The Annunciation to Mary As Retold in the Quran
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The Annunciation to Mary as Retold in the Qurʾān Jacob Fareed Imam Saint Antony’s College Word Count: 24,939 A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Islamic Studies and History I hereby certify that this is entirely my own work unless otherwise stated. 1 June 2018 Table of Contents Dedication i Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Missing Fiat: Sūrat Maryam 5 Introduction 5 Surah Summary 5 Mary in the Qurʾānic Context 8 A Purposeful Change? 15 Ephrem’s Wordplay 19 Sogyāthā 20 The Syriac Celebration of Mary 26 The Questions Raised 33 Chapter 2 Mary, the Source of the Leader: Sūrat Āl ʿImrān 35 Introduction 35 Surah Summary 36 Correlation to Sūrat Maryam 38 The Subtext 41 Mary’s Levitical Lineage 45 Solving the Anachronism: Typology or Conflation? 54 The Exegesis of Miriam 56 The Hebrew Bible’s Presentation of Miriam 57 Eastern Christian Portrayals of Miriam 58 Rabbinic Perspectives on Miriam 62 Narrative Conflation 66 Conclusion A Similar Beginning as Genesis? Textual Appropriation in the Qurʾān 69 Bibliography 73 For Father Mark Avila Who has above all for me revealed the life of study as the life of prayer and in memory of Richard Hatton Acknowledgements If the present work makes a contribution to the scholarship on Mary and, consequently, Jesus in the Qurʾān, it will be above all due to those who have supported me and my research during its composition. I will begin by recognising that the Marshall Commission was the first to believe in and support this project. Without its generous provision I would not have completed the current work, let alone completed it in the United Kingdom. This MPhil thesis was written under the guidance of Professor Nicolai Sinai. His dedicated direction and criticism were essential for its success. Prof. Sinai’s reminder that “God sees all details” – a humorous reprimand to my “increasing” attention to detail – turned my view of writing toward a devotional direction. For this, I owe him much. My impressive colleagues in our small cohort, Saqib Hussain and Joshua Little, have been a great emotional and academic support to me. I have gained much pleasure these past two years as they became my dear friends as well as my faithful teachers. To Andy Reyes and Samuel Pomeroy, treasured friends and acute critics, the sources of many good ideas and many good conversations, I want to express my special appreciation. Countless problems in the present work were corrected, and many important improvements made, through their careful revision. John Shinkwin, who endured many first iterations of the first chapter, has been the patient source of encouragement and honesty. Jozef Kosc, equally patient, endured the first iterations of the second chapter and generously read the entire thesis. I am very grateful to both friends. The Dominican friars of IDÉO (Cairo) and Professor Sebastian Brock have also served as superb sources of inspiration. Their scholarship serves both mind and soul. Their kindness in providing insightful feedback is greatly appreciated. Lastly, Susie, my mother, and Walter, my godfather, are the eternal sources of encouragement and love. Thank you for orienting me to see this work as a vocation of service. Abbreviations ADN Avot deRabbi Natan BM Bercoth Megillah dR Mekhilta dʼRabbi Simʿon b. Jochai ER Ecclesiastes Rabbah M Metsora MS Mekhilta Shirta MLTN Midrash Leqaḥ Tov Numbers MP Midrash Proverbs MdR Mekhilta deRashbi MiS Midrash Samuel MT Midrash Tannaim PR Pesiqta Rabati S Sotah Sh Shirta SN Sifre Numbers SZ Sifre Zuta TBM Tanhuma Buber Metsora TT Midrash Tanhuma Tsav VB Vayehi Beshalaḥ Unless specified, the texts can be found in New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, translated by Michael L. Rodkinson. New York: New Talmud Publishing Company, 1896–1903. Introduction The Qurʾān is an enigmatic text. Its use of previous narrative sources, adapted with varying degrees of accuracy, hinders the exegete from composing a cohesive commentary. Attempting to address this difficulty, many scholars have argued that we can profit from studying the Qurʾān in the context of late antique religious traditions. The Qurʾānic narratives find parallels in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, but in forms that often deviate from the Biblical versions. Some scholars have concluded that these deviations suggest the Qurʾān’s reliance on intermediary Jewish and Christian transmissions. Whereas the New Testament material was obviously transmitted via Christians, the Hebrew Biblical stories could have been received not only from Jews but also from Christians, who retold those stories as well. Rabbinic literature and the Syriac Christian literature are known to have exhibited a strong influence on the Qurʾān. According to Witztum, “Within the Syriac tradition the sources that tend to present the most parallels are verse homilies and hymns.”1 These were performed publicly and served to instruct a wide population. One of the distinctive features of Syriac liturgical poetry is the dialogue poem in which two characters, usually Biblical, conduct an argument in alternating verses.2 These sogyāthā (sg. soghītha) were later adopted in Arabic and Persian, where the genre was very popularly written in sajʿ3– much like the Qurʾānic text itself.4 Such poems were usually designated for antiphonal singing and served to instruct a wide population.5 These 1 Joseph Benzion Witztum, “The Syriac Milieu of the Quran” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2011), i. 2 Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 340. 3 Clive Holes, “The Dispute of Coffee and Tea: A Debate-Poem from the Gulf” in Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature ed. J.R. Smart (Abingdon: Routledge, 1996), 302–315. 4 Cf. Devin Stewart, “Sajʿ in the Qurʾān: Prosody and Structure”, Journal of Arabic Literature 21.2 (1990), 101–139. 5 Sebastian Brock, “Syriac Dispute Poems: The Various Types” in Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East ed. G.J. Reinink and H.L.J. Vanstiphout (Leuven: Peeters Press, 1991), 109–120, 110. 2 literary genres would have been ideal channels for the diffusion of Biblical material amongst the Qurʾānic community. This thesis will establish that, in both form and content, the Qurʾānic retellings of the Annunciation Narrative (Q 3, Medinan, and Q 19, Meccan) resemble Syriac Christian liturgical material. In this thesis, I will refer to “subtext” as the larger literary and religious tradition in which the Qurʾān is participating. Of course, particular sources dominate the subtext of the Qurʾānic narrative, but they may equally well represent the milieu in which the Qurʾān was produced as well as define the milieu itself. My interest in revealing the sources of the Qurʾānic narratives lies not only in tracing the evolution of Biblical themes into their Islamic versions, but more importantly in understanding how the Qurʾān appropriated, revised, and adapted these stories in order to convey its own message. It is my opinion that rather than seeking the misunderstandings or confusions of the Qurʾānic community – as scholarship in the past has often done – it is more constructive to ask in what ways the Qurʾān reflects earlier trends and in what ways it orients the received traditions in new directions. In a 2012 article, Griffith began to re-theorize a new approach to Qurʾānic exegesis.6 He argues that the story of the Qurʾān goes beyond a mere assimilation of traditions, but rather places these traditions within a new context. Thus, we ought to ask not only how the stories are familiar with previous traditions but also how they differ. It becomes the task of the scholar to merge the studies of Qurʾānic intertextuality and Qurʾānic exegesis into a single analysis. In turning to the Annunciation of Jesus to Mary more specifically, we may distance our approach from that of Samir and Mourad in their insightful essays on the Qurʾānic Mary. Samir looks for the external influences on the Qurʾān, whilst Mourad demonstrates that the Qurʾān 6 Sidney Griffth, “Christian lore and the Arabic Qurʾan: the ‘Companions of the Cave’ in surat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition”, in The Qurʾān in its Historical Context, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds (London: Routledge, 2008), 109–138. 3 perpetuates widespread Christian traditions and images.7 While both projects are important to identify the sources of the Qurʾānic narratives, they contribute little to our understanding of the Qurʾānic text itself. The new methodology that Griffith proposes demands a process of synthetic exegesis as it integrates intertextual studies with a narrative analysis of the text itself. My analysis will demonstrate a high likelihood that the Qurʾānic author was intimately familiar with the Syriac exegetical tradition on this sacred narrative – as well as its underpinning theology. Primarily, my new findings are concentrated on Q 19, though there are important new elements and a novel reformulation of the already well-researched Q 3 surrounding Mary’s lineage. Having good cause to believe the author of the Qurʾān knew the Syriac exegetical tradition, I will suggest that the story’s differences in detail serve particular doctrinal emphases of the Qurʾān, which I will then explicate. The Marian Annunciation Narrative will serve as the main focus of this analysis. It has traditionally embodied the divine approach – God’s approaching humanity – in both the Islamic and the Christian traditions. Chapter 1 discusses the narrative of Mary’s annunciation in Q 19 and argues that the text cannot be understood as an orthodox Christian creation, as some scholars have contended. Whereas the Syriac tradition understood that God made a marriage proposal to humanity through Mary, the Qurʾānic Annunciation Narrative excises all hints of nuptial intimacy from its retelling.