A Review of Contemporary Arab Scholarship on the Use of Isrāʾīlīāt for Interpreting the Qurʾan

The Qur’an and Old and New Testaments have in common some twenty prophetic figures. As a text, the Qur’an engages with members of these earlier scriptural communities both in its direct address to ‘Benī Isrāʾīl’ (the Children of Israel) and in the way it recounts the stories of their prophets. For...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Kareem Rosshandler
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/52fcd51e83cf4d028aaf22dfb2d29003
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The Qur’an and Old and New Testaments have in common some twenty prophetic figures. As a text, the Qur’an engages with members of these earlier scriptural communities both in its direct address to ‘Benī Isrāʾīl’ (the Children of Israel) and in the way it recounts the stories of their prophets. For their part, these earlier scriptures tend to present their accounts of these prophets in more detail than the Qur’an. As such, early Muslims would often consult Jewish and Christian converts to Islam for elucidation of the Qur’an’s core presentation. From this narration process emerged an exegetical genre called Isrāʾīlīāt. While long established in Muslim tradition, this exegetical genre has been a source of serious contention between scholars throughout the ages. Surveying almost a dozen works produced by the Arabic-speaking academy, this paper explores contemporary Arab scholarship on the use of Isrāʾīlīāt for interpreting the Qurʾan. It focuses on scholars’ attitudes towards this exegetical genre and what – if any – role they see it having in interpreting the Qurʾan.