Mohsen Goudarzi @MohsenGT Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Mohsen Goudarzi

@MohsenGT

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Teaching at @HarvardDivinity

Cambridge, MA

https://t.co/i6UQ4IKZlC

Joined September 2013

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

1/15 It's a common view that 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 means “submission.” But in the Qur’an, 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 seems to mean exclusive worship of God (𝘪𝘬𝘩𝘭𝘢̄𝘴̣) or “monotheism.” This view is found in early exegesis & makes better sense of many qur’anic passages.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Scholars often view the Qur'an as a universalist document that fosters a purely faith-based identity among its earliest adherents. I have argued, however, that the Qur'an considers physical descent from Abraham as vital to the status and identity of the Prophet and his followers.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Islamic literature on the Qur’an reports many textual variants that do not conform to the ‘Uthmanic skeletal text (rasm), often attributing such variants to Companions of the Prophet who allegedly had independent codices of their own. But did such variants really exist?

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

1/12 This study argues that quranic dīn, islām, & ḥanīf are deeply connected to rituals of worship. (inexact) TLDR: dīn: “worship” (not “religion”/“faith”); islām: “monotheistic worship” (not “submission”); ḥanīf: “worshiper through cultic rituals” (not “monotheist”/“gentile”).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

8 months

1/14 “There is no compulsion in religion” This is a common translation of the beginning of Q 2:256 I prefer: “There is no oppression in the worship [of God]” (cf. Q 22:78) Meaning, serving God is not subjugation to arbitrary might; it is doing what is right & to our own benefit.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

8 months

1/11 It is difficult to escape the gravitational pull of some core ideas. One is that dīn means “religion” in the Qur’an. This is doubtful. I think dīn usually means “worship.” The difference is subtle but the implications are profound. Download link:

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

I'm reading the Sifre & came across an interesting passage. It notes that "if all of mankind were gathered together to make a mosquito, they could not do so," which reminds me of Q 22:73: "those whom you invoke other than God cannot create a fly, even if they band together."

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

1/10 The Arabic word for monotheism, tawḥīd, does not appear in the Qur’an. But the Qur’an has other ways of referring to monotheism. One is to couple the term dīn, which means “worship,” with words from the root kh-l-ṣ (e.g., mukhliṣ), which conveys exclusivity/purity.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

Some thoughts on Q 9:30, which asserts that “Jews say ‘ʿUzayr [?] is the son of God’ & Christians say ‘Christ is the son of God’.” Most scholars take ʿUzayr to be Ezra, but he is not known as a son of God in the Jewish tradition. Can the noun refer to the Jewish Messiah? 1/11

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

10 months

When one considers the approach of the WH, State Department, and Congress in the last several weeks--justifying and actively enabling carpet bombing, collective punishment, etc.--it is not at all surprising that a person holding such views held high positions in the government.

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Layla 🪬

10 months

this man is continuing to berate and harass the halal cart vendor. He ends the video with “if we killed 4,000 palestinian kids? It wasn’t enough”.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

2 years

After mulling over some ideas for eight years, I was finally able to write them down this past year ... Really grateful that the study is close to publication.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

10 months

The latest issue of the Journal of the International Quranic Studies Association is now online, and it appears that all the articles can be downloaded for free!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

10 months

126 beautiful lives … taken on the alleged pretext that there was 1 Hamas member in the camp. How can so many people support the massive, indiscriminate, and ongoing bombing of Gaza? How can so many governments openly aid and abet it?

@airwars

Airwars

10 months

Two weeks ago, Israeli strikes hit the densely populated Jabalia camp in Gaza. We identified at least 126 civilians killed in the strike, including 116 full or partial names - the most named victims we have ever monitored in a single event.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

In Sūrat al-Kahf, Moses encounters an unnamed servant of God who commits 3 acts that lead to Moses's objections. The 2nd act is the unprovoked killing of a boy. God's servant later explains that the boy might have grown up to inflict "rebellion and disbelief" on his parents.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

11 months

Q 5:112-5 relates the story of a table/meal which the apostles of Jesus asked to receive from heaven. I think the story recounts the Eucharist's institution & is part of a 2-way polemic between People of the Book & Believers over worship. 1/12

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

8 months

This is really unbelievable.

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@thenation

The Nation

8 months

Those of us who care about civil liberties, democracy, and human rights must act locally while thinking globally, writes Jeffrey C. Isaac. We must work where we live to defend colleagues and students who are being punished for their advocacy.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

9 months

Morteza Karimi-Nia is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about Qur’an manuscripts. I can’t wait to learn from his new publication about Codex Mashhad, an early ‘Uthmanic Qur’an with the surah arrangement of Ibn Mas‘ūd. via @YouTube

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 months

Massacre after massacre, despite the grotesque evidence in front of our eyes, despite Israel's annihilation of Gaza's infrastructure through bombing or wanton demolition, despite prevention of basic needs, despite attempted starvation, despite absence of proportionality ...

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

5 months

1/10 What is the difference between islām & īmān—or between aslama & āmana, mentioned in Q 49:14–17? TL;DR: islām means to accept monotheistic worship, manifest in ṣalāt & zakāt. This should not be conflated with genuine faith, which is manifest in readiness to fight for God.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

9 months

Here I argue that in the Qur'an islām does not mean "submission" but something closer to "complete devotion" to the One God. In other words, islām means "monotheism", the complete and exclusive devotion of one's worship and one's self to the One God.

@GabrielSaidR

GabrielSaidR

9 months

Islam in the Qur'an | What Did Islam Mean in the 7th Century? | Dr. Mohs... via @YouTube

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

1/9 "it was not for Joseph to take his brother in the king’s dīn (fī dīn al-malik), except that God willed so" (Q 12:76) Most exegetes & translators understand “in the king’s dīn” as "in the king’s law" I think it means "in the king’s service," i.e. as servant/slave to the king

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 months

Many fascinating inscriptions, including a certain Ḥasan (or Ḥassān?) ibn Muslim ibn Yaʿqūb praying for Ibn al-Zubayr's defeat.

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@AlsahraTeam

فريق الصحراء

4 months

فريق الصحراء / مقال جديد رحلة شتاء 1445هـ (3): نقوش وسيول على درب الحج الشامي فيه نستعرض خمسين كتابة عربية جديدة قديمة من على درب الحج الشامي

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Mohsen Goudarzi

5 years

In 909 AH (1503-4 CE), the Ottoman scholar Khayr al-Dīn al-ʿAṭūfī put the finishing touches on the massive catalog that he was preparing for the palace library of Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512). What can we learn from it about Qur'an scholarship at that "post-classical" age?

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

Very interesting forthcoming monograph: The omission of part of Q 2:219 would resemble the omission of Q 9:85 from Sana'a 1 (likely due to parablepsis), with the omitted text sandwiched between two instances of yas'alūnaka.

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History of a Fragmentary "Sūra of the Cow"

www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 months

Professors Cook and Modarressi have shaped the study of Islam in the US, Europe, and beyond so profoundly--by their important publications and the many excellent scholars they have trained and mentored. It's wonderful to be part of this conference honoring their legacy.

@SHARIAsource

SHARIAsource

4 months

Join us at the 2024 Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award presentation and conference. The award will be jointly presented to Professors Michael Cook and Hossein Modarressi, in recognition of their decades-long collaboration and enormous scholarly contributions.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Following up on this excellent threat, there is another interesting variant regarding the story of Lot (lūṭ). The ʿUthmanic version of Surah 26 (Poets) describes Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, and Lot as brothers of their communities, but withholds this description from Shuʿayb.

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@PhDniX

Marijn van Putten

3 years

The story of Lot and his people in the Quran recurs strikingly often throughout the Quran (Q11:77-83; Q15:51-77; Q26:160-75; Q27:54; Q37:133-8; Q51:24-37; Q54:33-9; Q80:33-42), and finds clear parallels with the story as told in Gen. 19. A thread on a specific reading variant. 🧵

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

My presentation on the meaning of dīn in the Quran is now on Youtube. Roughly one hour, followed by another hour of Q&A.

@zekrMIT

Ahlulbayt Islamic Society of N.E.

1 year

Three Ramadan Nights with Harvard Scholars, Qur’anic Topics, MIT, April 17-19, 2023 (Ramadan 1444) Rethinking the Meaning of din in the Qur’an, Mohsen Goudarzi

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

30 days

Israel continues to massacre scores of Palestinians on a daily basis with total impunity instead of agreeing to a ceasefire. How many times can the defenders of this indefensible war recycle empty excuses? How long can they close their eyes and smother their own conscience?

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Mohsen Goudarzi

11 months

Truly heart-wrenching. The siege of Gaza, its massive destruction, and the daily massacre of its population is happening in front of the world's eyes. Yet the governments that can do something about it (most importantly the US) are simply letting it happen & in fact support it.

@AseelAlBajeh

Aseel AlBajeh أسيل البجة

11 months

The Ministry of Health just published the names of 7028 Palestinians, including 2913 children killed in #Gaza . Scrolling over this is so painful. The first 88 names are from the same family! The next 72 from one family! And the undescribable pain goes on. No words.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

Interesting use of mukhliṣ in clear connection with monotheistic confession (instead of sincerity), which is to be expected in an early inscription.

@mohammed93athar

نوادر الآثار والنقوش🇸🇦

@mohammed93athar

6 months

من #المدينة_المنورة : أنا مُهَلْهِل بنُ عَاصِم #أُحِبُّ_الله_ورَسُوَلهُ وَأَشهَدُ أَنَّ لَا إِلَه إِلَّا الله #وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيْكَ لَهُ #مخلصاً وأنَّ #محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولَهُ #صَادِقٌ_غَيْرُ_كَاذِب

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 years

Harvard Widener's copy of Taha Hussein's Fī al-shi‘r al-jāhilī was once the personal copy of Sir Hamilton Gibb, which was in fact gifted to Gibb by Taha Hussein himself!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 months

Looking forward to this conversation next week!

@Back2daM00N

Mr. Terron Poole

3 months

Recording this coming Tuesday w/ @MohsenGT & @IraniRoxanna . We're really excited for this one!

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Mohsen Goudarzi

2 months

Second day of IQSA 2024 in London’s beautiful Agha Khan University. Emran El-Badawi ( @emrane ) just wrapped up a thought-provoking presentation!

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

So thankful to the founders and organizers of Inekas ( @MRezaMoini @MoGhandehari @MFeyzbakhsh ) for the chance to present in the third summer school🙏

@InekasSchool

Inekas

1 year

We are delighted to welcome @MohsenGT as our esteemed guest speaker for Inekas 3rd Summer School public lecture (in Persian). Title: "The Constitution of Medina and Sūrat al-Māʾidah" Join us at 11 EDT / 16 BST. Livestreamed at

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Mohsen Goudarzi

5 months

Very disturbing to watch the wanton violence being unleashed on students, staff, and faculty across several universities.

@Stone_SkyNews

Mark Stone

5 months

This is @CarolineFohlin from @EmoryUniversity being arrested at a protest in Atlanta today.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

5 years

Really nice to receive these volumes on the amazing catalogue of the Topkapı Palace library prepared at the order of Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512).

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Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

A courageous act by @AnnelleSheline , who has resigned from her post at the State Department.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

9 months

A disgraceful statement premised on the fallacy that Hamas can destroy Israel or launch an Oct. 7 like attack at will. This is absolutely not the case. They could never have carried out the attack if Israel had paid due attention to the border and had not ignored clear warnings.

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@yashar

Yashar Ali 🐘

9 months

Bernie Sanders on Face The Nation: “I don’t know how you can have a permanent ceasefire with Hamas who has said before October 7 and after October 7 that they want to destroy Israel and they want a permanent war. I don’t know how you have a permanent ceasefire with an attitude

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

But the lower text of Sana'a 1 (aka the Sana'a palimpsest) provides clear evidence that such variation existed early on. In fact, some of the non-standard variants of this manuscript are identical with or similar to those reported in the rasm and qira'at literatures!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 years

@shahanSean @shakerr_ahmed @LouvreAbuDhabi @AlYammahiQidfa My God. My heart just stopped. This must be from Sana'a 1. The uppertext of Christies 2008 folio runs up to Q 5:9, and one of the Eastern Library folios (image below from Hamdoun's thesis) begins with Q 5:32 (with al-nās jamī'an) so this folio would fit exactly between them.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Some academics viewed these variants not as authentic vestiges of a pre-standardization milieu but as the fabrication of later authorities who wanted to advance certain exegetical positions through these variants. (The image is from Wansbrough's Quranic Studies [p. 203].)

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Mohsen Goudarzi

7 months

Each of these grim tragedies should create global outrage for weeks. But many politicians & media editors try to erase the victims & make us forget, to facilitate more death & destruction. Some send weapons, some use them, some downplay or justify the carnage. Chain of violence.

@CBCNews

CBC News

7 months

Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who had begged Gaza rescuers to send help after being trapped by Israeli military fire, was found dead in Gaza along with 5 of her relatives and 2 ambulance workers who had gone to save her. .

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Mohsen Goudarzi

3 months

Thank you, Terron and Roxanna, for being such excellent hosts! It was great to have this conversation about the significance of genealogy in the Qur'an.

@Back2daM00N

Mr. Terron Poole

3 months

In this episode of the Real Talk Podcast, we ( @Terodotus / @IraniRoxanna ) were delighted to sit down with @MohsenGT to discuss his insightful 2019 paper titled 'The Ascent of Ishmael,' which explores the significance of biblical genealogy in the Qur'an. Watch the full discussion

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

@shahanSean I wonder if we should understand the term as referring to a group or person who were close to (but not yet a member of) a form of Judaism or Christianity, a la “god-fearers.” Could also explain the association with abandoning the ancestral religion …

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Our 2012 edition () notes this fact and provides a table listing such cases of overlap. However, in her recent work on the Sana'a palimpsest, Asma Hilali questions our findings and claims that there is no such overlap. So let us look at some examples.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 years

Just received a copy of A Place Between Two Places by @ProfessorGeorgy , and look forward to reading it!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Here's a link to the article PDF for those who are interested:

The Ascent of Ishmael Genealogy, Covenant, and Identity in Early Islam.pdf

drive.google.com

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

2/12 Dīn is often translated as “religion” or “faith.” But IMO dīn mostly means “(way of) worship,” reflects the meaning of “service” or “servitude” that is conveyed by dīn or dāna outside Quran, and often evokes cultic rituals (e.g., ṣalāt, sacrifices, Eucharist).

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

Really looking forward to Raashid Goyal's talk next Thursday (noon-1:30pm) at Harvard's CSWR. It will be open to the public. You can register to join online on in person:

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example1 (Q 33:51): the ʿUthmanic text has ātaytahunna, but the lower text has ūtīna, which is reported for Ibn Masʿūd. To discern the lower text, go back & forth repeatedly between the normal & UV images. 3rd image is from our table, 4th image is Hilali's reading.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

This the sura accomplishes with a flashback to the time of Abraham. As in the Bible, the Qur'anic Abraham is concerned with his progeny. But while Genesis narrates Ishmael's disinheritance, the Qur'an indicates that Ishmaelites are integral to the Abrahamic promise's realization.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Although the sura criticizes the Children of Israel, who were chosen because of their descent from Abraham, it does not reject physical descent as irrelevant going forward. Instead, it highlights the idea that the Prophet and his followers are also Abraham's descendants.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

7 months

It's hard to say which one is more atrocious: what Israel is doing to Gazans or the US government's unconditional military & political support. Thousands upon thousands of precious lives cut short, destroyed, or damaged forever.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

Tens of thousands of tragedies 💔, resulting from thousands of crimes. President Biden can end the horror today, he could have ended it months ago, but he has chosen to enable what he called “indiscriminate bombing,” tolerate starvation, & grant impunity to Israel’s government.

@brikeilarcnn

Brianna Keilar

6 months

It’s hard to comprehend the deaths of 12,800 children. We put up figures of children on our studio walls - one for each child killed in Gaza during the war. They’re dying from airstrikes and now malnutrition and dehydration. These are some of their stories.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 months

As this brutal war continues, and as we try to ignore that it is happening or pretend that we don’t have a role, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are again “on the move” (to use yet another unconscionable euphemism from the New York Times).

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@HossamShabat

حسام شبات

4 months

Palestinians fleeing Jabilia refugee camp after a horrific night of bombing

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Mohsen Goudarzi

3 months

Pres. Biden aired a ceasefire plan 5 days ago, reasoning that "Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7th"--which in fact has been true for months. Israeli forces just killed at least SEVENTY Palestinians. And yet no one bats an eye.

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@MSF

MSF International

3 months

At least 70 dead people and over 300 wounded, the majority of whom are women and children, have been brought to Al-Aqsa hospital since yesterday following heavy Israeli strikes in the Middle Area of the #Gaza strip.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

9/12 In the quranic milieu, people did not argue only over abstract ideas and their precise theological elaborations. Most people likely argued about ideas as embodied in acts of worship, or even about rituals or customs to which they imputed ideas. (“that custom is pagan!”)

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

12/12 The understandings of dīn, islām, & ḥanīf advanced here all have close analogues within the Islamic tradition. I hope to write separate threads on dīn, islām, and ḥanīf.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 months

What a despicable framing. If Bash & her colleagues in major media had covered the horrors of this war fairly, the American public would have been so outraged that politicians could not have enabled the unspeakable death, destruction, and attempted starvation of Palestinians.

@DanaBashCNN

Dana Bash

4 months

Today: Destruction, violence and hate overtake college campuses across the country with Jewish students feeling unsafe at their own schools. It is unacceptable, and harkening back to the 1930s in Europe. Our @InsidePolitics show open, here.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

I am about to speak about the meaning of din in the Qur'an. Please join if you are interested!

@zekrMIT

Ahlulbayt Islamic Society of N.E.

1 year

Three Ramadan Nights with Harvard Scholars, Lecture 3 Date: Wednesday April 19, 9:00-10:30 pm (Eastern Time) Speaker: Mohsen Goudarzi, Harvard University Title: Rethinking the Meaning of din in the Qur’an Zoom Participation:

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Mohsen Goudarzi

3 months

... the supporters of this brutal war keep justifying and even celebrating it, use & reuse the same vacuous talking points to lie to themselves and others, and work assiduously to silence those who cannot stand the carnage. Incomprehensibly cynical cruelty.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

This latter (and for now last) example is in fact read correctly by Hilali, but she still rejects our suggested comparison with Ibn Muḥayṣin's reading. @PhDniX criticizes this position in his important paper () END.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

11 months

Following up on this message, I wanted to share some thoughts as a teacher who cares about our students and as someone who observes the conflict in Palestine/Israel with much anguish but without a direct personal stake. I realize those with personal stakes may feel differently.

@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

11 months

A Message from President Claudine Gay

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

8/12 Some broader reflections. We sometimes read the Quran as if it is a theological treatise, or as if it addresses the theology of other “religions.” But the Quran largely had a non-elite audience, with poor (or nonexistent) theological training.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

3/12 Islām is often understood as “submission.” But IMO it (along with akhlaṣa+dīn) often denotes the Believers’ monotheistic way of worship, i.e., that they recognized Allāh as the only god and devoted their cultic worship & non-cultic service exclusively to Him.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 2 (Q 19:19): the ʿUthmanic text has li-ahaba, but the lower text seems to have li-nahaba (reported for Abū ʿAmr) or perhaps li-yahaba (attributed to other readers and Companions)

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

10/12 The mushrikūn may not have had a coherent and well-crafted theology. Same is likely for most Jews and Christians addressed in the Quran. What united one religious community and distinguished it from the others was often its distinct rituals of worship.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

11 months

@GabrielSaidR Hard to imagine the suffering people regularly went through in the course of war, famine, etc. Recently in a class we touched on this war, which Tabari depicts as a response to the Byzantine attack on Zibatrah & Malatya. I also found this interesting:

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 5 (Q 37:56): the ʿUthmanic text has la-turdīn, but the lower text seems to have la-tughwīn (reported for Ibn Masʿūd).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 4 (Q 24:27): the ʿUthmanic text has ḥattā tastaʾnisū wa-tusallimū ʿalā ahlihā, but the lower text seems to have ḥattā tusallimū ʿalā ahlihī wa-tasta’dhinū (similar to a number of reported variants). (Note the singular pronoun after ahl, which matches baytan in the LT).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Some scholars downplay the genealogical thrust of these verses, but a careful reading of what I have termed the "Abraham segment" of al-Baqarah suggests otherwise.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Let us look at al-Baqarah, which contains an extensive discussion of the emergence of Believers as a new community. The first half of al-Baqarah refers to God's covenant with the Israelites, criticizing (many of) them for past actions & current rejection of the Prophet.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 7 (Q 2:98): This verse refers to the angel Michael, represented as (مـٮکٮل) in the ʿUthmanic rasm and rendered in different ways (Mīkāl, Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāʾal, etc.). But the lower text seems to have (مکٮل), which matches the reading Mikayl (attributed to Ibn Muḥayṣin).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 3 (Q 8:2): the ʿUthmanic text has wajilat, but the lower text most likely has fariqat (reported for Ibn Masʿūd).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

7/12 The Quran proudly adopted the label ḥanīf, as it defended the Meccan cult & claimed it was founded by Abraham (& Ishmael). So Abraham himself was a ḥanīf—and practiced cultic worship; did he not build altars & sacrifice to God?—but he was “not a polytheist” (e.g., Q 2:135)

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

@Abdussalam4300 The point is not that the Qur'an has borrowed the expression from the Sifre, merely that the idea of creating a small insect as something impossible for other than the One God existed in monotheistic discourse.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 years

In the Sanaa palimpsest, the text reads "li-nahaba laki ghulāman zakiyyan." In the story of John, too, Sanaa 1 has a similar phrase ("wahabnā laka ghulāman zakiyyan"), which is entirely absent from the Uthmanic text.

@PhDniX

Marijn van Putten

6 years

There is however one exception! British Library Or. 2165 (48v, l. 2) actually has the spelling لىهٮ, clearly pointing to the reading /li-yahaba/. This, however, is surprising. Or. 2165 is a Syrian Muṣḥaf as was convincingly identified by Yasin Dutton.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

2 years

I may have peaked 😅

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

8 months

2/14 I have argued that dīn in the Qur’an means “service” or “worship,” not “religion” In early Arabic texts outside the Qur’an, dīn and the verb dāna sometimes refer to the “service” that subjects owe their king.

@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

5/9 Support for this reading is found in texts that use dīn or dāna to convey servitude, especially to kings. For example, Imruʾ al-Qays (d. ca. 550), a prince of Kindah, reportedly boasted that people used to be their slaves and asked them to return to “serve us (tadīnū lanā).”

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Example 6 (Q 2:217): the ʿUthmanic text has qitālin fīhi, but the lower text seems to have wa-ʿan qitālin fīhi (reported for a number of authorities). Sadly there is no ultraviolet image for this folio.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

5 years

Very interesting variant attested in this early inscription, which writes Q 38:26 with li-taḥkuma instead of fa-ḥkum (somewhat reminiscent of such verses as Q 2:213, 3:23, and 4:105). Of course the divergent text may stem from conflation on the part of the scribe.

@thoomaly11

أ.د .عبدالله مصلح الثمالي

5 years

ثلاثة نقوش من شرق مكة،اثنان مؤرخة سنة ثمانين،بخط عثمان بن وهران،سبق أن غردت بها،واليوم أضيف لها رابعاً بخطه أيضا من مسافة تتجاوز ألف كم،من شمال تبوك،وهو للآية:ومن لم يحكم لما أنزل الله فأولئك هم الفاسقون.وكتب عثمان بن وهرام المكي. ويلاحظ:زيادة لقب المكي،والاسم كأنه وهرام بالميم.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Emphasis on the Abrahamic/Ishmaelite ancestry of the earliest Muslims is found not only in the Qur'an but also in some of the earliest non-Muslim writings about Islam's emergence, including the Armenian historical work (mis-)attributed to Sebeos and the Khuzestan Chronicle.

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Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

2/15 For example, Q 3:79-80 asserts that a prophet (like Jesus) would never ask people to serve him or other beings instead of God. “Would he command you to disbelieve after you have been 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮?” The point is that Israelites were monotheists (𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮) before Jesus ...

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

Unfortunately, Harvard has the same policy of over-compliance.

@docstobar

Alireza Doostdar علیرضا دوستدار

1 year

One of the absurdities of the US sanctions regime on Iran is that some universities, including mine ( @UChicago ) interpret its scope to mean that some of their basic online faculty services count as "export" or "service" to Iran if the user is located there. What does this mean?👇🏽

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

4/12 Finally, ḥanīf characterizes the Believers’ cultic worship, namely, their adherence to the Meccan cult and its associated ṣalāt, sacrifices, pilgrimage, etc.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

This is of course all very speculative. But if the Qur’an consciously counter messianism (as argued skillfully by @GhaffarZishan ), perhaps Q 9:30 is another part of that anti-messianic discourse--one that counters both Jewish and Christian messianism. 11/11

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

5 years

The engraver's name might be Thābit (instead of Layth).

@NaqadStudies

Naqad Studies

5 years

The Karbalah Inscription (DKI 163) is dated to 64 AH / 683 CE, and is indicative of a transition period in proto-Islamic expression. In it, we see the solidification of older prayer formulas, while others were still very much in development.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

3/10 The Qur’an criticizes those who dedicate some of their worship to beings other than Allāh. It bids the Prophet say: “I serve Allāh, dedicating to Him alone (mukhliṣan lahū) my worship (dīnī). But you serve what you wish besides Him” (Q 39:14–5)

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

As documented in my paper, the significance of Ishmael was in fact central to Western scholarship on the Qur'an in the 19th and early 20th centuries, though scholars often saw this significance as an exclusively Medinan construct. Hopefully I'll discuss that in a future thread!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

This reasoning is reminiscent of a mishnaic reflection (Sanhedrin 8:5) on a law articulated in Deuteronomy 21:18-21: the Torah legislates the killing of a wicked son on account of his ultimate end; the son should die now because he will harm himself and others if he grows up.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

That the Qur'an anchors the revelation and rites of the earliest Muslims to their Abrahamic descent does not mean that it excludes non-Abrahamic peoples. However, we shouldn't overlook the privileges and responsibilities that the Quran associates with Abrahamic descent.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

14/15 More recently, Juan Cole ( @jricole ) has argued - developing a suggestion by Emran El-Badawi ( @emrane ) - that 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 refers to the “prophetic tradition of monotheism.” I'm not sure if “tradition” is part of the picture, but I agree fully with the monotheistic aspect!

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

11/12 Believers & mushrikūn participated in the same cult. Much of the Meccan discourse on shirk concerns actions along ideas. To serve (ʿabada), invoke (daʿā, dhakara), praise (sabbaḥa), proclaim (qaraʾa)—may evoke distinct ritual actions, not just private prayer.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

A talmudic baraita (b. Sanhedrin 72a:1) adds specificity: the rebellious son would squander his father's property & engage in highway robbery.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

4 years

Nice to receive the proofs for my long review of Professor @GabrielSaidR 's great book for the 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

15/15 In fact, it is not clear if 𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢/𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 ever signify “submission” in the Qur’an (though the connotation might exist in some cases). In the light of the qur’anic and exegetical data, it is worth reconsidering the habit of glossing 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢̄𝘮 as “submission.”

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

5/12 Probably, in the pre-Islamic era some Christians or/and Jews used ḥanīf in the sense of “pagan” or “pagan worshiper” to label adherents of local cults (such as that of Mecca) in the Hijaz. In time, it became associated with such cultic worship (not just paganism).

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@MohsenGT

Mohsen Goudarzi

3 years

Similarly, Peter Webb claims that the audience of the Qur'an was socially fragmented into different tribes, and that the idea of their common descent from Abraham emerged only in the early second century (Imagining the Arabs, 170 n. 119).

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Mohsen Goudarzi

6 months

8/15 How does 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘮 as “monotheist” work linguistically? 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢 (form I): to belong wholly [to s.o.] 𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢 (form IV, transitive): to give [s.thing] wholly [to s.o.] 𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘢 in religious context: to give (or “devote”) one’s worship or self wholly to Allāh

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Mohsen Goudarzi

1 year

6/12 As the Believers adhered to the Meccan cult, some Christians or/and Jews *at the time of Prophet* likely branded them as ḥanīf in the pejorative, pagan sense. Among others, because Believers sacrificed animals (incl. camels), in a non-sanctioned temple outside Holy Land.

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