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

324 Devin J. StewartMore r~cently, Jaroslav Stetkevytch has written a work that looks at theSiilii.J and Thamiid as it can be partially reconstructed from IslamicPerhaps less successful, but nevertheless suggestive, are broad comparativeof Islamic and earlier Semitic material that claim a more or less direct coJane:cticbetween Islamic and primordial Semitic forms, particularly DavidMuller's study of strophic poetry, which in his view is a prophetic formconnects the Qur' iin; the Hebrew Bible, cuneiform literature, and even theof Greek tragedy. 3Such studies are counter-balanced by the recent work ofHawting, whothat the "pagan" material in the Qur'iin is not actually pagan. He pointscorrectly, that monotheists often call each other pagan when arguingthemselves, as an insult or in order to score points in debate, without rpf;.r""""actual pagans. It is thus unlikely, in his view, that the Qur'iin reflects pagan ·gious texts or cultural practices that were common in Arabia, usually heldthe original setting of the Qur'iin's revelation. He does this in part toWansbrough' s thesis that the Qur' an was produced outside the Arabian Penirtslilla;mainly on the grounds that it shows too deep an awareness of Jewish andtian traditions and is engaged in complex debates over polemical issuesrepresentatives of these traditions. 4 In my view, both Hawting and W.am;broriJmare wrong in this instance. Significant evidence shows that the pre-Islamicwere thoroughly familiar with Judaism and Christianity, which had eachlished a strong presence in Arabia and neighboring territories long beforeadvent of Islam. The Qur'anic material that appears to derive from ore:-1smrr11cpagan religious tradition in Arabia is probably just that, and is too extensive,detailed, and too inscrutable to be written off as the product of polemicalhurled by monotheists at their fellows.Form criticism may prove to be a fruitful approach to the material in thethat is related to pre-Islamic, pagan religious traditions. 5 Knowledge ofconventions of pre-Islamic genres of religious speech may help to explainpassages in the Qur' an, including some that are on the face of it quite -----''·-·­and also help to define the relationship of the Qur'iin and Islam to wc;·•~•,.JJmreligious traditions. In this case, however, form criticism is a difficult nnrto •..,.~t,:n;~.2 J. Stetkevych, Mul.zammad and the Golden Bough: Reconstructing Arabian .Myth, BlcJomingltoii::Indiana University Press, 1996.3 MOller investigated strophic poetic forms in the Bible, cuneiform texts, the Qur'iin, andchoruses. D.H. MOller, Die Propheten in ihrer urspriing/ichen Form. Die Grundgesetzeursemitischen Poesie, ersch/ossen und nachgewiesen in Bibel, Keilinschriften zmd Koran,ihren Wirkungen erkannt in den Choren der griechischen Tragodie, Vienna: HOlder, 1896.studies a more limited and linguistically focused topic, oaths primarily in the Hebrew Bible,some extent in Islam. J. Pedersen, Der Eid bei den Semi/en in seinem Verhiiltnis zu u•rwnnnl•nErscheinungen sowie die Stellung des Eides im Islam, Strassburg: Trilbner, 1914.4 G.R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic toCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.5 A. Neuwirth has called for the application of literary critical methods, including form criticism,the Qur'an. "Einige Bemerkungen zum besonderen sprachlichen und literarischen CharakterKoran," ZDMG Suppl. 3, 1977, 736-39.Mysterious letters and other features of the Qur 'an 325Htmnann Gunkel in his analysis of the Psalms, the aspiring form critic of theiin risks making circular arguments. 6 In the absence of a large corpus of textscomparison, the equivalent of, say, the Iliad for pre-Islamic Arabia, the invesmustexamine texts in the Qur'iin in order to figure out the conventions of,pre-1s1am1c genres of religious utterance. Then he or she may use this derived)lll