Unlocking the Medinan Qur’an

Nicolai Sinai is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Pembroke College. His publications include The Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Introduction (2017) and Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry (2019).

List of Figures and Tables



Introduction

 Nicolai Sinai



Part 1 Literary Features of the Medinan Qurʾan



1 Towards a Compositional Grammar of the Medinan Suras

 Nicolai Sinai



2 Lexical Layers vs Structural Paradigms in the Opening of Sūrat al-Baqara: Typically Medinan Structures in Q 2, Q 3, and Some Shorter Medinan Compositions

 Marianna Klar



3 Formulae and Repetition in the Medinan Qurʾan: The Story of the Golden Calf between Meccan and Medinan Suras

 Cecilia Palombo



4 Interrogative Rhetoric and Deliberative Discourse in the Medinan Suras

 Nora K. Schmid



5 Vocatives in the Qurʾan and the Framing of Prophetic Proclamations

 Devin J. Stewart



Part 2 Ritual, Prophetology, and Law: Some Medinan Themes



6 The Qibla of Muhammad’s Community Reconsidered

 Angelika Neuwirth



7 Obeying God and His Messenger: Medinan Prophetology in the Meccan Qurʾan?

 Andrew J. O’Connor



8 Law in the Medinan Qurʾan: The Case of Biblical Incest Law and Its Qurʾanic Reiteration

 Holger Zellentin



Part 3 Studies of Individual Suras



9 The Dynamics of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān (Q 3)

 Neal Robinson



10 A Guide to the Legal Material in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Q 4)

 Joseph E. Lowry



11 Emotive Rhetoric, Plot, and Persuasion in a Jihād Surah (Q 8 al-Anfāl)

 Karen Bauer



12 Intratextuality, Doublets, and Orality in the Qurʾan, with Attention to Suras 61 and 66

 Gabriel S. Reynolds



13 Q 63 (Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn): A Text-Critical and Structural Analysis

 Saqib Hussain



Index