ABSTRACT
One could say that a comparative approach towards the Qurʾānic text and earlier scriptures and sacred traditions first emerges within the Qurʾān itself. 2 In addition, the scarcity of documentary evidence, and the problematic nature of the traditional Islamic literary sources, 3 which render complicated the study of the Qurʾān, makes a comparative approach a scholarly obligation. The Biblical, Midrashic and Apocryphal background of the Qurʾān 4 has been a matter of critical scholarly examination for the better part of two centuries. However, to my knowledge no direct comparative examination between the Qurʾān and Syriac Gospels has been undertaken. This absence is peculiar given that the late antique Arabian milieu in which the Qurʾān was revealed served as a point of contact between Arabian communities and the sacred literature and theological expression of Syriac Christian speaking groups. The lives of Arabic speaking Christians were diglossic, as they used Arabic for common everyday matters and Syriac for liturgical, religious purposes. 5 To appreciate the need for a study on the Qurʾān and the Syriac Gospels, it is first necessary to outline briefly the place of Syriac in earlier Qurʾānic Studies.
