There is very little in the Qurʾān that is strictly medical in content. The most direct reference is in q 16:69, which states that the drink (sharāb) produced by bees, i.e. honey (q.v.), is “healing” (shifāʾ) for people (see illness and health ). The word shifāʾ, “health,” is further attested three times but in contexts where it is often understood in the meaning of remedy against ignorance (q.v.; jahl) of God and the revelation (see revelation and inspiration ). The word illness (maraḍ) is attested thirteen times but in all these cases it refers to the heart (q.v.), and is t…

Addressing the issue of “scripture” in relation to the Qurʾān is at once a straight-¶ forward and a complicated venture. It is straightforward because in many respects the Qurʾān itself puts forward a generic concept of scripture that is consistent with that widely used today in the general study of religion. It is complicated because it raises numerous questions of historical, sociological and theological import for any understanding of either Islamic scripturalism or the relation of Islamic scripturalism to that of other religious traditions (see theology and the qurʾān ). In shor…

Following a brief discussion of ritual in modern academic discourse which proposes a functional typology of rituals both within and involving the Qurʾān, and taking into account the context in which certain rituals occur and are performed, this article will then explore the treatment of qurʾānic rituals in works of Islamic jurisprudence (see law and the qurʾān ). Those rituals which employ verses of the Qurʾān — written or spoken, individually or collectively — in various ceremonial, talismanic and therapeutic contexts will also be examined. This arti…

In his anthropological history of India, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. ca. 442/1050), one of the most celebrated Muslim scientists of the classical period, starts a chapter “On the configuration of the heavens and the earth according to [Indian] astrologers,” with a long comparison between the cultural imperatives of Muslim and Indian sciences. The views of Indian astrologers, al-Bīrūnī maintains, have developed in a way which is different from those of our [Muslim] fellows; this is because, unlike the scriptures revealed before it, the Qurʾān does not artic…

Sīra is a branch of Arabic literature that is devoted to the earliest salvation history of Islam and focuses on God's actions towards his prophet Muḥammad and through him, i.e. the revelation of the Qurʾān and the foundation of an Islamic community. The term sīra can also connote a work belonging to that literature. Sīra is the noun of kind (fiʿla) of the Arabic verb sāra, “to go,” “to travel,” etc., indicating the manner of doing what is expressed by the verb (see arabic language; grammar and the qurʾān). Hence it originally means “way of going,” but the most frequent meaning is “…

Syriac was an Aramaic dialect spoken by Christians in and around Arabia during the time of the Qurʾān’s appearance. It originated in northern Mesopotamia and Syria but became the lingua franca of the late antique Near East (ca. second-seventh centuries C.E.), and the “golden age” of Syriac literature flourished from the fourth to the seventh centuries (Brock, A brief outline, 9-21). Syriac was the official language of the West Syrian (Jacobite) and East Syrian (Nestorian) churches, while the closely related dialect of Christian Palestinian Aramaic was used by the Chalcedonian…

The influence of the Qurʾān on Persian language and literature has been pervasive but at the same time, diffuse and often mediated, making it difficult, in the absence of methodologically rigorous studies of the matter, to quantify or assess precisely. Persian poetry and prose belles lettres of the fourth/tenth to fifth/eleventh centuries, though of “Islamicate” expression, looked for the bulk of its subject matter to the pre-Islamic Middle Persian traditions of minstrelsy and lyric poetry, advice literature (andarz), epic and romance (which typically assert the values o…

In view of the all-encompassing significance of the Qurʾān in the faith (q.v.) of the Muslim community it is to be expected that its influence would be manifested in many spheres of life (see everyday life, qurʾān in ). The holy book has had an impact not only through its cultic role but also as a venerated object and through its importance to other cultural practices. The Qurʾān's effect on material culture is an extension of the various functions it plays in devotional life and although some of these must have been prominent since…

Since the earliest days of Islam, the Qurʾān has been considered the foundation of all knowledge and moral behavior. Originally, its study and transmission took place via lessons and sermons in the mosque from which the informal educational model of madrasa schools developed, as well as the master-student model, where students sought out teachers for their particular knowledge and studied with them for varying lengths of time. These two models formed a more or less uniform system that lasted for over a thousand years and actually stil…

Addressing the issue of “scripture” in relation to the Qurʾān is both a straightforward and a complicated venture. It is straightforward because in many respects the Qurʾān itself offers a generic concept of scripture that is consistent with that widely used today in the general study of religion. It is complicated because it raises numerous questions of historical, sociological, and theological import for any understanding of either Islamic scripturalism or the relation of Islamic scripturalism to that of other religious traditions (see theology and the Qurʾān). To sum up, both…

Several terms ( ṭilasm, pl. ṭalismāt or ṭalāsim; ruqya, pl. ruqā; siḥr) connote this topic and the subject itself includes a wide range of practices all based on the materialization/actualization of the Qurʾān, whether tapping the power inherent in verbal performance or creating physical renderings of divine speech. These materializations and actualizations of the Qurʾān are often designated paraliturgical, that is, those uses of the Qurʾān outside the contexts of formal Islamic rites ( ṣalāt, tajwīd; see prayer; recitation of the qurʾān). They include the range of personal …

Sīra is a branch of Arabic literature that is devoted to the earliest salvation history of Islam and focuses on God’s actions towards and through his prophet Muḥammad, i.e. the revelation of the Qurʾān and the foundation of an Islamic community. The term sīra can also denote a work belonging to that literature. Sīra is the noun of kind (fiʿla) of the Arabic verb sāra, “to go,” “to travel,” etc., indicating the manner in which the action expressed by the verb is carried out (see Arabic language; grammar and the Qurʾān). Hence, it originally meant “way of going,” but its most frequent …

This article deals with the exegetical efforts of Muslim scholars as well as with their views of exegetical methodology from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. Aspects and limits of modernity in the exegesis of the Qurʾān Treating early modern and contemporary exegesis of the Qurʾān as a distinct subject implies that there are characteristics by which this exegesis differs noticeably from that of previous times. The assumption of such characteristics, however, is by no means equally correct for all attempts at interp…

Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 974/1567)  Sin, Major and Minor Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449)  Foreign Vocabulary  Occasions of Revelation  Satanic Verses  Sin, Major and Minor  Traditional Disciplines of Qurʾānic Studies Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad (d. 241/855)  Anthropomorphism  Companions of the Prophet  Court  Createdness of the Qurʾān  Creeds  Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval  Hell and Hellfire  Honey  Inimitability  Intercession  Manual Labor  Muʿtazila  Names of the Prophet  Noah  Philosophy and the Qurʾān  Preserved Tablet  Raqīm  Recitation of the Qurʾān  Scr…

In Islamic theological representation the Qurʾān is considered the “knowledge/science” (ʿilm), so it is not surprising that the understanding and exegesis (tafsīr) of this text were considered the most excellent kinds of knowledge (see knowledge and learning ). Thus in a tradition attributed to Muḥammad (see ḥadīth and the qurʾān ), transmitted by the Companion Ibn Masʿūd (see companions of the prophet ), we read: “Whoever wants knowledge, has to scrutinize the Qurʾān, because it contains the knowledge of the first and last (generations)” (Ibn Abī Shayba, Muṣannaf, vi, 127, no. 30…

The Fātiḥa (“Opener,” or, more properly, “The opening of/to scripture,” fātiḥat al-kitāb, see book), is the first sūra of the Qurʾān. It occupies a unique place, both formally and theologically, within the ʿUthmānic text of the Qurʾān and in ritual prayer (ṣalāt, see codices of the Qurʾān; ritual and the Qurʾān; prayer). Its seven brief verses come at the very beginning of the Qurʾānic text, a placement in contrast to the remaining 113 sūras, which are roughly arranged from longest to shortest. It is the one sūra that every Muslim must be able to recite by heart in order to perform the rit…

Sūrat al-Ṭāriq  Sūrat al-Ṭāriq   Biology as the Creation and Stages of Life   Sūra(s)  1   Heaven and Sky   Planets and Stars   Rhetoric and the Qurʾān   Soothsayer   Time  1-2   Pit   Soothsayer  1-3   Form and Structure of the Qurʾān   Pit  1-17   Rhetoric and the Qurʾān  2   Teaching  3   Planets and Stars  4   Grammar and the Qurʾān   Protection   Spirit Beings  5-7   Creation   Theology and the Qurʾān  5-8   Creation   Resurrection  5-12   Power and Impotence  6   Medicine and the Qurʾān   Water  11   Form and Structure of the Qurʾān   Heaven and Sky  11-12   Form and Struct…

Nourishment, in solid and liquid form, that sustains life. This topic may be examined in contexts where the following verbal roots frequently occur in the Qurʾān: ṭ-ʿ-m, “to eat,” (fourth form “to feed, nourish”), ʾ-k-l, “to eat,” and sh-r-b, “to drink.” (See agriculture and vegetation for additional terms related to food and drink that deal with some of the major food resources available to the peoples of early Islam, and with vegetation in general.) The qurʾānic terms treated here are those that are related to food consumption. These ke…

Flavius Mithridates, alias Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada, born around 1450, probably died in 1489 or 1490, was a translator of parts of the Qurʾān and of Muslim exegetical texts into Latin. He was a Sicilian scholar of Jewish origin who converted to Christianity in his youth and was active, in particular, in Sicily, Rome, at the court of Urbino, and in the entourage of the humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, for whom he was a teacher of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. In addition to numerous tra…

  ʿ-r-f    maʿrifa    Bahāʾīs    Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval    Gratitude and Ingratitude    Literacy    Responsibility    Scholar    Social Sciences and the Qurʾān    maʿrifa qalbiyya    maʿrifat al-qirāʾa wa-l-kitāba    Ṣūfism and the Qurʾān    maʿrūf    Ethics and the Qurʾān    Gender    Hospitality and Courtesy    Ignorance    Medicine and the Qurʾān    Philosophy and the Qurʾān    Psalms    Virtue    al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar    taʿārafa    ʿArafāt    ʿarafa    Ignorance    Knowledge and Learning    People of the Heights    …