RELS 4000/5000
Seminar in Religious Studies: Contextualizing the Qur’ān
W 3:30-6:15
Dr. John C. Reeves
Macy 204B
Office hours: W 2:30-3:30; F 2:00-3:00; or by appointment
jcreeves@uncc.edu
http://pages.charlotte.edu/john-reeves/
Course description
Scholars have often used the appearance of Islam in the Mediterranean world of the seventh century as a marker of rupture signaling the violent demise of the classical societies of antiquity and the onset of what the West terms the ‘Dark Ages,’ an era when learning and ‘civilized life’ were supposedly supplanted by barbarism and fanaticism. We by contrast will study the emergence of Islam in the Near East in terms of its manifold ideological continuities with the monotheistic currents flowing through Roman, Iranian, Aksumite, and South Arabian religious communities in the sixth and seventh centuries of the Common Era. Early Islamic discourse and practice exemplifies the hegemony of what might be termed an ‘Abrahamic idiom’ of cultural expression; i.e., an articulation of one’s cultural identity in terms of an ethnic or religious association with the characters, locales, practices, and ideas found in and promoted by the various forms of Bible circulating within and beyond the Roman Empire during roughly the first half of the first millennium CE. Much of our work in this course will involve a close comparative exploration of the way Bible and Qur’ān render shared characters and narrative scenarios. We will juxtapose, isolate, and analyze their similarities and differences with a view toward unpacking their broader significance. Figures of prominent interest include but will not necessarily be limited to Adam, Satan/Iblīs, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and of course Muḥammad himself. Careful attention will also be given to the cultural issues surrounding the generation and promulgation of competing character profiles within kindred scriptures, as well as to the development of textuality as a marker of authority.
Warning: In this class you may hear or read ideas which will disturb, shock, dismay, or outrage you, and you will be compelled to think using methodological paradigms which you may deem troubling, wrong-headed, blasphemous, or even sacrilegious. If you think you might be uncomfortable in this situation, then this is definitely not the class for you. On the other hand, if you think you can suspend your uncritical attachments to certain notions about scriptures, their meaning, and the circumstances surrounding their production, then you will undoubtedly learn a great deal about the historical and cultural matrices betwixt which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arose and flourished.
Texts
The following textbooks are required for this course:
M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an: A New Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Michael Cook, The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010).
Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).
Any responsible western language translation of Bible, including the so-called Apocrypha. Web links to the KJV and RSV versions are available on the course website.
A number of supplementary readings may be assigned or distributed by the instructor as needed.
Course requirements
a. Diligent attendance and preparation. Almost perfect attendance (see below) is an essential requirement for this course. Each class meeting builds upon the knowledge gained and queried during our previous meetings. Moreover, group study/discussion comprises practically the entirety of every class session. Preparation for class usually involves the completion of a set of required readings; brief written assignment(s) or lexical investigations are almost always tied to these readings. Individual students may sometimes be asked (without prior notice) to initiate and guide our collective examination and discussion of the weekly topics. Students are expected to contribute in an informed manner to the public analysis and discussion of any assigned topic, and the instructor reserves the right to administer occasional unannounced ‘pop-quizzes’ should he deem the situation so warrants. The instructor’s collective assessment of one’s attendance, apparent class preparation, oral contributions, and any pop-quiz scores will constitute 20% of the final course grade.
b. Take-home written exercises. An indeterminate number of written exercises (usually one per week) will be prepared and submitted for in-class discussion and out-of-class evaluation. These exercises vary in length from less than one (1) to a maximum of five (5) typewritten or electronically printed pages. Some of these may be keyed to the secondary reading assignments for each class, and will contain a brief summary and analysis of the main arguments or points made by each author. All of these exercises will be announced and explained by the instructor during the course of or at the conclusion of a class meeting. The instructor’s evaluation of the student’s collective written exercise performance (based on the scale √+ = A-; √ = C+ for undergrads; B- for grads; √- = D for undergrads; C for grads) will comprise 40% of the course grade.
c. Research project. One (1) formal research project will be presented in oral and written form (at least 15 double-spaced pages, exclusive of notes and list of sources) that focuses upon a particular topic relevant to the study of the late antique cultural and scriptural dimensions of Islam. After a close reading of primary and secondary sources and in consultation with the instructor, the student should select a topic of individual interest that permits such an extended exposition, analysis, and/or evaluation. The project will be presented orally (approximately 15 minutes) during the final class meeting (Wednesday, December 3); the formal written version of the papers must be submitted to the instructor by 12:00 PM on Monday, December 8. The research project accounts for 40% of the course grade.
d. Zakhor (Remember!): Mastery of the assigned readings, the timely completion of all assignments, and diligent class attendance are necessary prerequisites for the successful completion of this course. Each student is responsible for all lectures, class discussions, hand-outs, assignments, and announcements, whether or not s/he is present when they occur.
Miscellaneous information
a. The grading scale used in this course is as follows:
91-95+ A = demonstrable mastery of material—outstanding performance
81-90 B = some demonstrable proficiency in control & analysis
71-80 C = satisfactory performance of assignments
61-70 D = inadequate and/or faulty understanding of material
0-70 F = unacceptable college-level work
Graduate students are graded using a scale of A, B, C, and U. A grade of ‘C’ for a graduate student is equivalent to that of a ‘D’ for undergraduates; ‘U’ signals unacceptable graduate-level work.
b. One of the requirements of this course is to complete the work of the course on time. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for late work—an illness or other emergency. ‘Emergency,’ however, does not include your social involvements, travel plans, job schedule, disk and/or printer failures, the state of your love life, your obligations to other courses, or general malaise over the state of the world. The world has been in a mess as long as anyone can remember, and most of the world’s work is done by people whose lives are a mass of futility and discontent. If you haven’t learned yet, you had better learn now to work under the conditions of the world as it is. Therefore:
1) All missing work is averaged as a 0 in the computation of the course grade.
2) All written work falls due on the dates scheduled in the syllabus, or on the date announced by the instructor in class (usually the next class meeting). ‘Late’ work will not be accepted from those who were privy to its oral evaluation and discussion (i.e., you were present while we ‘went over it’ but you neglected to do it beforehand). In the event of one’s absence, ‘late’ submissions bear the following penalties: one day late/one letter grade; two days late/two letter grades; three or more days late/U. Please note: these ‘days’ are calendar days, not class meeting days. For accounting purposes, letter grades bear the following values: A=95; A-=92; B+=88; B=85; B-=82; C+=78; C=75; C-=72; D=65; F/U=35. Untyped exercises, seminar papers, or research projects automatically receive the grade F/U, as do those typed submissions which violate required parameters or which the instructor deems physically or grammatically substandard.
3) Since your diligent physical participation is critical for the success of this course, attendance at class meetings will be monitored by the instructor. One absence is regrettable; two absences are the limit of tolerability. Three (3) or more absences will result in an automatic U for the course. Please note that—with the exception of religious holidays—the instructor does not distinguish ‘excused’ from ‘unexcused’ absences. Unsanctioned late arrivals and early departures will be tallied as absences.
4) Policy regarding Audits: the instructor expects auditors (whether formally enrolled as such or not) to meet the same attendance, preparation, and oral participation standards as those students who are taking the course for credit. The instructor does not expect auditors to prepare and submit any written assignments.
c. Assistance and solicitation of criticism is your right as a member of the class. It is not a privilege to be granted or withheld. Do not hesitate to request it nor wait too late in the course for it to be of help.
Supplemental bibliography
In response to student requests for recommendations regarding useful and enlightening discussions of certain topics, themes, and personalities that are presented in class and/or readings, I offer the following suggestions for further study at the student’s leisure. I confine myself to materials which I myself have used with profit. Please note that some of these may not be currently available at Atkins Library.
It is often helpful for the student to begin with appropriate articles in the standard Bible dictionaries. The most up to date are The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols.; ed. Katherine Doob Sakenfeld; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006-09) and The Anchor Bible Dictionary (6 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1992). Dated but still reliable are The Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible (4 vols.) and its Supplementary Volume (ed. George A. Buttrick; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962 & 1976), and the Harper’s Bible Dictionary (ed. Paul J. Achtemeier; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985). Highly recommended are the relevant articles in the new Encyclopaedia Judaica (22 vols.; Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA/Thomson Gale, 2007), the Encyclopaedia of Islam (2d ed.; 11 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1954-2002), the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān (6 vols.; ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe; Leiden: Brill, 2001-06), and The Qur’ān: An Encyclopedia (ed. Oliver Leaman; London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
Important scholarly journals wherein critical articles devoted to the study of Qur’ān and its interpretation can be found include Arabica, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Journal of Semitic Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Muslim World, and Studia Islamica.
Modern Critical Introductions to Qur’ān and Qur’ānic Studies
Richard Bell, Introduction to the Qur’ān (Edinburgh: University Press, 1958).
Farid Esack, The Qur’an: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002).
G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds., Approaches to the Qur’ān (London & New York: Routledge, 1993).
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx, eds., The Qur’ān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’ānic Milieu (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
Theodor Nöldeke, et al., The History of the Qur’ān (trans. Wolfgang H. Bein; Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed., The Qur’ān in its Historical Context (London and New York: Routledge, 2008).
______, ed., New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in its Historical Context 2 (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’ān (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
______, ed., The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’ān (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).
______, ed., The Qur’ān: Formative Interpretation (Brookland, Vt.: Ashgate, 1999).
John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford, 1977; repr., Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004).
______, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978; repr., Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2006).
W. Montgomery Watt (ed.), Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’ān (rev. ed.; Edinburgh: University Press, 1970).
More on Qur’ān Texts, Editorial Issues, and Manuscripts
Sheila S. Blair, “Transcribing God’s Word: Qur’an Codices in Context,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 10 (2008): 71-97.
Fred M. Donner, “The Qur’ān in Recent Scholarship: Challenges and Desiderata,” in Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed., The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 29-50.
Hossein Modaressi, “Early Debates on the Integrity of the Qur’ān: A Brief Survey,” Studia Islamica 77 (1993): 5-39.
Harald Motzki, “The Collection of the Qur’ān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments,” Der Islam 78 (2001): 1-34.
Angelika Neuwirth, “Qur’an and History – A Disputed Relationship: Some Reflections on Qur’anic History and History in the Qur’an,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 5 (2003): 1-18.
Theodore Nöldeke, “The Koran,” in idem, Sketches from Eastern History (trans. John Sutherland Black; London & Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1892), 21-59.
Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann, “The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qur’ān of the Prophet,” Arabica 57 (2010): 343-436.
Estelle Whelan, “Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur’ān,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 118 (1998): 1-14.
Orientation to Historical Issues Surrounding the Rise of Islam
Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and his Faith (trans. Theophil Menzel; New York, 1936; repr., New York: Harper & Row, 1960).
Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). See esp. pp. 3-101.
G. W. Bowersock, “Polytheism and Monotheism in Arabia and the Three Palestines,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51 (1997): 1-10.
G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 1999).
Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Peter Brown, “Christianity in Asia and the Rise of Islam,” in his The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Adversity, A.D. 200-1000 (2d ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 267-94.
______, “The Changing of the Kingdoms: Christians under Islam,” in his The Rise of Western Christendom2, 295-320.
______, The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971).
Heribert Busse, “The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam,” Judaism 17 (1968): 441-68.
Averil Cameron, “Blaming the Jews: The Seventh-Century Invasions of Palestine in Context,” Travaux et mémoires 14 (2002): 57-78.
______, “The Jews in Seventh-Century Palestine,” Scripta Classica Israelica 13 (1994): 74-93.
Lawrence I. Conrad, “The Arabs,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XIV: Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600 (ed. Averil Cameron, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Michael Whitby; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 678-700.
Michael Cook, Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
Patricia Crone, “The Religion of the Qur’ānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities,” Arabica 57 (2010): 151-200.
______, “What do we actually know about Mohammed?” www.openDemocracy.net, 31 August 2006.
Patricia Crone and Michael A. Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
Touraj Daryaee, “The Persian Gulf Trade in Late Antiquity,” Journal of World History 14 (2003): 1-16.
Fred M. Donner, “From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-Identity in the Early Islamic Community,” al-Abḥāth 50-51 (2003): 9-53.
______, “Modern Approaches to Early Islamic History,” in Chase F. Robinson, ed., The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 625-47.
Clive Foss, “Syria in Transition, A.D. 550-750: An Archaeological Approach,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51 (1997): 189-269.
Garth Fowden, Before and After Muḥammad: The First Millennium Refocused (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).
G. R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Jeremy Johns, “Archaeology and the History of Early Islam: The First Seventy Years,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46 (2003): 411-36.
G. R. D. King, “The Paintings of the Pre-Islamic Ka‘ba,” Muqarnas 21 (2004): 219-29.
Michael Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre-Islamic Medina (Yathrib),” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997): 259-73.
D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (3d ed.; New York & London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905).
Fergus Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs,” Journal of Jewish Studies 38 (1987): 143-64.
Michael G. Morony, “Economic Boundaries? Late Antiquity and Early Islam,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47 (2004): 166-94.
F. E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1991): 291-315.
David S. Powers, Muḥammad is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
______, Zayd (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).
Chase F. Robinson, “Early Islamic History: Parallels and Problems,” Proceedings of the British Academy 143 (2007): 91-106.
______, “The Ideological Uses of Early Islam,” Past & Present 203 (2009): 205-28.
______, “The Rise of Islam, 600-705,” in Chase F. Robinson, ed., The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 173-225.
Uri Rubin, “Ḥanīfiyya and Ka‘ba: An Inquiry into the Arabian Pre-Islamic Background of dīn Ibrāhīm,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990): 85-112.
Thomas Sizgorich, “Do Prophets Come with a Sword? Conquest, Empire, and Historical Narrative in the Early Islamic World,” American Historical Review 112 (2007): 993-1015.
______, “Narrative and Community in Islamic Late Antiquity,” Past & Present 185 (2004): 9-42.
Guy G. Stroumsa, “False Prophet, False Messiah and the Religious Scene in Seventh-Century Jerusalem,” in Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity (ed. Markus Bockmuehl and James Carleton Paget; London & New York: T & T Clark, 2007), 285-96.
______, “Religious Contacts in Byzantine Palestine,” Numen 36 (1989): 16-42.
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions Pertaining to Biblical Figures and Events
Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden: Brill, 1996).
Ismail Albayrak, “Reading the Bible in the Light of Muslim Sources: From Isrā’īliyyāt to Islāmiyyāt,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 23 (2012): 113-27.
Philip S. Alexander, “Jewish Tradition in Early Islam: The Case of Enoch/Idrīs,” in Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder (ed. G. R. Hawting, et al.; JSSSup 12; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 11-29.
Khalil Athamina, “Abraham in Islamic Perspective: Reflections on the Development of Monotheism in Pre-Islamic Arabia,” Der Islam 81 (2004): 184-205.
Carol Bakhos, Ishmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals of the First Arab (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).
Shosh Ben-Ari, “The Stories about Abraham in Islam: A Geographical Approach,” Arabica 54 (2007): 526-53.
Marc S. Bernstein, Stories of Joseph: Narrative Migrations Between Judaism and Islam (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006).
Leigh N. B. Chipman, “Adam and the Angels: An Examination of Mythic Elements in Islamic Sources,” Arabica 49 (2002): 429-55.
______, “Mythic Aspects of the Process of Adam’s Creation in Judaism and Islam,” Studia Islamica 93 (2001): 5-25.
Reuven Firestone, “Comparative Studies in Bible and Qur’ān: A Fresh Look at Genesis 22 in Light of Sura 37,” in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction: Studies in Honor of William M. Brinner (ed. Benjamin H. Hary, et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 169-84.
______, Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Story in Islamic Exegesis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
Abraham Geiger, Judaism and Islam (trans. F. M. Young; Madras, 1898; repr., New York: Ktav, 1970).
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1909-38). A very useful resource for investigating the postbiblical development of biblical characters and events.
S. D. Goitein, “Muhammad’s Inspiration by Judaism,” Journal of Jewish Studies 9 (1958): 149-62.
Shalom Goldman, The Wiles of Women/The Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).
David J. Halperin, “The Hidden Made Manifest: Muslim Traditions and the ‘Latent Content’ of Biblical and Rabbinic Stories,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. David P. Wright, et al.; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 581-94.
James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Jacob Lassner, “The Covenant of the Prophets: Muslim Texts, Jewish Subtexts,” AJS Review 15 (1990): 207-38.
Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
Shari L. Lowin, The Making of a Forefather: Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegetical Narratives (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering, eds., With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Erica Martin, “The Literary Presentation of Noah in the Qur’ān,” in Michael E. Stone, Aryeh Amihay, and Vered Hillel, eds., Noah and His Book(s) (SBLEJL 28; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 253-75.
Tilman Nagel, “Ḳiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’,” EI2 5:180-81.
Gordon D. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989). A plausible attempt to reconstruct the lost initial portion of the Sīra or ‘Life of Muhammad’; it reportedly collected and recounted traditions about the careers of Muhammad’s predecessors.
Scott B. Noegel and Brannon M. Wheeler, Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2002).
Moshe Perlmann, The History of al-Tabarī, Volume IV: The Ancient Kingdoms (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987). Pages 112-25 deal with Jesus.
Michael E. Pregill, “The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam,” Religion Compass 1 (2007): 643-59.
John C. Reeves, ed., Bible and Qur’ān: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Atlanta/Leiden: Society of Biblical Literature/Brill, 2003).
______, “Problematizing the Bible … Then and Now,” Jewish Quarterly Review 100 (2010): 139-52.
Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext (London & New York: Routledge, 2010).
Andrew Rippen, “Interpreting the Bible through the Qur’ān,” in Approaches to the Qur’ān (ed. G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef; London & New York: Routledge, 1993), 249-59.
Franz Rosenthal, The History of al-Tabarī, Volume I: General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). Stops with the introduction of Noah; Atkins unfortunately does not own Volume II or Volume III (translated by William M. Brinner) which contain the intervening biblical characters.
Uri Rubin, “Traditions in Transformation: The Ark of the Covenant and the Golden Calf in Biblical and Islamic Historiography,” Oriens 36 (2001): 196-214.
Aviva Schussman, “The Prophet Ezekiel in Islamic Literature: Jewish Traces and Islamic Adaptations,” in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible (ed. Michael E. Stone and Theodore A. Bergren; Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1998), 316-39.
Haim Schwarzbaum, “Prolegomenon,” in Moses Gaster, The Chronicles of Jerahmeel (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1971), 1-124. A rich bibliographical resource.
D. A. Spellberg, “Writing the Unwritten Life of the Islamic Eve: Menstruation and the Demonization of Motherhood,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28 (1996): 305-24.
Georges Vajda, “Isrā’īliyyāt,” EI2 4:211.
Marilyn R. Waldman, “New Approaches to ‘Biblical’ Materials in the Qur’ān,” Muslim World 75 (1985): 1-16.
Brannon M. Wheeler, Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
______, Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002).
______, Prophets in the Quran (London & New York: Continuum, 2002).
Joseph Witztum, “The Foundations of the House (Q 2:127),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 72 (2009): 25-40.
Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999).