Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how two distinct but deeply related literary genres, which had become especially prominent in the 7th century Nile-to-Oxus region, have left an enduring impression on the form and contents of the Quran. By saying this, it is not intended to suggest that the Quran was “influenced” by this or that extraneous or extra-textual phenomenon. Rather, it is suggested that, along the lines of the Quran’s own theory of revelation, it speaks through Muḥammad, “the language of his people” (Q14:4). Stated another away, the Quran employs themes and structures from both epic and apocalypse that would have been familiar to its audience in order to reveal and make clear its most cherished sacred truths, among which are: the Oneness of God, the Oneness of Religion and the Oneness of Humanity. Epic and apocalypse, then, emerge as features of the cultural and imaginative language of the intended audience of the Quran, just as Arabic is its “linguistic” language.
Highlights
The Modes of the QuranFor the balance of this discussion, we will focus on these four aspects of the Quran which redound to the richness of its appeal and the poetic urgency of its meaning, whether aesthetic or religious and the efficiency with which this meaning is communicated
Here we are concerned as much, if not more, with the question “How does the Quran mean?”—to adapt Ciardi’s useful heuristic title (Ciardi 1959)—than with the usual one: “What does the. The heart of this 7th century literary and religious modernism that is the Quran has to do with the way in which the understanding of human and humanity seems to have expanded beyond its usual borders, the way in which well-known, contemporaneous ancient scriptures figure in the new work, reconfigured in the context of the new social reality, and, perhaps most importantly, the way in which two well-attested literary genres, epic and apocalypse, much esteemed by the otherwise vastly variegated potential Quranic audiences, are found in novel, combined form with the result that the existing “religious”
The argument for the Quran as apocalypse may seem unnecessary to many readers; it should be pointed out that it was important to make the explicit point in my earlier work because of the wide-ranging and rather robust refusal on the part of Quran scholars, apart from one or two exceptions, such as Casanova (1911) and Leemhuis (2001)
Summary
To privilege theReferences literary character of the Quran it is not intended, by any means, to detract from its undoubted status as divine revelation. Here we are concerned as much, if not more, with the question “How does the Quran mean?”—to adapt Ciardi’s useful heuristic title (Ciardi 1959)—than with the usual one: “What does the The heart of this 7th century literary and religious modernism that is the Quran has to do with the way in which the understanding of human and humanity seems to have expanded beyond its usual borders, the way in which well-known, contemporaneous ancient scriptures figure in the new work, reconfigured in the context of the new social reality, and, perhaps most importantly, the way in which two well-attested literary genres, epic and apocalypse, much esteemed by the otherwise vastly variegated potential Quranic audiences, are found in novel, combined form with the result that the existing “religious”. S, refers a wide variety of lengths of verses, a total of 6236, and their respective suras, of which times to man/humankind/the human It occurs five times in a verbal form, the total is 114.2 Another difference has to do with the voice of the Quran. Wright 2018) The combination of epic, apocalypse and humanity, and their interrelated highly generative literary dynamics, chief amongst which is the powerful literary feature of typological figuration, will be the subject of what follows
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