"How to Read the Qur'an"


Jan
22
2013

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  • Speaker: Carl Ernst, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
  • Host Department: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies (CMENAS)
  • Date: 01/22/2013
  • Time: 4:00 PM

  • Location: Room 2022 Thayer Building, 202 Thayer

  • Description:

    This presentation offers a non-theological way to read the Qur'an from a literary and historical perspective. The main characteristics of this approach are 1) a chronological reading of the text in the order of its original delivery, rather than the current canonical order; 2) close attention to inter-textual connections to earlier religious writings; and 3) exploration of ring structure or symmetrical composition as a way of locating central passages. These techniques offer readers new ways to understand a text that often has proved to be baffling and forbidding.