Holding The Quran Beheld in Balance
Four Reviews
Introduction • Inspired or Revealed?
• Themes of the suras • Shorter Suras
| Western Academia and the Qur’an: Some Enduring Prejudices | The Qur’an, Orientalism, and the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an | Who Speaks for Whom: Authority, Tradition, and Encyclopedias of Islam |
The Descent of the Qur’an
Two augmented verbal forms of the trilateral root n-z-l are used in the Qurʾān to refer to its own descent, in both spatial and temporal sense…
The Qur’ān and its Disbelievers
According to the majority Muslim opinion, the first revelation of the Qur’ān occurred when the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, was in retreat at the cave of Hirā, some fifteen kilometers from the Kaba, the ancient House of God, built by the Prophets Ibrahim and his son Ismail, upon them peace, approximately twenty five hundred years prior to this event; the last verses of the Qur’ān were revealed in 632, just a few days before the death of the Prophet in Madina, the oasis town to which he had migrated in 622.
Education from the Qurʾānic Worldview
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (543–606/1148–1209) observed in his voluminous exegesis Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (“Keys of the Unseen”) that the Qurʾān has three axial themes: the Unicity of Allah Most High (tawḥīd), Messengership and Prophethood (risāla, nubuwwa), and Resurrection (maʿād) (Tafsīr, sub Q 2:21–22). All other themes emerge from these and can be subsumed under them. All three are constantly present throughout the Qurʾān and are specifically mentioned in numerous verses…