My interest in the relationships between the Bible and the Qur’an was initially inspired by the work of my undergraduate mentor, the late Peter J. Awn, who was also my Ph.D. director. Peter’s groundbreaking work on the figure of Iblis, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblīs in Sufi Psychology (Brill, 1983), demonstrates the complexity of Muslim engagements with biblical, Jewish, and Christian tradition, emphasizing both what is genuinely ancient and what startlingly new in the appropriation and adaptation of older portrayals of Satan in the Qur’an and Muslim tradition, especially Sufism. Peter’s work—and his open-minded and balanced approach to the intersecting traditions he studied—informed both my undergraduate thesis, on modern Marian devotion among Muslims and Christians in Egypt, and what would become my Ph.D. thesis and first monograph, on the reception of the Golden Calf story in the Qur’an and Islam.
I am especially interested in thinking about Judaism, Christianity, and the prophetic movement that eventually crystallized into Islam as mutually engaged in a complex and contentious process of defining themselves and others according to a ‘biblical’ paradigm—that is, by appropriating and reinterpreting the scriptural, covenantal, messianic, and prophetic legacy of ancient Israel. This is the approach I take in my book, The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam (out now from Oxford University Press; TOC here), which locates the qur’anic treatment of this important narrative in the context of ancient and late antique reinterpretations of the biblical story among Jews and Christians. The book has recently been awarded the 2021 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion in the Textual Studies category. The introduction and first chapter of the book can be found here, and here is the bibliography.
I have examined aspects of the subject of Bible and Qur’an in numerous publications, listed below. In some cases I focus on the origins of qur’anic discourse in the literatures of Late Antiquity, while in others I focus on the portrayal and reinterpretation of biblical themes and characters—modulated through their qur’anic versions—in later Islamic literature, particularly the genre of qisas al-anbiya’ or “tales of the prophets.” I am especially interested in the use of biblical models and paradigms in Islamic historiography and prophetology, as well as the complex treatment of biblical and parabiblical materials adapted and transmitted within Muslim tradition, the so-called isra’iliyyat.
MONOGRAPH
The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam
Oxford Studies in the Abrahamic Religions
Oxford University Press, 2020
Reviews:
Nur Afra Afifah Amani Amatullah, Nur Laili Nabilah Nazahah Najiyah, and Inayah Rohmaniya
“Intertextuality and Late Antiquity in Michael E. Pregill’s Interpretation of the Worship of the Golden Calf in Surah Thāhā: 83–97”
Jurnal Studi Ilmu-Ilmu al-Qurʾan dan Hadis 24.1 (January 2023)
Reuven Firestone
Review of Qur’anic Research, March 2021
Abdulla Galadari
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, May 2021
Franz Volker Greifenhagen
Reading Religion, December 2022
Zohar Hadromi-Allouche
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, April 2023
John Kaltner
Horizons, December 2021
Paul Neuenkirchen
Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques, March 2023
Stephen Shoemaker
Church History, December 2021
Jillian Stinchcomb
Studies in Late Antiquity, November 2021
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
“Moses in the Wilderness”
Biblical Traditions in the Qur’an
Nicolai Sinai and Marianna Klar with Gabriel S. Reynolds and Holger Zellentin, eds.
Princeton, 2023 [in preparation]
“The Two Sons of Adam: Rabbinic Resonances and Scriptural Virtuosity in Sūrat al-Māʾidah”
Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 6 (2021): 167–224
“The People of Scripture/Ahl al-Kitāb”
The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an
Maria M. Dakake, Daniel Madigan, and George Archer, eds.
Routledge, 2021
“‘A Calf, A Body That Lows’: The Golden Calf from Late Antiquity to Classical Islam”
The Reception of Golden Calf Traditions in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Alec Lucas, Eric Mason, and Edmondo Lupieri, eds.
Brill, 2018, 264–296
DOI: 10.1163/9789004386860_018
“Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ as Genre and Discourse: From the Qurʾān to Elijah Muhammad”
(with Marianna Klar and Roberto Tottoli)
Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations 2.1 (Spring 2017)
DOI: 10.17613/0xw1-na44
“Some Reflections on Borrowing, Influence, and the Entwining of Jewish and Islamic Traditions; or, What an Image of a Calf Might Do”
Islamic Studies Today: Essays in Honor of Andrew Rippin
Majid Daneshgar and Walid A. Saleh, eds.
Leiden: Brill, 2016, 164–197
DOI: 10.1163/9789004337121_010
“Editor’s Introduction: The Qurʾān between Bible and Tafsīr”
(with Vanessa De Gifis)
Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association 1 (2016): 3–9
DOI: 10.5913/jiqsa.1.2017.a001
“‘Turn in Repentance to your Creator, then Slay Yourselves’: The Levitical Election, Atonement, and Secession in Early and Classical Islamic Exegesis”
Comparative Islamic Studies 6:1–2 (2010): 101–150
“Isra’iliyyat, Myth, and Pseudepigraphy: Wahb b. Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008): 215–284
“The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam”
Religion Compass 1.6 (2007): 643–659
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00044.x
ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES
Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009–)
“Bathsheba, IV. Islam” (3 [2011]: 603–605)
“Canon, V. Islam” (4 [2012]: 916–920)
“Children of Israel (Sūra 17)” (5 [2012]: 120–123)
“Demons, Demonology, VII. Islam” (6 [2013]: 571–577)
“Devil, IV. Islam” (with Zohar Hadromi-Allouche) (6 [2013]: 695–703)
“Exodus, The, V. Islam” (8 [2014]: 488–493)
“Fear, IV. Islam” (8 [2014]: 1016–1019)
“Ismāʿīlīs” (13 [2016]: 418–424)
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Routledge, 2016)
Contributed entries on “Abraham” (Qurʾan and Islam); “Adam” (Qur’an and Islam}; “Ahl al-Kitab”; ““David, King” (Qur’an and Islam); “Hanif”; “Israʾiliyyat”; “Solomon” (Qur’an and Islam)
BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Shoemaker, Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study
University of California Press, 2022
Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming)
David S. Powers, Zayd: The Little-Known Story of Muḥammad’s Adopted Son
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014
International Journal of Middle East Studies 51 (2019): 657-660
DOI: 10.1017/S0020743819000825
Khaleel Mohammed, David in the Muslim Tradition: The Bathsheba Affair
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 27.3 (2016): 349–351
DOI: 10.1080/09596410.2015.1108631
Shari Lowin, The Making of a Forefather: Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegetical Narratives
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006
Review of Middle East Studies 44.1 (2010): 104–106
DOI: 10.1017/S2151348100001294
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
The Qur’an Seminar Commentary: A Collaborative Study of 50 Qur’anic Passages
Mehdi Azaiez, Gabriel S. Reynolds, Tommaso Tesei, and Hamza M. Zafer, eds.
Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016
Open Access digital version available here.
[Contributed commentaries on passages 1–14, 16, 18, 20–23, 25–27, 29–30, 32–34, 36–38, 40–48, 50]