The Qur'an

Style and Contents

Andrew Rippin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780860787006
• eBook ISBN: 9781351963640
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This volume is one of two edited by Andrew Rippin which are designed to complement one another, and to comprehend the principal trends in modern scholarship on the Qur'an. Both volumes are provided with a new introduction by the editor, analysing this scholarship, and providing references for further study. The Qur'an: Style and Contents reveals the variety of approaches followed within the study of the text. From Nöldeke's examination of style through Arkoun's project for the future, these scholarly statements reflect the historical development of the discipline, while providing overviews of key elements for the understanding of the Qur'an.

1
Islam and the Qumran Sect

Chaim Rabin

LEST the theory that some late remnants of the Qumran sect survived in Arabia until the seventh century A.D. appear too fanciful from the outset, it is necessary to state that there are certain questions we must ask ourselves and to which the Scrolls themselves cannot provide the answer. These are:

I. What became of the sect after it left Qumran in what— judging by the abandonment of its library—seems to have been precipitate flight?¹

2. On any dating of the sect, how can we explain that some of its teachings and terminology reappear in the last quarter of the first millennium? The theory of an earlier discovery of Cave No. I suffers from the fact that no such event is mentioned in the literature of the circles supposedly most deeply influenced.²

The probability that the suggestions made in the following pages are at least in part correct is enhanced by the circumstance that they deal not with major ideas—where independent origin in different places and 'mental climate' are complicating factors— but with small and secondary details, mainly of a philological nature. Since the latter are in many cases firmly anchored in a definite literary background, they can have been borrowed only by direct contact. They concern such matters as are admitted to be borrowed, even in the view of those scholars who believe Muhammad's religious ideas to have been largely original.³

The problem of the outside influences which went into the make-up of early Islam has attracted the attention of scholars ever since 1833, when Geiger published his youthful effort Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommeti?⁴ In 1867 Sprenger⁵ demonstrated that much in Muhammad's religious outlook— including his theory of revelation and of his own prophetic office— cannot be explained on the basis of (Rabbinic) Jewish influence alone. Wellhausen¹ in 1887 coined the dictum: 'Von den Juden stammt nicht der Sauerteig, aber allerdings zum grossen Teile das Mehl, das später zugesetzt wurde.' In the present century T. Andrae² and K. Ahrens³ made an attempt to show that much of the 'flour' was also Christian, while Torrey⁴ brought to light much new material in support of Jewish origin, drawn especially from more intensive comparative study of the Koranic stories about O.T. prophets and Talmud and midrash.⁵ In this connexion we may mention the effort of J. Finkel⁶ to find the missing link in non-Rabbinic or pre-Rabbinic Jewish sects, and Gaster's⁷ theory of Samaritan influence upon Muhammad. Amongst the partisans of Christian influence, too, there has been a tendency to seek the proximate source in Nestorianism or in Judaeo-Christian sects, such as the Ebionites,⁸ Docetists, or Elkesaites.⁹ The prominence of Gnostic traits in Islam moved C. Clemens¹⁰ in 1921 to ascribe to Manichaeism a decisive influence upon it.

In view of this inconclusive search it seems not unreasonable to test also possible connexions with the Qumran sect, especially as the latter lies at the intersection of almost all the previous lines of inquiry: it has close contact both with Rabbinic and non-Rabbinic Judaism, shows certain Gnostic traits,¹ and has numerous connections both with the early Church and the Judaeo-Christian sects. Thus features common to it, Islam, and one of the foregoing can provide further support for a connexion between it and Islam, provided such a connexion has been made probable by traits common to the Qumran sect and Islam alone.

The possibility of the main Jewish influence on Muhammad having been that of a heretical Jewish sect was first put forward by S. D. Goitein in 1933,² and elaborated in 1953,³ when he specified this sect as one 'strongly influenced by Christianity'. In his Columbia University lectures of the same year,⁴ he suggested that Muhammad was in his debate with the Jews of Medina merely carrying on an internal Jewish controversy, being supplied with arguments by his heretical teachers,⁵ and also seriously weighed the possibility of these teachers coming from 'an offshoot of the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls',⁶ but rejected this, 'because if it were so, it would not have had such close affinities with the Talmudic literature to which the Koran bears such eloquent testimony'.

By stressing the close affinities of the Qumran sect with Rabbinic Judaism, the preceding pages have endeavoured to remove just that objection. I may now set out in detail the similarities which I have so far encountered, and then try to assess their significance.

I. Like the Qumran literature, the Koran makes extensive use of the symbolism of light and darkness to distinguish between the realms of God and Satan, e.g. 'Allah is the light of heavens and earth . . . Allah guides to His light whom He wills ... as to those who disbelieve, their deeds are like . . . darkness upon a vast abysmal sea, layer upon layer of darkness . . . and he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light' (24. 35-40). This symbolism, of course, also exists in the N.T., which even has the Qumran term 'children of light',¹ missing in the Koran, but does not, like Qumran literature and the Koran, link 'light' with the idea of absolute predestination (cf. Eph. v. 8, 'ye were darkness before, but now ye are light in the Lord'). The Koran also frequently repeats the idea that Allah misleads the sinners, for which cf. CDC ii. 13, 'but those whom He hated, He misled'.

2. The l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• General Editor's Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Islam and the Qumran Sect
• 2 Jesus and Mary in the Qur'ān: Some Neglected Affinites
• 3 The Theology of Separation and the Theology of Community: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Moses According to the Qur'ān
• 4 'And Become Ye Accursed Apes"
• 5 What Did Muḥammad Mean When He Called His Religion Islam? The Original Meaning of aslama and its Derivatives
• 6 Towards a Periodization of Earliest Islam According to Its Relations with Other Religions
• 7 Qur'anic Siğğil and Aramaic sgyl
• 8 Two Notes
• 9 A Prophet and More than a Prophet? Some Observations on the Qur'anic Use of the Terms "Prophet" and "Apostle"
• 10 The Earliest Meaning of Qur'ān
• 11 The Qur'ānic View of Youth and Old Age
• 12 The Divine Name "al-Raḥmān" in the Qur'ān
• 13 Saj'in the Qur'ān: Prosody and Structure
• 14 Some Notes on the Distinctive Linguistic and Literary Character of the Qur'ān
• 15 The Beginnings of Muḥammad's Religious Activity
• 16 AbūLahab and Sūra CXI
• 17 Simple Negative Remarks on the Vocabulary of the Qur'ān
• 18 Introduction: An Assessment of and Perspectives on the Study of the Qur'ān
• 19 Sound, Spirit, and Gender in Sūrat al-qdar
• 20 The Apocalypse of Islam
• 21 Method Against Truth: Orientalism and Qur'ānic Studies
• Index
• Index of Qur'ānic References