- The Psalms, strictly spoken, thus coexist as a scripture in itself with the Torah (at-tawrāt), given to Moses, and the Gospel (al-injīl) related to Jesus—without, however, reaching a position comparable to theirs as an authoritative precursor of the new revelation; David’s Qurʾanic significance is also much below that of Moses and Jesus. It is only one Qurʾanic statement that is explicitly connected to the Psalms, namely, Q 21:105: wa-la-qad katabnā fī z-zabūri min baʿdi dh-dhikri anna l-arḍa yarithuhā ʿibādiya ṣ-ṣaliḥūn (“we wrote in the Psalms—after the praise—: my just servants will inherit the earth”)—which in its wording is reminiscent of Ps 37:9.11.29 (Speyer, Die biblischen Erzählungen, 348). Even more, however, than through their concrete textual form, the Psalms are present in the Qurʾan as a liturgical type, to a degree that one can assume psalm intertexts for wide parts of the early Qurʾanic texts. Indeed, many early surahs sound like distant echoes of the Psalms, such as the “consolation surahs” al-Kawthar (Q 108) and ash-Sharḥ (Q 94), or Qurʾanic hymns like al-Aʿlā (Q 87) and al-ʿAlaq (Q 96), or “refrain surahs” like ar-Raḥmān (Q 55), which will be discussed below, and al-Mursalāt (Q 77), the latter two recalling psalms shaped in the form of a litany.Since liturgical piety imprinted by psalm texts has to be presupposed for the Syrian Churches whose impact reached out into the region of the Arabian Peninsula.
- Since recitation of the Psalms was an important element of monastic piety, it is likely that zabūr in this verse refers to a psalm corpus rather than to holy scripture in general.
- Differences between the Psalms/Qu’ran: What we must assume to have been current in the Qurʾanic milieu are not fixed texts but a common liturgical language promoted through oral tradition, which only in a few individual cases results in an unambiguous reflection of individual psalm texts in the Qurʾan. As a rule, this language remains limited to particular images or a particular combination of ideas. As is well-known, the Psalms are—in contrast to the Qurʾan—immediate reflections of the way of life of a rural society. Without the assumption of psalm intertexts, it would be hard to account for the presence in the Qurʾan of such rural images as the fruit-bearing tree as an image of the just (Q 14:24–26), or allusions to the vegetative cycle, like the use of the sprouting yet quickly withering grass as an image of the transitoriness of man (Q 105:5). All of these images are predominant in the Book of Psalms. As a rule, in Qurʾanic contexts, blessings of nature are viewed as gifts necessitating human gratefulness, an idea that is less frequent in the Psalm (Cf. Cragg, The Event of the Qurʾan, 146–162, and Graham, “Winds.”).
- The observation that early Meccan surahs are structurally similar to the Psalms, which equally constitute polythematic compositions, has long been made (Neuwirth, “Bemerkungen”; see also Schippers, “Psalms”). The fact that the Qurʾanic texts are intended to be used as liturgical texts and thus—like the Psalms—to be “performed,” i.e. to be chanted supported by a cantilena, is obvious from their composition (Neuwirth, Komposition der mekkanischen Suren). Several surahs even point to the practice of recitation—exercised in the framework of a vigil—as the locus of the receiving of new texts. Regarding their literary shape and their function, the early Qurʾanic texts are much more closely related to the Psalms than—as is usually held—to the Bible as such. At the same time, striking differences exist. The early Qurʾanic texts are in no way a paraphrase of the Psalms; their vision of history is completely different from that of the Psalmist; while many psalms praise divine “deeds of salvation in history,” the emerging world view of the Qurʾan relies far less on history than on a new eschatology-oriented perception of linear time that is to be communicated to the listeners, many of whom are still adhering to cyclic perceptions of time as are expressed in pre-Islamic poetry (See Tamer, Zeit und Gott.).
- Similarities and differences between both corpora, of course, become most evident in those cases where the Psalms and the Qurʾan enter into an intertextual conversation extending over longer sections of texts.Two such cases will be discussed in the following: briefly in the case of the parallel between Q 78 and Ps 104, more extensively in the case of the Qurʾanic analogue to Ps 136, namely, Q 55.
- Q 78 offers one of the very rare cases in which a non-narrative biblical subtext is clearly discernable, since the āyāt-cluster, vv. 6–16, is evidently a reference to Psalm 104:5ff:
- The most striking of these is the image of the earth as a tent that does not recur in the Qurʾan again (Ps 104:2, Q 78:6–7). The earthly tent is presented as firmly resting on pillars (Ps 104:5, cf. Q 78:7), and as having the sky as its roof (Ps 104:2) that is fixed to the earth by tent-pegs (Q 78:7). In both texts, the image of the tent is not exclusive, however: in the surah, the assumption of “seven firm ones” with the sun as their lamp (Q 78:12–13)33 does not fit with the tent metaphor without generating tension.Similarly, in the psalm, the tent-metaphor collides with the perception of the cosmos as a multi-storied house of God, from whose “upper chambers” (Ps 104:3.13) God provides for his creation (Cf. Gunkel, Psalmen, 448). This blatantly anthropomorphic image is not reflected in the Qurʾan. Both texts also present a number of natural phenomena like clouds (Ps 104:13, Q 78:14), mountains (Ps 104:13, Q 78:7), the sun (Ps 104:19.22, Q 78:13) and the night (Ps 104:20, Q 78:10) as well as human subsistence derived from the growing of plants (Ps 104:14; Q 78:15–16) as divine gifts.
- In the psalm, on the other hand, a similarly cosmic metaphor is applied, not to man, but in order to praise the divine majesty (Ps 104 hōd we-hādār lābhāshtā, ʿōṭēh ōr kassamlāh, “you have donned majesty and splendor, covering yourself with light as with a garment”). The Qurʾan also mentions the seven planetary spheres that are not present in the psalm. Perhaps the principal and most noteworthy difference between the two texts is the kind of worlds they outline: The psalm sketches an extensive mythic tableau, presenting the divine persona in rather anthropomorphic shape as holding court, all of this being expressed in the present tense as if occurring under the eyes of the Psalmist himself. The divine persona moves along in a heavenly chariot, personally shapes the living conditions of his creation, and takes care of their subsistence. Creation is dynamically affected, set in motion by his presence; wild beasts come forward and retreat, and ask God for their food (Ps 104:20–22).
- Things are different with the relation between Q 55 and Ps 136. A number of common characteristics, primarily the striking phenomenon of antiphonal speech, the employment of a refrain that is continued through almost the entire surah, suggest that Q 55 is not just a text replete with references to Ps 136, but a re-reading of it, a counterpart to the psalm intended as such.Of special importance are the refrains: in the psalm, the refrain consists in the hymnic kī le-ʿōlām ḥasdō, “for his kindness endures forever,” whereas in the Qurʾan the refrain is an address to the mythic groups of men and demons: fabi-ayyi ālāʾi rabbikumā tukadhdhibān, “so which of your Lord’s bounties do you both deny?” Both refrains, although not identical, serve as reminders of the truth that there are divine self-manifestations, “signs,” accessible to human perception, in the real world that must be heeded. The text of Sūrat ar-Raḥmān, given here in an EnglishArabic synopsis, runs as follows:
- The world is—particularly because of the presence of the divine persona who shapes and reigns it—a “pleasant space,” marked, not unlike its classical correlates, by a plethora of idyllic components and by a vivid interaction between them. This observation does not hold true for the Qurʾanic surah. And so the Qurʾān appropriates Psalmic imagery, while negating the anthropomorphism present within it.
