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How the Qur'an Works: Reading Sacred Narrative focuses on Qur'anic narrative, and specifically, repetition in Qur'anic stories. This book begins its analysis looking at repetition on a large scale-structure-and moves to a small scale-root letters. The book takes a journey through the Qur'an, often expansive, moving from one verse to another, one story to another, focusing on narratological elements while conducting a fine reading of Qur'anic material in order to understand how these techniques enhance a theological agenda. It helps us to better understand particular Qur'anic stories, Qur'anic literary style and Qur'anic theology.
List of contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1. Introduction: Why Repetition?
- 2. Chapter Two: Repetition in Structure: Parallels, Reversals and Triangles
- 3. Chapter Three: Repetition in the Qur'anic Story of Musa
- 4. Chapter Four: Repetition and the Portrayal of Time in the Story of Musa and Harun in the Qur'an
- 5. Chapter Five: Echoing Phrases, Words and Actions in Qur'anic Stories: Exchange Encounters, Fasting, Feasting and Faith
- 6. Chapter Six: Repetition in Surat al-Shu'ara: Prophethood, Power and Inspiration
- 7. Chapter Seven: Repetition in Sarat al-Qamar and a Comparison with Surat al-Shu'ara
- 8. Conclusion: Connections, Narrative and Power
- 9. Appendices
- Appendix A: Musa
- Appendix B: Surat al-Shu'ara
- Appendix C: Surat al-Qamar and Comparisons of Surat al-Shu'ara with Surat al-Qamar
About the author
Leyla Ozgur Alhassen is a Qur'anic studies scholar and the author of Qur'anic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience. Her scholarship revolves around Qur'anic stories, style and interpretation in literature, performance, and art, across historical periods, languages, and disciplinary boundaries. She has a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.
Summary
The Qur'an is a text of extraordinary depth and complexity. In How the Qur'an Works, Leyla Ozgur Alhassen takes the reader on a journey through the Qur'an, moving from one verse to another, one story to another, focusing on narratological elements while conducting a close reading in order to understand particular Qur'anic stories and to show how the text's literary techniques enhance its theological agenda.
She unpacks the text by focusing on Qur'anic narrative, and specifically, repetition in Qur'anic stories. Repetition is an important part of the Qur'an's literary technique. Ozgur Alhassen traces the use of repetition as a narrative device from the text's overall structure to individual letters. She compares different Qur'anic stories and explores the kinds of repetition that occur in them and what purposes they serve. Repetition, she shows, forges patterns, connections, and layers of meaning that develop, complicate, and comment on the Qur'an's messages.
Additional text
This is an excellent book recommended for those who study the Qur'an, literature, religion and its interpretation.
