L’auteur

Umeyye Isra Yazicioglu est professeure de Theologie et d’Histoire des religions a l’Universite de St Joseph (USA).

Le livre

Yazicioglu (Isra), Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age, Penn State University Press, 2013, 208 p. ISBN 978-0271061566

Presentation

The Qur’an contains many miracle stories, from Moses’s staff turning into a serpent to Mary’s conceiving Jesus as a virgin. In Understanding the Qur’anic Miracle Stories in the Modern Age, Isra Yazicioglu offers a glimpse of the ways in which meaningful implications have been drawn from these apparently strange narratives, both in the premodern and modern era. It fleshes out a fascinating medieval Muslim debate over miracles and connects its insights with early and late modern turning points in Western thought and with contemporary Qur’anic interpretation. Building on an apparent tension within the Qur’an and analyzing crucial cases of classical and modern Muslim engagement with these miracle stories, this book illustrates how an apparent site of conflict between faith and reason, or revelation and science, can become a site of fruitful exchange.
This book is a distinctive contribution to a new trend in Qur’anic Studies : it reveals the presence of insightful Qur’anic interpretation outside of the traditional line-by-line commentary genre, engaging with the works of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Said Nursi. Moreover, focused as it is on the case of miracle stories, the book also goes beyond these specific passages to reflect more broadly on the issue of Qur’anic hermeneutics. It notes the connections between literal and symbolic approaches and highlights the importance of approaching the Qur’an with an eye to its potential implications for everyday life.

Table des matieres

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration

Introduction : The Qurʾanic Miracle Stories : A Puzzling Motif ?

Part 1 A Medieval Muslim Debate

1 In Defense of a Literal Reading of Miracles : Ghazali’s Case for Contingency and Grace
2 A Cautious Approach to Miracle Stories : Ibn Rushd’s Case for Rationalism and Divine Wisdom

Part 2 Reframing the Debate on Miracles in Modern Terms

3 David Hume on Empiricism, Common Sense, and Miracles
4 Charles S. Peirce on Pragmatism, Science, and Miracles

Part 3 Contemporary Connections

5 Said Nursi’s Contemporary Reading of Qurʾanic Miracle Stories

Conclusion : Qurʾanic Hermeneutics in the Modern Age

Notes
Bibliography
Index

(Source : http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-06156-6.html)