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Link to original content: https://doi.org/10.1163/22321969-12340003
Many important western works on the Qurʾān are focused on the question of religious influences. The prototypical work of this genre is concerned with Judaism and the Qurʾān: Abraham’s Geiger’s 1833 Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen, or “What Did Muhammad Acquire from Judaism?” In Geiger’s work – and the works of many who followed him – material in the Qurʾān is compared to similar material in Jewish or Christian literature in the hope of arriving at a better understanding of the Qurʾān’s origins.
In the present article I argue that these sorts of studies often include a simplistic perspective on Qur’anic rhetoric. In order to pursue this argument I focus on a common feature of these works, namely a comparison between material in the Qurʾān on Christ and Christianity with reports on the teachings of Christian heretical groups. Behind this feature is a conviction that heretical Christian groups existed in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Islam’s origins and that these groups influenced the Prophet. I will argue that once the Qurʾān’s creative use of rhetorical strategies such as hyperbole is appreciated, the need to search for Christian heretics disappears entirely.
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S.M. Zwemer, Arabia: The Cradle of Islam (Edinburgh: Anderson and Ferrier, 1900), 306-7.
R. Speer, “The Attitude of the Evangelist toward the Muslim and His Religion,” Lucknow, 1991 (London: Christian Literature Society for India, 1911), (217-51) 233-34.
T. Andrae, Mohammed, sein Leben und sein Glaube (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1932); English trans.: Mohammed: The Man and His Faith, trans. T. Menzel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), 92. On this tradition see also Lammens, 21. Andrae’s reference to Quss ibn Saʿida might be problematic. The author of the Encyclopaedia of Islam article under this name writes, “It is not impossible that Ḳuss had relations with the Christians of Najrān, but it is wrong to take him, as has sometimes been done, as the bishop of that town.” Ch. Pellat, “Ḳuss b. Sāʿida,” EI2, 5:(529-30), 529. Indeed it seems to me likely that (whether or not the tradition Andrae refers to has any historical truth to it) the idea that Quss was a Christian clergyman developed because of the similarity of his (unusual) name to the word qass, “priest.”
For example: J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes (Berlin: Reimer, 1897), esp. pp. 230-34; W. Rudolph, Die Abhängigkeit des Qorans von Judentum und Christentum (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1922), 6-8, 90-91; Yūsuf Durra al-Ḥaddād, Al-Qur’an daʿwā naṣrāniyya (Jounieh: Librairie pauliste, 1969); Abū Mūsā al-Ḥarīrī, al-Qass wa-nabī (Beirut: n.p. 1979); French trans.: J. Azzi, Le prêtre et le prophète, trans. M.S. Garnier (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001); F. De Blois, “Naṣrānī (Ναζωραιος) and Ḥanīf (εθνικος): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam,” BSOAS 65, 2002, 1-30; J. Gnilka, Die Nazarener und der Koran: Eine Spurensuche, (Freiburg: Herder, 2007).
Ibid., 311.
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Many important western works on the Qurʾān are focused on the question of religious influences. The prototypical work of this genre is concerned with Judaism and the Qurʾān: Abraham’s Geiger’s 1833 Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen, or “What Did Muhammad Acquire from Judaism?” In Geiger’s work – and the works of many who followed him – material in the Qurʾān is compared to similar material in Jewish or Christian literature in the hope of arriving at a better understanding of the Qurʾān’s origins.
In the present article I argue that these sorts of studies often include a simplistic perspective on Qur’anic rhetoric. In order to pursue this argument I focus on a common feature of these works, namely a comparison between material in the Qurʾān on Christ and Christianity with reports on the teachings of Christian heretical groups. Behind this feature is a conviction that heretical Christian groups existed in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Islam’s origins and that these groups influenced the Prophet. I will argue that once the Qurʾān’s creative use of rhetorical strategies such as hyperbole is appreciated, the need to search for Christian heretics disappears entirely.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 961 | 141 | 12 |
| Full Text Views | 339 | 96 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 86 | 2 | 0 |
