Presentation
Originating in similar but not identical linguistic, geographical, cultural, and religious contexts, Qur’an and Bible stand in a complex relationship to each other. They share stylistic, narrative and cultic features, but also differ in fundamental ways. The Qur’an invokes the Bible and Biblical stories repeatedly and positions itself in a relationship of confirmation and fulfillment to the Judeo-Christian tradition, occasionally amending what it claims was distorted and manipulated by Christians and Jews.
This relationship of Qur’an and Bible has intrigued, and often scandalised, Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars alike. The shared narratives of Bible and Qur’an were both starting points for polemical interactions and platforms for dialogue. As products of the same linguistic family and of a similar cultural context, Qur’an and Biblical literature offer relevant information for Muslim, Jewish and Christian exegetes. They could function as linguistic archives, and provide historical information about the natural, geographical, cultural and religious world in which Bible and Qur’an originated. Even stylistic and aesthetic characteristics of Qur’an and Bible could be understand through the style of the other revelation.
This workshop will explore the changing ways in which Medieval and Early Modern Jewish, Christian and Muslim readers relate Biblical literature and Quran.How did medieval and early modern readers assess the relationship between the two scriptures? How did they account for narrative parallels as well as the differences they found in them?
Programme
Monday 22 March 2021
Introduction by Tom Burman
John Tolan
Bible and Qur’an at the Council of Basel (1431)
David Bertaina
Inmates of Hell: Muʿtazilī Qurʾānic Concepts in Medieval Catholic Thought
Pierre Courtain
Raymundus Martini’s use of the Qur’an in his De Seta Machometi
Discussion
Tuesday 23 March
Octavian-Adrian Negoiță
Bible and Qur’an in the Polemical Discourse of an Athonite Monk: Pachomios Rousanos’ (1508–1553) and His Anti-Islamic Treatise
Maxime Sellin
Reading Qur’an through Biblical glasses, the example of the Qu’ran of Bellus.
Gabriel Said Reynolds
“Only the Most Perfect of the Perfects Could Possibly Institute the Perfection”: On Paul of Antioch’s Reading of the Qur’an.
Rita George Tvrtković
Comparing Qur’anic & Biblical Mariologies: The Case of Two Williams
Discussion
Wednesday 24 March
Javier de Prado
Putting the Qur’an to the test in the early Propaganda Fide’s apologetics (1610-1632)
Federico Stella
Discovering the Christian Truth in the Qur’ān. The correspondence between Baldassarre Loyola Mandes S.J. and Muḥammad Bulghaith al-Darawī
Sara Fani
Testimonia Alcorani de Christo Domino: traces of the Papal inter-religious discourse at the hands of two Oriental clergymen
Aleida Paudice
Leon Modena’s Precetti di Maomotto nel suo alcorano
Discussion
Thursday 25 March
Kentaro Inagaki
Levinus Warner and his reading of Islamic scriptures
Asaph Ben-Tov & Jan Loop
The Qur’an as an exegetical tool in early modern Biblical Studies
Emmanuelle Stefanidis
Contes ridicules, plaisantes reueries, tres-belles moralitez: The reception of Qur’anic narratives in seventeenth century France
Naima Afif
Jesus and the Bible in an 18th-century Translation of the Qur’an into Hebrew
Discussion
Friday 26 March
Vevian Zaki
Translating the King James Bible into Arabic: the Sabat/Martyn Translation (1816 CE)
Michael Pregill
Mapping the Islamicate Midrashim: Uncovering the Earliest Phase of Jewish Engagement with the Qur’an
Thomas Hoffmann
The Haphazard Alkoran and the Muhammadan Phoenix – on Grundtvig’s reception of Islam
Gulnaz Sibgatullina
Ecology of a vernacular Qurʾān: The case of Mūsā Bīgī’s Translation into Turki-Tatar
Discussion
Conclusion by Jan Loop
Copyright image: BnF, ms. arabe 384, fol. 125r (détail) : note marginale, attribuée au frère dominicain florentin Riccoldo da Monce Croce (1243-1320). Elle offre une traduction en latin des versets 12 à 30 de la sourate 19 (Maryam), portant sur l’Immaculée Conception