Qur’anic Commentary: An Integrative Paradigm (QuCIP)

01/10/2018 to 30/09/2023

QuCIP is a five-year research project running from October 2018 to September 2023 and supported by a Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council.

QuCIP will deliver the first historical-critical commentary on a sizable portion of the Qur’an in English, covering some or all of the three longest and most complex compositions in the Islamic scripture, Surahs 2–4, as well as the short opening Surah 1. This commentary will exemplify an integrative exegetical approach capable of addressing three core dimensions of the Qur’an: the compositional structure of Qur’anic texts; the intricate processes of literary growth and redactional expansion by which many of them have been shaped; and the theological concerns and commitments governing the Qur’an’s engagement with antecedent (Jewish, Christian, and ancient Arabian) ideas, traditions, and literary forms. Pre-modern Islamic exegesis will be critically scrutinised as a valuable repository of close scriptural reading. Work on the QuCIP commentary will interlock with original research into the Qur’an’s compositional grammar, into Qur’anic law in its late antique context, and into aspects of the Islamic reception history of Surahs 2–4.