Brannon Wheeler

Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and  the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of “sacrifice” in the history of religion.

Nineteenth-century philologist and Biblical critic William Robertson Smith famously concluded that the sacred status of holy places derives not from their intrinsic nature but from their social character. Building upon this insight, Mecca and Eden uses Islamic exegetical and legal texts to analyze the rituals and objects associated with the sanctuary at Mecca.

Integrating Islamic examples into the comparative study of religion, Brannon Wheeler shows how the treatment of rituals, relics, and territory is related to the more general mythological depiction of the origins of Islamic civilization. Along the way, Wheeler considers the contrast between Mecca and Eden in Muslim rituals, the dispersal and collection of relics of the prophet Muhammad, their relationship to the sanctuary at Mecca, and long tombs associated with the gigantic size of certain prophets mentioned in the Quran.

This work draws upon a host of late antique and medieval sources to examine selected Muslim exegeses of Moses in the Quran. The Muslim exegetical image o f Moses in the Quran is linked with ancient Sumerian stories o f Gilgamesh, var- ious versions of the Alexander Romance (Ethiopic, Syriac, Persian), Aramaic translations of the Abraham story in Genesis, and rabbinic accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes in the Talmud and the Midrash. Muslim exegetes associate Moses with the Jacob story in Genesis, Dhu al-Qarnayn 's visit to the cities at the ends of the Earth, and the Prophet Muhammad as caretaker in the garden of Eden. In doing so, the Muslim exegetes do not confuse and mistake earlier sources, but they intentionally use non-Quranic elements thick in Biblical allusions to delineate a particular image of Moses, the Torah, and the Israelites. It is an image of Moses, drawn in contrast to the Biblical and Jewish image o f Moses, which the Muslim exegetes use to identify and authorize themselves as linked to the different image of the Prophet Muhammad. Using approaches from Biblical Studies, History of Religions, Folklore Studies, and Judeo-Arabic Studies, this book suggests how Muslim exegesis ofthe Quran is purposeful in its appropriation and adapta- tion ofelements consonant with Jewish and Christian interpretation and theology of the Bible.

Using examples from Islamic law, Ndembu divination, and Aranda religion, this book argues how the notion of "canon" is used to authorize and maintain certain types of interpretive reasoning and the social institutions that employ them. The bulk of the book outlines how the Hanafi school of Islamic law was able to legitimize itself by extending the canonical authority of the Quran to the sunnah of the prophet, the opinions of selected local authorities, and the scholarship of earlier generations. The Hanafi example shows that the application of canon is not about overcoming the limits of a "closed" text but rather about imposing limits on a range of interpretations made possible by a variegated and malleable textual corpus.

What was the name of Noah's son who did not survive the Flood? Why do Pharaoh and Haman build the Tower of Babel? For what reasons does Moses travel to the ends of the Earth? Who is the 'Horned-One' who holds back Gog and Magog until the Day of Judgement? These are some of the questions answered in the oral sources and Quran commentaries on the stories of the prophets as they are understood by Muslims. Designed as an introduction to the Quran with particular emphasis on parallels with Biblical tradition, this book provides a concise but detailed overview of Muslim prophets from Adam to Muhammad. Each of the chapters is organized around a particular prophet, including an English translation of the relevant verses of the Quran and a wide selection of classical, medieval and modern Muslim commentaries on those verses. Quran commentaries include references to Sunni and Shi'i sources from Spain, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. An extensive glossary provides an annotated list of all scholarly transmitters and cited texts with suggestions for further reading.This is an excellent book for undergraduate courses, and students in divinity and seminary programmes. Comparisons between the Quran and Bible, and among Jewish, Christian and Islamic exegesis are highlighted. Oral sources, references adapted from apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works, and inter-religious dialogue are all evident throughout these stories of the prophets. This material shows how the Quran and its interpretation are integral to a fuller and more discerning understanding of the Bible and its place in the history of Western religion.

Part of the American Academy of Religion's Teaching Religious Studies series, Teaching Islam brings together leading Islamic Studies scholars to offer perspectives on how to teach Islam in an undergraduate setting. The contributors have a wealth of experience in diverse classroom settings, from survey courses at large public universities to small classes at private colleges. The twelve chapters provide guidance for educators teaching topics such as Islamic law, the Qur'an, Sufism, women in Islam, Islam in America, and the use of new information technologies in the classroom. Along with providing practical information about structuring courses and assignments, the contributors examine the place of Islamic Studies in the larger frameworks of religious studies and the liberal arts curriculum. Throughout, they aim to combine practical pedagogical concerns with up-to-date scholarship.

In the religious systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, gods and demigods were neither abstract nor distant, but communicated with mankind through signs and active intervention. Men and women were thus eager to interpret, appeal to, and even control the gods and their agents. In Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, a distinguished array of scholars explores the many ways in which people in the ancient world sought to gain access to—or, in some cases, to bind or escape from—the divine powers of heaven and earth.
Grounded in a variety of disciplines, including Assyriology, Classics, and early Islamic history, the fifteen essays in this volume cover a broad geographic area: Greece, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Topics include celestial divination in early Mesopotamia, the civic festivals of classical Athens, and Christian magical papyri from Coptic Egypt. Moving forward to Late Antiquity, we see how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each incorporated many aspects of ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman religion into their own prayers, rituals, and conceptions. Even if they no longer conceived of the sun, moon, and the stars as eternal or divine, Christians, Jews, and Muslims often continued to study the movements of the heavens as a map on which divine power could be read.

The reader already familiar with studies of ancient religion will find in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars both old friends and new faces. Contributors include Gideon Bohak, Nicola Denzey, Jacco Dieleman, Radcliffe Edmonds, Marvin Meyer, Michael G. Morony, Ian Moyer, Francesca Rochberg, Jonathan Z. Smith, Mark S. Smith, Peter Struck, Michael Swartz, and Kasia Szpakowska.

Published as part of Penn State's Magic in History series, Prayer, Magic, and the Stars appears at a time of renewed interest in divination and occult practices in the ancient world. It will interest a wide audience in the field of comparative religion as well as students of the ancient world and late antiquity.

This series is a companion to the Comparative Islamic Studies journal. It publishes work that integrates Islamic studies into the contemporary study of religion, providing an opportunity for expert scholars of Islam to demonstrate the more general significance of their research both to comparatavists and to specialists working in other areas. Attention to Islamic materials from outside the central Arabic lands is of special interest, as are comparisons that stress the diversity of Islam as it interacts with changing human conditions.

In honor of Fred M. Donner's long and distinguished career as one of the foremost interpreters of early Islam, this volume collects more than a dozen original studies by his students. They range over a wide array of sub-fields in Islamic history and Islamic studies, including early history, historiography, Islamic law, religious studies, Qur'anic studies and Islamic archaeology. The book also includes a bibliography of Donner's works and a biographical sketch of sorts. Taken together, these essays are a clear testament to Donner's wide-ranging and continuing impact on the field.

Contributors include: Sean W. Anthony, Jonathan A. C. Brown, David Cook, Vaness De Gifis, Asa Eger, Tracy Hoffman, Marion H. Katz, Kathryn M. Kueny, Shari Lowin, Jens Scheiner, Robert Schick, Stuart Sears, Elizabeth Urban, Tasha Vorderstrasse, Brannon Wheeler, and Hayrettin Yücesoy.

Recent scholarship on the Qur'an has noted the need for more attention to the historical content of the Qur'an, and in evaluating how the historical study of the Qur'an compares to the long tradition of Biblical studies in Europe and North America. This paper examines the question of the historicity of the Qur'an's contents with particular attention to how historical information in the Qur'an has traditionally been used and compared to the historical narrative drawn from Biblical scholarship by Muslim exegetes. In particular, this study focuses on the question of the ‘Arab’ prophets Hūd, Sālih, and Shucayb: of all the prophets mentioned by name in the Qur'an, only these three appear not to be mentioned in the Bible, and, as such, they provide a helpful example with which to examine the treatment of historical materials in the Qur'an. In addition to Islamic exegesis, this paper uses a number of non-Qur'anic literary sources, and archeological findings, to demonstrate that there is a fair amount of evidence external to the Qur'an for the historicity of the Arab prophets, suggesting the need for a much more varied and wider consideration of the phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient world as the common heritage of the religions of the Book.

Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and  the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of “sacrifice” in the history of religion.

Recent scholarship focuses on the plasticity of the concept of “scripture” as it is defined by different religious traditions. Based on its contents, the Quran is most commonly compared to the Bible, yet such an approach misses the distinct way that the Quran is understood as an authoritative text by classical Muslim scholarship. Even “basic” information—knowing the number of words, the names of surahs, the structure of the text—is essential to understanding how Muslims see the Quran as scripture and the foundations upon which it is built. Muslims regard the Quran as the word of God, revealed to the prophet Muhammad, the primary source for determining the beliefs and practices of Islam. The text of the Quran is used in the teaching of Arabic and is the focus of Islamic learning. It is regarded as interceding on behalf of those who revere it, is recited as a part of regular rituals, and is treated as a sacred object in ritual and everyday settings. The exegetical and ritual use of th...

Is there an Islamic version of the UN doctrine of the "Responsibility to Protect"? Are Muslims obligated to defend their own community, and to save the rest of the world from tyranny andoppression? The UN doctrine commits member states to protect people from certain types of harm, and specifically includes protecting populations from their own governments. If a comparable Islamic doctrine exists, it is especially ironic that the UN doctrine is so frequently applied to Muslim majority countries in the Middle East. This irony allows for a new perspective on the continuing conceptual and physical conflicts between western powers and states in the Middle East.

RECENT scholarship in the history of religions has focused on how a given sacred text or canon is interpreted by the people who claim the authoritative status of that canon. It has been argued, in particular, that the appropriation and application of a canon consti-tute a ...

An examination of a number of unpublished commentaries on the Mukhtasar fī al-fiqh al-Hanafī of Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Qudūrī (d. 428/1037), shows that the Hanafī madhhab gains its authority and identity through a pedagogy focused on the conflict of opinions. Hanafī fiqh scholarship provides a case study of how commentary functions to define and perpetuate the institutional identity of individual scholars and the madhhab to which they are attached. Over time, the distinctions among the Hanafī authorities and between the Hanafī authorities and other non-Hanafī authorities were stressed and these distinctions multiplied rather than diminished. It is this conflict of opinions which seems to characterize Hanafī fiqh scholarship and serves as the primary means for the identification of individual scholarship and the authority of the madhhab as a whole. These unpublished commentaries show that being a Hanafī is not a matter of imitating earlier opinions, but rather suggest that Hanafī identity is linked to the authority of the members of the Hanafī madhhab who have learned to do fiqh through the medium of the ikhtilāf displayed in Hanafī textbooks.

Page 1. THE JEWISH ORIGINS OF QUR'AN 18:65-82? REEXAMINING ARENT JAN WENSINCK'S THEORY BRANNON M. WHEELER UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON The story of Moses and the anonymous servant of God mentioned in Q 18:65-82 has elicited much comment. ...