The Almuslih Library

Subject Catalogue

A note on the library collection . ملاحظة حول مجموعة المكتبة



قائمة الكتب باللغة العربية

Introduction

Collected overviews

On the methodology of contemporary research on Islamic origins

The Late Antique Cultural Milieu

History & Cultural Context

Religion

Pre-Islamic Arabia

The Political, Anthropological and Economic Environment

Arab paganism

The Nabataeans

Pre-Islamic Arab monotheism

Arab Judaism

Arab Christianity

The Constituents of the Qur’ān

Overviews

Mythological / Pagan elements

Zoroastrian elements

Manichaean elements

Judaic elements

Christian elements

Judeo-Christian Apocalypticism, Eschatology and Messianism

The 'Jewish-Christianity' theory



Research on the Text of the Qur’ān

Chronological re-orderings of the Sūras

Literary analysis of the Qur’ān text

Philology as an exegetical tool

Arabic linguistics

Foreign vocabulary in the Qur’ān

Some key terms and passages

The debate on Syriac linguistic influence

The Qur’ānic Vorlage thesis

The Early History of Islam

Studies on early Islam

Early non-Muslim historical sources

Early Christian apologetics

Muslim Historiography

Sīra texts

Sīra historiography

Studies on the life of Muhammad

Early historical writing

Source texts

Studies on Muslim historiography on early Islam

Hadīth and Early Fiqh

Archaeology, Epigraphy, Numismatics and Topography

المصادر العربية وكتب الاستشراق التي ترجمت إلى العربية

Introduction

Back to main index

Collected overviews

McAuliffe, J(ed): Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān: Volume One (A-D); Volume Two (E-I); Volume Three (J-O); Volume Four (P-Sh); Volume Five (Si-Z); Volume Six (Index Volume). Brill, Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2001-2006

McAuliffe, J (ed): The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān Cambridge University Press 2007.

Nickel, G and Rippin, A: The Qur’ān (Chapter 10 of The Islamic World, Routledge, London 2008).

Rippin, A (ed): The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’ān Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

On the methodology of contemporary research on Islamic origins

Badawi, E el-: البحث عن سياق القرآن التاريخي – نبذة عن الدراسات القرآنية الحديثة (‘In search of the historical context of the Qur’ān – a sample of modern Qur’ānic studies’). Al-Mashriq al-Raqamiyya, Vol 5, December 2014.

Berg, H (ed): Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins. Islamic History and Civilisation. Studies and Texts, Volume 49, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003.

Berg, H, The Needle in the Haystack: Islamic Origins and the Nature of the Early Sources. In Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.271-302.

Charfi, A: الاسلام بين الرسالة والتاريخ (‘Islam between the Message and the History’), 2nd ed., Dār al-Ṭalīʽa, Beirut, 2008.

Cuypers, M: L’analyse rhetorique face á la critique historique de J. Wansbrough et de G. Lüling, in Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.343-370.

Djait, H: تاريخية الدعوة المحمدية (‘The Historicity of Muhammad’s Call’), On the Prophet’s Sīra – 2 - Dār al-Ṭalīʽa, Beirut, 1999.

Donner, F: The historian, the believer, and the Qur’ān, in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp. 25-37.

Donner, F: The Qur’an in recent scholarship: challeges and desiderata in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 29-50.

Donner, F: The Study of Islam’s Origins since W. Montgomery Watt’s Publications Lecture, University of Edinburgh, 2015.

Gilliot, C: Le débat contemporain sur l’islam des origines (‘Contemporary debate on Early Islam’) 2012 G. 3. 139. From Thiérry Bianquis, Pierre Guichard, Matthieu Tillier (sous la direction de), Les Débuts du monde musulman. De Muhammad aux dynasties autonomes, Paris, PUF (Nouvelle Clio), 2012, chap. XXIV, 355-371.

Hughes, A: The Formative Period of Islam and the Documentary Approach: A Prolegomenon in A Legacy of Learning: Essays in Honor of Jacob Neusner, Brill, 2014, pp.372-385.

Humphreys, R: Islamic History, A Framework for Inquiry, Chapter Two: The Sources – An Analytical Survey, Princeton University Press, 1991.

Jablawi, A al-: الإسلام المبكر ، الاستشراق الأنجلوسكسوني الجديد , باتريسيا كرون ومايكل كوك نموذجا (‘Early Islam – New Anglo-Saxon Orientalism - Patricia Crone and Michael Cook as an example’). Al-Kamel Verlag, Köln, 2008.

Kiltz, D: Schatten über den Anfängen ? Wie viel sagen frühislamische Quellen über das aus, was wirklich war? in: Schneiders, Thorsten Gerald ( Hrsg.), Islamverherrlichung. Wenn die Kritik zum Tabu wird. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010.

Motzki, H: Alternative Accounts of the Qur’ān’s Formation, June 2006.

Motzki, H: The Collection of the Qur’ān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments, in Der Islam 78 (2001), 1-34.

Nickel, G: Mingana's ‘Transmission of the Kur'an’ after 100 years in The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter, Essays in Honour of David Thomas, Brill, 2015.

Ohlig, K: Neue Forschungsergebnisse zu den Anfängen des Islam: Eine Einführung. Inārah, Symposium on the Early History of Islam and the Qur’ān, II. http://inarah.de/sammelbaende-und-artikel/inarah-band-5/vor-und-fruehgeschichte-des-islam/

Ohlig, K; Puin, G (eds): The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History, Hans Schiller Verlag, 2005, Prometheus Books, 2008.

Ohlig, K: Wer hat den Koran geschrieben? Ein Versuch, Imprimatur, Jg. 47, 2014, Heft 4+5.

Ohlig, K: Wie der Koran wirklich enstand Publik-Forum 21, 2005 ,p62-63.

Ohlig, K: Zur Entstehung und Frühgeschichte des Islam: Die religionswissenschaftliche Frage nach den Anfängen Lecture, Erfurt 2007

Reynolds, G: The Crisis of Qur’ānic Studies in The Qur'an and its Biblical Subtext. London: Routledge, 2010. The author argues that research on the traditional sources of Islamic history indicate that the mufassirūn since the 8th century were employing guesswork to understand the Qur’ān. They were essentially collecting or imagining stories in order to understand what the Qur’ān means.

Rippin, A - Western scholarship and the Qur’ān in McAuliffe, J (ed): The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān Cambridge University Press 2007, pages 235-251.

Robinson, C: Crone and the End of Orientalism

Robinson, C: Reconstructing Early Islam: Truth and Consequences, in Berg, H (ed): Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins. Islamic History and Civilisation. Studies and Texts, Volume 49, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003, pp101-134.

Segovia, C: Los orígenes del Corán, Del simulacro al laberinto. Revista de Libros, Febrero 2016.

Segovia, C: J. Wansbrough and the Problem of Islamic Origins in Recent Scholarship: A Farewell to the Traditional Account. From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012.

Sinai, N: Fortschreibung und Auslegung, Studien zur frühen Koraninterpretation, Harrassowitz Verlagen, Wiesbaden 2009.

Sinai, N: Gottes Wort und menschliche Deutung: Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von islamischer Schriftauslegung und historischer Kritik, in: Deutung des Wortes – Deutung der Welt im Gespräch zwischen Islam und Christentum, edited by Andreas Feldtkeller and Notger Slenczka, Leipzig 2015, pp. 151–171.

Steenbrink, K: New Orientalist Suggestions on the Origins of Islam The Journal of Rotterdam Islamic and Social Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010

Wansbrough, J: Quranic Studies – Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Prometheus Books, New York,2004.

Wansbrough, J: Res Ipsa Loquitur: History and Mimesis in Berg, H (ed): Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins. Islamic History and Civilisation. Studies and Texts, Volume 49, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003, pp.3-20.

Zadeh, T: Quranic Studies and the Literary Turn Review of Ernst, C: How to read the Qur’ān: A New Guide, with Select Translations, Chapel Hill, 2011.

The Late Antique Cultural Milieu

The historical, cultural and religious context for the development of early Islam

Back to main index

History & Cultural Context

Daryaee, T: Sasanian Persia, The Rise and Fall of an Empire, I.B Tauris, 2009.

Donner, F: The Historical Context, in McAuliffe, J (ed): The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān (Part I - Formation of the qur’anic text), Cambridge University Press 2007, pp. 23-40.

Funke, P: Die syrisch-mesopotamische Staatenwelt in vorislamischer Zeit, Zu den arabischen Macht- und Staatenbildungen an der Peripherie der antiken Großmächte im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit, From Funck, B (Ed): Hellenismus. Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politischer Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters, Tübingen 1996, S. 217-238

Hoyland, R: Insider and Outsider Sources: Historiographical Reflections on Late Antique Arabia, in J. Dijkstra and G. Fisher (eds), Inside and Out. Interactions between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity, LAHR 8.

Litvinsky, B (ed): History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume III: The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. Chapters 2-3 (Sasanian Iran), Chapters 17-18 (Religions and Religious Movements), Chapter 19 (The Arab Conquest) UNESCO Multiple History Series, 1996.

Neuwirth, A: Qur’an and History – A disputed relationship Journal of Qur’anic Studies.

Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010.

Pirenne, H: Mohammed and Charlemagne. London 1939. Original French text: Mahomet et Charlemagne, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1992 (1e Edition, Bruxelles, 1937).

Retsö, J: The Road to Yarmuk: The Arabs and the Fall of the Roman Power in the Middle East in Aspects of Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium, Swedish Research institute in Istanbul Transactions, Vol.4. June 1992.

Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context London, Routledge 2008.

Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011.

Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Rousseau, P (ed): A Companion to Late Antiquity, Blackwell Publications, 2009.

Shoemaker, S: Muhammad and the Qur’ān in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Chapter 33.

Tannous, J: Syria between Byzantium and Islam: Making Incommensurables Speak. Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2010.

Whittow, M: The late Roman / early Byzantine Near East in Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 72-97.

Wiesehöfer, J: The late Sasanian Near East in Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 98-152.

Religion

Azmeh, Aziz al-: Paleo-Islam: Transfigurations of Late Antique Religion, from A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity, edd. J. Lōssl and N. Baker-Brian, Wiley, Blackwell, 2018.

Brown, P: The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, The Journal of Roman Studies, Volume 61 (1971), 80-101.

Engles, D: Historising Religion between Spiritual Continuity and Friendly Takeover. Salvation History and Religious Competition during the First Millenium AD, in: D. Engels / P. Van Nuffelen (eds.), Religion and Competition in Antiquity, Bruxelles 2014,, 237-284 (Section on Islam pp.264-ff).

Hoyland, R: Early Islam as a Late Antique Religion, from Johnson, J (ed): The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, Section: Religions and Religious Identity, Chapter 32, Oxford University Press, 2012.

Newby, G: The Rise of Islam, Time, and the End of Anxiety: Apocalypse and Apocalypticism in the East Mediterranean at the Beginnings of Islam. Monograph.

Stroumsa, G: From Abraham's religion to the Abrahamic religions, Historia Religionum, 3, 2011, pp.11-22.

Stroumsa, G: The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity, Oxford Studies in the Abrahamic Religions, Oxford Universtiy Press 2015.

Tesei, T: Some Cosmological Notions from Late Antiquity in Q 18:60–65: The Quran in Light of Its Cultural Context. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135,1 (2015) 19-32.

Pre-Islamic Arabia

The Arabian context for the development of early Islam

Back to main index

Neuwirth, A: Locating the Qur’an in the Epistemic Space of Late Antiquity Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 54:2 (2013), ss.189-203.

The Political, Anthropological and Economic Environment

Aladieh, S: Meccan Trade Prior to the Rise of Islam, Doctoral Thesis, University of Durham, 1991.

Bonner, M: Commerce and Migration in Arabia before Islam: a Brief History of a Long Literary Tradition. From Iranian Languages and Culture, Chapter 5, 65-89.

Christides, V: The Himyarite-Ethiopian war and the Ethiopian occupation of South Arabia in the acts of Gregentius (ca. 530 A.D.). Annales d'Ethiopie, Année 1972 Volume 9 Numéro 1, pp. 115-146.

Crone, P: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam Gorgias Press 20014.

Crone, P: تجارة مكة وظهور الاسلام (Arabic tr. of Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam ) Al-Mashrūʽ al-Qawmī lil-Tarjama, 2005.

Crone, P: How did the Quranic Pagans Make a Living? Bulletin of SOAS, 68, 3 (2005), 387-399.

Crone, P: Quraysh and the Roman army: Making sense of Meccan leather trade, Bulletin of SOAS, 70, 1 (2007), 63–88

Donner, F: The Role of Nomads in the Near East in Late Antiquity (400 – 800 c.e.) in Clover, F; Humphreys, R (eds): Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity. University of Wisconsin Press 1989.

Eickelman, D: Musaylimah: An Anthropological Appraisal, MA thesis, 1967.

Finster, B - Arabia in Late Antiquity: An Outline of the Cultural Situation in the Peninsula at the Time of Muhammad in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 61-114.

Fisher, G: Arabia and the Late Antique East: Current Research, New Problems.

Fisher, G: Kingdoms or Dynasties? Arabs, History, and Identity Before Islam. Journal of Late Antiquity 4.2 (Fall): 245–267, 2011.

Ghabin, A: Some Jāhilī origins of the ḥisba, JSAI 35 (2008).

Hoyland, R: Arabian Peninsula / pre-Islamic Arabia, Encyclopaedia of Islam III.

Korotayev, A; Klimenko, V; Proussakov, D: Origins of Islam: Political-Anthropological and Environmental Context. Acta Orientalia Academiae Sceintarum Hung. Vol. A2 (3-4), 243-276 (1999).

Lecker, M: Pre Islamic Arabia in Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 153-170.

Macdonald, M (et al.): Arabs and Empires before the Sixth Century, in Fisher, G (ed): Arabs and Empires before Islam, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp.11-89.

Macdonald, M: Was there a "Bedouinization of Arabia"?, Der Islam 2015; 92(1): 42–84.

Retsö, J: Arabs, in Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics ed. K. Versteegh & al., Vol. I Leiden-Boston 2006 pp. 126-133.

Retsö, J: In the Shade of Himyar and Sasan. The Political History of Pre-Islamic Arabia According to the Ayyaam al-'arab-Literature. Arabia 2 (2004) pp. 111-118.

Robin, C.J : L’Arabie à la Veille de L’Islam, La Campagne d’Abraha contre la Mecque, ou la Guerre des Pèlerinages in Colloque : Les Sanctuaires et leur Rayonnement dans le Monde Méditerranéen de l’Antiquité à l’Époque moderne, Paris, 2010.

Robin, C.J : L'Arabie dans le Coran. Réexamen de quelques termes à la lumière des inscriptions préislamiques in Les origines du Coran, le Coran des origines, Edd. F. Deroche, C. Robin, M. Zink, Actes du colloque international organisé par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres et la Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, March 2011. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris 2015.

Robin, C.J : The Peoples Beyond The Arabian Frontier In Late Antiquity: Recent Epigraphic Discoveries and Latest Advances, in Inside and Out: Interactions between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity edited by Jitse H.F. Dijkstra & Greg Fisher, Peeters Leuven, Paris, Walpole, MA 2014, pp.33-79.

Rodinson, M: Mahomet, Éditions du Seuil, May 1994.

Rodinson, M: Mohammed (English tr.by A. Carter) Penguin Books, 1985.

Schiettecatte, J: À la veille de l’islam: effondrement ou transformation du monde antique ? In Ch. Robin & J. Schiettecatte (éd.), Les préludes de l’islam. Ruptures et continuités des civilisations du Proche-Orient, de l’Afrique orientale, de l’Arabie et de l’Inde à la veille de l’Islam (Orient et Méditerranée, 11), Paris, De Boccard, p. 9-36.

Shahid, I: Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Washington, D.C. 1989, p.528ff.

Shahid, I: روما والعرب, مقدمة في دراسة العلاقات بين بيزنطة والعرب (‘Rome and the Arabs – an Introduction to the Relations between Byzantium and the Arabs’) Tr.by Q. M Suwaydān. Dār Kīwān, Damascus.

Tor, D: The Long Shadow of Pre-Islamic Iranian Rulership: Antagonism or Assimilation? in Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives, ed. A. Silverstein and T. Bernheimer. E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, Oxford: Oxbow, 2012, pp. 145-163.

Toral-Niehoff, I: Late Antique Iran and the Arabs: The Case of al-Hira, in Journal of Persianate Studies 6 (2013) 115-126’

Wood, P: Christianity and the Arabs in the sixth century in G. Fisher and J. Djikstra (eds.), Inside and Out: Interactions Between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity (Peeters, 2014).

Back to main index

Arab paganism

Crone, P: The Religion of the Quranic Pagans; God and the Lesser Deities Arabica 57 (2010) 151-200.

Dost, S: Language of Ritual Purity in the Qur’ān and Old South Arabian, Pre-publication draft of article to appear in Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia, 500–700 CE (Fred M. Donner & Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee, eds.). Chicago: Oriental Institute.

Hawting, G: The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History Cambridge, University Press, 1999

Hoyland, R: Arabia and the Arabs, from the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam, Routledge, London, New York, 2001.

Hussein, T: في الأدب الجاهلي (‘On pre-Islamic Literature’) 3rd Ed. Faruq, Cairo, 1933.

Hussein, T: في الشعر الجاهلي (‘On pre-Islamic Poetry’) Dar al-Nadwa.

Kalbi, Hisham Ibn al-: The Book of Idols (online source)

Kalbi, Hisham Ibn al-: كتاب الأصنام (Arabic text) Ed. A. Basha, Dar al-Kutub, Cairo 1995.

Karmali, A, al-: اديان العرب و خرافاتهم (‘The Religions and Myths of the Arabs’), Al-Mu’assasat al-‘Arabiyya lil-Dirāsāt wal-Nashr, Beirut 2005.

Lecker, M: Was Arabian Idol Worship Declining on the Eve of Islam?, Lecture delivered at Yad Ben Zvi in Jerusalem,1999.

Macdonald, M: Goddesses, dancing girls or cheerleaders? Perceptions of the divine and the female form in the rock art of pre-Islamic North Arabia, Orient & Méditerranée, No.7. 2012.

Pavlovitch, P: On the Problem of the Pre-Islamic Lord of the Kaʽba. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 2 (1998/99), pp.49-74.

Rubin, U: The Ka‘ba. Aspects of its Ritual Functions and Position in pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Times, J.S.A.I., 8, 1986 .

Seidensticker, T - Sources for the History of Pre-Islamic Religion in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 293-322.

Webb, P: Creating Arab Origins: Muslim Constructions of al-Jāhiliyya and Arab History, Doctoral thesis, SOAS, London 2014.

Wellhausen, J: Reste arabischen Heidentums, Berlin 1897.

The Nabataeans

Alpass, P: The Religious Life of Nabataea, Doctoral thesis, Durham University, 2011.

Peterson, S: The Cult of Dushara and the Roman Annexation of Nabataea, Doctoral Thesis, McMaster University August 2006.

Politis, K: Nabataean Cultural Continuity into the Byzantine Period. From Politis, K (ed): The World of the Nabataeans : volume 2 of the International Conference The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans held at the British Museum, 17 - 19 April 2001, Stuttgart 2007, pp.187-200.

Wenning, R: The Nabataeans in History. From Politis, K (ed): The World of the Nabataeans : volume 2 of the International Conference The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans held at the British Museum, 17 - 19 April 2001, Stuttgart 2007, pp. 25-44.

Back to main index

Pre-Islamic Arab monotheism

Gayda, I: Monothéisme en Arabie du Sud préislamique, Chroniques yéménites, 10, 2002 (online source)

Jallad, A al-: The ‘One’ God in a Safaitic inscription. An invocation to a hitherto unknown deity, ʾḥd ‘One’, which may be a title for the Jewish God, alongside an invocation to Allāt. Draft paper, Ohio State University, January 2019.

Jallad, A al-: The pre-Islamic basmala: Reflections on its first epigraphic attestation and its original significance. Draft paper, Ohio State University, June 2020.

Kister, M: Labbayka, Allahumma Labbayka …, On a monotheistic aspect of a Jahiliyya practice, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2, 33–57.

Rubin, U: Hanifiyya and Ka‘ba. An inquiry into the Arabian pre-Islamic background of din Ibrahim, in: JSAI 13 (1990): 85-112.

Sayuti, N: The concept of Allah has the highest God in pre-Islamic Arabia (The study of pre-Islamic Arabic religious poetry), MA thesis, 1999.

Zellentin, H: The Rise of Monotheism in Arabia, in Josef Lössl and Nicholas J. Baker-Brian (eds.), A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Chichester: Wiley, 2018), 157-180.

Arab Judaism

Dozy, Reinhart: Die Israeliten zu Mekka von David’s Zeit bis ins fünfte Jahrhundert unserer Zeitrechnung. Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1864

Hoyland, R: The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur’ān and in their inscriptions in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.91-116.

Margoliouth, D: The Relations between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam The Schweich Lectures, British Academy, Oxford University Press, 1924.

Robin, C : Ḥimyar et Israël, Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 148th Year, N.2 2004, pp.831-908.

Robin, C : Quel Judaïsme en Arabie ? in Le judaïsme de l’Arabie Antique, Actes du Colloque de Jérusalem, Brepols Publishers 2015, pp.15-295.

Tobi, Y : The Jews of Yemen in light of the excavation of the Jewish synagogue in Qanī’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 43 (2013): 1–8

Arab Christianity

Borge, K: A Historical Survey of the Rise and Spread of Christianity in Arabia in the First Six Centuries AD Academic Paper, April 2011.

Debié, M: Les controverses miaphysites en Arabie et le Coran, in Les controverses religieuses en syriaque, F. Ruani (dir.), Paris : Geuthner 2016 (Études syriaques 13), p. 137-156.

Fisher, G: From Mavia to al-Mundhir: Arab Christians and Arab Tribes in the Late Antique Near East.

Jeffery, A: Christianity in South Arabia Anglican Theological Review, Vol XXVII, No. 3, July 1945, pp.193-216.

Havenith, A: Les Arabes chrétiens nomades au temps de Mohammed, Louvain-la-Neuve, Centre d'Histoire des Religions (Collection Cerfaux-Lefort, 7), 1988.

Hellyer, P: Nestorian Christianity in the Pre-Islamic UAE and Southeastern Arabia Journal of Social Affairs, Volume 18, Number 72, Winter 2001.

Hoyland, R: Late Roman Provincia Arabia, Monophysite Monks and Arab Tribes: a Problem of Centre and Periphery. Semitica et Classica, International Journal of Oriental and Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 2, pp.117-139.

Kappers, M, Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula, Islam’s Stepping Stone, Research Paper, December 2014.

Lauth, R: Beith Allah. (That the Kaʽaba was built upon ruins of a Church) From Lauth, R: Abraham und die Kinder seines Bundes mit Gott, München 2003.

Lourié, B: Friday Veneration in the Sixth- and Seventh-Century Christianity and the Christian Legends on Conversion of Nağrān. From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.131-230.

Nöldeke, Theodor, Hatte Muḥammad christliche Lehrer?, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 12 (1858): 699-708.

Osman, G: Pre-Islamic Arab Converts to Christianity in Mecca and Medina: An Investigation into the Arabic Sources The Muslim world, Volume 95, January 2005, 66-80.

Segovia, C: Abraha's Christological Formula *Rḥmnn w-Msḥ-hw* and Its Relevance for the Study of Islam's Origins, Oriens Christianus, 98 (2015), pp.52-63.

Toral-Niehoff, I - The ʿIbād of al-Ḥīra: An Arab Christian Community in Late Antique Iraq in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 323-348.

Turpin, J: Christianity in Western Arabia, A.D. 200-600 Iakovos Graduate Student Conference on Patristic Studies, Boston, MA, March 2014.

The Constituents of the Qur’ān

The religious doctrinal context for the development of early Islam

Back to main index

Overviews

Bell, R: Sources of the Qur’an. Edinburgh: University Press, 1953 (online source)

Brown, R: Who was Allah before Islam? (On the Jewish/Christian origins of the term). From Toward Respectful Understanding and Witness among Muslims, Essays in Honor of J Dudley Woodbury, William Carey Library, 2012: 147-178.

Cook, D: The Beginnings of Islam as an Apocalyptic Movement, Journal of Millennial Studies Volume, no. 1 (2001).

Denkha, A: L’Eschatologie Musulmane Revue des Sciences religieuses, 87/2 (2013), 201-217.

Dye, G: La théologie de la substitution du point de vue de l'islam, in Judaïsme, christianisme, islam. Le judaïsme entre "théologie de la substitution" et "théologie de la falsification", Bruxelles, Didier Devillez Editeur, 2010, pp. 85-103.

Firestone, R: Abraham and Authenticity (The Concept of the Abrahamic Religions) Oxford University Press, 1991.

Gilliot, C : ‘Informants’ of Muhammad, in EQ (The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān), II, Leyde, Brill, 2002, p. 512-518.

Gilliot, C: Le Coran avant le Coran. Quelques réflexions sur le syncrétisme religieux en Arabie centrale, in Azaiez (Mehdi) (sous la direction de), avec la collaboration de Sabrina Mervin, Le Coran. Nouvelles approches, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2013, p. 145-187

Gilliot, C : Le Coran production de l’antiquité tardive ou Mahomet interprète dans le “lectionnaire arabe” de La Mecque (‘The Koran, a production of Late Antiquity or Mohammed as interpreter and exegete in the ‘Arabic lectionary’ of Mecca’). REMMM, 129 (2011) Hommage à Alfred-Louis de Prémare.

Gilliot, C : Les ‘informateurs’ juifs et chrétiens de Muḥammad. Reprise d’un problème traité par Aloys Sprenger et Theodor Nöldeke (‘The Jewish and Christian informants of Muḥammad. Re-examination of an issue dealt with by Aloys Sprenger et Theodor Nöldeke’), 1998. (NB Large file: 89 MB).

Gilliot, C: Zur Herkunft der Gewährsmänner des Propheten (‘On the Origin of the informants of the Prophet’). From Hans-Heinz Ohlig und Gerd-Rüdiger Puin (hrsg. von), Die dunklen Anfänge. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam, Berlin, Verlag Hans Schiler, 2005, p. 148-169

Gonzalez-Ferrin, E: La Angustia de Abraham - Origenes Culturales del Islam, Almuzara 2013.

Griffith, H: The ‘Sunna of Our Messengers’, The Qur’ān’s Paradigm for Messengers and Prophets; a Reading of Sūrat ash-Shuʽarā (26) in Qur’ānic Studies Today, Eds. A. Neuwirth and M. Sells, Routlege.

Hienz, J: The Origins of Muslims Prayer: Sixth and Seventh Century Religious Influences on the Salāt Ritual, MA Thesis. August 2008.

Hirschfeld, H: New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qur’an. London 1902.

Jeffery, A: The Qur’an as Scripture, Parts I-IV, The Muslim World, Volume 40 (1950), pp. 41-55; Volume 41 (1950), pp. 106-134; Volume 42 (1950), pp. 185-206; Volume 42 (1950), pp. 257-275.

Nöldeke, T: History of the Qur’an from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.8, Brill 2013.

Nöldeke, T: تاريخ القرآن (Arabic tr. of History of the Qur’an) Dār Nashr George Alms, Zurich, New York, 2000.

Nöldeke, T: The Qur’an: An Introductory Essay Ed. N. Newman, Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1992.

Robbins, K; Newby, R: A Prolegomenon to the Relation of the Qur’ān and the Bible from Reeves, J (ed): Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural intertextuality, p23.

Sinai, N: Die heilige Schrift des Islams: Die wichtigsten Fakten zum Koran, Freiburg: Herder, 2012.

Smith, H: The Bible and Islam or the influence of the Old and New Testaments on the religion of Muhammad. The Ely Lectures for 1897. New York: Arno Press, 1973.

Suermann, H - Early Islam in the Light of Christian and Jewish Sources in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 135-148.

Tesei, T: Hell Fire and Paradise Water: Qur’an’s Views of the Underworld in Light of its Late Antique Context Lecture paper given at the University of Utrecht 2012.

Tesei, T: The Quran(s) in Context(s) Lecture for the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Studies at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Tesei, T: The Qur’ānic Netherworld in Light of Some Eschatological and Cosmological Concepts from Late Antiquity Lecture paper given at the International Symposium “Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions”, Utrecht University, 2012.

Tisdall, St.Clair, W: The Sources of Islam. Reprinted in Colin Turner (ed.), The Koran: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies: Translation and Exegesis (4 vols. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004).

Webb, P: Muḥammad’s ascension to the Heavenly Spheres: ‘Utopian Travel’: Fact and Fiction in making Utopias. Middle Eastern Literatures, 2012.

Weil, G: Historisch-kritische Einleitung in den Qur’ān, 2nd Ed. Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1878.

Weil, G: Mohammed der Prophet, Sein Leben und seine Lehre, Stuttgart 1843.

Back to main index

Mythological / Pagan elements

Gobillot, G: Die „Legenden der Alten“ im Qur’ān, Die Erzählung von den Schläfern in der Höhle und der Alexander-Roman anhand von Sure 18, Inarah.

Hughes, A : The stranger at the sea: Mythopoesis in the Qur’ân and early tafsîr. Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 32/3 (2003): 261-279.

Sfar, M: Le Coran, la Bible et l'Orient ancien, Paris : Mondher SFAR, 2e édition, 1998.

Stewart, G: The mysterious letters and other formal features of the Qur’ān in light of Greek and Babylonian oracular texts in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.323-348.

Tisdall, T: The Original Sources of the Qur’an Its Origin in Pagan Religions and Mythology, 1905.

van Bladel, K: The Alexander Legend in the Qur’ān 18:83-102 in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context. Edited by Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2007. Pages 175-203.

Zwemer, S: The Influence of Animism on Islam, An Account of Popular Superstitions, Macmillan, New York, 1920.

Zoroastrian elements

Courtieu, G: Le bonheur auprès d'Allah ou de Khosroes? Le faste du banquet perse dans les versets paradisiaques du Coran.

Goldziher, I: Islamisme et Parsisme, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, Vol. 43, Paris 1901, pp.1-29. (N.B.: large file, 75MB)

Goldziher, I: Islam und Parsismus, tr. W. Müller, from the French original Islamism et Parsisme, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, Vol. 43, Paris 1901, pp.1-29.

Tesei, T: The barzakh and the Intermediate State of the Dead in the Qur’ān From Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions, Part 1 Quranic Netherworlds, Chapter 2. Utrecht 2012.

Manichaean elements

Reeves, J: Manichaeans as Ahl al-Kitab: A Study in Manichaean Scripturalism, in Armin Lange, et al., eds., Light Against Darkness: Dualism in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and the Contemporary World (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 249-265.

Stroumsa, G; Stroumsa, S: Aspects of Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and Under Early Islam, HTR 81:1 (1988), pp.37-58.

Stroumsa, G: Seal of the Prophets: the Nature of a Manichaean Metaphor in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 7 (1986), pp.61-74.

Back to main index

Judaic elements

Ahmed, W: Lot’s daughters in the Qur’ān: an investigation through the lens of intertextuality in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.411-424.

Albairak, I – Qur’anic Narrative and Israiliyyat in Western Scholarship and in Classical Exegesis Thesis, Universtiy of Leeds, May 2000.

Beck, D: Maccabees Not Mecca: The Biblical Subtext of Sūrat al-Fīl (Q 105).

Crone, P - The Book of Watchers in the Qur’ān From Ben-Shammai, H; Shaked, Sh; Stroumsa, S: Exchange and Transmission Across Cultural Boundaries, Philosophy, Mysticism and Science in the Mediterranean World. The Israel Academy of sciences and humanities, Jerusalem 2013.

Cuypers, M : La sourate 81, « L’obscurcissement », et le chapitre 10 du Testament de Moïse.

Erder, Y: The Origin of the Name Idrīs in the Qurʾān: A Study of the Influence of Qumran Literature on Early Islam, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 339-350.

Firestone, R: Abraham and Authenticity in The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford Handbooks) 1st Edition, Chapter 1. Oxford University Press, 2015, pp.3-21.

Firestone, R: Abraham's Association with the Meccan Sanctuary and the Pilgrimage in the Pre Islamic and Early Islamic Periods. Le Museon Revue d'Etudes Orientales, 1991 p.104.

Firestone, R: Is there a notion of “divine election” in the Qur’ān? in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.393-410.

Firestone, R: Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis. SUNY Press, 1990.

Firestone, R: Ritual Similarities and Differences between Judaism and Islam, Rituals, Similarities, Influences and Processess of Differentiation, Two Religions of the Law, 701- 711.

Firestone, R: The Qur'an and the Bible: Some Modern Studies of Their Relationship in John C. Reeves, ed., Bible and Qur'an: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003, 1-22

Geiger, A: Judaism and Islām Bangalore 1896 (English tr. by F. Young of Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? Wiesbaden 1833.

Graves, M: The Upraised Mountain and Israel’s Election in the Qur’an and Talmud, Cocparative Islamic Studies, Equinox Publishing, 2018.

Haase, F: Comparison of the Hebrew Writings and Bible (Genesis 37-42) with Quranic Sura Yusuf as Example for Cultural Adaption, (A Study of a Cross-Cultural Differentiation Process of Textual and Oral Traditions for Religious Writings Under the Historical Conditions of Middle East Societies) in Journal of Religious Culture, No. 105 (2008).

Hoyland, R: Sebeos, the Jews and the Rise of Islam Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995.

Kister, M: Islām – Midrashic Perspectives on a Quranic Term, Journal of Semitic Studies 63 (2018), pp. 381-406.

Livni-Kafri, O: The Muslim Traditions ‘In Praise of Jerusalem’ (Faḍā’il al-Quds): Diversity and Complexity in Annali 58 (1998), pp.165-192.

Lowin, S: Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis, Religion Compass (2011), 5/6 (2011): 224–235

Neuwirth, A: A ‘Religious Transformation in late Antiquity’ - From Tribal Genealogy to Divine Covenant: Qurʾānic Refigurations of Pagan-Arab Ideals Based on Biblical Models This is a draft translation of Neuwirth, A: Eine ‘religiöse Mutation der Spätantike’: Von Tribaler Genealogie zum Gottesbund. Koranische Refigurationen pagan-arabischer Ideale nach biblischen Modellen from Renger, A-B; Toral-Nielhoff, I (eds): Genealogie und Migratoinsmythen im antiken MIttelmeerraum und auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, Berlin Studies of the Ancient World, 29.

Neuwirth, A - Qurʾanic Readings of the Psalms in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 733-778.

Neuwirth, A: Qur’anic Studies and Historical-Critical Philology: The Qur’an’s Staging, Penetrating, and Eclipsing of Biblical Tradition. Lecture paper, International Qur’anic Studies Association Conference, November 2014.

Pregill, M: Isra’iliyyat, Myth, and Pseudepigraphy: Wahb b. Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Jerusalem studies in Arabic and Islam, 34 (2008).

Reed, A: Fallen Angels and the Afterlives of Enochic Traditions in Early Islam. Paper prepared for precirculation at Fourth Nangeroni Meeting, Milan, Italy, 15-19 June 2015

Reeves, J: Con-‘text’-ualizing Bible in/and/with Qur’an, Mizan Project.

Reeves, J: Resurgent Myth: On the Vitality of the Watchers Traditions in the Near East in Late Antiquity, in Harkins, A; Bautch, K; Endres, J (eds): The Fallen Angels Traditions: Second Temple Developments and Reception History, CBQMS 53; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2014), 94-115. (‘Early Muslim Use of the Watcher Myth’ on p.13ff of the online publication).

Reeves, J: Some Explorations of the Intertwining of Bible and Qur’ān, in Bible and Qurān: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (ed. John C. Reeves; Leiden and Atlanta: Brill/Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 43-60.

Reeves, J: Some Parascriptural Dimensions of the ‘Tale Of Hārūt And Mārūt’. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135 (2015): 817-842.

Reeves, J: The Eschatological Reappearance of the Staff of Moses, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic, 2005 (updated).

Reeves, J: The Muslim Appropriation of a Biblical Text: The Messianic Dimensions of Isaiah 21:6-7, in Kenneth G. Holum and Hayim Lapin, (eds.), Shaping the Middle East: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in an Age of Transition 400-800 C.E. (Bethesda, Md.: University Press of Maryland, 2011), 211-222.Reynolds, G - Reading the Qurʾan as Homily: The Case of Sarah’s Laughter in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 585-592.

Reynolds, G: Biblical Background to the Qur'an, in Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Qurʾān (Oxford: Blackwell, 2017), 303-19.

Reynolds, G - Reading the Qurʾan as Homily: The Case of Sarah’s Laughter in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 585-592.

Rubin, U: ‘Become you apes, repelled!’ (Quran 7:166): The transformation of the Israelites into apes and its biblical and midrashic background. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78, 1 (2015), 25–40

Rubin, U: Islamic Retellings of Biblical History. From Y. Tzvi Langermann and Josef Stern (eds.), Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction between Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraemer (Paris, 2007), 299-313.

Rubin, U: Moses and the Holy Valley Ṭuwan: On the biblical and midrashic background of a qurʾānic scene. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73 no. 1 (2014), 73-81.

Rubin, U: Muḥammad the exorcist: aspects of Islamic-Jewish polemics. JSAI 30 (2005).

Rubin, U: The life of Muḥammad and the Qur’ān: the case of Muḥammad’s hijra. JSAI 28 (2003) (on the biblical and midrashic background to Muhammad’s shelter in the cave [Q 9:40]).

Rubin, U: Traditions in Transformation. The Ark of the Covenant and the Golden Calf in Biblical and Islamic Historiography. Oriens 36 (2001), 196-214.

Schapiro, I: Die Haggadischen Elemente im Erzählenden Teil des Korans. Fock: Leipzig, 1907.

Silverstein, A : On the original meaning of the Qur’ānic term ‘al-Shaytān al-Rajīm’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 2013

Speyer, H: Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran Darmstadt, 1961.

Stetkevych, S: Solomon and Mythic Kingship in the Arab-Islamic Tradition: Qaṣīdah, Qurʾān and Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, Journal of Arab Literature, 48 (2017), pp. 1-37.

Sucz, S: Ursprung und Wiedergabe der biblischen Eigennamen im Qur’ān Kauffmann, Frankfurt, 1903.

Torrey, C: The Jewish Foundation of Islam Jewish Institute of Religion Press, New York, 1933.

Weil, G: Biblical Legends of the Mussulmans, Compiled from Arabic Sources, and Compared with Jewish Traditions, London 1846.

Wheeler, B: Moses in the Qur’an and Islamic Exegesis, Routledge Curzon, 2002.

Zellentin, H: Trialogical Anthropology: The Qurʾān on Adam and Iblis in View of Rabbinic and Christian Discourse, in Rüdiger Braun and Hüseyin Çiçek (eds.), The Quest for Humanity – Contemporary Approaches to Human Dignity in the Context of the Qurʾānic Anthropology (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017), 54-125.

Back to main index

Christian elements

Ahrens, K: Christliches im Qoran I ZDMG vol. 84 (1930).

Ahrens, K: Christliches im Qoran III ZDMG vol. 84 (1930).

Anthony, S: Muḥammad, Menaḥem, and the Paraclete: New Light on Ibn Isḥāq’s (d. 150/767) Arabic Version of John 15:23-16:1, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2016.

Baumstark, A: Eine altarabische Evangelienübersetzung aus dem Christlich-Palästinensischen, (‘An old Arabic translation of the Gospel from Christian Palestinian’), Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete / hrsg. im Auftr. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Leipzig : Brockhaus, 1922 – 1935, pp.201-209.

Beaufort, J: Arianer und Aliden, Über die gnostischen Ursprünge des Christentums und der Shi'at 'Ali. Zeitensprünge Jg. 21, Heft 1, April 2009.

Block, C: Competing Christian Narratives on the Qur’an. Adaptation from Block, J: The Qur'an in Christian-Muslim Dialogue: Historical and Modern Interpretations, ed. Ian Richard Netton, Islamic Culture and Civilization (London: Routledge, 2013).

Bowman, J: Holy Scriptures, Lectionaries and the Qur’an, in International Congress for the Study of the Qur’an, Australian National University, Canberra, 8-13 May 1980. Edited by Johns, Anthony Hearle. Canberra: Australian National University, , Canberra, ANU, 1983 second ed., pp.29-37.

Bowman, J: The Debt of Islam to Monophysite Syrian Christianity. In Essays in Honour of G.W. Thatcher, Sydney University Press, 1967.

Bell, R: Christian Influences in Early Islam The Gunning Lectures, Edinburgh University, 1925.

Bell, R: The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment London: Macmillan, 1926. (online source)

Casado, P : La caída cristiana del ángel, huella en el Corán. (The connection between the Koran and the Syriac literature demonstrates that the episode of the fall of the angel in which the motifs of fire and clay appear has its origin in the Syriac apocryphal story ‘The Cavern of Treasures’). Revista Española de Teología 76 (2016) 305-329.

Deus, A: The Umayyad Dynasty’s Conversion to Islam: Putting Muslim Traditions into the Historical Context From the Low Point Until ca. 692 AD. (That the origin of Islam rests on Arian Christianity with an adaptation of Nestorianism and Judeo-Messianism, and that the leading members of the clan were unwavering (Melkite) Christians).

Dye, G: Nuove prospettive sulla mariologia coranica University of Siena, 2014.

El-Badawi, E: Condemnation in the Qur’ān and the Syriac Gospel of Matthew in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.449-466.

El-Badawi, E: Divine Kingdom in Syriac Matthew and the Qur’ān Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 61 (1-2), 1-42, 2009.

Griffith, S: Christian Lore in the Arabic Qur’ān: The ‘Companions of the Cave’ in Sūrat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context. Edited by Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2007. Pages 109-137.

Haddad, Y. D al- : القرآن والكتاب - 1 - بيئة القرآن الكتابية (‘The Qur’an and the Book – 1 - The Clerical Milieu of the Qur’an’). Qur’ānic Studies (2), Muhammedanism.org. Septeember 2010.

Hariri, A-M al-: قس ونبي - بحث في نشأة الإسلام (‘Priest and Prophet’ – A Study on the Origin of Islam’). 1979.

Janiszewski, T: Paradise in the Qur’an and Ephrem the Syrian in Reynolds, G: The Bible and the Qur’ān, 2014.

Klausnitzer, W : Das Jesusbild des Koran www.theologie.uni-wuerzburg.de

Marx, M - Glimpses of a Mariology in the Qurʾan: From Hagiography to Theology via Religious-Political Debate in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 533-564.

Mourad, S: Mary in the Qur’ān: a reexamination of her presentation in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 163-174.

Neuenkirchen, P: Visions et Ascensions. Deux péricopes coraniques à la lumière d'un apocryphe chrétien, Journal Asiatique 302/2, pp. 303-347.

Neuwirth, A: Mary and Jesus - Counterbalancing the Biblical Patriarchs - A re-reading of sūrat Maryam in sūrat Āl ‘Imrān (Q 3:1-62) Parole de l’Orient 30 (2005) 231-260.

Ohlig, K: Allah und der christliche Gott, Historisch-theologische und inhaltliche Eigentümlichkeiten, in Reinhard Göllner (Hg.), Das Ringen um Gott. Gottesbilder im Spannungsfeld von subjektivem Glauben und religiöser Tradition, Universität Bochum, LIT-Verlag: Berlin 2008, 95-116. Inarah.de.

Ohlig, K - From muḥammad Jesus to Prophet of the Arabs, The Personalization of a Christological Epithet (Preliminary note) in Ohlig, K( ed): Early Islam, A Critical Reconstruction based on Contemporary Sources, Prometheus Books, 2013, pp. 251-305.

Ohlig, K: Vom muhammad Jesus zum Propheten der Araber: Die Historisierung eines christologischen Prädikats. Inarah.de.

Reynolds, G: On the Presentation of Christianity in the Qurʾān and the Many Aspects of Qur’anic Rhetoric. Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth Studies 12 (2014) 42-54.

Reynolds, G: On the Qur'anic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic. Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.2 (2010).

Reynolds, G: The Qur’ān and the apostles of Jesus. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, May 2013, pp.1­-19.

Samir, S.K: The Theological Christian Influence on the Qur’ān: A Reflection in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context. Edited by Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2007. Pages 141-162.

Segovia, C: Reimagining the Early Quranic Milieu, A Symptomatic Reading of Q 17:79, 43:36, 73:1-8, 74:43, 76:26, and 108, redefining the historical setting of the early quranic milieu in light of the east-Syrian monastic crisis of the early 7th century. Seminar on Asceticism and the Study of Religions at the Department of the Study of Religion of Aarhus University in November 2017.

Segovia, C: The Jews and Christians of Pre-Islamic Yemen (Himyar) and the Elusive Matrix of the Qur’ān’s Christology. From Jewish Christianity and Islamic Origins, ed. Francisco del Río Sanchez

Shoemaker, S: Christmas in the Qur’ān: the Qur’ānic Account of Jesus's Nativity and Palestinian Local Tradition. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 2003.

Slade, D: Arabia Haeresium Ferax (Arabia Bearer of Heresies): Schismatic Christianity’s Potential Influence on Muhammad and the Qur’an in American Theological Inquiry, January 15, 2014, Vol. 7, No.1, pp.43-53.

Stroumsa, G: Christian Memories and Visions of Jerusalem in Jewish and Islamic Context , in Grabar, O; Zeev Kedar, B (eds): Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Holy Esplanade, Universtiy of Texas Press (2009) 321-333.

Tesei, T: The Fall of Iblīs and Its Enochic Background, Chapter 6, Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception, Brill, Leiden, 2016.

Toral-Niehoff, I: Eine poetische Gestaltung des Sündenfalls: Das Mythos in dem vorislamisch-arabischen Schöpfungsgedicht von ‘Adī b. Zaid (‘A Poetic Composition of the Fall: Myth in the pre-Islamic Arab Creation Poem of ‘Adī b. Zaid’) in: D. Hartwig, W. Homolka, M J. Marx, A. Neuwirth (eds.) : “Im Vollen Licht der Geschichte“ - Die Wissenschaft des Judentums und der Beginn einer historisch-kritischen Koranforschung, Würzburg 2008, 235-256.

Van Reeth, J: Who is the ‘other’ Paraclete? in Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.423-452.

Wilde, C: Jesus and Mary: Qur’ānic Echoes of Syriac Homilies? in Scriptural Interpetation at the Interface between Education and Religion, ed. F. Wilk, Brill 2019, pp.284-302.

Wilde, C: A Qur’ānic Critique of Late Antique Scholasticism?, IV International Syriac Symposium in Princeton, NJ.

Witztum, J: Joseph among the Ishmaelites: Q 12 in light of Syriac sources in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.425-448.

Witztum, J: The Syriac milieu of the Quran: The recasting of Biblical narratives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2011

Wolfson, H: An Unknown Splinter Group of Nestorians, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 6:3 (1960): 249-253.

Wortley, J: Prayer and the Desert Fathers (on the precedent for ‘praying without ceasing’ and for the ‘chanting’ out loud of the text). From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.109-130.

Back to main index

Judeo-Christian Apocalypticism, Eschatology and Messianism

Arjomand, S: Origins and Development of Apocalypticism and Messianism in Early Islam, Lecture paper for the Congress of the International Committee of the Historical Sciences, Oslo 2000.

Cameron, A : Late Antique Apocalyptic: a Context for the Qur’an? From Hagit Amirav, Emmanouela Grypeou and Guy G. Stroumsa, eds., Visions of the End: Apocalypticism and Eschatology in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th-8th Centuries, Leuven, 2015

Casey, D : Mohammad the Eschatological Prophet in Religious Conflict from Early Christianity to Early Islam (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 121) Wendy Mayer and Bronwen Neil, eds. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013).

Donner, F: La Question du Messianisme dans l’Islam Primitif. From Mahdisme et millénarisme en Islam. Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 91-94, July 2000, pp. 17-28.

Greisiger, L: Ein nubischer Erlöser-König: Kūš in syrischen Apokalypsen des 7. Jahrhunderts. In Sophia G. Vashalomidze, Lutz Greisiger (eds.): Der christliche Orient und seine Umwelt. Gesammelte Studien zu Ehren Jürgen Tubachs anläßlich seines 60. Geburtstages (Studies in Oriental Religions 56). Wiesbaden, 2007.

Livne-Kafri, O: Jerusalem in Early Islam: The Eschatological Aspect, in Arabica, Vol.53, Fasc. 3 (July 2006), p.382-403.

Livne-Kafri, O: On Apocalyptic Features in Some Palestinian Apocalyptic Traditions in Uluslararası Sosyal Araştirmalar Dergisi (The Journal of International Social Research), Vol 1/5, Fall 2008.

Reeves, J: Introductory Essay: Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, 2005.

Reeves, J: Jewish Apocalyptic Lore in Early Islam: Reconsidering the Figure of Ka‘b al-Aḥbār, in John Ashton, ed., Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of Christopher Rowland (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 200-216.

Reeves, J: Sefer Zerubbabel, in Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader, Atlanta: Society of Biblical literature; Leyden: Brill 2005, pp50-66.

Segovia, C: A Messianic Controversy Behind the Making of Muḥammad as the Last Prophet? Paper presented to the 1st Early Islamic Studies Seminar Nangeroni Meeting, "Early Islam: The Sectarian Milieu of Late Antiquity?"

Segovia, C: En torno a Mahoma como Mesías: Una nueva mirada a las raíces cristianas del Islam (‘Muhammad and the Messiah Son of Man: a new look at the Christian roots of Islam’). Erebea: Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, 5, 2015.

Segovia, C: Noah as Eschatological Mediator Transposed: From 2 Enoch 71-72 to the Christological Echoes of 1 Enoch 106.3 in the Qur'ān. Henoch, 33.1: 130–45.

Segovia, C: Thematic and Structural Affinities between 1 Enoch and the Qur’ān: A Contribution to the Study of the Judaeo-Christian Apocalyptic Setting of the Early Islamic Faith. From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.231-267.

Segovia, C: “Those on the Right” and “Those on the Left”: Rereading Qur’ān 56, 1-56 (and the Founding Myth of Islam) in Light of Apocalypse of Abraham 21–2. Paper presented at the symposium "La religion de l'autre. Lectures de l'altérité religieuse dans le judaisme, le christianisme et l'islam, de l'Antiquité tardive à nos jours – Apocalyptique et figures du mal," Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Shoemaker, S: ‘The Reign of God Has Come’: Eschatology and Empire in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, Arabica, Volume 61, Issue 5, 2014, pages 514 – 558.

Shoemaker, S: The Tiburtine Sibyl, the Last Emperor, and the Early Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition in Burke, T; Landau, B (eds): New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, J.K. Elliott, August 2016. (pp.243-244 indicate influence on emergent Islam).

Silverstein, A: Q 30: 2-5 in Near Eastern Context, Der Islam 2020; 97 (1): 11-42.

Sinai, N: The Eschatological Kerygma of the Early Qur’an. Forthcoming in Apocalypticism and Eschatology in the Abrahamic Religions (6th–8th cent. C.E.), edited by Hagit Amirav, Emmanouela Grypeou, and Guy Stroumsa, Leuven: Peeters (uncorrected author's typescript)

Tesei, T: Apocalyptic Prophecies in the Qur’ān and in Seventh Century Extra Biblical Literature

Tesei, T: The Prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18 :83-102) and the Origins of the Qur’ānic Corpus, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. On the Syriac apocalyptic work Neṣḥānā d-leh d-Aleksandrōs, “the victory of Alexander” as the likely source for the Qur’ānic version of the Prophecy of Dhū al-Qarnayn, given the same narrative structure and editing of the tale that appears in both works.

Tesei, T: ‘The Romans will win’ Q 30:2‒7 in Light of 7th c. Political Eschatology. Der Islam 2018; 95 (1): 1–29.

The 'Jewish-Christianity' theory

Crone, P: Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm, Part III of From Kavād to al-Ghazālī, Religion, Law and Political Thought in the Near East, c.600-c.1100. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2. Jerusalem 1980. Ashgate Variorum.

Del Rio Sanchez, F: ‘Jewish-Christianity’ and Islamic Origins. The transformation of a peripheral religious movement, ASMEA Conference Paper, October 2015.

Dye, G: Jewish Christianity, the Qur’ān, and Early Islam: some methodological caveats, ASMEA Conference Paper, October 2015.

Gallez, E: The Genealogy of Islam (schematic plan).

Gilliot, C: Le Coran, Muhammad et le Judéo-Christianisme. (Section B of Deux études sur le Coran, a review article of G Lüling: Über den Ur-Qur’ān, Ansätze zur Rekonstruktion vorislamischer christlicher Strophenlieder im Qur’ān, Erlangen, H. Lüling 1974). Arabica, Tome XXX, Fascicule 1, 1983. See pp.16-37.

Gobillot, G: Des textes Pseudo Clemantins á la mystique Juive des premiers siècles et du Sinaï á Ma’rib, Quelques coïncidences entre context culturel et localisation géographique dans le Coran in Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.3-90.

Griffith, S: Al-Naṣārā in the Qur’ān: a hermeneutical reflection in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.301-322.

Hawting, G: “Has God sent a mortal as a messenger?” (Q 17:95): messengers and angels in the Qur’ān in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.372-390.

Mimouni, S: Du Verus propheta chrétien (ébionite?) au Sceau des prophètes musulman, ASMEA Conference paper, Washington, 2015.

Ohlig, K: Das syrische und arabische Christentum und der Qur’ān, Inārah.de.

Ohlig, K: Zum Einfluss des Juden-christentums auf Koran und Islam – Einige Beobachtungen und Fragen, Imprimatur, Heft 1, 2017.

Pines, Sh: The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries of Christianity According to a New Source. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vol. II, No. 13

Segovia, C: El Judeocristianismo: Una Nueva Hipótesis; Seguido de un Resumen de la Demostración 17 de Afraates (Sobre la Divinidad de Cristo).

Stroumsa, G: Jewish Christianity and Islamic Origins From Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts, Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone, Brill, Leiden, 2015.

Zellentin, H: Judaeo-Christian legal cuture and the Qur’ān: the case of ritual slaughter and the consumption of animal blood, in Jewish Christianity and the Origins of Islam, ed. by Francisco del Río Sánchez , ed. (JAOC 13), Turnhout 2018, pp.117-159.

Zellentin, H: The Qur'an's Legal Culture, The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure. (Introduction – The Veil in the DIdascalia and the Qur’ān). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

Research on the Text of the Qur’ān

Extra-Islamic influence and its reflection in the fabric of the Text

Back to main index

Bell, R: Introduction to the Qur’an. Revised by Montgomery Watt, Edinburgh University Press, 1970 (online source)

McAuliffe, J (ed): The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān Cambridge University Press 2007.

Segovia, C; Lourié, B (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, Gorgias Press, 2012.

Chronological re-orderings of the Sūras

Aldeeb, S: القرآن الكريم بالتسلسل التاريخي للنزول وفقا للأزهر Along with indications of variant readings, abrogated verses, Judaic and Christian sources, and linguistic problems. Centre de droit arabe et musulman, 2012.

Frolov, D : Medieval Muslim Discussions about the Order of Suras and Their Relevance for the Study of the Composition of the Qur’an, in Vestnik Moscovskogo Universiteta, Series 13 ‘Oriental Studies’, 2001, No.1, pp.29-40.

Reynolds, G: Le problème de la chronologie du Coran, Arabica 58 (2011) 477-502

Shakir, M: Chronological Qur’ān, The Meaning in English. Arranged in reverse chronological order. The most recent Sūra (chapter) at the beginning, to assist with the study of Abrogation. Sola Virtus.

Stefanidis, E: The Qur’ān Made Linear: A Study of the Geschichte des Qorāns’ Chronological Reordering (Examining the work by Nöldeke, T: History of the Qur’an ). Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Vol. X, Issue II (2008).

Literary analysis of the Qur’ān text

Abdeljalil, M-A: بضع ملاحظات على أسلوب الالتفات في القرآن (‘Some observations on the style of exclamatory apostrophe in the Qur’ān’)

Abdeljalil, M-A : دور محمد في تأليف القرآن (‘The role of Muhammad in the Composition of the Qur’ān’)

Abdeljalil, M-A: L’analyse du Coran à la lumière de la déconstruction de Derrida, La sourate XXII (Al-Ḥajj) comme modèle.

Azaiez, M ; Reynolds, G ; Tesei, T ; Hamza, Z (eds) : The Qur’an Seminar Commentary, A Collaborative Study of 50 Qur’anic Passages, June 2016. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2016. A collection of 27 different scholars with a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds (Arabic language, comparative Semitic linguistics, paleography, epigraphy, history, rhetorical theory, hermeneutics, and Biblical studies) provide readers with unique insight into the latest trends of research in the Qurʾan. The work is a useful and illuminating reference work for students and scholars alike in the field of Qurʾanic Studies, who will find that the 50 passages selected for inclusion in this work include many of the most important and influential elements of the Qurʾan.

Azmeh, Aziz al-, Canon and canonisation of the Qurʾān, in the Islamic religious sciences, in Encyclopaedia of Islam III, 2013.

Boisliveau, A-S: Canonisation du Coran… par le Coran ? (‘Canonization of the Qur’ân… by the Qur’ân?’), Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 129, pp.153-168.

Boisliveau, A-S: Polemics in the Koran. The Koran’s Negative Argumentation over its Own Origin. Brill Arabica, Volume 60 (2013): Issue 1-2 (Jan 2013).

Böwering, G: Recent research on the construction of the Qur’an in in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 70-87.

Crone, P: Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qur’ān. From Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 18 (1994): 1-37.

Cuypers, M: La composition du Coran - نظم القرآن . Éditions Gabalda et Cie, France 2011.

Cuypers, M: نظرة جديدة في نظم القرأن tr. Y. Ḥabīb. From 3rd International Conference on العلوم الإسلامية والعربية وقضايا الإعجاز في القرأن والسنة بين التراث والمعاصرة , University of Minya 3-4 June 2007.

Cuypers, M: The Composition of the Qur’an, Rhetorical Analysis, Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York 2015. Explaining the various rhetorical principles that underlay the composition of the Qur’ānic text, taking their literary context into consideration.

Cuypers, M: The question of the Qur'an's coherence in the history of its exegesis (Extract from "The Banquet").

Dye, G: The Qur’ān and its Hypertextuality in Light of Redaction Criticism. Paper for early Islam: the sectarian media of late Antiquity? (Early Islamic Studies Seminar, Milan June 2015).

Gilliot, C : Collecte ou mémorisation du Coran. Essai d’analyse d’un vocabulaire ambigu (‘Collection or memorization of the Koran. An attempt to analyse an ambiguous vocabulary’) from Lohlker (Rüdiger) (hrsg. von), Ḥadīṯstudien – Die Überleferungen des Propheten im Gespräch. Festschrift für Prof. Dr. Tilman Nagel, Hambourg, Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2009, p. 77-132.

Gilliot, C: La composition des sourates mekkoises. (Section A of Deux études sur le Coran, a review article of A. Neuwirth: Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren, Berlin, New York 1981). Arabica, Tome XXX, Fascicule 1, 1983. See pp.1-16.

Gilliot, C: Creation of a fixed text, from Dammen McAuliffe (Jane) (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān, Cambridge, CUP (Cambridge Companions to Religion), 2006, p. 41-57

Gilliot, C; Larcher, P: Language and style of the Qurʾān from Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān [EQ], III, Leyde, Brill, 2003, p. 109-35.

Gilliot, C: Les traditions sur la composition ou coordination du Coran (taʾlīf al-qurʾān) (‘The Traditions on the coordination/compilation of the Qur’ān’ (taʾlīf al-qurʾān). From Gilliot (Claude) und Tilman Nagel (hrsg. von), Das Prophetenḥadīṯ. Dimensionen einer islamischen Literaturgattung, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. I. Philologisch-Hist. Kl., Jahr. 2005/1), 2005, p. 14-39.

Gilliot, C: Oralité et écriture dans la genèse, la transmission et la fixation du Coran (‘The oral and the written in genesis, transmission and creation of a fixed text of the Qurʾān’). Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2014.

Gilliot, Claude, Reconsidering the authorship of the Qurʾān. Is the Qurʾan partly the fruit of a progressive and collective work? in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context p.88-108.

Gilliot, C: Une reconstruction critique du Coran ou comment en finir avec les merveilles de la lampe d’Aladin? In M. Kropp (ed.), Results of contemporary research on the Qurʾān. The question of a historio-critical text, Beyrouth, Orient-Institut der DMG/Würzburg, Ergon Verlag (« Beiruter Texte und Studien », 100), 2007, p. 33-137.

Haddad, Y. D al-: نظم القرآن والكتاب - 1 - إعجاز القرآن (‘The Composition of the Qur’an and the Book – Part One – The Inimitability of the Qur’an’) Qur’ānic Studies, (3). Muhammadanism.org.

Horovitz, J: Koranische Untersuchungen, De Gruyter, Berlin and Leipzig 1926.

Makin, A: Representing the Enemy: Musaylima in Muslim Literature, (Introduction to the work) Peter Lang Publications, 2010. (That remaining fragments of Musaylima’s qur’ān bear substantial similarities to the early Meccan verses of the Qur’ān – in terms of diction, style, and pattern, and that there were likely several prophets and qur’āns in sixth-seventh century Arabia)

Makin, A: Re-Thinking Other Claimants to Prophethood: the Case of Umayya ibn Abi Salt. Paper presented at the IKGF colloquium “Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe” , Ruhr University, November, 2009.

Makin, A: Sharing the concept of god among trading prophets: reading the poem of Umayya b. Abi Salt, in Wick, P; Rabens, V (eds): Religions and Trade, Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West, Brill, 2014, pp.283-305.

Motzki, H: Alternative accounts of the Qur’ān’s formation, in Dammen McAuliffe (Jane) (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān , Cambridge, CUP (Cambridge Companions to Religion), 2006, p. 59-75.

Neuwirth, A: Two Faces of the Qur’ān: Qur’ān and Mushaf, Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 141-156.

Nöldeke, T: Remarques critiques sur le style et la syntaxe du Coran, traduit avec postface par G.-H. Bousquet, Paris 1953 (‘Critical remarks on the style and syntax of the Koran’)

Reynolds, Gabriel Said, Biblical Turns of Phrase in the Quran, in Light upon Light: A Festschrift Presented to Gerhard Böwering by His Students, ed. J. Elias and B. Orfali (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 45-69.

Ross, D: Studies upon the Relationship of the Poems ascribed to Umayya b. Abî’l-Ṣalt with the Qur’ân, A translation (with forward) of Israel Frank-Kamenetzky’s Untersuchungen über das Verhältnis der dem Umajja b. Abi ṣ Ṣalt zugeschrieben Gedichte zum Qorān, and of Theodor Nöldeke ’s review “Umaija b. Abi’ṣṢalt”. November 2013.

Sadeghi, B: The Chronology of the Qur’ān: A Stylometric Research Program, in Arabica 58 (2011), pp.210-299.

Schoeler, G: The Constitution of the Koran as a Codified Work: Paradigm for Codifying Hadīth and the Islamic Sciences? Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 199-21

Sinai, N: Fortschreibung und Auslegung: Studien zur frühen Koraninterpretation, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009.

Sinai, N: Qurʾānic Self-Referentiality as a Strategy of Self-Authorization, From Self-Referentiality in the Qurʾān, edited by Stefan Wild, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 103–134.

Sinai, N: Religious poetry from the Quranic milieu: Umayya b. Abī l-Salṭ on the fate of the Thamūd. Bulletin of SOAS , 74, 3 (2011), 397-416.

Sinai, N - The Qurʾan as Process in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 407-440.

Stewart, D: Notes on medieval and modern emendations of the Qur’ān, in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 225-248.

Back to main index

Philology as an exegetical tool

Arabic linguistics

Durie, M: On the Origin of Qurʾānic Arabic, Melbourne School of Theology, Draft paper (that Qurʾānic Arabic, as reflected in its rasm, or consonantal skeleton, developed directly from the Arabic of the Nabataeans).

Fraenkel, S: Die Aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen, Leiden, Brill, 1886.

Hamad, M al -: Nabataean in contact with Arabic: grammatical borrowing in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 44 (2014).

Hoyland, R: Language and Identity: the twin histories of Arabic and Aramaic, Scripta Classica Israelica, Vol. XXIII, 2004, pp.183-199.

Hoyland, R: The Birth of Arabic in Stone, from By the Pen and What They Write, Writing in Islamic Art and Culture, 6th Biennial Hamad Bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, November 2015.

Hoyland, R: The Language of the Qur’an and a Near Eastern Rip van Winkle, Paper in honour of Dr. Wim Raven, Marburg, May 2012.

Hussein, T: في الشعر الجاهلي (‘On pre-Islamic Poetry’) Dar al-Nadwa.

Jallad, A al- : A Manual of the Historical Grammar of Arabic, Notes on key issues in phonology and morphology.

Jallad, A al-: Arabic in Contact in the pre-Islamic Period. Draft (7-31-18) of a chapter to appear in Arabic and Contact-Induced Change, ed. C. Lucas and S. Manfredi.

Jallad, A al-: Graeco-Arabica I: the southern Levant. Brill, Leiden, 2017. A discussion of the orthography, morphology, and phonetics of Qur'anic Arabic in contrast to Classical Arabic. Further planned articles are II: Palmyra; III: Dura Europos and IV: The Damascus Palm Fragment.

Jallad, A al - : Safaitic Grammar, in The Semitic Languages, ed. J. Huehnergard, N. Pat-El, 2nd Edtion, Routledge. The northern-most variety of the South Semitic script classified under the umbrella term Ancient North Arabian.

Jallad, A al - : The Arabic of the Islamic conquests: notes on phonology and morphology based on the Greek transcriptions from the first Islamic century.

Jallad, A al - : The case for Proto-Semitic and Proto-Arabic case endings: a reply to Jonathan Owens.

Jallad, A al - : The Damascus Psalm Fragment, Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī, (with a contribution by Ronny Vollandt). Lamine 2, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2020. The work views the language of the Damascus Psalm Fragment as a bridge between the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods of Arabic. It reflects a dialect closely related to that of Qur’ānic orthography and Umayyad period documents and transcriptions— Old Ḥigāzī. The author offers a new hypothesis on the relationship between early forms of Arabic and the origins of what we conventionally call “Classical Arabic.”

Jallad, A al –: The earliest stages of Arabic and its linguistic classification in Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics.

Jallad, A al - : The Linguistic Landscape of Pre-Islamic Arabia – Context for the Qur’ān. Arab grammarians from the 8th and 9th centuries, still the primary source for the pre-Islamic period, were largely unaware of Arabia’s linguistic diversity and cosmopolitanism in the centuries preceding the rise of Islam. This work outlines the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia and dicusses issues such as the development of the Arabic script, literacy and multilingualism in this context, and discusses the stylistic parallels to the Qur’ān found in the inscriptions.

Jallad, A al - : The Word, the Blade and the Pen, Three Thousand Years of Arabic, (Book preview).

Jallad, A al –: Was it sūrat al-Baqārah? Evidence for Antepenultimate Stress in the Quranic Consonantlal Text and its Relevance for صلوهType Nouns.

Jallad, A al –: What is Ancient North Arabian? . An essay discussing the linguistic classification of the epigraphy of North and Central Arabia, focused on addressing the issue of the relationship between these ancient texts and "Arabic".

Kerr, R: The Language of the Koran, Tingisredux.com. German translation: Ist der Qurʾān in Mekka oder Medina entstanden?. in K.-H. Ohlig und M. Gross (Hg.), Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion III, Inârah-Sammelband 7 (Schiler Verlag, Berlin-Tübingen, 2014), S. 39-45.

Knauf, E - Arabo-Aramaic and ʿArabiyya: From Ancient Arabic to Early Standard Arabic, 200 ce–600 ce in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 197-254.

Macdonald, M: Ancient Arabia and the written word in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The development of Arabic as a written language (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40). Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010, pp. 5–28.

Macdonald, M: Ancient North Arabian, in Woodard, R (ed) The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, Cambridge University press 2004, Chapter 16.

Macdonald, M: Languages, scripts, and the uses of writing among the Nabataeans, The Cincinnati Art Museum, 2003.

Macdonald, M: Reflections on the Linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia, Arab. arch. epig. 2000: 11: 28–79.

Nehmé, L: A glimpse of the development of the Nabataean script into Arabic based on old and new epigraphic material, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The development of Arabic as a written language. (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40). Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010, pp. 47–88.

Owens, J: Case and Proto-Arabic, Part I, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1998), pp. 51-73.

Owens, J: Case and Proto-Arabic, Part II, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, Vol. 61, No. 12 (1998), pp. 215-227.

Owens, J: Reflections on Arabic and Semitic: Can proto-Semitic case be justified? Kervan, International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, no.19 (2015).

Retsö, J: Arabs and Arabic in the Age of the Prophet in The Qur’ān in Context. Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu ed. A. Neuwirth/N. Sinai/M. Marx, Leiden /Boston 2010 pp. 281-292.

Retsö, J: Aramaic (Syriac) Loanwords in Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics ed. K. Versteegh n& al., Leiden 2006. Vol. 1 pp. 178-182.

Retsö, J: Das Arabische der vorislamischen Zeit bei klassischen und orientalischen Autoren. Neue Beiträge zur Semitistik. Erstes Arbeitstreffen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Semitistik in der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft vom 11. bis 13 September 2000 an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (JBVO 5) Wiesbaden 2002 139-146.

Vollers, K: Volkssprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien, Strasbourg, Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1906.

Foreign vocabulary in the Qur’ān

Carter, M – Foreign Vocabulary in Rippin, A (ed): The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’ān Blackwell Publishing, 2006, pages 120-139.

Dye, G: Pourquoi et comment se fait un texte canonique? (Reflections on the history of the Qur’ān) Hérésies, 2015, pp 55-104.

Dye, G: (لماذا وكيف يصبح النَّص مقدَّسًا؟ (بعض الأفكار حول تاريخ القرآن Tr. Nāṣir ben Rajab of Pourquoi et comment se fait un texte canonique? (Reflections on the history of the Qur’ān) Hérésies, 2015, pp 55-104.

Dye, G: Traces of Bilingualism / Multilingualism in Qur’ānic Arabic from Arabic in Context, ed. Ahmad al-Jallad, Leiden, Brill (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics).

Hajayneh, H: The usage of Ancient South Arabian and other Arabian languages as an etymological source for Qur’anic vocabulary in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.117-146.

Jeffery, A: The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān with a Foreword by G. Böwering and J. D McAuliffe. Brill Leiden, Boston, 2007.

Kropp, M: Beyond single words: Mā’ida – Shayṭan – jibt and ṭāghūt. Mechanisms of transmission into the Ethiopic (Ge‘ez) Bible and the Qur’ānic text in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 204-216.

Monferrer-Sala, J: One More Time on the Arabized Nominal Form Iblīs. Studia Orientalia, Vol. 112, Finnish Oriental Society, pp.55-70. A discussion on the origins of the terms Iblīs and Shayṭān in the Qur’ān.

Pennachio, C: Lexical Borrowing in the Qur’ān The Problematic Aspects of Arthur Jeffery’s List. Bulletin du Centre de recherche français a Jérusalem, 22 (2011). An evaluation and updating of A. Jeffery’s The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān.

Toorawa, Sh: Hapaxes in the Qur’ān: identifying and cataloguing lone words (and loanwords) in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.193-246.

Zinner, S: The Phoenix of 2 Enoch/3 Baruch in Qurʾān Sūra 100. A disproportionate amount of the total words in āyāt 1-5 of Qurʾān Sūra 100 are hapax legomena, namely, al-ʿādiyāti, ḍabḥā, qadḥā, al-mūriyāt, naqʿā and wasaṭna. Since these words were intensely disputed by traditional tafsīr authorities, part of the difficulty may lie in the possible status of at least some of these words as foreign loanwords. Enochic traditions of Rabbinic literature may shed light on sūra 100.

Back to main index



Some key terms and passages

Beck, D : The Annunciation of Sūrat al-Qadr: Celebrating the Incarnation of the Deity (Q 97) (On the sura’s referring to the nativity of Christ, and its influence from St Ephrem’s Nativity Hymn no.21).

Cuypers, M: La Sourate 55 (al-Raḥmān) et le Psautier, Luqmān, 37, Téhéran, Mélanges in Memoriam Javâd Hadidi, 2002-3.

Cuypers, M: Le Festin, Une lecture de la sourate al-Mâ'ida. Rhétorique sémitique. Paris: Lethielleux, 2007.

Cuypers, M : في نظم صورة المائدة - نظم آي القرآن في ضوء منهج التحليل البلاغي (‘On the composition of the Sūrat al-Mā’ida – the Composition of Qur’ānic Verses in the Light of Rhetorical Analysis Methodology’) Tr. of Le Festin, Une lecture de la sourate al-Mâ'ida by ‘A Sālih, Dār al-Mashriq, Beirut.

Cuypers, M: Une Apocalypse coranique - Les sourates 105 à 112 (séminaire IDEO, 18 Mars 2014).

Donner, F: Quranic Furqān Journal of Semitic Studies LII/2 Autumn 2007.

Dye, G: لَيْلَةُ القَدْر هيَ أم ليلة الميلاد؟ (La Nuit du Destin et la Nuit de la Nativité, in Guillaume Dye & Fabien Nobilio, Figures bibliques en Islam, Bruxelles-Fernelmont, EME, 2011), tr. Bashir bn Rajab, On the strong parallels between the Sūrat al-Qadr of the Qur’ān and St Ephrem’s Nativity Hymn no.21), whereby the ‘descent of the Qur’ān’ is adapted from the hymn’s ‘descent of Christ at Christmas’.

Gallez, E: The root kfr and philology: significance and biblical, post-biblical and Qur’anic meanings. In ‘Le texte arabe non islamique’, Studia Arabica, vol.XI.

Grypeou, E: The Table from Heaven: A Note on Qur’ān, Sūrah 5,111 ff., Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 2 (2005): 311-316.

Heger, C: Al-Furqān and ‘the Warner’, in ‘Textual Criticism applied to the Koran versewise’ (www.christoph-heger.de/Koranische_Textkritik_versweise.html)

Kiltz, D: The relationship between Arabic Allāh and Syriac Allāha. Der Islam Bd. 88, S. 33–50.

Kister, M: Al-Taḥannuth - An enquiry into the meaning of a term.

Kerr, R: Empire Annus Hegiræ vel Annus (H)Agarorum? Etymologische und vergelichende Anmerkungen zum Anfang der islamischen Jahreszählung in K.-H. Ohlig und M. Gross (Hg.), Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion III, Inârah-Sammelband 7 (Schiler Verlag, Berlin-Tübingen), 2014, pp.14-38.

Kerr, R: Islam, Arabs and the Hijra An analysis of the etymology of the terms ‘hijra’ and ‘anṣār’. An expanded version of this is available as Der Islam, die Araber und die Hiğra.

Kerr, R : Religionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu Sure 18. Imprimatur, Heft 1, 2017, pp.72-79.

Kropp, M: The Ethiopic Satan = Šayṭān and its Quranic successor with a note on verbal stoning, Christianisme Oriental, Kérygme et Histoire, 2007.

Luxenberg, C : Kein “Mekka” und kein “Bakka” im Qur’ān; zu Sure 48:24 und 3:96 Eine philologische Analyse.

Powers, D: Finality of Prophecy, in The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions, ed. A. Silverstein and G. Stroumsa, 254-271 (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Retsö, J: The Contradictory Revelation – a reading of Sura 27:16-44 and 34:15-21. Micro-Level Analyses of the Qur’an ed. H. Rydving (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Historia religionum 34) Uppsala 2014 pp. 95-103.

Reynolds, G: On the Qur’ān’s Mā’ida Passage and the Wanderings of the Israelites. From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.91-108.

Rippin, A: The Search for Ṭuwā: Exegetical method, past and present (A comparison of two approaches to interpretation, the traditional and (p.417) the modern philological approach). From Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.399-422.

Robinson, N: Hands Outstretched: Towards a Re-reading of Sūrat al-Mā’ida. Journal of Qur’ānic Studies, Volume 3, Issue 1, Page 1-19.

Rubin, U: Iqra’ Bi-Smi Rabbika …! Some notes on the interpretation of Sūrat al-ʽAlaq (VS 1-5), Israel Oriental Studies XIII, E.J. Brill, 1993.

Rubin, U: On the Arabian Origins of the Qur'an: The Case of al-furqan. Journal of Semitic Studies 54 (2009), 421-33. [Reprinted in: Uri Rubin, Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Ashgate, 2011), no. XV]

Rubin, U: The Hands of Abu Lahab and the Gazelle of the Ka'ba, (on Sūra CXI,1: تَبَّتْ يَدَا أَبِي لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ ‘Perish the two hands of Abū Lahab’). Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33 (2007), 93-98.[Reprinted in: Uri Rubin, Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Ashgate, 2011), no. XII].

Rubin, U: The Seal of the Prophets and the Finality of Prophecy. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 164/1 (2014), 65-96.

Zinner, S: Qur’ān Sūra 112, Parmenides and Eunomius, A Textual-Philological Investigation. Journal of Higher Criticism. An examination of Youssef Seddik's claim for influence of Parmenides Fragment 8 on Qur'an sūra 112 and a presentation of evidence for the Eunomian terminology in sūra 112. The question of "Jewish Christianity" and its influence on nascent Islam is discussed.

The debate on Syriac linguistic influence

Anthony, S : Further Notes on the Word Ṣibgha in Qurʾan 2:138, Journal of Semitic Studies 59.1 (Spring 2014): 117-129.

Dye, G; Kropp, M: Le nom de Jésus ('Îsâ) dans le Coran, et quelques autres noms bibliques : remarques sur l'onomastique coranique. In Guillaume Dye & Fabien Nobilio (éds), Figures bibliques en islam, pp. 171-198.

El-Badawi, E: The impact of Aramaic (especially Syriac) on the Qur’ān.

Kerr, R: Aramaisms in the Quran and their Significance Tr. by K. Mclean.of Von der aramaischen Lesekulture zur arabischen Schreibkultur II in Gross M; Ohlig, K: Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion II, Berlin, Schiler, 2012.

Kerr, R: Der aramäische Wortschatz des Qur’ān in Gross M; Ohlig, K: Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion II, Berlin, Schiler, 2012 (Von der aramaischen Lesekulture zur arabischen Schreibkultur II).

Mingana, A: Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur’ān Bulletin of the John Rylands Library,, Vol 1, No.1, 1927.

Rippin, A: Syriac in the Qur’an , Classical Muslim theories. Also in Reynolds, G (ed): The Qur’ān in its Historical Context, Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2008. Pages 249-261.

Sinai, N: ‘Weihnachten im Qur’ān’ oder ‘Nacht der Bestimmung’? Eine Interpretation von Sure 97. Der Islam 88:1 (2012): 11-32.

Witztum, J: Joseph among the Ishmaelites: Q 12 in Light of Syriac Sources, in New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in its Historical Context 2. Edited by Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2011. Pages 425-448.

Back to main index

The Qur’ānic Vorlage thesis

Abdeljalil, M: Le Coran : texte révélé ou texte traduit?

Abdeljalil, M: Le Coran : texte révélé ou texte traduit? (enlarged)

Gilliot, C: Des indices d’un proto-lectionnaire dans le 'lectionnaire arabe', dit Coran (‘Pieces of evidence showing the presence of a proto-lectionary in the ‘Arabic lectionary’, called Qur’ān’), Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres), Année 2011 (janvier-mars), 455-72.

Gilliot, C : Langue et Coran: une lecture syro-araméenne du Coran, Arabica 50:3 (2003): 381-393.

Gilliot, C: Mohammed's exegetical activity in the Meccan Arabic lectionary in Carlos A. Segovia and Basil Lourié (eds): The Coming of the Comforter: When, Where, and to Whom? Studies on the Rise of Islam and Various Other Topics in Memory of John Wansbrough, xv–xxiv. Gorgias Press, 2012, pp.371-398.

Gilliot, C: The 'collections' of the Meccan Arabic lectionary in N. Boeckhoff-van der Voort, K. Versteegh, J. Wagemakers. The Transmission and dynamics of the textual sources of Islam. Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki, Brill, Leiden 2011.

Gross, M: Christmas and the Eucharist in Early Islam? Remarks about Assumptions and Methodology. An evaluation of the evidence and the criticisms of Luxenberg’s thesis.

King, D: A Christian Qur’ān? (Evaluation of the work by Christoph Luxenberg) JLARC 3 (2009) 44-71.

Kropp, M: Tripartite, but anti-Trinitarian formulas in the Qur’ānic corpus, possibly pre-Qur’ānic in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.247-264.

Luxenberg, C: Al-Najm (Q 53), Chapter of the Star: a new Syro-Aramaic reading of verses 1 to 18 in Reynolds, G (ed): New Perspectives on the Qur’ān – The Qur’ān in its historical context 2 from Rippin, A (ed): Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān, Routledge 2011, pp.279-298.

(French translation): Sūrat an-Nağm

Luxenberg, C: No Battle of ‘Badr’ Engl. tr. of ''Keine Schlacht von “Badr”. Zu syrischen Buchstaben in frühen Koranmanuskripten'', Pages 642-676 in Vom Koran zum Islam. Edited by Groß, Markus and Ohlig, Karl-Heinz. Inârah 4. Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2009

Luxenberg, C: Relics of Syro-Aramaic Letters in Early Qur’ānic Codices of the ḥiğāzī and kūfī Style, from Karl-Heinz Ohlig, ed., Der Frühe Islam, Inârah: Schriften zur frühen Islamgeschichte und zum Koran, vol. 2 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 377–419.

Luxenberg, C: Syriac Liturgy and the “Mysterious Letters” in the Qur’ān: A Comparative Liturgical Study.

Luxenberg, C: The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran : A contribution to the decoding of the language of the Koran (tr. of Die Syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: ein Beitrag zur Entschlusselung der Koransprache.(English) Berlin: Hans Schiler, 2004

Luxenberg, C: قراءة آرامية سريانية للقرآن - مساهمة في تفسير لغة القرآن (Arabic summary of The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Qur’ān by Ralf Ghadban). Dār al-Kitāb al-ʽArabī, Berlin 2000.

Marx, M; Sinai, N: Islamische und Jüdische Hermeneutik als Kulturkritik, Historische Sondierungen und methodische Reflexionen zur Korangenese - Wege zur Rekonstruktion des vorkanonischen Qur’ān. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Seminar für Semitistik und Arabistik der Freien Universität Berlin Gefördert von der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

Wild, S - Lost in Philology? The Virgins of Paradise and the Luxenberg Hypothesis in Neuwirth, A; Sinai, N; Marx, M: The Qur’an in Context, Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu from Böwering, G; McAuliffe, J: Texts and Studies on the Qur’ān, Vol.6, Brill 2010, pages 625-648.

The Early History of Islam

New historiography on the origins, expansion and development of the Islamic world

Back to main index

Studies on early Islam

Bashear, S: - نحو قراءة جديدة للرواية الإسلامية مقدمة في التاريخ الاخر Al-Quds, 1984.

Beck, D: Muhammad's Night Journey in its Palestinian Context: a Perfect Solution to a Forgotten Problem (Q 17:1)

Cook, D: Syria and the Arabs in Marsham, A: The Early Caliphate and the Inheritance of Late Antiquity (c. AD 610 –c. AD 750) in Rousseau, P (ed): A Companion to Late Antiquity, Blackwell Publications, 2009, pp.467-478.

Crone, P; Cook, M: Hagarism – The Making of the Islamic World Cambridge University Press 1977.

Crone, P; Cook, M: الهاجريون (tr. of Hagarism by N. Fayyād )

Crone, P; Hinds, M: God’s Caliph – Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge University Press 2003.

Crone, P: Imperial Trauma: The Case of the Arabs, Symposium: Imperial Trauma, Part 3. Common Knowledge 12:1. “006, pp.107-116.

Crone, P: Slaves on Horses: the Evolution of the Islamic Polity, Cambridge: CUP, 1980

Crone, P: The first century concept of Hiğra, Arabica, Journal of Arabic and Islamic studies, volume XLI, Brill, Leiden 1994.

Deus, A: Muhammad and the Umayyad Dynasty’s Conversion to Islam.

Deus, A: The Umayyad Dynasty's Conversion to Islam - From the Low Point Until ca. 692 AD.

Djait, H: الفتنة جدلية الدين والسياسة في الاسلام المبكر (‘The Grand Sedition - The Struggle between Faith and Politics in Early Islam’), 4th Ed., Dār al-Ṭalīʽa, Beirut, 2000.

Donner, F: From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-identity in the Early Islamic Community. Al-Abhath, Vol. 50-51, 2002-2003, pp.9-53.

Donner, F: Modern approaches to early Islamic history in Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 625-647.

Donner, F: Qur’ânicization of Religio-Political Discourse in the Umayyad Period. Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 129, Juillet 2011, pp.79-92.

Donner, F: The Formation of the Islamic State Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1986), pp. 283- 296.

Donner, F: The Islamic conquests Princeton University Press 1981.

Gaiser, A: Source-Critical Methodologies in Recent Scholarship on the Kharijites, History Compass 7/5 (2009): 1376–1390.

Gonzalez-Ferrin, E: Islamic Late Antiquity and Fatḥ - the Effect as Cause. Paper presented at Milano (june 2015) - Nangeroni Meeting, Early Islamic Studies Seminar.

Gonzalez-Ferrin, E: La Antigüedad Tardía Islámica: crítica al concepto de conquista. In Actas III-IV Jornadas de Arqueología e Historia Medieval, Frontera INferior de al-Andalus, pp.29-52.Mérida 2014.

Gross, M: Early Islam: An Alternative Scenario of its Emergence, draft text from Routledge Handbook on Early Islam, August 2017.

Guidetti, M: The contiguity between churches and mosques in early Islamic Bilād al-Shām, Bulletin of SOAS ,76, 2 (2013), 229–258.

Hodgson, M: The Venture of Islam, Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Volume I: The Classical Age of Islam. Book One: The Islamic Infusion: Genesis of a New Social Order, pp.101-230. University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Hoyland, R (ed): Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Introduction), Volume 18 of The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, Ashgate Variorum.

Hoyland, R: Reflections on the Identity of the Arabian Conquerors of the Seventh-Century Middle East, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 25 (2017) Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.

Hussein, T: الفتنة الكبرى (I - ‘The Grand Riot’ - ‘Uthmān’) Dār al-Maʽārif bi-Misr.

Hussein, T: الفتنة الكبرى -(II علي وبنوه ‘Alī and his Sons’) Dār al-Maʽārif bi-Misr.

Kaegi, W: Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Kister, M: ‘Do not assimilate yourselves’, Lā tashabbahū, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 12 (1989): 321-71.

Lahoud, N: The Early Kharijites and their Understanding of Jihād, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, Volume LXII – 2009.

Lindstedt, I: Muhājirūn as a Name for the First/Seventh Century Muslims. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 74, No. 1 (April 2015), pp. 67-73.

Madelung, W: The succession to Muḥammad, A study of the early Caliphate, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Makin, A: From Musaylima to the Kharijite Najdiyya, Al-Jāmiʽah, Vol. 51, No. 1, 2013, pp.33-60.

Margoliouth, D: The Early Development of Mohammedanism, Hibbert Lectures, 1913.

Marsham, A: Rituals of Islamic Monarchy, Accession and Succession in the First Muslim Empire, Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

Marsham, A: The Early Caliphate and the Inheritance of Late Antiquity (c. AD 610 –c. AD 750) in Rousseau, P (ed): A Companion to Late Antiquity, Blackwell Publications, 2009, pp.479-493.

Ohlig, K – Shedding Light on the Beginnings of Islam, in Ohlig, K( ed): Early Islam, A Critical Reconstruction based on Contemporary Sources, Prometheus Books, 2013, pp.10-13.

Qemany, S, el-: حروب دولة الرسول - الجزء الاول (‘The Wars of the Prophet’s State’) حروب دولة الرسول - الجزء الثاني Maktabat Madbouli al-Saghir, 2nd ed. Cairo 1996.

Retsö, J: Constantinople and the Early Islamic Conquests, in Istanbul as Seen from a Distance. Center and Provinces in the Ottoman Empire ed. E. Özdalga/M. S. Özervari/F. Tansug (Transactions of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul vol. 20), Istanbul 2011 pp. 29-36.

Rezakhani, Kh: The Arab Conquests and Sasanian Iran. Mizan Project. www.mizanproject.org.

Robinson, C: The rise of Islam, 600 705 in Robinson, C (ed): The New Cambridge History of Islam – Vol 1 - Formation of the Islamic World Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 2011, pages 173-225.

Rubin, U: Between Arabia and the Holy Land: A Mecca-Jerusalem axis of sanctity, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 34 (2008).

Rubin, U: Morning and Evening Prayers in Early Islam. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 40–64. [Reprinted in: Uri Rubin, Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Ashgate, 2011), no. XIV.

Rubin, U: Muhammad’s Night Journey (isra’) to al-Masjid al-Aqsa: Aspects of the Earliest Origins of the Islamic Sanctity of Jerusalem. From al-Qantara 29 (2008), 147-65. [Reprinted in: Uri Rubin, Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Ashgate, 2011), no. VII.

Rubin, U: Prophets and Caliphs: the Biblical Foundations of the Umayyad Authority in Herbert Berg (ed.), Method and Theology in the Study of Islamic origins (Leiden, 2003), 73-99.

Rubin, U: The ‘Constitution of Medina’: Some Notes. Studia Islamica 62 (1985), 5–23. (On the later development of the term mu’minūn to exclude the Jews).

Sizgorich, T: “Do Prophets Come with a Sword?” Conquest, Empire and Historical Narrative in the Early Islamic World.

Wellhausen, J: Skizzen Und Vorarbeiten, Vol 6: Prolegomena zur ältesten Geschichte des Islams. Verschiedenes. Berlin 1899.

Wilde, C: ‘We shall neither learn the Qur'ān nor teach it to our children’: The Covenant of Umar on Learning in Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, No. 26, The Darwin Press, Princeton, 2014.

Back to main index

Early non-Muslim historical sources

Anthony, S: Muhammad, the Keys to Paradise, and the Doctrina Jacobi: A Late Antique Puzzle. Der Islam 2014; 91(2): 243–265.

Boras, L: “A prophet has appeared coming with the Saracens”: The non-Islamic testimonies on the prophet and the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the 7th-8th centuries. MA Thesis, Radboud University, June 2017.

Brock, S: Syriac Sources for Seventh-Century History, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Vol 2 (1976), 17-36. Blackwell.

Carrasco, C: La visión inicial del Islam por el Cristianismo oriental. Siglos VII-X in Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Heraicos. Sección Árabe-Islam 61 (2012), pp. 61-85.

Hoyland, R: Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Vol. 13 Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997.

Hoyland, R: The Earliest Christian Writings on Muhammad From Motzki, H (ed): Muhammd, The Issue of the Sources, Brill 2000, pp276-297.

Jeffery, A: Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between ‘Umar II and Leo III, in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), pp.269-332.

Kirby, P: External References to Islam (excerpts from Hoyland)

Martinez, F: La Literatura Apocalíptica y las Primeras Reacciones Cristianas a la Conquista Islámica en Oriente. Conference paper, Real Academia de la Historia, April 2002.

Nöldeke, T: Zur Geschichte der Araber im 1. Jahrh. d. H. aus syrischen Quellen, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 29 (1875): 76-98.

Ohlig, K: Die christliche Literatur under arabischer Herrschaft im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert. Inarah.de.

Ohlig, K: Evidence of a New Religion in Christian Literature “Under Islamic Rule”? in Ohlig, K( ed): Early Islam, A Critical Reconstruction based on Contemporary Sources, Prometheus Books, 2013, pp.176-250.

Penn, M: When Christians First Met Muslims: A Sourcebook of the Earliest Syriac Writings on Islam (Prologue and Introduction) Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015.

Reynolds, G.S,: نشوء الإسلام - التقاليد الكلاسيكيّة من منظور معاصر (the opening section of The Emergence of Islam, tr. Saʽd Saʽdī and ‘Abbūd Saʽdī), Beirut, Dar al-Machreq, 2017.

Saadi, A-M: Nascent Islam in the Seventh Century Syriac Sources in The Qur’ān in its Historical Context. Edited by Reynolds, Gabriel Said. Routledge Studies in the Qur’ān. London / New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 217-222.

Suermann, H: Early Islam in the Light of Christian and Jewish Sources, in: Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, Michael Marx (Hrsg.), The Qurʾān in Context. Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu (Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān 6, Leiden, Boston 2010, 135-148).

Yadgar, L: Jewish Accounts of Muhammad and His Apostate Informants. Mizan Project. http://www.mizanproject.org.

Early Christian apologetics

Beaumont, M: Early Christian Interpretation of the Qur'an, Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies October/December 2005 22: 195-203.

Szilágyi, K: A prophet like Jesus? Christians and Muslims debating Muhammad’s death. JSAI 36 (2009) pp.131-172.

Wilde, C: The Qurʾān in Christian Arabic texts (750-1258 C.E.). Dissertation, Washington 2011.

Wilde, C: The Qur’ān: Kalām Allāh or words of man? A case of tafsīr transcending Muslim-Christian communal borders. Parole de l’Orient, 32 (2007) 1-17.

Wilde, C: The Utility of Christian Arabic Texts for Quranic Studies, in Heirs of the Apostles Studies on Arabic Christianity in Honor of Sidney H. Griffith, Brill, Leiden 2019, pp.93-111.

Muslim Historiography

Back to main index

Sīra texts

Tabari, al-: Al-Tabarī’s History, Vol 9 – The Last Years of the Prophet From I. Poonawala (tr. and ed.) The History of al-Tabarī, Vol. IX, Bibliotheca Persica, State University of New York Press.

Guillaume, A: The Life of Muhammad A Translation of Ishāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ibn Ishāq: السيرة النبوية (‘The Life of the Messenger of God’ - Arabic text) Ed. A. al-Muzīdī, Dār al-Kutub al-ʽIlmiyy