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The Cosmopolitan World of the Quran and Late Antique Humanism

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The Cosmopolitan World of the Quran and Late Antique Humanism religions Article The Cosmopolitan World of the Quran and Late Antique Humanism Todd Lawson Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1, Canada; [email protected] Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how two distinct but deeply related literary genres, which had become especially prominent in the 7th century Nile-to-Oxus region, have left an enduring impression on the form and contents of the Quran. By saying this, it is not intended to suggest that the Quran was “influenced” by this or that extraneous or extra-textual phenomenon. Rather, it is suggested that, along the lines of the Quran’s own theory of revelation, it speaks through Muh. ammad, “the language of his people” (Q14:4). Stated another away, the Quran employs themes and structures from both epic and apocalypse that would have been familiar to its audience in order to reveal and make clear its most cherished sacred truths, among which are: the Oneness of God, the Oneness of Religion and the Oneness of Humanity. Epic and apocalypse, then, emerge as features of the cultural and imaginative language of the intended audience of the Quran, just as Arabic is its “linguistic” language. Keywords: Quran; epic; apocalypse; late antiquity; cosmopolitanism; revelation; audience recep- tion; humanism Religions 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 20 of 20 Citation: Lawson, Todd. 2021. The 1. Part 1 Cosmopolitan World of the Quran Prologue: The Literary World of the Quran and Late Antique Humanism. To privilege theReferences literary character of the Quran it is not intended, by any means, to Religions 12: 562. https://doi.org/ detract from its undoubted status as divine revelation. Rather, the purpose should be 10.3390/rel12080562 considered part of aPrimary desire to Sources understand more deeply what divine revelation means in the context of the Quran andʾ its primary, though obviously not only, audience—Muslims. Academic Editor: Roberto Tottoli al-Qur ān al-Karīm, innumerable printings based on the 1924 Royal Egyptian Cairo edition. An indication of theThe way Koran in Interpreted which “literary”. Translated is toby beArthur taken J. Arberry throughout. London: this George essay Alan, is in Unwin, 1955. the title of the late ProfessorThe Message Issa of the J. Qur Boullata’sān̕ . Translated field-changing by Muhammad book: Asad.Literary Gibraltar: structures Dar al-Andalus, of 1980. Received: 24 May 2021 religious meaning inThe the Qurʾān. (TranslatedBoullata 2000 by Alan, also Jones. see Oxford: Suggested The ReadingE.J.W. Gibb1). Memorial Such a title Trust, 2007. Accepted: 10 July 2021 Quran statistics. https://www.qurananalysis.com/analysis/basic-statistics.php?lang=EN Published: 21 July 2021 may be thought at least partly inspired by the Quran itself: We sent no messenger except [to teach] in the language of his [own] people, in order to make [things] clear to them (Q 14:4). Secondary Sources language of Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral The methodological presupposition here is the same. It is assumed that the with regard to jurisdictional claims in his (own) people includes(Bakhtin much 1981) more Bakhtin, than Mikhail. the merely 1981. The linguistic Dialogic elementsImagination: of Four vocabulary, Essays. Edited by Michael Holquist. Translated by Caryl Emerson published maps and institutional affil- grammar, morphology andand syntax,Michael Holquist. and encompasses Austin: University those extra-linguistic of Texas Press. factors that iations. enliven any language(Bemong and which et al. supply, 2010) Bemong ultimately, Nele, those Pieter bases Borghart, upon Mi whichchel De any Dobbeleer, language and Kristoffel Demoen, eds. 2010. Bakhtin’s Theory of the acquires, generates and communicatesLiterary Chronotope: meaning: Reflections, that Applications, without which Perspectives meaning. Gent: is not Ginko really Academia Press. achieved no matter(Boullata what linguistic 2000) Boullata “mechanism”, Issa J., ed. (i.e., 2000. language, Literary Structures in the usual of Religious sense) Meaning is in in the Quran. Richmond: Curzon, 2000. play. This is, of course,(Böwering a very 2002) vast fieldBöwering, because Gerhard. there 2002. are many God and such His factors. Attributes. In this In Encicplopaedia essay, of the Qur’an. Leiden: Brill, vol. 2, pp. 316–31. (Brown 1983) Brown, Norman O. 1983. The Apocalypse of Islam. Social Text 8: 155–71. we will restrict ourselves to three or four in order to demonstrate something significant Copyright: © 2021 by the author. (Cameron 2017) Cameron, Averil. 2017. Late Antique Apocalyptic: A Context for the Qur’an? In Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late about the Quran and its undoubted status as a book of divine revelation for Muslims, Islam Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Antiquity Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th–8th Centuries. Edited by Hagit Amirav, Emmanouela Grypeou and Guy This article is an open access article and Islam’s message to humanity.Stroumsa. Leuven: This significance Peeters, vol. is 17, closely pp. 1–20. related to what some have distributed under the terms and referred to as the “power”(Casanova of the 1911) Quran: Casanova, that whichPaul. 1911. commands Mohammed thrilled at la fin admiration du monde: Étude for the critique sur l’Islám primitif. Paris: Paul Geuthner. conditions of the Creative Commons sound and sense of the(Ciardi Quranic 1959) ArabicCiardi, inJohn. virtually 1959. How anyone Does whoa Poem understands Mean? Boston: its Houghton, “linguistic Mifflin. Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// substrate”—Arabic (cf.(Collins Q 8:2). 1987) This Collins, article John will J. suggest 1987. Apocalypse: that beyond An the Overview. beauty Enciclopaeida of the highly of Religion 1: 409–14. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ poetic and figurative(Frye Arabic, 2007) recited Frye, Northrop. and heard 2007. in rhythmicThe Great Code: cadences, The Bible in and which Literature the heard. Toronto: Penguin Canada. 4.0/). relation between vowels(Goppelt and 1982) consonants Goppelt, may Leonhard. be thought 1982. TYPOS: to provide The anTypological ever-changing Interpretatio yetn of the Old Testament in the New. Translated by Donald H. Madvig. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. (Hodgson 1974) Hodgson, Marshall G. S. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3 vols. Religions 2021, 12, 562. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080562 (Lawson 2017) Lawson, Todd. 2017. Thehttps://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Quran, Epic and Apocalypse. London: Oneworld Academic. (Leemhuis 2001) Leemhuis, Fred. 2001. Apocalypse. EQ 1: 111–14. (Martin 2005) Martin, Richard P. 2005. Epic as Genre. In A Companion to Ancient Epic. Edited by John Miles Foley. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 9–19. (Mir 1986) Mir, Mustansir. 1986. Coherence in the Quran: A Study of Iṣlaḥī’s Concept of Naẓm in Tadabbur-i Quran. Indianapolis: American Trust Publications. (Mir 2003) Mir, Mustansir. 2003. Names of the Quran. In Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, vol. 3, pp. 505–15. (Sells 2000) Sells, Michael. 2000. A Literary Approach to the Hymnic Sūras of the Qur’ān: Spirit, Gender, and Aural Intertextuality. In Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’ān. Edited by Issa J. Boullata, Richmond: Curzon, pp. 3–25. (Wright 2018) Wright, Peter Matthews. 2018. Islam: The Khalifa Ideal. In Thirteen Theories of Human Nature, 7th ed. Edited by Leslie Stevenson, David L. Haberman, Peter Matthews Wright, and Charlotte Witt. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 138–55. (Zadeh 2015) Zadeh, Travis. 2015. Quranic Studies and the Literary Turn. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135: 329–42. (Zwettler 1990) Zwettler, Michael. 1990. Mantic Manifesto: The Sūra of the Poets and the Qur’ānic Foundations of Prophetic Author- ity. In Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition. Edited by James L. Kugel. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, pp. 75–119. Religions 2021, 12, 562 2 of 20 somehow constant, aesthetically compelling obligato-like “background music”, there is also an overall structure to the Quran which introduces what may best be thought of as literary innovation—a kind of literary modernism for its time and place in the context of a well-established and traditionally familiar field of literary expectations, even if the line between “literature” and “religion” is not always perfectly drawn. In short, here we are concerned as much, if not more, with the question “How does the Quran mean?”—to adapt Ciardi’s useful heuristic title (Ciardi 1959)—than with the usual one: “What does the Quran mean?”. The heart of this 7th century literary and religious modernism that is the Quran has to do with the way in which the understanding of human and humanity seems to have expanded beyond its usual borders, the way in which well-known, contemporaneous ancient scriptures figure in the new work, reconfigured in the context of the new social reality, and, perhaps most importantly, the way in which two well-attested literary genres, epic and apocalypse, much esteemed by the otherwise vastly variegated potential Quranic audiences, are found in novel, combined form with the result that the existing “religious” (for lack of a better word) horizons of the readers and hearers are shifted and in some sense also expanded and enriched. By using the above title, then, two locations or worlds come to mind: (1) the literary world into which the Quran was born and (2) the world created by the literary structures employed and expectations assumed by the Quran. Here, we are mostly concerned with the second, but there will be some reference to the first. To begin, I would ask the reader to banish, in the spirit of experimentation, all ideas or preconceptions about the Sitz im Leben of the Quran: the culture, history, anthropology and geography of the time and place in which it is universally recognized to have been composed.
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