Article
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Jesus and Mary in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (Q 5): Anti-Imperial Discourse in the Qur’an as a Criticism of Byzantine Christology
-
Klaus von Stosch
Published/Copyright:
May 20, 2025
Abstract
This paper attempts to show that some verses about Jesus and Mary in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (i.e. Q 5:17.72.73.75) can best be explained by understanding them as a reaction to Byzantine imperial propaganda. The real reason for the rejection of high Christology in this latest period of qur’anic proclamation is, according to this thesis, a rejection of its political misuse. In this way, strange formulations on the role of Mary can also be understood, which until now have mostly been understood as polemical demarcations against the Christian faith or Christian devotional practice.
Published Online: 2025-05-20
Published in Print: 2025-11-07
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
You are currently not able to access this content.
You are currently not able to access this content.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Obituary: Yahya Michot (1952–2025)
- Obituary: Claude Gilliot (1940–2025)
- Between Bible and Byzantium: “Corruption on Earth” (fasād fī l-arḍ) and the Qur’an’s Penal Code (Q 5:33-34.38-39)
- Jesus and Mary in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (Q 5): Anti-Imperial Discourse in the Qur’an as a Criticism of Byzantine Christology
- The Transmission Chain of the Coranus Graecus (Vat. gr. 681)
- On the Historicity of ʿUthmān’s Canonization of the Qur’an, Part 1: The State of the Field
- Variant Qur’anic Readings Before and After Ibn Mujāhid
- Rethinking the Mosaic “Kill Yourselves” Command in the Qur’an (2:54): The Case of al-Māturīdī
- Debate in the Qur’an: A Form-Critical Study
- The Italian Qur’an: A Preliminary Analysis of the Panzeri Translation (1882)
- Review of Qur’anic Research
- Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem, The Book of the Cow: An Early Qurʾānic Codex on Papyrus (P. Hamb. Arab. 68). Documenta Coranica 3. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xv, 198 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-67752-4.
- Asma Helali, ed., Le Coran du Caire, 1924: texte, histoires et perspectives. MIDÉO 39. Cairo: Institut dominicain d’études orientales, 2024. xvii, 524 pp. ISBN 978-2-7247-1029-8.
- Rashwani Samer, ed., Behind the Story: Ethical Readings of Qurʾānic Narratives. Studies in Islamic Ethics 6. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xii, 348 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-68315-0.
- Tareq Hesham Moqbel, Ethics in the Qurʾān and the Tafsīr Tradition: From the Polynoia of Scripture to the Homonoia of Exegesis. Texts and Studies in the Qurʾān 23. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xv, 229 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-69646-4.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Obituary: Yahya Michot (1952–2025)
- Obituary: Claude Gilliot (1940–2025)
- Between Bible and Byzantium: “Corruption on Earth” (fasād fī l-arḍ) and the Qur’an’s Penal Code (Q 5:33-34.38-39)
- Jesus and Mary in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (Q 5): Anti-Imperial Discourse in the Qur’an as a Criticism of Byzantine Christology
- The Transmission Chain of the Coranus Graecus (Vat. gr. 681)
- On the Historicity of ʿUthmān’s Canonization of the Qur’an, Part 1: The State of the Field
- Variant Qur’anic Readings Before and After Ibn Mujāhid
- Rethinking the Mosaic “Kill Yourselves” Command in the Qur’an (2:54): The Case of al-Māturīdī
- Debate in the Qur’an: A Form-Critical Study
- The Italian Qur’an: A Preliminary Analysis of the Panzeri Translation (1882)
- Review of Qur’anic Research
- Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem, The Book of the Cow: An Early Qurʾānic Codex on Papyrus (P. Hamb. Arab. 68). Documenta Coranica 3. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xv, 198 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-67752-4.
- Asma Helali, ed., Le Coran du Caire, 1924: texte, histoires et perspectives. MIDÉO 39. Cairo: Institut dominicain d’études orientales, 2024. xvii, 524 pp. ISBN 978-2-7247-1029-8.
- Rashwani Samer, ed., Behind the Story: Ethical Readings of Qurʾānic Narratives. Studies in Islamic Ethics 6. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xii, 348 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-68315-0.
- Tareq Hesham Moqbel, Ethics in the Qurʾān and the Tafsīr Tradition: From the Polynoia of Scripture to the Homonoia of Exegesis. Texts and Studies in the Qurʾān 23. Leiden: Brill, 2024. xv, 229 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-69646-4.
