Before the Qur'an - (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Scripture and Theology) by Suleyman Dost (Hardcover)

About the Book

The first comprehensive reading of the Qur'an through epigraphic sources from the Arabian Peninsula.

Book Synopsis

The question of the Qur'an's geographical and cultural context has been hotly debated in the last few decades. Several authors have proposed that its place of origin may be somewhere other than the Hijaz in Western Arabia, the location stated within Islamic literary sources. Yet these theories have not engaged with the resources provided by numerous inscriptions in a wide range of ancient languages in the Arabian Peninsula and its environs.

Bracketing theological claims about Qur'anic provenance and relying solely on securely datable material evidence from before the rise of Islam, this book shows that the Qur'an emerged from the Hijaz and addressed a Late Antique Arabian audience. Suleyman Dost argues for significant religious, cultural and linguistic continuities between pre-Qur'anic Arabian sources and the Qur'an, especially highlighting underappreciated parallels with religious idioms in South Arabia and Ethiopia. This book thus challenges revisionist perspectives that situate the Qur'an outside a Western Arabian milieu.

Review Quotes

The author, a bright new star in the firmament of Qur'an scholarship, slices through the bramble of false assumptions and ungrounded speculation that have plagued the field. With careful historical reasoning, he establishes the cultural and geographical context for the emergence of Islam, deploying recent epigraphic and archeological findings.--Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan and author, Rethinking the Qur'an in Late Antiquity