A topic that caught my attention in Zellentin’s The Qurʾān’s Legal Culture, chapter 3, is that in the Didascalia Apostolorum he says of Jesus “the one who frees us from burdens and weights.” Similarly, the Quran describes the prophet of Islam in Al-A’raf 157 as “the lifter of their burdens”. Since the Bible is the…

Clement of Alexandria argues in book 6 chapter 9 that Jesus did not actually need to eat to live. When the Quran says that Jesus and his mother were eating in Q5:75, it is meant to oppose such a theological approach rather than a random remark.

Article The Qurʾān mentions ships, sea-voyages, sea trade and storms on the sea in sixteen different verses and passages, besides references to ships in narratives about Noah (Nūḥ), Jonah (Yūnus) and Moses (Mūsā). Vivid, visual depictions render the moment of devastation for travellers on a ship facing a storm at sea; the audience is directly…

Kathisma church and the Dome of the Rock are buildings of similar dimensions, so it’s plausible to believe that the Kathisma church is the architectural model of the Dome of the Rock. Essentially, the two screenshots above label the discovery, we’re gonna dive deep into the intertextuality of the Kathisma church and how it shows…

Some common discourse styles used in the Quran and the Bible: (Biblical turns of phrase in the Qur’an) When the examples are examined, it is seen that the Quran adapts the discourses from the New Testament to a greater extent than from the Old Testament. Some of these examples may well have arisen from commonalities…

The metaphor of the camel passing through the eye of the needle is compared between the Synoptic Gospels(Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25) and the Qur’an (7:40). However, there is a striking difference, in spite of the similarities between the Qur’anic and biblical texts: the Gospels talk about a rich person, whereas the Qur’an talks…

There is however one important clue already within the qur’anic verses that fosters an identification of Idrīs with Enoch; namely, their suggestive reference to the apparent supernatural removal of Enoch from human society: “We raised him (i.e., Idrīs) to a lofty place”. While it is true that some commentators (and hence Qur’an translations) interpret the…

The parables are also a preferred illustrative device of the Qurʾān; there are around thirty-nine parables mentioned in the Qurʾān that are scattered throughout its various chapters. According to Muslim accounts, most of these parables were revealed in Mecca and some in Medina. Like the Gospel parables, Qurʾānic parables provide the audience with an illustration…

this book shows already within the first 2 pages more than 30 cross-references: Other books on cross-references: Scholars have long maintained that scripture is its own interpreter and expositor. It has been widely accepted that the Qur’an explains itself and that the best approach to understanding its verses is to compare them internally. The twentieth…

Article Introduction Two features in particular have led to the extensive commentary on Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ (Q 112) in Muslim exegesis and Western scholarship. Arne Ambros even argues, in his extensive philological analysis of Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, that the rela tion between the brevity of the sūrah (fifteen words) and its extensive commentary make it the most…