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Towards a New Reading of the Qur'an?
An International Conference at the University of Notre Dame
Conference Abstracts (listed alphabetically)
Amar, Joseph, "Dionysius bar Salibi's Apologetic Treatise: A Response
to the Arabs"
Dionysius bar Sal�b�'s apologetic treatise, A Response to the Arabs,
is the longest and most comprehensive dispute text with Muslims that
exists in Syriac. Its purpose is to acquaint the reader with the
essential facts pertaining to Islam and to provide apologetic
arguments intended to refute the challenges of Islam to the Christian
faith. However, quite apart from its monumental scope, the treatise
is unique among Syriac dispute texts, first, for the amount of
information it contains concerning the origins,
history, and doctrinal development of Islam; and second, for the
extensive collection of quotations from the Qur'an translated into
Syriac that occupy chapters 25-30.
I propose to give an overview of the contents of this work and to
offer some initial comments on A. Mingana's controversial hypothesis
concerning the quotations from the Qur'an. These will be based on my
forthcoming edition of the treatise, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum
Orientalium, vol. 615, summer
2005.
Anderson, Gary, "The Fall of Satan in Early Christian Exegesis and
the Qur'an"
The story of Iblis' refusal to bow down before Adam is richly
attested in early Christian tradition and probably known (though not
directly referred to) in Rabbinic sources. The question I would like
to raise is what the relationship of this antecedent material is to
the Qur'anic narrative.
B�wering, Gerhard, "Some Implications of Recent Research on
Reconstructing the Qur'an"
In the last two years two major reconstructive studies on the Qur'an,
written by scholars active in Germany, have appeared, one under the
pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg and the other by G�nter L�ling. Both
studies, written by scholars on the fringe of academia, are revisions
of research previously published but now purified, stream-lined and
improved. Adding new material and unifying major theses advocated in
his earlier studies, �ber den Ur-Qur'an (Erlangen 1974) and Die
Wiederentdeckung des Propheten Muhammad (Erlangen 1981), L�ling's A
Challenge to Islam for Reformation, appeared in Delhi, India, in
2003. Luxenberg's Die Syro-Aram�ische Lesart des Koran, representing
the second edition of the same title (Berlin 2000) with the addition
of some changes and corrections was printed in Berlin in 2004. Though
aware of each other's research, neither acknowledge one another nor
engage in scholarly interaction, barring one meager footnote on page
459 by L�ling and a paragraph on page 20 by Luxenberg. Both studies,
however, possess the common feature of bypassing a dozen centuries of
Islamic scholarship on the Qur'an and deviating categorically from
the multifaceted paradigm of Qur'anic origins which two centuries of
Orientalist scholarship have established with meticulous research
from N�ldeke and Schwally through Horovitz, Bell and Jeffery to
Blach�re and Paret. Rich in detail and overwhelming in the minutiae
of their assertions, neither study establishes a firm historical
basis for highly idiosyncratic theories about the origins of the
Qur'anic idiom within the context of seventh century Arabia. This
independent, ingenious, provocative and controversial approach has
exposed both authors to the harsh criticism of contemporary Western
scholarship on the Qur'an (cf. C. Burgmer, Streit um den Koran,
Berlin 2005) and made them the target of severe militant reproaches
from Muslims on the internet. The present paper will unravel some of
the implications of this reconstructive research on the Qur'an.
Donner, Fred, "A review and commentary of some recent theories about
the Koran, with particular reference to the work of C. Luxenberg"
The paper will briefly attempt to situate the work of C. Luxenberg in
the context of earlier Western scholarship on the Qur'an, and will
then move on to consider the implications for future work of some of
Luxenberg's observations and methods. It will examine the
relationship between written Qur'an text and the tradition of oral
recitation. It will then consider the idea of an Aramaic-
Arabic "mixed language" in pre-Islamic Arabia, and the question of
writing systems and the text's relation to Arabic orthography.
Gilliot, Claude, "Is the Qur'an Partly the Fruit of a Collective
Work?"
In this contribution the author will sum up a contribution presented
at Louvain-la-Neuve/Leuven and now edited, and he will add to it some
considerations on what he as called elsewhere: "the reconstruction of
the Qur'an uphill" and its "reconstruction downhill." It is well
known that for the history of the Qur'an we still are mainly in the
world of "Alice in Wonderland" or to be more in the local colour, in
the world of the "Marvels of Alaaddin's lamp," when we compare it
with the researches in the field of Biblical studies for instance.
The Qur'an itself and Islamic tradition contain several (for the
first) or many (for the second) indications or information which are
an invitation to scholars to reconstruct partly another view of the
history of this text. Another means here in some way different from,
sometimes opposed to the Islamic official theological representation
of the genesis and development of this "recitation"
and/or "lectionary" (Qur'an):
1. The topos "Holy! Holy!" (quddūs, quddūs) or the "auxiliaries" of
Muhammad (Khadija, Waraqa b. Nawfal, etc.) "creating him a Prophet."
2. The theme of the "informants," to which the Qur'an alludes and
which is treated at length by Islamic tradition.
3. Zayd b. Thabit who probably knew Aramaic, Syriac or Hebrew, or
elements of these languages before the arrival of Muhammad to Yathrib.
4. The missing (or supposed so) verses or sūras, and those that God
(or Muhammad) suppresses or abrogates.
5. The ambiguities in the vocabulary of memorization (jam` and verb
jama`a), collection (again jam` and verb jama`a), composition
(ta'līf) of the Qur'an.
6. Problems concerning the language and style of the Qur'an, on one
hand, and the Arabic writing, on the other hand.
7. Technical terms in the Qur'an as a book not of Arabic origin:
Qur'an, aya, sūra, mushaf, etc.
8. The embarrassment of ancient Muslim exegetes facing words or
passages of the Qur'an with foreign vocabulary.
9. The recent publication of the book of Christoph Luxenberg has been
for me a new impulse to reexamine many materials I had collected
during the years and to find new indications showing that these alls
are hints in the direction of another history of the Qur'an uphill,
that is before the Islamic Qur'an.
10. As for the reconstruction of the Qur'an downhill, we will present
some reflections on the project of Bergstr�sser/Pretzl (and Jeffery)
and on its importance.
Griffith, Sidney, "Christian Lore and the Arabic Qur'an:
The `Companions of the Cave' in Sūrat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian
Tradition"
The first section of this essay is a brief exposition of
the interpretive principles which the present writer thinks
reasonable to use in the study of the themes and expressions familiar
from Syraic Christian texts which one then finds reflected in the
Arabic Qur'an. The second section considers in this light the
allusions to the legend of the `Companions of the Cave' in XVIII al-
Kahf 9-26. The earliest, still extant, pre-Qur'anic texts which tell
the story of the `Sleepers of the Cave' are in Syriac. They date
from the sixth Christian century and they emanate from the `Syrian
Orthodox' church, the Christian community which their adversaries,
with polemical intent, have persistently described
as `Jacobite', `Monophysite' or `Severan', an obfuscating usage
regrettably still employed by most modern western scholars.
The essay presents a reading of the pertinent passage
from the Qur'an against the background of the previously current
Syriac accounts of the legend of the `Companions of the Cave'. The
attempt is to gain from this exercise a deeper appreciation of the
Arabic Qur'an's handling of Christian lore presumably already
familiar to the Islamic scripture's own Arabic-speaking audience.
The essay proposes a hopefully plausible, hypothetical scenario
according to which pre-Qur'anic, Arabic-speaking Christians in Arabia
may have become familiar with the legend of the `Sleepers of the
Cave' in the form in which one finds it presented in its Syriac
recensions. Narrative, linguistic and philological details of both
the Syriac and the Qur'anic texts are compared in an effort to
discern how they might enhance a more fully informed reading of the
Qur'an's allusions to material it manifestly shares with the Syriac
Christian tradition. Finally, from the perspective of these
reflections, some assessment is offered regarding the plausibility of
recent and earlier scholarly suggestions for emendations of the
received text of the Qur'an in the passage under study.
Heck, Paul "The Qur'an and Concepts of Civilization"
For the conference, I plan to talk about the Qur'an and
Concepts of Civilization. I will look at Muslim concepts of
civilization in which Aur'anic verses/visions are at play: a few
examples from the classical period, a few examples from the
contemporary one. I will then explore ways in which the Qur'an has
served as a reference point in "Muslim" literature (of various
genres). I will then conclude by suggesting a reading of the
Qur'an/scholarly approach to Qur'anic studies in which the Qur'an is
understood as a formative agent of civilization, not unlike the Bible.
Hoyland, Robert, "Christian contribution to the Qur'an, Christian
response to the Qur'an"
In his book Christoph Luxenberg posits a Christian Syro-Aramaic
milieu for the birth of the Qur'an, but does not examine the
historical evidence for such a milieu. The matter needs
consideration, for the Syro-Aramaic culture that Luxenberg draws upon
for his rereading of the Qur'an centres on the region of Edessa, in
modern-day Turkey, an enormous distance from Muhammad's Mecca. This
is a task that I will undertake in the first part of my paper. In
particular, I will look at the regions of northern Syria, Damascus,
and northwest Arabia in the sixth-century, since it is in these
places and in this time that pre-Islamic inscriptions in the Arabic
language and the Arabic script make their appearance. The question
will then be posed what led to this new development, i.e. the
invention of the Arabic script. The Arabic language had been spoken
long before this, and was very occasionally written down, but always
in another script (e.g. south Arabian or Nabataean Aramaic), so what
had changed for Arabic to acquire its own script? I will review the
various theories on offer - Christian missionary work, administrative
needs of Arab client kingdoms of Rome, a natural evolution from
Nabataean Aramaic (as opposed to Syro-Aramaic?), etc. - and consider
their relation to the issue of the Qur'an's composition, and also to
the related issues of the emergence of an Arab identity and the rise
of Islam. In the second part of my paper, I will turn my attention
to Christian writings about the Qur'an in the aftermath of the Muslim
conquests, and more particularly I will discuss whether they show any
awareness of the Syro-Aramaic milieu that Luxenberg proposes.
Kropp, Manfred "Ethiopic Influence on the Qur'an and Early Islam -
Reconsiderations a Hundred Years after N�ldeke's studies."
Ethiopic influence on the Koran is a special chapter in
the large book on the foreign influences on the primitive message of
Islam. Certainly, the influence of Christianity and Judaism from the
adjacent regions of Syria and Mesopotamia on the Northern Arab
communities (cities, petty states etc.) was significant under many
respects. But the enormous progress of Sabaic studies has put into
evidence the equally significant influence of the Ancient Yemenite
(South Arabian) culture on the same communities. Certainly, this
culture as well underwent Christian and Jewish influence, but
nevertheless characteristic and exclusive traits between Islam and
Ancient Yemen can be sorted out.
That is exactly where and when the question of Ethiopic
influence is situated. Ancient Yemen and Ancient Ethiopia (Aksum)
have a long history in common, starting from Sabaean colonization on
the other shore of the Red Sea and continuing through Ethiopian
invasions in Yemen. Moreover, commercial and subsequently cultural
and religious exchange existed between the empire of Aksum (Christian
since the middle of the 4th century AD) and the regions in
Northwestern Arabia. Ethiopian merchants, artisans and slaves were
common in Pre-Islamic Mecca. They certainly brought not only material
goods, merchandise, but also religious and cultural concepts and
ideas to this city. The first hijra of some two hundred of Muhammad's
followers was directed precisely to Christian Ethiopia. Many of these
muhajirūn came back to the Muslim community in Medina.
The reflexes of these relations to Ethiopia and its
Christianity are to be seen at first glance in the Ethiopic
loanwords, or words influenced by Ethiopic languages, in the Qur'an.
Th. N�ldeke in his Neue Beitr�ge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft
(1910) discussed the most important of them. Yet a number of very
early texts in Old Ethiopic have been edited since N�ldeke's time.
This allows us to rewrite the history of several of the words in
question (e.g. ma'ida, shaytan) on one hand. On the other hand, this
touches the matter of influence beyond the limited field of
loanwords; the existence of motifs and narrative topics, perhaps even
theological concepts on the Koran that are, if not originally
Ethiopian, at least via Ethiopian Christianity. Modern studies
on the origin and environment of the Qur'anic text should take
the "Ethiopic factor" into account very seriously, even if it will
not always be possible to distinguish Christian Ethiopian from South
Arabian/Yemenite.
Madigan, Daniel, "Is What the Text Once Said What It Actually Means?"
Leaving aside the question of the plausibility of Luxenberg's
reconstructions of the Qur'anic text, this paper will open up the
hermeneutical and theological question of the relationship between
texts that are considered sacred and the communities that find
meaning in them. The response to Luxenberg's work has tended to
suppose that once the 'real' meaning of the Qur'�n is uncovered it
will change the nature of Islam. In the final analysis the question
remains what effect does even the reliable establishment of a
scriptural Urtext have on what the text means to believers?
Marx, Michael, "Judeao-Christian Beliefs and the Qur'an"
The hypothesis that what is called Judeao-Christian beliefs are
recognizable in the text of the Qur'an has been articulated by a
number of scholars (von Harnack 1911, Schlatter 1918, al-Haddad, de
Blois 2004, et al.). Sometimes Judaeo-Christian beliefs are seen not
only in the text of the Qur'an but also in early Islamic tradition.
In the scheduled paper the Judaeo-Christian hypothesis will be re-
read, especially concerning salvation history or rather the reception
of salvation history in the text of the Qur'an. Given the fact that
the Qur'an shows signs of a performed text or a text situated in a
communication pattern of a prophet following his call to talk to his
people (comparable perhaps to Jeremiah's call, cf. Jeremiah 1), the
idea of a succession line of biblical prophets will be described and
analyzed as given in the text. Following the type of preceding
prophets, the Prophet Muhammed stands in the line of Ibrahim, Mūsa,
Nūh and Jesus. Somehow the concept of preceding prophets seems to be
incompatible with the Jewish or Christian (Orthodox/Catholic)
understanding of salvation history. Even if many textual elements
concerning the biblical prophets in the Qur'an show affinity to
Rabbinic literature (Talmud and Midrash; cf. Geigers pioneering study
in 1833) the attitude towards Jesus Christ seems to break with a
supposed Rabbinic background. The benevolent image of Jesus cannot
easily be attributed to Jewish beliefs. The theological argument
of "Christ as a predecessor of Muhammad" reminds one of the Judeao-
Christian belief in a succession of prophets. The portrayal of the
Biblical prophets in the Qur'an appears often to reveal a "de-
mythifying" perspective. The theme of Jesus seems to contain a "low
profile Christology." From the perspective of a "history of preceding
prophets" (and less a salvation history) the message of the Prophet
Muhammad as "prophecy in progress" or "prophecy live!" can be seen as
the implicitly given argument of the Qur'an.
Mourad, Suleiman, "The Presentation of Mary in the Qur'an"
The presentation of Mary in the Qur'an has attracted the attention of
several scholars of Islam, precisely regarding the particular way she
is identified (in one instance the Qur'an refers to her as Aaron's
sister, and in another case identifies her as Amram's daughter).
Some modern scholars have argued that these two particular instances
demonstrate that Muhammad was perplexed about the exact identity of
Mary, and confused her with Miriam, daughter of Biblical Amram and
sister of Moses and Aaron. In my
paper, I will reexamine the Quranic references to Mary, the problems
of her identity as well as the particular stories and theology about
her, and the way Muslims exegetes and biographers dealt with these
references.
Rippin, Andrew "Syriac in the Qur'an: Muslim theories"
By no means was Christoph Luxenberg or even Alphonse Mingana the
first person to contemplate the presence of Syriac in the Qur'an.
Starting in the early centuries of Islam, exegetes frequently
discussed various words which they considered to be of Syriac origin.
Early Muslim writers were aware of a language still spoken in their
midst called suryanī or nabatī and they appear to have appealed to
that knowledge to solve exegetical problems in the Qur'an. The
reasons they did so were tied to a number of considerations,
including the morphological form of apparently difficult Arabic words
and the impossibility of the required meaning of some words being
traced to standard Arabic. There was, as well, the recognition that
some proper names were derived from Syriac.
This paper will examine the use of Syriac as a tool for medieval
Muslim exegetes and investigate the reasons why they felt it
necessary to look to foreign origin of certain words and why it might
be that they chose Syriac in certain Qur'anic instances as compared
to Greek, Coptic or Hebrew, other popular "foreign languages" adduced
in their commentaries. Consideration will also be given to the
changing popularity of the notion of the presence of foreign language
words in the Qur'an among exegetes of various eras.
Saadi, Abdul Masih, "Nascent Islam in the 7th Century Syriac Sources"
The Arab invasions of the seventh century marked the beginning of a
dramatic change in the heartland of Eastern Christianity. The Arabs'
style until that time had been to overrun and pillage the landscape,
and then, just as quickly, to withdraw to their desert. At this
time, however, it was not the case. They called their new invasion:
Hijra, i.e., Immigration, and the Syriac people called them:
Mhaggraye, i.e., Immigrants. When the Mhaggraye chose to settle in
this conquered land, what was the Syriac Christian response (s)? How
did they view the "Mhaggraye" historically, religiously, and
ethnically in the seventh century?
Samir, Samir Khalīl, "Christian Influence on the Qur'an: A Reflection"
We have two paths from which to choose in the study of
possible Christian influence on the Qur'an: the philological study of
terms borrowed from Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic, and the study of the
content of Qur'anic passages related to the Bible (Old and New
Testament) and Christianity. Philological study is built on the work
of predecessors, both medieval Arab scholars -- above all the Muzhir
and Itqan of Suyūtī -- and western scholars, above all the work of
Siegmund Fr�nkel (1886), Alphonse Mingana (1927, etc.), Christoph
Luxenberg (2000) and especially Arthur Jeffery (1938). This work is
designed to uncover what type of influence Christianity might have
exercised on the Qur'an.
The study of content, the product of more personal
research, is designed to discern, in Biblical allusions, between that
which could have come from Jews and that which could have come from
Christians, and to specify as much as possible the type of
Christianity with which the Qur'an might have been familiar.
This double approach allows one better to define the
impact that Syro-Arabic and Ethiopic Christianity could have
exercised on the seminal Islamic community.
Stewart, Devin, "Emending the Text of the Qur'an: An Evaluation of
Qur'anic Emendations Proposed in Medieval and Modern Scholarship"
Drawing on medieval Islamic sources as well as on modern studies
written in the Western European tradition of scholarship on the
Qur'an, this paper examines and critically evaluates the merits of
over a dozen proposed emendations of the Qur'anic text. These
include emendations included in the "variant readings" of the sacred
text (qira'at) and in medieval Islamic sources such as Jalal al-Dīn
al-Suyatī's Itqan fi `ulūm al-Qur'an, as well as emendations proposed
by modern investigators of the Qur'anic text such as Charles Cutler
Torrey and James Bellamy. In this context, the paper will also touch
on some of the more plausible sections of Luxenberg's recent book on
the `Syro-Aramaic reading' of the Qur'an. It will endeavour to
assess in detail the probability these emendations have of being
correct and why they are likely or unlikely, while making some
general comments about the tools available to us to determine that
probability--rhyme, rhythm, form criticism, etc.--and the process of
emendation itself.
Van Bladel, Kevin, "The Apocalypse of Alexander the Great in the
Qur'an (Q 18:83-102)"
Several studies in European languages since the nineteenth century
have tried to explain the episode of Dhu-l-Qarnayn in the Qur'an
(18:83-102). Theodor N�ldeke made the case that these verses of the
Qur'an must be derived from a Syriac story of Alexander the Great,
entitled in Budge's edition Neshana dileh d-Aleksandros, roughly "The
Acts of Alexander," which is an apocalyptic text in turn inspired by
the prolific tradition of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-
Callisthenes. N�ldeke dated the text to the sixth century. Later
scholars have challenged his conclusions by finding a more exact
dating of the Syriac text (629-630 AD).
However, Brannon Wheeler has recently asserted that the Syriac text
is not a source of the Qur'an itself but rather for Qur'an
commentaries on this passage. Moreover, the recent Encyclopaedia of
the Qur'an article "Alexander" fails even to mention either the
Syriac text or give reference to the debate about its connection to
the Qur'an. N�ldeke's thesis, that the source of this passage of the
Qur'an can be specifically identified in Syriac tradition, thus seems
to be on the verge of oblivion.
This communication applies renewed critical attention to the
relationship of this Syriac text and the Qur'anic episode of Dhu-l-
Qarnayn, comparing the content of the two very closely and showing
that they contain numerous exact parallels even as specific as
individual words. It argues that N�ldeke was basically right about
the affiliation, though he was indeed incorrect about the dating of
the text. An argument is presented that either the Qur'an depends on
this Syriac text or the two texts share a common source. The Syriac
tradition may have been transmitted either directly from this Syriac
text or through a limited number of intermediaries, perhaps oral. The
implications of these findings for the Qur'an itself will be
discussed. Finally, the reasons for which this text was used by the
early followers of Muhammad are connected with the prophetic
character of Alexander in the Syriac text and with, more
specifically, what I propose to call the Apocalypse of Alexander.
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