ABSTRACT
According to most critics, however, the long Medinan suras exhibit little or no obvious unity and coherence. These suras present the analyst with a more expository and excursive discourse and feature a greater abundance of parenthetical passages and a looser and more ambiguous structure than their Meccan counterparts.4 Angelika Neuwirth, also a contributor to our appreciation of the composition of Qur'anic suras as coherent units, has described the Medinan "long suras," such as suras two (Q. 2, al-Baqara) and four (Q. 4, al-Nisa') , as lacking any comprehensive compositional schema. They serve, in her words, as "collection baskets for isolated verse groups."5
