McCoy III (R. Michael), Interpreting the Qurʾān with the Bible (Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi-l-Kitāb). Reading the Arabic Bible in the Tafsīrs of Ibn Barraǧān and al-Biqāʿī, Leiden, Brill, ("Biblia Arabica ; 7"), 2021. ISBN 978-90-04-44581-9

Author

R. Michael McCoy III, DPhil. (2019), University of Oxford, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. He has published various articles on the reception of the Arabic Bible in tafsir literature and quranic exegesis, including a recent contribution to Georges Tamer’s (ed.) The Handbook of Qurʾānic Hermeneutics (2021).

Presentation

In Interpreting the Qurʾān with the Bible, R. Michael McCoy III brings together two lesser known yet accomplished commentators on the Qurʾān and the Bible: the muʿtabir Abū al-Ḥakam ʿAbd al-Salām b. al-Išbīlī (d. 536/1141), referred to as Ibn Barraǧān, and qāriʾ al-qurrāʾ Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar b. Ḥasan al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480). In this comparative study, comprised of manuscript analysis and theological exegesis, a robust hermeneutic emerges that shows how Ibn Barraǧān’s method of naẓm al-qurʾān and al-Biqāʿī’s theory of ʿilm munāsabāt al-qurʾān motivates their reading and interpretation of the Arabic Bible. The similarities in their quranic hermeneutics and approach to the biblical text are astounding as each author crossed established boundaries and pushed the acceptable limits of handling the Bible in their day.