Ozgur Alhassen (Leyla), Qur’ānic Stories. God, Revelation and the Audience, Edinburgh, EUP, ("Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature"), 2021, 184 p. ISBN 9781474483179

Author

Leyla Ozgur Alhassen is Visiting Scholar in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011, focusing on Arabic literature. Dr Ozgur Alhassen has published articles in journals such as Religion and Literature, Religion and the Arts, Comparative Islamic Studies, The Muslim World and Journal of Qur’anic Studies.

Presentation

Leyla Ozgur Alhassen approaches the Qur’an as a literary, religious and oral text that affects its audience. She looks at how Qur’anic stories function as narrative: how characters and dialogues are portrayed; what themes are repeated; what verbal echoes and conceptual links are present; what structure is established; and what beliefs these narrative choices strengthen. Ozgur Alhassen argues that, in the Qur’an, some narrative features that are otherwise puzzling can be seen as instances in which God, as the narrator, centres himself while putting the audience in its place. In essence, this makes the act of reading an interaction between God and the audience.

Contents

1. Introduction: A Narratological, Rhetorical Approach to Qur’anic Stories
2. Knowledge, Control and Consonance in Surat Āl ‘Imrān 3:33–62
3. God, Families and Secrets in the Story of Surat Maryam 19:1–58
4. Chapter Four: Evidence, Judgment and Remorse in Surat Yūsuf
5. Merging Words and Making Connections in Surat Ṭaha
6. Surat al-Qaṣaṣ and Its Audience
7. Conclusions: Reading the Qur’an as God’s Narrative