The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion Mark Durie LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All graphics courtesy of the author. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available LCCN 2018946880 | ISBN 9781498569453 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781498569460 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Foreword xi Acknowledgments xiii Notes on Transcription, Qurʾanic Citations, Terms, and Names xv List of Qurʾanic Proper Names xvii Introduction: A Fundamental Question xxi 1 Preliminaries to a Qurʾanic Theology 1 2 The Eschatological Crisis 47 3 A Nonbiographical Qurʾanic Chronology 75 4 Monotheism 105 5 Rasulology and Prophetology 123 6 Lexical and Narrative Studies 155 Conclusion: The Genesis of a New Religion? 251 Bibliography 265 General Index 289 Index of Bible Passages 307 Qurʾan Index 315 About the Author 337 v Figures Figure 0.1 Relexification of linguistic signs xliv Figure 1.1 Carbon dating of early Qurʾanic manuscripts 19 Figure 1.2 Topics in Qur’anic Theology 40 Figure 3.1 Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 1 79 Figure 3.2 Average Lexical Distance trend, sūrahs, part 2 79 Figure 3.3 Distribution of sūrahs by Average Lexical Distance 80 Figure 3.4 Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD: pre-transitional, post-transitional, and mixed 84 Figure 3.5 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q73 86 Figure 3.6 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q22 89 Figure 3.7 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q29 90 Figure 3.8 Formulaic Distance of formulae in Q8 90 Figure 3.9 Ranking of sūrahs by AFD vs. ALD, separating mixed sūrahs 92 Figure 3.10 Pre-transitional sūrahs 93 Figure 3.11 Post-transitional sūrahs 93 Figure 3.12 Nöldeke’s classification of sūrahs, by AFD vs. ALD 95 Figure 3.13 Sūrahs which say the Messenger or messengers are “only a warner” 96 Figure 3.14 Sūrahs which refer to requests to “hurry” or “bring on the punishment” 96 Figure 3.15 Sūrahs with atha¯ qa “cause to taste” 97 Figure 3.16 Sūrahs with ṣabara “be patient” 97 Figure 3.17 Sūrahs with at least one of the two features of the Eschatological Crisis (cf. Table 3.2) 98 Figure 3.18 Sūrahs with ja¯ hada, jiha¯ d, or muja¯ hid “struggling with others” 98 vii viii Figures Figure 3.19 Sūrahs with references to migration 99 Figure 3.20 Sūrahs with “obey Alla¯ h and the Messenger” 99 Figure 3.21 Sūrahs with references to hypocrites and hypocrisy 100 Figure 3.22 Sūrahs with references to “those in whose hearts is a disease” 100 Figure 5.1 Sūrahs with references to nabī “prophet” 133 Figure 6.1 Phono-semantic matching 188 Figure 6.2 Sūrahs with references to shaya¯ ṭīn (indef.) 192 Figure 6.3 Sūrahs with references to al-Shayṭa¯ n (def.) 193 Figure 6.4 Sūrahs with references to jinn 193 Figure 6.5 Sūrahs rejecting that Alla¯ h has offspring or rejecting that ʿIsa¯ is Alla¯ h or the son of Alla¯ h 194 Figure 6.6 Sūrahs with references to al-Maṣīh 194 Figure 6.7 Stories of the Fall 217 Figure 6.8 References to “fighting” (Form III derivatives of q-t-l) 230 Figure 7.1 The historical relationship of Judaism and Christianity 252 Tables Table 2.1 Classification of sūrahs by theological characteristics 53 Table 2.2 Pre-transitional sūrahs by Eschatological Crisis features 54 Table 3.1 Average Formulaic and Lexical Distance of sūrahs 81 Table 3.2 Verse length, AFD, and ALF of passages in Q85 87 Table 3.3 Formulaic and Lexical Distance of passages in Q74 88 Table 3.4 Exclusion from the “Sacred Mosque” 94 Table 4.1 Two dimensions of disbelief 114 Table 5.1 The named messengers of the Qurʾan 128 Table 6.1 Stories of the Fall of Iblīs 216 Table 6.2 Stories of the Fall of Ādam 217 Table 6.3 Summary of forms discussed in chapter 6 241 ix