What Do We Mean by THE Qur’ān: On Origins, Fragments, and Inter-Narrative Identity

Abstract

This essay questions the two canonical narratives that hinder our understanding of the Qur’ān as a literary masterpiece: the canonisation of its unwarranted unity as a Sacred Book and the parallel canonisation of a historiographical concept, i.e. the absolute beginning of a presumed Arab conquest of the Near East, the meta-narrative of which unduly reverses cause and effect. Unity and order thereby constitute a twofold obsession ultimately ossified into what may be labelled as the unusual ‘otherness’ of Islam.