{"product_id":"9781936320813","title":"Approaches To The Qur'An In Early Christian Arabic Texts ,750Ce - 1258 CE","description":"\u003cp\u003eHow might early Christian Arabic texts aid contemporary research scholars \/ students of the Qur'an? Within a century of the Prophet's death, Christians were writing in Arabic. Although various recensions of the Covenant of Umar prohibit Christians from 'teaching the Qur'an' to their children, this very prohibition indicates that Christians were, in fact, teaching the Qur'an to their children - for grammatical or theological purposes. During Abbasid times, representatives from various theological and philosophical schools would be summoned to debate the merits of their respective religions - on the basis of logic, rather than competing religious texts. In his Jadhwat al-Muqtabis, Abu 'Abd Allah al-Humaydi recounts the amazement of an Andalusian visitor to the caliphal majlis in 4th\/10th century Baghdad, when he found that Jews and Christians, Shi'a and Sunni, atheists and materialists were accorded equal respect in a debate session he attended. This spirit of free inquiry and open debate that shocked the Andalusian visitor to Baghdad is reflected in a number of Christian Arabic texts dating to the Abbasid period. Given the high degree of inter-confessional contact, and the presumed freedom of Christians from the dictates of 'normative' Islamic thought, might early Christian Arabic discussions of the Qur'an be mined in order the better to understand the history of the reception, if not the transmission, of the qur'anic text? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis work is an initial exploration into the use of the Qur'an in three such texts - all from Melkite authors, the first Christians to write in Arabic. All texts date to the Abbasid caliphate - Paul of Antioch's Letter to Muslim friends; Theodore Abu Qurra's debate with members of al-Ma'mun's entourage in a caliphal majlis; the unique manuscript Sinai Ar 434. The texts were chosen both because of their early provenance from the first Christian community to write in Arabic (the so-called Melkites), as well as for their relative dearth of gratuitous polemics against Islam. All three texts have received prior scholarly attention, upon which the current work builds (e.g. Mark Swanson's and Sidney Griffith's articles; Rifaat Ebied and David Thomas, Muslim-Christian polemic during the Crusades, Leiden:Brill, 2005; as well as Paul Khoury's 1964 Arabic edition and French translation of Paul's text; Paul Khoury's 2002 work on \"Christian tafsir\" of the Qur'an from the eighth to the twelfth centuries; Jane Dammen McAuliffe's 1991 Qur'anic Christians).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe qur'anic passages employed by Paul, Theodore and the anonymous monk are divided into four categories and compared with interpretations from Islamic exegetical tradition. While many Christian Arabs today tend to speak only of the '2 books of God' (kitabayn) - meaning the Old and New Testament, early Arabophone Christians seemed willing to speak of the books of God (kutub Allah), and to include the Qur'an in this category. These early Christian Arabs also tended to read qur'anic discussions in the light of Christian theology, emphasizing aspects that confirmed a Christian understanding of Jesus' divinity (parts of Q 4:171). They would ignore qur'anic passages that refuted Christian doctrine, or would explain them away as an invention of the later umma - something that could not have been in the original message that Muhammad had brought. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContrary to some contemporary trends in orientalist scholarship, this study concludes that Christian Arabic texts should not be used as a reliable indicator of the textual history of the Qur'an, since it is difficult to determine if a qur'anic reference is a direct quotation, a paraphrase, or simply an allusion to an interpretation of a qur'anic passage. (The authors and scribes of Christian texts generally would not follow Muslim traditions of setting aside direct qur'anic quotations with special calligraphic notations.) But, Christian Arab approaches to the Qur'an may shed light on the remarks of classical exegetes such as al-Tabari, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Muqatil b. Sulayman (e.g. alif-lam-mim of Surat al-Baqara). In particular, Chapter Six demonstrates how Arabophone Christian readings of the Qur'an may also prove particularly valuable in shedding light on classical discussions of qur'anic tahrif (corruption) involving the so-called 'difficult passages' (e.g. Q 108 and 111), while Chapter Five highlights how Arabophone Christian approaches to Jews and Judaism may be particularly relevant to contemporary discussions of 'Muslim anti-Semitism'. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn western academia, qur'anic studies as an independent discipline is in its infancy (in the early 20th century, Germany had housed an Orientalist academic effort to produce a \"critical edition\" of the Qur'an; the project was resumed in the early 21st century). The later 20th century gave rise to a number of works, notoriously or academically acclaimed, which do focus on the historicity of Islamic narratives of the early collection and codification of the Qur'anic text we have today - (cf. e.g. the works of Wansbrough, Cook\/Crone, Luling and Luxenberg). Brill's recent Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (2001-2006, 5 vols. + Index) marked a summative \"state of scholarly research\" in (primarily Western) qur'anic studies at the turn of the 21st century. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost Euro-American study of the Qur'an, however, relies on classical Islamic sources - or radical deviations from Islamic tradition (and, at times, the standards of scholarly academic inquiry). Dr.Wilde's research attempts to expand the scope of (western and Islamic) qur'anic studies through an examination of early Christian Arabic employment of qur'anic passages (a novel endeavor insofar as Christian Arabic texts, when examined, are generally done through an ecclesiastical, rather than Islamicist, lens). These works, however, focus on narratives and reports about the formation of the text, rather than on textual evidence for the transmission of the text itself. Some work on the textual evidence for the contents of the Qur'an has been done, but generally with exclusive reliance on \"Islamic\" sources (i.e. numismatics, epigraphy, or Gerd Puin's work on palimpsests of Qur'an manuscripts). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile Christian Arabic texts are being studied in ecclesiastical circles, and Islamic sources are invaluable for the information they shed on the preservation, transmission and normative interpretation of the Qur'an, Islamicists have yet to mine Christian Arabic texts for the light they might shed on these processes (qur'anic preservation, transmission and interpretation). The early Islamic state had numerous non-Muslim communities in its midst, most - if not all - of whom eventually became Arabophone. Unlike non-Christian sources from the first centuries of Christianity, which went through a heavy process of purging or purification by Church authorities, non-Muslim sources from early Islamic times remained in the provenance of their respective - non-Muslim - communities. Thus, given their relative communal autonomy, non-Islamic sources contemporaneous to early Islamic society furnish us with information about the handling of, and approaches to, the Qur'an.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Academica Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49786680738032,"sku":"9781936320813","price":82.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781936320813","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}