The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext (2010 Reynolds), book

The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext (2010) is a book by Gabriel Said Reynolds.

Abstract

"This book challenges the dominant scholarly notion that the Qur’ān must be interpreted through the medieval commentaries shaped by the biography of the prophet Muhammad, arguing instead that the text is best read in light of Christian and Jewish scripture. The Qur’ān, in its use of allusions, depends on the Biblical knowledge of its audience. However, medieval Muslim commentators, working in a context of religious rivalry, developed stories that separate Qur’ān and Bible, which this book brings back together. In a series of studies involving the devil, Adam, Abraham, Jonah, Mary, and Muhammad among others, Reynolds shows how modern translators of the Qur’ān have followed medieval Muslim commentary and demonstrates how an appreciation of the Qur’ān’s Biblical subtext uncovers the richness of the Qur’ān’s discourse. Presenting unique interpretations of 13 different sections of the Qur’ān based on studies of earlier Jewish and Christian literature, the author substantially re-evaluates Muslim exegetical literature. Thus The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext, a work based on a profound regard for the Qur’ān’s literary structure and rhetorical strategy, poses a substantial challenge to the standard scholarship of Qur’ānic Studies. With an approach that bridges early Christian history and Islamic origins, the book will appeal not only to students of the Qur’an but of the Bible, religious studies and Islamic history."--Publisher description.

Editions

Published in London, England: Routledge, 2010.

Contents

Introduction: Listening to the text -- The crisis of quranic studies -- The scholarly conflict over the Qur'an -- The method and goal of the present work -- Excursus: Regarding the dates of Jewish and Christian texts -- Quranic case studies -- The prostration of the angels -- Al-Shayan al-Rajim -- Adam and feathers -- Abraham the gentile monotheist -- The laughter of Abraham's wife -- Haman and the tower to heaven -- The transformation of Jews -- Jonah and his people -- The nativity of Mary -- Our hearts are uncircumcised -- Do not think those who were killed in the path of God dead -- The companions of the cave -- Muhammad -- Qur'an and Tafsir -- Exegetical devices -- Historicization -- Occasion of revelation -- Variae lectiones (Qiraat) -- Takhir al-Muqaddam -- Judaeo-Christian traditions -- The mufassirun -- Tafsir and Qur'an -- Reading the Qur'an as homily -- The problem of translating the Qur'an -- Homiletic features of the Qur'an -- The Qur'an and Christian homily -- The Qur'an and its biblical subtext.