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This work is both an introduction to the genre of classical tafsīr and a detailed study of one of its major architects, al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035). The book offers a detailed study of the hermeneutical principles that governed al-Thaʿlabī's approach to the Qurʾān, principles which became the norm in later exegetical works. It is divided into three main sections; the first outlines the life and times of the author; the second is a detailed study of his major exegetical work, al-Kashf; the third charts a brief history of the genre of tafsīr through documenting the reactions of later exegetes to al-Kashf. This work brings together material never examined before and tries to offer a new way of understanding the history of classical Qurʾān exegesis.
The history of the Islamic interaction with the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity has been studied extensively in academia. The prevailing view is that Muslims had hardly any religious appreciation to the Bible and when used by Muslims it was mainly in apologetic or polemical settings. The document presented here squarely contradicts such a view. The treatise argues for the permissiblity of using the Bible by Muslims for religious purposes. Al-Biqāʿī, the author of this treatise, wrote a huge Qurʾān commentary that used the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels to interpret parts of the Qurʾān. Al-Sakhāwī, a bitter enemy, opposed such a practice. The document preserves for us a fundamental argument inside Islam about the value of the Scriptures of other religions.
The Qur’an and the Bible have been called "intertwined scriptures" due to the Qur’an’s frequent invocation of biblical narratives and figures. But what is the history of Muslims’ exegetical engagement with the biblical text? Through a comprehensive survey of more than 170 Qur’an commentaries, Samuel Ross traces the longitudinal history of the Bible in tafsῑr. Offering detailed case studies and rich in historical context, Ross’s narrative culminates in the remarkable late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century biblical turn. Global in scope, this development has not only generated new Muslim views of the Bible but even new interpretations of the Qur’an itself. This monograph has been awarded the annual BRAIS – De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World.
The Qur’an between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic is one of the few book-length studies on an Ottoman Qur’an commentary. Its premise is that "the Ottoman Empire" did not come to an end until 1950 so far as Islam was concerned in Turkey. The work explores the relationship between Elmalılı’s Qur’an commentary and the intellectual trends of the period, including the impact of materialism, the sciences, notions of civilizational progress, and philosophy. In doing so, this study emphasizes the "local" aspect of the Qur’an commentary, through a sustained focus on the Istanbul context in which it was written. This work demonstrates that Elmalılı’s Qur’an commentary is...
Qur'ānic Studies Today brings together specialists in the field of Islamic studies to provide a range of essays that reflect the depth and breadth of scholarship on the Qur'ān. Combining theoretical and methodological clarity with close readings of qur’ānic texts, these contributions provide close analysis of specific passages, themes, and issues within the Qurʾān, even as they attend to the disciplinary challenges within the field of qur’ānic studies today. Chapters are arranged into three parts, treating specific figures appearing in the Qurʾān, analysing particular suras, and finally reflecting on the Qur’ān and its "others." They explore the internal dimensions and interio...
The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS) is a double blind peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary journal that publishes a wide variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world: anthropology, economics, history, philosophy and meta-physics, politics, psychology, religious law, and traditional Islam. Submissions are subject to a blind peer review process.
The second volume of a world-renowned scholar’s long-awaited Qur’an commentary, now available in English Angelika Neuwirth’s six-volume commentary, published originally in Germany, offers a historical and philological analysis of the form, structure, and semantic message of each of the 114 Qur’anic suras. It brings together the fruits of the past hundred years of scholarship and provides access to the aesthetic, theological, linguistic, and semantic background required to appreciate the novelty, force, and historical position of the Qur’an. Contextualizing the Qur’anic message in the broader world of late antiquity, it bridges the gap between the inner-Islamic scholarly world and the academy. Skillfully translated by Samuel Wilder, this volume focuses on the early middle Meccan suras.
This book argues that the Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali was a popularizer of philosophy more than its critic and that his theory of mystical cognition is based on the theory of prophecy of the philosopher Avicenna.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have a common belief in the sanctity of a core holy scripture, and commentary on scripture (exegesis) was at the heart of all three traditions in the Middle Ages. At the same time, because it dealt with issues such as the nature of the canon, the limits of acceptable interpretation, and the meaning of salvation history from the perspective of faith, exegesis was elaborated in the Middle Ages along the faultlines of interconfessional disputation and polemical conflict. This collection of thirteen essays by world-renowned scholars of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam explores the nature of exegesis during the High and especially the Late Middle Ages as a discou...
The term “Abrahamic religions” has gained considerable currency in both scholarly and ecumenical circles as a way of referring to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In The Family of Abraham, Carol Bakhos steps back from this convention to ask a frequently overlooked question: What, in fact, is Abrahamic about these three faiths? Exploring diverse stories and interpretations relating to the portrayal of Abraham, she reveals how he is venerated in these different scriptural traditions and how scriptural narratives have been pressed into service for nonreligious purposes. Grounding her study in a close examination of ancient Jewish textual practices, primarily midrash, as well as medieval Mu...