Azaiez (Mehdi), Reynolds (Gabriel Said), Tesei (Tommaso), Zafer (Hamza M.) eds., The Qur’an Seminar Commentary / Le Qur’an Seminar: A Collaborative Study of 50 Qur’anic Passages / Commentaire collaboratif de 50 passages coraniques, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2016, 600 p. ISBN 978-3110444797

Editors

Mehdi Azaiez is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, and member of the Research Unit Biblical Studies. His research focuses on Quranic Studies and Early Islam. In the past (2012-2013), he was instructor on Islamic Studies and co-director of the international project « Qur’ân Seminar » at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA). He recently published le Coran, Nouvelles approches (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2013 -as editor-) and le contre-discours coranique (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015)

Gabriel Said Reynolds is Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext (London: Routledge, 2010) and The Qur’ān in Conversation with the Bible: The Qur’ān Translation of Ali Quli Qaraʾi annotated with Biblical Texts and Commentary by Gabriel Said Reynolds (New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming 2016).

Tommaso Tesei is Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and author of “The Prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83–102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus,” Miscellanea arabica 2013–2014, 273–90, and “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.

Hamza M. Zafer is Assistant Professor of Early Islam and Classical Arabic Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Comparative Religion / Jewish Studies at the University of Washington.

Presentation

The Qurʾan Seminar Commentary is an unprecedented work of collaboration in the field of Qurʾanic Studies, involving the insights of 27 different scholars on 50 different Qurʾanic passages. These scholars represent a diverse range disciplinary backgrounds (Arabic language, comparative Semitic linguistics, paleography, epigraphy, history, rhetorical theory, hermeneutics, and Biblical studies) and provide readers with unique insight into the latest trends of research in the Qurʾan. The Qurʾan Seminar Commentary will be a useful and illuminating reference work for students and scholars alike in the field of Qurʾanic Studies.
The starting point of this work was a series of five international conferences on the Qurʾan at the University of Notre Dame over the academic year 2012-13, although the commentaries contributed during those conferences have been carefully edited to avoid repetition. Readers of The Qurʾan Seminar commentary will find that the 50 passages selected for inclusion in this work include many of the most important and influential elements of the Qurʾan, including:

1. Q 1 (al-Fātiḥah), (prayer)
2. Q 2 (al-Baqarah), 30-39 (Biblical narrative)
3. Q 2 (al-Baqarah), 178-179 (legal, retaliation)
4. Q 2 (al-Baqarah), 255-56 (praise)
5. Q 3 (Āl ʿImrān), 1-7 (praise, meta-textuality, polemic, eschatology)
6. Q 3 (Āl ʿImrān), 33-63 (Biblical narrative/polemic: John, Mary, Jesus)
7. Q 4 (al-Nisāʾ), 1-28 (legal)
8. Q 5 (al-Māʾida), 32 (moral, Moses)
9. Q 5 (al-Māʾida), 109-20 (Biblical narrative: Jesus, polemic, Christians)
10. Q 6 (al-Anʿām), 74-83 (Biblical narrative: Abraham)
11. Q 8 (al-Anfāl), 1-19 (contemporary events)
12. Q 9 (al-Tawba), 29-32 (Jews, Christians)
13. Q 9 (al-Tawba), 111-18 (war, forgiveness, contemporary events)
14. Q 11 (Hūd), 25-99 (divine intervention/human history: punishment stories)
15. Q 12 (Yūsuf) (Biblical narrative: Joseph)
16. Q 13 (al-Raʿd), 1-17 (signs, prophet, prayer)
17. Q 13 (al-Raʿd), 27-43, (polemic: mushrikūn)
18. Q 17 (al-Isrāʾ), 22-39 (legal)
19. Q 17 (al-Isrāʾ), 85 (the Spirit)
20. Q 18 (al-Kahf), 9-26 (divine intervention/human history: Sleepers of Ephesus)
21. Q 20 (Ṭā Ḥā), 9-99 (Biblical narrative: Moses)
22. Q 23 (al-Muʾminūn) (barzakh, opponents’ belief in Allah)
23. Q 24 (al-Nūr), 1-17 (legal: fornication/witnesses)
24. Q 24 (al-Nūr), 35 (theology: light verse)
25. Q 25 (al-Furqān), 1-10 (polemic)
26. Q 26 (al- Šuʿarāʾ), 105-122 (Biblical narrative: Noah)
27. Q 27 (al-Naml), 15-44 (Biblical narrative: David, Solomon)
28. Q 29 (al-ʿAnkabūt) (exhortation: Noah, Abraham, Lot, the Qurʾan, the Prophet, eschatology)
29. Q 30 (al-Rūm), 1-7 (contemporary events)
30. Q 33 (al-Aḥzāb), 40 (the Prophet)
31. Q 36 (Yā Sīn), 13-27 (Biblical narrative - Acts, gospel)
32. Q 37 (al-Ṣaffāt), 6-11 (cosmology — divine council)
33. Q 37 (al-Ṣaffāt), 149-182 (polemics — daughters of God)
34. Q 38 (Ṣād), 17-26 (Biblical narrative — David)
35. Q 43 (al-Zukhruf), 81-3 (polemic, theology)
36. Q 44 (al-Dukhān), 43-57 (eschatology)
37. Q 46 (al-Aḥqāf), 7-12 (polemic)
38. Q 48 (al-Fatḥ) (contemporary events, war)
39. Q 53 (al-Najm) (the Prophet’s vision, “Satanic Verses”)
40. Q 55 (al-Raḥmān) (signs, praise)
41. Q 72 (al-Jinn) (cosmology, eschatology)
42. Q 75 (al-Qiyāmah) (eschatology)
43. Q 85 (al-Burūj) (polemic)
44. Q 90 (al-Balad) (exhortation)
45. Q 96 (al-ʿAlaq) (exhortation)
46. Q 97 (al-Qadr) (revelation)
47. Q 105 (al-Fīl) (divine intervention, human history)
48. Q 106 (Quraysh) (contemporary events)
49. Q 108 (al-Kawthar) (exhortation)
50. Q 112 (al-Ikhlāṣ) (theology)

Contributors

Mehdi Azaiez (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Emran El-Badawi (University of Houston, USA)
Patricia Crone (Institute for advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, USA)
Michel Cuypers (L’Institut dominicain d’études orientales du Caire, Egypt)
Guillaume Dye (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Reuven Firestone (Hebrew Union College, USA)
Sidney Griffith (Catholic University of America, USA)
Marcin Grodzki (University of Warsaw, Poland)
Gerald Hawting (School of Oriental and African Studies, United Kingdom)
Asma Hilali (Institute of Ismaili Studies, United Kingdom)
Fréderic Imbert (Université de Provence, France)
Nejmeddine Khalfallah (Université de Lorraine, France)
Manfred Kropp (University of Mainz, Germany)
Daniel Madigan (Georgetown University, USA)
Michael Pregill (Elon University, USA)
Gabriel Said Reynolds (University of Notre Dame, USA)
Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria, USA)
Munim Sirry (University of Notre Dame, USA)
Emmanuelle Stefanidis (Paris VIII, France)
Devin Stewart (Emory University, USA)
Esma Tengour (Paris, France)
Tommaso Tesei (Van Leer Institute, Israël)
Shawkat Toorawa (Cornell University, USA)
Abraham Winitzer (Notre Dame, USA)
Munther Younes (Cornell University, USA)
Hamza M. Zafer (University of Washington, USA)
Holger Zellentin (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom)