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A great number of qurʾānic passages exhibit demonstrable intersections with Christian traditions, and sometimes the Qurʾān even addresses Christians directly. Guillaume Dye, Tommaso Tesei, and Stephen Shoemaker have recently argued that this is difficult to reconcile with our current lack of evidence for organized Christian communities in the pre-Islamic Ḥijāz. Accordingly, all three scholars maintain that much of the Qurʾān ought to be decoupled from the preaching of Muḥammad (whose historical existence they do not deny). While recognizing the pertinence of the explanatory challenge identified by Dye, Tesei, and Shoemaker, this article suggests that the problem may be somewhat less acute than it is made out to be. The article then proceeds to a critical examination of the alternative scenario for the genesis of the Qurʾān that is offered, in different variations, by Dye, Tesei, and Shoemaker. This scenario is found to give rise to a number of explanatory difficulties of its own that have not so far been satisfactorily addressed. By way of an appendix, the article includes an extended critique of Shoemaker and Dye's claim that the Jesus-and-Mary pericope in Sūrah 19 most likely reflects a post-conquest Palestinian milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Journal of College of Sharia & Islamic Studies is the property of Qatar University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Carl W. Ernst HOW TO READ THE QUR'AN A new guide, with select translations 288pp. University of North Carolina Press. $30; distributed in the UK by Eurospan. 25.95 [pounds sterling]. [...]

I argue that the thought of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191), the founder of the so-called “Illuminationist” (ishrāqī) current in Arabo-Persian philosophy, displays significant influences by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), known both for his sustained criticism of Arabic Peripateticism and his selective appropriation thereof. The first part of the article shows that the conceptual groundwork of al-Suhrawardī’s ontology of light is in important respects derived from al-Ghazālī’s treatise The Niche of Lights. The second part contends that al-Suhrawardī’s handling of a crucial theological issue – namely, that of God’s knowledge of particulars – can also be read as drawing on and engaging with al-Ghazālī. I conclude with a general characterisation of both thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of a “World of Images” located somewhere between the immaterial and the material world was a mainstay of eschatological speculation in late medieval Islam. As has been recognised before, the concept was launched by al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191). However, its more properly philosophical underpinnings, in particular the notion of “suspended” images – images which somehow have an objective, rather than just a mental or subjective, status – merit further clarification, which this article attempts to provide. Since the concept of “suspended forms”, while applied to eschatological matters in the last treatise of the Philosophy of Illumination, makes its first appearance in a discussion of mirror vision, I examine in some detail Avicenna's understanding of mirror vision as presented in the Shifā', to which al-Suhrawardī reacts. I then undertake a detailed reconstructive analysis of two paragraphs of the Philosophy of Illumination, paying particular attention to the question of the ontological status of “suspended” or “self-subsistent” images as well as to the idea that mirrors serve, not as loci in which images inhere, but as loci at which they become manifest (singular maẓhar). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes to interpret Surah 97 based on research undertaken in the framework of the Corpus Coranicum project. The first part scrutinizes Christopn Luxenberg's seriously flawed argument that Surah 97 can be understood as a Qur'anic hymn on the Nativity of Jesus if some of its key expressions are read against the semantic background of Syriac, while the remainder of the article endeavours to develop a more tenable understanding of the text. This involves an attempt to date Surah 97 relative to other Qur'anic texts and to detect possible additions to it. In addition, the article discusses the meaning and reference of its most central term, laylat al-qadr. Finally, special attention is given to the question whether the text might not, in spite of the circularity of Luxenberg's reading, contain implicit references to the Nativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article briefly examines two recent monographs on the biography of Muḥammad and the genesis of the Qur'ān by the Tunisian historian Hisham Djait. Both the general methodological assumptions of Djait's studies and representative examples of his approach are presented. It is argued that one of Djait's most significant insights consists in his recognition of the necessity of critically juxtaposing the Qur'ānic text with later Islamic amplifications and narrative contextualizations. The article also discusses Djait's use of Western Qur'ān scholarship and his romantically inspired portrayal of Muḥammad as a religious genius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]