Through the Lens of the Adam Narrative: A Re-consideration of Sūrat al-Baqara. Issue 2 (June 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Klar, M.O.
• Is Part Of: Journal of Qur'anic studies. Volume 17:Issue 2(2015)
• Page Start: 24
• Page End: 46
• Publication Date: 2015-06
• Subjects: 297.1226
• DOI: 10.3366/jqs.2015.0194
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1465-3591

Abstract

<abstract xml:lang="en"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>The thesis of a single pillar or axis around which the longer Medinan suras are structured has been highly influential in the field of sura unity, and scholarship on the structure and coherence of <italic>Sūrat al-Baqara</italic> has tended to work towards charting the progress of a dominant theme throughout the textual blocks that make up the sura. In order to achieve this, scholars have divided the sura into discrete blocks; many have posited a chain of lexical and thematic links from one block to the next; some have concentrated solely on the hinges and borders between these suggested textual blocks. The present article argues that such methods, while often in themselves illuminating, are by their very nature reductive. As such they can result in the oversight of important elements of the sura. From a starting point of the Adam pericope provided in Q. 2:30–9, this study will focus on the recurrence of a number of its lexical items throughout <italic>Sūrat al-Baqara</italic>. By methodically tracing the passage of repeated, loosely Fall-related, vocabulary, it will attempt to widen the contextual lens through which the sura's textual blocks are viewed, and establish a broader perspective on its coherence. Via a discussion of the themes of 'gardens', 'parable', 'prostration', 'covenant', 'wrongdoing' and finally 'blindness', this article will posit 'garments', not as a structural pillar, but as a pivot around which many of the repeated lexical items of the sura rotate.</p> </abstract>