"In God's Other Book: The Qur'an between History and Ideology, Mohammad Salama presents a powerful critique of the ways we study and analyze early Islam and its sacred text, filling a glaring hole in our understanding of this formative environment. Interrogating the ideological framework of late antiquity, Salama exposes hidden assumptions that prevent scholars from truly placing Islam in its socio-historical and cultural milieu. He also offers an alternative theoretical and practical model focused on pre-Islamic Arabic cultural production. Foregrounding the indigenous Arab community of seventh-century Hijaz, Salama demonstrates how the Qur'an played an organic role in commenting on, interacting with, and taking sides concerning matters of ethnicity, ethics, dress codes, and social habits. While the study delves into the past, it carries implications for the future: only with renewed attention to the Qur'an itself, in all of its splendor and intricacy, can Western readers engage thoughtfully and ethically not only with Islamic studies but also with the cultures and traditions of those who live according to another book"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Rights and reproductions note
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Contents
Introduction : primum non nocere
Re-mapping Qur'ānic studies: histories and methods
What is late antiquity and what does the Qur'ān have to do with it?
Intelligence vs power : rhetorical dynamics in pre-Islamic poetry and the Qur'ān
Poetic paganism and the monotheistic aesthetic
Adab and the ethical authority of the Qur'ān
The Qur'ān in context : monotheism and the birth of the un-Mimetic.
ISBN
9780520391840
0520391845 (paperback)
LCCN
2024002489
OCLC
1427953843
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