Unlocking the Medinan Qur’an
19–21 March 2017
International workshop held at Pembroke College, Oxford
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK
Presentation
The surahs and passages that are commonly associated with the Medinan period of Muhammad’s life occupy a key position in the formative history of Islam. They fundamentally shaped later convictions about the paradigmatic authority of Muhammad and thereby fuelled the post-Qur’anic emergence of the hadith canon; they constitute an important basis for Islam’s development into a religion with a strong focus on law; and it is by and large only in Medinan texts that we find injunctions to militancy and an explicit demarcation of Islam from Judaism and Christianity. A proper comprehension of the Medinan Qur’an is thus crucially important to our understanding of Islamic religious history in general. At the same time, the Medinan surahs have proven much more recalcitrant to scholarly analysis than the texts that are customarily assigned to the Qur’an’s Meccan period. The workshop will assemble an international group of scholarly experts from doctoral students to senior professors to grapple with the Qur’an’s Medinan layer from a variety of methodological vantage points and historical premises.
Attendance of the workshop is free, but prior registration is required: medinanquran@orinst.ox.ac.uk.
All papers will be c. 25–30 minutes in length, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. The workshop is convened by Nicolai Sinai.
Sunday, 19 March
4 pm – 6 pm
Ritual and Law in the Medinan Qur’an
– Welcome and introduction (Nicolai Sinai)
– Angelika Neuwirth (Free University Berlin): The Jerusalem qiblah in a Meccan and Medinan Context
– Holger Zellentin (University of Nottingham): Law in the Medinan Qur’an in its Late Antique Context
Monday, 20 March
9 am – 10:30 am
Obedience and Hypocrisy in the Medinan Qur’an
– Andrew O’Connor (University of Notre Dame): Obeying God and His Messenger: Medinan Prophetology in the Meccan Qur’an?
– Devin Stewart (Emory University): The Hypocrites and Dissimulation in the Qur’an
11 am – 12:30 am
Literary, Compositional, and Redactional Aspects (1)
– Marianna Klar (SOAS): Lexical Layers vs. Structural Paradigms in the Opening of Sūrat al-Baqarah
– Adam Flowers (University of Chicago): The Two Medinan Literary Oeuvres
2 pm – 3:30 pm
Literary, Compositional, and Redactional Aspects (2)
– Nora K. Schmid (Free University Berlin): Questions, Organisation of Knowledge, and Controversial Theology in the Medinan Surahs
– Nicolai Sinai (University of Oxford): The Composition of the Medinan Surahs
4 pm – 5:30 pm
Selected Surahs and Passages (1): From Mecca to Medina
– Walid Saleh (University of Toronto): Surah 16 as a Transitional Medinan Proclamation: The Beginnings of a New Identity
– Gabriel S. Reynolds (University of Notre Dame): An Analysis of Two Surahs Conventionally Classed as Medinan: Q 61 and 66
Tuesday, 21 March
9 am – 10:30 am
Selected Surahs and Passages (2): The Israelites
– Cecilia Palombo (Princeton University): God Speaks in Formulae: The Golden Calf between Medinan and Meccan Surahs
– Joseph Witztum (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Moses and the Israelites at Sinai: Intra-Qur’anic Parallels in Light of Rabbinic Traditions
11 am – 12:30 am
Selected Surahs and Passages (3): Surahs 5, 8, and 9
– Karen Bauer (Institute of Ismaili Studies, London): Emotion in Surahs 8 and 9
– Neal Robinson: Further Thoughts on Sūrat al-Māʾidah