Davitashvili (Ana) ed., The Qurʾan and Syriac Christianity. Recurring Themes and Motifs, Leiden, Brill, ("Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān ; 28"), 2026, 300 p. ISBN 978-90-04-75097-5

Editor

Ana Davitashvili (PhD, University of Bamberg, 2021) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen. She has published on the Qurʾan and pre-Islamic Christianity, with particular focus on Syriac Christianity, pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and early Islamic exegesis, including “Ṣibghat Allāh in Q 2.138: A New Reading of the Qurʾan in Light of pre-Islamic Christian Literature,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 36 (2025).

Presentation

Scholars of Qurʾanic studies have commonly acknowledged the significance of pre-Islamic Syriac Christian literature for the study of the Qurʾan. By offering new evidence, the present volume refines and challenges the arguments of previous studies and unearths hitherto unexplored recurring themes and motifs. It focuses on selected themes related to prophets, military and non-military forms of jihād, concepts of darkness and light, depictions of the Garden and the Fire, Satan’s fall, and bodily purity. The volume also seeks to highlight the importance of Syriac texts to the Qurʾan’s theology relative to comparable Jewish and non-Syriac Christian sources. Moreover, it investigates how Qurʾanic concepts diverge from Syriac Christian parallels and develop a distinct theological message.

Contents

Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Ana Davitashvili

Part 1: Prophets and Humans Surrounding Them

1. A Talking New-born (Q 19:30), Aaron’s Sister (Q 19:28), Mary who is not God (Q 5:116): Qurʾanic Cruces and their Syriac Intertexts
Nestor Kavvadas

2. “You crucified him and you killed him; except that God raised him”: Creedal Patterns and the Qurʾanic Crucifixion
Ryann Elizabeth Craig

3. One Prophet, Two Narratives: Temporal Sequence of Jonah’s Story in Late Antiquity
Mohammad Ghandehari
MohammadReza Moini

4. Moses’s Mother as a Prophetological Figure: The Qur’an’s Reception of the Story of the Birth of Moses
Mohammad Haghani Fazl

5. “Perennial Enemies” in the Qur’an’s Prophetology: A Refiguring of Christian Anti-Jewish Motifs?
Jacob M. Kildoo

Part 2: Non-Military and Military Jihāds

6. Life as a Spiritual Struggle with the Evil One in Pre-Islamic Syriac Texts: The Theological Background to the Qur’anic Idea of Spiritual Jihād?
Christian Lange

7. Thirst for Killing and Being Killed in the Syriac Eusebius Narrative and the Qur’an
Dmitrij F. Bumazhnov

Part 3: Darkness and Light
8. Unbelief, Protection, and Containers: Dark Metaphors between the Qurʾan and Syriac Writings
Johanne Louise Christiansen

9. The Garment of Light and Glory in the Qurʾan? Further Notes on libās in Q 7:27 in Light of Qurʾanic Verses and pre-Islamic Syriac Texts
Ana Davitashvili

Part 4: Garden and Fire

10. The Recension of Ephrem’s Hymns on Paradise in the Qurʾan
Daniel Bannoura

11. Damned Accusers and Fueled Fires: On the Syriac Reception of Daniel 3 and the Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd in Q 85:4–11
Lasse Løvlund Toft

Part 5: The Qurʾan an Essential Source for Syriac Christianity and a Syriac Text an Essential Source for the Qurʾan?

12. Bodily Purity in Syrian Christianity and the Qur’an
Mark Hoover

13. The Cave of Treasures and the Qurʾan: A Reappraisal
Gavin McDowell

General Index
Index of Qur’anic Verses

Contributors

Daniel Bannoura, Dmitrij F. Bumazhnov, Johanne Louise Christiansen, Ryann Elizabeth Craig, Ana Davitashvili, Mohammad Ghandehari, Mohammad Haghani Fazl, Mark Hoover, Nestor Kavvadas, Jacob M. Kildoo, Christian Lange, Gavin McDowell, MohammadReza Moini, and Lasse Løvlund Toft.