ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that a more nuanced relationship, which can often be described as the Qur’an’s attempt to reform rather than to replace the religion of the Jews and the Christians of its time. It explores the Qur’an’s Arabian, Biblical, Jewish, and Christian context and its attempt to return its contemporaries to the idealized religious origins connected with Abraham. The book addresses a specific juncture in the development of the study of the Qur’an. It suggests that the notion of the persecution and especially the stoning of the prophets first emerged within Judaism itself before it was eagerly taken over by Christians, all the while continuing to resonate in the rabbinic tradition. The Western academic study of the Qur’an, finally, also began precisely with a new attempt to read the Qur’an as a historical document in light of Jewish and Christian sources.
