Nicolai Sinai
Biographic Data
| ID | 521192 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicolai Sinai |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicolai |
| FAMILY NAME | Sinai |
| SIGNATURE | SINAI N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus
The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus serves as the most up to date guide and resource for understanding Jesus' multifaceted legacy, enduring impact over time and space, and relevance in today's world. Integrating textual, historical, theological, and cultural perspectives, the essays, specially commissioned for this volume, also offer a fresh and diverse overview of Jesus' significance in contemporary global contexts. Key features include insight…
Key Terms of the Qur'an
Key Terms of the Qur'an
Beyond the Cairo Edition
This essay reviews two recent volumes containing editions of important early quranic codices. One of these is the so-called Sanaa Palimpsest, whose lower text at present remains our only known material witness to a recension of the quranic text that is different from the canonical one; the other is the Codex Amrensis. The essay devotes particular attention to the question of the textual relationship between the Quran's standard text and that docu…
Das Leben des Weisen
Philons Biographie Abrahams ist eine Werbeschrift für das Judentum. Sie entstand vermutlich als literarisches Begleitprojekt zu Philons politischer Mission in Rom: In Alexandria hatte es Ausschreitungen gegen die jüdische Bevölkerung gegeben, die Philon bei Kaiser Caligula zur Sprache bringen sollte. Der vorliegende Band führt in diesen zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext ein und bietet den mit Anmerkungen versehenen Text der Schrift samt einer Neuüberse…
Toward a Redactional History of the Medinan Qur’an
The homely nineteenth-century assumption that grasping what something is requires us to grasp how it came to be has much to recommend it still. However, as opposed to earlier scholars who have attempted to reconstruct processes of redactional growth in the Qur’an, most notably Richard Bell, it is crucial to acknowledge that the hypothesis of secondary redaction and expansion in no way conflicts with the discovery that the long surahs in their can…
Historical Criticism and Recent Trends in Western Scholarship on the Quran
أهداف البحث: يتناول هذا البحث جوانب الاختلاف بين منهج النقد التاريخي في دراسة القرآن الكريم وبين التأويل الإسلامي في فترة ما قبل الحداثة، ويستطلع سبل الاستفادة المتبادلة بين دراسة القرآن في جامعات الغرب وفي العالم الإسلامي. منهج الدراسة: استخدمت هذه الدراسة المنهج التركيبي والمنهج المقارن. النتائج: توصلت الدراسات الغربية المتأخرة إلى نتائج من شأنها أن تثير اهتمام الباحثين في العالم الإسلامي؛ ولو لم يكونوا على استعداد لتقبل المنهج التاريخي النقدي …
Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler
Just as quranic scholars have over the last decade honed their facility in utilizing Syriac literature, so the field stands in need of relearning to use poetic material as a valid, albeit in some respects recalcitrant, resource for the Quran’s historical contextualization. The present essay is an attempt to contribute to this by reassessing how poetry, and more briefly the epigraphic record, can help us reconstruct pre-quranic Arabian notions of …
Muḥammad as an Episcopal Figure
The Medinan stratum of the Qurʾān ascribes to Muḥammad a noticeably elevated status and a far wider range of functions than the earlier Meccan layer. Although this shift may well have responded to, and been facilitated by, historical circumstances, it is nonetheless appropriate to inquire whether specific aspects of it might be drawing on pre-Qurʾānic precedents. I argue that the Christian episcopate, arguably the most widespread type of urban re…
The Qur'an
An accessible and up-to-date introduction to the study of the Qur’an in its historical context The Qur’an represents both Islam’s historical point of origin and its scriptural foundation, inaugurating a new religion and, ultimately, a new civilisation. Yet the text itself can be difficult to understand, and the scholarship devoted to it is often highly technical. This comprehensive introduction to the basic methods and current state of historical…
Rāzī
The Ashʿarite scholar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606 / 1210) is a towering figure in medieval Sunni scholasticism whose literary output exerted a formative impact across several disciplines. Apart from his theological and philosophical works, al-Rāzī is famed for his voluminous Qurʾānic commentary, The Keys to the Unseen (Mafātīḥ al-ghayb), which often interprets scripture through the lens of theological and philosophical concepts. Modern scholarsh…
Qur'an
This comprehensive introduction to the basic methods and current state of historical-critical Qur'anic scholarship covers all of the field's major questions, such as: Where and when did the Qur'an emerge? How do Qur'anic surahs function as literary compositions? How do the Qur'an's main themes and ideas relate to and transform earlier Jewish and Christian traditions? Reading this book gives you the tools needed to work with and understand this vi…
Al-Suhrawardī on Mirror Vision and Suspended Images ( Muthul Mu ʿallaqa )
The notion of a “World of Images” located somewhere between the immaterial and the material world was a mainstay of eschatological speculation in late medieval Islam. As has been recognised before, the concept was launched by al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191). However, its more properly philosophical underpinnings, in particular the notion of “suspended” images – images which somehow have an objective, rather than just a mental or subjective, status – meri…
The Sufi Doctrine of Man
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 1274) has long been recognized as the ‘foremost disciple’ (p. 1, partially citing the title of an article by William Chittick) of the ‘Great Shaykh’ ( al-shaykh al-akbar ) Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), whom some sources actually report to have been al-Qūnawī’s stepfather. Despite al-Qūnawī’s formative role in the emergence of the so-called ‘Akbarian’ tradition of speculative Sufism, his works and thought have received relatively…
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part II
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys argumen…
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part I
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least maintained that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. This two-part article proposes to undertake a systematic assessmen…
Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan
Journal Article Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken Get access Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken (Baltimore, MA: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). xiii + 138 pp., notes, essay on sources, index. Price: HB. $60.00. EAN 978–0801897399. Nicolai Sinai Nicolai Sinai University of Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Aca…
An Interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53)
Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53) has received a comparatively generous amount of scholarly attention for two reasons: firstly, it is said to have been the original literary context of the so-called ‘Satanic verses’, and secondly, it includes the most elaborate Qur'anic account of a visionary encounter between the Prophet Muḥammad and the Qur'an's divine speaker. While the debate around the Satanic verses has centred on the question of their authenticity, th…
Religious poetry from the Quranic milieu
Unlike most ancient Arabic poetry, the poems attributed to Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt treat subjects that are also prominent in the Quran, such as creation, eschatology, and episodes from Biblical history. The authenticity of this corpus has, however, been the subject of some controversy. After a critical survey of previous scholarship, this article examines one particular passage from the Umayya corpus dealing with the destruction of the ancient tribe…
The Qurʾān in Context
Although recent scholarship has increasingly situated the Qur'ān in the historical context of Late Antiquity, such a perspective is only rarely accompanied by the kind of microstructural literary analysis routinely applied to the Bible. The present volume seeks to redress this lack of contact between literary and historical studies. Contributions to the first part of the volume address various general aspects of the Qur’an’s political, economic, …
Der Begriff der Klugheit bei Aristoteles
Summer Academy
Summer Academy
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part I
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least maintained that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. This two-part article proposes to undertake a systematic assessmen…
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part II
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys argumen…
Religious poetry from the Quranic milieu
Unlike most ancient Arabic poetry, the poems attributed to Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt treat subjects that are also prominent in the Quran, such as creation, eschatology, and episodes from Biblical history. The authenticity of this corpus has, however, been the subject of some controversy. After a critical survey of previous scholarship, this article examines one particular passage from the Umayya corpus dealing with the destruction of the ancient tribe…
Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan
Journal Article Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken Get access Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken (Baltimore, MA: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). xiii + 138 pp., notes, essay on sources, index. Price: HB. $60.00. EAN 978–0801897399. Nicolai Sinai Nicolai Sinai University of Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Aca…
Summer Academy
Summer Academy
Der Begriff der Klugheit bei Aristoteles
The Qurʾān in Context
Although recent scholarship has increasingly situated the Qur'ān in the historical context of Late Antiquity, such a perspective is only rarely accompanied by the kind of microstructural literary analysis routinely applied to the Bible. The present volume seeks to redress this lack of contact between literary and historical studies. Contributions to the first part of the volume address various general aspects of the Qur’an’s political, economic, …
An Interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53)
Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53) has received a comparatively generous amount of scholarly attention for two reasons: firstly, it is said to have been the original literary context of the so-called ‘Satanic verses’, and secondly, it includes the most elaborate Qur'anic account of a visionary encounter between the Prophet Muḥammad and the Qur'an's divine speaker. While the debate around the Satanic verses has centred on the question of their authenticity, th…
Religious poetry from the Quranic milieu
Unlike most ancient Arabic poetry, the poems attributed to Umayya b. Abī l-Ṣalt treat subjects that are also prominent in the Quran, such as creation, eschatology, and episodes from Biblical history. The authenticity of this corpus has, however, been the subject of some controversy. After a critical survey of previous scholarship, this article examines one particular passage from the Umayya corpus dealing with the destruction of the ancient tribe…
Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan
Journal Article Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken Get access Reading Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān: A Cross-Cultural History of Autodidacticism By Avner Ben-Zaken (Baltimore, MA: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). xiii + 138 pp., notes, essay on sources, index. Price: HB. $60.00. EAN 978–0801897399. Nicolai Sinai Nicolai Sinai University of Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Aca…
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part II
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys argumen…
When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part I
The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644-656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least maintained that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. This two-part article proposes to undertake a systematic assessmen…
Al-Suhrawardī on Mirror Vision and Suspended Images ( Muthul Mu ʿallaqa )
The notion of a “World of Images” located somewhere between the immaterial and the material world was a mainstay of eschatological speculation in late medieval Islam. As has been recognised before, the concept was launched by al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191). However, its more properly philosophical underpinnings, in particular the notion of “suspended” images – images which somehow have an objective, rather than just a mental or subjective, status – meri…
The Sufi Doctrine of Man
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 1274) has long been recognized as the ‘foremost disciple’ (p. 1, partially citing the title of an article by William Chittick) of the ‘Great Shaykh’ ( al-shaykh al-akbar ) Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), whom some sources actually report to have been al-Qūnawī’s stepfather. Despite al-Qūnawī’s formative role in the emergence of the so-called ‘Akbarian’ tradition of speculative Sufism, his works and thought have received relatively…
The Qur'an
An accessible and up-to-date introduction to the study of the Qur’an in its historical context The Qur’an represents both Islam’s historical point of origin and its scriptural foundation, inaugurating a new religion and, ultimately, a new civilisation. Yet the text itself can be difficult to understand, and the scholarship devoted to it is often highly technical. This comprehensive introduction to the basic methods and current state of historical…
Rāzī
The Ashʿarite scholar Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606 / 1210) is a towering figure in medieval Sunni scholasticism whose literary output exerted a formative impact across several disciplines. Apart from his theological and philosophical works, al-Rāzī is famed for his voluminous Qurʾānic commentary, The Keys to the Unseen (Mafātīḥ al-ghayb), which often interprets scripture through the lens of theological and philosophical concepts. Modern scholarsh…
Qur'an
This comprehensive introduction to the basic methods and current state of historical-critical Qur'anic scholarship covers all of the field's major questions, such as: Where and when did the Qur'an emerge? How do Qur'anic surahs function as literary compositions? How do the Qur'an's main themes and ideas relate to and transform earlier Jewish and Christian traditions? Reading this book gives you the tools needed to work with and understand this vi…
Muḥammad as an Episcopal Figure
The Medinan stratum of the Qurʾān ascribes to Muḥammad a noticeably elevated status and a far wider range of functions than the earlier Meccan layer. Although this shift may well have responded to, and been facilitated by, historical circumstances, it is nonetheless appropriate to inquire whether specific aspects of it might be drawing on pre-Qurʾānic precedents. I argue that the Christian episcopate, arguably the most widespread type of urban re…
Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler
Just as quranic scholars have over the last decade honed their facility in utilizing Syriac literature, so the field stands in need of relearning to use poetic material as a valid, albeit in some respects recalcitrant, resource for the Quran’s historical contextualization. The present essay is an attempt to contribute to this by reassessing how poetry, and more briefly the epigraphic record, can help us reconstruct pre-quranic Arabian notions of …
Das Leben des Weisen
Philons Biographie Abrahams ist eine Werbeschrift für das Judentum. Sie entstand vermutlich als literarisches Begleitprojekt zu Philons politischer Mission in Rom: In Alexandria hatte es Ausschreitungen gegen die jüdische Bevölkerung gegeben, die Philon bei Kaiser Caligula zur Sprache bringen sollte. Der vorliegende Band führt in diesen zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext ein und bietet den mit Anmerkungen versehenen Text der Schrift samt einer Neuüberse…
Toward a Redactional History of the Medinan Qur’an
The homely nineteenth-century assumption that grasping what something is requires us to grasp how it came to be has much to recommend it still. However, as opposed to earlier scholars who have attempted to reconstruct processes of redactional growth in the Qur’an, most notably Richard Bell, it is crucial to acknowledge that the hypothesis of secondary redaction and expansion in no way conflicts with the discovery that the long surahs in their can…
Historical Criticism and Recent Trends in Western Scholarship on the Quran
أهداف البحث: يتناول هذا البحث جوانب الاختلاف بين منهج النقد التاريخي في دراسة القرآن الكريم وبين التأويل الإسلامي في فترة ما قبل الحداثة، ويستطلع سبل الاستفادة المتبادلة بين دراسة القرآن في جامعات الغرب وفي العالم الإسلامي. منهج الدراسة: استخدمت هذه الدراسة المنهج التركيبي والمنهج المقارن. النتائج: توصلت الدراسات الغربية المتأخرة إلى نتائج من شأنها أن تثير اهتمام الباحثين في العالم الإسلامي؛ ولو لم يكونوا على استعداد لتقبل المنهج التاريخي النقدي …
Beyond the Cairo Edition
This essay reviews two recent volumes containing editions of important early quranic codices. One of these is the so-called Sanaa Palimpsest, whose lower text at present remains our only known material witness to a recension of the quranic text that is different from the canonical one; the other is the Codex Amrensis. The essay devotes particular attention to the question of the textual relationship between the Quran's standard text and that docu…
Key Terms of the Qur'an
Key Terms of the Qur'an
The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus
The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus serves as the most up to date guide and resource for understanding Jesus' multifaceted legacy, enduring impact over time and space, and relevance in today's world. Integrating textual, historical, theological, and cultural perspectives, the essays, specially commissioned for this volume, also offer a fresh and diverse overview of Jesus' significance in contemporary global contexts. Key features include insight…
Philosophy (14 works) · Historical and Linguistic Studies (12 works) · History (12 works) · Art (10 works) · Islamic Studies and History (10 works) · Linguistics (9 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (8 works) · Theology (8 works) · Islam (7 works) · Literature (7 works)