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Sperl, Stefan (2020) 'The Qurʾan and Arabic Poetry.' In: Shah, Mustafa and Abdel-Haleem, Muhammad, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Oxford handbooks)

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Abstract

This chapter reviews recent scholarship on the interface between the Qur’an and Arabic Poetry, from pre-Islamic times to the modern period. It shows that Arabic poetry has for long been engaged in an inter-textual dialogue with the Qur’an which has taken numerous forms, subject to changing historical and cultural circumstances. At the core is the dual status of the Arabic language as bearer of a divinely created message and as cherished medium of poetic invention. The chapter shows that the resulting tension between the competing and mutually reinforcing claims of poetry and prophecy can be observed throughout the history of Arabic poetry up to the present day.

Item Type: Book Chapters
Keywords: poetry, prophecy, authority, qaṣīda, panegyric, free verse
SOAS Departments & Centres: Legacy Departments > Faculty of Languages and Cultures > Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East
Departments and Subunits > School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics
ISBN: 9780199698646
Copyright Statement: This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies edited by Muhammad Abdel Haleem and Mustafa Shah due for publication in 2017
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199698646.013.16
Date Deposited: 04 Apr 2016 17:24
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/22256

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