavor not to stray beyond the bounds of what the text itself is concerned
with. This is a key difference between Scriptural Theology and Systematic
Theology. Systematics often needs to consider questions which would never
have occurred to the original authors, performers, or audience of scriptural texts.
There are questions for which the Qurʾan can be made to provide an answer, but
which are not issues the Qurʾan itself is concerned with. The same is true of the
Bible. For example, Christians might wish to look to their scriptures to help
them respond to topics as diverse as surrogacy, weapons of mass destruction, or
gender reassignment surgery, but none of these are issues of concern for the
books of the Bible. A Qurʾanic Scriptural Theology must give priority to issues
with which the text of the Qurʾan itself is concerned.
To illustrate this point, we will consider one of the more potent tools in the
hands of Muslim commentators, the doctrine of naskh “abrogation” (Burton
1993, 2001). According to this doctrine later verses of the Qurʾan can replace or
qualify earlier ones where there is a conflict.38 For example, Q4:11–12, which
legislates the shares in an estate which must pass to a Muslim’s heirs, is
considered to have abrogated Q2:180 and Q2:240, which had allowed people
discretion to determine their own bequests; and the verse of the sword (Q9:5) is
considered to have abrogated earlier verses which counsel tolerance toward
rejectors (e.g., Q2:109; Q5:2, 8, 13). To justify the doctrine of abrogation,
scholars cite a handful of Qurʾanic verses (Q2:106; Q13:39; Q16:101; Q17:86;
Q22:52–53; Q87:6).
This doctrine can help resolve apparent contradictions in the Qurʾan, as well as
conflicts between the Qurʾan and the ḥadīths (e.g., the penalty for adultery is
different in the Qurʾan and the ḥadīths). However, if there had been no need to
resolve contradictions, it is arguable that the Qurʾan on its own would not have
provided sufficient support to motivate the doctrine. There are considerable
interpretive difficulties with applying these passages to justify the doctrine of
naskh. The six passages address a diverse range of issues, but only one has a
clear focus on replacing one verse by another.

• Q2:106 occurs in the context of extended warnings to the People of the Book
not to reject the Messenger, for Alla¯h is sovereign, and “chooses whoever He
pleases for His mercy, and Alla¯h is full of great favor” (Q2:105). Believers
are warned against the jealousy of the People of the Book (Q2:109), who
resent that Alla¯h’s revelations are being delivered by the Messenger. They are
advised in Q2:106 that Alla¯h can easily bring further revelations which
surpass earlier scriptures.
• Q13:39 occurs in a passage which emphasizes that Alla¯h brings a decree for
every period, the point being that the Messenger is indeed sent by Alla¯h, and
he must be heeded, even by those who had been following earlier revelations,
such as the People of the Book (Q13:36).
• Q16:101 answers rejecters who have called the Messenger a “forger” after
verses were “exchanged.” The Qurʾan’s response is to assert the intention and
authority of Alla¯h in the process of revelation. This is the one instance where
there is a reference to Alla¯h replacing one verse by another.
• Q17:86 makes the point that if Alla¯h had withdrawn his inspiration from the
Messenger then an unguided people would have enjoyed no protection from
Alla¯h’s judgment.
• Q22:52–53 was said by Ibn Isḥa¯q to have been “sent down” after what has
come to be known as the “Satanic verses” episode (Guillaume 1955, 165–167).
The verse states that whenever al-Shayṭa¯n has tried to infiltrate misguidance
into the thoughts of Alla¯h’s messengers, Alla¯h brought them back to the
straight path through clear guidance.
• Q87:6–7 emphasizes the sovereignty of Alla¯h in causing the Messenger to
recite just whatever Alla¯h pleases, and to forget things as Alla¯h pleases.

The function of all these passages is to validate the Messenger in the face of
criticism. In doing this they do not collectively articulate an unambiguous
doctrine of textual abrogation, traditionally understood. Instead they address a
variety of distinct situations, such as resentment against the Messenger’s claim
to be sent by Alla¯h, the status of previous “books,” the necessity of following
the Messenger, the charge that the Messenger is a forger, the dependence of
people upon what the Messenger is bringing, the sovereignty of Alla¯h in
sending revelation, and confidence that Alla¯h will guide the Messenger on the
right track despite al-Shayṭa¯n’s best efforts to lead him astray. In only one verse
(Q16:101) is replacement of one Qurʾanic verse by another clearly in focus.
While the concept of naskh has proved to be an indispensable tool for Islamic
jurisprudence, and it resonates with the general emphasis throughout the Qurʾan
on the sovereign authority of Alla¯h over all things, the application of the
doctrine as an exegetical tool is not strongly supported by the internal evidence
of the Qurʾan. Following the principle of prioritizing the Qurʾan’s own concerns,
one would not be justified in affording naskh a significant place in a Qurʾanic
Theology.

1.4.3 Text Types

The Qurʾan contains a variety of different kinds of textual materials, which are
not all equally significant for its theology. Different types of text in the Qurʾan
have varying relevance for theology. The four main text types39 for the purposes
of theological analysis are:

a. Stories. The Qurʾan itself explains that its stories are to help people
understand and respond to the message: “We have set out for the people in this
Qurʾan every kind of parable so that they may be reminded” (Q39:27; cf. also
Q17:9, 89; Q18:54; Q30:58; Q59:21).40 Some narratives are repeated several
times, such as that of Ādam and Iblīs, but others are told only once, such as
the Yūsuf story, which takes up most of Q12. Some stories have a readily
discernible parallel in Biblical narratives. The origin of others, such as the tale
of the person who passed by a ruined town (Q2:259), seems obscure. Some
stories are as long as a whole sūrah; others take just a few sentences. Stories
are usually presented as if they were already familiar to the listeners. For our
purposes what is important is that they usually have a clear homiletic
application, often consisting of just a single point, which is supplied by the
Qurʾan. For example, one of the narrations of the story of Ādam and Iblīs is
summed up as a warning to look only to Alla¯h for guidance (Q2:38–39).
b. Specific Commands. There is also material scattered throughout the Qurʾan
which gives regulations for the community of believers to follow. Some of this
is related just once, for example, Q24:2–10, which provides principles for
handling accusations of adultery, but some instructions, such as the command
to contribute or spend (anfaqa, for example, Q2:254; Q9:53), are given
repeatedly. These instructions, although they are a crucial part of foundations
 of Islamic jurisprudence, are often of lesser importance for the theology of the
Qurʾan.
c. Commentary on Events. Some textual material refers to events in the life of
the Messenger and his community (e.g., Q48:24–26). Such passages typically
have theological commentary embedded in them, such as “Alla¯h sees what
you do” (Q48:24), “Alla¯h may cause anyone he pleases to enter into His
mercy” (Q48:25) and “Alla¯h knows everything” (Q48:26). Another example
is Q9:1–28, which discusses the repeal of treaties with associators. This
passage is peppered with general statements that occur frequently throughout
the Qurʾan, for example, “Surely Alla¯h loves those who guard themselves”
(Q9:4, 7). A good deal of such event-specific material in the later sūrahs deals
with traumatic events, such as migration to another place, and fighting.
d. Theological Formulae. A major part of the Qurʾan consists of short sayings of
command, warning, encouragement, worship or prayer, many of which are
repeated throughout the sūrahs. A typical example is “Surely Alla¯h does not
guide the people who are disbelievers” (Q5:67). These repeated pithy
statements are among the most theologically rich materials in the Qurʾan,
providing a significant portion of the raw materials for a theology of the
Qurʾan.

1.4.4 Frequency
Not every theological idea found in the Qurʾan is equally salient in the text. It is
not enough that a theological theme is mentioned in the Qurʾan: it is also
important to ask what weight is given to it by the text. One of the most
frequently occurring names of Alla¯h is al-raḥīm “the compassionate.” This and
other derivatives of the root r-ḥ-m appear more than 300 times in reference to
Alla¯h and his attributes, and the high rate of repetition marks compassion out as
an salient attribute of Alla¯h.
Islamic tradition identifies 99 names of Alla¯h, which are derived from
expressions in the Qurʾan, but not all of these are given equal weight in the text,
and a majority is attested only once or twice (Gimaret 1988, 51–84; Böwering
2002, 320). For example, al-quddūs “the holy” appears just twice in reference to
Alla¯h (Q59:23 and Q62:1), and the root q-d-s appears only 10 times altogether
in the Qur’an. It is reasonable to conclude from this low frequency that holiness
is of less theological significance to the Qur’an than compassion (cf. discussion
in §6.5).
1.4.5 Conversational Framing
The Qurʾan presents much of its material as one side of a multisided set of
conversations: a great deal of the Qurʾan is presented, as it were, within
quotation marks. There is a running conversation between Alla¯h and the
Messenger all through the Qurʾan. There are also conversations between Alla¯h
and other human beings, including believers and various kinds of disbelievers
such as Jews, Christians, “associators” and “hypocrites.” Often passages are
introduced with a form of address, for example, “People of the Book!” (Q4:171),
“You who believe!” (Q4:59), or just “People!” (Q4:1). There are conversations
reported between the Messenger and others and between believers and
disbelievers, and there are often rapid switches between different conversations.
There are even conversations where jinn speak to each other (Q72).
The Qurʾan’s audience is given to understand that a good deal of this material
is in response to actual exchanges between Muḥammad and those around him,
with instructions from Alla¯h provided about how the Messenger or believers
should respond, such as, “They ask you about the booty. Say, ‘The booty belong
to Alla¯h and the Messenger’” (Q8:1). There are also many references to things
others have said to the Messenger or to believers, and much of the Qurʾan is
phrased in response to allegations made against the Messenger. For example, in
Q13:7 a report is given that disbelievers have been asking the Messenger for a
sign, to which the Messenger is told to respond that he is “only a warner, and for
every people there is a guide.” Sometimes there will be a reported statement
made by people which Alla¯h answers directly (e.g., Q6:29–30). There are even
anticipated conversations on Judgment Day, and afterward, in the Fire.
The Qurʾan’s focus on conversation, including disputes, can also be observed
in the many narratives about previous messengers. In these stories much of the
narrative is carried by conversations, direct or indirect. For example, in the story
of Nūḥ (Noah) (Q7:59–64) the bulk of the narrative consists of exchanges
between Nūḥ and the people of his time (in contrast to the whole flood story of
Gen. 6-8, in which Noah says not a single word).
In all, one could describe the whole Qurʾan as a record of theological disputes,
since almost every chapter in the Qurʾan is set in the context of a debate between
Alla¯h and the Messenger on one hand, and disbelievers on the other.
This “conversational” orientation of the Qurʾan raises interesting questions
about the context in which the Qurʾan arose. However, what is important for the
theology of the Qurʾan is that these conversations revolve around theological
issues. It is the issues being disputed and the answers given in response to them
which enable the reader to identify theological emphases of the passages. For
example, in the dispute between Nūḥ and his contemporaries a key contention is
whether he is a genuine messenger. They “called him a liar” (Q7:64) while he, in
his turn, emphasizes “I am a messenger from the Lord of the Worlds” (Q7:61).
This observation highlights the importance of the story of Nūḥ for the Qurʾan’s
theology of messengers.

1.4.6 Homiletic Framing

A great deal of the Qurʾan is devoted to critiquing opponents of the Messenger
or making homiletical points which urge Muslims toward faith, including
encouraging the Messenger himself to stick to his calling. Passage after passage
seem to be designed to illustrate preaching points which are often made explicit
at the start of a passage, reiterated at key points throughout, and summed up at
the end. This self-referential commentary offers valuable sign posts for
discerning the concerns of Qurʾanic Theology. In this way the Qurʾan offers a
running commentary on itself, exegeting itself as it goes along, highlighting
what the Qurʾan considers to be its big ideas about Alla¯h and humanity.41 Let
us consider some examples.
In the case of the story of Nūḥ from Q7:59–64, just discussed, the briefly
narrated punishment by drowning comes with a punch line, “We drowned those
who called Our signs a lie. Surely they were a blind people.” (Q7:64) The
theological point is that Alla¯h will destroy those who reject his messengers and
deny the signs they bring. As another example, the Qurʾan’s closing comment on
one of the Ādam and Iblīs passages interprets the theological significance of the
expulsion of Ādam from the Garden as a cautionary tale about the importance of
following Alla¯h’s guidance and not denying his signs (Q2:38–39). This verse
comes at the end of a passage, commencing at Q2:30, which gives an account of
Ādam in the Garden, and Iblīs’ role in the expulsion of Ādam and his wife from
the Garden. In the narrative, Alla¯h tells of how Ādam is placed in the Garden to
enjoy its fruit, but Iblīs leads him astray so he and his wife are expelled from the
Garden. At the end Ādam turns back to Alla¯h, who has compassion on him.
This all leads to Q2:38, which gives the general application of the story:
“whoever follows my guidance will not fear, nor will they sorrow.” Whatever
else of theological significance is going on in this story about the fall of Ādam
from the Garden, by closing the story in this way the Qurʾan makes clear that it
is meant to be interpreted as a parable of guidance, a warning that humankind
should always follow the guidance of Alla¯h, and not allow themselves to be led
astray. It is not only this particular Ādam and Iblīs story that has interpretive
comments with a focus on receiving guidance from Alla¯h alone, similar
comments accompany other versions of the story in the Qurʾan as well, for
example, Q7:21–22, 28, 30; Q20:123–24; and Q18:50.
Another example is the story of Yūsuf (Joseph) in Q12. Early in the chapter,
the Qurʾan explains that the narrative is to be interpreted as a sign for “those
who ask” (Q12:7). Then, throughout the story there are verses which explain
what lessons are to be drawn by the audience at each point. When Yūsuf is
enslaved in Egypt, it is said that “Alla¯h is master of His affair” (Q12:21), and
when he is appointed over the affairs of Egypt, then it is said that “We do not let
the reward of those who do good come to nothing” (Q12:56). Then finally, at the
very end of the story, the conclusion given is that when messengers give up hope
and conclude they had been lied to, Alla¯h intervenes to rescue them (Q12:110).
This closing explanation indicates that the story is intended to be read as an
encouragement to the Messenger (and those who believe in him) to persevere
and not give up hope when he is accused of being a liar.
As a final example, in Q11 there are a series of “stories of the towns”
(Q11:100) which tell how Alla¯h has destroyed past communities who rejected
his messengers Nūḥ, Hūd, Ṣa¯liḥ, Ibra¯hīm and Lūṭ, Shuʿayb, and Mūsa¯. At the
end the narration makes clear that these stories of destruction are meant to
remind believers to stand firm when facing rejection from others (Q11:120–23).
People should be patient (“waiting”) because in time the judgment of the Lord
will fall (“to Him the affair will be returned”), so believers should not fret about
disbelievers, but should trust in Alla¯h and not be vexed if his judgment seems
to be delayed, for it will inevitably come. Such homiletic punch lines are of vital
importance for interpreting the theological significance of the passages they
frame.

1.4.7 Integration in Context

It is important to attend to how organically connected into the surrounding text
particular theological material is, and the way that connection is established. The
theological function of words and passages needs to be evaluated in the light of
the way they contribute to their context. Well-integrated materials are connected
into a network of meaningful structural relationships, they impact on the
meaning of the surrounding text, and they draw theological momentum from
their context. Such material potentially carries greater weight as evidence for
constructing a Qurʾanic Theology. Let us consider three examples.
 The two Qurʾanic references to Alla¯h as “holy” occur in lists of Alla¯h’s
attributes which are placed as formulaic framing material to a chapter. In Q59
the list appears at a chapter’s end, and in Q62 at the start. In neither context does
the designation of Alla¯h as “holy,” or the broader concept of sanctity bear any
connection to the message of the rest of the sūrah: it appears as disconnected
material and stands apart. In this sense the designation “holy” appears almost
like a piece of textual padding, without being integrated theologically into its
context. This discounts the contribution of these instances to the Qurʾan’s
theology.
Another example is an instance of raḥmat “mercy,” which is a frequent
designation for Alla¯h. However, in Q6:11–12 the phrase “he has prescribed
mercy for himself” is used in a way disconnected from the immediately
surrounding text, which discusses Alla¯h’s judgment on disbelievers. Marshall
has criticized Rahman’s (1989, 6) use of Q6:12 to claim that “Mercy is as
ultimate an attribute of Alla¯h as power, and is in a definite sense synonymous
with creation”:
However memorable one may find the words about God’s mercy here, one
cannot help being struck by how isolated and unelaborated they are. They are
also surrounded by menacing references to God’s judgment, past and future.
Thus in the overall thrust of the passage, divine mercy is not the dominant
theme. (Marshall 2014, 81)
Marshall’s (2014, 82) point is that this particular passage is a poor text to cite as
evidence of Alla¯h’s mercy: “it is crucial to grasp that where unbelievers are
specifically in focus as unbelievers they are excluded from the divine mercy.” By
way of contrast, in (Q2:37) the descriptive title for Alla¯h of al-raḥīm “the
merciful” fits well into the immediately surrounding text, providing an
explanation of why Alla¯h accepted Ādam’s repentance, so this verse can be
given more weight as theological evidence when exploring the meaning of al-
raḥīm in the Qurʾan

1.4.8 Rhetorical and Thematic Structures

The Qurʾan’s theological framework is reinforced through reiteration of thematic
structures throughout the sūrahs.42 One example is a pairing of an initial
statement that one type of person will end up in the Fire, with a following
statement that a contrasting type of person will end up in the Garden. This theme
reinforces the Qurʾan’s eschatology, which teaches that human beings will be
divided into two groups, one destined for bliss, and the other for punishment. For
example, Q88 contrasts faces which are downcast, exhausted, burning, drinking
boiling water, and eating thorns in the Fire, with the contented faces of dwellers
in the Garden, lounging on luxurious carpets by a flowing spring (Q88:1–7 vs.
8–16; cf. Q15:43–46; Q20:74–76; Q85:10–11; Q98:6–8).

1.4.9 Orality and Formulaic Parallelism

The expression al-Qurʾan means “the recitation” (Boisliveau 2013a, 44ff),
which implies that the text of the Qurʾan was originally generated for the
purpose of an oral performance.43 The Qurʾan itself includes multiple references
to its oral recitation. There is a discernible distinction in meaning apparent
between references to Qurʾan “recitation” (indefinite) and al-Qurʾan “the
Qurʾan” (e.g., Q9:111). The indefinite references, which are in the minority, and
all associated with pre-Eschatological Transition passages (cf. chapter 2), refer
to: a performance rather than a written text (Q17:106); to “a clear recitation”
(Q15:1; Q36:69); “an honorable recitation” (Q56:77); “a glorious recitation”
(Q85:21); and “an Arabic recitation” (Q12:2; Q20:113; Q39:28; Q41:3, 44;
Q42:7; Q43:3). Such uses imply an understanding of Qurʾan as a performed text.
Read contrastively, these statements imply familiarity of the audience with some
kind of non-Arabic recitation, the precise nature of which is unclear.
Furthermore, some non-predicative indefinite references refer to a recitation of a
part rather than the whole Qurʾanic corpus: in some instances Qurʾan could be
translated “a recitation” of part of a text (Q10:61; cf. Q10:15; Q17:78; Q72:1),
while in Q75:17–18 Qurʾan refers to recitation in general and in Q13:31 the
word Qurʾan is also used to refer to a performative word of power, like an
incantation. The Qurʾan also offers instruction on how to listen to its recitation,
and how to chant it (Q7:204; Q17:106; Q73:4; Q75:16–19; Q84:21), and there
are references to the Qurʾan as a text to be recited by the Messenger (Q10:61;
Q16:98; Q17:45; Q27:91–92; Q87:6; Q96:1, 3).
Wansbrough (1977, 48), noted that “the very high frequency and the uniform
distribution in the Qurʾan of formulae and of formulaic systems could indicate
not only a long period of oral transmission but also of oral composition.”
Likewise Neuwirth (2014c, 18) has proposed that the Qurʾan “stemmed from a
process of oral communication,” involving “repeated recitation” (2014e, xxiv),
and called for greater attention to its “communication structure” (2014c, 15). An
answer to this challenge was provided by Bannister’s (2014) Oral-Formulaic
Study of the Qur’an. Bannister used digital analysis of a textual database of the
Qurʾan to discover and investigate repeated phrasal patterns. He identified a
level of repetition which is characteristic of an oral performance mode of
composition: around 60 percent of the Qurʾanic text is comprised of repeated
formulae of three or more words.44
For his analysis Bannister drew on the Oral Literary Theory model of Lord’s
(2000) Singer of Tales, which built on Milman Parry’s groundbreaking work on
Homeric verse (Parry and Parry 1971).45 In this model, oral performers have at
their disposal a large store of formulaic phrases, which they draw upon when
delivering a live performance. Oral performers do not memorize their
performances for exact reproduction on repeated occasions, but generate them
anew with each performance, in real time. It is the inventory of oral formulae
that makes oral performance possible. Furthermore, the presence of a high
formulaic density in a text is evidence that it was created in an oral performance
tradition. This corresponds to Neuwirth’s idea of “repeated recitation,” an
ongoing process during which a performer’s art is developed and refined.
The Qurʾan’s formulaic density of 60 percent is evidence that it was created
through an oral performance tradition. Bannister’s research demonstrated that
the Qurʾan has many features of an orally composed text, and that the Qurʾan
should therefore be read and understood in accordance with the norms of Oral
Literary Theory. This has far-reaching implications. Bannister (2014, 243ff)
argues, for example, that the seven iterations of the Qurʾan’s Ādam and Iblīs
narrative, which he analyzes in some detail, demonstrate features one would
expect of performance variants, produced by a performer on different occasions
in real time. He concludes that the Qurʾan arose in the context of repeated
performances by a skilled performer in an oral tradition. This performer,
identified by the Qurʾan as “the Messenger,” would have had many recitations
under his belt, in order to be able to access the repertoire of the thousands of
formulae found in the Qurʾan, before some individual performances were
produced, written down and gathered together to form the Qurʾan. Many
performances would not have been written down. The Qurʾan thus represents a
sampling of performances, snapshots of “a work in progress” (Neuwirth 2014d,
307).
Lord (2000, 34) observed that the most stable and frequently used formulae in
oral performance texts tend to represent the core values and ideas of a culture.
For our study it is important to note that many of the Qurʾan’s formulae are
theologically significant, and their iteration throughout the Qurʾan helps
establish the theological consistency of the whole. They embody and
communicate the theological ideas of the Qurʾan.
Bannister (2014, 78, 219) found, as is typical of oral texts, that Qurʾanic
formulae “can be organized into wider systems.”46 These are not just strings of
words, but constructions with replaceable parts. An example of such a system
with theological content, is (inna) fī X (la-) āyāt (-in/-an/un) li-Y “(indeed) there
are/is (surely) signs/a sign in X for Y,” where Y refers to believers or people
tending to belief. This formulaic system is frequently used before or after
recitations of Alla¯h’s dealings with humanity. Here are some instances:

innafīl-samāwātiwa-l-arḍi la-āyātinli-l-mu’minīna
indeedinthe-heavensand-the-earthsurely-signsfor-the-believers
Indeed intheheavensandtheearththere are surely signs forthebelievers.
(Q45:3)

innafīdhālikala-āyātinli-kulliṣabbārinshakūrin
indeedin thatsurely-signsfor-everyone patientgrateful
Indeed in that are surely signs for those who are patient and
grateful(Q42:33).

inna fī dhālikala-āyatan li-qawmin yaʿqilūna

indeed in that surely-sign for-people reason
Indeed in that is surely a sign for people who understand (Q16:67).

wa-fī l-arḍia¯ya¯tunli-l-mūqinīna
and-inthe-earth signsfor-the-certain
And in the earth are signs for those who are certain (Q51:20).

The high frequency of this formula, with more than 40 instances, reflects the
important role played in Qurʾanic Theology by “signs.”
Another example is a system which speaks of Alla¯h adorning the sky with
stars, in which the Qurʾan shows a variation between bi-zīnatin l-kawākibi and
bi-maṣābīḥa, both expressions referring to heavenly bodies:

ʾin-nā zayyannā l-samāʾa l-dunyā bi-zīnatin l-kawa¯kibi

indeed-we adorned the sky the world with-adornment the-stars
Indeed We have adorned the sky with an adornment of stars (Q37:6).

wa-laqad zayyannā l-samāʾa l-dunyā bi-maṣa¯bīḥa

 and-certainly adorned the-sky the-world with-lamps
Certainly We have adorned the sky with lamps (Q67:5).

Formulaic systems have some repeated lexical material, but also slots into which
varied material can be inserted. In this case zīnatin l-kawākibi and maṣābīḥa
each occupy the same slot at the end of the formula, and pick out the same
referent, but using different expressions.
Such substitutions can provide helpful interpretive cues for the meaning of the
text. Consider the following formulaic system:

1. X
2. has brought it down (nazzala-hu)
3. from/by Alla¯h
4. confirming/making firm
5. as guidance and good news (wa-hudan wa-bushrā)
6. to believers

Lines 1, 3, 4, and 6 may be substituted by functionally equivalent expressions.

For example Q16:102 and Q2:97 are realizations of this formulaic system:

Say:—qul
2. has brought it down—nazzala-hu
1. “The holy spirit—rūḥu l-qudusi
3. from your Lord in truth,—min rabbi-ka bi-l-ḥaqi
4. to make firm those who believe,—li-yuthabbita alladhīna ʾāmanū
5. and as a guidance and good news—wa-hudan wa-bushra¯
6. for those who submit.”—li-l-muslimīna (Q16:102)

Say: “Whoever is an enemy to Jibrīl—qul man kāna ʿadūwan li-jibrīla

1. surely he [Jibrīl]—fa-inna-hu
2. has brought it down on your heart—nazzala-hu ʿalā qalbi-ka
3. by the permission of Alla¯h,—bi-idhni l-lāhi
4. confirming what was before it, and—muṣaddiqan li-mā bayna yaday-hi
5. as a guidance and good news—wa-hudan wa-bushra¯
6. to the believers.”—li-l-muʾminīna (Q2:97)

In this formulaic system rūḥ al-qudus “holy spirit” and Jibrīl are functional
equivalents in the system, occupying the same “X” slot, which is evidence that
they refer to the same being.
Another example of a theologically significant formulaic system is “stand firm
in prayer, give alms and X” where X is filled by a variety of expressions, such as
“bow down,” “believe in Alla¯h and the last day,” “obey Alla¯h and his
messenger” or “hold on to Alla¯h” (Q4:162; Q5:12, 55; Q9:71; Q24:56; Q27:3;
Q31:4; Q58:13; Q98:5). The phrases which replace X in instances of this
formula comprise essential beliefs and practices of believers: faith, prostration in
worship, and obedience.
Separating the Strands
The study of Qurʾanic formulae is at least as important to Qurʾanic studies as
studies of individual words. Each formula can be thought of as a strand which is
woven together with other strands and non-formulaic text to form passages. Each
Qurʾanic sūrah comprises a bundle of such formulaic strands, which are woven
together with other text to form the whole sūrah. Some formulaic strands appear
just a few times in the Qurʾan. An example is a piece of advice to believers
about their nonbelieving parents, which is attested twice: “but if they both
struggle against you—to make you associate with Me what you have no
knowledge of—then do not obey them” (Q29:8; Q31:15).
The full context for interpreting any particular instance of a formula is not only
provided by the immediately surrounding text, but also by all the contexts of the
formula’s other exemplars throughout the Qurʾan. A rigorous theological
analysis of the Qurʾan therefore requires one to trace all instances of a particular
formulae throughout the text and analyze them, attending to patterns of
repetition and substitution, so that each strand’s theological meaning can be
accurately defined from the contexts of all its appearances.
The woven oral-formulaic character of the Qurʾanic text impacts the way a
theological analysis of the Qurʾan must be presented. Often illustration of a point
will involve citation, not just of a single verse or passage, but of several verses
which instantiate a particular theologically significant formulaic strand in its
multiple instances across different sūrahs.
A Cognitive Theology
The oral-formulaic structure of the Qurʾanic text has implications for how we
understand Qurʾanic Theology. If indeed, as the evidence suggests, the text of
the Qurʾan was constructed in an oral performance tradition and setting, using a
repertoire of formulae and formulaic systems, then the theology of the Qurʾan to
a significant extent will inhere in the performer’s repertoire of formulae. This
means that a descriptive theology of the Qurʾan is not just a description of
features inherent in a text; as an organized representation, it is also a making
explicit of the implicit cognitive map within which the Qurʾanic performer
functioned, and which contributed to the shaping of his formulaic repertoire.47
For this reason, describing the theology of the Qurʾan is a very different kind of
task from, for example, constructing a “Theology of the Old Testament.” The
Old Testament comprises a great variety of texts whose human authorship is
diverse and stretches over centuries, which means that an Old Testament
Theology cannot be a model of the theological thought of any one Old Testament
author. A Qurʾanic Theology, however, can be considered to be a descriptive
model of the Qurʾanic performer’s theological mental map. In this sense a
Qurʾanic Theology is a cognitive construct in a way which a theology
encompassing multiple Biblical books is not.
It is appropriate to acknowledge here the possibility that there was more than
one “messenger” producing and performing the Qurʾanic texts. One might
speculate that “the Messenger” was an office rather than an individual, and
wonder whether the Qurʾan could have been a gathering together of texts
produced by two or more individual “messengers.” However, even if the Qurʾan
is the work of more than one messenger, it seems reasonable to assume that its
theology could reflect a mental map shared across the various performers and
their shared audience, so a plurality of messengers need not undermine our
cognitive understanding of Qurʾanic Theology. In connection with these
speculations, we can also note that there is textual evidence which links very
different phases in the production of the Qurʾan to a unique messenger-
performer. In Q8:30–33 the messenger is instructed by Alla¯h to recall how the
unbelievers schemed against him, when they were calling for Alla¯h to hasten
the promised punishment against them. Alla¯h did not choose to punish them
while the messenger, who is addressed as “you” in the second person, was still
among the mockers. This is an important piece of evidence linking the
Messenger of a later sūrah to the same individual in earlier ones, at a time when
rejecters were still mocking him by calling for the promised punishment to hurry
up and fall upon them (see §2.2). This internal reference back in time is all the
more significant because it links the Messenger in a “post-transitional” period
(traditionally “Medinan”) with a “pre-transitional” period (the “Meccan”
period). (The theological analysis offered in this book depends crucially upon
the continuity of the identity of the Messenger throughout the Qurʾan, because it
accounts for the discontinuity between two distinct groups of sūrahs in terms of
a theological crisis in the early group which is resolved in the next group.)48
Oral Formulae and Temporal Differentiation
Bannister’s oral-formulaic model of the Qurʾan’s production also offers a way of
modeling the evolution of its theology over time. The formulaic repertoire of an
oral performer is not static, but is constantly evolving. Each new performance
has the potential to bring an innovation, an alteration to the repertoire. By tracing
the evolution of a performer’s repertoire, one can develop milestones for the
progression of performances through time. Consider for example the Qurʾanic
formula “obey Alla¯h and (obey) the Messenger” aṭīʿū l-lāha wa-(aṭīʿū) l-
rasūla.49 This appears 20 times in the Qurʾan, but only in what are traditionally
referred to as “Medinan”50sūrahs, which are considered to have been “sent
down” later.51 This formula is a relatively late innovation in the Qurʾanic
performance repertoire, so its introduction marks a milestone in the Qurʾanic
timeline.
The Qurʾanic performer’s repertoire includes not only formulae, but also
lexical items. These also can serve as temporal markers, for example the words
masīḥ “Messiah” (11 instances in Q3, Q4, Q5 and Q9) and naṣranī “Christian”
(15 instances in Q2, Q3, Q5, Q9 and Q2252) are also only found in “Medinan”
sūrahs. As important as lexical markers are for establishing a Qurʾanic timeline,
the formulaic repertoire may be considered to be more important, because it
evolves more rapidly than the lexical repertoire, and is richer in milestones for
tracing the Qurʾan’s evolution (see discussion in chapter 3).
It is useful to make a distinction between the Qurʾanic performer’s linguistic
competence—including his evolving lexical and formulaic repertoire—and the
actual performances, as reflected in the Qurʾanic text. The very first time the
Qurʾanic reciter used aṭīʿū l-lāha wa-(aṭīʿū) l-rasūla in a performance context it
would have been a neologism, a phrase minted to satisfy the requirements of the
moment. Once minted it stuck, and after being repeated a few times in
performance, this phrase passed into the performer’s repertoire as a formula,
available to be drawn upon in future performances, which it was, many times.
This particular formula has theological significance: it marks a development in
Qurʾanic Rasulology (chapter 5) in which messengers were no longer just
responsible for the delivery of their message, but were leaders to command and
be obeyed, so transforming the phrase into a repeated formula in this instance is
a marker of a change in the performer’s theology.
 Not all new formulae need be theologically innovative. As the Qurʾanic
performer’s skill develops, new formulae are generated, a good number of which
simply conform to the performer’s preexisting theology. Examples of relatively
late developments in the Messenger’s formulaic repertoire, which however do
not appear to reflect any late theological development, are:

yā-ayyuhā lladhīna āmanū’ “O you who believe” (89 times)

l-lāh (l-)samīʿ (l-)ʿalīm “Alla¯h is (the) knowing, (the) wise” (18 times)
ka-dhālika yubayyinu l-lāhu āyātihi “Thus Alla¯h makes clear his signs” (9
times)

These formulae all occur in sūrahs classified by Nöldeke (1904) as “Medinan,”

so although they do not reflect theological changes, they can still serve as
milestones for the development of the text through time.
Another kind of temporal marker is a change in the frequency of use of
particular formulae. Consider, for example the formula, ʿammā kānū yaʿmalūna
“about what they used to do.” Using the division of sūrahs developed in chapter
2, this is found 44 times in the earlier “pre-transitional” sūrahs, and 13 times in
later “post-transitional” sūrahs, a ratio of 77 percent to 23 percent. This
compares with the ratio in the total number of formulae between pre- and post-
transitional sūrahs of 63 percent to 37 percent, which means that the overall
frequency of this particular formula declines over time. One could say that the
formula was going out of style.
Consider another formula, l-lāha ʿala kulli shayin qadīrun “Alla¯h has power
over all things.” With some variations in case endings, this formula appears 21
times, but only 3 times in the early pre-transitional sūrahs (Q16, Q29, Q35), so
this is a formula which is used more frequently as time passes. This is evidence
that asserting the power of Alla¯h becomes a more topical issue in later sūrahs.
Significance for Biblical Reflexes
Bannister’s theory of the way the Qurʾan was composed has implications for
how Biblical reflexes might have found their way into the Qurʾan. An oral-
formulaic performance milieu implies, not only that the Biblical materials could
have been apprehended orally through the performances of others, but that they
were most likely apprehended and acquired by the Qurʾanic performer as oral
texts. Materials received, remembered, and reproduced in an oral performance
milieu are treated quite differently from a scribal process such as copying a
portion of one manuscript into another manuscript (Lord 2000, 63). We will
apply this insight to the treatment of certain Biblical reflexes in §6.8.

1.5 THEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF THE QURʾAN

The idea that the Bible is to be read as a “unity” has deeply influenced Western
thought (Frye 1983), and the question of whether a unified account of the Bible
is possible has been a key, recurring issue in Biblical Theology scholarship.53
Neuwirth (2016, 179), reflecting on this insight, has lamented the lack of a
holistic approach to the Qurʾan in Western scholarship. It is reasonable to ask
whether it is even possible to give a unified account of the theology of the
Qurʾan: Are the Qurʾan’s understandings of Alla¯h and his relations with the
world sufficiently coherent and consistent throughout to allow a unified account
to be produced?
To be sure, the Qurʾan is not perfectly univocal, as shown in the contrast
between its varied attitudes to Jews and Christians (Q4:55; Q3:110; and compare
Q3:52 with Q2:146); its calls to forbearance of disbelievers (Q2:109) and calls to
arms against them (9:5, 29); and in the substantial internal theological
developments, such as changes in Rasulology, which take place after what is
here called the “Eschatological Transition” (§5.4). In chapter 2 we offer a
diachronic analysis which would account for a good deal of these internal
theological contrasts, and agree with Boisliveau when she states that:
the text [of the Qurʾan] proceeds on the basis of what is broadly speaking a
unified intention, whether of a single person or group of people, who are
agreed on the main message to be transmitted via the text . . . Whatever the
exact identity may be of the person(s) who are the source of this unified
intention, it seems clear from our study that the Qurʾan is not a haphazard
collection of elements due to pure chance, nor a text without a specific
purpose. On the contrary, we have seen that, apart from some details, the text
defends some major ideas. (2013a, 391–392)
One illustration of the coherence of the Qurʾan is its consistently distinct
conception of “messengers” (chapter 5), as Griffith has observed:
The recognition of the Qurʾan’s distinctive paradigm for God’s messengers
and prophets highlights the underlying unity and integrity of the Qurʾan’s
message as a whole. (2016, 221)
It is necessary to acknowledge the possibility that the canonical Qurʾanic text
does not perfectly reflect the original pre-canonical live recitations (Boisliveau
2013b, 131; Neuwirth 1996; Gilliot 2011), due to editing during the process of
transcription, collation and canonization, and there is a possibility that this
distinction could be theologically significant. However, the default assumption
made here is that the theology of the canonical Qurʾan is the same as that of the
pre-canonical recitations.
Wansbrough (1978, 128) likewise observed that “the collection of confessional
insignia which eventually crystallized as ‘Islam’ does, despite its clearly
heterogenetic origins, exhibit a reasonable degree of internal consistency.” Here
we present a summary overview of the theology of the Qurʾan in the form of a
concise characterization of the “reasonable degree of internal consistency” in the
inner logic of the governing ideas of the Qurʾan, setting them out in an orderly
fashion.54 Our purpose is to provide the reader with an orientation which will
assist them in navigating the material in the following chapters.
The Qurʾan presents a message incorporating a consistent set of interconnected
theological ideas which the audience is urged to embrace and live by. Presented
here below is a “base-line” outline of this message, which applies consistently
throughout the whole Qurʾan, if only incipiently in the earliest sūrahs. The
central elements of the Qurʾan’s message deal with the human condition,
Alla¯h’s response to this condition in providing guidance, and the consequences
for people, which vary according to whether or not they heed his guidance:
Alla¯h is God alone and creator of all that exists. He has created human
beings and placed them on this earth to serve him exclusively as his slaves
(ʿibād). Alla¯h also created angels, who serve him, the jinn and al-shayṭān
“Satan.”
The purpose and final outcome of human life is determined by the path
(ṣirāṭ, sabīl) each person takes. Those who are obedient to their creator,
believing and trusting (ʿāmana) him, attending to his signs (ʾāyāt), and obeying
(aṭāʿa) his command (ʾamr), are on the “straight path” (al-ṣirat al-mustaqīm).
Others have strayed (ḍalla) off the path. They look instead to others besides
Alla¯h to help them: these are associators (al-mushrikūn).
By nature human beings are ignorant (tajhalūna), lacking knowledge (ʿilm),
rejectors (kafara), and easily led astray (aḍalla). They turn to Alla¯h when in
need, but go astray when things go well. To keep humanity on the straight path
Alla¯h sends messengers (rusul, sg. rasūl) to remind (dhakkara) and guide
(hadā) people by reciting (talā) Alla¯h’s signs.
 People can protect themselves (ittaqā) by following the guidance (hudā)
brought by a messenger. When they receive this guidance, they should repent
and return (rajaʿa, ʿāda) to Alla¯h’s way. If they do this, Alla¯h will show
mercy (raḥmat) to them.
Now everyone should heed (tadhakkara) “the Messenger” (al-rasūl), who,
like previous messengers, has been given a “book” (kitāb) from Alla¯h, “the
recitation” (al-Qurʾan). Alla¯h has an unvarying characteristic way (sunnah) of
dealing with messengers and the people they are sent to, which also applies to
“the Messenger” and his people.
True believers (muʾminūn) will heed the Messenger, devoting themselves to
daily prayers (ṣalāt), give alms (zakat) to help those in need, including the poor
and orphans, and offer exclusive service to Alla¯h.
On Judgment Day there will be a resurrection of all people. Then it will be
too late to repent. On that day those who have heeded the Messenger will be
counted among the believers. By being rightly guided they will be successful
(aflaḥa) and enter a state of blessedness in the Garden (al-jannah).
Other people have rejected (kafara) the truth (al-ḥaqq) brought by the
Messenger (and past messengers), calling messengers’ signs a lie (kadhaba).
These are disbelievers (al-kāfirūn). All who reject the way of Alla¯h and deny
(khadhdhaba) his signs will be losers (al-khāsirūn), suffering Alla¯h’s
destructive punishment in this life, and in the next life eternal punishment
(ʿadhāb, ʿiqāb) in the Fire (al-nār).
This message forms the stable theological core of the Qurʾan. The ideas which it
encompasses are reiterated and emphasized again and again throughout the text,
although some parts receive more emphasis in different places and in the earliest
sūrahs this core message is not yet as fully developed.55 Among the key Arabic
terms which constitute this mental map of Qurʾanic Theology are some of the
most frequent words in the Qurʾan, which play pivotal roles in its formulaic
structures.
The homiletic purpose of the Qurʾan is to impress upon hearers the importance
of responding to this message by choosing to return to the straight path, and stay
on it. Many warnings are brought forth in the form of āyāt “signs” (or “verses”)
to motivate hearers to do this. There are elaborations of the core doctrinal
structure, filling in theological details, such as the exploring attributes of
disbelievers, giving detailed features of the Garden and the Fire, rehearsing
attributes of previous messengers, and giving ethical instructions for walking on
the straight path. The focus of the Qurʾan can shift to different aspects of its
message at different stages of its development. For example, some early sūrahs
are focused on the Day of Judgment and the depiction of the Garden and the
Fire, and some later sūrahs focus on punishment in this life.
A comprehensive, ordered exposition of Qurʾanic Theology would need to
address at least the following major topics:

• Allāh, his attributes and characteristic ways of action.

• Creation and its products, including the physical world, human beings and
their moral attributes, and other moral beings (angels and jinn) who have a
capacity for either obedience or disobedience to Alla¯h.
• Guidance including misguidance (being led astray), incorporating Alla¯h’s
responses to the human condition; the doctrines of the rightly guided straight
path and how to follow it; characteristic human responses to guidance and
resulting success and failure; signs; books; repentance; and messengers, their
role, characteristics, and the pattern of Alla¯h’s dealings with them and the
people they are sent to, including the Qurʾanic Messenger.
• Faith, including belief and disbelief, and the division of human beings into
different groups having varied attributes, of which the main categories are
believers (muʾminūn), hypocrites (munāfiqūn), associators (mushrikūn), and
the People of the Book (ʾahl al-kitāb), a category which encompasses
Christians and Jews.
• Punishment, including punishment in this life and the next, final judgment, the
sequence of events associated with Judgment Day, and the separation of
humans into the Garden and the Fire.

Figure 1.2 presents a visual map of the principal features of these theological
topic areas.
Figure 1.2 Topics in Qur’anic Theology.

In the next chapter we will turn to consider internal theological developments

within the Qurʾan.

NOTES
1. Witztum (2011, 37) summarizes homiletische Anwendung as “the larger conceptual framework in
which individual traditions are embedded, and the worldview they are meant to serve.”
2. The Christian Arabic term for theology in the sense of the doctrine of God is ʿilm al-lāhūt, which is
most likely a calque from Syriac mamlūt alāhūtā, itself a calque from Greek theología. Moreover, the
Arabic word lāhūt “divinity” is itself almost certainly a borrowing from the Syriac (for alternative views
see Arnaldez 1986, 612).
3. The word emphasis is used advisedly: Judaism is also concerned with orthodoxy, as Christianity is
with orthopraxy.
4. http://www.iu.edu.sa. Newer faculties of the Islamic University of Madinah include Computer and
Information Systems, Sciences, and Engineering.
5. An exception is Ankara University: http://divinity.en.ankara.edu.tr/?page_id=485 downloaded July
17, 2015. In July 2015 a Google search for “Department of Kalam” produced a mere 12 hits. In
comparison, a Google search for “Department of Fiqh” [jurisprudence] produced more than 24,000 hits.
6. See Macdonald (1903), Goldziher (1925), Tritton (1947), Watt (1962), Seale (1964), Nagel (2000;
and van Ess 2006). Nagel’s historical survey of Islamic theology includes 13 pages on the theology of the
Qurʾan. See also Sweetman’s (1967, 8ff) discussion of “some representative Muslim theologians” and
Abrahamov (2006), in which a detailed analysis is provided of the conflict between Islamic traditionalists
and rationalists over the role of reason as a source of religious knowledge.
7. This is reflected, for example, in the title of Nagel (2001); see also Nagel (2000, 21ff). To be fair,
Nagel redefines “salvation” to his own purposes: “I am much more concerned first and foremost to gain
an understanding of the contents of the Qurʾanic message of salvation—and ‘message of salvation’
indicates that God is not playing a solo game: instead it refers to the bases of his relationship to human
beings and to everything that is not God” (2001, 24).
8. Sweetman’s four volumes on Islam and Christian Theology (1945, 1947, 1955, 1967) are
exceptional for the attention given to the theological ideas found in the Qurʾan. Other examples of works
in this category are Küng’s (2007) Islam, Past, Present and Future, and Dudley Woodberry’s (1989) short
article “Different diagnoses of the human condition.” Renard’s (2011) Islam and Christianity:
Theological Themes in Comparative Perspective also explores theological similarities and differences in
the two traditions.
9. Marshall reports that he uses “narrative criticism” as his methodology, an approach taken from the
toolkit of Christian Biblical theological studies.
10. Some of this recent theological work on the Qurʾan is found in commentaries designed for a modern
audience, such as Sayyid Qutb’s (1985) Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾan (In the Shade of the Qurʾan). Examples of
theological treatises which are not commentaries include Abdel Haleem’s (1999) Understanding the
Qur’an: Themes and Style, which explores a series of Qurʾanic topics, and Azad’s (2003) Basic Concepts
of the Qurʾan, which covers six theological topics.
11. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī Book 2, Number 7 (Kha¯n 1997, 1:17).
12. However, a Qurʾan-only movement has emerged in the past century, whose adherents are known as
Qurʾaniyyūn “Quranists” (Qasmi 2012).
13. See for example, Lings (1983), Ramadan (2007), al-Būṭī (2008), Saeed (2003; 2008).
14. Other writers, including Al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Saʿd, also cite Ibn Isḥa¯q’s text independently of Ibn
Hisha¯m’s edition (Guillaume 1955, xvii). See also Raven (1997).
15. See also Schacht (1950, 166–175). After Schacht, Wansbrough (1978, 1) used methods drawn from
Biblical criticism to argue that the exegetical traditions were constructed as part of an exercise in
developing a post hoc “salvation history.” Crone (1987) likewise proposed that the tafsīr tradition was
not based upon recalling the past but on tales constructed by popular storytellers. See also Cook (1981,
107–116), and Calder (1993, 236–41).
16. A reference to Bakkah (Q3:96) is also taken to refer to Mecca.
17. Thamūd is known from classical and late sources, and in an inscription of Sargon, from the eighth
century BCE (Al-Azmeh 2014, 108).
18. There is also a single reference to al-raqīm (Q18:9), which is most likely Petra (Shaddel 2017).
19. However the Qurʾan’s agricultural descriptions would have fitted the agricultural environment at
Petra (Bouchaud, Jacquat and Martinoli 2017; Nasarat, Abudanah and Naimat 2012).
20. Neuwirth (2014a: 80) proposes that these nature references are due to influence from the Psalms,
but, as Sinai (2017b, 59) points out, this influence cannot account for the full extent of Crone’s
observations, for example Q6:136–39 refers to harvest and livestock rituals currently being practiced in
the community (cf. Crone 1987, 388).
21. The Qurʾan itself concedes that the Abrahamic sanctuary was located in an “uncultivated valley”
(Q14:37).
22. Sinai (2017b, 59) surveyed some of the evidence against a Meccan context for the Qurʾan, to which
he adds the observation that the extent of Christian and Jewish influences in the Qurʾan point to a
location on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire (2017b, 60). These observations provided here
notwithstanding, Sinai preferred to give credence to the traditional location in the southern Ḥija¯z for the
Qurʾanic community: he is “personally disinclined to dismiss the Hijazi origin traditionally ascribed to
the Islamic scripture” (2015–2016, 53). However, Sinai (2017b) only acknowledges some of the Qurʾanic
textual evidence against a Meccan location and he offers no explanation which can satisfactorily account
for this evidence. Furthermore, the evidence he cites in favor of the traditional location is not particularly
strong. For example, he observes (2017b, 61) that references to particular pagan deities in the Qurʾan and
to animal sacrifices relate to practices which would have been in severe decline or eradicated altogether
in regions under Byzantine influence, but we do not know enough about religious practices in the
Southern Levant and Northern Ḥija¯z in the sixth century, nor even of the dating of the Qurʾan itself, to
be sure of this conclusion. Furthermore, Sinai assumes that the Arabic poetic tradition, to which the
Qurʾan seems connected, “originated and circulated deep inside the Arabian Peninsula,” but pre-Qurʾanic
Arabic poetry flourished in Arabic speaking courts, which were located in settled areas in southern Syria
and Mesopotamia (Jones 2011, 9; Rabin 1955, 31) well outside the Arabian Peninsula. Moreover, there is
evidence for an earlier Nabataean Arabic liturgical poetic tradition: Epiphanius, writing in the fourth
Century CE, refers to the Nabataeans singing hymns in Arabic—presumably poetry—to the virgin
goddess “Kaabou” (Hoyland 2008, 54), and Macdonald (2006, 94) has proposed that two lines of an early
Nabataean Arabic inscription in the Negev (Negev, Naveh, and Shaked 1986) were an excerpt from a
liturgical poem.
23. See United States Geological Survey, “Earthquakes (1900–2016)”
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/tectonic/images/middleeast_tsum.pdf. Accessed April 15, 2018.
Al-Azmeh (2014, 308–309), discussing “betylic wrath,” notes the potential contribution of lived
experiences of disasters to the credibility of the Messenger’s warnings. However he locates the point of
vulnerability to these warnings in the Arabian Desert, which seems entirely the wrong place.
24. In a sense classical Arabic is a squeezing into one orthographic form of (at least) two dialects: the
original dialect of the consonantal rasm, and the dialect(s) of the pointing: often the pointing serves to
“correct” the rasm.
25. Al-Jallad (2017a, 165) summarizes the evidence as, “by the 6th century there can be no doubt as to
the loss of case inflection, at least in Palaestina Tertia.” Rabin (1955, 25) reports evidence that the Qurʾan
was commonly being recited without iʿrāb as late as the second century AH.
26. Consequently Al-Jallad (2017a, 158) describes the change to -ah as an isogloss which separates
sedentary Arabic varieties from the dialects written in rock inscriptions by the desert nomads of the
Ḥarrah.
27. For example in Q80:12–13, dhakara-hu “remember it” (rasm: dh-k-r-h) rhymes with mukarramat-
in “honored” (rasm: m-k-r-m-h), and in Q69:18–19 khāfīat-un “secret” (rasm: kh-alif-f-y-h) rhymes with
kitābīah “my book” (rasm: k-t-b-y-h). Assuming that case endings and final unstressed vowels had
already been lost, the first rhyming pair must have been pronounced dhakarah and mukarramah, and the
second pair khāfīah and kitābīah, with the rhyming syllables marked in bold. Additional examples of tāʾ
marbūṭah rhyming with regular -h are found in Q98, Q104 and Q101. Q88 illustrates the contrast,
keeping tāʾ marbūṭah separate from tāʾ: Q88:8–16 rhymes consistently with tāʾ marbūṭah and then
Q88:17–20 switches to a consistent rhyme with regular tāʾ.
28. Compare Q91 with a consistent alif rhyme, and Q92 with a consistent alif maqṣūrah rhyme. Q79
alternating consistent blocks of alif rhyme (Q79:27–32, 42–46) and alif maqṣūrah rhyme (Q79:15–26,
34–41). Some words whose rasm ends in y-alif rhyme with alif maqṣūrah, notably dunyā (rasm: d-n-y-
alif, cf. Q53:29; Q79:38; Q87:16), aḥyā (rasm: ḥ-y-alif, cf. Q53:44), which suggests that /y/ caused the
raising of a following /a¯/, and also shayʾan (rasm: sh-y-alif, cf. Q53:28, but this may be an imperfect
match because there are also rhymes for shayʾan with -īyan forms, also spelled y-alif, in Q19:9, 42).
Concerning aḥyā see also the discussion of *-aya in III-y verb forms of Al-Jallad (2017a, 156): Graeco-
Arabica evidence suggests that a pronunciation /-ē/ was characteristic of Arabic dialects in the Southern
Levant.
29. However in the Graeco-Arabica of the first Islamic century, the –al assimilates to a following
coronal consonant (Al-Jallad 2017b, 428).
30. Rabin (1955, 24, 27ff) coming to the same conclusion, suggested that the Qurʾan was composed in
Mecca, using what was a poetic koiné. However at the time Rabin, not having the evidence to link the
Qurʾanic variety to the Southern Levant, commented that “no progress seems to have been made in recent
years in solving the problem of the place of origin of the poetic koine” (1955, 31).
31. See http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/quran-manuscript/faqs.aspx. Archived to web.archive.org
September 26, 2015.
32. BP in Carbon dating refers to years before 1950, which is taken as year zero for carbon dating
purposes.
33. In Figure 1.1, Ṣanʿa¯ʾ A is 01–27–1 fol. 13 (S. 21/72); Ṣanʿa¯ʾ B is 01–27–1 fol. 11 (S. 20/74);
Ṣanʿa¯ʾ C is 01–29–1 fol. 8 (S. 5/45); Ṣanʿa¯ʾ D is 01–25–1 fol. 22 (S. 41/2); Ṣanʿa¯ʾ D is 01–27–1 fol. 2
(S. 6/159); and Ṣanʿa¯ʾ F is 01–29–1 fol. 13 (S. 14/24).
34. The issues in evaluating the dating issues have been surveyed by Reynolds (2015). Rezvan (2015)
has proposed that early Muslim scribes made use of parchment taken as booty from Christian
monasteries.
35. Sinai (2017b, 46) simply dismisses the very early dates as an “anomalies.” It seems noteworthy that
the earliest dated folio to include one of the “Muḥammad” verses (Q3:144; Q33:40; Q47:2; Q48:29) is
MS Qa¯f 47, which has been dated by Corpus Coranicum to 606–652 CE. The web page showing
Q3:144 was accessed in October 2017 at
http://www.corpuscoranicum.de/handschriften/index/sure/3/vers/144?handschrift=73: the link was later
taken down.
36. One dominant feature of the Qurʾan’s account of the Messenger’s preaching, which is crucial for the
development of his identity as a messenger of Alla¯h, is the “punishment stories.” Welch (2000, 107)
rightly points out that, although these stories play a major role in the Messenger’s changing
circumstances, their importance tends to be under-acknowledged. It seems that the lack of attention to
this aspect of the Messenger’s preaching in the Sunnah texts is the reason why the punishment stories
have tended to be overlooked, despite their very major significance to the Qurʾan’s own internal
development.
37. An example is Neuwirth’s writings, which refer to theological insights, naming them as such (e.g.,
2014e: 24ff), and emphasizing the theological distinctiveness of the Qurʾan (2000a, 30), but her primary
focus is not on theology, but on the Qurʾan as literature.
38. Abrogation applies more broadly than just to the Qurʾan. It can also apply to ḥadīths and to whole
religions (Burton 2001, 11–12).
39. Cf. Jeffery (1938, 234). Bell and Watt (1970, 75–82) proposes eight categories of “didactic forms”
which include incantations (“soothsayer utterances”) and oaths (“asseverative passages”) and a variety of
figures of speech.
40. This use of the term Qurʾan in connection with the recitations of diverse “parables” is reminiscent
of the suggested origin of the term as a borrowing from Syriac qəryāna “lectionary” (Nöldeke and
Schwally 1909, 33). However, see Boisliveau (2013a, 55–57), who argues that it is a productive Arabic
derivative from the root q-r-ʾ. In effect she is proposing that Qurʾan has been repurposed by phono-
semantic matching (§6.6.5) to evoke similar sounding Syriac and Hebrew forms.
41. This is just one of a number of ways in which the Qurʾan is an intensely self-referential text. See
Boisliveau (2013a) and Wild (1996, 140, 2006).
42. Lord (2000, 68–78) called these higher-level structures “themes.”
43. In addition to the orality of its performance, it has been proposed that the Qurʾan underwent an oral
process of transmission, and that its sources were predominately oral as well. According to Islamic
tradition, Muḥammad received the text and transmitted it to others in oral form. He also instructed his
followers to commit the Qurʾan to memory. Furthermore, the Qurʾan could be called an oral text not only
because of the manner of its transmission, but also because of the oral milieu from which it drew its
sources. Several scholars have proposed that its creator and his community were not exposed directly to
the written form of Biblical and other literary sources which the Qurʾan references (Neuwirth 2014b:
352), but these were heard and adapted from oral discourse in diverse contexts such as personal contacts
(Obermann 1941, 25; Andrae 1923–1925, 46), market places and trade fairs (Firestone 1990, 3–6;
Andrae 1923–1925, 107), sectarian debates (Neuwirth 2014d: 323), oral preaching (Andrae 1923–1925,
46) and worship liturgies (Witztum 2011, 61–64; Obermann 1941, 26).
44. See https://qurangateway.org/formulae/formulaic_density_summary_table.php.
45. Bannister’s work builds on Qurʾanic research of Firestone (1990), Calder (1988) and Dundes
(2003), and, in addition to Lord (2000) to the work on orality of Ong (1982). See also Monroe (1972) on
the formulaic character of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.
46. Already Wansbrough (1977, 8) had referred to these “formulaic systems” in his Quranic Studies.
47. There is a risk of systematizing what was not systematic in the minds of the Qurʾanic performer and
his audience. A deliberate decision not to “overcode” the theology, combined with a rigorous
methodology, helps avoid the trap rightly warned against by Al-Azmeh (2018, 32), when he criticizes the
“Protestant idea” of mining the text to generate a “Leittheologie and a doctrinal Primärbotschaft of
radical monotheism.”
48. See also Sadeghi (2011) for a stylistic analysis which argues, on the basis of a gradual stylistic
progression within the Qurʾan, that it had a single human author.
49. Just once there is the addition of “and those in authority among you” (Q4:59).
50. “Medina” is put in quotation marks here because the analysis of the Qurʾan’s trajectory proposed in
chapter 2 does not use biographical markers such as Mecca and Medina as reference points for a Qurʾanic
timeline.
51. There are also a few other variants, such as “obey Alla¯h and his messenger” (Q4:13).
52. In the analysis offered in chapter 2, Q22 is the last of the pre-transitional sūrahs.
53. See, for example, Brueggemann’s reflections on the “polyphonic” character of the Bible, that is, its
diversity of voices (1997, 88–89), and the challenge of integrating wisdom literature into a unified OT
Theology (1997, 36–37).
54. This summary was not developed piecemeal, but as part of a holistic systematic account of the
whole of Qurʾanic Theology, following the principles laid out in this chapter.
55. Sinai (2017b) provides an analysis of the theological emphases of the early sūrahs, in which the
“dominant theme” (2017b, 162) is the inevitability of judgment, and the division of humankind into the
Garden and the Fire.
 Chapter 2

The Eschatological Crisis

Although there is a consistent theological framework which applies throughout

the Qurʾan, which we have called its “theological core” (§1.5), the theology of
the Qurʾan was not fixed and unvarying during the period when it was being
produced. Within the limits of the theological core there are discernible
theological developments, which particularly affect how believers should
respond to those who reject the message of Alla¯h. In this chapter we will
consider the nature and importance of these developments.
In traditional Islamic sciences the Qurʾan’s internal theological and thematic
progression is accounted for with reference to events in the biography of
Muḥammad, particularly his hijrah or “migration” from Mecca to Medina,
which led to a political transformation of the Muslim community from a
persecuted minority to a nascent state with Muḥammad at its head (§1.3). In this
study, however, our methodology leads us to consider the Qurʾan and its
chronology, not through the lens of the Life of Muḥammad (§1.3), but in terms
of its theology. Sinai (2017b, 124) has rightly pointed out that a “reconstruction
of a plausible theological and literary trajectory . . . will . . . need to play an
important role in working out a detailed relative chronology of the Qur’an.”
Because there is indeed a marked theological trajectory within the Qurʾan, the
question of how Biblical reflexes might be adapted to the Qurʾan’s theological
frame requires an understanding of that trajectory, which it is our purpose in this
chapter to delineate.
It is proposed that the key aspect of the marked developments traditionally
associated with the contrast between “Meccan” and “Medinan” sūrahs, is a shift
in eschatology from an expectation of future punishment of rejectors in this
world to a “realized eschatology” (Ladd 1993, 56) of judgment in the here and
now, at the hands of believers. This critical change in the Qurʾan’s message takes
place in the context of an emerging crisis of confidence caused by an apparent
delay in divine punishment of disbelievers, combined with growing opposition
to, and persecution of believers.
To fully appreciate the theological framing of this change, we need first to
engage with the two-stage eschatology of the Qurʾan.

2.1 THE QURʾAN’S TWO-STAGE ESCHATOLOGY

The Qurʾan is “suffused with eschatology” (Shoemaker 2012, 137; cf. Sinai
2017c). On almost every page it is concerned with the fate of humanity in this
world and in the world to come. Themes of punishment and vindication are
woven through almost every sūrah, as the threat of punishment and the hope of
reward are constantly brought before the attention of the Messenger’s audience.
There are numerous references to the wrath of Alla¯h to come on Judgment
Day. This is graphically portrayed, for example, in Q81’s descriptions of the
torments of the Fire, which are contrasted with the bliss of the Garden. This and
many passages like it warn that those who reject the Messenger, and call his
message a lie, will face a day of reckoning, be treated as “enemies of Alla¯h”
(Q41:19), and “taste” the punishment whose existence they had previously
denied (Q34:42). During their life they had rejected the Messenger’s warnings
(Q34:43; cf. Q29:68; Q64:10), but when they are thrown into the fire they will
be compelled to acknowledge the truth, confessing “we believe in it now”
(Q34:51–52). Disgrace and humiliation will be their lot (Q9:2; Q10:27; Q3:192).
Warnings of a final eschatological reckoning are sustained throughout the
Qurʾan. However, Judgment Day is not the only punishment that disbelievers
need to fear. In the Qurʾan’s two-stage eschatology, Alla¯h’s judgment of the
wicked and vindication of the righteous does not only take place at the end of the
world, but also in this life.1
A great number of passages refer to the idea of double punishment upon the
wicked, including Q5:33; Q7:38; Q9:74; Q11:99; Q24:19; Q25:69; Q27:5;
Q33:68; Q38:61; Q39:26; Q79:25 (cf. Marshall 2014, 62; Bell 1926, 106–107;
Horovitz 1926, 31), and the idea of double punishment is paralleled by that of a
double reward for the righteous, first in this world and then in the next (Q3:148;
Q34:37; Q57:18; Q64:17). In several respects the Qurʾan uses similar language
to refer to the two punishments, for example the same expression, ʿadhāb ʾalīm
“a painful punishment,” is used to refer to both punishments, linking them
together rhetorically (Marshall 2014, 63). The “nearer” punishment is also
described as a foretaste of the final punishment and both punishments as
manifestations of Alla¯h’s judgment against humankind (Bell 1926, 107; Andrae
1936, 54).2 However, a difference between the two punishments is that the
“nearer” punishment is described at times as a warning, providing an opportunity
for repentance, “so that they may return” or “humble themselves” (Q32:20–22;
cf. Q7:94; Q20:124, 127; Q41:16), but by the time the final punishment comes
there will be no opportunity for repentance.
The doctrine of the nearer punishment motivates repeated references, which
Marshall (2014, 65) calls a “central feature” in the Messenger’s preaching, to
past instances when Alla¯h destroyed whole towns and communities for
rejecting previous messengers:
Those who disbelieve, disaster will continue to strike them for what they do,
or it will come down near their homes, until the promise of Alla¯h comes . . .
[i.e. until the final judgment]. (Q13:31)
A repeated formulaic system is kam ahlaknā / qaṣamnā (qablahum / min
qablihim / min qablikum) min qarnin / mina l‑qurūni / min qaryatin “how many
generations/towns (before them/you) did we destroy/shatter!” (Q6:6; Q7:4;
Q10:13; Q17:17; Q19:74, 98; Q20:128; Q21:11; Q36:31; Q50:36).
There are many references to stories of nearer punishments, but the most
frequent accounts are of Nūḥ and his people; Mūsa¯ and the Egyptians; Lūṭ and
his people; Hūd and ʿĀd; Ṣa¯liḥ and Thamūd; Shuʿayb and Madyan; and
Ibra¯hīm and his people (cf. the reference to “seven oft-repeated” of Q15:87 and
the list in Q9:70). The normal pattern when Alla¯h sends messengers is for the
nearer punishment to follow the disclosure of the message: “whenever we have
sent a prophet to a town, we have seized its people with violence and hardship,
so that they would humble themselves” (Q7:94). The solitary exception was
when the warning was heeded and punishment averted in the story of Yūnus:
“no town believed . . . except the people of Yūnus” (Q10:98; cf. also Q37:147–
48).
The actual form the punishment takes varies and is determined by Alla¯h,
through such means as airborne baked stones (the story of Lūṭ: Q11:82; Q15:74;
Q67:17); drowning (Nūh’s flood in Q10:71–73 and the inundation of Firʿawn’s
army in Q10:90); earthquake or thunderbolt (both are applied to the people of
Thamūd: Q7:78; Q51:44); violent wind (the people of ʿĀd: Q51:41; cf. Q2:266);
a shout (Q11:67); and fire (Q2:266).
Using another formulaic system, the Qurʾan repeatedly invites its listeners to
“travel the earth and see” the destruction of Alla¯h upon sinners in the past3
(Q3:137; Q6:11; Q12:109; Q16:36; Q27:69; Q29:20; Q30:9, 42; Q35:44;
Q40:21, 82; Q47:10). The Qurʾan reminds its audience that the ruins of Lūt’s
people are visible to them, since they regularly walk past them, and perhaps
others as well, on a daily basis (Q37:137–38; cf. Q11:89; Q15:76, 79; Q20:128;
Q32:26; Q46:27).4 It is also said to be “written in the Book” that every town will
experience destructive punishment in this life (Q17:58), an idea which is linked
to that of each town having its own Messenger (Q25:51; Q28:59).

2.2 THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CRISIS

There are many references in the Qurʾan to the Messenger’s communications
being rejected as false (§5.2.5). This is variously referred to as kadhdhaba bi
“calling a lie,” kafara bi “disbelieving, renouncing, being ungrateful for,” yādalu
fī “disputing about,” or jaḥadu bi “denying” the signs of Alla¯h. The use of the
verb kafara communicates ingratitude as well as disbelief, as many of the signs
are descriptions of Alla¯h’s beneficence to humanity. As time passes the
rejections and verbal insults become more elaborate. In response, the Messenger
is instructed to bring the “nearer punishments” of the past to the attention of his
audience: “If they turn away, say ‘I warn you of a thunderbolt like the
thunderbolt of ʿĀd and Thamūd’” (Q41:13).
However, the Qurʾan reports that the Messenger’s audience is skeptical. They
ask him how and when Alla¯h is going to send this promised disaster.5 The
Messenger does not know and is not given the answer by Alla¯h. Instead he is
instructed to say that Alla¯h has appointed the time for each people (Q10:49),
saying “I do not know whether what you are promised is near or far” (Q21:109;
cf. Q72:25).
The rejectors are not satisfied with this answer and many passages refer
directly or indirectly to conversations about the delayed punishment, and
comment on why it might be delayed. Disbelievers mock the Messenger’s
announcements of future judgment, and interrogate him concerning why the
punishment is so slow in coming (Andrae 1923–1925, 215). They urge him to
bring it on more quickly, which the Qurʾan describes as istaʿjala bi-l-ʿadhābi
“hurrying up the punishment” (Q29:53–54; Q37:176). In the same vein,
disbelievers keep asking “what is holding it back” (Q11:8; cf. Q6:58; Q13:6;
Q21:38) and urge the punishment to be brought forward, telling the Messenger
to “bring us what you promised us” (Q7:70, 77; Q10:48; Q13:6; Q21:38;
Q22:47; Q46:22), although sometimes they also ask for a sign in lieu (Q13:7, 27;
Q20:133). Much later, after the fighting has started, there is a passage in Q8
which recalls these earlier conversations. In retrospect, the reason given for the
delay is that at the time the Messenger was still among the unbelievers, some of
whom were still asking for forgiveness—Alla¯h was not going to punish them
“while you were among them”—so Alla¯h withheld the punishment for a time
(Q8:32–34; cf. Andrae 1923–1925, 216).
The text of the Qurʾan points to growing anxiety among believers when or
whether the threatened punishment would ever fall on unbelievers (Marshall
2014, 60). It seems the extended period of challenges made some believers
waiver. Some are tempted to “turn away” (Q21:109; Q16:82), and it seems some
did indeed stumble and “break the covenant of Alla¯h” (Q13:25), which would
have undermined the confidence of some in the Qurʾanic community.
At this time the heart of the Messenger himself is said to be “weighed down”
(Q11:12; lit. his “breast” was “straightened”; cf. Q15:97) by mocking demands
for a miraculous sign, such as that he bring down an angel or produce some
heavenly treasure. There are also other hints that he is struggling. A doubt is
expressed whether the Messenger will live to see Alla¯h’s punishment (Q10:46),
and he does not know whether the punishment is near or far off (Q72:25).6 He is
urged not to let the mocking comments cause him sorrow (Q10:65). If the
Messenger is harboring doubts, the Qurʾan urges him “do not be in doubt about
it” (Q11:17), and “if you (sg.) are in doubt about what We have sent down to
you, ask those who have been reciting the Book before you” (Q10:94). It is said
that in the past rescue only came “when the messengers had given up hope”
(Q12:110), which implies that the Messenger was himself struggling with
feelings of hopelessness.
In response, Alla¯h has much to say to the believers. He calls upon them to be
patient and wait for the Day to arrive (Q11:121–22; Q16:84, 89, 111), even while
disbelievers appear to continue on with their untroubled, easy lives (Q11:116;
Q15:3)—“do not be in a hurry with them” (Q19:84–86; cf. Q7:87; Q10:102)—
because their sense of security is ill-founded (Q12:107) and the punishment will
come upon them in the end (Q6:58–60; Q10:11; Q18:58; Q51:14).7 Every
message comes with a pre-appointed time for judgment (Q6:67) which cannot be
known in advance or altered (Q15:4–5). Alla¯h is only “sparing” evildoers for
the day of reckoning which is to come (Q13:32; Q14:42–43). In the meantime,
believers are instructed to leave disbelievers to their own devices, because
judgment will fall upon them in the end (Q6:70, 91; Q10:11; Q15:3, 96–97;
Q43:83). Punishment is set for an appointed time, from which no one can escape
(Q7:34; Q10:48–49; Q11:8; Q18:58–59). Alla¯h also fortifies believers by
telling them that in the past rejectors always challenged messengers in a similar
way (Q26:187; Q29:29), so these mocking responses are to be expected.
The Messenger is told to uphold the truth “casting truth against falsehood”
(Q21:18). The more criticism, the more the Messenger is to emphasize the
inevitability of the coming punishment in this life. He is also told that if
believers turn away from the right path, he must remember that he is only
responsible for “the clear delivery” (Q16:82): he is “not a guardian” or a
“watcher” over the people (Q10:108), and he is not responsible for anyone’s bad
choices (Q6:52; Q10:109).
Use of the verb adhāqa “cause to taste” is characteristic of this period, warning
of the inevitability of evildoers being made to “taste the nearer punishment,
before the greater punishment” (Q32:21; cf. Q16:112; Q17:75; Q39:26; Q41:16).
Condemnation is also heaped upon them for their ingratitude while they are
continuing to enjoy a season when Alla¯h allows them to “taste” his mercy
(Q10:21; Q11:9–10; Q30:33; Q41:50).
These challenges to the Messenger and his faith community constituted a
profound theological crisis in which the presenting issue was the apparent delay
in the arrival of the promised punishment of disbelievers by Alla¯h. This was no
minor matter, especially in the light of suggestions that the nearer punishment
might come soon (Q6:5; Q15:3; Q37:175; Q102:3). The longer the Messenger’s
predictions of judgment in this life remained unfulfilled, the greater the potential
for doubts to arise about all the Messenger’s claims.
Theological disappointment about delayed punishment of their opponents was
not all the community of believers had to contend with. There was also their own
difficult situation. They had been promised that as believers they would prosper,
enjoying various kinds of material blessings, including wealth, sons and gardens
(Q71:11–12), and they would inherit the land after the rejectors were destroyed
(Q7:100; Q14:13–14). The example of Ibra¯hīm pointed to success in this life
and the next (Q29:27). In contrast disbelievers would be “the losers” (al-
khāsirūna; Q7:178; Q11:47; Q41:23). Believers were to place all their hopes for
success upon Alla¯h (Q11:88). However, there are reports of disbelievers
interfering with believers’ religious practices, including barring them from “the
sanctuary” (Q22:25; cf. also the later reports in Q2:191, 217; Q5:2; Q8:34–35;
Q48:25), and acting violently against them to expel them from their homes,
forcing them to migrate to another place. Q16:88 rails against those who
“disbelieve and keep people from the way of Alla¯h” (cf. also Q11:19), and
Q16:110 refers to believers who “emigrated after having been tested, (and) then
struggled and were patient.” Such experiences of opposition and persecution
were of particular theological significance during the crisis period. The more
disbelievers prospered and lorded it over believers, the greater the potential for
theological disappointment among believers, not only about the delay in
punishment, but also about the non-arrival of the believers’ promised success.
The greater the suffering, the greater and more acute the potential for cognitive
dissonance became.8
Later, after the transition and apparently in retrospect, it is suggested that if the
Messenger and his companions were “shaken” and despairing of Alla¯h’s help,
suffering violence, and hardship, then, in accordance with the principle of
Messenger Uniformitarianism (§5.3) and to assuage doubt, it is stated that they
had only been going through what had befallen messengers in the past (Q2:214).
The resolution of the Eschatological Crisis, as we shall see, is the belated
arrival of the “nearer punishment,” which does not take the form, not of some
kind of sovereign Act of God, such as an earthquake, a flood, or missiles sent
from heaven, as had been expected. Instead the punishment comes by the hands
of believers, as “a once-for-all divine act of devastation is replaced with a
gradual military and political campaign” (Marshall 2014, xviii). This theological
shift, a change in understanding of the “nearer punishment,” is here termed the
“Eschatological Transition.” It is precipitated by the drawn-out theological crisis.
The sūrahs of the Qurʾan can be classified according to whether they come
before or after this theological tipping point. It is useful to be able to refer to
“pre-transitional” and “post-transitional” sūrahs, distinguished by theological
criteria.
Table 2.1 is a classification of the sūrahs of the Qurʾan according to the
theological criteria developed in this chapter for distinguishing pre- and post-
transitional passages. The criterion used is this: to qualify as a “post-transitional”
sūrah, there must be clear post-transitional theological characteristics. The lack
of post-transitional theological features is sufficient for a sūrah to be considered
pre-transitional. Where counts are given in this book of occurrences of particular
forms or themes in pre- and post-transitional sūrahs, it is the classification of
Table 2.1 which is being referred to.
Table 2.1 Classification of sūrahs by theological characteristics
 There are a few exceptions to the reliance on this theological criterion. One is
the classification of Q110, which is considered post-transitional on the stylistic
criteria described in chapter 3. It is also proposed that three sūrahs, Q73, Q74,
and Q85, are a mixture of pre-transitional and post-transitional passages, for
which an analysis is given in chapter 3.
This classification, which is based on theological characteristics, is found to
align for the most part with Nöldeke’s (1909) biographical, thematic, and
stylistic division of the Qurʾan into Meccan and Medinan sūrahs, with the
exception that Q22 is here considered to be the last of the pre-transitional sūrahs,
on theological grounds (§2.3), but Nöldeke groups it with the later Medinan
sūrahs, although he concedes that is was mainly Meccan.9
Not all pre-transitional sūrahs show evidence of the Eschatological Crisis.
Table 2.2 presents a list of pre-transitional sūrahs which show one of two signs
of the Eschatological Crisis. Such evidence includes reports of events taking
place in the life of the Messenger and his community, or “parallel” reports of
previous messengers, which function to validate what the Messenger is going
through. Two kinds of evidence are considered:
Table 2.2 Pre-transitional sūrahs by Eschatological Crisis features

References to “hurrying up” the punishment, including calls to “bring us what

you promised,” asking what is holding it back, or responses from Alla¯h such
as “do not hurry”;
References to various kinds of opposition and persecution which are causing
 difficulties for believers.
Not all pre-transitional sūrahs focus on theological issues which are
symptomatic of the crisis in this particular way, hence the existence of a third
category of pre-transitional sūrahs which show neither of these two particular
features of the crisis. Some of these sūrahs do reflect the crisis, but in other
ways. For example Q45, one of the later pre-transitional sūrahs, urges believers
to forgive those who “are not hoping for the days of Allah” (Q45:14), and it
responds to those who are mocking the announcement of “the Hour” by calling it
a mere “conjecture” (Q45:32).
We will now consider two pre-transitional sūrahs to illustrate pre-transitional
texts during the crisis. Q13 is concerned with how to respond to mocking
demands to “hurry” the punishment, and Q31 is concerned with strengthening
believers who are coming under pressure because of their faith.

2.2.1 Q13 Al-Raʿd “The Thunder”

Sūrah 13, which is grouped in category 1 of Table 2.2, shows characteristics of
being composed when the Eschatological Crisis is escalating, but before the
crisis is resolved through an endorsement of believer’s violence as punishment
from Alla¯h.
There is a reference to mockery experienced during the Eschatological Crisis:
“they seek to hurry the evil” (Q13:6), but the answer to this mockery is to warn
of future judgment and the punishment of the Fire, which the doubters will
experience after the resurrection (Q13:5, Q13:42), and there is as yet no
suggestion of punishment in the here and now at the hands of believers. This is a
characteristic pre-transitional response to mockery. To counter the doubters, who
have been asking for a demonstrable Act of God (a “sign”), such as moving a
mountain, splitting the earth or raising the dead (Q13:31), Alla¯h steadies the
Messenger, instructing him, “you are only a warner . . .” (Q13:7). His role is just
to “recite to them what We have inspired you with” (Q13:30), for it is not a
Messenger’s role to bring signs, only the message (Q13:38).
In response to disputes about why Alla¯h has not yet produced a sign
(Q13:13), there is a warning that “. . . when Alla¯h intends to send evil upon a
people, there is no turning it back” (Q13:11). Here the Qurʾan is instructing
believers to be trusting and patient in the face of seeming inactivity on Alla¯h’s
part, because the punishment, when it comes, will be inevitable.
Apparently in response to complaints that some evildoers have been
prospering, a warning is issued that abundant possessions in this life, up to and
including double everything this world could afford, is insufficient to ransom
anyone from the Fire in the next life (Q13:18, 34). This emphasis on the final
judgment appears to leave room for the disappointing possibility that some
might miss out on the “nearer punishment.” However, the Messenger is told that,
even if he does not live to see the promised day of retribution in his lifetime on
earth (Q13:40), he should stick to his message, for “all that depends upon you is
to deliver the message” (Q13:40).
Nevertheless, Q13 has not given up on looking for an act of divine intervention
against unbelievers in this life: “disaster will continue to strike them for what
they do, or it will come down near their homes, until the promise of Alla¯h
comes. Surely the promise of Alla¯h will not fail” (Q13:31). Although there may
seem to be a delay, the inevitable must come, as it has in the past: “messengers
have been mocked before you, but I spared the disbelievers. Then I seized them,
and how (great) was the retribution!” (Q13:32).
In summary, Q13 is concerned with managing the impact of the Eschatological
Crisis upon believers’ faith. While disbelievers continue to mock the Messenger,
asking Alla¯h to hurry up with punishment, and demanding a dramatic sign to
validate the Messenger’s credentials, some former believers seem to be falling
away and turning back on their earlier commitments (Q13:20, 25). In response,
characteristic pre-transition strategies are enjoined on the Messenger: he is to
patiently stick to script, for his only responsibility is to deliver the message.

2.2.2 Q31 Luqmān

Let us now consider Q31, another pre-transitional sūrah. Q31 has a sustained
concern with giving advice to believers and the Messenger, who are being
opposed by attempts to divert them from their faith through mockery, despising
the “signs,” and disputing about Alla¯h in ignorance. Some are calling out to
Alla¯h when in need, but then fall away from faith (Q31:6–7; 20–21, 32), and
some parents are attempting to hold their children back from following Alla¯h’s
way by inciting them to idolatry (Q31:14–15, 33).
A key question in determining whether a passage is pre- or post-transitional is
this: What strategy does Alla¯h commend upon believers? Are they to be patient
and endure with opposition, knowing Alla¯h will eventually bring punishment,
hopefully in this life, and certainly in the next, which is the pre-transitional
message, or are they to be the agents of Alla¯h’s punishment, acting as the hand
of Alla¯h against disbelievers? In this respect, Q31 displays a consistently pre-
transitional theological character. Alla¯h advises humble and patient endurance
to stay the course on the rightly guided path (Q31:3–5, 17–19, 31), asks
believers to maintain thankfulness (Q31:12, 31), and calls them to trust in him,
his words (Q31:22, 27), his signs (Q31:29–32), and his sovereignty as the one
who knows all things (Q31:34). They should not be grieved over evildoers who
seem to prosper (Q31:23–24), but can instead count on the coming of the
“painful punishment” on the Day of Judgment (Q31:6, 33–34) for disbelievers,
and the delights of the Garden for themselves (Q31:8).
The formula “command right and forbid wrong,” used in this sūrah, (Q31:17)
does anticipate later, post-transitional themes (see for example, Q3:104, 110,
114; Q9:71), since it is consistent with a Messenger who commands rather than
warns, but this formula is also found in a few other pre-transitional passages as
well (Q7:157; Q22:41).
All the commended theological responses in Q31 to being tested by
disbelievers are typically pre-transitional: no matter what disbelievers do or say
to undermine their faith, Q31 advises them to simply hold their ground and keep
their faith. This locates Q31 within the Eschatological Crisis period, but before
the theological transition to a realized eschatology of violence done by believers.

2.3 THE CRISIS PEAKS

In Q22 Al-Ḥajj “The Pilgrimage” the Qurʾan reports and responds to an
escalation of opposition and persecution against believers. There are reports of
believers being “kept from the way of Alla¯h” and from the Sacred Mosque
(Q22:25). They have been wrongfully “expelled from their homes, only because
they said ‘Our Lord is Alla¯h’” (Q22:40). Some “emigrated in the way of
Alla¯h, and were killed or died” (Q22:58).
Alla¯h’s response is no longer to commend patience. Instead believers are
permitted to fight in self-defense, and Alla¯h will help them: “Permission is
given to those who fight because they have been wronged—and surely Alla¯h is
able to help them . . .” (Q22:39). In this context the fighting is presented as a
pragmatic necessity, and something which is consistent with the principle of
Messenger Uniformitarianism (§5.3.1) because it is consistent with Alla¯h’s
way, the sunnah of Alla¯h, in the past (Q22:40) when he prevented
“monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques” from being destroyed.
Believers are assured that Alla¯h will reward those who die or are killed in
defending themselves or taking retribution, by admitting them to paradise
(Q22:59). He will also help those who take retribution, with help commensurate
to what they have suffered (Q22:58–60). Here Alla¯h is reassuring believers that
he will “pardon” and “forgive” those who fight back to defend themselves, so
they need not fear his punishment for fighting against or killing others. In
Q22:60 Alla¯h is again said to come to the aid of those who have taken
retribution, even if they are “pursued,” that is, even if their actions are
considered unjust and challenged by others.
While Q22 makes clear that Alla¯h will aid believers who fight in righteous
self-defense, it is significant that Alla¯h does not yet construe this fighting and
killing as his punishment upon disbelievers. Q22 is a staging post, a watershed
on the way to that destination, but it does not reach it. In Q22:40, although
Alla¯h calls upon believers to fight, the stated purpose of the fighting is
defensive, not punitive, namely to protect places of worship and people in their
homes.
Q22 is concerned with divine punishment, for there are repeated references to
Alla¯h’s punishment of evildoers, such as to the “many for whom the
punishment is justified” (Q22:18), but these references are to the punishment of
the Last Day (Q22:9) or to sovereign interventions of Alla¯h against peoples in
the past (Q22:45–46). In invoking these two modes of divine punishment, the
nearer and further punishment, Q22 stays true to the theological core of the
Qurʾan, that Alla¯h punishes both in this life and the next. However, at this point
fighting in self-defense, and even in retribution with Alla¯h’s help, is not yet
presented as the punishment of Alla¯h: that is something still to come.
In Q22 there continue to be reports of rejectors mocking the Messenger by
asking him to bring on the “nearer punishment.” Q22:47 advises that, when they
want to hurry the punishment, the Messenger should stick to script, saying, “I am
only a clear warner for you” (Q22:49). There is certainly no suggestion as yet
that by taking up arms the Messenger and his followers could be the means of
divine retribution. However, this is the last sūrah in which the Messenger will
call himself “only a warner,”10 and it is also the last sūrah in which the Qurʾan
reports that disbelievers are asking for the punishment to be “brought on” or
“hurried.”
Q22 is produced in the midst of a theological shift. The crisis has almost
reached its climax. Persecuted believers are fighting back against disbelievers.
They are told that Alla¯h is on their side, helping them and that Alla¯h has
helped believers fight in the past, for defensive purposes. All that remains is for
the insight to be added that such fighting is not merely defensive or protective,
nor a human response, albeit with Alla¯h’s mandate: it is the long-awaited divine
punishment of evildoers, an Act of God by the hands of believers. Q22 stops
short of that, and instead reaffirms that the Messenger is only a warner, and that
both the nearer and the greater punishments are yet to come. It is in Q2 and Q47
that the Qurʾan graduates to a fully blown post-transitional theology.
At one point in an earlier sūrah the possibility of believers taking retribution
was mentioned as a valid option, but patience was still commended as the
“better” course (Q16:126–27). The possibility that believers could act as the
instigators of Alla¯h’s “nearer punishment” has also not been completely absent
from the Messenger’s mind. Already in a few pre-transitional passages there are
intimations that Alla¯h could punish evildoers by raising up others against them
(e.g., Q7:167). There was a reference to Alla¯h raising up men against the “sons
of Israel” as a punishment (Q17:5–7), in an apparent reference to the exile. In yet
another pre-transitional passage, a list of types of Acts of God against
unbelievers is said to include the possibility of destruction not only from above
(e.g., fire from heaven) or from below (e.g., by earthquake), but also “from
others,” that is, by human hands (Q6:65). However, these intimations are not
realized in Q22, but only after the Eschatological Transition.

2.4 AN ACT OF GOD BY HUMAN HANDS

One of the symptoms of the resolution of the Eschatological Crisis is that the
Qurʾan makes statements that attribute responsibility to Alla¯h for killing done
by believers “in the way of Alla¯h.” It is said that when believers kill
disbelievers, it is not they who do the killing, but Alla¯h himself, “you did not
kill them, but Alla¯h killed them, and you did not throw when you threw, but
Alla¯h threw. . .” (Q8:17). In Q9:14 Alla¯h speaks of punishing disbelievers by
human hands: “Fight them, and Alla¯h will punish them by your hands, and
cover them with shame . . . .” There is also a post-transitional parallel reference
in Q2:251 to Alla¯h driving one people away by means of another, based on a
report of what happened in the past.
The language of “tasting” is repeatedly used in pre-transitional sūrahs in
reference to the punishments of the Fire (e.g., Q32:20; Q51:14; Q54:48), and
sometimes also to the “nearer punishment” (e.g., Q54:37; Q65:9). In post-
transitional sūrahs it is also used to refer to deadly violence done by the hands of
believers, as a foretaste of the Fire. This “tasting” language links the violence
done by believers to the torments of the Fire:
“. . . make the believers stand firm. I shall cast fear into the hearts of those
 who disbelieve. So strike their necks, and strike off all their fingers!” That
was because they opposed Alla¯h and His messenger. Whoever opposes
Alla¯h and His messenger—surely Alla¯h is harsh in punishment. “That is
for you! Taste it! The punishment of the Fire is for the disbelievers.” (Q8:12–
14; cf. also Q5:33–34)
In pre-transitional sūrahs the phrase ʿadhāb alīm “painful punishment” is used to
refer to both the “nearer” and “greater” punishment (Q11:48; Q25:37; Q46:24),
and after the transition the same phrase is also used to refer to violence at the
hands of believers, “give the disbelievers news of a painful punishment (ʿadhāb
alīm) . . . kill the associators wherever you find them” (Q9:3–5). Furthermore, in
a number of post-transitional passages which associate the “painful punishment”
with actions by disbelievers, the phrase fī-l-dunyā wa-al-ākhirati “in this world
and the Hereafter” is used. This links the believers’ fighting with the final
Judgment (Q9:73–74; Q33:57–58, 61–62). In these ways, the Qurʾan can be seen
to construe violence by believers against disbelievers as manifestations of the
“nearer punishment,” as after the Eschatological Transition the Messenger is no
longer waiting for the wrath of Alla¯h to fall on rejectors: he and his followers
become the instrument of Alla¯h’s punishment in this life.
In order to continue to trace the aftermath of the crisis and its continued
outworking, we will now consider two post-transitional sūrahs, Q2 and Q47,
both of which can be located comparatively close to the crisis. Q2 documents the
shift from the permission to fight, to a command to fight, after which mortal
combat against disbelievers is no longer simply an act of self-defense, and in
Q47 the idea is put forward for the first time that fighting disbelievers is an act
of Alla¯h.

2.4.1 An Early Post-Transitional Sūrah

Q2 Al-Baqara “The Cow,” the longest sūrah in the Qurʾan, is also the earliest of
the post-transitional sūrahs. Its early status is reflected, for example, in its
stylistic metrics (see Figure 3.9). Q2 reinforces some of the previous innovations
of Q22. Fighting back (Q2:190; Q2:217; Q2:246; cf. Q22:39) and retaliation
(Q2:194; cf. Q22:60) are permitted to believers, and there are references to
defensive fighting. However, Q2 goes a step further. It moves beyond the
theological position of Q22, which had endorsed violence in self-defense, to
make it a prescription for believers.
In addition to the “permission” to fight which continues on from Q22, Q2
“prescribes” fighting: “fighting is prescribed for you” (Q2:216, 246; cf. Q4:77).
For the first time in the development of the Qurʾan, human fighting is described
in Q2 as fī sabīl Allāh “Alla¯h’s way,” a phrase which only occurs in post-
transitional sūrahs (Q2:190, 244, 246; cf. Q3:13, 167; Q4:74–76, 84; Q9:111;
Q73:20). This makes violence a mandatory aspect of the rightly guided path, not
just a permitted contingent response to persecution. The idea of violence fī sabīl
Allāh “in the way of Alla¯h” builds upon and elaborates the pre-transitional
theology of the unchanging sunnah of Alla¯h. In Q2, and in line with the
Qurʾan’s doctrine of Messenger Uniformitarianism (§5.3), past messengers for
the first time are described as fighting disbelievers “in the way of Alla¯h”
(Q2:246–53; cf. also Q2:214). This is a sign that the Qurʾan’s Rasulology is
being adjusted to conform to the needs of post-transitional theology. The
command is no longer for believers merely to fight defensively, or in retribution,
which began to be allowed in Q22, but to engage in mortal combat, fighting to
kill, is now a means to eliminate obstacles to faith and establish Alla¯h’s
religion:
. . . kill them wherever you find them, and expel them from where they
expelled you. Persecution is worse than slaughter . . . Fight them until there is
no more persecution and the religion is Alla¯h’s. (Q2:191, 193, cf. also
Q2:217)
The goal of this fighting is not simply to establish safe borders for believers, but
it has a new theological purpose, to achieve dominance by forcefully eliminating
the power of all religions other than the religion of Alla¯h. This is now
proclaimed as Alla¯h’s way, as confirmed by stories being brought forth of past
messengers who fought against disbelievers.
The twin statements “persecution (fitnah) is worse than killing” (Q2:191;
Q2:217) and “fight them until there is no more persecution” (Q2:193; Q8:39) are
important milestones in this theological progression. Fighting and killing
disbelievers is no longer defensive, but theological prophylaxis, to remove all
obstacles to establishing the Messenger’s religion. The command to fight must
also be read in light of the crucial belief that disbelievers will never stop
opposing believers in order to undermine and destroy their faith: “They will not
stop fighting you until they turn you away from your religion, if they can”
(Q2:217). This means that fighting is no longer to be seen as a context-specific
protective response to particular circumstances at a particular time. An
obligation has now been declared to fight all disbelievers at all times, punishing
and suppressing an opposing evil that will never relent from opposing the
religion of Alla¯h. Another symptom of the theological shift is that fighting and
killing disbelievers is described as jazā “recompense” (Q2:191), a term which
throughout the Qurʾan is associated with Alla¯h’s judgment. Furthermore, those
who do not give up usury are said to be “on notice of war from Alla¯h and His
Messenger” (Q2:279), and this joining together of the Messenger with Alla¯h
indicates that the Messenger has become Alla¯h’s partner in punishing and
proscribing through violence. Again, this goes beyond fighting in self-defense.
In Q2 there is a clear understanding of the challenge this shift represents for
believers. The resistance is palpable. For example, it is reported that believers in
the time of Mūsa¯ (Moses) were willing to fight in self-defense, but they turned
away in droves as soon as “fighting was prescribed for them” (Q2:246). This
must be seen as a commentary on events taking place in the Messenger’s
community, and it aligns with the observation that the command to fight is
“hateful to you” (Q2:216; cf. Q4:77–78): it is one thing to fight in self-defense,
but quite another to take up arms in order to kill off or enslave others.
Finally we can observe that, unlike Q22, Q2 includes no more statements that
the Messenger is “only a warner,” nor reports of people trying to “hurry” the
Messenger by taunting him with questions about why the “nearer punishment”
has not yet fallen on the disbelievers. That conversation has been made
redundant by the universal call to arms, after which the Messenger is no longer
merely a warner but an enforcer, since the “nearer punishment” has arrived in the
form of fighting. Q2 is the first post-transitional sūrah in which there are no
more conversations about waiting for Alla¯h to bring his punishment against
disbelievers. Instead, by mandating warfare in the way of Alla¯h, the destruction
of disbelievers has been brought forward into the present, and the means is no
longer an Act of God, by wind, fire, earthquake, flood, or some other natural
means, but by the hands of the believers. The nature and impact of this
theological transition is further explored in our discussion of Q47.

2.4.2 Another Early Post-Transitional Sūrah

Here we consider the theological characteristics of another early post-transitional
sūrah, Q47. In this sūrah believers are commanded to fight, kill, and take
disbelievers captive, for “that is the rule” (Q47:4). What confirms the post-
transitional character of this sūrah is that this violence is framed as an Act of
God. The disbelievers are told they should not have been surprised by their
downfall (Q47:4–8), because they could see the signs of communities which
Alla¯h has destroyed in the past: “Have they not traveled the earth and seen how
the end was for those who came before them?” (Q47:10–11). This comparison
invites disbelievers to conclude that the violence being done against them is
Alla¯h’s punishment, just as he punished communities in the past through
natural disasters. Moreover, the violence coming upon disbelievers is suggested
to be a manifestation of the conditions of “the Hour” (i.e., of Judgment Day)
—“the conditions for it have already arrived”—in what is an ironic riposte to
their earlier taunts (Q47:18). Further evidence the fighting is seen as Alla¯h’s
work is that disbelievers who are killed by believers are said to die condemned
by Alla¯h, and this is why believers should pursue the fighting, without letting
up. They must even forgo opportunities to sue for peace if they have a
reasonable chance of achieving total victory: “Do not grow weak and call for
peace, when you are prevailing” (Q47:34–35). That disbelievers do not deserve
to be allowed more time to live by contracting an early truce also implies that the
existence of disbelief is a sufficient justification for fighting. Furthermore, the
fighting of believers is described as a substitute for Alla¯h’s own attack against
disbelievers. Alla¯h is said to have delegated his attack to believers because it
tests them: “. . . let there be a striking of the necks . . . that He may test some of
you by means of others” (Q47:4).
In Q47 believers are now commanded to “Obey Alla¯h, and obey the
Messenger!” (Q47:33). Thus the Messenger is no longer “only a warner,” but has
become the one to be obeyed, including in the matter of warfare, and those who
give verbal assent to obedience but do not follow through in battle, “turning
back,” will face Alla¯h’s wrath on Judgment Day (Q47:25–27). We can also
observe that Q47 refers to a command to fight which was sent down in a
previously recited sūrah or sūrahs (Q47:20). It frames this previous call to
violence as an Act of God, and calls upon believers to obey the Messenger,
including in making war (Q47:21). Finally, as in Q2, there are no more
reminders to the Messenger that he is only a warner who simply has to deliver
the message. Instead he has become the commander of Alla¯h’s army of
believers, executing Alla¯h’s punishment.

2.4.3 Walid Saleh’s Account of the Crisis

Saleh (2016, 117) has proposed that a key to the crisis of faith is the failure of
the Messenger’s preaching to lead to “universal conversion.” The Messenger had
desired “to convert of all humanity” (2016, 110), but the failure of this agenda
led him to “despair and anguish” (2016, 109). In support of this, Saleh points to
the declaration that “most of the people are not going to believe, even if you
(sg.) are eager” (Q12:103; cf. Q16:37). Alla¯h advises the believers that for
people to go astray is not only under his control (Q16:37), it is normal and
justifiable, since the wicked “will not believe” (Q10:33; cf. Q10:13, 40, 74, 88;
Q15:13) and in the past, only the “people of Yūnus” believed (Q10:98). Saleh
writes:
. . . a pervasive despair was gnawing at the heart of the mission. For a
prophetic career, this is a profound moment; to admit to the futility of
preaching is to call into question the whole enterprise. If it was not a complete
loss of faith, then it was a moment which necessitated a radical reassessment
that, I believe, was the beginning of this radical shift toward militant activism.
(2016, 107)
A careful reading of Saleh (2016, 109–110) shows that he rightly identifies two
factors which contributed to the crisis: the “tarrying of punishment,” and the
associated delay in the rescue (najjā) of the Messenger and his company, to
make them “successors” (khalīfat) to disbelievers (Q10:73). However, it is
argued here that it was precisely this double tarrying, which Saleh also
acknowledges, which drove the crisis, not the rejection of the Messenger’s
preaching.
There is no question that the Messenger disliked rejection, and it is suggested
in Q12:103 that he wished people would believe. However, a problem with
Saleh’s explanation is that from the earliest period the Qurʾan had always
declared that many would disbelieve, and the destruction of disbelievers is
consistently presented as the customary way of Alla¯h with messengers. The
often-repeated calls to look and learn from the ruins of past generations testify to
this, and the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism requires that the
Messenger’s generation should be no different. Moreover, the Qurʾan never says
that the Messenger or past messengers despaired or gave up hope merely
because some disbelieved. In Q11:12 the Messenger is said to be distressed by
mocking demands for a miraculous sign, not by the fact that people were not
converting. In Q10:46, when a doubt is expressed whether the Messenger will
live to see the promise of Alla¯h fulfilled, the focus is on the delayed
punishment (Q10:48–52), not failed conversions. In relation to Q10:99–100,
although Saleh speaks of “pointed dismay at Muhammad’s desire to covert all of
humanity” there is in fact no dismay apparent in these verses, but simply a
declaration of Alla¯h’s sovereignty over who will or will not believe. In
Q12:110, where past messengers are said to have given up hope, wa-ẓannū
annahum qad kudhibū11 “and they thought that they had been lied to,” the
despair is due to what they prophesied not coming to pass, not to the disbelief of
the people they were sent to. This is clear because the solution to the despair is
not mass conversions but the arrival of Alla¯h’s violence (Q12:110). Further
evidence for this is that it is a reference to the ruined towns (Q12:109), which
sets the scene for v.110. This verse is not about despair over non-conversion, but
over delayed punishment. Furthermore, the suggestion that the Messenger
should ask those who have the Book from before him (Q10:94) arose in the
context of a report about the destruction of disbelievers and vindication of
believers (Q10:84–93), not concerns over non-conversion.
The Messenger already had ample theological resources to account for
rejection of his message by the masses. What threatened the theological
credibility of his whole message and his authority in the eyes of his followers,
was not the rejection of the Messenger by the many, but the non-arrival of the
“nearer punishment” of Alla¯h on the heads of disbelievers, and the connected
failure of promised success for believers to materialize.
Saleh’s account locates the theological crisis primarily in the psychology of the
Messenger. However, the account offered here locates it first and foremost in the
hearts and minds of the Messenger’s community. It was a crisis over the
credibility of Messenger and his God, not a crisis in the self-confidence of the
Messenger. The tarrying of Alla¯h’s punishment, and experiences of obstruction
and persecution, which contrasted so starkly with the promises they had received
of becoming successful, is what was causing people to fall away and turn back
and threatening the viability of the fledgling Qurʾanic community. This is what
constituted the crisis.

2.5 ASSOCIATED POST-TRANSITIONAL CHANGES

Although this theological transition within the Qurʾan has far-reaching
implications for all involved, it builds upon rather than fundamentally alters the
core theology of the Qurʾan. The shift could be considered secondary, in that it
involves a change of timing, by bringing forward the execution of Alla¯h’s
judgment into the here and now, through the hands of the believers, who become
divine agents in implementing Alla¯h’s curse of the “nearer punishment.”
Nevertheless, the change of timing also brings with it a set of significant
corresponding shifts in the subject matter and emphases of post-transition
sūrahs. These shifts have far-reaching implications for the community of
believers and the role of the Messenger.
After the transition there is a change in the characterization of the believers.
Before the Eschatological Transition the Messenger is “only” a “bringer of good
news” (bashīr) and “a warner” (nadhīr) (Q7:188; Q17:105; Q25:1), with no
“authority” or “lawful power” (sulṭān), just like previous messengers (Q14:11).
Other pre-transitional descriptions of the Messenger are in the same vein: he is
neither a “watcher” (ḥafīẓ; Q6:104, 107; Q11:86; Q42:48), nor a “guardian”
(wakīl; Q6:66, 107; Q10:108; Q11:12; Q17:54; Q25:43; Q39:41; Q42:6), nor a
“controller” or “record-keeper”12 (muṣayṭir; Q88:21–22), nor a “tyrant” (jabbār;
Q50:45) over believers, nor does he himself guide them (Q28:56),13 so “nothing
of their account (falls) on you” (Q6:52).14
For believers, the emphasis at this stage is on believing the signs of Alla¯h,
trusting in Alla¯h, rejecting association (shirk), and being eager to do good
deeds, including making contributions (zakat), and performing daily prayers.
Here are two typical pre-transitional passages which characterize believers in
such terms:
Only those believe in Our signs who, when they are reminded of them, fall
down in prostration and glorify their Lord with praise. They are not arrogant.
They forsake their beds (during the night) to call on their Lord in fear and
eagerness, and they contribute from what We have provided them. (Q32:15–
16; Droge 2014)
Surely those who—they are apprehensive on account of fear of their Lord,
and those who—they believe in the signs of their Lord, and those who—they
do not associate (anything) with their Lord, and those who give what they
give, while their hearts are afraid because they are going to return to their
Lord—(it is) those who are quick in the (doing of) good deeds, and they are
foremost in them. (Q23:57–61; Droge 2014)
After the transition, the community of believers becomes dissociated from
disbelievers, who are not to be taken as “allies.” The believers are a more
regulated community, which now “commands right and forbids wrong,”
exercising authority even over disbelievers. The Messenger’s function also
changes after the transition, when he assumes a position of command over
believers, whose duty is no longer merely to listen to the Messenger and believe,
but to obey, giving him their total personal allegiance (Sinai 2015–2016, 68).
The community is now to “obey Alla¯h and (obey) His/the Messenger,” for
“Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Alla¯h” (Q4:80).15
It is striking that the formula “obey Alla¯h and (obey) His/the Messenger”
appears 21 times in post-transitional sūrahs but never in pre-transitional sūrahs.
The phrase “Alla¯h and the/his Messenger” joins the authority of the Messenger
to that of Alla¯h.16 “Alla¯h” is conjoined with “the/his Messenger” (and
sometimes “messengers”) 97 times after the transition, in 16 of the 23 post-
transitional sūrahs, but only twice before the transition (Q72:23 and Q7:158).
Here are typical post-transitional characterizations of believers:
The believing men and the believing women are allies of each other. They
command right and forbid wrong, they observe the prayer and give the alms,
and they obey God and His messenger. Those—God will have compassion on
them. (Q9:71; Droge 2014)
The ones who turn (in repentance), the ones who serve, the ones who praise,
the ones who wander, the ones who bow, the ones who prostrate themselves,
the ones who command right, and the ones who forbid wrong, (and) the ones
who keep the limits of God—give good news to the believers. (Q9:112;
Droge 2014)
The following pair of contrasting passages illustrates the elaboration of the role
of the Messenger after the transition, and the demand that he be obeyed, or else
rejectors must face the Fire:
Pre-Transition:
. . . those who fulfill the covenant of God and do not break the compact, and
who join together what God has commanded to be joined with it, and fear
their Lord, and are afraid of the evil reckoning, and who are patient in seeking
the face of their Lord, and observe the prayer, and contribute from what We
have provided them, in secret and in open, and avert evil by means of the
good. Those—for them (there is) the outcome of the Home: Gardens of Eden
which they (will) enter . . . But those who break the covenant of God, after its
ratification, and sever what God has commanded to be joined, and foment
corruption on the earth, those—for them (there is) the curse, and for them
(there is) the evil Home. . . . They gloat over this present life, but this present
life is nothing but a (fleeting) enjoyment in (comparison to) the Hereafter.
(Q13:20–26; Droge 2014; cf. Q39:71–74)
Post-Transition:
Whoever obeys God and his messenger—He will cause him to enter Gardens
through which rivers flow, there to remain. That is the great triumph! But
whoever disobeys God and His messenger, and transgresses His limits—He
will cause him to enter the Fire, there to remain. For him (there is) a
humiliating punishment. (Q4:13–14; Droge 2014)
Before the transition the emphasis is on believing Alla¯h’s warnings through the
Messenger, and responding to these warnings by doing good deeds. After the
transition the emphasis is on obedience in conformity to the specific instructions
—the “limits”—brought by the Messenger, who is paired with Alla¯h in
authority over believers.
After the Eschatological Transition, there are several other textual and thematic
features which elaborate a distinctly post-transitional theology. For example,
there are much less frequent references to the Messenger’s function as a
“warner” on whom nothing depends but the clear delivery of the message
(§5.2.3)—only 6 of 58, or 10 percent of instances of nadhīr “warner” in the
Qurʾan are post-transitional—and every statement that the Messenger is “only”
(illā) a warner is pre-transitional.17 The change in the status of the Messenger is
also reflected in different emphases found in reports of past messengers. After
the transition some of these past messengers become models of hatred (e.g.,
Q60:4) and violence (Q3:146–49), something which had not been attested before
the transition.
One of the marked changes which characterize post-transitional sūrahs is the
proliferation of instructions about how to relate to the Messenger:

• people should not question him in the way people questioned Mūsa¯ (Q2:108);
• true believers will not leave the Messenger’s presence until they have sought
his permission (Q24:62);
• people should not enter his house without waiting first, they should not stay
too long, if they ask his wives for anything, they should do it from behind a
curtain, and they should not marry his wives after him (Q33:53ff);
• they should not be too forward in dealing with him (Q49:1);
• they should not speak loudly, raising their voices over his (Q49:2–3);
• they should not call out to him from inside private rooms (Q49:4);
• they are forbidden to talk secretly together in enmity toward the Messenger
(Q58:8–9);
• they should give an offering before seeking to meet with the Messenger
(Q58:12–13);
• they should pray for him (Q33:56–57);
• they should pledge allegiance to him (Q4:81, Q8:27); and
• whoever hurts “Alla¯h and his Messenger” is cursed in this world and the next
(Q33:57).

A number of these stipulations point to a degree of social pressure upon the

Messenger in the form of people being rude, calling out to him, talking over him,
and pressing into his home. This suggests a growth in the size and complexity of
the movement, and increasing demands being made upon him as a leader. That
the Messenger had the authority to control how his followers related to him,
even down to such specific detail, points to the “all-embracing personal power”
(Rezvan 1997a, 40) which he gained after the transition.
After the transition there are also thematic and lexical changes apparent in the
message which the Messenger is bringing. Almost all of these changes can be
accounted for in terms of the eschatological model proposed here:18

• There is a decrease in the frequency of references to “signs”: the lexeme ʾāyat

comprises 0.63 percent of words pre-transition, but becomes half as frequent in
post-transitional passages, comprising only 0.31 percent of words. “Signs”
remain a core part of Qurʾanic Theology after the transition, but they are not
emphasized as much. This correlates with a shift away from reliance on
rhetorical means of persuasion after the Qurʾanic community takes up violence
to enforce the faith of the Messenger.
• There is less frequent reference to figures, places, and themes connected with
“punishment narratives” (Sinai 2015–2016, 65). The punishment narratives
themselves, used as warnings, fade away, as the punishment has already
arrived (Marshall 2014, 157–158). Thus there is only one post-transitional
reference out of 25 overall to the town Thamūd, the setting for an often-
alluded to punishment story, and the form IV verb adhāqa “cause to taste,”
which is used in connection with warnings about punishment in this life (see
for example, Q32:21), is attested 22 times in pre-transitional passages, but not
once in post-transitional contexts.
• After the transition, references to Judgment Day become less frequent, less
emphasized and less elaborated (Bell 1926, 107). For example, 19/70 (27%) of
mentions of al-qiyāmat “Day of Resurrection” and 0/13 (0%) of mentions of
 yawm al-dīn “Day of Judgment” are post-transitional. It is less necessary to
use the threat of end-times punishment because the “nearer punishment” in the
form of violence has already arrived.
• Since a state of war prevails the need for conscripts and financial contributions
is emphasized after the transition (e.g., Q47:35–38): 57 of 68 instances (84%)
of anfaqa “spend, make financial contributions” occur after the transition.
Before the transition financial contributions are spoken of in the context of
charitable good works, but after the transition the focus is on supporting
warfare. Inducements for men to fight include the promise of the Garden for
martyrs (Q2:154; Q3:169–70; Q61:11–12) and the threat of the Fire for
laggards (Q9:81).
• There are various post-transitional references to the increased insecurity of
believers, and believers needing to emigrate to find safety (e.g., Q2:218;
Q8:72; Q33:50). This theme is also anticipated in the pre-transitional period
(e.g., by Q16:41), but is fleshed out after the transition.
• References to believers fighting nonbelievers, killing them, and taking over
their property proliferate after the transition (Q2:190–193, 217; Q3:152;
Q4:76, 89, 91, 94–95; Q8:39, 41, 67; Q9:5, 12–14, 26, 29, 88, 123; Q48:15,
19–20; Q61:4).
• There are repeated post-transitional warnings against believers associating,
befriending, and allying with disbelievers (Q3:28, 118ff; Q4:89, 144; Q5:51,
81; Q9:23; Q58:14ff, 22).19
• Repeated references to pilgrimage also appear after the transition, a reflection
of the state of war that prevails, and the need for believers to come together
with other believers (e.g., Q2:189; Q196–98; Q3:97; Q5:1–2, 95; Q9:3, 19).
• After the transition there is increasing regulation of the community of
believers through detailed prescriptions. For example, all but one of the
instances of the root n-k-ḥ referring to “marriage” (36 post-transitional vs. 1
pre-transitional) occur after the transition, mainly in the context of delivering
regulations for marriage. This change reflects the altered status of the
Messenger as one who directs the faithful: he is no longer a mere warner, but a
lawgiver.
• There is increased frequency of the terms dīn in the sense of “religion”20 (41
post-transitional vs. 26 pre-transitional instances) and islām (6 post-transitional
vs. 2 pre-transitional instances), suggesting the religious community is
entering a more regulated and established phase.
• After the transition there are fewer references to ṣabara “being patient”: 9
 post-transitional references to being patient contrast with 49 pre-transitional
references.
• References to “striving” (jāhada, jihād) and “those who strive” (mujāhid)
against unbelievers increase in frequency after the transition. The earliest use
of jāhada is in Q25, referring to using the Qurʾan to answer disbelievers. This
verb only begins to be used to refer to conflict quite late in the crisis period,
just before the Eschatological Transition (e.g., in Q16:110; Q29:8; see the
stylistic timeline of Figure 3.10 for the relative temporal position of these
sūrahs).
• After the transition there are increased references to certain categories of
disbelievers, especially “People of the Book,” “Christians” and “hypocrites”
(munāfiqūn). The hypocrites are former followers of the Messenger and
residents with him in “the city” (Q33:60), who have fallen away the
Messenger because of opposition (Q33:11–12), because they refused to
disassociate themselves from rejectors who were their neighbors (Q4:138–39;
Q59:11), or because they wished to avoid engaging in or supporting the
believers’ violence after the Theological Transition (Q3:167; Q59:11; Q63:7).
(In contrast, references to “Jews” and “associators” were already attested
before the transition.) The greater focus on distinctions and separation between
religious groups after the Transition points to the increasing focus on the
identity of the embattled parties, and also the growing self-definition of the
believers in contrast to and against other religious communities.

In summary, the violent realization of the “nearer punishment” after the

transition brings with it significant changes in understanding of the Messenger,
his message, the community of believers, and of messengers in general. The
Messenger and his followers move on from presenting a message about a future
act of divine retribution and become instead the agents of divine retribution in
the present. This changes the function of the Messenger from a warner to an
enforcer. The ensuing escalation of the power and authority of the Messenger is
manifested in increased regulation of the lives of believers, and their dissociation
from disbelievers.
One of the internal tensions in the Qurʾan concerns how to manage the
credibility of this theological change. On the one hand, the doctrines of
Messenger Uniformitarianism (§5.3) and the unvarying sunnah of Alla¯h
(§5.3.1) assert that there can be no change in the way Alla¯h deals with
messengers. On the other hand, significant theological developments take place
during the resolution of the Eschatological Crisis, which challenge the idea that
the sunnah of Alla¯h does not change. The Qurʾan addresses this tension by
asserting, ex post facto, that the new developments were always the way of
Alla¯h with messengers. In line with the principle of Messenger
Uniformitarianism, developments in Rasulology necessary to accommodate the
new theological regime are simply introduced, and reinforced by changes in the
way stories of past messengers are reported. After the Transition, seemingly new
developments in “the way of Alla¯h” with messengers, such as showing
harshness to disbelievers by killing them, taking them captive and looting them,
are reported to be nothing more than the unchanging way of Alla¯h (Q48:22–
23), a pattern which, it is now asserted, had always applied for past messengers
as well (Q48:29).21

2.6 CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have discussed the nature of the proposed Eschatological
Crisis and Theological Transition in some detail. The proposals put forward here
are innovative, building on previous work by Marshall (2014) and Saleh (2016).
They represent a break with a long scholarly tradition of using the biography of
Muḥammad frame for interpreting the chronology of the Qurʾan. An alternative
theological approach has been proposed, which, it has been argued, can account
for a wide variety of textual evidence. Because the analysis offered in this
chapter represents a significant break with past scholarship, it has been necessary
to support it with detailed arguments.
We have argued that the Messenger and the community of believers found
themselves in a difficult situation in which neither the promised punishment
upon disbelievers nor the promised ascendancy of believers were being realized.
Mockery from disbelievers about this delayed punishment accentuated the
disappointment, and brought on a theological crisis. When believers are attacked
and defend themselves by fighting back, the Messenger declares that Alla¯h
permits fighting in self-defense and supports those who do so. This fighting then
leads into the final phase in the resolution of the crisis, in which it is announced
that fighting against unbelievers is the long-awaited “nearer punishment” which
Alla¯h had been promising through the Messenger. This violence and the
victories it brings resolves the theological crisis, and restores confidence in the
promise of Alla¯h to punish the wicked and lift up the righteous.
Walid Saleh has provided a useful summary of the role that religiously
sanctioned violence plays in resolving the theological crisis:
Jihād is . . . more than a stratagem, a method to an end; rather, it is a
necessarily theological solution to the question of how God’s plan for
humanity is to be actualized. Jihād fulfills God’s promise of chastisement and
is therefore a necessary reflection of his will. One does jihād in God’s path, or
for the path of God (fī sabīl Allāh), fully active in God’s will. This is a
partaking in history to transform it and a transformation of the faithful into
agents of God’s will. (Saleh 2016, 120–121)
Not only do the developments in post-transitional Rasulology provide a
resolution to the pre-transitional difficulties faced by the Messenger, described
here as an Eschatological Crisis, but the pre-transitional conditions, for their
part, offer an explanation of the later course taken by post-transitional theology,
including the adoption of violence and corresponding changes in the
understanding of past messengers. The analysis offered here also provides an
explanation for post-transitional changes in the nature of the community of
believers, and it establishes that the pre- and post-transitional sūrahs are deeply
connected by theological developments which link them together, while
accounting for important differences between them.
All this will provide essential background when we come, in chapter 5, to
consider Qurʾanic Rasulology and links with Bible’s Prophetology. It will also
be relied upon in chapter 6 when considering the theme of fighting prophets
(§6.9). Aspects of Qurʾanic Theology explored here will be crucial for
understanding how Biblical reflexes concerning prophets are handled in the
Qurʾan. However, before we consider potential connections between Qurʾanic
Rasulology and Biblical Theology, we will first give attention to the
methodological necessity of developing a nonbiographical chronology for the
whole Qurʾan, a task which relies upon the insights developed in this chapter.
This will be the focus of chapter 3.

NOTES
1. Shoemaker’s (2012) Death of a Prophet provides an extended apology for the centrality of
eschatology in the Qurʾan, but he seems to be unaware of its two-stage character, conflating them.
2. It is for this reason that the doctrine of the nearer punishment fits rightly under the heading of
eschatology.
3. Bannister (2014, 231) has described the formal features of this formulaic system.
4. As we have already noted (§1.3.3), this is one of the pieces of evidence against Mecca being the
location for the sending down of the Qurʾan.
 5. Marshall (2014, x) poses this question as: “How will God punish the unbelievers who opposed
Muhammad?”
6. Shoemaker (2012, 169) has proposed that Q7:25 must be a later addition because it is “so out of step
with the Qurʾan’s otherwise confident declaration that judgment and the Hour are at hand.” On the
contrary, this sentiment is characteristic of the Messenger’s mood during the Eschatological Crisis.
7. Donner (2002–2003, 13) reviews several studies which concluded that the early Islamic community
believed divine judgment was imminent.
8. The classical study of how religious groups cope with cognitive dissonance in the context of
prophecies which seem to be unfulfilled is Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter’s (1956) When Prophecy
Fails.
9. Although Nöldeke lists Q22 among Medinan sūrahs, he concedes it to be mainly Meccan. The
Medinan classification was because it “gains its principal significance from its Medinan passages”
(Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 213–214).
10. Earlier (all pre-transitional) verses which speak of the Messenger as “only a warner” include:
Q6:48; Q7:184; Q11:2; Q13:7; Q18:56; Q25:56; Q26:115; Q27:92; Q29:50; Q34:46; Q38:65, 70.
11. This is the Ḥafṣ reading. There are variant readings kudhdhibū “that they had been deemed liars”
and kadhabū “that they had lied”: see Sinai (2017a, 213, n.51) and Paret (2012) on Q12:110. The Ḥafṣ
reading makes the best sense.
12. Or “magistrate.” Saleh (2016, 106) suggests this is “clearly an Arabized version of the Latin,” that
is, of magistratus.
13. See Marshall (2014, 67).
14. A traditional explanation for the change from Mecca to Medina is that in Mecca Muslims were
vulnerable and weak, so Alla¯h called them to forbearance, but once the community gained power in
Medina, they were called to fight. This political, pragmatic explanation for the transition is privileged in
the ḥadīth. However this theory is too post hoc to account for all the data. It cannot account for how
uncompromising the Messenger was in his pre-transitional disavowal of political power, and it overlooks
the fact that the crisis is not portrayed in the Qurʾan as one of powerlessness, but of delay. It is not the
believers’ weakness or vulnerability to persecution that is repeatedly named as the fundamental issue—
this only becomes an issue very late in the crisis—but Alla¯h’s slowness to act.
15. See Sinai (2018), who identifies multiple similarities between the Messenger’s new found status and
the role of bishops. These parallels suggest that episcopal models could have influenced the post-
transitional elaboration of the Messenger’s role.
16. Nöldeke, Schwally, Bergsträsser, and Pretzl note that what Muḥammad “seemed to have in mind
was a theocracy similar to that of Moses, where ‘Alla¯h and Muḥammad’ were the last resort in all
conflicts” (2013, 136).
17. Overall, post-transitional lemmata account for 35 percent of the total corpus, so 10 percent is
considerably less than would be expected if the distribution were random.
18. There are certain theological developments around the Eschatological Transition in the treatment of
other religions, which cannot be accounted for in terms of the Transition itself, and are also not accounted
for by the Life of Muḥammad frame. One of the distinctives of post-transitional sūrahs is a greater
degree of engagement with Christian themes. Two thirds of the total number of sūrahs which refer to
ʿĪsa¯, his mother Maryam, or Christians are post-transitional, while most of the sūrahs referring to Jews
or Israel are pre-transitional. Apart from Q19:35, all of the rejections of the deity or sonship of ʿĪsa¯ are
post-transitional. After the transition there is also a discernible shift away from pagan themes. All of the
references to jinn are pre-transitional, as are the references to Alla¯h not having offspring, including
rejections of the idea that Alla¯h has daughters (except those which are explicit references to ʿĪsa¯). All
this suggests that, before the transition, the Messenger and his community were mainly interacting with
pagans (and some Jews), but after the transition they are engaging with Christians as well. It is striking
that a significant post-transitional (“Medinan”) engagement with Christians is not apparent from the
ḥadīths, which instead focus on Muḥammad’s interactions with Jews after the migration to Medina, and
before it, and locate some key interactions with Christians in the Meccan period.
19. Q28:86 is an exceptional pre-transitional passage warning believers against lending support to
rejectors.
20. The Arabic word dīn is homonymous, meaning either “religion, religious devotion” or “judgment,
command,” each meaning having a distinct origin as a borrowing. The sense of “religion” is borrowed
from Persian, and the sense “judgment” from Aramaic (Jeffery 1938, 132). In the Qurʾan, the sense of
“judgment, command” is exclusively found in pre-transitional sūrahs.
21. In this vein, Q8:67 states that the way of a prophet is not to take enemies captive, sparing their lives,
until he has struck them hard, prolonging battle and slaughter.
 Chapter 3

A Nonbiographical Qurʾanic Chronology

In this chapter we develop a timeline for the Qurʾan, based on theological and
stylistic criteria. In the past, scholars of the Qurʾan, both Muslim and Western,
have relied on biographical reference points from the sīrah literature to establish
a timeline for the text of the Qurʾan, supplemented by stylistic features, and
sometimes by thematic considerations. The biographical method associates
certain passages with episodes in Muḥammad’s biography, the most salient
distinction being between earlier Meccan sūrahs and later Medinan sūrahs. A
number of schemes have also distinguished more than one Meccan stage.
Nöldeke and Schwally (1909, 66ff) posited three Meccan stages in addition to
the Medinan stage, while Muir (1878, 41–42; 1858, 2:135ff, 2:318–20)
discerned as many as five distinct Meccan stages, based on “style,” “doctrine,”
and “historical landmarks.”
While it has long been recognized that the traditional distinction between
Meccan and Medinan sūrahs is associated with a wide-ranging set of stylistic,
lexical, and thematic differences (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 63ff;1 Sinai
2015–2016, 54ff; Sinai 2017b, 113ff), the difficulty of ordering sūrahs using
evidence from Muḥammad’s biography alone is also well-known and often
remarked upon:
. . . one can see how uncertain the chronology is of events from Muhammad’s
life before the Hijra. Only for a very few such instances is it possible to
estimate approximately how many years it was before the Migration (as the
fixed reference point) that they happened. Even the best surviving biographer,
Ibn Isḥāq, gives us almost no chronological dates for the whole Meccan
period. How much less possible it is to establish even an approximate
chronology for distinct periods for Meccan sūrahs, which can only very
rarely be associated with secure historical events. (Nöldeke and Schwally
1909, 69–70)
Furthermore, even for the Medinan period, for which there are more
biographical landmarks, the evidence from the ḥadīths and sīrah is patchy and
often contradictory (Firestone 1999, 49–51). In light of this, Sinai has pointed
out that one of the major achievements of Nöldeke’s Geschichte des Qorāns,
was the undertaking “to provide a chronology of the Qurʾan based primarily on
internal criteria, such as style and diction” (2011a, 417).
One of the challenges of using the Life of Muḥammad to classify passages as
either Meccan or Medinan is that the speculative attempt to link verses to the
biography can result in analyses which break up sūrahs into multiple Meccan
and Medinan passages.2 This was in part no doubt influenced by an assumption,
derived from the ḥadīth and sīrah, that the Qurʾan was compiled through a series
of revelatory episodes in which relatively small units were “sent down” to
Muḥammad, and which were later joined together to become the longer passage
known as sūrahs. This assumption was adopted by Bell and Watt, who stated
that “the original unit of revelation was the short passage, and such passages
were afterwards ‘collected’ to form suras” (Watt and Bell 1970, 73).
An example of this fragmenting tendency is Nöldeke’s analysis of Q22, which
finds it to be a patchwork of passages from different periods. His investigations
lead him to conclude that, although mainly “sent down” in Mecca, Q22’s
Medinan verses include: 17, 25–42, 57–59, 66, and 76–78 (Nöldeke and
Schwally 1909, 213–214). In presenting this breakdown, Nöldeke also rejects a
number of even more speculative suggestions from Muslim scholars of links
between the sūrah and the biography.
A deeper problem with looking to the biography for a Qurʾanic timeline is that
the ḥadīth and sīrah traditions only comment on a limited number of verses of
the Qurʾan, and some of the Qurʾan’s concerns are not picked up in the sīrah at
all. For example teaching about the nearer punishment and its delayed arrival is
not emphasized in the traditions and the sīrah, despite its salience in the Qurʾan
(Marshall 2014, 187–188). A decision to consider the Qurʾan through the lens of
the primary source materials for the biography of Muḥammad easily leads to
large portions of the Qurʾan being left without biographical anchor points, even
more so if one accepts the ḥadīths’ contention that the sūrahs were revealed
piecemeal.

3.1 TWO STYLISTIC METRICS

In chapter 2 a division of sūrahs into pre-transitional and post-transitional
passages was proposed, based on theological criteria. Here we make use of this
division of the Qurʾanic text into two as a platform for developing stylistic
metrics which allow a more fine-grained differentiation of the relative closeness
or distance of sūrahs to each other. These metrics make use of similarities and
differences in the use of lexemes and formulae. The basic idea is that once we
can divide sūrahs into a group of earlier ones, and a group of later ones, we can
measure whether a particular sūrah is more like the latter group or the earlier
group, and the degree to which they are similar or different from these groups
can serve as a measure for how close or far apart sūrahs are. The plot we will
use is two-dimensional, relying on a combination of lexical and formulaic
features.
To develop these metrics, an inventory of lexemes and formulae was derived
from Quran Gateway,3 a text analysis package created by Andrew Bannister,
using the University of Haifa morphologically tagged database of the Qurʾan
(Bannister 2014, 131ff). This inventory was analyzed to generate metrics for the
formulaic and lexical “distance” between sūrahs. The metrics indicate how pre-
or post-transitional a sūrah is in its lexicon and formulae, measured against other
sūrahs. The criterion used was the relative frequency with which lexemes or
formulae appear in the pre-transitional or post-transitional corpus.
Two metrics were used, called “Lexical Distance” and “Formulaic Distance.”
These calculate the degree to which a particular instance of a lexeme or formula
in a sūrah can be said to be more post-transitional or pre-transitional in character
in relation to other sūrahs.
The Lexical Distance (LD) of λi a particular instance of a lexeme λ in sūrah μ
is defined as follows:

α is the number of other instances of λ in pre-transitional sūrahs excluding μ

β is the number of other instances of λ in post-transitional sūrahs excluding μ
Let us consider an example. The lexeme muṣībah “disaster” occurs once in
Q4:62. This lexeme appears 10 times in the Qurʾan: twice in Q4 and 8 times in
other sūrahs, of which 6 are post-transitional, and 2 are pre-transitional. Thus α
= 2 and β = 6, and the LD of muṣībah in Q4:62 can be calculated as follows:
 Lexical Distance values can range between 0 and 1. The lexeme ṭallaqa “to
divorce” has a LD of 1 in all its instances because it only occurs in post-
transitional passages. In contrast, the lexeme faṭara “create” has a LD of 0 in all
its instances, because it only occurs in pre-transitional passages. Note also that a
LD value cannot be calculated for lexemes that only occur in one sūrah. This
means, in particular, that hapax legomena cannot be allocated a LD value,
because they occur only once.
The metric of Formulaic Distance (FD) can be calculated for all instances of
formulae in the same fashion. The FD of δi a particular instance of a formula δ in
sūrah μ is defined as follows:

α is the number of other instances of δ in pre-transitional sūrahs excluding μ

β is the number of other instances of δ in post-transitional sūrahs excluding μ

Note that, as with LD values, an FD value can only be calculated for formulae
that occur in more than one sūrah.4
For any particular sūrah, the average of LD values for all instances of lexemes
in the sūrah is its Average Lexical Distance (ALD). Likewise the average of FD
values of all instances of formulae in a sūrah is its Average Formulaic Distance
(AFD).
ALD and AFD values of sūrahs measure how (relatively) pre- or post-
transitional the lexicon and formulae of the sūrah are. The higher the ALD and
AFD values, the more post-transitional the sūrah’s lexicon and formulae are. For
example, if a sūrah had an AFD value of 1, this would mean that every single
formula in the sūrah was only attested in other post-transitional sūrahs.
Figures 3.1 and 3.2 are two parts of one figure displaying the trend of ALD
values for all sūrahs, ranked by increasing values. Figure 3.1 represents the
lower ALD values, and Figure 3.1 the higher values. Overall there is a fairly
even incremental distribution of values, but note that the slope is steeper
between Q31 and Q5 in Figure 3.2. This steeper rise is illustrated, inversely, in
Figure 3.3, which shows a dip in the numbers of instances of sūrahs in the 0.37
to 0.40 ALD range.
Figure 3.1 Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 1.
Figure 3.2 Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 2.
Figure 3.3 Distribution of sūrahs by Average Lexical Distance.

Table 3.1 lists ALD values for all sūrahs, and AFD values for sūrahs which
had at least 10 three-lexeme formulae. Where there is a blank in Table 3.1 for
AFD, this means there were less than ten formulae in the sūrah, which was
considered insufficient for the count to be significant. Data for pre- and post-
transitional portions of the mixed sūrahs Q73, Q74, and Q85, are shown
separately, in addition to values for the whole of each of these sūrahs: this
distinction is discussed below.
Table 3.1 Average Formulaic and Lexical Distance of sūrahs
 Note that the repeated refrains in Q77 and Q55 were excluded from the counts:
“Woe that Day to the ones who call (it) a lie!” (e.g., Q77:19), and “Which of the
blessings of your Lord will you two call a lie?” (e.g., Q55:13). The inclusion of
an often-repeated refrain skews the metrics for a sūrah toward the values of the
refrain.5
In Figure 3.4, the AFD and ALD values of sūrahs are plotted against each
other in a scatter diagram for all the sūrahs in Table 3.1 which have reported
AFD values. The pre-transitional sūrahs which did not meet the AFD threshold
were Q86, Q88, Q90–97, and Q99–114. All these sūrahs are classified by
Nöldeke (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909) as belonging to the first of three Meccan
stages, and all of Nöldeke’s second and third Meccan period sūrahs met the AFD
threshold. The only post-transitional sūrah which did not meet the threshold for
inclusion was Q110, which had only three eligible formulae. Note that in Figure
3.4 the “mixed” sūrahs Q73, Q74, and Q85 (cf. §3.2) are not split, but given a
distinct mark.
Figure 3.4 Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD: pre-transitional, post-transitional, and mixed.

We can observe that AFD values are more differentiated than the ALD values:
AFD values for whole sūrahs have a range of 0.76, from 0.01 (Q77) to 0.77
(Q49), while ALD values for whole sūrahs have a range of 0.27, from 0.19
(Q55, Q101) to 0.46 (Q48). This suggests that the formulae used by the Qurʾanic
performer underwent more differentiation than the lexicon during the period that
the Qurʾan was being recited. This indicates that formulae could provide a richer
source of evidence about internal developments within the Qurʾan than its
lexicon.
Note also that AFD and ALD values are both skewed toward 0 rather than 1.
The average of the sūrah AFD values is 0.33, and the average of the ALD values
is 0.30. Both are less than 0.5. This is because the pre-transitional corpus is
larger than the post-transitional corpus. Only 23 sūrahs fall in the 26 points
between AFD values 0.51 and 0.77, while 65 sūrahs fall in the 28 points
between AFD values 0.05 and 0.33.6 However, this skewing effect does not need
to be corrected because it is the relative AFD and ALD values which are relevant
for this analysis.
Note also that the LD and FD metrics more or less align: as AFD values go up,
so too do ALD values. Visually this means that the scatter plots gather around a
trend line moving up toward the top right corner of the graph. Two separate
linear trend lines have been calculated for Figure 3.4, one for the pre-transitional
sūrahs and another for the post-transitional sūrahs.7
In Figure 3.4 note that there is a marked AFD gap between pre-transitional and
post-transitional sūrahs. Falling in this gap is only one sūrah (Q22). This aligns
with the phenomenon already noted in relation to Figure 3.2, that there is a
relative scarcity of data points around the transition, but this is even more
marked for AFD values than for ALD values. If there was a steady rate of lexical
and formulaic evolution over time,8 and consistently regular “sampling” in the
form of performances being committed to writing as sūrahs, this gap could
represent a disrupted phase in the production of the Qurʾan when performances
were not regularly sampled. On the other hand, the temporal gap could be less
than the graph suggests if there had been a sudden increase in lexical and
formulaic innovation around the time of the transition, perhaps due to rapid
change in the circumstances of the Qurʾanic community. Nevertheless, apart
from the period around the transition, for much of the rest of the timeline there
appears to have been a regular sampling of Qurʾanic recitations, populating the
trend lines on either side of the gap.
Note that the two separate pre- and post-transitional trend lines align
approximately to each other, but their slopes are different. The flatter slope of the
post-transitional trend line suggests that formulae were being innovated more
rapidly after the transition, in comparison to the rate of lexical innovation.
One interpretation of these data could be that during the period during which
sūrahs were being committed to writing there was regular sampling of
performances, except for the period around the Eschatological Crisis. This
suggests an interruption in the regular habit of transcribing recitations, around
the time when the Qurʾan reports that believers were being expelled from their
homes and having to migrate to another place: such events could have disrupted
the periodic transcription of recitations. This does not necessarily imply there
was a gap in live performances themselves, but only in their transmission to
written “pages” (cf. Q80:12–14; Q98:2–3). Moreover, the fact that the gap exists
also suggests that evolution in performance style was still taking place during the
period represented by the gap, which implies a continuing practice of
performance, but without transcription. In other words there was a temporary
suspension of transcriptions. This observation relies upon the assumption that
performance style evolves through performance. If recitations had ceased
altogether for a time, we might expect to see little or no evolution of lexical or
formulaic repertoire when performances restarted, and no such gap would have
appeared, all other things being equal.

3.2 MIXED SŪRAHS, PROPOSED AND ACTUAL

Except where there is compelling evidence to the contrary, the assumption made
here is that each sūrah is a coherent unity of a single recitation, or at the very
least a collation of recitations which had been performed close together in time.9
These working assumptions provide us with a handy starting point for applying
the tools of theological analysis, supplemented by the AFD and ALD metrics.
Nevertheless the possibility is real, as a result of later editing, that certain sūrahs
could have been compiled from transcriptions of multiple oral performances
sourced from widely separated time periods. As well as indicating the distance in
time between whole sūrahs, the ALD and AFD measures can help us discern this
by providing useful tools to evaluate the flavor of component passages within
any given sūrah. This can help evaluate the possibility that particular passages
within a single sūrah might stem from recitations from quite different time
periods. Here we will examine three sūrahs, Q73, Q74, and Q85, which we
propose are indeed compilations of pre- and post-transitional material. We will
also examine two others sūrahs, Q22 and Q29 which scholars in the past have
suggested are made up of “Meccan” and “Medinan” passages. However, our
analysis will indicate that there is no need to posit a compilation, but that they
show internal variations in style of a kind which is not unusual in other sūrahs
from the Qurʾan.

3.2.1 Q73 Al-Muzzammil “The Wrapped One”

Q73 has Average Lexical and FD values of AFD = 0.52 and ALD = 0.37, which
place it on the post-transitional side of the “gap” in Figure 3.4. However, the
long final verse, Q73:20, is easily recognized as not being a continuous
extension of vv.1–19. The verses of Q73:1–19 rhyme fairly consistently in -īl
and this passage’s few formulae have strong pre-transitional stylistic
characteristics, but the rhythm is interrupted with a suddenly much longer verse
in Q73:20, which is post-transitional in both lexicon and formulae, and its rhyme
-īm is an imperfect fit to what proceeded it. For example, Q73:20 includes the
otherwise exclusively post-transitional formula “fighting in the way of Allāh.”
Q73:1–19 on its own has AFD = 0.09 and ALD = 0.31, which places it well
before the transition, while Q73:20 has AFD = 0.83 and ALD = 0.47 which
places it later than all the post-transitional sūrahs.10 The difference between v.
20 and the rest of the sūrah is represented visually in Figure 3.5, which shows
FD values of formulae in the verses of Q73. Note that not all verses have
formulae to which a FD value can be given. The X-axis commences at Q73:8
because there are no formulae in Q73:1–7. Figure 3.5 shows that vv.1–19 have
low FD values—that is, they use predominately pre-transitional formulae—and
then there are sustained high FD values for formulae used in Q73:20—that is,
the formulae of v. 20 are predominately post-transitional.

Figure 3.5 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q73.

Note also that v. 20 is rich in formulae in comparison to vv.1–19. The fact that
v.20 has a higher formulaic density than vv.1–19 correlates with Bannister’s
(2014, 143) observation that later “Meccan” sūrahs have higher formulaic
densities than earlier “Medinan” sūrahs.
The original recitation of a Qurʾanic performance would have used a melody
and followed some kind of rhythm. While a break in the melody and rhythm in
the middle of a performance is not inconceivable, it is implausible for a single
short performance such as that of Q73 to encompass such completely different
verse lengths, and to do so with lexical and formulaic resources characteristic of
very different time periods in the evolution of the Qurʾan. The lexical and
formulaic data suggest that Q73 is compiled of material originally performed in
widely separated time periods, Q73:1–19 being pre-transitional, and Q73:20
being post-transitional.
The reason for joining these two passages together seems to have been
thematic: both refer to staying up through the night (cf. Q73:2 and Q73:20), so
they may have come to be joined together because they were being used together
in conjunction with night-time liturgical worship.11

3.2.2 Q85 Al- Burūj “The Constellations”

Q85 includes a passage, Q85:8–11, with a different meter and rhyme, and longer
verses than the rest of the sūrah. Nöldeke (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 97),
apparently guided by the verse length, proposed that this is a Medinan insertion
into an otherwise early Meccan sūrah. Instead, we propose that Q85 is a
compilation of three parts, the first two post-transitional, and the third pre-
transitional. The AFD and ALD values of the whole sūrah and the three
individual parts are displayed in Table 3.2, together with their suggested
classification. Let us consider the character of each of the three segments: vv.1–
7; vv.8–11; and vv.12–21.
Table 3.2 Verse length, AFD, and ALF of passages in Q85

Q85:12–21 is clearly pre-transitional in style. Its lexicon is pre-transitional,

with an ALD of 0.23. Two examples are Firʿawn “Pharaoh,” which in 65 out of
73 other instances is pre-transitional, and the place name Thamūd, which in 23
of 24 other instances is pre-transitional. There are four three-lexeme formulae in
this passage, three of which only occur in pre-transitional sūrahs, and one which
is mainly pre-transitional.
Although Nöldeke proposed that Q85:8–11 is a later addition, it was almost
certainly not an insertion, because Q85:1–7, unlike Q85:12–21, and despite its
short verse length, is post-transitional in style: the stylistic features of vv.1–7 and
vv.12–21 are very different. There are insufficient formulae in Q85:1–7 to
calculate significant AFD values—there is only one formula, with an FD value
of 0.67, which is more post- than pre-transitional—but the lexicon of Q85:1–7
has a post-transitional flavor. This is reflected in the ALD value of 0.43, which is
very close to the ALD of Q85:8–11. An example is the word waqūd “fuel”
(Q85:5), which is otherwise only attested in post-transitional sūrahs (three other
instances). Moreover, the rhyme in Q85:1–7, the initial passage, is not quite the
same as for Q85:12–21, the closing passage: Q85:1–7 rhymes perfectly
consistently in –ūd, but Q85:12–21 alternates between -īd and -ūd.
It is therefore proposed, that, contra Nöldeke, the whole of Q85:1–11 is post-
transitional, but consisting of two separate segments, Q85:1–7 and Q85:8–11,
which are distinguished by rhyme and verse length.
As for Q73, there is a possible thematic explanation for the joining together of
Q85:1–7 with Q85:8ff. Q85:7 speaks of disbelievers doing something (bad) to
believers, and Q85:8 then continues, “they took vengeance on them only because
they believed in Allāh.” There is also a possible thematic tie between Q85:11
which speaks of the punishment of the Fire, and Q85:12 which reads “Surely
your Lord’s attack is harsh indeed.”

3.2.3 Q74 Al-Muddaththir “The Clothed One”

Q74 includes one verse, Q74:31 which is around 20 times longer than the other
verses in the sūrah. This verse has several post-transitional features, for example
the formula alladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍun “those in whose hearts is a disease”
occurs 10 times, of which all the other 9 are post-transitional. A comparison of
Q74:31 with the rest of the sūrah in Table 3.3 shows that v.31 has much higher
ALD and AFD values than the rest of the sūrah. We conclude that v.31 is post-
transitional, and the rest of the verses are pre-transitional.
Table 3.3 Formulaic and Lexical Distance of passages in Q74

3.2.4 Q22 Al-Ḥajj “The Pilgrimage” and Stylistic Oscillation

As discussed in §2.3, Nöldeke has proposed that Q22 comprises a series of
Medinan inserts into a mainly Meccan text (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 213–
14). It is certainly the case that Q22 has features of both pre-transitional and
post-transitional sūrahs. However, we have argued (in §2.3) that its consistent
theological characteristics locate it just before the Eschatological Transition, and
as such it has the expected pre-transitional features, such as the statement that
the Messenger is “only a warner,” a reference to “hurrying the punishment,” and
a reference to Allāh’s punishment of peoples in the past (Q22:42–48). On the
other hand, features it shares with later, post-transitional sūrahs include the
earliest mention of naṣārā “Christians” (Q22:17), a focus on regulation of the
community (Q22:34–38), references to believers migrating after being severely
interfered with by disbelievers, including exclusion from the “sacred mosque”
(Q22:25, 40), references to fighting (Q22:39) and killing (Q22:58), and one
reference to believers commanding right and forbidding wrong (Q22:41).12
To be sure, Q22 does include passages which are earlier in style, and others
which have more of the flavor of post-transitional sūrahs. However, a possible
explanation for this is that some stylistic “oscillation” within a sūrah was a
normal feature of Qurʾanic performance style. Figure 3.6 displays the FD values
for formulae in Q22. Some passages use characteristically post-transitional
formulae, with more black ink. Others passages, where there are gaps of white,
use more formulae that are more pre-transitional. This shows how some groups
of verses are “later” in style, and others “earlier.”

Figure 3.6 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q22.

Comparison with other sūrahs shows that it is not unusual in sūrahs for there
to be passages which hark back to earlier performance styles, and others that
push the boundaries with new formulae, exploring new themes. A similar pattern
of “oscillation” between passages in earlier and later style can be observed in
Figure 3.7 for an earlier sūrah Q29, although in this case the values are all with
reference to a lower base: the FD peaks are not as high and the troughs are
lower, and there is less black and more white background all through the sūrah.
This means that sūrah Q29 is consistently more pre-transitional in flavor, despite
the localized variations between earlier and later styles.

Figure 3.7 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q29.

A later sūrah, Q8, also has a similar oscillating pattern (Figure 3.8), but with
higher overall FD values than for Q22.
Figure 3.8 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q8.

As tempting as it may be to render a sūrah more homogenous by proposing

that particular segments be relocated somewhere else on the Qurʾanic timeline, a
variation in style between earlier and later style passages within a sūrah appears
to have been a normal feature of Qurʾanic performances.13 In our theological
analysis (§2.3), we identified Q22 as being pre-transitional, but located it at
“peak crisis,” just before the Eschatological Transition. This accounts for its
unique combination of so-called “Medinan” and “Meccan” features. Rather than
it being a mixed text, we propose that it is a transitional one, showing a variation
between passages of earlier and later style which can also be observed in other
sūrahs.

3.2.5 Q29 Al-ʿAnkabūt “The Spider”

In this section we consider another example of how attention to a combination of
theological and stylistic criteria can prompt a reevaluation of a “Life of
Muḥammad” analysis of the provenance of sūrahs. Q29 is traditionally
considered to be a “Meccan” sūrah, however Nöldeke observes about the first 10
verses, that “many rightly consider Q29:1–10 to be Medinan” (Nöldeke and
Schwally 1909, 154–155).14 This conclusion is derived by associating the
contents of vv.1–10 with an incident in the “Medinan” period of the Life of
Muḥammad. Nöldeke suggests that Q29:8, which gives guidelines on relating to
parents, refers to “those men of Medina who allowed themselves to be held back
by their parents from taking part in the Prophet’s campaigns” (Nöldeke and
Schwally 1909, 155).
What can a theological analysis tell us about Q29:1–10 and its relation to the
Theological Transition? The first thing to note is that the phrases referring to
parents obstructing their children’s faith are found repeated in sūrah Q31
(§1.4.9), which manifests a consistently pre-transitional theology (see the
analysis in §2.2.2). This casts doubt on the proposal that the verses must be
considered “Medinan.” The subject matter of Q29:1–10 is concerned with how
to interpret and respond to suffering (Q29:3), including opposition from parents
(Q29:8). Those who do good are encouraged to persevere, because Allāh will
reward them in the end (Q29:7), and those who hope for Allāh to bring his
promised intervention are urged to be patient, for “surely the time of Allāh is
coming” (Q29:5). These verses also rail against those who, as fair-weather
believers, condemn others who suffer for choosing Allāh’s path (Q29:10), but
are more than ready to identify themselves as believers when things go well
(Q29:10). Urging forbearance, patience, and hope in Allāh’s ultimate reward are
strategies commended to believers before the call to fight in the way of Allāh,
not after it, and these themes reflect the theological outlook of the period of the
Eschatological Crisis, but not that of the post-transitional period.
What can the stylistic metrics tell us? Verses 1–10 have an average FD of 0.36,
and an average LD of 0.39, which are higher values than for Q29 as a whole
(AFD 0.28 and ALD 0.35), but less than the pre-transitional Q22. This means
that these opening verses have a somewhat later “flavor” than the rest of the
sūrah, however, even this higher AFD figure would still place vv.1–10 no later
than the transition “gap,” and not firmly in the post-transitional zone. Therefore
vv.1–10, considered on its own, is still more pre-transitional than post-
transitional in style. Its lexicon, being focused on the Eschatological Crisis, does
anticipate themes which become prominent after the Eschatological Transition,
but its formulaic repertoire—the flavor of its performance—is pre-transitional
(AFD = 0.36), which matches its theology.
Furthermore, we can see from Figure 3.7 that while Q29 oscillates overall
between passages with earlier and later formulae, the opening 9 verses do not
have exceptionally high formulaic distance values for the sūrah, and there are
four other similar FD peaks throughout the sūrah, so in the context of the whole
sūrah the opening verses do not stand out as having a uniquely “late” flavor. We
can also note that although the instance of munāfiqūn “hypocrites” in Q29:11 is
the first and only pre-transitional use of this important term, what is decisive is
that, although these initial verses express frustration over rejectors and there is
an early reference to “hypocrites,” and as such this passage does reflect the
concerns of the Eschatological Crisis, there is nothing in Q29 which suggests a
belief that a punishment by Allāh has arrived by human hands, so the theology is
pre-transitional.
In conclusion, vv.1–10 are consistent with pre-transitional formulaic repertoire
and a pre-transitional theology. To be sure, this is one of the more innovative
passages in Q29, but these verses do not yet reflect a genuinely post-transitional
theology. On the basis of the theological framework used here, reinforced by
evidence from stylistic analysis, there is no need to consider Q29 to be a
combination of pre- and post-transitional passages. To put this in traditional
terms, Q29 is not an amalgam of “Meccan” and “Medinan” passages, and here
the “Life of Muḥammad” analysis has led scholars astray. The association with a
Medinan biographical incident must be incorrect. This illustrates how an
analysis based on theological and stylistic evidence can correct an analysis
relying on a “Life of Muḥammad” reading of the text.

3.3 MAPPING THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TRANSITION

Figure 3.9 shows a scatter plot of sūrahs by ALD and AFD, with Q73, Q74, and
Q85 separated into two, and separately labeled plots for Q22 and Q2 as the two
sūrahs located close to and on either side of the transition.15 These two sūrahs
were a particular focus in chapter 2.
Figure 3.9 Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD, separating mixed sūrahs.

There is not sufficient room on the one graph to provide legible labeled data
points for all sūrahs. Figures 3.10 and 3.11 show labeled points for the pre-
transitional and post-transitional groups of sūrahs, respectively.
Figure 3.10 Pre-transitional sūrahs.

Figure 3.11 Post-transitionalsūrahs.

How well do these graphs correlate with other evidence concerning Qurʾanic
chronology? Sinai (2015–2016, 56–57) has pointed out that there is a
progression of events discernible in the post-transitional sūrahs, commencing in
Q22. The community of believers goes through a stage where they are being
prevented (ṣadda) from accessing al-masjid al-ḥarām “the sacred mosque,” and
later they are described as having gained victory over unbelievers and regained
access to the sanctuary, with unbelievers excluded from it. The verses which
refer to this incident are displayed in Table 3.4, listed in the order of the stylistic
timeline.
Table 3.4 Exclusion from the “Sacred Mosque”
 In Q22 believers are being prevented (imperfect) from visiting the sacred
mosque, then by Q5 this preventing is in the perfect aspect, indicating the event
referred to was already in the past. Q9 announces new arrangements: associators
are not to be granted access to the sacred mosque, and Q48 celebrates the
believers’ victory over those who had been preventing access, which we can
assume is what ended the exclusion. This all aligns with the stylistic timeline,
except that the reference in Q8:34 seems out of sequence, because the verb
describes the preventing in the Imperfect, implying that it was still ongoing, but
Q5, which is earlier on the timeline, speaks of the preventing in the Perfect, as
something already completed.
The key to understanding the Imperfect aspect in Q8:34 can be found in
Q8:32–33, which recalls a time in the past when the disbelievers were asking for
the nearer punishment to come soon: these are the conditions which applied
around the time of the Eschatological Crisis. Q8:33 explains that Allāh did not
punish the disbelievers at the time because the Messenger was still among them,
and then, still in the past time frame, Q8:34 explains that Allāh would not leave
them unpunished while they were preventing others from accessing the sacred
mosque.16 The imperfect form of “preventing” in Q8:34 is to be interpreted
within the shifted temporal deixis of the report in Q8:33:17 it was ongoing at the
time when disbelievers were still mocking the Messenger, which, as it happens,
is also reported a dozen verses later in Q22:47. So we conclude that the stylistic
timeline is consistent with the order of references to the sacred mosque. The
references to exclusion from the sacred mosque, and the reversal of this
arrangement point to fighting which took place after Q22, and before Q5, Q8,
Q9, and Q49, and which overturned the boycott. This is just what our theological
account of the Transition would predict.
As a further confirmation, Figure 3.12 shows the classification of pre-
transitional sūrahs according to Nöldeke’s scheme, which divides the Meccan
period into three phases, marked in Figure 3.12 in sequence as A, B, and C.18
Q22, the last of our pre-transitional sūrahs, is the only one of Nöldeke’s
Medinan (M) sūrahs to be classified pre-transitional here. Included in Figure
3.12 are the pre-transitional parts of sūrahs, Q73, Q74, and Q85.

Figure 3.12 Nöldeke’s classification ofsūrahs, by AFD vs. ALD.

Nöldeke (Nöldeke and Schwally 1909, 69–70) was cautious about the
reliability of the Meccan classifications, due to the paucity of biographical
reference points with which to anchor them to the Life of Muḥammad.
Nevertheless, we can observe a general correlation between the three phases and
the stylistic timeline, with some overlap between the groups, and a few notable
inconsistencies. Q50 and Q54, from Nöldeke’s second Meccan phase, are instead
quite early by our scheme—earlier than most phase 1 sūrahs—and Q1, Q83, and
Q84 from Nöldeke’s first Meccan phase are quite late: later than most of the
Nöldeke’s second phase sūrahs. These anomalies could be due to an over-
reliance by Nöldeke on verse length in dating the sūrahs:19 Q50 and Q54 have
longer than usual verse lengths for their position on the stylistic time line, and
Q1, Q83, and Q84 have shorter than typical verse lengths for their position.
The pre-transitional sūrahs do not trace the course of specific events which can
be used to confirm the timeline. The main temporal development in pre-
transitional sūrahs is the escalation of the Eschatological Crisis, reflected in calls
from disbelievers for the nearer punishment to arrive, together with responses
designed to help manage ensuing anxiety.
We will now examine stylistic features correlated with the development and
resolution of the crisis against the timeline, to test these correlations. Figures
3.13 to 3.22 are scatter plots of some of the lexical, formulaic, and thematic
features which figured in our discussion of the Eschatological Crisis and its
resolution. They show an expected alignment of theological-thematic features
with the stylistic timeline.

Figure 3.13 Sūrahs which say the Messenger or messengers are “only a warner.”

Figure 3.13 plots the distribution along the timeline of statements that the
Messenger is “only a warner.” There are just two early sūrahs (Q55; Q79) which
include this statement, and the greatest concentration occurs in the late pre-
transitional period. Q22:49 is the last “only a warner” declaration before the
crisis is resolved by violence, after which this limitation of the Messenger’s role
becomes redundant.
Figure 3.14 locates the references to “hurrying” the punishment in the mid to
late pre-transitional period, which is as one would expect. As predicted by our
theological model, apart from Q8:30–33, which retrospectively quotes things the
disbelievers used to say in the past, there are no more mentions of “hurrying”
after the Theological Transition, because the nearer punishment has already
arrived in the form of the believers’ violence.

Figure 3.14 Sūrahs which refer to requests to “hurry” or “bring on the punishment.”

Figure 3.15 plots references to adhāqa “cause to taste,” language used by the
Qurʾan to warn disbelievers of the nearer punishment. These warnings are
concentrated during the period of the Eschatological Crisis, in the pre-
transitional period, as we would expect. After the Transition, there are no more
such warnings, because the believer’s violence has already supplied the
foretaste.
Figure 3.15 Sūrahs with atha-qa “cause to taste.”

Figure 3.16 shows that references to being patient, while scattered throughout
almost the whole timeline, are much more concentrated in the period leading up
to the Eschatological Crisis. This too is consistent with our model.
Figure 3.16 Sūrahs with ṣabara “be patient.”

Figure 3.17 shows that references to theological features of the Crisis (cf. Table
2.2) are located in the period immediately before the transition. Again this is
what we would expect, and confirms both the theological model and the stylistic
timeline.

Figure 3.17 Sūrahs with at least one of the two features of the Eschatological Crisis (cf. Table 3.2).

We will now consider some features which are distinctive of post-transitional

sūrahs, which we would expect to associate with post-transitional conditions.
Figure 3.18 shows that the root j-h-d increases in frequency of use after the
transition, which is as would be expected, because it becomes one of the key
forms used to refer to fighting disbelievers in the violence that is released after
the Eschatological Crisis. The occasional nonmilitary use of j-h-d forms during
the latter stages of the Crisis (cf. Sinai 2015–2016, 73) reflects the more stressful
conditions experienced by believers at that time.
Figure 3.18 Sūrahs with ja-hada, jiha-d, or muja-hid “struggling with others.”

Figure 3.19 shows that references to “migration” are mainly post-transitional,

and references commence at the height of the Crisis, when the believers are
experiencing trials. The need for believers to migrate occurred in our model at
the peak of the crisis. The continued retrospective comments in post-transitional
sūrahs on this trauma function to encourage believers, as for example Q2:218
“those who believed and who migrated and strove in the way of Allāh, they have
the hope of Allāh’s mercy.”
Figure 3.19 Sūrahs with references to migration.

Our model predicts that references to “obey Allāh and obey the Messenger”
would be post-transitional, because this command aligns with the change in the
role of the Messenger which takes place when believers take to violence, and the
Messenger is no longer “only a warner.” Figure 3.20 confirms this correlation.
Figure 3.20 Sūrahs with “obey Allāh and the Messenger.”

In our model the phenomenon of “hypocrites” was brought on by the Crisis.

The hypocrites are former believers who turned away from following the
Messenger, either because of affliction during the Crisis (Q29:10–11), or because
of their unwillingness to provide material support to the believers’ fighting
(Q9:67; Q63:7). This group is also referred to in the Qurʾan as “those in whose
hearts is a disease” (cf. Q8:49 which ties this description to the hypocrites).
Figures 3.21 and Figure 3.22 show that, as predicted, all but one of the
references to “hypocrites” and “those in whose hearts is a disease” are post-
transitional, with the exception of one very late pre-transitional reference to
hypocrites (Q29:11).
Figure 3.21 Sūrahs with references to hypocrites and hypocrisy.

Figure 3.22 Sūrahs with references to “those in whose hearts is a disease.”

 3.4 CONCLUSION
The main focus of this book is not Qurʾanic chronology, but the treatment of
Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan. However, because of the Qurʾan’s obvious and
significant internal theological developments, it is necessary to have access to a
Qurʾanic chronology to undertake theological analysis of the text. The traditional
solution to this problem is supplied by mining the traditional account of the Life
of Muḥammad frame for chronological milestones. This option was not available
to us because of our decision to heed the considerable body of evidence which
casts doubt on the whole Meccan-Medinan frame, and not to rely on the
biographical tradition in any respect (§1.3).
In his article, “The Unknown Known,” Sinai (2015–2016, 53) explains the
vital need to be able to refer to a chronology of the Qurʾan, and the concomitant
problem of relying upon “extra-Qurʾanic traditions of uncertain provenance,”
“assigning specific Qurʾanic passages to particular situations in Muḥammad’s
life.” The problem of achieving a Muḥammad-less chronology is no small one
and there seemed to be no other way around it here but to take the bull by the
horns, so the investigation of internal theological developments within the
Qurʾan have now occupied our attention for the past two chapters. The stylistic
timeline proposed and defended in this chapter will provide tools for our
discussions of Qurʾanic Rasulology (chapter 5) and fighting prophets (§6.9).
This work on the internal chronology of the Qurʾan, necessary as it has been to
provide a satisfactory foundation for our investigations of Biblical reflexes in the
Qurʾan, is also offered as a resolution to a long-standing impasse in Qurʾanic
studies, and a contribution to achieving a “more stable foundation” (Sinai 2015–
2016, 53) for the field.

NOTES
1. For a critical discussion of Nöldeke’s chronology, see Stefanidis (2008).
2. See §3.2.5 for discussion of an example.
3. See www.qurangateway.org.
4. There are 74,604 instances of lexemes in the database, and 25,657 instances of three-lexeme
formulae. In calculating ALD and AFD values from the Quran Gateway database, grammatical particles
were excluded, such as pronominal affixes and certain conjunctive particles like wa- “and, but.” Verbal
derivations (form I, form III, etc.) were considered distinct lexemes, but inflectional variants of verbs
involving differences in person, number, or tense were considered instances of the same lexeme. For
nouns, variants that differed only in case or number were also considered instances of the same lexeme.
These attributes had already been established in the Qurʾan Gateway database. In the formula database, a
formula is any sequence of three lexemes which occurs at least twice in the whole Qurʾan, so any
sequence of four lexemes, A-B-C-D, which occurs more than once in the Qurʾan, would be treated in the
database as two three-lexeme formulae, A-B-C and B-C-D.
5. In both these cases inclusion of all instances of the refrain would have lowered the ALD values,
because of the Meccan flavor of the refrain.
6. Nöldeke proposed 90 sūrahs in the 12 year Meccan period and 24 sūrahs in the 10 year Medinan
period.
7. The post-transitional points (R2 = 0.33) fit less well to their trend line (they are more scattered) than
the pre-transitional points (R2 = 0.74).
8. Sadeghi (2011) and Sinai (2017b, 118, 122; 2015–2016) also discuss the gradual process of stylistic
change throughout the production of the Qurʾan. Both Sadeghi and Sinai place considerable weight on
the increase in verse length over time. However, this trend, while very real, is not ironclad and relying too
heavily on verse length as a temporal marker can be misleading. See our discussion of Figure 3.12 in
§3.3, which identifies Q1, Q50, Q54, Q83, and Q84 as sūrahs with atypical verse length, and our
discussion of Q85:1–7 in §3.2.2 for an example of a post-transitional passage with atypically short verse
length. Another example is Q78, in which verse length more than doubles from Q78:37 to the end, but
apart from this the stylistic difference between the two parts is minimal. For Q78:37–40 (ALD = 0.30,
AFD = 0.07), which places the longer verses only a short distance further down the timeline. Sinai
(2011c, 9) argues that Q53:23, 26–32 are later insertions into Q53, based on stylistic considerations, and
in this case the stylistic effect is more marked: for Q53:23, 26–32 AFD = 0.24, ALD = 0.36, which puts
this passages in the later third of the pre-transitional sūrahs.
9. Sadeghi (2011, 240–241) has argued, based on stylistic evidence, for the unity of many extended
passages within individual sūrahs. However see also Rippin (2013b) for a critique of what he calls a
“dominant” mode of analysis, which assumes that there is coherence within individual sūrahs, and Sinai
(2017d) for discussion of criteria and modes of analysis for discerning editorial insertions and additions.
10. Q73:20 itself could possibly be composed of two parts joined together. The first part of the verse, up
to but not including sayakūnu minkum marḍā “He knows that some of you are sick,” has a more
transitional character, both in lexicon and formulae (but it is not as early as vv.1–19), while the most
clearly post-transitional lexical and formulaic features of verse 20 commence from sayakūnu minkum
marḍā.
11. Neuwirth (2017, 134) takes this sūrah to be evidence of the liturgical use of Qurʾanic recitations.
12. See Sinai (2017b:129–30) for a detailed discussion of Q22’s “Medinan” features, in support of the
thesis that Q22 is a patchwork of Meccan and Medinan passages.
13. One is reminded about the Qurʾan’s repeated statements that Allāh “varies the signs” or “verses”
(§5.1.3). This may reflect the verbal style of performances as well as their subject matter.
14. Nöldeke cites al-Rāzī, al-Wāḥidī, and al-Suyūṭī (1909, 154–155).
15. The trend lines in Figure 3.9 have been recalculated based on all the points in the graph, including
the separated parts of Q73, Q74, and Q85. For pre-transitional points, R2 = 0.70, and for post-transitional
data points, R2 = 0.41.
16. The Arabic, in a literal translation, uses a double negative: “It was not for them that Allāh would not
punish (imperfect) them while they were preventing from the sacred mosque.”
17. In the Qurʾan the Imperfect is commonly used for ongoing actions set in the past, for example
“lightning seized (Perfect) you as you were looking on (Imperfect)” (Q2:55), and Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl
“were raising (Imperfect) the foundations of the house” (Q2:127).
18. Sūrahs from Nöldeke’s first Meccan phase which had less than 10 formulae, and for which AFD
values were not calculated, are not included.
19. Nöldeke and Schwally (1909, 119) mention increasing verse length as one of the key distinguishing
features of second phase sūrahs.
 Chapter 4

Monotheism

We are now ready to begin to consider whether Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan
show evidence of being inherited—preserving systemic theological relationships
—or borrowed. To this end, in this and the next chapter we will explore two
salient aspects of Qurʾanic Theology: its treatment of the unity of Allāh and its
doctrine of messengers. Each of these topics is reminiscent of Biblical themes,
for the Bible too has an emphasis on the unity of God, and it has a rich tradition
of prophets who, like the messengers of the Qurʾan, act as intermediaries
between God and humankind. In respect of each topic we will ask whether its
theological development in the Qurʾan shows deeper, systemic connections with
Biblical Theology.
In this chapter we will examine the Qurʾan’s monotheism, together with its
understanding of disbelief. Both the Bible and the Qurʾan affirm that God is one
(Deut. 6:4; Q2:163). It seems beyond dispute that, in a very general sense,
Jewish and Christian antecedents influenced the Qurʾan’s belief that Allāh is
one. This simple statement, however, begs the question of the nature of the
influence. Could it be said that the Qurʾan in any sense inherits its theology of
Allāh’s unity from a common origin in a Biblical tradition or traditions, or was
this a borrowed construct, something picked up and repurposed? According to
the criterion we have proposed, the question to be asked to decide this is whether
the Qurʾan’s theology of the unity of Allāh shows signs of having retaining
systemic theological relationships that are recognizably Biblical. Does the
Qurʾan’s treatment of Allāh as one involve the retention of connected theological
ideas which are recognizably Biblical, or does it have the character of a
repurposing, being used in a distinctly different theological framework?
The word monotheism was a neologism coined during the Enlightenment by
Henry More. The first use of the word is found in his Explanation of the Grand
Mystery of Godliness, published in 1660. More coined the term as an organizing
principle for comparing and classifying religions. However, the Enlightenment
metaphysical construct of monotheism, namely the belief that there is just one
creator God, and all other purported gods have no real existence, is a far from
adequate characterization of the Biblical understanding of the unity of YHWH,
or the Qurʾanic understanding of the unity of Allāh. In both the Bible and the
Qurʾan, the theology of the unity of God must be considered in relation to the
functions the doctrine fulfills within the theological system, or, as Vogel (2007,
450) put it, “its full and relevant significance must be derived from the
connotation which it carries.” In both scriptures monotheism engages, among
other things, with ethics, prescriptions for worship, and legal prohibitions, and it
intertwines deeply with other aspects of scriptural theology, such as eschatology
in the Qurʾan, and concepts of covenantal love and divine sovereignty in the
Bible. Furthermore, in the Bible, the theology of the unity of YHWH is not
univocal, but shows a development, with an internal progression from an earlier
emphasis in the Torah on the worship of YHWH to the exclusion of other gods,
without necessarily denying their existence—“you shall have no other gods
before me” (Exod. 20:3)—to encompass a denial of the very existence of other
gods, which is articulated in the latter prophets and is reiterated in the Christian
scriptures (§4.2).
In this chapter we shall consider to what extent Qurʾanic understandings of
Allāh’s unity may be said to have inherited the theological functions and
interconnections of the unity of YHWH in the Bible, or whether it has
repurposed the idea of the unity of the one God to serve its own theological
agenda.

4.1 QURʾANIC MONOTHEISM

Islamic tradition has used the term tawḥīd “the making one” (Jeffery 1958, 85)
to refer to the doctrine of unity of Allāh,1 although this term does not appear in
the Qurʾan itself. According to the Qurʾan, Allāh subsists solely in himself,
without any need for reference to anything else (Q2:255). He has no equal
(Q112:4) and nothing is like him (Q42:11).
The unity and uniqueness of Allāh is repeatedly affirmed throughout the
Qurʾan (e.g., Q2:163, 255; Q14:48, 52; Q16:51; Q20:8; Q59:22; Q73:9; cf.
Gardet 1986a, 407). Frequently used titles for Allāh, which emphasize his
uniqueness and subsistence, are al-wāḥid “the one” (25 times); al-ghanīy “the
self-sufficient,” who needs nothing (16 times); and al-ʿalīy “the exalted” (12
times).
There are indications in the Qurʾan that Allāh was confessed by pagan
rejectors of the Messenger’s preaching as a deity who they swore by (Q6:109;
Q35:42) and whose roles encompassed creator of the world, and god of the sky,
wind, rain, and waves (Q29:61–65; cf. also Q10:31; Q23:84–89; Q31:32;
Q43:87; Q39:38). At the same time these pagans are described as worshipping a
multiplicity of gods (Q25:42; Q36:74). There are also passages which refute the
idea that figures known as pagan goddesses were “daughters” of Allāh (Q6:100;
Q16:57; Q17:40; Q37:149; Q43:16; Q52:39; Q53:19–23),2 or that Allāh could
bear offspring (Q2:116; Q4:171; Q6:100–101; Q9:30; Q10:68; Q17:111; Q18:4;
Q19:35, 88–92; Q21:26; Q23:91 Q25:2; Q39:4), which suggests that Allāh had
been recognized before Islam as a deity within a pagan pantheon.3
In the Qurʾan Allāh is presented as the only creator (Q35:3; Q40:68; Q87:2; cf.
Q32:7; O’Shaughnessy 1985), whose creative will and power are not merely
manifested as a specific event, that is, the creation of the world “in six days”
(Q10:3), but as an ongoing force which sustains and directs all things: “He
directs the affair” (Q10:3; Q35:1). Allāh also knows all things, including the
future (Q31:34). The sun, moon, and stars only move at Allāh’s command
(Q7:54), and seeds germinate and come alive by his hand (Q6:95). It is therefore
fitting that all creation should worship him exclusively (Q24:41; Q13:15). Like
the Bible, the Qurʾan identifies Allāh as the only one who can save (Q12:110;
Q36:23; Q39:61).
There is no direct command in the Qurʾan to love Allāh, and in terms of
frequency, the call to love Allāh seems muted. The title al-wadūd “one who
loves” is used of Allāh only twice (Q85:14; Q11:90). In only three clear
instances does the Qurʾan mention people loving Allāh (Q2:165; Q3:31; Q5:54),
one of which speaks of exclusive love—loving Allāh and not others (Q2:165)—
and in a further two verses (Q2:177; Q76:8) there are potential references to
loving Allāh, if a pronoun is read as “him” and not “it” (Nickel 2009, 9).4 Of
these verses, all but Q76:8 are post-transitional. The repeated short
characterizations of believers, both pre- and post-transitional (§2.5), do not
include love for Allāh among the their distinctive attributes, and the handful of
verses which refer to loving Allāh all do so in the context of focusing on other
attributes: Q2:165 is a criticism of those who practice shirk (§4.1.1); Q3:31 is an
exhortation to obey the Messenger (cf. Q3:32); Q5:54 is an exhortation to
believers not to turn back, but to be willing to fight in the way of Allāh; Q2:177
commends using one’s financial resources to help the needy “out of love for
him”; and Q76:8 is a similar commendation to feed the needy “for the love of
him.”5 Gril (2003, 236) remarks, “The few passages in the Qurʾan dealing with
love have scarcely encouraged authors to extract from the Qurʾan the
fundamentals of divine and human love.”
As we shall see, the Qurʾan’s framing of the unity of Allāh places great
emphasis on the dangers of compromising his unity,6 and a salient feature of
Qurʾanic monotheism is the way the Qurʾan frames its emphasis on Allāh’s
unity, drawing on Arabic semantic categories of partnership (sh-r-k), patron-
protégé relationships (w-l-y), helping alliances (n-ṣ-r), and equality.

4.1.1 Shirk—Proprietary Partnership

To attribute partnership (ashraka) in anything to Allāh is described by the
Qurʾan as shirk “association” (Q17:38; Q18:38; Q23:91; Q39:3; Q40:12 and
many other verses). The concept of shirk, which includes the attribution of
offspring to Allāh, is described as a gross, uniquely unforgivable sin, the
“foremost religious crime in Islam” (Böwering 2002, 329), attracting Allāh’s
wrath (Q3:151) and leading to the Fire (Q4:48, 116; Q22:31; Q5:72). Also
derived from the root sh-r-k is the term mushrik “associator,” which is frequently
used in the Qurʾan to refer to disbelievers. A mushrik is someone who “in his
behavior and attitudes . . . proceeds as if other beings, supernatural or perhaps
sometimes human, have powers which a true monotheist would recognize as
belonging to God alone” (Hawting 2002, 477).7
Nontheological uses of sh-r-k derivatives are also attested in the Qurʾan. The
everyday meaning of shirk, prior to its extension to serve as a theological
concept, was that of a proprietary partnership in which two or more individuals
shared ownership in something, for example a slave or an animal.8 Such a
partner is called a sharīk.9
In the understanding of the Qurʾan, a fundamental metaphor for the relation of
Allāh to a human person is that of a master to his ʿabd “slave” (Q51:56).10 When
the messenger Ṣāliḥ is sent to the people of Thamūd he simply says: “Serve11
Allāh!” (Q27:45; cf. Q1:5; Q10:3; Q21:106). From this perspective, the doctrine
of shirk is grounded in the idea of Allāh as the owner of human beings, and it
represents the ultimate disruption of the slave-master metaphor, a slave with two
masters. At a number of points in the Qurʾan, the slave-master analogy is
invoked to explain Allāh’s right to treat people differently, giving one blessing
and another trouble (Q16:71; Q30:28). The idea that it is impossible for Allāh to
enter into a partnership is developed by a logical appeal to the analogy of a slave
owned by two masters:
Allāh presents a parable, “a man was owned by several quarreling partners
(shurakāʾ), and a man was the slave of (just) one man. Are the two equal?”
(Q39:29)
This analogy appeals to the belief that the condition of a slave co-owned by two
“partners” is greatly to be pitied. Instead of having one master, they are torn
between two, who end up quarreling over the slave. It is impossible for a slave
with two masters to be successful because a slave’s flourishing depends upon
their obedience, and with two masters, each giving conflicting commands, the
slave will be unable to please them both, for “he would be confused as to whom
of them he should serve” (al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī 2007, commentary on
Q39:29). If the slave obeys one master, he disobeys the other, and vice versa.
This Qurʾanic parable communicates that the condition of a slave with one
master is much superior to that of the slave with two: they are not equal. The
logical implication is that, because for a slave to have two masters is a disaster,
attributing associates to Allāh is wrong.
There are two other verses which argue in a similar fashion for the
impossibility of there being more than one god, on the basis of conflict and the
destruction that would result. Q23:91 states that if there were more than one
creator, each would have tried to dominate the other using what they had created
—in effect they would have fought over creation—and, in the same vein, Q21:22
declares that the heavens and the earth would have been ruined if there was more
than one god (Mir 2004, 161). These logical arguments for the unity of Allāh
appear to be original to Islam, and not derived from Biblical understandings of
God’s unity.
Note also the contrast between the use of the slave-master parable in the
Qurʾan and Jesus’ use of the same metaphor:
No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love
the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve
God and wealth. (Luke 16:13; cf. Mt. 6:24)
The Qurʾanic analogy of a slave with two masters is used to argue against the
logical and moral impossibility of there being two masters, because this would
cause a conflict between the masters, and a crisis of competing authorities. This
parable is presented in the Qurʾan in order to show what chaos is caused by
ascribing associates to Allāh. Jesus uses a similar analogy, but to make a quite
different point, that having two masters will cause a crisis of devotion in the
heart of a disciple. Jesus presupposes the inevitable existence of competing
allegiances, but calls upon the disciples to “chose this day whom you will serve”
(cf. Josh. 24:15). The Qurʾan emphasizes the logical impossibility of having two
masters, not the need to choose.
We have seen that the sin of shirk “association” encompasses different kinds of
error, including attributing partners to Allāh (Q2:22; Q5:116), for Allāh has no
need of allies (Q17:111) and seeking help from any one else besides Allāh
(Q8:64; Q10:66; Q16:20–21).
There are three further semantic constructs which are repeatedly invoked by
the Qurʾan to explore implications of the unity of Allāh. Of these the first two in
the following list were important in regulating kinship and tribal relationships in
Arab society and are the more prominent in the Qurʾan:

• patron-protégé relationships,
• helping alliances, and
• equal and unequal status.

4.1.2 Patron-Protégé Relationships

In the Qurʾan, patron-protégé relationships are described using terms derived
from the root w-l-y. The basic meaning of w-l-y is the symmetrical idea of “to be
adjacent (in space) to.” Derived verbs are the form II wallā “turn to” (Q6:129)
and form V tawallā “form an alliance with” (Q5:80). The prominent noun walīy
(pl. awliyāʾ) can mean “ally” or “next of kin,” but also “protector” or
“guardian.”
The concepts of alliances and patron-protégé relations were important in Arab
tribal society. There is an incident in Ibn Isḥāq’s Life of Muḥammad when the
people of Mecca come to Muḥammad’s powerful uncle Abū Ṭālib seeking
permission to attack Muḥammad, who had been under Abū Ṭālib’s protection.
They said to him, “O Abū Ṭālib, your nephew has cursed our gods, insulted our
religion, mocked our way of life . . . either you must stop him or you must let us
get at him . . .” (Guillaume 1955, 119). Abū Ṭālib did not indulge their request.
Without a patron Muḥammad would have been vulnerable and liable to be
harmed or killed, but with a patron he was protected and safe.
The term walīy can be difficult to translate in English because it can be used
symmetrically or asymmetrically, as Ambros and Procházka explain:
 . . . the relation expressed by “A (is/are) walīy / awliyāʾ of B” is primarily
symmetrical, but in the case of the sg. walīy in most instances A is superior
to, i.e. more powerful than, B, so that a translation “patron” may appear to be
called for . . . . (2004, 296)
The Qurʾan teaches that not only does Allāh need no walīy “patron” (Q17:111;
cf. Q17:2)—because he is the ultimate authority in himself—but human beings
need no patron apart from Allāh, who is their only patron (Q2:107; cf. Marlow
2002; Chabbi 2016, 114) and to seek any other walīy is shirk. Thus Q6:14 warns
against seeking any other patron (walīy) besides Allāh, saying, “Do not be one of
the associators [mushrikūn]!” Another derivative of w-l-y, mawlā is normally
translated asymmetrically as “master, patron,” but in Q44:41 the two uses refer
to both patron and client simultaneously: lā yughnī mawlan ʿan mawlan “a
patron will be no use for a client” (Ambros and Procházka 2004, 297).
The plural awliyāʾ is used in a symmetrical sense, that is, with the meaning
“allies,” and believers are sometimes referred to as the “awliyāʾ of Allāh”
(Q10:62). Although believers are commanded not to have any other walīy but
Allāh, numerous permissions are given for them to take other believers and the
Messenger as awliyāʾ, together with Allāh (e.g., Q5:55; cf. Marlow 2002, 274).
The insistence to have no walīy apart from Allāh increases in prominence in
the community after the Eschatological Transition (chapter 2). The purpose of
this insistence is to disassociate believers from their family and tribal
allegiances, which might otherwise entangle them with disbelievers, drawing
them away from the path of faith. Instead they are to pledge their sole allegiance
to Allāh, the Messenger, and their only solidarity with community of believers,
renouncing all other allegiances.

4.1.3 Helping Alliances

Also prominent in the Qurʾan’s elaboration of shirk is the concept of “helping,”
expressed in derivatives of the root n-ṣ-r. The verb naṣara means to help protect
someone against an enemy.12 Someone who helps in this way is a naṣīr (pl.
anṣār). In Q61:14 believers are urged to be “helpers” (anṣār) of Allāh, and Allāh
will support them in return.
The Qurʾan repeatedly links together the concept of patron-protégé
relationships (w-l-y), and helping alliances (n-ṣ-r), treating them as closely
equivalent if not synonyms: “Allāh is your patron (mawlā). He is the best of
helpers (nāṣirīn13)” (Q3:150). The essence of association (shirk) is to make
anyone else but Allāh one’s walīy or naṣīr:
Say: Call on your associates [shurakāʾ], then scheme against me and give me
no respite! Indeed my patron/ally [walīy] is Allāh, who has sent down the
Book. He takes the righteous as allies [tawallā]. Those you call on instead of
Him cannot help [naṣr] you, and they cannot help [naṣara] themselves.
(Q7:195–98; cf. Q5:72; Q3:150; Q9:116)

4.1.4 Equal and Unequal Status

A fourth semantic construct used by the Qurʾan to explicate tawḥīd is a concern
for not calling things equal when their status, power, or usefulness is very
unequal. In Q16:71 it is said to be unthinkable that a slave owner would share
his wealth with his slave “so they are equal” in respect of possessions. In another
set of comparisons, a powerless slave is compared with a wealthy free person,
and the Qurʾan asks “Are they equal?” (Q16:75); then, in the next verse
concerning a slave who cannot speak, the question is asked “is he equal to the
one who commands justice and is himself on a straight path?” (Q16:76). The
answer in both cases is meant to be self-evident: “No, they are not equal!”
Believers who stay at home are said not to be equal to those who fight (Q4:95;
Q57:10); bad things are not equal to good things (Q5:100; Q41:34); the blind
and the deaf are not equal to the seeing and the hearing (Q11:24; Q35:19; see
also Q8:22–23). This is described as a “parable” for the difference between
disbelievers and believers (Q40:58); and believers are not equal to disbelievers
(Q32:18; Q39:9; Q35:8; Q59:20).
In the Qurʾan, the argument from inequality indicates “absolute exclusion” and
“ultimate dichotomy” (Gwynne 2004, 139). The Qurʾan considers it unthinkable
for partnership (shirk) to take place across the divide of inequality: Q30:28 states
hal lakum min mā malakat aymānukum min shurakāa fī mā razaqnākum fa-
antum sawāun “Are there among your slaves any partners (shurakāʾ) in what we
have provided you, so that you are equal in this?” In other words, no one enters
into a proprietary partnership (shirk) with his or her own slave because this
would attribute an equality which cannot in fact exist. In the same way
attributing partnership to Allāh is unthinkable because it would breach the
profound and fundamental inequality which exists between Allāh and his
creation. In Q13:16, taking patrons or associates in competition with Allāh—
both awliyāʾ and shurakāʾ are mentioned—is compared with treating the blind
and the sighted as equals, which, it is implied, would be completely out of the
question.

4.1.5 A Polemical Doctrine

The doctrine of tawḥīd also needs to be considered in the context of the way it is
applied. Its use in the Qurʾan is often polemical, directed against groups with
which the Messenger was in conflict.14 The earliest and primary target of tawḥīd
was the group referred to as mushrikūn “associators,” that is, worshippers of
pagan deities, including some who were reported to be claiming that Allāh can
beget a walad “offspring” (Q6:100–101). Only later, after the Eschatological
Transition, is the Christian teaching that Jesus is divine Son of God the target of
polemics (Q4:171; cf. Q2:116; Q5:17, 72–75, 116–18; Q9:30–31; Q19:34–35). It
is noteworthy that all the rejections of the idea that Allāh has offspring, which
are not specifically made in connection with ʿĪsā, appear in earlier pre-
transitional sūrahs. In contrast, the specific disavowals that ʿĪsā is God or the
Son of God is post-transitional, with the single exception of Q19:35 (to illustrate
both points, cf. Figure 6.5).15 The relatively late engagement with Christian
teachings in the Qurʾan suggests that the polemic against Allāh having offspring
was developed earlier, to counter the beliefs of the pagan mushrikūn, and this
was later adapted to counter Christian teachings.
In the Qurʾan believers are urged to come to an agreement (a “common word”)
with Christians and Jews that they do not “associate” anything with Allāh, and
they will not “take each other as lords instead of Allāh” (Q3:64). There is also a
suggestion that Christians worship Mary as a deity alongside Jesus (Q5:116),
and Christians are rebuked for taking monks as their “lords” instead of Allāh
(Q9:31). Not only the mushrikūn and Christians, but also, in a single passage,
Jews are accused of saying that ʿUzayr is the son of Allāh, and taking rabbis as
their “lords” instead of Allāh (Q9:30–31).
The doctrine of tawḥīd is not only used polemically against followers of other
religions. It is also invoked to target all kinds of competing allegiances and
alliances which could threaten the authority of the Messenger. Repeatedly
disbelievers are rebuked for putting their trust in other patrons or helpers besides
Allāh, who will not be able to help them when punishment comes (Q4:139;
Q29:41; Q60:1). In this, Allāh is positioned by the Qurʾan as the ultimate tribal
patron, superior to all others, in a universe where there is actually only one real
patron and all the others are fakes, whether human or divine, so “the disbelievers
have no patron” (Q47:11; Q2:107) and “the Fire is your patron” (Q57:15). One
of the corollaries of this conception of Allāh is that his patronage must trump all
other relationships, or, as Bell’s (1991) commentary on Q11:48 put it, “Islam
breaks all ties” (cf. also Saleh 2010).

4.1.6 Dimensions of Disbelief

We will round out our discussion of Qurʾanic monotheism by considering how it
construes disbelief in the one God. The confession of faith in Allāh as one is
connected in the Qurʾan with its understanding of disbelief: the opposite of faith
in the one God is shirk “association.” The other key concept for defining
disbelief and disbelievers is kufr “disbelief.” Derivatives of k-f-r and sh-r-k are
extraordinarily salient throughout the Qurʾan. As we have seen, sh-r-k forms are
a key way of referring to violations of the oneness of Allāh by ascribing partners
to him. The term kufr and other derivations from k-f-r are even more frequent
and dominant, casting a long shadow over the whole Qurʾan:
Even a cursory reading of the Scripture [i.e. of the Qurʾan] will convince one
that the role played by the concept of kufr is so peculiarly influential that it
makes its presence felt well-nigh everywhere in sentences about human
conduct or character. (Izutsu 1966, 119)
The two roots sh-r-k and k-f-r are used in a variety of forms as shown in Table
4.1, with the number of instances shown in brackets.
Table 4.1 Two dimensions of disbelief

In its nonreligious sense, the form I verb kafara means to “hide or cover,” with
the implication that what is covered is something good (Adang 2001, 220). For
example, one might speak of the clouds covering the sky, or earth covering seed
scattered on the ground. This form I verb can also be used to disavow or deny a
benefit conferred—to “conceal” it—and thus to “disbelieve.” The noun kufr can
mean “ingratitude” (i.e., denying a favor), “disavowal” or “disbelief,” and kufr is
sometimes deployed as the opposite of shukr “gratitude” (Q61:112–14; Q2:152).
It can also be used to refer to someone who is telling lies against Allāh (Q10:68–
70). The verb kafara can mean to disavow, ignore, or fail to acknowledge
(Q3:115; Q30:13; Q35:14; Q46:6; cf. Adang 2001, 220). A kāfir is a person who
is an ungrateful rejector or denier because they conceal something good that is
true, namely the benevolence of Allāh, an attribute which is often emphasized in
the Qurʾan. The connection between ingratitude and denial is that those who
deny or “cover” over Allāh’s benevolence and his signs are bound to be
ungrateful (Izutsu 1966, 120; Waldman 1968, 445).
The concept of kufr is very general and can apply to all types of disbelievers,
including the “associators,” hypocrites, and People of the Book. Furthermore,
the Qurʾan frequently presents the kāfir as the precise opposite of a muʾmin
“believer” (Izutsu 1966, 120).
The noun shirk “association,” as we have seen (§4.1.1), refers in its
nonreligious sense to a partnership in which two or more individuals have a
share in something which by its nature is not easily divisible. In the religious
sphere, to commit shirk means to imply by word or deed that Allāh has a partner
(sharīk) with whom he has something in common. This sin is a violation of
Allāh’s unity, and a challenge to his authority, because anything that belongs to
Allāh is his and his alone, and cannot held in partnership with or under the
authority of anyone else. A mushrik is thus someone who conceals Allāh’s true
nature by “associating” (ashraka) a partner with Allāh (Q50:26; Q15:96; cf.
Q7:190).
The two concepts kufr and shirk are complementary—two sides of same coin
of disbelief—highlighting different aspects of opposition to the one true God.
Kufr refers to the rejection of Allāh, his signs and messengers through
concealing or denying the truth, while shirk describes the principal way in which
this rejection occurs, through transgressive promotion of something else which is
claimed to share in Allāh’s unique attributes or prerogatives. Several passages
reference both dimensions of unbelief simultaneously, linking them together, for
example, Q40:42 reports that those who would undermine the Messenger’s faith
call him to “disbelieve” (kafara) in Allāh and to “associate” (ashraka) with him;
Q3:155 declares an intention to cast fear into the hearts of those who
“disbelieve” because they have “associated”; Q9:17 declares that mushrikūn
“associators” should not frequent Allāh’s mosques because they manifest kufr
“disbelief”; and Q40:12 describes a rejector who “disbelieves” when Allāh alone
is worshipped, but who believes when another is “associated” with Allāh.
The concepts of shirk and kufr are important for our discussion because they
sum up and characterize the alternative to Qurʾanic monotheism, negatively
defining what faith in one Allāh means by its opposite. For the Qurʾan, to
believe that Allāh is one means not associating anything him, and confessing
openly and gratefully his benevolence. Crucially, this also means accepting his
messengers, and in particular the Messenger of Allāh, who are a means of
Allāh’s benevolence. To reject Allāh’s Messenger means being one who
conceals, ungratefully, the one true God.
We will now consider monotheism in the context of the Bible.

4.2 BIBLICAL MONOTHEISM

The scholarly literature on Biblical monotheism is vast.16 Emerging from this
literature is a consensus that the Enlightenment construct of “monotheism” is a
“very poor means” (MacDonald 2012, 221) to capture the Bible’s teachings
about YHWH. There are two main issues with the Enlightenment’s metaphysical
understanding of monotheism in relation to Biblical faith. First, it is far from
clear that the call in the Torah for Israel to serve YHWH alone entails a rejection
of the actual existence of other deities. Indeed the idea that other gods have no
real existence only emerges in the later prophetic books. Some scholars see the
Biblical idea of the one God “emerging gradually and in a continuous line from
the polytheistic thought of paganism” (Vogel 2007, 448). Second, the focus of
the Bible’s calls for Israel to have “no other gods” is not about believing that
other deities do not exist, but about exclusive devotion to YHWH.
To be sure, certain attributes of YHWH are similar to those of Allāh in the
Qurʾan. Like Allāh, YHWH has no equal (Isa. 40:25; 46:5); none is like him
(Deut. 33:26; Ps. 86:8; Jer. 10:6); he is self-sufficient (Ps. 50:7–13); and he is to
be worshipped by all creation (Ps. 19:1; Ps. 150:6), since he sustains all things
(Ps. 104; Heb. 1:3). Yet alongside these similarities, there are significant
differences.
In the Torah the declarations of the oneness of YHWH call for exclusive
covenantal loyalty and devotion from Israel to YHWH as their national God, to
whom they should look exclusively for help. This call is bound up with the
Israelite religious concept of national salvation. Von Rad describes Israel’s
“monotheism” as a dynamic confession of trust to save his people, not adherence
to a philosophical truth:
Monotheism could be a truth, which, once perceived, is settled for all time.
The confession to God that says, “besides Thee there is no savior,” this
confession of great trust is never settled forever, but must be ventured again
and again. (1980, 192)
The Shema, which summarizes the monotheism of the Torah, is a command to
the Israelites to serve and be devoted to YHWH alone as their God:
“Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH alone. You shall love YHWH
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”
(Deut. 6:4–5).
Likewise the first of the Ten Commandments is a call to exclusive worship of
YHWH as Israel’s God: “I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before
me” (Exod. 20:2–3). Although there are passages in the Hebrew Bible which
imply or declare that no other gods have any actual existence (cf. 2 Chr. 13:9;
Jer. 2:11; 5:7; 10:5; Isa. 45:14; Hab. 2:18), the focus of the declarations of
YHWH’s uniqueness in Deuteronomy is a command to Israel to love and serve
him exclusively (Deut. 6:5; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 20), and not to
follow “other gods” (e.g., Deut. 5:7; 6:14; 7:4, 16; 8:19; 28:14). YHWH is the
“God of gods” and “Lord of lords” (Deut. 10:17), who is “above all gods” (Ps.
95:3) and “to be feared above all gods” (1 Chr. 16:25). The metaphysical insight
that other gods are merely “so-called,” having no real existence as deities, only
emerges throughout Israel’s history, first from the confrontation between YHWH
and Baal of the Canaanites (1 Kgs 18:21), leading to the conclusion that YHWH
and not Baal is the deity who controls the weather, including the land’s
fertility,17 and then out of the crucible of the failure of the Israelite kingdom and
the exile, which leads to the insight that YHWH is lord of the history of nations,
and all places, including the land of exile and its rulers. YHWH is not just the
national God of Israel in the land of Canaan (Isa. 37:16, 20; Jer. 23:23–24), but
of the whole earth and all the peoples in it. What is crucial is that the call to
exclusive devotion to YHWH in Deuteronomy, which is grounded in the call to
love him exclusively, is prior to the insight that other gods have no real
existence.
The Hebrew Bible characterizes exclusive divine love in terms of a variety of
loving social relationships:
The relation of God to His people is conceived as a union marked by love on
one side and demanding a corresponding love on the other. This reciprocal
love of God and the people is expressed in categories of familial or social
unity: father-son relationship, marriage analogy or covenant love. (Lipinski
2007, 227)
The devoted covenantal relationship is grounded in the ideology and
terminology of ancient treaties, in which “love” is used to describe “the loyalty
and friendship joining independent and equal rulers” (Lipinski 2007, 228; cf.
Moran 1963; 1 Kgs 5:12). Other social metaphors are the father-son relationship
(Deut. 32:6, 10–11, 18–20; Isa. 63:16; Jer. 3:19, Hos. 11:1), the mother-child
relationship (Isa. 49:14–15) and the husband-wife relationship (Hos. 2; Jer. 2–3;
54:6; Ezek. 16). These metaphors are considerably elaborated in the Hebrew
Bible, and continue to be developed in the New Testament, including the
covenantal relationship (1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:6), the father-son
relationship (Mt. 6:9; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 6:18), and the husband-wife metaphor,
which is reoriented to apply between the church and Christ (Rev. 19:7).
What is clear is that the Bible does not construct its message about the unity of
God using the same complex of concepts with which the Qurʾan constructs its
monotheistic doctrine: shirk, patron-protégé relationships, helping alliances, and
equality of status, nor does the Qurʾan inherit the Bible’s interest in using loving
social relationships as metaphors for divine-human interaction. The Qurʾan looks
to a different set of social relationships to construe the human-divine connection,
such as that between patron and protégé, and between master and slave.
Furthermore, the way the linguistic resources of derivatives from sh-r-k and k-f-r
are used in the Qurʾan to characterize disbelief, and thereby, as Izutsu (1966,
119) has pointed out, the way they define belief, are built on indigenous Arabic
linguistic foundations and as such are unique to Islam, not something calqued
from Jewish or Christian sources, whether Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, or Greek.
The concept of proprietary partnership is not used in the Bible to define
YHWH’s uniqueness negatively, and disbelief is not described in the Bible in
terms of associating partners with YHWH, nor as concealment of YHWH’s
attributes. In Biblical Hebrew the concept of disbelief is expressed as māʾas “to
reject, despise, be averse to” (Num. 11:20), as mārāh “rebel, disobey” (Ps. 5:10),
or simply as “not believe” (Exod. 4:1; Ps. 78:32).

4.3 CONCLUSION TO DISCUSSION OF TAWḤĪD

Despite some shared understandings of the creator and his uniqueness, the
Qurʾan evaluates and implements Allāh’s unity as a guiding principle in
distinctive ways which do not seem to be derived from or connected to Biblical
theological categories. Schadler (2018, 107) has observed that the idea of
characterizing idolatry as association was completely alien to Greek thought
prior to the advent of Islam, so alien that John of Damascus had to coin an
entirely new word, hetairiastás, to translate mushrik.
One distinctive of the Qurʾan, which contrasts with the Bible, is the absence of
a command to love Allāh, and the relative rarity of references to people loving
Allāh. The Qurʾan does commend loving Allāh, but only infrequently, and
incidentally. As we shall see (§6.7), in the Qurʾan the relationship of a believer
to Allāh is not covenantal in the Biblical sense, for what is emphasized is divine
command and human obedience, rather than a covenantal understanding of
mutually binding obligations involving loving loyalty. Furthermore, the use of
Arabic semantic categories associated with the roots sh-r-k, w-l-y, and n-ṣ-r are
alien to the Biblical presentation of the unity of God.
The Qurʾan has borrowed many religious terms from other languages,
including terms from Syriac (cf. Jeffery 1938), yet the terminology it uses to
flesh out its understanding of monotheism is not borrowed, but distinctively
Arabic. That the Qurʾan’s theology of monotheism rests on native Arabic
linguistic foundations is also attested to by the diverse range of derivatives of the
three roots, sh-r-k, w-l-y, and n-ṣ-r, with which the Qurʾan pursues its polemic
against shirk and in favor of tawḥīd, as well as the great frequency with which
these terms appear. The Qurʾan’s understanding of the unity and uniqueness of
Allāh draws heavily on metaphors from Arab understandings of human
relationships, including the slave-master relationship, which defines power and
status in a tribal setting. In Arab society, tribal membership and kinship counted
for everything: “A person’s life, honor and goods were protected by his relatives,
who were obliged to assist him in trouble and to avenge or seek compensation
for him if he was wronged” (Hoyland 2001, 113), so it is telling that it is the
linguistic toolkit of Arabic social relationships that the Qurʾan reaches into in
order to present its case for the oneness of Allāh. Its emphatic framing of the
unity of Allāh in terms of these social and commercial relationships is distinct
from the Bible’s way of framing the oneness of YHWH, which is presented as a
call to exclusive covenantal love and faithfulness, using a different set of social
relationships. The difference is summed up in the quite different interpretations
drawn from the analogy of a slave with two masters (§4.1.1). For the Qurʾan the
situation of the slave with two masters represents a crisis of conflict between
competing authorities. For the Bible it is a crisis of devotion in the heart of the
slave, in the light of the Torah’s call for YHWH’s people to choose to serve (or
worship) him alone: “Choose this day whom you will serve . . .” (Josh. 24:15).
The Qurʾan shares with the Bible a basic conception of God as the unique
creator, and certain attributes of God are common to both scriptures, such as
God’s knowledge and power, but the Qurʾan constructs and applies this
uniqueness very much in its own way, setting it in the context of a cultural
understanding of social relationships. It positions Allāh as the supreme patron
and owner-master of humankind.
One might assume that the worship of the one God was a heritage passed on to
Islam from Judaism and Christianity. However, our methodology causes us to
ask for clarification: if this was the case, was this influence borrowed or
inherited? Our criterion is to consider to what extent a systematic theological
inheritance of Biblical monotheistic theology can be discerned in the Qurʾan’s
presentation of the oneness of Allāh. Or did the Qurʾan repurpose the idea of one
God to fit it into its own theological vision? To be sure, there is a set of
theological ideas about the one God which the Bible and the Qurʾan share, and
which we have already noted (§4.2). However, what is striking about this list,
which includes his power and control over creation and his self-sufficiency, is
that these attributes are logically derivable from the idea of the supremacy of the
one God, creator of all things, who rules over everything. Once we stray beyond
what is implied straightforwardly from the idea of one all-powerful creator God,
the Qurʾan and Bible diverge considerably in their treatment of God’s oneness.
The Qurʾan places great emphasis on the sins of association and concealment
(kufr), as defilements of the unity, but the Hebrew Bible has very little if
anything to say about association and concealment. Instead it is concerned with
exclusive covenantal faithfulness to YHWH.
The Bible constructs the unity of YHWH in an evolving fashion, but the “red
cord” that runs throughout is a call to exclusive, intentional covenantal devotion.
The great declaration of YHWH’s oneness, the Shema (Deut. 6:4–5) is
embedded in a call to covenantal faithfulness, as part of a record of the covenant
with Israel: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your
hearts.” The opposite of accepting this declaration and the call that goes with it
is described as unfaithfulness, “prostituting themselves,” “forsaking God,” and
“breaking covenant” (Deut. 31:16). What this means is that the ethical
implications of accepting or rejecting God’s unity are not framed in the same
way in the Bible and the Qurʾan.
Although many authors have attributed Islam’s monotheism to the influence of
Christianity and Judaism, making “the implicit assumption that monotheism has
a continuous, linear and almost natural history” (Al-Azmeh 2014, 248), the way
in which the Qurʾan actually constructs its monotheism, logically and ethically,
and guards it, is very different from the covenantal framework of the Hebrew
Bible. To establish continuity between the Qurʾan and the Bible in their
treatments of monotheism—to show inheritance rather than borrowing—one
would expect to see some transfer of theology beyond the mere idea of there
being only one God. Instead the Qurʾan has its own construal of tawḥīd which is
put together in its own distinct way.18
Our conclusion, at this point, is modest. Some features of the theology of
Biblical monotheism, such as particular attributes of God, are shared by the
Qurʾan. However, in other respects the theological emphases of the Bible and the
Qurʾan in guarding faith in the one God pull in quite different directions. Each
channels their energy for monotheism to its own distinct purposes. On balance
the evidence appears to suggest that the Qurʾan’s message about the one true
God was borrowed from Judaeo-Christian sources, not inherited, and it was
significantly repurposed, being reclothed in native Arabic linguistic categories
such as sh-r-k and k-f-r in the service of the Qurʾan’s own distinctive spiritual
vision of the unity of God. In presenting its vision of the one God, the Qurʾan’s
energy is invested in its own unique construal of the unity.

NOTES
1. The Qurʾan’s personal name for God, Allāh, is morphologically complex, having the underlying
structure l-ʾilāh, which also can mean “the god.” Kiltz (2013, 47) makes the point that even if the co-
option of Allāh as the name for the monotheistic God had been influenced by the use of Syriac allāhā
(Jeffery 1958, 85), this influence took the form of what is here termed phono-semantic matching (§6.6.5),
reinterpreting a preexisting form, namely the Arabic ʾallah (derived from ʾal-ʾilāh by a regular process of
epenthesis) to match it to a Syriac model. This analysis agrees with Ambros (1981), who argues that the
distinctive pharyngealization of the -ll- in Allāh was a case of phonetic matching under the influence of
West Syriac, in which ʾalāhā “God” was pronounced [alɔ:hɔ:]. Pharyngealization had the effect of
darkening the /ā/ to make it sound more like [ɔ:], and hence more like West Syriac [alɔ:hɔ:], but yet still
in a distinctively Arabic form. Although Kiltz (2013) adduces pre-Islamic epigraphic evidence that in
Christian contexts both ʾallāh and ʾal-ʾilāh are attested in reference to YHWH, as Macdonald has pointed
out, and Kiltz acknowledges, in Arabian epigraphy doubled consonants were normally reflected by a
single letter, which means that both ʾilāh and ʾallāh could have been transcribed in the same way, as ʾlh.
Kiltz (2013, 39) also concludes that in pagan contexts the elided ʾallāh “. . . could be understood as ‘the
specific god in context,’ i.e. the one whom I worship.” In other words, before Islam arose, ʾallāh
functioned as a generic term, and was not limited to a specific god, let alone the monotheistic God.
2. The pagans are mocked for preferring sons to daughters for themselves, while attributing daughters
to Allāh.
3. The pagan identity of the group referred to in these passages is disputed. Watt (1971) took them to
be pagan Arabs who acknowledged Allāh as a “high god” (see also Fahd 1968 and Brockelmann 1922).
Hawting (1999) argued, on the contrary, that these were monotheists, not idolaters. Crone (2010) has
provided an analysis of the complex issues concerning the relationship between Allāh and the pagan
deities referred to in the Qurʾan. It is noteworthy that all these passages are pre-transitional (see Table
2.1) and most references to the “People of the Book” appear later in the development of the Qurʾan. (The
pre-transitional sūrah, Q29, does have one passage, Q29:46–47, which refers to the “People of the
Book,” but the reference in vv.46–47 is limited in scope, apparently being triggered by a mention of the
“Book” in Q29:45. The main focus of Q29:61–65 appears to be a group, distinct from the People of the
Book, who are referred to in Q29:47 simply as “these.”)
4. Volf (2010, 104), in arguing that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, asserts that Islam
“commands us to love God with our whole being.” The scriptural warrant he offers for this claim is the
phrase allahu waḥadu “Allāh alone” from Q39:45, which Volf translates as “God, One and Only” (after
Yūsuf ʿAlī 1999). In fact verse Q39:45 states “When Allāh alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who
disbelieve in the hereafter are repelled, but when others besides Allāh are mentioned, they rejoice.” The
point of this verse is to reject shirk (cf. Q39:43), not to command or even commend love for Allāh.
5. In the case of Q76:8, a parallel phrase in Q76:9, “for the sake of Allāh,” suggests that the reference
of the pronoun in Q76:8 is indeed Allāh.
6. Muslims are sometimes referred to as al-muwaḥḥidūn “those who maintain the Oneness” (Jeffery
2958, 85).
7. The mushrikūn have traditionally been identified as pagan Arab idol worshippers. However,
Hawting (1999) has pointed out wide-reaching inconsistencies between the Qurʾanic mushrikūn and what
we know of Arab idolatry from other sources, concluding that the mushrikūn were monotheists, portrayed
polemically as idolaters. See also the overview in Hawting (2002), Crone’s (2010, 188ff) discussion of
the mushrikūn, and her arguments (2017) that the associators were “God-fearers,” that is, gentiles
inclined to Jewish ways and faith.
8. See Gimaret (1997, 485) regarding similar uses in the ḥadīth.
9. For sharīk (pl. shurakāʾ) with the meaning “co-owner” see Q4:12; Q6:139; Q30:28; Q39:29; and for
a nontheological instance of ashraka “cause to partner” see Q20:32. See also the definitions of Muslim
lexicographers reported in Lane (1863, 1541ff), and the discussion of instances in pre-Islamic and later
poetry in Hawting (1999, 70ff). Jeffery (1938, 185–186) traces the etymology to a common Semitic root
meaning “braid” or “weave,” that is, to form a mesh or net in which strands are woven together, cf.
Arabic sharak “net.” He cites an instance of a very similar theological use from a Sabaean inscription and
concludes “there can be little doubt that the word came to Muhammad, whether directly or indirectly,
from some S. Arabian source” (1938, 186). However, this only shows that the same polysemy existed in
Sabaean. Who borrowed from whom in this case cannot be demonstrated. Jeffery’s reasoning smacks of
the idea that every religious idea in the Qurʾan has to be traced back to some external source. Compare
Ambros and Procházka (2004, 148): “This connection is based on one single (and mutilated) inscription
of highly unc. import and so better discarded.”
10. The expression ʿabd can also mean “worshipper” (Brockopp 2002).
11. The verb is ʿabada, formed from the same root as ʿabd “slave.”
12. Lane (1863, 2802) has, “He aided or assisted him . . . namely, a person wronged, misused, or treated
unjustly or injuriously . . . against his enemy.”
13. This is a participial form of the verb naṣara.
14. See Zebiri’s (2004, 118–119) overview and Sirry (2014:33ff) on Qurʾanic polemics.
15. Even Q19 only juxtaposes a formulaic rejection of Allāh begetting offspring (Q19:35) with an
affirmation that ʿĪsā is a servant of Allāh (Q19:30–34): it does not explicitly engage with a doctrine that
ʿĪsā is divine or a son of Allāh.
16. Some key works on the place of monotheism in Old Testament Theology have been Wellhausen
(1878, 1881), Kuenen (1869, 1875, 1882), Albright (1940), Kaufman (1937–1957), and Von Rad (1957–
1960). For more recent surveys of the literature, see Lohfink (1985), R. K. Gnuse (1997, 1999), J.
Assmann (1997), Smith (2001, 2002), and MacDonald (2012).
17. This insight was prefigured by YHWH’s humiliation of the gods of Egypt (Exod. 12:12).
 18. Our findings agree with those of Al-Azmeh (2014, 276), who concluded that, far from being a
continuous development from Biblical faith, Islamic monotheism drew from Christianity and Judaism
only “doxological, motifemic and mythical fragments, whose incidence in the Qurʾanic text and in the
emergent religion was not determinant” (regarding motifemes, see Dundes 1962).
 Chapter 5

Rasulology and Prophetology

One of the most obvious prima facie similarities between the Qurʾan and the
Bible is the existence of categories of persons who mediate revelation from God:
in Hebrew the nāvīʾ “prophet” (Greek prophétēs), and in the Qurʾan the rasūl
(pl. rusul), “messenger,”1 sometimes also referred to in the Qurʾan as nabī
“prophet.” Some similarities between these two figures are clear enough, and
there is an overlap in the list of Qurʾanic messengers and figures identified in the
Bible as prophets, for example, Mūsā (Moses) and Yūnus (Jonah). However,
differences are also readily apparent, for example, the Qurʾan considers certain
people to be messengers who are not referred to as prophets in the Bible, such as
Lūṭ (Lot), Nūḥ (Noah), and Sulaymān (Solomon). In this chapter we will
consider whether the similarities are sufficient to posit a relationship of
inheritance. The test will be whether the systematic theological relationships
surrounding the doctrine of messengers show signs of having been inherited
from the Biblical treatment of prophets. This is our second investigation of a
major topic from Qurʾanic theology: the previous topic considered was
monotheism. After this chapter we will explore a variety of narrative and lexical
Biblical reflexes in chapter 6.
Messengers loom large in the Qurʾan, playing a pivotal role in its whole
theological system. A great deal of attention is paid by the Qurʾan to what it calls
the sunnah or “customary way” of Allāh’s messengers (Q17:77; Griffith 2016,
216). Furthermore, changes in the role of messengers are a key issue during the
Eschatological Transition (chapter 2), a major theological adjustment which
takes place during the course of the Qurʾan’s evolution.
The category of “messengers” is of such rich importance to the Qurʾan that its
study deserves its own title, and for this we prefer the term Rasulology, on the
analogy of the Christian theological term Christology. This is preferable to
“prophetology” (Griffith 2016, 215; Neuwirth 2016, 195; Wansbrough 1977,
xxi) since in the Qurʾan nabī “prophet” is a subcategory of rasūl (§5.2.4).
Because of the importance of Rasulology for the Qurʾan, in this chapter we shall
give a detailed account of the role and characteristics of messengers and then
consider whether the Qurʾanic office of rasūl shows characteristics of being
borrowed or inherited from Biblical models.
Before we commence our discussion of Rasulology, it is necessary to
acknowledge a “prophetic bias” in Western scholarship, which has preferred to
speak of Muḥammad as a “prophet” (nabī) rather than a “messenger,” even
though the title rasūl is mentioned much more frequently than nabī (see §5.2.4),
and the earliest references to this person use the title rasūl (chronologically early
references are Q69:10; Q77:11; Q81:19; Q91:13). The phrase “Allāh and the
nabī” (Q5:81) is only used once in the Qurʾan, in contrast to the term “Allāh and
the/his rasūl,” which appears almost 100 times. Furthermore, the Islamic
shahādah, the confession of faith, declares that Muḥammad is the rasūl of Allāh,
not his nabī. In the Qurʾan nabī is the secondary category, more restricted in its
application, which piggybacks off the primary category of rasūl and is but a
subtopic of Rasulology.
An example of prophetic bias is the opening section of Nöldeke’s (1909, 1)
Geschichte des Qorāns, which is entitled Über Muhammeds Prophetie und
Offenbarungen “Concerning Muḥammad’s Prophecy and Revelations.” Another
is the title of Rudi Paret’s (1957) Mohammed und der Koran: Geschichte und
Verkündigung des arabischen Propheten “Muḥammad and the Qurʾan: History
and Preaching of the Arabian Prophet.” The prophetic bias can also be observed
in the widespread tendency among writers in English, Muslim and non-Muslim
alike, to refer to Muḥammad as simply “the Prophet.” This use of “prophet”
rather than “messenger” reflects a cultural bias which seems to prefer to
contemplate Islam through a Biblical frame. In contrast the emphasis is placed
here, as in the Qurʾan upon the concept of “messenger.”
Before we explore the attributes of messengers we need to review the Qurʾan’s
theology of guidance, which is logically superordinate to that of messengers.
Rasulology is a subtopic under the general heading of how Allāh guides
humankind.

5.1 GUIDANCE
The Qurʾan presents its message to humankind as guidance (hudā; Wansbrough
1978, 101). This is reflected, for example, in the first chapter of the Qurʾan, al-
Fātiḥah “the opening,” a simple prayer, which neatly frames the message of the
Qurʾan as an invitation to be rightly guided:
Guide us to the straight path: the path of those You have blessed, not of those
on whom anger falls, nor of those who are astray. (Q1:6–7)
In the understanding of the Qurʾan, the human condition, in its weakness and
inclination to ignorance, needs intervention from Allāh, who is the “one who
guides” (Q87:3), so to understand the Qurʾan’s theology of guidance we must
first consider its understanding of the human condition.

5.1.1 The Human Character

The Qurʾan’s anthropology is “highly pessimistic” (Sinai 2017b, 164). Although
they were created to acknowledge and worship Allāh (Q7:172;2 Q30:30) human
beings have been “created weak” (Q4:28). Hasty by nature and easily misled,
beginning from Ādam (Q20:115) they tend to go astray (Q12:53; Q17:11). The
“error-prone” character of humankind is reflected in the terms used to describe
Ādam’s fall: Satan’s intervention caused him to “slip” (azalla, Q2:36) so he
“went astray” (ghawā, Q20:121).
A great many passages of the Qurʾan reflect on why human beings display
moral weakness. It observes, for example, that the comforts of human existence,
including women, sons, and possessions, especially gold, silver, horses, and
cattle, easily lead people astray: “this life is nothing but a deceptive provision”
(Q3:185; cf. Q3:14; Q2:212). The inclination of humans to wander off the
rightly guided path is compounded by their natural state of ignorance. The
Qurʾan considers human sin to be a manifestation of ignorance or folly, in which
people do not understand the implications of what they do, or foolishly ignore
the implications. For example, when Yūsuf is being forced into sin—through
being seduced with threats—he laments that he may become “one of the
ignorant” (Q12:33). Typically, although Allāh has sent many “signs” to people
(§5.1.3) and acts benevolently toward them, they foolishly tend to ignore the
signs, being ungrateful (Q7:10; Q10:60; Q11:9, Q16:53–55; Q22:66; Q80:17;
Q100:6) and stubborn (Q6:4, 109; Q12:103).
The Qurʾan repeatedly highlights human folly. Again and again, Allāh laments
that human beings tend to call for his help when things go badly, but as soon as
things go well they forget about him, to their peril (Q2:7–8; Q10:12, 21–23;
Q11:10, 48; Q17:83–84; Q24:18; Q29:65; Q39:8). There are, for example,
repeated references to people who get in trouble at sea and call out to Allāh, but
as soon as they are on dry land they forget him (Q17:66–67; Q31:32). The
Qurʾan’s solution to human ignorance and susceptibility to going astray is the
provision of guidance.

5.1.2 The Straight Path

The idea of guidance is embodied in the core metaphor of a path (ṣirāṭ or sabīl3):
“Behold Allāh is my Lord and your Lord. So serve Him. That is the straight
path” (al-ṣirat al-mustaqīm; Q19:36). Izutsu (1964, 144) has pointed out that the
metaphor of the path is grounded in the Arab experience of living in the desert.
To stray (ḍalla) off a path to a water source into the trackless wastes of a desert
leads to death. Many passages warn against turning off the right path (e.g.,
Q88:23–24).
According to the Qurʾan’s understanding, human beings face two options in
this life (Q90:10). They can keep to the “straight path” (Q2:142, 213; Q3:51,
153, 161; Q6:126; Q10:25; Q14:3; Q22:54; Q41:6; Q42:52–53; Q46:13, 30) in
the way of Allāh (fī sabīli l-lāhi), which leads to the good destination of Allāh’s
approval and the Garden, or they can stray to a crooked path, which leads to the
disaster of Allāh’s judgment and the Fire. The unique task of a messenger is to
provide the needed guidance by calling people to the right path (Q3:101; Q7:43;
Q11:112; Q16:125; Q23:73). This involves a call to repentance, a process by
which a person “turns” off their wrong path, and “returns” (rajaʿa) onto the right
path. If people repent and return they will be forgiven (Q8:38), because whoever
does evil in ignorance and repents can be assured of Allāh’s forgiveness:
“Whoever of you does evil in ignorance, and then turns later and sets things right
—surely He is forgiving, merciful” (Q6:54).
There are very many passages which advocate returning to Allāh in response to
a word brought by a messenger. For example in Q43:26–28, it is explained that a
word from Allāh was given to Ibrāhīm so that his descendants after him would
hear it and thus be moved to “return” to Allāh for themselves.

5.1.3 Signs
The concept of “signs” (ʾāyāt; sg. ʾayāt) is a central element in the message of
the Qurʾan, giving guidance along the right path. The importance of this concept
is clear from the fact that the lexeme ʾāyāt is the fifth most frequent noun in the
Qurʾan, occurring 382 times. The concept of a “sign” can be considered an
extension of the metaphor of the path. Just as travelers look out for signs along
their journey, so the spiritual pilgrim must pay attention to Allāh’s signs if they
wish to stay on the rightly guided path. Gwynne has defined this key Qurʾanic
concept as follows:
A sign in itself is not an argument but a piece of evidence that supports
various forms of argument, explicit or implicit. Signs appear in the Qurʾan as
parts of syllogisms, historical precedents, parables, and other types of
demonstrations. (2004, 26)
It is the unique role of messengers to “bring signs” (Q2:129, 151; Q3:164;
Q13:38; Q21:5; Q40:78) to the attention of humankind. Indeed a considerable
portion of the Qurʾan consists of passages in which lists of “signs” are recited by
the Messenger, for example, Q7:59ff recites a series of judgment stories from the
past, and Q16:3ff lists the bounties of Allāh to humankind in creation. The
Messenger is often called upon to “bring signs” in the form of stories, images,
and parables.4 The recitation of a variety of “signs” is called “varying the
signs”—nuṣarrifu l -ʾāyāti “we cause the signs to be varied”—to show the way
(Q6:46, 65; Q7:174; Q16:3–18; Q17:41, 89; Q18:54; Q46:27).5 “The Book”
(i.e., the Qurʾan) itself and all of its parts are referred to as signs (Q29:51; cf.
Q6:7–9; Q22:16; Q29:47; Q33:34; Q41:44), as are the mysterious letters with
which many sūrahs commence (e.g., Q13:1; Q15:1; Q27:1). Other signs can be
found in the bounty of creation (Q2:164; Q3:190; Q6:95ff; Q43:10; Q45:3–6;
Q46:3ff), which is provided (mattaʿ or razaqa) to humanity to “enjoy”
(tamattaʿa) as a “provision” (matāʿ or rizq; Q16:18–83; Q40:13; Q45:3–6;
Q79:27–33). The ruins left behind by previous communities of people are also
signs, by means of which the Messenger can draw people’s attention to Allāh’s
judgment (Q6:11; Q25:40; Q29:35; Q30:9ff; Q36:31; Q47:10).
The characteristic response of disbelievers to hearing the signs recited by
messengers is to reject them by “calling them a lie” (Q2:39; Q4:140; Q17:59, 98;
Q18:56, 106; Q43:47).

5.2 MESSENGERS IN THE QURʾAN

Qurʾanic messengers are men6 chosen and sent by Allāh to humankind down
through history. Their role is to call people back to the straight path, by drawing
their attention to Allāh’s signs. Messengers have a characteristic biography,
which includes being sent to a particular people. Marshall has distilled a generic
messenger biography from the Qurʾan’s stories as follows:
 . . . the messenger will typically criticize his people for not worshipping God
alone, and perhaps for certain moral failings as well. However, he is rejected
by most of his contemporaries, although he does have some obedient
followers. The messenger also warns his people that, if they do not repent,
they will suffer a great punishment from God. The story ends with a dramatic
act of divine intervention: the unbelievers, as warned, are destroyed by God
in a variety of ways . . . The completeness of the destruction of the
unbelievers is often emphasized. The messenger and his followers are saved
and vindicated. (2014, viii–ix)
Stories which report the biography of a past messenger using this frame have
come to be known as “punishment stories,”7 although they might better be called
“messenger stories.”
Other titles used in the Qurʾan to refer to messengers are mursal (pl. mursalin)
“messenger”—a passive form IV participle meaning “someone caused to deliver
a message,” which is a close synonym for rasūl; nadhīr “warner” (Q7:188;
Q11:2, 12; Q13:7; Q22:49; Q35:24; Q38:65; Q48:8); mundhir “warner” (Q13:7;
Q26:208; Q27:92; Q37:72; Q38:4, 65; Q79:45); bashīr “announcer” (Q2:119;
Q5:19; Q7:188; Q11:2; Q12:96; Q34:28; Q35:24; Q41:4), the less frequent
shāhid “witness” (Q46:10), dāʿī “caller” (Q46:31); and, especially after the
Eschatological Transition, in the context of Biblical reflexes, nabī “prophet”
(§5.2.4).
In addition to the central human protagonist of the Qurʾan, “the Messenger,”
the named figures explicitly referred to as rusul (or mursalin) in the Qurʾan, and
the peoples they are sent to, are set out in Table 5.1. To this list could also be
added those, like Dāwūd (Q17:55), who are called nabī and can therefore be
considered messengers as well.
Table 5.1 The named messengers of the Qurʾan

Ibrāhīm is also treated as a messenger, which is apparent from the inclusion of

the “people of Ibrāhīm” in a list of peoples to whom rusul have been sent
(Q9:70). Yūnus could also be included in this list, as his biography conforms in
most respects to the pattern of messengers, although he is not explicitly referred
to as such. Yūnus was sent to a group called “the people of Yūnus” (Q10:98),
who heeded “the signs” (Q10:95), believed, and were saved. The Qurʾan then
reflects on this as an illustration of how Allāh acts to “rescue Our messengers
and those who believe” (Q10:103).

5.2.1 The Messenger

The central human protagonist of the Qurʾan is addressed as al-rasūl “the
Messenger.” He is the principal second person referent of the Qurʾan, the “you”
to whom so much of the Qurʾan is addressed, and who is also repeatedly
described as reciting the Qurʾan. Four times muḥammad “praised” is mentioned,
of which two instances identify him as “the Messenger” (Q33:40; Q48:29), one
instance as “a messenger” (Q3:144), and another where the messenger function
is implied by mention as a revelation “sent down” to him (Q47:2).8
The Qurʾan’s treatment of the Messenger and his role is set in the broader
context of its understanding of messengers, thus the Messenger states, “I am not
the first of the messengers” (Q46:9). Indeed the principal function of the many
Qurʾanic references to previous messengers is to contextualize and validate the
Messenger, as we shall see.

5.2.2 The Finality of the Messenger?

The idea is mentioned just once, in one of the four references to the title or name
muḥammad, that the Messenger is the “seal of the prophets”:
Muḥammad is not the father of any of your men, but (he is) the messenger of
Allāh and the seal of the prophets. (Q33:40)
Powers (2009) has argued that Qurʾanic prophethood—al-nubūwat (§5.2.4)—
was considered to be passed on down the male line. He therefore takes 33:40 to
be a reference to the fact that Muḥammad had no son who survived him, which
means that the prophetic office came to an end with him, and he was the “seal,”
that is, the closure of the prophetic line.
The doctrine of the finality of the Messenger is implied by the Qurʾan in a
number of ways, although it is nowhere made explicit. The passages which point
to this doctrine are found mainly in post-transitional sūrahs (Q2–3; Q9; Q24;
Q33; Q61–62), and in a few pre-transitional sūrahs around the period of the
Eschatological Crisis (Q7; Q21; Q34; Q45; cf. §2.2). The Qurʾan asserts that the
Messenger’s coming was foretold to previous prophets, and Allāh compelled
them to swear to believe in and support any subsequent messenger, who would
“confirm” what they had already received (Q3:81). This is clearly intended to
validate the Messenger (cf. Q3:84), although it is not quite the same as saying
that he was the last. ʿĪsā also declares that he brings “good news” of a messenger
coming after him, called “Aḥmad,” or “most praised one” (Q61:6; Reynolds
2011b). In a similar vein is a statement that believers are “only those who
believe in Allāh and His Messenger” (Q24:62).9
Such statements need to be read alongside others which warn against being led
astray by the People of the Book (Q3:69–78), and declarations that it is followers
of the Messenger who are nearest to Abraham, and therefore his spiritual
inheritors, not Christian or Jews (Q3:67–68). Just as ʿĪsā is reported to have
brought new legislation to amend the Tawrāh (Q3:49–50), so too the Qurʾan
declares that the Messenger’s commands “eclipse” (Neuwirth 2016) those of
Mūsā and ʿĪsā, so those who follow these past messengers should believe in the
Messenger and follow him (Q7:157), responding to him, “We hear and obey”
(Q2:286). Thus does the Messenger assume the mantle, not only of Mūsā
(Bobzin 2011, 581) but also of ʿĪsā. Furthermore, the Qurʾan considers that Jews
who were charged to keep the Law of Mūsā have failed, because they refused to
follow the Messenger, and are now like donkeys carrying huge tomes, burdened,
uncomprehending, and gone astray (Q62:5). These are “burdens and chains”
(Q7:157) from which the Messenger would set them free. There are also
repeated statements that the Messenger’s religion is to prevail over all other
religions (Q9:33; Q48:28), declarations that the Messenger’s mission is to the
whole world, not just one people group—Q7:158 presents the Messenger as
being sent to “all people” (cf. also Q34:28), Q2:185 calls the Qurʾan guidance
for humanity, and Q21:107 calls the Messenger a “mercy to the worlds”—and
assertions that the Messenger’s followers are the “best” community, who have a
mission to guide all humanity (Q3:110; Q7:181; Q47:35).
So although the Qurʾan never states explicitly that the Messenger is the last
messenger, or even the last prophet—that claim is made repeatedly in the
ḥadīths10—the whole trend toward co-opting the testimony and example of
previous messengers to validate and endorse the Messenger, the rejection of
those who follow previous messengers, and the declaration of the Messenger’s
universal mission, do, taken together, point in that direction.
Finally we note the potential inconsistency between these pointers to the
finality of the Messenger and his universal mission, and the Qurʾan’s report that
Allāh deals with all communities in the same way by sending a messenger to
every town, speaking their own language (§5.3). Even the Messenger is said to
have been sent to his own people (Q2:151; Q10:2; Q50:2), speaking their
language (Q16:103; Q44:58). The doctrines of the finality of the Messenger, and
his universal mission, would imply that there must have been a change in the
sunnah of Allāh (§5.3.1), in this respect at least. Indeed this would seem to be
one of the shifts in theology that takes place around the Theological Transition
(§2.5).11

5.2.3 Attributes of Messengers

In this section we consider the attributes of messengers. Messengers are
frequently called “warners” (nudhur, sg. nadhīr) because they call people to
Allāh’s path, and warn those who refuse to attend to the signs. They deliver
Allāh’s message (Q5:67), which is “the truth” (Q7:43). The concept of dhikr
“remembrance” is key to this aspect of a messenger’s calling: they are sent to
“remind” (dhukkira) people (Q88:21) so that they would “remember” (dhakara)
and “take heed” (tadhakkara). This reminding is good news for believers in
Allāh’s mercy and forgiveness, but a dire warning about Allāh’s punishment of
those who disbelieve (Q10:2; Q17:105; Q33:45). The Messenger is also called a
teacher of “the Book and the wisdom,” and of “what you did not know”
(Q2:151; cf. Q3:164; Q62:2).
Many messengers mentioned in the Qurʾan are human, but some messengers
are said to have been angels,12 since “Allāh chooses messengers from the angels
and from the people” (Q22:75; cf. Q17:95; Q35:1). The Qurʾan repeatedly
emphasizes the humanity of past messengers (Q14:11; Q21:7; Q25:20) and that
the Messenger, like previous messengers, is human too (Q17:92–96; see §5.3.2).
Messengers do not claim deity for themselves, but, affirming their humanity,
they confess that there is no god but Allāh (Q21:25–29).13
Messengers are models of piety. They fear Allāh (Q21:28) and are themselves
rightly guided on Allāh’s path (Q6:84, 87).14 Other pious attributes of
messengers are that they do not ask people to serve them, but only to serve Allāh
(Q3:79); they give their message without charge (Q6:90; Q3:161); and they
intercede only for those of whom Allāh approves (Q21:28). The Messenger, in
particular, is characterized as rightly guided (Q6:161) and a “good example” for
believers to follow (Q33:21). He is declared to have a great character (Q68:2–4)
and is not subject to deception or error (Q53:1–3).
The Qurʾan states about messengers that Allāh has “favored some of them over
others” (Q2:253; cf. Q2:87; Q5:110). The observation that messengers have
received varied dispensations from Allāh may be read as a validation of an
immediately preceding assertion that the Messenger is truly “one of the
messengers” (Q2:252): the fact that different messengers have been granted
differing signs, for example one performing miracles, and another not doing so,
is no reason for believers to believe in one and not another, nor indeed to reject
the Messenger for lack of some particular sign which may have been granted to
past messengers. In this vein the Qurʾan repeatedly emphasizes that believers
should make “no distinction” between messengers (Q2:136, 285; Q3:84;
Q4:150, 152).
Countering opposition and mockery of the Messenger shapes much of the
Qurʾan’s discussion of past messengers (§5.3). Previous messengers have been
opposed and mocked, and the Qurʾan reports many charges which have been
made against them. It implies that rejection is the norm rather than the exception:
only in the case of the people of Yūnus (Jonah) did the people take heed of a
messenger’s warning and profit from it (Q10:98).
Messengers are associated with a specific group of people. The Qurʾan makes
clear that messengers are called to go to this particular group (Q13:30; Q23:44),
and they usually also come from the people they are sent to, speaking their
language, just like the Messenger (Q14:4). Even messengers whose “people”
remains unnamed are nevertheless still linked to a group, for example, the
Qurʾan refers to the “people of Nūh” (Q11:89), and the unnamed people Lūṭ was
sent to are called his “brothers” (Q50:13). ʿĪsā was sent to the sons of Israel
(Q61:6; Q3:48; Crone 2015, 228). There are also references to named peoples
whose messengers are unnamed, including al-Rass and Tubbaʿ (Q50:12–14).15
Conversely, the Qurʾan states that for every people there has been a messenger:
“we have raised up a messenger in every community” (Q16:36; cf. Q10:47) and
“for every people a guide” (Q13:7). It is also said that Allāh could have raised up
warners in every town if he had wished (Q25:51), and it is a mark of Allāh’s
righteousness that he only destroys a town after a “warner” has been sent to it
(Q26:208–9; cf. Q15:4–5; Q17:15).
As with most previous messengers, the Messenger himself comes from the
community he has been sent to (Q2:151; Q10:2), something which his people
reportedly find astounding (Q50:2), because they had not received a messenger
before (Q28:46; cf. Q32:3; Q34:44). The Messenger is called al-nabī al-ʾummī,
which probably means “the prophet of the common people” (Q7:157, 158).16 On
the other hand, at one point it seems to be implied that the Messenger was sent to
the “People of the Book,” when they are told that the Messenger has “come to
you after an interval between the messengers” (Q5:19).17
Before the Theological Transition, messengers are not responsible for whether
people agree to be rightly guided (Q2:272). A messenger’s role is simply to
deliver the message: “Nothing depends on the messenger except the clear
delivery” (Q24:54; cf. Q5:67, 92; Q13:40; Q16:35, 82).

5.2.4 “Prophethood”
Although the distinction between rasūl “messenger” and nabī “prophet”18 has
been much discussed in Islamic tradition and in the secondary literature,19 and
although the two terms are used in different contexts in the Qurʾan, there seems
nevertheless to be no denotative semantic difference between them (Q81:19).20
Jeffery (1950, 115) concluded that Muḥammad “made no special distinction
between the two names rasūl and nabī.” Wansbrough (1977, 54) came to the
same view: “rigorous and consistent distinction between the designations nabī
and rasūl is not justified by Quranic usage.”
Nevertheless, the terminological difference is indexical, pointing to a
difference in context. Past messengers are called nabī in stories connected to
Israel (e.g., Q19:30–58), and the Messenger is also referred to as al-nabī,
especially after the Eschatological Transition (e.g., Q8:64; Q33:1; Q66:8), but
none of the non-Biblical figures identified as messengers, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, and
Shuʿayb, are referred to as nabī. The growing importance of the title nabī in the
later stages of the Qurʾan’s genesis is apparent from the fact that all but one of
the references to Nūḥ as a nabī occur after the Eschatological Transition.21 The
distribution of all instances of nabī is displayed in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1 Sūrahs with references to nabī “prophet.”

The Qurʾan itself associates the prophetic office with the people of Israel,
stating that establishing “prophets” and kings was a blessing unique to Israel
(Q5:20), and it was the descendants of Ibrāhīm—the “sons of Israel”—who were
favored with the “prophethood” (al-nubūwat) and the “Book” (Q29:27; cf.
Q19:58; Q45:16; Q57:26). The Qurʾan considers that al-nubūwat involved
physical descent lines—“some of them are descendants of others” (Q33:34).22
Using the formula, “the Book, the judgment and the prophethood,” the Qurʾan
states that the prophethood had been taken away from those who “disbelieve in
it” (i.e., the Jews) and “entrusted it to a people who do not disbelieve in it”
(Q6:89). These honors, it is implied, including the title nabī, were reassigned to
the Messenger (Q3:79), so he can be considered to be the first non-Israelite nabī,
to whom the genealogical prophethood has been transferred.

5.2.5 Opposition
A persistent feature of Qurʾanic Rasulology is opposition to messengers, and
specifically to the Messenger, which reportedly took the form of face-to-face
disputes: “if they dispute with you” (Q22:68 ). It is reported that when the
Messenger is “reciting,” he discerns “defiance” in the faces of those who
disbelieve, and “They all but attack those who recite Our signs to them”
(Q22:72). A great many objections are made against the Messenger and his
message, which are paralleled in accounts of past messengers (see §5.3.2).
Objections to the Messenger fall into a number of distinct categories:

• There are repeated rejections of the Messenger’s identity, credibility, and

authority. Some flatly deny that he is a messenger (Q13:43); others pledge
obedience, but they plot to go against him (Q4:80); he is mocked for being
unimpressive (Q25:41); and for his poverty, and is questioned why couldn’t
Allāh have enriched him with a treasure (Q25:8); and he doesn’t even have a
garden of his own to feed him (Q25:8).23 The rejectors mock when the call to
prayer is issued (Q5:58), and sarcastic comments are reported about the
Messenger’s effectiveness as the reciter of the Qurʾan, for example when a
new sūrah is recited the scoffers ask, “Whose faith has been increased by
this?” (Q9:124), they look about asking, “Is anyone looking at you?,” and they
turn away (Q9:127). The Messenger is also criticized for being merely human,
eating food and walking around in markets like everyone else (Q25:7–8), on
the assumption that Allāh would only reveal such things through an angel
(Q6:91, 158; Q17:94–95; Q18:110; Q21:3; Q23:3).
• The Messenger is taunted to provide proofs of his office and authority, such as
“a sign from his Lord” (Q20:133; cf. Q6:37; Q13:7), or signs like those
brought by former messengers (Q6:124). He is asked when judgment will
come, “What is holding it back?” (Q11:8), and challenged with “Bring us what
you promise us” (Q7:70; see the discussion of the Eschatological Crisis in
§2.2).
• The Messenger is repeatedly accused of fabrication and plagiarism. His
messages are called lies (Q34:43–45), inventive forgeries (Q32:3; Q21:5;
Q16:101; Q11:13; Q38:7; Q52:33; Q10:38), and nothing but a “jumble of
dreams” (Q21:5). Some say they have heard these “old tales” before (Q26:137;
Q23:81; Q16:24), and they could have produced something similar themselves
(Q8:31). He is also said to be merely writing down what someone else has
dictated to him (Q25:5), or he is being coached by a certain person who, the
Qurʾan retorts, speaks a foreign tongue, not Arabic (Q16:103, Q26:195). Thus
he is mockingly called muʿallam “taught,” that is, trained to perform by
someone else (Q44:14; Q16:103; Q25:4–5). Several verses respond to these
skeptical accusations of fabrication and plagiarism by issuing a challenge to
others to create something similar, alongside assertions that no one else could
achieve anything like the Qurʾan (Q52:34, Q11:13–14, Q10:38; Q17:88;
 Q2:23–24).24
• The Messenger is also abused through name-calling. He is said to be a sāḥir,
“magician” (Q51:52; Q27:13; Q10:2); musaḥarīn (Q26:153, 185), or
masḥūran (Q15:15; Q17:47; Q25:8; cf. Q23:89) “bewitched”; kāhin, a giver of
oracles associated with pagan worship (Q52:29; Q69:42);25shāʿir “poet”
(Q21:5; Q36:69; Q37:36; Q52:30; Q69:41);26majnūn “demonized” (Q15:6;
Q37:36; Q44:14; Q52:29; Q68:2, 51; Q81:22) by having come under the
influence of one of the jinn or shayāṭīn (Q7:184; Q23:70; Q26:27, 210ff;
Q51:52); and jabbār “a tyrant” (Q50:45).
• The Qurʾan includes reports of different ways in which the Messenger is
rejected. Wealthy people reject his message and say they would be protected
by their wealth and children (Q34:34–35); some find the prediction of the
resurrection of the dead incredible and therefore unbelievable (Q13:5); others
are shocked and upset, looking like they are about to die when the Messenger
gives them verses which “mention” fighting (Q47:20); and there are some who
wish to drive him away (Q9:13).

The extent to which these objections and interferences are rehearsed in the
Qurʾan is itself remarkable because the Messenger’s recitations, reported in the
Qurʾan, immortalized so many objections and so much opposition, scattered
through so many sūrahs. In view of the oral performance character of the
Qurʾan, there seems to be public verbal dueling in view,27 implying that the
Qurʾan has been produced in the context of “inter-communal debate” (Neuwirth
2014d: 323).

5.3 MESSENGER UNIFORMITARIANISM

The Qurʾan uses many different means to assert continuity between the way
Allāh acted when he sent messengers in the past and his sending of the
Messenger in the present. A principle is introduced and named here as
Messenger Uniformitarianism, which refers to this doctrine of continuity. The
geological principle of Uniformitarianism was introduced by James Hutton and
promoted by Charles Lyell in the eighteenth century. It postulates that past
geological processes are the same as those acting in the present, so “the present
is the key to the past” (Allaby 2013, 611). In context in the Qurʾan, the principle
of Messenger Uniformitarianism tends to be used in a reverse way, as a way of
deploying the past to make sense of and interpret the present.
 Messenger Uniformitarianism is one of the most persistent and salient themes
of the Qurʾan,28 having considerable explanatory power. It is essentially a claim
about the unchanging nature of Allāh’s dealings with the world.

5.3.1 The Sunnah of Allāh

In the Qurʾan Allāh is said to have a sunnah “precedent” or “customary way” of
acting (Al-Azmeh 2014, 320), which is particularly emphasized in relation to his
messengers. The word sunnah is also used to refer to the ways or customs of
former peoples who have passed away from the land (Q3:137; Q4:26; Q18:55).
The meaning of sunnah was based upon a concept that each tribal group had a
unique and distinctive set of customs, set by forebears and leaders, which
members of the group and their descendants were bound to follow (Gwynne
2004, 41ff; Morony 1984, 434; Bravmann 1972, 123). The sunnah of Allāh is
said to be fixed (Q33:38) and there can be no change in it (Q33:62; Q35:43;
Q48:23). The formula wa-lan tajida li-sunnati l-lāhi tabdīlan/taḥwīlan “you will
find no change in the customary way of Allāh” (Q17:77; Q33:62; Q35:43;
Q48:23) is repeatedly used to communicate this principle. The focus of these
assertions is always on Allāh’s dealings with messengers, their communities
(Q17:77; Q33:38, 62), and disbelievers (Q35:43; Q40:85; Q48:23).
The sunnah of Allāh is the basis for the principle of Messenger
Uniformitarianism (§5.3), because the pattern of Allāh’s messengers is simply
the unwavering sunnah of Allāh: “This was the sunnah of Our messengers
whom We sent before you, and you will find no change in Our sunnah”
(Q17:77). According to Messenger Uniformitarianism, Allāh’s procedure with
messengers has always been the same in the past, so the Messenger’s current
experiences only repeat those of earlier messengers, including some which might
seem frustrating or difficult. The intended application of this teaching is that
because messengers have experienced these difficulties in the past and
persevered, present difficulties are no reason for the believers to fall away, nor
for the Messenger to lose heart.
There is evidence in the Qurʾan that rejectors of the Messenger had also
invoked past precedent against him, for they said, “We will never believe until
we are given something like what was given to the messengers of Allāh”
(Q6:124). In the light of this comment, it is striking that references to past
messengers and their mission are used to validate the Messenger and his mission
by converting apparent negatives into positives. In an incident which is
commented on in Q17:73–77, the Messenger was reportedly tempted to fabricate
a revelation in order to win the friendship of disbelievers, but he stood firm. The
Qurʾan comments on these events, that if Allāh had not strengthened the
Messenger, making him hold his ground, he might have been tempted to give in
to the disbelievers, for they “were about to scare you from the land” (Q17:76),
and if the Messenger had given in, Allāh would have inflicted a double
punishment upon him, both in this life and the next (Q17:75; cf. Q11:19–20 and
§2.1). The Qurʾan then reports that this pattern of allowing messengers to be
tempted and then strengthening them, so they would hold their ground, was his
sunnah for messengers sent in the past, “and you will find no change in Our
sunnah” (Q17:73–77; cf. Q6:112; Q35:43). In this instance the potential
dishonor of being tempted is turned into an authenticating mark, as the
experience of temptation turns out to be a genuine sign of the Messenger’s
authenticity, since Allāh has always acted in this way with his messengers in the
past. This illustrates the Qurʾan’s view that “the past is the key to the present.”
The deployment of experiences of past messengers to align them with those of
the Messenger takes place in a number of different ways. On repeated occasions,
when some slur is reported against the Messenger, Allāh counters this with an
assertion that messengers before him were treated in just the same way. This
becomes a standard rhetorical routine, in which passages which first comment on
rejection of the Messenger are followed up with an assertion that messengers
have been rejected in the same way before, but they persevered and Allāh helped
them, for example:
Indeed We know that what they say grieves you (i.e. the Messenger) . . .
Surely messengers were rejected (“called liars”) before you, yet they patiently
endured being rejected, suffering harm until Our help came to them. (Q6:33–
34; cf. Q3:184; Q34:43–45; Q35:4)
In such cases parallel references to messengers and the Messenger are
juxtaposed, and the similarity between their experiences is commented upon, as
the latest experience of rejection is turned into a mark of authenticity.
There are a number of other ways that the Messenger’s experiences can be
validated by accounts of other messengers. One is by generic statements about
messengers which are not explicitly associated with the Messenger, but the
application to the Messenger is the intended subtext. In Q7:40–44 those who
called Allāh’s signs a lie are tormented in the Fire, while those who believed the
messengers attain the Garden. Each cohort calls out to the other, agreeing that
what the messengers had brought to them while they were still alive was true:
“Surely the messengers of our Lord brought the truth” (Q7:43). This story, which
is about messengers in general, occurs in the context of a string of allegations,
reported in the Qurʾan, that the Messenger was not telling the truth.
Another way of applying Messenger Uniformitarianism to validate the
Messenger’s experience is through a report about a specific messenger from the
past. This happens in Q7, in the story of Mūsā and Firʿawn. Most of Q7 consists
of a litany of stories about past messengers, in which they were all called liars:
for example, Q7:72 (about ʿĀd and Hūd); Q7:92 (about Mūsā and Shuʿayb);
Q7:101 (about the messengers to “the towns”); and Q7:177 (about “parables” or
stories of past messengers). In the story of Mūsā and Firʿawn it is related that
Allāh took retribution against those who had rejected the signs brought by Mūsā:
“we drowned them in the sea, because they called Our signs a lie and did not
heed them” (Q7:136). Then in the concluding section of the sūrah, this homiletic
application is brought home by applying it to the Messenger himself, who is
described as “their companion.” The Qurʾan then asks, “Do they not reflect?”
The people are meant to understand that the Messenger is speaking the truth, just
like previous messengers, and those who reject him and call the signs he brings
lies will share the fate of previous rejectors, being led, unknowing, to their
punishment (Q7:182, 184), just as happened with rejectors in the past.
The impact of the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism on how the
Qurʾan is to be read is far-reaching. It shapes the accounts of past messengers—
including Biblical reflexes—as the histories of messengers are fashioned as
commentaries on the current experiences of the Messenger so that they validate
the experiences of the Messenger. The Messenger is the hero of every messenger
story,29 even when he himself is not explicitly in focus or mentioned.
It might be objected that the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism is not
specifically about messengers, but applies more generally to Allāh’s dealings
with humanity. While it is true that Messenger Uniformitarianism is grounded in
the concept of the sunnah of Allāh, in cases where a similarity is observed, not
just between the Messenger and past messengers, but also between believers
now and in the past, this observation is invariably co-opted to make a point
about the Messenger. Let us consider some examples. In Q48, a point is being
made about how Allāh customarily gives victory to believers over disbelievers,
who will turn their backs and flee (Q48:22). This pattern of believers pursuing
disbelievers (and presumably cutting them down as they run) is said to be
Allāh’s customary way (Q48:23). Then, after elaborating on the difficulties faced
by the believers in Allāh’s “customary way” (Q48:22–26), the discussion is
focused a few verses later onto the triumph of the Messenger, and the harshness
of those who are with him:
He has sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, so that
He may cause it to triumph over all religions. Allāh is sufficient as a witness.
Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh. Those who are with him are harsh
against disbelievers . . . . (Q48:28–29; cf. Q6:91)
In this way the pattern of believers gaining victory over disbelievers is brought
under the conceptual umbrella of the Messenger’s divine calling to cause Allāh’s
religion to triumph. A comment about Allāh’s customary way of granting victory
backs onto a declaration of the harshness of the Messenger over the disbelievers.
A similar progression of thought is observed in the case of Q9:111, which
states that believers fought against others in the past, killing and being killed.
Then the principle of belligerence is immediately applied to the Messenger
himself: “It is not for the prophet and those who believe to ask forgiveness for
the associators . . .” (Q9:113). Here the fact that Allāh has ordained past
messengers to fight and kill disbelievers is used as a precedent to liberate the
Messenger from any obligation to forgive disbelievers in the present. These and
many other passages like them show that the constancy of Allāh’s dealings with
human kind through time revolves around the implications of this principle for
the Messenger: it is all about the Messenger.

5.3.2 Manifestations of Messenger Uniformitarianism

There are diverse manifestations of Messenger Uniformitarianism, which link
the speech, actions, circumstances, and characteristics of the Messenger with the
example of past messengers. Here is a list, which although long, is still not
exhaustive:

• The often-repeated phrase describing the Messenger’s calling—that he was a

“bringer of good news and a warner”—is also used of previous prophets
(Q2:213; cf. Q2:119; Q5:19). A number of times the Qurʾan also asserts that
the Messenger, who is “not the first of the messengers” (Q46:9) is one of a
long line of messengers: “He is a warner, of the warners of old” (Q53:56).
• Previous messengers have faced the same kinds of opposition the Messenger is
facing. People have mocked them—“messengers have been mocked before
you” Q13:32, rejected their signs, and called them liars (Q2:87; Q6:34; Q7:36,
64, 92, 101, 136; Q15:10–11; Q16:113; Q21:36, 41; Q22:42–44; Q23:24–26,
 33, 38, 44; Q25:36; Q26:176, 189; Q35:4, 25; Q38:14; Q43:7; Q91:14).
Previous messengers have also been challenged to bring on the threatened
punishment (Q26:187; Q29:29; cf. §2.1). They have been called possessed,
magicians, bewitched, and forgers (Q5:110; Q7:35–37, 109; Q11:35, 54;
Q15:15; Q17:101; Q23:25; Q26:27, 153, 185; Q43:30; Q51:39, 52; Q54:9).
Like the Messenger previous messengers have been called just ordinary human
beings (Q11:27; Q14:10; Q23:33–34, 38; Q25:20; Q26:186; cf. Q21:7–8). In
the past people also preferred the ways of their fathers (Q14:10; Q34:43;
Q43:22–23). People also wished to expel previous messengers (Q14:13;
Q26:167; cf. Q2:191; Q9:13). The experience of enmity is nothing new
because Allāh has “assigned to every prophet an enemy” (Q25:31). Wealthy
people also rejected previous messengers in the past (Q34:34). In the past
people have also become divided, a party of them becoming rejectors (Q10:19;
cf. Q10:93; Q30:31–35). Previous messengers have also despaired until
Allāh’s help came to them (Q2:214; Q12:110).
• When people mock the Messenger as being a mere human being who “eats
food and walks about in the markets” (Q25:7–8; cf. Q21:3; Q23:33), the
Messenger is to reply that ʿĪsā was “only a messenger,” who “ate food,” just
like the Messenger (Q5:75).30 Moreover, Mūsā brought a Book and he was a
human being too (Q6:91).
• In a case of linguistic Uniformitarianism Qurʾan puts the same formulae into
the mouths of past messengers as are being found in the Messenger’s mouth,
using Qurʾanic theological terminology. For example, when ʿĪsā refers to his
message as “This is a straight path” (Q19:36), he is using the Messenger’s own
expression (Q43:61). The same charge “Guard yourselves against Allāh” was
delivered by messengers to previous generations (Q4:131) as the Messenger is
delivering in the present (Q2:189). The phrase innanī / innī barīun mimmā
tushrikūna “Surely I am free of what you associate” is attributed both to the
Messenger (Q6:19) and Mūsā (Q6:78). Yet another example is that the
Messenger is told to say wamā anā mina al-mushrikīna “I am not one of the
associators” (Q12:108; cf. the similar phrase of Q6:14), which also happen to
be the exact words of Ibrāhīm (Q6:79; cf. Q3:67, 95; Q16:123). In a summary
of Allāh’s past covenant with the Jews, the Qurʾan gives a list of key ethical
points using phrases taken directly from the Messenger’s own preaching
(Q2:83; Q5:12; cf. Q4:36). From this we may conclude that the Qurʾan’s
understanding of the Mosaic covenant is that it was essentially the same as the
message being delivered by the Messenger.
• It is also explicitly asserted that messengers bring the same message from
Allāh: “Nothing is said to you but what has already been said to messengers
before you” (Q41:43; Q22:78) and “we make no distinction between any of
them” (Q2:136). They also preached the same dīn “commandment” or
“religion” (Q42:13; cf. Q3:84; Q4:150), which is referred to as the “religion of
Ibrāhīm” (Q2:130; Q4:125; Q16:121–23). The validating function of this idea
becomes clear when it is applied against a group of Jews who reject the
concept of the “same message” because it would mean validating the
Messenger. These Jews hold to their own faith, saying “we believe in what has
been sent down on us,” but they reject the Messenger, or “anything after that”
(Q2:91). The ruling against these Jews is that because they reject the
Messenger, they are disbelievers, rejecting “what Allāh has sent down”
(Q2:91).31 The idea of the “same message” is further reinforced when the
Qurʾan repeatedly states that the Messenger was only sent to confirm what was
sent down by previous messengers (Q2:91, 97; Q3:3, 50; Q5:48; Q12:111;
Q16:43–44; Q35:31), just as previous messengers had done for messengers
that preceded them, for example, ʿĪsā “confirmed” the Tawrāh of Mūsā
(Q5:46), and the Qurʾan confirms the book(s) sent by previous prophets
(Q4:47), just as the Messenger has been doing in his turn.
• Previous messengers were rightly guided (Q6:84, 87), and the Messenger was
rightly guided too (Q6:161).
• Like the Messenger, previous messengers have been given “a Book”: “for
every time there is a written decree” (Q13:38; cf. Q5:44; Q6:154; Q42:15).
• As with past messengers, sent to their own peoples, (Q14:4; Q16:36, 113;
Q30:47; see §5.2.3), the Messenger has been sent to his own people (Q2:151;
Q10:2; Q50:2), among whom he had been living (Q10:16), speaking their own
Arabic language clearly (Q16:103; Q44:58).
• Warnings issued via the Messenger to the wealthy (e.g., Q68:14; Q89:17–20;
Q92:11; Q100:8; Q104:2–3; Q111:2) parallel warnings given by previous
messengers, and all “warners” have been rejected by rich people (Q17:16; cf.
Q15:4) in the past: “We never sent a warner to a town without its wealthy ones
saying, ‘Surely we disbelieve what you have been sent’” (Q34:34).
• The Messenger and his people are the inheritors of Allāh’s dispensation to
Israel. In the past Allāh entrusted “the Book, the judgment and the prophetic
office” to the people of Israel. However, “If these (people) disbelieve in it,”—
and the implication is that they have already disbelieved (Q6:91)—“We will
entrust it to a people who do not disbelieve in it” (Q6:89; cf. Q2:129). In this
 way the dispensation of the past for Israel is perpetuated in the present for the
Messenger and his followers.
• Just as ʿĪsā is reported to have brought new legislation to amend the Tawrāh
for the Jews (Q3:49–50), so too the Qurʾan declares that the Messenger’s
commands replace those of Mūsā and ʿĪsā for Jews and Christians (Q7:157; cf.
Q2:286).
• When people ask questions of the Messenger and they do not like his answer,
he warns them that people in the past had asked such questions and became
disbelievers as a result (Q5:101–2).
• Paralleling the Messenger’s own experiences (Q3:176; Q5:41, 58; Q7:93;
Q15:88; Q26:3) the previous messenger Nūḥ is told not to be upset by
disbelievers: “do not be distressed by what they have done” (Q11:36; cf.
Q5:68).
• The Messenger is not to ask for any reward, just like previous messengers
(compare Q25:57–58 concerning the Messenger with Q11:29 concerning
Nūḥ).
• All previous messengers or prophets were led astray by al-Shayṭān (Q22:52–
53) at some point, and the Qurʾan implies that the same kind of objection has
been made against the Messenger.32
• ʿĪsā was strengthened by a rūḥ from Allāh (Q2:87, 253; Q5:110) and the
Messenger and his community are also being strengthened by a rūḥ from Allāh
(Q16:102; Q58:22) in the present.
• Ibrāhīm is called a “beautiful example” (uswah ḥasanah) for those with him
(Q60:4, 6) and the Messenger is also called a “beautiful example” to the
believers (Q33:21).
• Repeated references to migration of believers (e.g., Q16:41, 110; Q59:8) are
paralleled by a passage in which the past messenger Lūṭ (Q26:162) declares
his readiness to migrate (Q29:26) for Allāh’s sake (cf. Figure 3.19).

Some manifestations of Messenger Uniformitarianism are distinctive to post-

transitional sūrahs and reflect the changed understanding of messengers after the
transition (§2.5):

• Like the Messenger (e.g., Q3:32; and many commands to obey in Q26:108–
79), past messengers had to be obeyed: “We have not sent any messenger, but
to be obeyed, by the will of Allāh” (Q4:64; cf. Q3:50 and Q43:63 referring to
ʿĪsā; Q20:90 referring to Hārūn; and Q71:3 referring to Nūḥ).
• The Messenger renders judgment (ḥakama: Q24:48, 51); and past messengers
have rendered judgment also (Q2:213; Q5:44).
• In the past the people became divided after true knowledge had come to them
(Q3:19), and these divisions led to fighting (Q2:253; cf. also Q3:13); likewise
people are divided by the Messenger’s preaching, which leads to transgression
by some (Q5:68) and to fighting (Q2:244; Q3:167).
• Fighting in the “way of Allāh,” which the Messenger calls believers to, is no
different from what took place with past messengers (Q48:22–23), specifically
Mūsā and ʿĪsā (Q9:111): after the time of Mūsā, people were “fighting in the
way of Allāh,” which is described using phrases and concepts which are also
used for the Messenger and his people, such as “fighting is prescribed for you”
and “expelled from our homes and our children” (Q2:246; cf. Q2:216; Q4:77;
Q22:40). The Messenger is fighting (Q8:64ff), and previous messengers
fought too (Q3:146; cf. Q8:67). It is the “customary way” of Allāh that
disbelievers will turn and flee in battle before believers (Q48:22–23) and the
killing of hypocrites is also Allāh’s “customary way” (Q33:60–62).
• Marks on the faces of believers from prostrating themselves33 are the same for
followers of the “messenger of Allāh” (identified here as Muḥammad) as they
were for the followers of Mūsā and ʿĪsā (Q48:29).
• Followers of the Messenger are warned against attachments to disbelieving
family members: “Neither your family ties nor your children will benefit you
on the Day of Resurrection” (Q60:3; cf. Q4:135). Likewise in the accounts of
past messengers believers are dissociated from unrighteous, disbelieving
family members, for example Ibrāhīm breaks with his idolatrous father
(Q6:74, 79; Q19:42–46; Q60:4); Mūsā’s adopted father, Firʿawn becomes his
enemy (Q26:10–22; Q28:8); Nūḥ parted ways with his son (Q11:40; 45–46)
and he had an unbelieving wife (Q66:10); and Lūṭ had an unbelieving wife
(Q66:10; Q7:83) who was destroyed.

5.4 THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TRANSITION

The doctrine of Messenger Uniformitarianism notwithstanding, there is in the
Qurʾan a marked internal development in the understanding of the Messenger,
and of messengers in general. Many earlier verses state that the Messenger is
“only a (clear) warner” (Q7:184, 188) or “only a reminder” (Q88:21), who has
no responsibility, power, or guardianship (Q17:54; Q6:66) over people: “I am
not a watcher over you” (Q6:104, 107). His job is not to force others to do what
is right (Q72:21). However, and despite many statements that the sunnah of
Allāh with messengers never changes, after the Eschatological Transition
(chapter 2) the Messenger takes on a new role of leadership and command, so
Qurʾan instructs him to tell people “If you love Allāh, follow me,” and believers
are to “Obey Allāh and the Messenger” (Q3:31–32; cf. Figure 3.20). After the
Transition, the Messenger also takes up the power of “judgment” over others
(Q3:79; cf. Q4:105), and a litmus test of true believers is now that they are ones
who look to the Messenger for adjudication (ḥ-k-m) of their disputes (Q3:23;
Q4:59–61, 65; Q5:41–50; Q24:48; cf. Sinai 2015–2016, 51). There are also
numerous repeated calls to “obey Allāh and obey the Messenger” (Q4:13–14,
59, 69; Q8:20, 24, 27): “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allāh”
(Q4:80; cf. Q48:10). Q33:21 declares that believers owe loyalty to the
Messenger as much as to Allāh, and Q4:64 states the messengers were always
sent to be obeyed, invoking the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism.34
The demand for obedience and legal submission reaches a high pitch when the
Qurʾan announces that if Allāh had commanded believers to kill each other, they
ought to have obeyed and it would have been better for them if they had, earning
the blessing of Allāh, but only a few would have done so (Q4:66–69). A choice
is given: please Allāh and his Messenger or taste Hell-fire as one who opposes
them (Q9:62–63), for Allāh will not forgive those who have disbelieved in
“Allāh and the Messenger” (Q9:80). The community of believers, in its turn, is
urged to take up the role of guiding others (Q7:181), commanding right and
wrong in Allāh’s name (Q3:110; Q9:71, 112; Q22:41; Q31:17), and the
inevitable triumph of the Messenger and the “religion of truth” over other
religions is stressed:
He has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, so that
He may cause it to triumph over all religions, even though the associators
dislike it. (Q9:33; cf. Q9:29; Q48:28)
This concludes our discussion of the Qurʾanic doctrine of Rasulology, including
an investigation of the internal development of the doctrine within the Qurʾan.
We will now consider the Biblical Theology of prophets and prophecy, to facility
our inquiry into whether Qurʾanic Rasulology could be a Biblical inheritance, or
whether it represents a repurposing of a Biblical idea, putting it to use in creative
ways which owe little to Bible theological categories beyond the superficial
similarity.
 5.5 PROPHECY AND PROPHETS IN THE BIBLE
In this section an outline of a Biblical theology of prophecy and prophets35 is
offered, to provide a basis for a comparative consideration of Qurʾanic
Rasulology. The role of prophecy and prophets is important in both the Hebrew
Bible and the New Testament, but since the Qurʾan does not interact in any way
with distinctive conceptions of prophecy from the apostolic writings, and
references to prophecy and prophets in the Gospels do not add significantly to
the understandings in the Hebrew Bible, our focus here will be on prophecy in
the Hebrew Bible, not the New Testament.

5.5.1 The Act of Prophecy

The expression “theology of prophecy” points to a distinctive of the Bible,
namely that alongside the office of prophet, there is the speech act (Austin 1962)
of prophesying, a social process (Overholt 1989) referred to in Hebrew with the
verb nibbā36 “to prophesy,” and by the noun nəvūʾāh “prophecy.” In most cases
an act of prophesying is not a communication of universal truth, but is addressed
to a specific intended audience, individual or group, “to a particular time, place
and circumstance” (Brueggemann 1997, 624; Blenkinsopp 1984).
In the Bible an act of prophesying involves speaking the words from YHWH,
with the prophet acting as YHWH’s mouthpiece (cf. Deut. 18:18). This
understanding is reflected in Exod. 4:15–16, where Aaron is described as
functioning as Moses’ mouth: “he [Aaron] shall serve as a mouth for you, and
you shall serve as God for him.” Later Aaron is referred to as Moses’ “prophet”
(Exod. 7:1).
It is clear from the Hebrew Bible that the phenomenon of prophecy was not
restricted to Israelite religion. Other deities beside YHWH had their prophets,
including the Canaanite deities Baal and Asherah (1 Kgs 18:19; Jer. 23:13), and
there are “false prophets” who had a recognized social function of prophesying
in the name of YHWH, even if their words were not reliable or from YHWH
(Isa. 44:25), and prophets could also be led astray by a “lying spirit” (1 Kgs
22:19–23). In the context of this breadth of references, it is hardly surprising that
there is a possibility of error or deception, and prophecies are to be tested (Deut.
13:1–5; 18:21–22; cf. Paul and Sperling 2007, 576–577).
The communication of YHWH’s words via a prophecy is often described as a
two-stage process: first there is reception of the word of YHWH by the prophet,
and then the speaking out of that word. The reception process itself is spoken of
as “the word of YHWH came to” the prophet (e.g., 1 Sam. 15:10). In Ezek. 2–3,
words are imparted to Ezekiel, accompanied by a graphic vision of the prophet
eating a scroll with YHWH’s words inscribed upon them. These consumed
words Ezekiel is to subsequently take to the nation of Israel, as if to regurgitate
them: “Mortal, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and
hear with your ears; then go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them.”
(Ezek. 3:10–11).
The reception of the word of YHWH can take place by a variety of means
(Lindblom 1963), including dreams (Num. 12:6), visions (Gen. 15:1; Ezek. 2:9–
10)—rōʾeh “seer” or ḥōzeh “seer” being synonyms for “prophet” (1 Sam. 9:9;
Isa. 29:10; Amos 7:12)—and verbal impressions. The process of reception is
sometimes described as a personal communication in which the prophet stands
in YHWH’s presence (Jer. 15:1; 23:22; Isa. 6, Jer. 23:18; Amos 3:7), in the
divine council (Paul and Sperling 2017, 567). It is also sometimes described in
terms of a visitation of a or the Spirit (Num 11:25, 29; 1 Sam. 10:10; Ezek. 23:2)
or the “hand” (i.e., power) of YHWH (2 Kgs 3:15) upon the prophet, and an act
of prophecy may be described as the Spirit of YHWH speaking through the
prophet (2 Sam. 23:2).
There can sometimes be a simultaneous reception by the prophet of words as
they are being spoken out or sung (e.g., 2 Kgs 3:15–16). This can be described
as YHWH “putting” words in the mouth of the prophet during the process of
utterance (e.g., Num. 23:5, 12, 16; cf. Deut. 18:18; Jer. 1:9).
The medium of communicating the word of YHWH may be direct speech, or a
written message dictated by a scribe (e.g., Jer. 36:1–8), to be read later to or by
the intended recipient. A prophecy may also be communicated with the aid of a
symbolic prophetic act (Paul and Sperling 2007, 572–573), as when Ezekiel lies
on his left side for 390 days, and on his right side for a further 40 days, and
cooks food using human excrement for fuel (Ezek. 4; see further examples in Jer.
28:10ff, Isa. 20, and 2 Chr. 18:10).
The form of language used in a prophetic act may be varied in style,
encompassing plain speech, or poetry (e.g., 2 Sam. 23:1–7), sometimes with
musical accompaniment, prayer, parables, hymns, sermons, laments, or direct
speech. Nevertheless, in some instances the manner of an utterance is distinctive
enough to identify it as prophecy, as for example when Saul, coming under the
influence of the Spirit of YHWH, spends some time prophesying, apparently
involuntarily in company with a band of prophets (1 Sam. 10:10; cf. also Num.
11:25–26).
The function of a prophetic message can be varied. There can be very specific
words of guidance about the future (1 Kgs 11:29ff), or counsel toward a course
of action (e.g., 2 Sam. 24:11). Sometimes there is rebuke or warning (2 Sam.
12:1ff; Ezek. 3:17ff), including warnings about breaking covenant with YHWH
(Hos. 8:1; Mal. 2:10).
Biblical prophecy is not limited to those having a recognized social function as
prophets. David, for example, is not described as a prophet in the Biblical books
that recount his life (1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings)—indeed he seeks out and
consults others to prophecy for him when he needs guidance, particularly the
court prophet Nathan (1 Chr. 17:1) and his personal prophet Gad (2 Sam. 24:11)
—but there is also a report of a prophetic song, given through David by the
Spirit of YHWH (2Sam. 23:2ff). Other examples of a non-prophet prophesying
is an incident when Saul prophesied in company with a band of prophets (1 Sam.
10:11–12; cf. also 1 Sam. 19:20–24), and a time when the elders of Israel
prophesied at their consecration, under the influence of the Spirit of YHWH,
“but did not do so again” (Num. 11:25). The phenomenon of non-prophets
prophesying highlights the distinction between the office of prophet and the
function of prophesying.

5.5.2 Prophets, Many and Varied

In the Hebrew Scriptures people styled “prophets” are those who habitually hear
the word of the Lord and speak it out in an act of prophesying. They are
recognized for this status, and exercise a socially defined function as a prophet
(Petersen 1981), to the extent that people might approach such a person with the
expectation of receiving a word from YHWH (2 Kgs 22:14; Jer. 38:14ff; 1 Kgs
22:5ff).
Biblical prophecy can come, not only through men, but also through women (2
Kgs 22:14ff), several women being identified as prophetesses in the Hebrew
Bible (including Miriam, Moses’ sister, Deborah the judge, and Huldah), and
there is an instance of a child functioning as a prophet (1 Sam. 3). In the Bible
only human beings prophecy: angels never do. Angels can act as messengers for
YHWH, but they do so in the normal way, as emissaries passing on a message
they have received, not by something described as a prophetic process (e.g.,
Gen. 16:7–12; Num. 22:31–35; Judg. 6:12).
In the evolution of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, a pattern of three distinct
but complementary anointed roles37 is reported (Heschel 1962, 606–617), in
which the king (with their officials), priests and prophets function together, and
are repeatedly referred to as a collective (2 Kgs 23:2; Neh. 9:32; Jer. 2:26; 4:9;
13:13).38 In the context of these distinct roles, although he or she may exercise
political influence, the prophet is not a political office.
Another characteristic of certain Biblical prophets is a calling by YHWH
(Brueggemann 1997, 630; Paul and Sperling 2007, 574–575). The calling of
prophets is a literary theme in the accounts of several prophets, including Moses
(Exod. 3:10), Elisha (1 Kgs 19:16–21), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5–10), Ezekiel (Ezek.
2:1–10), Isaiah (Isa. 6:1–8) and Amos (Amos 7:14–15).
Although one title for Biblical prophets is “man of God,” there is no
suggestion that prophets are morally perfect or even exemplary figures whose
mode of life should be emulated. Prophets sometimes disobey YHWH (e.g.,
Num. 20:10–12; 1 Kgs 13:11–22), and some give false oracles, as we have seen.
Furthermore, YHWH does not always rescue his prophets (1 Kgs 13:24–26; 1
Kgs 18:4). The Bible’s focus in relation to a prophet’s ministry is not on the
special character or personal attributes of the person of the prophet, but on their
role as means of specific acts of divine utterance.
In this overview of the nature and function of prophecy and prophets in the
Bible, we can note a number of systemic theological connections which link
prophecy and prophethood into other aspects of Biblical theology.
Two important theological associations are the role of the Spirit of YHWH in
prophecy, and the prophet’s encounter with the presence of YHWH in the
process of apprehending prophetic utterance. Another theological interaction is
the status of a prophet, shared with priests and kings, in an office which is set
apart and consecrated by YHWH, a status which can, like priests and kings, be
marked by a physical anointing. These three offices work together to help sustain
the Israelites as a covenant people, under YHWH’s guidance and care. Indeed
the role of prophets as mediators of revelation is crucial in the establishment and
maintaining of covenant relationship between YHWH and his people.39 This role
is reflected in Amos 3:7 “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing [i.e. in dealing
with his people] without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.” The
Mosaic covenant was also initially wholly mediated to Israel through Moses as
YHWH’s prophet, and later prophets provided the means through which YHWH
commented on the covenantal faithfulness of his people, or the lack of it (e.g.,
Jer. 11:1ff), which acted as a spur or compass to redirect the nation, calling it
back to the covenant’s true north of faithfulness.
The relationship between Biblical prophecy, divine speech, and scripture is
complex, and there is no one fixed pattern in which prophecy comes to be
written down: indeed it need not be written down at all.40 Biblical prophecy is
not the same thing as scripture. Only some of those who are referred to by the
title “prophet” have a book of scripture associated with them, and it is clear,
from many examples, that only some prophetic acts end up being recorded in
scripture. Some books of the Hebrew Bible consist entirely of divine speech,
after an introductory framing verse declaring that what follows it the word of
YHWH to a particular prophet, for example, Joel, Zephaniah, and Malachi.
Other prophetic books are third or first-person narratives, a kind of history of a
particular prophet’s activities, with oracles interspersed. The books of Haggai
and Daniel are examples of narratives of this kind delivered in the third person,
as if by someone other than the prophet, while Ezekiel is an example of first-
person prophetic narrative, which includes some passages of divine speech, but
also extensive reports by the prophet of his visions. The book of Jeremiah is
mainly in the first person, but includes third-person passages, perhaps reflecting
the role of a scribe in its creation (Jer. 36:4). The book of Deuteronomy is
presented as an extended address or sermon in the first person, by Moses to the
people of Israel as part of a covenant renewal ceremony, which includes some
reports of prophetic speech, but which mostly consists of extended retelling by
Moses of the conditions of the covenant previously received by him from
YHWH. The books known as “Former Prophets” in the Hebrew Bible, including
Samuel and Kings, include reports of prophecies by a variety of prophets, some
of which purport to be verbatim, but they are not focused on just one prophetic
figure, and are not primarily comprised of prophetic oracles. There is no
conception at all in the Hebrew Bible that a prophetic calling involves receipt of
“scripture” from YHWH, and where there is reference to writing, this is only as
a means of conveying the word of YHWH to others.
In the Hebrew Bible some prophets are associated with the performing of
miraculous signs or an ability to intercede for others (e.g., Moses, Elijah and
Elisha: for example, Gen. 20:7; 1 Kgs 13:4–6; 2 Kgs 5:8ff; Isa. 38:8), but an
ability to perform signs is by no means a necessary or universal characteristic of
a prophet.

5.6 COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION

We are now in a position to consider to what extent the Qurʾanic messenger
builds upon a Biblical theology of prophets and prophecy. The question we need
to consider is whether the Qurʾanic theology of messengers shows signs of a
theological inheritance from the Bible. The evidence for this would be a
retention of systemic theological relationships associated with Biblical prophets,
and applied to the office of messengers.
What Qurʾanic Rasulology has in common with Biblical Prophetology is a
conception of a person—in the Qurʾan, a man—who acts as an intermediary to
convey messages to others. However, judging from a Late Sabaic royal
monumental inscription, which uses the title rs1l to refer to emissaries to Abraha,
viceroy of Sabaʾ41 in a nonreligious context, it seems that the idea of a rasūl as
an emissary was already established in the cultural milieu at the time, quite apart
from any Biblical influence. Furthermore, in the Qurʾan both rasūl and mursal
are used in nonreligious contexts, in reference to messengers sent by a ruler
(e.g., Q12:50; Q27:35), which implies that the basic concept of a rasūl may not
have been religious when it was first put to use in the Qurʾan.
When we compare the Prophetology of the Bible with the Rasulology of the
Qurʾan, there are notable differences, with non-transference of Biblical
theological content, as well as theological context found in the Qurʾan which is
unique to it. Under the heading of non-transference of systemic theological
connections, we can note that in the Qurʾan there is no prophetic speech act: no
act of prophecy as such, and no conception of prophetic speech as words being
placed in the mouth of a messenger as Allāh’s mouthpiece. Indeed there is no
verb meaning “to prophecy.” The verb arsala, formed from the same root as
rasūl means “to send” (a messenger), with Allāh as the agent, not the messenger.
Perhaps the most characteristic speech act performed by messengers is talā
“reciting” (Q2:129), that is, the performance of the Qurʾanic recitation, “sent
down” from Allāh (Wild 1996). However, this act is not unique to messengers,
since others who are not messengers also recite passages which they have
received from a messenger (Q3:113; Q35:29), and Allāh himself “recites” the
“verses” (or “signs”) to the Messenger, for him to pass on to others (Q2:252;
Q3:58; Q45:6).42 Thus angels can be messengers in the Qurʾan, although they
are not prophets in the Bible. This is akin to a human act of sending a message
by an emissary. There is also no theology of an act of prophecy being a
manifestation of a visitation of the Spirit (see §6.4 on references to rūḥ).
Another difference is the awareness of the separation between heaven and
earth which pervades the Qurʾan’s descriptions of revelation, which is by a
process of “sending down” (v. anzala, n. tanzīl). In the Biblical understanding,
the prophet enters the divine council, coming into the presence of YHWH, where
a meeting of human and divine takes place, and then YHWH speaks through the
mouth of the prophet, as mediated divine speech. However in the Qurʾan a
portion of preexisting “scripture” (Q32:2) is “sent down” to the messenger, after
which it can be recited by him repeatedly. Allāh does not speak it through the
mouth of a human being in an act of prophecy. In the Qurʾanic understanding,
there is a inviolable separation, not a physical mediation. As Wild (1996, 141)
put it, “there is an above and a below.”
Also not transferred into the Qurʾanic context is a Biblical understanding of
multiplicity of religious roles. The social function of prophets exists alongside
and in contrast to other kinds of leaders—priests and kings—who also play a
religious function in maintaining the national covenant with YHWH. In contrast,
in the Qurʾan messengers are unique spiritual leaders. The effect of this
concentration of spiritual office on one function is that a range of Biblical
figures, who are not described prophets in the Bible, for example Aaron, David,
and Solomon, are fitted into the messenger role in the Qurʾan, because there is
no other God-given office for them to be fitted into. There is only the office of
rasūl. Also untransferred is the covenantal framework in which Biblical prophets
function, and the idea that their role is to maintain an ongoing relationship
between a people and YHWH. The Qurʾanic messenger is sent as a unique solo
figure to recite the message from Allāh to his “people.”
What might be considered a retention, if Rasulology were to be considered an
inheritance from Biblical Theology, is the idea of the rasūl as a warner of future
judgment, although in the Bible this is not so much a systemic theological
function of the prophetic office, as a characteristic of particular prophecies,
which are generated by the covenant narrative. This is, if anything, a narrowing
of the range of the functions of prophecy in the Qurʾan in comparison to Biblical
Prophetology.
Alongside the non-transference of Biblical Prophetology, we can identify
numerous characteristics of Qurʾanic Rasulology which are innovative, and not
derivative from a Biblical frame. These distinctives include the idea that
messengers are models of piety, who Allāh always rescues. Another distinctive is
the idea that a messenger’s role is to “recite the signs” to guide people along the
“straight path.” Also distinctive is the idea that Scripture—the Qurʾan—consists
solely of prophetic recitation: the relationship between scripture and prophecy is,
as we have seen, far more complex in the Bible. Also distinctive to the Qurʾan is
virtually the whole typical messenger biography: a single man, sent to one
people, warning of destruction, who is rejected, after which the people are
destroyed and the messenger rescued. Is it possible to find some Biblical
accounts which resemble this pattern in part, if not whole, such as the story of
Jonah, although even Jonah is an imperfect match, but there is no such universal
pattern for prophets in the Bible, whose stories are highly diverse, and at times
may even involve a plurality of prophetic actors simultaneously. The connected
concept of the unchanging sunnah of Allāh in dealing with messengers and the
people he sends them to, including the doctrine of Messenger Uniformitarianism,
is also creative and unique, without Biblical precedent. To be sure, the Bible
does emphasize the unchanging character of YHWH (Ps. 55:19; Mal. 3:6), but
there is no dogma that YHWH always deals with peoples and prophets following
an unvarying pattern. Indeed if anything the situation is quite the opposite:
YHWH engages with prophets in such diverse ways. What they have in common
is the act of prophecy, not a stereotypical prophetic biography.
The point of these reflections is not to portray the Qurʾanic messenger as some
kind of imperfect or misunderstood Biblical prophet. That would be an irrelevant
value judgment. The issue to hand is to ask whether the systemic theological
character of the Biblical prophet, and its contributions within the system of
Biblical Theology, is carried into the Qurʾan, and if so, to what extent. We are
asking whether that transfer shows the characteristics of inheritance rather than
borrowing.
The subject of messengers in the Qurʾan is extensive and messengers play a
central role in the whole theological system of the Qurʾan. Because of this
centrality, and because it has a potential antecedent in the figure of the Biblical
prophet, we have given a detailed account of Rasulology, and inquired into
whether the theological attributes of a messenger show a pattern of inheritance
of a system of theological relationships from the Bible. After considering these
two theological constructs in some detail—Qurʾanic Rasulology and Biblical
Prophetology—we find striking differences, and little that could be considered
an inherited theological system. We conclude that the idea of a messenger, if it
owes anything to the Bible, is an idea that was repurposed by the Qurʾan, rather
than inherited, and in a way which meshes with the Qurʾan’s own distinctive
theology, including its theology of guidance and signs, and the unchanging
sunnah of Allāh. The result has the characteristics, not of inheritance, but of
borrowing.

NOTES
1. Sometimes rasūl is translated “apostle” (e.g., Penrice 1878, 57), because the original meaning of
Greek apóstolos is “someone sent, emissary.” However this translation can be confusing, because New
Testament apostles play such a very different role from the Qurʾanic rasūl.
2. Q7:172 is structured as a mīthāq (§6.7.3), a binding obligation imposed on humankind by its maker
to confess Allāh as its Lord.
3. Both are loan words, ṣirāṭ ultimately from Latin strata, via Greek and Aramaic (Jeffery 1938, 195–
96), and sabīl from Aramaic (Jeffery 1938, 162).
4. There is often ambiguity associated with ʾayāt, namely that it can also refer to parts of the Qurʾan as
text. Sometimes ʾayāt seems clearly to refer to a part of the text, for example, in Q2:106. In other
contexts “sign” seems to be the only reasonable interpretation (e.g., Q7:58; Q10:101). Sometimes it is
unclear whether ʾāyāt should be translated “signs,” “verses,” or both at the same time, that is, referring to
a sign brought in the form of a verse (Watt and Bell 1970, 126–127). For example, when the Qurʾan
speaks of messengers “reciting” ʾāyāt (e.g., Q2:129), is the messenger reciting signs, or verses? (Note
that the Qurʾan’s use of ʾayāt does not refer to the numbered verse divisions in the Qurʾan, which were
added later.)
5. Cf. also Q20:113, which has “varied the promises (or warnings).”
6. No female messengers are reported in the Qurʾan.
7. See Watt and Bell (1970, 127–35) for a list of such stories in the Qurʾan, and Welch (2000) for an
exploration of some of their features.
8. Once only the epithet aḥmad “most praised” is applied by ʿĪsā to “a messenger” (Q61:6) who will
come after him.
9. Alongside this are statements, such as Q45:17, which criticize the Jews, who the Qurʾan accepts to
be followers of messengers sent in the past, for becoming divided. In contrast the Messenger is
encouraged that his path is the correct one (Q45:18–19).
10. For example, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī Book 59, Number 700 (Khān 1997, 5:424) in which Muḥammad
states, “There will be no prophet after me.”
11. The doctrine of finality is strongly reflected in ḥadīths. This is not the only respect in which the idea
of Messenger Uniformitarianism is obscured by later Islamic tradition. Marshall (2014, 187–88) has
commented, for example, on the almost complete absence in the ḥadīths of references to the doctrine of
divine punishment in this life, which is a key aspect of Messenger Uniformitarianism.
12. See Hawting (2011) on the connection between messengers and angels, and possible influence of
Jewish-Christian beliefs about angels on the Qurʾanic community.
13. When used in reference to angels, the term rasūl appears to be used, not as a title for an office, but
as a description of an action taken, that is, of an angel who happens to be delivering a message. For
example, when Jibrīl tells Maryam that he is “only a rasūl from your Lord” (Q19:19; cf. Q81:19), he
appears to be giving an account of what he is doing at that moment, not making a generic statement about
his general function as a messenger.
14. The doctrine of the moral infallibility of messengers is known as ʿiṣmah.
15. Mūsā is an exception to the principle that a messenger is sent to his own people. Although Moses
comes from the Israelites (Q5:20; Q61:5), the Qurʾan speaks of him as being sent to the people of
Firʿawn, that is, to the Egyptians (Q7:103, cf. 105). In other respects a typical pattern of messengers is
played out between Mūsā and the Egyptians, in which he brings a message to them, calls their attention
to Allāh’s signs, is rejected, and they are punished while he is rescued.
16. Cf. the plural form ʾummīyūn in Q2:78; Q3:75; and Q62:2. It has been commonly accepted among
Muslim exegetes since the eighth century CE that al-ʾummī means illiterate, so Muḥammad is called the
“unlettered prophet.” However, Günther (2002, 496) notes that “Non-Muslim specialists in the field . . .
all agree in rejecting the meaning of ‘illiterate,’” and “this interpretation reflects a post-qurānic approach
that seems to have evolved in some circles of Muslim learning not before the first half of the
second⁄eighth century” (2002, 494). Ambros and Procházka (2004, 29) comment, “based on a narrow
interpretation esp. of 2/178 ʾummīy later acquired the meaning ‘illiterate.’” It seems that al-ʾummī may
have been a term used by Jews toward Arabs (cf. Q3:75), perhaps with the meaning “gentile.” However,
the interpretation “common people” (i.e., Arabs) is an obvious one in context, and fits well with the
Qurʾan’s Rasulology.
17. This could be a reference to the Jewish idea, already established in the Second Temple period, that
prophecy had ceased (Greenspahn 1989). This point is perhaps being made in response to a Jewish or
Christian objection against the Messenger on this ground.
18. Nabī is a borrowing from Jewish or Christian sources, probably via Syriac (Jeffery 1938, 276).
19. See Jeffery (1950, 115–16), Bijlefeld (1969, 19, 27), Wansbrough (1977, 54ff), Brinner (1989),
Bobzin (2011), Griffith (2016).
20. However, one difference is that the term nabī always refers to human beings: angels are never
described as nabī.
21. See for example, Q4:163; Q33:7; Q57:26; the exception is Q19:58. See Neuwirth’s (2013, 631–632)
discussion of the prophetic lineage of Nūḥ.
22. This connected the Qurʾanic conception of prophethood with the Arab idea that identity is
“determined by one’s genealogy” (Hoyland 2001, 116).
23. They appear to be mocking the Messenger for his words about the Garden, as if to say “he is
speaking about a garden in the next life, but he doesn’t even have one in this life.”
24. Later the doctrine of the inimitability of the Qurʾan came to be referred to as iʿjāz “incapacitation”
(Boullata 1988, 141).
25. Jeffery (1938, 248) identifies kāhin as a loan from Hebrew kohen via Aramaic, and concludes that
the evidence of inscriptions from north Arabia shows that “the primitive sense in Arabic was priest, and
that of soothsayer a later development.”
26. Q37:36 calls the Messenger a shāʿir majnūn “demonized poet”: this reflected the belief that poets
were inspired by a creative genius, a shayṭān (Boullata 1988, 139). The accusation that the Messenger
was a poet could reflect the highly formulaic character of the sūrahs, as documented by Bannister (2014),
which meant that they sounded like poetry at the time.
27. See Sowayan (1984, 1989) on poetic dueling in contemporary Arabia. Sowayan (1989, 163) also
refers to a reported instance of poetic dueling from classical Arabic pre-Islamic poetry.
28. Many previous scholars have noted that Qurʾanic accounts of earlier messengers reflect
Muḥammad’s concerns, for example, Horovitz (1926, 18), Bell (1991, commentary on Q7:80), Paret
(1961), Watt (1988, 100), and Tottoli (2002, 4–7). However, to see this simply as a biographical
observation is to overlook the significance and explanatory power of the theological principle of
Messenger Uniformitarianism. To my knowledge, only Marshall (2014) has attempted to provide a
systematic account of this insight.
29. Boisliveau (2013a, 355) points out that the same relationship exists between the Qurʾan and
previous scriptures as between Muḥammad (i.e., the Messenger) and “previous prophets.” Reference to
messengers and their books is a device to validate the Messenger and his Qurʾan. We can note also that
the doctrine of Messenger Uniformitarianism implies a static view of Allāh, since he always deals with
messengers in the same way, without progression or change. Christina Hitchcock (2014) makes a similar
point, on the basis of the way revelation takes place: in the Qurʾan revelation is “transcendent and static,”
while in the Bible it is “immanent.”
30. This is one reason why the Qurʾan finds it necessary to emphasize the humanity of ʿĪsā. This is not
merely an anti-Christian polemic, but a way to validate the Messenger by emphasizing that he is only
human. The logic of this is: “Jesus was human, so you can’t dismiss the Messenger for being human.”
Thus Khalidi (2001, 15) writes “His speech and the divine pronouncements concerning him seem to echo
the prophetic career of Muḥammad himself, or else seem designed to show that he is ‘merely’ a servant
of God—that is, a human being—who does not disdain that status.”
31. The proof given for this is that they killed the prophets in the past, a charge repeatedly made by the
Qurʾan against the Jews (Q2:91).
32. Islamic tradition supplies an explanation for this verse by connecting it to the story of the “Satanic
verses,” in which Muḥammad was given false verses that he later repudiated (Guillaume 1955, 166).
33. In Islam a prayer bump on the forehead is known as a zabībah “raisin.”
34. Zahniser (2003, 382) reports that “the phrase ‘God and his messenger’ occurs at least 85 times, all
but one (Q72:23) in Medinan passages” and the phrase is associated with the theme of obedience 28
times.
35. Prophecy, like monotheism, is a topic in Biblical studies with a vast literature. It encompasses very
diverse aspects, including psychological, anthropological, comparative, social, historical, literary, and
theological dimensions. Some key studies have been Hölscher (1914), Mowinckel (1923), Johnson
(1962), Heschel (1962), and Wilson (1980).
36. This is the Niphʾal; the verb also appears in the Hithpaʾel with a similar meaning.
37. For examples of anointing of priests see Exod. 30:30 and Lev. 8:12; for kings see 1 Sam. 10:1;
16:13; and for prophets see 1 Kgs 19:16 and 1 Chr. 16:22.
38. Sometimes royal officials are added as a fourth office in this list (Jer. 4:9).
39. Soloveitchik (2012, 40) maintains that the formation of covenant community between YHWH and
humanity is a precondition to genuine “prophecy awareness,” the “face-to-face” colloquy between
YHWH and humanity, so covenant and prophecy are intimately connected.
40. Firestone (2016, 20) has sought to discern a common core of “prophecy” in Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. Some of his conclusions seem questionable, for example the idea that Biblical prophecies are
normally written down. This conflicts with many instances in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament
where prophecies are reported to have taken place without being written down (e.g., Num. 11:25; 1 Sam.
10:8; Acts 21:9; 1 Cor. 12:28, 14:29ff). Another questionable proposal is that after canonization, new
claims for prophecy are rejected as false. This overlooks a long Christian tradition of unenscriptured
prophecy, which is not only referred to in the New Testament, (e.g., 1Cor. 12, 14), but also in early
Apostolic writings, for example, Didache’s instructions concerning itinerant prophets (O’Loughlin 2010,
168–169).
41. The Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions, inscription CIH 541, dated 658 Ḥim.
<http://dasi.humnet.unipi.it/>. See also discussion in Smith (1954).
42. Elsewhere the Qurʾan speaks of the reception of the revelation as a “sending down” (anzala)
(Q17:105) of a verbal message in clear Arabic (Q26:195) to the heart (Q26:194) of the messenger,
apparently involving an angelic intermediary, a rūḥ from Allāh: see discussions of rūḥ and waḥy in §6.3
and Rezvan (1997b, 13–15).
 Chapter 6

Lexical and Narrative Studies

This is a good place to take stock and recall the ground we have traversed. The
overall purpose of this book is to investigate the status of Biblical reflexes in the
Qurʾan, asking whether they are inherited as part of a whole semiotic system,
which preserves system-internal structural relationships, particularly theological
content, or whether they were borrowed, and lost theological meaning.
A methodological decision was made not to view the Qurʾan through the lens
of the Life of Muḥammad, but to examine its theological ideas directly from the
text itself. This has brought into focus the Qurʾan’s internal development,
particularly the evolution of its “realized eschatology” of divine punishment in
this life through believers’ violence, which was explored in chapter 2.
While some aspects of Qurʾanic Theology show similarities to Jewish and
Christian theologies,1 we have been focusing here on areas of difference. In
chapters 4 and 5 we have examined two major theological preoccupations of the
Qurʾan, its monotheism, and its Rasulology, asking whether in the treatment of
these topics in the Qurʾan there is evidence of transference of deeper theological
connections which might reflect a semiotic inheritance from Biblical Theology.
Our conclusion in each case was that there is not evidence of transference of a
theological system. Instead the Qurʾan develops its treatment of monotheism and
Rasulology in ways that are creatively distinct, owning little to Biblical
Theology. Our conclusion on the basis of these two studies is that in each case
the Qurʾan has repurposed Biblical concepts to serve its own agenda.
These two studies took core theological concerns of the Qurʾan as their starting
point. In this chapter we reverse the approach, and start with topics that have a
rich theological significance in the Bible. We will examine eight lexical and
narrative Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan, asking whether the way they are used in
the Qurʾan reflects inheritance or borrowing.
In this chapter the application of our comparative semiotic methodology is
more practical and concrete than in the previous two chapters, which undertook
a high-level comparison of core doctrinal structures. Here we are concerned with
the nitty-gritty of comparative semiotics, with word and story, but considered in
the light of theological meaning. We consider here the extent to which
theologically significant lexical and narrative materials have been inherited by
the Qurʾan, or whether certain Biblical forms have been repurposed, with loss of
theological content.
The topics examined in this chapter are: the use and meaning of the title al-
Masīḥ “the messiah”; rūḥ “spirit” and the Holy Spirit; divine presence and the
sakīnah of Allāh; terminologies for holiness; narratives of the Fall with
particular reference to the concept of sin, salvation and guidance; covenant
terminologies; Satan and “satans”; and stories of fighting prophets.

6.1 MORE ON METHODOLOGY

The key issue in this chapter will be the theological treatment of specific
materials in the Qurʾan in comparison to the Bible. The question asked in each
case is: Does the use of Biblical reflexes in the Qurʾan indicate a process of
inheritance of a religious semiotic system, with an (at least partially preserved)
theology, or does it reflect a disruptive process more akin to borrowing than
inheritance, with loss of theological content? To put this in terms of our building
metaphor, we are asking whether a Biblical reflex in the Qurʾan shows signs of
having been retained in situ, in a theological structure which may have been
modified and extended but at least shows signs of preservation of previous
structural relationships. Or does the way a reflex is used suggest that it has been
plucked from a dismantled pile of building materials and repurposed for
something that may bear little relation to its original context and purpose?
We have argued that the mere existence of certain surface similarities between
materials in the Qurʾan and the Bible, even quite extensive ones, is not enough to
establish a continuity of function in a system between the two. The use made of
a Biblical reflex could be in the nature of a fossil, whose features manifest only a
disrupted connection to its original function within the Bible. In the discussions
which follow, all of the cases we are investigating involve semiotic comparison.
We are asking whether Biblical signs—form-meaning pairs such as words,
phrases, or texts—and their reflexes in the Qurʾan show evidence of being
related through the transformation of a system of theological relationships, in
which the signs in question are situated and from which they gain their meaning.
Or do the reflexes in the Qurʾan show evidence of a discontinuous, disrupted
relationship, with loss of meaning and function and repurposing to give new
meaning and function? To clarify these comparisons, we shall first need to
consider the nature of signs.

6.1.1 The Linguistic Sign

The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1868, 294) developed a
series of typologies of signs, of which one is particularly relevant for us here.
Peirce classified signs into three categories according to the nature of the
connection between the signifier (called a sign by Peirce) and what it represents,
its signified (called a sign’s object by Peirce). Peirce’s three categories of
signifiers are today normally referred to as icon, index, and symbol:

An icon (Peirce: “likeness”) bears a relationship with its signified by virtue of a

likeness. An example is the relationship between a portrait and the person
represented.
An index is related to its signified by an actual connection in context. An
example is the relationship between smoke and fire.
A symbol is related to its signified by convention, established by habit or rule.
An example is the relationship between the sound of dog and its meaning.
Most words in human languages are symbols in this sense.

Indexical meanings are important as an aspect of many linguistic signs, even

where their main function is as a symbol.
It is also important to note that linguistic signs do not exist on their own: a sign
is embedded in a set of systemic relationships, involving semantics, phonology,
syntactics (§0.7.2), and also context. When we consider reflexes of signs from
the Bible in the Qurʾan, we need to consider all these aspects. Let us begin our
comparisons with an investigation of an iconic example, the expression al-masīḥ
“the Messiah.”

6.2 CHRISTOLOGY
ʿĪsā, the Qurʾanic Jesus, is referred to in four sūrahs, all post-transitional, as al-
Masīḥ “the Messiah” (Q3:45; Q4:157, 171–172; Q5:17, 72, 75; Q9:30, 31). It is
used “only as a title of Jesus” (Jeffery 1938, 265). By themselves the letters of
Masīḥ represent but a phonological form, a signifier which, one can readily
admit, bears some similarity even with the English Messiah. The question we
would ask about al-Masīḥ is whether it came into Qurʾanic Arabic as anything
more than a bare phonological form? Was there also a signified, a meaning
which bears any similarity to its meaning(s) in the books of the Bible? And in its
Qurʾanic context does it retain any indexical (contextual) associations, such as
connections with the way the term is used in the narratives of the Davidic
Kingship in 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings? And does anything of the New
Testament Christology narrative adhere to this signifier in its Qurʾanic context?
The issue behind this question is whether the presence of the title al-Masīḥ in
the Qurʾan reflects a process of inheritance of a theological tradition, or do the
characteristics and use of this signifier manifest features of a disruptive
borrowing process? The issue is not whether the phonological form itself is a
Biblical reflex—that is hardly controversial—but how much meaning came
along with the form, apart from its attribution to ʿĪsā? How much of the meaning
of “messiah,” or of Biblical Messianic theology, whether of the Hebrew Bible or
the New Testament, was taken up into the Qurʾan along with the phonological
form? Was al-Masīḥ taken into the Qurʾan as a whole linguistic sign, or merely a
phonological form, a signifier without any signified? If no meaning has been
taken up along with the signifier, apart from its bare function as a title, then the
process of incorporation of this sign was destructive, since it involved stripping
meaning away. So let us consider the case of al-Masīḥ.

6.2.1 Messiah in the Bible and Biblical Theology

In the Hebrew Bible the term māshiaḥ (Greek messías or christós) is embedded
in a rich narrative, ritual, and theological context, which includes the history of
the Davidic kingdom, Messianic psalms, and eschatological themes in the
prophets (Ginsberg 2007). The Hebrew verb māshaḥ means to anoint or smear,
and māshiaḥ, a passive participle of māshaḥ, was a title applied to kings of Israel
in reference to the manner of their installation, which took place by anointing
with oil. An example was the anointing of Saul:
Samuel took a phial of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him; he said,
“The Lord has anointed you ruler over his people Israel.” (1 Sam. 10:1)
In the Hebrew Bible the anointing of kings was an act of consecration and a sign
of divine favor (Rabinowitz 2007a; Kutsch 1963, 52ff). This is reflected in
David’s anointing, which was associated with a “coming” of the Spirit of the
Lord upon David:
 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his
brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day
forward. (1 Sam. 16:13; cf. Ps. 88:20; 2 Kgs 11:12)
Anointing was not only for installing kings. It was a means to induct priests
(Exod. 40:13–15; Lev. 8:12, 30), and to dedicate an object or a place, as Jacob
did with his pillow stone in Gen. 28:18 (see also Exod. 40:9; cf. Rabinowitz
2007a). Anointing oil also had various other rituals uses (cf. Exod. 39:38; Lev.
14).
Anointing implied divine favor and protection (Ps. 2, Ps. 105:15; Ps. 132:10;
cf. also Ps. 110), thus the “anointed” king is referred to as YHWH’s anointed (see
e.g., Isa. 45:1). In the Psalms YHWH speaks in the first person about “my
anointed” (e.g., Ps. 132:17), calling him “my son” (Ps. 2:2, 7), and indeed the
one who does the anointing is said to be YHWH himself, even though the
physical act was performed by a human agent:
I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him (Ps.
89:20; cf. Isa. 61:1).
The meaning of māshiaḥ is enriched by YHWH’s covenant with David reported
in 2 Sam. 7, in which YHWH promises an eternal dynastic kingdom to David
and his line:2
I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body,
and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I
will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and
he shall be a son to me. . . . I will not take my steadfast love from him . . .
Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your
throne shall be established forever. (2 Sam. 7:12–16)
The writers of the New Testament had at their disposal a rich theological
language in koiné Greek which was grounded in the Septuagint translation of the
Hebrew Bible. The work of translation was begun in the third century BCE and
had been complete for more than a century by the time the New Testament books
were being written (Greenspoon 2007). In the Septuagint, the translation of
māshiaḥ was christós “anointed one.”
In the New Testament the title christós (and messías in two places) is attributed
to Jesus. Its meaning is central to the proclamation of Jesus’s identity (Mk 1:1;
Luke 1:1; Acts 2:36). This title, and the closely associated title “Son of God,”
with which it is often paired (Mk 1:1; Mt. 16:16; Jn 20:31; cf. Luke 1:32), tie the
figure of Jesus into the Messianic traditions of Israel. Paul draws upon royal
passages from the Hebrew Bible to interpret Jesus’ Messiahship, for example, in
the opening and closing of his letter to the Romans (Wright 2013, 524). When
Paul proclaims Jesus as “Christ” he is claiming the fulfillment of the destiny of
Israel through Christ’s death and resurrection and that those who receive the
gospel are incorporated into Jesus as part of that destiny (Wright 2013, 544).
In the New Testament the title christós, as used for Jesus, has three kinds of
meaning:

1. For the authors and their audience it functions as a title for Jesus, pointing to
him (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:6; Mt. 1:16).
2. It refers to the “promised Messiah,” a royal leader Judaism was expecting to
be sent by Allāh to save the people of Israel. Calling Jesus “the Christ”
implied Jesus was that person (e.g., Mk 14:61).
3. It indexes textual contexts in which māshiaḥ is used in the Hebrew Bible (e.g.,
Luke 2:11).

What has been outlined here is but a start of recounting the meaning of
“Messiah” in a Biblical context. Much more could be said, but this will be
sufficient for comparison with the Qurʾan’s use of al-Masīḥ.

6.2.2 Masīḥ in the Qurʾan

Let us first note the six Qurʾanic passages in which al-Masīḥ is mentioned:
. . . his name is al-Masīḥ, ʿĪsā, son of Maryam. (Q3:45)
. . . for their saying, “Surely we killed al-Masīḥ, ʿĪsā, the son of Maryam, the
messenger of Allāh . . .” (Q4:157)
Al-Masīḥ, ʿĪsā, the son of Maryam, was only a messenger of Allāh, and His
word, which He caused to go into Maryam, and a blowing3 from Him. . . . al-
Masīḥ does not disdain to be a servant of Allāh . . . (Q4:171–72)
Certainly they disbelieve who say, “Allāh is al-Masīḥ, the son of Maryam.”
(Q5:17)
Certainly they have disbelieved who say, “Allāh is al-Masīḥ, the son of
Maryam,” when al-Masīḥ said, “Children of Israel! Serve Allāh, my Lord and
your Lord.” . . . al-Masīḥ, the son of Maryam, was only a messenger. (Q5:72,
 75)
. . . the Christians say, “Al-Masīḥ is the son of Allāh.” . . . They have taken
their teachers and their monks as lords instead of Allāh, and al-Masīḥ, the son
of Maryam, yet they were only commanded to serve one God. (Q9:30–31)
These references take the form al-Masīḥ ([ʿĪsā] (i)bn Maryam) “the Messiah
([Jesus] son of Maryam).” Note also the repeated assertions that al-Masīḥ was
“(only a) messenger (of Allāh)” (Q4:157; Q4:171; Q5:75).
Arabic names can have several parts. In Q3:45, the full name of the Qurʾanic
Jesus has three: smu-hu l-masīḥuʿīsā bnu maryama “his name (is) the Messiah,
Jesus, son of Maryam.”4

• al-Masīḥ is a laqab, or descriptive epithet, which would normally have a

recognizable meaning;
• ʿĪsā is the ism ʿalam or personal name;5
• (i)bn Maryam “son of Maryam” is the nasab, which describes ʿĪsā’s ancestry.6

Jesus is referred to in the Qurʾan by a variety of combinations of the three parts

of his name, but always in the order laqab ism nasab. Also attested are:

• ʿĪsā (Q3:52),
• al-Masīḥ (Q4:172),
• (i)bn Maryam (Q23:50),
• al-Masīḥ (i)bn Maryam (Q5:17), and
• ʿĪsā (i)bn Maryam (Q2:87).

Al-Masīḥ ʿĪsā is not attested, and neither is ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ, which was the
preferred order when referring to “Jesus Christ” in sixth-century Christian Syriac
writings.7
There is nothing in the text of the Qurʾan which could assist the reader to
discern whether al-Masīḥ has a meaning apart from being a title of ʿĪsā, or what
its theological significance might be. The Qurʾan shows no awareness that
Dāwūd (David) bore the title “messiah,” although he is described as receiving
“the kingdom” (al-mulk) in Q2:251. On the other hand, in contrast to Dāwūd,
ʿĪsā is nowhere referred to as a king. Nothing suggests that the epithet al-Masīḥ
has implications of kingship or divine favor for the Qurʾan: it is simply
presented as part of ʿĪsā’s full name, without any further meaning.
 Although a laqab is normally a recognizable descriptive, the form masīḥ is
morphologically unanalyzable in Arabic if the root is m-s-ḥ. The Arabic root m-
s-ḥ can mean “anoint” or “touch,” which is close in meaning to the cognate
Hebrew māshaḥ, however, the form of masīḥ does not fit into any productive
Arabic nominalization pattern. It is widely accepted that Arabic masīḥ was
borrowed from Syriac məšîḥ8 (see for example, Jeffery 1938, 265), which is a
regular Syriac passive participle of the root m-š-ḥ “anoint.” In Syriac this is
used, not only as a title for Jesus, but also in reference to other “anointed”
Biblical figures such as Moses and Joshua.
The difficulty of analyzing Arabic masīḥ opened the door to much speculation
by Muslim exegetes about its interpretation. Lane’s entry for masīḥ states that
the major lexicographer al-Fīrūzabādī reported that 50 different meanings had
been proposed.9 The Tanwīr al-Miqbās min Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās,10 an influential
commentary, suggests the meanings “because he travels from one country to
another,” or “the king,” or “he has standing and position amidst people in the life
of this world” (Guezzou 2008, 58, commentary on Q3:45). The interpretation of
“one who travels” reflects an attempt to assign an etymology to the word on the
basis of the root s-y-ḥ “run across the surface of the earth” (of water) or “journey
through the land” (of people).11
Ibn Kathīr proposed to explain al-masīḥ with reference to the Arabic root m-s-
ḥ “touch”:
“His name will be Al-Masīḥ, ʿĪsā, the son of Maryam” and he will be known
by this name in this life, especially by the believers. ʿĪsā was called “Al-
Masīḥ” (the Messiah) because when he touched (Masḥ) those afflicted with
an illness, they would be healed by Allāh’s leave. (Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr—Ibn
Kathīr 2003, 2.160)
A fatwā by Ibn Bāz, former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, considered the
question “Why is ʿIsa, the son of Maryam, called al-Masih?” His answer
suggests several variations on the idea of “touching,” but his final comment is
telling. He rules that the meaning of al-Masīḥ is irrelevant for Islamic faith and
practice, since there is “minimal” benefit in such knowledge:
Isa, the son of Maryam is called al-Masih because he did not touch any sick
or disabled person except that they were cured by Allāh’s permission. Some
of the Salaf also said that he was called al-Masih due to his contact with the
earth and his frequent traveling therein for the propagation of the earth of the
 religion. According to these two sayings, al-Masih, meaning Maasih (one
who touches). It was also said that he is al-Masih because his feet were flat,
with no hollow to the soles of his feet and it was said that he was touched
with blessings, or that he was purified from sins and was therefore blessed; in
these cases, Al-Masih would mean mamsuh (one who is touched), but the first
[meaning] is the most apparent [obvious], and Allah knows best.
In any case, there is no connection between this and belief or action, and the
benefit of knowing it is minimal. (Ibn Bāz, et al. 2001, 309)
Here our focus is not on interacting with or critiquing the later traditions of
Islamic commentary on the Qurʾan. The focus is rather on what the Qurʾan itself
says, and its theological worldview, as applied to materials which are reflexes of
Biblical materials. However, in the case of Masīḥ it is instructive to observe the
consequences of the lack of theological content associated with the term in the
Qurʾan, combined with the fact that it is morphologically unanalyzable in
Arabic. This has meant that the term has not only attracted highly diverse
explanations, but, as Ibn Bāz points out, “the benefit of knowing” is minimal. To
put it bluntly, the meaning of al-Masīḥ is irrelevant for Islam.
This contrasts with both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, in which
the concept of “Christ” indexes a rich theological and liturgical tradition,
including the textual history of the Davidic kingdom and Messianic psalms, in
which the use of the title implied a claim about Jesus’ identity as the promised
Messiah foretold by the prophets. All this meaning was stripped away when the
bare title, a sequence of sounds, made its way into the Qurʾan as a title for the
Qurʾanic Jesus. Al-Masīḥ of the Qurʾan is to mashiaḥ of the Hebrew Bible and
christós of the New Testament what “juggernaut” is to Hindi Jagannātha. Al-
Masīḥ sits in the Qurʾan like a piece of flotsam washed up and isolated from its
original context, meaningless, morphologically unanalyzable, and
decontextualized. It is uninterpretable, except for what the Qurʾan affords to it.
While it is true that reference to the Bible and Biblical Theology can help us
explain the phonological form of masīḥ, any such explanation is an exercise in
textual paleontology. There is no Christological “subtext” in the Qurʾan’s
allusive use of the name al-masīḥ to refer to ʿĪsā, for the Qurʾan has a “Christ”
without a Christology.12 What theology it does have for the Qurʾanic “Christ” is
in fact its Rasulology, into which the material pertaining to ʿĪsā is fitted.
Passages which reference ʿĪsā in the Qurʾan are devoted to exploring
Rasulological themes. For example, when ʿĪsā is repeatedly referred to as “only
a messenger” (Q3:144; Q4:171; Q5:75), this functions to reinforce the status of
the Messenger, in some cases using the very same formula which the Qurʾan
uses for the Messenger:

wa‑mā muḥammadunilla¯ rasūlun qad khalat min qablihil‑rusulu

“Muḥammad is no more than a messenger, like the messengers that passed
away before him” (Q3:144).

mā l‑masīḥu bnu maryamailla¯ rasūlun qad khalat min qablihi l‑rusulu

“al-masīḥ, son of Mary is no more than a messenger, like the messengers
that passed away before him” (Q5:75).

In accordance with the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism, the Qurʾan

also states that, like other messengers, ʿĪsā was given a “book” from Allāh
(Q57:26–27). Also in accordance with the principle of Messenger
Uniformitarianism, ʿĪsā describes himself as coming in a line of prophets,
including Mūsā, who was rejected, just as the Messenger is being rejected
(Q61:5–7), and just like the Messenger and his followers, ʿĪsā cursed
disbelievers (cf. Q3:71, 87; Q5:78).
The adoption of the title al-Masīḥ for ʿĪsā in the Qurʾan involved loss. It was a
destructive process in the sense that the meaning of the Messianic title in the
Bible was lost in the chain of events that led to the material entering the Qurʾan:
what we have left in the Qurʾan is a phonological form with two out of the three
kinds of meaning of christós stripped away. All that is retained is that it is a title
for ʿĪsā.
The title al-Masīḥ is disconnected from the religious, linguistic, and cultural
system of the Bible in which christós had derived its meanings. This is not
simply Christology painted over, to borrow Woodberry’s (1996) metaphor, but a
co-opted linguistic signifier, separated from its meaning and context and
repositioned to perform a quite different function.13Al-Masīḥ shows no signs of
being incorporated into the Qurʾan via a continuous process of religious
transmission and adaptation, in which a religious tradition was developed further
by people who had been formed in the earlier religion. The way in which al-
Masīḥ is used—and not used—in the Qurʾan suggests a process of borrowing, an
outsider-driven repurposing process in which a superficial feature of the
“superstrate”—a phonological signifier—has been co-opted to serve a new
theology, with its former theological meanings stripped away.
 It is important to emphasize here that when we speak of this borrowing as a
“destructive” process, this is not intended to be a pejorative judgment on the
genesis of the Qurʾan. We cannot even assume that the human author(s) of the
Qurʾan was aware of the theological meaning and context of the title in its
Biblical context. He may have been aware of nothing more than that al-Masīḥ
was a title for Jesus.
The case of al-Masīḥ is a relatively clear example of discontinuous adaptation
of a linguistic fragment—a linguistic signifier, separated from its signified. The
treatment of this expression in the Qurʾan shows the characteristics of
borrowing, not inheritance of a semiotic system or even part of a system. This
outcome shows evidence of discontinuity and not continuity of transmission.

6.3 RŪḤ AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

6.3.1 Ruaḥ in the Bible

In the Hebrew Bible ruaḥ has multiple meanings, which include “wind” (Gen.
3:8; 8:1), “breath” (Job 9:18), the “breath of life” (Ps. 135:17; Gen. 6:17), and
“intellect, personality or emotions” (Prov. 18:14; 25:28). In Hebrew ruaḥ can be
also used in reference to lesser spirit beings (1 Kgs 22:21; Job 4:15) and to
people after they have died (spirits of the dead; Isa. 26:14). The association of
breath with the breath of life and the spirit or soul of a person is a regular
polysemy14 in Hebrew, which is also observed with the roots n-p-sh “breath” and
n-sh-m “pant.”
Of particular significance for the theology of God in the Bible are references to
ruaḥ as divine presence (see for example, Ps. 139:7; Isa. 63:11; Ezek. 39:29; Joel
2:28), which can be located with places, communities, and individuals. When
individuals in the Bible experience the presence of YHWH by his ruaḥ, they
prophesy (Num. 11:25, 24:2–3; 1 Sam. 10:10; Isa. 48:16), exercise inspired
leadership (Num. 11:17; Jud. 3:10), including kingship (1 Sam. 16:13), and
manifest heightened creativity (Exod. 35:31).
The role of ruaḥ in creation—“while a wind (ruaḥ) from God swept over the
face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1–2)—has contributed to the development of the
Christian tradition of Pneumatology. The creative function of ruaḥ is reiterated
in Ps. 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host
by the breath ruaḥ of his mouth” (see also Job 26:13; 33:4; 34:14–15), and Ps.
104:30 “When you send forth your ruaḥ, they are created; and you renew the
face of the ground.” However, as Cole (2007, 102) notes, there is a long-standing
diversity of views among Christian scholars as to whether ruaḥ refers to Spirit,
“breath” or “wind” in these passages.
There are also references to the role of the Spirit in saving the people of God—
first through anointed judges, prophets, and kings, and then later in the
eschatological outpourings of the prophets, including Ezek. 37; Isa. 32:15ff,
44:3, 42:1–9, 61:1–11; and Joel 2:28–32.
The themes of creation (and recreation), empowerment, and salvation through
the Spirit are continued into the New Testament. Just some examples are Jesus’
teaching on new birth (Luke 3:16; Jn 3:5–8), Luke’s pneumatological
Christology (e.g., Luke 4:1, 4, 18) and many passages in Paul’s letters (e.g.,
Rom. 8).
Another point of continuity with the Hebrew Bible is the use of pneûma
“spirit” to refer to divine presence (e.g., Luke 2), including the extension of the
temple metaphor to apply to believers as “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor.
6:19; cf. Rom. 8:9).
The meaning of “Messiah” as one anointed by the Holy Spirit is highlighted in
Jesus’ baptism through the visible imagery of the descent of the Spirit upon
Jesus, “like a dove.” The baptism narratives also include “enthronement”
references to Jesus using the royal “Son of God” title (Mt. 3:13–17; Mk 1:9–11;
Luke 3:21–23), which align with Messianic references in the Psalms, especially
Ps. 2:7 “He said to me ‘You are my son; today I have become your father’” (cf.
Ps. 72:1; 89:26–27).
The New Testament also continues the Hebrew Bible polysemy with pneûma,
which can refer to “wind” (John 3:8), “breath,” or “breathing” (2 Thes. 2:8), and
personal essences, for example, the animating spirit of a person which leaves a
person when they die (Luke 8:55), the spirits of the dead (1 Pet. 3:19), demons
(Mt. 8:16), Satan (Eph. 2:2), God’s essence (Jn 4:24), angels (Heb. 1:7), and a
person’s disposition (Gal. 6:1).

6.3.2 Rūḥ in the Qurʾan

In the Qurʾan, rūḥ has certain distinct functions, several of which appear to be
Biblical reflexes. Variety in the use of rūḥ is illustrated here by excerpts from an
annunciation narrative, an account of the creation of human beings, and an
account of how the Qurʾan is “sent down”:
And Maryam, daughter of ʿImrān, who guarded her private part: We blew into
 it some of Our breath [rūḥ], and she affirmed her Lord’s words . . . (Q66:12)
When he created the human from clay, . . . then He formed him and blew into
him some of His breath [rūḥ] . . . (Q32:7, 9)
The holy spirit [rūḥ al-qudus] has brought it down from your Lord in truth, to
strengthen those who believe, and as guidance and good news for those who
surrender. (Q16:102)
Scholars have found it difficult to interpret the various uses of rūḥ in the Qurʾan
in a coherent way. Macdonald (1932, 26, 30) argued that rūḥ was borrowed as a
theological “terminus technicus” into the Qurʾan from Syriac, and this accounts
for the difficulty of interpreting it in its Qurʾanic context. On the other hand
Shellabear (1932, 360) took the view that since rūḥ in the Qurʾan was a
borrowing, “the actual meaning of the word can only be safely inferred from the
way it was used in the previous Scriptures from which the word rūḥ was adopted
into the Arabic language.” However, while it may be tempting for Christians to
read a Biblical interpretation into a Qurʾanic phrase such as rūḥ al-qudus,
translating it as “the Holy Spirit,” we need to first consider carefully how the
Qurʾan itself uses the expression and in what theological framework, if any, the
Qurʾan itself locates the expression. Then we can ask to what extent this aligns
with a Biblical theological understanding of ruaḥ / pneûma, and what any
alignment or mis-alignment shows us about the process of transmission.
The three-way polysemy of wind : breath : spirit which exists for Biblical ruaḥ
and pneûma is actually a compound of two regular polysemies: wind : breath
and breath : spirit. Here “breath” provides the semantic bridge between “wind”
and “spirit.” The connection between “breath” and “wind” is obvious enough.
For “breath” and “spirit” the exhalation of someone’s final breath indexes the
“spirit” of a person leaving the body on death, and this forms the basis for the
extension of meaning of “breath” to refer to the human soul.
Whereas the reflexes of r-w-ḥ in Hebrew and Aramaic manifest the usual
polysemy between “breath” and “wind,” the verbal forms based on Arabic r-w-ḥ
(or r-y-ḥ)15 refer primarily to wind blowing, and not to the act of breathing (Lane
1863, 1177). This is an important difference between Arabic and Hebrew. It is
significant because the meaning of Hebrew ruaḥ as the animating spiritual
principle of living beings could only have developed from its meaning in
reference to human breathing, and this meaning is not attested for pre-Qurʾanic
Arabic rūḥ.16
 A polysemy of breath : soul was familiar enough to the Arabs. It is found, for
example, in Arabic nafs “soul,” which was derived from a root n-f-s, whose
primary meaning is “to breathe.” However, in the case of rūḥ a missing link is
the lack of early attestations of Arabic r-w-ḥ in reference to breathing. There are
references in classical Arabic to rūḥ which refer to human breath, but not in the
sense of “breathing” or the “breath of life.” Macdonald (1932, 26) reports two
older citations from the Lisān:17 Abū-l-Duqaish speaks of a man blowing up a
water-skin “with his rūḥ” that is “with his rīḥ and his nafas” and Dhū-l-rumma
blows on a fire with his rūḥ. Note that these references are not to breathing per
se, and certainly not to the “breath of life,” but to blowing, that is, generating a
wind with one’s breath, and in the Qurʾan rīḥ always refers to “wind.” There is
no evidence that rūḥ (or rīḥ) was used to refer to breathing. It is also significant
that rūḥ is never used in the Qurʾan to refer to human or animal spirits.
What this means is that there is a missing link for Arabic r-w-ḥ between
“wind” and “spirit.” Because r-w-ḥ refers to blowing, not breathing, there is no
semantic bridge which could have led to the development of spiritual meanings
for words formed from the root r-w-ḥ. This confirms Macdonald’s suggestion
that rūḥ was adapted in the Qurʾan from a technical religious term, which did not
have antecedents in the pre-Qurʾanic Arabic uses of rūḥ.
The use of qudus in the phrase rūḥ al-qudus also has some idiosyncratic
linguistic features, which can only be explained as the result of borrowing. We
can note first that the structure of rūḥ al-qudus cannot be an attributive adjectival
construction meaning “the holy spirit,” for if it were, the definitive article would
be repeated on both the head noun and its modifying adjective (cf. al-rūḥ al-
ʾamīn “the trustworthy spirit” of Q26:193). The structure must be a genitive,
thus meaning “the spirit of holiness” (cf. for example, Q16:102).18
The issues with qudus in this construction are:

• In the Qurʾan the form qudus is unique to the phrase rūḥ al-qudus which
means that it lacks any other context by which it may be interpreted.
• The form qudus cannot be derived from the root q-d-s using normal rules of
Arabic morphology (the fuʿul form is mostly used for plural nouns).
• The morphologically regular attributives from q-d-s are the participle
muqaddas “sanctified” and the adjective quddūs “holy,” for example, al-malik
al-quddūs “the holy king” (Q59:23): the geminate medial -dd- reflects a form
II causative formation, so the productive meaning of quddūs is “sanctified.”
Neither of these derivatives is used with rūḥ, for example, al-rūḥ al-quddūs is
 not attested in the Qurʾan.
• Jeffery (1938, 232) reports that the common Semitic root q-d-s originally
meant “to withdraw, to separate,” a meaning which was still attested in early
Arabic (Lane 1863, 2497), but its religious sense was an innovation peculiar to
North-West Semitic languages—that is, to Hebrew and Aramaic/Syriac19—so
it was not native to Arabic, but borrowed from Syriac (see discussion of
holiness in §6.5).

The construction rūḥ al-qudus can best be explained as the result of borrowing
from Syriac rūḥ-ā d-qudsh-ā20 “Holy Spirit.” The form qudsh-ā is a regular
substantival (nominalized) form in Syriac. The inclusion of the Arabic l- would
be the result of phono-semantic matching (§6.6.5) with the Syriac relative
particle d-, replacing the particle with the similar-sounding definite article. The
resulting unanalyzable form qudus, instead of the morphologically regular
quddūs, reflects an only partial accommodation of the borrowed phrase to Arabic
morphology.
The borrowed religious terms, rūḥ and rūḥ al-qudus were not entirely
“nativized” by being fully integrated into the theological worldview of the
Qurʾan. The resulting ambiguity makes this word particularly interesting for our
study, and accounts for the fact that the interpretation of the various uses of rūḥ
in the Qurʾan is one of the more complex and controversial topics in the
Qurʾanic exegetical tradition.21 Despite the difficulties involved, we will attempt
to offer a synchronic account of the function(s) of rūḥ in terms of Qurʾan-
internal evidence, proposing that there are two distinct meanings, one to refer to
an angelic being, and another referring to the creative blowing of Allāh.22 We
will then consider implications for the nature of the relationship between the
Biblical and Qurʾanic reflexes.

6.3.3 Rūḥ as an Angelic Being

A principal use of rūḥ,23 never in the plural, is to refer to an entity whose role is
to strengthen (ʾayyada), or make firm (thabbata) Allāh’s messengers:
For these He has written belief on their hearts, and strengthened them with a
rūḥ from Him, and will bring them into Gardens through which rivers flow,
where they will abide. (Q58:22)
At times rūḥ, used for this purpose, is qualified by al-qudus:
 Indeed We gave Mūsā the Book, and we had other messengers follow him,
and We gave ʿĪsā, son of Maryam, clear evidences, and strengthened him with
rūḥ al-qudus. (Q2:87; cf. Q2:253; Q5:110)
In other verses it is made clear that the “strengthening” takes the form of
guidance through bringing down a revealed text:
[After a discussion of the Messenger being accused of forgery, when Allāh
replaces one verse by another:] Say: “Rūḥ al-qudus has brought it [i.e. the
disputed verse(s)] down from your Lord in truth, to strengthen those who
believe, and as guidance and good news to those who surrender.” (Q16:102)
Virtually all of the definite references to rūḥ in the Qurʾan occur in contexts
when a revealed message is in focus. For example, in Q16:102 above, the report
of rūḥ al-qudus “bringing it down” is given in response to an accusation that the
Messenger was forging verses. In the same passage the “it” which is called
“guidance and good news” can be clearly established on the basis of formulaic
parallelism (§1.4.9) to refer to the revelation, for the same wording of “guidance
and good news to those who surrender” is found just a dozen verses earlier in
reference to “the Book”:
We have sent the Book down to you as an explanation for everything, and as
guidance and mercy, and as good news to those surrender. (Q16:89)
That “guidance” and “good news” refer to the “Book” is also clear in Q27:
Those are the signs [or verses] of the Qurʾan and a clear Book, guidance and
good news for the believers . . . (Q27:1–2)
As a further example, the following reference to al-rūḥ supporting ʿĪsā is
immediately followed by references to ʿĪsā speaking miraculously in the cradle,
when he declared that he had been given “the book” and appointed as a prophet
(Q19:30), and to ʿĪsā being taught books of revelation by Allāh:
Allāh said, “ʿĪsā, son of Maryam! Remember My favor to you and your
mother, how I strengthened you [sg.] with rūḥ al-qudus, (so) you spoke to the
people from the cradle, and as an adult. And how I taught you the Book and
the wisdom, and the Tawrāh and the Injīl . . .” (Q5:110)
Yet another confirmation that the “strengthening” refers to the revelation can be
found in the following passage, in which the trustworthy rūḥ brings “it” down in
clear Arabic language, where “it” is “the scriptures of those of old”:
 Surely this is a sending down from the Lord of the worlds. The trustworthy
rūḥ brought it down to your heart, for you to be one of the warners, in a clear
Arabic language. Surely this is in the scriptures of those of old. (Q26:192–96;
cf. Q46:12)
Much ink has been spilled over the phrase: “You have only been given a little
knowledge of it” (i.e., of the rūḥ) (Q17:85), and very varied understandings of
rūḥ among Muslim scholars have arisen.24 However, the key point is that this
comment occurs in the middle of a discussion of “sending down” the Qurʾan
(Q17:82–89). Although the remark declares mysteriously that knowledge of the
“spirit” is limited, the context makes clear that the function of “the trustworthy
spirit” is to bring the revealed “book” from Allāh to the Messenger. This is also
clear in the following passage, in which the expression wa-ka-dhalika “and like
this” establishes that the “spirit of our command” is also “a messenger” who has
brought waḥy “esoteric communication”25 to the Messenger:
Allāh should not speak to anyone, except by waḥy, or from behind a screen,
or by sending a messenger to reveal, with His permission, whatever He wills.
. . . In this way We communicate with you (sg.) [awḥaynā] by a rūḥ of Our
command [i.e. by sending a messenger to the Messenger]. (Q42:51–52)
We have seen that a role of the “spirit” is to strengthen messengers by delivering
Allāh’s message. Furthermore, angels are themselves repeatedly referred to as
“messengers” (e.g., Q22:75; Q23:24), who bring revelation from Allāh. Is there
other evidence to identify “the spirit” as an angel? There are indeed enough
“smoking guns” to make a case that the mediating “spirit” is an angel, even
though this is never explicitly stated in the Qurʾan.
First, there are repeated references to “angels” with/and “the spirit” together,
showing “the spirit” in the company of an angelic host:26
On the day when al-rūḥ and the angels stand in rows, they will not speak.
(Q78:38; cf. Q16:2; Q70:4; Q97:4)
Further evidence of an association between al-rūḥ and the angels is that the
phrase min ʾamri “(caused) by27 (Allāh’s) command” is linked in four passages
with (al-)rūḥ (Q16:2; Q17:85; Q40:15; Q42:52) and to recording angels who
watch over humans “by the command (min ʾamri) of Allāh” (Q13:11).
Furthermore, in slightly different wording, angels come down “by the
command” (bi-ʾamri) of Allāh (Q19:64), and by “the command of your Lord”
(ʾamru rabbi-ka) in (Q16:33).
Obedience to Allāh’s command is described in the Qurʾan as a characteristic
attribute of angels: “They do not disobey Allāh in what he commands them
[ʾamara-hum], but do what they are commanded [yuʾmar-unā]” (Q66:6). In
contrast, Iblīs (Satan) is distinguished from the angels by his disobedience
against the “command” of Allāh (Q18:50).28
Two annunciation passages in the Qurʾan also connect “the spirit” with angels.
There is the parallelism between Q3:42ff where “the angels” bring a message to
Maryam, and Q19:16ff where it is “Our rūḥ” who visits Maryam. Compare also
the description of “Our rūḥ” appearing to Maryam in the “form of a human
being” in Q19:17, with Q6:9, in which Allāh declares that if Allāh had appointed
an angel as his messenger to the people (instead of the Messenger), the angel
would have been transformed into a man.
Furthermore, the expression rūḥ al-qudus can be identified with the figure of
Jibrīl (Gabriel) from the use of a parallel formula already discussed in §1.4.9:

1. X
2. has brought it down (nazzala-hu)
3. from/by Allāh
4. confirming/making firm
5. as guidance and good news (wa-hudan wa-bushrā)
6. to believers

The slot “X” is substituted in separate descriptions by rūḥ al-qudus (Q16:102)

and Jibrīl (Q2:97–98), which implies that they have the same referent. We can
also note that Q66:4 (cf. Q2:98) speaks of Jibrīl as being in league with the
angels as supporters of the Messenger.29

6.3.4 Rūḥ as Creative Blowing of Allāh

We have seen that “the (holy) spirit” can refer to an angel, and sometimes to
Jibrīl as one of the angels. In addition there is a distinct use of rūḥ to refer to the
creative blowing by Allāh into people to give them life:
When I have fashioned him, and blown [nafakha] some of My rūḥ
(“blowing”) into him, prostrate yourselves before him. (Q15:29; cf. Q32:9;
Q38:72)
The English translation “blowing” for rūḥ seems more appropriate here than
“breath” or “spirit,” because the physical action verb nafakha “blow” is used,
and not a derivative of n-f-s “breathe.”30 The root n-f-kh refers to vigorous
blowing under pressure. It is used in the Qurʾan for giving a blast on a trumpet
(Q39:68) or puffing to heat up a smelting furnace (Q18:96). This fits well with
the attested non-spiritual classical Arabic meanings of rūḥ as blowing to inflate
something or to fan a fire (cf. §6.3.2). So Q15:29 does not mean that Allāh
“breathed the breath of life” into Ādam, but that he blew a puff of air into him,
thereby bringing him to life. A similar construction—but without rūḥ—is used
for the story of ʿĪsā bringing clay pigeons to life by “blowing” (n-f-kh) into them
(Q3:49; Q5:110).31
Contrast Gen. 2:7, which reports that “YHWH God . . . blew (napaḥ) into his
[the man’s] nostrils the breath (neshemah) of life” (cf. Ezek. 37:9). Although
Hebrew napaḥ is a cognate of Arabic n-f-kh, unlike n-f-kh, Hebrew n-p-ḥ
includes within its semantic range breathing one’s final breath (cf. Jer. 15:9) and
one of its derivatives, mappāh is also used to refer to breathing one’s last (Job
11:20). In the Gen. 2:7 construction the impartation of life-giving breath is
explicit, but in the Qurʾan it is only implied at best, and not explicitly stated.
The use of rūḥ to refer to an angel, and the rūḥ of “blowing,” referring to the
creative activity of Allāh, are attested in different “annunciation” passages, but
not together. In Q19:16–19 the rūḥ is an angelic messenger who takes the human
form, sent “to grant you a pure boy” and in two passages Maryam conceives by
means of Allāh “blowing” “some of our Spirit.” In Q21:91 the blowing is “into
her” and in Q66:12 it is “into it,” that is, into her vulva (furuj). Exactly the same
formula is used in the accounts of the creation of Ādam (Q15:29; Q32:9;
Q38:72): nafakh-nā/tu fī-X min rūḥ-nā/-ī “We/I blew into X some of our/my
rūḥ.” In the Qurʾanic accounts of the creation of Ādam Allāh blows into clay to
create a living person, and in the case of Maryam the blowing causes conception.
What these two acts have in common is the idea of creation by blowing, which is
different from the (Biblical) idea of breathing the “breath of life” into Ādam’s
nostrils (Gen. 2:7) to animate him. The use the formula nafakh fī-X min rūḥ to
describe the conception of ʿĪsā suggests that it was not understood as being
about breathing the breath of life into a body, but as a creative act.
For some Muslim exegetes and translators of the Qurʾan, the ambiguity of rūḥ
in the Qurʾan, referring either to an angel or to Allāh’s creative blowing, leads
them to conflate the annunciation accounts, which manifest both readings, but
not at the same time. The result is that Q66:12 is sometimes translated as the
angel Jibrīl blowing into Maryam:32
 Qurʾan Translations:
And We breathed into (the sleeve of her shirt or her garment) through Our
Rūh [i.e. Jibrîl (Gabriel)] . . .33 (Q66:12; al-Hilālī and Khān 1998)
. . . so We blew into (her garment) through our angel. (Q66:12; Assami,
Bantley, and Kennedy 1997)
Commentaries:
Jibrīl breathed a breath of Allah’s creating into the front of her shift, so that it
reached her womb and she became pregnant with ʿĪsā . . . (Tafsīr Al-Jalālayn,
al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī 2007b, 1223)
Allāh sent the angel Jibrīl to Maryam, and he came to her in the shape of a
man in every respect. Allāh commanded him to blow into a gap of her
garment and that breath went into her womb through her private part; this is
how ʿĪsā was conceived. (Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr, Ibn Kathīr 2003, 10.76)
However, there is nothing in Q66:12 or Q21:91 to suggest the involvement of an
angel, and the verbal formula is simply that used in accounts of the creation of
Ādam, so rūḥ in this passage must refer to creative blowing, not an angel.
Finally, there is a passage in which ʿĪsā is referred to as a rūḥ and a “word”
(kalimah) from Allāh, in the context of rejecting the Trinity and his sonship:
Al-Masīḥ, ʿĪsā, the son of Maryam, was only a messenger of Allāh, and His
word, which He caused to go into Maryam, and a rūḥ from Him. (Q4:171)
In a similar passage in Q3:45, ʿĪsā is again called “a word” from Allāh: “Allāh
gives you good news of a word from Him” (cf. also Q3:39). The use of rūḥ in
Q4:171 in reference to ʿĪsā seems to be an indexical reference to the creative act
of blowing into Maryam to create him. The emphasis of Q4:171 is on ʿĪsā being
only a human “messenger,” so we can understand that kalimah “word” also
indexes ʿĪsā’s status as just a man, that is, one of Allāh’s creations, who came
into being by Allāh’s word of command. This interpretation is consistent with
Q36:82, which states that Allāh creates by a commanding word: “He says to it,
‘Be!’ and it is” (yaqūlu lahu kun fa‑yakūnu). The same point is made in reference
to ʿĪsā in Q19:35, using the exact same formula, so we conclude that when the
Qurʾan states that ʿĪsā was a rūḥ in Q4:171 this is an indexical reference to the
creative act—the divine “blowing”—which brought him into being. By calling
ʿĪsā a word and a blowing—indexing the manner of his creation—the Qurʾan is
emphasizing that ʿĪsā was only a man, and not divine. Compare this with
Q18:110, in which the Messenger is instructed to announce “I am only a human
being, like you” (cf. Q19:19).34
This figure of speech—to call someone what they have been created from—is
also found elsewhere in the Qurʾan. It is said of a (generic) human facing
judgment arrogantly ill-prepared, “Was he not a drop of semen?” (cf. Q16:4;
Q76:2).35 Here the human being is called “a drop of semen,” indexing the means
by which he is created.

6.3.5 Conclusion to Discussion of Rūḥ

There are some resemblances in the narrative contexts in which the Qurʾan and
the Bible use rūḥ and ruaḥ respectively as terms for blowing the creative breath
of life. Both are used in the story of the conception of ʿĪsā/Jesus. However, these
surface similarities belie deeper differences. The evidence suggests that in pre-
Qurʾanic Arabic the term rūḥ was not associated with the concept of the “breath
of life,” nor with the nonmaterial essence of a person, their soul, nor, as we shall
see (§6.4), does it occur in the context of a Qurʾanic Theology of the presence of
Allāh.
Both the Bible and the Qurʾan speak of ʿĪsā being conceived by the ruaḥ/rūḥ.
In Luke’s account of the conception, it takes place by the Holy Spirit, the
powerful presence of God:
. . . the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power
of the Most High will overshadow [episkiázō] you . . .” (Luke 1:35)
This expression invokes the language of the Hebrew Bible, where in Exod. 40:35
the same word episkiázō is used in the Septuagint to translate Hebrew shākan
“dwell, settle” the idea of YHWH “dwelling” over the tabernacle:
Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled
[LXX: episkiázō “overshadow”; Hebrew shākan] upon it, and the glory of
YHWH filled the tabernacle. (Exod. 40:35)
In contrast, in the worldview of the Qurʾan, the rūḥ that brings life to ʿĪsā is a
physical intrusion into Maryam’s body—a blowing into her vulva—as a creative,
not an animating act, mediated, according to later Islamic exegetical traditions,
by an angel who is also referred to as a rūḥ, albeit in a different Qurʾanic
passage.
In the light of the contrast between the Biblical and Qurʾanic understandings of
the annunciation narrative, Reynolds’ (2010b, 53) translation of Q21:91 as “We
breathed Our Spirit into her” is a case of reading Biblical Theology into the
Qurʾan. These words create an impression of affinity of meaning between the
Qurʾan and the Bible which the text cannot sustain. Furthermore, when Reynolds
(2010b, 53) writes: “The Qurʾan has Christ, like Adam, created directly from the
Spirit of God,” it is reading too much into the text to speak of the “Spirit of God”
in relation to the animation of Ādam or the conception of ʿĪsā, because there is
no Qurʾanic Theology of rūḥ as the breath of life to sustain such a designation. A
more accurate translation of Q21:91 could be “We blew into her,” and the most
that can be said about the similarities in the creation of Ādam and ʿĪsā in the
Qurʾan is that both stories involved Allāh blowing.
To be sure, Qurʾanic references to rūḥ show evidence of being reflexes of
Biblical materials, both lexical and narrative, via a process of transmission about
which we can only speculate. The most striking example is the narrative material
referring to the conception of Jesus, which in the Bible involves both an angel
and the Holy Spirit. The Qurʾan shows reflexes of these materials, but the
“Spirit” by whom Maryam conceives becomes either a physical breath blown
into her body, or, according to later Muslim exegetical traditions, the angel who
does the blowing.
We find that in the case of the Biblical rūḥ reflexes, while a similarity of form
endures, the function of the rūḥ reflexes suggests a loss of theological content,
and its replacement with new theological understandings. This outcome shows
evidence of a destructive process of borrowing, rather than a conservative
process of inheritance which preserves theological meaning.
Having concluded our discussion of the rūḥ in the Qurʾan, we will consider
two issues not unrelated to that of reflexes of the Holy Spirit, namely to what
extent does the Qurʾan include within its theological worldview concepts of the
presence of Allāh and the holiness of Allāh.

6.4 DIVINE PRESENCE AND THE SAKĪNAH

In this section we consider to what extent reflexes of the Bible’s theology of
divine presence can be discerned in the Qurʾan, and whether they are inherited or
borrowed.

6.4.1 Divine Presence in the Bible

The Bible has a large number of references to YHWH making himself present in
time and space, in relation to individuals, groups, and particular places. The idea
and experience of the presence of YHWH is one of the unifying themes of the
Bible: the presence of YHWH is both the agent and the goal of his mission
(Lister 2014, 22–23).
The creation account commences with a reference to the Spirit of (or wind
from) God “hovering” over the waters (Gen. 1:2). A few chapters later, YHWH
is reported to be “walking” in the Garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). There
are also numerous theophanies, such as when YHWH appears to Abraham near
Mamre in Gen. 18:1, and when Jacob wrestles with God in Gen. 32:28. Exodus
has multiple further references to the presence of YHWH, such as the pillar of
cloud and pillar of fire which is described as YHWH “going ahead” of the
Israelites (Exod. 13:21) and the theophany of the burning bush (Exod. 3:4).
YHWH also promises Moses to be “with” the Israelites (Exod. 3:12), so later
Moses asks YHWH not to send them into the promised land “if your presence
does not go with us” (Exod. 33:15). When the tabernacle is established, YHWH
promises to “meet” with Israel between the cherubim over the Ark of the
Covenant (Exod. 25:22).
In descriptions of temple worship there are also references to the presence of
YHWH, at times manifested physically (e.g., 1 Kgs 8:10–11). In worship and
prayer the Israelites identified YHWH as present in his temple (Ps. 11:4; cf. Hab.
2:20) or with the believer (Ps. 51:11). The eschatological promises in the latter
prophets look forward to restoration of the saving presence of YHWH with his
people Israel (Joel 2:29; Zeph. 3:17), and also to the temple (Ezek. 43; here the
presence of YHWH is called “the glory of YHWH”).
The New Testament continues the theme of the presence of YHWH. Jesus is
Immanuel “God with us” (Mt. 1:23). Jesus promises his divine presence with his
disciples (Mt. 28:20; Jn 14:23; cf. 1 Jn 4:15). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit
is described in physical terms (Acts 2:4), and individuals are also described as
being “full of the Spirit” (Acts 6:3).
Paul in a number of places discusses the “empowering presence” (Fee 1994,
5ff) of the Spirit in the church, for example, 1 Cor. 3:16–17 “Do you not know
that you [pl.] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” In
Ephesians Paul urges the church to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18), and in
Romans he writes “you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you
[pl.]” (Rom. 8:9).
The final vision in revelation is one of God dwelling with his people: “See, the
home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his
peoples, and God himself will be with them” (Rev. 21:3).
The Jewish Orthodox theologian Wyschogrod argued in The Body of Faith that
the presence of YHWH in Israel is central to Jewish self-understanding:
Israel is not a body foreign to the divine will and to Torah. God dwells in
Israel. He dwells in the midst of its uncleanness. He envelops Israel. Israel is
Hashem’s36 abode in the created world. . . . Israel is not Hashem. But it is the
dwelling place of Hashem. (1983, 212)
The theological integration of all the Biblical references to the ways in which an
omnipotent, transcendent creator makes himself present to human beings in time
and space is a task of considerable depth and complexity. It is not necessary for
our purposes to engage with the Christian and Jewish theological traditions on
this topic: it suffices to observe that the presence of God with his people is one
of the unifying themes of Biblical Theology, across both Old and New
Testaments.

6.4.2 Divine Presence in the Qurʾan

What then about the Qurʾan? In the light of the theological emphasis of the Bible
on God’s presence, it is instructive to inquire what, if any, references there are to
Allāh’s presence in the Qurʾan.
The first thing to note is that, despite a wide variety of anthropomorphisms in
the Qurʾan (Sweetman 1947, 26–38), there are no references to Allāh making
himself personally present with people on earth. Anthropomorphisms include
reference to Allāh being alive (Q20:111; Q40:65); hearing and knowing
(Q2:224); having a face (Q55:27); hands (Q48:10; Q5:64); eyes (Q20:39);
moving in space (“your Lord comes”; Q89:22); being seated on or mounting a
throne (Q57:4; Q32:4) and showing a range of human emotions, including love
(Q60:8), anger (Q1:7), and pleasure (Q98:8). Also Allāh, like human beings, has
a sunnah or “customary way” of acting (§5.3.1).37
Some apparent references to Allāh’s presence are set in contexts in which it is
actually knowledge of Allāh that is in focus, not presence. For example Allāh
famously states that he is closer to a person than his own jugular vein (Q50:16;
cf. Gardet 1986a, 408), but this is to illustrate the claim, made in the same verse,
that Allāh “knows what his soul whispers to himself.” Similarly Q2:115 states,
“wherever you turn, there is Allāh’s face,” but this is immediately interpreted in
the same verse as “indeed, Allāh is (all-)embracing, (all-)knowing.” Other
potential references to divine “presence” are a handful of verses which speak of
Allāh “surrounding” or “encompassing” (muḥīṭ; root ḥ-w-ṭ “surround”) people or
creation: “Allāh encompasses everything” (Q4:126). However, the emphasis in
the use of ḥ-w-ṭ forms is on Allāh’s sovereignty over all things—his power and
his knowledge, not his personal presence. An example of a ḥ-w-ṭ form referring
to power is Q2:19–20 (cf. Q3:10; Q65:12), in which Allāh intimidates people
with thunder and lightning, “surrounding” them with noise and thunderbolts,
since “Allāh is powerful over everything.” An example of the use of the
language of “surrounding” in the sense of knowledge is Q72:28 (cf. Q4:108;
Q8:47; Q11:92), in which Allāh “surrounds” people by means of watching
angels, so that “He may know.” Another putative candidate for a reference to
presence is the statement “I am near. I respond to the call of the caller when he
calls on Me” (Q2:196). However, this is clearly a metaphor for Allāh’s readiness
to respond to those who call upon him, not for divine presence.38
It is instructive to consider how the Biblical story of the encounter between
Moses and God at the burning bush is rendered in the Qurʾan. In the Biblical
account Moses is asked to remove his shoes because the ground is holy, and he is
told “Come no closer!,” that is, closer to the presence of God in the bush (Exod.
3:5). There are references to divine presence, for example, “God called to him
out of the bush” (v.4); and Moses turns away his face “for he was afraid to look
at God” (v.6). In contrast in the Qurʾan’s version of this story, Allāh does not
speak “from the bush,” and there is no other indication of Allāh’s particular
presence. Mūsā is called to take off his shoes because “you are in the holy
(muqaddas) wādi of Ṭuwā”39 (Q20:12; cf. Q79:16). It is not that the ground is
holy because of the theophany (as implied in Exodus 3), but because the valley
is some kind of sanctuary, a concept familiar to the Arabs.
There is in Q7:143 an isolated reference to Allāh revealing himself before
Mūsā, using the verb tajallā “shine, become manifest”: “. . . when his Lord
revealed His glory [tajallā] to the mountain, He crushed it . . .” (Q7:143). The
root j-l-w “make clear, visible” is used in Arabic Christian theology for
theophanies, for example, in tajliya “theophany” and tajallin “transfiguration”
(of Christ). It is cognate with Hebrew g-l-h “uncover” and Syriac glā “reveal”
(Jeffery 1938, 91). The use of the form II verb tajallā in Q7:143 is the only
instance in the Qurʾan of this verb with Allāh as its subject—the single other
instance in Q92:2 refers to daylight shining. Mingana (1927, 86) identified
tajallā as a formation, in effect by a process of phono-semantic matching
(§6.6.5), based on Syriac etgali “be revealed,” which in Syriac has the technical
sense of God revealing himself.
 Because this is a unique instance, with no supporting explanation or thematic
development, it offers a poor basis for constructing a Qurʾanic Theology of
divine presence. Instead it stands out as an unintegrated reflex of a Biblical term.

6.4.3 A sakīnah from Allāh

In an exploration of possible references to the presence of Allāh, the word
sakīnah deserves consideration. The Hebrew noun shekīnāh refers in Rabbinic
literature to the presence of YHWH. It is formed from the root sh-k-ʾ meaning
“settle, inhabit, dwell.” The twentieth-century Jewish theologian Joseph
Soloveitchik has described the shekīnāh presence of Rabbinic tradition as an
intersection of deity and creation:
The mystical masters justly taught that the Deity separates itself from the
existent, which is imprinted with the stamp of creation and chained by the
constraints of objective cosmic necessity, yet at the same time dwells within it
as one “who dwells with them in their impurity” (Lev. 16:16). The Shekhinah
imbues both object and subject, yet also transcends them. (2008, 8)
Jeffery (1938, 174) has summarized the arguments of Sacy (1829, 177ff) and
Goldziher (1896; 1893) to identify sakīnah as a borrowing from the Hebrew,
perhaps via Syriac.40 The word appears six times in the Qurʾan, with a meaning
that can be understood as “reassurance” or “tranquility,” which is the expected
meaning of sakīnah as a regular formation from the Arabic root s-k-n “at rest,
stationary, still”:
When those who disbelieved harbored scorn in their hearts—the scorn of the
time of ignorance—Allāh sent down his sakīnah upon His Messenger and
upon the believers. (Q48:26; cf. Q2:248; Q9:26, 40; Q48:4, 18)
Most of the sakīnah passages occur in contexts where Allāh intervenes to
support believers in the face of opposition, which enables them to rally and
achieve victory. However there is one passage, Q2:247–48 which refers to the
ark as a “sakīnah from your Lord,” to serve as a “sign” of reassurance
concerning Ṭālūt’s (Saul) appointment as king. This suggests exposure to a
Jewish or Christian discourse of some kind involving the shekīnāh presence of
God, which was associated with the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Exod. 25:22; 1
Sam. 4:4). However, even in this instance there is no evidence within the Qurʾan
itself to connect sakīnah with the idea of divine presence.41
The interest of sakīnah for us here lies in the manner of its incorporation into
Arabic. The Hebrew concept of God’s shekīnāh presence was not integrated into
Qurʾanic Theology. A word is deployed, sakīnah, which matches the Hebrew
phonologically.42 In most contexts sakīnah is used in a way which is consistent
with its native Arabic derivation, that is, as “tranquility” or “reassurance,” but in
Q2:248 the context suggests that this might be a reflex of a Jewish or Christian
narrative in which shekīnāh was mentioned in connection with the ark.43
Like tajallā in Q7:143, sakīnah here appears to be a linguistic fossil, surviving
in the Qurʾan as a pointer to a theological understanding of the presence of God,
but whose meaning did not survive the transition of the narrative material into
the Qurʾan. Phonologically matched with a Hebrew or Syriac word, it has been
given a new, completely Arabic meaning.

6.4.4 Conclusion to Discussion of Divine Presence

Despite being able to discern traces—fossilized references—to Biblical presence
theology, the Qurʾan does not have a discernible theology of the presence of
Allāh in time and space with humanity on earth.
On the basis of Qurʾanic evidence, later Islamic scholars emphatically rejected
any suggestion that the God of the Qurʾan can be present in his creation. Where
the Qurʾan speaks of Allāh being “nearer” than one’s jugular vein, the Shāfiʿī
jurisprudent Ibn Naqib (d.1368) interpreted this a reference to his knowledge,
that he is “witness to everything,” and not to his actual presence:
He is not delimited by magnitude, contained by place, encompassed by
directions, or bounded by heavens or earth. . . . He does not indwell in
anything, nor anything indwell in Him. He is as exalted above containment in
space as He is above confinement in time. . . though He is near to everything
in existence, nearer to a servant than his own jugular vein, and is witness to
everything. His nearness no more resembles the nearness of objects to one
another than His entity resembles the entities of objects. (Keller 1994, 817–
818)

6.5 HOLINESS
We have noted Jeffery’s observation that the use of q-d-s to refer to religious
holiness, conceived of as “separateness,” was North(west) Semitic, and thus
alien to Arabic culture (§6.3.2). The Qurʾan does attest some q-d-s forms: the
form II verb qaddasa “to sanctify, call holy” (Q2:30), used of angels
worshipping Allāh; the form II participial derivatives muqaddas / muqaddasat
“sanctified” (Q5:21; Q20:12; Q79:16), which are used in the context of Biblical
reflexes; and quddūs, which is only twice used in reference to Allāh (Q59:23;
Q62:1). These are in addition to the handful of references to the rūḥ al-qudus,
which we have identified above as a borrowing by phono-semantic matching
(§6.6.5) from Syriac (§6.3.2). What are we to make of these references to
holiness? Do they represent a retention of a Biblical Theology of holiness?

6.5.1 Sanctity as ḥ-r-m

The root q-d-s is comparatively infrequently mentioned in the Qurʾan, with only
six instances apart from rūḥ al-qudus. The established way in Arabic to call a
place sacred was to use derivatives from ḥ-r-m, a root with the meaning
“forbidden, inviolable,” as in al-ḥaram “the sanctuary” (Q28:57; Hoyland 2001,
157). The number of instances of ḥ-r-m forms referring to sacred things in the
Qurʾan (c. 50 instances) is considerably greater than those of q-d-s forms (10
instances). Of the q-d-s derivatives, most occur in Biblical contexts: two are
references to the holy wādi of Ṭuwā, the place where Mūsā encountered Allāh in
the “burning bush” incident (Q20:12; Q79:16); one is a reference to Israel
entering the “holy land” (Q5:21); four are rūḥ al-qudus instances; two instances
of q-d-s forms refer to Allāh as “holy” (Q59:23; Q62:1)—but see discussion in
§1.4.4 of the way these titles are contextually disconnected; and one instance is a
verbal form referring to angels “sanctifying” Allāh (Q2:30). These references all
appear to reflect Christian or Jewish influence. In contrast all the uses of ḥ-r-m
refer to non-Biblical, native Arab contexts.
The native Arab concept of holiness is based on something being forbidden or
unlawful, exemplified in the phrase al-ashhur al-ḥurum “sacred months,” during
which fighting was forbidden; the noun ḥaram or “sanctuary,” a word which
means a “forbidden” place; and iḥram (Q5:1), which is a state in which certain
foods are forbidden to a person.
The concept of ḥ-r-m is very different from that of the Hebrew concept of
holiness, which is based on the idea of separation rather than forbiddenness.44
The most important difference is that ḥ-r-m cannot be an attribute of God,
because it makes no sense to call God “forbidden,” but the Hebrew concept of
holiness is one of the most important attributes of God. It is noteworthy that the
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan (McAuliffe 2001–2006) has no entry for “holy,”
but includes one for “Sacred Precincts” (Rubin 2004). In contrast holiness is a
central theological concept of the Bible—in both Christian and Jewish readings
—and merits a major entry in any Bible dictionary or encyclopedia.
The fact that q-d-s represented an alien, borrowed category in Arabic, accounts
for why Ibn Kathīr’s commentary devotes only half a dozen lines amid
thousands of pages to explaining what it means to call Allāh “holy” in Q59:23
and Q62:1, and it is clear from these few lines that he is not sure what quddūs
means, whether “pure,” “blessed,” “glorified by angels,” or “perfect”:
“Al-Quddus,” meaning “The Pure,” according to Wahb bin Munabbih, while
Mujāhid and Qatādah said that Al-Quddūs means “The Blessed.” Ibn Jurayj
said that Al-Quddūs means “He Whom the honorable angels glorify.”45
(Commentary on Q59:23, Ibn Kathīr 2003, 9:578)
“the Holy,” . . . He is the Holy, free of all shortcomings, His attributes are
perfect. (Commentary on Q62:1, Ibn Kathīr 2003, 9:630)

6.5.2 Conclusion to Discussion of Holiness

Whereas Arab culture had a preexisting concept of sacredness, based on the idea
of “forbidden, inviolable,” the Hebrew concept of the holy as “separate” was a
Northwest Semitic development, common to Hebrew and Aramaic, but alien to
Arabic language and culture. Although the Qurʾan has a handful of derivatives
from q-d-s forms, these show evidence of borrowing in several ways. They
mostly appear in Biblical contexts and are not well integrated into Qurʾanic
theological understandings. The form al-qudus, in particular, is not
morphologically analyzable in Arabic. Furthermore, it is not possible, on the
basis of the Qurʾan, to construct a clear understanding of what these q-d-s forms
actually mean, a situation which led commentators to suggest a variety of
divergent interpretations. This suggests that the q-d-s forms were used for their
indexical value as religious markers rather than as terms with a clearly
understood meaning.
These observations lead us to the conclusion that the Qurʾan’s incorporation of
terms for holiness derived from the root q-d-s are not well integrated, and show
evidence of loss of meaning. This points to a disruptive process of borrowing
rather than a theological inheritance in some kind of continuity between the
Qurʾan and the Bible.
The combined loss of theological meaning in the treatment of Biblical
categories of spirit, presence, and holiness come together in the annunciation
story. Instead of God’s holy presence overshadowing Mary to cause her to
conceive, in the Qurʾan Allāh blows into Maryam’s vulva, facilitated in some
way by an angel. The theological discontinuity is not superficial, but profound.
Despite a certain surface similarity of expressions and narrative elements,
involving phono-semantic matching, the “camouflage” of superficial formal
resemblances of terms conceals a deeper divergence and disruption of meaning.
Although linguistic materials such as rūḥ al-qudus can be conclusively identified
as Biblical reflexes, they have been deployed in a very different theological
context, and serve a new purpose. These elements have been borrowed and
repurposed rather than retained as part of a theological inheritance.

6.6 SATAN AND SATANS

At first sight, the word shayṭān “satan” or “Satan,” used in the Qurʾan, might
appear to be a borrowing from Syriac Śāṭānā or Hebrew Śāṭān. However, as we
shall see, the form and function of shayṭān present a number of difficulties for a
straightforward borrowing account. It will instead be argued here that shayṭān is
a multisourced neologism, a repurposing by a process of phono-semantic
matching, which adapted a preexisting Arabic word for a species of snake, the
Arabian horned viper, and used it to refer to Satan, the prince of demons. This
analysis accounts for certain idiosyncratic features of the Qurʾanic uses of al-
shayṭān and shayāṭīn, and clarifies a semantic contribution made by Arabic to
the Qurʾan’s understandings of shayṭān.

6.6.1 Satan in the Bible

In the Hebrew Bible, except for the reference to Śāṭān in 1 Chr. 21:1, Satan is
not used as a personal name. The word śāṭān “adversary, accuser” from śāṭan
“attack, oppose” is used in connection with warfare (1 Kgs 5:4) and court
processes (Ps. 109:6). In Num. 22:22, the angel of the Lord stands in front of
Balaam as a śāṭān, that is, to block and oppose him. In Job 1–2 “the śāṭān” (with
definite article) is “the accuser” who opposes Job, not a personal name, and
likewise ‘the accuser’ of the High Priest Joshua in Zech. 3:2–3. Only in 1 Chr.
21:1, where Satan tempts David to conduct a census, is Śāṭān found used
without the article, as a personal name. In later Jewish writings of the third to
fifth centuries CE Śāṭān (without the article) becomes more prominent in the
Talmud and Midrash, where he plays the role of an accuser, and to a lesser
extent, a tempter (Rabinowitz 2007b, 72–73).
The elaboration of the role in the New Testament of Satanâs “Satan,” also
referred to as diábolos “devil” (from diabállô “to accuse”) represents one of the
major theological innovations of the New Testament in comparison to the
Hebrew Bible. In the NT Satan is the ruler of demons (Luke 11:18), or “prince of
this world” (Jn 12:31), ruler of “this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), and the chief
tempter of human beings, inciting them to sin (Mt. 4:1–10; Luke 4:2–13; 1 Cor.
7:5; 1 Tim. 5:14–15) using lies and deception (Jn 8:44; 2 Thes. 2:9; Rev. 12:9).
He exercises power over unredeemed humanity (Acts 26:18), commands demons
which afflict people (Luke 11:18; Acts 10:38), and accuses them before God
(Rev. 12:10). In Christian eschatology Satan is the arch enemy of God and his
Messiah (Luke 10:18; Eph. 6:11–12; Rev. 12:9; 1 Jn 3:8) whose rule in this
world is limited in time (Rev. 12:12) and whose defeat represents God’s final
victory over evil (Rev. 20:10).

6.6.2 Satan and Satans in the Qurʾan

The Qurʾan uses the term shayṭān (pl. shayāṭīn) in indefinite contexts to refer to
beings who are in rebellion against Allāh (Q37:7) and are rejected by him
(Q15:17). The shayāṭīn are not a different order of created being, unlike humans
or the jinn, but a role which can be played by either: “We have assigned an
enemy for every prophet: shayāṭīn of humankind and jinn” (Q6:112).
Although they may be human, most references to shayāṭīn in the Qurʾan
appear to be to jinn. The associations between shayāṭīn and jinn can be observed
in a number of ways:

• The role of the jinn as familiar spirits in inspiring speech, particularly poetry,
is well known in pagan Arab culture (Fahd 1997). Several verses refer to
allegations that the Messenger is “possessed” (majnūn), that is, by a jinnī.
Q26:210, 221, Q6:112, and Q6:121 call spirits who inspire speech shayāṭīn,
and Q81:25 rejects the proposal that the Messenger is majnūn (Q81:22) by
denying that a shayṭān inspires the Messenger (Q81:25).
• Pagan deities are identified variously as jinn (Q6:100; Q34:41) and shayāṭīn
(e.g., Q4:117).
• Sulaymān is variously spoken of as having among his servants jinn (Q27:17,
39; Q34:12–14) and shayāṭīn (Q21:81–82).
• Beings who eavesdrop in the heavens but are warded off by celestial missiles
are variously described as jinn (Q72:9) and shayāṭīn (Q15:17–18; Q37:7–10;
Q67:5).
Key attributes of shayāṭīn in the Qurʾan are enmity and deception. The shayāṭīn
act as enemies of the faithful (Q43:62) and their principal (divinely ordained)
function is to lead people astray from the rightly guided path (Q6:71; Q7:30;
Q19:83; Q22:3), particularly by inspiring speech (Q6:112; Q81:25; Q26:210,
221) and making evil suggestions (Q6:121; Q23:97), including teaching magic
(Q2:102). A “satan” may also be assigned by Allāh to individual rejectors of his
message, deceiving them by leading them astray, in order to ensure that they are
kept from Allāh’s way, even while they may think they are rightly guided
(Q43:36–37).
Consistent with the function of the shayāṭīn, the expression al-Shayṭān “the
Satan” appears mainly in contexts of tempting or leading people astray (Q2:168,
208; Q3:155; Q4:60, 119; Q7:201; Q16:63; Q19:83; Q25:29; Q27:24; Q28:15;
Q29:38; Q31:21; Q34:20; Q47:25), including the stories of the Fall of Ādam
(Q2:36; Q7:20–26; Q20:117–23; concerning which see §6.8.2). Specific ways of
al-Shayṭān include inciting stinginess (Q2:268, 275); inciting fear (Q3:175);
lying and making false promises (Q4:120; Q7:22; Q8:48; Q14:22; Q17:64;
Q59:16); impurity and shame (Q8:11; Q24:21); sowing dissension and strife
(Q12:100; Q17:53; Q58:10); and making people forget what they should
remember (Q6:43–44, 68; Q7:200–201; Q12:42; Q18:63). People should seek
protection from al-Shayṭān (Q3:36; Q41:36), particularly when reciting the
Qurʾan (Q16:98). Although al-Shayṭān opposes the messengers of Allāh
(Q22:52) and is an enemy to humankind (Q12:5; Q17:53), he is said only to
have authority over those who do not trust in Allāh, specifically those who have
associated (Q16:99–100).
A figure called Iblīs46 is at first said to have been one of the angels (Q2:34;
Q18:50), but is also declared to be one of the jinn after he refuses to bow down
before Ādam together with other angels (Q18:50). Iblīs also says about himself
that, unlike Ādam, he is made from fire (Q38:76), which suggests that he was
created a jinn. Iblīs appears to refer to the same entity as al-Shayṭān “the Satan,”
however, except for Q17:61–64, where Iblīs is also referred to as al-Shayṭān,47
these two titles are used in distinct narratives, although sometimes collocated.
All but one reference to Iblīs occur in connection with a story about angels being
commanded to bow down to Ādam (Q2:34; Q7:11–16; Q15:28–42; Q17:61–65;
Q18:50; Q20:116; Q38:71–88).
Iblīs and al-Shayṭān also share certain attributes. They both are uniquely
referred to as rajīm “accursed” (Q3:36; Q38:74). Like al-Shayṭān, Iblīs reports,
as a codicil to instances of the “bowing down to Ādam” narrative, that he is
tasked by Allāh with leading people astray (Q7:16; Q15:38–42), which is also a
function of al-Shayṭān. Furthermore, in Q17:61–64, Allāh addresses Iblīs and
tasks him with leading human beings astray, and this charge is concluded with
“But al-Shayṭān promises them nothing but deceit” (Q17:64), which strongly
suggests that Iblīs and al-Shayṭān are the same being.

6.6.3 Functional Comparison of the Biblical and Qurʾanic Satans

In the Qurʾan, as in the New Testament, al-Shayṭān leads people astray and
deceives them with lies, activities which are also consistent with the example of
the serpent in Genesis 3. However, al-Shayṭān’s activities are framed by the
Qurʾan’s theology of guidance (§6.8), and the Biblical idea of Satan as an arch
accuser is absent from the list of al-Shayṭān’s distinctive roles in the Qurʾan. He
does bear witness at the final judgment (Q14:22), but this function is also
performed by others, including messengers, angels and jinn (Q2:143; Q4:159,
166; Q6:130; Q22:78; Q50:27).
It is striking that it is al-Shayṭān, and not Iblīs, who appears in the Qurʾanic
accounts of the story of the expulsion of Ādam from the Garden. In the Hebrew
of Genesis 3 the word Śāṭān is not found, but only ha-naḥash “the serpent.”
Although the conflation of the serpent with Satan came to be rejected by the
Rabbis (Witztum 2011, 90), Christianity appears to have inherited it from early
Judaism (Kugel 1994, 98–100), and in Syriac writings contemporary with the
Qurʾan the serpent of Genesis 3 is referred to as Śāṭānā “Satan” (Witztum 2011,
91ff), which corresponds to the use of al-Shayṭān of the Qurʾan.

6.6.4 Problems with the Correspondence

At first sight the Qurʾanic Shayṭān would appear to be either cognate with or
borrowed from Hebrew Śāṭān or Syriac Śāṭānā.48 However, there are
phonological, semantic, and morphological discrepancies in the
correspondences, which are the focus of this section:

1. Hebrew Śāṭān “accuser, adversary” is derived from the root ś-ṭ-n “oppose,
resist, be an adversary against.” In contrast, the phonologically equivalent
Arabic root sh-ṭ-n has the very different and apparently unrelated basic
meaning of “become distant or remote,” which can be used in connection with
“entering into the earth, penetrating it, and becoming concealed in it” (Lane
1863, 1551). A number of semantically connected derivatives are formed from
Arabic sh-ṭ-n connected with drawing water from a deep well, such as shaṭan
 “a long rope for drawing water from a well” and shaṭūn “a deep well which
narrows at the bottom, from which it is necessary to draw water a long way
with two long ropes” (Lane 1863, 1552). Thus the Hebrew ś-ṭ-n and Arabic
sh-ṭ-n roots, although displaying a regular Semitic phonological
correspondence, have unrelated meanings, so we must conclude that they are
not cognate.
2. If shayṭān is a borrowing, there is a difficulty with the -ay- in the first syllable
instead of the expected -ā- in the form. A straightforward borrowing process
from Syriac or Hebrew would have produced shāṭān, which is not attested.49
The form of the plural, shayāṭīn, is also problematic.
3. Another issue is that the Qurʾanic shayṭān has a range of meanings which
does not match what is found in Christian or Jewish sources. The Qurʾan often
speaks of jinn (and occasionally humans) as shayāṭīn “satans” (e.g., Q6:112),
a common noun, but this semantic extension is not found in contemporary
Jewish or Christian writings with Śāṭān or Śāṭānā.
4. A further difference is the use of the definite article in Arabic: in Syriac and
moraic Hebrew writings the title is used as a proper name, without an
article.50

A key to understanding the way the Qurʾan uses shayṭān is that it was already
attested in pre-Qurʾanic poetry referring to a species of snake (Lane 1863, 1552;
Jeffery 1938, 187–190; Kropp 2007, 338; Horovitz 1926, 120ff; Reynolds
2010b, 57, fn93), and, metaphorically, it was already in use in Arabic before the
Qurʾan to refer to people or demons, including enemies (van Vloten 1893, 174;
Jeffery 1938, 189–190). The polysemy of words meaning “snake” with
“demons” and “powerful men” was productive, being attested elsewhere in
Arabic (van Vloten 1893, 176–177). The word shayṭān is also attested as a
personal name or nickname (van Vloten 1893, 176–177), and as a tribal
designation, apparently of totemic significance (Jeffery 1938, 188–189). There is
also monumental evidence of cultic veneration of snakes among the Nabataeans
of Petra (Wenning 2012).
What species of snake was the shayṭān? Lane reports that Arab dictionaries
describe the shayṭān as “having a mane, of foul aspect,” or “foul, ugly, in the
head and face” or “a slender, light or active serpent” (Lane 1863, 1552). Lane
erred in translating ʿarf as “mane,” which can indeed refer to a horse’s mane, but
it can also refer to the comb of a rooster, or, as a topographic term, to an elevated
ridge (Lane 1863, 2015). In reference to a snake, ʿarf would not be a mane, but a
crest of some kind, and indeed “crested” is how Jeffery translates ʿarf, used as a
modifier of shayṭān in old Arabic poetry (Jeffery 1938, 188).
The lexicographers’ descriptions collated by Lane fit cerastes gasperettii, the
Arabian horned viper (Leviton and Anderson 1967, 183–188), a common snake
of 35–70 centimeters (Leviton and Anderson 1967, 186), of ugly appearance,
and “evil reputation and fierce behaviour” (Corkill 1935, 28). The venom is
highly toxic. The horned viper has distinctive protuberances above each eye,
which in some populations have the appearance of horns. This viper species is an
ambush predator, hunting by concealing itself in the soil, with only the tip of its
head (and horns) showing, waiting for its prey (Corkill 1935, 28). One is
reminded of al-Shayṭān’s job description in Q7:16 of “lying in wait” for people
on the straight path.
It is apparent from the description of the tree of al-zaqqūm in Q37:65 that the
Qurʾanic community was familiar with the “serpent” meaning for shayṭān. This
tree grows in the Fire, and its fruits, to be consumed as one of the torments of the
damned, washed down with boiling water, are said to be like the heads of
shayāṭīn. This surely refers to the heads of horned vipers, not the jinn.51 The
torments of the Fire described in the Qurʾan are very graphic and concrete, and
eating the heads of poisonous vipers, which were notoriously ugly, and whose
bite causes acute pain and necrosis of the flesh, is more in keeping with these
torments than eating the heads of incorporeal demons.
Concerning its etymology, we note that there could be an indexical connection
between shayṭān “Arabian horned viper” and the root sh-ṭ-n “become distant and
remote,” in the specific sense of “enter the earth, penetrating it and becoming
concealed in it,” because of the species’ manner of hunting. Shayṭān could be a
rare adjectival form with the etymology “hiding in the earth,” analogous to
haydhār “babbler,” hayṣār “mangled” and haydhām “dashing” (Brockelmann
1908, 344).52
Let us now consider how a model of borrowing, phono-semantic matching,
could be applied to shayṭān as a borrowing from either Syriac Śāṭānā or Hebrew
Śāṭān, or both simultaneously.

6.6.5 Phono-Semantic Matching

Zuckermann (2003) has defined a new category of borrowing, phono-semantic
matching (PSM), in which a borrowed lexical item is incorporated into the target
language in such a way that the neologism is similar both phonetically and
semantically to a preexisting item in the target language. These he called
multisourced neologisms, which fuse lexical materials from the source and target
languages. As an example, consider vernacular Arabic arḍī shawkī, which
hybridized English artichoke with arḍī “earthly, terrestrial, of ground”
(artichokes grow in the earth) and shawkī “thorny, prickly” (artichokes, a variety
of thistle, are prickly).53 The result is a compound form which is phonetically
similar to the source language, and has components whose meanings show
similarity with artichoke, namely “something prickly from the ground.”
Zuckermann (2003, 37) observed that PSM can function as “camouflaged
borrowing,” which differs “from the case of classical guestwords, foreignisms
and loanwords, and in which the SL [Source Language] lexical item is replaced
by semantically, phonetically or phono-semantically related TL [Target
Language] morphemes or lexemes.” Such camouflaged borrowings can be the
result of deliberate language planning—a “shrewd technique employed by
purists” (Zuckermann 2003, 38)—but they can also be created spontaneously by
ordinary speakers.54
A modern standard Arabic example is the borrowing of techni(cal) as taqni or
tiqani “technical, technological,” which has been hybridized using the Arabic
root t-q-n “to master, improve, bring to perfection,” for example, atqana
“improved” and tiqn “skillful, clever.” One would normally have expected /k/
instead of /q/ from borrowing technical—the word technique is borrowed as
taknīk—but in this case the borrowed form is adjusted to conform to the root t-q-
n (Sapir and Zuckermann 2013, 39), requiring a change in consonant from /k/ >
/q/.55
The process of borrowing through PSM can be represented formally in Figure
6.1, where <x “a”>SL stands for a linguistic sign in the Source Language with
phonological form x and meaning “a.”56
Figure 6.1 Phono-semantic matching.

In PSM a “source” lexical item <x “a”>SL is combined with features of a

phonetically and semantically similar “model” in the target language, <y “b”>TL,
to produce the neologism <Y “A”>TL, which combines semantic characteristics
of the source with phonetic characteristics of the model.
Let us now apply this borrowing schema to the Qurʾanic shayṭān:
 SYRIAC or HEBREW SOURCE (Source Language)
x = Śāṭānā or Śāṭān
“a” = “Satan,” also identified in Syriac writings as the serpent in the Garden.

ARABIC MODEL (Target Language)

y = shayṭān
“b” = “Arabian horned viper,” and, in a preexisting metaphorical polysemy,
also used to refer to “β” = “evil people or jinn.”

MODEL-SOURCE BRIDGE
y is phonetically similar to x
“b” is semantically similar to “a,” both in the conflation of Satan with the
“serpent” of Genesis 3 in contemporary Syriac sources, and also in the
model’s preexisting metaphorical reference to jinn.

ARABIC NEOLOGISM (Target Language)

Y = shayṭān is based on y = shayṭān (they are identical)
“A” = “Satan” is based on “a” = “Satan.” Its function as a common noun to
refer to people or jinn is influenced by the secondary polysemous
meanings of “β” = “evil people or jinn.”

We conclude that shayṭān was a preexisting Arabic word referring to the Arabian
horned viper, cerastes gasperettii, which was also used metaphorically for
hostile people and jinn. This form was taken up in Qurʾanic Arabic to refer to the
serpent/Satan figure of the Ādam story. This use was borrowed from the
phonetically similar Hebrew Śāṭān or Syriac Śāṭānā, but in a camouflaged form,
via a process of PSM. It hybridized the Hebrew and/or Syriac source with a
native Arabic word referring to a species of poisonous snake of ugly appearance.
The original meaning is preserved in Q37:65, which refers to a tree in the Fire
which bears fruit like the “heads of the shayāṭīn.”
This analysis accounts for the four discrepant features of shayṭān as a regular
borrowing from Syriac or Hebrew:

1. The borrowing was not based on a cognate relationship, but on similarity of

meaning and phonological form with a preexisting unrelated word.
2. The phonological form of both shayṭān and its irregular plural are retained
from pre-Qurʾanic Arabic, and not derived from Syriac or Hebrew.
3. The range of meanings of shayṭān is a direct continuation of the preexisting
 metaphorical sense referring to humans or demons.
4. The word shayṭān, as adapted by the Qurʾan from within Arabic, was a
common noun, and not a proper name, which explains the introduction of the
definite article to form al-Shayṭān to distinguish Satan from the “satans,”
whether human or jinn.

Contra Reynolds (2010b, 57, fn 93) we conclude that shayṭān is not cognate with
Śāṭān. It was indeed a borrowing, but a “camouflaged” one. Qurʾanic Arabic
adapted a preexisting Arabic word, shayṭān, which was not actually cognate with
Śāṭān or Śāṭānā, but sounded like them, and happened to refer to a kind of snake
(handily matching the Hebrew of Genesis 3), as well as already being used,
metaphorically, to refer to “poisonous” adversaries in the form of jinn or people.
This poisonous snake, the Arabian horned viper, was proverbially ugly in
appearance, which made it well suited its new meaning, with the definite article,
to refer to the chief of demons.

6.6.6 An Ethiopic Connection?

There is a further possible influence to consider, from Ethiopic, before this
account is complete. The word for Satan in Geʿez is saytān, which is attested in
the first translation of the gospels into Geʿez, dating from the fourth century CE,
two centuries before the Qurʾan.57 The -ay- diphthong in the initial syllable
could suggest an influence between Arabic and Geʿez, but in which direction?
To account for this similarity, Praetorius (1907, 619) posited borrowing into
Geʿez from Arabic, but Nöldeke argued for the opposite influence, into Arabic
from Geʿez, on the basis that Christianity or Judaism could not have reached
Yemen before Ethiopia:
The suggestion expressed by Praetorius, that the word went the other way,
from Arabia to Abyssinia, could only be allowed on the assumption that
Christianity or Judaism had become firmly established much earlier in Yemen
than on the other side of the Red Sea. (Nöldeke 1910, 47)
The foundation of Christianity in Ethiopia is dated to the middle of the fourth
century CE, yet we now know that the earliest datable Jewish presence in the
Arabian peninsula goes back at least to the first century BCE, both in the Ḥijāz
(the north) and Ḥimyar (the southwest).58
We also know that the Arabic-speaking Petra, whose influence spread far into
the Ḥijāz and beyond, included a Christian presence from at least the third
century CE: it was reported that Bishop Asterius of Petra attended the Council of
Alexandria in 363 CE (Wace and Piercy 1999, 123). It therefore seems plausible
that Geʿez could have been influenced by Arabic-speaking Jews or Christians
before the second half of the fourth century. In any case, Nöldeke’s contention
that the influence went from Geʿez to Arabic renders the -ay- inexplicable, as
there is no apparent model in Geʿez which could have served as the basis for this
innovation within Geʿez, in contrast to the account given here for Arabic.
Kropp (2007, 337), and others before him,59 have argued that rajīm “stoned,”
used several times in the Qurʾan, and always in conjunction with al-Shayṭān
(e.g., Q3:36) and Iblīs (Q38:74), must have been borrowed from Geʿez rəgum
“cursed,” which is attested in the Geʿez translations of Gen. 3:14 in connection
with the snake, and Mt. 25:41 in connection with Satan. If true, this could be
another case of PSM, the Arabic substituting rajīm “stoned” for the similar-
sounding Geʿez rəgum “cursed.” An argument to support this borrowing thesis is
that “stoning” Satan, an incorporeal being, hardly makes sense (although in
Q67:5 the Qurʾan does report the astral stoning of Satan in the heavens).
However, this line of reasoning overlooks the fact that Arabic r-j-m was already
polysemous: it could be used, not only for stoning, but also for cursing, reviling
or even “speaking conjecturally,” as Lane’s entry (1863, 1048) makes clear, so
rajīm in the Qurʾanic phrase may well have originally just meant “cursed.”
Kropp (2007, 336–337) has pointed out, in any case, that the meaning “to
stone” is probably a secondary development from a proto-semitic speech act
verb, on the basis of evidence from Akkadian and Ugaritic.60 Nöldeke’s (1910,
47) observation that “curse” and “stone” are regularly polysemous in Semitic
languages also supports this theory. This means that an appeal to Ethiopic
influence is not necessary to account for the Qurʾan’s use of rajīm with the
meaning “cursed,”61 and contra Nöldeke (1910, 47), it is not necessary to accuse
Muḥammad of ignorance of the meaning of a Geʿez expression, and in any case
PSM is not evidence of ignorance on the part of the borrower.
Furthermore, since the primary and indeed original meaning of shayṭān in pre-
Qurʾanic Arabic appears to have been a species of snake, because that meaning
is attested in pre-Islamic poetry, it is also plausible that a phrase referring to the
common and necessary act of throwing stones at vipers could have been readily
adapted for cursing demons, without any modification of form, simply on the
basis of the polysemous character of both shayṭān and rajīm. This modification
could have taken place entirely within Arabic, without any need to appeal to an
external source of influence from across the Red Sea.
6.6.7 Internal Developments within the Qurʾan
There is one further piece of evidence which supports the analysis offered here,
and that is the distribution of indefinite and definite uses of shayṭān along the
Qurʾanic timeline. We have argued that the indefinite use in reference to people
and jinn was the prior one and it was indigenous to Arabic, and the definite al-
Shayṭān came later, through PSM of the preexisting shayṭān to Syriac or
Hebrew. This finds confirmation in the distribution of these terms within the
Qurʾan, for the indefinite use is earlier (Figure 6.2), and after a period of overlap
gradually gives way to the definite use (Figure 6.3).

Figure 6.2 Sūrahs with references to shaya¯ṭīn (indef.).

Figure 6.3 Sūrahs with references to al-Shayṭa¯n (def.).

This trend parallels a broader trend in the Qurʾan to focus more on Biblical
themes in later sūrahs, and on pagan ones in the earlier sūrahs. For example, all
the references to jinn are pre-transitional (Figure 6.4), as are all the generic
assertions that Allāh has no offspring (including daughters) which are not made
in references to ʿĪsā (Figure 6.5).62 On the other hand all but one of the
polemical passages asserting that ʿĪsā is neither the son of Allāh nor Allāh are
post-transitional (Figure 6.5), as are the four sūrahs which refer to al-Masīḥ
(Figure 6.6). We conclude that the pattern of use of shayṭān (indef.) and al-
Shayṭān in the Qurʾan parallel the term’s proposed development: shayṭān (indef.)
is the prior usage, in reference to human and jinn adversaries, based ultimately
on the meaning “viper,” and al-Shayṭān is a secondary development through
PSM with a Syriac (or Hebrew) model.
Figure 6.4 Sūrahs with references to jinn.

Figure 6.5 Sūrahs rejecting that Allāh has offspring or rejecting that ʿIsā is Allāh or the son of
Allāh.
Figure 6.6 Sūrahs with references to al-Maṣīh.

6.6.8 Conclusion to Discussion of shayṭa¯n

With or without an additional Geʿez influence, the PSM analysis offered above
accounts for all of the discrepant features of shayṭān in the Qurʾan: the evidence
against cognacy, the phonological divergence from the Hebrew and Syriac
models; the extension of shayṭān to humans and spirit beings, which was
consistent with preexisting uses of shayṭān in Arabic, but not attested for
“Satan” in Hebrew or Syriac; and the appearance of the definite article, which
aligns with “the serpent” of Genesis 3, but cannot be explained if shayṭān were a
simple borrowing from Hebrew or Syriac. The PSM analysis also matches the
way the term is deployed in the Qurʾan, with the definite form coming later, and
the indefinite earlier. The origin of al-Shayṭān as a word meaning “horned
viper,” an ambush predator, gives a neat account also for the role of al-Shayṭān
as one who lies in wait for the traveler on the straight path.
In the Qurʾanic Fall of Ādam narratives the figure of al-shayṭān could have
been understood initially by the Qurʾan’s first audience as ambiguously referring
either to “the serpent,” in semantic alignment with the Hebrew of Genesis 3, or
to “Satan,” in alignment with contemporary Syriac renditions of the Genesis 3
story and the use in Arabic of shayṭān to refer to hostile demons. However, as
the Qurʾan develops, shayṭān’s reference to “satans,” enemies, human, and
spiritual, receded in importance, and the definite meaning of “Satan” becomes
more dominant, as a comparison of Figures 6.2 and 6.3 shows.
What this investigation shows is that a Christian (or Jewish) concept of
“Satan” was not borrowed directly into Qurʾanic Arabic. Instead the Syriac (or
Hebrew) was matched with a preexisting similar-sounding word, shayṭān
“horned viper,” which already contained within itself the implication of enmity,
deceptiveness, and ambush, and which was already used metaphorically to refer
to jinn. This was repurposed in the definite form to service as a Qurʾanic Satan,
al-Shayṭān. The Biblical meaning of “accuser” was lost in this process, as
shayṭān was not associated morphologically with a verb meaning “accuse” or
“oppose” in Arabic, and this meaning was apparently not associated with vipers
either. On the other hand, new meanings were available from the preexisting
metaphorical uses of a term for a viper to refer to demons (and human
adversaries). The term shayṭān became, not the personification of evil, but a
term used for a variety of “poisonous” figures, including demons, humans and,
of course al-Shayṭān himself. These share a variety of characteristics, including
the function of as leading people from the straight path (§5.1.2). In this, al-
Shayṭān becomes, not “the” tempter or “the” deceiver, but a chief among many
other shayāṭīn.
This is a complex example which shows a degree of borrowing, including
some points of theological influence, more indeed than for some of the other
studies in this chapter, but with significant repurposing as well. The case of al-
Shayṭān is not an instance of inheritance, but a complex case of phono-semantic
borrowing with repurposing.

6.7 COVENANT
In this section we consider the status of a Biblical theological theme, YHWH’s
covenantal love. We will ask how the Qurʾan treats reflexes of Biblical materials
which relate to YHWH’s covenantal faithfulness, and whether these reflexes
inherit a theological understanding of covenant and YHWH’s covenant love
from the Bible.

6.7.1 Covenant and Faithfulness in the Bible

Covenant (Hebrew bərīt) is central in the theology of the Hebrew Bible, so much
so that Eichrodt (1961) suggested it is the unifying idea of the Hebrew Bible. In
the Hebrew Bible a covenant is a treaty or alliance between YHWH and human
beings, established by the initiative of YHWH, and involving promises and
warnings, including blessings and curses. Typically a covenant involved mutual
obligations (e.g., Gen. 17:1–14), but it could also be one-sided (e.g., Gen. 15:18
and 2 Sam. 7), but in this case:
. . . it represents a relationship in which a more powerful party makes a pact
with an inferior one freely and out of good will. In this case the superior party
takes the inferior under his protection, on condition that the latter remain
loyal to him. (Weinfeld 2007, 249)63
Even when a covenant is unilateral, as in Genesis 15, the surrounding narrative
documents ways in which the inferior part is expected to reciprocate with loyalty
(e.g., Gen. 17:1, 22:16–18, 26:5), or has already demonstrated loyalty (e.g., 1
Kgs 3:6; 9:4–5).
The establishment of covenants in the Bible is associated with signs, such as
cutting an animal in half and walking between the parts64 (e.g., Gen. 15:10; Jer.
34:18), the rainbow (Gen. 9:12ff), and the Sabbath (Exod. 31:17). In the Bible,
YHWH establishes covenants, inter alia, with Noah (Gen. 6:18; 9:11–16),
Abraham (Gen. 15:18; 17:2–14), Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 17:21, Exod. 2:24), the
people of Israel (Exod. 34:27–28), and with David and his descendants (Ps.
89:3–4; 2 Sam. 7).
The whole of Deuteronomy has been characterized by Von Rad (1966, 26, 33)
as a covenant renewal document which includes a statement of the conditions,
blessings, and curses of the covenant. It has been demonstrated that the structure
of Biblical covenants, including Deuteronomy itself and the narrative of Exod.
19–24, match ancient Near East suzerain-vassal treaties (Mendenhall 1954a, 30,
1954b, 53ff).
Eichrodt (1961) established the centrality of covenant for the theology of the
Hebrew Bible, arguing that the whole subsequent history of Israel after
settlement in Canaan, including the exile and the return to Jerusalem, is
concerned with the consequences of keeping or not keeping the covenant, and
YHWH’s response, both to human actions, and to his own promises made to the
nation. The theologically important terminology of sonship, extended to the
anointed king as “Son of God” (see for example, Ps. 89:26–29; 2 Sam. 7:14; 1
Chr. 17:13), aligns with the terminology of ancient covenants in which vassal
kings were termed “sons” of the superior suzerain. The metaphor of “Father” is
also extended to God’s relationship with the whole people of Israel, who are
collectively his “son” (Exod. 4:22–23; Hos. 11:1), and individually his
“children” (Isa. 1:2; Jer. 3:19). After the destruction of Israel and Judah, the
prophets promise a new covenant (Jer. 31:31; Ezek. 37:26) which YHWH will
make with his people.
Covenant contributes to the religion of Israel in at least four ways. First,
attached to the covenant are the laws by which the people of God are meant to
live, and as such it provides the foundation of ethics. Second, it includes within
it procedures for worship, including the ordering of the calendar, festivals and
temple/tabernacle worship. Third, it provides a framework against which history
is interpreted, including the history of exile and return. Fourth, it articulates the
character of YHWH, particularly his justice, faithfulness and love, and goodness
and establishes a foundation for human expectations of relationship with YHWH
(Hafemann 2007, 21–22).
The New Testament continues the theme of covenant.65 The coming of Jesus is
described as a fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel (Luke 1:72). The
covenant terminology of sonship in the Hebrew Bible is applied to Jesus as
Messiah. The idea of a covenant ritual, marked by the shedding of an animal’s
blood, is taken up in Jesus’ description of his blood shed as a sign of the “new
covenant” (Mt. 26:28), language which is reinforced in the letters (1 Cor. 11:25;
2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:6–8).66 The Hebrew Bible’s promises of covenant renewal and
a new covenant (Jer. 31:31–37, Joel 2:28–32 and Ezek. 16:60–62, 37:26) are
considered fulfilled in Christ (e.g., Acts 2; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:8–12). The Hebrew
Bible’s covenant language of the sovereign fatherhood of YHWH is picked up in
Jesus’ teaching that his disciples were to call God “Father,” represented, for
example, in the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:9), and also his personal relationship with
the Father (Jn 5:19–23).
It is in the context of receipt of the covenant, symbolized by the stone tablets
(Exod. 34:1–3) that YHWH revealed his character to Moses, proclaiming his
“name” which includes a declaration of his ḥesed “lovingkindness” or
“covenantal loyalty.” This “virtue in human affairs” is “declared and expanded
by God as the central feature of his name” (Bruckner 2003, 226):
YHWH, YHWH, God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
steadfast love [ḥesed] and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love [ḥesed] for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin . . . (Exod.
34:6–7; cf. Deut. 7:9)
One of the characteristics of the covenantal love of YHWH is that it is
maintained in spite of human sin. An example of this is YHWH’s promise to
Israel that after due punishment for not keeping the covenant, he will once again
restore them:
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my
faithfulness (ḥesed) to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O
virgin Israel! (Jer. 31:3–4; cf. Lam. 3:31–32)
Although people may prove unfaithful, YHWH will not break his covenant:
[After describing the punishments for disobedience:] I will not spurn them, or
abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them;
for I am YHWH their God. (Lev. 26:44)
A lived parable of this faithful love, a prophetic act, is related in Hos. 2:19–20:
And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in
righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love (ḥesed), and in mercy. I will
take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. (Hos.
2:19–20)
Here the prophet is told to marry a prostitute “in ḥesed,” as a sign of YHWH’s
love. YHWH explains through the prophet Malachi that the continuing existence
of his people is a sign of his unchanging character, and in particular of his
faithfulness to his people:
For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not
perished. (Mal. 3:6; cf. also from the New Testament Rom. 11:28–29)
The twin ideas of God’s faithful love, and that it comes even to undeserving
sinners, is also foundational to the New Testament concept of salvation:
God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for
us. (Rom. 5:8; cf. Eph. 2:4–5; 2 Tim. 2:13)
The idea of YHWH’s love for—and patience with—sinners has far-reaching
effects all through the Bible. For example, so many of the figures who are held
up in the scriptures as people with an active relationship with YHWH and
through whom YHWH worked, manifest fundamental flaws in their character
and actions. Abraham lied about his marriage to his half-sister Sarah while living
among strangers, implying that she was his sister, with the result that she was
twice taken to be another man’s wife (Gen. 12:14–20; 20:1–18) and Isaac almost
repeated the same mistake (Gen. 26:6–11); Moses was a murderer (Exod. 2:12);
Saul engaged in necromancy (1 Sam. 28); David was an adulterer with
Bathsheba and murdered her husband to cover his tracks (2 Sam. 11–12); and
Solomon erected temples to pagan idols, including Molech the Canaanite God of
child sacrifice (1 Kgs 11:7; 2 Kgs 23:13). In the New Testament Peter denied
Jesus three times (Luke 22:54–62), and Paul had been a persecutor and even
murderer of believers (Acts 8:1; 9:1–2). It is often not the case that men and
women of faith in the Bible are held up as paragons of perfection. This is
possible in the light of YHWH’s faithfulness.
Another aspect of YHWH’s covenantal faithfulness is his goodness (ṭōb).
When YHWH reveals his name to Moses on Mount Sinai, he refers to this as
letting all his “goodness” pass before Moses (Exod. 33:19). This goodness is
celebrated in Psalm 136 in its introductory verse, which like Ps. 23:6, pairs
goodness and covenantal love (ḥesed) together:
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures
forever. (Ps. 136:1; cf. Ps. 27:13; Hos. 3:5; Mk 10:18; 2 Pet 1:3)

6.7.2 Covenant Awareness in the Qurʾan

In his article on Covenant for Encyclopaedia Judaica, Weinfeld states (2007,
153), “The idea of a covenant between a deity and a people is unknown from
other religions and cultures.” However, Denny (2001, 379), in his Encyclopaedia
of the Qurʾan article “Community and Society” declared that “The Muslim
umma, like its Jewish and Christian Predecessors, is a covenant (ʿahd or mīthāq)
community.”
In this section we consider the evidence from the Qurʾan in relation to these
competing and mutually exclusive claims. In particular we will consider whether
ʿahd or mīthāq are indeed equivalent to the Biblical idea of covenant. English
translations of the Qurʾan often use “covenant” to translate these two Qurʾanic
Arabic terms. For example, in Q2:100 al-Hilālī and Khān’s (1998) Noble Qurʾan
translates ʿahd as “covenant,” as do Yūsuf ʿAlī (1999), Arberry (1998) and
Droge (2014). In the Western scholarly literature the case for a covenantal
understanding of the relationship between Allāh and humankind has been made
most clearly by Jeffery (1950, 119), who, citing Q33:7 and Q3:81, concludes that
Allāh enters into a relationship with His messengers. The mutual conditions of
the covenant Jeffery summarizes as follows:
 On His part He gives them a revelation of Himself which makes clear to them
His uniqueness (XXI.25), promises them His aid (XL.51; X.103) and His
guidance (VI.90; XIX.58), and of course gives to them the message, His
“word” which they are to deliver (XXXVII.171). They on their part undertake
the task of delivering the message (V.67; VII.62, 68, 79), firmly enduring in
spite of all opposition (XLVI.35; VI.34), bearing witness (LXXIII.15), setting
forth Allah’s signs (XX.134), and asking no recompense from men since their
reward is from Allah (XXXVI.21).67 (1950, 119)
There can be no doubt that in the Qurʾan Allāh makes offers and promises to
believers and also imposes obligations upon them. However, the question is
whether the Qurʾan itself construes these conditions on Allāh and humanity in
covenantal terms. Did Jeffery merely collect together a set of obligations which
are referred to in the Qurʾan and call these a “covenant” because they are
reminiscent of a Biblical understanding of the word? This distinction is
important, because we are asking whether and to what extent an important aspect
of Biblical Theology has been taken up in the Qurʾan, particularly in passages
which appear to be reflexes of covenantal passages in the Bible.
The Biblical concept of a covenant is both complex and specific. A Biblical
covenant is a formal agreement between two parties, in which there are mutual
obligations. As we have seen, there is a rich set of values attached to the Biblical
covenants, including loving faithfulness. The theologically important covenants
in the Bible are between unequal parties, contracted at the instigation of the
superior party, YHWH, and including in their execution an oath made by
YHWH. Does the Qurʾan show evidence of such a construct as “covenant,” in its
own self-understanding?
To explore this question, we will examine Qurʾanic Arabic terms for
promising, commanding, and pledging which might be considered to stand for
“covenant,” and then we investigate textual reflexes of Biblical passages in the
Qurʾan which deal with what could be potential covenant themes. In laying out
our argument, it is important to emphasize we need to consider the Qurʾan’s own
language, and explore the text’s own self-understanding, in order to clearly
define the structure of its meaning.

6.7.3 The Lexical Evidence

There are three main Arabic roots which are used in the Qurʾan in the general
semantic field of imposing binding obligations upon oneself or others. These are:
 w-ʿ-d 151 instances
ʿ-h-d 46 instances
m-th-q 34 instances

Let us first briefly consider w-ʿ-d. The verb waʿada can mean “promise” (but
also “threaten”), whence the nouns waʿd “promise” and waʿīd “threat, warning.”
This frequently used root describes, not a mutual covenant, but a one-sided
commitment in which one party binds itself in relation to another. For example
according to Q9:111, Allāh has bound himself in the Tawrāh, the Injīl and the
Qurʾan with a promise (waʿd) to provide a place in the Garden for those who
give their lives and wealth in his cause.
w-th-q
A Qurʾanic word sometimes translated into English as “covenant” is mīthāq (see
for example, Q2:83; Q5:7). This is formed from a root w-th-q meaning “bind,
make firm.” The noun mīthāq normally refers to a one-sided obligation. The
expression “take (akhadha) someone’s mīthāq” means to extract someone’s
acceptance of a binding obligation. This is an Arabic speech act (Austin 1962)
involving two parties, which is referred to as “taking someone’s mīthāq.” The
performance of this speech act consists of a statement of obligation by one party
imposed upon the other, in the form of the verbal command, and then the
obligated party accepts the obligation. Wansbrough (1977, 8) rightly describes
this as a “unilateral imposition.”
The structure of a mīthāq speech act is illustrated by Q3:81.68 A verbal
command is articulated, and the formal acceptance of the imposition follows
with, “We accept”:
Allāh took the prophets’ mīthāq: “When I give you a book and wisdom, and a
messenger comes to you confirming what you have, you are to believe in him
and help him.” He said, “Do you affirm and accept what I am imposing?”
They said, “We accept.” (Q3:81; cf. Q33:7)
Two further examples are found Q2:83–84, where the text twice speaks of Allāh
“taking the Sons of Israel’s mīthāq.” In Q2:83 the mīthāq includes a series of
commandments, “Do not serve (anyone) but Allāh . . . and give the alms,” and in
Q2:84 a second mīthāq includes two further commandments, “Do not shed your
(own people’s) blood, and do not evict yourselves (i.e. believers) from your
homes . . . .”
 The term mīthāq can also refer to the acceptance response or ratification. The
following passage explains that after someone has voiced their acceptance,
which is referred to as a mīthāq, the agreement is firm:
. . . those who break Allāh’s covenant [ʿahd], after its ratification [mīthāq],
and divide what Allāh has commanded to be joined, and stir up corruption on
the earth . . . (Q13:25; cf. Q2:27)
Q3:81, cited above, is one of the passages referenced by Jeffery as an example of
Allāh entering into covenants with prophets. However, all that the passage
actually states is that Allāh has imposed an obligation upon prophets to accept
future messengers.69 This key passage is to be read together with Q33:7, also
cited by Jeffery, which explains that a mīthāq was taken from the prophets so
that Allāh could “question the truthful about their truthfulness,” in other words,
so that he could test the genuineness of later followers of these prophets. What
was the test? This is made clear in Q5:14, where some who call themselves
Christians are “reminded” about this mīthāq or “obligation” to accept future
messengers (cf. Q5:12). However, it seems “they have forgotten,” because they
are failing to acknowledge that Allāh’s Messenger has come to them (Q5:15).
Note also that in Q3:81 the focus is not on a mutual covenant, but on a specific
command delivered to prophets about the necessity of accepting messengers in
the future, a command which they had agreed to obey.
Like Q3:81, in virtually all cases where the word mīthāq is used in the Qurʾan,
there is no mutual obligation in sight, only a command issued by one party, and
ratified through acceptance of an obligation by the other. There are three putative
exceptions. One is found in Q5:12. In Q5:14, discussed above, the Qurʾan
describes a mīthāq taken from Christians; in Q5:12 there is discussion of a
mīthāq from the Jews which might appear to have some mutual obligations:
Surely Allāh took the mīthāq of the Sons of Israel. . . . “If you observe the
prayer and give alms, and believe in My messengers and support them, and
lend to Allāh a good loan, I shall remit your sins, and bring you into Gardens
beneath which rivers flow. But whoever disbelieves from among you after
that has gone astray from the right way.” (Q5:12)
This verse could be read in a covenantal sense, namely that Allāh has extracted
pledges from the Israelites and made promises in return, notwithstanding that
here and elsewhere the Garden is described as a repayment (of a “good loan”) or
a purchase (Q9:111; Q20:76). As we have seen, the point of this and the
immediately following verses is to rebuke the People of the Book for
“forgetting” their mīthāq to accept and support messengers. The promise to the
Israelites about the Gardens in Q5:12 is not the mīthāq itself, but an incentive for
them to keep their mīthāq. When Q5:13 states that Israelites, like the Christians
(Q5:14), “have forgotten part of what they were reminded of,” the “part” that
they should have remembered is “believe in My messengers and support them”
(Q5:15, 19). So the mīthāq refers to the pledge made by one party, the people,
not the whole bilateral relationship.
Another exception is three verses in which a repeated formula refers to a
mutual obligation between two groups of people:

bayna-kum wa-bayna-hum mīthāqun (Q4:90, 92; Q8:72)

between you and-between-them obligation
“Between you and them is a binding obligation.”

This formula shows that a mīthāq can involve a bilateral obligation in the form
of a treaty, in which it is spelled out that each party is obligated to the other.
There is a single instance of a form III verb wāthaqa “bind someone in a treaty,”
implying reciprocity, in which Allāh is the agent. The focus here, however, is on
the obligation of the human party to be obedient, not on reciprocal obligations:
Remember Allāh’s favor to you and his mīthāq by which he bound you
(wāthaqa-kum) when you said “We hear and we obey.” And keep your duty to
Allāh! (Q5:7)
In conclusion, a careful reading of the mīthāq passages in the Qurʾan reveals that
mīthāq refers to a one-sided obligation, a pledge imposed upon one party by
another. Such pledges can be mutual, but this is the exception, not the rule. The
expression “take someone’s mīthāq” means “bind someone to a pledge,” not
“enter into a covenant with them.”
ʿ-h-d
The noun ʿahd is often rendered “promise,” “command,” or “covenant” in
translations of the Qurʾan. In post-Qurʾanic Christian Arabic, ʿahd was used to
translate “covenant” in Biblical contexts, and it is also used in Islamic law to
refer to the dhimmah covenant of conquered Christian and Jewish subjects. The
noun ʿahd is derived from the root ʿ-h-d, of which the form I verb ʿahada means
“impose an obligation on, command.” According to Ambros and Procházka
(2004), constructions used in the Qurʾan with ʿahada are:
 ʿahada ilā NPX70[an + Imperative Clause]Y: “to give an order to X, to
obligate X [to do Y]”
ʿahada ilā NPX [an lā + Subjunctive/Jussive Clause]Y: “to give an order to
X, to obligate X [not to do Y]”
ʿahada ʿinda +NPX “give a promise to X”

For example:

inna l-lāha ʿahida ilaynā (Q3:183)

indeed Allāh gave an order to us
“Indeed Allāh has commanded us”

An example of the ʿahada ʿinda construction is found in Q7:134, when the

Egyptians urge Mūsā to invoke whatever promise Allāh has made to him in
order to get Allāh to remove the plagues.
Let us consider four translations of Q2:125, in which Allāh imposes an
obligation on Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl:
. . . and We made a covenant with Abraham and Ishmael: “Both of you purify
My House . . .” (Q2:125; Droge 2014)
And We made covenant with Abraham and Ishmael: “Purify My House . . .”
(Q2:125; Arberry 1998)
We covenanted with Abraham and Ismael, that they should sanctify My
House . . . (Q2:125; Yūsuf ʿAlī 1999)
We commanded Ibrahim (Abraham) and Ismail (Ishmael) that they should
purify My House. (Q2:125; al-Hilālī and Khān 1998)
Our preferred translation is:
. . . and We ordered (ʿahada ilā) Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl: “Purify My house . . .”
(Q2:125)
Although Arberry, Yūsuf ʿAlī and Droge translate this verse as “made (a)
covenant” or “covenanted,” there is nothing mutual about the commitment.
Allāh does not bind himself here in any way or make any kind of oath. The
content of the ʿahd is that Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl must purify the “house” for
worshippers. So the translation of al-Hilālī and Khān is the most accurate in this
respect.
It turns out that every single ʿahada construction in the Qurʾan can be
interpreted without any mutuality, as a unilateral imposition. Let us consider a
few more examples. Q20:115 is sometimes translated with “covenant”:
“Certainly we made a covenant with Ādam before . . .” (Droge 2014). However,
the Arabic can be understood as “we commanded Ādam.” In this case the
specific command is made clear just a few verses later in Q20:117, when Allāh
warns Ādam that Iblīs is an enemy to him, and commands him not to let Iblīs
expel him (or cause him to be expelled) from the Garden. Another example is
Q36:60 where Allāh orders (ʿahada) the sons of Ādam not to serve al-Shayṭān.
Here Droge’s (2014) translation “Did I not make a covenant with you . . .” is not
justifiable because this is a one-sided directive, with no mutuality.
Although ʿahada is not used for mutual obligations, a mutual obligation can be
established with a different derivative of ʿ-h-d, in which conditions are imposed
by each party upon the other, reciprocally. In this case the reciprocal form III
verb ʿāhada is used, as in:
A revocation (of obligations) from Allāh and his Messenger to those of the
associators with whom you have made a treaty (ʿāhada) . . . (Q9:1)
The construction with form III ʿāhada occurs in the construction:
ʿāhada (ʿalā71) NPX: “covenant with / make a treaty with / swear allegiance
to X.”
Several instances involve covenants between people (Q2:100, 177; Q8:56; Q9:1,
4, 7). An example of a covenant made with Allāh is Q48:10 (cf. Q16:91;
Q33:15, 23), in which an expectation of mutual obligation is expressed at the
end of the verse, “whoever fulfills what he has covenanted with Allāh—He will
give him a great reward”:72

ʿāhada ʿalayhu l-lāha (Q48:10)

he covenanted with him Allāh
“he has covenanted with Allāh”

Another example is Q9:75, in which someone covenants with Allāh saying to

themselves, “If He gives us some of his bounty, we shall indeed give alms, and
truly be among the righteous.”
What is noteworthy about all examples of form III ʿāhada in the Qurʾan is that
in every case human beings, and not Allāh, are the agent, so Allāh never enters
into mutual covenants as the initiating agent of this verb.
Finally, the noun ʿahd can be used to refer to all of the various kinds of
obligating which ʿahada and ʿāhada encompass, including the obligation of
command, a promise (obligating oneself), and a treaty (the case of the form III)
involving mutual obligation. Lane (1863, 2182–83), citing the later work of Arab
lexicographers, defined several distinct meanings for ʿahd, covering multiple
possibilities, four of which are relevant to the Qurʾan:

1. “An injunction, a charge, a bidding, an order or a command.”

2. “A compact, a contract, a covenant, an agreement, a confederacy, a league, a
treaty, an engagement, a bond, an obligation, or a promise” (e.g., Q9:7, 12).
3. “Protection, or safe-guard; a promise, or an assurance, of security or safety;
responsibility, or suretiship.”
4. “Fulfilment of a promise or the like” (e.g., Q7:102).73

An example of ʿahd as “command” is:

Do not get involved with the property of the orphan, except to improve it,
until he comes of age. . . . Keep the ʿahd of Allāh. (Q6:152; cf. Q17:34)
An example of ʿahd as “promise” is found in Q9:111, in reference to Allāh
keeping his promise to allow into the Garden those who give their lives and
wealth for him (cf. also Q2:124; Q19:78; Q23:8; Q70:32). The expression “take
an ʿahd from (inda)” means “receive a promise from,” as in Q2:80: “Have you
taken an ʿahd from Allāh? Allāh will not break his promise (ʿahd)” (Q2:80).
Q2:27 speaks of “those who break the ʿahd of Allāh after its mīthāq” (i.e., after
its ratification). This refers to breaking Allāh’s command, as the following text in
Q2:27 shows: “and do not divide what Allāh has commanded to be joined.” In
Q2:40 ʿahd is used in a mutual sense, but with two separate ʿahd statements.
This is not a single covenant binding both parties, but two distinct obligations. It
could be translated as “fulfill my ʿahd and I will fulfill your ʿahd.”
Although ʿahd came to be used to refer to the Biblical concept of “covenant”
in later (Christian) Arabic, and already in the Qurʾan it is used to refer to mutual
treaties, there is no clear evidence in the Qurʾan that ʿahd or other derivatives of
ʿ-h-d are used to refer to a mutual covenant initiated by Allāh between Allāh and
humanity. None of the uses of ʿahd or ʿahada show evidence of a mutual reading
of this kind, and the reciprocal ʿāhada construction is never used with Allāh as
its agent.

6.7.4 Conclusion to Discussion of Lexical Evidence

Our survey of the lexical evidence indicates that the Qurʾan does not have
covenantal language in the Biblical sense of YHWH entering into a covenant
with human beings in a way which involves obligations upon God as well upon
people. Virtually all the putative examples from the Qurʾan of Allāh entering
into covenants could be just as well glossed as commands. Although
Wansbrough asserted (1977, 10) that “the source of covenant imagery was
clearly biblical,” the Qurʾan does not refer to Allāh entering into mutual
obligations with human beings. As Wansbrough (1977, 11) himself puts it
“possibly separate traditions of bilateral and unilateral covenants coalesce in the
Quranic imagery to produce the concept of submission explicit in the term
islām.”

6.7.5 Reflexes of Biblical Covenant Passages in the Qurʾan

In the preceding sections we have argued that the lexical evidence does not
suggest that the Qurʾan has an understanding of “covenant” in anything like the
Biblical sense. We will now consider passages which include Biblical reflexes
where covenant is a salient theme in the original Biblical context. If the Qurʾan
had a theology of covenant between Allāh and humanity, one might expect that
covenant themes in such Biblical sources might be preserved to some extent in
Qurʾanic reflexes.
Nūḥ
The name Nūḥ, a reflex of Noah, is mentioned 46 times in the Qurʾan. There are
several passing references, but the main Nūḥ narratives are Q7:59–64; Q11:25–
48; Q23:23–30; Q26:105–22; Q37:75–82; Q54:9–17; and Q71.
Some of the passing references name Nūḥ in a list of past messengers/prophets
(Q3:33; Q4:163; Q6:84; Q9:70; Q33:7; Q40:31). The particular interest of Nūḥ
from the perspective of the Qurʾanic Theology is that the story of the flood is
one of several examples from the past in which Allāh enacted the “nearer
punishment” to destroy a whole people who “called Our signs a lie” (Q7:64; cf.
Q9:70; Q69:1–12; see also §2.1). The story of Nūḥ is also used as an example of
Allāh’s ability to rescue his messengers from evildoers (Q37:75–82; Q23:28;
Q26:117–19), which is another important theme in Qurʾanic Rasulology.
The story of Nūḥ is fully accommodated to a standard Qurʾanic template for
messengers. Like other messengers, Nūḥ is sent to his people, qawm Nūḥ “the
people of Nūḥ” (Q11:25; Q71:1; see §5.2.3). The floodwaters are not described
as universal, but only come upon Nūḥ’s people, as befits the expectations of
Rasulology. In accordance with Rasulology, Nūḥ was a “warner” (Q11:25) to his
people, drawing their attention to Judgment Day (Q7:59; Q11:26). He was also a
preacher of the religion of monotheism (Q7:59; Q23:23; Q42:13), opposing
idolatry (Q71:23). Like other messengers Nūḥ was subjected to the usual
rejections, including being called a liar and a forger, and being mocked (Q7:64;
Q11:27, 35, 38; Q23:26; Q26:105). Like other messengers, he is reminded that
he is only a human being (Q11:27; Q23:24) and taunted to bring the prophesied
destruction forward (Q11:32; cf. §5.2.5).74 The Messenger is encouraged by
being told that, just like him, Nūḥ and other messengers were also called false
(Q22:42). The retelling of the Nūḥ story in Q11:25–48 is taken as a lesson to be
“patient,” because those who “guard themselves” will be successful (Q11:49).
This patience does not mean tolerance: at the end of the longest version of the
story in the Qurʾan, Nūḥ prays that Allāh will leave none of the disbelievers
alive, because “they will lead Your servants astray, and will give birth only to
depraved disbeliever(s)” (Q71:27).
The narratives of Nūḥ are virtually indistinguishable in their features from
accounts of other Qurʾanic messengers from the past, except for the plot
elements of Nūḥ himself, the flood, the ark, and the rescue.75 They tell of a
messenger sent to his people, who was scorned by them, and rescued by Allāh
while the rejectors were destroyed. Standard motifs of Rasulology fill out the
story completely. There is nothing in the narrative of God’s covenant with Noah,
nor of his promise not to destroy the earth again. There is no rainbow. Indeed in
the Qurʾan the earth itself is not even in focus, because those destroyed were
only Nūḥ’s people. The whole covenantal theological frame of the Noah story is
completely missing from the Qurʾanic reflexes.
Waldman (1985), in a comparison of the Joseph/Yūsuf stories in the Bible and
the Qurʾan, concluded that these cannot be considered as different retellings of
the one story, but as quite distinct stories. She traces how the Yūsuf story is
fashioned to serve the distinct theological concerns of the Qurʾan, such as the
truthfulness of messengers when they are accused of lying. This conclusion
applies equally well to Nūḥ stories. The stories of Nūḥ are a good example of
what we are calling “relexification,” but at the level of narrative, not lexical
items. The Qurʾan has taken a few formal elements of the story of Noah and
repopulated these with meanings taken straight out of its own theological toolkit
for messengers.
There is no reference in the Nūḥ stories to the covenant of Genesis 9. Indeed
the whole point of the Nūḥ story is not that Allāh made a covenant to refrain
from bringing destruction down on the earth in future, but, quite the opposite,
that he will destroy any group, down to the last person, which rejects his
messengers (Q71:26–27).
There is an addendum to this analysis which confirms it. Q33:7 refers to a
mīthāq which Allāh “took” with “the prophets,” with the Messenger, Nūḥ,
Ibrāhīm and Mūsā, and ʿĪsā. Here mīthāq is translated by Droge (2014) and
Yūsuf ʿAlī (1999) as “covenant.” What is this “covenant?” Surely it cannot refer
to the covenant of Genesis 9, for it refers to a single mīthāq to which all these
previous prophets were subjected. The verse is explained by Q3:81, which we
have already considered in some detail (§6.7.3). The mīthāq in question, not a
covenant but a command, is an undertaking that prophets must accept later
messengers. This is confirmed by Yūsuf ʿAlī’s (1999, 1197) explanation of
“covenant” in footnote 3677 to verse Q33:7, in which his use of the word
covenant can be replaced in every instance by command without any apparent
loss of meaning. For example he states that the prophets had a “covenant” to
“carry out their mission, proclaim Allāh’s Truth without fear or favor, and be
ever ready in His service in all circumstances.” Yūsuf ʿAlī seems to be using the
English word covenant with the entirely Qurʾanic meaning of “command.” He
has relexified this English word to give it a Qurʾanic meaning.
Ibrāhīm
Let us consider whether there are references to potential covenants in the
Ibrāhīm stories. Apart from Q33:7, just discussed, there are instances of ʿahd
and ʿahida in the account of the establishment of the “house”76 by Ibrāhīm and
his son Ismāʿīl (Q2:124–25). Allāh makes a promise (ʿahd) to make Ibrāhīm a
leader over his people, and Allāh obligates (ʿahida) Ibrāhīm to purify his house.
This story has no reflex in the Bible and in any case it does not provide any
evidence of the concept of covenant.
There are two passages which could potentially be considered reflexes of the
covenant ceremony with Abraham of Genesis 15. One is Q6:76 “When night
descended on him, he saw a star” (cf. Gen. 15:5). However, this matches more
closely to the pseudepigraphic texts Jubilees (Charles 1917) and the Apocalypse
of Abraham (Rubinkiewicz 1983) than it does to the Genesis account of
Abraham being told to count the stars (Gen. 15:5).
 The other passage appears to be a reflex of the covenant cutting ceremony in
Genesis:
He [Allāh] said, “Take four birds, and bring them close to you, then place a
piece of them on each hill, then call them and they will come quickly to you.”
(Q2:260)
This could be a reflex of the episode in Genesis where Abraham was told to take
a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove, and a pigeon, cut them in half and arrange them
opposite each other, although the birds were not cut in half (Gen. 15:9–10). If
this is a reflex of the covenant cutting ceremony, it has been radically changed
along the way into a resuscitation miracle, and fitted into the context of an
immediately preceding discussion about how Allāh can raise the dead (Q2:259).
The transformation has been so profound that there is no residue of covenant
theology left.
Mūsā
Mūsā is the most frequently mentioned figure from the past in the Qurʾan, and a
complete examination of his role and the theological characteristics of his
appearance is beyond the scope of this work.
The longest and most detailed accounts of Mūsā are Q7:103–55, 159–60 and
Q20:9–98 and Q26:10–68; Q28:7–51, 76–82.77 There are various accounts of
Mūsā’s infancy, his killing of the Egyptian, the flight to Madyan, being sent to
Firʿawn, signs performed by Mūsā in Egypt and in the desert, Firʿawn’s
destruction and the rescue of Mūsā, and the story of Mūsā asking to see Allāh on
the mountain and receiving the tablets (Schöck 2003, 420–425). A recurrent
theme of these episodes is patience in the face of hardship and rejection (e.g.,
Q7:128), in which Mūsā stands as an example of a messenger who perseveres.
In the Mūsā materials Qurʾanic themes are worked into more elaborated
narratives than in the Nūḥ stories.78 As in the Nūḥ stories, many aspects of the
extended narratives are conformed to Qurʾanic Rasulology. Two illustrative
examples are a repeated emphasis on the Egyptians’ rejection of the “signs” of
Mūsā, calling them a lie (cf. §5.1.3 and §5.3.2); and Firʿawn’s charge that Mūsā
must have been taken over by a jinn (Q26:27; see §5.3.2), both of which parallel
charges made against the Messenger.79
The only narrative section contained in the multiple Mūsā narratives which
could parallel the giving of the covenant of Exodus 34 is Q7:143–45,80 in which
Mūsā asks to see Allāh’s face. Allāh reveals his splendor to the mountain
instead, which then shatters, and Mūsā falls down stunned. After he recovers,
Allāh tells Mūsā that he has chosen him to be his messenger. Then Mūsā is given
the tablets, with “everything” set out on them, and is instructed to command his
people to “take the best of it” (Q7:145). There is no reference here to the
covenant of Exodus or its renewal in Deuteronomy, nor to any specific laws
given to Moses, and no revelation of divine ḥesed “covenantal faithfulness”
(Exod. 34:6). The contents of the tablets, which in Q7:145 are vaguely referred
to as “everything,” must be the “Book” of Mūsā, which is understood to be a
revealed book comparable to the Qurʾan. This becomes clear when the same
word lawḥ “tablet” is used to refer to the Qurʾan itself (Q85:22), and some
verses later an account of Mūsā’s tablets is provided (Q7:154), calling them “a
guidance and mercy for those who fear the Lord,” which is the same formula
used for the Qurʾan (Q7:203; Q12:111; Q16:89; Q27:76–77; Q31:3), and for
what is referred to elsewhere as the “Book of Mūsā” (Q6:154; Q28:43). The
verses immediately following the encounter on the mountain are a commentary
on how Allāh will turn the arrogant away from his signs, and cause them to take
the wrong path (Q7:146). The arrogant, it is explained, are “those who have
called Our signs a lie” (Q7:147). This resumes a theme from the earlier critique
of Firʿawn and the Egyptians from Q7:135, and sets the mountaintop encounter
between Allāh and Mūsā in the context of a discourse about being rightly
guided.
The next verse refers to a mīthāq which Allāh “took” from the Israelites, also
involving a mountain that Allāh “raised above them” (Q4:154). This mountain
seems to be reported as a visible sign of the mīthāq extracted from Israel.
Although it may be tempting to see in this verse a reference to the covenant of
Mount Sinai, the actual text refers only to command(s) imposed upon Israel by
Allāh to “enter the gate prostrating yourselves” and “do not transgress the
Sabbath.”
There are other passages which refer to Allāh taking a mīthāq from Israel,
Q2:93, Q5:70, Q7:169–71. In Q7:169 the “obligation (mīthāq) of the Book” is
that the people of Israel should only speak the truth about Allāh. This is only a
one-way obligation imposed by Allāh on the Israelites to speak the truth, with no
covenantal mutuality.
The strongest candidate for covenantal language involving Mūsā and Allāh is
found in Q20:80. In this case a form III of w-ʿ-d “promise” is used, translated by
Droge as “made a covenant”:
Sons of Israel! We have rescued you from your enemy, and made a covenant
 [wāʿad—form III verb] with you at the right side of the mountain, and sent
down on you the manna and the quails . . . . (Q20:80; Droge 2014)
As with other reports of promises, oaths and commands in the Qurʾan, the text
gives a verbal report on the terms of the agreement. This formulation, unique in
all the various reports of commitments and commands involving Israel and
Allāh, appears at first sight to have the character of a covenant: the people are
commanded to act rightly, “do not transgress insolently” while Allāh promises
his support, in the provision of food, and his forgiveness. However, here wāʿad
appears to mean “make an appointment” by setting a time and place to meet, not
“make a covenant.”
The form III verb wāʿad could, from the usual meaning of form III derivations,
be expected to mean a mutual promising, with one side making a promise, and
the other reciprocating, or as Lane puts it “he promised him, the latter doing the
same to him” (Lane 1863, 2952). However, let us consider the three other uses of
wāʿad in the Qurʾan. In one instance wāʿad refers to an engagement to be
married (Q2:235), and two other instances refer to Allāh “appointing” 40 nights
for Mūsā (Q2:51; Q7:142). In each of these three instances the verb is used for
making an agreement for something to take place, in other words, for “making
an appointment.”
There are also references in Q7:142–143, 155 to meetings between Mūsā and
Allāh as a mīqāt “appointed time, fixed date” (Ambros and Procházka 2004,
293). It seems to be consistent with these references that wāʿad in Q20:80 refers
to an appointed time, particularly given the parallel of Q2:51 and Q7:142, when
Allāh appointed 40 nights for Mūsā. Therefore the preferred translation of
Q20:80 is: “We have delivered you from your enemy, and appointed a time
(wāʿad) with you on the right side of the mountain,” the appointment being for
the 40 nights of Q2:51 and Q7:142, which is also referred to in Q7:142 a mīqāt
“meeting.”81 So wāʿad in Q20:80 is not a reference to a covenant, but to an
appointment to meet, and we conclude that in all the Mūsā passages there are no
clear references to a covenant involving Allāh.
In the case of the Mūsā stories, we have an elaborate pattern of incorporation
of a rich collection of reflexes of Biblical narrative materials, organized into a
half a dozen episodes. Despite the complexity of these materials, the theological
content of the narratives is, just as much as for the Nūḥ stories, aligned with the
Qurʾan’s own toolkit of themes and ideas. Aspects of the biography of Mūsā that
resonate with the Qurʾan’s theological agenda, such as signs performed in Egypt,
and the drowning of the Egyptians, are elaborated and endowed with Qurʾanic
theological meaning. Episodes and features which do not connect with Qurʾanic
concerns are not retained, or radically reinterpreted, becoming vestigial, such as
Moses’ request in Exodus to see the face of God and the resulting revelation of
the divine “name.” Although the incorporated Mūsā materials are much more
extensive than for the Nūḥ stories, nevertheless they show the effects of the same
process of “relexification” which we observed for the Nūḥ stories, and there is
no clear and unambiguous reference in the Qurʾan to a divinely granted covenant
between Allāh and Israel, or Allāh and Mūsā, although this is such a salient
feature of the Biblical account.

6.7.6 Conclusion to Discussion of Covenant

Although a careful reader of the Qurʾan can easily identity binding obligations
which human beings have toward Allāh and match them with commands,
promises, and threats to humankind made by Allāh, there appears to be no over-
arching concept of “covenant” in the Qurʾan which unites these elements into
one theological construct, combining promise and command into one speech act.
We also find that passages of the Qurʾan which are reflexes of covenantal
passages in the Bible lack preservation of even a remnant of covenantal
theology. This is significant given the importance of the covenant in the Bible
and particularly in the narratives of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, all of
which have significant Qurʾanic “messenger” counterparts. Narrative materials,
which in the Bible had a function in relation to covenantal theology—such as the
story of Nūḥ—are repurposed to serve the Qurʾan’s own distinctive theology.
It is noteworthy that the lack of what might be called covenant awareness in
the Qurʾan goes hand-in-hand with a lack of articulation in the Qurʾan of Allāh’s
goodness or faithfulness. In the Qurʾan goodness is a frequently mentioned
potential attribute of creatures—which Allāh rewards (e.g., Q2:112)—but it is
not a named attribute of the creator. However, although the Qurʾan never
attributes to Allāh any of the available Qurʾanic words which might be translated
as “good” (khayr, ḥasan, or ṭayyib),82 it does deny that he does or intends evil,
both in general (Q3:108; Q4:40) and specifically to his servants (Q40:31), and
Allāh promises to do good to human kind (Q57:10).83 The question of whether
Allāh is himself good is connected to his role in guiding people to do evil as well
as good. Q91:7–8 reports that Allāh fashioned the soul, and “inspired” it
(alhamahā), not only with its righteousness (taqwā), but also with its depravity
(fujūr). Likewise, Iblīs, when claiming a divine assignment to be one who sits in
wait for people to lure them off the right path, declares that he does this because
Allāh has “caused him to go astray” (agway) (Q7:16). This is consistent with the
often-repeated statement that Allāh is responsible for people’s guidance and
misguidance.84 There is a potential theological tension apparent between the two
emphases that Allāh does not intend evil, yet he is the one who inspires evil and
leads people astray.
Also noteworthy is the lack of any reference in the Qurʾan to Allāh as
“faithful.” The word closest in meaning to Hebrew ʾamān “faithful” is the
cognate Arabic ʾamīn. However, ʾamīn is an attribute of people, not Allāh, for
example, the Messenger is “faithful” (e.g., Q7:68).85 The Qurʾan’ never states
that Allāh is ʾamīn. In contrast, it emphasizes the absolute supremacy of Allāh
over all his servants (Q6:18, 61), since he is “powerful over everything” (Q42:9;
cf. Q2:260; Q23:84–88; Q24:42; Q42:12, 49–50). In this vein, the Qurʾan
repeatedly stresses that Allāh’s provision to human beings is supplied totally at
his discretion, without needing to give an account to anyone: “Allāh provides for
whomever he pleases without reckoning” (Q2:212). The absence of a genuine
covenantal awareness, combined with the lack of covenantal attributes of God,
are not superficial theological features of the Qurʾan: they go to the heart of the
Qurʾan’s understanding of the nature of Allāh and his dealings with the world. In
respect of the Biblical Theology of covenant and associated divine attributes, the
Qurʾan shows evidence of borrowing of Biblical narrative materials from
covenant passages, but with loss of covenantal theology. It has borrowed the
stories without awareness of or concern for the theology, and the stories are
instead fitted into the Qurʾan’s own theological grid.
The detailed consideration of “covenant” in the Qurʾan provided here, which
has revealed a lack of covenantal theology, demonstrates theological
discontinuity between the Bible and the Qurʾan, and shows that the narrative
reflexes of Moses and Noah stories have been theologically “relexified,”
repurposed to serve a different theological intent. This is evidence of borrowing
of narrative materials, not inheritance.
This study has also demonstrated problems involved in using Biblical
language, including covenantal terms, to describe the Qurʾan. While giving the
appearance of similarity, these terms, when used in a Qurʾanic context, can end
up being redefined themselves, taking on very different meanings generated by
Qurʾanic Theology. A case in point was the discussion of Yūsuf ʿAlī’s use of
covenant in his translation (see §6.7.5), in which it comes to be used virtually as
a synonym for command.
 6.8 NARRATIVES OF THE FALL AND HUMAN SIN
We shall now consider the use made in the Qurʾan of narratives of Ādam and the
Fall. A key issue in this section will be the status of “sin” in the Qurʾan.
As long ago as 1833, Geiger noted that in the Qurʾan “the narrative of the
transgression of the first human couple is in no way presented as a fall into sin
which must later be redeemed” (1833, 96).86 Others have agreed. Von
Grunebaum (1970) found that evil and sin play no essential role in the structure
of Islam; Bodman (2011, 11), surveying later developments in Islamic theology,
concluded that, from the perspective of the Ashʿarite mainstream of Sunnī
doctrine, “there is no fundamental theology of evil in Islam”; and Wild (2009)
has pointed out that the Qurʾan has no doctrine of original sin, and consequently
no doctrine of salvation (see also Schirrmacher 2001, 31).
To take these observations seriously, it would be beside the point to ask, “What
is the Qurʾan’s conception of sin?” Instead what we will undertake in this section
is a careful consideration of the theological content of the Fall narratives in the
Qurʾan, asking what, if any, theological correlations exist with the account of the
Fall in Genesis.87

6.8.1 The Fall in the Bible

In the Bible the narrative of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden is not
just an isolated event, but a story which communicates and embodies a theology.
It is “paradigmatic in that it offers a clear and simple analysis of the nature of sin
and its consequences” (Wenham 1987, 91).
Themes which are engaged in the Genesis account continue to be reinforced in
the rest of the text of Genesis, for example:

• The curses of the fall (Gen. 3:14–19) offer an explanation for why human life
is hard and involves suffering: see the reinforcement of the theme of the cursed
earth in Gen. 5:29 and 8:21.
• The humans in the Garden were tempted to seek to become like God in his
knowledge of good and evil: “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5, 22), and the theme
that humankind is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) continues to be
reiterated after first chapters (Gen. 5:1; 9:6).
• A key idea of Genesis 3 is the loss of innocence of the knowledge of good and
 evil by eating fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen.
2:17; 3:5). Subsequent chapters of Genesis explore humankind’s resulting
familiarity with and capacity for evil. Although the word “sin” (ḥaṭāʾāh) is not
explicitly mentioned in Gen. 2–3, the human inclination to evil is (Gen. 6:5;
8:21), and the choice of the first humans to eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil sets the stage for the following narratives in Genesis to
explore the themes of sin and evil. Consider YHWH’s words to Cain, “sin is
lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7), as
well as the bleak judgment made about humanity: “YHWH saw that the
wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of
the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5; cf. also Gen.
8:21).88
• The widening impact of sin and evil leads into explorations of divine judgment
in the Pentateuch (e.g., the flood, the plagues against Egypt), rescue, and
covenant. The concept of sin also frames and drives the subsequent history of
Israel, including the judgment of exile and promise of national salvation,
which is portrayed as a rescue from sin (Isa. 44:22; Rom. 11:27). New
Testament writers build on this in many ways, for example, in the theme of a
new creation in Christ, which restores what has been damaged through sin
(Rom. 5:12–15; 2 Cor. 5:17), leading to the eschatological hope of the
restoration of all of creation (Rom. 8:21–23; Rev. 21:5).

6.8.2 The Two Falls in the Qurʾan

In the Qurʾan the story of the Fall of Ādam and his wife89 from “the Garden”90
is linked to an account of angels being commanded to bow down to Ādam, and
the refusal of Iblīs to do so. We shall call these two stories the Fall of Ādam and
the Fall of Iblīs.91
The Garden is identified as the place where Ādam and his wife dwelled before
their fall (Q2:35; Q7:19, 22, 27; Q20:117, 121), and from which they were
driven out.92
Passages which include one or both of the Fall narratives contain the majority
of Qurʾanic references to Ādam. However, the name Ādam is also found in a few
other places:

• there are the phrases “children of Ādam” or “offspring of Ādam,” which refer
to humankind (Q7:172; Q17:70; Q19:58; Q36:60);
• in Q3:59 ʿĪsā is said to be in the “likeness of Ādam,” to emphasize that he was
 created, like Ādam;
• in Q3:33 Ādam is named as “chosen” by Allāh in a sequence with Nūḥ, and
the families of Ibrāhīm and ʿImrān; and
• in Q20:115 there is reference to a covenant Allāh makes with Ādam.

Seven Qurʾanic passages refer to the Fall of Iblīs: Q2:30–38; Q7:11–27;

Q15:26–42; Q17:61–65; Q18:50; Q20:116–24; Q38:71–85; (cf. also Q36:59–64
on al-Shayṭān and the “children of Ādam”).
The story of the Fall of Iblīs stands on its own in four passages (Q15, Q17,
Q18, Q38); in two more it is truncated and immediately followed by the story of
the Fall of Ādam (Q2, Q20), in which the tempter is named as al-Shayṭān;93 and
in Q7 both passages are presented in full. Tables 6.1 and 6.2 provide an overview
of the structure of these accounts, in which the columns representing the sūrahs
are arrayed, from left to right, in the order of increasing AFD values (see the
stylistic timeline plot of Figure 6.7). The elements in the various tellings of the
two stories can be aligned sequentially in a coordinated way matching up across
the different tellings, with the Fall of Iblīs preceding the Fall of Ādam in the
instances when they occur together. The one exception is a sequencing
anomaly94 where the command to Ādam to “go down” is inserted earlier at
Q2:36, as well as being repeated in the usual position (Q2:38), after a
conversation with Allāh about forgiveness (more on this later).
Table 6.1 Stories of the Fall of Iblīs

Table 6.2 Stories of the Fall of A-dam

Figure 6.7 Stories of the Fall.
 The Qurʾanic story of the Fall of Ādam shows obvious connections to the
Genesis account. There are references to eating fruit from a forbidden tree, to
nakedness and shame, to being tempted, and expulsion from the garden.
However, key Biblical theological themes are only reflected in vestigial form or
not at all. The focus on sin is minimal, and no trace remains of the reference to
becoming like God. Instead of two trees, there is only one, the “tree of
immortality” (Q20:120), with no reference to the “tree of knowledge of good
and evil.” The curses of the fall are perhaps alluded to when Allāh warns Ādam
not to let al-Shayṭān expel them from the garden, lest they experience hunger,
thirst, nakedness, and exposure (Q20:117–19), and enmity is set between human
beings after their expulsion (Q2:36; Q7:24; Q20:123) instead of between the
serpent and the woman and her offspring (Gen. 3:15).
The loss of innocence theme has also been lost along with the tree of
knowledge. In the Qurʾan Ādam and his wife are not naked before they are
tempted, for they are warned against being expelled from the Garden, wherein
“it is not for you to go hungry or naked” (Q20:118), and in Q7 the purpose of al-
Shayṭān in tempting Ādam and his wife is to expose their private parts, which
were hidden by clothing, in response to which humankind is warned against al-
Shayṭān’s intent to strip away their clothes (Q7:20, 27). In two passages (Q7:22
and Q20:121) it is said that Ādam and his wife became aware of their nakedness
after eating the fruit of the tree, so they fastened leaves on themselves to cover
these parts, but it is not explained how eating the fruit caused the loss of
clothes.95 Other distinctives of the Qurʾan’s accounts are al-Shayṭān’s jealousy
toward Ādam, his claim to superiority over him, and Allāh’s forgiveness of
Ādam before expelling him.

6.8.3 Philological Approaches

In his philological study of these Qurʾanic passages, Joseph Witztum (2011)
argued that many of the seemingly divergent features of the Qurʾan’s account of
Fall of Ādam and the Fall of Iblīs can be traced to Syriac Christian sources,
particularly the Cave of Treasures and Ephrem’s Commentary. The Cave of
Treasures has Adam and his wife clothed in the Garden and refers to al-Shayṭān
in the form of a serpent removing their clothes and stripping them naked (Budge
1927, 64–65). The Cave of Treasures also anticipates the Qurʾan’s themes of al-
Shayṭān’s jealousy of Ādam; his refusal to worship Ādam; his claim to
superiority over Ādam because Ādam was made of earth but he of fire (Q38:76);
his fall from heaven, and a conversation between Allāh and Ādam in which
Allāh forgives him before he is sent down from paradise (Q2:37; cf. Budge
1927, 55–59, 67). The Questions of Bartholomew also includes several details
which align with those in the Qurʾan’s account of the Fall of Iblīs (Rippin 2001,
525).
Witztum (2011, 72) has analyzed the stories of the Fall assuming a temporally
organized process of “editing,” in which he posits relationships in time between
different passages to account for their differences and similarities. He writes of
“conservative editorial practice” and “reworking” of the versions (2011, 75).
Beck (1976) and Neuwirth (2000a, 2000b) have also relied on a similar
understanding of the creative process to investigate relationships between the
passages in question. According to this approach, a “later” passage would be
expected to make use of and develop material found in an “earlier” one, and this
could be evidence of “dependence.” For example, Witztum’s (2011, 72)
explanation for the peculiar double command to “go down” in Q2:36, 38 is that
the version in Q2 is a “later” passage which integrates features of two “earlier”
ones. The image which comes to mind is of an editor sitting down at a desk with
the two earlier versions before him, and cutting and pasting to create a new
version which combines their features. Witztum points out that the double “go
down” of Q2:36, 38 combines the wording of Q7:24 (at Q2:36), with that of
Q20:123 (at Q2:38). This is, he suggests, clear evidence that Q2 has copied from
Q7 and Q20.

6.8.4 An Oral-Formulaic Approach

Is the assumption valid that the Qurʾan came into being by such a process of
editing? Bannister (2014) has exhaustively demonstrated the formulaic character
of the Qurʾan, and investigated the Fall of Iblīs narratives to test his oral-
formulaic analytical model of the Qurʾan’s composition. He argues that the
Qurʾan’s repeated formulae reflect the performance repertoire of an oral
performer, not a process in which one written passage is derived from another by
editing versions. In this view, the variant tellings reflect a “balance between a
common core with added variety, of conservativeness of story form but fluidity
of telling”: these are “performance variants,” “multiple, oral renditions of the
same story” (2014, 259).
Imagine an accomplished public speaker who tells the same joke hundreds of
times from memory in different presentations. Each telling is unique, but none is
directly dependent upon any preceding ones: the speaker never listens to or
copies his earlier performances. If it so happened that a handful of his
performances out of hundreds were transcribed, it would be pointless for
scholars to pore over the transcripts to work out which telling is the primary one,
and which are the edited “versions.” In fact none are primary in this sense, for
they are all constructed on-the-fly. Over the course of time the tellings do
gradually change, and it may be possible to locate some as earlier or later, but
this is not the same thing as establishing a primary text with secondary,
dependent edited versions.
If Bannister’s theory of the composition of the Qurʾan is valid, then it could be
pointless to attempt to explain variations between different retellings working by
relying on the assumption that any one retelling is dependent upon another. One
might discern a shift in the theology of the performer over time, such that certain
themes come to be emphasized more in some retellings, but this would not
provide a philological history of editions which is in any way comparable to the
way philologists can trace the family history of manuscript copies. Oral
performance is completely different from copying and editing manuscripts.
Consider, for example, the evidence which Witztum considered to conclusively
show the dependence of Q2’s account of the Fall on Q7 and Q20. An oral-
formulaic explanation for this doubling up could see this as a performance
glitch, found at the transition between the two stories. We can note that if the
Fall of Iblīs narrative had continued in the usual way after Q2:34, the next
phrase would have been Allāh’s command to Iblīs to “go down,” (cf. Q7:13; or
“get out” cf. Q15:34–35; Q38:77): the expulsion of Iblīs from the Garden.
Instead, the performer seems to have been diverted into a similar “go down”
formula from another story in which it is Ādam and his wife whom Allāh is
addressing. Having skipped tracks, he continues on in Q2:36 with the formula
“some of you an enemy to others! The earth is a dwelling place for you, and
enjoyment (of life) for a time” (cf. Q7:24). Then he doubles back and provides
the material of Q2:37–38, but out of sequence. This would appear to be an
example of a performance overlap at the seam between the two narratives,
thrown off course by a misread lexical cue.
From the perspective of an oral-formulaic explanation, all that we can say
about Q2 is that it is an ill-formed performance, and its appearance of
dependence upon Q7 and Q20 is simply because those other two recorded
performances went more smoothly. If one overlooks the oral-formulaic character
of the Qurʾan, it is tempting to treat the Q2 variant as an ill-judged combination
of the other two cleaner versions, however, from an oral-formulaic perspective,
one might just as well assume that a later performance could be more polished
than an earlier one.
Let us consider Neuwirth’s argument that Q7 must be dependent upon Q20. In
Q7:22, Allāh says “Did I not forbid you both from that tree, and say to you both,
‘Surely al-Shayṭān is a clear enemy to you’?” There is no such warning in Q2,
but it does appear in Q20:117. Neuwirth (2000b, 8) suggests that this is evidence
that Q7 “presupposes knowledge” of Q20. However, Beck (1976, 236) comes to
the opposite conclusion, namely that Q20 is merely filling in something which
was missed from Q7. To these two arguments, Witztum (2011, 73) responds
“Neither explanation is evidently superior.”
An oral-formulaic performance is built up by a performer using themes (Lord
2000, 4), schematic mental maps (Rubin 1995, 21–22), which can be filled with
various formulae. Particular elements of themes may be drastically abbreviated
(as in the Q18 version of the fall of Iblīs) or dropped altogether, depending on
how much detail the performer wishes to provide. The Qurʾan’s style when
presenting narrative material is allusive: the audience seems to be expected to fill
in gaps in the narration. It is not just the performer who is working with a mental
map of the story, the audience is also presumed to have an interpretive frame. If
the performer has repeated a story many times to the same audience, then he can
rely on their knowledge of the material, and apparent lacunae in his presentation
need not be taken as evidence of some kind of failure of execution in the
performance.96 This would explain why the retelling of both fall stories is so
attenuated in Q18, because a fuller version of both stories had been recently
recited in Q7 (cf. Figure 6.7). Similarly, the attenuation of the Fall of Iblīs story
in Q20 could have been influenced by a recent fuller recital in Q17. It could also
be that the reason why Q20 treats the two stories so differently, presenting the
Fall of Ādam story more elaborately, and attenuating the Fall of Iblīs, is that the
Fall of Ādam story was not included in Q17. Note in relation to the timeline of
the retellings of these stories, that there seems to be a tendency for the first
telling to be more fulsome, which is as one would expect in an oral performance
context.97
When we carefully examine the pattern of shared formulae in the Fall of Ādam
story, we can find every possible pattern of sharing and excluded material
between the three sūrahs which tell the story. In addition to material which is
found in all three tellings, and material which is found only once in a single
telling, each of three possible pairs of tellings share unique materials not found
in the third. The relevant passages are listed below. Shared text is in bold. Where
the parallel sources have minor variances these are indicated by a subscript. For
example, variations in the text between different versions are indicated, thus
[waQ2/faQ7] means that Q2 has wa where Q7 has fa.
Material shared by Q2 and Q7 but not Q20:

ya¯-a¯damu uskun anta wa-zawju-ka l-jannata [waQ2 / faQ7]-kula¯ min[-

ha raghadanQ2] ḥaythu shituma¯ wa-la¯ taqraba¯ ha¯dhihi l-shajarata
fa-takūna¯ mina l-ẓa¯limīna (Q2:35; Q7:19)
Ādam! Dwell in the Garden, you and your wife, and eat [abundantly from
itQ2] wherever you will, but do not approach this tree, or you will become
wrong-doers.

wa-la-kum fī al-arḍi mustaqarrun wa-mata¯ʿun ila¯ ḥīnin (Q2:36; Q7:24)

The earth will be a dwelling place for you and (provide) a livelihood for a
time.

Material shared by Q7 and Q20 but not Q2:

wa-aqul la-kumāinna l-shayṭānala-kumāʿaduwwun mubīnun (Q7:22)

fa-aqulnā yā-Ādamuinna hādhā ʿaduwwun la-ka (Q20:117)
and [IQ7 / WeQ20] said [to you bothQ7 / O ĀdamQ20], “[SatanQ7 / thisQ20] is
surely a [plainQ7] enemy to you [bothQ7].”

fa-waswasa [la-humāQ7 / ilay-hiQ20] l-shayṭa¯nu (Q7:20; Q20:120)

Then Satan whispered [to both of themQ7 / to himQ20]
[fa-Q20] badat la-huma¯ sawa¯tu-huma¯ wa-ṭafiqa¯ yakhṣifa¯-ni ʿalay-
hima¯ min waraqi al-jannati (Q7:22; Q20:121)
[andQ20] their shame became manifest to them, and they both began
fastening on themselves leaves from the Garden.

Shared by Q20 and Q2 but not Q7:

fa-ta¯ba ʿalay-hi (Q2:37; Q20:122) He turned to him

fa-imma¯ yaʾtiya-nna-kum min-nī hudan fa-man[-iittabaʿaQ20 / tabiʿaQ2]
huda¯-ya fa-la¯ [yaḍiluQ20 / khawfun ʿalay-himQ2] wa-la¯ [yashqāQ20 /
hum yaḥzanūnaQ2] (Q2:38; Q20:123)
If guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance will not
 [go astrayQ20 / fearQ2], nor [sufferQ20 / grieveQ2].

Likewise in the story of the Fall of Iblīs, the three lengthiest tellings, in Q7, Q15,
and Q38, also show every possible combination of shared and excluded
material:98
Shared by Q7 and Q15, but not Q38:

lamyakun minal-sa¯jidīna (Q7:11)

abā anyakūna maʿal-sa¯jidīna (Q15:31)
[he was not one of thoseQ7 / he refused to be with thoseQ15] who prostrated
qa¯la [rabb-īQ15] [fa-Q7]bi-ma¯ aghwaytanī
he said [my LordQ15] because you have led me astray (Q7:16; Q15:39)

Shared by Q15 and Q38 but not Q7:

[wa-Q15]idh qa¯la rabbu-ka li-l-mala¯ʾikati innī kha¯liqun basharan min

[ṣalṣālin min ḥamain masnūinQ15 / ṭīninQ38] fa-idha¯ sawwaytuhu wa-
nafakhtu fī-hi min rūḥ-ī faqaʿū la-hu sa¯jidīna (Q15:28–29; Q38:71–72)
[andQ15] when your Lord said to the angels: “Surely I am going to create a
human being from [altered mudQ15 / clayQ38]. When I have fashioned him,
and blown some of My breath into him, then fall prostrate yourselves
before him.”

fa-innaka rajīmun (Q15:34; Q38:77)

for indeed, you are accursed

ila¯ yawmi l-waqti l-maʿlūmi (Q15:38; Q38:81)

until the day of the appointed time
[wa-Q15]la-ughwiya-nna-hum ajmaʿīna illa¯ ʿiba¯da-ka min-humu l-
mukhlaṣīna (Q15:39–40; Q38:82–83) [andQ15] I shall indeed lead all of
them astray—except for those of them who are Your devoted servants

Shared by Q7 and Q38 but not Q15:

la-amla-anna jahannama min-[kumQ7 /-ka wa-mimman tabiʿa-ka min-

humQ38] ajmaʿīna
I shall indeed fill Jahannam with [you (pl.)Q7 / you (sg.) and such as those
 who follow youQ38] all (Q7:18; Q38:85)

This interleaved pattern of shared material across the variant narratives suggests
that it is mistaken to attempt to derive a family tree model of the narratives, with
one original, earlier variant, and other derivative, secondary variants.
It should not be surprising that Beck and Neuwirth came to opposite
conclusions about which of the Fall of Ādam stories in Q7 and Q20 was the
earliest, if the data they are examining are not in fact an artifact of a temporal
editing process where an author reworks earlier versions to produce a later text.
Witztum’s work on these passages is a tour de force of philological investigation,
and his argument for the primacy of Christian rather than Jewish antecedents for
the Fall narratives in the Qurʾan is entirely convincing. His methodology is
appropriate for considering whether the Qurʾan has derived themes from Syriac
sources. However, his assumption, shared with Beck and Neuwirth, that the
creative process involves an “editing” hand, is far less convincing.
It also needs to be pointed out that even though one can identify particular
Syriac texts which share many features with the Qurʾan’s versions of the Fall
narratives, this does not mean that the performer of the Qurʾan—the Messenger
—had ever encountered the specific Syriac texts we have in our hands today. He
may, for example, have heard others giving oral performances which included
these materials.
Oral performance requires a mental map which informs the performer where
he is heading. It also requires a large inventory of oral formulae which allow the
text to be generated at speed. When the text is theological, and delivered with a
homiletic purpose, as is the Qurʾan, it also requires the performer to have a
theology, which shapes the purposes to which the performances are put. It is this
theological content that is of particular interest to us here.

6.8.5 The Themes of the Fall Narratives in the Qurʾan

We can identify the major theological themes of these passages, in the context of
the Qurʾan, by attending to the associated warnings, and to homiletic framing as
displayed in the questions which each passage purports to answer.
Guidance
An example of framing material is found in Q2:38 at the close of a telling of the
Fall of Ādam story. The material comes when Allāh speaks to Ādam and his
wife as they are expelled from the garden:
 We said, “Go down from here—all of you! If any guidance comes to you
from Me, then whoever follows My guidance, there will be no fear on them,
nor will they grieve. But those who disbelieve and call Our signs a lie, they
are the companions of the Fire. There they will stay.” (Q2:38)
This mini sermon to Ādam and his wife highlights what the Qurʾan considers to
be one of the main points of the story of the Fall, which is the importance of
following Allāh’s guidance (§5.1); see also Q20:123: “whoever follows My
guidance will not go astray.” Other points in the various tellings where the theme
of guidance is emphasized are: Q7:3, 21–22, 30, 33; Q15:39–40; Q17:64; and
Q18:50–52.
A similar framing message is found in Q7:3, introducing one of the Fall of Iblīs
narratives. This verse urges people to follow Allāh’s guidance, “what has been
sent down to you from your Lord,” and take no other allies but Allāh (cf. also
Q18:50). Then again, at the close of the two narratives in Q7, a further mini
sermon is offered (Q7:27–30), which warns listeners that humankind is divided
into two groups, those guided by Allāh, and those who—like Ādam and his wife
in the Garden—“have taken al-shayāṭīn as allies instead of Allāh, and they think
that they are rightly-guided” (Q7:30). Further advice about following right
guidance is provided at the close of the Fall narratives in Q18:50 and Q20:123–
24.
Far from being a reflection on human sin and its consequences, the Qurʾanic
Fall stories put the spotlight on al-Shayṭān/Iblīs, who presents himself as the
archetypal (false) guide to humanity. Thus he states: “I shall indeed sit (in wait)
for them (on) Your straight path” (Q7:16). The immediate example of al-Shayṭān
fulfilling this calling is his luring of Ādam and his wife off the straight path. In
the Qurʾan, the failure of Ādam and his wife was not sin or a desire to savor the
“knowledge of good and evil”; it was taking al-Shayṭān as their guide instead of
Allāh. It seems significant that al-Shayṭān lied about himself (which does not
happen with the serpent in the Bible), when he assured Ādam and his wife that
he could be “one of your trusty advisers” (Q7:21). Their fundamental error was
to trust him, even after they had been warned (Q20:117–19).
Note also that when Allāh rebukes the couple for eating the fruit, he does not
only remind them that they had been forbidden from eating it. He also reminds
them that he had warned them al-Shayṭān was their enemy: “Did I not . . . say to
you both, ‘Surely al-Shayṭān is a clear enemy to you’?” (Q7:22). This warning,
that al-Shayṭān could play false with them, is not found in the Syriac texts which
show so many similarities to the Qurʾanic stories: it is purely Qurʾanic Theology
that Allāh would be concerned to warn humankind against following a false
guide.
Another feature of the narratives is the length of the sections devoted to
exploring the guidance theme, for example, in the Q17 version of the Fall of
Iblīs there is a long elaboration of how al-Shayṭān will lead people astray
(Q17:63–64). Likewise in the Q7 version of the Fall of Ādam, the longest
section is the advice about following right guidance (Q7:26–27).
In addition to guidance, in a number of other respects the Qurʾan’s Fall
narratives are integrated into the theological framework of the Qurʾan. We will
now consider the themes of Allāh’s guidance and misguidance, signs, enmity,
and the concept of “ancestors.”
Allāh and Misguidance
The role requested by al-Shayṭān and assigned by Allāh to lead humanity astray
(Q7:16–17; Q15:39–42; Q17:62–65; Q38:82–84; cf. Pohlmann 2012, 119–120)
is consistent with the Qurʾan’s theology of guidance, according to which it is
Allāh who is the source of both guidance and misguidance. In the Qurʾan Allāh
not only guides people onto the straight path (Q2:142), he also leads some
astray, namely “those whose hearts Allāh does not desire to purify” (Q5:41; cf.
Q6:107; Q16:37; Q23:27; Q28:50, 56; Q35:8; Q39:23, 36; Q40:33, 74; Q42:44).
The sovereignty of Allāh, revealed in his capacity both to guide and lead astray,
is emphasized by statements that he does both according to his own pleasure
(Q2:253; Q6:35, 39, 125; Q14:4, 27; Q17:97; Q27:4). Allāh could have guided
everyone on the right path, (Q16:9), but we are told that many jinn and humans
were intentionally created for Jahannam—“like cattle” (Q7:179; Q32:13).
Consistent with this understanding is the limitation on al-Shayṭān’s power to
lead people astray (Q15:42; Q17:65; Q38:83). This accords with other
statements made in the Qurʾan about al-Shayṭān’s limited authority, that he only
has authority over those who take him as an ally (Q16:99–100). The story of the
Fall illustrates how this limited power works, for he is only able to strip Ādam
and his wife naked after they trust in his guidance. Al-Shayṭān’s calling of
misguidance is exercised under divine calling and authority, and within limits set
by Allāh.99
The Signs
We can observe that the telling of the story of the Fall of Ādam is also made to
conform with the Qurʾan’s theology of signs (§5.1.3). The narratives in Q7 are
framed at the start by the comment:
We have established you on the earth, and appointed livelihoods for you in it,
but you give little thanks! (Q7:10)
This statement relates to the bounty of creation, which in Qurʾanic Theology is
an important source of “signs.” After the passages recounting the fall of Ādam—
but not those recounting the fall of Iblīs—the Qurʾan emphasizes attending to
“the signs” as one of the text’s applications (Q2:39; Q7:26, 32; Q20:126). This
arises from the observation that Ādam was permitted to enjoy the earth as a
dwelling place (Q2:36; Q7:24), and in particular Allāh’s provision of clothing to
hide their nakedness (Q7:26): the subsequent paragraph of Q7:31–32 also
elaborates on the enjoyment of clothing in this life as a “sign.”
Enmity
The formula baʿḍ-ukum li-baḍin ʿaduwwun “some of you an enemy to others”
(Q2:36; Q7:24; Q20:123) aligns with other statements to the effect that Allāh or
his message can cause divisions and enmity between people. Although there are
references to people “dividing up” their religion against Allāh’s explicit
command (Q30:30–33), and a reference to the People of the Book splitting up
into factions in error (Q42:14), the Qurʾan also attributes divisions between the
People of the Book to Allāh’s agency. People are not “followers of each other’s
direction” (Q2:145) because Allāh made them to be different communities “in
order to test you by what He has given you” (Q5:48; cf. Q3:19). There are also
references to Jews and Christians having “enmity and hatred” stirred up among
them by Allāh himself (Q5:15, 64). See also §5.3 on divisions and even fighting,
which are consistent with the sunnah of Allāh with messengers, and Q60:4 on
Ibrāhīm as an example of enmity.
Ancestors
One of the applications of the story in Q7 is a warning issued to those who are
thoughtlessly following their ancestors, which is one of the forms of opposition
to messengers past and present (§5.3.2). The link with the story of the Fall is that
Ādam and his wife, the ancestors of all humankind, cannot be taken as a model
of morality, since they were stripped naked by al-Shayṭān (Q7:27). It is a
mistake to follow your forebears if they have taken al-shayāṭīn as their allies
(Q7:30), as Ādam and his wife did in the Garden (Q7:20–22).

6.8.6 Conclusion to Discussion of the Fall Narratives

There are multiple points of connection between the stories of the fall in the
Qurʾan and the Biblical narrative. However, the two theological contexts are
radically different, despite sharing an understanding of God as creator of
humankind. In the Bible the focus is on the fall of Ādam and his spouse, and on
the problem of evil, manifested in human sin, an issue which is elaborated in the
subsequent chapters of Genesis. In Christian understanding the Fall becomes
“paradigmatic” for Biblical Theology. In the Bible the story of the Fall does not
function as a warning text: it explains the way things are with people in the
world.100
In contrast, the Qurʾan places the spotlight on the fall and subsequent activity
of al-Shayṭān as a false guide, not on humanity itself. The Fall story has been
repurposed as a warning to human beings, in accordance with the Messenger’s
self-description as “a warner” (§5.2.3), against following false guides, which is a
manifestation of the Qurʾanic sin of shirk “association” (§4.1.1). The Biblical
story is an explanation of how sin and evil entered human experience. The
Qurʾanic stories are warnings of the importance of following the right guide, and
about al-Shayṭān’s role to lead people astray. In the Genesis account the serpent
(not Satan) plays only a supporting role, but Iblīs is center-stage in the story of
the Fall of Iblīs, and it is Ādam who plays the supporting role.
It is striking that the differing theological preoccupations of the Qurʾan and the
Bible are reflected in religious liturgies of the two religious traditions. The
Lord’s Prayer includes a plea for forgiveness for sin and a prayer for deliverance:
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Let us not be led into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
In contrast Al-Fātiḥah, first sūrah of the Qurʾan and a building block of
Muslims’ daily prayers, is a cry for assistance to stay on the path of the rightly
guided:
Guide us on the straight path: the path of those you have favored, not the path
of those who earn your anger, nor of those who go astray. (Q1:6–7)
The stories of the fall in the Qurʾan show multiple points of connection with the
Bible, and they share important details with Christian Syriac texts, a fact which
testifies to the influence of Syriac Christianity upon the Qurʾanic milieu. While
there is a place for textual paleontology, which traces the details of how other
sources may have influenced the text of the Qurʾan, what is important for our
purposes is that in its handling of these stories, the theological outlook of the
Qurʾan is fundamentally different from that of the Bible. The homiletic function
of the stories of the Fall in the Qurʾan is to warn the hearer/reader about the
necessity of following right guidance. Ādam and his wife fall because they
follow a false guide, and they are treated as an object lesson in how someone can
be wrongly guided.
The Qurʾan’s stories of the Fall serve the purposes of Qurʾanic theology.
Geiger (1833, 96) suggested that the reason the Qurʾan made so little of the
theme of sin in the fall narratives was that it had drawn on Jewish rather than
Christian sources, a proposition which Witztum (2011) has convincingly
demolished. The Qurʾan’s disinterest in sin is not due to the sources it drew
upon, but to the inner logic of its own theological outlook. These narratives,
although they show evidence of contact with Syriac Christian writings, are
adapted to serve a theological agenda quite distinct from that of the sixth-century
Syriac Christianity. Geiger’s mistake was to assume that the Qurʾan was
unoriginal, and its features could be accounted for in terms of how and where it
borrowed its material. What his efforts of textual paleontology overlooked was
the independent power of the Qurʾan’s own theological vision, which readily
makes use of Biblical and extra-Biblical Christian materials, but adapts them to
serve its own theological purposes. While certain narrative elements have been
taken over into the text of the Qurʾan from Biblical and post-Biblical sources,
the theological vision they serve is by no means an evolved, inherited version of
Biblical Theology. On the contrary, the radical theological repurposing of these
narrative materials points to a destructive borrowing process.
The Qurʾan assumes a very different understanding of the fundamental human
problem to that offered in Genesis. In the Qurʾan’s understanding, human beings
like Ādam and his wife are easily led astray. They are warned to follow the right
guidance of Allāh and not to be deceived by false guides. The human ancestors,
Ādam and his wife, serve as an object lesson in what happens when humans fail
to follow right guidance: they are stripped naked and humiliated. In contrast, in
the Bible human beings, whose nature is inherently opposed to God’s ways and
inclined to evil, fall into ever-worsening transgressions until finally God himself
intervenes, repeatedly, to rescue and restore creation.
These reflections raise questions about the process by which the Qurʾan was
composed. The stories of the Fall of Ādam and the Fall of Iblīs are both told in a
formulaic fashion, with a good deal of the material repeated word-for-word
across the seven retellings. If Bannister is right in identifying such repetition,
which is rife across the Qurʾan, as evidence of an oral-formulaic process of
composition through performance, this means that the performer was practiced
in his art, for large formulaic repertoires do not just appear out of thin air. The
repertoire of an oral performer is shaped and becomes established through
practice and repetition over an extended period of time. This observation leads
naturally to another, that where there are repeated performances and a practiced
art, there is also a habitual and habituated audience, a community which attends
to the performances during the period when the repertoire is being formed and
enters into the world of its ideas, sharing this with the performer. Through
repeated exposure, the community also comes to share knowledge of the lexical,
formulaic, and narrative resources which make up the warp and woof of the
Qurʾanic text, all of which reflect its theology.

6.9 STORIES OF FIGHTING PROPHETS

The theology of warfare is an important and elaborate topic in both Bible and the
Qurʾan. A full-scale comparative study of these theologies would be far too large
a task to attempt here. Our focus here is much narrower, on the way the Qurʾan
makes use of “prophetic” precedents to validate the use of violence. We shall
consider all the passages where the Qurʾan appeals to specific precedents
involving “prophets” to garner support for fighting or enmity in Allāh’s cause.
Our interest is in the extent to which these could be associated with (potential)
Biblical reflexes. In each case we shall inquire into whether Biblical reflexes of
these passages do in fact exist, and if they do, whether the Qurʾanic reflexes
have inherited anything of Biblical Theology in connection with their treatment
of fighting.
The Hebrew Bible refers in many places to divinely sanctioned violence, for
example, in the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews, and wars led by kings of
Israel and Judah against their enemies. Some of these events involve recognized
prophets leading or participating in violence, for example, Moses’ slaughter of
three thousand Israelites to avert YHWH’s anger after the golden calf incident
(Exod. 32:27–29), and Elijah’s slaughter of the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 18:40).
The Hebrew Bible also traces the hand of YHWH to bring judgment to bear in
many reports of wars waged by one nation against another and against Israel
(Isa. 5:24–30), including conflicts with the Assyrians, the Babylonians, (2 Kgs
41:1–15, 24:1–4; Jer. 27:6–8), and the Persians (Isa. 45:1–4).
As we have seen, after the Eschatological Transition (chapter 2) the Qurʾan
calls for violence against unbelievers for the sake of Allāh, in which the
believers function as the hand of Allāh. This violence resolves the
Eschatological Crisis, when the messengers and his followers themselves enact a
“nearer punishment” against rejectors on Allāh’s behalf.
The Qurʾan refers to fighting using form III derivatives of q-t-l “kill,” qātala
“fight” (54 occurrences) and the related noun qitāl “fighting” (13 occurrences).
These are found in Q2–Q5, Q8–Q9, Q22, Q33, Q47–Q49, Q57, Q59–Q61, Q63
and the post-transitional verse Q73:20 (see Figure 6.8). Believers fighting
disbelievers was not a pre-transitional concern of the Qurʾan, so apart from Q22,
which located just before the Theological Transition, instances of qātala and
qitāl in all these sūrahs are post-transitional.

Figure 6.8 References to “fighting” (Form III derivatives of q-t-l).

References to fighting, killing, and enmity are correlated with the post-
transitional shift in the status of the Messenger from “only a warner” to a
military commander, leader and judge of the community, whose functions even
include administering the distribution of spoils of war (Q8:1, 41; Q9:58–60;
Q59:6–8; cf. Sinai 2015–2016, 68–69). There is also a shift from an
understanding of future judgment as Allāh’s responsibility, to an emphasis on
judgment here and now at the hands of the believers, a task which believers are
repeatedly urged to apply themselves to with determination. Some of the
inducements given in post-transitional sūrahs for believers to fight are:

• It is “good” for believers (Q2:216), although some may dislike it (Q8:8).

• It tests believers: “(He allows fighting) so that He may test some of you by
means of others” (Q47:4).
• Victory over unbelievers is a “sign” to believers confirming their faith
(Q48:20).
• Believers who fight will “prosper” (Q5:35; Q9:88), for Allāh has promised
booty to them (Q48:20). They may also be enriched by ransoms received in
exchange for captives (Q47:4).
• Those who die fighting will inherit paradise (Q2:154–56; Q3:169–71).
• Fighting is a means of exacting retribution for evil done to believers (Q2:191;
Q5:33–34; Q8:12–13; cf. also Q22:39101).
• Fighting relieves believers of negative feelings such as anger (Q9:15).
• Fighting can prevent oppression (Q49:9) and eliminate persecution (Q2:191,
217; Q8:39).
• Fighting establishes the power of Allāh in this world (Q8:39).
• Fighting unbelievers who are near to you impresses others by demonstrating
the “sternness” of believers, showing that Allāh is on the believers’ side
(Q9:123; cf. Q4:84; Q9:73), and intimidating disbelievers (Q8:12), who
otherwise would never stop fighting believers until they give up their religion
(Q2:217).

The doctrine of Messenger Uniformitarianism, applied to these changed

circumstances, projects back from them, and triggers a crucial change in the
Qurʾan’s understanding of past messengers. After the transition, the example of
past messengers begins to be co-opted to serve the new requirements of the post-
transitional realities, which includes warfare against disbelievers. Two examples
of the resulting sea change in Rasulology are the characteristically post-
transitional statements that it has always been obligatory to obey Allāh’s
messengers: “We have only sent messengers to be obeyed” (Q4:64), and that
those who obey the Messenger are in the same good company as “the prophets,
the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous” (Q4:69).

6.9.1 “How Many a Prophet has Fought?”

In this section we will consider whether the Qurʾan’s references to fighting
“prophets” (anbiyāʾ) of the past owes anything to the Bible and its theology of
warfare. The reference to prophets here, rather than messengers, is deliberate,
because in the Qurʾan prophets are messengers in the context of Biblical
traditions (see §5.2.4), particularly in post-transitional passages.
The first passage we consider is from the post-transitional Q3:
How many a prophet has fought, and with him many thousands? Yet they did
not lose heart at whatever afflicted them in the way of Allāh. They did not
weaken nor did they humiliate themselves. Allāh loves the patient. They only
said, “Our Lord, forgive us our sins and our wasted efforts, and make our feet
firm, and give us victory over the people who are disbelievers.” So Allāh
gave them the reward of this world and the good reward of the Hereafter.
Allāh loves those who do good. (Q3:146–48)
This passage occurs in the midst of an extended discussion of an actual conflict
the believers were involved in (Q3:121–86). These verses appeal to the example
of previous prophets who fought in the way of Allāh. They serve to strengthen
the believers’ resolve to wage war against unbelievers. However, no specific
reference is made to any previous prophet, and it is not possible to identify any
Biblical reflex of this passage.

6.9.2 A Model of Enmity and Hatred

This next passage comes from a sūrah in which warnings are issued against
taking Allāh’s enemies as allies (cf. Q60:1, 13), with Ibrāhīm used as a model.
Believers are instructed not to maintain alliances with unbelievers, even if they
are relatives: “Your relatives and your children will be of no benefit to you on
the Day of Resurrection” (Q60:3), and “We disassociate ourselves from you”
(Q60:4),102 meaning that Ibrāhīm has renounced all obligations or
responsibilities for his relatives. Ibrāhīm is cited as a uswah ḥasanah “beautiful
example” of enmity (ʿadāwat) and hatred (baghḍā) for severing ties with his
family members (Q60:4). This is an attribute he shares with the Messenger
(Q33:21), which is in accordance with Messenger Uniformitarianism. In this
reference to Ibrāhīm the narrative context presupposed is not actually a Biblical
reflex, but a story about Abraham and his father’s idols which is a midrash
reflex.103 The story is related most fully in Q20:51–70 and alluded to several
other times (Q6:74–84; Q9:114; Q19:41–50; Q21:51–73; Q26:69–86; Q29:16–
27; Q37:83–98; Q43:26–39; Q60:4).
There is no actual correlation here to a Biblical narrative, and the theme of
Abraham’s enmity is also not found in the midrash reflex. Indeed the theme of
enmity and hatred is also not found in any other of the Qurʾanic allusions to the
Ibrāhīm story, apart from Q60 (although there is a reference to him
disassociating himself from his father in Q9:114). Pre-Transitional passages
include renunciations of his relatives’ idolatry (e.g., Q43:26), and physical
threats or actual violence against him (e.g., Q19:46; Q21:68), but Ibrāhīm meets
these threats with calm and forgiveness: in Q19:47 he says, “I shall ask for
forgiveness for you,” and in Q29:18 he responds with the typical pre-transition
formula about the role of messengers: “Nothing depends on the messenger
except the clear delivery.”
The theme of enmity and hostility from Ibrāhīm toward his family in Q60:4 is
a development which arises in the Qurʾan after the Eschatological Transition.
Q60 shows a number of features of post-transitional passages, such as references
to fighting, jihād, and migration. The citation of Ibrāhīm’s renunciation in
Q60:4–6 conforms to the principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism, serving to
validate the Messenger’s call to believers to take up arms, even against their own
unbelieving relatives and tribespeople, who have “fought you over (your)
religion, and expelled you from your homes” (Q60:9). Here the theme of enmity
and hatred fits with the Qurʾan’s own internal theological requirements.
However, what is clear is that, although this is an appeal to the precedent of a
Biblical prophet, it is not an inheritance of a Biblical reflex.

6.9.3 ʿĪsā and Dāwūd Curse the Disbelievers

Cursing disbelievers is mentioned a number of times in the Qurʾan. Before the
transition it is Allāh who does the cursing (e.g., Q2:88–89; see Stewart 2001,
491–92), and the substance of this cursing is adversity in this life and Fire in the
next (Q11:60, 99; Q9:68). Only after the Eschatological Transition do humans
and angels join in the cursing: “on them is the curse of Allāh, and the angels, and
the people altogether” (Q2:161; Q3:87; Q33:57).104 Cursing is also encouraged
in gatherings of the families of believers convened specifically for the purpose
this purpose, targeting those who are disputing with them (Q3:61). Believers’
prayers may also include entreaties to Allāh to curse their enemies (Q33:68).
In a notable passage, cursing disbelievers is validated by the example of ʿĪsā
and Dāwūd, who cursed “the Sons of Israel who disbelieved” (Q5:78). This
report is applied against certain “People of the Book” (Q5:77) who had been
“taking those who disbelieve as allies” (tawallā) (Q5:80).105
In the narratives about David’s life in 1 and 2 Samuel there are repeated
references to people cursing others, but in most cases these curses are
unrighteous, and disapproved of, for example, Saul’s curse against anyone who
ate food before his enemies were defeated (1 Sam. 14:24), Goliath’s cursing of
David (1 Sam. 17:43), and Shimei’s cursing of David (2 Sam. 16:5–13). David’s
response to Shimei was to state that “the LORD will repay me with good for this
cursing of me today.” A rare occasion where David himself curses anyone is in
his encounter with Saul, where he curses any human being who may have stirred
Saul up against him: “if it is mortals, may they be cursed before the Lord” (1
Sam. 26:19). Likewise, in Psalm 109 David speaks curses against those who hate
him and attack him without cause. But these curses are not because of their
disbelief, but because of treachery. In the gospels, Jesus instructs his followers to
bless those who curse them (Luke 6:28). He curses a fig tree (Mt. 21:18), and he
weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), but he does not curse any human being.106
We conclude that the account of ʿĪsā and Dāwūd cursing disbelievers is not a
Biblical reflex.

6.9.4 ʿĪsā’s Disciples go to War

In Q61:14 there is a report that ʿĪsā’s disciples prevailed over a disbelieving
contingent of Jews:
You who believe! Be Allāh’s helpers [anṣār], as ʿĪsā, son of Maryam, said to
the disciples, “Who will be my helpers for Allāh?” The disciples said, “We
will be Allāh’s helpers.” A party of the Sons of Israel believed, and a party
disbelieved. So We supported those who believed against their enemy, and
they were the ones who prevailed. (Q61:14)
In this passage there is a call to believers to become “helpers” of Allāh (al-
Faruque 2002). The basic concept of anṣār is someone who helps another
against an enemy (cf. §4.1.3). The ḥawāriyyūn “disciples” of ʿĪsā agree to be
anṣār, and then we are told that Allāh supported (ʾayyada that is,
“strengthened”) the believers against their enemy (ʿadūw) and they “prevailed”
(lit. “became dominant” ẓāhir).107 This use of the model of Jesus’ disciples is
intended to encourage believers to “believe in Allāh and His Messenger, and
struggle in the way of Allāh with your wealth and your lives” (Q61:11), and to
warn people not to “turn aside” (Q61:5). The believers are assured that Allāh
will give them the victory over unbelievers, just as he did with the disciples of
ʿĪsā.
There is no Biblical antecedent in the gospels that Q61:14 could refer to.
Furthermore, it is directly contrary to Jesus’ teachings (Mt. 5:43ff) and how he
trained his disciples (Luke 9:51–56). In the gospels Jesus’ disciples do not go to
war against unbelievers. It seems that the Qurʾan, appealing to the principle of
Messenger Uniformitarianism, has repurposed Jesus, coopting his example, in
accordance with the principle that Allāh always deals with messengers in the
same way (§5.3.1), to urge believers to ally themselves with him and Allāh’s
cause, and to warn them that if they do not they will be on the side of the losers.
There is no discernible influence of Biblical Theology on this account: instead
it is constructed in line with the Qurʾan’s own evolving theological logic, in
accordance with conditions that apply after the Eschatological Transition.

6.9.5 The Ṭālūt-Jālūt Story: Saul, Goliath, and David

In Q2:246–51 there is an account of the “Sons of Israel” going to war under the
leadership of Ṭālūt (a reflex of Hebrew Shāʾūl) after he is appointed king (Takim
2004).
In the Qurʾan’s story of Ṭālūt, the Sons of Israel ask a “prophet” for a king (cf.
1 Sam. 8:5), to lead them as they “fight in the way of Allāh” (Q2:246). The
prophet then appoints Ṭālūt king, despite their protests that he is not a wealthy
man. The prophet then says that the ark, in which is a sakīnah from Allāh (cf.
§6.4.3), will come to them, carried by angels as a sign of his kingship. Ṭālūt sets
out and tests his men by seeing whether they drink from a river: those who do
not drink except by scooping water by hand are on Ṭālūt’s side.108 Ṭālūt leads
his reduced cohort against Jālūt (Hebrew Golyath), who is defeated. Dāwūd
(Hebrew Dawid, David) kills Jālūt, and Allāh gives Dāwūd the kingship.
We can observe several aspects of this story that appear dysfluent in
themselves or incongruent with the Biblical accounts. There is the intrusion of
an episode from the story of Gideon into the story of Saul and David. The
sudden emergence of Dāwūd as king (Q2:251) is unexplained and we do not find
out what happened to Ṭālūt. The reference to angels carrying the ark (Q2:248)
would seem to be a reflex of an account of the golden winged cherubim (Exod.
25:18–20) placed at each end of the ark. The reference to the sakīnah, a potential
reflex of the Hebrew shekīnāh, is poorly integrated into the story (cf. §6.4.3);
and in the Biblical story it is only David, not Saul or his men who go out to
battle against Goliath. The people’s objection that Ṭālūt was not a wealthy man
is not paralleled by objections from the Israelites to Saul in Samuel (1 Sam.
10:23–24, 27).
It is not our concern here to validate or disconfirm the details of this account in
relation to the Biblical histories of Saul, David, or Gideon, but to understand the
extent of the continuity or discontinuity between the Biblical and Qurʾanic
reflexes of these stories, in the light of the theological functions of the story
within the Qurʾan. We need to ask whether these functions bear any relation to
the theological function of the related stories in the Bible. This is a question
about continuity or discontinuity between the Bible and the Qurʾan. We are
considering whether this account shows signs of an inherited theological
tradition. Or does it merely reuse for its own distinct purposes materials which
appear to be Biblical reflexes?
The Ṭālūt-Jālūt109 story engages with a number of the theological concerns of
the Qurʾan. For example, the punch-line of the story is:
If Allāh had not driven away some people by others, the earth would have
been corrupted. But Allāh is lord of favor to all the worlds. (Q2:251)
The point being made here is that Allāh calls upon believers to fight against
others to prevent the spread of evil, as a sign of his “favor” (faḍl). This
homiletical framing suggests that the Ṭālūt-Jālūt story is intended to validate
fighting in the name of Allāh against unbelievers, and to frame it as an Act of
God, since it is Allāh who drives away some people by means of others. This
backs up the call issued immediately before the Ṭālūt-Jālūt story to “fight in the
way of Allāh” (Q2:244). The Ṭālūt-Jālūt story is presented as one of the “signs”
of Allāh to encourage believers to do battle against unbelievers (cf. Q2:252:
“those are the signs”), and in the context of violence already affecting believers,
it serves to validate the Messenger’s call to fight: “truly you are one of the
messengers” (Q2:252). In this context, Q2:253 asserts that fighting between
groups is part of Allāh’s plan, and “Allāh fulfills his plan.”
Other features of the story show evidence of integration into the Qurʾan’s post-
transitional theological agenda. The Sons of Israel ask to “fight in the way of
Allāh,” language normally used in reference to battles fought by the Messenger
and believers. They have been “expelled” from their homes (and children—
Q2:246), a formula which parallels with a traumatic sequence of events
repeatedly referred to in the Qurʾan (cf. Q3:195; Q22:40; Q59:8; Q60:9), but not
to any events associated with the rise of Saul in 1 Samuel. The people’s
objection to Ṭālūt on the grounds of his lack of wealth (Q2:247) aligns with one
of the features of Messenger Uniformitarianism (§5.3.2), that people were
objecting to the Messenger on similar grounds (Q25:7–8). The reference to some
who “turned back” (tawalla) in Q2:246 echoes reports of some believers who
turned back from battle (Q3:155), and exhortations to the Messenger’s followers
not to turn back (e.g., Q3:32, 82). Likewise the remark that a small cohort can
overcome a large cohort (Q2:249) aligns with a specific event or events referred
to in Q3:13 and Q3:123110 when a small group of believers overcame a much
large group of disbelievers.
In the Ṭālūt-Jālūt story there is one idea which has a parallel in the reflexes of
this narrative in the Bible, namely that God is powerful to aid his servants,
though small in number, to rout a much larger enemy (cf. the Gideon story and
the story of David and Goliath). This is the sole theological idea which appears
to be held in common across these related stories, and it is grounded is a very
simple concept, that of the absolute power and sovereignty of God. It seems
therefore that there is no clear evidence of inheritance here, but only of
borrowing and theological repurposing.

6.9.6 Allāh’s Purchase of Believers

Finally we come to a verse which states:
Allāh has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth (for the price
of) the Garden to be theirs. They fight in the way of Allāh, killing and being
killed. This is a promise binding on Him in the Tawrāh, and the Injīl, and the
Qurʾan. Who fulfills his covenant better than Allāh? (Q9:111)111
Although it is attributed to the Tawrāh, and the Injīl, the idea that Allāh has
prepurchased the fighting bodies and wealth of believers with the promise of the
Garden is not from the Bible. There is no support in the teachings of the Torah or
the Gospels that those who die fighting God’s battles are guaranteed a place in
paradise. The reference to Moses is an anachronism because paradise as a
reward in the afterlife is not part of the theology of Pentateuch: belief in paradise
(and hell) developed in Jewish thought much later (Bamberger 2007, 626).
Indeed the earliest mentions of paradise and hell in Jewish literature are found in
the gospels (cf. parádeisos in Luke 23:43).112 Although New Testament
passages do speak of God redeeming believers through the blood of Christ (Acts
20:28; 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; 2 Pet. 2:1), this is not through the “payment” of
paradise, nor in connection with an obligation to wage war on others. The
Hebrew Bible includes a theological concept of redemption (padah), which, with
a human agent, involves a financial transaction, but with a divine agent it “does
not involve the nation of the payment of an equivalent” (Leslie 2007, 151). In
any case, this is not a redemption into fighting and death, but out of the bondage
into freedom:113
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you. (Isa. 44:22; cf. Jer. 31:11)
Consider the contrast between the Qurʾanic view that believers have been
purchased for warfare with the price of paradise—becoming slave soldiers of
Allāh—and the Biblical view that God has purchased his people out of slavery
(1 Cor. 7:23), and away from battle and death (Ps. 55:18: “He will redeem me
unharmed from the battle that I wage”). In conclusion, the reference to
purchasing believers in Q9:111 does not provide evidence for a theological
inheritance from the Bible into the Qurʾan.

6.9.7 Conclusion to Fighting Prophets

In this section we have explored a number of Qurʾanic references to enmity and
warfare which might appear to link teachings about fighting to the Biblical
figures Abraham, Moses, Saul, David, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples. We have
considered whether there is evidence of theological continuity between the
Qurʾan’s treatment of these passages and Biblical references of which they may
be reflexes. With one exception—the idea that Allāh’s victory does not depend
upon numbers, found in the story of Ṭālūt-Jālūt—there were no theological
points of connection between the Bible and the Qurʾan’s treatment of these
“fighting prophets,” but considerable evidence that the putative reflexes have
been well integrated into the Qurʾan’s own theology. Where the Qurʾan invokes
Biblical figures in support of its teachings about fighting, it does so with no
apparent retention of Biblical understandings of warfare.
There are many passages in the Hebrew Bible, such as the massacres at Jericho
and Ai under Joshua (Josh. 6:24–25, 8:24–25), or YHWH’s instruction to Saul to
totally destroy the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15:3), which the Qurʾan could have
engaged with and adapted to serve its call to arms to believers after the
Eschatological Transition. That it did not is consistent with the Qurʾan’s
independence from the Bible, which we have noted previously (§0.2.1).
In coming to this conclusion it may be useful to reiterate that our purpose in
this section is not to compare the Qurʾan’s theology of warfare with various
theologies of warfare in the Bible. The point is not to compare theology with
theology. Rather the method used here is to examine specific lexical and
narrative materials, which could be considered to invoke or allude to Biblical
precedents involving prophets in warfare. What we found was that the fighting
prophets passages in the Qurʾan display either null or very weak theological
linkages with the Bible.
It is useful to make a key clarification at this point. We have argued that the
Qurʾan’s appeal to the precedent of Biblical prophets to support its post-
transitional understanding of warfare in the way of Allāh is not well-grounded.
The putative Biblical precedents that the Qurʾan cites either do not exist, or do
not match up theologically to any significant extent. However, this in no way
contradicts compelling arguments advanced by Sizgorich (2009) that Islam’s
conception of divinely sanctioned fighting was significantly shaped by and even
modeled on contemporary Christian understandings of violence, which were
justified by Christian militants on the basis of both Biblical precedents, and
narratives of persecution and resistance. The concept of using violence to
establish the dominance of one sect over another was widely accepted and
practiced by Christians in late antiquity, and it seems there was a transference of
a “lexicon of signs, symbols, narratives and associations” (Sizgorich 2009, 275)
over to the Arab monotheists who established the rule of Islam. Sinai (2017b,
192–196), citing Sizgorich and Gaddis (2005) concludes that many features of
the Qurʾan’s approach to religious violence had direct antecedents in
contemporary Christian teaching and practice, including the incitement of
violence against religious communities; the imposition of hostile boundaries
between people of different religious persuasions who had previously gotten on
quite peacefully; discrediting those who do not show enthusiasm for violence by
attributing ungodly motives to them; exploitation of one-sided victimhood
narratives to justify violence; the promise of success in the next life for those
who fight for God; and inciting a lust for martyrdom. The fact that the bulk of
the Christian world has moved away from such teachings does not mean they
were not argued for and promoted by Christians on Biblical and doctrinal
grounds at the time. Sinai (2017, 193) concludes that there is a “real historical
continuity” between the Qurʾan and Christian dogma and practice of the time in
respect to the theology of intercommunal conflict and warfare. Despite this, we
have found prophetic precedents claimed by the Qurʾan to support its post-
transitional doctrines of violence are contrived. They do not rest on a direct
inheritance of a theological tradition grounded in specific Biblical texts, but
appear to be a creative attempt by the Qurʾan to posit scriptural precedents for
what may well have been taken to be Christian practices. Our concern is whether
there was inheritance of borrowing at play. An example of a inheritance,
reflected in a continuity of transmission could have been an authentic reference
in the Qurʾan to one of the Biblical authorities which were being cited by
contemporary Christian preachers to justify religious violence. The account in
Num. 25:1–12 of Phinehas’ slaughter of an Israelite and his Midianite female
companion, and Elijah’s massacre of the prophets of Baal were cited in late
antiquity by Christian preachers to justify and extol violence against non-
Christians and their places of worship (Gaddis 2005, 181–186), but neither of
these is referenced by the Qurʾan. There are ample Biblical materials the Qurʾan
could have used to ground its theology of divinely mandated warfare which
could have lined up well with contemporary theological models from the
Biblical tradition. Instead the Qurʾan presents its own unique understanding of
fighting prophets, which is integrated into its dogma of Messenger
Uniformitarianism. For our purposes what is important is that the Qurʾan’s
argument for religious violence, even when it appeals to the example of
prophets, is shaped by its own theological agenda. Aspects of the practices and
outlook on violence it promotes may well have been influenced by the practice
and teaching of Christian communities, but the precedents it cites and the
theology it constructs on the basis of those precedents is more like an act of
theological reverse-engineering on the Qurʾan’s part, than an inheritance from a
systematic Christian theological tradition. The Qur’an’s appeal to prophetic
precedents does not arise from an insider’s view of Biblical traditions of
religious war, but from an outsider’s need to adopt and validate practices of
violence, built upon and aligned with the Qurʾan’s own theological foundations
and superstructure.

6.10 CONCLUSION TO COMPARATIVE STUDIES

In this and the previous two chapters we have considered a variety of areas in
which Biblical theological themes could have been inherited by the Qurʾan from
Judaeo-Christian Biblical traditions. In chapter 4 we examined the Qurʾan’s
treatment of “monotheism” and disbelief, and discussed the originality of
Qurʾanic monotheism and its divergence from the emphases of Biblical
monotheism. In chapter 5 we examined the Qurʾan’s Rasulology and contrasted
this with Biblical understandings of prophets. In the Qurʾan’s treatment of
Rasulology, as with monotheism, we found that, while there are superficial
similarities between Qurʾanic Theology and potential Biblical antecedents, a
deeper analysis reveals divergences from Biblical theological constructs, and
considerable theological originality on the Qurʾan’s part.
 In this chapter we have considered the treatment of a range of theologically
significant terms such as al-Masīḥ “messiah,” rūḥ al-qudus “holy spirit” and
various terms which have been translated as “covenant.” We also investigated
Biblicist narrative materials including the Nūḥ stories and the stories of the Fall.
We consistently found that, while there are often surface similarities in
phonological forms or narrative elements, the theological content of Biblical
reflexes in the Qurʾan is not aligned with their Biblical correlates. Theological
structure has not been preserved. In some cases we found evidence for PSM,
such as sakīnah, in which Qurʾanic Arabic uses terms which sound similar to
Judaeo-Christian religious terminology, but with different semantic content, or
for phonological matching, as in the case of masīḥ, in which there is similarity of
phonological form with minimal transference of meaning, since masīḥ is
morphologically (and thus semantically) unanalyzable in Arabic. Repeatedly we
have found that the Qurʾan uses forms which sound Biblical, but are endowed
with distinctive Qurʾanic functions. This is in line with what Sinai (2011b, 415)
has referred to as the “ideological tightness” of the Qurʾan, which shows a
“thoroughgoing imposition of a theological moral” on the materials from which
it draws. An overview of topics considered in this chapter is provided in Table
6.3.
Table 6.3 Summary of forms discussed in chapter 6
 These findings are fully in line with a recent study of the similarities and
differences between Christian and Qurʾanic eschatology by Sinai (2017b, 166–
169; cf. Sinai 2017c). Sinai documents the many similar features shared by the
two eschatologies, including an earthquake, disruption to the heavens, the last
trump which sets off the resurrection, destruction, or moving of mountains, and
the opening of record books before the final judgment. He also points to
similarities in phrasing, such as “in the blink of an eye” (Q54:50; 1 Cor. 15:52),
and references to the eschatological “Hour,” and the phrase “on that day.” There
are, he observes, also similarities in the pietistic emphases of the Qurʾan and
those of contemporary Syriac eschatological discourses, such as emphases on
almsgiving and prayer vigils. Yet, for all this, Sinai concludes that the
“appropriation of Christian eschatological discourse is very selective” (2013b,
167). The result is an eschatology “unencumbered by theological commitments
beyond the belief in an omnipotent creator and judge” (2013b, 167). Sinai
concludes that the Qurʾan was produced in a cultural context that had been:
. . . exposed to Christian missionary preaching yet had so far proved largely
impervious to it. . . . The early Qurʾanic surahs isolate this eschatological
strand of ideas, denuding it of doctrine and practices that are peculiar to
Christianity or to one particular kind of Christianity and making it the
lynchpin of a new revelation in Arabic. (2017b, 167)
This doctrinal “denuding,” which retains specific moral exhortations and
eschatological narrative elements, and which can be repurposed to serve a
distinct theological framework, is precisely what we have been observing
through the studies in this chapter.114
The pattern observed is reminiscent of relexification in creoles, where
phonological forms are taken from a superstrate language (analogous to Biblical
reflexes), often in considerable volume, but the meanings and linguistic
structures are supplied from substrate languages (analogous to non-Biblical
theologies). This recurring pattern, it is suggested, is evidence of a disrupted,
discontinuous relationship between the Qurʾan and the Biblical traditions. The
Qurʾan has extensively repurposed Biblical materials without assimilating them
in any deeper doctrinal sense, discarding much of their theological content. All
this points to discontinuity, and away from a “family resemblance” between the
Qurʾan and the Bible.
Another pattern which has emerged in this chapter is the pressure upon
scholars to introduce Biblical theological categories into Qurʾanic texts. Often
the language used to translate and interpret the Qurʾan ends up tracing the shape
of the Biblical “frame” through which Western reader looks at the Qurʾan. One
example is the use of covenantal language to translate Qurʾanic Arabic words,
which careful analysis shows are best rendered as references to commands.

NOTES
1. Potential examples are Qurʾanic angelology (Eickmann 1908, 56), the functions of Satan (Kropp
2007, 332), and its eschatological schema (Andrae 1923–1925).
2. This is what Ginsberg (2007, 111) refers to as “Stage I” in the development of messianism.
3. Cf. §6.3.4.
4. A three-part name is exceptional in the Qurʾan: almost all other Qurʾanic characters are referred to
by a proper name, for example, Maryam or Jibrīl. An exception is the kunya form Abū Lahab “father of
the flame” (Q111:1).
5. There are some difficult questions surrounding the form of ʿĪsā: see Hayek (1962).
6. See Schimmel (1989). In Qurʾanic Arabic proper names can include the definite article as part of
their form, for example, the name al-Yasaʿ (for Elisha: Q6:86; Q38:48) and the place name al-Jūdī
(Q11:44), the final resting place of Nūḥ’s boat.
7. For example, in Aphrahat, Julian Romance, Pseudo-Clement’s Recognitiones and the Acts of
Thomas. Both orders are found in the New Testament.
8. Cited here in the absolute state.
9. Lane (1863), entry for Masīḥ. Majd al-Din Muḥammad Ibn Yaʾqub al-Fīrūzabādī’s (d.1414) al-
Qāmās al-Muhīt, a comprehensive dictionary of Arabic, was the most popular dictionary across the
Arabic-speaking world from 1400 into the twentieth century.
10. Attributed to Muḥammad’s companion, Ibn ʿAbbās. Although the Tanwīr al-Miqbās is actually a
much later work (Guezzou 2008, v), its accessibility and attribution to Ibn ʿAbbās, who is regarded as
one of the founders of Qurʾanic interpretation, made it very influential.
11. Lane (1863, 1482), entry for s-y-ḥ. If the root is s-y-ḥ, then masīḥ could be a Form I passive
participle. However the form I meaning of s-y-ḥ is already intransitive, so it does not have a passive. See
Hayek (1962) for a discussion of this an other interpretations of masīḥ found in the commentaries.
12. Shahīd’s (2006, 9) characterization of Qurʾanic Christology as “very well developed in the twelve
years of the Makkan period” seem hard to understand.
13. This would appear to be what Wansbrough (1978, 102) referred to, opaquely, as “symbolic transfer,”
through “reductive” “migration of symbols,” in which a sign undergoes “retention in a fresh
configuration” which “entails a successful semantic shift.”
14. Apresjan (1974) defined “regular polysemy” as a type of association of two meanings with a single
signifier which is found regularly repeated across a language.
15. In Old Arabic inscriptions the letters y and w are often interchangeable. Thus, for example, the roots
t-y-h and t-w-h have essentially the same meaning and functions in classical Arabic.
16. The analysis given here is contrary to that of Sells (2016), who asserts that the word rūḥ refers to
“breathing” as well as blowing in pre-Islamic poetry. His glossing of all instances of rūḥ by a single
meaning which he calls “the Qurʾanic concept of spirit” (2012, 114) would seem to overlook both the
possibility of polysemy—that is, of distinct meanings existing simultaneously—and the strong evidence
for reading at least some instances of rūḥ in the Qurʾan as “blowing.” In contrast to Sells, Calverley
(1993) discerned two distinct meanings for Qurʾanic rūḥ.
 17. Lisān al-ʿArab, the best-known dictionary of the Arabic language was compiled by Ibn Mansur
(d.1311/1312).
18. As Lane (1863, 2497) pointed out, Arabic-speaking Christians do not use the grammatically
anomalous Qurʾanic form, but the attributive formation al-rūḥ al-qudus to refer to the Holy Spirit.
19. Jeffery (1938, 232) speaks of “North Semitic”: our understanding of Semitic diachronic linguistics
has advanced considerably since his time.
20. The -ā suffix is an emphatic marker, which is not retained in borrowings from Syriac into Arabic
(Retsö 2008, 99).
21. This subject lends itself to metaphysical speculation. For an overview of Muslim scholars’
approaches, see Macdonald (1932).
22. Both meanings are attested in pre- and post-transitional sūrahs. For example, references to “our”
rūḥ being breathed into Maryam occur in both pre-and post-transitional passages (Q21:91; Q66:12), as do
references to the Messenger being strengthened by the angelic rūḥ (cf. Q16:102 vs. Q2:87; Q5:110;
Q58:22).
23. On “the spirit” in Islam, see Kritzeck (1975) and Shih-Ching (2006).
24. For example, Ibn Zayd interpreted rūḥ al-qudus as a reference to the Qurʾan or the Injīl (Ayoub
1984, 124–125). See Calverley (1993, 881–883) for a survey of some of these controversies.
25. The common translations for waḥy of “inspiration” and “revelation” are far from ideal, the first
implying an indwelling spirit, and the other a plain disclosure of hidden things. The evidence of pre-
Qurʾanic poetry suggests that w-ḥ-y was used for communication that was in some way indistinct
(Madigan 2004, 439), “mysterious” or “difficult to understand for the outsiders” (Izutsu 1964, 158).
Examples in the Qurʾan which do not involve Allāh as the agent are Zakarīyā communicating by gestures
(Q19:11), and communication between shayāṭīn (Q6:112, 121). The esoteric character of waḥy is also
suggested in Q42:51 by the comparison with communication from “behind a screen.”
26. This may have been borrowed from Christian or Jewish usage: consider the phrase “Michael and his
angels” in Rev. 12:7.
27. See Fischer (2002, §299c) on the causal reading of min.
28. There is an inconsistency concerning the status of Iblīs. He is sometimes described as one of the
angels (Q2:34; Q18:50), but he is also called one of the jinn, after he refuses to bow down before Ādam
together with other angels (Q18:50). Iblīs also says about himself that, unlike Ādam, he is made from fire
(Q38:76), which suggests that he was created a jinn (Q15:26–27; cf. Q38:76; Q55:15).
29. The syntax of Q66:4 is somewhat elliptical. The parsing is “Allāh is his [the Messenger’s] protector,
and Jibrīl too [is his protector], and [Allāh is the protector of] the righteous among the believers, and
beyond that the angels are his [the Messenger’s] supporters.”
30. Another verb root which can refer to a form of blowing is n-f-th. This is used in Q113:4 to refer to
women doing magic by blowing (or spitting) on knots. This was described by the lexicographers as
spitting or blowing in a way which is like spitting, but “without ejecting spittle” (Lane 1863, 2819).
31. This story is similar to one found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:2–4; however, the reference to
Jesus’ “blowing” is only found in the Qurʾan. In the Infancy Gospel Jesus brings the clay birds to life by
clapping his hands.
32. Euphemistic translations have the angel blowing into the “opening” of Maryam’s clothes. The
Arabic has furuj “vulva.”
33. The square brackets are from al-Hilālī and Khān and the identification of Jibrīl is theirs also.
34. This is also a mainstream interpretation of the mufassirūn, for example, cf. Tafsīr al-Jalālayn on
Q3:39 (al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī 2007b, 126) and Ibn Kathīr on Q3:45 (Ibn Kathīr 2003, 2.160). For an
alternative possibility, namely that the Qurʾan was influenced by a Jewish-Christian sect which believed
Jesus was an angel, see Hawting’s (2011, 381) discussion of Ebionite beliefs about Jesus, as reported by
Epiphanius.
35. Cf. Genesis 3:19 “you are dust,” said by YHWH to Ādam.
36. Ha-Shem “the name” is a preferred expression used in Judaism for YHWH.
37. Such attributes raised important philosophical issues for Muslim scholars in later generations,
particularly in the light of the Qurʾan’s emphasis on Allāh’s uniqueness (cf. Q42:11; Q112:4; see Wolfson
1976, 8ff).
38. There are references to angels being in Allāh’s heavenly presence, but not on earth (Q13:11;
Q21:19; Q39:75; Q89:22; Q69:17). The Qurʾan also speaks of the righteous being present with Allāh in
the Garden (Q3:169; Q54:54–55), but, again, not on earth.
39. For a review of issues associated with interpreting Ṭuwā see Rippin (2013a).
40. Jeffery suggests that Muḥammad did not understand the meaning of this technical term, presumed it
was the same as the genuine Arabic word sakīnah “tranquility,” and incorporated it into Arabic, by a
process of what was in effect phonological matching, without semantic matching (§6.6.5).
41. It is an intrusion of Biblical meaning into the Qurʾan to assert, as Reynolds (2017, 208) does, that
“in this passage the Qurʾan refers to God’s presence . . . residing in the ark.”
42. The Syriac equivalent is shekīntā (Fahd 1995, 888), so the Arabic is matched to the Hebrew rather
than the Syriac.
43. Islamic commentators tend to interpret this instance in its usual sense of “reassurance”: Ibn Kathīr
(2003, 1.689) gives the meaning as “peace and reassurance” and Tafsīr al-Jalālayn glosses sakīnah as
“They used to . . . experience peacefulness in its presence . . . reassurance for your hearts, from your
Lord” (al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī 2007a, 45).
44. The verb qadasa means “go far away” (Lane 1863, 2496). The reading “be, become pure” appears
to be a post hoc meaning assigned by commentators on the Qurʾan for want of another account of the
meaning of borrowed q-d-s formations.
45. This is just a paraphrase of Q2:30.
46. Concerning Iblīs, “the general consensus is that the word is derived from the Greek diabolos”
(Rippin 2001, 524) via Syriac, nevertheless the precise pathway of borrowing is far from clear (Jeffery
1938, 47–48).
47. This reference could perhaps be an insertion, for it appears to interrupt Allāh’s address to Iblīs in
Q17:63–65.
48. The Syriac -ā is a grammatical ending which would not normally be borrowed into Arabic along
with the stem.
49. See von Bothmer, Ohlig, and Puin (1999, 40), who argued that the yā was a spelling pronunciation
based on a misreading of early Arabic orthography, and the original pronunciation was actually sāṭān or
shāṭān.
50. Exceptions, as noted above, are references to “the adversary, accuser” in Job 1–2, and Zech. 3:2–3.
51. Q37:65 is translated using “serpents” by Maulana Muhammad Ali, citing this meaning of shayāṭīn
(Ali 2002).
52. Kropp (2007, 337) proposes “rope” to be the basic meaning of the root sh-ṭ-n, and would derive the
meaning “snake” from this as a metaphor. The basic Arabic word for rope is ḥabl (cf. Q3:103). In
contrast a shaṭan was a long rope for drawing water from a deep well, which offers an improbable
metaphor for a short snake.
53. This example is from Sapir and Zuckermann (2013, 36). Artichoke itself originally came via
Romance languages from Arabic al-kharshūf, so this is a re-borrowing.
54. Camouflaged borrowings are not to be confused with loans whose etymology has been forgotten
over time, and are no longer readily recognized as borrowed.
 55. Phono-semantic matching is not equally prevalent in all languages. One context in which it is very
common is creolization, when a superstrate word is incorporated into a creole which is phonologically
and semantically similar to a word in substrate language (Zuckermann 2003, 54–55).
56. This representation of PSM is developed from, but not identical to, the schema of Zuckermann
(2003, 34).
57. That is, if the text was not amended later: see Kropp (2007, 331).
58. See Hirschberg (2007, 294), Hoyland (2011, 110), and Mazuz (2015). For Judaism in Yemen see
also Robin (2003) and Nebes (2011, 38–39). The account of Acts 2:11 also implies that there were Jews
who were Arabic native speakers by the first century CE.
59. See Nöldeke (1910, 47) and the survey in Jeffery (1938, 139–40).
60. See also Silverstein (2013, 32).
61. Kropp’s (2007, 337) observation that rajīm is not attested in pre-Qurʾanic poetry hardly seems
relevant: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
62. Not included in Figure 6.5 is Q112, which is too short to meet the threshold for AFD values. Its
ALD value of 0.38 places it as either late pre-transitional or early post-transitional, but the sūrah is too
short to make any definitive classification.
63. In Deut. 7:1–2 the Israelites are urged not to “cut a covenant” with the Canaanites, “and do not be
gracious to them.”
64. In Hebrew the verb used to make a covenant is kārat “cut.”
65. The titles Old Testament and New Testament reflect the importance of the idea of “covenant” in
Christian tradition.
66. In the New Testament diathḗkē “covenant” is only found in a handful of times outside the letter to
the Hebrews. All these instances refer to the covenant of the Hebrew Bible either directly (Luke 1:72;
Acts 3:25; Acts 7:8; Rom. 9:4; 11:27; 2 Cor. 3:14; Eph. 2:12) or by contrast (Mt. 26:28; Mk 14:24; Luke
22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Gal. 3:15, 17, 24). The same holds for references in the Letter to the
Hebrews. The contemporary Greek understanding of diathḗkē as a will or testament, is also occasionally
invoked, for example, Heb. 9:16–17 and Gal. 3:15.
67. Jeffery offers alternative verse numbers: we have only included in the citation the first alternative,
which matches the numbering system used here.
68. Another example is Q7:172, which Jaffer (2017) takes as the foundation for an Islamic covenant
theology. However, there is nothing in Q7:172, or indeed in Jaffer’s presentation, that provides support
for a “covenant” reading of this verse in the Biblical sense of mutuality. Instead Q7:172 has all the
features of a one-sided binding commitment imposed by one party on another, in other words, of a
mīthāq. It is telling that Jaffer’s (2017, 105) summary of this verse’s key ideas includes “a program of
conduct for humanity,” but not for Allāh.
69. The purpose of this obligation is to condemn those who reject the Messenger, on the grounds that
they have rejected a binding obligation imposed on their prophets in the past. This is thus an appeal to the
principle of Messenger Uniformitarianism (see §5.3).
70. NP = Noun Phrase: here the object of the verb or preposition.
71. One of the functions of ʿalā is to mark the person on whom there is an obligation (Fischer 2002,
§302c).
72. Yūsuf ʿAlī (1999) has “covenanted”; Droge (2014) translates this as “swear allegiance” to Allāh,
however ʿāhada implies mutual obligation, not one-sided allegiance.
73. This meaning is only suggested for this particular verse.
74. A form of abuse leveled against Nūḥ, but not other messengers in the Qurʾan, is that his followers
were “the worst” (Q11:27; Q26:111) and “most gullible” (Q11:27) of people. This would seem to suggest
that the Messenger had experienced similar criticisms, but this is not reflected elsewhere in the Qurʾan.
75. In only one version are animals mentioned (Q11:40).
76. This is traditionally identified with the Kaʿbah sanctuary in Mecca.
77. The Mūsā story in Q18:60–82 bears no relation to any Biblical material.
78. A considerable amount of narrative material within the Mūsā stories has been taken over from
Jewish sources (Speyer 1931, 225–65).
79. As Schöck (2003, 419) puts it, “the biography of Moses is seen in the light of the biography of
Muḥammad” (i.e., of the Qurʾanic Messenger).
80. The putative references to “covenant” outside the Mūsā stories have all been covered in §6.7.3.
81. This analysis is strengthened by the observation that Q7 and Q20 occur relatively close to each
other in the Qurʾanic stylistic timeline (cf. Figure 3.10), in the lead up to the Eschatological Crisis, and
Q2 is early in the post-transitional period. It seems that the story of Allāh making an appointment to
commune with Mūsā was topical during the period before and after the transition.
82. See Ambros and Procházka (2006), sections 35.2 and 26.2.
83. Volf (2010, 101) has proposed “God is good” as one of six core “sufficient similarity” criteria that
Christians and Muslims worship the same God. However, the Qurʾanic verse he cites (Q85:14) states that
Allāh is forgiving and loving, not “good.”
84. See Griffin (2004, 31ff) on God as a source or cause of evil in the Bible, for example, sending evil
spirits (1 Sam. 16:14–15), leading people astray (1 Kgs 22:19–22) or hardening hearts (Exod. 9:12; Isa.
6:10).
85. And once, there is al-rūḥ al-ʾamīn “the trustworthy spirit” (Q26:193), in reference to an angel:
§6.3.3.
86. Geiger made this point to argue that the story had been taken from Jewish sources, and not Christian
ones.
87. There have been a number of studies of the Qurʾan’s narratives about the Fall, including by Speyer
(1931, 54–61); and Reynolds (2010b, 39–54). Sinai (2017b, 143–153) has provided the most
comprehensive study of the impact of Qurʾanic Theology on the way it handles these materials.
88. In asserting that human sin is a theme of Gen. 2–3, we do not mean to invoke the Christian doctrine
of original sin. Rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, while rejecting the idea of original sin, do
acknowledge that the story is concerned with human sin. For a contemporary example, see Soloveitchik’s
(2005, 95–128) essay, “The Tree of Knowledge and the Emergence of Sin.”
89. The name Hawwāʾ “Eve” is not mentioned by name in the Qurʾan, but only in the ḥadīth.
90. In the Qurʾan al-jannah “the Garden” is the place of origin of Ādam and his wife, and the same
expression is used to refer to the eschatological destination of the righteous, contrasted with the Fire (al-
nār). However, apart from the shared name, there is little to tie these two senses of al-jannah together:
none of the luxurious abundance of the eschatological Garden, such as flowing rivers, springs or milk and
honey, fine clothes or virginal companions are reflected in the accounts of al-jannah of Ādam.
91. Accounts of angels worshipping Ādam and Satan refusing are found in the Jewish pseudepigraphic
text the Life of Adam and Eve (Johnston 1985), the Apocryphal Christian texts Questions of Bartholomew
(Scheidweiler and Scheemelcher 1991) and the Cave of Treasures (Budge 1927). The justification given
in the Questions of Bartholomew for angels to worship Ādam is that since Ādam was made in the image
of God, the angels should worship God’s image in him.
92. However, the phrase jannāt ʿAdnin “Gardens of Eden” does not appear in the context of the Ādam
narratives: it is only used in reference to future rewards.
93. For discussion of al-Shayṭān see §6.6.
94. Witztum (2011, 73) calls this a “glaring redundant repetition.”
 95. This explanatory gap is also a feature of the Syriac sources: see Witztum (2011, 104–107).
96. It might be assumed that the allusive nature of many references to individuals and narratives in the
Qurʾan reflects a prior knowledge that an audience has gained from other sources. However, another
possibility is that a fuller recital of the alluded to materials took place in a previous recitation.
97. This could be a fruitful area for further investigation: to examine the ordering of story retellings and
allusions to stories along the stylistic timeline in order to determine whether a detailed presentation of a
story tends to cause tellings which follow closely in time to be more attenuated.
98. The shorter Q17 shares unique material with Q15 (e.g., “Surely My servants—you will have no
authority over them” from Q15:42 and Q17:65) and Q7 (e.g., “any of them who follows you” from Q7:18
and Q17:63), but Q17 does not share unique material with Q38. The very truncated versions of the Fall of
Iblīs in Q18 and Q20 are entirely made up of material shared with at least two other sūrahs.
99. As Sinai (2017b) has pointed out, the Qurʾan’s treatment of al-Shayṭān’s calling is all the more
striking in the light of the fact that potential antecedents to the Qurʾanic materials, such as the Life of
Adam and Eve and the Cave of Treasures do not attribute responsibility to God for Satan’s work as a
tempter. See also discussion by Pohlman (2012, 119–120).
100. This is not to say that the Bible attributes all the problems of the world, including all of sin, to the
Fall.
101. Q22 also states that fighting can prevent evil destruction of places of worship (Q22:40).
102. Cf. Q66:10, which reports that the wives of Nūḥ and Lūṭ both disbelieved and acted treacherously
against their husbands, so they were consigned to the Fire, and Q11:42–47 on Nūḥ’s unrighteous son who
perished.
103. The story is similar to a midrash on Gen. 11:28 found in the Midrash Rabbah (Freedman and Simon
1939, 1.310–1.311) and elsewhere (Firestone 2001, 6–7).
104. Contra Stewart (2001, 492), Moses’ and Nūḥ’s cries in Q10:88 and Q71:24–28 against their
enemies are not curses, but prayers.
105. Other post-transitional prohibitions of friendship or association with disbelievers can be found in
Q3:28, 118ff; Q4:89, 144; Q5:51, 81; Q9:23; Q58:14ff, 22; cf. also §4.1.2.
106. The “woes” of Jesus against the scribes, Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the rich and others, are
not curses but laments: cf. Luke 21:23 “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing
infants in those days!” This is not a curse spoken against pregnant and nursing mothers, but a lament over
their future suffering.
107. Forms with the root ẓ-h-r are elsewhere used of military dominance (e.g., Q9:8; Q61:9; Q48:28).
The basic meaning of the verb ẓahara is to “become manifest” or “plain.” By extension this can mean to
become manifest by getting on top of something else, for example, to get on top of a house. By further
extension it can mean “conquer, subdue, overpower, gain victory over” (Lane 1863, 1926).
108. This resembles the story of Gideon (Jud. 7:4–7).
109. There are a number of rhyming name pairs in the Qurʾan. Some others are Hārūt—Mārūt, Maʾjūj—
Yaʾjūj, and ʿĪsā—Mūsā.
110. The latter verse is associated with the place name Badr. For a discussion of problems in the
traditional linking of accounts of the Battle of Badr with the Qurʾan references, see Hawting (2015).
111. This is but one of a number of commercial metaphors which the Qurʾan applies to eschatology,
another is the idea of the eschatological fate of humans as a “wage” (Rippin 1996), which, unlike the
purchase of believers for fighting, does have parallels in the Bible (cf. Jn 4:36).
112. This is not to say that the Hebrew Bible includes no references to life after death (cf. Ps. 49:15,
73:23–25; Dan. 12:1–3; Isa. 26:19).
113. The point is not that the Hebrew Bible is against slavery, but that redemption is not understood as a
purchase into slavery.
 114. In the light of his findings, Sinai’s observation that there is a “pronounced convergence” between
early Qurʾanic and Syriac eschatology seems imprecise. The “convergence” is the accumulation of
surface similarities, while at a deeper level there is divergence.
 Conclusion
The Genesis of a New Religion?

The question of the origin of the Qurʾan is related to a question about the genesis
of a religion, Islam, and the relationship of this religion to those which preceded
it. Before summarizing our findings, it seems appropriate to make some
observations about the genesis of Islam in relation to Judaism and Christianity.
In the case of Christianity, it is widely accepted that it emerged from within
religious milieu of Second Temple Judaism, which comprised diverse Jewish
movements, including the three main sects named by Josephus: the Essenes, the
Pharisees, and the Sadducees (Sanders 1993, 46–47). Of these the Pharisees
developed into Rabbinic Judaism, which survives to the present day. Christianity
was another enduring offshoot.
Boyarin (2004, 5) has called Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity “two Judaic
dialects,” and “twins, joined at the hip”:1
. . . there is something fundamentally upside down in looking within rabbinic
sources for “background” to the New Testament. Judaism [i.e. Rabbinic
Judaism] is not the “mother” of Christianity; they are twins, joined at the hip.
(2004, 5)
Similarly, Flusser (1990), an orthodox Jewish scholar who specialized in the
origins of Christianity, declared the same view through the title of one of his
books: Das Christentum—eine jüdische Religion “Christianity—A Jewish
Religion”.2 In Bemerkungen eines Juden zur christlichen Theologie “Remarks of
a Jew on Christian Theology” he wrote:
Jesus was a Jew, lived out Jewish beliefs, and died for them. . . . One can
determine Jesus’ place in the Jewish currents of his time. . . . Jesus introduced
no new concept of God; his God is the God of Israel. (1984, 94)
To be sure, in time Christianity diverged significantly from the Judaisms of
Jesus’ time, and also from Rabbinic Judaism,3 but in the scholarship of the last
50 years devoted to the question of Christian origins, the issue with regard to
Judaism is not whether Christianity arose as a movement within Judaism, but
how late the separation came. Many milestones have been suggested, from Jesus’
clearing of the temple to the Council of Nicaea.4 One milestone recorded in the
New Testament was the ruling of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) that
gentiles who accepted the gospel of Jesus were not required to be Torah-
observant. This meant that a growing number of Christians could not be
recognized as Jews.5 This innovation was confirmed in Paul’s letters, which
argue that being “in Christ” should be the criterion of identity for membership in
the Messianic community, not Torah observance (Rom. 8:2; Gal. 2:16).
Nevertheless a continuing sign of the origin of Christianity and its origins within
Judaism was the retention of the Jewish Bible—the “Old Testament”—in the
Christian canon. Some scholars date the separation of Christianity and Judaism
after the first century (see, e.g., Boyarin 2003, 25), which was after all the books
of the New Testament were written, and others have suggested that the two
traditions “remained intertwined long after the Second Temple had fallen”
(Becker and Reed 2003, 3). Even after the separation, whenever it is considered
to have occurred, some Jewish-Christian communities like the Ebionites and the
Nazoraeans, which combined devotion to Christ with Torah observance (Klijn
and Reinink 1973, 19ff, 44ff), still continued to exist in the Middle East for
centuries.6
In the light of these reflections, a provisional “family tree” of Christianity and
Judaism could be schematically represented in Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1 The historical relationship of Judaism and Christianity.

 There is a marked contrast to be observed between the Biblical influences on
the Qurʾan and the way the Hebrew Bible influenced the Greek New Testament.
The New Testament was profoundly affected by the Septuagint, a translation of
the Hebrew Bible into koiné Greek.
Much of the grammar, vocabulary, and thought-world of the New Testament
finds its best parallel and illustration in the Septuagint. The distinctive
religious meaning of many New Testament words (e.g. ekklēsia, baptisma,
presbyteros, psallō, cheirontonia) is to be found not from etymology or
classical usage but from the adaptations already made by Greek-speaking
Jews, as known from the Septuagint . . . The putting of Hebrew religious
ideas into the Greek language was an important transitional step that prepared
the way for Christian preaching. . . . The Bible of the early church, except for
some Jewish believers and a few scholars, was the Greek Old Testament.
(Ferguson 1993, 410)
The pervasive influence of the Septuagint meant that Greek theological terms
used by the early Greek-speaking Christians were built upon the theological
categories of the Hebrew Bible. As we have seen, christós was the established
translational equivalent of māshiaḥ (§6.2.1) and episkiázō “overshadow” was the
equivalent of Hebrew shakān “dwell” (§6.3.5). In contrast, the Qurʾan’s use of
Biblical lexical reflexes—whether taken from Hebrew, Syriac, or other sources
—was not shaped by an Arabic Bible translation. We know this, not only
because no traces of any such translation has survived (Griffith 2008b, 50, 2013,
41ff), but also from the way in which the Qurʾan makes use of Biblical reflexes.
There was no linguistic and theological bridge for Biblical Theology into the
Qurʾanic text comparable to the Septuagint’s role in the formation of the Greek
New Testament.
The definition of a genetic relationship between religions outlined in §0.7.3 is
in terms of a diachronic transformation of one theological semiotic system into
another. The attempt to apply this particular model to the question of Christian
origins vis-à-vis Second Temple Judaism is beyond the scope of this work,
whose main focus is on the Qurʾan. That is why, in introducing Figure 7.1, we
have used the word provisional. There is a vast literature on the origins of
Christianity in relation to Judaism, and it is necessary to stress that our findings
do not depend upon whether Christianity and Judaism are or are not genetically
linked on one family tree in the technical sense defined in §0.7.3. However, let
us suppose that genetic relatedness between Judaism and Christianity could be
demonstrated in the sense of §0.7.3. This is not an unreasonable assumption,
given that a family relationship is effectively assumed, and indeed has been
confirmed over decades by mainstream scholarship on Christian origins. In this
case the question arises: Does Islam fit on this family tree, and if so, where? The
general assumption of 150 years of Qurʾanic scholarship has been that Islam
ought to belong somewhere on the tree, but there is no consensus about exactly
where. Many different proposals have been entertained to clarify the position of
Islam in relation to Christianity and Judaism, including suggestions that Islam
developed out of Jewish Christianity (§0.6.2 and §0.2). One proposal, first
proposed in the first centuries of Islam, was that Islam is an offshoot of
Christianity, albeit disavowed as a “heresy” (see §0.1). However, this ancient
Christian apologetic proves untenable in the light of evidence of deeper
theological discontinuity: the Qurʾan cannot be so easily dismissed as an
offshoot from Biblical religious traditions.
The question at hand is not whether Islam was influenced by Judaism or
Christianity. Clearly everyone agrees that it was, but the question remains how
we should situate Islam in relation to these two preceding faiths, as well as in
relation to Arab culture and the Arabic language, which also made a contribution
to the Qurʾan. The issue is how to characterize the nature of influences from the
Bible upon the Qurʾan, and whether situating Islam (together with its Qurʾan) in
a family tree along with Judaism and Christianity is an appropriate reflection of
these influences.
We have seen that a challenge of modeling the relationship of Islam to Judaism
and Christianity is to be able to refer to a conceptual framework for the genesis
of a faith which can accommodate a pattern of extensive influences combined
with evidences of significant disconnections, which is what we know to be the
case with the Qurʾan. In the face of the large volume of reflexes of Jewish and
Christian sources in the Qurʾan, there is the riddle of how to explain the Biblical
influences, apparently mediated from both Judaism and Christianity, and the
perhaps greater riddle of the startling lacunae and discrepancies between the
Qurʾan and the Bible. This was what we referred to as the paradox of the
Qurʾan’s knowledge and ignorance about the Bible (§0.2.1).
In recent years there have been expressions of frustration by Qurʾanic scholars
that the study of the Qurʾan is not given the appropriate place it deserves in
relationship to the other monotheistic scriptures. Reynolds (2010b, 258) has
called for the study of the Qurʾan to be treated, not as a “foreign or irrelevant
book,” but “as a work very much within the tradition of Biblical literature” and
Neuwirth (2014c, 44) has agreed that Islam should be treated as a “religion
inseparable from the Christian-Jewish tradition.” However, at the same time she
roundly criticized Reynolds’ attempt to locate the study of the Qurʾan within
Biblical studies, because this treats the Qurʾan as “a text subsidiary to the Bible”
(Neuwirth 2014e, xix). Instead, Neuwirth calls for recognition of “the kindred
origin and genesis of the three religions—their documentation in a shared
‘family tree’” [my emphasis], in which the Qurʾan is to be given equal standing
with the Bible. She wishes the Qurʾan to be counted, not as subsidiary to the
Bible, but standing alongside the Old and New Testaments to form a three part
“canon of monotheistic scriptures” (Neuwirth 2014c, 4).
Neuwirth sees her own research contributions, which have focused on the
Qurʾanic milieu in late antiquity, as shining light on die historisch einzigartige
Vereinheitlichungsleistung “the historically unique unifying power” of the
Qurʾan alongside the Bible:
Only when the epistemic revolution achieved with the Qurʾan is set in relief
against the historically illuminated background of Late Antiquity can the
Qurʾan be recognized as a text of universal relevance, which is both an
Islamic inheritance and also7 a legacy to Europe, and thereby finally be given
parity with both the older scriptures. (2013, 768)
Neuwirth’s appeal to a “family tree” metaphor begs the question of what this
metaphor actually means, beyond acknowledging some kind of similarity. Indeed
the issue of how to clarify what Islam’s Judaeo-Christian “kinship” actually
consists has dogged almost two centuries of research into Islam’s origins.
This work has put forward criteria for evaluating the claim to a “family tree”
relationship of dependence by considering what an alternative to a family tree
relationship might look like. It has been proposed that the genesis of Islam
involved the creative innovation of a whole new religious semiotic system
which, to be sure, drew on raw materials from Judaism and Christianity, but was
not an organic development from either religion (nor from a mixture of the two
in some kind of Jewish Christianity), and the manner of its genesis served its
own theological objectives, which were distinct from those of the earlier
scriptures.
An analogy has been proposed with the process of language genesis in
creolization as a frame within which to explore what an alternative to the
“family tree” explanation might look like. This analogy offers a model of how a
religious movement, conceived of as a semiotic system, could come into being
without having a genetic relationship with its influencing antecedents, even
while drawing extensively upon them.
When Neuwirth asked for Islam to be accepted as part of the monotheistic
“family tree,” she could not have had in mind a model of simple genetic
inheritance in which Islam developed in a straight line out of a previous
monotheistic religion, for in her own research she has argued, again and again,
that the genesis of the Qurʾan was an expression of unique and original
creativity, which drew on and reacted to ideas from pagan Arab culture as much
as Biblical models. For example, she proposed that the Qurʾanic idea of paradise
owes little to Judaism or Christianity, but was fashioned to answer the cynicism
of the pre-Islamic pagan worldview of muruwwa, by inverting it: “the narratives
of paradise . . . served to counterbalance and, ultimately replace the deeply
pessimistic perceptions of reality prevailing in the Qurʾan’s pagan milieu”
(2014a, 79).8 In a similar fashion, Neuwirth (2008) argued that the Qurʾan
rejected both the Biblical view of history as a promise for the future, and the
pessimism of the prevalent Arab pagan view, which had interpreted the visible
ruins left by previous generations as signs of the transitoriness and meaningless
of human existence. Instead the Qurʾan interpreted these ruins as signs of the
supremacy of Allāh’s plan, manifested in history by the destruction of past
generations.
We fully accept Neuwirth’s insistence that the Qurʾan is a “document of the
genesis of a religion” (Neuwirth 2013, 19). We also accept Neuwirth’s
observations concerning the significance of contributions from pagan ideas as a
contributor to the milieu of late antiquity in which the Qurʾan arose. However,
we draw very different conclusions about the question of a “family tree
relationship” with Judaism and Christianity. This is not to deny the extensive
influence, but to affirm that there are other kinds of influence besides genetic
inheritance, and to say this is not pejorative.
Contra Neuwirth and Reynolds, it would be a mistake, indeed a category error,
to promote a kindred relationship with the Bible for the sake of elevating
Qurʾanic studies in the academy: one must reject outright any suggestion that the
denial of a “family tree relationship” between Islam on the one hand and
Judaism and Christianity on the other is in any way a pejorative reflection on the
study of the Qurʾan.9 A conclusion that the Qurʾan does not have a genetic
family tree relationship with Christianity or Judaism—despite the many manifest
points of similarity—should not imply that the study of the scripture of a world
religion, followed by 1.6 billion people, is somehow inferior or less in status
than the study of other scriptures. On the contrary, the thesis argued here points
to the inventiveness of the Qurʾan, and its amenability to theological analysis in
its own right. It is neither a text subsidiary to the Bible, nor is it to be attached to
a genetic “family tree” alongside it. Instead it is a work which marches to the
beat of its own theological drum. Drawing extensively on other sources, but not
theologically beholden to them, it imposes its distinctive theological frame on
everything it repurposes. That this is so should in no way lessen the interest,
validity, or status of scholarly investigations into the Qurʾan.

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
In the preceding chapters we have explored the idea that the genesis of the
Qurʾan was analogous to a process of creolization, in which phonological forms
are taken from one source language, the superstrate—while meanings and
grammatical structures are taken from another language, the substrate. My
proposal is that the Qurʾan, while incorporating many formal features of Biblical
words, phrases, and narrative elements, did not incorporate them as whole signs
linked organically into an inherited semiotic system, including theological
content. Instead it “relexified” these materials, supplying them with new
meanings, including new theology. The result of this process is akin to linguistic
borrowing, in which a lexical form from one language is fitted into another,
typically with destructive adjustments to both meaning and form. In a linguistic
context a borrowing process can be contrasted with one of inheritance, in which
a word is retained within and as part of a cohesive linguistic system, maintaining
its structural relationships with other elements within the system. When a word
is inherited, similarity to an earlier version of the word in a previous state of the
language or in continuing “sister” languages is not just observed in its
phonological form, but also in its relationships within a whole linguistic system.
Furthermore it is not just individual items which show similarity, but the features
of the whole system. French did not just inherit a list of lexical items from Latin;
it inherited a grammatical system, albeit one which was constantly evolving.
To test the hypothesis that the genesis of Islam was analogous to creolization,
we proposed that it was not necessary to postulate a specific model of how the
Qurʾan arose in time. Instead it should be enough to undertake comparisons of
the whole semiotic status of Biblical reflexes (§0.2) found in the Qurʾan, and
observe whether the outcome of adoption of these materials has been destructive
or preservative of theological meaning.
 Before undertaking this comparison it was necessary to be able to refer to a
theological analysis of the Qurʾan, to supply the needed framework for
interpreting the theological function of Biblical reflexes. This analysis has been
undertaken here for specific topics, and not for the whole of Qurʾanic theology,
using a methodology that looked to the Qurʾan without reference to the Sunnah
for its primary data. That was for reasons outlined in section §1.3.
The methodological principles applied in developing the analysis of chapter 2
to the conclusion are laid out in section §1.4, together with a review of issues
associated with the category of “theology” in both traditional Muslim and
Western scholarship on Islam (§1.1–§1.2).
The theological analyses in chapters 2 and 4–6 included innovative proposals
for understanding the theology of the Qurʾan. Three aspects in particular stand
out:

1. The Qurʾan’s understanding of the unity of Allāh in relation to human beings

is deeply embedded in and expressed through the context of four Arabic
semantic fields: partnership, patron-protégé relationships, helping alliances,
and the concept of equal and unequal status (chapter 4), as well as the master-
captive metaphor. We found that the Biblical and Qurʾanic treatments of the
unity of God were very different, and in particular the Qurʾan did not inherit
anything of the theological structures associated with Biblical monotheism.
2. The Qurʾan’s theology of messengers—its Rasulology (chapter 5)—plays a
key role in determining a great deal of the content of the Qurʾan, and it plays a
key role in the course of what is here called the Theological Transition
(chapter 2). A powerful explanatory principle, which we have termed
Messenger Uniformitarianism, controls and shapes a great deal of the
discourse concerning past messengers in the Qurʾan, and their relevance for
the standing of the Messenger. A comparison between Qurʾanic Rasulology
and Biblical Prophetology revealed only superficial similarities between the
two, suggesting that the Qurʾan did not inherit its understanding from the
Bible, but has repurposed an idea of a messenger, taken from contemporary
culture or perhaps from Biblical antecedents, in service of its own distinctive
theology.
3. The traditional Mecca-Medina contrast, a biographical hiatus in the life of
Muḥammad, has been reinterpreted here as a theological shift. We proposed
that an Eschatological Crisis lead to the Eschatological Transition, a critical
juncture and turning point in theological outlook whose key transformative
 idea was that “nearer punishment” of unbelievers was to be brought about in
this life by the hands of believers (chapter 2).

Using the theological analytical work done in chapter 2, we were also able to
propose an innovative way of mapping the chronology of the timeline (chapter
3). This was based upon a theological criterion, augmented by two stylistic
metrics. The value and application of this timeline was illustrated by a series of
example studies.
In chapter 6, the climax of our argument, we considered a variety of reflexes of
Biblical materials in the Qurʾan and identified a persistent pattern of
“relexification,” whereby Biblical forms were used but with theological content
omitted or replaced with Qurʾanic Theology. Points discussed included:

1. The concept of messianic anointing and the office of “messiah” are not found
in the Qurʾan, despite the use of the title al-Masīḥ for Jesus.
2. The Qurʾan has no theology of divine presence.
3. Lacking a theology of divine presence, and not having the linguistic resources
to parse rūḥ as “breath of life,” the expression rūḥ al-qudus, while phono-
semantically matched to a Syriac equivalent with the meaning “Holy Spirit,”
is used to refer to an angel.
4. The concept of sacredness in the Qurʾan is based upon the Arabic concept of
ḥ-r-m, which predates Islam and the Qurʾan, while the Biblical concept of q-d-
s “holiness as separation” is poorly integrated and not comprehended within
Qurʾanic Theology, despite the presence in the Qurʾan of some phonological
forms patterned after Syriac (or Hebrew) q-d-s forms.
5. An analysis of stories of the “Fall” in the Qurʾan shows that these have been
fundamentally restructured and reshaped to serve the Qurʾan’s distinctive
theological agenda, consistent with its theology of guidance, with the result
that the Biblical concern with human sin is no longer discernible as a key
theme of these stories.
6. A consideration of terms which translators of the Qurʾan have sometimes
rendered as “covenant” shows that while the Qurʾan has a concept of Allāh
issuing commands, it does not display awareness of a Biblical sense of
covenant, so expressions sometimes translated as “covenant” would be better
translated “command” or “obligate.”
7. The Qurʾanic concepts of al-Shayṭān “Satan” and shayāṭīn “satans,” while
showing some similarities with the Satan of the Bible, differ in key respects. It
 is proposed that the term shayāṭīn, whose primary meaning referred to the
Arabian horned viper, was borrowed into the Qurʾan through a process of
phono-semantic matching, which has influenced the meaning and function of
shayṭān in important ways.
8. An examination of passages in the Qurʾan which refer to Biblical figures
(Qurʾanic “prophets”) fighting for Allāh found no theological links to Biblical
theologies of warfare. Instead the theological framing of these “fighting
prophets” reflected and was designed to respond to conflict in which the
Qurʾanic Messenger and his community were involved.

In a number of cases a pattern was observed of phono-semantic or just

phonological matching of Arabic terms with Christian or Jewish sources. Two
examples are rūḥ al-qudus and masīḥ. It seems to have been important to the
Qurʾanic Messenger and his community that the text of the Qurʾan should sound
and feel like a Jewish or Christian text, yet it has its own distinctive theological
character.
Shellabear (1932, 360) suggested concerning rūḥ in the Qurʾan, that “the actual
meaning of the word can only be safely inferred from the way it was used in the
previous Scriptures from which the word rūḥ was adopted into the Arabic
language.” Our study shows just the opposite, namely that one cannot assume
that the meaning of a borrowed Christian or Jewish term in the Qurʾan is the
same as in the source context. Perhaps such terms were used for their indexical
value as markers of some kind of religious status, a kind of spiritual “name-
dropping” reference to Christianity or Judaism, but at the same time the terms
were being endowed with new meaning.
The consistent finding in each case we examined in chapter 6, agreeing with
our findings in chapters 4 and 5, was that the Qurʾan has not retained the
theological context of Biblical reflexes, and for narrative reflexes, when there is
a Qurʾanic theological agenda in play, the form of the reflex is tailored to fit the
requirements of Qurʾanic Theology. For example, the principle of Messenger
Uniformitarianism is used as a repurposing reference point for the deployment of
Biblical figures. In this way the Qurʾan repurposes Biblical reflexes in patterns
that are characteristic of borrowing rather than inheritance from a common
origin.
These findings suggest that the relationship of the Qurʾan to the Bible is like
that of a creole language to its superstrate, such as, for example, the relationship
between Haitian Creole and French. A great many similarities can be readily
observed, but the deeper meanings and structures of the creole are not French.
This means that Haitian Creole cannot be located on the family tree of Romance
languages. This does not make Haitian Creole any less worthy of study or
respect as a language. It just clarifies that its origin lay in a process of language
genesis, not in an evolution from a common point of origin.
We concluded that that Islam’s genesis, as reflected in the pattern of its
foundational scripture, the Qurʾan, did not arise by a process of organic
development out of Christianity, Judaism, or a form of Jewish Christianity.
Instead the Qurʾan is the outcome of a uniquely creative process. This process
was the genesis of a new religion, suffused with features drawn from other
faiths, but not inheriting its fundamental character from them.

POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

The model proposed here of substrate and superstrate begs the question of what
a substrate for the Qurʾan might be? Here some caution is needed. The analogy
with language genesis in creolization cannot be exact. A language is not the
same thing as a religion because its cognitive basis is not the same. For this
reason we would prefer, tentatively, to speak of a confluence of influences which
together supplied what might be called the “engine-room” of the Qurʾan’s
theology.
Nevertheless the question is an intriguing one. To undertake a task of historical
reconstruction by reverse engineering, attempting to identify the character of
Islam’s substrate by working backward from its own distinctive character, we
must proceed from a systematic analysis of its own internal structure. This task
cannot be attempted in any serious sense by speculating about isolated features
of the Qurʾan such as a word here or there. A reverse engineering project should
start from more detailed and elaborated aspects of the Qurʾan’s theology,
particularly those that are deeply interwoven into the heart of its unique
theological vision, such as its Rasulology, its doctrine of guidance, its doctrine of
signs, and its doctrine of God.
The status of Allāh could be a useful target for a reverse engineering project.
We have already seen that key attributes of YHWH in the Bible, such as holiness
and divine presence, were not incorporated into the Qurʾan. On the other hand
the concept of tawḥīd repositions the unity or uniqueness of Allāh in relation to
Arab tribal values of patronage, alliance, and partnership. Likewise the
relationship between Allāh and the believer is imprinted by the master-captive
metaphor, a construct which preexisted in Arab culture. In the case of the
doctrine of Allāh, it seems that while the basic idea of monotheism may have
ultimately come from Judaism or Christianity—and it was in any case “in the
air” of late antiquity (Izutsu 1964, 107)—this bare-bones idea was fleshed out
with categories drawn from Arab culture, drawing on metaphors available in the
Arabic language. This would parallel Neuwirth’s proposal that the Qurʾan’s idea
of paradise was shaped by pagan Arab culture in late antiquity, being an
inversion of its pessimism and sense of decay.10
There is also the strong likelihood that some core values of the Qurʾanic
worldview are shaped by interactions involving the particular history of the
Qurʾanic community. For example, the Eschatological Transition moves the
Qurʾan from a message about judgment through Acts of God to a call to
believers to enact judgment on unbelievers in the here-and-now. This has the
signs of being a forced personal response to the Eschatological Crisis triggered
by the “delay” in Allāh’s judgment (chapter 2). This theological development
could only have been implemented through the exercise of strong leadership
within the Qurʾanic community, and this observation raises the question of to
what extent aspects of the Qurʾan’s message and theological outlook were
shaped by the psychology and life-experience of the Messenger as leader of the
community.
Finally, we cannot discount the contribution of Christianity and Judaism
altogether. Even if the primary source of the Qurʾan’s big theological ideas is to
be found in the culture of the Qurʾanic community itself, this culture was
certainly influenced by influences drawn from the Biblical faiths.
Moving on from the question of reverse engineering, there is considerable
scope for extending the investigations of chapter 6 to other topics, such as the
narratives about Mūsā or Yūsuf, eschatology (Sinai 2017c has already opened up
this topic), or angelology.
Another fruitful area of research could engage the liturgical texts in the Qurʾan
(see, for example, Neuwirth 2014e, especially her studies in Part II on “The
Liturgical Qurʾan”). One could explore whether the liturgical structures
displayed in the Qurʾan are modeled on Christian or Jewish ones, as Neuwirth
and others have suggested, and at the same time whether the meanings embodied
are more aligned with Qurʾanic Theology, or does a putative Biblical model for
these passages bring along with it a measure of Biblical Theology?
We have considered the shaping influence that an oral performance model can
have on how repeated tellings of stories in the Qurʾan can be interpreted. This is
a topic wide open for further investigation. It could be useful to look for traces of
“back-references” to previous recitations in many of the allusive references, and
to explore whether there is a timeline correlation impacting the ways in which
narrative references are recycled throughout the Qurʾanic recitations we refer to
as sūrahs.
The timeline introduced in chapter 3 raises many possibilities for further
research. It could be useful as a reference point for more fine-grained teasing out
of sequences of events that are mentioned, sometimes rather obliquely, in the
Qurʾan, such as migration, or the many verbal disputes upon which the Qurʾan
comments in pre-transitional sūrahs. There is also scope for a research project
which traces the internal development of inventories of formulae and formulaic
systems in the Qurʾan. This could include an investigation into whether new
formulae are being introduced at a constant or varying rate, and what
characteristics new formulae have at different stages in the Qurʾan’s evolution.
This kind of research could in its turn prove useful for further refining the
timeline.
The stylistic metrics developed in chapter 3 could also help facilitate a fresh
examination of the internal structure of sūrahs, including a reevaluation of past
systems of classification and proposals that certain sūrahs are of mixed
provenance. Such a study has been progressed here in a small way.
Here we have explored just a few topics of Qurʾanic Theology in some depth.
This work has underscored the need for a comprehensive theology of the Qurʾan.
Such a reference work would be of great value to researchers. Arthur Jeffery’s
(1957, 6) lament of 60 years ago that a theology of the Qurʾan was not yet
available still stands. The field of Qurʾanic studies would be greatly enhanced of
such a publication.
Finally, the tools developed here could help lay the foundation for a more fine-
grained analysis, on text-internal grounds, of events referred to in the Qurʾan.
This could provide temporal reference points for a reevaluation of the biography
of Muḥammad, which is based upon the Sunnah. It would prove fruitful to
explore possible correlations or inconsistencies between the Qurʾan’s own
internal narrative and the biographical frame imposed upon the Qurʾan by the
tradition. We have pointed out discrepancies here and there in this book, such as
the lack of attention in sīrah and ḥadīths tradition to punishment narratives, and
indeed to the whole Eschatological Crisis, but there is a much more useful work
which could be undertaken in this area.
Here we have sought to define and answer a question about the relationship
between the Qurʾan and the Bible. It is hoped that this work will not only make a
contribution to addressing the long-standing puzzle of the relationship between
the Qurʾan and the Bible, but that it will also open up some new avenues for
research in the rapidly advancing frontier which is Qurʾanic studies.
The Foreword to this book included a quotation from Wittgenstein’s
Philosophical Investigations, in which he warned against a particular kind of
error of perception, so easily made, of mistaking the frame through which one is
looking for the thing itself. In this work we have sought to set aside two
persistent frames for the Qurʾan. One was the “Life of Muḥammad” frame,
challenged in chapter 1 on the basis of diverse kinds of evidence (§1.3), all of
which pointed away from Mecca. The other frame which we have taken greater
pains with is the Biblical frame. This frame is inclined to view the Qurʾan
through Biblical eyes, seeing the Qurʾanic Messenger as a prophet in the Biblical
tradition, its word of command as a covenant, and its one God as a kind of
translocation of YHWH into the Arabian Desert. Instead of adopting either of
these two frames, one Islamic, and the other Judaeo-Christian (or perhaps
“Abrahamic”), we have throughout this book made an extended plea for the
Qurʾan’s theological distinctives to be seen in a fresh and clearer light. This
ambition is utopian, to be sure, and nothing is more certain but that others will
come to challenge and dismantle the new frames through which we have sought
to peer. Yet it is hoped that through iteration, the necessary hard work of
deframing and reframing the Qurʾan will achieve an increasing accuracy in
description, and the “secrets” of the Qurʾan’s inner logic will steadily be brought
more and more into the light of day to be appreciated for what they are.

NOTES
1. For an earlier use of the “twin” metaphor in connection to Judaism and Christianity, see Segal
(1986, 1–2).
2. Most contemporary scholarship on the historical Jesus has sought to situate him as a Jew practicing
a variety of Judaism. See for example, Sanders (1993, 96), Vermes (1973, 1993), Funk (1996, 58),
Crossan (1994, 223), Borg (1997), Meier (1991), Wright (2011, 20), and the survey in Powell (2013,
230–232).
3. For a recent extensive exploration of this divergence see Vermes (2012).
4. See Spence (2004), Dunn (2006), and the studies in Becker and Reed (2003).
5. “The earliest Pauline Christians, those gentile converts to the new religion who had not first become
Jews according to the Law, were not regarded by anyone as Jews” (Skolnik 2007, 292).
6. See for example, Pines (1966). Modern “Messianic Judaism” seeks to revive this stream of Jewish
Christianity. This could be considered as one aspect of the contemporary “re-judaization of Christianity”
(Pawlikowski 1989).
 7. Emphasis is in the original.
8. Regarding the pessimistic outlook of pre-Islamic Arab culture see Izutsu (1966, 45ff). For a contrary
view, that the Qurʾanic paradise could owe a debt to Christianity, see Sweetman (1945, 34).
9. We are speaking here of the validity of scholarly research into the Qurʾan. The question of the
morality of the Qurʾan is an issue which is not in focus here.
10. Izutsu concluded that core aspects of what he called the Qurʾanic Weltanschauung were adapted
from pagan Arab culture: “some of the Qurʾanic key-words had already been playing in Jāhiliyyah a
remarkable role as key-words” (1964, 43), and “a considerable number of them [pagan ideas] it [the
Qurʾan] adopted, with modifications in form and substance, and succeeded in making out of them high
moral ideas to be incorporated into the new code of Islamic ethics” (1966, 16).
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 General Index

Aaron. See Hārūn

Abdallah, xxix
Abdel Haleem, Muhammad, 41n10
Abraha, 148
Abraham. See Ibrāhīm
Abrahamic, 42n21, 263
Abrahamov, Binyamin, 5, 41n6
abrogation. See naskh
Abu Bakr, 10
Abudanah, Fawzi, 42n19
Abu Karib, Asʿad, xxvii
Abū-l-Duqaish, 167
Abu Qurrah, Theodore, livn1
Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, lvn12
Abū Ṭālib, 110
Acts of God, 53, 55, 58–59, 61–62, 235, 261
ʿĀd, 13, 14, 49, 50, 128, 137
Ādam (Adam), xxxiv–xxxv, 23–24, 26–28, 30, 125, 172–75, 184–85, 189, 194, 204, 212–15, 216, 217, 218,
220–21, 223–28, 241
Adang, Camilla P., 113–14
ʿAdn (Eden), xxxv, 66, 213, 248n92. See also the Garden
Africa, xlvi;
West Africa, xliii–xlvii
Ahasuerus, xxv
ʿahd. See covenant
Aḥmad, 12, 20, 129
Akkadian, 191
Albright, William Foxwell, 122n16
Alexandria, Council of xxvi, 191
Algiers, xxx
Ali, Maulana Muhammad, 15, 245n51
alif maqṣūrah, 16–17
Allaby, Michael, 135
Allāh, 106–15;
names of, 25
Amalekites, 237
Ambros, Arne A., 110, 120n1, 121n9, 152n16, 203, 211, 247n82
America, xlvii, 157
ʿAmrām. See ʿImrān
Anastasios of Sinai, xxiii
ancestors, 225–26, 228
Anderson, Steven C., 186–87
Andrae, Tor, xxiv, livn4, lvn20, 1, 45n43, 48, 50, 242n1
angels, xvii, 10, 37, 39, 51, 131, 134, 146, 149, 166, 168, 170–75, 177, 180–82, 184–85, 214, 216, 222,
232, 234, 241, 258, 261
anoint, 146–47, 158–59, 161, 165, 196, 258
Anselm, 5
anthropomorphism, 177
Antiquity, Late, xxxi–xxxii, xlvii, 238, 254–56, 261
Apresjan, Jurij, 242n14
aʿrāb. See Bedouin
ʿarabī. See Arabic
Arabia, xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxxii, 10, 13–15, 153n25, 153n27, 190
Arabian:
Ancient, xxxvi, 18n1, 121n9, 153n25, 154n41;
Desert, xxxi, 14–16, 43n23, 263;
horned viper. See viper;
Peninsula, xxvii–xxviii, xxxi, 42n22, 43n22, 190;
Saudi Arabia, 162
Arabic, xxiv, xxvi, xxviii–xxix, xlviii–xlix, 4, 10, 13, 15–18, 29, 38, 41n2, 42n22, 108, 117–18, 120n1, 140,
157, 161–63, 166–68, 170, 172, 174, 178–82, 185–95, 199–200, 202, 204–5, 212, 239–40, 241, 257–59,
261
Arabs, xxiii, xxvi–xxvii, 9, 10, 13, 15, 109–10, 118, 120n3, 121n7, 126, 152n16, 167, 178, 180–81, 183,
186, 205, 238, 254–56, 261
Aramaic, xxxvi, 17, 73n20, 117, 151n3, 153n25, 167–68, 181.See also Syriac
Arberry, Arthur J., 199, 203
Arians, xxiii, xxvi
the ark, 176, 179, 207, 234
Arnaldez, R., 41n2
asbab al-nuzūl, 9, 11, 76
Assami, Aminah, 173
Assmann, Jan, 122n16
association. See shirk
associators. See mushrikūn
Assyrian, 229
Asterius (Bishop), xxvi, 191
atonement, 3
Austin, John Langshaw, 144, 200
Average Formulaic Distance (AFD), 78
Average Lexical Distance (ALD), 78
ʾāyat. See signs
Ayoub, Mahmoud, 243n24
Azad, Abul Kalam, 42n10
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, 42n17, 43n23, 45n47, 119, 122n18, 135

Baal, 116, 144, 229, 238

Babylonians, xxiv, 229
Badr, 11, 249
Baḥīra, xxvii
Bakkah, 42n16
Bamberger, Bernard J., 236
Bannister, Andrew G., 29–30, 34, 36, 45n45, 71n3, 77, 86, 153n26, 219, 228
Bantley, Amatullah J., 173
Bar Koni, Theodore, livn1
Bar Penkaye, John, 13
Barth, Karl, 3
bashīr (announcer), 64, 128.See also Rasulology
Bathsheba, 198
Beck, Edmund, 218, 220, 223
Becker, Adam H., 252, 263n4
Bedouin, 13, 16, 18
Bell, Richard, xi, xxv, lvn20, 6–7, 20, 44n39, 48, 68, 76, 113, 151n4, 153n28
Benjamin, tribe of, lvin32
Bergsträsser, Gotthelf, xxxvi, 7, 72n16
Berlin, 18
Bet Qaṭraye, xxvi
Beth Arsham, livn7
Biblical Theology, l, liii, 1–4, 7, 36, 105, 117, 143–50, 155, 158, 163, 174, 176, 180, 199, 212, 226, 228–29,
234, 253, 261
Bijlefeld, Willem A., 152n19
biography of messengers, 127–28, 150, 211.See also biography, Muḥammad
Birmingham, 18
Blenkinsopp, Joseph, 144
blessing, 10, 38, 52, 78, 108, 124, 133, 143, 162, 181, 195–96, 233
Blier, Suzanne Preston, xlvi
Block, C. Jonn, xxii
Bobzin, Hartmut, 130, 152n19
Bodman, Whitney S., 213
Boisliveau, Anne-Sylvie, 7, 29, 36, 44n40, 44n41, 153n29
Bondye, xlvi
Book of Mormon, 4
books given to messengers, xxviii, 23, 38–39, 140, 153n29
Borg, Marcus J., 263n2
borrowing, xxii–xxiv, xxx–xxxi, xxxvi–xxxvii, xli–liii, 105, 118–20, 124, 150–51, 155–58, 161, 166–68,
175, 178, 180–82, 185–95, 213, 228, 236, 238, 257, 259–60
Bouchaud, Charlene, 42n19
Boullata, Issa J., xxix, 153n24, 153n26
Böwering, Gerhard, 25, 108
Bowman, John, lvn20
Boyarin, Daniel, 251–52
Bravmann, M. M., 135
breath of life, 164–65, 167, 172, 174, 175, 258
Brinner, William M., 152n19
Brock, Sebastian P., 15
Brockelmann, Carl, 120n3, 187
Brockopp, Jonathan E., 121n10
Bruckner, J. K., 197
Brueggemann, Walter, 3, 45n53, 144, 146
Budge, Wallis E. A., 218, 247n91
Bulliet, Richard W., xxii
the burning bush, 176–77, 180
Burton, J., 22, 44n38
al-Būṭī, M. Saʾīd Ramāḍan, 42n13
Byzantine, xxvi, 14, 42n22

Calder, Norman, 42n15, 45n45

Caleb, xxiv
Calverley, E. E., 243n16
Cameron, Averil, lvn21
camouflaged borrowing. See phono-semantic matching
Campbell, Lyle, xli
Canaan, xxiv, xxv, 116, 196, 229
Canaanites, 116, 246n63
carbon dating, 18, 19
cargo cults, xlvii
cerastes gasperettii, 186.See also viper
Chabbi, Jacqueline, 110
Charles, R. H., 208
Christ. See al-Masīḥ
Christianity, viii, xi, xxii–xxiii, xxv–xxvii, xxix–xxxiii, xxxviii, xlvi–xlvii, liv, lvn20, 2–4, 41n3, 41n8, 119,
122n18, 154n40, 185, 190, 227–28, 240, 251, 252, 253–56, 258–61, 263n1
Christians, xi, xvi, xxvii–xxxi, xxxiii, liv2, 5, 15, 22, 25, 36, 39, 40, 69, 72n18, 73n18, 88, 112–13, 121n4,
141, 160, 166, 191, 201, 202, 226, 238, 243n18, 247n83, 252–53, 263n5.
See also naṣrānī
Christology, liii, 123, 157–58, 163–65
christós. See al-Masīḥ
chronology of Qurʾan. See Qurʾan, timeline of
cognitive dissonance, 52
Cole, Graham A., 21, 165
communities. See peoples
Companions of the Cave, xxiv
Constaninople, xxxviii
Cook, Michael A., xxxvii, lvn19, lvn22, 13, 42n15
Corkill, N. L., 187
corruption (of previous books) (taḥrīf), xxviii
Cosentino, Donald J., xlvii
covenant, liii, 3, 6–7, 51, 66, 106, 115–19, 140, 145, 147–50, 159, 176, 179, 195–215, 236, 239, 241, 242,
259, 263
creation, 6, 28, 37–39, 40, 106–7, 109, 112, 115, 117–19, 125, 127, 165–66, 168, 171–78, 183–84, 212,
214–16, 222, 225–26, 228, 240, 241
creoles. See creolization
creolization, xxxvii, xliii, xliv, xlv–xlix, 240, 245n55, 255–57, 260
Crone, Patricia, lvn19, lvn21, lvn22, 13–14, 42n20, 120n3, 121n7, 132
Crossan, John Dominic, 263n2
cursing, 64, 66–67, 110, 164, 184, 191, 195–96, 214–15, 216, 222, 232–33
Cyrus, lvin33

Damascus, xxiii, liv, 14, 118

Darawcheh, Ryad, 15
daughters of Allāh, 73n18, 107, 192
David. See Dāwūd
Dāwūd, li, 128, 145–46, 149, 158–59, 161, 163, 183, 196, 198, 232–37
Dead Sea, 13–15
de Blois, François, lvn21
Deborah, 146
demons. See jinn
Denny, Frederick Mathewson, 199
de Sacy, Silvestre, 178
de Saussure, Ferdinand, xxxv, xxxix, xl
devil. See Iblīs
Dhu Nawās, xxvii
diachrony, xxi–xxii, xxxiii–xxxvi, xl, l, 7, 36, 243n19, 253
Diem, Werner, 16
disappointment, 52, 55, 70
disassociation (from disbelievers), 65, 69, 111, 231, 142
disbelief. See kufr
disbelievers. See kāfirūn
the divine council, 145, 149
divinity. See theology
dogmatics, 3, 6.See also theology
Donner, Fred McGraw, xxiii, xxxii, 72n7
Droge, A. J., 65–66, 199, 203–4, 208, 210, 246n72
Dundes, Alan, 45n45, 122n18
Dunn, James D. G., 263n4
Durie, Mark, xli
earthquakes, 14–15, 49, 53, 58, 61, 240
Ebionites, 244n34, 252
Eden. See ʿAdn
Egypt, 27, 116, 122n17, 209, 211, 214
Egyptians, xxvi, 49, 152n15, 203, 209–11
Eichrodt, Walther, 3, 195–96
Eickmann, Walther, 242n1
Eldredge, Laurence, 3
Elijah, 148, 229, 238
English, xxii–xxiii, xxxiii–xxxiv, xl–xlv, xlvii–xlix, l, 4–5, 110, 124, 157, 171, 187, 199–200, 208
the Enlightenment, 105–6, 115
enmity, 67, 139, 184, 195, 215, 217, 225–26, 229, 231–32, 237
Epiphanius, 43n22, 244n34
Epstein, I., livn2
equality with God, 106, 108–12, 115, 117, 199, 257
the Eschatological Crisis, lii–liii, 8, 34, 47–53, 54, 55–71, 84, 89–92, 94–97, 98, 99–100, 129, 134, 229,
247n81, 258, 261–62
the Eschatological Transition, liii, 29, 34–36, 52, 53, 54–71, 76–78, 80, 83–89, 91–92, 93, 94–101, 107,
111–12, 120n3, 123, 128–32, 141–43, 157, 192, 229–32, 234–35, 237–38, 258, 261–62
eschatology, lii, 7, 14, 29, 47–48, 56, 106, 155, 183, 240, 247n90, 261;
realized, 47, 56, 155;
two stage. See punishment, nearer or further
Essenes, 251, 252
Ethiopia, xxvii, livn8, 190
Ethiopic. See Ge’ez
Europe, 255;
European, xxx–xxxi, xxxiv, xlvi;
Europeans, 29
Eve, xxxv, 213, 247n89, 248n99
evil, liii, 54–55, 60, 66, 126, 183–84, 187, 189, 195, 212–15, 224, 226–27, 230, 235
exegesis, xxxiv, 1, 3, 7, 12
exegetes, 12, 152n16, 162, 172
the exile, li, 58, 116, 145, 196, 214

Fahd, H., 183, 244n42

Fahd, Toufic, 120n3
the Fall, liii, 27, 156, 184, 194, 213–16, 217, 218–239, 241, 259
family tree, xxi, xxxvii, xl–xli, xlv, xlix, l, 37, 223, 232, 240, 252–56, 260
Faris, Nabih Amin, 5
al-Faruque, Muhammad, 233
fasting, 9
Fee, Gordon D., 176
Ferguson, Everett, 253
Festinger, Leon, 72n8
fighting. See warfare; violence
finality (of the Messenger), 129–30
Finster, Barbara, xxvi
Firʿawn, xxv, 49, 87, 128, 137, 142, 152n15, 209–10
the Fire (Hell), 6, 25, 28–29, 38–39, 40, 45n55, 48, 54–55, 58–59, 65–66, 68, 87, 108, 113, 126, 137, 143,
187, 189, 216, 222, 224, 236, 247n90, 248n102
Firestone, Reuven, xxxiii–xxxv, livn3, 7–8, 11, 45n43, 76, 154n40, 248n103
al-Fīrūzabādī, 162
Fischer, Wolfdietrich, 243n27, 246n71
fitnah. See persecution
Fleisch, Henri, 16
Flusser, David, 2, 251
Formulaic Distance, definition of, 78
Freedman, H., 248n103
French, xxiii, xl–xli, xliii, xlv–xlvi, 257, 260
Frye, Northrup, 36
Funk, Robert W., 263n2

Gabler, Johann Philipp, 3

Gabriel. See Jibrīl
Gaddis, Michael, 238
the Garden (Paradise), xxxv, 21, 26–29, 38–39, 40, 45n55, 48, 56–57, 66, 68, 126, 134, 137, 152n15, 169,
175, 185, 189, 202, 204–05, 214–15, 216–18, 220–21, 223–24, 226, 236, 255, 261
Gardet, L., 4–5, 106, 177
Ge’ez, xxxvi, 190–92
Geiger, Abraham, xxx–xxxii, 213, 227–28, 247n86
genesis of Islam, xlvii, 251, 254–57, 260
genetic relationship. See family tree
Genette, Gérard, xxxiv
gentiles, 121n7, 152n16, 252, 263n5
German, xl, 3;
Proto-Germanic, xxii–xxiii
al-Ghazālī, 5
Gideon, 234–36, 249n108
Gilliot, Claude, 37
Gimaret, Daniel, 25, 121n8
Ginsberg, Harold Louis, li, 158, 242n2
Gnilka, Joachim, lvn21
Gnuse, Robert Karl, 122n16
Goitein, S. D., lvn21
golden calf, xxv, 229
Goldziher, Ignaz, 12, 41n6, 178
Goliath. See Jalūt
Gomorrah, 13
goodness of Allāh, 196, 198, 212
gospel, xvii, liv, 144, 159, 190, 234, 236, 244n31, 252
Graeco-Arabica, 17, 43n28
Greek, xxxvi, 2, 4, 41n2, 117, 123, 151n1, 158–59, 245n46, 246n66, 252–53
Greeks, xl
Greenspahn, Frederick E., 152n17
Greenspoon, Leonard J., 159
Grégoire, Henri, lvn20
Gregory, J., xlvii
Gregory of Nazianzus, 2
Gregory, R., xlvii
Griffin, David Ray, 247n84
Griffith, Sidney H., xxiii–xxv
Gril, Denis, 107
Gross, Markus, lv22, 108
Guezzou, Mokrane, 162, 242n10
Guiart, Jean, xlvii
guidance, 5, 10, 21, 23–27, 32, 37–39, 40, 56, 60, 64, 124–26, 130–32, 138, 140, 143, 145–47, 150–51,
156, 166, 169, 171, 184–85, 209–10, 212, 217, 222–25, 227–28, 258–60.
See also misguidance
Guillaume, A., xxvii, livn6, livn10, 23, 42n14, 110, 153n32
Günther, Sebastian, 152n16
Gwynne, Rosalind Ward, 112, 126, 135
al-Ḥaddād, Yūsuf Durra, lvn21
ḥadīth, xxvii, 4, 9–12, 22, 44n38, 72n14, 73n18, 76, 121n8, 130, 151n11, 247n89, 262

Hafemann, Scott J., 3, 196

Ḥafṣ, 72n11
Haitian Creole, xliii–xlvi, 260
Hale, Constance, 1
Hāmān, xxv
al-ḥaram. See sanctuary
the Ḥarrah, 43n26
Hārūn (Aaron), xxv, 144, 149
Hārūt, 249n109
Hashem, 176
Hawting, Gerald R., 11, 108, 120n3, 121n7, 121n9, 152n12, 244n34, 249n110
Hayek, Michael, 242n5, 242n11
Hebrew, xxiv–xxv, xxix, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvi, li, lvn20, 3, 6, 16, 44n40, 116–17, 119, 123, 144, 146–48,
153n25, 154n40, 158–61, 163–68, 172, 174, 178–79, 181–83, 185–87, 189–90, 192–97, 212, 229, 234,
236–37, 241, 244n42, 246n64, 246n66, 249n112, 249n113, 252–53, 258
Hebrews. See Israelites
Heidemann, Stefan, 13
Hell. See the Fire
helping relationships, 108, 110–11, 113, 117, 233
heresy, xxiii–xxiv, xxxi, 2, 5–6, 254
Herod, l
Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 146, 154n35
ḥesed, 6, 197–98, 209
the Ḥijāz, xxvi–xxvii, 15, 17, 42n22, 190
hijrah. See migration
al-Hilālī, Muḥammad Taqī-ud-Dīn, 172, 199, 203–4, 244n33
Ḥimyar, xxvii, livn7, 190
Hindi, xlii, xlvii, 163
Hirschberg, Haïm Z’ew, xxvii, 245n58
Ḥismaic, 17
Hitchcock, Christina, 153n29
holiness, liii, 6, 25, 28, 32, 156, 166–69, 171, 175, 180–82, 239, 241, 258–59, 261
Hölscher, Gustav, 154n35
the holy land, xxiv–xxv, 180
the Holy Spirit, 156, 164–66, 168, 174–76, 243n18, 258. Seealso spirit
homiletic framing, 26, 223
Hopkins, Jasper, xxiii
Horovitz, Josef, 48, 153n28, 186
the Hour, 54, 62
House, Paul R., 3
Hoyland, Robert G., xxvii, 13, 43n22, 118, 152n22, 180, 245n58
Hūd, 14, 27, 49, 128, 132, 137
Huldah, 146
hurrying the punishment, 34, 50–51, 54, 55, 57, 61, 88, 96, 97
Hutton, James, 135
hypocrites, 13, 25, 39, 69, 91–92, 100, 101, 114, 142
hypotext, xxxiv

Iblīs, 23–24, 26–27, 30, 171, 184–85, 191, 204, 212, 214–15, 216, 218–220, 222, 224–5, 227–28
Ibn Bāz, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allāh, 162–63
Ibn Isḥāq, xxvii, 12, 23, 42n14, 75, 110
Ibn Jibrīn, A., 162
Ibn Kathīr, 162, 173, 181, 244n34
Ibn Naqib, 179
Ibn Saʿd, 42n14
Ibn Warraq, lvn22
Ibn Zayd, 243n24
Ibrāhīm (Abraham), 27, 49, 52, 103n17, 126, 128–29, 133, 140–42, 175, 196, 198, 203–4, 208, 212, 215,
226, 231–32, 237, 241
Icelandic, xl
icon, 157
idolatry, xxiii, 10, 56, 117, 142, 198, 207, 232.See also paganism
ignorance, 38, 56, 125–26, 179.See also guidance
ijmāʿ, 11
ijtihād, 11
Ilyās, 128
ʿImrān, xxv, 166, 215
index, 132, 157–58, 160, 163, 167, 173–74, 182, 187, 241, 259
inheritance, xxii–xxiv, xxxix–liii, 105–6, 117, 119–20, 123–24, 129, 141, 143, 148–51, 155–56, 158, 164,
175, 182, 185, 195, 213, 228–30, 232, 235–41, 255–60.
See also genetic relationship
al-Injīl, 169, 200, 236, 243n24
intertext, xxxiii, xxxv–xxxvi, lvin25
iʿrāb, 16
Iraq, xxxi
ʿĪsā (Jesus), xxiv–xxv, xxxiv, lvn21, 72n18, 73n18, 109, 112–13, 122n15, 128, 129–31, 139–42, 151n8,
153n31, 157–64, 165, 169, 172–76, 192, 194, 197–98, 208, 215, 232–34, 237, 248n106, 249n109,
251–52
Isaac (Isḥāq), 196, 198
Isḥāq. See Isaac
Ishmael. See Ismāʿīl
Ishmaelites, xxiii
Ismāʿīl (Ishmael), 103n17, 128, 203–4, 208
ism ʿalam, 161
Israel, xxv, li, 58, 72n18, 115–16, 119, 128, 132–33, 141, 145–48, 158–60, 176, 180, 196–97, 201, 210–11,
214, 229, 233–35, 251
Israelites, xxiv, xxv, 115–16, 133, 144, 147, 152n15, 176, 202, 210, 229, 234–35, 238, 246n63
Istanbul, xxxviii
Izutsu, Toshihiko, 1, 7, 113–14, 117, 125, 243n25, 261, 263n8, 264n10

Jabr, xxvii
Jacob (Yaʿqūb), 159, 175, 196, 198
Jacob of Serugh, livn7
Jacquat, Christiane, 42n19
Jaffer, Tariq, 246n68
Jagannāth, xlii
Jagannātha, xlvii, 163
Jahannam. See the Fire
Al-Jallad, Ahmad, 16–17, 43n25, 43n26, 43n28
Jālūt (Goliath), 233–37
Jannah, Jannāh. See the Garden
Janosik, Daniel John, livn1
Japanese, xlii
Jeffery, Arthur, xxxvi, 1, 7, 44n39, 73n20, 106, 118, 120n1, 121n6, 121n9, 151n3, 152n18, 153n25, 157,
161, 168, 178, 180, 186, 199, 201, 243n19, 244n40, 245n46, 245n59, 246n67, 262
Jeremiah, l, 146–47
Jerusalem, li, lvin32, 14, 196, 233, 252;
Council of, 252
Jesus. See ʿĪsā
Jewish, xxi, xxiv–xxvii, xxix–xxxii, xxxvi, xxxviii, xlvi, 10, 42n22, 105, 117, 121n7, 152n12, 152n17,
152n18, 155, 176, 178–81, 183, 186, 190, 194, 199, 203, 223, 228, 236, 243–44, 246n78, 247n86,
 247n91, 251–55, 259–61;
Jewish Christianity. See Judaeo-Christianity
Jews, xxvii–xxxi, li, 25, 36, 38–39, 40, 69, 72n18, 73n18, 112–13, 129–30, 133, 140–41, 151n9, 152n16,
153n31, 191, 201, 226, 233, 245n58, 252–53, 263n5
Jibrīl (Gabriel), 10, 32, 152n13, 171–73, 242n4, 244n29
jihād. See warfare
jinn (demons), 25, 39, 72n18, 134, 166, 182, 183–87, 189–92, 193, 194–95, 209, 225, 243–44
Job, 183
Jocham, Tobias J., 18
John Frum, xlvii
John of Damascus, xxiii, 118
John of Ephesus, livn7
Johnson, Aubrey R., 154n35
Johnston, M. D., 247n91
Jonah. See Yūnus
Jones, Alan, 43n22
Joseph. See Yūsuf
Josephus, 251
Joshua, xxiv, 109, 161, 183, 237
Jreisat, Kamal, 15
Judaeo-Christianity, xxxii, 120, 239, 252, 255, 263n6
Judah, li, 146, 196, 229
Judaism, xxii, xxv–xxvii, xxx-xxxiii, xxxviii, 2, 41n3, 119, 122n18, 154n40, 160, 185, 190, 244n36,
245n58, 251–56, 259–61, 263n1, 263n2;
Rabbinic, xxx–xxxiv, 2, 178, 251, 252, 253, 255, 260;
Reform, xxx;
Second Temple, 251, 252, 253
judgment, 40;
divine, xxv, 6, 10, 23, 25, 27–28, 38–39, 45n55, 47–62, 64, 68, 126–27, 133–34, 149, 173, 185, 207, 214,
216, 229–30, 240, 261;
by messengers, 141–43, 230
See also punishment
jurisprudence, Islamic, 5–6, 9, 11–12, 20, 23–24, 41n5

Kaabou, 43n22
Kab, xxix
kāfirūn (disbelievers), 8, 14, 24–28, 36, 38–39, 48, 50–52, 55–65, 68–70, 87–88, 95–95, 97–98, 108,
111–13, 114, 127, 136, 138, 141–42, 164, 207, 229–33, 236
kalām, xxxvii, 4–6
Karaperamun, xlvii
Kaufman, Yeḥezkel, 122n16
Kaʿbah, 246n76
Keesing, Roger M., xliv–xlv
Keller, Nuh Ha Mim, xxviii, 5, 180
Kennedy, Mary M., xv, 173
Khadījah, xxvii
Khalidi, Tarif, 153n30
Khān, Muḥammad Muḥsin, 42n11, 151n10, 172, 199, 203–4, 244n33
Kiel, 18
Kiltz, David, 120n1
al-Kindi, xxix
kingship, xxv, 133, 147, 149, 154n37, 158–59, 161, 165, 196, 229, 234
Klijn, A. F. J., 252
Koiné:
Arab, 17, 43n30;
Greek, 159, 252
Koren, Judith, lvn21, lvn22, 13
Kristeva, Julia, xxxiii
Kritzeck, James, 243n23
Kropp, Manfred, 186, 191, 242n1, 245n52, 245n57, 245n61
Kuenen, Abraham, 122n16
kuffār. See kāfirūn
kufr (disbelief), 39, 40, 50, 62–63, 105, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 233, 239
Kugel, James L., 185
Küng, Hans, 41n8
Kutsch, Ernst, 158
Kwaio, xliv–xlv

Ladd, George Eldon, 47

Lammens, H., 12
Lane, E. W., 121n9, 121n12, 162, 167–68, 185–86, 191, 205, 210, 242n9, 242n11, 243n18, 244n30,
245n44, 249n107
language genesis, xxi, xliii, 255, 260
laqab, 161
Latin, xl, xlv, 72n12, 151n3, 257
Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, xxviii
Lefebvre, Claire, xliii
Leslie, Donald Daniel, 236
the Levant, xxvi, xxviii, 15–17, 42n22, 43n28, 44n30
Levenson, David B., 15
Leviton, Alan E., 186–87
Lexical Distance, definition of, 77
Lindblom, Johannes, 145
Lings, Martin, 42n13
Lipinski, Edward, 117
Lister, J. Ryan, 175
liturgy, xlvii, 43n22, 45n43, 86, 102n11, 163, 227, 261
Lohfink, Norbert, 122n16
Lord, Albert B., 30, 36, 44n42, 45n45, 220
losers, 38, 52
love, 24, 106–7, 109, 116–18, 143, 154n39, 159, 177, 195–98, 231
loyalty, 115, 117–18, 143, 196–97
Lüling, Günter, lvn18, lvn20, lvn21, lvn22
Lūṭ, 13–14, 27, 49, 123, 128, 131, 141–42, 248n102
Luther, Martin, xxx
Luxenberg, Christoph, lvn22
Lyell, Charles, 135

Macdonald, Duncan B., 41n6, 166–67, 243n21

Macdonald, M. C. A., 16–17, 43n22, 120n1
MacDonald, Nathan, 115, 122n16
madhhab, 11
Madigan, Daniel, 243n25
al-madināh, 13. See also Medina
Madyan (Midian), 13, 49, 128, 209, 238
Mahābhārata, 4
al-Maḥallī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 109, 173, 244n34, 245n43
majnūn, 134, 183
Maʾjūj, 249n109
Makkan. See surāhs, Meccan and Medinan
Malachi, 147, 150
Mariá, Mariám. See Maryam
Marlow, Louise, 110–11
marriage, 68, 117, 198
Marshall, David, 7–9, 28, 41n9, 48–50, 53, 67, 70–72, 76, 127, 151n11, 153n28
Martinoli, Danièle, 42n19
martyr, 68, 231
Mārūt, 249n109
Marx, Michael Josef, 18
Mary. See Maryam
Maryam (Mary, Miriam), xxv, 72n18, 113, 146, 152n13, 160–63, 166, 169, 171–75, 182, 233
al-Masīḥ (Messiah, Christ), xxiv, xxxix, li–lii, 34, 117, 156–65, 173–74, 178, 183, 192, 194, 197–98, 214,
239, 241, 217, 253, 258–59
Mazuz, Haggai, lvn19, 245n58
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, livn11, 11, 181
McCloud, Kevin, xxxiv, xxxviii
McGrath, Alistair E., xxiii
McGuckin, John, 2
Mecca (Makkah), xxvi, xxix, xxxi–xxxii, 9–10, 12–15, 17–18, 34, 43n30, 47, 71n4, 110, 246n76, 263;
Meccan, early stages, 75, 80, 94–95;
Meccan. See surāhs, Meccan and Medinan
Medina (al-Madināh), xxvii, xxxi, livn10, lvn194, 10, 12–13, 15, 47, 72n14, 73n18, 91;
Medinan. See surāhs, Meccan and Medinan
Meier, John P., 263n2
Mel’čuk, Igor, lvin31
Mendenhall, George E., 196
mercy, 22, 24, 28, 38, 52, 99, 130, 169, 197, 209
Mesopotamia, xxvi, xxviii, 43n22
Messenger Uniformitarianism, 52, 57, 60, 63, 69–70, 135–43, 150–51, 163, 231, 234–35, 238, 246n69, 258,
260
messengers (rasūl), xvi, xxviii, xxxv, lii–liii, 8, 21, 23, 25–27, 33–35, 37–39, 40, 49, 51–52, 54–55, 60,
63–66, 69–71, 96, 105, 108, 114–15, 123–24, 126–43, 146, 148–50, 163, 168–70, 184–85, 199, 201,
202, 206–8, 226, 229, 231–32, 234–35, 246n74, 258;
the Messenger, xvi, xxvi, xxix, liii, 8, 10, 12, 14, 20, 22–26, 29–30, 33–34, 38–39, 40, 48, 50–71, 88, 94,
96, 99, 100, 106–7, 111–13, 115, 127–43, 149–50, 163–64, 169–71, 173, 179, 183, 201, 204, 207, 209,
212, 223, 229, 231–35, 238, 258–61, 263;
theology of. See Rasulology
Messiah. See al-Masīḥ
Michael, the archangel, 243n26
Middle East, 252
Midian. See Madyan
midrash, 183, 232
migration (hijrah), 10, 12, 47, 52, 56, 68, 73n18, 75, 84, 88, 99, 141, 232, 262
Mingana, Alphonse, lvn20, 18 178
Mir, Mustansir, 109
Miriam, Miryām. See Maryam
misguidance, 23, 39, 40, 212, 225. See also guidance
mīthāq. See covenant
mockery, 14, 34, 50–51, 54–55, 57, 63, 70, 94, 110, 131, 134, 139, 207
Molech, 198
Monferrer Sala, Juan Pedro, livn7
monotheism (tawḥīd), xxvii, liii, 13, 45n47, 105–20, 123, 155, 207, 238–39, 254–55, 257
Monroe, James T., 45n45
Moran, W. L., 117
More, Henry, 105–6
Morony, Michael, 135
Moses. See Mūsā
motifeme, 122n18
Mount Sinai. See Sinai, Mount
Mouty, Mikhail, 15
Mowinckel, S., 154n35
Muḥammad, xxiii, xxvii, xxix–xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvii, 18, 19, 20, 18–20, 45n43, 47, 63, 73n18, 76, 110, 124,
128–29, 132, 138, 142, 153n28, 163, 191, 242n10, 244n40, 247n79, 258, 262–63;
biography of, xxxi, lii, 9, 11–12, 18–20, 47, 70, 72n16, 72n18, 73n18, 75–76, 90–92, 95, 101, 110, 155,
247n79, 258, 262–63
Muir, William, xxix, 75
Müller-Luckner, Elisabeth, lvin23
mundhir (warner), 128.See also Rasulology
mursal (messenger), 128, 148.See also Rasulology
muruwwa, 255
Mūsā (Moses), xxiv, xxv, lvn20, 7, 49, 61, 66, 72n16, 123, 128, 129–30, 137, 139–42, 144, 146–48, 161,
164, 169, 174, 176–78, 180, 197–98, 203, 208–113, 229, 236–37, 241, 249n109, 261
mushrikūn (associators), 14, 24–25, 38–39, 40, 59, 69, 94, 108, 110, 112–15, 118, 138, 140, 143, 204
Musnid, A., 162
muʿtazilah, 5

Nabataean, xxvi, 16–17, 43n22, 186

nabī (prophet) xxiii, xxv, xxx, l, li, liii, lvn20, 3, 5, 8, 12–13, 20, 37, 49, 62, 71, 73n21, 91, 101, 105–6, 115,
123–25, 127–32, 133, 135, 137, 138–41, 143–54, 156, 148, 163, 165, 169, 176, 184, 196–98, 200–1,
206–8, 229, 231–32, 234, 237–39, 241, 246n69, 258–59, 263.
See also prophetology
nadhīr (warner), 64, 66, 88, 96, 100, 128, 130.See also Rasulology
Nagel, Tilman, lvin23, 5–7, 20, 41n6
Naimat, Slameh, 42n19
Najrān, xxvi–xxvii
al-Nār. See the Fire
nasab, 161
Nasarat, Mohammed, 42n19
naskh (abrogation), 22–23
naṣrānī, 34, 88. See also Christians
Naveh J., 43n22
Nazoraeans, 252
Nebes, Norbert, 245n58
Negev, Avraham, 43n22
Nehmé, Laïla, xxvi
neologism, 35, 105, 182, 187, 188, 189
Nestorian, xxiii, xxix
Neuwirth, Angelika, xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xlviii, 29–30, 36–37, 42n20, 45n43, 102n11, 123, 129, 135, 218,
220, 223, 254–56, 261
Nevo, Yehuda D., lvn21, lvn22, 13
Nicaea, Council of, 252
Nicephorus of Constantinople, livn1
Nicholas of Cusa, xxiii
Nickel, Gordon, 107
Noah. See Nūḥ
Nöldeke, Theodor, xxxii, xxxvii, 7, 35, 44n40, 53, 72n9, 72n16, 75–76, 80, 86–88, 90–91, 94, 95, 124,
190–91, 245n59
Nūḥ (Noah), 26, 27, 49, 123, 128, 131–32, 141–42, 196, 206–7, 209, 211–13, 215, 239, 241, 242n6

Obermann, Julian, lvn19, 45n43

offspring of Allāh (walad), 73n18, 107–8, 112, 192, 194, 215
Ohlig, Karl-Heinz, lvn20, lvn22, 245n49
Okeley, William, xxx
O’Loughlin, Thomas, 154n40
Omri, xxv
Ong, Walter J., 45n45
oral-formulaic analysis, 24, 28–36, 49, 56, 65, 77–91, 95, 133, 136, 139, 163, 169, 171–73, 202, 209,
219–23, 226, 228, 232, 235, 262
Oral Literary Theory, 30
orality, 29
Orissa, xlii
orthodoxy, 2, 5
orthopraxy, 2, 41n3
O’Shaughnessy, Thomas J., 107
Overholt, Thomas W., 144
Oxford, 18

paganism, liv, 10–15, 42n22, 72n18, 73n18, 106–7, 112, 115, 120n1, 120n2, 120n3, 121n7, 134, 183, 192,
198, 155, 255–56, 261.
See also idolatry
Pahlavi, xxxvi
Palestine, 15;
Palaestina Tertia, xxvi, 15, 17, 43n25
paradise. See the Garden
Paret, Rudi, xxxi, 72n11, 124, 153n28
Paris, 18
Parry, Adam, 30
Parry, Milman, 30
partnership, 108, 112, 114, 117, 257, 261.See also shirk
the path, 125–26. See also guidance
patience, 27, 31, 51–52, 55–56, 58, 66, 69, 91, 97, 137, 198, 207, 209, 231
patron-protégé relationships, 108–13, 117, 257, 261
Paul, Shalom M., 144–46
Pawlikowski, John T., 263n6
Peirce, Charles S., 157
Penn, Michael Philip, 13
Penrice, John, 151n1
People of the Book, xxviii, 22, 25, 39, 40, 69, 114, 120n3, 121n3, 129, 132, 202, 226, 233
the people (of a messenger), xxiv, 13, 23, 25–26, 36, 38–39, 49–51, 55, 57–58, 62–63, 88, 108, 128–35,
132, 140, 149–50, 206–9, 226
persecution, xxix, 10, 47–48, 52, 54, 56–57, 60, 64, 72n14, 102, 198, 230, 238
Persian:
Persians, 14, 229;
language, 73n20;
Gulf, xxvi
Petersen, David L., 146
Petra, xxvi, 15, 42n18, 186, 190–91
Pharaoh. See Firʿawn
Pharisee, 248n106, 251, 252
philology, xxxv, xl, 218–19, 223
Phinehas, 238
phono-semantic matching, 168, 178, 180, 182, 185, 187, 188, 189, 193, 195, 241, 258–59
pidgin. See Solomons pidgin
Piercy, William C., xxvi, 191
pilgrimage, 9, 56, 68, 88, 126
pillars of Islam, 9
Pines, Shlomo, lvn21, 263n6
Pneumatology, liii, 165
poetry, 16, 42n22, 45n45, 121n9, 145, 183, 186, 191, 243n16, 243n25, 245n61
Pohlmann, Karl-Friederich, 235
polysemy, l–li, 165–67, 186, 189, 191
Popp, Volker, lvn22
Powell, Mark Allan, 263n2
Powers, David S., 129
Praetorius, Franz, 190
presence, divine, liii, 145, 147, 149, 156, 165, 174–79, 182, 241, 258, 261
Pretzl, Otto, xxxvii, 7, 72n15
priests, 146–47, 149, 153n25, 154n37, 159, 183
Procházka, Stephan, 110, 121n9, 152n16, 203, 211, 247n82
prophecy, li, 21, 72n8, 123–24, 143–51
prophet. See nabī
prophethood, 8, 129, 132–33, 147, 152n22, 163
prophetic acts, 145, 147, 197
prophetic bias, 124
prophetology, 71, 123–51, 258
PSM. See phono-semantic matching
Puin, Gerd-Rüdiger, lvn22, 245n49
punishment, 40;
narratives, 44n36, 67, 127;
nearer and further, 14, 26, 29, 34, 38–39, 47–64, 66–71, 76, 87–88, 92, 94–97, 113, 127, 131, 136–37,
139, 151n11, 155, 197, 206, 216, 229, 258.
See hurrying the punishment
Pūrī, xlii

Qairawan, xxxviii
Qasmi, Ali Usman, 42n12
al-qudus. See holiness
Quran Gateway, 44n44, 77, 101n4, 102n4
Qurʾan:
anthropology of, 125;
commentary (tafsīr), xxxi, xxxvi, 11, 42n15, 109, 113, 153n28, 162, 173, 181, 244n33;
community of, xxviii, xxx–xxxiv, 10, 12, 24, 42n20, 45n43, 47, 51–53, 61, 64–73, 83, 88, 93, 111, 130,
132, 140–41, 152n12, 187, 199, 228, 230, 259, 261;
geography of, 13–18;
millieu of, xxvi, xxxi–xxxiii, xxxvii, xlvii, 36, 45n43, 148, 227, 254–56;
 performance of, xlvii, 29–30, 33–36, 80, 83–86, 88–89, 91, 134–35, 149, 219–21, 223, 228, 261;
plagiarism of, xxiv, 134;
theological core, 37, 37, 57, 64;
Theology of, xxxvii, 1–9, 10–39, 40, 241, 262;
timeline of, lii, 34, 45n50, 47, 69–71, 75–101, 192, 215, 221, 258, 262;
unity of 36–39
Qutb, Sayyid, 41n10

Rabinowitz, Louis Isaac, 158–59, 183

Rachel, l
Rahman, Fazlur, 28
Ramadan, Tariq, 42n13
Ramah, l
al-Raqīm, 42n18
al-Rass, 132
rasm, 15–19
rasūl. See Rasulology
Rasulology (theology of Messengers), 8, 26, 35–36, 60, 70–71, 101, 123–51, 155, 163, 206–7, 209, 231,
239, 258, 260
Raven, W., 42n14
al-Rāzī, 103n14
Red Sea, 190–91
Reed, Annette Yoshiko, 252, 263n4
reflex, definition of, xxiv
Reinink, G. J., 252
rejection, 27, 50, 63–64, 112, 114, 130–31, 133, 137, 207, 209
relexification, xliii, xliv, xlv–vi, 207–08, 211, 213, 240, 257–58
Renard, John, 7, 41n8
repurposing, xxi, xxix, xxxviii–xxxix, xlii, xlviii–xlix, lii, 1, 44n40, 105, 119–20, 143, 151, 155–57, 164,
182, 195, 212–13, 227–28, 234, 236, 240–41, 256, 258, 260
resurrection, 6, 38, 54, 68, 135, 142, 231, 240
Retsö, Jan, 243n20
revelation, xxii, xxviii–xxix, 9–11, 18, 22–23, 76, 123–24, 129, 136, 149, 169–70, 176, 199, 209, 211.See
also sending down
Reynolds, Gabriel Said, xxii, xxxi–xxxii, xxxiv–xxxvi, livn4, lvn15, lvn22, lvn23, 44n34, 129, 174, 186,
190, 244n41, 247n87, 254, 256
Rezvan, E. A., 44n34, 67, 154n42
Riddell, Peter, 8
Riecken, Henry W., 72n8
Rippin, Andrew, xxvii, 102n9, 218, 244n39, 245n46, 249n111
Robin, Christian Julien, xxvi, 18, 245n58
Ross, Malcolm, xli
Rubin, David C., 220
Rubin, Uri, 181
Rubinkiewicz, R., 208
Rudolph, Wilhelm, lvn21
rūh, 32, 141, 149, 164, 166–75, 180, 182, 222, 239, 241, 258, 259. See also spirit
ruins, 14, 49, 63, 127, 256
Russell, Kenneth W., 15

Sabaʾ, 148
Sabaeans, 121n9
Sabians, xxviii
the sacred mosque. See sanctuary
Sadducee, 251, 252
Sadeghi, Behnam, 45n48, 102n8, 102n9
Saeed, Abdullah, 42n13
Safaitic, 17
sakīnah, 156, 175, 178–79, 234, 239, 241
Saleh, Walid, 8, 62–64, 70–72, 113
Ṣāliḥ, 14, 27, 49, 108, 128, 132
salvation, 3, 6, 21, 115, 156, 165, 198, 213, 214
Samaria, Samaritans, xxv
al-Sāmirī. See Samaritans
Ṣanʿāʾ, 18
the sanctuary (al-ḥaram), 42n21, 52, 56, 88, 93, 94, 178, 180–81
Sanders, E.P., 157, 251, 263n2
Sandys-Wunsch, John, 3
Sanskrit, xlii
Sapir, Yair, 188, 245n53
Saracens, 13
Sarah, 198
Satan, satan(s) (al-Shayṭān, shayāṭīn), xxv, 23, 37, 125, 134, 141, 153n26, 156, 166, 171, 182–91, 192–93,
194–95, 204, 215, 217, 218–21, 224–27, 241, 259
Saudi Arabia. See Arabia
Saul. See Ṭalūt
Sbeinati, Mohamed Reda, 15
Scanlon, Jessie, 1
Schacht, Joseph, 12, 42n15
Schachter, Stanley, 72n8
Schadler, Peter, xxiii, 117
Scheemelcher, Wilhelm, 247n91
Scheidweiler, Felix, 247n91
Schimmel, Annemarie, 242n6
Schirrmacher, Christine, 213
Schlatter, A., 3
Schöck, Cornelia, 209, 247n79
Schröter, R., livn7
Schwally, Friedrich, xxxii, xxxvii, 7, 44n40, 72n9, 72n16, 75–76, 80, 86, 88, 90–91, 95, 103n19
Scriptural Theology, lii, 2, 4, 7, 21, 106
Seale, Morris S., 41
Segal, Alan F., 2, 263n1
Segovia, Carlos A., lvn21
Sells, Michael, 243n16
semiotics, xxxiii–xxxvii, 155–56, 164, 253, 255–57
Semitic languages, 121n9, 168, 180, 181, 186, 191
sending down (anzala, nazzala), xxviii, 11, 23, 31–32, 71n4, 149, 154n42, 169–71
Septuagint, 159, 174, 252–53
Sergius, xxix–xxx
serpent. See viper
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, xxiv
Shaddel, Mehdy, 42n18
al-Shāfiʿī, 5, 179
Shahīd, Irfan, xxvii, 242n12
Shaked S., 43n22
Shakespeare, xxxiii
sharīʿah, 4, 6
shayṭān. See Satan
shekīnāh. See sakīnah
Shellabear, W. G., 166
Shema, 116, 119
Shīʿah, 11
Shih-Ching, Judy Tao, 243n23
Shimei, 233
shirk (association), 64, 107–13, 114, 115, 117–19, 227.See mushrik
Shoemaker, Stephen J., 48, 71n1
Shuʿayb, 27, 49, 128, 132, 137
sign, linguistic, xliv, xlviii, 157–58, 188
signifier, 157–58, 164, 242n14
signs (ʾāyat), xxxv, 26, 30–31, 35, 38, 39, 40, 50, 55–56, 64, 65, 67, 114, 125–28, 130–31, 133–34, 137,
139, 149–51, 152n15, 169, 199, 206, 209–11, 224–26, 235, 260
Silverstein, Adam, 245n60
Simeon, bishop of Beth Asham, livn7
Simon, Maurice, 248n103
sin, 21, 108–9, 114, 125, 156, 183, 197, 213–15, 224, 227–28, 241, 259
Sinai, Mount, 198, 210
Sinai, Nicolai, xxxii, lvin24, 8, 20, 42n20, 42n22, 44n35, 45n55, 47–48, 65, 67, 72n11, 75–76, 93, 99, 101,
102n8, 102n9, 102n12, 125, 143, 230, 238–40, 247n87, 248n99, 249n114, 261
sīrah, xxvii, 9, 11–12, 75–76, 262
Sirry, Mun’im, 121n14
Sizgorich, Thomas, 237–38
Skolnik, Fred, 263n5
slavery, xxvii–xxviii, xliii, xlvi, 27, 37, 61, 108–9, 111–12, 116–18, 237
Smith, Mark S., xxvii, 122n16
Smith, Sydney, 154n41
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 9
snake. See viper
Sodom, 13
Solomon, Norman, 2
Solomon. See Sulaymān
Solomons:
Solomon Islands, xliv
pidgin, xliv–xlv
Soloveitchik, Joseph B., 154n39, 178, 247n88
Son of God, 112–13, 160, 165, 192, 194
Sowayan, Saad Abdullah, 153n27
Spanish, xl
speech acts, 144, 148–49, 191, 200, 211
Spence, Stephen, 263n4
spending, 24, 64, 68, 107
Sperling, S. David, 144–46
Speyer, Heinrich, xxxii, xxxvi, 246n78, 247n87
spirit, xlvi–xlvii, 32, 144–47, 149, 156, 158, 164–68, 170–71, 174–76, 182–83, 193–94, 239, 241, 258
St. Clair-Tisdal, William, lvn19
Stefanidis, Emmanuelle, 101n1
Stewart, Devin J., 232, 248n104
St Paul, 3, 159, 165, 176, 198, 252, 263n5
St Peter, 198
strengthen (ʾayyada, thabbata), 136, 141, 166, 168–70
Stroumsa, Guy G., lvn21
substrate, xliii, xliv, xlv–xlviii, 240, 245n55, 256, 260
subtext, xxii, xxxiii–xxxv, 137, 163
success, 10, 38–39, 52, 64, 108, 207, 238
successors, xxvi, 63, 68
Suermann, Harald, livn1
Sulaymān (Solomon), 123, 149, 184, 198
sunnah:
of Allāh, 38, 40, 57, 60, 69, 123, 130, 135–38, 143, 150–51, 177, 226;
of Muḥammad, lii, 8–10, 19–20, 44n36, 123, 257, 262
Sunnī, 5, 11, 213
superstrate, xliii, xliv, xlv–xlvi, xlviii, 164, 240, 245n55, 256, 260
surāhs, 11, 75–101;
Meccan or Medinan 11, 14, 34, 47, 53, 75–76, 80, 85–92, 94–95, 101, 153n34, 242n12, 258;
mixed, lii, 53, 78, 80, 84, 85, 87, 89, 92, 262.
See also Qurʾan, timeline of
al-Suyūṭī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 103n14, 109, 173, 244n34, 245n43
Sweetman, James Windrow, 41n6, 41n8, 177, 263n8
symbol (Peircean), 157
synchrony, xxi, xxxii–xxxix, xlix, 7–8, 20, 168
syncretism, xlvii
Syria, 43n22
Syriac, xxxiii–xxxvi, 13, 41n2, 44n40, 117–18, 120n1, 152n18, 161, 166, 168, 178–80, 182, 185–87, 189,
192–94, 218, 223–24, 227–28, 240–41, 243–45, 248n95, 249n114, 253, 258.
See also Aramaic
Systematic Theology, 1, 3, 7, 21

al-Ṭabarī, 11, 42n14

tafsīr. See Qurʾan commentary
taḥrīf. See corruption (of previous books)
Takim, Liyakat, 234
Talmud, xxiv, xxxv, lvn19, 183
Ṭalūt (Saul), 145–46, 158, 179, 198, 233–37
tasting (punishment), 48, 51–52, 58–59, 67, 97, 143
tawḥīd. See monotheism
al-Tawrāh (Torah), lvn21, 106, 115–16, 118, 129, 140–41, 169, 176, 200, 236, 252
tāʾ marbūṭah, 16, 43n27
the Ten Commandments, 116
Thamūd, 13–14, 49–50, 67, 87, 108, 128
theology. See Biblical Theology, Islamic Theology, Qurʾanic Theology, Rasulology, Pneumatology,
Scriptural Theology, Systematic Theology
theophany, 176, 178
Torah. See al-Tawrāh
Torrey, Charles Cutler, lvn19
Tottoli, Roberto, 153n28
tribal relationships, 109–11, 113, 118, 135, 186, 232, 261
Tritton, A. S., 41n6
Tubbaʿ, 132
Tunisia, xxxviii
Ṭuwā, 178, 180

Ugaritic, 191
Umm Ayman, xxvii
unity of God. See monotheism
unlettered prophet, 152n16
ʿUthmān, 10, 18–19
ʿUzayr, 113

van Beek, G. W., xxv

van Ess, Josef, 41n6
Vanuatu, xlvii
van Vloten, G., 186
Vermes, Géza, 263n2, 263n3
verse length, 86, 87, 95, 102n8
verses. See signs
violence, 49, 52, 54, 56, 58–62, 66–71, 88, 96–98, 100, 138, 143, 155, 229, 232, 235, 238–39.
 See also warfare
viper, 182, 185–87, 189–94, 195, 215, 218, 224, 227, 259
Vodou. See Voodoo
Vogel, Manfred H., 106, 115
Volf, Miroslav, 121n4, 247n83
von Bothmer, Hans-Caspar Graf, 245n49
von Grunebaum, Gustave E., 213
von Rad, Gerhard, 115, 122n16, 196
Voodoo, xlvi–xlvii

Wace, Henry, xxvi, 191

al-Wāḥidī, 103n14
walad. See offspring of Allāh
Waldman, Marilyn Robinson, 114, 207
Wansbrough, John, xxxi, xxxvi, lvn22, 29, 37, 42n15, 45n46, 124, 132, 152n19, 200, 206, 242n13
Waraqah ibn Nawfāl, xxvii
warfare, 7–8, 10, 12, 53, 57, 61–62, 66, 68–70, 98, 112, 132, 142, 229, 230, 231–39, 241, 259.
See also violence
Watt, W. Montgomery, xi, xxxi, 6–7, 20, 41n6, 44n39, 76, 120n3, 151n4, 151n7, 153n28
the way of Allāh (sabīl Allāh), 38, 52, 56, 58, 60–61, 63, 69–70, 85, 91, 99, 107, 111, 126, 136, 138, 142,
227, 231, 234–37.
See also sunnah of Allāh
Weinfeld, Moshe, 196, 198
Welch, Alford T., 44n36, 151n7
Wellhausen, Julius, 122n16
Wenham, Gordon J., 214
Wenning, Robert, 186
Wild, Stefan, 44n41, 149, 213
Wilson, Robert R., 154n35
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, xii, 263
Witztum, Joseph Benzion, xxvi, xxxiii, lvn20, 41n1, 45n43, 185, 218–20, 223, 228, 248n94, 248n95
Wolfson, Harry Austryn, 5, 244n37
Woodberry, J. Dudley, xxxviii–xxxix, 41n8, 164
worldview, xliii, 1, 7–8, 162, 168, 174–75, 255, 261
Wright, N. T., 159, 263n2
Wyschogrod, Michael, 2, 176
Xerxes, xxv
Yaʾjūj, 249n109
Yaʿqūb. See Jacob
al-Yasaʿ (Elisha), 242n6

Yathrib, xxvii, 13
Yazjeen, Tawfiq, 15
Yemen, xxvii, 18, 190, 245n58
YHWH, 6, 106, 115–20, 122n17, 144–50, 154n39, 159, 165, 172, 174–76, 178, 195–99, 206, 214, 229, 237,
 244n35, 260, 263
Yūnus (Jonah), 49, 62, 123, 128, 131, 150
Yūsuf (Joseph), xxiv, 23, 27, 125, 207, 261
Yūsuf ʿAlī, ʿAbdullah, 121n4, 199, 203, 208, 213, 246n72

zabībah, 153n33
Zahniser, A. H. Mathias, 153n34
zakah, 9
Zakarīyā (Zechariah), 243n25
Zebiri, Kate, 121n14
Zellentin, Holger Michael, lvn21
Zuckermann, Gil’ad, 187–88, 245n53, 245n55, 245n56
Zürich, 18
Zwettler, Michael, 16
 Index of Bible Passages

Genesis
1:1–2, 165
1:2, 175
1:27, 214
1:29–30, xxxv
2, 214, 247n88
2:7, 172
2:17, 214
3, 185, 190, 193–94, 214, 247n88
3:5, 214
3:8, 164, 175
3:14, 191
3:14–19, 214
3:15, 215
3:21, xxxv
3:22, 214
4:7, 214
5:1, 214
5:29, 214
6, 26
6:5, 214
6:17, 164
6:18, 196
7, 26
8, 26
8:1, 164
8:21, 214
9:3, xxxv
9:6, 214
9:11–16, 196
9:12ff, 196
11:28, 248n103
12:14–20, 198
15:1, 145
15:5, 208
15:9–10, 208
15:10, 196
15:18, 195–96
16:7–12, 146
17:1, 196
17:1–14, 195
17:2–14, 196
17:21, 196
18:1, 175
20:1–18, 198
20:7, 148
22:16–18, 196
26:5, 196
26:6–11, 198
28:18, 159
32:28, 175
35:19, lvin32

Exodus
2:12, 198
2:24, 196
3:4, 176
3:5, 177
3:6, 178
3:10, 146
3:12, 176
4:1, 117
4:15–16, 144
4:22–23, 196
7:1, 144
9:12, 247n84
12:12, 122n17
13:21, 176
19, 196
20, 196
20:2–3, 116
20:3, 106
21, 196
22, 196
23, 196
24, 196
25:18–20, 234
25:22, 176, 179
30:30, 154n37
31:17, 196
32:27–29, 229
33:15, 176
33:19, 198
34, 209
34:1–3, 197
34:6, 209
34:6–7, 197
34:27–28, 196
35:31, 165
39:38, 159
40:9, 159
40:13–15, 159
40:35, 174

Leviticus
8:12, 154n37, 159
8:30, 159
14, 159
16:16, 178
26:44, 197

Numbers
11:17, 165
11:20, 117
11:25, 145–46, 154n40, 165
11:25–26, 145
11:29, 145
12:6, 145
14, xxiv
14:6–9, xxiv
20:10–12, 146
22:22, 182
22:31–35, 146
23:5, 145
23:12, 145
23:16, 145
24:2–3, 165
25:1–12, 237
26:59, xxv

Deuteronomy
5:7, 116
6:4, 105
6:4–5, 116, 119
6:5, 116
6:14, 116
7:1–2, 246n63
7:4, 116
7:9, 116, 197
7:16, 116
8:19, 116
10:12, 116
10:17, 116
11:1, 116
11:13, 116
13:1–5, 144
13:3, 116
18:18, 144–45
18:21–22, 144
19:9, 116
28:14, 116
30:6, 116
30:20, 116
31:16, 119
32:6, 117
32:10–11, 117
32:18–20, 117
33:26, 115

Joshua
6:24–25, 237
8:24–25, 237
24:15, 109, 118

Judges
3:10, 165
6:12, 146
7:4–7, 249n108
1 Samuel
3, 146
4:4, 179
8:5, 234
9:9, 145
10:1, 154n37, 158
10:2, lvin32
10:8, 154n40
10:10, 145, 165
10:11–12, 146
10:23–24, 235
10:27, 235
11, 198
12, 198
14:24, 233
15:3, 237
15:10, 144
16:13, 154n37, 158, 165
16:14–15, n84
17:43, 233
19:20–24, 146
26:19, 233
28, 198
2 Samuel
7, li, 159, 195, 196
7:12–16, 159
7:14, 196
12:1ff, 145
16:5–13, 233
22:44–51, li
23:1–5, li
23:1–7, 145
23:2, 145–46
24:11, 145–46
1 Kings
3:6, 196
5:4, 182
5:12, 117
8:10–11, 176
9:4–5, 196
11:7, 198
11:29ff, 145
13:4–6, 148
13:11–22, 146
13:24–26, 147
16:24, xxv
18:4, 147
18:19, 144
18:21, 116
18:40, 229
19:16, 154n37
19:16–21, 146
22:5ff, 146
22:19–21, 247n84
22:19–23, 144
22:21, 165
2 Kings
3:15, 145
3:15–16, 145
5:8ff, 148
11:12, 158
22:14ff, 146
23:2, 146
23:13, 198
24:1–4, 229
41:1–15, 229
1 Chronicles
16:22, 154n37
16:25, 116
17:1, 146
17:13, 196
21:1, 182–83
2 Chronicles
13:9, 116
18:10, 145

Nehemiah
9:32, 146

Esther
3–6, xxv

Job
1–2, 182, 245n50
4:15, 165
9:18, 164
11:20, 172
26:13, 165
33:4, 165
34:14–15, 165

Psalms
2, li, 159
2:2, 159
2:7, 159, 165
5:10, 117
11:4, 176
18:44–51, li
19:1, 115
23:6, 198
27:13, 198
33:6, 165
49:15, 249n112
50:7–13, 115
51:11, 176
55:18, 237
55:19, 150
72:1, 165
73:23–25, 249n112
78:32, 117
86:8, 115
88:20, 158
89:3–4, 196
89:20, 159
89:26–27, 165
89:26–29, 196
95:3, 116
104, 115
104:30, 165
105:15, 159
109, 233
109:6, 182
110, 159
132:10, 159
132:17, 159
135:17, 164
136, 198
136:1, 198
139:7, 165
150:6, 115

Proverbs
18:14, 165
25:28, 165

Isaiah
1:2, 196
5:24–30, 229
6, 145
6:1–8, 146
6:10, 247n84
9:1–7, li
11:1ff, li
11:10, li
16:4–5, li
20, 145
26:14, 165
26:19, 249n112
29:10, 145
32:15ff, 165
37:16, 116
37:20, 116
38:8, 148
40:25, 115
42:1–9, 165
44:3, 165
44:22, 236
44:42, 214
44:25, 144
45:1, lvin33, 159
45:1–4, 229
45:14, 116
46:5, 115
48:16, 165
49:14–15, 117
61:1, 159
61:1–11, 165
63:11, 165
63:16, 117

Jeremiah
1:5–10, 146
1:9, 145
2, 117
2:11, 116
2:26, 146
3, 117
3:19, 117, 196
4:9, 146, 154n37
5:7, 116
10:5, 116
10:6, 115
11:1ff, 147
13:13, 146
15:1, 145
15:9, 172
23:13, 144
23:18, 145
23:22, 145
23:23–24, 116
27:6–8, 229
28:10ff, 145
31:3–4, 197
31:11, 236
31:15, l, li
31:31, 196
31:31–37, 197
34:18, 196
36:1–8, 145
36:4, 147
38:14ff, 146
54:6, 117

Lamentations
3:31–32, 197

Ezekiel
2, 144
2:1–10, 146
2:9–10, 145
3, 144
3:11–11, 145
3:17ff, 145
4, 145
16, 117
16:60–62, 197
23:2, 145
37, 165
37:9, 172
37:15ff, li
37:24, li
37:26, 196–97
38:2–3, xviii
39:29, 165
43, 176

Daniel
12:1–3, 249n112

Hosea
2, 117
2:19–20, 197
3:5, li, 198
8:1, 145
11:1, 117, 196

Joel
2:28, 165
2:28–32, 165, 197
2:29, 176

Amos
3:7, 145, 147
7:12, 145
7:14–15, 146
9:11–12, li

Habakkuk
2:18, 116
2:20, 176

Zephaniah
3:17, 176

Zechariah
3:2–3, 183, 245n50

Malachi
2:10, 145
3:6, 150, 198

Matthew
1:16, 160
1:23, 176
2:18, l
3:13–17, 165
4:1–10, 183
5:43ff, 234
6:9, 117, 197
6:24, 109
8:16, 166
13:8, xxiv
16:16, 159
17:20, xxiv
19:24, xxiv, xxxiv
21:18, 233
25:41, 191
26:28, 197, 246n66
28:20, 176

Mark
1:1, 159
1:9–11, 165
10:18, 198
14:24, 246n66
14:61, 160
Luke
1:1, 159
1:32, 159
1:35, 174
1:72, 197, 246n66
2, 165
2:11, 160
3:16, 165
3:21–23, 165
4:1, 165
4:2–13, 183
4:4, 165
4:18, 165
6:28, 233
8:55, 166
9:51–56, 234
10:18, 183
11:18, 183
16:13, 109
19:41, 233
21:23, 248n106
22:20, 246n66
22:54–62, 198
23:43, 236

John
3:5–8, 165
4:24, 166
4:36, 249n111
5:19–23, 197
8:44, 183
12:31, 183
14:23, 176
20:31, 159

Acts
2, 197
2:4, 176
2:36, 159
3:25, 246n66
6:3, 176
7:8, 246n66
8:1, 198
9:1–2, 198
10:38, 183
15, 252
20:28, 236
21:9, 154n40
26:18, 183

Romans
5:8, 198
5:12–15, 214
8, 165
8:2, 252
8:9, 165, 176
8:21–23, 214
9:4, 246n66
11:27, 214, 246n66
11:28–29, 198

1 Corinthians
1:6, 160
3:16–17, 176
6:19, 165
6:20, 236
7:5, 183
7:23, 236, 237
11:25, 117, 197, 246n66
12, 154n40
12:28, 154n40
14, 154n40
14:29ff, 154n40
15:52, 240

2 Corinthians
3:6, 117, 197, 246n66
3:14, 246n66
5:17, 214
6:18, 117

Galatians
1:4, 183
2:16, 252
3:15, 246n66
3:17, 246n66
3:24, 246n66
4:6, 117
6:1, 166

Ephesians
2:2, 166
2:4–5, 198
2:12, 246n66
5:18, 176
6:11–12, 183

2 Thessalonians
2:8, 166
2:9, 183

1 Timothy
5:14–15, 183

2Timothy
2:13, 198

Hebrews
1:3, 115
1:7, 166
8:6, 117
8:6–8, 197
8:8–12, 197
9:16, 246n66

1 Peter
3:19, 166

2 Peter
1:3, 198
2:1, 236

1 John
3:8, 183
4:15, 176

Revelation
12:7, 243n26
12:9, 183
12:10, 183
12:12, 183
19:7, 117
20:10, 183
21:3, 176
21:5, 214
 Qurʾan Index

Q1, 16, 53, 54, 79, 82, 95, 102n8

Q1:5, 108
Q1:6–7, 124, 227
Q1:7, 177

Q2, 34, 53, 58–62, 79, 82, 92, 129, 215–21, 229, 247n81
Q2:7–8, 125
Q2:19–20, 177
Q2:22, 109
Q2:23–24, 134
Q2:27, 201, 205
Q2:30, 26, 180, 216, 245n45
Q2:30–38, 215
Q2:31–33, 216
Q2:34, 184, 216, 219, 243n28
Q2:35, 215, 217, 221
Q2:36, 125, 184, 215, 218, 220–21, 226
Q2:37, 28, 217–18, 221
Q2:37–38, 220
Q2:38, 27, 215, 217–19, 222–24
Q2:38–39, 24, 26
Q2:39, 127, 226
Q2:40, 205
Q2:51, 211
Q2:55, 103n17
Q2:62, xxviii
Q2:78, 152n16
Q2:80, 205
Q2:83, 140, 200–1
Q2:84, 201
Q2:87, 131, 139, 141, 161, 169, 200, 243n22
Q2:88–89, 232
Q2:91, 140, 153n31
Q2:93, 210
Q2:97, 32, 140
Q2:97–98, 171
Q2:98, 171
Q2:100, 199, 204
Q2:102, 184
Q2:105, 22
Q2:106, 22, 151n4
Q2:107, 110, 113
Q2:108, 66
Q2:109, 22, 36
Q2:110, 139
Q2:112, 212
Q2:115, 177
Q2:116, 107, 112
Q2:119, 128, 139
Q2:124, 205
Q2:124–25, 208
Q2:125, 203
Q2:127, 103n17
Q2:129, 126, 141, 149, 151n4
Q2:130, 140
Q2:136, 131, 140
Q2:142, 126, 225
Q2:143, 185
Q2:145, 226
Q2:146, 36
Q2:151, 126, 130–32, 140
Q2:152, 114
Q2:154, 68
Q2:154–56, 230
Q2:161, 232
Q2:163, 105–6
Q2:164, 127
Q2:165, 107
Q2:168, 184
Q2:177, 107, 204
Q2:180, 22
Q2:185, 130
Q2:189, 68, 140
Q2:190, 59–60
Q2:191, 52, 60, 139, 230
Q2:192, 52
Q2:193, 60
Q2:194, 59
Q2:196, 177
Q2:196–98, 68
Q2:208, 184
Q2:212, 125, 212
Q2:213, 126, 139, 142
Q2:214, 52, 60, 139
Q2:216, 60–61, 142, 230
Q2:217, 52, 59–60, 68, 230
Q2:218, 68, 99
Q2:224, 177
Q2:235, 210
Q2:240, 22
Q2:244, 60, 142, 235
Q2:246, 59, 60–61, 142, 234–35
Q2:246–51, 234
Q2:246–53, 60
Q2:247, 235
Q2:247–48, 179
Q2:248, 179, 234
Q2:249, 236
Q2:251, 58, 161, 234–35
Q2:252, 131, 149, 235
Q2:253, 131, 141–42, 169, 225, 235
Q2:254, 24
Q2:255, xv, 106
Q2:259, 24, 209
Q2:260, 208, 212
Q2:261, xxiv
Q2:266, 49
Q2:268, 184
Q2:272, 132
Q2:275, 184
Q2:279, 61
Q2:285, 131
Q2:286, 130, 141

Q3, 34, 53, 79, 82, 129, 229, 231

Q3:3, 140
Q3:10, 177
Q3:13, 60, 142, 236
Q3:14, 125
Q3:19, 142, 226
Q3:23, 143
Q3:28, 68, 248n105
Q3:31, 107
Q3:31–32, 143
Q3:32, 107, 142, 236
Q3:33, 206, 215
Q3:33–36, xxv
Q3:36, 184, 191
Q3:38, 126
Q3:39, 173, 244n34
Q3:42ff, 171
Q3:45, 157, 160–62, 173, 244n34
Q3:48, 132
Q3:49, 172
Q3:49–50, 129, 141
Q3:50, 140, 142
Q3:51, 126
Q3:52, 36, 161
Q3:58, 149
Q3:59, 215
Q3:61, 233
Q3:64, 113
Q3:67, 140
Q3:67–68, 129
Q3:69–78, 129
Q3:71, 164
Q3:75, 152n16
Q3:79, 131, 133, 143
Q3:81, 129, 199–201, 208
Q3:82, 236
Q3:84, 129, 131, 140
Q3:87, 164, 232
Q3:95, 140
Q3:96, 42n16
Q3:97, 68
Q3:101, 126
Q3:103, 245n52
Q3:104, 56
Q3:108, 212
Q3:110, 36, 56, 130, 143
Q3:113, 149
Q3:114, 56
Q3:115, 114
Q3:118ff, 68, 248n105
Q3:121–86, 231
Q3:123, 236
Q3:137, 49, 135
Q3:144, 12, 44n35, 129, 163
Q3:146, 142
Q3:146–48, 231
Q3:146–49, 66
Q3:148, 48
Q3:150, 111
Q3:151, 108
Q3:152, 68
Q3:153, 126
Q3:155, 115, 184, 236
Q3:161, 126, 131
Q3:164, 126, 131
Q3:167, 60, 69, 142
Q3:169, 244n38
Q3:169–70, 68
Q3:169–71, 230
Q3:175, 184
Q3:176, 141
Q3:183, 203
Q3:184, 137
Q3:185, 125
Q3:190, 127
Q3:192, 48
Q3:195, 235

Q4, 34, 53, 77, 79, 83, 229

Q4:1, 25
Q4:11, 244n37
Q4:11–12, 22
Q4:12, 121n9
Q4:13, 45n51
Q4:13–14, 66, 143
Q4:26, 135
Q4:28, 125
Q4:36, 140
Q4:40, 212
Q4:46, xxviii
Q4:47, 140
Q4:48, 108
Q4:55, 36
Q4:59, 10, 25, 45n49, 143
Q4:59–61, 143
Q4:60, 184
Q4:62, 77
Q4:64, 142–43, 231
Q4:65, 10, 143
Q4:66–69, 143
Q4:69, 10, 143, 231
Q4:71, 112
Q4:74–76, 60
Q4:76, 68
Q4:77, 60, 142
Q4:77–78, 61
Q4:80, 10, 65, 134, 143
Q4:81, 67
Q4:84, 60, 230
Q4:89, 68, 248n105
Q4:90, 202
Q4:91, 68
Q4:92, 202
Q4:94–95, 68
Q4:95, 112
Q4:105, 143
Q4:108, 177
Q4:115, 10
Q4:116, 108
Q4:117, 183
Q4:119, 184
Q4:120, 184
Q4:125, 140
Q4:126, 177
Q4:131, 140
Q4:135, 142
Q4:138–39, 69
Q4:139, 113
Q4:140, 127
Q4:144, 68, 248n105
Q4:150, 131, 140
Q4:152, 131
Q4:154, 210
Q4:157, 157, 160
Q4:159, 185
Q4:162, 32
Q4:163, 152n21, 206
Q4:166, 185
Q4:171, 25, 107, 112, 160, 163, 173
Q4:171–72, 157, 160
Q4:172, 161

Q5, xxiv, 34, 53, 78, 79, 80, 83, 94, 229
Q5:1, 181
Q5:1–2, 68
Q5:2, 22, 52, 94
Q5:7, 200, 202
Q5:8, 22
Q5:12, 32, 140, 201–2
Q5:13, xxviii, 22, 202
Q5:14, 201–2
Q5:15, 201–2, 226
Q5:17, 112, 157, 160–61
Q5:19, 128, 132, 139, 202
Q5:20, 133, 152n15
Q5:20–21, xxv
Q5:21, xxiv, 180
Q5:22, xxiv
Q5:23, xxiv
Q5:24, xxiv
Q5:26, xxiv
Q5:27–31, xxiv
Q5:32, xxiv
Q5:33, 48
Q5:33–34, 59, 230
Q5:35, 230
Q5:41, 141, 225
Q5:41–50, 143
Q5:44, 140, 142
Q5:46, 140
Q5:48, 140, 226
Q5:51, 68, 248n105
Q5:54, 107
Q5:55, 32, 111
Q5:58, 134, 141
Q5:64, 177, 226
Q5:67, 24, 130, 132, 199
Q5:68, 141–42
Q5:69, xxviii
Q5:70, 210
Q5:72, 108, 111, 157, 160
Q5:72–75, 112
Q5:75, 139, 157, 160, 163
Q5:77, 233
Q5:78, 164, 233
Q5:80, 68, 110, 233
Q5:81, 124, 248n105
Q5:92, 132
Q5:95, 68
Q5:97, xviii
Q5:100, 112
Q5:101–2, 141
Q5:110, 131, 139, 141, 169, 172, 243n22
Q5:116, 109, 113
Q5:116–18, 112

Q6, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q6:4, 125
Q6:5, 52
Q6:6, 49
Q6:7–9, 127
Q6:9, 171
Q6:11, 49, 127
Q6:11–12, 28
Q6:12, 28
Q6:14, 110, 140
Q6:18, 212
Q6:19, 140
Q6:29–30, 25
Q6:33–34, 137
Q6:34, 139, 199
Q6:35, 225
Q6:37, 134
Q6:39, 225
Q6:43–44, 184
Q6:46, 127
Q6:48, 72n10
Q6:52, 51, 64
Q6:54, 126
Q6:58, 50
Q6:58–60, 51
Q6:61, 212
Q6:65, 58, 127
Q6:66, 64, 143
Q6:67, 51
Q6:68, 184
Q6:70, 51
Q6:71, 184
Q6:74, 142
Q6:74–84, 232
Q6:76, 208
Q6:78, 140
Q6:79, 140, 142
Q6:84, 131, 140, 206
Q6:86, 242n6
Q6:87, 131, 140
Q6:89, 133, 141
Q6:90, 131, 199
Q6:91, 51, 134, 138–39, 141
Q6:95, 107, 127
Q6:99, 14
Q6:100, 107, 183
Q6:100–1, 107, 112
Q6:104, 64, 143
Q6:107, 64, 143, 225
Q6:109, 106, 125
Q6:112, 136, 183–84, 186, 243n25
Q6:121, 183–84, 243n25
Q6:124, 134, 136
Q6:125, 225
Q6:126, 126
Q6:129, 110
Q6:130, 185
Q6:136–39, 42n20
Q6:139, 121n9
Q6:152, 205
Q6:154, 140, 210
Q6:158, 134
Q6:161, 131, 140

Q7, 53, 54, 79, 82, 129, 137, 215–17, 219–26, 247n81, 248n98
Q7:3, 224
Q7:4, 49
Q7:10, 125, 225
Q7:11, 216, 222
Q7:11–12, 216
Q7:11–16, 184
Q7:11–27, 215
Q7:13, 216, 219
Q7:14–15, 216
Q7:16, 185, 187, 212, 222, 224
Q7:16–17, 216, 225
Q7:18, 216, 222, 248n98
Q7:19, 215, 217, 221
Q7:20, 218, 221
Q7:20–21, 217
Q7:20–22, 226
Q7:20–26, 184
Q7:21, 224
Q7:21–22, 27, 224
Q7:22, 184, 215, 217–18, 220–21, 224
Q7:22–23, 217
Q7:24, 215, 217, 218, 220–21, 226
Q7:24–25, 218
Q7:25, 71n6
Q7:26, xxxv, 226
Q7:26–27, 217, 225
Q7:27, xxxv, 215, 218, 226
Q7:27–30, 224
Q7:28, 27
Q7:30, 27, 184, 224, 226
Q7:31–32, 226
Q7:32, 226
Q7:33, 224
Q7:34, 51
Q7:35–37, 139
Q7:36, 139
Q7:38, 48
Q7:40, xxiv, xxxiv
Q7:40–44, 137
Q7:43, 126, 130, 137
Q7:54, 107
Q7:58, 151n4
Q7:59, 127, 207
Q7:59–64, 26
Q7:61, 26
Q7:62, 199
Q7:64, 26, 139, 206–7
Q7:65, 128
Q7:68, 199, 212
Q7:69, 128
Q7:70, 50, 134
Q7:72, 137
Q7:72–78, 15
Q7:73, 128
Q7:77, 50
Q7:78, 49
Q7:79, 199
Q7:80, 153n28
Q7:83, 142
Q7:85, 128
Q7:87, 51
Q7:91, 15
Q7:92, 137, 139
Q7:93, 141
Q7:94, 49
Q7:100, 52
Q7:101, 137, 139
Q7:102, 205
Q7:103, 128, 152n15
Q7:103–55, 209
Q7:104, 128
Q7:105, 128, 152n15
Q7:109, 139
Q7:128, 209
Q7:134, 203
Q7:135, 210
Q7:136, 137, 139
Q7:136–37, xxvi
Q7:142, 211
Q7:142–43, 211
Q7:143, 178–79
Q7:143–45, 209
Q7:145, 209
Q7:146, 210
Q7:147, 210
Q7:154, 209
Q7:155, 15, 211
Q7:157, 56, 130, 132, 141
Q7:158, 65, 130, 132
Q7:159–60, 209
Q7:167, 58
Q7:169, 210
Q7:169–71, 210
Q7:172, 125, 151n2, 215, 246n68
Q7:174, 127
Q7:177, 137
Q7:178, 52
Q7:179, 225
Q7:181, 130, 143
Q7:182, 137
Q7:184, 72n10, 134, 137, 143
Q7:188, 64, 128, 143
Q7:190, 114
Q7:195–98, 111
Q7:200–1, 184
Q7:201, 184
Q7:203, 209
Q7:204, 29

Q8, vii, 11, 50, 53, 79, 83, 89, 90, 94, 229
Q8:1, 25, 230
Q8:8, 230
Q8:11, 184
Q8:12, 230
Q8:12–13, 230
Q8:12–14, 10, 59
Q8:17, 58
Q8:20, 143
Q8:22–23, 112
Q8:24, 143
Q8:27, 67, 143
Q8:30–33, 34, 96
Q8:31, xxix, 134
Q8:32–33, 94
Q8:32–34, 50
Q8:33, 94
Q8:34, 94
Q8:34–35, 52
Q8:38, 126
Q8:39, 60, 68, 230
Q8:41, 68, 230
Q8:47, 177
Q8:48, 184
Q8:49, 100
Q8:56, 204
Q8:64, 109, 132, 142
Q8:67, 68, 73n21, 142
Q8:72, 68, 202

Q9, 34, 53, 79, 83, 94, 129, 229

Q9:1, 204
Q9:1–28, 24
Q9:2, 48
Q9:3, 68
Q9:3–5, 59
Q9:4, 24, 204
Q9:5, 22, 36, 68
Q9:7, 24, 204, 205
Q9:8, 248n107
Q9:12, 205
Q9:12–14, 68
Q9:13, 135, 139
Q9:14, 58
Q9:15, 230
Q9:17, 115
Q9:17–18, 94
Q9:19, 68
Q9:23, 68, 248n105
Q9:26, 68, 179
Q9:28, 94
Q9:29, 36, 68, 143
Q9:30, 107, 157, 160
Q9:30–31, 112–13
Q9:31, 113, 157, 160
Q9:33, 130, 143
Q9:40, 179
Q9:53, 24
Q9:58–60, 230
Q9:62–63, 143
Q9:67, 100
Q9:68, 232
Q9:70, 49, 128, 206
Q9:71, 32, 56, 65, 143
Q9:73, 230
Q9:73–74, 59
Q9:74, 48
Q9:75, 204
Q9:80, 143
Q9:81, 68
Q9:88, 68, 230
Q9:101, 13
Q9:111, 29, 60, 138, 142, 200, 202, 205, 236–37
Q9:112, 65, 143
Q9:113, 138
Q9:114, 232
Q9:116, 111
Q9:120, 13
Q9:123, 68, 230
Q9:124, 134
Q9:127, 134

Q10, 8, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q10:2, 130–32, 134, 140
Q10:3, 107–8
Q10:11, 51
Q10:12, 125
Q10:13, 49, 62
Q10:15, 29
Q10:16, 140
Q10:19, 139
Q10:21, 52
Q10:21–23, 125
Q10:25, 126
Q10:27, 48
Q10:31, 107
Q10:33, 62
Q10:38, 134
Q10:40, 62
Q10:46, 51, 63
Q10:47, 132
Q10:48, 50
Q10:48–49, 51
Q10:48–52, 63
Q10:49, 50
Q10:60, 125
Q10:61, 29
Q10:62, 111
Q10:65, 51
Q10:66, 109
Q10:68, 107
Q10:68–70, 114
Q10:71–73, 49
Q10:73, 63
Q10:74, 62
Q10:84–93, 63
Q10:88, 62, 248n104
Q10:90, 49
Q10:93, 139
Q10:94, 51, 63
Q10:95, 128
Q10:98, 49, 62, 128, 131
Q10:99–100, 63
Q10:101, 151n4
Q10:102, 51
Q10:103, 128, 199
Q10:108, 51, 64
Q10:109, 51

Q11, 8, 27, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q11:2, 72n10, 128
Q11:8, 50–51, 134
Q11:9, 125
Q11:9–10, 52
Q11:10, 125
Q11:12, 51, 63–64, 128
Q11:13, 134
Q11:13–14, 134
Q11:17, 51
Q11:19, 52
Q11:19–20, 136
Q11:24, 112
Q11:25, 206–7
Q11:25–48, 206–7
Q11:26, 207
Q11:27, 139, 207, 246n74
Q11:29, 141
Q11:32, 207
Q11:35, 139, 207
Q11:36, 141
Q11:38, 207
Q11:40, 142, 246n75
Q11:42–47, 248n102
Q11:44, 242n6
Q11:45–46, 142
Q11:47, 52
Q11:48, 59, 113, 125
Q11:49, 207
Q11:54, 139
Q11:60, 232
Q11:67, 49
Q11:82, 49
Q11:86, 64
Q11:88, 52
Q11:89, 14, 49, 131
Q11:90, 107
Q11:92, 177
Q11:99, 48, 232
Q11:100, 27
Q11:112, 126
Q11:116, 51
Q11:120–23, 27
Q11:121–22, 51

Q12, xxiv, 8, 23, 27, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q12:2, 29
Q12:5, 184
Q12:7, 27
Q12:21, 27
Q12:33, 125
Q12:42, 184
Q12:50, 148
Q12:53, 125
Q12:56, 27
Q12:96, 128
Q12:100, 184
Q12:103, 62–63, 125
Q12:107, 51
Q12:108, 140
Q12:109, 49, 63
Q12:110, 27, 51, 63, 72n11, 107
Q12:111, 140, 209

Q13, 8, 53, 54, 55, 79, 82

Q13:1, 127
Q13:4, 14
Q13:5, 54, 135
Q13:6, 50, 54
Q13:7, 25, 50, 55, 72n10, 128, 132, 134
Q13:11, 55, 170, 244n38
Q13:13, 55
Q13:15, 107
Q13:16, 112
Q13:18, 55
Q13:20, 55
Q13:20–26, 66
Q13:25, 51, 55, 201
Q13:27, 50
Q13:30, 55, 131
Q13:31, 14, 29, 49, 55
Q13:32, 51, 55, 139
Q13:34, 55
Q13:36, 22
Q13:38, 55, 126, 140
Q13:39, 22
Q13:40, 55, 132
Q13:42, 54
Q13:43, 133

Q14, 8, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q14:3, 126
Q14:4, 131, 140, 225
Q14:10, 139
Q14:11, 64, 131
Q14:13, 139
Q14:13–14, 52
Q14:22, 184–85
Q14:27, 225
Q14:37, 42n21
Q14:42–43, 51
Q14:48, 106
Q14:52, 106

Q15, 8, 53, 54, 79, 81, 215–16, 222, 248n98

Q15:1, 29, 127
Q15:3, 51–52
Q15:4, 141
Q15:4–5, 51, 132
Q15:5, 134
Q15:6, 134
Q15:10–11, 139
Q15:13, 62
Q15:15, 139
Q15:17, 183
Q15:17–18, 184
Q15:26–27, 244n28
Q15:26–42, 215
Q15:28–29, 216, 222
Q15:28–42, 184
Q15:29, 171–72
Q15:29–30, 216
Q15:31, 222
Q15:31–33, 216
Q15:34, 222
Q15:34–35, 216, 219
Q15:36–38, 216
Q15:38, 222
Q15:38–42, 185
Q15:39, 222
Q15:39–40, 216, 222, 224
Q15:39–42, 225
Q15:41, 216
Q15:42, 216, 225, 248n98
Q15:43–46, 29
Q15:74, 49
Q15:76, 49
Q15:79, 49
Q15:87, 49
Q15:88, 141
Q15:96, 114
Q15:96–97, 51
Q15:97, 51

Q16, 35, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q16:2, 170
Q16:3ff, 127
Q16:3–18, 127
Q16:4, 174
Q16:9, 225
Q16:18–83, 127
Q16:20–21, 109
Q16:24, xxix, 134
Q16:33, 171
Q16:35, 132
Q16:36, 49, 132, 140
Q16:37, 62, 225
Q16:41, 68, 141
Q16:43–44, xxix, 140
Q16:51, 106
Q16:53–55, 125
Q16:57, 107
Q16:63, 184
Q16:67, 31
Q16:71, 108, 111
Q16:75, 111
Q16:76, 111
Q16:82, 51, 132
Q16:84, 51
Q16:88, 52
Q16:89, 51, 169, 209
Q16:91, 204
Q16:98, 29, 184
Q16:99–100, 184, 225
Q16:101, 22–23, 134
Q16:102, 32, 141, 166–67, 169, 171, 243n22
Q16:103, 130, 134, 140
Q16:110, 52, 69, 141
Q16:111, 51
Q16:112, 52
Q16:113, 139, 140
Q16:121–23, 140
Q16:123, 140
Q16:125
Q16:126–27, 58

Q17, 53, 54, 79, 82, 215–16, 220–21, 224, 248n98

Q17:2, 110
Q17:5–7, 58
Q17:9, 23
Q17:11, 125
Q17:15, 132
Q17:16, 141
Q17:17, 49
Q17:34, 205
Q17:38, 108
Q17:40, 107
Q17:41, 127
Q17:45, 29
Q17:47, 134
Q17:53, 184
Q17:54, 64, 143
Q17:55, 128
Q17:58, 50
Q17:59, 127
Q17:61, 216
Q17:61–64, 184, 185
Q17:61–65, 184, 215
Q17:62, 216
Q17:62–65, 225
Q17:63, 248n98
Q17:63–64, 216, 225
Q17:63–65, 245n47
Q17:64, 184, 185, 224
Q17:65, 216, 225, 248n98
Q17:66–67, 125
Q17:70, 215
Q17:73–77, 136
Q17:75, 52, 136
Q17:76, 136
Q17:77, 123, 136
Q17:78, 29
Q17:82–89, 170
Q17:83–84, 125
Q17:85, 170
Q17:86, 22–23
Q17:88, 134
Q17:89, 23, 127
Q17:92–96, 131
Q17:94–95, 134
Q17:95, 131
Q17:97, 225
Q17:98, 127
Q17:101, 139
Q17:105, 64, 131, 154n42
Q17:106, 29
Q17:111, 107, 109, 110

Q18, 53, 54, 79, 82, 215–17, 220, 248n98

Q18:4, 107
Q18:7–26, xxiv
Q18:9, xviii, 42n18
Q18:38, 108
Q18:50, 27, 171, 184, 215–17, 224, 243n28
Q18:50–52, 224
Q18:54, 23, 127
Q18:55, 135
Q18:56, 72n10, 127
Q18:58, 51
Q18:58–59, 51
Q18:60–82, 246n77
Q18:63, 184
Q18:94, xviii
Q18:96, 172
Q18:106, 127
Q18:110, 134, 173

Q19, 53, 54, 79, 82, 122n15

Q19:9, 43n28
Q19:11, 243n25
Q19:16ff, 171
Q19:16–19, 172
Q19:17, 171
Q19:19, 152n13, 173
Q19:27–28, xxv
Q19:30, 169
Q19:30–34, 122n15
Q19:30–58, 132
Q19:34–35, 112
Q19:35, 72n18, 107, 112, 122n15, 173
Q19:36, 139
Q19:41–50, 232
Q19:42, 43n28
Q19:42–46, 142
Q19:46, 232
Q19:47, 232
Q19:58, 133, 152n21, 199, 215
Q19:64, 171
Q19:74, 49
Q19:78, 205
Q19:83, 184
Q19:84–86, 51
Q19:88–92, 107
Q19:98, 49

Q20, 53, 54, 79, 81, 215–17, 219–21, 223, 247n81, 248n98
Q20:8, 106
Q20:9–98, 209
Q20:12, 178, 180
Q20:32, 121n9
Q20:39, 177
Q20:51–70, 232
Q20:74–76, 29
Q20:76, 202
Q20:80, 210–11
Q20:85–88, xxv
Q20:90, 142
Q20:95, xxv
Q20:111, 177
Q20:113, 29, 151n5
Q20:115, 125, 204, 215
Q20:116, 184, 216
Q20:116–24, 215
Q20:117, 204, 215, 220, 221
Q20:117–19, 215, 217, 224
Q20:117–23, 184
Q20:118, 217
Q20:120, 215, 217, 221
Q20:121, 125, 215, 217–18, 221
Q20:122, 217, 221
Q20:123, 215, 217, 218, 222, 224, 226
Q20:123–24, 27, 217, 224
Q20:124, 49
Q20:126, 226
Q20:127, 49
Q20:128, 49
Q20:133, 50, 134
Q20:134, 199

Q21, 53, 54, 79, 81, 129

Q21:3, 134, 139
Q21:5, 126, 134
Q21:7, 131
Q21:7–8, 139
Q21:11, 49
Q21:18, 51
Q21:19, 244n38
Q21:22, 109
Q21:25, 199
Q21:25–29, 131
Q21:26, 107
Q21:28, 131
Q21:36, 139
Q21:38, 50
Q21:41, 139
Q21:47, xxiv
Q21:51–73, 232
Q21:68, 232
Q21:81–82, 184
Q21:91, 172–75, 243n22
Q21:96, xviii
Q21:106, 108
Q21:107, 130
Q21:109, 50, 51

Q22, vii, 34, 45n52, 53, 54, 56–61, 72n9, 76, 79, 83, 85, 88, 89, 91–95, 102n12, 229, 248n101
Q22:3, 184
Q22:9, 57
Q22:16, 127
Q22:17, xxviii, 76, 88
Q22:18, 57
Q22:25, 52, 56, 88, 94
Q22:25–42, 76
Q22:31, 108
Q22:34–38, 88
Q22:39, 57, 59, 88, 230
Q22:40, 56–57, 88, 142, 235
Q22:41, 56, 88, 143
Q22:42, 207
Q22:42–44, 139
Q22:42–48, 88
Q22:45–46, 57
Q22:47, 50, 57, 94
Q22:49, 57, 96, 128
Q22:52, 184
Q22:52–53, 22–23, 141
Q22:54, 126
Q22:57–59, 76
Q22:58, 56, 88
Q22:58–60, 57
Q22:59, 57
Q22:60, 57, 59
Q22:66, 76, 125
Q22:68, 133
Q22:72, 133
Q22:75, 131, 170
Q22:76–78, 76
Q22:78, 140, 185

Q23, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q23:3, 134
Q23:8, 205
Q23:19, 14
Q23:23, 207
Q23:23–30, 206
Q23:24, 170, 207
Q23:24–26, 139
Q23:25, 139
Q23:26, 207
Q23:27, 225
Q23:28, 206
Q23:33, 139
Q23:33–34, 139
Q23:38, 139
Q23:44, 131, 139
Q23:57–61, 65
Q23:70, 134
Q23:73, 126
Q23:81, 134
Q23:84–88, 212
Q23:84–89, 107
Q23:89, 134
Q23:91, 107–8, 109
Q23:97, 184

Q24, 53, 79, 83, 129

Q24:2–10, 24
Q24:18, 125
Q24:19, 48
Q24:21, 184
Q24:41, 107
Q24:42, 212
Q24:46–47, 10
Q24:48, 142–43
Q24:51, 142
Q24:52, 10
Q24:54, 10, 132
Q24:56, 32
Q24:62, 67, 129

Q25, 53, 54, 69, 79, 81

Q25:1, 64
Q25:2, 107
Q25:4–5, xxvii, xxix, 134
Q25:5, 134
Q25:7–8, 14, 134, 139, 235
Q25:8, 134
Q25:20, 131, 139
Q25:29, 184
Q25:31, 139
Q25:36, 139
Q25:37, 59
Q25:38, xviii
Q25:40, 127
Q25:41, 134
Q25:42, 107
Q25:43, 64
Q25:51, 50, 132
Q25:56, 72n10
Q25:57–58, 141
Q25:69, 48

Q26, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q26:3, 141
Q26:10–22, 142
Q26:10–68, 209
Q26:22, 141
Q26:27, 134, 139, 209
Q26:69–86, 232
Q26:105, 207
Q26:105–22, 206
Q26:108–79, 142
Q26:111, 246n74
Q26:115, 72n10
Q26:117–19, 206
Q26:137, 134
Q26:153, 134, 139
Q26:167, 139
Q26:176, 139
Q26:185, 134, 139
Q26:186, 139
Q26:187, 51, 139
Q26:189, 139
Q26:192–96, 170
Q26:192–97, xxviii
Q26:193, 167, 247n85
Q26:194, 154n42
Q26:195, 18, 134, 154n42
Q26:208, 128
Q26:208–9, 132
Q26:210, 134, 183–84
Q26:221, 183

Q27, 53, 54, 79, 81, 169

Q27:1, 127
Q27:1–2, 169
Q27:3, 32
Q27:4, 225
Q27:5, 48
Q27:13, 134
Q27:17, 184
Q27:24, 184
Q27:35, 148
Q27:39, 184
Q27:45, 108
Q27:69, 49
Q27:76–77, 210
Q27:91–92, 29
Q27:92, 72n10, 128

Q28, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q28:6, xxv
Q28:7–51, 209
Q28:8, xxv, 142
Q28:15, 184
Q28:38, xxv
Q28:43, 210
Q28:46, 132
Q28:50, 225
Q28:56, 64, 225
Q28:57, 180
Q28:59, 50
Q28:76–82, 209
Q28:86, 73n19

Q29, vii, 36, 53, 54, 79, 82, 85, 89, 90, 91–92, 120n3
Q29:1–10, 90–91
Q29:3, 91
Q29:5, 91
Q29:7, 91
Q29:8, 33, 69, 91
Q29:10, 91
Q29:10–11, 100
Q29:11, 91, 101
Q29:16–27, 232
Q29:18, 232
Q29:20, 49
Q29:26, 141
Q29:27, 52, 133
Q29:29, 51, 139
Q29:35, 127
Q29:36–38, 15
Q29:38, 184
Q29:39, xxv
Q29:41, 113
Q29:45, 121n3
Q29:46, xv
Q29:46–47, 120n3
Q29:47, 121n3, 127
Q29:50, 72n10
Q29:51, 127
Q29:53, 54, 50
Q29:61–65, 107, 121n3
Q29:65, 125
Q29:68, 48

Q30, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q30:2–3, 14
Q30:9, 49, 127
Q30:13, 114
Q30:28, 108, 112, 121n9
Q30:30, 125
Q30:30–33, 226
Q30:31–35, 139
Q30:33, 52
Q30:42, 49
Q30:47, 140
Q30:58, 23

Q31, 53, 54, 55–56, 78, 79, 82, 91

Q31:3, 210
Q31:3–5, 56
Q31:4, 32
Q31:6, 56
Q31:6–7, 56
Q31:8, 56
Q31:12, 56
Q31:14–15, 56
Q31:15, 33
Q31:17, 56, 143
Q31:17–19, 56
Q31:20–21, 56
Q31:21, 184
Q31:22, 56
Q31:23–24, 56
Q31:27, 56
Q31:29–32, 56
Q31:31, 56
Q31:32, 107, 125
Q31:33, 56
Q31:33–34, 56
Q31:34, 56, 107

Q32, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q32:2, 149
Q32:3, 132, 134
Q32:4, 177
Q32:7, 107, 166
Q32:9, 166, 171–72
Q32:13, 225
Q32:15–16, 65
Q32:18, 112
Q32:20, 58
Q32:20–22, 49
Q32:21, 52, 68
Q32:26, 49

Q33, 53, 79, 83, 129, 229

Q33:1, 132
Q33:7, 152n21, 199, 201, 206–8
Q33:11–12, 69
Q33:15, 204
Q33:21, 10, 131, 141, 143, 232
Q33:23, 204
Q33:34, 127, 133
Q33:36, 10
Q33:38, 135, 136
Q33:40, 12, 44n35, 128, 129
Q33:45, 131
Q33:50, 68
Q33:53ff, 67
Q33:56–57, 67
Q33:57, 67, 232
Q33:57–58, 59
Q33:60, 13, 69
Q33:60–62, 142
Q33:61–62, 59
Q33:62, 135–36
Q33:68, 48, 233

Q34, 53, 54, 79, 82, 129

Q34:12–14, 184
Q34:20, 184
Q34:28, 128, 130
Q34:33–35, 135
Q34:34, 139, 141
Q34:37, 48
Q34:41, 183
Q34:42, 48
Q34:43, 48, 139
Q34:43–45, 134, 137
Q34:44, 132
Q34:46, 72n10
Q34:51–52, 48

Q35, 36, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q35:1, 107, 131
Q35:3, 107
Q35:4, 137, 139
Q35:8, 112, 225
Q35:14, 114
Q35:19, 112
Q35:24, 128
Q35:25, 139
Q35:29, 149
Q35:31, 140
Q35:42, 107
Q35:43, 136
Q35:44, 49

Q36, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q36:21, 199
Q36:23, 107
Q36:31, 49, 127
Q36:59–64, 215
Q36:60, 204, 215
Q36:69, 29, 134
Q36:74, 107
Q36:82, 173

Q37, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q37:6, 31
Q37:7, 183
Q37:7–10, 184
Q37:36, 134, 153n26
Q37:65, 187, 189, 245n51
Q37:72, 128
Q37:75–82, 206
Q37:83–98, 232
Q37:137–38, 13, 49
Q37:147–48, 49
Q37:149, 107
Q37:171, 199
Q37:175, 52
Q37:176, 50

Q38, 53, 54, 79, 81, 215–16, 222, 248n98

Q38:4, 128
Q38:7, 134
Q38:14, 139
Q38:48, 242n6
Q38:61, 48
Q38:65, 72n10, 128
Q38:70, 72n10
Q38:71–72, 216, 222
Q38:71–85, 215
Q38:71–88, 184
Q38:72, 171–72
Q38:72–73, 216
Q38:74, 184, 191
Q38:74–76, 216
Q38:76, 184, 218, 244n28
Q38:77, 216, 219, 222
Q38:79–81, 216
Q38:81, 222
Q38:82–83, 216, 222
Q38:82–84, 225
Q38:83, 225
Q38:84–85, 216
Q38:85, 222

Q39, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q39:3, 108
Q39:4, 107
Q39:8, 125
Q39:9, 112
Q39:23, 225
Q39:26, 48, 52
Q39:27, 23
Q39:28, 29
Q39:29, 108–9, 121n9
Q39:36, 225
Q39:38, 107
Q39:41, 64
Q39:43, 121n4
Q39:45, 121n4
Q39:61, 107
Q39:68, 172
Q39:71–74, 66
Q39:75, 244n38

Q40, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q40:2, 114
Q40:12, 108, 115
Q40:13, 127
Q40:15, 170
Q40:21, 49
Q40:24, xxv
Q40:31, 206, 212
Q40:33, 225
Q40:36, xxv
Q40:41, 21
Q40:51, 199
Q40:58, 112
Q40:65, 177
Q40:68, 107
Q40:74, 225
Q40:78, 126
Q40:82, 49
Q40:85, 136

Q41, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q41:3, 29
Q41:4, 128
Q41:6, 126
Q41:13, 50
Q41:16, 49, 52
Q41:19, 48
Q41:23, 52
Q41:34, 112
Q41:36, 184
Q41:43, 140
Q41:44, 29, 127
Q41:50, 52

Q42, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q42:6, 64
Q42:7, 29
Q42:9, 212
Q42:11, 106
Q42:12, 212
Q42:13, 140, 207
Q42:14, 226
Q42:15, 140
Q42:33, 31
Q42:44, 225
Q42:48, 64
Q42:49–50, 212
Q42:51, 243n25
Q42:51–52, 170
Q42:52, 170
Q42:52–53, 126

Q43, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q43:3, 29
Q43:7, 139
Q43:10, 127
Q43:16, 107
Q43:22–23, 139
Q43:26, 232
Q43:26–28, 126
Q43:26–39, 232
Q43:36–37, 184
Q43:40, 139
Q43:47, 127
Q43:61, 140
Q43:62, 184
Q43:63, 142
Q43:83, 51
Q43:87, 107

Q44, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q44:14, 134
Q44:25–28, xxvi
Q44:41, 110
Q44:58, 130, 140

Q45, 53, 54, 79, 82, 129

Q45:3, 31
Q45:3–6, 127
Q45:6, 149
Q45:14, 54
Q45:16, 133
Q45:17, 151n9
Q45:18–19, 151n9
Q45:32, 54

Q46, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q46:3ff, 127
Q46:6, 114
Q46:9, 129, 139
Q46:10, 128
Q46:12, 170
Q46:13, 126
Q46:22, 50
Q46:24, 59
Q46:27, 14, 49, 127
Q46:30, 126
Q46:31, 128
Q46:35, 199

Q47, 53, 58–59, 61–62, 79, 83, 229

Q47:2, 12, 44n35, 129
Q47:4, 61–62, 230
Q47:4–8, 61
Q47:10, 49, 127
Q47:10–11, 61
Q47:11, 113
Q47:18, 62
Q47:20, 62, 135
Q47:21, 62
Q47:25, 184
Q47:25–27, 62
Q47:33, 62
Q47:34–35, 62
Q47:35, 130
Q47:35–38, 68

Q48, 53, 79, 80, 83, 94, 138, 229

Q48:4, 179
Q48:8, 128
Q48:10, 10, 143, 177, 204
Q48:13, 10
Q48:15, 68
Q48:18, 179
Q48:19–20, 68
Q48:20, 230
Q48:22, 138
Q48:22–23, 70, 142
Q48:22–26, 138
Q48:23, 136, 138
Q48:24, xviii, 13, 24
Q48:24–25, 94
Q48:24–26, 24
Q48:25, 24, 52
Q48:26, 24, 179
Q48:28, 130, 143, 248n107
Q48:28–29, 138
Q48:29, 12, 44n35, 70, 129, 142

Q49, 53, 79, 80, 83, 94, 229

Q49:1, 67
Q49:2–3, 67
Q49:4, 67
Q49:9, 230

Q50, 53, 54, 79, 81, 95, 102n8

Q50:2, 130, 132, 140
Q50:12, xviii
Q50:12–14, 132
Q50:13, 131
Q50:16, 177
Q50:26, 114
Q50:27, 185
Q50:36, 49
Q50:45, 64, 134

Q51, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q51:14, 51, 58
Q51:20, 31
Q51:39, 139
Q51:41, 49
Q51:44, 49
Q51:52, 134, 139
Q51:56, 108

Q52, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q52:29, 134
Q52:30, 134
Q52:33, 134
Q52:34, 134
Q52:39, 107

Q53, 53, 54, 79, 82, 102n8

Q53:1–3, 10, 131
Q53:19–23, 107
Q53:23, 102n8
Q53:26–32, 102n8
Q53:28, 43n28
Q53:29, 43n28
Q53:44, 43n28
Q53:56, 139

Q54, 53, 54, 79, 81, 95, 102n8

Q54:9, 139
Q54:9–17, 206
Q54:37, 58
Q54:48, 58
Q54:50, 240
Q54:54–55, 244n38

Q55, 53, 54, 78, 79, 80, 81, 96

Q55:13, 79
Q55:15, 244n28
Q55:27, 177

Q56, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q56:77, 29

Q57, 53, 79, 83, 229

Q57:4, 177
Q57:10, 112, 212
Q57:15, 113
Q57:18, 48
Q57:26, 133, 152n21
Q57:26–27, 163

Q58, 53, 79, 83

Q58:8–9, 67
Q58:10, 184
Q58:12–13, 67
Q58:13, 10, 32
Q58:14ff, 68, 248n105
Q58:22, 68, 141, 169, 243n22, 248n105

Q59, 28, 53, 79, 83, 229

Q59:6–8, 230
Q59:8, 141, 235
Q59:11, 69
Q59:16, 184
Q59:20, 112
Q59:21, 23
Q59:22, 106
Q59:23, 25, 168, 180–81

Q60, 53, 79, 83, 229, 232

Q60:1, 113, 231
Q60:3, 142, 231
Q60:4, 66, 141, 226, 231, 232
Q60:4–6, 232
Q60:6, 141
Q60:8, 177
Q60:9, 232, 235
Q6:13, 231

Q61, 53, 79, 83, 129, 229

Q61:4, 68
Q61:5, 152n15, 234
Q61:5–7, 164
Q61:6, 12, 129, 132, 151n8
Q61:9, 248n107
Q61:11, 234
Q61:11–12, 68
Q61:14, 111, 233, 234
Q61:112–14, 114
Q62, 28, 53, 79, 83, 129
Q62:1, 25, 180, 181
Q62:2, 131, 152n16
Q62:5, 130

Q63, 53, 79, 83, 229

Q63:7, 69, 100
Q63:8, 13

Q64, 53, 79, 83

Q64:10, 48
Q64:17, 48

Q65, 53, 79, 83

Q65:9, 58
Q65:12, 177

Q66, 53, 79, 83

Q66:4, 142, 171, 244n29
Q66:6, 171
Q66:8, 132
Q66:10, 142, 248n102
Q66:12, xxv, 166, 172, 173, 243n22

Q67, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q67:5, 31, 184, 191
Q67:16, 15
Q67:17, 49

Q68, 53, 79, 81

Q68:2, 134
Q68:2–4, 10, 131
Q68:14, 141
Q68:51, 134

Q69, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q69:1–12, 206
Q69:10, 124
Q69:17, 244n38
Q69:18–19, 43n27
Q69:41, 134
Q69:42, 134

Q70, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q70:4, 170
Q70:32, 205
Q71, 53, 54, 79, 82, 206
Q71:1, 206
Q71:3, 142
Q71:11–12, 52
Q71:23, 207
Q71:24–28, 248n104
Q71:26–27, 207
Q71:27, 207

Q72, 25, 53, 54, 79, 82

Q72:1, 29
Q72:9, 184
Q72:21, 143
Q72:23, 10, 65, 153n34
Q72:25, 50–51
Q72:28, 177

Q73, vii, 53, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 92, 95, 103n15
Q73:1–7, 85
Q73:1–19, 53, 54, 81, 85–86, 92, 102n10
Q73:2, 86
Q73:4, 29
Q73:8, 85
Q73:9, 106
Q73:15, 199
Q73:20, 53, 60, 82, 85–86, 92, 102n10, 229

Q74, ix, 53, 54, 78, 79, 80, 82, 85, 88, 91–92, 95, 103n15
Q74:1–30, 82, 88, 92
Q74:31, 81, 88, 92
Q74:32–56, 82, 88, 92

Q75, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q75:16–19, 29
Q75:17–18, 29

Q76, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q76:2, 174
Q76:8, 107, 121n5
Q76:9, 121n5

Q77, 53, 54, 78, 79, 80, 81

Q77:11, 124
Q77:19, 78

Q78, 53, 54, 79, 81, 102n8, 103n15

Q78:37, 102n8
Q78:37–40, 102n8
Q78:38, 170

Q79, 43n28, 53, 54, 79, 81, 96

Q79:15–26, 43n28
Q79:16, 178, 180
Q79:25, 48
Q79:27–32, 43n28
Q79:27–33, 127
Q79:34–41, 43n28
Q79:38, 43n28
Q79:42–46, 43n28
Q79:45, 128

Q80, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q80:12–13, 43n27
Q80:12–14, 84
Q80:17, 125
Q80:24–32, 14

Q81, 48, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q81:19, 124, 132, 152n13
Q81:22, 134, 183
Q81:25, 183–84

Q82, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q83, 53, 54, 79, 81, 95, 102n8

Q84, 53, 54, 79, 81, 95, 102n8

Q84:21, 29

Q85, ix, 53, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85–86, 87, 92, 95, 103n15
Q85:1–7, 87, 102n8
Q85:1–11, 53, 81, 87, 92
Q85:4–8, xxvii
Q85:5, 87
Q85:7, 87
Q85:8ff, 87
Q85:8–11, 86, 87
Q85:10–11, 29
Q85:11, 87
Q85:12, 87
Q85:12–21, 87
Q85:12–22, 53, 54, 81, 92
Q85:14, 107, 247n84
Q85:21, 29
Q85:22, 209

Q86, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q87, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q87:2, 107
Q87:3, 125
Q87:6, 22, 29
Q87:6–7, 23
Q87:16, 43n28

Q88, 29, 43n27, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q88:1–7, 29
Q88:8–16, 29, 43n27
Q88:17–20, 43n27
Q88:21, 130, 143
Q88:21–22, 64
Q88:23–24, 126

Q89, 53, 54, 79, 81

Q89:17–20, 141
Q89:22, 177
Q89:29, 244n38

Q90, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q90:10, 126

Q91, 43n28, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q91:7–8, 212
Q91:13, 124
Q91:14, 139

Q92, 43n28, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q92:2, 178
Q92:11, 141

Q93, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q94, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q95, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q96, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q96:1, 29
Q96:3, 29

Q97, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q97:4, 170
Q98, 43n27, 53, 79, 83
Q98:2–3, 84
Q98:5, 32
Q98:6–8, 29
Q98:8, 177

Q99, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q100, 53, 54, 79, 80, 83

Q100:6, 125
Q100:8, 141

Q101, 43n27, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q102, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q102:3, 52

Q103, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q104, 43n27, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q104:2–3, 141

Q105, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q106, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q106:1, xviii

Q107, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q108, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q109, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q110, 53, 79, 80, 82

Q111, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

Q111:1, 242n4
Q111:2, 141

Q112, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82, 246n62

Q112:4, 106, 244n37

Q113, 53, 54, 79, 80, 82

Q113:4, 143n30

Q114, 53, 54, 79, 80, 81

 About the Author

Mark Durie is an adjunct research fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the
Study of Islam at the Melbourne School of Theology, a Shillman-Ginsburg
writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, and was elected a fellow of the
Australian Academy of Humanities in 1992. He has published on linguistics,
comparative theology, religious freedom, and human rights.