reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

Al-Nafilirii in the Qur' anA hermeneutical reflectionSidney Griffith:,appo:aiaL:tuu "Christians" (al-masfl;ziyyiin), 1 used to designate the followers ofMessiah (Christos), never appears in the Arabic Qur'an. But Christiansreferred to in the text of the Islamic scripture under a number of othertitles. 2 Some fifty-four times the Qur'an speaks of"Scripture People"....... "'""'u'. and in many instances the Christians are obviously included amongOnce in the Qur' iin Christians are called "Gospel People" (ahl al-injfl).times the Qur'iin uses the term al-naijiira (once in the sing., al-naljriinl),community-specific ofthe names and titles it employs to refer to thefollowers of 'Isii, the Messiah, Mary's son, as the Qur'an regularlyof Jesus ofNazareth, who, in the Islamic view, was the last Messenger Godthe "Scripture People" prior to the mission ofMul:mmmad, "the seal of the(al-AI;zziib [33] 40). The immediate suggestion of this difference inilenclature is that the reader should not too hastily assume that the Christiansamong the "Scripture People," or those designated as "Gospel People,"called al-naljiira in the Qur'an, are in fact the same communities ofa point to which we shall return in due course.uuJll-.t'ua:uit: interpretations of the Qur'iin, the name al-naijiirii is almosttranslated "Christians," albeitthat the translation is not exact and, as weit may even camouflage what the Arabic scripture actually means to saypassages in which the term is used. So the purpose of the present essay is to· the sense of the term al-naljiirii in the Qur'iin from a number ofperspec-. close attention to the frames of reference and the interpretivethat determine the point of view in each instance. These includeancLlexicaLconsiderations,_a_study~_Qf the historical and culturalof the texts and the contexts in which the term is used in Qur' anicand an inquiry into the likely historical identity of the "Christians" toNew Testament, the term "Christian" appears only three times, ostensibly as an appellationoutsiders to designate the followers of Jesus Christ: Acts II :26 Christianous; 26:28I Peter 4:16 Christianos.the Qur'an, unless otherwise noted, are herein normally adapted by the authortrans., An Interpretation of the Qur 'an: English Translation of the Meanings; aEdition, New York: New York University Press, 2000, 2004.