“Qurʾān and Arab Christianity: Religious Themes and Motifs in Pre-Qurʾanic Arabic Poetry”

To be held in Tübingen, Germany, on September 24-25, 2024

The two-day workshop aims at exploring the Qurʾān’s Arabian milieu, mainly as represented in pre-Qurʾanic poetry attributed to Christian and Pagan poets. Scholars have long noted that poetry attributed to pre-Quranic poets contain religious ideas and sentiments comparable to some that appear in the Qurʾān. References to God and to religious beliefs are found within the corpus of poetry ascribed to both Pagan and monotheistic Arab poets. As promising as this material sounds, it was long viewed as an unreliable source in the investigation of the Qurʾān’s milieu due to its codification long after the advent of Islam and the question of authenticity this raises. However, the importance of pre-Qurʾanic poetry has been increasingly recognized in recent years, and scholars have adopted some methods to verify its genuineness and to employ it in their efforts to examine the theological scene of pre-Islamic Arabia. The workshop will contribute to the efforts of approaching ancient Arabian poetry as a source for historical inquiry into the context in which the Qurʾān emerged.

Topics to be addressed by the workshop include:

1.    Monotheism in Arabia prior to the rise of Islam

2.    Religious themes and motifs in pre-Quranic poetry and how they compare to the Qurʾān

3.    Al-Ḥīra as a center of Late Antique Christianity and as a literary hub

4.    Possible affinities between late antique Arabic poetry and Judeo-Christian texts

5.    Innovative methodological approaches to the study of pre-Quranic poetry, especially those addressing authenticity.

The workshop is organized by Nadja Abuhussein nadja.abuhussein@uni-tuebingen.de.