The Ascetic Qur'an and Its Kharijite Readers

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-54797-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 24, 450 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Texts and Studies on the Qur'an

Research on Islamic asceticism frequently highlights practices and ideas described in premodern Islamic literature on renunciation (zuhd). This study redirects our attention to the Qur’an’s ascetic dimension and its reception in the poems and sermons of the Kharijites, an early Islamic group known for extreme piety. It sheds light on the Qur’an’s engagement with late antique ascetic ideas, notably regarding scriptural reading and recitation. In their reception of the Qur’an, the Kharijites developed practices of reading and recitation characterized by the interiorization and enactment of scripture. This book offers a new view of the religious culture of the first and early second centuries of Islam through the lens of an understudied group and its attempts to put the Qur’an into practice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schmid, Nora K

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam: Koran, Heilige Texte & Traditionsliteratur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Note on Translation, Transliteration, and other Formal Conventions

Introduction

Part 1 Ascetic Reading/Recitation in the Qur’an

1 Asceticized Arabia

2 Competing Recitational Paradigms in the Qur’an

3 Ascetic Dimensions of Reading/Recitation in the Meccan Suras

4 Internalizing and Enacting God’s Word: Ascetic Striving in Late Meccan and Medinan Suras

Part 2 The Kharijites Reading/Reciting the Qur’an

5 Kharijite Origins between Myth, History, and Poetry

6 Internalization of Scripture and Kharijite Identity Formation

7 Scriptural Reading/Recitation and Enactment of the Qur’an in Early Kharijite Poetry

8 Scriptural Reading/Recitation and Enactment of the Qur’an in Sermons of Kharijites and Renunciants

Conclusion: Asceticism in the Qur’an and Kharijite Compositions

Appendix 1: A Tentative Classification of Late Antique Asceticism

Appendix 2: Select Sermons

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Nora K. Schmid (Ph.D. Freie Universität Berlin, 2018), is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen. She has previously held research and teaching positions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Hamburg, and the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the Qur’an, Islamic asceticism, Islamic religious literature, and Islamic law.