Neuwirth (Angelika), The Qur’an: Text and Commentary, Volume 1: Early Meccan Suras: Poetic Prophesy, trans. Samuel Wilder, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2022, 528 p. ISBN 978-0300232332

Author

Angelika Neuwirth is professor emeritus of Qur’anic studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Samuel Wilder is a translator who has held postdoctoral research fellowships at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Orient-Institut Beirut. He lives in Berlin.

Presentation

Angelika Neuwirth’s six-volume commentary, published originally in Germany, offers a historical and philological analysis of the form, structure, and semantic message of each of the 114 Qur’anic suras. It brings together the fruits of the past hundred years of modern scholarship and provides access to the aesthetic, theological, linguistic, and semantic background required to appreciate the unique novelty, force, and historical position of the Qur’an. Contextualizing the Qur’anic message in the broader world of late antiquity, it bridges the gaps between the inner-Islamic scholarly world and the academy.

Skillfully translated by Samuel Wilder, this first volume focuses on the Meccan suras, the earliest and often the most aesthetically striking and compelling part of the corpus of Qur’anic proclamations.

Original edition

Neuwirth (Angelika), Der Koran als Text der Spätantike, ein europäischer zugang, Berlin, Verlag der weltreligionen, 2010, 859 p. ISBN 978-3458710264