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Chronological Order of the Qur'an: Difference between revisions
→Mecca-Medina Split: Added another key Medinan change from preaching god will destroy the unbelievers in Mecca to the military activism to do so in Medinan period.
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(Have added some academic material on Qur'anic chronology, just covering the Meccan-Medinan split - it's very minimal for now but I plan to add significantly more to cover the 'plot' of the Quran and it's chronology going forwards.) |
(→Mecca-Medina Split: Added another key Medinan change from preaching god will destroy the unbelievers in Mecca to the military activism to do so in Medinan period.) |
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{{Quote|Sinai, Nicolai. Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (pp. 196-197). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.|...they betray an explicit demarcation of the Qur’anic community from Judaism and Christianity and harshly criticise Jewish and Christian beliefs (for example, Q 5: 12–19, 5: 41–86, and 5: 116–118).<sup>38</sup> This forms a contrast to surahs that do not allude to the Medinan constellation. To be sure, non-Medinan texts do occasionally feature critical references to disunity among the post-Mosaic Israelites and to schisms among the followers of Jesus,<sup>39</sup> casually accuse some of them of ‘wrongdoing’ (Q 29: 46), and insist that Jesus is not God’s ‘child’ but only His ‘servant’ (Q 19: 34–40 and 43: 57–65).<sup>40</sup> Nonetheless, texts lacking references to the Medinan constellation are generally devoid of explicit, targeted, and sustained anti-Jewish and anti-Christian polemics. Instead, their polemical attention is squarely focused on the pagan Associators, against whom the ‘Israelites’ or earlier recipients of ‘the Scripture’ are occasionally invoked as witnesses who would confirm the truth of Muhammad’s revelations (for example, Q 6: 20.114, 10: 94, 17: 101, and 26: 197). Indeed, it is only in surahs that form core texts of the Medinan subcorpus (Q 2–5, 9, and 22) that we even come across the Qur’anic expressions for ‘Christians’ (al-naārā, ‘Nazoraeans’) and ‘Jews’ (alladhīna hādū, al-yahūd).<sup>41</sup>}} | {{Quote|Sinai, Nicolai. Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (pp. 196-197). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.|...they betray an explicit demarcation of the Qur’anic community from Judaism and Christianity and harshly criticise Jewish and Christian beliefs (for example, Q 5: 12–19, 5: 41–86, and 5: 116–118).<sup>38</sup> This forms a contrast to surahs that do not allude to the Medinan constellation. To be sure, non-Medinan texts do occasionally feature critical references to disunity among the post-Mosaic Israelites and to schisms among the followers of Jesus,<sup>39</sup> casually accuse some of them of ‘wrongdoing’ (Q 29: 46), and insist that Jesus is not God’s ‘child’ but only His ‘servant’ (Q 19: 34–40 and 43: 57–65).<sup>40</sup> Nonetheless, texts lacking references to the Medinan constellation are generally devoid of explicit, targeted, and sustained anti-Jewish and anti-Christian polemics. Instead, their polemical attention is squarely focused on the pagan Associators, against whom the ‘Israelites’ or earlier recipients of ‘the Scripture’ are occasionally invoked as witnesses who would confirm the truth of Muhammad’s revelations (for example, Q 6: 20.114, 10: 94, 17: 101, and 26: 197). Indeed, it is only in surahs that form core texts of the Medinan subcorpus (Q 2–5, 9, and 22) that we even come across the Qur’anic expressions for ‘Christians’ (al-naārā, ‘Nazoraeans’) and ‘Jews’ (alladhīna hādū, al-yahūd).<sup>41</sup>}} | ||
The authority and status of Muhammad is severely elevated from being simply a 'warner' to having complete authority over his community; also see Sinai (2018) on this.<ref>Sinai, Nicolai. “''[https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:34ef078e-0bb9-422e-8fd7-a42c8d1bdf1b/files/m73f645bb4eda180c5d419565b2b19ce0 Muhammad as an Episcopal Figure.]''” Arabica, vol. 65, no. 1-2, Brill Academic Publishers, 2018, pp. 1–30. ''PP13.'' <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1163/15700585-12341480</nowiki></ref> | The authority and status of Muhammad is severely elevated from being simply a 'warner' to having complete authority over his community; also see Sinai (2018) on this.<ref>Sinai, Nicolai. “''[https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:34ef078e-0bb9-422e-8fd7-a42c8d1bdf1b/files/m73f645bb4eda180c5d419565b2b19ce0 Muhammad as an Episcopal Figure.]''” Arabica, vol. 65, no. 1-2, Brill Academic Publishers, 2018, pp. 1–30. ''PP13.'' <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1163/15700585-12341480</nowiki></ref> | ||
{{Quote|Sinai, Nicolai. Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (p. 197). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.|Another key doctrinal trait of the Medinan proclamations is their heightened emphasis on the status and far-reaching authority of the Qur’anic Messenger: whereas non-Medinan texts limit themselves to presenting him as a divinely sent ‘warner’ and ‘bringer of good tidings’ (for example, Q 17: 105, 25: 56, 51: 50–51, and 79: 45), Medinan surahs additionally cast him as a ‘prophet’ (nabiyy; for example, Q 33: 1.6.13), a title that non-Medinan texts reserve for figures from Biblical history.<sup>42</sup> Moreover, Medinan texts over and over again enjoin their audience to obey ‘God and His Messenger’ (for example, Q 3: 32, 4: 13, and 5: 92).}} | {{Quote|Sinai, Nicolai. Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (p. 197). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.|Another key doctrinal trait of the Medinan proclamations is their heightened emphasis on the status and far-reaching authority of the Qur’anic Messenger: whereas non-Medinan texts limit themselves to presenting him as a divinely sent ‘warner’ and ‘bringer of good tidings’ (for example, Q 17: 105, 25: 56, 51: 50–51, and 79: 45), Medinan surahs additionally cast him as a ‘prophet’ (nabiyy; for example, Q 33: 1.6.13), a title that non-Medinan texts reserve for figures from Biblical history.<sup>42</sup> Moreover, Medinan texts over and over again enjoin their audience to obey ‘God and His Messenger’ (for example, Q 3: 32, 4: 13, and 5: 92).}}The previous calls in the Meccan verses of Allah destroying unbelievers who rejected Gods messengers in the '[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment_narratives_in_the_Quran punishment narratives]' are replaced with calls of military activism to carry out the punishment themselves. As Durie (2018) notes, "''...the key aspect of the marked developments traditionally associated with the contrast between “Meccan” and “Medinan” sūrahs, is a shift in eschatology from an expectation of future punishment of rejectors in this world to a “realized eschatology” (Ladd 1993, 56) of judgment in the here and now, at the hands of believers. This critical change in the Qurʾan’s message takes place in the context of an emerging crisis of confidence caused by an apparent delay in divine punishment of disbelievers, combined with growing opposition to, and persecution of believers.''"<ref>Durie, Mark. ''The Qur’an and Its Biblical Reflexes: Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion. pp. 47-48 (Kindle Edition pp. 149).'' 2018. Lexington Books. | ||
''See also Chapter 2: The Eschatological Crisis & 3: A Nonbiographical Qurʾanic Chronology.''</ref> | |||
{{Quote|Sinai, Nicolai. Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys) (pp. 293-294). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.|That the Believers’ recourse to military violence against the Associators was a turning point is openly acknowledged by the Qur’an itself. According to Q 4: 77, the members of the Qur’anic community were first instructed to ‘restrain your hands, perform prayer, and pay the alms’ and only subsequently was ‘fighting prescribed for them’. Not everyone in the community appears to have been keen to follow this command: ‘Our Lord, why have you prescribed fighting for us? Why have you not granted us a short delay?’, some of the addressees are quoted as saying. | |||
Yet the Medinan Qur’an unwaveringly upholds the duty to combat the Associators. Henceforth it was the military victories of the Believers by means of which God was believed to exact His punishment of the Meccan Unbelievers, rather than by a natural disaster of the sort that had befallen the people of Noah, the Ād, or the Thamūd. As David Marshall has emphasised, we are here confronted with two different paradigms of divine punishment, one Meccan, the other Medinan.<sup>1</sup> | |||
The Medinan surah’s general lack of punishment legends, pointed out in Chapter 5, is obviously linked to the replacement of one paradigm by the other.<sup>2</sup> Interestingly, the Qur’an itself endeavours to reduce the appearance of a disjuncture between the two by integrating the new doctrine that God’s retribution is meted out via the Believers’ military victories with the earlier Meccan expectation of a direct divine intervention. Thus, surah 8 describes the Believers’ military victory at Badr in a manner that presents it as the fulfillment of the Qur’an’s earlier threats of a divine chastisement.}} | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||