Arabic & EMEL, Trinity Term 2017

Islamic Religion: Islamic law and hadith (Christopher Melchert)

Set texts: al-Nawawī (d. Nawā, 676/1271), al-Arba‛ūna ḥadīthan, nos 1, 11, 17, 31, 32, and

42. A copy is available on WebLearn as reproduced from Louis Pouzet, Une herméneutique

de la Tradition islamique: la commentaire des al-Arba‛ūn an-Nawawīya, Recherches,

Nouvelle série, A, Langue arabe et pensée islamique 13 (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq Sarl, 1982).

I. Hadith. Here are two suggested topics for investigation.

(1) Dickinson, chap. 6, offers an excellent summary of how early-medieval hadith criticism

actually worked. You can retrace the steps of a medieval critic by analysing the asānīd to half

a dozen versions of one hadith report. In Ibn Ḥajar or Mizzī, look up the names of the trans-

mitters and record where they were from and when they died, if known. (Among the Six

Books, Muslim’s is the easiest to use for this purpose, as he often provides multiple versions

one after another. Al-Kutub al-sittah includes a reasonable edition.) See Juynboll’s introduc-

tion and Motzki, ‘Dating’, for alternative accounts of how to date hadith reports.

(2) Alternatively, you might read half a dozen biographies in Ibn ‛Adī, then decide what

method he uses to come to his conclusions about the reliability of different traditionists. In

either case, it will probably be helpful to bring photocopies of your primary sources to the

tutorial.

Bibliography: primary sources.

Ibn ‛Adī al-Qaṭṭān (d. Gurgan, 365/975-6?). Al-Kāmil fī ḍu‛afā’ al-rijāl. 6 vols. Bei-

rut: Dār al-Fikr, 1404/1984. FOL BP 136.5 I223 IBN 1984.

Ibn Ḥajar (d. Cairo, 852/1449). Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb. 12 vols. Edited by Muṣṭafá ‛Abd

al-Qādir ‛Aṭā. 12 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‛Ilmīyah, 1415/1994. BP 136.48 I42 IBN

1994 Ref.

Al-Kutub al-sittah. Mawsū‛at al-ḥadīth al-sharīf. Riyadh: Dār al-Salām, 1420/1999.

FOL BP 135 A1 M38 MAW 1999 Ref.

Al-Mizzī (d. Damascus, 742/1341). Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fī ma‛rifat al-rijāl. Edited by

Bashshār ‛Awwād Ma‛rūf. 35 vols. Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risālah, 1980-92/1400-13. BP

136.48 M59 MIZ 1980.

Muslim (d. 261/875). Sahîh Muslim. Edited by Abu Tahir ‛Ali Za’i. Translated by

Nasiruddīn al-Khattab. Translation edited by Huda Khattab. Reviewed by Abu Khaliyl. 7

vols. Riyadh: Darussalam, 2007. BP 135 A144 E5413 MAS 2007 Ref. Adequate translation

(mutūn only) with parallel Arabic text.

Bibliography: secondary sources.

Dickinson, Eerik. The development of early Sunnite Ḥadīth criticism. Islamic history

and civilization, studies and texts, 38. Leiden: Brill, 2001. BP 136.48 I15 D53 DIC 2001.

Also M01.E11903.

2

Juynboll, G. H. A. Encyclopedia of canonical ḥadīth. Leiden: Brill, 2007. BP 135.2

J89 JUY 2007 Ref. Also Arab. d. 18152.

Motzki, Harald. ‘Dating Muslim traditions: a survey’, Arabica 52 (2005): 204-53. P

790 ARA.

II. Islamic law. Here are four suggested topics for investigation.

(1) How schools argue for their rules. Read five pages of one or more of the Muwaṭṭa’ of

Mālik, the Umm of al-Shāfi‛ī, the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī Shaybah, or the Mukhtaṣar of

al-Muzanī. Discuss how the argument proceeds; e.g. how the author deals with contradictory

hadith, to what degree the author sticks to revealed sources. The Muwaṭṭa’ is available in

translation, but it would be a good idea to read the translation in parallel with the Arabic,

since translators are liable to correct archaisms. It will probably help to read the treatment of

the same problem in Ibn al-Naqīb or Ibn Rushd. Comparisons between works are usually

fruitful. Al-Bājī offers an early commentary on the Muwaṭṭa’, al-Māwardī on the Mukhtaṣar

of al-Muzanī. Significant secondary sources include Calder, Dutton, Lowry, and Lucas.

(2) The Qur’an in Islamic law. Compare Crone, ‘Two Legal Problems’ (to whom discrepan-

cies between qur’anic rules and early juristic discussions suggest the Qur’an was not avail-

able to Muslim jurists in its present form until a century after the death of the Prophet) and

Burton (to whom discrepancies suggest the special development of qur’anic exegesis).

(3) Take one of the essential duties (ritual purity, ritual prayer, alms, fasting, and pilgrimage)

and gather the relevant qur’anic passages. Compare with the same topic as treated in some

detailed review of Islamic law. What aspects are covered by the Qur’an, what are not? Are

there any evident contradictions between the law and the Qur’an?

(4) Look up some topic in a book of law, then compare two or three qur’anic commentaries

on a relevant verse.

(For cursory presentations of Islamic law, see Ibn al-Naqīb, Ibn Rushd, Maghnīyah, al-Qāḍī

al-Nu‛mān, Schacht, Introduction, and al-Zuḥaylī; also The Encyclopaedia of Islam.)

(5) Find two multivolume accounts of Islamic law (one that gives not only the rules but

arguments for them) and read corresponding sections in each to see how they use the Qur’an.

In the OI Library, Ibn Qudāmah and al-Māwardī are especially recommended. You might

like to look over the relevant section of Ibn al-Naqīb or Ibn Rushd, first, to acquaint yourself

with the issues; e.g. if you chose to look into the penalty for stealing, it would be helpful to

see what Ibn al-Naqīb or Ibn Rushd says about it first, then look up the more detailed

treatment in Ibn Qudāmah or al-Māwardī.

(6) Uṣūl al-fiqh. Read a section of any two books of uṣūl al-fiqh. That on ijmā‛ is usually the

most compact; that on naskh may be the most immediately interesting (e.g. as to whether sun-

nah may abrogate Qur’an). Vol. 16 of Māwardī, al-Ḥāwī, is mainly devoted to uṣūl al-fiqh.

Some other sources are listed below. It will probably help to read the treatment of the same

problem in Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, Weiss, or Zysow.

3

(7) Read Calder in EI2, Hallaq, Jackson, Fadel, Weiss, and Sadeghi. Discuss the relation

between uṣūl al-fiqh (jurisprudence) and actual rules. Is the function of uṣūl al-fiqh

generative, a means for predicting what a rule will be, or apologetic, retrospectively justifying

any existing rule?

(8) Law and the state. Read Rapoport and Powers. Did rulers in the High Middle Ages tend to

have their way with the ulema?

Bibliography: primary sources.

Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī. Kitāb al-Luma‛ fī uṣūl al-fiqh. Le Livre des Rais illuminant les

fondements de la compréhension de la Loi. Traité de théorie légale musulmane. Translated

and edited with introduction by Eric Chaumont. Studies in Comparative legal history. Ber-

keley: Robbins Collection, 1999. KBP 144.62 F57 FIR 1999. Translation of an 11th-century

Shāfi‛i work on uṣūl al-fiqh with extensive notes.

Al-Bājī (d. Almeria, 474/1081-2?). Al-Muntaqá. Edited by Muḥammad ibn ‛Abbās

ibn Shaqrūn. 7 vols in 4r. Cairo: Maṭba‛at al-Sa‛ādah, 1331-2, repr. n.p.: Dār al-Fikr

al-‛Arabī, n.d. KBL0.252.M33 BAJ 1982.

Al-Ghazālī (d. Tus, 505/1111). Al-Mustaṣfá min ‛ilm al-uṣūl. 2 vols. Bulaq:

al-Maṭba‛ah al-Amīrīyah, 1322-4. BP 153 GHA S Ref. Easier-to-read editions at the

Bodleian.

Ibn al-Naqīb (d. Cairo, 769/1368). The reliance of the traveller. Translated by Noah

Ha Mim Keller. Evanston, Ill.: Sunna Books, 1991. BP 153 I22 IBN 1991. Unimportant in

itself, but this is a reliable translation (just about the only one) of a manual of Shāfi‛i law

(except that certain distasteful books have been omitted; e.g. on slavery).

Ibn Qudāmah (d. Damascus, 620/1223). Al-Mughnī. Edited by ‛Abd Allāh ibn ‛Abd

al-Muḥsin al-Turkī and ‛Abd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥulw. 15 vols. Cairo: Hajr,

1406-11/1986-90. BP 155 I276 IBN 1986.

Ibn Rushd (d. Marrakech, 595/1198). The distinguished jurist’s primer. Translated by

Imran Ahsan Nyazee with Muhammad Abdul Rauf. 2 vols. Great books of Islamic

civilization. Reading: Garnet, 2000. KBP 320 A84 AVE 1994 Ref. Arab. d. 10565,

M01.E06041, M01.E07316. A translation of Bidāyat al-mujtahid wa-nihāyat al-muqtaṣid, the

great philosopher’s survey of khilāf; i.e. the different Sunni schools’s opinions on questions

of law.

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. Baghdad, 463/1071). Al-Faqīh wa-al-mutafaqqih. Edited

by Ismā‛īl al-Anṣārī. 2 vols. in 1. N.p.: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Sunnah al-Nabawīyah, 1395. BP 145

K43 KHA 1975. Includes a review of uṣūl al-fiqh.

Al-Māwardī (d. Baghdad, 450/1058). Al-Ḥāwī al-kabīr. Edited by ‛Alī Muḥammad

Mu‛awwaḍ and ‛Ādil Aḥmad ‛Abd al-Mawjūd. 20 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‛Ilmīyah,

1414/1994. BP 153 M32 MAW 1994. Vol. 16 includes a review of uṣūl al-fiqh (one of the

earliest extant).

Al-Qāḍī al-Nu‛mān (d. Cairo, 363/974). Da‛ā’im al-islām. Edited by ‛Āṣif ibn ‛Alī

4

Aṣghar Fayḍī. 2 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Ma‛ārif, 1379-83/1960-3. BP 156 NUM. The Pillars of

Islam. Translated by Asaf A. A. Fyzee. Revised and annotated by Kurban Husein Poonawala.

Oxford: University Press, 2002-4. BP 156 NUM. Also M04.F05966. The only extant manual

of Fāṭimi law.

Bibliography: secondary sources.

Burton, John. ‘The corruption of the Scriptures’, Occasional papers of the School of

Abbasid Studies, no. 4, 1992 (1994), 95-106. Arab. e. 2258 no. 4 (1992).

——————. ‘The interpretation of Q 4,23 and the Muslim theories of Naskh’,

Occasional papers of the School of Abbasid Studies, no. 1 (1986), 40-54. DS 76.4 OCC 1986.

——————. ‘Law and exegesis: the penalty for adultery in Islam’. Pages 269-84 in

Approaches to the Qur’ān. Edited by G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef. London:

Routledge, 1993. BP 130.45 A67 APP 1993.

——————. ‘The Qur’ān and the Islamic practice of wuḍū’’ Bulletin of the School

of Oriental and African Studies 1 (1988): 21-58. P. 100 BUL.

——————. The sources of Islamic law: Islamic theories of abrogation.

Edinburgh: University Press, 1990. KBP 461 BUR 1990.

——————. ‘Those are the high-flying cranes’, Journal of Semitic studies 15

(1970): 246-65. P. 740 JOU.

——————. ‘The “travel prayer”: ṣalāt al-safar’, Occasional papers of the School

of Abbasid Studies, no. 2 (1988), 57-87. DS 76.4 OCC 1986.

Calder, Norman. Studies in early Muslim jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1993. KBP55 CAL 1993.

——————. Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, s.v. ‘uṣūl al-fiqh’.

Crone, Patricia. ‘Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qur’ān’,

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, no. 18 (1994), 1-37. P. 790 JER.

Dutton, Yasin. The origins of Islamic law. The Qur’an, the Muwaṭṭa’ and Madinan

‛Amal. Culture and civilization in the Middle East. Surrey: Curzon, 1999. KBP55.D88 DUT

1999.

Fadel, Mohammad. ‘“Istiḥsān is nine-tenths of the law”: the puzzling relationship of

uṣūl to furū‛ in the Mālikī madhhab’. Pages 161-76 in Studies in Islamic legal theory. Edited

by Bernard G. Weiss. Studies in Islamic law and society 15. Leiden: Brill, 2002. KBP144

STU 2002.

Hallaq, Wael B. ‘Murder in Cordoba: ijtihâd, iftâ’, and the evolution of Substantive

law in medieval Islam’, Ars Orientalia 55 (1994): 55-83. Also in Law Library Islamic Law

H182a.

5

——————. “Was the gate of ijtihad closed?” International journal of Middle East

studies 16 (1984): 3-41.

Jackson, Sherman A. ‘Fiction and formalism: toward a functional analysis of uṣūl

al-fiqh’ Pp. 177-201 in Studies in Islamic legal theory.

Maghnīyah, Muḥammad Jawād. Al-Fiqh ‛alá al-madhāhib al-khamsah. 6th edn.

Beirut: Dār al-‛Ilm lil-Malāyīn, 1979. Arab. d. 10155. Extends to Twelver law.

Powers, David S. Law, society and culture in the Maghrib, 1300-1500. Cambridge

studies in Islamic civilization. Cambridge: University Press, 2002. KBP69.M8 POW 2002.

Rapoport, Yossef. ‘Legal diversity in the age of taqlīd: the four chief qāḍīs under the

Mamluks’, Islamic law and society 10 (2003): 210-28.

Schacht, Joseph. An introduction to Islamic law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. BP

144 S3 SCH 1964.

Weiss, Bernard G. The search for God’s Law. Islamic jurisprudence in the writings of

Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992. KBP 330 A45 WEI

1992. Paraphrase of a 13th-century Shāfi‛i work on uṣūl al-fiqh.

Zuḥaylī, Wahbah. Al-Fiqh al-islāmī wa-adillatuhā. 11 vols. 4th corrected edn. Beirut:

Dār al-Fikr, 1425/2004. KBP 144 ZUH 2004. Most detailed modern survey of disagreements

among the schools.

Zysow, Aron. The economy of certainty: an introduction to the typology of Islamic

legal theory. Resources in Arabic and Islamic studies 2. Atlanta: Lockwood, 2013. KBP144

ZYS 2013.

FHS Islamic Religion: Qur’an module (Nicolai Sinai and Karen Bauer)

Basic parameters

Lectures will be delivered on Mondays of Weeks 5–8. The accompanying reading seminar on

Thursdays will be devoted to translating and analysing (most of) the set texts for this module

(see below). There will be one round of double tutorials on the Qur’an in Weeks 5–6 and a

second one on Islamic scriptural exegesis (tafsīr) in Weeks 7–8 (see below for essay

questions). At the beginning of Trinity Term, a sheet with tutorial slots will be put up outside

Nicolai Sinai’s office (Room 209). Please sign up manually (no booking by e-mail; first

come, first served). Every participant should aim to do one tutorial with Nicolai Sinai

(nicolai.sinai@orinst.ox.ac.uk) and another one with Karen Bauer (KBauer@iis.ac.uk). Your

6

essays should be c. 2,000 words in length and must be e-mailed to your tutor and to the other

student attending your tutorial 24 hours in advance (preferably, as a Word file, which will

facilitate electronic annotation by your tutor). During the tutorial, be prepared to begin by

summarising and critiquing the other participant’s essay.

Literature guide (for publication details refer to the bibliography below)

The best available introductions to the content and literary format of the Qur’an in English,

and useful textbooks for revision, are presently Robinson, Cook, and Ernst (in that order).

Watt is now seriously out of date, but still contains some interesting sections. For a

trustworthy dictionary of Qur’anic Arabic, turn to Ambros; Badawi/Abdel Haleem largely

privileges the later exegetical tradition over the Qur’an itself and should be used with caution.

When working on specific Qur’anic passages, you should make a habit of comparing

different Qur’anic translations; Abdel Haleem, Bell, and Jones are worthwhile consulting. If

you need to check where a specific word or name occurs in the Qur’an, you will need to use a

concordance, such as ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Kassis, or http://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp.

McAuliffe is a comprehensive reference work with entries on a wide range of topics related

to the Qur’an and its reception. For access to a wide variety of Qur’anic commentaries in

Arabic, see http://www.altafsir.com/indexArabic.asp, but note that your essays should

reference print editions wherever available. (It is acceptable to cite print editions from bona

fide pdf scans, a large number of which can be found online at http://waqfeya.com; for tafsīr

works, go to http://waqfeya.com/category.php?cid=8). The best article-length introduction to

Islamic scriptural exegesis is Calder; for additional secondary literature on the Islamic

commentary literature see Bauer, Fudge, Saleh, and the contributions to Görke/Pink.

Hamza/Rizvi offer English translations of a wide range of commentaries on a selection of

Qur’anic verses.

Set texts

The examination paper that you will sit in Trinity Term 2018 will require you to translate

pieces of Arabic texts. These will either be taken from the set texts or will be selections from

other texts that are sufficiently similar in style and vocabulary. It is therefore imperative that

you acquire a proper linguistic grasp of the set texts, understood as paradigms for processing

similar material; simply learning an English translation by heart is not a good revision

strategy.

7

– Qur’an 37:1–39, 83–113

– al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad b. Jarīr. Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī taʾwīl al-Qurʾān. Edited by ʿAbd Allāh b.

ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī. 24 vols. Cairo 2001. Ad Q 4:1 (vol. 6, pp. 339–350).

Suggestions for essays

Note: you may write on other topics than those suggested below, but if so, please have a brief

word with the respective tutor before getting to work.

First round of tutorials

(1) Choose any short or medium-sized surah. Drawing inspiration from Robinson and Ernst,

analyse its structure, content, and literary form. For an example of what an in-depth treatment

of one particular surah might look like, see Neuwirth, Chapter Seven. For additional input,

refer to Bell’s redactional analysis of the surah you have chosen, as presented in his two-

volume translation of the Qur’an, check what Nöldeke has to say about the surah, and consult

the index of Neuwirth. If the surah contains a narrative about a Biblical figure like Abraham

or Moses, use Kugel to access relevant pre-Qur’anic Jewish or Christian sources that provide

at least an approximate sense of the traditions that may have circulated in the Qur’an’s milieu

of origin. If a particular verse gives rise to interpretive difficulties, compare different

translations, engage with Ambros and Badawi/Abdel Haleem, and see whether you can use a

concordance to locate a parallel elsewhere in the Qur’an that might throw light on the verse at

hand.

(2) Choose a Qur’anic figure (e.g., Noah, Jesus, Mary) from the index of proper nouns in

Kassis, pp. 1359ff., or some general concept (e.g., ṣalāh or islām) and locate, with the help of

Kassis or ʿAbd al-Bāqī, its various occurrences in the Qur’an. Then write an essay comparing

and contrasting the way in which the figure or concept you have chosen is deployed in

different surahs. Try to find an illuminating way of structuring your discussion of the textual

evidence (rather than just listing surahs in their numerical order). Make sure to identify

relevant entries in McAuliffe and the Encyclopaedia of Islam. If you choose to work on a

Biblical figure like Abraham or Moses, the pre-Qur’anic traditions presented in Kugel will

provide a useful comparative background against which to place the Qur’an.

8

(3) Proceed as under (2), but use the passages you have identified in order to assess the

tenability of a chronological reordering of the Qur’anic corpus, drawing inspiration from

Robinson, pp. 87–92. Does it make sense to arrange the various Qur’anic statements on a

given figure or topic according to the chronology proposed by Nöldeke, or would you agree

with the objections put forward by Reynolds, Welch and Stefanidis? For an introduction to

the issue of inner-Qur’anic chronology, see chapters 4 and 5 of Robinson and the encyclop-

aedia entry by Böwering; then have a look at the English translation of Nöldeke. For an

example of what a diachronic treatment of the Qur’an might look like, see Neuwirth, chapters

5 and 10.

Second round of tutorials

(1) Read at least Calder, preferably also some additional secondary literature on Islamic

scriptural exegesis. Then pick one Qur’anic verse group or long verse and compare how it is

treated by at least three different Qur’anic exegetes. If you choose one of the commentaries

translated in Hamza and Rizvi, you must make sure to consult and cite the original Arabic.

What are the interpretive difficulties that your exegetes are addressing? What assumptions are

they bringing to bear upon the Qur’an? What are the exegetical techniques and methods they

use? Can you identify any doctrinal stakes they might have in the passage at hand? Try to

relate your findings to some of the secondary literature in the bibliography below.

(2) Use a concordance to identify a handful of Qur’anic passages that share an important term

or figure or motif; compare and contrast how these passages are treated in one particular

Qur’anic commentary. Answer the same questions as under (1) – What are the interpretive

difficulties that the exegete is addressing? etc. – and highlight differences, tensions, and

agreements in the way in which your commentary interprets the verses you have selected.

Bibliography

ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Muḥammad Fuʾād. Al-Muʿjam al-mufahras li-alfāẓ al-Qurʾān al-karīm. Cairo:

Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, 1364 AH (pdf available at

https://archive.org/details/WAQ140507).

9

Abdel Haleem, Muhammad A. S. (trans.). The Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2010 (reprinted with corrections; available online at http://ezproxy-

prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:5323/Public/book_tq.html).

Ambros, Arne A., with Stephan Procházka. A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic.

Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004.

Badawi, Elsaid M., and Muhammad Abdel Haleem. Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic

Usage. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

Bauer, Karen. Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān: Medieval Interpretations, Modern

Responses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Bell, Richard. The Qurʾān: Translated, with a Critical Re-Arrangement of the Surahs. 2 vols.

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1937.

Calder, Norman. ‘Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the Description of a Genre,

Illustrated with Reference to the Story of Abraham’. Pp. 101–40 in Approaches to the

Qurʾān. Edited by Gerald R. Hawting und Abdul-Kader A. Shareef. London: Routledge,

1993. (pdf available from Nicolai Sinai).

Cook, Michael. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2000 (available online through SOLO).

Ernst, Carl. How to Read the Qurʾan: A New Guide, With Select Translations. Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 2011 (available online through SOLO).

Fudge, Bruce. Qurʾānic Hermeneutics: Al-Ṭabrisī and the Craft of Commentary. Abingdon:

Routledge, 2011.

Görke, Andreas, and Johanna Pink (eds.). Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploring

the Boundaries of a Genre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Hamza, Feras, und Sajjad H. Rizvi, with Farhana Mayer (eds.). An Anthology of Qur’anic

Commentaries 1: On the Nature of the Divine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Jones, Alan (trans.). The Qurʾān. [Cambridge:] Gibb Memorial Trust, 2007.

10

Kassis, Hanna E. A Concordance of the Qur’an. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1983 (available online through SOLO).

Kugel, James L. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the

Common Era. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. 6 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2001–

2006 (available online through SOLO).

Neuwirth, Angelika. Scripture, Poetry and the Making of a Commujnity: Reading the Qur’an

as a Literary Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Nöldeke, Theodor, et al. The History of the Qurʾān. Translated by Wolfgang H. Behn.

Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Reynolds, Gabriel S. ‘Le problème de la chronologie du Coran’, Arabica 58 (2011): 477–

502.

Robinson, Neal. Discovering the Qur’an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text.

London: SCM, 1996.

Saleh, Walid. The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of

al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035). Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Stefanidis, Emmanuelle. ‘The Qur’an Made Linear: A Study of the Geschichte des Qorâns’

Chronological Reordering’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 10 (2008): 1–22.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’ān. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press, 1970.

Welch, Alford. ‘Al-Ḳurʾān’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second edition. Leiden: Brill, 1960–

2002, vol. 5, pp. 400–3.