ABSTRACT
The Qur’an has been mined by creative writers for centuries, no less in the modern perioddefi ned here as the late eighteenth to the early twenty-fi rst century-than in earlier ones.2 Indeed, there appear to have been several imitations of the Qur’an in the classical and medieval periods.3 Why, then, does there exist no study devoted to its use in modern Arabic literature?4 There are, for instance, only two references to the Qur’an, both incidental, in the Modern Arabic Literature volume of the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature.5 M.M.Badawi’s Early Arabic Drama6 and Roger Allen’s The Arabic Novel: A Historical and Critical Introduction,7 to take but two examples, make no mention of the Qur’an at all. Is it that writers have not turned to the Qur’an for inspiration? Or has this not been studied? If not, why not? Could the answer to both questions be fear of repercussions?
