Band 101, Heft 1

Der Koran und die vorislamisch-arabische Dichtung sind durch diskursive Intertextualität miteinander verbunden. Obwohl der Koran keine Dichtung ist und Muḥammad andere Ziele verfolgte als die Dichter, wurde er von seiner Umgebung als einer von ihnen angesehen. Der Koran weist diesen Vorwurf vehement zurück, zeigt jedoch auffällige philologische Ähnlichkeiten zur Dichtung, übernimmt Motive und invertiert Ideen aus den Gedichten. Eine zentrale Frage in diesem intertextuellen Zusammenhang ist die Glaubwürdigkeit der koranischen Verkündigung. Aus diesem Grund betont der Koran in den mekkanischen Suren auf mehreren Ebenen die Abgrenzung Muḥammads von den Dichtern. Dies wird besonders deutlich in Sure 26, Sūrat aš-Šuʿarāʾ . Hier wird bekräftigt, dass die Verkündigung göttlichen Ursprungs ist und keinesfalls mit satanischer Inspiration verwechselt werden darf. Der Koran führt sieben Episoden an, um die Einordnung von Muḥammads Sendung in die biblische und altarabische Tradition der Prophetie zu untermauern. Das aus diesem Kontext entstandene Prophetenparadigma wird abschließend in Kontrast zur Darstellung der Dichter als Herumirrende und Lügner gesetzt.

The Qurʾān’s fifth sura denounces the killing of game during pilgrimage and decries the killing of innocent Believers. This juxtaposition reflects the intimate connection between right worship and proper social order, between cult and covenant, a connection that animates the entire sura . In particular, the sura suggests that if Jews and Christians have been generally unreliable allies, if they have been often reluctant to support the Believers’ military efforts against the Quraysh, and if they were even unwilling to requite violence against innocent Believers, it was because the People of the Book mostly had a negative view of the Meccan Sanctuary and its rituals. Specifically, they derided the central rite of ṣalāt , which may have been accompanied with sacrifices on certain occasions (such as Fridays). In the light of their opposition to the Meccan cult, the sura commands the Believers not to take Jews or Christians as covenantal partners. It is possible that the sura thereby ended the Believers’ alliance with some Jewish tribes of Yathrib as enshrined in the Constitution of Medina. What supports this possibility is that al-Māʾidah has significant thematic and terminological overlaps with the Constitution of Medina, as alliance with the Jews and deterring violent crimes through retaliation are central concerns to both documents. Still, and contrary to the interpretations of several scholars, it is doubtful that at the time of al-Māʾidah ’s proclamation the Prophet had judicial authority over the People of the Book or that he sought to impose violent punishment against them.

This study examines references to and images of writing in the Qurʾān, suggesting that some of them have been overlooked or de-emphasized in interpretations of the text. It then investigates the various Qurʾānic uses of the term sulṭān , usually translated as “authority,” and suggests that sulṭān , in some passages, refers to a document, a warrant or license that authorizes the bearer to carry out some task.

The historicity of accounts concerning the political assassinations of several rivals of the Prophet Muḥammad has recently been called into doubt on the basis of a literary analysis of these accounts. This article offers an alternative view of the historical value of these assassination narratives by scrutinizing the accounts of the killings of three Jewish rivals of the Prophet. It argues that certain details of the political assassinations in Medina and Khaybar that are found in rare accounts merit strong trust, and it questions the methodology of applying a literary approach specifically to the accounts of the assassinations, as literary devices are found in reports of nearly every episode pertaining to the Prophet’s lifetime.

Although the twin cities at the west and east edges of the world, Jābarṣā (Jābarṣ, Jābalṣā, Jāburṣā) and Jābalqā (Jābalq, Jābarqā), are somehow commonplace in Islamicate cosmographies throughout the medieval period, surprisingly little research exists on them. The main lines of the legend, as formulated by the medieval traditionalists and cosmographers, are as follows: there are two cities at the uttermost east and west parts of the inhabited world, where the sun rises and sets. The inhabitants suffer from the extreme heat and the noise made by the sun in its rising and setting; they have to hide in caves and make their own noise to be protected. In the various versions of the story, some elements lack or differ; the cities are often connected with other legends related to the edge of the world, such as Dhū l-Qarnayn, the Gog and Magog/Yājūj and Mājūj, Muḥammad’s night journey, the remnants of the ʿĀd tribe, and so forth. The paper traces the origins of the legend, its formation and various formulations during the Islamic Middle Ages, the significant change it underwent in the late medieval Illuminationist ( ishrāqī ) philosophy, and finally its survival and fading away to a status of folktale utopia in Ottoman literature and scholarship.

This article analyses five historical missives written by the great theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī to three Seljuq viziers, and datable to the years 490/1097 to 504/1110 f. The first four of these letters form a progressive series complaining of governmental corruption in Ṭūs during the Seljuq civil war around the turn of the sixth/twelfth century, and thus provide the sole extant eyewitness testimony from Khurāsān during the last five years of the Seljuq civil war period. They also reveal al-Ghazālī’s vision of just rule far more concretely than do al-Ghazālī’s numerous theoretical writings on the subject. The fifth letter, written after the civil war had ended, explores the problem of intra-Sunni madhhab-based religious partisanship ( taʿaṣṣub ), and also incidentally reveals important biographical information about al-Ghazālī. All five of these letters constitute unique eyewitness testimony to some of the major political and social problems of the Seljuq period.

For a long time, scholarship has illustrated the representation of territoriality in diplomatic relations between the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517) and Christian powers with the traditional paradigm “abode of Islam/abode of war.” The historiographical narrative of the diyār (abodes) has recently been reconsidered by scholars who have examined different kinds of sources but have barely investigated chancery documents. When we look at diplomatic sources and works written by secretaries of the Mamluk chancery, references to diyār on religious grounds are practically inexistent. The territories of the sultanate and the Christian powers are often defined by other kinds of categories. This paper examines how “space” and consequently the boundaries between the Mamluks and the Christian states were geographically and symbolically interpreted and described. This approach is aimed at understanding the criteria according to which the sultanate represented and legitimized its relations with non-Muslim powers.

Résumé Le récit-cadre des Mille et une nuits est composé d’un prologue et d’un épilogue (texte ZER) et soulève des problèmes lorsqu’il appartient à des versions lacunaires qui ne comportent que le prologue (texte G) ou l’épilogue (texte K). Ces problèmes ont été traités du point de vue philologique, rarement d’un point de vue littéraire. En partant d’une série de manques , au sens narratologique de ce terme, que l’on peut relever dans un discours du roi Šāhriyār dans le prologue de G, on va montrer ici comment ces manques sont comblés grâce à Šahrazād dans l’épilogue de K. Des compétences complémentaires, laïques et islamiques, ont été attribuées à l’héroïne pour réussir dans sa tâche: elle connaît la médecine et peut donc soigner le roi par la thérapie du récit en miroir et le guérir ; elle intervient par délégation divine, en réponse aux prières qu’une population qui souffre adresse à Dieu, et peut donc sermonner le roi à l’aide du ḥadīṯ et du Coran et le remettre sur le droit chemin.