ABSTRACT

Providing an analysis of the complete story of Mary in its liturgical, narrative and rhetorical contexts, this literary reading is a prerequisite to any textual reading of the Qur’an whether juristic, theological, or otherwise.

intertextuality between the Old Testament, New Testament and the Qur’an.

The Qur’an is an oral event, linguistic phenomenon and great literature. So the application of modern literary theories is essential to have full comprehension of the history of the development of literary forms from pre-Islamic period such as poetry, story telling, speech-giving to the present. In addition, there is a need, from a feminist perspective, to understand in depth why a Christian mother figure such as Mary was important in early Islam and in the different stages of the development of the Qur’an as a communication process between Muhammad and the early Muslim community.

Introducing modern literary theories, gender perspective and feminist criticism into Qur’anic scholarship for the first time, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers of Islamic Studies, Qur’anic and New Testament Studies, Comparative Literature and Feminist Theology.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

Sources and methodology

chapter 1|27 pages

Form of sūrat maryam

Middle Meccan, Sura 19 98 āyas, 89 rhyming; main rhymes: -iyyā/-ūn/-dā

chapter 2|32 pages

Maryam's story

Stylistic and narrative analysis

chapter 3|27 pages

Form of the verse units of the infancy story of Maryam in Sūral Āl ‘Imrān (Q 3:1-63) (Main rhymes:-āb/-ād/-ār -ūn -īn/-īm)

Explication of the polemic (1-30) and the narrative units (31-63) of Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān

chapter 5|20 pages

The infancy story of Maryam

Gender and narrative analysis and intertextuality between the Qur'an and the Protevangelium

chapter 7|11 pages

Conclusion