The Qur'an's Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam's Scripture

by Daniel Madigan

Islam is frequently characterized as a "religion of the book," and yet Muslims take an almost entirely oral approach to their scripture. Qur'an means "recitation" and refers to the actual words Muslims believe were revealed to Muhammad by God. Many recite the entire sacred text from memory, and it was some years after the Prophet's death that it was first put in book form. Physical books play no part in Islamic ritual. What does the Qur'an mean, then, when it so often calls itself kitab, a term usually taken both by Muslims and by Western scholars to mean "book"? To answer this question, Daniel Madigan reevaluates this key term kitab in close readings of the Qur'an's own declarations about itself.


More than any other canon of scripture the Qur'an is self-aware. It observes and discusses the process of its own revelation and reception; it asserts its own authority and claims its place within the history of revelation. Here Madigan presents a compelling semantic analysis of its self-awareness, arguing that the Qur'an understands itself not so much as a completed book, but as an ongoing process of divine "writing" and "re-writing," as God's authoritative response to actual people and circumstances.


Grasping this dynamic, responsive dimension of the Qur'an is central to understanding Islamic religion and identity. Madigan's book will be invaluable not only to Islamicists but also to scholars who study revelation across religious boundaries.

Genres: Islam, Religion

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 29, 2001

Reviews

[Jalaluddin Abdullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Madigan's sweeping literary analysis of the term 'kitab' and its Arabic root 'k-t-b' will prove immensely valuable for uncovering the earliest Quranic conception of the nature of Muhammad's received revelation. What results from Madigan's analysis is a picture of a uniquely Quranic conception of divine revelation and its transmission to humanity — one that itself points to the transcendent, supratextual nature of the Qur'an itself. What appears to me to make this work even more balanced and useful is the dialogue that Madigan often enters into with other classical Islamic sources while constructing his independent position. The discussion of al-Shafi'i's treatment of the Quranic trope "al-kitab wa-l-hikma" is particularly notable.
The text itself is beautifully printed and includes both Arabic texts and translations of the sources quoted. One could hope that the high quality exhibited here will quickly become the standard rather than the exception in the field. From page 177, "The evidence that the Qur'an considers al-kitab to be unitary, and that it relies on that unity for its claim to authority, is very strong."

[Nadeen Alsulaimi]

نظرة غربية جديدة للقرآن تجعل معنى (الكتاب) الذي يطلقه القرآن على نفسه هو إشارة على علم الله وحكمته. وأن المراد من لفظ (الكتاب) ليس الكتاب المسطور بل المتلو كما يزعم الكاتب ليكون الغرض من القرآن هو عملية تفاعل غير منتهية مع ما فيه من علم وتعاليم من الله!
ليس كل الغربيين مقتنعين بفكرة الكتاب ولكنها ذات أثر واسع في الأوساط الأكاديمية

[Saqib Qureshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very specific subject

At the heart of this book is the question “What is the ‘kitab’ that the Quran talks of?” Brilliantly argued, the answer is not what I had expected.