Volume 10, Issue 1

This two-partite article begins with a summary account of the Qur’an’s legal culture, and then examines the qur’anic concept of “causing corruption,” afsada , particularly “causing corruption on earth” ( fasād fī l-arḍ ). First, it situates this concept within the Qur’an’s semantic and linguistic framework, and second, it analyzes the related qur’anic penal legislation for “causing corruption” (Q 5:33–34) in its biblical, rabbinic, and Byzantine contexts. The article posits that the Qur’an’s penal code is intrinsically linked to its creation theory, which designates the entire earth a Holy Land in which no crime is permissible. The Qur’an’s categorization of actions that cause corruption, moreover, both resonate with and further develop Genesis 6, which warns against the “corruption of earth,” i. e. of God’s creation, and, more concretely, Leviticus 19–26, which more narrowly focuses on the Land of Israel as God’s Holy Land. In accordance with its biblical precedent, the Qur’an also draws upon biblical, Jewish, and notably Christian paradigms when articulating punishments for those who “wage war against God and his messengers” in Q 5:33–34. It equates such an attack – likely alluding to a recent raid on the qur’anic community in Medina – with “trying to cause corruption on earth” thereby posing a threat to God’s order of creation. When stipulating the appropriate penalty for such corruption, the Qur’an’s phrasing closely mirrors the Aramaic rendition of punishments detailed in 2 Samuel 4:12, where David executes two of his officers for slaying a disabled enemy in his sleep: either exile, crucifixion, or the amputation of hands and feet. A similar list of punishments in Justinian’s criminal law, Novel 134 (promulgated in 556 CE), omits crucifixion but offers an extended parallel to the Qur’an by limiting hand amputation for thieves, contrasting with the sequel of the Qur’an’s penal code in Q 5:38–39. In both cases – the concept of “corruption on earth” and the corresponding punishments – it is challenging to ascertain the extent to which the Quran directly engages with the Hebrew Bible versus its interpretation through Jewish and Christian lenses. Nevertheless, the broad parallels amidst nuanced differences underscore that the prophet’s Hejazi community actively engaged with prevailing legal practices and discourses among Jews and Christians in the Byzantine Empire’s eastern provinces.

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.

The earliest Greek translation of the Qur’an is preserved only partially, mainly by way of an anti-Islamic polemic by Nicetas of Byzantium (9th/10th century CE) titled Refutation of the Qur’an . The text of this so-called Coranus Graecus does not, however, wholly conform to the Arabic reading of the Qur’an as transmitted by Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim. Since Nicetas’ work survives only in a single manuscript, Vat. gr. 681, these textual departures may have originated at multiple stages in the transmission history of the Coranus Graecus . The present paper aims to provide a systematic account of the textual differences between the Arabic Qur’an and its early Greek translation. It presents several case studies from the Coranus Graecus and discusses the possible origins of the divergences found in these instances. Four categories of textual variance are identified, namely modifications arising from: a qur’anic reading or readings diverging from Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim; the translation process as such; simple copying errors of the Greek text; and, finally, Nicetas’ tendentious use of the translation. On this basis, I propose a systematic categorization of the textual variants according to several stages of the transmission chain: Arabic base text, Greek translation, copying errors, and the translation’s use.

The identity of the early Muslim ruler or statesman who canonized the underlying consonantal text ( rasm ) of the Qur’an has been heavily debated in Western scholarship for more than a century. On the one hand, most Western scholars–past and present–have accepted the Islamic historical tradition’s unanimous identification of the early Arab Muslim ruler ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 24–35/644–656) as the Qur’an’s canonizer. On the other hand, a persistent revisionist minority have instead sided with certain Christian sources in identifying the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65–86/685–705) and his infamous governor al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf (d. 95/714) as the true canonizers and even collectors or composers of the Qur’an. Some Western scholars have also argued for various medial positions: that al-Ḥajjāj redacted and re-canonized ʿUthmān’s canonical text; and/or that al-Ḥajjāj merely corrected some scribal errors therein; and/or that al-Ḥajjāj merely added diacritical markings thereto. The present article–the first in a tripartite series–contends that the available evidence strongly supports and confirms the ʿUthmānic hypothesis, on the one hand; and strongly contradicts and falsifies all versions of the Ḥajjājian hypothesis, on the other.

Ibn Mujāhid (d. Baghdad, 324/936) famously surveyed variant qur’anic readings ( qirāʾāt ) from seven earlier specialists. Did he speak for a gathering consensus or was his just another idiosyncratic treatment of the problem (but unusually influential)? Comparison with earlier treatments of the readings by the grammarians and philologists al-Farrāʾ, al-Akhfash, Quṭrub, Abū ʿUbayd, Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī (in quotation), and Ibn Qutaybah in the ninth century shows some evidence of a growing preference for accepting a defined set of readings but little agreement as to whose readings would qualify. Comparisons with the treatments of al-Ṭabarī, al-Māturīdī, al-Zajjāj, and al-Naḥḥās in the tenth century mainly shows continuity with the diverse views of the ninth. Al-Ṭabarī is distinguished by a strong emphasis on consensus to determine whether a reading is acceptable or not. Ibn Mujāhid’s chief innovation seems to be that he accepted almost every reading of his chosen seven, whereas previous students of the readings had expressly preferred some readings to others. Ibn al-Nadīm seems to be the earliest writer to interpret Ibn Mujāhid’s choice of seven as excluding other readings.

In multiple places in the Qur’an, we encounter the story of Moses in Sinai returning to his fellow Israelites after having received from God the “tablets” ( al-alwāḥ ). He returns with anger, however, as he learns that many of his fellow Israelites have taken to worshiping “the calf” ( al-ʿijl ), a “lowing” calf made of jewelry (Q 7:148, 20:88) and widely assumed to be golden. The aggrieved Moses condemns the practice. And in just one version of the story, in Q 2:54, he issues a peculiar command: “so repent to your creator and kill yourselves” ( fa-tūbū ilā bāriʾikum fa-qtulū anfusakum ). This Mosaic directive appears at first blush to parallel the biblical version of the story, specifically Exodus 32:27, where Moses commands the Levites to kill many of their fellow Israelites. Although the details are disputed, this general conception of a large-scale execution was adopted by many Muslim exegetes. The Mosaic “kill yourselves” command, however, stands in stark contrast to various qur’anic directives pertaining to Muḥammad’s community. The latter include the prohibition, “Do not kill yourselves” ( wa-lā taqtulū anfusakum ) (Q 4:29). One might explain this disparity by invoking abrogation ( naskh ): the final law ( sharʿ ) revealed to Muḥammad repealed certain aspects of the Mosaic law, including the “kill yourselves” command; alternatively, the latter could have been an exceptional, standalone case. But not every exegete took the Mosaic command in Q 2:54 to be confirmation of the biblically supported notion of mass execution, opting instead to proffer a dissenting view. A minority of influential theological rationalist ( mutakallim ), Sufi, and modernist exegetes imagined unfulfilled or alternative “killings,” for instance, a “killing” of the ego or a “mortification.” I maintain that the qur’anic commentary of the Ḥanafī theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) of Samarqand represents an important intervention in this discourse. In the present paper, I analyze his ostensibly unprecedented, multifaceted version of the dissenting view. Al-Māturīdī offers not just linguistic, but also well-developed intratextual reasons for rethinking the prevailing reading of the “kill yourselves” command. Invoking other qur’anic versions of the same Mosaic narrative, al-Māturīdī asserts that—contrary to the biblical version—the Qur’an presents the command as having been issued after the guilty ones repented. And through linguistic and thematic analyses of certain key qur’anic terms and notions appearing elsewhere (including Q 2:84, 4:66, and 9:111), he presents persuasive hermeneutic reassessments of the “kill yourselves” command. He also shows how even a literal reading of the command need not suggest consummated killings. Furthermore, although al-Māturīdī himself does not mention it, one additional strength of the dissenting view is that it offers the most straightforward explanation for why the mysterious person who “led” the Israelites “astray” ( aḍallahum ) through the creation and worship of the golden calf (Q 20:85), the “Sāmirī” (al-Sāmirī), is, per the prevailing understanding, spared execution and continues to live. The end result is a version of the dissenting view that, while not irrefutable, is coherent, concisely described yet relatively sophisticated, and plausibly compelling.

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.

This article examines the first complete Italian translation of the Qur’an published after the declaration of national unification: the 1882 Milan edition by the publisher Giovanni Panzeri. Although presented as a direct translation from Arabic, the text is shown, through comparative analysis, to be a near-verbatim rendering of the French version by Claude-Étienne Savary, itself heavily influenced by Ludovico Marracci’s earlier Latin work. Far from being a neutral linguistic exercise, the translation emerges as a cultural product shaped by popularizing aims, comparative religious framing, and orientalist conceptual frameworks. By closely analyzing both textual and paratextual elements, the article reconstructs the strategies through which the Qur’an was made accessible to a general, non-specialist Italian readership. This process unfolded within a historical context marked by the early stages of Italian colonial ambition. Despite its lack of philological rigor, the Panzeri translation constitutes a valuable source for understanding how Islam was received and mediated in late nineteenth-century Italy. The analysis proposed here invites a critical reassessment of the edition as a meaningful expression of the intersection between popular publishing, Orientalist discourse, and cultural representations in late nineteenth-century Italy.