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Debate in the Qur’an: A Form-Critical Study
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Karim Samji
Published/Copyright:
August 12, 2025
Abstract
Qur’anic Studies long acknowledged the indisputable place of debate (jadal) as a principal genre in the corpus. To date, however, a form-critical typology of the debate genre still remains a desideratum of research. Significant roadblocks include the pervasive quality of polemics and apologetics in late antique rhetoric and the equally extensive repertoire presented in the Qur’an. An added complication is the vexing question of apocalyptic and eschatological discourse in both biblical and qur’anic scholarship. By means of a methodical examination, this article catalogues a comprehensive set of debate formulae and corresponding speech-forms, ranging from eschatological prophecies to prophetic announcements. Thus, form criticism opens a rare window onto the rhetorical world of the Qur’an.
Published Online: 2025-08-12
Published in Print: 2025-11-07
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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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.
